Postal Service loses $2.2B in 3 months as virus woes persist - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-08-07/postal-service-loses-2-2b-in-3-months-as-virus-woes-persist <comment><USER2> A lot of this is manufactured bullshit; it's not losing shit (or shouldn't be). It's being bankrupted by absolutely fucking insane benefits requirements imposed on it in 2006.

From: [https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal- crisis...](https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and- how-to-fix-it/)

> In 2006, Congress passed a law that imposed extraordinary costs on the U.S. > Postal Service. The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) > required the USPS to create a $72 billion fund to pay for the cost of its > post-retirement health care costs, 75 years into the future. This burden > applies to no other federal agency or private corporation.

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS INTO THE FUTURE. This shit would be laughed out the door at any corporation... or any entity that isn't literally trying to be destroyed for no reason.

Look at the actual balance sheet; most of the payments revolve around having to pay for retirement benefits, see labeled "ITEM 1. FINANCIAL STATEMENTS" for yourself: [https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial- conditions-...](https://about.usps.com/what/financials/financial-conditions- results-reports/fy2020-q3.pdf). The difference is is astonishing close to their loses.. I wonder why... Oh yeah, from the first link I posted:

> If the costs of this retiree health care mandate were removed from the USPS > financial statements, the Post Office would have reported operating profits > in each of the last six years.

This bullshit privatization push needs to end. Postal workers seem unhappy? No shit, they work somewhere that's being bankrupted for no reason. They're having to make budget cuts because of a manufactured problem. The public makes zero effort to be informed and then listens to shit like this...

Yeah, be stoked they don't hot shit on you porch everyday that's what we probably deserve leaving 'em high and dry like this.

If you like people, and don't think manufacture crisis are cool, call your senators and push this thing through: [https://defazio.house.gov/media- center/press-releases/defazi...](https://defazio.house.gov/media-center/press- releases/defazio-authored-bill-to-help-us-postal-service-maintain- sustainability)

It'd _literally_ fix the post office's solvency problem. Oh, also firing the asshole running it would be another stellar move.

<comment><USER3> Why do you think the USPS shouldn't be pre-funding pensions? The fact that other organizations don't do it is not much more than what-about-ism. Type any city or state into your favorite search engine, and follow it with "pension crisis."

Maybe Congress rightfully saw that the USPS pension fund would be insolvent if they weren't forced, by law, to properly fund it? Most public pensions in the US are insolvent.

People don't seem to like it when we kick the financial can down the road. And people don't seem to like it when we prepare.

<comment><USER2> > Why do you think the USPS shouldn't be pre-funding pensions?

Cleat me be clear, I never said that; nor, did I say, that this is some sort of black and white dichotomy between prepaying and not-prepaying for pensions. I said _this_ instance is undo burden for ANY organization. What workforce in the world retires, and then lives for 75 years? That's the only way that would be reasonable. So people are retiring at 40 and living to be 115 so often it's a financial burden on the post office? Or wait they're retiring at 93 and then living to be 168 by the millions?

> Maybe Congress rightfully saw that the USPS pension fund would be insolvent > if they weren't forced, by law, to properly fund it? Most public pensions in > the US are insolvent.

No. What you're doing is making up some shit; posing it as a relevant or equal when it fact you have no idea. Don't do that. Either go look up the fucking facts and post them here and pwn me with reality like an adult or keep it to yourself. Do not play devil's advocate for asinine shit.

It is like you interjecting into a conversation on science to say, "well, maybe Newtown only gravity upside-down? Some photons are yellow."

> People don't seem to like it when we kick the financial can down the road. > And people don't seem to like it when we prepare.

And concluding with "People don't seem to like it when science is right. And they don't seem to like when its wrong."

I'm not trying to be rude, but it almost feels like your post was made by GPT3.

<comment><USER4> > What workforce in the world retires, and then lives for 75 years?

It's clear you don't understand how the accounting works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The postal service is a public service, and if we have to run it at a loss for a while that's fine. Nobody expects the road system or the military to pay for itself.

<comment><USER6> I have not had a positive interaction with USPS in years. I don't understand why our taxes subsidize people to hand-deliver junk mail. What an inefficient use of taxpayer funds. With the exception of federal mail, why not jack the prices up tremendously? Stamps are 55 cents now per letter. Make them $1.50 and make everyone else rent a PO box or do digital scanning.

<comment><USER5> I think I'd be ok with them charging a very expensive rate for junk mail. That's not really the kind of traffic I'd regard as a public service so yeah, make as much profit as possible on it.

<comment><USER7> They'd probably be better off just charging people for the ability to opt out of junk mail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article quotes him as saying the post office has a "broken business model" but provides no further details.

Anyone found he text of his remarks or otherwise know what he believes the business model is and in what way he thinks it is broken?

<comment><USER9> I don't really think of civil service jobs as having a business model at all. I get that they charge for services to cover some of the costs, but isn't the post office supposed to be a benefit to everybody? We won't be better off with UPS delivering all of our mail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why are so many of the anti-USPS comments coming from new accounts? I'm not going to call them out directly, but most of them seem to be 1-3 months old

</comment><comment><USER11> USPS will eventually provide e-mail addresses, and other government papers will require a USPS provides email address to conduct business. And they can then charge to both send and receive To or from these addresses. Then they can phase out paper letters / express mail and leave physical package delivery to private companies.

<comment><USER12> "IRS" scammers are salivating at the opportunity of official email accounts for every American.

<comment><USER11> They just need to elevate email fraud to the same seriousness level as mail fraud.

<comment><USER13> Wire fraud is, last I checked, pretty heavily punished in theory, and yet attempted phone-based scams (and of course email based) are just a constant fact of life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe they should start charging Amazon more money to deliver packages than what it actually costs the USPS? Nah that's crazy.

<comment><USER15> False claim.

<comment><USER14> Citation needed...

<comment><USER16> Politifact Article stating the Postal Service doesn't lose money delivering Amazon Packages:

[https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/02/donald- tru...](https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2018/apr/02/donald-trump/trump- usps-postal-service-amazon-losing-fortune/)

<comment><USER14> I don't believe that's a reliable source, sorry.

<comment><USER17> The politifact article cites its sources, including [https://about.usps.com/news/statements/080117.htm](https://about.usps.com/news/statements/080117.htm) which says "By law our competitive package products, including those that we deliver for Amazon, must cover their costs."

Whats your source that they charge amazon less than it costs them to deliver?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


On Silos - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/12/31/silos/

<comment><USER2> A little offtopic, but that minutes left counter on scrolling is a little disquieting. I cannot put my finger on exactly why, but rushing to read an article didnt feel right (i prefer to take my time).</comment>


Breathtaking Photos of Modern Architecture - <AUTHOR> http://oddizy.com/breathtaking-photos-of-modern-architecture/

<comment><USER2> More of these amazing photos are on Flickr: <https://secure.flickr.com/photos/tjintjelaar/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Boring. Would be nice to see a 'breathtaking' photo in color.</comment>


Time Is Contagious - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/45/power/time-is-contagious <comment><USER2> > "The effectiveness of social interaction is determined by our capacity to > synchronize our activity with that of the individual with whom we are > dealing," Droit-Volet writes. "In other words, individuals adopt other > people's rhythms and incorporate other people's time."

Reminds me of all the other mimicry humans will unconsciously engage in, like mirroring body language or even subtly mirroring an accent in conversation.

<comment><USER3> But mimickry of conversational tics is only one side of the coin - as much as we all like to lather ourselves in a common medium, it's also pleasant to distinguish ourselves from our peers, not just for an ulterior audience, but also one-to-one. What of course tends to happen - in a nice conversation at least - is that you lead each other in a kind of dance, with wilful flattery one moment, and cheesy antagonism the next.

Maybe time's the same - too much stimulating newness or aggravating nagging, and you zone out.

<comment><USER4> I think that distinction urge tends to be very superficial. People distinguish themselves as Mac or PC users, but don't generally put much of their identity into being a purple baboon instead of a Mac user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This study supports the notion that are all truly interconnected in ways that are beyond our conscious comprehension.

It's an important reminder we do not exist in a vacuum and our actions have an indirect impact on a large number of people.

</comment><comment><USER6> Best example to me is how population density impact the use of time:

[https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/03/why-people-cities- walk-...](https://www.citylab.com/life/2012/03/why-people-cities-walk- fast/1550/)

<comment><USER7> Interesting article, but I couldn't help feeling that non of the hypothesis we're actually correct, and Levine and co are observing are correlations rather than causation's.

My immediate rationale for faster walking pace in denser cities is that there is far more to do in a big city, particularly one with high population. In addition things like trains and buses also get overcrowded and filled, causing unplanned delays to your journey. The reality of living in a city means that there are lots of risks to your schedule when 'taking your time' so the population does what's most logical, and tries to move as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> How many people on HN have decided to pay the Nautilus subscription?

<comment><USER9> I can sympathize. This article has been on the front page for hours and only has 50 points. Doesn't anyone else find this suspicious? Every single time a Nautilus article is submitted it seems to hang around for hours. Can @dang weigh in here?

<comment><USER10> I think Nautilus articles do well, but never well enough to induce the activity penalty that the really popular stuff on HN gets hit with. They also tend to generate a number of comments over time, but not so many that they trigger the excessive discussion parameters that kick things off the front page. I would also assume that they basically never get flagged as the articles are generally not controversial.</comment></comment></comment>


No European Common Lisp Meeting 2014 - <AUTHOR> http://eclm.eu/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's really a shame - ECLM 2013 in Madrid was a fantastic event, I met truly amazing bunch of people there, and I was hoping to see them again in Berlin this year.

I keep my fingers crossed for 2015..

</comment><comment><USER2> There's ELS2014 May 4-6 in Paris, France. [http://www.european-lisp- symposium.org/](http://www.european-lisp-symposium.org/)</comment>


Co-Founder / CEO (TagtoTrade) - <AUTHOR> http://thestartupdigest.com/classifieds/co-founder-ceo-tagtotrade/ <comment><USER2> I am interested in this position. Can you email? firstname.lastname@example.com

Peter, MBA</comment>


'NBA 2K' Videogame Publisher Beats Copyright Suit over LeBron James' Tattoos - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/nba-2k-publisher-beats-copyright-suit-lebron-james-tattoos-1286847 <comment><USER2> I think that the line about the artists granting a non exclusive license to the players was key. Otherwise no tattooed public figure could appear in movies, shows, newscasts, etc without getting a license from the tattoo artist</comment>


Federal Agency Begins Inquiry into Auto Lenders' Use of GPS Tracking - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/business/dealbook/gps-devices-car-loans.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_dk_20170221&nl=dealbook&nl_art=17&nlid=65508833&ref=headline&te=1 <comment><USER2> Subprime auto lending is a result of subprime home loans going out of vogue. It's trashed the used car market and does not make things easier for anyone trying to live within their means.

Maybe we should stop playing whack-a-mole and address the underlying issue.

>In Nevada, one woman testified to the Legislature that her car had been shut down on a freeway.

Remote control technologies stacks (e.g. OnStar) are also arguably critical infrastructure and need to be viewed as such from a security/reliability/control perspective. Lenders don't get to monkey around with the power grid.

</comment><comment><USER3> Every actual gripe I see is from people who didn't pay their bill and then got upset when their car stopped working.

<comment><USER4> It's easy to blame the people who can't afford to pay their bills but it misses the point.

First, someone who misses their car payment shouldn't find themselves in physical danger. Having your car shut down while it is running is incredibly dangerous and unjustified.

Second, most of these people are being preyed on by lenders who know they cannot pay the loan on their car. The business model is no longer helping someone find a vehicle, but rather renting them a vehicle in the short term and expecting them to default so you can sell the same car over and over again.

It's much easier and more comforting to blame the victims of this fraudulent business model than it is to examine and fix the underlying issue with predatory loans in this country.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sub prime auto lending: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U2eDJnwz_s)</comment>


U.S. Economy Shrinks at 4.8% Pace, Signaling Start of Recession - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-29/u-s-economy-shrinks-at-4-8-pace-signaling-start-of-recession <comment><USER2> This is anecdotal and it might come across as bitter and tonedeaf as someone who is not in a STEM job and cant see the bigger picture very well. Im a diesel engine tech who repairs those big trucks carrying food and shit tickets to grocery stores. the fact that ANY market is completely detached from whats actually happening to Americans is frustrating.

My job just cut benefits and hours but we're "essential." Remember those $1200 checks? Im still waiting on mine. Lenders and banks were supposed to start going easy on loans but ive had two emails and a phone call about the loan for my Silverado this month and wouldnt you know, the caller was excited to mention my stimulus check.

A guy who used to be my bartender now couch surfs a few days a week at my place while he looks for work. His mother is getting evicted from an assisted living center in a few days and his girlfriend is sick. She 'works at the Amazon' so she cant take any time off, but hes hoping if he gets a job at the Flying J at the edge of town he can switch places with her and she can take a few days off.

Shops are closing and nobody seems to care. Ive counted 2 furniture stores, a consignment shop, a few barber shops, and half the god damn bars in this town including one that was burned to the ground "mysteriously" over the last two weeks. Someone spray painted a swastika on the late night pizza joint.

So yeah this is a recession but it is so much worse than a lot of people think. No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking for money for food around here. Half the country is out of work and the best Bloomberg can come up with is "its the start of a recession dont you know!"

<comment><USER3> > No school means poor kids roam the street like packs of feral dogs asking > for money for food around here.

I think this is possibly the single biggest long term problem we're going to face as a result of all this. Economic recessions will come and go. But missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for this generation of kids. They will be left permanently behind without a serious concerted effort by every school district to make up for lost time. The bar (which is already dismally low) will _have_ to be lowered further for them to graduate, and how/when will it ever be raised back again?

<comment><USER4> > Missing 5/8ths of a school year is going to be absolutely devastating for > this generation of kids.

Which subject can they study at school that they cannot study at home?

<comment><USER5> Some of them have essential workers as parents and are left unsupervised during the day.

Some have parents ill equipped to assist them with school work those parents never completed themselves. (Hell, I went to college, and my kids' math work is a challenge.)

Some have no access to internet.

I saw an article the other day (I'm unfortunately having trouble Googling it up) that said some school districts have 15-20% students they still haven't managed to connect to teachers yet.

<comment><USER6> My son's school started remote classes this week. More than a third are missing in action. Naturally it is the third that benefited the most from the structure and support of school.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I understand that the economy and the market are different but I'm _so_ confused. The S&P is up ~12% this month, despite massive unemployment, a shrinking economy, and serious long-term questions about the outlook.

Is most of the 12% just market speculation that the virus issue will pass without a long-term earnings hit?

<comment><USER8> 3 things:

1\. People keep saying about the market being up recently, but skip the part about it still being down about 10% since the start of the year.

2\. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Google account for _20%_ of S&P market cap. Most of those companies have been _helped_ by the pandemic, or at least not hurt nearly as bad as smaller companies.

3\. The market is always very forward looking. It is essentially betting that things are as bad as they'll get. I don't know if I personally necessarily agree, but if you look at countries starting to open up it's not an unreasonable bet.

<comment><USER9> > 1\. People keep saying about the market being up recently

So, down 10% from the previous bubble.

> 2\. S&P is heavily weighted towards the strongest companies

Good point. Dow is also up almost as much though.

> 3\. The market is always very forward looking.

I may be cynical, but I see perhaps 2 to 3 years to regain the jobs we are losing, to see the employment rate return to earlier levels. That's years of depressed spending, and all the other woes of society from high unemployment.

So the market is looking to, what, 2025 or something?

Sorry to pick on you, I still just don't get it.

<comment><USER10> > So the market is looking to, what, 2025 or something?

Well, another point not mentioned is, where else are you going to park your money? Interest rates globally are basically <= 0, real estate may be a dicey proposition for many years to come, bond yields are garbage, so... stock market. And considering so many companies are selling at a discount (regardless of whether or not you think that's the case), dumping money in the stock market is a pretty good bet right now.

<comment><USER11> Could you share your thoughts on why real estate may be dicey in the years to come?

<comment><USER12> Normal investors lack the ability to invest in real estate the same way that wealthy investors do. It's nearly impossible for you and I to invest in a new office complex or similar. So normal investors are stuck with the housing (usually in a single market), existing small commercial, or REITs. Houses are fickle and gains are mostly due to luck (or volume). In my experience, yields on affordable commercial RE are not that far off from broader market yields.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's pretty insane that the S&P500 is higher than it was during October last year, hell even something like 7% higher than it was last year May. There was a post on reddit joking about a guy going into a coma last year after having purchased a share of an S&P500 ETF, waking up today and hearing the news of a global pandemic, people were told to quarantine at home for more than a month, a quarter million people died, more deaths in the US than 20 years in the Vietnam war, unemployment at 20%. But when he looks at his stock account, it's in the green.

It feels like this is trickle-down economics again. Bail-out large companies by issuing cheap money, stock markets stay pumped, big companies don't go bankrupt, and hope employees don't get fired, and give each individual about 1 week of average income in the US as a little boost.

Meanwhile, 20% of people have last their jobs, the $1200 hasn't arrived or was already spent.

<comment><USER14> I know this is bad math but just as an estimation:

Fed balance sheet increased about $2T, and Congress spent $2.2T so far with more to come. That's at least 20% of GDP ($20T). Optimistic forecast is that the economy shrinks like 30% of GDP, so that's a 10% net reduction in NOMINAL spending/earnings.

SPX is down like 15% from it's previous high. The market seems to expect things to return to normal next year, which is probably short-sighted, but it's a market.

The real value of any company is down because it's producing less, but the nominal price of the company is inflated by the government spending. So the price of SPX is is not insane (if optimistic), given the government's actions. No comment on whether the actions themselves are sane.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. In 12 months from now stocks may even be worth the roughly same dollars they are today, but the surge in money supply means more dollars chasing the same amount of stock anyway.

The S&P/Gold Spot charts will be the interesting ones to watch over the next few years. While S&P shows consistent 6-7% returns historically, that's valued against the dollar. When you chart it against gold the returns are closer to 3-4%, and there are periods where S&P goes _down_ in value against gold for _years at a time_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> grey-area NB this is for the first quarter of 2020, which had _hardly any impact from Covid-19_ \- lockdowns mostly happened late March and the start of April.

So the second quarter will be a better reflection of the impact of shutdowns and changes in consumer behaviour/travel, but we won't see figures for that for a while.

Almost more worrying, 20% of the value of the S&P 500 is now concentrated in the top 5 tech stocks, which are vulnerable in these conditions (advertising spend is dropping dramatically and unemployment is rising).

[https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/five-biggest-stocks- dwarfing...](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/13/five-biggest-stocks-dwarfing-the- market-at-unprecedented-level.html)

<comment><USER16> Vulnerable, yes but the google earnings from yesterday show even in advertising, there seems to be a temporary floor.

Entirely possible the floor is a temporary illusion and falls out over next 3mo, but the market is betting that won't happen (I don't know why, I'm not an expert on ads)

<comment> grey-area Yes, it could conceivably go either way at present, and I guess the market is being optimistic, but most countries are locking down for months, not weeks, and there may unfortunately be a second wave for some.

Do bear in mind those google results were for a quarter which was pretty much untouched outside China.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So I still think there's a huge disconnect between market perception of what's going on and what's actually going on. Last month I was saying "don't treat this is a temporary dip". Many have never known anything other than a bull market. The S&P 500 has rallied some ~20% since then (after a >30% fall mind you) so I've had a couple of people point to this like I'm wrong.

The perception many seem to have is that everything is going to go back to normal in a month. But some businesses and jobs are just... gone. This will absolutely impact demand and this will be much slower to recover.

I was also surprised to learn that S&P 500 earning shave been flat since 2014 while the market has gone gangbusters. That had to come crashing back to Earth eventually.

Also, some things like social distancing are here for the long term. I've already gotten emails from airlines saying they won't be filling certain seats on the plane. It's probably going to be a lot nicer to fly in coach, which I guess many will enjoy, except it's going to have to get more expensive. Less passengers, same plane, higher price per passenger. It's just simple math.

And who's going to be traveling anyway? Business travel (the lifeblood of most airlines) is going to take a long time to recover.

The economy just doesn't shrink 5% and everything is back to normal the next month. People who think so are hopelessly naive or just plain delusional. And that GDP contraction isn't going to end here.

<comment><USER18> > I was also surprised to learn that S&P 500 earning shave been flat since > 2014 while the market has gone gangbusters. That had to come crashing back > to Earth eventually

I was also surprised recently to learn how flat earnings have been. The stock prices going gangbusters can be explained (at least partly) by earnings per share going up due to stock buybacks. If you go look, most companies have significantly fewer shares outstanding than they did in 2014.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thats 4.8% annualized. The real figure is 1.17% for 3 months.

It's quite impressively small really, considering everyone is sitting at home, and many aren't working at all.

<comment><USER20> Not when you factor in that shutdowns didn't really start until the very end of the quarter. According to Wikipedia[1], earliest state stay-at-home order was March 19 in California and 19 states either waited until April or never issued a stay-at-home order.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_governmen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_and_local_government_response_to_the_2020_coronavirus_pandemic)

<comment><USER21> It wasn't just large government shutdowns. It was local governments taking action, people traveling less, businesses cancelling/denying trips, people eating out less, etc. All of that started weeks before the large scale shutdowns.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I wish I could say I disagree, but to be perfectly honest, I was fully expecting a recession last year. As someone may have already mentioned though, between FED basically keeping the market afloat, stimulus working its way through the economy and dollar still riding as a safe haven, it is not that surprising that US economy did not crash, while a good chunk of population is at home and out of commission.

The thing that worries me is that by attempting to prolong it as long as we are, we are basically setting up a stage for a greater depression. We already saw 'sell everything' panic in March.

<comment><USER23> > The thing that worries me is that by attempting to prolong it as long as we > are, we are basically setting up a stage for a greater depression

Killing thousands of people in the name of the economy would also set the stage for an even longer, deeper recession...

<comment><USER24> If Thanos snapped his finger and disappeared the oldest 10% of the population, ~33 million people, I'd wager that would do far less economic damage than keeping everyone on lockdown for 365 days. The rate of the economy shrinking is going to get worse and worse as more companies go out of business.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The actual report that the Bloomberg article keeps referring to but never links:

[https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-1st- qua...](https://www.bea.gov/news/2020/gross-domestic-product-1st- quarter-2020-advance-estimate)

</comment><comment><USER26> One year ago, if you had asked me what would happen if we printed $4T+ (that's 20% of GDP for perspective) out of thin air and injected it into the economy, I would've told you massive hyperinflation and immediate collapse of the dollar.

Instead, we see the US Dollar Index strengthening over the last 6 months [1]. The dominance of the United States as a global hegemonic superpower truly cannot be overstated; I'm in awe. We can literally print trillions of dollars worth of fiat and people around the world will give us real assets for it. Not only that, they will give us real assets at _better_ rates than before we ramped up the printing presses. Makes me feel pretty good about the future, to be completely honest.

[1] [https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/dxy)

<comment><USER27> Printing money hasn't caused inflation since world war 1 and that's because the demand for USD is virtually unlimited. As long as the money printed comes back to the government as taxes, it's not an issue. Else it becomes a deficit. This was already theorized by modern money mechanics and this incident is proving it right

<comment><USER28> I saw the 1970s. We had 14% inflation. That came from somewhere.

<comment><USER27> It came from oil prices which had surge in pieces

<comment><USER28> Not from trying to pay for both the Great Society and the Vietnam War, and so inflating the money supply?

You're mighty free with making blanket statements about what did and didn't cause inflation. Some actual data would make your statements much more persuasive. So far, you have given us no reason to think that you actually know anything about the causes of inflation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nearly half (2.25%) of the decline was in healthcare. "Elective" procedures on hold played a large role in that and conventional wisdom would suggest that this $ would get pulled forward into Q2. I don't think it's that simple as we have had major job losses and with healthcare being tied to employment, you may not see the rebound in this that you would think.

</comment><comment><USER30> Good news for stocks, it means the Fed will keep printing trillions of dollars.

<comment><USER31> In this market good news is neutral and bad news is good.

<comment><USER30> There's a mistaken belief on WSB and elsewhere that bad news should make stocks go down. Stocks go up when the market thinks they'll be more valuable in the future, that's all there is to it. The cash will flow into the assets that provide the greatest returns, and right now that's stocks.

Since treasuries provide almost no return, and corporate bonds are at high risk of default, the money will move into stocks because 1) the US government is hellbent on making sure big companies don't fail and 2) the Federal Reserve is prepared to buy unlimited treasuries and mortgage backed securities at any price.

<comment><USER32> If corporate bonds (debt) are at high risk of default, why would there be investment in those same companies' equity which is even higher risk?

The fact that treasuries are providing no return tells you that most money is invested there "safely".

The problem of course is that the USG should be making sure _small_ companies don't fail, because that's the actual driver of the economy both for employment and consumption.

<comment><USER30> Bonds and stocks move differently. The market has already re-priced the stocks of these companies to account for the risk of default on their debts.

The US government has also signaled that they will bail out these debts, so the companies themselves (and thus, their stock) will probably be fine even if they stop paying their debts.

Crazy times we live in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> As others have noted, Q2 would likely be worse hit than Q1 since the quarantine started later in the quarter.

FRB NY has a GDP Nowcast prediction of about -8% for Q2.

</comment><comment><USER34> This isn't a typical recession and cannot be compared to anything in the past. The economy has been effectively put on pause. So the dynamics of the duration and recovery will be totally different than anything we've seen in the past. I'm optimistic about a much quicker recovery than the last one.

<comment><USER35> It depends on how much toxic debt accumulates during the pause - _that_ is historically a large factor in causing recessions.

We have 20%+ of the workforce losing their income (many who are living paycheck to paycheck) as well as many B2C businesses closing, so we're accumulating debt that will never be paid off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> For comparison China's gdp fell by 6.8% in the same period.

<comment><USER37> Considering how much earlier China's lockdown started, that's probably what Q2 will look like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Since there are 12 months in a year, a first approximation is that each month contributes 8.3% to the GDP.

Even in lockdown the economy is not fully stopped, though, and we can expect a rebound after the lockdown is lifted, but the lockdown will impact more than a single month.

All in all, I think that it is probably a reasonable ballpark figure for 2020 as whole.

</comment><comment><USER39> Recessions are kind of like forest fires from what I see.

They are destructive, painful, cause loss of property, kill things and generally are undesirable. But (to an extent) they are also necessary.

In the Western US fire used to be a regular occurrence. Natives would start fires, lighting would start fires, they would burn until they ran out of fuel and burn out. But this kept forests healthy. There used to be more bigger stronger pine trees and less undergrowth. Somewhere along the line it was decided fire was bad and we were going to set up fire towers and stop fires with maximum effort.

Which was all good, until it doesn't work and we simply can't because there is too much built up fuel and the fire rages out of control completely destroying the forest. The previous fires, while more regular, were smaller because the amount of fuel never accumulated to the levels it does with modern fire suppression methods.

In this analogy we've somehow decided that we are going to stop people from experiencing economic pain at all costs. This is humanistic. And we want things to keep growing and we don't want to see destruction. But what happens is a lot of trash builds up. Malinvestment. Corruption. Paper profits over actual production. Unlimited credit spent on consumer items. No personal savings. No problem, firemen Uncle Sam and the Federal Reserve are here to save the day! And no one can argue with this happening because who wants to see anyone get burned through no fault of their own?

But (just to torture the analogy) what I suspect will eventually happen is enough malinvestment, corruption and lack of responsible behavior will build up they won't be able to put the fire out. No one will. And it will burn the system flat to the ground instead of just clearing out a little brush and giving space to strong trees.

This isn't to suggest the government shouldn't help in this case. It's an unusual situation obviously. Just allowing little fires to burn prevents big fires later. Everything can't be free to everyone all the time. Reality doesn't work that way unfortunately. Failing to behave ethically, productively and responsibly, failing to save and to prepare for rough times, trying to consume and grow unsustainable without regard to risk can't be forever consequence free. That's not a moral statement, just a practical one.

<comment><USER40> Not to spoil your fine analogy, but as you probably know forestry services and farmers have engaged in controlled burns[1] for quite some time as part of sound wildlife conservation methods.

In keeping with your analogy, what may be wrong with current economic governance is the lack of letting a recession run its course and, for example, letting big banks who gambled too much fail instead of propping them up.

The revolving door between, say, Goldman Sachs and the Dept of Treasury has something to do with this, I think.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_burn)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The stock market is nearly flat for the year. Nasdaq is up for the year. Incredible.

</comment><comment><USER42> I thought we were already in recession, ever since the lockdown.

<comment> the-dude A recession is a clear defined term : 2 successive quarters of a shrinking economy.

<comment><USER43> You are wrong.

The NBER Business Cycle Dating committee explains their criteria and explains why "the two quarter rule" the financial press always talks about is not what they use.

[https://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html](https://www.nber.org/cycles/recessions.html)

"The committee's procedure for identifying turning points differs from the two-quarter rule in a number of ways. First, we do not identify economic activity solely with real GDP and real GDI, but use a range of other indicators as well. Second, we place considerable emphasis on monthly indicators in arriving at a monthly chronology. Third, we consider the depth of the decline in economic activity. Recall that our definition includes the phrase, "a significant decline in activity." Fourth, in examining the behavior of domestic production, we consider not only the conventional product-side GDP estimates, but also the conceptually equivalent income-side GDI estimates. The differences between these two sets of estimates were particularly evident in the recessions of 2001 and 2007-2009."

The NBER definition is what gets used in the US by every single government department and academic.

<comment><USER12> > The Committee does not have a fixed definition of economic activity. It > examines and compares the behavior of various measures of broad activity: > real GDP measured on the product and income sides, economy-wide employment, > and real income. The Committee also may consider indicators that do not > cover the entire economy, such as real sales and the Federal Reserve's index > of industrial production (IP). The Committee's use of these indicators in > conjunction with the broad measures recognizes the issue of double-counting > of sectors included in both those indicators and the broad measures. Still, > a well-defined peak or trough in real sales or IP might help to determine > the overall peak or trough dates, particularly if the economy-wide > indicators are in conflict or do not have well-defined peaks or troughs.

The GDP approach is a lot more concrete. The NBER's approach is more nuanced due to evaluating more factors, but is also more hand-wavy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The recession started when we hit circuit breakers. This was a pullback due to overselling, now the second leg down, exactly the same pattern as 2008.

</comment><comment><USER45> What has happened over the past few decades has been with companies:

1) A shift to JIT stock control and resource management 2) Shift towards paying dividends over building up reserves for rainy days 3) Valuing of companies with more weight upon public perception and perceived prospects over tangible assets on the books.

With many other factors that all, whilst small, add up to a market with companies driven by a way of working that is more volatile towards any unknown changes as less prepared by design to handle any rainy days periods.

This is also not just a company thing, but a personal thing with the shift in mentality to buy now pay later over save now, buy later. Mostly driven by low interest rates, which have been kept low as a way to manage currency value as a way to manage inflation. That along with any crash saw people with high interest rates as much larger and quicker to drive an economic crash with debts. Though mostly, to drive consumer spending so GDP looks good and the perception helps that countries credit rating. Making them able to borrow more for even less. Consumers with no incentive to save, buy more, borrow more, everything looks nice.

But of course there is more to it than that, but the whole drive towards lower interest rates has over the decades bestowed a culture more included to think short-term and deal with the long-term later and enjoy the sun. This has permeated in many forms and creates what I would call a false economy.

So after the moore's law of interest rates started to hit a limit as they could not shrink any lower, they invented QE, which worked and helped avoid reality of things catching up with the markets for many a time. But then even that can only go so far, so the new tool - negative interest rates.

This of course, all tricks to help balance the books and keep the whole financial system rolling ahead without it taking a reality audit and adjusting down instead of being over valued due to perception of constant growth.

But with a big rainy day that is global, things in any market would take a hit, how much of that depends as many companies will die, but how many of them will be due to the way they operate and not the `market snap`(sorry Marvel, I'm using it) we are experiencing.

If anything, whilst many jobs will be lost, more attention to local sourcing will be given and that will create not only jobs, but more stable jobs. At least to until the fashion of outsourcing comes back and we end up with Detroit mark2.

Also be new opportunities/jobs - certainly be a boom for many internet companies. Also see alas another nail in many a high street and with that, things will change, how much of that does transpire is unsure for certain. But certainly see more things local produced instead of imported, with that production has been slowly clustering globally and in some area's has become centered. So insourcing may well become a word used more than outsourcing when it comes to production and materials resources.

About the only thing I do know for sure, even after this - people will use more soap than before.

</comment><comment> ur-whale [http://archive.is/rwqjJ](http://archive.is/rwqjJ)

</comment><comment><USER46> Why are we continually saying Recession when we know it will be a Depression?

<comment><USER47> we dont know that

<comment><USER46> Until everyone in the supply chain from mining to customers have free movement, which means 80% or more of the world have some sort of immunity (Either from opening everything up or vaccines) our economy will be depressed.

This will be many many quarters from now.

Even if today China said don't care that would be 6 months at least. And they are only part of the supply chain.

What don't we know?

<comment><USER48> The supply chain already has free movement. Every country's border closures have exempted international trade, and almost all stay-at-home orders consider mining and such to be essential businesses.

<comment><USER46> There are ~193 countries in the world. Its not just yours that matters.

How many mines are run by under 10 people. The answer is a lot, there are 50 million artisanal miners globally, 90% of the mining workforce.

South Africa shut down industrial mining for a period and is still not allowed to fully ramp up.

Is oil all ok as it shuts down wells it can't just reopen?

Exploration has been shut down across the board.

No, mining is not ok.

And its only a small part of the supply chain I mentioned. It's just one bit that will not be fully operational within 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Is it outrageous to say we need to end this quarantine right now? At this point, the cure is worse than the disease.

<comment><USER50> Isn't covid-19 the #1 cause of death in NYC right now? And not, like, starvation?

Saying the cure is worse than the disease shows a frightening lack of both empathy and objective reasoning. I don't want to construct a strawman, but I worry that what "reopen" people are really saying is "I don't care if X% of the US population dies - as long as I'm not one of them - if it means I can try to go back to normal."

And try is the key word there. I would argue the main thing keeping people at home is not stay-at-home orders, but fear. Correctly-calibrated, sensible fear of getting a disease that has better odds of killing you than lots of other sources of risk in modern life.

<comment><USER49> I think it's frightening that people like you are missing the bigger point here: X% of the population was going to die anyways, and these numbers are getting skewed out of proportion. Triggering a major recession will cause more deaths and despair over the long term. Start thinking for yourselves rather than believing everything you hear.

Hospitals are now FINANCIALLY INCENTIVIZED to lump as many patients as possible into the "Covid" column. Look at the stats on the sudden drop in historical "Other" column deaths in comparison to the "Covid" column (for this year)...they basically align perfectly....which tells you that hospitals are flagging people who were going to die anyways as "Covid" related.

<comment><USER51> > Look at the stats on the sudden drop in historical "Other" column deaths in > comparison to the "Covid" column (for this year)...they basically align > perfectly.

There is no drop in "other" column deaths. The excess all-cause mortality rate is actually substantially higher than the number of diagnosed Covid deaths [1].

There are certain commenters on various social media sites posting CDC all- cause mortality charts showing a "drop" in recent all-cause deaths, except that's purely an artifact of the reporting lag (deaths take a couple weeks to show up in the stats so if you try to look up the number of deaths that happened within the past 1-2 weeks you will get an undercount). It sounds like you have been duped by one of those people.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronaviru...](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/28/us/coronavirus- death-toll-total.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> "Start of a recession"?

We've been in a recession for a while now, and a global one too. The IMF and other such organizations have been saying it for over a month now. Why has the US been trying to deny it for so long?

<comment><USER53> Recession is a semi-technical term that is often defined as a fall in GDP for two successive quarters.

<comment><USER54> That's why there's a lot of debate about whether this is a depression or a recession, we haven't had enough time to decide.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Given that that Jan and Feb seemed largely fine, the rate of decline in March was probably around 3x the quarter's headline figure -- call it -15%, give or take.

April was much worse, without a doubt. Anything between a -25% and -50% GDP decline seems possible for April.

<comment><USER48> Annualized numbers can always be a bit misleading, but applying them to individual months starts to get silly. What's the annualized GDP decline of weekends?

<comment><USER55> Of course. My point is that the figure for the quarter _understates_ the economic shock in March.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Nah, it signals exactly nothing.

If there was no Coronavirus, then maybe.

With Coronavirus it is just as likely that the economy is going to rebound once the worst of the virus passes. People stopped buying stuff but rest assured, they will make up for it when they finally can.

<comment><USER57> A LOT of people lost jobs, a lot of business will be bankrupt.

When things recover, a lot of people will be sinking money into late rent payments and credit card bills, not spending.

A lot of people cleared off their credit cards of anything not critical. Will I go back to the gym? Maybe. Will I turn back on Amazon Prime or half the other subscriptions I cancelled? Nope. Will I eat out as much now that I've had a month and a half of eating healthy at home. Probably not.

<comment><USER58> I wish I ate healthier during this period of time... Unfortunately I'm finding it impossible to order a grocery delivery right now (I use Walmart). So I just end up ordering Uber Eats twice a day.

I cringe when I think about how much money I'm spending on food and how unhealthy I'm eating. But I can't stop, I'm addicted to food delivery wtf.</comment></comment></comment>


Does Minecraft Teach Children to Be Programmers or SysAdmins? (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2014/10/06/does-minecraft-teach-children-to-be-programmers-or-sysadmins/ <comment><USER2> Nothing wrong with SysAdmins, interfacing with a system used by other people is valuable in its own right.

I'd be more concerned that Minecraft teaches children to cut down trees by standing underneath them and chopping up.

</comment><comment><USER3> It teaches them to binge-play and waste away their childhoods?

<comment><USER4> Play sounds like a good use of a childhood.

<comment><USER5> Especially with the recent article I read about our obsession with productivity, and the loss of "hobbies".</comment></comment></comment>


Practicing Ruby's second volume is now freely available - <AUTHOR> http://community.mendicantuniversity.org/articles/practicing-ruby-volume-2-now-freely-avai

<comment><USER2> Thanks very much for this. Great stuff.</comment>


Windows Live ID OpenID CTP Status Update - <AUTHOR> http://winliveid.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!AEE1BB0D86E23AAC!1791.entry <comment><AUTHOR> Chris Messina's response: [http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid- general/2009-August...](http://lists.openid.net/pipermail/openid- general/2009-August/018970.html)</comment>


Why was '~' chosen to represent the home directory? - <AUTHOR> http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/34196/why-was-chosen-to-represent-the-home-directory <comment><USER2> Because the ADM 3A terminal had HOME on its tilde key for some reason.</comment>


1 year in seconds per Google is Not 60*60*24*365 - <AUTHOR>

606024*365 =  31 536 000
But Google says that it's actually : 31 556 926 seconds.
http://www.google.com/search?q=1+year+in+seconds
And Wolfram Alpha rounds up : http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=1+year+in+Seconds
Leap years FTW! <comment><USER2> Also note that 1 month in days is 30.4368499.

There simply isn't a good way to convert between labels for specific periods of time and units for measuring the passing of time. The problem is that language and common usage don't make much of a distinction between the two. If you ask people how long a day is, they'll tell you 24 hours. Even Google will tell you that, but it isn't true. A day is usually 24 hours. DST and leap seconds can both change the length of a day though. So a day isn't a unit for measuring time at all. It's a name for a certain period of time. Leap seconds can even mess with terms that seem bulletproof like "hour" or "minute". When there's a leap second, one minute of the year becomes 61 seconds, and the corresponding hour becomes 3601 seconds.

The only unit of time you can reliably work with is the second (and metric derivations thereof, like millisecond).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Difference is actually 20,926. Leap years account for 21,600. There is still 326 seconds to find.

I really wonder how google counts them.

<comment><USER3> It's be cause a year is about 365.24 days. That means every 4 years we add a day, but that actually overcompensates, so every hundred years or so we skip a leap year:

 _Years that are evenly divisible by 100 are not leap years, unless they are also evenly divisible by 400, in which case they are leap years.[1][2] For example, 1600 and 2000 were leap years, but 1700, 1800 and 1900 were not. Similarly, 2100, 2200, 2300, 2500, 2600, 2700, 2900 and 3000 will not be leap years, but 2400 and 2800 will be._

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_year></comment></comment>


What you should know as a founder of a software company - <AUTHOR> https://qotoqot.com/blog/founder-skills/ <comment><USER2> > Weak user experience design makes people hate your product. Big companies > can get away with it because their clients often have no other choice, but > it's a crucial point for a new market player.

This is not a generally true statement. Big (aka successful) companies with a poor UX are likely focused on selling or some core feature set that is hard to create, and if they're big then it means they are or were making that tradeoff correctly.

In all likelihood, most startups would benefit from focusing less on UX concerns and more on selling, selling, selling.

<comment><USER3> As a front end dev / designer I used to agree with the author, but now I think it depends.

Wikipedia, Reddit, even HN are great examples of successful projects with _good enough_ UI. Even Gmail or Facebook had terrible UI when launched.

If you are solving a unique problem, UI is not so important.

<comment><USER4> I'd argue while perhaps they are examples of brutalist functionality, the wikipedia, reddit and HN offer a very nice UX and a simple, easy to learn UI.

HN/Wiki/Reddit don't: break the back button, take forever to load 1000 JS/CSS files, have broken "infini-scrolling", or even break when JS is disabled (well, reddit kinda does now).

Compare that to the majority of over-engineered SPA-style webpages that employed many, many front-end engineers and UX designers, and Wikipedia, Reddit, HN as well as old-school Gmail and FB start looking amazing.

Man oh man do I miss old Gmail... that was a great interface. I exclusively use FB on mobile, no-js mode.

Web brutalism should be the new hotness.

<comment><USER5> Funny thing about inifi-scrolling is that it's designed to save bandwidth, but I'd wager that most of the time the extra JS packages are bigger than the content actually being "saved"

<comment><USER6> Sorta, it does save bandwitdth, but more importantly it is used to keep users on your site longer by removing the decision point of browsing to the next page. Though for the best effect you need to do it background so that user never really realises that the feed/list never really ends.

<comment><USER7> Whatever you do, just, please, add a link for the next page at the end of your results. You can move it later with JS once you downloaded more results, but make sure the link is there.

I'm quite tired of not being able to use sites on slow connections.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How many TechCrunch articles can you find where an acquiring company says "the software we're buying doesn't really work, but it sure looks good!"?

I just left a job where the founder (who didn't have any software background) deeply ingrained himself with this philosophy and wound making life a living hell for engineering.

While building a full-stack prototype, we slapped bootstrap 4 on the front end because who has time to roll CSS when the project is months behind schedule?

The founder with no sofware experience decided that bootstrap was terrible and that he'd roll an entirely custom app style. So he went into the codebase on a weekend and ripped out all the views/controllers/assets and replaced them with his own, which massively broke the test suite on Monday morning (which of course he didn't know how to operate or fix.) After a couple of other "executive audibles" like this, I took the next good offer and ran.

It's weird to see 'visual design' as a mainstay of an article titled 'What you should know as a founder of a software company', as if managing a team and building solid engineering fundamentals and culture are either assumed or unimportant.

<comment><USER9> It keeps on puzzling me why don't engineers ever speak up. Like "Hey, man, I understand the old design sucks and you want to make it better, but editing things directly would only make the delays bigger. How about you take a few screenshots of the product, photoshop it the way you would like it to look and then we, as a technical team, will use our best expertise to make it look this way without breaking everything in pieces?".

That could have saved you from weeks of hell and would also increase your influence by a great amount.

<comment><USER10> Because "shut up or find yourself another job".

I thought this too until recently -- got fired after trying to protect my employer from a toxic exec.

There are some that do not accept anything but yesmans or silent codemonkeys. It sucks but it pays. If you are not willing to lose your position, just let it go.

<comment><USER9> Protecting your abstract "employer" from a toxic exec is a political suicide. The right thing to do is sniff out who's the exec's political enemy and what move is he planning next against him and aid that person in his move without directly confronting the toxic exec. It's dirty politics, but it works.

<comment><USER10> Yeah.. Lesson learned I hope...

Am I naive to think that in a business setting, problems should be constructively confronted proportionally to the extent of their damage potential directly with their author? Wouldn't the business be able to grow more efficiently and be able to keep a peaceful environment free of backstabbers if people could accept that everyone makes mistakes, that they don't really matter as long as they are fixed quickly, and that they are all learning opportunities that can become valuable assets? I feel like am I throwing buzzwords around and that to some extent I have always heard this in a form or another but for some reason, never seen it put into practice.

<comment><USER9> You need to look at the company's cash flow and competition model to understand this. Let me try to sketch 2 black & white scenarios:

A) The company is bootstrapped, profitable, gets positive cash flow from paying customers and is investing profits into adding new features that will cover larger markets. Its competing with other bootstrapped companies on how fast it can add features.

B) The company is VC-backed, runs at a loss, gets it cash from rounds of investments. A competitive factor for getting more capital is showing rapid growth and creating an impression that the company is sexy, has a great future, etc. A competitive factor in getting rapid growth is offering services subsidized by the venture capital and getting high-profile salespeople through the CEO's network.

In the first scenario it's all about the product. In the second it's all about the CEO's ability to sell the right impression to the venture capitalists.

Things get more complicated once you bring in psychology. The people that are good at confidently overselling a product and giving a perfect impression are usually people-oriented. They can give a good impression, and they draw their motivation from impressing others and glorifying their social status. If a person you're talking to starts dropping hints about how much of a big guy he/she is, that's the personality type I'm talking about and you don't want to confront that person because you'll be seen as a personal threat regardless the long-term effects. This doesn't benefit the long-term product quality and efficiency, but will benefit their self-confidence (hey, I'm a big boss, nobody dares object me) and will help them attract more venture capital and get more high-profile sales people aid their course.

So yes, in many real-world scenarios everyone is talking about results, learning opportunity, positive environment, growth, etc. because this is a part of the impression you want to make, but in reality everyone is backstabbing each other because if you don't do this, someone will backstab you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Founder here. That list is a lot of cart before a horse. You could master all those points and still not have a _company_ on your hands.

#1: Solve an important enough pain point that companies or consumers will _pay_ you for it.

Sorry it's not more catchy.

<comment><USER12> Don't trivialize.

The list provides a very good insight into specifics of making a product/company work. These aren't sufficient conditions, but they are often necessary. Product packaging matters. Customer relations matters. Resource management matters. As does the non-technical side of things. All of these are integral to making "companies or consumers willing to pay you for it."

<comment><USER11> My intent wasn't to trivialize, only to prioritize. You're right; none of those alone are _sufficient_ for success. But IMO the single most important priority for a founder of a software _business_ was not mentioned.

<comment><USER12> "Make something that people want to pay for" is an obvious priority for any commercial entity, small or large.

<comment><USER13> To OP's credit, it's something that people forget semi-frequently.

I can think of quite a few products that look nice and the workflows are quite easy, but at the end of the day they're just not solving a problem I'd be willing to pay money for (and, often, they disappear later).

It's very hard to admit that you were wrong about the fundamentals of your product, and very easy to think that re-designing the homepage will fix everything.

<comment><USER14> I feel like I should place the "Marketing" section higher. There's a list of questions to do a market research before even starting and discover if the fundamentals of your product are correct.

<comment><USER13> For what it's worth, I enjoyed the article.

Most start-ups aren't solving any huge problems, and sometimes market inefficiencies are there for a reason (see all the start-ups involving the field of law, for example).

Even for the ones that are solving a big problem (that people are willing to pay for), it's very uncommon to have no competitors.

So typically the way to make a successful company is to be better than your competitors, and the way you do that is through customer support, UX, etc.

So to your credit, I think for most start-up founders this is the way to move forward. But it's definitely a bit of a sunk cost fallacy - it's really hard to admit your idea will never be successful and to start over from scratch.

It's easier, and has more obvious ways to measure success, to adjust relatively minor things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> One thing not on this list that is an easy win is to make your pages fast. This will separate you from 90%+ of competitors. A lot of the bloat in modern web apps and web pages is easy to remove, and people will love you for it.

I never mentioned it in Pinboard marketing, but I moved heaven and earth to keep the site fast for everyone, and it was speed that gave the site its first toehold.

That said, I think the leap from 100 to 10,000 users is very hard, and I don't know of any advice about how to cross that gap.

<comment><USER16> Yeah, especially your landing page. My site is a mix of Rails and static generators, but I scrape the Rails pages with wget --recursive, and then upload everything to S3, and put it all behind CloudFlare. You can put your Rails app behind CloudFlare too, but this way your site will never, ever go down.

<comment><USER17> How do you handle things like form submits? How do you mix rails and static files? Using Nginx?

<comment><USER16> My sign up page includes Recaptcha and requires a valid Stripe card token, so I can keep that static without worrying about CSRF. However, the sign in page is loaded from the Rails app server, and includes a CSRF token. The form submits all go to the Rails app server, which is running on a subdomain.

I run a rake task to scrape all of the landing page content from the Rails app, then copy in the static docs site, and upload everything to S3. So it's like I'm using Rails as a static site generator.

Basically my root domain is all static files, served from S3 / Cloudflare. And the Rails server is running on an "app" subdomain. I think it's been working pretty well. In the future I might make the whole app static, and just use Rails as an API.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Too much content without addressing the real problem with most startups:

They do not solve a customer problem.

Solve their problem, make their life better and you will do well.

<comment><USER19> How do startups exist without customers paying them to solve a problem? From convincing investors that the problem exists? It sounds like the investors are the real customers and a narrative is the product they produce.

<comment><USER20> Some startups do very well. Uber, Lyft, Square Cash/Venmo, Yelp, those really do solve problems many of us have/had.

Then a few tech startups doing analytics I had some experience with, probably overpromised (?? perhaps it was my fault) what their engine could do. Requests are often in backlog and can take many months to roll out, which by then contract renewal is up.

<comment><USER21> I don't quite understand why Yelp's on that list — do you mind elaborating?

<comment><USER20> Sure. This is my view. I want to know nearby resturants and their reviews. I want see photos of the dishes. I want to see the decor. I want to see discounts if any. I want to see open hours. I want to search based on location, cusine, pricing etc. i know Google does this now, but Yelp was the first to make all the above well in one place. Google doesn't have an app dedicated at all, just search. Yelp solved my problems. I think you can agree with me you would hear "let's yelp it/check on yelp" when someone looks for resturants. I also use Yelp beyond just resturants. I was looking for a new dentist and I found him on Yelp after some reviews online. I got to see the good reviews and photos of his office. I was lucky those reviews were real. If I were new to a city I might check out Yelp and TripAdvisor for some reviews and recommenations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Really, the key is solving something important that people absolutely need, and will overlook all these weaknesses for. Then something like a good UX is a can you can kick down the road for a long time.

If instead you're doing Yet Another Pinterest, then good luck, you're playing a very different game.

<comment><USER23> > _that people absolutely need_

A tough one. Asking myself what I _absolutely need_ , I come up with air+water+meat+housing. And I'm a coder! =) but even for softer interpretations of "absolutely", haven't ran into any such non-niches (we're talking "people", not obscure-exotic-niche-use-case-prospects) in a long time lately.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sorry to be harsh and disregard your legitimate content completely but it is misguided, it lacks the most important word: Sales

<comment><USER14> Good point, I have a B2C bias.

<comment><USER24> I am curious about the bias. B2c still requires sales.

<comment><USER25> What would sales do in a B2C shop? In my mind you just create a product people want, slap AdWords on it for revenue and add a marketing team for growth. I have a hard time imagining what for example Reddit would do with a sales team.

Edit: Apparently Reddit have a sales team since they have their own ads platform, they wouldn't need it if they used AdWords.

<comment><USER26> Adsense is for publishers, AdWords for advertisers. You are referring to Adsense, maybe?

<comment><USER27> He meant AdWords - to help him find customers for his B2C product.

<comment><USER26> This makes more sense in the context of the GP comment if Reddit's ad network is found on sites outside of Reddit. I confess ignorance to these particulars.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> > The market doesn't care what's under the hood as long as it works and solves > problems.

This is a hard truth.

<comment><USER29> Very true. However, software engineers care about what's under the hood. And the longer your company is operational you are bound to encounter engineering turnover. Attracting promising talent could get very difficult (and extremely costly) if your software stack and/or code base is antiquated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I work at a startup, which is around 15 months old now. We have no UI/UX designer, and have not focused on creating a good UX. We would love to have one, but have not found the right candidate yet.

But we are doing very well, we are now over 40 employees and have several of biggest names in the nordic countries as clients and our software is being interacted with hundreds of thousands of individuals every day.

Good UX is important, but it doesn't have to be "perfect". The most important thing by far for a startup is getting out of your office and talk with potential clients.

<comment><USER31> I agree with this. Though if you are at the stage when you want an updated design, I could probably help you. Contacts in my profile

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> What you should know is that the only thing that matters is solving big problems for real people problems.

If you are solving real problems and you are constantly learning and improving based on your understand why your customers hire/fire you then nothing else will matter.

If you are really customer-value-centric then your UX/Visual design, PR, marketing, SEO won't matter since all of your customers will be telling more & more people why you are awesome and they'll keep paying you for more.

<comment><USER33> People buy pain relief :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> _> Writing is the part where non-native English speakers like me are in a disadvantaged position._

While reading the article, I had no idea you weren't a native speaker until I reached that line. So: congrats.

<comment><USER14> Thank you! Though my editor still fixes 2-3 issues in each paragraph.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Our CEO doesn't know what UX is and tried to get a marketing email designer to rebuild our whole tool. he figured the kid knows photoshop so he must know best.

</comment><comment><USER36> Good article. Concise and to the point with the key elements. Thanks for sharing

</comment><comment><USER37> *founder of a B2C software company.

If you're B2B the strategy may be somewhat different.

</comment><comment><USER16> That was a really great article. Here's a few notes from my experience with FormAPI.io:

> One of the best ways to do it is to watch people interacting with your > prototypes without giving them any hints.

This is so true. My product has a lot of very complex features, but after watching some early users, I realized that people were struggling to figure out some of the most basic things - even just adding and removing fields. I had made the 'delete' icon only show when you hovered over the field in the sidebar, but I made it more obvious by always showing it when the field was selected. I also added another 'Delete' link to the field option in the right sidebar. And then I also added a welcome modal that explain how to add and delete fields with animated GIFs. (Including the "delete" and "backspace" keyboard shortcuts.) Now that there's 3 separate ways to delete fields, people figure it out almost immediately.

Even adding fields was hard to get right. My initial version just had click- and-drag, so you had to first click, then drag to adjust the field width. I saw that new customers were just clicking on the page, and nothing would happen. So I added support for single clicks as well, and now it adds a field at that position with a default width.

It's scary that I might not have realized these UX problems if I wasn't paying attention.

> Nowadays it's easy to get amazing stock templates for less than $50 instead > of spending thousands on a custom design.

I strongly recommend [https://pixelarity.com](https://pixelarity.com). I've used 3 of their templates now, and I think they're very good. Some of them even have jekyll versions that you can download. [http://unsplash.com](http://unsplash.com) is incredible for stock photos, and I have a subscription to [https://thenounproject.com](https://thenounproject.com) for vector icons. There are a lot of free icons out there, but the Noun Project has a ton of variety, and lots of things you can't find anywhere else.

> When doing the development yourself, it is easy to slip into a false > productivity when you increase the amount of code without achieving your > business goals. The most infamous examples are building tools instead of a > product or overthinking a complicated architecture "for the future."

This is really tough, but I'm actively trying to avoid this. Not just the fun tools and side-projects you want to build, but even some feature requests from customers. Certain might end up taking weeks or months, and they'll over- complicate your product, or they just won't be a good investment of your time.

> New and trendy technology usually means bugs, breaking changes, immature > tooling and lack of documentation. "Boring" mature tech will allow you to > achieve the same goals much faster and make it easy to find developers for > hire.

I used Rails and React, since I'm very familiar and productive with those. I was tempted to try Elixir, but I think it would have taken me so much longer to build an MVP. I have a friend who started building their startup with Elixir, but switched back to Rails for the better productivity.

> Depending on the country, your experience with these business aspects can > range from mildly unpleasant to the absolute worst.

I've almost finished setting up my company with Stripe Atlas, and I can say that it has been the absolute best experience. I can't recommend it strongly enough. I'm going through the post-incorporation stuff now with UpCounsel, and everything is just so easy.</comment>


DeepScan now supports 100+ rules for JavaScript and React - <AUTHOR> https://deepscan.io/docs/updates/2017-11/ <comment><USER2> i can't seem to find the download link nor your repository.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a SaaS. You can analyze your GitHub repositories on the web. Or you can check code snippet using demo feature at [https://deepscan.io/demo/](https://deepscan.io/demo/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, you can use editor plugins:

\- Visual Studio Code: [https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DeepScan...](https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=DeepScan.vscode- deepscan)

\- Atom: [https://atom.io/packages/atom- deepscan](https://atom.io/packages/atom-deepscan)</comment></comment></comment>


Top IT locations  - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcauthority.com.au/News/140574,top-10-it-locations.aspx <comment><USER2> _When we were coming up with this list I joked that San Francisco should be considered a separate region from Silicon Valley if only because companies from the valley actually turn a profit at some point._

So if SF and Silicon Valley had been grouped together (which they probably should have; separating them is somewhat of a copout for a list that includes Japan, an entire country) what is the missing area on the list?

My vote goes to Portland, OR. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> What about Austin or Northern Virginia?</comment>


Five successful patterns behind billion-dollar consumer web companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.geektime.com/2014/01/15/five-successful-patterns-behind-billion-dollar-consumer-web-companies/

<comment><USER2> Great read. I would definitely add timing as another factor, but than again, so does pure luck :)</comment>


Show HN: All-in-one task manager, habit tracker, note keeper for iOS - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
- TestFlight link to install the app: https://testflight.apple.com/join/bc0mlq63 - USER GUIDE: http://www.getbeyondapp.com/guide.html - WEBSITE: http://www.getbeyondapp.com <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable links: TESTFLIGHT: [https://testflight.apple.com/join/bc0mlq63](https://testflight.apple.com/join/bc0mlq63) GUIDE: [http://www.getbeyondapp.com/guide.html](http://www.getbeyondapp.com/guide.html) WEBSITE: [http://www.getbeyondapp.com](http://www.getbeyondapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> I have no need for this type of app, so can't comment on the functionality, but I can say that the website leaves a very clean and polished impression.

Very well done.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you!</comment></comment>


Vivaldi Co-Founder: Competing with Google Isn't Scary When You've Done It Before - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-02/competing-with-google-isn-t-scary-when-you-ve-done-it-before <comment><USER2> I have used Opera many years and observed all the innovative features they introduced which later 'borrowed' by other browsers. That's not a bad thing though, they have a lot of good ideas and they get standardized after a while. I was very disappointed when they chose chromium backend which contributed to this Google monopoly. I am also using Vivaldi now and happy with it since they still have a similar utilitarian mindset and also the design is pretty. So if you looking for a change, just try it.

<comment><USER3> I still use Opera 12 as my primary mail client on the desktop.

My gripes with Vivaldi: still a Chromium-based browser (like the new Opera), and still no e-mail client.

Compare this to previous iterations of Opera (pre-12), which featured a custom, fast rendering engine, and built-in features ranging from mail client, IRC client, and torrent client to a _web server_ and a _file-sharing_ platform![1]

Sadly, Vivaldi is still a shadow of what Opera used to be. I'm still hopeful, but they simply don't have an attractive product yet. I'll think again when the mail client is there, it was a killer feature.

I've switched to FF Quantum, and not switching to anything else any time soon. For me, the killer feature is the new fast engine -- and the reader view, which is the only way I can tolerate about half the websites out there.

With reader view and integrations such as Pocket and full-page screenshot directly from the UI, Firefox seems to be the only browser innovating on UX- out-of-the-box these days. (Edge had introduced some neat things, and I tried it for a while, but it just falls short for me).

Meanwhile, Chrome is turning into an interesting OS that just needs a good web browser.

[1][https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3468/turn-your-computer- into...](https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/3468/turn-your-computer-into-a-file- music-and-web-server-with-opera-unite/)

<comment><USER4> I love Firefox for the same reasons, along with really nice privacy plug-ins (cookie bro is a super nice plug in for blacklisting all cookies and only whitelisting sites you actually log in to).

The web works fine 99.9% of the time with no cookies enabled at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> He is Icelandic</comment>


The Müller Formula or Predictable Color Preferences (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/09/02/the-muller-formula-or-predictable-color-preferences <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure I made a comment about this or a similar post linked here a few years ago, including some graphics cooked up in Photoshop explaining the problems with the examples, but I can't find it at the moment, and can't be bothered to make new demonstrations.

Suffice it to say: unfortunately the lightness (a.k.a. value) of the color stripes varies tremendously from one example to the other in this post, which makes this a basically worthless comparison, as in general lightness contrast dominates other visual effects. If you swapped the lightness (e.g. in CIELAB or CIECAM02 color space) from the left and right examples while leaving the hue/chroma the same, you'd get the opposite results inre what looks "good", which would reveal this "Müller formula" to be bogus (or at any rate radically oversimplified).

More generally, I've never seen a convincing exposition of similar color preference effects backed by data collected in a scientific paper with reasonable study design. It's always handwavey 19th century nonsense, sometimes with a handful of preferences expressed by a tiny sample of homogenous survey respondents tacked on the end. Bad examples are endemic to the pseudosciency-color-theory genre, because most people work with terrible color models which are only marginally relevant to human perception.

The key to making color schemes for graphic illustrations or data visualizations look good is to use enough contrast (especially lightness contrast) between intentionally separate shapes so that distinct elements don't accidentally blend together. (Note that sometimes you want certain elements to have lower contrast, but that should be an intentional choice, made for some obvious reason.)

<comment><USER2> Found it:

[http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/ycnews/nonsense.png](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/ycnews/nonsense.png)

[http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/ycnews/nonsense2.png](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/ycnews/nonsense2.png)

[http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/ycnews/nonsense3.png](http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~jrus/ycnews/nonsense3.png)

Also, past discussions of this same example (apparently at different sites?):

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156683](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156683)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=618881](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=618881) (this one includes discussion context for the images linked above)

<comment><USER3> Looking at nonsense.png actually supports the Müller formula. At least to me, the best-looking combinations are exactly the two that should be the best- looking according to the Müller formula. The version you created have color and brightness values that move counter the "natural brightness", and look uglier than the originals, just as the Müller formula predicts.

<comment><USER2> You missed my point, which was that the example was supposed to show how changes in hue affected whether something would look good, but the example showed dramatically varying lightness and chroma, in addition to the hue differences, thus making the comparison useless as a demonstration of the claimed effect. To make an example showing what the author of these examples wants to show, it would be necessary to keep lightness and chroma consistent from one set of color combinations to another, so that viewers can see the hue differences instead of being distracted by lightness/chroma differences.

If the "Müller formula" worked the way the author of these example images thought, then the color combinations at the right side after my lightness switcharound should _still_ be "good looking", but to me at least, with low lightness contrast, they instead start to look very muddy. Likewise, in my opinion the color combinations at the left of each example are improved dramatically by the increase in lightness contrast, even though they still have low chroma contrast and aren't exactly my favorites.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is no actual Muller formula though. Though, I can see how you would build a color scale creator using the idea. I will see how it works with our data visualizations, and if so, d3 now has modules, I can build something for that.

Currently we use I Want Hue ([http://tools.medialab.sciences- po.fr/iwanthue/](http://tools.medialab.sciences-po.fr/iwanthue/)) which works far better then it should :).

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd love to see a follow-up article on how material design colors were created. Tools such as [http://mcg.mbitson.com/](http://mcg.mbitson.com/) seem to produce uglier colors, imo.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sadly I couldn't make it past the advertising.</comment>


Z-410 Storage: commercial ZFS for OSX (by Don Brady, former Sr. Apple engineer) - <AUTHOR> http://z410.tenscomplement.com/ From the OSX Server mailing list:
Don Brady, former senior Apple engineer has started a company to bring what appears to be a commercially supported version of ZFS to OS X.
Ten's Complement: http://info.tenscomplement.com/
Details are sparse, but they have a twitter feed and email newsletter. When I signed up I got a invitation to join the beta program.
From his twitter (http://twitter.com/tenscomplement)
http://lists.apple.com/archives/macos-x-server/2011/Mar/msg00194.html <comment><USER2> More discussion of this on the zfs-macos group, which was the community port of the available apple code and updates from opensolaris:

[http://groups.google.com/group/zfs- macos/browse_thread/threa...](http://groups.google.com/group/zfs- macos/browse_thread/thread/7832620cb31637ec)

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't Apple drop ZFS on OSX for fear of patent lawsuits?

edit: it looks like ZFS is clear: <http://www.sun.com/lawsuit/zfs/index.jsp>

<comment><AUTHOR> I read that snapshots will be introduced in OSX Lion, I don't know if they're somehow related to ZFS snapshots, though the "we can do it better ourselves" sounds very microsofty. ZFS addition in OSX by Apple itself would have been greatly appreciated.

<comment><USER4> Lion still uses HFS+. They seem to be doing some trickery to save space (i.e. they don't save complete copies) but it's all still HFS+.

<comment><USER5> I wonder: is it something like how Time Machine works? In that each file is mirrored and unmodified ones are hard linked through editions? I can't imagine that being space efficient but I wouldn't put it past them. AFAIK OSX doesn't have an LVM equivalent in terms of snapshotting live file systems.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Postgres backup tool PGHoard adds tablespace and native WAL replication support - <AUTHOR> http://blog.aiven.io/2016/07/pghoard-tablespaces-wal-stream.html <comment><AUTHOR> The new native WAL replication support makes it possible to add new features around analyzing the WAL as it's streamed, the most obvious being uploading partial segments at specified intervals or at various events (commits) to avoid losing the data in partial segments in case of a crash.

It could also be used to do things like collect metrics about the ratio of commits and rollbacks, etc. The current version of PGHoard doesn't have these features but we're planning to implement them in a future release.</comment>