PHP Is A Husk - <AUTHOR> http://lucasoman.blogspot.com/2009/08/php-is-dead.html

<comment><USER2> I usually don't jump into these kinds of threads. You get an awful lot of programmers -- some hobbyist, some professional, some experienced, and most of them self-taught -- all with their own prejudices and methodologies, all arguing over what the "right" way is. They go absolutely nowhere, do nothing productive, and turn into a huge time sink for everyone involved.

That said, this article, and every other one like it, reeks of some strange belief that every single language is supposed to have all of the features of some programmer's favorite language, as well as all of the neat new trendy stuff, and if the language doesn't support all of that -- well then it's dead! Or dying. Or "a husk".

There doesn't seem to be any realization on the part of the programmer that a particular language is just a tool, usually designed for a specific application. The programmer is attempting to fit a square peg into a round hole, and they're cursing at the square peg because it doesn't fit.

Let's take one example: closures. They sounded interesting, and potentially could solve a problem in a large JavaScript library I was working on. So I got to know them, I practiced with them, I made sure I grokked them before trying to apply them. Then I put them to work, and found that they ended up making my library unnecessarily complex, that they caused some odd behaviors occasionally, and that they didn't solve any problem that I couldn't more easily solve using simpler methods.

So, does PHP's lack of this author's favorite features really make it a "husk"? No, not at all. Applications as large and complex as osCommerce don't rely on those language features; they rely on the features that the language does have, and they work just fine.

One of the most basic skills programmers need to have in their toolbox is the ability to adapt their habits according to the tools they're using. The programmers that spend their time writing blog posts like this one don't seem to have picked that up.

...Ugh, this just cost me 10 minutes that I could've spent actually working on one of my projects. :-(

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not complaining about what features PHP has. In fact, I was never that annoyed that PHP didn't have lamdas or closures until now.

My problem is that it wasn't implemented _correctly_. If you're going to implement a feature, do it right or don't do it at all. Their lack of concern or pride in their project does not bode well for the community.

<comment><USER3> This is a reasonable statement.

But there's a bit of a delta between this and the attention-grabbing title of the post.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry; it wasn't meant to be attention grabbing. It was more out of frustration, I suppose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a crappy title, but the article is pretty good.

PHP is a niche language, the niche is probably best described as "for want of something else that seems so easy to use and has such a low barrier to entry we are forced use it for web development".

The interesting thing here is that apparently the difference between PHP and the 'rest' of the languages out there is not large enough to supplant PHP in the WWW domain.

It's close enough to C that a whole generation of C programmers is intuitively at home in PHP, until they start using its advanced features.

But as long as you have to do simple stuff and get paid for that it almost always works. The few times that it doesn't you wished you never knew about the language though.

Just imagine, a language where the default 'scope' is global but globals are not available to functions and silently get replaced with empty variables. Who came up with that gem ?

<comment><USER5> The default scope within a function is not global, and all global variables are available within a function by using the keyword "global". You can also access the superglobals, but that of course is optional.

<comment><USER4> hacking the procrast to be able to answer you...

The default scope is global, I did not say 'within a function'.

I know about the 'global' keyword, as does everybody else that has used PHP for more than 5 minutes.

If your language has a C like syntax and you have a default scope (which means that you can start executing code right from the first line without being in a function definition) then the default behaviour of a variable should be that it either does not exist inside a function (different scope) and throws an error or it should refer to the global variable.

To have a 'third option', which silently creates empty variables is very (no, make that extremely) poor design.

And no, I'm not telling how to break noprocrast :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are trying to do something "more advanced", why are you trying to use PHP at all? What do you consider "advanced"? Just the WAY you use the language, or the application you are trying to write?

PHP is trying really hard (it seems) to be a more advanced language, possibly to get new users to move over from other languages.

But they don't need to.

They should just stick to their roots, do what they do best:

Super small learning curve, low barrier to entry, it's everywhere, it works great for most apps, keep CRUD super-simple.

<comment><USER5> So far I have not personally run into anything I _can't_ do in PHP - it may take some creative thinking, but there is usually a solution - this includes "advanced" functionality as well.

I think what a lot of the issues people have with PHP is not that it can't do something, but more that many of the ways you implement something feels like a "hack" - it works, but isn't as elegant as other languages.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My guess is that many developers probably don't actually _choose_ PHP per se but rather get _stuck_ using it because that's what the shop they work for uses, or that's what the current site is implemented in and they're only adding a feature, or that's what the client is asking for, etc.

More interesting to me is the question: Why is PHP beating Python in this space? Some guesses:

* PHP webapps far easier to deploy.

* PHP docs give more usage examples, and also allow user comments.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very mediocre post. Including the comments.

"Use php, python, no, use ruby instead! Facebook uses PHP, YouTube Python, blah blah".

Kids, kids, behave! Scripting languages are for kids and web developers who don't know anything about programming and software engineering.

I've worked with Perl and Python developers for the last couple of years... they struggle to understand design patterns and don't even know what a domain object is.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't think the lambda and closure support was intended to mesh so succinctly object oriented features of php. You have to realize php is a multi-paradigm language and proceed accordingly. You can honestly implement your own oo system using arrays and anon functions/closures if you would like (much like perl). The only thing making it a little fugly/brutal is the HORRIBLE php "array(" syntax.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very mediocre post. Including the comments. I think scripting languages are for kids and web developers who don't know anything about programming and software engineering.

I've worked with Perl and Python developers for the last couple of years... they struggle to understand design patterns and don't even know what a domain object is.

</comment><comment><USER8> Very mediocre post. Including the comments. I think scripting languages are for kids and web developers who don't know anything about programming and software engineering.

I've worked with Perl and Python developers for the last couple of years, they struggle to understand design patterns and don't even know what a domain object is.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think scripting languages are for kids and web developers who don't know anything about programming and software engineering.

I've worked with Perl and Python developers for the last couple of years... they struggle to understand design patterns and don't even know what a domain object is.

</comment><comment><USER10> The corresponding PHP bug report:

<http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=47665>

(Closed as "not a bug". Surprise!)

</comment><comment><USER11> I found the repeated misspelling of "lambda" to be off-putting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed, thanks for pointing that out. And as "the guy who built Digg.com for $10/hr", that's all the feedback you'll give me?!

<comment><USER11> I use php everyday, and as the guy who built digg (in php) I'd say - I agree with everything you say, but 99% of business has nothing at all to do with what programming language you use. But, _intellectualism_ does have plenty to do with building a successful business, and for most developers, that manifests itself as language wars. So I liked the article from that perspective.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I understand the business side. But I studied Computer Science in school. I take pride in my work, and I regard an expertly-forged piece of code as a work of art. It's not simply a means to an end, and, even if sometimes I complain a lot, I hope even my employer sees the benefit in my taking what I do so seriously.

<comment><USER8> Haha, you are not Van Gough, you are a code monkey. You think your code is a piece of art, but the guy who's going to maintain it may think it's a piece of shit and can end up rewriting it, using a different language, one he thinks is better. Just like you did, Mr. van Gough ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> onreact-com It is? Strange, mine still works. Am I a PHP zombie?

On a side note: I'm tired of the "Pull a Calacanis" type of headlines like "x is dead", "x sucks" or "x is bullshit".

Please come up with something better.

<comment><USER12> It's too bad that standard hacker slang for "I am incredibly disappointed and feel like kicking something today" is so similar to linkbait. But, really, what is one supposed to say when one discovers this:

 _$this cannot be used in lambdas or closures. So, when it comes to using these new features with objects, they're quite nearly completely useless._

... except "This is bullshit?" I mean, that's the _censored_ version of what I think about this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Exactly! I'm not interested in link bait. I'm just really depressed after I finally made the realization--just last night--that the language I've been using for years is going nowhere but down.

<comment><USER8> It looks to me that the only thing going down is you, as a programmer. You've been writing PHP scripts all your life, I understand why you are depressed.

<comment><AUTHOR> _yawn_</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Please Help: Launching Community Aggregator Like Hacker News in NYC (non-profit) - <AUTHOR>

The NY Tech Meetup (a huge collection of entrepreneurs and technophiles in NYC) is experimenting with a YC Hacker News style aggregation site to help promote entrepreneurship in NYC (http://news.nytm.org).
This site is 100% not-for-profit; the only value we expect to gain is in improving communication and engagement within the tech community in New York.
It's different from HN, reddit, etc. in that the goal is to connect local hackers with events, activities, opportunities, and ideas in NYC. In that regard, it's kinda like craigslist meets Hacker News.
That said, I'm having a little trouble getting our core constituency to take advantage of it as there isn't much up there at the moment with most eyes on the mailing list; i.e., the chicken-egg problem.
I was hoping to garner some support from folks who share my appreciation for the HN style of discussion and sharing so that we can work together to jump-start the community.
HN is host to a fantastically supportive group and I suspect many folks who post here live in or around NYC and so would be interested in this utility gaining traction.
Thank you for listening! I really hope that we can get this off the ground; any advice or support you can offer would be GREATLY appreciated.
The site: news.nytm.org (yup! It's powered by slinkset ;) <comment><USER2> I like the idea. I've signed up.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thanks!</comment></comment>


How A Coder Launched A $375 Mil Company From His Living Room – with Lew Cirne - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/lew-cirne-interview/

<comment><USER2> I was a little disappointed, one man started it with $35k then $100k shortly there after and a $50k sale to IBM and hired his first employee already. When it sold it was a 260 person company. Still quiet a story though, he outsourced all the work he wasn't good at from the very beginning with an intern doing his website.</comment>


Modernity's Spell - <AUTHOR> https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/modernitys-spell <comment><USER2> "With subjects selected for their predisposition to belief, mesmerist and subject constituted what Daniel O'Keefe, in Stolen Lightning: The Social Theory of Magic (1982), calls an "act-as-if group": a social interaction that temporarily redraws the accepted borders of reality by mutual agreement"

The idea of an "act as if" group is incredibly powerful and applies to a number social situations outside of magic.

One example: dysfunctional or abusive family systems are able to maintain homeostasis and propagate across generations because (and only as long as) every member acts as if all the crazy stuff is okay. Also happens in a dysfunctional 1-on-1 relationship. The redrawing of borders on accepted reality happens implicitly - you learn by experience what is "real" within this group based on feedback. See also cults, which are closely related to abusive family systems.

Other examples: the reality distortion field of charismatic leaders, Silicon Valley hype cycles, many dynamics in the field of mental health.

The effect isn't always negative. On the one hand, group psychology is so powerful that it often causes individuals to throw critical thinking out the window. On the other hand, you need some level of reshaping shared reality for things like the civil rights movement to succeed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hadn't heard of this outlet before - quite an interesting article, but the conclusion started to get more than a bit esoteric. Looking through the chain of funding, we find that the funders are

> [https://eppc.org/about/](https://eppc.org/about/)

> Founded in 1976 by Dr. Ernest W. Lefever, the Ethics and Public Policy > Center is Washington, D.C.'s premier institute dedicated to applying the > Judeo-Christian moral tradition to critical issues of public policy. From > the Cold War to the war on terrorism, from disputes over the role of > religion in public life to battles over the nature of the family, EPPC and > its scholars have consistently sought to defend and promote our nation's > founding principles—respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, > individual freedom and responsibility, justice, the rule of law, and limited > government.

One of the key projects of some of the "traditionalists" is to tear down the Enlightenment and modernity/post-modernity itself - which, interestingly, coheres with the conclusion quite well; it's clear why the outlet published this article.

The history of mesmerism is interesting.

<comment><USER4> Indeed.

I'm not sure if the author chose not to underline the Obvious Deeper Meaning or was simply ironically unaware of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I always got a kick out of the way an 18th century charlatan's name made it's way into the fantasy role playing settings of games like Everquest and Dark Age of Camelot, in the form of "mesmerization" spells.

<comment><USER6> It's in D&D as well.

<comment><USER5> Yeah no doubt that is why it is even in those later CRPGs, as they inherited a great deal from D&D and MUDs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I see your meta-placebo effect, and raise it to the next level :

"Schiltz is a psi believer whose staring experiments had consistently supported the presence of a psychic phenomenon. Wiseman, in accordance with nominative determinism is a psi skeptic whose staring experiments keep showing nothing and disproving psi. Since they were apparently the only two people in all of parapsychology with a smidgen of curiosity or rationalist virtue, they decided to team up and figure out why they kept getting such different results.

The idea was to plan an experiment together, with both of them agreeing on every single tiny detail. They would then go to a laboratory and set it up, again both keeping close eyes on one another. Finally, they would conduct the experiment in a series of different batches. Half the batches (randomly assigned) would be conducted by Dr. Schlitz, the other half by Dr. Wiseman. Because the two authors had very carefully standardized the setting, apparatus and procedure beforehand, "conducted by" pretty much just meant greeting the participants, giving the experimental instructions, and doing the staring.

The results? Schlitz's trials found strong evidence of psychic powers, Wiseman's trials found no evidence whatsoever.

Take a second to reflect on how this makes no sense. Two experimenters in the same laboratory, using the same apparatus, having no contact with the subjects except to introduce themselves and flip a few switches – and whether one or the other was there that day completely altered the result. For a good time, watch the gymnastics they have to do to in the paper to make this sound sufficiently sensical to even get published. This is the only journal article I've ever read where, in the part of the Discussion section where you're supposed to propose possible reasons for your findings, both authors suggest maybe their co-author hacked into the computer and altered the results."

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group- is-o...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/04/28/the-control-group-is-out-of- control/)

<comment><USER8> We can go deeper :

"Then there's Munder (2013), which is a meta-meta-analysis on whether meta- analyses of confounding by researcher allegiance effect were themselves meta- confounded by meta-researcher allegiance effect. He found that indeed, meta- researchers who believed in researcher allegiance effect were more likely to turn up positive results in their studies of researcher allegiance effect (p < .002)."</comment></comment>


U.S. May Face 18 Months of Rolling Shutdowns - <AUTHOR> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/feds-kashkari-says-us-may-face-18-months-of-rolling-shutdowns/ar-BB12wqGD <comment><USER2> There was never any intent for the mass house-arrests to be temporary.

This was always intended to be a permanent consolidation of power.

That's why they are destroying the food supply -- to create dependency.

If your only choices are obey or starve, you'll obey.

Besides, deprive you of sufficient protein, along with banning exercise, and everybody will weaken.

Frail people are easily controlled.

<comment><USER3> You've presented a false dichotomy.

The majority of the French population in the late 1700s was starving.

Their choice were not simply "obey or starve".

Those in long-term power want stability and predictability. This makes it easier to consolidate power (eg, Picketty's r > g).

Instability, including pandemics and long-term economic crashes, has a tendency to break down centralized power. There's a reason American elites during the 1930s were so afraid of socialism and communism that Roosevelt was able to get his New Deal. (And don't be strawmanning me - yes, it can also strengthen central power. I said "tendency.")

If everyone weakens, then the US military weakens. Our soldiers are weaker, and our economy can't maintain the might needed to sustain America's global economic imperialism.</comment></comment>


After September 18th, you'll no longer be able to send messages on YouTube - <AUTHOR> https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6401227?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en <comment><USER2> This is sad. As someone who loves browsing the "hidden" side of YT where videos and channels with sub 3 and 4 digit viewcount lurk and discovering weird obscure content, this feature was a godsend. I have been able to contact users that otherwise leave absolutely no contact info on their pages to ask them about certain content they have uploaded on multiple occasions.

I really dislike how stuff like twitter and Instagram have become the standard form of reaching anyone, as I have neither and your messages can very easily become ignored due to the very nature of how these two social networks operate.

<comment><USER3> This is the equivalent of Nintendo disabling profile pictures because of people abusing it with penis pictures.

<comment><USER4> Not really? 1) you can still have profile pictures from a limited though large set of their IP plus highly custom Mii and 2) the expected user bases and interaction methods between platforms is not at all comparable.

<comment><USER5> > 2) the expected user bases and interaction methods between platforms is not > at all comparable.

Exactly. Pictures visible through normal use are not the same as an inbox you have to go out of your way to read.

At the very least, the sensibe thing is to make messages opt-in or whitelist only. Removing the feature to prevent harassment seems like a scapegoat. I wonder if this was being utilized as an illegal communications channel and YT\alphabet is worried about legal exposure

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Sad. They simply should give content producers the option of whether they want to receive messages or not. (Similar to how you can turn comments on or off). This way, individuals who received "targeted harassment" could be free of it, and other individuals who don't have this problem, or are more thick-skinned or tolerant, can receive messages. (One complaint in a recent lawsuit against YouTube is that Google allow users to "harass" content creators. See [https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/lgbtq-youtube- lawsuit-...](https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/lgbtq-youtube- lawsuit-1203302184/) ). I'm sympathetic to their concerns, and turning off the ability to write messages or contact is one solution. There are already some controls available.

I've used these messages quite a bit to contact people with similar "niche" interests (restoring old electronic equipment from WWII era through the 60s) and it's very useful.

<comment><USER7> That's impossible to do. A feature like that would be fairly simple to implement, and would make sense, so it can't be done by Google. Google products always have to have some kind of glaring missing feature.

An example I found not long ago is with Google Photos. If you create an album, you can offer to share that album with other people, through their Google account, their phone number, their email, etc. If they accept the invitation, it notifies you and their little circle darkens. If not, it stays light, and still stays in your list of people you've shared with. There's no way to actually remove these unused invites, and these people just stick around as "ghosts" forever. The only way to clean this mess up, according to Google, is to turn off all sharing of your album, and then re-share with everyone you want to share it with, so they all have to re-accept the share invitation (and you have to manually enter in every email address, phone number, etc. again). There's no way to just remove one of these "ghosts", even though you'd think this is a very basic admin task. There's forums where people have complained about this for years, and there is a Google person on there who just complains about people using the forum for complaining like this instead of filing an "official" feature request (which as we all know never goes anywhere), even though this Google person could very well do this herself instead of complaining about all the complaints.

<comment><USER8> Compelling take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> TIL you could send messages on YouTube

<comment><USER10> TIL = Today I Learned... Had to Google that...

<comment><USER11> Good illustration of TIL by the way.

"TIL Today I Learned"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Google continues the war against its own users", as someone will write about this article.

<comment><USER13> Probably in Comic Sans, too.

<comment><USER14> I think you were downvoted by people that didn't get the reference, cheers for the reminder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This was actually a pretty well-used feature back around ~2010. The problem was that it was hidden away more and more every time the site was redesigned, so its discoverability (and presumably use) basically dropped to zero over time.

<comment><USER16> I assumed it had already been quietly dropped, rather than just effectively hidden. It would be interesting to see how much use it actually gets these days.

<comment><USER17> Yep. They dropped it a long long time ago and re-introduced this in 2017(?) as a different feature.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Weird. YouTube had a messaging feature?

<comment> yoz-y I work for YouTube and I did not know this was possible -_-; Or maybe I knew and forgot.

<comment><USER19> Just reintroduce the feature a few years later when everyone forgets. You'll get a promotion from what I hear.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's so funny seeing Zawinski's Law hold up after all this time (replacing "email" with "messaging"), and Google again fighting it.

I wish the culture of SaaS development would move away from this try-to-do- everything mentality that always leads to anciliary features being modified or removed, and instead focus on honing their core offering. No user cheers a feature going away -- either they're ambivalent about it or annoyed for having to switch away.

</comment><comment><USER21> How come the orangered envelope is cherished on reddit, but youtube discontinues the same feature? Has google entirely given up on getting a social network?

Google seems to constantly create new messenger apps. Why would they discontinue the one that could be used to turn youtube into a real social network? Instead of hiding the feature, they should enhance it and make it usable, i.e. make it easy to block harassment. Then they can offer an optional! integration with their other messenger apps which would allow them to compete with facebook.

<comment><USER22> I also don't understand this, just like the decision to remove certain features over time.

Used to be that YouTube had the option to translate comments from another language, with a button right next to the comment, even before Twitter was doing it.

While not perfect, the translations were usually still good enough to get what people were writing and at times even good enough to have conversations across language borders.

I really used to enjoy that part of YouTube, until the Google+ integration completely removed that option [0]. Sure, now I could just have the browser translate the whole website to read comments, but that always feels super weird and like way more effort than just pressing a simple button right next to a comment.

[0] [https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/100528/where- did...](https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/100528/where-did-the- youtube-comment-translate-button-go)

<comment><USER23> Because in the current data-snowflake regulatory and legislative climate, it's too tough to get away with monetising content sent in a 'private' context. Googles business model relies on being able to index and advertise to every phrase you post, but I'm sure they don't want to run into the same issues fb has, because fb posts have an expectation of privacy. Hence google has no interest in providing a private messaging platform.

<comment><USER24> And yet they provide a private messaging platform on their mobile OS and online. Chat will be replacing hangouts, it's where the devs from Allo went to and supports things like RCS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> They offer no motivation for the change.

Are they trying to make it harder to weaponize nasty content?

Or do they just want to save a few bucks by stopping maintenance on a feature?

</comment><comment><USER26> I don't imagine the average consumer would ever notice but I wonder how much it is used by youtubers to arrange collaboration between different channels in similar spaces. At least as a way of establishing initial contact.

It would be a shame to see collaboration between channels drop as that, in my opinion, is one of the best parts of the medium.

</comment><comment><USER27> Google services needs a Mean Time Before Finish indicator.

</comment><comment><USER28> One step further to being "alone together".

</comment><comment><USER29> Yet another feature being removed that noone ever remembers using.

<comment><USER30> Sounds good, right? Why "yet"?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> You'd think they'd simply migrate to one of their other redundant chat products!

But no, I suppose just killing the feature with no meaningful replacement strategy is the new GOOGLE WAY™. I can't wait to invest all my money in a library of Stadia games that will surely last forever. /s

<comment><USER32> > You'd think they'd simply migrate to one of their other redundant chat > products!

Too risky. They are probably going to deprecate those for another chat product in 6 months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Funny. NoScript blocks this link as XSS.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does anyone have insights or ideas about why this change is being made?

</comment><comment><USER35> Step 6 seems to be misspelled: 'Select "Creative archive".'

</comment><comment><USER36> Is it my imagination or is Google devoid of the ability to integrate it's different "products"?

</comment><comment><USER37> Damnit, how will I ever communicate with all my peeps from the tube of you.

</comment><comment><USER38> Kinda wish they would disable comments. Those tend to bring out sides of humanity that rarely show off any benevolence.

<comment><USER39> What kind of videos are you watching with toxic comments? I never see them in the topics I watch, only relevant or helpful ones.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How should a security company measure KPI? - <AUTHOR> The product that I want to make and sell is a network security device. I am finding it hard to determine how much value it provides to my potential users. It could easily save them from having their identity stolen which would in theory save them a lot of money. But I don't know how to translate that into a KPI.
So I'm trying to look at this from other angles. How do related businesses measure KPI.
For example, what about companies that manufacture locks. What about companies that manufacture safes. What about back when companies used to sell antivirus software. How would a company like that measure KPI? <comment><USER2> [https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles- Busi...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Intangibles-Business- ebook/dp/B00INUYS2U)

[https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Cybersecurity- Ri...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Measure-Anything-Cybersecurity-Risk- dp-1119085292/dp/1119085292/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=)

</comment><comment><USER3> 99% of companies should be using revenue as their primary metric.

[https://youtu.be/lL6GdUHIBsM](https://youtu.be/lL6GdUHIBsM) (Startup School lecture about KPIs)</comment>


Amazon Releases AWS Toolkit for Eclipse - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/eclipse/

<comment><USER2> I just watched the video. Here's my summary:

1\. Within Eclipse, you can do a subset of the stuff that ElasticFox does.

2\. It can N instances of a Tomcat AMI along with an instance of a load balancer AMI automagically.

3\. It can deploy a war file to all N instances simultaneously.

4\. It can set-up remote debugging on all N instances so you don't have to worry about which machine the load balancer sent you to.

For me, I would find it convenient to have ElasticFox-like features inside Eclipse, but it's not a huge benefit. The "bring up lots of instances" stuff is nice, but most corporate operations groups would prefer to script such things rather than have ops people clicking buttons. And, the cases where I would want to debug in a cluster are rather limited -- cross machine concurrency issues (distributed cache invalidation/replication, session replication, etc.).

</comment><comment><USER3> Rockstarapps.com also provides a general set of Eclipse-based tools. You can configure S3, CloudFront, SimpleDB and Simple Queuing Service, little I mean no EC2 support.

There isn't a basis towards any one language just trying to make it simple to work with AWS in eclipse.

[http://www.rockstarapps.com/joomla-1.5.8/products/amazon- ws-...](http://www.rockstarapps.com/joomla-1.5.8/products/amazon-ws- tools.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> Sadly, it seems Java specific :(

<comment><USER2> You can still do ElasticFox-ish stuff. Worse than just being Java specific, it's Tomcat specific. However, I have no doubt that Amazon is just trying to get something out there for feedback.</comment></comment>


Share HN: First real-world use of my iPad app for speech disabled users - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4HfQRmBxAw

<comment><AUTHOR> Almost 3 years ago I shared a small web-app on HN <http://hackerne.ws/item?id=715265> and got a lot of positive feedback. While I couldn't do anything right away (especially due to my cousin's health), I knew what my long-term mission was. Mid-2010 I quit my job and started working on KType <http://ktype.net>. After 18 months of research, learning, and coding, tonight was the first real-world test of the app and I couldn't be happier at the result. My cousin was very happy to finally 'say' something on his own and so were his parents.

I have no idea if my app will be financially successful or not but I just wanted to share this happy bit of news with HN because you guys were the ones who encouraged me to go this route. Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice. I'm glad to see this get some real world use. You need to get this in front of some advocacy groups.

<comment><USER3> I agree and I'm glad as well - I think it'll be really beneficial to those who have difficulty interacting and communicating with regular input devices. More people should see this!</comment></comment>


Dollars to Documentation - Donate to help document Rails - <AUTHOR> http://ryanbigg.com/2010/11/dollars-to-documentation/

<comment><USER2> Ask 37signals if they will sponsor it?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Direct link to pledgie: <http://pledgie.com/campaigns/14034>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an awesome way to show your support of open source software. I hope to see lots of donations to this!</comment>


Global greenhouse gas emissions by sector - <AUTHOR> https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector <comment><USER2> The only surprise here is that there have been no significant changes to these proportions in decades.

Correction: changes will come after sufficient people are _surprised by the consequences_.

<comment><USER3> These proportions should change a lot in the coming decades, between wind/solar/storage and EV revolutions addressing about 2/3 of the "energy generation" part, at least.

As for food, the major potential revolutions are vertical farming and "lab meat", and those are very far from large scale implementation.

<comment><USER2> That may be. I have no idea how many solar panels it takes to power the manufacture of a solar panel.

<comment><USER4> Solar EROEI (energy returned on energy invested) is very good. As the grid gets cleaner, solar manufacturing gets cleaner as well (solar, wind, hydro pushing out coal and natural gas)

[https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay- eas...](https://cleantechnica.com/2018/02/03/solar-power-can-pay-easily/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wonderful pie graph.

It's interesting to see that although roads & transport are the largest single emitter, iron and steel production is actually within the same ballpark. I wonder if the figures are correct because that is truly an enormous amount of emissions from just iron and steel processing from ore, equivalent to ~2/3 of all road transport!

<comment><USER3> Can those power requirements be done via electrical power/green energy? As a LFTR fan I look for some role for nuclear in the mix of power generation, which just doesn't compete with the plummeting costs for solar/wind.

I thought aluminum smelting was even worse than steel.

<comment><USER5> The actual electrical consumption component is probably small relative to the emissions from the actual processing, if the numbers are at all correct. Even aluminum smelters, which do use more electricity, don't use that much.

LFTRs are interesting though the proliferation risk probably makes it more of a political problem.

<comment><USER3> I thought LFTR breeding only produced isotopes that couldn't be used for weapons, (U-232 breeding I think), has that changed?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bayesian inference and forecast of Covid-19 in Germany by a Max-Planck-Institute - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Priesemann-Group/covid19_inference_forecast/blob/master/README.md <comment><USER2> I am puzzled by the paper of this groups [1]. The only evidence they present for "change points in the COVID spreading rate" is slightly better fit of the number of daily reported cases. In this repository for "Scenario assuming three change points with a weekly modulation of reported cases" they use 16 parameters to fit a smooth line (wavy pattern is because of lower case reports around the weekend). An elephant needs 8 [2]!. I also asked for clarification on stats.stackexchange [3].

[1] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abb9789](http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.abb9789)

[2] [http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3254017](http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3254017)

[3] [https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/467920/286008](https://stats.stackexchange.com/q/467920/286008)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This repo is maintained the Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation (dynamics and self-organization). The preprint is available here: [https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.01105](https://arxiv.org/abs/2004.01105)

<comment><AUTHOR> An interview with the leader of this group is available here: [https://youtube.com/watch?v=nI2_AFzE_ek](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nI2_AFzE_ek)</comment></comment>


FreeBSD Foundation's Year-End Fundraising Campaign - <AUTHOR> http://freebsdfoundation.blogspot.com/2013/11/freebsd-foundations-year-end.html

<comment><USER2> The Foundation also sponsored work on unmapped block I/O which significantly improves performance on certain workloads, Intel VT-d (IOMMU) support, Capsicum sandboxing infrastructure, multi-threaded pagedaemon, UEFI infrastructure, and an update to the toolchain that produces FreeBSD documentation.</comment>


Visa is planning the biggest changes to merchant fees in a decade - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-04/visa-is-planning-the-biggest-changes-to-swipe-fees-in-a-decade <comment><USER2> Meanwhile in EU the interchange fee is 0.3% on credit and 0.2% on debit cards: [https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PD...](https://www.visa.co.uk/dam/VCOM/regional/ve/unitedkingdom/PDF/fees- and-interchange/Intra-Europe-EEA-December-2019.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Still ridiculous, considering it's just updating balances in a few rows of a database.

Cryptocurrencies, except BTC and a couple of others, are doing it right. A transfer should cost a fraction of a cent.

<comment><USER4> I'm out of the loop on this stuff, but are others doing things to prevent the situation Bitcoin had a couple years ago, when it hit $37 per transaction?

That seemed to happen due to a massive price and volume increase, so is hard to design for. At the same time, at peak, it was still doing a tiny fraction of the volume that any of the credit card networks do.

<comment><USER5> Blockchain scaling is still a very active area of research, and anyone (like GP) telling you there's a battle-tested solution available today to replace Visa is lying to you.

On the precise issue of transaction cost predictability, I think most solutions would revolve around creating a market for the ability to execute future transactions. There's a hackish project on Ethereum doing just that: [https://gastoken.io/](https://gastoken.io/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm really surprised that the major credit card companies are not jumping into the mobile payment arena(similar to WeChat and Alipay). I think this is the future of consumer transactions.

I spent three months in China, and had 1 opportunity to use my credit card: booking a flight home. Everywhere else, I was out of luck. That forced me to use WeChat wallet and Alipay, and I got to say that the experience was really good. There's so little friction to spending money and can be used for basically everything in China.

It must be way lower fees for everyone involved as well. I only need to do a single bank transaction for the month(loading my wallet) and then after that it's just swapping credits. Perhaps that's why cc companies are reluctant.

<comment><USER7> I was under the assumption WeChat and Alipay use in China for payments were restricted to those with PRC national ID cards (i.e., not foreigners).

<comment><USER6> I think it was in the beginning, and its certainly easier to set up for Chinese citizens. The big hurdle is you needed a Chinese bank account. Alipay now has a Tourpass which is specifically made for foreigners.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > For banks, the $91.2 billion in fees they earn on credit-card portfolios is > now more than the interest they charge on the loans

That really surprises me, given how high CC interest rates are and how many people carry a balance.

<comment><USER9> That was surprising to me as well. Then again, if there is a per transaction fee multiplied by the amount of credit card transactions per day, I could see where those add up quick. A cursory search online stated over 100 billion transactions annually. So I could see where the fees are making more money than interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A lot of folks don't know that merchants pay more for CNP transactions. Why? Well it's simple, there is no alternative to cards for an online transaction, the issuers have power. people think it's due to fraud... there is a lot more fraud with CNP transactions but not nearly enough to account for the 60 bp difference in rates.

<comment><USER11> > A lot of folks don't know that merchants pay more for CNP transactions. Why? > Well it's simple, there is no alternative to cards for an online > transaction, the issuers have power.

That may be true in many countries, but in India, there are cardless (non- credit/non-debit card) online payments available that are used a lot more than card based payments and are all instantaneous (similar to cards):

* Netbanking (where you're redirected to your bank's site and login to approve a specific payment)

* UPI (Unified Payment Interface), a private consortium [1] managed payment system where anyone can create a user@paymentprovider ID and exchange that as the receiver address instead of complex bank account numbers, branch details, etc. This also allows payment requests from merchants that one can login and approve.

* IMPS (Immediate Payment System), another service by the same private consortium. [1]

* Rupay cards, a local payment network (now recognized in a few other countries) by the same private consortium [1] that's a replacement for Mastercard/Visa/Amex networks.

* Digital wallets by payment providers and "payment banks" that work like wallets and/or allow direct transfers from one's linked bank account, like Paytm, Amazon Pay, Amazon Pay UPI, Google Pay, PhonePe, and many, many more.

* Bank transfers that may take an hour or several minutes, as opposed to the instantaneous ones above, with systems like NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer, a batched inter-bank payments settlement system) and RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement, a real time inter-bank settlement system).

Though digital payments are still not huge in percentage terms, the ones above likely handle a lot more volume than Visa and Mastercard do. The government has also pushed for zero MDR (Merchant Discount Rate) on certain payment and transfer options, and made them more attractive to merchants.

The U.S. is comparatively very backward in payment systems, costs and payment speeds.

[1]: The private consortium is called NPCI, which stands for National Payments Corporation of India.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The TL;DR I got from this article:

* Fees will go up for card not present transactions (online and phone) and fall a bit for card present transactions.

* Overall, Visa is increasing fees to make more money than before since there aren't any other details provided.

My take is that if Mastercard plays it right, this is a good time to capture a higher market share at Visa's expense (though it wouldn't come anywhere close to toppling Visa's lead).

<comment><USER12> I have yet to see a merchant not accept Visa and accept Mastercard. I'm betting all the networks will increase their fees to raise revenue.

<comment><USER13> Kroger did that very thing last year it was messy.

<comment><USER14> And the published fees for large supermarkets are going down. Probably because they have the leverage and could even shape consumer behavior by making them used to some alternative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Less than a month has passed since Visa acquired Plaid[1] and now we know the reason for that $5.3B price tag.

[1] [https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/13/visa-is-acquiring-plaid- fo...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/13/visa-is-acquiring-plaid- for-5-3-billion-2x-its-final-private-valuation/)

</comment><comment><USER16> In case of paywall:

* [https://outline.com/P2kyXX](https://outline.com/P2kyXX)

</comment><comment><USER17> Pay later companies have started disrupting this space over the last few yrs

<comment><USER18> The Swedish company Klarna is a good example. It's now so common among Swedish consumers to have a Klarna account that it's probably the most frictionless way for customers to pay online.

I have a colleague who worked there like five years ago. She bought as much stock as she could. Once it IPO or gets acquired I suspect she'll get a hefty contribution to her retirement.

<comment><USER19> It's a shame we don't yet have a European-wide equivalent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > persuade more people to abandon checks

What's the problem with US payment system? People still use checks?

I have seen those only in movies. I think they were out in the 80s in Finland.

<comment><USER21> We have "rewards" on our credit cards. Rewards aren't free, so they increase the fees.

>For banks, the $91.2 billion in fees they earn on credit-card portfolios is now more than the interest they charge on the loans.

The fees are ridiculous. Profit margins at restaurants are often 3-5% (per Google). There is still a cost to handling cash, but if cash cost ~1% all-in, their profits would go up 20-30%, just like that, assuming consumption stayed the same.

Fast food venues didn't accept credit cards for a long time, but eventually found people spent more paying with a card than cash. A $300 TV and a $5 hamburger "feel" exactly the same with cards, which certainly doesn't help consumerism in the US.

As an example, when I pay my property taxes, I can either pay by sending a check in the mail, doing an electronic check (ACH transfer that takes 2-3 business days to clear) and paying $0.25, or pay a 2% transaction fee. Stamps are $0.50, eventually I'll need to reorder checks (at a cost), so I do the ACH transfer.

<comment><USER22> I've been all in on using my banks bill pay system for a number of years now for property tax / water bill / etc. Stamps & check books cost money, but scheduling someone else to cut the check, stamp and envelope it, and stick it in the mail on a certain date is free. It boggles the mind.

<comment><USER23> Your bank's bill pay involves someone sending a physical check?

In Canada, we have "bill pay" for utility, property tax, credit card, etc. but all that happens is your bank transfers money to the biller's account. The biller pays a bit for this service but evidently much less than the cost of handling physical checks as I've never seen a surcharge for it. Even the small town of 3,000 I live in is set up to receive property tax and water payments through this system.

<comment><USER24> In the early 2010s I worked for Fiserv, who at the time provided "online bill pay" services to about 80% of US banks (I don't recall if they're in Canada or not). The overwhelming majority of the bank customers using that service held beliefs similar to what you expressed... it's an online payment through my bank, why on earth would it be a paper check?? They were wrong. The really fun thing about that system was that the customer had absolutely no way to tell what kind of payment the system was going to send to a given payee. A payment that processed electronically for years could suddenly go as a physical check for any number of reasons. Maybe the customer changed something that was slightly incorrect... maybe they should have changed something but didn't... maybe the system just had a hiccup that day.

Regardless of who makes your bill pay service or exactly how it works, my main advice if you use any bill pay service is to ready the fine print very closely and be sure you understand what you have to do to be covered (late fee reimbursement, etc) if a payment does get screwed up.

<comment><USER25> Don't read the fine print, it's always bad ("we'll charge a fee if we want") and you can't avoid it (no free market for competitors) and knowing it only increases your risk liability.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Are there any alternatives to Visa and MasterCard?

It's 2020, I'd love to be able to pay for a transaction using a secret key to sign an authorization proving I was there.

Instead, credit card companies force us plain text numbers and somehow blame us when it gets stolen.

<comment><USER27> Isn't that what a chip does, which basically all modern credit cards have in the US now?

And all my major credit cards also allow me to generate one-time use numbers to use online, which I need to sign in to generate using 2FA.

Finally, I've never been "blamed" for fraudalent transactions. They've happened but I've never had to pay, nor do I know anybody who has.

So really not sure what you're upset about?

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Revolut have free transfers between two users: [https://www.revolut.com/legal/fees](https://www.revolut.com/legal/fees)

<comment><USER29> Most major banks in the US participate in Zelle, which enables free money transfers between consumer bank accounts. You can even setup unique Zelle users for your accounts at different financial institutions, so you can transfer your own funds between accounts at different financial institutions instantly and at no cost.

<comment><USER30> You're limited to $3000/day with Zelle and forced to use the much slower ACH or otherwise pay ~$25 for a wire transfer.

<comment><USER29> For transactions over those limits, you can break the payments up over several days. Wires are infrequent enough to disregard the fee (real estate transactions or similar).

I don't know many folks moving more than $3k/day to be honest. I don't disagree though that Fed ACH modernization efforts need to pick up the pace, as Zelle is a shim until federal payment infra is up to par with Europe.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DIY flat panel speakers for 30$ - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdkyGDqU7xA <comment><AUTHOR> There's a continuation on the series, with SPL graphs and new materials: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKIye4RZ-5k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKIye4RZ-5k)</comment>


Playing video games can improve our lives - <AUTHOR> http://techu4ria.com/scientific-studies-show-why-everyone-should-play-video-games/ <comment><USER3> It'd be great to have the original papers. Here we have an article that mention other articles that mention other articles that sometimes give a reference for the original paper.

<comment><AUTHOR> Unfortunately it's much more interesting to source more popular websites than the actual original studies that nobody cares to read unless it's for academic purposes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a darker side to video games that people don't take into account.

As per the article, games are highly stimulating. For children and even adults (me in particular), time slips away and 12 or more hours have been spent playing games. This is especially pronounced with ADHD.

No matter how much good video games do for the brain, 12 hours remained fixed in front of a console or PC is not healthy. There have been cases of DVT due to bad sitting positions and maybe 4 hours spent on a game.

The other issue is that, if you are prone to hyper focus, you ignore your responsibilities, including using the toilet or eating. For so e people, games ARE that captivating.

As a funny but also quite sad story, my fiancée bought a second hand PS3, which I protested. Each successive weekend, I spent around 24 hours each completing game after game. She wasn't pleased. Mainly because I ignored her, contributing absolutely nothing to household chores, and partly because she was excited to play the games.

A good deal is that I can play games if I want to once the kids are in bed. I have Half Life 2 half completed, which is a bloody captivating game. I do, however, try to focus on other highly stimulating activities that don't entrance me for large blocks of time.

As a side-note, programming has a similar effect. I'd argue that was far more productive. This actually led on directly from gaming so I can't complain much.

EDIT: my autocorrect seems to be on a rampage lately. This one takes the biscuit though: "using the toilet of eating".

<comment><USER5> Having played lots of strategic and competitive games in the course of my life, I definitely spent a lot of time on it, and also experienced everything you said and more.

Nowadays, in order to keep my focus on more productive tasks, I tend to force myself not to play, and also not to start playing any new game, because once I get started, it is hard to stop.

Although the compulsiveness level might vary largely between individuals, I believe that this kind of compulsive behavior is specially true among MMO players. The social factor that MMOs bring is just too addictive, even for the least competitive and compulsive person.

I have to say that games brought a lot of good things to my life, such as starting me in programming, friends, a lot of brain activity, great moments and raw fun, but there is a dark side, yes there is, and sometimes I wonder if it is worth it. It might depend on the situation of the individual.

<comment><USER4> Exactly this. My poison in my teenage years was a small MMO with it's own development platform. Developing content for it became part of the game. I learned the basics of pixel art, good level design, story development and, of course, scripting from this game. It became an easel.

It's interesting that I too have shifted to strategy game as I've got older. HL2 is just a nostalgia thing, I'm not partial to shooters. My biggest problem games are Europa Universalis IV and Crusader Kings 2 (now that I use Linux) and used to be Civ5 and Vic2 on OS X. With EU4, I got so into it I probably spent half the time watching DDRJake (who us totally insane at EU4 - <USER2> vassalised OPM Athens and recreated Alexander the Great's empire).

Classics like AOE2 and Caesar 3 are a good past-time too.

With treatment for ADHD, I can certainly resist a lot easier. I'm now getting more urges to program and build things, which I seemed to have lost from my youth after work grinding me down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In my experience, there's a strong correlation between aptitude at video games and success. This is just my small, possibly skewed sample, but my closest friends I've met through playing WarCraft 3 as a teenager at a competitive level all became high-income, successful, happy people, usually in tech or finance.

I whole-heartedly believe playing video games early on helps nurture a strong competitive drive, discipline, and self-motivation. It probably depends on the game, too. I was playing Civilization II as a 9 year old, played strategy games like StarCraft and WarCraft competitively as a teenager, and eventually played online poker for a living. I don't know if simply playing Candy Crush would yield the same results.

<comment><USER7> I played competitive Starcraft and then Warcraft III with several friends. One still works as a cashier in a grocery store. One works in IT support. One works for the gov't as a bureaucrat.

I also played WoW with a lot of people. Out of ten people who I still keep in touch with, none did exceptionally well at making money.

All of these games were major addictions for me, and I'm kind of glad I'm out of that phase. If some of the people I played with spent as much time doing anything else as they played video games, they would have moved mountains.

But perhaps that is not the point. We had a lot of fun, and it was a very enjoyable time for everyone involved. And maybe that is the most important thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm bemused by the finding that playing video games makes one better at identifying blobs on a video screen.

</comment><comment><USER9> My journey into computing basically started with PC gaming. I wanted to be able to start my DOS games whenever I wanted, instead of relying on my mom to do it for me. I had to learn what the drive letters were, and how to start the various games. I eventually became totally enthralled with computers, not with games, but the nearly infinite number of settings, executables, easter eggs, etc. This continued through my adolescence, when I learned all about computers so I could build a good gaming PC with the meager funds that I had saved up.

I used this experience to open my own IT support business in high school, and later started with Ruby and Rails in college. I've been doing software development since 2008 now, and I think games helped out a lot, not even considering the cognitive changes.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'm not really sure how a scientific study would show that one /ought/ to do something like "play videogames".

Surely what they really mean is " playing videogames found to have some collection of benefits, by some measures"?

</comment><comment><USER11> Everything on the list of benefits for gaming also exist on the list of benefits for playing traditional sports. Sports also have quite a few benefits that games don't have, like increased bone density.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well said Pope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> except dark souls. dark souls rip your soul apart, tear down your reflexes and abolishes your mind. it's fun thoug.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah Dark Souls. Best therapy ever! : )</comment></comment>


Learning Rails made me a better designer - <AUTHOR> http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3451-learning-rails-made-me-a-better-designer

<comment><USER2> Here is the secret. Learning anything in proximity of design makes you a better designer.

That includes, math, psychology, architecture, any programming language, playing an instrument, composing music, playing computer games, writing blog posts and so on.

The trick is to look for where things are the same even if they seem unlrelated.

</comment><comment><USER3> Learning javascript made me a better designer. But what made me a better programmer wasn't years of programming but reading codinghorror end to end.</comment>


In Norway, everyone can know how much you earn [video] - open-source-ux https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bO8zEaSuWg <comment><USER2> Here in Oslo I was in a startup where we had a British CEO. He argued about me keeping my pay rise secret. I said there's no such thing. We all know what we earn. It's public.

He was shocked. Then next day decided to tell everyone it was a fireable offence to disclose your salary.

Which we then said. That the action of making it a fireable offence is actually illegal and a fireable offence.

(He quit a number of months later)

<comment><USER3> Norway is crazy but sweet.

Edit: In fact salaries used to be even more public, printed out and left in public for review.

<comment><USER4> What is it now? I'm guessing it's not on the web, which would be vastly more public than in printed form?

<comment><USER3> Yep, but now whoever you check will receive a notice about who checked their salary.

So basically nobody does anymore which is a shame in some ways.

OTOH: Keeping everything wide open with no audit in the time of Internet and free access for East European criminals maybe wasn't the right way either. (E.g. you could plan a raid on rich old people based on electronically searchable archives.)

<comment><USER4> Ha. That just reminded me of how I'm on a Texas gov page titled "Sex Offender Registry Export" because I once requested their sex offender database for academic research: [https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/App...](https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/SexOffender/PublicSite/Application/Export/History.aspx)

I don't mind since my name is so common, but I emailed the Texas agency that they should put a noindex tag to prevent the page from being used against people with less common names (you can register for the registry via what appears to be a system lacking verification).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It works like that here in Sweden as well.

Fun story: in my teenage years, when dating my high school sweetheart, I went to visit her grandparents house for the first time.

Arriving at their house, the grandmother quickly pulls out her Taxeringskalender (taxation calendar - a paperback where a company has collected all this public information, and they sell it as a handy book). She begins to look up my surname and tells me how much my parents earn.

After having lived abroad (Japan, Germany and the UK) I've realized the Scandinavian system is weird at times, but they (or we) do their thing and everyone is kind of aiming at the same goal in society. Extreme transparency, and many striving for equality above all.

<comment><USER6> This doesn't sound like a fun story at all, actually. I honestly don't see what kind of good could come from disclosing tax returns publicly..

<comment><USER7> Reduces gender discrimination; reduces race discrimination; reduces income inequality; allows employees to make sure they are being paid fairly for their skills; reduces tax evasion; increases trust in the system.

No doubt there are more that don't come to mind immediately.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure it reduces race discrimination in Sweden. It's not as blatantly in your face, but it still affects people greatly.

<comment><USER7> Reduces, not eliminates.

Presumably it is quite easy for employees to establish, for example, that all black employees at a company are poorly-paid compared to similar white employees. This makes redress possible. In the U.S. it is quite difficult to establish that, even if one has a strong suspicion that it is true, and so redress is rare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's the same in Finland. Tax rates are fairly easy to discover for anyone. And based off that you can get a very good idea of their earnings.

In practice I've never met or spoken to anyone who has gone out their way to do this. It's normally just the tabloids outing the salaries of politicians and celebrities once a year.

<comment><USER10> If I had access to such information, I would immediately try to figure out how much my colleagues and peers in other groups/companies are making. Knowing how much other people are making for similar job functions, gives you huge negotiating power in managing your career. It's a net win for all workers in society.

<comment><USER11> Have you considered the alternative approach of talking to people? A lot less creepy than cyber stalking their tax reports.

<comment><USER12> not reliable. a lot of my friends were saying they were earning much more than were really making. made me depressed for quit a while.

then I got a wonderful job as a data admin for an intelligence institution and for a few days when certain maintenance was due I had unlimited access to everyone's earning in my country. THE LIES!

I always have issues negotiating my wage so knowing what other people are earning would imprive my bargaining power.

<comment><USER13> Wow, THAT is creepy! Did you get fired?

<comment><USER12> nope, I faked them as tests and anyway there was no pressure about it. it was relaxed, never got a question about it.

my point is that for people with poor negotiating skills, like me, knowing how much other people make would have helped me when I was younger.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Italy did the same in 2008, publishing a list with 2005 tax returns info, causing public uproars. The list was then removed (and never been published again) after the Italian Data Protection Authority ruled it infringed citizens' privacy.

Needless to say, the data is still available through P2P networks: [https://torrentproject.se/?t=redditi+2005](https://torrentproject.se/?t=redditi+2005)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm sure that would be just peachy when the company you work for runs all its employees and notices that you reported more income than they are paying you. It was bad enough when I worked under a government grant so my salary was public. I prefer privacy.

<comment><USER16> When would that be the case? When you have another job on the side? How is that your employer's business?

<comment><USER17> Personally, (I'm less than 25) I make about 75% of my income from the company I work at, the other 25% doing odd jobs, websites, etc. That latter percentage is probably increasing every month too.

I can't imagine the company I work at being super excited I'm (for example) doing code reviews; or running a website. Technically, I don't have a clause in my contract forbidding me from doing external work, so long as I give the company 40 hours a week.

I know I am not alone. I know one co-worker makes about a half a million a year in an external business selling car parts. He just works at the company for fun essentially, since he is allowed to play with the entire companies system architecture.

<comment><USER4> Why do you feel justified in assuming what your company would think? And how do you justify working at such a place with the kind of corporate moral code that would punish employees for behavior not defined in the employment contract?

There are plenty of scenarios in which an employer believes that they deserve to know how their employee conducts themselves outside of work, including other jobs, and in those scenarios, this should be specified in the contract. In the news business, working for someone who might intersect with your beat, e.g. making phone calls for the local chapter of Democrats if you're covering politics, will often result in a severe reprimand if not firing. If you want to be a schoolteacher, you can be fired for having worked in porn, even if those days are over. [0]

[0] [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stacie-halas-fired-calif- teacher...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stacie-halas-fired-calif-teacher-with- porn-past-loses-appeal/)

<comment><USER18> > _" how do you justify working at such a place with the kind of corporate > moral code that would punish employees for behavior not defined in the > employment contract"_

I've worked for a few organisations where the contract has included clauses on exclusivity and IP assignment.

Each time I've asked for those clauses to be removed before joining them, and each time they've agreed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> You guys might be intererested in the Swedish site lexbase.se. They asked the courts for five years of records, cross-ran them with the population registration and presented the data using a search prompt taking a name or address as search terms.

This is normally illegal as it violates some integrity laws, but it is ok under current legislation if you have a "utgivningsbevis", something you need to register for to use your freedom of speech in published writing.

The site was poorly built and their full database was leaked nearly instantly.

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

</comment><comment><USER20> When I lived in Norway, I found this to be a pointless violation of my privacy. Still do.

<comment><USER21> Well, it's a different culture here in Scandinavia. Personally, I couldn't care less if anyone wanted to look up my salary - whether it is a recruiter or someone else. I have my own valuation of my time and skills and if a potential employer can't meet that, there's someone else who will.

Having this mindset will help sift out companies that you probably wouldn't want to work for in the first place.

<comment><USER22> But it reduces your ability to negotiate its also acts to keep the lower orders in their place as an atypical candidate my have started out at a lower salary and so be les likely to progress to the same level as some one born with a silver spoon in their mouth

<comment><USER21> It's easy to say that without looking at the countries we're talking about here. The nordic countries are the closest places on earth to "everyone born equally". We all have access to the same education and healthcare, whether our parents have money or not (since it is fully government-funded through taxes).

<comment><USER23> Not to mention the strength of unions and collective bargaining (maybe not in tech in particular though)

<comment><USER24> In a way, that goes both ways. In Norway, management is as likely to have a union as the employee. The factory my spouse works at, negotiations are usually done between the unions. A little over half the employees have a union, and from what I understand folks can choose their union. You might have a different work contract than the person standing next to you because of different unions or one having a lack of a union.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think it is important to note that you can only see the amount of tax payed, not the actual income. This obviously correlates with strongly with income, but there are a lot of factors that affect the amount of tax payed. Person A and B with the same income might pay a very different amount of taxes.

As others have also noted, if I wanted to learn the income of a fellow Norwegian, he would be notified that I had requested this info. This prevents a lot of snooping. I would suspect newspapers and magazines to be among those who request income information the most, and then typically they request information about the wealthiest and most powerful.

</comment><comment><USER26> Same thing in Iceland. There's a magazine published every year with salaries of notable persons divided by sector.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is even more interesting when companies do it. There are many startups these days that are pushing radical transparency and you actually know what everyone makes in the company.

I think this builds trust and frees people up from the anxiety of not knowing if they are getting screwed. The other thing is all high performing individuals in society, athletes, actors what have you, their salaries are know.

This isn't as radical as you might think and I think it has benefits for society.

<comment><USER22> Such as ?

<comment><USER28> Buffer: [https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at- buffer-...](https://open.buffer.com/introducing-open-salaries-at-buffer- including-our-transparent-formula-and-all-individual-salaries/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Coming from Sweden and being used to public tax records I was nevertheless a bit surprised at the transparency in Norway when anyone could look up anyone online anonymously. It made it extremely simple to for example create list of everyone at work or on your street (or use the data for any purpose). They later changed it in 2011 (?) such that the other person will get notified about who looked him/her up. I don't know if any other Nordic country went as far as Norway did during those years ?

There was an estimate that Norwegians spent around 250.000 work hours per year looking up each other in the tax databases.

There were also mobile apps being made when the databases were public that could for example show the richest people nearby.

<comment><USER30> It used to be that each year the reported income and paid tax was printed and placed in a public location (local post office etc). Then some braniac thought they could save some money by just putting it all online. End result was that scrapers were set up etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> That used to be the case in the Washington, DC area, back when almost everybody was a GS-graded government employee. There was a wallet card with the GS levels and number of years in grade, showing the salary levels. That told you what someone made.

</comment><comment><USER32> I'd say it's a bad thing: a lot of consumption is a result of people's desire to show off. When everyone knows who makes what anyway, trying to show off will be stupid, so that activity will stop - severely hitting consumption, business revenues, profits, and the economy in general, probably resulting in a vicious cycle as people's incomes will be hit by bad business.

Scandinavia may be exception from that because showing off isn't in their mentality anyway, so benefits (main of which is that more and more reliable information makes things better for economic agents) outweigh disadvantages. Not going to work well for most other countries.

</comment><comment><USER33> I must be naive but I thought this was public information in most countries.

<comment><USER18> Would you mind saying which country you live in?

I'm from the UK, where income/tax is private, and my understanding is that this is the same in the USA, and most European countries.

It's interesting that what's "normal" to me is so alien and unexpected to other people.

<comment><USER5> I think it's common in Scandinavia, and when moving out of the peninsula for the first time I was chocked that it wasn't like that for everyone. Now I feel queasy about having that data public.

<comment><USER34> I have the opposite experience, I moved to Scandinavia (Sweden), and this is still one of the weirder things to me. I like the ideas of transparency in general that are prevalent, but I don't see how publishing the tax returns of individual citizens working in the private sector contributes to transparency.

<comment><USER33> The transparency goes a long way in Sweden. You can call the tax office and say "I want this person and all his relatives' social security numbers, income statements, address history etc etc". They can't question it and you don't need any reason.

<comment><USER34> I still don't see how this is a boost to transparency. I tend to think of transparency in terms of the government being transparent, not me being able to get information on random people. How does society as a whole benefit when I can check my neighbor's income?

I'm also slightly uneasy with services like hitta.se, though I am not as paranoid as I used to be. It's possible to see the average income in some residential area as well. So if someone checks that, then checks the people living there individually, and notices that my income is significantly above average for the area, then my place is more attractive as a break-in target.

It would seem more sensible to me if that information were available given a legitimate need, such as planning to make a deal with some person.

<comment><USER33> Not saying anything about that. When I say "transparency" I mean it's public. Not putting any other value in the word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> They recently made a small change to this. Now you can see a list of people who have checked your income.

A lot of people stopped snooping after this change.

</comment><comment><USER36> Farmer's subsidies are also public knowledge in the EU and are routinely printed in papers. That lets you know appropriately their gross income. I can't see that happening for other sectors of society who benefit from government support.

</comment><comment><USER37> _The Law of Jante is the description of a pattern of group behaviour towards individuals within Scandinavian communities that negatively portrays and criticises individual success and achievement as unworthy and inappropriate. The Jante Law as a concept was created by the Dano-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose who, in his novel A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks (En flyktning krysser sitt spor, 1933, English translation published in the USA in 1936), identified the Law of Jante as ten rules. Sandemose 's novel portrays the small Danish town Jante (modelled upon his native town Nykøbing Mors as it was at the beginning of the 20th century, but typical of all small towns and communities), where nobody is anonymous._

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

</comment><comment><USER19> What? You cannot do this in every democratic country?

The government should be transparent, therefore everything the government bodies do that does not obviously need to be protected should be public.

<comment><USER38> For the government being transparent you have to know what the government collects. But for that it doesn't matter what a single person earns and pays.

This might be more relevant with corporate taxes (where authorities make deals to keep a company in one location), subsidiaries or donations to political parties (which aim for influence)

<comment><USER39> I think all public, private and corporate financial transactions, including cash transactions, should be public, with absolutely no expectation of privacy or avoidance through clever financial engineering or creative accounting.

Every single transaction. Ever. In the whole world. Recorded permanently.

It would be the fastest way to end political corruption. It would also shine some light on who the world's richest people really are, and how they make and spend their money.

<comment><USER38> This would also be the fastest way to end all privacy. What I read, what I eat and with who and also which medicine I take.

Transparency for political decisions is important as is privacy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Salaries for non profit workers are public in the USA

</comment><comment><USER41> Less laws please.

</comment><comment><USER42> I really wish that someone who is really opposed to salary-transparency would do a comprehensive pro- vs con- analysis of the issue, displaying that they truly understand all the arguments for. A lot of the opposition seems so glib and content with the status quo, showing very little charity to the idea, often based on very contrived scenarios, or on the failure of isolated one-off efforts (one factory switched, this happened...).

Yes, it's true, you lose some privacy and there's weird stalking scenarios that could occur. However, on a social level, the positive mass externalities seem huge:

\- Fundamentally hardcore pro-market: More information makes for better economic agents. Full stop.

\- Undermine the status arms-race to display wealth.

\- Immediate career education for all kids everywhere. No more "wow I didn't know x job paid y", it's all out there in the open.

\- Easier to negotiate against big entities like HR as a "little guy" because you have similar info to them (which they pay for).

\- Less race/sex/etc based discrimination.

\- Bosses cannot ask workers to tighten their belts without also tightening their own.

\- Allow people to tie vague concepts ("how are teachers valued by society?") to real, meaningful personal experiences ("George is a great teacher and making a pittance compared to Greg the salesman!")

I don't know. I'm totally into the idea. It seems like a thing that both hardcore free-market libertarians and left-wing people pining for the proletariat or w/e could both readily agree upon and promote together. The bulk of the opposition seems to be a fear of what could be done with the information, but the information is basically all out there already, in the hands of the people who already have a lot of power. Your boss drives a nicer car than you, and his boss an even nicer one. This would just let you actually do math with the numbers and calculate whether you want to shop around for jobs, rather than stay stuck with a vague impression.

<comment><USER43> " Easier to negotiate against big entities like HR as a "little guy" because you have similar info to them (which they pay for)."

This if upside down - in fact - it will reinforce class.

Do you know why your employer may ask in an interview: 'How much did you earn before'? Because they know if they offer you a little bit more than before, you'll probably take it - even if it's 'under market wages'.

Someone who earns very little can be held to that lower income, and there's also a social stigma to it: if you're a low-income earner - you will be judged as less valuable than high income earners.

People will judge the value of people by how much they earn - making it very difficult for working class people or students to move up.

Also - it's a deep transgression of human rights. Your finances are your private information, nobody should have the right to see them unless there is a case for 'public good' i.e. public officials etc.

Also - your idea of libertarian in this case is a little upside down - this is the _opposite_ of classical liberalism. It's massive government overreach. Classical liberals would be very weary of having the government interfere in one's private life.

By your logic - your bank account, your investments, land holdings etc. etc. could feasibly be public knowledge.

All of those supposed 'good things' are intangible - there's no evidence they will happen (or are good). It's classic socialist folly: a 'do gooder idea that really is just more state control.

I have no doubt that in some cases, income could be public information - <AUTHOR> example, state officials should have to publish certain kinds of information - especially stock ownership and business contracts so that we can ward off corruption.

But in general, we should be deferring to privacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> This is a serious transgression of privacy and human rights.

There is utterly no reason why most people should not most other people's income.

Unless they are public reps, or have government dealings - or there is some kind of 'public good' \- than this is basically an abuse of human rights.

Why not make people's bank account statements or health records public?

<comment><USER44> I don't see human rights coming down either side of the argument here. It's about what type of society you want to live in. Scandinavia tend to want to identify as a more social culture whereas others will want an individual based society.

I think the one word someone from the outside should take with them about Scandinavia is "relax". Most things like these matter less than you think.

<comment><USER43> Why don't you tell Chinese citizens who have government control their online behaviour 'for the purposes of social betterment' to 'relax'?

"Scandinavia tend to want to identify as a more social culture whereas others will want an individual based society."

Why do you speak for 100% of Scandinavians? How about the large portion of those who want nothing to do with this law? Shouldn't they be able to opt out? Let those who want to 'be social' (as you say it) publish their information online. The rest can have their basic rights to privacy protected.

While I agree that it's probably not a huge deal overall - it is definitely a issue of rights and privacy, and a fairly serious one.

<comment><USER44> We have something called democracy going on up north. We decide our laws by vote. So those that are on the losing side of an issue will just have to live with it until laws change. Similarly to how various restrictions apply to drugs in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Norway has zero transparency when it comes to children rights. Some governments (Slovak, Czech, Romania) recommend not to travel there with children.

EDIT: Some explanations.

\- In Norway social services (Barnevernet) can take children from family without any explanation.

\- Parents are under gag order, and can not talk about their case. Talking to press means you loose parental rights.

\- There is no appeal, proof, or any oversight.

\- Barnevernet does not release ANY details about cases. It is to protect children.

\- No details are released even if child is already dead (suicide) and does not need protection.

\- Bernevernet has zero oversight, it does not even allow foreign social workers to look into their materials.

\- People who work for Bernevernet can also work for private companies which provide child care (unique in Europe). So person who decides on child removal may have direct financial benefit from doing so.

\- Siblings are often split and placed far apart (8 hours drive).

\- Removed children must speak Norwegian, mother tongue is suppressed (siblings are split). Foster parents often do not have common language with children.

\- Relatives of children (grandparents, aunties, divorced parents) have zero chance to get custody.

\- Anonymous surveys (parents are under gag order) indicate there are thousands of such cases (Norway is very small country). Mostly immigrants.

<comment><USER46> Is this comment based on the single, recent case that has been severely misrepresented in religious circles?

<comment><USER45> There are a few thousands such cases, mostly in east-european countries. It is recommended not to bring your family to Norway, if you find job there.

<comment><USER47> What is this referring to?

<comment><USER45> Barnevernet, social services, child abduction.

<comment><USER47> That's not really helpful. For anyone to make sense of it you need to put in more details or references.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How toxic is your car exhaust? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/how_toxic_is_your_car_exhaust <comment><USER2> Duplicates [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15489187](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15489187) .</comment>


High Traffic Content Site - Who to sell to? - <AUTHOR>

If we have a high traffic content site, lets say alexa 2500. In the entertainment industry, making us  ad revenue in mid xxx,xxx a year, who can we potentially sell it to even for 3x yearly revenue? I want to cash out and get in on a new idea I have and use money from this sale. We are in Toronto, and our site is about Celeb/Movie etc, we can keep running it, but its becoming problematic. Should we approach say Cable companies? (Rogers, Shaw?) (CBS?) Just wondering how companies like Sidereel  or MetaCritic where able to sell themselves... <comment><USER2> Your valuation multiple (ie: 3x annual revs) is going to vary widely for a content site. @pitchups makes a good point about profits being used instead of revs, especially if you're buying a lot of traffic.

The reason multiples are low for content sites is that content needs to have a constant rate of production to maintain much/any revenue. Non-professional service businesses (like carpet cleaning, not like accounting) have the same issue & many sell for 0.5-1x annual revs. You won't be quite as bad off though, since you should have a much higher margin than a carpet cleaning biz.

Some things that might help you attract a higher multiple: membership site with frequent logins, high growth-rate (ie: you discovered the right niche or marketing), or advertiser contacts (like direct advertiser or agency buyers, instead of revs being run-of-site or AdSense).

If you don't have any of the above going for you, then you'll have a hard time finding 3x.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is it not a possibility for you to transistion out of actively running/managing the site and hand it off to someone else who will actively grow the site whilst maintaining the income and allowing you to follow your new idea?

This way you can make sure you get a decent price AND sell to the 'right buyer' rahter than just cashing out and potentially leaving your community in the lurch.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is what i am doing now, but as you know, if you are not doing anything yourself it will never be as you want it, and thus the site I guess is slowly declining and I am focusing on my new venture and thus can't keep coming back to this and actually need the funds as well.

<comment><USER4> What is the profitability of the site - say as % of revenue. Most buyers would want to pay a multiple (say ~12x) of the net profits. Also they would consider if it would be possible for them to run the site without your contribution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm curious, what's the site?

</comment><comment><USER6> Ad revenue in the "xxx,xxx" is small enough for Flippa, but big enough to get real attention there - take a shot, set a reserve and serious people will hit you up back channel and get a deal done if your #s are supported.

<comment><AUTHOR> sorry, flippa is garbage, have to get that out there.</comment></comment>