Private By Default - <AUTHOR> https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2012/12/02/HTTPS

<comment><USER2> If your site is much bigger than a personal blog, turning on SSL by default will cost you a a _fortune_. Your hosting bill will be virtually unchanged, but the CDN costs are ruinous.

Akamai charges about 10x as much for custom SSL service as for regular. Amazon Cloudfront just won't do custom SSL -- you have to use their domain and risk ugly browser warnings.

I don't know about other CDNs, but given the nature of the technology, I expect their cost structures to be similar. (over 40% of clients do not support SNI, so each custom SSL certificate requires a dedicated TCP port, which drives up costs for the CDN. Worse, a lot of clients will reject ports other than 443, forcing you to use a separate IP for each custom certificate.)

<comment><USER3> You could always use any CloudFlare paid account. They include SSL and you get all the security/CDN stuff as well: [http://blog.cloudflare.com/easiest-ssl- ever-now-included-aut...](http://blog.cloudflare.com/easiest-ssl-ever-now- included-automatically-w)

<comment><USER2> If you read the comments, the cloudflare guys mention that, like Amazon CloudFront, it is not yet possible to use your own certificate. That means their cost is essentially zero (some CPU time or an SSL accelerator card). They can serve every request from the same endpoint.

It also means their SSL service is useless for CDN because it will induce warnings in the browser. (You may be able to evade the warnings if you add their custom domain as a SAN on your primary certificate, but I've never tried it, so I cannot speak with certainty to the outcome)

<comment><USER4> CloudFlare actually does do SSL for your domain without warnings or SNI. They essentially have a large pool of shared certificates with lots of SANs, so your domain ends up as a SAN on one of their shared certificates with half a dozen other CloudFlare customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I support the notion of enabling HTTPS by default, but calling this "privacy" is a bit optimistic given the way things are these days.

Supposing the NSA wanted to spy on your traffic to tbray.org. Would it not be as simple as them asking Verisign (or whoever signed the server's SSL cert) to hand them the server's private key?

I think true privacy would require a bit more hassle than most users are willing to deal with right now, and that's a shame.

<comment><USER6> No, it would not be that simple. Verisign does not have the private key, they only have the public and their role here is to confirm that it is the public key.

For the NSA to spy, they need to get Verisign to issue a second certificate, and then to use it to construct a mirror of your site using a man-in-the- middle attack. Then they'd have to route your traffic through their server in one of various ways (the simplest being to confuse your machine about the DNS entry).

It is still doable, and no doubt they do it already. But they can't do it on a wide scale without being caught at it. And they haven't been.

<comment><AUTHOR> The TACK proposal would pin public keys to domains to prevent even this attack. <http://tack.io/>

Previous discussion: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4010711>

<comment><USER7> surprised it's not mentioned there, but the perspectives plugin (chrome + firefox) is similar, if anyone wants automated checks now (only time i've noticed it fail, amusingly, was on eff's site)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > There are no free lunches, and this is no exception. That encryption > requires quite a lot of computation, which isn't free.

No, all my computrons will go to waist! Sillyness aside, if your not paying a hosting provider for CPU cycles, you are not going to be affected by turning on SSL. If you are paying for CPU cycles, optimization of the sites own code is the way to go, like programming the site in C instead of php.

Every time I hear people talking about enabling encryption, I hear people talk about performance as if we still had 4k ram, and some single digit MGHz cpu, and that extra overhead of computation will ruin your day. Today, even the embedded devices won't be affected by it.

There are edge cases which does still cause problems. SSL servers demanded entropy and embedded device can easy run out of it. Thats not a computation problem per say, but still something to take into consideration if you put a SSL webbserver into a minicam, light bulb or something similar of small size. There is also an issue if you are a supplier of very small single files like an javascript library. HTTPS can sometimes impact caching, and the handshake will increase the size of data initially sent with an average under 5 kB. The handshake will also increase the number of round-trips required. Neither are computations, but still considerations in regard to SSL.

But please, for any future discussing about encryption. Can we please stop talking about the computational overhead of encryption.

<comment><USER9> On my fairly slow shared cable broadband connection, initial https negotiation typically seems to take around an extra 300ms.

I'd say that's non-trivial.

<comment><USER8> Thats not a computation problem, but an latency issue thanks to the extra round-trips being made (see above about edge cases). Its also only the initial connection, as keep-alive is used to eliminate that particular problem with http and https in equal style.

Latency issues are real (ie, non-trivial problems), but they are of the nature where context is everything. If you have a small javascript file, then http instead of https will be a multitude faster. If however, you are running a dynamic site, not on a CDN, and are using some kind of javascript goodies, then the experienced latency for users are going to be complex. Add in some banners with ads, and round-trip might not be that relevant at all in the experience of loading the first page. What i am saying is that if latency is an issue, https is not the first place to go the address it.

To compare with a real world example, if I load a local news site (round-trip ping of say 30ms), the extra packages of https won't have any direct affect on latency, and the ad-networks from a continent away will be the biggest crime to latency. That is, if I don't enable javascript, as then the load time of the first page will increase a second or so.

<comment><USER9> In the app i'm working on now, I really want to get the page loading fast- fast-fast. I have all javascript combined into one file, minimized, gzipped, far-future cached. Same with CSS. (Rails does this for me, mostly). javascript file is also marked with 'async' attribute. All images are set up so loading images doesn't block initial page load.

300ms for https round trips remain. shrug. it is unfortunate, but I stick with https anyway. Making sure your web server is doing persistent http connections is about the only thing I know to do to ameliorate somewhat, but first connection is still slower than I'd like, due to https.

<comment><USER10> EDIT: You mentioned 300ms extra.

Ideally, SSL should only require 2 extra RTT on first connection, so in theory you should only see 300ms extra latency if:

a) Your ping is 150ms

b) Something is wrong

I found this to be useful: [http://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking- ssl.ht...](http://www.imperialviolet.org/2010/06/25/overclocking-ssl.html)

<comment><USER9> thank you, useful link!

something may very well be wrong, and it may be outside of my abilities or time to figure out what. :)

I am looking into increasing the SSL Session keeping length on my apache, have any opinion about that? It does seem to eliminate the extra 'tax' for SSL in my from-slow-network experiments, for the duration of the session eliminating re-negotiation.

<comment><USER10> Cool :)

As ballpark figures for SSL session cache timeouts, Apache defaults to 5 minutes, F5 load balancers default to 1 hour and JBoss is 1 day. So it really seems like a wide range of values get used out in the world.

Upping to an hour should cause no problems. With SHM cache that will use a bit more memory, should make no practical difference for DBM.

The other thing to watch out for (mentioned at link) is that lots of cheap SSL certs have a cert chain like 4 or 5 items long, bloating startup.

See, e.g: [https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=zxc.mx&hi...](https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html?d=zxc.mx&hideResults=on)

That shows that 5983 bytes of intermediate certs are being sent over and above the actual server cert. That's going to eat a bunch of RTTs during SSL setup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There's also HTTPS Everywhere.

<https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere>

<comment><USER12> It doesn't turn SSL on for everything. It only turns on SSL for sites that are known to have SSL and that are otherwise poorly-configured.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Gosh, in many browsers it looks like this will mean the end of favicon.ico.

<comment><USER14> This doesn't apply for Chrome or Firefox, as the favicon goes in the tab, not in the address bar.</comment></comment>


I Stopped Using Multiple Monitors - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/why-i-stopped-using-multiple-monitors-bfd87efa2e5b <comment><USER2> One workspace is not enough, but more than one monitor is bulky and distracting.

I've used six virtual desktops with one physical monitor for several years. A 24" or 26" monitor is a reasonable size for comfortably taking in practically the whole screen at once. Six virtual desktops is a reasonable figure, it allows a desktop to be more or less allocated to a single task (such as email, web browsing, programming several separate tasks, showing reference books/texts/websites, etc, etc)

Switching tasks is as simple as switching virtual desktops with the ability to switch back and forth immediately to where you were before, whenever you feel like it.

EDIT: I suppose it seems like I am just echoing the original post. What I meant to show was WHY the multiple virtual desktop method works better.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The date on the article says 2017, but the author tweeted today he updated it [https://twitter.com/housecor/status/1147891246851067904](https://twitter.com/housecor/status/1147891246851067904) Discussion from 2017 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13968519](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13968519)

</comment><comment><USER3> "Same Workflow When Remote" te the reason for I'm using only the screen of my laptop since forever.</comment>


Uber's losses continue to grow - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/ubers-losses-continue-to-grow-1542180660-42d7e185-30d4-4ff1-9571-f0db34e477c3.html <comment><USER2> "Net loss for the quarter on a GAAP basis was $1.07 billion — larger than Uber's loss of $891 million in Q2, an increase that the company attributes to spending more on growth in "competitive markets" like the U.S., India and the Middle East, as well as on bikes and scooters."

I guess the question becomes, will these "competitive markets" ever not be competitive? Will Uber ever be able to 'win', or is the barrier to entry in any given city low enough that there's no way from they to ever build a sustainable business.

</comment><comment><USER3> I guess making it up in volume isn't working out recently.</comment>


City of Dallas Shuts Down Business of Man Who Called Cops 100 Times in 20 Months - <AUTHOR> https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200114/15113643734/city-dallas-shuts-down-business-man-who-called-cops-over-100-times-20-months-to-deal-with-criminals-near-his-car-wash.shtml <comment><USER2> >On Wednesday, the Dallas City Council passed a "nuisance abatement" ordinance allowing Police Chief U. Renee Hall to identify properties that tolerate criminal activity and try to get the owners to address it.

A carwash shut down because it "attracted the criminal element." Not likely the proximate cause, if the owner made such an effort to run them off.

Ignoring personal rights and the legal responsibilities (or lack thereof) of the police, as a matter of public policy, this just seems to be backwards thinking.

This policy will just make poor and crime ridden areas even less attractive for commercial investment, and even more poor and crime ridden.

Think food deserts are bad? How about entire retail deserts.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Directing businesses to hire certain security personnel with the clear > suggestion that hiring these select individuals would diminish the city's > threatened enforcement of nuisance abatement;

I wonder what the relationship is there. This sounds like blatant corruption and resembles the mafia demanding you pay for "protection."

</comment><comment><USER4> >[T]he committees are gravely concerned that the problems stemming from Dallas' use of the nuisance laws are the result of a unique and incorrect interpretation of those laws by city officials -- wrongly taking the laws to mean that fighting crime is no longer the city's responsibility but has instead now become primarily the responsibility of private citizens and businesses; and that private citizens can be held strictly liable for crimes that take place on or near their property even when they are not involved in that crime, have taken affirmative steps to prevent the crime, are themselves victims of that crime, and have reported the crime, requesting the assistance of law enforcement agencies.

I strongly recommend relocating your business.

<comment><AUTHOR> Too late! It's been stolen from him

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems to miss the fact that in the US, the police have no legal duty whatsoever to address or prevent crime.

The fact that they shut his business down is entirely unfair, though.

<comment><USER6> Are they not law enforcement?

<comment><USER7> At their discretion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The other horrible problem (also created by the government) is the slow, expensive, deliberately difficult legal system that requires hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of effort to sue the city (or anyone beyond small-claims court). Justice is only for those with tons of time and money.

<comment><USER9> Seriously I feel like we could resolve a lot of this if the orgs that seized assets, etc had to pay back everything, including legal fees, losses incurred due to seizure, and paid with interest charged at the same rate as late taxes and fines payments.</comment></comment>


Please quit posting pictures of your debit cards, people. - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/needadebitcard

<comment><USER2> Some people just have to learn the hard way I guess

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow, this is hilarious! Never knew it was so easy to get free money! :-P</comment>


Fast factoring of RSA-2048 - <AUTHOR> Getting the factors any other large number now can be directly done in one operation, including RSA-2048, RSA-4096, or longest numbers <comment><USER2> Excuse me?</comment>


GazetaGeek - <AUTHOR> http://www.gazetageek.com Selection of the best content on the web for programmers, designers, agilists. Only content that Matters for Geeks! <comment><USER2> nice :)</comment>


Tell HN: PG&E – Just got a notification in Paradise about another PSPS - <AUTHOR> 9:27 AM PST text message today 10/23/2019
PG&E Safety Alert: To protect public safety, PG&E has turned off or will soon turn off power. More info: pge.com/pspsupdates. Text UNENROLL to unsubscribe.
Previously (repeated 3x)
PG&E Safety Alert: Due to weather forecast, PG&E may turn off power in a portion of our service area. More info: pge.com/pspsupdates. Text UNENROLL to unsubscribe. <comment><AUTHOR> In recent PSPSes, they didn't send notifications about the possibilities of or the imminence of the power shutoff. They were turning off the power here during the night/early morning between around 11 pm - 3 am.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update: Air conditioner blasting in case it gets hot later. Power is still on as of 11:25 am, but who knows if/when PG&E is going to turn it off. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

EDIT: Still on as of 1:03 pm, it doesn't seem like PG&E is going to follow- through. This is even more troubling because they are appearing to send mixed messages, which are just as useless as no messages.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just lost power as of 2:19 pm with no real notification yet again.

[https://pge.com/outages](https://pge.com/outages) says _No Known Outage_ :/

Call their number to report an outage, just crickets (complete silence).

EDIT: Now (at 2:33 pm) it says:

        ---- Outage Details ----

        START TIME: OCT 23, 2:18 PM

        ESTIMATED RESTORATION: Not available

        CUSTOMERS AFFECTED: 1015

        CAUSE: Unknown - PG&E will be assessing the cause. [This is wrong, they turned it off for the PSPS update which just landed.]

        STATUS: PG&E has assigned a crew to assess the outage.

        LAST UPDATED: OCT 23, 2:24 PM

Oh yeah, and 5000 customers just lost power in SF. Is PG&E trying to get taken over by the state and cities?

Text at 2:35 pm

 _PG &E Safety Update: Forecasted weather conditions have changed. Impacted addresses have been updated. More info: pge.com/pspsupdates. Text UNENROLL to unsubscribe._

\-- EDIT 2 ---

Text at 2:35 PM repeated identically at 2:46 pm. I take it they don't do any de-duplication or indexing of phone numbers for subscriptions, so they just spam people N times and have no way to unsubscribe people subscribed N times.

<comment><USER2> Guess what? If the state took over PG&E today, the state would be instituting the same blackouts. For the same reasons.

<comment><USER3> also the state already owns and is in in control of pge. its not a private company in the way we normally think of a private company</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Designer News + Hacker News now on iOS - <AUTHOR> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-news-app/id884790249?ls=1&mt=8

<comment><USER2> You submitted this earlier today. Deleting then resubmitting on HN is against the guidelines.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not my friend, must have been someone else</comment></comment>


DHS Giving Firms Free Penetration Tests - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/12/dhs-giving-firms-free-penetration-tests/ <comment><USER2> And the award for Best Story Title Innuendo goes to...

 _opens envelope_

"DHS Giving Firms Free Penetration Tests". Brian Krebs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps they should run pentests on their own systems (OPM) before offering them to others.

</comment><comment><USER4> NSA all ready provides free penetration testing for all!

<comment><USER5> Yes, but they don't tell you what they found ;)

<comment><USER6> Sometimes the DHS doesn't either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >> DHS Giving Firms Free Penetration Tests

Whether they want them or not...

</comment><comment><USER8> Can I get one too? While the supplies last.</comment>


Show HN: MicroEvent.js - js micro event emitter in less than 20lines - <AUTHOR> http://notes.jetienne.com/2011/03/22/microeventjs.html

<comment><USER2> I really like the code, I think it's very well written!

A couple small suggestions and thoughts:

Add a couple lines so that all methods return this; to allow for chaining, especially helpful when using it as a mixin.

Rename bind/unbind method names since they have completely different meanings/uses in ES5:

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Function/bind)

P.S. If you're down with those changes I'll gladly fork, update and send a pull req, although not sure what you'd want to rename the api too.

<comment><AUTHOR> i had chained api before, and removed it for shortness.

your point on api name is good. which name would you suggest ? something standard and readable and im sold :)

<comment><USER2> Since I'll probably be using this for a couple smaller things of mine, I forked it and went ahead and changed it to:

subscribe/unsubscribe/publish

and also added return this.

<https://github.com/amadeus/microevent.js>

<comment><AUTHOR> cool. will look at it. lets take this on github

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Wouldn't tiny code like this better included in the HTML itself? A fraction of a packet size versus a HTTP request.

<comment><USER4> That would become an awful mess pretty quickly. One extra HTTP request per script dependency is a pretty acceptable trade-off for keeping things tidy, especially nowadays with things like keep alive and pipelining.

If you have a custom backend, you could always give it a list of frontend scripts to send and send them all to the browser as one big virtual "scripts.js" file. Then you get the best of both worlds - all the scripts in one HTTP request, but in a separated, maintainable file structure on the server.

(The modified date to compare to/set scripts.js for caching purposes would be the highest out of all the script files, obviously)

<comment><USER5> ^^^ this. Sprockets is a good way to do this if you're using Rails. If you don't need something quite as sophisticated, Rails has built-in asset caching that will combine your JS and CSS files into a single file automatically by just putting :cache => "identifier" on the asset tag helpers.

You should probably still try to use the major CDNs for very popular libraries like Prototype, jQuery, etc. These are more likely to pull from cache and not incur any additional transfer time.

<comment><USER6> And for scripts that google is too slow to put on their cdn...

<http://www.cdnjs.com/>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Backbone by documentcloud could be the other option to consider because 4k of gzipped code is not so big also.

<comment><AUTHOR> backbone is super nice, i wont be the one saying otherwise. It isn't the same scope tho. It does event emitter and much much more!

I like micro frameworks (aka tiny libraries) because it is standalone and so small you can easily maintain it yourself if needed. So it is less an actual dependancy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Reminds me of <https://github.com/jivesoftware/jiverscripts>. Check out the conc.observable component

</comment><comment><USER9> To be honest I was surprised you couldn't bind, trigger, or unbind on a function this way already. I guess I never came across a specific need for it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Dmitry's got something similar, Eve: <http://dmitry.baranovskiy.com/eve/></comment>


Firefox, Edge, and Safari Browsers Fall at Famous Pwn2Own Hacking Contest - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/firefox-edge-and-safari-browsers-fall-at-famous-pwn2own-hacking-contest/ <comment><USER2> I think Pwn2Own misses the mark on focusing on the security problems people actually have, and they make it sound like browsers are more or less secure than they are, when you consider threats users will actually face.

\- Chrome is the most infected web browser, because the Chrome Web Store allows any extension to get the permission to read all the web content you view, inject their own content, and report back to a master server. Little to no scrutiny of such permission grants is done on Google's part, and it's not considered a vulnerability. The user having malicious extensions is the user's problem, not a Chrome security problem, it seems.

\- Pretty much all web browsers allow Java alert() prompts to capture all UI interaction with the web browser, allowing malicious websites to trick users into believing their computer has malware and they need to call a scam support line, or to force users to install malicious Chrome extensions. The checkbox to prevent a site from creating these popups is only mildly effective due to other tricks these sites employ. It's still, for some reason, not seen as a problem that websites can capture the browser's UI in this way.

Pwn2Own seems like code golf. It isn't particularly helpful in the grand scheme of things, and nobody's fixing the problems that actually cost average users billions of dollars in money handed either to phone scammers or to Geek Squad support folks who just have to reboot their PC for them.</comment>


Ask HN: 2 international founders in sv for YC interview. Where can we crash? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN,
We're two founders from The Netherlands without virtually any money looking for a night to stay in or around Palo Alto from Monday to Tuesday this week. We have our interview on Tuesday. Maybe someone in the HN community who would like some visitors? We can cook something Dutch :)
Thanks a lot!
Ps we're a fintech startup, building the next gen bank. For anyone interested :) <comment><USER2> It might be useful to put contact information in your profile.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hi, the cardinal hotel in Palo Alto is a good deal. I did it a couple of years ago. When do you come ? email me at xavier.vaucois (at) gmail.com

</comment><comment><USER4> They've let you in at "border control" ? Usually to me they always ask where I will stay(hotel or friend).

Btw best luck with YC interview!

<comment><USER5> Haha, yeah we've made it! Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _without virtually any money_ .... _building the next gen bank_

That's awesome. Het beste, en veel geluk!

</comment><comment><USER7> Have you checked out [https://www.couchsurfing.com](https://www.couchsurfing.com)?

</comment><comment><USER5> Hi! I'm his cofounder, we can be reached at email@example.com :)

</comment><comment><USER8> I think YC pays for the Hotel expenses.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's a decent hostel in SF.

</comment><comment><USER10> why don't u find something on airbnb ?

<comment><USER11> >without virtually any money

<comment><USER10> oops. I missed that part. my bad.</comment></comment></comment>


Why did they install the ignition key on the left side in Porsche cars - <AUTHOR> http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090107182939AAqIkBp

<comment><AUTHOR> This was inspired by [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7251987](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7251987) regarding mouse cursors.

(Note it applies to all porsche which is why I edited the subject to reflect that).</comment>


Massive Peace March in London by Muslims.  Media Reaction:  Zero - <AUTHOR> http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/hundreds-muslims-marching-against-terrorism-6977099 <comment><USER2> Theres a narrative. Pushed by the government and supported by the media. If an event doesn't fit within that frame then it won't be picked up.</comment>


Earth's rotation may account for wayward spacecraft - <AUTHOR> http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13411-earths-rotation-may-account-for-wayward-spacecraft.html

<comment><USER2> Something orbiting the earth at thousands of mph is too fast by .01 mph and we know something is wrong? Physics is awesome, and space is a very cool laboratory.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you get good domain names? - <AUTHOR> I'm just curious to know how do HN folks get their domain names for their apps/products/hacks?
Do you guys look for a domain name and choose the brand name? or go for the brand name and purchase a good domain name?
What if a .com domain name is not available? Would you rather prefer an alternative domain extention? <comment><USER3> Don't aim for 1 word english domain names. Those are taken and you'll pay big $$$.

Instead, pick a 2 or 3 word phrase that describes your project, and use that.

Another tip: Don't do a "domain availability check" until you're ready to buy the domain. I did that once and someone else, seeing I did the request, grabbed the domain. It turns out that the list of "domain availability checks" are sold to squatters.

Also, pick your proposed domain name and Google it. Look at the first couple of results. If they're all low PageRank, go ahead and take the domain. Most people use Google now instead of typing the domain into their browser, so you want to be #1 in Google for your domain name.

<comment><USER4> I bought C.HOW for way less than a grand...

<comment><USER5> c.how?!

How is that valuable/worth $1000..?

<comment><USER6> Because "c" is the third letter in the alphabet and how is three letters, and 3x3 is 9 which is the amount of letter in Black Mass which has Kevin bacon in it. - plus c.how can be chow or see how or ch ow or even cho w...which loosely translated from Klingon means "a fool and his money..."Honestly, it shocks me to you didn't see how it's worth more right away...I guess more gold in the TLD domain rush for me :)

<comment><USER5> Also, it could be an alternative spelling for "ciao".

That's $$$.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is my business basically (and have been doing it for about 20 years).

Suggestions:

\</comment><comment></comment><comment>-

1) Choose the domain first and then brand with it. Not a good idea to brand first and then to buy the domain name

2) Go with .com unless it's clear that if you pick something else you stand a chance of getting the .com later (That is difficult for someone who doesn't know the business to figure out. [1])

3) Biggest mistake you can make is getting to married to a particular name and not have any alternatives. You will almost certainly telegraph that and pay more.

4) Second biggest mistake is getting anything but .com and assuming it doesn't matter and you can buy it later. In most cases (there are exceptions) it does matter. And the price of the .com will only go up after you are established and locked into the .whatever

Pecking order of domain sellers in terms of difficulty of completing a purchase.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

A) Large corporation, say Google or General Electric. Typically won't sell at any price

B) "Old School Domainer" \- Typically a gambler who will bet you will pay a zillion for the name if they hold out.

C) "Domainer" \- Will sell but wants a decent price but tends to be somewhat rational.

D) Small business owner - Will negotiate but you won't get raked over the coals.

E) Professional domain site such as buydomains.com. Pricing is typically very reasonable even the list prices on the site. My go to place when I have to buy domains for others. Prices are stable they don't reflect who the buyer is ie they don't size you up.

F) "Little Old Lady" \- Happy to get what they can.

[1] As a general rule I'd feel comfortable if the .com was owned by a small country store that was lightly using it than if it was owned by a domainer and/or a large corporation or the type of buyer that typically won't sell at either a reasonable price (I didn't say "cheap" by the way) or at all. [2]

[2] Corporations (large and even small that aren't owner operated) have typically little interest in selling because nobody personally benefits from the sale. At least a "domainer" gets to pocket all of the money typically.

Edit: Added another seller to the pecking order.

</comment><comment><USER8> Imo, if you're serious about your project (i.e. you want to start a biz, not just run a side project), then you want:

\- .com domain name (buy also others, but you need the .com)

\- name clearly understandable, possibly even by non-native speaker

\- name without strange plays on words that you only understand

\- name without any subtle replacement/elision of letters

\- name that doesn't start with an article (e.g., the)

\- name that _you_ can pronounce very clearly

In short, any random person that you meet, should be able to get and remember your name and find the related .com domain.

The easiest way is usually to combine 2 words, or a word and a number.

In the 2 words case, your domain name will also be your product name, I assume. Don't try to write it in any strange way. Your name will be ProductName, or Product Name, available at productname.com. Any other attempt is a waste of your time, and everybody will misspell it.

<comment><USER6> It really depends on your traffic strategy/how people will find your website. If it will rely on word of mouth, it needs to be easily remembered and spelled.

If it will rely on referral traffic and other online links it should be descriptive and trustworthy (I.e no hyphens and not too generic.)

If it will rely on PR and offline ads, it should be brandable (I.e. a blank slate that means nothing but is pronounceable, memorable and easy to spell.

The most important thing is to not fall in love with a name before owning the dot com...otherwise you will end up overpaying for something with no real value.

<comment><USER8> Well, I agree on your last point, but not really on all others.

Independently on your strategy, you'll go to events, you'll meet people, you'll hopefully have press or in general other people referring your project/biz.

My "rules" come from my experience of being an Italian -i.e. not mother tongue- in San Francisco, with a company called Theneeds, that originally we wanted to write as "theneeds" all lower case. Plus, I have a countless list of examples of sites/projects I couldn't find because of absurd name choices.

<comment><USER6> Those would all fit under the first point of relying on word of mouth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My opinion: picking domain names is pretend work until the point where money is no object...or at least six figures for a domain name is rounding error. It's easier and more fun than the real work of building something people want, will use, and hopefully pay for. AirBnB doesn't rent air mattresses. BingoCardCreator is "CORN" in black on a white can...as unclever as it gets.

Branding can't substitute for not sucking.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER10> I bought [http://timeblock.com](http://timeblock.com) for $2k, it was parked and had a price tag at $6k.

I really wanted the name since we had named the startup so 2k was "cheap" even though it was a lot of money for us.

Luckily I had just read the post on how easypost bought their domain and replicated that with success.

<comment><USER11> The highest we've paid for a .com domain name is $1.5K. We also ended up buying the same .co domain.

In another case, we opted for the .co, since the .com owner wanted $16K. Using a .co is a good alternative, since Google treats it as a generic ccTLD [1].

I am curious, what do people here think about .co domains?

[1] [https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1347922?hl=en)

<comment><USER10> I do not see .co as strong as .com - that is why I went for the .com domain I wrote about below - even though I did buy some other domains as .io and .net before the deal was finalized.

There is something about a .com that signals age and trust more than any other domains, I invariably think that it must be a new business or not as trustworthy when they don't own the .com (especially if the .com is for sale)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I really like the site [http://www.namemesh.com/](http://www.namemesh.com/) for coming up with some different options I may not have initially thought of. Once you have an idea of what you want the name to be (or even really just a vague idea of words you might want to use) - it generates a ton of available domain names based on different criteria that you can adjust.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is a dilemma for plenty of businesses - do you spring the cash upfront, or pay through your nose later for the .com if your business becomes popular?

I would say spring the cash upfront. I know domain traders and they'll squeeze you hard if they know there's already a successful business with the same name (but on a different extension)

You DO lose a lot of type-in traffic when you don't have your name in .com. This traffic is also one of the best converting around.

If you're in enterprise, you HAVE to get a .com or at the very least, a .net. I've been in enough meetings with old-school business guys who scrunch their noses and think of you as an idiot for having one of those cool new extensions (.ly,.io, etc.)

Think of it as an investment. Most good domain names appreciate in value. Even if your startup were to go kaput, you'd still make money from the domain a few years down the line.

</comment><comment><USER14> For me it got to a point where looking for domains became sort of a hobby, so naturally, I went to coding a tool to find available domains based on a keyword, and ended up building (with a help of a designer friend) an Android app for that [1]. Basically, you can start with a keyword, and the app offers several options of "naturally sounding" domains around that keyword. The name of the app (Nameble) was one of the results when I started with "name".

(edit) To address another comment on this thread, I promise we don't steal/monitor the names you're looking for :)

[1] [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nameble.ap...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nameble.app)

</comment><comment><USER15> My business is using a domain I've had since the mid 1990s. Having it - <USER2> with a product to show off - made it a lot easier to raise venture capital.

When the great recession hit, I had an idea for a business I thought would make sense with consumers being more frugal. At the time I couldn't come up with a name that I found acceptable, matching with an available .com. About a year ago I stumbled upon a .com that worked perfectly; it's a relatively short, concise address, and it has just been sitting there 'waiting.' So I grabbed it, and have been building that new product for the last few months. I still manage to routinely find great .com addresses available for registration, using two word names.

</comment><comment><USER16> Personally, when I am toying with an idea, I try to create a list of relevant short words/keywords. I also use name generator sites.

I always go for .com domain name as majority of my target audience is typically US based. If .com domain name is not available, I will not brand the product/company with the unavailable domain name. Also, I don't buy domain names from others.

A few years ago, Moz published an article that really helped me figure out the tools available for name generation.

How to Hack a Dominating Domain Name for Your Website [https://moz.com/blog/domain-name-hacks](https://moz.com/blog/domain-name- hacks)

</comment><comment><USER17> Start with a morpheme. That is, the root form of a word. Feel free to link a couple of morphemes together.

Then augment it into something that probably isn't a word (and is both unlikely to be domain squatted and can easily be trademarked).

Example: Accenture. I understand it was supposed to mean 'accent on the future' but it says a lot in one convoluted word: Acc[elerate], A[sc]ent], [s]ure, [tal]ent, etc.

Mix around a few words and cut and chop them. The original morpheme may be lost, but as long as you're happy with the result, that's good.

I use bustaname.com for quickly checking combinations.

</comment><comment><USER18> Always brand first. Then check SEO terms and domain availability. A good name shouldn't be detracted by lack of this, however, just as long as no one is using the same name and is doing something similar to you. For example, if a domain is taken, any variation like joinNAME.com, tryNAME.com works out. I have two businesses using this strategy and it hasn't been an issue.

TLDs are typically determined by your audience. If it's young and hip, then a new TLD should be ok. If it's a SaaS product, then .com is a must.

<comment><USER19> I would say it depends on even what your SaaS is. If you're doing CI, you can probably do an IO domain or whatever the hipsters use these days. If you're selling to healthcare providers or basically anything not inside the technosphere, it'll probably be less confusing for your customers to use a .com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is what I've done in the past: pick a few keywords describing ideas and/or what my project is about. I then use a reverse dictionary like onelook [1] to find other related words that I can string together into an easy to pronounce, compact and catchy name. It's more of an art than science but tools like reverse dictionaries help a lot.

[1]: [http://www.onelook.com/reverse- dictionary.shtml](http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml)

</comment><comment><USER21> No. For new business I always seek available .com

There are only two gTLD's: .com and anything else.

If you launch a new business without matching .com - you're facing few troubles down the road:

1\. .com owner is going to ride on your [potential] success

2\. .com owner might pursue trademark violation from you [in case you'll succeed in your business]

3\. .com owner will boost price for this domain according to your success.

So to avoid all that start with .com ownership. It doesn't have to be single word .com - it can be creative brand-ish word or 2-3 words in a short combination.

</comment><comment><USER22> The one interesting example when I think about domains is Nissan.com. Nissan (the auto manufacturer) was unable to secure nissan.com, but it really hasn't hurt them in terms of searches. Of course, if people go to Nissan.com directly, that doesn't work for them, but it is interesting nonetheless.

Having said that, I do personally find a domain first before any type of branding or naming.

</comment><comment><USER23> Make your product a subdomain from your company domain. Problem solved :P

The cost of a domain name may seem small, but once you have a couple domains and have to manage certificates etc you wish you would only have used subdomains of your well known brand.

So get a good domain name, then use that for everything!

Registering domain names can be addicting, and I've already wasted too much time on it.

</comment><comment><USER24> there is no real reason to prefer a .com domain other than someone else might catch it and tries to sell it to you expensive. There is no reason to think it will rank better and there is no reason to think that a competitor could overcome you with worse seo just because he has a .com domain.

I usually never use .com domains as it sucks looking for available domains. I rather make wordplays and therlike with alternative TLDs. In the end most of the traffic is coming from google anyway, so my focus clearly is on SEO.

There are non related sub-domains ranking better than any of their competitors because they have better backlinks and proper seo.

Edit:// Also a .com domain for a local business is most likely always a stupid choice.

</comment><comment><USER25> Try [http://leandomainsearch.com](http://leandomainsearch.com) . Generates hundreds of free domain names based on keywords. Usually you are able to get pretty decent name based on that.

</comment><comment><USER26> Namerific[0] has some really good ones with .coms available. They pre-filter for brand-able domains and you can negotiate with the domain owner. Disclosure: I use their service to sell my personal domain inventory.

[0] [http://www.namerific.com/](http://www.namerific.com/)

</comment><comment><USER27> My behavior:

1.) Use [http://www.namemesh.com/](http://www.namemesh.com/) , [https://www.eurodns.com/](https://www.eurodns.com/) and brain.

2.) Try to find .com domain first, use different words/synonyms combinations. Choose 3-5 best, write them down.

3.) Go with those new "cool" domain zones, use creativity, choose 3-5 best, write them down. Even if you go with .com - you still can get something similar to your main domain symbols like HN.pics for cookie-less static content domain.

4.) Write down all the results (~10 is enough), sort by "best".

5.) Don't buy fast! Leave it alone for a couple of days, let the idea get stronger. Tomorrow your yesterday "cool ideas" can look foolish.

6\. If after a couple of days the idea is still looks good, - buy it!

Usually finding really good domain name is not about 3-5 hours, it takes a couple of days of brainstorming. Since your brain CPU is always working in background, solving problems unconsciously, - sometimes best ideas can _suddenly_ come in strange places or during night ;)

About me: 12 Years a Webmaster :)

</comment><comment><USER28> Just pick a random color and a random animal and be done with it :D

</comment><comment><USER29> I scrape Thousand of Data, then Filter it Analyzed 1 of the best and related to my niche, than register it</comment>


LEDE: a fork of OpenWRT, aiming for an open governance model - <AUTHOR> https://lede-project.org/ <comment><USER2> Recent discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11624374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11624374)

</comment><comment><USER3> Some of the names involved with LEDE are high-profile OpenWrt developers. This might be a significant forking event in the OpenWrt community.

</comment><comment><USER4> FreeWRT was another fork of OpenWRT with the same motivation of allowing a more open governance model. I think the project died now.

<comment><USER5> Same as LibreWRT or LibreCMC as it was called later (blob-free variant of OpenWRT).</comment></comment>


A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) - <AUTHOR> http://www.moserware.com/2009/09/stick-figure-guide-to-advanced.html? <comment><USER2> I was a bit surprised to wake up and find this on Hacker News again! I had no idea how popular (~340k+ views) this post would become when I wrote it two years ago. I wrote it out of frustration after reading the Rijndael book that I linked too. I saw a very beautiful algorithm that was mainly obscured in academic-ese.

Some general thoughts looking back at my post two years later:

* I drew every cell with a sheet of paper and a sharpie and then scanned everything in. My living room was covered with all of the cells of this comic. If I did it again, I'd probably just use my drawing tablet. However, it worked out well being low-tech with paper because I drew a lot of the cells on vacation (i.e. imagine me drawing these scenes on a picnic table next to family by the lake thinking I was a bit crazy). Unfortunately, one unforeseen consequence of doing it by hand was that it became very clear that my handwriting was too hard to read, so I had to manually erase all the writing and redo it using a decent looking font. This took a lot of time. I had originally thought about using comic-sans but am very glad I decided to use the Marker SD font instead. You can see my actual handwriting in the "crib sheet" cell at the end. It was going to be way too much work to make it look pretty.

* I was most surprised by how many college professors use my comic in their computer security classes. Hopefully it helps the students.

* I tried to emphasize Rijndael's state matrix by having the stick figure guy carry it everywhere as a briefcase, but I don't think that came across very clear.

* Although I was inspired by XKCD's style, I didn't copy the critical part of a witty comment in the hover text. If I had to do it again, I probably would have done so.

Thanks for all the feedback; it's what encourages me to invest so much time in making posts like this.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the explication of the algorithm; Your pedagogical style is so easy to follow that when I first encountered it, despite not having a strong background in math I was able to follow along and actually build an understanding in a subject I probably could not have easily understood at the time! That ability to make information more easily accessible is truly a gift. So all I can say is thank you for sharing, it's most appreciated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Some nits:

* "Deep Crack" and Distributed.net came after DES was fatally injured by differential and linear cryptanalysis.

* At no point was the only alternative to the broken DES "Triple-DES"; we had (for instance) IDEA since 1991, which is what PGP used.

* Speed isn't the biggest reason we ditched DES-EDE; the tiny block size and key size restrictions are bigger reasons. Similarly, "at least as strong as Triple-DES" is misleading; nobody was satisfied with Triple-DES' security bounds.

Just nits. The AES math stuff is great. But don't go trying to use any of this; this is just a fraction of the detail you need to safely use an AES library.

<comment><USER4> What do you recommend as a good reference on implementing AES encryption?

<comment><USER3> There isn't one. Even _Practical Cryptography_, my favorite of the encryption books, misses details (some of them recent discoveries, others older) that can completely wreck the security of an application that depends on AES for security; also, as well-written as the book is, it's organized in a way that makes it possible to miss some of the key details that it does document.

If you need encryption in your application, you should use TLS or GPG/PGP to get it.

<comment><USER5> What about "Cryptography Engineering"?

<comment><USER3> It's effectively the exact same book as "Practical Cryptography". Get whichever is cheaper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This has been around for a good while but still gets me reading it every time.

It's also a great example of taking an incredibly complex subject and cutting it down to various levels of understanding.

</comment><comment><USER7> this is great article for someone to undertand how cryptography and AES works - but as all great explanations - it fails to explain some key concepts that take it from 0 - to "got it!" for me (hacker with absolutely no idea of how cryptography works other than simple caesar ciphers and stuff from childhood books) - this actually reminds me of the article in rjlipton's blog that also made it up HN a couple of weeks ago (<http://rjlipton.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/give-me-a-lever/>) about the lever in any mathematical explanation. I'm going to use that a little leniently here and go so far as to say - the algorithm makes sense - but for someone who doesn't get cryptography - its the "key" that's the lever. I get the diffusion and confusion and most of the rest - that math is not the hardest bit. But how the key actually comes into being - and how the Standard ensures that only the 2 people in the conversation have the key - is what would really crack the entire thing for me.

<comment><USER2> You're right that there's more to it to build a full working implementation (including generating and sharing keys). I tried to show that by dissecting HTTPS (TLS): [http://www.moserware.com/2009/06/first-few-milliseconds- of-h...](http://www.moserware.com/2009/06/first-few-milliseconds-of- https.html)

I didn't use stick figures in that post, but I used actual traffic with <https://amazon.com>. Amazon uses RC4, but could just as easily use AES.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cryptography is one of those things in life that never ceases to humble me.

</comment><comment><USER9> This may be a stupid question but considering if you have the key you can get the original data, where is the boost in security in AES versus a simple obfuscation using a key? Is it in the complexity and variations of the underlying algorithm and not having many people that can reproduce it? Or is it the time factor of having to run through the algorithm thus increasing the sheer amount of time it takes for an attack?

<comment><USER10> Encryption is based on two principles: confusion and diffusion.

Confusion means that the process drastically changes data from the input to the output. For example, by translating the data through a non-linear table created from the key. We have lots of ways to reverse linear calculations (starting with high school algebra), so the more non-linear it is, the more analysis tools it breaks.

Diffusion means that changing a single character of the input will change many characters of the output. Done well, every part of the input affects every part of the output, making analysis much harder. No confusion process is perfect: it always lets through some patterns. Good diffusion scatters those patterns widely through the output, and and if there are several patterns making it through they scramble each other. This makes patterns vastly harder to spot, and vastly increases the amount of data to analyze to break the cipher.

AES has both excellent confusion and diffusion. Its confusion look up tables are very non-linear and good at destroying patterns. Its diffusion stage spreads every part of the input to every part of the output: changing one bit of input changes half the output bits on average. Both confusion and diffusion are repeated several times for each input to increase the amount of scrambling. The secret key is mixed in at every stage so that an attacker cannot precalculate what the cipher does.

None of this would happen if you used a simple one-stage scramble based on a key. Input patterns would flow straight through to the output. It might look random to the eye but analysis would find obvious patterns and the cipher could be broken.

<comment><USER9> I guess I had always assumed attacks were brute force input = output. But you seem to be implying that patterns would be looked for that would make the encryption/decryption vastly easier. That would probably be the piece that I wasn't grasping because if you have:

a -> f(a) -> b

vs.

a -> g(a) -> b

Then brute force really wouldn't be affected by complexity unless it was a time factor and thus either of the functions should be identical in security. But if analysis was the key to a good attack then this makes perfect sense. Thanks for the info.

<comment><USER11> Yes. As a simple example, if you XORd your input text with a 1-byte key, the letter frequency of english text would be unchanged.

So your most common byte in your output would be likely to be the encrypted char 'e'. You could then recover the key by XOR 'e' with that most common byte.

More complex systems have more complex patterns, but that's what cryptopgraphers do - try and spot weaknesses in an algorithm.

As always, this is a great read: [http://chargen.matasano.com/chargen/2009/7/22/if-youre- typin...](http://chargen.matasano.com/chargen/2009/7/22/if-youre-typing-the- letters-a-e-s-into-your-code-youre-doing.html)

Search for "Garbling a block to confuse an app" and read on from there for a real-world use of output patterns (used when you can partially control the input).

<comment><USER3> Multibyte XOR keys are almost as trivial to break as single-byte XOR keys, for what it's worth. And if you know how to do that, there are "best practices" AES modes in which common implementation errors lead to the same attack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is exceptional! The work of a really clear thinker.

</comment><comment><USER13> [http://laika1957.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/the-performance- of...](http://laika1957.wordpress.com/2010/12/18/the-performance-of-various- crypto-ciphers/)

I was once again reminded of this blog entry when I saw the AES finalists' scoreboard slide.</comment>


Think young people are hostile to capitalism now? Wait for the next recession - <AUTHOR> https://theweek.com/articles/871131/think-young-people-are-hostile-capitalism-now-just-wait-next-recession <comment><USER3> In the US, it's less active protest and more things like slacking off heavily at work because it's a treadmill we can't win. We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income.

We as a nation have basically told people "no, you can't have a comfortable life or save for retirement because your parents' generation still needs to get 10% annual growth to make their retirement math work". Nevermind that retirement isn't going to be an option for us. That's lead a lot of us to abandon our work ethic, which will have some severe repercussions down the road.

<comment><USER4> >> We have absolutely no incentive to work hard when doing so doesn't materially affect income.

Pride? Character? Respect from colleagues?

<comment><USER5> pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay the bills, even though they're nice to have.

i know this is sounds like a snarky and low-effort response, but it is not intentional. it's just the way things are, and there isn't really a diplomatic way of saying it.

<comment><USER6> > _" pride, character, and respect from colleagues are things that don't pay > the bill"_

I can name several dozen colleagues I've worked for over the years who will vouch for me and help me get a job if I should ever need it and that does pay the bills.

People who say things like the above quote, can't.

<comment><USER5> what if you met those colleagues at a relatively low-wage job, and neither you nor anyone else who will vouch for you has advanced very far beyond that low wage level?

sure, they can get you a job, but it will be a horizontal move for you if you are currently employed, and certainly no step up from your prior employment if you're suddenly unemployed.

consider that for many young people outside of the software and finance worlds, this is precisely the situation. all the good reputation in the world doesn't much matter if it doesn't get you any further than where you are.

<comment><USER7> Presuming you want or need to get ahead - and you should carefully examine the reasons why you do. There is usually a cost to getting up.

Horizontal moves are acceptable and sometimes even optimal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Imagine if the current protests against inequality (and thereabouts) going on all around the world would be reported, scrutinized, and debated as much as when any of the established "enemies" have civil unrest. How quickly would things change?

<comment><USER9> Imagine if instead of people protesting against income inequality, they protested against value contribution inequality...

<comment><USER10> What do you say to people who are protesting against income inequality because they benefit from it and know how unfair the whole thing is?

Say I received a million $ from my father (that's income inequality, isn't it?) and now I'm saving all my work income because I can live on my capital gains from "gifts" and watch all my friends work harder and harder to try and earn few extra cents while I'm getting richer doing very little.

My dad did "things", I'm doing "things", and I'm getting paid for it! How would you evaluate my "value contributions" anyway? . My income is growing, I can wait.

PS: for some reasons, my taxes in % of my income keeps decreasing because where I live, capital is less taxed than work. And the politicians who chose that explains they're lowing taxes because other countries are doing the same. So all countries are help the rich because rich are being helped elsewhere. How cool is that?

<comment><USER9> How are you earning capital gains with that million, specifically?

<comment><USER10> Mostly by buying stocks and it works: the SP500 doubled in the past 10 years, and I did far better than that. You can consider my investment as contributions, because I most certainly bought stocks from other rich persons and the stock markets is growing fast mostly thanks to the bank central policies (note that my free money never directly helped the company of which I bought stocks). I purchased an apartment too, and that did not cost me a dime because my family offers free mortgages and the government does not tax any of that! Plus, real estate prices keeps growing where I live thanks to the continued gentrification of big cities. When will that stop?

<comment><USER9> Any investment can fail. You spent money to bet on the price going up and won. Someone else lost.

The markets aren't exclusively available to the rich. Anyone can buy and sell stocks.

Successful people get to live better than the poor. That is why we should do more to encourage more poor people to live better by contributing more.

The economy is not zero-sum.

<comment><USER7> Second part is a lie. Tried managing stocks on your own? And having no leverage?

It's not even close to competitive with hired specialists dedicated to the task. You cannot compete.

It is not contributions not success that makes people live better or longer. It is ownership, diet, mental health (including low stress) access to medical care. Check out how many of successful people actually live shorter or painful lives. Your argument only works for have-nots.

Economy is negative sum, unless you discount externalities. It does not break physics. Mined out and used up materials do not suddenly reappear. We just move the goalposts to have the same "positive money" outlook, keep everything from deflation. Until recently inventions (esp. energy and mining, then production efficiencies), made the economies grow. But it is not an infinite resource.

<comment><USER9> Managing stocks is easy. Buy winners and hold them. That's how Berkshire Hathaway earned their billions. They're not day-traders.

Contribution is the surest path to financial success. The more value you can contribute and capture, the more wealth our society will reward you with.

The Earth's resources are miniscule compared to the wider universe.

For example, there's a near earth asteroid that we discovered that has enough platinum to turn every person on earth into a billionaire at the current prices.

That's just one of tens of thousands of near earth objects.

Plus, there's millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt when we exhaust those.

Finally, we're already starting to mine them: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining)

So we are not restricted by resources.

Regardless, we live in an information economy that is mainly driven by credit and debt, not mining of resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm really surprised this piece was almost entirely about public opinion, only using economics to discuss the likelihood of a recession soon and the effects of inequality.

The levers our governments have been pulling to steer the economy are reaching their maximum. The system where we reduce interest rates to spur spending to stimulate the economy (probably) don't work when interest rates negative.

<comment><USER12> The problem is that you either incentivize higher economic volume or you get deflation. They tried printing money and giving it to the banks to loan because they're afraid to do the one rational thing there is and, in doing so, piss off the wealthy. But now that it seems that we're going to see instability and unrest no matter what, it's time to play that card, and hopefully shorten our inevitable economic Dark Age:

Wealth tax.

<comment><USER13> > Wealth tax.

HAHAHAHAHA

If anything, a wealth tax is what turns things from "depression" to "catastrophic failure" \- capital flight would be a _massive_ problem. And even ignoring any effects from changing incentives, why would taking from the _most_ productive and giving to the government improve the economy?

<comment><USER14> Adam Neumann (WeWork) coaxed billions of dollars out of Softbank for nothing of value in return. I would not consider that productive. Having wealth does not immediately confirm the activity that allowed for that wealth was productive, nor that one is productive for having amassed wealth.

<comment><USER13> Ehhh, fleecing the Saudis is arguably productive. But yes, there are certainly wealthy people who are not more productive than an S&P 500 index fund. (this might still be more productive than the US government, of course) But how do you propose to tax them and not the Bezos' and Musks of the world?

<comment><USER14> Bezos and Musk reinvested all of their wealth into their own endeavors. Craft policy to support such efforts. You still tax productive activities, just not as much as unproductive activities (such as mega-yachts or sailing teams, which are luxury goods).

<comment><USER13> Sounds like you want a consumption tax, and not a wealth tax then?

<comment><USER14> A little of both.

<comment><USER13> Ok, so another wealth tax question - do pensions and other such instruments count? If not, what's preventing someone from buying a large annuity and avoiding the tax?

And if you do... A lot of public pensions are worth 2+ million. Are public pensions supposed to be excluded? How does that get explained to the voters?

<comment><USER14> Great questions. I think we look with a critical eye but still make generous allowances for retirement savings vehicles.

Keep in mind, the problem isn't people with single digit millions of wealth, the problem is those with tens, hundreds of millions, and billions of dollars.

<comment><USER13> But _why_ are they a problem?

Look, there's two kinds of taxes. One is to raise revenue, one is to punish behavior we don't like. Once you start describing the rich as a _problem_ , it makes me think that this is the second kind of tax, and I _really_ don't think that accumulating wealth, and helping out everyone else along the way by growing the economy, is something we should be punishing.

If you say "the uber-rich ($10m is 99th percentile) do bad things, therefore we should tax the uber-rich", I'll really have to disagree - _tax the bad things they do_ , not the demographic group!

<comment><USER12> >accumulating wealth, and helping out everyone else along the way by growing the economy

The latter doesn't follow the former. In fact, consolidation of wealth is a hindrance to volume of activity outside the bounds of the owner of that wealth's interests. Case-in-point: Wal-Mart has done gangbuster business over the last half century. They've grown our economy. Almost every community its touched has been devastated by this, from the destruction of other businesses within its purview; to the flooding of the market with cheap goods that - <USER2> many cases - do nothing for society in their cheapness, and which actually create issues of overconsumption and waste; to the negative effects their influence has had on the shape of welfare. It's not about what Wal-Mart does; its _very existence_ at its size is destructive. The only positive thing it did was grow the overall economy, which is like celebrating a tumor growing your overall lean mass.

The over-aggregation of wealth is the problem. A wealth tax is the direct solution (it does not have to be permanent or perennial). Wealth flight is a fantasy, and for anyone who tries, the federal government has access to the resources necessary to make sure everyone pays their fair share.

<comment><USER13> > The latter doesn't follow the former. In fact, consolidation of wealth is a > hindrance to volume of activity outside the bounds of the owner of that > wealth's interests. Case-in-point: Wal-Mart has done gangbuster business > over the last half century. They've grown our economy. Almost every > community its touched has been devastated by this, from the destruction of > other businesses within its purview; to the flooding of the market with > cheap goods that - in many cases - do nothing for society in their > cheapness, and which actually create issues of overconsumption and waste; to > the negative effects their influence has had on the shape of welfare. It's > not about what Wal-Mart does; its very existence at its size is destructive. > The only positive thing it did was grow the overall economy, which is like > celebrating a tumor growing your overall lean mass.

I would _highly_ disagree there. The ills you describe aren't caused by Wal- Mart being _big_ , they're from the business model itself. 100 independent companies spread across the country would be similar.

> The over-aggregation of wealth is the problem. A wealth tax is the direct > solution (it does not have to be permanent or perennial). Wealth flight is a > fantasy, and for anyone who tries, the federal government has access to the > resources necessary to make sure everyone pays their fair share.

Because I certainly trust the US government not to come back to the money spigot after using a wealth tax the first time. Not.

As for wealth flight - dafqu you mean it's a fantasy? Does "facebook exec renounces citizenship to avoid capital gains tax" not ring any bells?

<comment><USER14> RE wealth flight, renouncing your citizenship comes with an exit tax. You can leave, but you'll have to pay up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wait until this soft gentle wave of climate activism fails...

<comment><USER3> We will see at least one war over climate change this century.

<comment><USER16> There've been arguments made that the Syrian Civil War was sparked over farmers revolting due to ahistorical droughts. I can't speak to their validity, but the first of many may have already happened.

<comment><USER3> You could also argue the same about Kashmir; it's not so much about ancestral homelands as water rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >After the 2008 recession, President Obama and the Democrats effectively saved capitalism from itself; a more radical leadership would fight to replace it with a better system. This time around there may be far more pressure from below to do just that, especially with a more organized left and more class conscious young people.

As a former soviet occupied country citizen, I am amazed that westerners would want to overthrow capitalism. Its what makes the west so prosperous.

<comment><USER10> >Its what makes the west so prosperous

And destroy our habitat.

<comment><USER18> It is orthogonal to a system. In USSR they polluted air, water, soil as hell. Eastern Germany was just a bit better:

[http://www.naturschutzgeschichte- ost.de/index.php?id=206](http://www.naturschutzgeschichte- ost.de/index.php?id=206)

[https://grist.org/article/2011-04-21-underground- environment...](https://grist.org/article/2011-04-21-underground- environmentalism-in-communist-east-germany/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > ... The last economic crisis contributed directly to the rise of populism > over the following decade, but the next crisis will come squarely within the > age of populism. ...

Although the article doesn't mention it, the next recession will also likely come during a powerful wave of job losses tied to automation.

Mixing popular resentment over the last debacle in which had few consequences for those responsible with the bewildering lack of jobs is a recipe for scapegoating other countries.

<comment><USER20> I don't know about anyone else but I'm tired of the "automation" doomsday predictions that don't understand we don't lose jobs, they just transfer with new technology.

Did the cottongin end slavery? No. It make it more efficient.

Did the rail system go away with national highways? No. We have much better last mile access.

Have robots replaced union workers? Union membership has decreased since the 80s, but unemployment has also decreased with a lot more population.

Despite computers we still have secretaries, and librarians, we have massive drilling equipment but also have miners, there are less mounted police and soldiers but despite cars horses are still around. Sailing, boats, and marine related people have jobs despite most travel being by plane. Inventing planes created more jobs than were lost, etc etc.

With every disruptive tech comes opportunity and transition. People aren't out of jobs despite automation. They're just in different jobs.

This prediction that there will be a billion people standing around with nothing to do because of robots is wildly naive of history.

<comment><USER21> I agree with your thrust but one caveat:

 _" despite cars horses are still around"_

This is an absolutely terrible argument, because the population and societal use of horses have been greatly reduced once the automobile came into play. If we were to transfer this with people, this means that once automation comes into the play, the vast majority of working humans will be culled and those remaining are only luxury/recreational items...

<comment><USER20> Ok, fair enough, but read the larger context though. The people who had equestrian professions didn't die. And there weren't a mass of people displaced as refugees as the car became popular.

It just created different jobs. Things that weren't possible or didn't exist before cars.

It's the same thing with "automation". People like to pretend that one day soon everything will just be straight up replaced with robots overnight and we just won't know what to do with ourselves. Not only isn't that the case, it ignores the history of disruptive technology for the last 10,000 years.

The root of the argument is made much better with overpopulation. But developed countries can't be made to subsidize that - make the argument automation and maybe you can convince some people to believe in socialism.

<comment><USER21> Actually from what I understand automation did displace certain specialty professions, such as weavers, and those people displaced generally had to take Shittier jobs or start from square one again in a new profession. That is to say, assuming there will not be upheaval as certain careers are completely ravaged is ahistorical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >"The higher savings rate, we believe, has had disinflationary impact, driving the relatively slow growth and low inflation in this recovery," wrote an analyst for Raymond James, observing that younger people are "saving instead of purchasing like last generation, limiting demand growth."

this is what the constant specter of economic instability causes people to do. stash money under the bed, defer big purchases, and refuse to buy things that are not necessary for life. then, when the economy worsens, people feel like they are at least a little bit more prepared. the trick, of course, is that the actions taken to respond to their feelings of instability are more likely to cause a recession.

overall, the liberal-capitalist response to the outcry of the young public has been "shut up, get a job, consume more, be more competitive" \-- and it will be just as tone deaf and infuriating in the coming recession as it has been since before the last recession.

</comment><comment><USER22> Maybe I'm naïve, but to me the word "capitalism" is not an "economic policy" that can be changed through deliberate action, but rather a framework of analysis that makes predictions on supply, demand, and pricing in markets that are varying levels of free.

I'm confused when people in my generational cohort say things like "capitalism is unfair" or "capitalism sucks", in reference to the system of government and benefits we have currently. Every economy has had forces that were usefully explainable with capitalism, even the soviet economy in the 80s. Markets abound, and capitalism is a powerful explanatory tool, so to me "let's end capitalism" sounds a bit like "let's end gravity".

For somebody more in the know, this can't be what people are meaning, right? Are they just trying to bargain for a "better" social contract with fewer free markets? Any idea why they associate this with "ending capitalism"?

<comment><USER23> "Capitalism" is used as the label for the policy one might more precisely describe as "regulatory minimalism"; the philosophy that opposes minimum wage laws, that opposes collective bargaining by employees, that opposes safety and environmental regulation, that opposes universal health care, etcetera.

This philosophy is associated with the term "capitalism" because its proponents tar any improvement of the social contract, acknowledgement of climate change, or balancing of negotiating power as "socialism/communism"\- terms used interchangeably as a boogeyman rather than for any engagable definition, but always pitted as the opposite of "capitalism".

<comment><USER24> It's funny because most of the things people are struggling with are a direct result of government regulation. High costs for education, housing and healthcare are _caused_ by regulation, not helped by it. Let student loans be discharged in bankruptcy and watch the cost of education drop like a rock. Get rid of zoning restrictions and watch house prices fall. Health care costs would dramatically improve if health insurance wasn't mandatory and people could buy it from anywhere (I'd happily get mine from India or South America if it was an option).

The market isn't the problem, it's government interference with the market that's the problem.

<comment><USER25> Healthcare and Education are both very affordable because of regulation in Australia where I live. It isn't regulation at all that is the problem with affordability you describe, it is the form the specific regulation you guys in the US have

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The proponents of current form of capitalism miss a big big aspect of free- market capitalism. That is: taking losses.

Every capitalism proponent is so tied up to the stock market that they don't want to see losses. Thus they resort to policies that would somehow socialize losses.

If you are really free market, you need to accept losses.

\- Let the FED not print money which causes inflation which is driving a regular life out of the young's reach

\- Let students declare bankruptcy on student loans

\- Let your social security go bankrupt, it is market driven

\- Let your house prices go underwater. Whoever said it should always go up and that the young should burn their lives to buy it from old geezers at elevated prices.

But no, the boomers don't want those losses. This is where cries for socialism is coming from.

<comment><USER27> > The proponents of current form of capitalism miss a big big aspect of free- > market capitalism. That is: taking losses.

It might be clearer if you just called "the current form of capitalism" crony capitalism. It's not free market and that's why I laugh whenever people say that capitalism is failing. Progressives won a long time ago (during the Progressive era) and crafted a massive government, instituted heavy centralized planning, and we're seeing the failure of the centralization of government play out today.

<comment><USER26> Are you really kidding me? I'm not sure if you are looking at things objectively when you blame progressives (for something they didn't even do) while the current administration is enriching the oligarchs

<comment><USER27> Enriching the oligarchs? Compared to under Bush and Obama when their administrations espoused the notion that "everyone dies if we don't inject massive amounts of money into irresponsible corporations." Everyone enriches oligarchs. Blaming it on one administration or the other misses the larger point that strong central planning is the defining feature of anything done by federal govt nowadays (something that, like I said, we got from the early 20th c).

<comment><USER26> Every administration has a problem. You are the one who brought some "progressive" nonsense in the first place, when you yourself know that it's not a political party issue. It's a problem with our politics which is sold out to the highest bidder.

Oligarchs in our system are people funding lobbyists. How else do you think Oligarchs work?

Let's be rational and remove the blame game. Focus on the problem and we know none of the political leaders are doing anything to fix it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> >On the other hand, 41 percent of those over 65 supported Biden, compared to 26 percent for Warren and an incredible 2 percent for Sanders.

it seems that the ones that grew up in a time when tax policy was closer to bernie sanders' are less likely to support him

<comment><USER29> That does not surprise me. That generation benefited from those tax rates by living some of the best recorded lives in history and don't want to do anything that could change their own status quo now that they are rich and powerfull.

<comment><USER30> I agree. Retirees and the elderly vote much more than the youth. Unless that changes, policy will continue to be more favorable towards retirees and the elderly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> "The more they feel that the system is rigged against them, the more they will demand the system itself be overthrown"

The author talks about it like the only alternative is overthrowing the system. This is another extreme, maybe the word you should use here is the social market economy ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_market_economy)). We use this term here in Germany, even our most deregulation friendly party is committed to it and by definition it's still capitalist.

</comment><comment><USER32> The illusion that there is one thing called capitalism needs to go. Because of it, the discussion always goes to "oh, you think communism will be better? We will have gulags before the month is over!"

Most people are unaware there are like 9 different schools of thought in economics, which complement each other. They might have heard of Keynesian and neo-liberal. Of all places, HN readers should know about Schumpeter's model, as it explains the rise of new industries often comes with disruption to the old ones.

Many problems of the last decades come from shoe-horning neoliberal economic model where it does not belong, without understanding it's limitations. (which are numerous). Privatising natural monopolies is the classic example.

It also seems the fall of USSR has freed our leaders from any need for self- reflection. The consequences for fuck ups could be dire, now all you get is "occupy wall-street".

<comment><USER33> I'm always amazed how no one has heard of Mutualism. It's also a testament to how effective the USSR (and the US, I guess) were at portraying all legitimacy around non-capitalism concentrated around authoritarian state capitalism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This whole "capitalism bad" debate feels incredibly black and white.

I think what most people are really against is the one way street that capitalism established. It's a broken system, and it wouldn't matter if we had any other system as long as it would still be broken and abused.

On a global level, there are tax loopholes that allow multi billion corporations and individuals to pay essentially no taxes. This money is then used to further enrich the same parties through a financial market that is equally broken.

It has nothing to do with capitalism that wealth is created without a flow of goods or other value that is created from it. All it does is devalue all other wealth at a growing pace.

Capitalism is not ideal, it won't be. But if we moved towards actual, functional capitalism where governments did their part in keeping the whole thing from turning into a one way street, we would have a long way to go before we needed something else.

<comment><USER35> Is it not just as black and white as the whole "socialism/communism is bad" stuff we're fed? People act like Medicare For All would be catastrophically expensive, when even our arguably closest allies in the UK — not exactly a socialist haven! — have the NHS, which seems to work out great. They pretend the Green New Deal would mark the end times for the US, as if the last New Deal's massive investment in infrastructure didn't help revitalize the economy.

But yes, I agree — the idea that best thing to do is dogmatically implement one particular economic system is absurd.

<comment><USER34> My wording clearly wasn't the best, so thanks for picking this up. Your comment reflects what I had in mind. We don't have to go from one to the other in one big swing. Evolving and moving towards a less broken system would go a long way already.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> If you were born in an advanced economy in 2000 you've lived through at least two recessions, weak growth, rising inequality and asset prices, and high cost of schooling. Yes, capitalism isn't really looking great right now.

<comment><USER37> Contrarian opinion--you've lived in two boom times with high growth and have more knowledge that is easier and cheaper to access than any other time in human history.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Capitalism or just bankers and other usurers?

</comment><comment><USER39> Can capitalism be fixed with a wealth tax? Like tax 2% of wealth greater than some arbitrary amount - say 1 mill USD - and feed that back into social services?

</comment><comment><USER40> I can't understand what people actually have against capitalism. Most of the times when I hear about the problems of my generation much of it comes down to personal choice. You don't have to go to an expensive college, you don't have to live in the "it" part of town, and you don't have to use your credit card. I've heard so many people complain about the injustices of the world, but at the same time they pay twice as much for rent as me and have 1/3 the income. I have trouble feeling sympathy when you could just make better choices and improve your life without asking the government to come in and take care of you.

<comment><USER41> This opinion leaves out many of the parts of living in modern society that go beyond what we can choose. Just as a quick example, in the US, you don't _choose_ to get sick and fall into medical debt -- but capitalism underpins the health system that induces that medical debt (which is a major contributor to poverty [0].)

It seems like you may be confusing the situation of the people in your immediate circle with the larger, systemic problems that are directly related to the accumulation/hoarding of wealth.

To your last point -- the majority of people are not able to simply "make better choices." No one _chooses_ to be born into poverty. No one _chooses_ to lose their job. No one _chooses_ to be ill. It is exceedingly harder, year after year, for working-class people to even have the ability to improve their lives meaningfully.

[0]: [https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/09/12/medicare- for...](https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/09/12/medicare-for-all- would-cut-poverty-by-over-20-percent/)

<comment><USER42> > you don't choose to get sick and fall into medical debt -- but capitalism > underpins the health system that induces that medical debt (which is a major > contributor to poverty [0].)

The medical system not a free market. It is a hybrid of a state-controlled system and a capitalistic system. Here are some ways of how the system is state-controlled:

1\. Hospitals cannot be freely constructed. One must apply for a "certificate of need" to gain permission from the government to build a hospital. This is not a free market.

2\. Credentialism is BAD in our medical system. There is only one group of people approved by the government to do prescribe most medications and perform most surgeries - doctors. This is not a free market and greatly increase costs. Doctors earn a median of 300k/year and are the highest paid profession in every state. This is not a free market.

3\. Hospitals are legally forced to treat anyone who shows up at their door - even if they can't afford the treatment. This is not a free market.

4\. Medicare/Medicaid are forced to nearly buy any drug, regardless of cost, if it could save a live. Even if a drug is 500k/year, the system is forced to buy it. This is not a free market and greatly increases costs.

<comment><USER37> I think with points 3 and 4 there are very difficult decisions. Turning people away or not trying treatments sounds pretty bad, but there doesn't need to be an entire new system just to solve them.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Homes 'Earn' Minimum Wage or More in Almost Half the Nation's Largest Cities - <AUTHOR> https://www.zillow.com/research/hourly-home-equity-earnings-19356/ <comment><USER2> I don't understand how affordable housing isn't a huge political issue. It's missing on the left and the right. Housing is way more important, most people would think, than say, free college tuition (left) or reducing immigration (right) — two issues that get tons of coverage by politicians.

Where is the outrage? Where are the action plans and policy proposals? It bothers me.

<comment><USER3> It isn't a problem in much of the United States.

<comment><USER4> What? How is that even possible?

<comment><USER3> Look at this map that shows what a household needs to earn to buy an average (not low-cost) home by state. Most places do not have California's problem. [https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fatherly.com/news/map- avera...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fatherly.com/news/map-average-cost- house-each-state-us/amp/)

<comment><USER5> Ah, the old "if it's happening here, it must be happening _everywhere_ ".

The thing I like most about the US, is it's diversity across all fronts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd bet the typical mortgage interest is also above minimum wage. Google says San Francisco's median house price is 1.61M. If 80% of that is a mortgage and it's at 4.25%, that comes out to about $55k in interest alone during year 1.

Zillow wants you to buy houses, so it'll make it look like you make money out of nothing. I

</comment><comment><USER7> In other news, most workers can't afford the median-priced home:

[https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/home-sales- pric...](https://www.attomdata.com/news/market-trends/home-sales-prices/home- affordability-report-q1-2018/)

<comment><USER8> Would it be expected for the median worker to be able to afford a median priced home? Most people buy homes these days with 2 incomes and therefore homes are priced (square footage, amenities, land value) for such income levels.

<comment> vertex-four Of course, then you have a societal problem in that you're tying people's ability to keep a roof over their head to their ability to correctly find a partner they can be with for multiple decades.

<comment><USER5> There are a slew of people out there who can keep a healthy relationship with someone much easier than keep a job. I'd venture to say that most people find benefit in finding a life partner. Hence why they keep doing it (even multiple times).

Of course, once someone finds someone else I suppose one should ceremoniously back down and stay home in order to conform to other norms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Is this really surprising? Large amounts of capital give sizable returns. Even with a 2.5% return (inflation) on $1M, you'll earn $12/hr at a 40 hour workweek.

Next up in not surprising news, people with $500k stock portfolios likely earn more in appreciation & dividends than the median US worker.

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_value_tax)

</comment><comment><USER10> When you artificially limit the amount of housing via the government (zoning, height maximums, lot size requirements, etc.) you make housing worth more than it would in a free market. This is not surprising and is exactly the outcome desired by home owners in elite cities.

<comment><USER11> Let's be real- maybe there's a cabal of homeowners trying to jack up the value of their house with government policy for their own gain. Or, maybe the homeowners don't like skyscrapers and do like seeing the mountains, in fact perhaps that's why they moved there in the first place pre-boom.

<comment><USER12> Yeah I think a lot of city dwellers would be fine with new building if it looked like building more of Paris, instead of building High Rise Home Depot Clearance Bin or commie block housing.

Most new stuff, at least in New Hampshire and Mass, is just SO UGLY inside and out. The people complaining about new construction do have legitimate grievances here.

(I say all this as a huge walkable towns, new urbanist-ish advocate)

<comment><USER13> One big problem with high density affordable housing in CA is that the building codes for apartments are substantially weaker than for condos.

In particular, apartments have much lower sound proofing standards.

I guess the local politicians don't realize that poor people (and millennial engineers) also need to sleep.

<comment><USER14> If you think that's bad, look at building concessions to special-use buildings, like elder care facilities.

Though I did not have a hand in this, as I don't live there anymore, my old neighborhood successfully blocked the city from allowing developers to build a building that would allocate less than 100sqft of total (not living!) space per the elder person being cared at the facility. Bunk beds and all. Essentially a distopian hellhole.

Now, 3 story townhomes with reasonable sqft going up. Smaller spacing than I would personally want, but it's A) housing and B) livable for a family, so it's a win in my book.

If only Santa Monica would average 3 stories...

<comment><USER15> Efficiency studios are drastically more livable than roommate situations. I hope the activists who "protect" me from having an apartment too small are not under the illusion that they're helping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> De-commodify housing.

<comment><USER15> I love this phease. It's so brilliantly cheap, edgy, holier-than-thou without bothering to actually suggest anything of substance or make any kind of proposal that could be subject to scrutiny.

An active market for mostly-interchangeable housing units is a great thing. No one wants to see a world where housing isn't a commodity, unless they already live in their ideal home. We want to see a world where it's cheaper.

<comment><USER17> yeah what does 'de-commodify' even mean?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Until you 'earn' -$500,000 in six months during the next real estate crash.

<comment><USER19> Thats a problem for the greater fool down the line. Not me though i'm too smart for that.

<comment><USER20> Pretty much the general attitude. But the scary part is that most are basing their retirement on this one-asset strategy end-all investment approach.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> the rate of capital growth is intended to outpace the rate of labor

this isn't news, this is the design: make enough money fast enough that you can live off it forever. if you do it too slow, you have to live off the principle and it is more likely that a large cost destroys your principle.

</comment><comment><USER22> Even better than a wage, since the eventual cashout gets way nicer tax treatment.

</comment><comment><USER23> Strong indicator of a real estate bubble 2.0.

<comment><USER24> I think loans without income to back them up is an indicator of a bubble, but that's not what we have. But new jobs, esp. higher paying jobs are concentrated into narrow areas, like Seattle, SF, Austin. There are only so many houses, they are building more but except for apartments in Seattle there's no evidence of enough housing to meet demand. So I think housing prices should keep going up.

If housing prices were going up in towns without people moving there, that would be a different issue, but that's the opposite of what is happening. Interest rates are going up slowly, that should slow housing price gains.

<comment><USER13> If salaries were rising enough to justify the increase in house prices, then we'd also see rents going up at the same rate.

That's not happening. Also, back when houses were $200K cheaper, and interest rates were almost 1% lower, you needed exotic mortgages (like adjustable rate) to make the cash flow associated with buying make sense (assuming you make apples to apples comparisons between owning and buying).

<comment><USER25> They were until about 2 years ago in SF.

You can chart the price / rental increases based on the marginal high earner. You have 1 'tech' salary rent levels and 2 'tech' salary rent levels.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Best and brightest: Only a few countries are teaching children how to think - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21583609-only-few-countries-are-teaching-children-how-think-best-and-brightest

<comment><USER2> > Only a few countries are teaching children how to think ...

A truth easily explained. Governments fund education either directly or indirectly, therefore educational agendas are set by governments, and people who can think critically are difficult to govern. No mystery here.

What is admirable are those countries that teach people to think for themselves, and think critically, even though this makes governing more difficult. Sadly, the U.S. is not on that list.</comment>


A DNA-Based Archival Storage System - <AUTHOR> http://research.microsoft.com/apps/pubs/default.aspx?id=258661 <comment><USER2> Direct link to paper: [http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/258661/dnastorage- asplos1...](http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/258661/dnastorage-asplos16.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: How to organize Git repos? - <AUTHOR> I have about 100 git repos in my GitHub account. It's become pretty hard to keep them organized, and separate the ones that I actually use.
I found a tool called Astral to organize repos you've starred, but nothing for your own repo.
How do people keep Git repos organized? <comment><USER2> Probably too crude a solution for you, but when I had that problem, I created a 2nd Github account (you can also use a Github organization), and made that account the owner of the 'archived' repos.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mean--ingenious, but I was looking for something more advanced :-)

<comment><USER3> Can you describe what you envision?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure!

Pretty much the same as Astral, but for your own repos--not just starred ones.

In short, I'd like to login with my GitHub account, the thing fetches all my repos, and I can group them and tag them.

I might fork Astral as see if I can make it show my own repos inatead of starred ones...

<comment><USER3> So if I understand you correctly, you're looking for a web app front end to organizing your github repos and ideally hosted on GitHub. Is that correct?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Do all the organisation client-side on your own computer(s) by building up some fine-grained config files for `myrepos`

[https://myrepos.branchable.com/](https://myrepos.branchable.com/)

[https://linux.die.net/man/1/mr](https://linux.die.net/man/1/mr)</comment>