Scissor Statements: Sort by Controversial - <AUTHOR> https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/10/30/sort-by-controversial/ <comment><USER2> Now that I've actually read it rather than starting with the comments, as we're all prone to do, I think it's an interesting little piece of fiction that reminds me of two things.

One is the Monty Python weaponised joke sketch: the premise of the sketch is that the joke is so funny that anyone who reads or hears it promptly dies from laughter, so it is carefully divided into pieces and translated into German for use as a weapon.

The other is the Dreyfuss affair, and its notorious ability to fragment French society for years.

<comment><USER3> It reminds me of a CGP Grey video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc). In that video (okay I'm interpreting a bit...) society itself acts as Scissor, "breeding" some ideas to become maximally controversial.

Which, if you take SA's story too seriously, is actually good news: it implies that we've probably already seen just about the worst scissors possible, because society's been trying to produce them all along!

<comment><USER4> Like any invention, not everything that can be invented has been invented. The current culture war has only been going for around 5 years. Things can change and new divides erupt all the time.

<comment><USER2> 5 years? Lots of it can be traced directly all the way back to the Vietnam war, surely? Certainly abortion has been a scissor issue since at least 1973.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The idea that words have enormous power over human minds is taken to fantasical extremes in a (sf? f?) thriller "Lexicon", by Max Barry[1].

My own view is that "truth" means something different to some people. For example, a charismatic narcissistic leader might mean "confident belief" when he says "truth". This definition define his statements to be truth! I suppose the last backstop for these kinds of structures are nature itself, and it's tendency to allow problematic structures to crumble.

1 [https://www.alibris.com/Lexicon-Max- Barry/book/24166116](https://www.alibris.com/Lexicon-Max-Barry/book/24166116)

<comment><USER6> I mean the entire society is organized around abstract concepts: corporation, nation, state, money, God, duty/obligation, human rights. None of these things are real (physics does not care about, say, debt), those are just programs running on the human brain. Natural language is the dispersal protocol of those programs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, this is "fiction", but he described his method precisely: get the publicly available Reddit comments archive, sort by controversial, set up the GAN generating and scoring texts according to controversy (the comments that cause the most schism and/or initiate discussions), train it, then try to generate new controversial comments. Seems doable.

I presume that everyone with a spark of scientific mindset and even a slight interest in the field now warming up their OpenGPT-2 instances and trying to reproduce the effect.

<comment><USER8> Well... [https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/bers5o/usin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/bers5o/using_gpt2_to_sort_by_controversial/)

<comment><USER9> That's about what I'd expect at the current level of GPT-2. It is very good in some dimensions, but terrible in others, e.g., right there at the beginning: "Blacks make up 1/8 of the world's population, but they account for only a 3/10 of global economic power." \- GPT is very bad at math [1], it gets the structure of arguments involving math or numbers but doesn't understand the numbers, so right off there's a massive unforced error in this controversial statement in which it complains that 12.5% of the world's population has "only" 30% of the power, undercutting the whole thing from the getgo and making something that was a good start to a "controversial" statement completely fall apart into farce due to a simple error. It does this sort of thing pervasively. It's clear that GPT-2 is touching controversial _topics_ but it's failing to put together controversial _sentences_.

I suspect that the sort of thing that Scott discusses in this story isn't _quite_ possible, at the full described power... but certainly if AI gets better than GPT-2, it'll get better at this too.

[1]: Read some of [https://www.reddit.com/r/SubSimulatorGPT2/search/?q=math&res...](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubSimulatorGPT2/search/?q=math&restrict_sr=1)

<comment><USER10> Funny thing though - I could see that statement being particularly enraging once a large enough and random enough group got behind debating it. These statements don't have to make logical sense, they only have to trigger people into instinctive camps.

"The math doesn't even make sense, and is making my point, that there's no problem here"

"You're saying there's not a problem? Believe me, there's a problem..."

etc.

<comment><USER9> True enough, but I think one with accurate math is more likely to focus more people on the more enraging substance rather than the mere fact of a math error. It may be enraging to some people but I don't think it's anywhere near _optimally_ enraging.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, I think the more general problem is people can only get so enraged if they realize it's a bot. So the sentences have to be good enough to pass a perfunctory Turing test. The math is only one of several tells in these.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> J-dawg The part I don't understand is, how would the scissor statements be made real?

E.g. The Russian scissor statement machine spits out a statement about a bakery refusing to make a cake for a gay couple.

What happens next? They somehow identify real people who fit the role and nudge them towards ordering a cake?

Or would everyone involved be paid actors?

Or real people who are bribed / coerced?

I know we're in fictional territory, I'm just curious about how this would work in the story's 'universe'. (And in real life, I guess, considering that some of it seemed dangerously plausible).

<comment><USER11> In the cake example - find a bakery that won't make a cake for a gay wedding. Probably by correlating gay hate posts on social media and baking.

Start directing traffic from social media of LGBTQ communities, perhaps even wedding orientes, towards that bakery. For example false accounts on facebook wedding groups who say that bakery is really good or something.

Wait until something happens.

<comment><USER12> Another.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british- columbia/transgender-...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british- columbia/transgender-woman-human-rights-waxing-1.5227434)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> One of Alexander's better stories. However, I'd say it reeks of what I'd call _Alexanderness_ :

-The idea that arguments and debates are the most important thing in the world and everyone should do it as much as possible (possibly due to his being terminally online). In real life if you say something other people find abhorrent they'll first go "that's wrong wtf", then if you insist "sure alright go off" then "please stop talking to me". Most people are not, in fact, in a perpetual crusade to prove opppnents wrong. That's because the real world isn't Twitter.

-The idea that _both sides have a point_ and trying to rule out one side is anathema to a well-functioning society. In other words, _why can 't everyone just get along?_ Well guess what, sometimes one side is unambigiously right and the other unambiguously wrong. Some disagreements can't be resolved other than through power struggles, such as e.g. when one side's position implies the negation of the other side's rights, identity or existence. We can't have a rational, dispassionate debate about whether I should have rights. I can't _argue_ for my existence, I _want_ it.

-Equivocating all controversial statements as equally controversial. For instance, design decisions about a codebase vs. religion issues vs. presumably something even deeper ('so hateful and disgusting'). Some fights are worth having, some are not.

<comment><USER14> > We can't have a rational, dispassionate debate about whether I should have > rights.

Nobody has 'rights'. It's an artificial construct.

Nobody can do what they want, they are constrained by others - whether through a system of law, or simply other people intervening.

Everything is a negotiation.

If somebody wanted to kill you - you could fight - or you could become useful to the person with the power to kill you.

It's a negotiation where both sides weight the risks of different approaches.

Democratic systems of government and the law simply are an agreement by the majority that it's a pragmatic way of doing stuff - negotiate once nationally rather than constant negotiations with everyone we meet.

So maybe what's missing in a system like reddit is the recording of decisions - ie a vote at the end of every thread.

<comment><USER15> > Nobody has 'rights'. It's an artificial construct.

Whether "rights" are an artificial construct is not germane. A twelve-month lease is an artificial construct, but I have one of those. So is a Twitter account, gender, and my favorite pancake recipe. I have all of these things. I also have rights.

<comment><USER16> In the context of a certain society, sure. But those are "rights within that society", just like your lease is "a lease within that society." (The pancake recipe is a pancake recipe anywhere; whether or not you can get the ingredients is a separate issue.) Having rights enforced by treaty across most of the world doesn't mean you have rights if you e.g. crash-land your private plane into a North Korean military base. Or if you get hijacked by pirates in international waters.

In both cases, it's not really some airy _universal human rights_ that'll protect you; instead, you have "being the subject of a powerful sovereign nation that has made a promise to its citizens to retrieve them from such peril, probably ultimately because of _that nation's_ perception of your _granted rights_ as a citizen of that country." (And, if you're stateless, you don't even have that—which is a big reason many nations don't let you renounce citizenship without already being a citizen of somewhere-else.)

And, more to the GP poster's point, your rights don't exist if you wander into the wilderness, get chased by a bear, get backed into a corner, and want to convince the bear not to eat you. The bear will not stop because "you have rights"; those are, at their widest, a "human civil-society" thing. At that moment, you need something else. Something _negotiated_ , probably. (Maybe you can throw him a sandwich and leave while he's distracted? That's a negotiation.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is cute. Creepypasta for grownups.

<comment><USER18> A little less cute when it's so common.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I remember 2011's scissor statement in the online Atheism community: "Guys, don't do that".

</comment><comment><USER20> I really enjoyed this - are there any other places online that host "tech thriller" fiction similar to this?

</comment><comment><USER21> The idea is interesting, but everyone is a caricature of their role (marketing people have no morals, programmers are clueless about business). I guess there may be some "intentional" hyperbole but overall it's a badly written but interesting idea.

<comment><USER9> If, for the sake of argument, a traditional story involves plot, setting, and characters, short stories are considered to be doing pretty well if they can come out swinging on all three. When you add "ideas" to the mix, it is inevitable that something else is going to suffer. Optimizing on that many dimensions is just not a reasonable request.

It's part of why science fiction has so frequently had such flat characters... there just isn't _room_ with the complicated plots, the uniquely-demanding settings (you can't just say "Bob banged open the saloon doors" if the equivalent of "Bob", "saloon", and "doors" have to be explained to the reader), and the introduction of "ideas" into the mix. Insisting that they all _also_ be character studies would be asking for the moon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> (2018), but still very relevant!

<comment><USER23> I guess it did partially come true. The GPT-2 model by OpenAI (2019) trained on reddit links did tear some communities apart. :)

[https://openai.com/blog/better-language- models/](https://openai.com/blog/better-language-models/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Ugh. A brilliant insight into how people don't actually work. I read the first third hoping for an example, then the rest just hoping that _anything would happen_. My opinion of slatestarcodex was significantly higher an hour ago than it is now.

<comment><USER25> Well, it's memetic warfare fiction, but I don't feel it's _that_ far off the mark. The other day I've been in a discussion where some of the people disagreeing with me were - in my eyes - failing at reading comprehension, seemingly unable to parse the simple English statements of the source material that somehow became quoted by _both_ sides of the argument. I left that discussion with worrying feeling that those others, most of them smart techies, couldn't possibly be _that_ dumb, so there must be _something else_ going on. I find this story uncanny because within its universe, it hints at what that "something else" is.

(Oh, and my opinion of SSC went up a bit.)

<comment><USER26> Having been in many arguments that seem like that[0], I think the answer is actually quite simple: sometimes it's just hard to communicate with other human beings. Communication can only convey understanding with shared context, and sometimes our contexts line up enough to make it seem like we're conveying understanding but each of us is consistently misunderstanding the other. Between the frustration and our tendency towards viewing attacks against our arguments as attacks against our being, you sometimes wind up with the kind of behavior discussed in this story.

The story itself is effective because it constructs a malevolent purpose to explain everyday phenomena we don't normally think too much about. John Dies at the End used Baader-Meinhof to similar effect.

[0]If I'm honest with myself about it, arguing is one of my favorite pastimes.

<comment><USER27> I think a lot of divides are because people have different assumed axioms, and in many cases cannot even declare what those axioms are.

Example:

I know pro-life people who cannot understand how someone could simultaneously hold the belief that aborting fetuses with congenital defects is okay, but rounding up the severely handicapped and killing them is not; there is nothing magical about birth that changes a life from not being valuable to being valuable.

Simultaneously I know pro-choice people who cannot understand how someone could simultaneously vouch for reducing or eliminating social welfare services to single mothers but also vouch for making abortions illegal; clearly the pro-life people don't care about babies _after_ they are born!

Since the other side holds inconsistent views, they are wrongheaded hypocrites and all of their arguments can be dismissed without further thought. No compromise is possible because to compromise with hypocrites is to enable their hypocrisy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is a chilling, very well written story!

</comment><comment><USER29> Story would be much more readable if he had actually stated the offending Scissor and cut it short by half.

<comment><USER30> That would be missing the point. He'd have to commit to a specific statement as being a scissor. But if someone doesn't already get the point, they'd fall into the same trap as the people in the story "what? They must misunderstand the claim. Obviously it's true/false."

The story's point requires identifying the psychological state state that scissor statements put you into, where you feel reality is actually bending against you (eg "he turned her against me").

If you think there is an explicit scissor statement Alexander could have committed to, then I think you might not appreciate the core thesis.

<comment><USER31> I'm with you. We see in this discussion that it's difficult even to raise some potential scissors as examples without a lot of commenters falling into them.

SSC's point is not "X is a near-universal scissor", it's that there's a scissor or ten for almost everyone, and that some scissors are likely to ensnare a lot of people.

If you've never found yourself arguing vehemently and extensively, to the death, about something and sometime later wondered what that was about, you may be a counterexample, someone who is scissor-immune.

I sure am not.

<comment><USER32> The point, though, was that a scissor statement is irrelevant to an individual. To any one person, each statement is either obviously, trivially true, or obviously, trivially false. It only becomes an argument when you start discussing it with somebody who sees it the opposite way as you do.

<comment><USER31> The scissor effect can't apply to an individual. And I suppose if most everyone falls on one side of the question, even with lots of passion, there's no scissor.

But I'm arguing (SSC may not be) that effective scissor statements create both passion and tunnel vision in people, even one at a time. And so when there are people with passion and tunnel vision on both sides, voilà, scissor. (It's a little bit like "drunken mob". You can't have a mob with just one person, but each person, arguably, gets drunk on their own.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Startup Growth and Venture Returns - <AUTHOR> https://angel.co/blog/venture-returns <comment><USER2> "Consequently, we filter our dataset down to only those companies that raised a seed round with AngelList, and those companies' subsequent rounds of fundraising that we have information on"

Doesn't that mean the conclusions of this are based upon only companies that did a follow-on round, not companies that raised money in general? Of course there are seasoning effects, but throwing out all the companies that can't raise to conclude "Our model shows that at the seed stage investors would increase their expected return by broadly indexing into every credible deal".

If that was the case, the conclusion should be "our model shows that seed investments that receive follow on investment should be indexed to", but that isn't know at the time of the previous round. The discussion seems to ignore the huge bias of censoring as well, but I might be missing something and I didn't get through every word.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I suspect there is some survivorship bias in this analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> For a less comprehensive, but also less complex and opaque, analysis, I looked at the cash on cash returns from seed, series a and series b investments in some of the top performing companies in recent years: Uber, lyft, twitter, Dropbox, Pinterest, snap and zoom [0]

I did this as a way to compare tech and biotech seed investing (I work in biotech). Outlier returns in biotech are lower than in tech, so managing risk across a portfolio is more important than just getting in on big winners (i.e. Consistent base hits and home runs, not just going for one or two grand slams)

Interestingly, biotech VC has outperformed tech VC over the last decade. This is despite lower returns on an individual- investment basis. This suggests that concentrated portfolios with low loss rates can perform better than portfolios than power law portfolios [1]

So if you are a biotech investor, you probably shouldn't follow the tech investing playbook

[0] [https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/anatomy_of_a_decacorn.html](https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/anatomy_of_a_decacorn.html)

[1] [https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/anatomy_of_a_top_vc.html](https://www.baybridgebio.com/blog/anatomy_of_a_top_vc.html)

<comment><USER5> Great reads. My first hunch on the former is that the barrier to entry is higher in biotech than tech in general, but the barrier to exit is lower in biotech. I'm sure that's a gross overgeneralization, but would you be inclined to agree?

<comment><USER4> Thanks. I think the barrier to starting a biotech company is higher as you can't bootstrap as easily (though it is becoming easier to do so) and you can't get exponential growth on a tiny amount of capital (which you can do in tech with product market fit)

The exit environment has been good lately. The M&A market will be strong for the foreseeable future bc big pharma relies on startups for new drugs when existing drugs go off patent. The IPO market has been good, but that could change for a number of reasons, including rising interest rates

<comment><USER5> Forgive me if this is an obvious question, but why would rising interest rates cool off the IPO market? Cascading effects?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > Conventional investing wisdom tells us that VCs should pass on most deals > they see. But our research indicates otherwise: At the seed stage, investors > would increase their expected return by broadly indexing into every credible > deal.

> That's one of the results we found when we analyzed the thousands of deals > syndicated by AngelList over the past seven years to test assumptions about > the nature of venture capital returns. ...

That period includes the loosest Fed monetary policy on record. It's remarkable for both Quantitative Easing and in some industrialized regions negative nominal interest rates, two things that few economists were talking about before 2008.

At some point it will be clear to everyone that the last 12 years have been a mirage conjured by utterly unsustainable economic policies.

As the saying goes, if the wind is strong enough even turkeys can fly.

<comment><USER7> Or we are going through a massive shift where tech is being deployed across the entire economy.

<comment><USER8> And we're _just beginning_. Walking through the city, I still see tons of people (working staff like construction, delivery, etc) not using modern technology even though it's decades old, proven and cheap, to increase their efficiency.

<comment><USER9> example? What modern tech is a delivery person to use to make their job more efficient? i can't believe they aren't already using a GPS to locate the destination. They are using barcode/scanners presumably (or electronic signatures).

<comment><USER8> They are not using both of these. It's a state owned company...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The report is at [https://angel.co/pdf/growth.pdf](https://angel.co/pdf/growth.pdf).

<comment><USER11> Thanks - saved a click! Appreciate it

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What exactly happens when there is a bubble in the private markets? And what happens when it crashes? Does it affect the public markets in anyway?

In other words, if I believe there's a huge bubble in the private valuations of unicorns likewise proven by companies like Wag or WeWork, will it A: Affect my 401K and mutual funds I have in Vanguard and B: Is there anything I can do to short it?

<comment><USER13> Take the barbell strategy — make sure to exit any less liquid investments (e.g. stock), and then extract capital from the bubble by raising money. When the market crashes, use your cash to purchase cheap assets and/or failing companies, and then work towards profitability.

Absolutely do not: become a VC, work for a startup, or place your capital into some kind of 'growth' fund indexed to tech. Don't buy real estate in urban areas and don't borrow.

<comment><USER12> Raising money in the bubble doesn't do anything if you can't liquidate from the company with good terms and you're paid a startup founders salary right?

<comment><USER9> WeWork begs to differ - get the highly funded startup to purchase your own property/contracts to extract the value out of the startup and into your own pockets. Then when the economy/startup tanks, leave and let somebody else pick up the pieces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Interestingly, the report indicates that only ~50% of their dataset has negative returns, and the mean IRR of the success cohort is 35%.

This is both much higher rate of success and somewhat lower return than I would have expected. I guess the takeaway is that many companies (that reach seed round anyway) have middling success?

<comment><USER15> Study author here.

You can think of the AngelList investment data as being split into three roughly equal-sized groups: markdowns, markups, and no valuation updates.

The reported IRRs are actually relatively high and the return multiples (which are compounded IRRs) are relatively low. That's because there are lots of one- and two-year-old companies in the dataset and---as we show---IRRs and investment durations are negatively correlated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> AngelList study concludes you should invest on AngelList.

</comment><comment><USER17> One thing that I still find quite surprising/troubling about the current tech landscape, is the incredibly strong "rich get richer" feedback loop of seed and VC investing. Especially given that most people in Silicon Valley seem to really value the idea of meritocracy when it comes to founders and companies and job opportunities. Although the personal connections involved would be a big barrier to outsiders regardless, I find it crazy that there's also the explicit legal requirement that you must be worth at least a million dollars in liquid assets to be an accredited investor and invest in a private company.

The argument in favor of the current system is that investments are risky and non-millionaires can't be trusted to make good financial decisions for themselves, and it takes such a huge amount of skill to be a decent investor anyway that the average person isn't really missing out on anything.

This type of finding seems like a pretty strong refute of this idea. It turns out that at least in the current landscape, the average tech seed investment deal is more valuable than other investments available to people.

<comment><USER18> Are you sure you're not comparing liquid vs illiquid assets? I.e. public shares that you can sell at a stock exchange vs. a highly speculative valuation that may pop >10x like WeWork did.

There's also this wonderful disclaimer:

>Summary statistics from the AngelList dataset of 684 _nonnegative_ investments that we consider in this paper.

Given that 90% of startups fail, they are are looking at the top 10% investments. I am pretty certain if you hand-pick the 10% top-performing public stocks, you will also get great numbers. The problem is, this only works in retrospective.

<comment><USER19> So their conclusion is based on just looking at non negative investments? If so how useful is this data? Because there is no way to practically know what investment will be a positive or negative investment. In other words, there is _no way_ to broadly index among all non-negative investments.

The paper should have compared brodly indexing among _all_ startups vs hand picking possible winners. This is practical and avoid any survivorship bias.

<comment><USER15> Of course there is a way to broadly index among all non-negative seed investments: by broadly indexing among all seed investments.

The fraction of money-losing investments in a population will affect, for instance, whether we would expect the typical investor making five investments at random to make or lose money. But regardless of whether losers are 10%, 50%, or 90% of the investment pool, if the winners are drawing from an unbounded mean power law then broadly indexing raises an investor's expected return.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What development/design tasks require a high powered desktop machine? - <AUTHOR> Hey!
I'm curious what kind of development or design tasks actually require a high powered CPU, high amounts of RAM or a heavy duty GPU.
I know the obvious cases of building applications and 3D graphics rendering, but I was wondering if what are the common consumer level tasks that would be done. <comment><USER2> Virtual machines will put extra cores and memory to use.</comment>


Major Investor Sues Theranos - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/major-investor-sues-theranos-1476139613 <comment><USER2> One thing I find really weird is the choice of CEO photos in media reporting. If there is good news, they chose 'nice', attractive photos. If there is bad news, they look for worse ones. This is true for male and female founders. In this case, everything about this photo is an 'outtake', from hands, choice of framing, facial expression, eyes - it's a photo a photographer would not keep in their image selection.

<comment><USER3> Why is that weird? The photo choice manipulates the reader impression just as they intend.

Perhaps what you might mean is something like "disingenuous" or "biased" or "unethical"

<comment><USER4> As a journalist, I disagree. In this case the technique is used more to portray the way Holmes is perceived publicly (a "neurotic and delusional powerful woman out of control" \-- not my opinion, just what the photo conveys), than to add a spin to a story that's already independently and factually spun in a very clear direction.

The use FoxNews does of this photo-picking with President Obama or liberal politicians is much worse. Or check the tabloids, they're masters at that.

This one? Just fine. I also want to point out that the picture is all but an outtake. Photography agencies publish photos like this on their online collections all the time, they won't discard them. Exactly because they know outlets may pick them for a story where they would fit.

<comment><USER5> >>As a journalist, I disagree. In this case the technique is used more to portray the way Holmes is perceived publicly

As a non journalist this is what I call manipulation.

<comment><USER6> Then so is the text.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If one assumes Holmes didn't realize their product didn't work (questionable at best), imagine how it must be to work 7 days a week, forego friendships and intimate relationships, and not even watch TV, then after 12 years of that discover what you tried to make didn't/won't work. In too deep or something to just admit it's over and move on.

Sounds like a very undesirable number of years with little positive to show, although maybe there were some lessons in there. Maybe time for a workaholic recovery program for her, who knows. Sad to hear the prime of a life spent like this... though perhaps not any worse than other destructive paths one could travel.

<comment><USER8> Except the boatloads of money she's already extracted from the company. What about the hundreds of people who propped up her vision and fueled the hundreds of puff pieces by A-level publications that walk away with absolutely nothing? What will it mean to have been a lab tech at Theranos?

<comment><USER7> Hopefully those people weren't giving up everything in their life for a job... but I guess that's anyone's choice. Money is nice to have, though I've enjoyed time with friends, loved ones, and leisure more personally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm definitely not a friend of Theranos, _but_ : they failed to do due diligence before investing, the error is theirs. I wonder if they would sue as well if Theranos had scored big time.

If you treat investing as gambling don't sue if you lose a hundred million dollars of _your_ customers money.

<comment><USER10> The investor's argument is that Theranos _lied_. The investor believes Theranos fraudulently produced evidence that their product worked in order to fake the responses to the investor's due diligence. If that's true, and the investor can prove it, then that's not simply part of the typical risk of investing, that makes the investor the victim of a serious crime.

<comment><USER9> That's a dumb argument then. See, when you do due diligence you should _assume_ that the company lies. That's why you go there in the first place, if you believe everything they tell you then you're going to get fleeced if they lie.

Theranos did not comply with their duty to inform truthfully, but the investors did not comply with their duty to research. Asking the company is not research, the technology being complex is not an excuse, you're going to have to do your own homework, you _can 't_ rely on the company because they have an incentive to not be truthful.

It's not as if there is accounting with double bookkeeping that was withheld from you, it's a bunch of machinery that should perform in a certain way. Bring your own samples for which only _you_ know the outcome, have them run those through the machinery in your presence and check the results.

That this will take more than some pencil pushing is where things went wrong, they simply didn't feel that on an investment this size they needed to _actually_ look at the technology, they basically lapped up what the company told them and forked over the cash.

FWIW I do this sort of thing for a living and I'd take it quite personal if a company lied and got away with it because I failed to properly look at their technology.

Belief doesn't enter into it.

edit:

Downvoters are invited to discuss what they think is wrong with this comment or where the disagreement lies.

<comment><USER11> This is a valid comment. Theranos' claims for their technology should have been readily verifiable. The reason for this mess is they were given money without asking enough questions. It's actually not even that complicated as having to test the machines yourself, if they had just tried asking a few more questions, it would have become pretty obvious this was a bad investment. There were many smart VCs who kept their money because they did this. eg see here: [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/theranos-silicon- vall...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/theranos-silicon-valley-media)

"When I've asked V.C.s why they didn't pour millions of dollars into a company that appeared to be changing the world, I was told that it wasn't for lack of trying on Holmes's part. She met with most top venture firms. But when the V.C.s asked how the technology worked, I was told, Holmes replied that it was too secret to share, even to investors. When they asked if it had been peer- reviewed, she insisted once again it was too secret to share—even to other scientists."

<comment><USER12> Is this common among VCs and investors in general, or was it just that Theranos' supposed technology was more complicated than what they were used to, so they couldn't accurately assess it? Or both?

<comment><USER9> Investors will invest in all kinds of stuff they personally have no knowledge of. This is perfectly ok if it is their own money and they have no responsibility to others (especially to limited partners who have no say in the matter, or, for instance in the case of a pension fund).

The way it works with such parties is that they hire people who _are_ versed in the technology to prepare a report on the subject at hand. This is called 'due diligence', specifically, technical due diligence.

So if you cross the t's and dot the i's there will be a nice report saying 'this technology is a-ok' by some party in a drawer somewhere. If so then that party shoulders a large part of the blame. Absent such a report (and I find it hard to believe the investors did not perform due diligence, but then again, so far none of them have stepped forward to point the finger at their technical advisors) the investors themselves are far more responsible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Don't forget people have invested in uBeam which was known to be peddling something scientifically impossible. The only possible explanation for that, and truth be told Theranos too is the investors are playing a Ponzi scheme where later rounds are the ones holding the bag. It's an excellent question who should be suing who.

<comment><USER14> Check out Energous (ticker: WATT). Like uBeam the company is focused on wireless charging, unlike uBeam it's a publicly traded company so you can short it for profit. The market does not seem to have caught on yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not that I'm surprised that the firm sued but I wonder what their end goal is and how they're planning on getting any sort of meaningful settlement from a company that's currently on fire. This seems mostly a face-saving measure.

<comment><USER16> Theranos raised $348.5M Private Equity on March 1, 2015. There is probably still cash on the balance sheet. Maybe by filing a suit they hope that the company will be liquidated and to be at the front of the line when the proceeds get split.

<comment><USER17> Honest question: how does this not trigger a "stampede for the exit" including lawsuits for everyone else who wants to get _their_ money back?

<comment><USER18> Probably. I'd imagine that's why Theranos will insist part of the deal is that the exact terms will never be disclosed.

<comment><USER19> Their other investors will be entitled to the balance sheets as is. They can't just say "and an undisclosed sum to [prior investor]" and redact their balance and liabilities.

To the public, yes.

<comment><USER18> Hah good point. So Theranos is literally fighting for their lives, because if one investor gets 25% of their money back, all the other investors will want the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Official response posted: [https://news.theranos.com/2016/10/11/company- statement-regar...](https://news.theranos.com/2016/10/11/company-statement- regarding-investor-lawsuit/)

<comment><USER9> Theranos will have a hard time proving that they did not make the same or similar statements to the investors prior to making those claims elsewhere. They've now directly confessed they actually did make the claims at least once, which will make it more believable - not less - that they made those claims at different points in time as well.

'Staff writer' will have a busy time in the next coming weeks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It costs $21.60 to "search" for this case at the Delaware Court of Chancery, even if you know the case number. And another $40.00 to download a single document. The complaint is marked as confidential and is not available.

Lexis-Nexis owns the site that maintains the court's entire docket.

</comment><comment><USER22> Mirror: [https://archive.is/v3sNR](https://archive.is/v3sNR)

</comment><comment><USER23> If you read the interviews of a lot of investors, many of them mention they invested because they believed so strongly in the founder. Afterwards, when their crazy concept works (example: Musk with SpaceX), these founders are lauded a visionary. When their concept fails (as is the case with Homles and Theranos), these founders are branded a fraudster.

<comment><USER24> To be fair... It isn't that the idea failed. It is that the failures were misrepresented. Badly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Isn't her activity like the textbook definition of fraud? Not to mention the dude who she basically pushed into committing suicide. I hope she gets at least as much time as Madoff.

<comment><USER26> What Madoff did was illegal and malicious from the outset.

Do you believe that when Holmes was handed the opportunity, at 19, to bring the Edison to market that she set out with the intent of defrauding investors?

The only thing she's provably guilty of thus far is believing in her company a little more than is sensible and being preternaturally competent as a fundraiser.

When Musk claims he can get people to Mars for $200k, do we say 'That's preposterous!', and slap him in cuffs? It's up to the investors of Spacex to decide whether or not they want to gamble on that proposition.

Would you put 100 million into Magic Leap because Rony Abovitz says 'it's rad', or would you insist on seeing a demo first? Because none of Theranos investors did that.

<comment><USER18> How do you know that Madoff was malicious from the outset, I wonder? The guy had a 30 year career, have you studied his beginnings? Maybe you did, but knowing nothing I'd find it more plausible that the guy started small fudging a couple of numbers hoping the next year would be better and eventually snowballed out of control.

<comment><USER27> My somewhat cursory read of Madoff was that he tarbabied himself. He _had_ been running a successful investment company, but hit losses.

The good, and lawful, thing to do would have been to come clean at that point. He didn't, and his downfall began there.

Instead he did the bad, and illegal, thing: doubled down and paid off the small number of exiting investors with new investor's deposits, whilst lying about returns.

If you've read John Kenneth Galbraith's _The Great Crash: 1929_ (a short and highly readable account), you'll find a very familar story in Madoff. He fell prey to what JKG calls "the bezzle".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Does anybody know if investors sometimes win these cases? I imagine they must have done some serious due diligence before investing 100m.

<comment><USER29> there is a chance that the primary purpose of this lawsuit is for the fund to be able to address the concerns of their LPs. in other words, it could be more about optics and less about actually recouping losses.

<comment><USER30> As in -- "trust us investors, look we are going after a failed company to try to recoup the investment we convinced you to make in us and them" \-- that doesn't seem like great optics unless they have some possible chance of recouping cash ...

<comment><USER31> I think it's about being able to say "we weren't idiots who couldn't figure out if it was a good investment, we were straight up lied to".

<comment> matt-attack Unfortunately the key skill in being an investor like this is to be able to make the right decisions _in the face of being lied to_. In other words, being lied to simply isn't an excuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Honest question: Why is Holmes still CEO?

<comment><USER33> I would say: why is she still not in jail?

<comment><USER34> _The wheels of justice turn slowly, but grind exceedingly fine._ \- [https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Justice#F](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Justice#F)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have a feeling that this level of lying is much more pervasive in startups than people realize.

<comment><USER36> I think humanity is literally evolving to lie and cheat at a biological level.

Soon, universities will have courses in 'Mastering the art of cheating and lying'.

<comment><USER37>
      >I think humanity is literally evolving to lie and cheat at a biological level.

It's naive to think we were not already born with these core qualities. "Survive at all costs" is a demonstrated maxim that all living beings possess. We didn't consider lying and cheating to be frowned upon until we decided we were a civilized society with rules based on [opinions | deities | etc.]. Having experienced multiple pathological liars firsthand, it makes more sense that rather than "evolving" these qualities, people are resorting to their core human nature as they feel more and more threatened.

<comment><USER38> > We didn't consider lying and cheating to be frowned upon until we decided we > were a civilized society with rules based on

Eh, what? Where are you getting that from? Any organism with cooperative dynamics also has to contend with cheaters, and yet cooperation is extremely prevalent in nature. There's a reason parasitism isn't considered the norm in the animal kingdom.

I sincerely doubt that primitive human tribes widely tolerated healthy adults who contributed absolutely nothing to the group.

<comment><USER37>
      > I sincerely doubt that primitive human tribes widely tolerated healthy adults who contributed absolutely nothing to the group.

It's certainly not hard to imagine that no, they would not have tolerated such behavior. But does this mean that you are suggesting the members of this tribe convened and decided to put rules in place to define a member's behavior and potentially institute punishment if these rules were broken? That sounds suspiciously like a society. It's almost as if the larger population felt that attempting to hinder a particular perceived flaw in human nature was a net positive for the group as a whole.

The existence of cooperation or the desire to cooperate does not disprove that cheating and lying are embedded instincts in living beings. Cheating and cooperation are not mutually exclusive concepts. The parent comment was suggesting that we are somehow evolving to lie and cheat and I'm suggesting that we have been more than capable of this behavior all along. In fact, I've gone so far as to say that not only were we immediately capable since the dawn of humankind, but we have actively suppressed these "survival skills" because they are deemed bad qualities.

<comment><USER38> > But does this mean that you are suggesting the members of this tribe > convened and decided to put rules in place to define a member's behavior and > potentially institute punishment if these rules were broken?

No, although I could trivially say that any group of humans living together will be a society in some respect (and thus "natural" human behavior involves being in a society anyway).

Ignoring that, though, removing cheaters doesn't need to involve any sort of centralized group decision making. Your immune system doesn't convene and decide what kind of foreign bodies are unacceptable, and it's largely effective at what it does.

> ...does not disprove that cheating and lying are embedded instincts in > living beings.

Sorry, the burden here is on _you_ to prove that cheating and lying are embedded instincts (which I'm assuming means "typical in primitive humans" here). You're the one who made an affirmative statement.

My counterpoint is that cooperation is plentiful in nature (with many examples of cooperation in comparison to parasitism) and thus cheating is unlikely to be typical behavior in the wild.

 _You_ need to prove otherwise.

> Cheating and cooperation are not mutually exclusive concepts.

Are we defining cheating differently? What's your definition of cheating?

> The parent comment was suggesting that we are somehow evolving to lie and > cheat and I'm suggesting that we have been more than capable of this > behavior all along.

Humans are capable of any type of behavior. If your definition of "embedded behavior" is "humans are capable of doing that," then sure, it's trivially true because humans are numerous and any type of behavior can be found with such a large population.

> but we have actively suppressed these "survival skills" because they are > deemed bad qualities.

Right, and my argument is that they're primarily suppressed because they're inferior survival skills in aggregate. Cheating and lying are classic "tragedy of the commons" behavior.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> if they can't do the proper due diligence then they shouldn't be investing other people's money

</comment><comment><USER40> Discovery on this will be interesting to say the least

<comment><USER18> Will discovery be made public?

<comment><USER41> Unlikely, unless it gets leaked. Some of it may come out in court filings (or trial, if it gets that far).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> This recent article explains the whole Theranos mess well: [http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes- ther...](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/09/elizabeth-holmes-theranos- exclusive)

</comment><comment><USER43> Who pivots AFTER a $billion+ valuation? This chick is crazy and delusion. The sad part is that she will find someone dumb enough to be bullied by her and will keep founding companies with other people's money.

</comment><comment><USER44> Kids, you should start companies. Really. But maybe get some experience first before taking major investments.

</comment><comment><USER45> [http://www.wsj.com/articles/major-investor-sues- theranos-147...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/major-investor-sues- theranos-1476139613)

</comment><comment><USER46> Odd coincidence (or maybe not) that the father of the founder, Elizabeth Holmes, worked at Enron (per wikipedia).

<comment><USER47> Heh, I imagine a Bring Your Child To Work Day @ Enron.

PR: "And this, kids, is our Fraud, Swindle & Embezzlement Department"

Kids: "the fuck does that mean"

PR: "Well, this is the magical place where we figure out how to steal other people's money. "

Kids: "Oooooooh, magical? But wait... isn't that bad?"

PR: "Free pizza & pop for everyone!!"

Kids: "Yaaaaaay!"

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the first article on this news, so I couldn't find a non-paywalled source. For those who don't subscribe to WSJ, the tl;dr is as follows:

• SF-based hedge fund, Partner Fund Management LP, is suing "Theranos and its founder", alleging they lied to attract nearly $100M in funding.

• Sources are an internal "fund document" and "people familiar with the matter."

• The fund document was reviewed by WSJ and states:

 _" Through a series of lies, material misstatements, and omissions, the defendants engaged in securities fraud and other violations by fraudulently inducing PFM to invest and maintain its investment in the company"_

• Suit was filed in Delaware Court of Chancery this afternoon.

• A Theranos spokesperson responded:

 _" The suit is without merit and Theranos will fight it vigorously. The company is very appreciative of its strong investor base that understands and continues to support the company¹s mission."_

The rest of the article is catch-up background on Theranos' controversy.

<comment><USER48> FYI, the "web" link is exactly for this. Paywalled sources get penalized in Google's search results, so most of the time searching for the article's title and clicking the Google search results link gets you the full article.

<comment><USER49> That used to work for me; it doesn't any more.

<comment><USER50> It won't work if you're signed into the WSJ.

<comment><USER51> It doesn't work regardless, even after deleting all the cookies.

<comment><USER52> Which begs the question, why bother getting around it? I just stopped reading the wsj when they implemented all this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Good.

</comment><comment><USER54> Am I wrong if feeling no sympathy for a Hedge fund getting bilked?

Like it's nice that for once it's not the "little guy" getting screwed over.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hedge funds frequently have charitable foundations and pension funds as limited partners. Unless the hedge fund is just a family office, there's a high probability that the "little guy" will be impacted, somewhere.

I can't tell you if your schadenfreude over hedge funds losing money is right or wrong, because that's based on normative values. But I'd encourage you to adjust your understanding of the financial dynamics involved.

<comment><USER54> But if the Theranos deal panned out, who would have benefited from the investment by the hedgefund?

Would it be the "little guy?" Or would it be the fund managers, and all the "insiders."

It goes hand and hand with the notion that the system is rigged.

<comment><USER55> > But if the Theranos deal panned out, who would have benefited from the > investment by the hedgefund?

A hedge fund is an investment fund that pools money from investors and then invests it according to the hedge fund's strategy. So, the primary people who will benefit or lose are _the people who invested their money with the hedge fund_. Hedge funds also tend to take a percentage of profits as part of their compensation.

I don't see what connection there is to the notion that the system is rigged. No one is obligated to invest in hedge funds and the people who do are aware of the hedge fund's compensation structure. Anyone who invests money is aware that investments have risk and can fail. The purpose of a hedge fund is to invest money to generate (better-than-market) returns, and so the hedge fund will be compensated if that happens. The fact that they're compensated from profits acts as an incentive for them to actually generate profits.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


B&H PayBoo - <AUTHOR> https://www.bhphotovideo.com/credit-cards <comment><AUTHOR> Back in the 1920s/30s when sales tax was introduced, companies had to decide whether to include the tax in the item's price, eat the cost, or pass it along to the customers. As we are all painfully aware, it was passed along to the consumers. This is a really creative way of combining credit/store card rewards with sales tax in consumer's minds. Of course money is fungible, so it doesn't matter if the reward is covering sales tax or just a fixed percent (although the later could be higher than most fixed percents depending on state). Regardless, an interesting experiment.</comment>


Ask HN: How much disposable income should you have? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious, how much disposable income should you have, after things like rent/mortgage, car payment(s), groceries, etc.? I know it's subjective, but what are the general budgeting guidelines? <comment><USER2> I think you'll struggle to find a solid suggestion since disposable income isn't something people directly budget for; it's what's left over after you've ensured everything else is budgeted for.

The thing is, what is your disposable income for? Going out to the movies every weekend? If you enjoy movies that much, why not roll it out of 'disposable income' and into your regular monthly budget?

Or did you have a more refined definition of disposable income?

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you wondering percentage wise or an absolute dollar amount for living in one of the top 10 largest cities in the world or US?

<comment><AUTHOR> Dollar value of disposable income. Retirement is a good consideration (per the other poster), however I do have a pension plan, so I'm slightly less concerned about that.

Ultimately, I'm considering financing or leasing a (pretty expensive) car, and wonder how short I should leave myself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> you didn't mention retirement. That should be about 10% of your income.</comment>


We all don't know what we are doing - <AUTHOR> http://cyberomin.github.io/startup/2015/12/07/nobody-knows-what-they-are-doing.html <comment><USER2> This is of course true, though not a new idea. Bret Victor said "the most dangerous thought you can have as a creative person is to think you know what you're doing."[0]

Moreover when we are convinced we know what we're doing, it's a sure sign we don't have a clue. After a few decades of practice I realized that in fact I _didn 't_ know what I was doing, and turns out that's the key to success.

[0] [http://worrydream.com/dbx/](http://worrydream.com/dbx/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I often wonder whether my parents felt the same way raising me that I do raising my children: just winging it for the most part, trying to figure out how to be a good parent from any available resource, and projecting an aura of infallibility and reassurance.

You have to step up and own your ignorance if you ever want to move past it.

<comment><USER4> As someone who will soon be a new parent, how important do you think this "aura of infallibility" is? Obviously you want to reassure your kid whenever possible, but do they need to think that you're essentially always right? What if you discover that you weren't?

<comment><USER5> Don't over think things.

Be kind and gentle. Don't be their best friend -- do be their best teacher.

If they discover you weren't right, then apologise to them just as you would in any other situation where you are wrong. What they learn off you is how to be a human, not how to be right 100% of the time.

[At the start, they only need cuddles, feeds and cleaning anyway so you have time to learn as you go]

Father of 3 preschoolers speaking. I'm sure there's more to come.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That is such an unhelpful mantra to keep repeating. It's phrased negatively and offers no enlightenment other than acknowledgement of your ignorance.

People qualify as worthy leaders by showing wisdom. Plenty of stuff is not super original (Facebook wasn't the first social network). Prior experience is a great teacher.

Good leaders make plans and manage their risks. Even if they are moving into a new field, they can draw on the skills and experiences of others. Then they prioritise what's important and allocate resources based off that.

As the plans get executed, they monitor progress and adapt accordingly.

There are always uncertainties. If they eventuate, the impact can be good or bad. Planning ahead means assessing the likelihoods and making appropriate contingencies.

Just acting confident is not showing leadership.

<comment><USER7> Absolutely. You can know ultimately that you don't know what you're doing, but still be pretty sure of your heuristic and draw from skills and experiences (as you say). People do not follow and are not inspired by those that will openly claim they have no idea what they are doing. This is a hindsight thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> True indeed. Other observations:

-I wonder how they are dealing with the motorbike ban. Seems like quite the obstacle in a city like Lagos.

-I am fascinated by how other countries seem to be importing Black Friday from the U.S. to their shores. The U.K. is doing it too, I understand. I get the retailers' motivations, but I hope these societies never find themselves in the position of America's extreme affinity for it. To me it's a sad spectacle.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey marcusgarvey, People have quite adjusted to the motorbike ban, we have tricycles now covering short distances. You can always use a taxi or join a public bus for longer routes.

<comment><USER8> Thanks for that insight!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think it's better to have some weighted account of what you know and don't know then to assume that any process, framework, theory, or person can't be relied on for signal.

Daring to have an opinion and daring to be wrong can be just as much of an exploratory process; that, and it sounds less anxious.

A lot of people say "nobody knows anything!" and leave it at that. It's more often used as an anti-intellectual tool, or a license to say whatever you want since you've just established that everyone in the room is ignorant.

</comment><comment><USER10> Good ol' Socrates :)

This resonates with me very strongly. But it seems all too easy to extend this sentiment towards others and remind them that they don't know what they're doing, which creates a pretty toxic environment.

</comment><comment><USER11> How do you be a leader in a situation where it's your first time doing a startup and "we all don't know what we are doing"?

<comment><USER12> > How do you be a leader

focus less on the lead/follow(or get out of the way) dichotomy and more on how to add value? think less of commanding troops in a battle against competitors or market forces, and envision yourself more like a bridge between your team and your customers.

in today's environment (as far as i can tell; haven't thought a/b it that much, really), the relationship with customers is about the only thing most startups "own". so you'll want to present yourself as someone who's going to go to bat for the people around you no matter what happens, especially the unexpected, and i thought the story about motorcycles being banned was a really good example of this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tools don't mean shit. It's what you do with the tool that matters. The quality is in your idea and story, not the tool.</comment>


We Must Defend Free Thought - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2019/02/24/we-must-defend-free-thought/ <comment><USER2> I feel there is a gap between left goals and left means. It's particularly distressing to me because I always viewed "our team" as the side that was cooler headed, would wrestle with uncomfortable ideas, and would keep trying to find the merit in people that we disagree with.

But I find myself feeling that a portion of the left has retained the banner issues of the left, while adopting a shockingly tribal worldview and conservative tactics of the right.

It feels like when I was younger, and you'd say something critical about some aspect of the US, and the retort was, "if you hate our country so much, why don't you just leave." Critique was rounded to anti-American sentiment and you thus became a valid target of unlimited scorn.

I see the same thing on the left, where if you don't agree to a reductive expression of certain wedge issues, people are rounded to nazi, misogynist, X-phobic, etc. and then are irredeemably subject to unlimited scorn.

I expect this kind of stuff from the right, but it's painful to see it from the left.

<comment><USER3> The First Amendment didn't prevent our genocide of native peoples. Democracy didn't prevent 100 years of slavery. 'The marketplace of ideas' didn't keep us from torturing people to death or killing a million people in a pointless war.

The problem with liberals is they mistake the means for the end. Because their lives are insulated from consequence, they prefer the "negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice". They have a fairytale understanding of the world, where Nazism can be stopped with debate instead of carpet bombings.

What matters is that the hungry are fed, the sick are treated, and the vulnerable protected, and that everyone can live free of the threat of violence or deprivation. Decorum and the delicate feelings of bigots do not matter.

<comment><USER4> >The First Amendment didn't prevent our genocide of native peoples. Democracy didn't prevent 100 years of slavery. 'The marketplace of ideas' didn't keep us from torturing people to death or killing a million people in a pointless war.

You don't seem to understand the function of the things you dismiss. The First Amendment, Democracy, and trust in the Marketplace of Ideas exist to make sure that society's mind can be changed as easily as is practically possible. It's not a guarantee that society will get it right, __it 's an escape hatch for when society gets it wrong __.

And when we look at everywhere else, where those escape valves don't exist, you get nothing but mass murder as a direct result of unquestionable, unassailable government/popular policy. Think of how much more difficult it would be to change society's mind about separate-but-equal or nonstandard sexual orientations if you weren't able to talk about or vote on them in the first place; you'd never have the kind of cultural revolution you had in America in the 1950s-70s without the ability to first persuade people it should happen.

>Decorum and the delicate feelings of bigots do not matter.

Despite what you may want to believe, you are not the one who decides who is and is not a bigot. Expose your life to the logical consequence of that; I don't think you're going to like what that statement fully implies.

<comment><USER3> I think you missed my point: all those things can be tools for accomplishing a just society, but they are not sufficient or an end in themselves.

Slavery was ended by war. Labor rights were achieved by fatal street battles. The civil rights movement was legitimized by a growing threat of a domestic insurrection. Marriage equality was established by an unelected Supreme Court. Basically every time significant positive change has happened in this country has been the result of extrademocratic leverage being found and exercised, not going hat in hand to ask an uncaring majority for what you are due as a human being.

Finally, as a moral being with obligations to others I absolutely get to decide who is a bigot, just as you do.

<comment><USER5> To deny any progress happens under democratic rule, is going too far?

<comment><USER3> I mean, all those positive changes happened in an ostensibly democratic system and were later ratified by it. They just didn't happen because 'moderates' were convinced by logical argument to grant people basic rights through the ballot box.

That's the farce, that political change happens through some cosplay conception of an Athenian forum instead of the accumulation and exercise of power. It's a fact that fascists know instinctively and the left has been waking up to. For liberals, who are enthralled by process and satisfied with the status quo, the threat of change is more serious than the reality of injustice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is something I know well, since I prefer to keep quiet about x political opinion at work. Since if I'm not perfectly in the expected mold, it could sour relationships critical to my career.</comment>


Pulse – a simple and affordable server and site monitoring tool for developers - <AUTHOR> https://pulse.alphametric.co <comment><AUTHOR> Check out the Product Hunt page for more details, or head on over to the site.

[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pulse- ed0252af-6f72-49aa-b...](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/pulse- ed0252af-6f72-49aa-b13c-ecceda38ff63)</comment>


Death by a thousand microaggressions - <AUTHOR> https://code.likeagirl.io/death-by-a-thousand-microaggressions-f3b4b41deb2 <comment><USER2> I was with my female co-author at a conference. She was asked what she wanted to do while her "husband" gave his talk. She was the presenter, not me.

</comment><comment><USER3> I understand the point being made here, but I always feel like it contains an underlying assumption that techies _should_ be regarded as better than other types of workers. But I don't see why that should be the case; if you work in HR great, if you're an engineer great.

Because of how I look people tend to assume I'm a designer. That's of course different from discrimination based on race or gender, but I think it would be very strange to be offended by this assumption. Designers are important too, not just engineers.</comment>


Ask HN: Please review my app - Daily Todo - <AUTHOR>

There are many mini tasks that I struggle to remember/do each day.  For example - my exercise routine, cooking a meal, going through my server logs, checking RSS feeds and so on.
So I've written this app to help me track all such little tasks and record my performance.  So I now know that I've exercised 4 days in a row, or that I haven't checked my RSS feeds in a week.
http://www.dailytodo.org/
You can start using the app right away - no registration required. <comment><USER2> Nice twist on the traditional to-do list, cool idea.

I would consider adding the to-do list creation form right to the homepage. Since registration isn't required you can get the user engaged right away, without requiring a click-through.

<comment><USER3> I second this - make the todo interface the main focus with a giant text box for the email, and a button that says "Send me this list daily".

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I built something a bit similar for iPhone (Dayta - <http://daytaapp.com/>). Would love to talk!

</comment><comment><USER5> I like it. This could be useful as a simple way to share a todo list with a team for a single day when a whiteboard isn't available. I'll bookmark it.

By the way, there's a 'bug' if you have multiple lines with the same text. I don't know if I'd consider it a bug or not though...

</comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.dailytodo.org/>

</comment><comment><USER7> It would be nice if you could set some approximate times and have it email/SMS/dm you to do those things.

So at 5pm everyday you'll get a text message to goto the gym. And at 9am you get one to check server logs.

</comment><comment><USER8> Cool app. Reminds me of <http://www.nowdothis.com/> only it show one item at a time.

</comment><comment><USER5> Also, there's no way to get back to the home page after I've created a todo list for the day. I wanted to create another one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks - I'll fix that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> what are the dots for? you need to write up a bit on why the dot would turn red, how it turns green when you've checked off a task, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> The dots show the trends of a particular task for the last 7 days.

So when you check a task, it becomes green for the day. By the end of the day if the task is not checked, it becomes red.

The grays are the days before the task was added.

<comment><USER9> thats what i assumed but I guess you'd be better off putting that up on the landing page .. a little howto .. i passed the link to a colleague or 2 (non technical) and that was the first question that came up ..

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Will add a bit of context to the dots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> like it, added to my blog :) as a page, thanks!</comment>


Flash 3D image slider - <AUTHOR> http://www.progressivered.com/cu3er/

<comment><USER2> As someone who sells a lot of Flash-based websites centered around photography, I don't really see myself integrating this into one of our designs.

I'm sure the AS behind it is impressive, but it's a little too gimmicky for me (and my customers I'd guess).

</comment><comment><USER3> sorry, is it me or is there no demo on the site?

edit: I guess its the big red 3d cube with the white writing. But it says to play/spin/shade/slice.. I don't see those controls anywhere.. would be good if I could play with it immediately without downloading and installing.

<comment><USER4> I think when they say spin me, slice me, shade me, etc. they mean the developer, not the end user.</comment></comment>


ASK HN: Are VCs using Covid-19 to cram down, get out of agreements? - <AUTHOR> In Israel the leading biz paper just published that OrbiMed is using COVID-19 to pull out of a signed SPA and cram down a company - changing the value from $41M to $1M pre-money. Anyone have other examples of VCs behaving badly? https://www.themarker.com/technation/1.8842591 <comment><USER2> I have examples where they are not, two companies I work with both closed very excellent rounds during the crisis, much better valuations than similar companies.

Are we extrapolating from one media piece to an industry? Might be a good time to reevaluate who you take money from.

I have heard of this "using corona virus" to negotiate lower value for both people and companies happening. There are also many calling those doing this out for their taking advantage of a crisis. Are people suddenly worth less?</comment>


AI plus a chemistry robot finds all the reactions that will work - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/ai-plus-a-chemistry-robot-finds-all-the-reactions-that-will-work/ <comment><USER2> As ways to improve the world in a cost effective way this is probably in the top 5. The economic benefits of even small improvements in existing materials science & chemistry processes would have huge consequences. I really hope we seem more of this kind of thing.</comment>


Carp demonstrate rapid de-evolution to get their scales back - <AUTHOR> http://phys.org/news/2016-08-carp-rapid-de-evolution-scales.html <comment><USER2> There is no such thing as "de-evolution".</comment>


Hell Yes We're in a Bubble - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@davepell/hell-yes-we-are-in-a-bubble-f45a92398416 <comment><USER2> I wonder how much money is involved in writing articles saying the tech industry is in a bubble - maybe they are also in a bubble ?

Anyway I have stopped thinking about tech from my very own bubble.

In the real world there is more money in things like gold and silver then there is in tech.

There is more money floating around in the housing market of every developed country.

Rich people are desperate to multiple their crystallized ill gotten capital.

As long as the tech industry is transparent and does not commit fraud like in 1999 I think we will be fine.

</comment><comment><USER3> Article seems to lack concrete:

> The psychological bubble makes you think that because you can code a photo > app or design an algorithm to get me to the airport a little quicker, that > also qualifies you as an expert on every other topic.

Are a lot of people doing this? I hadn't noticed?

> The psychological bubble prevents you from seeing what role timing and > serendipity play in your bombastic financial success.

No that is just human nature. Inability for the brain to intuitively understand probability for example.

> The psychological bubble makes you forget what I always like to remind > people about the Internet business: Showing up at a gold rush with a shovel > and a pan doesn't make you a genius.

Again who are these people? Would they just find another gold rush if the internet business wasn't there?

<comment><USER4> > Again who are these people? Would they just find another gold rush if the > internet business wasn't there?

I see quite a few of them around here, both linked here and posting here: people who made some money building a webapp and have now appointed themselves pundits on any subject at all, whether they have expertise in it or not. There's pretty much a whole startup "scene" at this point.</comment></comment>


Munich City Government to Dump Linux Desktop - <AUTHOR> http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/Munich-City-Government-to-Dump-Linux-Desktop-84307.html <comment><USER2> why do they want to spend money on spyware?</comment>


Linus Torvalds responds to Change.org petition to remove RdRand from /dev/random - <AUTHOR> https://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/linus-torvalds-remove-rdrand-from-dev-random-4/responses/9066

<comment><USER2> Enormous amounts of fuss and it turns out it was just people talking bullshit and other people believing them.</comment>


New NVidia Wireless Display Technology Due Soon - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.nvidia.com/2012/07/tegra-enhances-miracast-wireless-display-on-hdtvs/

<comment><USER2> Sounds like AirPlay Mirror, which leverages Intel's QuickSync[0] on Macs (and probably some similar technology on iOS devices).

AirParrot shows how doing this in software is not realistic except for the lightest loads.

[0] [http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and- tech...](http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/architecture-and- technology/quick-sync-video/quick-sync-video-general.html)

<comment><USER3> Except AirPlay requires an existing WiFi network and uses the existing infrastructure.

Miracast still uses WiFi radios but works end-to-end, forming some sort of ad- hoc network.

<comment><USER2> > Except AirPlay requires an existing WiFi network

Indeed, but AirDrop does not, and there's no denying that technically AirPlay could trivially be made to work that way. My bet is Apple chose not to.

I certainly don't want the 12 YO neighbour to send crap on my TV. So what's interesting about AirPlay currently requiring an AP is that it therefore requires authentication _with the network_ to be used. What's more, the AirPlay receiver is constantly _passively_ waiting and requires no acknowledgement on the device itself, whereas AirDrop requires 1. entering AirDrop mode at the same time and 2. ack on both parties. I certainly would not want such a scheme to happen on my TV, but it would be necessary so that not anyone can connect.

<comment><USER3> Agree whole-heartedly. I'm a big fan of the AirPlay protocol, and I am by no means trying to downplay AirPlay or hype up Miracast. I was just pointing out that the technical points you were making seemed a little muddled since the implementation details are radically different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you were wondering:

"open wireless display standard with the core goal of increasing the ease of use and quality of the end-user experience for streaming of audio and video content between Wi-Fi devices"

It also streams the audio, which is awesome :) Hopefully this will run all the proprietary protocols from the market. If this takes off as a standard like HDMI it might remove the need for _any_ data cables in your home cinema setup.

<comment><USER5> I really wish wireless charging would take off, too. Inductive charging like the Palm Pre and HP Touchpad are nice, and we could take it further. It really doesn't seem like that tech is being pushed anymore, which is a shame.

<comment><USER4> That tech is being pushed as hard as tech can be pushed. There is just nothing we know at the moment that could transfer energy efficiently without a wire.

Technology like that only comes with great scientific breakthroughs that improve our understanding of the universe. But breakthroughs like that come randomly and can't be forced much at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It looks very cool, but I must say I'm skeptical about their claims about the latency. Judging by the video, it's at least 200ms, perhaps as much as 500ms. Contrast this with John Carmack, who has recently talked about the importance of low latency for an immersive experience. And Carmack talks about the impact of just 1 or 2 frames of lag, which is the equivalent of 3 miliseconds!

<comment><USER7> > And he's talking about the impact of just 1 or 2 frames of lag, which is > just ~3 miliseconds!

That is 16-32 milliseconds. In fast paced action gaming.

<comment><USER6> You're right about the latency. I think latency matters a great deal for any game that aims for immersion. And here we're dealing with a clearly visible delay between the large and small screen.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So it's AirPlay without the flexibility, WiDi without Intel's backing, DNLA without the install base, and they have to define and implement and debug any controller scheme you might possibly want to send over the air. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER9> Look at what is already possible today: <http://esrlabs.com/android- transporter-on-the-raspberry-pi/>

<comment><USER10> Or how about something that is already shipping !

<http://www.apple.com/iphone/features/airplay.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> By the time ouya comes out, we will have powerfull phones which can stream HD video to TVs.

which sort of makes ouya redundant..

<comment><USER4> No it doesn't. Ouya is about providing a platform. Wether or not people in the future will use the actual Ouya device is of less relevance. If your phone will implement the Ouya interface then that's awesome.

Be aware that if the Ouya device actually gains traction the next iteration of the device will have a lot more money behind it, and might scale up the specs to compete with Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo.</comment></comment>


Why you shouldn't use jQuery but plain JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://lennydevelops.com/javascript/shouldnt-use-jquery-plain-javascript <comment><USER3> TLDR: "Tools of a certain level were good enough for our grandparents, they should be enough for you, young man: there's no point to enhance the tech stack, everything exists already." Um, nope. _Learn_ JS first, and know how and why to use it; don't just take a library for a Golden Hammer - <USER2> shunning jQuery for being one level too far from the metal is just plain weird. Remember, we're talking about JS executing in a HTML page inside a browser on top of a GUI on top of an OS on top of...turtles all the way down.

Plus, I sort of remember the Dark Ages, before jQuery. Let me tell you: I'm immensely thankful for an abstraction layer against all those freakish browsers, their versions and their quirks. Can I natively select DOM elements by class name and attribute values in IE9? I don't know, and I don't give a flying fork - life is too short to spend it with browsers.

</comment><comment><USER4> Speaking to the reason he's writing this, if a vacancy is asking for jQuery, it probably means they're using jQuery (obvious). The author mentioned other stuff you can use to get specific jQuery functionality, but I think it should be emphasized that if you just got a job where jQuery was a requirement, you should look into implementing alternatives ASAP. One good recommendation I have is to use MinifiedJS:

[http://minifiedjs.com/](http://minifiedjs.com/)

It has a lot of the things you would need jQuery to do and is tiny and cross- browser. If pure JS isn't an option, MinifiedJS is the next best thing. For now, most web developers should still learn jQuery, but they should transition stuff off jQuery so one day it's not as widespread a requirement.

</comment><comment><USER5> Ctrl+F "browser support" \- 0 Results Found

jQuery comes with built-in browser support for a million different issues I'd never know about until I ran into them. A quick browse of the jQuery source will turn up hundreds, if not thousands at this point, of browser support hacks/tweaks.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good try kid. But you ain't goin' nowhere with this FUD.

\- Life's too short to deal with cross-browser incompatibilities.

\- jQuery too heavy for you, there's Zepto.

\- Not at all times you are in control of your stack, especially when you just inherited the project.

\- If you happen to work on a Drupal project, good luck with ditching jQuery. It's built in.

\- Clients will always ask for "cross-browser support up to IE8" without knowing it's a dead browser.

\- What matters to clients is that it works. They don't give a beaver's construction project what you used to build it.

I'd wouldn't say "Why you shouldn't use jQuery", but more of "when to and when not to use jQuery/vanilla/CSS3".

</comment><comment><USER7> JQuery is good for things where you may run into browser implementation issues, like Ajax. Other than that, it's mostly cruft.

</comment><comment><USER8> Real men use C.

Without the standard library.

<comment><USER3> Real men use butterflies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Because browsers are from 10 to 50, jQuery is from 1 to 2.</comment>


CouchSurfing raises $15 million Series B - <AUTHOR> http://www.couchsurfing.org/news/cs-organization/couchsurfing-raises-15-million-to-improve-our-website-and-mobile-apps/

<comment><USER2> Oh god damn it. CouchSurfing.org is absolutely going to be ruined by taking VC money.

It existed for years as a totally free volunteer based non-profit. The site was kinda crappy and was sometimes slow, but it just worked. The important things were the community and its network effects.

Now these VCs will be looking for their huge exit and they'll eventually start fucking with the site (see: Quora). What a shame.

<comment><USER3> I agree. I was heavily involved in couchsurfing a few years back (sadly circumstances haven't let me do more than meet up occasionally now) and anything that was ever organised was done by volunteers and the site was run through donations. It was 100% about the community and about the cultural exchange and it was fantastic in every way - some of my best experiences and I made a few really good friends through it too (hell, just last week, a uni friend of mine got married to a girl he met through couchsurfing).

While having VC's run it into the ground won't destroy the community that's already built around couchsurfing (who don't completely rely on the site but on their own personal network), it will certainly make it dificult for new people to join in and take part and that would be a terrible shame. I hope that the VC's stay on the side line and don't meddle with it too much...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a user of couch surfing and like many people I liked it when it was clearly non-profit it was a nice community build by nice people guided by the same philosophy. However rcently they changed their status, and are now going for profit (it's not really clear but it seems to be their motivations) by using the initial momentum of the volunteers.

I'm sure, people won't just leave, but I suspect competition may start soon.

</comment><comment><USER5> and the website's still horrible...(I'm a user)

<comment><USER6> They address this in the article " The CouchSurfing website, as it currently exists, needs a lot of help. It's unstable and not very easy to use.".

They start by explaining also that they raised money specifically to focus on rebuilding the website and improving the mobile experience. That won't happen overnight though.

<comment><USER7> Given the harm that VC involvement can do, those improvements are completely unnecessary and unwelcome.</comment></comment></comment>


Social media explained - <AUTHOR> http://socialnetworksexplained.tumblr.com

<comment><USER2> Pinterest: Here is a donut recipe

Farmigo: Donuts delivered directly from the farms around you

...</comment>


Show HN: The Solar System in 10kb - <AUTHOR> https://a-k-apart.com/gallery/The-Solar-System <comment><USER2> Direct link to demo: [https://the-solar- system-10kapart2016.azurewebsites.net/](https://the-solar- system-10kapart2016.azurewebsites.net/)

Repository: [https://github.com/mfluderx/TheSolarSystem](https://github.com/mfluderx/TheSolarSystem)

</comment><comment><USER3> I made a few like these for my book [1] a while back, never completed it though... :(

[1] [https://bubbl.in/book/the-solar-system-by-marvin- danig/1](https://bubbl.in/book/the-solar-system-by-marvin-danig/1)</comment>


D-Wave Quantum Computer Flunks Speed Test - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24882-googles-quantum-computer-flunks-landmark-speed-test.html#.UthDIBEWgVc.twitter

<comment><USER2> ns doesn't even reveal what metrics were used, the wikipedia article has slightly more detail: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Two](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Wave_Two)</comment>


Mapillary Is Building a Crowdsourced Street View with User Submitted Photos - <AUTHOR> http://petapixel.com/2015/03/08/mapillary-is-building-a-crowdsourced-street-view-with-user-submitted-photos

<comment><USER2> This looks pretty but what's in it for me? The service is proprietary - it's a data silo with some very restrictive T&C's.

They are using Open Street Map for some of it and I'm already a happy contributor to that open platform. Maybe I missed it in the press release reprinted by petapixel.com but I don't see what financial incentive contributors have. Maybe I'm out of touch but saying I'm 'empowered' and that this is 'crowdsourced' isn't that interesting.

<comment><USER3> As an OSM contributor you might be interested in the fact that every photo is immediately available in the iD editor for everyone to use. (JOSM will happen one day too) The American Red Cross is taking photos on Mapillary for Missing Maps, etc.

As a regular person you get a service for sharing geotagged photos of places, available under CC BY-SA.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Article doesn't mention it, but photos are available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Important bit to know for those people who don't want a repeat of CDDB.

For one thing, work is already being done on some Mapillary integrations with OpenStreetMap as an extra data source for figuring out ground truth when mapping.

</comment><comment><USER5> all those pictures, all this data, why doenst anyone use photogrammetry to generate 3D models of streets instead of clunky photo panoramas?

We should have detailed 3D maps of whole cities by now.

<comment><USER6> [http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2014/12/15/sfm- preview.html](http://blog.mapillary.com/update/2014/12/15/sfm-preview.html)</comment></comment>


Building HTML5 Apps with Yeoman and Backbone - <AUTHOR> http://rockyj.in/2013/05/11/yeoman_and_backbone.html <comment><USER2> I understand the advantages of using these tools but isn't it too much ? Node, Npm,Yeoman, Grunt, Bower just to bootstrap some font-end code, if you don't use node.js for back-end you have to use other tools in back-end development too ( composer, phpunit, gem, rake etc... you name it... ). Sometimes i feel like we use tools just to use them.

edit: Just to clarify : I'm not saying don't use any of them and don't organize/automate tasks and code like monkey...

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, it's a lot of tools for FE development. However, (IMHO) when I used this toolkit, I felt very productive, for example, if you make a change in the CSS, the UI is automatically refreshed (no need to manually refresh). The final build process optimizes PNGs among other things. All in all, it felt that someone has thought of everything that a webdev needs and put it in.

<comment><USER3> Could you explain what you mean by 'no need to manually refresh'?

I understand this to mean you don't need to refresh your browser to see the changes you've made in your source.

EDIT: Ah, nevermind - just read up on it: "Our LiveReload watch process automatically compiles source files and refreshes your browser whenever a change is made so you don't have to."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A quick word of warning for anyone following this guide. You should never sudo npm install. That's giving root privileges to anyone that care's to upload code to the npm package registry. npm should work fine without sudo.

<comment><USER5> Furthermore, it doesn't appear that any of these fad language repositories do any sort of package signing, so you're vulnerable not just to the people who upload their own code, but anyone who may compromise the mirrors, too, because even if you trust the source, there's no way of verifying the code hasn't been modified on the mirror.

See also: [http://cristianobetta.com/blog/2013/02/02/ruby-gems-are- not-...](http://cristianobetta.com/blog/2013/02/02/ruby-gems-are-not-safe-to- use/)

<comment><USER6> And even the established ones which do require signing are not really trivial to use correctly: [http://branchandbound.net/blog/security/2012/08/verify- depen...](http://branchandbound.net/blog/security/2012/08/verify-dependencies- using-pgp/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You should take a look at aura.js (<http://github.com/aurajs/aura>). Abstracts many of the steps of this article (require.js, bower...) and offers a decoupled architecture for scalable and well structured apps. There's also a yeoman generator, and they have an extensions system that seamlessly integrate handlebars.js for example.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is probably irrational, but it's always annoyed me that Yeoman is little more than a package.json file and small bash script yet has a professionally designed logo.

<comment><USER9> This isn't at all constructive and you're severely misinformed.

This is Yeoman: <https://github.com/yeoman/>

<comment><USER8> Of course it isn't constructive. I'm just bitter that I've debated spending $500+ of my personal money for logos of my open source projects that do something genuinely original so that I can perhaps get above 100 stars on GitHub, while a scaffolding script (probably) got one for free and appears on the front page of Hacker News weekly. So yes, not constructive at all; this is plain old jealously.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Tock, a Time Tracking Tool by 18F - <AUTHOR> https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/05/21/TockingTime/

<comment><USER2> Love the callout to the Chosen.js library...one of those fantastic plug-and- play interface libraries that makes it so less painful to add a nearly essential feature to forms/data-selection.

edit: Added clickable link to chosen.js homepage

[http://harvesthq.github.io/chosen/](http://harvesthq.github.io/chosen/)

<comment><USER3> On the theme of constantly re-inventing time-tracking, it's interesting that 18F called out chosen in their write-up of their time-tracking solution, since chosen is developed and maintained by Harvest, which primarily sells a time- tracking solution.

[https://www.getharvest.com/](https://www.getharvest.com/)

<comment><USER4> As a long time user of Harvest, I have to say it is refreshing to see open source alternatives being developed.

Harvest is expensive for moderate-sized teams but their support is very fast to respond and the user experience is quite nice. Yet, after noticing a glaring flaw in Harvest considering non-billable hours as 'Budget', I'm stuck and have to live through never ending over-budget false alerts. Without an ETA, this is the time where I'd be happy to roll my sleeves up, get it fixed and submit a pull request...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Time tracking is one of those things that I see constantly being reinvented. Whether it's spreadsheets that get emailed, completely custom solutions, or one of the numerous services available, few of them actually provide anything new.

What I want is a product that tracks my time for me. WakaTime is probably the closest I've seen. If only it worked outside of my text editor and automatically submitted my timesheets for me. I'm supposed to submit timesheets weekly, I probably do it closer to monthly (and I know I'm not the only one). I have enough trouble remembering what I did yesterday, let alone last month.

<comment><AUTHOR> We looked at doing things like logging git commit frequency to try and provide realistic estimates to users of their time that they could then confirm or alter. Realistically, with the diversity of talent we have here (both technical and non-technical) and the time it would take to do well, it didn't really seem too practical.

It would be awesome if WakaTime and others provided some way of interfacing with an API, so that individuals could track time in a way that made sense for them while reporting in a relatively consistent standard to a central system used for accounting and billing.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I built (and later shut down) didlog [http://www.didlog.com/](http://www.didlog.com/) a while ago which I had hoped would eventually turn into something like this. Track code commits, calendar events, emails, files changing, etc to try to put together a map of everything you're working on.

I knew I'd be biting off more than I could chew if I tried to tackle time tracking from the start so I was hoping I could build something useful before moving into that area. Turns out, I couldn't (given my limited time and resources).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Self-plug: our Zhen HRM system includes timesheets / time tracking in addition to vacations, reports, etc. Time tracking can be done through clicking Start / Stop when you are working on projects.

You can find the system at the link below, and there is a fully functional free demo you can try out.

[http://zhen81.com/product/zhen-hrm/](http://zhen81.com/product/zhen-hrm/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I've been using [http://www.paymoapp.com](http://www.paymoapp.com) for some time now and it fits my needs to track time and also do project management (tasks and tasks lists). The desktop widget is awesome, I know how much time I've spent working or doing something else.

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone got any already written time tracking software that they like (on github or not)?

<comment><USER9> I wrote mine, but I track tasks and milestones rather than time spent.

Time tracking makes sense for freelancers and other people who bill by the hour but personally I tried rescuetime & co. and I do not see the point in knowing how long I was on facebook or how long I spent editing a particular file.

Milestones require manual input but I find that information much more relevant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm surprised that they developed a brand new time tracking tool. From my limited experience, it seems Deltek Time & Expense is the most popular time tracking application in the government / associated contractor space.

<comment><USER11> Given that there is no download link or price, I'm going to assume that 18F is not the kind of place that was going to pay top dollar for a cruddy, expensive third party service.

<comment><AUTHOR> >>> Given that there is no download link or price

Like everything 18F produces, Tock is a work of the US Government and is in the public domain. There's a link to the GitHub repository in the blog post ([https://github.com/18f/tock](https://github.com/18f/tock)). We don't intend to launch Tock as a service, rather, it's something we made for internal use that is open for others if they find value in it.

<comment><USER12> I think he was referring to Deltek, not Tock.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There's one simple way I've found to keep up on your time reports: you don't get paid if you don't turn in a timesheet.

The places I've worked that had this policy didn't have any issues with tracking time.</comment>


Hounded By Recruiters, Coders Put Themselves Up For Auction - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/2012/10/15/hounded-by-recruiters-coders-put-themselves-up-for-auction/

<comment><USER2> This article is over a year old. Check out [http://hired.com](http://hired.com) for the rebranded, and still awesome, site.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've been dying for someone to create an application where recruiters can rated and reviewed. Filter out the crap.</comment>


Thoughts on Diaspora and Its Uphill Battle - <AUTHOR> http://brooksreview.net/2010/11/diaspora/ <comment><USER2> He's discussing a completely different service, which (as I read it) isn't distributed: it simply reads centralized data.

I do agree that Diaspora probably doesn't have it quite right though. A decentralized social web means decoupling ourselves from the idea of hard social networks and communities. It's more about one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many sharing in an ad-hoc way, where each person may have a different interface and set of functionality.</comment>