CEO Goldman Sachs "you can't dismiss Bitcoin" - <AUTHOR> http://www.tokenschedule.com/news/goldman-sachs-ceo-warns-not-dismiss-bitcoin/ <comment><USER2> This seems to be a response to Jamie Dimon:

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon- rai...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/12/jpmorgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-raises-flag- on-trading-revenue-sees-20-percent-fall-for-the-third-quarter.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> > While Blankfein is _cautious_ , other prominent leaders in the finance > industry are downright suspicious.

> Blankfein stated during his interview, that while he's still curious about > the cryptocurrency and its future, he's not about to invest in it either. > However, the CEO also stated that he could envision a future where Bitcoin > or derivative thereof could become the world's fiat currency.

Two major highlights from the long article. Original interview here: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/blankfein...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/blankfein- says-don-t-dismiss-bitcoin-while-still-pondering-value)

</comment><comment><USER4> You can't dismiss it doesn't mean it's ready for prime time, FWIW.

<comment><USER5> "From what we can identify, the only reason today to buy or sell bitcoin is to make money, which is the very definition of speculation and the very definition of a bubble," Thiam said. He added that in the history of finance, such speculation has "rarely led to a happy end."

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/blankfein...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-02/blankfein- says-don-t-dismiss-bitcoin-while-still-pondering-value)</comment></comment>


From being a programmer to becoming an entrepreneur - Lesson 0 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sidu.in/2012/06/engineering-to-business-lesson-0.html

<comment><USER2> "Identify mature, experienced people who can give you candid feedback. It's even better if they're your colleagues. Favour a diverse group with people who have different priorities."

This is a great tip. I just realized that my more senior friends mention their "grey beard" older CS friends. I guess I need to pick up some mentors!

</comment><comment><USER3> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a great article, Sidu. All of your points speak true to what I have learned going through the same process. I've only been doing the business thing for about 10 months, but already I notice a difference in perspective when speaking to non-entrepreneur engineers. Thanks for writing this.

</comment><comment><USER5> pretty nice summary. i noticed most similar postings are all about js/python/ruby here, i'm an embedded linux hacker and i wish there is a place we can talk about both hardware and software for products, not just the web, maybe it's time to create one?

<comment><USER6> Your comment, apart from "pretty nice summary", is talking about something totally unrelated to the posted article. You should have made a separate "Ask HN" thread.

As far as discussing hardware goes, you can post articles yourself.

<comment><USER5> I agree, sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I read until I stumbled upon that line: "I've been a programmer since I was six."

You're NOT a programmer at six, you are a KID.

You can play with computers, but being a programmer is a whole other story.

You can tell yourself you're a programmer when you can code through a project by yourself, write classes, do OOP, implement basic concepts, differ public from static, know your data types, and more and more.

You are not a programmer until you work as one. That's it and that's the reality.

Nowadays kids called themselves programmer, guru, ninja, entrepreneur, etc and it makes me rage and laugh in anger.

I'm sorry, your article seems fine, but you've lost all your credibility with this very single line.

<comment><USER8> when I was 8 or 10, I learned c with if and for loop and most basic of the language. I made a working chess text game using only ifs and loops, without even using any function etc. and well, I and family members actually played it a lot. and I think I have been programmer since.

<comment><USER9> Heh reminds me of when I made my own Douglas Adams-esque text adventure in Python using only a huge chain of ifs and prints. I remember thinking the hardest part was doing all the typing!</comment></comment></comment>


Did the NBA Just Buy Pelicans.com? - <AUTHOR> http://www.elliotsblog.com/did-the-nba-buy-pelicans-com-5966

<comment><USER2> What a terrible name.</comment>


Ask HN: What are best biotech sites/forums? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Biostar is the bioinformatics, computational genomics and systems biology stack exchange website for asking questions. <http://biostar.stackexchange.com/>

You should be able to find some interesting topics on Nature <http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> There are several. One is forum on careers by sciencemag.org <http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/>

<http://scforum.sciencecareers.org/>

Also you can go to the following blogs which are interesting. <http://pipeline.corante.com/></comment>


LIVESTAR decentralized adult streaming platform uses blockchain tech [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://livestars.io/whitepaper.pdf <comment><USER2> Why are businesses so afraid to name the Boogeyman that is deliberate ("friendly") fraud?

I'm almost certain that a lion's share of cam girl-related chargebacks are jerks who dispute the $200 they sent for personalized nudes and dirty talk during their refractory period.

And card fraud is still possible; the risk is removed from the models, and placed on the exchanges that people use for fiat-to-LiveStar token liquidity.

Also, ICOs see rampant price fluctuations: am I wrong to think that independent models and merchants don't want to see their earnings skyrocket and plummet during one of their sessions? It makes more sense to create a platform for models to accept ETH</comment>


Ask HN: Modern Day CS Curriculum - <AUTHOR>

I am currently a computer science major at a moderately well known school. The cs program concentrates heavily on Java with a side of C. There is little to no mention of other styles of programming. The focus seems to be halfway between a purely theoretical approach and a purely practical approach, but at the end of the day we learn neither.
I seem to be here at a pretty interesting time though, because the school is currently changing the curriculum quite heavily. This put me in a fun position to try to persuade the school to go a certain direction.
I figured there would be tons of info online about how teaching the Java API instead of core programming concepts is blasphemy, but I really can't find many good resources.
Has anybody read a particularly interesting paper/blog/whatever that talks about different approaches/thoughts people have had regarding computer science education? <comment><USER2> Try "The Perils of Java schools" for the classic. [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchool...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/ThePerilsofJavaSchools.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm in a C++ school mostly. They've just finished a transition towards a modular curriculum and exam system. We're also doing Groovy for the OODP module but I'm finding that there's a split between a well-established and very high standard for teaching C++ and a very ill-disciplined and poorly taught Groovy module.

For background: I've been in the industry 15 years already, used PERL, TCL, Java and C# daily in different roles.

I would definitely say that knowing C++ and relating that to Computer Systems (or whatever your hardware/operating systems module is), and then looking at compilers and modern languages from that perspective is the way to go.

Whatever you learn should be transferable. The core concepts of C++ (when taught like C) are pretty universal. Implementing and using various data structures and algorithms is way more important than familiarity with a particular API or language library.

I really dislike the Groovy stuff we're doing because it places an over- reliance on teaching the meta-object and programming that rather than teaching GoF patterns that are easily applicable to any language.

I guess what I'm saying... skip language specific stuff. Have the core concepts taught. Those are transferable, those provide an essence... the real understanding of what happens where and how. That's the stuff that can be taken and applied anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER4> If your CS Program is teaching languages, then it's not a CS Program.

Most programs use languages to teach different programming paradigms. For my CS program we used Java for introductory OO, and Data Structures and Algorithms and Scheme for functional programming. After that students were generally encouraged to choose a language they felt comfortable with to illustrate their understanding of the course's topics.

There were some exceptions (Computer Architecture was some ARM assembly, Operating Systems was purely C, Robotics was C, etc.)

If your CS Program is teaching languages, I'd suggest you spend your effort to convince them they need to teach Computer Science concepts instead and not worry about languages.

If your CS Program is teaching core concepts, but you don't feel you are learning how to program, well that is a common misconception about CS. If you didn't get as much out of your OO/functional courses as you would have liked, maybe there is an upper level Software Engineering course you could take? (My program had one that was mandatory)

It sounds like it's somewhere in between, so my suggestion is get them to toss the practical stuff for core/ required classes and offer electives that do teach the practical. If you need help convincing them, just show them course titles/ cirricula from MIT, Stanford, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> Page "Selling Haskell for CS1"

Joostena, Van Den Berga and Van Der Hoeven "Teaching functional programming to first-year students"

Chakravarty, Keller "The risks and benefits of teaching purely functional programming in first year"

Felleisen, Findler, Flatt and Krishnamurthi "The Structure and Interpretation of the Computer Science Curriculum"

You can get these all off Google Scholar. The papers listed do a good job, in my opinion, of discussing both the good and the bad of a functional approach.

When I went through school, we were taught with a myriad of languages, and when I was finishing up, they were transitioning to a more "practical" java/c++ monoculture. I think that's a bad deal for the students, personally.

Having been a tutor for a first year class teaching (a subset of) C++, I have anecdotal evidence against doing that. There are too many gotchas, and too much rainmaking to make it worthwhile, in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER6> You are touching a controversial topic. Everybody knows we are not generally doing it right in computing education. It's a world wide mesh of trial and error. For a broad overview of the problem space you might find this informative [PDF]:

[http://www.acm.org/education/future-of-computing- education-s...](http://www.acm.org/education/future-of-computing-education- summit/FoCES_web.pdf)</comment>


Ask HN: What makes a project on an entry-level dev's resume stand out? - <AUTHOR> I'm a Poli Sci major getting a minor in CS (long story) and am curious what I can do project-wise to make them stand out from the crowd of simple CRUD to-do lists.<p>I'm currently working on a web app [0] to track my running data, but it has a long way to go and is frankly fairly useless at the moment.<p>[0] https://github.com/John123Allison/RunJS <comment><USER2> While personal projects are good, even more impressive is contributing features and/or bug fixes to larger open source projects.

It's sometimes much more challenging to dive into an existing project, learn their frameworks/style/design, and work with existing contributors.

However it's also much closer to what happens on a real development team. Whereas a project with a single author can show coding skill, working in a large open source project shows collaboration, communication, and soft skills as well.

It is a huge gold star on a resume in my opinion.

<comment><USER3> How do you get the ball rolling on that and are there any good open source projects to start on?

<comment><USER4> I'd suggest going by what you use. At least for me, the initial motivation worked way better when fixing a bug on or improving something I regularly use. That can range from some random browser extension to tooling of a programming language you use. Sending PRs to one-person projects can be a bit hit-and-miss if they are active, but on the other hand they're often happy about any contribution they get that shows someone else cares about their thing. On the other hand, large projects are more likely to have a community where someone might help a first-time contributor through the steps.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> create something – like you have – but ship it to production. opening a project and seeing setup instructions like you have makes it seem like one of those other crud apps, nobody will take the time to do it.

"Check out this thing I made - runwithjohnjs.com" will have a much greater effect.

For bonus points, write about how you built it (just use dev.to).

A cool project will get you in the door, then you just have to perform well on the interview (for which many prep materials exist online).

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool! I appreciate the feedback. I actually do have a Heroku hosted production environment setup with CI/CD, but it's in maintenance mode until I feel comfortable showing it off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Go do REAL client work/ side work. You're half-brother's cousin's neighbor desperately needs a site/ app / script / etc, and you should build it for them. Contrived projects that lack the messiness of the real world tell you virtually nothing about an applicant.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think exposure and knowledge of the technologies that my team uses is the most important.

Our dev environment set up, coding standards, testing standards, release process etc will all be taught when joining the team.

I haven't seen it before but if you were able to say I fixed these bugs on this project (that had the same stack as my teams') then it would be something that stands out - I should take my own advice!

</comment><comment><USER8> I would go for a candidate who came up with an idea, designed the solution, got some other people involved, and executed on it well. Solo projects are good but to really sell your value it helps to show you can work well with others.

</comment><comment><USER9> The most powerful thing you can do is to fix 100 bugs on an extremely well known open source project, and put that on your resume, with links to all the github issues/commits.

<comment><AUTHOR> What would you suggest for finding a project that is sufficiently complex to matter, but not too large for a student to contribute to?

<comment><USER10> Not "extremely well known," but our startup has released open source developer SDKs (currently Android and Arduino) and example apps for our consumer hardware device (haptic wristband). It's just been me and a colleague working on these in our spare cycles.

[https://github.com/neosensory](https://github.com/neosensory)

We'll take any help we can get with contributing to any of the projects posted up there.

<comment><USER9> To the original poster .....

If you are being welcomed in to this project then you should take up the offer and then do some serious hard work fixing every possible issue you can in the github issues and asking guidance from the project maintainers as much as you can when you get stuck.

<comment><USER11> Unpaid internships are the best indeed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> users, showing you learned from user feedback to iterate on the project

</comment><comment><USER13> Tests :-)</comment>


Lenia – Mathematical Life Forms [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/277328815 <comment><AUTHOR> The author provides a lot of ressources, check the repository for more links:

Paper: [https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.05433](https://arxiv.org/abs/1812.05433)

Repo: [https://github.com/Chakazul/Lenia](https://github.com/Chakazul/Lenia)

A web-based version to play around with: [https://chakazul.github.io/Lenia/JavaScript/Lenia.html](https://chakazul.github.io/Lenia/JavaScript/Lenia.html)

</comment><comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21922709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21922709)</comment>


Music Theory For Beginners (part 2) - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/music-theory-for-beginners-ii/

<comment><USER2> The randomness kind of bothers me. People don't write music randomly, and composition isn't just following some mechanical process and seeing what comes out. This method might get you music that _sounds_ nice, but it can't stand up to music that is actually composed.

If you really want to learn about music, I think it's better to study good music. If you thought adding rhythm had surprising effects, this video will blow your mind: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0ZE38BQmvQ> It's an analysis of Mozart in Leonard Bernstein's Norton lectures at Harvard.

<comment><USER3> _"I would hope you put more effort into thinking of a melody and harmony than this, but the point is that rhythm makes a gigantic difference, even if everything else is messy."_

You should read the article before commenting.

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't have minded some examples, but it bothers me that the entire lesson about rhythm is based on mashing his hands on the keyboard. If you're going to learn about rhythm, it would be useful to know what rhythm is _for_ beyond "it sounds better than no rhythm."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very practical, which is great. It is very easy to stay motivated when the tutorial is so focused on producing something that you like.

The only thing that I thought was missing was a discussion about micro and macro pulses in 4/4 versus 3/4 versus 6/8, because it is a simple concept that is easy to teach but offers the student much more variety of options in choosing a time signature. As a music teacher, I usually approach the issue by having students count 4/4 aloud (" _1_ 2 _3_ 4, noting that 1 and 3 are accented slightly) and 3/4 aloud ( _1_ 2 3, noting that beat 1 is accented). This teaches not just the structure of the time signatures but helps the student internalize them, which I've found speeds up learning and understanding without sacrificing the student's ability to understand what principles make rhythms work the way they do. (This would have made syncopation a _lot_ easier to teach later in the article-- it can be defined as simply rhythms that don't conform to the usual micro/macro pulse of a time signature, i.e. _1_ 2 3 _4_ , etc)

Also, one of the easiest ways to grok the time signature concept is to say the signature aloud like it's a fraction. i.e., 4/4 is "four fourths", 6/8 is "sixth eighths" etc. It really is that easy, and this approach _combined with_ the understanding that the lower value gets one beat and there are x of them per measure usually makes time signatures one of the easiest sections of my theory courses.

Still, it's hard to criticize a tutorial that has you producing music so quickly.

<comment><USER5> OK, so why do we sometimes use 6/8 instead of 3/4? And rarely 2/2 instead of 4/4?

<comment><USER6> Mostly to indicate tempo and style. A 3/4 measure and a 6/8 measure are the same length, but the 6/8 has twice as many beats at twice the rate. So a composer would use a 6/8 signature for a faster-moving piece with a lot of eighth notes. Similarly, a slow piece would have a 2/2 signature instead of 4/4.

<comment><USER7> I think you may have the 2/2 vs. 4/4 reversed. In a 2/2 piece, quarter notes will be played twice as fast as in a 4/4 piece at the same tempo. From Wikipedia ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#Most_frequent_ti...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_signature#Most_frequent_time_signatures)):

 _alla breve, cut time: used for marches and fast orchestral music. Frequently occurs in musical theater. Sometimes called "in 2", but may be notated in 4._

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here is the thread for part 1 <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326502> and the direct link [http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/music-theory-for- beginn...](http://www.whitakerblackall.com/blog/music-theory-for-beginners/)

</comment><comment><USER8> HN comments on part 1 <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2326502></comment>


Show HN: One-click time zone converter - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/time-zone-converter/eojaekhfpeakafmjnmkpkccjlmbkmceg <comment><AUTHOR> Basically the title, you just highlight the part you want to convert and then right-click and you will see the highlighted time in your local time zone.

I personally use it everyday just because it's so simple and quick. It's been a while since I built it. Recently received a bump in users and some great feedback so I thought that it could be useful for you as well.</comment>


Industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/14/nasa-civilisation-irreversible-collapse-study-scientists <comment><USER2> The Club of Rome [1] did the same thing in 1972 with its famous study »The Limits to Growth« [2] and came to similar conclusions. An updated version »Beyond the Limit« [3] has been published after 20 years in 1993. The model they developed is called World3 [4].

After 30 years they validated their model and published »Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update« in 2004. The actual development of our world over this 30 years period is frighteningly close to one of their scenarios without happy end.

It is unfortunately a real possibility that we are already doomed, i.e. have crossed the point of no return even assuming perfect future developments, and are just not aware of our approaching downfall.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Club_of_Rome)

[2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Limits](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Limits)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3)

<comment><USER3> What _is_ that ending?

<comment><USER2> [http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06OO_3r0dVc/Tw0HcAr6R3I/AAAAAAAAAL...](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-06OO_3r0dVc/Tw0HcAr6R3I/AAAAAAAAALM/pdt88yv3N6w/s1600/World3.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Correct me if I'm wrong, but are we not now, reading this, sitting in a civilization with greater capacity for resource production and allocation, longer average lives, and better systems of healthcare than all of the previous cultures this study brings up?

Are we not also aware that any mathematical model of consumption for any growing civilization at any period -- easily predicts resources running out and impending catastrophe? Do we not note that priests and others have been predicting the end of mankind for as far back as we have written history? Can we not observe that all cellular-based automata modeling systems default to runaway conditions? Is any of this some kind of mystery?

There may be real danger on the horizon -- creating some kind of human super- organism on the planet creates a single point of failure, and that's _extremely_ bad -- but I remain convinced that when the world does end, there's going to be a lot of disappointed people out there that it did not end the way they thought it would.

"Scientists" are folks who tell us the likelihood of causality. You do A, B is likely to happen. They do this through falsifiable theories and reproducible science. They do not spend time and money with broad speculations about the ills of human nature, and how those ills will conspire bring about our punishment. I don't know what that is, sounds like religion to me, but it sure ain't science.

</comment><comment><USER5> The problem with studies about the future is that they tend to too easily reconfirm the ideological beliefs of the writers. For example, the Romans didn't collapse because of environmental reasons. This makes them a tough jigsaw piece to squeeze into a deep environmentalist collapse puzzle. This is probably why Jared Diamond ignores them and instead focuses on small tribes in the arctic and easter island.

The only collapse theorist that I know of who's developed a collapse theory that avoids ideology is Joseph Taintor. Probably because he is not an economist but a professor of archeology.

<comment><USER6> The Roman's did exhaust their environment though. Soil depleted, habours silted up, and forests disappeared. In North Africa this led to desertification that persists today.

Tainter specifically mentions Roman soil depletion in his book.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_during_the_Roman_period#Consequences_of_deforestation)

<comment><USER5> Tainter's explanation for their collapse was the diminishing marginal utility of the "conquer and collect tribute" mechanism that had served them so well in previous centuries. I'm not saying that they did not deforest the land or change the environment but that's like saying the cause of the decline of the new world civilizations in the 15th century was because of their expansive agricultural modifications of the land in the preceding centuries.

Maintaining territory and tribute generated negative marginal returns after a while. It was only the eastern roman empire's deconstruction of their military institutions into the theme based system[1] of distributed farmer's security collectives that let the Eastern Roman Empire (A.K.A Byzantium) last another 1000 years after the western roman empire had collapsed.

1\. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_(Byzantine_district)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theme_\(Byzantine_district\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Guy McPherson has a disturbingly well sourced and pessimistic summary of how climate change will affect humanity in the next few decades. In his view it's too late to stop it and we're finished:

[http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary- and-u...](http://guymcpherson.com/2013/01/climate-change-summary-and-update/)

<comment><USER8> An interesting thought experiment I like to entertain is the case in which climate change is mitigated by the same kind of factors that cause and exacerbate it. It's not outrageous to imagine 21st century materials technology making it profitable to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, or low-power, ubiquitous computing/surveillance/logistics technology that can extract heat energy from the atmosphere and convert it to usable work.

<comment><USER9> I hope you understand that converting CO2 to anything else requires _energy_. CO2 is the "lower energy" state. Either you win the energy by burning something or you have to spend the energy to produce organic matter out of the CO2. The nature did the later during the last hundreds of millions of years. The humanity burned half of the oil so produced in a mere 100 years -- an order of million times faster, and growing.

<comment><USER8> My optimistic idea of the future (not the only scenario I entertain by any means) assumes that renewable, carbon-neutral energy will be pervasive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I agree that inequality is a growing problem for our economic and democratic models, but I think we need to keep two things seperate: Inequality of resource usage and inequality of resource ownership.

The super rich may be thousands or hundereds of thousands of times as wealthy as the average person, but they do not eat thousands of times as much and they do not personally use thousands of times as much energy as the rest of us.

The 0.1% and not even the 1% can ever eat enough for the rest of us to go hungry. There isn't going to be famine due to resource scarcity in developed countries. At least not because the rich have used all the resources.

This hasn't always been the case. I believe (correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not a historian) that hundereds or thousands of years ago the elites could actually use not just own so much of the available resources that there wasn't enough left for the masses.

Inequality of asset ownership is to a large degree inequality of power. Mr. Brin can wake up tomorrow and say ha!, today I'm going to set up a lab staffed with top scientists that are going to figure out how to build a space elevator. Or he can buy himself a senator or two. I can't do that. He can. But we can both eat and the food won't be that different (I believe).

<comment><USER2> If you don't compare the rich and the poor within countries but on a global scale the situation looks a bit different. I have no source at hand to prove my point but if I remember correctly the first world wastes enough food that we could almost feed every human on earth if we would stop that and redistribute the food instead.

<comment><USER10> They are not going hungry because we are eating too much. That causality doesn't exist. Famine is the result of wars, corruption and generally bad policy.

<comment><USER2> I did not want to imply that, I wanted to say that the rich are capable of wasting a LOT of resources.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is obviously sensationalist bullshit. The Guardian writer, Nafeez Ahmed, has produced a string of highly exaggerated articles in the past[1]. Very surprised that the Guardian publishes this crap but it seems that highly politicized subjects like climate change and income inequality have different standards.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/profile/nafeez- ahmed](http://www.theguardian.com/profile/nafeez-ahmed)

<comment><USER12> While I am not saying this is some universal truth or anything like that, but I have found these kind of articles to be wildly popular amongst cynical students at my college.

There is something about the idea of "The world is fucked, and I will be here to watch it burn!" that seems to really click with these people.

<comment><USER13> They seem to do well on HN too...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is some interesting insight to be gained from the elites vs masses psychology here. However I'm very skeptical of looking at history to try to predict the future of our civilization. Population and resource utilization as a percentage of total available on our planet have never been anywhere near what they are today. If civilization is to survive we somehow need to transition work environmental and total resource externalities into our capitalist model—in other words we need deeply embrace sustainability as a fundamental cultural value. Currently no one is thinking beyond the length of a human lifetime; that coupled with an axiomatic need for infinite economic growth is guaranteed to fuck ourselves over sooner than later.

<comment><USER7> Is capitalism compatible with human survival? You can't have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.

>Report for the UN into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest companies estimates one-third of profits would be lost if firms were forced to pay for use, loss and damage of environment

[http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds- to...](http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms- environmental-damage)

It's true that massive regulation to account for all the externalities of the market is vital, but with 200 species a day going extinct already, and serious crises on the horizon, it should have happened a long time ago.

<comment><USER15> > You can't have infinite growth on a planet with finite resources.

Blasphemy! I bet less than half of the otherwise smart people acknowledge this. Or they think we'll just terraform Mars some other planet light years away, soon enough.

<comment><USER16> You didn't have to wait long for the Mars immigrants, did you?

The problem is that accumulating enough energy to leave Earth will be very difficult. Oil still is tightly coupled to wealth. And if we survive long enough to decouple it, and are lucky enough that that is a smooth transition and don't end up way too poor to go to Mars, getting to Mars is still going to be a trip for wealthy masochists with no impact on human survival. (Wait, maybe Elon Musk is playing some Vonnegut-esque Marxist long con on the 1%'ers.)

I would find the Pollyannas more believable if we had a production line for thorium reactors cranking them out like the Chinese build coal powerplants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "NASA-funded study" implies a lot more relevance than people should find.

NASA funds lots of things, including warp drives. That doesn't make it true.

<comment><USER18> What about "accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics"?

<comment> T-A Well... [http://retractionwatch.com/2012/04/17/math-paper- retracted-b...](http://retractionwatch.com/2012/04/17/math-paper-retracted- because-it-contains-no-scientific-content/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The way this is written up in the Guardian makes it sound like NASA's all seeing eye has evaluated everything that is happening in the world and made a prediction. The actual paper (early draft here apparently [http://metosrv2.umd.edu/~ekalnay/pubs/handy-paper-for- submis...](http://metosrv2.umd.edu/~ekalnay/pubs/handy-paper-for- submission-2.pdf) ) is all about a fairly simple model which has been run through a bunch of scenarios as a way of studying civilisation collapse in general:

 _Based on the long history of collapse of civilizations discussed in the introduction, we separated the population into 'Elites' and 'Commoners', and introduced a variable for accumulated wealth ... We have also added a di fferent dimension of predation whereby Elites 'prey' on the production of wealth by Commoners. As a result, HANDY consists of just four prediction equations: two for the two classes of population, Elites and Commoners, denoted by xE and xC, respectively, one for the natural resources or Nature, y, and one for the accumulated Wealth, w, referred to hereafter as 'Wealth'. This minimal set of four equation seems to capture essential features of the human-nature interaction and is capable of producing major potential scenarios of collapse or transition to steady state._

This definitely has some uses but is being misreported. A four equation model that splits people into two polarised classes doesn't really tell us much about the real world. There are lots of reasons to feel gloomy about the future for sure, but this little model isn't really adding to the evidence in any substantial way.

</comment><comment><USER20> "and increasingly unequal wealth distribution". I don't know about this. If anything we have more wealth available to commoners today compared to centuries ago. Just look at how things were a 1000 or 2000 years ago, most everyone was poor, with the wealth held by kings a lords.

<comment><USER21> Just because everyone has more wealth(very disputable especially regionally in certain areas) doesn't mean the distribution is increasing at the same rate for all classes of society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Reminds me a bit of the psychohistorians in Asimov's Foundation series.

</comment><comment><USER23> Where's the Nasa.gov link? TFA doesn't provide one, Google isn't seeing it. Anyone?

<comment><USER22> NASA funding doesn't mean much here. see danielweber's comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> The fact that inequal distribution of wealth is still a reality we accept in our time is really mind-boggling. Even more so given the fact that it's 1 of the main reasons for a likely future collapse of our civilization. (We still don't use the full potential of our collective intelligence; we know exactly what's wrong, but behave like hypnotized rabbits, instead of starting to coordinate for a collaborative culture/future.)

<comment><USER25> How would you realistically fix "inequal distribution of wealth"? Let's say you run a company, and it makes $1mil per year in revenue. Would you split that amount equally to all employees? Not everyone contributed equally, maybe one guy worked for 60hrs/week while another left at 4pm every day. Would you give the same amount of money to the janitor as to the CEO or engineers?

Also, what about people outside that company? Should they also get some money, even though some of them contributed exactly zero? You could argue that some government services did contribute, like cops and roads, but that still wouldn't include the majority of the population.

In short, I think there are no easy solutions to "inequal distribution of wealth". Whatever you pick is going to come with its own serious downsides.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> World3 is a famous simulation done in the 70s of our world/civilization that broadly predicts how our interaction with the environment will lead to a breakdown (decrease) of population.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3)

You can run this world simulation here:

[http://insightmaker.com/insight/1954](http://insightmaker.com/insight/1954)

(Click on the green run simulation on the upper left.)

The lady who is responsible for this is called Donella Meadows, she is a famous systems thinker, I read one of her books titled 'Thinking in Systems'. It's about how to think about such systems (without actually modelling them).

[http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H- Meadows/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Systems-Donella-H- Meadows/dp/1603580557)

</comment><comment><USER27> Is there an actual link to the study? I couldn't find it.

<comment><USER11> Couldn't find anything on the study's author, Safa Motesharri, other than a bunch of reposts of this Guardian article.

Edit: Study author's name was misspelled in the Guardian: Safa Motesharrei not Safa Motesharri. He's a math grad student at Univ. Of Maryland. Found a paper too...

[http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~ekalnay/pubs/handy-paper-for- submi...](http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~ekalnay/pubs/handy-paper-for- submission-2.pdf)

[http://www.sesync.org/users/smotesharrei](http://www.sesync.org/users/smotesharrei)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> WARNING: Doom n' Gloom post :P

I'm not arguing against the need for such studies, however I find it amazing that this is debatable at all.

Expecting that we as a species or society aren't subject to the most fundamental laws of the universe isn't rational. Even in the negligible timescale of our own species we've seen repeated cycles of collapse, the planet is littered with the remains of failed species. The only reason this needs study is because we're so arrogant as to believe there's an exemption clause in the fine print of the immutable laws of the universe, just for us. Scarier still is that we don't even have to be all godded up to believe that, it's how we're born. (Tangent: watch "Through The Wormhole" the episode "Does Belief in God Cause More Self Control?")

A collapse is coming, it's just a question of when. 10 years? 100 years? 1000 years? a million?

Personally I'd lean toward the lower end of the scale. Whilst a substantial percentage of the world subscribes philosophies that essentially reinforce our innate belief that the earth "belongs" to man. Her resources perhaps put there for us to consume by some higher being. We're pretty fucked. Ecological responsibility can't be discussed with any creature that ultimately believes that a a higher being provides for them. Heck you can't even begin to discuss the timescales involved rationally with the vast majority of faiths around, and those that you can engage in dialogue are numerically so insignificant as to not matter.

Then there's the question of reproduction. Whilst first world populations are shrinking, the third world is growing, and we in the first world can't even agree that it would be in our own long term interests to pay for the education and food of every last man, woman and child amongst them that needs it. The reasons are purely selfish: it's the only humane way we can have even the slightest chance of avoiding a world with 10 + billion people on it. If the thought of that doesn't terrify you, it should. Assuming we agree that societal patterns observed in the past hold true of the future, then trouble and strife breeds conflict, breeds fascism, breeds violence. Picture a world a few decades from now where the poorest two thirds, armed with today's most horrific weapons use the model set by the past as their compass for the future. I'd wager the odds are heavily stacked in favour of things getting very bloody at some point. Believing that, whilst some may play with cataclysmic weapons, the genie will stay in the bottle for the rest, is naive at best. If you still can't picture what I mean, drop everything and go visit India, Bangladesh, Mexico or almost anywhere in sub-saharan Africa, spend a year or two outside the city, then picture what happens when that thin veneer if government and society is stripped away.

It's a fact that as a species and as individuals we're incredibly bad at forward looking decision making. We evolved geared to favour today and next week over next month or next year. Few plan and act for long term benefit even on a human scale, and collectively that's going to bite us in the ass. I don't imagine this is something that sits well with the entrepreneurial spirit of HN readers, but before you stand up and shout "Hey! I plan! I save! I recycle!" or whatever, remember this is about us in aggregate, each of us individually are quite irrelevant.

Ok, I'm done, I can't begin to address this subject properly.

      "I'm gonna share with you a vision that I had, cause I love you. And you feel it. You know all
      that money we spend on nuclear weapons and defense each year, trillions of dollars, correct?
      Instead -- just play with this -- if we spent that money feeding and clothing the poor of the
      world -- and it would pay for it many times over, not one human being excluded -- we can
      explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace."  - Bill Hicks

<comment><USER18> _I don 't imagine this is something that sits well with the entrepreneurial spirit of HN readers_

Would that explain why this post moved from number 3 on HN to bottom of page 3 in a matter of minutes?

<comment><USER29> Please, not this thing about defense spending again ... you could feed and clothe them many times over, for many generations, with all the entitlement spending ...

<comment><USER28> And accomplish what, a reversal of roles?

I'm ravished by the sheer implausibility of that. Carry on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> NASA is an acronym, yet most British publications stylize it as a word - Nasa.

<comment><USER30> They seem to do that when its pronounced versus spelled I've noticed.

aka:

        NASA = Nasa
        BBC = b b c

I could be wrong though so whatever.

<comment><USER31> That's what makes it an acronym. Technically, an "acronym" is an abbreviation that can be pronounced as a word (e.g. Radar, Nasa).

In contrast, things like BBC or FBI are "initialisms" but not acronyms.

<comment><USER30> That explains it, but I thought NASA was originally spelled out as well. Take for example the world wide web and the early 2000's and people constantly trying to make www dub dub dub.

I think the only thing stopping the BBC getting in the same boat is lack of vowels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I don't find the link to that study.</comment>


New sandbox features in systemd - <AUTHOR> https://endocode.com/blog/2016/11/04/new-sandbox-features-in-systemd/ <comment><USER2> Ok. I'll be that guy.

Is there a clear, stable interface to define this layer as a separate one from the rest of systemd which would also allow for a different implementation to be leveraged by the service manager; or is this just another tightly coupled component for systemd with no regard for anything or anyone else?

<comment><USER3> Perhaps it depends whether you see sandboxing as a tool or as a feature. There is [https://github.com/projectatomic/bubblewrap](https://github.com/projectatomic/bubblewrap) if you want sandboxing without systemd.

<comment><USER2> I think you guys have missed the point. I do know there are several sandboxing implementations for Linux, what I was "wondering" was wether systemd would offer an interface for these solutions to implement so that they can power systemd's sandboxing API rather than relying on yet another systemd component.

<comment><USER4> Those sandboxing solutions are toolkits that help you employ Linux kernel APIs to achieve a desired configuration. The Linux kernel is the underlying sandboxing API, and Docker and rkt and systemd all expose its features in different ways.

For example, if you launch a container with Docker, then you might tell it to employ user namespaces as a way of isolating processes within the container from the rest of the system. This helps ensure that "root" inside the container is not really "root" outside it, and that the "nobody" user in two different containers is not actually the same user.

Systemd also gives users the ability to employ user namespaces (and other kernel features) while launching services, in this case through the --private- users flag to systemd-nspawn [1]. The article we're discussing does not describe a new systemd component, but a new set of configuration parameters for employing, in user space, some features offered by the Linux kernel. One of the new parameters is ProtectSystem=strict which launches processes with a read-only view of the file system.

It's valuable for systemd to support these facilities directly and not punt the problem to a higher level. To summarize, since systemd is the init system, exposing these features in systemd means that Linux kernel namespacing features can be employed even with very low-level system services; and they can be employed in configuration by administrators even with services that don't know how to self-sandbox to the same degree.

[1] [https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd- nsp...](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemd- nspawn.html#--private-users=)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2016-No...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd- devel/2016-November/037698.html)</comment>


Give developers autonomy - <AUTHOR> http://jonblack.org/2013/05/25/give-developers-autonomy/

<comment><USER2> Here's something else to consider ...

Most stuff people make for free and give away is unfinished, and largely unusable. Yes, there are outstanding projects completed by outstanding people to a very high standard, but that is truly exceptional.

Give developers responsibility, let them take control, and how many products will actually get finished before they move on to the next shiny thing that attracts their attention? How many developers are willing to do the 90% of schlepping after the 10% of cool, fun stuff?

Genuine question. I have some outstanding programmers who work for me, and they still need motivating to complete the transfer of information to the documentation and training teams. They certainly don't write the documentation and training manuals themselves, and they _still_ won't transfer the information.

They don't need motivation to do this interesting bits, but there's more to a successful product than gorgeous design and cool code.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the point you're making is that autonomy alone won't produce a high- quality product. You're right. There are dangers in giving too much autonomy, which is probably why google-time is fixed at 20% and not 90%.

The point I was trying to make was that giving developers more control over what they work on better suits the problems they are trying to solve and allows the business to harness some of the passion developers have.

You're certainly right that there are aspects that never appeal. It's not a black-and-white case of "more autonomy = more results", but in some areas can be rewarding for both developer and business.</comment></comment>


NYC Founder Institute Q&A - <AUTHOR> http://blog.nextjump.com/post/58703252452/top-mentor-q-a-from-founder-institute

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always loved this advice - "Learn to trust yourself. You know the tradeoffs better than anyone, and you will pay the price for bad decisions."

It is important to listen to everyone, but it's more important to know what advice to take action on and what advice to discard. (Of course, that's my opinion - only you know whether to take it or leave it!)</comment>


IPhone 4.0 software to deliver multitasking support - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/11/apples_iphone_4_0_software_to_deliver_multitasking_support.html <comment><USER2> This coming from a site which was saying for years that Apple would be releasing a mobile phone and tablet (until they eventually did). Every damned WWDC/Macworld they would reiterate the rumor until it happens.

Furthermore, its quite clear the article has no credibility when the author writes garbage like "Gaming has largely failed to take off on other mobile platforms because titles are limited to simplistic experiences, as they must either run in a poorly-performing layer of abstraction (such as .. Java/Android Dalvik runtimes...). Apparently the writer has never heard of the NDK, and isn't aware that there is no reason why Dalvik couldn't eventually run as fast as native code. Furthermore, I doubt the author has spoken to a single Android gaming developer..

I used to work at an Apple Premium reseller, and I've heard enough crap from Appleinsider that has been OBVIOUSLY wrong throughout the ages. They don't have any credibility, and I'm curious why people treat them with such respect. In fact, I'd say its pretty obvious they own stocks in Apple so CANNOT be a neutral party.

Yes, multitasking might come eventually. But from experience, you'd have to be crazy to trust these guys. The fact is, everyone is thinking the same thing anyway (because its a MAJOR complaint about the iPad), and if it doesn't happen, AppleInsider will just shrug it off as delayed (as they normally do). AppleInsider Rumors are nothing more than educated guesses generally, or based on information which is available to every Apple reseller. I've never seen any information proven correct though that suggests it was leaked by an "insider"

<comment><USER3>
       ru·mor
       -noun
       1. a story or statement in general circulation
          without confirmation or certainty as to facts:
              a rumor of war.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> More AppleInsider bullshit. There's no source on the article. Therefore this is pure speculation.

</comment><comment><USER5> It takes great skill to write an article with that many sentences that say nothing new.

</comment><comment><USER6> For an Apple-centric site, their mobile interface is quite annoying. It obscures ~1/3 of the content until you begin scrolling and then the nav bars disappear until you stop scrolling only to reappear. To make matters worse, clicking the button to use the full site dumps you on the main page, not on the article you were reading.

<comment><USER7> I noticed the same thing this morning. I like the amount of care they put into the interface, but a few things are wrong. First, when you click through to an article it doesn't go directly to the article. Second, the issue you mentioned. Its _very_ distracting to have the interface fading in/out when trying to scroll.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> So I'm guessing apps will still be sandboxed and not able to interact - so no voice recorder for your phone calls, etc.

<comment><USER9> Indeed. If multitasking comes, apps will still have to interact with everything else through well-defined, public APIs; the only place they'll have free reign will continue to be their own folder. Also, I'd expect to see some quotas enforced to guarantee that, say, background Pandora really does only take x% CPU, probably within a static amount of memory.

<comment><AUTHOR> _I'd expect to see some quotas enforced to guarantee that, say, background Pandora really does only take x% CPU, probably within a static amount of memory._

I think it would be much smarter for Apple to just give the iPhone user some sort of notification when there isn't enough memory to run the app he's trying to open. Kinda like the classic Mac OS for those that remember.

<comment><USER10> That would be a very bad move and very un-Apple.

What is a user supposed to do with that sort of notification? When I launch a program, I mean to run the damned program. I don't want to be told "I can't run this, go close something else first." This would be a huge step backwards in iPhone OS usability.

I don't care as much about background apps such as Internet radio streaming (sorry, especially since Pandora isn't available in Canada, I really can't care; I found that when I could use last.fm I didn't use it that much, either, which is why I didn't subscribe—there's no value in it for me). I suspect that most phone users don't, either.

I'd be much more interested in a better notification queue, local notifications and alarms, and things like that than the ability to run programs (like Pandora) in the background.

I'd be much more interested in an API to allow searching inside an application's data than running programs in the background.

I'd be much more interested in quick ways to switch between two or three programs that I use regularly without having to go to SpringBoard than running programs in the background.

My needs aren't typical, but I think that the need to run streaming audio programs in the background is, for now, even less typical.

<comment><AUTHOR> _That would be a very bad move and very un-Apple._

I actually agree, but it would be better than forcing developers to adhere to a static memory quota.

Ultimately there isn't any simple answer for the iPhone multitasking issue. Maybe Apple should create tools that let developers create "background modes" of their apps, which would take up less memory and dynamically cede control to other apps with higher priority, like the Phone.

<comment><USER11> A static memory quota might be better than what we have now. Sometimes my app gets punted at 2 MB, sometimes it can use 20. Users with jailbroken phones seem to have particular problems with memory, especially when they try to take photos.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> IPad 4.0 software to deliver pizza

<comment><USER9> With multitouch and a big screen, my question is: do you really NEED an actual pizza, though?

<comment><USER13> But with the App Store approval process, no version of pizza delivery with the blonde and the "bow-chicka bow-wow" soundtrack.

Rule 34: someone will do one as a Web app.</comment></comment></comment>


AT&T "You Will" Commercials are now 25 years old - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2EgfkhC1eo <comment><USER2> You've linked to the last few seconds of the video. You should delete the time_continue part out of the URL.

<comment><USER3> Scott fixed it since.</comment></comment>


Xiaomi's global smartphone marketshare increases by 124% over last quarter - <AUTHOR> https://www.zdnet.com/article/smartphone-sales-bounce-back-in-q1-gartner/ <comment><USER2> I really like my Xioami. For $82 USD on AliExpress, I got a Xiaomi Redmi 3 (a few years ago). It's the first phone, across iPhone, Samsung and others, that has been "good enough" since I bought it (and I still have it). The mind blowing thing was it was at the time 1/10 of a typical flagship phone, and actually had better battery life thanks to the lack of 4G. If you care deeply about phone performance, buy a flagship. If not, get a Xioami on AliExpress/Alibaba for 1/5 to 1/10 of what you would pay here, with basically no downsides.</comment>


DevOps: Tools Can Lead the Culture Change - <AUTHOR> https://redmonk.com/rstephens/2019/10/25/devops-tools-can-lead-the-culture-change/ <comment><USER2> To effectively pull off a DevOps transformation you need buy-in from the whole organization, as detailed in the excellent book "The Phoenix Project." Ultimately DevOps and agile development is something PEOPLE do, and while certain tools can make it easier, the perfect tool set won't change the mind of executives intent on maintaining the status quo.</comment>


Occupy Geeks Are Building a Facebook for the 99% - <AUTHOR> http://m.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/occupy-facebook/ <comment><USER2> "To build trust, local and international networks will use a friend-of-a- friend model in Knutson and Boyer's projects. People can't become full members on their own as they can with social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+."

Nice, so an exclusive club mentality.

"I respect pseudonyms as long as they treat them as pseudonyms and not as masks"

No privacy either. Even better.</comment>


A painstakingly crafted search for Hearthstone - <AUTHOR> http://searchstone.io/ <comment><AUTHOR> Also the very detailed making of: [https://medium.com/@Kevin_Granger/a-painstakingly-crafted- se...](https://medium.com/@Kevin_Granger/a-painstakingly-crafted-search-for- hearthstone-c21b3fa4223c#.4anffly6g)

</comment><comment><USER2> I cannot run a search at all. It might be due to uBlock origin or Ghostery. Here is the error in the console:

         ReferenceError: assignment to undeclared variable navlang   app.js:4:7169

<comment><USER3> Yay, it's lame!!

I just fixed and redeployed, it should work now©

<comment><USER2> Yes, working now :)</comment></comment></comment>


NYC school zone speed cameras ticket 1 million motorists in 3 months - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2019/11/02/nyc-school-zone-speed-cameras-ticket-1-million-motorists-in-3-months/ <comment><USER2> Tickets are issued when a driver goes above 35mph in one of the 250+ zones in the area.

I am totally fine with this as long as we also ticket the cops personally who go over 35 as well.</comment>


7 Ways to Find Your Way in the Wilderness Without a Compass - <AUTHOR> https://survivorsupply.com/7-ways-to-find-your-way-in-the-wilderness-without-a-compass/ <comment><USER2> How north-hemisphere-centric! The sun is in the southern sky only in half the planet.</comment>


Can Netflix Survive in the New World It Created? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/19/magazine/can-netflix-survive-in-the-new-world-it-created.html <comment><USER2> One of the best professional pieces of advice I've ever read said something like "Think you're indispensable? Do they know that?". It made me aware that often the people making the hiring/firing decisions aren't actually aware of my day-to-day. Rather, they know only the summary info. Those kudos to fellow employees and in-house "awards" that I'd been ignoring? Those are documentation that someone is worthwhile, and I had none. If I were fired that day, I'd have had precious little "proof" that it was a mistake. (and of course, the point isn't to "prove" it's a mistake, it's to make sure they know not to in the first place).

Now, when I learned that advice I was working for virginia state govt, where I didn't have technically competent and aware management like I do now in Seattle tech companies, but there is still an important kernel in the message: We tend to judge our performance relative to the difficulty of the tasks in front of us. Often, our performance will be judged my management using different criteria. It's a good idea to be aware of how you look from the outside.

...which is why I'd not want to work in the Netflix system. It's not whether I'm a good performer, it's whether THEY THINK I'm a good performer. Ideally these are related, and outside of a Netflix-like environment I might have confidence that my manager would let me know in advance of action if there was a discrepancy. While I'm sure Netflix would claim the same, I doubt McCord was expecting the axe to fall...

<comment><USER3> > Think you're indispensable? Do they know that?

Indispensable employees are a sign of organizational failure. They indicate a weak point in the organization -- if that person gets hit by a bus, or walks off the job, or is on vacation during a crisis, we're all in trouble. And if an employee becomes indispensable on purpose, that person is a problem and should be let go before the situation gets worse. Where I used to work, people who thought they were indispensable were the first to go when we had layoffs.

All this is to say that if you ever find yourself thinking, "this place would fall apart without me," you have a big problem.

<comment><USER2> 1) I think you're underestimating the number of shops that ARE "in trouble". There's a lot more tech-need in the world than tech-capable people right now, and with the places that have resources and organization gobbling up people, a lot of smaller shops (small startups, govt shops, small non-startup businesses) DO have indispensable people. And often those people will want to stay there. As for becoming indispensable on purpose...I'm sure some people do this, but most don't. This leads me to #2 below.

2) ...All of which is irrelevant since "indispensable" was mild hyperbole for "important/beneficial/worth keeping" in this discussion. I suppose I'll take the hit in the name of accuracy.

<comment><USER3> Good points, both of them. My experience with indispensable people comes from a big manufacturing organization. When I talk about people trying to become indispensable, I mean the engineer who had her hand in everything her department did and supported the line 24/7, and the technician who told me, "they'll never get rid of me, this place would fall apart without me." Among others. They really do exist, but perhaps it's less of a thing in software? I haven't worked with enough programmers to judge.

<comment><USER2> Software is by no means immune to what you list. Indeed, as Hubris is one of the Three Virtues of a Programmer, you definitely find it. That said, I think (my opinion) that you'll find more devs/admins that are PROUD to be indispensable than you will devs/admins that SEEK to become indispensable.

Both cases are ignoring what you point out: having a indispensable person is a bad thing for the long term health of your business. But one case (pride) is just mistaking doing a lot of essential work as not also creating a problem, while the other (seeking it) is less forgivable. And of course, there's a third, much worse option ("spaghetti code is job security") that doesn't rely on good work at all.

I've known a lot of devs that were close to indispensible and trying to fix it, fewer devs that were indispensable and proud of it, and only one or two that did crappy work so that they became more vital. A fair number of all of these devs were "responsible" for becoming indispensable simply by improving things to the point that their improvements became essential...and no one else had the skills/knowledge to easily replace them.

But of course, my experiences are subjective.

<comment><USER4> I think that these devs writing spaghetti code to stay indispensable should never get their code into the codebase through code reviews. Then that person would fail to contribute anything.

<comment><USER5> You become indispensable by doing things that nobody wants to do. For example, I remember an Engineer I used to work loves writing Perl/awk scripts to go through tera bytes of data to create reports. The data has anamolies and you need to custom create regular expressions to filter data that you don't need. The last I know he is still there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Spoiler: It's a long read!

> Does this still holds? Is there any other organization in dissimilar > industry where this works?

McCord also convinced Hastings that he should ask himself a few times a year whether he would hire the same person in the same job if it opened up that day. If the answer was no, Netflix would write a larger check and let the employee go. "If you are going to insist on high performance," McCord says, "then you have to get rid of the notion of retention. You'll have to fire some really nice, hard-working people. But you have to do it with dignity.

"I held the hands of people weeping, saying, 'I want to be here forever,' " McCord says. "I would tell them, 'Nothing lasts forever.' I would say to Reed, 'I love them, too, but it is our job to be sure that we always have the right people.' "

> Ironically, in 2011

Hastings decided to re-evaluate everyone in the executive ranks, using the litmus test McCord taught him: Would he hire them again today? One of the people this led him to push out was McCord.

<comment><USER6> > You'll have to fire some really nice, hard-working people. But you have to > do it with dignity.

I wonder if this is part of the reason why there are not too many Netflix-like high achieving companies in Europe -- firing people is not possible. Even _totally_ sucking at your job isn't acceptable reason for employment contract termination, that'd be just a reason for further training. You'll have to go through different hoops, usually concerning the company's financial needs -- and which high achiever would want to join a company that announces dire economical times?

This (easier to get rid of people) is also a reason behind a recent trend of people-for-hire companies and freelancers-only requirements.

Disclaimer: probably does not apply to all of Europe.

<comment><USER7> These are not firings technically - you are being paid a bonus on the condition that you resign, as I understand it. Has anyone ever said no or are the payouts _that much_?

<comment> Paul-ish It is probably the case that in the US, choosing not to leave gracefully means you will get the boot. In countries that make it hard to fire, someone could say "No thanks" to the resignation package and keep working for a significant amount of time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The thing is Sports is the key! Cable and Network television exists almost entirely due to revenue generated from Sports Viewers. Seriously, like the majority of your cable bill is used to pay for licensing to air live games. Cable is the only way for people to legally watch the majority of NBA and NFL games (in HD). We are making stride with stuff like NFL Sunday Ticket, but honestly those services still aren't great. When current license agreements end Netflix (and by extension Amazon, Hulu and whoever else) should back up a dump truck full of money to league offices and offer whatever terms they want. In the game of Internet TV you get sports and you win. It's as simple as that.

I don't believe that any of these networks competing services will ever take off because fragmentation is bad for consumers and they know it. Bundling is hugely important in this market. No one is going to be willing to pay $10 a month for a streaming service for every Network that decides it needs it's own. Sure a lot of people will be willing to pay for more than one but certainly not enough for all or even a lot of networks to go this route. HBO can survive that way but does NBC for instance have any show compelling enough to spend $10 for it separate from other networks shows.

<comment><USER9> The problem with NFL Sunday Ticket and NBA League Pass is that they both feel extremely nerfed as to not get in the way of TV. I have trouble believing the NFL and even the NBA actually have problems putting out a decent streaming service, they just _don 't want to_ because they're getting all their money from TV. I would have absolutely no problem paying like $5 a game for the amount of entertainment I get from it, but they don't even let me do that! I have to pay for an entire season in which some games won't even be shown on the service. They basically force you to watch illegal streams. It's ridiculous.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hi, Netflix employee here, been here 7 months. In my 18 year career I've never liked working at a large organization as much as I like it here. The people I work with are uniformly excellent at their jobs, I'm learning from all of them, and I enjoy the time I spend with them.

<comment><USER11> Enjoy it while it lasts! As soon as they find someone new and better, you're fired!

<comment><USER10> I don't understand why that's a problem. My work experience has been one where its much more likely that under-performers drag down the top performers, not that top performers are let go prematurely. If they let me go before I'm ready to leave I will be disappointed, but there are other jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "If it is a flop, we will have overpaid for one series," he told Hastings. > "But if it succeeds, we will have changed the brand."

Traditional big companies are structurally unable to think this way.

<comment><USER13> It also said they set up an indie film distribution company which was shut down because "We would have been better off spending the money on DVDs." Which sounds more like a traditional bigco.

<comment><USER12> Is it? Sounds like an example of what I was praising: they tried it, and found that the economics wouldn't work -- surprisingly they needed to control more of the value chain (at least it's a surprise to me).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The most interesting thing (to me) in this piece, is how many pivots Netflix made/is still making. Many of those moves were very much unsafe/risky (which is why the networks didn't make em themselves)...brave for what was already an established company then.

<comment><USER15> That's a good point. They're desperately trying to outmaneuver the cable companies. So far, they're doing OK, but not great. While Netflix is big, Netflix is not very profitable.

Netflix is becoming more like a cable company, with a limited menu. Total access to a huge back catalog has been cut back. Netflix, though, doesn't own the pipe.

Owning the pipe for TV is so profitable that AT&T more or less gives away voice and data if you get their TV service. Internet without TV costs more than Internet with TV.

<comment><USER14> True. It's going to be interesting to watch things play out. The portion of the article about consumers not wanting to subscribe to too many streaming services rings true to me. I think a lot of the newer (cable) network streaming services might die off in the next few years if they don't become one of the dominant few. If Netflix is on top of this (dominant) heap it should give them a lot of leverage when it comes to content costs which might lead to higher profits etc etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16>
      At another point, Netflix created a dedicated device through
      which to access its content, only to decide that adapting its
      service to everything from mobile phones to TV sets made more
      sense. (The Netflix device was spun out into its own company,
      Roku.)

Pretty sure this is a factual error in the article. As far as I know, Roku existed as a consumer electronics company independent of Netflix for years before it produced any Netflix streaming devices - anyone remember the Roku SoundBridge series of home audio devices?

I'm not clear on the actual relationship between Roku and Netflix (they _are_ both based in Los Gatos) but saying the Netflix hardware was "spun out" into Roku cannot be accurate.

<comment><USER17> This is somewhat accurate. The Netflix Player was an internal Netflix project. Close to launch, Hastings realized that other device makers would balk at Netflix making their own hardware, so it became a Roku product. [1] Most articles I've seen about this say Netflix spun off Roku, but like you I remember they definitely existed as a company before that. Did they simply just transfer that whole department to Roku? Did they have any kind of relationship before that? It's a little murky.

[1] [https://www.fastcompany.com/3004709/inside-netflixs- project-...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3004709/inside-netflixs-project- griffin-forgotten-history-roku-under-reed-hastings)

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Stepping away from hiring/firing practices, I had a very visceral reaction to this:

>"Five years ago," says Richard Greenfield, a media and technology analyst at BTIG who happens to be Netflix's most vocal proponent on Wall Street, "we wrote a piece saying that the networks shouldn't license to Netflix because they were going to unleash a monster that would undermine their business."

This exposes to me how capitalism, for all it's very real benefits, also has big flaws. "Don't do this thing because people will want it but you won't be the one to profit" is a bad attitude for society in general. Sure, it means there's a profit motive for someone else to fill that niche, but the point of creative works is that they are unique. If Shakespeare is too expensive you go to Marlowe...but then you never get Shakespeare. That's a survivable choice, but not the most beneficial result.

I don't have a solution, and I'm not saying to tear down the system. I'm just saying quotes like this make me cringe.

<comment><USER18> But Netflix was just a distributor then and not a creator. The biggest problem in this is middle men. People want to pay the creators for their work, but there are layers upon layers of middle men that end up getting a far larger slice of the overall pie than the people who actually create the stuff. With the technology we have and systems similar to (but more open than) Netflix, we should be able to have a proper compensation mechanism.

<comment><USER2> Perhaps, but I can also see the middleman as a value add.

When I paid Netflix and could see most anything, it was great, though a few things I couldn't see. Now I pay Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, pay for devices (e.g. Roku) to access them, have to hop accounts, and STILL can't see everything. Heck, Netflix's library has gotten less reliable. ("Want to see Groundhog day? let's see if it's currently in or out of catalog").

Middlemen aren't evil. Middlemen that want to gouge money WITHOUT providing value _cough_ cough _RIAA_ cough* aren't evil either, but they're a lot less "good".

Frankly, I'm a fan of competition, and in general when competition revolves around trying to offer more value to consumers, it's a bunch of winning (except for the companies that fall behind). Too often we see a competition to AVOID that scenario (Coke/pepsi & exclusive deals, everything about Comcast, HFT, the examples are numerous).

<comment><USER18> My point is middle men should make a cut in line with typical commissions (like 15%) so that the financial transaction is largely between the creator and the consumer. Netflix may be close to this model while virtually nobody else in the industry is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Aren't DVDs still a major profit-winner for Netflix? Last I checked 5 million people were still subscribed to receive DVDs, and their subscriptions were more profitable than streaming-only ones. DVD subscriptions, however, are declining.

Something people forget about the Qwikster debacle: video game rentals were teased. The fact that Netflix never explored this again really bugged me. Imagine if Netflix bundled video games into their DVD rental plans -- I think they'd be able to start boosting DVD rental numbers again, and thus boost profits.

</comment><comment><USER20> Does anyone experience the Netflix recommendation system being useful? If you use their web browser experience then you can tell it to never show items again. But if you use mobile apps, Chromecast, Roku etc you do not get that option. My experience is that they keep recommending the same content over and over again, despite me already having watched some of it, and not wanting to watch the rest. It is also an incredibly user hostile experience: "here are the same items we showed you last time that you didn't want to watch, so you must look at them again".

Heck they even go so far as recommending items where they accurately predict I'll give it low ratings, while ignoring the items where they accurately predict I'll give it higher ratings.

I really don't understand why they do this. Is my experience unique?

</comment><comment><USER21> TL;DR: Netflix changed everything when it switched from mail-order DVDs to streaming-video. Now, people find themselves (a) not watching commercials and (b) watching shows back-to-back. This has been lucrative for the company in terms of raw revenue, but not in terms of profits after costs: though the article is pretty murky on this (one part says that they made millions in profits; another says that they have a consistent cash-flow problem involving borrowing and more borrowing).

Netflix has several concerns up ahead which might make it difficult to survive operating at a constant loss. One is that Hulu and Amazon are encroaching on its markets, and competition tends to drive down profits. Another is that they don't own the vast majority of their content, which puts them at the mercy of the pricing of their suppliers -- and being downstream from a monopoly can also drive down profits. Even worse, their suppliers still have a revenue model based on this old advertising-and-cable-packages system, which Netflix is destroying by transforming the landscape: which is a disincentive to working with them; a channel which can broadcast a breakout-popular new TV show might keep that in-house to try to keep the channel alive, rather than licensing the show to Netflix for an alternative revenue stream. At the very least this will probably keep Netflix content about a season behind whatever's on TV.

Finally, Netflix is finding itself raising its own prices, which may lead to a flurry of cancellations from people who maintain inactive subscriptions precisely because they're pretty cheap. On the flip-side, it's not clear that they can sustain continued growth in their subscriber base; maybe at this point almost everybody who wants Netflix's service is already signed up. If those numbers don't keep up, then problems arise that are not too different from the problems with "borrowing from the future" in Ponzi schemes (albeit with a solid net positive revenue, which makes it morally very different -- in Ponzi schemes this is 0 and it is being advertised as a huge number, which is a huge lie -- no similar problem here). A similar "collapse" could happen, where the growth tapers, thereby skepticism spikes, thereby costs to borrow go high, and everything rapidly turns around from apparent success to apparent failure.

There may also be problems with the corporate culture, but while most of the article is devoted to the corporate culture, no clear message is given; it is apparently a somewhat ruthless place which is probably somewhat sad but is also sold as really exciting, because the ruthlessness only keeps the people who really care about what they're doing, which apparently creates good morale. There's a lot of other details like that which don't really amount to anything significant regarding what this "new world" is that Netflix has created, or whether it will survive the above growth pains.

<comment><USER22> * Another is that they don't own the vast majority of their content*

That's true now and probably will be for the foreseeable future but the content they do own is great IMO. For me it started with the obvious - Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc. But lately I've dived into other things they've done and enjoyed just about all of it. Great example - River - a somewhat disturbing detective show with good acting, exciting action and just a deep insight into a brilliant but seemingly broken man.

Even if Netflix has to evolve again to stay alive I hope the do so in a way that lets them continue making original content.

<comment><USER6> I think Netflix will face a problem of getting their customers find too well what they actually like, and not being happy with the content after this. Say, I loved River that you mentioned -- it's brilliant I think -- but can't really stand the superhero stuff now. And that's fine, but there are economic limits on how much of specific kind of content they can provide. I will obviously cancel the service if I run out of the programs that I find worthwhile.

<comment><USER22> Yeah, agreed. I think the article mentioned price hikes scaring off casual watchers and this almost happened with me but before I decided to cancel I took a deeper dive into the available content and found a lot I had ignored for a while (both NF original and licensed content).

So now I'm in this pattern where I find a few things I want to try, like enough of it to keep me happy for a month or two and then slowly run out of things to watch. I let it sit idle for a while and then lather, rinse, repeat.

But essentially every time I start to contemplate cancelling I tend to find something that makes me hang on for a little while longer.

<comment><USER6> Offtopic, but since you liked River, I'd suggest you to try Happy Valley too (if it's available at your location). It's also serious English crime drama, with some seriously good acting performances.

<comment><USER22> Thanks, I'll give it a look.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> What world? Streaming was not created by Netflix. Netflix could be gone tomorrow, and we'd stream our way around them just fine, just as us cable- cutters stream our way around cable or around HBO to get Game of Thrones, top downloaded show all the way back in 2012 [1].

Netflix just carved the monster wave beautifully like any pro surfer would by building the largest subscription base for it. Good for them. But beyond that, anyone can practically stream anything now. And it's not because of Netflix.

Anecdotally, good TV has always been good TV, and has been king. So as long as Netflix can generate good original content as they have, people will be happy to pay them 10 dollars. You could say this world was created by HBO, but whatever created what, it all traces back to good television, aka content, being king. The underlying technology doesn't really matter. As we can see HBO appears to have caught up just fine.

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-most-pirated-tv- sho...](https://torrentfreak.com/game-of-thrones-most-pirated-tv-show-of-the- season-120608/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Why is it that every discussion about Netflix somehow devolves into a discussion about their hiring/firing practices?

<comment><USER25> 1\. Because they are open about them.

2\. Because people care about having a job and earning money.

3\. Because they literally make up about a third of the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Netflix did not create a New World.

</comment><comment><USER27> Funny how Netflix HR polices never extend to the boardroom or the C-suite.

<comment><USER28> It literally says in the article that Hastings fired the Chief Talent Officer that came up with the "Would you hire them again today?" litmus test that they use because she no longer passed it.</comment></comment>


Job posting for Amazon by Jeff Bezos from 1994 - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/?utm_term=0_62dc6ea1a0-4367aed1fd-246207570#!msg/mi.jobs/poXLCW8udK4/_GHzqB9sG9gJ

<comment><USER2> Prior discussions:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2044945>

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4841585>

</comment><comment><USER3> "Familiarity with web servers and HTML would be helpful but is not necessary." Great pioneering times !

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting to see him include "meaningful equity ownership," a phrase thrown around still today.</comment>


A Memorandum to the  Government of India (1955) - <AUTHOR> http://indiapolicy.org/debate/Notes/friedman.htm <comment><USER2> Excellent advice. If only it had been heeded then.

So many decades lost.

<comment><USER3> I'm a way outsider and not as studied as I would like on India, but my question is "why hasn't India broken up further?".

<comment><USER4> There's no "natural" reason why the subcontinent should be united or divided, rather the governing states that exist at any point in time are a function of history. Like Europe, India has at times been divided and other times united as a single polity (first under asoka ~300bc, then akbar ~1500ad and finally the Raj ~1850ad until independence).

If by "further" you refer to 1947 division of the subcontinent then it has in fact broken up again, in 1971 when East Pakistan became Bangladesh.

There is great value in being united of course, which is also the original intention behind the EU. When constituent states disagree or want to split up, like Telangana and Andhra Pradesh did recently, they can do it through a constitutional process rather than a war. Being a larger state also provides greater opportunities for its citizens.

As time has passed, the part called "India" today has faced a few separatist movements, but has held together primarily by creating a more successful shared narrative so it means something to be "Indian" in addition to being a Punjabi or Gujurati or Muslim, Hindu or Jain. This is likely to continue.

<comment><USER3> I was thinking of the contrast that serious separatist movements have gotten no traction since the Civil War in the US, but India has had two of them and wondering if a third was a thought.

<comment><USER4> Which two are you referring to? The first separatist movement of course was the demand for Pakistan prior to independence. Then there was the demand for Bangladesh in East Pakistan. Both of these were successful.

Within today's India, there was first Tamil separatism, then Sikh, Kashmir and then a few small eastern tribal groups. They have each waxed and waned over the years for different reasons. Ultimately it is the duty of the Indian state to preserve & strengthen the Union while ensuring that its value for each constituent outweighs any ethnic or religious separatist sentiments.

The US is unique in being formed basically from scratch, and growing from there, rather than as a merger of historical nation/states.

<comment><USER3> I was referring to what you referenced. In a lot of ways the US was just another part of England, but the revolution really started as people wanting their rights as English citizens and went separatists from there. We then got waves to different regions as immigrants (e.g. the North Dakota and Minnesota immigration maps are pretty interesting for an example).

It just seemed like our Civil War shutdown the separatists and India separatists had some success, so I was wondering if there is a likely further break or not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Friedman had not won the Nobel prize during the time of this writing. Only later did he gain prominence and influence the economic policy making of several countries.

<comment><USER6> Well, he helped invent income tax withholding in WWII....

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article converted me to classical liberalism when I first read it a decade ago.

<comment><AUTHOR> In the Indian context, till India achieves what it is capable of, this article will remain a guiding principle; and it will remain relevant.</comment></comment>


Breaking Cryptography: the NSA's crypto breakthrough - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/09/breaking-cryptography?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/the_nsas_crypto_breakthrough

<comment><USER2> Its official the NSA learnt Ssl strip.</comment>


Facebook Is The Ant; Zynga Is The Grasshopper - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/11/facebook-is-the-ant-zynga-is-the-grasshopper/

<comment><USER2> "A great poker player demonstrates commitment by going "All In"."

This is a minor point, but given I live with a very serious poker player, I've started to twitch about poker misunderstandings.

Going all-in is not a rare event - at least not in no-limit Holdem, which is the game most people think of as "poker". Nor is it limited to the "great" poker players - in fact, it's one of the more basic and more common strategies, otherwise known as "shoving", to intimidate others out of a pot or for half a dozen reasons.

I know there are probably a lot of people on HN with more poker knowledge than me, so I'll shut up now (and wait for the inevitable discovery, possibly from my SO, that I've got the entire concept backward) - but it just irked me.

<comment><USER3> I read it just as a sort of throw away line in the article. But you're right, going all in isn't rare. In tournament play when your stack size is below certain thresholds & you're in certain positions relative to the blinds [1] going all in is the proper play to make 100% of the time, so it's quite common.

For cash games, which most people are less familiar with, going all in is still generally based more in math than "commitment" or being a man. If the way you've played a hand gives you a certain range, you can estimate what bet sizes your opponent thinks he can profitably call. Beyond the psychology, going all in is just a means to make your opponent commit a math error, that long-term would be an unprofitable course of action.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-ratio> -though this is a very generic explanation that doesn't go into position.

<comment><USER4> But his point wasn't about the rarity of the action; commitment doesn't have to be rare. It does have to be demonstrated and that demonstration is a meaningful gesture that signals other players. That's his point: that commitment needs to be _seen_.

<comment><USER2> I guess the bit that made me twitch was the "great poker players do X". It's true, great poker players do indeed go all in to demonstrate, amongst other things, commitment to a hand (well, ish. Actually it's more to reduce the value of the pot for other players. Amongst other reasons. Sort of.) - but so do good poker players, average poker players, and crap poker players who've read about 2/3 of a short book on no limit (the latter would be me).

Given that the point of the statement was to compare how Mark Pinkus could be great, rather than average or crap, that rather undermines the whole rhetorical point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think this is a neat article, but guilty of over-analysis.

Perhaps Zuck takes his mission too seriously, and Pincus doesn't take his seriously enough. Or perhaps Pincus is smart enough to cash out while he can.

Either way, entrepreneurs approach business differently from each other. Nothing extraordinary about that.

</comment><comment><USER6> Actually, the proper metaphor is that Zynga is Facebook's tapeworm.

</comment><comment><USER7> And yet Mark Pincus is a multi-millionaire and a massive Valley success story. Not to mention the last guy that had Zuckerbeg's "zeal" and lived in a humble house died recently, and was known for being an unbearable dick to his employees.

It's usually a big can of worms to judge an entrepreneur by anything other than his success. Besides -- what is so wrong about Pincus wanting to get rich?

<comment><USER8> If you're referring to Jobs as the last guy that had "Zuck's zeal", you need to get to get a reality check.

Jobs built multiple multi-billion dollar companies that redefined innovation. He (and his team) created the personal computer market, transformed it again 20 years later, transformed telecom 'overnight' while slaying RIM and Nokia with one swoop, and in many regards — introduced new childhood memories that will not be forgotten for decades, like Snow White's glass slipper. The MySpace abomination barely left a wrinkle in history's culture.

I'm not one to hate on entrepreneurs but Zuck has a long way to go. I feel like there needs to be a history book for new entrepreneurs who think the glorified web startup guys are Gods among men. Most of the Gods aren't socializing at this weeks Startup FunFunFun HappyHour Fest 5000.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Mark Zuckerberg truly believes that Facebook's mission – to make the world more open and connected – is the biggest and most important in Silicon Valley."

open and connected. and definitely more like Las Vegas...

<http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19162971>

</comment><comment><USER10> The fundamentals of Facebook's business – even when it was working perfectly – are to ensure a steady stream of new users (often via M&A), to grease the user acquisition machine via advertising on just about everywhere, and to incent users to rope in their friends. This strategy depends on playing with copious amounts of capital to buy companies, ads, and promotions.

And this - "Facebook's mission – to make the world more open and connected" is just hilarious (forgive me Louis :) ).</comment>