Health Effects of Job Insecurity - <AUTHOR> https://wol.iza.org/articles/health-effects-of-job-insecurity/long <comment><USER2> At least in the US, one of the primary reasons job insecurity causes severe stress is that affordable health insurance that has reasonable coverage is usually only possible through employment. The moment you lose your job and your COBRA period runs out, you're at severe risk of financial catastrophe — the stress from which can lead to further health problems!

This is why I strongly support Medicare For All. Massive cost savings at the national level aside, it's a critical part of the equation for regaining our collective sanity. Where I come from we have a saying: good health is the greatest treasure. It's a prerequisite for achieving success and happiness. Therefore we need a system where people don't constantly worry about crazy medical bills, and don't forego basic practices like regular doctor visits because they can't afford the co-pays.

<comment><USER3> Single-payer is one option, but for those of us who don't trust the US federal government to do it right, there is another option.

There are three main reasons employer-provided insurance is so popular:

\- The ACA failed Americans by resulting in drastically higher insurance plan prices \- The ACA requires employers to provide health insurance \- A dollar spent by your employer on health insurance is not subject to payroll taxes, but individual plans are

Additionally, a secondary effect of employers covering the insurance costs of their employees is that insurance is not subject to individual pricing pressure, since most people don't even know the cost of their insurance.

To fix this, I propose the following:

\- Roll back the ACA, allow those with preexisting conditions to use medicare or medicaid instead \- Provide tax benefits to people purchasing personal healthcare plans \- Provide tax incentives for employers to transfer their company coverage to the individual employees

<comment><USER4> The mandate to for health insurers to pay for healthcare for people with pre- existing conditions caused higher health insurance premiums.

If you want to pay for it with medicare or medicaid, then taxes will go up instead of health insurance premiums.

There's no free lunch, and there's nothing wrong with ACA other than not forcing everyone onto healthcare.gov and eliminating employers from the healthcare equation altogether. That, or just provide healthcare for everyone via taxes. Either way, taxes/health insurance premiums, the cost is going to be borne by everyone one way or the other.

<comment><USER5> How many people both have a pre-existing condition and can afford insurance on the private market? If you are part of a group insurance plan through a company, they have _always_ been required to accept people with pre-existing conditions at the same price.

<comment><USER4> The group's total price, and hence per member price, would go up, at least for the following year. There is no scenario where people can use more healthcare and pay lease. The only solution is to spread it out over more people.

The only way to lower per member price is to have lower total costs, which means restricting your pool of members to healthier lives, which nicely coincide with cushy white collar jobs that can afford to offer benefits.

<comment><USER5> That's true. But it has nothing to do with the ACA as the parent post claims. Insurance companies have _never_ been allowed to exclude people who are eligible under their group plan.

<comment><USER4> My issue with the parent post was that I interpreted it as claiming the ACA causing health insurance premiums to rise, to which I wanted to point out that any legislation that would have resulted in more people getting healthcare would have resulted in either higher insurance premiums or taxes. Therefore it's moot to complain that ACA caused one's health insurance premiums to rise.

The only way to provide more healthcare for cheaper is to increase the supply of labor, I.e. doctors and medicines.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's a huge concern for someone who's been a temporary worker for 17 years. My performance is usually in the top 3-5% but if I get laid off, I've to find a job in less than 60 days or go back to my home country which means I can never make any long-term decisions. Should I buy a house? Hmm maybe not since I might have to sell it when market conditions are not right. How should I invest my money? Keep everything in cash or invest in the stock market. I'm sure this is true for every single employee on a H1-B working for FAANG companies and patiently waiting for 10+ years. Now, the new immigration plan is going to not take those waiting in line into consideration and is instead going to make everyone wait in line again.

<comment><USER7> I know a lot of people having the same problem. They make a tonne of money by contributing to some of the best companies in the world. But they don't have basic things like a house or a sofa or a dining table. Most even lease cars for a few years, instead of buying them. All their belongings are such that they can fit in a few carry on bags in case they have to urgently leave the US.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> No surprise there. Feeling secure is one of the basic needs of people. It's much easier to take risks if you have a fallback and don't lose Berührung when things go wrong

<comment><USER9> This can also be seen played out in the article's graphs comparing the impact of job security versus the individual's employability. The negative mental health impact of having no employment or insecure employment is somewhat mitigated if one is employable -- defined as "being sure of getting an equally good job".

> much easier to take risks if you have a fallback

i agree. if you are employable and can readily obtain a reasonable job, and have resources to keep operating for a period without having work, it is far easier to engage in riskier but potentially much more lucrative opportunities for work (starting new businesses, taking on short-term contract work with much higher rates than permanent salaries for the same role, etc)

here's another interesting side of it: employability as defined above is a relative thing -- "being sure of getting an equally good job" [relative to your current job] . Suppose you have somehow found a job that is particularly good fit for you (perhaps it is very closely aligned with what you are interested in, and there are few other opportunities for such work, or it pays substantially above market rates given your skills and experience). You may be far more stressed about the possibility of losing your unusually good job due to how rare it is --- even though you may be highly employable in many other jobs or markets that you perceive as less good. You may also be more likely to put up with a large amount of stress and bullshit generated by your good job in order to hold onto it

in comparison, someone who works for a job that may be objectively less good (e.g. repetitive work, less pay, greater risk of physical injury) but is in a market where there is a large amount of demand for similar work may be far less stressed about the possibility of losing their job simply because in this market they are highly employable and there aren't any particular above-market benefits of working for any particular employer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Myself I am experiencing the job effects of health insecurity, which I would posit are much worse.

<comment><USER11> Sorry to hear that, but you're right.

Add the two together, and boom. Worst case scenario.

<comment><USER10> I've lost my ability to work and gotten reestablished twice in the last three years. For about 4 months now I have felt ready to work again, but where do you go from there? It's not like you can just hop in and start doing it.

I've lost my professional skills, my contacts, my clients, my workspace. Still working around feeling ill 40% of the time.

<comment><USER11> Getting re-re-re-established undoubtedly seems daunting. You've explored remote/contracting?

<comment><USER10> I'm actually trying to get reestablished as a glassblower. It's low pressure and I can take days off as I see fit. I don't feel right taking on the responsibility of doing tech jobs for anyone. Unfortunately it's very difficult for me to share spaces with anyone, but at the same time, getting my own place could be a bad choice. If my health goes wrong again, moving out is a lot of effort and expense.

I have had a couple promising tech projects over the past few years, but lost momentum and had to abandon them at various times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> a really important effect to consider. once a whole sector's jobs are outsourced to another country, the newly redundant workers not only have income problems, but health and mental health problems. globalization's costs are higher than predicted, especially in the US where healthcare is inefficient and overpriced.

<comment><USER13> I think this speaks more to a lack of a social safety net that actually works.

A better social safety net would ensure that everyone had:

        * a home (near their family unit's job(s))
        * a job suitable to talent/skills
        * education towards suitable jobs if out of work
        * good healthcare
        * good child/retired family care
        * a stable, inclusive, welcoming community

<comment><USER14> This is a good list. I'd change "talent/skills" to "skills/aspirations", because we believe too much in talent (whether for being discouraged when all it really needs is work, or for misplaced belief in our own innate merit).

<comment><USER13> I'd maybe consider aptitudes and desires, it got a little muddled when I was trying to fit it in to a bullet-point list short enough to not irk mobile users. The lack of white-listed HTML / similar entities in formatting is a rather limiting factor for clearly conveying information.

Ideally some combination of testing / recommending potential raw talent, desired areas of work/interaction, and trainable job fields could be considered and find a good fit where someone could form a positive component of a larger and vibrant community. Also, ideally, automation owned by the masses (we the people, via the government) could handle the tedious and annoying tasks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To me the story seems to be The Health Effects of unemployability.

<comment><USER16> That seems like a distinction without difference unless your main goal is to place blame for their problems rather than examine the effects and remedies objectively.

<comment><USER15> I see employability as a trait inherent to me. How I spend my time building my skill set, growing and maintaining relationships, and honing my story is what I see as my employability. I own it. It mitigates the risk from my choice to work in a role that provides me with a high level of Job Insecurity.

I see job insecurity as something inherent to the company and/or role within a company. Such as being at a small company which focuses on the development of a novel technology and/or a product in an untested market. Investors and strategy partners may not provide funding one day and -poof'- Job is gone. One goal of my job to influence the investor and partners, but I don't own it. I make the choice to endure job insecurity because I believe in the strategy and see it and an outsized opportunity. Also I've never had a 'secure job', but I've assumed in most cases it is naive to believe ones job is secure, either big company or small company. Stuff can happen quickly and arbitrarily. Just what I've observed.

And based on the data in the OP study, I'd rather be employable and unemployed than unemployable and employed. This is what drove my initial comment.

edit (add relevance to article)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm trying to understand those graphs. They mention those graphs are on a scale of 0 to 100 but shows effects of 1 and 2. Is that considered a mild effect?</comment>


Square Investor Deletes Tweet: "To Do Two Things At Once Is To Do Neither" - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/square-investor-deletes-tweet-to-do-two-things-at-once-is-to-do-neither-2011-3

<comment><USER2> A wise tweet before it was deleted. I'm surprised more people aren't worried about this.</comment>


Cooperation and corruption - <AUTHOR> http://nectuntblog.wordpress.com/2015/09/20//cooperation-and-corruption <comment><USER2> I think this is a very weak experiment. Players colluding in an experiment, a game at that, where some researchers clearly have a budget to give away is not the same as people colluding to rip off their fellow citizens.

I say this as someone who thinks corruption is rampant and needs to be better addressed.

The game needs to be designed so that someone else gets hurt. For example, there could be a third participant C who rolls the die only once, and the roll is not revealed until the end. Each of the players receive the roll amount any time their roll matches either of the other two players, and double that amount when all three match. In this game design:

\- C has no opportunity to cheat.

\- The more A and B cheat, the less C gets (unless C happened to roll a six) and given how the cheating went in the original game, likely near nothing.

\- If A and B don't cheat, instead of the near 100% success possible though cheating, they will on average match another player 1/3 of the time. They will make less, but C has an equal chance of getting a similar amount of money.

This if off-the-cuff. I'm sure with more thought an even better game can be designed.</comment>


Show HN: Compress Test - <AUTHOR> https://compresstest.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! I was working on a project some time ago where I created a web page ([http://tinysite.aadrake.com](http://tinysite.aadrake.com)) deliverable in a single IP datagram and needed a way to see the size of compressed data I was using for testing. I created a utility for this, and now it has a frontend (not for mobile) and lives at [https://compresstest.com](https://compresstest.com).

The utility is a custom TCP server written in Go, for those who are curious, and the more detailed writeup is available on my website ([https://aadrake.com/posts/2017-10-29-the-biggest-smallest- we...](https://aadrake.com/posts/2017-10-29-the-biggest-smallest- website.html)).

Hope it's helpful!</comment>


Show HN: Fail2web, a fail2ban GUI - Sean-Der https://github.com/Sean-Der/fail2web <comment> Sean-Der fail2ban is one the most under appreciated tools on small to medium Unix servers. I was first introduced to it when administering some web facing Asterisk servers (FreePBX) and was quickly impressed with its effectiveness/simplicity.

However, one of the issues I ran into was that people in the field were really frustrated by it on a day to day basis. They were accidentally getting themselves banned, and instead of unbanning themselves they would just turn fail2ban off all together. Some people didn't feel comfortable using fail2ban- client and others just felt like it took to much time.

And so fail2web was born! Fail2web gives you basic fail2ban administration abilities. You can manage bannedIPs, fail regexes and a few other per jail settings, with a lot more stuff planned in the future.

While building this I also ended up building a Go library that abstract aways fail2ban communication ([https://github.com/Sean- Der/fail2go](https://github.com/Sean-Der/fail2go)) which is used by the REST server that powers fail2web ([https://github.com/Sean- Der/fail2rest](https://github.com/Sean-Der/fail2rest)). The fail2rest server could also be used for other cool projects, I am in the process of using it to distribute bans across multiple servers and using it for health checks.

The tech stack for this project also was a lot of fun using. For this project I am communicating with a long running Python process that exposes information via a socket that gives pickled output so I used the awesome library ([https://github.com/kisielk/og-rek](https://github.com/kisielk/og-rek)) I also had a lot of fun building the frontend in angularjs, angular-ui with browserify. In the end I was happy with all the tools I picked.

thanks!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for making it. I'd like to give it a try some time. I certainly share your feeling about the awesomeness of fail2ban, as well as the slight awkwardness of interacting with it (I tried a couple of things with the client, but it felt rather awkward somehow. I'm not entirely sure why).

As a developer, the stack you're describing sounds great. As a sysadmin / devops, I'd be a little careful installing something with this level of component complexity on top of fail2ban. Ideally you'd want something very lean with as few moving parts as possible. (after all, if something goes wrong, you can end up locking yourself or your server).

<comment> Sean-Der I defiantly hear your concern about there being lots of moving parts. I thought about having one monolithic platform that you could drop and run to help deployment ease. But after spending some time with Kibana and Elastic Search lately I was really inspired by having things decoupled, once you have that flexibility you can do lots of cool things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Exactly what fail2ban needed: a web UI for people to exploit.

If I could eliminate any Linux service, it would probably be fail2ban. As an SSH security measure, it's more than useless. If your SSH credentials can be brute forced, that's the problem, and it's easy to fix. Fail2ban just gives somebody a way to lock you out of your own system or to pin a core on your system by overloading it.

If you're trying to add security layers to SSH, here are some suggestions for doing so:

* fwknop ([http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/](http://www.cipherdyne.org/fwknop/)) -- Single Packet Auth based on GPG

* google_authenticator ([https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/](https://code.google.com/p/google-authenticator/)) -- PAM support for TOTP

* knockknock ([https://github.com/moxie0/knockknock](https://github.com/moxie0/knockknock)) -- Single Packet Auth using symmetric encryption

<comment><USER3> I thought Fail2Ban hooked directly into iptables? How would you get locked out or overloaded?

I don't necessarily think Fail2Ban needed a GUI, but I guess I never thought it was a "bad" thing?

<comment><USER2> It uses iptables, but it detects things to block by reading log files, and it's not exactly efficient in doing so. As such, if an attacker can pump lines in (like by having their botnet SSH to your system), they can get it to spin a core.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> So this looks like it will be pretty neat. I have it compiled and running. It seems to be mostly working. I did run into some issues.

Like for instance, in the bundle.js file there is a line of code that has this "$window.location.origin + '/config.json'"

the window.location.origin is not supported in IE. You may want to add something like this to your javascript for IE support:

if (!window.location.origin) { window.location.origin = window.location.protocol + "//" \+ window.location.hostname + (window.location.port ? ':' \+ window.location.port: ''); }

Also, when I try to add an IP to ban, I am getting an error "Unable to get property 'indexOf' of undefined or null reference".

After looking at it, it looks like I'm getting an empty IPList from the fail2rest api.

So the code dies here "activeJail.data.IPList.indexOf(ipAddress) === -1" since the IPList is null. Maybe I have something misconfigured for the fail2rest, but I'm am not currently sure yet.

Also, the adding and deleting of regexes does work fine! :)

UPDATE: Looks like my updates are not working, but the reading of the config file is working. I'm thinking it might be something with my fail2rest...

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice! I will have to give it a go sometime. unbanning from fail2ban is always a pain.</comment>


Disk IO Performance: EC2 vs Mosso vs Linode - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mudy.info/2009/04/disk-io-ec2-vs-mosso-vs-linode/

<comment><USER2> Unfortunately these numbers don't really mean much. Aside from what else is happening on the machines, in some cases note that writing was showing up faster than reading, which really means that it's just writing things to disk buffers. For this test to have been meaningful there should have been an fsync at the end of the run. The direct-i/o measurements should be closer to apples- to-apples.

When I'm doing I/O benchmarking I start every run with a clean reboot and follow an exact set of steps from bootup to start of the benchmark. It's almost impossible to simulate that on a VPS.

</comment><comment><USER3> the problem with benching a VPS is that your score depends a whole lot on what your neighbors are doing. For a fair test, you want to re-run the test a number of times over a period of days.

<comment><USER4> or if you use Joyent you get slow IO even if you're the only zone on the hardware!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The interesting number (for most DB workloads anyway) is IOPS or seeks/sec in the article. EBS, as espected, is ferocious.

<comment><USER3> you probably also don't want to run a DB on non-raid disk. I believe the ec2 instances have non-mirrored disk, I mean, if you are not using ebs. (if you don't care about the data, use something with more ram, and mount the disk async. Ram is going to be faster than disk, always.)

<comment><USER6> The problem is that DB application will try to sync disk either via fsync or o_direct. EBS may have a very long latency for such kind access.

<comment><USER3> I'm just pointing out that you don't want to run your db on non-redundant disk. Really, I think in-ram, redundant databases like MySQL cluster are more suited to the 'cloud' - especially as you can get cheap ram.

Just looking at the bonnie results, ebs wasn't that far off everything else in terms of sequential access.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The IO on the EC2 medium compute instances is not good. Would be interested in seeing a large instance compared.

I did a ginormous RAID 0 on EBS on a large EC2 instance, and the IO tests were quite disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I would not be surprised if Amazon does not soon offer faster EBS at a premium. They ought to be doing the RAID stuff, not the individual EC2 user.</comment>


Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Takes $1B Position in Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/buffetts-berkshire-takes-1-billion-position-in-apple-1463400389 <comment><USER2> [edit]Disclosure - I am a Berkshire Hathaway investor and more intense than average follower of the company and it's top management.[/edit]

This is almost certainly a bet by Ted Weschler or Todd Combs - Buffett's chief investing lieutenants.

Buffett has maintained his aversion to tech as he doesn't "understand"[1] it, and I see nothing to indicate he's changed his mind at this stage in the game.

Also - a $1bn investment is relatively small change for Buffett, but fits squarely within the size range of Ted and Todd's reported $8-10b (each) investment warchest.

[1]: Not "understanding" doesn't mean he doesn't or couldn't understand the technology aspects; rather, it means he doesn't have the ability to see which of the participants will survive and thrive in 10 years time to justify an investment today. IBM is a notable exception.

<comment><USER3> I suspect that IBM fits his understanding because he views it as a services company, rather than a hardware or software company. Services he does understand. I think he also likes that they give most of their cash back to the shareholders. (Which makes them a value play rather than a growth play) I was still surprised by the investment though.

<comment><USER4> IBM is dying, [http://www.cringely.com/2016/03/08/whats-happening-at- ibm/](http://www.cringely.com/2016/03/08/whats-happening-at-ibm/)

I hope their Apple purchase isn't an indicator of the same.

<comment><USER5> Yeah that guy wrote a book about how IBM is dying a few years ago and ever since then keeps writing blog posts about it.

Whether it is dying or not I would not listen to him.

<comment><USER4> A behemoth like IBM takes a while to die. I've read a bit about IBM. They are toast, the market for mainframes, server racks and expensive enterprise service packages is disappearing.

<comment><USER6> Except watson, patents, their financing arm, 99 year contracts with governments globally...

<comment><USER7> ... Have you ever tried to use Watson for anything?

The aspect of dying is a forward looking thought which presumes that growth has ceased within the organization and the best they can do is to maintain their current state. I think that's a fairly accurate depiction of IBM's business although the recent performance notes I've seen of the Power chipset with PG_SQL are pretty encouraging.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This isn't a huge bet in BH's world, barely cracking their top 20 holdings list, and it barely registers a blip for Apple, but it's culturally interesting to see Buffet make another no-tech exception for Apple, and it will be interesting to see how much that confidence transfers to the street.

Buffett and Berkshire do tend to love companies that generate cash, and Apple certainly does that. They don't tend to chase massive growth, but rather steady climbs backed by real profits. It seems like a pretty reasonable fit.

<comment><USER9> This is well-stated. I worked for a Berkshire subsidiary for a good chunk of my career, and can tell you the Berkshire values really are what drive the investment. It's not so much about fundamentals, although they do need to be very sound or on the value side, as much as focused, lean management with a clear plan. In this case, I'm thinking Berkshire thinks Apple's share price represents a clear value at the moment (I agree, not that it matters what I think), and there's probably a lot of confidence in the management team going forward. Berkshire doesn't try to catch a falling knife, so they must think otherwise.

<comment><USER10> What's Apple's clear management plan?

<comment><USER11> Make better products than everyone else, have better supply-chain management than everyone else, and have higher profit margins than everyone else even dreams of.

It's a plan that has been working out fairly well.

<comment><USER12> Right. A management plan is not the same thing as the product roadmap. Apple is secretive about their products, but not how they run their business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Took. This happened in March at an average price of $109. Today it is around $93. Berkshire just disclosed it today.

<comment><USER14> Are billion dollar investments in public companies not public knowledge? (Serious question)

<comment><USER15> They are once the quarterly 13F reports come out.

[https://www.sec.gov/answers/form13f.htm](https://www.sec.gov/answers/form13f.htm)

For smaller companies it can also come out in a 13D which is faster (within 10 days), but only if the investment is more than 5% of the company. That's why there are a lot of ownership stakes of 4.9%.

<comment><USER16> > That's why there are a lot of ownership stakes of 4.9%.

Is reporting speed really important enough to change the size of your investment?

<comment><USER15> Apparently so. Hedge funds really don't like to disclose their positions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm just here to set in stone and state for the record that I believe this will be a losing play. My reasons are here:

Rationale here from a comment over 3 months ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11035168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11035168)

> last time I was on an airplane (December), every single older woman over the > age of 60 had an iPhone. This means that it's not only reached critical mass > (the late majority on the technology adoption curve has been achieved), but > now it's no longer hip.

> I'm not sure what will be next, but I'm guessing it won't be Apple's.

> Were I gambling man, I'd have shorted Apple's stock right there after that > airplane ride.

So when I'm wrong, y'all can roast me proper.

<comment><USER18> Be careful thinking Apple will keep sellng iphones and ipads. Their expertise and their cash can probably be thrown into a lot of industries with disruptive success (car industry, pharma, space exploration, etc.). Even the name, Apple, does not bind the company to any specific line of product. I think what the investors are betting here is the ability of Apple of coming up with something as big as the ipod-ipad saga in the coming years. I can see risk in this assumption, but I don't believe is 100% going to turn out badly, so far I'd distribute probabilities equally and do a 50/50 that Apple gives the investors 10x in the next 10 years.

<comment><USER19> You truely beleive that a company with almost the largest market capitization of any company has a large chance of increasing it by 10x?

<comment><USER20> in 1993 Exxon was the world's most valuable company with a market cap of roughly $80B. they didn't reappear as the most valuable company again until 2007 with a valuation of roughly $500B. yeah, big swings are still possible even in very established markets.

<comment><USER21> How do these numbers look closer if you correct for inflation.

$80B in 1993 are equivalent to $114.79B in 2007.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Let's say you're an owner of one of the nations biggest car insurance companies... and the biggest threat to auto insurance are automated cars. Perhaps the smart thing to do, if you're an investor is to hedge your bests by investing in a company that is likely to dominate the sector.

Of course Alphabet would be a more logical path, so this theory might be bollocks.

<comment><USER23> How are automated cars a threat to car insurance?

<comment><USER24> Why should one need to buy a liability insurance policy on a self-driving car?

What driver exactly am I insuring?

<comment><USER25> > Why should one need to buy a liability insurance policy on a self-driving > car?

The same reason property owners in general by liability insurance for liabilities that may occur to do property they own.

> What driver exactly am I insuring?

Most likely, you're insuring against liability resulting from your obligation as the owner (or leaseholder-in-possession, in the case of a lease) of the autonomous vehicle to maintain the vehicle in condition for safe operation and to remove it from operation if that is not possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> To get around the paywall, follow this link

[http://bit.ly/1VYxVrA](http://bit.ly/1VYxVrA)

This bit.ly link redirects you to the first google hit after looking for this article on Google. For some reason this circumvents the paywall.

<comment><USER27> Just click the "web" link underneath the title on the comments page.

<comment><USER26> Never knew that. Today I learned. Thanks a lot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> And here I was thinking "what a great time to buy Apple stock".

I don't think Buffet is betting on technology. From his perspective he is betting on the car and car brand of the future.

<comment><USER29> Only he knows for sure but it seems a lot more likely from reading his annual letters that he's betting on the quality of their management team and their continued ability to produce profits. It would be very out of character for him to make a bet on future technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Not a terrible bet. Their dividend yield is fairly respectable at current prices, the price has fallen to around 2012 levels, and Berkshire mostly likes long-term, stable bets.

I personally don't see Apple doing too much in the short term, but they'll certainly continue to be around, and will probably match the market in returns for the foreseeable future.

</comment><comment><USER31> Very interested in how the trade was executed. A big fish order, was it done in small chunks, by proxies? It was certainly not done in one go.

Experience: Even 10 years back putting when in an investment management team, a $100 million order (of roughly same magnitude for total outstanding) was done painstakingly, often over several days, via various brokers, varying what was done based on intra-hour liquidity. Now, intra-hour liquidity is much less than hours and highly automated, so anyone HFT looking, would be interested.

<comment><USER32> Traditionally Buffett works with two or three stock brokerage firms he trusts and tells them to buy the stocks he wants. They often just keep buying when blocks come on the market or it looks cheap. That can go on for months or years. Maybe not so much with $1bn of Apple but his $27bn stake in Wells Fargo for example has been built over some years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> it seems like a lot until you realize it's 1/300 of Berkshire Hathaway and 1/550 of Apple

<comment><USER34> Agreed - if you buy an S&P 500 index, 1/36 of your money is in Apple. (Holdings tab on [https://www.spdrs.com/product/fund.seam?ticker=SPY](https://www.spdrs.com/product/fund.seam?ticker=SPY))

Not that big a bet on BH's part.

<comment><USER35> Not necessarily. The index fund is supposed to track the index. It doesn't need to actually buy the exact stocks as the index, though in the case of the S&P 500, that might be the easiest strategy.

<comment><USER36> Uh, it's not only the easiest strategy but the only purpose the ETF exists. If people thought SPY had drifted from its benchmark, no one would use it.

<comment><USER37> ETF still have different replication strategies. To the customer they guarantee to track the index, however they might buy completely unrelated stocks or options to achieve this. The replication strategy should be an important factor when buying an ETF.

<comment><USER15> Yes, and SPY is the monster ETF that it is because there is no funny business and it tracks the index the old fashioned way by actually holding the securities. Broker dealers can trade in a basket of securities for new shares of SPY and vice versa which keeps it very close to perfectly tracking the index.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> "I can tell you this was not a purchase Warren Buffett made. It was one of his two lieutenants"

@BeckyQuick on CNBC this morning

</comment><comment><USER39> What I get from BH signal: Well I don't have to worry and put AAPL into retirement portfolio, although probably means no longer salacious enough for shorts or immediate growth investors.

<comment><USER40> ... until the car comes out.

In reality, Apple has always been a long for me, and presumably anyone working in tech that invests directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Seems that there is a significant difference of opinion between Carl Icahn and Warren Buffet.

[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/billionair...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-28/billionaire- icahn-exits-apple-stake-almost-3-years-after-buying)

<comment><USER42> To be honest I always thought that Icahn was never in for the long term. He just went and raised a ruckus about wanting those $100B cash reserves distributed to stock owners.

<comment><USER43> I saw a TV segment / interview about Icahn years ago and that was impression I got. His M.O. is to buy a stock, create some attention, and sell, based mostly on the attention he brings, more so than the improvements he makes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> A bit off topic, but when you buy that many shares of a public company can you negotiate a discount? Is the trade done directly with Apple, or does Berkshire Hathaway just buy it through Nasdaq ?

<comment><USER13> Let's say you are a private company and want to raise money. Instead of taking on debt you decide to sell some of your business. You will go through an investment bank who will help you quantify the value of your business and underwrite/distribute shares of it to the public. This is the primary market where new shares are created.

After that happens market participants can sell those shares to each other based on supply and demand. As demand for a companies shares rise, prices rise and vice versa. The secondary market is what you and I as individuals think of when we talk about buying and selling stocks. There is no real discount that Apple could offer Berkshire because they aren't selling the shares, market participants are (individual investors, brokers etc). The trade would take place as a complex series of transactions on a variety of exchanges. Sometimes Nasdaq, but other times on exchanges like ArcaEdge, Bats, Direct Edge, NYSE and others.

The complexity is that if you dump 1 Billion dollars into the market to buy x number of shares of AAPL you will drastically increase demand and move the price considerably, so the trade must be executed as a series of transactions over a given time period.

Now if one public company buys another public company in a merger there is a set share price that is negotiated but that's outside of the normal process of buying and selling stocks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> I swear this is just for headline generation.

I mean, a billion IS a lot of money, but it's a very small risk on BH's part, and an even smaller part on Apple's.

That amount of money is a lot of money relative to other money, but it's not really a big deal relative to either party here.

However, I think that Buffett is just making a statement of 'look how much I think of Apple' by throwing that bn around, perhaps inspiring other investors?

Not really my preferred science...

<comment><USER46> [misinformation] One or both of the parties saw fit to press release it. It's clearly a favor for Apple. [/misinformation]

edit: For some reason I didn't process that the investment was old, although it's the first few paragraphs of the article.

<comment><USER36> From the article:

> Berkshire's positions were disclosed in a 13F filing with the Securities and > Exchange Commission, a quarterly requirement for investors managing more > than $100 million. The report indicates the number of shares held and the > value of each stake at the end of the quarter, so it isn't clear if Mr. > Buffett's firm has continued buying the stock since the quarter ended.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I thought Buffett doesn't invest in tech companies - is Apple now so much away from tech and so close to being a product like Coca Cola?

<comment><USER48> That used to be true, but he's had a stake in IBM since 2011 (which he just increased)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Apple is now almost a value stock. With an incredible franchise. Don't bet against Buffet

</comment><comment><USER50> Curious, anyone have any info on the relationship between Jobs and/or Cook and Buffet?

</comment><comment><USER51> To be clear, it's not even a technology investment. It's more of a clear, easy to understand investment in a hardware product company with great margins, great marketing, great customer loyalty. It's like investing in Coke.

</comment><comment><USER52> This doesn't make much sense to me. I would expect Apple to have nowhere to go but down since a few years ago. I realize this isn't a huge bet, but what are they betting on? Apple for Cars?

</comment><comment><USER53> For everyone dismissing this as a small play for BH it's not that small also we have no clue about other possible elements of this position (e.g. derivatives, options etc.).

<comment><USER54> That logic works the other way also (ie: it could just be some huge long in the stock to arb an options position and therefore be a $0 exposure to Apple stock). Disclaimer: I am not an options market maker so I'm unsure if you can realistically do a delta hedge on 1bn of AAPL.

<comment><USER53> very true

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> As someone who is short AAPL, my perspective is that they simply don't have room for growth. At the moment, they are essentially a one product company: the iPhone. And yes, that product is insanely profitable, but those numbers are going down, and personally I don't see a way for that trend to change.

Apple has expanded into every available market on the planet (literally). The only way for them to grow at this point is to increase their market share relative to android, or increase world economic growth sufficiently that more people in developing countries can buy iPhones.

Increasing their market share relative to android in any significant way seems incredibly unlikely to me at this point. As technology stagnates (as is happening with smart phones), the premium products lose cachet and the lower- end products start to achieve parity with their premium competition.

The two markets where they could still theoretically hope to achieve more growth/penetration are China and India. But China has been antagonistic to them of late, and has demonstrated an interest in protecting its own incumbents who are now making phones that even Westerners will buy (e.g. Huawei). India on the other hand is a highly tech-oriented culture, and as such has a predilection for customization and control that tends to make them prefer android phones. Not to mention that the CEOs of both Microsoft and Google (the only two competitor platforms to the iPhone) are currently Indian, and both companies have demonstrated a specific interest (especially Google) of expanding in the Indian market. And I think that gives them an advantage that's hard to overstate.

All of this would be fine if the market itself were expanding. But it's not. People are upgrading less and less frequently. This looks to me just like the PC market of 5-10 years ago or so. Things have gotten "good enough" for most people. I certainly no longer feel compelled to have the latest and greatest phone right away, and it seems to me that most people feel the same.

Lastly, there is the possibility that they will create some new category defining product. This is of course a real possibility, but I feel pretty confident that anything they attempt to do in the car market will fall flat on its face. I could certainly be wrong here, but I just don't see how they could possibly offer something so much better than existing cars that i'd want to pay an Apple-level premium for it. Especially when they're competing against someone like Tesla, who has already captured all of the rebellious smart- person cool points in this category.

Of course, I could certainly be spectacularly wrong. And to be honest, if I am, I don't think i'd mind losing the money too much. Because it'd mean that we'd all probably have some cool new product to play with.

<comment><USER56> >Increasing their market share relative to android in any significant way seems incredibly unlikely to me at this point. As technology stagnates (as is happening with smart phones), the premium products lose cachet and the lower- end products start to achieve parity with their premium competition.<

Counter-example in a mature industry: Porsche. When the GTR was launched 9 years ago, people were hyping it to be the death knell of all other performance cars. Instead, today we have a wider selection of very good cars and the GTR is no longer the no-brainer choice for performance enthusiasts. Yes, it still offers good performance-value, but there are other good choices out there as well. Of all the car makers, Porsche was thought to be the most severely impacted by the GTR and yet they have gone on to greater heights.

>The two markets where they could still theoretically hope to achieve more growth/penetration are China and India. But China has been antagonistic to them of late, and has demonstrated an interest in protecting its own incumbents who are now making phones that even Westerners will buy (e.g. Huawei)<

How much money is Huawei making from selling Android phones? What about that Google ad revenue in China, how's that doing?

>Not to mention that the CEOs of both Microsoft and Google (the only two competitor platforms to the iPhone) are currently Indian, and both companies have demonstrated a specific interest (especially Google) of expanding in the Indian market. And I think that gives them an advantage that's hard to overstate.<

Microsoft's chances at mobile at this stage are as good as Ted Cruz's winning the Republican nomination. Some number closer to zero. Again, how much is Google making from Android phone sales? How are the Nexus sales numbers?

Google's competitor is not Apple. Google's competitor is Facebook. Luckily for Google, Facebook is banned in China too.

>I certainly no longer feel compelled to have the latest and greatest phone right away, and it seems to me that most people feel the same.<

The smartphone is a very interesting product. It is used multiple times a day, is cheap enough to be ubiquitous yet still offers value to people who seek to differentiate. In my view this is only the beginning of the smartphone race. Technologies like NFC/Apple Pay are still in their infancy and are not widespread enough. There will be more sensors, better imaging technology, more features that people would desire.

How the differentiation is implemented, matters. You will not find someone cross-shopping Hermès with Coach. Similarly the large majority of people will not cross-shop a Ferrari with a Nissan. That is not to say anything about the value of the brand. It just means there are different markets being served.

<comment><USER55> > Counter-example in a mature industry: Porsche. When the GTR was launched 9 > years ago, people were hyping it to be the death knell of all other > performance cars. Instead, today we have a wider selection of very good cars > and the GTR is no longer the no-brainer choice for performance enthusiasts. > Yes, it still offers good performance-value, but there are other good > choices out there as well. Of all the car makers, Porsche was thought to be > the most severely impacted by the GTR and yet they have gone on to greater > heights.

Ya I wouldn't make the mistake of saying that it's the death-knell of the smart phone. I just think we'll be seeing a significant contraction of the market that has driven the insane profits apple has had for the past few years. Certainly smartphones will be a massive and massively profitable product for years to come.

> How much money is Huawei making from selling Android phones? What about that > Google ad revenue in China, how's that doing?

Much less, even more so in unit terms. I wouldn't invest in Google or Huawei at the moment either. I'm not short Apple because I think those companies are going to do well, I think they're all likely to do poorly. Google and Huawei will expand their market a bit, I think, but their unit economics suck relative to Apple so it won't matter as much.

> Microsoft's chances at mobile at this stage are as good as Ted Cruz's > winning the Republican nomination. Some number closer to zero. Again, how > much is Google making from Android phone sales? How are the Nexus sales > numbers? Google's competitor is not Apple. Google's competitor is Facebook. > Luckily for Google, Facebook is banned in China too.

Totally agree. Again, I don't expect Google to do well at the expense of Apple. For Google phones are just a way of pushing their services, so gaining market share vs Apple doesn't help them all that much in terms of their bottom line.

> The smartphone is a very interesting product. It is used multiple times a > day, is cheap enough to be ubiquitous yet still offers value to people who > seek to differentiate. In my view this is only the beginning of the > smartphone race. Technologies like NFC/Apple Pay are still in their infancy > and are not widespread enough. There will be more sensors, better imaging > technology, more features that people would desire. How the differentiation > is implemented, matters. You will not find someone cross-shopping Hermès > with Coach. Similarly the large majority of people will not cross-shop a > Ferrari with a Nissan. That is not to say anything about the value of the > brand. It just means there are different markets being served.

Ya, I don't disagree here either. I don't expect Apple to _lose_ significant market share in places where they're already established. I mostly expect that the upgrade rate will slow, and they will not gain new market share in India and China. The sum of those two things is a substantial decline in profits for them over the next couple of years.

I could certainly be wrong about all this. It's actually the first time i've ever shorted something, and it's kind of just an experiment to get my feet wet with more exotic trades. I don't claim to be any sort of expert on the subject :).

<comment><USER56> >>Ya I wouldn't make the mistake of saying that it's the death-knell of the smart phone. I just think we'll be seeing a significant contraction of the market that has driven the insane profits apple has had for the past few years. Certainly smartphones will be a massive and massively profitable product for years to come.<<

I'm unsure my point came across clearly; if it didn't then the fault lies with me.

The GTR and the 911 (in all its variants) are in the performance segment. No one is saying just because the GTR exists, all other segments like SUVs, MPVs, saloons/sedans etc will no longer exist. To reiterate: despite Porsches costing more and GTRs costing less, and on an objective level the GTR is a better car in terms of performance, 911 sales are not flagging off. They have instead increased. And the 911 is already more than 50 years old. [1] So your conjecture that premium luxury smartphone sales like the iPhone will level off or even be reduced due to "commoditization" is not very well-supported. In fact the inverse is true: Porsche is one of the most profitable car makers on a per-unit basis. [2]

>>I don't expect Apple to lose significant market share in places where they're already established. I mostly expect that the upgrade rate will slow, and they will not gain new market share in India and China. The sum of those two things is a substantial decline in profits for them over the next couple of years.<<

I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. In my experience I have never once met a person who said they aspire to own a Hyundai, Kia, Lada etc or have a poster of these cars on their bedroom wall. Nothing wrong with these brands of course, they bring in profits for the manufacturers. But these are different markets we are talking about.

It is true that Porsche had to come up with the Cayenne to stave off bankruptcy, because at that time SUVs were in demand and they did not have one in their lineup. Yet this is instructive as it only reinforces my point because the Cayenne is now the #1 selling Porsche. Chevy, Ford and all the other makers combined can continue to sell more SUVs than Porsche does Cayennes but they are in different markets. People who buy Cayennes don't even consider these other brands. They might consider Land Rover or Mercedes/BMW or even sister-label Audi (essentially the same chassis). Same applies to the iPhone vis-a-vis Android "replacements". Who knows, perhaps the iPhone SE may one day become the #1 selling iPhone?

tl;dr it is possible for a premium luxury manufacturer to continue to grow and expand its business, despite being in a mature industry like autos.

[1] [http://press.porsche.com/more_about/statistics/](http://press.porsche.com/more_about/statistics/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche#Production_and_sales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche#Production_and_sales)

<comment><USER55> Ya, your point is well made. I think where I would disagree is that cars have always been about identity. Nobody (or very few, at least) people buy a Cayenne because it's fast or performs well. People buy it because they think it says something about who they are. The fact that it's highly performant is just how you rationalize the price to the consumer.

Cars can get away with this because they are so well wrapped up with the presentation and identity of their owners/drivers. To some extent, this is true of phones. But I guess I just don't think it's nearly as much the case as it is with cars. Somewhat ironically, this is because an iPhone is not expensive _enough_ to really say much about the wealth of its owner. At least - not in the way that a car does.

Admittedly, that might be slightly hold less true in developing economies, where the ownership of an iPhone really is something only the (relatively) wealthy can attain. But in that case, their rate of expansion is determined by the rate at which people rise out of poverty. Which I don't think is fast enough to outpace the declining upgrade rates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Wow- This must be hard for Buffett to explain to Bill Gates- his close friend. Did he ever invest in Microsoft?

<comment><USER58> I'd be surprised if Bill Gates holds ill feelings towards Apple.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> [http://on.wsj.com/1sriCf9](http://on.wsj.com/1sriCf9)

</comment><comment><USER60> Maybe he's gambling on Trump's "onshore your cash or else"

</comment><comment><USER61> Berkshire has too much money and too few ideas as to what to do with it. Why not the second largest stock with tons of untaxed cash? And they can push for tax amnesty to repatriate it.

</comment><comment><USER62> Not sure why Buffet decided so late to invest in apple. Returns will not be as high as pre iPod or iPhone era

<comment><USER63> Comparing to past theoretical entry points to buying Apple is irrelevant. I'm not sure why all of us didn't invest in Apple 10 years ago! Oh, it's because it's easier to predict the last 10 years than the next ten years. Just because investing 10 years ago would have been great, it doesn't mean that in 10 years time a 2016 investment in Apple won't also look great.

<comment><USER64> > _Comparing to past theoretical entry points to buying Apple is irrelevant. I > 'm not sure why all of us didn't invest in Apple 10 years ago!_

Shortsightedness?

Without any hindsight involved, 10 years ago the continuous rise for several years seemed inevitable AT THE TIME.

Now it's not so clear.

But it's not because "it's easier to predict the last 10 years than the next ten years".

Rather it's because it was easier to predict the next ten years in 2006 than it is now.

<comment><USER58> Since it was so obvious and inevitable to you at the time, I assume you put all the spare money you had into Apple in 2006?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Berkshire Hathaway was down 12% last year, has under-performed the S&P 500 for five years running, bought Apple North of $100, and are heavily invested in the railroads via Burlington Northern which has seen freight revenue dropping for over a year. Which part of this is not true?

<comment><USER63> > _Berkshire Hathaway was down 12% last year_

It's easy to cherry pick dates to suit your argument.

      12 months leading to end of 2015: down 12%
      24 months leading to end of 2015: up 11%
      36 months leading to end of 2015: up 40%

      ~5.5 months between end of 2015 and today: up 8%

Was your statement true? Yes. Misleading? Even more so.

Your other statements... well maybe you're 100% right and not even misleading on those, but after choosing such a bad statement for your lede I'm not going to bother looking them up.

Edit: Actually I was curious enough to look into one more of your "facts". According to Business Insider, S&P 500 doesn't even come close to beating B.H. But maybe you have better data than them. [http://static2.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54f4d8a6dd08955d...](http://static2.uk.businessinsider.com/image/54f4d8a6dd08955d558b4622-1200-924/good- index-comp-final.png)

<comment><USER65> Last year refers to 2015, Jan 1st 2015 = $151 Dec 28 end of year 2015 = $133 Not misleading at all.

>Berkshire Hathaway's poor performance in 2015 is noticeable due to the huge underperformance relative to the market. But a closer look at the performance of the company over the past three years suggests that this is something that has been going on for some time. Berkshire Hathaway has actually significantly underperformed the market over the past five years, with a return of 61.4% vs. 71.4% for the S&P 500 Growth Index (the index tracks the performance of large- cap U.S. securities with growth characteristics). [http://amigobulls.com/articles/has-berkshire-hathaway- lost-i...](http://amigobulls.com/articles/has-berkshire-hathaway-lost-its- mojo)

Your Business Insider Chart is a chart of a price index from the day he took over Berkshire, things aren't what they used to be, it was my bad that I did not preface Growth Index, but your conclusion that the first statement was misleading is completely incorrect

<comment><USER66> Is there any stock or asset that would beat the S&P500 on an absolute basis for all time periods? No. Therefore you can play this game with every single asset class, without exception. It doesn't mean anything, and that is why your comment is misleading. Just looking at a selected time-range and finding underperformance doesn't tell you anything at all about the historic performance of an asset.

<comment><USER65> Over the last 5 years Berkshire has underperformed the S&P 500 Growth

[http://amigobulls.com/articles/has-berkshire-hathaway- lost-i...](http://amigobulls.com/articles/has-berkshire-hathaway-lost-its- mojo)

Certainly the last 5 years tells more of a trend than historic performance. My facts are correct and Berkshire has been on the decline for a while, my opinion its certainly not worthy of being downvoted

<comment><USER66> Why cherry-pick 5 years? Just look at their performance since inception. It is clearly laid out in their 13F. The company has trounced the S&P over such a long-term it is pretty incredible actually.

[http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2015ar/2015ar.pdf](http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/2015ar/2015ar.pdf)

1964-2015, the S&P500 returned 11,355% and BRK returned 1,598,284%.

p.s. not downvoting you, just disagreeing.

<comment><USER65> It's not cherry picking the last 5 years its looking at the trend, rather than historical returns of a company to see the direction it is heading.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How We Survive the Surveillance Apocalypse - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/12/31/how-we-survive-surveillance-apocalypse/ <comment><USER2> This can't be stressed enough! I like the notion that people need professional help in taking control over their data and privacy online, over the trail they leave behind. Consequently, a profession of privacy consultants should emerge. Or, since it's a retail (B2C) proposition and 'consultant' has too much of a corporate ring to it, I'd rather call them Digital Personal Care professionals. Their products and services are, perhaps, well positioned in a meta-market besides other hygiene and personal care products and services, such as toothbrushes, toothpaste, dental hygienist, hand wash, pedicure or chiropodist, etc.</comment>


Generating UUIDs at Scale on the Web - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/teads-engineering/generating-uuids-at-scale-on-the-web-2877f529d2a2 <comment><USER2> CUIDs are better for this use case than UUID, i.e. needing to generateany many unique IDs in parallel on many servers / clients. They have a bit more structure to them, while still having randomness, that avoids collisions in cloud scale ID gen</comment>


Ask HN: What do you use to read mailing lists – email or Usenet readers? - <AUTHOR>

I am wondering what other folks use to efficiently read mailing lists. Using regular email like Gmail or one of the many popular Usenet nntp clients like Mutt, Gnus, Knode, Thunderbird,etc. <comment><USER2> I use Sup, which is also my primary email client.

[http://supmua.org/](http://supmua.org/)</comment>


Show HN: Share, organize and discover what your friends are seeing on the web - <AUTHOR> http://www.thesharedweb.com/alpha/intro Hey HN,
My co-founders and I have been working on a project for the last month or so, and we'd like to get your input on it. We wanted to hear your thoughts on what we're doing - so check out our landing page, and let us know what you think/understand.
Does it sounds like something you guys would want to use?
http://www.thesharedweb.com/alpha/intro
We'll tell you guys more about exactly what we're doing as the conversation evolves, but we just wanted to see what the initial reaction is, and what you understand (i.e. are we describing it in a way that makes sense).
Really excited to hear your thoughts!
Cheers, Nicolae, Kareem and Nav <comment><USER2> I like it. I like it mostly because I love Google reader, but all the RSS feeds can be hard to manage when I want to go back and find something I read (usually a recipe I tagged). This is sort of like a reader for links? Seems easier to organize, which is cool.

My only question is, what is the incentive for people to organize information? If I have already read it, or seen it, why do I care if its neatly filed away? I think you need to give people more incentive to curate their links- so they are inspired to pick cool ones, organize them, annotate them, and then share them. If they just use the shared web to collect links, it could quickly become the mess (similar to my reader) and then it loses utility.

I think if you can answer the question about "why do I organize?" this will be awesome, The more effort you can get people to put into the "curate" part- the cooler your platform becomes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Sarah,

Thanks so much for your feedback. The way we think about it - there's two reasons to organize the thing's you've seen. Self-reference for later, and also, just so your friends have a place to browse it if they want to. I could tell a friend, yah go check out all the advice I've read on pitching - there's lots of good stuff there in my 'pitching' channel :). For those people, they now have a place to browse what you've seen, and they can thank you for posting it, and respond.

The nice thing, is that we're working on ways to make the categorization as automatic as possible (e.g. via crowdsourcing etc) - so that for you its easy to say you saw it, and then it goes into the appropriate topic.

We're also thinking about the ways to differentiate between the links that stand out, and the ones that don't in the long term. For example, based on your friends' reaction to it, your own indication of its importance, and other metrics. That way, this becomes a more useful showcase and memory of your web experience.

<comment><USER2> I think social sharing is a good first start- people like the stuff their friends like. For example, I might read your facebook feed (if I didn't hate facebook) because I know you, but I'm not going to go read some randos facebook feed. That would just be boring. and weird.

My point is, social only gets you so far. You share with your friends, your friends share with you- but then it actually does break down. If you look at preceieved sense of authority, trust drops almost 2 fold when its a "friend of a friend- instead of a friend. You run the risk of having all of these "cells of authority" that don't interact.

But the good news is, traditional forms of authority can solve this problem. People seek out and read content all of the time that isn't recommended by their friends. They read it because they think its a good source of information. And because they think the person who is writing it is an authority (or at least entertaining).

I think you want to make sure that your platform encourages this kind of authrity as well. You want people to have shared web channels that people read like they read tech crunch or the wall street journal. This is important because 90% of all content consumers (and in my opinion, its really more like 99%) are passive. All they do is read. They don't create. They don't share.

But the do click your ads. So its smart to think about how this product is for them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't get it. What is it that you do exactly? All I see is a bunch of marketing text that anyone could have put together. "Show your friends what you're doing!" I'm already doing that - in email, on Facebook, on Twitter, etc. What do you do that makes that experience better?

Your landing page is pure fluff - there isn't an ounce of actual value on it. Anyone can have an idea - and your landing page just seems like "Hey - I had this cool idea of, 'What if you could maybe like do this cool stuff with all this other cool stuff? Like, that would be cool, right?"

Too abstract and not enough concrete. Or, to put it another way, why are you showing us now? Why not wait until you at least have a screenshot?

</comment><comment><USER4> Part of this looks interesting - is this making it easier for me to organize my browsing? I've been trying to keep track of links for a work project as I browse, would this make it easier for me to store those sites to share or find later? That could be hugely useful.

Or does this make it easier to share those links with other people? If it's just for sharing, I can't tell if it's like Shareaholic or something new.

I'm having a hard time figuring out if this is more for publicly sharing content/links or if it's for my personal storage and organizing? Looks interesting enough for me to look at the beta - send it my way if you want.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN,

My cofounders and I have been working on a project for the last month or so, and we'd like to get your input on it. We wanted to hear your thoughts on what we're doing - so check out our landing page, and let us know what you think/understand. Does it sounds like something you guys would want to use?

We'll tell you guys more about exactly what we're doing as the conversation evolves, but we just wanted to see what the initial reaction is, and what you understand (i.e. are we describing it in a way that makes sense).

Really excited to hear your thoughts!

Cheers, Nicolae, Kareem and Nav

</comment><comment><USER5> The logo looks like you copied peerindex.net

<comment><USER6> Hi Noel,

Thanks for pointing that out. We had never seen peerindex.net before. Its eerie how close our choice of colors is and styling is. They are also in a very similar market and their thought process is very close to ours. We'll make sure to keep this in mind before we launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> How do we check it out?

<comment><USER6> You can check it out here:

<http://www.thesharedweb.com/alpha/intro>

<comment><USER8> >> How do we check it out?

I think he meant if he could test drive the service, instead of a landing page that's just some copywriting

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> this looks sick. i like it.</comment>


Ask HN: How HN-like community websites get monetized these days? - <AUTHOR> Is a community website model like HN, growthhackers.com, Product Hunt is easy to drive revenue from? What are some ways these sites are got monetized these days? <comment><USER2> They don't and shouldn't. Communities can't be monetized outside of ads and I've never seen that work long term. It won't make anyone rich or pay back investors either. At most it'll cover server costs.

A common problem is that communities where you can say whatever (after moderation of course) will say things advertisers don't want next to their ads. An extreme example is 4chan, but another one is YouTube. A lot of advertisers pulled out of YouTube because their ads appeared before a video of someone making a racist joke[1].

[1] In YouTube's case it mostly hurt content creators, not Google.

<comment><USER3> > A common problem is that communities where you can say whatever (after > moderation of course) will say things advertisers don't want next to their > ads

I wonder if this is just something old fashioned ad companies will have to grow out of. Internet advertising isn't like e.g. advertising on TV before hand chosen shows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My general, hand-wavy understanding it that HN is not directly monetized. Instead, it serves various business objectives for YC and the company makes enough money to be able to afford to keep doing this without ad income or any of the usual other ways that community sites try to monetize.

I am not personally familiar with growthhackers.com nor Product Hunt.

</comment><comment><USER5> From my observation it's:

1\. Promoted posts, inline but called out to some extent.

2\. Job posts. In HN's case, these are combined but there is also the "Jobs" page in the nav up top.

3\. Regular ad network stuff as well. (Example Adsense, Carbon, etc)

4\. Merch for sale

5\. Paid mobile app

In the case of Reddit, they also do: Gold status which unlocks a few non important things

</comment><comment><USER6> I've seen a few posts on HN that don't have all of the normal operations one can make on your average post. They are usually for YC startup job posts. So in some aspect, YC is making money by targeting job advertising for their startups directly to the hiring pool they wish to pick from. If they help their startups hire top talent, they are more likely to profit from their investments.

In general though, most of the sites have some kind of semi-hidden posts among the others that are actually advertisements.

There is one currently on the HN front page for "Etleap Is Hiring Data Engineers..." No submitter, no upvote arrow, no comment ability, but it's at #6.

<comment><USER2> Sure, but this only works for HN because of its reputation. I think OP is asking for new communities.

Also, HN is a special case because it's probably cheap and could be funded by any YC member's pocket.

<comment><USER6> Reddit does something similar. I think most sites of this sort do that. It's just that obviously you want to build a community, web traffic, and reputation, before interspersing advertisements.

I think if you are going to build something like that, the strategy is to build a site that has value first and monetize later.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Job posting is a nice way to monetize HN like community.</comment>


Large movie distributor grabs Popcorn Time trademark - <AUTHOR> https://torrentfreak.com/large-movie-distributor-grabs-popcorn-time-trademark-151008/ <comment><USER2> Proving that there are some serious flaws in trademark approval and that the anti-piracy lobby will happily undertake unethical practices if it serves their purpose.</comment>


Ask HN: Are you using machine learning to do UI testing? - <AUTHOR> Web and mobile UIs are constantly changing slightly, and testing frameworks tend to be brittle; has anyone had luck applying machine learning to make them more robust — either the inputs or the outputs?
For example, "Here's what I want; see if you can still make it happen without too much of a change in your routine."
Or "Here's what I want; tell me if it changes fundamentally, but not if it changes a little." <comment><AUTHOR> For example, here's a paper from eBay, "GUI Testing Powered by Deep Learning":

[https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/blogs/tech/gui-testing- power...](https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/blogs/tech/gui-testing-powered-by- deep-learning/)

> ... writing and maintaining test suites and scripts for multiple platforms > [TestNG, Selenium, Appium, IOS Driver, Selandroid, etc] take considerable > time and effort and come at the risk of reducing the test scope.

> Contemporary developments in DL unleashes efficiencies in GUI testing and in > the software lifecycle, potentially. A recent pilot, described below, proved > this approach to be realistic and practical.</comment>


New Criterion Collection Streaming Service Starting April 8 - <AUTHOR> https://www.criterionchannel.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I understand the proliferation of film streaming services is causing us a lot of frustration--and, possibly, money--but with the closing of FilmStruck last year I was really missing this collection.</comment>


Ask HN: Two kids (8, 9.5), two weeks, "learn to code". Tips? Tricks? - <AUTHOR>

Between the two of them, they can operate PC, iOS and Android devices. Know how to signup, log in and out of accounts. Have worked with Google Slides, edited videos for Youtube and reskinned their Minecraft characters. They can type (slow) with looking at the keyboard. They have played with Scratch, Minecraft redstone/commands blocks. They google their problems and watch Youtube for instructions. Their math/geometry is 3rd/4th grade level. They want to learn "to code" specifically "Javascript". We have two weeks and we'll have to watch the Minions movie in the middle...<p>Tips? Tricks? Ideas? Watch for? etc. much appreciated. <comment><USER2> Somebody posted this on ycombinator: [http://www.thehelloworldprogram.com/](http://www.thehelloworldprogram.com/) Also this java-script powered game may be interesting (although quite a bite for newbies): [https://screeps.com/](https://screeps.com/) Apart from that - interesting question, I will be looking what others would suggest. My son is only 2 months but time passes realy fast!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the helloworldprogram pointer. In this form [https://www.youtube.com/user/helloworldprogram/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/helloworldprogram/videos) it will be easily consumed :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Lua. Computercraft is a very mature platform for playing around with, and is powered by Lua scripts. Lua is a very simple language to learn, and Minecraft is a great platform that kids seem to love, and the tangibility of seeing the world they create be molded by the code that they wrote really has a profound effect on kids.

At least in my experience anyways. Semantics first, concepts later, this is why Lua is easier to learn than JS.</comment>


An Unusual Paint Program - <AUTHOR> http://bomomo.com/

<comment><USER2> HTML5 looks to be a real Flash killer. Nobody will ever want Flash or SilverLight when all browsers start to support <canvas>, <audio> and <video>.

<comment><USER3> Flash 10 has udp support, kinda handy for game connections.

<comment><USER4> HTML 5 will support some kind of raw-ish TCP connection (accessible from JavaScript). I think most games able to run performantly in the browser will be just fine without UDP.

<comment><USER3> yes, most games would be, we've got a realtime fps running (in flash) over standard tcp at the moment. But udp would let us scale from 2 players to 16 per game room in a much smoother way.

The one issue we have with lag is an occassional dropped packed that holds everything up.

Not to mention flash 10 will allow direct peer to peer connections, bypassing several hops...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Only the first setting makes anything I want to look at, but I'm very inspired that that's canvas and not Flash. For me (FF3, Ubuntu) it runs better than Flash usually does, too.

</comment><comment><USER6> This site uses <canvas> and javascript, no flash.

</comment><comment><USER7> Unusual? Yes. Practical? Not really. Hacker News? er... Nevermind. :)

It is nice to see this type of stuff here sometimes, it's interesting and amusing.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a hacker who's always been fascinated with multimedia applications I thought it was a perfect fit.

<comment><USER7> Just clarifying in case that didn't come through as I thought, that was sarcasm. It wasn't a bad post. :)

<comment><USER8> The sarcasm didn't come through, sorry.

<comment><USER9> Recently it seems like almost every post has a comment thread about how the post isn't hacker news... those threads end up being more annoying than the posts imho.

<comment><USER10> I've noticed that too. These comments are in the same category as people complaining about being downmodded; they don't make very interesting reading. Perhaps I should put something in the site guidelines about them.

<comment><USER11> Even more concerning to me is how frequently these "not hacker news" comments are added to posts that are off the beaten track (i.e. not about code, startups, and such) but which I find genuinely interesting. The last thing I'd want for this site is diminished diversity. I don't like the spam or bait posts either, but I'm glad you haven't cracked down on them in a way that triggers this other, imho more significant risk.

Edit: while I'm at it, the "not hacker news" noise belongs to a more general class that I've been training myself to tune out, which is the "meta hacker news" category. A bad day here is one in which there's more discussion of the site itself than anything else. And yes, I'm fully aware that I'm doing it right now. :) But I've been resisting it successfully for weeks...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It would be quite amazing to see someone who has mastered this tool use it to paint something.

<comment><USER8> Like Jackson Pollock.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> does anyone know how you write code to implement drawing operations like this efficiently? i remember in the late 90s there was stuff you could do, for instance, where you had a large number of low-opacity swirling ellipse objects that looked like smoke (basically a very crude particle system) - and it brought my Pentium 3 450 to its knees. (this is what i'm referring to: <http://www.presstube.com/project.php?id=212> )

have computers just gotten faster, or does Flash have some way of doing, say, hardware-accelerated graphics?

<comment><USER14> Try the new HTML <canvas> tag. But yes, Flash can do all sorts of animation and drawing pretty efficiently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's very therapeutic; perhaps they should market it to art therapists.

</comment><comment><USER16> amazing and beautiful

</comment><comment><USER17> kills my browser (ff3)

<comment><USER18> Works great here, fast and snappy.

FF3 final on Ubuntu 8.0.1 - I'd check my plugins if I were you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> In the latest Webkit with the squirrelfish javascript engine it runs very smoothly. Really nice program.

</comment><comment><USER20> Just. Wow. I've never seen anything like this outside of a sandbox like Flash/Silverlight.

</comment><comment><USER21> Runs very slowly in Fx3.0_rc1.

<comment><USER13> weird, runs smoothly on a core 2 quad 2.4 ghz machine with firefox 3.0 rc1, windows xp sp 2.

<comment><USER22> Slow for me, but I'm still using opera 9.20 and an 800Mhz Coppermine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's really neat, thanks for sharing.</comment>


OpenBSD takes a knife to OpenSSL's old/unused cruft  - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/openbsd_src

<comment><USER2> How many of these patches are actually new? I'm trying to work out if what we're seeing here is the CVS equivalent of "git checkout openbsd-ssl && git rebase upstream/v1.0.1g".

</comment><comment><USER3> openssl was due for a diet.</comment>


Ethereum: The Rise of the World Computer - <AUTHOR> http://www.svds.com/ethereum-the-rise-of-the-world-computer/ <comment><USER2> I don't think consensus scales. So, I think they'll be an ecosystem of block chains.</comment>


Hilbert's Rusty Hotel - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jcoglan.com/2019/11/22/hilberts-rusty-hotel/ <comment><USER2> For whatever it's worth, here's how you would actually implement the reflexive-transitive closure of a relation in Prolog:

        subtype(gerbil, rodent).
        subtype(rodent, mammal).
        subtype(mammal, animal).

        transitive_subtype(S, T) :-
            subtype(S, T).
        transitive_subtype(S, T) :-
            subtype(S, U),
            transitive_subtype(U, T).

        reflexive_transitive_subtype(T, T).  % FIXME: should check if T is a type
        reflexive_transitive_subtype(S, T) :-
            transitive_subtype(S, T).

This terminates as expected:

        ?- transitive_subtype(gerbil, X).
        X = rodent ;
        X = mammal ;
        X = animal ;
        false.  % meaning "I have proved that there are no further solutions"

        ?- reflexive_transitive_subtype(gerbil, X).
        X = gerbil ;
        X = rodent ;
        X = mammal ;
        X = animal ;
        false.

or even:

        ?- reflexive_transitive_subtype(S, T).
        S = T ;
        S = gerbil,
        T = rodent ;
        S = rodent,
        T = mammal ;
        S = mammal,
        T = animal ;
        S = gerbil,
        T = mammal ;
        S = gerbil,
        T = animal ;
        S = rodent,
        T = animal ;
        false.

Left recursion can indeed be a problem in Prolog, but this is not a problematic case.

</comment><comment><USER3> While the solution is composed neatly from functional primitives, the large amount of boxes of boxes are not ideal.

For example, Interleave stores a Vec<Box<Iterator>>, which it absolutely should for the general case. But Flatten only ever uses it with two iterators, so the Vec is an extra allocation that could've been avoided in Flatten's case.

For the specific case of flattening an infinite iterator of infinite iterators, once could simplify to:

        struct FlattenInfinite<I> where I: IntoIterator, <I as IntoIterator>::Item: IntoIterator {
            iters: <I as IntoIterator>::IntoIter,
            realized_iters: Vec<<I::Item as IntoIterator>::IntoIter>,
            cursor: usize,
        }

where the number of trailing ones in self.cursor specifies which iterator to yield the next element from.

Full example at [https://play.rust- lang.org/?version=stable&mode=release&edit...](https://play.rust- lang.org/?version=stable&mode=release&edition=2018&gist=b2c807cc5537fa2915fe11855bf44373)

The `.expect()`s require that the solution is specific to an infinite iterator of infinite iterators.

(Edit: Better implementation that uses usize::trailing_zeros() instead of hand-counting trailing ones.)</comment>


Ask HN: Can I get some opinions on best alternatives to Digital Ocean? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> [https://toys.lerdorf.com/low-cost-vps-testing](https://toys.lerdorf.com/low- cost-vps-testing) Discussion here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21725853)

</comment><comment><USER3> It depends what you will be using for. I have been using Hetzner and happy with them. Mind you the customer services is next to none. So if you are a guy who wants to invest some time and learn by doing then it is a great deal. I have seen nobody is close to it's price point not even AWS.

</comment><comment><USER4> Depends on what you need. I've had good luck with both Linode and Vultr, but I haven't used them for any advanced functions... just basic VPS hosting.

<comment><USER5> I can also recommend Vultr, they have one killer feature that I've not see with other VPS providers: They let you upload custom ISOs

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for chiming in!

I think I'll take a look at Vultr. I don't need a lot of bandwidth or storage space so they might work fine for what I'm doing.

</comment><comment><USER6> I moved some services from Digital Ocean to Limode. Vultr was another choice. Might give Vultr some business next time.</comment>


Eric Schmidt's 2014 plan for Hillary's campaign via Wikileaks - <AUTHOR> https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/37262 <comment> wu-ikkyu Some interesting excerpts:

"Key is the development of a single record for a voter that aggregates all that is known about them."

"The impact of press coverage should be measurable in reach and impact, and TV effectiveness measured by attention and other surveys."

"Build tools that measure the rate and spread of stories and rumors, and model how it works and who has the biggest impact. Tools can tell us about the origin of stories and the impact of any venue, person or theme."

"For each voter, a score is computed ranking probability of the right vote."

"It should be possible to link the voter records in Van with upcoming databases from companies like Comcast and others for media measurement purposes."

<comment><USER2> The Stasi would have loved this guy.

<comment><USER3> I think they would have liked Facebook, Google, Apple, Lenovo, Microsoft, Sony...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am increasingly having an extremely hard time ignoring the reality that Wikileaks appears to be playing favorites here. Where is the dirt on the internal workings of the Republican party and Trump's campaign? It would bring some useful perspective to all of these supposedly damning leaks.

I was previously under the impression that Wikileaks's primary mission was to liberate information. However, Wikileaks appears to be only selectively interested in freedom of information and more interested in some arbitrary agenda.

It's important to remember that even facts can appear to mean very different things depending on the context in which they are presented. Whoever is presenting the facts can do a great deal to manipulate people's understanding of them by choosing to emphasize certain aspects and conveniently omitting others.

 _Update_ : Here are some outsite views which reflect and/or support my arguments:

1\. [https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost- mora...](https://www.wired.com/2016/07/wikileaks-officially-lost-moral-high- ground/)

2\. [https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange- show/](https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/)

3\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Propaganda_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_\(TV_network\)#Propaganda_and_related_issues)

<comment><USER5> They can only release information they have.

If they had the information, I'm sure they would release it - like they have in the past released information damaging to the Bush administration years ago.

Do you have evidence that they have information that they are suppressing?

<comment><USER6> I agree, I don't like Assange but I think it's whoever is giving him the leaks and not him who is biased. I just wonder who it is that is doing the leaking

<comment><USER4> He has a TV show on RT ([https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange- show/](https://www.rt.com/tags/the-julian-assange-show/)), a Russian state-run news channel which is widely criticized as being a propaganda outlet ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_(TV_network)#Propaganda_and...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RT_\(TV_network\)#Propaganda_and_related_issues)). That seems like a massive conflict of interest to me. I also don't imagine it would take very long for him to lose his show if he published any seriously damaging Russian leaks.

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I looked at the "America" section of the news site and it's very anti- America and very anti-Clinton. Having a show on there is concerning and looking at the descriptions for the episodes for the shows it looks like Assange really doesn't like the US government at all.

EDIT: I still don't think he's releasing these because of bias but I think he's very happy with the effect of the leaks that he has gotten

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I kinda respect this part:

"The Rules

Its important that all the player in the campaign work at cost and there be no special interests in the financing structure. This means that all vendors work at cost and there is a separate auditing function to ensure no one is profiting unfairly from the campaign. All investments and conflicts of interest would have to be publicly disclosed. The rules of the audit should include caps on individual salaries and no investor profits from the campaign function. (For example, this rule would apply to me.)"

</comment><comment><USER8> Nobody found it interesting that they had a budget of 1.5 billion USD? And how much did trump have?

</comment><comment><USER9> They were hiring people here on HN last year.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10363111](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10363111)

Interested if anyone can share their experiences?

</comment><comment><USER10> What stage was Google Cloud at in 2014 that AWS was being recommended by Eric Schmidt?

<comment><USER11> Probably to avoid any potential conflicts of interest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> > "The campaign headquarters will have about a thousand people, mostly young > and hardworking and enthusiastic. Its important to have a very large hiring > pool (such as Chicago or NYC) from which to choose enthusiastic, smart and > low paid permanent employees.

> The key is a large population of talented people who are dying to work for > you. Any outer borough of NYC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Boston are all good > examples of a large, blue state city to base in.

> Employees will relocate to participate in the campaign, and will find low > cost temporary housing or live with campaign supporters on a donated basis. > This worked well in Chicago and can work elsewhere."

<comment><USER2> _"... enthusiastic, smart and low paid permanent employees... dying to work for you...will relocate to participate in the campaign"_

Jesus, those don't sound like campaign workers. They sound like cult members.

<comment><USER13> You've never been involved in any form of activism, I take it? It's no cult; people who want to work for a political campaign are activists like any other. They are devoted to a cause they believe in, and will happily make personal sacrifices to strengthen that cause.

The activist spirit is alive and well in campaign employees.

Maybe you've volunteered for a charity? Volunteerism is the other half of the equation. Campaign employees are part activist, part "paid volunteer". Anyone who's volunteered for their kids' school, for a neighborhood charity, or for some other cause knows the positive, almost euphoric feeling that comes from volunteering for something that is meaningful to you.

In a time where most of us go to sleep feeling existential dread because we can't do anything to stop the various runaway trains we see in our society/planet/etc, volunteering can provide a feeling that you're actually doing something to make a difference.

That spirit, too, is alive and well in campaign employees.

<comment><USER2> I've worked at a nonprofit. I've also volunteered to work at charities, schools and libraries. Yes, there is a sense of purpose and accomplishment that go along with all of these that make the work worthwhile because you feel that you're making a positive impact on the lives of people and your community.

But for a _politician_? At the national level? In 2016?

I think the gag reflex is more appropriate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I get the impression that he feels very strongly about the cloud, cloud, cloud.

<comment><USER14> I was wondering if anyone else noticed that he couldn't have possibly mentioned the cloud anymore if it were an actual Google product ready to launch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> what a monumental shit this guy is... google keep hitting low and low. pity.</comment>


Ask HN: A good C++ multi-dimensional array library? - <AUTHOR>

I was working on a project which involved replacing our old numerical library back-end to some other newer alternative. I had a look at the possible options(Eigen/NT2/Armadillo/MTL4 among others) and decided to move on with Eigen. However, Eigen does not have a multi-dimensional array implementation. It can only support upto 2-D arrays. I was wondering if there are some C++ multi-dimensional libraries you folks might know of ?
Upto now, all I could find was:-
- Boost MultiArrays( specifying dimensions and size at compile time make it a no-go for me ) - Blitz++ ( same issues as above i.e. dimension needs to be specified at compile time )
It will be great if I could find something like a free version of RogueWave arrays which can be declared without specifying dimensions.
Thanks for reading through the post. <comment><USER2> Sparse matrices or not? You could look into OpenCV's Mat and SparseMat here: [http://docs.opencv.org/modules/core/doc/basic_structures.htm...](http://docs.opencv.org/modules/core/doc/basic_structures.html#Mat)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the reply slavio.

\- It seems that no expression template machinery is being used? Hence, it might be too slow for most basic operations for us due to creation of temporaries. \- Does not have support for n-dimensional views. You can only get a view upon contiguous rows or columns. ( However, I might ignore this if the first point is settled ) \- No vectorization support etc which you get with other libraries like Eigen/NT2 among others.

I might be wrong on some points though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I dont know which operations you are going to do with the arrays but what about just use a array of arrays or matrices of matrices of matrices of...?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am willing go give away everything for now and just have support for basic arithmetic operations, creation of sub matrix views ala numpy for the time being. I will be able to do the other operations via Eigen by creating a view over the native array. I hate the idea of creating an array of arrays though.

<comment><USER3> Hateing the idea of array of arraya is like hating recursivity.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN:Full Stack Engineer looking for an internship in USA - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I'm soon to be graduating with a degree in Computer Systems Engineering from the UK. After a recent exposure to the startup world, I feel I would greatly enjoy working in a fast, exciting tech start up in the USA.
I am passionate about software, with a keen interest in the web. I have various side projects that showcase my skills - please see my CV for details.
Check out my details here:
Resume - http://bit.ly/tharshancv
Twitter - http://twitter.com/viperfx
Github - http://github.com/viperfx
email - firstname.lastname@example.com
If you, or you know someone that is looking for an intern this year, please get in touch with me at firstname.lastname@example.com
I'm available for work as soon as I graduate (July 2014).
Anyone who has gone through this process before, I would love to hear any advice on the matter of finding internships and the entire process?
Thanks! <comment><AUTHOR> Links:

Resume - [http://bit.ly/tharshancv](http://bit.ly/tharshancv)

Twitter - [http://twitter.com/viperfx](http://twitter.com/viperfx)

Github - [http://github.com/viperfx](http://github.com/viperfx)

email - email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER2> A shame, you missed the application window for the Silicon Valley Internship Programme ([http://www.siliconvalleyinternship.com](http://www.siliconvalleyinternship.com)). It's programme especially built to send UK tech grads to Silicon Valley startups. Maybe apply next year?</comment>


5 Tools to Enhance Your Workday - <AUTHOR> http://blog.noisli.com/5-tools-to-enhance-your-workday/

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there any other tool that you use to boost productivity during your workdays?</comment>


AWS Lambda Golang: Image manipulation on lambda using Golang - <AUTHOR> Hi there, fellow golang folks.
I'm working on a project that requires some image transformation on the fly using aws lambda with s3.
Till now I was only able to find some good blogs on writing golang code to do image conversion and transformations, yet I could not find any dedicated golang library that can be deployed straight to AWS lambda with some config. Of which I got up with a thought of creating one myself for the community.
The focus of the library would be to give maximum possible implementation that a dedicated CDN like cloudinary does. Yet CDN thing will be the next milestone.
So just wanted to know before jumping into this. If this thing is really a requirement at all. <comment><USER2> This sounds interesting. I think trying to do something like cloudinary would be difficult since they are also using multiple replications across regions which won't be possible in your case as you will be storing the images in s3 and buckets will be region-specific what do you think about that?

Also, I would suggest don't keep it platform(Lambda) specific. With the rise of other platforms like Azure and GCP devs would want to deploy this on other platforms as well. Thoughts?

<comment><AUTHOR> cloudinary level is too far at the moment.Also cdn handling will happen at later stage, where we can generate a copy of the image transformation on all the required regions. And on request to lambda, we can check for the requested region, and reply with correct region image url. Something like that may be. But that's not a requirement as of now. Currently I'm considering to region specific implementation only. something like an ecommerce website that runs and scopes to a specific region only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do image processing in the browser you would utilize the browser's and the user's resources not having to do backend processing, that's what photoshop does and what most of the image processors do, it's what you should be focusing on.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is not just image processing. Its also image size reduction using mordern formats like webp on the fly. So If the front end asks for a image which is stored as 1024x768 on s3 with a new size as 800x600 then the lambda service should convert the image to 800x600, reduce the image quality and send to frontend there by reducing the image file size. I have done this using backend code for ecommerce app. Where the product listing image sizes where reduced to like 30-50KB from 150KB. making the list images load pretty fast.</comment></comment>