Apple to Buy Hulu?  - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/07/21/apple-to-buy-hulu/ <comment><USER2> The problem with companies like Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, etc. is that they are wholly dependent on media companies granting them licenses to content, and have to accept the terms offered. These content owners basically will extract higher and higher taxes for this content, just enough to keep companies like Hulu in business but not enough for them to become runaway successes.

Netflix has been the most successful in getting some power in this dynamic (reducing the demand for individual shows by not carrying current seasons, producing their own content, etc), but all of these aggregation businesses are vulnerable to coordinated action by a small handful of content owners.

It's like building your business on the Twitter API -- with the caveat that there are 4-6 companies that matter (but they can act in concert).

<comment><USER3> Content companies want to commodify the intermediaries; the intermediaries want to commodify content. It will be interesting to see who eventually gains the upper hand.

It's getting cheaper and cheaper to build a Netflix but content creation isn't getting significantly cheaper.

<comment><USER4> Well actually content creation is getting significantly cheaper. Case in point have seen what artist able to do with small budgets and a Canon DSLR Hybrids ? _<http://vimeo.com/groups/beyondthestill*>

Instead of looking for new talent, they continue to over pay veterans who continue to have flops after flops, of the top my head I can think of Jennifer Anistons and Nicolas Cage and a quick google search: [http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/12/rupert- everett...](http://www.radaronline.com/exclusives/2010/12/rupert-everett- jennifer-anistons-many-flops-overlooked-hollywood-club) [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1165345/King- mo...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1165345/King-movie-flops- Nicolas-Cage-leaps-straight-project.html)

So the problem is the big studios and the major record labels are content with the status quo have access to major promotional channels. Promotion is still very expensive. Even on Youtube where some indie content creators can thrive, the big players still dominate.

<comment><USER3> _Amateur_ content is now cheap to produce. The stuff that the unwashed masses really want (Avatar, Toy Story etc) is more expensive than ever. Promotion will remain expensive as long as the potential payoff is high.

<comment><USER4> The tech/work behind Avatar is far more expensive then Toy Story. There are plenty of poor quality animation that pop up in films by major studios. And there are a number of quality cg animation by students for example <http://vimeo.com/1470875> Avatar is really an edge case, majority of the shows on Hulu don't cost that much. For example: [http://philipbloom.net/2010/04/10/house-season-finale- shot-e...](http://philipbloom.net/2010/04/10/house-season-finale-shot- entirely-with-canon-5dmkii/)

The finale of a popular show was shot using the Canon 5Dmkii. A camera many amateurs are using to capture their content. There are some stories that are best told with the big tech and budget of major studios, but like I mentioned, in most cases, the cost of promotion and over paying for hyped talent is keeping everything they do very expensive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hulu or no Hulu Apple does need to re-think how they sell video. The important difference here is Netflix and Hulu can replicate the beloved channel-flipping experience with a new twist. The reason people pay outrageous cable/satellite bills is they want that safety blanket of never running out of _something_ to watch. Both Hulu and Netflix offer that. iTunes really doesn't unless you're willing to pay al-a-carte prices and most people are not. Apple needs to offer both the pay-per-view content for new release movies, early-acces movies, premium TV shows, while still offering the all-you-can-eat channel flipping safety blanket that people seem to want.

This would get Apple pretty close to being the cable/satellite killer. Premium TV content, new release movies, all-you-can-eat selection, sports (NBA, MLB, NHL at least) and probably apps to cover the live streaming so the programs could have interactive features (which is increasingly becoming the only reason people watch live TV) I think they're very close to figuring this one out.

<comment><USER6> _safety blanket of never running out of something to watch_ is spot on.

I'm in a hospital waiting room and people are all staring at the Game Show Network not really caring what is on but just that _something_ is on. None of the big streaming services currently provide that kind of experience in my opinion...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Articles like these have little credibility with me. They are like those things you see in the checkout line with headlines like "Aliens Meet with President."

The speculation is all over the map, the 'players' are random, and nowhere is there any sort of actual financial analysis of whether or not the speculation would make sense.

</comment><comment><USER8> I actually see a lot of positives here, but certainly some negatives. And also I have some thoughts on how it makes (or doesn't make) sense for Apple to snap up the alien-wrought 'cable killer.'

Pros:

\- Apple doesn't "need" the Hulu revenue (as does an independent Hulu or Netflix or Pandora...), giving it leverage in content deal negotiations. Or, Apple could allow it to be a loss leader to get even deeper into the media in our lives (they certainly have the deep pockets to ink deals favorable to the cable giants if need be, with negligible impact on their ~$80B Warchest). What was the precedent in the deals with the music labels to get them to put their content on iTunes?

\- People look at wireless carriers and cable megaliths with similar passionate disdain. And rightfully so. Apple has shown an unparalleled ability to bend carriers to their will. I would love to see the cable giants squirming on Apple's hook. They are, in my opinion, the ONLY acquirer with the muscle to keep the cable co's in their place. I can only imagine the calamity of Carol Bartz negotiating with the cable giants as those guarantees expire.

\- It is quite possible that Apple as a company is the toughest negotiator out there right now. This stems from their mindshare and market power, or maybe it's just Steve's giant adamantium balls. (see points 1 and 2)

\- The litany of commercials (even if you pay) and user experience issues with Hulu drive me nuts. Possibly no one better to right that ship than Apple.

\- They could relaunch Hulu alongside a subscription music service. Hey, it could happen.

\- In an unrelated note, I just want to watch Steve Jobs kick Rupert Murdoch in the teeth.

\- Exclusivity on a streaming TV service like this would be a big leg up over Google in the Android/iOS battle. It may not be a bellwether in device selection for the HN crowd, but it may well be for the rest of the world (sorry, I just can't call them "normals" anymore, it's sounds borderline derogatory).

Cons:

\- Will spark antitrust review/inquiries, but not enough to prevent it from going through. APPL/MSFT/GOOG can't piss without Christine Varney there to record its volume, color, and aroma. She'll be gone next month, but there will be an equally odious character to fill her seat at the Justice Department.

\- This could be bad for consumers. While I would love it initially, if the cable co's ever do get the upper hand, it would really piss me off to cut my cable and have the content suddenly get shut off because negotiations went South. Minor annoyance, sure, but still.

\- This could be really bad for consumers. How deep into our media consumption is Apple going to get its fingers, nay, tentacles? Are ticketmaster and AMC theaters next? Apple is filling more holes than, well, let's just say than some of the actors in the one content category Apple has shown an unwillingness to jump into bed with.

All in all, like most things Apple does, it could be awesome. But it will no doubt leave a bitter aftertaste whose origin you just can't explain.

Oh, wait. That's the taste of the forbidden fruit in Steve's great walled garden. You always wondered why he named it "Apple." It tastes great, but there's always a price to pay.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think what Apple would really be buying is the 5 years of access to the content with the 2 period of content exclusivity. I can't imagine Apple running the Hulu product as it is currently.

<comment><USER10> Exactly, I don't think anyone would look at Hulu for either the technology or the brand recognition. It's only value would seem to be the content; and that must come up for periodic renegotiation. That must really cut into Hulu's long term value.

Of all the potential buyers though, I'd see Apple as having among the best bargaining power and negotiating knowledge to get reasonable terms for the content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was just curious about Apple's mergers and acquisitions, which lead me to this[1]. Interestingly Lala.com at $17MM is much smaller than recent acquisitions; they spent $250MM for Quattro Wireless and $121MM for Intrinsity semiconductors. They also spent $278MM in '08 for P.A.Semi, another semiconductor company.

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

<comment><USER12> Well, you can't really compare _hardware_ companies and their factories to a startup!

<comment><USER13> The semis they acquired were fabless, meaning, they had no factories but relied on the likes of TSMC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Because of its ad based model, Google TV, and now Hangouts/Google+, I think Hulu would be a lot more suited for Google than Apple. Google is probably the only one that can make Hulu international, too, because even if US advertisers don't want to advertise outside US, Google could still use their own ads for videos/Youtube on Hulu as well, and at least get _some_ revenue to break-even.

Apple would have to turn Hulu into Netflix, and I don't think they can catch up to Netflix that quickly. And why would Apple want to charge just $10 a month for all-you-can-eat subscription, when they haven't even done so for iTunes.

<comment><USER15> Nobody can take Hulu international unless they acquire the respective licensing rights for that country.

To explain, content creators figured out a long time ago they got more money by selling rights to content as specifically as possible. This is by region and format. So United States is separate from Canada. And the DVD distribution rights are separate from theatrical distribution rights which are separate from the online streaming rights.

This is how Netflix was able to offer online streaming so cheaply. It could secure the online streaming rights to shows for pennies on the dollar because nobody else was even trying to buy them. Everyone was bidding up TV rights, DVD rights, and theatrical rights.

So going international has nothing to do with what advertisers want. It has everything to do with paying content holders separate license fees for every single country on earth for every show in Hulu's catalog.

That's a monumental effort without even mentioning each country's broadcast laws which can be byzantine to say the least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think the Apple TV is getting a lot closer to a cable killer than most people realize. Slowly but sureley all the pieces are falling into place. Hulu + Netflix + MLB/NBA Apps + ipad mirroring (cnn, nbc, abc, hbo, etc apps) is almost as good as cable for a fraction of the price.

</comment><comment><USER17> Apple certainly could, then again, Apple would probably shut down the whole Hulu Plus strategy and make Hulu part of iCloud. That feels very un-Apple to me.

Even if Apple acquires a company, it is usually for technology to integrate with other Apple products, not for someone else's product, so I don't know why they would buy them.

Also, with Apple's deep pockets it would only make sense if the exclusive content was cheaper buying Hulu directly than making a deal with the companies behind Hulu. Exclusive or not, money talks and Apple can probably buy out Hulu exclusitivity if needed.

I dunno, Apple + Hulu doesn't seem like a great fit. Google + Hulu sounds like the most realistic scenario to me.

</comment><comment><USER18> What is the Apple approved solution to DRM video?

</comment><comment><USER19> apple will merge it w/ a previous media-tech acquisition and spin that off as:

hululala

<comment><USER20> Hula Hula?</comment></comment>


Japan's bizarre tax programme – Reduce Tax Using The Furusato Nozei Program - <AUTHOR> https://www.tytoncapital.com/investment-advice-japan/japan-tax-tips-reduce-your-tax-using-the-furusato-nozei-program/ <comment><USER2> This is an interesting idea. I wonder what impact it would have in the UK or US.

In particular in the UK, there is one large conurbation (London) with a disproportionate percentage of the country's economic activity. People move there for jobs. If they could redirect their local taxes to the villages they had come from, could it change the amount of subsidy those regions get? Sure, money is fungible, but not completely so. And many of London's migrants are from outside the UK, so their taxes would not be eligible.

People also move to the Bay Area, LA, and NYC for economic reasons from more distressed areas. It's less extreme than the London case, but could also have some interesting impacts.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> In additional to the national income tax Japanese residents pay about 10% of income (after deductions) as local city tax. However the Furusato Nozei programme lets you redirect this money to various rural areas. The rural areas then kindly sends you a 'gift' to thank you - [http://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/furusato- nozei/](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/furusato-nozei/)

</comment><comment><USER3> real title: Japan Tax Tips: Reduce Tax Using The Furusato Nozei Program</comment>


Hard-won lessons about money and investing - <AUTHOR> https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/make-money-investing-tips/ <comment><USER2> > If you're an employee working for salary, it's going to be hard to reach > that level of independence. ... You can try to radically lower your > financial burn rate, but few Americans have taken that step.

So many people are quick to dismiss living well within one's means as a way to financial independence. Here's the link to the facts again:

[http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- sim...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

TL;DR: Live on 35% of your after tax income and you're retired in 10 years. Get it down to 25% and you retire in 7.

<comment><USER3> Well, except for how difficult that is. Living on only 35% of after tax income requires you either A) live extremely cheaply or B) make tons of cash. Roughly speaking, in California, this requires living off of 20% of pre-tax income.

As an example, to live off $35k/year in SF as a single person (which would be considered modest in tech circles), you'd need to earn $175k/year.

With a family, this gets more unrealistic. Living off $100k/year (combined) would require earning something like $500k/year.

<comment><USER4> Living on a low percentage of income seems like a great strategy if you're optimizing for dying with the maximum amount of money in the bank.

I think many people in this thread need to consider if that really is the game they want to be playing. I'd think people would be better off maximizing their total happiness. There's research showing that having good memories from the past positively affects momentary happiness in the present [1]. With that in mind, it seems like spending money on great experiences now is a good idea, while excessive saving could be counter productive.

[1]: [http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%...](http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~dtg/DUNN%20GILBERT%20&%20WILSON%20%282011%29.pdf)

<comment><USER5> But money don't buy good memories. I have much better memories of camping with friends for near zero euros, than expensive hotels.

<comment><USER6> You need to consider the opportunity cost too. While you were camping in the bush, you weren't earning.

<comment><USER7> I don't know why you were downvoted, your statement is right. For example, if someone have financial problems for some reason and have to work 2 jobs to deal with it, he/she hardly could get out camping with friends. Money can buy you spare time which you can fill with uncostly memories.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Google worked out a deal with "full service" broker to give us free accounts"

That is actually really interesting. How much did this broker have to pay to get this box full of highly lucrative leads - access to a large set of newly wealthy individuals, many of which don't have experience with managing large amounts of money. A bunch of people who may be experts of technology, but probably are not experts on finance.

It seems like inviting the fox into the hen house, and telling the hens what it deal it was

<comment><USER2> It also seems at odds with what was said in this article, linked to here on HN a couple of weeks back:

[http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-best- inv...](http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-best-investment- advice-youll-never-get)

<comment><USER9> Just to answer this thread:

Google did a _fantastic_ job of educating employees before the IPO. They brought in a ton of smart people to bring us up to speed, emphasize the need to diversify and minimize risk, etc. Honestly, I couldn't ask for a company to do a better job of educating us.

In addition, they arranged to give us default accounts with a broker so that we could sell our shares. My decision to park some money in commercial paper was strictly my own, and I should have done more research on it first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For most people, the easiest way to become financially independent is to save aggressively.

That aside, I have always invested in a small number of individual stocks, with minimal management or effort, and only moving positions between companies slowly over time. Basically, I make bets on long-term trends that I view as technologically inevitable. I don't invest in sexy companies (though some become sexy later), I invest in companies that are undervalued relative to the technology trends. That strategy is pretty trivial but it has allowed me to beat the S&P index pretty consistently over decades (famous last words) with the money I don't have a better use for e.g. savings. In fact, the margin by which I beat the S&P has been slowly improving, which I think reflects the increasing ability of tech to move the needle on the economy.

Since this is a tech site, this would seem like a repeatable strategy that anyone could and would use. But apparently people don't. Of course, I could just be really lucky.

<comment><USER11> Based on what you've written, it doesn't appear that you've measured the performance of whatever method you're using against an appropriately risk- adjusted benchmark. For example, beating the S&P 500 over a certain time period is okay but if you're doing it with a bunch of small- or mid-cap tech stocks, it's quite possible you're not being compensated adequately for the risk you're taking.

For instance, if you're investing in companies with a market cap less than $10 billion, the risk and overall effort you're putting in is really indefensible if you aren't beating the S&P Mid-Cap Index. Which over the last twenty years - just a sample time period - outperformed the S&P 500 pretty hugely: [http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EMID+Interactive#%7B%22...](http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EMID+Interactive#%7B%22range%22%3A%7B%22start%22%3A%221994-11-01T16%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%2C%22end%22%3A%222014-11-28T17%3A00%3A00.000Z%22%7D%2C%22scale%22%3A%22linear%22%2C%22comparisons%22%3A%7B%22%5EGSPC%22%3A%7B%22color%22%3A%22%23cc0000%22%2C%22weight%22%3A1%7D%7D%7D)

Or do a little better and compare your performance against a real tech sector index. Do better still and use the tools of modern portfolio theory to measure your portfolio's performance.

> Of course, I could just be really lucky.

It's probably worth reading The Drunkard's Walk.

<comment><USER10> I only invest in large caps, ones everyone knows, based on two criteria:

1) They are are fairly or somewhat undervalued given the conventional market view and metrics.

2) They are likely to be significant beneficiaries of large-scale technological trends that the market is oblivious to and has not priced into the stock.

Then I wait a few years for the trend to become more obvious and for the market to adjust the stock price accordingly for the new upside. My portfolio is essentially a ladder of different technology trends that take 3-4 years to mature. Occasionally one does not pan out but, while I may not make much money, I never lose much money because "good large-cap tech stock".

The only "small caps" I invest in are tech startups. But that is a different portfolio than what I am talking about here.

Since I spend my days thinking about trends in technology anyway, this whole exercise takes little additional effort. I might add or remove something from that list of stocks once a year. When I save money from my paycheck, I semi- randomly put it in a stock on that list so no thinking required.

Yes, I could do some kind of sophisticated portfolio analysis but that would defeat the goal of _spending as little time on it as possible_. I only check against the S&P 500 as a sanity check. My lifetime annualized return (decades) is about +2 over the S&P 500 but the last five years has been more like +4, so I can't complain. The annual return relative to the S&P 500 has actually been surprisingly steady over time, so no undue volatility.

<comment><USER12> So, you're investing only in large cap stocks, while spending as little time as possible doing analysis, and over decades have consistently surpassed the S&P returns, with low risk and low volatility?

Forgive me if I don't believe this in the least.

<comment><USER11> The tech sector is the third strongest sector (of 11 sectors) over the past five years: [http://news.morningstar.com/stockReturns/CapWtdSectorReturns...](http://news.morningstar.com/stockReturns/CapWtdSectorReturns.html)

So what he's describing, beating the S&P 500 by a bit over that period, isn't implausible. Comparing his portfolio's performance to the S&P 500 is an obvious mistake and, more importantly, attributing his portfolio's performance to anything other than luck (good or bad) is very silly.

I didn't pull apart his post as much as I might (it's indicative of a whole range of bad ideas people have with regard to investing, like his ideas regarding sector-specific investing) but the notion that really needs to be attacked is that beating the S&P 500 or total market index can be regarded as indicative of some special ability without taking into account the portfolio's risk.

<comment><USER10> A lot of the investing orthodoxy is predicated on the average investor being non-observant and ignorant of almost everything important going on in the economy. I think this is both incorrect and a bit snobbish at least some of the time; many average people have sophisticated views of their line of business even if they are not sophisticated investors per se, and their domain knowledge is improperly discounted due to their lack of sophistication as investors.

I am not suggesting high-risk, short-term strategies but long-term, buy-and- hold strategies that leverage the native knowledge and intelligence of Silicon Valley engineers. I also do high-risk, short-term strategies (options and similar) based on the same domain expertise, and have done alright with those too, but I never recommend that to people.

It would be seriously odd if some random guy on Wall Street understood Silicon Valley and tech better than I do. The technology industry is not driven over the long-term by financial numbers on a spreadsheet. I've been through many tech boom-bust cycles in Silicon Valley and understand the dynamics pretty well. No special magic to this portfolio, and it has been one of the most consistent producers for me. As long as you are not betting the farm on a single company, it is difficult for this to go wrong. At least in tech, I can see the bad things telegraphed long before they materialize in the market _because I understand the fundamentals_. Even if Wall Street isn't paying attention.

For the poster below, my returns are consistently worse than every hedge fund that has ever wanted to hire me. I'd be a terrible hedge fund manager; I am personally more interested in return on effort than maximum possible returns. (They wanted to hire me for my theoretical skills, not my investing skills.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Matt's article (and the linked one of Scott Adams' advice) is a good and basic foundation.

Adding to the reading list, I'd very strongly recommend the following:

 _A Random Walk Down Wall Street_ by Burton G. Malkiel lays out the basics of portfolio diversification. [http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780393340747-0](http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780393340747-0)

 _The Great Crash: 1929_ by John K. Galbraith tells the story and aftermath of the biggest stock market catastrophe of the past century. It is a slim, highly readable, and incredibly informative book. Parts of it read as if it could have been written yesterday. Much of it provides a background and context on the Crash that corrected a great many misunderstandings and holes in my own knowledge. Galbraith has a dry humor and is a strong (and often disliked by insiders) critic of much of the establishment. Fans of this book are recommended to view his video series _The Age of Uncertainty_.

[http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780395859995-9](http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780395859995-9)

[http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780395259474-2](http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780395259474-2)

[http://fixyt.com/watch?v=KGSID_Uyw7w](http://fixyt.com/watch?v=KGSID_Uyw7w)

And adding to Matt's advice: _have savings_. The flexibility offered by "fuck you money" as Humphrey Bogart and others have noted is tremendously valuable.

<comment><USER14> Great comment! I want to emphasize this:

 _A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel lays out the basics of portfolio diversification._

A Random Walk Down Wall Street is one of the best books I've ever read, and I'd only add that I think _The Millionaire Next Door_ is also excellent. When most of us think about millionaires we think about Hollywood stars, tech company founders, and finance moguls. But most millionaires are actually normal people who spend below their means and invest what they can, usually in index funds and sometimes in a house. If they marry they don't divorce (divorce is very, very expensive and modern marriage is a high-risk endeavor).

Chances are good that most of the millionaires you know don't live like millionaires—which is why they can be millionaires!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm at the start of a long career and trying to save sacrificially. I know if i over-save i still have it if i need it, but so far every dollar i have put into savings has been on a one-way trip!

I wonder and worry about how to save up for later in life, and who knows what the political landscape will look like then. In my country inflation has been 2.16% on average during the years I've been alive.

Where can I store my money in a way that I know it will be there later whn I need it?

(I'm a little nervous about the bank, one time I had a court order against my bank account so it was drained, and I was beingpaid by cheque, but even when I took my paycheque to the bank to deposit it, until that debt was paid off i couldnt even take out enough for groceries. I want something that cant be taken away at a whim without recourse. I negotiated a deal with the collection agency for a repayment schedule, but they still drained my account 2-3 times after our agreement just because. Oops!)

<comment><USER16> What little advice I can offer. From what I've gathered, there is no sure-fire way to protect your capital from constant things such as inflation and wild things such as economic "incidents", for lack of a better term.

I've lately been thinking that some more reliable means would be to own a "wealth-generating" business. Or a few of them in varied industries, to mitigate risk.

Another method that I've also thought about is antique art and possibly high- quality furniture as well. But that would apply in case of a major war- situation, assuming you could even get those physical items to safety.

<comment><USER17> Indexed Link Gilt's or TIPS (in the USA) can do that

<comment><USER18> TIPS open up a can of worms that most people probably don't want to deal with, unless the bonds are held in a tax-advantaged account (such as an IRA). Here's the skinny straight from the horse's mouth:[1]

       Form 1099-OID shows the amount by which
       the principal of your TIPS increased due
       to inflation or decreased due to deflation.
       Increases in principal are taxable for the
       year in which they occur, even if your
       TIPS hasn't matured, so you haven't yet
       received a payment of principal.

I.e., you must pay annual taxes on an increase in principal for your TIPS bonds, even though you don't get your cash back from the govt until the bond matures.

No thanks! Count me out of that one!

As a possible alternative (which has its own problems) there are Series I savings bonds (which also attempt to compensate for inflation). Those have the advantage of:[2]

       Tax reporting of interest can be deferred
       until redemption, final maturity, or other
       taxable disposition, whichever occurs first.

[1] [http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/re...](http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/research/indepth/tips/res_tips_tax.htm) [2] [http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tipsvsibon...](http://www.treasurydirect.gov/indiv/products/prod_tipsvsibonds.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Lesson number 1 is unequivocally wrong and contradictory with the start of the article. He says you shouldn't invest your money in single stocks, but then advocates for you to invest your money (by way of forgoing salary in favor of equity) into a start up company with (by definition) no track record of success or guaranteed future. Not to mention that when the start-up tanks (which it will do statistically) you will both lose your salary and your investments/equity will be worthless.

<comment><USER20> The assumption is that you work for the startup and have a critical enough position to earn equity, and therefore have more influence over its performance than that of a public company.

<comment><USER9> That's right. In the same way that Buffett can select a company that he believes in and then drive it forward with a strategic investment, you're trying to do the same thing with the startup that you select and drive forward.

And "startup" doesn't have to be 3-4 people. I remember trying to recruit an engineer when Google was maybe 150 people. I tried to convince the engineer that Google was doing well and it wasn't as risky as it looked, but she decided to go work for Siebel instead.

In other words, don't waste money/time/effort on things where you can't make a big difference. Find an area where you can have a lot of leverage or expertise and put your chips there.

<comment><USER21> I question the amount of influence one can actually have on the the trajectory of a start-up, even if you are an early employee. Before I wised up and joined BigUltraMegaCorp, I worked for a number of small companies, and shared offices with brilliant, hard-workers, and we all moved mountains to try to make things work, but at the end of the day, no dice. I'm pretty much convinced at this point that start-up success is almost 100% luck, and you might as well play roulette instead of trying to pick the right one to work for early on.

Hindsight being 20/20, for every "She turned down being employee number 151 at Google to work for Siebel LOL" story, there are 10,000 (maybe 100,000) "I took a chance with Pets.com and they still owe me 6 months of back pay" stories.

<comment><USER22> Pets.com had a successful IPO, seems it could have easily beat out the Seibel career.

<comment><USER21> Possibly bad specific example, although they didn't survive even a year after their IPO. The point remains though. For every start-up success story, there are thousands of failures. Who's smart enough to pick the successes ahead of time AND get a job with one of them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hedonic adaptation is the devil. You'd hope/intuit that spending more resources would make you happier, but that's just not the way it works. That said, you can use knowledge of this quirk of human psychology to make you richer and more secure compared to your higher-consuming self, not sacrificing any long term contentment or satisfaction to do it. Here's a more in-depth review of the topic[1].

[1] [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/22/what-is-hedonic- ad...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/22/what-is-hedonic-adaptation- and-how-can-it-turn-you-into-a-sukka/)

</comment><comment><USER24> I use Wealthfront, which allows you to park your money into an account, and depending on your level of risk, will automatically balance it across the US Stock Market, dividend stocks, emerging and foreign markets, bonds, and natural resources.

For account values over $100K, they will do tax loss harvesting for you automatically, and prevent wash sales. For over $500K account values, they will actually buy stocks for the entire S&P 500, and allow you to take tax losses on individual stocks (which you can't claim on ETFs).

I found their presentation to be quite helpful:

[http://www.slideshare.net/adamnash/personal-finance-for- engi...](http://www.slideshare.net/adamnash/personal-finance-for-engineers- twitter-2013)

If you want an invite, PM me.

<comment><USER25> An important note on tax loss harvesting: it only defers taxes. If you'll be in a lower tax bracket in the future, that can be good; but if you'll be in a higher tax bracket when you need the money (eg house down payment), tax loss harvesting will actually cost you money, so beware.

<comment><USER26> This can be balanced against the fact that you get to invest and compound that deferred tax until you do end up paying it, possibly several years later. So instead of multiplying your account by .65 every year (assuming 35% tax rate), you only multiply it once, at the end.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> If you do get a lot of money somehow, read _The Challenges of Wealth_ , by Amy Domini. Most people who get a reasonably large chunk of cash all at once blow it, in an average of seven years. A sizable fraction of old pro athletes are broke. So are a sizable fraction of lottery winners.

As a rule of thumb, any investment where they call you is no good. If it was any good, it wouldn't need paid sales reps.

<comment><USER28> > _If it was any good, it wouldn 't need paid sales reps._ //

Unless they wanted to increase their profits. Just because something is good doesn't mean that sales reps can't convince more people to want it.

<comment><USER29> The idea is that if it was any good there would be plenty of money thrown at them without having to approach random strangers cutting them in on the action just because they're such nice people.

Of course they want to increase their profits, but that goes for any outbound sales effort. Just the fact that they try to convince you to want it doesn't mean it is good either, most likely it means you don't have the whole story.

So if you do not initiate the contact stay away from investment deals, _especially_ when they're telephone sales calls.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'm of the opinion that the stock markets are now inherently unstable, and they will continue to crash every 7-10 years. I'm expecting a market crash somewhere between 2015 and 2017. Most of my money is in cash, but I do hold a few select stocks like AAPL, GOOG and TSLA.

I also believe that the stock market is a _game_ , not an investment vehicle. The nature of the market has transformed every since the day trader, quants and HFT have entered the markets. As long as you understand this, then putting money in the markets is fine. If you don't want to be a part of the game, then regular people should buy bonds (not bond funds, but actual bonds that pay interest).

My opinion is that Wall Street has shifted focus since the 80s to trying to convince people to dump their money, all their money, into mutual funds. Then these massive fund managers take their 1-3% in various fees and just move money back and forth. I don't trust Vanguard any more than I trust any of these other large mutual fund companies, and I happen to know a lot of people that work at various asset management companies in the Bay Area. They print money without ever beating the SP500, instead they try to change the equation by claiming they beat the SP500 on a risk-weighted basis, etc. The entire thing is a sham, and as the OP remarked, why do the mutual fund managers have yachts but none of the clients do? It's because they make their money from the hundreds of billions of dollars they skim off the top of their customer funds.

<comment><USER31> One of the nice things about Vanguard is that the fee structure is much less than 1-3% for many of their funds. I invest with them in some of their index funds and pay no more than 0.4% in fees; usually much less than that.

<comment><USER32> Vanguard is owned by their funds, so incentives are aligned with the shareholders of the funds. They are very different than most fund companies.

<comment><USER33> That's a bit of a gimmick. Management still pays themselves from the % of invested funds, not fund performance. Same issue as with a nonprofit -- the corporate profit structure is only one source of moral hazard.

<comment><USER32> Their expense ratios are really low. Wellington, an actively managed fund, has an expense ratio of .25%. Their non-actively managed funds, such as the Index500, are under .2%. Those are very low fees compared to other similar investments. To compare with doing it yourself, at retail trade rates, that's about one potential trade per year per $2-3k invested.

Vanguard actively moves clients from their baseline funds to the lower cost/higher minimum Admiral versions.

I just don't see moral hazard in Vanguard, compared to other financial firms with remotely similar capabilities and offerings.

<comment><USER32> Edit, but too late to actually edit --

The expense ratio of Admiral Index 500 is .05%, not .2%. So even better than I'd remembered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started)

Short version: Open a Vanguard account and invest >=15% of your salary in the appropriate target date fund for the year you want to retire.

P.S. Where possible, become a millionaire in Google's IPO.

<comment><USER35> Have target date funds been successful? The last time I checked, their historical performance (admittedly for only 6-7 years) seemed underwhelming.

<comment><USER36> If you care about a 6-7 year window, especially the most recent 6-7 year window, target date funds aren't for you. They'll underperform when the market is doing well. They'll also suffer less when the market tanks. Overall, they're a safer investment if you really do have a fixed target date and want to retire close to that date, and thus you have much less tolerance for risk. In particular, they tune for less risk the closer you get to the target date, to limit unexpected surprises.

If you're near the beginning of your career, you don't have a fixed retirement date in mind, and you're investing a substantial enough fraction of your income that you will likely retire earlier than average, then you might want to pick a standard index fund with a fixed proportion of stocks and bonds based on your tolerance for risk, and leave it that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> > Think about working for equity vs. salary

It's really common for people to drastically overestimate the value of startup equity, or to just not understand the basic mechanics of it at all. In my experience people look at the face value of their options and are pretty clueless about how taxes (or even their strike price!) affect what they might actually wind up with.

<comment><USER30> I agree. It's easy for Matt Cutts to say that you should take more equity, because he has only seen massive success. I've been in the Bay Area exactly as long as he has, and I've had 1 company out of 6 where my options actually made me money. The rest were all worthless.

<comment><USER38> If you're exchanging salary for equity you have to look at taking a job at a startup like an investment decision. I don't know what the broader startup stats are now, but 1 in 6 sounds about average. It means you should negotiate down vesting periods and try and spend a few years at each startup before figuring out if it will succeed or not.

My anecdotal opinion is that more startups are cashing out for at least something because of acquihires and low-end mergers. I had a friend whose startup ran out of money, he accepted a few points of another startup in exchange for the assets of his failed startup and that startup that bought his assets ended up selling for $100M+ after less than a year earning him a decent return.

On another note - it would be pretty cool if someone did the equivalent of an index fund but for employee options. Get together with 5-6 of your friends at different startups and exchange options with each other to hedge the risk.

Another way to diversify your exposure is to get advisory roles at startups and pick up 25-100 b.p from 4-5 different companies for helping them out. This has worked out pretty well for myself.

There are some VCs who will also invest a small slice on your behalf if you introduce them to a deal they end up investing in, which can also work out pretty well if you are able to spot good investment deals, know the founders, etc.

For a culture where stock options, M&A and investing is so prevalent there really isn't much information out there in terms of making the right investment decisions and how to handle and work with money.

<comment><USER21> > On another note - it would be pretty cool if someone did the equivalent of > an index fund but for employee options. Get together with 5-6 of your > friends at different startups and exchange options with each other to hedge > the risk.

This is a pretty cool idea, but you'll have to find a lot of friends for it to work. Chances are, your 5-6 friends' options will also end up worthless. Then again, if we're talking about a pool of maybe 1,000 start-ups, then you need to believe that a diverse bundle of start-ups will outperform the S&P500 on average, otherwise it's pointless.

<comment><USER38> or create a web-based matchmaking market. I think the reason why it may not have happen already is because of regulations _shrug_ \- i'll ask the next time i'm speaking to a lawyer

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I added a comment on Matt's blog post but it's waiting moderation so I'll post it here to hear other folks' input.

"Hi Matt, I usually enjoy your posts but I felt this one lacking in a major way.

Investing is something that has huge potential (ie., 100 fold). This is something that I'm sure you're aware of as an early Google employee (you were invested in the company via stock options, etc). On the other hand, investing has huge downside as well (you can lose all your money).

Many people are advocating people to take a mindless approach to investing by investing in low-cost index funds. I personally think this is decent/good advice for most people who don't have the time, energy, experience, skills to make investing a lifetime passion. In other words, for the typical person who just wants to focus on his 9-to-5 job and other hobbies and not deal with the world of investing, then sure low-cost index funds are the way to go.

However, there are some people who can benefit in huge ways by becoming experts in investing (whether this be in stocks, real estate, businesses, etc). A few disclaimers first… becoming an expert investor is extremely difficult and most people underestimate what it takes. It's not about "picking" stocks or getting lucky. Rather, it's about accumulating the skills, experience and expertise to evaluate investment opportunities in a wise and discerning manner, and to do it exceedingly well. I think it requires an immense amount of time and dedication. And I don't think 98% of the people out there practically have the time, energy, motivation or focus to develop such skills. But for the 1-2%, I think it's a possibility if they treat it as a serious lifetime endeavor."

<comment><USER9> Hey Dave, I approved your comment over on my blog--sorry about the delay. I also wrote a response which I'll paste below:

Dave L, I concede that someone who is willing to put in the time and effort, they may become good at selecting stocks. Then again, they may not: I have friends who have spent a lot of time and effort studying individual stocks without much to show for it. And don't even get me started on the financial press that's there to distract and mislead investors into bad choices–yikes!

In short, I believe that a passive index fund will outperform a majority of professional active money managers, and it's the best choice for the vast majority of people.

Furthermore, who would most people name as the greatest investor of the last 50 years? Probably Warren Buffett. Well, guess how Warren Buffett wants his money left to his wife when he dies? Buffett wants the money in an index fund (!). Here's the article: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/02/24/w...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/02/24/warren- buffett-reveals-the-one-stock-fund-you-need-to-invest-in/) and I'll just quote a bit:

"My advice to the trustee could not be more simple: Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund. (I suggest Vanguard's.) I believe the trust's long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors — whether pension funds, institutions, or individuals — who employ high-fee managers."

So you have to ask yourself: are you smarter than Warren Buffett? Because Buffett is counting on an index fund when he dies.

<comment><USER40> I'm of the tiny, minority unpopular opinion that believes you can beat the market by picking stocks,. I have done so consistently for the past decade. Pick large cap companies with huge growth, high barriers to entry, insulated from economic trends, no debt, and high profit margins.

My favorites:

MA, V, BABA, GOOG, FB, JNJ, GILD, HD

That's not many, but these are some of the best long term investment ideas I can find. Stay away from volatile, macro-sensitive sectors like oil, materials, and retail and stick to healthcare, consumer staples, and utilities. People are getting older and wanting to live longer which is bullish for healthcare, and the web isn't going anywhere even if oil is going to $40.

Or you can try an ETF linear combination [http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1540](http://greyenlightenment.com/?p=1540)

There are many strategies that beat the market and provide as good risk adjusted returns as an index fund .

Warren Buffett , btw, broke his on advice of avoiding tech by buying IBM, which has lagged the market considerably. most of the time Warren Buffett doesn't pick stocks in the traditional sense but instead gets special preferred shares that pay huge dividends and other perks. The performance of BRK.B is influenced more by the private companies like Geico and than stocks like Coke.

<comment><USER41> Good to hear that even if it's tiny, there is a small contingent who agrees. I took a portion of my savings in order to invest and have outperformed the index funds and basic allocations in my 401k and retirement accounts. I don't have a long enough track record (3 years thus far) to assume it can continue but my overall returns have consistently beaten SPY/DJI.

My sense is that investing is a skill and that you have to practice in order to get better. I've enjoyed the books of Thomas Bulkowski ([http://thepatternsite.com/mybooks.html](http://thepatternsite.com/mybooks.html)) and had fun doing it. Because it's not my primary retirement or savings it is less pressure and I try to minimize the gambling aspect instead relying on something more mechanistic.

With that said the current bull market keeps me humble; right now it's easy but if things take a turn I will try to be honest with myself and, if necessary, reallocate everything in index funds.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Regarding most of these lessons, in 2004, Google brought in experts on personal investing to educate employees heading into its initial public offering:

[http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-best- inv...](http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/the-best-investment- advice-youll-never-get)

TL;DR: Put your money into some broad-based, low-cost index funds.

<comment><USER17> ah so why do the Rothschilds put a good chunk of family money in an active fund aka RIT Capital partners.

index funds are fine for some one with only a couple of grand spare - with the sort of money that comes from a good ipo you need to be a bit more sophisticated than that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I am one of those people who have lived this advice and after 10 years of following some of the recommendations here, I can confirm that it works.

Here are my 5 simple rules that I followed, no lottery/IPO, just a steady single income. \- Max out 401K and get company match \- Max out Roth IRA for me and my wife \- Invest in Vanguard S&P 500 Index Funds, some international funds and some bonds \- Invested in a property in India \- Lived below 35% of the salary \- Always bought a used car and kept the car for as long as it runs

Results \- After 10 years, I am financially independent \- I am working for Google just because I enjoy working and not because I need a paycheck \- My wife works as a teacher and she enjoys her job as well. She is working because she likes to and not because we need a paycheck

What was hard ? \- To see friends buying expensive cars just after getting their first job and not doing the same \- Friends buying > 1M$ houses while I kept renting since I like the flexibility and staying in a community \- Friends going on exotic trips

I think at the end, its worth it.

<comment><USER44> This is good advice but may also have some element of survivorship bias. If you haven't noticed, not everybody works for Google. In fact, not everybody works for a company that will match their 401(k). If you're lucky enough to be taking home a six figure salary (not to mention one that grows with bonuses as you progress) every year, maybe this advice is good. But you should consider in your advice that not everyone is taking home $xxx,xxx per year, plus bonuses, plus full company 401(k) matching and all benefits. You are very lucky that you were able to live below 35% of salary.

Still, I wonder if advice would be different for people who are making less?

<comment><USER43> I think the mindset still applies. Surprisingly, I know people who get 6 figure salaries and yet are not financially independent.

The secret here is to start early since the expenses rise exponentially after wife and kids.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> If you diversify enough, you can ensure a 0% return and a 0% loss. The argument for "diversification" is a recipe for safety, but not real wealth creation. Real wealth creation isn't "sticking your money in an index fund." It's a very middle class approach but as with anything, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If it takes 30 years of index funds to be able to retire, then you're doing it wrong. Investing in actual cash-flow producing assets is how you create wealth. Capital appreciation is only one part, the other part is creating cash flow. That means owning businesses, real estate and other passive income generators (IP, for example.)

<comment><USER46> Diversification is considered to be one of the only "free lunches" in finance. It can both increase your return and decrease your risk, with almost no downside.

For example, going from 100% bonds to 80% bonds and 20% stocks will significantly increase a portfolio's expected return with reduced risk. Another example is owning the Total Stock market (small and mid-caps included) rather than just the S&P 500.

[http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/why-and-how- divers...](http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/why-and-how-diversified- investors-win/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Literally everywhere for the past years I see the advice to invest in index funds - the only question I have is what happens when a critical mass of people do just that? Wouldn't that influence the market in some way?

<comment><USER48> that's the paradox of the efficient market hypothesis - if everyone is a passive investor then who keeps the market efficient?

(...which is a common counter-argument for the markets being efficient. The reasoning behind passive investment is that, net of fees, it's difficult to out-perform the market although of course, everyone can't outperform the market because everyone collectively IS the market)

<comment><USER2> Companies themselves buy and sell their own stock when they believe it is under/overvalued. And there will always be people out there who believe they have an edge and can pick undervalued stocks.

These days I think in reality most people who have been into indexing for a while give themselves a bit of play money to invest in something more speculative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> There is an economics article I've brought up several times on HN. It has a lot of non obvious deep implications: " _The Nature of the Firm ' (1937), By Ronal Coase_" It tries to answer the question of why companies exist rather than bilaterally trade of goods and services between individuals in a market. IE, if centralised economies are so bad, why are free market economies dominated by enormous companies that are internally run like a Stalinist country. Instead of Apple making all the software and hardware and the babushka doll of precursor software and hardware, couldn't we have Apple replaced by a market?

The economics of the time (especially among proponents of centralized systems) focused a lot on "inefficiencies." Why produce hundreds of iPad screen designs when only one is needed. Economies of scale. Coase's answer to the question was transaction costs. The "cost" of weighing all the options and negotiating a deal to have you write a thousand lines of code to go into my bigger bundle of code.

In modern companies like Apple this is extreme. But, if you think about it in a manufacturing economy, it makes more sense.

Anyway, as I said, the more I think about it the deeper some of the concepts and implications seem to be. For example: (a) There are inefficiencies out there on the scale of East/West Germany. (b) Transactions costs are at the root of many/most major inefficiencies.

The part of this blog that got me thinking about this was " _working for equity vs. salary_."

I think that for most people, the choice company they work for wass 80% chance and 20% uninformed bias. Applying for a job and interviewing is a big overhead (transaction cost) and your ability understand the company's chances of success and the magnitude of this success isn't very good. The fact that many people don't know what percentage of the company their stock represents is the glaring proof. Prospective employees don't have anywhere near the information that investors do. How much money is in the bank? What are revenues? Burn rate? Valuation at previous rounds?

The poverty of information and the fact that transaction costs make it impossible for one to consider more than the tiniest semi-random sample of opportunities is exactly the kind of dynamic I think Coase's work implies.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm surprised he doesn't mention real estate or investing in friend/family businesses as an option.

This isn't as safe as index funds, but it is an option where you can increase your success rate by being competent. It probably has a risk profile similar to working for equity at a startup, an option only available to people who work in or around startups.

<comment><USER50> Nor did he mention Facebook stock. Weird.

<comment><USER49> I'm not sure I understand your point. Are you just implying the FB is a bad investment and so are the ones I mentioned?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I've been considering moving from holding Vanguard ETFs (one of their Total Retirement funds) over to Betterment or Wealthfront to take advantage of their automated tax loss harvesting.

Does anyone have any thoughts about whether automated tax loss harvesting is worth the 0.15-0.25% fees that the robo-advisers charge?

<comment><USER34> Probably not worth it unless you have a very large portfolio and you're too lazy to do the tax loss harvesting yourself. It's especially not worth it if you're correctly holding most of your retirement savings in tax-advantaged accounts (401k/403b/IRA/HSA). You are, right?

Also, it's worth noting that Schwab is launching a free robo-advisor service early next year[0] so that may be the nail in the coffin for startups like Betterment.

[0] [http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/us-charles- schwab-...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/03/us-charles-schwab-robo- advice-idUSKCN0HS1UV20141003)

<comment><USER51> Thanks for the tip about Schwab, looks interesting, especially the 'free' part.

Thinking about it, basis points feel too expensive for something that's done entirely in software. I suspect competition from existing players will drive the price right down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> This is the typical investment advice, and it's generally outdated and wrong to just invest in index funds based on asset classes if your goal is to diversify away volatility.

For a layman's treatment debunking this view (don't mind the title):

[http://www.amazon.com/Jackass-Investing-Dont- Profit/dp/09835...](http://www.amazon.com/Jackass-Investing-Dont- Profit/dp/0983504008)

for a more academic flavor:

[http://www.amazon.com/Expected-Returns-Investors- Harvesting-...](http://www.amazon.com/Expected-Returns-Investors-Harvesting- Rewards/dp/1119990726)

the best book on stock picking i've read:

[http://www.amazon.com/Quantitative-Value-Web-Site- Practition...](http://www.amazon.com/Quantitative-Value-Web-Site- Practitioners/dp/1118328078)

</comment><comment><USER53> Everybody in the tech world is talking about investing in index funds. Historical evidence says this is the way to go, but when everybody is doing it, it makes me question whether or not it's the right choice.

There's a possibility that the market is in another bubble right now.

<comment><USER17> the trouble with index funds is you participate fully in any crash/dogs eg index funds had to hold enron to the bitter end.

some of my active funds saw the problems with the banks and got out before the crash now no index fund is ever likely to make up the difference - the active fund is now always ahead of the index

<comment><USER54> > the active fund is now always ahead of the index

but the question is how do you select the active fund which will consistently beat the market in the future.

<comment><USER17> look for ones that have been around for 100 plus years and with 30-40 years of increasing dividend payments

<comment><USER9> This guy named Bernie Madoff was able to outperform the market for years and years, I hear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> Made me think (as most of the lessons coincide) about the book I'm reading at the moment - 'Money: Master the Game' by Tony Robbins: [http://moneymasterthegame.com/](http://moneymasterthegame.com/)

<comment><USER56> Want to see how hard it is to predict the market? Watch this message from Tony Robbins to his followers in 2010: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzREzgDoaZg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzREzgDoaZg)

He says he believes the market may be entering a dangerous period and all but advises getting out of stocks. (Watch part 1 and part 2). If you followed his advice from 2010 until now, you've lost out big time. My point isn't that Tony Robbins was wrong, it's that it is very hard to predict the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Most of this is standard sane advice, but the tip about "work for equity [in the next Google] instead of chasing salary": well if we all could pick stocks like that, we would not need the rest of his advice!

</comment><comment><USER57> > You are probably a bad stock picker

You might find a stock that looks good, you check financials, fillings, read forum posts and "expert" financial blogs such as Seeking Alpha. They all concur: stock looks good, BUY! BUY! BUY!

So you buy the stock thinking you are making an informed decision only for it to crash the next day after their latest SEC filing hits the wires.

There you learn they all knew the filing was coming, so they pimped the stock hard so suckers like us bite. Corp officials, analysts, "expert" financial bloggers, even the SEC. They are all on it.

<comment><USER58> I doubt you'll believe me, but there are a lot of 100% independent investors that are on twitter and forums as well as write in-depth blogs who consistently outperform the market and do not resort to any sort of tricks like this.

Of course, you have to find them (and I'm certainly not going to share as I have made a significant investment of time finding these people, and many of the stocks they buy are small caps), and you also have to (or should) do your own due diligence on every purchase.

Seeking Alpha specifically is mostly full of people like you describe, but there is also _some_ honest, legitimate advice there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> What is especially hard in investing is timing. If you followed Matt's advice and put all your investments to index fund (say Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF, [https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSEARCA)) in the late 2007, you would have lost almost 50% of your savings in a year. And this example is not far fetched. My startup got acquired in 2007 and I invested some of that money to the stock market in late 2007. Not all, fortunately.

<comment><USER60> This is a terrible way of looking at things, since your time horizon is far too short. If you had put your money in the market at the height and kept it in until now, you would have made money. On Oct 5, 2007, VTSAX was trading at 37.72. It is currently trading at 51.87. Moreover, what was the alternative? Cash would have lost value due to inflation. Fixed income would have gotten you less and also been vulnerable to inflation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I was a #1-ranked stock analyst (computer software and services industry) in the 1980s. I took a portion of my parents' money and doubled it in 18 months, by splitting it among 5 stocks that went to 4X, 3X, 3X, 0X and 0X. Then I left Wall Street, told them I no longer was in a position to do such stock picking, and they should put their money into Vanguard index funds.

They were not pleased, and felt I let them down by not being more active in investing for them.

<comment><USER12> > _it among 5 stocks that went to 4X, 3X, 3X, 0X and 0X_

What stocks?

<comment><USER61> Symbolics was one of the bankruptcies. American Management Systems and Lotus were two of the winners. I've forgotten the others.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Interesting topic and one that really resonates with me. I have always been interested in learning how to make money the way "people with money" make it. Personally I have come to the conclusion that a few solid stocks paired with protective puts and/or call options (to make a little extra money for sideways markets) provides a decent way to generate some extra income and greatly reduces risk of losing everything from a single mistake

</comment><comment><USER63> For a different take people might be interested in "A Mathematician Plays the Stockmarket", by John Allen Paulos (he also wrote the excellent "Innumeracy").

The book explains a bunch of mistakes he made when investing.

[http://www.amazon.com/Mathematician-Plays-The-Stock- Market/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Mathematician-Plays-The-Stock- Market/dp/0465054811)

</comment><comment><USER64> FYI, if "tax loss harvesting" is something you'd like to consider, there're companies out there which (for a fee), would do it for you. Their entire business model is to lose money for you, in a smart way. That said, if you need to use this method, you're probably wealthy enough to know how/where to use it.

<comment><USER65> Honestly IMO tax loss harvesting becomes very straightforward if you have a nice, simple portfolio of index funds. Your entire portfolio will be maybe 3-5 funds, so there really isn't much to keep track of. A few minutes reading the superficial loss rules for your jurisdiction should do it. (Generally, as long as you sell a fund at a loss and replace it with something similar, but tracking a different index, you're fine.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> How many people are actually living entirely off passive income from interest, dividends, and capital gains? I feel that goal—which requires millions of dollars in investable financial assets—is only realistic for a tiny percentage of the population.

<comment><USER17> You could live quite well off only a £million or so in the UK so 2 mill in the USA will give you a nice life style - baring any catastrophic health issues

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> > _Instead of a regular stock broker, I highly recommend Vanguard. Go with > Vanguard whenever you can._

This is good advice. YMMV but my retirement fund with Vanguard has been yielding ~10% annually (VWELX).

</comment><comment><USER67> Remarkably good ideas, and I tend to view most posts like this as Snake Oil.

Almost everyone should be doing most of their equity investments through a passive low cost index like Vanguard's.

</comment><comment><USER60> The tragic thing is that these lessons don't have to be "hard-won". I find it astonishing that a majority of even intelligent people don't do more basic research before making major decisions with something as important as their money. A few hours of research should turn up things like bogleheads.org, Bernstein, Malkiel, etc. Heck, a simple google of "site:ycombinator.com investing advice" should get you on the right track to all the advice you need in a few clicks.

</comment><comment><USER68> Simple advice: just use Wealthfront and take all of this advice at once, automatically. [http://wlth.fr/1fsdN6t](http://wlth.fr/1fsdN6t)

</comment><comment><USER69> The tone is far too authoritative given the narrow experience of the author. Reading an Googler's quickie blogpost investment guide isn't the path to financial independence. It's barely the bot-filled advice of /r/personalfinance with a better PageRank.

Microsoft pushed giving and 30 years later there are still people blindly pumping money into United Way. (Maybe not the best charity!) Google seems to have pushed their smart people into another half-baked set of assumptions.

I'm forcing myself NOT to get involved on this one (the solution to one person's narrow experience isn't another guy with different narrow experience ranting in the comments) but I will point out that Schwab Charitable (their DAF) has lower minimums and fees than Vanguard.

A lot of nerds spend more time researching a graphics card than a stock pick or charity. Like anything else, put the time in and you'll be rewarded over the long term.

<comment><USER70> I agree. One of the most cringe-worthy parts of this post is the author's multiple references to bond funds. Owning bond funds is not the same thing as owning bonds and every bond investor should know the difference.

Bond prices have an inverse relationship with interest rates. Bond prices fall when interest rates rise. When you own individual bonds, you cannot lose your principal if you hold to maturity unless the issuer defaults. Most bond funds do not hold bonds to maturity, so investors in bond funds have significant exposure to interest rate risk. This is especially true today given the interest rate environment.

There _are_ other ways to address interest rate risk with bond funds, especially if you have a longer horizon. You can buy short-term bond funds, and there are even defined maturity funds. But you don't find any mention of those in the post. It's just bonds = bond funds.

It all comes back to your comment, "put the time in and you'll be rewarded over the long term." Even seemingly simple financial advice ("buy a bond fund!") is insufficient because it requires more time and effort to execute correctly than most people are willing to put in.

<comment><USER52> This is oft-cited difference between bonds and bond funds is a red herring when it comes to determining the proper investment of the two. The reason a single bond keeps you from losing your principal is because it has a declining duration, whereas bond funds generally have a fixed duration (more or less) since maturing bonds in the portfolio are usually reinvested into bonds of the same time to maturity.

You can simulate the behavior of a single bond by rolling your investments into shorter and shorter duration bond funds over time. The reason you would do this is if you have a known date for when you are going to need the principal. (This is the same justification you would use for buying an individual bond.) By controlling the duration via reinvestment into bond funds, you are diversifying away a majority of of the default risk ( _the_ major risk of owning bonds) while still being able to ensure your bonds are worth at least as much as your principal on a fixed date determined at the beginning of the investment.

As an aside, concern about the market price of a bond is usually a good example of focusing on the wrong thing. If a bond's price has declined because of increased default risk, this is obviously bad. But if a bond's price has declined because of increased interest rates, this means you will be able to re-invest the coupon at a larger yield, so depending on your investment goals (such as having a robust inflation adjusted income stream for retirement) this may not be strictly a bad thing.

[http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Individual_bonds_vs_a_bond_fu...](http://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Individual_bonds_vs_a_bond_fund)

<comment><USER70> > You can simulate the behavior of a single bond by rolling your investments > into shorter and shorter duration bond funds over time.

As I noted, there are ways to address interest rate risk with bond funds, but you're ignoring the most important question in the context of this discussion: how many retail investors who put money into bond funds actually know about laddering strategies?

> But if a bond's price has declined because of increased interest rates, this > means you will be able to re-invest the coupon at a larger yield...

This is true, but you have to wait until maturity unless you're willing to sell your bond at a loss. Despite the low interest rate environment, there are still a good number of retail investors buying exposure to long-dated bonds because they don't take the time to understand their investments. Many of these investors will either have to realize potentially painful losses or wait a long time before they have the opportunity to buy new bonds with higher yields.

<comment><USER52> I don't think you read the article I linked. Reducing the effective duration on the bond fund portion of your portfolio boils down to the same thing you'd do in any healthy portfolio: yearly rebalancing.

Also, the point is not to hedge 'interest rate risk' by just buying shorter duration funds, full stop. Interest rates do not pose a risk unless you had a set date to liquidate your investment. If you are not planning on liquidating your bonds then interest rates pose no risk, they just affect the growth of the income stream.

The point is, if you are concerned about getting your principal returned, decide upon how many years down the road you need it back. That is your initial duration. To maximize your return under that constraint, buy a fund at that duration. Then yearly rebalance with other shorter duration funds (while reinvesting coupons properly) to taper the net duration down over the course of the investment period. There you go, you've just simulated a single bond but now are no longer exposed to default risk.

Again: perpetuating the idea that 'getting your principal back' is a feature only found if you buy individual bonds directly is untrue and can result in _terrible_ investment decisions. It presents a false dilemma between a 'secure principal' and diversification. Forgoing diversification in _bonds_ is one of the most dangerous things you can do. More than any other asset class, bonds benefit immeasurably from diversification (and probably also active management) since default risk is the major risk the investor faces.

<comment><USER70> I don't think you understand the context of this discussion. As I explicitly stated, "there are other ways to address interest rate risk with bond funds." But this isn't a technical discussion about bond buying strategies. This is a discussion about high-level financial "advice" that was woefully inadequate for the intended audience (retail investors).

To highlight this, I used the author's lack of distinction between bonds and bond funds and the most simple difference between _how they function as employed by your average retail investor_. You're obviously free to go off on a wild tangent detailing in more depth the way that bond funds _can_ be used, but ironically you're only proving my original point: this is not nearly as simple as the OP's advice ("buy a bond fund!") and requires an investment of time and effort that exceeds what the vast majority of people are willing to put in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Consider also buying a bunch of bitcoins. The reward/risk ratio is too high in my opinion.</comment>


All Eyes on France as Officials Enforce New Antipiracy Law - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303550904575562130775993568.html

<comment><USER2> Holy cow, what an astonishingly biased article. It's all from the viewpoint of "Intellectual Property" maximalists, with no examination of the Hadopi law itself, or the possible consequences of the law. It doesn't even examine the "125,000" IP addresses a day claim, which seems utterly absurd to me.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "The implementation of France's new antipiracy law -— which is one of the first in the world, along with similar legislation in South Korea, Taiwan and Britain -— is considered a litmus test by other nations hoping to crack down on intellectual property theft."</comment>


Ask HN: Is it feasible to run your own DNS name servers nowadays? - <AUTHOR> I'm talking for a small operation (personal blog, startup, etc).
Currently my DNS is hosted by Cloudflare, however I would like to have more fine-grain control over the zones, including DNS failover and GeoDNS.
I am looking into running a resilient pair of BIND servers. They will detect when one of my web servers goes down (e.g. for reboot) and pull the record (which will have a low TTL to avoid excessive caching). I also want to use GeoDNS to point users towards the nearest web server.
It seems to be very rare these days for people to run their own name servers. What are some of the common pitfalls and issues related to this? <comment><USER2> Pitfalls off the top of my head: Detecting servers going down is not very simple. They don't just go down and become completely unresponsive. Sometimes they become slow, overloaded, generate incorrect responses, sometimes there are connectivity issues, packets get dropped. Sometimes connectivity issues are not globally visible, but affect only some of your users. The number of affected users might increase over time too without you detecting anything. All of the problems apply to monitoring nodes too.

The simplest approach that more or less works is to use a single monitoring node close to your users and only make decisions when majority of servers are responsive. Once some server has more than one problem over a few tries, pull its record. Then put it back once it's been free of problems for some time.

When updating DNS records automatically increase serial number of the zone. Make sure monitoring node retrieves that serial number from DNS servers on start, to survive own crashes.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes.

I've run my own servers for my own hobby domains as long as the internet has existed. No issues there. I think people just like the convenience of something they don't have to maintain. Unless you expect your blogs to be controversial enough for a DDoS, there is no need for a commercial DNS provider.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not sure how I missed out the "Ask HN", thanks for reminding me.

Regarding the DNS, have you run into any issues with people using your DNS server for DoS amplification attacks?

Also would you be able to share which DNS server software you are running?

<comment><USER3> For a while, I ran bind. Then for quite a while, I used a modified version of rbldnsd, which is not really meant to be used that way, but it was very good at absorbing abuse and didn't even implement most record types. It just had what I required.

When I eventually needed a proper DNS servers again so that I could have CAA records, I switched to NSD [1]. NSD is stricly authoritative, vs. its counter- part Unbound [2] for recursive. It is a little faster than bind and has not had quite as many CVE's associated with it as bind. That said, bind was there for a long time and they learned along the way. You can find sites that compare the features and benefits of NSD vs. bind.

I have not been used for amplification attacks. That said, people have tried enumerating many things over the years. There are some things you can do both in the DNS config and in iptables to reduce some noise. You would want to look on serverfault [3] for ideas. I set really high TTL records, so DDoS would only affect people that have not used my site in a while.

[1] - NSD: [https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/about/](https://www.nlnetlabs.nl/projects/nsd/about/)

[2] - Unbound: [https://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/unbound/about/](https://nlnetlabs.nl/projects/unbound/about/)

[3] - Serverfault: [https://serverfault.com/](https://serverfault.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the info, this will be really useful. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been running my own nameservers since 1994. It's one of the simplest services to run. I use BIND.</comment>


Conquering the Command Line - Free eBook - <AUTHOR> http://conqueringthecommandline.com/book

<comment><USER2> Learn to master and conquer the most valuable and useful command line tools for Unix and Linux based systems. In this book you will find not only the most useful command line tools you need to know, but also the most helpful options and flags for those tools. Conquering the Command Line isn't just a rehash of the MAN page for these tools, but rather a human-readable walk-through of these tools to make you instantly more productive in your daily development life.

<comment><USER3> Mark, on the title it says Free ebook however going to the site there is no option for getting the book for free?

<comment><USER2> That link should take you right to the page to start reading it online. If not there should be a big Read Online button that takes. You to that page. I'll pass the feedback on to Softcover that it's not more obvious.

<comment><USER4> I would say that reading for free online is different from offering a free eBook as the title indicates. 'Free online HTML book' would seem like a better description to me if that's the case.

<comment><USER2> That's certainly more descriptive. I always think of those as eBooks though. In my mind I don't really see there being a difference. HTML is one, of many, eBook formats.

<comment><USER4> The main difference for me would be that I'd consider an eBook to be something I can download (epub, mobi, pdf etc...) and read on my Kobo offline. Can't see how I could easily do that with the online HTML version.

As a comparison, I found this on Skimfeed today:

[http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/guide-to-kde-the-other- linux-...](http://www.makeuseof.com/pages/guide-to-kde-the-other-linux- desktop)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Those of you wanting to learn (or teach) these tools might find useful what I wrote to help my kids learn (sorry for the self-promotion, but I think it's relevant to the topic at hand). I tried to make it learn-by-doing and, most important, to help them figure out how to learn more by themselves. The basic shell is here,

[http://juanreyero.com/ways-hackers/terminal.html](http://juanreyero.com/ways- hackers/terminal.html)

The following two chapters, also online in full, are about more Unix tools, and Emacs/Vi.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thank you! Everyone remember to click Read Online if you want to read for free, and Buy Now if you'd like to download PDF, MOBI, ePub, and HTML. Mark is well worth supporting.

</comment><comment><USER7> Free preview, you meant?

<comment><USER2> No, you can read the whole thing online. The link takes you to where you can read the whole book for free.

<comment><USER7> Oh ok, didn't notice that, thanks much!</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Feedback on concept - <AUTHOR> http://twocentsonline.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello HN community. Working on a review site centered on providing your friends ratings along side the average rating. I find a friends recommendations is more relevant than strangers from Yelp and product reviews sites. This is my first MVP, and I am not a coder, so I cobled together a bunch of paid software...ugg btw, its very hard for a non-programer.

Look forward to any feedback. Regards,</comment>


What is and how to use EnumMap - java-only http://www.java-only.com/LoadTutorial.javaonly?id=17

<comment><AUTHOR> Better post stuff like this to dzone.com .</comment>


On problems with threads in Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://www.future-processing.pl/blog/on-problems-with-threads-in-node-js/ <comment><USER2> Not sure if it was intentional, but the article is quite misleading.

The thread pool in node is only used for a limited number of APIs. Pretty much all networking uses native async IO and is unaffected by the size of the thread pool. Things like Oracle's driver are rare exceptions: the typical MySQL/PostgreSQL/redis etc drivers all use native async IO and are unaffected by this.

The author only glosses over this briefly. As a result this article leaves the impression that the problem described is the norm, which is not the case.

<comment><USER3> It's a completely unscientific method, but searching through one of our large applications (`npm ls|wc -l` -> ~2000 dependencies), the only modules I can find using `uv_queue_work` are:

* kerberos, unused (dependency of mongodb)

* protobuf, for serializing data

* snappy, for compression

kerberos isn't actually used in our app, so it doesn't matter, but we send a lot of data through protobuf and snappy, so it may be worth us profiling this a little more.

<comment><USER2> You can also experiment with different values for the env variable `UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE`; last time I checked this can even be set from the JS code via `process.env['UV_THREADPOOL_SIZE']` if you make sure to do it before you call something that uses the threadpool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's worth noting that DB drivers that actually integrate with libuv are a minority - most DB divers use Node-level network APIs and are unaffected by such thread pool limits.

<comment><USER5> Why would a DB driver need to integrate with libuv in the first place?

<comment><USER6> In the case where the driver (for instance the official libmysql) doesn't expose its network interface (e.g. its sockets can't be used with an external event loop). In that case, it would block on IO operation, and there is no other choice but to push it to another thread.

That said, using a driver in another thread leads to various complexities that can be avoided when running in the same application (javascript/v8) thread/event loop.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I actually ran into an issue recently with CPU intensive tasks blocking my web server. It turns out that "querystring" (used to parse request bodies in web applications) is an asynchronous, blocking request. You'd never notice much slowness, until your request bodies are massive (think 50 nested JSON objects and some base64 image data for good measure) and you have multiple per second. Now, every request is blocked until the previous one is processed. I'm still trying to figure out a solution, after looking into worker threads, etc.

<comment><USER2> I always use the following replacements written by petkaanotonov, the author of bluebird :)

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/querystringparser](https://www.npmjs.com/package/querystringparser) for query string parsing. Depending on content, you may get massive improvements (5x-20x)

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/fast-url- parser](https://www.npmjs.com/package/fast-url-parser) for url parsing (the built in url parser is the main reason why node is so far behind on the TechEmpower benchmark - with this replacement the benchmark shows about 60-80% improvement in served req/s)

[https://www.npmjs.com/package/cookieparser](https://www.npmjs.com/package/cookieparser)

For very large post bodies, I use JSON in conjunction with OboeJS - [http://oboejs.com/](http://oboejs.com/) . Its not too much slower than native JSON.parse (about 5-7 times) however its non-blocking. Still haven't found a solution that is close enough in speed to native JSON.parse

<comment><USER8> This comment in itself is probably more valuable than the OP

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thank you for sharing your findings here. Very pertinent to me right now - could actually drastically minimise the amount of research I have to do today. I love HN.

</comment><comment><USER10> Is there a detailed overview about which functions in libuv (Nodejs) rely on blocking primitives and thus are using the thread pool to work async?

From [here]([http://docs.libuv.org/en/latest/design.html](http://docs.libuv.org/en/latest/design.html)), it sounds like all file IO is always based on blocking primitives, and native async file IO primitives are not used, although such async file IO primitives do exists and were tried out in libtorrent ([http://blog.libtorrent.org/2012/10/asynchronous-disk- io/](http://blog.libtorrent.org/2012/10/asynchronous-disk-io/)). The result of that experiment however was mostly that the thread pool solution was simpler to code (I guess).

From the libuv design doc, the overview is:

* Filesystem operations

* DNS functions (getaddrinfo and getnameinfo)

* User specified code via uv_queue_work()

I wonder whether this is really the best solution of if some combination of a thread pool and native async disk IO primitives could perform better.

<comment><USER11> > The result of that experiment however was mostly that the thread pool > solution was simpler to code (I guess).

and uniformly asynchronous (native async operations may not cover e.g. file copy or filesystem operations, furthermore filesystems may block during submission of IO ops which makes the operations effectively synchronous) and have higher throughput (they support read/write vectors).

<comment><USER10> We could use the thread pool for blocking primitives and otherwise use the native AIO primitives, couldn't we?

And the higher throughput seemed only to be a problem on MacOSX, so we could fallback to the thread pool there, but use the async IO on Windows and Linux.

<comment><USER4> I thought that's basically what libuv does: it uses AIO on platforms that support it, falling back to thread pool on platforms that don't.

Edit: apparently I was wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is this another case of "here's the code I ran" when in fact they didn't? There should be 3 lines of output, not 6!

Also, the code says it will print the time taken since the start of the program, which again doesn't go with the output and the conclusion being made!

Anyway, how come the output isn't in order?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, thanks for that - seems the results from the first run of the example somehow got lost in the final version and I didn't notice.

The order of the output is dependent on when each call finished - they run in parallel, so it's not guaranteed that functions will end in the order they were invoked.

<comment><USER12> Ah yes, so they do. My lack of sleep is showing!

For some reason I was thinking the readdir would run in series so output would go up by ~1s each time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Use named functions to avoid closures!

      for (var i = 0; i < 3; ++i) {
        namedFunction(i);
      }

      function namedFunction(id) {
        fs.readdir('.', function () {
          var end = process.hrtime(start);
          console.log(util.format('readdir %d finished in %ds', id, end[0] + end[1] / 1e9));
        });
      };

</comment><comment><USER14> Does it mean the async functions about file system operations are not really asynchronous in Node.js? The whole node.js server will be blocked if the number of file system operations is bigger than the thread pool size. :-(

<comment><USER4> Not the whole server - most of the networking IO will work just fine, only the operations that use libuv thread pool will be queued.

<comment><USER14> Got it. queued != blocked Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 4 seems like a ridiculously low default size for the thread pool.

<comment><USER16> It is only for file system operations, and mostly these do not actually block, as the results are available in cache. So it is probably reasonable for casual use.

Now if you want to get good performance on an SSD (ie the rated iops) you will need a decent queue depth, like 32 or so, so it wont work but thats a specialist use case.

<comment><USER17> SSD's are a specialist use case these days? Or getting good performance on them is? What do you mean?

<comment><USER16> Getting full performance from them is a specialist requirement. Most people are not disk IO bound on SSD.

<comment><USER15> Isn't pretty much every DB that doesn't fit into RAM?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> (noob question) why would the libuv threadpool choose to use a static 4 instead of something like matching the number of processor cores available by default?

<comment><USER19> For things like filesystem access, you'd want more threads than CPUs because that's not CPU heavy. It still seems like they could choose a saner default though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there an easy way to identify the number of tasks queued in uv's work queue?

</comment><comment><USER21> To sum it up: node.js runs only 4 background threads. Be aware of this.

No big deal really. I have multiple servers running node.js under load for 3+ years and never had an issue with this.

In fact, I found it helpful. If your database is under load and is already running 4 heavy queries, not giving it any more jobs is actually a good thing.

<comment><USER22> On the other hand, not being able to hit the filesystem because you have those four queries running is... not so helpful.

In general, this looks like it could be a performance bottleneck for highly- concurrent applications.

<comment><USER23> I agree with this - the right place to restrict the number of concurrent database queries is the database, not the whole IO layer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Piece of badly engineered software conquering the world. As if more JavaScript was really something worth pursuing.

<comment><USER25> Do you realize that comments like this are what is breaking the community here at HN?

Are you aware that people like you are destroying something that was once brilliant?

HN is going through an Eternal September.

<comment><USER26> Calm down man, nobody's breaking anything. Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. You can express your thinking on the matter by up/down voting. Relax :)

<comment><USER25> Heh - maybe you're right, and I wish the world were as you describe. :-)

There is however a deeper underlying issue; decorum is important and communities that exhibit genuine 'niceness' are nice. Communities that allow, or worse, overlook dark behaviour degenerate.

Flagging and down voting is one part of the solution, but when the nastiness reaches a level that the nice people start to disengage and go elsewhere, it's clear to me that we need another element of control. Perhaps algorithmically detecting repeat offenders? Perhaps more granularity with down votes?

There's are differences between a down vote because one disagrees with the author, and a down vote because one believes the author is ill-informed and spreading misinformation, and a down vote because the author is being downright juvenile.

A number of hits on the third case against a given author on multiple comments could conceivably constitute an automatic warning and / or banning system.

I don't want people to be unable to express their views, but when the mean- spirited people who contribute nothing but nonsense start to represent a large percentage of a community, it's reasonable to see if anything can be done.

<comment><USER27> > There's are differences between a down vote because one disagrees with the > author, and a down vote because one believes the author is ill-informed and > spreading misinformation, and a down vote because the author is being > downright juvenile.

The difference is that the first two should not be voted down. If you vote down, you should not comment. If you comment, it means at the very least the comment added to the conversation, unless your comment is also not worth posting and you should be voted down as well.

It's fairly simple: does the comment bring value to the conversation? If it does so directly, vote up. If only indirectly, than don't. If it does not, vote down.

Whether you disagree or not is irrelevant. And someone being ill-informed should be corrected. At the very least, by writing an incorrect comment, they are presenting an opportunity to be corrected.

> I don't want people to be unable to express their views, but when the mean- > spirited people who contribute nothing but nonsense start to represent a > large percentage of a community, it's reasonable to see if anything can be > done.

Things can already be done. Vote down and don't reply. That is the best way. Vote down and ignore.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Can somebody help us with banking for our startup? - <AUTHOR>

As a founder outside USA, I have had a tonne of trouble getting a bank account in the US. I finally manage to convince one to open an account with my ID details. But they won't let me use a virtual office/virtual post as mailing address for my company. They want a 'physical address which is not a mailing service'.
Anyone here from the US willing to be an 'adviser' so that we can give your address to the bank? Don't worry, we won't need you to do anything with the bank. The account will have my ID details. You might receive some mails. But we can pay you to transfer those.
I know this is unusual but really, I'm out of options!! Its been such a struggle. We're ready to make money but this banking crap won't let us!! Startups are super difficult as it is, but on top of it we have to deal with this 'red tape' everywhere. Hope we get some help.
Thanks for reading guys. I will let you know about who we are when you contact us. The email is in my profile.
Wouldn't mind some helpful tips on US banking for foreigners either. <comment><USER2> You have a law firm, right? You can use your lawyer's address. Or give them Regus. Regus addresses are semi-permanent, not a PO box. A bank should accept that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your suggestions. So should I ask the attorney who did a $1000 worth of legal work to act as our banking address? We don't formally have a law firm which represents us. Just got some stock agreements executed. Can you suggest a good law firm which can do what you suggest?

Tried Regus, doesn't work.</comment></comment>


Fake Empire - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mittermayr/fake-world-7a21ecde82c3

<comment><USER2> Now this is something worth pondering. Now I can painfully see how idealistic and incorrect my thoughts on this subject were for so many years...

</comment><comment><USER3> Simply put, advertising (attention) is a zero sum game, therefore more and more money keeps pouring into this game, with no end in sight.</comment>