So long, and thanks for the Ph.D. - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.unc.edu/~azuma/hitch4.html <comment><USER2> My random musings from three years in CS grad school at UNC:

Of all the graduate students I met, you could more or less divide them into two classes. The first class wanted the PhD as a means to an end, such as doing research, or getting a professorship. The second class had more abstract and less well-defined goals. Sometimes that meant generally "doing good for the world", or "seemed like the right thing to do", or "the working world sucks, this is the lesser of two evils".

I fell into the second class.

I spent three years doing computer science grad school at UNC. I passed my dissertation proposal and then decided to leave.

I don't resent those three years and did learn a few things along the way.

Getting a PhD is ultimately about getting 5 other PhD's to sign off on your dissertation. At least that's the requirement in computer science at UNC. I wish that had been more clear to me at the beginning.

Graduate school as a means of stalling to find something you love to work on is not a horrible way to go. In the meantime you might solve a few problems. I also consider it noble that we (graduate students) as a whole are willing to do the nation's research for such little pay.

Had I thought long and hard about why I was doing the PhD to being with, I may not have started. But life always charges its own tuition.

From the article "As long as you have an answer that you believe in passionately, then that's enough." My three years in graduate school taught me that the most. Find something you love, or least have passion and do that. It may be a silly belief, but it's worth believing in.

<comment><USER3> > Of all the graduate students I met, you could more or less divide them into > two classes

Agree. I almost went for it as well, though for a challenge and as a competition - publish the best paper in the best conference. Seemed like not too many people viewed it as that.

<comment><USER4> RE: _publish the best paper in the best conference_

Usually, this is very hard to achieve. Not only is it hard to find _the_ best conference in _your_ field, getting the best paper award (nb. that there are conferences that don't have a one!) has (at times) something to do with sense of fashion and/or the valuation of your achievements by the programme committe. (I recently stumbled upon an article [unfortunately I cannot remember when and where, 20min of Googling did not help either] that detailed how Albert Einstein did not believe in one of his own equations, which was in the larger context that is difficult for scientists to properly judge their own contributions -- assuming this is correct, having the intention of writing "best paper award" papers seems _very_ difficult...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've interviewed a fair number of people that claim that they completed 90% of their PhD, but didn't quite get to the finishing line. While I sympathize, they haven't really grasped that the last 10% of the distance takes at least 50% of the effort.

From the outside, a PhD sounds like it's all about 'smarts'. Having been through the process I'd estimate the requirements of smarts:tenacity = 50:50. (YMMV)

<comment><USER6> It depends what you're looking for, though. The last 10% is heavily on the writing up and justifying independent research part, with some academic politics thrown in (convincing five professors to sign off on your thesis is not as objective a process as one might think). If what you want is someone really good at _applying_ research, perhaps with clever tweaks, that part might not be as important. That's one reason places like Palantir explicitly recruit for "all-but-dissertation" PhD students. They need the kind of knowledge that someone will get from being in the research world for 3-5 years, but their needs aren't quite the same as someone hiring for a professorship.

<comment><USER7> _"The last 10% is heavily on the writing up and justifying independent research part, with some academic politics thrown in....places like Palantir explicitly recruit for "all-but-dissertation" PhD students. They need the kind of knowledge that someone will get from being in the research world for 3-5 years"_

That's called a Master's degree. You take some coursework, learn how to read papers and implement the ideas therein. It's a fine degree, but it's not even remotely the important part of a PhD.

People who actually go through the "writing up and justifying independent research part" of a PhD tend to find that the writing and justifying are the hardest part of the technical process. It's easy to brush it off as minor, but only once you've begun writing and organizing do you realize the places where your work falls short. The writing takes a long time not because it's especially hard to write a dissertation, but because you usually have to go back and deal with a lot of unanticipated technical problems before you can say the work is done.

<comment><USER6> Well, I'm writing up currently, and I guess I don't consider it the most important part, really. I'm finishing it more because I want the Ph.D., not because I'm learning anything at this point.

Perhaps you could get the deep research engagement via an unusually research- focused master's, but there usually isn't scope for that. An M.S. is normally only two years, while 3-5 years is imo the amount of engagement you need with a field to really understand what's going on in research. You need to attend the major conferences in a field more than once, ideally present papers at several of them, present a few more papers after the initial time you do (your first presentation is never the greatest engagement with a research community), and so on. You can get to that as an ABD PhD student, but rarely as a master's student. An M.S. student publishes between 0 and 1 papers typically, and maybe attends 1 or 2 conferences, while a 5th-year PhD student, in CS at least, will more typically have published at least 3 papers in major venues (often 5+) and attended 5+ conferences.

That's all still writing-and-justifying independent research (getting a few conference publications and journal articles), but not quite the same as writing the equivalent of a _book_ , which is a fairly different skill, and one you're not actually likely to use again after getting a Ph.D., since most research is done in conference and journal papers. I wouldn't say it's a complete waste of my time to be writing a thesis, but I wouldn't say it's the most important thing I've done in grad school either, by a long shot--- I value my peer-reviewed publications in the scientific literature much more than I value my institution's thesis/defense process.

<comment><USER5> I don't want to appear too critical, but you've just outlined the reasons not to persevere with the write-up. The point is that you are right in every respect : except for the part that doing the last 10% is only a modest amount of work.

With luck, you've got enough momentum to push through to the end smoothly. Otherwise, you might find yourself within 'just a short distance to the summit' and being someone that climbed 90% of the way up Everest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I personally was on my way to start a Ph.D.

Got a job at the university, talked to professors about possible topics but ultimately decided to get a job in the industry.

While teaching classes was fun and the job gave me plenty of free time to read things.

What was really annoying me is the fact that for every little thing you want to do (e.g. buy another smartphone for the study, go to a conference, ...) you have to run through a horribly inefficient process of filling out a dozen forms and getting signatures from all sorts of people.

I also felt bad about not really "creating" something. In my master's thesis, I created an asynchronous web-crawler, evaluated lots of NoSQL backends, hacked for about 8 hours a day and had a nice project in the end.

At the university, I created slides, did lectures but never really did something "cool". There are already dozens of lectures on all sorts of topics and I pretty much only transformed text into pretty slides.

Starting next month, I'll be working at a small company (9 people) and really look forward to hack on something with likeminded people :)

Hope it was the right choice

</comment><comment><USER9> Holy shit, this article could read like all the characteristics that are needed to be a good leader and co-worker. Thanks for this. It made the morning cup of tea taste that much better.

</comment><comment><USER10> I always find an interesting contrast with articles like this on getting a CS Ph.D., and my experience in engineering.

I got a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon. It was a really interesting four years (and three months) - I loved it. I actually brought my thesis topic with me to grad school from a summer job as an undergrad. I wrote three good papers, spent six weeks turning those papers into a thesis (mostly a matter of doing a nice literature review in the introduction), and I was done. I had a excellent advisor, and we had a great relationship. I was part of a solid research group, and we helped each other. The _process_ seemed very straightforward and linear. Everyone in my department seemed to be roughly the same. We all worked hard, did research and got our degree in 4-5 years. Very few of use would have felt on our own.

I get the feeling that this happy experience is less common in CS. The relationship between grad student and advisor seems more distant, and less helpful. The happy hours we had with the SCS at CMU reinforced that. They had "black fridays" where projects were terminated and grad students left. That "how will I get my committee to sign off" thing was there, unlike in our department.

Is it something about the nature of "research" in CS that leads to this, or is it a cultural thing?

</comment><comment><USER11> I really appreciate guides like these, particularly because I'm preparing for graduate school myself.

Another really helpful read was "Getting What You Came For" by Robert Peters. He walks through the entire Ph.D. process and describes a pipeline that can knock a 7 year program to 4 or 5 and a 5 year program to 3 or 4. That time saved would be incredibly valuable.

I'm always on the hunt for good material like this. What other Ph.D./grad school/research guides have people found helpful?

</comment><comment><USER12> I found this to be a good overview of the Ph.D. system from a CS perspective. I'm doing grad school in a slightly different field, but a lot of the advice was applicable.

<http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~harchol/gradschooltalk.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER13> Coincidentally, I started writing a "What I learned from my first semester of grad school essay on Friday." HackerNews is psychic paper.

</comment><comment><USER14> tl;dr: Getting a Ph.D. is lore like a job than you might think. Also, try to live life a little.

<comment> loup-vaillant OK, I guess from the massive down-voting that this summary is inaccurate, or misleading, or inflammatory, or _something_.

That's close to no information at all. So if someone could make a better summary, or at least a teaser, please do so.

<comment><USER15> I think "tl;dr"s always get downmodded to oblivion.

<comment> loup-vaillant Yet summaries without that term often sky-rocket: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2002255> And more than one HNer publicly stated that they read comments first, to see if the article is worth their time.

This only make sense if "tl;dr" is considered as a swear word here at HN. Is it?

<comment><USER15> It's a meme. A meme associated with a different style of commenting. In particular, a "tl;dr" summary is usually a sarcastic over-summary.

<comment><USER14> I had no idea that "tl;dr" is sarcastic.

My initial comments was meant to be an honest summary.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Debate Room: Let CEOs Make Do with $500,000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessweek.com/debateroom/archives/2009/02/let_ceos_make_d.html <comment><USER2> The point that some may ignore is that this is intended to apply ONLY to banks which the government props up.

In that light, I think that limiting flat pay is a very good idea. More emphasis should be placed on direct performance incentives to encourage repaying the taxpayers.

</comment><comment><USER3> If they don't like the pay caps, they shouldn't take the bailout money. If they were as 'good' as they (and their apologists) think they are, then they would not be in the situation where they need to be bailed out.

<comment><USER3> And it looks like they aren't willing to live with the caps:

 _Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley may decide after enduring yesterday's Congressional hearing that the old Troubled Asset Relief Program is more trouble than it's worth._

 _Eight chief executive officers of the biggest U.S. banks heard lawmakers in Washington criticize their bonuses, underwriting fees and perks. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, read questions from angry constituents asking what banks had done with taxpayer money they'd taken from the $700 billion TARP fund, and Rep. Michael Capuano, a Massachusetts Democrat, said he "cannot believe no one has prosecuted you."_

{snip}

 _Frank told the bankers if they don't like the restrictions on the government aid, they should return the funds._

 _"We will take it," Frank said. "If there are any obstacles to you giving it back, we will undo those obstacles."_ [http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aP6x...](http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aP6xr9LsyklY&refer=home)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> socially, reasonable. economically, unnecessary.

socialism, anyone?

<comment><USER5> It's socialism to control the pay of your employees? After all, the US government has "invested" more money in these banks than anyone else. What are they if not the owners?

<comment><USER4> No, it's not socialism to control the pay of employees; however, "the US government 'investing' more money in these banks" is socialism.

Essentially, it's a form of normalization of classes and we broke capitalism through state control. While we don't have a pure form of capitalism, we are become more moderate, where we are heading towards socialism/communism on the politic-economic scale.

Furthermore, please do not downmod because you disagree. Though the socialism comment was in jest, I was not grossly off-topic. Please read the community's comments regarding karma.</comment></comment></comment>


Protopiper: Physically Sketching Room-Sized Objects at Actual Scale - <AUTHOR> http://hpi.de/baudisch/projects/protopiper.html <comment><USER2> You can do a very similar thing in virtual reality with TiltBrush. You don't get a physical object at the end but you do have a lot more flexibility in the structure and appearance, and, of course, the magical power of the undo button. And maybe you _could_ get a physical object out with the help of a 3D printer...

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

I believe 3D sketching and CAD will be the first popular non-game application of virtual reality. 3D CAD with 2D I/O (mouse and flat monitor) has always been a little too difficult for the masses. Virtual reality with natively 3D input and output makes 3D CAD an order of magnitude easier and more fun. It could give a real boost to the 3D printing market too, as once the masses start doing CAD they're definitely going to want to print their creations.

<comment><USER3> I would prefer creating virtual objects for this kind of prototyping because they do not produce plastic waste. I wonder if the protopiper device can be used with biodegradable tape.

<comment><USER4> I see no reason it wouldn't work with paper tape, other than the hotwire cutter which would have to be replaced with a blade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very cool.

This reminds me of a talk by Brett Victor [1] "The Humane Representation of Thought".

Brett thinks we are limiting ourselfs by expressing our thoughts in a mostly 2D scaled down domain.

This protopiper is a great example of what we will see in the future.

[1] [https://vimeo.com/115154289](https://vimeo.com/115154289)

</comment><comment><USER6> Neat stuff. The ACM link is broken, and I missed the link to the detailed PDF the first time I looked. Here it is in case you missed it too: [http://hpi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/fachgebiete/baudisch/pro...](http://hpi.de/fileadmin/user_upload/fachgebiete/baudisch/projects/Protopiper/Protopiper_UIST2015.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER7> CW&T are experimenting with a handheld 3D PLA extruder gun (3Doodler on steroids) right now - [https://instagram.com/p/8eixCjRhGN/](https://instagram.com/p/8eixCjRhGN/)

</comment><comment><USER8> A comment below on practicality was down voted but I think it's a reasonable question.

What's are the foreseeable applications of this?

<comment><USER9> I could use it to lay out my living room for the movers. Then they could see the layout I want for each piece and then replace the layout with furniture as it's unloaded. As I'm setting this up, I can get a sense of how each furniture piece might fit in my space. On a smaller scale I could use it to place objects where I was thinking of putting a new piece of furniture and then spend a week living with the space carved out before I buy the piece.

If there were a smartphone app that took dimensions and then supplied assembly instructions it would be golden.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> ProtoPiper is an attempt to bring the human back to material interaction, like in traditional craft practices. It is more than just a prototyping device. It helps you think about materials, gravity and structures.

</comment><comment><USER11> That's cool. Could that be applied in the construction industry somehow?

<comment><USER12> I rather wondered the opposite direction: did someone come up with this after watching a "continuous" house gutter installer? who are forming it off a flat spool of sheet metal. [https://www.google.com/search?q=house+gutter+machine+continu...](https://www.google.com/search?q=house+gutter+machine+continuous&tbm=isch)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I look at this and it reminds of drawings from the late 1800s of people doing things with mechanical devices that we now use electronics for. It just seems very contrived and impractical.</comment>


Thank You HN: Deals for Hackers is on - <AUTHOR> http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/430456/Thank-you-Deals-for-Hackers-is-on

<comment><USER2> Only thing I'd change so far: stop being so anonymous! People will want to put a face and a name to a service.

You signed the announcement email "-The Dude Behind Deals for Hackers". Who are you?

<comment><USER3> While you're at it, tells us about your experience with your "Customer Development" approach. Clearly something you're doing is giving you at least internal momentum; giving us some insight as to your successes and failures will only make us root for you more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was one of the supporters in that survey. Curious to see what pricing sensitivity levels the HN community would support for this service. From a business perspective, this would help you focus on a specific segment, product mix and open up more discussion around the type of deals "we" would be interested in.

You might consider digging deeper into what the community wants. I would be willing to answer more questions.

Cheers.

<comment><USER5> Agreed - in the same way Groupon targets different towns, i wonder if this will target different 'kinds' of geeks...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Hacker News community is awesome! Yesterday, I posted this question, Daily Deals for Hackers - Interested? (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1988328>)

The response was overwhelming - 81.2% of respondents said that they would subscribe to the email list if Deals for Hackers existed.

So, keeping with my Customer Development approach, I'm now going to try to close 5 deals. These should be deals that the Hacker community cares about - books, tech conferences, gear, cool startup stuff, etc.

If you subscribe to the list (and please do), you'll start to receive deals if and when I can close them.

Thanks again for your support!

<comment><USER6> That's great news. Definitely sounds like a good service. I can't wait!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I really appreciate that! Hopefully, we'll see deals coming in about a week.</comment></comment></comment>


Writing a Technical Book for Manning - <AUTHOR> https://www.tunetheweb.com/blog/writing-a-technical-book-for-manning/ <comment><USER2> I wrote a book for Manning (Relevant Search). It was a grueling process. I can confirm much that's in here. I will say that I generally felt Manning

(a) really understood how to craft good tech books

(b) was really dedicated to tech books as a medium, despite all the attempts to 'disrupt books' which I respected

(c) was full of dedicated people that treated this as their craft

The other point I'll make is the author's name goes on the cover, but the work is really a team effort between dedicated editors, the publisher, reviewers, and others. No part is replaceable.

If I was to write another book, I'd definitely consider doing it with them. Not because they made it easy, but because they really were dedicated to the quality I wanted in my book

I also loved their super old school, Web 1.0, "we just do books" website 5 years ago :)

<comment><USER3> I was a technical proofer for a Manning book, and I concur with all of your points. They're super professional and dedicated to getting the best outcome (a useful book)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I've been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings', they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.

<comment><USER5> Why would you avoid Packt?

<comment><USER6> Read few Packt books written by authors that know nothing about the topic of the book.

For example their blender book is absolute trash and waste of time.

[https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and- creative/blender-3d-ba...](https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and- creative/blender-3d-basics-second-edition)

Their model in the middle of the book could be made in 5mins. And most of the book author writes about history of animation and other offtopics.

[https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/hardware_and_creative...](https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/hardware_and_creative/9781783984909/5/ch05lvl1sec112/turning- a-cube-into-a-boat-with-box-modeling)

<comment><USER5> Oh wow, that's egregious, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you want to hear about the alternative approach of self-publishing, check out my post about how I wrote a WebAssembly book in 200 hours: [https://medium.com/@robaboukhalil/how-i-wrote-a-technical- bo...](https://medium.com/@robaboukhalil/how-i-wrote-a-technical-book-in- under-200-hours-911d5e4f9e8c?source=friends_link&sk=13c5b15048cf1c8676d6e208181462b7)

This is my second self-published book and I've loved this approach. It lets me focus on writing and marketing, and I get to craft every aspect of the book.

<comment><USER8> Did you know what typical minimum page count requirements are? I have a non- technical, more program management focused book with about 100 pages. Was told by a publisher it's too short... wondering how you approached that when self publishing, since your post mentions it's about 100-150 pages. Did you get any feedback from readers that it is too short?

<comment><USER7> I have not received feedback that my book was too short. In my own experience, I've rarely ever completed a technical book--in fact, I've often wished they were shorter!

<comment><USER8> I have the same takeaway, many technical books with 300+ pages seem more like reference material rather then being focused on teaching the reader.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Book writing is a punishing endeavor. I started writing a book once. We got a contract, we got an advance ($5,000), we even wrote 3/4 of the book. Then in one month twelve(12!) books came out on the same topic. The publisher pulled our contract because they didn't want to be yet another book on the same topic. That seemed reasonable.

They were kind enough to allow us to keep the advance and maintain the copyright on what we had written, some of which were turned into blog posts.

<comment><USER10> > They were kind enough to allow us to keep the advance and maintain the > copyright on what we had written

It'd be shocking if this weren't the case.

<comment><USER9> Well the contract said originally that they get the copyright since they paid an advance and it was a "work for hire". If they had stuck to the contract the copyright wouldn't have returned to us unless we paid back the advance and then bought it back from them at "market value".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Wrote a book for Manning (Redis in Action), from December '11 to July '12 (available online), editing through the summer of '12.

Was offered the Word Doc or Docbook-based XML format w/ Java validator + validating xsd, and others. Went with the XML, but built my own tooling for injecting runnable code (what is available in my git repository for the book) into the book, using code comments to define figures so I didn't have to copy / paste / update / etc., along with figure, and other convenient "macros" to save from typing the XML. Call it 85%-90% XML, 10% other stuff.

The major challenge I faced was that the validator provided to me was not the same as what was used by the publisher when I uploaded my xml for automatic generation for editing, leaving me in a situation where I didn't even know that my xml wasn't valid until I get a crappy message after `svn commit` and having to submit a build to their system (typically 1-3 minute delay to find out your pdf generation didn't work, try to find what weird xml edgecase you missed that your validator doesn't care about, and submit again). About 2-3 months before finishing with final edits, I found an XML editor that would validate with the xsd directly, finally getting my document validated (but breaking all of my formatting, requiring extra steps in my build process, ...), and allowing me to eliminate 30-40 minutes of the typical "find out what's wrong with my hand-written XML tonight" when editing.

They had a forum for discussing ongoing author issues, and I remember there was an author who was using his own Asciidoc -> docbook tool. Looks like they may have imported it more recently if OP was using that and there was no docbook option. I had started early on with a reStructuredText equivalent, but then realized that I didn't want to write / maintain a tool to write a book (and to maintain that tool for others going forward), and ended up with what I used - less than 150 total lines, no external libraries, and no maintenance going forward. :)

</comment><comment><USER12> I've written three books for Apress, and their process seems to be a bit leaner (less review), so more of the book quality is the author's responsibility.

The technical reviewers were good, but certainly not world experts on the topics.

I didn't get any say in the cover images, just a proposal to which they showed me.

\---

Regarding the topic of writer's block, my advice is to write blog posts instead of book chapters first. Depending on your contract, you might or might not be allowed to actually publish them, but if you did a bit of blogging first, you are likely used to writing blog posts, so the idea is not as scary as writing a book chapter.

You can do enough editing later, but starting from blog posts gives the chapters some independence that I as a reader appreciate.

</comment><comment><USER13> Found a few typos:

"if you ever what to write a book," \- "want"

"I needed to tke care of including images" \- "take"

"in an attempt to illicit feedback" \- "elicit"

"likely won't actually be approved until early 2010, " \- "2020" (probably)

"copy-editing to correct grammar, and spelling," \- "grammar and spelling"

"Manning do a lot of promotion" \- "does"

"a random random tip of this list isshown" \- "random", "is shown"

"it's shocking amount" \- "a shocking"

<comment><USER14> > "Manning do a lot of promotion" \- "does"

I'm going to nitpick. The original sentence is grammatically correct in the UK and some other non-U.S. English speaking parts. I know this may sound very weird, but it's all fine and correct somewhere else, treating companies and establishments as plural.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I was trying to figure out what to do with that one. In the end I "corrected" it as suggested but could have gone either way depending whether Manning is a singular company or a plural collection of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm curious about publishing a book, what are the typical length requirements? I have seen some books with 400+ pages. Is that what publishers require? Anyone has an experience where page count was much less?

</comment><comment><USER15> Would not consider buying from manning again. The books are unreadable on kindle and they made no effort to correct it.

<comment><USER16> Device or app? I've found that pretty much all technical books look terrible on Kindle devices - the screens are too small, the technical content (source) usually formats poorly, and diagrams are often screwed up. That's not unique to Manning.

I have a lot of Manning books that I've purchased directly from their site and/or from Amazon. I generally read them in the Kindle app (iOS, lt, web) or in iBooks. The only Kindle device that I've comfortably read any technical books on is the old Kindle DX, and that was just because the screen was relatively large.

Technical content and smaller e-reader devices will never be a good fit. Occasionally it's tolerable, usually it's not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've written three technical books: one with Apress and two with Manning ([https://classicproblems.com](https://classicproblems.com)). Usually first- time authors (like first-time anything) don't have a lot of perspective because they don't know what it's like with another publisher. But, this post by Barry is pretty spot-on. To summarize (a TLDR if you want and these are widely known points anyway):

\- Manning has a high quality review process and generally puts out high quality books

\- Manning's current production phase (what happens after content is done) and production timeline leave a lot to be desired; I know they have had some turnover in the department and they are self-aware and working on it to be fair

\- Manning's main tooling (aka Word templates) leaves a lot to be desired as well. You have the choice to work with AsciiDoc (I did my first with them in Asciidoc and the second in Word) but their tooling for that is even less mature.

\- You don't write technical books for the money. You do it for the career advancement and/or satisfaction. You read blog posts about the outliers (people who made a lot and people who made a little) because they're the loudest voices, but generally even a good technical book sells around 2000 copies because the audience of paying readers is so niche.

\- He's right about the royalty negotiation. First-time, unknown authors have almost no leverage. After you have successfully completed a book you can negotiate a higher royalty rate/advance.

I'll add a few more points (hopefully they're not pissed at me for writing publicly about this):

\- They do a very good job marketing to their own existing audience. They do less of a good job marketing to external audiences, although this has improved in the last couple of years.

\- So much of how high quality the process is depends on who you randomly get as a development editor/technical editor/technical reviewer/copy editor. You don't have much say in the matter. So, it's a total crapshoot.

\- It's better if you come to them than they come to you. I came to publishers with all three of my topics, not the other way around. You can then shop around. I submitted my proposals to multiple publishers and got multiple offers.

I disagree with another author who posted in this comment section—books, even by traditional publishers, are not always a team effort. 90% of the content of my three books is the same as would've existed if I had self-published. Of course being receptive to feedback is very important, but how valuable it is really depends on how good a writer/explainer you are to begin with and how good the people giving that feedback are.

</comment><comment><USER18> > I also got to pick the cover image from one of three suggestions the > publisher sent me. Manning uses images of historical figures on the covers > of their books ... I picked the image of the woman carrying clothes as I > thought it was at least somewhat related to a transport protocol carrying > messages (a stretch I know but I was rather pleased with myself for coming > up with that analogy to justify the cover image somewhat).

<comment><USER19> Meta: I would appreciate it if quotes are accompanied by some explanation of why you chose it.

<comment><USER20> I choose the cover of Rust in Action because the subject is carrying lots of things, a hint towards concurrency. I also think that she's probably doing some sort of chore, which is the kind of work that gets done with Rust. She's also from the Caucus mountains, an area I would love to visit.</comment></comment></comment>


Act Like Number One - <AUTHOR> http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2009/4/14/act-like-number-one/10282/view.aspx

<comment><USER2> Ooookay. Riiight. So, in other words, be #1...by your own metrics. Good luck with that one the minute you have contact with the press, wish to have a PR firm put together a media package, seek outside financing, and/or a GAAP "goodwill" valuation.

Market the crap out of your brand, but do so by focusing on genuine value delivery to the customer. Highlighting genuine cost/time savings, and/or revenue generation, and/or customer growth is cake using generally accepted industry practices. If you can't do that, I seriously question the viability of your business model.

Only Sabermetricians or marketing consultancies (read billable hours) such as Nielsen, care about nano-market-segmentation rankings.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is very much about market Positioning, which is an important strategy (and generally one of the 3 priorities I recommend for a start-up business). See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_(marketing)>

What it fails to take into account is that sometimes you don't have to be #1. The classic example is Avis car rentals, who proudly displayed that they were #2 with the slogan "No 2, we try harder".

You don't have to be #1 to be remembered (though being in the top 3 is useful). My advice is that you're better off being #3 in a big category, than #1 in something you had to invent.

</comment><comment><USER4> Be a good person.</comment>


Debunking the myth of gender bias in car sales (CarWoo, YCS09) - <AUTHOR> http://carwoo.com/blog/debunking-the-myth-of-gender-bias-in-car-sales/

<comment><USER2> the study found that 35% of dealers charged women more than men -- including 20% where the difference was > $500.

so it turns out that it's not a myth. not sure why they chose that headline.

<comment><USER3> Actually, they don't specify who gets quoted a higher price initially, they just say it was different.

Based on the dealer's quote, it seems he starts higher if he expects more negotiation from the other party... are men or women more likely to try to negotiate more?

Also, they only talk about the initial offer, not the final price the car sold for.

Overall, a pretty weak article. They need to provide much more information. Just knowing that some group got a different initial price than some other group is kind of meaningless.</comment></comment>


China wasn't ready for the trade war with the United States - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/xi-trump-trade-war-china-leadership.html <comment><USER2> _Mr. Bush also shared a private exchange with Chinese President Hu Jintao in which he told the Chinese leader that the thing he worried most about and that kept him up at night was another attack on the United States. Mr. Bush said he then asked Hu, "What keeps you up at night?" Hu responded, "25 million new jobs a year."_ [1]

I think it's clear that China has a lot more to lose in this trade war. The bargain that the Chinese people have made with the government is that they will sacrifice personal liberties for economic prosperity. Once the latter is put into jeopardy, chaos will ensue.

[1] [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/15/decisi...](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/11/15/decision_points_an_interview_with_george_w_bush_1079a0.html)

<comment><USER3> I found your statement about sacrificing personal liberties for economic prosperity a fascinating way to abstractly summarize CCP's rule.

I resonate with you - I think the Chinese government is hot-pacing through economic high in the short term but there are major consequences if they overreach. The more they do so, the more they get push back from the rest of the world - Streisand effect infiltrates the general populace if they're unhappy (currently, China is pulling millions out of poverty - a good thing) and then you see real consequences of trading liberty for economic stagnancy.

In game theory, "a single hawk in a population of doves" is an inherently unstable state - Hawks will lure other Doves to follow Hawk-like behavior and eventually you'll have majority of hawks struggling to survive. This behavior will oscillate between two unstable points until hawk/dov ratio equilibrium is reached.

The Chinese government has employed a number of hawk-like behaviors in the global economy - cut loose IP, subsidies for local firms, state-owned enterprises bypassing law, currency manipulation, driving-out non-Chinese firms that pose threat of domination, IP theft, cloning, etc. for short-term gains. I don't see how this behavior can be tolerated for long.

<comment><USER4> Once China becomes a/the leader it develops its own technology and prevent others from using/stealing it, just like the US did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Tariffs against China are actually a tax on the American citizens, and only causes increased prices and unemployment.

<comment><USER6> false. no matter how many times people say this your statement is incorrect.

Consumers faced with higher prices will spend less and save more. Taxes are only applied to transactions. Higher tariffs will shift consumption to lower- priced goods - you say those goods don't exist?

That's how new business and market opportunities arise. Production will shift geographies, as the tariffs are geography-specific.

China's government is playing checkers, I never thought I would say this, and Trump is playing chess.

<comment><USER7> Both clauses are false?

"Tariffs against China are actually a tax on the American citizens" is undeniably true.

"Tariffs are a tax on imports. They're typically charged as a percentage of the transaction price that a buyer pays a foreign seller. Say an American retailer buys 100 garden umbrellas from China for $5 apiece, or $500. The U.S. tariff rate for the umbrellas is 6.5 percent for umbrellas. The retailer would have to pay a $32.50 tariff on the shipment, raising the total price from $500 to $532.50."

\- [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-are-tariffs-and-how- would-...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-are-tariffs-and-how-would-they- work-trump-2018-06-02/)

The latter clause is a matter of second order effects that people can disagree with.

<comment><USER6> You proved my point. Umbrella seller will sell fewer of those China-imported umbrellas. In comes African umbrella maker for $4 apiece.

<comment><USER7> Actually, if the African umbrella maker could make a profit at $4, they would already be doing that, pre-tariff.

So they are more likely selling at $5.15 (or some other higher number), which means that the US consumer pays an extra 15 cents per umbrella.

That 15 cents is additional and what people refer to as a "tax", though it isn't a traditionally levied tax.

<comment><USER8> You make the perfect point that fair trade advocates push for. China's $5 umbrellas are heavily subsidized by the government (and mostly through debt and near zero environmental controls). African umbrella companies can now sell at $5.15 without subsidies, setting the actual market value for an umbrella without the Chinese government causing an over-investment in umbrellas through the market distortion of (grossly unfair) subsidies.

<comment><USER7> > You make the perfect point that fair trade advocates push for.

Totally get it. There's a line between a country being good at making a product through "natural" causes (having a climate to grow grapes for wine) and the government subsidizing the production of wine because they want a wine growing industry. Where that line is depends on a lot of actors, but some things fall on one side of the line and others on the other.

However, for the end consumer in the importing country, they win if the government of the exporting industry wants to subsidize wine production. The consumer gets cheaper wine.

Now the argument for fair trade is that the local producers of wine will be hurt. And I get that (especially when you are talking about job losses and/or loss of strategic capability around food production or technology).

But overall the consumer in the importing country wins. If China wants to give dollar bills to the American consumer for umbrellas, why shouldn't the consumer take them?

<comment><USER8> I see what you're saying, but there's one further point you should address. It's not the Chinese free market that's giving the US consumers $5 bills for wine, it's the Chinese government. So consumers are enticed to buy wine which they might not have in a market distortion, which hurts not just US wine producers, but Chinese beer producers who compete in the tasty alcoholic treats export market. Maybe a short term gain for US consumers who enjoy their nightly reds and whites, but in the long term, market development will be unnaturally stymied.

<comment><USER7> > market development will be unnaturally stymied.

I understand where you are coming from, but markets are created by the rules of the government. Some governments (The Netherlands, CA) say that selling marijuana is OK. Some say that it is ok for some people to buy marijuana (medical) and others can't. Some US states say that no one can buy marijuana. Which is the "natural" market?

I understand that you are saying that the Chinese government is causing distortions and there is a fairer way to "trade" but that's something for the Chinese state and political actors to decide. This is the same as the way that the USA has decided that trucks are different than cars and should have a different set of import limitations--in both cases this is a political consideration.

<comment><USER8> Very good metaphor and I see what you're saying. And I'm convinced you are correct now. The only thing I'd add is people would still have to weigh the indirect costs of the Chinese wine which might have an emotional cost from supporting economic injustice or lax environmental laws. But the data is pretty clear that nearly zero consumers care about this and would be better off with their $5 (Chinese) chuck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Relevant: trump is raising tariffs on $200B Chinese goods to 25% this Friday, and coming soon, 25% on additional $325B Chinese goods as well.

This is the disengagement of US economy with the Chinese economy as we speak. No more IP theft, no more US factories for China, no more knowledge transfer, no more opioids from China.

Perfect timing, what with US growing healthy at 3% and wage growth, and China suffering from debt overload and demographics decline

<comment><USER10> To what end? Xi Jinping can just wait until the next president to negotiate away the tariffs. The public certainly hates them. Right or left, I don't see how anyone can see these surviving through another administration.

<comment><USER11> > The public certainly hates them. Right of left, I don't see how anyone can > see these surviving through another administration.

Citation needed. Free traders certainly hate the tariffs, but only a tiny fraction of the public are committed free traders. Also Democrats are dispositionally far more favorable to tariffs and protectionism than Republicans, so unless Trump doesn't run or the Libertarians win the presidency (ha!), I don't see the next administration being much of a swerve in the direction of free trade.

<comment><USER12> This affects some of my family directly and has a very noticeable impact on local businesses who had become accustomed to and were investing pretty significantly in attracting Chinese interest in their products (California wine industry). While the industry existed for a long time before the Chinese market became a factor, starting in the recession their was definitely a push to attract Chinese individuals to california wine, to the point where many major tasting rooms were recruiting people who speak mandarin, and some folks I know regularly had relatively wealthy recent Chinese college graduates working harvest jobs. I have not been aware of a Chinese intern in our circle for years, and also haven't seen a listing looking for Mandarin in months if not longer.

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California- wine...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-wineries- shut-out-from-China-amid-13766869.php)

I imagine the situation is similar for many other non-essential exports to China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Excellent article with some game theory analysis on this: [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/04/27/why- you-...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/04/27/why-you-should- never-start-a-trade-war-with-an-autocracy)

</comment><comment><USER14> The United States wasn't either.

<comment><USER15> We actually are. With a strong economy that's exactly the time you do it.

<comment><USER14> Didn't the Laffer curve on bond markets invert recently?

<comment><USER15> Inflation is not up even though it was supposed to be.

Lots of things are changing because Trump doesn't follow the "experts" but have his own way of approaching China for better or worse. Right now mostly for the better.

<comment><USER16> Nothing has been better yet. So far it has only been not-catastrophically worse.

<comment><USER17> Lowest unemployment since 1969. That's better.

<comment><USER16> It's the same trajectory it was before the current policies. The trend is hitting the floor as we're at full employment. (But I can't complain he's not taking us lower than that)

<comment><USER15> So when the economy is turning bad its also obamas fault i take it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I dislike almost everything about Trump, but in this particular case his policy might be better than his predecessors. If the trade agreement results in low tariffs and a more level playing field for US companies who invest in China, maybe it will be worth the pain of a temporary trade war?

<comment><USER19> But this is affecting other countries too.

China/US trade war have cost some Europeans their jobs. Next time they are out to buy a car, do you think they will choose American?

<comment><USER3> The percentage of people losing their jobs due to China/US trade war is _minuscule_ compared to the total European population and would have literally zero measurable impact on American car sales.

It's not like Europe all of sudden has 20% unemployment due to the trade war - the way you describe it and everyone becomes anti-American.

<comment><USER19> Have you been to Europe lately?

<comment><USER3> Actually, yes. Zurich and Dusseldorf.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This isn't a typical tit-for-tat trade war that gets worked out at the negotiating table. Several current and former Trump aides want to outright topple the Chinese Communist Party. Quoting Steve Bannon in an NPR piece published today:

"I think ultimate success is regime change ... the goal is quite simply to break the back of this totalitarian mercantilist economic society."

[https://www.npr.org/2019/05/07/719947020/inside-the-white- ho...](https://www.npr.org/2019/05/07/719947020/inside-the-white-houses- bitter-fight-over-china)

The other thing going on, alluded to in the same article, is attacking China is red meat to Trump's base (42% of the American population, according to a recent poll). He's built it up into one of the primary reasons behind the collapse of American manufacturing. If the China bogeyman goes away with a splashy deal, will the base be satisfied? Or will something else have to be dialed up to replace it as a political and trading punching bag?

<comment><USER21> >"I think ultimate success is regime change ... the goal is quite simply to break the back of this totalitarian mercantilist economic society."

The really funny thing is that Bernie Sanders' supporters have the exact same goal in mind.

<comment><USER22> Why would that be funny? America broke the Soviet Union with economic power. A lot of people still remember this.

I'd like to see the Chinese equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling.

<comment><USER21> I think it's funny because the entrenched establishment politicians like Steve Bannon are also the ones most opposed to Sanders and his allies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is it Xin Jinping or China's "fault"?

Despite the tone of this article, it seems to me that the current situation is a reaction by the US to China's growing power rather than a failure on China's part.

<comment><USER15> China and the Chinese party are two very different things.

The amount of atrocities china commit every single day even relative to their size is insane.

<comment><USER23> I commented about the main point of the article: the trade war.

I don't understand what is the point of your reply...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I disagree with trump in almost every aspect, but I must say that he manage a country like a business man and he is doing some moves because of it that other countries (Like China) can't predict.

<comment><USER14> If he was operating like a business man, he would be a lot easier to predict. He is still operating like the guy who thinks he is a business man while bankrupting a casino. And he always has been. Sesame Street warned people years ago - [https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/03/21/...](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/life/entertainthis/2017/03/21/sesame- street-v-trump-shows-long-history-mocking-donald-grump/99445290/)

<comment> T-A "The Simpsons" was more explicit about it:

[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/simpsons- writer-...](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/simpsons-writer-who- predicted-trump-876295)

<comment><USER14> And for anyone who has followed Doonesbury for a while, it kinda feels like the wilder theories concerning the LHC may possibly be true.

[https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1987/09/14](https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/1987/09/14)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> It will be interesting to see what happens when China no longer eats US inflation, so hurray for an interesting future!

<comment><USER25> Well it will be interesting. For the last decades the US had printed money with bonds and exporters to the US have bought those bonds to spend their dollars and not put pressure on their own currency.

If China is no longer exporting to the US it will no longer need to buy bonds, so if the us is printing money with bonds where dollars are not parked, those dollars increase dollar supply and therefor increase inflation. Money 101.

<comment><USER15> Money 101 would dictate inflation in us economy, we dont see that. So i guess we need to ad some more nuance to things

<comment><USER25> China hasn't stopped buying US bonds, or have I missed something?

<comment><USER15> [https://www.economist.com/finance-and- economics/2019/03/28/w...](https://www.economist.com/finance-and- economics/2019/03/28/why-is-inflation-in-america-so-low)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Next time, they will...

</comment><comment><USER27> I hope this represents a fundamental shift in American trade policy.

American free trade agreements should only be extended to countries that have roughly symmetrical environmental policies, human/labor rights, market access, IP protection, among other things.

Any trade deals less this sensibility amounts to the exploration of people, the planet or of property rights, and should be taxed extensively.

<comment><USER3> Yep, we should have been more vigilant since 2002 as we kept on importing goods with an unfair deal. I want China to progress as any other country but under fairness and without this atrocious 1 party authoritarian regime. Imagine if they were like Japan or India with free speech and democratic government, hell I would move to Shenzhen!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> About the author:

"Professor Joseph Yi-zheng Lian is a Hong Kong native. He obtained his first degree from Carleton College, Minnesota. An economist by training, his Ph.D. was earned at the University of Minnesota.

Prof. Lian taught at the University of California, Riverside and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and was Chief Editor and lead writer of the Hong Kong Economic Journal before serving as a Senior Policy Adviser for the Chief Executive at the Central Policy Unit of the first administration of the Hong Kong SAR government, from 1998 to 2004. He was dismissed from his advisory post after a profiled participation in a pro-democracy sit-in in Central, Hong Kong."

which sounds very different to the NYT bio:

"Yi-Zheng Lian, a commentator on Hong Kong and Asian affairs, is a professor of economics at Yamanashi Gakuin University, in Kofu, Japan, and a contributing opinion writer."

<comment><USER28> What's the problem?

<comment><USER25> The author is a pro-democracy activist from Hong Kong writing about China politics. It's up to you to decide if if there is a problem for you or not. It's ok if there is no problem for you. I personally want to know if someone owns stock he writes about.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Modular and Live-Reloading Shaders in WebGL - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbb2sFH5yf8

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a quick session using glslify-live[0] for reloading shaders, and glslify[1] to bring in npm modules like glsl-film-grain[2].

[0] - [https://github.com/hughsk/glslify- live](https://github.com/hughsk/glslify-live)

[1] - [https://github.com/stackgl/glslify](https://github.com/stackgl/glslify)

[2] - [https://www.npmjs.com/package/glsl-film- grain](https://www.npmjs.com/package/glsl-film-grain)

</comment><comment><USER2> Very Nice. Writing glsl shaders is one area where live-reloading is a must.

glslify has me excited, I've mostly used Three.js when writing shaders (even fullscreen no-geometry shaders) simply because they have libraries for loading images. I'm hoping that stack.gl / glslify will tackle a minimal overhead asset loading solution for WebGL projects.

Edit: Found stackgl texture library, now to go about building support for 3D cube/spherical maps. [https://github.com/stackgl/gl- texture2d](https://github.com/stackgl/gl-texture2d)</comment>


Uber's Algorithmic Monopoly - <AUTHOR> http://mattstoller.tumblr.com/post/82233202309/ubers-algorithmic-monopoly-we-are-not-setting-the <comment><USER3> This article is written under the assumption both that Uber's only competition is cabs, and that once cabs are gone (and I agree that this seems inevitable), it will operate as a monopoly. At least in my market (Washington, DC), the former is not the case, and I see no reason to believe the latter will be the case anywhere.

Given that, it's appropriate to evaluate Uber's market-forces claims with a view towards a larger market that includes more players than just Uber. Anecdotally, I've found that their claims about surge pricing mostly hold true: their service, while being priced higher at times of peak demand, seems to generally stay available in a way that cabs or other services don't, and at least sometimes, that has been worth it to me, and I've been willing to pay 2x the price to have a ride in ten minutes. That said, if it weren't, there's always Lyft or Sidecar (or, for the moment, traditional cabs), which would inevitably offer different tradeoffs of price and dispatch time, and I'm free to use any of them instead. If lots of consumers do the same, eventually Uber will lose, or market forces will force it to adjust how it balances availability with price.

In other words, exactly the way a market is supposed to work.

<comment><USER4> This is a relatively ahistorical, naive view of the operation of markets. Even with competition, assuming fixed price cabs eventually get driven to extinction, then what? There would be nothing to stop the collusion of existing market competitors (Uber, Sidecar, and Lyft) in order to drive up pricing or perform market division (customer allocation) - that is assuming that monopolies don't begin to form in the market as they are liable to do. There is tremendous incentive and pressure from investors for them to both divide markets and fix prices (eg, maximize profit). New firms may enter the market in an attempt to undercut these forces, but they will likely be unable to compete with monopolized pricing by the large companies and thus be driven out of business before reaching any sort of reasonable scale. These kinds of phenomena, far from being anomalies, are the traditional way in which really existing markets work [1][2][3][4][5]. Ultimately, the resolution of such problems occurs not through the markets - which instead create such problems - but instead through the mobilization of state forces (eg. lawsuits and monopoly busting).

This article just highlights the strong potential for these problems and more to form in the developing taxi service market some time in the near future and the algorithmic obfuscation used to give these forces the appearance of neutrality and legitimacy.

[1]: [http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/guilty- pleas-...](http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2013/september/guilty-pleas-show- high-cost-of-price-fixing-in-auto-industry)

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

[3]: [http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/1/5368098/apple-hit- with-840-...](http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/1/5368098/apple-hit- with-840-million-damages-claim-in-ebooks-lawsuit)

[4]: [http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-office-price- fixi...](http://www.tomshardware.com/news/microsoft-office-price- fixing,7533.html)

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

<comment><USER3> Right, I wasn't proposing a completely-unregulated market. Presumably collusion and other anti-competitive behavior would remain illegal. In any event, different behaviors towards fluctuating prices are already observable as differentiators amongst different competitors in this space (Lyft has surge pricing, but it's less aggressive, and Sidecar lets drivers set their own prices rather than controlling it centrally). What evidence is there to suggest that that would stop once cabs disappear?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
      A lot of people are focused on the company's use of surge
      pricing, [...] Kalanick notes "we are not setting the price, the
      market is setting the price." But then, non-ironically,
      immediately adds "we have algorithms to determine what that
      market is." In other words, the prices his company sets in the
      markets that his company controls are somehow, well, natural.

I assume what he really means is "we set prices to make us as much money as possible but it's not fashionable for CEOs to admit that, so here's some stuff about algorithms and markets in the hopes you will not attribute our actions to us."

Being surprised when a company tries to increase revenues and reduce costs while avoiding PR blowback is like being surprised when a dog humps your leg. That's just naturally what they do. If they could charge a million dollars for a ride, not pay their drivers, and get all their competitors banned they would do that too.

<comment><USER6> While maximizing their profits, they are also matching the highest number of consumers to the highest number of producers (service providers), thus making the process more efficient.

And there are plenty of substitute goods (services) for the service they are providing, so I'm really not sure about their ability to set prices as you suggest.

<comment><USER7> Is that actually how it works? Not having used Uber, my understanding based on articles is that it does not work like an order book at an exchange, where the price is determined by where buy and sell offers cross. Instead, Uber basically dictates the price, and then whoever is happy with that price will be matched. Correct me if this understanding is wrong.

What this means is that, as a first approximation, it is Uber that sets the price, not "the market" (whatever that is). Obviously, Uber still needs to take into account how both drivers and passengers react to the prices, but those are second order effects, and the resulting price is quite likely to be different from what you would get with a neutral platform that simply matches order books.

In the end, I guess this all boils down to the truism that "the market" does not exist. There are many, many different markets, all somehow defined by the rules society sets up for them, and the resulting prices and relative benefits to participants necessarily depends on those rules.

<comment><USER8> >What this means is that, as a first approximation, it is Uber that sets the price, not "the market" (whatever that is).

The market is the aggregate of all other people providing a similar service. Taxi companies, other Uber-like services, are all competing for the same consumers.

If Uber is setting its prices too high, they'll lose customers to the aforementioned competitors and they'll potentially earn less money if the higher price doesn't offset the drop in customers. That's what people mean when they say "the market sets the price".

I'm sorry, it just sounds like you're giving a very cliched "the market doesn't exist" response in a situation where it just doesn't apply at all. This is a market with competing firms, not a monopoly.

<comment><USER7> _That 's what people mean when they say "the market sets the price"._

I know that that's what people mean. What I'm saying is that people are making a mistake by not looking at the mechanism of how "the market" works.

Let us compare two worlds. World A is our world, where Uber sets the price for its drivers and passengers. World B is a world in which drivers and passengers place bids directly. Let's say that drivers' bids contain a basis price + per- km price as well as the range within which they are willing to travel, while passengers' bids contain start and end point and maximum price (perhaps with the possibility of saying "market price"). Uber then matches those bids when they cross in a manner similar to an exchange order book.

What I understand from your comment is that you believe that the price for a ride in world A will be equal to the price for a ride in world B. That seems like a rather bold claim that requires an extraordinary argument to back it up.

And no, the "if Uber sets prices too high/low in world A, passengers/drivers would move to competitors" argument is not sufficient, because nobody really knows what the "correct" price is exactly (what does it even mean for a price to be objectively correct? [0]). So there is a range of prices in which the loss of passengers or drivers would happen rather slowly or not at all.

Where does the choice of the exact price within that range come from, and why should it be the same in both worlds? Why shouldn't Uber be able to exploit this uncertainty to increase their revenue by a few percent? Mind you, I don't know whether this would benefit drivers or passengers relative to a different world. The key point is the question of whether the worlds are the same or not - and if they're not, then it's problematic to claim that "the market" sets the price.

[0] Yes, yes, it's the price where supply and demand are balanced. But how are supply and demand formed in the first place? Conceptually, people ought to have beliefs such as "a ride from A to B is worth X to me". But even if people have such beliefs, those beliefs are necessarily based on what the previously observed prices are. So at best, you get a feedback loop that goes like: observed prices -> people's beliefs about what prices should be -> supply and demand -> observed prices. They who control the mechanism that outputs the observed price are in a rather special situation to (attempt to) manipulate this feedback loop in their own interest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> In many places, the supply for cabs is artificially limited by the fact that there are only a limited number of licenses, which you then have to "rent out" from a licensee if you want to drive a cab.

The article raises a valid point (Uber sets itself up as a monopoly), but is very thin on criticizing the existing system.

In fact, nothing prevents existing cab dispatch companies from offering an app-based service like Uber does. That they don't is either due to the fact that the current regulations mean they don't have to adapt, or that it's Uber's business model rather than the app that makes the difference, in which case the app would just serve to sidestep regulations that only benefit well- connected incumbents.

The question here is how much you can separate the roles of

a) drivers b) the dispatch service (telephone or app) c) the entity policing both drivers and customers d) the entity setting the prices

<comment><USER10> The problem is that the limited licenses exist for a good reason: roads are a limited resource 100% subsidized by the tax payer. Unless a city implements global pay-per-mile and pay-per-second fees for parking, idling, and driving, the city is subsidizing all businesses that operate on its roads.

Normally this doesnt' cause a problem because most folks using the roads are using them in roughly even proportion. Cabbies throw that out the window - they idle and meander around the densest and highest-value parts of town, which are of course places where roads are the scarcest resource. They exploit that subsidized, scarce resource far beyond any other user, creating congestion.

So, to control this tragedy-of-the-commons scenario, cities limit and tax cabbies heavily.

Uber dodges that completely by claiming they're a car service, when in reality they straddle the terrain between car-service and taxis. Uber drivers absolutely _do_ meander congested areas hunting for fares.

<comment><USER11> >Uber drivers absolutely do meander congested areas hunting for fares.

When they do that it's usually because they're former cabbies with old habits that are hard to break. Doing a meander makes absolutely no sense. I work for an uber competitor, and typically I will go to hotspot, find parking, stop there, and wait for a ride.

Also, roads are usually subsidized by gas taxes.

<comment><USER12> Gasoline Taxes and Tolls Pay for Only a Third of State & Local Road Spending

[http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls- pa...](http://taxfoundation.org/article/gasoline-taxes-and-tolls-pay-only- third-state-local-road-spending)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This article only makes sense if Uber has monopoly power in the markets where it operates. If it is successful in its lobbying efforts, won't it be easier for Uber-like competitors to spring up?

I realise there are network effects in a two-sided marketplace, but how strong is the lock-in on the drivers' or passengers' side? Wouldn't either use multiple services and go with the one which offers the best price at the time?

<comment><USER7> Uber is in the position of a network provider, and hence in a position where it can naturally become a monopoly via network effects.

Any market with network effects has high barriers of entry and therefore reduced competition, unless regulation exists to lower the impact of network effects (e.g. mandating interoperability).

<comment><USER14> I don't think it's that strong a network. Drivers are businessmen - <USER2> aren't going to shun another app just because it's too much trouble to sign up. So there's big no chicken / egg problem - any competing network with half a chance of taking on Uber will get plenty of drivers.

It's kind of like eBay stores, not the "sell and buy junk from strangers" eBay. And since there's only one product, the customers won't flock to Uber because they want variety.

I'd rate it lower than eBay and far lower than Facebook in terms of the strength of the network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Except the largest barrier to entry in the cab market is politics protecting the status quo in the regulated cab business. By tearing this down, Uber is effectively paving the way for competitors such as Sidecar and Lyft to disrupt them.

Also, I personally am sick of people complaining about Surge pricing. It's supply and demand. The tradeoff is ability to get a ride. When it rains, the supply of cabs stays the same but demand sky rockets. This surplus is passed to the consumers who are lucky enough to get a cab but many are literally caught in the rain. Uber raising the price is simply allowing the person who wants the ride the most to benefit from it.

<comment><USER16> > This surplus is passed to the consumers who are lucky enough to get a cab > but many are literally caught in the rain. Uber raising the price is simply > allowing the person who wants the ride the most to benefit from it.

I think people understand that. But they might feel like distributing the limited cab supply based on luck is more fair than based on who will pay the most.

<comment><USER15> Why? If I'm running late to an appointment I will be willing to pay more than someone who is heading home from work to unwind and is in no particular hurry.

I love the concept that my fate is in my hands. It's not a matter of skill or chance in hailing a cab. I'm given all the information I need to make an adult decision and get to choose if it is worth it or not.

Sorry, rereading that some of the language gives a condescending tone which is very much not my intent.

<comment><USER17> So I don't actually know, does Uber flash up a big red warning when you're about to book a cab that your usual $10 ride is going to cost you a lot more? One of the reasons people dislike the surge pricing is that it was taking people by surprise.

If Uber wanted to still please the people with more money than time they could just add a 'bribe' button to add $5 or $10 or more to your ride request so drivers will be more likely to accept that request.

<comment><USER18> Yes, they show a big warning and make you type in the surge multiplier to confirm that you've seen and understood it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Honestly, my problem with Uber has nothing to do with surge pricing and everything to do with the fact that they've completely circumvented all the normal regulations surrounding cabs when realistically they're a cab company in everything but name.

Really, though, it's on the municipalities to modernize their anachronistic taxi regulations to properly handle services like Uber.

<comment><USER11> they're not. The fact that they've circumvented the regulations is because the regulations don't necessarily make sense: They don't "cruise" like taxis do, so they cause less traffic congestion. They don't use taximeters, so you don't have a device which needs to be calibrated and checked by the state. In the case of UberX, they own their own cars, so they're less likely to be reckless drivers. They don't require queues like taxis do outside of bars, or even worse, at the airport, where a queue attendant has to be paid to make sure passengers don't accidentally jump the queue. By having a rating system, there is less of a need for enforcement of a 'taxicab bill of rights' which shifts costs of monitoring and handling misbehaving cabbies onto the state, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I asked an Uber driver about surge pricing once, and he said that he doesn't see what the surge rate is. He just gets texts from Uber sometimes saying, "demand is off the charts! get out there!" So it's interesting to hear all the almost-dogmatic free market rhetoric from the company, when it seems the reality is that the market isn't very free at all.

<comment><USER20> How? "Demand is off the charts! Get out there! _Increase supply!_ " This is free market basics.

<comment><USER21> Free market basics would be "this it the current price for your services, would like you like to provide supply at this price?". This is more like your boss telling you to get back to work because it's busy.

<comment><USER22> Is it? thenmar was not clear whether the text was advisory or an order.

Though either way, I'm not sure what bearing that would have on how "free" the market is. Employers in some sense exist to entice you to do things you don't fundamentally "want" to do, by compensating you for it.

<comment><USER7> The point wasn't about whether it's advisory or an order, the point was that the actual price was not part of the message. Given that market principles are supposedly about using price signals, this is rather at odds with market principles, don't you think? ;-)

<comment><USER22> I'm unclear on how the operators are going out there without information on what to charge. It seems like we're making up "facts" here, then drawing convenient conclusions.

<comment><USER19> Users connect their card to the Uber app. Drivers simply press "start trip" and "end trip" (on their own device, after having accepted the call and arriving at the pickup location) - all the billing is done by Uber. The driver isn't paid directly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I don't understand this part:

 _As more people use Uber, there will be fewer people trying to hail cabs, and fewer cabs picking up people, which will lead to reduced expectations cabs will be available, and so on and so forth. Gradually the 'open cab market' will be displaced by a closed Uber service. I've already noticed it's harder to hail cabs where I live, capacity is often taken up by Uber riders._

Supposedly traditional cabs are ridiculously profitable, so even if Uber reduces their demand somewhat they should still be profitable enough to stay on the road.

</comment><comment><USER24> Uber is a complete and total mystery to me. I don't live in the US, but every year I spend at least few weeks in NYC and SF. Yet, I have never seen (not to my knowledge) an Uber car (though I have seen a couple of Lyft cars), nor personally heard of anyone using it. On the other hand, I hear a lot about this company in various online publications, and every single thing I have ever heard about them was negative: that their CEO is an Ayn Randian fanatic, that they hold the law in contempt, that they're exploiting their drivers, that they're mistreating their drivers, and that they're leaving their drivers out to dry if they get into trouble.

I have heard of people comparing Uber to AirBnB because they're both "disruptive". But unlike Uber, I see people use AirBnB all the time, and I've even used it myself on several occasions. I hear both positive and negative things about AirBnB, but mostly positive.

Now, what's the deal with Uber? Seriously, I have never heard anything good about this company nor seen any actual signs for its existence other than its own advertising and lots of negative press. Who are they? Does Uber really exist or is it a fictional internet meme? Is Uber just some boogyman the internet uses to scare people of an imminent dystopia? Is Uber Keyser Soze?

<comment><USER25> I can put your mind at rest a bit. Uber is definitely real, at least in NYC where I live. You haven't seen their cars because they're unmarked, but there are a lot of them everywhere. It's used by a large chunk of my social circle, which has almost no techies in it.

Most of the drivers I speak to use it as one of a number of dispatch tools funneling them rides. All have been broadly positive about it, their complaints being mainly those of any professional driver (i.e. sometimes there just aren't any passengers.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The number one feature we need to add to P2P transportation services is common carrier laws. There is no reason that I need to check N different services to get a ride. Plus, making it possible for all buy and sell orders to be available across network does the most to protect the consumers and suppliers.

These companies should be free to operate their own apps, but they should be require to make their buy and sell orders available to others so that a generalized market can be built on top.

</comment><comment><USER27> It all depends on what your goal of the taxi market is.

From a regulatory standpoint, the role of taxi regulations is to manage supply in a two-sided market. The goal of managing this is often to balance availability of taxis with the ability of the taxi drivers/companies to make a profit without gouging the customer. Uber just formalizes the type of price gouging that these regulations are designed to prevent. It's consumer-hostile to take a market where fixed prices are the expectation and then say "Oh, well everyone else needs a taxi right now too... so you have to pay more." I'm not saying anything about its economic viability, but it makes the user experience of Uber suck ass.

More problematic is the attitude many taxi drivers take towards money. Uber assumes that every driver is trying to maximize profit; which is not always the case. In my experience (and I take taxis on a daily basis in many cities) the prevalent attitude is "well I needed to make $800 this week to pay my bills. I've made $800, so I'm going to stop working and go hang out with my family instead." Taxis drivers are generally independent contractors, so they can do this. If this happens in a place with a regulated number of drivers, helping them maximize profit quickly reduces the overall availability of taxis, again driving up prices.

Frankly, I hate using Uber. Whenever I need it, the price is jacked up to ridiculousness thanks to surge pricing. That makes it unreliable to me because I'm not paying $50 for a 3 mile cab ride. It's gotten to the point where I usually don't check Uber anymore. Thankfully, most of the local cab companies have similar mapping apps now that replicate enough of Uber's functionality that I am willing to use them.

<comment><USER28> What city do you live in?

My ratio of good to bad Uber experiences is moving toward bad. In NYC it is about 1:1 now, while other cities still weigh heavily toward positive.

<comment><USER27> Philadelphia. It's not hard to hail a taxi in most places anywhere near downtown, but when you can't find one, Uber's not really a better option unless you're willing to pay over $50 for a ride.

Uber definitely has a niche where it is useful, but it's not going to displace taxis as a whole.

IMO Uber was born out of a specific fucked-up regulatory marketplace for taxis in San Francisco. Most of the taxis there are "limousine services" that are allowed to answer hails on the street. I found the situation pretty annoying, because rates are negotiated up front and are always more than what a metered taxi would cost. Many cities prohibit this because taxi drivers routinely use it to scam tourists (hence why taxi regulation exists.) Uber is a great solution for the regulatory situation in SF; but most big cities have better taxi regulation than SF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Uber thought its capital would be best used to run a fleet of cars, it would > simply hire people straight out to be drivers. That it's not doing that > suggests something.

Uber buying a bunch of cars and hiring a bunch of people to drive them is FAR less in line with market principals than using that capital to help other people start their own small businesses, so they can work on their own terms and set their own hours.

<comment><USER30> I wouldn't put it that way. There's an economies of scale advantage to buying cars and hiring drivers. So that option isn't any less in line with "market principles."

The reason Uber doesn't buy cars and hire drivers is: 1) it insulates them from legal liability; and 2) they get to use other peoples' capital instead of putting up their own.

<comment><USER31> > _The reason Uber doesn 't buy cars and hire drivers is: 1) it insulates them > from legal liability ...._

Uber _hopes_ it will do that, and to a certain extent it very well might --- but personal-injury plaintiffs' lawyers are remarkably creative in coming up with arguments why they should be allowed to recover damages (and percentage- of-the-recovery contingent fees) from any deep pockets in sight. Sometimes, some of those arguments succeed in persuading judges.

On a tangential note, I predict someday soon some subset of Uber drivers will be suing Uber for overtime, unemployment benefits, etc., on grounds that, no matter what the contracts say, under the law the drivers purportedly are "employees," not independent contractors. [1] This is a not-infrequent occurrence with delivery-service drivers; _see, e.g., Narayan v. EGL Inc._ , 616 F.3d 895, 898-99 (9th Cir. 2010) [2].

[1] I've long thought that much of legal advocacy could be summed up in two words: _Yeah, but ...._

[2] [http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=1839421424161903...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=18394214241619035573)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It is a feature that they set the price, because like a store with a ton of inventory, it is complicated to sort through all your options if every cab sets it's own price. It makes complete sense that surge pricing occurs when there is a supply demand imbalance and it makes complete sense that it evens out the imbalance.

</comment><comment><USER33> " _In fact, Uber is even starting a financing program for its drivers, so they can get loans for cars._ "

Whoa. I did not know that, although I should have expected it.

Now I have Sixteen Tons stuck in my head.

</comment><comment><USER34> Since private marketplaces over the internet seem to spread everywhere and do have some monopolistic power ,i wonder, is there a more open strategy that works against such markets ?

<comment><USER35> Interesting - like most new marketplaces this seems to be a "winner take all" situation. The online marketplaces really tend to converge into huge monopolies by virtue of network power.

<comment><USER36> It obviously seems to behave that way, but I wonder why. Much like search there is very little lock in. Nothing stops a user from having 3-4 different car apps, or one third party car app that checks 4 services.

Maybe it is the drivers? If you driver for Uber can you not drive for another service? I could see that tilting things in their favor. Everyone uses Uber because that is where the drivers are and drivers join Uber because that is where the passengers are.

<comment><USER18> You can absolutely drive for UberX (not sure about UberBlack) and another service. I work for Flywheel, an Uber competitor, and we regularly see people who drive for UberX, Lyft, Sidecar, and us all simultaneously.

Uber and Lyft, the big players, definitely push more passengers than smaller companies like we do, so drivers do tend to congregate to them. Passengers, though -- there really isn't much of a network effect. Lots of services in SF can get you a car. Your friends using Uber doesn't make the service any better or worse for you.

And some people do hop services. I think that there are people who use UberX most of the time, but hop to us when Uber is surging.

I think that most of the lock-in you see has to do with marketing and funding, though. Uber and Lyft have both been funded to the tune of a quarter-billion dollars. They get in front of a lot of people who haven't heard of the smaller players. The broad "get a ride with your smartphone" space has: Uber, Lyft, Sidecar, Hailo, TaxiMagic, InstantCab, us (Flywheel), and several other people taking a go at it (Yellow Cab has an app, for example). I don't think it's particularly destined to be a monopoly.

<comment><USER35> You are right about lock-in, but there is a significant convenience factor. I mean network effects as in eBay (more buyers, therefore more sellers, GOTO 10), not like Facebook (i.e friends).

If Uber has the largest fleet it really makes it hard for other services to compete as no one wants to check multiple apps for that (and the existence of aggregators a la Kayak needs some sort of open API, which I don't think exists).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> "'uber' is a German word which means 'over' or 'better than' or 'the ultimate'."

The word is "Über". "Uber" doesn't mean anything. In 2014 one should expect people to find Ü or \u00DC. Since the two dots stem from a superscript "e", "Ueber" would be ok. Uber is not.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think Uber would be much more efficient if the drivers were just employees of Uber and paid a flat salary. Instead they have to do a song and dance to skirt around various regulations. It makes the whole thing vastly over- complicated.

</comment><comment><USER39> Nitpick: _uber_ is not a german word, if anything its a version of the actual german word _über_ where someone garbled the encoding. It also doesn't mean the best, it simply means _above_.

<comment><USER40> _Über_ in German has had both a physical and abstract sense for a long time, like 16th century long time. While English usage is a bit looser, it's not as completely unfounded as you make it sound. Wikipedia actually covers usage better than I would have expected:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber#In_German](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber#In_German)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> This is a fundamental problem with services that need to be public goods/institutions and already happens with cabs today.

The public safety/consumer issue that led to taxi commissions is that dense areas would be choked with cabs of questionable safety quality and the rates would vary greatly. So the solution is a price ceiling. The local taxi commission controls the number of licenses issued and sets prices. Lots of issues there... for example, the rates are locked in while the costs for operating cabs (fuel, labor) is variable.

IMO, Uber is a net-benefit to the market because they are breaking the regulatory monopolies enshrining cab companies. They have first-mover advantage, but other apps or services can emerge to compete for drivers and customers.

</comment><comment><USER42> Does Uber hold patents which prevents competitors or the cab companies from entering the same market?

</comment><comment><USER43> stopped reading at:

"As more people use Uber, there will be fewer people trying to hail cabs, and fewer cabs picking up people, which will lead to reduced expectations cabs will be available, and so on and so forth. Gradually the 'open cab market' will be displaced by a closed Uber service. I've already noticed it's harder to hail cabs where I live, capacity is often taken up by Uber riders."

for a supposed "financial journalist" he literally has zero comprehension of basic economics. open is closed and closed is open. wut?</comment>


How and why a Java expert switched to Python - <AUTHOR> http://www.roncox.org/146

<comment><USER2> He must not have heard about 'Play' Framework. Java beats python any day when it comes to performance etc.</comment>