The $100k green card - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/10/immigration-100000-green-card/ <comment><USER2> This is absurd. I was originally considering moving to the US for my postgraduate studies, however, after speaking with peers I decided against it, as other countries that offer far more favorable visa terms exist. Currently, my leading option is New Zealand, bundled with their student visa is a permit to work 20 hours a week, and a year's residency after the completion of your program among other things.

While some of you may not view New Zealand with the admiration that you view the US, as its tech-scene isn't quite as developed. It is a beautiful country nonetheless, free healthcare is available for all residents and citizens, not to mention the all around natural beauty of it.

Don't get the wrong impression, there is no doubt that the US is a great place, but it isn't without its problems. I'm not trying to sell you on NZ, the point I'm trying to make is why should I have to bust my balls and save up $100k for a green card when I can have more lenient and reasonable terms in another country with an emerging tech scene?

Note: it is probably easier for entrepreneurs to supply $100K for a green card, however, I intentionally ignored that circumstance as they're a minority amongst immigrants and chose to discuss immigration to the US in general.

Bottomline: America unknowingly abuses and doesn't treat immigrants with the respect that they deserve, they contribute equally to the economy as any other demographic (if not more), and are a major part of high tech industries, and therefore, of the US economy.

<comment><USER3> The answer to your question is that you shouldn't. The US has some serious immigration problems right now and it's a fact of political life in this country that getting them worked out quickly is not going to happen. We have a fractured government (not just the two parties holding different reins of power) and a screwed up lobbying system. You are exactly the kind of immigrants we as a nation want, but there is an incredibly shrill minority that shouts down _anything_ that's immigration-related when it looks like that change could benefit "them durn illegalz" who are already here. This article is about trying to get some sort of change through quickly that would allow people who are going to provide direct investment into our country. The price tag puts it out of reach of all but "business people," so the screeching fringe will probably keep its mouth shut.

Unfortunately, this is the system US citizens have right now and, for my compatriots who agree with me and would like to see you on a plane tomorrow, ready to study here, graduate, be inspired by, and enrich our society, I am truly sorry we couldn't get the change done in time for you. We're working on it.

/ _buys another ream of paper for more letters to various representatives_

<comment><USER2> I commend you on speaking out and pushing towards change. It's people like you who make America the great country that it is.

With regard to FUD on the part of the masses driving legislation, I suppose it's an intrinsic part of democracy. Which implies the following:

The vast majority of those satisfied by the status quo are the uninformed members of the public. On the other hand, the highly educated and those driving the economy are strong proponents of leniency in immigration, as evident by the frequent discussions on popular forums such as leading publications and HN.

The average American believes that more opportunities are made available to them, regardless of whether they're qualified, if they stop immigrants from coming and stealing their jobs. Which I suppose is a reasonable conclusion for an uninformed person to reach.

The solution? Inform the public, for after all, the US is a democracy, and it's in their hands to change the system. Explain how immigration is essential to the development and progress of economies, educate people on the implications of immigration.

PS: I would be interested to learn if there are any non-profits that run campaigns that aim to educate and inform the public.

<comment><USER4> >Explain how immigration is essential to the development and progress of economies, educate people on the implications of immigration.

I'd say that if you want to fix high-skilled immigration, that's exactly the argument you should not make.

What you should do is make an argument that appeals to American culture and sensibilities. Most Americans have ancestors who suffered--some a little, some a great deal--to come to America This is such a strong part of American culture that one of our major holidays, Thanksgiving, basically got it start from the spirit of gratitude that comes from surviving the horrors of trying to immigrate to the New World.

So an argument that boils down to "we're so awesome, how dare you make us bust our balls to become Americans" is going to rub a lot of voting Americans the wrong way. Especially when coupled with a condescending Vivek-Wadhwa-style "you Americans couldn't possible grow your economy on your own, so you should be grateful we immigrants want to come at all." Most Americans expect immigrants to be grateful for the opportunity to come to America, not the other way around.

So, as I said, make an argument that appeals to American culture and sensibilities. In my opinion, the biggest problem with skilled immigration is that 1) H-1B is tied to employment, and 2) so many H-1B visas are consumed fradulantly. So fight against H-1B fraud by insisting on strong enforcement of immigration law. Very few Americans will argue with that, and it will help open up H-1B slots.

And push for H-1B to be decoupled from employment, using the (accurate) argument that the current scheme is basically indentured servitude, a concept that most Americans (as part of our founding mythology) know is a Bad Thing. If H-1B wasn't tied to employment, you wouldn't need a Startup Visa. You wouldn't need the permission of an employer to move to the U.S. And it wouldn't matter (as much) if your green card application took years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is eminently reasonable, so it'll never happen. I'd go a bit farther:

\- $100,000 in cash money paid to the US Treasury earns an instant I-551 visa along with visas for a spouse and any immediate minor children.

\- $50,000 buys you a temporary worker visa (2 years?) that isn't tied to an employer. The temporary visa residency time doesn't apply for the time period needed to gain citizenship. At the end of two years you either pay the same $100,000, apply through other means, or depart. On this visa, if you raise at least $200,000 worth of investment or have created $200,000 worth of jobs in your temporary residency period (e.g. 4 FTE @ $50k annual salary) the $100k fee is waived.

Each dollar amount is indexed to inflation and adjusted annually for new applicants.

Yes, it puts a price tag on residency which some might find unseemly but I think it quantifies a contribution to society and prevents political gamesmanship.

<comment><USER5> You'd almost have to say that this article is not liable to the least objection!

<comment><USER6> Except that we'd be putting a price on opportunity... Sure maybe big companies would put up $100k for international talent, but anybody else that would want to immigrate for that price probably isn't doing it to work hard and make their lives better. Isn't that the appeal of the USA?

I agree we need to keep more talented foreigners in the country, but a $100k price tag isn't the right solution. How would an immigrant save up that money while studying in the US (or while in their former country)? If he/she drops out of college they wouldn't be able to stay on their student visa...

In fact, this author's suggesting we blindly accept anyone that can pay $100k. It seems to me this approach would attract more terrorists and/or criminals with those types of resources abroad than freelancing entrepreneurs.

Nevermind that this wouldn't solve the current illegal immigration problem either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Asinine idea of the day, there are some many wrong aspects it's even difficult where to start.

First, $100k is a big but not absurd amount of money for an American or European (it's roughly 1 year salary of a good engineer), but everywhere else in the world it's much harder to save that kind of money - it's closer, say, to the price of a decent house for a middle-class family.

The efffort to save that money will be very different per country of origin, which is very unfair. A Brazilian engineer has 3X better wages than an equivalent Chinese engineer, due to different currency valuation and salary standards.

People will start paying for this not with cash but with bank loans. These will be relatively high-risk loans so in practice, people will pay $100k to the US treasury, and maybe another $50-100k in interest to some private bank. And even if the loan is from an US bank, this doesn't necessarily mean "even more money injected in the American economy" - these days, money that goes to banks rarely benefits society in any significant way.

Having $100k in cash doesn't necessarily prove that you have the kind of skills that would ensure a well-paid job, and benefit the US economy. Maybe you are a mediocre professional, but you just inherited this money. Or your family helped realize their loved son's immigration dream, so you can only pay for the green card because dad sold his house. Or you just worked your ass off for 20 years in low-pay jobs, having a lot of discipline to save money. Or you made a loan (item above), maybe using family's property as collateral so you don't even have the merit for that loan. End result, a low-skilled worker being granted a green card and maybe becoming a liability to Social Security after failing to get an US job.

<comment><USER8> _The efffort to save that money will be very different per country of origin, which is very unfair. A Brazilian engineer has 3X better wages than an equivalent Chinese engineer, due to different currency valuation and salary standards._

There's nothing stopping the creation of other paths to residency/citizenship. Everything suggested can be implemented without worsening anyone's situation.

I definitely wouldn't call it asinine because it doesn't help everyone equally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."_

Ok, so now for some people, its gonna cost $100K, to make it evident.

I think my irony meter just broke!

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>

edit: I'm also guilty of not paying proper attention to the title: _"A Modest Proposal..."_ [1]. Sorry.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal>

<comment> X-Istence This proposal doesn't change that in any way shape or form. When you as a foreign national are on US soil (legally) you too have those inalienable rights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who has been going through the green card process for over 3 years now, $100k seems cheap to get rid of all the expense, effort and risk required to do it legitimately under the current system.

Having said that, simply "selling entry" would lead to a lot of rich people moving here and buying up property, driving prices sky-high(er) in coastal cities.

This is the issue right now in London where lots of Arab and Russian oligarch- types taking advantage of non-domicile tax laws drive up the cost of living but don't contribute to the economy in a meaningful way. Before you say "trickle down", sure they spend money on nannies and posh food, but that's trivial compared to the vast fortunes they store and control outside the UK.

Something like an investment or startup visa would help to ensure that people are coming here to be productive members of society. There's the EB-5 ($1m+ and ridiculous amounts of red tape) and the E-2 (Arbitrary amount around $100k, but no route to permanent residence), but both are broken programs.

<comment><USER11> > As someone who has been going through the green card > process for over 3 > years now, $100k seems cheap to > get rid of all the expense, effort and > risk required > to do it legitimately under the current system.

As someone who recently got one through employment, I'd say $100k is a hefty price tag: legal expenses on a fully completed GC process is around $10k. During the time you're spending $10k, you are employed and are getting paid prevailing wage for the area of employment (more, if you are good at what you do - employer doesn't want to lose you).

Granted, things won't be so rosy for people from India or China due to time constraints, but $100k cash for these folks won't really be that easy either, I guess.

<comment><USER12> Everyone in this thread seems to assume that people will have to front the cash. Wouldn't it be more likely that they'd get a loan?

But yeah, $100k does seem a bit steep. That's almost the price of a college education, and a substantial fraction of the price of a good house. And in this economy, a lot of people are already having trouble paying both of those off; adding $100k on top of that for immigration would put this out of the reach of many people that I think that we do want to encourage to move here.

As a natural born citizen of the US who has many foreign friends, I am appalled at what they have to go through to get citizenship here. Some of them have managed to pull it off; some have given up and moved back home, or to other countries in which it's easier to get a work visa. And these are Ivy- league educated folks with masters degrees and PhDs in business and technical fields. I cannot believe that we are making it so difficult for such people to come to the US.

<comment><USER10> (From experience:) You need to show where all money came from that you use towards meeting immigration requirements. For most uses you can't use the proceeds of a loan to count towards it.

$100k's pretty cheap for a professional - there's enough of a salary differential between the US and most other places in the world (especially once factoring taxes in - eg. pay is high in Switzerland but so are taxes) that it would not take more than a few years to make back the $100k.

Agree that it's shocking how difficult it is for smart, educated individuals to immigrate at a time when the country _needs_ to be attracting global talent to maintain it's lead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence I am a green card holder, and while I wish I could tell you what it took, all I know from the process is that it took my dad from 2000 till 2004 to even be allowed to start the paperwork and then it wasn't until 2005 that we actually received our green cards. So long as you have a company sponsoring you it is not that difficult to get a green card.

It takes time, a lot of it, money and lawyers. Oh, and a complete family medical history, blood draws, and pictures and prints.

As a green card holder I have the same rights as any American (while on American soil, the marines won't come rescue me for example as I am still a Dutch citizen), the only right green card holders do not get is the right to vote. Which I find semi ironic considering that we are still taxed the same, but we don't get to choose our representation... something the United States was founded on.

<comment><USER13> >So long as you have a company sponsoring you it is not that difficult to get a green card.

This is not true at all. How long it takes to get a green card depends on the category of green card you can apply for (there are at least 4 types of employment based green cards) AND on the country in which you were born.

For most people born in India and China, the process takes significantly longer than 1 year. I personally know multiple senior software engineers working for top software companies who have been waiting for over 7 years.

<comment><USER11> > For most people born in India and China, the process takes significantly > longer than 1 year.

A CTO of the company I'm working at is waiting for his green card for almost TEN years! The guy is a key person for the company, has two kids and bought a house, but is still on H1. :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The green card already has a $1M tag, even if it is not a simple transaction <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EB-5_visa>

Even so, The idea is not bad, since it is talking about skilled workers and EB5 is for investors

<comment><USER15> $1M is the amount you need to invest, not spend. Not sure what the expected value of that investment is, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16>
        Give me your tired, your poor,
        Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
        The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
        Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
        I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

So long as they can pay more than two years average income?

Anyone up for building a new country?

<comment><USER17> Well, that's poetic, but doesn't mean it works out that way in the real world.

For one, America was not actually founded solely on "tired and poor masses yearning to breathe free", but on a huge takeover and displacement plan for the native americans.

Then, "tired and poor" masses of african americans were used as slaves, and tons of "tired and poor" masses of white people were also used quite like slaves (sharecroppers and the like).

And even after that stopped, there was tons of racial tension (do you think Italians, Irish and Jews were welcomed to New York initially?).

Another consideration, if tens of millions of muslims, for example, come to the US and change it vote by vote, to follow islamic law, would you like it? Or does you "bring me your..." proposition presupposes that mass immigration will not happen if all is left open?

<comment><USER18> > _America was not actually founded solely on "tired and poor masses yearning > to breathe free", but on a huge takeover and displacement plan for the > native Americans._

America wasn't founded in order to take anything from Natives; this was a very unfortunate side affect. Your right, slavery was a stain on America for nearly a century. And there was racial tension against Irish, Jews, Italians ect, just like it is for Muslims in some sectors of society right now.

But these people were still given an opportunity to flourish through their own doing, and many of them have. The Kennedy's are the most obvious example of an Irish American family doing supremely well despite lingering prejudice towards Irish immigrants. Obviously other examples exist.

The Muslim question you bring up at the end is different. The reason people are so scared is that Islamic Law contradicts the notion of freedom. We can and should allow freedom of religion, but not before we ensure that all people are free. And Islamic Law flies in the face of a lot that is presented in our Constitution.

<comment><USER17> > America wasn't founded in order to take anything from Natives; this was a > very unfortunate side affect.

I'm not sure. The whole point of the conquest of the Americas was pillaging and exploiting the new continent by and for the European nations. Even the words "conquest, conquistador" etc speak volumes.

America (as in "the US") itself, was just some of those people descendants that declared themselves a new sovereign nation. But they too had to take the land from its previous inhabitants, an operation that started before the US established and declared independence, and continued even after that.

<comment><USER19> "Conquest" wasn't ever a word commonly used by those particular Europeans that ended up later forming the USA, though. That was how the Spanish talked about what _they_ were doing. The English ideology was all about "settling" or "colonizing". The English didn't see the natives as a resource to be exploited by an obstacle to be either ignored to negotiated with. This later caused many problems due to the English and Native Americans having very different notions of property and what buying land meant.

<comment><USER17> """This later caused many problems due to the English and Native Americans having very different notions of property and what buying land meant."""

Yeah, especially as for the English it meant "taking your land for peanuts".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free", and make them bring $100k in unmarked bills.

I think we can all agree the current system is broken. I don't know what a better one is, but whatever it is needs to make room for people who can't afford a $100k entry fee, but would contribute to American society in other ways.

<comment><USER2> Immigrants inherently contribute to American society in the following ways:

1\. They pay taxes.

2\. They spend their money on goods and services supplied by American businesses.

That constitutes contribution to American society. If anything, immigrants should be actively sought.

<comment><USER21> They DON'T spend their money on goods and services supplied by American businesses. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remittance#Asia>

<comment><USER19> Unless they aren't eating or sleeping while they're in the US, they're still spending some of their money on US businesses. And remittances are by far the most effective form of foreign aid...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> What about abuse?

Wouldn't this invite loan sharks lending money to relatively poor unemployed people in other countries, selling them the American dream and make them work on slavery-like terms for decades until they pay of their debt?

<comment><USER19> In the US declaring bankruptcy isn't too bad, so there's a hard limit to how badly they can exploit the people they bring over. Currently people are exploited like this, getting in debt to be transported into the country illegally. However, in that case it's their illegal status depriving them of normal legal protections that makes the situation get so bad.

I do expect that most people coming in would require loans, but that most of them would still be better off with this program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I would suggest the same to Europe. Get piece of land in south Europe which may host 10million people. Create 28th experimental member country of EU with values similar to USA, such as freedom and money-rulez. Families may buy a house and citizenship with travel rights and easier work permits around the europe for 1 million euros (USD1.33M) per person only valid for investors, some experts and tech-engineers. This way Europe may suck the elite of the developing nations and may collect 10 trillion Euros in 5 years to pay the debts of failing Euro members.

<comment><USER24> Not sure about you, but I would be happy to not have USA values anything near my countries in Europe.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> An automatic green card for immigrants who earn more than $100k annual is a much better idea instead. Such people are very likely well educated and contributing at a high level to their respective professions. They should be exactly the kind of people America wants to keep.

</comment><comment><USER26> I would like to just see a bi-lateral agreement between the eu and the us for work so you could give an american a job in europe more easily and also work in the us more easily. Having been hiring it's a pain to have to refuse candidates from the us because spain will makes it close to impossible to grant a working visa at the moment.

As an alternative they could also just do what australia does which is a skilled immigrant system where you score points for your background.

</comment><comment><USER27> This isn't that absurd, right now the great secret of US immigration is that someone with $1M USD of surplus liquid savings can definitely get on the green card track with the advice of their attorney.

<comment><USER28> Yes, but unless they know they'll be making lots of money, it would cost them a hell of a lot more.

The US now has a tax regime that is possibly the worst in the world for people who are somewhat rich, but not superfilthy rich (a category that I guess includes > $1M and < $50M in liquid assets).

If you live in the US with a green card (which can expire or be canceled at the governments whim), you take on ALL the obligations of a citizen, including gift tax, estate tax, reporting of everything you ever own outside the US (with a 50% penalty if you knowingly fail to report something -- google FBAR). \

Furthermore, if you do that for a few years, and you move back (say, because your green card was cacneled), you have to pay the "exit tax", which is more or less the estate tax you would have paid had you died that day.

If you're making $300K a year, your tax rates are probably around 45% (35% federal, 5-13% state; although e.g. NH has no state tax). The state tax has no treaty cover, so if your income comes from another country, you're likely to be double taxed on that.

Also, if you're making under $500K a year, you likely fall under the AMT, which means those attorney fees, tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of them, are not expensible (and neither is almost anything else).

I really don't see a reason why someone who already has wealth would pay $100K, let alone $1M, to gain US residency. It is pure lunacy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> > Why don't we let more of them join us? There are two common objections: they > will drive down wages, or they will be a drain on tax-funded programs.

Both these objections are dead wrong. The truth is that the US economy needs immigration to work. If you doubt it, just look at Japan.

In fact, immigration is the largest wealth transfer program from developing countries to the developed.

It is already bad enough that poor countries are paying for the upbringing, training and education of these skilled migrants for which they get no compensation. To compound this with this additional tax would be criminal.

<comment><USER17> """Both these objections are dead wrong. The truth is that the US economy needs immigration to work. If you doubt it, just look at Japan."""

Citation needed. Japan was flourishing in past decades, even without immigration. And the US is not that much better off, debt and economy wise now.

"""In fact, immigration is the largest wealth transfer program from developing countries to the developed. It is already bad enough that poor countries are paying for the upbringing, training and education of these skilled migrants for which they get no compensation."""

The majority of immigrants from development countries don't have that much training and education. "Skilled migrants" are the exception.

Not ever Indian immigrant, for example, is a programmer searching work in the Valley --actually, not even close to 1%.

<comment><USER30> [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Aging_of_Japa...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Aging_of_Japan#Effects_on_society)

Your standards for national success in fact drive (or at least indicate) this sort of trend: [https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Demographic_t...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Demographic_transition)

<comment><USER17> Well, that's because of Aging of the population --not exactly the same question.

How about this: which is preferable: incentives to counter the aging of the population OR embracing immigration?

<comment><USER30> Aging population is countered by immigration, something that Japan is notoriously harsh on. "Success" appears to have the effect of lowering birth rates, as my second link talks about.

There are of course efforts and policies in place to encourage people to have more kids, but focusing on those is ignoring the obvious and proven solution. Furthermore, they do not seem to work. At least not well enough.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Aging_of_Japa...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Aging_of_Japan#Government_policies)

<comment><USER17> Well, if your number one priority is to have a young population (whatever it is), to keep the economy grinding, then that would be a solution. But then you're using people just as interchangeable economic entities, i.e "I need X young workers so that I have that economic outcome".

If, on the other hand, your priority is to preserve your way of live, your country's culture, etc, then encouraging immigration as thus, can lead to many problems, something a lot of countries can attest to.

Now, it's true that historically the US had been a "melting pot", which cultures joining and contributing, etc, but this is a notion of the past in an era with cheap travel, instant communications with the homeland etc. It's not 1890 anymore, when say immigrant workers had to more or less adapt to the "american way of life", separated as they were from their home culture. With a large enough immigrant population, as an immigrant you don't have to "melt" in the pot at all, you don't even have to try to learn english. Especially if the immigrant population, because it's unskilled, has no major aspirations besides some low end job.

<comment><USER30> _"If, on the other hand, your priority is to preserve your way of live, your country's culture"_

This is all just xenophobic crap, and you should know that.

If all the people who don't want to work and don't want to fuck only want to speak English, but all the people who _do_ want to work and fuck all speak Portuguese, then so be it. Life isn't a game and people who look the same and talk the same as you are not "your team". You don't "lose" if people dare have different ways of doing things on the same continent as you.

This talk of _"the "american way of life""_ makes me think of today's XKCD...

Regardless: You asked for a citation that strict immigration policies are hurting Japan, and I believe I have adequately provided them.

<comment><USER17> """This is all just xenophobic crap, and you should know that."""

That's an idiotic oversimplification, and you should know that.

"""Life isn't a game and people who look the same and talk the same as you are not "your team"."""

Well, they are, and the team is called a "country" or a "nation". They don't have to look the same or talk the same, but they _DO HAVE_ to share certain beliefs and agree on certain procedures.

"""You don't "lose" if people dare have different ways of doing things on the same continent as you."""

Actually, I _do_ lose the ability to live in a country that operates the way _I_ like.

With your reasoning, you can just as well move to Saudi Arabia, and you be fine with no free speech, women not voting/driving, religious hysteria etc.

I don't think that this is the case --you're just talking BS, secure in living in the specific environment that you like and are used to. For all your "diversity" talk, I don't think you could even make it for a week in rural Montana, much less with actual people --including people who could give a rat's arse about diversity.

<comment><USER30> _"That's an idiotic oversimplification, and you should know that."_

It's really not... You are a xenophobe.

 _"team is called a "country" or a "nation"."_

1) That is an absurd concept.

2) No part of "political entity" implies "ethnicity/language/tradition"

 _"Actually, I do lose the ability to live in a country that operates the way I like."_

1) Xenophobia, again.

2) It's still allegedly a democracy isn't it? That has to be worth as much as it ever was.

 _"With your reasoning, you can just as well move to Saudi Arabia, and you be fine with no free speech, women not voting/driving, religious hysteria etc."_

Strawman. How mature.

 _"all your "diversity" talk"_

Where?

 _"I don't think you could even make it for a week in rural Montana"_

You know precisely nothing about my personal life. Do not pretend that you do.

 _"Regardless: You asked for a citation that strict immigration policies are hurting Japan, and I believe I have adequately provided them."_

This is still the case. Unless you wish to discuss that further, this conversation is complete.

<comment><USER17> """It's really not... You are a xenophobe."""

Yes, thank you for your five-year-old "did too" reply.

"""1) That is an absurd concept. 2) No part of "political entity" implies "ethnicity/language/tradition""""

In your part of the world, maybe --it was after all a mish-mash of people that made it _from scratch_ , and had to account for that.

In my part, it's even in the constitution. And if you ever read history, you would have found that the political entities called states were based on ethnicity/language/tradition. Maybe the fact that we call them "nation states" would have given you a clue.

"""1) Xenophobia, again."""

Knee jerk reaction, again.

"""It's still allegedly a democracy isn't it? That has to be worth as much as it ever was."""

Actually it's not worth that much. Do you voted for Patriot Act or DMCA?

I find it ironic that Americans, which from what I read on the intertubes can hardly tolerate the vast Bush-voting republican masses in between their two coasts, think that a mass injection of islamic or whatever else immigrants in a country will be even better. Because "there's always democracy".

""""With your reasoning, you can just as well move to Saudi Arabia, and you be fine with no free speech, women not voting/driving, religious hysteria etc."

Strawman. How mature."""

Strawman? Hardly. It's called a challenge. Can you walk the walk? Or do you think all "diversity" is like your friendly Starbucks diversity?

"""all your "diversity" talk" - Where?"""

Gee, I don't know, maybe in all those places where your knee-jerk reaction is to call out a "xenophobe".

"""I don't think you could even make it for a week in rural Montana" You know precisely nothing about my personal life. Do not pretend that you do."""

I don't have to "know" anything. I can see what your writing reveals.

""""Regardless: You asked for a citation that strict immigration policies are hurting Japan, and I believe I have adequately provided them." This is still the case. Unless you wish to discuss that further, this conversation is complete."""

Yes, let's backtrack when the conversation strays to somewhere we don't like. Actually, no, you haven't provided anything.

For one, I already made the distinction between aging and immigration.

Second, I'm in one part of the world with the most immigration influx in the last 10 years, and with the worst economic outcome for the same period. It's not like Japan's case proves anything in general.

Third, "hurting Japan" economically? How about benefiting them other ways? Or is all "economy"?

<comment><USER30> _"For one, I already made the distinction between aging and immigration"_

I have already addressed this, and you refuse to acknowledge that.

It is clear that you are beyond hope, you will continue to be a xenophobe even when your excuses for being so are addressed. Your comical attempts to profile me really just highlight the quality of your mental processes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> As an American, let me preface this by saying that I am in no way opposed to immigration. I am in no way opposed to other cultures. Many of my good friends are not Americans.

Here is my problem, though - I look around my floor in a NYC office (I'm a software engineer) and I see very few people who are American citizens.

To me, that is very discouraging. It shows that me that Americans who live in the US are becoming less competitive than people from other countries when it comes to technical careers.

Again, let me strongly state that I'm have no problem with people from other countries coming to work here - I'm just making an observation that it is somewhat sad that American companies simply cannot find enough Americans to do jobs in America.

So what happens if we make the immigration process far easier? I see a lot of complaints in this thread about how difficult/how long of a process it is. But what happens when people from other countries flood in? What happens to the fewer competitive Americans here? Suddenly, it's more expensive to hire them. More expensive to keep them on.

I think I have legitimate concerns. They make me less inclined to support making the process easier. Maybe I'm wrong about what I suspect will happen if we let people flood in - and if you think I'm wrong, I'm more than happy to examine any resources that you feel might help me change my mind. However, I don't think I'm wrong. I think it would be a disaster for American workers.

<comment><USER32> If you have capital, you are free to deploy it wherever you feel it can make the highest return. Why should the same not be true of Labour? I'm an H1B from the UK (admittedly Scotland rather than London) and my earning power is twice what it is back home.

<comment><USER31> What happens if the number of H1B's doubles? Suddenly availability of candidates skyrockets. The number of job openings plummet. Perfect setup for employers to get away with paying people much less, IMO.

<comment><USER32> ...and wages around the world balance out giving everyone a fair crack of the whip. Whenever someone suggests raising taxes on the rich, the answer is always "we can't do that because they'll just take their money/jobs and leave". Workers around the world will only get a fair deal when that is possible for them too.

You're right that in the short-run, US workers will suffer but in the long run, everyone wins because it means that when setting policy, governments would have to consider the possibility that workers (as well as employers) might be able to find a better deal elsewhere. That's what I like about the US federal system. This would just be rolling it out across the whole world.

<comment><USER31> You do realize that US workers' wages dropping would pump more money into the rich corporations that they work for, right? Those corporations are going to go right on exploiting people - the only difference is that it would now be easier to exploit US workers in addition to workers in other countries.

It's not just US workers that would suffer. Workers in other countries would suffer when US workers stop spending ask much money on more expensive things, like, say, imports from other countries.

Sure, wages will balance out. But if everyone gets screwed by that, do you really think you've given workers a fair deal?

Finally, you say: _governments would have to consider the possibility that workers (as well as employers) might be able to find a better deal elsewhere_.

Disregarding the fact that it is prohibitively expensive for most people to just pick up and move to another country, wouldn't governments just end up saying "well damn, our workers are getting screwed - let's erect some barriers to foreign workers to fix it", thus bringing everyone back to the same place eventually?

I just don't think it makes sense to open the floodgates to foreign workers. I think a better answer would be US foreign policy that encourages other countries to invest/nurture their high tech sectors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> From an individual perspective, if you were to put a price on all the uncertainty involved and dealing with things out of your control 100k seems to be a reasonable price to pay. If you are an entrepreneur, this helps you to get over a big mental block, not worry about wrong things and focus on important things like building great products or keep trying. This seems to be a sensible option for all those h1b employees in their initial steps to be startup founders.

</comment><comment><USER34> Michael Bloomberg has advocated passing a law letting immigrants get a green card as long as they buy a house and live in it for five or ten years. That would probably work a lot better than paying a fee to the federal government, would fix the housing crisis and the economy, and get a lot of rich foreigners to come live in the United States.

</comment><comment><USER35> What I learned from the article: Let them in. Let them pay for our debt. Tell them we can kick them out anytime. That's it.

</comment><comment><USER36> Every time I read or listen to this kind of proposals, I always think that we, as foreign entrepreneurs, can't wait for slow bureaucratic law proposals on immigration and green card.

Unfortunately it is today that we face a big handicap. We need a better immigration law now: seriously, now.

Without a long visa or green card we can't do long-term plans. It's harder to hire people, if we have to leave the day after tomorrow to our country to get/update/renew our visas. We can't take a long leasing for an office or an house. The real problem is that we can't live in a long-term mindset, and this makes an already difficult game (start a company, grow, hire people, create new jobs) harder to play.

We're are here, in a foreign country, hardly trying to make the difference, and start our businesses, realize our ideas, invest a part of our life here, in this country. And we need more help.

</comment><comment><USER37> If say 100,000 people got in for $100,000 in the first year, thats $10 billion in revenue... we accrue around $4 billion in new debt an average day. Doesn't seem significant to me?

<comment><USER38> Well I would assume these same people (someone who can just sign a check for $100k) would have significant income which would now be subject to US income tax. Plus, they might start companies, employ people and contribute even more.

<comment><USER39> might. that's the whole point of criticism I believe. this option does not auto-filter the successful folks and invite them, it invites anyone with cash. my chinese friend would be laughing his ass off reading this - he always said, as soon as they make it a cash option, everyone from china and their mother will come. there is money. and it doesn't mean a person is a smart, successful tax-payer just because they have money. things are very different outside of the US, regarding that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Our system is messed up. I would let anyone in with a degree from one of the top 25 or so schools abroad. IIT, Tokyo, Cambridge, etc. Also anyone with a 2 year grad degree in the top 20 in their field in the US can stay. Only lastly would I add buying your way in, though 100k seems low. I would think 200k, with an alternative of making a 500k investment instead of retiring the debt.

<comment><USER41> The surprising thing is we already have this very program:

Under the EB-5 program for investors, by investing $500k in a targeted high unemployment area in a capital intensive project that creates jobs, an investor can get a green card.

I had no idea this program existed until this NYTimes program on ski resort Jay Peak, which raised $250m through the program. [[http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/travel/with- renovations...](http://travel.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/travel/with-renovations- jay-peak-in-vermont-grows-up.html?pagewanted=all)]

Now if we'd only apply to entrepreneurs what we're already doing for investors...

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> 10B is nothing in terms of public debt.

Every policy must be driven by policy objectives.

For instance, if you want a risk-free way to create jobs in the short term for existing residents in US, a startup visa is a long bet. (There may be other policy objectives that could be achieved with startup visa, for instance acquisition of talent etc, but none of these do much for US's immediate needs)

</comment><comment><USER21> Unlike Capitalism, Globalization is Zero Sum. 100K green card cannot fix this fundamental problem.

</comment><comment><USER43> A very good idea, in my opinion, but I think $100k is too steep. Make it $50k and I would support this. I see that there are lot of negative commenters on techcrunch, particularly from non-americans. That's also interesting.

</comment><comment><USER44> I would write the check right now if this was passed into law. Plus I already paid the US the _tax_ on earning the $100k net (ie more like $150k)

Also, this is what it costs just to get an E2 visa right now.

</comment><comment><USER5> Brilliant. I wasn't sure if he was serious, or if this was a satirical comment on the immigration system.

Then I looked at the title of the post (it's been wrongly condensed here on HN).

</comment><comment><USER45> What if it was a 100k bond, refunded after 5 years of proven good behaviour? (good behaviour = 5 years continuous employment, clear crime record, etc)

<comment><USER46> This is more reasonable than simply taking peoples hard earned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> America: Land of the rich, home of the greenback. Of course Scott is a pornographer, so $100k seems like nothing to him.

</comment><comment><USER48> I had to smirk when I read the following part:

 _Permanent residence in the USA is a valuable asset_

It really depends on where you live. :)

</comment><comment><USER46> I would do it but if there were a health care guarantee for my family.

It has to go both ways.

</comment><comment><USER49> A modest proposal = satire <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Modest_Proposal>.

<comment><USER50> you assume that the author hasn't mindlessly used the title. this is techcrunch. i'm unconvinced.

<comment><USER51> You, sir, have never clearly not mastered the art of literary analysis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> the implied premise is wrong..

Startups do not produce jobs..especially web 2.0 statups

What produces jobs is middle-income Americans who have disposable income to buy products..ie product demand.

in fact we should reverse the 30 year trend of tax breaks for the 1% and transfer those tax breaks to middle-income Americans

</comment><comment><USER53> Really a wonderful idea to make USA the safe haven of all criminals around the world. This is the most brain-dead, totally crazy, utterly stupid political proposal I've read in a long time.

This sort of thinking (money can buy everything), by the way, makes me sick. This is wrong on so many levels. What floors me even more is to see all HN comments pretending that this is a good idea. At least the techcrunch comments seem to get it.

<comment><USER3> Money can already buy you a green card and an even faster path to US citizenship. This article proposes a massive discount on that fee and a streamlined process to boot. Nothing here proposes to get rid of the current system, a system which very much needs to be streamlined. Then again, how exactly should we streamline it? Lots of people hold up Canada and its points- based system as a prime example. Those same people leave out that Canada, in 2010, chopped huge swaths of categories _out_ of that system because they had too many applicants. Whether that same problem would happen in the United States or not is a good question; we have a much larger population/society and much more livable land area.

Yes, it's expensive, and unfair, and even biased. It smacks of pay-to-play and partially dims the spotlight on the US' other immigration problems. Does this mean it shouldn't happen until we can get our politicos to get their heads on straight? No.

(My better half is a green card holder from a not-rate-limited country. We've had more than a few interactions with USCIS.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> $100K might seem too little for people already in the US looking for a green card and it probably is. However, for people outside the US, it is still a significant sum of money. If they are motivated enough to find it, they'll probably be working hard enough to pay it back (ie. don't worry about that person hogging welfare). What I like about this proposal is that it makes it possible for the "right kind of immigrant" to apply as opposed to the $1M that is the current threshold. If you've $1M to spare, the GC is just an expensive membership card to a club and will be treated as such. With no regard to being a citizen, the person will look at it as a pure business transaction. On the other hand, the person scraping together 100K is pretty much betting on their future and making this (the US) their home for multiple generations. These are the kind of immigrants that are desirable.</comment>


Analysis of CVE-2013-0809 – Java integer overflow - <AUTHOR> http://axtaxt.wordpress.com/2013/07/06/analysis-of-cve-2013-0809/

<comment><USER2> Minor correction: _The size of the malloced area: (width_ height * 4) modulo 0xffffffff* is incorrect. The modulo is 2^32, not 2^32-1

<comment><USER3> I noticed that too. The author is probably confusing the fact that you can _compute_ the modulo for a power of two by bitwise-and:ing with (the power of two) - 1.

I.e. x & 0xffffffff == x % (0xffffffff + 1) (assuming more than 32 bits everywhere).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> OpenJDK, not "Java".

<comment><USER5> Not only that, it is an exploit of the C code in the OpenJDK implementation.

People should stop mixing languages with implementations.</comment></comment>


RadioShack files for bankruptcy. Again - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-09/radioshack-successor-enters-bankruptcy-as-retail-woes-persist-j01psvmv <comment><USER2> I assumed they all went under a decade ago when they looked like ghost towns with a cellphone counter.</comment>


How to Discover a Galaxy with a Telephoto Lens - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/32/space/how-to-discover-a-galaxy-with-a-telephoto-lens <comment><USER2> Ultimately the reason these small telescopes are so useful for finding these faint, diffuse galaxies is because the surface brightness of an object is independent of the collecting area. Larger optical telescopes have much better resolution, so the amount of light detected from a diffuse galaxy is fairly similar per pixel to a little telescope like Dragonfly. But a little telescope costs probably about three orders of magnitude less than a big telescope and you can afford to hammer a particular target night after night, whereas you'd be lucky to have an hour of time on a large telescope.

There are a number of other great small-telescope projects in different areas of astronomy. The one closest to my heart is ASAS-SN (pronounced "Assassin") since it was the idea of the professor across the hall from me when I was at Ohio State and an officemate of mine was the one who spent much of his graduate career building it. The idea was to get a little telescope (like Dragonfly it's pretty much just a telephoto lens with a detector attached) and then have it look at ~1/3 of the sky every night. That way if a supernova goes off in a nearby galaxy (or there is some other transient) it's discovered within a few days. Just this month they published a paper on the discovery of the brightest supernova ever observed [1]. They currently discover more supernovae than all other groups combined (including amateur astronomers, who are a formidable force!).

There's another small-telescope project built to search for exoplanets called KELT (the Kilodegree Extremely Little Telescope). Since transiting planets are generally detected around bright stars (at least in apparent magnitude), telescope size is not so important for their discovery. In fact, having too big a telescope can be an issue because the host star is so bright that it saturates the detector. So far they've discovered (I think) somewhere around a dozen planets, though my favorite is Kelt-4Ab because it's in a triple star system (and also because I'm on the paper) [2].

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASASSN-15lh](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASASSN-15lh)

[2]: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00015](http://arxiv.org/abs/1510.00015)

<comment><USER3> I had an idea a while ago for a "telescope as a service" platform. The idea was to build relatively small telescopes and put them in ideal places (maybe partner with existing observatories). They would be fully controllable via api and from a web interface. I was thinking it would be a good educational resource for educators, you could connect and use a telescope right in your classroom during the day, on the other side of the world where it is dark. Researches could buy time and program them to observe the sky as well since as you said, even small telescopes can be useful for some types of astronomy.

<comment><USER4> IMO teachers would be very receptive to an opportunity to do just that...if you're thinking of dev for a subscription service my advice would be to keep it affordable--education budgets are much smaller than they should be...

<comment><USER3> My inclination would be to make it a non-profit.

<comment><USER4> Have some experience with non-profits...

Some options for seed money:

Partnering--combine your request(s) for funding with other providers, or beneficiaries (schools).."collaborating" is big just now...

Grants--arduous route with a steep learning curve in terms of writing effective proposals...

Benefactor-- local moneyed enthusiast who wouldn't mind making the news with a bit of altruism...

Solo--funding it yourself then selling it...

Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The paper by Dragonfly designers:

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5473](http://arxiv.org/abs/1401.5473)

It's not "just" the off-the shelf lenses and cameras, although the lenses are really the crucial part and they are very cleverly used, achieving up to then never achieved low light scattering. At the time it used only 8 lenses, the telescope had weight of more than 100 kg.

Here's the robotic mount they used then:

[http://www.bisque.com/sc/pages/ParamountMEII.aspx](http://www.bisque.com/sc/pages/ParamountMEII.aspx)

The paper with the first results from the Dragonfly:

[http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/782/2/L2...](http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2041-8205/782/2/L24/meta)

<comment><USER6> The paper mentions "science grade CCD sensors" \- are these really better than some of the new ultra low light CMOS cameras from Sony and Canon?

<comment><USER7> The sensors used are Kodak KAF8300, which are a stand-alone sensor that you hook up to a laptop. They are designed specifically for astronomy, and perform better in some ways than typical consumer cameras. DSLRs that are marketed as tuned for astrophotography often have better sensitivity to certain key wavelengths than their standard counterparts (especially hydrogen-alpha at 656nm), but are missing other benefits of 'science-grade sensors'.

"Astronomical CCD cameras are a whole different world from DSLR cameras. These are cameras designed exclusively for AP, and most offer active cooling. The nature of a CCD vs a CMOS sensor in a DSLR results in a camera that is higher sensitivity, but also higher noise. Many Astro CCD cameras have mono sensors (no bayer color layer) which means they are used with filter wheels with different colored filters to capture a natural color image. They can also be used with various narrow-band filters to capture light outside the visible spectrum."

from [http://soggyastronomer.com/the-best-dslr-cameras-for- astroph...](http://soggyastronomer.com/the-best-dslr-cameras-for- astrophotography/)

<comment><USER6> Nice. Did a bit of reading on this, looks like high as possible quantum efficiency (across a broad spectrum) is what is desired.

You are right, most DSLR cameras lose about half of the QE to the rgb filters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> _They were also frustrated with how cumbersome astronomy had become: Modern astronomical projects are typically large-scale affairs, requiring a small fortune, a mountain of paperwork, and plenty of patience. "You have to envision ways to get $10 million and put a team together, and even then, you only know if things will come to fruition a decade later," says Abraham, a professor at the University of Toronto._

Sounds like big company software development.

</comment><comment><USER9> Taking two expensive hobbies(photo + astro) and combining them!

Also my jaw dropped a bit when I saw all those white telephotos packed together, that's a lot of glass!

<comment><USER10> Only one hobby. These folks are professional astronomers.</comment></comment>


Income Inequality Research, Libertarian vs. Liberal (Podcast) - <AUTHOR> http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2017/09/gabriel_zucman.html <comment><AUTHOR> This is very interesting as it gives a detailed discussion with data and diverse viewpoints.

Gabriel Zucman collaborated on this research with Piketty. They have a basically liberal perspective. Russ Roberts is a libertarian with an open mind.</comment>


CEO of PopCap games: How I Did It - <AUTHOR> http://www.inc.com/magazine/20101001/how-i-did-it-john-vechey-founder-of-popcap.html

<comment><USER2> The money quote:

"Facebook didn't even exist when we started the company. The iPhone didn't exist. We've adapted and changed and rolled with everything that's come our way. We've constantly integrated our approach to games."

Evolution is one of the most important words in business.

<comment><USER3> Being a game developer (though in the "old-style" console/PC part), I thought this was the money quote:

        We don't track the resources that go into each game.
        If it's a great game, it's worth a lot of money.
        If it's a B+ game, it's essentially worth zero.

Troll through the average list of new releases in a week and you can clearly see that most people/groups/publishers either don't agree, or don't get this.

<comment><USER4> Or they know when they have a B+ game and want to cut their losses and get whatever sales they can for it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> matthew-wegner The story title is currently "CEO of PopCap games". Vechey isn't the CEO, but a founder. He actually left PopCap for a few years to pursue his interest in film (before returning to the company).

Dave Roberts is the CEO, who fits the "adult supervision" CEO stereotype reasonably well. He's an older, business-savvy guy the three young founders brought in: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_i...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/blogs/techchron/detail?entry_id=62018)

</comment><comment><USER5> I really appreciated the following quote:

 _When Dave started, we were focused on creating new games instead of supporting revenue streams from each game. Dave changed that._

Part of the reason why PopCap has been so successful is that they have properly branched their games into new devices and areas, from Facebook games, to iPhone, in-flight entertainment, etc.

I think that is a good lesson for hackers. If you aren't making enough money from your app, perhaps you just haven't expanded enough horizontally. Many of the best apps these days have iPhone/iPad/Blackberry versions so they can be easily accessible at all times.

</comment><comment><USER6>
        We're never perfect. We're always pretty good, but we're always trying to be better.

words i live by

</comment><comment><USER7> Plants vs. Zombies is quite possibly the best game on the iPhone, hands down.

<comment><USER8> I disagree. Angry Birds is the best game for any platform, ever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "We decided from the start to make our games incredibly fun and easy so that they appeal to everyone."

For me, that is one of the most important lessons to take away from this. Keep it simple, keep it fun and engaging, and the users will love it.

The rise of Minecraft has reinforced this point of view in my mind.

<comment><USER10> Fun and engaging are _ridiculously_ hard to quantify. :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> PopCap: what do you think of my DropZap and upcoming DropZap 2 games?

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNaM22Oulwg> (DropZap 2)

<http://dropzap.com></comment>


Privilege, Pathology and Power - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/01/opinion/privilege-pathology-and-power.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share&_r=0 <comment><USER2> When a rich person makes a joke, everyone laughs and usually the rich person looks pleased with themselves - As though they think that their joke was actually funny.

You would think that rich people would actively try to surround themselves with people who don't laugh at their jokes and who aren't afraid to attack their character, but in reality, they don't - After a few years, wealthy people genuinely start to think of themselves as being funny and they feel offended when people don't laugh at their jokes. No wonder they feel increasingly isolated.

Those who can't fake well enough get pushed away.

<comment><USER3> Why would they surround themselves with such people? They're already wealthy, they have nothing to gain by talking to someone who will attack their character.

<comment><USER2> Some of us just want the red pill. Smart/curious people tend to prefer the ugly truth over a beautiful illusion.

It's a bit like religion - According to your reasoning, everyone should believe in God - After all; why wouldn't you, who wouldn't want eternal life?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Politics _is_ business. It's always been this way.

For most of history, only the wealthy could vote, and all sorts of schemes were used to keep "the poor" from exercising any political power whatsoever, besides pitchforks and the guillotine of course.

As long as those whom become elected accept large sums of money from individuals whom expect as least some _quid pro quo_ for their "investment", I just can't see how anyone is surprised that this is the system we get.

"The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations." \- Thomas Jefferson

This issue has been forever with us.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think "Citizens United" could be the end of the Republican Party.

Part of the reason why Trump has made it so big is that the Republican field is huge.

The Republican field is huge because a lot of donors with more money than brains are willing to shell out big money for their campaigns. Trump said that Super PACs are a scam, but I think most of the campaigns are scams. Raise a few million dollars and you can pay all your friends big salaries, then you can turn around and get a favor from them.

<comment><USER6> I think that this primary shows are little money has to do with elections. Just look at the correlation of money spent, and percentage in the polls. All the people doing well are spending very little. Many elections are actually like this.

<comment><USER7> I don't think this is representative of anything. Trump speaks in clickbait and that gets him media attention and hence popularity. You can easily argue that it's an innovative strategy, but he is only able to do it because he inherited his wealth.

<comment><USER6> I am speaking of everyone not just trump. Also trump inherited around $40 million (in assets), then built a brand image worth billions. Good brands can do well.

<comment><USER7> Sure - he has done a good job so far in brand building, but his brand is predicated on him /already/ being rich - which is not anything he created for himself, rather something he inherited.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Krugman says that greater wealth leads to a lack of empathy.

Surely it's a lack of empathy leads to greater wealth?

<comment><USER7> Could be both. But in the case of trump, his wealth was inherited, so the argument goes in the direction Krugman states.

<comment><USER6> which he increased by an order of magnitude.

<comment><USER7> It was gigantic to begin with, and he has performed about as well as an index fund over his period in business, avoiding bankruptcy only by fluke.

<comment><USER6> He goes from tens of millions is assets to billions. A fluke you say. If that was so easy we would have a lot more billionaires. Investment choices are always obvious after the fact.

<comment><USER7> I said the avoiding of bankruptcy was a fluke. And yes, it is certainly the case that if more people inherited $40 million when Trump did, we'd have many more billionaires today since a conservative investment strategy over the same period would have made them so.

[https://www.quora.com/Did-Donald-Trump-inherit-a-lot-of- mone...](https://www.quora.com/Did-Donald-Trump-inherit-a-lot-of-money-and- then-increase-his-net-worth-at-an-unremarkable-rate?share=1)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How did you start working from home? - <AUTHOR>

I've been wanting to work from home for a long time, whether it be as a remote worker, entrepreneur, freelancer, whatever. The more I thought about it, the more I realized there has to be more people like me on HN.<p>So to all the people that are working from home (or have in the past), can you share how you got to that point (working from home) and if it was a positive experience? Looking forward to hearing how you did it! <comment><USER2> There are some huge advantages to working full time from home.

No one bothers me and I get a lot more done. On the flip side, there is no separation at all and sleeping disciplines go out the window, at least for me.

I worked until about about 2pm yesterday, slept till 7pm. Woke up, went on a date, came home, started work. At this rate it may be 4pm before I finally wind down enough to sleep. I seem to shift my sleeping a couple hours later every day and it eventually flips over.

In any event, I got here by working on a personal project on company time, against the direct marching orders of the overlords. Once I had a working prototype, I showed it off to said overlords, instead of results on the project I was placed on, and all was forgiven because they knew it would make them money :-P

Two years later some partners and I have built things up enough to break off what started as my experiment into a separate company seed-funded mainly by the company I used to work at full time. I now lead engineering from both my apartment and another company-paid apartment about 300 feet from mine and we are currently seeking second round funding.

I love it, I get a lot done, and I don't have "business stuff" hampering my natural workflow.

It all depends on your mindset and how disciplined you are in management. I know lots of programmers that when left to their own devices will do almost nothing, and happily take a paycheck for it while saying "I'm working on it".

In my experience that most people need a high level of accountability and external management in order to reach their ideal level of productivity, so it is not for most people.

Then there are people like me, who just want everyone to leave them alone so they can code for 18 hours in a row uninterrupted, and are perfectly happy doing so. Office environments and pointless meetings and people dropping into my office make me want to break things. No one knows how to manage my own time and attention span better than me.

I have never been happier or more productive than the past 3 months I have been working between these two apartments.

<comment><USER3> What you say is true, but if you really think about it, if you are going to have this work lifestyle its probably best to be doing it yourself (running your own startup) as why should you, or anyone, work 18 hours straight for an employer? I look at it as that the company knows they may not get optimal coding productivity out of someone who works in the office but they take this into account and it leads to work-life balance. If you want to work non-stop then at least put yourself in a situation to benefit from it directly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started almost by accident. The place I worked at was "downsized" somewhat viciously in the space of a year from 5 of us down to just me. Finally, the boss decided that office rent was costing too much and I started working from home instead. About 3 or 4 months in, the boss started to complain that my expenses were now costing too much (he was paying half my internet bill & 1/8 utilities - maybe £80/month) so I decided enough was enough and sought out some freelance work. On my first proper gig I made a month's wage in a day so I quit to do freelancing full time.

It does have its downsides (see other post re work/rest space) but overall I'm much happier working this way and would hate to go back to a normal office job. I'm not very good at getting up in the morning and I don't take orders as well as perhaps I sometimes should, so the whole situation is well suited to me.

Also, it's worth trying to get out now and then. Work from a coffee shop or somesuch (I found it remarkably productive). Every now and again I'll jump on a train to some strange town and stay there for a few days, work from a hotel/cafe/coffee shop and power through things. Working from 'home' is effectively working anywhere if it's web/writing work - so make the most of it!

</comment><comment><USER5> working from home is fun for about 4 weeks... then you start to go stir crazy. i've actually started having problems sleeping since there is no difference between work/rest spaces

<comment><USER6> I solved this problem by working from the library. It's a quiet place with free, fast Internet access.

Another key is keeping a regular schedule. I wake up at 8am and go to bed at around 11 or 12, unless I'm working extra hours to get something released.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I found a job with a startup that didn't have an office, it made the work from home option pretty much default.

Then, after not too long, I got sick of it and got a job in an office, its not for everyone.. now I do get to work from home 1 day a week which is nice but I couldn't handle doing it everyday</comment>


Object-oriented Haskell surprisingly appealing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/complyue/ooh <comment><USER2> Sussman and Steele were quite surprised too! From the original Scheme paper:

"This work developed out of an initial attempt to understand the actorness of actors... we discovered that the 'actors' and the lambda expressions were identical in implementation."

[https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5794/AIM-349....](https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/5794/AIM-349.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is some nice heresy

</comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me of: [https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical- interview](https://aphyr.com/posts/342-typing-the-technical-interview)

</comment><comment><USER5> Basically making an OO DSL inside Haskell. It's a cool idea, but there have to be nicer looking ways to do it right?

</comment><comment><USER6> The benefits of introducing OOP to Haskell are unclear to me. Maybe the author can point out what the purpose of this is?

<comment><USER7> I'm not necessarily going to go to bat for the specific encoding of OOP Haskell in the linked post, but _in general_ , there are problems where objects are a good fit. William Cook (in the paper _On Understanding Data Abstraction, Revisited_ ) claims that the key feature of objects is that they are defined in terms of an external interface whose internals are hidden: this captures, for example, SmallTalk-style message sends and duck typing as well as the information-hiding found in languages like C++ or Java. One way of encoding this idea into Haskell is with records of functions: to give a tiny example, a set type can be represented as

        data Set a = Set { contains :: a -> Bool }

which leaves the actual structure of the set undefined. This means you can use a variety of methods 'under the surface' to compute set membership and the external interface can be identical and compatible:

        emptySet = Set { contains = \_ -> False }
        singletonSet x = Set { contains = \y -> x == y }
        union l r = Set { contains = \y -> contains l y && contains r y }
        fromList lst = Set { contains = \y -> y `elem` lst }

And while this example is a bit trivial, this pattern is invaluable for writing things that OOP can traditionally excel at, like writing GUIs or certain kinds of video games where you want to bundle heterogeneous behavior into a single package:

        data GameObject = GameObject
          { render :: Pos -> GraphicsContext -> IO ()
          , currentPosition :: Pos
          , setPosition :: Pos -> GameObject
          }

Of course, this is only one (significantly simpler!) encoding of OOP, and it might not be one that you think captures the key ideas of objects, but to the degree that it is it demonstrates that ideas which are common in OOP (like information-hiding behind an interface) can still be useful in Haskell when judiciously applied in the right context.

The paper I cited can be read here, which has more details: [https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~wcook/Drafts/2009/essay.pdf](https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~wcook/Drafts/2009/essay.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Appealing to who? This is a 1 star github repo made six hours ago and a hacker news link made 1 hour ago.

<comment><USER9> At least one person

<comment><USER10> ... and at most one person.</comment></comment></comment>


Blaze Mobile: Measure Mobile Web Performance - <AUTHOR> http://www.blaze.io/technical/blaze-mobile-intro/ <comment><USER2> This looks like a great way for the Blaze people to get a whole load of useful data on mobile phones, how they're used, latency, connectivity etc.

Hopefully they'll release some findings. It'd be useful to know for example how Android and iPhone connectivity differs on the same cell at the same time.

<comment><USER3> Your right on the money iuguy. We built this tool for the community but also for us internally to do research and expand our knowledge of mobile performance. Expect to see a report on a ton of new findings leveraging this tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Suggestion: put an icon to represent the type of phone/browser on each line in the recent reports list - right now there's no easy way to see what did what, unless you click through.

Also, I didn't even notice the line in the little "gauge" that shows the percentile until just now, it's really subtle and faint, so not the easiest visual indicator as it is.

</comment><comment><USER4> Really fascinating tool but:

They are either overloaded or something is wrong with their network connection. Their waterfall is showing an 800 byte image on my test is taking 6 seconds to load in Safari.

I know that doesn't happen on any other waterfall test because I was reviewing it last weekend.

Same site, same page, 10 seconds on Safari and then 2 seconds on Android?

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback, and you're right, we're seeing two problems right now: \- Sometimes resources aren't cleared from the cache on Android \- Sometimes iPhone resources are reported as bigger than they are

We're actively working on both, hopefully we'll get them sorted out quickly.

<comment><USER4> Keep up the good work, I didn't mean to sound critical of the details on a freshly launched product, was just pointing out a seemingly obvious problem to me. Simply making it available to developers for free was generous.

I did try the test again, this time with the 3-pass, 30 minutes later and it shows the same problem. I'll definitely give y'all a few days to sort it out.

added: What's interesting is it _really is_ taking your iphone 10 seconds to fire the window onload event. I have my own round-trip-timer that I've written to monitor the browser performance and I got this from yours:

       2011-02-10 15:46:55 207.245.xxx.xxx CA 9.182 front-page iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 421 like Mac OS X; en-us; AppleWebKit/533.17.9 Mobile/8C148
       2011-02-10 15:46:41 207.245.xxx.xxx CA 9.200 front-page iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 421 like Mac OS X; en-us; AppleWebKit/533.17.9 Mobile/8C148
       2011-02-10 15:46:28 207.245.xxx.xxx CA 10.120 front-page iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 421 like Mac OS X; en-us; AppleWebKit/533.17.9 Mobile/8C148

My windows safari shows nothing like the waterfall your site is showing me, I have to google the differences in the mobile version.

2nd update: I just had two friends in NYC hit my site - one with android and one with iphone, maybe there really is a problem (for me) with Safari. they got 2 seconds on Android vs 6.8 seconds on Safari.

       2011-02-10 16:04:31 174.252.xxx.xxx US 2.013 front-page Linux; Android 2.2.1; en-us; DROIDX Build/VZW; AppleWebKit/533.1 Version/4.0 Mobile S
       2011-02-10 16:02:17 166.137.xxx.xxx US 6.840 front-page iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 402 like Mac OS X; en-us; AppleWebKit/532.9 Version/4.0.5 Mobil

<comment><USER3> ck2, when you get a chance try it again, the issue should be fixed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Does this have any relation to Blaze Mobile, <http://www.blazemobile.com>?

<comment><USER3> No relation to www.blazemobile.com but I could see the confusion.</comment></comment>


A Wild Alaskan Island That Inspired a Lost Classic - <AUTHOR> https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/alaska-wilderness-rockwell <comment><USER2> This somehow reminded me of game The Long Dark, although as a "happier" version.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly what it is. Probably the feeling of isolation, the mountains always looming in the background, or the wild nature, the weather, or just a feeling of being there in the midst of all of these.

</comment><comment><USER3> Mr. Kent's book _Wilderness: A Journal of Quiet Adventure in Alaska_

is available at Internet Archive: [https://archive.org/search.php?query=Wilderness%3A%20A%20Jou...](https://archive.org/search.php?query=Wilderness%3A%20A%20Journal%20of%20Quiet%20Adventure%20in%20Alaska)

</comment><comment><USER4> ...beautiful, and dangeous place... people come up here all the time and dont realize the level of preparation that is required... there are hundreds of people that have, simply dissappeared, and sometimes are found being spat out at the foot of a glacier years later... ...i have to chop my own wood for fuel, split logs for my own timbers and lumber and haul 500--600 lbs of meat to my cabin and, process/preserve it...how am i connecting? off grid solar and line of sight laser repeaters pilfered from defunct comstations...</comment>


Investment help - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to make my first investment in a start up and am trying to navigate the murky waters.
The site which launched late last year has received a seed investment of 50K pounds, and the founders have invested 30k pounds. They are based in London but are planning to move to Silicon Valley later this year. Is there anything in particular I should be looking at when valuing the business? The current monthly burn rate is 7k pounds. This is paying for 3 salaries and operational costs. They are looking for a seed investment of 500K pounds. They will then hire 3 more engineers (they are ready to go now). The 500K will last 12 months. The post funding valuation is estimated to be 2.5M(USD)
I will be investing around 30K pounds asap. My investment will essentially facilitate the time between now and the 500K seed funding which may take some time. I guess I'm looking for some sort of guide in which to calculate equity share for my investment.
Any thoughts would be much appreciated. <comment><USER3> you want the pre funding valuation: post funding is valuation plus investment normally so: $2m and your share of that - 2.25% if I've done my sums right. You could probably ask for a bit more for being willing to take a punt on them raising the 500k funding and hence your risk being higher. You can also dispute the $2m valuation (but obviously if you push it down too much then the 500k round will like your valuation better and you will be diluted more anyway) - given most valuations at this stage are "how long is a piece of string".

If your round and the 500k are very close together the investors for the 500k may expect your terms to be the same as theirs.

also with the best will in the world their plan is just a plan and it won't pan out like that (speaking from very similar experience). Moving to SF is hard and expensive unless they already have visas or are US citizens, raising 500k is hit and miss (especially in the UK) and their hiring plans will take longer than they want.

Also from personal experience (on the other side of the coin ) I would suggest that you will mitigate your risk much better by finding someone else to come in with you now for say 60k which will keep them going much longer than the 4 months you will be buying them - because unless the 500k round is well advanced already 4 months is just long enough to make them desperate when negotiation time comes for the bigger round.

<comment><USER4> > finding someone else to come in with you now for say 60k

I (strongly) second that.

<comment><AUTHOR> This has been on my mind also. Thanks for the comments and links - <USER2> helpful

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Instead of an equity investment, have you considered convertible debt?

The risk with relatively small and early investment from you at a high valuation, is that the startup will need to raise the 500k at a higher valuation at 2.5M pre. What happens if they only can negotiate 1-2M? Your stock value could be cut in half.

Overall, the convertible debt will give everyone more flexibility for raising the 500K round, and since it sounds like its critical, you'd rather not have any restrictions on it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Convertible debt is looking like the way to go. Does anyone have experience with discounting the equity when the note is converted? I feel like there should be a recognition of the increased risk for early investing. Would a discount of 50% be a restriction in terms of raising the 500k from other investors or is it a pretty standard term?

<comment><USER5> I honestly don't know how restrictive this would be in practice, but I have heard of plenty of situations with a 50% discount so I don't think its absurd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> You will find plenty to help you here:

<http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html></comment>


Constants - <AUTHOR> http://blog.golang.org/constants

<comment><USER2> > In summary, a typed constant obeys all the rules of typed values in Go.

I think this is too optimistic. For example, you can divide by a 0 value but not by a 0 constant:

        1.0 / 0.0 // compile error

but

        zero := 0.0
        1.0 / zero // infinity

Or try:

            foo := 0.0
    	fmt.Printf("%f", -foo) // outputs -0.0
            fmt.Printf("%f", -0.0) // outputs 0.0

So negating a zero value is different than negating a zero constant. Rather confusing.

<comment><USER3> Seems like they've eliminated a class of subtle bugs and introduced a new class of subtle bugs. I can understand why mixing signed and unsigned types leads to subtle bugs, but not being able to mix floating types and integer types is, in practice, a big pain in the butt and I'm not convinced it's preventing anything bad from happening -- it just wraps bugs in casts.

<comment><USER4> To really do this right, a cast probably should have been able to fail, but this really complexifies code. On the other hand, only a certain restricted class of casts can truly not fail and I wish Go could tell the difference.

To be honest, this seems like one of those places where Go suffers from having paid a little less attention to the mainstream of type theory than I'd like. One of the things I think we can learn from our various experiments and years of experience with code is that any sharp bit of the code _will_ eventually come out and bite your program. No matter how inconvenient it is to have to deal with errors on truncation, if you make it "easy" and just silently eat the extra bits, it will eventually cause bugs, pretty much every time. I mean that fairly literally... it boggles my mind that damn near every time I set to use a number I encounter this problem incredibly regularly. I'd really like to be able to use uints more often, but it's too easy for them to blow up in your face instead of helpfully restricting the range of things you have to think about, as a type should.

You can tell the Go authors over the years have independently rediscovered a lot of the same principles, because Go is a lot more careful than C or a number of other extant languages in a lot of places, but there's the occasional blind spot like the numeric type hierarchy. I've come to like Go in a lot of ways, but I find dealing with the numeric types a bit of a throwback... I wish I could flip a flag or something and get panics on overflows or underflows instead of silent truncation. It's an annoyingly difficult bug to track down sometimes.

<comment><USER5> Funny, I haven't had but a few truncation bugs in 20 years. And only when doing math on rates etc. Where I know they can occur, and do a diligent job of testing, so no issue.

I think this is overblown. Should every i++ have to deal with truncation issues? This would overburden code pointlessly.

<comment><USER4> From my training in other languages, I _really_ want to use uint on values that have no meaning when negative. If you look at that statement with C eyes, that probably sounds insane, but if you look at it from a modern type system perspective, it sounds eminently sensible and if anything not paranoid enough (where's your _upper_ bound?).

Unfortunately it's too darned easy to casually subtract something and bam, Big Numbers due to underflow. What I _want_ is to be _told_ I have bug... what I get is just the bug.

I've also encountered it in some network code where the numbers in question were bitpacked. I mean, sure, it's my bug, but philosophically I no longer think that's the end of the story. Anything a compiler or runtime can do to help me avoid bugs, it should, and noticing a truncation is definitely in that class. Again, that statement may sound crazy in a C world, but it's perfectly sensible in a modern one.

You don't get truncation bugs because you're so used to not getting any help that you just do bad things like not correctly specify your type, because you've thoroughly internalized how bad and wrong the compiler and runtime are here. You shouldn't have to lie about your types to make your code work.

<comment><USER6> Personally, I really wish numeric types supported more than just unsigned/signed <minimum bit length>. Generic range types at a minimum, perhaps even "a type is defined by a pure function that returns true/false for if the value is a valid instance of that type" \- want to specify that the input must be a Gaussian prime at compile time? Sure! (Or, for a saner example, want to specify that the input must be a normalized quaternion? Sure!)

For generic range types, you can just specify "this stores a number in this range" (with negative infinity/infinity being valid values for the bounds) and let the compiler figure out the best way to store it (with overrides, of course. Just because you have sane defaults doesn't mean you should make people fight the language). Especially if you could specify wrapping rules. Exception on under/overflow / wrapping / saturation / "won't happen" (read: compile-time error if the compiler can show that it can overflow/underflow) - exception being the default.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > When designing Go, we decided to avoid this minefield by mandating that > there is no mixing of numeric types

Except when these values are constant, in which case you can mix at will.

Quite a weird design decision.

</comment><comment><USER8> When I was playing around one of most irritating thing in Go was that I need to write a lot of type conversions, especially since there's eight "normal" integer types. In my opinion, for sake of simplicity it could be reduced.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, it's rare to use anything but int and float64 in most programs, and it's exceedingly rare to use anything more than a couple of different precision integer types (unless you're writing a binary codec or something).

I don't think you mean "simplicity" here. What's simpler than forcing the programmer to say what they mean? Perhaps you mean "convenience".

<comment><USER10> But it's those problems that keep me away from static typed languages.

When I had to use Java for a project, most of the time I was casting objects around, because libA didn't use stuff libB needed etc.

<comment><USER9> The Java ecosystem is pretty painful like that. Go's ecosystem is a lot more consistent, in my experience.

Honestly, the difficulty expressed by the GP here is way oversold. I spent a decade using dynamically typed languages and I slid into Go with little difficulty. I really appreciate static typing now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Kind of fun that, say, uint(0+0i) works, not that I'm going to use that tomorrow.

</comment><comment><USER12> This brings back memories of times long since past as this is pretty much how Delphi deals with constants.

</comment><comment><USER13> It's strange that they only have numeric and string constants. What about, say, constant arrays?

<comment><USER14> Go doesn't have them. There is no large need for any special consideration of values other than those discussed in the blog post. The programmer can declare the global variable easy enough, and even use Go's Init method to populate the values. As the blog outlined, variables all have type, and it's only constants which don't have a specific type in Go. It's true it's possible to theorize up a special case where you'd want a slice of these broadly typed values, but that would add a lot of complexity to the language for doing some work which isn't very hard to do without the language feature. As for wanting a constant variable, Go doesn't have that because in the opinion of the designers it makes the type system much more complicated for a gain that isn't worth the effort and language complication.

<comment><USER15> I don't understand. Why is

      const str = "Hello, world!"

important to have and easy to implement, but

      const strs = []string{"Hello", "world!"}

is not?

<comment><USER16> What happens when you write

      var x []string = strs ?

If you make a copy of the slice's underlying array and point x to the copy, then you are hiding a potentially expensive allocation behind an apparently innocuous initialization (something that Go tries very hard not to do).

If, instead, you make x point to the same underlying array as strs, then you would have to have immutable slices, which is something that currently does not exist in Go.

I'm not saying neither of the two options is acceptable, but they surely raise issues that go against the grain of the language.

<comment><USER15> I'd expect it to do the exact same thing as

      var x []string = []string{"Hello", "world!"}

which I guess does a "copy" of the temporary? (Or at least requires O(slice's size) work).

But so

      const s string = "Hello, world!"
      var x string = s

Doesn't do a copy of the data?

That's somewhat satisfying of an explanation, though I guess I still don't see the huge trouble in having it do the copy for a slice. (I mean, really, how large is a slice embedded into the source code going to be?)

<comment><USER14> The second example doesn't do a copy of the data. The underlying data storage of a string is immutable. In your example x would point to the memory location of the constant string s. If you do for example:

        x += "\n"

Then new memory would be allocated, and the current contents of x would be copied in, and the "\n" would be copied in after it. Since the string's type can't modify the underlying data, it's safe. However a slice has the ability to do so, the data must be copied. As the article link elaborates on, one of the main design features of constants in Go is their ambiguous type. Since slices or arrays require their components to have a specific type, the only remaining feature is that they do the copy as you talk about. (Unless you want to really complicate slice logic.)

It's a rare request that you're talking about. If you have a slice which code references but doesn't edit, make it a package level var and be done with it. If you need to be able to get the same starting slice which you can then edit, make a function to return and initialize it. These solutions fit well within the language's design, and mean that everyone learning the language doesn't have to learn a specific feature that they could easily do without.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is the permanent link for the constants article, currently the link points to the blog front page:

[http://blog.golang.org/constants](http://blog.golang.org/constants)

edit: it has been updated now.

<comment><USER18> Thanks!</comment></comment>


Recruiters Look at This More Than Your LinkedIn - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcompany.com/40558075/recruiters-look-at-this-more-than-your-linkedin <comment><USER2> Clickbait title - the "this" referenced is Instagram, and other social media accounts.

"...hiring managers are more likely to check your Instagram account."

"...38% search for social media accounts..."

"When evaluating a candidate, I check for a Twitter profile to see what types of articles are shared, where he or she gets news, what content is of value to the candidate, and how he or she engages with other people"

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious how many candidates actually put their Twitter profile on their application. I mostly use twitter to banter with friends and family. Although nothing is rude or offensive, it wouldn't be relevant for companies so I would never disclose it. I can see it being useful for top influencers who do share interesting articles, but I doubt these people need to apply to companies in a traditional way.

Is it time for people to fake their tweets and constantly post "interesting" articles to get interviews? That sounds absurd.

<comment><USER4> As a hiring manager, I very rarely receive applications with a twitter handle or a link to facebook or anything. However, the software we use to manage job postings and applications does try to find all social media accounts for each applicant, and adds them automatically on the application view.

It doesn't always work (for a very common name for example), but it is actually pretty good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> A company that feels it needs to know the beliefs and opinions of its employees is a company that I do not want to work for. Professionalism is the standard--nothing less is acceptable, and requiring more is creepy. Violation of this boundary is one of the reasons that Google is in so much trouble these days, for example.

<comment><USER6> Whether or not they care about your beliefs and opinions, simply asking about social media is a sneaky way to filter/discriminate based on age.

Failing to supply a Facebook/Twitter profile indicates you're either antisocial (poor cultural fit) or old/mature/wise (pick your adjective) enough to know better. The ideal demographic has no problem participating in and sharing this information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If they need to know more about me, they can schedule an interview, or checkout my website. I post very little on social media.

</comment><comment><USER8> What do they think of people without public or linked or clear-named accounts?</comment>


How 2 Georgia fraternity brothers created Yik Yak, a ~$400M business in 365 days - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/THE-INSIDE-STORY-OF-YO-How-A-Stupid-App-5569600.php

<comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9192637)</comment>


Babies in the womb may see more than we thought - <AUTHOR> https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/11/25/babies-in-the-womb-may-see-more-than-we-thought/ <comment><USER2> It`s a known fact for parents. Babies in the womb can hear and see many things actually.</comment>


McWhopper - Hamburger proposal for Peace - <AUTHOR> http://mcwhopper.com/

<comment><USER2> I think this proposal is a _brilliant_ move for Burger King from a PR perspective. Puts the ball firmly in McDonald's court. Now both brands get a goodwill boost for going through with it, but if McDonald's passes they end up looking lame, and BK comes out smelling like roses.

So for the HN angle, this feels like absolutely _superb_ marketing.

</comment><comment><USER3> View that was a waste of time.

TL;DR: BK and McDs are getting together to sell a crappy burger for "peace day".

This has nothing to do with anything tech related.

<comment><AUTHOR> True no tech related.

In the other hands is a business idea out of the business schemes, so revolutionary for the concept. That why I thought was appropriated.

Maybe scary alliance, but seems behind good intentions, wish more company would do it, but without all this marketing crap around.</comment></comment>


November, autumn and year-to-date were all hottest on record for Earth: NOAA - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2015/12/17/november-autumn-and-year-to-date-were-all-hottest-on-record-for-earth-noaa-says/ <comment><USER2> Funny how they would make this claim before Autumn was even over.</comment>