Apple Announces Plans to Initiate Dividend and Share Repurchase Program - <AUTHOR> http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2012/03/19Apple-Announces-Plans-to-Initiate-Dividend-and-Share-Repurchase-Program.html <comment><USER2> I hate to say this is a bad idea, but dividends signal to the market that you have no better way to spend your money than just giving it back to investors to spend elsewhere.

Combining a stock buyback plan is smart at least because perhaps they can balance the two and counteract the dividend effect by buying up shares.

In reality Apple could probably just become a private company by buying back most/all the public shares, but I doubt they want to do that. There are obvious PR benefits to being the "most valuable" or "most profitable" public company in the world.

Also, as far as space travel and exploration, that makes no sense for Apple. Apple is not a company that invests huge in R&D projects that won't pay off for decades. It would ruin their incredible focus on what they are doing now and for the next 5 or so years. If you get too far out ahead, you build things the world isn't ready for yet or you stop executing on the here and now products and services.

Apple's still got a ton of room for potential growth on phones, pc's, and tv's. There are also a whole slew of "post pc" computing interfaces and devices that haven't even been dreamed up yet. Space travel would be a distraction.

<comment><USER3> > dividends signal to the market that you have no better way to spend your > money than just giving it back to investors to spend elsewhere

this is exactly what they're trying to signal because its true. what's wrong with that? they've been extremely profitable while not spending the $45 billion they're giving back to shareholders, and they can continue to be profitable without it.

> In reality Apple could probably just become a private company by buying back > most/all the public shares

no it couldn't. it's market cap is 550B. it's cash reserve is 100B.

more generally, a company cannot buy itself because the shareholders actually own the cash the company holds. generally, if a company has $X dollars of cash reserves, then the market cap on that company would be > $X.

edit: a factor of 10

<comment><USER4> I just want to point out that the amount of cash it takes to take a public company private is not equal to Shares * Market Price.

It's actually Float Shares * Market Price.

This doesn't make much of a difference in Apple's case, because most of their market share is floating on the public market. Quick calculations:

932.37M Shares Outstanding x ~$600/share = $559.4B Mkt Cap

931.79M Float Shares x ~$600/share = $559.0B Price to go Private

$400mm, in this case, doesn't make much of a difference, but if you talk about this for other companies in the future, keep it in mind.

Source: <http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=AAPL+Key+Statistics>

<comment><USER5> But you only have to have 50.1% of the shares to force the other 49.9% to let you go private :-)

<comment><USER6> Serious question: wouldn't the SEC say "no way" if that 49.9% constituted more than 500 (at least, I believe that's the number) people?

<comment><USER7> Yes.

if (NumOwners >= 500) public = true;

<comment><USER8> Actually, I think the rule is >500 investors, you have to publicly disclose financials a la Sarbanes–Oxley Act.

Different than being a publicly traded company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am in no position to tell Apple how they should spend their money but after reading the articles about Elon Musk today I can't help but imagine how the world could be changed to become a better place with all this money.

And I don't mean that Apple should give money away to charities.

Why not invest in space exploration , electric cars, self-driving cars, medical devices, green energy,... It is not Apple's core business, but "phones" have not been the business of "Apple Computer" as well.

Apple has moved humanity forward with the personal computer and mobile phones. I don't want them to stop with computers, smartphones, tablets or TVs.

I want Apple to aim for more than just consumer electronics - but I guess we won't see that happening.

<comment><USER10> They can't, unless they believe they'll be profitable doing it. It's not their money. That's a difference between Apple and Musk.

<comment><USER11> that's not true. it is their money - the shareholders probably just wouldn't like the move and as a result, apples stock price would plummet (but that doesn't really need to bother them - it's not like somebody's just gonna buy the currently most expensive company in the world). however what would bother me more as an investor would be that apple apparently has no idea what to do with all that money (how about expanding R&D even more, like microsoft? and develop the next gen input devices (after touchscreens))

<comment><USER12> The Apple Board of Directors has a fiduciary duty to investors. If they take action that causes the share price to fall dramatically, thereby losing investor value, you can be pretty sure the Board will not last very long so yes it would matter.

<comment><USER11> that's only true in theory. the largest investors are usually pension funds and in general they approve whatever the board recommends.

<comment><USER10> Then Apple can put their space exploration ambitions up to a vote of the shareholders, who are the ones who actually own Apple's money.

Hence today's dividend announcement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> With $100B in the bank, I keep thinking that Apple could do a lot more to disrupt of lot of industries.

They could afford to build an entirely new wireless carrier, from scratch (I understand spectrum might be an issue). They could create an entire newly kind of music label that redefines how artists are compensated and how labels make money. Or they could create their own new book publishing company that breaks with the traditions of the big publishers to make e-Books the focus and more affordable. They could probably buy up most of their entire supply chain.

So they must have good reasons for not wanting to use those funds to distrupt those other industries more than they already have. I'm sure they don't want to get out of their core competencies, but setting up subsidiary businesses would seem like a good way to get what they want.

<comment><USER14> It's the first one that excites me. Apple could completely upend the wireless market by selling data service at cost as a loss-leader for their devices-- or even building lifetime unlimited data into the price of every Apple device. Compared to the cost of building the network, what's $100 million on lobbying to nab some free spectrum?

Alas, I think the current arrangement is working too well for Apple to want to take that kind of insane risk. Shame.

<comment><USER15> I think spectrum is quite a bit more expensive than that. Qualcomm recently sold a spectrum block to ATT for nearly $2 billion. Granted it was probably a more desirable block (lower 700 Mhz) than most others.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, that's a good point. But even a billion dollars wouldn't put it out of their price range. I'd also imagine they could drum up serious public support by offering to give everyone free cell service, and maybe squeak out a legislative discount.

But I guess it's all a pipe dream anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not exactly surprising or bold, i.e. it is the easiest way to deal with the surplus of cash. However, it could be seen as an indicator that Apple's management cannot figure out how to use all that cash to continue the company's growth. In that sense, the announcement of a dividend is a bellwether moment.

<comment><USER17> A big acquisition could just end up being a distraction from their core businesses. There is probably only so much you can spend on improving the current supply chain, $100 billion+ is a crazy large amount. What if they feel they can continue growth without spending every last cent?

<comment><USER18> They could buy a well run supporting business and leave it alone. Diversifying outside your core business is a bit risky, of course.

<comment><USER19> Apple does not want to become a conglomerate. No matter how "alone" you want to leave a subsidiary it will always be a distraction to management.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Everyone here is missing the real goal of this dividend: removing uncertainty;

In much the same way that the stock was held back while Steve was alive because there was so much uncertainty about his health, but since his death the stock has been on a $200+ rampage. There's been speculation about what Apple might do with it's cash hoard for so long and the uncertainty has always been weighing on some investor's minds. By actually doing something with some of it, they've laid a path and removed the uncertainty.

Investor psychology is a really crazy thing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Why are Apple doing this?

I don't know much about stock and companies with money, but people on this thread are implying that Apple _must_ get rid of it's cash? Why? Surely cash is good? Safety net? What if the sales plummet you don't go out of business, etc. etc.?

<comment><USER22> the Wall St logic is that since Apple are not spending the cash and it is just sitting there and earning almost nothing then you are better off giving it back to investors to invest for themselves (buying t-bills isn't hard, we can do that ourselves).

the century old idea of stocks (and what buffet et al subscribe to) is about generating a yield from profits. the secondary effect is that now those types of investors will buy into Apple since it yields a dividend, like a good old blue chip stock should (which in-turn raises demand for the stock, which in- turn raises the share price - meaning the cash is being put to better use).

<comment><USER23> They were pressured by wall street to actually do something with the money.

I for one would have liked to see apple carry the cash balance. Sure they aren't making much from the cash, but I'm pretty sure there are better uses of the money. For example, why not buy a few suppliers?

<comment><USER22> the 'wallstreetification' of apple is complete

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> They make more money every quarter than they plan to pay out with dividends or stock repurchases - so their cash hoard will continue to grow...just more slowly now.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a strategic shift to turn the apple shareholder basis from a hedgefund hotel to a dividend fund stock. Very smart as in a deflationary shock hedge fund liquidate profitable assets first. With the recent AAPL performance the stock is probably on top of the list. Most interesting fact of the call: "Apple had a record weekend" Tim Cook (referring to sales start of the new ipad.)

</comment><comment><USER26> The best part of this is that it is leadership for the rest of S&P 500 to start paying a dividend when they can't effectively invest parts of their income stream.

The alternative is something like Microsoft, which couldn't invest the money but still tried with all sorts of terrible acquisitions. This is a better alternative for shareholders.

</comment><comment><USER22> The expectation of a larger dividend is what has been driving the share price up recently (which is why it will probably fall today).

I don't know where that expectation came from. First Apple had the problem of repatriating international funds, so this was never going to be a $30, $50 or $100 (some crazy estimate) dividend.

Second all precedent from similar companies issuing a first dividend (well not first for Apple, but first for the 'new' Apple) such as Microsoft and Cisco is 1-2%.

I don't think the buyback will be very effective, not against the bigger dividend expectation.

1.8% is about par. I am surprised they didn't split the stock. Question now is how far the stock will fall today before picking back up again later on as yield-focused funds buy into the new action.

<comment><USER27> For MSFT, they started dividends in Feb 2003, but then did a huge one time dividend in Nov 2004, $3.08 / share or about 11% of their stock price at the time. So there is precedent for tech companies issuing large dividends to get rid of cash stockpiles.

<comment><USER22> thats right, forgot about that special dividend. they also announced a huge buyback at that time as well.

here it is [http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/jul04/07-20boa...](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/jul04/07-20boardpr.mspx)

I think their stock has been pretty flat since, and the dividend increases haven't done much to stimulate the price.

Edit: btw, is this you in the MF thread about it? :) [http://ask.metafilter.com/11657/Why-Will-Dividend-Make- Micro...](http://ask.metafilter.com/11657/Why-Will-Dividend-Make-Microsoft- Stock-Price-Fall-By-Dividend-Amount)

<comment><USER28> The dividend and buyback has been an attempt to mitigate the stock price flatness problem. It's a very serious issue for the company, especially at the employee level (what's the use of stock grants and options if they have no value beyond mere cash payments?

<comment><USER27> On the other hand, employee options are actually hurt by dividends since the option holder takes the price hit on their outstanding options, but does not receive the dividend value.

<comment><USER29> Market options are sometimes adjusted for exceptional dividends, but I don't know about employee options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My intuition doesn't feel good about this. Whatever Tim Cook says, if apple draw attention away from product innovation into optimizing for financial markets and pleasing shortsighted loyalty-less public market investors, it would no longer be the Apple that we have come to know over the past decade.

</comment><comment><USER31> Although it's not part of their core business, from the news that's leaked about Steve Jobs' discussions with a CBS exec who refused to license CBS content because he felt he would be cannibalizing their profits, perhaps Apple could purchase one of these stations to spur the adoption of a new model for TV watching. It might cost them a pretty penny at first, but if it forces the other broadcasters to fall in line, it would be worth it.

Another obvious "lateral" purchase would be a cellular company. It doesn't make sense to keep pandering to the desires of the likes of AT&T and Verizon (4 GB data limit on LTE iPad WTF?) when there's so much more potential that could be realized with a good data plan for iDevices.

<comment><USER32> I imagine both of these would have been seriously considered if it weren't for antitrust concerns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> The only time Apple had a dividend before was the time when Jobs was not there and innovation left (87-mid 90s). Let's hope this does not signal that.

As a shareholder I'd preferred if they just kept and invested the money in new products. Why not use that money to speed up the real Apple TV? Screen tech? Storage? There are still lots of advancements left in handheld and this levels the playing field a bit. Apple hoarding cash was intimidating to competitors.

Jobs would not have done this. It was the first thing they did when he left in the late '80s and the first thing he ended when taking back over in the mid 90's.

<comment><USER34> Apple has only become this profitable by abandoning their early days' Not Invented Here syndrome, when they used to design and build their products from soup to nuts, and instead riding the wave of innovation by specialized third party suppliers with off-the-shelf solutions. They have long discovered that it's much less risky and much more profitable to let others do the fundamental component development work, and focus on integration of third party solutions, with occasional guidance towards meeting their goals. Even for a company the size of Apple, it can be difficult to predict where the industry will go, and a few mistakes can leave you dependent on some expensive proprietary technology dead-end while the rest of the industry passes you by with lower prices and superior functionality. It's much cheaper and just as effective against competitors to tie up the world's supply of DRAM than to build a foundry and make all those chips yourself.

<comment><USER33> True but it is a better path for many things. PowerPC sucked, once they went *nix and Intel it blew up. ARM and flash memory for devices, they push that as well that is not just reserved for Apple's use. Also OpenGL ES won the battle on mobile quietly due to Apple's support of Khronos and the mobile markets they created. Webkit, html5, canvas and more are direct results of their investment and extra cash. I hope that continues. LLVM is another area they have taken to another level.

There certainly isn't anything wrong with making better what is out there and at the same time creating the basis for other products (i.e. Chromium from WebKit) so you really own more of the market as a whole and the direction it takes.

As a game developer, the way OpenGL ES flat out won on devices with no real challenge from Microsoft on DirectX is amazing on that front alone. I'd say whatever they were doing with their money since the mid-90's was right.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> why they are announcing this 30 minutes before the actual conference call?

<comment><USER36> Because investor conference calls are not Macworld keynotes. The call is for questions, not "one more thing".

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Uh oh. I remember when Microsoft announced a similar program. That really kicked off the malaise that MSFT's in now.

</comment><comment><USER38> Initiate? How about "re-instate dividend". Apple previously paid a dividend : [http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=AAPL&a=08&b=7&c=...](http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=AAPL&a=08&b=7&c=1984&d=02&e=19&f=2012&g=v)

</comment><comment><USER39> It makes sense - this isn't a dividend to lure investors, it's an effort to reduce their cash reserves to a more sane level. There's nothing out there right now that Apple has use for that they can't buy, so why not reduce their reserves a bit?

</comment><comment><USER40> Apple should buy a US mobile carrier and do it right.

</comment><comment><USER41> iOS still sucks in many ways. I hope they are not content with themselves. By the way, why not reduce the share they get from app developers if they are so rich now? Apparently it would be in better hands.

</comment><comment><USER42> Buy at the market peak. Genius.

</comment><comment><USER43> And this for people who don't understand how stock buyback "works"

The stock purchased is "canceled". Yes, canceled.

So if a company has no operation but 100 billion in cash, after a stock buyback of 100 billion, the company is worth $0. It's a super bad deal for the employees who sees nothing, but great for Wall Street traders

</comment><comment><USER43> So instead of increasing employee wages they decide to piss the money away and give it to the Wall Street fat cats...

</comment><comment><USER44> What Apple will do with its cash has long been a topic for discussion, with analysts and investment specialists crying for a dividend

</comment><comment><USER45> It will be interesting to know how much the dividend is. Owners of Apple shares can of course take the money and use it to buy Apple products. It's as if one benefit of being an owner is, you get company a discount.

</comment><comment><USER46> After reading the article about SpaceX, I think Apple should start their own program. They can afford it. SpaceX is being paid less than 2 billion to go to the space station. I'm thinking:

iRocket iSpaceShip iStation

See, there a product family already. And the best part is that the iSpaceShip can only dock with an iStation. So you gotta buy everything.

<comment><USER47> Apple has shown it's unwilling to invest in things it can't turn into a huge win. It's not being run by Howard Hughes.</comment></comment>


To rein in global warming, healthy forests and sustainable diets are key, U.N - <AUTHOR> https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2019-08-08/ipcc-land-use-global-warming <comment><USER2> So, almost 80% of emissions come from transportation, electricity production and industry[1] but let's focus on diets(9%) and forests.

I'm all for better diets and better managing of forests but this is like saying that to put out a fire we really should be concentrating on spitting on it instead of calling the fire department.

[1] - [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas- emis...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions)

<comment><USER3> That data is only for the US where transportation and energy usage is likely higher per capita than other nations. It may also not take into account food that is imported.

On the same website the EPA global stats show that agriculture and deforestation (largely due to clearing land for cattle grazing) contributes 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions. [1]

I agree that we should be considering all areas of emissions, however diet is something that every individual can decide to take responsibility for immediately without having to lobby huge industries or pass new legislation. Other choices like moving to removable energy and reducing our reliance on transport have a lot more economic and social inertia behind them.

Millions of people are already voluntarily reducing or eliminating their meat intake, and there are plant-based options at virtually all restaurants/chains here in the UK. It's a trend that we should all be encouraging in my opinion, as it demonstrates that society can willingly change its behaviour on a wider scale when presented with reasonable alternatives.

[1] - [https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas- emiss...](https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions- data)

<comment><USER4> I think grassroot movements and small NGOs should absolutely be focusing on personal choices that people can make to make themselves and their communities sustainable.

But the vast majority of government resources (money, attention and political capital) should be expended on reigning in systematic issues, such as outlined by GP: promoting electric vehicles, replacing all coal/oil/gas power plants, carbon neutral shipping and commercial flights etc

The shift of the global economy to sustainability is going to bring down lots of rich people and lots of vested interests, and replace it with other rich people and vested interests. The former are not going to go down without a big fight and only governments (and not individuals) are strong enough to bring them down.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> In the book Drawdown, the top 10 best ways to combat climate change are:

1\. Better refrigerant management, b/c refrigerants release significant potent GHG

2\. Wind turbines to offset oil/gas

3\. Reduced food waste

4\. Plant-rich diet

5\. Better tropical forest health

6\. Better education for girls

7\. Better family planning options

8\. Solar Farms

9\. Silopasture (forested and mixed agriculture plots)

10\. Rooftop Solar

The list of top 50 continues cycling at about that frequency through unexpected engineering problems (e.g., 1), social issues (e.t. 3,6), and traditional O&G replacements (e.g., 10).

Saying this or that is the solution is just dumb. Saying it's "key" doesn't necessarily mean it's "the only keystone", I'd hope.

<comment><USER3> The reason it's 'key' is because adopting a plant-rich diet and reducing food waste are pretty much the only items on this Top 10 list that any individual regardless of location can decide to act upon right now.

Given that agriculture generates ~24% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions including ~48% of global methane emissions, it's a good start that gets individuals thinking conciously about their impact and encourages more action at the grassroots level.

Of course the other issues are just as urgent but those are altered by innovation and governments through taxes and legislation, which can be pushed along with the support of a more climate-concious society.

<comment><USER5> I read you.

There's a nit pick that rooftop solar is probably a fine individual choice, but there are complicating factors and a high upfront cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> No, the only way to rein in global warming is to drastically reduce consumption, and vicariously, production - of everything. The chances of this happening are nil.

A new UN report claims water and land resources are being exploited at "unprecented rates", and this will become worse as water supply and agricultural yields diminish.

The next five to ten years are critical if something is to be done to stop or attenuate climate change. Unfortunately, very few people are prepared to make the necessary changes to their life style.

</comment><comment><USER7> As lactose intolerant I have come to find the EU policy of vast overproduction of dairy problematic. Milk powder is stocked like crude oil reserves and used to influence the market, not only in the EU but also abroad. Cattle farming in Africa can not find a foothold because European products are subsidized so heavily using money lifted from EU taxes. Instead, they compete with substandard yogurt made from milk powder and palm oil.

Milk powder gets added to all kinds of foods it does not belong in because it is too cheap, and I suffer for it when something slips onto my dinner plate. An inflamed gut leads to mental health issues, and as we now know contributes to premature aging.

To me it looks like systematic poisoning of the food supply and I think it is a catastrophe in the making that nobody talks about.

<comment><USER8> So basically, milk powder is the EU's equivalent of the US's problem with corn syrup? That's rather interesting. I wouldn't even know how to use it as an ingredient, although that's true of at least half the stuff in most packaged foods.

<comment><USER7> Similar I suppose yes. I think it was in the '70s that there was talk in media here about butter mountains, so it's not a new problem either.

Forgot to say, industrial cattle farming also uses a lot of antibiotics. Haven't heard of superbugs escaping yet, perhaps because of competent veterinarians.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> But wait! Maybe grasslands and grazing are better than forests - UC Davis study:

[https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/news/grasslands-more- relia...](https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/news/grasslands-more-reliable- carbon-sink-than-trees/)

<comment><USER10> *..."In Wildfire-Prone California"

The study says it could apply to other semi-arid environments as well. Interesting study but the qualifier is definitely necessary.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> _This_ is the problem:

"We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like."

...and this culture comes from the top.

<comment><USER12> Please explain how it "comes from the top".

<comment><USER11> Marketing. Who controls that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "Sustainable diets" are often unhealthy, ultraprocessed, soy based carb heavy stuff that kills you off early. It is possible that people dying would rein in global warming but I'd like to pass on it. What most people need is a healthy mix of meat, dairy, veggies, and fruits. If you are not overweight, that alone saves a fair amount in GHG emissions.

<comment><USER14> Some cultures eschew dairy almost entirely. Most of the world is lactose "intolerant" actually. Not sure why it would be considered an important part of ones diet.

<comment><USER8> Dairy is a key part of the diet of hundreds of millions of vegetarians. It's undeniably important to the diet of a large portion of India's population, for example.

A different sort of vegetarian diet might work without any dairy (I'm pretty sure this describes some traditional Buddhist food). Not everyone uses the same stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't know, I ceased regarding the UN as a source of scientific observations. This sounds like a PC person in an office publishing a memo.

<comment><USER16> Listen to every single other report about it then. All the same result.

<comment><USER15> Directly contradicted by observations above. Try again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The first half of the statement is a load of crap because forest fires will accelerate glacial melt and climate instability. Heck, Thunderf00t just debunked the recent Somalia virtue-signaling as completely futile. What needs to happen is net zero carbon emissions with large-scale permanent carbon sequestration. Tens of trillions of USD to get back to pre-industrial levels of GHGs is affordable and vital.

\- Curtail use of fossil-fuels and animal agriculture

\- Switch from carbon-polluting Portland cement manufacturing to carbon neutral or negative cement production

\- Iron seed the oceans to spur seaweed blooms

\- Seaweed: Salvage, closed-system burn and bury carbon emissions deep

\- Also, separate CO2 from air and bury it

\- Reintroduce large managed herds of grazing animals at the interface of desertification to restore grassland soil health

\- Resurrect wooly mammoth hybrids in large herds to deforest arboreal tundra back to grassland tundra to stop carbon and land loss</comment>


How does Hammacher Schlemmer survive in the age of Amazon? - <AUTHOR> http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/August-2018/Hammacher-Schlemmer/ <comment><USER2> This was an interesting read. I had to think of The Wirecutter. Do some tests and then present "the best X". (I've heard quite some criticism over the Wirecutter and don't want to argue, for lack of real knowledge).

When I'm well invested in a topic, I might research for hours and then buy "the best", but for thing where I just want a "not shitty" option (say, an umbrella maybe?) I like this model. I wish there were more sites like that, where I can trust the opinion/result enough to not have to research for myself.

<comment><USER3> I think that's a big part of the appeal of Costco. For most items, you only have one or two choices, and they are fairly reliably good, so you don't have to think too much about it.

<comment><USER4> I didn't make the connection to Costco, but you're absolutely right as Costco also has a similar set really good guarantees.

<comment><USER5> Electronics excepted, 90 day return policy, which also includes major appliances. [https://customerservice.costco.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1...](https://customerservice.costco.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1191)

I can vouch for coverage for minor electronics: I was able, without complaint or even a question from Costco, to swap out a Braun electric toothbrush that failed somewhere around year 1. The replacement is going on ~5 years. (The brushes are frigging expensive compared to a manual toothbrush, that's where the money is, give away the battery+motor for free!)

<comment><USER6> When Costco reduced the electronics return period to 90 days, they also started extending the manufacturer warranty to 2 years, so they still have your back more than most retailers do. They just cracked down on people returning computers and TVs several years after purchase, and getting a free upgrade.

<comment><USER5> When was this? I bought a TV barely a year ago and it's a flat 1 year warranty with paid upgraded warranty. And then a number of years ago my mom bought an Apple iPod which failed within 6 months and Costco shrugged, said it wasn't covered beyond 90 days at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Amazon isn't really a competitor to them at all it seems. You go to Amazon to get stuff you know you need. You read the HS catalog to find the stuff you didn't know you need. That's how I perceive it anyway, as an outsider to the US.

</comment><comment><USER8> We have other catalogs like these in Sweden and my 70+ year old father is one of their consumers. He just doesn't understand computer interfaces enough. A catalog is the extent of what he can grasp outside of regular stores.

When someone feels insecure online. Not sure what they're doing or what they can trust. Then they turn away from the internet.

</comment><comment><USER9> I think we'll come a full circle … not only with e-commerce but also with search in general. Instead of being bombarded with 1000's of products/blue links, we will want few, highly curated products/links that we can blindly trust.

<comment><USER10> Reddit has r/buyitforlife that hints that way, but I really want a sub for premium products that I can enjoy (Bose QC, Allbirds, Icebreaker, Airpods, etc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Someone has to do the sorting between good and bad products. Amazon bet on buyer reviews to do that, but seeing the fake reviews and all (dozen of post on that subject on HN), it's not working so well. So the seller has to do the job.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is a great case study in niche sales. You see this pop up in small online businesses. The _one_ risk right now that is pointedly raised here is that the niche is, unfortunately, young execs in the 80s - they are aging now!

Very cool business study about delivering perceived value.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am surprised to know they exist. As an occasional visitor to the US 15-20 years ago, I used to be enamoured of this catalog and would often read it end to end (and a similar one present on some flights - though, I can't recollect which one). I used to wish I could buy some of the cool stuff in there. Some were fantastically drool-worthy; at least as I remember the then me feeling.

<comment><USER14> The similar airplane-pocket catalog might perhaps have been The Sharper Image ([https://www.sharperimage.com/si/](https://www.sharperimage.com/si/)) ?

<comment><USER15> Or the sadly now-defunct SkyMall. [1] It was the Weekly World News of mail- order catalogs. Though apparently there are plans to publish again.

Apparently also they were affiliated with Hammacher Schlemmer.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyMall](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyMall)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Consumers are hungry for curation. Not surprising at all.

</comment><comment><USER17> How do they survive Amazon? By relying on lazy people.

The "barber eliminator" is mentioned in the article. I thought it was interesting, and within my budget and started to consider purchasing it.

But then I thought: What if Amazon has it cheaper? Pro tip: It's 2/3 the price on Amazon. Same exact product. You can even search "barber eliminator" on Amazon and find it under its real name.

So how do they survive? By providing a curated list of products to people too lazy to search for a better price.

<comment><USER18> Except _caveat emptor_ Amazon might have the product or a reasonable fake.

<comment><USER19> And, not infrequently, an unreasonable one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Isn't this the one which starts every single product description with some version of "the world's best (object which does this thing)"?

<comment><USER21> Not quite, but a very healthy percentage of all start with 'The'. eg: 'The Fitbit Alta Heart Rate Monitor' [0][1]

[0] [https://www.hammacher.com/category/electronics- gadgets?promo...](https://www.hammacher.com/category/electronics- gadgets?promo=topnav_elec_gadgets)

[1] [https://www.hammacher.com/product/fitbit-alta-heart-rate- mon...](https://www.hammacher.com/product/fitbit-alta-heart-rate- monitor?promo=electronics-gadgets)

<comment><USER17> It looks like they have a "the best" category for a lot of stuff, but their slogan is now incorporating "the best, the only, and the unexpected" now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Simple: They don't. I get the sense (based on my family at least) that their audience is boomers that aren't really tech savvy looking for easy gifts. Once this existing audience base dies off, they'll struggle and ultimately be acquired.

Since they're based off mass-mailing of catalogs, they know their effective target is not a tech-savvy audience. They've run the numbers and they figure this demograph is a sufficient one to market to.

<comment><USER23> The majority of their revenue comes from online sales.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> TBH HS was doing e-commerce on compuserve at least a decade before amazon even existed

</comment><comment><USER25> I'll be honest: The first time I heard of Hammacher Schlemmer was when Dwight mentioned it in the Niagara Falls episode of The Office. It's pretty interesting to read more about them.

</comment><comment><USER26> Ey! I always thought Hammacher and Schlemmer only existed as characters of Beerfest...</comment>


Ask HN: What Happened to Optimizely (YC W10) ? - <AUTHOR> I'm was relatively interested in the A/B testing space in the past but got away from it recently. However, I had need of it again and remembered that Optimizely used to be the go-to A/B testing service for websites. However, when I went to their website now, I can barely tell what they do anymore. It doesn't even seem like you can create an account without talking to a "Specialist". The Plans page has no pricing on it - you have to "Talk to Sales". The "Get Started" button on the homepage takes you to a contact form.<p>What happened? Did they decide that there is no consumer marketing for a/b testing? Or did they get bit by the Enterprise-bug and decided to focus solely on the Fortune 500? It's a shame really. Now I have to start looking for a new a/b testing service. <comment><USER2> I think it is the enterprise bug some (most) established SaaS companies who have raised a significant amount of money catch. Having small guys like us pay them $49/mo doesn't move the needle much but closing 6 figure contracts does. Even outside of Fortune 500 there are plenty of companies that have budgets to spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on something they see as valuable to their business.

</comment><comment><USER3> They went full corporate so far, I had a meeting with one of their salesman 2 years ago and they're mostly on corporate accounts business. Their software, as well competitors is so bloated.</comment>


A Chemist Shines Light on a Surprising Prime Number Pattern - <AUTHOR> https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-chemist-shines-light-on-a-surprising-prime-number-pattern-20180514/ <comment><USER2> Maybe I'm skimming a little too lightly here, but... diffraction patterns are just a Fourier transform. If you have a look at prime spirals (Ulam spirals and Sacks spirals), it's trivial to see that there is some structure that will turn up in a Fourier transform.

</comment><comment><USER3> This seems closely related to the work on proving the Riemann hypothesis, where there has been work on attempting to show some quasi-crystalline structure of the zeta function zeros ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis#Quasicrysta...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis#Quasicrystals)). The Riemann hypothesis itself has deep consequences for the theory of primes. Cool stuff.

</comment><comment><USER4> I am very much a layman here. Can someone in this space tell me what it means to shine light on a number?

<comment><USER5> "Shining light" on something is kind of a metaphor for figuratively illuminating something, or showing something more clearly (pretend someone shines light on something in the dark). More precisely, I believe this is saying that a chemist is providing more information about a prime number PATTERN.

<comment><USER6> It's a bit of a pun too, since crystallography is, in essence, shining a light on something and studying what comes back.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> OK so he takes the Fourier transform of a non-periodic array of delta functions with the delta functions being at the prime positions, and notices peaks at inverse separations of 2, 6, etc. There's neither X-ray diffraction, chemistry, or any real math here. Garbage.

<comment><USER8> If you mean the comment, yes.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is there a directory for failed startups? - <AUTHOR>

Most of the time everyone talks about startups that made it and those that fail are forgotten, but is there a website where I can see more info about failed startups? There are a lot of talks on HN about failed startups but again most of them are forgotten and fade away.
I am thinking of building such a directory where the founder can post his story and lesson learned. Many blog about it, many don't even bother and move on but I think it is a valuable experience to share...I really think startup failure is a big topic and it is or it should be part of the Lean Methodology just before the pivoting...learn from mistakes...there should be tools to learn from mistakes...every aspect of the failure should be analyzed. Some people do this, but I think everyone who pivots should really analyze the failure just as much as analyzing the potential market.
So plz provide links if there is such a directory or tools for analyzing startup failure, if not I think I will make such a place as a side project.What do you think? <comment><USER2> Fucked Company maintained a directory from 2000-07. You can browse the 1,008 entries in the directory, most of which link to news stories about their demise, via the Internet Archive cache: [http://web.archive.org/web/20070811195823/http://www.fuckedc...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070811195823/http://www.fuckedcompany.com/hof/)

Not sure if anyone's been compiling a similarly comprehensive database in the years since 2007.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not a directory, a conference exists: <http://thefailcon.com/>

<comment><USER4> Oh that's genius, but $250 seems pretty steep for most people who JUST lost their shirt on a startup. The speakers must be first rate.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I said in my post failure is a learning process...I think 250$ is a good value if you learn something for your next startup and avoid losing your shirt again.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, I saw an external link to some of the speakers, Definitely something I'm considering checking out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Was thinking of starting similar and even picked up appitaph.com for it. Just shot you an email.

<comment><USER6> Nice domain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To quote General MacArthur the problem is that some startups don't die, they just fade way.</comment>


What happens when the Internet goes out in Southeast Alaska? - <AUTHOR> http://juneauempire.com/state/2014-08-17/southeast-unplugged <comment><USER2> For everyone that hasn't read the article by Neal Stephenson on under ocean fiber optic, here it is: [http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html](http://archive.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html)

If you haven't read it, I strongly recommend it. It covers how under ocean cable is laid, how the construction industry works, how the telephone industry works, and the history of the telephone/telegraph.

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool article about undersea cables (instead of working on a fishing rig in Alaska it would be fun to work a specialized fiber-laying vessel like the Wave Venture mentioned in the article.)

But honestly I was expecting something more along the lines of a measurable uptick in births 9 months later. :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Speaking personally, I head home and wish that my employer wasn't on ACS.

</comment><comment><USER5> There is a series of tubes joke to be made here.</comment>


Quasi-cranks - <AUTHOR> http://funcall.blogspot.com/2010/05/quasi-cranks.html <comment><USER2> I was in a third-year group programming class in university. We were tasked with creating a web-accessible system for administrators and end users of an imaginary highway speed pass system.

Myself and another experienced member outlined a general strategy to the group: MySQL data store wrapped by business rules enforced by a server-side component accessed via API for a PHP-based web app. Then we began outlining major classes and objects: Models for data, an API helper object.

Everyone was on the same page, but for a certain "J. J.," whose contribution was: "No, we should only have four classes."

"Why?"

"Because we only have four kinds of users."

"But we just said we'll be using an object to wrap the API —"

"Yeah, that should be part of each user."

</comment><comment><USER3> It's this way for anyone who's good or bad at anything.

If you're not good, you'll be confused and clumsily try to get the results you want. If you're good, you actually understand what you're doing and make _deliberate strokes_.

<comment><USER4> Being a crank doesn't just mean somebody's inexperienced, it means their thought processes are unusually flawed. Sit a normal person down in front of a computer and tell them to write code, and you'll end up with a typical spaghetti-code swamp. But it's a common kind of swamp -- it'll have global variables, no error handling, lots of redundant code, but fundamentally some logical structure will be present.

In contrast, tell a crank to write code, and you'll end up with the programming equivalent of Finnegan's Wake (or, if you're unlucky, Timecube). Execution paths meander and ultimately lead nowhere; comments which are not just wrong, but bear no relation to any nearby code; often, remarks that the compiler is wrong and only the crank is aware.

Crank code can be amusing to read, but I can't imagine dealing with it in a professional environment.</comment></comment>


Era of Distraction - <AUTHOR> http://www.raymundtamayo.com/2014/09/era-of-distraction.html <comment><USER2> That reads like a rant from the 1950s. People have been complaining about that since the introduction of television. Before television, entertainment was a scarce resource. After television, anyone with a receiver could obtain more entertainment than they could consume.

About a dozen years ago, ABC, the TV network, had a promotion to the industry with banners around the Hollywood area. One on Wilshire near Beverly Hills said "All we ask is five hours a day". That refers to the average TV viewing time of Americans. That number has dropped since, much to the annoyance of the TV networks.

We may have passed peak cell phone overuse. I see fewer people walking around while looking at their little screen. It's been several years now since someone walked into me while looking at a screen; in the early days of smartphones, that happened often in stores. I'm no longer seeing people on the California Coastal Trail watching little screens. Society seems to be dealing with this.

<comment><USER3> Funny that the plea is for 5 hours of TV consumption rather than 5 hours of labor per day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've recently given up a big temptation/distractor in my life. I packed up my gaming desktop and gave it away, and now I just use my laptop which I long ago set aside as school-only. This thing couldn't even play games if I wanted to, but it CAN ssh and compile code.

I mean, after 9.5 years of playing DotA, what's the point? My grades have improved and I'm overall happier as I invest more time learning skills that I truly want to gain, all while traveling lighter.

I think I hit a breaking point when I was living in my last apartment. I had too much junk around that I didn't want, need, or use. And because there was enough of it, I didn't have a real place for anything and didn't feel like cleaning it. My apartment wasn't dirty, but it was perennially untidy. I did not like that at all.

<comment><USER5> Good for you. I'm often tempted to do the same, I still play 2-3 hours a day of PC games most nights after work. It isn't healthy but then if I didn't I suspect I'd binge on netflix or even just regular TV instead. I think eventually I'll grow out of it and do more reading, cooking and other activities, but it'll take a decision on my part to make that happen.

<comment><USER6> I find I have about an hour before bed where I really _shouldn 't_ be trying to be productive (because if I keep coding or whatever, it'll actually prevent me from sleeping), where some nice video games or some passively-consumed video content can be slotted in guilt-free.

Now, I'm not saying that's the _only_ time I relax, because that would be a lie. But it is a time that at least speaking for myself, I _have_ to relax or I can't sleep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think the author should be using the "we" pronoun. He's welcome to talk about himself but it's a step too far in generalizing that everyone has those behaviors and tendencies.

Second, he needs to take a deep breath and relax. There is a balance that can be achieved through focus and discipline. How about changing the discussion to educating parents on these distractions and nipping the false sense of anxiety at the bud? How about having a psychology class in high school that confronts these desires and shows how artificial they really are?

<comment><USER8> As indicated at the bottom of the article, this is only the first chapter of a book in which he does offer solutions and strategies. [http://www.raymundtamayo.com/p/simplify-life-and-make-it- cou...](http://www.raymundtamayo.com/p/simplify-life-and-make-it-count.html)

Regarding use of "we". Clearly (at least to me) he is referring to societal trends that are fairly common. Not a specific groups of "we"s. So clearly there are plenty of folks who are not effected by these challenges. It's fairly pendantic to get hung up on this word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think the author uses the term "we" when he should talk about himself.

He presents distraction as an insurmountable problem, and it is not. Society develops antibodies for everything, including novelties in the later century like propaganda and media mass control, advertisement and even TV.

As tools things like cinema, TV or Internet, or cell phones give us much more options that what is taken from us.

For example, going to the cinema for two hours made people understand places and people living far away much better than any book theater or picture could.

Now if you want to solve distraction finding people that have solved it and developed effective techniques is only a touch away, if you really want to solve it instead of ranting about "we sinners" on Internet.

Having said that "Man shall not live on bread alone". Some distraction in your life is necessary. People are not productivity machines. Curiosity is Ok. I "lost" time on HN, but I always "gain" from things I learn on it. I have cashed lots of money from this knowledge but hadn't I, I will continue reading it.

Using twitter or facebook for getting in touch with the people you love does not need to take so much time and could be very useful.

</comment><comment><USER10> I would say the author's point about buying things and distraction from being connected is pretty weak. There's actually a tension there: why buy other stuff when you only ever interact with your phone?

You can be a complete minimalist, live in a house with nothing in it, and just lay on the floor in the dark surfing the internet on your phone, chatting with friends on facebook etc, and all of the problems the author complains about will still exist.

<comment><USER11> I agree. The link/extrapolation here to general consumerism is tenuous at best.

<comment><USER12> There is a very real problem of people not being aware of their impulse to buy. In fact, it's the foundation for all advertising: plant messages in the buyer's mind well before the buying occurs.

I know that sounds Manchurian Candidate-ish but that's the nature of Marketing and Advertising.

So perhaps the author is not entirely wrong in positing that distraction is, in a way, fueling meaningless purchases?

<comment><USER10> It's certainly possible, but if true, its in spite of our tendency to have one device we use all the time, not directly because of it

<comment><USER12> You bet. People have been making questionable purchasing decisions for a LONG time. To blame it ALL on a smartphone or some other distraction is a bit simplistic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Focus is a more valuable trait in this era. We spoil our mouth and stomach first. And it's mind's turn. Information diet might be a solution for most information consumers.

</comment><comment><USER14> > I don't want to offend anyone, and I'm saying this with absolute care and > humility… but if only they hadn't had that much stuff then they would have > had an easier time evacuating their homes and focusing on making sure their > families are safe.

I've never understood these "I'm not a racist, but"-type comments. This _is_ offensive, and does _not_ demonstrate care and humility. Someone who learns from such a tragedy principally that others shouldn't have so much stuff is, I think, learning the wrong lesson.

EDIT: To be clear, I don't mean that I don't understand the _purpose_ of the disclaimer, but rather that, if not always then at least in a modern rhetorical environment, it seems like a poor way of achieving its goal. For example, if the author correctly recognises that his statement sounds offensive, and absent care and humility, why not explain why he thinks that perception is incorrect, rather than trying simply to deny it by _fiat_?

<comment><USER15> From Scott Alexander's post, _The Eighth Meditation on Superweapons and Bingo_ [1]:

> But why would someone use "I'm not racist, but..."? It sounds to me like > what they are saying is: "Look. I know what I am saying is going to sound > racist to you. You're going to jump to the conclusion that I'm a racist and > not hear me out. In fact, maybe you've been trained to assume that the only > reason anyone could possibly assert it is racism and to pattern-match this > position to a racist straw man version. But I actually have a non-racist > reason for saying it. Please please _please_ for the love of Truth and > Beauty just this one time throw away your prejudgments and your Bingo card > and just listen to what I'm going to say with an open mind."

> And so you reply "Hahahaha! He really used the 'look I know what I'm saying > is going to sound racist to you you're going to jump to the conclusion that > I'm a racist and not hear me out in fact maybe you've been trained to > assume...' line! What a racist! Point and laugh, everyone! POINT AND LAUGH!"

Poor reactions to such disclaimers have gotten so bad that I'm now seeing disclaimers referencing that fact. "I know racists say, 'I'm not racist but...', but in this case..."

Most often, people who use such disclaimers really aren't racist. Or if they are, it's by accidental ignorance, not purposeful maliciousness. In any case, it's more productive to respond with civil discourse rather than claiming offense and biting their head off.

1\. [http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html](http://squid314.livejournal.com/329561.html)

<comment><USER14> > Most often, people who use such disclaimers really aren't racist. Or if they > are, it's by accidental ignorance, not purposeful maliciousness. In any > case, it's more productive to respond with civil discourse rather than > claiming offense and biting their head off.

I don't believe that I bit anyone's head off (but maybe you weren't claiming that I did).

As for a claim of _accidental_ ignorance, I don't buy it _in the context of_ the "I'm not racist, but …" disclaimer. If you are aware enough of how you sound to say that, then it seems too much to claim that any actual racism is accidental.

In fact, what I meant to say here was _not_ that racist-sounding remarks are always racist and should never be heard, but rather that someone who wants to say something that sounds racist, but that he thinks isn't, had better _explain_ why it isn't rather than just _asserting_ that it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Have any of you seen this television ad? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4GjGhAhCn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4GjGhAhCn8)

 _Cox is the official sponsor of binge-watching._

Addiction sells (see _Phillip Morris_ ). The wonderful thing about selling _Internet_ is that you don't create the content, you just provide access to it. As content gets larger and larger (320x240 -> 4K streams..) so do profits. It's bizarre to me how blatantly they want their users to be helplessly addicted.

I think the author is right about tangible things ("stuff") but could spend more time pointing out the intangible addictions: 1000+ RSS feed items to read, 100+ TV episodes to catch up on, 10+ news aggregators to check, 100+ new PNGs to arrow through, etc. These things don't pile up quite so visibly.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think I'll take his advice and not buy the book, cause I don't need more stuff(even digital stuff).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The first half of the article is a genuine problem. There's just so much distraction going on right now, I wonder how people are being productive.

<comment><USER18> I know HN sure isn't helping me be productive from minute to minute! I'm checking it compulsively for new posts. Hopefully its teaching me enough to compensate...

<comment><USER5> When I'm busy at work I turn on "noprocrast" mode. I still open hn all the time but the "get back to work!" message helps me close it quicker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> My favorite part of being a human is that I get to decide what stresses me, what makes me anxious, etc. So I make interacting with technology about me deciding how much I want to engage. Phones have silent. You can turn off email notifications pretty easy. You can turn it off on nights and weekends (I can't recommend this highly enough if you are in a position to do so).

Sure, I get peeved with folk obsessing over their phone's Instagrat feed. But then I remember that it's their life, their choice, and who am I to think it's inherently wrong?

I also couldn't help but think of this Louis CK bit the whole time reading this: [https://vimeo.com/69662330](https://vimeo.com/69662330)

</comment><comment><USER20> The ideas in this article:

1\. Contain a grain of truth 2\. Might be better understood by reading Csikszentmihalyi (or Heidegger, for that matter) 3\. Come in sets of three

</comment><comment><USER21> People should be masters over the technology, not the other way around. It's important to feel in charge and to retain the right to freedom of choice. Too many people are too worried not to keep up with everything new and shiny. But many people don't care and go their own way...

</comment><comment><USER22> > In fact, it leads to deeper debt and needing bigger houses to contain all > this meaningless stuff.

> It also becomes a cause of unnecessary stress, as it will take your precious > money, time, emotion, attention, and effort to take care all of this stuff.

> The recent massive flooding here in Olongapo City is a testament to that. > Visiting houses of families ravaged by the flood, I was reminded by how too > much stuff is not a luxury – it's actually a burden, a liability.

I am not rich. I am poor. The few possessions I have, that you might think are cluttering my rented apartment, I hold to them because I can't afford to replace them. Too many chairs in my living room, too many different knives in the kitchen drawer. I don't have a TV though. But I won't ditch my mp3 collection burned on CDs because I can't afford to listen to it on Deezer. I wish I could go on holidays with only my iPhone and my sennheiser headphone and just buy what I need on the spot. I'll drop some karma points to say this: "Fuck you".

</comment><comment><USER23> TL;DR</comment>


Secret serum likely saved Ebola patients - <AUTHOR> http://edition.cnn.com/2014/08/04/health/experimental-ebola-serum/index.html

<comment><USER2> This substance should be identified, used to create a vaccine, and given to all who are threatened or might be, by ebola, at no cost to them. Just the human thing to do.

<comment><USER3> There's nothing to identify - it's a serum containing three monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies bind some viral proteins, preventing the virus from infecting new cells and spreading. To my knowledge there's no path from this to a vaccine, which prepares the human immune system to recognize and fight viral infection itself. Unfortunately, monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are still very expensive to manufacture, distribute, and use as treatment for disease, meaning this will not broadly impact outcomes in rural Africa (barring advances in mAbs technology).</comment></comment>


Microsoft E2 Edge Processor - <AUTHOR> https://millcomputing.com/topic/microsoft-e2-edge-processor/ <comment><USER2> I really love Mill's design. Too bad it doesn't proceed fast enough due to lack of funding/backing. I guess I'm not the only one who couldn't afford to work without salary and pure stock compensation

<comment><USER3> I do not know if mill will ever go anywhere (I have my doubts), but certanly Ivan Godard is a gold mine of CPU and compiler knowledge.

<comment><USER4> I agree here. The YouTube series he has on the Mill is absolutely fascinating.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> related: are there any good sources on how you design for out of order processing? I have done a lot of "intro to electronic circuits" stuff that lead to a really basic register-based CPU, but when we get into stuff like OOO or branch prediction stuff I feel like I haven't really seen much on how it can work while keeping your sanity from a design perspective.

<comment><USER6> Perhaps the source for the RISC-V BOOM processor? [https://content.riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/Wed0936...](https://content.riscv.org/wp- content/uploads/2017/12/Wed0936-BOOM-v2-An-Open-Source-Out-of-Order-RISC-V- Core-Celio.pdf)

<comment><USER7> If you want to find the source code and some information on how to build and run it, you should check out their new website: [https://boom- core.org/](https://boom-core.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I worked on the TRIPS project in graduate school - specifically the compiler (my dissertation was about how to optimize the selection of dataflow subregions). I'd be curious what Doug and co. At Microsoft have done with E2 and whether they've actually cracked the compiler problem.</comment>


Tell PG: Preventing Double Posts - <AUTHOR>

You might have noticed that sometimes, the same story is submitted twice. Since I haven't dug through the source code of HN, I'm not sure why, but I noticed that the system looks at www.example.com and example.com as different URLs.
This means that if I submit a story with a www. in the link, and someone submits the same story from the same source, but without the www., it gets submitted.
This can be easily fixed in other languages, I don't know about Arc (it shouldn't be a problem, though). <comment><USER2> The problem is much worse than the single problem you've identified. For another approach and more discussion see here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1012215></comment>


Show HN: Leadngin.com finally launched my startup after 18months of stealth. - <AUTHOR>

So after 18months of working on my startup Leadngin.com we're finally ready to launch. Our first user was in fact Swombat with GrantTree who is still with us today. Many more HN users have since scaled their sales process with us! Let me know if you have any questions and be sure to point out anything we're doing wrong. <comment><USER2> I would be interested in finding out more about this service and possibly using it, but I have no idea how it works from looking at the info page. Generate leads - ok, how? Why does it cost me a $99 setup? How does it fullfill the 1-50 daily leads promise?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. I agree we should be clearer in regards to how it works. I'll put an example up there over the next couple of days.

In regards to the setup fee. We spend a bit of time before on-boarding where we get to know who is receiving leads in a team and who you are targeting. We didn't want to exclude small companies who start small and grow big and in some cases they were only using 1-5 leads a week. With an account balance it meant they didn't drop off after a couple of weeks and continued to receive leads until they had chance to see benefit.

At first we were all about the £1,000 per month minimum spend. Then we realised that two of our users spending that spent no more than £100 on their first invoice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great to see this finally become public. I've been a huge supporter of Mark from the beginning of his journey.

You've got to give this a try, the quality & accuracy of the leads produced go above and beyond what you'd think possible.

</comment><comment><USER4> FYI, we (GrantTree) are that first client. GrantTree has had enormous ROI from this lead source - much better than the other lead sources we had found before.

Also, this is one of those products where the MVP was an email.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm interested but I'm curious where the leads are coming from. If they are scraped leads from public data sources I would pass, but if you have access to a source I can't get my hands on then this is something I would pay for my team to use.

<comment><AUTHOR> We pull in data from private and public sources and the real magic isn't crawling or scraping data. It's what we do to make sense of the data, the information we can link together and using the data to understand businesses and the individuals inside them.

I'd be happy to talk more if you want to reach out to me at firstname.lastname@example.com

<comment><USER5> Sounds great, we are doing similar to this ourselves now but it's time consuming and I'd love to outsource it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can you already source leads with a different language than English? Most relevant for me: Can you find leads within Germany/Austria/Switzerland?

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting question...

I have no idea, we honestly haven't thought of this one bit. Send me an email at firstname.lastname@example.com and I would be happy to test this for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do you have any plans of publishing a case study? I would be interested in reading that before evaluating the service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! We've got something in the works for next week in regards to lead generation and investor information. With permission we will also release the dataset and make it public.

<comment><USER8> Great. I'd be interested in the case study when it's ready. I shot you an email too. Looks like it could be a good fit for us.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: [http://leadngin.com/](http://leadngin.com/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Perfect. Can you send me an e-mail? I want to learn more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I will reach out to you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What does a complete lead mean?</comment>


Map of 73 Years of Lynchings - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/02/10/us/map-of-73-years-of-lynching.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Related: Without Sanctuary (NSFW)

"Searching through America's past for the last 25 years, collector James Allen uncovered an extraordinary visual legacy: photographs and postcards taken as souvenirs at lynchings throughout America."

"Without Sanctuary is a photo document of proof, an uncartiring of crimes, of collective mass murder, of mass memory graves excavated from the American conscience. Part postal cards, common as dirt, souvenirs skin-thin and fresh- tatooed proud, the trade cards of those assisting at ritual racial killings and others acts of mad citizenry. The communities' best citizens lurking just outside the frame. Destined to decay, these few survivors of an original photo population of many thousands, turn the living to pillars of salt", said James Allen.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGrXCOIx6QQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGrXCOIx6QQ) [5m]

[http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html](http://withoutsanctuary.org/main.html)

<comment><USER3> That website has broken CSS - presumably it's from the IE6 era or before (it seems to be optimised for 800x600 or lower resolutions too).

I hope it gets fixed at some point, because it is a subject that deserves more attention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We shouldn't limit ourselves to just the South. Lynching was prevalent nationwide. Though the vast majority of lynchings happened in the South, it is worth noting that the practice "spilled over" into other areas of the country. Unfortunately, any American in the early twentieth century could have partaken.

[http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64pct8rc9780252...](http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/64pct8rc9780252037467.html)

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/01/08/lynching_map...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/01/08/lynching_map_tuskegee_institute_s_data_on_lynching_from_1900_1931.html)

<comment><USER5> 17 of the states on the slate chart have 0 or 1 lynching listed (I think 1 incident does not indicate prevalence).

The mob violence outside the south was also less racially directed:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&lpg=PA154&ots...](https://books.google.com/books?id=CR0TMCIfE14C&lpg=PA154&ots=SznqZP7aFg&dq=lynching%20by%20states%20and%20race%201959%20paper&pg=PA9#v=onepage&q=lynching%20by%20states%20and%20race%201959%20paper&f=false)

<comment><USER6> do note they purposefully excluded any death where they could not find three perpetrators. Really curious why two on one is not included, that would seem a more likely occurrence.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think their methodology didn't count the infamous Emmett Till lynching, which was two white men acting alone (but sanctioned by 12 white jurors refusing to convict them): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till)

<comment><USER5> Page 87 of this dissertation indicates that they did classify Emmett Till's murder as a lynching:

[http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20a...](http://www.africanafrican.com/folder12/african%20african%20american3/Atlantic%20slave%20trade/Flournoy_dis.pdf)

The text supported by citation 22.

(I've been poking around for a copy of the Tuskegee Institute 1959 report and had seen that before I read your comment, I'm not angrily trying to refute you or anything like that. Finding a copy of _100 Years of Lynching_ looks like the easiest way to see the report.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I know the Tuskegee Institute (as well as the NAACP) classified Till's murder as a lynching, but the Equal Justice Initiative's methodology required that _three or more people_ participate in the lynching, which would disqualify Till from being counted in their report.

<comment><USER5> The slate articles says:

 _In 1959, Tuskegee defined its parameters for pronouncing a murder a "lynching": "There must be legal evidence that a person was killed. That person must have met death illegally. A group of three or more persons must have participated in the killing. The group must have acted under the pretext of service to justice, race or tradition."_

So I was thinking from there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It seems lynching density goes beyond mere population density, especially along the Mississippi river valley: [http://mcdc- maps.missouri.edu/totalpop1790-2010/images/1920....](http://mcdc- maps.missouri.edu/totalpop1790-2010/images/1920.jpg)

<comment><USER8> This seems like an opportunity for predictive analytics to figure out which areas are most prone to lynchings and some intervention methods to prevent them.

<comment><USER5> Yes, there was a lot of energy put into stopping this sort of thing in the US in the 1960s. That's why it stopped.

(Wikipedia seems to have good coverage of it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- American_Civil_Rights_M...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African- American_Civil_Rights_Movement_%281954%E2%80%9368%29) )

<comment><USER5> I've probably overstated the role of the civil rights movement there. Certainly, part of the outcome of the civil rights movement was a national expression of the unacceptability of racially motivated mob violence, but things like state police forces and the national guard (both were more willing to resist mobs than local police had been) and changing attitudes in the south had contributed to starting the decline.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Holy hell, I had no idea lynchings were so common (non-US cititizen). 600 lynchings a year, that's pretty crazy. EDIT: Oh it's over a five year period. (Not to imply that makes it better).

<comment><USER6> every country has their dark times, most grow out of it. Some unfortunately don't or worse lapse back into them.

<comment> mkr-hn Or change targets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whenever I read about how black people were terrorised in the Southern US, the tactics used remind me of how the Spartans treated the Helots.

</comment><comment><USER11> Phillips County, Ark., home of Marvell Academy. Founded as a segregationist school in 1966 and still 100% white - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Academy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvell_Academy) [http://marvellacademy.org/](http://marvellacademy.org/)

</comment><comment><USER12> Lynching doesn't mean killing.

[http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/french-female- collaborator-p...](http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/french-female-collaborator- punished-head-shaved-publicly-mark-1944/)

and I think it's not a play on current excepted English, I think it's an important distinction.

<comment><USER13> > Lynching doesn't mean killing.

In USA, in the south when it was negroes who were lynched it meant exactly that. KILLING negroes.

<comment><USER14> It wasn't just negroes, but also suspected supporters, and it was almost always by hanging.

<comment><USER15> Hanging was used some of the times, but something that was almost always present was parading the soon to be lynched through the black parts of town (including schools) as an object lesson as well as torture. Torture was almost always involved (for example, in the case of a black woman pregnant lynched, having her child cut out of her stomach beforehand while she was still alive and having the childs head smashed). The torture served the purpose of keeping the black population in a constant state of terror, afraid of even attempting to assert their rights (this also explains the killings during the Civil Rights Era)

The lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco Texas had all the elements (I apologize for the graphic details)

"A chain was placed around his neck and he was dragged toward city hall by a growing mob; on the way downtown, he was stripped, stabbed, and repeatedly beaten with blunt objects. By the time he arrived at city hall, a group had prepared wood for a bonfire next to a tree in front of the building.[24] Washington, semiconscious and covered in blood, was doused with oil, hung from the tree by a chain, and then lowered to the ground.[27] Members of the crowd cut off his fingers, toes, and genitals.[24] The fire was lit and Washington was repeatedly raised and lowered into the flames until he burned to death. German scholar Manfred Berg posits that the executioners attempted to keep him alive to increase his suffering.[28] Washington attempted to climb the chain, but was unable to, owing to his lack of fingers.[29] The fire was extinguished after two hours, allowing bystanders to collect souvenirs from the site of the lynching, including Washington's bones and links of the chain.[24] One attendee kept part of Washington's genitalia;[30] a group of children snapped the teeth out of Washington's head to sell as souvenirs."

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

The sending of Lynching Postcards was so prevalent that the Postmaster General banned the sending of such cards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra And now USA practices much more humane (but also widespread) approach of locking the same people in prisons.</comment>


Ask HN: Should I store my js/css bundles on localStorage for better page load? - <AUTHOR> What are the pros/cons? <comment><USER2> Check out service workers, they are designed to solve this problem,

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Service_Wor...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en- US/docs/Web/API/Service_Worker_API/Using_Service_Workers)

In addition to caching JS/CSS, you can also cache your main document so your app can work offline.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you familiar with HTTP cache headers? Better to focus on your application and let the browser think about that stuff, if possible.</comment>


Apache vs Nginx: Practical Considerations (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/apache-vs-nginx-practical-considerations <comment><USER2> I skimmed through the article and a simple question came to mind that I couldn't get an easy answer for. For serving static files to very few users, what would the performance difference be between Apache httpd and Nginx. Throughput wise and latency wise..

I can run this experiment on VMs, but wanted to ask here in case anyone already did.

<comment><USER3> Nonscientific experiment: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14590060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14590060)

* httpd 2.45.5, default config (prefork), peaked at 24 processes and ~8MB RSS each (192MB) => 88k req/sec

* nginx 1.10.3, default config, peaked at 8 processed and ~4MB RSS each (32MB) => 199k req/sec

* httpd 2.45.5, stripped down mpm_event, peaked at 5 processed 8MB each (40MB) ==> 89k req/sec

<comment><USER4> Turn off AllowOverride so that Apache doesn't check for .htaccess on every request.

I suspect the numbers get very similar then.</comment></comment></comment>


FreeBSD 8.1 released - <AUTHOR> http://www.freebsd.org/releases/8.1R/announce.html <comment><USER2> ZFS boot support is huge. Now you can build big fileservers on commodity hardware without having to worry about Solaris or OpenSolaris driver availability.

<comment><USER3> Because I'm concerned about the future of OpenSolaris, I downloaded 8.1 and attempted to get a ZFS boot install going -- I was unsuccessful. The process is extremely complex, and the best doc you're going to get is a wiki page with incomplete and complex instructions:

<http://wiki.freebsd.org/RootOnZFS/GPTZFSBoot>

Moreover, there's no support for ZFS boot in the installer (sidebar: the installer has barely changed since when I first tried FreeBSD 2.2 in 1998).

I'd say stick to OpenSolaris if you require ZFS boot; alternatively keep boot on UFS and use ZFS for your data filesystems.

<comment><USER4> for an easy install, use the PCBSD installer (all graphical). Choose to install just vanilla FreeBSD and format your primary disk as ZFS

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I spent some time earlier fiddling with FreeBSD 8.1 RC and was really blown away by how much more advanced ZFS is compared to every other filesystem I've ever used. It's feature rich and it's very intuitive to use and configure. You don't need to be running a massive pool of disks to benefit from the features of ZFS, either. I was just using it on my desktop and transparent, filesystem- level compression and date deduplication are really cool.

And then there's ports, of course, which is awesome, especially if you prefer to build your software from source.

I'd probably move off of Linux as my desktop OS if I could use Mangler on FreeBSD.

<comment><USER6> I'm a huge FreeBSD fan and run it on all my servers. I've tried many times to use it as my main desktop/laptop system, but it keeps falling short in those few damn nice-but-proprietary things like Skype and Flash.

I found a Linux that feels like FreeBSD, though. Arch Linux: <http://www.archlinux.org/> \+ [http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_D...](http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Compared_to_Other_Distributions#FreeBSD)

Doesn't have ZFS, but stays minimalist and constantly updated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Something that has surprised me in the free unix world is the ongoing strong support and emphasis on sendmail. I notice openbsd highlights updates in its releases also.

I don't know much about MTAs. From what I read, sendmail has a bad reputation for being complicated and unwieldy. I've played around with it a little and found it cryptic. But mail systems seem to be inherently complicated, so maybe sendmail attracts a lot of criticism that could is in fact only slightly less true of all programs of that sort.

What's the thinking about ongoing strong support for sendmail?

<comment><USER8> sendmail has a BSD-compatible license and other MTAs don't. postfix's license has some weird clauses due to IBM. Exim is GPL.

There is ongoing work in OpenBSD on "opensmtpd":

<http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb/src/usr.sbin/smtpd/>

<comment><USER9> qmail has been placed in the public domain a few years ago.

<comment><USER8> And development on it stopped a few years ago as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> With the future of OpenSolaris being as uncertain as it is, I see FreeBSD as the potential rescue. I've been a user of (Open)Solaris, FreeBSD for many years and they are simply rock stable. FreeBSD just needs better Java support and I'd host all my Java EE stuff on it.

<comment><USER11> What do you mean by better Java support? That JRE doesn't support kqueue, aio, and other base functionality?

btw, what's wrong with openjdk6 port?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This was my first time with FreeBSD, it wasn't that hard. I downloaded the amd64 boot iso and run it on a VM. I choose minimal and started to extract the source on /. Pretty cool. Still extracting though :)

Give it a try: 1\. Download the i386 iso 2\. Follow these instructions [http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/in...](http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install- start.html)

(on the disk partitioning part, press A so it will be automatic)

</comment><comment><USER13> Flippen wish Debian had a better release cycle. Its amazing how FreeBSD gets it right.

Well done guys.

<comment><USER13> Debian 6.0 "Squeeze" frozen

<http://lists.debian.org/debian-announce/2010/msg00009.html>

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> zfsloader. Sweet, I can boot off of it now!

</comment><comment><USER11> Seems like zfs is still unstable, at least if you take a look at mailing lists - people still reports crashes and problems. There are more hype than stability.. ^_^

</comment><comment><USER15> first post

<comment><USER10> Has the slashdot/reddit/digg-ification of HN begun?

<comment><USER14> It's probably becoming a meme in itself to point this out, but they don't want us saying that until we've been around for a year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Does FreeBSD have any real purpose anymore except as the base of your new proprietary OS?

<comment><USER17> While it seems your comment is flamebait, it is true that many of the proprietary hardware appliance platforms I've run across are FreeBSD. Surprisingly, I'm seeing more and more Linux in said devices too.

<comment><USER18> (Responding to your comment, not the troll grandparent): I'd agree. It wouldn't surprise me if the largest financial benefactor of the various BSD's work was NetApp.</comment></comment></comment>


Are CBDCs the End of the Euro? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/dgen/are-cbdcs-the-end-of-the-euro-277a0d364c18 <comment><USER2> Hopefully the end of the crypto experiment</comment>


Ask HN: Review my startup - HTML5 game creator - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I'm 23, just graduated from uni, not on YC.  I've been working on a HTML5 canvas game creator for Windows (a desktop app).  There's no programming - we have a click-and-drag event system, so in theory anyone can make games (which has been said before, but we reckon we've nailed it).  Co-founding with my brother who did the website.
Based in London, UK.  Finding it fairly hard to get noticed, I guess because we're outside the valley.
Site: www.scirra.com
Some HTML5 demos made in our tool (all pure HTML5, not a whiff of Flash): http://www.scirra.com/construct2/demos
This is my first startup.  Any comments from the pros on what we're doing right or wrong would be much appreciated :)  Thanks! <comment><USER2> I got bored before being able to find anything that adequately illustrated the workflow.

The site's visual design is nice, but the content for a site promoting a tool should focus on communicating the experience and utility of the tool.

Compare to the site for Scratch.

<http://scratch.mit.edu/>

While the site is very cluttered and not nearly as pretty as yours, one of the first things you see is an illustration of their visual block programming interface.

<comment><USER3> Hi Glimcat, thanks for the comment we appreciate it! I think that's a fair comment I'll have a think about it!

The front art is great in my opinion but you're right that it doesn't communicate the product directly, but I do think it does communicate the experience and utility of the tool.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How are you trying to promote it at the moment ?

Also what's your current conversion funnel look like (how many people come to your site, how many people download it, and how many people publish a game) ?

(btw if you're going to the HN London meetup on Thursday feel free to come and say hi)

<comment><USER3> We are admittedly rather new to promotion although we do have a few ideas, we're definitely white hat SEO so we're investing a lot of time contacting relevant sites and people but it's extremely slow and time consuming!

We have a very small budget to advertise but we are going to run some small highly targeted campaigns on Adwords, Reddit and a couple of other sites to see how they go (closely monitoring them though).

If you have any ideas we're all ears! It's an exciting time for us!

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't recommend adwords, they're not cost effective for what you're doing. Reddit's probably worth a shot, especially at the "we're looking for feedback" stage.

You should also be A/B testing everything, from your front page to the emails you're sending out to bloggers. Test radically different messages and see how they work out, try offering free licences for bloggers to give away.

Comparing yourself to other products is an approach that works well, "Ever wanted Shoot'Em-Up Construction Kit for the web ?", etc. might work well.

Also don't be afraid to look at what competing products are doing to promote themselves and doing the same things.

You should get feedback from your users as well, consider installing something like kissinsight and emailing users a few weeks after they've downloaded it to get feedback. Have you looked at the analytics for your search box to see what people are looking for ?

Something else you might want to consider is why not remove the technical limits from the free version but instead just insert a promo for your tool into the game ("this game was constructed with x") and include a link back to your homepage. Lack of publicity is more likely to kill you than anything else, if someone writes a popular game with the free version then the promotional value of that is worth far more than the $30 you'd get from a sale.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the advice! We have ~£100 of free AdWords credit so might as well use it, see if we can get any value out of it. I'm curious why you think Adwords isn't cost effective though? I've heard this before and find it hard to believe (but then again my experience of running ad campaigns is minimal!)

We have identified a couple of techniques our competitors used effectively and fairly cheaply so are going to explore those as well. Search was one of our weaknesses, but I did a lot of reading on SEO and think I applied it pretty well (technical aspect), we're starting to see results from that but it's a slow process :)

We did explore a lot of options about technical limits/nag screens etc, we are going to be tweaking it and seeing what works and what doesn't! A/B testing landing pages is a great idea. I am keeping close track of it on Analytics and making small tweaks here and there constantly, we got the bounce rate from ~50% down to 25% which is good.

<comment><USER4> Back of an envelope calculation, assuming a CPC of $1 and a conversion rate of 1% (say 10% download your app and 10% of those decide to purchase) it'll cost you $100 to make a $30 sale. You can plug your actual numbers in to give you a better estimate though.

For search have a look at the data, use google adwords tool to figure out how many people search for the terms you're targeting and check out how competitive those terms are. Remember even the top ranked search term only gets 20% of the clicks from that search and it drops rapidly as you go down the page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> clickable: <http://www.scirra.com></comment>


Google buys a D-Wave quantum optimizer - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/05/google-buys-a-d-wave-quantum-optimizer/

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually there is already a better submission for this <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5717647></comment>


Ask HN: How did you build self belief? - J-dawg Emotional resilience, and belief in one's self are common traits of many successful people.
The better developers I've worked with definitely demonstrate this. When debugging code or working through a problem they seem certain they'll be able to fix it, even when there's no solution in sight.
I'm the opposite of this. All too often I find myself thinking "it's too hard, I can't do it, I'm not intelligent enough.." etc. I know it's counter-productive and I try to fight it but these thoughts often seem to win.
I have failed at most things in my career so far. It might be that I simply don't have the intellect for it, but I suspect that my lack of self belief has also played a role.
Does anyone have experience of beating these feelings and becoming a more emotionally resilient person? Did you achieve more as a result? <comment><AUTHOR> Not everyone who has the confidence to fix a problem is necessarily fixing it.

Sometimes (through a series of events), people develop the Dunning-Kruger effect among their peers, so whereas you may be looking as though you are "fixing the problem", you are just mucking around and you know that those around you don't know any better. That is how long-standing bugs remain in large codebases (among other flaws of being human).

"I can't do it" is the wrong way to look at an issue. You must at least try. Try and fail a few times, then get some help. Acknowledging that you don't know something (after showing you have tried) makes you human and builds bonds with those around you.

Don't fritter away your life wanting to be "that guy" who can fix everything from wrong CSS to issues in Assembly code.

Try your best to do your work within your capacity. Learn and grow where you can. Remember though that work is work at the end of the day.

Nobody is going to remember that time 6 years, 5 months ago ... where you spent 80 hours in 1 week at work trying to fix an issue so that clients could add 1 more item to their shopping baskets.

Being able to live outside your work will give you more emotional resilience. You will have something greater to look forward to then to slog your organism away to enrich somebody who probably has and will have more money than you (in your lifetime).

</comment><comment><USER2> You might have failed at most things but I'm sure you've also succeeded at plenty! Give yourself credit!

I honestly believe that mental resilience is something you can learn and build upon. And the more I think about it, the more it's about the courage to take that first step.

What I did was to self-reflect quite a bit. Both on what I've achieved and what I've not. Then I started to paint a vision for who I'd like to be and what skills would I need to get me there. Then I started to do activities that would make me feel uncomfortable. As a quiet person, I pushed myself to speak at presentations, cold calls, etc. The key is to start small but have a goal in mind.

I'm also part of a Buddhist group where we chant and study material. The material helps because it's focused on self-empowerment and taking responsibility for whatever situation I'm in. Each and every one of us has the same tremendous amount of potential to succeed. What's limiting us is our mind and viewpoint.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Does anyone have experience of beating these feelings and becoming a more > emotionally resilient person?

Brene Brown has done some brilliant research on shame, vulnerability, and courage-- especially dealing with our inner-critic. Recommend reading her books. Here's her 2nd TED Talk for a quick intro into her work > [https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?lan...](https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_listening_to_shame?language=en)

</comment><comment><USER4> There's a famous quote from Edison(dramatized) ..

"I have not failed 700 times. I have not failed once. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work." ?Edison. (source) ..."

\-- failure is a part of learning.</comment>


Ask HN: A middle ground for backup services - <AUTHOR>

I have a non technical friend that needs to back up some private documents (passport scans, paystubs, etc). Is there something client-side encrypted, close to transparent for the end-user?<p>I would normally recommend tarsnap for a case like this but there is no way he will be able to figure that out. <comment><USER2> I'm not sure if it's still around or popular but I used Jungle Disk several years ago. The Windows client allowed you to configure your own encryption keys (files are encrypted locally before being uploaded) and S3 is the backend.

It was similar to Dropbox in that you can just move files to your Jungle Disk folder and everything happens automatically and transparently.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestions.

\- airbackup (minimum $79), too high

\- Arq - not a mac (windows 8.1u1 + ubuntu for banking)

\- crashplan, backblaze, carbonite - looking into this, more specifically the client side crypto parts

\- spideroak - UI is really really unfriendly to "newbies"

-

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://www.backblaze.com/](http://www.backblaze.com/)

<comment><USER4> backblaze has 30 days retention only?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [https://www.airbackup.com/](https://www.airbackup.com/) ??? any of the iaso backup resellers? i kind suspect airbackup is one since it looks so much like iaso..

<comment><USER4> perhaps crashplan..

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If he's on a Mac, Arq is a great solution.

[http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/](http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/)

</comment><comment><USER6> What about simply using TrueCrypt + S3? Encrypt through one GUI, upload through a second?

</comment><comment><USER7> Move those files to USB/DVD and rely on physical security.

</comment><comment><USER4> oh. and duplicati!</comment>