Award-Winning Nautilus Enters Rough Waters - <AUTHOR> https://undark.org/2017/04/29/award-winning-nautilus-enters-rough-waters/ <comment><USER2> I do sympathise with Nautilus and want them to succeed. But I am a freelancer who has not been paid by them for eight months now. A longform piece takes weeks to write. Interviewees gave their time so generously to me. And I was ridiculously excited to write for a publication I respected so much.

I had no idea that nautilus were still commissioning features when they knew they had no guaranteed income stream to pay their writers.

When nautilus ran into serious financial trouble they did not publish many of the articles they had commissioned, mine included - this meant that they would only have to offer a much smaller kill fee for these unpublished pieces. I am waiting for this fee (and am aware of several others writers in this situation). But we didn't know the pieces would never be published. We were never told. Instead the promised nautilus issue emerged that day, we told our friends, we scanned the pages with genuine excitement, and our features were absolutely nowhere to be seen.

Emails to the editor (naive, perfectly friendly emails) went unanswered for weeks.

I actually honestly wouldn't have minded as much if they were up front last year and said look, we just don't have the money, we messed up, we're sorry. They're a publication I truly want to survive regardless of my input.

But I'm a freelancer and that promised money was going to see me through Christmas. They should not have been actively commissioning when they did not have the means to pay. It was also really humiliating to email them for weeks to ask where our articles had gone. Why not reply honestly to us at the outset?

Christmas came and went. I couldn't afford presents for my family. I lost the chance to submit elsewhere because it was a time-sensitive piece. I had to apologise to my interviewees who I bet won't be so generous with their time the next time a writer approaches them. They've been burnt, too.

And even now (in the last week) nautilus have told me they're about to merge with AAAS and so we'll all get paid. But it's clear from the Undark piece that this is not true.

Sometimes magazines run into problems. I get that. I feel bad about it. But then don't commission pieces when you know there's no money to pay freelancers whose livelihoods depend on each and every word they write. We actually get paid by the word! Don't humiliate writers by making them beg for checks for weeks of work. And don't promise a merger is imminent with a big science institution when that big science institution will deny it. Good on Undark for this piece. And congratulations to the many fantastic science magazines who do the industry proud.

</comment><comment><USER3> One of the problems is that they're shipping dead trees. No way is this economically sustainable these days. They should have gone all digital and raised their prices long ago.

Let's do some math - how many subscribers do they need to break even if they pare down staff, go all digital, and raise their price a bit? Hand-wavy numbers for minimal viable staffing, but should be order of magnitude correct:

      $ 600,000 Freelancers, $5K per article, 20 articles/issue, 6 issues/year
      $ 200,000 2 editorial
      $ 100,000 1 marketing person, online marketing savvy
      $ 100,000 2 support staff (clerical, PA, etc)
      $ 200,000 2 management/fundraising/operations staff
      $ 100,000 1 webmaster/IT person
      $ 100,000 outsourced services (HR, payroll, website hosting, etc)

$1,400,000 annual burn rate assuming a minimal staff to run just the online magazine and dump print (I acknowledge they have other expenses, but let's ignore them for now)

If you charge $60 for an annual subscription - very reasonable for the content - they would need 23333.33 subscribers to break even.

They got $1.2 million last year in grants, some $9.5 million in funding since 2012. If they can't manage to attract 24K subscribers with that kind of funding they don't deserve to stay in business no matter how good their content is.

I love their content, but they need somebody who knows how to run a business to be in charge.

<comment><USER4> This may be the most Hacker News comment I've ever seen.

There are some sectors of the magazine industry, maybe science isn't one of them, that are actually doing really well. I've been on three different junkets with outdoors magazine editors in the past 6 months, and many large brands that advertise to the Duck Dynasty crowd are abandoning digital and going back to print.

Digital, it turns out, is mostly a scam. I've written in other places about why this is, but the nutshell version is bad ROI metrics and, even worse, the incentives on all sides are so perverted that the bad metrics and rampant fraud are a fundamental structural/business problem that no amount of tech can solve.

At any rate, the jig is, increasingly, up on digital (FB and Google excepted, because they run genuine performance advertising platforms at a scale that nobody else can match), and advertisers are actually going back to print, TV, radio -- venues where the ROI metrics are old, established, widely agreed upon, and fairly reliable.

Anyway, this situation is very complex and very very very different from what the typical HN "dead tree is expensive and for losers, the future is digital!" commenter thinks. If anything is in real trouble right now for deep structural reasons, it's digital, not print.

You probably find all this hard to believe -- I did at first until I heard it confirmed by the sixth or seventh person. I know that what I just said sounds like "up is down, and black is white", but this is how it is in 2017.

<comment><USER5> Great point. I've always been puzzled about how advertisers get any ROI online. I'm a very heavy internet user on a variety of topical areas, and my lifetime value for a content site is zero. Exceptions are NY Times, my local paper and Gartner, where either my employer or I pay for the content.

I rarely click on ads. I've probably been a successful ad conversion less than a dozen times since 1996.

Print is different. Getting ads is a significant reason for having a newspaper subscription. Many magazine ads are both more useful and more effective than the ad units that you se online. I probably made a Nikon/Canon decision based on a combination of print ads.

<comment><USER6> Also, some of the print ads in nautilus aren't that bad. I've actually stopped and taken some extra time to think about a few. Less about what the ads trying to sell me, but the ad itself raises an interesting question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a real shame. Nautilus is without a doubt the most consistently interesting and high-quality publication I read. I have just renewed my Prime membership, and hope others do the same. (Or that they get the investment they need and deserve.)

<comment><USER8> I just subscribed, and hope they do whatever it will take to fix their operations-and-author-mismanagement issues.

FWIW, you can also donate at: [http://www.nautilusthink.org/donate](http://www.nautilusthink.org/donate)

<comment><USER9> One thing that's a bit weird is that the donate link is not over SSL (and it says Powered by Stripe).

<comment><USER10> Perhaps it's changed, but right now that page just collects your donation amount and redirects you to an (SSL-protected) paypal page where you provide the actual payment details.

I suppose the first page might leak the amount of your donation, but nothing that's _very_ sensitive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I used to be a subscriber to Nautilus and initially loved their work. Over time however I've drifted away primarily because I've come to feel a lot of their articles are popularisations of the the sort of low quality "science" you see regularly make its way to HN (before getting ripped apart in the comments). Specifically, articles based on non-reproducible, low N, p-hacked studies from fields like psychology, social science, neuroscience, etc.

As the replication crisis wreaks havoc and meta-studies continue to reveal major structural issues with work in these fields, I just can't bring myself to read Nautilus anymore.

<comment><USER12> Most of the comments here are positive (from my limited reading, I like Nautilus too, no affiliation). I'm just curious - can you give a few examples of the articles you didn't like?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _Steele, a former television journalist, started Nautilus in 2012 with a > two-year, $5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation, a > Pennsylvania-based philanthropy that describes itself as targeting the > world's "big questions" in science, religion, and philosophy. That money, > supplemented with an additional $2.1 million from Templeton, was the main > funding source for Nautilus in the run-up to publication, and during its > first two years in print. But the Templeton Foundation typically reduces > support for startup ventures after the first three years, and, accordingly, > it has dialed back funding for Nautilus, although it gave the magazine an > additional $1.25 million in 2015, and a little more than $1.2 million last > year._

Another business wholly dependent on investor patronage.

We need to examine how we can continue to crowdsource legitimate cultural and creative endeavors. It seems that we're backpedaling to a medieval system, where science and art could only be done when bankrolled by a wealthy patron, whom the scientist/artist would have to accommodate if they expected the patronage to continue. [The dependence on corporate sponsors is really a form of this too, and as paying subscribers have evaporated, these have become ever-more-crucial.]

Stringent copyright regimes have only brought us heavily sanitized, commercialized, vacuous media. I would argue loosening this would benefit most small writers and publishers. At the very least, limiting copyright terms and keeping some culturally relevant icons in the public domain would be a huge boon. For example, imagine if someone besides Disney could benefit commercially from the Star Wars franchise, which was originally released 40 years ago. Isn't that long enough for its creators to have had exclusive control?

Something like a web-based micropayment service that dispensed monies based on time spent reading/enjoying would be useful, but it's hard to get everyone on board. I know there have been a couple of HN'ers who've made a pass at it, but to this point, nothing has stuck.

<comment><USER14> There should be a physical graveyard devoted enterprises that have attempted to solve this problem. I agree with you, but I'm not holding my breath.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Just canceled my NYT membership and subscribed to the print edition of Nautilus. A few months ago I went to the NYT homepage and every top article had "Trump" somewhere in the title. I have a threshold for how much political blather I can stand, and Nautilus is like a breath of fresh air from that.

<comment><USER16> As much as I can't stand it either, Trump _is_ the president of the US, and making a lot of waves. It's not surprising that he is dominating the news, and it's not just "political blather".

<comment><USER17> The Economist provides a pretty good mix. I subscribe to it, the NYT, and the New Yorker. I probably won't renew my NYT subscription as I find myself reading it much less often since I picked up The Economist subscription.

What I'd really like though is to support one or two major publications and then have a slush fund where I could pay per article to other sources.

I don't know... does HN have enough readership where it could collect funds and redistribute? It's my primary source of reading random material.

<comment><USER18> Check out Blendle.com. I haven't used them much recently, but I enjoyed paying for quality journalism per article. There is (or was) an HN sign up promo somewhere

<comment><USER19> I don't think this for-article model is a good one. It turns journalism into piecework, and while there's the opportunity to strike gold and get lucky with a particularly timely or well-received piece, it also tends to prioritize quantity over quality because the former yields more predictable rewards.

<comment><USER17> Hmmm. Publications have always had a mix of both subscriptions and newsstand sales. Pay per article is just a more granular version of that.

Unfortunately I can't afford all the different publications that might have an interesting article from time to time, but it seems like it would be their loss if they completely paywalled everything off.

Maybe something more like gym memberships would work where you could purchase say a 10-article "punchcard" or a subscription.

<comment><USER10> It might be too granular.

One of the things I like about print magazines (and newspapers) is the serendipity--you read something that wouldn't normally grab your attention because it's on the next page and...you've already paid for it, after all.

Paying per article seems like it would push people only to read things that they're _sure_ they'll enjoy (based on the author, title, etc).

<comment><USER17> True, but I already have more than I can read. You could always let readers make the decision to pay after reading, with maybe a reasonable limit.

<comment><USER10> I do too, but...here I am.

I wonder if an opt-out payment scheme would work: you authorize the site to bill you up to (say) $5/month. When you finish reading an article, the site deducts $0.25 from your account _unless_ you take some simple action. If your account is empty, you read for free until the next month, and maybe some "proud support/well read" flair or something.

It does put a limit on the site's monthly revenue, but perhaps ensuring that readers feel like they're getting what they paid for helps make up for that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I just signed up for Nautilus prime after reading this. [http://shop.nautil.us](http://shop.nautil.us)

<comment><USER21> I had already taken out a subscription a few days ago after reading the Cormac McCarthy piece. My immediate reaction was to cancel my subscription and explain why (I have been a freelance teacher in the past and had to chivvy for payment) but I am now thinking it over.

Perhaps we should monitor the quality of the articles closely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> > started Nautilus in 2012 with a two-year, $5 million grant from the John > Templeton Foundation

That's very interesting and important. I know the Templeton Foundation as funders of 'research' into creationism. Richard Dawkins, for example, is apparently a critic of theirs and refused to participate in a project of theirs. The Templeton Foundation's Wikipedia page tells some other interesting stories with names you may recognize (with the caveat that it is Wikipedia).

I wonder what influence they have on Nautilus. It's a genuine question; the world isn't black and white, Templeton is not evil, and I don't know their current level of funding for Nautilus - perhaps they could use more Templeton money. OTOH, funders can have subtle influence in many ways, from story selection to self-censorship.

EDIT: Oops, should have kept reading to answer one of my questions: "[The Templeton Foundation] has dialed back funding for Nautilus, although it gave the magazine an additional $1.25 million in 2015, and a little more than $1.2 million last year"

</comment><comment><USER23> Its been a long time since i've subscribed to a magazine but I have always enjoyed reading Nautilus articles. $29 for print and digital is a steal for the quality of content they produce.

</comment><comment><USER24> I used to work in the "content generation" sphere. There are two tangible things that humans love to generate for free, art and writing. These things on their own are almost always monetarily worthless even if their worth to society is huge. The reason is that most people, like us here on this board, willingly produce creative writing for free.

The only money in content is advertising since humans need some coaxing to produce it. This is resulting in companies that focus on content being controlled by advertisers behind the scenes. These days it's simple to get "paid placement" almost anywhere with zero mention that the content is sponsored.

This also explains why the best articles seem to come out of companies that don't sell writing. Google employees and the like are putting out research and case studies for fun, labors of love.

</comment><comment><USER25> At the time of writing this, a subscription for one year is 30$ for a bi- monthly magazine. I would love it if it was once a month (for double the price), however, shipping to Europe seems to cost another 30$ per year. I understand the cost of international shipping and will consider it, but at first glance it sounds a bit steep. There's also no student discount, which is also understandable but a pity.

That said, I do love reading their pieces and it makes me sad that they're in financial trouble.

Note: I read the content online now, but would greatly prefer paper. I subscribe to the Economist and a national opinion magazine. A digital subscription is just not my style (for now, who knows what the future will bring..).

To all writers and editors: keep up the good work. Quality publication. Hope to hear more about the AAAS deal!

<comment><USER26> Why isn't there a company that will print and deliver locally?

<comment><USER27> The demand is probably too low, especially if you consider that Europe is itself quite big which means producing in some central country like Germany will only reduce the international shipping costs but not eliminate them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'm a lapsed Nautilus subscriber and in my opinion the world doesn't need a "Paris Review for science" (what I liken Nautilus to) as much as it needs a "BuzzFeed for science" or even a "USA Today for science. That is, reach and impact should be much higher priorities than prestige and design awards.

<comment><USER17> Science News has been published since 1922. The print edition is bi-weekly.

[https://www.sciencenews.org/about-science- news](https://www.sciencenews.org/about-science-news)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Thanks for posting this story, I loved reading Nautilus articles. Today I've decided to do something about supporting them - I have purchased their Prime Membership.

I wish more of us can do the same.

</comment><comment><USER30> That's sad to hear. Has to be my favorite publication. I subscribe to the digital edition, and, while visiting Los Angeles, bought a print copy at Barnes & Noble. I did ask whether they carry older issues and unfortunately the answer was no.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just subscribed. 14$ a year seems way too cheap, but maybe they've run some numbers on it

</comment><comment><USER32> The sole comment as of 11:26AM PDT, April 29th, 2017, is devastating. It suggests that science journalism is fucked. I'm going to poll a few friends that do freelance work for Nature & Science to see if this is the general consensus.

<comment><USER33> Here's the comment for anyone who's curious, posted by "Adam" on "04.29.2017 @1:19 PM" (I'm guessing EDT):

> Science journalism is basically dead as a thing. Many of the top > publications pay late or not at all. The rates for freelancers is > consistently low and the expectations are high and getting higher. Other > than a very small number of high performers, this is not a job and the best > that most can expect is to be scraping by as a freelancer. Understandably, > many simply stop doing it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This explains their recent uptick in requests for donations. I bought a print+digital subscription a few weeks ago because emails from Nautilus have been the ones that I've most looked forward to lately.

</comment><comment><USER35> Am I being cynical or is this just an ad? Every other person is cancelling their subscription to NYT from a piece that went up yesterday, and now this shows up on the front page of HN the day after?

<comment> qwert-e What NYT piece are you referring to?

<comment><USER36> I guess: [http://www.businessinsider.de/bret-stephens-new-york- times-c...](http://www.businessinsider.de/bret-stephens-new-york-times- climate-change-article-subscriptions-canceled-op-ed-2017-4?r=US&IR=T)

<comment> qwert-e I saw one person who claims to have cancelled their subscription. The rest of the embedded tweets are either threatening to cancel or justifying "why they cancelled" (before the op-ed). Makes you wonder who these furiously cancelling people are and whether Business Insider bothered to reach them for comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I just subscribed. It's one of my favorite mags I read all the time and I was introduced to it by HN. Had no idea they were struggling. I hope more subscribe and I hope it survives.

</comment><comment><USER19> Computers accelerate information exchange, and so much of capitalism is based on the latter. This means huge rewards for those who aim at the popular taste...but the popular taste is very much the lowest common denominator of our cultural data sets. And while it's entirely right to aim at that, our accelerated capitalist system does not do so well with steadily financing things which aim above that. This might be because economic models pursue equilibria of supply and demand, but just as there is a lowest common denominator of both there is also a highest common factor of which economic models take no account, and therefore under-finance.

</comment><comment><USER38> Just recently discovered Nautilus and it is really high quality stuff, I think I'll get a premium membership too after reading the Cormac McCarthy issue.

</comment><comment><USER39> Love Nautilus, it's a shame they aren't doing well. Wonder what their subscriber count is.

<comment><USER40> Whatever it is, it isn't enough.

<comment><USER41> Lets see what we can do about that! I think I've heard their name but I don't know anyone that subscribes but I'm interested now, my guess is with the vast amounts of stuff to read out there its hard for quality to shine entirely on its own. Especially when clickbait is so much more appealing to some people. I think it has become more clear to people that quality journalism (science and otherwise) is not going to be free so the glut of free media might be subsiding some (I know I pay for a lot more media than I ever used to). I'll subscribe and hawk it on my various social media outlets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If only their printed version wasn't so expensive here in Europe for the shipping...

</comment><comment><USER43> Does the print edition contain ads?

<comment><USER43> Nautilus customer service: "Not commercial ads, but it does feature a few science organizations or sponsors."

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The current issue is headed "Consciousness". Groan. That's been discussed to death in the AI community, with little result.

</comment><comment><USER45> I would love to know more about the person behind and responsible for screwing over the writers.

</comment><comment><USER46> Great, maybe now we can some content that is not funded by a religious lobby, for a change?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation#Cont...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Templeton_Foundation#Controversies)

</comment><comment><USER47> Whew. From the title, I thought I was going to lose my file browser.</comment>


Odd DuckDuckGo Search Results - <AUTHOR> https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hacker+news+duckduckgo

<comment><USER2> [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+the+capital+city+of+califo...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=what+is+the+capital+city+of+california)

I made DuckDuckGo as my default search engine two weeks ago and in the end I realized that most of the time the results doesn't satisfy me and I make the search again with !g prefix. DDG is still my default search engine and will stay as default until I get tired of this. I hope they are working on better results and I hope they will achieve this soon or I hope I can find a better search engine except commercial ones.

<comment><USER3> Both give me the wikipedia result for sacramento first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Happening to me regularly this morning: [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=john%20b%20up%20all%20night&kd=-1](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=john%20b%20up%20all%20night&kd=-1)

Common theme in the results is the word "all", but it's not the same as a search for the word "all" (obviously). Pages are all rubbish.

Weight of traffic?

</comment><comment><USER5> A few sporadic, way out there, results and the rest are stats pages. Which is to be expected in the wake of people switching (and mentioning) that they're now using DDG as well as sites putting up links to referrers.

I wonder if anyone who works there can chime in.

</comment><comment><USER6> [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how%20a%20sailboat%20works](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how%20a%20sailboat%20works)

</comment><comment><USER7> I am seeing this happen with regular searches as well, not always but a few times randomly.

<comment><USER8> I'm seeing this more and more since the start of this week. Actually this search engine is now almost unusable, because when this happens, almost all of the results are completely unrelated, or otherwise unreadable, being filled with HTML entities. Only some results are vaguely related but still not what I'm searching for.

Damnit, I switched away from Google for a good reason, I'm not willing to give that up, but DDG has to be at least usable or it's pointless as it's a search engine. It must be able to search.

<comment><USER6> I've made the switch to Blekko for the time being.

<comment><USER8> Thank you for the tip, I'll look into it. I also hope DDG will be fixed because right now, I'm having a hard time finding anything with it. :(</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Blatta – User Feedback in Seconds - <AUTHOR> https://www.propup.net/blatta/ <comment><AUTHOR> Author here. After developing several small side projects as a hobby, I've noticed that getting user feedback is a bit more complicated then I'd like. Talking to colleagues, I know I'm not the only one having this issue.

So, for my current side project, I've made a very basic site which lets you integrate basic feedback/bug reporting functionality into your web app in seconds.

No accounts, just browse to the page, click a button and copy/paste two lines of code to the pages where you want to collect feedback. Oh, and don't forget to bookmark the URL, otherwise you'll have a hard time actually reading the feedback.

Free to use. Please let me know what you think.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hey, cool idea! A couple questions:

1\. How will blatta behave if we have Intercom or Drift already in use on a site, will it sit nicely side by side or cause UI issues? Also, sometimes sensitive information can be reported in bugs, might be good to mention how you handle sensitive info on your site.

2\. It would also be nice to add this into apps as a URL link (for me I mostly build apps, so I could use an app focused version of this). Is that something you're thinking about?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. I hadn't considered that use case because I think of blatta as a very basic (and non-interactive) version of those tools, and so didn't think anyone would use them together. Maybe the bug reporting functionality could be complementary to those tools though, I'll have a look to make sure they play nice.

Sensitive infrormation is definitely something I should consider. I'll mention it as a warning in the instructions for now.

2\. Very good idea, and should be pretty easy to implement. It may also enable the recording of some extra app/device info for bugs (e.g. which app page the user was on), if desired, depending on how much info I can stuff into the URL.

Thank you very much for the feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Just checking if you are aware of what "blatta" means in italian: cockroach

<comment><AUTHOR> Hehe, thank you for the warning. I chose the name because it is a BUG... reporting tool ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Maybe I missed something-- how's this different than something like Intercom?

<comment><AUTHOR> I think the main differences are that blatta is:

\- aimed more at bug reporting/user feedback, not chat/sales

\- easier to set up (open page > click button > copy/paste link), no signup step required

\- relatively lightweight (currently 23kb minified, but I'm considering hand- rolling the JS/CSS to reduce this even further)</comment></comment>


The Verizon iPhone 4 - <AUTHOR> http://daringfireball.net/2011/02/verizon_iphone_4 <comment><USER2> > it could be that the GSM iPhones have hardware or driver problems that the > CDMA iPhone 4 does not. But, alas for AT&T, GSM iPhone users around the > world do not share in the problems of GSM iPhone users in the United States.

Certainly not true. Writing from Europe: I've had all the iPhone 4 dropped call problems in the middle of the city whenever I've forgotten how to "safely" hold the phone until I've bought the bumper case. My provider here is T Mobile.

<comment><USER3> I haven't seen any widespread coverage about problems with the iPhone in Germany.

<comment><USER2> I consider it natural to the way of the coverage in German speaking countries. Don't forget that it was "old news" for Europe since iPhones 4 were first available in the U.S. I own the iPhone 4 and I can easily repeat the "death grip" whenever I want. However I also almost never see anybody using the 4 without the bumper case.

<comment><USER3> Complaints about the iPhone (all iPhones, not just 4) in the US went way beyond the death grip, real or imagined.

<comment><USER2> Let me guess: you don't own iPhone 4 and even haven't tried to borrow one and try it in common urban circumstances?

Why don't you believe the guy who reports his own Eropean experiences? I just claim that the "death grip" is simply not the AT&T issue but the real iPhone 4 issue.

<comment><USER4> I do have an iphone 4 and live in germany, too, and have not once experienced a dropped call, no matter how hard I actually tried to do the "death grip".

<comment><USER2> UK based Cambridge Technology Centre was able to repeat the death grip too:

[http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2010/07/30/49184/c...](http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2010/07/30/49184/cambridge- researchers-test-iphone-4-for-death-grip-video.htm)

It is dependent on location, my experience is that in more urban areas the problems are more prominent, you probably live in some small city or a city with less providers or mobile phone users, or you haven't tried it in the bigger and denser located buildings. I can repeat the problems in the center of the city easily, but not so easy at my home. And it's not that I'm wasting time trying to repeat it -- it just happens if I hold it without the bumper case.

Once again: Death grip is the real "feature" of iPhone 4 when 3G is used. And it's the iPhone 4 problem, not the AT&T problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I had bad service in NC (just south of Raleigh, near Fort Bragg), but was astonished to find that moving to Tampa made my service worse. I drop calls, can hardly hear, and lose data signal constantly. I'm ready to switch, even though I just bought a brand new iPhone 4 a few months ago.

My only concern is this - why buy an iPhone 4 on Verizon when the next model is due in a few months? Will be interesting to see if this pisses people off.

<comment><USER3> _My only concern is this - why buy an iPhone 4 on Verizon when the next model is due in a few months? Will be interesting to see if this pisses people off._

That's one of the downsides of having such a simple product line. Who (except for a tiny minority) even knows when HTC or Samsung release a new phone? The announcement of a new iPhone makes headlines and it's also introduced as a replacement, not just another different model. (Technology progresses. Blaming any tech company for introducing a newer, better and cheaper model is stupid. A phone you buy today will be just as good in three years.)

My guess would be that people will not be very pissed. There will be lame jokes but not much outrage. I think that Apple will go for a two-year rhythm when it comes to major iPhone updates and that the next iPhone will consequently mostly receive a speed and RAM bump, maybe some nice software features and some cool hardware thing (NFC?) and that the case and other specs will stay the same. (Except for changing the case I don't even know what they could conceivably do to make this a major update.) Current iPhones would obviously equally benefit from software updates (well, mostly – hopefully).

Apple will definitely continue to sell the current iPhone even after the next model has been introduced – just like they are still selling the 3GS now.

<comment><USER5> You're probably right, but I distinctly remember buying my first Apple product, which was a 3G. I just returned from Afghanistan and was stoked to have an iPhone. 31 days later (1 day post-return option), the 3GS came out and I watched with horror as all of my friends had a much better phone than I bought just weeks prior.

I got over it, but I learned that I had to keep an eye on release cycles to avoid having that happen again. I believe many Verizon iPhone users will learn the same thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can't help but feel like not having data while using voice would be a bigger annoyance to me than Gruber found it. I often look up maps while on the phone with someone. Also losing wi-fi during a call could be frustrating.

<comment><USER7> WiFi and calls work simultaneously, it's only 2G/3G data that's affected.

<comment><USER8> I think that yesiamahuman meant the hotspot tethering functionality by 'WiFi.'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Think it's interesting that John Gruber got a review device provided by Apple. I don't recall them ever really reaching out to bloggers in the past.

I wonder if Gizmodo got one?

<comment><USER10> MG Siegler over at TechCrunch did. He just published his review, which was pretty much the same as John's. But Gizmodo... ha. That'll be the day!

<comment><USER11> No problem, but she's a he.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious about the wifi tethering. Ad-hoc wifi networks created on a Mac are only WEP-"protected"; I wonder if the iPhone's is a true WPA(2) access point. I wouldn't be comfortable walking around with an effectively wide-open WEP AP attached to my mobile data connection.

I also wouldn't be too presumptuous about getting the AP feature in previous hardware, if it is a true access point - 'master' mode isn't supported by all wifi hardware, although it may well purely be a firmware ("baseband") issue. I don't expect to get the feature on my old iPhone 3G, though it would be a nice bonus on the iPad.

</comment><comment><USER13>
      Verizon sells phones. They will continue to sell phones. They will continue to own and push (and control) the Droid brand. The iPhone, though, is a phone they don't need to own, push, or control. Apple will sell it for them. Verizon just needs to sell their core competency: cellular networking.

That it's exactly what verizon does not want

<comment><USER14> Why? What is your reasoning?

<comment><USER15> Traditionally (and to this day) mobile connection providers don't want to become 'mere' data pipes, as it becomes difficult to differentiate yourself from competitors. To this end the mobile companies have been furiously 'value- adding' for the past 15 years (given a certain definition of value). In the UK at least this has lead to operator branded phones, an operator defined catalogue of phones available to buy, operator 'enhanced' phone firmware, operator apps, highstreet operator-run shops and plenty more failed projects including music stores, walled content gardens, etc etc.

<comment><USER16> At least Verizon is well-poised to be the one carrier that truly benefits from the move being "mere pipes", simply because they have long been the US carrier with the "best" coverage and reliability.

<comment><USER15> I'm not USian so I have no direct experience, but the reviews of the Verizon iPhone4 are showing about half the upload and two thirds the download speeds that users are getting on AT&T. Is AT&T's coverage really bad enough to warrant that drop in speed?

<comment><USER17> In SF and NY? (And some other major cities) Yes, yes it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I wonder is if Verizon will continue with their massive Android advertising, without it Android's U.S. numbers might slow down. It is very interesting that Motorola's best new Android phone, the Atrix, is an ATT exclusive.

Fun times!

<comment><USER19> Verizon advertises the Droid, not Android. And the Droid brand belongs to Verizon.

The fact that "Android" and "Droid" are becoming synonymous for many people is very, very good for Verizon.

<comment><USER20> Can Verizon label a non-Android phone as a Droid?

<comment><USER21> Droid is a trademark, owned my Lucasfilm, for which verizon pays licensing rights.

It would be up to the terms of the licensing agreement, but it is possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I had a 1st gen iPhone the day they came out. Loved that phone. Sadly I couldn't stand AT&T's customer service. So I went to verizon and bought a Droid. Loved that phone too, but anymore I just want a iPhone again. I miss having my easy integration with my contacts, iTunes, and iPhoto

Anyways I will be waiting till this summer for when the next generation supposedly comes out.

</comment><comment><USER23> In the next few days we'll find out if the problems were with the network, with the phone, or both.

<comment><USER24> Nope. iPhones have for a long time now been available on tons of carriers all over the world. The phone's fine (though not great).</comment></comment>


Airbnb Tech Talk: Isaac Schlueter on What's New in Node.js: v0.10, streams2 - <AUTHOR> https://www.airbnb.com/meetups/wq5cxe5m9-tech-talk-isaac-schlueter

<comment><USER2> I've been impressed by the quality of these Airbnb talks recently...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! We're really excited about the ones lined up for this spring too

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's a link to a presentation Isaac did back in mid-November about the same topic. It'd be interesting to see how it has evolved since then.

[https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3685/presentations/streams2/streams...](https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3685/presentations/streams2/streams2-nodefest.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER4> I would prefer that these were not titled "Airbnb Tech Talk: xxx." I always click on them thinking I'm going to learn about Airbnb infrastructure, which is not the case, and the title then feels like just recruiting/advertising for the company.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the feedback - I work at Airbnb, and I'd be interested in hearing if others share this feeling (or don't).

<comment><USER6> Mixed feelings here. Personally I see the prefix of AirBnB as a signal that the tech talk is going to be pretty good because you guys (!) are known for getting great speakers, and (2) the technical level of the other people at the event is going to be relatively high so the nerding out is likely to be good. This is based on my past experience of the tech talks. I also know the food is going to be excellent (kudos to your chefs).

However, I could totally see how others may find prefixing your company's name on these a bit obnoxious.

TBH, the thing that concerns me most is that these are posted to HN since they are very SF specific. You have to live here. I'm subscribed to a fair number of tehcnical meetup.com groups and I'd hate to start seeing everyone of note being posted on HN because it would make the frontpage noisy.

A lot of the HNers that are interested in these tech talks have probably already seen previous postings and been to at least one of the talks. That being said, you should exploit email notifications as the correct venue for generating interest in these. If I've signed up for one or more tech talks, it's likely that I wouldn't mind hearing more about them. However to this day I've never received and email about any of these and always become aware of these via HN.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for sharing your thoughts - RE: Talks not being local, I agree with the comment below about livestreaming.

RE: email, we do have an email list. However, we really don't want to spam people, so instead of opting you into it automatically, we make it opt-in here: <https://www.airbnb.com/techtalks>.

It sounds like we may have err-ed too much on the side of being non-spammy, and this list is not very discoverable. I still don't want to automatically opt attendees in to the list, but given what you've said I think we'll pass around a signup sheet at the next tech talk.

<comment><USER6> Just make it super obvious after someone signs up. Put a huge button after signing up that says "Email me about future tech talks"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Anyone has a link to the recorded version?

</comment><comment><USER8> Definitely going to this. Thanks!</comment>


Artificial Intuition - <AUTHOR> http://jng.imagine27.com/articles/2010-12-19-222902_artificial_intuition.html

<comment><USER2> I scanned through the artificial-intuition.com site and still can't tell what it is. It sounds like usual machine learning (no theory or first-order logic, instead identifying (possibly nonlinear) correlations between variables). The marketing-speak makes it difficult to tell how their method compares to other well-known ones. At the point, it seems like their biggest achievement is in PR (Artificial Intuition is a great name!) but if someone has any specifics, I'd love to know.

<comment><USER3> You can learn a lot more of the high level parts of the theory by watching the videos at <http://videos.syntience.com> and by reading <http://monicasmind.com> . We're not using "usual machine learning" techniques. We use a fusion of several Model Free Methods. The result of the learning is functional but opaque, so there is no "identifying correlations between variables". And the A-N site is not "marketingspeak" . It's a serious attempt to convey the high level points of the theory to those who would benefit from knowing that alternatives to the current failing paradigm exists... Researchers that are struggling with something that doesn't work and students entering the field. We are making an effort to stop the cyclic propagation of the Reductionist AI meme, which is what universities and established textbooks teach.

<comment><USER2> Looked through the blog but don't have time for the videos. From my perspective (computational systems biology), it looks like an amalgamation of ideas surrounding Complex Adaptive Systems and Statistical Machine Learning. And I really do like the way the material is presented. But, without a single equation, algorithm, result or comparison with existing methods, it's hard to tell whether there's any technical substance here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Please also note that as founder of Syntience I cannot speak for the other two efforts mentioned on the page. Several companies started using the term "Artificial Intuition" within a three year period. We own all the important domain names :-) and we think we have a better justification for calling it that since we can explain why we think our AN algorithm does what human intuition does.</comment>


Porsche Taycan Turbo S is new least-efficient EV: 68 MPGe, 192 miles EPA range - <AUTHOR> https://ww.electrek.co/2020/01/14/porsche-taycan-turbo-s-is-new-least-efficient-ev-68-mpge-192-miles-epa-range/ <comment><USER2> I find it somehow a little sad that now that we are finally moving to less- polluting cars, they still have to take the size and form of huge hulking SUVs.

I understand that batteries still weigh a literal ton, but it would be nice if we could have something like a Corolla or Civic - efficient and not too expensive.</comment>


Ask HN: tech ebooks explained for non-developers - <AUTHOR>

After writing my first Introduction to Amazon Web Services Ebook (shameless plug - https://gumroad.com/l/HGlv ), I've been thinking of writing a series of tech ebooks for non-developers.  In particular for account managers and project managers.
The book would be focused in explaining things in plain speak.  There would be additional information on the complexity of a topic, and how time it might take for a developer to explain something.
Some ideas that come to the forefront
+ Introduction to enterprise architecture: An overview of mvc architecture, what a server is, and basic enterprise concepts (the 'ilities)
So any ideas or thoughts on this? <comment><USER2> I'd also include something like:

+Overview of cloud, when to use it, when to not

+Trade offs of different architectures (client only, client/server, web,...)

+High availability - how much you really need, how it adds time and cost to development

+Proper metrics to track in a software project

+Intro to agile (without turning it into an Agile handbook) in order to explain what's happening within the development team

+Packaging. I don't mean like physical packaging, I mean packaging for deployment -- documentation for admins, for users, support model, etc</comment>


Caching on the Client in GraphQL - <AUTHOR> Current solutions for client-side caching of GraphQL queries are heavy, slow, and arduous to implement. As such, we are proud to release FlacheQL.
FlacheQL handles edge cases that other libraries can't. Currently, existing caching engines return from the cache on the exact same query. They are even smart enough to return a hit if one field is missing. However, FlacheQL does the aforementioned and is also able to return subsets from cached data based on parameters of the query, a feature no other caching library maintains. For instance, if we dispatch a query to the Yelp GraphQL endpoint for 50 businesses, and subsequently dispatch one for 25 businesses matching the same fields, other caching engines make a roundtrip to the database. FlacheQL has the power to return the subsets directly from the cache, speeding up your application, and decreasing loads on your servers.
We have seen remarkable page load improvements; queries such as the above that take 5 seconds to fetch via a roundtrip to the API with Apollo take 5ms to retrieve from the cache with FlacheQL. Furthermore, our library maintains faster retrieval times for cached data than Apollo across all of our test cases.
We'd love to hear about your experiences with our library, available on npm. This is a work in progress -- feel free to report issues on GitHub as well. You can find all the documentation and several demonstrations on our site: http://www.flacheql.io. You can download the package on npm, and please check out and star the repository at https://github.com/FlacheQL/FlacheQL. Thanks! <comment><USER2> cool!</comment>


CSS Transparency Settings for All Browsers - <AUTHOR> http://css-tricks.com/css-transparency-settings-for-all-broswers/

<comment><USER2> How is this news? $(this).css("opacity", 0);

[Admittedly, this is helpful if yr trying to style w/o JS, but it's not exactly a new technique -- as evidenced by the publish date.]

</comment><comment><USER3> Junking up your CSS rules with hacks for Netscape Navigator and Safari 1.0? No thanks.

<comment><USER4> It's _one_ line that adds that functionality. One line that shouldn't really have any additional overhead. Hardly seems like a giant glob of obfuscating junk to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> apparently, IE doesn't respond to filter. You'll need this:

-ms-filter:"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Alpha(Opacity=50)"

<comment><USER6> Yes, that's the new IE8 version. This article is double out of date, both the original (2007) post and the update.</comment></comment>


Best bad idea ever? Why Putin's nuclear-powered missile is possible… and awful - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/best-bad-idea-ever-why-putins-nuclear-powered-missile-is-possible-and-awful/ <comment><USER2> I thought this was a fairly decent article, worth reading if you are interested in the history of nuclear-powered flight attempts. Of course, not much is known about the weapon that Putin made claims about, but informed speculation is better than uninformed speculation.</comment>


Ikea introduces its easiest-to-assemble furniture yet - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/e/6663416

<comment><USER2> "The boards are also made of a lighter material, designed to lessen the stress on each corner."

They just made the cheap shit cheaper and announced it as a feature. Thats good marketing.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's partially true, but also just because you get less wood in your cheap shelves, that doesn't make them less valuable.

For me, when I buy Ikea, I know it's not your top line products, but I also know it's relatively quick to buy and assemble, and if I need to give it away for free on Clist when I move, I won't cry about it.

Being able to buy lighter and faster-assembling furniture under the above constraints is a plus to me. When I can afford high end furniture, that's when I'll switch to real wood, made by real artists ...etc.

IMO</comment></comment>


YouTube removes all_comments feature - <AUTHOR> https://productforums.google.com/d/topic/youtube/lZayXDopTXw <comment><AUTHOR> The all_comments page was accessible from any browser, not even requiring JS. Now the only option is AJAX-loaded comments. IMHO it's another following of a sad trend to replace simple, reliable functionality with more complex and less accessible ones.

This reminds me of Twitter experimenting with full-AJAX loading of tweets a while ago...

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1798891](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1798891)

...then reverting 2 years later:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3614037](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3614037)

<comment><USER2> It is more effective bandwidth wise because the data can be limited based on connection speed. However a few things they are lacking is a page method where the user could jump to a certain page instead of having to click load more a handful of times to achieve the desired page. As well as having a back fall system for users with browsers that cannot support such functionality. It's a good feature just needs fine tuning to be considered a viable replacement.

<comment><AUTHOR> _It is more effective bandwidth wise because the data can be limited based on connection speed._

Forums since the early days of the Web could do this too - only showing the first _n_ posts, and paging to let you view more. And they didn't require JavaScript or any of the other fancy new features browsers have today.

Edit: How much bandwidth would be taken up by loading a few hundred plaintext comments, keeping in mind this is a YouTube page containing an embedded video which will be at least an order of magnitude bigger?

 _As well as having a back fall system for users with browsers that cannot support such functionality._

That's what all_comments was.

<comment><USER3> The video is on a cdn and is highly cacheable. The comments are highly dynamic and rely on far more db fetches presumably. You'll notice Google put these under the fold and dynamically ajax them in when you scroll down because they are probably actually expensive on the actual app servers or some resource. The devil is always in the details.

<comment><USER4> The main resource is client bandwidth; it's preferable to spend it on loading media and not the below-the-fold comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This was a really useful feature. By seeing all the comments, you could ctrl+F and find ones you were looking for. I.e. comments by a specific person or about a specific topic. And before the days of Plus, it was necessary to find people that had replied to your comments, or read comments in the proper order. It sort of still is, because of how mangled comments are with their weird threading and sorting system.

It's also very useful for search engines. Comments on the video determine what keywords the video should be indexed by. This follows their move a few years ago of removing the tags from video descriptions, which also seriously hurts search engines.

Now most comments will probably not be indexed. I found this necessary awhile ago when I was searching for something embarrassing I wrote years ago and wanted to delete.

I also just generally dislike the trend of infinite scrolling and very confusing sorting systems. I used to have a very hard time finding old posts on Facebook because of that. The all_comments page offered an alternative for that, but now you have no choice.

I'm sure there will be a bunch of comments complaining about youtube comments, or people not understanding why anyone would want to read them. There really is a big problem with the quality of youtube comments. That's because most of youtube is lowest-common-denominator stuff with no moderation.

But there are sections of youtube that aren't terrible. There are academic lectures on youtube. There are channels about math, programming, science, and every obscure subject you can think of. I've found some of the most insightful ideas from youtube videos. And the comments on videos like that will generally be better, reflecting the audience of people that watch those things. Video creators use comments to get feedback and talk to other people interested in that subject.

</comment><comment><USER6> Not having YouTube comments load seems like a feature not a bug.

<comment><USER7> Except if you participate in the discussion and dislike censorship, no matter what it is said.

<comment><USER8> The parent was surely joking about, err, "quality" of average YouTube comments thread.

<comment><USER7> Sure, but I have no issues with the "quality" of the average YouTube comments thread.

I don't want to censor (from YT comments) people whose comments I disagree with, or consider stupid or shallow, or even people that are undeniably racist or ignorant or whatever.

<comment><USER9> If I ran YouTube I would censor the living heck out of it. The lack of effective moderation has turned the comments section into a niche tool. Many people, maybe the majority, aren't eager to add a new comment in the midst of a wall of obscenity... it isn't worth it. I like the "biker bar" analogy, per [http://www.chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of- reddit/](http://www.chuqui.com/2015/07/the-death-of-reddit/)

When it comes to law, I'm against almost any form of censorship, and wish we had less of it than we do now. So I would be strongly against any _law_ that would _force_ YouTube to censor themselves.

I wouldn't support a law banning doctors from blasting DubStep in their offices. But I wouldn't choose a doctor who did so.

I don't support forcing companies to censor users, but I prefer to visit ones that moderate their comments.

<comment><USER10> YouTube is a local government. Instead of censoring content, YouTube should provide tools for video publishers and users to form the commenting niches they want, and help people avoid reading comments they don't want to read.

<comment><USER9> Sure, if they implement that effectively, your way works for me too.

I have no problem if 10% of videos have all the comments from the "worst" 10% of YouTube users. It just turns me off to have the "worst" 10% spraying bile and stupidity over 90% of videos on Youtube, scaring off the "best" 10% of users from leaving their own comments.

 _Note: I invented these percentages, and "best/worst" is subjective._

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand the problem. Why doesn't the author just upgrade his browser? He doesn't explain why that's not an option.

<comment><USER12> Perhaps the user doesn't want his/her web browsing experience to be the awful, bloated, slow, tracking-laden experience that javascript has made it into for the rest of us.

I for one applaud this individual.

<comment><USER13> He's using Opera 10. The one with a built in IRC client, mail client, bittorrent client, Web server, widget system, and loads more. He's using, by far, the most bloated and slow browser ever created. He's not choosing a lighter experience, he's choosing a slower and more broken one (as evidenced by the fact that it can't even load one of the most popular websites in the world correctly).

<comment><USER14> It had all those things, and you can call that bloat if you wish, but at the time it was decently fast.

[http://lifehacker.com/5352195/browser-speed-tests- chrome-40-...](http://lifehacker.com/5352195/browser-speed-tests- chrome-40-and-opera-10-take-on-all-challengers) for example, or [https://ktetch.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/benchmarking- browser...](https://ktetch.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/benchmarking-browsers-how- does-opera-10-60-stack-up/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This has to be the best kind of user complaint. I amreallycurious if anybody from Google actually answers and I am dying to see how they explain this kind of "flaw" to their loyal user

</comment><comment><USER16> Oh, that is bad news. I've noticed they've removed the link a few weeks ago, but the old URL was still working... I was hoping that they would have let that page. :(

Sad to see that this functionnality is removed without any official replacement.

I'll miss the ability to search easily through a lot of comments. I guess I will have to ask the name of the song a lot more often now.

</comment><comment><USER17> The most pressing question i have after reading the OP and all the comments here is not answered:

Why would anyone ever have the urgency to read comments on YouTube?

</comment><comment><USER18> That page was terrible to try and read, the comment obscured most of the page as I scrolled.

</comment><comment><USER19> Learnt a new word: "extraload"

</comment><comment><USER20> Please disconntect Youtube (comments) from Google+. I don't want to read sub- threads of "friends-of-friends" of people I don't know. I want discussion on topic (video). Youtube is not Facebook. Youtube had a good comment section, before the Google+ - that no one wanted anyway. Anyway, G+ is pretty niche nowadays. And YouTube is going strong, so please make the comment section more relevant again.</comment>


How to become a better Node.js developer in 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@me_37286/20-ways-to-become-a-better-node-js-developer-in-2020-d6bd73fcf424 <comment><AUTHOR> 16\. Quit Express, it's aged and not maintained properly. Fastify and Koa are great candidates in 2020</comment>


Stephen Bourne: Early days of Unix and design of sh [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kEJoWfobpA <comment><USER2> Off-topic, but I'm always looking for hour long talks/videos to put on while I'm cooking and I can't sit at a computer, or my hands are too dirt to finger a book. Thanks HN for giving me good content! I maintain a list of these and they come up sufficiently often enough that I always have something to watch when I have to cook.

<comment><USER3> I've been doing a HN search for youtube|vimeo|video as a poor man's version of HackerNewsTV for years. Basically with the same goal: having something to watch while cooking, eating, for siesta or to help me sleep at night

But I'd love a better UI to that data (hint to HN team)

<comment><USER4> Would be nice to have a ?type=video filter on the URL or something like that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> btw, pdf slides here (first 'slide' link, not the last one): [http://www.bsdcan.org/2015/schedule/events/612.en.html](http://www.bsdcan.org/2015/schedule/events/612.en.html) ([https://archive.is/gforA](https://archive.is/gforA))

ps: Going back even further (multics), Louis Pouzin part in the idea of a shell [http://www.multicians.org/shell.html](http://www.multicians.org/shell.html) ([https://archive.is/zVtQ8](https://archive.is/zVtQ8))

<comment><USER6> Damn interesting, that second link on the Multics shell. Thanks for both.

<comment><USER5> You're welcome. And just in case you didn't know Louis Pouzin, he also invented the datagram [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pouzin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Pouzin), a funny fellow :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I very recently found about his love for C macros

[http://research.swtch.com/shmacro](http://research.swtch.com/shmacro)

<comment><USER7> Looking at it reminded me of my first C textbook from school; "C as a second language for native speakers of Pascal". If I recall correctly, it has a section on macros you can define to make your C code look more like Pascal - much like how Bourne preferred Algol syntax.

<comment><USER5> At which point you wonder if you're writing C code anymore. There's also the king's way [http://www.merl.com/publications/docs/TR93-17.pdf](http://www.merl.com/publications/docs/TR93-17.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I find it pretty amazing what a tight time some of these influential and lasting designs were implemented in. Bourne joins in 1975 and by the time he gets to 1977 in the talk there is already so much industry practice solidified.

How many years have some of us written shell scripts and make files, and here he is talking about sh and make popping up within 2 years in the 1970s...

</comment><comment><USER9> I was eager to watch this video but I found it disappointing. The presentation was disorganized and unfocused, although Bourne did have some interesting war stories about Bell Labs. A specialist in writing shells might enjoy this talk, but there wasn't much value for a generalist like me.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cambridge: computer algebra and John Conway's Game of Life on a PDP7. Pretty good preparation...

...thanks for posting

</comment><comment><USER11> Thanks for this.

</comment><comment><USER12> He sounds like Arthur C Clarke!</comment>


Uber is moving its self-driving cars from San Francisco to Arizona - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14062926/uber-self-driving-car-move-arizona-san-francisco-dmv <comment><USER2> Uber's almost pathological aversion to any form of regulation doesn't inspire confidence. The requirements in this case seem very reasonable, detailed accident disclosure is a reasonable thing to ask in my opinion.

My impression, based on this and other cases where Uber got in conflict with local regulations is that they don't seem to care whether the regulations are reasonable or not. They try to ignore them in every case.

<comment><USER3> > _They try to ignore them in every case_

Other than for PR, I couldn't understand why Uber started testing in San Francisco. It's a densely-populated and heavily-regulated city in a heavily- regulated state.

<comment><USER4> Because that's where they are headquartered

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I'm thinking a lot of the engineers will be unhappy about constantly traveling (or worse, moving) to Arizona.

Their self-driving engineers are now split among three locations: San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Arizona. I think that alone is going to cause significant engineering friction. It's a lot harder to do remote work for testing live robots (especially if they can kill people).

<comment><USER4> I'm guessing it'll be worse than a centralized team, but not too bad.

The Pittsburgh team is there because of Carnegie Mellon, so likely where the hardware gets made. The software engineers in SF just need data from vehicles, which doesn't require cars to be near them. The operations folks actually going out and testing the cars can be anywhere, as long as they can stream data back to the SW and HW folks.

<comment><USER6> The software engineers in SF are mostly doing data science-y type work or working on UberEATS.

The self-driving car ML software is also being worked on in Pittsburgh, along with the hardware.

<comment><USER5> Most of the Otto engineers are still in San Francisco, and many of them are working on self-driving cars (in addition to trucks).

<comment><USER6> Oh yeah, I forgot about those guys. I do wonder what the dynamic is like between those two groups now...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Ok, you have to love the visual pun in this image : [https://cdn0.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/tEI5W_27WhDMteZhxakApTm3Gzk...](https://cdn0.vox- cdn.com/thumbor/tEI5W_27WhDMteZhxakApTm3Gzk=/0x0:5327x3551/920x613/filters:focal\(2238x1350:3090x2202\)/cdn2.vox- cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/52429987/Self_Driving_4.0.jpeg) its a self driving truck carrying self driving cars :-)

It got me thinking about moving large fleets of self driving cars by small numbers of individuals _without_ using a truck. And that left me with the vision of people on motorcycles herding cars along the freeway toward their winter grazing grounds in Arizona. :-)

<comment><USER8> It is also a branded truck...

PR 101.

[https://ot.to](https://ot.to)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Companies in the US essentially can kill somebody "accidentally" and nobody from the company will go to jail in the majority of cases. There has to be some sort of obvious scheme or negligence on the part of the company leadership to result in somebody going to prison for anything more than a trivial amount of time.

So people can complain about regulations, but they are essentially the primary method we have to prevent companies from killing or hurting people accidentally. Yes there are plenty of regulations that are actually not related to human safety that are put there by other companies for the purpose of trying to close the door behind them after they get into a strong position, but for things like cars that are essentially interacting with intersections, crosswalks, bikelanes, rail crossings, stopped cars, etc, having some burden on the company who wants to put machines into these situations run by algorithms being held accountable by way of forcing transparency, that seems pretty damned reasonable to me and many other people. So Uber is being pretty lame in this situation.

<comment><USER10> > Companies in the US essentially can kill somebody "accidentally" and nobody > from the company will go to jail in the majority of cases

It certainly doesn't make things better, but really US doesn't seem to be unique in this case. It's like that in most if not all places on this planet (I will be delighted to be proven wrong).

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> So, Uber:

Bloomberg says that their Q3 net revenue is 1.7B, with a loss of 800M. That makes their overall profit margin approximately -50%.

To say that this is not a good sign is a significant understatement. Yearly figures would be about $5.5B in revenue, loss of about $3B, so expenditures of $8.5B.

Let's say that $2B in expenditures are essentially waste or research projects with no very immediate prospect of return. That leaves it with a loss of -$1B on revenues of $5.5B.

Any further expenditure cutting is going to result in loss of revenue as well -- it's super hard to see how it could conceivably get to +$1B in net profit. It's also super hard to see how it can really substantially increase its revenues without yet further cutting its margins. There are no large markets left for it to enter, so how does it entice more ridership except by cutting fares?

But even if it did manage to get to $1B or $2B in profit, that's _not enough_. It's allegedly a $75B company!

Uber stipulates that it shouldn't have to register its cars as self-driving, because _they aren 't advanced enough_ to meet the definition. It compares itself to Tesla: automated lane-keeping + adaptive cruise control. If we take Uber at its word, that is _not_ a good sign for it to dig itself out of its terrible revenue situation via being first to market with automated vehicles.

My guess: Uber's investors have realized that when the music stops, there are about half as many chairs as people. They're trying to get it to pull together some kind of IPO so they can dump at least some of their losses on public investors, and Uber is trying to desperately spin along the pixie dust stories until it can get itself into some shape to IPO. That means avoiding California's reporting requirements for driverless cars because only by claiming that they have a viable automated car program do they have some kind of story about how they might eventually make a profit.

The sad thing is that there is almost certainly a very good, modestly-sized company in Uber that plugs along making $100M a year in profit on $1B in revenue as a taxi company. But they can't go back down to that company anymore.

<comment><USER12> I think Uber's investors still are happy with how things are going. If self- driving car tech stalls or they start to lose market share they will get pissed. That's basically the strategy IMO, own the ride hailing market when self-driving tech matures. Seems doable to me but with a ton of risk factors involved.

<comment><USER11> Hope self-driving tech doesn't take long to mature! Even with the amount of money they've raised, they can't stick around for five years losing $3B per year.

<comment><USER13> Uber is worth 75 Billion dollars and investors lining up for any chance they can get to invest. Its runway is NOT 3 years. It is 30 years.

<comment><USER11> It doesn't have $75B, that's its market cap. Crunchbase claims it's raised $8.5B.

We'll see if investors continue to be as enthusiastic about investing. My bet is "no," though obviously I could be wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Good the DMV didn't give in. There will always be a lesser economy bragging with lesser regulations. If you step into that race, things will turn out ugly fast. Except if those regulations are outrageous, which they really weren't in this case.

</comment><comment><USER12> > "Arizona welcomes Uber self-driving cars with open arms and wide open > roads," said Governor Ducey in a statement. "While California puts the > brakes on innovation and change with more bureaucracy and more regulation, > Arizona is paving the way for new technology and new businesses."

So Uber got some sort of tax break / sweetheart deal for this? I wonder if that was their end-game.

<comment><USER15> Ah, so that was Uber's leverage [1]. Make California and its laws look bad, and get a PR statement from a competing state likely offering incentives (or receiving knock-on benefits from relocation).

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13234265#13234809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13234265#13234809)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is the $150 permit fee a typo? Given that it's likely that in the event of an accident, Uber would already create a detailed incident review internally - why on earth wouldn't they spend $150 and agree to submitting accident reports?

They most certainly caved to NYC's demands that regular Ubers be registered with a registered cab dispatcher, and I'm quite certain they can afford $150 with their current war chest.

<comment><USER4> They don't care about the fee; they don't want to report accidents.

Reporting accidents is terrible PR for a self-driving car company. If they can hide away all their mistakes, that tells a better story for when they launch.

The biggest obstacle for self-driving cars at launch will be customers afraid of giving over complete control. If there is a paper trail of all the times they screwed up, even if those bugs were fixed, then they have to account for that in everyone's mind. Similar to experienced politicians that can have prior votes held against them.

<comment><USER16> How can you hide accidents that occur on public, urban roads? Perhaps accidents with very minor damage, but wouldn't any significant accident already be reported, as the police would be involved?

<comment><USER4> Yes, but they would just be considered regular car accidents, not accidents registered on the company's "official log of self-driving car accidents".

<comment><USER16> I see. So the difference is really just a more easily accessible list of accidents. I'm sure records of "regular accidents" would include descriptions of the car involved, and a determined person could FOIA the information about all accidents an Uber self driving car was involved in regardless, right?

<comment><USER17> FOIA? All the accident reports for autonomous vehicles are publicly accessible via the web. Not only that, but the companies are required to document each time the driver takes over. Again, all accessible via the web. The reporting requirements would have doomed Uber.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't say I agree with him when it comes to the regulations, but Travis Kalanick gave an excellent TED talk about why there was no Uber before Uber when there was a chance: [http://www.ted.com/talks/travis_kalanick_uber_s_plan_to_get_...](http://www.ted.com/talks/travis_kalanick_uber_s_plan_to_get_more_people_into_fewer_cars)

</comment><comment><USER19> Good idea -- start out in a less challenging urban environment.

</comment><comment><USER20> Totally unrelated to this; sorry for the hijack. Recently, I requested Uber for me and my friend from SF airport to San Jose; the rate was around $52 for two. Taken aback by high price, I opened Lyft and it quoted me $36 for two. My friend who uses Uber quite frequently switched to Lyft almost exclusively because of this pricing difference.

Even though I commend Uber's disruption in the Taxi space, it's actually scary once Uber attains absolute monopoly.

<comment><USER6> I ALWAYS compare both apps. Like most ride-sharing app users, I'm highly price sensitive and not loyal to any particular brand.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I saw a self driving Uber SUV in Scottsdale yesterday on my way in to work. Had two people in it. For the minute or so I was next to it I saw it drastically slow down for a crosswalk[0] that crosses in the middle of a street. Normally no one slows down there unless the pedestrian sign is lit up.

[0] [https://email@example.com,-111.9428112,3a,75y,...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-111.9428112,3a,75y,4.78h,69.19t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1slibIGTs- ft0j9SFBCpPRiw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

</comment><comment><USER22> If ever there was a time where I want some government regulation backing up my right not to be killed by a buggy computer, it's when I'm sharing space with a car that's driving itself. I don't see why Uber would want to fend for itself in a litigation free-for-all when its prototype car kills somebody, either. Everyone would be better off operating in a known regulatory framework.

</comment><comment><USER23> It could be a while before taxi drivers stop stepping in front of self driving uber cars with drill in hand (slash tires, run).

<comment><USER24> Wouldn't a camera mount and copious video (combined with a wealthy corporate HQ) essentially derail these attempts.

Nothing beats appearing the victim of assault for public sympathy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder how they'll get to Arizona.

</comment><comment><USER13> HAHAHA! This is perfect!

If California doesn't want those self driver car jobs, and tech investment thats ok!

There are many other places out there that will happily accept the money, jobs, innovation, and safety advancements that these technologies will create.

<comment><USER26> Funny how Americans have such a pavlovian knee jerk reaction to regulation. As a European I think a lot of your problems actually derive from not having enough regulation: inequality, violence, lack of universal healthcare, lack of solidarity. Too bad so many Americans are willing to sacrifice all that for so-called "freedom".

<comment><USER13> Americans citizens and companies have a diversity of choices.

If they like high regulation places, they can move to a liberal city. If the citizens or companies like low regulation places, they can move to a place more focused on these so-called freedoms.

This was demonstrated very clearly in this situation.</comment></comment></comment>


NATO's Cyber Operations Center – Will Russia Feel Threatened? - <AUTHOR> https://www.cyberdb.co/natos-cyber-operations-center-will-russia-feel-threatened/ <comment><USER2> It will soon become riddled with Russian spies, controlled by ancient know- nothing 'crats (well paid ones at that) who are completely unable to assess the difference between shit and shinola - twas ever thus.

[https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/114000.html](https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/114000.html)</comment>


$50,000 Bounty Posted by Education First for Mozilla WebRTC Issue - <AUTHOR> https://old.reddit.com/r/BountySource/comments/8gox5c/50000_bounty_posted_by_education_first_for/ <comment><AUTHOR> FWIW, the 50k are for fixing this bug: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1203503](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1203503)</comment>


Inkling launches anti-bloat collaboration tool. "Email's just fine" - tgethr.com - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tgethr.com/post/124643305/get-tgethr

<comment><USER2> I like it. I think simplistic interfaces are the way to go for collaborative/social apps.

The downside of course is that it's dead easy to clone these simple apps (like Twitter, TinyURL, etc.), which means the barrier to entry for your competition is quite low. This effect has been recently amplified with the boom in quality frameworks and dirt cheap infrastructure (EC2, App Engine).

The end result is that making a killer web app is not enough and you instead have to make sure you nail the social marketing of it and build up a large enough userbase that the brand/userbase becomes the real value.

<comment><USER3> "The downside of course is that it's dead easy to clone these simple apps"

Yes, it's easy to clone the features of these apps. So don't compete on features, compete on user experience.

<comment><USER4> I think this is probably more of a "get some press with a simple but effective idea" more than it's something they'll IPO off of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Cool idea. It's like you took the problem Basecamp is trying to solve and went the exact opposite way.

37signals says "We hate email! Collaborate on the web!"

Tgethr says "We love email! Just archive it better!"

</comment><comment><USER6> Wouldn't an NNTP server with an SMTP gateway and HTTP client serve basically the same purpose?

<comment><USER7> Think of it as a way to pay a nominal sum of money in order to not care what any of that means.

<comment><USER8> Or to deal with administering any of it...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So it's similar to a mailing list?

</comment><comment><USER10> I was just telling someone last night that in my experience, 90% of the people using Basecamp are just using it for the threaded messaging, and if we could improve on that and offer it as a separate product, we'd do pretty well.

This is fantastic and I'll almost certainly be using it.

<comment><USER11> That pretty much describes Google Wave...

Oh, and I agree about Basecamp. I've only ever seen it used for message archive and the odd file sharing task.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I like the concept, actually I love the concept.

One of my concerns though is that the email is not easy to give out. "No no it's together, but drop the o and the last e."

We'll see though, I'll give it a try.

<comment><AUTHOR> To short circuit any confusion, right now these tgethr groups are private and more private :) (using email encryption). You can't give out a tgethr address to people outside of your group and have them be able to email that address. Though we are attracted to this feature, it obviously opens up the group to spam which seems to still plague Google Groups. Still pondering this one.

Currently for this purpose of a email@example.com (like our support@ type emails at Inkling), we use Tender (tenderapp.com) which does a great job already of managing a public discussion, support queues, etc.

<comment><USER12> Ah that does clarify it a bit, now I understand, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Very similar to ccBetty:

<http://www.ccbetty.com/>

<comment><AUTHOR> I do not intend to disparage ccBetty in anyway, haven't used their service enough. I'm sure there's some users that will find their service great.

But mainly we wanted something to do secure business collaboration (all traffic over SSL, and the ability to S/Mime encrypt all the email traffic for example). We also wanted reusable group email addresses "email@example.com", instead of looking up a crap load of email addresses or everyone being forced to create their own groups of email addresses in address books all over the place.

We also wanted a dead simple way to manage multiple of these groups and not feel forced to use a webapp to use the tool well. Didn't find the solution to all these wants out there, and we feel we have a knack - our opinion of course :) - of doing simple web apps for business, so we gave it a go of making something that works for us.

<comment><USER14> IMHO, you have too many buying options. I would probably have 3.

1\. free

2\. Combine the "basic", "plus" & "family" -- price it at $24

3\. Combine "business basic" & "business pro" -- charge it at $99

Congrats on your launch!</comment></comment></comment>


Developping a Flask Web App with a PostreSQL Database - <AUTHOR> https://www.theodo.fr/blog/2017/03/developping-a-flask-web-app-with-a-postresql-database-making-all-the-possible-errors/ <comment><USER2> Python 2.7 in 2017?</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to learn iOS development? - <AUTHOR>

I apologize for adding yet another one of these posts to the pile on HN, but here's my situation:
I traded my old laptop for a Mac for the purpose of getting into iOS development, and I ended up just doing the first assignment of Stanford's CS193P iOS Development class (iTunes U) and then putting it off as I started to take in more school work. I realize that that is an excuse, and I feel like the main reason I took a long break was because the second assignment felt completely crushing.
Anyway, I was wondering if any experienced iOS developers, who learned recently (preferably that went through the Stanford course online, or that have been in a similar situation), that could advise me on how to build up to the Stanford course, and so on.
Some more background info:
- I understand most of the basic concepts, but cannot implement them via code
- I am a person that does really well when I have a set path (That is why the Stanford class really appeals to me)
- I know it is very well known, but this is the Stanford course for reference: http://bit.ly/Rhl4vE <comment><USER2> I have found the Big Nerd Ranch iOS programming book to be very good. [http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Guide- Guides/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/iOS-Programming-Ranch-Guide- Guides/dp/0321821521/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1353274273&sr=1-1&keywords=ios+programming)

In relation to the criteria you raised the book is a good fit.

 _\- I understand most of the basic concepts, but cannot implement them via code_

I think this is particularly true with iOS programming. The book is more written in a tutorial / HowTo style (i.e. the book gives a step by step walkthrough to create an example program). Most importantly it specifies how to use the IDE to do GUI building.

 _\- I am a person that does really well when I have a set path_

Me too. Each chapter is an exercise designed to teach you some part of the iOS library. There about 30 chapters in the book and each chapter can be completed in about 2 hours.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I knew of this book, but for some reason, I never decided to take a look at it. My current main thought is to start with Big Nerd Ranch's Objective-C Programming book, and then to me onto this iOS-Programming book. Does that seem like a solid plan?

<comment><USER3> I started their iOS book without any objective c knowledge and I'm doing fine. If you are an experienced programmer and want to dive right into iOS, I say go for it. If you like to learn conservatively, read the obj c book first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it might be a good idea to indicate your previous software experience (if any) and if you have anything in particular that you would like to achieve after you have learnt it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have very little experience. I went through 4 units of Udacity's Python "Building a Search Engine" class and loved it, but I stopped after that. I completed the first assignment for the Stanford CS193P class on iTunes U. I understand a lot of concepts, but I cannot implement them in Objective-C. Aside from some web design knowledge, that is all I possess.

So, realistically, I have barely any real experience, but I am not entirely new to the programming.

<comment><USER4> For me I would try some more practice with Python and use your web experience to do a web app (possibly phone targeted) until you are comfortable with programming. I just think you will learn faster able to program and test in a tighter loop than you can with a write, compile, launch in phone/simulator process.

Whatever you do don't try to learn/use all the libraries on the platform in one go. Just pick what you need for your project.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the advice, josephlord! That is a great point, and I will definitely think about doing that for practice!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Notes on Shutting Down an S-Corp - <AUTHOR> https://www.petekeen.net/shutting-down-an-scorp <comment><USER2> This is a good checklist, but I have observed that corporations with a "history" have value on their own. It is perhaps less well known than other parts of the equation, but when I created my first LLC it was a pain because as a "new" entity it had no credit history, no existence history, and every time it raised a bunch of flags with every new vendor. Once it had been around for a few years it was fine. When it came time to dissolve it I had a choice of just dissolving it, or selling it to a agent (typically a lawyer) after detaching myself from it. In the latter case that is the standard public notice of sale and disclaimer of association past the sale date between me and the company.

When starting an LLC it can be advantageous to start with one that is 'on the shelf' as it were because it avoids the this is all new company unpleasantness. Most agents have a number of ambiguously named LLCs available for people who want to assign a holding company for trusts etc.

Given that California charges you $850/year just to exist as an LLC it isn't profitable to create and hold such companies just to sell, but when it is time to sell there is some value there sometimes.

<comment><USER3> I've heard of this in the context of shortcutting regulatory stuff - if you want a banking license, find a small bank in some backwater and "merge" with them, if you want to list on a stock exchange, find a small, cheap listed company and do the same. You obviously need to maintain the regulatory compliance framework, but in many cases, this is cheaper and simpler than getting a license or listing on an exchange from scratch.

Anyway, it surprises me that someone who cares enough to be suspicious of a newly formed LLC doesn't care enough to check that a given LLC is an empty shell that changed ownership very recently. If anything, you'd think that to be _more_ suspicious, wouldn't you?

<comment><USER4> In Wyoming you can pay a nominee manager to open a company for you in their name. They let you pay on crypto.

It's a crazy world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for this. I'd also _love_ to see something similar for a DE C-corp since that's the preferred incorporation method for startups... then again, that might be very case specific if you have investors.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very case specific, yeah. The general process is the same after you get to the resolution part, I imagine, but distributing assets might end up being trickier

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Appreciate you sharing this, and glad to see it's for a good reason.

For anyone considering forming an LLC S-Corp for their consulting/freelance business, don't let this scare or deter you.

I've been running mine for over five years (I'm a consultant) and it's been mostly painless. I use Freshbooks for accounting and Gusto for payroll, so there's actually very little overhead day-to-day.

The key thing for me was to find a great accountant. I went through two accountants before finding someone who's right for me. That has made a huge difference in how much I worry (or don't) about that part of the business.

<comment><USER3> Can you possibly share a bit about what makes an accountant right or wrong for you, please?

<comment><USER7> Some experiences with this in my personal capacity:

You want someone who has a working style which is compatible with your working style. There are a surprising number of accountants who cannot reliably receive a folder that has been Dropboxed to them. Some of them are good accountants... for other people. If you are e.g. an email person, you do not want a phone person accountant. You want an accountant where neither of you are annoyed with the other's expectations with regards to timeliness of replies to emails.

You want someone who is capable of understanding the fundamental nature of your business. They don't have to be able to _operate_ the business, but they need to _deeply_ grok the mechanics of the business, because accounting is a facts-intensive profession and they need to understand your facts to apply GAAP and IRS procedure (etc) to them. You can be a great small business accountant without knowing what the difference between SaaS, Github Enterprise, and Microsoft Word is; you cannot be a great accountant for a software company without being able to understand the differences in those three products.

You want someone who is generally good at accounting. Like any other profession, there is a competence curve. Don't hire the people at the left end of the competence curve. You want someone who is good at _being a professional_ , partly because that will make interfacing with them easier and partially because a portion of the services of an accountant is to suit up occasionally and say "I am _an accountant_." to third parties. You want someone who can cause the appropriate reaction there. (Most commonly tax agencies, but there are a _variety_ of potential counterparties, for example e.g. mortgage lenders, prospective landlords, immigration agencies if that is relevant to you, business counterparties, etc.)

Some of y'all might have interesting situations, and very interesting situations often counsel having a specialist. A particular interesting situation which I have in my life is that I'm an American who lives in Japan; that fact _substantially complicates_ accounting for my businesses or personal life, both with regards to tax preparation and with regards to just giving good financial advice, and I get _far_ better results working with people who specialize in international clients than I get with (presumably) skilled accountants who are willing to work with international clients but don't wake up and breathe the US Japan Social Security Totalization Agreement.

More relevantly to HNers, I think that you probably have special circumstances if: you do a material amount of investing in things that your average dentist does not, you own a material amount of equity, the character of your life is intrinsically international, etc. (Running a business is its own flavor of complication.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Isn't an s corp a passthrough? Why all the complexity with w2 (if he is alone)...

<comment><AUTHOR> (Author here) S corps have to pay the owners a reasonable salary on W-2. The benefit is being able to determine how much SE tax you pay.

<comment><USER9> It's pretty fucked up that people do this, and if running this particular tax dodge complicates people's lives, God bless the bureaucracy. You should not get to underpay payroll taxes, roping off a big chunk of your income as "profit sharing", simply because you happen to own an S-Corp. I've heard this is a big audit flag, but even if it wasn't, I think doing it is pretty close to immoral.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, there are no morals involved in taxes. I don't make the tax laws and I have no responsibility to pay more tax than I owe. If Congress wanted to close this then they would. I believe it was a plank of Hillary's campaign.

Second, there's a very narrow window where it actually makes sense. Above $128k of salary you don't pay Social Security tax at all, just Medicare. "Underpaying" social security reduces your future annuity, so it's not like this is a panacea.

Third, paying yourself zero salary and taking profit sharing distributions is indeed a massive audit risk. I've never done that and don't ever plan on it (see: article title).

<comment><USER9> Right: that narrow window is what makes it so crazy-making. Virtually everybody who employs this dodge is comparatively privileged. Most people don't get to opt a big chunk of their income out of Medicare/Social Security taxes; why should tech company operators?

We're an LLC filing as S-Corp, for what it's worth. I just don't play this particular game.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am all for Congress removing this as a benefit of S corps and simultaneously removing or significantly lifting the Social Security wage cap. That's a thing I would vote for. Until it happens, though, people are going to continue doing this. Congress removed a similar dodge for C corps almost 80 years ago, so it can certainly be done.

S corps aren't just used by consultants, FWIW. The structure makes a lot of sense for companies with lots of profit and more than owner employees, where the owners can justifiably claim they don't generate all the profit from their personal services.

<comment><USER9> The whole idea of "profit not generated from personal services" that are exempt from Medicare taxes is what's problematic. If you own a company and make six figures in income from it, you should be paying taxes on it as regular income. Medicare and Social Security _already have_ a break for high- income earners --- the income limit you previously mentioned.

I don't know that we really disagree about any of this; I'm just ranting. It upsets me that people think this is legitimate and exploit it, or that "Mr. Money Mustache" would promote it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Medicare doesn't have the same income limit. In fact, Medicare has an additional bracket above $250k earned income.

We agree that it's not a great legal outcome. I just don't see it as something worth getting outraged about. The number of people truly exploiting this system is very small, and the ones that are egregious get caught.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Kik is giving $3M to developers to build for its KIN cryptocurrency - sahin-boydas https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2018/07/11/kik-is-giving-3m-to-developers-to-build-for-its-kin-cryptocurrency/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, Kin ambassador here. Got some more info on the program.

The Kin Developer Program (found here [https://www.kinecosystem.com/dev](https://www.kinecosystem.com/dev)) offers up to 25 qualified developers the following:

\- A combination of fiat and Kin totalling approximately $120,000 as they successfully launch their own Kin economies over six months.

\- Devs will receive mentorship and guidance from Kin in group settings, including team hosted AMA's and video sessions for all participants.

\- They will have access to the Kin Ecosystem software development kit (SDK) and the Kin Playbook, a guide that provides information on successfully launching a Kin economy.

\- An exclusive community channel for ongoing interaction with other participants.</comment>