Apple plans new U.S. campus, to pay $38B in foreign cash taxes - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-tax/apple-plans-new-u-s-campus-to-pay-38-billion-in-foreign-cash-taxes-idUSKBN1F62FJ <comment><USER2> This discussion is missing context. The whole reason that Apple has to pay taxes on foreign income is because unlike almost every other developed nation the US has a worldwide tax system. Almost every other nation has a territorial tax system. The rest of the world with their territorial system taxes income earned within that country, the US rather taxes income worldwide, regardless of where it is earned.

For example, if a British company earns income in Germany, its pays German taxes on its German income. But if a US company earns income in Germany it pays both German taxes and US taxes.

What is little known about this tax bill is that it normalizes our tax system with the rest of the world by moving to a territorial tax system. This is not about Apple avoiding tax on profit earned in the US, they will continue to pay US taxes, they won't pay taxes on income earned outside of the US going forward. [0] That means that there won't be any more hordes of overseas profits. And means the end of those tax inversions or corporate inversions you have been hearing about. [1]

So now that foreign profits aren't going to be taxed, something needed to be done with all the profits generated under the old system. The 23% repatriation tax is a compromise between the new rate of effectively 0% and the old rate of 39%. This BTW happens to be very close to the OECD, the developed world's, average tax rate of 24%.

Edit: As was astutely pointed out below the US only pays additional taxes to the US if their US tax bill was higher than their German one. And they paid the difference between to two to the US.

[0] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11430290)

[1] - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11429859](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11429859)

<comment><USER3> => But if a US company earns income in Germany it pays both German taxes and US taxes.

This is not portrayed accurately. If you pay German taxes, you claim exception for that amount. So if you pay more taxes than the rate in US, you owe no tax for that income in US. If the rate is less in the country than in US, you pay the difference.

<comment><USER4> But of course Apple isn't paying no German taxes. They didn't pay taxes on any of this overseas money, and they had the gall to ask for an "repatriation holiday" so they could pay overall zero taxes on that huge heap of money.

Now they are paying the US gov. Unless they can keep coming up with more Irish tax avoidance schemes, going forward they will probably also have to pay in Europe.

<comment><USER5> Yes, they paid taxes in Germany, France, etc. it's reported in their financial statements. They've already paid 8 or 9% foreign income taxes on their foreign earnings.

<comment><USER6> Really?

Because those are EU countries and Apple has a tax deal with Ireland in the EU.

<comment><USER7> Their corporate headquarter is in Ireland. They pay payroll taxes, VAT etc. in each EU member state just like every business has to. They do not, however, have to pay taxes on their corporate earnings in EU countries other than Ireland. That is a central part of "Freedom of Commerce" in the EU. (One of the EU's 4 foundational freedoms.) What Apple has been rightfully accused of is not paying their taxes on corporate earnings _in Ireland_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Url changed from [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-accelerates- us-...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2018/01/apple-accelerates-us- investment-and-job-creation/). Some of the comments below make a bit more sense if you know they were replying to that one.

This is a bit of an exception to the HN guidelines' call for original sources. We generally prefer a high quality third party report on news like this to the company's own press release. The latter tend to read like press releases.

<comment><USER9> dang, why a double standard? If this was a story about Google, HN would have changed links to the official Google PR.

<comment><USER8> Are there many, or even any, examples of that? If so I'd like to see one.

Really, all we care about is having the best article on a topic, where by 'best' I mean something like 'most substantive, while remaining accessible to a general audience'. By that standard it seemed obvious that the Reuters url was better. Anti-Apple bias doesn't enter into it, and frankly the idea feels a little absurd to me.

<comment><USER9> dang, every time there's a story about Google, admins here link to official Google blogs. Every time it hits the front page. And if thee's a negative story about Google, it's quickly buried/flagged/disappeared.

<comment><USER8> I'm sorry, but that's an absurd thing to claim. All I can really take from what you've said there is that you dislike Google.

For any $bigco there are lots of HN users who strongly feel for or against it, and they all have competing beliefs about which $bigco is secretly favored or secretly suppressed here.

People come up with highly charged claims about HN all the time and they're never true. They're in the eye of the beholder, reflecting how you feel, not how HN actually is, and driven by cognitive bias. I don't mean to criticize you personally—tons of HN readers do it, and I've written about the phenomenon a lot. [https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=by:dang%20cognitive%20bias)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Of course lowering taxes would encourage companies to repatriate large overseas cash hoards, but if that's the only goal, why have a tax at all?

As a country the US has obligations to its current citizens and its future citizens and those obligations cost money. If we overly celebrate these windfalls every time the tax rate is lowered, we might not realize that what we owe the citizen is being forgot and allowed to erode because the means to pay for it just aren't available.

<comment><USER11> We currently get $0 in tax revenue from the cash Apple is hoarding overseas. This tax "holiday" (a term I dislike because it incorrectly implies that no tax is being paid on the repatriation, when it is simply a reduced rate) is resulting in $38 billion that we would not have otherwise received.

$38,000,000,000 > $0

<comment><USER12> If you or I decided we just didn't like the tax rate that applied to us and didn't pay our taxes for decades at a time on income we made overseas, what do you think would happen?

Corporations are treated as people only when it's convenient.

You and I don't have high-powered lawyers, lobbyists, loopholes, offshore accounts, subsidiaries, etc to hide behind.

This is an insult to every U.S. citizen...Apple wouldn't exist if it weren't for the U.S. and its tax-payers providing the environment that allowed Steve Jobs to create his company and become successful.

The rate they're being charged on this money is even lower than the new lower rate that they'll be charged on future income. Must be nice. Yay for corporate oligarchy.

<comment><USER13> If they bring the money back then inevitably they'd spend it back into the US economy either through direct job creation or buying things. If they do create jobs, the US gets most of its money from income tax, which would increase from the more jobs/higher wages. It feels like double dipping if we expect them to pay taxes on repatriating the money and then also taxing the wages that the repatriated money allows them to pay.

<comment><USER14> > If they bring the money back then inevitably they'd spend it back into the > US economy either through direct job creation or buying things.

That is a misconception. It's not like they are storing dollar bills in warehouses on foreign soil. The bulk of the 'overseas' money is already invested, for a large part in the US. See page 49 in Apple's yearly report [1], to see how that money is currently invested: at the end of 2016 almost $42 billion dollars were invested in US treasuries, $131 billion in corporate securities. It doesn't say how much of those corporate securities are US companies, but it's probably the bulk. It's an accounting/tax fiction that it is currently 'overseas'.

[1] [http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1628280-16-...](http://investor.apple.com/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1628280-16-20309)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> How realistic is it that a $5 billion fund can move a non-trivial amount of iPhone manufacturing to the US? Most of the BOM supply chain is in Asia, and assembly at FoxConn I heard amounts to 3% of the cost. It seems like Apple would have to build mostly automated assembly in the US or suffer severe margin reduction, and they'd suffer turnaround issues with the crucial components being still sourced in China.

However, given the issue with iCloud, you can see that they've now realized they have to reduce the leverage China has over time, but $5 billion seems way too small to move an entire logistics manufacturing chain, they need a moonshot for this. Apple spends way too much on stock buybacks and dividends and not enough on reinvestment.

Elsewhere in this thread, the pro-Trumpists don't seem to get why people were opposed to the tax plan:

The fear many people have is that this repatriation will mostly go to stock buybacks, dividends, and executive compensation just like the last 3 times there was a repatriation event. The last repatriation event didn't make a dent in national income growth or GDP, it barely moved the needle. The Democrats wanted the funds to be spent on infrastructure, or education as an offset.

The GOP decided to spend any increased revenue on lowering the estate tax and marginal tax rate cuts to avoid the cutoff for reconciliation. Since Democrats, backed by tech companies, had long supported repatriation. The GOP had a chance to pass a clean corporate tax bill that left everything else alone. Everyone knows the reductions for marginal rates at the high end and the estate tax changes aren't going to affect GDP much, and the net result of that was to impose double taxation on some states due to SALT deduction changes, and increase the deficit by $1.5 trillion. Apparently, double taxation is bad if it's the estate tax, but not if you're in California, New York, etc.

A practical, clean, corporate tax reform bill would have been better, especially if it was synchronized with international partners to try and close loopholes. For this reason, although the tax plan had some good aspects to it, overall, it's a very bad bill and I doubt the positives to Apple are going to offset the negatives to the rest of the economy.

<comment><USER16> Speak for yourself. I'm not at the high end of the income curve - not in the 1%, not even in the 10%, and I'm getting almost a $4k tax cut next year. I ran the numbers for my friends who are probably in the bottom half of the income curve (they make just over 40k between the two of them), and they're getting about a $1200 reduction. They were pretty shocked, since they'd been told over and over that it's not really a cut for lower income people. I think the truth is that the cut is smaller in high tax states, and much larger across the board in lower tax states.

Also, it's not double taxation. The SALT money is taxed in the states and spent in the states. Why should those states that choose to have large internal governments get a discount on their federal contribution percentages? They receive the same services and benefits...

<comment><USER17> The part you're not taking into consideration is that all of this will be paid for with cuts to Social Security and Medicare for people not already receiving benefits. So if you're still in your wage-earning years, that $4k tax cut (which others have rightly pointed out only lasts 10 years) will cost you tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars a year in retirement.

It's extremely short-sighted to look at just the near-term effects of this tax bill. But such is America where so few have adequate retirement planning. We're headed for another period similar to the one that led to the establishment of Social Security. The question is how people will react this time when they see so many retirees dying in poverty.

<comment><USER18> I'm curious why I've never heard a politician go with the argument that a tax cut today will ruin your social security benefits tomorrow. Why do they not make the argument that a tax increase would be more beneficial for your future?

<comment><USER16> I don't trust the government to do much of anything, and that includes invest money. Their stewardship of the social security trust fund has proven that I'm right (it's essentially full of IOU's). Anybody who believes that giving the government a few thousand dollars is better for their retirement than putting the same cash in a 401k hasn't taken a hard look at the government's performance to date.

TL;DL: I don't think that argument would fly with informed voters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love it. Apple gets to avoid paying taxes for years through accounting slight of hand, and then when they finally pay for part of what they owe they want a pat on the back for doing so. Corporations, man.

<comment><USER20> _they finally pay for part of what they owe_

You only owe the taxes that the law compels you to pay. There's no obligation whatsoever to pay a dime more.

Do you personally look to pay the maximum amount of taxes that you could possibly justify through various readings of the tax code? Because I guarantee that your tax software or your tax accountant are not "taking advantage" of opportunities for you to pay more unless you look to.

<comment><USER19> No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary in Ireland that owns my intellectual property and pays me dividends for my freelance work. To pretend that they didn't go above and beyond to avoid paying taxes is lunacy.

<comment><USER21> > No but I also don't set up a pretend subsidiary...

do you pay your state government the sales tax you owe it for all of your online purchases?

<comment><USER22> At least here in Canada, sellers are legally obligated to remit sales taxes, even if they do not explicitly collect them. The buyer does not need to do anything.

I made this mistake when I first starting selling online, which stung. Setting up a tax ID in Canada was very easy. Now that I am selling in the US, I am just beginning to explore the issue, and it is notably less easy.

So if you "get away" with not paying sales tax online, it is likely that the sales tax was simply baked into the price.

<comment><USER21> this does not reflect the situation in the US, where krebby appears to be located. (i checked first.)

here's a little page from washington state on it, which matches my understanding of the situation in most other states: [https://dor.wa.gov/get- form-or-publication/publications-subj...](https://dor.wa.gov/get-form-or- publication/publications-subject/tax-topics/sales-tax-not-listed-invoice)

> Have you ever made a retail purchase and the invoice didn't include retail > sales tax? This may occasionally occur, especially if you purchase items > over the internet or from out-of-state vendors. ... However, the buyer has a > responsibility to pay use tax to the Department of Revenue even if the > seller doesn't collect it.

> Also, an invoice should never have a single figure that "includes retail > sales tax." If you receive such an invoice, contact the vendor and ask for a > new invoice with the retail sales tax separately stated. Washington law > requires that customer sales slips, contracts, invoices or other sales > documents separately state the amount of retail sales tax due.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'd like to know who those 9,000 American suppliers and manufacturers are. Other than Corning who supplies the Gorilla Glasses for almost all smartphone makers, I can't really name any significant domestic suppliers who would make up $55B of their "spending."

<comment><USER24> I'm guessing they are also counting suppliers for their infrastructure. So they are counting it when they buy 2x4s for a corporate office from a US wood supplier.

<comment><USER25> Technically, the structural components for an Apple corporate office are likely to also come from Corning.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> All the comments seem to be sketpical or negative. I think it's funny if you go back right before tax reform passed and look at all the comments on articles here on HN almost all were blasting tax reform. Saying it won't work, it does not help the economy, does not create jobs, and repatriation only leads to stock buybacks and executive bonuses.

So far we've seen company after company giving substantial bonuses to all employees, announcing expansions, repatriating large amounts of capital from overseas back to America.

Funny the nerative always seems to stay negative even though facts say otherwise.

<comment><USER27> To be fair the bonuses I've heard about have been laughable so far and accompanied by large lay offs in two cases (Walmart and Comcast).

<comment><USER28> > I've heard about have been laughable so far

Having been poor, then living on $750/month in US for many years, a $1000 bonus is not life changing but also not laughable.

The companies certainly didn't have to give those and could have pocketed all of it.

> large lay offs in two cases (Walmart and Comcast).

Are those because of the tax incentives?

<comment><USER29> > _Having been poor, then living on $750 /month in US for many years, a $1000 > bonus is not life changing but also not laughable._

But for rich and poor alike, a layoff is definitely life-changing....

<comment><USER28> > But for rich and poor alike, a layoff is definitely life-changing....

Agree there, no doubt, most people would rather have a job than a $1000 bonus. But what does that mean in this context? Should Walmart keep those 60 Sam's Club stores open at a loss to avoid laying people off? Should the government subsidize them? Maybe it should break apart Amazon because a lot of those location will become e-distribution centers.

What would you have done. How would you have saved those Sam's Clubs workers? I am curious, not being sarcastic or tricky? I'd suggest breaking Amazon into regional companies like they did with AT&T. Or maybe breaking AWS away from Amazon-retail business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> If you read through the articles numbers don't seem to add up to 350B:

The Tax repatriations count for 38 bil. The new capital is 30 billion. Supposed the 20000 people are all making a 200000 dollars/ years thats 20 biliion. Where does the other 250 billion come from?

<comment><USER31> From the link:

"Apple will spend an estimated $55 billion with US suppliers and manufacturers in 2018"

<comment><USER30> How much of that is made here? If you look at their ICs even if its an American company most of their chips are made in Taiwan. For example apple might design CPU here, but its made in Hsinchu.

<comment><USER31> Very likely an impossible number to unravel (without Apple providing the detail). Their cost of revenue for 2017 was $144b out of $229b in sales.

How much room is in there for $50b in the US and all manufacturing overseas? It would seem theoretically possible to fit all of that in. Here's their supplier list:

[https://images.apple.com/supplier- responsibility/pdf/Apple-S...](https://images.apple.com/supplier- responsibility/pdf/Apple-Supplier-List.pdf)

3M for example has six US location references. Broadcom has two US locations. Corning has one. Flextronics has one US location. Intel has three US locations. Samsung has one US location listed. Texas Instruments has several. And so on; about 40 locations in all.

Does it add up to $50 billion in real US manufacturing and supplier activity? Who knows.

<comment><USER32> Also, remember they operate 271 retail stores in the US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Apple Plans to Pay $38 Billion in Repatriation Taxes. " Imagine headline like this under Obama, how much praise he would get.

<comment><USER34> You could also write the headline as "Most Profitable Company on Earth To Receive $42B Repatriation Tax Break"

<comment><USER31> That money was never coming back otherwise. So no, you couldn't reasonably write that. You'd have to enter an alternate reality where US corporations like Apple voluntarily paid the backwards, high US global profit tax.

<comment><USER35> This doesn't quite make sense - the decision/cost to bring the money 'into the US' depends on a variety of factors.

I am not a domain expert, but the availability of cheap credit must have been a principal consideration, as well as the knowledge that a potential Republican president would offer an effective repatriation holiday.

In short, there are many conceivable situations in which it might make sense to pay such a tax - we're just not in one of those at the moment.

I won't address your last assertion, not having data, but I've read in many publications that the effective corporate tax rates in the US are far lower than rates in other countries.

<comment><USER31> > the decision/cost to bring the money 'into the US' depends on a variety of > factors

No it doesn't. Apple has been lobbying aggressively for years, including during most of the Obama Administration, to change the backwards US global tax policy (the US being one of the few countries to utilize such an approach) and or to arrange a one-time repatriation holiday. They finally got what they wanted and they're repatriating the money immediately thereafter.

It depended on one thing: getting a low enough rate to make bringing the cash home modestly punishing. Apple was always clear about that, Tim Cook spelled it out in numerous interviews over several years.

<comment><USER36> Sure, and the issue wasn't whether it would happen, it was what the money would be used for. Republicans and Democrats wanted different things. The tax policy was going to change. It was just a matter of what we did with it. In this case, it was used to pay for lower taxes for corporations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I find it fascinating that a tax plan proposed by a President reviled throughout the Valley is the one thing that finally convinced Apple to repatriate much of its overseas cash and invest it here in the US. They of course give no credit to him in this press release, but the proof is in the pudding. Of the many heavy handed ideas and efforts made by the previous administration to convince Apple to do this, exactly 0 of them worked.

Only time will tell whether the recent reduction in corporate tax rates will have a long-term net positive effect, but this move by Apple alone seems like a good sign that it will. If other US corporations follow suit with repatriation, the American economy will experience unprecedented corporate reinvestment.

<comment><USER37> Once corporations have exhausted their large hoard of overseas cash, the amount they repatriate will go down significantly. So isn't this really just a short-term boost?

<comment><USER38> The USA has moved to a territorial tax system for corporations, so any income earned abroad will no longer be subject to US tax (only taxed by the country where the income was generated), and so can be freely moved back to the USA if the companies wish. There is no longer a distinction to be made concerning where money can be spent without being US taxed.

<comment><USER39> There was little distinction before as companies could borrow against their overseas cash to invest in the US

<comment><USER38> They would still have to pay those loans back out of their US income (or any income repatriated). Bankruptcy would be weird, in that case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I feel like this potentially buried the lede. Apple is planning on opening up a new campus in the USA.

I feel like Amazon's HQ2 search is going to open the floodgates for tech companies asking for public incentives. Tech companies in the Bay Area have been creating tens of thousands of jobs for years without asking for much publicly. Expect that to change now.

<comment><USER41> Or maybe it will open the floodgates for tech companies to escape high costs of SV/California/West Coast.

It is a hedging against increasingly expensive work force.

<comment><USER42> According to the article the new campus would be for support. Most of that in the U.S. is currently part of the Apple Texas campus. So this would not really alter much in Silicon Valley.

<comment><USER43> > The company plans to establish an Apple campus in a new location, which will > initially house technical support for customers.

Key word being "initially."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Giant PR move. Amazon was already doing all of these and opening a new HQ without all this "tax" bill PR.

<comment><USER45> but Trump is going after Bezos..?

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> >Apple is already responsible for creating and supporting over 2 million jobs across the United States and expects to generate even more jobs as a result of the initiatives being announced today

What percentage of jobs of these are full time versus part time?

Why do large corporations and politicians love to toot their horns about 'jobs', but refuse to go into details?

Oh wait, there public.

>Employees:As of September 30, 2017 , the Company had approximately 123,000 full-time equivalent employees.([http://investor.apple.com/sec.cfm?DocType=Annual&ndq_keyword...](http://investor.apple.com/sec.cfm?DocType=Annual&ndq_keyword=#filings))

123k divided by 2 million equals 6.15% of employees are full-time, whereas 93.85% are part-time.

<comment><USER47> Both your numerator and your divisor are incorrect. The 2 million number is "creating and supporting", i.e. not direct Apple employees. The 123k number is "full-time equivalent", i.e. "total number of hours worked by employees / 40", where 2 employees @ 20 hours/week = 40 hours = 1 full-time equivalent. So actual full-time employees might be a small portion of the 123k, due to the workforce ofApple retail stores, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> An important distinction re: territorial taxes is that if there is no settlement of the difference between a foreign tax rate and a home country tax rate then companies are incentivized to artificially earn as much of their income as possible in low tax jurisdictions.

</comment><comment><USER49> Lesson to self: build empire even if it means not paying taxes and hoarding money offshore. Wait until favorable political winds change that allow easy and cheap transfer from offshore. Come up as a winner to masses, because now I can hire more people. Rinse and repeat.

<comment><USER50> Global minimum tax. No more rinse and repeat thanks to the tax bill. 11% tax on all foreign profits so this eradicates tax havens in Ireland and the islands because if you are paying 2% then you pony up the other 9% to Uncle Sam.

Last repatriation, the companies did exactly what you said but now that is no longer possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Thank you president Trump.

</comment><comment><USER52> It's a nice feeling when your president and government actually work _for_ you! Hats off to the American voter.

</comment><comment><USER53> Did I miss something? I thought from the title of the article mentioning WHERE the campus would be built would be a fairly important detail to include.

</comment><comment><USER54> Alternate headline: "Apple dodges $49B in taxes by waiting for a tax holiday". They reduced their rate on $250B of earnings from 35% to 15.5% by waiting for a new tax policy. [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/apple-plans- to-p...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/01/apple-plans-to- pay-38-billion-in-us-taxes-to-bring-overseas-cash-home/)

<comment><USER13> Alternate headline: Trump policies enable Apple to re-invest in US jobs and economy.

<comment><USER55> A headline that will never see the light of day.

<comment><USER56> Mainly because it's hard to suppress laughter if you think about it at all beyond a surface level. See discussion in another thread. I don't want to repeat myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> So is this actually a bad thing, or are all of the skeptical/negative comments just due to the fact that it's yet another example of the new tax bill having immediate, positive, real effects on the US economy?

<comment><USER58> $1.5 trillion - $29bn... yeah, still not seeing the "positive effect" in the long term.

<comment><USER59> 150 - 2.9 is definitely a step forward...

<comment><USER58> Except that it took 1 bill to create the 1.5 trillion in debt and decades to create the 29bn in profits. This kind of "big windfall" is only happening this tax cycle, and won't happen ever again.

It's almost like people really focus on whatever positive input they get and cling to it no matter what.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> I hate the phrase "job creation". It sounds almost like the "job creators" are of divine nature. How about "hiring"?

<comment><USER61> Job creation and hiring mean different things. I can hire someone for a job that already existed and was previously filled by someone else. If I bring a new job into existence, that hasn't been filled by anyone before then saying I created that job doesn't seem particularly untoward.

<comment><USER60> I anybody creates jobs it's the people who buy stuff and create demand. Then someone will meet that demand and potentially hire someone. I don't think Apple "creates" jobs. It hires people for certain needs that have been created by the market. If they don't fill the need somebody else will do in a market economy.

<comment><USER62> I disagree, I would suspect that most Apple employees are probably engaged in creating new products that have not been bought yet..

<comment><USER36> Ignoring Apple retail employees, that might be true if you assume that the new products are running a version of either iOS or macOS and that those people working on that are considered part of creating that product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> This is a diversion tactic.

They're grabbing 252.3B and spending less than a fifth of it. Let's imagine a different world. 200B, divided by 50k + 1.5x overhead (75k) could create about 2.6M decent jobs for one year (or 1.3M for two years etc).

2.6M jobs is equal to 0.8% of the total US population. The total labor force size is about 160M (~1/2 the total population) and the U6 measure of unemployment is about 8%. A healthy U6 is probably closer to 6% (from around 2000). That 2% of 160M is 3.2M jobs. Thus, in one fell swoop without even affecting operations overly much, Apple could reduce the magnitude of the economic crisis by a little over 2/3.

These are astonishing numbers that would have real impacts on people's lives. Imagine what we could do with the profits of the other large conglomerates.

Instead, they're spending a tiny amount on PR and reduced taxes that they lobbied heavily for to do what? Probably stock buy backs. The adulation of the rich and powerful continues at the expense of the working class.

EDIT: added some comparison numbers

EDIT: You guys are too much! So many questions, keep on asking, but I'll have to let others answer. I have other things to do today. Keep thinking critically about the political economy of the system. :)

<comment><USER63> That doesn't make any sense though. Why would Apple just create millions of jobs that they don't require?

This is the key mistake people make when they say that tax cuts will create jobs, or minimum wages will cost employment. Companies try to be efficient, and therefore don't create jobs they don't need, and don't get rid of jobs they do need if wages go up. That's why there is pretty much zero statistical correlation between tax cuts and employment, or wage price and employment.

Apple will create jobs if their operations require them - they're not going to make up busywork out of the goodness of their hearts.

<comment><USER56> Exactly right. Why would a for-profit company work to improve the lives of the population that birthed them? I'm merely making the point that we can do better than this.

<comment><USER63> I think companies should pay their fair share of tax, comply with stringent labour, environmental and other regulations (high minimum wage, decent holidays, humane limits on work hours per week etc.), even donating part of their profits to charity would be cool.

But you can't expect companies to randomly create new jobs just for the sake of making jobs (because they have a bit of spare cash)... It just doesn't make sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Would like to see more investment in manufacturing here in the United States. Apple has to recognize that unstable relations between the United States, the EU, and China (along with South Korea and others)could leave them in a precarious position with their physical manufacturing capabilities. If China says, give us U.S. user data, or give us the capability to build your new 3D camera or we shut your facilities down, what will Apple do? Not to mention South Korea's antics with raiding Apple's South Korean offices and whatnot. The same goes for other US firms - EU you better watch out too.

<comment><USER30> It would need a lot of investment. You need glass makers, metal shops, semiconductor shops all close together to emulate what is there in China right now. I don't know if its really possible in the US.

<comment><USER65> You'd need a sort of 'motor city' for electronics. Something like what Detroit was for cars, or like what Shenzhen is now.

I'm surprised that no stateside port cities have tried to encourage that sort of thing; there are plenty of negative externalities, but I would still _LEAP_ to move to such an initiative.

It's like...I want to create something that could make a difference for people, but all that I see in our current tech cities is faux do-goodiness, iniquity, and seething resentment. It's a bunch of people saying that they want to save the world while reaching into the pockets of people who can't afford it, and it hurts to be unfailingly lumped into that sort of behavior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Good but not nearly enough. I'm just glad they're paying something.

</comment><comment><USER67> Please everyone who wants to pay more taxes you can gift it to the govt. Match me Bernie Bros!!!

</comment><comment><USER68> Trump's tax plan kicks ass.

</comment><comment><USER69> I wonder if through it all Tim Cook has political ambitions.

</comment><comment><USER70> I wonder how many of these type of headlines of companies investing in America, giving bonuses to workers, stock market and economy roaring, until it breaks the cognitive dissonance out of liberals.</comment>


False Memories Implanted Via Advertising - <AUTHOR> http://neurobonkers.com/?p=3010

<comment><USER2> Games do this too. I have a memory of a beautiful sunrise over a lake in a forest, for instance, that really came from Dark Age of Camelot.

I also have a couple of memories of some kind of power station. I'm pretty sure one comes from a field trip when I was in 6th grade, and one comes from City of Heroes, but I'm not sure which is which.</comment>


New flexible paper computer to be unveiled soon - <AUTHOR> http://www.humanmedialab.org/paperphone/

<comment><USER2> The flexible display is nice, but at this point, the bend gestures seem awkward.</comment>


Show HN: Bitbillpay - Pay any PostBillPay biller in Australia with Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://www.bitbillpay.com.au/ <comment><USER2> Since the service you offer is so simple, why not have the home page BE the bill pay form, with some peripheral explanation boxes? I.e. you navigate to the site, and the first thing you see is the code and reference amount fields etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Further to my response to a comment stating that this does not fall foul of AUSTRAC's requirements, I think it does break the law with respect to the Corporations Act's requirements for an Australian Financial Services License (AFSL)...

[http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/ASIC.NSF/byHeadline/Licensing](http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/ASIC.NSF/byHeadline/Licensing)

"An Australian financial services (AFS) licence authorises licensees to:

1 provide financial product advice to clients;

2 deal in a financial product;

3 make a market for a financial product;

4 operate a registered scheme;

5 PROVIDE A CUSTODIAL OR DEPOSITORY SERVICE;

6 provide traditional trustee company services."

I think you are performing #5 above, therefore are breaking the law by operating without an AFSL (if you do have an AFSL, the license number should be displayed on your website).

Plus consider the Electronic Funds Transfer Code of Conduct...

[http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/Electronic+F...](http://www.asic.gov.au/asic/asic.nsf/byheadline/Electronic+Funds+Transfer%3A+Code+of+Conduct?openDocument)

Not trying to rain on your parade, just making sure you are aware of the relevant laws you (may) be breaking!

<comment><AUTHOR> I can't see how Bitbillpay is remotely a custodial or depository service. No dollar ever changes hands (I pay your bills with my credit card, and you pay me in Bitcoin). Australia Post also explicitly allows "third party bill payments" in their terms of service.

<comment><USER4> What if there is a delay between receiving the bitcoin to doing the payment, for example if the payment gateway is down? Would that imply custodial or depository service?

<comment><AUTHOR> Definition of "custodial or depository service": [http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/...](http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ca2001172/s766e.html)

There's nothing remotely similar. The Bitcoin payment is not an arrangement nor a financial product. It's not held in trust either.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link. I wouldn't want to rely on my interpretation of reading that Act to keep myself out of trouble! There are so many links that go to fairly unhelpful definitions such as 'when used in a provision outside Chapter 7, has the same meaning as it has in Chapter 7.' So it's not a settlement facility etc, it seems exepmt from these if it's not considered a financial product?

Out of interest, do you know what a similar service that accepted AUD instead would be classified under?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Superb. This is a really great initiative Ryan. Ive had the great misfortune of having to use postbillpay to pay off my numerous speeding fines and anything that can get me around using that broken website is a phenomenal achievement. All the more so when you do it in a concise modern approach by including bitcoins.

Ill be sharing this with a lot of my friends.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Actually you can use this service to pay all kinds of bills. There are almost 700 billers in Australia that accept POSTbillpay. It's just that the BPAY® trade mark is a lot more reputable and familiar to Aussies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Be careful Ryan Zhou is the same person with the sketchy past behind Bitcoinica. [https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoinica](https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Bitcoinica)

Context: [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81581.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=81581.0)

<comment><AUTHOR> To fairly judge my background, you should really only look at Bitcoinica between Sep 2011 and Jan 2012, when I actually had a management role in the business. The subsequent mis-management was entirely out of my control. I owned exactly zero percent of the company before, during and after any of the three hacks. I sold all assets related to Bitcoinica in November 2011 (~4 months before the first "Linode hack").

I honestly want Bitcoin to be successful, and that's why I joined CoinJar and started the journey all over again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For those outside Australia, you can pay most bills at the post office (Australia Post) or online via the post office's PostBillPay service. Basically, AusPost act as a middleman between the biller and the customer. But AusPost only accept Australian Dollar payments.

So from my reading of it, Ryan's project takes a bitcoin payment from the customer, converts it into AUD, then connects to PostBillPay and pays the bill, then send the customer the receipt from PostBillPay.

Bill payments 1.0: Customer -> Biller

Bill payments 2.0: Customer -> PostBillPay -> Biller

Bill payments 3.0: Customer -> BitBillPay -> PostBillPay -> Biller

It's a great idea .. but I imagine if it takes off, AusPost will implement pay-by-bitcoin in their own service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually that's exactly the point of this project. I run a startup called CoinJar (the first VC-backed Bitcoin startup in Australia) and Bitbillpay consumes CoinJar Checkout API.

I will open source the project once it has gained some initial traction. But before that, I will probably write a few tutorial-like blog posts to demonstrate how to integrate the seamless and unbranded Bitcoin checkout solution into any online business.

But of course, Bitbillpay is actually easier and faster to use than POSTbillpay. For one thing, you don't have to enter your credit number, and you can automatically receive an email with the receipt. (Australia Post will ask you to "print out".)

<comment><USER8> What do you mean by "the first VC-backed startup in Australia"?

<comment><USER9> He means first VC-backed bitcoin startup ;P

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops. Thanks for pointing out. Edited original post.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Are you enrolled to AUSTRAC in accordance to Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing Act of 2006?

<comment><AUTHOR> AUSTRAC has explicitly mentioned that Bitcoin and other crypto currencies are currently out of scope of AML/CTF.

Bitbillpay doesn't accept fiat currencies. It's not a money transmitter. You can't use the service to get cash.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, I've been looking for a reference for the first point you made, would you happen to have one?

<comment><AUTHOR> "Digital currencies potentially allow individuals and entities to conduct quick and complex international funds transfers outside the regulatory requirements of the traditional financial system. Digital currencies that are not backed, either directly or indirectly, by precious metal or bullion are not regulated by the AML/CTF Act."[0]

It's quite surprising that the law is written that way, but CoinJar is pretty proactive to positively shape the Bitcoin economy and establish legitimacy before regulation comes in. At CoinJar we have already merged the AML/CTF 100-point check into our ID verification for fraud prevention. Currently cash deposits are not regulated but bank branches have the right to require depositors to show ID.

[0] [http://www.austrac.gov.au/files/typ_rprt12_full.pdf](http://www.austrac.gov.au/files/typ_rprt12_full.pdf)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Chemical.io – Cloud-Based Lab Management Solution - <AUTHOR> https://www.chemical.io <comment><USER2> Too many landing pages nowadays with too little information. Be nice to see a better list of features, screenshots, or a demo without having to sign-up.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's been years since I've been in a chemistry lab, so I don't remember how they monitored inventory levels, but do they really just jot down amount used/remaining for each chemical? If that's the case, then I can certainly see value in the app.

Just brainstorming, how feasible would it be to detect fluid levels/quantities using the phone's camera? A chemist can simply snap a photo of a vile and the rest is automagically taken care of. Or maybe you could at some point sell a line of viles/beakers/flasks/etc with level markers, volume indicators, and chemical labels that would work with your app.

A little design feedback: I would show the product on the homepage. Right now you're just selling to me with words. And the weight of that typeface being used for that sub-header is _really_ light. This is how it's rendering in Safari - [http://i.imgur.com/izWWUbZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/izWWUbZ.png)

<comment><USER4> barcode/qr-code/RFID sticker (to identify the product) & set of cheap(ish) wireless weighing scales could probably do it easier than trying to estimate based on crappy phone pics.

Does require more infrastructure though, but might not be a huge deal for the stockroom if it improves the workflow/reliability of stock levels.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, something like a Withings weighing scale for labs would definitely be interesting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> We use Quartzy right now, but if you can make the Facilities management (ie. scheduling time on an FPLC) better (which, wouldn't be too hard) and embeddable / supporting CalDav/CardDav I would use this.

I have an Excel sheet of all our chemicals (~500+ reagents), is there a way for me to upload this? The data is fairly well ordered with the below headers

       Chemical Description	Bldg	Room	#Units	Qty.	Unit	CAS #	Lot #	Expiration	Vendor	Storage_Location	Comments	Container	Physical State	Max on Hand	Chemical Formula	Molecular Weight	PO #	Vendor Catalog #	EHSA Chemical #	Order Date	Open Date	Receipt Date	Contact	Contact Phone	PI Code

<comment><AUTHOR> I've added your suggestions to the development roadmap. Would you mind emailing me that spreadsheet over to email@example.com and I'll see what I can do? Thanks :)

<comment><USER5> Sweet and sure thing, I'll send it over later today

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sitting in a chemistry lab right now, and this is pretty sorely lacking in anything that would make it remotely useful to a small academic lab, much less a larger corporate lab. The experimental write-up section is a joke, especially if you're going to make people pay for it. The fact that grams and milliliters are the only options when inputting a chemical tells me you have no idea what you're doing, and the idea that chemists are going to log in and enter the amount they took out of a bottle every time they weigh something out is ludicrous.

</comment><comment><USER7> Interesting that they launched first on Android. I wonder if that's because lab managers are expected to use their own phones, and they'll likely have Androids. Or, maybe labs purchase phones for this purpose, and Androids are cheaper. Or, maybe the dev has an Android phone and that's what he or she knows.

</comment><comment><USER8> I literally know nothing about this space... but I'm aware of Quartzy ( [http://www.quartzy.com/](http://www.quartzy.com/) ) which I think competes similarly.

Care to do a competitive analysis with them?

<comment><AUTHOR> Quartzy requires all the data on a chemical to be inserted manually. Chemical.io automatically catalogs reagents based on their chemical formula. We also have a mobile app and experiment writeup functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Definitely going in the right direction, I remember doing inventory endlessly in an inorg lab.

It would be nice to have a little more info about the products, but I think this is a space that could do with some innovation.

Good job.

</comment><comment><USER10> Looking really good. Just a minor, minor detail. On your signup page, the page title reads "Chemilog|Login" which I assume is a legacy name...

</comment><comment><USER11> Nice, just what I was looking for. Now I don't have to keep any orders in Excel or similar. Are you planning to add any export features?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, we're working on them as we speak :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 20 euro/month seems way cheap. 20 euro/month for 24/7 technical support seems crazy.

</comment><comment><USER13> Do you have a demo of the "Experiment Writeup Functionality"?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, for 7 days after you register your account, you have full access to experiment writeups. Click "Writeups" in the right sidebar in the dashboard :-)

<comment><USER13> Are you planning to include an overview of this? This is the kind of thing I'd like to glance through without having to register.

"Experiment writeups" is a pretty big domain, it seems like much more than a side project for an app that aims to do inventory control. Can you say a little more about where you are going with this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on it now, this was a bit of a weekend project so I didn't work too much on the site itself.

<comment><USER13> Okay thanks, looking forward to seeing your approach. This is a pretty interesting problem in and of itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just a heads up, firefox lists the website as a security threat.

<comment><USER10> I saw that too. Seems to be only when trying to access [https://chemical.io](https://chemical.io) as opposed to [https://www.chemical.io](https://www.chemical.io)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> We're on the sales side of chemicals, drop me an email!

<comment><AUTHOR> Noted!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> You really should change re-agents to reagents.</comment>


Digitopoly - a blog on the economics of the digital world - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitopoly.org/ <comment><AUTHOR> Looks like an interesting one to follow. There's a picture of PG on the front page!</comment>


Elastic Path Developer Challenge: Can you code your way out of a blackout maze?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.epdeveloperchallenge.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not affiliated with these people, just thought it was a neat way to post a job.

<comment><USER2> But it is way too simple. It's a problem we had to solve in first semester.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Grue or I'm not playing.</comment>


Creating a Web App in Erlang with Chicago Boss and Riak from Scratch - <AUTHOR> http://www.drlinux.org/creating-a-web-app-in-erlang-with-chicago-boss-and-riak-from-scratch-i/

<comment><USER2> Is it me, or these blog posts built on memes are a tad annoying? I can't really take the content seriously anymore.

<comment><USER3> Built on memes? You mean because he used memes as images within the tutorial / blog post? I'm not quite understanding what you mean. I'd encourage you to read it, regardless if you don't like the memes.

I found this article to be really awesome, as I've been thirsty for good Erlang resources.

<comment><USER2> Well, even the graphs contain memes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's 2014 guys, not 80s or something. No-one needs to be forced by the author to read black texts over white background. Using memes, which are the most popular way of expressing feelings nowadays, is a good way to keep reader focused on the content without boring them bunch of new or uncommon stuff. If that was about php/mysql article, "adamors" might be right but this is a piece of information that we can call "priceless". So, enjoy and go try even if you fail.

</comment><comment><USER5> Don't books get revisions ? So in the future, why not the content (as in images, "meme"s in addition to text itself) ?

Come on guys, the article is not about "memes", but what's described at all. Through the read I've quite enjoyed and memes were placed correctly.

Kudos author(s). Looking for the rest of series.</comment>


The Mundanity of Excellence (1989) - <AUTHOR> https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-mundanity-of-excellence-an-ethnographic-report-on-stratification-and-olympic-swimmers <comment><USER2> > He was right, of course. What these athletes do was rather interesting, but > the people themselves were only fast swimmers, who did the particular things > one does to swim fast. It is all very mundane. When my friend said that they > weren't exciting, my best answer could only be, simply put: _That 's the > point._

This article (and its conclusions) reminded me a lot of the stuff David Foster Wallace wrote about the world of professional tennis. Wallace portrayed the life of a professional athlete as a kind of modern monasticism. From his Esquire article "The String Theory" (2008):

> Note the way "up close and personal" profiles of professional athletes > strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life–outside interests > and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what's obvious, that most > of this straining is farce. It's farce because the realities of top-level > athletics today require an early and total commitment to one area of > excellence. An ascetic focus. A subsumption of almost all other features of > human life to one chosen talent and pursuit [...]

> Sex and substance issues notwithstanding, professional athletes are our > culture's holy men: They give themselves over to a pursuit, endure great > privation and pain to actualize themselves at it, and enjoy a relationship > to 'excellence' and 'perfection' that we admire and reward (the monk's > begging bowl, the RBI guru's eight-figure contract) and like to watch, even > though we have no inclination to walk that road ourselves. In other words, > they do it for us, sacrifice themselves for our redemption.

Point being, the life of a professional athlete in the making is (mostly) not glamorous or exciting, but rather a very narrow existence comprised of pure persistence and dedication to a small set of very specific movements and activities, repeated over and over.

<comment><USER3> "Point being, the life of a professional athlete in the making is (mostly) not glamorous or exciting, but rather a very narrow existence comprised of pure persistence and dedication to a small set of very specific movements and activities, repeated over and over."

Same as most professionals. But more reward. More risk. More need for innate qualities.

"...like to watch, even though we have no inclination to walk that road ourselves. In other words, they do it for us, sacrifice themselves for our redemption."

They "sacrifice" for fame and a comfortable lifestyle, just like everyone else.

<comment><USER4> > They "sacrifice" for fame and a comfortable lifestyle, just like everyone > else.

There are those who stop sacrificing once they attain fame and a comfortable lifestyle. But what of those who attain the fame and comfortable lifestyle but continue to sacrifice themselves?

<comment><USER5> Sacrifice more for greater fame and success. People will still make the distinction that they are _even_ greater for having done so, like you are now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lots of witty quotes in this article, such as:

 _... the true tests (such as the dissertation requirement) in graduate school are really designed to discover whether at some point one is willing to just turn the damn thing in._

The willingness to do hard, mundane work may be the most under-rated quality in all of modern life.

I think too little is made of the how the Internet and its various forms of instant entertainment make it all too easy to sidestep the mundane nature of most valuable work. It's worth considering the many long-term consequences.

Speaking of which, it's time to get back to work.

<comment><USER7> I don't think this is underrated at all. Primary and secondary education is largely intended to train people to sit still doing mundane work all day IMO.

<comment><USER8> I think it is, at least nowadays. In my experiences as a teacher, most just _aren 't_ doing it anymore. They're not doing _anything_ besides playing on their phones. I'd love to have students who would just do their work. And I think it was true in the past, even before the curse of smartphones. Kids would find other ways to avoid doing their work, and the ones who succeeded were the ones who did it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This research paper packs a wisdom of a great book in 16 pages. Very accessible and highly recommended. Some of my favorite quotes:

"What we call talent is no more than a projected reification of particular things done: hands placed correctly in the water, turns crisply executed, a head held high rather than low in the water. Through the notion of talent, we transform particular actions that a human being does into an object possessed, held in trust for the day when it will be revealed for all to see."

"The features of the sport which the "C" swimmer finds unpleasant, the top- level swimmer enjoys. What others see as boring—swimming back and forth over a black line for two hours, say—they find it peaceful, even meditative, often challenging, or therapeutic."

"Olympic Champions don't just do much more of the same things that summer- league country-club swimmers do. They don't just swim more hours, or move their arms faster, or attend more workouts. … Instead, they do things differently. Their strokes are different, their attitudes are different, their group of friends are different."

There are many more gems like that, but I can't find a text-only version of this paper anywhere.

</comment><comment><USER10> > Talent is a useless concept. Varying conceptions of natural ability > ('talent' e.g.) tend to mystify excellence, treating it as the inherent > possession of a few; they mask the concrete actions that produce outstanding > performance; they avoid the work of empirical analysis and logical > explanations (clear definitions, seperable dependent and independent > variables, and at least an attempt at establishing the temporal priority of > the cause); and finally such conceptions perpetuate the sense of innate > psychological differences between top performers and other people.

+1

<comment><USER11> This is nonsense. Sprint athletes are selected on the basis of being physically optimised for sprinting. Basketball athletes are optimised for height. Aspiring ballerinas are excluded from ballet school if they don't have the right physique.

Other skills - spatial awareness, verbal acuity, musical sensitivity, basic cognitive speed - are all on a bell curve, with an upper limit that is genetic.

Hard work is needed to develop talent, but isn't a substitute for it.

Being born with a genome that makes your body short and dumpy means your chances of a career in professional basketball are not high. Likewise, if you have no feel for rhythm you're going to be a terrible drummer. No amount of practice is going to improve that. At best with years of world-class tuition you can aspire to competent mediocrity.

If you have some native ability, hard work can help you outperform someone who has plenty but hasn't developed it. But their ceiling of potential is still going to be higher level than yours.

Business has more of a problem with talent, because the ability to succeed in business is spread across many more variables.

I used to know someone who had _unbelievable_ social and emotional intelligence. He had an astounding ability to read people for character and motivation and predict the moods and future actions of individuals and groups. That's not usually considered a key business skill, but it was absolutely essential to his promotion to board level.

The problem in business is that "excellence" is as often a combination of class privilege and bluster, perhaps with some sociopathy, as it is any genuine indication of competence. Or talent.

<comment><USER10> > Sprint athletes are selected on the basis of being physically optimised for > sprinting.

Tell that to Usain Bolt. If you feel like maybe Bolt was optimised, reflect on the fact that this was not predicted before the fact, "This range in height appears to exclude people who are very tall or very short in stature."

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899678/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899678/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An interesting idea from the paper is how low achievers often mistakenly think that "working harder" is all that's needed to move up to the next level.

> Having seen that "more is better" withing local situations, we tend to > extrapolate. If I work this hard to get to my level, how hard must Olympic > swimmers work?

> It is not by doing increasing amounts of work that one becomes excellent, > but rather by changing the kinds of work. Beyond an initial improvement of > strength, flexibility and feel, there is little increasing accumulation of > speed through sheer volume of swimming. Instead, athletes move up to the top > ranks through qualitative jumps: noticeable changes in their techniques, > discipline, and attitude, accomplished usually through a change in settings, > e.g. joining a new team with a new coach, new friends, etc, who work at a > higher level. Without such qualitative jumps, no major improvements will > take place.

I made this mistake when I was younger. All I wanted was to be good at drawing. The stock advice given out to budding artists online, and which I ate up at the time, is "draw every day". Just draw. Draw anything. Set a timer and draw what's in front of you. Make it a habit. It's assumed that more quantity is all that's missing. I did this for years and only improved slightly. Then, many years later, I returned to drawing, but with a different approach. This time, I studied other artists and tried to mimic their techniques, and in doing so improved significantly over the course of two months. That experience alone taught me the value of deliberate practice. Unfortunately, most people have become indoctrinated into the School of 10,000 Hours, and it's hard to convince them otherwise.</comment>


Elasticsearch and GDPR - <AUTHOR> https://www.eivindarvesen.com/blog/2018/09/16/elasticsearch-and-gdpr <comment><AUTHOR> Author here; I'd love to get some discussion around the topic, as I'm sure someone else must have thought about this, or comparable issues with other systems.

<comment><USER2> Could a feature request be submitted that would allow tagging specific pieces of data for a cron job to secure wipe in the background along with a manifest that shows the data wiped with time-stamps? Is that even feasible?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't know about a feature request, but I guess you could at least try to supply a patch to Lucene's merge policy. Then again, I don't know how likely it is to be accepted.

I was thinking one way would be to hook into Elasticsearch's events and trigger some custom script upon deletion that would find relevent documents across nodes and overwrite them in the segment-files or some such, but as I haven't had the chance to look that deeply into it yet I don't know how pratical this solution would be.</comment></comment></comment>


What Happens Next? Covid-19 Futures, Explained with Playable Simulations - <AUTHOR> https://ncase.me/covid-19/ <comment><USER3> > For policymakers: Make laws to support folks who have to self- > isolate/quarantine.

I live in NYC, and this is something that still feels like a gaping hole. My wife has been job hunting since before we were on lockdown in February, and its been truly horrifying how many businesses COVID-19 hiring plans have been along the lines of "work from home until the very fist day the governor says we can go back to office". These aren't just "old school" BigCorps either, most have been small tech firms. Even worse, she finally ended up with a "offer" from a government agency I won't name that refuses to give her a start date yet because, even though the rest of the office workers are WFH, they refuse to hire remote because of "taxpayers" (who are ironically funding her to not work via NYS unemployment benefits).

It's become quite clear to me that we can't trust businesses to do the right thing here. The desire for "butt in seat at office" from folks making decisions at employers here is going to end up flooding our subways with commuters who have no choice but to come in because they don't want to lose their jobs. Theres no reason office workers successfully working from home shouldn't stay there as long as they feel comfortable, and not make it terrible for folks who truly do need to commute (retail, food service, medical, etc). Maybe I'm just biased because I work for a remote company already, but I'm seriously worried what the big cities in America will look like once the initial restrictions are lifted.

<comment><USER4> > its been truly horrifying how many businesses COVID-19 hiring plans have > been along the lines of "work from home until the very fist day the governor > says we can go back to office".

Are you sure you're not reading too much into this? If I was running a company, new hires would be among the first people I would want in the office. Traning them and getting them up to speed would be so much faster in person, whereas most other employees are already set up to WFH. Just because they want new hires to come in asap doesn't mean all employees have to come in asap.

<comment><USER3> > Training them and getting them up to speed would be so much faster in person

I'm curious why this is the case. Is it because of existing processes? Any sort of onboarding that involves pairing / sitting over the other persons shoulder / breaking social distancing sounds risky anyways. As I said earlier, I'm probably just biased due to my current employer being remote where I onboarded just fine; even my in-office "training" was like 6 weeks after I started and batched with 3 months of other new hires, and not at all helpful for my day to day work. I can't remember a single in-office job where I felt like I was onboarded fast, most of them I sat around reading code and docs while everyone else was busy doing their normal job.

Btw, I regret any mention of the rest of the country in my original comment. The thing that really scares the hell out of me is the mass transit / subway system here in NYC and opening that back up to office workers (many commuting from outside NYC), new hires or otherwise. I think its an extraordinary situation compared to the majority of the driving to work US and should force companies to adapt in ways others might not have to.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While this is a very nice simulation and explanation it has a serious flaw: It assumes a fixed CFR, IFR, and hospitalisation rate. This doesn't seem to be case as evidenced by the large differences between the countries with different response curves.

The inability to change the parameters is a major problem with the simulation and invalidates a number of conclusions at the end.

What we can observe so far is that CFR is heavily skewed towards the old and frail with significant co-morbidities. Most likely there is another, not yet fully identified, medical cofactor that makes this virus particularly difficult for a very small number of people of any age. Outside of those groups the virus doesn't seem to be very symptomatic for the majority of infected people. Note that symptomatic in the medical sense and common usage is not the same. The latter having a way higher subjective threshold.

The simulation should also account for the "weak tree" effect in that the majority of the susceptible will succumb to it on the first contact. In the following years the number of susceptible will be much lower and only go up with the remaining people going into ill health and becoming susceptible, if they haven't developed any immunity from the previous encounters.

A simulation to draw real conclusions from must have an adjustable IFR, CFR, the corresponding hospitalisation rates, and the age and health distribution of the population for a region to be modelled.

<comment><USER6> Strains, as well as who gets the virus. C19 is equally contagious, but far from equal in who it kills. In NJ (where I live) 40% of deaths are to people in extended care. In Philadelphia, same people, but it's 50% of their deaths.

We need models that consider the details. We need models that consider that the virus preys on the weak (i.e., elderly and pre-existing conditions). Taking these profiles and applying them across the entire population is inaccurate ans misleading. It might even be dangerous.

<comment><USER7> COVID-19 has an extremely low mutation rate. The differences are all about random noise and differences in testing.

The oldest people also die much faster so the ratio of deaths depend on rate of spread.

<comment><USER6> Let me explain a bit better. Who is getting it now and requiring medical attention might not be the same going forward. There are a limited number of high risk people. High risk people is not everyone.

For example, I heard a new report that said the Bronx NYC has the highest per capita C19 infaction rate of any community nationally. Freightening? Maybe. How many other communities are similar to the Bronx? Similarly, how many living situations are similar to assisted living facilities. Taking edge and atypical cases and extrapolating that out over 330 million isn't a good model.

Yes. C19 is highly contagious. But we also know - from data - it is more likely to kill the weak than the strong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the article: "Masks don't stop you getting sick"

From the article's source ([https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S019665530...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196655307007742)): "None of these surgical masks exhibited adequate filter performance and facial fit characteristics to be considered respiratory protection devices"

Well, what's "adequate filter performance and facial fit"? For filter performance, they measured how good the surgical masks were at blocking tiny latex spheres that approximated an aerosol, and found that masks ranged from less than 1% penetration (best) all the way to 80% penetration (worst). For facial fit, they told subjects who "were not screened for previous use of masks or respirators" to wear masks and then sprayed an aerosolised bitter substance on them, and found all of the subjects could taste it after their first try.

The article is making the claim that masks don't stop you getting sick, based on a source that indicates some masks don't filter aerosols completely and that nobody wears masks correctly anyway. This is a bit of a stretch - <USER2> source says nothing about larger droplets, it says nothing about side effects like touching your face less, it says nothing about masks encouraging other people to socially distance, it says very little about how masks reduce the viral load that reaches you.

I don't think there's enough evidence to categorically state that masks do not stop you getting sick. I think it's irresponsible to make such a firm statement without better evidence.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, there's science and then there's science. I'm sure they're correct about aerosol protection, but if this virus is mostly spread via respiratory droplets (as seems likely) that's an entirely different question and answer. In such a case even poor masks will be useful against exposure via casual contact. So long as you're not wearing them on your chin, as I see so often.

<comment><USER10> It's such a blatant doublethink right?

I feel like the masks don't work rhetoric is political maneuvering born from the fact that governments had little to no reserves of them and that health professionals desperately need them.

Whilst I'm sure some seasoned bureaucrats or advisors think the (subjectively) white lie is the right thing to do; because health professionals need them more. The fact is if we all supported EVERYONE wearing masks, large scale domestic production would have to begin in every country and health care professionals would be swimming in masks. Not to mention it could play a part in reducing transmission.

Masks for everyone is a win win.

<comment><USER11> > ...the masks don't work rhetoric is political maneuvering born from the fact > that governments had little to no reserves of them and that health > professionals desperately need them.

Lying to people erodes trust. When leaders then order subsequent weeks-months of lockdown, people don't trust them, ignore their orders, and protest.

It's not just the masks, though. Leaders failed to lay out plans and exit criteria fast enough, weren't fast enough to address arbitrariness in their orders, and have downplayed knock-on effects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's such a shame that COVID-19 has become so politicized, it's hard to even find _scientific_ sources that are being wholeheartedly honest. Here's a few statements that are blatantly misleading:

> Around 1 in 20 people infected with COVID-19 need to go to an ICU (Intensive > Care Unit).

That statistic is contingent on infection rates. No one has these due to lack of testing. Therefore, the statistic is misleading at best, and wrong at worst.

> However, pandemics are like poker. Make bets only when you're 95% sure, and > you'll lose everything at stake.

This is highly alarmist. Pandemics aren't like poker because you're not going "all-in" on a 95% bet. Awful analogy, and just bad rhetoric.

> (Rant about the confusion about pre-symptomatic vs "true" asymptomatic. > "True" asymptomatics are rare.)

Let's be real. In the study cited, N was like 900 (with asymptomatics = 4; 1.9%). We have no idea how "rare" asymptomatics are, and citing this study is just bad science. I don't understand why not just be honest.

<comment><USER13> For the hospitalization ratio we don't have enough testing in many places but for those countries that are successfully pursuing test and trace strategies we can be pretty sure they're at least discovering the majority of contagious infections. So we can guess at the rough number even if we don't have it nailed down precisely.

<comment><USER12> Iceland is leading testing rates at almost 146 per 1,000 people[1]. This is _extremely_ low for a hyper-contagious pathogen like COVID-19. No one is "pretty sure they're at least discovering the majority of contagious infections" \-- let's call a spade a spade and build models that actually make sense.

[1] [https://ourworldindata.org/covid- testing](https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing)

<comment><USER13> If you use contact tracing to find out who sick people interacted with you only need to test those people rather than everyone and you can get by with far less testing overall. Then it's about the number of tests per case rather than the number of tests per capita. The percent positive rate on tests is a very important metric there as well and it seems that countries that control the spread get that down far enough that false positives outnumber true positives.

<comment><USER12> This kind of mental gymnastics just muddies the waters. My original point was that hospitalization (and/or ICU) rates are contingent on infection rates and that no one has reliable (and/or accurate) infection rates. Exactly how you calculate infection rates (testing, contact tracing, self-reporting) is immaterial.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Fantastically illustrated once again, ncase if you're reading this, you're one of my internet heroes.

The 'masks protect others from you, and wont protect you from others' illustration is very useful, too.

</comment><comment><USER15> This is simply a non-realistic toy visualization created to propagate the groupthink that is already so pervasive.

the problem with this simulation is as with all models, it treats everyone equally likely to need medical care (this is how the ICU bed capacity is drawn). That is not the case a least bit. Millions of people have recovered with minor discomfort and they have all predictable traits (say age) that clearly indicated their preponderance to risk.

Show me a model that accounts for this, then I will take it seriously.

<comment><USER16> The model operates on aggregate statistics. The likelihoods associated with any particular individual are not relevant and do not affect the conclusions.

Unless of course you want to assert that we should care more about some deaths than others. But that is a political statement, not an epidemiological one.

<comment><USER17> > Unless of course you want to assert that we should care more about some > deaths than others. But that is a political statement, not an > epidemiological one.

That said, I'd love to see a model that _does_ assume the population cares more about some deaths (notably their own, and those of their close friends and family) than others.

The starting point for epidemiology and public health is that all life is sacred and worth the same, and we should protect life at all costs. There's pretty ample evidence that much of the general public doesn't actually believe this, though they'll _publicly_ profess to because there's immense social stigma against wishing other people dead. But note how many people make comments in the vein of "It doesn't affect young people", "This is only a big- city disease", "It only affects Asian people", "Yes, yes I hope Trump supporters do drink some bleach", "I hope he dies of coronavirus", or "Good, Darwinism in action." The mods of r/coronavirus had to make a blanket policy against wishing people dead, and regularly lock threads because of it.

Public health interventions only work if people follow them, which implies that a.) the citizenry needs to trust public health experts and b.) their goals need to be aligned enough that citizens think it's in their best interests to comply. There's a very common failure mode for other system- design efforts in assuming that the _stated_ goals of the project are the _actual_ goals. I'd love to see a model that assumes people are self- interested actors that respond to fear and greed, rather than one that takes as a given that they'll act for the common good.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> FWIW, I found this thread by Jeremy Konyndyk enlightening and depressing.

[https://threader.app/thread/1256090422188953600](https://threader.app/thread/1256090422188953600)

</comment><comment><USER19> Cool animation, but how reliable are the numbers?

There are no reliable tests, governments are not doing a lot of testing, most cases are asymptomatic.

How do you even know the death rate, and how many people need ICU? The animation says 1-20, seems crazy.

</comment><comment><USER20> If anyone has been doing Covid-19 simulations for the United States. I'm crowdsourcing forecasts on this site: [https://www.unitarity.com/app/challenges/us-coronavirus- outb...](https://www.unitarity.com/app/challenges/us-coronavirus- outbreak/events/may-20)

</comment><comment><USER21> When Alice sends what she said to the hospital, I'm afraid she's not anonymous anymore. Indeed the hospital (or whoever owns the phone (I'm looking at google/apple)) knows who it's talking to. For Alice to remain anonymous, she must be able to send what she said through an anonymous channel...

Am I right ?

<comment><USER22> Not sure why google/Apple would know any more than they know your bank details.

Your hospital would now when you ask them for a year, same as they know when they process it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't it a big assumption that immunity is permanent? How would it affect the herd immunity threshold if a person can be reinfected every year?

<comment><USER24> See fig 3 here: [https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/24/scie...](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/04/24/science.abb5793)

Short answer, if the immunity is as short lived as current seasonal coronaviruses, it would be expected to recur in 2022 (hopefully with milder symptoms, but we can't know that yet).

<comment><USER25> Assuming immunity is both short-lived and predictably so for everyone. If the amount of immunity varies significantly by individual, then it'll just be an ongoing slow burn and not another spike of infections. And that also assumes that at a slow burn it would be able to maintain R0 > 1.0.

<comment><USER24> Good point. If seasonal effects are strong enough, though, it might still recur in periodic spikes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This somewhat a classic Strategy vs Tactics problem:

The best Strategy is to do nothing

The best Tactic is the complex array of shutdowns, mask, social distancing, pharmaceuticals.

</comment><comment><USER27> What's the reasoning behind this incredibly strong statement: "Most epidemiologists expect a vaccine in 1 to 2 years." ?

<comment><USER28> I would assume maybe because of the phenomenon:

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody- dependent_enhanceme...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody- dependent_enhancement)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yes, it's become obvious that this whole situation is not so much a threat to white-collar work, but to the necessity of the hierarchy and authoritarian control structures that define American workplaces.

<comment><USER30> I sadly have to agree. A good entrepreneur friend of mine asked me what he can do to better monitor his employees working from home.

His questions got creepy quickly until I had to tell him to ask someone else because I felt uncomfortable, but let's just say Office 365 can quickly turn into a mighty tool for the ill intentioned.

<comment><USER31> Sigh. I've had to deal with this as well now that our engineering org is full remote. What it comes down to is that our leadership doesn't trust us, even though we consistently and repeatedly deliver releases on time and on budget. If our engineering leadership was comfortable with compensating us for the desired outcomes they want to generate value for the company, this wouldn't be an issue. Somehow I'm guessing they feel uncomfortable that we could all be getting our work done in 4 hours every day and then going outside to play.

<comment><USER32> They're not uncomfortable about it, they see that as breach of contract and would like you to either take a pay cut or work the full 8. We get paid 'by the hour' and not by a contracted amount of work no matter how much time is spent. Our whole regular workforce is structured around hourly wages, full time and/or part time employment in something described as a 'job'. If you start upending that it is important to realize that employers have a dominant position right now and that upsetting that position may not end well for those that really only do four hours of actual work during an 8 hour day.

<comment><USER33> > ...upsetting that position may not end well for those that really only do > four hours of actual work during an 8 hour day.

One of the great shocks in my life was finding out the sheer number of employees to which this applies. The most obvious places were the various BigCo's I worked at, but it applied almost anywhere.

Now just the drudgery and pointlessness of much of their work made me sympathetic to their slacking-off, but it was the constant anxiety of _appearing_ busy that made it seem truly miserable.

At some point in my early twenties I'd had both the high-pressure, still- smelling-of-fries-after-a-shower type of experience of working at McDonald's or various restaurants, as well as the experience of sitting in the office with various just-below-board-member managers of one of the major insurance companies here.

Aside from the possible issues resulting from the physical strain, and having to live more frugally, McDonald's struck me as preferable to the latter (but neither seemed like any kind of world I want to live in or actively maintain, if possible).

I don't know if this is a personal thing, but I would go for a job where I need to focus and work over a job where I need to _pretend_ to focus and work anytime. And most office jobs seem to have more of the latter than I can imagine anyone tolerating.

<comment><USER34> 100% this. I had a government job, could have worked my way to a nice pension and everything... but I realized a few years in that my mental health probably would not survive the slog. Half the average day (easily) was totally eaten up by small talk, surfing the web and/or making personal journal entries. Another quarter of the day was meetings, often with snacks. I took long lunches. There were days when I did probably less than hour of actual work. And all the while I kept thinking, "why was I happier when I had my nose to the grind in the private sector?"

Most people need to feel useful on some level or they lose motivation and their brains go sour. There are exceptions to this rule, and those people should definitely dedicate their lives to finding a cushy office job. I would literally rather drive rideshare, and I have. [Not since March 12th, though-- fortunately my S.O. is able to cover bills until I can go back to driving and/or try to find a software job worth showing up for again.]

<comment><USER33> Perhaps a side-note, but my most of my experience is the private sector. While the government jobs I've experienced were mostly 'the same' in all the bad ways, at least the pressure seemed a bit lower.

I just wanted to point that out, because I find it extremely frustrating to discuss these matters with various friends who are all in agreement, but then somehow believe this is just a government thing, and as a result seem to be drinking more and more of the 'corporations and the free market optimize this shit away and socialism is bad' kool-aid. Which strikes me as both a simplistic and ineffective conclusion to draw, if we're thinking about better ways to do things.

Oversimplifying, but in my experience the private sector, at scale, is often just as inefficient and bullshitty and mind-numbing and depressing as a government entity, just with less job protection, higher pressure, and perhaps often less of a meaningful societal value, however inefficiently achieved.

And perhaps worst of all, you get managers/bosses who are not just content to do an okay job at their current position, but actively employ a ruthlessness and ambition that makes their stupidity all the more problematic.

<comment><USER34> > in my experience the private sector, at scale, is often just as inefficient > and bullshitty and mind-numbing and depressing as a government entity, just > with less job protection, higher pressure, and perhaps often less of a > meaningful societal value

This is a great point. Having worked at several large companies in addition to both state and federal government agencies, I mostly agree. I hated not being efficient in government work, but at least there was less B.S. pressure and some sense of 'greater good' decoupled from profit incentives (although there were definitely still budget constraints).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The simulation doesn't take into account new strains. Coronavirus mutates at least once a year. It's likely there will be strains that are similarly contagious, but with higher or lower case fatality rates.

Prior pandemic case fatality rates were 10x what we're seeing with COVID-19.

Also, in 1918, shelter in place contributed to a W shaped pandemic, where the second wave was much more deadly, and also killed lots of kids and young adults.

If more people in those age groups had been infected in the first wave, many fewer people would have died in total.

<comment><USER36> The first two paragraphs you said are blatantly false.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> A great explanation of a lot of things, but this looks wrong to me: "To put a number on it: surgical masks on the sick person reduce cold & flu viruses in aerosols by 70%. Reducing transmissions by 70% would be as large an impact as a lockdown!"

Reducing the amount of virus in aerosols won't reduce the number of infections by the same amount. If a cough produces ten times the infective dose, then with the mask that's still three times.

Masks are still likely to help (and maybe having a smaller dose will make the disease milder if someone does catch the virus), but it's not possible to make a statement like this about the effect on R.

<comment><USER38> I can't really imagine a mechanism by which a mask would still let the same cloud of particles from a cough disperse in exactly the same way, but uniformly remove 70% of them. Surely if it is blocking that many particles it's also disrupting the spread of the remaining particles. Or it could very well be the opposite of what you're saying, maybe blocking that 70% of particles is enough to stop even more than 70% of the transmission opportunities. That wouldn't be crazy if the spread is mostly via large droplets (most likely to get stopped by a mask) rather than aerosolized particles, which has been suggested.

I think your argument is that it's just not scientifically proven, but we have to make decisions today with the best information we have. Wearing masks still appears to be a good idea, has very low cost, and has been shown to help for a long time for all kinds of respiratory diseases.

<comment><USER37> I don't disagree that wearing masks seems a good idea, I'm just saying 70% reduction in particles doesn't map to a 70% reduction in transmissions. Whether the reduction is 10% or 90%, it's a useful contribution, particularly because in public situations where masks are likely to be recommended (transport, shops) if someone coughs as you're walking past there's no way for contact tracers to know about that link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I'm quite impressed with the work that went into these simulations. The folks who put this together did a great job. It would have been a great method to explain to the public how lock-downs save lives by not overwhelming our hospital ICU bed capacity, but for one critical omission. My idea for a way to improve these simulations would be to include what could be the most important public policy issue of them all: In many US states, the governor has forbidden (or greatly restricted) pharmacies from dispensing hydroxychloroquine. How many people could be kept out of the ICU (when the medicine is used in conjunction with azithromycin or zinc) if governors allowed pharmacies to dispense this medicine? I've yet to see a study where hydroxychloroquine, when used in conjunction with z-pak or zinc, was found to be ineffective against COVID-19. Of course, that's not proof of anything, but, with 25% unemployed in some of the biggest US cities, rigorous scientific studies may wind up taking more time than we can afford to wait. Therefore, it seems to me that the best way to find out what works to save lives (and keep people out of the ICU) is to look at what the front-line doctors are doing at one of the most prestigious hospitals in the world:

[https://www.the- hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/221558/c...](https://www.the- hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/221558/coronavirus-updates/yales- covid-19-inpatient-protocol-hydroxychloroquine)

<comment><USER40> Do you mean the non-prescripted dispensing of hydroxychloroquine? I think it is quite reasonable to rely on prescriptions by a doctor. Swedish hospitals stopped giving hydroxychloroquine to patients a month ago as it has more negative side effects than benefits.

<comment><USER41> There have been a lot of studies funded for various drugs. Honestly at this point, it seems like they're just throwing every compound that's been approved as safe, and that might show some hope for interaction, at this thing in hope something works.

<comment><USER42> That's describing the development effort for every drug, ever.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SimplyListed (YC W11) Wants to Get the World Buying and Selling via Mobile - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2011/10/21/simplylisted-sell-buy/

<comment><USER2> Interesting approach, I like it. I believe there is a lot of room in this space for many different players in many different verticals.

Making it simpler for the average user to list something for sale is critical for growing the space. There are far more products laying around in garages and basements that could be sold than are currently being listed for sale online. I believe the main reason that these products will remain in garages and basements is because A) creating the listing is still too difficult and cumbersome; and B) shipping to a non-local buyer is seen as too much work.

It looks like this does a good job of solving A. Good work. I have similar plans for a different market in the future. I believe the key for the platform in this space that will really disrupt the market is the data on the products themselves. The retailers have some of the info but it isn't really being used at the C2C level. Getting that data requires solving some other chicken-and- egg problems first though, I think.

I like the idea for hosting Bazaars on a scheduled basis. Very creative.

Jon/Sean I'm not sure if you'll be around Startup School next weekend but if so I'd love to talk with you guys and hear about your thoughts on the space and the challenges you've overcome so far.

Edit: Ah ha.

 _Unlike other sites where you have to pay for shipping and wait days for delivery, our sellers are local, so you can get your item the same day!_

Problem B not an issue I see. I'm interested in seeing where this goes. Good luck, gents.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats on the launch.

I've used the app a couple times and it is incredibly easy to use. It's helped me clear my shelves of clutter that I wouldn't bother putting on craig's list and make a few bucks.

The auto pricing was the other killer feature for me. I don't want to have to search around looking for the market clearing level.

Eventually, I could see using for more substantial items as well.

</comment><comment> old-gregg For those who didn't read the article: their app does some clever image recognition on your iPhone and automatically figures out what is it that you're selling. Then fills out the price+description fields for your listing.

Fun to play with, works extremely well on used electronics.

<comment><USER4> Clever image recognition, or Amazon Mechanical Turk?

<comment><USER5> TinEye has an API, Google Goggles does not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> To preface, I think is a great idea; it is definitely a much easier way to sell a used item, however, there is no one this app is targeted towards.

What I mean is, this is not an app someone will likely keep on their phone for very long, nor is it something I'm going to download just to have there in case. A lot of people buy and sell used goods, but not a lot of people regularly buy and sell used goods.

An interesting use case for this (and perhaps more insight into what kind of demographic it should target), might be for a real estate agent who is regularly selling homes, taking photos, and uploading them.

The audience then has a centralized location to look through homes and are likely to keep the app for much longer as they look for a home.

</comment><comment><USER4> This is a clever app in a cool space. Nice job.

Another example of YC's desire to make Craigslist obsolete (see also: AirBnb, Listia, Renthop, etc.)!

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a great product idea, but it looks like I am only able to sell a video game item. How do I sell a guitar? I'm an ignorant user...

<comment><USER6> I'm having trouble figuring this out as well.

<comment><USER6> Okay, I understand now. The things to sell are themed, so you can only post items that fit the theme to sell.

I think I'm liking this a lot more now.

<comment><USER7> I'm not loving the sales theme strategy. I like that it is a different approach and all, but when I have something to sell I'm not going to wait until the right "theme" comes along. If I have a guitar that I want to sell now I shouldn't have to wait until a music theme comes along.

Maybe I am missing something and I would love some direction if anyone can provide it, but it seems like the whole idea is to provide a platform to sell the junk you have lying around in a fast and convenient manner. Waiting until music day to sell my Strat doesn't sound very convenient.

No disrespect to the founders or anything, I'm just a little confused. I love this concept of selling your junk quickly with automated price suggestions, that is brilliant. I'm just lost on the theme angle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Android app anytime soon?

</comment><comment><USER9> Is this the YC startup that was called Yardsale?</comment>


Ask HN: How to find motivation to study/master Data Structures and Algorithms? - <AUTHOR> I'm a CS student. And I know this is is a shame but I've never found the motivation to really study and master DS and Algorithms. Can you please suggest ways to help me with that issue? thanks <comment><USER2> Either you connect what you have to learn to what you want to do, or it's not important. At the end of the day you are either curious about most anything to see how it works, or not, and it's something that can be built. If you're looking for the motivation to be curious, find something you're already curious about and interested in, see what algorithms might be at work in it, and see if it ties back to the book.

Motivation isn't some magical discovery that carries you through the rest of your days. Motivation is a daily bath to remind yourself of what's important to you and why. Forget to bathe your mind and feelings and they'll stink and seem worth staying away from.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why would you think it's a shame? You don't really have to be good at these things to be a decent coder.

</comment><comment><USER4> Practice on leetcode.Find a partner or do group study.avoid TC and other OJ id its only for interviews

</comment><comment><USER5> Why don't you think it's funny to study data structures and algorithms?</comment>