Show HN: Snapshibe – Anonymously send "wows" to doges around the world - <AUTHOR> https://snapshibe.firebaseapp.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> This was a quick hack thrown together to play with Firebase. Source is over at [https://github.com/zachlatta/snapshibe](https://github.com/zachlatta/snapshibe).</comment>


Mobile web developers: Your users hate it when you do this - <AUTHOR> http://limpet.net/mbrubeck/2010/11/19/mobile-browser-detection.html <comment><USER2> A few of the responses here and in the blog comments are up in arms about your suggestion to treat mobile and desktop users the same. The comments that intend to contrast the differences between processing power, dimensions, and available network resources of "desktop" versus "mobile" devices are predicated on the notion that users _do_ want you to send gobs of data that consume more resources when they are on desktop machines. In general, however, they don't. Witness the comments in "Your social widgets are losing you visitors right now" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1771607>) and the popularity of Readability. (<http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>)

Something I think (self-apologetic and self-described) Web "designers" and "UX experts" in the West don't realize is that bandwidth caps still exist even for home use, and in some places they are the norm.

Given the reactions, it seems when people read the suggestion "serve the same content to all browsers", they see "serve mobile users the same content that you serve on your created-with-the-desktop-in-mind ('full') Web site". Perhaps this should be reworded to explicitly say the inverted form: "serve the same content on your full Web site as you serve on your mobile Web site." Surprise! Mobile users aren't the only ones who like to view content created with ease- of-consumption in mind.

[Cue dissent pointing out that I did use the word "consumption", followed by some bullshit suggestion like "Mobile users are primarily consumers while desktop users usually want to engage with the content." Such a suggestion ignores that a non-trivial part of the mobile-use population does seek to interact similarly while on a mobile device, as well as the non-trivial part of the desktop-use population that is mostly only ever annoyed by the extra cruft that gets sent down because they weren't recognized as being on a mobile device. This is due no small part to the fact that there are no such things as a discrete mobile-use population and a discrete desktop-use population. It's the same population coming to the table with varying modes of access.]

And finally, here's something that I've been trying to hammer on for a while. I have a not-modestly sized screen. I _should_ be able to manage applications and Web pages so that I have multiple things visible on the screen at the same time, such as two pages that I'm cross referencing side-by-side; or a page open with some other application visible at the side; or, say, Songbird—displaying lyrics from the Web or band information from Wikipedia—in a way that _doesn't_ take up most of the screen; or any other application which seeks to similarly integrate content from the Web but doesn't conform to the now-ancient assumption of one big browser window displaying the page contents over most of the screen.

Now with the proliferation of wide screens and increasingly large displays, I _should_ be able to consume things in this way, and it _should_ be an option for you to build these types of applications without annoyances like requiring horizontal scrolling.ⁱ Instead of being able to take advantage of these opportunities, we get questions asking, "Can we require even more screen space for our Web pages now?" (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1736808>)

1\. Horizontal scrolling essentially defeats the attempt to prevent from toggling between multiple windows, because it's ultimately an attempt to prevent from spending too much time managing the viewport of content, rather than spending it acting _on_ or _in response to_ that content.

<comment><USER3> This is such a great point. A lot of websites go to two opposite but equally repellent extremes with their desktop and mobile sites. For the desktop site, they will shove five pounds of crap into a two-pound bag. Then for the mobile variant, they will strip away some of the fluff, but also omit a lot of detail that actually does contribute to usability — for example, mobile sites sacrifice any ability to actually find what you're looking for a lot of the time, which is egregious because you need _more_ help with that on the iPhone. (The standard mobile WordPress theme is a big offender on this. I want to throw my phone at the wall every time I come across a site using that theme. Tiny font, excessive padding, no navigation to speak of. Ugh!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Careful with the recommendations.

Responsive web design needs to be done really cautiously. Jon Hicks site, while beautiful, is not the best example. It sends large images, no matter what resolution the site is being viewed at. The page he links to is 4.8MB for example! Nobody wants to download that on a phone.

Also, for all practical purposes, everybody on Android does use Webkit. The real takeaway to his point there is that if you're doing UA sniffing, you need to keep your site up to date.

<comment><USER5> > for all practical purposes, everybody on Android does use Webkit.

That might change when Firefox Mobile comes out. I've been using the beta <http://www.mozilla.com/m/beta> and it's really nice. Also, Opera 10.1 beta for Android is out, and although I haven't tried it, I'm sure it will be popular as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> And regardless, if you want to send WebKit-specific markup to some browsers, do it by looking for "WebKit", not for "Android".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I largely agree, I think there is a contradiction between

(1) giving mobile users the option to see it as a 'full' (i.e. desktop) version

and

(2) Fitting the design to the screen size.

In the quoted example (<http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/finally-a-fluid- hicksdesign>), while a great implementation of fluid design, on my mobile device I don't have the option of seeing what it looks like on a desktop (it doesn't let me zoom out to a larger screen size)

</comment><comment><USER7> I take exception with this point: "When possible, serve the same content to all browsers. You can use stylesheets and scripts to customize your layout for different display sizes, as in this beautiful site by Jon Hicks."

The mobile experience is about more than just the layout of the page.

Our mobile users are in a completely different mindset than the guy browsing for a few minutes over lunch at his desk. I imagine that's the case for many other sites as well.

The entire reason we made a different mobile version of playlookit.com was because we needed a VERY stripped down and lightweight way to display cell phone pics.

There's a huge difference between the processing power of a Blackberry and it's crappy browser than a MacBook Pro running the latest version of Chrome.

In our case, loading 30 thumbnails and a photo that's wider than the average mobile viewport made for a terrible mobile experience.

</comment><comment><USER8> Every so often I run across a well done mobile site. The vast majority of them are terrible. Just this morning I tried to follow a link from my Twitter client, only to find that salon.com redirected me to a broken page on mobile.salon.com - just a white page, with nothing I could do about it, so I ended up not reading their story or viewing their ads.

Incidentally, while trying to get around it, I discovered that 'mobsalon.com' is available.

</comment><comment><USER9> I absolutely hate this. Mostly because the mobile versions suck, and my phone can handle the full version with no problems. (I'm looking at you, Facebook!)

The proper solution is to offer the choice (Facebook does this) and then REMEMBER it for my login. (Facebook doesn't do that.)

</comment><comment><USER10> I hate websites that have everything hidden because js is disabled. Or, they have an overlay covering up everything. These are content sites that do NOT even need the js to display the content properly.

If I'm on a mobile device, I'd like to avoid having to run js.

<comment><USER2> If I'm on any device, I'd like to avoid having to run JS.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was just struggling with this yesterday. I was trying to post a photo to a friend's Facebook wall while mobile from my Android device, only to learn that Facebook disables, even when viewing the full site, the ability to attach media to a wall post from a mobile device.

There are many time when browser detection works in my favor, but it's content decisions like these that frustrate me to no end with the mobile web.

<comment><USER12> You were doing this from a browser and not an app? Some mobile browsers disable the file upload dialog, and there's nothing the site can do to get around it. I know it works like this on iPhone (and it's a huge pain in the ass; you'd think they'd AT LEAST tie in the camera to let you upload photos), but I'm not sure about Android. Are you able to upload files on other sites? Again, I don't have an Android device here, so I'm asking, not telling.

<comment><USER11> I was specifically using the full site because the Android FB app, on 2.1 anyway, is pretty limited as to what it can do. I'm still eagerly awaiting an update to 2.2 from Samsung for my Captivate that will supposedly happen before the end of this month. I'm not holding my breath.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe it's time the browser developers start telling sites what to do and try to standardize use of a custom HTTP request header like this:

      X-Preferred-Format: ('Desktop' | 'Mobile')

<comment><USER14> BTW:

        Preferred-Format: ('Desktop' | 'Mobile')

[http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-saintandre-xdash- considered...](http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-saintandre-xdash-considered- harmful-01)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some care is warranted here:

Advice item #1 is plain wrong (when possible, serve the same content to all browsers). If you do this, the site will not work on the vast majority of the world's phones unless it is supremely lightweight.

There's a good reason why the best mobile sites out there use UA sniffing (Google, Facebook, Yahoo! etc) — it's the approach that gives the best experience for your visitors.

If all you care about is Android and iPhone user then fair enough.

<comment><AUTHOR> The Yiibu link at the end of my article shows how you _can_ build sites that work on low-end phones and older browsers, as well as Android and iPhone and modern desktop browsers. They do it by reversing some of the more common development practices. Rather than use CSS and JavaScript to transform a desktop site into a mobile one, you can start with a mobile-friendly site, and then use CSS and JavaScript to progressively enhance it in more advanced browsers.

If you haven't seen it already, their presentation is highly recommended:

[http://yiibu.com/articles/rethinking-the-mobile- web/page-3.h...](http://yiibu.com/articles/rethinking-the-mobile- web/page-3.html)

...in particular, the part starting with "the absence of support for @media queries is in fact the first @media query" (slide 85).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The absolute worst is when you're linked to a specific page on a site, but you get redirected to the mobile home page so you have no way of viewing the page you want.

</comment><comment><USER17> I really like ESPN's approach of asking you which version of their website you'd like to use immediately upon navigating to it. I dislike having to scan the headers and footers of a site hoping to find a "Go to Full Site" button, if it even exists.</comment>


Ask HN: Which of our ideas about computation could survive a thousand years? - <AUTHOR> A passage in the preface to SICP [1] on the real meaning of computer science has captured my imagination ever since I've read it:

    The computer revolution is a revolution in the way we think
    and in the way we express what we think.
    The essence of this change is the emergence of what
    might best be called procedural epistemology -- the
    study of the structure of knowledge from an imperative
    point of view, as opposed to the more declarative point
    of view taken by classical mathematical subjects.
    Mathematics provides a framework for dealing precisely
    with notions of ``what is.'' Computation provides a
    framework for dealing precisely with notions of ``how to.''
 In this spirit, I've compiled a list of ideas about computation that I think could remain relevant in a thousand years. I've written a short justification for each item and I'm wondering what HN would add to or remove from this list.
1. Entscheidungsproblem, Halting problem, Gödel's incompleteness theorems: Fundamental limitations of formal knowledge.
2. P != NP: A contradictory proof is unlikely and the distinction remains relevant for quantum computing.
3. Lambda calculus and combinatory logic: Richest model of computation available today.
4. First-class continuations: Every stateful program must have continuations. First-class continuations let programs write themselves.
5. Fixed points: Find equilibrium in complex systems.
6. Random variable: Universal abstraction to represent input to a procedure.
7. Interventional distributions: Capture causality under uncertainty.
8. Distributed representations: Versatile representations of patterns.
9. Church encoding: The purity of a system where everything is represented in terms of procedures is intriguing.
10. Principle of computational equivalence: We can represent everything as a computation. (Big if true!)
[1] Source: https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/sicp/full-text/book/book-Z-H-7.html <comment><USER2> I don't share this way of thinking of "relevance". Are Newton's principae mechanicae (+300yrs) still relevant? Obviously yes, they form what we call today "classical mechanics". Every student learns it, despite of course the best theories in physics are quantum mechanical or/and general relativitistic ones. What about the ancient Greeks? They frontiereed in math and philosophy and many proofs are almost 1000 years old.

That's how science works. All the items you listed are classical building blocks of computer science and will remain that forever, even if people come up with successor ideas.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to hear that we agree on the ideas in the list! These timeless ideas from our current knowledge are exactly what I'm trying to identify. Let me know if you can think of more

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've included the halting problem, but omitted the Turing machine, because while ingenious, the latter is simply a hack to make proofs work and not a very good way to think about computation. Similarly, I've included distributed representations, but omitted backpropagation since while backprop works very well for a number of problems that are otherwise unsolvable today, it is not a particularly enlightening way to write programs.

Also, the first 10 minutes of the introductory SICP lecture contains a livelier presentation of the idea in the quote: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_xL4IGhJA&list=PLE18841CAB...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J_xL4IGhJA&list=PLE18841CABEA24090)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think humanity will be around in a thousand years. Really a bummer, but it doesn't seem that way. Now I just code for entertainment and not to build something that will last forever.</comment>


Ex-Apple Engineer Launches Furniture Company to Rival IKEA - <AUTHOR> http://nypost.com/2015/08/27/ex-apple-engineer-launches-furniture-company-to-rival-ikea/

<comment><USER2> > Prices for the Campaign items — chairs start at $495, love seats at $745 and > sofas at $995 — are a bit more than Ikea's, but they include shipping to > anywhere in the US.

"A bit more" is a drastic understatement. Somebody buying a $160 Poäng for their first apartment or to replace a chair that three kids broke is nowhere near the same demographic as these prices.

<comment><USER3> At least where I live, there is plenty of furniture at IKEA near the $1000 price mark

<comment><USER4> Doesn't mean you have to buy the expensive stuff ;) As far as I remember, my entire furniture I bought at Ikea was under 1000 Euros, combined.

E.g. IVAR chair for 20 Euros, still working fine after 15 years: [http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/products/90263902/](http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/products/90263902/)

I thought that's the whole point of Ikea - offering cheap yet reasonably durable stuff.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I despise a lot of what IKEA designs but some of their products are truly great. Quality is a rollercoaster, too. Some pieces in my kitchen are super sturdy, some of their less specific furniture, on the other hand, is crap. Nonetheless almost all of their designs have a strict language and are very likely to concur to the brand perception. This Campaign chair and sofas look good, but the designs is not very inspired in my opinion. More like the mid- century fake brands that many big furniture companies are churning out to cash in on the huge mid-century revival we're experiencing.

What I find extremely interesting, though, is the way this guy will solve one of the biggest problems of selling furniture online: shipments and returns. The smart packaging is great for shipping but is also great for making people return items easily. That's not to be underestimated. People, at least here in Europe, are skeptical about buying furniture online because even if the website offers free returns they're aware of the extreme hassle it will be to actually do that.

</comment><comment><USER6> My own experience with IKEA is that they constantly remove quality products from their offering. Time to time there are some pearls but the trend seams to be the reduction of prices and the quality as result.

<comment><USER6> As another note, the product page of IKEA website can keep Firefox on 100% of CPU utilization. The same with Chromium.</comment></comment>


TextTeaser: an efficient way to read - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/TextTeaser?a=1110234

<comment><AUTHOR> TextTeaser is my thesis! Details about in the IndieGogo link. Contribute some or share it to others! Thanks.</comment>


Trump to temporarily suspend all immigration into the US - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/1252418369170501639 <comment><USER2> Travel from Europe, East Asia, Canada and Mexico are virtually dead. So how is this presidential order help? What is its practical impact? Is this just political showmanship for the 2020 election?

<comment><USER3> It's not a travel ban, it's a ban on all immigration like his previous "travel" ban towards select countries. It means people like me who married a non-citizen cannot have their partner live in the US.

<comment><USER2> I am so sorry for you. I immigrated to the U.S. when I was a boy, but certainly, remember all the challenges of having my parents and a brother still overseas. And this is your spouse. But again, how does this help us fight the pandemic? It doesn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really hope the State Department continues issuing extensions and renewals.

I left the US in December 2019. Had I stayed, my non-immigrant visa would have expired in June 2020. In order to continue living in the US I would have had to apply for an extension to that visa or for an entirely new visa. Based on the reporting around this it seems possible that neither of those applications would have been approved and I would have been forced to leave the US in June 2020 at the latest.

If you know someone currently on a non-immigrant visa[0] you may want to reach out and make sure they're OK. I personally know a few people who set up their lives in the US with little consideration for what would happen if they lost their visas. I feel for them right now.

[0] That is: not a Green Card.

<comment><USER5> Just FYI -- it's USCIS not State that handles extension filings within the country. And it's the I-94 that controls the time you can stay in the US, not the visa.

<comment><USER6> And your I-94 is automatically extended with your visa extensions. Its your visa extension date that has the precedence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What exactly does it mean?

Right now, US embassies world wide halted visa services. So, they can't process immigrant and non-immigrant visas.

USCIS has stopped any in-person interviews at local field offices. That will keep in limbo those who have filed for change of status while being in the States.

Are USCIS service centers processing any applications for visa petitions?

Trump has made it really difficult in the last three years just by using delay tactics. USCIS field offices are just sitting on applications, not calling for interviews; when they call for interviews, they don't decide on time.

Now another Executive Order?

<comment><USER5> It's basically just extending the consular closures indefinitely. Before this they were taking appointments from May/June for many of them so there was hope. But now, there's no way he will resume before the elections.

Service Centers -- much less clear he can stop these. These immigration benefits arise out of statutes so they would need Congress to stop. But he can use COVID as an excuse to mandate they close to ensure safety.

<comment><USER7> Just found out that service centers/lockboxes are accepting applications. If these apps don't have any previous biometrics, they may not get any EAD/AP, since ASCs are closed. However, if USCIS has previous biometrics, they will issue EAD/AP cards.

It is true that Trump can't stop immigration benefits. He has successfully delayed processing many adjustment of status applications. What can Congress do here? Nothing but IG report.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> possible dupe of:

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22931179](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22931179) (earlier, twitter)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22931230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22931230) (earlier, nbcnews)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is cruel to international families. My wife and I cannot live in the US (I am a citizen) because Trump banned immigration from her country in his previous ban, so she cannot obtain a residency visa. Luckily her country isn't cruel towards families and allows me to live here.

The US also doesn't allow residence for in-laws (only blood relatives of citizens). Meaning we would have to leave my wife's mother alone for 5 years until she could become a citizen and finish the application - if we were allowed to move to the US.

</comment><comment><USER9> This will be a terrible economic loss for US universities come this fall.

<comment><USER10> Wouldn't that just mean allowing more Americans to attend university? I though most people agreed the inflated tuitions were unnecessary for actual learning.

EDIT: Wow, the largest ever tuition increase happened this year, a 3.4% average increase.

[https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/college- pricing/fig...](https://research.collegeboard.org/trends/college- pricing/figures-tables/average-published-charges-2018-19-and-2019-20)

Here's the kicker:

>Part-time faculty and teaching assistants now account for half of instructional staffs at colleges and universities, up from one-third in 1987, the figures show.

>During the same period, the number of administrators and professional staff has more than doubled. That's a rate of increase more than twice as fast as the growth in the number of students.

[https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_4738584](https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_4738584)

<comment><USER11> Do you realize how much money international students inject into the US education and just general US economy as well?

<comment><USER12> It's all fueled by debt, and that debt bubble is popping.

<comment><USER11> Debt to who

<comment><USER12> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFaZcC0lRU&t=937s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFaZcC0lRU&t=937s)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGR8VmW6p8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGR8VmW6p8c)

<comment><USER11> When you can find text articles let me know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Some unofficial details on NYT: "...A formal order temporarily barring the provision of new green cards and work visas could come as early as the next few days, according to several people familiar with the plan... Under such an executive order, the Trump administration would no longer approve any applications from foreigners to live and work in the United States for an undetermined period of time, effectively shutting down the legal immigration system..."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/us/politics/trump- immigra...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/us/politics/trump- immigration.html)

<comment><USER12> What about student visas?</comment></comment>


The Conversion of a Climate-Change Skeptic - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/30/opinion/the-conversion-of-a-climate-change-skeptic.html?pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> I'm amazed that he even considers himself a skeptic. Everything in here has already been said by other scientists already, eg. his analysis apparently consists essentially of fitting temperature to CO2 levels:

      "Our result is based simply on the close agreement
       between the shape of the observed temperature rise
       and the known greenhouse gas increase. "

About the only reason that this is newsworthy is that he's a notable climate skeptic, and he's funding comes from Koch, a coal based lobbying organisation.

<comment><USER3> As expected, "skeptics" are now denying that Muller ever was a skeptic[1]. It is unfortunate - everyone should be skeptical, but when people start pulling out new, highly speculative theories (eg, the latest one - which I saw on HN - is that _cosmic rays_ are responsible for climate change) to attempt to explain climate change it's hard not to think they are just denying for the sake of denying.

[1] [http://www.climatedepot.com/a/13375/Befuddled-Warmist- Richar...](http://www.climatedepot.com/a/13375/Befuddled-Warmist-Richard- Muller-Declares-Skeptics-Should-Convert-to-Believers-Because-His-Study-Shows- the-Earth-Has-Warmed-Since-the-1950s--Climate-Depot-Responds)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The exciting thing about this for me is that they published their analysis code as well. [<http://berkeleyearth.org/our-code/>]

Now that's _science_!</comment>


We Need a Speed Limit for the Internet (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can-the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html <comment><AUTHOR> Though this may violate the philosophy of the LowTech Mag site, AI WBM link should the battery expire:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20181014192521/https://solar.low...](https://web.archive.org/web/20181014192521/https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/10/can- the-internet-run-on-renewable-energy.html)</comment>


Hoaxer Haunts Fortune 500 Earnings Calls With Empty "analyst speak" - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120301945499169247.html?mod=hps_us_pageone

<comment><USER2> Just not that funny. I doubt any CEO's were fooled by talk like "savings per hectoliter"; these are diplomatic people who probably just tried to give a game response to a seemingly clueless analyst. If someone says something stupid in a setting like this - you don't waste the time of the other people on the call by calling them out or trying to figure out what their gibberish means, you do what these guys did -- hit your closest pre-existing talking point and defer further discussion to a later time.

It's amazing the lengths some people will go to reinforce their worldview in which all executives and finance professionals are clueless PHB's who somehow got to the corner office by crashing tricycles or something.

</comment><comment><USER3> Someone needs to send this guy a copy of PG's "Trolls".

</comment><comment><USER4> The cult of the dead cows strikes again!</comment>


US lead in science shrinks - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704381604575005023822489804.html?mod=WSJ_business_whatsNews

<comment><USER2> _"The U.S. awarded 22,500 doctorates in natural sciences and engineering in 2007, but more than half of them were awarded to foreign nationals....The report noted that 60% of temporary visa holders who earned doctorates in science in engineering in 1997 were working in the U.S. in 2007."_

Ah, sweet irony...you rarely see it put so plainly in print. I wonder if the report noted the percentage of US natural science doctorates who have in-field employment after graduation? It might go a long way toward explaining why US students aren't doing it anymore.

As one of the people who filled out the survey in 2007, I think it's telling that even today, not all of my PhD friends who graduated in 2007 have jobs in their field (and no, I don't count "post-doctoral research" as a job). If the US wants more PhDs in the sciences, they're going to have to do something about the labor market for scientists. Right now, it's a sucker's bet, and smart kids know it.

<comment><USER3> You mean people might think twice about spending an additional decade in school so they can get a PhD and then move on to an entry level job that pays <40k/yr? <comment>~~crazy<comment>~~

I think a different, but similar problem is the crazy student visa policy in the U.S. We happily allow foreign nationals to come study in the U.S. but they aren't allowed to legally work while here, and they can't easily convert that student visa into permanent residency like the vast majority of them probably want to at some point.

Some folks manage to do it, but often as not, you see some poor slob who's been trying to find someplace that'll hire them and sponsor them for an H1-B, and ends up staying in school _forever_ in order to keep their student visa active, all the while sucking up a slot at the school that some other kid could use. And of course in order to keep their student visa active and ensure they can have their best chances to convert it to an H1-B, they don't go back home and they can't see their families.

I've never really understood the logic of the policy. It would make more sense to me if we actively tried to keep these folks, and convert them from school to skilled work force as rapidly as possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> But spending on r&d, in absolute terms, increased in the US as well as everywhere else, which is a win-win-win for everybody. It just happened to increase the most in China, but the US lead over China (why pick on China anyway?) is still huge, as the body of the article describes. Nice scaremongering headline, WSJ.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you evaluate Stocks? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I evaluate stocks in 3 steps:

Step 1. Look At The Numbers

First of all I have a look at a company's balance sheet.

When I am looking at a company's balance sheet I am using the Current Ratio and Acid Test Ratio to assess its liquidity, looking at its Long Term Liabilities (in particular I'm looking at if they are growing at a faster rate than assets), its Debt-To-Equity Ratio and its book value.

If they look good then I will have a look at the company's income statement.

The first thing I look at is its Earnings, COGS, EPS and ROE (I also calculate the P/E Ratio and PEG Ratio)

Step 2. Look At The Competitive Advantage

I assess the company's competitive advantage in particular; I have a more in- depth look at it to see if the company has a large enough advantage to keep its stay above the competition and benefit from the increasing profits.

Step 3. Look At The Company's Culture/Integrity

Finally, I look at the company's culture and its integrity. I'm interested in company's who have a strong company culture and are interested in creating long-term shareholder value.

</comment><comment><USER3> Funny, I wrote a note explaining my process a couple of days ago..

1\. What is the business, do I understand it? (If no, then less likely to buy)

2\. Numbers (revenues, earnings, margins) over the last 5 years atleast

3\. Piotroski score -- more of a shortcut to quickly assess quality of the business

4\. Annual price returns -- more to understand how the stock has been doing over the years and over the last few months

5\. Liquidity/debt ratios -- this is very industry driven, some sectors like tech have very low debt levels others have higher

6\. Comparables -- steps 2 to 5 for atleast one or two direct competitors. Plus ratios ofcourse (PE,Price to Book, EV/EBITDA etc)

7\. A very quick dcf -- (I've been building a tool that helps me do this quickly)

If I've done all these steps (takes me about 30 - 40 minutes to do these steps), and I like the company then read the annual report (at-least twice).

Often takes me a couple of weeks if not more to decide to initiate a long position.

blog post -- [http://equisear.ch/blog/2013/04/the-first-30-minutes- looking...](http://equisear.ch/blog/2013/04/the-first-30-minutes-looking-at- any-stock/)

I've been building tools that help me do this, its not ready yet but gets me there most of the way-- <http://equisear.ch>

</comment><comment><USER4> Piotroski Scoring is a quick way to evaluate stocks. You score one point if a stock passes each test and zero if it doesn't. The maximum score is nine.

1.) Net Income: Bottom line. Score 1 if last year net income is positive.

2.) Operating Cash Flow: A better earnings gauge. Score 1 if last year cash flow is positive.

3.) Return On Assets: Measures Profitability. Score 1 if last year ROA exceeds prior-year ROA.

4.) Quality of Earnings: Warns of Accounting Tricks. Score 1 if last year operating cash flow exceeds net income.

5.) Long-Term Debt vs. Assets: Is Debt decreasing? Score 1 if the ratio of long-term debt to assets is down from the year-ago value. (If LTD is zero but assets are increasing, score 1 anyway.)

6.) Current Ratio: Measures increasing working capital. Score 1 if CR has increased from the prior year.

7.) Shares Outstanding: A Measure of potential dilution. Score 1 if the number of shares outstanding is no greater than the year-ago figure.

8.) Gross Margin: A measure of improving competitive position. Score 1 if full-year GM exceeds the prior-year GM.

9.) Asset Turnover: Measures productivity. Score 1 if the percentage increase in sales exceeds the percentage increase in total assets.

</comment><comment><USER5> How Professionals do it: Bloomberg subscription ($1500/month) + CapIQ ($1000/month) + sell-side equity research reports + industry-specific research reports + excel add-ins + network of management, friends. They know exactly how their valuations differentiate from other professionals'.

How we do it: Talk about ratios, try and read articles, etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> I will share my experience which is very anecdotal. I am not big into stocks etc. but one of the companies I highly admire is MACYS (M). Simply because I am a long time happy customer, their products/service including customer service has been excellent in my experience and they always seem to be doing smart business. Liking the company so much, I bought about 5 stocks back in 2008 (i think!!) for about $20 each. Today, stock is worth $40+. If only I bought a lot more :)

Anyway, i m not expert but it will surely help if you actually understand the company which usually means you are their customer, see how they do business, does it seem like they actually give a damn about their business and how far do they go to retain customers and keep them happy ? For me, those are plus points. The numbers like price, P/E etc. all seem like , well, just numbers to me.

</comment><comment><USER7> I look at companies that I know well, mostly companies I deal with directly either as a customer, partner, employee, that way you get news first hand and no bad surprises. Company numbers are easily manipulated and financial news have their agendas and interests (different from yours).

</comment><comment><USER8> From my accounting background, some common ratios I use:

1) acid ratio (liquid assets / short term liabilities)

2) gross operating margin

3) net operating profit margin

4) return on capital/equity

5) return on balance sheet assets

I also compare the stock in question to other bonds and stocks of other companies similar in size or industry. This is just to see if the company is managing its money well in relation to other companies.

Finally, tax consequences of sale. The conventional wisdom of market returns of 11% (US treasuries + 8% * portfolio beta , 1.0 for market portfolio) loses its appeal if your tax bracket is sufficiently high (i.e. software engineer in California) .

</comment><comment><USER9> Intuition. I used to trade using pure intuitive signs: <http://i.imgur.com/rFSVa8P.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER10> Go and read the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, then read Security Analysis by the same author.

</comment><comment><USER11> What could be its future earnings? What is its price now? Lower the P/E the better it is.

</comment><comment><USER12> Very badly.</comment>


The Ant Design Christmas Egg That Went Wrong - <AUTHOR> http://blog.shunliang.io/frontend/2018/12/25/the-ant-design-xmas-egg-that-went-wrong.html <comment><USER2> I have really mixed feelings about this. To my mind, the larger outrage is that people were _fired_ over this.

I'm aware of the tendency to try to focus on what it seems like we can control rather than on actual justice. In this case, I'm so far only seeing outrage about the Easter Egg. I'm not seeing outrage about "They fired people over this???!!! People whose only crime was using Ant??!"

I'm not a fan of what Christmas has mostly turned into these days. I'm ambivalent about leaving a remark that could easily be wildly misinterpreted as supporting and encouraging cultural insensitivity by Americans/Westerners.

Anyway, I may seriously regret commenting at all. This seems like a can of worms for various reasons. I just dislike the idea of standing idly by while the developers get lambasted, as if they should have known ahead of time that people would be fired over this because of stuff happening in China. I'm also leery of the possibility that the other answer will be to ignore the seriousness of the situation for some people and act like "not my problem."

So there's my 2 cents.

<comment><USER3> Imagine working for the state. Your non technical boss comes in and asked why you have a holiday theme on the page when policy is to not show celebration on state websites.

He asks you why you put this code in. You tell him you didn't write the code. He asks who did. You tell him it's open source, many people contributed and someone put this in without telling anyone. At this point, you've lost all credibility to you non technical boss and all of his non technical execs. You put a strangers code on the state run website, without reviewing it and without knowing what's in it.

<comment><USER4> If your boss can't sell which things are part of their output and which are external, they're not doing a very good job. A default Chrome install might have a Christmas-themed homepage, an ISP might MITM HTTP traffic with a greeting, an OS/hardware manufacturer/ad network/other 3rd-party might do something...

The days where the state run website only runs code written by the guy in the department who knows how to spell HTML are long gone. Everyone is working on a very small subset of the huge stack of complexity that makes someone else's browser on someone else's device made by someone else on someone else's network linked by someone else's CDN to someone else's datacenter that hold someone else's server hardware which runs someone else's OS which hosts someone else's server stack and uses someone else's framework to show the data you actually wrote. If your non-technical boss can't explain that some parts of this chain aren't under their complete control they're just not being honest.

<comment><USER5> This sounds like a gross over-generalisation of your personal experience. Why would those days be "long gone" in a Chinese state-run agency?

<comment><USER4> Because the Chinese state run website is accessible from, say, an Apple iPhone running iOS/Safari. It is probably intended to be accessible from ISPs outside the country. It is developed on Windows computers and hosted on Linux servers, which probably run a server stack that's a combination of open-source modules and proprietary glue.

Granted, your Chinese state-run website is probably more control-oriented than a hypothetical SV startup which consists entirely of connecting VC money to external microservices with a little copy added in by machine-parsing a slide deck...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't know what possesses people to implement moronic surprises like this in software that people use to actually get things done. I remember just about shitting my pants when trying to boot a computer using Super GRUB Disk on April 1st and getting a prompt claiming that my hard drive was being formatted [1], or something along those lines. After wasting over a day with a non- booting machine verifying that I didn't catch something, I did some Googling and found out what my issue was. It is this exact kind of stupid bullshit that convinces people that open-source software is a joke that can't be taken seriously, and in some cases (such as this one), they're right.

[1] [https://www.supergrubdisk.org/2012/04/02/happy-2012-april- fo...](https://www.supergrubdisk.org/2012/04/02/happy-2012-april-fools-day/)

<comment><USER7> Fun (autonomy + mastery + purpose)! Don't forget that most OSS is still developed for fun, and adding things like this are totally fine in that context. Now, if you want to use thousands (millions?) of hours of development from hundreds of developers for free, you might have to put up with them having a bit of fun. The alternatives are to pay them to make very serious software [tm], use proprietary software or review the code yourself (not viable most times).

And I'm not being ironic or anything, really, literally the thing pushing a LOT of OSS is doing it for fun. If people keep complaining and blaming those OSS devs and it stops being fun then they will stop doing OSS, as many have done. Or it will be delegated to big companies like FB, Google, etc. where they get paid for the OSS they make, which is a whooole different can of worms.

(there is a thread saying something about a political stance, but I'm not qualified to have an opinion there and most easter eggs are for fun anyway)

<comment><USER8> Even if I'm pissed off with this particular incident since I was working on a project using this great library and I was scared by the little snowy button :) ... but I agree with you those people are doing it for fun. I used too but lost interrest in working for free. A lot of companies are making a ton of money using (among many others) my OSS project. Even my current employer (big if not biggest European software vendor) is using it on a major product they're selling for millions the funny thing is that they don't even know and prohabiting employees to work on open source even in their own free time.

This particular experience make me understand that working for free on open source is really a foolish idea. I was tempted by changing the license but since there are many others using it to build their business I thought it's better to just keep it as it is by respect to early adopters and users which any project is nothing without them.

For a healthy open source project the work needed it's not fun at least for me, it's not just about hacking/problem solving/design, you need actually to do issues triage, answer questions, documentation, extensive testing (with whole infrastructure for builds/releases/communication) those are not fun activities and in most cases done better than paid softwares (because people are passionate about their projects) and in addition to that I need to work fulltime on different (shitty) things to pay the bills and have time for familly ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I am increasingly of the opinion that free open source software should include fun things like this. It is an easy way to remind people just what "free, but with no warranty" means.

<comment><USER10> App yes, Library no?

IIRC VLC's icon has a Christmas tree on Christmas. That's cool. Some library having a Christmas day Easter egg, not so cool.

That said the lesson here is probably that if you're doing any serious dev you really should be reading the source before putting the library in your app and, you should be forking the library into your repo or into your own package manager server and only taking updates you've reviewed.

<comment><USER11> I'm not a fan of the VLC icon change but I use something else because of it. It's their choice to include it an my choice not to use it.

Disabling it is easy enough but I have other things to do.

<comment><USER12> I wonder why a small icon change is so bothering. Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER13> "What other hidden surprises are in the code?" would be one thought. If you can't trust them to leave the icon alone, what else can't you trust them with?

(Note that I don't necessarily agree with this but it's an obvious path.)

<comment><USER12> From my perspective, it's the opposite. I think that "If they're smart and fun to implement a Christmas hat on the icon, they're possibly nice guys, and won't do something sinister".

This is coming from my 20+ years of experience with computers and applications. I've seen that programs with easter eggs may have some stupid bugs, but won't have something sinister inside them. OTOH, applications with some very serious and no-nonsense attitude has the most advanced "phone home" mechanisms.

This is my experience though. I'd happily stand corrected if I'm wrong.

<comment><USER13> > This is my experience though. I'd happily stand corrected if I'm wrong.

I don't think anyone can call your own experience "wrong" per se. I'd point to the Google logograms as a "smart and fun [easter egg]" per your definition but they are definitely one of the more sinister corporations.

<comment><USER12> > I'd point to the Google logograms as a "smart and fun [easter egg]" per your > definition but they are definitely one of the more sinister corporations.

That's a fair angle :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder if it's reasonable in the long run for third-party libraries to run under a restricted permissions model with explicitly-granted capabilities. Just like how it's unreasonable to expect an end-user to audit the code of a phone app they install, it seems almost as unreasonable for a developer to need to audit the code of every third-party library they use.

For example, if a library can't access the clock, then it wouldn't be able to implement this sort of "time bomb" behavior. You could also of course limit cookies, XHRs, etc. Certainly a bit hard to know how it would work from a technical standpoint, but I think if done well it would make diligence a lot more manageable.

<comment><USER15> I really like this idea. Although permissions will have to become a lot more granular. There may be a little bit of call overhead, but this kind of context level permissions would be amazing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The framework mark itself as enterprise level Used by many small companies in china, and those companies delivers products to many different customers, include chinese gov/military, and maybe some the middle east customers.

So the problem is that: 1\. Chinese gov/military don't allow celebration of Christmas in their office.(CCP members not allowed to have religious belief) 2\. It's a critical thing for some customers like The Middle east 3\. If it's a hidden Easter Egg hard to trigger, it's ok; but it's not.

<comment><USER16> Comments from the dev of the Easter Egg: 1\. He commented it's a small thing, don't need to include in changelog. So nearly all users don't known this 2\. Another his comment: "I have already prepared for the complains"

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> They could've at least limited it to a DEV environment or a whitelist of Ant Project related domains. I hope they've learned the lesson.

</comment><comment><USER18> I call that Darwinism at work: The author of this surprise disqualified itself for any job that requires trust or at least a minimum of cultural sensitivity [1]; the users of this disqualified themselves from any work that requires attention to detail (like actually reading the code of libraries used or at least checking the issue tracker).

[1] I live in a country that is 97% Muslims. For most here, Christmas means at most the beginning of "white, European tourist season". My SO thought until 2 days ago that Europeans simply have a week long warmup to the new year celebrations...

</comment><comment><USER19> Pipenv did this for Halloween.

[https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/786](https://github.com/pypa/pipenv/issues/786)

</comment><comment><USER20> This is a long-standing feature of VLC which I enjoy (the santa hat on the icon), but is similarly not enjoyed by everyone: [https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=96539](https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=96539)

My opinion about people who demand professional perfection from software they neither pay for nor can be bothered to review the source of are probably well- indicated by the tone of this sentence.

<comment><USER21> I think there's a difference between putting a cosmetic thing like this in an application rather than a library; if you put it in your application, you're not going to change the experience of anything other than your own product, but by putting it in a library, you're changing the experience of other people's applications. From reading other comments here though, it seems like this isn't a universal opinion though.

<comment><USER22> Yea, and VLC is really just a media player. Sure someone might be using it in production at a Kiosk, but that little icon change literally doesn't affect production use at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Another reminder that dependencies are bad. Introducing someone else's code into your production environment without auditing it is a security breach.

This "undocumented code change" could easily have grabbed any login details/session cookies/personal data from the page and sent them somewhere, instead of drawing snowflakes. I doubt anyone would have noticed for a while... clearly there were a large number of people who weren't auditing the latest version of the code to see what changed, and only noticed the change because of the visual effects.

Sorry, but if you deploy a random chunk of third-party code into your production environment without knowing exactly what it does, you deserve to be sacked.

<comment><USER24> > Sorry, but if you deploy a random chunk of third-party code into your > production environment without knowing exactly what it does, you deserve to > be sacked.

Have you reviewed all of Linux, glibc, nginx/Apache, bash, all several thousand node dependencies, and so on? Do you do such a review each time you have to update a package?

Don't get me wrong, I think there's a serious problem with the micro- dependency insanity, but every single person on the planet depends on others. "We stand on the shoulders of giants" is more of a truism today than it has ever been. It's not a sacking offense to trust people (because you wouldn't be able to do your job if you spent all of it reviewing other people's work).

Most people have a reasonable expectation that maintainers of a project are reasonable people -- which is why the micro-package insanity is particularly problematic. I trust most kernel maintainers and so I don't check each Linux release to see whether a backdoor was added (I only check if I've noticed a problem). The blame should be on the maintainers here -- it isn't acceptable to add Easter eggs like this to a library used by many people (especially if it's being used for Serious Business™).

Would you blame every glibc user (which is all Linux users) if they decided to make all math functions return 25 on Christmas? Of course you wouldn't -- you'd blame the maintainers for having lost their minds.

<comment><USER23> I do deliberately try to limit what goes into my production machines, yes. I choose to trust some things, carefully, and choose not to trust others. No, I can't review everything out there. But technically, I should. And if it goes wrong and there's a problem with some code that I put on the production machine, then that's my problem.

I don't really understand why we have "reasonable expectations that maintainers of a project are reasonable people". We absolutely know for a fact that a not-insignificant percentage of our users are malicious. Why do we assume that zero percent of package maintainers are malicious?

The only qualification someone has to be a maintainer is to have written something that someone else wants to use, and to publish that thing on a package repository. Or that they volunteered to take over maintenance of a thing that other people want to use. There's nothing in there about not being malicious.

And yes, I would absolutely blame every glibc user for trusting the glibc maintainers. Glibc is a gift. I don't have any contract with the maintainers of glibc that says they have to act in my interests. I choose to use their work because it saves me time. If that stops being the case, I'll find an alternative (together with everyone else), or roll back to the last known good version of their work that they let me use. If the glibc maintainers really want to make it Christmas Day every day, then that is entirely their right. I do not have the right to demand anything from them or their code. I don't have to use their code, and they don't have to take my needs into consideration when writing it.

<comment><USER24> > And if it goes wrong and there's a problem with some code that I put on the > production machine, then that's my problem.

While I understand this sentiment, it's not practically possible -- and if every business did audits of _all_ code on their production machines (do we include firmware?) they would never get any work done or update anything. Which would lead to objectively worse outcomes (outdated/insecure software or no software developed at all) -- so there needs to be a middle-ground somewhere. In fact, you've already picked one (which is reasonable -- I think limiting dependencies is a _good thing_ ):

> I do deliberately try to limit what goes into my production machines, yes. I > choose to trust some things, carefully, and choose not to trust others.

I would expect NASA/JPL to audit everything they run in production on a space telescope or shuttle. I wouldn't expect the same from the next "Uber for Dogs", nor would I think it a reasonable standard.

> I don't really understand why we have "reasonable expectations that > maintainers of a project are reasonable people".

For a variety of reasons. Maintainers are public entities, so they know if anything they do is malicious they will feel immense backlash (such as is happening here over a somewhat minor issue compared to exfiltrating user data). People have pride in their work -- this is a known psychological effect -- and this is especially true in the free software world, so it's much less likely they'd sabotage something they'd put their time into. Developers that contribute to a project (likely for work or something like that) can become maintainers and thus the most motivated users usually become maintainers (and given that it takes time to become a maintainer of most large projects, doing it to sabotage the project is a long-haul gig).

> And yes, I would absolutely blame every glibc user for trusting the glibc > maintainers.

I think this is far from reasonable -- you are talking about literally every single user of any program built on any Linux distribution for the past 30 years. Would you level more blame on the glibc maintainers for betraying their users in this manner? Do you blame websites for CVEs like Heartbleed -- even if they fix them as soon as they can?

> I don't have any contract with the maintainers of glibc that says they have > to act in my interests.

Not a legal contract, but a social one. People who are in positions of power have an ethical duty to our society. Those who don't, don't deserve to be in such positions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The timing is sensitive and unfortunate as local governments in China are > cracking down Christmas celebrations.

I'd say this is the perfect time then. Governments cracking down Christmas celebrations should be fought back and ridiculed.

</comment><comment><USER26> I actually use Ant in my product. I had no idea this would happen. And I think this is... pretty awesome?

The world needs more random amusing-but-not-damaging surprises like this. To the Ant team: I'm impressed.

<comment> crooked-v > amusing-but-not-damaging

Some people got fired because they used this library in sites and this happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Seems to me that they've lost credibility by injecting these sort of 'joke' into open-source software used in prod in many companies. How would I use it for a new project now?

</comment><comment><USER28> The event was certainly interesting enough so it was worth to setup a new jekyll blog, right?

</comment><comment><USER29> Is it known whether this was a deliberate political statement in response to recent events in China, or just a festive holiday joke intended to be harmless?

Given the current state of affairs in China, I'm inclined to believe this was political. If that's true, many of the other comments here debating the need for professionalism in FOSS may be missing the point. It could be argued that this fits into the same category as the malicious hijacking of libraries on NPM, although I agree with the political statement being made here.

A more appropriate debate may be whether it's acceptable for FOSS libraries to protest human and civil rights violations.

<comment><USER30> Protest all you want, but use your own productions, not others, can you tell me what would be your feeling getting a call on holidays from an angry client or a manager who might not even be celebrating Christmas?

Chinese politics? alright fair enough... but what if some of these companies got punished because of it? or lost business?

I'm Arabic, can you imagine the shit a dev will get because of this if he/she used Ant for a political figure or party website? imagine a non-christian religious organization finds their site publically celebrating Christmas?

at the end of the day, politics or not the only person that will get all the shit dumped on their head is the poor developer who trusted your product and took you as a responsible person with all the 39k GitHub stars and 692 contributors... if I can't trust that to be mature then eh... good luck reshaping the world with FOSS.

Good luck explaining dependencies to the client/manager and how "someone from outside the company can modify our precious little website" and how can you prevent that in the future lol...

<comment><USER31> > I'm Arabic, can you imagine the shit a dev will get because of this if > he/she used Ant for a political figure or party website?

Can you illustrate this specifically? Had this happened, will the dev himself/herself get punished?

<comment><USER30> Personally, I'm from Iraq, regular people won't care, but politics, religious figure, government thingy with a stupid manager etc... they will give that dev a hard time, some yelling, and might just fire him

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> crooked-v Well, there goes any chance of me ever using this project.

<comment><USER32> Unfortunately there's not many sensible alternatives for what Ant design does.

<comment><USER33> What does Ant give you that Material-UI, Kendo, or Blueprint don't?

<comment><USER32> A complete set of useful and practical components for enterprise applications. Have you used Ant??

<comment><USER33> There are many such frameworks including the three I mentioned. I haven't used Ant, but I've looked at it and didn't find a compelling reason to use it over the others.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> What reaction someone expected by shoving their religion down the throat of the users? This is so sad.

<comment><USER35> Snow and "ho ho ho" is hardly a religious statement. If anything, this is the capitalistic "buy lots and lots of presents" version of Christmas, not the religious version.

<comment><USER36> They are one and the same.

<comment><USER35> They overlap a lot in the West especially, but they're very different phenomena. Look at Japan, where Christmas is hugely popular, Jesus is nowhere to be seen, and a poll of schoolchildren a few years back showed that most of them thought the holiday was about celebrating the birth of Santa Claus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> For those outside the USA, I regret to inform you there is no such thing as a 'Christmas egg' and no Christmas traditions involving eggs. May I suggest you calling it a Christmas cracker?

<comment><USER38> What is a Christmas cracker?

<comment><USER39> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_cracker)

"Christmas crackers are festive gifts that make a snapping sound when opened." For example, a Christmas cracker could contain a paper with jokes on it, a paper crown, and a puzzle where you have to disconnect two linked ring-like metal pieces.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Why not have a bit Christmas spirit and why not allow a bit Christmas message is the real question.</comment>


What Is QSB Stock and Why Does It Matter for Startups? - <AUTHOR> https://capitalandgrowth.org/questions/19/why-does-qsb-stock-matter.html?childToView=29#answer-29 <comment><USER2> Wealthfront states it more clearly here: [https://blog.wealthfront.com/qualified-small-business- stock-...](https://blog.wealthfront.com/qualified-small-business-stock-2016/)

It's a major benefit if you have the opportunity to early exercise your shares.

</comment><comment><USER3> There was a fun game when the window on this was first closing -- open a bunch of corporations, let them age a bit ("while actively doing business" of some kind -- just not too much), and then use them for projects later. Part of the 5y clock would already be run down, but at the time, it seemed very likely QSBS with this kind of favorable treatment wouldn't be offered again.

The other way these got used was for existing business -- it's 10x the basis OR $10mm, whichever was larger, so there were deals where people would try to structure a $500mm deal using $50mm of buy-in as QSBS. I'm not sure about the details, but I remember seeing tax attorneys working on them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks grellas and HN! Btw, we awarded a scholarship in his name for his early contributions to our site:

[http://info.capitalandgrowth.org/money-for- kids/](http://info.capitalandgrowth.org/money-for-kids/)

Btw, again, grellas has over 30k karma on HN!

</comment><comment><USER4> [https://jeremytunnell.com/2015/04/29/a-guide-to- section-1202...](https://jeremytunnell.com/2015/04/29/a-guide-to- section-1202-tax-benefits-for-entrepreneurs/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Is there any reason _not_ to do this for a startup that qualifies? Specifically are there any drawbacks if the gain exceeds the $10M maximum?

I noticed that it uses the old 28% capital gains rate, which is higher than what it is now (15-20%). Does that mean if your startup "goes unicorn" you get a tax break on the first $10M but you end up paying an extra 8% or more on the rest? And therefore this is only a good structure for startups aiming for smaller exits (hence the "small business" stock)?

</comment><comment><USER6> I checked _Venture Hacks_ and they don't mention QSB. They didn't mention 83b either which is strange. _Venture Deals_ doesn't cover it either.

<comment><USER3> Venture Deals is better for the financing/legal terms.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Where can I find out if this applies to founder stocks as well? And as a founder what can I do to qualify for this?

<comment><USER3> It does, generally. (Not legal advice, talk to a lawyer, but it's basically the default when a natural person buys founder shares for a pittance, and a good reason to offer restricted stock rather than options (or at least, to offer early exercise) up to seed and Series A and possibly a little longer.)

<comment><USER8> What companies are selling Series A shares at "a pittance"? Presuming the money means something to you, would you rather pay $100,000 cash for 1% of a $10MM Series A-ready startup or pay $0 for ISOs?

<comment><USER9> Non-preferred shares often sell at a very deep discount vs. the preferred shares offered to investors. As you get closer to IPO, they have to converge in value at 1:1. This is how startups can grant options that are nominally in the money on grant day.

<comment><USER10> > This is how startups can grant options that are nominally in the money on > grant day.

Say what? That has nothing to do with it. Any difference in price is do to when the last 409a was done.

<comment><USER9> Sorry, I was being intentionally obtuse.

ISO's are options on shares of common stock, which have a completely indeterminate value in most start-ups, because they likely don't exist outside of the company's ISO pool and the founder's stakes, and they never trade.

Investors are all buying preferred shares, which carry a liquidation preference, sometimes a multiple of their share price. Any exit below the sum of the outstanding preferences mean that any common stock is worth $0.

Companies take advantage of this to file 409a's saying that common stock is worth a fraction of the latest share transaction for preferred stock. I've seen ISO's with a strike price of 30% of the last preferred shares at Series B. Certainly, they are worth less than the preferred shares, but are they worth 70% less? Who can say? But - it's in the best interest of employees to keep that value as low as possible.

On the day of an IPO, all preferred shares convert to common stock, at which point the value has to be 1:1. In order for the company's prior 409a's to pass an audit and not get the ISO plan disqualified, the values have to converge smoothly leading up to the IPO.

I was being obtuse by pointing out that if you judge the gap between the value of common shares and preferred shares to be smaller than what the 409a dictates, then you are "in the money" on grant day. Also, a lot of start-up employees don't understand nearly as much as I've written above about ISO's (I know, because I was one once), and so it just looks to them as if they were handed free money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is there a European/German equivalent for this?

<comment><USER12> UK tapered capital gains relief for entrepreneurs, up to £10m. UK also has SEIS and EIS, but that's not quite the same. Unsure about other countries, but you usually have some kind of tax incentive to invest in small and new companies.</comment></comment>


Microsoft backs H.264. - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/02/microsoft-h264/

<comment><USER3> > At first, they touted the maneuver as being all about supporting "open" > formats. But if that's the case, why not pull support for the Flash plug-in > baked into every version of Chrome currently?

This is the single shittiest argument I've ever heard, and continue to hear.

1) Adobe isn't charging browser makers royalty or licensing fees to use Flash.

2) Are we really going to pull the "all or nothing" argument with a bunch of programmers and developers who, maybe more than anyone, are constantly driven by the force known as _evolution_? Just because they haven't removed Flash today doesn't mean they won't in the future. The probability of Google dumping Flash in the next 5 years is likely, perhaps not high. Furthermore, YouTube's HTML5 implementation doesn't exactly come across as _fear_ for HTML5 video.

WebM needed to be here 5 years ago. H.264 should have been dumped before it got traction. Better late than never, no? Or in this case, off course - <USER2> constantly correcting.

<comment><USER4> It is _very_ frustrating to hear this constantly touted as hypocrisy.

It is not.

Users and developers are free to use any and all Flash components. Flash itself is a published standard (although proprietary). You can create alternative VMs largely w/o caveat (the only one i've heard raised was some DRM junk having to do with Flash Media Server, which no one should use anyway).

There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash. That is not the case with H.264 encoding.

Furthermore, it is obnoxious that Flash is always uncritically trotted out as the only example of proprietary components in Chrome. What about Java plugins? Anything you want to say about Flash you can say about Java applets.

Please stop spreading FUD.

Also, Google didn't _own_ WebM 5 years ago. It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the issue.

<comment><USER3> > It's hardly sensible for criticizing them for not moving more quickly on the > issue.

I'm not criticizing Google. I realize there was a time where WebM was VP8.

When I say _WebM needed to be here 5 years ago_ , that's all I'm saying. No one company, standards body, org. is to blame.

> There is no threat of patent licensing hovering over people who use Flash. > That is not the case with H.264 encoding.

Agreed. The individual _user_ is not effected. The browser, and those who encode en masse for profit are exposed to _potential_ pitfalls of the licensing. I'm not saying these royalties are debilitating or that the web will cripple into a video-less nothingness.

What I am saying is: _If we can replace something proprietary with something more open, that is a good thing._

> Please stop spreading FUD.

It really seems as though you're spreading FUD by ascertaining my opinions as allegiance to one camp or another.

I'll admit I have a slight distaste for those who insist that H.264's penetration is reason alone to continue using it. Especially when I, up until a few years ago, was a lead Flash developer. Mainly due to Apple's insistence that Flash was the devil. I want you to see the ignorant, double-standard here. Flash and H.264 _both_ have high penetration rates. _Both_ are used extensively on the web and beyond. Yet only _Flash_ must die? See how this is completely asinine?

Instead of pointing a finger at Apple and declare them the enemy of _my camp_ , I examined the situation for benefits instead of fear.

Many thousand Flash developers will eventually hang up their tried-and-true tools in search for a _better way_. A more open, standards-abiding, creative community.

If we (Flash developers) can do it, I'm sure H,264 blowhards can do the same.

<comment><USER4> Sorry, my comment wasn't terribly clear, i am mainly agreeing with you!

I actually work in online video development, and the company i work for has determined even prior to the WebM hubbub that we were going to have to stick with a flash based player definitely for the short term, most likely for the medium term, and the long term is yet to be determined.

The thing is, that for all the monstrosities inflicted on the web by Adobe and Macromedia (may their children be afflicted with irritating skin diseases), they're neither business nor developer hostile (except through neglect).

They _want_ people to use their products, and their existing revenue generating business is based around high penetration. The structure of their business and their incentives are such that pissing off the entire developer community would be a very bad thing (and you can see this in the fact that people like you are now _former_ flash developers, and next to no one is willing to cop to being a _current_ flash developer).

MPEGLA's incentives are different and their revenue sources are exclusively through licensing and enforcement.

So the bit of FUD that i find frustrating is the notion that the Flash or Java plugins are similar to codecs. They really aren't, except superficially.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The IE blog post in question ([http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and- web-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video- questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments)) seems more interesting than the media stories suggest - here's what appears to be the most substantive paragraph:

"Ultimately, Microsoft remains agnostic in terms of HTML5 video as long as there is clarity on the intellectual property issues. To make it clear that we are fully willing to participate in a resolution of these issues, Microsoft is willing to commit that we will never assert any patents on VP8 if Google will make a commitment to indemnify us and all other developers and customers who use VP8 in the future. We would only ask that we be able to use those patent rights if we are sued first by somebody else. If Google would prefer a patent pool approach, then we would also agree to join a patent pool for VP8 on reasonable licensing terms so long as Google joins the pool and is able to include all other major providers of playback software and devices."

The question of indemnification seems pertinent to me, but I've only been superficially following this issue - maybe it's a red herring and Google has good reason not to offer indemnification etc. I'm curious to see the case for that.

<comment><USER6> Indemnification is unheard of in codecs. Microsoft and SMPTE don't indemnify users of VC-1. MPEG-LA doesn't indemnify users of H.264. Google offering indemnification for WebM would effectively be suicide. They'd be painting themselves with a giant target and taunting every money-grubbing patent troll in existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I get really tired of people saying that the patents on H.264 are a "red herring." How is open source software like Firefox supposed to use H.264 if they have to pay massive licensing fees? That enforcement thus far has been weak to non-existent doesn't imply that it will continue to be so in the future.

<comment><USER8> H.264 patents are a red herring because WebM is not known to be patent free either. The assumption is that patent holders are waiting for WebM to gain traction before springing the lawsuits.

The devil you know versus the devil you don't.

<comment><USER9> > The devil you know versus the devil you don't.

You don't know the H.264 devil any better. It's just as likely that some lone patent wolf will come forward and go after H.264. It's simply FUD to say that WebM is somehow more susceptible. Just because MPEG-LA makes you pay for their set of patents doesn't mean they're protecting you against patents they _don't_ hold.

<comment><USER10> I'd say you know the H264 devil a little better. Why? Because its spec and patents have been extremely well documented for a decade (or so), commented on, and implemented (there are at least 10 implementations I know of).

Whereas WebM's details first came to light less than a year ago.

You're right that it is possible that either still violate some patent out in the wild. BUT if you were to weigh the odds -- a nearly decade old open standard technology that has openly solicited and worked to get all potential patent holders in the pool OR a technology closed and proprietary until last year. You really call even money on that?

<comment><USER11> It seems to be widely accepted that WebM is a minor variation on H.264 with changes specifically designed to avoid the H.264 patents, which as you mention have been openly published and well documented for years.

Since large segments of H.264 were simply dropped for WebM, apparently there's only about 49 H.264 patents total (out of over a thousand) that could even remotely apply. That seems a reasonable number for On2 to work around, and for Google (and everyone else listed on their supporters page)'s lawyers to double check.

So now we are speculating about a random patent troll who happens to hold a patent that doesn't read on H.264 but does read on a simplified version of H.264 with some minor patent avoiding variations. Seems to me that if you're arguing H.264 is clean, then so is WebM.

<comment><USER10> Your interpretation doesn't match those of people who have analyzed it. The problem with WebM is that it may infringe on H264 patents! And its not clear they have done enough to avoid the problems. H264 has come together to form a very strong patent pool. None of the patents can be asserted against H264 (nor can the partner companies in general), but any of them can be asserted against WebM.

Read JGG's account, which is still the best account to date at: <http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/archives/377>

Some quotes:

"But as noted in my previous post, merely being published by Google doesn't guarantee that it is. Microsoft did similar a few years ago with the release of VC-1, which was claimed to be patent-free but within mere months after release, a whole bunch of companies claimed patents on it and soon enough a patent pool was formed."

"VP8 is simply way too similar to H.264: a pithy, if slightly inaccurate, description of VP8 would be "H.264 Baseline Profile with a better entropy coder". Even VC-1 differed more from H.264 than VP8 does, and even VC-1 didn't manage to escape the clutches of software patents."

"Most importantly, Google has not released any justifications for why the various parts of VP8 do not violate patents, as Sun did with their OMS standard: such information would certainly cut down on speculation and make it more clear what their position actually is."

And not about patents, but the quality of the spec:

"The spec consists largely of C code copy-pasted from the VP8 source code up to and including TODOs, optimizations, and even C-specific hacks, such as workarounds for the undefined behavior of signed right shift on negative numbers. In many places it is simply outright opaque. Copy-pasted C code is not a spec. I may have complained about the H.264 spec being overly verbose, but at least it's precise. The VP8 spec, by comparison, is imprecise, unclear, and overly short, leaving many portions of the format very vaguely explained. Some parts even explicitly refuse to fully explain a particular feature, pointing to highly-optimized, nigh-impossible-to-understand reference code for an explanation. There's no way in hell anyone could write a decoder solely with this spec alone."

But maybe Google will fix it? Ummm think again;

"Update: it seems that Google is not open to changing the spec: it is apparently "final", complete with all its flaws."

I just don't see how one can feel equally comfortable with WebM.

<comment><USER11> Here's an analysis, which builds on the analysis in your link. I think it's obvious which one makes more sense if you read both:

[http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/an-analysis-of-webm-and- its-p...](http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/an-analysis-of-webm-and-its-patent- risk/)

Some highlights:

 _"Dark Shikari makes several considerations, some related to the implementation itself, and many related to its "patent status". For example: "VP8's intra prediction is basically ripped off wholesale from H.264″, without mentioning that the intra prediction mode is actually pre-dating H264; actually, it was part of Nokia MVC proposal and H263++ extensions published in 2000, and the specific WebM implementation is different from the one mentioned in the "essential patents" of H264 as specified by the MPEG-LA.

If you go through the post, you will find lots of curious mentions of "sub- optimal" choices:

[big list of the identical features with minor differences between H.264 and VP8]

What we can obtain from this (very thorough – thanks, Jason!) analysis is the fact that from my point of view it is clear that On2 was actually aware of patents, and tried very hard to avoid them. It is also clear that this is in no way an assurance that there are no situation of patent infringements, only that it seems that due diligence was performed. Also, WebM is not comparable to H264 in terms of technical sophistication (it is more in line with MPEG4/VC1) but this is clearly done to avoid recent patents; some of the patents on older specification are already expired (for example, all France Telecom patents on H264 are expired)."_

There's also a follow up here which discusses the thought process behind the 49 potential H.264 patents:

[http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/on-webm-again-freedom- quality...](http://carlodaffara.conecta.it/on-webm-again-freedom-quality- patents/)

<comment><USER10> That's not an analysis, but a commentary on the work Jason did.

But he says a lot of BS, like, "In fact, one of the most brain damaged things of the current software patent situation is the fact that if a company performs a patent search and finds a potential infringing patent it may incur in additional damages for willful infringement (called "treble damages"). So, the actual approach is to perform the same analysis, try to work around any potential infringing patent, and for those close enough cases that cannot be avoided try to steer away as much as possible. So, calling Google out for releasing the study on possible patent infringement is something that has no sense at all: they will never release it to the public."

Patent law makes it VERY clear that treble damages occur with WILLFUL infringement. Good faith efforts, the inevitably fail, won't be subject to treble damages.

It seems like he's bending over backwards to show that Google shouldn't disclose anything, which is absurd.

His opinion that the suboptimal choices means that WebM has avoided the H264 patents seems very suspect to me. And contradictory, because if they did do what he said, and did accidentally infringe, by his (incorrect) logic they'd be liable for treble damages. Blech.

<comment><USER11> Mozilla's on the record as being told by their counsel not to openly publish patent research they did for Theora. They weren't happy about it, because it opens them up to FUD, but we all know patent law is messed up, one more absurdity shouldn't surprise us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The IE blog post, [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and- web-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video- questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx#comments), also mentioned something I'd never seen before. MS indemnifies Windows users for included software, which would include H264. And is probably an obvious reason why WebM isn't shipped as part of Windows (client and server).

That'a s pretty big frickin deal. I thought indemnification was off the table, but reading this Google has at least got to say that end users of WebM are indemnified. I honestly don't think they are willing to take that risk given the patent state of WebM.

[http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-4...](http://download.microsoft.com/download/9/D/0/9D0A6265-A509-416C-80AE- BB6C0A9D1B99/IP%20Indemnification%20Policy.docx)

</comment><comment><USER12> And they just released a Chrome plugin (like they recently did for firefox):

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/interoperability/archive/2011/02/01/greater- interoperability-for-windows-customers-with-html5-video.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER13> The link to the actual post referenced in the techcrunch article but not linked to: [http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and- web-...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2011/02/02/html5-and-web-video- questions-for-the-industry-from-the-community.aspx)

</comment><comment><USER14> > by turning their back on H.264, Google is ensuring that Flash will continue > to remain the dominant force in web video for years to come

Even if Google didn't support the video tag at all, people can still use IE and Safari, right? Its looking like H.264 is going to be the dominant codec, after all, so IE and Safari will support it. If you want it on another browser, you'll need a plugin, sorry. That could be Flash, or it could be something else.

> but the issue here is that we need the HTML5 standard to fully support > H.264, and that's simply not going to happen without Google on board.

No. The answer is no, with or without Google. It's a bad idea to have a per- unit fee for distributing a standards-compliant browser. Go ahead and buy it for the browser you're building--I'm fine with that--but don't make it a requirement.

And to anyone who says, "$0.20 isn't that much", you must agree to back it in cash. If you say you'll personally cover the licensing fees for anyone who asks, well, then I'll reconsider.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here's what I'm not clear on: why did we scrap the whole Ogg Theora thing in favor of WebM at all? Isn't Ogg _actually_ unencumbered by lawsuit-fodder?

<comment><USER16> Ogg (like mp4 or mov) is actually a container format that can have Theora or WebM compressed media inside.

<comment><USER17> WebM is a container format for VP8. Ogg can't contain WebM but could contain VP8 as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Of course Microsoft and Apple support H.264. They both stand to benefit:

<http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx>

<comment><USER19> Of course Firefox and Opera support WebM. Revenues of Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software depend on Google.

<comment><USER20> Firefox and Opera had chosen VP8 in favor of H.264 before Chrome did.

<comment><USER19> But not before Google.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Until the W3C officially adopts a royalty free codec as part of the HTML standard, Google and Mozilla should assume HTML video is dead. They might as well make the <video> tag inoperable by default. Just parse it and ignore it.

Of course, Google owns VP8. So they are pushing it so it might become a defacto standard that later gets officially adopted. Despite meeting the requirements to be part of the HTML spec, without the official backing of the W3C it is no different than any other out of spec extension to HTML.

<comment><USER22> Maybe this is a dumb question, but what difference does it make what's in the spec? People will pick the browser that plays the videos they want to see over the one that follows the spec every time.

<comment><USER21> [http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.h...](http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html)

South Korea built vast infrastructure around IE6 and ActiveX. Just a year ago a full 60% of Korean traffic still came from IE6. Why? Because they relied heavily on features that were not in the spec that Microsoft deprecated and nobody else can or will implement.

An extreme example. But it highlights the importance of sticking to specs that can be freely implemented by anyone. Five years from now when MPEGLA decides to throw down the crap hammer do you want to have to keep around old Safari binaries just for sites that migrated to h264 while the rest of the web moved on?

<comment><USER22> That sounds like an argument for free and open formats in general more than an argument for strict obedience to the W3C, but I see your point.

At the time those Korean sites were built, I'm guessing there was no spec nor open alternative to do what they were trying to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Let me consult my list of companies which make money from being MPEG LA licensors: Apple Cisco Daewoo Dolby Fuijitsu HP Hitachi Philips LG _Microsoft_ Mitsubishi NTT Panasonic Samsung Sharp Siemens Sony Ericsson Toshiba Reference: <http://www.mpegla.com/main/programs/AVC/Pages/Licensors.aspx>

I am SHOCKED to hear that Microsoft would like to continue receiving royalties from all those H.264 license fees and doesn't give a toss about open standards.

<comment><USER24> Let me consult my list of companies which would benefit from WebM: Google

Don't pretend for one second this is actually about "open standards".

<comment><USER25> Actually, Mozilla and Opera would also benefit from not having to license H264. Other than the lack of license fees, how would Google benefit?

<comment><USER10> They get to screw Apple. Apple has built an existing HW ecosystem and has a highly tuned sw tools for H264. With WebM Google gets to say, "Throw all that away -- now you're behind us technologically Apple."

<comment><USER11> Regarding Apple's "highly tuned sw tools for H264", you know that their H.264 encoder in Quicktime/iTunes is abysmal, right?

There's an x264 plugin for Quicktime which is much preferable to the encoders built into most proprietary products, but Apple's is particularly bad.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GDPR at Mouseflow - <AUTHOR> https://mouseflow.com/gdpr/ <comment><USER2> This is good work by Mouseflow. Spells out clearly what users (data controllers) of Mouseflow will need to do prior to May 2018 to be compliant, and also what Mouseflow does for data subjects.</comment>


How Robinhood blew a launch so badly that Congress got involved - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.com/robinhood-millennial-stock-trading-app-ignored-rules-money-safe-2019-7 <comment><USER2> "This story requires our BI Prime membership. To read the full article, simply click here to claim your deal and get access to all exclusive Business Insider PRIME content."

I'm going to pass on this offer...

</comment><comment><USER3> Can't even read the article...

<comment><USER4> [https://outline.com/dFGu4n](https://outline.com/dFGu4n)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Please provide a non paywalled link if possible.

<comment><USER4> [https://outline.com/dFGu4n](https://outline.com/dFGu4n)</comment></comment>


Can a Man Responsible for $5 Trillion Convince You He's Not Powerful? - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2017-blackrock-larry-fink-interview/ <comment><USER2> I highly doubt it.</comment>


You're 25 times more likely to be the next US president than to win at Powerball - <AUTHOR> The $1B+ Powerball lottery jackpot is being covered all over the US press, with many articles quoting Jeffrey Miecznikowski, associate professor of biostatistics at the University at Buffalo, as saying that "you're 25 times more likely to become the next president of the United States than to win at Powerball".<p>But in the next four years and ten months, at most one person will be elected president, while quite a few people will win at Powerball, so it's obvious that Jeff's "25 times" claim is completely backwards (good thing for him he has tenure). The question is: how can it be that not a single news outlet is pointing out that all the others are reporting obvious nonsense? <comment><USER2> Also, the probability of being elected president is definitely not evenly distributed across the U.S. population:

1\. If you have no prior political experience (e.g., you've never been a governor, U.S. senator, mayor of a major city, etc.), you probably won't get elected unless you're wealthy enough to be able to spend $100 million of your own money on your campaign.

2\. If you're less than 35 years old, or were not born a U.S. citizen, you have a zero probability of being elected president since you don't meet the constitutional requirements to hold the office.

3\. If you come from certain ethnic or religious groups, your probability of being elected are greatly diminished. The U.S. has only had one Catholic president (JFK), and no Jewish or Muslim or atheist presidents.

4\. If you're not good at public speaking and TV appearances, you'll never be elected president.

I expect that my own probability of being the next president is zero, but my probability of winning a lottery (if I ever buy a ticket) is some very small positive number.

</comment><comment><USER3> The money and effort required to become the next president greatly exceeds the effort to purchase $10 in lottery tickets.

I'll take my chances with the lotto.

<comment><USER4> yep. Chance of becoming president for 99.99999% of American is exactly 0.

<comment><USER5> Let's say there are on average 10 "viable" presidential candidates per election cycle every 4 years. Over a 40 year time-frame (You can be elected president during approximately 40 years of your life, from your late thirties to your late seventies), there are total 400 viable presidential candidates.

If 99.99999% of Americans have 0% chance of becoming president, that means you're saying only 3180 Americans have greater-than-zero chance of becoming president.

I suggest it is a little more than that. Millions of Americans, aged 10 and under, have the potential to work towards becoming first a mayor of their small city, then a mayor of a big city, and then finally have a small positive chance of becoming president. If you have greater than zero chance of becoming a person who has a greater than zero chance of becoming president, then you have a greater than zero chance of becoming president, period.

I suggest the number of such people is surely greater than 3180.

<comment><USER4> Then 99.999% it is. ;-) That should cover enough number of people who have take even that first minor step towards becoming a career politician. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's just a figure of speech. You could compare it to getting struck by lightning or attacked by a shark: neither are (thankfully) uniformly distributed, but they're both recognizably unlikely enough to provide an immediate shorthand for a negligible probability. Asking someone to imagine rolling a five on a 292201338-sided die may be more technically accurate, but makes for a very dry analogy indeed.

No matter which shorthand you use, the conclusion is still the same: you're going to lose money playing the lottery.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, his university's press release says he calculated the value 25 carefully; it's even in the title: "You're more likely to become president (25 times more likely, that is), than win Powerball, but someone will win, says UB biostatistician". See [http://sphhp.buffalo.edu/home/news- events.host.html/content/...](http://sphhp.buffalo.edu/home/news- events.host.html/content/shared/university/news/news-center- releases/2016/01/013.detail.html)

<comment><USER6> "You're 25 times more likely to become the next president of the United States, _assuming the entire U.S. population had an equal shot at the presidency_ , than you are to win Powerball, says Miecznikowski."

<comment><AUTHOR> Right, so it's not "a figure of speech", which was my point. He wasn't just saying "hey, like, it's a billion-to-one", which would be a figure of speech because the "billion" clearly would not be meant literally. Rather, the 25 was specifically computed, albeit under unrealistic assumptions (as you point out).

In any case, the fact is that he should have said that "you're 48 times LESS likely to become the next president of the US....," based on the observation that there's about one Powerball Jackpot winner per month: [http://portalseven.com/lottery/powerball_jackpot_winners.jsp](http://portalseven.com/lottery/powerball_jackpot_winners.jsp)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >The record-breaking $800 million Powerball jackpot drawing will take place Saturday night. Ticket holders have a 1 in 292.2 million chance of winning, notes Miecznikowski. Here's a look at some of the statistics:

>You're 25 times more likely to become the next president of the United States, assuming the entire U.S. population had an equal shot at the presidency, than you are to win Powerball, says Miecznikowski.

What he's saying is clearly nonsensical because the population of the US is close enough to 292 million to round off and say the chances of you winning powerball and becoming president (if everyone has the same shot) are equally likely.

You can say that only half the population is old enough and you can take off a few percentage points for foreign born citizens, but that gets you to 2-3 times, not 25. Plus he specifically said the _entire US population_. Not only those qualified. Very odd statement.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd rather have the money than be Prez. Thank you very much. I might even do a blog about my feeling of being devoured by the envious poors.

</comment><comment><USER9> The annoying thing about this analogy is that if I'm going to be the next president, the probability of my being president is 1, and for everybody else, it's 0. But we don't know anything about it until we go through the process of observing the outcome. Or do we? I bet somebody does know with 100% certainty who will be president, that's how undemocratic I believe the process has become.</comment>