Ask HN: Pay Rent With Micro Equity? - <AUTHOR>

We thought there might be under utilized property asset holders (commercial or residential) that may be interested in filling them with start-up entrepreneurs in exchange for equity. So, we are building http://BootRent.com as part of the RailsRumble this weekend to test the idea and see if folks find it valuable.
Find a place to live or work and give a small slice of early stage equity (for now with a simple contract that is similar to a convertible note type set up -- still working on the legal aspect).
What do you think?
1) Would you use this as a start-up? Why / why not?
2) If you have a spare room, office space, etc. would you be excited about supporting a start-up?
3) Why will this fail?
4) Why else will this fail?
5) What should we add? What else should we do?
Also, we'd love beta users and feedback. The beta will be live on http://BootRent.com
PS -- we've reached out to "The Rent Is Too Damn High" Party founder and NYC Mayor Candidate Jimmy McMillan about being our spokes person, but are still awaiting a reply ;) (seriously)
http://bootrent.com <comment><USER4> I like the idea and I would probably be interested if I was a cash-starved startup. However, I suspect the intersection between people with under utilized property assets (especially in SF!) and people who want to speculate in early stage startups is vanishingly small. How are you going to find these people?

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question ;) I think that you might find "mentor" type folks who would be interested in helping spur local economies who might not normally be as incentivized to list a room on AirBNB for example. We have some relationships with some real estate publications who may partner to cover this if it's interesting. Or maybe someone has office space and they would be happy to sublet it to a complimentary start-up for equity and the benefit of having some new ideas in the building.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think this makes economic sense. Equity in startups who don't have enough cash on hand to pay rent is likely to be more risky than equity in those who do.

Giving away equity for rent at an early stage doesn't make sense for founders either - making a mess of your cap table for office space is a poor decision when you could work from many other places for free, or remotely from home.

This sounds like a bad deal for both parties in the marketplace.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you see any way you _could_ structure the deal to make sense for both parties?

Also - the main idea for this was for residential space, we added the commercial cause, well, why not. But this was literally to give you a home to work out of.

<comment><USER5> From my own recent experience, there is definitely demand from the side of founders for an AirBnB style deal specifically aimed at a place to live-and- work, especially for start-ups who need to relocate.

Take a look at listings like these:

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1337007](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1337007)

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/133974](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/133974)

[https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/264052](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/264052)

AirBnB doesn't accommodate them effectively because this is not their target market - AirBnB is mostly about holidays and residential space. Similarly, 42Floors doesn't do this at all because they are about Co-working and Commercial space.

I would suggest, forget the equity part of this completely. Start-ups are already bad customers without having to wait to recognise any revenue, and also have to go through regulatory implications. Let me rent a place with a sleeping area, a bathroom, a kitchen area and an office area for my whole team for a reasonable price.

It cost me a $4,000 deposit, $2,500/mo in rent and about $1,500 in IKEA/WalMart, and $3000 in temporary AirBnB accommodation to get my team situated in the bay area. Give me a better deal than that, especially one that saves me time.

Ship me groceries weekly, get me a rental car as part of this deal, and have it all ready as soon as I arrive and I wouldn't use any other service ever.

Additional features I would want:

\- Connect me to the local hacker community \- Tell me where I can get exercise and where I should shop

<comment><USER6> Isn't this basically what a relocation specialist does? Other than the startup focus, I've lived through pretty much this exact deal in several relocations with the oil industry (I spent my childhood bopping around the country courtesy of Big Oil).

\- Temporary furnished corporate housing and vehicles \- Expertise on the local area (shopping, restaurants, schools) \- One signature for all of this, paid by the employer

Surely those firms could offer similar services for startups? That said, service providers in this area seriously pad their margins. You wouldn't believe what I've seen some apartment complexes bill a basic 1-bedroom unit out at as part of a corporate relo deal. $3000+ for suburban Houston. The family doesn't care, they aren't picking up the tab.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. But those services are typically provided to entire families by BigCo - padded margins sound like this is a space where a cost-focused company could stand to make quite a bit of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm too young to have been there but I've read a bit about how during the first .com bubble landlords would routinely accept stock instead of rent. In fact, I believe an early cash-strapped PayPal did just that and the landlords went on to become pretty successful in their own right.

Relevant article about the landlords who also rented out to Logitech, Google, Danger, and Milo: [http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/technology/14landlord.html...](http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/technology/14landlord.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

<comment><AUTHOR> cool thanks for the resource.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This frequently happens in the Valley although almost always as a side effect of some kind of personal relationship with a landlord. As a two-sided market the trick would definitely be to get landlords on board.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our thought was similar -- that this is already going on anyway. So this can just be a resource for folks to set up these deals.. Even if we don't monetize it, it could be a useful tool for folk, if we got the landlords on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Thanks for doing this. We have a big spare room in our basement (in SF) that would be perfect for a 4-5 person startup, and I actually mused about just such an arrangement in the past, but I would probably have never actually done it on my own, out of some combination of laziness and fear that I'd get laughed out of the room for thinking anyone would give up equity so easily.

But based on the other comments in this thread, there are startups out there assuming nobody would give up the use of their space so easily. So it sounds like an idea whose time has come.

I'll be in touch.

<comment><USER10> Thank you! we're excited to hear some validation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> As a company, my concern would be that having more owners is... pretty expensive. If I'm going to give someone equity in my company, I need enough equity to make it worth the complexity. Not only that, but there is a lot of trust involved, too. To the best of my knowledge, once you give someone equity, they have power over your company. They can fuck you up.

Whenever anyone offers to buy some equity, I consider how much time will it take me to manage the transaction, (and then how much time will it take to manage the other owner ongoing.) - then, "how many hours, working as a consultant, would it take me to earn that amount of money free and clear."

It's amazing how often I'd spend fewer hours consulting to earn, free and clear, the amount of money that a smallish 'angel' type wanted to invest. And then I wouldn't have another owner, long-term, to manage.

Of course, right now, the company is mostly me, with employees and family having a small amount. there's a very high cost to getting your first outside investor, so someone who already has outside investors would have a lower additional per-investor cost than I do, so I guess it could work for others.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is great: "It's amazing how often I'd spend fewer hours consulting to earn, free and clear, the amount of money that a smallish 'angel' type wanted to invest." Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This will fail because... property owners just want the cash: they have mortgages to pay. They also are not experts at evaluating startups.

Do you think more people want to own startup equity? You should find a way for them to do this, perhaps make it easy to invest like a VC - kickstarter with equity.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks cjg!

do you think there might be a class of property owners who aren't that interested in renting (a room, cottage, etc) to a random person, but might be interested in helping a start-up?

Def like the idea of micro-equity crowdfunding. Surely with the jobs act people will be setting up these sorts of outfits (I think some already exist).

<comment><USER12> Yes I think you are right. There are people who would be interested in renting probably relatively small spaces under certain conditions that are not full leases.

For example a spare room to a friend for a beer, or indeed, a basement to a startup they thought was cool. Because in these situations it isn't about the money.

The size of this market is probably fairly small and not very profitable - <USER2> isn't about the money.

Also I wonder how long people would be happy with this arrangement. After a few months they might start to think it would be nice to have the basement back or that someone who pays the rent would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So, how exactly would your startup handle costs such as insurance if your entire revenue is all theoretical?

<comment><USER10> As a property owner, this is clearly a risky decision, that's why I think the future of BootRent would have some sort of startups valuation algorithm to give property owners some help in making that decision.

<comment><USER14> It seems like the valuation algorithm could be used more lucratively and directly in a more traditional VC way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I think there might be some sort of "reputation" indicators, but it will prob need to be convertible debt.

<comment><USER15> "Reputation" indicators depends on trust by the asset owners. And when it comes to money handling, building a reputation takes a long long time. I'm just saying. I mean, think of it in this way, if I am your first deal, why would I want to believe in your reputation indicators? I don't even know your system. I'd recommend providing the asset owners with estimated revenues based on the average revenue of the sector in which the startup operates. A counsel by the VCs about why they funded the startup could also help a lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I think you'll find that the universe of supply where the landlord wants to rent a space for equity AND the startup wants to rent that particular space AND both agree on an amount of equity is very, very small. So, your marketplace is going to have a very difficult time.

<comment><AUTHOR> For some reason I am thinking this could unlock assets that aren't currently being used because the owner isn't as motivated by monthly rent. But might be more motivated by a more altruistic / help / mentor mentality of spurring economic growth in their home town. But you very well could be right. We'd like to test and see how small that universe is.

<comment><USER16> I certainly could be wrong. As you say, you won't know without trying.

The geography is going to play a big part, too. The average landlord in SF is going to understand startup economics much more than, say, in Texas or Michigan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think most landlords would think the only startups worth such a risk would be ones that raised enough money to be able to pay rent.

</comment><comment><USER10> We're going to deploy the beta features to the site Sunday 23:59 UTC. Please excuse the bootstrap-ness, we don't have a designer on team (and if you're an interested designer, we'd love to talk to you, please get in touch email@example.com)

</comment><comment><USER18> Intellectual and physical property are 2 very different assets.

Property owners _might_ be willing to take equity in tangible assets, since that's what they understand.

Move forward and test it out. We'll never know until someone tries! :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the marching orders ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would advise strongly against this. If you need an office or a desk, then you probably have some traction or revenue to sustain this without giving up equity. There is one thing VCs and Angel Investors hate is a messy cap table.

<comment><AUTHOR> Curious how you might simplify this to not mess up the cap table.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd encourage you to take a look at history here.

There were a ton of landlords who took equity instead of rent in the first .com bust and for some Im sure it worked out well, for others probably not so much.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think on the commercial side this was pretty common. Might not work so well in SF now, but say, Detroit, etc.

And also - the residential aspect of this. Letting you find an apartment for 3-12 months while you build. We would certainly rent out a room in our house for equity to the right person -- would be in house inspiration and we wouldn't otherwise have a guest renter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This problem of valuation is only there if you don't do it as convertible debt. We'd love to do something like this at [http://AllTheRooms.com](http://AllTheRooms.com).

<comment><AUTHOR> Beautiful site! We'd love to talk to you about it. And our thoughts exactly re: the convertible debt piece.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I believe you will have the following challenges 1 - <USER3> individuals/agents/agencies. 2 - Could you move beyond Bay area , NY ? Detroit, Texas. Scalable model ?

<comment><AUTHOR> No reason we can't let anyone use the platform. And since our #1 goal is just to help people out, we don't need massive adoption as long as the right people know about it and use it. Bonus points if we can cover operational costs, but we have other projects we are building as well. We could take a % of the equity as well, perhaps or have a listing fee.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> being the broker in the deal between the asset owner and startup folks, you will need to convince the asset owner about the worthiness of the startup. Have you thought of the metrics that could be used to help the asset owner understand the startup's value? Most asset owners do not know beyond GMail, Yahoo Mail and, perhaps, Facebook and Twitter. So how will they ever understand about values of startups like, for example, Cloudability or AdCash?

<comment><USER10> Right on! owners will understand a recommendation scale (on a scale from 1 to 10), we can use every possible metric internally and save them the headache. If we can gain their trust, that number might be everything they need.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it's some sort of convertible note system based on the monthly value of the building? So, $1k / month for a year is the equiv of a $12k convertible note? Ideas?

<comment><USER15> convertible note sounds like a possible option... but what if the asset owner needs to cash-it-in before the maturity date. Say the asset owner has to pay some bills after 6 months but this convertible note might not be encashable until the 12 month period is over, which is it's maturity period. At this juncture both parties are in trouble. Perhaps, the asset owner will vacate the startup for cash from new tenants next month.

This will be a complex financial model. I'll see if I can come up with some stable form of transaction agreeable by both sides. If you require any assistance on this, drop me a line at subhankar.sett which is in gmail. I'll try my best.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will shoot you an email!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This is a really cool idea.

My startup, Texts.com, was actually endorsed by Jimmy "The Rent is Too Damn High" McMillan just a month or two ago. This picture got ~5,000 "likes" and 250 shares on FB; though I'm "saving" the true juice of the endorsement for peak book-buying season: [http://on.fb.me/1i52qUm](http://on.fb.me/1i52qUm)

Getting in touch with Jimmy initially proved somewhat difficult, so feel free to e-mail me (peter -at- texts.com) to talk if you'd like. Good luck - again, seems like a great idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> HA! Amazing. Will shoot you an email. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I imagine you will have a hard time convincing people to give up collecting cash from rent for theoretical equity.

<comment><USER10> True, but what if you're not able to collect decent cash for the property? (maybe this is not a SF/NY market)</comment></comment>


PonoPlayer: Neil Young's new streaming device sounds no better than an iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/02/ponoplayer_review_neil_young_s_new_streaming_device_sounds_no_better_than.single.html

<comment><USER3> The PonoPlayer sounds no better than the iPhone to _an untrained listener_ using _mediocre headphones_. The writer misses some important quantitative differences, because he knows very little about audio engineering.

The most crucial and easily understandable difference IMO is the headphone amplifier. The iPhone has good quality digital-to-analog converters and generally sounds fine through easy to drive headphones, but it falters if you use large high-impedance headphones that need a lot of power. Hook up a pair of Sennheiser HD650s or AKG K701s to an iPhone and things go badly wrong - <USER2> bass disappears and transients start to distort, because the tiny headphone amp just doesn't have the power to cope.

Yes, the audiophile world is full of bullshit, but that doesn't mean that all quality audio products are bullshit. Professional audio engineers with degrees in physics or engineering are not fools, and they do not do critical listening through $130 headphones and whatever converter and amp happens to be on their device. They use $2000 converters, $4000 monitors and $600 headphones because they are measurably better in all sorts of ways to cheaper equipment.

If you're listening to music for pleasure, use whatever equipment you like. If you don't hear the difference that better equipment makes, then don't pay the extra. The only thing that matters is your enjoyment of the music. Conversely, just because you can't hear a difference, don't assume that it isn't there. Really understanding audio and being able to critically assess recordings and audio equipment takes a great deal of training and practice.

<comment><USER4> Yes, when discussing Pono it's important to differentiate between Pono the device and Pono the push towards higher sampling rates. The former may very well be better than other mobile devices in important ways as you mentioned.

The latter is not backed up by evidence, but perched precariously on a conflation of the sound of low bit rate lossy compression and RedBook CD (which while on the edge, is adequate for delivery as far as the current evidence shows), and the naive misconception that faster and faster sampling equals better sound.

There are solid technical reasons why 192 kHz sampling is too fast [1], even ignoring the evidence that shows that we don't benefit from the additional bandwidth (note the difference between modulator speed and sample rate!).

There are scenarios when up-sampling an already digitised signal before certain kinds of processing is very beneficial (to reduce aliasing in the audible range), but that's an entirely separate discussion.

[1] [http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling- theory.pdf](http://lavryengineering.com/pdfs/lavry-sampling-theory.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > But here's the catch: According to people who study human physiology, > 44.1-kHz recordings provide enough upper-end treble to exceed the > capabilities of our ears. Anything higher and you're spending money for > sounds your dog can listen to but you can't.

You can't hear above 20 kHz in the sense that if someone plays a 22 kHz tone and asks if you hear a tone, you won't be able to answer correctly more accurately than if you just guessed.

However, that doesn't mean that it makes no difference if music above 20 kHz is present.

See the paper "Inaudible high-frequency sounds affect brain activity: Hypersonic effect" [1], available for free online here [2].

They exposed listeners to gamelan music, which is rich in content above 22 KHz, sometimes with the ultrasonic sound included, sometimes with it removed, and looked at brain responses via EEG and PET. They clearly found statistical differences in brain response when the ultrasonic components were included.

They also did long double blind listening tests where the participants were asked to subjectively rate the sound, and the music that included the ultrasonics was rated higher.

[1] T. Oohashi, E. Nishina, M. Honda, Y. Yonekura, Y. Fuwamoto, N. Kawai, T. Maekawa, S. Nakamura, H. Fukuyama, and H. Shibasaki. Inaudible high-frequency sounds affect brain activity: Hypersonic effect. Journal of Neurophysiology, 83(6):3548–3558, 2000

[2] [http://jn.physiology.org/content/83/6/3548.full](http://jn.physiology.org/content/83/6/3548.full)

<comment><USER4> Flawed methodology and their results have since failed to be reproduced [1]. There's a run-down of the major issues with it in post #156 here [2] (all verifiable by reading the research paper).

There are also various studies which essentially show the opposite results ([3], [4]).

[1] [http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12375](http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=12375)

[2] [http://www.head-fi.org/t/266217/from-cd-to-sacd-how-much- of-...](http://www.head-fi.org/t/266217/from-cd-to-sacd-how-much-of- difference/150)

[3] [http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195](http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=14195)

[4] [http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=13185](http://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=13185)

<comment><USER5> The run-down in post #156 at link is not very impressive.

His first criticism is that the listeners knew the test was ABBA, with the listeners knowing that A and B are different. He thinks that is a flaw. It would be if the test were "can listeners tell the difference between A and B?". It's not when the test is "do listeners prefer A or B?".

His second criticism is that there are slight differences in the spectra below 20 KHz. That's a legitimate criticism.

Third, fourth, and fifth are ad hominem and similar bogus arguments.

The sixth criticism is that if people do find they like the music with the high frequency components better it is because it is leading to more alpha waves and a relaxed state, which makes the people think they like the music more. He says that this isn't hearing and concludes that this somehow makes it irrelevant. This is ridiculous because it doesn't matter HOW it affects perception. If high frequencies somehow induce relaxation which makes us perceive the music more positively, presumably that would happen during a live concert. Hence, if we want the recorded music to be perceived as being as good as the live, we'd need those frequencies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm getting kind of tired of the pseudo-scientific smackdowns.

 _I like my headphones just fine, and I couldn 't tell the difference on them!_ So what? Those are consumer headphones, they're designed to sound _good_ not _accurate_. If you're testing two music players you might use a pair of headphones that's designed to give an accurate representation of the signal they're given.

Is 192kHz a sham? Probably. But so is going _lalalala nothing sounds better than an iPhone, you idiots are buying snake-oil_

<comment><USER7> > I'm getting kind of tired of the pseudo-scientific smackdowns.

Were you expecting a scientific treatise on _Slate_?

Try this instead:

[http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil- young.html](http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html)

<comment><USER6> I just want people who pretend to be scientific to take themselves seriously enough that if somebody says "Your headphones suck" that they say "do they? Why?"

That article is better :) 192 is silly pretty much always, 24 bits isn't very useful for playback, but a music player with better digital-to-analog converters and a better amplification stage than an iPhone? That should make a difference. An iPhone does ten million things, there should be a way to make a better music player that only does one.

(edit: now that I think about it 24 bits could be useful for playback.)</comment></comment></comment>


Mathematical Doodling - <AUTHOR> http://vihart.com/doodling/ <comment><USER2> For some reason I found these videos extremely compelling and I can't wait to go to class tomorrow.</comment>


Sometimes You Just Have To Walk Away - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/08/sometimes-you-j.html <comment><USER2> As I said on the post's own thread:

It's really 14 out of 80. You can't count the current batch, because they've just started talking to investors. Plus (a) several of the remaining 66 probably will raise series A rounds in the future, and (b) there are certainly more that could have but either got acquired (Reddit, Omnisio) or made it to profitability on angel money (Wufoo, Bountii).

<comment><USER3> The 14 out of 80 number is for those who have done a Series A or later round. I assume that doesn't include additional angel funding (beyond YC) that some of the 66 out of 80 may have received. Is that correct?

It would be good to get gross statistics - without revealing company specific details - of how many got angel funding, average funding etc. It would help hackers calculate their odds ...

<comment><USER2> Right. Most of the rest got angel funding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I remember something that one of the VCs at the first Startup School said:

"I can tell you all about business in four words: Boom. Bust. Boom. Bust."

I guess the VC business isn't so different from the rest of the economy. ;-)

Curiously, if you look at nearly all of the early Web 2.0 successes, they came out of the wreckage of small companies that failed in the recession of 01-02. Pyra begat Blogger. Game Neverending begat Flickr. Paypal-for-Palm begat Paypal-the-website. Memepool begat Del.icio.us.

Except for Paypal, all of those were angel-funded or bootstrapped. I wonder if VC-funded companies simply get too big to turn on a dime when the economy sours.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is brought up in the article's thread:

Is VC funding needed or optimal for the majority of these companies?

To add to that: Is there a gap between the common ceiling for angel funding & the common floor for VC?

</comment><comment><USER6> Aren't there many start up which are not looking for VC Funding. Why is it always, you are good and VC funded else you are bad.</comment>


So long AWS, and thanks for all the fish: FathomDB (W08) focusing on its new DB - <AUTHOR> http://blog.fathomdb.com/53681308

<comment><USER2> This reads poorly.

FathomDB customers saw outages because the implementation Fathom did using MySQL on AWS went out when AWS went out.

So in conclusion Fathom is going to build something which Oracle, IBM, SyBase, and every other database company in the history of the planet has tried and failed to do, build a relational database on a distributed infrastucture that is more reliable than the underlying infrastructure? Uh, good luck with that. Seriously, its Turing Prize material if you succeed.

I was thinking the punch line would be "Gee Netflix uses AWS and they didn't go down so we're going to more what they did." I guess they are going to compete with MongoDB and Riak.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the good-luck wishes. Obviously it's a big undertaking, but we're seeing very promising results, so it's time to go all-in. Take that as you will :-)

Incidentally, Oracle and IBM both have clustered database products, though they can certainly be improved upon.

<comment><USER3> Oracle and IBM do have clustered stuff and it's amazing, but it still tends to assume closely linked networks of high-reliability hardware and have trouble with very large, slowly linked networks of low-reliability hardware.

You might find Greenplum and VoltDB to be more interesting models to study.

The key question is: are you aiming at OLTP or OLAP? Because, as those boring mainframe-era guys have discovered, it's difficult to serve two very different purposes.

<comment><AUTHOR> OLTP. I personally believe Hadoop has got the OLAP problem-space covered.

<comment><USER3> What are your most important non-functional requirements?

In particular, how do you see the tradeoff between durability and performance?

<comment><AUTHOR> You've totally hit the nail on the head there. Up until a month ago, it was a fairly obsessive compulsion around performance. Durability and reliability are features of the design, so it was about getting performance under the design.

However, the AWS outage has (we hope) put reliability back on the map. So maybe now we don't have to be the fastest database, if we're the fastest reliable database. That's a liberating change of perspective, which has been behind many of the recent advances.

<comment><USER3> Does durability absolutely trump performance, or are you prepared to trade off?

For example, if durability is an absolute must (as it is for current databases), then your main bottlenecks would be a) spinning rust and b) network traffic to distribute copies of the data throughout the network. SSDs will help this a lot, but already you're back where almost everyone has already started.

If you're prepared to accept highly replicated in-memory copies as "durable", you can already make your overall system hundreds or even thousands of times faster.

So how do you define durability?

        1 copy on 1 disk?
        x copies on y disks in the same computer?
        x copies in y disks in different computers?
        x copies in RAM of y different computers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> sorry, this is probably tangential, but how is the AWS outage any different from any other hardware outage, regardless of whether or not you actually own the hardware?

why does it seem that everyone expects 100% uptime from a VM just because it's in "the cloud"? shouldn't "the cloud" be used to make fault-tolerance even easier, because you have access to multiple geographic regions and multiple providers with little fuss?

they're still computers, and they're still bound to go down occasionally. i don't see how running leased VMs somehow absolves you of doing basic operations work and guarantees a bulletproof experience. regardless of where you host it, writing a nicely distributed and fault-tolerant system is and always has been difficult. the only part that's gotten easier is finding rack space.

<comment><AUTHOR> With physical hardware, the basic failure characteristics etc are well known. When the hardware is virtual or abstracted as it is on the cloud, you have no choice but to rely on the promises made by the provider. If you can't build a reliable system on the abstraction provided by the cloud, you can't reliably use the cloud. But with a good cloud, you can architect a reasonable solution based on the provider's promises.

However, if the provider doesn't keep those promises, then all your hard work and calculations go totally out the window.

At that point, you have to figure out a way to run a database on a system that effectively offers you no guarantees. That's what we're working on.

<comment><USER5> For your application though a failure is a failure in any scenario. EBS went down in one zone and was slow in a couple others for a few hours, it's a bad downtime but some services survived the problem relatively unscathed. This suggests that something could have been done to avoid any trouble at all.

If the datacenter you are in has a slight conditioning problem this summer and 10% of your drives breaks down due to excessive heat, how quickly will you be able to re-provision the data center?

About a week after AWS outage the italian ISP Aruba had a UPS failure due to a fire in the UPS room and the entire datacenter switched off automatically during the night. For the following 8 hours that datacenter was off for every customer. How would your new solution handle such a situation?

Designing a hot standby replication solution for MySQL/PostgreSQL that works across regions seems easier to me rather than implementing a database from scratch that should solve a very complex problem.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly it is possible to engineer a hot standby solution for MySQL databases using DRBD, or synchronous replication etc. There's a choice between engineering an endless series of fixes like that, or re-examining the problem space and building a new database. After years of doing the former, we chose to examine the latter, and we're seeing good indications from that approach.

<comment><USER3> I have misgivings because you are not the first to try and re-examine the problem space. A lot of the endless series of fixes have arisen from just such attempts.

I want you to succeed, but you're dealing with seriously hairy deep magic issues that the best minds in the industry and academia have been chipping away at for decades.

<comment><AUTHOR> A healthy skepticism, then: nothing wrong with that. It's a speculative project with a big payoff if it succeeds, and I wouldn't ask you to believe until we've shown a working product. Your good wishes are appreciated though!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This author blames Amazon for a poor SLA yet continues using their service?

What cloud provider offers a more reasonable SLA?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author. I think you're conflating the SLA with the guarantees the cloud offers: one of the points I tried to make was that an SLA doesn't offer you any real guarantees; they only really benefit the service provider. If every SLA gave you a "50 times" penalty, as FathomDB is paying, then they would be interesting, because at that level the provider has to take uptime seriously.

In terms of who offers a better cloud, clouds based on OpenStack are 'the great hope'. IaaS is about commoditizing infrastructure, so open source seems necessary; rather than AWS's very closed, secretive approach.

<comment><USER7> I deal with SLAs in my job all the time. After over a decade negotiating uptime SLAs, I'm firmly convinced that the best protection against downtime is a huge, vocal userbase, and the best remedy for downtime is an unqualified termination right and refund of prepaid fees.

An SLA (even with severe penalties) is certainly setting up the right incentives on paper, but in practice it has little effect on the results. Why? Because enforcing a promise on a piece of paper is bothersome, expensive and sours the relationship.

Also, saying you'll pay 50x penalty is only half the story. What are the triggering events that entitle customers to payment? Is the SLA measured end- to-end (i.e., from the user's endpoint to yours)? Is the SLA penalty cumulative? Can your customers actually profit from your downtime (i.e., you would end up owing them more cash than they paid you)?

Without more details, your post suggests that each fraction of a second of downtime experienced by any single user of your service entitles them to a credit of 50x what they paid for that fraction of a second. Is that your policy?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the expert input. This is exactly why we don't have a SLA at FathomDB, because I don't think that they're worth the paper they're written on. It seems like you almost agree (?)

Most cloud providers (including FathomDB) charge by the hour anyway, so you have termination rights for any reason, and there are no prepayments to refund.

We think that 'doing the right thing' is the only workable policy, and it shouldn't require an outcry from a vocal userbase. We should have handled the outage better, and we're making a big payment to demonstrate that. We're not going to let any new customers use a system where we can't be confident in its uptime (MySQL on AWS); we're building a new system in which we can be confident.

<comment><USER7> Dead on. I went back and re-read the article, and yes – we are in agreement. It's about doing whatever it takes to keep the relationship with your customers on an even keel. I couldn't agree more that SLAs are generally bad for customers, even though the perception is the opposite. I can't tell you how many times I've had a client demand an SLA from their vendor, and when that SLA arrives, it reads like a commitment, but actually it's impossible to fail. And these almost always are wrapped in "exclusive remedy" language, which quite literally means the customer would be better off without it. The devil is in the details.

Cheers!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Can you actually tell us a bit about the new DB you're building? (What is it designed to run on, what kind of failures are you aiming to tolerate, and so on.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, not too many details yet - let us finish it first :-) Commodity hardware though, and quorum-style failure-tolerance characteristics.</comment></comment>


Being Poor Can Suppress Children's mental abilities, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110110142004.htm

<comment><USER2> > "Our findings suggest that socioeconomic disparities in cognitive > development start early," says Tucker-Drob. "For children from poorer homes, > genetic influences on changes in cognitive ability were close to zero. For > children from wealthier homes, genes accounted for about half of the > variation in cognitive changes."

Another way to look at it is to say that, in a perfectly nurturing environment, everyone would achieve to the very peak of their genetic potential, and then genes would account for all of the variation in cognitive changes. So what deficits are there in the rich kids' environments that only _half_ , rather than all, of the variation is genetic?

<comment><USER3> I suspect that the average "rich" environment is lacking plenty of things that a perfectly nurturing environment would have.

If you look at this through the lens of Maslow's hierarchy, a kid growing up in a poor environment is going to lack the fundamentals needed for cognitive development. He may be undernourished, for example. His guardians are probably too busy trying to make ends meet to read to him. They may even actively ignore him. He's handicapped right out of the starting gate and will likely never have a chance to reach his genetic potential.

In contrast, a child growing up in a rich family will have access to plenty of material goods. He's not going to worry about having to move 4 times in a year because his parents keep getting evicted. He's going to get sent to the best preschool money can buy. However, money can't buy him the drive to succeed on his own - to self-actualize, if you will. He's grown up in an environment where everything has been provided and nothing intrinsic to that environment is going to push him. He'll get closer to his genetic potential than the poor kid, but unless someone actively encourages him to develop his own potential, he's not going to get all the way, and there's your gap.

<comment><USER4> _He may be undernourished, for example._

This is an insignificant issue in the US.

[http://www.who.int/entity/nutgrowthdb/database/countries/who...](http://www.who.int/entity/nutgrowthdb/database/countries/who_standards/usa.pdf)

 _His guardians are probably too busy trying to make ends meet to read to him._

They certainly have time to read to him. The average person earning < $500/week has 32 minutes/day more leisure than a person earning at least $1181/week. They just choose to spend it on other things.

The average person earning < $500/week spends only 8 minutes/weekday reading (10 minutes on the weekend). In contrast, they spend 2 hours 15 minutes/weekday watching TV (3 hours 15 minutes on the weekend). That's 45 min/day more than the richer person.

<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11.htm>

I suspect a big component of why the poor children don't develop as much is because they observe their parents spending 2-3 hours/day watching TV, 8-10 minutes reading, and emulate those habits. (It's probably closer to 4 hours/day for the 80% of the poor who are not employed.)

The rich people observe their parents spending 15-30 minutes/day reading, less TV, more sports, and emulate those habits as well.

A scary thought: most people spend more than 2 hours/day watching TV. Imagine what might happen if everyone in America turned the TV off for an hour and did something productive!

<comment><USER5> but outlawing TV would be too much government interference, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER4> I could certainly get behind making "no TV, more sports" a condition of receiving welfare/medicaid/etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how that relates to the study that poor kids hear less words than their richer peers ([http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132740565/closing-the- achievem...](http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132740565/closing-the-achievement- gap-with-baby-talk)).

</comment><comment><USER7> Urgh, headline sucks! Does the study really find that being poor _causes_ a limiting of mental ability? Or does being poor _correlate_ with a limiting of mental ability?

My take is that bad nurturing causes the decline in mental ability, and wealth is merely a reasonable indicator for quality of nurturing. This distinction is important if attempts are made to mitigate the limitations.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if they controlled for family size.

I imagine a big effect on a child's cognitive development comes from the amount of time they spend with their parent. If wealthier families have fewer children, and therefore have more parental attention per child, that could explain the disparity.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm surprised at how these mindless studies keep on finding that if you don't eat well when you're a child, your brain won't have enough resources to fully develop. I thought we knew this from a long time ago.

How 'bout they do a study of how to feed the poor instead?

</comment><comment><USER10> related? <http://mcclanahoochie.com/blog/2010/11/reaction-range-of-iq/> i think so

</comment><comment><USER11> Ramanujan[1] had smallpox as a child and died due to malnutrition at the age of 32. As much as we would love to believe otherwise, intelligence is a genetic trait much like athleticism. Unfortunately, the former statement is taboo in our PC culture, while the latter is common sense.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan></comment>


F.lux automatically adjusts your computer lighting to match your environment - <AUTHOR> https://justgetflux.com/ <comment><USER2> This should probably get tagged [2013] or something, there are now built-in options into most platforms (at least Android, iOS, Plasma).

<comment><USER3> Most of them stole the idea from F.lux, though. It's the software equivalent of pulling up the ladder. Google/Apple/Amazon added f.lux-style blue-light filters to their own OS's, while at the same time locking down access features that would prevent userland apps from being allowed to do the same thing.

<comment><USER4> Adapting a display to the time of the day isn't really something F.lux invented. The displays in cars, planes and other devices have been doing that forever to not blind you at night.

<comment><USER5> As far as I know, car displays just change the brightness, not the color temperature. Can't speak to planes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The hues and implementation of F.lux over the built-in options makes so that even with platform support I'm using F.lux instead.

Whatever I'm using on my Pixelbook is jarring. There is a subtlety to making it invisible when looking at the screen for a long time. Lot of the system implementations do weird and noticeable things to colors that I don't experience with F.lux. Sometimes I can't even tell if it's turned on anymore (although it's obvious to everyone who doesn't run F.lux).

</comment><comment><USER7> Seems like someone accidentally installed F.lux on the Bay Area skyline today

<comment><USER8> They should set wrong timezone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I remember visiting a client in 2014 with my MacBook running F.lux. We were working late when I heard some friendly mocking from the other side of the room: "Hah, your Mac display has such a yellow tint!" (they were PC and Windows users).

Their jaws dropped when I explained that my display's color temperature was adjusting for the time of day/night and I bet the F.lux website got some extra visits that evening.

</comment><comment><USER10> the Linux equivalent is [http://jonls.dk/redshift/](http://jonls.dk/redshift/)

<comment><USER11> GNOME also has this feature built-in called "Night Light" in the display settings.

<comment><USER12> I don't like Night Light because the minimum filter level ("less warm") is still too intense for me. Increasing the range of the slider in that direction would fix this.

There's also the need to use a schedule, as opposed to simply enabling/disabling the filter at any time. But I noticed I can get around that limitation by setting the schedule from 20:00 to 19:59 and then using the global toggle.

<comment><USER13> I like this extension, it puts a slider in the menu and you can choose the range, [https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1276/night-light- slid...](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1276/night-light-slider/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I used this for several years before switching to Redshift (simply because it's built into my distribution's packaging). The only benefit I've found of Redshift over f.lux is that the transition at dusk and dawn is gradual instead of changing abruptly.

<comment><USER15> f.lux has three transition options now

Slow: Natural timing

Medium: Adapt your eyes

Very Fast: Gaming

I don't know about the medium mode but in slow the transition happens very naturally to a point that you don't notice it at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Congratulations @IMAYousaf you are one of today's lucky 10,000 — [https://xkcd.com/1053/](https://xkcd.com/1053/)

I personally dislike automatic screen light adjustment. I don't know what it is but whenever it happens I immediately feel weird, like the world is moving around me for no reason, some people call this "Motion Sickness". I also had problems with the built-in mechanism in macOS, which uses a light detector near the camera, because I live in a house with big windows near a very transited road with trucks passing by every few minutes. Every time a truck passes the amount of light passing through the windows reduces forcing macOS to readjust the amount of light in the screen and then readjusting again when the truck is out of sight.

I am sure you will feel sick too if you see that happening ±144 times a day.

<comment><USER17> I hadn't realized my Mac had the auto adjustment enabled until I read your post. Until now I thought my monitor was going wonky - it seemed to shift colours suddenly every once in a while during the day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've been using f.lux for years and definitely think it helps considerably (certainly when opening my laptop at night, I don't get completely blinded). I've recently been wondering if blue light glasses are similarly effective-- anyone have data (or anecdata) about their effectiveness?

</comment><comment><USER19> I used to use Flux, but everytime it dimmed, I'd override it... after a while, I just turned it off because I used the bright screen to help keep me awake. It is a cool idea I'd like to use on my kids screens.

</comment><comment><USER20> I prefer sct as it's much more lightweight although it won't change automatically according to time. It's easy to map shift as keyboard shortcuts in i3/sway, etc..

</comment><comment><USER21> I use F.lux to minimize blue light at all times, not just at night. You get used to it, and blue light is said to be harmful for long term vision as well as disruptive of sleep.

Sometimes I disabled F.lux for an hour if I want to watch a video or do work that is color sensitive.

</comment><comment><USER22> what are the differences between blue light coating on glasses and using something like f.lux?

<comment><USER23> I have blue-blocking tint on my glasses, it doesn't do much but blocks some of the harshest blue lights.

f.lux is on a whole other level and completely tints your screen

I love f.lux (and it's cousins) for two reasons:

1\. when it's real late at night (usually b/c I'm getting paged at 4am), it's a godsend. I'm talking when it's so dark that even the lowest brightness setting is too bright, f.lux is a lifesaver

2\. I have my flux setup to go orange at 6pm. This gives a not-so-subtle clue to my brain that work-time is over. It serves as an excellent way to prevent overworking. Even if I do go over 6pm, I'm aware that I'm working "overtime" and just get what I need done and then go away.

<comment><USER22> darn this is what i suspected. I've long been a user of f.lux and share the same positive sentiments. I ask because I just got blue light coating on my glasses and they haven't arrived yet. Feel like I might have been scammed a bit, haha

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I use it to not get the red eyes.

</comment><comment><USER25> There is this weird phenomenon on HN where every time someone posts about flux, it's guaranteed to get to the top, and there will soon be 100 single- threaded comments of people saying how they use it and what a godsend it is. Bikeshedding to the next dimension.

<comment><USER26> how does bikeshedding apply to this situation?

my understanding of the term is getting caught up in minute details instead of the main work, such as arguing over the color of a bike shed before the foundation of the house is laid

<comment><USER25> Maybe I'm appropriating the term. Flux is a bikeshed in the sense that it's not anything groundbreaking or complicated or significant ( _ducks_ ) yet everyone feels the need to weigh in on it when given the chance. What I mean is, flux opinions are like assholes. Or to reference the xkcd comic below, for every lucky 10,000 there are 10,000 people who will gladly share their story with you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Also borks colors and brightness and can't be fully removed without windows reinstall.

<comment><USER28> [citation needed]

<comment><USER27> Three different computers I had.</comment></comment></comment>


What Is GNU Social and Is Mastodon Social a "Twitter Clone"? - <AUTHOR> https://robek.world/featured/what-is-gnu-social-and-is-mastodon-social-a-twitter-clone/ <comment><USER2> What I have seen the small amount of time I have spent on Gnu Social is that the Privacy settings is not feasible. You can close down your profile that only your accepted followers will be able to see and interact with your private posts.

The issue I have addressed is that, if you want to have followers of your public feed and let friends access the private feed there is no option for that.</comment>


What's missing in data science talks? Domain expertise - <AUTHOR> http://www.ohadsamet.com/2012/08/26/whats-missing-in-data-science-talks/

<comment><USER2> It's usually much easier for an expert in techniques to develop some domain expertise than vice versa - as long as they recognize the actual need to do so. And actually, the techniques end up being pretty good mechanisms for rigorously building such domain expertise, as you see which variables lead to good predictions and what pattern of interactions leads to breakdowns in performance.

<comment><AUTHOR> My experience has been that experts in techniques get entrenched in techniques and have a hard time seeing beyond the numbers.</comment></comment>


Falsehoods programmers believe about programming - <AUTHOR> http://www.sicpers.info/2017/12/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-programming/ <comment><USER2> > There is some innate affinity for computer programming which you must be > born with, and cannot be taught.

This being a falsehood is a matter of considerable debate, and it's impossible to prove (There are certainly some people with very low ability for computer programming, to the point of effectively useless. How would you prove this was entirely nurture and not nature?). This is a not a good candidate for a "list of falsehoods" article.

<comment><USER3> Nobody will argue that there are certain things you must be born with in order to learn to program. If you are born without a brain - literally without the brain organ - you likely will not end up a successful programmer. This is an absurd reduction, but the point is that there is a necessarily a set of physiological properties one must possess to program. The question is then whether a small group of people possess them, or whether a much larger group do. I err on the side of the latter; while there are definitely aspects of programming today that are pretty inaccessible (I'm looking at you, arcane Unix shell conventions and invocations), the fundamental practice of reducing abstract tasks into fundamental steps is a skill that I believe most humans have the ability to learn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have this hypothesis that everything I believe is wrong. Probably best not to cling too tightly to beliefs.

<comment><USER5> I thought you were going to end your sentence like this:

>I have this hypothesis that everything I believe is wrong. Probably best not to cling too tightly to that hypothesis.

<comment><USER6> Maybe unrelated, but one of my favorite sayings is "moderation in all things, including moderation".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Compiled languages are always faster.

More like: there is such a thing as a "compiled language".

<comment><USER8> That points to an article saying java is sometimes faster than c++. Maybe I'm just being dumb but isn't java compiled too?

<comment><USER9> You see some people refer to Java as a compiled language because of its compilation to byte code

You see other people point out that Java is not a compiled language as it's only converted to byte code.

This is one of the few tech pedantic debates where I've chosen to not pick sides

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > at least the outcome of _integer_ maths is always defined.

Assuming you mean "integer arithmetic", the answer is a resounding _yes_ , it's well-defined. Of course, so-called "machine integers" are not a faithful model of the integers, and, in particular, so-called "signed integers" in C aren't a faithful model of anything nice.

<comment><USER11> > Assuming you mean "integer arithmetic", the answer is a resounding yes, it's > well-defined.

Given that the topic of this article was falsehoods about _programming_ —no, the author did not mean "integer arithmetic".

However, even in the case of mathematics, this isn't true—there are a lot of non-standard models of arithmetic, and which you choose depends on what you're trying to do with it: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- standard_model_of_arithmet...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non- standard_model_of_arithmetic)

<comment><USER10> > However, even in the case of mathematics, this isn't true—there are a lot of > non-standard models of arithmetic

Believe it or not, there are people who use actual integers in computer programming. Not everyone is stuck with C and its ilk.

> However, even in the case of mathematics, this isn't true—there are a lot of > non-standard models of arithmetic

Meaning is to be found in the axioms themselves, not in models.

<comment><USER11> > Meaning is to be found in the axioms themselves, not in models.

Yep, and all of them are incomplete.

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_arithmetic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_arithmetic) would like to have a word with you.

(Of course, it's not recursively axiomatizable.)

<comment><USER11> > Of course, it's not recursively axiomatizable.

Then again, who is these days?

<comment><USER10> > Then again, who is these days?

I have no idea what you mean by "who". In any case, let's trace the conversation back to the original topic:

(0) Integer arithmetic is well-defined. Nonstandard models of arithmetic are just that - models. The well-definedness of a theory doesn't depend on the existence of a unique model.

(1) The fact you're programming a computer doesn't magically change the properties of the integers. It is even possible to have a data type for integers! (Not in C, though.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> List of article themes that are played out

</comment><comment><USER13> Reminds me [http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Write_...](http://programmer.97things.oreilly.com/wiki/index.php/Write_Code_for_Humans_not_Machines)

</comment><comment><USER14> _bug-free computer hardware is completely deterministic_

This. The CPU has been a chaos box for at least the past 17 years. If not longer.

</comment><comment><USER15> Not a good sign when the very first item is entirely subjective.

<comment><USER16> So, you think it is entirely subjective that programming has an ethical impact, and objectively it doesn't?

<comment><USER15> A classic way it's phrased is "is a gun manufacturer responsible for murder?" It's an age old debate with a lot of people arguing either side.

<comment><USER16> ... which is just an idiotic question to ask. The answer is ultimately uninteresting because it is essentially nothing more than a reflection of the definitions used in evaluating the question.

The interesting question is whether the decisions and actions of a gun manufacturer can influence the well-being of humans, and even more importantly, how they do so, as it is just obvious that they can, and in the consequence how gun manufacturers should behave if they are to maximize their positive impact on humanity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Terrible list. Lots of things are straw men, or just wrong. And do we _really_ need another one of these lists? Next we'll be back to "X considered harmful". Ugh.

<comment><USER18> Could you please not respond to what you feel is a bad article by posting a bad comment? I understand the temptation, but there's no information here, and we're hoping for a little better than "ugh".

<comment><USER17> I don't see why I should have to really. Have you heard the argument that bullshit is a lot easier to create than to refute?

Anyway fine:

> There is some innate affinity for computer programming which you must be > born with, and cannot be taught.

Clearly true. Anyone who has been to a non-profit educational school knows there are some people you simply could not reach to program. Of course more people could program than do, but that isn't what he said.

> Compiled languages are always faster

Nobody sane would claim this. People say compiled languages are _generally_ faster, which is true. Besides his link refuting this is to Java, which _is_ compiled! (Just In Time).

> at least the outcome of integer maths is always defined

Yes it is in nearly every programming language.

> every computer on sale today (2017) uses two's complement notation for > negative numbers.

To a rounding error, yes this is true. His link is to a computer from the 60s. Seriously.

> every computer on sale today uses a register width that's a multiple of > eight bits.

Again, probably 99.9999999% do. Actually... Probably more.

I could go on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Swift is a good language"</comment>


A Cashless Economy Locks Out the Poor - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/06/nyregion/how-the-cashless-economy-shuts-out-the-poor.html <comment><USER3> A society without cash is a society in which every person has no choice but to get the permission of someone they don't know and will never meet each and every time they seek to obtain food, water, shelter, or transportation, and that permission can be revoked instantly, silently, and invisibly at any time.

This is now before the city council in NYC, as the article points out, so the topic has come up in conversation more recently (and it's noticeable, my office is in the area profiled in the story) and it's amazing how many people just haven't considered the basic dynamics of that.

<comment><USER4> I agree with your assertion, however:

> that permission can be revoked instantly, silently, and invisibly at any > time

This can happen with cash too, as 99% of Indians found out to their utter dismay on 8 November 2016!! [1].

Granted that this is a Black Swan event [2] and the revocation was done publicly. However, as someone who lived through this and experienced it first hand, I stopped trusting cash from that day onwards. I carry _just enough_ with me to get by for couple of days.

I don't know of any other single event that sent shockwave through 1300+ million humans literally overnight.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetis...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Indian_banknote_demonetisation)

[2] I sincerely hope so. Though it's been carried out a few times in India, thankfully not within the same generation.

<comment><USER5> > However, as someone who lived through this and experienced it first hand, I > stopped trusting cash from that day onwards. I carry just enough with me to > get by for couple of days.

I suppose you leave the rest in a bank account. That won't help if all bank accounts are frozen, as I lived through in the early 90s here in Brazil (we called it "Confisco da Poupança", see [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_Collor#Medidas_do_Plano_...](https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_Collor#Medidas_do_Plano_Collor_I)).

<comment><USER6> A country willing to destroy it's hard currency would have absolutely no problem seizing the bank accounts of it's citizens. So these types of events are not really arguments for or against cash, it's all dumb luck if you get to keep one or the other.

In stable countries with a functional rule of law however, bank credit is seriously inferior to cash for all purposes except convenience and security.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My bank locked me out of my account because they didn't approve of the way I was using it (crypto whitdrawal). All fully legal, from an exchange account I hold in my name. They now give me the runarround asking me to prove with paper documents that I own the money (interesting reversal to physical interaction). No calls, no case person I can talk to, just an impersonal postage address, and if I contact the branch all I get is 'you need to send the documents'. I did, more than two weeks ago, I dropped them in this very branch. Sorry, we can't help you because "an investigation is ongoing". So I am guilty and without money until proven otherwise.

Bottom line, cashless without a citizen right to unreversible banking is a form of bondage. It creates a paralel, private justice system, where you have no rights and your are judged by the value you have as a customer of the bank. A small customer is worthless and rightless.

<comment><USER5> > It creates a paralel, private justice system

Can't you just bring the traditional justice system back into it, for instance, by suing them in small claims court demanding the release of your money? The judiciary supersedes whatever internal mechanisms the bank has; if the court tells the bank to give back your money corrected for inflation plus moral damages, they have no choice but to comply.

<comment><USER6> The point is, I shouldn't have to do that; if access to banking is necessary for survival then the burden should be on the bank to get a court order before they have the right to freeze an account.

If I sue the bank, it's an absolute guarantee I will be locked out of the account for a few months to a year until the case is settled. And it will be a civil claim against a commercial entity, the burden of proof is on me, I don't have access to a free lawyer and so on. The parallel justice system has already scored a massive victory against me from day one by stripping me of most civil rights.

That's fine and dandy in a world where banking is optional and banks are businesses like any other, but in a cashless world being locked out of banking is a sentence to homelessness or death. How many days of rent delay will your landlord accept until he evicts you? How many days can you live on the streets before you are being fired from your job? What is the average life expectancy of a homeless person with no income and how often do they win in court against major financial institutions?

<comment><USER7> > The point is, I shouldn't have to do that;

Don't worry about it. You can't.

[https://tax.findlaw.com/tax-problems-audits/ten-things-to- re...](https://tax.findlaw.com/tax-problems-audits/ten-things-to-remember- when-you-owe-the-irs.html)

Things that can be done to you without any (beforehand) judicial oversight , by the IRS. Or, for that matter, can legally happen without so much as warning to you.

        File a tax lien against you;
        Levy your bank account;
        Garnish your wages;
        Close down your business;
        Seize and sell your home;
        Damage employment and business relationships;
        Assess you personally for corporate employment taxes;
        Put you in a monthly installment payment arrangement that is too high;
        Contact your banker, neighbors, friends and business relationships concerning your tax liabilities;
        Go after third party transferees of your assets.

Note that, at all times, you should consider that you might need to hire, and retain for ~a year, an accountant and a lawyer, plus add the same amount in reserve for court fees and the like.

We are effectively proposing adding "taking every last dollar out of your, your family and kids and anyone you did business with wallet directly".

The government is not very reasonable when it feels it is owed money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've traveled to developing countries (not Africa).

Reality is mobile money is big - it basically lets the poor / unbanked have kind of a virtual wallet it seemed. I never signed up (westerner with a Visa card and USD) but didn't feel like it was locking people out. Folks using these wallets could transfer funds internationally to relatives surprisingly easily it seemed (I'm used to western union) as well.

Be interesting if something like these non-bank mobile wallets ever come to US (in overseas countries you can load your wallet with cash on street everywhere so you don't have to have a visa / debit card to do so).

</comment><comment><USER9> As a counterfactual the other hand everyone in China appears to pay by mobile phone without problems using WeChat Pay and Alipay and no one seems to be locked out. Almost no one I know carries cash - it's just for the tourists who can't access that system. In Africa, mobile payments seems to have driven financial inclusion rather than the reverse.

The cashless economy certainly drives de-anonymization, but very little evidence of "locking out poor" exists where this has actually happened

<comment><USER10> Only about 60% of all Chinese even have a smartphone. [1] "Everyone" you saw was probably a relatively well-off member of the middle class in a first-tier city. As a tourist, you obviously won't see anyone who can't afford visiting a touristy area. Try looking for a place more than an hour from any public transport and check again whether the people there all use cashless payment.

[1] [https://www.statista.com/statistics/257045/smartphone- user-p...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/257045/smartphone-user- penetration-in-china/)

<comment><USER11> > As a tourist, you obviously won't see anyone who can't afford visiting a > touristy area.

This is totally untrue. Tourist areas attract beggars.

Beggars may not have smartphones, but penetration in first-tier cities goes much farther than "relatively well-off members of the middle class".

<comment><USER12> Interestingly, beggars even have QR codes for WeChat payments: [http://www.asiaone.com/china/no-loose-change-beggars- china-n...](http://www.asiaone.com/china/no-loose-change-beggars-china-now- accepting-mobile-payments)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A cashless society allows every single transaction to be tracked, I do not want this.

<comment><USER14> And controlled remotely. It gives massive power in the hands of those who control the tech. It's downright dystopian. I mean... the tech itself is great... but combined with what we know of human nature, it's a recipe for high-tech feudalism.

<comment><USER15> I mean it already gives such power, there's no one stopping someone adding couple of zeroes next to their account.

<comment><USER14> Well, now you can take your money out as cash under extreme necessity. In a fully cashless society your entire life savings are just a few bits on a hard disk...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Another side-effect is for donations. In London it's possible to live without any cash. Even markets are accepting cards now.

There are often charities that are asking for money at the entrances of the tube. The UK is depending quite heavily on charities for people in need. This year it looks like they started equipping themselves with contact-less payment systems. It would be interesting to be able to see the numbers behind the scene.

What is quite sad is that beggars are not able to equip themselves with contact-less payment systems. I assume that they necessarily will become dependent on the charities to be able to survive.

<comment><USER17> > What is quite sad is that beggars are not able to equip themselves with > contact-less payment systems

In Sweden I've seen a beggar with a "Swish" number displayed. (Swish is the domestic cashless person-to-person payment system, all you need to use it is a cell phone and a bank account). So it's not impossible for beggars to be cashless.

<comment><USER16> Can everyone get a bank account in Sweden?

I don't know if the experience of giving some physical money to someone necessarily translates well. Do you know if people actually bother to read/scan the "Swish" number to do donations?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is an important point to be discussed, that happens mainly in violent/poor countries: the frequent robbery (and it's consequences, like murders).

A cashless economy will help solve this problem that affects everyone, especially the poor (paradoxically).

<comment><USER19> lol what?

they going to make you open your phone. send your money away to them. then steal your phone.

<comment><USER18> It's quite different. We're talking about digital money, traceables transactions, improved security systems and so on.

I'm not saying that this will solve all problems, but will make things difficult for the thieves.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> A cashless society requires computers to work flawlessly to function. It requires those controlling the network to make decisions with the public's best interest foremost.

</comment><comment><USER21> If the problem is that some people don't have a checking account, wouldn't it better to provide them with a cheap/free checking account?

Even if all local shops accept cash, there's still tons of stuff you can't do without a checking account.

On the topic of cash-free living: I only use cash for 3 things these days: to buy cheese, to pay my cleaning lady, and for my son's weekly allowance. Even the babysitters accept online payment these days.

<comment><USER8> 1) What is more secure - Venmo behind face ID on an apple phone or a checking account that literally anyone who has the numbers (which you give when you write a check) can take money out of, either by creating a versa check or doing an ACH debit so all your money disappears? You are a poor person - <USER2> you in a good position to see dispute resolution through?

2) Garnishment orders - can the state or other collectors garnish the checking account - so all your money disappears?

3) Will the bank allow the account to go negative, charging major fees, then blacklisting you with checksystems?

4) How controllable is saving money in these accounts? Some folks "save" money by not cashing their checks, then going to a check cashing place when they need the money.

Is it possible that a few % of population have medical debt, tax debt or other support orders that make using a normal checking account difficult? Past experience with fraud or being ripped off in a checking account?

<comment><USER21> 1) Why would you allow other people to take money out of your account? Modern checking accounts require two-factor authentication. (And who even uses checks these days?)

2) Not without a court order I would hope.

3) Depends on what you choose and what the bank will allow. It's safer not to.

4) I'm still puzzled over the relevance of checks.

I admit, every time I discuss such financial issues with Americans, I keep being surprised by how medieval American banking still is. Isn't there a market for modern banks over there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I can see the potential problems, but maybe a part of the solution would be to legally give the poor a right to a basic/free bank account.

<comment><USER23> Forcing people that are struggling to live day-to-day to use bank accounts just makes life worse for them.

The first thing that happens when they're in debt is that their bank account gets frozen to pay the debts leaving them with nothing.

Forcing all transactions to be electronic takes away the margins they live in. It's no longer possible for them to pay 1/2 their rent with a promise to pay the rest in a couple of days when they get paid so that they can feed their children during that period. The rent comes out of their account on time and their children go hungry until payday.

<comment><USER24> This depends on the laws. In the UK there are requirements lenders and collectors must follow. You can get an agreement for a low repayment based on your required spending.

> It's no longer possible for them to pay 1/2 their rent with a promise to pay > the rest in a couple of days when they get paid so that they can feed their > children during that period.

Why not? You can transfer money whenever you want.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Something like crypto coins/cash would have best of the both worlds: good as cash, transactable online.

</comment><comment><USER26> Instead of stopping business from doing what is best for them, why don't we help the poor by providing them with the tools necessary to take part on the economy? Is it possible to help those less fortunate to have access to the right tools?

<comment><USER27> Having cash as an available option throughout the economy greatly complicates a whole range of bad behaviors by private entities and governments.

Having a cash option available benefits society and just giving poor people electronic banking would not confer the same benifits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why are businesses in large cities going cashless? Are there any sinister reasons for doing this? The article seems too harsh. I thought going cashless was mainly to speed things up during check out.

</comment><comment><USER29> A hipster-ish coffee shop I use has now gone cashless entirely - you _cannot_ pay with cash.

They must have hit a tipping point where the faff of cash drawers, trips to the bank and so on were not worth it.

<comment><USER30> Seem to remember something about 'legal tender'. Meant you had to accept cash payment. Of course you could refuse the customer on other grounds...

Might not be a thing in the land of hipster-ish coffee shops.

<comment><USER31> > Legal tender has a very narrow and technical meaning, which relates to > settling debts. It means that if you are in debt to someone then you can't > be sued for non-payment if you offer full payment of your debts in legal > tender. [1]

[1] [https://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is- legal-...](https://edu.bankofengland.co.uk/knowledgebank/what-is-legal- tender/)

<comment><USER32> So what differentiates an unpaid bill from a debt?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Apparently nobody has heard of prepaid debit cards?</comment>


Light Field Photography with a Hand-Held Plenoptic Camera (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.stanford.edu/papers/lfcamera/

<comment><USER2> This is rather fascinating too - [http://cameramaker.se/microlenses.htm](http://cameramaker.se/microlenses.htm) on how a light field array can be made.

</comment><comment><USER3> Also check out Lytro, the company created based on this technology. They've got some pretty impressive demos on their website: [https://pictures.lytro.com/](https://pictures.lytro.com/)

<comment><USER4> I have an original Lytro camera.

I had a whole lot of fun with it at first, but it's fallen into disuse. The live refocusing is a fun trick, but in practice what the camera is really doing is taking ~10 simultaneous pictures with different focal lengths, and letting you choose among them after the fact when you're using their special app.

The novelty of this trick wears off quickly. In practice, I know what I want to focus on at the point when I'm taking the picture in the vast majority of circumstances, and if I want to keep my options open I can bracket. In those situations, using 90% of the sensor's pixels to record versions of the image using focal lengths I don't care about just means I'm getting a 1 megapixel image when I could have had 10.

Where I had high hopes was that this would be great for macrophotography, where focus is a lot harder to get right. Unfortunately it's really difficult to convince the camera to focus in close enough to capture the subject. I'm not sure if this is a physical limitation of the hardware or if it's a firmware issue, but either way it was disappointing.

So all that negative nellying aside, one spot where I think this technology could be really neat is in computer vision for robotics. I'm guessing that using a plenoptic camera instead of a stereoscopic pair of cameras for vision would enable capture of better 3D information, or at least 3D information with different characteristics that might be more useful in some circumstances.</comment></comment>


Extremophiles and life in the most unlikely of places - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/extremophiles-and-life-in-the-most-unlikely-of-places <comment><USER2> Can we get some love here for bdelloid rotifers, while we're on topic?

They are positively known to slurp up any DNA floating about when they reconstitute, and are found in a wider range of habitats than tardigrades, if that's possible. Different tardigrade species have different habitat preferences, but rotifers are in them all.

Interestingly, they are parthenogenic, which normally is a species death sentence, but those rotifers just keep on keepin' on.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tardigrades are amazing because of the range they can survive in. I mean it's amazing some animals can live in 99C water, but perhaps they die from cold at 97C.

</comment><comment><USER4> Everybody is somebody's extremophile.

</comment><comment><USER5> Looks like a space suit.</comment>


Ask HN: How did you meet your cofounder? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> 2013 there was a big flood in Germany. I was a victim and lost a lot of my stuff. I instantly wrote a simple and fast HTML-app to coordinate all those thousands of volunteering flood-helpers. The city and the university who tried to organize all volunteering citizens officially communicated the tool in press releases and on their websites. Max, my todays co-founder wrote an e-mail and asked if he could help...

</comment><comment><USER3> For me, AngelList was what allowed us to find each other. [https://angel.co/](https://angel.co/)

<comment><USER4> How did angelist help?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I worked a contract at a company. Met my cofounder there. My contract ended. We began working on a thing.

</comment><comment><USER6> I met a cofounder while interviewing potential customers during the early validation, pre MVP. His questions were smart, he knew the market and has been a founder before. Right after the meeting, I called my other cofounder and told her we should setup a meeting and get him onboard.

</comment><comment><USER7> I met my cofounder Alexander in university hostel. We lived in the same block but different rooms =) Now we are building service for ecommerce [http://mydataprovider.com/](http://mydataprovider.com/)

</comment><comment><USER8> This is extremely timely for me. I met my co-founder 10 years ago, and we got on super well and made a great match. She had to bail for personal reasons, and now I face the decision of whether to continue solo, find another cofounder, or fold up shop.

</comment><comment><USER9> It is known thay many startup guys are single. And me and my cofounder, for our no longer existing startup, met in a place whith a group of other guys. All of us were going to meet one woman. For private affairs. Its a strange situation but it happens.

</comment><comment><USER10> She was my teacher's sister, we became friends in 2004. Stayed in touch, started first startup in 2010, later started working again on a small project in 2011, which eventually became our current startup Markhor. Got married together in 2015!

</comment><comment><USER11> Slept 20 ft away from each other at a hacker hostel in SF.

</comment><comment><USER12> Startup Catalyst in 2014. [http://www.startupcatalyst.com.au/](http://www.startupcatalyst.com.au/)

</comment><comment><USER13> There was and maybe still is this site called TechCofounder that was started some years ago, by a Korean guy (maybe in the States).

</comment><comment><USER14> My cofounder's wife hired me to tutor their kids in maths during my PhD.

Got talking about some ideas after a lesson and hit it off.

</comment><comment><USER15> He was my my college professor teaching calulus: my first class of my first day of freshman year.

</comment><comment><USER16> I was a cofounder and became acquainted with the founder through a mutual friend.

</comment><comment><USER17> Taking CS50 at Harvard Extension School; we chatted during the TF-led section.

</comment><comment><USER18> One through a forum, one through this previous cofounder

</comment><comment><USER19> My cofounder is an old friend from high school.

</comment><comment><USER20> Through a friend of a friend.

</comment><comment><USER21> Craigslist

<comment><USER22> More details please. This sounds like a good story.</comment></comment>


Docker Do's and Don'ts - <AUTHOR> http://devo.ps/blog/docker-dos-and-donts/

<comment><USER2> You say "For example, we used our DIY DNS management approach until the recent etcd update."

What is the etcd update, what system did you change to?

Seems there's lots of docker container dns servers, some using etcd. Don't know whether to try one of them or dive into kubernetes.</comment>


BinDiff now available for free - <AUTHOR> http://security.googleblog.com/2016/03/bindiff-now-available-for-free.html <comment><USER2> Shameless plug:

Several years ago I did a tool that shows differences between disassembled functions basic-block graphs, that you can use for free and it is GPLv2 licensed. I believe my tool shows the differences in a better way than bindiff, and it piggybacks on a disassembler made by a former coworker and friend.

Maybe someone wants to use it.

[http://www.coresecurity.com/corelabs-research/open-source- to...](http://www.coresecurity.com/corelabs-research/open-source- tools/aureliax)

PS: I don't work at Core Security anymore.

<comment><USER3> > I don't work at Core Security anymore

Where do you work now?

<comment><USER2> Now I work at a small company named Disarmista.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> To be clear, it is still a plugin for a ~$5000 application.

Nonetheless, thanks Google for lowering the bar for entry into professional security work!

<comment><USER5> From the article, it didn't appear that the decompiler was required, just the disassembler.

IDA Pro disassembler (professional edition) is $1129.

So it's somewhat less expensive.

I wish Hopper (hopperapp.com) were more publicized; it's only $89!

<comment><USER6> What's the Windows status there? I have looked at their web page many times and it's just confusing.

The main description page says Mac only, a blog post from long ago says Windows is available (with some restrictions).

<comment><USER7> Version 2 of Hopper had a Windows version available, but with later versions it has been discontinued: [https://twitter.com/bSr43/status/672185178236825601](https://twitter.com/bSr43/status/672185178236825601)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Remember that 4.2.0 works only with IDA 6.8, if you have an older IDA license, there goes the link to the 4.1.0 that is compatible with IDA 6.5+: [https://dl.google.com/dl/zynamics/bindiff410-win-x86.msi](https://dl.google.com/dl/zynamics/bindiff410-win-x86.msi)

UPDATE:

Linux is here: [https://dl.google.com/dl/zynamics/bindiff410-debian7-amd64.d...](https://dl.google.com/dl/zynamics/bindiff410-debian7-amd64.deb)

<comment><USER9> Well it mostly works on 6.9 as well. Linux should work without any restrictions, but on Windows there were some IDA Qt changes that lead to some annoyances: \- Can't reopen BinDiff windows after they were closed \- Shortcuts don't work

Other than that the Windows version is functional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why is the linked site served over http? [http://www.zynamics.com/software.html](http://www.zynamics.com/software.html)

Changing to https reveals a security cert valid for *.google.com, but not for www.zynamics.com.

<comment><USER11> Interesting. I brought up a similar issue about what browser dot org and while they took months to get it working with HTTPS, I consider it a win.

Still interesting though. I'd just use a separate certificate for this. > www.zynamics.com uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is only valid for the following names: _.google.com,_.android.com, _.appengine.google.com,_.cloud.google.com, _.google-analytics.com,_.google.ca, _.google.cl,_.google.co.in, _.google.co.jp,_.google.co.uk, _.google.com.ar,_.google.com.au, _.google.com.br,_.google.com.co, _.google.com.mx,_.google.com.tr, _.google.com.vn,_.google.de, _.google.es,_.google.fr, _.google.hu,_.google.it, _.google.nl,_.google.pl, _.google.pt,_.googleadapis.com, _.googleapis.cn,_.googlecommerce.com, _.googlevideo.com,_.gstatic.cn, _.gstatic.com,_.gvt1.com, _.gvt2.com,_.metric.gstatic.com, _.urchin.com,_.url.google.com, _.youtube- nocookie.com,_.youtube.com, _.youtubeeducation.com,_.ytimg.com, android.clients.google.com, android.com, g.co, goo.gl, google-analytics.com, google.com, googlecommerce.com, urchin.com, youtu.be, youtube.com, youtubeeducation.com Error code: SSL_ERROR_BAD_CERT_DOMAIN

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Isn't this the same basic idea as Google Updater's Courgette algorithm ([https://www.chromium.org/developers/design- documents/softwar...](https://www.chromium.org/developers/design- documents/software-updates-courgette))? Both seem to disassemble and then untangle the static call graph into something that can be effectively diffed.

<comment><USER13> It may well be, but given the relative age of both Courgette's publication and Zynamics prior to Google's purchase, I'd be surprised if the two implementations are not entirely disjoint.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Would love this introduced into [http://diffoscope.org/..](http://diffoscope.org/..).

</comment><comment><USER15> I saw someone post this googleblog entry over a month ago on the Freenode ##re channel. Then it was quickly taken down again. I guess they must have pulled the trigger a little early.

</comment><comment><USER16> Man, I'm getting tons of early-2000s vibes from the design of the zynamics website.

<comment><USER9> Yup, we didn't bother with updating it in a looong while :-/

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Is there a version for OS X?

<comment><USER9> There used to be (4.0). I'm working on it, though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> No OS-X support? :(

</comment><comment><USER19> It's an awesome free debugger!

</comment><comment><USER20> If you look at the EULA you'll see that free here means free as in no cost. It is still proprietary software and isn't considered "open source" by the OSI definition[2] even tho the page claims it's "open source".

[1] [http://www.zynamics.com/eula.html](http://www.zynamics.com/eula.html) [2] [https://opensource.org/osd](https://opensource.org/osd)

</comment><comment><USER21> This would have been news worthy 10 years ago.

Today, it's more like _shrug_ who cares.

Dependency on IDA, closed source, limited platform support, Java/Swing ...

Far better free solutions out there.

<comment><USER22> Serious question -- can you point to a better (or at least more free) recursive, graphical debugger for Windows than IDA?

<comment><USER23> Not sure what you mean by recursive, but OllyDbg [1] is an awesome free debugger on Windows.

[1] [http://www.ollydbg.de/](http://www.ollydbg.de/)

<comment><USER24> They are alluding to IDA's recursive disassembly capabilities.

[http://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2347/w...](http://reverseengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/2347/what- is-the-algorithm-used-in-recursive-traversal-disassembly)

(It's worth noting the answer from Igor Skochinsky, while not the selected answer, comes from IDA's author.)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do like to call your Internet Startup? - <AUTHOR>

How do you like to call your Internet Startup? Possible answers shown below.<p>* Cloud Service<p>* SAAS Application<p>* Online Service<p>* Internet Service<p>Please share your thoughts. <comment><USER2> I call my two sites SaaS websites because technically I wrote some software that performs a service to others.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, great.</comment></comment>


Beijing is turning to Ukraine to modernize its military - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/at-a-ukrainian-aircraft-engine-factory-chinas-military-finds-a-cash-hungry-partner/2019/05/20/ceb0a548-6042-11e9-bf24-db4b9fb62aa2_story.html <comment><USER2> Paywall bypass: [http://archive.fo/P8FCS](http://archive.fo/P8FCS)</comment>


XBug: New JavaScript Debugger - <AUTHOR> http://ajaxian.com/archives/xbug

<comment><AUTHOR> The direct link to this software is here <http://www.xbug.co.uk/> but the Ajaxian post explains all with less eyestrain.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's impressive it works with all the major browsers... but Windows only :-\</comment>


HP Memristor to beat flash? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/08/hp_memristor/

<comment><USER2> I sure appreciate _The Register_ 's ardent refusal to dumb down technical content for its readers:

> _"HP could build a Memristor-based brain that could learn and do human > stuff."_</comment>


Ask HN: Why aren't there more rental apps for renting personal items? - <AUTHOR> Why aren't there more rental apps for renting personal items?
I have some DJ equipment sitting around that I would like to rent out to fellow DJ's. I did some googling, and only came up with peerrenters (which I cannot find the US App Store) and Zilok (which has no app, and is online only). Then I found frntal which seems promising. Then this article (with a clickbaity title), but has some good information on why renting personal items isn't a thing.
https://www.fastcompany.com/3050775/the-sharing-economy-is-dead-and-we-killed-it
Thoughts? <comment><USER2> Sharing economy is usually supply side constrained. There needs to be enough incentive for the "seller". If you are renting your mower for $20, the $ benefit is way lower than renting your house.

An acquaintance of mine setup [http://www.rentoid.com/](http://www.rentoid.com/) a looong time ago and I never asked but this is probably the reason.

What I saw was professional hire companies using the site as leadgen because it was free advertising and they had lots of inventory. Makes sense right?

So the sharing economy had problems a long time before fastcompany shared its wisdom ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> That makes sense, thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> It's hard for a renter to disappear with your house/apartment but easy to never return your DJ gear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very True!</comment></comment>


Fear of radiation is more dangerous than radiation itself - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/ideas/fear-of-radiation-is-more-dangerous-than-radiation-itself <comment><USER2> "Nothing is terrible except fear itself" from an essay by Sir Francis Bacon

(Way before FDR said it BTW).

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://xkcd.com/radiation/](https://xkcd.com/radiation/)

So very true.

<comment><USER4> I really hate xkcd.</comment></comment>


How to Run Turing Machines on Encrypted Data [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://eprint.iacr.org/2013/229.pdf <comment><USER2> More SNARK work. I don't know how I feel about this; SNARKs are as simple as SAT solving and as prone to misexplanation as monads. Still, maybe they are the way forward; after all, anything which encrypts a TM efficiently offline is going to look something like a succinct non-interactive certificate.

<comment> Ar-Curunir SNARKs have no relation to SAT solving. Also, there is no a priori reason for encrypted Turing Machine evaluation to look like a SNARK. Indeed, the operations are very different: the first involves performing computation, while the second involves _checking_ computation</comment></comment>


The worst and the best plane trips. Visualizing 1M flight routes - <AUTHOR> http://matall.in/posts/deep-insights-visualizing-1m-flight-routes/ <comment><AUTHOR> Link to the tool the author used: [https://cartodb.com/deep- insights/](https://cartodb.com/deep-insights/)</comment>