IPFS – The Permanent Web - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs <comment><USER2> Previous discussion on IPFS:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772093](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772093)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10187555](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10187555)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069836](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8069836)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11134766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11134766)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9321209](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9321209)

Does anybody have any info on the development of Filecoin (sister protocol of IPFS)?

<comment><USER3> IPFS seems to be posted at least once every two weeks, maybe they're looking for repo traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I set up an IPFS node(?) on my server last night. The server has 3TB of space, so I thought I would be a good internet citizen and donate some space to mirror some of the ipfs archives ([https://archives.ipfs.io/](https://archives.ipfs.io/)).

Simple, right? So I installed and launched the ipfs docker image and then ran `ipfs pin add QmTZeE4yTiDd76YxbWvenneqSf5VhooNnA46WWWHtHcu5n`. I thought this would download that hash (IETF RFC Archive) locally and mirror it.

Instead the command just hung there. No output. Left it for an hour, still no output. Debug mode was useless and printed out nothing interesting. It took me a long while to realize that `ipfs pin add` takes a _file path_ of a _local file_ and pins it (or something? still not clear).

Ok. So lets run `ipfs get QmTZeE4yTiDd76YxbWvenneqSf5VhooNnA46WWWHtHcu5n` and then we can run `ipfs pin add local-hash`. Hmm, no output and no progress at all. After an hour there was some form of output that said I had downloaded 15mb of the archive, and it would take 8 more minutes to do. It still said this two hours later. Ok, so lets leave it overnight in a screen session.

Cut to next morning, I wake up to a message from my provider saying that they detected a port scan originating from my server, specifically from the port that ipfs uses. I think their detection systems misclassified the traffic, but it's just extra hassle. _And_ the archive was still on 15mb completed.

It's a very interesting technology, and it looks great for simple text files, but the UI is terrible. You want some kind of permanent web? Surely asking people to explicitly pin specific files isn't the way forward, wouldn't being able to say "I want to donate X gb of disk space, cache some stuff for people to use" be better?

<comment><USER2> > wouldn't being able to say "I want to donate X gb of disk space, cache some > stuff for people to use" be better?

I believe this is addressed by Filecoin

[http://filecoin.io/filecoin.pdf](http://filecoin.io/filecoin.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I would really love to see are "usecase recipes" like "I would like to share this data like that with those, what would be a good way to do so?". IPFS looks so cool and useful but I am always totally overloaded with its technical details and apparent complexity.

<comment><USER6> Have you got some specific use cases you'd like to see? I could write a post about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I recently used IPFS and Bitcoin for a hackathon to create a Blockchain Identity site using readable Bitcoin addresses:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdwiqyT0lLg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdwiqyT0lLg) [http://ronary.com](http://ronary.com)

</comment><comment><USER8> I didn't know about this, looks really interesting! How large are the chances that this could replace HTTP and when could that realistically happen?

<comment><USER9> Not very high. They're designed to do different things.

For example, IPFS only allows raw files and client-sidr code. This is not suitable for e-commerce websites or businesses, but very suitable for open- source and informational websites.

They solve different problems, so shouldn't be confused. Maybe someday in the future, IPFS could be integrated into browsers for a seamless experience between the two technologies, and that'd be pretty cool.

<comment><USER10> Benet said in a talk that they're working on making e-commerce work in distributed systems. Ethereum for instance does exactly that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> A better link may have been their actual site, ipfs.io.</comment>


Repositories held for ransom by using valid credentials - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2019/05/03/suspicious-git-activity-security-update/ <comment><USER2> > We believe that no data has been lost, unless the [...] GitLab copy was the > only one.

One difference between how GitLab and GitHub run their infrastructure is that GitLab doesn't keep reflogs, and uses git's default "gc" settings.

As a result they won't have the data in question anymore in many cases[1]. Well, I don't 100% know that for sure, but it's the default configuration of their software, and I'm assuming they use like that themselves.

Whereas GitHub does keep reflogs, and runs "git repack" with the "\--keep- unreachable" option. They don't usually delete git data unless someone bothers to manually do it, and they usually have data to reconstruct repositories as they were at any given point in time.

GitHub doesn't expose that to users in any way, although perhaps they'd take pity on some of their users after such an incident.

This isn't a critique of GitLab, just trivia about the storage trade-offs different major Git hosting sites have made, which might be informative to some other people.

I'm surprised no major Git hosting site has opted to provide such a "we have a snapshot of every version ever" feature. People would probably pay for it, you could even make them opt to pay for access to backups you kept already if they screwed things up :)

1\. Well, maybe as disaster backups or something. But those are harder to access...

<comment><USER3> This tendency of Hacker News users to want to monetize everything is sickening.

<comment><USER4> I wonder if one could monetize this tendency.

<comment><USER5> Monetyzer: The world is your oyster, it's about time you start collecting pearls.

<comment><USER6> Maybe this comment was inspired by WellDeserved, a truly underappreciated but still important app:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoK4_dQbfuU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoK4_dQbfuU)

<comment><USER5> No, but that was incredible. Thanks for introducing me to Cultivated Wit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Also GitHub users are affected. By the time of writing 379 public GitHub repos have been compromised:

[https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc...](https://github.com/search?o=desc&q=1ES14c7qLb5CYhLMUekctxLgc1FV2Ti9DA&s=indexed&type=Code)

<comment><USER8> I like this threat for open source software published on GH --

 _If we dont receive your payment in the next 10 Days, we will make your code public or use them otherwise._

<comment><USER9> (At least for public repos) Isn't this almost a compliment? (Having another person host your code and use it?) xD

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Based upon other comments the title has already been changed several times.

It still suggests Gitlab's infrastructure (internally) was compromised: "Suspicious git activity detected on Gitlab"

Something like "Gitlab users' repos held for ransom" seems more appropriate.

</comment><comment><USER11> "Gitlab.com was compromised" is a bad title. _Accounts on_ GitLab, and the credentials to access them, were compromised, but the title suggests that the whole platform was affected, which doesn't seem to be the case.

<comment><USER12> Looks like they changed the title. But I would have to say that the ability to delete a full repo with the credentials is a bit of a vulnerability.

To me, it seems like a good measure would be to mark deleted repos as "delete requested" then notify the users involved and give them a week or two to undo a total delete. Especially if it is an older repo with lots of commits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Gitlab was NOT compromised. Someone found passwords/tokens for Gitlab repositories exposed on the internet and held them for ransom.

<comment><USER14> Purging user data is one of the most common action attackers take when compromising an account. This makes it prudent for storage service providers to silently delay mass deletions to the extent allowed by their data deletion policy/GDPR to allow time to discover any breaches, or perhaps require second factor verification like a link sent via email.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There was a Docker Hub breach a few days ago, that's probably related.

I took a good look at how my personal tokens were used in Github and Gitlab.

\- Enable 2FA.

\- Enable Commit signing with GPG. for the past 2-3 years, I have slowly moved to sign commits and tags. GPG keys take a log of hygiene to work with (sub keys, revocation, etc), but they definitely can help in a situation like.

Git is a distributed VCS. If you have a repo cloned in a secure location (your server, Dev machine, etc), that is just as good as your Gitlab/hub hosted copy.

<comment><USER16> The 'play with docker' site used to make it pretty easy to see what others were up to and snag git creds if they left them around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The current title "Gitlab.com Was Compromised" doesn't seem accurate. There's someone (or a group) currently attacking online repositories (gitlab is not the only affected provider) using passwords found in scans for files like .gitconfig's and the like. Unless new information comes to light about gitlab specifically being compromised, I'd say this is more about individual private repos being on the sights of a targetted attack.

<comment><USER18> So git doesn't let you add the `.git` to the index. Most reports I've seen mention that SourceTree was used as a git client. Is it possible that SourceTree committed .git and pushed it to remotes which were then scraped?

<comment><USER19> [https://twitter.com/bad_packets/status/1124429828680085504](https://twitter.com/bad_packets/status/1124429828680085504)

Looks like someone was scraping for `.git/config`

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't get the ransom thing: users of a git repository have a clone of the repo that contains the whole history, no? So isn't it trivial to recreate the repository?

<comment><USER21> The attacker is also threatening to make these private repos public, or misuse their access to the repos in other ways (likely additional types of breaches).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Weird aside question: I notice the article says "at approximately 10:00pm GMT". Can someone explain why GMT might be chosen as a reference point here? Is there something I'm missing about the usage of GMT (and not UTC). It just seems particularly odd given that GMT is not (to my knowledge) actually being used as a concrete time-zone at the minute (BST is in effect for daylight savings).

<comment><USER23> In the UK, GMT is often used to refer to "the current British time" both GMT/BST. I've seen the same in the US where people say EST but mean EDT.

<comment><USER22> Is it? I mean, I'm British and I'm not aware of this.

<comment><USER24> I've seen a few people do it, but it's also usually corrected as been wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> \- Sidebar

For those who might not be aware: It's possible to configure your .git config to push to different remotes.

</comment><comment><USER26> While the fault lies with the users for not following security best practices, including enabling 2FA there are things gitlab/any site can do to help defend against these sorts of attacks. Some suggestions: Treat logins from datacenters as suspicious. (In this case the IP block identified belongs to World Hosting Farm Limited). Treat logins from a new/different ISP as suspicious. Limit access to the account and verify the login via email. It's not foolproof but as part of a defense in depth strategy it can be quite effective.

<comment> gitlab-security Thank you for your feedback and suggestions. Unfortunately, for each of these proposals, we're likely to have users asking us why we are restricting and/or blocking access.

A better defense-in-depth strategy would be to scan each public repo for credentials, and act accordingly when credentials are discovered in repos. We are working on this strategy, currently.

<comment><USER26> That doesn't help stop the attacks using breach lists that are even more prevalent.

You could start with email warnings of suspicious activity and fine tune the model parameters based on feedback from false positives. But generally a login from a device that has no previous cookie, from an ASN the account has never used before, especially if that ASN is a known data center, that then immediately attempts a destructive action, should be a pretty big warning flag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> A bit of a misleading headline. Somebody had passwords/tokens for certain repos, either from previous breaches at other services or those passwords being stored in plaintext as part of a deployment.

</comment><comment><USER28> Since the threat is to make the code public, there is nothing more gitlab can do to shut down the attempted blackmail. It seems unlikely to be a real threat to most?

<comment><USER29> Odd threat in that paying the ransom doesn't assure they wouldn't make it public anyway.

Also, someone else noted the ransom email domain has no MX or A records, so the instructions to email them won't work. They seem to be hoping someone will blindly pay the ransom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "...to wipe their Git repositories and hold them for ransom."

What an idiotic strategy to take with git repositories. Every local copy is a complete and fully-functioning copy of not just the code, but all history, etc. It's a non-centralized protocol.

</comment><comment><USER31> U2F token, which is supported by gitlab, would have stopped this

</comment><comment><USER32> A client of mine was hit by this. Makes me think I aught to go into security.. I brought up many concerns, and specifically about git access (using _very_ weak mechanisms), a few months ago, to which I was told to "clean things up when I can" but that it wasn't a priority.

</comment><comment><USER33> This is why I'm hosting GitLab myself even if I'm the sole user of the instance. For one thing I'm less of a target, the other is that this is not the first major problem with the hosted GitLab. I have better uptime for my instance than the hosted version.

</comment><comment><USER34> Mandated 2FA should really be a thing, especially on tech-oriented sites with such importance.

<comment><USER35> Both GitLab and GitHub allow organizations to require members to use 2fa. So the option is there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Some other info: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/03/git_ransomware_bitc...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/03/git_ransomware_bitcoin/)

<comment> yoz-y Out of all things to hold for ransom git repos seem like a bad idea. Most of the time there are multiple clones lying around anyways. I agree that having the source code leak can be bad news, but the code itself being secret should not be a critical part of the business.

<comment><USER37> Probably not, but I suspect some people will still pay the ransom anyway. Keep in mind, many people also do keep "secrets" used for other authenticating to other services in their git repos - even though it's a terrible idea.

<comment><USER38> These secrets are now compromised anyway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> [https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/209448/gitlab-a...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/209448/gitlab- account-hacked-and-repo-wiped)

</comment><comment><USER40> kinda hoping "testing weak passwords on your existing user's passwords" becomes standard practice at some point.

<comment><USER29> GitHub does that...it warns you with a banner.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The title on HN is clickbait, the article mentions Gitlab users storing their own Gitlab password/tokens insecurely. It doesn't look like "Gitlab was compromised" to me.

The original title is "Critical security announcement: Suspicious git activity detected".

<comment><USER42> Correct, users across GitLab and GitHub as been affected and in all cases valid credentials were used. Also see [https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/attackers- wip...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/attackers-wiping- github-and-gitlab-repos-leave-ransom-notes/)

We are updating our title to better reflect what happened.

<comment><USER43> Sorry but the title still doesn't reflect the actual issue which per your link is : "Attackers Wiping GitHub and GitLab Repos, Leave Ransom Notes"

<comment><USER42> Did you see our new title? [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/commit/447f2330...](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/commit/447f2330391992a16c54427d2252b5e3995d207b)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> >The breaches seem to rely on the attacker having knowledge of the affected users passwords in order to wipe their Git repositories and hold them for ransom.

Yeah, until I go to my computer and use "git push" again. No?

Also gitsbackup.com is registered but has no A/MX records so...

<comment><USER29> _" Also gitsbackup.com is registered but has no A/MX records so..."_

Gitlab should really note that in their blog posts and emails to users. Just in case someone is thinking of paying the ransom.

<comment><USER42> We agree that paying a ransom doesn't guarantee any further actions on the part of the attackers. But in our blog post we want to stick to what we know and can influence and not talk about an external DNS record that can be added at any time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> > We believe that no data has been lost, unless the owner/maintainer of the > repository did not have a local copy and the GitLab copy was the only one.

Too bad they don't make backups of users repositories?

<comment> phoe-krk GitLab is not a repository backup service. They are only required to hold multiple copies of what is the current version of the repository for their own hard drive fault tolerance purposes; they are not required to hold copies of the repository from a day, week, month, or year ago.

<comment><USER45> Was just a question, don't get me wrong here. Thought they would do this for their managed service.

<comment><USER46> You can see how GitLab handles repository backups on the following page [https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/infrastructure...](https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/engineering/infrastructure/design/disaster- recovery/#repository-data)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Balanced Partners With Coinbase and Adds Bitcoin Support - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/02/20/balanced-coinbase-bitcoin/

<comment><USER2> I'd like Coinbase even more if they implemented Dogecoin support. There's a huge community of new crypto users that would love to start using their Dogecoins on markets.

<comment><USER3> I am a long time Dogecoin booster. We would love to have support for Doge, either through Coinbase or through some similar entity.

<comment><USER4> > I am a long time Dogecoin booster.

This is like when recruiters want someone with 10+ years of experience in a technology that was invented 2 years ago. Dogecoin has been out of a little over 2 months now!

<comment><USER3> Sure. I got involved with doge within the first week and a half of it existing. 'long time' is all relative.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Awesome integration - any idea when it will leave private beta?

<comment><USER3> I just left a comment regarding this on GitHub: [https://github.com/balanced/balanced- api/issues/204#issuecom...](https://github.com/balanced/balanced- api/issues/204#issuecomment-35663110)

(I work at Balanced and managed this partnership.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't really consider this news since they are only doing a private beta.</comment>


From Leading the Egyptian Revolution to Making Minimum Wage in San Francisco - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/how-i-went-from-leading-the-egyptian-revolution-to/ <comment><USER2> Long read but very much worth it.

"As the drums of war sounded in America, Egyptians believed that we could not accept a foreign invasion of another Arab country. We were furious that our government, which was allied with the United States, allowed American and British warships to sail through the Suez Canal toward Iraq. I had an intuition that if the United States attacked Iraq, Egyptians would take to the streets."

There is so much irony in that paragraph combined with the title it is hard to know where to begin.

And what became of Egypt is also really not quite what he intended.

<comment><USER3> Overall, I'm against the Iraq war. But... I feel like an egalitarian Arab should have supported the Iraq invasion. Saddam was cruel to his people, his sons would crash weddings and rape just about anyone. The new Iraq government still has problems, but at least it's some semblance of a democracy.

Sam Harris says it best:

 _> As I tried to make clear on Maher's show, what we need is honest talk about the link between belief and behavior. And no one is suffering the consequences of what Muslim "extremists" believe more than other Muslims are. The civil war between Sunni and Shia, the murder of apostates, the oppression of women—these evils have nothing to do with U.S. bombs or Israeli settlements. Yes, the war in Iraq was a catastrophe—just as Affleck and Kristof suggest. But take a moment to appreciate how bleak it is to admit that the world would be better off if we had left Saddam Hussein in power. Here was one of the most evil men who ever lived, holding an entire country hostage. And yet his tyranny was also preventing a religious war between Shia and Sunni, the massacre of Christians, and other sectarian horrors. To say that we should have left Saddam Hussein alone says some very depressing things about the Muslim world._

[https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/can-liberalism-be- saved-...](https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/can-liberalism-be-saved-from- itself)

<comment><USER2> > I feel like an egalitarian Arab should have supported the Iraq invasion.

But they didn't. There is a lot of stuff wrong - from my perspective - in the Arab world, and nobody with actual power from the Arab world seems to actually want to do much about it. So we end with these half-hearted revolutions which are more regime changes than actual fundamental changes and if they are fundamental changes they tend to be for the worse rather than for the better. It's a real pity.

As for the Iraq war, Saddam and his sons - and all those supporting the regime - were complete assholes. And I would have supported regime change per-se for that reason alone, but that wasn't what was sold. Because if we _did_ support regime change for those reasons then there would be a long waiting list of other regimes that would deserve to be 'fixed' long before we'd get to Saddam (in spite of all the crimes they were engaged in the world is full of such trash, they were not the exception, in spite of the media spotlight being very much on Iraq).

<comment><USER4> Saddam was replaced by ISIS after an American inspired civil war that Cheney saw coming in 1994, so from a geopolitical realpolitik perspective, Saddam as lying smugly in his grave with a smirk thinking he did nothing wrong. American rhetoric such as "he's killing his own people" holds little weight, when we have seen America prop up regimes that routinely kill their own people for example in Latin America. In the end I think they got rid of Saddam in 91 because they were actually scared that he could put them in check if he wanted to, and that was enough to warrant containing him. Sure dictators are bad, by imperialists are worse, especially when they don't give two shits about the people and use baseless rhetoric to justify their invasion.

What's need in the Middle East is a home grown secular, scientific revolution and rejection of Islam. Without that, nothing is possible there and all revolutions and evolutions will fail. The Imperialists will continue their half ass crusade to civilize the natives... while only causing havoc and destruction.

<comment><USER5> How is the Western rejection of Christianity coming along?

<comment><USER2> Quite well except for a certain continent. In NL churches are being sold for peanuts because they're empty on Sundays. As the last generation that went to church regularly dies the church makes one last effort at value extraction: real estate price increases are being liquidated.

In the USA and Canada it is still very much a popular thing, no idea how long it will take to get to the point where people realize they're being had.

Religion can have positive effects in people's lives, but at the same time organized religion is used for vote marshalling and politics, it's just another power structure and a business to boot. This goes for most religions, not just for Christianity.

Personally I'd be fine with an englightened version of Islam, one that formally recognized the rights of women and that did away with the most antiquated and damaging aspects of the religion. Of course a push to effect that would result in even harsher pushback from the fanatics, for fear that such a strategy might succeed.

<comment><USER6> Speaking as an ardent secularist, I hope at least some of the older churches are being preserved for their historical value.

>Religion can have positive effects in people's lives, but at the same time organized religion is used for vote marshalling and politics, it's just another power structure and a business to boot. This goes for most religions, not just for Christianity.

The relationship between the House of Saud and the Wahabbist establishment in Saudi Arabia demonstrates this. It's absolutely chilling stuff that is woefully unexamined for its importance to the making of the modern world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Note that if you read carefully, the guy was actively supported by the U.S. at the time he prepared the "revolution." He claims he's disappointed by Muslim Brotherhood gaining power, but it was he who even helped them, he being then just "an activist" and they being a real "political group":

"I negotiated agreements between activists and political groups like the Muslim Brotherhood."

Note also that the Muslim Brotherhood was actively "the choice" of the U.S. at the time of the revolution. Now I'll quote the author once again as he describes the power struggle between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood:

"The election represented Egyptian politics since the revolution: a power struggle between military dictators and religious fanatics. And the Muslim Brotherhood—whose religiosity, I believe, is a trojan horse for pure political ambition—treated activists just as harshly as the military."

I personally don't believe the religion of Muslim Brotherhood is "a trojan horse," it's where they get the the goals of their political activity:

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

"The Brotherhood's English language website describes the principles of the Muslim Brotherhood as including firstly the introduction of the Islamic Sharia as "the basis for controlling the affairs of state and society" and secondly, work to unify "Islamic countries and states, mainly among the Arab states, and liberating them from foreign imperialism""

<comment><USER8> The Telegraph - Egypt protests: America's secret backing for rebel leaders behind uprising (9:23PM GMT 28 Jan 2011)

> _On his return to Cairo in December 2008, the activist told US diplomats > that an alliance of opposition groups had drawn up a plan to overthrow > President Hosni Mubarak and install a democratic government in 2011._

> _The US government has previously been a supporter of Mr Mubarak's regime. > But the leaked documents show the extent to which America was offering > support to pro-democracy activists in Egypt while publicly praising Mr > Mubarak as an important ally in the Middle East._

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianoce...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt- protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html)

> _(C) Summary and comment: On December 23, April 6 activist xxxxxxxxxxxx > expressed satisfaction with his participation in the December 3-5 "Alliance > of Youth Movements Summit," and with his subsequent meetings with USG > officials, on Capitol Hill, and with think tanks. He described how State > Security (SSIS) detained him at the Cairo airport upon his return and > confiscated his notes for his summit presentation calling for democratic > change in Egypt, and his schedule for his Congressional meetings.

> _xxxxxxxxxxxx contended that the GOE will never undertake significant > reform, and therefore, Egyptians need to replace the current regime with a > parliamentary democracy. He alleged that several opposition parties and > movements have accepted an unwritten plan for democratic transition by 2011; > we are doubtful of this claim.*

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianoce...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289698/Egypt- protests-secret-US-document-discloses-support-for-protesters.html)

EDIT: Reformatted on request.

<comment><USER7> Googling " _Alliance of Youth Movements Summit_ " events gives the U.S. Department of State and... Google and Facebook:

[http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2008/11...](http://iipdigital.usembassy.gov/st/english/texttrans/2008/11/20081120122321eaifas0.3440363.html#axzz44u2DjXJO)

"Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School and the U.S. Department of State Convene the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit

Dec. 3-5 Summit in New York to Bring Together Global Youth Groups, Tech Experts to Find Best Ways to Use Digital Media to Promote Freedom and Justice, Counter Violence, Extremism and Oppression"

[http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/oct/130503.htm](http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2009/oct/130503.htm)

"Sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Facebook, Hi5, Google, MySpace, Gen Next, Howcast Media, MTV, PepsiCo, Mobile Behavior, Univisión, Interactive Media, Inc., Causecast.org, WordPress.com, Edelman, and YouTube, the event will convene individuals, government officials, academics, and private and public sector leaders from around the world October 14-16, 2009, to explore ways to advance grassroots movements seeking positive social change through 21st century technology and tools."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really great read about what it's really like to be an activist. Constant running around hoping that 10 people show up and constant wondering if you're getting anywhere.

Also, a brutal reminder about the devastating personal costs that we so often forget about.

As a climate activist here in the US I had it easy, but still so much of this resonates.

<comment><USER10> climate activist, lol.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have a lot of respect for someone who went through so much. At a much smaller scale I think that one can be depressed when pursuing a strong goal comes to an end. It could be a project at work or a degree. I have been depressed in such situations. I think being able to let go the past and move on to a different life can help. In my case meditation helped me realize happiness is not so much about goals but more about being satisfied with simple things.

</comment><comment><USER12> The "bad guys" will always win. Why? Because they don't play by the rules and therefore they'll always have the advantage.

</comment><comment><USER13> Revolutions devour their own children.

</comment><comment><USER14> Interesting enough read, but why oh why does it break the PgUp button? Rather PgDn moving down a screen (like space should …) and PgUp moving up, PgDn moves down a screen and PgUp returns to the top, which is mighty inconvenient.

</comment><comment><USER15> Egypt is the #1 example of the American empires malfeasance and incompetence.

Completely abandoned revolution, we continue to financially support the military dictatorship.

Go read Obama's Cairo speech and laugh at what a total crock of shit it is, and how by extension Obama is a bought and paid for clown.

Meanwhile the Western press does what it can to demonize the muslin brotherhood while white washing the current junta.

And why? Because Egypt is the most populous ME country, borders Israel, and has the Suez canal, it is deemed strategically too important by our elite to allow self rule.

Fuck the American empire, responsible for the genocidal killings of millions since 2001

<comment><USER16> >and how by extension Obama is a bought and paid for clown.

That's not what's going on.

>And why? Because Egypt...borders Israel, and has the Suez canal, it is deemed strategically too important

This is. US uses Egypt to project military power in the region.

>responsible for the genocidal killings of millions since 2001

The US did not apply the extreme repression required to keep the religious sects in the region from killing each other. That doesn't mean the US is genocidal, it means the Middle East is.</comment></comment>


Time to ditch Wikipedia? A look at a Wikipedia editor's activity - <AUTHOR> https://wikipedia.fivefilters.org <comment><USER3> Or as I call it, the thousand-thug encyclopedia. Every significant page has a minder with a motivation.

This might actually explain a personal removal or two - an ironic removal - <USER2> noted war crimes factoring in a battle, and this was removed since an editor concluded I was talking about American troops. I wasn't. In fact the war crime I mentioned was the use of human shields by the other side.</comment>


Nitrogen Can Triple Energy Capacity of Supercapacitors - <AUTHOR> http://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/semiconductors/materials/nitrogen-can-triple-energy-capacity-of-supercapacitors <comment><USER2> I call bullshit until it gets to at least LRIP - there are stacks of articles on improved batteries and super capacitors, but none of them make it out of the lab.</comment>


More Americans Are Falling Behind on Student Loans, and Nobody Quite Knows Why - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-28/more-americans-are-falling-behind-on-student-loans-and-nobody-quite-knows-why <comment><USER2> I hate sounding both old and weird but I cannot shake the feeling that much of the claims of economic health and growth in the US is... if not fake (I'm not totally nuts) but not accurate. My most charitable interpretation if I'm right is that we're using the wrong metrics (possibly intentionally) that give a distorted view of the economy. But I keep hearing employment is great, productivity is great, stock market is great, and yet it seems like most anecdotal evidence I see and read about suggest this is all hollow, and things are actually really bad for the average American.

I don't know. I know how it sounds. But I can't stop thinking that stuff isn't adding up. And this article is one more to add to the pile of "how can this be happening if the economy is actually healthy, at least in a way that means people's financial lives are healthy and prosperous?"

<comment><USER3> >But I keep hearing employment is great, productivity is great, stock market is great

The question you have to ask is, who are you hearing this from? The answer is: people with a vested interest in making you believe the economy is doing great, or people fooled into believing this by those with a vested interest.

I suggest you closely examine the metrics used by those who claim the "economy is great". First these metrics are usually comparing year-over-year changes to point to "positive changes" in the economy. What they fail to announce is that the formulas they use to calculate these metrics are "adjusted" regularly to ensure that the numbers they seek are reflected. CPI is a perfect example. The FED claims that inflation has been very low, if not non-existent for years (good for workers, since their wages have fallen or remained stagnant for decades). Some have noted, however, that prices for most of the things people need to survive (food, rent, education, healthcare, insurance) continue to rise dramatically. How can this be? Well one way the FED lies with their numbers is through a mechanism called the "hedonic adjustment". If you paid $2 for a roll 60-sheet roll of toilet paper last year. This year you paid $3 for a 60-sheet roll this year, that's some serious inflation, right? Not according to the FED. The FED claims that the quality of the toilet paper is better now. Even though you are paying 50% more, the FED says the toilet paper is 50% better, so there is no inflation. How are these "hedonic adjustments" calculated? Arbitrarily by FED functionaries, in a black-box.

Rising debt, falling and stagnant wages, higher prices, consolidation of wealth - these are the real conditions we face and why our economy is lagging. Many will look at you as if you are wearing a tinfoil hat if you question the "official numbers", but even casual scrutiny of the methods and metrics used (the ones they do release) will raise substantial doubts about their worth.

<comment><USER4> "Hedonic adjustment" is meant to control for the 'quality' of some (limited) products sampled in the CPI such as rent, computers and automobiles. 'quality- adjusted' means that they run a standard linear regression across the features of sampled items to normalize the variation in the sample. For example, the sampled rent of apartments would be modeled as (in the simplest example I can think of) :

y = rent, b = slope, x = sqft

y ~ b + x is the extent of the 'hedonic adjustment'

There don't really exist any control variables for 'better'. Nobody at CPI is subjectively saying toiler paper is better. What they will stochastically estimate is the per-unit price. So if for $10 you get 9 double roles, and last year you got 9 single roles for $10, then the price went down. But I assure you as someone who has looked at row-level data of what the CPI samples and does, there are no cases that are this extreme in the aggregate. They could drop the hedonic adjustments and it would make no practical difference. Private companies use similar sampling methods with better data and don't show wildly different headline inflation (see: Billion Prices Project [http://www.thebillionpricesproject.com/](http://www.thebillionpricesproject.com/))

There is no doubt however that the CPI data is inadequate, has a non-trivial lag, and does not capture true regional differences in prices. Just try using it to adjust your salary if you move from Birmingham to New York City and see how comfortable you'd be. But there is no conspiracy; that would presume far more competency than they have hired for.

<comment><USER3> I'm not claiming a conspiracy, its more a confederacy of dunces staffed by people who have a vested interest in reaching conclusions that affirm the wishes of their bosses. Any such system that includes a bunch of very complex algorithms filled with uncertain data and arbitrary variables that can be tweaked by the people crunching the numbers you are going to come out with a garbage result. The FED is literally engaged in voodoo economics. Scarily they even acknowledge this simple fact, but still people take their tea-leaf readings seriously.

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/feds/2015/files/2015083pap.pdf)

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

<comment><USER5> Difficult or not, you don't seem to be trying very hard. You didn't address the concrete argument you were presented with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In a nutshell, as a generic reasoning, say that a few years ago the student loan was about US$ 100,000 and once you got the degree you had - on average - a higher pay of around US$ 10,000 per year (net).

You could repay it in 10 years time while living at the _same level_ of your non-graduated friends.

Now say that the student loan averages US$ 150,000 and - still on average - the increase in annual wages is US$ 7,500 (net).

So you can either:

1) live as before BUT repay it in 20 years instead.

2) live at a 7,500 US$/year _lower_ level than your friends and still repay it in 10 years.

3) live at a 7,500 US$/year (or 10,000 or 15,000) _higher_ level and never repay it.

I suspect that besides the lessened "value" of the university degree on the labour market, there is also an increased number of people that choose option #3 over option #2 or #1 (whether out of _need_ or because of other reasons doesn't really matter).

<comment><USER7> Speaking of lessened "value" of degrees, University's need to be held accountable for some of the debt that they are encouraging students to take on. For example, at my public university, STEM students were charges several thousand dollars a year more than humanities students. STEM programs also did their best to discourage enrollment. Meanwhile the anthropology department is literally begging students to stay and get a masters or phd with them.

<comment><USER8> Why should this be the case? They offer a service with hundreds of competing options (other schools), so it's hard to argue they're not offering market rate.

<comment><USER7> Do they though? Do public universities really have competition? Maryland has College Park and not much else. All the other public schools are much much smaller, and generally lower quality.

<comment><USER9> This isn't the 1850s, UMD essentially competes with at least the other east coast public schools. So you have Penn State and UVA, as well as UD, Va Tech, GA Tech, UNC, etc.

Add to that the negligible degree to which attending "the best school" effects your outcomes (spoiler: virtually not at all. Being in the top 25% at your school far outweighs how good your school is) and you'll realize that they compete heavily. This totally leaves out all the private schools with which they compete in the DC area.

<comment><USER10> Except not really because the cost for going to an out of state public school is much larger for a student so any given school has a large leg up on cost in competing for students in their state.

<comment><USER9> Except not really because most State schools on the East coast will give you in-state tuition after you live in said State for one year. Take a year off after highschool, make some money, then get in-state at whichever school you chose.

Source: many of my friends graduated college a year behind me after doing exactly what I'm suggesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> From the article: "Department of Education ticked up to 18.8 percent as of June 30, up from 18.6 percent the same time last year, new federal data show."

There's your answer - 0.2pp is totally insubstantial, which makes the title borderline clickbait. The economy doesn't uniformly grow or distribute wealth, so a change so small could just be from the distribution of college leavers in a particular year being overindexed towards sectors that aren't growing.

Further to that point, it typically takes years for people to adjust their majors towards sectors of the economy that are particularly productive, so we shouldn't expect to see such a quick change in the numbers.

<comment><USER12> Here are more depressing statistics:

[https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and- tax/funding-d...](https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding- down-tuition-up)

tl;dr: States have been cutting back on funding public education even as it's gotten much more expensive every year.

<comment><USER13> This. States slashed higher education spending during the recession, and it's not coming back. At the same time, federal grant money got tighter.

Student tuition is literally the only dial left that can be moved.

<comment><USER14> Have you considered that universities might be able to operate more cost efficiently? Purdue University has manged to freeze tuition for the past 5 years for example.

[https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2016/Q2/purdue- plan...](https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2016/Q2/purdue-plans-fifth- straight-year-without-tuition-increase.html)

<comment><USER15> To add to your point. Schools have massive expenditures on things that have nothing to do with learning _and_ do not bring in money. Its one thing to spend money on something like basketball if you are UCONN and you routinely bring in enough revenue to cover the costs or even post a profit.[1] Its another thing to keep spending millions on your football team that does not bring in that much money[1] These are just one example in a school system. There's similar waste everywhere, like redoing the landscaping every few months so prospective students always see a fantastic looking campus, or the massive increase in administrative staff. The schools don't try to be more efficient because they don't have to be. They don't have legally set budgets and everyone can get students loans since they cannot be discharged so they can just dial up tuition.

Our whole financial system is built around accurately accessing the risk that an investment will be paid back and charging an interest rate commensurate to that, but its thrown out the window once you can try and convince the least experienced adults in the country to sign on the dotted line.

Until banks stop getting paid whether or not they made a good bet on someone's college expenses, or the schools are given a limit on what they can spend, its not going to change. My fear is that this won't happen in any way but a massive amount of defaults that cause the whole system to collapse unexpectedly and cause add on pain to the rest of the economy

[1][https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-financial-impact-of- champio...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-financial-impact-of-championship- basketball/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Banging my head against the table.

Wages and benefits are too low, tuition is too high, cost of living is too high, and student loans are a scam. Tuition is a scam.

[http://studentdebtcrisis.org/](http://studentdebtcrisis.org/)

The rent is too damn high! ;)

<comment><USER17> It's a rentier economy, by and for. Just don't actually tell anyone or you'll be labeled a crank.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Due to government involvement, there is a lack of a true market pressure when student loans are underwritten. Not surprising in the least that this bubble is starting to pop.

<comment><USER19> This is such a silly meme. Its not "due to government involvement." Its "due to the manner of government involvement."

Loans that are guaranteed by the government, for all students, that can't be discharged by bankruptcy, is an idea clearly put together by lenders.

If we wanted government subsidies for private education, there are plenty of alternatives. Here's one: government guaranteed loans for all students; but repayment of those loans is capped as a percentage of the person's income, and interest rate is capped well beneath that. This would allow the government to subsidize students to go to college, while providing market pressure against universities raising their tuition yearly. It would also allow students who went to expensive institutions to pursue careers that aren't at the top of the financial spectrum, like, say, teaching.

<comment><USER20> Or we could make public college free, just like we did with high school.

<comment><USER21> Maybe the real problem is that we've developed this caste system over the last 50 years where people who don't get college degrees are excluded from careers that can sustain a middle class lifestyle. What if free college just moves the goal post and in a couple more decades nearly everyone has a Master's degree and you need a PhD to earn a decent living? What happens if the most talented segment of our work force ends up spending their most creative years trying to achieve meaningless credentials instead of actually contributing to the GDP?

(Preemptive Edit: I know they have free college in some European countries, but maybe they have the same problem.)

<comment><USER20> Interesting, if you think that education is a race to the bottom in credentialling though, what is your solution? If you were running a business wouldn't you prefer a PhD to a MS to a BS holding everything else equal?

<comment><USER21> I think it really depends on the job. I've managed people who were in entry level software jobs who had PhDs, and having the higher degree didn't translate into better performance.

<comment><USER20> Yeah but that's what I'm saying, once you've hired them then you might find out different but purely within the hiring process a PhD is preferrable to a BS. And the predicament may be tough but if there is no solution to it, why even take it into consideration? That's why I asked what you would do about it.

<comment><USER21> "All things being equal" is a very contrived situation. I think a better question is whether you'd pick a PhD candidate over a BS who, for example, could code a little bit better. (And for me the answer is I'd probably pick the BS, but I'd have to justify it to the people above me, which could be a challenge.)

<comment><USER20> Well sure but "all thing being equal" is what someone who is considering whether to go for further schooling is considering. I'm me, I have all my qualities, would I be more likely to be hired (and get a higher wage) w/ a BS or w/ a PhD? That's why I pose it that way and that's why I ask for what your answer to this problem is, it's not about who you would pick, it's about what drives people to "overachieve" in their credentialling in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is it possible that some graduates are realizing that for all that money, their education was not what they were promised, and a bit of resentment has led them to make the decision not to pay?

<comment><USER23> I feel like it might actually be somewhat socially related as well. If people see that their friends/coworkers with large student loans are simply deciding not to pay and nothing horrible is happening to them while at the same time they are living more extravagant lifestyles with the student loan money they're not paying, that's an encouragement to not pay yourself as well. Pair this with the last administration taking steps to limit student loan repayment responsibilities (William D. Ford Direct Loan program), and it starts looking like maybe not paying your loans off is a pretty decent option.

<comment><USER24> I don't know man?

Social pressures are more complicated than that, and they come from many different directions. I mean, in the hip-hop world, "I Finished Paying Sally Mae Off!" is one of the top rated songs right now. And listening to that song, it's clear that the rapper had fallen behind on his loans from time to time.

So if that "pay it off" attitude has made it down to the hip-hop world, it must be prevalent in the larger society as well. And that's just one "for instance" when you're talking about social pressures around student loans other than the desire to walk away from them.

<comment><USER25> I hate to be pedantic, but think calling "I finished paying Sallie Mae Back" a top rated songs in Hip Hop right now(or ever) is a big stretch. It's over a year old, and its mainly just a good goof of a song that people shared around on Facebook last year. I don't think I ever knew anyone who listened to it outside of that context.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> As this other Bloomberg piece notes [1], it's probably useful to break out the type of school and degree when looking at debt. It's not clear that basic undergraduate degrees are an issue with ballooning debt as much as for-profit schools and graduate degrees that don't do much for employment prospects. (The latter not just being a case of "useless" degrees but professional degrees like MBAs and JDs from low-tier or even just non-top-tier schools.)

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-27/it- should...](https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-09-27/it-shouldn-t-be- so-easy-to-go-to-grad-school)

</comment><comment><USER27> >unemployment is low

Yes, but many people have been designsted as "having stopped looking for work", which means the statistic doesn't count them.

Additionally, those who are employed perhaps are underemployed, working as an Uber driver or bartender or chipotle or etc.

>the economy has improved

For the top 6% of Americans that are millionaires, it absolutely has improved. Most of their income is from capital gains, dividends, and business equity.

The average person with student loans has almost none of these things. They are relying on a wage from a job that requires them usually to pay rent, own a car, buy a monthly transport card, and so on.

When you are only making $1400-2000 per month after tax, and $1,000 of that is out the door on work-related expenses alone (rent, transport, insurance, phone), there isn't much left over for a $300 per month student loan payment.

Disclaimer: Don't shoot the messenger. These are merely my thoughts on what is happening. Please reply with criticism.

<comment><USER28> The amount of people I know with degrees who work in retail, or something completely unrelated is staggering. From my observations, I'd guess "underemployment" is the biggest contributor to the late payments.

This is just another example of why I urge any young people I know (high school age) to think long and hard before choosing to go to a 4 year college. When I graduated high school in 99', we were primed to think "college degree == good job". Of course, that is anything but the truth. And, it only serves to put someone in serious debt without any guarantees.

Hands on technical jobs like electrician, plumber, welder, are many times more lucrative than some bullshit business degree. A friend of mine's son is 22 or 23, and making a hell of a living welding. Granted, he's exceptional at it. But, that doesn't change the fact that his 2-year trade school investment was a good one.

Or, teach yourself a skill. Like lots of us on here, I'm a self taught programmer. It took years of doing small projects in the evenings, but I make a living from it now with $0 in student loan debt.

<comment><USER29> The key is a _marketable_ college degree. In fields such as aerospace and defense where the credential is the key to open the door, get the credential as cheaply as possible. Do a couple of years at a community college and then finish at a state school. Name-brand degrees bring no extra value. Oh yeah, and get your master's while you're still in the zone.

The idea that trade school somehow is lower tier or oppressive is a staggering disservice. Just like every college-bound high schooler is not med school material, not every high schooler is college material. Put a wrench or saw or blowtorch in the hands of a doctor or engineer, and crummy is the likely result. Skilled trades are an honorable, respectable way to earn a _good_ living. Forcing people into tracks for their own supposed good but where they feel hopeless is horrible social engineering.

<comment><USER30> There are plenty of fields where name-brand degrees mean a crap ton starting out, e.g. finance, law.

<comment><USER26> In fact, the conventional wisdom these days seems increasingly to be that you should go to a top-tier law school or just not bother. And that seems to be becoming fairly common advice for MBAs as well, although that's not as cut and tried because MBAs cover a wider range of programs than law degrees do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _The share of Americans at least 31 days late on loans from the U.S. Department of Education ticked up to 18.8 percent as of June 30, up from 18.6 percent the same time last year_

Is this newsworthy?

<comment><USER32> The uptick isn't. But if 1/5 student loans are more than 30 DPD, that will be a problem.

<comment><USER8> Honest question: why is 1/5 that much more of a problem than 18.8%?

<comment><USER32> ~18.8% is roughly 20% or every fifth student loan in the country. If 20% of your portfolio can't repay it's debt that's usually a bad portfolio.

In a simplified model : Assume you give 100 dollar to five people with the intent to earn 5 dollar on interest of each (total 25 dollar interest income.) If now one of them can't pay back the 100 dollar you lose the 100 dollar and the five dollar interest income. So instead of 25 dollar income you get (20-100-5 = -85 dollar). To avoid this situation you start calling the guy (collections activities). Effecting your earnings again.

Of course one months in arrears is not immediately the road to immediate doom, but it is an early warning indicator. Especially if you look into trends to understand the behavior of the portfolio.

In this case the early-stage delinquencies have been improving since 2014 and starting 2017 reversed that trend. So if the trend continues this portfolio segment will grow again leading to more losses and collection activities.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Tie student loans to educational institutions where the study takes place.

If the student fails to repay, a %age of the student loan debt should be paid for, by the edu institution where he/she graduated from.

Would be great if it is 50%. Even if university doubles the price, demand/supply economics will ensure universities cannot bump fees up at will.

Without holding the educational institutions and the students as equally responsible for the debt, edu institutions have no incentive to not-ripoff students.

Factor in the repayment history by graduates of a program at an institution to decide the percentage of debt the university is liable for.

If STEM grads are having lesser default, the school is responsible for 10% of the debt.

If a grads of <some esoteric program> have a higher default rate, school owes closer to 50%

<comment><USER34> I've never thought of it that way. I don't know if there wouldn't be some second or third order issues from something like this, but at first glance this seems like a good idea.

Why shouldn't the school take on some of the risk?

<comment><USER35> The schools would undoubtedly respond that in doing so, they would necessarily have to stop educating people from anything less than the most privileged (and thus low-risk) backgrounds.

You'd need to cook up some sort of risk-pooling scheme if you wanted schools to extend that credit to anyone coming from a background that made payment statistically less-likely. And once you started doing that you'd have to be careful not to distort the market so much that the original intent -- to allow market forces to have more say on what majors college students go into, and who (and how many people) colleges admit -- would be totally lost.

It's a difficult problem and I don't know if it's better to have the schools/colleges trying to underwrite the loans. It might be better to leave that to specialists rather than force it onto schools (though forcing schools to release the data that an underwriter would need to rationally price loans for students to go there would be good).

If you didn't have the government backstopping student loans, and in some cases making them non-dischargeable in bankruptcy, that would probably have much the same effect. The government backing and unique legal treatment are what makes a "student loan" different than a giant personal loan. The justification has always been that without this treatment and guarantee, nobody would make a $100k+ personal loan to an 18-year-old, which is probably true. But I think we're starting to see the other side of the coin, which is that maybe there are some good reasons why that's the case.

<comment><USER36> Find some way of blinding schools from the individual financial background of applicants.

<comment><USER35> You could do that, I suppose, but the ability to pay back the loan and the downstream income potential of the graduate are likely to be very strongly correlated to the student's financial background (really, their family's financial background).

If you're wealthy enough, it basically doesn't matter what you major in while in college. But if you don't have a rich family, then it matters a hell of a lot. Students seem to already know this; at least when I was in school last, there weren't a lot of first-generation college students or immigrants in the liberal arts programs; the kids who were betting everything on their education were in the business or engineering schools, mostly. (Or sometimes preprofessional programs, pre-med was a big one.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Serious question: Who loses out if all the student debt got canceled? Not the colleges, I assume, because they already got the tuition. And not the students. So would it be loan companies and the US government? Would such an action be catastrophic?

<comment><USER38> I think this is kind of a nonsensical question but please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Imagine you and I agree to a deal, both verbally and contractually (i.e. on paper). I give you 10 euros and you pay me back 11 euros in exactly 1 year.

Now 6 months into the deal you suddenly ask yourself: "Well who would lose out when this debt gets cancelled?"

Do you see now why I think it is a nonsensical question?

<comment><USER37> Sure, it would seem obvious that the loaner is the one to lose out. The things it, I'm not sure who all the various loaners are these days or how much the economy itself would be affected by these people suddenly not having $1.3 trillion (or whatever the figure is these days) coming to them.

<comment><USER39> The question is can future students get any loans to finance their studies then (or at what rates/conditions? Good chance they would lose out too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> With constantly rising real estate prices, this is hardly surprising. Rent is crazy.

Time to switch to free high education system.

<comment><USER41> Are there any recent studies that crunch the numbers on how much that would cost? Because as a debt free college grad earning ~16000 pre tax I'm still willing to commit a fair amount, call it 500 a year? but I have no idea if that's even close to enough if we assume it's progressive at the same rate as income tax.

<comment><USER42> it may cost more than just dollars and cents. I worry that the adage of "you get what you pay for" may start to apply.

<comment><USER41> I don't know if there are _many_ countries with fully subsidized college but there are at least a few who don't seem to see any worse outcomes than the US's existing partial subsidization by loans and grants.

<comment><USER42> those countries typically also have entrance requirements to college that would not sit well with the US, which values the perception of egalitarianism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> A couple of question with answers we'll never get:

\- What is the breakdown across for-profit vs traditional school graduates? Are University of Phoenix grads defaulting at the same rate as ivy league grads? (obviously no, but the disparity would be good to know)

\- What are the statistics if you include SoFi (and other similar refinancers that cherry-pick borrowers most likely to repay) borrowers that get removed from the public numbers?

</comment><comment><USER44> The reason is that people have been spending absurd amounts of money on worthless degrees and can't afford to pay them back.

<comment><USER45> Would be interesting to see a breakdown of repayment rate by major

<comment><USER46> And also graduation rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> There are some pretty hostile laws against borrowers. A relatively recent one caps the tax write-off on interest at $2,500. Anyone who went to a private or out of state college will hit that cap easily.

</comment><comment><USER48> Have they actually investigated? I see a lot of speculation in this article, but if it's actually important to know, shouldn't they go find out?

</comment><comment><USER49> All good points, but the only real answer is... Paying for an education is a gamble and gambling with our future is dumb. If we pay taxes for anything, anything at all the number 1 priority should be to provide an education to anyone. That doesn't mean pay for their housing, or anything else. One has to invest their time into an education, its already very expensive.

</comment><comment><USER50> A few reasons I can think of:

* Wage garnishment is limited, maybe the ruined the credit score and the max % of garnished monthly paycheck (%15) is less than what they are already paying?

* The type of majors and students background who graduated changed. Maybe universities 4 years ago decided to accept more students into majors which are having a hard time finding employment. Universities don't care, they just want more students with 6 figure approved loans to roll in.

* It is possibly there was a hint or signal of debt forgiveness being implemented. It doesn't have to be true, just a rumor but it can start to self-perpetuate because people really want to believe it.

* Also everyone is pretty connected these day via social media so maybe if someone bragged about not paying and "look a few months later, nothing happened to me" others might start thinking, hmm, well maybe it's ok. Certainly nobody wants to be left still paying like a fool if all their cool friend stopped and they still seem to be doing ok, kind of attitude.

</comment><comment><USER51> Purely anecdotal but I have several friends who have told me they don't worry about paying their student loans on time due to the fact that they feel like they'll never go away. They feel like they'll never pay them off, and they can never get them discharged. So there's no motivation for them to pay them off.

</comment><comment><USER52> I will forever wonder why Americans don't go to Europe to study higher education. I heard its much cheaper, if not free, there.

<comment><USER53> Take Finland, a country has free education. Entering a university from the total beginning in Finland requires taking a highly competitive entrance exam, and the exam is in Finnish. How many 18-year-old Americans do you think can manage that?

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> This one is easy. People are buying things that they can't afford. Throwing it into a loan and then partying their way through school. Since that worked out so well, then they do that with their car, house, furniture, cell phones, and car rims.

You aren't entitled to 100,000 dollar education.

You aren't entitled to go down to Mexico every spring break.

you aren't entitled to eat pizza and hit the bar every weekend.

You aren't entitled to a college education.

Go learn a trade, get scholarships, join the military, work for a company that will pay for your education, start your own business.

Instate tuition at VA Tech is 13k for the year, if you live in Texas, UT is 4-5k a semester. While not cheap, this is far from unaffordable.

I have zero sympathy for junior who goes to some 150,000 a year liberal arts college and gets a degree that makes no money or requires another 2-4 years of school.

<comment><USER3> Our federal government is $20 trillion dollars in debt. We are trillions more on debt from every level from local to federal. Most of the states are on the verge of bankruptcy, if not bankrupt already (like Illinois). Countless millions who depend on pensions and other promised benefits from states and municipalities are about to be in for a rude surprise. Despite this crushing debt, we continue to spend trillions of dollars to bomb and invade countries around the world.

Blaming entitled kids for our debt-laden society and failed economy is not smart or useful. The truth is that there aren't enough jobs (let alone decent- paying jobs) for 1/4 of the tens of millions of kids who enter college every year. These kids weren't the ones who mismanaged society so that property taxes, mandated healthcare premiums, income taxes, and rents are so high.

<comment><USER55> Correlating government debt (which is primarily owed back to it's citizens) to household debt is extremely disingenuous.

<comment><USER3> >Correlating government debt (which is primarily owed back to it's citizens) to household debt is extremely disingenuous.

That's false for several reasons. First, government debt impacts citizens directly through higher taxes (income, property, sales, and others), fees, deprivation of services, ect. Second, government debt is not primarily owed back to it's citizens. The biggest holder of government debt is the Federal Reserve, which is a collection of private banks. The vast majority of debt not held by the federal reserve is held by banks, financiers, and the ultra- wealthy. Third, working people and those on fixed incomes are crushed by ZIRP (zero interest rate policy), which has been implemented by the FED in an effort to prevent the mountains of debt load on every governmental level from exploding. What it has done instead is prevented people from saving (since artificially low interest rates that don't match the rise in cost of living mean treasuries and savings accounts lose value) and further inflate the riches of the ultra-wealthy who borrow at 0% and buy stocks.

This doesn't even touch on the fact that millions of people who have worked their whole lives for pensions are about to get the shaft and become destitute when states and municipalities are overcome by their crushing debt and default on their payments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> I firmly believe that university is way, way overpriced in a world of free, high quality MOOCs. It just makes zero economic sense and I believe the market will correct this sooner or later. Think about how utterly inefficient it all is: you have hundreds of professors around the world, each mechanically teaching the same subject semester after semester to new students (I know, they do a bit more than that). Some will say it is about signaling but in a free market, smart companies will eventually start to pick up on better signals. People who attempt to justify the cost of university really just seem unimaginative.

<comment><USER57> Christ, I've been struggling with this all month.

I finished college in 2014, worked in industry for three years, then came back to school for a PhD. I am now _completely shocked_ that these undergrads are paying $60k/year to come here to listen to the same cookie-cutter lectures that are being given at thousands of other institutions across the country.

I almost feel embarrassed for the professors as well, having to act like they're doing something useful or valuable by giving this lecture, when in reality its just a mechanical performance.

I feel like you need 20-30 different MOOCs for each class. You need a tier 1 (MIT etc) level difficulty Physics I class, then a tier 2 class, and so on.

This would even be advantageous for students at 'top' schools (if they still exist), as it would be easier for a physics major to acquire cs skills if they don't have to go through their schools theoretically biased curriculum.

Its completely insane...

<comment><USER56> Yep, agreed. It's not really that universities are bad, just that they're outrageously overpriced and inefficient. And from my personal experience, most professors don't seem that passionate about educating (many of them rightfully think their time would be better spent elsewhere). I think the two missing pieces for university alternatives to pick up steam are industry acceptance and a more curriculum based format (vs single courses).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Why have MOOCs provided no real competition?

<comment><USER59> Turns out that accountability is easier on a campus than remotely.

<comment><USER17> Well, that and the fact that the lower barrier to entry might incentivize trying-out of subjects. I know I have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Have they looked at the ACA and people having to pay a lot more for insurance now? And service industry moving more towards part-time jobs since they don't deal with full-time employees given the push towards increasing hourly wages to $15?

</comment><comment><USER61> They probably still have the latest Apple gear though.

</comment><comment><USER62> They are busy paying their bills to netflix, amazon prime and other distractions</comment>


Total darkness at night key to success of breast cancer therapy - <AUTHOR> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140725080408.htm <comment><USER2> I made f.lux, and this is something I study a lot.

This study was done on rodents, and the problem with the reporting of it is that rats are >100x more sensitive to this kind of light than humans are.

For white light, below about 5-10 lux, it is very hard to measure melatonin suppression in humans. This study finds that rats have significant melatonin suppression at 0.1 lux, which has been known since 1974 (Minneman et al) at least.

Still, don't sleep with the TV on, and don't see bright (room) light within a couple hours before bed, because that will actually suppress total melatonin by a significant percentage.

<comment><USER3> > Still, don't sleep with the TV on, and don't see bright (room) light within > a couple hours before bed, because that will actually suppress total > melatonin by a significant percentage.

How do you avoid seeing bright light in the last few hours before bed?

Thank you for making f.lux, by the way. It's very cool, and I hope it gets more thorough biomed testing soon.

<comment><USER4> Turn off the TV, get something like F.lux on your mobile/tablet or don't use it and if you need light get something with low-blue output.

I searched for a long time to find a room light that avoided blue light and you have options with dimmer stands and certain bulbs. I ended up with some absurd-looking salt lamp that casts a soft orange light and has a dimmer (and allegedly releases magical ions that purify or clean the air -- not buying this last one).

<comment><USER5> Most products that claim to produce ions are actually making ozone, which is very harmful to your health: [http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html](http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/ozonegen.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From wikipedia:

>Production of melatonin by the pineal gland is inhibited by light to the retina and permitted by darkness. Its onset each evening is called the dim- light melatonin onset (DLMO).

It is principally blue light, around 460 to 480 nm, that suppresses melatonin, proportional to the light intensity and length of exposure. Until recent history, humans in temperate climates were exposed to few hours of (blue) daylight in the winter; their fires gave predominantly yellow light. The incandescent light bulb widely used in the twentieth century produced relatively little blue light. Wearing glasses that block blue light in the hours before bedtime may decrease melatonin loss. Kayumov et al. showed that light containing only wavelengths greater than 530 nm does not suppress melatonin in bright-light conditions. Use of blue-blocking goggles the last hours before bedtime has also been advised for people who need to adjust to an earlier bedtime, as melatonin promotes sleepiness.

When used several hours before sleep according to the phase response curve for melatonin in humans, small amounts (0.3 mg) of melatonin shift the circadian clock earlier, thus promoting earlier sleep onset and morning awakening.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Light_dependence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin#Light_dependence)

<comment><USER7> So how can I know whether or not a light produces some blue light? Alternatively, do you have any recommendations for blue-blocking goggles?

<comment><USER8> Probably a matter of "light temperature". Low temperatures of 2500-2700 K (aka "warm white") are reddish, while high temperatures around 3000 K (aka "daylight" [ETA: in advertising parlance]) are bluish. Go to a well-stocked hardware store and they may have a display demonstrating the differences.

<comment><USER9> 3000K is still considered very warm white. Daylight is 5700k.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We already knew that working nights gives a much higher breast cancer rate for women, but is there any evidence that it is the same for other cancers?

<comment><USER11> I wonder if children with leukemia are related to nightlights?

<comment><USER12> The question posed here and especially the parent's comment about night light causing cancer cannot rely on the publication as hypothetical basis. The article merely states that the lack of melatonin conflicts with the effectiveness of the drug tamoxifen.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, so let me word that slightly better. If I had a child with leukemia and he or she is prescribed tamoxifen, then should I avoid a night light?

<comment><USER13> I'm not a doctor, but I would hazard a guess that a child with leukemia would not be prescribed tamoxifen.

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

<comment><USER11> After reading that I think you are probably right!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> So now they relied on a lack of light to increase melatonin levels, but did they have a control group who simply were fed/injected with melatonin? Because if there is a difference between that group, then it becomes even more interesting: what else does the body do in these circumstances of total darkness?

Of course, in general we need better sleep hygiene than what we do to ourselves now, and darkness at night would be one way. But for many it's not easy to just switch to a regime like that.

<comment><USER15> From the article summary:

tamoxifen caused a dramatic regression of tumors in animals with either high nighttime levels of melatonin during complete darkness or those receiving melatonin supplementation during dim light at night exposure.

<comment><USER16> Just as a note tamoxifen is already used for that purpose

And cancer is not sensitive to tamoxifen but rather to estrogen (which tamoxifen is an antagonist)

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> wow, that's amazing if substantiated

I wonder what else we're disrupting with high levels of light. My crappy ass landlord but a giant fucking light right outside my bedroom. The problem is if I have blackout blinds to keep it dark at night, I won't wake up in the morning.

<comment><USER18> _My crappy ass landlord but a giant fucking light..._

OMG these "security lights" are horrible! I love walking around the countryside at night, but you have to be careful where you look if you don't want to be completely blind the whole time. It seems like everyone in the country has to have this giant 200W halogen bonfire burning all night. _So_ many nights I've been tempted to have a bit of fun with the rifle. "Oh did I wake you up? I guess a turn-about is fair play."

Around here it's the electric company's fault:

[http://www.lacledeelectric.com/homesecurity.aspx](http://www.lacledeelectric.com/homesecurity.aspx)

If I had any pull with the PUC I would stop that "un-metered" crap _before_ I stopped Ameren from raising rates to pay for a new reactor. (Because why should our investors have to actually make an investment?) The whole "security" aspect of these lights seems like baloney anyway. If that's the purpose, why not get a reflector and point the damn things down at the ground?

<comment><USER6> They are very convenient when working outside at night. They also increase security because there is no cover of darkness. If anything is out there you can easily see it.

I walk outside at night all the time and it's nice to have it and certainly not blinding. Especially if you are more than a few dozen feet away from it. And no one has any good reason to be out there at night anyway.

Cities and towns are way worse offenders in this. Hundreds of lights at much higher intensities. Even parking lots and empty buildings get illuminated like its day time. It creates enough light pollution to block out the stars even. And it's payed for by taxpayers.

<comment><USER18> Unless you're working outside _all night_ , please install a light switch. I find a simple headlamp is more convenient when I have to see small details, and it's not pointing at my eye so I retain some night vision.

The idea that lighting contributes to security is questionable. Well-lit areas are easier to observe and navigate without calling attention to oneself. If it's your yard and you've lived there more than a month you should be able to walk around it blind-folded. Potential miscreants don't have that home-field advantage, and they appreciate your leaving the lights on. While they're out there you won't see them because you're inside watching TV. However if it were dark and they were shining flashlights or vehicle headlights around you might notice that. I'll allow that if there is an actual guard on attentive duty all night, lighting will be helpful.

I know that lights make you _feel_ more secure, but that's just a reason to have them on while you're awake.

When you're walking outside at night "all the time", even though you don't have "any good reason to", you probably only see the ground in front of your feet. With all that artificial light, there's no way you're seeing any wildlife that isn't standing in the road, more than a few dozen stars, the landscape, etc.

Cities could certainly pollute less with light. Also, those who like bright outdoor lights on all night should move there.

Save your taxpayer angst for some other issue. The reason these lights exist is that power is really cheap when few people are using any power, which is generally true from bedtime to daylight. Of course the power company could be overcharging in any particular situation, but they wouldn't have popularized "security lights" in the first place if they hadn't had a bunch of generating capacity to dump.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I would be very cautious in extrapolating these results to humans. Animal are known to have different circadian rhythm processes. Also, cancer xenographs (human tissue in animals) don't exactly have a great track record in terms of generating new cancer drugs.

</comment><comment><USER20> So many questions...

Does total darkness also exclude dim lights like LEDs? So should you avoiding any electronics like clock radio, phone notification LED, ...?

Is having your eyes closed not enough to block out the light?

If it's about light on the skin: does lying under a blanket block it?

<comment><USER21> Melatonin is inhibited by light reaching the eyes. An eye mask might be enough. Speaking with regard to sleep, not cancer, I have to block any LEDs on things like battery chargers to sleep well. I despise the trend of putting blue power indicators on things used at night (I'm looking at you, Air-O- Swiss).

<comment><USER22> So do I, the blue LED is the curse of the modern era. Old time red led's have zero annoyance for me but when I walk through the living room at night and it's all alight in blue glow from the dvr etc it annoys me on a visceral level.

Thick black electrical tape is the best fix unfortunately.

I hope the blue light fad goes away soon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> > however, during the 12 hour dark phase, animals were exposed to extremely > dim light at night (melatonin levels are suppressed), roughly equivalent to > faint light coming under a door."

If a faint light from under a door is able tu suppress melatonin, does this mean utilities such as f.lux are completely useless?

<comment><USER24> That would be surprising since ancient humans didn't sleep in total darkness either; they got light from the moon and stars.

<comment><USER25> I though the same thing. Anyone who's ever been camping with no other light source other than a full moon will remember how much light (I guess is it's pretty blueish?) the moon puts out.

But, maybe it's not too much, since our eyes are probably very night-adapted when there's no other light source?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I have sleep problems and sometimes I take melatonin (4gr) at night 30 mins before bed. It is a harmless supplement and is easy to find and buy online or in farmacies... it works wonders

<comment><USER27> 4g or 4mg? Natural amount of secreted melatonin is much less (< 1mg), you're overdosing with 4mg. I use 0.3mg Herbatonin, which is bioidentical natural form of melatonin from a plant. 10-20mg is therapeutic dose.

<comment><USER28> Any bio-availability studies on that? I assumed the high doses were because uptake was bad / it was destroyed by stomach acid.

<comment><USER27> The whole "bioidentical hormones" thing some describe as unscientific, but I've been taking 10mg synthetic without knowing I've overdosing (that was the most popular OTC dose) with no effect. 0.3mg Herbatonin works pretty quickly. Here's something I just found: [http://www.naturalhi.com/media/custom/Newsletter%20Melatonin...](http://www.naturalhi.com/media/custom/Newsletter%20Melatonin.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> This article makes me wonder what kind of impact my less-than-month-old screaming baby destroying my sleeping pattern entirely has had on my system.

<comment><USER30> None that hasn't been weathered by a few billion others throughout time - you're in good company ;)

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra What's the plan for people who live in the north and have a degree of polar day? As in it's not ever getting dark.

<comment><USER31> 100% blinds?

<comment><USER32> No, I'm fairly certain most of them have eyesight.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I can see the headline now: "Scientists Say Darkness Cures Cancer"...

EDIT: Apparently, the fact that I'm mocking the kind of "science reporting" that would turn this result into that headline wasn't _screamingly obvious_. I'm surprised; it's a phenomenon I've seen discussed often enough here.

<comment><USER34> Kill Or Cure documents the Daily Mail's cancer causatives / cures: [http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/](http://kill-or-cure.herokuapp.com/)</comment></comment>


SCULPTURES BY ROMAIN LANGLOIS - <AUTHOR> http://www.juxtapoz.com/news/sculpture/sculptures-by-romain-langlois/ <comment><USER2> The artists website is [http://www.romain-langlois.com/](http://www.romain- langlois.com/)</comment>


ASK HN: What are your feelings if this was your app? - <AUTHOR> http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-AL861_111913_J_20131119144219.jpg (Molhem Barakat/Reuters) is the credit for the image - any person looking at the image url can tell where it is from, that being said I am purposefully not giving the context of the picture. <comment><AUTHOR> (Molhem Barakat/Reuters) is the credit for the intriguing image. I am intentionally linking to the site's image and not giving the context of the app user in the submission link. (note: it can be found here - [http://blogs.wsj.com/photojournal/2013/11/19/photos-of- the-d...](http://blogs.wsj.com/photojournal/2013/11/19/photos-of-the-day- nov-19-3/3/) )</comment>


Heroku slowdown? - <AUTHOR> Status page still hasn't changed <comment><USER2> yes, im timing out</comment>


Election May Be a Turning Point for Legal Marijuana - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/us/marijuana-legalization-ballot-measures.html <comment><USER2> Too bad only two of the four main presidential candidates support legalized marijuana, and unfortunately it's only the less popular two that do.</comment>


Python 3: time to get on or get off. - <AUTHOR>

It is now more than 3 years since Python 3 was released but so many people are delaying to update the drivers, libraries and frameworks that they have developed and released for Python 2.  Python 2 is finished folks.  Time to move on to Python 3.  Embrace it and stop grumbling.  Python 2 is now yesteryear.  Digging your heels in won't stop the future coming.  If you are the owner of a framework or library or driver, please thoroughly support Python3.  If you just can't come to terms with Python3 then it's hard to see where you are heading with that position in the long term.  If you really really oppose Python 3, then isn't that effectively saying you are finished with it?  Thanks goodness an ever increasing number of drivers and frameworks ARE now supporting Python 3 (to a greater or lesser extent), which is starting to make the laggards look somewhat less relevant. <comment><USER2> PyPy still doesn't officially support Python 3. The issue has always been that there just aren't any real-world benefits to upgrading from a user's standpoint.

</comment><comment><USER3> Arch Linux uses Python 3 by default I believe, which is rather annoying as everything Python 2 related is suffixed with a 2, i.e "$ python2 file.py".</comment>


Ask HN: Top Payroll SaaS with API? - <AUTHOR> My company is a service company, but we've built a fairly robust job management system to manage all of our work, including tracking pay for employees and subcontractors. Right now, our payroll provider works fine, but I would like to look into finding one that offers an API to manage payroll. All of our pay data is already located in our own job management application. Ideally, I would like to be able to click a button that says "Run payroll for XX week", and our app send all of the pay data to the payroll provider auto-magically. Even just manually copying data for 100 employees every two weeks is quite time consuming. I did a little searching, only to come up with Gusto/ZenPayroll, but they appear to right now be limiting their API to large partners that will expand the Gusto audience. Are there other options on the market I'm not finding? <comment><USER2> You could check out: [http://wagepoint.com/](http://wagepoint.com/)

Not sure if they are too small for your company?

<comment><AUTHOR> Their program looks similar to ZenPayroll, but I'll look deeper into them as well when I get a chance to dig deeper. Thanks for mentioning them!

<comment><USER2> Not a problem. If you'd like, I can connect with you the CEO if you have any questions.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the offer. I actually called them today to ask a few questions, and the sales person said he would set up a call with the CTO if we decide to go with them (who would probably be the better person to talk to). I'm not set on what will be best for our business yet, but I definitely liked that aspect of the call!

<comment><USER2> That's great! I'm glad to hear that you're being well served.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I wrote code against ADP in the early nineties, but that was as a customer. Do they not offer a partner program?

</comment><comment><USER4> The only one I know of is Zenpayroll</comment>


Simon & Schuster to delay eReleases four months from Hardcover publication  - <AUTHOR> http://www.examiner.com/x-12973-Long-Island-Books-Examiner~y2009m12d10-Simon--Schuster-to-delay-eReleases-four-months-from-Hardcover-publication

<comment><USER2> To a publishing executive, this makes sense because ...

The traditional pattern of book-selling is a reverse auction.

First you sell the limited edition short print run signed gilt-trimmed hardcover. (Optional.) $35

Then you sell the regular hardcover. (Optional.) $25, discount to $16.

Then you sell the trade paperback. (Optional.) $16, discount to $10.

Then you sell the mass-market paperback. (Optional only if you're a small press.) $8, discount to $5.

If it's a mega-bestseller, then you sell the cheap MMPB edition, discount down to $3 in quantities of 100K and up.

 _Each of these steps occurs in sequence_ , typically 6 or 12 months apart. Some or all may be ommitted -- most books only go through 2, sometimes 3 of these stages -- but the general pattern is that the price comes down as the early adopters are soaked up by the expensive editions.

It's an established business model and it worked in the traditional book business because books effectively come with built-in DRM; who in their right mind borrows a hardcover and photocopies it?

If you read HN I'm going to take it as read (heh) that you understand why this model is fundamentally broken when you try to apply it to soft goods, as Hachette's execs seem to be bent on trying.

(Full disclosure: I am published by a Hachette subsidiary in the UK, and I'm contractually required to not saw off the branch I'm sitting on.)

<comment><USER3> This is a particularly acute problem for booksellers because, against everyone's expectations, their core audiences are taking to the Kindle in droves. This leads to the ultimate nightmare for the market segmenter -- they're cannibalizing their best customers. It would be like if an enterprise software company convinced their Fortune 500 clients to all sign up for their self-service $9 a month SAAS plan.

<comment><USER2> Yes.

Most American households buy around 1 book a year.

Roughly 50% of books are sold to just 2-3% of the market.

There's a power law at work (with, admittedly, a cut-off at the high end). I know quite a few folks who typically buy and read 50-150 novels a year. To make a runaway best-seller, you need to reach out to the 1-book-a-year folks, but to stay in business you've _got_ to keep the 50-books-a-year people happy, because those are your core market.

Regularly reading fiction for entertainment is, these days, a niche market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible."

Wow, that says it all about as succinctly as anyone can. I can't tell if this is cluelessness or desperation.

</comment><comment><USER5> Mostly, it just means that people will go out and download the pirated copy off the internet. Smooth move.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think there's a pirate book community out there yet. Is there?

<comment><USER6> Just check the torrents...

Also, people will often do translations of popular books (c.f Harry Potter) before the publisher gets around to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's frustrating about this is that, in a world where people are increasingly less willing to pay for media, S&S found customers who 1) still want to read books, and 2) are willing to pay for those books.

And now that they found that prized audience what they're doing is telling them "Go away! Come back when we're ready for you."

</comment><comment><USER7> What a strangely convoluted business model they have discovered. Wouldn't it make a lot more sense to sell the digital copy at a higher price initially? I doubt many owners of e-book readers are interested in paper hardcovers anymore. Isn't that sort of the point? They'll most likely just read something else instead and _maybe_ in 4 months they'll remember and buy the S&S book they were interested in.

This is an incredibly hostile move to S&S's new, or lesser known, authors who depend on the first big wave of publicity and reviews to sell books. The well known S&S authors will fare better but will probably still experience some fallout. The bigger losers are S&S's best customers. The ones who buy lots of books, stay up on new releases, and do tons of free marketing by recommending books to friends & family.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is this really that much different from releasing the hard cover well before the paperback version?

</comment><comment><USER9> Yet another company with contempt for their customer base. "WE will tell you what you want."</comment>


Is RDF/Dgraph suitable for financial data? - <AUTHOR> Our application requires that we keep a massive immutable ledger of past financial states (in billions of rows). For example, consider a customer's current balance together with the history of all transactions that led to her current balance. Or a history of customer repayments towards a debt. Or a report of users who were "in debt" during a historical time window.
This type of queries are fairly common for us and not terribly difficult in RDBMS (MySQL is our current DB engine). I'm asking about Dgraph specifically because it address nicely other issues that we run into with MySQL. We would rather not replace one set of problems with another should we attempt to migrate from the RDBMS to a graph DB.
Any feedback re. graph DB or Dgraph specifically to model financial data would be greatly appreciated. <comment><USER2> Sounds like you are working with time series rather than graphs. You might look up time series databases.

i.e. if you don't have graph structured data, why consider a graph DB? Also, IIRC, FB/GOOG use SQL derived / hacked DBs for their graph structured data</comment>