Amazon establishes new Counterfeit Crimes Unit - <AUTHOR> https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazon-establishes-new-counterfeit-crime-unit <comment><USER2> The categories of things that I've received counterfeit versions of on Amazon have been truly mind-blowing. It's been replacement HEPA filters, cat toys, even breakfast cereal. It's not just earphones/mics, batteries, usb cables, flash drives, extension cords, and other electronics.

Who counterfeits breakfast cereal??? I've had this issue with both Quaker Oats and Raisin Bran. The scale of fraud is magnificent. And it really gaslights consumers; it took me forever to actually accept that I was eating an off- brand imitation of my favorite cereals.

I do still buy from Amazon. The ease of returns still gives me confidence that I can decide after receiving an item whether the price:quality ratio is worth it.

But not if I absolutely need it to conform to certain standards and I don't have the skills/tools to validate the performance myself (like HEPA filters). Then I tend to buy from somewhere with a more curated supply chain (Home Depot, direct from manufacturers website, etc).

<comment><USER3> Here is one (plus the story of a defective product lawsuit behind it).

A water slide. The type that bolts down into concrete for use with pools. If the first thing in your mind is...isn't that something from the 70's/80's...yes it is.

So the counterfeiter must have molded the entire slide (complete with the company logo that was embossed into the slide itself) thing is that company was dissolved back in the 80's.

So purchaser's kid cuts their leg open on the slide and they sue for defective product. Of course the investigation leads to suing this Dissolved manufacturer. As I recall the dissolved entity actually defended (sort of rare from a dissolved Corp that dissolved so long ago) and it was only during expensive phase of discovery they learned they didn't manufacture the slide In question, and that it was completely counterfeited.

One day Amazon is going to get smacked with such a lawsuit resulting in billions in punitive damages, then and only then will you see real effort on their part to curb this behavior.

<comment><USER4> > One day Amazon is going to get smacked with such a lawsuit resulting in > billions in punitive damages, then and only then will you see real effort on > their part to curb this behavior.

IIRC at least one person (probably more) has died already from counterfeits on Amazon. I read one where I guy died in a motorcycle crash, it was found that his helmet (which he bought off Amazon) was a fraud and wasn't/didn't meet DOT standards, even though it had the DOT sticker.

<comment><USER3> I recall stories of counterfeit child car seats that failed safety standards (don't think there was a lawsuit) just "undercover purchases" and actual safety testing of the fakes.

As I understand it Amazon isn't liable which to me makes no sense as it relates to defective products (everyone in the supply chain of a defective product should be jointly and severely liable).

I don't care if it's a 3rd party seller, Amazon should be liable as it hosts the product for sale, connects buyer/seller, processes payments, typically stores (and commingled) the products, and probably delivers the product.

The thing about punitive damages is they are a punishment, so eventually there will be a case where The jury hears how Amazon knowingly and willfully continued selling 3rd party items it knew were fake and dangerous (Fake DOT helmets; expired baby formula; fake baby car seats; exploding electronics; etc...)and the jury is going to drop the hammer. Even billions In punitive damages wouldn't be a surprise, Amazon will appeal and it will come down to 10's or 100's of millions, but that's when they will take real action to stop this. But it's going to take time for this to happen.

<comment><USER5> The alternative is an online marketplace with no accountability. That doesn't sound safe.

<comment><USER6> The Alternative is going back to eCommerce where individual shops put up their own web site, market their own website and are liable for their own website (and have control over their supply chain)

Today since the build of consumers are on Amazon if you are a retailer you need to be one Amazon, and if you want access to Prime Customer you need to use Fulfillment by amazon, Where now you loose control over your supply chain due to co-mingled inventory

So even if I have a stellar reputation as A+AcmeMerchant, and customers look for my store on amazon they are not guaranteed to get the product that I sent to amazon, no they could get JoeBobScammers Product even though it was sold "by me" and fulfilled by amazon

So I will not go as far as to say amazon should be liable for ALL sales, but I do agree that any Sale that is shipped from an Amazon Warehouse they should be liable for. They choose to comingle all of their inventory they should face the liability

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are fake listings a problem? Absolutely. But is it the primary issue? I'm not so sure. It seems like Amazon is doing all sorts of things but not actually addressing the root -- inventory co-mingling + sketchy 3rd party sellers that can come back overnight.

Simply ending inventory co-mingling would likely handle a substantial portion of counterfeits since Amazon is sourcing their stock through standard channels.

Amazon knows this. There's probably cost models somewhere in HQ. But ending this would mean: slower delivery times, and Amazon would have to carry the inventory on their books. I'd gladly wait an extra day or two if I know the item I get is legit (just like pre FBA/3rd party days). Instead, Amazon is burning goodwill and cash on efforts like this one.

If anything, Covid-19 has forced other retailers to up their online game. Its accelerated my spending shift away from Amazon as I'm tired of fraud. Fraudulent items can injure, poison, or even kill people. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll wait another day for that delivery.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure commingling is as big a problem as you imply. Amazon's inventory system is random so every item can essentially be tracked by location. Even with commingling, if there is a counterfeit all the inventory from the original sourcer can be tracked and pulled. It's not like they are randomly tossing all of the same item into a random bin and doesn't know whose is whose.

Also Amazon buys from many distributors just like every other retailer. Even their own inventory for the same item could come from many different suppliers. Many of those distributors/suppliers are now sellers themselves and all that's changed is who sets the price and who decides when to send in more inventory (and who takes on the working capital risk.)

As for sellers coming back overnignt, one of the largest complaints on the seller forums is how onorous the KYC process is for new sellers. (Bank documents, passports, business license, etc).

Also you a manufacturer can become a brand owner which prevents commingling and other sellers from listing on their items. Notice that Ankara highest volume power banks pretty much only have offers from Anker and amazon warehouse / woot (an amazon subsidiary).

<comment><USER9> > It's not like they are randomly tossing all of the same item into a random > bin and doesn't know whose is whose.

Tell this to my buddy who had his card game counterfeited about 3 years ago.

He was getting a lot of complaints about counterfeit products, so he ordered a few and got a few duds.

He ended up having to recall all of his inventory from Amazon, and he found out that a fairly sizable percentage was counterfeit (~20%... can't remember the exact number). According to him, Amazon was literally "tossing all of the same item into a random bin and [didn't] know whose [was] whose".

The solution he ended up going with was paying Amazon extra to separate his items from other potential sellers of his own product. IIRC, he also set up (paid for?) the right to be the sole distributor for new items. I can't remember if he took those actions concurrently or sequentially, but he decided it was cheaper to do both rather than deal with counterfeits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They do this every six to twelve months:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106305](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22106305)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19091852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19091852)

It's just platitudes so long as their interests are served by pretending the problem doesn't exist.

<comment><USER11> This goes beyond just words. Establishing a dedicated team to investigate / prosecute Counterfeiters is a solid step forward.

<comment><USER12> Until they start prosecuting people and putting up barriers to counterfeit sales, it _is_ just words. They're slightly different words, but still.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I ordered a well-known baby-bottom cream. The product gave her never-expanding rashes for a few days. Then I realized the color slightly differs from the same cream bought at the local pharmacy, and that many 1 star reviews also report knockoffs version of the cream. In some cases review pictures show that the packaging itself is clearly fake.

I write a 1-star review explaining the above, and saying that the anxious parents are now in an unbearable situation after applied a fake, potentially harmful and untraceable product to their newborn bottom.

The review does not respect community guidelines and won't be published.

<comment><USER14> This sounds litigation ready!

<comment><USER15> Second this - this needs to be litigated.

<comment><USER16> How many hours a week would a person need to dedicate to starting a lawsuit about something like this?

Anyone have experience? Even if a law firm would do 100% of the work & charge on contingency, I bet it still takes 100+ hours for the average joe to research and find the firm to do that.

<comment><USER14> Ask a lawyer friend to refer you. They're pretty good at that. I imagine an initial 1/2 hour conversation will clarify a _lot_ and cost nothing.

If you don't have a lawyer friend, find a friend who does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've said this before: they should look at how the finance industry deals / has been dealing with bad actors for decades _before_ they engage in a business relationship with a client.

Assign every vendor some risk category based on their profile, for example: projected annual revenue, country of incorporation, products sold.

A mom-and-pop store located somewhere in Iowa selling pillow cases would probably be low-risk, there's not much you need to do.

A vendor selling USB cables out of China is probably very-high-risk. These need deep vetting. As in: show up in an office, bring along your lawyer, show us documentation on the working conditions in your factory, sign an agreement to let us audit your factory, etc.

Now, banks don't do this (at least, as far as I'm aware), but to play the devil's advocate: just imagine if Amazon asked very-high-risk vendors to _post collateral_ before selling. If they get caught, the collateral is used to compensate victims.

That would take out the incentive to sell counterfeits in the first place.

<comment><USER18> Speaking of incentives, why would Amazon want to place such onerous restrictions on their suppliers? Are consumers supposed to demand this? Would regulation require it?

Amazon's success at being "the everything store" is fundamentally opposed to vetting their suppliers like this.

<comment><USER17> > _why would Amazon want to place such onerous restrictions on their > suppliers?_

Because they have a massive counterfeiting problem, as evident by this submission.

To reiterate, what I suggested would only be onerous for the highest-risk suppliers.

> _Amazon 's success at being "the everything store" is fundamentally opposed > to vetting their suppliers like this._

Certainly, Amazon is also fundamentally opposed to customers becoming victims of counterfeiters on a platform they provide them with.

<comment><USER19> > _Certainly, Amazon is also fundamentally opposed to customers becoming > victims of counterfeiters on a platform they provide them with._

You can't even select "This item is a counterfeit/I suspect this item is a counterfeit" when filing for a return.

Surely if they cared about their customers becoming victims of counterfeiters, they'd give the customers who did become victims of counterfeiters on Amazon's marketplace the ability to return and report such items accordingly.

During my last return of a counterfeit item, I had to lie about the reason for the return during the return process. I had to choose between the vaguely related, but Amazon-approved, platitudes of "Wrong item was sent", "Inaccurate website description" or "Item defective or doesn't work".

<comment><USER17> Just to be clear, my argument was rhetorical.

I fully agree that in practice, we're seeing something completely different.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'd really like them to establish a "counterfeit reviews" unit too.

Many years ago their review system was one of their businesses advantages. Many users and fairly honest reviews.

Now it's rife with fake and bought reviews, rendering it useless.

<comment><USER21> I recently took a look at the top 20 reviewers, and based on some personal knowledge of what the items that buy 5-star reviews are in the current market, at least 3 of the top 20 people are doing it. These are people with _thousands_ of reviews. It's rotten all the way to the top.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I have yet to have an issue with a counterfeit - my main problem are the pages and pages of crappy listings. I was trying to find a child's bike helmet the other day, and it's hundreds of brands I have never heard of, with no safety information, and all look virtually indistinguishable from each other except for weird logos plastered on them. (Kamugo? Galf? LERUJIFL? Turboske? OUWOER? LANOVAGEAR?)

I ended up driving to Wal-Mart for a Bell helmet that cost the same.

</comment><comment><USER23> When are they going to start suing those who file false claims of counterfeiting?

Google started something similar last year when they sued someone who was abusing YouTube's DMCA system. [https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20915688/youtube- copyrig...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/15/20915688/youtube-copyright- troll-lawsuit-settled-false-dmca-takedown-christopher-brady)

But despite widespread abuse of Amazon's IP reporting system, to date Amazon has not sued anyone for that as far as I know.

</comment><comment><USER24> Foxes announce plan to investigate threats to henhouse. Film at 11.

</comment><comment><USER25> I have never had counterfeit issues on amazon and always find these threads bewildering. I buy almost everything I can't get from my local grocery store from them. I can't tell whether I'm improbably lucky or if I'm part of a silent majority. Claims of things like counterfeit cereal (come on, really want to see some actual proof here) tilt me towards the latter, though.

<comment><USER26> I was reselling Monster energy drinks in my office. I tried ordering some from Amazon, since the bigger packs are more readily available, and for lower prices, allowing me to sell cans for a cheaper per-unit price.

The very first pack I got was clearly counterfeit. The cans were subtly different both in appearance and etching. A brave volunteer who tried some also reported it tasted off.

If they're counterfeiting energy drinks, I fully believe they're doing cereal too.

<comment><USER27> I wonder if the "silent majority" is just all the people sufficiently fooled by the counterfeiting?

<comment><USER26> I think there's probably three factors:

\- the majority of brand name items on Amazon aren't counterfeits. It's a big problem, but it's also a big platform, with plenty of real stock and genuine sellers.

\- not all items have counterfeits. Some brands and types of products are under enough control or aren't popular/visible/profitable enough to be counterfeited. And some are just just brands anyway - nobody is counterfeiting the no-name junk brand USB cables that Amazon sells from fly-by-night operations. Plenty of people actually buy this stuff and while they might or might not get a poor quality product that might or might not adhere to environmental or consumer protection laws, it isn't a counterfeit and they might be happy.

\- some counterfeits are good enough. For exampel, you're unlikely to ever notice you got a counterfeit book unless they do a bad job (apparently pretty common - I've only gotten a couple I was suspicious of, but I am very careful about buying books, but there are really low-effort garbage counterfeits produced out there that are clearly fake, up to Wikipedia printouts.) Even when they make the book out of cheaper paper or the book is badly printed, you may not have the familiarity with the publisher to know that it's a counterfeit and not just that the publisher doesn't suck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I wonder if they will solve the mystery of how executives either didn't know, or didn't do anything about it, for so many years even as it was widely reported. It might have been more appropriate to use a federal investigative body and start with whatever misconduct, or deficit of attention, has been enabling the counterfeiters to thrive on Amazon for years.

</comment><comment><USER29> Having a chain of ownership list would be a great help with this. Track and report which company owned the item back to it's manufacture and who 'owned' the IP of the run. Even more ideally also the production time, etc.

<comment><USER30> Good shout. If only there were a technology to support this kind of usecase....

<comment><USER31> Good news, there is! It's called a database. When an item comes in, tag it with a unique barcode and add a row to the database saying "Item X came from company Y in shipment Z" and then sue/penalize/whatever company Y when it's counterfeit.

<comment><USER32> This assumes it is really that simple. You are adding a manual, human process. Humans make mistakes. Humans can intentionally make mistakes. Barcodes fall off, get defaced, etc. Those barcodes, hardware and software require money and up-keep. The humans receiving the products _also_ can make mistakes and return the "wrong" item that happens to look the same (this is a source of counterfeits, even at Walmart/Target). And then we get into the shipment chain. Counterfeit swaps happen during the transit of packages to the warehouse and to the receiver's home. This is a really, really hard problem. And to be able to do it in a way that doesn't substantially raise the prices of the products only complicates that more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I started buying clothing from the brand itself (eg shoes directly from adidas, etc). Some appliances also direct. I sometimes buy food from Walmart but only if they are the retailer (they don't seem to commingle inventories). I bought some ssd directly from Samsung site. Another problem with amazon is the sheer quantity of not-counterfeit but cheap unknown knockoffs. It seems more like an expensive AliExpress.

<comment><USER34> I haven't bought from Amazon in years. A few weeks ago my toddler left a rubber ball in our waffle maker and we didn't realize it before turning it on and melting the thing. It ruined the non-stick coating.

After a bit of research I found a new waffle maker to buy. The place I found it had an Amazon affiliate link so I clicked through to price check — $94. Then I checked the manufacturer's site — $69.99. Ordered it on Monday and it'll get here tomorrow, free shipping.

This is a pretty common story for me. I almost always check Amazon out of curiosity and most of the time it's more expensive then other options even when factoring in free shipping. I really don't get what the upside is supposed to be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Is it safe to assume "Amazon Basics" products are not counterfeit? Obvious clones of products from other brands, but quality-controlled by Amazon?

<comment><USER36> I was thinking that too. Unless someone claimed they are just reselling their AmazonBasics items that were previously purchased from Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> I just bought some gym shorts from Target for $20. Amazon had some for the same price, but numerous reviews with photos showed people were getting fakes. Fuck that. Target of all places seems more curated than Amazon.

<comment><USER38> > Target of all places seems more curated than Amazon.

Isn't this going to be true of any "pure" retailer? The nature of FBA and third-party sellers just means there will always be at least some percentage of fraud and so on that's higher than "trick various people in the retailer to sell fake goods".

Particularly as it's much easier for insiders at a retailer to steal from their employer (and then resell via whatever means), I think the utility for "put fake goods on the shelf" at a retail shop is basically zero. I dunno, maybe you can trick/bribe the person near the start of the supply chain, but it wouldn't take long for returns to pile up and an investigation to find "Jim and Sally colluded to sell fake gym shorts".

<comment><USER39> > _Isn't this going to be true of any "pure" retailer?_

No. First-party retailers don't generally commingle stock with other third- party retailers. They typically have few suppliers, often one supplier, for each good. That's for many reasons, but it also makes it easy for them to identify who sent them counterfeits.

Amazon is discovering what old-fashioned retailers learned long ago: customers do not give a fuck who, ultimately, has injected the counterfeit. They will blame the retailer.

If I was Wal-Mart I would be absolutely _hammering_ this point to customers. I'd be running ads about "Shamazon". Tearful mothers whose child got sick. Teens who saved up for a game system or phone and got a block of wood. Grandparents who bought medical equipment and got a faulty knockoff. Everything dangerous, disgusting, outrageous or even just annoying. I'd be carpet-bombing every channel with ads amplifying the message that Amazon can't guarantee what you get. Wal-Mart aren't saints, but their historical success has rested heavily on an incredibly tight grip of their supply chain and logistics. They do actually know what they have on the shelf.

<comment><USER40> Walmart's online store is a mess of 3rd party options now too. I went looking for hair clippers at the start of the pandemic and all I could find were no- name brands offered by third party vendors on their website.

<comment><USER41> What's left? Target and Best Buy?

<comment><USER42> I've had good luck ordering directly from companies. For me it was Nike, a yoga mat company, and some local toy retailers and a frame company. I still buy stuff from amazon, but not critical stuff.

I knew things were going bad, when rock climbing gear was being counterfeited. (2011).

[https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/recalls/2011-2-21/Informat...](https://www.petzl.com/US/en/Sport/recalls/2011-2-21/Information --copies-counterfeit-products)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/b685vi/new_climbe...](https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/b685vi/new_climbers_do_not_use_amazon_for_gear_unless/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Windows dressing.

It's not in Amazon's interests to reduce business by eliminating counterfeit products, fake reviews, etc..

Real solution is for government to hold platform responsible for peddling fakes and fraud to customers.

</comment><comment><USER44> I mentally added the word time in the middle of the domain name and chuckled. It would be great if they did that, show that they still have a bit of humanity left over there

</comment><comment><USER45> I don't really get the attitude of 'I don't care about counterfeits because it's easy to make returns.' I mean, you know what's even easier than that? Ordering from a more trustworthy vendor and not having to make returns. Getting the right thing the first time! If I have to go to the post office to send a thing back, I might as well just go to an actual store and buy the thing myself.

</comment><comment><USER46> You can't just add anti-fraud sprinkles on top. The rampant fraud is built into Amazon.com's business model. Monitoring product quality is hard. All the little shopkeepers and buying managers were actually doing work, work that isn't easily automated. Amazon's recreating the problems of central planning that the USSR had in product quality.

</comment><comment><USER47> And absolutely nothing will change. In fact the volume of counterfeit goods, fake reviews and scams on Amazon and other marketplaces will only increase. Its honestly not even really Amazon's problem at this point, its more that there is an entire Chinese industry devoted to counterfeiting and scamming, with literally hundreds of thousands of intelligent, capable people spending their lives looking for ways to make a dishonest buck. Amazon is essentially putting a band-aid on a leaking damn at this point. Until China actually puts strong IP protections in place (They never will) there's really not much western companies can do about it beyond paying lip service to a problem they know they can't actually solve.

</comment><comment><USER19> Forgive me if I think this is both not enough and a little too late.

Too many incentives are aligned within Amazon to continue to ignore counterfeits sold on their marketplace, and the only way I'll believe that such a unit is effective against such incentives is with independent audits.

If this was an honest attempt to clean house, surely Amazon would welcome audits with open arms.

</comment><comment><USER48> No joke, if I need food items from online, I try to go with ebay before amazon. I trust old/nearly expired or half opened boxes from some obscure ebay user before getting anything editable from amazon. If people are counterfeiting oral-b toothbrushes, I'm sure they are counterfeiting vanilla extract and gourmet chocolate.

</comment><comment><USER49> I highly doubt that Amazon's 'counterfeit crimes unit' will be anything more than just an advertising stunt and a token to use in court if accused of not trying to stop counterfeits.

</comment><comment><USER50> Last two items I ordered online I skipped Amazon and ordered from the manufacturer to avoid getting stuck with a counterfeit. I'm considering dropping my Prime membership if this keeps up.

</comment><comment><USER51> Is there a way to contact this new unit? I have a bunch of links to clearly counterfeit products on Amazon. But something tells me that they might not be particularly interested.

</comment><comment><USER52> considering they make money either way, i feel like this could be kind of dubious and just lip service. i would have more faith if an uninvolved party was doing the work.

</comment><comment><USER53> The cynic in me assumes they are doing this so they can make Amazon Basics versions of popular counterfeited money and remove the angle that counterfeiters are using...

</comment><comment><USER54> How will they be able to police this - won't it be like fake accounts on Facebook or Twitter? Very easy to setup a new account?

</comment><comment><USER55> Are they going to tackle the surge in poor quality face masks claiming to meet FDA or European standards?

</comment><comment><USER56> At least five years too late, but I'll take it.

</comment><comment><USER57> they should start by investigating the "Amazon Basics" brand

</comment><comment><USER58> They should start by investigating themselves for antitrust violations.

</comment><comment><USER59> Amazon is just a digital flea market, with all that the epithet entails. Shit- quality Chinesium stuff, counterfeit everything, fake customers, fake everything except the price. All amzn cares about is dominance, and they are winning unfortunately.

</comment><comment> awinter-py nos custodimus quod lingus</comment>


Is race/gender discrimination by voters acceptable because it counters workplace discrimination? - <AUTHOR>

At first glance, US politics appears to be all about discrimination -- and depressingly so.  But maybe that's ok and desirable even. <comment><USER2> Could you elaborate?

<comment><AUTHOR> If group X is discriminated against in the workplace, then group X can vote for someone in that group who will be more likely to push through policies more favorable to group X in the workplace.

<comment><USER2> I think that the voting discrimination you describe (e.g. black people being more likely to vote for black candidates and women being more likely to vote for female candidates) is talked about so openly not because it's acceptable, but because the pundits are in the prognostication business. I think the factors that affect voting are studied more often than the factors that affect hiring.

<comment><USER3> The book Freakonomics mentions a discrimination study on the gameshow The Weakest Link. Apparently, open discrimination didn't occur to women or blacks but it did occur to Latinos and old people. So, it is entirely possible that some political candidates are benefitting from positive discrimination. For example, New Hampshire is almost exclusively white and they'd look really bigotted if the black dude came last.

Freakonomics also mentions the value of voting - which is mostly social. The chance that you'll swing even a regional election is small. This is because your vote is worth less than the acceptable counting error. The majority of the value is social. Namely, that you're seen to be a good citizen and performing your civic duty.

The real discrimination in politics is that you've got to be rich to get power. Political parties in the US spend over one billion dollars to secure a job that pays closer to one million dollars. Some of the difference is prestige but the majority is corruption.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


6 HR Leaders Share Their Visions and Fears about HR Tech and Digital World - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@EBereziuk/6-hr-leaders-share-their-visions-and-fears-about-hr-tech-and-digital-world-4481a66cac1f#.hdtia9j1n <comment><USER2> There doesn't seem to be any insight in this article.</comment>


TeamViewer confirms number of hacked user accounts is "significant" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/security/2016/06/teamviewer-says-theres-no-evidence-of-2fa-bypass-in-mass-account-hack/ <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840020](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11840020)</comment>


How to Get a Job in Algorithmic Trading - <AUTHOR> https://www.financejobs.co/development/how-to-get-a-job-in-algorithmic-trading.html <comment><USER2> To be honest, I was a bit disappointed with this article. I'm aware of the author, I own two of his books, and he certainly knows what he's talking about.

However, there wasn't really too much actionable advice in it. I don't think I actually saw any advice as to how to become an algorithmic trader in the post.

I think I actually wrote a better answer in a previous post here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8699260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8699260)

The sad fact is that if you want to get into algorithmic trading you really have 3 choices.

1) got to MIT, get an undergrad in math/engineering, apply to TradeBot, Virtu, Getco, Jane Street.

This provably works as this is how these firms hire, sadly its not very applicable for most people.

2) Get into a small and successful fund that was previously a prop shop( traders without any algorithmic tooling and then start to build it out yourself.

This can work, but its a very hard and long slog. You'll be creating everything from scratch and wont' have alot of people to bounce technical ideas off of. This might be the hardest way to break into the industry, as you'll essentially be creating a new company inside of an existing one, but it is possible, as this is how I did it.

3) Get hired in a technical capacity with a major algorithmic trading firm and move up.

The key here is to not be in a strictly technical capacity for more than a few years. The industry has a tendency to box people into their current roles.

You have to make people aware of what your goals are. Shadow the best traders you can find. Be mentored by the technical talent who writes the strategies. Get as close to the money as possible!

I lied there is actually a secret option 4)

You can go it alone and trade your own money. I really don't recommend this to people as you need a minimum of $50,000 to $100,000 to do this well. Its hard as you won't have anyone to bounce ideas off of or to lean on when times are tough.

The biggest problem I've seen with going it on your own is that since 2009 we've been in a huge bull market. Everyone is making money. We haven't had a challenging market for 5 years so if you've been trading for less its hard to know if its you who is making money(alpha) or if its the market(beta).

I really don't try to time the market but I have a feeling that late next year people who have been trading their own strategies will start to find out what its like to trade in a bear market.

Someone privately messaged me about math. For each of these options, I find math, specifically stats, to be very important. The hard part is getting programmers to learn stats. There is an old Simpsons episode where Homer is trying to learn about marketing. He starts with a huge book on marketing reads it for a few minutes and then goes to a beginners guid to marketing before finally looking the definition of marketing up on the internet.

Don't be afraid to learn math this way. I usually recommend people read chapters 2-5 of Introduction to Statistically learning

[http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/](http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/)

If you are flying through it then graduate to Elements of statistical learning [http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/](http://statweb.stanford.edu/~tibs/ElemStatLearn/)

If you are working hard to understand Intro to statistical learning then go to Kahn Academy and spend 2 weeks doing all their stats lessons.

I feel like I'm repeating my self but there are no free lunches. You need to work to learn the material. Don't be afraid to go back to basics.

On his book recommendations, Trading and Exchanges is awesome. Michael Lewis' Flash boys is not, read Scott Patterson's DarkPools instead [http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Machine-Traders- Rigging/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Pools-Machine-Traders- Rigging/dp/0307887189)

If you are determined to read Flash Boys then atleast read the counter argument by a HFT [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8577237](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8577237)

Its a much more enlightening read and is only a few dollars:)

<comment><USER3> >> got to MIT, get an undergrad in math/engineering, apply to TradeBot, Virtu, Getco, Jane Street.

Regarding Tradebot, they are known to hire from local schools out in Kansas. In fact, Dave Cummings once said it's like half-way to India strategy. You don't have to get an MIT kid and pay them loads of money when you can get a local school kid pretty much do the same.

I used to be in this field, so I can say from my experience, at least, such jobs come out of relationship building with the men of influence. Sometimes it means being ruthless about following up until the right moment comes (e.g. they have a headcount).

But I hear you on that. Having gone to MIT may help.

<comment><USER4> With some places (DE Shaw & similar), having gone to MIT or an Ivy is just about the only way to get your foot in the door if you're new to the industry.

Also, having a Ph.D. helps, and if somebody wants to go this route I would steer them towards Two Sigma over the competition.

<comment><USER5> Even then it's still really hard. I'm at one of those schools and many of my friends don't even get interviews with the best firms. My impression is that the supply of capable people for these jobs is much higher than the capacity to absorb everyone who is capable of doing the job.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, it's hard to really pin down. They're all really image-conscious and they're looking for specific things -- I don't even know what sometimes. It also really helps to meet with their recruiters that come around your campus and get feedback from them on this. They have a difficult job that they'd love to make easier.

Also keep in mind that they have an image to maintain and some of them are really hurting right now. They may have to look like they're hiring when really they aren't.

(looking over your profile) You might be better off at some of the smaller, specialized HFT shops out there (I hope you like Chicago) if you really know your way around linux kernel programming. That's a really small industry though.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the advice :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Even with the high pay and the intellectually challenging work, I've never found finance the slightest bit appealing.

Somehow, in finance, the impression I always got was that the engineers/algorithm guys were always second fiddle to the traders, and the traders were an incredibly aggressive group of people with a mean competitive streak (part of it I'm sure was the subset of people I met).

It's hard to explain, but I very much enjoy being a nerd among nerds. Being a nerd among finance people always made me feel highly alienated.

<comment><USER7> On top of what Michael O'Church is saying, which I agree with entirely, there's a huge different in the types of traders and types of trading firms there are.

At small, purely algo shops (ala Jane Street), the traders are your nerds. They're programmers, engineers, mathmeticians, physicists, but they just happen to trade.

The incredibly aggressive people that you're talking about is mostly floor traders, brokers, etc, because they need to be that way, and they're generally on their way out, as algos will be smarter and faster.

I've worked in a variety of industries (in software development), and am currently at an HFT shop, and I've found this to be the first place I feel actually values my abilities.

<comment><USER8> Would you say that, as a HFT shop, you are only competing with other HFT shops? I've heard that HFTs use nearly identical algorithms, so now its basically a competition for real estate near the exchanges.

<comment><USER9> Real estate near exchanges has essentially been standardized and is no longer a significant strategic advantage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> If you're in Canada, it's worth noting that when you do trade with other people's money you really need to be certified with the relevant authorities in addition to having the skills.

I interned with a hedge fund for a year early on in my career building algo trading models (circa 2002). Since then the fund has gone under and I was contacted by an investigator from the OSC (more or less our SEC) about the exact nature of my work. Thankfully no charges came of it but I learned that I did expose myself to personal liability due to the fact that I had never gained regulatory certification.

In short, don't overlook the laws in this space. They can really bite!

</comment><comment><USER11> I've always found the whole prospect of algorithmic trading morally dubious. Is algorithmic trading overall a good thing? Is it something we should be encouraging? Can I do good in the world by working in algorithmic trading? Would people become algorithmic traders out of a belief that they're improving the world, and would gladly do it even if the pay was slightly lower than other software developer jobs?

I really don't know. The only reasons I've ever been marginally enticed to do it is that it looks like a fun problem and people make a lot of money off it. But it's hard to beat the job satisfaction at my current workplace. Right now I can release free software, which helps diagnosing and treating neurological diseases.

<comment><USER12> Algorithmic trading is intrinsically neither good nor bad. It's kind of just a natural progression in the markets once easily programmable computers and high-speed networks came along.

How algorithmic trading is used, however, is another story. Humans are still the ones who bring the intent to technology, using it for good or evil. But it may interest you to know that a lot of malicious trading in the markets is not done by algorithmic traders, but by teams of manual traders working in concert to place manipulative trades that cause the market making algorithms to move the market in certain ways. (Source: I work at an exchange, and this is what our regulatory and compliance dept. says all the time.)

<comment><USER13> Why are the market making algorithms so easily exploited?

<comment><USER14> Most market making algorithms work like -

      Market state                                     -> price forecast
      Price forecast + other factors (risk, liquidity) -> trading decision

If you know (or have a good guess) how the algorithm works, you can work out what state of the market would lead to a price forecast in your favour, i.e. would lead to the algorithm offering liquidity at a price favourable to you.

You then manipulate the state of the market to look like that (generally this is "spoofing" or "layering"), wait for the algorithm to respond, and then take advantage of the favourable liquidity it offers.

When people calibrate their algorithms, they use real market data. Most of the time, someone isn't actively manipulating the market, so the model is not calibrated to handle those situations.

<comment><USER12> I know someone who used to work at an algorithm trading firm and did electronic market making. He said they used to go to great lengths to program their algorithms to try to spot this sort of manipulation, but it's a hard problem because you're fighting against a cloud of bad traders who are coordinating their efforts across multiple market centers.

I have to say, the regulatory dept. at the exchange I work for does an excellent job of monitoring for any funny business. They have some nifty real- time tools that are scriptable and can replay the state of the market at any point. It's really cool stuff!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's good to note too that if you really have the skills, you can work for yourself. You don't need to impress someone enough to have them hire you on. Real ability is rare and very valuable so if you can learn that you'll be fine.

What a shop will gain you is a larger pool of capital to work with, so you're open to safer strategies that may only net say 1-5%/mo. (the higher the return the higher the risk, so if you're doing a high risk/reward strategy, the only way to not completely bankrupt is to quit at some point before you blow up, which almost everyone cannot do).

There are a number of ways to pull 1-5% mo. out of capital, which doesn't make it worth the time unless you're well capitalized, so it can make sense to get with a firm, but keep in mind if you have the skills, you don't need to go impress anyone. Your record will speak for itself.

<comment><USER16> _It 's good to note too that if you really have the skills, you can work for yourself. You don't need to impress someone enough to have them hire you on. Real ability is rare and very valuable so if you can learn that you'll be fine._

I don't agree. If you trade $25k of your personal capital up to $35k, that's not going to impress a fund enough to hire you if it otherwise wouldn't. You could have gotten lucky. It doesn't prove that you understand markets or the effects of large trades ("slippage") or the game theory and microstructure. If you lose that money, well now you're out by an amount that would be a fair chunk of change for most people.

 _What a shop will gain you is a larger pool of capital to work with_

And relationships and experts that make transaction costs and taxes low, and the ability to colocate and shave milliseconds off your execution time (milliseconds matter; even _micro_ seconds matter, these days), and smart people to learn from.

<comment><USER17> Did you work for a trading firm? In what capacity?

<comment><USER16> Yes, as a quant.

<comment><USER17> At Jane Street, you mean, right? There might be a selection effect here.

Or I could just be wrong. More than just possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> If anyone is interested in getting into algo trading, other books not mentioned but are highly regarded are:

\- "The Evaluation and Optimization of Trading Strategies" by Pardo

\- "The Elements of Statistical Learning" by Hastie et al

<comment><USER18> Is there a way to get into any of this without any math background whatsoever, just programming skills?

<comment><USER19> Programming skills are math skills. For example, how would you prove that your code is the fastest possible for a given task? A hunch? A stopwatch? Would it make a difference if you used a different language or machine? What if you could objectively compare the algorithm performance itself without conflating factors? What if you could prove it to others without having to simply trust that you are right? This is math. This is why you can't solve the halting problem or lossless compress past the Shannon limit no matter how hard you try. But it's also why a simple fractal contains an infinite universe of complexity. Don't be afraid of math, embrace it! Find some good teachers/books and maybe you'll find that math isn't some arcane priesthood setup by mathematicans, but that it's the language of nature, the most practical and precise way we have of explaining and understanding these things.

<comment><USER20> At least I have always found (most) math to be highly theoretical with little applicability.

Any suggestions on applied math? I suspect I just haven't been exposed to enough of it to really connect the theory to the real world.

<comment><USER19> I had to laugh when I saw my response next to @getsat's. Both are valid viewpoints. In other words, not everyone who uses tools has to know how to make tools.

Tool makers have more insight into the assumptions behind the tools they create -- they might know how a tool was meant to be used and what its limits are. That being said, there are times when using a screwdriver as a hammer is expedient and does no harm. Of course, there are other times where using Black-Scholes to model a high-volatility market outside of the 'smoothly differentiable' market assumptions it was built on can crash a large part of the economy. It can be a dangerous game to use someone else's tools without knowing their assumptions.

As for applied math suggestions:

1) Watch Feynman's take on applied math in physics: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obCjODeoLVw)

2) Read this essay "A Mathematician's Lament" which points out the math learned in school is likely not really mathematics and that surprisingly math is not practical but aesthetic -- mathematics is closer to art than we are taught: [http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.p...](http://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How does pay work in this field? It is commission or salery?

Do these programmers have a short career span. (lose x amount of dollars and you need to leave.)

How much could someone make in this field. Software engineers regularly make 100K so do these guys make more to justify the risk?

<comment><USER16> _How does pay work in this field? It is commission or salery?_

Salaries in finance are low compared to comparable jobs. Bonuses can be very high. A senior programmer who'd make $150k in tech will probably get $130k in a hedge fund, but the bonuses... can be anywhere from 0 to 1000%. Median is probably 30%. Market conditions play a role.

Sadly, compensation has been getting worse for quants over the years. It used to be that you could take a $500k all-in for granted just for knowing college- level math and programming. That's no longer true.

 _Do these programmers have a short career span. (lose x amount of dollars and you need to leave.)_

No worse than startups. It's probably better, to be honest. The age discrimination isn't nearly as bad as in the VC-funded world, people are less- often fired for stupid reasons in hedge funds, and the ethics are generally better in finance than in the VC-funded world. Finally, the lower status of programmers may be more visible in finance (i.e. you're clearly second-rate compared to traders) but less onerous. Engineers are _third_ -class citizens in the Valley, with their 0.01% equity slices of post-A startups, and because the VC-funded startups aren't very selective and a third of the programmers are incompetent, they feel a need to use "Agile" micromanagement that you wouldn't see at a hedge fund.

If you lose serious money (meaning hundreds of thousands) doing something stupid, you'll get fired. If you're unluckym good funds won't fire you. A lot of statistical arbitrage is taking "51/49" bets.

 _How much could someone make in this field._

The upside is very high. That said, typically it's not going to be more than 25-50% more than you'd make elsewhere. You need to manage your career aggressively and become someone's protege if you want to get above $300k... but it can be done, and some people make 10-50 times that.

<comment><USER17> Wait, let me see if I understand the logic here. Engineers are second-class citizens in finance, but _third-class_ citizens in "the VC-funded world". Evidence: engineers get "0.01% equity slices of post-A startups".

What percentage of a hedge fund does a typical engineer get?

<comment><USER9> I get what you are trying to say, and don't agree with the either the second/third class citizen descriptions, but in hedge funds/prop trading shops compensation is typically not equity based, but is very typically profit sharing based, with the _engineers_ getting a pretty hefty share of any trading profits.

In fact, when you hear about giant bonuses in finance what you are often really hearing about are groups that traded salary for profit sharing and it paid off. In the context of finance, this comes off as shady or outrageous but in the context of startup hits it doesn't.

Lets just say, having worked under option based equity arrangements and profit sharing arrangements, they both had their positives and negatives, but only ever felt like a system was stacked against me, as an employee, when equity/options were on the table.

<comment><USER17> Sure, but let me go a little further out on this limb and challenge you, too: in established trading firms --- DRW, Two Sigma, that sort of place --- what percentage of the returns do you think go to non-founding engineers?

<comment><USER9> I obviously have no way of knowing, but I suspect the compensation package at those places is much more dependent on the amount of impact you have to those returns than to when you joined the firm (for better or worse) and that people that impact those returns in dramatic ways will get compensated in a similar manner to early stage employees at startups.

The big issue I think with the equity based model, is the golden handcuffs it applies to early employees. Not only do they frequently forego market based compensation for long periods of time, when they make the decision to stop doing that, they are asked to take on more downside in order to keep any part of their deferred compensation. For all it's downsides, the trading environment would never ask someone to do that.

<comment><USER17> You'd know better than I would, and if I have a dog in this fight, it's fighting on your side: the more prized engineers are in trading firms, the better off I am. :)

My immediate reaction to this point, though, is:

* The downsides of equity comp are shared by all roles in a tech company, not just engineers; the exceptions are the very most senior management, and the tiny cohort of founders. Both of which are exceptional at _all_ firms.

* Dev jobs in finance are, I am pretty sure, a better deal than those in tech startups.

* But let's not move the goalposts: the argument is that engineers are _second-class_ in tech startups in a way that isn't true in finance companies. Most engineering jobs at finance companies are cost-center roles.

<comment><USER9> "But let's not move the goalposts: the argument is that engineers are second- class in tech startups in a way that isn't true in finance companies. Most engineering jobs at finance companies are cost-center roles."

As I mentioned, I do not think it is a fair characterization to say that engineers are more/less valued in either situation. I just think that using equity distribution percentage to argue one way or the other is problematic in that compensation is determined in 2 dramatically different ways.

That said, if I were going to argue anything, it would be that the equity options based compensation packages in tech startups seem to have more opportunity for abuse. So characterizing engineers as 3rd vs 2nd class isn't interesting, but characterizing one compensation structure as more exploitative than the other may be, and I think that is at the heart of what the original post was about.

[edit] I'd also add that any characterizations about the methodologies used in finance/trading vs tech startups is completely inaccurate. I've seen great development process in both places and the converse as well.

<comment><USER17> This makes too much sense for me to productively argue with, so instead I will accept and wallow in my wrongness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not interested in job. Would love to hear and share some new strategies with peeps on HN; specifically, what do you guys think are the new opportunities for the new coming year.

Me personally, I think next year is going to be great. Vol should pick up with the Fed actually tapering and VIX returning to its real median of 16-20. So I think strategies that sell vol could be more effective. Here's a study on Quantopian for that: [http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=225532](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=225532)

I'm curious about how the rising interest rate will affect things such as gold and US treasuries; obviously, it should drive the yield/prices down as US dollar becomes more attractive. But specifically, how to pair trade it; here's some study on pair trading TLT and SPY: [http://seekingalpha.com/article/2714185-the-spy-tlt- universa...](http://seekingalpha.com/article/2714185-the-spy-tlt-universal- investment-strategy)

Finally, pair trading GDX and GLD; and also oil futures and oil refining/exploration companies. I'm not very familiar at all the dynamics there, I was told that the correlation of producer to spot is like an option being in the money, if oil or gold drops down or up to the threshold of break- even for producers; that changes the pricing dynamics of these companies. Anyways, let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

</comment><comment><USER23> The author mentions 2 backtesting platforms, which platform is better: BattleFin or Quantopian?

<comment><USER24> I have used the BattleFin backtesting platform extensively but I always think Quantopian has more better things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps surprisingly, the funds considered elite are biased _against_ people with prior work experience, outside of academia. The best time to join the elite firms is right out of a PhD program. That said, money is money, and I'd honestly rather take a great position at an above-average hedge fund than an entry-level spot at one with a gold-plated reputation. By the time you're in your 30s, you evaluate the position rather than the company.

Some of these funds have a passionate hatred for "job hoppers" are are inaccessible to almost anyone in tech. It's normal to change jobs every 2 years. Not getting promoted? Switch. Your manager left for greener pastures? Follow him. Hedge funds do a better job of internal promotion, so you're more likely to end up on a track that would merit a longer stay, but they tend to view the average tech CV negatively, because they're extremely paranoid about IP and changing jobs every 18-24 months until you get lucky and "click" with someone powerful and are on a protege/leadership track (which is what you have to do, in tech) is frowned upon.

Learning finance is important for showing an interest in the field (and not just the money) but most of the hard effort is going to be in learning statistics, computer science, microeconomics, and technology.</comment>


Death of Yuri Gagarin demystified 40 years on - <AUTHOR> http://rt.com/news/gagarin-death-truth-revealed-674/

<comment><USER2> For what it's worth, I first learned of Gagarin's death in mid-80s from my grandmother who told me, plain and simple, that his plane was caught in a jet wash of another plane. Perhaps it's good to have the cause formally declassified, but it was already a common knowledge back in Soviet times.

<comment><USER3> Some version of the jet-wash explanation seems to have been made public in 1988. Here's a contemporary _New York Times_ summary of some February 1988 _Pravda_ articles: [http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/07/us/soviet-lifting-veil- on-...](http://www.nytimes.com/1988/02/07/us/soviet-lifting-veil-on-death-of- astronaut.html)

That report, which Leonov was a co-author of, identified the other plane as a MiG-21, not a Su-15, but otherwise seems pretty similar to this account.

I'm not sure why RT here is reporting Leonov's updated version of events as if it were just now made public, either. He published this version (involving the low-flying Su-15 passing within 10-20 meters) at least as early as 2004, since it appears in English in his co-written book _Two Sides of the Moon_ ([http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312308663/ref=as_li_ss_tl?...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312308663/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0312308663&linkCode=as2&tag=kmjn-20) ; Chapter 8).

<comment><USER4> It's RT's M.O. to gin up controversy, isn't it?

<comment><USER5> Leonov held a press conference and his claim is that he's had access to additional documents that back his theory. Unfortunately the documents themselves haven't been released so this mostly amounts to Leonov re-iterating his position.

The story itself is covered widely by Russian media so while you're right about RT in general, in this particular case, the RT thing is incidental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I am glad to hear that more is coming out about his death. I think, slowly, Yuri Gagarin's place in American history is being solidified. It would be interesting to find out the process that Gagarin was chosen as the first man. The politics and technical requirements must have been intense. And obviously he had to distinguish himself.

<comment> k-mcgrady I'm interested in your comment about his place in American history being solidified. Could you expand? Is he not taught about in schools when space is being taught?

<comment><USER7> As a young American, I can say that I have no recollection of his name. I've never been particularly interested in space exploration, but living in Florida, we visited the Space Center, watched launches, etc. The names I know are all American: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, etc. The "programs" I know are too: Apollo, Challenger, etc.

We were taught that the Russians made it to space before we did, and I think that's about it before we moved on to American achievements. Perhaps I had a nationalistic teacher.

<comment><USER3> I assume it varies by school/textbook, but while I agree the American space program was covered with _much_ more emphasis, in my class we did learn about Gagarin. The bits of Soviet space program we learned were basically: Sputnik, first dog in space, Gagarin, Mir.

<comment><USER8> Do you mean German space program?

<comment><USER3> We also learned about the role played by German-Americans in the program, yes! Von Braun is pretty much a household name.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I worked in the city of Gagarin (his place of birth) and saw the memorial made after him. I find quite a dark secret about this memorial that can only be noticed from the certain angle at a certain distance. I should of made a picture of it.

<comment><USER10> Would you care to elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Useless triva here: there is a 'statue' of Yuri in Moscow. I always called it the Rocketboy.

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Yuri_Gaga...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f6/Yuri_Gagarin_Monument.jpg)

<comment> guard-of-terra Everybody seem to call it "batman".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> yuri gagarin's life is the subject of the book "Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin", it's pretty fascinating to watch him through his life and ultimately become a tool of the state for propaganda purposes. his death was largely caused by him ceasing his flying so much, a skill that dulls unless used constantly.

[http://www.amazon.com/Starman-Truth-Behind-Legend- Gagarin/dp...](http://www.amazon.com/Starman-Truth-Behind-Legend- Gagarin/dp/0802779506)

<comment><USER13> Also looking forward to the new Russian biopic coming out soon, trailer looks good (or at least expensive): [http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum9/HTML/002381.html](http://www.collectspace.com/ubb/Forum9/HTML/002381.html) (could find a better link, but I'm on my phone, sorry).

<comment><USER14> I wonder when we'll be able to buy it on DVD. I have a feeling I'm going to end up having to get one of my relatives to ship it to me from Russia.

<comment><USER15> Oh don't worry it'll be on torrent trackers and usenet with full subtitles a week or two before theatrical release. Full dubs a month or two after, if they think it will be popular in Europe (which it might well be).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> How come this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5880557](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5880557)

was ignored whereas the current one didn't? The same title, the same link...?!!</comment>


How browsers work - <AUTHOR> http://taligarsiel.com/Projects/howbrowserswork1.htm <comment><USER2> Better version: [http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/internals/howbrowsers...](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/internals/howbrowserswork/)

<comment><USER3> I worked with Tali for this version. We cleaned up a lot of small errors, typos and improved readability. It's also since translated into Korean, German, Spanish, Japanese, Portugese, Russian and Simplified Chinese.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A wonderful video version - <http://vimeo.com/44182484>

</comment><comment><USER5> It would be really cool to have this in epub/mobi format...

</comment><comment><USER6> This is great! It's almost a history and an explanation of the internet.

</comment><comment><USER7> this is amazing, thanks for posting this</comment>


LiquidHaskell: Refinement Types via SMT and Predicate Abstraction - <AUTHOR> http://goto.ucsd.edu/~rjhala/liquid/haskell/blog/about/ <comment><USER2> Ranjit Jhala did a fantastic and entertaining talk about Liquid Haskell in Boston last month. Highly recommended.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYh27zz9530&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYh27zz9530&feature=youtu.be)

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone have any recommendations for which of the papers referenced is worth reading?

<comment><USER4> The author said the PLDI 2008 paper and the ESOP 2013 papers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Review Beatnex - An effort to make the RIAA obsolete - <AUTHOR>

What I have right now is, in every sense of the term, a minimum viable product (hopefully).  I've noticed that I'm really spinning my wheels though, so I decided it was time for a reality check from HN.
As the link bait title (sorry about that) suggests, my ultimate goal is to eliminate any value that record companies provide to bands.  I am a firm believer that the functions of these dinosaurs can be accurately simulated through web technologies.
(Note: I am not a programmer--just a business student with some passion.  Also, the user data stored on the site is all fictional test data at this point)
http://beatnex.com <comment><USER2> Bluntly, this doesn't look particularly compelling, especially when compared to something like <http://bandcamp.com/>

"I am a firm believer that the functions of these dinosaurs can be accurately simulated through web technologies."

I'd be interested to have you expand on that. Specifically, what are the things that a label provides to an artist and how do web-technologies replace these?

Yes, I am playing Devil's Advocate here :)

Still, I am geniunely interested in your thoughts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing me towards some more, competition...they look to have a very clean setup.

Beatnex is aiming to differentiate itself from those type of sites though by providing real-life services through the web. While the likes of thesixtyone and Amie Street help a band sell their music digitally, we believe that their ultimate success is rooted in engaging fans in a physical manner. For example, we have created an automatic gig booking system of sorts. The band simply picks a date, time, and a desired venue, then a request is sent off to the appropriate people. This venue will then have all the information they need about the band, and can accept their request instantly.

We also believe that those little plastic discs that the RIAA peddles aren't dead in the water. In a recent study, 90% of 18-25 year olds said that they would like to purchase a CD even if they can download the same music online. Its simply a matter of creating value for those customers through creativity (ie. buy a cd, get a jam session with the band). We have arranged the capability to offer on-demand pro CD creation--the band doesn't have to invest a dime in that production.

These are just a couple of directions that we are going in right now, thanks for your feedback!

<comment><USER2> "We also believe that those little plastic discs that the RIAA peddles aren't dead in the water...Its simply a matter of creating value for those customers through creativity"

I agree wholeheartedly! CDs don't have to be the default means of distribution, but they are certainly something fans are interested in, especially if there is some aspect that makes them collectible -- interesting artwork, extras etc.

"We have arranged the capability to offer on-demand pro CD creation--the band doesn't have to invest a dime in that production."

What is it about the CDs that makes them worth having rather than a digital download? Is the fact that it's a physical artifact enough or is there something else people are looking for. Personally, I don't want a CD if it's just a plastic case with some art stuffed in it, but if it's put together more artfully, I'm more interested. For example, Raster Noton (<https://shop.raster-noton.net/>) make CDs worth owning by virtue of the care and thought they put into their aesthetics.

<comment><AUTHOR> How value can be added to a CD is really the million-dollar question for the music industry as a whole I think. Frankly, I don't think there is one single answer. What works for Raster Noton, who has a distinct set of fans, will certainly not work for just any ol' band. Perhaps the key for my startup is to enable the artists to add their own unique flavor as easily as possible.

Also, Derek Sivers posted an excellent article (<http://sivers.org/livecd>) today on how a CD can be used as a promotional vehicle when given away free. Perhaps we could focus on producing quality CDs as cheaply as possible to make this a viable marketing tool for bands as well.

You seem to have a genuine interest in this field so feel free to email me -- development (at) beatnex (dot) com. I would love to hear more of your insights on this topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You probably wont beat the RIAA, but you can carve a nice niche for yourself. It has potential and there are a billion possibilities. Keep at it and keep us posted.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks mahmud!

I suppose a currently unfunded startup taking down a conglomerate represented by several billion dollar companies is slightly unlikely :) Nevertheless, it is my grand dream. Thanks for the encouragement and you will definitely be hearing more from us.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> clickable: <http://beatnex.com></comment>


Cosmetics firm "Lush" has website hacked. - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-dorset-12248992

<comment><USER2> I am not impressed by their handling of this. They became aware of the intrusions in the last week of December, didn't tell any of their customers until Wednesday, and didn't say anything publicly until yesterday.</comment>


Comex, the Hacker Behind JailbreakMe.com, Hired as Apple Intern - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/25/comex-the-hacker-behind-jailbreakme-com-hired-as-apple-intern/

<comment><USER2> "It's probably better to have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." - Lyndon B. Johnson

Seems like an apt quote; from Apple's point of view, it's much, much better to have Comex helping them increase their security and make it harder for their devices to be jailbroken than for him to be trying to circumvent their security, especially as he's shown himself to be quite effective at circumventing it. Admittedly, we don't don't what he's going to be working on, and his subsequent tweets show an expectation that future versions of iOS will still be jailbroken, so perhaps he's not going to be involved with security (or, just as likely, recognizes that perfect security is impossible).

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't say security is impossible, but it isn't worth the time and effort some companies put into it.

For example, Apple could stop putting 30 pin connectors on the iPhone, replacing it with only a power port to charge the device, then sandbox the rest of their apps on the phone (currently every jailbreak involving a vulnerability had to do with the fact that Apple doesn't sandbox their own applications like they do with third party applications.)

Of course you could argue that you could take the device apart and hook up leads to the circuitry in an attempt to flash the device, but you're going to stop over 99.9% of the jail breaking community from jail breaking their devices.

<comment><USER4> That's incorrect. All apps are sandboxed — Safari most of all, in fact — comex just found ways to break out of the sandbox, usually by exploiting something in the iOS kernel.

In addition, while it is possible to make the dock connector power only, it's only possible as of iOS 5 (with WiFi syncing). Also, that dramatically increases the cost of repair: a single corrupted file can't just be fixed in a quick bootloader-level restore, it requires reprogramming the entire device at the factory (let alone the difficulty of simply transferring a large music library from a computer without USB).

It's definitely not "simple" for Apple to make jailbreaking more difficult than they have. iOS 4.3+ include all of the security measures you'd expect in a modern OS: W^X, ASLR, codesigning, etc. And still it was possible to evade those and exploit the browser+kernel in a foolproof, web jailbreak.

(I designed the website for <http://jailbreakme.com/>, and while comex did put a crazy amount of work into that project, it is certainly possible that someone could repeat it.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I remember reading an article about the Half life 2 leak--I remember a bit about where the person responsible reached out to Gabe newell, and playing it cool Gabe offered him a job.

 _Newell kept corresponding with Gembe, and Gembe was led into believing that Valve wanted to employ him as an in-house security auditor. He was to be offered a flight to the USA and was to be arrested on arrival by the FBI._ \--wikipedia excerpt

Luckily for Axel his government intervened before he could make the mistake of actually going to the USA where it's likely events would have turned out much worse for him.

The point, anyway, is this sounds very terribly similar. Comex may already be in the US, regardless I wouldn't be so quick to accept a "job" offer from a company I've been irking for a couple years. Hopefully the offer is on the up and up, for Comex's sake.

<comment><USER6> He hasn't committed a crime and even if they don't like what he's done, I doubt that they have it in for him.

Even if they do, what are they going to do? Sabotage his career by giving him bad references?

<comment><USER7> Jailbreaking isn't illegal for him now, but I imagine the taint of insider knowledge of Apple's products could make future jailbreak development a very risky proposition indeed!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> In case you missed it, Forbes profiled Comex earlier this month: [http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/08/01/meet- comex-...](http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2011/08/01/meet-comex-the- iphone-uber-hacker-who-keeps-outsmarting-apple/)

This is how Forbes' article ends: _"A postscript to Apple: Perhaps your security team could use another intern."_

</comment><comment><USER8> They'd better think about keeping him on as more than just an intern. If he accepts, he's going to learn a lot more secrets in a very short time.

<comment><USER9> Yes, but you see, in order for him to actually get the gig as an Apple intern he'll have to sign his soul away and the consequences of leaking any information after he's signed those papers will be draconian.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's not really that unexpected, is it? Most good students get a ton of internship offers at these sorts of companies.

</comment><comment><USER11> Comex wrote a lot of cool apps for Cydia. Maybe he can help convince apple to integrate some of the more useful ones.

<comment><USER12> The only interesting package I had on Cydia was Frash, and I don't see that being built in in the near future. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if Steve Jobs leaving as CEO at Apple has to do with this.</comment>


Installing Nvidia CUDA on Ubuntu 14.04 for Linux GPU Computing - <AUTHOR> http://www.quantstart.com/articles/Installing-Nvidia-CUDA-on-Ubuntu-14-04-for-Linux-GPU-Computing <comment><USER2> Would this be significantly easier if there were just a Dockerfile with all this stuff in it and then the instructions would be, "docker build -t cuda . && docker run -t -i cuda /bin/sh"? Or maybe make it a trusted docker image and developers could just pull/run it?

Later: perhaps not. Graphics drivers and the like rely on an interactive terminal and an X11 system, AFAICT.

<comment><USER3> I think this could actually be done if the container is run in "\--privileged" mode.

<comment><USER2> I think it is more than that. The installation has steps that fail because of terminal requirements at install-time:

        Unpacking x11-common (from .../x11-common_1%3a7.6+12ubuntu2_all.deb) ...
        debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
        debconf: (TERM is not set, so the dialog frontend is not usable.)
        debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
        debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
        debconf: (This frontend requires a controlling tty.)
        debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype

Have a look at the github repo:

[https://github.com/hughdbrown/docker- cuda](https://github.com/hughdbrown/docker-cuda)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought HFT was moving toward FPGA? Does anyone know where/how GPU-HPC is used?

<comment><USER5> First of all, HFT is by far not the only place for HPC. GPU/Intel MIC HPC usage is still growing in scientific computing. Then, when we look at the financial world, there's still lots of interest in GPGPU, but rather on the more heavy weight analysis side. Not everything needs to be done in single digit milliseconds, there's decisions that can still be done in mere seconds where you'd rather have a more general purpose capable approach that's relatively easy to program - which is where GPUs come in, since their programmability becomes increasingly easy. I know the company that released the first full blown F# port of CUDA, mainly for the financial sector: [https://quantalea.net/](https://quantalea.net/). They can even integrate that stuff with Excel so the bankers can have tons of calculations in their spreadsheets and still have the graphs update in realtime when they use their pretty sliders ;-).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Gah, just make nvidia support for ubuntu that works properly

<comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, I had quite a bit of trouble getting it to work prior to this. The main issue seemed to be compatibility with Ubuntu packaged Nvidia drivers of various versions. It's certainly not as straightforward as it could be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Installing the same version of the same package on Gentoo ~amd64:

        emerge nvidia-cuda-sdk

<comment><AUTHOR> If only it was this easy in Ubuntu :-)

<comment><USER8> Well, its that easy if you can live with slightly old version. There is CUDA package in official repo IIRC.

<comment><USER9> Yep, just _apt-get install nvidia-cuda-toolkit_. It's currently v5.5.22 (a mid-2013 version). Debian started working on a packaging of v6.x in the "experimental" repository a few weeks ago, which will probably migrate to regular Debian and Ubuntu releases once it's tested a bit.

<comment><AUTHOR> I actually tried this a few months ago. I had some issues trying to run the typical vector addition "Hello world!" examples on my system.

I'm not 100% sure but I also think that by installing the nvidia-cuda-toolkit package it leaves out the CUDA samples. These contain the deviceQuery and bandwidthTest scripts necessary to check that CUDA is functional.

Admittedly I have two consumer cards in SLI, so that may have affected the install. It could also have been incompatibility between the actual Nvidia display drivers and the various dependencies. It's a bit messy!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ubuntu ZFS support in 19.10: introduction - <AUTHOR> https://didrocks.fr/2019/08/06/ubuntu-zfs-support-in-19.10-introduction/ <comment><USER2> Have been booting proxmox machines off ZFS for a few years now, and the only bad experiences have been with grub. Troubleshooting at the intersection of grub and ZFS is..., well..., giving up and reinstalling is usually quicker. So I'm hopeful that Ubuntu's focus on ZFS boot will eventually lead to some of these issues being ironed out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does the ubuntu kernel also comes with the patch that enables vectorized cpu extensions/AVX/AES-NI for zfs these days? [https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NixOS- Li...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=NixOS- Linux-5.0-ZFS-FPU-Drop)

<comment><USER4> The linked article is a good example of where choosing a cipher such as ChaCha20-Poly1305 can be a fraction slower than AES but also more reliable and forward-compatible when CPU extensions are suddenly switched off. Imagine the not-too-distant future where a Spectre-like bug forces kernels to disable certain CPU extensions, and you suddenly find yourself stuck with mountains of data encrypted with the wrong cipher that only works safely and tolerably when hardware-accelerated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have been waiting for ZFS Native encrypted root. Very nice that this is comming.

<comment><USER6> Yes, though it's a shame that ZFS native encryption doesn't support multiple pass phrases/key files to unlock yet (the on disk structure does support this but the utilities don't and won't until a future release).

That's the feature that keeps me tied to LUKS+zfs for now.</comment></comment>


Tokyo to build 350m tower made of wood - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/16/plyscraper-city-tokyo-tower-wood-w350 <comment><USER2> Fire safety in wooden structures is interesting. A friend who does research in the area explained that, in some ways, wooden beams are simpler to engineer than steel beams when dealing with fire.

The goal, engineering wise, is to put a number on a given structure - how many hours can it burn before it falls?

A steel beam will maintain most of its strength up to the point it suddenly becomes soft and loses all of it. The exact point in time this occurs is hard to predict, because it varies substantially with several variables.

A wood beam will maintain the full strength of the beam, minus the average thickness of wood that is burned off per hour, which is a reasonably well known quantity.

This makes it simple (though not easy, of course!), relative to steel structures, to put a number on a wooden structure - "this building can burn for 2 hours before it is no longer safe for firemen to try to put it out from inside".

<comment><USER3> The question is: how does the number for a steel structure compare to that of a steel one?

<comment><USER4> This doesn't answer the question, but on topic: I was working with a building engineer who described a situation where a car engine caught on fire underneath a buildings (large, extended) eve that was built with steel beams, and they did melt, obviously necessitating a lot of fix-up work. He reckoned though that if the beam was built of wood, in that situation you'd just have to clean of some blackened material and carry on business-as-usual.

He also said that of steel, perfect glass, and wood, glass was (strength to weight) the strongest material (I don't remember if this was in compression, or tension, or ...), but it's so affected by its environment (chemically, physically (a scratch)), there's really no such thing as perfect glass, so it's moot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Currently under construction is this 73m tall residential wooden tower in Amsterdam:

[https://hautamsterdam.nl/en/](https://hautamsterdam.nl/en/)

The name HAUT appears to be a play on the Dutch word for wood (HOUT) and the french word for tall (HAUTE).

<comment><USER6> Note that "haute" is the feminine form, and the masculine version of tall is just "haut."

<comment><USER5> Thanks for pointing that out. Now I learned that "cuisine" is feminine.

<comment><USER7> No, adjective like "haut" change according to the noun it describes and most of the time by appending a "e". A "tour" (the feminine word for tower) will be "haute". An "arbre" (the masculine word for tree) will be "haut". "Cuisine" is a general noun so it does not change, even if it ends with a "e". There are not a masculine or feminine cuisine, it's just a cuisine :).

<comment><USER8> > "Cuisine" is a general noun so it does not change, even if it ends with a > "e". There are not a masculine or feminine cuisine, it's just a cuisine :).

"cuisine" is definitely a feminine noun. There is no such thing as a "general" noun. Also, it is the adjective that changes to match the noun, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's a site with more information on wooden skyscrapers. It has a design for a wooden empire state building.

[https://www.metsawood.com/global/Campaigns/planb/cases/woode...](https://www.metsawood.com/global/Campaigns/planb/cases/wooden- skyscraper/)

<comment><USER10> Very interesting! But there is quite literally zero cross-bracing in that structure, which leads me to believe this was designed by an architect and not a structural engineer.

<comment><USER11> Do architects nowadays not have to be competent structural engineers? If so, it would amuse me greatly: how can you be entrusted in drawing new building shapes if you have no clue on their feasibility?

In other words, have the word 'architect' devolved into a 'building (exterior & interior) designer'?

<comment><USER12> Architects these days often seem to be large scale sculptors who inflict strange shapes on people who then have to live in or around them, without regard for engineering or human psychology.

<comment><USER13> Not really "these days". Unliveable spaces has a good longstanding tradition. Just check Le Corbusier and Niemayer works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> They plan on finishing it in 2041, more than two decades away. I think this sounds far more like a marketing ploy than an actual building project.

<comment><USER15> People working in forestry are used to planning long-term, what you sow or plant now will be reaped by the next generation. They just planted the building and are now waiting for it to grow to harvestable size.

<comment><USER16> I would love for humans to plant Red Woods and Iron Woods that would someday be harvested. They take so long to grow that they are not replaced, an ultimate testament to selfishness.

<comment><USER14> You would enjoy reading about this forest:

[https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/visingso-oak- forest](https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/visingso-oak-forest)

Ultra long term planning is hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Japan is unrivaled in building long-lasting wooden structures using only joinery (no nails, screws). This allows the wood to expand and contract harmoniously without cracking. Multi-story buildings (temples are a great example) have "floating" stories than may shift several feet during an earthquake, all kept together with a freestanding "spine" mounted only to the ground.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is it harder to build this thing resistant to earthquakes than if it was made out of steel and concrete?

</comment><comment><USER19> So Tokyo is finally going to build a Skytree made of actual wood this time?

</comment><comment><USER20> Having just paid for a termite inspection, are infestations not a risk?

<comment><USER21> I first read that as thermite and I asked myself how does it work with wood buildings. (even if, as per this thread, wood is better regarding heat)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is there a good article on fire safety in these buildings?

<comment><USER23> Curious as well. Seems like it would be a death trap and help spread the fire more.

<comment><USER24> Actually wood buildings are safer in case of fire if done right. New techniques (can't find the link) are able to control the way fire spreads and how fast it burns far better, also iirc because the heat that develops is lower.

<comment><USER25> Safer? Than steel or brick?

<comment><USER26> Yes. The reason is slow and predictable burn that doesn't affect the structural integrity until it has burned for a very long time. Even without special fire proofing, glulam burns at less than 1mm/minute.

The idea behind a fire safe high rise isn't that it can't burn but that when it burns it doesn't collapse until people have left. That's why the integrity is measured after 30min burn, 60min burn etc. As a wood beam burns the charring limits the oxygen supply of the fire, slowing the burn.

Steel beams require fire proofing and high temperatures or compromised fire proofing makes them structurally unsound which can cause unpredictable catastrophic failure (this happened in both of the WTC towers).

<comment><USER27> Is really collapse the the main danger to consider when a fire happens? I would think that when a building collapses from fire, many people in the building would already be dead from smoke and heat. If a wooden building would stand longer but be smoke filled earlier, I am not sure it can be said to be safer.

<comment><USER28> Everything else around your structural elements are going to be putting out smoke that will kill occupants regardless of whether the structure is steel or wood in situations like this. You worry about collapse for cases when the fire on a lower level traps occupants above, and the more time you can buy to control the fire or evacuate the better.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Adhering to fire codes must be big part of the costs. How do you fireproof some crazy dude just decides to throw a Molotov cocktail at it?

<comment><USER30> I don't remember the details, but on a previous article on wooden skyscapers, it was explained how the engineering of the wood, which is also required for the necessary structural strength, made it very dense and practically incombustible. Fire proofing is an inherent quality, not something that's applied and thus could be done poorly.

IIRC.

<comment><USER31> Wood also just burns, slowly. Steel might not burn but as it gets hot it loses structural integrity very quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> "The W350 tower will be mostly wood, and 10% steel."

Wood and steel.

<comment><USER33> You might as well call it a steel tower at this point.

Steel is heavy but it's also very strong. You don't need a lot of it to build something. A pure steel building actually ends up being lighter than a concrete building because of this.

<comment><USER34> Steel has a great tensile strength but an average compressive strength at best. It's prone to buckling. Concrete is the exact opposite. In a skyscraper you need great tensile _and_ compressive strength in different structural elements. This is why reinforced concrete is such a big deal. The properties of steel and concrete naturally complement each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I have a certain dislike for wooden houses because a) they seem to have high maintenance requirements, since wood as an organic material is often attacked by fungi, mould, or insects b) the ones I've lived in were old buildings lacking insulation and draughty, thus freezing in winter. That could be fixed with insulation of course.

<comment><USER36> Bricks (everywhere, internal walls and all) and concrete (for the floors) are the best - no stupid squeaking, nothing to rot, nothing to break, great soundproofing, good thermal insulation if done right, will last a long time provided no natural disasters. Not even expensive depending on the region.

That said, I don't get the point of a wooden skyscraper. I'd guess it's earthquake resistant, and it's not actual natural wood but a mix of synthetic materials and wood.

<comment><USER10> Bricks and concrete are absolutely not the best. They have terrible insulation properties, poor sound absorption, and cost more than wood structures.

Wood is an overall superior construction material if you can use it, and I think you're misunderstanding the pressure treatment process. It's normal wood placed in a vacuum chamber so preservatives can seep into the lumber.

<comment><USER37> Don't forget, brick and mortar also holds moisture and is porous. This can lead to spalling in cold weather and rotting whatever's behind it in warm weather.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1m5VShzxYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1m5VShzxYs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> It's just a proposal/advertisement of one company.</comment>


Rich Kids Wanted: The Latest Wrinkle in College Admissions - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.time.com/2011/12/01/the-latest-wrinkle-in-college-admissions/

<comment><USER2> The very same thing is happening in Britain, where many local universities have admissions and recruitment officers actually based in non-EU countries, particularly in China where the value of a British degree is played up heavily. Students from outside the EU can pay up to five times more tuition than those from within. Some universities (Nottingham springs to mind [1]) even have campuses in Asia and the Middle East, and fly lecturers and professors out, so the students don't even have to move to Britain to study.

I don't know if it affects admissions - whether you've got more chance of getting into the college if you're a high fee-paying foreign student. But it has to be a factor, when these institutions are struggling so much.

[1]: <http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/about/campuses/chinacampus.aspx>

</comment><comment><USER3> High-end schools are a lottery - more applicants than slots. Being able to pay is a no-brainer to the admissions team. Schools are in business.</comment>


Kanye Wests Tidal Flop - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/kanye-wests-tidal-flop/ <comment><USER2> Tidal is failing for many reasons. The psychology behind being told this was what we were getting instead of finding it for ourselves. Tidal was marketed more so to artists then the consumer. The original idea was to have the money go back to the artists instead streaming apps trying to pay the artists as little as possible. Not a great selling point being told to pay more just cause. Especially when other services offer a better service.

Second, niche is too small. The majority of bulk music buyers are between 17- 25 years of age. High fidelity audio and videos isn't top priority especially when itunes or downloading a YouTube videos audio is an option.

Competition too great Spotify is at 100 million downloads on android alone. Also Apple music and Google play come built in to the smart device and is already integrated with your existing music.

Tidal wanted to get big too fast. All successful apps started with slow growth. They learned their user base, adjusted to widen the types of users in that base, grew a healthy back bone over a period of time to establish a strong infrastructure. Im pretty sure that Jay-Z just hired some contract developers to build this app, upload it and build a simple hosted solution. The app is experiencing growth pains. Its like a small 5 table restaurant trying to to seat customers like it's a 100 table restaurant.

Also I support the "Tidal being dead statement", since Jay-Z couldn't make a deal with Sony for licensing. He will have to remove a lot of artists from his catalog. Mind you a majority of them being "founders"...

</comment><comment><USER3> MAU stats could illustrate this entire narrative completely. Instead I feel like somebody is attacking me with random statistics until I agree with them more passionately or something</comment>


Show HN: Shoplove - A women's high street store aggregator - <AUTHOR>

Background: I noticed that my better half spent a lot of time searching for the same thing (at the time it was maternity dresses) across a whole load of women's fashion stores online. So I built her a site that lets her search some of the top stores from one site.
I have an idea for a few social elements that I want to add to try and make more of a community.
Any feedback, tips etc welcome.
http://shoplove.co.uk <comment><USER2> I'm coming at this from a marketing point of view but the site feels very generic — more discount bin than "high street". Why not go back to your original concept and create an aggregator that's just focused on maternity (which is a valuable SEO play)? Also I'd design several looks and do some A/B testing (including selection of clothing for the front page which is critical).

</comment><comment><USER3> Great job keeping the design classy and out of the way. Seems simple and easy to use - hope you have a ton of success with it.

Any idea on how to keep it alive/monetize it? Maybe high street stores would want to promote some of their items to the top of lists?

<comment><AUTHOR> At the moment, I'm aiming at affiliate sales. I'm open to other solutions though :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'd figure out how to make it look higher end. It's nice, but it feels like a low-end site, imo. See <http://www.saksfifthavenue.com> for how a high end clothing store looks. Good luck!

<comment><USER5> Actually his design feels higher end than that saks-fifth-avanue website.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well put together.

Just wondering: Do you have any concerns regarding copyright use of text, images etc. of the products being sold?

Have you looked into possible Google penalties regarding duplication of text from other websites?

<comment><AUTHOR> Honestly, no I haven't looked into any of this.

I have noticed, however, that most, if not all of the sites offer product feeds that include the images. So I'd assume that there is no issue there.

Regarding Google, I honestly don't have a clue. I shall put some time into looking into it though

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://shoplove.co.uk>

</comment><comment><USER7> The filter by color works really well!

Especially since you mention crawling stores, would be interesting to know how the color-matching works. I'd think the metadata is not very consistent.

<comment><AUTHOR> I originally tried analysing the colours in the images and picking out the most common colours used.

In the end, I just ended up using the colours mentioned on the pages when I scrape them.

It works well generally but throws a few false positives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What's the technology behind the site? Great design as well... how did you get to be a coder and a designer at the same time?

<comment><AUTHOR> Alas I'm still 90% coder, 10% designer. The current site is the third iteration of the layout.

If I wasn't too stingy to pay a designer, I would :)

<comment><USER5> So how do you scrape the sites and how do you store the data?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do all the shops you've included provide a datafeed for affiliates?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've written crawler for all of the sites featured. Probably not the best/easiest way to do it but it works for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Why not for men too?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am planning on expanding to men and kids later on. I just thought I'd keep it simple by targeting one section to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> What has been her response to the site?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well she's pregnant again so she's finding it useful :D

<comment><USER5> Haha! Congrats :)</comment></comment></comment>


FakesApp: A Vulnerability in WhatsApp - <AUTHOR> https://research.checkpoint.com/fakesapp-a-vulnerability-in-whatsapp/ <comment><USER2> I'm... Not impressed. Yeah it's annoying and should be patched, but not more than that. Good find, sure. I'm rather glad to see nothing more impactful was found.</comment>