World's Richest Man: 'Charity Doesn't Solve Anything' - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/10/15/worlds-richest-man-charity-doesnt-solve-anything/ <comment><USER2> I don't place a lot of value on Carlos Slim's advice. His vast fortune has basically been a result of his ability to practice regulatory arbitrage and own a monopoly (and stifle competition) in Mexico, a country with a highly inefficient governance system.

If the political system over there ever became really functional, his empire would be broken apart and much of his wealth would contract.

<comment><USER3> _"... and own a monopoly"_

Like Bill Gates and Microsoft, who were actually convicted as monopolists?

After working in aid in Africa, I have to say I agree more with the Mexican monopolist than the American one.

<comment><USER2> That's the point. Bill Gates was convicted of being a monopolist and checks were put on what his company could and could not do. That does not happen in Mexico.

In more extreme cases, look at John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. Rockefeller used to be the wealthiest person in the world (according to some, if you inflation adjust his money, he may have been the wealthiest person in the last 200 years). His company was broken into parts in order to promote competition. Same goes for the Bell Telecom companies in America, they were also all broken up. We have checks in place to curb the anti-competitive forces of certain companies.

<comment><USER4> > In more extreme cases, look at John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. > Rockefeller used to be the wealthiest person in the world ... We have checks > in place to curb the anti-competitive forces of certain companies.

If anyone is curious about John Rockefeller, I'd very strongly recommend "Titan" by Ron Chernow, which is a very detailed and fair biography of Rockefeller. It's one of the more important biographies I've read for my own development as a person.

After reading it, I'm thoroughly convinced that the oil industry would've been much smaller and much more expensive without Rockefeller's work, and he was a genius about chemistry, engineering, distribution, and all sorts of things. Rockefeller is probably in the 10 Americans of wealth created of all time - oil prices fell a _huge_ amount due to Rockefeller's leadership, ability to find talent. He paid people well and treated them well. Did a lot of philanthropy, and raised his kids really modestly too. They lived in a three bedroom home with his wife and six kids for a long time, treated people really well. His kids didn't know they were one of the wealthiest families in America until they were teenagers.

Really an amazing guy. I'd recommend that biography to anyone. I think most people, even people who strongly believe in social causes and regulation, will admire the guy a lot after reading his biography. He did a massively lot of good for the world.

<comment><USER5> I haven't read Titan, but I can recommend "The Myth of the Robber Barrons". Excellent book.

The short story is this: All those robber barrons did far more good for society than the government that broke them up. The propaganda about how they were doing so much harm and needed to be broken up for the good of society is the basic propaganda of socialism. But of course, since it is taught as history, people believe it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I disagree with him, but there's merit in what he says. Let me give you an example.

I had coffee in an NGO-operated cafe in Siem Riep, Cambodia. All profits went to running a small school for 10 kids.

I did the quick math on a napkin, and realized they were doing far worse as an NGO/charity than they would be to help people as a for-profit business.

Observe: With a 20% net profit after all expenses (which I think they had, if not higher), they'd be able to have enough of a downpayment to open a second cafe within less than a year. A year after that, they'd have 4-5 cafes opened. In three years total, they could be around 8-12 cafes.

At that point, they'd be producing 12 times as much income. They'd also be employing 12 times as many people, and working in a cafe is a _really_ good job in Cambodia. (Air conditioning, pleasant working conditions, friendly client base, regular hours, not dangerous - unlike most Cambodian work).

But by paying it all out right away, they have much less impact. What they're doing is good, yes, but they might be being a little shortsighted if their goal is to do the greatest good. Currently, they were employing 10 people or so (plus the people who did construction, installation, painting, decoration of the cafe, etc) If they reinvested profits for 4 years, they could be employing 120 people who all get better wages and working conditions who can help their families, and they'd be generating 12 times as much in profit. At that point, if they started getting 1/10th of what they were making to charity, they'd be giving more than they are with one cafe.

Consider that. As a charity, they operate one location, employ 10 people, and educate 10 children. If they ran it as a business, in only four years they could run 12 locations, employ 120 people, and with _only a fraction of their profits_ could educate 12 children. Plus, they'd still have the other 90% of profits to open more cafes, or other businesses, or to help more people, or to open hospitals, or whatever. I've heard similar critiques from a local Khmer businessman and an Indian engineer/restaurant owner I met there. NGO's, while well intentioned, might be stifling development in Cambodia. Maybe. At the very least, running that cafe for-profit and reinvesting profits would've produced a hell of a lot more good very quickly.

<comment><USER6> You haven't made an argument against an NGO operated cafe, you've made an argument against an NGO operated cafe that pays out all its earnings.

Also, assuming that they have any sort of tax or cost advantage (if only from people willing to donate time/effort), for the same amount of business they have more money to put towards their purpose, be it for investment in more cafes or for educating more students now.

<comment><USER4> > You haven't made an argument against an NGO operated cafe, you've made an > argument against an NGO operated cafe that pays out all its earnings.

Ah, there were some unstated assumptions in my post.

1\. NGO leadership are usually from a different talent pool and background than business leadership.

2\. Business leadership tend to outperform NGO leadership at growing a business.

This leads to the idea that a cafe operated for charity might produce less good than a cafe operated for business, as described above. I think it was definitely true in that specific case. Whether the NGO could've run in a more expansive, business-like fashion? I don't know. I'm inclined to guess no, but I'd be open to being pleasantly surprised.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I can buy the argument that just shoveling huge amounts of aid to people doesn't fix anything long-term. But it's not solely a decision between that and no charity. He mentions employment, which often benefits from having a stock of not-yet-exploited research to commercialize (SV firms do a lot of innovation, but they also do a lot of commercialization of stuff for which the early-stage R&D was done in academia, at government research labs, etc.).

Charities funding research, and especially insisting that the research be published in some open-access and not-patent-encumbered form, can provide that raw material that new companies need. Charity-funded medical research can also directly produce treatments that improve conditions in a region long-term. And, although it runs into a bunch of political controversy, same for charity- funded research on things like new crop varieties.

<comment><USER8> _they also do a lot of commercialization of stuff for which the early-stage R &D was done in academia, at government research labs, etc._

So they turn it from something of theoretical value to something that actually improves people's lives--to the point that they're willing to part with money to have it? That seems to add a lot more utility on the margin. Of course, it wouldn't mean anything if there weren't inventions to subsidize.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, I'm not arguing that commercialization isn't useful; it's the main way theoretically valuable ideas get actually produced. But I think it can be very helpful to innovative industries to have this big stock of theoretically- valuable ideas waiting to be mined for commercialization. Otherwise you either only get incremental advances, or you need big firms with their own R&D groups (like Microsoft Research). You can also have startups based on blue-skies research in some areas (especially pharma), but investors in most areas are pretty wary of funding a startup that has too much basic research in their critical path, due to the high risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think you need to look more specifically at what exactly the Gates Foundation does if you want to answer the questiona at the end of the article. They're known for fighting disease, primarily; disease in third-world countries is a major barrier to industrial expansion into these countries. Further, charity has achieved at least one major victory: the eradication of smallpox, perhaps the greatest achievement in human history, so I'd say it's contributed at least a little -- and the Gates Foundation has some good precedent for their goals.

<comment><USER10> With Bill Gates you at least know that there's an extremely intelligent person at the top, looking to solve real problems (assuming he's past the phase of donating Windows machines to schools).

I think that's the largest point: just giving out money to causes is typically a poor way to make a difference. However, if you intelligently spend that money (whether it be by empowering people through job creation or eradicating diseases) then you have a chance of making a lasting impact.

<comment><USER11> > assuming he's past the phase of donating Windows machines to schools

Why do you feel the need to throw that jab in there? Windows is the more prevalent computing platform in the world. Stepping aside from our nerd world for a second, you could argue he would be doing them a disservice trying to ship them Linux or something that wouldn't be compatible with the most popular software in the world.

<comment><USER10> Ironically, I was just trying to head off a negative conversation. I figured it'd come up since I mentioned that Bill Gates was using his charity to solve real problems. When saying that, somebody usually mentions how the foundation has been used (in the name of charity) to market Windows to future generations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have a friend who was well off and was very much against handouts for most people. He would go on about people needing to get a job, pull themselves up and how not finding work was a lazy man's excuse. Then he lost his job, house, car, dog and health in less than a year and even had to move back in with his parents.

Amazing how his opinions have changed now that he is the one who despite his best efforts is struggling to just barely get by. He still feels you should make your own way, but now realizes it can be much harder than it sounds.

The "go get a low paying job" safety net is not what it once was. People these days really need to get creative and find new ways to generate income.

<comment><USER10> It's a tough issue. I rarely oblige anybody asking me for money on the streets. If they ask for food, I don't mind buying them a meal, but just giving out money doesn't sit well with me.

If I could give somebody $50 or $100 and know that it would be used to make their life better, I'd do it without hesitation.

Might be an interesting field for a non-profit organization?

<comment><USER12> I'm with you on the food thing, being hungry truly sucks. There's a cafe I frequent that gives me a discount and I have bought many a hungry person a meal there. A nice addition is since the staff are friends the person is treated like a normal customer (though one guy kept hitting on one of the waitresses to the point of it not being funny anymore).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Where you find widespread poverty, you also find an absence of both the rule of law and freedom from expropriation. And you people trying to get to places that have those things.

The vast majority of people are inherently capable of meeting their own needs, figuring out the needs of others and trading with them for mutual benefit...if they are allowed to do so.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think about this in regards to Mr. Gates.

He amassed such a huge fortune by building walls around his software, limiting people's potential in a way.

Was it necessary? Did proprietary software need to happen to spur innovation? What about his uncompetitive practices?

I end up wondering what the balance of 'good' would be in the world if instead of taking everything he could, he had allowed others to grow and shared his source more. We wouldn't have the Gates foundation's fight against malaria, but we might have a more innovative and open global computing culture, and who knows what that would have meant.

<comment><USER15> _Did proprietary software need to happen to spur innovation?_

To the extent that the Wintel monopoly resulted in lower hardware costs, it's hard to see any intellectually honest Linux or BSD user arguing otherwise.

You would not be able to buy 3+ GFLOPS systems with gigabytes of RAM and terabytes of mass storage for less than $1000 without the kind of mass standardization that, history suggests, can emerge only from monopolistic behavior.

<comment><USER16> I find it hard to argue that, without Bill Gates, we wouldn't have ended up with a monopoly of some type in hardware/OS. Certainly Microsoft won the race, but it's not like every other player on the scene at the time wasn't trying to do the same thing.

Every single PC maker/OS developer knew that winning the bulk of the market was the key to success. Thus, they were all following similar strategies. I just think it's unlikely, if there was no Gates, that we wouldn't have all ended up on the same platform anyway, and some other company would have had a monopoly.

<comment><USER15> Possibly. But the question was, was a proprietary OS needed at all? I wasn't defending Microsoft or Intel specifically, just pointing out that the PC revolution damned sure was not going to happen if left up to Apple, Commodore, IBM, and the Unix geeks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'll agree with the common sentiment that Carlos Slim's general advice is worthless.

But, I think he's on to something here. From the article:

 _It is the 21st century billionaire version of the old adage, "give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime_

I think all he's saying is that one can't throw money at problems and expect them to be fixed. That's an opinion I'll agree with.

If we want to spend money and give to charities, that's valid...but if we're really looking for long-term fixes (see: ending poverty, world hunger, etc) then that's not the way to go about it. We'd need to really create a system behind the charities; when you give money, that should go into investing for the future and creating future solutions to fix problems, rather than simply repairing something in the now and here.

Look at natural disasters. A typhoon occurs and the world pitches in and sends hundreds of millions to the troubled country. That's fine. But what we tend to forget a month after the hurricane is that the reason the countries got hit so hard might just be because of poor infrastructure or inadequate technology or systems. Those things still stay in place long after the world sends money; if they tragically get hit again, nothing has changed and the world will (yet again) be expected to simply send more money.

My favorite example of "throwing money at a problem" is something that happened a few years ago:

Some clothing company (Gap, I think, but I'm not 100% sure) had a huge surplus one year that they decided to give away to some village/s in an impoverished South Asian country. All they did was take their extra clothes [money] and throw it at the problem of horrible poverty in the place.

What ended up happening? It was an amazing two year fix. The clothes were so much (in quantity) that they lasted for a few years before running out. During that time, the fact that Gap sent all these free clothes made the entire industry that used to make clothes for these parts go out of business. At the end of the two years, they were in a position that's worse off than what they were a few years back. No local clothes makers; no free Gap.

"Charity doesn't solve anything" might be a bit strong. But he's on to something. Throwing money at a problem doesn't fix anything in the long-term; the way to do it is to invest in the future, not throw money at the present.

Just my (albeit a bit long) $0.02

<comment><USER18> That's a very interesting point. In your clothing example, charity was a crutch that hampered the progression of local businesses.

I could see many other forms of aid having the same effect. Creating a reliance that's completely out of the control of the region. If it evaporates at any point they're stuck in a much worse situation.

I think we could go about this a little more intelligently though. Outside funds could be used to train and evolve local business, giving them the tools required to succeed on their own once the aid disappears. If we went into the situation thinking; We only have X dollars, not a constant stream, so how can we use this money in a way to produce a long term positive outcome in the region?

I guess the problem then becomes finding a non-corrupt entity who knows best how to go about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I agree, a job is much better than a handout. Regardless, infrastructure and education are two things that do help people create jobs and exit poverty.

Charity != giving people money.

<comment><USER20> Charity does equal giving people money. If you're not giving people money, then you're making an investment.

<comment><USER21> Let's not get caught up in semantics here. You could just as easily consider giving people money in the name of charity an investment because you're investing in their better future. Can we taboo the words "charity" and "investment" and talk about what the actual acts are?

<comment><USER20> Semantics matter if they affect expectations. For me (at least), charity means giving money away and hoping for the best. Investment means getting involved with something, and making sure the money invested is properly used. The term "investment" implies a greater level of involvement.

Giving money away as "charity" can be an excuse for not actually getting involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think the perfect model is the one Mohammed Unis advocates: so called "social entrepreneurship". The business makes a profit but it has a set of shareholders who control all voting rights who are interested in having the business do things that are not only motivated by profit.

In a way, Google is a bit like this. Sergei and Larry setup the company in such a way that they have far more voting rights than the non-founders and thus use Google to pursue aims that are more social, for instance developing new energy technology or cars that drive themselves, etc.

</comment><comment><USER23> The "teach a man to fish" argument has been around for a few millennium. But saying that philanthropy ends in giving away fish seems to me like an excuse for people to abandon charity altogether. Isn't Kiva still a form of philanthropy, even though it's just a loan? Charity cannot be about cementing poverty by creating dependence, but can work if it's a reallocation of resources (outside the free market) that results in more balanced partners.

<comment><USER24> One might argue that most job creation is hardly "teaching men to fish."

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Charity is most needed for problems that have no other natural source of funding. If the government/private sector can solve certain problems, then charities are perhaps not the best vehicle for solving those particular problems.

Buffett and Gates specifically focus on the former. Trying to reduce extreme poverty, provide healthcare, and educational opportunities. They also believe every life is of equal value. So the challenge then becomes helping the most people per dollar invested.

Some of the most well developed medical technologies/ solutions exists because their's a lot of wealthy people with those problems. A lot of male baldness and not so much malaria.

Malaria is a treatable disease. Millions die because they don't have access to care. You can't say these people would be better off employed, as if their health is not a factor in their economic output. Hence, the goal of trying to eliminate malaria is a valid philanthropic activity.

Buffett also donated through one of his children's foundations, to help solve/minimize the potential for a nuclear event. His view is pretty grim: the information is already out there, getting into more hands, and so the probability approaches 1 that an event will occur at some point in the future. What other natural funding exists for trying to solve this? It might be futile, it might be incredibly hard, but you need smart capable people working on this.

Furthermore, helping the rest of the world become a little bit more prosperous might reduce hostility, and violence that desperate people can be induced into. While businesses have had a great history of introducing wealth into the world, its always done with a profit motive. Where there is no profit potential, there is no interest of a business to be involved. A lot of these problems don't have those profit potentials. Hence, charity works in these areas.

<comment><USER26> Another important point regarding disease, in general, and especially malaria is that disease often leaves survivors with permanent physical disabilities and/or neurological deficits. I think a lot of people in the U.S. and Europe have this mistaken notion that malaria is like a bad case of influenza, mononucleosis, pneumonia, or some other common disease that we are familiar with. We think that the person gets really sick and feels awful and it could even be life-threatening, but that as long as you survive it, you fully recover. That simply isn't true.

Malaria primarily affects children and many survivors have severe permanent disabilities because of it (seizure disorders, deficits caused by stroke, psychiatric problems, etc.). And malaria is just one of many serious diseases in the developing world (tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, etc.). If you acquire a severe disability before you're even old enough to enter the workforce, how does creating jobs help you? Creating jobs alone is insufficient to address the problems of Africa. You have to concomitantly address the heavy burden of disease if you are to have any chance of solving the economic woes of Africa.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is anyone familiar with Tom's Shoes? <http://www.toms.com/>

The gist of their company is that for every pair of shoes they sell, they give a pair away to children in impoversihed countries. Seems like a really nice thing to do.

That said, I've always thought they would be better off helping would-be entrepreneurs in those countries to make and sell shoes of their own. IE, perhaps they could use their resources to help people in those countries learn how to make the shoes, provide some assistance in sourcing the materials, etc.

As it is today, if someone in those areas where they give shoes away has any aspiration of making shoes, they have no chance because they won't ever be able to compete with someone coming in and giving away free shoes.

When the kid who received the new pair of free shoes inevitably needs another pair, there is infrastructure in place for him to get those new shoes, rather than waiting for Tom's to show up again with more free shoes.

I'm not knocking Tom's because I think their intentions are simply to help people. But I do think they're missing the target - I think that is what Senor Slim is referring to.

</comment><comment><USER28> Not a huge fan of Slim based on what I've heard, but I mostly agree with him on this. Makes me wonder though, what he's doing holding on to tens of billions in wealth if he could be building businesses and creating jobs for the poor instead. It makes it sound like "Business is better than charity, but I'd rather just be rich"

<comment><USER29> Rich in irony as well -- Slim's purchase of Telmex, the state-controlled telephone monopoly, meant that he could stifle competition and charge exorbitant rates. That's pretty much as far as you can get from encouraging employment for the poor.

<comment><USER30> "Purchase" is a pretty rich description, too. Slim paid an obscenely low price for Telmex – it was making $1.1 billion yearly profit, and Slim's company paid less than $900 million for a 10% stake, which money came from loans Slim got on letters of credit (i.e. it wasn't even his own money). Telmex was and is a near monopoly, with the kinds of monopolistic pricing that goes along with that.

Basically, Slim's fortune is made on a corrupt business deal with the corrupt president of the time (Salinas) who he was buddy-buddy with, followed by gouging the Mexican citizenry on phone bills for the last 2 decades. (Salinas's PRI party made out well too, as Slim gave lots of money back to them over the subsequent years.)

I really don't think he's in any position to talk about charity.

<comment><USER4> > Slim paid an obscenely low price for Telmex – it was making $1.1 billion > yearly profit, and Slim's company paid less than $900 million for a 10% > stake

So he paid $900 million for $110 annual profits? So a P/E of around 8? That's not an obscenely low price, especially if they already had complete market share and premium pricing. The only way to go from there is down, and it's a high capital business that'd most like need lots of capital improvements to stay competitive. For comparison, AT&T is trading a 12 times earnings, but that's in a much more healthy and stable market than Mexico.

I guess getting a 10% stake at 8 times earnings is an okay deal, but it doesn't jump out to me as a great deal. Would you be excited to buy a stake at that price in a high capital Mexican business with no growth potential because it's tapped out? I wouldn't.

<comment><USER30> No growth potential? Yearly profits proceeded to shoot up by like 200% over the next several years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Silly argument. Both are needed.

It doesn't do any good to teach a man to fish if he dies of starvation while waiting for the fish to bite.

On the other hand a failure in employment only leads to higher demand for charity. So they're both equally important.

<comment><USER32> This is basically correct, but it still depends on one's values.

Who do you value more, the current generation or future generations? Essentially the perpetual argument over the standard discounting problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I'm bemused by him implying that charity doesn't create employment or foster entrepreneurism amongst the poor.

It surely can't be seriously argued that wealth is better channelled through a single person's business empire representing nearly half of the country's stock exchange and 90% of its telecoms provision...

</comment><comment><USER34> It seems strange that someone with the business acumen to become the world's richest man would not look on the inefficient and broken charity and aid systems as an opportunity to create a better solution. There won't be good new jobs in places where there isn't reliable electricity or clean drinking water.

Like most aging industries, the "making the world better" industry is definitely in need of some disruption. We see newer entrepreneurs talking about this space more and more, so I wonder how long it will be before the richest entrepreneurs start looking at new ways of solving these problems.

<comment><USER35> The article mentioned that he donated to the Gates foundation, which in fact uses capitalist principles to help third world countries.

<comment><USER36> Here are the Gates Foundation guiding principles: [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/guiding- principle...](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/guiding- principles.aspx)

I don't see anything capitalist in them.

Nor in "All Lives have equal value."

<comment><USER35> Probably because you don't get many donations by espousing capitalism in your guiding principles.

But mush of their work uses capitalist principles, which you can see if you look at some of their programs: [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global- development/Pages/over...](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/global- development/Pages/overview.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> It is pretty clear that the growth in living standards over the last 100 years has a lot more to owe to the accumulation of capital goods than the working of charity. It's true that charity can alleviate short-term suffering, but Mr. Slim's assertion has a lot of historical support to it.

But charity probably does a lot more for the giver. I imagine giving $10 billion makes you feel about as good as making the $10 billion in the first place. Society will certainly admire you more.

<comment><USER38> _I imagine giving $10 billion makes you feel about as good as making the $10 billion in the first place._

I would hope it would make most people feel better... a lot better.

<comment><USER39> Why? Anyone who has or inherits $10 billion can give it away. It takes nearly no skill. Only a very, very few people in the history of history can make $10 billion.

<comment><USER38> Well, I pretty sure that after a certain amount you become somewhat numb by gaining anymore. With giving you would get a sense of doing good for those you might need it more than you.

My comment wasn't really about the actual amount, but rather just in general the happiest people are the ones that give more than receive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Microsoft brazenly, fiercely ignored antitrust law. There's endless evidence in court on their attempts to illegally block the adoption of Java and Netscape Navigator. They were found guilty in U.S. v. Microsoft. And every web developer knows how much damage IE6 did to the progress of the internet. Gates' fortune is unquestionably tainted.

That said, the majority of economists would probably more or less agree with Slim. Buffett, Gates, and Slim could amass wealth faster than pretty much anyone else on earth. Just leaving the money invested in the global economy is not a priori worse than giving it all to charity. Compound growth is obviously self-sustaining growth. The HOPE is that charity can do the same.

Giving away tens of billions of dollars is an ENORMOUS informational problem. Good luck allocating it all even the least bit efficiently. The real answer is that no one can possibly know what the best use of all that money is.

What would I do with the money? Probably put it all in a Vanguard Total Market fund, or the closest fund imitating the true world economy.

</comment><comment><USER40> As someone who is from a third-world country and self-educated, I can't stress enough on providing access to education.

We can create 5,000 jobs today. Simple workers with $10/hour pay. 100 years later and the country won't move. The workers don't understand the power of education, they won't teach well their children and in a third-world country, it's very unlikely they'll get a decent one.

I don't mean by education, an MBA, Ph.D... or all the buzz-words. I mean HN culture, real programmer, self motivation to work and exploit your full potential, mind openness to read and accept the other...

Comparing myself with my other peers, I'm a lot in a better condition and I feel proud of myself, doing something useful instead of spending my time on cafés and playing/watching football.

<comment><USER5> The education you're talking about doesn't exist in first world countries either. The education, from elementary school to college, is focused on "teaching" people to be good: citizens (that is, compliant with government demands), consumers, and employees. The highest virtue in schools in first world countries are athletics and popularity. The lowest virtues are learning.

If you create jobs in an area, then people have the economic power to come together and hire teachers and create a school. If an external party, such as government, creates the school, the school will be focused on the agenda of that third party.

Education isn't a commodity like cotton. Pretty much all cotton is the useful as cotton. Much of the education in first world countries is focused on keeping people down, dependent, and unquestioning.

Every decade the schools teach less, and in less detail. It is pretty scary. (I expect to be downvoted because I believe most participants on HN are college students or recent graduates who haven't had enough time out of college to get the perspective that results in these conclusions.)

<comment><USER40> I have to agree to some extent, though. But let's get back to my point: If I have a child, will I care about his education as if I was "non-educated"?

The difference is huge, I'll buy my son books, magazines, Internet access, good education to learn languages and math, the opportunity to travel... not because I'm a rich dad (may be I won't), but because I think this will evolve his mind and improve his education.

Will a 9-5(blue/white) color worker do that? It's not a question of money but a mentality. That's what I'm talking about. Change people minds and they'll create jobs for themselves.

<comment><USER5> I've seen no evidence or reason to believe that those who care about their kids will not value education for them. And I have seen evidence that uneducated people do value education. My presumption would be that they value it more.

On the other hand, I find that very few people are willign to create jobs for themselves. Most people are workers. Most people are mainstream and conventional thinkers. I have a sample group of people in the %98 of intelligence and education in the country, and still more than %99 of them are uninterested in striking out on their own... they don't have any desire to be entrepreneurial. Of course, they did go thru the US educational system which pretty much is all about conformism and groupthink, in my opinion.

Give parents the financial resources, via a job, and they will get their kids education.

But how many liberal arts majors do you know? Or other people who went to college, and can't get a job using their degree?

<comment><USER40> FYI, I don't live in the USA. So my situation here is kind of quite different.

>> And I have seen evidence that uneducated people do value education. My presumption would be that they value it more.

Yes, they do. But they have little knowledge in the right education, don't they? All they know is that they should take their children to schools and colleges and that there children get good grades.

>> Give parents the financial resources, via a job, and they will get their kids education.

Now that's exactly what happened in Tunisia. We have now a load of degrees takers in any field, but do they know how to write properly in English or French? No, they were focusing on grades and success. Parents did spend lot of money on their education, but most of them are failing now and there is a "retour à la source", where children are taking their parents jobs to guarantee a living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The US decided to do some charity work and supply Haiti with rice after the earthquake. Now the rice market is collapsing in Haiti.

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11472874>

<comment><USER42> Wait a second... my reading of the story is not that we're giving rice to Haiti for free, but that the rice we're selling to Haiti is cheap because we're subsidizing US farmers.

I just don't want us confusing charity to Haiti (which apparently isn't happening from the US government yet) and subsidizing US farmers who can then underbid foreign farmers. Two very different stories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> carlos is correct. An example of this is how America deals with developing countries that they are trying to rebuild.

Countries that are addicted to American "financial" aid don't go anywhere, but countries that create an environment, enforcable rule sets and standards that attracts foregin direct investment from businesses around the world prosper and raise their standard of living.

Charity is a bandaide and not a solution. Constant free aid kills inniative, inntiative creates economic prosperity, wealth, etc.

</comment><comment><USER44> He's right, and it shouldn't. That's what governments and collective decision- making are for. Private individuals shouldn't be depended on to do anything but further their own interests, even in the charity sphere. They spend money for PR purposes, to strengthen personal connections, or simply because they enjoy the environment it puts them in. The major cause of misery in the world is the lust for power and influence over other people, and money epitomises that.

What people need is security in employment and compensation, and protection against unavoidable risk, like fire and sickness. Without exploiting the weakness and insecurity of workers, you can't really amass the kind of cash this guy has, so I'm not sure about the quality of the jobs he's creating if he can skim that much value off of the top. The profit margin on fairness is a lot lower than the profit margin on slave wages, monopoly, and legislative arbitrage.

That's not to say that he couldn't, though. If he created a lot of good jobs for people with fair wages, and charged fair prices, that's a massive good and can't be denied. He won't, though, because when things are done fairly, there's not a lot of profit to be made. Sorry, rant over:)

<comment><USER45> _Private individuals shouldn't be depended on to do anything but further their own interests_

Except for politicians, they'll be noble.

 _If he created a lot of good jobs for people with fair wages, and charged fair prices, that's a massive good and can't be denied. He won't, though, because when things are done fairly, there's not a lot of profit to be made._

Utterly unfounded. Counterexamples that come immediately to mind are Steve Jobs and Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

<comment><USER44> Politicians shouldn't be depended on to do anything but further their own interests. That's why we introduced democracy, in order to get their interests as closely aligned to the public interest as possible. Nobles are a different story altogether.

>Utterly unfounded. Counterexamples that come immediately to mind are Steve Jobs and Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

I'm not sure how your personal idols refute my ideas of fairness.

<comment><USER45> _I'm not sure how your personal idols refute my ideas of fairness._

I'm claiming they got rich by means of voluntary exchange with customers, rather than exploiting people. Do you disagree?

<comment><USER44> I disagree that the two are mutually exclusive, yes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> The last statement in the article is interesting. "Has philanthropy solved any major social problems in the past 50 years?" Can philanthropy solve social problems in the first place? It feels like charity is more effective when it is a short term issue, like meeting the needs of population hit by an earthquake. Longer and bigger social problems? Anybody know any positive examples out there?

</comment><comment><USER36> Efficient use of capital doesn't entail a jobs program for a billion of the worlds poor or providing them with education and healthcare for nothing in return.

The goal of capital is to create capital. Diverting capital for the purpose of job creation is charity (when done by individuals) or welfare (when done by governments).

Sims approach helps some of the unemployed, but few of the unemployable people in the world.

<comment><USER47> I sorely regret that your contribution has not received more attention!

Slim's underlying assumption is that only those people that are suitable to held a job are worth caring about, for as long they remain suitable to held such job.

I agree that social entrepreneuring and accessible seed capital investment is part of the solution, as well as employment stimulus programs. However, we cannot ignore that fact that the global tendency in the dominant incarnation of capitalism is to replace labor and expertise with capital, automation and standard processes. Pure capital generating abstract machines cannot be a solution to our labor problems.

Even more so, we need to address the fact that there is people in this world who will never be able to have a job again: the elderly, the disabled, the dispossesed. No matter how much economic growth there is in the world, they will never have direct access to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I would love to jump in and criticize the guy for his comments, but we all live in a welfare state. How many success stories have you heard of people on Welfare that came up with an idea, successfully turned it into a business and are now living happily ever after? I presume not many.

My point here is that most people are not Bill Gates, Steve jobs, Warren Buffet or Mr. Slim. Simply put most people if given money do not spend it wisely and often find themselves in similar situations within short periods of time because they feel entitled to something being given to them.

Now this is not to say that there are exceptions to that rule, I truly believe there are. I think the bill and Melinda Gates foundation has done tremendous work, as have other organizations like the _scoff_ Tiger Woods organization. But these examples focus on the betterment of communities and are not the benevolent "Robin Hood" type charities which indeed exist to this day (some with very little practical accomplishment) While one commenter was right that the Rockefeller's donated VERY significant amounts of their money to charity I think they have an important oversight. the Rockefellers ruled the world through their "charity" essentially having every company and political pundit in their back pocket. What Gates and Buffet do with their charitable contributions are significantly more benevolent than most figures of the past. Though again there are some exceptions (Corneilus Vanderbilt comes to mind) to that rule as well.

Then again we all have opinions, and that is just mine. :)

So without dragging this on too much what i am meaning to say is maybe we're all right. And by Mr. Slim donating fair amounts to the Gates foundation he may even be saying he agrees, in the end the truth is that even the most intelligent and business savvy people in the world have radically different views on this, its my opinion that we need both of those views and types of people for society's continued evolution

</comment><comment><USER49> Whats that old saying? "Dont give a man a fish, teach him how to fish."

Unfortunately, some people cant even afford fishing equipment. So a mix of both is very important. Why throw tonnes of money? Throw some jobs with that too.

</comment><comment><USER50> Just read the article and the comments and at the risk of sounding wishy washy, I just think that Carlos Slim probably didn't get good at what he does by excelling at generosity. So, frankly, I think he is the last person I will listen to when giving advice on how to practice charity. Charity and for profit economic development are not mutually exclusive, like all things, they have to be practiced with the right purpose in mind. Some people need charity to become self-reliant later. Some people need an investor.

</comment><comment><USER51> Vinod Kholsa seems to agree in that regard. He is investing in profitable ventures that have great potential to solve large problems. According to a NYT article, he wants to show that for-profit businesses can be more effective at achieving goals than most non-profit organizations.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/business/global/06khosla.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/business/global/06khosla.html?_r=1)

</comment><comment><USER52> Seems to me that charitable investment in education does every bit as much good as building job-creating business.

</comment><comment><USER53> I believe that money spent on education is money well spent. Building schools and etc, not only help to educate the young generation, but also provide jobs. An educated young man will be able to not only help himself, but his family and his surroundings.

</comment><comment><USER54> microcredit seems hopeful: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grameen_Bank>

While the love of profit can be evil, if a business is actually creating value (eg. a windmill saves the labour of hand-milling flour; division of labour; technology in general, including methods of organizing labour), there's an opportunity for the bigger pie thereby created to benefit everyone.

Just shifting money around (which includes theft as well as charity) doesn't help except in temporary emergencies.

<comment><USER32> I used to be big on microcredit, until I realized it isn't actually profitable (as is claimed).

The vast majority of funding for microcredit organizations comes from government. It's still charity, even if it can often be fairly efficient charity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> I like Carlos Slim's approach to charity. He still use it time to time on relatively small scale when it's an efficient too. But he focuses his effort on doing business. That's the best way businessmen can contribute to society.

</comment><comment><USER56> I'm paying 30% income tax. Am I giving charity to Govt?</comment>


Breed: a computer program that uses artificial evolution to grow sculptures - <AUTHOR> http://www.xs4all.nl/~notnot/breed/Breed.html <comment><USER2> That reminds me of bismuth crystals:

[http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=imghp&q=...](http://www.google.co.uk/images?hl=en&source=imghp&q=bismuth+crystal)

I think that is a result of it being one of the few substances other that water that has a liquid phase that is denser than the solid.

</comment><comment><USER3> See also MIT's work on this: <http://projects.csail.mit.edu/emergentDesign/genr8/>

This uses grammatical evolution, which is basically evolutionary computation guided by a grammar. The Maya plugin GENR8 was originally implemented is available for download on their website under an unclear license (assume it's restrictive).

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know what it is, but there is something kind of strange and gross about these sculptures. I'm not sure why I'm responding in that way, but I find them both fascinating and somehow disturbing, as though I'm seeing a little bit of the root of my own being, and it is mathematical and alien.

</comment><comment><USER5> any guesses as to what 3d printer he's using?

<comment><USER6> The metal ones are certainly ProMetal, but the SLS prints are generic enough I couldn't tell you which one they were printed on specifically.</comment></comment>


Replace AutoHotKey with NodeJS - anyone? - zupa-hu

Just an idea, AutoHotKey is really awesome, but maybe someone wanted to create a V8 based solution instead?<p>This probably wouldn't make money - but hugs. <comment> zupa-hu I put NodeJS in the title because more people will probably understand what I mean. I realize it would rather be an embeded V8 solution.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker News of Books - <AUTHOR> https://news.bubblin.io <comment><USER2> That was weird. First the old.reddit/lobste.rs styling and then the posts were about books 'the things' rather than books 'their contents'.

I was aware that audiophiles are like that re components vs music but didn't imagine it elsewhere. Well I suppose some like computing hardware separately from the software they run.</comment>


How to prepare employees to return to work after the Covid-19 lockdown? - <AUTHOR> https://feedier.com/blog/employee-feedback/employees-covid-feedback/ <comment><USER2> interesting!

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks for your comment!</comment></comment>


Startup Is Starting Commotion with It's Branding - <AUTHOR> https://www.myleon.co/ <comment><USER2> This is the 8th ad you have posted for your company in the last 3 weeks. Please use the "show" feature of hacker news rather than continually posting ads.</comment>


Could this new smart pill bottle save 125,000 lives/year? - <AUTHOR> https://pillsy.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> In the U.S. medication non-adherence kills 125,000 people per year. The #1 cause is "inattention and inertia" (forgetfulness) according to a 500,000 study done by Express Scripts. Could this type of solution help?</comment>


48-Hour startup challenge - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
My challenge this weekend is to come up with a startup idea and validate it in 48-hours.
My idea: A hassle-free way to book kayak rentals online. So many kayak rental companies don't have a presence online, and those that do, have a terrible (if anything at all) booking system. I want to make it super-fast and easy for kayak rental companies to add their products and prices to the site. People wanting to go for a kayak can easily see the nearest rental place near them and book online quickly and easily.
I've thrown together a landing page - www.sneakypaddle.com
I'd appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you clever folk have.
Cheers,
Clark <comment><USER2> You should run some A/B Testing on your landing page.

For example, try a version that specifies the state in which you live and one without. This should give you better conversion metrics.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Jonaphin, I'll get to work building a few options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Last summer I found the best online renting service: <http://sloepdelen.nl/en/howdoesitwork>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks marshwah!

</comment><comment><USER4> Well done mate!</comment>


How to start working on side projects - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/life-of-learning/39ba4ff482e1 <comment><USER2> Er, ... just ... choose something you've found interesting, and just start working on it, playing around...? Write up some interfaces on your lunch hour? Dabble with it on the train in the morning? Think about algorithms in the shower (showers are my best source of algorithms!)?

I mean, this is the thing you're doing for _you_ , and that means it's something that you're personally interested in (er, right?), and personal interest is a huge advantage...

Seriously, the idea that someone would need _advice_ on how to "start working on a side project" seems almost bizarre.... Lots of personal projects don't pan out, or founder due to lack of time or whatever (which is fine, push over the humps when you can, but let things flow)—but _starting_ them is easy.

<comment><USER3> _"Seriously, the idea that someone would need advice on how to 'start working on a side project' seems almost bizarre"_

Well it isn't bizarre in context right? There are lots of people who have spent the first 18 - 20 years of their life what to spend their time on. A significant fraction of them have never even begun to work on things that weren't "part of the plan" as it were. So coming up with a side project is a daunting task.

The best advice is simply do something you haven't done before, code a compiler, code an interpreter, code up a javascript library, design a web site, take pictures of every bird in your back yard, dig up some dirt and sequence the DNA of things you find there, plant a garden, take an art class at the local community center, volunteer to sort food donations at a food bank, pretty much anything you haven't done before try it.

That way you can discover things you are really interested in, and things you really aren't interested in. Since theses experiments are things you never have to do again if you don't like them, go in with the attitude of "Hey I can tough it through anything once, because it's only once."

Its pretty simple advice and I am always amazed when someone hasn't thought of it already, but I have met a number of people who have graduated from college and then paniced with no idea what to do because their 'plan' ran out.

<comment><USER4> Sometimes it can take years after moving out and being on your own before the realization clicks that you can make yourself an entire package of bacon for dinner and nobody can stop you. You have to learn that autonomy isn't just "not" being told what to do, it's beginning to tell yourself what to do.

<comment><USER5> I cannot agree more. I was going to respond to the post that the best thing that can happen is being told that you _can_ do all of that.

Once you realize that you can investigate whatever you want, the world opens up for exploration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The last time I interviewed a candidate for a web development position, he could only list the projects he completed for his master's degree (one might have been for his BSCS). I'm almost 50 and know far more about current technologies than he did, plus I have a family (to spend time with) and several of my own side projects (not to mention a start-up).

If you're not passionate enough about programming to have a side project (or six), please just get out of the profession. Or maybe become a mediocre manager (if you think you're done learning when you leave school behind, you'll have no choice).

I agree that high-technology businesses were the only organizations that maintained (or even grew) employment during the recession but ... that doesn't mean you deserve one of those jobs. If you love it enough to make it your hobby, you can earn a good living at software development without being a flash-in-the-pan.

<comment><USER2> While I think programmers for whom programming is a "passion" (and often have lots of side projects and involvement in programming generally outside their work) can be among the best, I've also met tons of excellent programmers who approached it mostly as a profession and weren't really involved much outside of that. I've also met some really awful programmers who were "passionate" about it as a hobby.

Passion outside of work is neither necessary nor sufficient.

[I, personally, am of the "passion" sort. I find that this attribute can be both an (obvious) help but oddly, also sometimes a hindrance, as I can get too personally involved in things, and sometimes that clouds my judgment.]

<comment><USER7> What made the passionate programmers awful?

<comment><USER8> Lack of focus and addiction to mastery the new and shiny can really hamper a passionate programmer's ability to produce.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A shorter version: close browser, write code.

"How to" articles are an easy way to procrastinate, unless you're legitimately stuck on something.

<comment><USER2> ... and to a degree, I imagine they can make things worse if they create the impression that this is a Serious Thing That Requires Careful Preparation.

One of the biggest personal-project (hate the name "side project" for some reason) killers I've encountered is simple fear: of failure, of not being good enough, etc.

I try (but don't always succeed) to keep the thought that it's _OK_ if my projects end up sucking, if they don't take the world by storm, if my interfaces aren't general enough and my algorithms inefficient. I still try to do the best job I can, simply for reasons of personal pride, but there's _tons_ of stuff that doesn't actually matter all that much, and a lot more that can be fixed up after the fact. Just getting _something_ is hugely important when you're operating without the sort of support network you have in a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> While a few people have mocked this I think it contains some important ideas.

1) Focus on one project at a time. Resist the urge to get sidetracked.

2) Feel free to take a break from your project if you start to lose motivation.

3) Only change the scope of a project to reduce it. If you have more good ideas put them on a sheet of paper to implement after you finish your project.

These 3 tips will turn you from starter to a finisher. I know a lot of developer's that have started tens, perhaps hundreds of side projects and when you ask how many they have finished there is an embarrassing pause and they point to a couple of projects.

Switching from one project to another is fine the first time. Your new idea might be genuinely better. However if you find yourself doing it again and again it's a sign you are a starter and not a finisher. If you end up with nothing to show for your time what is the point of working on these projects in the first place?

<comment><USER11> I agree focus is the most important thing but I love having something like a half-dozen projects going on at any time. I can easily procrastinate on not doing one of them when I don't feel like by doing another, and six times slower they all move forward whereas maybe if I had just one it would be six times faster split between my project and idle browsing the web.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Regardless of how you start, what you make and whether you deliver or not, let us know of your side projects. We're making a side project showcase/discovery place.

<http://sideprojectors.com>

</comment><comment><USER13> I think these are all valid points, especially working on something you're passionate about. I would like to add (I guess these apply to general development as well):

\- Get into a "serial" mode, i.e. work on a single (small) component at a time, with as few context switches as possible. This can be achived by:

\- Breaking your project into small, clearly defined components. This allows you to:

\- Pick the component you feel would be fun to work with on this particular day. This should lower the bar for getting started on your project a late sunday morning. If you get stuck or bored, work on some other component.

\- Take a walk "All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking" - Nietzsche

</comment><comment><USER14> I usually just start doing something. Side projects don't need to be planned at all. They are just stuff we do. For example, one of my favorite type of side projects is fixing stuff. I have an in-human ability to do so. To give you an idea, today I changed the timing belt on the wife's car, and fixed a neighbor's washing machine (a sock got stuck in the pump). I'm also about to start writing code on a little API im writing for fun. Just start doing something without planning so much. It's easier to decide along the way than to figure out everything from the start.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think consciously _stopping_ to work on a side project is the hardest part. Most of my projects end up floating around in my home directory or on github, with some remaining tasks in my To Do list. I'm sure I'm never going to touch some of them. When to pull the plug? Is github really a good archive for projects like this?

</comment><comment><USER16> Lately I've found it engaging to try to build up a personal repository of C libraries. Mostly wrappers and reimplementations of well-outlined standards, but still very engaging. It makes me think about API design, learn about the details of a few standards, and simplifies experimentation with things I am interested in.

Is this common?

</comment><comment><USER17> Forget starting to work on side projects - I have so many unfinished side projects I need a NAS just to store my ~/Projects directory. Someone write me an article about how to finish side projects...

<comment><USER18> Not that it'd help you specifically, but I've found that working with someone else can be really beneficial for getting things finished. For me it was great for keeping stuff on track and staying accountable when it comes to finishing parts of it up. That said, only certain kinds of projects are good for this.</comment></comment>


Vainglory vs. Clash Royale, and the future of "hardcore" games on mobile - <AUTHOR> http://andreaspapathanasis.blogspot.com/2016/01/vainglory-vs-clash-royale-and-future-of.html <comment><USER2> In terms of multiplayer, this guy's completely right. Games need to cater to short attention spans, limited bandwidth, and one-thumb interaction (I would also add async gameplay to the list of things that should be embraced). I don't think this article is saying anything profound, but it certainly isn't wrong.

In terms of single player games, I don't think the same logic applies, and in my opinion we've gone way too far in the "short attention span" direction. As long as a game makes it easy to save and resume, immersive hours-long experiences with detailed graphics can be really fun to consume in bite-sized pieces. Nintendo's been doing it for decades with their portable devices (Zelda, Mario, Pokemon, Metroid), and it's clearly a successful approach.

It's a shame that smartphones are orders of magnitude more powerful than the Game Boy, yet mobile app stores are overflowing with single-level "infinite churn" games that amount to Tetris with micropayments.

<comment><USER3> Video games have caught up with the rest of the common media in terms of publishing for profit. Most TV and movies (not even counting adult films) are completely garbage. They are built around formulas that are known to work so people make money. The indie games movement railed against this, but most of them were on par with art student films quality wise.

That's not to say that they are no good games or TV anymore. But they are few and far between. They take vision, risk, and a bit of money. Also right now they are harder to find. I think if game producers used their names like movie directors it may help. But right now its often just the studio name. Which leads to situations where a studio makes a great game, people learn their name, a publisher injects a lot of cash/people, the core team leaves, and their next game is a bloated mess. If people knew the core team's name, or even just their leader's name, it would help the general populace follow the person to their next project.

<comment><USER4> We're in a TV golden age, man. There are more good TV series on than probably any other time in history.

<comment><USER3> There is a lot of good TV. But there is also 1000 channels of crap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another game that is "hardcore" on mobile is Hearthstone. While that may not necessarily qualify for comparison to Vainglory/Clash Royale since it's both desktop and mobile, the UI ("physical" board) and game design (short turn limits, automatic resource allocation, RNG vs. manual card selection) are both highly optimized for playing on mobile devices.

Although as a counterpoint, Blizzard is taking atypical monetization strategies with Hearthstone that may be causing problems. It is freemium as most games are nowadays, but _very_ expensive to make a competitive deck with required cards, with _zero_ catchup mechanics (a new feature with freemium games to provide retention). Blizzard is also refusing to balance cards which promote stagnant gameplay, which makes the game incredibly stale. ([https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4207ye/the_we_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/4207ye/the_we_wont_balance_existing_cards_attitude_will/))

And let's not get started over the 9 deck slots issue.

<comment><USER6> They aren't rebalancing cards because the game is currently quite well balanced. Constantly making arbitrary changes so that things are different for the sake of being different is exactly what you don't do in a "hardcore" competitive activity.

You don't see the NBA declaring that this week 3 pointers are worth 5 points because casual fans find it "stale" to see the same rules and strategies week after week.

<comment><USER5> At the least, cards that are unused and make no sense to use would be more interesting with buffs. (The latest expansion marks the first instance where a card [Magma Rager] was made strictly inferior)

Blizzard has done this approach with Diablo III patches (giving new functionality to underused builds) and it has breathed new life into the game.

<comment><USER6> Cards which "make no sense" in the current decks often end up seeing play a few months later as the meta shifts. For example, Twisting Nether and Lava Shock are currently run in competitive decks (without having been buffed), even though they were considered unplayable and badly in need of buffs not that long ago.

If they take the worst cards and give them a small buff, they will still see no constructed play and everyone's time is wasted. If they aim for actually making them constructed quality, they need to do as much balancing and testing work as they would do for new cards to avoid them being overpowered, in which case they might as well spend that time developing new cards.

FWIW, "strictly better" cards existed before Magma Rager, for example Dr Boom is very popular and is strictly better than War Golem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a big PC gamer I've basically abandoned mobile gaming as it feels like everything out there is trying to get my money by means ranging from insidious to annoying. This is compounded by the fact that browsing the google play games store is a showcase of shamelessness where different developers are releasing essentially identical clones of whatever's popular, it's kind of depressing.

The only mobile games I can bring myself to recommend are Andoku Sudoku, The little crane that could, and crossy road (which even includes monetisation schemes without feeling intensely annoying).

Suggestions for others would be appreciated

<comment><USER8> Here's a list of good mobile games off the top of my head. None of these require in-app purchases if they even have them:

You Must Build a Boat, The Executive, Out There, Monument Valley, Hitman GO, Lara Croft GO, DEVICE 6, The Room (and sequels), Prune, Lifeline (this one's great because it would only work in mobile), Threes!

If you're looking for good mobile recommendations, I'd point you at [http://toucharcade.com](http://toucharcade.com). They do iOS reviews, but a good chunk of the games also release for Android these days.

<comment><USER9> I'm going to add Twenty to this list. Small amount of money to unlock all the modes, but the free mode is amazing anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Is anyone else a person who loves games but is disgusted by Clash of Clans (and anything else that uses any business model invented by Farmville)?

<comment><USER11> I actually quite like Boom Beach, and to a lesser extent, Clash. Without having spent a dollar, I've easily spent more time and gotten more enjoyment out of them than Fallout 4, Just Cause 3, and Dragon Age Inquisition, the 3 AAA titles I've bought in the past year. Sure you can pay to get ahead, but the games stand alone well enough for midlevel players without doing so.

<comment><USER10> Might I recommend Witcher 3 (amazing!) and Metal Gear Solid: The Phantom Pain, both of which I enjoyed (slightly) more than FO4 (sadly) and DA:I. They are both also more "mature" games (and TPP is set in 1980's Afghanistan and allows you to collect just-off-chart hits from the 80's to play on your in-game Walkman, which I found rather cool). (I haven't tried JC3 yet, I got halfway through JC2 and then kinda dropped it.)

Now I'm afraid to try Boom Beach lol

<comment><USER11> I'm waiting on a Steam sale for The Witcher 3, although I was never really able to get into the first one. I'll look into TPP. JC3 I only bought recently, but it feels as fun as the second one. You've really just got to treat it like a pretty sandbox where you can smash vehicles and explosives together.

I think the reason I've not put as much time into games the past year is that it's just hard to find a ~3 hour chunk to play through a questline. Versus Boom Beach where I can pop on, smack talk my group of friends, attack the daily boss a couple of times, and be done in 15 minutes.

<comment><USER10> I could not get into Witcher 1 OR 2.

Witcher 3 is as different from 1 and 2 as Assassins' Creed 2 was different from Assassins' Creed 1. I recommend it

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Conflicted. I'm a gamer and I'd love me some more good games like starbase orion, but eventually if I have more than five minutes of time to kill or need some stress relief I'm usually within reach of a computer.

I'd like more serious games, but anything that's not consumable in tiny bits (say, like Out There or Grand Prix Story) I'm not gonna play, not because I don't want to, but because I've so much better gaming platform to play on games and those games will never have a chance to work on mobile because complexity (From The Depths) scale (War Thunder) or user interface (Kerbal Space Program, any builder like StarMade really)

<comment><USER13> I feel the same way. The only game I play regularly on my phone is a racing game where I can open it up, race a few laps and shut it does in the span of 5 minutes. I did so last night waiting for my PS3 to update.

If I've got 30 minutes and feel like playing a game I will probably end up walking over to my office and playing JC3 for a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think there are various definitions of "mobile".

Mobile, for me (as a Vainglory player since the launch in the US), means I can play anywhere. Not that I need to be able to play a game in 5 minutes while taking a dump.

</comment><comment><USER14> (also, article author works on Clash of Clans)

<comment><USER5> Used to. [https://twitter.com/aPapathanasis](https://twitter.com/aPapathanasis)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What an odd analysis, and I basically entirely disagree.

I picked up Vainglory when I got my iPad Air 2 and have absolutely fallen in love with the game for almost ALL of the reasons that the author dismisses it.

Background: I'm nowhere near a hardcore gamer and I never played LoL or DoTA, so I'm a newbie to MOBAs.

But I think Vainglory is fantastic. When I gush about it to friends, the two things I bring up are:

1) The game adapts to touch beautifully. I've always found that wildly clicking the mouse while scrolling with your other hand is awkward in these sorts of games. Being able to physically direct your character with your fingers gives the game a much more intimate feel. You feel connected to the match.

2) The 20-30 minute play time is perfect! So many PC games require this multi- hour-long commitment that I was never really able to give. But knowing I can sit down and play a full (exciting) Vainglory match in 20 minutes is easy. The pacing is perfect - you get to experience all stages of hero development from weak to strong in what I think most people would consider to be a very reasonable amount of time.

Anyway, I just think this guy is off-base.

(And if any HNers want to play some Vainglory with me / form a team / start a guild, let me know! :)

<comment><USER16> On your point #2, I disagree that a 20+ minute playtime is perfect for mobile devices. That just seems like too big a time commitment for me if I'm interacting with my phone; perhaps it is different with a tablet, but at that point it just feels like a PC game on your counter. I also don't know which PC games you're playing that require multi-hour commitments, but the only one that comes to mind for me is Civ5. Everything else I play, I play small chunks, and a given "match" requires no more than 30 minutes at the most. I don't play LoL or Starcraft II, but do play SMiTE and Company of Heroes II.

<comment><USER17> Never had the 50-min CoH2 game? I _loved_ that game, but I don't think I can take the stress anymore, ha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> OT, but Supercell's business model is certainly interesting. They make a lot of games in independent teams, and 'soft-launch' only the best of them. If the games don't meet the goals (whatever they are), they are canceled. There are now a handful of games that have been canceled after soft-launch. I think Clash Royale will pass the test (having played it), and will easily hit top 10 in global most grossing list.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm confused. The author is talking about "hardcore" gaming, but then comments about the time commitment being too high.

By definition, isn't extended time commitments part and parcel with hardcore gaming? A hardcore MMO player is one who spends quite a bit of time raiding or PVPing - not one that logs on for a few minutes a day to do their daily quests or maybe level an alt.

</comment><comment><USER20> To me big problem with Vainglory is not that the matches are long, its that your locked into the matches.

Quite often within minutes of starting match you find out your team-mates have no interest in playing strategically or are actively trolling you. At that point you can be pretty sure the match won't be fun and you'll lose.

However the game expects you to keep playing for the next 20-30 minutes till your team inevitably loses. I know eventually you can trigger a surrender vote but it didn't seem like they were ever successful.</comment>


Update on the March 24, 2016 DNS Outage – DigitalOcean - <AUTHOR> https://www.digitalocean.com/company/blog/update-on-the-march-24-2016-dns-outage/ <comment><USER2> I'm still wondering how they ID'd or profiled the malicious traffic enough to finally turn off the filters. If it just stopped, it could happen again.</comment>


The Reason for Apple Dumping Google Maps becomes known - <AUTHOR> http://www.slashgear.com/apple-ditched-google-maps-due-to-lack-of-turn-by-turn-navigation-26249337/

<comment><USER2> My BS meter goes off as I read this story.

"Google maps does not have turn by turn... How do we fix it? I know! Let's build our own maps from scratch to get this vital feature in!"

Mind, you, this is not a simple thing to write. This is a major, major, multi- year undertaking that you do not embark upon lightly.

Makes no sense. But whatever... I'm not even an Apple user, so whatever.</comment>


Why Wayland and Weston were forked - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=wayland_weston_fork&num=1

<comment><USER2> Am I missing something or does this article never actually get around to explaining the fork at all? It seems to be written for people who already know what's going on, because it jumps straight from a preliminary explanation of the Wayland architecture to the sentence beginning "The primary argument against the need for a fork is one that sounds reasonable at first", without ever stating any argument _for_ a fork.

<comment><USER3> There are multiple pages to the article. I missed the navigation buttons at first too.</comment></comment>


America's License Raj - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/node/18678963?story_id=18678963&fsrc=rss <comment><USER2> > "Some occupations clearly need to be licensed. Nobody wants to unleash > amateur doctors and dentists on the public."

Actually, Milton Friedman famously (and impressively persuasively) did oppose mandatory licensure of doctors.

<http://www.fff.org/freedom/0194e.asp>

A lot of the trouble with licensure is that it tends to ratchet upwards. If I'd been forced to spend $20,000 getting licensed as a barber, I'd be mad if a competitor opened across the street without having spent all that money. Repealing licensure requirements benefits everybody except the people who've already gotten licenses.

<comment><USER3> This is true. Part of the reason doctors have high salaries (and healthcare costs are high) is that the AMA issues licences and creates scarcity. In this sense, they perform a similar function to a union.

It does seem like an outdated way to see if a doctor is good or not. I'd personally find a recommendation from a friend or a bunch of positive reviews on yelp a lot more convincing than the mere fact they have a license to practice. It's pretty likely hospital administrators and others would be able to determine which doctors were good without a licensing practice (just like we find good programmers without licensing), and they have strong incentives to do so.

<comment><USER4> You're completely wrong.

"The average physician's net income declined 7 percent from 1995 to 2003, after adjusting for inflation, while incomes of lawyers and other professionals rose by 7 percent during the period."

<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/business/22doctors.html>

"...none of this really matters, because doctors' salaries aren't a large enough chunk of health care spending in the United States to make a difference. According to Reinhardt, doctors' net take-home pay (that is, income minus expenses) amounts to only about 10 percent of overall health care spending. So if you cut that by 10 percent in the name of cost savings, you'd only save about $26 billion. That's a drop in the ocean compared with overhead for insurance companies, billing expenses for doctors' offices, and advertising for drug companies. The real savings in health care will come from these expenses."

<http://www.slate.com/id/2227965/>

The rest of your comment is incorrect as well. The AMA does not license physicians, state governments do. Many physicians don't even belong to the AMA. The AMA lobbies for physicians, but it's not in any way like a union (not that there's anything wrong with unions).

Resident physicians in particular would probably lead better lives if in fact there _were_ something like a union to limit hospitals and training programs that have traditionally worked these young physicians upwards of 100 hours a week for what amounts to minimum wage. Resident physician hours and primary care doc hours are _still_ onerous, and most are paying education debut averaging $150,000.

Physicians can practice without any involvement with a hospital, and many do. In any event, the idea of using hospital CEOs or CFOs to determine "good" doctors is about as misguided as asking British Petroleum to determine "safe" drilling engineers.

There is a reason for (some) licensing. We tried the adolescent libertarian fantasy of letting the "free market" drive things like medical training and licensure back in the early days of the 20th century. You could characterize the vast majority of medical education in that era as training in quackery, before people like Abraham Flexner got involved:

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9366625...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93666259)

<comment><USER5> _You're completely wrong. "The average physician's net income declined 7 percent from 1995 to 2003, after adjusting for inflation, while incomes of lawyers and other professionals rose by 7 percent during the period."<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/business/22doctors.html> "...none of this really matters, because doctors' salaries aren't a large enough chunk of health care spending in the United States to make a difference. According to Reinhardt, doctors' net take-home pay (that is, income minus expenses) amounts to only about 10 percent of overall health care spending. So if you cut that by 10 percent in the name of cost savings, you'd only save about $26 billion. That's a drop in the ocean compared with overhead for insurance companies, billing expenses for doctors' offices, and advertising for drug companies. The real savings in health care will come from these expenses." <http://www.slate.com/id/2227965/> _

Interesting data, but the question is if licensing scarcity increase salaries than without. The salary decrease in 1995 to 2003 doesn't tell us anything other than.....net income decrease.

 _The rest of your comment is incorrect as well. The AMA does not license physicians, state governments do. Many physicians don't even belong to the AMA. The AMA lobbies for physicians, but it's not in any way like a union (not that there's anything wrong with unions)._

Would it be possible that AMA effectively limits licensing rate through their lobbying?

 _There is a reason for (some) licensing. We tried the adolescent libertarian fantasy of letting the "free market" drive things like medical training and licensure back in the early days of the 20th century. You could characterize the vast majority of medical education in that era as training in quackery, before people like Abraham Flexner got involved:_

Interesting data, but not enough details to support your statement. We need more details on what kind of reforms were made, privately or governmental.

<comment><USER6> Logjam's comments on the Flexner repor are widely accepted to be true. If you're not familiar with it, it's worth reading the wikipedia article on the subject. Pre-Flexner, it was a dangerous, anything-goes world.

<comment><USER5> I am not disputing Flexner's report at all. I am asking Logjams to provide me with a list of reforms, private and governmental.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7>
       But, as the Wall Street Journal has doggedly pointed out,
       America's Licence Raj has extended its tentacles into
       occupations that pose no plausible threat to health or
       safety—occupations, moreover, that are governed by
       considerations of taste rather than anything that can be
       objectively measured by licensing authorities. The list
       of jobs that require licences in some states already
       sounds like something from Monty Python—florists, handymen,
       wrestlers, tour guides, frozen-dessert sellers, firework
       operatives, second-hand booksellers and, of course, interior
       designers—but it will become sillier still if ambitious
       cat-groomers and dog-walkers get their way

Handymen, frozen-dessert sellers, and firework operatives all plausibly involve health or safety concerns.

Where in the US do second-hand booksellers need a license?

I suspect that they may be counting for some of these requirements to have a business license, rather than any license tied specifically to the occupation. They may also be mixing up requirements to be licensed with requirements to be bonded.

<comment><USER8> Do you know that you need a license to be a barber? Or that in Texas, you need a license to be a florist? [ [http://www.agr.state.tx.us/agr/program_render/0,1987,1848_56...](http://www.agr.state.tx.us/agr/program_render/0,1987,1848_5649_0_0,00.html?channelId=5649) ]

I can learn programming on my own (through books or Internet) and get a employment as a programmer working on business critical systems and I do not need to get any license from anyone. But hey, if I want to cut someone's hair, I need to pay my dues to the state?

I think for non medical businesses, the licensing requirements should be removed. We save tax payer's money and there could be more competition in the market place which will benefit the consumer. [And don't worry about protecting the consumer, once you get a bad hair cut from a salon, you will announce it to the world (thanks to the Internet) that the hair salon is bad and you will never visit that place again. Market forces will take care of the crappy businesses.]

<comment><USER9> Barbers are actually one of the traditional license-requiring occupations going back centuries, because one of their main jobs used to be shaving men with straight razors, which carried a risk of injury or disease if the barber was poorly trained, or if the equipment was poorly disinfected. It might admittedly be a bit obsolete now.

<comment><USER10> While modern clippers are less likely to draw blood, that only means they're less likely to transmit bloodborne illnesses. But there are plenty of other diseases that they can transmit.

<comment><USER11> Wait, what diseases? And are the risks worse than those involved with food preparation or janitorial work (both unlicensed)? EDIT: Lice, obviously, but that's both treatable and not particularly dangerous.

<comment><USER10> >Wait, what diseases?

[http://www.tpub.com/content/armymedical/MD0164/MD01640044.ht...](http://www.tpub.com/content/armymedical/MD0164/MD01640044.htm)

[http://www.sanitarian.com/14_American_Jails___Barbering_and_...](http://www.sanitarian.com/14_American_Jails___Barbering_and_Infection_Control.htm)

Here in Washington state you do need a food handlers license just to wash dishes in a restaurant. It's not especially onerous, something like $15 to take a fairly simple test. (And even for the lowest-wage employees I imagine most Restaurants will eat the cost of licensing without complaint.)

And I think it's the general assumption that you don't need to worry about disease in a salon that merits the higher barrier of entry to getting a license than a Janitor, where everyone knows that if there's a bunch of human- sourced fluid on the ground, you need to be careful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People who gained power and money in America's free market closing the door behind them.

It's really sad.

<comment><USER13> This is a frequent pattern in many contexts. A wave of immigrants gets demonized, they integrate over the course of a few generations, and then they turn around and demonize the next wave of immigrants. A school of art or literature survives the scoffing of the old guard, only to become the old guard themselves, et cetera.

<comment><USER14> Descendents of immigrants are not immigrants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm not sure why wrestlers, tour guides and handymen need to be licensed, but many of the professions the author highlights genuinely should be licensed.

The main profession the article picks on - interior designers - seems to be misunderstood by the author. He incorrectly insinuates interior designers only choose fabrics and colors. In fact, interior designers are professionals who have completed training in space management, ergonomics and architecture. They are able to recommend structural changes that could, if designed incorrectly, cause structural damage. Interior Decorators, who in fact are NOT licensed, are limited to choosing fabrics and colors (so to speak). More info: [http://www.schools-of-interior-design.com/Interior-Design- vs...](http://www.schools-of-interior-design.com/Interior-Design-vs.-Interior- Decorating.htm)

Some of his other examples:

Frozen desert sellers - I hate to bring out the '...but think of the children argument,' but seriously, do you know if the grungy dude in the van selling ice-cream to your kids knows how to handle food safely? Has a criminal record? Has 12 DUIs?

Firework Operators - their job is to set off large explosions close to large crowds, occasionally indoors. I, for one, don't have a problem making sure they know what they're doing.

So the author may have a valid point, but his poor choice of examples does not support his case well in my opinion.

<comment><USER16> > Frozen desert sellers - I hate to bring out the '...but think of the > children argument,' but seriously, do you know if the grungy dude in the van > selling ice-cream to your kids knows how to handle food safely? Has a > criminal record? Has 12 DUIs?

I fail to see the relevance of criminal records and DUIs to handling ice cream.

<comment><USER17> Criminal background checks are a common concern when licensing adults who work with children.

DUI history is a common concern when licensing occupations that involve driving niche equipment under challenging circumstances, such as a truck in a throng of tiny jaywalking pedestrians.

<comment><USER16> I see. Your definition of "working with children" is miles wider than mine. I take it you're also in favor of licensure and criminal background checks for people working in children's clothing stores?

If the law allows you to have a driver's license even though you have 12 DUIs, I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be allowed to drive a van.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> As a counterpoint, here's the pro-licensing argument for interior designers from a friend's mother who is an interior designer in Florida: interior designers are distinct from interior decorators in that they often propose structural changes to buildings that, if done improperly, could compromise the integrity of the structure. Licensing interior designers is another layer of safety akin to a building permit for someone renovating their home.

<comment><USER19> but presumably you would still need to actually hire carpenters/architects and get a building permit to implement the structural changes. I don't think you should need to be licensed to make a recommendation.

<comment><USER20> I think that the implication is that the designer is acting as the architect, and just directly hiring the carpenters/etc. I don't know if this is true or not though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Though not professional licensing, we had an example of the unintended consequences of licensing here (Minneapolis) when there was a proposal to license community gardens. Though the licensing would not be particularly expensive it would also mean gardens would require insurance, because the city would have liability if something happened at a licensed location (but as long as the city simply wasn't involved no one could sue the city). The result of course would simply halt these otherwise entirely non-commercial efforts, as much out of bureaucratic overhead as financial.

</comment><comment><USER22> Thank goodness any form of licensing or certification never caught on in the tech community. Way too libertarian to let any of that sort of stuff stand.

On the flip side the worst that can happen in the vast majority of cases is that programs won't work (or maybe they'll even lose your data or leak it to the world). It's pretty rare that a programming error can kill someone.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There have been some interesting comments here since I posted this article just before I took my son to his soccer tournament. Now that I'm back, I see some commenters have suggested that some of the occupations identified in the submitted article as probably not needing state licenses (as indeed they don't need in many states) do need licenses. Those suggestions by my fellow HN participants are often made on the basis of hypothetical examples or imagined worst cases.

My own sister has formal training in interior design from a baccalaureate program at a state university, and she has pursued that occupation since graduation for more than two decades. I am aware from my sister's work in commercial interior design in a big city with skyscraper office buildings that some interior designers have somewhat of an influence on the safety of public spaces. But it's ludicrous to think that Florida's pattern of regulation of interior designers is in any sense motivated by public safety concerns. If there are such huge public safety concerns from interior designers not being state licensed, why do we not hear news stories from other states with different patterns of regulation about all the people who die from entering buildings that are owned by owners who hired unlicensed interior designers?

The experiment in federalism that has been going on in the United States offers a wonderful comparative laboratory of policies. Unfortunately, for reasons well explored by public choice theory,

<http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/PublicChoice.html>

state legislatures often ignore the real-world experience of other states in setting policy, preferring instead to listen to rent-seeking

<http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/RentSeeking.html>

lobbyists who divert attention from real-world experience to focus on hypothetical harms that could (maybe) happen if they don't obtain their favorite kind of special treatment. So I would respectfully suggest to my fellow HN participants that if someone wants to make a case that some occupation (e.g., hacking to build web-based SaaS businesses?) should be regulated by state-issued licenses, the persuasive way to make that case is to refer to detailed statistics about actual benefits or harms to the general population, rather than referring to imagination or common fears.

P.S. The one time I had to shop for a surgeon, for my wife, I asked my mom, an operating room nurse who has worked with some world-famous surgeons, to help me find the best doctors in town. That she was readily able to do. People always work the best network they can for the other people they care about most, and life will always be this way, regulation or no regulation. My wife had a completely uneventful and full recovery from her surgery.

</comment><comment><USER23> What the British author of the article should point out is that the US states determine how and what professions are licensed. Some US federal laws and regulations require licensure in a profession in federal domain, but those requirements are determined by the state (e.g, Arizona CPA licensure has greater school credit requirements than a Georgian CPA).

</comment><comment><USER24> It's laughable the professions that require licensing. Up here in Vancouver you need a license just to be a waitress.

<comment><USER20> IIRC in Ontario (Canada), you need a license to serve alcohol, though I believe it's basically just a series of classes to make sure that people all have a baseline level of competency in things like "determining if someone is too drunk" or stuff like that.</comment></comment>


I read a piece from Forrester the other day that... - <AUTHOR> http://bryce.vc/post/1541444205/i-read-a-piece-from-forrester-the-other-day-that

<comment><USER2> Simple fact: any CEO of a > billion dollar valuation company is going to have a PR department, and a large part of their job is to make the CEO look good. If they do their job properly it's a given that he will be overrated. It doesn't mean he's not a good CEO overall, but the superlatives that likely will get tossed around in the press should be taken with a grain of salt.

</comment><comment><USER3> The gif at the top pretty much sums up the entire post.</comment>