The new Jupyter Book - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jupyter.org/announcing-the-new-jupyter-book-cbf7aa8bc72e <comment><USER2> This is a really good move. A lot of people have been offering Jupyter Notebooks along with their Books. This should bring down the effort in getting the book out. An important note though, R world has for something called 'bookdown' for quite sometime and many R developers have used it to write books. [https://bookdown.org/](https://bookdown.org/)

The only worry is that now a lot of _data science enthusiasts_ are going to try to publish their Jupyter Notebooks collection as Kindle books!

<comment><USER3> I'm personally a huge fan of `mdbook`, which seems to be the Rust equivalent of R's `bookdown`. I've switched out internal documentation over to it from `gitbook`.

[https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook](https://github.com/rust-lang/mdBook)

<comment><USER4> mdBook is nice indeed but it still lacks a proper way to create PDFs. `bookdown` has a very smooth way to do that. The only thing I don't like is that is very R centric in terms of syntax for adding tables, graphs and whatnot. It's not pure markdown.

For things that will be online only mdBook is great.

I'm currently testing honkit which is a gitbook-cli fork and it seems OK.

<comment><USER5> > It's not pure markdown.

Be fair, it's not trying to be and not claiming to either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I love the Jupyter ecosystem but it's frustratingly messy sometimes. There's already "nbconvert" built in to Jupyter (lab), built on Pandoc. It's extremely under-documented but it's possible to extend it with templates to generate arbitrary outputs. I've done this to directly generate branded PDF reports via latex. Jupyter Book has a lot of overlap with this feature, but rather than building on nbconvert/pandoc, it starts from scratch with Sphinx.

Oh well! Keeps things interesting, I suppose!

<comment><USER7> nbconvert/pandoc is very limited in how it can be extended because it only relies on jinja templating rather than a proper AST. You couldn't achieve a lot of the things that sphinx/jupyter book can now do with that. Trust me I know because, before starting work on [https://github.com/executablebooks/MyST- Parser](https://github.com/executablebooks/MyST-Parser) I used the nbconvert/pandoc approach to create [https://github.com/chrisjsewell/ipypublish](https://github.com/chrisjsewell/ipypublish) ;-)

<comment><USER6> This is interesting, so do you think the JupyterBook solution could/should replace nbconvert?

I was always a bit frustrated by the way nbconvert pulled in pandoc as a dependency, but then didn't make use of any of its power (pandoc surely has a powerful AST). Instead they re-implemented filters and templates themselves. It struck me that it would have been much cleaner to write a proper 'ipynb > AST' Pandoc reader, and then expose pandoc AST filters and templates.

I was a bit suspicious of moving away from pandoc to sphinx, because sphinx seems markedly less powerful and general than pandoc. However, you seem to think it's the opposite! Does Sphinx have an AST? I can't see any reference?

<comment><USER8> In fact, pandoc now does have an ipynb reader and writer. You can convert between ipynb and any of the formats pandoc supports, and you can manipulate the AST using filters.

<comment><USER7> Now use that to replicate the example pages here: [https://myst- nb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples/basic.html...](https://myst- nb.readthedocs.io/en/latest/examples/basic.html#markdown) and here [https://jupyterbook.org/interactive/launchbuttons.html](https://jupyterbook.org/interactive/launchbuttons.html), and let me know how you get on ;-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's honestly amazing how far this thing that started as ipython has become. From expanding into notebooks, to multiple languages, to huge collaborative web-hosted coding applications. I've been a huge fan of iPython from the very start and I'm always amazed by seeing this project grow.

</comment><comment><USER10> In my job I often have to figure out how to solve a problem involving talking to an API or manipulating data in some way and then sharing that information with others. Jupyter notebooks make that so easy, it's the first tool that I go to. Being able to mix documentation and code, as well as visualizing output, aligns perfectly with the way I think.

I'm not entirely sure I have a use for this book feature, at least not yet, but this is a cool addition.

<comment><USER11> I keep my own notes on how to use obscure API features that I've learned, in Jupyter.

A colleague of mine, when first introduced to Python and Jupyter, remarked that Jupyter could be a great platform for writing tests.

<comment><USER12> If you have your own notes feel free to suggest docs updates !

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish that the notebooks supported Typescript or C# or something I'm more familiar with, out of the box.

For C# I have LinqPad, which I'm a huge fan of but never discovered something with similar functionality for typescript.

I've seen some open source kernels[0] but I'm not sure about the quality, did anyone try them? Deno core in Jupyter would have been amazing.

[0]: [https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter/wiki/Jupyter- kernels](https://github.com/jupyter/jupyter/wiki/Jupyter-kernels)

<comment><USER14> For JS and Typescript there's Quokka, which I haven't tried and doesn't really seem to be in the style of a notebook, but might be helpful? [https://quokkajs.com/](https://quokkajs.com/)

There is actually a JS adaptor/extension for Jupyter but I found it pretty clunky to use, and since I'm equally comfortable with Python as JS, I just stuck with Python.

For Typescript Stackblitz might be interesting, but it's not like a notebook, and it's not a run-locally tool.

<comment><USER15> observablehq is the equivalent of jupyter for nodejs. Before that we have runkit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't think there's a better stack in all of scientific computing than Julia + Jupyter Books. Lovin' it.

<comment><USER17> Julia + Pluto will probably give it a run for the money.

<comment><USER18> They had a fun talk at JuliaCon 2020: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAF8DjrQSSk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAF8DjrQSSk) :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm considering choosing something for a writing project with some diagrams that I might like to be executable / interactive, so that brought me here. It might be nice if the Jupyter Book and the Executable Book Project web pages acknowledged a bit more that there are alternatives out there and discussed the differences. I'm particularly thinking of Observable -- it looks like Observable has a good article comparing Jupyter to Observable: [https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/observable-for- jupyte...](https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/observable-for-jupyter- users)

</comment><comment><USER20> I was just discussing with my friend (who's currently writing his master's thesis) about how frustrating integrating Python results with LaTeX papers can be. In my experience (who wrote his master's thesis last year), it was not necessarily the worst, but it required me to complete my methodology and presentation _entirely_ before putting things in LaTeX, because otherwise I would have to spend ridiculous amounts of time updating values that impact multiple tables and graphs.

I hope this is _it_. LaTeX won't go away anytime soon, but being able to turn a notebook into a near-finished thesis/book (in TeX) would be a-mazing.

</comment><comment><USER21> Call me old-fashioned, but I dislike Jupyter notebooks, or really anything that I can't easily use with my editor of choice, diffing tools, etc.

Jupyter should just be an editor and execution engine that operates on plain text code, using specially formatted comments to delineate cells. If I want to edit it with vim and execute it using plain old Python I should be able to.

<comment><USER12> Well the nice thing is you can, Notebook is just a file format; but many tools allow you to select a bunch of text or use comments as delimiter and still execute using Jupyter. JupyterLab text editor does that by default. ANd I've seen vim plugins for that.

Notebook document are _meant_ to keep output as they are design for research and where the records of your results are important, but you also don't have to use ipynbformat with the notebook UI either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> small nitpick : yikes! Jupyter's blog is on Medium :(

<comment><USER12> Yeah, but unfortunately we haven't found anything that allow easy collaboration with folks who don't know how to use GitHub, and migrating away from medium is a paiiin. Though if you have a solution, I would be happy to push for it on the Jupyter side.

<comment><USER23> Unsure if you mean solution for migrating or solution for a good alternative platform, but Ghost has received a decent amount of praise. [https://ghost.org/vs/medium/](https://ghost.org/vs/medium/)

<comment><USER12> I've seen ghost, the problem is actually migrating the content, and while there are services they are too expensives for an OSS project, but thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When do I use Jupyter Notebook and when do I use Jupyter Book? Do I need both? Which is more LaTeX friendly?

<comment><USER6> As I understand it, Jupyter Book takes one or more Jupyter Notebooks and converts them into a static "book" output (looks like it primarily targets HTML output but with LaTex/PDF possible)

<comment><USER7> Yes that's about right :) The book can contain a mixture if Notebooks and normal markdown files, and also text representations of notebook files (see [https://jupyterbook.org/content-types/myst- notebooks.html](https://jupyterbook.org/content-types/myst-notebooks.html)) The initial focus has been HTML, but now there is work ongoing to create a nice LaTeX/PDF "theme"

<comment><USER25> I mean even for a single notebook the display looks pretty nice. Might consider using for single notebook books just to avoid dealing with the hassle of themes and jupyter extensions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Couldn't find the answer in the docs so I'll ask here; does this support all the languages that Jupyter does, or does it require kernel specific hooks to function? I'm specifically interested in producing some C# docs for for our internal application framework.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is there a Jupyter alternative that's just for JavaScript? Like Observable but not Observable.

<comment><USER28> I built Starboard ([https://starboard.gg](https://starboard.gg)), its interface is similar to Jupyter, but it runs entirely in the browser (which has pros and cons)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> _" MyST Markdown is a superset of Jupyter Markdown (AKA, CommonMark), "_

Hey Jupyter guys, can you please support asciidoc instead of inventing another MD format.

<comment><USER12> Sorry only 24h per day. Most of the work is volunteer. If you want ascii doc you'll need to put some elbow grease.

<comment><USER29> asciidoc is independently maintained [https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor.js/](https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoctor.js/)

you will save the effort needed to maintain a new format.

<comment><USER12> Sure, great ! Do you also have a Python binding for nbconvert ? There are about a dozen places where we render and sanitize markdown can you go add hooks for asciidoc as well ? There also need to be an option for user to select the formatting they want, and likely store that in the notebook format ; I guess it will take you only a couple of hours to patch it and translate. The docs will need fixing as well.

Once you've done it for notebook, can you do it for Lab, VS Code, Nteract, Cocal, Colaboratory ? Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Anyone have a quick tldr on the differences between Jupyter Lab, Jupyter Book, and Jupyter Notebooks?

<comment><USER12> Jupyter Notebook = view notebook as a single page – or depending on context, the document format `.ipynb`. Lab allow you to have panels like an IDE; Jupyter Book is to publish a collection of .ipynb file as a website.</comment></comment>


Can Science Fiction Predict the Future of Technology? - <AUTHOR> https://daily.jstor.org/can-science-fiction-predict-the-future-of-technology/ <comment><AUTHOR> Quote from the article: A fundamental change in human thinking about the future began in the 18th century, as technological change accelerated to a point where its effects were easily visible in the course of a single lifetime, and terms such as progress and development entered human discourse…Speculation about the future became more common as human beings increasingly reshaped the world during the 19th and early 20th centuries, though it was seen largely as entertainment, a diversion from the often stark realities of everyday life. Yet some of that speculation proved surprisingly close to the mark.</comment>


A chilling mathematical model of inequality - <AUTHOR> http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/3665416-155/buchanan-a-chilling-mathematical-model-of <comment><USER2> >The researchers found another interesting effect — a "trickle up" flow of wealth quite different from the usual "trickle down" picture of supply-side economics. In an economy with appreciable inequality, capital tends to flow from those with less to those with more, generating a cascade of transactions along the way. Hence, policy interventions aiming to spur economic activity should work better if they inject money into the system at the lower end, rather than from the top.

Does this mean that the paper supports basic income? I don't know much about these topics but I see basic income pop up in conversation on HN every now and then, so it came to mind when I read this.

<comment><USER3> * Hence, policy interventions aiming to spur economic activity should work better if they inject money into the system at the lower end, rather than from the top.*

Cantillon effects: In Essai, Cantillon provided an advanced version of John Locke's quantity theory of money, focusing on relative inflation and the velocity of money.[61] Cantillon suggested that inflation occurs gradually and that the new supply of money has a localised effect on inflation, effectively originating the concept of non-neutral money.[62] Furthermore, he posited that the original recipients of new money enjoy higher standards of living at the expense of later recipients.[63] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cantillon#Monetary_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Cantillon#Monetary_theory)

Right now, banks and then gov't are the first recipients of new money being injected into the system a la central banking.

Wealth distribution schemes implemented through fiscal policy (taxes and tax credits/grants/UBI) can be undermined through monetary policy this way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Paper is at [http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.07300](http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.07300)

<comment><USER5> Nice how they cite their git repository in the references.

<comment><USER6> But they didn't even bother to cite a tagged release or even a specific commit. Presumably, master will change and could be different than when the paper was published. I guess you could compare dates (although, who knows how far prior to the submission date the git repo master branch corresponded to the exact code used for the paper), but why make reproducibility more obfuscated, when all it costs you is `git tag` to the appropriate commit, making an easily obtainable copy of the state of the repo _exactly_ as it was used for everything that was submitted.

Providing the source is better than nothing, but we still have so far to go educating academics about the vital need for _real_ and _effortful_ data provenance and reproducibility.

<comment><USER7> Man, they use Git and you complain? I've collaborated with pretty brilliant PhDs[1] who would say "Subversion is so complicated, can't we just use Dropbox?"

[1] Insult to injury: computer science, not physics.

<comment><USER6> They could use git with fancy pre-commit hooks and connect their repo to travis-ci to check every push for software and mathematical correctness, and I would _still_ complain if it's not transparent exactly what code was used for the particular results used in the publication.

<comment><USER8> This is how you stop progress: Shitting on the people taking the first baby steps to doing stuff better.

<comment><USER6> Emphatically no.

Time and again, new services have come out, for decades, that supposedly will help solve the versioning, collaboration, and reproducibility issues with academic papers.

They never work, and the tools are always misused in this same way: as a catch-all bucket for disparate and unrelated snapshots of the paper, the code, and the data.

Merely moving from manual versioning in Dropbox to _manual_ versioning in git is not in the least bit to be considered progress. We have to absolutely curb the underlying problematic behavior (e.g. this repo has but a single commit, the concept of _version_ doesn't even apply) before it counts as even the tiniest step in the right direction.

In fact, I see it as a huge problem that people are chiming in to say that using git is in and of itself some kind of positive step. Why?

I don't care if you use svn, darcs, mercurial, git, perforce, or any other versioning system. The fundamental issue is actually keeping track of the changes you've made, and ensuring the precise version used for publication is trackable and available.

Even using Dropbox with clear documentation of changes made would be better than using a git repo where, prior to your first commit, you have destroyed all version history information and manually put everything into the "good" commit that you feel like "showing" to everyone.

That behavior is the _entire_ problem. Using git, in and of itself, doesn't represent any degree of departure from the old practices. Just because git is popular and new-ish and sexy doesn't mean simply dropping stuff in a git repo constitutes progress. That's a dangerous implication.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> A meta comment, but I'm really interested here. I tend to read the 'new' page a lot (I mostly see HN stories in the RSS feed rather than visiting the site) and there is a constant stream of "the economy is going to explode!" submissions. They are all based on loose reasoning and wild extrapolation (much like this one).

I enjoy thinking about economics because I am fascinated by systems. And economic systems are pretty cool because we all participate one way or another, they behave in ways that we might individually dislike (like "fair" market values) and as we are all components in a larger machine we get to try to see the "big" picture to understand what actions are available to the individual cogs.

And as the system arises as _an artifact_ of our individual actions, it cannot "break", it can only "change". Further, when it does change it does so over months or years as peoples actions change and new equilibrium emerges.

Many, if not most, of the stories posted take some aspect of the system and extrapolate it out to some weird end point. My favorite example is, "Housing is so out of control in SF soon nobody will be able to afford to live there." On its face, extrapolations like that are silly. If nobody lived in SF, there would be no companies and no businesses and no need for city services, it would be a giant scrubland. Which absolutely nobody believes would ever happen. It doesn't happen because prices rise until nobody (individual action) is willing to buy at the price, at which point sellers have to lower their price (individual action) if they want to move away and realize the economic value of their home. Or more crisply, the system adapts to what is happening and that adaptation becomes the new normal.

So when I read these sorts of articles/stories, I always wonder "What are they really trying to say, the premise is clearly bogus so that can't be it." And in this particular case it seems to be trying to make people "care more" about inequality. Did you care more? If so why? If not why?

<comment><USER10> When people say "Housing is so out of control in SF soon nobody will be able to afford to live there," they mean 'nobody like my friends or me'— the system may reach a new normal, but it is a new normal where a city with lovely weather (and thus some of the US' lowest carbon emissions) and spectacular professional opportunities is closed to all but the wealthy.

<comment><USER11> So let's stipulate that this oversimplification is useful for conversation. Given that, what is it about the not-wealthy tribe that makes them more deserving of what they want than the wealthy-tribe?

<comment><USER12> What makes the wealthy more deserving than the not-wealthy? If it's all about the Golden Rule ("he who has the gold makes the rules"), then fine, but let's get it out there.

<comment><USER9> Step back for a moment and think about the question you are asking. For example;

What makes a diamond worth more than a ruby? What makes a Rembrandt painting worth more than my daughters Fathers Day card from the third grade? How is it fair that the cars get waterspots in a rainstorm?

The question you are asking is founded in that "wealthy" is a thing rather than it is an artifact of a behavior or event. And that question speaks to my basic point, why are the artifacts (and extrapolations) treated as if they were the important thing in the discussion?

Lets say you won the PowerBall lottery on Wednesday and elected to take the lump sum. $58 Millon, if you live in California you pay 54% in combined federal and state taxes so you clear $26 million dollars. You can now go into San Francisco and qualify to purchase any number of properties. Zillow claims there are over 1,000 homes available to you that you can now afford easily.

Let's say you graduated from college in 1980 and got a job in the Bay Area as a programmer and have lived in a 1 bedroom efficiency apartment since that time and saved all of your excess income in the Vanguard S&P500 mutual fund. Here 36 years later you have about $3.2M available and you can buy any of over 750 homes in San Francisco for cash.

You live in a small two bedroom apartment in Mountain View and your paternal grandfather dies. He left his estate to his grand children and after being distributed between you and your sister you receive $5M. You can now buy a home for cash in San Francisco.

In all of those cases you are now able to buy a house in San Francisco, did "deserving" ever enter in to it? Why or why not?

In economic terms the control of capital moves from actor to actor, sometimes that actor is required to relinquish control (for example you buy food to eat so you give money for food) and sometimes the actor chooses to relinquish control (you trade money for a nice new car) and sometimes the actor chooses to retain control (you loan it to others temporarily in exchange for them giving you back more capital than you loaned them, you do this by putting your money in a savings account, money market, mutual fund, or other investment). The amount of capital you get to control over your lifetime is a mix of luck and work. What you do with it once you get control is entirely up to you of course.

There isn't a social justice issue here, there is just the flow of capital amongst people who choose to use it where they will. It could be you, it could be someone else, but as much as it would be great if it was, the game isn't really is not rigged in the US, and that is doubly true in the Bay Area. Houses are expensive in San Francisco because a tremendous amount of capital is being sent into the economy to create new things. AirBnB raises $100M that is capital that comes in, they spend it on office space (and it flows to construction companies and construction workers) they spend it on engineers and data scientists and it flows to people who are probably reading this list, they spend it on advertising and it flows to advertising agencies or city coffers via bus stop advertising. Most of it flows into the control of people in the area. Some of those people will collect it until they can make competitive offers on a house, others will collect it and then move out of the area, and still others will spend everything they are given on new cars, vacations, and conspicuous consumption. But AirBnB exists because some actors (in this case investors) have moved capital into them, in the hope that later they will be able to exchange the equity in that investment for more capital than they originally sent over.

Are their social justice issues? Sure, but home prices isn't a social justice issue, its an economic artifact. Consider abandoned suburbs of Houston or Detroit where houses were abandoned because there was no capital coming into the city any more (Oil in Houston's case, Cars in Detroit's) It has been offered (but I cannot verify) that the greater metro area of Detroit had at one time housing for over a million people which was abandoned. Think about that when we discuss San Francisco's homeless population of 8,000 to 10,000 people (which is considered "large"). We tax the economy to use that capital to support the mentally ill, the less fortunate, that is a social justice issue. But it has nothing to do with home prices and everything to do with competent governance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The model in the paper is offensively dumb. A basic explanation (taken from a web-forum where economists hang out):

The paper says

 _The model consists of N agents, each with capital ci with i = 1, . . . , N. Agents are allowed to trade among themselves M objects. Each object m = 1, . . . , M has a price πm.

Starting from a feasible allocation matrix A, we introduce a random trading dynamics in which a good m is firstly picked up uniformly at random among all goods. Its owner then attempts to sell it to another agent i picked up uniformly at random among the other agents. If agent i has enough cash to buy the product m, that is if `i > πm, the transaction is successful and his/her cash decreases by πm while the cash of the seller increases by πm._

In other words:

1\. Prices cannot vary. The price a good is set in stone.

2\. Agents do not purchase things they want. They "pick up" goods and immediately try to sell them.

3\. They sell them at these pre-determined prices to other people, whether the other people want them or not. Well, there's no such thing as "want" in this model.

4\. Nor is there any planning by agents. No ability for them to say "Crap, I only have $5 left. Better not spend it on this vase this guy is selling."

Original discussion source:

[http://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/physicists-model- economic...](http://www.econjobrumors.com/topic/physicists-model-economic- inequality)

<comment><USER14> You would be surprised how oversimplified most economic models are, particularly those taken as gospel. For instance, I won't deny that there are certain situations in which supply and demand curves are predictive (we all know how commonly they are cited to explain pricing in a market), but consider how many conditions must be assumed in order for them to apply as originally constructed:

1\. The good is a commodity, i.e. its labeling has no effect on perceived value

2\. The selling firms are perfectly competitive (i.e., no partial or complete monopolies that allow price-fixing)

3\. The buyers are perfectly competitive (i.e., no purchasing groups)

4\. All sellers can sell to all buyers equally easily

5\. All parties in the market have equal access to information

6\. All parties act rationally and based only on the marginal utility of each individual transaction

etc., etc., and a whole litany of other things that we know are rarely true. Since the theory is so "squishy" in practice, one could even protest that it does more harm than good when treated as a de facto starting point for price modeling: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand#Criticisms](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand#Criticisms)

So this model, even if it too is sadly oversimplified, may still be useful simply by starting from a different set of assumptions than whatever is typical in the field, and seeing how the modeled behavior differs from existing theories. There's basically no hope of experimental validation for any of this, though.

<comment><USER15> Yes, but are these any simpler than most written discussions of the same topics, in things like essays? It seems that the once they're codified in some kind of mathematical model then we can see the shortcomings right away, whereas an essay might obfuscate this, and yet be conceptually even weaker.

In another way, the same arguments could be made in a mathematical model and an essay, but the model might just be easier to criticise. I'd say that's a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is admittedly extremely naive, but won't liquidity simply become a service that commands a premium? In finance, you see the entry of market makers who provide liquidity when you need it, in exchange for collecting a premium (the bid-ask spread).

As more market makers enter this situation, one of the main ways they compete is by lowering prices, which is good for consumers who rely on them for liquidity on demand. The market makers are essentially willing to put their money at risk by scrambling it around all day in the form of ownership of different assets, and then squaring up by the end of the day so that they hopefully don't hold any exposure to any asset over some significant time period.

This isn't about financial market making per se, but just the basic idea. There could be similar market makers in other fields, perhaps buying and selling physical goods, but never storing them for sale over time.

Fields where the handling and registration of goods transfers can't be as highly digitized as finance or energy would be much more expensive to provide liquidity, and the "bid-ask spread" would have to be higher to compensate.

In a sense, it would reflect the kinds of liquidity people care about buying, and if other kinds of liquidity dried up, it would be because people mostly didn't want to buy that liquidity.

I'm not saying that there wouldn't be unhealthy effects from inequality, but I think to the extent that inequality inherently limits liquidity, then market makers enter to provide that liquidity as a service.

<comment><USER16> You can't market make between people who have too little money and people who have too much money. Lending money to consumers won't work because while their increased consumption would produce economic activity and profit for someone, it wouldn't return to them and so such lending is inherently risky, so the interest rates would have to be high, which just further exacerbates the problem that they have too little money.

This paper is basically a stone's throw away from the Marxian analysis of crises of capital. It's nice that it's quantitative; a nice complement to all the qualitative criticisms of capitalism's fundamental structure. It's not the market that is the issue, but the tendency of capital to concentrate in the hands of the propertied class. There are two kinds of capitalist societies actually seen in the real world, the unstable kinds, and the kinds that have significant wealth redistribution mechanisms. Real economies oscillate between the two or collapse.

<comment><USER6> At least in financial markets, it seems that over time, it has only become easier and cheaper for people with less money to purchase liquidity and participate on demand in some of the same markets as wealthy people. While there still are people who are too stricken by poverty to participate, the threshold of participation is _getting lower_ \-- which seems to stand in contrast to your claims.

On the other hand, there definitely are other forms of exchange, say like dark pools, where wealth and status are required to gain access.

I think I would hold out for a model that was able to work with actual transaction data like this, rather than needing the mathematical conveniences of the paper (that only budgets are limiting, that transaction network is the fully connected graph of all participants, etc).

It's good work, I hope to see it keep going and go in a more data-driven way.

<comment><USER16> I don't think we should rely on financial markets for an idea of how markets can correct for structural issues. It hasn't been that long since they collapsed and dragged down the rest of the world economy with them, only being resuscitated by blunt and pervasive intervention at the level of states and multinational institutions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The author of the article, Mark Buchanan, has a blog [1] titled "Physics Perspective" and subtitled "Inspiration from physics for thinking about economics, finance and social systems". Lotsa interesting stuff; I saw one article which said that stable economic growth in developed countries tends to be linear.

[1] [http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.com/](http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.com/)

[2] [http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.com/2016/02/economic- growth...](http://physicsoffinance.blogspot.com/2016/02/economic-growth- vastly-slower-than-we.html)

<comment><USER18> Also excellent from the same author:

[http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquity-Catastrophes-Happen-Mark- Buch...](http://www.amazon.com/Ubiquity-Catastrophes-Happen-Mark- Buchanan/dp/0609809989)

[http://www.amazon.com/Nexus-Worlds-Groundbreaking-Science- Ne...](http://www.amazon.com/Nexus-Worlds-Groundbreaking-Science- Networks/dp/0393324427/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I love this. Economics is such a complicated system that the expert opinions have long been biased toward the 'opinion' side, forget about the large stakes in the game that the loudest voices hold.

A physical model of network effects that presents phase transitions gives us a view into the underlying reality. So cool.

Sadly, for 100+ years we've known about the destructive effects of deflation on leveraged economies (Much longer for the accelerated growth that comes with leverage), yet the leadership in political economics continues to call for hard money and budgetary surplus, which doesn't even make sense with respect to accounting identities.

<comment><USER20> > Economics is such a complicated system that the expert opinions have long > been biased toward the 'opinion' side

> A physical model of network effects that presents phase transitions gives us > a view into the underlying reality.

Here, imperfect mental models (aka opinions) are replaced by imperfect computational models. There's nothing inherently superior about this model just because it has been translated into code. It should be regarded as a tool to understand the consequences of the assumptions that went into its design. If those assumptions are unsound, the model is unsound and will not reflect real economic systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > The reason is quite simple. As inequality gets more pronounced, a larger > fraction of the population faces more stringent budget constraints, and the > spectrum of possible economic interactions open to them narrows.

That's pretty simple, alright. Gee whiz. It's a good thing we have those abstruse theories from physics to tell us that people without money don't buy as much stuff.

I'm guessing this is a case of bad journalism -- anyone have a better layman's explanation?

<comment><USER22> "Poor people can't afford to wait for better deals", perhaps?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Wealth accumulates exponentially when you have longevity or inheritance in the system. Why do we suddenly act surprised that an exponential function is growing exponentially after we reduced all other variables that could slow its growth to zero.

</comment><comment><USER24> This technique maybe points a way toward answering a very important question: what is the optimum level of inequality in a society?

I doubt that the answer would be 'one where everyone is exactly equal,' because we do have differing physical and intellectual capabilities which would mean that if everyone was exactly equal, we would be under-allocating resources to certain people. On the other hand, it's almost assuredly true that the level of inequality we have now is just too high. The difficulty is in finding the exact equation to maximize.

<comment><USER25> I would argue that inequality is not a problem at all. It doesn't affect me that there are others with vastly more wealth than I have, since I have enough for myself and my family. Unless I'm simply envious, the inequality is not a problem for me.

Rather than inequality, the problem is really that the bottom end of the range is too low. There are too many people who are not able to find enough work to provide an adequate income. There's a litany of social and economic reasons for that, but that is the problem, not the inequality itself.

<comment><USER24> Inequality is a problem if inequality is restraining the total growth of society or limiting resources/services/goods that would potentially be available to you in a less unequal society.

<comment><USER26> Inequality is a problem because inequality is itself empirically shown to be a source of disutility, independent of those other concerns you raise.

It may _also_ be a problem for those other reasons, but that's not necessary for it to be a problem.

(People often mistake output and consumption measures of typical economic statistics for direct measures of experienced utilities. While they are _proxies_ for utility, they are imperfect proxies, and one of the ways we know they are flawed is that they do not account for the disutility that directly results from inequality.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Paul Graham (co-founder of y-combinator) questioned whether inequality itself is a bad thing [1] [2]. I'd love to hear his comments. Or has he backtracked? I know that Ycombinator is investigating a basic income [3], which addresses income inequality.

I'd love to see the level of a basic income used as the knob to use to kick- start an economy. Or some argument as to why this is a bad idea.

[1] [http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/ineq.html)

[2] [http://paulgraham.com/sim.html](http://paulgraham.com/sim.html)

[3] [https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic- income](https://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income)

<comment><USER27> I don't know much about inequality specifically. But I know poverty is a bad thing for everyone. It creates violence and prevents people from having a chance to contribute to society. We're starting to see people who have health issues that have accumulated over multiple generations: lead poisoning, nutritional deficiencies, drug poisoning...

Is it ok to have inequality if everyone is at least middle class? It seems ok, but I think the problem with this is the artificial barriers to breaking into the wealthy class. Lots of more capable people tend to be held down in lower classes while less capable people are allowed handle the wealth because they were born into it, know the right people, and know the culture.

Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this trend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> > This fits with the argument that quantitative easing — in which central > banks purchase securities — may ultimately be misguided. Such a policy is > supposed to encourage spending by propping up the prices of stocks and > bonds, which tends to boost wealth only at the top end of the distribution. > Central bankers might have a more powerful and beneficial effect if they > instead injected money directly into the accounts of citizens, who could > then use it to pay down debts or spend as they like.

Interestingly enough, Ron Paul was one of the few saying this all along.

<comment><USER25> _Central bankers might have a more powerful and beneficial effect if they instead injected money directly into the accounts of citizens, who could then use it to pay down debts or spend as they like_

That's what tax cuts do, without the overhead of a large central bureaucratic program to manage it.

<comment><USER29> How much in taxes are people at the bottom paying?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Anyone have a link to a paper?

<comment><USER30> Really silly of them not to add the title or names of the paper ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> What is the root cause of economic inequality? I would argue it is rooted in the super admin - user relationship inequality of the monetary system and the inherent conflict of interest. A handful of super admins have the proprietary privilege to CRUD the money supply while the billions of other users have a limited privilege of simply using it.

<comment><USER32> _What is the root cause of economic inequality?_

Even if you solve absolutely all the problems related to the level-playing- field and give everyone the same chance, you're still going to have some people who produce more value than others. I would say that is the root cause.

<comment><USER31> Yes that may be the cause of marginal inequality in a meritocracy which most everyone would argue is better than oligarchy. But extreme inequality is where those with the most money (the "super admin" user group) produce negligible real wealth.

<comment><USER32> At least half of the Forbes 10 richest got wealthy by starting their own companies, so I'm not sure your analysis is correct.

<comment><USER31> Those in the top 10 as ranked by Forbes are not super admins as much as they are highly privileged users. Bloomberg might be considered an admin of sorts due to his fortune being made on financial software.

The real super admins are people like the current US Treasury Secretary who has the highest voting power on the board of governors of the IMF. This particular super admin made a fortune at Citi by betting on the global economic collapse of 2008 while hoarding cash in British tax havens like the Cayman Islands and was then promoted to his current administrative post.[1]

This is a (sub) prime example of a super admin purposefully crashing the system in order to gain more power; greatly increasing global inequality in the process. This is a cyclical use case which has been occurring for hundreds of years in the global paper-based markets.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lew#Between_Clinton_and_O...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Lew#Between_Clinton_and_Obama_tenures)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Are there any 'natural' tendencies in an economy that resist inequality getting so high?

<comment><USER34> Torches and pitchforks?</comment></comment>


Nearly 5 years later, the Rails "build a blog" demo is revisited with Rails 3 - <AUTHOR> http://www.railsdispatch.com/posts/rails-3-makes-life-better

<comment><AUTHOR> For comparison, the original "Build a blog in 15 minutes demo" from Nov. 2005 is here: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzj723LkRJY></comment>


Show HN: Code on Hacker News - <AUTHOR> https://code.hn/top <comment><USER2> Fyi, your links at the bottom don't work.

        (source code)

Either the tracking thing or the `return false` is causing the click to not actually click. Let's be real: everyone on this site is blocking your tracking whatchamajig.

<comment><AUTHOR> What browser are you using? I'm using Chrome and they work fine. It's just google analytics event tracking, and I can assure it's not blocked by everyone on HN.

<comment><USER2> Are you blocking trackers with something like ublock?

<comment><AUTHOR> No I am not. I was interested in if people would click the bottom links and I have got quite a few events so far. I wonder if there is a way I could detect if google analytics is blocked and just fire the window location change.

Edit:

I added a check to make sure google analytics is not blocked, it should work for you now.

Thanks for letting me know.

<comment><USER2> Links to github already get tracking for free from github. Check out [https://github.com/montanaflynn/codehn/graphs/traffic](https://github.com/montanaflynn/codehn/graphs/traffic). It'll look like this: [https://i.imgur.com/NQOjGbO.png](https://i.imgur.com/NQOjGbO.png) (example from one of my projects)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah I know about that, I wanted to play around with the links in the bottom and see what got clicked the most. I added a check to make sure google is loaded, can you try again?

<comment><USER2> :+1: lgtm

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is nice, but it would be better (and more useful than a plain HN search) if it included project data through the Github API, like stars, license, languages, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was planning to add a filter by language which I get from GitHub API but I like the idea of adding other metadata as well. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It looks too similar to the official page. I'm not sure if in this cases they send a friendly email or a nastygram, but I think you should make some small changes in the look and feel so it's clear that it's a different site.

Also, does it only show the github links or it also shows the gitlab links?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I guess I tried to copy the style exactly except using newer html / css than tables. I'm thinking maybe a chrome extension might be a better choice for this, especially since the API leaves a lot to be desired.

It shows links for both github and gitlab links.

Edit: I changed the logo and favicon from a Y to a C.

<comment><USER5> It looks fine to me. You might make the top color different; then it would obviously be distinct.

> the API leaves a lot to be desired

Yes, it does. We're going to make a new API that gives you a simple JSON version of any HN URL. Would that address any of the concerns you encountered?

<comment><AUTHOR> That would definitely be what I was hoping for.

The main problems I had were:

1\. The stories endpoints were limited to 200 or 500 results, not paginated.

2\. I had to loop over and send a request to all the individual stories to check if the url was from github or gitlab.

3\. There was not an endpoint for "show new" (/shownew)

4\. It was unclear from the docs what is shown on the website homepage (beststories or topstories?)

<comment><USER5> Ok, that's a good confirmation that it's the right approach. Sorry I don't have a timeline for you but we'll get there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey HN! I've had this domain forever so finally decided to make a website for it.

I use the HN API to get the stories and then filter out any none code stories. Next up I will add a filter for programming language so you can easily see all the latest projects in your preferred language.

The server is written in Golang and I used nginx with Let's Encrypt for a free SSL certificate.

<comment><USER6> Wait, you can get a free SSL certificate? I thought it was always a paid service.

<comment><USER7> Let's Encrypt is all about giving people free SSL certs and basically any hosting provider worth its salt has started offering them for free to their customers: [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Perhaps this is just because of the current stories, but what's the difference between this and [https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com](https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=github.com) ?

<comment><AUTHOR> That is pretty much what I hoped to create. I just didn't know about that, I wish I had because I've wanted this functionality for years.

One difference is that ?site=github.com seems to only work on the /from page so the results are not broken into top / new / best / show pages.

I'm also planning to add a filter so you can only see projects for your language of choice.

<comment><USER8> Cool! Wasn't knocking your project, just trying to understand. A language filter would be nice :)</comment></comment></comment>


Most bizarre Git service and other stupid Rails powered "businesses" - <AUTHOR> http://groovie.org/articles/2008/05/06/most-bizarre-git-service-and-other-stupid-rails-powered-businesses

<comment><USER2> I see we've got yet another coder who doesn't know the value of time or money.

Assume each client project has three coders (you plus two others, perhaps at the client site). A small github account is $12/month. A small Lighthouse account is $10/month. That's $22 per month. At, say, $60 per hour -- not a very high rate -- that's 22 person-minutes per month.

Perhaps _you_ can easily find a trustworthy, experienced system administrator who, for a total cost of less than $22 per month, will set up Trac and git servers, keep them up, back them up, keep up with the security bulletins, install security updates, migrate to new versions, take tech support phone calls and -- most importantly -- be independent of you, so that after the project is done you can hand the keys to the client and walk away without further commitment. I fear that I would spend more than $22 worth of my time just trying to compose the _want ad_ for such a person. I might waste more than 20 minutes per month just _worrying_ about my hand-rolled system.

 _one of the entire points of a DVCS is that you do NOT need a central repository..._

Just because the technology _lets_ you, me, and the production server push and pull commits directly from our coworkers' laptops doesn't mean that such behavior is sensible, secure, easy to manage, or easy to teach.

The teaching feature, in particular, is key. Github isn't just a git server... it's got features that make git easier to understand. At this stage, that's kind of important, since most of the coders I know don't understand git yet.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that the author is overly negative. If github provides some value to some people, more power to them.

At the same time, I object to "doesn't know the value of time."

As an independent coder, I can turn two hours into a working Trac + git, or I can turn $22/month into a github + lighthouse setup, but depending on the context, it could be very difficult to turn an arbitrary two hours into $22. It's not always possible to just bill another two hours. That asymmetry is why it's sometimes better to DIY than to pay cash.

<comment><USER2> I'm glad that you understand that the problem with the author's post is not that he doesn't find value in github or Lighthouse. It's that he can't imagine how _anyone_ could find value in github or Lighthouse.

And I don't want to argue that it's never better to DIY. DIY is an important learning tool: I've installed gitosis once or twice, and I've installed Trac once or twice, and that's good. And DIY is great if it's your hobby: I do a lot of my own cooking, for example.

But I'm afraid that, if you already know enough about computers to install git and Trac inside of two hours... unless you're marooned on a desert island with nothing but the git source, a statement like "it could be very difficult to turn an arbitrary two hours into $22" really _is_ an underestimation of the value of your time. Here's some things you could do with two hours that are probably worth $22:

\-- Bill half an hour at $45 per hour and then spend 1.5 hours playing WoW. Assuming that's not possible...

\-- Spend an hour, spread out over a day or two, surfing the web and bidding on tiny one-hour projects (e.g. "install Wordpress for me") that pay $22. Accept one and earn $22.

\-- Upgrade your client base: Spend two hours pitching new clients via email. Bid $11 per hour more than your current rates. Assuming you can make 1 bid per hour, and the average client project lasts 40 hours, your success rate need only be 5% to make $22 an hour doing this.

\-- If you know Rails read some sites about Django. If you know Django read some sites about Rails. If you know both read a book on Drupal. Now, when someone in your network of friends asks "should I use Rails or Drupal for this project?" you can answer intelligently. The additional job leads that you'll pick up will be worth at least $22.

\-- Write a tutorial on installing git and Trac. Put it up on your blog. Crosslink your blog with your resume. This will reflect positively on your value as a programmer and raise your future salary by at least, say, $1 a month. Twenty-two months into your next job, you'll have earned $22.

\-- Flirt on Facebook (a task that is much harder to reliably outsource than git administration). Or try speed dating. Or take one dance class. By itself, this won't pay off. So follow it up with more of the same. Keep going until you meet a wonderful partner and move in with them, at which point you will realize that, while it took you several hundred hours to find that partner, by living together you're saving hundreds of dollars a year in expenses like rent, and maybe even taxes. Assuming you stay together long enough, your original two hours will end up being worth far more than $22... even if you're an utterly unromantic pragmatist. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> At a certain point dvcs has to be somewhat centralized. If I'm managing an app in git and need to push to production, it's much easier to pull from a service than to try to setup something that allows production to pull from my development machine when it comes time to deploy.

</comment><comment><USER5> doesn't sound stupid to me...@ github you are not just paying for git... you can do that yourself... you are paying for backups if your laptop / server gets hosed

at least that is how i look at it</comment>


Nearly 20% of UK Children Exposed to Online Content That Promotes Self-Harm - <AUTHOR> https://digit.fyi/nearly-20-of-uk-children-exposed-to-online-content-which-promotes-self-harm/ <comment><USER2> "The number of URLs containing child sexual abuse imagery since 2015 has also risen significantly." - very disturbing. This is recorded data as well, not taking into account content that still flies under the radar.</comment>


25 years of AOL, as told in its own old press releases. - <AUTHOR> http://technologizer.com/2010/05/24/aol-anniversary/

<comment><USER2> The most nostalgic thing to me about this was remembering that the mobile computing future has been "the future" since the palmtop-devices craze of 1993. And we're still stuck in that future!

</comment><comment><USER3> Ahh yes, just $9.95 (down from $29.95) for a full five hours of access per month!

/nostalgia

</comment><comment><USER4> Wow. This reminded me how much I miss eWorld =(</comment>


What was your best passive income in 2017? - <AUTHOR> What is your best source of 'passive' or recurring income? <comment><AUTHOR> 2016 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13150144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13150144)

2015 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10879529)

2014 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8201392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8201392)

</comment><comment><USER2> I built an Alexa skill that makes about $4k/mo. I'm adding more functionality this month and applying for access to further monetization.

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017OBJI46](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017OBJI46)

<comment><USER3> Curious, how do you monetize?

<comment><USER4> IIC, Amazon pays for skills with sufficient engagement: [https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills- kit/rewards](https://developer.amazon.com/alexa-skills-kit/rewards)

<comment><USER2> Yes, it's 100% rewards at the moment. I need to get real monetization in since there's no guarantee this will last for any amount of time. I predict they'll keep it going for at most 2 more years.

<comment><USER5> 4K for 84 reviews? How does the rewards system work?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My native Mac app, sold outside the App Store: [https://radiosilenceapp.com](https://radiosilenceapp.com)

I was really afraid that Apple's new policy on making kernel extensions harder to install would cut into the profits, but sales have actually gone up since. Perhaps other firewalls are even harder to get up and running.

<comment><USER7> Really great!! Are you working in some company or just living happy life from your side projects and games.

<comment><USER6> I was happily unemployed for a while, living off the app income for about 15 months.

However, I just joined an AI startup two months ago, not out of necessity, but because I found their idea super interesting and had the chance. (Also, the marginal value for a day off wasn't that high anymore.)

<comment><USER7> May We know how you get the idea of this app? Was you aware of Little Snitch at the time of making and how you thought about to overcome the competition etc and what was in your mind while creating this?

I some time feel scare of competition. I am happy customer of Radio Silence :)

<comment><USER6> Little Snitch was actually the inspiration to build Radio Silence, but in a what-not-to-do kind of way.

I had just bought my first Mac, and was really impressed with how easy everything was. It really was a joy to use. Little Snitch instantly turned it into an obnoxious, interrupting mess where almost every app was broken by default.

I'm sure Little Snitch is the right app for many people, but not for me. I basically learned Objective-C just to build an alternative for myself. That turned into Radio Silence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My cryptocurrency information website is finally taking off the ground, after months of netting $30-40/month, it's going to reach 500$ this month. Weirdly enough,I'm not even adding content right now, as I am working on a freelance project

<comment><USER9> What's your site? Would love to take a look.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A whole bunch of tongue-in-cheek "Is $xyz down?" type sites. Simple footer ad, maybe an affiliate link or two for a competitor and also my web hosting provider, some sort of social media affiliation like a pre-canned tweet with a complaint in it - they all pay for their domain name and hosting, some turn $100+ monthly in ad and affiliate revenue as well.

I'd estimate about $450ish on a good month, but it has taken a while to get to this point. I've stopped actively promoting any of them now, but the most profitable ones I'd probably invested 30-40 hours each in promoting.

</comment><comment><USER11> My YouTube back-catalog nets me $2-5k each year. One video in particular has repeatedly paid for my children's Chirstmas presents as it tends to "go hot" around this time of year.

<comment><USER12> How many videos are found is said catalog?

<comment><USER11> Between 400 and 500. That number is super-misleading though. I only have 3 or 4 videos that have earned me any countable money.

I have a "dear diary" type series that I do every weekday. I have uploaded 433 episodes on that series and it generates nearly no views. It's not the type of content people look for on YouTube.

<comment><USER13> what's your channel?

<comment><USER14> It's in his profile.

[https://youtube.com/cheveedodd](https://youtube.com/cheveedodd)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> $2k a year, book price comparison search [http://www.librarist.com/](http://www.librarist.com/) \- don't have much time lately so sales are declining, I'm using it as a proof-of-concept + new technologies playground ti skill myself up...

would love to take longer holiday and fix/enhance the site...

</comment><comment><USER16> Stock market trading robots, being doing it for years and earning more than my "real job" \- systems/security team lead in big telco... still have time till the end of the year, but so far this looks like to be my first triple digits return year, (which I don't expect to repeat anytime soon, but still it is a quite an achievement in my book...)

<comment><USER17> What kind of software/tools are you using? I'm curious to get into this as well.

<comment><USER16> few VPS scattered around the world, python and the API from your stock broker... initial setup very cheap + a lot of time to develop and test...

<comment><USER18> Why do you need VPS scattered around the world?

And which broker do you use?

<comment><USER16> Everything is automated and redundant... to start you can do it on your own laptop... I'll keep my broker secret for security reasons, but you can take a look at Interactive Brokers, their API looks pretty good...

[https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=5041](https://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/index.php?f=5041)

<comment><USER18> I'm just curious about which brokers offer APIs. I've thought about automating some stuff, but never seriously enough to explore brokers.

<comment><USER16> in today's world most discount brokers offer API...

<comment><USER18> Wow, I'll be damned. I looked at this stuff a long time ago, and (I know I'm lazy) never looked again. Apparently ETrade has an API too. Interesting!

<comment><USER16> LOL, welcome to the new century :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> $1k/y. Mostly from a direct ad on my niche blogs (invisible to adblocks) and the rest from Amazon affiliates. Adsense is almost dead, I'm just waiting to reach the money threshold to close my account.

Blogs are not exactly passive but I would do this research anyway.

</comment><comment><USER20> im guessing its going to be bitcoin this year

<comment><USER21> Bitcoin is not income.

<comment> greyface- It is if you sell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Hackathons. Won 8 hackathons. made around $14607(900000 INR)

<comment><USER23> Do you have any strategies for winning hackathons?

<comment><USER22> I just keep following things in mind while building product. avoiding mainstream ideas working demo/prototype creativity feasibility and viability Making sure it adds value to what organizers wants

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> a bunch of InDesign templates

<comment><USER25> Do you have a link to your templates?

<comment><USER24> Here: [https://gumroad.com/storyboards](https://gumroad.com/storyboards)

For now these are mostly focused on film ratios and storyboards but there are plenty more in the drawers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> crypto

<comment><USER26> just invest what you can in the top 10. cash out only what you need when you need it and simply watch the rest rise over time to heights most mortals would never dream of.

<comment><USER27> The hype is strong with this one.

<comment><USER26> yeah, the "almost been going on for 10 years now" hype</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Writing Eloquent JavaScript Without CoffeeScript - <AUTHOR> http://oscargodson.posterous.com/writing-pretty-javascript-without-coffeescrip

<comment><USER2> someVariable = someVariable || {foo: 'bar'} is one of my favorite ways to cock the heads of my less JavaScript-inclined pairing partners. Both effective and terse.</comment>


17-year-old creates impressive Mac OS X multi-touch table - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/05/06/17-year-old-creates-impressive-mac-os-x-multi-touch-table

<comment><USER2> What a coincidence - I was planning on building one myself, and happened across this guy's site about a week back.

<http://www.multitouch.nl/> is another cool site.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> There is more tech specific info at this post ~ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=182885></comment>


Show HN: Open-Source Privacy Engineering Toolkit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kiprotect/kiprotect <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN! Today we released the first version of our privacy & security engineering toolkit, KIProtect. It contains methods for pseudonymizing structured data and we will soon add more functionality to discover, encrypt and anonymize sensitive data as well.

Feedback and feature suggestions are highly welcome, I'm also happy to discuss our plans. We plan to migrate more and more functionality from our closed- source enterprise edition to the community edition of our toolkit, the next thing we'll add is aggregation-based anonymization using differentially private randomized responses.</comment>


Ex-Digg CEO Jay Adelson is Starting an Incubator - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/10/jay-adelson-post-digg/?dog

<comment><USER2> So, here's how I see what Jay brought to the table at Digg:

\- Lots of contacts to close the series A (a plus).

\- Did not move to SF when the company's office was established there (a minus).

\- Brought in a large group of people he worked with before at high salaries to be the "management" group (a minus).

\- Used Digg to subsidize the establishment of Revision3, a company that he had a much larger ownership share in (including having full-time employees working for Revision 3, but paid by Digg, as well as Revision3 using Digg facilities and intellectual property). (A huge minus).

\- Failed in the one thing that a parachuted-in CEO is supposed to do, secure an exit (another huge minus).

So you're going to let him incubate your company? You're a fool.

<comment><USER3> I think that, if you're going to post such a terribly immature and defamatory comment, and presumably do so from some perspective of "I was involved with Digg, I'm an insider," you have to provide some personal basis for it.

I think Jay's a good guy. It isn't his fault that Eric Schmidt walked away from the acquisition. And it isn't his fault that Kevin Rose would use his power as "founder of Digg" to arbitrarily dictate strategy -- only to return to doing "cool" things worth tweeting about once he had turned everything upside down. You don't have to take my word for it -- Kevin's illustrious Twitter feed speaks for itself.

You really need to get over yourself. You were a contract programmer who happened to work on the right project. Comments such as these give others pause to ever want to work with you. Jay, on the other hand... He never talks about what it's like to work alongside a complete nightmare like Kevin Rose. Never says a bad thing about him, or about the executives who would choose Kevin's stupid ideas over Jay's wisdom. Jay never said anything bad about Google or Eric Schmidt, who clearly lead him down a blind alley before running away.

And no, I'm not a friend of Jay's, or a friend of Kevin's, or an employee of Digg. Guess that's true for you as well, huh?

<comment><USER2> I appreciate your criticism, and take it to heart, except for that one big word "defamatory." Everything I've mentioned above is documented in one place or another and not just "insiderish."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> YCombinator is mentioned by name in the article, describing it as an incubator.

"YCombinator is the most successful of the new breed. Twice a year, Paul Graham along with co-founder and now-wife Jessica Livingston choose 30 or so companies from thousands of applicants, invest about $25,000 in exchange for about 6 percent of a company. They then mentor the groups for a few months, urging them to build and launch quickly..."

</comment><comment><USER5> This is fantastic news. More opportunities for startups to find support and funding. Startups can probably learn a lot from Digg and Jay's experience.</comment>