Ask HN: Refer Madness [critique my idea] - <AUTHOR>

Would love to get HN's feedback on this idea. The feedback from HN on http://todoneapp.com/ was useful and it's actually seeing some traction now. This is an idea I had while thinking about how to spread the word about To->done.
PS: If you are interested in being a user/tester of this product, please let me know! I'm looking for some early adopters/drivers!
(EDIT: Sorry for the crap formatting of this.)
---
Name:
Refer Madness (har har), Refurl, Referly, Referee, whatever...
Overview:
Hosted referral system. Easily integrate a set of widgets into your site that allows users to refer their friends and be rewarded. Stylistically and programatically customizable. Increase your viral coefficient by recognizing top referers, thus motivating higher than normal sharing rates.
Target market:
Long tail social sites/communities that are looking to acquire new users without cpc/cpm mkting. This isn't targeted at e-commerce because there's already a lot of hosted affiliate systems, and this product has a social/community angle (e.g. persistent and public identities) that doesn't make sense in an online store.
Basic flow:
1. Publisher signs up for service.
2. Publisher sets up a site in their account.
a. Enter some pertinent data about the site (name, URL, etc).
b. Set goals (e.g. page URLs matched by regexes) that constitute "conversion" (e.g. post-signup page)
3. Publisher obtains "Share Widget"
a. Several styles/variations of the widget. Can be customized.
b. Widget is placed anywhere on the user's site where they want to motivate sharing
c. Widget needs slight modification by server side logic to emit a unique user identifier (e.g. hash the user's internal id) This is for consistent identification of the referrer.
4. Publisher obtains "Landing Widget". This is a widget that appears on every page in the site and is used to capture the referral code of a new visitor when they land on any page on the site.
5. Publisher obtains "Award Widget". This is heavily customizable with a variety of modalities, such as:
a. Profile mode, where it manifests as a badge on the user's profile e.g. "Super Referrer - 25 points"
b. Gallery mode, where it can show all time top referrers, top referrers of the day and so on (requires server integration to pull the user's public data in order to render the gallery
c. Real-time ticker mode to show live referrals that are happening right now.
d. The look and feel of these widgets can be customized... e.g. using iconography/language specific to your site... it'd all  be based around JSONP so the site's webdev should easily be able to go crazy with it.
6. User of publisher's site sees widget and uses special link (with their referral code embedded) to share with their friends
7. Potential user clicks on shared link. When they land on the site, their referrer is stored in their cookie.
8. When new potential user lands on a goal page, the referrer is rewarded (receives a "point" -- later used for showing badges rewards etc, see 5a-5c
9. JSON/JSONP API of course to build whatever custom solutions a publisher can dream of. (Enable secondary ecosystem/marketplace of plugins for the system)
10. Publisher metrics dashboard, obviously
Business model:
Freemium with monthly (yearly for lower charging overhead/simplification?) charge for higher tier services. Price point, no idea. On the order of other hosted site enhancements ala GetSatisfaction, Mixpanel, etc. <comment><AUTHOR> Most people I've presented this idea to don't have much to say about it. If you had a similar reaction, I'm curious, is it because:

1) tl;dr 2) tried to read it, but fell asleep/zoned out 3) read it; didn't get it 4) don't think it's monetizable 5) too trivial 6) already busy building it

Thanks :)</comment>


Why has Israel banned the iPad? - <AUTHOR> http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1163231.html

<comment><USER2> They took your iPad but they did provide in exchange a small rectangle of beach^H^H^H^H^H sand with a metal band around it.</comment>


Early review of the TypeKit Web font service: Yes, it costs money. - <AUTHOR> http://shortformblog.com/tech/we-have-an-invite-to-typekit-heres-a-sneak-peek <comment><USER2> This is an odd headline; did anyone think that TypeKit wouldn't cost money?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, but the alternatives out there (SIFR, anyone?) don't. Which is why it's important to point out.

<comment><USER2> SIFR with "professional" fonts isn't free either.</comment></comment></comment>


The End of the Windows Era (chart) - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/FwfV4.jpg

<comment><USER2> A more meaningful chart would show how the total number of "Personal Computing Platforms" has exploded. How would the chart change if you decided that an old Nokia that supported WAP was also a "Personal Computing Platform"?

Also, this comes from Asymco - "Covers the mobile industry with a heavy slant towards Apple's business strategy and predictions of their financials.". So a company that's focused on the mobile industry created this.</comment>


Designing simpler React components - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@esp/designing-simpler-react-components-13a0061afd16 <comment><AUTHOR> I work at Asana and can hopefully answer any questions about our usage of React.</comment>


Show HN: My first Rails Gem, Shareable – A gem for adding social sharing links - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/hermango/shareable

<comment><USER2> This is a very filigree artpiece of satire, really nice!

Looks like a way to translate Banksy graffiti into the code world, including the obligatory post to HN.

It is one of the seldom pieces that many people will never detect as ironic, because they are caught in the cage of their limited mindset of "obey" and "follow the masses".

Very refreshing, thank you very much for making my day!

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks useful, though you may want to look into adding some tests…

</comment><comment><USER4> What are the alternatives? Are there no other share buttons gems?

<comment><AUTHOR> Some of the better known ones are <https://github.com/huacnlee/social-share- button> and <https://github.com/adamstac/zocial> though these don't have all the buttons of shareable and vice versa. I can't speak for the others but my gem doesn't need to be required in the view level and configuration is straight forward. Try them out and choose the best fit for you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is there a demo that I can just view?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry haven't had time to create a demo yet but it only takes two lines of code to try the gem. To your gem file add the line: gem 'shareable' Then to your view, add the method: <%= render_shareable %> If it works you should see something similar to: <http://i.imgur.com/GEJ9bAK.png> with the default configuration and recommended css.</comment></comment>


No alcohol, no coffee for 15 months. This is what happened - vanilla-almond https://medium.com/@vanschneider/no-alcohol-no-coffee-for-15-months-this-is-what-happened-1a2d052be9e7 <comment><AUTHOR> (Disclaimer: I enjoy coffee and alcohol but am not addicted to either.)

Hmm, call me cynical but somehow I'm always disinclined to believe these perfect results. For once, I'd like to read - I gave up alcohol and turns out I was wrong. So I went back to 2 beers a week I ended up much happier.

(Aside: You can psychoanalyze my comment to fit any narrative you want, but I think I'm pretty good at introspection.)

<comment><USER2> Everyone has different experiences, I largely stopped drinking about 6 months ago because I was sick of the hangovers. I don't have issues with the awkwardness of telling people I'm not drinking if we're in a group and people are drinking, but it sure is annoying if you're hanging out with just one other person at night when coffee isn't really an option. Hardest part was the fact that I like me some craft cocktails. I kind of wish there were more tea places open late.

Don't really want to give up coffee though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "In order to spend $1000 on alcohol I only have to spend $33 everyday. Assume that I have 2–3 cocktails every other day (which are $10 each without tip), including some wine bottles every month for at home I can easily spend $1000."

2.5 * 15 times per month * $10 each + 20% tip = 450. "Some wine bottles" don't add up to $550 extra. I'm sure you save some but it can't be anywhere close to this high. Even if you include standard bar food in this you still wouldn't crack $1k. And at that point you're just not going out, not just giving up alcohol.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, the author's heading over that paragraph and the paragraph itself conflict. Within the paragraph he mentions that he has $1000 more in his bank account after two months, not one.

<comment><USER5> There are a bunch of confusing parts. For example:

"Some might think that this is heavy alcoholism, but trust me when I say that having 1–2 drinks everyday in New York is more than normal."

"More than normal" can read as a conflict with the beginning of that sentence (he drinks more than what is considered normal), or, and perhaps more likely, he's illustrating that his level of drinking _is_ normal, if not _more normal_ than most other people, which seems to contradict the meaning of the word "normal".

Or maybe it's 4:30 PM on a Friday and my brain is just fried and I'm over thinking things?

<comment> a-dub What he's saying is that NYC has a huge drinking culture (small apartments, lots of street activity) where a LOT of social activity revolves around bars. In my experience, 1-2 drinks daily would be considered moderation.

It's definitely a place where you have to learn how to moderate yourself. It is indeed quite easy to blow through $1000 in a month on alcohol related socializing, even if you tend towards the cheap places. Alcohol begets all other sorts of consumption (cabs, transit, extraneous food, pool/foos, etc).

<comment><USER5> I understood what he was trying to say, but the sentence itself was worded in a confusing way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Don't let ads kill your site - <AUTHOR> http://www.drawar.com/articles/dont-let-ads-kill-your-site/61/

<comment><USER2> This is a great idea, it is always refreshing to see people challenging the standard way of selling ads.</comment>


Has Neal Stephenson become too accessible?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.salon.com/books/science_fiction_and_fantasy/index.html?story=/books/2011/09/18/stephenson_reamde <comment><USER3> The subtitle is a better way of framing it than the title, I think. Being accessible, _all else being equal_ , isn't really inherently bad. For example, you can increase the accessibility of a poorly written physics textbook by just making the prose better.

The more interesting question they seem to be getting at is whether he's sacrificed something that was interesting about his writing out of a desire to increase accessibility. You could even just leave accessibility out of it and ask: are Neal Stephenson's most recent novels as interesting as his older ones, and if not, why not? I do think there's something to the hypothesis that he used to build these intricate, complex worlds with a lot of depth to them, and is doing so less in his more recent novels.

edit: Come to think of it, doing it accessibly sort of _is_ his thing to begin with. I've heard _Snow Crash_ described as a more-accessible reimagining/retelling of Gibson/Sterling style cyberpunk, which isn't too far off.

<comment><USER4> Out of all his books I've read (Snow Crash, Diamond Age, Cryptonomicon), the world in Anathem is by far his most complex.

<comment><USER5> All of these were great, but I think I enjoyed the Baroque Cycle the most. Comes probably from the long-time passion of reading (and re-enacting) history...

<comment><USER6> I haven't tried Anathem yet (though I have it) but I never got past the first part of Baroque cycle, and I loved Snow Crash (probably my all time favorite novel), Cryptonomicon, and even Diamond Age. I've heard once you make it past the initial Wodehouse moment it gets better, but my god he bored me to tears with that. Considering how much I ate up all the insanity in Snow Crash that's saying a lot ;).

<comment><USER5> Baroque Cycle was probably helped a bit by the fact that I read it while on an interrail train trip through the Europe. Lots of time to read when in train or waiting for one :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> And thus a new class of hipster was born.

Don't get mad that your favorite author produced a work that is 'more accessible' or that it isn't what you wanted. Blindly buying because of brand name has always been a bad idea.

<comment><USER8> I don't think hipsters spend much time obsessing about the accessibility of genre fiction authors. People call Stephenson "Pynchonian", but Pynchon wrote a whole bunch of books --- is still writing them, in fact --- and just 2-3 of those is a lifetime supply for any hipster.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I already thought that _Anathem_ was way more accessible than previous works. I recall reading in _Cryptonomicon_ two pages of some strange event before realizing he was showing us a different view of the Hindenburg disaster. I can't think of any example in _Anathem_ where it wasn't immediately clear to me what he was trying to show.

On the other hand, if Stephenson has a fault as a writer, it's the way he writes books' endings. The ends of _Snow Crash_ or _Diamond Age_ were just a mess. He skirted that in _Cryptonomicon_ by just not really having an ending. I confess to not having been able to make it to the end of _The Baroque Cycle_ , so I can't say. But then _Anathem_ had a real, if rather out-of-left-field, ending.

So I think that while he may be trending toward greater accessibility, he's also trending to writing better endings.

<comment><USER10> Anathem's first few chapters require the reader to learn about 100 made-up words via immersion. Throughout the book major points hinge on various scientific and philosophic theories, which are given different names (like Hylaean Theoric World) than they are on earth. So no, not really that accessible.

This review for REAMDE is the first Stephenson review I've seen that didn't pan the climax, which might say something. BTW, did you notice that REAMDE is designed to make unix people's eyes cross?

<comment><USER9> _Anathem's first few chapters require the reader to learn about 100 made-up words via immersion._

True enough, but that's quite common in science fiction.

 _scientific and philosophic theories, which are given different names (like Hylaean Theoric World)_

That's also true. But if you're already familiar with the concept, then the nomenclature shouldn't bother you too much (it didn't me). If you're not already familiar with it, then you won't know it's any different (until you're at a dinner party trying to talk philosophy with someone, and are met with blank stares).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm assuming there are many NS fans on HN, so I'll ask this here.

The only NS book I've read is Anathem, and while I enjoyed the story his writing style seemed too self-indulgent for me to really get into. Renaming/redescribing major mathematical and philosophical theories in a parallel dimension? Look how smart NS is. Quantum monk space ninjas? Oh man that's so cool can they be pirates too?

That being said, he's been lauded so consistently that I'd like to read more of his work and figure out what I'm missing. What would HN'ers recommend?

<comment><USER12> The thing about Stephenson is that he takes a lot of time to do proper research in to his topics, and with his parents both being in academia (fathers side is electrical engineering with physics, and mothers side is biochemistry) he has excellent knowledge sources as well as learned how to do proper research (this is what he explained at a book signing for the Boroque Cycle's first book), and it shows in all his work.

The problem, as I see it with Stephenson, is that he goes in to such detail that he always needs to build up the world in such a depth that it can make the opening to his books long winded. Any time I have recommended a Stephenson book (and I've read them all, and recommend them all) I warn people to get past page 100, because that's when you will get sucked in to the story. His writing style can be a little unsettling until you get used to it (IMHO), but once you are in there you won't want to put the book down.

As for recommendations - Cryptonomicon, Snowcrash, Diamond Age are all great - the later two are far easier reading but still show the great depths of knowledge and research put in to the books. And once done with those - <USER2> the rest.

<comment><USER13> That's Stephenson in a nutshell: long winded openings and abrupt endings. I haven't read any of his stuff since Cryptonomicon (have them all lined up though) but the single glaring flaw I always found in his books was how rushed the endings were. I don't need all the loose ends neatly tied up, but always got the feeling he was using some sort of lossy compression scheme for the last few pages.

<comment><USER12> I think some of his books have had well rounded enough endings (for my tastes at least) - but the long winded openings are my only complaint. If you can make it past page 100, I have always enjoyed the rest of the book.

For those in NYC - he is making an appearance at the Barnes and Nobles in Union Sq. on Friday from 7pm to 8pm. I went last time and it was a pleasure hearing him talk about his methodologies behind his books - hoping this one will be as good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've read most of Reamde already (have an early access copy from a bookstore book buyer friend). I'm nearly done (800 out of 980 pages). It simply is not a good of a book as the Baroque Cycle volumes or Cryptinomicon. I actually did not like Anathem all that much, as it felt too contrived.

That said, Reamde is a fun read. I suppose it could be put into the book category of Thriller as the article suggests. I'd give it a 3/5 stars, as in, I liked it, but won't bother reading it again. Which is how I feel about most decent thrillers. But then again, it appears that it will have an actual climactic ending to the story/book, which Stephenson has failed to do many times as his other books just peter out without ending properly (Snow Crash, Cryptinomicon, etc).

It _is_ more accessible. It is a thriller, and could be easily sold as airport pulp. There's a few descriptions of unix commands that various hackers are taking that would be skipped in a normal thriller, which does make it a Stephenson book. But, I am glad that Stephenson is experimenting with writing styles. Why would I want to read the same book over and over, just with different characters (which is all too common for writers)?

</comment><comment><USER15> >> "Reamde" is disposable Stephenson. I'll take disposable Stephenson over no Stephenson at all.

</comment><comment><USER16> what a hipster - "Yeah, he's ok but I prefer his early stuff"

Reamde seems like a trip back to the style of the Stephen Bury books he wrote with his uncle, The Cobweb & Interface, both enjoyable reads.

</comment><comment><USER17> "Snow Crash" and "Cryptonomicon" seemed pretty accessible to me, much more so than "The Baroque Cycle." I think it's marketing aimed at getting readers who were turned off by TBC to pick up the new book.

<comment><USER18> I've found The Baroque Cycle to be an awful lot easier to get into through the Audible audiobook version - they are unabridged so it's not that!

<comment><USER19> I'll try reading it then. I got the audio books, but only made it partly through the first one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes; being the focus of a salon.com article is an indicator.

<comment><USER9> Speaking of being a salon.com article... what the heck did they do to the behavior of the web site? It refused to let me read the whole article. Every time I clicked (FF6) the "Continue reading" link, it expanded the text but then immediately re-loaded the whole page. I had to quickly click the "Stop" button before it could reload. This is an unfriendly feature.

<comment><USER21> It's probably a javascript error. They probably have javascript that hides the full article, but then adds a "Continue reading" link and attaches a click handler to it. If the click handler throws an error and fails to stop event propagation, it actually follows the link and reloads the page.

<comment><USER22> It sounds like he was saying that reloading the page didn't have the new content, which means it is what you are talking about but combined with a link target that doesn't actually take you to a page with the continued text, meaning someone with JS disabled wouldn't be able to read the full text.

I'm too lazy to check if thats actually the case though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Going by the summary of the plot, it seems like Gibson and Sterling, Stephenson is also dipping into War on Terror as a setting.</comment>


Bitcoin is Dangerous for Consumers so What is It Good For - <AUTHOR> http://charlesz.quora.com/Bitcoin-is-Dangerous-for-Consumers-so-What-is-It-Good-For <comment><USER2> Some people invest in gold because they like the idea of hyperdeflation, like Goldfinger in the James Bond movie.

They're hoping everything will go to hell, the whole economy will switch to the gold standard, the price of gold will go up 1000x and they'll be the brilliant insightful people who profit.

The trouble with that scenario is that a few lead slugs can put an end to you.

Some bitcoiners believe in an attenuated version of that scenario which is technophillic, so the idea of a system in "which numbers we trust" fits into a strange ideology.</comment>


An Unexpected Toolbox for a Beginner Programmer [Emacs – Colemak – Prelude] - <AUTHOR> https://thisissavo.github.io/programming/music/2017/02/03/an-unexpected-toolbox-for-a-beginner-programmer.html <comment><AUTHOR> Hey, this is a blog post about my setup for writing code. I wrote it some time ago, but wondered what you guys think about it now. Any comments and suggestions are more than welcome. Thanks! :)</comment>


Ask HN: What was it like to be a developer after the crash of 2008-2009? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> You would be better served asking "what did it look like in the crash of 2000".

Today twitter, etsy, hell even zynga are looking a LOT like the bubble companies, the fact that pets.com sock puppet could be a product on etsy today should not be lost on you (or any one for that matter). In 2000 the questions were "do you know html, and can you fog a mirror" today we would ask "have you been through boot camp and can you fog a mirror". IN 2000 we had lavish launch parties, today we have free lunches (if that isn't telling). In 2000 you bled money to SUN to have servers, today you bleed money to a landlord for office space. Back then VC's were handing out money to any one with an idea, today they are pretty much handing out money to any one with an idea.

Honestly, 2000 was a complete shit show. Most people checked fuckedcompnay in the morning to find out if they were going to get laid off. Some showed up to work and were "locked out". The market tore up any maginal company that was listed and the money flowing into the valley STOPPED. If you weren't profitable, if you could not control your burn rate, you were dead. How did we (developers) survive 2000? A lot of folks didn't. If you were here, and you managed to stay, it was because you wanted to be here, because you had some passion for what you were doing, and were willing to eat shit for it. A lot of folks who made it through 2000 were the same ones who endured the smaller wind down of 2008. In 2008 people who were good knew each other, we had networked by then, and a job was just a "phone call away".

What you probably want to know is how do you survive the coming storm? The reality is that you probably don't/won't. A lot of folks I know who survived 2000 built war chests, we have "fuck you" money, and a network. We aren't paying $3000 or $4000 a month for rent. Even if your splitting that 2 or 3 ways what happens to YOU when you have to eat that cost cause your "housemate" bails cause he's unemployed and has ZERO prospects after 3 months? The reality is that it will be more of an enema of mediocre talent and companies, rents will go down, engineering costs will go down, and a few years later money will flow back in for us to start the cycle all over again.

<comment><USER3> This is why I'm doing my best to hunker down. It's not that I expect a crash anytime soon, but I like to be prepared. Sadly I fall on the junior end of the engineering spectrum, so I have a lot of network to build and knowledge to gain. I'm not worried though. I know too many lazy engineers and people who burn through money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Back before the crash, I was working at home writing webapps in Python, JavaScript, and SQL. These days, I am still working at home....writing webapps in Python, JavaScript and SQL, just on different projects. One of my friends worked at an ad agency and got a paycut. Another worked at a large corporation and absolutely nothing happened, business as usual. There is a lot of money- generating code that needs to be written and maintained independent of the stock market. Probably less VCs risking capital/less speculation for a few years though. I do remember more people being just happy to have a job vs. now where people spend most of their time talking about their stock/bonuses and whether they should quit out of boredom etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> I worked at AIG during that crash, in their mortgage insurance subsidiary. To say we were hammered is a massive understatement. Two thirds of the company was laid off during one week: the gating factor was meeting rooms in which to process the layoffs. Many of these people haven't fully recovered: they were "lifers" and most of their skills were tied to that specific company and industry.

Free soda immediately went away, with a very lame justification ("it clogs the drains when people pour them down the sink").

There were news cameras parked outside for a couple weeks, trying to get sound bites from people coming and going.

There were even a few attacks on employees in the streets immediately afterwards. We were encouraged to go out in small groups: alone, there was danger of being accosted by people who lost their mortgage, while in large groups it created the impression we didn't care about what was happening to the world outside.

It was pretty intense. I'm glad I saw it as close as I did, but I'm not sure I would like to do that again.

</comment><comment><USER6> Uh, fine? 2008 was banks and people with money sweating. I remember seeing a report that the company's 401k accounts had lost two thirds of their value. Oops. Developers are the plant matter of the business world. Developers create value if given a little bit of sunlight. 2008 was a forest fire that didn't burn down the entire forest. If you were at the right kind of company you just kept on coding. I bought some puts on Lehman Brothers but was about a month or two too early to really cash out on their collapse.

</comment><comment><USER7> No effect on my job. I was watching the financial sites very closely, though, and I was maybe 24 hours from taking all my money out of the bank as cash...</comment>


My workout routine after 10 years of iteration - <AUTHOR> https://www.kidsil.net/2018/07/my-workout-routine/ <comment><USER2> After 10 years, no mention of periodization? That's a bit sad.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been focusing on cutting time while keeping a good level of overall fitness (Muscle, Core, Cardio, Flexibility).

Can you give me an example of periodization? perhaps I have some data I can collect to give you what you're looking for.

<comment><USER2> [https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/periodization...](https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/periodization.html) [https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/a-simple-guide-to- periodi...](https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/a-simple-guide-to- periodization-for-strength-training) [https://barbend.com/3-most-common-types- periodization-when-t...](https://barbend.com/3-most-common-types- periodization-when-to-use-them/)

My comment was based on surprise that after 10 years of training you have yet to incorporate any sort of periodization considering it is a cornerstone of sport science.</comment></comment></comment>


VME Broken on AMD Ryzen - <AUTHOR> http://www.os2museum.com/wp/vme-broken-on-amd-ryzen/ <comment><USER2> This may be an unpopular opinion, but making ancient x86 features unreliable strikes me as a good thing. Virtual 8086 mode is an awful virtualization solution, as you can't enter protected mode from within it. This makes it only good for running a subset of DOS apps: either real-mode-only apps or those written to an unspecified subset of DPMI [1]. Ryzen CPUs are easily fast enough to emulate them. And if that's not enough, x86 has had _real_ virtualization for years now, with a functioning protected mode (and long mode!) in addition to real mode.

We're long overdue for a simplification of the PC platform. Having CPUs out there with broken legacy features accelerates the migration away from those features. Hopefully this leads to dropping them outright at some point.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Protected_Mode_Interface#H...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOS_Protected_Mode_Interface#History)

<comment><USER3> One of the big selling points of x86 is backwards compatibility. If you have some OS from 1990 you can still run it (without emulation or virtualization, so long as it doesn't depend on clock speed), which is pretty crazy.

Slight aside, there are a lot of reasons that Itanium failed, but certainly one of them was lack of backwards compatibility.

<comment><USER2> Itanium was _extraordinarily_ backwards incompatible. There's an enormous gulf between "runs software from the 80s" (which is something the PC platform only pretends to do anyway, because peripherals now are incompatible) and "can't run Windows at all". Breaking v8086 mode wouldn't prevent modern Windows from working (which is in fact why this bug wasn't noticed). You can't even enter it from long mode to begin with!

<comment><USER4> actually my windows 10 installation didn't used uefi. (I had a really old machine). Basically I upgrade/upgraded to ryzen. I don't think it will be easy to migrate to UEFI straight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > As incredible as it is, Ryzen has buggy VME implementation; specifically, > the INT instruction is known to misbehave in V86 mode with VME enabled when > the given vector is redirected

It's much more incredible to me that our computers work, at all.

</comment><comment><USER6> _As incredible as it is, Ryzen has buggy VME implementation_

What I find more incredible is that this bug could get by without being noticed. A CPU literally has billions of possible regression tests --- all the world's existing software --- and of everyone working on the project, not a single one thought to try some older software (XP/2k3 is not even that old, as far as x86 compatibility is concerned) to see if it worked? This is an old feature too, meaning it should've been well-characterised by now. I'm particularly surprised that FreeDOS is affected, since it's commonly used as a minimal "non-OS" OS for running things like low-level diagnostics and debugging of hardware.

This begs the question: if old features are this broken, what about the new ones (for which there is far less software available to test them with)? I think the most recently discovered one was [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13924192)

<comment><USER7> > This begs the question: if old features are this broken, what about the new > ones

You can find so called "specification updates", which - as the name implies - update the specs to match actually released hardware ;)

Available for all CPU families from both Intel and AMD, easily go into tens or hundreds of positions. (Though I haven't seen the Ryzen one released yet).

And then somebody recently linked this (2010) - allegedly there are bugs exploitable for privilege escalation:

[http://cs.dartmouth.edu/~sergey/cs258/2010/D2T1%20-%20Kris%2...](http://cs.dartmouth.edu/~sergey/cs258/2010/D2T1%20-%20Kris%20Kaspersky%20-%20Remote%20Code%20Execution%20Through%20Intel%20CPU%20Bugs.pdf)

<comment><USER8> > Transfer of the file you were trying to download or upload has been blocked > in accordance with company policy. Please contact your system administrator > if you believe this is in error.

That comes from their end.

<comment><USER7> Weird, maybe you are IP banned or it actually is some corp firewall on your side.

It's a conference presentation titled "Remote Code Execution through Intel CPU Bugs" by Kris Kaspersky and Alice Chang. Google finds copies elsewhere.

I can't say that I see how the "remote" part could possibly work, but as for local exploitation, errata often state that things like "data corruption" or "unpredictable behavior" can happen under "certain internal conditions" so this stuff may be exploitable if one can execute arbitrary instructions which trigger these internal conditions.

<comment><USER8> Thanks. This link works for me: [https://zadereyko.info/downloads/library/D2T1_Kris_Kaspersky...](https://zadereyko.info/downloads/library/D2T1_Kris_Kaspersky_Remote_Code_Execution_Through_Intel_CPU_Bugs.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Yeah, modern CPUs have tons of bugs in the obscure corners of the architecture. The x86 boot process is an amazing amalgamation of all the legacy CPUs of the past two decades. This does seem fixable in microcode though, so presumably they'll just do that. I very much agree with the other comments though that at some point we should just get rid of all of that junk and use software emulation.

</comment><comment><USER10> So if I get this correctly, as long as the Host OS is 64bit we're fine, since VME isn't supported on that anyways? I'm thinking 32bit hosts running VMs of any sort should be an increasingly rare case, but nevertheless it's going to be interesting to see if and when AMD releases a fixed version.

<comment><USER11> It can affect 32-bit guest OSes running on 64-bit hosts, and that is how they discovered the bug.

<comment><USER12> A 64-bit host, running a 32-bit guest, itself running a 16-bit app. This scenario can run into the VME bug.

<comment><USER13> Any exploitation scenarios here?

Could you package a trimmed down version of that stack up and cause a reliable crash on Ryzens operating on a more typical platform?

Maybe it becomes a bit of a rube goldberg malware at that point...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Am I the only one who thinks that it's not particularly incredible that a new CPU that implements the ridiculously complex (for good reasons, but still) x86 instruction set with all its historical baggage has bugs?

 _Every_ x86 has had errata. Why should we expect Ryzen to be any different? "As incredible as it is..." seems a bit of an over-reaction to me.

<comment><USER15> People think that the world a is a prefect black and white place where everything that works is prefect and everything else is garbage.

Typically, the person reporting this sort of %^&* has an agenda, ranging from "fixit fixit fixit" to "I only buy the competition and so should you". The knowledge is good to have you just have if you are into doing crazy old things with new hardware. But the hyperbolic "the world is ending" bit you should just ignore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In other news, crank-to-start mode is broken on the Tesla Model S.

</comment><comment><USER17> Linux should be immune simply because it doesn't use VME.

<comment><USER18> I think dosemu does?

<comment><USER17> DOSEMU uses virtual 8086 mode but not VME. The Linux kernel never bothered implementing VME.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Ryzen 7s cannot seem to find their level, I wonder if this will drive the price down even further, or if it's too specific for anyone to notice.

[https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9Q98TW/amd- ryzen-7-1700x-34...](https://pcpartpicker.com/product/9Q98TW/amd- ryzen-7-1700x-34ghz-8-core-processor-yd170xbcaewof)

</comment><comment> dis-sys AMD should just drop the support for VME. There is no need to carry such baggage in 2017. If you need to run your legacy systems that require VME: buy yourself a processor designed in 2016.

</comment><comment><USER19> Ryzen is amazing, I hope AMD fixes this via BIOS update for motherboards, so the updated microcode can be loaded before the OS boots.

</comment><comment><USER20> They will issue patch for processor that will fix it. Just another bug.

</comment><comment><USER21> I misread VME as VMX at first. Totally different.

<comment><USER11> This really should have "(virtual 8086 mode)" in the title.

<comment><USER22> That would be inaccurate. VME is an extension of virtual 8086 mode.</comment></comment></comment>


Why I Just Fucking Did It - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/everything-about-startups-and-entrepreneurship/why-i-just-fucking-did-it-8367d34daacf <comment><AUTHOR> > Another thing I also noticed recently about the idea porn is that if I sleep > on an idea, I will find it as a totally bullshit idea as soon as I wake up > the next morning.

I can relate to this so much. Sleep is my very own _idea killer_.</comment>


Samba: Authenticated users can change other users' password - <AUTHOR> https://www.samba.org/samba/security/CVE-2018-1057.html <comment><USER2> Good news: Only affects the AD / LDAP component. Bad news: That component is enabled by default. Good news: If you don't use Samba LDAP, an effective mitigation is to just disable the ldap service (search the fine article for "Disable LDAP").

</comment><comment><USER3> Does synology use samba for SMB drives?

<comment><USER4> Only applies to a samba domain controller, so likely not relevant

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty major and can go right in your exploiter's toolbag for privilege escalation scenarios.

<comment><USER6> Isn't changing someone else's password the most un-stealthy kind of exploit?

<comment><USER7> Not if you change a DC password or the KRBTGT password. Then you have full control of the domain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This does not apply when the Samba server is a domain member instead of domain controller, right?

<comment><USER7> correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Haven't used samba much; this is enlightening. Previously I had assumed it just used the same auth system (e.g. PAM) as the host. That would entail its own complications but would probably have prevented this bug.

<comment><USER7> It would not be possible to have an AD server using PAM, AD protocols need the NT hash.

Samba can only use PAM when plaintext passwords are used, which is not supported at all with AD (Samba as standalone requires you to store passwords in it's own database). As an Active Directory server, passwords are stored in the directory with access provided by multiple protocols. This was an issue in the LDAP ACL verification.

<comment><USER10> LDAP always has the userPassword attribute which is fully comptible with Linux, you just have to change both at the same times (this is in fact what i did for one of my clients)</comment></comment></comment>


Could the Tesla Model S become the Google Car? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/could_the_tesla_model_s_become_the_google_car <comment><USER2> If Google pays for half of the $50k price tag they can insert all of the location-based ads they want.

<comment><USER3> They may not be paying half the price of the car, but if they are investing in the company, well, they are putting in money, so they can expect something in return. Also, targetted ads that are not obtrusive are not so irritating and can be rather helpful at times.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Oh yeah! Let's take some random product and add 'Google' to it.

Google chewing gum! Google soft candy! Google mortgages!

I thought this nonsense ended with AllAdvantage.com...

</comment><comment><USER5> 17" screen for driver ... what if the driver is watching YouTube while driving?

<comment><USER6> That's not legal so they won't make that functionality.</comment></comment>


Tom Wolfe takes on linguistics - <AUTHOR> http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=26936 <comment><USER2> How is Chomsky perceived on the field of linguistics today? My impression was that his theories are well respected, but recently I've come across several people dismissing his work as outdated and even wrong. Not sure whether this is just an attempt by people to denigrate him because of his political beliefs though.

<comment><USER3> Generative linguistics is pretty isolated these days... chugging along but using a set of methodologies and premises that are pretty far removed from the rest of academia. Generative linguistics generally had trouble in two key areas 1) first language acquisition (where increasingly ornate innate machinery is needed to explain how kids arrive at the 'right' grammar) and 2) language processing, where the structural representations were never great at predicting processing difficulty, nor implementable in a machine. Consequently, these two fields have long been in psychology (and the reason I'm a psych graduate student, of all things!), and draw heavily on statistics cognitive science, NLP and in the latter case, information theory.

Chomsky is brilliant, no doubt, and critically showed the world how much latent structure there is in language. However, he is IMHO pretty wrong in thinking that this latent structure can't be learned (e.g. inferring a probabilistic context-free grammar).

One thing to be said for generative linguistics is that a whole lot of super- interesting phenomena have only been characterized within specific generative frameworks--language documentation and psycholinguistic research can only progress with a formal system in which language can be rigorously characterized. So one of the huge projects in the future will be translating the 50+ years of research into the formalisms in the modern computer science / statistical NLP / Bayesian cognitive science / learning-centric developmental psychology stack.

<comment><USER4> >a set of methodologies and premises that are pretty far removed from the rest of academia.

The rest of academia has agreed on a set of methodologies and premises? No wonder we feel left out!

>increasingly ornate innate machinery is needed to explain how kids arrive at the 'right' grammar

This is too vague to respond to. But theories do tend to get more complex as we learn more, since there's more data to account for.

>where the structural representations were never great at predicting processing difficulty, nor implementable in a machine.

Which structural representations assumed by (say) GB theory are not implementable in a machine?

>he is IMHO pretty wrong in thinking that this latent structure can't be learned (e.g. inferring a probabilistic context-free grammar).

Chomsky always agreed that it was possible to learn context-free grammars via statistical methods. That's why he placed such a great emphasis in the 60s on showing that context-free grammars are not a suitable model for natural language.

Your last paragraph is fairly astonishing, insofar as it admits that generative linguistics has obtained lots of interesting results which cannot be characterized in "modern" terms. That sounds like a pretty strong indication that generative linguistics has got something right!

<comment><USER5> > Which structural representations assumed by (say) GB theory are not > implementable in a machine?

Most of the individual constraints proposed in the myriad papers on GB and Minimalism are probably implementable by machine. But no one in Chomskyan generative syntax seems interested in explicitly spelling out the full set of principles that would underly a large-coverage grammar--except maybe Steedman's Minimalist Grammar formalism, which is ignored by most people who call themselves "syntacticians". In contrast, the HPSG and LFG communities have attempted to provide large-scale grammars and a lot of NLP work has used them in a serious way, but those communities are no longer very active.

Is there a work which lays out modern Minimalist generative syntax in full formal detail, and shows how this formal system handles a very large range of different syntactic phenomena? Such that it would be possible to produce a large hand-parsed corpus? It seems like this is what would be needed for generative syntax to have relevance outside linguistics departments. If it exists and I'm just unaware of it, I'd be glad to hear about it!

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure why you're asking this about Minimalism specifically. There are already wide coverage parsers based on various generative frameworks (e.g. HPSG, LFG, CCG).

It's also a bit odd to suggest that any framework for which there isn't a wide coverage parser lacks any relevance outside linguistics departments. I know of lots of examples of cross-disciplinary work involving generative linguistics, but most of it doesn't relate to parsing at all. I'd say that wide coverage parsers are actually a pretty niche interest, which is one reason why people don't tend to work on them much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you are a hacker who is interested in linguistics, you might want to check out the work we are doing at my startup Ozora Research ([http://ozoraresearch.com](http://ozoraresearch.com)).

Our goal is to build high-quality, sophisticated NLP solutions for "cleantext" : text that has been professionally written and copy-edited, so that it doesn't have obvious errors of spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc.

What makes our work different is that, unlike almost all other research in NLP, we don't depend on human-annotated data (like the Penn TreeBank) for training and evaluation. Instead, we build our models into lossless data compressors, and evaluate by invoking the compressor on a large text corpus.

In addition to this change in evaluation methodology, we are also deeply interested in the _empirical_ study of text - that is, in the questions of traditional syntax research. For example, an important part of English syntax relates to verb argument structure: verbs differ in the types of arguments they can accept. Some verbs can accept infinitive complements, that- complements, or indirect objects; others cannot. Our system contains a module that handles argument structure and forwards this information to the parser and compressor.

I wrote a book presenting a rationale for why scientists should be deeply interested in large-scale, lossless data compression. Roughly, empirical data compression research is a variation of the scientific method: if theory A achieves better compression than theory B, then A is closer to the truth. Scientists can use this principle to search systematically through theory- space and find high-quality theories.

[http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.5466](http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.5466)

Interestingly, compression has a direct link to generation. By sending random bits into the decompressor, you obtain sample sentences that illustrate the model's "idea" of what English text looks like. By studying the discrepancy between the sample sentences and real text, you can discover ways to improve the model. This is a very productive technique that we use routinely. Chomsky declared that his goal was to build a machine that generates grammatical English sentences, but none of his followers actually tried to build such a device. So in some sense our research is actually closer to Chomsky's stated goal than what Chomsky's followers are doing.

I would love to hear from people who might want to collaborate on linguistics work, or use the data compression idea to explore other fields (eg. computer vision, bioinformatics, astronomy).

<comment><USER7> I have a feeling you'll enjoy this:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditsimulator](https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditsimulator)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > "Chomsky et alii"

Brilliant. I suspect wolfe specifically extends the usually abbreviated latin word _alii_ because alii in Hawaiian means "royalty".

<comment><USER9> The Latin word is actually _alia_. It could be a pun from Wolfe, but it could also be a typo.

<comment><USER10> I have no background in Latin, but I think that _alia_ is neutral plural and _alii_ is masculine plural. In this case _et alii_ makes more sense.

<comment><USER9> You're right [1]. Interesting, I've always seen _et alia_ before, but it looks like _et alii_ is more often correct.

[1] [http://latin-dictionary.net/search/latin/alia](http://latin- dictionary.net/search/latin/alia)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > KINGDOM OF SPEECH is a captivating, paradigm-shifting argument that speech — > not evolution — is responsible for humanity's complex societies and > achievements.

It's time to read the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel once more. That's always been a fascinating story for me ... the notion that people were forming a real or virtual tower that threatened divine order and so needed to be split by making their speech mutually unintelligible.

<comment><USER12> Check out Umberto Eco, _The Search for the Perfect Language_.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Referenced (and unfortunately gated) article from the source: [http://harpers.org/archive/2016/08/the-origins-of- speech/](http://harpers.org/archive/2016/08/the-origins-of-speech/)

</comment><comment><USER14> For a second there, I thought I read, "David Wolfe takes on linguistics", and figured I was in for a laugh

</comment><comment><USER15> Not to be confused with Tom Wolf, the current Pennsylvania governor.

</comment><comment><USER16> Anyone have a link to a non-gated version of the original?</comment>


Insecure home webcam crackdown - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23971118

<comment><USER2> there are actually multiple points to consider here:

1) most people use embedded devices as "plug in, it works and forget it until it breaks" (aka, never open the maintenance window which could display an update)

2) tech-savy people will not like fully automatic updates of embedded systems, after all you have to trust the manufacturer not being hacked (and a camera vendor selling millions of cameras IS a target for everyone!)

3) even IF embedded system vendors are required to reach customers via mail/phone, this won't catch all customers by far, and 99% of users won't have an idea what an "update" is, let alone how to do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://gist.github.com/derekpitt/1804940](https://gist.github.com/derekpitt/1804940)

and

[https://twitter.com/TRENDnetExposed](https://twitter.com/TRENDnetExposed)</comment>


Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs seeks share of property taxes for Toronto smart city - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alphabet-canada/alphabet-unit-seeks-share-of-property-taxes-for-toronto-smart-city-idUSKCN1Q423Z <comment><USER2> Outside the realm of tech companies, large infrastructure projects are mostly built by PPP model(Public private partnership). It is one of the proven models in various countries as it saves govts. from spending large money upfront and not only ensures that private corporations finish the projects but also makes them liable for quality as they are liable for future maintenance.

The Toronto smart city project by Alphabet is a modern infrastructure project and totally makes sense that they follow PPP model for payments. Why do people here think it is a bad idea? IMO, it is a win-win for both Toronto & Alphabet.

<comment><USER3> > Why do people here think it is a bad idea?

Because in the US, is is _not_ a proven model. The vast majority of public- private partnerships really end up being "public eats the costs, but private entities win all the benefits". It's gotten to the point that the mere existence of the phrase "public-private partnership" is a red flag that something corrupt is happening. (If it was a good faith effort and all above board, then it would all be done publicly in the first place).

> it saves govts. from spending large money upfront and not only ensures that > private corporations finish the projects but also makes them liable for > quality as they are liable for future maintenance.

Sure, but it usually accomplishes this by transferring some amount of public assets over to the private corporation in the process, which is a net loss for everyone. It's a backhanded way of looting the public's funds under the veneer of "progress" and "cooperation".

Or for a simple analogy, public-private partnerships are usually the governmental version of a reverse mortgage.

<comment><USER4> I think you're right. PPP model works when the Government doesn't have avenues of raising funds. In less developed countries, Governments often cannot raise money by imposing taxes or issuing bonds (or they can't to the tune required to fund such things). In wealthier nations, the funding is usually not an issue, the Governments are well functioning. I agree with you that these projects must be scrutinized very closely.

<comment><USER5> The fundamental problem of any PPP is that a lot can go wrong or change in 20, 50 years. It's impossible to predict and anticipate future economic climate so both parts try to setup adversarial contracts where they are protected as much as possible.

On the other hand, a private partner can always fold, go bankrupt, etc. while the state isn't going anywhere and it's obliged by law to abide by it's commitments. So this asymmetry almost guarantees a strong survivor bias towards very bad deals for the public.

Except when everything goes exactly to plan for decades, PPPs tend to either fail or be detrimental to the public, by their innate nature. If we bring a bit of corruption into discussion in the initial tender phase, you get the full picture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This article is very strange.

> Sidewalk Labs, which provides urban technology infrastructure, is planning a > 4.9-acre smart city along Toronto's harbor front, a project that has already > faced opposition from locals over concerns of data privacy.

> [...]

> Sidewalk Labs outlined its project for a light railway transit, 2,500 homes > where 40 percent would be below market price, and a tall-timber factory they > project will create 4,000 jobs.

So is it a "smart city" or just a light railway, homes, and a factory? If it is the latter how does that invade privacy? If it is the former then the article is super light on details.

This article is just all over the place. Hard to form any kind of opinion on this without more facts.

<comment><USER7> Torontonian here.

Lack of details and vagueness describes all the communication about sidewalk lab's project, not just this article.

If I had to guess the reporter doesn't really know and can't really find out.

Note that from the quotes in this article this most recent iteration seems to be a surprise to the city as well.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure Google knows either. "Smarty city" just smacks of vague buzzwordy-ness idealism. What is it exactly? Are you just going build some condos and stick some wifi around? How is that really different than any other modern city?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Is it possible that this financing proposal is just Alphabet's attempt to offer an alternative to local governments that would be reluctant to commit to directly fund these high-cost developments? Google is pretty evil, but this project has been moving very slowly and has been relatively responsive to public concerns. They're not trying to pull a fast one on the city like Amazon and NYC.

As a resident of the neighborhood under discussion, I would love to see it developed. I'd rather not offer Alphabet this incremental tax revenue, but I'd accept it: that would be a tiny fraction of the value the project would create for the city, and potentially for the world if some of the experiments are successful and spread.

<comment><USER10> I'm confused about why tax revenue needs to be forked over to Google at all.

Google is a developer like any other here. They should be able to make enough money from the project on its own. If they can't, then don't move forward with the project.

<comment><USER7> To be fair it sounds like this proposal includes building public transit infrastructure for the city, which is something you would usually expect to be paid for.

Why we wouldn't just pay them a dollar amount and be done with it though...

<comment><USER11> Percentage, similar to giving stock, makes Google invested into making it as good as possible, because the more successful it is the more money they make.

If the flat amount is roughly equal to the tax revenue from a successful development, why is it suddenly "evil"? It also spreads the payment over a longer period of time, making it easier to finance.

If it fails, Google gets less money, so they will try their best to make it work.

<comment><USER7> > why is it suddenly "evil"

You're putting words in my mouth, I never said anything approaching that.

It's somewhat problematic because it obscures the amount we are agreeing to pay, and it lets politicians play accounting games to make themselves look better. That's not to say it's "evil".

<comment><USER11> > it obscures the amount we are agreeing to pay

Not necessarily. I'm sure they have target numbers in mind in terms of how much returns this construction will bring. So instead of paying in a single sum, they simply adjust the percentage to add up to the same amount, assuming the place is as successful as they had hoped.

If it ends being more successful, it's a win-win situation because Google makes more, and so does the city. If Google fails, then they also get paid less for it, and it's less of a loss for the city.

Lastly, paying over 30 years seems far easier to handle than a single sum too. In almost every way this seems like a better choice.

<comment><USER7> > I'm sure they have target numbers

And we trust Google's target numbers to decide how much Google should get paid?

Any reliable baseline numbers here are basically impossible, because

\- The land is massively underutilized right now consider it's location, with or without Google's help it is going to become more utilized and property values are going to go up.

\- The government is pouring billions of dollars into this area, which is going to have returns with or without Google's help.

> it's a win-win situation

Paying someone more money is not a win-win. Developing the land is, but the negotiation over how much you get paid is approximately zero sum.

<comment><USER11> > And we trust Google's target numbers to decide how much Google should get > paid?

I was talking about the city's targets.

> The government is pouring billions of dollars into this area

Right, and Google is proposing to instead of taking billions as a flat sum, taking it over 30 years instead, because they believe in the success of the project.

> which is going to have returns with or without Google's help.

They clearly want Google's help, as this project is already 1-2 years in the working, and has already gotten approval from all 3 levels of government. If they didn't want Google, they could've very easily refused the offer. No one is forcing anything on anyone.

> Paying someone more money is not a win-win.

Who said more money? Why do you instantly assume the worst? Take any amount of money you were going to pay them for their work. Take any target _you_ had for how successful the project was going to be, and calculate the percentage distributed over 30 years. No one is talking about paying them more than they are owed.

<comment><USER7> > I was talking about the city's targets.

Ok, the next part addressed why it's not really possible for those to be accurate either.

Also see the whole 407 thing discussed elsewhere in the thread. Trusting the cities numbers to be accurate/not just a version of Google's numbers is foolish.

The fact that you have to trust someones numbers at all is sufficient proof of my original statement, that this obscures the actual cost of the project.

> and has already gotten approval from all 3 levels of government.

That's a gross exaggeration. All the levels of government are talking to them, but as discussed in the article they are hardly on board.

Edit (2m post posting): Sorry, this article: [https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/15/news/alphabets-s...](https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/02/15/news/alphabets- sidewalk-labs-was-secretly-considering-big-plans-toronto-neighbourhood)

> Who said more money? Why do you instantly assume the worst?

You did. I don't appreciate the accusation of dishonesty.

> it's a win-win situation because Google makes more, [...]

<comment><USER11> > not really possible for those to be accurate either

Sure, but you can make a good estimate, and if it ends up being more, then everyone wins. Google makes more, but so does the city and all businesses involved. And let's not ignore the other side of the coin, where if they do poorly, they will make _less_ money.

> as discussed in the article they are hardly on board.

That's about this specific proposal, I was talking about the project as a whole, which was announced October 2017.

Here's the conference where Trudeau, as well as the representatives for the province and city all welcome it quite happily: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_yg_BsJy_o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_yg_BsJy_o)

They are clearly onboard with Google as a whole, but yes, this specific proposal is obviously new and being looked at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They have so many hundreds of billions of dollars in offshore accounts they don't know what to do with it, and they want to tax you to invade your privacy too.

<comment><USER13> The point is to always invest with other people's money.

The point of that is the risk matrix is substantially diffused.

<comment><USER14> In this particular case, it appears to be the reverse, since the company is footing the bill, and expecting to be paid for it later, when it's actually viable and is generating taxable revenue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> As a resident of the GTA, I wish Sidewalk Labs would just take a hike into the lake already. There's no way I'd go into any neighbourhood they've big- brothered up knowingly and willingly.

<comment><USER16> No way.

This is one of the largest piggy banks in the world of cash just sitting there.

If our councillors had any brains, they'd get Google to pay for nearly everything, make sure privacy is protected, and let G have their little $20B experiment with a few data points.

Councillors should be tapping that piggy bank like a broken ATM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > Sidewalk Labs, which provides urban technology infrastructure

Sidewalk Labs is by and large an advertising company. It's basically Clear Channel with a quirky moonshot division.

<comment><USER17> So they want to build the city from Minority Report.

Just threw up in my mouth a little.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is a public-private investment model used in Australia which explicitly monetizes the imputed rise in value to local business from an activity, and includes it in the model for upside benefits, including increased rates and taxes. Queensland recently ran into a federal-state (partly party political) accounting model gap around this, and other cost/benefit assumptions which made funding a city centre underground system very difficult.

I think its cute for Alphabet to try and leverage some takeback on this. I think when the corporation shows its not using double-dutch-irish sandwich accounting methods to do transfer pricing and shift income offshore by fanciful IPR licencing and other tricks, it would be worth discussing.

In the meantime, until these entities pay their full tax component anywhere, let alone in Toronto, I think the answer should be "no"

</comment><comment><USER19> Today I learned Alphabet views OCP as a role model.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_(franchise)#Omni_Consu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_\(franchise\)#Omni_Consumer_Products)

Really, Detroit and Toronto aren't that far apart.

</comment><comment><USER20> Since I don't want to give Google one dime more than I absolutely have to, this would pretty much guarantee that I'd never do business with anyone in that area.

I'd say that it would also prevent me from setting foot in the area, but I was already unwilling to do that.

</comment><comment><USER21> Corporations should pay taxes, people should not pay taxes to corporations.

<comment><USER22> Is it your position that governments shouldn't pay businesses to build highways and bridges? Which government contractors do you think are okay?

<comment><USER23> Why would you pay a private company to build highways? I can't think of a job more suited to a public agency. Next your going to tell me how great tolls are.

<comment><USER24> How do you think roads get built? The vast majority these sorts of projects are built by contractors, where the public largely just employs full-time workers for the design/finance side of things and then also maintenance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Now, from the people who blew it in fiber to the home, another infrastructure project.

</comment><comment><USER26> Amazon+Google should just team up and lease an uninhabited land somewhere. Max autonomy, max speed. No doubt they can create a singapore in < 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER27> The article (and Sidewalk's blog post [https://medium.com/sidewalk- toronto/sidewalk-toronto-project...](https://medium.com/sidewalk- toronto/sidewalk-toronto-project-update-d44738cdb239)) has few details, so everyone is only responding to the suggestion that tax increment will be paid to Sidewalk Labs. It's odd to see the outrage over that; it is one of only a couple ways that a government can pay a developer for public works:

1\. Government buys land (including surrounding land), pays for development, and takes the risk that the increased rents don't pay back the bonds

2\. Private developer buys land (including surrounding land), pays for development, and takes the risk that the increased rents don't pay back the bonds

Property taxes (and tax increment) let the government take partial equity in the surrounding land rents, allowing the government to make any linear combination of how much ownership to give to existing landowners, the developer, and the government. It seems odd that there should be moral outrage over having the developer take more of the risk vs. the government taking more of the risk.

Alon Levy wrote a related blog post discussing taxation vs. ownership in regards to subways here: [https://pedestrianobservations.com/2017/09/07/meme- weeding-l...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2017/09/07/meme-weeding-land- value-capture/)

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm not that familiar with the project. What are the privacy issues with regard to personal information that is shared in the ecosystem?

<comment><USER9> Alphabet is not going to directly own any of the data. The proposals have been that it would be owned by the city, and only made available to partners in limited ways through a process with government oversight.

<comment><USER29> What kind of data are they collecting?

<comment><USER21> The entire project will be a giant social experiment that would make BF Skinner cream his pants. There is not one bit of info about the residents that they wouldn't want to have. Every doorway will be fitted with state of the art facial recognition. Google will know everything about who comes and goes and why. They will know how often you use the bathroom and nag you when you keep the lights on. But, most of all they will know how you think, and how your thinking affects your actions, and which of those actions they can monetize.

<comment><USER30> Wow that sounds scary! can you link to any documentation/media coverage about this level of collection?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> After a while there will be an update "Saying Goodbye to Toronto". "We have learned a lot. Thanks for your support.".

<comment><USER32> > After a while there will be an update "Saying Goodbye to Toronto". "We have > learned a lot. Thanks for your support.".

By that point the city police will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet, and they'll have renamed Toronto to "Delta City."

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Something I don't get here. The normal model of RE development is you build stuff, you rent it out or sell it, you collect the rent or sale proceeds, hopefully earn a lot, move on. The property taxes and fees go for developing public infrastructure - roads, schools, parks, etc. Now why Google would need to get part of property taxes? Are they going to build road and schools? Why? I am not sure why there needs to be a model where private company collects taxes. They're building private light rail? Excellent, charge to ride it and recoup your costs. You're building timber factory? Excellent, factory should be financed by selling its output, not by collecting taxes. What am I missing? What is so special in this particular development that it requires Google to get part of the taxes?

<comment><USER16> They are going to build services and infrastructure beyond just what a contractor would do.

<comment><USER33> Why? And how - aren't all services and infrastructure ultimately built by contractors? (except those that are built by Army Corps of Engineers).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> On a slightly related note, is the '4.9 acre' a typo? How is it possible to build 2500 homes and infrastructure in 4.9 acre?

</comment><comment><USER35> Is this precedented, for private companies to get a percentage of government tax revenue like this?

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm confused.

They build infrastructure and get a percentage of revenues as payment?

I'm fine with that.

or they just want giveaways in order to do it at all.

</comment><comment><USER13> This is no different than Toronto issuing a bond based on property tax revenue and giving the proceeds to Sidewalk Labs to construct what they proposed.

Just optics.

<comment><USER37> I think this story is completely missing the point. Most companies would be risk adverse and would want the city to shoulder the risk with a bond and increased taxes to pay for it. It sounds like Google is proposing a form of equity compensation where they are paid based on performance. The metric for that performance just happens to be tax revenue generated by the project. It could just as easily be some non-monetary metric correlated to city revenue.

<comment><USER38> With the convenient side effect that you have to cancel some megacontract if performance is not what you expect. With everything else it's: "hey, your contract has run out after x years, reapply and make sure you do it better". Alphabet seems more like: "well, you have to pay us for our expenses 20 years back. you know, you owe us. do you really want to break the contract". It's all about power and making a dent into public law which today is basically quite good at preventing Manchester-like capitalism (at least in the developed world, even post-Reagan)

<comment><USER21> Exactly right

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Kind of rich for a company which pays hardly anything (if anything T all) in taxes to ask for tax revenue.</comment>


Grub with First Round Capital in SF - <AUTHOR> http://www.grubwithus.com/restaurants/tres-agaves-san-francisco/meals/479

<comment><USER2> Why do you guys keep doing the investor dinners on Tuesdays? I would have thought you would have kept Tuesdays open :)</comment>