Intel and Samsung Gang Up on Qualcomm, Backing FTC Monopoly Suit - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-12/intel-to-add-its-support-to-ftc-lawsuit-against-qualcomm <comment><USER2> I see a lot of comments where people are missing the point of the suit.

These are standard essential patents for LTE and CDMA baseband processors. They were added as part of the standard, and in exchange for that, Qualcomm agreed to license them to competitors under FRAND (fair, reasonable, and non- discriminatory) terms. They arent doing that.

This article has good descriptions of the behavior Qualcomm is being accused of: [https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/18/regulators- accuse-...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/01/18/regulators-accuse- qualcomm-of-3-shady-practices.aspx)

<comment><USER3> Honest question: why is anything that is patented ever made to be part of a standard?

<comment><USER4> Patent license fees are not necessarily onerous. The original Ethernet patent is a good example. The license fees were low - $1000 [0] and it became a de facto standard. Token Ring was a competing network technology with considerably higher license fees [1]. Patent owners for subsequent Ethernet standards started out with similar terms but then started shaking down licensees [2].

[0] [https://books.google.com/books?id=qTkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=qTkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=..).

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=OFCXnqlSFKwC&lpg=PA709&dq=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=OFCXnqlSFKwC&lpg=PA709&dq=..).

[2] [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2008/01/ftc-c...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2008/01/ftc-c..).

Edited to fix formatting

<comment><USER5> Your [2] link point "ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2008/01/ftc-c..." (see link address) which just shows the press releases page.

<comment><USER4> Good catch! It turns out that all of the links in my post are broken. I copied some of the content from a previous post ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14127727](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14127727)) and the links were mangled as a result.

The correct links are below.

[0] [https://books.google.com/books?id=qTkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=qTkEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA52&ots=a4x-Qa75TK&dq=ethernet%20patent%20xerox&pg=PA52#v=onepage&q=ethernet%20patent%20xerox&f=false)

[1] [https://books.google.com/books?id=OFCXnqlSFKwC&lpg=PA709&dq=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=OFCXnqlSFKwC&lpg=PA709&dq=sodorblom%20patent&pg=PA709#v=onepage&q=sodorblom%20patent&f=false)

[2] [https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2008/01/ftc-c...](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press- releases/2008/01/ftc-challenges-patent-holders-refusal-meet-commitment- license)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >"Intel is ready, willing, and able to compete on the merits in this market that Qualcomm has dominated for years," Intel said in a posting on its website. "But Qualcomm has maintained an interlocking web of abusive patent and commercial practices that subverts competition on the merits."

>Samsung claims its in-house chip unit is artificially held back by Qualcomm's unwillingness to license its technology.

I don't know the details of the patents in question, but I assume they are hardware patents. In any event, the idea of either Intel or Samsung complaining about some other company subverting competition is hilarious. But I guess that's how the game is played at this level.

<comment><USER7> > the idea of either Intel or Samsung complaining about some other company > subverting competition is hilarious. But I guess that's how the game is > played at this level.

Agreed. I think this is what's happening:

Big tech companies have realized they need to expand into other markets (intel and samsung being prime examples). The only markets left that are big enough are monopolies protected by patents, with Qualcomm being a prime example.

Entirely new markets are less interesting because they're not big enough. Even with massive growth, it will take too long for them to become big enough. A.I. is a maybe, but that _market_ is hardly proven. The money in A.I. might be in reforming companies from the inside instead of selling products to those same companies.

There's going to be more money in invalidating patents and moving into the industries that suddenly opens than there is in actually benefitting from patent royalties. Winning the war on patent trolls would speed this process up.

Once people realize that companies that derive a large percentage of their income from patent portfolios are just big dead rotting corpses waiting to be dismantled, the world will be a better place.

<comment><USER8> No, that's not what's happening here.

While Qualcomm holds a lot of wireless patents and they are entitled to make money for what they have contributed, they also agreed to declare their patents as part of the ETSI CDMA, LTE standards. This is beneficial for Qualcomm because now everyone HAS to use and license their patents, so they have guaranteed income. But, at the same time, they are also required to license their patents at fair and reasonable terms regardless of who licensees are.

Qualcomm violated their FRAND obligations in two very blatant ways. First, they REFUSED to license their patents to competing baseband makers, like Intel, Samsung, and other baseband makers. KFTC last year also found out that Qualcomm barred Samsung from marketing and selling their own AP/baseband chips in certain market (US) for some 20 years. So it also runs a foul of US anti- trust/anti-competitive laws.

If Qualcomm wants the kind of legal patent monopoly enjoyed by pharma's for instance, they need to keep their patents proprietary, and not declare them to SSO's. Qualcomm is trying to force everyone to license their tech as SSO's standards, then break every rule they agreed to uphold to maintain their dominance.

<comment><USER7> Sorry, I'm not sure how what you said contradicts what I said (as in "No, that's not what's happening here"). It's certainly useful, specific information, but it doesn't negate my broader point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think that the biggest issue for "fairness" in the "FRAND" in the Apple v QCOM case will be whether or not "royalties based on the price of the finished device."

QCOM will probably make the case along the lines that "we designed the engine that powers your F1, we are the reason that your product performs as well as it does." They sincerely believe that their multitude of patents is much of what is making smartphones successful.

AAPL will probably make the case that since they purchase the electronics from Foxconn (or someone similar), that those devices should be considered the goods on which the royalty is based. That their finished good that they sell in retail stores is the result of their OS/software and their product's image cultivated over decades. Their press release has used a different analogy from the one above I imagined for QCOM -- that "Qualcomm charges a different price for the couch depending on which house it's sold in."

The ruling from the Korean trade commission is probably what Apple saw as the chink in Qualcomm's armor.

I can honestly see it from both sides. Qualcomm holds patents in many domains that allow them to exploit their position. They were awarded those patents because they sincerely did innovate in this area. CDMA alone is huge (although that initial basis may have expired or be expiring soon). I see Apple's side -- they can charge their customer vast markup because of their status as a luxury brand.

<comment><USER10> Apple is pretty much in the right on royalty based on device cost is crazy.

Even more extreme example. Imagine you're Rolls Royce and want to make your next car have a permanent cell connection. Does 2% of the cost of a car at say 500k sound "reasonable" any longer?

It should be the component or at best overall component in a larger design, not the design itself. As it stands final device cost just seems like a liver punch for no real reason than "because".

But thats just my view of things, I'm curious if anyone can argue for a fixed % of final device cost for things that start to get costly as being "fair and reasonable". I'm having a really hard time coming up with one outside of its good for qualcomm's bottom line.

<comment><USER11> Except that using an alternative technology (gsm/tdma) would make their phone laughable. A windows phone with LTE would outsell an iPhone without :).

Qualcomm is correct to argue that their patents are critical to the device functionality, so they should get a chunk of the profits.

Apples market cap went up by 5 Qualcomms since they started selling the iPhone, so they clearly get the lions share of profits. It's hard to argue that the pricing is unfair.

<comment><USER12> But People are not buying an iPhone because of LTE, as almost every other phone has that too, but because of the Apple brand, app ecosystem, lock-in, ease of use, design, manufacturing quality, marketing, etc etc ... all that is value Apple provides, not Qualcomm.

FRAND stands for "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms". How is it not discriminatory to charge companies, who operate in different market segments, different amounts for the same needed part?

<comment><USER11> The whole point of granting a patent is that it's a monopoly. I think it can be argued that the amount of time the patent is valid for is not optimal for maximizing the most social gains over all possible futures, but I think it's greater then 0.

Yes, people buy apple products for lots of reasons, but would apple have made 50% of Qualcomms market cap in profits from iPhone each year if it was a gsm device? Qualcomm can argue that it's pricing is Fair and Readonable since it does not inhibit Apple from making a mountain of money. There is nothing out of the ordinary for charging people a different price (unless it's because they are a protected class, but that's a separate issue)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The issue at the heart of it is what can be charged for the standard essentials patents which must be licensed in a fair, reasonable and non discriminatory manner (FRAND). Qualcomm committed to these rules and got in return its patents written into the standard i.e. a monopoly. That is the way the wireless and a lot of other industries have worked - like it or not. What is at the heart of the matter is whether Qualcomm lives up to the FRAND rules.

In its Amicus Brief Intel argues ([http://blogs.intel.com/policy/files/2017/05/Intel-Amicus- Bri...](http://blogs.intel.com/policy/files/2017/05/Intel-Amicus-Brief- FILED.pdf)) especially against the no-license no-chip policy:

> The Complaint focuses, instead, on Qualcomm's policy of conditioning its > chipset sales on the OEM agreeing that handsets using another vendor's > chipsets be licensed on the terms Qualcomm dictates. But selling Qualcomm > chipsets to an OEM plainly does not "assist" that OEM in producing a handset > that uses another vendor's chipset making Qualcomm's policy unnecessary to > avoid "assisting" supposed infringement that Qualcomm is no part of. > Qualcomm "assists" an OEM's sale of handsets using other vendor's chipsets > only in the sense that Qualcomm could devastate an OEM completely by cutting > off its supply.

Imagine Intel insisting that buyers of AMD's chips are following Intel's licensing terms. Qualcomm uses its standard essential patents as power levers. The pricing structure reflects that and is now so out of whack with what is happening elsewhere that Apple now balked. The way Qualcomm yields it power is at the heart of not adhering to FRAND rules.

And I somehow doubt that Intel and Samsung gang up here. It was probably a friendly call from a dear customer that got the ball rolling.

</comment><comment><USER14> Qualcomm are known to abuse patents, and claim "that's just how we do it" argument to justify their aggression. That's what they did with attacking Opus codec with completely bogus claims. So I don't feel sorry for them even a bit.

<comment><USER15> [known to abuse patents] ... as are Intel and Samsung. So it feels to me like reading a book where you don't really care about _any_ of the characters.

<comment><USER16> That's probably the right way to look at any legal dispute? Good precedent and the rule of law are always more important than the parties involved...

<comment><USER15> > Good precedent and the rule of law are always more important than the > parties involved...

I don't disagree, just don't expect much, if any, empathy for either the plaintiff or defendant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> As much as I want to laugh and mock as it's Intel/Samsung pressing this further, I sadly must agree, Qualcomm's stranglehold on the cellular market has hurt the industry for far to long.

</comment><comment><USER18> I find it funny how Intel claims it wants to compete on merrit in a market locked by Qualcomm, where this is an almost exact replay of the tricks they pulled in the late 1990s to mid 2000s.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is that why every new phone this year has the Snapdragon 835?

I notice the Galaxy S8 has Samsung's own in Europe and Asia, but in the USA it's ole' snappy 835 just like everything else.

<comment><USER20> From what I remember, Exynos doesn't do CDMA...which may or may not be patent related. Hence using SD in the USA.

<comment><USER21> That's correct, and the reason is QC patents.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> >Intel is ready, willing, and able to compete on the merits in this market that Qualcomm has dominated for years

I would have more sympathy for Intel if they were able to compete fairly in the x86 market. I can't help but feel amused when a company that partakes in monopolistic practices in one market starts complaining about being the victim in another. However, in the case I think Intel is the lesser of two evils, but they're still bedfellows.

<comment><USER23> The difference here is that Qualcomm agreed (along with other contributors) ahead of time to license these exact patents to LTE implementors in a fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory manner: that is, to charge license fees which do not exceed their value in Qualcomm's own products.

Intel never made any agreement to any consortium that they would do anything like this, they applied fairly for patents on the considerable number of geniune inventions and design decisions which go into their silicon and ISA.

Many of these patents have long expired, and even when they weren't expired, manufacturers such as IBM, AMD, Texas Instruments, Harris Semiconductor, UMC, Acer, SGS Thomson, Cyrix, Rise Technology, Transmeta, IDT, VIA, and DM&P Electronics manufactured 80386, 80486, 80586 (pentium), 80686 (pentium pro), and Core competitors.

x86 being co-monopolized by AMD and Intel is a recent phenomenon, and I think it has more to do with the fatigue of trying to compete with AMD and Intel at making chips with probably the most complicated and unscalable ISAs to implement efficiently.

So in addition to seemingly breaking the agreement they made, they are being more predatory than most prominent patent licensors who didn't need an agreement to behave more fairly than they do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Here are more details from Korea's anti-trust case against Qualcomm:

[http://www.essentialpatentblog.com/2017/01/korea-ftc- propose...](http://www.essentialpatentblog.com/2017/01/korea-ftc-proposes- sanctions-qualcomms-sep-licensing-practices/)

It's too bad the KFTC recently seems to have decided to remove all cases from its site from the past three years [1], because I got to skim through its recent anti-trust case against Qualcomm, and what Qualcomm seemed to be doing was horrific (significantly worse stuff than what Intel was being accused of about a decade ago, as I recall).

[1] [http://www.ftc.go.kr/eng/bbs.do?command=getList&type_cd=54&p...](http://www.ftc.go.kr/eng/bbs.do?command=getList&type_cd=54&pageId=0302)

</comment><comment><USER25> Qualcomm makes a non-trivial amount of its revenue from licensing its patent suite _in toto_ to companies participating in this space. So when a player wants/needs some of it, they have to pay for all of it.

And Qualcomm has hundreds of IP and patent lawyers employed full-time (not from an external firm, but as FTE's) to enforce same. Not to mention the continued investment they do in R&D required to grow their patent portfolio.

So while Intel and Samsung are not to be taken lightly, neither should be the ferocity with which Qualcomm will defend its IP revenue stream.

</comment><comment><USER26> Do Intel and Samsung license their patented stuff in more fair terms than Qualcomm? I guess that Intel and Samsung want to get radio IP license for cheap (e.g. LTE stuff), and that's OK. BTW, can Qualcomm or Mediatek get x86 and OLED IP/patens for cheap, too? I would love Mediatek x86-compatible SoCs for 5 USD, and high quality 6" OLED screens for 15 USD.

<comment><USER27> OLED and x86 aren't covered by FRAND, LTE is. When you push to make your patented tech part of a standard, you also agree to license it reasonably.

<comment><USER26> Then, could you explain me why Mediatek can not sell x86-compatible SoCs for 5 USD?

<comment><USER28> Because it's not a standard?

<comment><USER26> x86 is a de facto standard.

<comment><USER9> The term "standard" in this context means "governed by a standardization body like 3GPP, etc." This is significant because the FRAND limitation comes not from legal restrictions on patents but from these standardization bodies themselves. "Yes, QCOM, you made a far superior air interface for radios. In recognition of your superior design, we will use your patents as our standard but only if you agree to license it to anyone on 'fair' terms."

<comment><USER26> As "fair" != free/gratis, I assume this is just a price discussion between Intel/Samsung and Qualcomm. So what is interpreted as "fair" for Qualcomm, it is not for Intel/Samsung. Result: if the FRAND limitation doesn't set explicit margins, this is going to get ugly for Samsung and Intel.

<comment><USER21> No, FRAND means that the licensing terms are fixed, equal and open to all and cannot be used to gain a competitive advantage.

<comment><USER26> Then, who is right, Qualcomm saying they're honoring the agreements, or Intel/Samsung? Both can not be right.

<comment><USER8> Qualcomm is most likely wrong and has been found guilty in at least three different courts. The FTC has been a bit slow in keeping up with other regulators. Qualcomm does have quite a bit of political and lobbying clout in the US -- ie, Qualcomm is a domestic company whereas most device makers are foreign.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > no coherent theory of competitive harm and no allegations of the type of > conduct that the antitrust laws are designed to address

This line of defense from Qualcomm would serve Google just as well. No competition - no competitive harm, hence all is well.

</comment><comment><USER30> What does backing the existing lawsuit mean? From the article, I don't see that they have filed their own suits. Isn't this more of a media stunt to show Qualcomm as the bad guy here?

<comment><USER2> they filed an amicus brief:

[http://blogs.intel.com/policy/2017/05/12/intel-filed- amicus-...](http://blogs.intel.com/policy/2017/05/12/intel-filed-amicus-brief- support-ftcs-complaint-qualcomm/)

[http://blogs.intel.com/policy/files/2017/05/Intel-Amicus- Bri...](http://blogs.intel.com/policy/files/2017/05/Intel-Amicus-Brief- FILED.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment> dis-sys After playing the exact same game on x86 related patents for decades, Intel is now complaining that Qualcomm is doing something similar?

<comment><USER31> Exactly... so, couldn't this just backlash at them, and at others, if this ends up succeeding?

For example, other CPUs architectures, GPUs, Memory ... like, everything that's pretty much set as standards?

<comment><USER16> Intel didn't participate in any standards-publishing process in which they pushed x86 in exchange for FRAND. Qualcomm did.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Non-AMP link: [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-12/intel- to-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-12/intel-to-add-its- support-to-ftc-lawsuit-against-qualcomm)

<comment><USER33> Thanks, we've updated the link from [https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-05-12/intel...](https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2017-05-12/intel- to-add-its-support-to-ftc-lawsuit-against-qualcomm).

<comment><USER34> Can we get a less click-bait title as well?

The two companies filed amicus briefs, they didn't join the lawsuit. The current title implies that they joined in.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I'm curious: why would Qualcomm be obligated to license its chipsets to Samsung in furtherance of Samsung's goals of competing with Qualcomm? Can't Samsung just design its own chipsets? I'd love to have this explained to me. Presumably there's a reasonable explanation for this expectation, but it doesn't sound reasonable on the surface.

<comment><USER36> Samsung has designed their own chipsets (Exynos series), but Qualcomm will only grant a patent license for them to use their chipsets as part of their own phones. They won't allow Samsung to sell Exynos chips to be used by other companies.

<comment><USER11> Samsung just doesn't want to pay the licensing fee. TI has no problems selling arm phones.

Apparently the r&d costs in this space are higher then lawyer fees. Otherwise why wouldn't they dump some money into r&d and get some patents of their own to cross license with Qualcomm.

<comment><USER37> TI don't do mobile chipsets anymore, do they?

<comment><USER11> That's true. Forgot they exited the market. mediatek has no problems selling arm phones. Qualcomm has only 50% of market share in that space and there are plenty of other competitors. Unlike the x86 server market.

Samsung, Intel and Apple have enough cash and tech clout to crush Qualcomm into dust if they really wanted to compete on r&d.

Throwing a few million at a lawsuit is just a negotiation tactic.

<comment><USER38> You're still missing the point though.

Qualcomm would still be likely to participate in any future standard and would likely still have contributing patents. If they aren't going to license it now under FRAND then why would they do so in the future ? Whether Intel, Samsung, Apple et al contribute more to the standard is irrelevant.

Also Mediatek and Qualcomm have their own patent sharing agreement:

[https://www.mediatek.com/press-room/press-releases/joint- pub...](https://www.mediatek.com/press-room/press-releases/joint-public- statement-by-mediatek-and-qualcomm)

<comment><USER11> How do you determine FRAND?

My opinion is that since apple is making 40b a year on iPhone sales, 50% of Qualcomms market cap a year, then Qualcomm is charging Apple a fair and reasonable price. If qualcomm chose not to be part of the LTE standard, those patents would still be enforceable, and they could charge whatever they want, like they did with wcdma.

I think legally FRAND is defined ambiguous enough that many kinds of pricing schemes are acceptable, so there is nothing illegal with qualcomm charging a percentage of device cost.

My point on bringing up MediaTek was that if Apple wants a discount, they can cross license with Qualcomm, like other companies have. Intel can offer Qualcomm it's fabs, or x86, or server patents. Qualcomms pricing has not been so unfair or prohibitive as to prevent small or large players from making a mountain of profits from the cellular device market.

I own stock in both Qualcomm and Apple, so I feel like they are both wasting money on lawyers instaead of engineers :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Lol...if you have not one but two competitors, both of which have market caps in the 12-digit range, complaining about some other company's (one with a mere 11-digit market cap) market domination, that isn't a monopoly, that's called competition. And if their complaint succeeds, that's not called capitalism, that's called crony capitalism.

<comment><USER40> According to the article, their would-be competitors are legally blocked from competing. That's the opposite of competition.

<comment><USER11> They can spend some money on r&d and build a patent portfolio to force Qualcomm to cross license.

<comment><USER41> Intel and Samsung specifically did that by creating WiMax as a competing standard for LTE, but look what happened.

[https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/17/14303910/qualcomm- alleged...](https://www.theverge.com/2017/1/17/14303910/qualcomm-allegedly- bribed-apple-wimax-iphone-ft-complaint)

<comment><USER11> Well, standard != tech. They wanted to roll out an entire new network based on some flaky tech, instead of focusing on making a better radio.

In 10 years LTE is going to be to slow, and Qualcomm is busy developing whatever is going to replace it. if Intel wants a piece of that pie they need to do some r&d.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Robot ETF Leaves Pros in Dust, Scoring Wins on Small-Cap Fliers - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-19/inside-the-robot-mind-an-etf-nails-big-calls-to-match-market?srnd=premium <comment><USER2> super impressive that AI could pick winners in THIS market</comment>


WeWork's Escape Plan Is Buried in the Books at Its Tokyo Office - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-24/wework-s-escape-plan-is-buried-in-the-books-at-its-tokyo-office <comment><USER2> > _Mori Building Co. agreed to lease two floors in its Ark Hills complex and a > penthouse space at a recently opened building called Ginza Six._

This is literally some of the most expensive real estate in the city, and office space in central Tokyo is not cheap. I'm amazed that they can find enough tenants to sublet this at a profit.

That said, WeWork does have a Japan-only advantage here, because startups generally find extremely hard to lease office space there: even if they can find a landlord willing to take a punt, they are often required to pay one to two _years '_ rental as deposit. [1] This won't help them scale outside Japan though.

[1] [https://www.venturejapan.com/doing-business-in-japan/how- to-...](https://www.venturejapan.com/doing-business-in-japan/how-to-manage-a- japanese-company/japanese-office-lease-rent/)

<comment><USER3> I used a WeWork credit to work remotely while in Tokyo around a year ago, and the place was packed. Every common seat was filled and I even felt like I was getting in the way because of how often people were going around me to banter or talk shop. Also the internal WeWork forums in Japan seemed to be a genuine social network with heavy Linked-In style participation.

I'm sure some of the hustle and bustle is due to the novelty, much like how WeWork was when it first launched in the US. However, you're right that there is a real lack of flexible month-to-month space in Japan so that may be a lasting advantage.

<comment><USER4> WeWork might be full but there is co-working space all over the city, some of them hourly or daily, most of them are not full at least when I've visited. There must be 50 or more in Shibuya alone.

<comment><USER5> I don't know how expensive WeWork is, but the co-working spaces in Shibuya are crazy expensive (like $10 per hour). There are many sento (public baths) around Japan that will let you stay for $10 for the whole day and where you can get a desk and power. When I'm travelling that's what I tend to do. Since I live in the countryside, I'm also used to being able to work at public libraries. I was really surprised that in most libraries I've gone to in big cities they specifically forbid working (or have special sections with high prices).

But anyway, maybe I haven't seen the cheaper Tokyo co-work spaces. If you have some convenient points, I would appreciate a pointer!

Edit: I'm actually in Shibuya every few months. When I'm there I work in the Shizutetsu bus station. If you see a middle aged white guy there programming, come say hi ;-)

<comment><USER6> When was the last time you looked around at coworking spaces? The market has grown quite a bit, and this has made it easier to find reasonably priced alternatives.

I don't remember the specifics off the top of my head, but I'm sure there are/have been ~300 yen/h ones in for example Shibuya.

There's a smaller one called Open Source Cafe that lies a 5~10 min walk from Shimokitazawa station - that it's off makes it quiet and nice, and they host meetups from time to time.

The market rate for a fixed-desk designated membership seems to lie around 40,000 JPY / month in the hotter areas like Shibuya and Shinjuku, which is ~20$ per day if you only go there for weekdays. I think that's quite reasonable. I think WeWork has been part of driving this change, but it's definitely overpriced as things are now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >Moreover, SoftBank itself has been a big contributor to that high level of occupancy. The Japanese conglomerate and its subsidiaries take up about 20% of WeWork's office space in Japan, the people said. Over the years, WeWork pushed its locations worldwide to attract corporate clients because those contracts are more lucrative and stable. But Japan had a higher proportion of enterprise customers from the start, beating the 40% global average.

WARNING, WARNING, WARNING!

It's a lot easier to be profitable when your owner buys 20+% of your services. Also easier to get more than 40% institutional customers when the boss puts his thumb on the scale for the first half of that...

<comment><USER8> >on the scale for the first half of that..

I think your math is wrong. The denominators vary for the different percents. (Edit: nope, mine was.)

<comment><USER7> Can you explain what I'm doing wrong?

Softbank buys 20% of their Japan space, so in order to get to 40+% they just need to find institutional investors for another 20+%? The denominator for both is "capacity at Japan office"

<comment><USER9> I think your math depends on all the office space being occupied (so that $total_customers == $office_space). Maybe that's what GP is pointing out.

That doesn't really affect your original point though.

<comment><USER7> Ah, you are correct. I think it actually _strengthens_ my point, right?

If Softbank is renting 20% of space, and less than 100% of space is rented, then they count for _more_ than 20% of the customer base being institutional.

<comment><USER9> Sounds right to me!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wework is still a great investment because Wework is doing well in Japan \s.

Pay no mind that:

> WeWork entered Japan when office vacancy rates were near a decade low. The > supply has tightened since to around 1%, a level not seen since the 1990s, > allowing landlords to raise rents, while requiring a deposit of as much as a > year's rent.

They've got a great new product too:

> The new Passport service would give tenants flexible use of desks, community > spaces and meeting rooms, amenities for which visiting customers currently > have to pay extra. The service is a work in progress, but if adopted, WeWork > aims to set aside a certain number of desks at all locations for Passport > users, the people said. The move is aimed at increasing occupancy, the key > to making locations profitable.

And forget that:

> Moreover, SoftBank itself has been a big contributor to that high level of > occupancy. The Japanese conglomerate and its subsidiaries take up about 20% > of WeWork's office space in Japan, the people said. Over the years, WeWork > pushed its locations worldwide to attract corporate clients because those > contracts are more lucrative and stable. But Japan had a higher proportion > of enterprise customers from the start, beating the 40% global average.

<comment><USER11> You missed that they have new heatmaps of office occupancy, which somehow mean that they are developing competencies in "AI."

At least the layoffs will be humane!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well, maybe for a little while. The big difference seems to be that WeWork Japan didn't over-buy and under-price as much as WeWork did everywhere else, and the office market is tight so they have high occupancy rates.

Well, that makes sense and all, but it says nothing about the more fundamental problem with WeWork's business model, which is whether or not it will go bankrupt when it hits its first recession, occupancy rates generally plunge, and WeWork has more short-term commitments from its customers than it has to its landlords. Perhaps there's something in WeWork Japan that addresses this, but if so, it's not mentioned in the article.

</comment><comment><USER13> >Son, who has said his investment strategy is to focus on companies powered by artificial intelligence, is eager to move WeWork beyond its real-estate beginnings. Briefing analysts after last earnings announcement, SoftBank's founder bristled at the suggestion that WeWork doesn't match that profile. He said that he's long pushed WeWork to make better use of its data, but progress has been slow. The company will now begin experimenting with AI in Japan and could be ready to introduce it more broadly in as little as six months, Son said.

This part kills it for me. WeWork pumped their valuation by pretending to be a tech business when they're actually a office rental business. Son is still pushing that, he genuinely believes a bit of machine learning pixie dust is going to push occupancy up and make the company profitable but there is no reason to believe this. Frankly, I suspect if you do create an AI that's predicting and managing your occupancy then you're better off letting it go trade the stock exchange.

<comment><USER14> Just wait until they start talking about somehow leveraging blockchains as a possible solution...

<comment><USER15> Knowing what we now know about WW's various side businesses, I'm honestly quite surprised that they never launced WeCoin when the crypto craze of 2017-18 was in full swing. But perhaps useless tokens are only the go-to option for businesses that don't have a patron saint like M. Son.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Uber for Office Space or AirBnB for Office space?

<comment><USER17> Why the Initech of Office Space! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Space)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> [https://youtu.be/vDu74eMv5ME?t=22](https://youtu.be/vDu74eMv5ME?t=22)

</comment><comment> 1-6 Amongst Mt. Gox?</comment>


Sen. Wyden Confirms Cell-Site Simulators Disrupt Emergency Calls - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/08/blog-post-wyden-911-disruption-css <comment><USER2> FCC stopped taking E911 seriously long ago.

There used to be rules with teeth that cell carriers must be able to locate 911 callers for the operator. Cingular got a tiny fine in 2003, less than their office party spend, but it motivated them (as AT&T) and TMobile to adopt the (expensive) UTDOA technology to comply. Sprint and Verizon did not, staying on A-GPS which has indoor limitations. People kept dying indoors, but meanwhile, the regulations demanding indoor accuracy are still in "proposal" and "study" phases in 2018 [2].

You can still get fined a little if you drop a BUNCH of 911 calls altogether, but for wireless location, life isn't worth much.

1\. [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105546175751598400](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB105546175751598400)

2\. [https://www.fcc.gov/public-safety-and-homeland- security/poli...](https://www.fcc.gov/public-safety-and-homeland- security/policy-and-licensing-division/911-services/general/location-accuracy- indoor-benchmarks)

<comment><USER3> Hey at least they're passing the savings onto the subscribers.

<comment><USER4> That's an awfully presumptuous assumption to make, that all the executives and shareholders are also subscribers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I would imagine a major responsibility of the FCC is ensuring communications in an emergency and they are clearly failing. I immediately think of this article as well [https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/640815074/verizon- throttled-f...](https://www.npr.org/2018/08/22/640815074/verizon-throttled- firefighters-data-as-mendocino-wildfire-raged-fire-chief-says)

This is damning evidence to what a regulatory captured agency looks like.

</comment><comment><USER6> Ron Wyden is a national treasure. One of a very short list of DC politicians who make any effort whatsoever to understand tech.

<comment><USER7> I'm kind of surprised they let him in the Senate Intelligence Committee for so long. It seems like everyone else in that committee is basically an "anti- Wyden" or pro-complete surveillance.

I think the only reason they haven't tried to push him out is because they don't want to put him in a position where his ethics will compel him to tell everyone _exactly_ what the intelligence community has been doing.

Wyden generally tries to get the intelligence executives to come out with the truth themselves, but 99% of the time they don't or they mislead the public, and there's little he can do about it.

As a Senator Wyden has complete immunity to blow the whistle on whatever national security intelligence he wants on the Senate floor, but he's too much of a nice guy to do that - _unless_ they force him out with their shenanigans.

<comment><USER8> > It seems like everyone else in that committee is basically an "anti-Wyden" > or pro-complete surveillance.

Along with Wyden, Harris and Heinrich voted against approving the renewal of Section 702, and while Feinstein didn't vote against renewal, she did before that join with Harris and others in supporting an amendment, which was defeated, which would have added a warrant requirement before accessing the contents of American's communications pulled in in the course of surveillance under 702. So, while Wyden may be the strongest anti-surveillance voice, it is not th case that the rest of the Committee (particularly on the Democratic side) is unilaterally pro-surveillance anti-Wydens.

<comment><USER9> > _Feinstein didn 't vote against renewal, she ...[supported] an amendment, > which was defeated_

I'm curious if anyone knows the Washington dirt on this one.

Feinstein has a long history of being aggressively pro-surveillance, far more than basically any other Democrat. (Something to do with having her house bombed and shot at early in her career, perhaps...)

For Congresspeople with awkward positions, it's pretty standard to take the occasional favorable-looking vote on something you know is doomed to fail. So... would Feinstein have known in advance that the 702 amendment was doomed? And, harder to prove, would she have voted differently if it hadn't been?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Because catching some drug dealer is so much more important than everyone in an area being able to make 911 calls, right?

I like how the FCC exists to enforce _exactly this kind of thing_ yet they're doing nothing.

</comment><comment><USER11> How does this work post-2G, are the phones still not authenticating the network? Or are the operators giving signed fake certs out? Or is is some kind of downgrade attack to 2G?

edit: this 2014 article talks about a downgrade attack with the older stingrays, and a "Hailstorm" kind of device that works without 2G but without details: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/cities- scramble-...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/cities-scramble-to- upgrade-stingray-tracking-as-end-of-2g-network-looms/)

edit 2: It could also be implementation or design flaws, and/or backdoors, in the cellular network, courtesy of network equipment vendors.

<comment><USER12> In short, it's downgrade.

Since 3G, there is mandatory mutual authentication [except for emergency calls] with integrity protected management traffic [except for emergency].

The problem is, identification and key agreement require prior set-up of the lower network layers. If a cell station indicates an error during the early stages (i.e., before mutual authentication) of connection establishment in 4G, the smartphone falls back to earlier generations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm surprised that Stingray has such an obvious signature (break everything on nearby phones), seems like that makes it trivial to detect and defeat for any capable criminal.

<comment><USER14> That's why the law enforcement community fought so hard to keep it secret.

Criminals are always looking for the next tech that gives them an edge and know immediately when the police can exploit it. Nextel direct connect (which was not interceptable for a long time) and BBM were the big ones of recent memory.

<comment><USER15> So are non-criminals interested in not being persecuted by a police state.

<comment><USER13> How feasible would it be to have a white list of known-good cell base stations, so I could control my phone's cellular connections just like I do WiFi and Bluetooth?

<comment><USER16> Discussion about a similar question 3 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9030531](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9030531)

Importantly, you're going to need Apple to support this in the baseband hardware of iPhones to perform tower discrimination (some vendors exist that have proprietary software and/or baseband firmware to perform this functionality on Android).

EDIT: Maybe this could be done with bunnie and snowden's introspection engine? [https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio- introspection](https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What actually happens if you call 911, and your call is intercepted. Do you just not get through?

This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen, especially now that this information is public. There is some emergency, someone calls 911, help doesn't arrive, victim and relatives sue the police who say "911 call? What 911 call?". Someone finally puts two and two together.

<comment><USER18> Considering these cell-site simulators are often used at protests this seems like a recipe for disaster. What happens when another person is shot[1] at a protest and there's no way to call 911?

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/milo- yiannop...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/milo-yiannopoulos- event-shooting-couple-charged-seattle)

<comment><USER19> I imagine the police would use their radios to call for help, if there are not already paramedics standing by.

<comment><USER20> Who says their legacy, TDMA based radio networks are properly functioning? Motorola has sold most US municipalities and business clients hot garbage for radio networks, they can't push high call volumes, and your often limited by crosstalk (other people trying to talk on your channel) and the number of operators on staff. They literally revert to playing clear the channel tones for a solid minute multiple times a day. Its awful!

The current emergency responder trunked radio networks are extremely fragile, shitty systems. I have no hope that the transmitter at Columbia Tower in Seattle will be of any use to emergency personnel after a major event. Too few channels available, not enough staff to route and handle the channels we do have either.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Speaking of TESTING things... it would be VERY NICE if a dedicated 'test channel' were setup for 911/e911/whatever. Maybe it'd be stuffed in to the developer options page somewhere, but I SHOULD be able to send a test call that gets an automated response and logs success/failure. It should use and behave exactly as 911/emergency call normally does, including working without any service (maybe also rate-limited), except not tie up actual emergency resources and be expected from time to time.

Even if just checking IF a cell-phone works for that connection in a given location.

<comment><USER22> This kind of automated testing sounds like it would be a fantastic idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Catching some meth head is far more important than making sure a person having a heart attack can reach EMT, obviously.

<comment><USER24> our entire war on drugs is misdirected and woefully expensive in terms of dollars and lives. sadly that may never change unless we can get a true third party or similar thinking individuals into office

<comment><USER25> It actually works in reverse. A like-minded person won't get into office until the public opinion changes.

<comment><USER23> Exactly why it is better to work within the parties than outside. Much more opportunity to reach people who's voices matter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Why I don't get is why they don't make it so you dial 911 and it rings in the squad car that has the Stingray.

<comment><USER27> It does one better according to the company. It detects the 911 call and lets it through to the real tower. The headline is very sensational. Read Mr. Wyden's statement in the article for the non-sensationalized version.

<comment><USER28> It states that this has not been tested to current 911 standards and thus the public has no way to know if this is even true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> And calls to 911 will increase as people check whether there is a Stingray nearby.

<comment><USER30> Stingrays block _all_ calls since they're not actually connected to a cell network, so calling any number should suffice.

<comment><USER31> How is blocking all calls even remotely legal?

<comment><USER14> It's not. But the FCC isn't capable of doing its job, and prosecutors are very cautious about using the evidence.

<comment><USER32> Reminds me of another story on HN where for months some guys was driving around with a cell phone jammer in his trunk because he got fed up of distracted drivers. It took quite a bit of effort to track him down as far as i remember.

<comment><USER33> Possibly cathartic, but I'd almost imagine having a bad signal would distract them _more_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> >It is striking, but unfortunately not surprising, that law enforcement has been allowed to use these technologies ...

The last I heard that the FCC authorization was only for use in emergency situations. If that is still the case then law enforcement has not been allowed to use these technologies in the way they actually do.

Law enforcement has been doing off the books surveillance pretty much forever. It isn't likely they are going to suddenly stop. The article has it right, this is entirely a technical problem at heart...

</comment><comment><USER35> The title of this article is pretty misleading. There is no confirmation that the cell-site simulators disrupt emergency calls. Rather:

> Harris Corporation claims that they have the ability to detect and deliver > calls to 911, but they admit that this feature hasn't been tested.

The fact that the feature isn't tested is a serious concern, and should be addressed, but this headline is completely inaccurate, frankly dishonest, and reduces my faith in the EFF.

I understand where the EFF is coming from, and for the most part believe in their causes, but this sort of willfully dishonest headline just serves to reduce credibility. In the future when I see EFF articles with dramatic headlines I'm going to assume they're probably not what they seem and be less likely to read the article.

Fans of he EFF will forgive these sorts of inaccuracies. Skeptics will not - this sort of article just serves to drive reasonable but undecided people away from your cause.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wait, so does this mean that if you were being monitored with a stringray, your phone would just be a brick without access to mobile network data (calls, texts, data) etc? that seems like a huge giveaway???

</comment><comment><USER37> Why are these devices even legal to operate? Normal FCC rules, you're not supposed to operate a radio transmitter so as to interfere with other users.

Stingrays by their very nature interfere with other users.

<comment><USER38> They aren't legal for anyone but the police, who are allowed to do many things the rest of us aren't.

<comment><USER39> Yep. Anyone who says "people are equal before the law" doesn't live in the real world.

There are many "social layers" \- arguably more than the four Indian castes. They are treated very differently by everyone, including the legal system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> You don't need a CSS to disrupt service. Simple jamming will do that.

</comment><comment><USER41> You really have to wonder what caliber criminal the stingray is targeting. stingray is useless with an encryption layer, and I don't see how any seasoned criminal doesn't use encryption.

<comment><USER19> Most seasoned criminals are unsophisticated, because people who turn to crime typically do so for lack of better opportunities (which would typically exist for people with the sophistication needed to understand cryptography and how to effectively use it). Here are two illustrative examples of this lack of education/sophistication:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F89eycANUrQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F89eycANUrQ)

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/19/mafia_don_clueless_...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/19/mafia_don_clueless_crypto/)

I think the reason you cannot fathom seasoned criminals not using encryption is that you are not a seasoned criminal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm curious to hear more about "rogue law enforcement". :) Batman, or a bunch of bikers beating up the spouse of a domestic violence victim. I need more information.

<comment><USER43> Answering your question straight: Rogue law enforcement would be cops who are using illegal methods and lying to courts.

(In the process, letting criminals go free, because the evidence will eventually be invalidated.)

<comment><USER44> >In the process, letting criminals go free

Or, more probably, locking up innocent people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> And emergency text alerts.

</comment><comment><USER27> This headline is deceiving. The actual statement from Mr. Wyden is nowhere near so conclusive:

> _Moreover, while the company claims its cell-site simulators include a > feature that detects and permits the delivery of emergency calls to 9-1-1, > its officials admitted to my office that this feature has not been > independently tested as part of the Federal Communication Commission's > certification process, nor were they able to confirm this feature is capable > of detecting and passing-through 9-1-1 emergency communications made by > people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech disabled using Real-Time > Text technology._

<comment><USER14> EFF headlines (like any other pressure group) are usually like that.

From a legal perspective, not certified means the feature doesn't exist. So it is technically an accurate statement.

<comment><USER27> > _From a legal perspective, not certified means the feature doesn't exist. So > it is technically an accurate statement._

I guess almost all of the software developers here have never really built any features then. Imagine that, all that code and the features "don't exist". I didn't realize the law had such ontological power. Not certified means not certified. Not believing you have a legal obligation to get certified is a great reason to avoid that expensive and bureaucratic process.

<comment><USER14> If you're in a regulated space or have a contractural requirement, certification matters.

As an example, If you're providing services to the government or other organization that include encryption, you must use FIPS 140-2 validated crypto. If you fail to do so, and something happens (where something ranges from audit to breach) from a legal perspective, it's not encrypted. This is true even if you used equal or better tools to encrypt the data.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Primer on Bitcoin Taxation - <AUTHOR> http://www.bitcointax.info/ <comment><USER2> I just wrote an article about US tax implications regarding Bitcoin holdings (not transactions! transactions are easy, and well-covered on the Bitcoin wiki). Unfortunately it needs to wind its way through the editorial/fact-/cite-checking process, so it will be some time next year before it makes it into print.

If you have questions about _US compliance_ obligations regarding Bitcoins held in non-US wallets (meaning every major exchange, such as BTCChina, BitStamp, MtGov, and BTC-e), feel free to ask and I'll try to respond over the course of the next day or two.

<comment><USER3> >>I just wrote an article about US tax implications regarding Bitcoin holdings (not transactions! transactions are easy, and well-covered on the Bitcoin wiki).

The stated author of the article, Tyler S. Robbins, reached out to me to state that you (@gamblor956) are not the author of the article linked by the submitter. Evidently he's been downvoted trying to point this out.

Perhaps the unintentional implication inferred by most on this thread is that that you personally wrote the linked article, when in fact you may be referring to a different article you wrote about US tax implications that has yet to be published (as you stated above).

Hope this clears things up for anybody else that may have unintentionally made the same inference. I'm meeting Mr. Robbins on Monday to discuss some of the issues he raised in his article.

EDIT: I see that he's put a warning at the top of article to clear up any misunderstandings.

<comment><USER2> Ah yes when I posted my comment it was originally obvious that I wasn't referring to the same post as the linked article. My article is for a print tax publication targeted at tax advisors, and comes out next spring; Mr. Robbins' article is clearly not intended for print and is aimed more toward laymen.

Also, Mr. Robbins has updated the article since I posted my comment, so generally all of the questions I have received would now be answered by his article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Additional info for people from the Netherlands:

Owning Bitcoin and trading in Bitcoin for anything (goods or other currency) are legal as far as we know. Unless you own a business dealing with Bitcoin, all you need to do to be legal is add the profits that you make to your income. That's all. I'm not sure about the tax rules when you have a business in Bitcoin, but it's still legal to do anything with it.

<comment><USER5> Is BTC just sitting around in your account, gaining in valuation relative to the euro, considered "profit?"

<comment><USER6> If so, how does that work? If I exchange USD for Euros, and the dollar weakens against the euro, am I taxed?

Is it an issue of intent? If I exchange for investment purposes, it's taxed, but for practical purposes, it's not?

<comment><USER7> Bitcoin is considered a property since it is not specifically categorized otherwise, so it works a little different than currencies.

But answering that question is very complex for business, you probably don't need to worry about small gains as a person.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm willing to bet the compliance rate on bitcoin taxation is going to be slightly lower than the compliance rate on people who buy gold coins at X and sell them at > X.

Section 9006 of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) almost partially closed this loophole but it was repealed.

<comment><USER9> I'm not so sure.. when you consider the ways that exist of converting BTC into your local currency, most of them have reporting rules for transactions and aggregates over a certain amount.

I really wish the IRS would concern itself with USD only.. BTC is going to be a nightmare to tax, let alone enforce.

Hoping people are conscientious, here. The recent hearing about Bitcoin was positive, it does not need the association of being a tax cheat's friend to ruin it!

<comment><USER8> _when you consider the ways that exist of converting BTC into your local currency, most of them have reporting rules for transactions and aggregates over a certain amount_

I've bought most of my bitcoins from Craigslist handing cash to local bitcoin sellers.

Many people use [https://localbitcoins.com/](https://localbitcoins.com/)

There are definitely at least a few ways to buy and sell bitcoin without leaving a paper trail.

<comment><USER10> If bitcoin becomes a large enough issue for IRS, then there's definitely at least a few ways for them to proceed.

For example, they can subpoena localbitoins.com and such sites for all their user info, and do a full tax audit on them - after all, in taxes generally it's your problem to provide a paper trail for your taxable income/expenses, and if you can't do it, it only hurts you.

For example, if you buy 1 bitcoin for $500 and sell for $800, you pay taxes on the $300 difference; but if you have no trail whatsoever for the $500 transaction, then tough luck, you'll be taxed on the whole $800. Oh, and that assumes that you did 'tax yourself' by properly declaring it; if you want _them_ to tax you, then expect that to be tripled as a penalty; and if you're using any 'coin mixing' services then that smells like tax fraud which would move the pain from a few dollars to risk of prison.

I'm not a tax lawyer, but you might need one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Primer on Bitcoin Taxation _in America_...

</comment><comment><USER12> What is someone were to trade one cryptocurrency for another?

For example, if I bought Litecoins with Bitcoins, and later sold for a gain in Bitcoins, how would I be taxed? From the article it seems I would only be taxed until I ultimately realized my gains in USD. Would I have to maintain a record of all my "altcoin" transactions in this case?

<comment><USER13> By transitive property, the only transactions that should count are ones that convert USD to anything, and ones that convert anything to USD. So if you invest $10 in BTC, then do some magical trading and take out $1000, then you gained $990. I have no idea how this actually works, or if you could say that you mined the $990 and broke even on the $10, or if you have to provide a paper trail for every single cryptocurrency transaction that led you to posses the money, but this is definitely going to get hairy...

<comment><USER14> "By transitive property, the only transactions that should count are ones that convert USD to anything, and ones that convert anything to USD."

According to US tax law, any accession to wealth is taxable when the gain is realized (yes, there are exceptions to timing and basis). So, if you mined a BTC and spent $1 doing it, then used that 1 BTC to purchase some LTC when the value of the BTC was $100, you gained $99 at the time you traded it for LTC. That gain is realized at the time of the exchange and taxable at that time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hmm, really? To effectively enforce this (in a BTC only world), they would need to constantly be de-anonymising the blockchain. That would require dark- pools to be illegal (in the long run), which would require a unified world government.

It's either that, or simply expect people to hand them money on good faith.

<comment><USER16> If you ever find yourself in the nirvana of a BTC only world, expect the tax regime to be structured differently.

<comment><USER10> There are many historical examples on how to do effective taxation without looking at your transactions.

For example, a classic approach is simply to assign you a flat tax amount per year, and periodically visit you to check "how you're living" to reassess how much you'll have to pay.

It's generally worse than the current approach (less accurate, even more prone to corruption), but it works sufficiently well, and would work even in bitcoin-only world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just a note for those that don't feel like "good guys" funding wars and spying and perhaps don't believe the systems of "democracy" give them much choice.

Tax collectors have a very difficult time keeping up with such advances; in the case of BTC the small timers won't receive more than random scrutiny and the big timers have many tools to protect themselves.

Given the difficulties inherent in taking everyone's money worldwide tax collectors rely on proven tactics such as example making of the famous and releasing inflated information about their abilities. The accountancy and legal professions are understandably partners in this effort.

This community is exceptionally intelligent but also quite risk averse so non- complicit folk should try not to take scary anecdotes over the reality of the advantages bitcoin holders with regard to taxes.

<comment><USER2> I've pointed this out before in other discussions, but my contacts in the IRS freaking _love_ Bitcoin because it makes their job so much easier. Tracking Bitcoins may be difficult, but it's a cakewalk compared to tracking physical cash transactions.

Taxes have always been based on voluntary compliance and disclosure in the US because that is the "freest" way to handle tax collection. If a significant number of people choose to be non-compliant in Bitcoin, the IRS will simply create a Bitcoin collection task force, modeled after its current Small Business Owner task force (SBO's are remarkably bad at complying with taxes). Because they won't find everyone, they'll throw the book at the few they do find, to increase the compliance rate without actually having to resort to more draconian measures that would truly impair freedom.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> A Canadian Government Fact Sheet [http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/fctshts/2013/m11/fs131105-eng...](http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/nwsrm/fctshts/2013/m11/fs131105-eng.html?rss)

<comment><USER3> Canadian governmental guidance is just as vague (for a layman) as IRS guidance. Broadly speaking, the government issued a statement saying that digital currencies are taxable. Exactly how they're going to be characterized (income vs. capital gains) is the key question for many people.

Reading both the digital currency fact sheet linked and the referenced Canada Income Tax Act[1] doesn't give a clear indication of how bitcoins will be characterized.

Back taxes, penalties and accrued interest are nasty surprises to be receiving down the road. Whether the amounts in question are modest or large, it's never fun to be on the receiving end. Unfortunately, I speak from experience. The age-old issue is brought to the forefront here where taxdollars pay for income tax agencies to pursue you and prove your innocence. Given that audits are supposedly a small percentage of the overall tax-filing population, once you are selected or flagged, the onus is on the filer to substantiate all claims and characterizations, and hope that the tax agencies concur.

[1] [http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/it479r/README.html](http://www.cra- arc.gc.ca/E/pub/tp/it479r/README.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Yeah, experts can talk about taxing bitcoin, and not talk about taxing high frequency trading.

I hate to sound like a rebel, but sometimes I just don't like how some people lurk around an issue they can be experts about while dismissing political ones. Ivory tower crap.

<comment><USER2> Bitcoin taxation is not ivory tower crap, it's a mostly straight-forward application of existing laws to a somewhat novel concept. In a nutshell, it's a living demonstration of the evolution of the law that many legal practitioners are excited to be a part of. (Unlike litigation-related legal fields, tax law in general is not exciting. Moreover, tax law usually changes in response to statutory and regulatory changes, so getting to be part of an actual organic change to tax law is a rare experience.)

OTOH, talking about taxing high frequency trading is ivory tower crap, because current law doesn't impose any such taxes. Thus, any discussion would be merely theoretical and academic.

<comment><USER19> > because current law doesn't impose any such taxes.

that's what I'm talking about dummy.</comment></comment></comment>


You Got Rejected by a VC, Now What? - <AUTHOR> https://news.crunchbase.com/news/you-got-rejected-by-a-vc-now-what/ <comment><USER2> Good points. I've been on all sides of this and most (good) VCs are looking for a very specific type of partnership. Thus finding the right VC that's going to love (and nurture) your idea/team/traction is a lot like finding a partner in life.</comment>


STL File Viewing - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/blog/1465-stl-file-viewing <comment><USER2> This is really cool, but I always feel kind of dirty putting my STL (or any other binary) files into a git repository.

I hope GitHub adds support for scad files soon. In theory it should be pretty easy since they already support STL -- have openscad generate an STL from the scad files on the fly.

<comment><USER3> STL has an ascii variant if you like. But the real issue is placing derived files under source control. There's no good answer here. If the STL is the output of, say, a script engine that generates parametrized parts, then of course it shouldn't be in git. If it's the output of a manual process in an interactive tool (e.g. a CAD program) then the distinction is fuzzier. It's not really the "editable source", but then neither can it be automatically derived by a build system.

<comment><USER4> > If it's the output of a manual process in an interactive tool (e.g. a CAD > program) then the distinction is fuzzier. It's not really the "editable > source", but then neither can it be automatically derived by a build system.

It sounds like what you'd really want, in that case, would be an ASCII-encoded log-structured manipulation-history format--sort of similar to a Redis Append- Only File.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Github amazes me all the time with the sheer number of features they ship over a given time period. Major props! The STL rendering is an awesome feature.

<comment><USER6> It would be great if they could setup something like this in github:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNGUJjV1zQ>

This model is a combination of stl or dae files, created with a script file that puts the coordinates of the individual stl files. I'm waiting for the day that maybe github could host full simulations and we test them out in the browser. (Now that would be cool).

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Yo github... while you're bothering, here are some other things that would be handy:

* Visual STL diffs, maybe by coloring deleted/added triangles. Possibly with a viewer on gh-pages or on the /:username/:reponame/commits/:branchname endpoint?

* DXF sucks, but yeah DXF rendering.

* Maybe consider thingiview.js (which does not use WebGL) or possibly a WebGL equivalent viewer. Controlled rotation, zooming, camera repositioning, etc. It seems that most of these features are implemented:

[https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3/blob/master/mini/z-bott...](https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3/blob/master/mini/z-bottom- left.stl)

[https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3/blob/master/mini/y-moto...](https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3/blob/master/mini/y-motor.stl)

* openscad rendering- I know this is a pain in the butt, especially since openscad still requires xserver. But at least it feels more like source code. There are some other options other than openscad that could be easier to render without an xserver, which would be fine in my book, I am not particularly attached to openscad.

* Other scripting/rendering options... maybe implicitcad, pythonocc (opencascade/python bindings), HeeksCAD/python, FreeCAD/python, OpenJSCAD, something like that. The problem with STL is that it's like transmitting compiled binaries to other developers, but what developers really want to work with is the source code. Having to commit STL is like having to commit compiled binaries.

* UI widgets for committing from SolidWorks, Pro/Engineer, CATIA, AutoCAD, HeeksCAD, FreeCAD, and other front-ends would be really useful. I would be happy to use github.com while working on my next fighter jet project.

* Upverter claims to support git, but really it's just a link to a remote git repository and you can't push your schematics to Upverter. Please feel free to eat their lying lunches. Maybe also circuitlab's (although they have never claimed to have git integration). So yeah, schematics.

* Some projects require thousands of parts that need to be included when rendering, especially in assemblies. It would be nice to be able to see a fully rendered image of a version of the repository contents. This quickly devolves into a mess of file format hell, which I imagine is not something you want to tackle. But maybe this could be done through continuous integration hooks or something?

For whatever it's worth, here's a terrible post-receive bash script I wrote in 2010 for scad rendering on a git server:

<http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/irc/gitduino-post-receive.sh.txt>

* It would be exceedingly awesome if you could get the RepRap project to jump ship from svn to git. RepRap is the largest, most well organized open source hardware project, and I think it would be a great community to work with to show how strong git is for distributed hardware development.

There are already some really excellent RepRap projects in git repositories on github:

<https://github.com/josefprusa/PrusaMendel>

<https://github.com/josefprusa/Prusa3/tree/master/mini>

<comment><USER8> LOL you talk about such features as if they're simple add-ons! Each is a huuuuge commitment from dev to maintenance. But yea, it'd be nice.

GrabCAD is about as close to this as you get as far as implementing solid CAD stuff.

<comment><USER9> The maintenance commitment cannot be understated. If you add some kind of processing to a file format, people are going to expect it to always be there, and always work, so you're taking on an eternal renderer maintenance workload. That said, we'd love to cleverly render all sorts of formats. The limitation is the time and developer energy to do it _right_ and keep it updated.

<comment><USER10> Why not allow third parties to develop plugins, if you don't want to maintain the feature yourself?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm surprised nobody has mentioned <https://sketchfab.com/>, which does this for pretty much any 3D file.

</comment><comment><USER12> Getting the following error when loading an STL file on GitHub:

        Invalid 'X-Frame-Options' header encountered when loading 'https://render.github.com/view/3d/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fraw.github.com%2FEmmanuelG%2FFoldaRap2%2Fmaster%2Fstl%2Flower-corners.stl': 'ALLOW-FROM: https://github.com/' is not a recognized directive. The header will be ignored.

(from [https://github.com/EmmanuelG/FoldaRap2/blob/master/stl/lower...](https://github.com/EmmanuelG/FoldaRap2/blob/master/stl/lower- corners.stl))

Running Chrome stable. Looks like a malformed cross-origin directive?

EDIT: The error is still here but it works from time to time. Some of the time I get a "Something went wrong? Reload" message, the rest of the time, the 3D model actually appears.

<comment><USER13> Chrome doesn't have support for the `ALLOW-FROM` `X-Frame-Options` option, and just complains about it when it sees it.

See: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTTP/X-Frame- Option...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/HTTP/X-Frame-Options)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is the source for this STL Three.JS viewer available on GitHub?

It's be nice if, when you sign in, you could change which viewer was associated with which file type. Then I could fork their viewer, add my own features, and use that.

</comment><comment><USER15> Strange- I just pushed an STL file from a Lynx camera that was taken of me at SXSW and it won't view. Any ideas what's wrong?

[https://github.com/tibbon/my-3d-models/blob/master/me- in-3d....](https://github.com/tibbon/my-3d-models/blob/master/me-in-3d.stl)

<comment><USER13> Your file is 11MB :(

<comment><USER15> Oh, that might do it. I didn't realize how big of files the Lynx creates...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's also a huge market for scientific collaboration. GitHub has lots of space to grow. <https://www.scigit.com>

</comment><comment><USER17> There's already a github for 3D models, it's called Sketchfab (<http://sketchfab.com>) and it rocks.

<comment><USER7> > There's already a github for 3D models, it's called Sketchfab

Sketchfab doesn't have native support for git repositories. You could upload a tarball of a git repository, but that's seriously missing the point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Cool, it works pretty well.

Next step: support Wavefront's .OBJ files.

<comment><USER19> Implementations would no doubt be similar, but here they are targeting hardware/manufacturing, not gaming/graphics.

<comment><USER10> You wrote this comment in multiple places, but it's wrong. All 3D printing services I am aware of accept OBJ. Many printer softwares accept it. In fact, as soon as you want to print in color, you have to move away from STL and OBJ would be a good choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Only a matter of time before someone writes a service hook for automatic 3-D printing of a model after each push....

That or Thingiverse integration.

<comment><USER21> GitHub's Make Me project might be close to what you're looking for. <https://github.com/blog/1368-releasing-make-me>

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is the blog post broken for anybody else using Firefox? The font is completely messed up for me. Both in Nightly and 20.0.

<comment><USER23> I'm on Aurora, it's not here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I remember a few years ago Collada was quite the popular 3D file format. What are the latest trends in that field now?

<comment><USER19> Different fields. Collada was for 3D graphics (and I don't know what's going on in that field).

STL is for manufacturing. STL has long been popular for commercial FDMs and CNC machines, and it is also what hobbyists use for their FDMs ("3D printers").

<comment><USER24> Ah, this is for 3D printers, no wonder it got popular enough for GitHub to add support for visualizing it. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> wow. I built a STL file viewer and showed it to hacker news a few days ago and got absolutely no response. (www.supercuber.com). It was a different account though. I realize that this is quite a bit different than supercuber but its amazing how different the traffic to two similar links can be.

</comment><comment><USER26> Collada support pls.

<comment><USER27> Fuck. That.

Here, here's the specs for that pile of offal:

<http://www.khronos.org/collada/>

It's a shitty, bad, bloated, slow, rubbish XML format. It has accumulated so much garbage in the name of interop that it is overkill for >95% of applications, and parsing/generating it is really annoying. It's a solution in search of a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Why STL? I'd wager OBJ is a much more common interchange format for 3D models.

<comment><USER19> OBJ is for 3D graphics, STL is for 3D manufacturing.

<comment><USER28> Wasn't really my point.

<comment><USER19> Well, github is targeting users of 3D printers, not game/graphics developers.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Roll-Up Notifications as a Service? - <AUTHOR> Hi HN, does anyone know of a service that allows me to push notifications to a central place then manages the users' roll-up preferences for me?<p>It seems like most services are focused on event-based or marketing notifications but I haven't seen something that will help with a daily/weekly digest format? <comment><USER2> Typically implement this as using cron - you have some logic around which users should be sent a message, tracking this in the db, then send the notification when the cron job runs every day or week or whatever.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, totally. Was just curious if someone had made this process just a little bit easier.</comment></comment>


OS Technologies to Watch - <AUTHOR> http://gfxmonk.net/2015/01/04/os-technologies-to-watch.html <comment><USER2> It's nice that Sandstorm is mentioned, as a way of users running web services under their own control. I think it's worth also pointing out that one of the uses of Mirage OS (also mentioned) is to build/deploy small services that can give users control of their data -- a project called Nymote [1]. The website needs a refresh and I haven't updated the blog in a while but I'll be making more time for it this year. If anyone's interested in the technical aspects, then the Mirage mailing list is the one to join.

[1] [http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing- nymote/](http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This article put into words the way I feel about Docker in the presence of Nix and GNU Guix. Docker is really a weak tool by comparison.

<comment><USER4> While Docker specifically is bit lackluster, I still feel like the underlying container concept/tech and nix would complement each other nicely. Nix for building the rootfs and lxc (or whatever suitable runtime) to run it.

<comment><USER5> That's exactly the kind of tool I'd love to see in 2015. Not only but in particular for Haskell development. nix seems to gain traction to set up your dev environment, but it's still pretty clunky to use at this point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Docker was written off with the caveat of, "but I still use it for my local development environment". I feel like that's a huge advantage for Docker. Maybe I missed it, but all the other mentioned technologies didn't try to solve the problem of providing a consistent development to production environment. That said, Docker still has a lot of problems around making the dev-to-production experience smooth, especially for teams that use OS X for development and run Linux in production.

<comment><USER7> That's always been the least interesting thing about Docker for me, since Vagrant solves that particular problem much more completely, and has been around a lot longer than Docker has.

Using Docker for this forces you to do things the Docker way, whereas Vagrant is much more OS and CM agnostic. (CM is configuration manager: you can use puppet, chef, ansible, shell, salt or even Docker: whatever you're already using in production).

<comment><USER8> My current web app is composed of 10 database hosts and 11 REST APIs. 21 VMs would blow my laptop's resources away while 21 containers run just fine. For me, that makes Docker a lot more attractive for local development. Also, Docker removes the need for a CM if you are into stateless deployments.

<comment><USER7> If you're running a large number of VM's, vagrant-lxc is awesome, so are offsite targets. (digital ocean, AWS, et cetera)

Vagrant also has more options for stateless deployments than Docker: docker, packer, nixos, et cetera.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> What a great list; I used this holiday season to build a similar list actually. Genode's potential is really understated in the post - it can apparently run a number of different microkernels including the formally verified seL4 which provides secure isolation of each individual driver, VM, or process. They seem to have some Linux interoperability going too. I really want to find the time to dig into this one some more.

Qubes is great, however the project really is a bit absolutist in my (amateur) opinion in placing _all_ the trust in isolation: I still care about integrity of the isolated environments too, but Qubes seems to somewhat throw that baby out with the bathwater by, for example, insisting on passwordless sudo in all AppVMs.

I get where they are coming from - local privescs are a dime a dozen and they have a small team. Linux process isolation sucks but is it _that_ worthless that we should deliberately introduce new vulnerabilities by leaving the doors completely wide open? When the skids find a new RCE in my crappy mail client or attachment viewer, the effort required to engineer exploits is massively reduced.

<comment><USER10> _> which provides secure isolation of each individual driver_

seL4 is great and all, but this is simply not possible as long as hardware devices can access memory. For example, a graphics driver can program the GPU to overwrite arbitrary system memory, regardless of how drivers are "isolated" by the kernel.

<comment><USER11> > a graphics driver can program the GPU to overwrite arbitrary system memory

Unless there's a hardware IOMMU configured by Genode, Xen, etc, [http://transpute.github.io/test1/related/](http://transpute.github.io/test1/related/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm surprised BOSH isn't brought up more when I see discussions on stateless deployment. Maybe I'm biased as I spent some months as an intern on that team but I definitely think it has a place in a thread like this. Check out [http://github.com/cloudfoundry/bosh](http://github.com/cloudfoundry/bosh) or the #bosh channel on freenode

<comment><USER13> I agree, BOSH is pretty darn cool. Once you have learned the quirks of it.

Currently I think a couple of things that stands in the way of it being more widespread.

* Its tedious to create a new release.

* The documentation is scattered.

* Distributing a release can be a bit tricky. Spiff + deployment templates doesn't really scale that well. For CF we have to pipe to a mod script just because the original templates are not flexible enough, i.e "./generate-manifest infra stub.yml | ./add-extra-releases-and-change-static-logging-levels-and-other-random-stuff > manifest.yml"

* Its sufficiently different even for a seasoned admin that it will take some time to get up and running and understanding how stuff fits together end to end. Currently it feels like the only way to understand BOSH is to understand BOSH.

<comment><USER12> Those are really good points and they're actively working on improving all of the points you've mentioned. I can't encourage you enough to join the IRC channel or create Github issues, especially with regards to the documentation. I personally spent a significant portion of time working directly with the project manager on improving the documentation, but your feedback too is invaluable. Please speak up about these issues to the team or submit pull requests. They love to see this kind of feedback and these kinds of contributions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Excellent article. I like the sound of OSv, which attempts to make appliances that run on hypervisors: [https://github.com/cloudius- systems/osv](https://github.com/cloudius-systems/osv)

Sandstorm looks interesting. I'm slightly skeptical as the homepage has a link to their enterprise sales, yet it's hyped as a project of good will. I'd like to hear more about their business model. From a technical side, the project makes a lot of sense. But I'd rather see something like OSv be made to run on users' machines and phones and not just cloud systems, which would let app authors distribute directly to users with little hassle.

</comment><comment><USER15> I really like the concept of MirageOS. I think its the only way to scale up above c10m [1].

In Mirage single application servers are able to git rid of a ton of the multiprocess kernel complexity. One really cool improvement/simplification I'd like to see: I'd like to remove all CPU level security (ie. context switches). For now I don't see the benefit of removing memory safety/abstraction but that could be discussed.

Something like a SQL DB is the perfect example. In production its the only application on the OS. It already has its own set of security concerns (the majority of which are not solved by context switching). Yes, it increases the scope of a DBs security concerns, but it allows the application to choose its own security model. The DB has as much power as the kernel now, so maybe the DB would reimplement context switches for all network activity (be as safe as the Kernel lets it be today)? Maybe instead it would optimize context switches away for a majority of calls except writes? The possibilities/optimizations only grow, at the cost of only a 5-10% code size increase (ie to implement the subset of kernel security features that it actually needs).

The other really nice thing about this could be: Imagine if Mirage allowed you to run a process with kernel level permissions and (as I understand it) it already allows that one process to run arbitrary OCaml on a selected CPU core. Imagine then the one process built into Mirage was the code for multi- process/multi-thread management with scheduling, message passing, security, signals and all the bells and whistles of a monolithic kernel.

You could essentially construct monolithic kernels on the same framework that allowed us to build optimized databases, optimized servers.

I think this set of lower level libraries, would be a game changer. If these libraries (framework) for building monolithic applications could be extracted out of the Linux kernel that would be huge since you could run it on any device Linux currently has drivers for (think embedded). However, even as it stands if you could create a framework for building Kernels with MirageOS on Xen, that would be really impressive.

[1] [http://c10m.robertgraham.com/p/manifesto.html](http://c10m.robertgraham.com/p/manifesto.html)

<comment><USER16> That's actually an interesting point wiht regard to SQL DB: deploying PostgreSQL and juggling around with all the different permission/ login setting have always been one of my most dislike aspect of it. Considering that it's true most DB server would only run the DB, is there any unikernel for such task?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There's also bromium, which is very similar to qubes-os but backed by a big startup ,so it's polished for enterprise usage. The drawback is probably the price.

<comment><USER9> And accessibility to small business.

<comment><USER17> True, and i see that prices are quite reasonable, $150/seat at low volume.

<comment><USER9> Wow, that's new - there didn't seem to be any low volume pricing info at all until now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ling, the Erlang VM directly on Xen seems neat.[0]

Folks have talked about composable OS frameworks / domain-specific OSes in the usual suspects of Erlang, OCaml, perhaps Haskell... especially useful for soft-realtime / embedded.

Irdis is neat.[1]

0: [http://build.erlangonxen.org/](http://build.erlangonxen.org/)

1: [http://www.idris-lang.org/](http://www.idris-lang.org/)

<comment><USER19> HaLVM is similar sort of project which uses the Haskell VM.

[https://github.com/GaloisInc/HaLVM](https://github.com/GaloisInc/HaLVM)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Also perhaps worth mentioning Baserock ([http://wiki.baserock.org](http://wiki.baserock.org)) which can reproducibly build an OS from sources in git and deploy the resulting artifact to various popular targets, kvm, virtualbox, openstack etc.

<comment><USER11> This seems to be associated with GENIVI, Yocto and OpenEmbedded for automotive. If this can reproducibly build any Yocto-based OS, are there plans to upstream this capability to Yocto?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are videos of talks on both Genode and OpenMirage from the OS conference I organized back in November [1] - I tried to get a Qubes talk too, hopefully this year.

[1] [https://operatingsystems.io/](https://operatingsystems.io/)

<comment><USER22> consider inviting the muen developers ([http://muen.sk](http://muen.sk)). They work on a verified separation kernel, which is not exactly a "new way" (SKs have literature going back to the 60s, but so does nearly everything else on that list, too), but it's certainly not common knowledge these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Yesterday, I've attended a container presentation held by Microsoft. They mentioned CoreOS ([https://coreos.com/](https://coreos.com/)) for a potential alternative to Docker.

<comment><USER24> CoreOS is a Linux distribution which was originally designed to _run_ Docker. So it's not really an alternative to Docker.

I guess they meant Rocket ([https://github.com/coreos/rocket](https://github.com/coreos/rocket)). Rocket is an app container runtime similar to Docker, which is developed by the CoreOS group.

<comment><USER23> You must be right, as a non-engineer I probably caught the wrong name during the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> For windows users, a docker alternative is sandboxie. WinNT series has almost all required features ever since the early nineties - it's just not exposed in the Win32 UI. The Windows backwards compatibility layer and IE 10+ also use the sandbox functionality. Maybe Win10 comes with a easy to use sandbox UI?

An open WinNT alternative that is still in alpha is ReactOS.

<comment><USER11> Maybe not easy to use, but Win8+ includes Client Hyper-V to run Linux, FreeBSD and Windows virtual machines, [http://www.howtogeek.com/196158/how-to-create- and-run-virtua...](http://www.howtogeek.com/196158/how-to-create-and-run- virtual-machines-with-hyper-v/?PageSpeed=noscript)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I really like the idea of Qubes OS. I just wish a "lighter weight" method existed to sandbox apps or groups of apps just as well, and adopted by more mainstream operating systems, too.

</comment><comment><USER27> Actually, Clive seems to be dead. There's been no activity on the Google Group since May 2014.

</comment><comment><USER28> The other "alternative" to Docker is SmartOS, which combines KVM with Solaris zones and ZFS.

<comment><USER29> Not really.

SmartOS is an "operating system". The way it designed to decoupled may give the illusion of Docker alternative, but it certainly doesn't serve the main purpose of docker which is to only prepackaged dependencies/environment, not the whole machine.

Its the same on how LXC/KVM/Jails is not docker alternative.</comment></comment>


Uber chaos continues as investors go head to head - rising-sky https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/11/16135612/uber-invenstors-benchmark-suit-travis-kalanick <comment><AUTHOR> This is quite fascinating to me as it's the first time I've seen this kind of struggle between investors.

Are there similar high profile stories of investor infighting? What goes differently when this happens in a public company rather than a private one?</comment>


Why Scientists Should Be the Real Role Models - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jennifer-bogo/sunday-night-innovation-w_b_749841.html

<comment><USER2> hee. I just got a job doing exactly with venter, executing his "plans to engineer microbes capable of producing clean biofuels?"

I dunno. I'm really not much of a role model. Look at me, I'm unemployed, sitting around scanning HN... Also, I'm really really bad at taking lab notes. And I'm one of the better ones. I'm not making up data, or overinterpreting my results.</comment>


No Liquid Electrolyte in 'Practically Free' Sulphur Energy Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/06/ornl_boffins_suck_the_liquid_out_of_batteries/

<comment><USER2> The way we get sulfur is pretty intense - for about $13 a day unprotected workers risk their lives and health to haul hundreds of lbs of the stuff out of volcanos.</comment>