Romanian Prime Minister Admits He Has No Idea Why Romania Signed ACTA - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120205/14043517663/romanian-prime-minister-admits-he-has-no-idea-why-romania-signed-acta.shtml <comment><USER2> I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control.

It should still be known, that a lot of bad stuff has crept into EU law. But people are starting to gain awareness on these issues. And East EU people have no enthusiasm about reliving the Iron Curtain days.

<comment><USER3> >I am really glad that eastern European people are so vigilant about censorship and government control.

Ironic that they are "worried" about "government control" given how often their governments control huge chunks of the economy, private sector and the general distrust and vilification of capitalism (you think the OWS is bad, wait till you hear the ex-commies and philosophy professors talking about social justice to the plebs, these guys are in the government here). It's more about them being pissed off about piracy prevention which is common not only for personal use but also in businesses.

<comment><USER4> I don't downvote stuff on HN (I think you're just my third or fourth downvote), but I had to do it because you're factually wrong, and spreading misconceptions.

I'll just give you my country's example, Romania. Our biggest company, Petrom (it's an oil company) has been privatized just before our entry into the EU. Its new owner? The Austrians from OMV, which has the Austrian Government as its main shareholder. Also, there are only 2 or 3 Romanian banks, which I don't think that control more than 10% of the market taken together, the rest of the banking sector is controlled by foreign-owned banks (some of them also having their Governments as major shareholders). And I could go on and on.

<comment><USER5> The poster wrote "huge chunks", not "all".

I can give an example very close to home about gov't influence here in Hungary, and that is the tech/IT sector. A huge chunk of tech/IT SMBs are directly or indirectly living off government contracts, grants, gov't companies or companies that have been privatized but retain close ties to the gov't (and are dumb). A new thing here in Hungary is EU grants, which is the same, dumb money.

The first question I routinely get as an entrepreneur is "what grant did you win?". When I say "none" and that I'm trying to bootstrap off the market they think I'm crazy or lying. (Not kidding.) Also, most SMBs that I've come in contact with over over the last 3-5 years fit the above description well.

Without going into the details of the problems with money from the gov't or the EU, this effect precludes any kind of real R&D or innovation to take place around here. In fact the word "innovation" has been hijacked here in Hungary to mean "grant money". You have gov't officials saying "there's a lot of innovation in the IT sector" which means "there's a lot of grant money given out in the IT sector". Unfortunately there are no results to show for it, it's a cargo cult culture. The succesfull tech companies we do have (LogMeIn, Prezi, IndexTools, Graphisoft) are all companies that to my knowledge stayed the hell away from gov't money.

<comment><USER6> government influence != influencing the government to throw shit-loads of money at you

<comment><USER3> They don't, it's "development programs" and "helping the economy". Startups don't have the money to lobby. It's not corruption per se, at least on the highest levels, it's simply buying votes and pretending you are accomplishing something. Technocracy at it's finest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Funny how all the regrets are AFTERWARDS.

Much easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.

"Oh well our bad, we'll just have to be plagued by these pesky rights- stripping laws."

<comment><USER8> Signing a treaty is not the same as ratifying it. Ratification is necessary for it to go into force, and that hasn't happened yet. Countries fail to ratify treaties all the time.

<comment><USER9> But it does represent a "convenient" and yet bizarre disconnect between the policy makers and the foreign service.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm not surprised at all at Boc. I'm glad he resigned, but I don't think there will be a big improvement any time soon. For the rest of HN: there were mass demonstrations lately requesting his resignation; even the President asked him and he kept refusing. In the end it looks like he left.

<comment><USER6> 1\. People still don't realize that the Boc administration was the best thing that could happen to us.

Our national debt is less than 40% of the GDP in a time of a global economic crisis. Of course it grew since 2009 from 25% so the trend is a little worrying, which is why the government implemented austerity measures, because 3 million people (the employees of private companies that pay taxes) cannot pay the bills for the rest without making cuts ... and all the money that came from privatization have been eaten by PSD.

During Boc our economy was stable without drowning us in debt (compare with Greece's debt at 173% of GDP, or with Italy's and Ireland's which are at over 100%). Also take the stability of our national currency which historically has never been so stable.

2\. I sympathize with the couple of hundred people that went to the streets. I would have gone myself, but instead of bitching about it I just work my ass off and make my own money, instead of begging for it.

There's a reason why Germany recovered after 2 world wars in which they were bitch-slapped, plus the fall of the Berlin wall which left them in recession. And now they are again amongst the biggest economies (first in Europe, fourth world-wide) ... they aren't beggars, while we are.

<comment><USER11> ->2\. I sympathize with the couple of hundred people that went to the streets. I would have gone myself, but instead of bitching about it I just work my ass off and make my own money, instead of begging for it.

This. I know there are people who believe they have no opportunities, but most of the times they're wrong. There's ALWAYS an opportunity to make money and take care of yourself. Blaming the government and demanding that they take better care of you is just irresponsible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Romania (its administration) has proved many times that it cannot think by itself, it just fallows others, with the mentality if others say so who are we to say otherwise.

PS: I am romanian.

<comment><USER13> Sadly, the same is true for majority of governments in European countries.

<comment><USER14> For the majority of European countries? Can you give some examples?

<comment><USER15> Czech republic sometimes does things its own way and it's even worse...

<comment><USER16> Staying out of the Euro (for now) hasn't been so bad. They're on track to be admitted eventually, but their euro-skeptic government probably slows that down...

<comment><USER15> well, that's debatable. It annoys normal folks (who have to exchange money when going abroad) and businesses (who have to hedge against exchange rate changes). And in the end when shit goes down in Hungary it takes CZK down too.

<comment><USER16> The upside is they can devalue their currency to address trade balance and solvency issues. Something Ireland, Greece, and Spain can't do. It beats the pants off trying to lower wages.

<comment><USER15> Sure. Devaluation is a whole lot of pain and a political suicide, though

<comment><USER16> The value of currencies goes up and down according to much more than political whims. It's also good for exports, which the Czech Rep is strong in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is so absurd that it sounds like a headline from The Onion. Truth is stranger than fiction, I guess.

<comment><USER18> Absurd, but not unusual today. Members of the US congress have admitted freely that they have voted for bills without having read them. Indeed, our speaker of the house even once said that it was necessary to "pass the bill to find out what's in it", because apparently reading it was out of the question: <http://youtube.com/watch?v=KoE1R-xH5To>

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is the article really suggesting that there might be a connection between ACTA and Boc's resignation ? Because that would be hilarious. (He resigned for an entirely different reason)

<comment><USER20> No, there is no link between ACTA and the resignation. The resignation is a political move trying to calm down the Romanian revolts started in January.

<comment><USER21> Yes, but I think the OP is saying that the article added an update to the end in a way that makes it seems like ACTA and his resignation are associated.

 _"Update: And... um... just like that, he's no longer Prime Minister, offering up his resignation today."_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just a note: the resignation of the prime-minister had nothing to do with ACTA.

</comment><comment><USER22> Romania has lobbyists, and i'm sure that RIAA or some Motion Picture association paid for someone's car or vacation or something. Of course, they didn't have to work as hard as in the US for SOPA, because as it was said before, our politicians are little copying puppets.

</comment><comment><USER23> The Prime Minister actually quit yesterday so it's the "former" Prime Minister.

</comment><comment><USER24> He signed because he was a puppet.

</comment><comment><USER25> It happens when a treaty is drafted in secret and the leading countries behind it don't have open debate on it before signing it.</comment>


The smartphone is our era's cigarette – and just as hard to quit - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/23/smartphone-techology-iphone-mobile-cigarettes <comment><USER2> Cal Newport's _Digital Minimalism_ goes into this quite a bit. It's worth the 250 easy pages, I think.

In the first half of the book he makes the case that smartphone addiction in particular is much more harmful to society than immediately obvious. Many people nowadays spend literally zero time just alone with their thoughts, ever. Unlike with the previous decade's simpler "Internet addiction," even those brief moments when we used to be forced to do so, whether we liked it or not -- like waiting on line at the store -- are gone. He argues that this has extreme deleterious effects on our mental health. The situation is especially dire with the generation that has grown up knowing no other way.

The second half of the book consists of various techniques ("practices") to combat this in our own lives. (More useful ones, than e.g. "delete facebook")

</comment><comment><USER3> Maybe I am taking this too seriously, but I find this kind of parallel unhelpful at best. Smartphones themselves are a huge time sink for a lot of people that is absolutely true and I have no doubt that it can also be considered an addiction.

That being said, smoking is a health problem that has no positive impact at all on our society. By comparison, smartphones can be used as a tool to access a treasure trove of information online. From obscure claims your brother-in- law can make to looking up recipes when cooking, without forgetting learning a language on the bus with Duolingo. Therefore, I think smartphones are above all a very useful tool, and I believe perhaps foolishly that in time we will find an equilibrium that does not include going back to not having one.</comment>


Google finally puts the Google into Google App Engine - <AUTHOR> https://developers.google.com/appengine/docs/python/search/overview

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's the official announcement: [http://googleappengine.blogspot.in/2012/05/looking-for- searc...](http://googleappengine.blogspot.in/2012/05/looking-for-search-find- it-on-google.html)</comment>


Why the dollar is going to collapse - <AUTHOR> http://angloaustria.blogspot.com/2009/07/why-dollar-is-going-to-collapse.html

<comment><USER2> You seem obsessed with this topic, but I question the quality of your sources and analysis. Of course if there were an exponential rise in money supply or similar absent a different fiscal, monetary and regulatory climate then this would be deeply alarming. But I feel you're making a meta-version of the same mistake many economists did, of over-extrapolating from a short trend. Massive policy changes inevitably result in discontinuities of quantitative data, so it's a mistake to apply the trend which obtained up to the discontinuity to the new discontinuity.

To take an oft-used metaphor, suppose the economy is a car or truck and money supply is one part of the steering system. If you notice you're heading for a crash, well you're going to spin the wheel hard or slam on the brakes - there's your discontinuity. The path of the car, on the other hand (which is GDP), will change more slowly. And once you've observed that the new course takes you out of immediate danger, you can then moderate the control system which you had drastically changed. In other words, slamming on the brakes (or accelerating out of danger, or swerving - adjust your metaphor to taste) does not _in itself_ damage the car, but aims to substantially alter its vector.

In the bigger picture, addressing the question of whether the US economy will be in the toilet or at least near to it for years to come, of course it will. Just as the unpleasant effects of a hangover can often go on longer than the drinking party which induced it, so it will take time to unwind and recover from the serious structural imbalances of recent years. Obviously, I have a more sanguine view of this process than you do, as I believe it will still be possible for opportunity and growth to take place in the US. If you find my view dangerously laid-back, I guess the appropriate thing for you would be to invest heavily in defense contractors and raw materials.

<comment><AUTHOR> there's one incorrect logic in your statement:

You assume US can just slam on the brakes and the brakes would stop the car completely. When in fact, with the massive amount of baby boomers retiring/draining SS and medicare, the disappearance of our manufacturing sectors, the increasing commodity (food, oil) prices, and the need to pay back 100T+ debt owed to foreign countries and to ourselves, I suggest that it is impossible.

<comment><USER3> "massive amount of baby boomers retiring/draining SS and medicare"

This is deflationary, at least in asset markets. Retiring baby boomers = pulling their money out of the stock market = falling stock prices.

"the disappearance of our manufacturing sectors"

Deflationary in consumer markets, inflation in asset markets, at least to the extent that it results in job losses and concentration of wealth among a professional/capitalist class. Wealthy people tend to spend a lower fraction of their income.

"the increasing commodity (food, oil) prices,"

This is an effect, not a cause. Saying that higher prices cause inflation (while somewhat true...see wage/price spiral) is circular reasoning.

"the need to pay back 100T+ debt owed to foreign countries and to ourselves"

Deflationary. Debt increases the money supply; paying back that debt reduces it. This is a large part of why the Fed's actions haven't triggered inflation: they're compensating for _destruction_ of money as homeowners default in droves.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was talking more about the economy with my list.

As far as deflation is concerned, there's deflation in things we want (houses, cars, luxury items), and inflation in things we need (food, oil, gas, utilities).

Until hyperinflation hits, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an interesting (as in "odd") exercise, go to the root node of the blog (<http://angloaustria.blogspot.com/>) and notice the phrase "Curse of Maturin Towers".

After asking yourself "WTF does that mean?", do a Google search for the aforementioned phrase ([http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Curse+of+Maturin+Towers](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Curse+of+Maturin+Towers)); hmm, no useful results (that is, we could not find a definition).

Now do a Google search for "Maturin Towers" as an exact phrase ([http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Maturin+Towers](http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=Maturin+Towers)) and notice we have 300+ hits for a rather odd exact phrase; all of which point to, or are directly related to, the AngloAustria blog (<http://angloaustria.blogspot.com/>).

Could this be an well crafted SEO blog designed to tell people what they want to hear?

<comment><USER2> Well, the blog is authored by one 'Jack Maturin'. And referring to one's residence as '(Lastname) Towers' is a popular comic trope among Brits. 'Curse of Maturin Towers' has all the romance and implied danger of a Sherlock Holmes story, but stems from his rueful discovery that a confident prediction has turned out completely wrong shortly after he made it.

An American would mention Murphy's Law, without meaning to imply there was ever a legislator named Murphy who went around causing things to fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This "flying up impossibly at the last minute" is a feature of graphs of national debt (<http://images.google.com/images?q=national+debt>), but it's also a feature of graphs of US furniture sales.

I'm not saying the US dollar is fine. I'm just tired of people using this kind of graph to try to make a point.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am sure we'll see increased inflation, will it go as high as it did in the 70s-80s maybe. But this article is claiming the sky is falling. Oooh look scary charts, never mind what velocity of money is or how it works, or that the Fed can increase AND decrease the money supply, just look at those scary charts!

<comment><AUTHOR> You believe the same Fed that gave bankers billions of dollars and is actively working against congress to be audited, is going to 'decrease the money supply', ignore our huge debt and save us all?

You are drinking alot of government kool-aid. Keep watching CNBC.

<comment><USER7> Do you know what hyper inflation does to banks?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am not saying inflation should not be a serious concern, however the article fails to mention that the Fed changed the rules so they can now pay interest on these reserves. That's a massive change in law and policy and is the Fed's primary answer to articles like this one, so it's weird the author completely misses that point.

Here's what FRB NY's Dudley said this week - from Reuters article:

"Dudley argued that the Fed's large and growing balance sheet is nothing that prevents the Fed from controlling inflation once the economy corrects. 'It is not the case that our expanded balance sheet will inevitably prove inflationary,' he said.

Specifically, Dudley said the Fed's new ability to pay interest on excess reserves is a critical tool it uses to keep banks from lending these reserves and thereby creating new credit and boosting inflation. 'Thus, through the IOER rate (interest on excess reserves), the Federal Reserve can effectively retain control of monetary policy,' he said, noting that the Fed can increase the IOER rate if banks begin to find it more profitable to lend these reserves."

<http://www.forbes.com/feeds/afx/2009/07/29/afx6714000.html>

</comment><comment><USER9> The Fed now pays interest on reserves (new as of last fall). When the Fed wants to pull that money out, it can (1) raise the interest rate on reserves, thus encouraging banks to hold the reserves and (2) sell the assets it bought to raise the monetary base.

Looking at, for example, the current yield on treasuries shows very little inflation expectations.

<comment><USER10> the gap between treasuries and TIPS is growing nicely, signally at least inflationary expectations

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I looked through your submissions and the other pages on that blog for a bit, interesting collection.

Stuff that matters indeed.

In the interest of full disclosure, do you still hold dollars or have you completely converted to gold now ?

<comment><USER12> Of course, in the case of a true doomsday situation, gold will also inflate - people will be desperate, and increasing amounts of gold required to get anywhere. Without a functioning economy, everything is scarce => expensive.

<comment><USER13> I have a gun. You have gold. Which do you think is more valuable?

Force trumps money, currency, and metal. In a true doomsday situation, the guy with the gun will always have more in the bank than the guy with the gold.

<comment><USER12> Using force to extort people usually ends badly, except for dictators at the top of the chain. You will never find security in weapons.

<comment><USER13> This isn't about using force to extort, this is about using force during an end-of-the-world situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> i think the point here is that for the first time in quite a while the dollar has a legitimate _chance_ at hitting a doomsday scenario. whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but the odds are greater than they have been historically.

keep in mind that during the depression we were on the gold standard, thus there was none of the inflationary/deflationary risk of a fiat currency..

<comment><USER15> "keep in mind that during the depression we were on the gold standard, thus there was none of the inflationary/deflationary risk of a fiat currency"

Sure there was. Gold as _currency_ is just as susceptible to instability as anything else, as a simple thought experiment can show.

Consider that the supply of gold, though growing, grows extremely slowly. The supply of goods and services which are exchanged in economic transactions (and for which currency acts as a proxy), however, goes through great spurts of growth which the supply of gold cannot hope to match. Thus, a gold standard during such a spurt can only lead to widespread deflation (as would any currency which failed to keep pace with the quantity of goods and services it must stand in for).

I really don't know why people harbor this mystical belief that a shiny piece of metal is somehow immune to well-understood economic principles.

<comment><USER16> > I really don't know why people harbor this mystical belief that a shiny > piece of metal is somehow immune to well-understood economic principles.

Because thinking is hard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I just hear it everywhere. I'm sure the whole world has too much at stake if US Dollar loses its value. The economy might stagflate for a while, but I believe it will eventually recover. After all, USA is the largest economy in the world.

<comment><USER11> The USA does not have the largest economy in the world by far:

[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Nominal_G...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Nominal_GDP_IMF_2008_millions_of_USD.jpg)

<comment><USER17> But technically EU isn't a country right?

<comment><USER18> Does it absolutely have to be a country to be relevant? The EU share the same currency. I don't know for sure, but I can't quite think of a reason why economies absolutely have to be countries.

<comment><USER19> Eurozone != EU

When you sum the GDPs of Euro using countries, you get 12.23 trillion dollars, or slightly less than the USA's GDP ([http://www03.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=eurozone+gdp+vs+USA+g...](http://www03.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=eurozone+gdp+vs+USA+gdp)).

How the size of an economy correlates with its resillience remains an entrirely different question IMHO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The OP made a point of mentioning the potential effects of fractional reserve banking, but apparently "forgot" to mention that the Fed can raise reserve requirements any time it wants to reduce the effects the OP is concerned about.

</comment><comment><USER21> Flagged for linking to an ignorant econo-crank.</comment>


Javascript to CoffeeScript converter - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rstacruz/js2coffee <comment><USER2> Out of curiosity I ran this over some JS code I've written before. I noticed that JS converted to coffee looks absolutely shitty compared to code that was written in coffee to begin with.

This leads me to think how much of your code style can be influenced by the syntax of your language.

coffee's syntax encourages your to create many small functions which gives coffee code its uinque look. In JS, creating functions is just cumbersome enough to type so you don't do it as often, leading to completely different code.

(my [https://github.com/pilif/tempalias/blob/master/lib/tempalias...](https://github.com/pilif/tempalias/blob/master/lib/tempalias.js) is a very good example of quite-acceptably looking JS that gets butchered looks-wise when translated into coffee)

<comment><USER3> awesome, especially since I am planning to move couple of projects to rails 3.1

most popular libraries easily got converted to coffee

but faced some problems with hand coded javascript files from a project. "Label not supported" error. going to test those with jslint

<comment><USER2> you know, there's _no need_ what so ever to convert your existing JavaScript or any third-party libraries to coffee script when you are moving to rails 3.1.

You can just keep your existing JS code, or, if you want to port that, call directly into JS libraries from your new coffescript code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why make another converter in python when we have one in JavaScript already?

<https://github.com/mindynamics/js2cs>

<comment><USER5> For one thing, notice that there haven't been any updates to that project since July 2010. The CoffeeScript language has undergone serious changes in that time, so output from that converter is largely unusable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I made a quick gist showing jquery's source getting converted to cs then back to js

<https://gist.github.com/1000151>

<comment><USER4> curious if you benchmarked it, if it would be any better.

<comment><USER6> I hacked together a quick comparison using <http://mootools.net/slickspeed/> as a base. I'll redo it publicly if anyone has interest.

The coffeescript version is most certainly worse, but negligibly so. It adds about 1-2 ms to half of the functions.

That being said, thats not surprising. Just like when you make a copy of a copy you only loose. You'll never gain by compiling back and forth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It was one of my complain about CoffeeScript[^1].

This with the existence of CoffeeScript.eval and now, I believe I will use CoffeeScript.

[^1]: [http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/2011-01-03-Why-I- sad...](http://yannesposito.com/Scratch/en/blog/2011-01-03-Why-I-sadly-won-t- use-coffeescript/)

<comment><USER8> Yannes, re your last point, look into the => function glyph, which handles the function binding issue you describe.

<comment><USER7> Yes, thank you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's probably great uses for this, such as learning and adding on to other CoffeeScript scripts. I think it's hilarious that Javascript converts to Coffeescript, which then converts to Javascript.

</comment><comment><USER10> I guess this fits the definition of a disassembler.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm sorry, surely this is taking it too far?

<comment><USER12> It seems like it could give people a nice headstart if they want to port their javascript codebase to coffeescript. At the very least, it's an interesting side project for the author.

<comment><USER11> It's a nice side project, but I can't see the functional usage of coffeescript in the long term. The whole concept of "compiling" to get valid javascript seems odd. It's not as if JS is a hard language or a particularly verbose language.

<comment><USER13> It's an ugly language.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Voyager 1 and 2 Live Mission Status - <AUTHOR> https://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/status/ <comment><USER2> Pretty cool to see it moving away from the sun at about 12 miles per second while moving closer to the earth at about 4 miles per second.</comment>


Libcrtxy – The CRT X-Y Library for drawing vector-based games - <AUTHOR> http://libcrtxy.sourceforge.net/ <comment><USER2> Neat looking library, but it seems woefully out of date for today's modern graphics pipelines. Would be cool to see a similar library but that uses OpenGL and modern GLSL shaders to more closely emulate drawing vectors on a CRT. Still this could be a neat little library for use on low end systems like a Raspberry Pi.

<comment><USER3> The owner of the github repo and myself worked on this for a while: [https://github.com/blucz/Vector](https://github.com/blucz/Vector)

It does what you said. We never took this anywhere, but it does work, and on retina displays, it's really pretty.

<comment><USER2> Wow that looks great, nice work!</comment></comment></comment>


C++ Modules in VS 2015 Update 1 - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vcblog/archive/2015/12/03/c-modules-in-vs-2015-update-1.aspx <comment><USER2> Worth remembering that the C++ standards committee hasn't yet drawn up a spec for modules. These are MSVC only for now. Clang has its own implementation.

<comment><USER3> According to MS' blog post, this is based on the current modules proposal that the committee is working on. Isn't Clang also following the same proposal?

<comment><USER4> There are two competing proposals before the committee currently. Microsoft is implementing one of them, clang is driving the other.

By pursuing implementations of different proposals the committee hopes to converge on a best compromise design incorporating lessons learned from trying them out in practice.

Slightly more info in this write up of the Oct 2015 meeting [https://botondballo.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/trip-report- c-s...](https://botondballo.wordpress.com/2015/11/09/trip-report-c-standards- meeting-in-kona-october-2015/)

<comment><USER5> curious - I remember when modules were first proposed I thought Apple was heading up the initiative, based on their work with Objective-C. I remember reading slides someone at Apple prepared describing the likely syntax and everything...

<comment><USER4> That is, more or less, the current clang proposal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Modules are often talked about as a way to speed up compilation."

How much do modules help compilation speed? This was supposedly one of the reasons Go compiles fast. Swift has modules but I don't believe that it has fast compilation.

<comment><USER7> Those of us on Apple platforms have been using modules for a while now.

They help a ton because an imported module has a pre-baked interface, not a huge set of header files that get copied and pasted (from the compiler's point of view). You cant break the module's header with a funky macro either.</comment></comment>


32C3 – Chaos Communication Congress – Streams Online - <AUTHOR> http://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/ <comment><USER2> I'm always mindblowned by the sheer number of networking equipment deployed and maintained during the conference. They now have[0] 5000 WiFi clients connected, downloading with 2.70 Gbps and uploading with 8.93 Gbps. It's like, once a year, a big part of the internet traffic is routed through Hamburg.

[0]: [http://dashboard.congress.ccc.de/](http://dashboard.congress.ccc.de/)

<comment><USER3> Someone in HN who can share some information about how to setup WiFi for high- demand? In any place I go (e.g. airports, restaurants) the WiFi is terrible.

<comment><USER4> I work for an ISP and have done wifi for events with over 10,000 attendants. We have done this exclusively with Ubiquiti equipment. I have not used any of the high-end gear that claims to be designed for this (Aerohive/Ruckus/etc...). The bottom line is, ultimately, the wifi standard is not designed for this type of deployment -- the standards do not support the features that would be needed to get the best performance in this environment. That being said, like with most things, it can often be made to work with a reasonable level of service.

There are two bands that are available for use -- 2.4ghz and 5.8ghz. Most newer devices support 5.8ghz -- there is more overall bandwidth available on the 5.8ghz band, but we have had good success deploying only 2.4ghz for public events. Deploying 802.11ac in the 5ghz band with beam steering is something that we may investigate as more clients begin to support this band.

Two of the main issues is contention for air time (bandwidth) and channel usage. Wifi is half duplex, and only one device within a cell can talk at the same time on the same channel. If the access point(AP) is talking, clients(cell phone/laptop/etc...) must listen. If a client is talking, the AP and all other clients must listen. A protocol is implemented for this, CSMA/CA [1]. Think about this for a second -- when someone is transmitting data, nobody else can receive data. This is important (will explain later).

While(in the US) there are 11 available channels in the 2.4ghz band, there are only 3 usable channels. The others overlap and will cause interference if used in the same area. 1/6/11 are the non-overlapping channels. There is a limited amount of bandwidth available in any given area on any given channel. 2.4ghz tops out at about 130mb/s over-the-air (figure about 60% usable bandwidth as a best-case scenario) so about 80mb/s. That's with a single client, clean spectrum, and a single access point. If the signal is weak or if there is interference, this number will be reduced.

Antennas and access points need to be placed and configured (transmit power) in such a manner that you control the number of devices that are within range of them such that their client densities don't get too high (you don't want 1000 people connecting to one access point, wifi's implentation of CSMA/CA breaks down with these densities) but also the targeted clients have a good signal. One thing you must consider that many people don't is, that while you can control the area and transmit power of your access point, you cannot control the client device talking to it. You must take this into consideration also. That client 150ft away on the fringe of this cell is transmitting with full power, likely interfering with another access point 250ft away that can't even hear this AP's signal.

A single low signal client can turn your 80mb/s access point into a 2mb/s access point. An access point talking to a client with a weak signal will 'downshift' and talk at a slower speed -- say 12mb/s instead of 54mb/s -- this makes it easier for the client to receive the data being transmitted without errors. But, this slower speed means more time must be spent transmitting the data, and this is time that the AP can't talk to other clients, and other clients can't talk to the AP. In this manner, a single weak signal device streaming Youtube at 2mb/s can reduce your overall bandwidth on an access point to 10mb/s or even worse. I aim for about 30 devices per access point, with a maximum distance of about 100ft in outdoor environments and 50ft indoors. In practice, this maintains a generally usable speed of about 5mb/s (you'll want to deploy bandwidth management systems to enforce this). Your overall usage will depend heavily on the type of event, but generally we see about 10% of attendants using wifi -- so based on the rule above, about one access point per 300 people.

If the layout of your event is such that this is difficult or impossible (such as a large auditorium/stadium) you can co-locate multiple access points on non-overlapping channels and handle about 1000 clients in a general area. But care must be taken to control the signal propagation if you want to support more clients in other areas as you will be using all 3 available channels thus any other nearby access points(within range) will be cutting into your available bandwidth.

This is complicated by the reluctance of most wifi devices (phones are the worst because you generally can't configure this setting on the client) to let go of a weak signal and grab a stronger one. A wifi device will generally hold on to a signal long after it has become unusable. Many of the bigger manufacturers have ways to mitigate it. With Ubiquiti, you MUST configure the "minrssi" [2] feature and it is buried in a config file on the access point controller. Most consumer grade access points do not support this feature at all.

As I get more into trying to explain this I'm realizing all of the nuances and gotchas that can really make this difficult for someone without experience to engineer and implement. I'm not sure I can effectively convey them in an HN reply but hopefully I've helped steer you in at least the right direction. Sadly, most tech companies that would be contracted to do this type of work are just as ill equipped to design and implement this.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_sense_multiple_access_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_sense_multiple_access_with_collision_avoidance)

[2]: [https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205146050-OD- UniFi-H...](https://help.ubnt.com/hc/en-us/articles/205146050-OD-UniFi-How- does-minimum-RSSI-work-)

<comment><USER5> An ironic twist to this is, that those 'low-signal' clients that get 'downshifted' are often victims of noise. And much noise is periodic or intermittent (think sparking from a microwave tube or a faulty car ignition). Packets in the air are essentially getting hit by random darts. When the AP 'downshifts' to a lower rate, it makes the packets _bigger_ targets for the darts. So the AP slows down some more. Often in a matter of a second it shifts all the way down to the bottom rate. And now has a harder time getting through.

It would be helpful if APs could distinguish between 'low signal' and 'high error rate', and respond differently. It should actually speed up when the periodic error rate is high, to make the packets smaller targets in the air. Or make them shorter. Or even try to time transmissions to the fit between the occurrences of noise.

<comment><USER4> This is absolutely correct. I don't know the inner workings of the modulation scheme selection but suspect that the downshift is solely based on the ratio of received to unreceived acks from the client -- without knowing the reason for the non-receipt. As far as I know, the wifi standard does not contain any provision for the client device to report its received signal level to the AP. The signal levels you typically see in the AP are the levels that the AP is hearing the client at.

Some access points allow you to lock the modulation at a certain rate -- if you know for a fact all of the clients will be able to receive the signal at the required level for that modulation scheme, you can increase your overall effective capacity. Unfortunately this is not usually the case. We almost never get to control the client devices and positions, and without that control, received signal levels can't be effectively predicted.

<comment> semi-extrinsic With this type of stupidity, along with the string of failures when it comes to Wifi security (WEP, WPS, the clusterfuck that is Probe Request frames, etc.), shouldn't we stop listening to the IEEE and get someone who understands hardware AND networks AND cryptography AND software to start writing the next generation of standards?

<comment><USER4> IEEE has gotten a bunch of things wrong, but they have gotten a bunch of things right as well. How many other vendor-agnostic technologies are there that work as well as Wifi? For the most part my wifi-enabled device will work with any device made by any manufacturer, from the high end ones down to the cheapest junk. That level of compatibility is rare in a standard in which participation is entirely voluntary.

I think the IEEE struck a balance between simplicity and ease of implementation and features. I don't think the goal was ever to design a standard that could handle thousands of endpoints on commodity hardware.

For what it is, wifi works great. It falls apart when you try to make it do what it wasn't designed to do. There have been missteps along the way, but overall I think the good outweighs the bad.

Lets not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

<comment> semi-extrinsic I dunno; between USB, HDMI, Bluetooth, CAN-bus, DisplayPort, PCI Express, SATA, GSM/CDMA/HSPA/LTE, etc. etc. (none of which are IEEE organized) I don't think Wifi is that unique. In particular the various cellular network technologies face many of the same challenges as Wifi and have not had major security fails (crypto implementation errors) like Wifi has had several times.

<comment><USER4> You've brought up some great examples of successful standards. Each of them in their current implementation work well for the task they were designed to do.

Many of them have not been without their failures. GSM had several long- standing security issues, some of which went on uncorrected after disclosure [1]. WEP was designed in the 90s and I believe there are a large number of security/encryption methods designed in the 90s that have since been proven flawed, either in design or implementation (RC4/MD5/SHA1 to name a few) Bluetooth has gone a completely different direction than it's original design and is also not without its failures. But the main difference is, each of the standards you listed was designed for a specific task, and works well in doing what it was designed to do. When you leave that area of designed function, they start to break down.

In relation to the wireless technologies(GSM/HSPA/CDMA/LTE, et al...), their design goal was indeed massive systems with 1000's of clients. They employ various technologies that would generally be cost-prohibitive or otherwise impractical (such as GPS synchronization) in the commodity consumer market. I haven't seen the price tag for an LTE tower site, but I bet it is several orders of magnitude larger than a $120 consumer router. Wifi was never designed to do this.

I agree that wifi is not unique in its success, nor is it unique in its failures. This extends to most entities in general. All have their failures and successes, including IEEE.

On a side note, I have never been that concerned with wifi encryption. The vast majority of wifi access is access to the internet. If you are not securing your data before it leaves your control, the short hop over to the access point is the least of your problems.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM#GSM_Security](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GSM#GSM_Security)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They did a presentation about Red Star OS [1] using Red Star OS. Brilliant.

EDIT: [http://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/hall6](http://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/hall6)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Star_OS)

<comment><USER7> You mean they do. [http://cdn.c3voc.de/s4_native_sd.webm](http://cdn.c3voc.de/s4_native_sd.webm)

<comment><USER6> Yes, thanks. I wasn't sure if I should link to the hall presentation since it seems like the link won't point to this presentation for very long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> As a side node, you can join the discussion on IRC (hackint):

#32c3-hall-1

#32c3-hall-2

#32c3-hall-G

#32c3-hall-6

#32c3-everywhere

\- [http://32c3-wiki.top/congress/2015/wiki/Congress_Everywhere](http://32c3-wiki.top/congress/2015/wiki/Congress_Everywhere)

\- [https://hackint.eu/](https://hackint.eu/)

<comment><USER8> Alternatively in the browser:

[https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3](https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3)

[https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-1](https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-1)

[https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-2](https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-2)

[https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-G](https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-G)

[https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-6](https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-hall-6)

[https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-everywhere](https://webirc.hackint.org/#32c3-everywhere)

JSON of all streaming URLs:

[https://streaming.media.ccc.de/streams/v1.json](https://streaming.media.ccc.de/streams/v1.json)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://ccc.de/en/updates/2015/fatuma](http://ccc.de/en/updates/2015/fatuma)

Fatuma Musa Afrah gave the keynote speech at the annual hacker conference, the 32nd Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg/Germany.

She is from Somalia and lives currently in Berlin/Germany as a refugee/newcomer.

</comment><comment><USER10> Where can I find a list of the scheduled talks? I found this link but I get a 503 and the cached version is not navigable.

[http://events.ccc.de/](http://events.ccc.de/)

EDIT: [https://events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/)

This link works

</comment><comment><USER11> Simon Menner's "What does Big Brother see, while he is watching?" talk is a really interesting look at the Cold War. Does anyone know where the VODs will be available so others can watch it later?

<comment> def- [https://media.ccc.de/b/congress/2015](https://media.ccc.de/b/congress/2015)

[https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/](https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "Use a desktop player! Browsers and video doesn't go together well, even in 2015 and especially when it's live. So for your best viewing experience please use a desktop player like VLC or mplayer."

Am I the only one to be bothered by this comment.

<comment><USER13> Why are you bothered by it. It's true. HTML5 live streaming is only reasonably done by Apple and only works in Safari. I wouldn't push flash video streaming if I were them either.

Which leaves streaming over http (not using the browser) or rtmp

<comment><USER14> Firefox's built-in mp4 player is working for me well, for both live streams and recordings (the "re-live" section of streaming, which has all the talks that happened before folks in America woke up). So, they're at:

[http://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/](http://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/)

BTW, there's also a flash player for the "re-live" stuff, which isn't working for me on Linux at all; if you're having trouble with it, try the mp4s. (Just as well; I get to shove the flash-enabled browser profile back in its box.)

<comment><USER15> For me Firefox seems to be doing some weird thing with the live video where you'll watch it and it will get stuck due to congestion or whatever, and then refreshing the page appears to restart the video from the beginning until the point where it broke. Very odd.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is there a place where recordings get saved once they're finished or will I have to wait until the end of the conference? My internet connection is too unstable to watch them live.

<comment><USER17> Automatic stream dumps are here: [https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/](https://streaming.media.ccc.de/32c3/relive/) \-- note that they're completely automatic, no editing has been done. They include the 15 minutes before and after the talk in case it starts early or takes a bit longer.

The video operation centre will put finished releases up at [https://media.ccc.de/b/congress/2015](https://media.ccc.de/b/congress/2015) once they've finished processing. Those include translated audio (all talks will be available in English _and_ German), subtitles, intros and some audio processing.

<comment><USER16> Thanks! Downloading three talks that I really want to hear right now. I'm perfectly fine with watching them unedited.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> schedule:

[https://events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/schedule/0.html](https://events.ccc.de/congress/2015/Fahrplan/schedule/0.html)

<comment><USER19> Mirror: [http://fahrplan.top/congress/2015/Fahrplan/](http://fahrplan.top/congress/2015/Fahrplan/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> 45% Insecure WiFi traffic? at a Hacker Conference? :)

<comment><USER21> Why? I long made a point of only running "insecure" network layers at home. I sincerely believe in the stupid network, and that any security belongs above the transport.

Using the term for wireless networks at home really drives the point home that you're supposed to get your personal connection and buy your own access point, so that IP addresses finally can represent identity. That is not a coincidence.

<comment><USER20> Keep in mind though, that once your Layer 2 is hijacked, a lot of attacks are possible before upper layer security kicks in - things like browser redirection and exploitation are very common these days

<comment><USER22> Please take note of this folks. Simply trusting "transport security" isn't enough. Please do not seriously run an open access point because you think it's just as safe as the OP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The list of presentations is looong. Any recommendations?

</comment><comment><USER24> Audio is fixed now.</comment>


Looking for partner in NYC area - <AUTHOR>

Not sure if this is kosher or not, but I figured I'd throw it out there.
I am looking for one or two other people in the NYC area that are interested in partnering up to create a startup.  I already have an idea (and a very rough, but working demo), but I am open to changing it.  Also, I am interested in people who might want to take part in this summer's YC session.
Again, sorry if posting requests like this isn't acceptable, but I'd rather not go at this alone.  If you have any interest in discussing things further, please email me at email@example.com.  Thanks. <comment><USER2> > Not sure if this is kosher or not...

I think this kind of thing should be encouraged a lot more. Some kind of geography - matching would help foster a more mature community. hackrtrackr.com tried it, but I think it would work better if it were built into the system. Maybe a link on top called "local" that would somehow connect me to people around my major city (which I specify in the settings)?

^ more details in posts like this are a good idea, also. I think secrecy in startups seems to be overrated, but from the way YC tends to do business, they seem to disagree. I guess they reason it's better to err on the side of secrecy, and I'm probably irrationally biased because of the political associations of the word, but in _this_ case, it seems like a good idea to talk freely.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yea, I agree on the feature you just mentioned. I think it would be really helpful. I mean, there is a jobs tab, but that's only for previous YC companies.

Anyways, it wasn't so much that I was trying to be secretive, but like I said, I am willing to change the idea and didn't want to scare anyone off by mentioning anything in particular and I think that seems to have worked out nicely cause I have been talking to someone for a little and we are changing around the idea already, to something we both think is better. So that was where I was coming from.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This post needs some more detail.

All you said, I have an idea, want to do something, and have some kind of demo?

What kind of demo, what kind of idea (not to be specific, but generic enough so people know if it is something it might interest to them, or it is just some outlandish waste of time).

You could replace your sentence with: It would be cool to commute faster to work, I'd like to build a flying car, I have a paper drawn prototype of it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Although yc is not a "matchmaker" service, I can't imagine anyone would have a problem with your post to advance your startup. I certainly don't.

Perhaps you can meet this person:

[http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&a...](http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&lr=&as_qdr=all&q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com+NSX2&btnG=Search)

He's also from NYC and seems to have a lot to say lately. Don't know if you 2 would ever see eye to eye on anything, but you'd both probably learn SOMETHING from meeting.

</comment><comment><USER5> What kind of music do you like?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly indie rock. :)</comment></comment>


Apple changes Crimea map to meet Russian demands - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-50573069 <comment><USER2> Well Crimea is de-facto part of Russia. Dunno why tech companies making their maps reflect reality is controversial.

<comment><USER3> One can argue which country's part the Crimea is - in other words, the reality is the same, but can be described differently. In matters like this what opinion is considered correct matters a great deal - so great it can start or stop a war. So no wonder it's important.

<comment><USER2> Russia exerts actual control over the region. If you travel to Crimea, the last border you cross will be manned by Russian soldiers. They control it in reality, no matter who it should belong to. That's what de facto means.

De jure is what you're arguing.

<comment><USER3> Europe wasn't considered part of Germany during WW2, even though Germany exerted actual control; it's called "occupation".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Is The Best Hosting Service? - <AUTHOR> I do not know which hosting service I should join, and which one has the best benefits (Less than $130 per year). Please upvote the choices below (I do not have enough karma to make a vote), or add your own option as a comment. <comment><USER2> I'm particularly fond of Leaseweb's VPS series and SoftLayer's dedis for many of my hosting needs. Additionally, I've started using both DigitalOcean (medium sized projects) and RamNode (small projects) to test things out and I have a few production services running on DigitalOcean.

Leaseweb and SoftLayer have been great, one of my SoftLayer servers has been around (and 'upgraded' to each new version of the given series) for almost a decade and I have 8 servers provisioned with Leaseweb that have a combined uptime of ~99.99% (It would be higher but I borked a config and took a server down accidentally).

DigitalOcean has really impressed me, I love their 'droplets' system. Ramnode has been alright, sometimes it has exceptionally poor network throughput but that may just been the particular server I'm on

</comment><comment><USER3> I love webfaction and recommended it to everyone. Most of my businesses rely on them.

</comment><comment><USER4> Webfaction. $5 shared hosting on Nginx servers, very nice, clean system. SSH access to mess around and have fun.

I run a rock solid suite of Wordpress sites and have nothing but GREAT things to say about the experience.

</comment><comment><USER5> Digital Ocean, hard to beat $5 VPS with SSD drives and backups

<comment><USER6> This seems very cheap. I can't believe I haven't used them before. Has your experience been positive for the $5 and $10 packages?

<comment><USER3> I've only had a bad experience with them. The OS images needed were broken, and they just told me to use _another_ one. Huh.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> AMAZING++: [http://uberspace.de](http://uberspace.de)

</comment><comment><USER8> EC2 specifically, AWS generally. The learning curve is a bit steep but ultimately you will have a huge amount of power to do exactly what you want.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'd take a look at Azure.

</comment><comment><USER10> I recommend site5.com

</comment><comment><USER11> dont forget www.atlantic.net/cloud, it has a free trial!

</comment><comment><USER12> Try A Small Orange.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> JustHost/BlueHost

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> WebHostingHub

</comment><comment><USER13> Media Temple

</comment><comment><USER14> Gandi

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> HostGator

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Siteground

</comment><comment><USER15> nearlyfreespeech.net

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> iPage

<comment><USER16> I've had nothing but horrible experiences with iPage. Please DO NOT use them.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm probably not going to choose this one, but what was bad about it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> GoDaddy

<comment><USER12> NO.

<comment><AUTHOR> I did not think that was a good one either</comment></comment></comment>


John Resig - The Browser Scripting Revolution - <AUTHOR> http://ejohn.org/blog/the-browser-scripting-revolution/

<comment><USER2> I'm learning Javascript just to make a web app. There is nothing hard about it, with lots of resources available. Already knowing Python & Ruby makes things easier for me.

But if people only need to know Python, then web apps will become that much easier to make. I think this is related to the trend for smaller/lighter companies.

More people will think small and make startups if you don't need to know as much to make good applications. Lowering the number of languages needed to make an application would be a significant step in that direction. And making that language Python, which many would agree is one of the easiest languages to learn, will make it that much easier.

</comment><comment><USER3> Two thoughts: First of all, I'm a Python fan, and would like to use it client- side. But the truth is that ECMAScript ain't that bad, it's just a little strange. I'm not at all convinced that it's a huge win to use Python over ECMAScript, although I'd choose to, given the opportunity.

Secondly, this is cool, but if it depends on users installing a plug-in to IE for anything to happen, it's unlikely to amount to much. I don't see devs using anything (except Flash) that forces their users to choose between installing something (scary!) or going to another site.

</comment><comment><USER4>
     should these projects succeed the resulting effect upon
     the web development industry will be incalculable

Some coders will use Python instead of Javascript. Users wont even notice. "Revolution" might be a bit overstated.

</comment><comment><USER5> if major browsers can't standardize on a single language, what is the chance of standardizing on a dozen of them?

seriously, if that guy's family name did not sound like "Lessig", nobody would bother to read it.</comment>


Japan Wants to Power 300,000 Homes With Wireless Energy From Space - <AUTHOR> http://www.popsci.com.au/scitech/article/2009-09/japan-wants-power-300000-homes-wireless-power-space <comment><USER2> See the discussion at:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=802643>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=799806>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=799783>

</comment><comment><USER3> Am I the only one visualising the SimCity microwave power transmitter disaster scenario in his head now?</comment>


Can the Government Force Us to Buy Health Insurance? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/01/what-is-truth/68809/ <comment><USER2> If they had been a little smarter about things, we wouldn't be having this debate. For example, in Japan there are 2000 private (non-profit) insurance companies. If you don't sign up with any, they sign you up for your local municipal plan. If you don't pay the bill, they don't bother you. But if you go to the doctor, they don't pay until you pay your back premiums.

Nobody's being forced, but the moral hazard is mostly fixed.

Japan has one of the highest-rated healthcare systems in the world, doing better on us on all sorts of stats like survival rates after diagnosis of major disease. They have universal coverage. But they pay 6% of their GDP on healthcare, compared to about 17% for the U.S.

<comment><USER3> > Japan has one of the highest-rated healthcare systems in the world

Japan also has one of the least diverse populations in the world.

As always, I wonder how Japan compares to Japanese-Americans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> You Americans are crazy. Look at the rest of the western world, and how common it is for public health insurance, and how it is a good thing generally.

Out of all your issues, you pick this one to be stupidly paranoid about.

</comment><comment><USER5> In every case where insurance was made mandatory, prices went up.

<comment><USER2> [citation needed]

Insurance is mandatory in Germany, France, and Japan. Germany spends about 13% of their GDP on healthcare, Japan spends 6%, and France is in the middle. The U.S. spends 17%, and falls far behind the others in results.

Source: The Healing of America by T.R. Reid.

<comment><USER6> > _The U.S. spends 17%, and falls far behind the others in results._

Although you have to wonder how much of the results difference is due to our lousy diet.

<comment><USER2> True, but stats like "survival rates after diagnosis of major disease" seem to focus fairly well on healthcare quality. And Japan has a pretty old population, with a lot of smokers and a very high-sodium diet.

In any case, our lousy diet is partly due to agricultural subsidies that make processed and fast food cheaper than raw produce. A really good healthcare reform would fix that too.

If we really wanted to be smart, we'd phase out coal while we were at it. Estimates for health problems caused by the coal industry are pretty startling.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The way tech covers Apple is ridiculous - <AUTHOR> http://scripting.com/2013/10/22/theWayTechCoversAppleIsRidiculous <comment><USER2> This article is not about Apple, it's about the tech press's failure to uncover big stories such as the NSA case. Yet the author chose to tack on a cookie-cutter lede about Apple and to make the title about Apple. Seems hypocritical.

<comment><USER3> _the author chose to tack on a cookie-cutter lede about Apple and to make the title about Apple. Seems hypocritical._

Also, seems like an effective demonstration of the very point he's making.

<comment><USER4> I'd be interested to hear from the author if this was on purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The problem is that "tech journalists" tend to actually be business journalists. They aren't investigative journalists looking to uncover the workings and untrue assumptions of society increasingly dependent on tech. Most of them do just want to cover new companies & new products & other business news. Many of them invest in those very companies or have spouses in that business community. Yes it is a problem the way tech covers Apple compared to the way tech covers NSA. But what it reveals is that tech journalists aren't the type of journalists we need (definitely not journalists in the 4th branch of government sense) and that investigative journalists need to learn more about tech.

<comment><USER6> Are there any non-business journalists left? last time I checked CNN had no war correspondents anymore and most news sites have turned into gossip rags not that different from tabloids a decade ago.

I think the core problem is that tech is not so important for most people to care about the wrongdoings of the industry and because no pageviews=no money then nobody runs the story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Stop thinking of it as tech news and think of it as tech business news. It's news for investors, people who would like to be invested in, fashion-conscious consumers, and people who enjoy living vicariously through all three groups.

A blog that focused on computer technology would rarely have features on Apple, because they rarely (if ever?) innovate on technology. Also no one cares, other than techies, and it would be covered as badly as all other popular science, by non-techies.

People care about Apple because it can make (or lose) them money, or it provides conversational material amongst people who share an interest in the current fashion of that brand.

The coverage of different fashion houses, their shows, collections, brands, and retailers they're selling to or who are showing interest isn't materially different than popular tech coverage.

</comment><comment><USER8> A good point to note is that none of the major reports on snowden leaks came from tech journalists. The best op-eds and reporting came from the Guardian, WaPo and other main stream outlets. This speaks volumes about the path taken by Tech Journalists. Having said that, I am not sure tech news sites (mashable, techcrunch, cnet etc) are capable of "newsie" stuff. A lot of the top "Reporters" who established the industry were techies first, journalists next. We need more traditional journalists understanding and writing about the tech industry (not in a naive way, which is what happens in traditional outlets these days) in a competent manner. This will probably lead to the kind of journalism the author hopes for

</comment><comment><USER9> I think you meant "The way the press covers tech is ridiculous".

Regardless, you've got a good point. As the press adapts to new technology influencing the way it does reporting, so much it adapt to the subjects which it reports on. This is an ongoing process and I think that it is happening. The NSA case is actually a good example of that, since although maybe it could have been covered in a better way, or earlier (as seems to be your point), it was still covered quite comprehensively and continues to be covered by many organisations.

</comment><comment><USER10> I think this author should have used the title "The way journalists cover tech is ridiculously bad", which would be true of all sectors. I do think that there are definitely legitimate tech aspects in current events, like the NSA and HealthCare.gov, that should be addressed by experts. Instead we have critics who try to "explain" what is wrong with the technology, etc. revealing their incompetence to those who actually know/understand the topic. Really tech savvy people should definitely make an effort to debunk claims that are made by non-experts on tech topics, and not just share there knowledge amongst already tech savvy people.

</comment><comment><USER11> This dude looses me half way through - I think that adults can compartmentalise and choose between international news and hobby tech news. And lets not forget that modern technology is freekin incredible and Apple is the premier brand.

</comment><comment><USER12> > Where were all the comp sci grads going? Some were going to Redmond and > Silicon Valley for sure. But a lot of them were going to Maryland and > Virginia.

Well that's hardly a story, and not the point of the Snowden leaks.

> Why were none of these stories broken before? Couldn't sources have been > found to talk off the record? Weren't there people of conscience inside the > tech companies who might tell the truth?

What if they're all okay with the things they know about?

</comment><comment><USER13> There seems to be some confusion here. Covering an Apple product announcement isn't "tech news" its the the "tech news" equivalent of People Magazine. You can't look at their coverage and say its stealing coverage away from "real tech news" any more then People Magazine steals eyeballs from the Financial Times.

</comment><comment><USER14> Tech covers Apple for page views and advertisement impressions. Don't take it personally. They're businesses. They're just doing what makes fiscal sense. They'll get far more revenue from Apple articles than Snowden.

Apple events are extremely popular in the media because the media participates in circle-jerking. Decades ago Apple did not have as much media spotlight, but after key hardware releases (e.g. iPod, iMac) the media began to grow its spotlight on Apple. They knew people loved reading about Apple, so they continued to place all bets on spotlighting Apple during its events knowing the return would be high. Even if Apple was not having an event, the media would artificially build hype by spreading rumors about Apple products, knowing readers would click.

The media does this with everything. Celebrity scandals, politics, etc.

</comment><comment><USER15> Does this guy not get how journalism is structured? The senior reporter handles the big stories. The lesser reporters handle the tech releases. It's a bit muddled in the modern digital world but not as much as this guy would like to have you believe. Got pages to fill and there is too much news for a single person. Look back at any major story. The explosive headline/story about the JFK assassination or 911 was followed a few sections in by home and gardens, and entertainment. I've seen many more NSA stories since the Snowden story broke than apple stories both here, other tech blogs, and general news sites I follow.

</comment><comment><USER16> He only jabs at Apple but this happens with any new consumer product. The title is very miss leading; it should be "The way tech covers tech is ridiculous."

<comment><USER17> How about "The way media covers apple is ridiculous."?

Not every new consumer product gets a mention on national nightly news when a new iteration arrives. I find that odd and gives less credibility to the news organization in my mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> The reason is that the press is waiting for Apple to drop that next hit as they did with the iPhone, iPod etc. They want to be there when it happens and report it first. The thing is that in between those hits, you have down periods where Apple is just going to put out incremental updates, add colors, change sizes and change materials. When that hit drops, every press outlet wants to say "This is where you heard it first."

</comment><comment><USER19> It's not that tech news it out-of-whack, people (albeit non-technical) care about the latest iPad. Such events represent for "tech reporters" short windows to report on something that a broader audience will consume & appreciate.

</comment><comment><USER20> Online news is about chasing pageviews, not conveying truth or looking out for the public interest. It pays them more to milk the bajeezus out of Apple events by spinning each minor bullet point into complete articles.

</comment><comment><USER21> Its all about page views. Apple has a very loyal fanbase

<comment><USER22> Also a very large anti-fanbase.

<comment><USER23> Well whatever the case, they get coverage because they know it will get attention and interest from people. They write whats gonna be read. Either thats people reading how bad the new Apple products are or how new and innovative they are.</comment></comment></comment>


Putin's Rasputin (2011) - <AUTHOR> https://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n20/peter-pomerantsev/putins-rasputin <comment><USER2> I'm pretty sure this piece found its way into Pomerantsev's _Nothing is True and Everything is Possible_. The book is interesting, and quickly read.</comment>


This one is big: Twitter just let you auto-follow your Facebook friends - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2010/06/23/this-one-is-big-twitter-just-let-you-auto-follow-your-facebook-friends/?awesm=tnw.to_16PPu&utm_medium=tnw.to-other&utm_source=direct-tnw.to&utm_content=twitter-publisher-other <comment><AUTHOR> Hmm. I'm getting this, after allowing the Twitter app to connect:

 _An error has occurred because Facebook has blocked your ability to allow this application to look up your friends. Twitter has requested that Facebook remove the block._</comment>


Show HN: Indigenous Tweets: Connecting Minority Languages & Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://indigenoustweets.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I should note, this isn't my project, but my professor's (I've worked on other projects with him). He's blogged about the background of the project here:

[http://indigenoustweets.blogspot.com/2011/03/welcomefailte.h...](http://indigenoustweets.blogspot.com/2011/03/welcomefailte.html)

and I've blogged independently about it on my site:

[http://mschade.me/indigenous-tweets-true-worldwide- twitter-d...](http://mschade.me/indigenous-tweets-true-worldwide-twitter-disc)

I might be just a _tad_ biased, but I really do think this is a great project. Twitter obviously wants to make discovery easier on their site (by suggesting users, making it easy to search for friends), but they fall short when it comes to helping members of language communities connect.</comment>


Review my app for making server stacks social - <AUTHOR> http://stackfu.com

<comment><USER2> This looks like a great idea but I have a few concerns/questions about it:

1) As others have mentioned, there needs to be transparency on what each script does to make sure that it is not malicious. Is there a way to inspect the code without running it?

2) How do you protect the communication between stackfu and the user's servers? I saw in the video that you provide some keys, but is the connection thoroughly secured to prevent any potential spoofing? What about a potential attack that would come through the site itself and potentially access all users' activated servers? I would be very cautious to have stackfu installed as a daemon on a production server without knowing it's secure inside out -- even if I only enable it when I need it.

3) Did you consider developing a stackfu shell client? Using the command line client, you could provide some basic features like searching and running scripts. Since the scripts are started from the server itself this might be more secure. Although, you still need to make sure that the scripts are actually coming from stackfu (in case it was somehow spoofed), similar to package distribution systems (yum, apt, etc.). Another utility for the client could be to allow/disallow queued scripts sent from stackfu and maybe even a monitoring tool (see the output, previous logs, etc.).

4) How do you handle different *nix configurations? Do script authors need to make different scripts for each distribution? Do you provide a facility to only search for scripts that are compatible with your server(s)?

5) Aside from the number of deployments, do you have a rating system? Script failure and success rates? The number of deployments is hardly enough for me to choose from say 20 different Wordpress installation scripts.

<comment><AUTHOR> 1) Yes, there will be many ways to do it. One is online, clicking the scripts. We'll provide a lightbox with the code. Another way is "cloning" the script to your account (no git clone in this case, just a hard copy). You can then make changes and publish it back to your account.

2) The connections between your server and StackFu's will be done using HTTPS. We also offer the option to run the service as a daemon or as a standalone, where you have to manually confirm each installation request;

3) I am not sure I understand your concept of shell. We already have a REST API and a Ruby Gem that enables you to do things like publishing a new script, listing servers and scripts, deploy scripts, all from the command line.

4) This won't be available in beta, but we have planned as one of the possible requirements of the script to be the operating system, and that would involve doing some server side checking to make sure the proper OS is installed. Once we have that, I agree that we need to make that searchable;

5) We don't, currently, have a rating system nor rates, however they are interesting concepts. We may do a upvoting/downvoting system similar to what Reddit or StackOverflow does.

Thanks for your feedback. Keep them coming, please!

</comment></comment><comment> brown9-2 I can't comment on the technical parts of what you're offering as I don't know Rails, but it might be a good idea to use full sentences in your introductory text:

"For example, deploying full rails environment to your server for your new app. Or as simple as installing and configuring iptables on your existing live server. "

</comment><comment><USER3> I would never in my life allow an external machine to run arbitrary commands on my server. This is like giving root to some person I don't know.

Even if I could read all these scripts the service is going to execute, nobody tells me that the script I'm seeing on the web service is the script that actually gets executed.

Now. I don't insinuate that the OP is trying to take over servers, but we all know about bugs and/or the famous disgruntled employee.

If I could install this service in my own network, having full control over the scripts and the service itself, this could be useful, but giving root to some server not under my control?

This actually begins at the very first start of your video.

You want me to execute a script that I download using wget from a non-https- site. As root.

 _shudder_

<comment><AUTHOR> It will be an HTTPS site, and maybe even if you wouldn't run the scripts, would you consider contributing on the other end, writing them and sharing with less experienced users?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I notice that the web site doesn't tell me what StackFu is. I don't want to have to watch a video just to find out if the concept is interesting enough to warrant the time it takes to watch a video.

Anyway, it looks like a cool idea and I wish you the best of luck. And I've signed up for the beta. I still haven't watched the video.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agreed. We'll be addressing that and improving the text communication on the website. Thank you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If anyone wants to find out more, Join us at #stackfu on Freenode IRC and follow @stackfu on twitter.

</comment><comment><USER6> what is the "social" part? I'm not entirely sure I get what the product is. is it the sort of thing where if you don't get what it is, you probably don't need it?

<comment><USER5> The social part is, imagine like a github, where people put up code and you can see it? Same thing with stackfu. People can put up stacks and you can deploy them to your server.

Example: A user made a stack for Rails, you need rails, you go and deploy the guy's Rails stack. You'll be able to make a copy of it, edit it, review it, and make it yours if you want, fix it update and push your own version so other people can deploy it.

<comment><USER7> It reminds me of the community configs in EC2.

Are there any measures in place to deal with people who upload malicious stacks? Would they just receive negative reviews? Do you think you need to warn users to not blindly trust a stack?

<comment><AUTHOR> Take a look at my reply to timmorgan:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1748915>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The flow in the video looks great.

Easier to get into than Chef :) Hope it works as well (or better)

Signed up for the beta

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the words.

StackFu, however, is not a replacement for Chef.

With Chef you provision and manage your server's configuration, while StackFu is a social place for people to share "recipes" or stacks to be installed on your server.

Ideally, this will be the place for linux savvy folks to share their scripts. And for people who just wants to get something installed (like WordPress) to go, search and easily get it up and running.

<comment><USER9> Do you have plans for how scripts will be reviewed/flagged? I see from the video that one can see who else has deployed the script (with the assumption that a script deployed many times is most likely "safe"), but I would still feel a bit nervous about running a script blindly -- can one see the script code prior to hitting deploy?

Edit to add: I'm certain you don't want to be liable for people hosing their server with a malicious script -- I hope you have plastered all over the place that these scripts are not reviewed for quality nor mal intent (unless of course, they are?).

Another edit to add: I think this is a great idea! I could see myself using this -- I didn't mean to be such a negative nancy.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a great point. Let me address your concerns:

About being able to see the code: most definitely. Every "script" consist of zero or more requirements, one or more executions and zero or more validations. Each one is, in the end, a shell script with placeholders. You will be able see the scripts source code online and also "clone" the script to your account (not a git clone but an actual hard copy) and dump it locally using our ruby gem that talks to our API.

We will record another screencast soon about how we create new scripts and how we upload them.

About flagging scripts: we don't want to enforce any formal approval process, but we want the community to be able to flag scripts for malicious code. Another indication of quality may be the number of people who deployed it and/or watched it. We're open to suggestions and feedback on how we could improve it without making it an administrative burden. In the end, you're responsible for what you're installing in your server -- being it manually or through a script.

Thanks for such a quality feedback. Please keep'em coming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Did the idea for this come from Linode's Stackscripts?

<comment><USER5> thegyppo, no. this idea came from Webbynode's Readystack system which we developed about 2 years before linode decided to launch their version (they launched it February 9, 2010, we did 2008). (Yes, we're the guys behind Webbynode)

This is our original concept, back from 2008, they launched theirs in 2009.

Check this out [http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4459&highli...](http://www.linode.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4459&highlight=gimmicky) and also our original 'readystack' idea post <http://blog.webbynode.com/2008/10/29/webbystacks/>

This is our original concept, back from 2008.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> it's pretty neat, I'm windows developer. this kind of makes me switch to linux.</comment>


Winning an election with 22% of the popular vote - <AUTHOR> https://www.squarefree.com/2004/11/01/winning-an-election-with-22-of-the-popular-vote/ <comment><USER2> Read it, still no idea whats going on. So assuming this shit is democracy, and he only got voted by 22% (this is what it means?) how did he even win?</comment>


Code Completion Demo from OpenAI - <AUTHOR> https://player.vimeo.com/video/426819809 <comment><USER2> This is a really impressive demo and points to a very interesting future of programming where requirements can be automatically converted to code and the developer is primarily determining and phrasing unambiguous requirements and checking the resulting code.

I don't know if that's a future of software development that I would wish to see, but it's definitely interesting!</comment>


Bring Me Your Accents. Immigration Fuels Innovation - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/08/29/bring-me-your-accents-immigration-fuels-innovation/?utm_source=t.co&utm_content=awesm-publisher&awesm=bothsid.es_cFK&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=bothsid.es-twitter <comment><USER4> I will state my position unlike those afraid to speak so they can have deal- flow or perhaps enter YC.

I do not doubt that there may be correlation between people who have performed poorly in YC and "very strong accents", it does not mean causation. Such a statement from someone whom people hang to his every-word should not be put out without clarification.

The defense of "accents so strong you cannot understand" holds no water. It was an after thought. What about people that are dumb and cannot speak at all? Nothing could have stopped him from saying "people who do not communicate well make bad CEOs. As an example, thick accents, stammering, unclear minds can be the cause.

Instead of clarifying the context which I assume to be "With a strong accent you will find it to raise money on demo day which is very important" or expanding it, Paul Graham goes "Don't say things people _want to_ misunderstand"

It is insulting at best. Heaping the blame/responsibility of understanding on the readier/listener. How ironic considering the topic.

I hope his position does not lead to default bias in YC companies. "He has a strong accent, I cannot ask him to be my co founder". Or "His strong accent means he will be a bad CEO so why employ him at all"

This tread will soon disappear. But I will end with a Martin Luther King quote from the I have a dream speech 5o years ago yesterday. "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter"

<comment><USER5> _I do not doubt that there may be correlation between people who have performed poorly in YC and "very strong accents", it does not mean causation._

pg is an investor. From the point of view of angel investing, causation is not important. Correlation is enough. If some trait historically shows the company will be half as likely to succeed, why _should_ an investor put money in that company, causation be damned?

<comment><USER4> You sir, have just described pattern matching.

e.g Thee cliche white male that attended an Ivy League school was successful. therefore, to be safe I go that way all the time. This then goes ahead and pollutes your data-set because it would be built on that bias.

Now, I am not saying that those that patten match are bad, but they should at the very least try not to make their 'findings' influence other people who might have the chance to to start a new data set without bias.

<comment><USER6> If being male, being white, and attending Harvard are all positively correlated with being successful in a startup, then there's actually nothing wrong with selectively looking for those qualifiers.

Does it make it more difficult to get a foot in the door if you're female, Ecuadorian and went to a community college, despite being a phenomenal programmer with a great idea? Yes, it does make it more difficult, but that's not their problem. They are choosing where to invest their money, and using math to do so should be encouraged.

If they don't have a spreadsheet in front of them, then at the very least they should understand that prestige is prestige for a reason.

Does that make it impossible to succeed without those qualifiers? No, but it's not unfair that it's more difficult to do so without them. You can't play a fair game all the way through. Sooner or later something's going to happen that's not in your favor.

<comment><USER7> I think you just rationalized discrimination. Nice work.

<comment><USER6> I think you just disregarded my entire argument using a cultural taboo. Nice work.

See? I can play at that game too. The problem is, doing that doesn't get anywhere, because I'm still convinced of my point, and you're still convinced of yours, and there's no dialectic to compromise our ideas.

<comment><USER8> Why would he treat your argument fairly when your argument is that life is unfair?

<comment><USER6> The ridiculous logic that statement employs aside, he has no obligation to treat it fairly. But if that's the case then whatever he says will just be disregarded. I won't treat his unfair dismissal as fair either. Okay, so we're where we started, with my point _still standing._

Again, being snarky like this leads nowhere. If you're going to give a solid rebuttal, good! If you're not, then you're not achieving anything.

<comment><USER9> My guess is that if you're using words like dialectic then secretly you aren't an extremist. (By extremist, I mean someone who adopts a polarized position, which you freely admit.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This whole "controversy" is so stupid. It consists of people taking pg's words out of context and assigning the maximally stupid interpretation to them. I mean, are there any examples of successful U.S. based founders who have accents that are so heavy that you struggle to understand what they are saying? I'm genuinely curious.

<comment><USER11> What part of what he said was taken out of context? Up until a few years ago, there were no examples of successful black Quarterbacks in the NFL.. IF everyone just looked at that "fact", there would still be none. Data can be used to justify anything you like, as long as you are already sufficiently biased.

<comment><USER6> Bad example. There is nothing intrinsically different between a black QB and a white one, all other things being equal.

All other things being equal, there is a lot of difference between what an eloquent speaker can achieve and what a heavily accented speaker can achieve in the role of CEO.

This has nothing to do with preconceived bias. This has to do with Paul Graham's examination, over the course of funding over 500 different startups and his experience in that entire domain as a whole, that foreign accents are not desirable. The data is there; _your_ bias prevents you from seeing it because you're misinterpreting it as discriminatory.

<comment><USER12> You present "eloquent" and "heavily accented" as if they were diametrically opposite. In fact, they are on different axes.

<comment><USER6> I suppose I could have said "coherent and articulate" instead of "heavily accented" so you're right. But I think my point stands.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I am an immigrant founder (from India) and part of the YC summer batch of 2011. I think PG's statement has definitely been taken out of context and blown out of proportions.

I did have a foreign accent but thankfully not so thick to make it non- understandable. I received a similar feedback from PG before the demo day and I worked on it.

As an entrepreneur, you can do two things - either take it as an insult and leave it or as constructive feedback and work on it. In fact, I setup an office hour with Garry to just work on this.

For eg: in India, the word programmer is pronounced as prograamar (the stress is at the end) vs pro-grammar in US. And similarly, path is pronounced as "paath" as opposed to "p-a-th" (stress on 'a') here. These are definitely minor things that you have to tune (and I'm sure PG was referring to a much more thicker accent people had) which will make it easy for people to follow what you are saying.

If you didn't work on this, the investor would miss what you had said and then after a couple of seconds would realize.. "oh. you said programmer, okay", the train of thought is lost, you continue with the slides and it repeats again. And that's not okay.

After you have identified a product-market fit in your startup, I have realized everything is about convincing, every damn thing. \-- convincing the guy to join your company \-- convincing the customer to buy your product \-- convincing a new investor to make a bet on your company \-- negotiating/convincing for compensation and pay package \-- convincing someone to continue to stay in your company and so on..

It's almost like I can prefix a huge percentage of my work with the word "convincing" and it would all make sense. When that's the case, it's better to ensure at least your statements are eloquent and of high clarity that doesn't require repetition (unless of course the person wasn't listening). You are just going to improve the odds and that's what a startup is all about - <USER2> things that increase the odds of success.

It's a constructive feedback that I believe entrepreneurs should work on for their own good. It's not equivalent to sounding like an american but if you have a foreign accent (which you will if you aren't born here), please work on it to ensure what you say comes off clearly. That's it.

And YC clearly has no bias based on accent. I know _tons_ of immigrant founders who are part of YC. In fact, 3 of my classmates (all from India) are a part of YC.

</comment><comment><USER14> I guess this might be a good place to ask -- are there any good places people can recommend for accent training? I can write English pretty decently (in fact, probably better than most of the American people I have seen - but I guess Dunning-Kruger might be involved.) But I still retain the accent of my native country, which somewhat hampers me in the US (specially if PG thinks people like that are clueless.)

So, can people recommend any good online courses / institutes where I can improve my accent to bring it more in line with the standard American one?

<comment><USER15> [https://www.udemy.com/american-accent-training-for-it- profes...](https://www.udemy.com/american-accent-training-for-it- professionals/)

<comment><USER14> Ugh. First think I clicked on there told me to prounounce it "Ennerprise" and "innegrade" :)

Seriously though, thanks. Will check it out.

<comment><USER16> Innegraded ennerprise sofware. Not a t to be heard. Good luck.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Slightly offtopic: The whole idea of the immigration restrictions is ridiculous. There is not a single justification for it. Unless of course you believe that somehow your people deserve better than everyone else.

When people bring up the fact that it drives down wages and residents lose as a result - why don't they also mention that residents win by getting a cheaper product or a service?

When people bring up the welfare question and the fact that foreigners might take advantage of it, why don't they think of a simple solution: not providing it?!

The US was built on the hard work of immigrants. People seem to forget this.

<comment><USER18> > The US was built on the hard work of immigrants.

The US was built by the descendants of Europeans who nearly wiped out the existing native population. How did immigration work out for the Native Americans and their descendants?

<comment><USER17> The reason the native population was wiped out was primarily because of the diseases brought by Europeans, not because Europeans were particularly brutal. In fact, Indians were as brutal to the colonists as colonists were to Indians. The first colonists themselves died in large numbers, mostly due to hunger and malaria. Also, Indians were technologically behind Europeans. Modern western countries, to which immigration is desirable, are more technologically advanced and we certainly don't have a problem with immunity to diseases - <USER3> least you can't call it an equally serious problem.

So, comparing colonists and indians to the current immigration problems is simply unfounded.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, he's _not_ criticizing Paul Graham for making the statement (and admits he understands Graham isn't anti-immigrant or anti-foreigner), but is instead criticizing him for not taking responsibility for how his words might be taken out of context by everyone else? Is that it?

</comment><comment><USER19> There is nothing in the article that suggests that accents lead to innovation. I'm not fully aware of the PG controversy but maybe he's privileged to some data that we aren't. Stating stats shouldn't be rebutted with fluff pieces.

<comment><USER20> _There is nothing in the article that suggests that accents lead to innovation._

That's besides the point. The point is that this is a fluff piece upvoted by people with white guilt in order to alleviate that guilt. :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Linking this to racism is absurd.

The main reason why racism (or other discriminations like sexism) is bad, is because the disadvantaged person cannot change it.

Accent can be changed, culture differences can be learnt, connections can be made.

The world is not a fair place, but as long as individuals have ways to improve their situation, it is fair enough.

</comment><comment><USER22> This controversy is so manufactured it is painful. PG is one of the biggest proponents of the Founder Visa, but he hates immigrants? People really need to stop reading Valleywag (or at least taking it seriously)

</comment><comment><USER23> These discussions are always rife with political undertones and ethical hazards.

</comment><comment><USER20> Immigration also increases the size of the labor pool, driving down wages.

<comment><USER24> It's empirically false that high rates of immigration lead to lower real wages. International comparisons show that it is actually the other way around. The "lump of labor fallacy" is still very persuasive to people who have never studied economics, but people who have traveled around the world notice examples like Hong Kong (high immigration, high wages for region) and reflect that new people in a place leads to more innovation and more demand in the local economy.

<comment><USER20> I've studied plenty of economics and have been around the world and back. Bringing in more labor increases the supply of it and there's also the added effect of immigrants willing to work for less than the local population. To deny this is to deny supply & demand and data.

<comment><USER25> I don't know that it's that cut and dry. People don't exist in a vacuum. New people show up, and they still need to eat, live, buy TVs. Some of them will probably start companies and increase the labour demand. etc etc.

I'm not an expert by any means, but it didn't take much to find an article that supports this idea:

\--cut--

We find that the increased supply of non-EU low skilled immigrants pushed native workers to pursue more complex occupations. This reallocation happened mainly through movement across firms. Immigration increased mobility of natives across firms and across municipalities but it did not increase their probability of unemployment. We also observe a significant shift in the native labor force towards complex service industries in locations receiving more immigrants. Those mechanisms protected individual wages from immigrants competition and enhanced their wage outcomes. While the highly educated experienced wage gains already in the short-run, the gains of the less educated built up over time as they moved towards jobs that were complementary to those held by the non-EU immigrants.

\--cut--

[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/29/immigration_a...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/08/29/immigration_and_wages_in_denmark.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > I'm with MLK.

That is so brave.

</comment><comment><USER27> The racism of pg is subtle, but still racism, not so much from him but from his acolytes and zealots who even now in this thread can be seen taking his word as gospel and demote anyone who fits their interpretation of pg's words as an _untouchable_

Now these new _untouchables_ will be rejected from many other accelerators who do nothing but copy whatever YC does in the vain hope that they too can land the next dropbox and airbnb, and rejected because _they talk "funny"_

At the same time expect to see a lot of teams made mostly of either foreign and domestic engineers who aren't "that good" when it comes to public speaking being indirectly coerced into accepting a dumb white bro as CEO just to get past the initial selection process of any accelerator.</comment>