One-electron universe - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe <comment><USER2> Reminds me of this short story: The Egg by: Andy Weir <http://galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html>

Instead of electrons, everyone in the universe is the same person.

<comment><USER3> For all of you complaining about "spoilers" - an interesting bit of research was published last month that indicates "spoilers" actually increase enjoyment of the story. [http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/spoilers-dont- sp...](http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/spoilers-dont-spoil- anything.ars)

<comment><USER4> I don't think that's universally true; there are some movies that I think would be absolutely destroyed by knowing the ending.

<comment><USER5> Fight club is a good example of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish I could find a scan of Dr. Watchstop ( [http://www.amazon.com/Dr- Watchstop-Adventures-Time-Space/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Dr-Watchstop- Adventures-Time-Space/dp/0913035858) ),specifically the "Single Electron Proof" story based on this idea. In it, Dr. Watchstop builds a machine capable of disproving this theory by utterly destroying an electron without creating a positron. He fires it up in the second-to-last panel of the strip; the last panel, of course, is blank. Short and silly, but fairly smart and _gorgeously_ drawn.

</comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone know if we still believe that there are more electrons than positrons in the universe (also more matter than antimatter)?

Do we have a way of checking if distant galaxy is made of matter or antimatter?

<comment><USER8> We can invalidate the idea of antimatter galaxies indirectly. While a hypothetical antimatter galaxy puts out the same light as a matter one and probably looks exactly like normal matter from the outside, there is a telltale signature: it would put out additional gamma rays. Space is not empty, even intergalactic space is filled with atomic particles (albeit in a weak concentration). This means that an antimatter region somewhere out there would react at the boundary with an adjacent matter region and this reaction would put out radiation that we can measure. In some instances, there would even be very violent gamma flashes from colliding galaxies.

While such a boundary may still exist outside of our observable range, the size of that area makes it pretty unlikely because everything we can see so far is pretty much uniform. We can see about 13.8 billion light years in either direction (note that this is a view not only through space but also back through time to the beginning of the universe), and we haven't come across such a phenomenon within that area.

In short: it's possible but this stuff would have to be extremely far out and if it's happening at all it may well be beyond our cosmic horizon.

<comment><USER9> There's also the possibility of a much larger universe filled with "cells" of matter and antimatter. While there would be annihilation at the boundaries, it would be very tenuous, as the radiation would push both regions apart (in the same way a drop of water survives on a hot pan by floating on a cushion of vapor).

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology#Alfv.C3.A9n_an...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology#Alfv.C3.A9n_and_Klein_cosmologies)

Not endorsing this theory, just illustrating some possibilities.

<comment><USER8> Putting aside this theory (which I believe is bogus): It's absolutely possible that huge cells exist, but the radiation pressure would have to be very high to actually push those regions apart and we'd probably still still see lot of stuff colliding. Even if the boundaries are huge and uniform, the effects should be visible. Apart from the radiation we would also observe boundary galaxies that are stripped of their gas and dust clouds. As you suggested, it might very well happen somewhere out there beyond our horizon, as we really have no idea how big the universe actually is.

<comment><USER10> There wouldn't be any real interaction between such cells, would there? From the perspective of ourselves, in our observable Universe, perhaps the detail of such other cells can't ever be measured in the same way scales smaller than the Planck distance and time can't be measured. That is, quantum effects occur at the largest scale as well as the smallest.

<comment><USER8> > There wouldn't be any real interaction between such cells, would there?

That's a difficult question to answer without a simulation. All we know is how the visible portion of the universe is structured. The matter seeding works a bit like a procedural terrain generator (where quantum fluctuations introduce a chaotic and self-similar structure) and then gravity and expansion do their thing, so we end up with a universe that is filled with a uniform web of filaments made up of galaxies. Both simulation and observation agree with this model. The primary interaction mechanism at this scale is gravity.

Now if there are pockets of antimatter in there, they'd either be separated from normal matter early on in the process (leading to huge gaps between the cells) or they would visibly communicate with their nearest neighbors when they annihilate stray matter. I don't know which would be more likely. But either scenario is observable if it happens within our field of view, and so far that doesn't seem to be the case. There might be something like this hidden in the ultra-deep field close to the edge of time, but it currently doesn't look like it.

<comment><USER11> > if there are pockets of antimatter in there, they'd [...] be separated from > normal matter early on in the process (leading to huge gaps between the > cells)

Thanks to inflation, I suspect that something like this might indeed be possible. Any cosmologist around who knows enough about ΛCDM to give an educated guess?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It kind of reminds me of Mach's principle

"There is a fundamental issue in Relativity theory. If all motion is relative, how can we measure the inertia of a body? We must measure the inertia with respect to something else. But what if we imagine a particle completely on its own in the universe? We might hope to still have some notion of its state of rotation. Mach's principle is sometimes interpreted as the statement that such a particle's state of motion has no meaning in that case."

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machs_principle>

</comment><comment><USER13> Feynman's also the one quoted as playing with the idea of what it would be like if 3 + 1 spacetime was instead 2 + 2 (i.e. 2-D space, 2-D time).

<comment><USER14> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imaginary_time>

I always love to throw this one at my friends once we get started talking about numbers/dimensions/philosophy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I dont even know if there's a line between troll and inspirational out-of-the- box thinking, but if there is, Feynmann dances all over the place and probably laughs about it from beyond the grave.

I love that dude.

</comment><comment><USER16> Unfortunately, the idea that a positron is an electron going "backwards" only works for electromagnetic interactions. Gravity and the strong & weak electromagnetic forces seem to be the same going "forward" in time for both electrons and positrons. If the positrons were going backward in time, they should react "backwards" to everything.

<comment><USER17> Gravity is attractive even if you run physics backwards in time. To see that this is the case, consider the following scenario:

You've got a ball at rest 500 meters up, and you drop it. It falls downwards at 9.8 m/s^2. After 10 seconds, it's traveling 98 m/s towards the ground and has falled 490 meters (10 meters above the ground).

 _Now freeze time and reverse it!_

What do you see if you reverse the "movie"? Well, the ball changes direction. It's still 10 meters above the ground, but is now heading upwards at 98 m/s. It continues up, but slows down at -9.8 m/s until it finally comes to a stop 500 meters up.

In other words, running the movie backwards looks like just like the normal laws of physics -- attractive gravity and all. Weird, huh?

<comment><USER18> Say what? Your _gedanken_ simply proves that you've assumed that gravity is attractive when time reverses.

If you place a ball on an inclined plane then it rolls downwards to a position of lower potential energy, (under a Newtonian consideration) the gravitational force acting to accelerate the ball.

If you reverse time, unless you know how gravity acts in reverse then how do you know that the ball will roll up the hill rather than stay in place or roll down.

You're saying gravity remains attractive, ergo that if you reverse time the ball still rolls down, the universe still expands, etc..

<comment><USER19> A ball will not roll uphill, even when time is reversed. Gravity really is time-reversal invariant. But when you reverse time, you do have to invert all velocities. So the inverse of your experiment of a ball rolling down an incline is a ball starting at the bottom of the incline with a certain velocity pointing upwards, that'll roll upwards until it comes to a stop, just as it would do in normal time.

<comment><USER20> I'm curious--if the ball rolling down an incline were instead a photon falling through an event horizon, would the time-reversal involve breaking various physical laws? (Does it fall into the "physics doesn't apply inside of a black hole" disclaimer?)

<comment><USER19> No, the physics are still valid in the event horizon. It's just the singularity at the exact centre of the black hole that is problematic.

Interestingly, if we ignore only the point at centre, it can be shown that an object that falls in a black hole, goes right through it and is ejected at the other side. All in finite proper time. This situation is non-physical because it takes an infinite amount of time for the photon to reach the event horizon. Even if we could reverse the photon inside the black hole, it would still take an infinite amount of time to crawl back out. So even in theory, black holes are still inescapable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I had a similar idea once, only with people - the theory was that each person is the reincarnation of the same one. So anything you do to someone else, you basically do to your future or past self.

Edit: just noticed the link from amvp, guess that's the same. I have to read that story, thanks.

<comment><USER22> That seems to be the buddhists premise.

<comment><USER23> None of the buddhist traditions that I know of states that every (human) being is the incarnation of the same 'person'. Also, this would contradict with the scriptures, which describe many enlightened beings (who ended their cycle of rebirth).

On a more abstract level, reality could be seen this manner in Buddhism. Buddhism teaches the doctrine of dependent arising, which states that all phenomena are interdependent. As such there is no distinct/independent self or other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Surely, you're joking, Mr. Wheeler :) However, it would be interesting to see the process of annihilation explained in terms of this one.

<comment><USER25> I imagine it as the moment when the line turns back in time :).

<comment><USER24> I think of it as the same particle(electron) arriving at the same point of space at the same time but going in a different direction (in time). Pretty mangled up. And where does all the energy come from then?

<comment><USER26> It is just a change of interpretation; rather than saying the annihilation causes the release of energy, you could say the change of motion (forward time to reverse time) causes the release of energy. The effects are the same either way, remember Eliezer's dictum, "It all adds up to normality."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> an electron is not a thing, it is something that happens under the right conditions. just like everything else.

<comment><USER28> Now that's getting to be a more metaphysical than physical question. =] Primacy of events over objects _is_ a possible metaphysical position, but I'm not sure it's the right one...

<comment><USER27> an object is seen as being distinct and different from other objects, with its own unique history.

the best physical understanding of the universe that we have at the present moment says that all properties of all objects are entirely dependent on ... all properties of all objects. so the idea that an object is distinct doesn't make sense. consider: how large is an atom? quantum mechanics tells us that the wave functions of the atom's constituent particles extend throughout the entire universe, which means that every atom is the size of the entire universe.

additionally, our understanding of the nervous system tells us that the only information we get about the world comes from the firing of all of our nerve cells - discrete events that happen or do not happen. because our understanding of reality is nothing more than than a lossy compression of all sensations humans have ever experienced, if you see reality as being the sum total of all human experience, it's fair to say that it's a stream of events, in which our minds are going for a swim.

<comment><USER29> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum>

We create the whole of our reality (the sum of our existance).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> So, if you cut the thread off in two places because one electron and one positron annihilate each other, wouldn't that unravel the whole thing?

(kind of tongue-in-cheek)

</comment><comment><USER31> I have a similar theory, of which the idea is, INF ... multiverse ... universe ... earth ... atom .. electron ... multiverse ... repeat ... INF

</comment><comment><USER32> Maybe electrons do not really exist. Maybe none of you exist at all and this is all a dream.

</comment><comment><USER33> That would've been my reaction as well: Of course positrons are hidden in the protons (or something).

</comment><comment><USER34> ... and that electron is God? Now all suddenly fits into places :)

<comment><USER35> Ofcourse religion is misused for taking power and therefore a lot of people don't like to think about it. But I find it always a little strange that a God theory is more 'strange' than a single electron theory.

In the end it seems we still know nothing: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron> but we know how to take advantage of them (welding, cathode ray tubes, electron microscopes, radiation therapy, lasers and particle accelerators).

<comment><USER36> God omnipresence fits in the 'single electron' theory only if God is an electron, an electron being a subatomic particle with a negative charge.

I suppose that is fine if that's what you mean by God, but none of the usual connotations or implications of God-hood would apply. The God-electron would have omnipresence, but no omnipotence or indeed any other of the qualities usually ascribed to gods (other than the obvious, the negative energy those ideas tend to bring with them).

<comment><USER35> Well I did not agree with the 'God being a single electron'. I just observed that a theory like the single electron is nominated for being 'interesting' while other theories are being nominated as 'not possible'.

Edit: The egg theory is even on top of this thread...

<comment><USER36> I didn't mean to dismiss your question, it's a reasonable one to ask.

The reason for considering this theory interesting is because it is at least nominally a scientific theory, whereas a God theory is not a scientific theory and thus not interesting to science.

Why is a God theory not a scientific theory? Let me attempt to explain..

A scientific theory starts with experimental observation (in this case, the observation that all electrons have the same mass and charge) and attempts to explain that observation. This explanation should be 1) testable, and 2) predictive. That is, it should be possible to disprove the theory through further experiments, and the theory should lead to further conclusions about how the world works that would then be provable through experimentation as well.

Now, it is doubtful that the one-electron theory is actually testable, which moves it from the realm of serious theories to merely interesting hypotheticals. This is similar to the idea of everything in the world being part of a computer simulation, for example.

Now, God theories in general have multiple issues that make them unscientific. For example, if you claim that God is an entity that is 'beyond time', you need to define in scientific terms what it means to be beyond time. Another issue is that you would need to come up with some experiment that would prove that God does not exist. Even if you were to formulate a definition of God that would satisfy these requirements, it is doubtful that many believers would agree with that definition. Thus, 'God theory' in general doesn't describe a scientific theory at all, and so it is fundamentally not related to science.

edit: I should also say that such a God theory is usually not interesting for another reason: Since it doesn't describe the god of any major religion, no one is really very interested in seeing it disproven. It's easy to invent a cosmic entity and come up with an experiment that proves that it doesn't exist, but what's the point?

<comment><USER37> I point out, for illustration, the theory of dark matter/energy and string theory. Both of which have started out as hypothesis with few if any testable ways to observe them. At a Google tech talk Murray Gell-Mann, whose lab was where the idea of string theory arose, indicated that he was not very impressed with the idea and suggested it was completely untestable.

The challenge I see in God theory is that it is that people go off and start from some concept they learned in primary school and poke holes in that image. Rather than actually taking a scientific approach and asking what the nature of God might be, given the data they _do_ have access to.

Note that this is completely distinct from theology, or the study of religions, rather it is an attempt at understanding God (which is often referred to as enlightenment).

As Dawkins and others have pointed out however, the God 'meme' has been used forever in human cultures to assert power over one group by another. Thus there is a lot of mental baggage around taking God seriously (think confirmational bias on steroids).

Example, I once talked to an engineer who would not even posit the existence of 'a' God because for them it meant there was a hell and they were afraid to think about what it would mean to spend eternity in such a place.

From that example you can see the confluence of what they were taught by a religion as a control mechanism (obey us or go to hell) versus his ability to ask critical questions. I suggested that a 'God' might exist and their might not be a hell. He found that pretty heretical but it gave him a way to ask the question without wincing.

My wonderings are around the source of sentience and the implementation of free will. Generally the debates of philosophers rather than scientists but one in which the presence of a 'God' (in the scientific sense) could be hypothsized as the difference between sentient and non-sentient. I thought it would be fun to write a short story where confirmational bias was the result of God knowing what you wanted the outcome of your experiment to be and making it so, leading too a lot of angels in therapy because they had made it work like you wanted and then you were all irritated that it wasn't reproducible or something.

Your approach could be used:

 _Now, God theories in general have multiple issues that make them unscientific. For example, if you claim that God is an entity that is 'beyond time', you need to define in scientific terms what it means to be beyond time._

Ok, so we'll put this 'God' entity thing in a dimension that is orthogonal to time like one of the 11 in string theory.

 _Another issue is that you would need to come up with some experiment that would prove that God does not exist._

You do have to work on some experiments, and being falsifiable is a slam dunk, but given that we're talking about something that has a will (or is will) its hard. I've often suggested that I can read the phone book for Perth Austrailia and see an indication that a Tom Smith exists, but if I can't get to Austrailia or contact it in anyway I'm hard pressed to prove he exists, even though he has a home address and everything. This is the current challenge with Dark Enery/Matter as well which is coming up with ways to actually see it. And we can't so we look for ways it would influence the stuff we can see. You can make the same argument for God, look for ways that if God exists things might be different. (caveat confirmational bias etc etc).

 _Even if you were to formulate a definition of God that would satisfy these requirements, it is doubtful that many believers would agree with that definition._

There is no rule that says for a theory to be legitimate it has to be believed by everyone :-) Many solid theories started out being believed by no one but the theorist themselves.

 _Thus, 'God theory' in general doesn't describe a scientific theory at all, and so it is fundamentally not related to science._

I don't think you succeed in your claim that God theories are 'unscientific'. I would agree with the claim if you said that _some_ theories put forth about the nature of God are unscientific but that does not preclude the existence of a scientific theory about the nature of God.

To have a theory about God, you have to first accept, for the sake of argument, that God might exist. Then you can start looking ways to put boundaries around what God might or might not be, sort of like how collision analysis of partcles is telling us where the Higgs boson isn't. I caution you though, if you start looking for God you run the very real risk of being found.

<comment><USER36> I certainly agree with the skepticism in regards to some aspects of string theory, and my impression is that skepticism is widely held. However, I don't think your interpretation of the extra dimensions of string theory is correct when you suggest that it would be possible to insert a God into them. The extra dimensions of string theory are tiny and curled up, not additional time- dimensions.

The other major flaw that I see in your argument is that you don't define God. If you posit that God exists, you need to define what that means, and what that God is. I put it to you that any such definition you could come up with would render the concept of God mundane and not divine, and thus would be irrelevant to any believer. You are of course welcome to disprove me on that point.

My point is not that people need to believe in the conclusions of the theory or even the theory itself, but that people would disagree with your definition of God to such an extent to render any such theory meaningless.

edit: I should also say that it is absolutely true that any theory that cannot be disproven experimentally is not a valid scientific theory but merely a hypothesis. All of the examples you give are hypotheses that, at some point, either an experiment was conceived to test them, or that still remain hypotheses. This doesn't mean that untestable hypotheses are worthless, but they do not qualify as scientific theories (yet).

<comment><USER37> I see your point on the string theory, I was claiming that as long as you have an untestable hypothesis you can construct and arbitrary route to get there. So pre-supposing an additional dimension which is orthognal to space time, would create a space which existed in all time.

"The other major flaw that I see in your argument is that you don't define God."

That is intentional actually, it reflects the challenge that any two people have when they try to define God, as a species there is lots of variability there. But it does not preclude one from creating a definiton, and then creating an untestable hypothesis around that definition (which is the basis of my rebuttal)

One could define 'God' to be a system, mechanism, or phenomena that exists in a dimension orthogonal to space time which is aware of and can interact with beings and matter which exist in the space time that we inhabit. But your later comment is more on the mark.

 _"I put it to you that any such definition you could come up with would render the concept of God mundane and not divine, and thus would be irrelevant to any believer."_

This speaks to the question of 'who cares'? Which is to say that you have to be very careful not to conflate what a religion defines as God (or a god in the case of multi-theism) vs a physics theory which is about the nature of something which could explain observed phenomena associated with 'God'.

In attempt to disentangle the two, consider that we don't have a physics theory of 'consciousness' either, although we have good information about brain chemistry and construction. We can show that 'something' is missing because its possible to create a nearly exact simulation of a brain's physical and chemical signalling makeup and such constructions do not demonstrate consciousness. Such experiments tend to disfavor hypothese which hold that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain's construction or composition.

And to be clear here it is not my intention to create an 'escape through rhetorical trickery' (as I was once accused by a dogmatic believer) rather I think about these things as a means of trying to understand or to quantify my own feelings and experiences.

You remark _"My point is not that people need to believe in the conclusions of the theory or even the theory itself, but that people would disagree with your definition of God to such an extent to render any such theory meaningless."_ seems to imply that for a theory of God to be correct that other people would have to believe the theory and agree with the definition.

I don't think this prequisite holds.I think the only thing you need to have a solid theory is to be able to make predictions and a way to run experiments to test those predictions. So the cosmological theory of God would show how the phenomena labelled as 'God' can do what it does. And then there would a philosophical discussion about whether or not the 'entity' known as God is an emergent property of the mechanism or something else entirely.

I am strongly reminded of Marvin Minsky's lament about 'Artificial Intelligence' where the study of AI has been unfairly criticized for 'not making any progress.' In his report on the progress of AI [1] he says "Artificial Intelligence, as a field of inquiry has been passing through a crisis of identity. As we see it, the problem stems from the tendency for the pursuit of technical methods to become detached from their original goals so that they follow a developmental pattern of their own." He observes that once we know how to do something we just go off and do it and as an engineering exercise it no longer meets the more meta definition of 'Artificial Intelligence.'

So we have computers that play chess (which was once considered a strong indicator of artificial intelligence) and we dismiss it as directed graph analysis. Etc.

My point is that one can create a hypothesis about _how_ God exists (one that satisfies popular properties of God like 'everywhere and everywhen at once') only to find that once its clear then its no longer 'divine or miraculous.' I was always amused by the ancient aliens hyphothesis (effectively a God theory in my mind) since if it was aliens doing things we already know how to do which were considered miracles by people who didn't know how to do them were we all duped?

Once you understand the physics of how God could exist then the question becomes one of motiviation and philosophy. This is why I carefully separate 'religion' which is a series of commandments which generally apply to 'believers' with built in penalties that apply to 'heathens' with the question of whether or not God might exist.

[1] <http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/PR1971.html></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple owes everything to its 1977 Apple II computer - <AUTHOR> https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/18/how-apple-owes-everything-to-its-1977-apple-ii-computer <comment><AUTHOR> This statement, however, is pure bullshit and makes the Apple zealot-fanboys look like fools

> That machine in that case became what was truly American's first home > computer as we know it.

Commodore was clearly before Apple with a turn-key home computer. See: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_PET)

<comment><USER2> From the Commodore PET wikipedia page: "A series of problems meant that production versions did not begin to arrive until December 1977, by which time the TRS-80 and Apple II had already begun deliveries."

As far as I could ever tell, nobody had these older Commodores, well maybe some schools. IIRC I only saw one years later when they were already retro. Although one could justifiably say there were retro the year of release, looking like they were from some 60's sci-fi movie.

I'm surprised to see how much cheaper they were than the Apple ][ according to wikipedia, although I shouldn't be. A school paper I did in 1994 was to compare and contrast the different computers my family considered before buying a //e that summer. It was only then that I realized how unaffordable the Apple computers were in comparison to everything else, especially the Commodore 64. I couldn't find anything justifiable for my paper to justify the choice. Even back then being an Apple fan was more about style and intangibles. And Ultima III.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I still have one. //e Platinum, the last one.

Got my start on these machines. I keep it for games, and perspective as well as the occassional electronics project. Writing on it is fun too. Different words come out. Like I get at a mind frame otherwise not available.

Maybe this is why some authors stick with old, or odd tools.

Thanks Woz. Nice, open, capable machine. Learned so much. Great memories.

And these people are making a game I am eager to play:

[https://m.facebook.com/LawlessLegends/](https://m.facebook.com/LawlessLegends/)

These kinds of games are right in the Apple 2 wheelhouse. Should be fun.

</comment><comment><USER4> Apple owes everything to the fertile, inventive mind of Steve Wozniak, and to the creative community that his machine appealed to. The rest was just business.

(If you ever get a chance, read the original manual included with that machine. It broke all the rules for manuals up to that time.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I bought one in 1978 and read that manual thoroughly!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Advice for when a startup goes south - <AUTHOR>

hi -- throwaway account here for anonymity -- I am currently a technical founder at a startup, and we have about 2-3 months of cash in the bank.  I personally think I should go down with the ship as they say, but I wanted to get some advice for how to handle the end once it comes.
For background, we've raised under 5 million and have between 10-15 employees.  We are doing b-to-b and if we die one reason will be that we are in the enterprise valley of death.
I enjoyed the experience, learned a ton and would even like to try it again someday, and we are going to fight tooth and nail to stay airborne, but its going to be tight.
My question is, there is a lot of advice out there for how to get funding, how to succeed, but not as much for how to fail.  What is the best way to handle this so that I minimize damage to my career and reputation?  When should employees be told of the impending crash?
We are going to try and raise, actually do have a compelling story and have built a great team and product, but enterprise sales is a slog.
thanks for any advice. <comment><USER2> The following may or may not apply to your specific situation, but this is what I would be thinking in your case. You have two options: A. Accept failure, fold the company now, return remaining investor funds and get a job.

B. Do whatever it takes to get profitable in the next 60 days.

This is a possible game plan for option B.

1\. If you're doing enterprise sales, your problem is likely as much about cash flow as it is revenue. Collect as much cash as you can now. Get customers paying monthly/quarterly to pay annually. Make big prospects an offer they can't refuse to prepay in advance.

2\. Get revenue any way you can. Become a consulting company. Do things that don't scale. Sublet your office. Hold events at your office and sell tickets. Sell some Aeron chairs. Just get some more cash coming in.

3\. Cut costs ruthlessly. With 2-3 months left, there is no way you should have 10-15 employees. Assume you have 3 months left to live. Do you really need all of them that badly? It will be tough and heartbreaking to let people go, but it's better to let half go with warning than to have everyone find out they're not getting paid a couple months down the line. Cut benefits immediately. Yes it will be tough and unfair, yes it will hurt morale, but you're at the end of the line. Do it. 3 months of runway with 15 people could become a year of runway with 3 people.

4\. Mine your CRM and personal network for leads. Strip mine it for whatever value it has left. From now on, everyone on the team is spending at least 30% of their time on the phone with customers. Either you get some sales, or you get some great feedback about customer pain points and problems you can use for your next effort. Stop coding. This is one problem you won't be able to code your way out of.

5\. Unless you have amazing revenue traction, forget about raising more money. The one thing VCs hate most is a rock that is rolling downhill. Fundraising will be a fatal distraction. Instead, go back to your bootstrapping roots and do whatever it takes to get profitable now. Exception: Your current investors may have some capital in reserve to support you. Ask them for it. If they don't re-up, your fundraising prospects are good as dead.

Feel free to shoot me an email with more specifics, happy to give other advice if you think it's useful: ilya [at] mixrank.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I will definitely consider taking some of the revenue generating steps you suggested.

We have internally been looking at what a shell team looks like for Plan B and when we'd need to start throwing the chairs out of the plane but also had been trying to consider the signal that sends to investors. We are launching a new sales effort in the next week and there is a chance it could prove promising, so Plan C is bet the rest of the company on it. We have been upfront with current investors and they don't want their money back, they want us to keep it rolling, but the ride is about to get bumpy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> _What is the best way to handle this so that I minimize damage to my career and reputation?_

I must say, after reading the introduction, that was not the question I was expecting.

My advice is simple: do the right thing for others. Treat them well. That includes making sure money owed to employees is paid. People get enough notice to fall back on their feet. You should have been transparent with them already from the beginning of the startup, so they should all know that cash is very tight. Don't just tell them 2 weeks before the day you lay them off.

If you treat others well, you'll be fine. Silcion Valley is a very small world.

On the other hand, if your only concern is your own career, maybe your current employees already know your true nature. Hard to know either way.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reply. My career is not my only concern, but one of the things I have to consider if we need to wind this down.

The stinging nature of your impression of me for asking it carries its own lesson.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Apply for a new job.

Dstillery - NYC, New York Dstillery is hiring Backend and Full-stack Software Engineers! We're #10 on Crain's Best Places to Work in NYC list, #47 on Forbes' America's Most Promising Companies list. We play Ultimate or Soccer on Fridays, we have a company band, we work sane hours, we don't track vacation (and not in the 'so nobody ever takes any' sense), and we Get Stuff Done. You'll learn a lot from working here, regardless of your current level of experience. You'll work directly with a world-class data science team (winners of multiple KDD Best Paper and other awards) that keeps us on the cutting edge of learning at scale, allowing us to build customer-specific models from billions of events per day. We're hooked up to all the big ad exchanges, and have direct working relationships with companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and more. But we're also still pretty small on the engineering team, and everyone gets their hands dirty and makes a real impact. We write mostly Java. Hadoop, Cassandra, Mongo, and Kafka are big parts of our stack, and we're always looking for new tech that helps us work at scale. Experience with these is a big plus, but if you've never used them before that's fine too, if you're eager to learn. If you write clean, working code, think through problems, and deliver on time, we want to talk to you. Contact me for more info, email@example.com

<comment><AUTHOR> hi -- thank you for posting this! I may take you up on the offer if our final push doesn't prove successful, sounds like a great place to work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > What is the best way to handle this so that I minimize damage to my career > and reputation?

Is this really a thing? It's expected that ~99% of startups ultimately die. I wouldn't hold it against somebody for trying and failing.

> When should employees be told of the impending crash?

As soon as possible. Some of them might be planning making babies, buying houses, cars, etc. If they have no idea how you're doing, they could make big purchases that put them in a tough spot later on if they're suddenly let go with no warning.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reply, it helps to put myself in their shoes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Call it ten weeks.

What is the absolute minimum to get income in the door, and then scale down to that to extend the opportunity to find that income. Get to that number as soon as possible.

Alternatively scale your staffing costs and effort down starting in two weeks, dropping two employees a week, in an effort to extend your project's life.

Tell everyone on staff what is going on, if it is not already obvious, so they can make alternative life plans starting now, just as you are making such plans now. Admit the possibility of your project's failure.

Your employees may be your future collaborators, and your future partners. Treat your community well, so that you may continue to participate in it in coming months and years.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the reply. We are in the midst of planning a last assault on the prize, and will be sure to give everyone fair warning of what is at stake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The important thing is making sure your employees get looked after. Make sure they get paid before any other expenses and do whatever you can to help them transition.

One option is to look for an acquihire of the business, speak to your investors/network/competitors and see if there's any interest in picking up the business. You won't get much out of it financially, but it'll help your employees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for writing and you make a good point. We do have some relationships which could result in acqui-hire and will consider that to be the proverbial corn field to try and crash-land the plane in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Do you still need help with this? I'm a start-up mentor. I may be able to help. If I can't i'll be able to refer you to someone who can.

You can arrange a free call with me at:

[https://clarity.fm/khurammalik](https://clarity.fm/khurammalik)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the offer. We are about to launch a glorious final assault, and if I may I'd like to defer and take you up on it when we get a few more data points.</comment></comment>


PieMessage: iMessage on Android - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bboyairwreck/piemessage <comment><USER2> Cool! Very nice project. I wrote some similar iMessage related clients here:

[https://github.com/CamHenlin/imessageclient](https://github.com/CamHenlin/imessageclient) \- this is a terminal based one that works over ssh

[https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageWebClient](https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageWebClient) \- this is a web based client that I used to do iMessages on a windows phone for quite a while

And I have some more iMessage related projects on my GitHub as well. Hopefully these projects give you or others some more ideas for iMessage related stuff

<comment><USER3> I'm guessing the imessageclient project doesn't work on El Capitan yet? How does your iMessageModule[0] get around it?

[0] [https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageModule](https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageModule)

<comment><USER2> I had someone tell me that they were able to get it working on El Capitan by disabling some security settings, but I've resorted to running services ([https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageBot](https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageBot) specifically) on a VM with a genuine Apple device SN running Yosemite, and that works very nicely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lots of .class files, the author should check out .gitignore files and avoid committing binary files.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps open a ticket or PR to address this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just out of curiosity, why has nobody reverse-engineered iMessage to create an open-source client? I presume it is quite hard (the seems like an obvious thing to attempt, iMessage has been available on the Mac where things like disassembly should be pretty easy for years); where does this challenge come from?

<comment><USER7> IIRC, Apple issues unique keys to every iOS/OS X device they produce. This key is used to subscribe to APNS (which iMessage uses for data transfer).

Without the key, you can't do much of anything.

<comment><USER8> It appears you can generate a key, and that Apple doesn't check whether the key corresponds to a piece of hardware they've sold:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/2wohwn/getting_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/2wohwn/getting_imessage_working_on_10102_generating/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You should probably brace yourself for a C&D and/or DMCA takedown request from Apple, regardless of the actual legality of what you're doing. They won't like this.

<comment><USER10> Yes, I remember having seen something very similar before several years ago that was promptly forced to shut down by Apple. I believe this was it:

[http://techland.time.com/2013/09/24/an-imessage-app-is- now-a...](http://techland.time.com/2013/09/24/an-imessage-app-is-now- available-for-android-but-theres-a-catch/)

<comment><USER11> piemessage proxies through your own Mac though -- not some sketchy server in China. I'd imagine Apple shut down the one you linked to protect their users.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always wanted to implement this process (sending to mac, and through imessage) into the core sms sending service of android. Have the service check the number, if it is on imessage use that, otherwise do sms. Would this be feasible? Ignoring the reliability of the system.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hey guys! Eric, developer of PieMessage here. Happy to answer any questions you gifts have :)

</comment><comment><USER14> How well does this work?

<comment><USER15> Doesn't look like it works very well. It requires a device running OSX to proxy the iMessage stuff through, and apparently the OSX client itself is unreliable.

<comment><USER16> I wouldn't call the OS X Messages app unreliable -- it does what it says on the box. That said, I'm not sure it's a good fit for the method used in this project.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> would be interesting if there was no need for an OSX device.

<comment><USER18> Or perhaps it could be a cloud service where a VM running OSX is spun up per user to route messages?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are so many players in the market for chat, the only goo reason for someone using imessage on android will be to chat with people on iphone's and mac.

<comment><USER20> In fact, this is probably the only reason, but a pretty significant one.

<comment><USER21> It's the reason my friends and I all use Hangouts. Basically there are plenty of IM/chat options but Hangouts is the default app on about half of our phones (those who use Android). The ones who use iOS can still install Hangouts and we can all use it in our Gmail browser tabs at work.

It could've easily gone the other way. I definitely favor Android in daily use but if there was an official iMessage client for Android I'd have been fine installing that and letting the iOS users run their default.

But since Apple never did open that up we default to Hangouts. We could run some other app instead but at least this way some of us don't need to install "yet another IM client".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is great - I switched from iOS to Android last week, and my biggest annoyance was the lack of iMessage

<comment><USER23> I've heard the same from a lot of buddies that have upgraded to Android in the last few years. What is it about iMessage that you miss?

For group messaging, are all of your friends still using iMessage instead of cross platform things like Telegram, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Discord, etc? If so, why?

Worst case of course, all of your iMessage contacts can be contacted over plain old SMS (Via Messenger, Hangouts, or any of the hundreds of Android SMS clients).

Now that the era of Apple being "cool" is officially over and we'll see more and more people moving to Android, I think the appeal of the iMessage "hey you can talk to anyone you want as long as they're on an iPhone or a Mac!" walled garden will collapse.

<comment><USER24> > For group messaging, are all of your friends still using iMessage instead of > cross platform things like Telegram, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Discord, etc? If > so, why?

It's not surprising that people use what comes on their phone and computer by default.</comment></comment></comment>


How is Apple's pay to provide content model legal? - <AUTHOR>

Can someone better explain how Apple's app store model is legal/what led to this situation? When Microsoft first invented the Windows OS, did they get to charge 30% to everyone that built a software program that worked on Windows? (for all I know they did/do.. I'm just wondering how this ended up the way things are).
Apple has a monopoly over any content provider that is marketing to someone that uses an Apple device. You would think that they'd have to allow other marketplaces (app stores) to exist on their devices, same as Windows had to allow other web browers, accounting programs, etc.
Thanks for any info Dan <comment><USER2> I presume you are talking about the iPhone app store.

Apple did it because they can. For their money vendors get development tools, marketing and distribution assistance plus, of course, access to the marketplace.

Its the same with supermarkets or big stores. Want them to sell your stuff? By and large you have to do it on their terms.

<comment><AUTHOR> If the state I lived in only had one supermarket chain, and the only way I could shop somewhere else was if I moved to another state, that supermarket chain would be called a monopoly, yes? Just because I can move to another state doesn't mean that the sole supermarket chain in my current state isn't a monopoly.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to move to another state, just use another phone. You can't argue that the Honda Civic alternator won't work on your Mercedes, and the part is only made by Mercedes. When you bought the Benz, they locked you in. You can go somewhere else to get service. But guess what, that mechanic will have to purchase the part from the Mercedes supplier. That is true lock in. Same with servicing the on board computer software. You want the updates? Sorry, only available through Mercedes and Mercedes suppliers. Oh sure you can go to Joe Bobs Auto Service, but then HE will have to order from Mercedes or a Mercedes supplier.

OP was right, this model has been around a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not arguing that a Honda Civic alternator won't work in my Mercedes and that's a bad thing. That's like saying I'm upset that apps built for the Google OS don't work for an Apple OS. I'm wondering why I can't buy an 'aftermarket' part for my Mercedes without Mercedes taking a cut.

Last time I checked, I could buy a new sound system for my car without paying the original manufacturer. Buy new tires for my car without paying the original manufacturer. I can buy a new engine that's not built by Mercedes as long as it fits in the engine compartment, can't I?

Or am I wrong and Mercedes does get a cut of my new tires, even if they aren't tires that Mercedes builds itself?

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, if I do buy a new engine that needs to specially fit into my awesome Mercedes, I do pay my mechanic a small fee, but the mechanic is the one that makes it work in my Mercedes (the programmer that makes the program work on an Apple OS). I also pay the manufacturer of the engine (the programmer that manufactures the program).

Just to be clear, I LOVE Apple for almost everything, and have owned an Iphone for years. Have used Apples for work and will readily admit that they're the absolute best you can buy for design work. Also, sorry if I use incorrect terminology at any point (I'm a business student). I'm just trying to wrap my head around how this situation became legal.

I sincerely appreciate all of the feedback about this subject, and I hope nobody takes offense if I argue points back. I'm simply trying to learn more about the situation, and arguing a point and being proven wrong is the best way I've found that I can learn more about the current issues in tech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Because no-one's challenged it in court.

Historical precedents have been mixed. Games consoles have been allowed to retain exclusivity for software but not hardware (controllers, etc.). Printers haven't been allowed to reject third party refills.

The only way for there to be a clear judgement would be a trial.

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you know if there were any legal cases regarding these issues, or if that's simply the way things worked out?

I'm sure I can find the cases if there were some, so please don't search for them if you don't know them off hand.

Thanks again Dan

<comment><USER5> <http://segaretro.org/SEGA_vs._Accolade>

SEGA only wanted licensed developers to develop for the Mega Drive, so they required a piece of code in order for a game to boot. This piece of code included the SEGA trademark. The thought was that if any unlicensed games appeared, SEGA could sue for trademark violation. SEGA sued when Accolade started producing unlicensed carts for the Mega Drive. The courts ruled against SEGA saying that since the code was functional, not expressive, there was no trademark violation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "monopoly over apple devices" doesn't equal illegal monopoly.

So, I don't think there's a legal issue at all, especially since Android exists and is doing well.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess I'm asking more if Microsoft was allowed to charge anyone that built/builds a program for Windows. By your logic, they should be allowed to, because Apple OS/Linux exist.

Now that Apple OS for desktops/laptops is more widely used and Microsoft doesn't have complete control of the OS market, could Microsoft start charging software makers that wanted to provide content on a Windows machine?

<comment><USER5> They sell Visual Studio, don't they? It's not the only toolchain for Windows, but it's likely the most popular toolchain.

It's Microsoft's OS. The reason that they got in trouble is that they unfairly used their market position to kick competitors (Lotus, Netscape, Novell) out. I doubt it would be illegal if they decided to charge everyone equally based on either units shipped or royalty.</comment></comment></comment>


Do you prefer Angelist over LinkedIn for hiring? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I have the complete opposite experience with both. I live in Montreal. On LinkedIn, recruiters are spamming me weekly, so when I was looking for a job I just picked the one with the most human sounding message. I had the first job offer one week later.

On AngelList I was applying to companies myself and did two interviews with locally based startups. One of which was basically hipster central and turned me down after the interview because their highest developer pay was lower than my previous salary. The second one I interviewed at was Hopper, which I abandoned because their interview process is too long and drawn out for a startup. If I wanted this experience of probable rejection after months of interviewing, I would just apply to Google.

The only impression I got was that LinkedIn lead me to real businesses who have an immediate need for devs. AngelList has startups with an inflated sense of self-importance who wish they were in San Francisco.

<comment><USER3> I agree totally, one thing I've noticed lately from AngelList is that your request gets accepted and emails are shared but you never hear from them again or hear things like "I thought you're in the US".

I'm having a feeling this might be another way of collecting emails

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Mixed feelings - LinkedIn has great searching features for when you need something specific, but when you post ads, you get a ton of crap.

AngelList isn't as great for specific filtering, but you get alot more targeted incomming requests when you post a job

</comment><comment><USER5> I really don't like either.

I don't like LinkedIn because I got a bunch of spam candidates. I also dislike that it doesn't force job posters to disclose salary expectations before hand -- this is inefficient. (From an applicant perspective, I do like how easy LinkedIn makes snapping in a resume and submitting an application... but I have to wonder if making it fast to apply is really the best metric.)

I dislike Angel List because I have to accept just applicants profiles from Angel List as their application and I like to hit them up with a few basic questions first to save time. (As far as I'm concerned, we don't need another Facebook-for-work type site on top of LinkedIn -- and LinkedIn has already won this battle.)

I like JazzHR quite a bit.

<comment><USER6> " I also dislike that it doesn't force job posters to disclose salary expectations before hand -- this is inefficient."

No, it's fair. I'm a fairly talented programmer and if I sense any bullshit tactics based on information assymetry I'm not interested on your offer.

This is the first advice professionals who have no experience of salary negotiations get: don't say the first price, unless you know what you are doing.

That you explicitly expect them to brake this rule does not speak well of your approach to the process.

Of course, there can be some local customs and practices I'm not familiar with.

<comment><USER7> Job posters, not job seekers

<comment><USER6> Ah, my bad, my apologies. Sadly I can't delete my earlier comment so I'll leave it there for posterity to document my inability in reading comprehension.

<comment><USER7> You made a good point re. job seekers though :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We hired 50% of a 10 person startup team from Angel List, rest from referals, no luck hiring from LinkedIn.

For startups AngelList makes a lot of sense and solves for problems like a wide variance in salary, non existent recruitment pipelines and general match making. Although the candidate pool is much smaller I think it helps keep the search focused. My personal experience with LinkedIn was a lot more spray and pray. LinkedIn does have much better candidate filtering if your looking for something very specific.

</comment><comment><USER9> It's all about where people hang out. From experience dealing with both I'd say you'll mostly find candidates with lots of experience on linkedin versus angel list.

AngelList = ideal for early stage startups (1 to 20 people)

Linkedin = Larger startups/companies(200 to +10000)</comment>


Why Entrepreneurs Have to Practice Emotional First Aid with Guy Winch - <AUTHOR> http://www.powerfulnonsense.com/why-entrepreneurs-have-to-practice-emotional-first-aid-with-guy-winch/

<comment> chris-hexx No, really - why are transcripts not more of a thing for people trying to get their idea out and their books sold? That this guy expects 'entrepreneurs' to spend 45 mines being sold to seems unlikely and non-useful, so what gives?

</comment><comment><USER2> "powerfulnonsense.com"? Why waste time and/or money on this kind of quasi- psychology?</comment>


Chrome flagging s3.amazonaws.com as a "deceptive site" - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/kQdjU <comment><USER2> This has hit us at docs.spreedly.com Anyone have more information about this?</comment>


Proposed H.R.4886 would require ID to buy prepaid phones and SIMs - <AUTHOR> https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/4886 <comment><USER3> Similar laws exist in many European countries and Poland is very likely to pass one soon.

I guess that the ostensible reason for introducing this is to help against terrorism (it is in Poland). I fail to see how this should help in any way: in places with large population density (where terrorism is more likely) mobile phones with foreign SIMs are reasonably common (am I wrong here?), so a good workaround is to buy burner SIMs abroad.

<comment><USER4> I was asked for an ID buying a pre-paid SIM card in Germany 3 years ago or so.

Seems that the regulations are even more strict now and you need to register it to an address.

[https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g187275-i116-k914854...](https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/ShowTopic-g187275-i116-k9148540-German_SIM_card_without_German_ID- Germany.html)

<comment><USER5> Can't you just provide false info? Forged drivers license, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't see how this helps, unless the government is also listening/logging all communications on all phones. All of the proposed protections from terrorism that I read amount to total information awareness by the state -- essentially an unrecognizable civic regime.

And even then, how can it guarantee safety against a suicide pact? Total waste of time in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER7> The rush to attribute blame to something technical and pass a quick fix law is obviously a tactic to draw attention from the real question:

Why did the authorities so utterly fail to protect us ?

The facts remain: 'Europol' knew ~400 radicalised EU citizens were at it. Turkish Intelligence gave the bombers name to the Belgians - <USER2> ignored.

The Belgians, before the Belgian bombs, interrogated the French bomber for only an hour, seemingly fruitlessly.

This echoes previous tragic incidents where the vital intel was known and passed on but seemingly ignored or lost in the noise.

For instance the Boston bomb where the older brother was known to have been radicalised at training camps by his ethnic government but the intel was not properly utilised by the American authorities who had him on their books but ignored the intel and seemingly considered him an 'asset' working for them.

Or the Paris cartoonist deaths, again a radicalised native, known to the authorities to have been radicalised in jail when as a young drug dealer he was incarcerated with Al Quaeda's no.1 european recruiter.

Where are the calls for a public investigation into the near total failure by the intelligence services to stop any plots they haven't trumped up ?

They have near total electronic surveillance at great chilling effect to freedom and great inconvenience to the economy yet still fare worse against unsophisticated plots than we should expect.

"Perhaps the real secret the spies don't want anyone to know is they are not very good at their jobs."*

<sarcasm> Yet of course our protectors were flummoxed by 'burner phones', that no-one could have suspected (despite this been the MO of previous Euro Islamist Bombers - and a entire season of the Wire). If only we made something else illegal we would have got them... </sarcasm>

Perhaps mindlessly handing more power and budgets over to these morons without any public oversight is the problem.

We need real police, real detectives, acting on intelligence not more of the same.

[*] [http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-...](http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/3662a707-0af9-3149-963f-47bea720b460)

<comment><USER4> That's by far not the worst thing, the 7/7 bombings had more intelligence, as US, French and Israeli sources gave many details including names and sigint intercepts one of the "suspects" was arrested and then released 24 hours before the attack happened he later slipped the police surveillance (which according to some reports was not even plain cloths but literally a police van trailing him) and rejoined his friends (who's names and details were also known) and went on with the bombings.

Many European countries already have regulations around pre-paid sims and burner phones it just doesn't matter (especially when the terrorists are European nationals).

The biggest problem is that overall in Europe security forces do not have the budget nor manpower to deal with neither foreign nor homegrown terrorist threats and in the current political climate the fear the media more than the actual terrorists.

<comment><USER7> Is the problem a lack of budget or how those resources are spent ?

Giving more money to a failing organisation without oversight will not get better results.

The failures need a spotlight, questions must be asked and answered.

Secrecy has failed us; Public oversight is needed.

Could this have been carried out without phones ?

The terrorists planned this in close physical contact, they excecuted it in close contact - not having phones would have made little difference - synchronising watches, etc.

Our 'homeland' security apparatus was created by Neoconservatives, has it been reformed since ?

The phones issue is a red-herring to distract from the real and continued failures of our security services - this endangers us all.

<comment><USER4> The Belgian state security service which is responsible for both internal and external security (MI5+MI6, FBI+CIA, Mossad+ShinBet etc.) has 150 employees and has seen budget cuts last year despite the Paris attacks.

Belgium (and many other European countries) has ghettos which are filled with "immigrants" many of them of 2nd and 3rd generation predominately Muslim.

Those ghettos aren't policed as the police in many cases is afraid of going in to do their day to day policing and even simple warrants require the use of SWAT if not the army.

The population in those ghettos ranges from being supportive, to sympathetic to plain refusing to cooperate with the authorities for what ever reason which means that there is almost no penetration as far as traditional HUMINT sources goes.

It took Belgium months to find one guy that was hiding in within only a few blocks because the local population is not cooperative and some parts of it conspired to assist him.

But any time that this issue has been brought up it pretty much ended as a political fiasco and often a political suicide.

When some one suggested that the security services need to build an outreach program that would specifically target the Muslim population to both build trust between law enforcement and the migrant communities as well as a network of informants, they are quite often being labeled as racist, islamophobic and could kiss their career goodbye.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> xkcd-sucks If this passes, somebody's gonna make a buttload of cash selling grey-market anonymous prepaid phones bought before the ban

</comment><comment><USER8> next up:

ID required to use one of the few remaining public pay phones.

good thing VoIP service and public wifi hotspots aren't widespread, otherwise the proposed legislation would be pointless. Oh, wait...

</comment><comment><USER9> Hmm, here in Australia we've had this law for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER10> I guess I don't see the problem with this. Prepaid phones (burners) are notoriously used by criminals.

<comment><USER11> Terrible idea.

They are also used by investigative journalists trying to uncover government wrongdoing along with people trying to escape abusive ex-lovers.

The desire for anonymity is not synonymous with criminal intent.

<comment><USER10> Let's be realistic, investigative journalists can get phones from their employer. People on HN always seem to bring up the fringe case... The small percentage. Ignoring the vast majority of actual use.

<comment><USER8> Oh,

I might add, the vast majority of prepaid cell phone use is _not_ criminal use [citation needed]

I'd be willing to wager the vast majority of the use of most things currently being argued (encryption is the hottest one right now) is not criminal.

So you want to force the _majority_ use to give up their privacy and trust every retailer of prepaid phones with their personal information, because of the _fringe_ cases of criminal use?

<comment><USER11> My point exactly.

The fact of the matter is that prepaid phone use (much like encryption) is used by people for pretty banal purposes: they want to make sure that their private life stays private.

Maybe they are carrying on an illicit affair. Maybe they are running a side business their employer wouldn't approve of. Whatever the reason, people have a certain right to privacy.

The burden isn't on _US_ to demonstrate why we need privacy. The burden is on the _GOVERNMENT_ to demonstrate why they need to pull back the curtain on someone else's privacy to further a legitimate government interest. That's the crux of every argument opposing the government keeping records (or forcing the record-keeping by business) on everything a person does in the course of their life.

The VAST majority of prepaid phone use is legitimate and non-controversial. Why burden all of those uses with a specious need to identify themselves when conducting perfectly legal business?

You don't need an ID to buy a hammer or a knife. Why should you need one to buy a phone?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Sick Is the Stock Market? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-08-24/how-serious-is-the-stock-market-s-decline- <comment><USER2> "Playing the stock market is easy. Buy something at random and if it goes up, sell and take the credit. If it goes down, say its a long term investment and hide in the cupboard." \-- Milton Jones.

</comment><comment><USER3> TLDR: not very sick, just very short-sighted, panicky and greedy.

<comment><USER4> _Greed is good_ as Gordon Gecko put it, and science concurs. [http://time.com/41680/greed-is-good-science- proves/](http://time.com/41680/greed-is-good-science-proves/)

<comment><USER5> No, that's what the title says, but it is click bait.

What the actual article says is that in social groups with well defined hierarchies, higher ranking members tend to contribute more than average to the common good (though this might be biased due to their role in defense against external threats). This old fashioned notion that the rich are expected to hit above their weight level is called Noblesse Obligue, and it's almost the exact opposite of Gecko's doctrine.

What reasons there might be to have come up with such a title/conclusion given the information available? I can only think of one: Assholeness apologetics.

<comment><USER6> Slight nitpick: "noblesse oblige" not "noblesse obligue" French locution Noblesse oblige ~ En raison de leur caractère noble ~~ Because of their nobility

<comment><USER5> ok, thanks a lot. I was aware it was French, but cannot speak/write the language myself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The younger you are, the less it all matters, as the trend over a decade or more will always be "up". (If not we have bigger problems.)

So if you don't plan on retiring off your investments in the next 10 years, just enjoy the ride. If you do want your money in the next few years, it shouldn't be in stocks.

<comment><USER8> "(If not we have bigger problems.)"

That would be an accurate assessment of the situation. We have big problems, getting bigger.

<comment><USER9> But not Mad Max, Zombie Apocalypse level problems.

<comment><USER10> Depends who you ask. Automation improperly distributed could cause such problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Say GDP in US is growth 2%, inflation is 3%, and stock market is up 10% a year - where do the extra 5% come from?

<comment><USER12> concentration of wealth

<comment><USER12> ok let me rephrase - markets represent the economic winners

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> That chart looks like it's leveling off. They don't say anything about that, and I believe that is the most significant attribute of that chart. They are, of course, trying to suggest behind their techno-babble that the market will keep going up. No surprise they dragged this little gem out to counteract the fear created in the recent correction.

A much more interesting analysis could be had from speculating on why it's leveling off. What happens when there's no more debt to buy?

</comment><comment><USER14> can someone explain this article? made no sense to me.

<comment><USER15> I'm not surprised it made no sense. It's from a school of writing that uses poorly defined dramatic terms like blood-letting and secular bull to make it sound like the author knows something. If you read someone like Buffett who actually makes money trading stocks you get a completely different take and vocabulary.

<comment><USER16> "Secular bull market" is a real term with a well-established meaning: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_trend#Secular_trends](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_trend#Secular_trends)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Look at the ftse 100 over a 30 year time frame and tell me you can't make a guess as to what's coming.

Go here and click on 'all' in the zoom menu [https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXFTSE%3AUKX&ei=qlLcVZHi...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXFTSE%3AUKX&ei=qlLcVZHiI4KUUKLsltgO)

<comment><USER18> Double bottom, that's what happens. Expecting more heights. Long FTSE! edit: Stock market theme is huge for click baits and zerohedge readers. No extremes are healthy and there's too much drama around this.

<comment><USER19> > Double bottom

This is no place for this kind of tea leaf reading nonsense.

<comment><USER20> Something something head and shoulders pattern, _don 't you see it?_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The stock market is fine. It's probably the healthiest aspect of the global economy right now. All of the bad things about the stock market are because it's the only safe place for investment right now.

<comment><USER22> Stock market is probably least safe place for investment right now. Why do you think real estate has gone crazy in the past 5 years? Lots of people that I know who manage their money are almost entirely in cash and many of them avoided the carnage last week.

<comment><USER21> It costs too much to hold cash.

<comment><USER23> How much does it cost to hold cash vs holding stocks?

<comment><USER21> 2-4% a year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What gets me the most is how much everyone buys into the massive ponzi scheme that is the stock market. Look, first you have to realize that most people and entities on the market are only a small blip on the graph compared to the big ones. The central banks, the banks that make up the central banks, and the various offshoot parasitical entities such as financial manipulation agencies and suprainternational corporations, are the real players in the market.

Sure, there are ups and downs, and a decent broker here or an ok hedge fund there may get you a reasonable return during the good years. That's not the point though.

The real point is that it is a massive ponzi scheme that feeds off of the misery and ineptness of the small players, not only that, but the market itself is manipulated as a way to gain much more substantial power in areas such as actual land ownership and commodities.

It's a cycle. Eventually, a few big players who know they have the ability to move entire markets, on a downturn cut losses and on the upturn amplify gains, do so, and then use their gains to grab exponentially more wealth, and power, enabling them to do it even better next time.

It's generally the classic Rothschild-Waterloo move. Nathan Rothschild heard back about Waterloo before even the British gov, caused a panic based off his reputation to get the market to plummet, and then turned around and bought it all up for pennies on the dollar. Market manipulation based on secret knowledge the rest of the market didn't have.

Then of course my other favourite example is the crash of 1907, (also a perfect example of the power elite rewriting history) The way they teach it is that United Copper was the instigator of the crash and JP Morgan was the generous saviour of the day, but the reality is much different. The panic really didn't kick off until Knickerbocker crumpled... and right as it started to, Morgan was the one who removed lines of credit to Knickerbocker in the first place! They were competitors, and Morgan got rid of them.

Then the Treasury intervened and suspended obligatory payments in the large Chicago and NY banks and that was that, the crash was inevitable at that point. Despite that fact, the crash was used to claim that a lack of a central bank was the problem (it wasn't), the National Monetary Commission was formed, which then toured Europe for insight into "proper banking methods".

They came back, had the Jekyll island meeting, and shortly after proposed the Aldrich plan, which got shot down because the public was up in arms against the "money trusts". The big bankers then pushed the Aldrich plan with a new name, aka the Federal Reserve Act, financed some groups to tout how much it was needed while pretending to hate it, and then got it passed on December 23 and signed by Woodrow Wilson the same day!

I could go on about the reasons why I think it was one of the worst things to ever have happened to the US, especially as it has spectacularly failed in its charge to prevent other crashes/panics, but what are the solutions?

I think we need to nationalize the federal reserve, and put control of monetary policy back under the congress where it constitutionally belongs.

Until then, we will continue to see Libor scandals, bailouts, hidden bailouts, crashes and fluctuations. We must address the fundamental problems of our economy before we can even begin to address the ponzi scheme that is the stock market.

edit: To keep it more on topic, I would be interested in seeing papers on the relationship between the Fed and the stock market, which I guess would be centred around interests rates, the federal funds rate, and dollar exchange rates on foreign markets.

<comment><USER25> You have some good points but you are edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode. Yes, few handful of private firms like Blackrock, PIMCO etc have huge control over stock market. They have trillions of dollars to play with (mostly funded by public through 401Ks). They can make or break market by inducing fear or happiness with a small chunk of selloff or buyoff anytime they wish. Yes, stock of the company has little correlation with actual returns (aka dividends) and it's all about speculating. Stock market is in essence legally sanctioned casino and unfortunately few of the only alternatives for investment for general public who can't start their own companies.

What's the solution? It's actually very simple. Heavily tax any short term gains. Something like 90% if you sell in 1st year, 45% if 2nd year and so on. Make dividend income completely tax free. This will force people to use stocks as actual investment and companies to actually share earnings with shareholder (who are by definition partial owner). This can put an end to lot of speculation because your gains would simply be taken away if you do so. It might even end boom bust cycles because there won't be massive sell offs to cash out or algorithm day trading. It will give security to companies so they don't have to live in constant fear of stock tanking next quarter just because it happened to be little bad.

<comment><USER24> Number one thing I can think of is to figure out a way to prevent HFT algorithms. Put a 1 second timer on and put taxes on those trades, to prevent the whole "my fiber line is .2 ms faster to NY than yours" trading arbitrage. The more fundamental issue of corruption at every level though is still not addressed by this.

"You have some good points but you are edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode."

I respect all the points you have made except for this one. I very clearly stated things that are fact based, with some speculation and broad- generalization, but to then equate that with "edging on to alien abduction conspiracy mode" is very frustrating to see. I understand the trepidation of even coming close to "conspiracy theory" subjects for fear of being somehow tainted by the crazy, but the history of the world was built on conspiracy, so to ignore the factual and everyday conspiracy that is verifiable under the banner of lumping it in with the crazier stuff is doing your own ability to critically think about a subject a disservice. Again, I understand the reaction, but I think it is one we need to guard against, as it is some strange form of logical fallacy that combines ad hominem and strawman.

To encase my point, did you know that the CIA really pushed the term "conspiracy theory" as a discrediting technique in 67 after outcry grew that the Warren Commission didn't do it's job? (which it didn't..).

"2\. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization.

The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3\. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the [conspiracy] question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors) , pointing out that the [official investigation of the relevant event] made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by … propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (II) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories."

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/02/CI...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/02/CIA-conspiracy.jpg)

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/02/CI...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/02/CIA-conspiracy2.jpg)</comment></comment></comment>


Live updates on the first Chromebook preview - <AUTHOR> http://chrome.blogspot.com/2011/06/live-updates-on-first-chromebook.html

<comment><USER2> I am getting "Page does not exist"</comment>


Consumer Centric Health Care - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/08/consumer-centric-health-care.html

<comment><USER2> This blog article discusses the Atlantic article "How American Healthcare Killed My Father". One of the most thought provoking ideas was that the author felt that the patient should be paying for the majority of their healthcare, rather than the insurance company or government.

Example, auto insurance does pay for maintenance repairs? Home owners insurance does not pay for refinishing your basement?

Making the end customer (the patient) the person who is paying would have tremendous potential for increasing transparency in healthcare. This would in turn drive down cots and increase outcomes.</comment>


Agent-Oriented Programming - <AUTHOR> http://robotics.stanford.edu/~shoham/www%20papers/AgentOrientedProgrammingAIJ.pdf <comment><USER2> Programming humans?

<comment><USER3> It's programming via what is essentially bidding on contracts.

Agent A asks "can anyone make me peanut butter and jelly sandwich?"

Agent B says "I can if you give me bread, peanut butter, jelly and 3 minutes"

Agent C says "I can if you give me Bread, 3 minutes and $3"

Agent D says "I can if you give me 1 minute and $10,000"

Agent A then picks the best bid and receives the sandwich. It doesn't care that agent B is a human, agent C is an alien that excretes peanut butter and jelly, or agent D is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.</comment></comment>


Please review my free iPhone game - <AUTHOR>

After a year of selling less than 20 copies of Mindful (my iPhone game previously price at $0.99), using no marketing whatsoever, I've decided to update it, make it free of charge, and hand it out to the world. You can find it at: http://halera.tumblr.com/ or you can just search the App Store for "Mindful". Please let me know if you find it interesting enough to play or not.
Any feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks! <comment><USER2> The AppStore is banned at my job, so a few pictures on your tumblr would be awesome.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can find a representative screenshot at <http://halera.tumblr.com>. Basically, you have to remember the flags at the top of the screen, and find them in the bunch below, on the next screen. Then repeat 10 times, before the clock runs out. In the first level, you start with just one flag to remember, and 4 in the bunch to select it from, and end up with 4 to remember, and 16 to select from. That's probably not the best explanation for the game; I think it would probably be best if you could try it out for yourself. Thanks!

<comment><USER2> That explanation is surely more difficult to understand than the game :)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is a desktop computer better than a notebook for indie development? - <AUTHOR>

The idea being that this would force you to think (rather than code) whenever you leave your home? <comment><USER2> 90% of my serious work is done at home, the primary reason being that I have a (relatively) large monitor on my desktop system. I can have multiple windows open, each being completely visible. With a laptop system I would have to switch between windows all the time, slowing down my train of thought.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course, with multiple monitors will make it easy for developer to see in wide screen without minimizing important windows.</comment>