How to Build a Full-Featured Login System - <AUTHOR> http://gigaspartan.com/2010/11/26/how-to-build-a-full-featured-login-system/

<comment><USER2> I apologise in advance for sounding harsh.

This is a terrible tutorial, and is in fact harmful to any who reads it expecting to learn how to make a login system. If you are planning to learn PHP I urge you to stay away from this tutorial (or use it as an example of how not to do it).

First off, I am not a PHP expert, but I think the scrips produced by this tutorial might be vulnerable to SQL injection and other attacks [1], due to naive cleaning of user input.

Secondly, and the main reason this tutorial has irked me: Unless I am missing something very simple, you are storing your passwords in plain text. Why are you not hashing the passwords with a per-user salt? Even md5ing them with no salt would be slightly better than storing the passwords in plain text.

Reading through the comments on your post, it appears there are a lot of people who think this is a great tutorial, and who are presumably going to use this in their own projects. Unless they do some additional research they will be implementing an insecure system.

It is great to see people writing tutorials and sharing their knowledge. However, writing a tutorial when (with respect) you do not know enough about the problem area is worse than useless, it is harmful to the people who read it.

As a starting point, the OWASP project has some useful information on handling password authentication and hashing [2].

1: [http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/guide-to-php- se...](http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/guide-to-php-security- ch3.pdf) 2: <http://www.owasp.org/index.php/Guide_to_Authentication></comment>


Ask HN: What are the motivators for back-end Python, compared to Node? - <AUTHOR> I've done a good amount of JS and only a smattering of Python. The two languages obviously have a lot in common:
- Fully dynamic
- Convenient dict/array primitives and list comprehension features
- Optional static type systems
- Vibrant library ecosystems
But for web servers, JS has a leg up: native understanding of the web's primary data transfer protocol, and even the potential for code-sharing with the front end.
Which makes me wonder: what is it about Python that inspires many to use it instead, when it comes to web servers? Is Django just that amazing? Is Python meaningfully more performant? Just personal preference? <comment><USER2> For me it's Django. It's a mature framework but also gives you plenty of ways to customize and configure for your usecase.

However, another might be the libraries. If you have to implement machine learning or data analysis on your backend, you would probably be better suited with Python. There are also probably other of examples of this too. Python is a more mature language on the backend so I would guess it has a bigger ecosystem there.

I think out of the box JS is more performant. However, you can make Python good enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> I personally detest any language where whitespace is significant, but if you are not fluent in js async/await then python does offer a more traditional paradigm.

Not knowing a thing about python, I was able to get a non-trivial Flask app running in a day. I'm not sure that not knowing anything about node/js the same could be said for Express.

Your mileage may vary.

<comment><AUTHOR> I would say the bar for Express is much lower than that, but on the other hand JS doesn't yet have a great equivalent to Django/Rails/etc. In Express you're wiring up routes and middleware and database calls yourself, not declaring a model and getting things for free; it's lower-level.</comment></comment>


ISpy: How the NSA Accesses Smartphone Data - <AUTHOR> http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-921161.html

<comment><USER2> I imagine that the NSA was a big fan of the "instant upload" feature on Android phones, especially for targets they had an active interest in.

I would not be surprised if Google built in the capability (server-side) to instantly send a copy off to the NSA.

> According to one NSA document, these files contain the kind of information > that is of particular interest to analysts, such as lists of contacts, call > logs and drafts of text messages.

I know that when backing up an iPhone to your computer you can choose to encrypt the backups. I wonder if backups to iCloud are encrypted. I never enabled that option and don't recall seeing any such settings but I suspect they are not.

After reading this article, I'm ready to ask my boss to replace my work-issued iPhone with something else but that's probably pointless. The only option for someone who does not want to be constantly tracked, it seems, is to completely forego use of a mobile phone.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [Edited note: this was meant as a reply to jlgaddis' comment, but I seem to have posted it as a reply to the post. Which looks odd.]

What would you (or we) replace an iPhone with? Short of reverting to dumb phones or maybe hoping for the elusive Firefox OS phones, I don't think there is much we can do.

</comment><comment><USER2> This article is very telling of the attitude that the NSA has... references to 1984, identifying the iPhone as "Big Brother" and those who purchased it as "zombies", etc.</comment>


Patent Attorneys - <AUTHOR>

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm wondering if there are any YC companies out there who have hired a patent attorney? I need a web/software focused patent attorney and am looking for a good reference... thanks!

<comment><USER2> Where are you located? You can give my patent atty (and friend) a call, I've used him for 10+ years and done at least 10 applications with him. His name is David Powsner with Nutter, McCellan in Boston.(<http://www.nutter.com/attorneys.php?AttorneyID=110).> Great guy, friendly and very knowledgeable. If you do email him, tell him chandra referred you.

<comment><AUTHOR> in Boston, thanks for the referral... I'll shoot him an email now...</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Where do I learn about the working of Web applications on the cloud? - <AUTHOR>

When I starting using Heroku, I was desperately trying to understand what the dyno(s) are and how the processes work. While I can write web applications in python .etc., I only understand the obvious from the functioning of these "cloud application platforms" and I feel it is not enough at all. Similarly for Node.js.<p>Could you direct me towards some good books and/or resources which talks about these things? <comment><USER2> If I understand correctly, you want to learn more about the processes Heroku handles on your behalf? There are a few things you could do to get more familiar with the underlying tech:

) Deploy your application to AWS instead of Heroku. This will give you more understanding of what "magic" Heroku does on your behalf. Start with EC2, then build up to Elastic Beanstalk, which is rather similar to Heroku's offering. Also learn about Elastic Load Balancers and Auto Scaling.

) Learn the Xen hypervisor if you want to know what AWS is doing under the hood.

) Cloud Application Architectures is an interesting read - [http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Application-Architectures- Applic...](http://www.amazon.com/Cloud-Application-Architectures-Applications- Infrastructure/dp/0596156367)

) AWS System Administration will also (hopefully) be an interesting read, but I need to finish writing it first :P

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the heading! I will try out AWS (after I can find a working payment method) and read up on the topics you mentioned. I think my thought process falls broadly under: "Where/what do I start learning for making such a system myself?"</comment></comment>


Bump (YC S09) Shares What Its 10 Million Users Share  - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20110916/bump-shares-what-its-10-million-users-share-infographic/

<comment><USER2> Bump continues to be one of my favorite YC startups. They have a killer team, and incredibly novel technology that allows their software to easily work across platforms and that is years ahead of where NFC is.

I'm excited also for their continued integration with storefronts and other physical locations.

I dream of a time when all I need to carry is one device and no wallet -- Bumping to pay at the local grocer would be amazing. As it is, bumping to pay with PayPal is still great, but all I see for Bump is amazing potential.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is that "50 million total downloads" number right? It seems low. Especially considering they have 10 million active users on those 50 million downloads. Really? 1 out of every 5 downloads of Bump generates an active user? I feel like a zero is missing from somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER4> See? Bump doesn't suck!</comment>


Twitter API bug still not fixed 3 years later - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/p/twitter-api/issues/detail?id=214

<comment><USER2> Astonishingly generous rounding bug with Hacker News submission title still not fixed 40 minutes later

</comment><comment><USER3> This is my favorite part:

      Comment 17 by alexfpayne, Apr 21, 2009
      Marking "Invalid" so these issues don't clutter the
      main view of issues.
      All are tracked on http://apiwiki.twitter.com/V2-Roadmap
      Status: Invalid

<sarcasm>Yes, Twitter, the best way to stop production issues from cluttering up the issue queue is just to mark them as invalid.</sarcasm>

<comment><USER4> I prefer this comment:

 _Its not fair to accuse anybody. Its clearly said in the API docs, that both the APIs will be merged in version 2.0. This issue will be automatically get addressed by that time.

If you are looking for a temporary solution, I'm sure you can find one by surfing through the groups. _

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Heh, good ol' issue 214. I get Google issue alerts about it every time someone complains.

I don't think this will ever be fixed. If Twitter hasn't officially deprecated the search API in favor of the streaming API, they have de facto, by not making any significant changes in the search API in years. The streaming API still can't do everything the search API can, but it has gotten somewhat close.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's my understanding that this isn't really a bug as much as it's an infrastructure limitation (search index is separate and in many ways still legacy from Summize). To change it, would likely require a lot more than just _fixing a bug_. I figure they're just investing in a new search engine in general that will take care of the issue.

</comment><comment><USER7> The entitlement and general sour attitude in most of those comments is seriously soul-crushing :(

<comment><USER8> Everyone always pulls the entitlement card if you bash some open source project or framework nowadays...

<comment><USER7> Nothing wrong with 'bashing'. Plenty of open source projects I would gladly say 'suck' but this isn't what I'm talking about.

I was referring to comments like this: "This should have been fixed on priority" and "WHY HASNT THIS ISSUE BEEN FIXED??". There are _plenty_ of constructive, honest comments in there, but the amount of whining and bitching by people who act like they 'deserve' the API they're complaining about in the first place just brings me down, that's all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've fixed two or three instances of client side bugs caused by this over the years. Seems completely crazy to me that they don't at least eliminate it from the response if they're not going to fix it.</comment>


Validate.js: Best validation library period - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ansman/validate.js

<comment><AUTHOR> This library works great with Flux Stores and async validation with React. I was searching far and wide for a good validation library that used plain Javascript objects and did Async validation. This is it. Documentation is great.

</comment><comment><USER2> eh, "asdf" works for "Number of Children" which sounds like it should be an integer. :/</comment>


Google's Android Market: Cathedral or Bazaar? - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080829-googles-android-market-cathedral-or-bazaar.html <comment><USER2> If there were multiple android markets as article proposes I would have to put my app to and collect money from all of them.

And in that case I'll just stick with the iPhone. Having a single store with millions of eyeballs is a good thing.

On a related note I am disappointed that google still does not offer adsense for mobile apps. There are several iPhone analytics/ads platofrms already and google is not one of them.

<comment><USER3> And most of them are unprofitable...Google doesn't create the next best thing they make the next best thing better.

<comment><USER2> I would be surprised if they turned profit - iPhone app store is only 7 weeks old.</comment></comment></comment>


Extending Landauer's Bound from Bit Erasure to Arbitrary Computation - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1508.05319 <comment><USER2> Bloody brilliant, though it does bug me how the thermodynamics of computing keeps involving quantities which are neither computable nor physically measurable, like Kolmogorov complexity. Things can't just be "unknowable", just because.</comment>


Ask HN: Review WinkVid, my "ChatRoulette for dating" startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.winkvid.com

<comment><AUTHOR> WinkVid was started as part of SocialDevCamp Chicago's Hackathon, where we built a prototype in 36 hours. We've had a few months to polish it up and we just launched WinkVid today.

We're a team of two bootstrapped guys in Chicago. Would appreciate any comments, suggestions or questions.</comment>


Ask HN: How is work from home going several weeks in? - <AUTHOR> I'm wondering how people are handling sudden work from home now that there's been some time to adapt, if it's better in any way or if it's harmed your productivity or mood a lot. Assuming most people here do work from home. If not feel free to share how your work is going anyway. <comment><AUTHOR> Honestly I'm not having a great time. I'm typing this from my work computer at midnight because I didn't get much work done today or yesterday. I live in a small apartment with my girlfriend only, so don't have distracting kids or anything. I actually worked remotely for a few months before social distancing hit too, but that went better; the lack of mentally balancing in-person interactions and sports/exercise have dampened my mood pretty noticeably. So I've been having a lot of trouble focusing on my job. I feel pretty bad about how bad this has been, so for my own sanity am pretty curious about how others are doing. Of course, this might backfire, but I kind of doubt it. Tooling and stuff is fine since I've been doing it for a while, and it's nice that everyone else is in the same remote boat to some extent (more people sound like they woke up right before my morning standup). But on the whole I've had a pretty bad drop in how easily I can stay focused.

</comment><comment><USER2> I personally find it more relaxing. The idea of being on the train, or bus fills me with despair. Crammed into a can kills my soul. I walk in the morning with my travel mug and sit near a park. I get home before 9am and start my day very very relaxed. I get more done, as meetings are more regulated. Todo lists are clearer and well thought out. In all it is better for me.

Oh and I see my kids way more.

</comment><comment><USER3> I feel my productivity has arose during these weeks, despite taking care of small pre-school children.

I can easily do in a third of the time the same things I was doing in 8 hours staying in the office.

The only thing I miss is the walking activity I was doing by going to the office. At the moment I have zero time for it because of kids, but I hope to gain my time back once the Kindergarten will be fully operative again.</comment>


UK Government asks: "Which laws would you like to see repealed?" - <AUTHOR> http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/

<comment><USER3> The sources of law are as varied as the institutions in place for promulgating them. Some derive from charter documents such as constitutions and are foundational to the society; others from judges deciding cases and setting precedents that in turn affect future decisions; still others from the statutory enactments of legislators who (at least in theory) are directly accountable to voters and which enactments consist of laws aimed at dealing with broad categories of problems and issues concerning the whole society, such as tax systems, regulatory systems affecting commerce, and the like; still others derive from regulatory bodies set up under the various statutory schemes and charged with promulgating and sometimes enforcing detailed regulations under the authorizing statutes, as for example detailed tax regulations covering fine points of what does or does not qualify for a particular deduction or helping to interpret the meaning of otherwise broad language in a statute; still others come from local sources having nothing to do with a national government, such as state governments, local municipalities and the like; still others from international sources such as treaties adopted by a national government; and still others from direct popular sources such as systems authorized by state constitutions by which citizens can place initiatives on a ballot for a popular vote (this breakdown refers to U.S. law but applies generally to any form of Western-based system of modern constitutional government, such as that in the U.K.).

Virtually all these sources of law are what might be called "top down" - <USER2> is, once the mechanisms have been set up in a society that enable citizens to have some form of say in how a government is constituted and how its laws are enacted, the institutions take over and generate the laws going forward, whether through legislators, judges, or regulators, and average people basically get stuck with the results, having only limited recourse to do anything about any of this directly except for the occasional vote at the ballot box, participation in political campaigns, and the exercise of speech rights aimed at influencing the political process.

Given this top-down nature of law (in general), a site such as this will inherently have only limited value at best. The idea is to have politicians be more connected with the citizenry and less "out of touch" by being able to hear what ails average people and what they want changed. That is fine in itself but, presumably, the ability of an average citizen to sound off generally is already pretty substantial and especially in our modern age where blogs and the like have substantially enhanced that ability. With social media, many of the ideas coming from the citizenry can also take on a viral impetus, magnifying their impact. And, thus, it should be no secret to politicians what the big issues of the day generally are insofar as average people are reacting to them. This sort of site, one would guess, would do little to add anything meaningful to the knowledge base that politicians already possess of what within the law agitates people and calls for some form of change.

This sort of site might serve as a filtering mechanism by which the popular pulse might be better measured than from a random sampling of popular opinion but how is this any better than, say, a poll commissioned to sound out opinion on any given issue (even assuming that the input can be meaningfully organized so that it is not just random input from who knows what source)? If the site gets countless complaints about a particularly oppressive law from civil libertarians that business interests might support, or about overweening regulations that businesses hate but civil libertarians support, what does that add to the mix that is in any way meaningful? And how would this serve to influence politicians who already have their own philosophy about such issues, one way or the other? Do they listen to their boosters or to their detractors? If to the detractors, how will this have an impact if the site is not designed to afford any opportunity to make meaningful arguments that might persuade? Even if it could serve to sway politicians in some way, how would this affect the 90%+ of the laws that they don't directly control (e.g., judge-made laws, constitutional laws, bureaucratic regulations)?

I have no problem with participatory democracy and do believe that making government more accessible to its citizens is a good thing. No one wants "top- down" rule in any absolutist sense of tyranny and, in a free society, the more accountable the politicians are to those who elect them the better.

But, given the realities of modern political institutions, the practical effect of such a site would seem to be negligible except that it gives the politicians promoting it an _appearance_ of wanting to reach out and be responsive to average people. This in itself might have value but far more for the politicians involved than for the citizens affected by their actions.

I hope this doesn't sound cynical but, viewed with a professional eye (i.e., as one who deals with law in many forms), the impact of this site as structured on the law itself is very likely to be nil. Maybe with a different approach the idea could be better implemented. As is, though, I would call it more a stunt than anything else. Of course, I am not directly familiar with the political realities of the U.K. and may be off on this - from a distance, that is how I would assess it.

<comment><USER4> Would you necessarily say that common law precedents are a form of top-down law?

Since precedents are formed in the particulars of specific cases -- with the parties involved in the case directly participating in the arguments brought to the court -- and are then broadened and deepened as they are applied to more and more cases, I would consider this the most bottom-up form of law.

Participatory democracy can be, and often is, much more of a top-down proposition, and is largely responsible for the modern accumulation of statutory cruft.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Firstly, I'm really impressed by the idea, and think it would be an excellent way to have public feedback - if this had existed during washup, would the digital economy bill (now act) have passed?

But I have a few reservations - no. 10 has had a petition part of their website for years now - the problem was that any ideas that didn't fit with the government's ideas already were ignored. Petitions with only hundreds of signatures got noticed, those withtens of thousands got ignored. It's perfectly possible that this will just be repeated in a different form.

If it does work, then we might get ill informed opinion taking precedence - such as people voting against say road user charging without understanding the true costs and benefits of the system... But that's always a problem with democracy, so who knows how to solve that?

Also, there appears to be some technical issues with the site. There's no way to class entries as duplicates, and as such there are already man redundant posts - say on cannabis legalisation. When you rank by rating, they make the mistake that Amazon make - one 5 star rating is worth more than 20 five star ratings and 1 one star rating.

<comment><USER6> _Firstly, I'm really impressed by the idea, and think it would be an excellent way to have public feedback - if this had existed during washup, would the digital economy bill (now act) have passed?_

 _But I have a few reservations - no. 10 has had a petition part of their website for years now - the problem was that any ideas that didn't fit with the government's ideas already were ignored._

I think your second statement does a nice job of counter-acting your first.

Maybe I'm cynical, but this looks like a pretty shallow publicity ploy. I'd love to see some real change come from this (or sites like this), but I'd be shocked if it actually happened.

<comment><USER7> All that site promised was that anything with x (50,000 IIRC) votes would get a personal reply from the PM.

The real test will be when the Countryside Alliance (disclosure: I am a member) use the site to vote en masse for the repeal of the Hunting Act.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm steadily more and more impressed with the new government (which I was see sawing over). I hope this is not simply a publicity stunt and is _really_ a genuine move - because that would be really cool.

(as it is I think the coalition has weathered the new budget really well considering it was always going to piss of, well, everyone :))

<comment><USER9> Give them time, I liked Labour in '97. Now I would happily see Blair shipped off to the ICC.

<comment><USER10> Agreed, Britain has a great ability to elect governments that actually bring great (and usually very positive) change for the country. Then we reelect them again, and they go from positive change to well-it-could-be-worse change, and then we reelect them again and it goes to where-the-fuck-did-this-crap-come- from change.

I'm sure this will be a very positive government in terms of its changes. Then they'll have public support and will strong-arm whatever they want, and in their third run of it (if they get one) they'll bastardize everything they do and make people go running and screaming to try and get Labour back in power to reverse the damages, just for the cycle to repeat.

It's like steering a car. A sober driver makes incremental changes and goes in a straight line. England is like a drunk driver, we don't notice a problem till its too late and we hard-swerve to get back on the road just to find ourselves in oncoming traffic to swerve right back off the road.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's an interesting idea. It appears that laws accumulate (that is, there is less friction to adopting new laws than there is to repealing old ones). Given this, having a mandate from the people, so to say, might make it easier to argue a repeal.

<comment><USER9> I would like to see a delay in the implementation of laws that are introduced in reaction to specific events (terrorism, dangerous dogs, Dunblane etc.).

Rather than having a knee jerk reaction to create new laws to "do something" - the government should be able to propose new laws but these would sit in limbo for a reasonably long time period (say 2 years) and then have to be voted on again before they actually become law.

<comment><USER12> Are there not cases where some event points out serious issues with the current laws or conditions, where prompt action is required?

I'm much less concerned with laws passed in haste than I am with laws passed for eternity. All laws should have a sunset clause, something very cumbersome to override, so that two years or so down the line, if there's no longer a strong case for a law, it goes off the books.

Having to constantly work to keep existing laws on the books would make it harder to add new laws as well. (The downside is you _know_ this would lead to lawyers trying to craft new laws that combined multiple existing laws, using impenetrable language, leading to the point where we have just one law: "Sorry, whatever it is you're doing is illegal.")

<comment><USER7> Well, a recent example is the banning of meow-meow after someone allegedly died of it. The law was passed then a bit later the coroner reported that the drug was nothing to do with it. A lot of people criminalized for no reason, and instead of buying 99% pure drugs from the Internet, people instead bought 30% pure drugs cut with God knows what from a dodgy geezer in a club toilet in Brixton. Nice one Nu Labour.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Might be just window-dressing, but this Conservative/LibDem coalition continues to surprise and impress me with their pragmatic approach to governance.

</comment><comment><USER14> The odd numbered ones. That would be a good start.

</comment><comment><USER15> I think it's a great idea, but I'm not 100% sure the UK has the authority necessary to repeal the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

[http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/repealing-unnecessary- laws/rep...](http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/repealing-unnecessary-laws/repeal- the-2nd-law-of-thermodynamics-1)

<comment><USER16> That would resolve the fossil fuel / global warming issue - quite a coup for the new government!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a somewhat related idea. For every law now on the books, and every individual paragraph of those laws, I'd like a site where citizens and politicians, under their true names, can log their _support_ or _opposition_ to that clause.

Obsolete clauses, and those that exist only for the narrow interest of just one or a few campaign donors, should then stick out like sore thumbs -- with either no one supporting them, or only obvious stooges (eg paid lobbyists). Those without a certain baseline of continuing support would automatically expire after a certain period. (Clauses wouldn't individually require majority support -- just _some_ support so that some true person is accountable for explaining why such handouts exist/persist.)

The same process could also be applied to bills under consideration.

<comment><USER18> Is a system in which a large number of citizens must be intimately aware of the intricacies of a huge and complex set of legal code a well-factored system? Isn't that a bit like the passengers of an airplane instructing the pilot on how to fly?

Under our current system in the U.S., not even the representatives and senators themselves write, let alone read the legislation they're voting on ([http://www.govtrackinsider.com/articles/2010-03-24/whowrites...](http://www.govtrackinsider.com/articles/2010-03-24/whowritesbills)). The lay-person has far more personal challenges to address (e.g. family, career) than educating themselves in legal-speak in order to comprehend legal code itself.[1]

Better, I think to use causes to abstract and simplify the underlying legislation, as I'm attempting to do in <http://votereports.org> \- which is akin to telling the pilot where you want to go, rather than how to fly.

Incidentally, there are a number of sites which enable you to indicate support for bills under consideration, to varying effect, including votereports, lawilike on facebook, visiblevote, opencongress, newballot and certainly others.

\---

[1] As it is, media and bloggers don't even link to the bills they write about: <http://infovegan.com/2010/06/19/bloggers-and-bills/>. Personally I take this to be an indication of how little demand for and comprehension of this info on the reader side.

<comment><USER19> _Is a system in which a large number of citizens must be intimately aware of the intricacies of a huge and complex set of legal code a well-factored system? Isn't that a bit like the passengers of an airplane instructing the pilot on how to fly?_

This reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from James Madison, from Federalist Paper #62:

"It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"

In my opinion, Madison was as correct now as he was then.

<comment><USER20> That sounds nice and tidy, but it seems hard to fit the requirements of e.g. the EPA or the erstwhile MMS or the CFTC into something coherent enough to be understood by a lay person.

Simplicity and fairness and effectiveness are all in tension with each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Channel 4 hit the streets in a "ask the public" bit a month ago when this idea was first floated. They asked a bunch of people what laws they'd want to repeal. No-one came up with _any_ ideas. Lots of shrugging and "hmm, you need laws otherwise there'll be anarchy!" type comments.

The only "idea" someone came up with was (and I paraphrase heavily, since it was a while ago): "You know those hood things the Muslims wear? They should ban those because you can't see who you're talking to." When the reporter noted that this was creating a new law rather than removing an existing one, the response was, "Oh yeah.. you're right!"

This policy is a shriveled vegetarian sausage thrown at a collectively dim, politically unaware and undeserving populace. It'll end up mushed into the ground and forgotten within months.

</comment><comment><USER22> Sigh. This makes me wish I lived in the UK. Look what happened when they tried that here in the US: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/05...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052504396.html)

</comment><comment><USER23> I'd like to see that happen in all countries. It a great democratic exercise, and with modern communication technologies, it's now a lot easier to do than before.

I don't have any illusions that it will change society much, but it probably can't hurt too much either.

<comment><USER4> I'd actually like to see a constitutional amendment in the US that puts a fixed, mandatory sunset provision on all legislative acts.

Legislatures would be required to positively reaffirm any existing statutory laws within a mandated interval before their expiration in order for them to remain in force.

This would alter the political incentives just enough to allow a great deal of bad policy to expire quietly without legislators risking the consequences of being actively engaged in a repeal campaign.

<comment><USER24> Also it would keep legislators busy with the old laws, instead of making up new ones all the time.

Just make sure that re-affirming old laws takes some effort.

However I wonder how businesses would react to the uncertainties of certain laws expiring, just because the nation is not in a mood to re-affirm them?

<comment><USER4> I resume there'd be a strong tendency toward maintaining the stability of commercial law, where needed, and preference for common law and equity above statutes. I guess for the same reasons so many companies choose to incorporate in Delaware today.

<comment><USER25> Given the increased power of the judiciary in this scenario, what should be done about bad judicial precedents? I can't see a sunset clause working there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is excellent to see. After so many years of labour adding red tape on top of red tape, interfering more and more into our lives down to the very last detail.

Refreshing to see this happening.

<comment><USER27> Much more than red tape: a few year ago, I read that NuLabour had been creating crimes at the rate of one a day....

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I am more impressed by the Swiss system: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland#Direct_democracy>

<comment><USER29> really? after they banned minarets that way?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is a great idea. All jurisdictions should have something like this.

Someone should build a generic webapp to host this to let people post and vote the law to repeal. I'm sure you can get a government grant somewhere to bootstrap the site.

</comment><comment><USER31> Seems like formalizing a constitution would be a good place to start...

Finding out which laws violate your rights is pretty difficult if you don't have one.

<comment><USER32> [http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2009/02/gentle-...](http://unqualified- reservations.blogspot.com/2009/02/gentle-introduction-to-unqualified.html)

""" Britain, of course, is famous for its unwritten constitution - a phrase which strikes the worm-gnawed American brain as oxymoronic. In fact, unwritten constitution is a tautology. It is our written constitution - or large-C Constitution - which is a concept comical, impossible, and fundamentally fraudulent. Please allow me to explain.

England had a constitution well before America had a Constitution, and De Quincey (whose political journalism is remarkably underrated) defines the concept succinctly:

        ...the equilibrium of forces in a political system, as recognised and fixed by distinct political acts...

In other words, a government's constitution (small c) is its actual structure of power. The constitution is the process by which the government formulates its decisions. When we ask why government G made decision D1 to take action A1, or decision D2 not to take action A2, we inquire as to its constitution. """

<comment><USER33> Every politically-interested hacker should read that entire series of posts. It's the closest you can get right now to reading a history of the past couple hundred years from a 23rd century perspective, in the sense of "one you will find completely different", a perspective in which an obsession with democracy may be seen as quaint as we now perceive monarchies. For me, the point is less whether he convinces you he is correct in every particular than getting exposed to a truly _different_ perspective.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am shocked, shocked to find politicians even considering offering to repeal unnecessary or overly restrictive laws. Is this a first in human history?

<comment> s-phi-nl If you meant the question seriously, I think the Twenty-First Amendment to the US Constitution is a prior example.

<comment><USER34> Ah, right, forgot about that one. Nearly 80 years ago, though, so still a pretty rare thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Crowd sourcing policy decisions. This could be the shiny new face of democracy (hyperbole noted)

</comment><comment><USER36> A garbage collection process should be a feature of all governments.

</comment><comment><USER37> Repeal immigration laws.

</comment><comment><USER38> Answer and be ignored. Like the "Ask Obama" questions!

<comment><AUTHOR> well, maybe. But you can pull this trick once only.

If this is what is going to happen, the next President or Prime Minister who will want to do something similar will have to promise he will follow through, or he/she will be made fun of.

<comment><USER39> > But you can pull this trick once only.

Nope. You can pull it again and again. Some folks will notice but they'll be ignored because folks really want to believe.

As the song goes "And I'll get on my knees and pray We don't get fooled again" but you know how that ended....

For example, the last time immigration was a hot topic in the US, we passed an amnesty together with a promise to secure the borders so there wouldn't be an explosion of illegal immigration. The result was an amnesty and no change in enforcement, so there was an explosion in illegal immigration because the "huddled masses yearning to mow lawns" rightly figured out that there'd be calls for another amnesty. And yes, the amnesty advocates are promising enforcement this time too. (The more honest are saying that they won't offer enforcement first because they can't get amnesty if enforcement works.)

<comment><USER40> _"Some folks will notice but they'll be ignored because folks really want to believe."_

The UK doesn't really have a significant number of people who vocally and unwaveringly support particular political parties. This may be because there is a greater proportion of political cynics in the UK, or perhaps it merely appears that way because of our smaller population.

Regardless, the way politicians are portrayed in the media, and the general perception of politicians in general, is almost entirely negative.

<comment><USER39> > The UK doesn't really have a significant number of people who vocally and > unwaveringly support particular political parties.

Oh really? Half of the Labor/Conservative vote isn't reliable?

In any event, the belief at issue need not be in a political party but in "what govt does".

<comment><USER40> _"Oh really? Half of the Labor/Conservative vote isn't reliable?"_

No; but people vote for what they consider the least worst option, not because they actually like the politicians. There's certainly very little vocal support for them!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How SEOmoz was built - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/seomoz-rand-fishkin-interview/ <comment><USER2> "[..] SEOmoz, is one of the most respected names in search engine optimization."

Wait, there are respected names in SEO?</comment>


The Places in America Where Most Income Goes to Rent - <AUTHOR> https://priceonomics.com/the-places-in-america-where-all-your-salary-goes/ <comment><USER2> I'm genuinely curious why they bothered publishing this in its current state. They don't make tax calculations, so they assume you're paying rent with untaxed income, which makes the comparison all but meaningless.

<comment><USER3> They also weirdly assume you have a 2BR on a single income, which is not the norm.

<comment><USER4> Is it not the norm? It certainly was until quite recently.

A young family with one breadwinner and a couple of small kids might reasonably want to live in a 2BR, in many countries not just USA.

<comment><USER5> > A young family with one breadwinner

That norm is quickly going out of style at least

<comment><USER6> How much of that is influenced by economic necessity?

My wife would love nothing more than to raise the kids but making ends meet is proving a tough tradeoff

<comment><USER5> Unsure. But equality is one factor. At least where I live women outnumber men at universities - meaning that if one partner in the relation has an "important career", it's very soon going to be more often the mother.

Another factor is rents and house prices. If everyone you are competing with for that house can pay the mortgage on two incomes, you aren't going to afford it on one. So that's economic necessity I guess.

<comment><USER7> _> At least where I live women outnumber men at universities - meaning that if one partner in the relation has an "important career", it's very soon going to be more often the mother._

You can't logically conclude that based on that one data point.

<comment><USER8> College enrollment at all schools across the US (both 2 year and 4 year) is ~56% women, if I did the math right. Source: [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_303.70.a...](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_303.70.asp)

<comment><USER9> Women go less into STEM and higher income domains, compared to men. They have more degrees in aggregate but it's a higher proportion of "worthless" degrees. It is not meaningful to predict income.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The analysis comparing cities is just (mean salary - mean rent), which is going to make places with high income inequality look better than they are for most people.

I'd like to see the 10%, 50% (median), and 90% quantiles for (after-tax salary - housing cost). I bet the rankings would be quite different depending on which of these you chose.

<comment><USER11> Absolutely this.

We know that income is generally power-law distributed, so we also know that the majority of incomes will be below the mean. An analysis like this is bordering on nonsensical. It's too sensitive to outliers to be useful, in my opinion.

A worked example: the median income per capita in Boston is $37,288[1] and there are 685,094 residents. The total income of people in Boston is then 685094*$37288 = $25,545,785,072. According to [2], Tim Cook's total compensation was $377 million in 2013. If Tim Cook moved to Boston, the mean per capita income would rise from $37,288 to ((25545785072+377000000)/(685094+1)) = $37,838. One person moving can make a 2% difference in mean income by moving to a top 25 city in the US, nevermind any of the smaller cities on that list.

1 = [https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/bostoncitymassa...](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/bostoncitymassachusetts/IPE120216)

2 = [https://www.therichest.com/rich-list/world/top-10-people- wit...](https://www.therichest.com/rich-list/world/top-10-people-with-the- highest-salaries-in-the-world/)

<comment><USER12> FWIW they mentioned the highest salary was $187k

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think Minneapolis is an interesting data point on there, since I've been told (and the data here reflects) that housing in Minneapolis is on par with Chicago right now, but the salaries haven't caught up. Minneapolis ranks as one of the worst Annual Salary After Rent cities, even behind LA and Seattle, which comes as a surprise.

Also one thing I've found as I work through a move from an expensive city (SF) to a less expensive one (Minneapolis) is that the things you're getting for the prices shown here are drastically different. I've found 1500sqft 2br/2ba apartments with two parking spots in the Twin Cities for $2300, while that same thing in SF would easily cost $7000. I paid $4500 for a 2br/1ba that was a little under 1000sqft with a single parking space.

<comment><USER14> Tech salaries in Minneapolis and the surrounding area aren't terrible if you're reasonably qualified and do some digging- think low $100k and up. The rents seem absurd to me- $1300 for a one bedroom apartment? - but that's because I grew up in a town where a two bedroom apartment above a quiet store would cost $450 a month, tops.

<comment><USER15> $1300 for a one bedroom apartment? I'm paying $1360 for a two bedroom and I'm in the heart of Uptown in a nice apartment.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, I think it was near the twins stadium, and was brand new, so it was probably inflated a bit compared to what you would get if you looked around.

Regardless, I now have a 2k mortgage for multiple acres, waterfront, and no congestion, city noise, smells or lights. It's bliss if you don't mind the occasional snake or bear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Really surprised to see Detroit that high on the list. I kind of wonder what the relative availability of jobs in Detroit is vs, say, Dallas or Chicago (which offer some significant lifestyle advantages over Detroit). It would also have been a much better comparison if some approximation of state and local income taxes were factored in.

<comment><USER17> A booster's 2 cents:

Yes, Texas's lack of income tax (and Detroit's _city_ income tax) would certainly catapult Dallas ahead of Detroit on this list if taxes were properly factored in.

Detroit is sort of a well-known "sleeper" city that "might be nice to live in someday", but I think word will get out sooner than later that it's got a lot of livability advantages right now. Great arts/food/drink scenes, 4 major sports teams, a surplus of cheap, high quality housing, a first class research university in close proximity, and mild traffic that's about what you'd expect in a city with a AAA baseball team. It has it's flaws, but I'm really not familiar with anywhere else that offers a lot of those amenities without hell traffic or impossibly expensive housing (usually both).

Unless global warming radically reverses, I'd even make the argument that Detroit's weather is becoming a draw - a mild winter is a small price to pay for breezy summers with highs in the low 80's.

<comment><USER16> I used to live pretty near Detroit, and, honestly, most of those things don't ring true to me. As far as housing goes, if you work in Detroit, you can easily live in between Detroit and Ann Arbor and get a much better deal on housing. Speaking of Ann Arbor, why not just live there, if proximity to the university is important? And I'm not sure how you can count the Lions as a "major sports team." ;) (kidding on that one.)

I can't really comment much on the current culture and food scene in Detroit, but I don't recall it being all that great when I was there.

The weather must be significantly different now than when I was there. Michigan was hot and extremely humid in the summers (which makes sense for a state that literally has 11,000 lakes, not to mention the Great Lakes), and the winters bitter cold and snowy for the most part.

<comment><USER18> As someone who grew up in Michigan, left, and visits familiy regularly throughout the year...I can't imagine anyone thinking the weather is desirable. Like pmiller2 said, summers are humid af, 80-90%, on a regular basis with 80-95 temps just isn't enjoyable.

The winters are rather cold, with quite a lot of snow and gray skies for months. Winter bleeds so far into spring. I remember years as a kid, where we'd get a foot of snow in Mid April. We lived just outside Metro Detroit, and I grew up there in the 90's/Early 00's...

<comment><USER16> While in Michigan, over a period of years, I saw snow come out of the sky in literally every month except July. Granted, sometimes it did not stick, but that's saying something. I've seen those giant piles of snow in huge parking lots still melting well into summer.

<comment><USER18> I remember those giant piles of snow, fading to black over the course of months, while never seeming to melt until well into summer.

What a gross and weird sight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The confluence or random circumstance and intentional lobbying that have allowed SF area landlords to ensure that a low stock of housing is maintained in the face of skyrocketing demand is truly fascinating.

<comment><USER20> Everything always seems behind. When I lived in mountain view, local papers were full of old school residents complaining about nearly finished new housing on Castro that a bunch of googlers would move into. Like... The time to preserve your small town setting passed about 20 years ago lol. It's no longer apricot field town, it's silicon valley, it's staying silicon valley. Why not profit off the rising land values?

<comment><USER21> But Silicon Valley was already dead 25 years ago!

[https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.folklore.comp...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/alt.folklore.computers/bvE0Ka5nCnM/NAIOQnrEyCAJ)

      Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
      Path: sparky!uunet!stanford.edu!nntp.Stanford.EDU!abercrombie.Stanford.EDU!paulf
      From: pa...@abercrombie.Stanford.EDU (Paul Flaherty)
      Subject: Re: Sillycon Valley history
      Message-ID: <firstname.lastname@example.com>
      Sender: ne...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Mr News)
      Organization: DSO, Stanford University
      References: <firstname.lastname@example.com>
      Date: 11 Mar 93 18:25:19 GMT
      Lines: 20

      dpa...@csulb.edu (Dave Palmer) writes:
      >From what I understand, the shine is rubbing off. The cost of housing is
      >ludicrous, and companies are fleeing to places like Arizona. But you
      >still can't throw a silicon wafer in Cupertino without hitting an Apple
      >facility.

      I think it's fair to say that Silicon Valley is dead.  Cheap venture capital,
      minimal startup cost, access to university researchers, and good inter
      business communications fueled an engine which turned ideas into products.
      You can now find venture capital elsewhere, with the discount rate being
      what it is.  The cost of housing and office space has spiraled out of
      control, thanks to the environmentalists and Prop 13.  The trade secrets
      and intellectual property mania have pretty much destroyed open cooperation.
      The universities remain, but aren't the driving force they used to be.

      The place has a much different, more ossified feel to it than it did seven
      years ago.

      -=Paul Flaherty, N9FZX | "My boy, we are pilgrims in an unholy land."
      ->pa...@Stanford.EDU   |                                -- Dr. Henry Jones Sr.

<comment><USER22> And then that guy invented AltaVista, in Silicon Valley: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Flaherty](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Flaherty)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Where the heck do they get $2800 for a 2BR in Seattle from? That seems high to me. A year ago I was renting a 3BR for $2100.

Well, ok, "average" across all 2BR in the city. That doesn't really tell the full story and will be drawn up by high outliers.

There are a lot of methodology problems here.

<comment><USER16> I'm interested to know how one could arrive at a more reasonable number for a 2br apartment. Obviously, what you say is true: a luxury 2 BR with a doorman, gym, pool, onsite parking, and pets allowed is going to be vastly more expensive than your basic 2BR with none of that included. How do you tease them apart?

<comment><USER24> The easiest way is taking the median instead of the mean. For more info and other methods, search for "robust estimators".

<comment><USER16> I guess I wasn't clear enough. Using the median certainly works better if you're looking at the population of "all 2BR apartments." But, I would contend that's a mistake, as luxury apartments are really fundamentally different from non-luxury apartments. And, among luxury apartments, individual amenities matter. A pool is likely to be less relevant than a doorman, for instance.

Statistically, I don't see any good way around this other than doing a really gnarly ANOVA to tease out the prices of individual amenities.

<comment><USER23> 2BR just happens to be the category the article chose. It's a reasonable assumption that e.g. families with a kid are going to rent at least a 2BR — of any age and luxury — if they can afford to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Interesting how many of the salaries in these samples are tied to college towns. Cambridge, College Station, Knoxville, & Chapel Hill just to name a few that I saw.

<comment><USER26> In the case of Chapel Hill (and I'm sure others as well), it's a bit odd to see it singled out when it's really part of a larger metropolitan area.

If I were living in Chapel Hill, I could also be reasonably working in Raleigh or Durham.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> 70% of rentable units in San Francisco are rent-controlled. I know many very high paid people who pay well below "market rate" for their apartments. If you do it right you can live in SF for less than many "cheaper" cities and yet make much more money.

<comment><USER28> How do you "do it right?"

<comment><USER29> Make sure you already live in San Francisco and use the government to cap out your rent to the detriment of literally everyone else.

<comment><USER30> Exactly.

Use the laws supposedly made for poor people, and use them at your advantage (like most of the wealthy do).

Also yell and pretend high and clear that you want to help the poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The rents look a bit off, $3,700 is not the average 2BR apartment in NYC. Same for Miami, $2,400 is way too low. Maybe they're including too many apartments in the outer areas of these cities, but if you want to keep your commute <30 minutes in the cities, NYC would be closer to 4.5k and Miami would be hitting 3k.

</comment><comment><USER32> This list makes me very surprised that Amazon dropped Detroit, MI from the finalists on their HQ2 search. Rent there is half of what it is in Seattle. A few AMZN shares would go a lot further to keeping people happy in Detroit than in many other cities.

Detroit has a bad reputation because their economy failed. But put 50,000 high paying tech jobs there, that problem would look very different.

</comment><comment><USER33> It's interesting that some of the highest and lowest after-rent salaries are in the Bay area. That's a pretty clear indicator of SF's constrained housing supply in particular. It's also interesting so many low ranked after-rent cities are in Florida, which might reflect a strong desire to live there despite the lack of job opportunity.

<comment><USER34> It's also relevant that SF is only 47 square miles, compared to the metro area's 3.5k square miles. In many of our cities, people commute to work in different cities (hence the horrible traffic). You can end up with different salary:rent ratios comparing jobs in a city to rent in a city than you'd get looking at salary:rent ratios of jobs of people living in a city to rent in a city. Both are interesting statistics in their own right.

I'd bet the difference in those two statistics indicates uneven housing supply (residential areas aren't the same as business areas) and small cities (residential areas are counted differently than business areas).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> In any place where incumbent landlords are protected from competition, rents will naturally rise to consume all available money.

<comment><USER36> Henry George was right all along! It's amazing to see how similar income levels are after taking rent into account.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Salary after rent is not necessarily an optimal metric. It works when looking at things like vacations and national products, but when you're looking at local spend, that rent gets passed through everything that requires local land and labor. Food (especially prepared food) and entertainment tend to be priced in local dollars.

<comment><USER38> I agree with this. I figure I probably have the same number of dollars after paying for housing in Atlanta as I would working the same job in SF. But I can buy food, entertainment, etc. at Atlanta prices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> They're skewing the data to fit their narrative by only looking at medium rent for a 2 bedroom apartment.

<comment><USER40> Furthermore, those looking for a 2br are very likely to be dual-income, at which point high cost areas begin to make a lot of sense even if the rent is insane.

<comment><USER16> Likely true, but I would point out that there are significant advantages to having a 2BR if you work from home at all. I use the smaller BR at my place as the bedroom and the larger one as my office, and it's fantastic.

<comment><USER41> It may be almost unthinkable in high cost of living areas but it's pretty common for even fairly young people to rent a 2BR and use the spare room as an office/hobby room/etc. I know I did after grad school.

It's another problem with this type of comparison though. What's a "typical" apartment for a young professional to rent in a relatively low cost suburb or small city is likely going to be very different from what the same young professional would rent in Manhattan--even if they're paid more in the latter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If I ever found another startup, I'll do it somewhere with significantly lower rents but proximity to a startup hub. For example, the Santa Rosa area fits the bill in SF, and there are areas of New York that are significantly outside of Manhattan or Williamsburg. It's just not worth the runway hit, and those locations force you to try for a certain kind of funding that might not actually fit the startup (or its stage) well. Cities like SF have enormous value to a startup but not so much that you have to be in them day in, day out. There was a time that this was the optimal thing to do, but I think it's passed.

<comment><USER35> The median home price in Santa Rosa is astronomical. Perhaps you meant Chico, or Corvallis, or something like that.

<comment><USER42> It's pretty high, I'll grant you - but 1/3 that of San Francisco. And the rent is correspondingly lower. Chico etc are significantly lower than that, of course, but they're a longer drive away - Santa Rosa is just an hour on the 101 from SF.

<comment><USER43> I'm not convinced it's really just an hour during commute hours.

<comment><USER35> It's not, not even close. It's 2H typically, with very high variance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Are all the charts loading for most people? I could only get the first one to show up.

<comment><USER45> I had to disable Privacy Badger to get the other charts to show up. Disabling uBlock Origin didn't help (or hurt).

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> When I see CFO/CTO with salaries of 171k, I do not know what to think. Is the term CFO/CTO overused? For me a CTO/CFO is someone in a publicly traded company, and in those scenario they usually make in the millions.

<comment><USER47> Most companies are not publicly traded. Is the job/life of a CTO of a 15 person company different from one of a 15000 person company? Yes. But they are still a CTO, and it's not necessarily overuse to call them that.

<comment><USER46> I think it is, but I guess its a matter of opinion. I see someone using the CEO/CTO title of a 15 people operation as disconnected from reality, makes it seems like these people care about titles more than anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Rent isn't everything. The cost of living in Detroit is absurdly lower than Silicon Valley. I was in SF this winter and everything little thing I bought felt like it was 20% more than in Michigan. When on vacation I can get two weeks in Florida for what one week in SF costs me.

</comment><comment><USER49> The one thing that none of these analysis would ever unearth is how much money you can make through real estate in California. That can rarely matched by the incremental savings you get in a low cost area.

</comment><comment><USER50> Why do we have a system that financially discourages dense concentrations of smart, productive, inventive people?

It seems the market encourages people to avoid doing anything that would make their community attractive.

<comment><USER51> I think it has more to do with how we build cities. If you think about it all cities just start off as a collection of single story buildings in the central business district (CBD). As the city grows the CBD slowly gets replaced with bigger and bigger buildings. Under normal market forces high rents should be reduced because builders will build more units in the area to meet demand. However, the major factor that prevents this is government planning that restricts market forces from occurring. The end result is there is not enough supply to meet demand which ends up in bidding wars. The rent rises to absurd rates until it meets demand.

Also cities are more likely to build high-density commercial since those companies are generally bigger taxpayers and consume less government resources compared to residential.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> This fits with anecdotes from people who live in the bay area that they have roughly double the take home pay after rent etc...

</comment><comment><USER53> Whomever is a CTO and making $140k a year...really needs to rethink their path in life. That is ridiculous. The amount of responsibility a CTO has at a company of almost any size, is a lot. I don't even know why a company would bother having a CTO if that's all they think it's worth.

<comment><USER47> In many, probably most, companies a CTO is not necessarily someone coming from a software developer background but instead essentially an IT manager. And most companies are not headquartered in SF/Seattle/NYC, so $140k/year goes a lot farther there. That $140k figure also does not account for equity/bonuses

<comment><USER53> Maybe, but that's avg. So, some CTO's make 350-1M+ a year and so I'm supposed to believe many CTO's make less than 140k, maybe a lot less? Maybe indeed should slice the data in ways that make sense, but company size, or area only. As someone that manages 120+ people...I know a lot about what engineers and other tech workers make. These numbers are straight silliness.

<comment><USER47> Well there are biases also, first and foremost that this data is from Indeed.com and I doubt most high quality CTO positions are posted there. It would definitely make sense to separate based on company size for executive positions.

<comment><USER53> For sure. It's possible I'm just too sensitive to this stuff, but if you work at company of any size..say over 100, and you manage a lot of people...having your HR dept not understand how region, market, company size, etc effect how you should pay, is a huge pain point. These kind of "studies" just make that a lot harder.

Even the custom reports we get are "wrong" if you don't slice the statistics correctly. And a lot of people have no idea what's going on with compensation (salary, bonus and equity) right now, in competitive markets and competitive fields.

Our company is only 700 people and it's been a huge challenge.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Pong in 30 Lines - <AUTHOR> http://billmill.org/pong.html <comment><USER2> Man I wish I had a nice Mac.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is the fun way to learn python.

<comment><USER4> As long as you mean nodebox, not my code - I'd be embarrassed to present this code to a newbie.

If any impressionable proto-Pythonistas are reading this: don't format your code like this! I just did it to make it short for fun. Go read PEP 8 and be enlightened <http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/> .

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "Pong in 30 Lines" isn't really the interesting thing to me. I think it's far more interesting that you can write an interactive python app and embed it in a pdf.

Perhaps this would have been better submitted as "Embed python games in a pdf"?

<comment><USER4> You managed to embed the actual game into a PDF? How did you do that?

I was only able to export an image of it.

<comment><USER5> Nope, I'm not in OS X so I couldn't try out the software. I just assumed it did what it said it did.

<http://nodebox.net/code/index.php/Home> : "create 2D visuals (static, animated or interactive) using Python programming code and export them as a PDF"

<comment><USER4> Ahh... no, you can only export static images to PDF AFAIK.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook paid posts reveal the real value of our customer reach - <AUTHOR> http://www.agilord.com/en/radar/2012/10/paid-posts-reveal-real-value-of-customer-reach/

<comment><AUTHOR> It would be really interesting to know that if someone downvoted this link, why did they do it? I'd be eager to learn about the reasons and to understand it better.</comment>


Milky Way Stabilized Shows the Earth Is Spinning Through Space - <AUTHOR> https://gfycat.com/lameheartfelthammerheadbird <comment><USER2> Nice and creative! Milky way and earth spinning should be more presented in this way</comment>


Seahawks lineman Russell Okung responds to PG's essay on economic inequality - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekwire.com/2016/seahawks-lineman-russell-okung-responds-paul-grahams-essay-inequality-startups/ <comment><USER2> Extremely good essay.

Here's the thing.

A left tackle ( using "The Blind Side" here ) has a particular set of physical properties. If suddenly, for nutritional or environmental reasons, there are 10x of the number of people who can qualify physically as a left tackle, then the locus of competition will move elsewhere.

This, IMO, is what we see now. Paul's not advocating it ( again, IMO ) he's commenting on it. We are without the massive corporations of the 1950s to absorb people of "ordinary" ability[1]. Then again, I get stories of how those jobs slowly killed people.

[1]Yes, I hate that sentence but that's how the story goes...

Investing in inner city kids is a great idea, but it's hard to do. Using yet another sports film as a source, "The Street Stops Here" talks about Bob Hurley.

You don't find a Bob Hurley every day. Bob Hurley is a retired parole officer. It's clear from the film that he'd do nearly anything to keep kids out of prison. This is his white whale; he doesn't play fair and he doesn't care who objects to it.

Money will not help with that. Finding what can be done is a profoundly difficult problem.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't agree with PG's essay myself, but I do get peeved when people attack it for all the wrong reasons.

Russel's main thesis is that people often don't succeed because of their circumstances, that they deserve help, and that we need to build them up.

That doesn't contradict PG's main thesis. PG's main thesis is that helping the less well off is indeed a noble & worthy goal, but the best ways to help their quality of life, in an absolute level, may sometimes involve economic systems/policies that increase income inequality. That enabling income inequality and helping the poor, aren't necessarily in conflict with one another.

The 2 theses given above don't contradict one another in any way. If someone really takes issue with PG's essay, and many people like myself do, please actually write a response that addresses his main point in a fair way.</comment>


Less time sitting 'extends life' - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18767278 <comment><USER2> "This research only suggests a causal association..."

This wipes out the assumptions that most people seem to be making.

People who are active sit down less. People who are active have a longer life expectancy. So be active. QED.

Nothing about this says that if you change your behaviour by sitting down less, you will live longer. Even TFA acknowledges this.

Conclusion: this article tells us nothing new, and nothing that we wouldn't have assumed already.

<comment><USER3> Why waste time doing a study with an unpredictable result? If you don't know the answer ahead of time, you may not be able to find a soundbite worthy correlation even after fishing with every statistical trick you know, and that = time and effort put in without adding any points to your score (or impact level or whatever.)

Oh, wait. Science is why. That's an old school attitude, don't you think? My study about how a college education _may_ lighten your skin is hotly anticipated. I wonder how it'll turn out?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There seems to be a growing backlash against sitting and I for one am not going to stand for it!

Actually, just kidding but couldn't resist. I'm leaving my job (in part) because I can feel the negative effects of sitting for 8hrs a day + ~1.5hrs in the car. At the end of the day I feel stiff, tired, and, not breathless, but definitely reduced lung capacity. I've had a standing desk at home for the past 2 years and I see no reason why I should tolerate worse conditions at work than I have at home.

As I mentioned in a comment below, I think standing desks will be the next must-have perk that great companies offer. It will certainly be on my must- have list if I ever return to full-time employment.

Edited to add >> even if you exercise, that may not be enough the negate the effects of sitting: [http://mashable.com/2012/04/23/more-you-sit-sooner-die- video...](http://mashable.com/2012/04/23/more-you-sit-sooner-die-video/) and...

"Sitting, it would seem, is an independent pathology. Being sedentary for nine hours a day at the office is bad for your health whether you go home and watch television afterward or hit the gym. It is bad whether you are morbidly obese or marathon-runner thin." \-- [http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17sitting-t.h...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17sitting-t.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> "It is not clear how many of these people were less healthy to begin with and who, therefore, might spend more time sitting down as a result."

Next in mass market health news: Eating at McDonalds makes you poorer, and playing basketball makes you taller.

</comment><comment><USER5> The BBC article touches on this, but the study does not support this conclusion (or any conclusion that could drive public health policy, really). It is lacking any accounting for confounding factors, like physical exercise, diet, health, or income.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Limiting the time we spend sitting to just three hours a day could add an extra two years to our life expectancy, scientists calculate." -- I guess it's poor article. I think it depends on how much I sit per day, isn't it?

On the other hand a agree that people sit too much - they need more doing sports, walking, etc. Together with good diet it makes life not only longer, but happier too.

</comment><comment><USER7> Some commentaries on this sort of research:

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/sitting-time- corr...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/sitting-time-correlating- with-mortality-independently-of-exercise.php)

This is not the first study to propose this correlation, of course. There are a range of others from past years. One has to wonder what the mechanism is here, however - my suspicion is that it actually does all come back down to the level of physical activity in the end. In these massive studies the level of exercise and activity is reported by the participants. A person who stands and works is going to be somewhat more active than a person who sits and works, even though that time may not be categorized as physical activity, or reported differently.

Exercise is much like calorie restriction - the effects are so large in comparison to other factors we have easy access to that they are likely to creep into any study.

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/06/another-study- sug...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/06/another-study-suggests- that-sedentary-behavior-adds-up.php)

At some point in the future we won't really have to worry too much about things like this, as medical science will progress to the point at which maintenance of long-term health regardless of lifestyle becomes as much a non- issue as protection from the infectious diseases that plagued our ancestors. But we have a way to go towards that goal, and in the meanwhile it doesn't seem wise to sit back and assume that biotechnology will rescue you from casual negligence. Maybe you'll get lucky, but for those of us in the middle stages of life it looks uncertain indeed. The coming decades are on the cusp between the era of aging as a fact of life and aging as a treatable and reversible medical condition - a lot of deaths will fall on the wrong side of that line, so why not try to shift the odds on whether yours is one of them? Every year gained is big deal in this sort of situation.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why are the targets unfeasible?

<comment><USER9> Because in our society most of the people sit when they commute, sit when they work and sit when they eat and sit when they relax.

<comment><USER8> Yes, but isn't that easy to change? I work behind I computer 10 hours/day, 7 days/week but sit less than 3 of those. I changed that overnight and advice my employees to do the same thing (most do). Why cannot everyone do that? What's the 'unfeasible' about it? Only that people are lazy, don't want it or is there another reason?

<comment><USER10> It's hard for a lot of employees who don't have a manager on board. I think that's getting easier though, as standing it catching on.

It's also hard for some people to afford a good standing work station. I just use a bookshelf, but it depends on your computer.

<comment><USER8> True. I just put an old fashion chair on the table. It works fine; it's exactly the right height. Never have an back aches/complaints anymore and no RSI. I'm thinner + fitter as well. So even if I don't get years added to my life, it cannot be too unhealthy :) And easy to accomplish. Our office looks weird now with all these people standing though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There are a lot of people who do more sitting, they call it relaxing, than 3 hours a day and manage to live very long lives. Physical activity is always good but sitting down is not unhealthy.

<comment><USER8> Yes? There are plenty (I know at least 7 in my family) people who smoke every day for 80+ years and live without disease before dying their sleep. There are a lot of people who do a lot of sitting and manage to live very short lives.

There might or might not be a health issue with sitting down; for me my personal experience is compelling; I feel YEARS younger since I don't sit more than a few hours a day, relaxing or otherwise. This _next_ to other physical activity. It makes sense to me as well (we didn't used to sit a lot before 1900, so evolution didn't equip our bodies to do so for 8+ hours/day), but that's not really proof/evidence of anything per se, just as 'a lot of people who sit a lot live long' and 'a lot of people who sit a lot die young' are not ;)

I think stress levels are involved too ; sitting cramped / stressed is not very good for you I believe while that is the reality for many 'sitting professionals' ; walking helps reduce stress often so that is a part as well I believe.

<comment><USER12> Interesting. Thanks for sharing your personal observation. Do you have a standing desk or a new job? For how many years do you sit less now?

<comment><USER8> I have a chair on a table where the sit part of the chair + laptop is exactly the right height for my arms. And I have been doing this for about 2.5 years now. Even wrote a book about it (which I never finished :) I'll revisit it I guess.

<comment><USER12> Sounds interesting! Can you show a picture maybe?

If I get you right, you use your chair as a desk. That chair is sitting on a normal desk, so combined the height is appropriate for working while standing. Right?

<comment><USER8> This is my home setup <https://dl.dropbox.com/u/6134596/20120530_160149.jpg>

When i'm writing stuff I'm usually replacing the laptop by a writing pad.

<comment><USER12> Thanks. That really is simple (and beautiful)!

I wonder though, isn't it hard for your wrist after a while when you can't rest your lower arm on the desk?

<comment><USER8> I have a MBP; I rest my wrists on the huge slabs under the keyboard which works absolutely fine. If you computer doesn't have that, then yes, I would make a real table on the table so I can rest my wrists.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Are you living in a computer simulation? - <AUTHOR> http://www.simulation-argument.com/simulation.html <comment><USER2> A modern rehash of René Descartes's "I think therefore I am" problem. He asked, essentially, am I living a fantasy dreamed up for me by a "great deceiver". Replace "great deceiver" with "computer simulation" and the argument plays out the same way (albeit, with more probability in the modern case)

Ultimately, your existence is exactly what you perceive it to be. Speculating on the nature of our existence, on this level, is indicative of those who don't have to pay their own rent :-) You can chase your own tail on this one literally forever. As we cannot access the simulation we are running in (just as you can't really think about thinking) this idea becomes a debate on par with the existence of God. It cannot be proven one way or another.

All this aside, I'll admit it was a fun read.

<comment><USER3> While it can't be proven either way, something I find interesting about Bostrum's formulation (and before it, Hans Moravec's 'Pigs in Cyberspace') is that it does seem possible to infer some probabilities.

As we get closer to a world where our own ability to create world-simulations approaches verisimilitude to our 'real world', it becomes more likely that we are ourselves in such a simulation.

Some people find this idea existentially-threatening, but if it's any consolation, those running the simulation can't be sure they're not in a simulation either.

For example, let's say we're inside a simulation run by a race of hyper- intelligent turtles, whose universe simulation, after a few tredecillion ticks, has given rise to our current perceived reality.

Well, it's turtles all the way up.

<comment><USER2> What if the turtle's universe was a dream thought up by the great flying spaghetti monster?

My probability math is rusty, but it's my understanding that probability is only relevant in a finite system. The article (in a very sneaky way) assumes, as it's premise, an infinite set of 'simulations'. But if this is the case, wouldn't that negate the usefulness of their 'probability'? In other words, if your conclusion is that we could be living in a simulation running inside a simulation running insi.....(keep going until blue in the face) doesn't that undercut your ability to say that one course of action is more likely than another?

Or, even better, isn't this the same as the proof for god that goes: "Our world is so complex and the probability of it coming about by by accident is so small that there must be an intelligent being controlling it'

(I was a CS/Philosophy double major in college, so my theoretical probability skills may be off, are there any math majors out there that can clear this up?)

<comment><USER4> The real numbers are infinite, and probabilities involving continuous functions on the reals make sense; it's just that P(X=c) = 0 for all constants c, and you have to integrate the probability density function to obtain probabilities. See [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_probability_distribu...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous_probability_distribution)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect that the best response to this question is not yes or no, but rather "Who cares?"

It's in a similar class to "Can you prove that the Universe wasn't created by an invisible pink unicorn?" Well, no, I can't. But when I go to my grave, this inadequacy won't be at the top of my list of concerns.

<comment><USER6> In the same discussion on Slashdot years ago, one user insisted that the possibility of living in a simulation was the most horrific thing he could imagine, because someone could just pull the plug. Nobody managed to convince him that this was any less horrifying than, say, the possibility of the sun going nova, or being killed in a plane crash.

But, if the simulation is "airtight," you're exactly right. This possibility does not color our behavior one bit.

The only possible distinction I could see would be that interesting behavior might get your state saved for a future run of the simulation; the problem is that "interesting behavior" is impossible to determine.

<comment><USER7> I think it does color our behavior if we are able to produce such a simulation. If at some point in the future we are able to produce a simulation such as this don't you think our behavior would change in that we would acknowledge the possibility of ourselves being in such a simulation?

<comment><USER6> We already acknowledged the possibility. Our production of a simulation in no way affects the possibility that we're in one now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Quote from the introduction ( _emphasis_ mine) " Then it _could be the case_ that the vast majority of minds like ours do not belong to the original race but rather to people simulated by the advanced descendants of an original race. _It is then possible to argue that_ , if this were the case, we would be rational to think that _we are likely_ among the simulated minds rather than among the original biological ones. Therefore, if we don't think that we are currently living in a computer simulation, _we are not entitled to believe_ that we will have descendants who will run lots of such simulations of their forebears. That is the basic idea. The rest of this paper will spell it out more carefully "

To distill the above: It is possible that some people are simulations. Therefore it is likely we are simulations. Therefore if we don't think we are simulations, we are not entitled to believe our descendants will run simulations of people.

Not sure if I even need to critique the logic behind that.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love to watch my Sims playing the Sims on their little computers :)

</comment><comment><USER10> Reading a few of the comment here...

I feel bad for some of you. This isn't serious (at least I hope not), this is the sort of thing you get to toy around with in your head when you're driving on a long road trip or coming home from a long day at work.

It's _fun_ to think about this sort of thing (for me and, aparently, a few others at least...)...the way some of your are commenting on this makes me feel like you would be the type of people to ask

"Why? Are we going somewhere?"

of an invitation to go for a walk.

</comment><comment><USER11> No, you're living in my simulation.

Prove me wrong.

Obligatory: [http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last- answer...](http://destructionoverdrive.blogspot.com/2005/06/last-answer-by- isaac-asimov.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> People's stupidity is infinite and therefore it can't be simuleted.

On a serious note, even if we are in simulation we are still part of the real world just like many computer programms today.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yes

</comment><comment><USER14> No.

<comment><USER15> How would you argue that?

<comment><USER16> Why do you have to? A perfect simulation of the real world is not a falsifiable hypothesis, therefore rational argument doesn't apply.

<comment><USER17> Not quite. Science doesn't apply, sure, but rational argument still does. Two very different things. Mind you, rational argument completely disassociated from any assumptions about the verifiability of the world we appear to inhabit has an irksome habit of going in circles.

<comment><USER16> Let's say person A claims we are all living in a perfect computer simulation, and person B instead claims the world was created by a pink unicorn. How do you construct a rational argument about which one to believe?

<comment><USER17> The problem really isn't constructing rational arguments. The problem is finding premises that are either verifiable or that both parties will agree are true. If the two parties will not make such an agreement, and the premises are inherently unverifiable, the arguments will all be a waste of time and will likely descend rapidly into trolling for kicks. Despite this, the arguments will still have been rational.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Home alerts New Mexico sheriffs to alleged assault - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/US/smart-home-device-alerts-mexico-authorities-alleged-assault/story?id=48470912 <comment><USER2> _" Editor's note: This story has been updated; an earlier version named a smart home device that was not the type found in the home and credited by police with calling 911."_

I was curious how it dialed 911 in response to "Did you call the sheriffs?" without the "ok Google" wake word.

Now I'm wondering if the woman's name was Alexa or similar.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know what kind of device it was?</comment>


The True Purpose of Microsoft Solitaire, Minesweeper, and FreeCell - <AUTHOR> http://mentalfloss.com/uk/technology/32106/the-true-purpose-of-solitaire-minesweeper-hearts-and-freecell <comment><USER2> Remember teaching PCs back in 1998 or 1999 and realizing that Microsoft hearts or soltaire was an excellent way to teach retired people to use the mouse.

The games were familiar and fun helped them stop clutching the mouse like it was, -I don't know, something that was trying to escape.

Didn't know until now that it was purpose-built for teaching.

</comment><comment><USER3> They should have created a game to teach Windows 8 interface

<comment><USER4> I think they assumed people would embrace the Metro UI... cos the windows metro interface was battle tested (windows phone, zune, media center) and most importantly, it was an award winning interface.

I also think they forgot or underestimated the most important factor which influences the feeling of ease or neural fluency - familiarity.

They've learned their lesson as instant Familiarity is a chief goal behind windows 10.

<comment><USER5> Anecdotally, they failed. I'm still on 7 because 10 just introduced a slew of unfamiliar UI styling while hiding or removing any mechanism to make it stop...

<comment><USER6> They've made some nice improvements with docking multiple applications, plus multiple desktops. So you can have on for work and another for play.

I'm not a fan of the new Start Menu, but with pinned shortcuts to the task bar I don't see it very often.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > the Microsoft version Minesweeper was introduced to Windows 3.1—not to > demonstrate that Windows was an adept gaming operating system, but to make > the idea of left and right clicking second nature for Windows users

It took me all the way to Windows XP to learn that you can right-click in minesweeper. I showed it to a friend, and he told me that doing that was cheating. No one in my family knew about it either.

So my take is that they could have made the concept clearer.

</comment><comment><USER8> I know a handful of competative gamers, some of whom who would use Minsweeper to 'warm up' before LANs to get their eye in, and keep their mousing muscles loose between matches.

<comment><USER8> Well, that and smashing Adderall obviously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Moms everywhere love these. When I moved my mom to Linux, I threw gnome-games on there. A week later, she calls and says she had no idea there were that many varieties of solitare.

</comment><comment><USER10> No Reversi?</comment>


Show HN: New flightlite.com release based on super HN feedback - <AUTHOR>

Two weeks ago I posted a link to my side project (http://flightlite.com) and got some great feedback from HNers.
I've spent a lot of time tweaking and improving based on that and I'm really happy with the result - it's much more usable and useful now!
What's better:
- reduced complexity of the main tracking page based on feedback from #veb
- new search functionality (auto-completion, blended all search types into one search box) - thanks #robyates for your input
- failover to large Google Maps view if Google Earth isn't installed with prompt and link to install from
- added a proper 404 page instead of just dying (ungracefully)
- trimmed anything I could get rid of without losing the core functionality
- new logo courtesy of a friend
- better titles/metadata and a sitemap for the search bots
- added arrivals/departure boards for airports
I hope you approve (and have even more feedback!). <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable: <http://flightlite.com></comment>


Chrome 63 to force .dev domains to HTTPS via preloaded HSTS - <AUTHOR> https://ma.ttias.be/chrome-force-dev-domains-https-via-preloaded-hsts/?hn <comment><AUTHOR> Author of the post here: it's a re-post, I'm aware of it. It got quite a bit of traction around 3 months ago.

But as of today (and as of a couple of hours), Chrome 63 is being automatically deployed to all Chrome installs worldwide. Chrome 63 is the build that includes this HSTS list, to force .DEV domains on HTTPS.

I'm getting daily mentions on Twitter & via mail that developers lost hours debugging this, because neither the console nor the network tab in the inspector clearly show _why_ this domain is redirecting to HTTPS.

Please help spread awareness & save countless debugging hours worldwide.

</comment><comment><USER2> i get it. They reserved ".dev" domains but as well as ".app" ?

Meh.</comment>