First picture of Snowden from the Moscow airport - <AUTHOR> http://www.delo.si/novice/svet/snowden-prisel-je-cas-da-razpravljamo-pri-belem-dnevu.html

<comment><AUTHOR> The journalist from Slovenian newspaper got access as a fake human rights worker and secretly took a photo as they were asking for nobody to take any photos. The article doesn't report on any real news except that Snowden applied for Russian visa for the second time.</comment>


Ask HN: How can a lay person offer services online during spread of Covid-19? - <AUTHOR> Do we already have all in one softwares or platforms for scheduling, video calls and payments (OR) if there is a simple list of open source tools then what are those?<p>I'm talking about people like family physicians, fitness instructors, private tutors etc. <comment><USER2> For anything with an instructional component, TakeLessons.com and LessonFace.com are two of the larger marketplaces. They handle scheduling, payment, and video conferencing (at least one of them uses Zoom).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just to clarify, by lay person I mean wrt technology.</comment>


Language might be the optimal self-regulating system - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/why-language-might-be-the-optimal-self-regulating-system <comment><USER2> Information must be stored in a language. Description requires information. All systems require language if they can be described.</comment>


How Microsoft Bing Censors the Middle East - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/07/how-microsoft-bing-censors-middle-east <comment><USER2> If they censor too much it's "problematic" because they're overreaching and deciding for the people. If they don't censor enough then it's "problematic" because they're culturally insensitive to the local sense of decency, they're imposing western standards or somesuch. They're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

<comment><USER3> I think that's BS. They're an American company, providing a product that people can feel free not to use if they're so inclined. They're not imposing western standards; that's like saying McDonald's is "imposing" a western diet by selling hamburgers in Riyadh.

<comment><USER4> McDonald's customizes their menu in many parts of the world. I'm pretty sure they still don't serve beef or pork anywhere in India.

<comment><USER5> Correct:

      India is the first country in the world where McDonald's
      does not offer any beef or pork items. McDonald's has
      developed a menu especially for India with vegetarian
      selections to suit the Indian palate, and has also re-
      engineered its operations to address the special
      requirements of vegetarians. Special care is taken to
      ensure that all vegetable products are prepared
      separately, using dedicated equipment and utensils.

\- [http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/aboutus.html](http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/aboutus.html)

They do serve serve chicken though.

<comment><USER6> What about lamb and goat?

<comment><USER7> In 1999 I ate a mutton burger in McDonald's in New Delhi. Not lamb but pretty close.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > _There is absolutely no excuse for a company—particularly one that has made > commitments to free expression by being a founding member of the Global > Network Initiative—to regulate speech beyond that which is required._

Absolutely is a big word. Here is a technical excuse: the search index is collected and classified by algorithms. The algorithms are not perfect in their classification, and so there has to be a margin for error.

> _Neither Egypt nor Lebanon, for example, block most sexual content or > require intermediaries to do so._

See, weasel word: _most_. So they do block _some_ sexual content? If you want a fine-grained filter to just block that particular sexual content, you have to improve the robots. That costs time and money, and creates risk. Maybe it's easier and legally safer to just block all sexual content and be done with it. In other words, over-zealous filtering, or at least some of it, could be the consequence of cool pragmatism and nothing more deeply sinister.

<comment><USER9> Bing (and Google) block some sexual content everywhere. Try searching for child porn and tell me what come up.

<comment><USER10> Yes, the default is "SafeSearch" enabled. Bing and Google filter for everyone... it's not opt-in. You opt-out, as would people living in "strict markets".

I don't believe bing/google are required by law in the U.S. to do this (correct me if I'm wrong)... so the e.f.f. arguments are a bit hypocritical by not including, essentially, the rest of the world.

<comment><USER8> But in some of these regions, you _cannot_ opt out. Safe search upholds censorship laws.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _There is absolutely no excuse for a company—particularly one that has made commitments to free expression by being a founding member of the Global Network Initiative—to regulate speech beyond that which is required._

Your search results aren't speech. While I am opposed to almost all censorship, I can't get too worked up about this, because Microsoft understandably doesn't want to get prosecuted/ sued/ protested against in countries with much more conservative social norms. Of course, Bing is just a delivery service for information about what sort of things exist on the internet, but given the well-known human proclivity to 'blame the messenger' and Microsoft's global reach caution is understandable.

<comment><USER12> Maybe this points to a larger problem - the primary way to navigate the web today is centralized search engines. So much so that when you disable the address bar search features in browsers, people stumble quickly. While search results aren't speech, they are how people get to speech.

<comment><USER13> _While search results aren 't speech, they are how people get to speech._

At least in the USA -

You aren't guaranteed a platform for your speech, and you aren't guaranteed other people will listen to you. All you are guaranteed is that the government won't persecute you for saying it.

So a private company that does not promote your speech, is not a violation of the 1st Amendment.

<comment><USER14> Literally no one is saying that it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A lot of websites are censored around the world, and it's not just from search results: you can't access the actual sites. In the middle east, it's porn. In China, no Facebook. In France, it's Netflix. I see no reason why this is on Microsoft.

<comment><USER16> the problem though is that they use strict Saudi Wahabi standards for relatively liberal countries like Lebanon and Egypt.

Microsoft is going above and beyond what is required of them in terms of censorship.

<comment><USER17> Don't dating sites have an 18 year age limit despite different states having different ages of consent, etc? It's just easier than making a fine grained filter.

<comment><USER16> Not sure. Although I have seen many sites and companies have contests where it's not applicable to certain provinces or states. Also I think states vs countries is a bit different. Why not then just apply the saudi standards to our content as well?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> True of all the big players in the region, at least the Gulf.

Source: someone who spends far too much time there.

<comment><USER19> I find that hard to believe. Doesn't Google take a hard stance on freedom of speech issues?

<comment><USER20> Short answer: No. Long Answer: Not really, no.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If you want to come into my house and use the internet, that's fine. But you will do so through my firewall. If the EFF then writes an article about my 'restrictive' firewall. I'll tell them to politely fsck off.

I am not condoning the filtering of search results, and never will. In the grand picture we all know that this censoring gig never works. But where does the EFF get this idea that they have the right to berate a company and insinuate that they disobey a governments rules/laws/standards in their own country? It's a bit much 'aint it?

<comment><USER22> >"There is absolutely no excuse for a company—particularly one that has made commitments to free expression by being a founding member of the Global Network Initiative— _to regulate speech beyond that which is required "_ .

You are misunderstanding the EFF - they are not asking Microsoft to disobey the government but for Microsoft to not go overboard with the censoring. Currently they are censoring more than they are being asked to ('beyond that which is required' bit).

It's like they are adding more restrictions to your already restrictive firewall - restrictions that you didn't ask for. To answer your question: no, it's not a bit much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> They should have used the word "problematic" in the first paragraph so I could have closed the tab sooner.

</comment><comment><USER20> If they don't censor countries will just block them, it's the same fiasco Google had with Google years ago. Frankly I think it's better to censor and be there than to not be there at all. At least then people can maybe find ways around the filters to get the information they deserve to have unfettered access to.

<comment><USER24> I think what you mean is "Google with China"?

<comment><USER20> You are correct, I can't fix the typo now. Too much time has passed, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> During the Reddit debacle many people were pointing out that private companies are free to remove anything they want and it doesn't constitute censorship. So this is certainly not a free speech issue if MS goes above the bare legal requirements, right? They're just removing/hiding objectionable content.

<comment><USER26> It's not a _legal_ free speech issue, but it is a free speech issue for those of us who like free speech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Seriously, pornography counts as "free speech" now? Please guys, can't we fight for something worthwhile?

If I had to give my opinion, I'd say that I actually find it quite laudable that Microsoft bothers to heed local values. It shows respect (and a good sense for business), kinda like not selling pork in the UAE...

<comment><USER28> I live in a harmonized country where we get to use a harmonized version of bing. It filters out many legitimate search requests, not just porn. You might search for something completely innocuous that happens to have the word girl in it (e.g. the TV series golden girls from the 80s), and it will be harmonized, I mean censored.

The filters are necessarily inaccurate and will affect legitimate search queries. You probably wouldn't use them in your western country even if you were a conservative Puritan.

<comment><USER27> I understand that it can be a pain for the users - but unless the filter out a lot more than the original article says, I find the label of "censorship" and "free speech impediment" highly exaggerated.

<comment><USER28> About 5% of my searches are blocked based on keywords alone, and none of those are meant to be pornographic. I believe, and have found from my own experience, that censorship is impossible without collateral damage. It is unavoidable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> surprised ?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138565](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2138565)</comment>


Not just the weather: climate change acceptance nosedives with the economy - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/03/its-not-just-the-weather-acceptance-of-climate-change-nosedives-with-the-economy.ars <comment><USER3> It's an old truth: most people choose their own facts to make themselves feel better, then hunt down the justifications they need a posteriori.

When people are worried about jobs and imagine that helping the environment would take extra effort that could be spent on the economy, they will convince themselves that the environment isn't that big of a deal. To realize that alleviating climate change would actually create new work, even new industries, takes more mental effort than the casual observer is prepared to expend.

That's normal people - the hacker set will generally seek out the unvarnished truth in more of an evidence-based way.

<comment><USER4> It's an even older truth that people believe those who disagree with them are wrong (and less intelligent, less careful, misled, etc.).

It's far too easy to fool yourself and then believe others are the fools.

See Feynman's discussion of confirmation bias in the measurement of the charge of the electron: <http://www.lhup.edu/~DSIMANEK/cargocul.htm> and remember that this is scientists doing experiments and publishing results.

<comment><USER5> I'm always kind of astounded that HNers reflexively believe Michael Mann over Steve McIntyre. Of course it's simply because they don't know. And where would they find the time?

What we call "science" is what Washington calls "science." If Washington funded astrology and laughed at astronomy, astrology would be "science" and astronomy would be for crazy people on the Internets. Mind always submits to power.

<comment><USER3> What I call "science" is the corpus of knowledge accumulated by the scientific method over the history of knowledge since Francis Bacon. There's nothing reflexive about believing Mann over Steve McIntyre - as with all such judgments we look at who's saying what, who they are, where they're coming from and why, and make a call. Within limitations, we also look at the evidence.

Why do we believe Hubble (expanding universe) over Hoyle (it's static)? Hoyle is a much more impressive figure than McIntyre, but his ideas have been tested over and over in many different ways, and found wanting. You could say that the expanding universe is just a theory, that it's unproven, because you could construct an elaborate static universe model that creates the red shift in some arbitrary manner, and causes distant stars to dim sufficiently that space is black and not white, and so on. You could create an elaborate theory that explains why things fall to earth but rejects both Newton and General Relativity. But it seems to me that the reason this doesn't happen is that it doesn't affect the bottom line of well-capitalized companies in the energy sector.

You are correct that we appeal to authority for most of what we know of science. But it's not Washington that's the authority, it's the corpus. And we trust it because it's constantly subjected to self-scrutiny. Voices like McIntyre's are heard, and either the whole of one single branch of science is engaged in a massive conspiracy to not listen, or he's probably wrong.

But we keep our minds open.

<comment><USER5> It's not a conspiracy. It's simply a bureaucracy. Don't be looking for conspiracy theories. Be looking for bureaucracy theories. I know this bureaucracy - my mother worked for it. (To be exact, she worked for Joe Romm at DOE.)

Your vision of what "science" is dates to the pre-World War II era, when "science" was actually a bazaar. You can't have a "conspiracy" in a bazaar, because there are no coordination mechanisms. So bazaars can err, but tend to converge on the truth. Why was science a bazaar? Distributed effort, distributed reputation systems, distributed funding sources. The last being the most important.

"Science" today is a government program. It's not a bazaar. It's a cathedral. You don't have to read a lot of the climate emails to see the coordination mechanisms. For instance, editors who accept dissenting papers are rapidly drummed out of their positions or even professions. The de Freitas case is a good example: <http://di2.nu/foia/foia2011/mail/2683.txt>.

Think about Soviet science for a minute. Soviet science was a branch of Western science. Soviet scientists would no doubt describe their work as "the corpus of knowledge accumulated by the scientific method over the history of knowledge since Francis Bacon." I would describe their work as: "a government program supervised by the Politburo." For Politburo read NSF, DOE, DOD, etc, etc.

And yet, there was good science in the Soviet Union. There's good science at Harvard. You're not advised to trust it unconditionally, however, just because it comes with the impressive logos "science" and "Harvard." They're just brands - they mean whatever they mean today, not whatever they may have meant in the past.

<comment><USER3> You seem to be quite keen to tell me, and others here, what we _really_ think. I laid out my position above, but your case is that actually I accept unquestioningly the facts and opinions approved by the scientific establishment. On the contrary, I am a sceptic, in the original (non climate- related) sense.

If the US government ran the scientific community, that community would not have its strong consensus on climate change, because half of congress, and every other president, is committed to at least equivocating on whether that consensus exists. I'm afraid the link you posted does not cast Chris de Freitas in a positive light. If I knew of sloppy science that had been passed through peer review, I'd expect the person responsible to be excoriated, much more so if that work contradicted my own. This would not make me wrong, or the editor in question some kind of victim.

You have one good point though - money, be it from government or corporations, distorts the process. The procedures for the allocation of fund lead to too much being done in some areas, not enough in others. The academic economics profession has been a particular victim of this. The trouble with the idea that climate science has fallen victim to a grand counterfactual groupthink (if you don't like the 'c' word) is that the numbers, the physics, and the reasoned opinions of the vast majority of apolitical observers support the climate consensus.

As for Soviet science: did the Soviet Union promulgate any kind of _false_ science that you're aware of? Not in the peer reviewed journals, to any great extent I know of. What would be the point? That's peer review in action. But who's trusting anything unconditionally here? As I said, we keep an open mind.

<comment><USER5> _If the US government ran the scientific community, that community would not have its strong consensus on climate change, because half of congress, and every other president, is committed to at least equivocating on whether that consensus exists._

You fail to realize how the USG operates. Elected officials are not the ones in charge:

[http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government- employm...](http://foseti.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/on-government-employment/)

Congress and the President could not turn off the climate science machine or even redirect it, even if they wanted to. Sure, their signatures are scribbled underneath its annual funding. That doesn't mean they have actual power over it.

 _I'm afraid the link you posted does not cast Chris de Freitas in a positive light. If I knew of sloppy science that had been passed through peer review, I'd expect the person responsible to be excoriated, much more so if that work contradicted my own. This would not make me wrong, or the editor in question some kind of victim._

It sure doesn't! That's because the emails are written by his enemies - <USER2> are in the process of purging him. Here's some context, if you're comfortable reading "deniers:"

[http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/the-tribalistic- corrup...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/27/the-tribalistic-corruption- of-peer-review-the-chris-de-freitas-incident/)

If the "scientific community" was a bazaar, de Freitas' enemies would not have the power to purge him. It's a cathedral, though, so they do (and did).

 _The trouble with the idea that climate science has fallen victim to a grand counterfactual groupthink (if you don't like the 'c' word) is that the numbers, the physics, and the reasoned opinions of the vast majority of apolitical observers support the climate consensus._

You have considerable confidence in your ability, I see, to identify an "apolitical" observer. (Everyone wants to be apolitical these days - it's as if they didn't believe in democracy, or something.) The normal meaning of "apolitical" is "bureaucratic" - see above.

You also may not be talking to the same physicists as me. What I've heard is that there's a lot of concern about being bureaucratically identified with this scam. But no point in coming out against it, except to ruin your career.

It's true that the physics of the greenhouse effect _per se_ are valid - though I'd lay even odds that no one's informed you that CO2 forcing is _O(log n)_. There is a considerable distance between this and believing that climate models have any predictive power, which IMHO is _prima facie_ absurd.

Here's a brief discussion of why:

[http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/02/why-cagw-theory-is- not...](http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/02/why-cagw-theory-is-not-settled- science/)

The author is a denier, I'll admit (or he wouldn't be posting on a denier blog), but he's also a physics professor at Duke.

 _As for Soviet science: did the Soviet Union promulgate any kind of false science that you're aware of?_

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wish the political discussion wasn't framed around climate change, but instead was just framed around reducing pollution, improving energy independence and (eventually) improving efficiency. That is easier for the public to understand, a much more palatable claim (instead of a "the sky is falling" _An Inconvenient Truth_ -type claim), and difficult for anyone to oppose ideologically.

Any time there is a change in models or predictions discussed in the news regarding climate science, you see conservatives mocking it and at the same time almost praising oil drilling and fracking. It is just so bizarre. And I imagine all this politicization has to have a negative consequences for the field (not to mention the planet and the things living on it).

</comment><comment><USER7> I recall a study concluding that difficult economic times leads people to support more extreme political candidates. This effect could be related to that.

</comment><comment><USER8> It seems to me that this is another case where association does not equal causation. Just because both the economy is bad and climate change acceptance is low, does not mean that one is causing the other, no matter how strong the association.

<comment><USER9> Just because it is morning and sun is rising, does not mean that one is causing the other, no matter how strong the association.

But, it does mean that there is a statistically high correlation between it being morning and the sun rising. Just like in the OA going back however far OA said the economy and belief in climate change had inverse relationship.

No one but you claimed one caused the other. correlation != cause & effect.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I can't tell if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me. My position is that the study authors are suggesting a cause and effect relationship which is not supported by the evidence. From the article: "Based on their statistical analysis, the authors conclude the economy is the strongest influence on the public's acceptance of climate science". They only found a correlation and like you say correlation != cause & effect.</comment></comment></comment>


React-ions - <AUTHOR> http://www.martin-brennan.com/react-ions/

<comment><USER2> Changes in Angular do not trigger a full re-render. The thing the author is trying to point out is that changes trigger a digest cycle and a digest cycle can (in some situations, not all) take a long time to figure out what has changed. But, once it figures out what has changed, it will only change those specific elements in the DOM.

At the end of the day, what we are talking about is Angular 1.x is not as efficient as React at figuring out what to modify in the DOM.

However, just be aware that this will all change in Angular2 where you can use an immutable data structure (just like React) or observable (if the situation warrants it) to quickly figure out what DOM updates need to occur. Read here for more:

[http://victorsavkin.com/post/110170125256/change- detection-i...](http://victorsavkin.com/post/110170125256/change-detection-in- angular-2)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that article, sounds like there are a lot of ideas from React (and probably similar sources) making their way into Angular 2.0. Can't wait to see what it looks like.</comment></comment>


Ask HN:Online analytical platform focused on growth metrics? - <AUTHOR> Sup guys,
A friend and I from school have been working a side project for a while, mainly because we needed it. We also have approached different startups and they have agreed on the problem and the solution we offer. We are building an online analytical platform focus on growth metrics (KPI's).
 Most of our "competitors" (like Chartio) have build a data visualization platform targeted almost exclusively at the business user. Everything about this product has been engineered to make the task of visualizing data easy.
But there's nothing on the web(except for blogs, and essays) that actually guides you on the task of knowing what metrics should you focusing on (depending on your industry) or a platform that can track::calculate your growth rate ( based on weekly/monthly performance) and what impact could that have on your yearly projections and future valuation.
We had this concern last year with small software that we sold, because we wanted to know "what" metrics I should be tracking and consolidating?. Why are those specific metrics important and how can I track them? all within one platform. (no excels, or essays, etc.)
:Just wanted to see if this was an actual problem worth solving, or if it was nothing more than a personal need.
Thanks guys- Sorry for the long post. <comment><USER2> One way to find out if it is a _business_ problem worth solving is to ask people to pay for it before it is built. If people will, then it is worth money once the check clears. If they won't pay, then it might still be, but probably isn't because it does not directly address a serious pain point.

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agree. One of the thoughts that i had was:: even if they say they will pay for it.. would they actually do it when the time comes. I find that a lot of people will say "yes" just to give you a quick answer and call it a day. But thanks nonetheless. Cheers!

<comment><USER2> Don't know if you are familiar with HN user Patrick "patio11" Mackenzie. His site: [http://www.kalzumeus.com/archive/](http://www.kalzumeus.com/archive/)

<comment><AUTHOR> hmm.. Nope. why?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The LA Makerspace wants to teach 1000 underserved kids how to code in Minecraft - <AUTHOR> http://www.lamakerspace.com/get_out_the_vote <comment><USER2> More precisely, Computercraft, a Minecraft mod. Kids would be coding in Lua, although in a very crude kind of text editor. Still loads of fun, especially with turtles.</comment>


Don't share pictures of your kids online - <AUTHOR> https://www.iafrikan.com/2019/05/22/social-media-should-you-share-pictures-of-your-children-online/ <comment><USER2> I'd suggest going an extra step: keep the imagery of you and your family out of the cloud altogether. Spending a decade in adtech, ML, and behavior targeting scared the willies out of me, and I'm building something for my family to use: [https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing- photostructure/](https://blog.photostructure.com/introducing-photostructure/)

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure that images should be your largest concern.

Messaging apps and the sites you visit online are much richer sources of data for adtech and ML.

<comment><USER4> Advance image processing AI by 1000x (which could happen in 10 years) and the images are much more dangerous.

<comment><USER5> Facebook already knows who your friends are and what you've been up to even if you have never used the site, because it's seen you in the photos _they_ uploaded.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What can us kids do to stop this? As sitting down and talking doesn't work. I'd rather not have people knowing when I'm not home.

<comment><USER7> Hide in the bushes and take pictures of your parents. Send them to your friends. If told to stop, ask your parents how they define the terms "double standard" and "leading by example".

Not sure if I'm joking...

<comment><USER6> Oh my god. This is a great idea. Thanks!

<comment><USER8> It's really not....

You're better off finding adults your parents respect and ask them to help you talk about all this with them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Don't share pictures online. If you have to, send them via e-mail. Host your e-mail using a private provider. Make your family do the same.

<comment><USER10> The problem is there is so much inertia to overcome with "free" email and photo hosting that I could talk 'til I'm blue in the face to family and friends and they just ignore it.

<comment><USER11> And hosting your own email has been effectively ruined by spammers and overzealous spam filtering. Running your own email server is technical and time consuming at least at first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Yeah don't :=)</comment>


Seriously? - <AUTHOR> http://bitquabit.com/post/seriously/ <comment><USER3> I have nothing to add to this other than what "The Real Katie" said in "Lighten Up"

<http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/>

>>

 _Every time I spoke up about the above crap, I got some sympathy, but I also got some guy who didn't understand what the big deal was. If I wasn't in the middle of being raped or beaten or threatened or fired, guess what I needed to do?

Lighten up.

How long would you put up with it? Do you love anything that much? If your spouse subtly treated you like crap every day, how long would your marriage last? If you saw a friend being treated this way by their boss, wouldn't you tell them to quit?

Or would you tell them to lighten up?

You, person who told me to lighten up, saw one little thing. It didn't seem like a big deal, did it? One little line! One joke! One comment! But it's not just one thing to me: it's one of thousands that I've had to endure since I was old enough to be told that 'X is for boys!' It's probably not even the first thing I've had to deal with that day, unless you've gotten to me pretty early.

That's the main problem with subtle discrimination. It leaves those that it affects the most powerless against it, quietly discouraging them. If they speak up, they're treated to eye rolls at the least, and at the worst, are called oppressors themselves. We're accused of not wanting equal rights, but of wanting tyranny._

<comment><USER4> The "Lighten Up" situation is quite different in that there was an identifiable victim of the sexism who suffered concrete consequences such as being forced to attend an HR meeting. "Every woman in CS" is too broad to establish an identifiable victim and "this makes me angry" is not a concrete consequence.

<comment><USER3> Sure, but the point of the 'Lighten Up' is that just because someone doesn't speak up doesn't mean that they don't feel disenfranchised. In fact, that is the frustrating point for Katie, because by speaking up, one risks being branded (or, at least, told to 'lighten up')

Hypotheticals aside, the biggest problem with your argument is that you seem to be saying that if the OP was a woman, then she'd have more of a point...I hope to think that isn't the case...if the OP's point is flawed then it is wrong if it comes from a woman.

(in the abortion debate, the "men should mind their own business" sentiment is also flawed, especially since there are a good number of women who oppose abortion)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I see the usual grab bag of men making excuses for misogyny in software is out in force on Hacker News:

* Insisting sexism is not endemic to software, it's just idiots being idiots.

* Insisting sexism is not endemic to software, it's just jerks being jerks.

* Dismissive pedantry over the claim that women are deterred from software by incidents of sexism.

* Blaming women themselves for not going into software.

And all of it laced with blithe stereotyping language ("panty bunching equivalent", "bitching", "drama" and so on).

This predictably depressing reaction hasn't been good enough for a long time. The reason more women aren't in software is _staring us right in the face_ but we're too busy being dismissively sexist to see it.

<comment><USER6> > The reason more women aren't in software is staring us right in the face.

Yes, I agree completely. The reason is entirely clear - from a young age, boys are marketed to in an entirely different fashion than girls, parents gently nudge their daughters into more passive roles, and the types of toys that are available for girls that don't reinforce social stereotypes _suck_ in a fashion that I don't think I can explain to someone who isn't raising a daughter.

Lego has finally released some Legos (yeah, I pluralize it) that appeal to girls, and while some of them are lame (a hair salon, for example), others are cool, but the vast overwhelming acreage of the girls' half of any given toy store is filled with pink dolls, barbies, kitchen sets, crap to do with your hair, and the the type of half-assed girl versions of boy toys that make a responsible parent want to burn the place down.

<comment><USER7> > The reason more women aren't in software is staring us right in the face.

I'm no node.js wiz here, but I think I have a valid idea... maybe the reason that most of the women that didn't become programmers, didn't become programmers because they had no interest in it and didn't want to become a programmer?

Also, does anyone else get the sinking feeling that the reason so many young men on HN feel so strongly about "fixing" the fact that many women have no interest in writing code, is actually more about said young mens' desire to work in an office where they are surrounded by women all day?

<comment><USER8> I agree entirely. A lot of people on here seem to be clutching at straws at best. They offer a lot of "evidence" into why women aren't programmers without actually knowing anything.

In my head, positive discrimination is another form of discrimination. I know plenty of female programmers and they all got into programming because that's what they wanted to do, not because it was marketed as a career to them and not because they've never interacted with shitty co-workers.

If there's any problem with Software Engineering as a career it's the idea that it's a field for socially-inept nerds that sit in the basement and code away from the outside world. The "evidence" for this attitude is all over the place and in my mind this is as likely to turn women away from the field as much as it is men. When the field decides to stop allowing itself to be further commoditised and demand some respect (and better pay) we might see more women want to join us.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This trends is so fucking old that it's growing hair out of its ears.

1\. Some idiot (a confirmed idiot, in this instance) says something potentially offensive depending on your panty bunching quotient.

2\. Someone decries said idiot, flips tables, talks about how the industry needs to change, and can't believe others aren't as outraged as they are.

3\. Everyone has their own opinion, and the discourse on HN is relatively polite, but there's also a ton of shadowy downvotes for rational comments that don't seem all that inflammatory.

Here's the reality - idiots say stupid things. Whether it's denigratory to women, men, blacks, Asians, the mentally challenged, furries, or yes even redditors, it will get said. There's no point getting your feathers all ruffled over something like this - I assume it's not a common sentiment among the people who don't get fired from Facebook, and there's plenty of self- aggrandizing idiots out there to give the outragist fodder to the end of days.

Finally, this is just silly:

> start thinking of computing as a professional discipline, instead of a boy's > club.

Computing is neither a professional discipline nor a boys club. Historically, it's been a sausage fest, and computing will never be a professional discipline so long as there are people out there willing to write PHP for fifteen dollars an hour and engineers are put out to pasture at 35.

<comment><USER9> Not to be a pedant, but historically computing was considered "womens work" in its initial stages.

I would address the the actual problematic elements of your comment, but I'm afraid in this forum such communication usually falls on deaf ears. Suffice it to say its easy to have a fatalist attitude towards "idiocy" when you're not the target in question.

<comment><USER10> >Not to be a pedant, but historically computing was considered "womens work" in its initial stages.

It's becoming quite fashionable to bring this up lately, as if its inherently a trump card to the discussion. The obvious follow up to this statement should be to ask: why did the state of things change? Without any attempt at getting to the bottom of why things changed, the statement itself seems to create more ambiguity rather than clarity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So out of a profanity-laced presentation with embarrassing audience tricks what really got the author was saying that entrepreneurs may be motivated by money, (helping?) people and -- gasp! -- sex? The guy even went back to be more politically correct and explicitly included women and gays.

How much bad will does it take to interpret that, fairly biologically obvious, remark in some twisted way to mean "women are not people"?

<comment><USER12> _People, profits, and women_ would indicate the set "People" and set "Women" are disjoint.

<comment><USER11> No, it doesn't because "people" probably means users or customers or maybe your team, and "women" is a substitute for "pussy" which means people you want to have sex with. It would actually be ethically questionable for those sets _not to be disjoint_.

<comment><USER12> _"women" is a substitute for "pussy" which means people you want to have sex with._

Right. Pussy as shorthand for sex is problematic because it reduces a woman to her sexual organs, it objectifies them. Would you enjoy being reduced to your penis?

That he's using women as substitute for "pussy" and that his phrasing juxtaposes them with "people" (even though that wasn't the intent, I agree) only highlights the problem further. I understand what he was trying to convey, but that doesn't excuse the wording and the attitude it reveals.

<comment><USER13> I disagree, IMHO Pussy as a shorthand for sex reduces SEX to the sexual organs. Not the woman, the sex act. That may be unenlightened (we know sex can be so much more!) but not necessarily anti-woman.

<comment><USER14> Um no. Firstly, this is hugely heterosexist, as you are making statements about normative attraction and sex. Secondly, referring to women as pussy is a reduction of a person to their body parts. That is a direct objectification: removing human elements to reduce something to an object. Furthermore, this kind of statement is directly intended for one audience and one audience only: straight men. This is hugely exclusionary and sexist.

<comment><USER13> Not true, read the actual quote, he said "and women. Or men. Whatever" he specifically expanded it to basically include "whatever you are attracted to" ... he is a straight man, he will use what HE is attracted to as a reference. Also, how do you know his statements weren't actually directed at lesbians, who are attracted to similar private parts, why assume he was targeting straight men? ... in this case, again with so little context, I would lean towards !lighten up everybody!

<comment><USER14> Sorry I wasn't clear, but my first two points were about what you said about reducing a person to their body parts as not being sexism or objectification.

Beyond that, what exactly are you supposed to think when Noah Kagan, someone who has already made hugely sexist statements in the past, wants to tell you about "the 3Ps of entrepreneurship"? That kind of statement is a lead in, and that he tried to backtrack when the audience reacted is irrelevant. Reducing anyone to their body parts at all is a big problem and is a horrifying thing to say, but women and trans folk suffer much more from this kind if rhetoric then cisgender men do, so don't pretend that this kind of statement is OK or is no big deal.

> Also, how do you know his statements weren't actually directed at lesbians, > who are attracted to similar private parts, why assume he was targeting > straight men?

The orientation of the folks in the audience is not the issue, it is the reduction of people to sex objects for conquest that is the problem.

> in this case, again with so little context, I would lean towards !lighten up > everybody!

Saying that people need to lighten up is a dismissal that says you don't really think that this is a big deal and you don't care about the issues this brings up for many people. This kind of attitude perpetuates these kinds of incidents and makes it harder for people whose lives are directly affected by this kind of shit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There are seven comments here. One says "There's no point getting your feathers all ruffled over something like this" and two(!) say "Get over it". That's the reason I keep upvoting these things here. HN seems to be one of the places that really could use more exposure to this.

</comment><comment><USER16> In case anyone is wondering about Noah Kagan's past sexist behavior at conferences, [http://sherprog.com/2011/07/10/noah-kagan-and-the- faceless-b...](http://sherprog.com/2011/07/10/noah-kagan-and-the-faceless- bitch-slide/) and <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2749858> is another example.

I'm really not sure why he's being invited to speak if he still hasn't learned to be so misogynistic.

<comment><USER6> Conferences need to fill their rosters, and if that means scraping the bottom of the barrel then so be it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> There are between 1 and 3 posts that say quite literally the EXACT same thing as this post that end up on the front page of hacker news _every week_ , and frankly it's starting to wear thin. As @debacle said, this is becoming a really old and ridiculous trend.

Let's stop making parrot posts about this issue and make posts about __what you can actually do about it __. It's one thing to complain about injustice, but once there are hundreds of people complaining about injustice and not a SINGLE person so much as proposing anything we could possibly do about it, it becomes a waste of time.

Everyone knows that many people think there is a problem. Continuing to state this over and over is stupid. Propose a solution instead.

<comment><USER18> One of the things we can do about it is highlight incidents so that there is pressure to change. Do people complain when yet another post about a bunch of badly-hashed passwords getting hacked pops up? Nope, because those posts are the best way to convince people to properly hash passwords.

As for what to do about it, step one: don't use this kind of crap in your own presentations. Step two: if you see someone else doing so, protest. Step three: go out of your way to read works by women, listen to women speak and otherwise diversify your professional environment.

There are at least as many posts made about things to do about this. Check out the Ada Initiative, for example. However, if you read through the comments on this article and every other you'll probably notice that many people don't think there is a problem. When solutions are proposed, as they often are, they are routinely ignored because people are unwilling to accept that this behavior is a problem, is a pattern or is part of a broader social dynamic.

It is not just about shaming individuals; it is about addressing the underlying assumptions that developers are male, women are the sexual objects developers desire and it is somehow hilarious to point this out. That is impossible until people do, as you do, accept that it is a systematic issue and not an isolated incident that should be ignored.

Have some patience for the people who are slightly slower; when they all come around, there won't be any more of these to post here, much less one a week.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> ok, confused and completely out of the loop here, so apologies in advance - <USER2> guess this is going to be either "how could he think that?" or "how can he not know that?".

but the 3 p thing. is it supposed to be "penises"?

[edit: huh. so now here's a clear case where number of votes visible would be a useful feature in HN! my guess is that "pussy" was what was intended (or misunderstood), in the context of the post.] [edit to clarify the previous edit: there used to be two replies; one for "penis" and one for "pussy"] [also, to explain how i didn't get this, i'm a uk english speaker, who left the country some 20 years ago, so "pussy" isn't really part of my vernacular - i think back then, at least, it was an american word.]

<comment><USER20> Pussy.

Incidentally, I'm just answering the question. The one speaking the original sentence I don't have much time for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Linkbait -> flagged.

It's merely another ``There is misogyny in CS, we _gotta_ do something''.

Lacking in OP:

      - hard facts how it impacts us,
      - useful proposals,
      - *any* insight.

<comment><USER20> Here's a "hard fact". There are a lack of women in IT.

Here's a useful proposal - stop making sexist comments in your talks.

The above I hope you can take as insight.

<comment><USER22> So what if there is a lack of women in IT? There is a lack of men in Human Resources and child care. Why is it an issue? Why does our society need to be specially engineered to reflect demographics in some industries and not in other.

Having said that, I don't believe such remarks should have a place in any professional conference.

<comment><USER20> I disagree that there aren't enough people in IT. What I makes me annoyed is that there are many, many talented women who could be in IT or CS but who don't participate because of sexism or hostility in the workplace ecause of their gender.

It's not a matter of "lighten up". It's a matter of "stop being sexist and hostil to women". The onus is not on the victim to change her behaviour, but rather very much on the transgressors!

<comment><USER22> _What I makes me annoyed is that there are many, many talented women who could be in IT or CS but who don't participate because of sexism or hostility in the workplace ecause of their gender._

What industries do these women participate in?

<comment><USER20> I don't know. Not IT?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The only factual claim in the article:

> _You know why there are no women in CS programs? Because they see shit like > this_

Citation needed.

<comment><USER20> Bullshit. As the creator of the citation needed tag, I feel the urge to disabuse you of your usage of the phrase. It's self evident that if you are offensive towards women, it's less likely they will participate in IT or Computer Science.

We need more Grace Hoppers. I didn't create the {{fact}} tag all those years ago to be used for crap like this.

<comment><USER24>
        "It's self evident that if you are offensive towards women, it's less likely they will participate in IT or Computer Science."

Of course, but that doesn't change the need for a citation of that specific claim. For instance we can observe interests in young children well before they enter our complex world with rampant sexism and bigotry, and even then we see similar patterns: girls aren't as interested in CS. Sexism is still obviously a problem in our industry, I'm not disputing that, but there's nothing wrong with requesting a source when somebody makes a claim.

Quoting the citation needed tag is just a whimsical way of stating it, there's no need for personal offense.

<comment><USER20> Uh you say "of course" (I.e. I know that it's self evident), but then you say you need a citation? Really?

<comment><USER24> Because it's different to say "women aren't in CS due to sexism" and "sexism turns women off to CS".

<comment><USER20> Fair point. I see where you are coming from and concede that it was reasonable to ask for a citation. My apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I guess there are articles / threads like this discussing sexism directed at men in female dominated professions too.

[http://ajnoffthecharts.com/2009/06/16/do-male-nurses-face- re...](http://ajnoffthecharts.com/2009/06/16/do-male-nurses-face-reverse- sexism/)

 _The 2004 federal survey of the RN population found that only 5.8% of RNs were men. This results from the profession's use of caring philosophies that perpetuate the stereotype of women being more caring than men, as well as from the use of language that isn't gender neutral and the failure to recruit men._

[http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/sexism- nursi...](http://allnurses.com/general-nursing-discussion/sexism-nursing- male-25956.html)

 _As a male in nursing, I feel that I am sometimes treated differently because of my gender. I believe that I am expected to carry a heavier patient load with less assistance from my female coworkers._

</comment><comment><USER26> In my experience, a lot of boys have acted that way towards me because they've honestly never met a woman who can code. It takes a little bit before they warm up to that fact.

After a while, if they're still being a dick, I'll just go somewhere else and find people to work with that aren't egocentric and dumb.

That's one of the reasons why working with my brother is so awesome--he knows me well and doesn't assume I'm a "non-computer-person".

GIRLS DO THIS TOO. Some girls also assume that girls are less technically inclined.

My whole life, I've just had to keep on going and showing people what I'm capable of. Since I'm a white girl who likes wearing dresses, people don't expect it, but they find out soon enough.

</comment><comment><USER27> At this point if someone doesn't post a blog post about Noah Kagan being sexist at least once a week he'll have to have died.

<comment><USER20> In that case, people should stop asking him to their conferences to speak. Conferences about IT are not forums for stand up comedians. Besides which, people like Eddie Murphy or Sarah Silverman do offensive comedy better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have such mixed feelings about this being on HN. Yes, I think we should read it and learn from it. I absolutely agree with the author. It's one of those things I wish everyone knew but for some reason there are still people who don't, so maybe showing up on the front page every once and a while is a good reminder.

But the comments should be turned off. This is such a heated topic and are there aren't any right answers to this problem besides "keep it in mind, don't do what they did". What can possibly be discussed here besides emotional bickering from both sides. It does not seem productive and is not interesting conversation.

</comment><comment><USER13> Without being there, I can't be sure, but the way the OP describes this appears to miss the point.

The way I interpret that sentence, using the very little context supplied, is

profits, people, and sex

yaknow, sex with women, men, whatever

remember that song from the 90s opp = other people's "privates | p __ __| p __ __" or whatever you want "P" to stand for.

Without more context, that's exactly what I get from that, nothing anti-women whatsoever.

<comment><USER29> And I guess as a guy, you're _eminently_ qualified to determine what is and isn't insulting to women?

<comment><USER29> Downvotes? Ha! It's true, though, isn't it? I mean, is a Java developer qualified to critique a reasonably large C++ application? Not really, no. You can try, but there are idioms, pitfalls, and such that you just won't pick up on.

So why do we tolerate the same behavior when it comes to men's experiences vs. women's experiences? This isn't all that complicated. You didn't live the last N years of your life as a woman. You can try to reason about it. Maybe you'll come close. But you just don't have the experience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if on the HRNews.com website, women there are decrying the absence of men in HR?

Sexism is bad, and should be exterminated, but I can't help thinking that, just maybe, some jobs appeal to some sexes more than others (in the aggregate. I realise there are individual exceptions).

</comment><comment><USER31> For what it's worth: Mark Littlewood, one of the Business of Software organizers, apologized to the group and took responsibility. I don't have the transcript but he didn't think the comment/talk was motivated by sexism.

</comment><comment><USER32> Get over it. Life is too short to spend bitching about little things like this.

If you really think this is the cause of lack of women in CS, you've never raised a woman.

Here's a hint: it ain't the men.

<comment><USER20> I have a 4.5 year old girl. I'm 100% certain that I want her to pursue a career in IT, if that is what she desires. Hopefully by the time she's old enough she not only won't have to deal with the sort of misogynistic crap like the one pointed out in the article, but the sort of "get over it" responses that encourage this sort of rubbish.

P.S. What sort of stupid comment is "you've never raised a woman"? What, you can only be upset about sexism if you've had children? Or, for that matter, have a daughter?

That there is someone voting you up is a real shame.

<comment><USER32> The logic that men are to blame for the lack of women in CS is mind-boggling. Take some responsibility for yourself. Stop putting the blame on others.

<comment><USER20> I didn't say that "men are to blame for the lack of women in CS". I said that sexist comments don't encourage more women to enter into computing. That would include women making sexist remarks or abusing hostility to other women.

I do hope I have un-boggled your mind.

Not sure what sort of responsibility I need to bear here, incidentally. I'm certainly saying that if you make IT hostile or women you bear some of the blame for the lack of women partaking in it.

Oh, it might help to note that I'm male, and I'm in IT.

<comment><USER32> I have been working professionally for 10 years. In every single place I have worked, women are treated with equal respect.

Are there idiots out there? Yes.

But STOP BLOWING THIS SHIT OUT OF PROPORTION.

You're worse than the feminists.

<comment><USER29> _In every single place I have worked, women are treated with equal respect._

You're a dude, right? How the heck would you know? Most of this crap is directed _at women_. _A priori_ means means you're going to miss out on a very, very large subset. This plus the fact that you're convinced it's blown out of proportion suggests mind-bogglingly large confirmation and selection bias.

Frankly, in the context of this comment, your suggestion that anybody is worse than the feminists is a _compliment_.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> really? i thought women get extra cakes in software roundabouts just because theyre women. and the dev geeks are usually to shy to say anything bad too.

it's time we stop this annoying let's treat women the same crap. we're not, when was the last time you saw someone treat a coworker better because he was a good looking chap? now, when's the last time you or someone else treated a good looking girl better, just because she was a good looking girl? besides, how many times did you see a banker get hired with long hair and beard without suit?

as for this part:

"We're better than this. Act like it. Treat your fellow developers with the same respect you'd treat someone you met on the street: basic, common courtesy. It's not exactly asking a lot, so quit making it seem so hard to attain."

if you really treat your fellow developers like you treat people on the street, maybe you should rethink the way you treat people on the street. i treat people by merit, and they get an extra bonus when theyre a good looking lady. but when i see some moron being in a good position just because she's a good looking girl, you can bet ill treat her the way she deserves. when you want sometime you have to make sacrifices. I didn't exactly get my programming knowledge handed to me on a silver platter. my taekwondo teach had to beg his master for some of his knowledge. I can tell you plenty of stories about this. you want something, you have to show that you really want it. and no i'm not talking about sex, or sexism. You asking for free labour.

as for you yourself, you want an extra cake. you want to be able to spew your feminist nonsense and then expect everyone else to speak in politically correct terms.

you know what the meaning of the word tolerance is? it means to tolerate ones opinion even though you might not like it. it doesn't mean that you have to subdue to someone elses ideals just in order for them to become happy. you got that part wrong. now I don't like your attitude, but I tolerate it.

here's some food for thought. i've said a million times and i will keep repeating it. a lot of really awesome software that might strike you as not so good business, but is actually much more successful than the most valuable companies was built by hotheaded people, that didn't always treat each other in the best language possible.

Now here's the part you don't get:

 _How can a bunch of people that don't really like each other build awesome stuff TOGETHER?_

because of respect. They respect each others opinions, they respect each others work, they might not like each other by they respect each other. This respect is merit based. The kind of respect you're talking about is not respect. It's social conventions that you made up in your mind with your friends. It holds no real value, it creates nothing.

by the way, even if you don't accept it, you have the same evolutionary traits as anyone else. men need someone to reproduce with, women need someone to protect them. the funny part is, most of us will never even notice.

<comment><USER29> This comment says far more about your own collection of biases than anything else. The logical fallacies alone are enough to render this comment basically useless:

* confirmation bias * selection bias * fundamental attribution error * backfire effect

There's also the whole "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple" component here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not again this. It started like a good summary of a conference I'd love to attend to but then it became the usual drama blog post.

"Look, someone said something stupid. Let's call out the whole community for that. Because white males are literary Hitler or worse."

Yes, there are jerks. It's time to get over it.

<comment><USER20> It's got nothing to do with being a white male. That a white male said it is incidental. In fact it wasn't even mentioned in the article.

As a white male, however, I'd like to say to other white males (and everyone else) - cut out the bullshit sexism in your tech talk. I didn't come for your ridiculous views on women when I go to these talks. I care about tech. Your sexist views detract from your message, and I'll consider you a moron if you think sexist jokes are funny.</comment></comment>


Meet the 24 year old founders winning the battle against junk mail - <AUTHOR> http://www.wework.com/magazine/members/unroll-meet-email-organization-experts/

<comment><USER2> I've seen a lot of tweets and Facebook posts about Unroll.me.

...because it appears that they exploit social autosharing to both services, as I see canned "I just subscribed to Unroll.me!" messages all the time. (see: [https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=unroll.me&src=typd](https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=unroll.me&src=typd) and note the referral indicators)

That particular tactic is enough to turn me off of a service, no matter how useful it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anyone know what their business model is? I assume one would pay for a subscription, but I couldn't see pricing information on their website.</comment>


Show HN: Bitcoin investing using Dollar Cost Averaging strategy - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/0x13a/bitcoin-trading-dca <comment><USER2> The re-balancing system (of which dollar averaging is a variant) is described in the Fortune's Formula book [1] as something that Claude Shannon [2] would demonstrate in his lectures at MIT as a mathematically proven guaranteed winning strategy. At the end of the talk there was a Q and A, and the first question always was "do you yourself use this system", to which he replied "Naw, the commissions alone would kill you".

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Formula-Scientific- Betting-C...](https://www.amazon.com/Fortunes-Formula-Scientific-Betting- Casinos/dp/0809045990)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Shannon)

<comment><USER3> The transaction fees at Kraken and many other cryptocurrency exchanges are percentage-based, so that issue shouldn't apply here.

<comment><USER4> It would still apply. Them taking a percent of my money every trade hurts me. Is there any guarantee that my profit per trade is larger than their fee per trade?

<comment><USER3> You pay the same amount in fees for buying a lump sum of $100 in Bitcoin or for buying $100 in Bitcoin over a week using dollar cost averaging. If dollar cost averaging with no fees is better than a lump sum with no fees, then I'm not sure how adding the same fee to both strategies could make dollar cost averaging any worse relatively.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote a bot that did something similar on the cryptsy exchange - it didn't pull in any new cash, it just tried to re-balance every time it ran.

It was making a small profit until cryptsy got hacked and lost all of my coins :(

Here's the source if anyone is interested though: [https://github.com/nfriedly/Coin-Allocator](https://github.com/nfriedly/Coin- Allocator)

</comment><comment><USER6> Some years ago everybody involved with the cryptocurrency universe had a relatively good understanding of economics, markets, agent incentives, game theory and so on -- even if these people didn't mention any of these terms, they seem to have a natural, logical, grasp of everything that was needed (not much).

Now it seems that people come to cryptocurrencies without knowing a thing, misunderstanding the way people act and the incentives involved, but at the same time making heavy usage of the terms "cryptocurrency game theory", "cryptocurrency economics" etc.

Not to say that this DCA thing is wrong or anything, but I've seen people here trying to create speculation strategies using charts and correlations produced by Python scripts, and lots the new cryptocurrencies and tokens are deadly wrong on their assumptions and incredibly poor in their features, like Bancor or Tezos.

<comment><USER7> What's wrong with Tezos?

<comment><USER6> Nothing wrong, I just think it is silly. It's only feature is on-chain voting on protocol changes, something that wouldn't have prevented the Bitcoin hard- fork, for example. It also assumes hard forks are always bad and that everything can be agreed upon with votes, as if everybody were always satisfied with election results.

<comment><USER8> >It's only feature is on-chain voting on protocol changes

>It also assumes hard forks are always bad and that everything can be agreed upon with votes

Those two statements are incorrect. If you want to understand what it brings to the table, then you should read the position paper: [https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/position_paper.pdf](https://www.tezos.com/static/papers/position_paper.pdf)

Or watch a presentation by the lead about Governance: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OWxGqbknFQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OWxGqbknFQ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The example says they want to invest $1000 over the course of 3 months, so 1000 / (3 * 30) = 1000 / 90 = ~11$ / day.

But aren't the transaction fees (at least for Bitcoin) something like ~$2 per transaction? So you'd end up only investing ~$820 instead of the target of $1000 and losing the rest. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER10> Another problem with DCA is that it's a classic case of "timing the market". If, over the course of those 3 months, the value of the asset you're purchasing consistently increases, you'll 'lose' money in the sense that your dollar will have less and less purchasing power toward the end of the period.

There's a good discussion of this strategy on the Bogleheads wiki: [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging#Dollar...](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging#Dollar_cost_averaging_versus_lump_sum)

tl;dr: If you think the market will continue to go up in the short term, lump sum will always beat DCA. A better rule, however, is: _do not_ try to time the market. Just invest when you can.

<comment><USER11> Thank you, this is a great insight.

> A better rule, however, is: do not try to time the market. Just invest when > you can.

I'm not sure if I understood this one correctly. Is it like, instead of trying to find the best time to invest, like waiting for something huge to happen, just invest every now and then when you are able to do it. Is that it?

<comment><USER10> That's right. If you have $100 sitting in your chequeing account to invest, better to invest it now.

Most people get paid biweekly or twice per month, so it would make sense to just invest when you get paid.

<comment><USER12> Which means, taking say $100 out of each paycheck and investing all of it on that day. You're not timing the market then, the money wasn't available prior to that. You're not paying attention to the price, you're just getting the price on that day.

This is what dollar cost averaging usually means... assuming prior money was already invested.

But when you have a lump sum, instead of putting it all in on that exact day you can DCA over a short period of time, like 2-5 days or 3 weeks. This is basically averaging over that period which is better than the chance of just happening to pick the wrong day to buy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > The investor purchases more shares when prices are low and fewer shares when > prices are high.

If you never sell you never lose.

<comment><USER14> If you didn't sell on mtgox you lost everything.

<comment><USER15> I bought 4 BTC on Mt.Gox when they were ~$25 each. Naturally, after I bought it crashed to the ~$1 territory. Thought to myself "Figures..." and decided might as well hold. Cut to a year (or two?) later and the prices hit the ~$30 territory. I decide to sell and reap a nice little ~$20 profit. Lucky me, eh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, I recommend buying everything at the moment you decide you want to buy, no matter the price.

Anything different than that is likely to give you headaches.

</comment><comment><USER16> It requires some maths (and some faith in the Black-Scholes model, but it works okay in historical simulations), but you can do this instead. To lock in a price for some stock or foreign currency for a given delivery date:

\- Buy an European call and write an European put at this value. This neutralizes your exposure to fluctuations in price; OR \- Helpfully calculate that the "delta" for delta-hedging this portfolio is 1/[present stock price] and replicate the put/call combo: when the market goes up 1%, you buy 1/S stock; when it goes down 1%, you sell 1/S stock.

To see why, look at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks_(finance)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeks_\(finance\))

Otherwise: try it with a spreadsheet program.

<comment><USER17> Ok, but where are you going to trade those derivatives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> There is plenty of empirical evidence showing that DCA doesn't work, and only provide a psychological value. Why are people still using it? And for Bitcoin?

<comment><USER19> Sources?

<comment><USER20> [https://www.google.com/search?q=dollar+cost+averaging+empiri...](https://www.google.com/search?q=dollar+cost+averaging+empirical+evidence&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

Dollar cost averaging doesn't work because it makes an assumption that doesn't hold in the real world. It assumes that stocks trade in a range, and revert to a "true" price over time. If there were a true price, then you would in fact buy more when the price was low and less when it was high and DCA would work.

But stock prices look more like a random walk, and they display no tendency to revert to a mean.

Here's an article I just found: [http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2010/11/dollar- co...](http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2010/11/dollar-cost- averaging-the-myth-that-wont-die.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> FWIW, this is a feature on coinbase-- you can just have them ACH charge your bank account a fixed amount each day, each week, each month, etc (each hour maybe?).

Unfortunately the better deal is moving that money to GDAX and buying there... which is a bit hard to do at $11 a day.

</comment><comment><USER21> Trading != investing, dollar cost average is an investing strategy, not a trading strategy; you have an investing bot, not a trading bot.

<comment><USER22> No, they have neither. This is just a script to purchase an amount of bitcoin. It has to be run manually for each purchase. It is easier I think to just login to the exchange every day and make the purchase. Not sure why this is so high on HN.

<comment><USER23> Pieter Levels wrote pretty much the same thing a few days ago, but most people that know about Pieter know he likes to automate things. I'm pretty sure he set his up as a cron job.

[https://gist.github.com/levelsio/ee9539134035492ba77a7be1b49...](https://gist.github.com/levelsio/ee9539134035492ba77a7be1b49ed832)

<comment><AUTHOR> yes you should add a cron to automate it daily

<comment><USER6> How do you automate money transfers?

<comment><USER24> Simple. Just add your bank account details to your exchange account and then your exchange can draw money from there automatically.

<comment><USER6> Sorry, I live in a country where that is unthinkable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> A better approach with an extremely volatile asset like Bitcoin is a simple tactical asset allocation strategy.

For example, the following system significantly outperforms both buy-and-hold and dollar-cost averaging strategies.

        1. Buy when the monthly price of Bitcoin is greater than its 10-month simple moving average (SMA).
        2. Sell (and move to cash) when the monthly price is less than its 10-month SMA.

That's it. Market timing improves the risk-adjusted returns with minimally increased transaction costs versus a buy-and-hold strategy.

<comment><USER26> Am I reading this right? It seems to be advocating "Buy high, sell low".

<comment><USER27> This is exactly how I read it. I think the OP flipped the two.. This, and the fact there is zero evidence to back up the claim is enough for us to confidently ignore it and move on.

<comment><USER21> No, the OP said it correctly, it's a momentum strategy, you presume the market will keep going in the direction it's already going. This is a simple trend trading strategy. It doesn't actually work anymore, but anything that ever worked once will continue to live and be promoted by people who don't grasp that markets aren't static.

What the strategy ignores is that it gets eaten alive in ranges, when the market isn't trending, this strategy buys high and sells low over and over until you're broke. Works great when the market is trending though.

Bitcoin for example last crossed its 10 month moving average around $246, it's now trading over 4k; $246 would have been a hell of a price to get in at. So yes, buying the "high" works well in a trending market. It's have to drop to $1827 to trigger that same sell signal so you'd lose well over half the floating profit, and then it'd probably cross back and forth a few times when it's near the average trigger many failed entries and exits eating up all the profit you just made.

Moving average strategies don't work except in hindsight when you can see the trend and decide which MA would have worked (something you can't know beforehand), but they're great teaching aids in understanding and learning about trading strategies because they're nearly as simple as a strategy can get.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> "Bitcoin investing" sounds a bit like an oxymoron to me (more like speculating).

Anyway, dollar-cost-averaging looks like a great strategy if you are very bullish on a asset which also happens to be quite volatile.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am sorry to say that but this script is quite laughably naive. It even includes storing your exchange API keys on plain-text on disk. Yum!

</comment><comment><USER30> When I saw this initially, I thought this'd be a bunch of graphs detailing how you would have done to invest using DCA at different times in the past, and at different amounts.

I'd be interested in seeing that as well.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is it true that the vast majority of all Bitcoin mining happens near hydro plants in China? If so, regardless of anything else, doesn't that expose Bitcoin users to significant state actor risk?

<comment><USER32> The only state action that poses a huge risk is if Chinese miners totally have >50% of the hashrate and the Chinese government took control of the miners to mess with transactions. Other than that the worst risk is them shutting down all the miners which would mainly just slow down transaction clearance which would drop the price but not catastrophically.

<comment><USER33> Nope, actually the most significant risk to Bitcoin specifically from the Chinese government would be an effective block of all Bitcoin-related traffic between China and the rest of the world. This would lead to about 50% of mining power being in China and about 50% being outside of China, both "networks" happily continuing to mine blocks (albeit a lot slower) without knowing about each other, thus confirming entirely different transactions. The market would effectively be crushed by such an event, since the whole point of the blockchain is to have a stable, worldwide consensus about the ownership of every single Bitcoin, which isn't the case anymore if there are two independent networks which both claim to be the "real Bitcoin" (important to note that this is entirely different to the situation between BCH and BTC, where the forked BCH chain is clearly considered to be a "different" chain from BTC by all relevant market actors and also by the software due to different rules for block validation).

If the resulting havoc doesn't let Bitcoin prices fall to zero, the chaos produced by the inevitable blockchain reorganization after the government lifts the traffic block would definitely kill it. Depending on which chain was lucky enough to get more blocks, one or the other suddenly becomes irrelevant, and thus all transactions approved within it are purged from history. If the traffic block is timed intelligently, people and/or organizations that rely on the immutability of the chain have already performed actions as a result of Bitcoin transfers, such as crediting user accounts on an exchange, which effectively enables double-spending of these coins on a large scale. This could only be prevented by immediate ceasing of all Bitcoin-related action in case of such a "net split" event, which isn't easy to do and which in itself is a huge market disruption.

I consider the likelihood of such an event to be rather small, as I assume the Chinese government to have a vested interest in Bitcoin (indeed I assume that certain parts of it have been active participants in the game of cryptos for quite a while, and even without this, there are the proven interests of the Chinese mining economy, whose participants hold large sums of coins and physical values tied to their mining operations). But nevertheless this is a possible threat with much worse consequences than simply having a little bit slower block times.

<comment><USER34> If this were to happen, wouldn't one or both of the newly isolated mining collectives very quickly hard fork making the situation near-identical to the recent BCH fork?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Your link to Electrum is giving a 404. Thought you should know.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks fixed

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Just buy Bitcoin Today and hold it for a year. Then hold it for another year. Buy it with money that you don't ever need again. Don't do so much that you feel like you woud be in trouble if you lost it all and don't do it with so little that doubling that money in a year would not be worth the rollercoaster that is bitcoin ownership.

The week after I bought mine, it dropped nearly 30% and now it's up nearly 90%. There was a series of emotions because I probably bought enough to be very very engaged but not enough to be in big trouble if it went south.

<comment><USER37> Yeah that's a good sign that Bitcoin is not an investment its a lottery ticket, or more realistically an entry in a pyramid scheme.

<comment><USER12> Bitcoin is the first technological form of money. This means it is going thru the normal technology adoption cycle like a high tech startup does, yet its' a form of money. It's a new thing.

Every time the user base expands a bit as more people become aware of it, then the price goes up.

At the same time, every 4 years the rate of emission is being cut in half... so, more people want bitcoins but there are less new bitcoins being made.

That's not a pyramid scheme but it's also not going to produce a perfect %0.2 appreciation per day type schedule.

It is an investment. With a lottery ticket your odds of winning are very small and you will likely lose almost all the money. With a pyramid scheme, the early entrants are paid with money from the later entrants as part of a scam-- and it's unsustainable-- but bitcoin is perfectly sustainable, it's simply an asset that happens to be appreciating.

What is it when you buy an asset whose demand is going up and you think it's going to appreciate?

Investing.

At worst you could call it "speculating" but speculation is just a word for "high risk investments" and risk is in the eye of the beholder.

<comment><USER37> >It is an investment. With a lottery ticket your odds of winning are very small and you will likely lose almost all the money. With a pyramid scheme, the early entrants are paid with money from the later entrants as part of a scam-- and it's unsustainable-- but bitcoin is perfectly sustainable, it's simply an asset that happens to be appreciating.

I think its pretty clear that the early entrants are getting paid with money from the later entrants. The question left is is BTC sustainable. Etherium shows BTC is easily replaced. Currently yes it is an asset that happens to be appreciating - do you think anyone wants to own it when it starts going down?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> a few years back I made a similar DCA website, you can find it at: [https://coinsavers.net](https://coinsavers.net)

The site has helped me to take the timing anxiety out of buying; it was initially made as a SAAS, but I've abandoned that idea. Please don't sign up with too many ;)

</comment><comment><USER39> DCA is just the way of periodically buying some bitcoin at the fixed dollar amount.

</comment><comment><USER40> I follow this manually. Buy 100$ worth top 30 crypto every week on bittrex.

<comment><USER41> Manually? So every week you do 30 separate trades on Bittrex? Seems like a lot of work and also you have 30 transaction fees (including the spread cost) for only $100.

I like this idea, but only if it's scripted and for more than $100 per run.

<comment><USER42> Transaction fees (including the spread cost) on cryptocurrency exchanges are typically a percentage rather than a fixed amount. So it doesn't matter if you do $100 every week or $400 every four weeks.

<comment><USER41> Yes, you're correct -- my mistake. Bittrex's fees are 0.25% of each trade.

My point about doing 30 trades every week manually is a lot still stands though. Maybe I'll try scripting this with Bittrex's API. It would be cool to have an option to scale each trade size by the current relative market cap, so you can have your own crypto index fund.

<comment><USER43> That's exactly what I did. I'm doing it on poloniex, but I'm pretty sure you could do the same for bittrex too. However, they are a bit limiting on the kind of orders you can make (I believe it's limit orders only). Poloniex has fill or kill orders, which makes some things easier to handle.

[https://github.com/charlespwd/crypto- trader](https://github.com/charlespwd/crypto-trader)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> levels did it [https://gist.github.com/levelsio/ee9539134035492ba77a7be1b49...](https://gist.github.com/levelsio/ee9539134035492ba77a7be1b49ed832)</comment>


Ask HN: How to manage costs for Twilio apps? - <AUTHOR>

So, I'm running into a dilemma. I just wrote a Twilio App that I think is kinda cool.
The problem is that Twilio can be expensive, and I can't immediately think of any plug-and-play advertising solutions for use with audio / phone applications (such as Adsense for the web). I really want to show my friends this thing, but I'm afraid the costs will spiral out of control.
What are your suggestions on how to make money to offset the costs for web applications that are built on services such as Twilio? <comment><USER2> Charge people money!

<comment><AUTHOR> So is there no such thing as a freemium model for a Twilio-like web application?

<comment><USER2> I don't see why you can't do freemium for applications which have non-zero per-user costs. You just have to either a) be careful with it or b) have a lot of other people's money to burn through prior to discovering your COCA and LTV.

I spend rather substantially more than my rent on AdWords, to acquire users who don't _have_ to pay me money. This is less risky than it sounds because I have a pretty good idea that a portion of them will indeed pay and that I'll come out profitable.

There's also cash flow to consider. AdWords has post-pay, which is quite convenient for cash flow. Twilio, by my understanding, has you pay in advance. That is a bit less convenient. Basically, if you click on an ad today I owe Google money as of sometime in early March and then money actually leaves my physical possession to pay off my credit card sometime in early April, but I get physical possession of your money on Friday. This is pretty powerful -- it means, if Google were to offer me infinite advertising inventory, I could blow up my expenditures very quickly without needing any capital to do it.

Prepaying is not nearly so fun, although since you're prepaying with a credit card you still get at least a few weeks to get the customer's money prior to effecting actual transfer of the money to pay for the services they used.</comment></comment></comment>


Too Many American Men Are Obsessed with Work and Wealth - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/04/too-many-elite-american-men-are-obsessed-with-work/479940/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> Maybe if a home in a safe neighborhood with good schools for my kids and a reasonable commute to a decent job wasn't $1,000/sq ft then people wouldn't be so ''obsessed'' with wealth.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> >There is a workaholic mania among educated wealth-seeking American men, who seem uniquely devoted to working any number of hours to get rich

This mindset cannot be unique to just the Americans, can it? Doesn't everybody want to work hard and get rich?

Any non-Americans care to explain this?

<comment><USER3> >Doesn't everybody want to work hard and get rich?

I'm an American and I don't want this. Hard work sucks and bores me. Not to say that I've never put effort or tried at anything, I just think that "hard work" as most people conceive of it is bullshit and a rigged game. Being rich sounds like a hassle and I'd be wracked with guilt. I just want to be able to live the life I want within my means, reading and creating and lounging by the beach with wine and weed. Contrary to popular belief, you don't really need that much money to do so.

<comment><USER4> I think most people are just pretending. There's not that much work to do, they just don't use their time wisely and often are too dumb or optimistic to know when not to dedicate time to something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> >Too Many American Men are Obsessed with Work and Wealth

Alternatively, not enough women value work and wealth. The bias here is clear is day.

</comment><comment><USER6> Just American-Men..?

How about Too many _Adults_ are obsessed with work and wealth?

</comment><comment><USER7> > _while married couples often make work-and-home decisions as a unit, the > cultural expectation that men be the top providers proves to be an > insurmountable force_

So it's not just coming from the men.

<comment><USER8> Mostly from men. It's hard to argue that women set the cultural agenda when most almost all of our business and political leaders are male boomers.</comment></comment>


Gumroad is a year old, today. - <AUTHOR> http://sahillavingia.com/blog/gumroad-is-a-year-old-today/ <comment><USER2> Let's see... According to twitterholic the 1000th most-followed person on twitter has 75,000 followers. That means the 10,000th most-followed person probably has 7,500 followers, and the 100,000th most-followed person probably has 750 followers. This means the market for this product probably caps out at 10,000 or so users who both have enough followers to really move the needle and also something lots of people would want to buy. And that's probably including Facebook, LinkedIN, G+, etc. as sales vectors also.

I love the idea behind gumroad in theory, but the problem is that now not only do I need a great product but I need my own audience. This seems like one step forwards two steps backwards.

That's not to say suggest that gumroad is on the wrong track, especially since there are a lot of things you can do with this, but on its own I tend to be extremely skeptical of any business that relies on their customers already having lots of engaged followers.

<comment><USER3> I am building a solution which tries to solve the audience problem you refer to. Let me know if you are interested in becoming an early user.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I like this service more and more. The user experience is excellent and I appreciate the fact that it supports multiple languages. Very impressed with what Sahil did here in just 12 months.

</comment><comment><USER5> I am more interested to know how you got all those investors to invest on your service. Did they contact you after your launch on HN or do you have to reach out for them yourself? How difficult was to convince them to invest?

<comment><USER6> [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/04/03/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/04/03/businessinsiderhow-to-have-more-tha.DTL)

This is a relevant read

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Nice one buddy. I remember seeing your launch post. How much have you made from your pencil?

<comment><USER8> Yeah, as a fellow prospective bootstrapper, I'd be interested in reading an income report and maybe even writings about your learnings and experiences.</comment></comment>


Social media monitoring - listening is The Future - <AUTHOR> http://www.trendpreneur.com/online/social-media-online/social-media-monitoring-is-the-future/

<comment><USER2> A lot of what is said in this post is right on the money. Listening is the future, but you need to take it futher than that. Identifying trends amongst your data, seeing what works and what doesn't work and determining your ROI for whatever you are trying to gauge(gains in sales, followers, facebook friends, etc.) is where the real value is going to lie.

-begin shameless plug-

I'm a software developer at a social media metrics startup, SWIX ( <http://www.swixhq.com> ), our product will be heading for our initial launch very soon. Our focus is on helping social media marketers or individuals track social media campaigns and determine their ROI. If you want to be notified when it launches or have any questions feel free to email me (my email is in my profile)

-end shameless plug-

<comment><USER3> As a good friend of mgrouchy and someone who has been following SWIX from the outside, I can vouch for this. I've seen the service itself during various phases of its development, and it is looking amazing.

Definitely check it out and stay tuned for the beta.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it just me, or are these insights superficial? If "social media" is a conversation, doesn't it already imply that listening is part of the process? Using social media for its intended purpose is different than retweeting Guy Kawasaki just because other people are doing it.

I don't want to disparage anyone's hard work in this space, but I wonder if the person most interested in "social media monitoring tools" might be the sort of person who hires a ghost blogger/tweeter because he/she is too busy to blog or tweet.

</comment><comment><USER5> Not exactly related, but it really annoys me when people have twitter accounts but don't respond to @mentions.</comment>