South Korea has limited a working week to 52 hours, in order to stop overwork - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/south-korea-is-trying-to-stop-overwork-by-limiting-the-maximum-workweek-to-52-hours <comment><USER2> The amount of work we do is such a complicated issue. Here are a few primer questions to get you started:

How do we quantify amount worked on the continuum of knowledge workers vs. physical laborers?

How much are working hours determined by personal preferences and desires (getting promoted, actually enjoy job, etc) vs. demands imposed by management/project requirements?

How much of time worked depends on the culture (of a company, of an industry, of a country)?

How to quantify work "in the office" vs. at home "answering a few emails? Some people like being really flexible. I personally prefer very binary working/not working lifestyle.

How much should we work throughout our careers (I prefer the idea that we can "turn down the volume" on work during child rearing years, but this is in direct opposition to typical career advancement timelines)?

Is there any reasonable definition of a "full work week"? What is it (40 hours?)

Should we have a minimum wage at all? Does a minimum wage increase productivity by artificially making labor more expensive?

<comment><USER3> All of these come after the question: "What is life worth?"

In both the US and in most Asian cultures work is worth more than life for the vast majority of the average lifespan. Working long hours is considered a badge of honor. In the US you work towards retirement—that's the goal. That's the endgame.

The fundamental question is: is that right? Is it worth it? Should we spend 40 years trying to make as money as we can so that we can then do nothing? The entire system, from top to bottom, is designed for this. And we give little breaks in between those 40 years so people don't become depressed and kill themselves.

Whenever I hear about people justify why they work so hard it's almost always because they want to become rich so they won't have to work. It makes me think of that line from Office Space, "You don't need a million dollars to do nothing, man. Take a look at my cousin. He's broke and he don't do shit."

We do what the media tells us because we never stop to think about what we actually want.

<comment><USER4> You need to consider what work and, more generally, what society is. Society is fundamentally a group of people working together to satisfy each others needs and wants. Work, or productivity, is making progress towards this goal and is something we tend to reward with money, though not always.

I think a fair analogy for society's productivity is a grocery store. Imagine there was a grocery store, the only grocery store in existence that also happened to be the only way to get food. Everybody would come in and take whatever they needed, but you didn't necessarily have to pay. If only some people don't pay this isn't that big a deal - the grocery store as a whole eats the losses but continues working more or less fine. And for those that simply cannot pay at all, well - there's not really any other option. But then there are those that could pay, but for whatever reason, do not. If enough people did this - the store would eventually go out of business as it would not be making enough to sustain itself. If everybody just did as they want, society would collapse.

More generally here money is an indicator of how much you've contributed to society. People look at disbelief at how much Jeff Bezos is worth, yet somehow think nothing of how much Amazon has completely revolutionized the world of purchasing things as well as brought prices to lower than ever levels. The reason he's worth as much as he is is because he has contributed _immensely_ to society.

Of course the system isn't ideal and some people manage to make enormous amounts of money while contributing next to nothing to society - people who deal with finance are the prototypical example here. And similarly there are also people that contribute immensely to society, yet never see much in the way of reward from it. Herman Melville is now seen as one of the more important individuals in our literary history, yet received no recognition during his life and died without his work ever really being recognized, let alone rewarded.

Yet for all of its flaws, our system does generally do a good job of creating a system where people who contribute to society are rewarded which creates a strong incentive system to contribute to society, even if only to make yourself rich in the process.

<comment><USER5> If Jeff Bezos' contribution to society is so immense that he deserves all the billions he has amassed, what about the scientists and mathematicians of the world who died in poverty, but on whose shoulders the modern world is built upon?

<comment><USER4> Can you give me just a few names of important scientists who died in poverty for reasons outside their own actions?

<comment><USER5> Tesla, Ramanujan, Gutenberg...

"Poverty" is a strong word. I could have used a different word.

What I really wanted to convey is that Gutenberg, Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi, Tesla, Gauss and plenty others deserved to be billionaires if Bezos deserves his billions.

<comment><USER4> Your choice of names is not compelling.

\- Tesla was a multi millionaire during his life who decided to risk, and lose, his wealth pursuing ideas that did not work out.

\- Gutenberg was granted royal title along with all the privileges of such including an endless stipend and industrial volumes of grain and wine during the 15th century. Works from his press sold, during his life, for what was years of salary per copy. He was almost certainly a millionaire, though my point was primarily related to capitalist societies. The 15th century was still more feudal come mercantalistic.

\- Curie won the nobel prize which entailed a prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars and a solid gold medal - almost certainly totaling in the millions of dollars as well.

And so on. And in many ways a billionaire of today is what a millionaire of times past was. I don't mean because of inflation but in terms of relative scarcity and effective 'power.' Ramanujan is the closest to a reasonable example, but there are significant extenuating circumstances there. He was religious to the point of bordering on insanity, grew up in colonial India, and had no interest in anything other than the private pursuit of his mostly abstract mathematical works. Whatever he may have 'deserved', he certainly was able to live his life as he wanted.

The big point here though is that this is not a coincidence. When people contribute to society, they tend to be rewarded. There are certainly some exceptions, but the great thing is that they are now a days, without doubt, the exceptions.

<comment><USER5> "The big point here though is that this is not a coincidence. When people contribute to society, they tend to be rewarded."

Getting rich and contributing to society are very different things. A footballer is almost always going to be richer than a professor in a top-class university. Drug barons are rich, but I doubt they are contributing to society.

Bankers are getting richer. They created the recession and profited from it. The hardworking common man paid for their success. I do not think it is as simple as you say it is.

As I said, "poverty" was the not the right word. Otherwise, the examples are just fine. Curie in particular. She refused to patent Radium. It is hard to comprehend in an era where even simple geometric figures, colors and fonts are being patented.

<comment><USER4> You're conflating contributing with some sort of subjective utilitarian type view. People want drugs, drug barons facilitate their availability - this is a substantial and highly productive contribution to society. To emphasize how arbitrary value systems can be, you might consider an opera singer to be contributing to society. But they're providing the exact same product to society that a footballer does - entertainment.

But back on the scientists, poverty was not just the wrong word - it was the wrong idea. Most of the people you listed lived lives as pleasant as they desired and could have retired in complete comfort at various points in their career. Of course that would not make these sort of people happy. Instead they mostly lived normal lives (in terms of standard), and put their money back into furthering their research and in many ways right back into society.

The same is true, though in a different way, for Bezos. He will likely never, in his entire life, spend more than a tiny fraction of a percent of his wealth on himself and his family. The vast majority of it will end up going back to society working to do his part to try to bring humanity into the space age. This isn't to say he lives modestly, but rather it exposes an interesting difference. When most people think of being a billionaire most don't think of what they could create, instead they think of what they could buy. Yet the former mindset creates wealth and the latter destroys it.

When Bezos was in his teens he worked one summer at a McDonalds. He hated it. The next summer decided to found the 'Dream Institute' which was a 10 day camp for younger kids. He only got 6 signups, but at $600 a child he probably earned vastly more than he did at McDonalds and provided a great service to society at the same time. No doubt his idea was heavily incentivized by money and that's the beautiful thing about our system. When you create things, you tend to be rewarded. And on that note, I'm going to dodge the banker issue. I do agree with you there and while productivity tends to be rewarded, it's not an exclusive relationship. E.g. - those that are nonproductive can also find substantial reward at times. However, I think the issue with banks is far more complex than 'they create [and profit from] recessions so they're bad' or 'they lend money to create businesses so they're good'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was just having a dumb convo with a friend about how JUST a simple 3-day weekend can make you way more productive for like the next 2 weeks.

Refreshed, on top of personal life stuff, and ready to go. Why do we work 5 on, 2 off? How did that _naturally_ become the standard.

I'd argue that if our economy did a rolling 5 on, 3 off for everyone the whole output would net MORE productivity overall

<comment><USER7> I think this might work for cognitive-based works like programming but not for muscle-based works like doing constructions.

<comment><USER6> Yep, true

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hopefully a tighter labor market will result in higher wages for workers, reducing the necessity of overtime. There's some evidence that in the united states that employers are so powerful that even the tightest labor market in years isn't increasing wages.

EDIT: However, can you imagine such reforms being implemented here? This is the power of a leftist coalition capturing the state. As mild a reform as this is, it stretches the imagination for what is possible here.

<comment><USER9> What evidence do you have that it's employers who are powerful holding down wages? Being a small business owner in America sucks. You can barely afford to employ anybody.

<comment><USER10> Honestly, that's what says any employer in any part of the world. I am currently in a SW-EU state and I hear the same exact words every day, and here the work market is far more heavy regulated and taxed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is one thing to enact a policy and another to actually see to that it is enforced.

And I feel that it will be particularly hard to enforce the reduced working week in the South Korean culture that often puts group ahead of individual. Perhaps any movement to follow the regulation will be construed as a selfish as attempt to defy the common good of the group.

<comment><USER12> Large companies actually enforce this fairly well.

For instance, there is software on employees' computers which will hard shutdown the computer after a couple warnings. Companies which offer transport for employees have curtailed bus service from last departure at 12am to last departure at around 9pm.

It is implemented in a fairly interesting way though. Before the new regulation, the overtime policies were calculated on a weekly basis. Now it is done on monthly basis. I think this is done to allow you to 'burst' above the 52h limit in some weeks while staying in compliance on monthly basis.

Note that companies will deduct an hour a day for breaks whether you use it or not. So even a 52h week can mean 52+5=57/5=11.4h per day. So 5 straight nearly 12h days is technically not considered overtime.

<comment><USER13> From the article; it's a 40-hour week plus 12 hours of overtime, so under your model, 5 straight 9-hour days is not considered overtime, and anything more is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> > Being forced to soften the rollout of the policy indicates how much the plan > was driven by the government, rather than workers themselves that rely on > overtime to earn enough money.

That changes the story, doesn't it? With so many of us ineligible for overtime in the US, being "management", we may wonder why anyone would work quite that much.

<comment><USER15> It seems that in the US that having to pay more for overtime is hurting people more than it helps them at this point. Especially people on the lower end of the wage scale. If you want/need to work more then usually you have too have two jobs with all the extra commuting and scheduling. It would be better if people could work 60hr for one employer instead of two.

<comment><USER16> Shouldnt we be focusing on the fact that people need to work 60 hours rather than accomidating the system that enables it.

<comment><USER17> > Shouldnt we be focusing on the fact that people need to work 60 hours rather > than accomidating the system that enables it.

"Need" is relative. Programmers don't "need" to work 80 hour weeks, but if it's the difference between getting paid $80,000 and $160,000, some people will choose the longer hours, and there isn't inherently anything wrong with that.

So why is it wrong when someone whose base salary is $25,000 makes the same choice?

<comment><USER16> because the programmer has a real choice to choose to make less money, and not work as much, at a different job.

The person who's base sallary is $25,000 has no choice to work a different job for less money, esp when every job is making the same demands (you could be 100% certan every service job would be)

<comment><USER17> How does the lower wage person not have the same choice? Working 40 hours pays $25,000, working 80 hours pays $50,000. Why should a person not have this choice?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Being a workaholic is not much different from being an alcoholic. These are different forms of addiction. All workaholic societies are destroying themselves due to health complications and declining birthrates. Also, the problems of poverty and absolutely ridiculous wealth distribution patterns seem unsolvable. What more is needed to understand that the economy in its current form does not work in the long term?

</comment><comment><USER18> Unless they have also come up with a solid definition of "work", this will be meaningless. Does it include work done from home? Work done on your own time? Will it allow us to turn off the cellphone all weekend?

I say this as a government worker spending his Saturday night doing an online course I need to complete before a training day on Tuesday. I'm on salary and so do not get overtime. But to compete I have to pull the rabbit from the hat and somehow get everything done. That means doing work-related tasks in my own time. (This is a busy month. Things will get easier later in the year and everyone knows it. Nobody is complaining.)

<comment><USER19> Having worked 5 years in Korea I'd say the worst offenders don't let people work from home anyway. The main issue is that there's typically _already_ a maximum overtime per week you can clock in. But this doesn't stop anyone to work beyond the limit and not claim those hours.

Edit: HN is funny sometimes, I'm downvoted for stating simple facts. At least you could elaborate on how I somehow offended you.

<comment><USER20> Not to mention company outings/excursions during the weekends and additional courses/education after work. Japan is usually coming up when talking about crazy work hours, but South Korea appeared to be just as bad, so I'm curious how such regulation would actually apply if all those extra hours are not being counted to your actual work hours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> An aside to the main content of the article, I found interesting that Mexico topped the list - Mexicans seem to uphold the stereotype that they're super hard workers.

<comment><USER22> Japan is listed lower than the United States, and even New Zealand, so I can't really tell how valid this information is.

Japan culture for working long ours is insane, you simply do not leave the office before your boss, people sit at the desks doing nothing until the boss leaves. This mindset exists in Korea too.

<comment><USER21> This probably includes more than just office jobs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Seems like this could have dramatic effects on some professions where 60+ hour workweeks are typical even outside of Korea, e.g. being an early startup employee or adhering to the strenuous pro gamer practice schedule. While it's probably not healthy to work that much, in the short-term, throwing more time at a job depending on the profession can sometimes optimize your reward function.

</comment><comment><USER24> The modern work week is a sort of (21st century version of) indentured servitude for some, and a fantastic opportunity for learning/advancement for others. Unfortunately, you don't really get to choose and must try to coax yourself into believing the latter if you really want to be an FTE. In nowhere is this more obvious in tech where over the course of 15+ years I've experienced:

"This is NOT a 9-5 role, we expect you to do what it takes to keep things running"

"You're a highly paid engineer, therefore you should expect overtime"

"This is a 24/7/365 shop, and everyone is expected to be available at all times"

"This is a startup, and everyone is expected to be available at all times"

"This is a financial company, and everyone is expected to be available at all times"

(fellow team members) "Yup, this is a tech role, what do you expect. That's just the way it is"

And so on and so forth.

My thoughts on this are:

1) Some people like working long hours, some people don't, but all must conform to the long-hours lowest common denominator. Without realizing it, we're conforming to an ideology that benefits senior management/founders/shareholders. Is that good or bad? It depends on your position in life, but let's call it what it is.

2) Employment contracts don't contain hours, so sometimes you don't know you're going to have unpaid overtime in the form of on-call or crunch time until several weeks after you've started. This is indentured servitude because while you CAN quit the job (unlike the 17th century variant), you lose health care and ability to pay your mortgage/rent.

3) Salaries are high in tech, but if you take someone making, for example, $200,000 US, which is considered a lot, and you divide it by someone working 50 hours a week, they're only making $77 an hour.

4) I decided to become a consultant, which means I make significantly more than that, I get to keep myself physically fit because I have time to do so, and I'm a much happier person as a result. Want me to work overtime? With pleasure.

5) When you're a consultant, people think twice before putting you on-call or asking you to work 50-60 hours. When you're an employee, however...

[Edit:] My philosophy in life is: you can make more money later, but you can NEVER get your time back. Keep that in mind before signing dotted lines.

* Everything I've just said is US-specific. Europeans have slightly better laws to protect against certain abuses.

</comment><comment><USER25> It's clear by reading comments who here has children and who does not. If work is more fun to you than spending time with your children then there's something wrong. When I see comments like "I can't imagine anything more fun than work" I tend to think about my personal reflection upon my own standing in life in relation to work, which is "if I didn't have to work, I would spend all of my time being the best dad that I can be". Lucky for me I am home all day so I count my blessings already. I work so I can have a more comfortable home for myself and my family. Sure, sometimes - a lot of times that work is fun and addicting but nothing compares to the joy of being around my son.

<comment><USER26> Children are optional and expensive, which makes them a luxury. Not everyone chooses to spend their time and money on luxuries such as children.

<comment><USER27> Children are optional on an individual basis, but not on a societal basis. A society that does not produce sufficient numbers of children now will collapse in a few decades when the ratio of retirees to working age adults becomes too high.

<comment><USER26> That's okay. Societies that continue to have fucktons of children will also collapse in a few decades, but in a markedly different way, with a lot more suffering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> How does this work exactly?

If you are an employee and your boss calls you and asks you to work the 53rd hour, what do you do?

<comment><USER29> Your response is presumably somewhere between: (1) what you'd do if your boss asked you to murder someone (2) what you'd do if your boss asked you to make them a coffee.

(In all seriousness, you probably just go to their labor board website and fill out a form or something.)

<comment><USER28> I guess my point was that it's complicated from a relationship point of view. Let's say I've worked 3 years at a particular job. This law goes into effect. The following week my boss asks me to do 53 hours of work.

What do I do now? I don't want to do the 53rd hour. Do I say no to the boss? Sure maybe he can't _legally_ do anything punitive, but that doesn't mean he won't. What happens to my relationships at work? What happens when my peers decide to do the 53rd hour of work and so they are seen as more valuable to the company? Do management folks start seeing me as less of a team player?

What if I go to the labor board? Now the company is chastized for asking me to work beyond 53 hours. What does that do for my relationships at work? My reviews? Promotion prospects?

Let's say I move to another job. Word gets around that I'm a litigious sort of guy who goes to the labour board when I'm asked to work more than 52 hours.

Does this law protect me in a practical way? Is enforcing this law possible in a practical way, which does not cause other problems for the employee?

<comment><USER30> Changing cultures requires courage - if you can't be the one putting themselves on the line then the least you can do is not be the one oppressing them for doing so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> What if I want to work a lot? For example, if I want to do something with my life and my job fulfills that need. Do they just force employers to pay overtime or am I not allowed to work beyond those hours anyways?

</comment><comment><USER32> This is ridiculous.

It all depends on the person and the job. Some people can work a lot more than others. Likewise, some jobs are less demanding than others.

This is just as bad as minimum wage laws.

How do these people come up with such absurd laws?

<comment><USER33> > How do these people come up with such absurd laws?

52 hours per week is 7.5 hours every day, including weekends, or 10.4 hours every day assuming you work Mon-Fri. If the society (or the mythical free market) could regulate itself so that people don't have to work this crazy hours to earn living, we wouldn't have this "absurd" law.

Unfortunately, the South Korean society has failed to regulate itself. Hence the law. The very fact that some pundits and employers are crying loudly shows why this law was necessary.

You know, when you go to any restaurant (in the US), "Maximum Occupancy 140" signs look just as absurd. What will happen when the 141st patron walks in? Will the building crumble down or what?

...Except that these regulations were written with people's blood.

<comment><USER32> If Koreans really want to work less, then some company would reduce the work week to 40 hours and get flooded with all of Korea's best employees.

The fact that this hasn't happened means that something else is preventing the market from regulating itself.

Perhaps people prefer to work longer hours and possibly earn more. Perhaps the market is very competitive and this is the only way to stay relevant. Perhaps something makes it difficult for companies to hire more employees. Perhaps Korean people can work 68 hours with little diminishing return. Perhaps the taxes are too high. I don't know.

<comment><USER33> > If Koreans really want to work less, then some company would reduce the work > week to 40 hours and ...

... another big company that deals with them will call them on 5 pm Friday, request an extra shipment by 10 am next Monday, get angry ("What do you mean? Weekend? Do I look like your friend?") and cancel the deal. The company goes bankrupt.

You don't know much about Korean work culture, do you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> 6.5 8-hour days, huh? Welp ... guess that's a tentative start.

</comment><comment><USER35> This is bad regulation. Moving on.

</comment><comment><USER36> It will work for sure since bureaucrats always know better how to make everyone happy.

Maybe workers will get less net income (and on a per hour as well) since employers will have to robotize or spend time training newcomers, but we can attack evil employers so who cares.

</comment><comment><USER37> The best limit for something like this would be to just move to hourly pay. If people were paid for each hour worked, it would be self limiting.

I've heard that in some countries, such as France, they actually post police outside of office parks to arrest people who work "too many hours". Makes it hard to start a business when you're limited in how much sweat equity you can put into it.

And I'm sure police have better things to do than to prevent people working.

</comment><comment><USER38> These are the same people who overpay for BTC and, if I remember an HN article from a little while ago, have "death ceremonies" where their employees are made to imagine their own deaths to prove loyalty to the company.

Make of that what you will.

</comment><comment><USER39> What if John McCarthy or Richard Feynman had been limited to 52 hours a week? Or more recently, pg or sama? Or less recently, Albert Einstein or Alan Turing?

Edit: I posted it without reading the article, but it's worse than expected. Execs can go to prison.

Edit 2: Having a working hour limit applied across the board could result in knowledge workers having to track their time, which works great for some but not for others.

<comment><USER40> I don't think it's wise to be against this law _because_ some people might be limited; by and large, this is a good thing - it means that workers are exploited less, it means that there will be consequences for those who force workers to work so much overtime in a culture in which you're not seen as being dedicated enough if you refuse to do overtime.

I immediately thought "the people you've named would just continue to work anyway, because they're 'the greats'", but I also realised that some of them would need specialised equipment, the sort that would be closed off outside of the hours permitted. Perhaps there should be some system in which such people can apply to use the eqipment outside of hours. But it could be that bosses (or even employees themselves, feeling pressured) would apply to use them, citing personal reasons rather than "work reasons".

But in the end, I really don't see it as a bad thing that "execs can go to prison"; I think that unless there are serious consequences, and the law only has monetary fines (which matter less and less so long as they aren't large proportions of revenue) then the law will be skirted or simply violated.

In the end, I really think this law does more good than it does potential harm. Overwork is a serious issue, but your proposal that we shouldn't have it raises important questions. Employers discovered in the 20th century that it would be efficient for the direction of the employee's conatus aligns with the company's, such that the employee will feel joy and even want to work longer hours - this of course being more effective than the older system (usually employed in manual labour with few levels of management) of taking advantage of the basal desire for material reproduction. With longer hours, it's easier for an employer to push this desire to the employee.

And by the way, I was much more convinced of your argument with regard to people like McCarthy, Feynman, Einstiein and Turing than our friends pg and sama :-)

<comment><USER41> > I don't think it's wise to be against this law because some people might be > limited; by and large, this is a good thing

I don't like infringing the freedom of individual workers to contract as they see fit. Pursuit of happiness and all that...

(I'm also opposed to minimum wage and pro-sustenance-UBI.)

<comment><USER40> Although I doubt we'd come to any agreement (I don't subscribe to liberalism nor the same ideas of contextual freedom you do), I'm curious: what would you say about the freedom to sell oneself into slavery? Is there such thing as "voluntary servitude" to you?

I think a more nuanced view is required: how do these freedoms arise, what makes one person work for another, is the subjecitvist-individualist philosophy the end of liberal politics, how do desires form and conatus aligns under modern capitalism, and does the pursuit of happiness entail the requirement for the desire to employ others for a goal that they don't have an _interest_ in (in the Spinozist sense of desire), what is the role of money (or money-capital) (and its pursuit) in the desires, and what role does the education system play in nurturing such desires? All these are questions of interest, and I don't think they can be whisked away with a sentence accusing the law of "infringing freedom". There are much greater injustices with regard to our freedom right in front of us in this mode of economic organisation.

<comment><USER41> Stopping me from choosing to work 60 hours a week in order to get myself and family ahead seems quite different from stopping me selling myself into slavery, so I'll assume the question was merely exploratory.

I don't believe that selling oneself into slavery ought to be legal.

I do think that educational loans are fairly close to "voluntary servitude" and that educational lending ought to be legal.

<comment><USER40> Of course it's different to sell yourself into slavery, but it still asks the question: are you in favour of "the freedom for individual workers to contract as they see fit", or are you not? I'd say that the qualitative difference between longer and longer work weeks ("freely contracted", as you might say) and slavery tends to zero. The fact that you _need_ to work 60 hours a week to get you and your family ahead is precisely the problem that the law is trying to solve - and any social law, for that matter. It's a worker's rights law, set amidst late capitalism in a modern "democratic" country, as such it will target two things: allowing employers to keep employing people (but not excessively) and allowing employees to survive (but not "for nothing"). This is the goal of any capitalist mode of organisation, and this is but a tug of the rope in favour of labour rather than capital, but capitalism is characterised by the endless tug here and there between capital and labour.

<comment><USER41> If you put a gun to my head and force me to choose between "individuals can freely sell themselves into slavery" and "individuals do not have freedom to work as hard as they want", I'll choose the former.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


GAN Lab: An Interactive, Visual Experimentation Tool for GANs - <AUTHOR> https://poloclub.github.io/ganlab/ <comment><USER2> Great visualization! Is it based on [https://distill.pub](https://distill.pub)? See, e.g., [https://distill.pub/2017/momentum/](https://distill.pub/2017/momentum/)

<comment><USER3> This is actually probably based on Tensorflow Playground - [https://github.com/tensorflow/playground](https://github.com/tensorflow/playground) \- made by some of the Distill.pub people :)</comment></comment>


The Puzzling Galaxy at the Edge of Time and Space - <AUTHOR> http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-puzzling-galaxy-at-the-edge-of-time-and-space-3252351

<comment><USER2> Perhaps the most straightforward, albeit seismic, explanation for this and the recent supermassive black hole is that we've misunderstood either the age of the universe, or the nature of time.

The black hole is one thing, but a old yet seemingly ancient metal rich galaxy is another - you only get heavy metals from fusion and time.

<comment><USER3> That explanation is extremely unlikely. Our constraints on the age of the universe are now extremely tight and come from several independent measurements.

What these results are more likely telling us is what the very first generation of stars were like. There's currently a great deal of uncertainty about how they form and what they're like. One of the reasons we know so little about them is because no one has actually seen a first generation star. Such a star would be characterized by having no metals at all. Some stars with extremely low amounts of metals have been discovered (something like one millionth the amount of metals in the Sun), but all have a detectable amount of metals in their atmosphere. This means that: (1) there were very few first generation stars, so they are extremely rare; and/or (2) the first generation stars that formed were extremely massive, so they all had very short lifetimes.

In addition to these observational uncertainties, there are major theoretical uncertainties about the formation of first generation stars as well. Star formation in general is poorly understood, but it is known that metals are extremely important when forming stars. The reason for this somewhat technical, but makes for an interesting diversion. If you have a gas cloud out in interstellar space, it has some temperature. As the cloud collapses under its own gravity, it heats up. However, according to the virial theorem twice as much gravitational energy is lost as goes into heat -- this means that the other half must be radiated away. But radiative transport in these clouds can be inefficient. If your contracting gas cloud produces a photon, it will pretty soon hit a hydrogen atom, bump it up to the next energy level, and then be re-emitted when the hydrogen atom transitions back down to the ground state. This will happen many, many times and the photon will bounce around the cloud for a long, long time before it can random walk out of the cloud, escape, and cool the cloud down. Remember, until the photon leaves the cloud, the cloud cannot contract. However, if this photon hits a metal, electron will jump up to some high energy level, and then cascade down to the ground state through some complicated path and will emit several low energy photons. These photons will be unable to bump any hydrogen atoms up to the next energy level so they can travel through the cloud unimpeded. Thus metals are extremely important for cooling clouds efficiently. The more metals a cloud has, the more easily it can contract and form stars.

A direct consequence of this is that clouds with metals can fragment more easily. This means that a large gas cloud will fragment into many smaller subclouds and form lots of stars in a cluster. In the early universe, however, it's not clear what happened. It may be that without metals clouds just didn't fragment and so the first generation of stars were all truly massive -- maybe hundreds to thousands of solar masses. But this scenario is problematic for a number of reasons -- foremost among them, the gas needs to cool somehow, and the cooling time seems to be too long to form these kinds of stars. There might (probably even must) be some other way to cool these clouds to get them to contract, but what other cooling mechanisms work on clouds without metals is not well understood.

Results like this put constraints on how quickly the first generation of stars must have formed, how massive they must have been (at least some of them), and how many of them there must have been.

<comment><USER4> Independent measurements but not necessarily independent assumptions, and hence interpretations of those results.

<comment><USER3> The assumptions are pretty independent, too. The tightest constraints on the age of the universe come from measurements of the Hubble constant from Type Ia supernovae. There are certain assumptions in this measurement about how Type Ia supernovae evolve over the age of the universe. The other constraints come from the ages of the oldest globular clusters. The assumptions in this measurement basically have to do with certain details of stellar physics. There isn't much overlap between the two sets of assumptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm by no means a physicist but find topics on the nature of universe deeply fascinating. One thing i've always found frustratingly difficult to grasp though, is the expansion of the universe - but just found this article to be a total eye opener: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_expansion_of_space)

It was counterintuitive to me how we can observe light from objects 12 billion years old, when supposedly things are flying apart faster than the speed of light. Is there an edge of the universe, and what is outside that we are 'expanding into'. If everything is moving apart, why are we going to crash into Andromeda? Why haven't black holes consumed all the mass in the universe by now? If the cosmological principle is true and the universe looks the same in all directions, doesn't that imply that we're either at the center- or that it wraps around and we just can't observe it? Saying it's infinitely large seems like a convenient explanation.

The idea of metric expansion of space between gravitationally unbound matter, local groups, and Hubble flow explain a lot.

I do still wonder though how accurate our understanding of the universe really is, or if there's some fundamental thing we've missed and have generated theories to fit the observations we're currently capable of making.

</comment><comment><USER6> Maybe we're seeing all the way around, and back to here again!

<comment><USER7> If you're referring to what Einstein referred to as the "finite, unbounded" universe, i.e. a spherical topology of the universe, measurements from the last decade and a half have shown that to be most probably (if not completely) wrong[1], and that our universe is in fact "flat".

[1] [http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html](http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/universe/uni_shape.html)

<comment><USER6> Where's the romance in that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The trouble comes because they measured the age using metric-expansion redshift.

But if there is something else affecting the redshift - for example a huge galaxy in between with a strong gravitational pull then the galaxy will appear more redshifted than it would otherwise, and is not actually as old as it appears.

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm a little confused - the article says it's 2.2 billion light years away yet the expectation is that it would be a very immature galaxy. Wouldn't it have had ~11.6 billion years to become a more mature galaxy before the light we're looking at left?

The Earth is older than the light from that galaxy. So why the surprise at its apparent maturity?

Edit: to answer my own question the galaxy cluster that's doing the magnifying is 2.2 billion light years away. It took some googling to figure that one out!

<comment><USER10> > This galaxy is so distant that it would have been invisible without the > gravitational lensing effects of a large galaxy cluster called Abell 1689, > located nearly 2.2 billion light years away in the constellation Virgo.

Straight from the article. :)

<comment><USER9> Yes, I see now that I was only half paying attention to the article and skipped a bunch of words ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> trey-jones Is it not a possibility that this galaxy was already much further from the "center" of the universe 12 billion years ago? I am not an astronomer by any stretch.

<comment><USER11> There is no such thing as a center.

<comment><USER12> This point always confused me. Isn't the "center" just the point where the big bang took place and started the expansion of the universe?

<comment><USER13> If you inflate a balloon, the surface area of the balloon increases and some dots drawn on the surface would get further apart but you couldnt say that the enlargement has a 'centre' The entire surface is simply expanding everywhere at once. The universe is like that with an extra dimension.

<comment><USER14> Still confused! With a balloon surface if you travel in one direction long enough you will end up back where you started. Does this analogy apply to the universe.

If there is no centre then either the universe is infinite, or it wraps around on itself like a balloon?

<comment><USER13> I believe whether the universe wraps around, or is infinite is still a matter of some debate. I know some researchers are currently trying to determine the size and shape of the universe by trying to see all the way to the other side and back to our side, for example. In some cases with things in physics and cosmology, lets say dealing with 4 or 11 spatial dimensions you've just got to accept that our minds are not designed to be able to visualize some concepts, though we can understand and make progress by understanding the math. Heres a random article introducing some ideas about the geometry and topology of the universe. [http://io9.com/5811706/if-you-keep-going-around-the- universe...](http://io9.com/5811706/if-you-keep-going-around-the-universe- will-you-end-up-where-you-started)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I feel this is the appropriate place to bring up that we're not all confident that the Big Bang actually happened at all.

[http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/BB- top-30.asp](http://metaresearch.org/cosmology/BB-top-30.asp)

<comment><USER16> Even if the universe did not expand from a singularity, universal redshift is still a thing, as is the CMB.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Slicehost vs. Linode - <AUTHOR>

Which VPS provider do you prefer?  Which one would be better for a growing startup?  What are your experiences with each of these providers? <comment><USER2> This has been discussed here a number of times.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=374998>

<http://searchyc.com/slicehost+linode></comment>


NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job - <AUTHOR> http://www.fox5ny.com/news/48k-per-amazon-hq-job <comment><USER3> 1) Incentives are not given up front. They are given proportional to the results Amazon has achieved. Amazon must make a report each year detailing their progress before any award is given.

2) The city-level incentives are available to any business. State-level incentives (I think 300m) are not.

3) Amazon has pledged to invest in the local community as part of the deal. There are plans for an elementary school and tech education center.

4) The NYC tech sector is more diverse than SV. 47% of tech workers in NYC are immigrants [0]. Is there any evidence supporting the claim that Amazon will ship in majority groups to displace minorities or immigrants?

5) There is direct investment in tech education for minority groups in the city [1]. Therefore it is reasonable to assume that they will receive a chunk of these jobs in the future. If you support increased diversity in tech, it is inconsistent in your beliefs to not support 25k more tech jobs in NYC.

6) LIC built almost 2.8k rental units last year. [2] I think they have built 6k this year so far. 28k units were built city-wide last year [3]

Please tell me what about this is bad.

[0] [https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/our-immigrant- population...](https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/our-immigrant-population- helps-power-nyc-economy/) [1] [https://codenation.org/](https://codenation.org/) [2][https://licpost.com/long-island-city-had-more-housing- units-...](https://licpost.com/long-island-city-had-more-housing-units-built- in-2017-than-any-other-nyc-neighborhood-with-biggest-pipeline-of-units-to- come) [3] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/amenities-war-breaks-out-in- lon...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/amenities-war-breaks-out-in-long-island- city-rentals-1519225200)

<comment><USER4> Tech hasn't been kind to Seattle or SF. Maybe to the people attracted likely to be filling this jobs, but not to the people in the surrounding areas.

LIC was mostly warehouses at one point and you're right a lot of the new units are housing for people moving away from Manhattan. But the concern is not just about LIC; it's about Corona, Astoria, Jackson Heights. These are areas with a lot of immigrant communities, communities that'll start getting pushed out once the Amazonians move in.

<comment><USER5> No, NIMBYs haven't been kind to Seattle or SF. You are attributing the unkindness to the symptom, not the problem.

<comment><USER6> The proof of this is what happened elsewhere. the Dallas and Houston metro areas grew more in _each_ of the last two decades the Bay Area has grown _total_ since 1980. But prices haven't skyrocketed because development has been permitted.

<comment><USER7> Why Amazon didn't choose Dallas or Houston?

<comment><USER5> Not enough local talent, most likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is such a great deal for NYC

As the article says, they give up $1.5B over 10 years, but then get "Projected incremental tax revenue of more than $10 billion over 20 years."

I dont know where that comes from but the payroll and property taxes paid by 25k employees dwarves the incentives.

The most important part is it cements NYC as the main tech center on the East Coast. That is invaluable.

EDIT: I wonder if NYC with tax incentives, Amazon would still pay more tax than regular tax rates in FL, TX.

<comment><USER9> I beg to differ.

New York City doesn't have a problem attracting jobs. Like not even a little bit. The idea that this is actually incremental revenue for the city is extremely debatable.

New York City is a _really_ big place. Midtown is the largest central business district in the country, and Lower Manhattan is the third largest, after Chicago. There are 1,700,000 jobs in Manhattan alone and 3,900,000 in New York City. We're supposed to all bow down before a sixth of a percent change, spread out over 5-10 years? Really?

There are _single buildings_ in New York City that employ as many as 25,000 people. Back when the twin towers were around they contained 55,000 employees between them.

JP Morgan Chase is putting about 15,000 employees in their new HQ building, without a breathless 13 months of coverage. This shit happens all the time. You could pick any number of random single city blocks in Manhattan with way over 25,000 jobs.

Amazon needs New York way more than New York needs Amazon. It's the global center of media, fashion, advertising, finance, and many other categories of Amazon's business.

This giveaway is a goddamm travesty. How about instead, Cuomo gives me and any other startup founder who's been in Brooklyn or Queens for decades $48,000 for every job we've created, and we tell Amazon to go fuck themselves.

<comment><USER10> NYC needs more diversity outside of finance.

This potentially puts NYC on top for retail again. I think incentives and payments for this purpose is a meh idea, it if you're going to do it, bet on a winner.

<comment><USER11> Imagine giving $48,000 to 25,000 small business owners over 10 years instead.

<comment><USER12> They already do this, the excelsior tax break among other community development incentives are available to any employer that wants to locate in long island city. Small employers are probably less effective at leveraging these things, but nothing amazon is getting isn't totally open to the public.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Perhaps the citizens should object, I hear one of their congress critters is shitposting on twitter to that end. If the locals don't want their lives upended by gentrification, Berlin has shown a good example of how to block uninvited expansion by tech giants: [https://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-45971538](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-45971538)

<comment><USER5> They elected the people that made that decision. If they don't like it, they can vote them out.

Citing an example of some Berliner NIMBYs is not really helping your argument.

<comment><USER13> > They elected the people that made that decision. If they don't like it, they > can vote them out.

It seems you didn't read my prior comment, some of their elected officials are opposed to Amazon moving in.

> Citing an example of some Berliner NIMBYs is not really helping your > argument.

It shows how a community can fight back. Much of the change mega-corps bring to the neighborhoods and cities they set up shop in is not good, current locals definitely have a right to reject.

<comment><USER14> > _some of their elected officials are opposed to Amazon moving in_

The opposition to an almost-done deal is almost always louder than the support. Supporters want to keep the _status quo_ , _i.e._ the deal closing. Opposers want to stop it.

I think this is a good deal. I prefer having Amazon in New York, and I prefer the billions of extra tax dollars they're going to pay New York City and Albany versus potentially losing those dollars to another city, state or country. I'm not making a lot of noise because I think the Mayor and Governor have it handled.

TL; DR I don't think one can assume popular opposition to this deal.

<comment><USER15> Probably the best way to gauge the support/opposition was to put this deal into a city-wide referendum to begin with.

<comment><USER5> How'd that work out in the case of Brexit? Direct democracy is not really the best way to govern.

<comment><USER15> The distance of separation between a New Yorker and the city government is magnitudes closer than between a Briton and the EU agencies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> [disclosure - I work at Amazon, but have no internal information whatsoever.]

This is over 10 years, so ~$5k/job/yr. For reference, economic development incentives for corporate relocations are commonly $20k-75k per job, and often for jobs paying much less than Amazon is expected to pay HQ2.5 employees. Also, I believe that Amazon will receive tax rebates based on the number of jobs created over time, which is better than many packages that don't have any accountability, limits, or clawbacks.

I don't think economic development incentives are a wise use of funds, but this one is notably only for the scale and publicity. People are so mad because this the first time most people have heard of the practice.

For more information (and many much worse examples), see the book "The Great American Jobs Scam" \- [https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Jobs-Scam- Corporate/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/Great-American-Jobs-Scam- Corporate/dp/1576753158)

</comment><comment><USER17> Let's be clear, the free market this is not.

It's yet another perfect example of government gone wild. It's one thing for to use taxpayer monies to create jobs and job opportunity (i.e., education). That's a reasonable expectation within the scope of gov's governing.

However, it's another thing for gov to buy jobs - and thus votes - <USER2> effectively subsidizing some mega-corporation. If Amazon needs money, that's what Wall Street is for. If Wall Street isn't willing to give Amazon et al money then that's a red flag and taxpayers should naturally stand clear.

Some might say, "But without such things Amazon would have to raise prices, and that's not good for consumers." But it's the consumers that paid the __higher__ taxes to supply the subsidy. The difference is, with the latter method the gov gets to skim some off the top.

Bottom line: The taxpayer / consumer loses. Politicians and Big Inc win.

<comment><USER18> Literally the opposite. The tax gains out number the tax breaks 3 to 1. Each one of these $150k jobs will net NY state $13.8k of income tax per year and (at least) $2500 of sales tax. The tax break per job is $4800 per year (the $48k figure you may have seen is over ten years).

<comment><USER19> It's still a race to the bottom. Attracting businesses with tax-exempts is a zero-sum game.

In the EU we have rules against things like this. As it's considered anti- competitive behavior.

<comment><USER20> I believe you mean to say prisoner's dilemma, rather than a zero sum game.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> In 96', when Apatosaurus still roamed the earth and "Atari" was a thing, Israel granted Intel 600MM$ to build FAB18 in the desert. Over a decade later, an official government report concluded that the country lost some 400MM$ on the move. Bottom line, big-corps can extort states or cities and bid for ridiculous tax incentives that never pay off. I feel sorry for the residents of NY and the bad deal imposed on them.

<comment><USER22> Trying to understand your position... do you think Israel, a democracy, shouldn't have been able to decide to make that deal?

Who was Israel harming by making that decision?

Is a deal made freely and with complete information between two parties always "extortion", if it turns out with the benefit of hindsight not to have turned out to be in the best interests of one of the parties?

<comment><USER23> They never said they shouldn't have been able to decide to make that deal - but rather that they _shouldn 't have made it_. Presumably who was harmed was Israelis who could have benefitted from a government with more money to spend elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> We should never accept standalone numbers. They are incredibly deceptive and don't tell the whole story.

1\. What is the return that NY is going to get from increased tax revenue?

2\. What is the time period that $48,000 is going to be "paid out" over?

3\. How many jobs does this bring to NY? What's the average salary of those jobs?

Context is king, but doesn't make for sensational headlines.

</comment><comment><USER25> No opinion on the actual policy, but it infuriates me when the weasel words "paid for" are used in contexts like this. Giving a company or a person a tax write-off is not a "cost" to taxpayers, unless you assume a) the alternative reality was 100% likely and these exemptions had no effect on the final outcome, which is obviously a positive net revenue expectation, and b) saying tax reductions are a "cost" to tax payers implies the taxman by default has a claim on all income and only by the graciousness of politicians do we earn the right to keep any of it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Race to the bottom between states (and governments) to attract big businesses. Tragedy of the commons.

It's also unfair for the smaller players, they never get the same kind of treatment.

</comment><comment><USER27> It implies only negative, doesn't it also has a lot of positive to it, like economic growth?

<comment><USER28> Well, each NYC resident pays 48000 one time to get back 30000 per year for 10 years is not something that HN would upvote into the front page.

<comment><USER29> $48,000 is the cost per job, not the cost per resident.

<comment><USER30> It's not a cost though it's tax break over 10 years and there would be no tax revenue if NYC didn't get the office in the first place.

<comment><USER31> How do you know other companies wouldn't move in?

<comment><USER30> Did I ever claim others would not move in?

<comment><USER31> "and there would be no tax revenue if NYC didn't get the office in the first place."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's unclear to me from the article is this a one time cost? Is it yearly? Monthly?

edit: On reading a bit closer it's over $48,000 per job over 10 years.

<comment><USER33> One time cost paid over 10 years, IIRC

<comment><USER34> This doesn't necessarily sound terrible? If most of the jobs are going to be 6-figures, their tax rates will be reasonably high + they'll be contributing to the local economy in terms of buying goods and services. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER32> I'm inclined to agree. I'm against it in principle (why should taxpayers be subsidizing large corporations at all?) but it isn't robbery.

I guess it get fuzzier when you factor in in harder to quantify costs like further increasing the cost of living.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I feel like each Amazon employee will pay way more than that in taxes over 10 years, so this is just basic investment. Pay $48,000 over 10 years to get $30,000 a year forever. Seems smart.

<comment><USER30> It's not a payment it's a tax break. If HQ2 was not in NYC they would not get the tax revenue anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> In comparison, over the next 10 years, the MTA is projected to spend 6 billion extending the 2nd avenue subway a mere 1.5 miles to 125th st.

I don't know that I approve of the incentives to bring Amazon to NYC, but I suspect New Yorkers will see a better rate of return on that investment than on other government excesses.

</comment><comment><USER37> It is over 10 years per job. That will ideally by tax by an amazon employee over 5 years. Doesn't reflect the passive economic growth and indirect jobs that gets created over the time.

Also, Amazon and the new Google's expansion will invoke chain reaction in terms of tech activity and new start-up's.

<comment><USER3> Do you really believe that there isn't a tech sector in NYC aside from FAANG? Google, Facebook, and Twitter have been here for years (to name a few), along with tons of other startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Going to New York is a political move. They could have set up in the midwest, paid everyone 75% as much as the going rate in NY or silicon valley, and the employees would have 50% more expendable income than they are used to. This wasn't for the employees.

<comment><USER39> > They could have set up in the midwest, paid everyone 75% as much as the > going rate in NY or silicon valley, and the employees would have 50% more > expendable income than they are used to. This wasn't for the employees.

SDE's in Detroit, Madison, and Twin Cities are paid _exactly the same_ as the SDEs in Seattle.

<comment><USER40> They will match Facebook/Microsoft/Amazon/Google's 110k salary + bonus + stock that you can get in Seattle (As a college grad)?

Even smaller firms are giving away jobs for 150k salary for just a couple years of experience.

<comment><USER39> I'm talking specifically about Amazon, which has a presence in all 3 of the cities I mentioned. Also yes, $145.5k total compensation at Amazon with a Bachelors (I'm not sure if this is competitive though)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> The article is very disingenuous about this being a "cost" to tax payers. It's a tax break, it's not extra money that's going to be added to NY's tax bill, it's taxes that Amazon theoretically would have had to pay if they decided to build their offices there and didn't have the tax break. There are some other real costs to tax payers in the form of subsidies, but they're much smaller than the 1.5 billion figure quoted here. If you consider the fact that Amazon is going to probably pay much more in taxes over the lifetime of their offices in NY then it seems like a reasonable deal for their government to make.

<comment><USER42> Ok, we replaced "taxpayers to pay" with "state tax break" above.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> $48k per Amazon HQ job is about the the annual federal income tax of a software engineer at Amazon, and it's 4-5 years of New York state income tax. This assumes an annual total compensation somewhere around $200k.

Some people will tell you that such a compensation is not realistic, but at Amazon it is common for mid- to senior-level engineers to make at least that much.

Altogether it is not a total sellout on the part of New York, at least not after 5 years. Ideally some of those Amazon engineers will leave Amazon to join other companies or start their own, which will be good for New York.

</comment><comment><USER44> the gentrification angle is predictable. people want a generous government sector but don't want the local economic growth thats necessary to keep it afloat.

for Amazon its seemingly a PR nightmare versus just quietly leasing some large amount of office space in satellite locations. Hope the incentives are worth it.

the interesting thing to me about HQ2 is its also a wealth transfer from future workers to Amazon the company which is facilitated/financed by the local government via taxes. They're selling future worker income/sales tax to the government.

</comment><comment><USER45> Maybe some context would be appropriate. New York has been trying to diversify beyond finance for a long time. The cost per employee is amortized, as stated by others, but it's almost moot — as if it were a hedge.

Amazon has a rep for not retaining many of its engies beyond a year or two. Perhaps the hope is that those folks will go on and bootstrap a real startup economy. NY already has a Google and FB office. Two is interesting but three and you start to have a pattern.

If you ask me, it's worth the bet. $1-2B is cheap change on this level of macroeconomics.

</comment><comment><USER46> These posts seem to always miss the big picture... like what do they get back in payroll taxes and other perks? How many other companies is this going to bring into the local eco-system over the next 20 years. What does this do to the local real estate and the increase in property taxes?

If you were running a business and you had a client that had 25,000 seats, would you give them a discount to become a marquee client that could take your business to the next level? Why are cities any different?

Is the end goal of the city to have a higher GDP and better services for the people living in it, or something else? In the USA it seems like the only conversation happening in politics is GDP.

</comment><comment><USER18> It's $4800 per hire per year over ten years. Average salary will be $150k. That's $13.8k of NY state income tax per year and $2500 (at least) of sales tax per year. Seems like a great deal for the NY welfare state.

</comment><comment><USER47> Let us hope that the residents of the Queensbridge Houses housing projects get some employment opportunity out of their new neighbor AMAZON HQ2.... As one of the residents put it in the NYT:

"Not everyone here has a Ph.D., but anyone eager to work should be able to get job," he said. "It can't be nothing but a plus."

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/nyregion/amazon-queens- qu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/nyregion/amazon-queens-queensbridge- houses.html)

</comment><comment><USER48> I think people are, if anything, underestimating how good this is for the tech scene in NYC and for New York in general, at least from a fiscal perspective.

LIC is increasingly well-developed but mostly as a residential area. It's not Manhattan and doesn't really have top-tier employers. The tech scene in NYC is almost entirely concentrated in Manhattan, with the exception of maybe a tiny tech scene in parts of Brooklyn, which Queens (which Long Island City is part of) is not generally hip enough to have. This adds a top-tier employer with lots of high-paying jobs in a new location without displacing any of the existing tenants occupying prime office space in Manhattan. It also doesn't worsen the rent situation substantially where it's the worst. Rent is high everywhere but Queens has more supply, way more potential supply and is overall better positioned to deal with the additional demand than Manhattan or Brooklyn. Also, this isn't obvious to people who aren't familiar with NY but while LIC is easy to get to from most parts of NYC, it's just far enough that you probably wouldn't want to live in New Jersey, while that isn't as true of many parts of Manhattan. This definitely makes the location more attractive from the perspective of New York State, who doesn't capture the state tax from those that commute from New Jersey.

Also, you can't usually hire that many people by poaching people from other companies and they need a balance of junior and senior hires so lots of them will have to come from outside, at least on a net basis. This will include highly-compensated senior transfers from their other offices (to maintain the corporate culture, etc), will include new graduates (many of them would have gone elsewhere) and new immigrants who would've gone anywhere for the job. This also creates additional economic demand which will boost overall spending, creates an upward pressure on tech salaries which will add to the tax base. Also because Amazon does churn through people, this has the potential to bring many more people than 25K that come to NYC for Amazon and stay around to do other things. Ex-Amazonians as a group are also probably a good group to have around for any tech scene.

There's been a need for an alternative to Silicon Valley and this actually moves the needle in a significant way to positioning NYC that way. Combined with Google's plan for expansion, recent arrival of several SV tech companies and the natural advantage of being already the world's capital of finance, media, fashion, etc, at a time when tech is increasingly central not to its own industry but to every industry, this squarely puts NYC in contention.

<comment><USER49> so now our govt is paying amazon to create jobs from h1bs and displace natives?

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is a much better deal than Wisconsin gets with Foxconn. They are paying between $219.000 and $587.000 per job.

[https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/aug/11/...](https://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2017/aug/11/melissa- sargent/wisconsin-offering-pay-taiwan-tech-firm-foxconn-1-/)

</comment><comment><USER51> It's a good deal for NY. Can't build a bridge for 1.5B.. and this will have perpetual return on investment + auxiliary businesses will flourish.

</comment><comment><USER52> The title here is curiously different from the source:

 _NY state tax break is $48k per Amazon HQ job_

vs

 _NY taxpayers to pay $48,000 per Amazon HQ job_

I don't think those are equivalent statements.

</comment><comment><USER53> The only way you could say it costs NJ $48,000 per job is if you assumed that Amazon would have chosen them for HQ2 anyways, which is obviously not the case.

Saying it costs $48,000 per job is no different than when production companies claim piracy costs $1B+ per year (or some other ridiculous figure). That assumes all the people that would have pirated the movie would have paid full price otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER17> For those believing that subsidizing Amazon is net gain:

"After the Retail Apocalypse, Prepare for the Property Tax Meltdown"

[https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/property-tax-dark- sto...](https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/11/property-tax-dark-store-theory- retail-apocalypse-walmart/574123/)

</comment><comment><USER54> 1.2 billion over the next 10 years to receive 10 billion in tax revenue in the same time frame.

</comment><comment><USER55> I wonder what would make people happy. Amazon should have opened their HQ2 in Bangalore. They wouldn't face this much criticism there and people would welcome it.

</comment><comment><USER56> As a born and long time NYC resident... I am so unhappy about this, I cannot even tell you. Why can't we put $2B in the MTA's pocket? Or schools? Or healthcare? Or affordable housing? Or almost anything other than Bezos's pocket?

I did vote against Cuomo even as I helped flip our one NYC Republican district to Democrat, so I did everything I could as a voter.

We need a law/constitutional amendment preventing this sort of thing. Companies are abusing governments with these tactics and deals. I was also against our government's subsidies of the two NYC stadiums (Yankees and Mets) and arena (Nets).

<comment><USER57> They are not putting $2bn into Bezos's pocket. Rather they are receiving several times that in new tax revenue and maybe out of that they will put some into the MTA or similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I do not necessarily have a problem with the government shelling out taxpayer funds to attract employers, but this is highway robbery.

</comment><comment><USER59> I was so sure Amazon was going to move to Hudson Yards in Manhattan, but Long Island City seems like a smarter decision. More trains.

</comment><comment><USER60> Amazon could have chosen anywhere, somewhere where they could make a difference, create jobs, kick-start the economy. Serious bummer.

<comment><USER3> Why can't they create jobs and make a difference in NYC? Plenty of underrepresented developers and future developers in NYC who will benefit from these new jobs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> This type of tax incentives should be illegal. A lot of people argue that NYC still benefits from this deal, but we should not be thinking at a city level. But a country level, does the country benefits from this? No.

Has these type of incentives been illegal, Amazon would have to pick a city from the US and the overall US economy would be 1.5 billion richer.

The problem with incentives is that presents a "prisoner dilemma" to cities. And overall drives taxes down.

Sorry for my English.

</comment><comment><USER62> Next time someone defending Amazon tells you that the internet is a level playing field... Point to this.

<comment><USER63> Thanks for the advice patrickg_zill! It happens to me all the time!

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Seems way more effective for NY to just give these people the money directly.

</comment><comment><USER65> It's time the Federal government passed a law treating these inducements as taxable income.

If communities had to throw money at Washington, DC every time they threw money at Amazon/Foxconn/Apple et cetera, they'd be more redicent about doing it.

</comment><comment><USER66> This is such a disingenuous, low-insight, clickbait headline.

</comment><comment><USER67> They say the average is $150k - do they mention the median?

</comment><comment><USER68> Or call it an investment as there is a future payoff.

</comment><comment><USER69> If this isn't welfare, what is?

</comment><comment><USER70> It's not so much that it's a "bad deal" for NYC but rather that this practice needs to be better regulated if legally possible.

It's a policy that both the Libertarians on the right and the Social Democrats on the left can mainly agree on here and could work together to solve which is limiting corporate welfare that pits cities against each other.

</comment><comment><USER71> still beats the Foxconn deal - $300K per $50K/year job :)

</comment><comment><USER72> The worst part is that people read headlines like this and think that this is what capitalism is.

(Hint: this is not capitalism, this is crony capitalism and corporatism).

<comment><USER73> Worse yet is people making up their minds about a subject only by reading a headline. I don't know if you did this, but it appears so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER74> crony capitalism at it's "finest". What a joke, of course - it's ok when New York elites do it but it's evvvvvvvviiiiiiiiiiiil when Donald Trump wants to give tax breaks to _all_ Americans.

<comment><USER75> Literally nobody has claimed giving tax breaks to the 90% of Americans is evil. Your comment appears sololy meant to be inflammatory and promote low quality conversation.

<comment><USER74> Wrong. Chuck Schumer called it a "one-two gut punch to the middle class". Nanci Pelosi called it "simply theft — monumental, brazen theft — from the American middle-class and from every person who aspires to reach it". And that is only if the tax cuts are not renewed in 2027 - which the democrats voted against making them permanent.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Compare that to SF's roughly equivalent payment per homeless person

[https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends- recor...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/S-F-spends- record-241-million-on-homeless-6808319.php)

</comment><comment><USER77> The representation of this is a bit extreme here, but this is NY we're talking about. If _this_ is the first thing that you're upset about paying for in NY, you probably have not been looking at the budget.

</comment><comment><USER78> Have you ever worked with a former employee of Google or Amazon? Evidently, they don't relocate every time they change jobs. The entire economy gains as new talent arrives and stays.

</comment><comment><USER79> This is like House of Cards levels of evil. So good at playing this evil game that I can't help but respect this move of skullduggery.

<comment><USER80> How? I mean, you can argue against tax incentives for corporations, but you can also argue for them. For example, you could say (as others in this thread have) that $48k per job over 10 years is a good investment, and will likely generate much more than that in economic activity. How is it evil?

<comment><USER79> To me it is evil in the sense that this is taking advantage of the public interest.

For the community on a pure economic sense this might be seen as a good investment, but these kinds of tax incentives just further set apart the position of smaller companies and large corporates.

Imagine a mom&pop bakery with a 20year history receiving a comparable pile of money per job created, soon enough they wouldn't be small anymore.

To me the ability these deals have to further push for monopolys is simply unethical, but I'm german and have different sensibilities I guess.

<comment><USER81> You'd likely need to look at the local tax laws to state that they aren't getting similar incentives. I'm not in NYC, but I can speak to where I live and many of the laws, obligations and even taxes that apply to an Amazon-size corporation, do not apply to a mom & pop. For example, food labeling/testing is required (not cheap) for larger corporations. Healthcare options and covered sick days is tied to size of your corporation (again, not cheap). There are also numerous loans and incentives for smaller corporations that the bigger companies aren't eligible for.

I'm not trying to paint this as being equal, but to call it evil is a gross mischaracterization of what is happening here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Graphene: A D3.js, Backbone.js based Graphite Dashboard Toolkit - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jondot/graphene

<comment><USER2> I'm tracking Graphite evolution since some articles from the Etsy engineers (Track every Release <http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/12/08/track-every- release/> and Measure Everything [http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/02/15/measure-anything- meas...](http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2011/02/15/measure-anything-measure- everything/))

However every time I look at the site it seems more and more an abandonware. Only a quickstart and no proper documentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> The common things you'd want to do in Graphite will be easy, more complex things requires knowledge which isn't in the docs, but easily found if you're willing to invest the time in searching and reading code. Of course everyone would like great documentation; however some open source projects may not have the time for everything -- and that's ok, because its all free and full of love. Graphite is a great engineering achievement, and an awesome tool to have. Give it a try, even though it lacks documentation at this stage.

<comment><USER2> I haven't notice that Graphite is written in python, this is a plus (since we have several projects in python).

However, why should I prefer Graphite over, for eg, Munin? It's still open source but also has a proper documentation.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure they're comparable. I did the same evaluation, one of the many criteria that I had is a system that can handle many, many data points from many hosts (at the peak we had 50 production machines) and provide robust flexible queries over them; with almost 0 maintenance/configuration. Metrics are created dynamically, the Graphite database is optimized for this problem (more optimized than RRD - although it seems that recent versions of RRD closed the gap), and it can take a beating in terms of scale. A single Graphite instance does this effortlessly.

<comment><USER2> Mmm, not bad, not bad at all.

It doesn't support alarms, right?

<comment><USER3> Graphite is not a monitoring tool. It stores time series data and graphs it.

You can write a monitoring system that queries Graphite, and send notifications from there. Graphite can give you the raw data that backs the graphs:

[http://graphite.readthedocs.org/en/latest/url- api.html#rawda...](http://graphite.readthedocs.org/en/latest/url- api.html#rawdata)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I seen Graphite pop up a lot lately.

Why should I care about Graphite?

<comment><USER5> Graphite is a very simple time-series graphing solution that does one thing very well. Setting it up is easy and feeding it data is even easier. It's basically a little server which builds RRD instances on the fly and allows you to generate images of graphs using URLs. For example, you can feed it all kinds of data from your web server, in real time, and have it produce an graph as a PNG.

I guess for me the best part is the simplicity of the whole thing. Getting data in is just a simple TCP or UDP socket call (which you can do with almost anything, from nc to curl). Getting graphs out is a URL (albit a bit complex to create by hand :). Tying it all together is a simple, but functional, web interface.

Graphine solves the problem of graph generation and building dashboards in Graphite. By default Graphite builds PNG graphs which are expensive to build on the server and aren't dynamic. Graphine coverts these static PNG files to SVG and lets the browser do all the heavy lifting with regards to rendering.

<comment><USER6> Graphite is awesome; I've been stuffing more and more of our operational metrics into it since 2010.

It is, however, not RRD:

[http://graphite.readthedocs.org/en/latest/whisper.html#diffe...](http://graphite.readthedocs.org/en/latest/whisper.html#differences- between-whisper-and-rrd)

Having said that, Graphite does not use THE RRD, but it is a kind of round robin database. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Uhm, awesome. Love it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Come on, no online demo? Not even screenshots? How are people supposed to understand if there is anything good there?

<comment><USER9> <http://jondot.github.com/graphene/>

<comment><USER8> Thanks - I hadn't noticed that</comment></comment></comment>


Rand Paul declares surveillance 'war' and hints at filibuster for NSA reform - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/29/rand-paul-surveillance-filibuster-nsa-reform <comment><USER2> Let's hope that, this time, he doesn't get the date conveniently wrong, and doesn't just grandstand without pissing off his masters, like he just did.</comment>


Deputy AG calling for encryption backdoor - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/rod-rosenstein-encryption-backdoor/ <comment><AUTHOR> _Hello? It 's 1993 calling. Will you buy these discontinued NSA Clipper chips?_

No. phreak'n. way. Sunshine.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip)</comment>


Show HN: GitHub Repo Search – A Chrome extension to quickly search your repos - <AUTHOR> https://firstandthird.com/opensource/github-repo-search <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everybody! If you are like us and have a lot of Github repos (we have 400+), you quickly realize how difficult it is to get to a specific one (especially for organizations). We created this chrome extension to solve that issue. All you need to do is type gh<tab or space> in your search bar and it will autocomplete all of your repos (private and public). We your productivity increases as much as it has for us. Enjoy!</comment>


Ask HN: Why do people want to "democratize" AI? - <AUTHOR> There seem to be a lot of big moves (including YC) in democratizing AI. In other words, they want to educate the general public to be aware of AI and provide data for free to build predictive models. But why would companies like Google or Facebook want to "democratize" AI? Isn't it in their best interest not to do so to keep their unfair advantage? <comment><USER2> AI is a very broad church.

The stuff that I use to make radiator valves 'smart' and save you money and carbon is not at all the same as the smarts in a self-driving car or automatic natural-language translation.

So I'm not sure that 'AI' is different to 'secret sauce' in your question.

Rgds

Damon

</comment><comment><USER3> Because the hivemind is much more powerful than a select few. The more people working on such tech the faster it will develop and the better and safer it will be.</comment>


A combo of fasting plus vitamin C is effective for hard-to-treat cancers in mice - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200512151941.htm <comment><USER2> The word "effective" is used in a misleading way in a huge number of cancer studies. Reducing disease progression is not a particularly good metric of "effectiveness", even less so in mice models. What you want to see is a measure of _overall_ survival (i.e. you survived cancer but died of something else because your health declined overall, making your survival moot) and a measure of quality of life, which is often completely ignored. The gap from "tumors regressed in mice" to the measures I just listed is so astronomically huge as to make these kinds of studies almost entirely unexciting.

<comment><USER3> Another commenter pointed out that one of the paper's authors, Valter Longo, has already written a number of books on intermittent fasting. While I think it's great when scientist publish in a form that is more accessible to the public, it's important to note that he was strongly invested in promoting intermittent fasting prior to this research being done, even to the point of selling a $300 mail order diet.

I think the reason this "entirely unexciting" study is getting attention is related to one of its author's having a talent for self-promotion.

<comment><USER4> > _he was strongly invested in promoting intermittent fasting prior to this > research being done, even to the point of selling a $300 mail order diet._

The most ingenious business scheme ever devised: a mail-order fasting diet.

<comment><USER5> Just think of the savings in postage fees alone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is from Valter Longo, who wrote a book summarizing his really fascinating findings about fasting for health in animals and humans called The Longevity Diet: [https://www.amazon.com/Longevity-Diet-Discover-Activation- Re...](https://www.amazon.com/Longevity-Diet-Discover-Activation- Regeneration/dp/0525534075)

Apparently when fasting (or fasting mimicing) our bodies start burning fat cells, removing old unused white blood cells, generating stem cells, and a lot more. In a study with monkeys, the group that was fed 25% fewer calories ended up living a lot longer and having fewer diseases. Longo advocates doing a fast-like diet for a week twice a year in healthy people and potentially more for people with certain health issues.

<comment><USER7> Dr. Longo's research and books have been very informative on fasting. I have no ties to the for profit side of his research but I've tried a few rounds of ProLon, which is a fasting mimicking diet founded from his research. I've experienced great short and more sustained results from using it. I generally approach the work week at a split of 18/6 for IF and don't eat after 8:00P anymore. It will be great to see more research into IF for longer term studies.

<comment><USER8> > at a split of 18/6 for IF

Could you please explain what this means, for the uninitiated?

<comment><USER9> 18 hours of the day not eating, 6 eating. It's usually called time restricted eating/feeding or an eating window with the idea being you'd do it every day. This is in contrast to extended/prolonged fasting, which is typically 24hr+.

In general IF (intermittent fasting) is a catch-all phrase, and not a particularly helpful one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This was done in mice. It would be nice if they had included that in the original title. Fasting seems to always have amazing advantages in mice, but we need more studies done on humans. There seem to be advantages for humans as well but the results are usually not as impressive and we need more data.

<comment><USER11> The nice thing about this treatment is that testing should be a bit easier. Not really dangerous in a controlled setting, and if you find someone who is early stages of cancer then if it isn't effective you can switch to a known treatment.

<comment><USER12> A strict diet might weaken you right? Many cancer patient get very thin and I guess you don't want to start the treatment like that so you miss fat reserves.

<comment><USER13> I would disagree and make the important distinction that many chemo treatment recipients get very thin.

Like saying "I don't have time to take a shower, because my bath takes an hour"

<comment><USER14> It's interesting that a side effect of pretty much every treatment for cancer is nausea, weight loss, etc. Almost like reduced nutrient absorption is the main mechanism by which the treatments work.

<comment><USER15> Since most cancer treatments target fast-replicating cells and the gut is lined with such cells I think you have the arrow of causality backwards in this case.

<comment><USER14> Obviously I am saying the standard explanation is the one with the causality backwards.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Ever since I watched Bret Weinstein explain the problem with using today's lab mice[1], I've been more cautious about any results involving mice and cancer.

[1] [https://youtu.be/ve4q-1D_Ajo](https://youtu.be/ve4q-1D_Ajo)

<comment><USER17> Yeah this is excellent. I wish he would produce more of this content, rather than his diet-right "mAh FrEeSpeCh" normie political commentary. I've actually heard he was an excellent evo-bio professor by former students. What a waste, but I guess it's cool he gets to hang out with Rogan now, so good for him I suppose.

<comment><USER18> I was curious so I went briefly down the rabbit hole, and I was not impressed. His reasoning is specious at best.

<comment><USER16> In what way?

<comment><USER18> I was going to offer up in detail but I probably would have triggered others here, so I'll be oblique: QAnon is considered by many to be a prophet.

I've been politically engaged for decades and this is the first time I've been terrified about the outcome of an election.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is purely anecdotal: My friend's dad has bladder cancer. When he found out two years ago, he fasted for a month, and is now on a high nutrient, low calorie diet. He is still alive (and he has lost weight), I don't know what affect other treatments have had, but his diet changes certainly have not hurt him.

<comment><USER20> How did the doctors react to him fasting for a month?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Combinations are exponentially harder to find.

What if it's fasting + being cold + Vitamin F + whatever new thing your molecular simulation just suggested?

</comment><comment><USER22> These kind of articles need to be nuanced or we'll end up with conclusions such as "fasting cures cancer".

The role of cellular autophagy is not that clear: it can promote mammary and pancreatic cancerous cells survival but on the other hand its inhibition promotes the development of lymphoma for instance.

Apoptosis can likely have a symmetrical role.

It isn't clear neither that this behaviour is consistent across all development stages of given cancers.

<comment><USER23> > It isn't clear neither

What?

<comment><USER22> The example I gave.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> In his book

 _" Wrong: Why Experts_ Keep Failing Us"*

David H. Freedman lists "Eleven Simple Never-Fail Rules for Not Being Misled by Experts". One is:

> _" It's supported by ... animal studies. ... I recommend treating as > interesting fantasies any claims for human health or behavior that are based > entirely on animal studies."_<

</comment><comment><USER25> That's going to trigger an avalanche of sketchy fad diets :(

<comment><USER26> Sketchy fad diets are a constant thing since forever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Good news for mice.

</comment><comment><USER28> Was this intravenous vitamin C at much higher dosage than we usually see from oral supplementation?

<comment><USER29> From the Methods section of the paper [1].

> For vitamin C experiments, mice undergoing standard feeding or at the last > day of the first FMD cycle started to be treated with vitamin C (4 g/kg in > saline) via intraperitoneal injection twice a day, every day until the end > of the experiment. At least 6–8 h have elapsed between the two > administrations in each day.

EDIT: 4 g/kg twice a day is about 400 grams (0.88 pounds) of Vitamin C per day for a 50 kg (110 pound) person. 1 gram per day is a good rule of thumb for the upper limit of oral supplementation.

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16243-3.pdf#page=...](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16243-3.pdf#page=10)

<comment><USER30> Thank you for posting the link to Nature. From the paper, the FMD decreases the ferritin available to tumor cells which makes them more vulnerable to the hydrogen peroxide produced by the metabolism of vitamin C. Do I have that right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is building on a body of research looking at KRAS mutations and the Warburg effect. [http://europepmc.org/article/PMC/5216991](http://europepmc.org/article/PMC/5216991)

</comment><comment><USER32> Dr Linus Pauling, anyone?

</comment><comment><USER33> I immediately remembered Steve Jobs. Maybe this info was out there even years ago?

<comment><USER34> [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8841347/Steve-J...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8841347/Steve- Jobs-regretted-trying-to-beat-cancer-with-alternative-medicine-for-so- long.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> IN MICE

[https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice](https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice)

</comment><comment><USER36> why should we care about mice? I mean get to me when you test it on pigs or primates at least</comment>