Ask HN: Experienced programmer, beginner to iOS (objective-C). Where to begin? - <AUTHOR>

What is the quickest way for an experienced programmer to come up to speed on iOS?
Looking for recommendations on a good book, tutorials. Pointers to good repositories on github also appreciated. I have started reading open-source code from some apps.
I want to write an app which needs custom UI elements (going beyond XCode's available UI elements). An example: a flipboard like app. No game dev.
- I am comfortable in C, C#, Python. I can write Javascript when needed for my web-apps.
- NO experience with Objective-C. Fairly comfortable with ANSI-C.
- I have written web-apps: HTML, CSS, JS as needed.
- I have written desktop apps: So, I am familiar with how to use available UI elements with code behind.
I see clutch.io, RubyMotion, MonoTouch as options too. Any feedback from folks on these? <comment><USER2> I was two years out of school working on C# and WPF when I was tasked with writing an iOS app. My first steps to gain knowledge of the syntax/structure/etc of the language was to watch the Standford CS139p lectures ([http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application- dev...](http://itunes.apple.com/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application- development/id473757255)). I only had to watch the first six or so before I had a good knowledge of the language and the starting point of UIKit. From that point I just started brute forcing it.

Reading Apple's documentation was the fastest way for me to ramp up and they actually include a lot of really useful examples. Even lower level things like CoreGraphics have some in depth examples which will probably be what you need for your "Flipboard" like interactions.

Because I do so much iOS dev I have my own "library" I now use for every project. But it was cobbled together over a couple years and inspiration was taken from many open source projects.

I probably learned the most from Jeff Verkoeyen's GitHub projects, his Nimbus framework being one of the best <https://github.com/jverkoey/nimbus>

If you need to make web requests in your app (which basically every app should) ASIHTTPRequest is an interesting framework. <https://github.com/pokeb/asi-http-request>. I took the idea behind this and distilled it down to something that was much simpler which is what I needed. ASIHTTPRequest is sorta the kitchen sink of web request clients.

If you need a relational database in your app, sqlite is a simple include away. There are a lot of wrapper frameworks out there but I didn't use any of them. I wrote my first app directly accessing the C API and then wrote my own wrapper framework for it. Because I had never used SQLite before needed it in iOS it helped me learn a lot more about it.

If you need to store username/password/token/etc for the love of god don't make the novice mistake of saving to NSUserDefaults. Save to the Keychain <https://github.com/reidmain/FDKeychain>

One thing I'd point you to is my collection of Categories and Macros that I put into every project [https://github.com/reidmain/Objective-C-Categories- and-Macro...](https://github.com/reidmain/Objective-C-Categories-and-Macros). Specifically pay attention to FDIsNullOrEmpty, NSObject+PerformBlock, UIView+Layout. I use these categories so much that I always include them in my precompiled header file.

<comment><USER3> That's all good advice, but I'd like to point out that ASIHTTPRequest has been abandoned for about a year now. I think most people have switched to using AFNetworking (<https://github.com/AFNetworking/AFNetworking>) which came out of Gowalla.

As a nice bonus, AFNetworking doesn't require you to implement delegates but instead allows you to use blocks, which simplifies things somewhat.

<comment><USER2> The delegates are exactly what I factored out of ASIHTTPRequest when I made my own version. Good to see someone has taken the ball and ran with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am going through the exact same thing. Last weekend I decided iOS would be my project for May and started digging in.

There is a TON of information out there. Too much. Most of it is outdated, and while the Apple documentation is a great resource, it is just not structured in a way for beginners.

Enter the Big Nerd Ranch.

[http://www.bignerdranch.com/book/ios_programming_the_big_ner...](http://www.bignerdranch.com/book/ios_programming_the_big_nerd_ranch_guide_nd_edition_)

I think I got the kindle version for $22. It is perfect. Just released a little over a month ago, it uses Xcode 4.3. The first few chapters have no iOS stuff as they bring you up to speed on Obj-C and from there you start building the bases of iOS.

I love that they make you strip out all the code from the iOS templates and make you do it yourself. It really is a structured learning experience rather than just an information dump.

I'm only about 1/3 the way through so far - but so far it's been exactly what I needed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Aah thanks! Looks like many people like Big Nerd Ranch! I am going to spring the $22 then :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Read the docs from Apple. Believe or not, they are the best resources for an experienced developer. Start with the Objective-C 2.0 book/entry. Then, go from there.

Of course, if you didn't say you were experienced, I'd have suggested that you start with the (what now must be like a) gazillion different apress/o'reilly books on the topic.

Good luck!

 _The book:[https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/cocoa/...](https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/cocoa/conceptual/objectivec/objc.pdf*)

</comment><comment><USER6> Stanford's course is often recommended. I just started going through it myself.

[http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/ipad-iphone- application-...](http://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/ipad-iphone-application- development/id473757255)

<comment><USER3> Stanford's course is excellent. If you're starting out, watch a lecture a day alongside any other reading / researching you do.

The nice thing about the Stanford course is that it covers a lot of ground, ranging from good code design, to all the major Cocoa components, to details about most of the important ios lifecycles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For your level of experience I would go would go with Kochan - _Programming in Objective-C_ 4th edition.

There is also a free course for iPhone programming from Stanford (video lectures).

MonoTouch is a good alternative if you prefer to use C#, but you will need to pay 99$/year to Apple + 399$ for Monotouch. The good thing is that you can evaluate MonoTouch and pay after you are comfortable with the tool.

RubyMotion is too young to be used in a large application. Also learning Ruby and Cocoa in the same time can be difficult. I think RubyMotion is a good fit for an experienced Ruby programmer that wants to start coding on iOS. Another potential problem with RubyMotion is that it is currently developed by a single person, which can be problematic on long term.

That been said, muy advice is to go on the Objective-C route since you are already comfortable with C. Objective-C is a small language and an experienced C programmer can be up to speed in a matter of days.

The real challenge is in learning the iOS libraries and not the programming language.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the general opinion seems to be:

Use Objective-C with the new Automatic Reference counting mechanism.

iOS libraries - in your opinion - what are some good resources to get familiar? (Google-fu results in a lot of links to wade through).

<comment><USER8> I can not agree with recommending ARC to anyone at this time; in this case there is a ton of existing code out there which is incompatible with it. If you are an experienced obj-c developer who's tired of writing boilerplate and uses the static analyzer with LLVM - then go for it.

Learning to clean up after yourself is a life skill worth having. And besides, there's always the -fobjc-arc flag for classes which use it.

EDIT: Every project seems to include: Reachability SBJson ASIHttp

And also commonly occurring: OpenUDID ZipKit NSLogger InAppSettingsKit (there are others) Cocos2d/3d

<comment> Arcanum-XIII You can disable ARC for some or all part of your program, so lib compatibility is not a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'd say there's no quick way to do it, the message passing of obj-c is very different than the event-based slots & signals programming you are used to. And that's before the hell-which-is-InterfaceBuilder. Since you already familiar with programming, I'd suggest the Big Nerd Ranch guides at bignerdranch.com

Most online examples won't give you the details about the important stuff - single inheritance vs. categories, delegates and message passing in the runtime, extending a protocol, etc. You may see it in the code, but there won't be any theory or reasoning behind it to help you.

As a side note, you can track your learning progress by how much you hate XCode with specific examples of how it ruined your day.

Can't speak to clutch.io, but the other 2 just seem to get in the way of someone who already knows Ruby, C#, and obj-c. Do you really need another layer of abstraction if you want to learn something at a lower level?

<comment><USER9> I second the recommendation of the Big Nerd Ranch guides. They are excellent for learning Objective-C and IOS.

I've been playing around with Ruby Motion for the past two days and since I am pretty experienced with Ruby already, I'm finding it helpful for learning ios concepts. However, if you don't have any experience with Ruby I would recommend just starting with Objective-C and xcode.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Big Nerd Ranch guides are indispensable. Written by someone who was involved with NextStep very early on.

Watch the Wwdc videos, starting at 2010, and following with 2011.

Use ARC.

Pay attention to the Wwdc videos on core animation.

Spend time learning about delegates.

Don't shy away from Interface Builder.

Check the header files when documentation seems incomplete. They are a great resource.

<comment><AUTHOR> ARC's usage seems conflicted! :D

<comment><USER10> Apple's recommendation is to start using it today. Retain/Release patterns _always_ took newcomers a long time to master, and it distracts from building applications. In Apple's own words, it's a compiler's problem – shouldn't be yours.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I was more or less the same as you, Java instead of C#. Built some of the apps on <http://www.codercowboy.com> in a few weeks with help from this book, very highly recommended:

The iOS 5 Developer's Cookbook by Erica Sadun

[http://www.amazon.com/The-iOS-Developers-Cookbook- Programmer...](http://www.amazon.com/The-iOS-Developers-Cookbook- Programmers/dp/0321832078/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336371521&sr=8-1)

A few (three or four) zero-to-go chapters in about 50 pages, then entire chapters dedicated on various chunks of the IOS objective-c library. Perfect.

</comment><comment><USER12> Start with the Stanford course. It's the best free resource out there. Find a local meetup. Go to a couple hackathons.

re: other comments -

Apple's docs aren't great, in fact I hate them. Haven't put my finger on why.

I like some of the controls at <http://cocoacontrols.com>

I wouldn't start with Arc. Especially since you're comfortable in C.

<comment><USER13> The apple docs are pretty comprehensive. I think of it as you're not going to learn English by reading a dictionary.

The specific example apps that apple provides that demonstrate one particular thing are great though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Started iOS dev about a year ago. Hvaent written dozens of apps some with very custom UI elements. Don't bother with clutch.io/rubymotion/mono touch. Learn the raw Objective-C/Cocoa-Touch APIs. Especially for something UI intensive like flipboard. Check out Standford iOS programming lectures. They are on Youtube and iTunes (for free).

</comment><comment> micro-ram Going down the same road myself. Here is my page of links (<http://iosln.com>)

</comment><comment><USER15> I keep getting stopped up at the first step: Buy an Apple Computer. If I can ever build IOS apps on Linux, I may move on to step two.

<comment><USER16> Can anyone specify the absolute minimum requirements I should be asking for if I'm looking for a dev Mac on craigslist or the like?

As a (mostly) web developer there's a good chance I'd build most of my app in HTML/CSS using something like PhoneGap and only do the final compile step on the Mac. A) Does that sound like a good plan? B) Does that impact significantly on the minimum system requirements?

<comment><USER17> Make sure you get something that can run the 64-bit kernel, as this will be a requirement for running Mountain Lion when it comes out this summer. You don't want to be stuck on an older OS, as Apple quickly stops supporting them for the latest developer tools. Which models support the 64-bit kernel is not obvious, as it is _not_ the same thing as simply having a 64-bit processor.

A list of Macs that will probably support Mountain Lion is available here:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion#System_requi...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X_Mountain_Lion#System_requirements)

Beyond that, you want at _least_ 4GB of RAM, with 8GB or even 16GB preferred (Xcode is a severe memory hog), especially if you get a spinning platter instead of an SSD.

I would strongly recommend against something like PhoneGap. iOS users generally don't appreciate non-native interfaces, and it will be extremely hard to achieve the necessary level of polish with HTML/CSS. If you want to use HTML, then you probably might as well just go straight to building a real web app. If you want native apps, it's worth your while to use the native language and tools.

<comment><USER16> Thanks for the insight re: PhoneGap and native interfaces. Does the same apply to Appcelerator (or similar)? It compiles to native, but does the interface feel native or HTMLy? At some point I want to play around some, but that requires buying a mac and an iThing, neither of which I have yet.

Re: system requirements - that sucks that I really need to have (moderately) up to date hardware to do iOS development. On a PC I'd probably be fine with a 2004 Dell laptop with a fresh install of Windows. I guess this is my first "welcome" to the walled garden.

<comment><USER17> Reading up on it, Appcelerator gives you native UIs with non-native languages, so it should be much better in that department. I'd still recommend using the real thing, at least to learn.

Macs have changed a lot since 2004. Buy a Mac of that vintage and it's still a PowerPC, no Intel chip. You can run iOS development tools on such a thing, but they will be seriously old.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Judge in Apple Case Seen as Unfazed by Stress, Even a Plane Crash - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/22/technology/judge-in-apple-case-seen-as-unfazed-by-stress-even-a-plane-crash.html?ref=technology&_r=0 <comment><USER2> ...yes, but does the judge understand technology? "Unfazed by stress" doesn't seem like a very relevant trait. "Judge has aptitude for understanding the nuances of encryption" would be a much more relevant story.

<comment><USER3> My personal, anecdotal, highly limited experience of judges is that their particular skill is to cut through technical complexity and fit it to the law. They are briefed by technical experts if there are facets of a case that they cannot reasonably be expected to grok.

There are of course pros and cons to this.

One con of a technical expert being a "judge" is that they cannot see the wood for the trees. Actual judges should, ideally, avoid this situation. Mileage varies, obviously.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Killed My Pappy (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/MicrosoftKilledMyPappy.aspx <comment><USER2> I don't think many people are hating on Microsoft because of the bad they did a decade ago.

People are hating on Microsoft because of the shit they are doing _now_.

Windows 10 and Skype are prime examples, and that is _still_ happening as we speak, as opposed to something that happened years ago.

<comment><USER3> The amount of whitewashing of the telemetry/spyware is disturbing: most MS defenders (as if this rich corporation needs any defense!) keep saying that _now_ they're listing all information they're gathering and allow users to turn it off.

What they're conveniently not saying is how MS completely ignored all customer concerns and moved ahead with their invasive telemetry/spyware, initially didn't list anything thay they were collecting, aggressively changed their implementation in Windows updates to get around telemetry/spyware blockers and didn't allow turning it off.

I have zero trust in the MS of today, they have shown their true colors. The fact that they publish some open source trinkets and say how much they "heart" this or that is almost irrelevant for me.

The stuff they did in the past also matters: trying to derail the open document format standard and killing the Munich Linux project are recent events. They continue to be a bad actor.

<comment><USER4> >and allow users to turn it off

which is still not true, random services will keep making mysterious connections no matter wat you disable. Turn of DNSCache and watch svchost query stuff almost every 10-20 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> People don't rip on Microsoft for poor decisions and anti-competitive practices 20 years ago. They rip on Microsoft because the Microsoft ecosystem is a Rube Goldberg-esque shitshow of poorly integrated acquisitions, "features" that basically exist for the sake of causing headaches, and the reality that compelling solutions to problems get sidelined because "nobody ever got fired for going with Microsoft". Vendor lock-in doesn't endear those who have to deal with it to the company holding their business process hostage.

<comment><USER6> Thank you, it's frustrating constantly being told that there's no good reason to rip on Microsoft today. I don't hate Microsoft out of righteous anger at proprietary software or some grudge from the 90s; Their software sucks _today_.

It's so disingenuous to say that "oh well Microsoft isn't organized enough to be evil". Mustache-twirling villainy isn't the fear with 2018 Microsoft. The fear is that they'll just ruin things they acquire just like they ruin their own software, and possibly ruin markets they wade into due to their sheer size.

You don't need to be organized to ruin things. You don't even need to be evil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've seen a few things recently in this vein, that I should look at Microsoft with new eyes because it hasn't done anything bad lately, as if a few years makes up for three or four decades.

Even if I were to buy that, "We've been on our best behaviour lately" isn't really a great reason to invest time and money in a company's mediocre-at-best products.

<comment><USER8> This. To me Microsoft has basically become the embodiment of mediocrity in tech. Just about everything they offer, maybe other than Office, is a worse version of a better product by someone else. And they can still rake in profits because most huge corporations are hopelessly dependent on their ecosystem.

In the 90s they were unstoppable and their products unrivaled; but that was a long time ago. I don't care about antitrust 20 years ago, I care about not using terrible products that feel constantly 10 years behind the curve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is written by a Microsoft employee

</comment><comment><USER10> I have an odd perspective, because the state of Maine landed some wild kickback-laden deal to supply high schoolers with ibooks in the 2000s.

I hated those machines. I think they were the very first iteration of OSX. They were locked down with annoying, if not very effective Bess proxy software. Nothing was compatible. Safari blew.

Using the old Win95 machine in the computer lab was refreshing. I had the freedom of fucking around with QBasic and then VB6 was envigorating. Then some probably bootleg copies of VC++6 for a year. Completely opened my eyes to all the cool, low-level, hacky shit you could do on windows.

I'm sure it helped that this was pre-steam, where the pirate pc gaming system was a thing. So learning to fix busted windows systems was an everyday thing. Mac... eh, i had one game that had a macos9 version I could get to run (Lords of the Realm 1, i think...)

</comment><comment><USER11> I wrote a poorly written wishlist for Satya partly because of this post.

<comment><USER12> did he reply?

<comment><USER11> No, and I never asked.</comment></comment></comment>


The photocopy that really is a fake: Machines have been altering numbers - <AUTHOR> http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/the-photocopy-that-really-is-a-fake-machines-have-been-altering-numbers-8749076.html <comment><USER2> Extensive discussion:

Main story: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6156238](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6156238)

Xerox reply: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6168096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6168096)</comment>


The Future of Work Is Uncertain, Schools Should Worry Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2017/09/27/the-future-of-work-is-uncertain-schools.html <comment><USER2> How about schools not try to prepare compliant workers and instead try to teach children how to learn and think?

History, art, music, mathematics, science, literature... you know, an education, not training.

<comment><USER3> This is a popular response whenever the topic of education is brought up...I hate to trot out the now-hackneyed term "privilege"....but really.

Very few people in society have the privilege of treating education as a route to becoming cultured. The storied universities you cherish were built by the rich for the rich, it is only recently that we have determined that the masses desperately need a grounding in romantic literature. Is it important to you that your accountant know Chaucer? Does your favorite artist really need to know chemistry?

In the end you have to feed yourself. I don't want to be responsible for feeding you and you don't want to be responsible for feeding me. If that means you learn something applied that is only useful for ten years and requires you to learn something else useful in the next ten years, so be it.

As it stands, why do people put such an emphasis on what someone studies as an undergraduate? Personally, I love reading history...read dozens of dense history books a year, and consider myself a decent self-taught historian. My degree is not in history. Why does it need to be?

<comment><USER4> Note that I am a IS staff worker so my perspective is limited but I also have a recent grad from my school in my family with my oldest daughter.

So some of what I speak of is personal and up close.

I work at a liberal arts university and hear this from faculty: "We don't care about skills, we care about the ability to learn". The problem is that today's learners need to be super learners. They need the ability to do divergent thinking, then need to work collaboratively in teams. Working this way is a skill. They need to be able to solve a wide body of problems safely where failure does not impact grades.

[https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_pa...](https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms)

But they don't encourage this sort of learning. And don't even mention the "skill" word which is considered evil. I hear the 500 year old liberal arts model woks just fine.

While our business school quietly is working on these skills and the students are finding great jobs and starting businesses successfully and more all while the liberal arts side is ignoring the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sure jobs are going to disappear, but with each new generation of technology new jobs are created. My job as a web developer didn't exist 30 years ago, and who knows, it might not exist any more 30 years from now. Labor markets evolve as technologies evolve, we just have to teach our children to be adaptable. As far as retail/service jobs go, I think enough people value human communication that we're not going to see a total robot takeover in these areas. People are going to want to go to 'premium' places that employ humans just like people are willing to pay extra for organic groceries.

<comment><USER6> Also I have to believe that there is a "robot critical mass" that will top out fairly quickly.

Robots are expensive, to be able to afford them you need to have customers that can afford to buy them. They will only be able to afford them if they have enough work to earn the money to buy them.... I just dont forsee the "jobs apocalypse" that the dog whistlers seem to fear.

<comment><USER7> Robots have high capital costs, but are cheaper than workers in the US. A single robot is roughly equal to 3 workers since it can operate 24/7 and even if your humans only cost $5/hr, 3 humans would cost you $30k/yr before you even get to health insurance or payroll taxes. God forbid you have workers in Seattle, SF, NYC, etc where you would triple that number again.

<comment><USER8> i wonder how much companies that own and use robots pay annually to insure them

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It seems to bizarre to me that of all the potential problems with AI, people seem to focus on employment. Like seriously, if we create AI good enough to displace a majority of humans from employment, I feel like we may have other things to worry about.

<comment><USER10> You are probably talking about something else, but the worrying should be about wealth distribution after the robots (eventually) take over. No more 'normal' employment can and should be seen as a positive for humanity but not if the production is owned by a handful of people. To me that seems more dangerous than the chance of Terminators roaming the streets.

<comment><USER11> In a post-scarcity environment where robots do essentially all the work, thus the marginal cost of goods approaches 0, the point of money will be as a signalling mechanism (more iPhones and t-shorts, please; less Kale and paperclips, please) rather than as a reservoir of wealth.

It's not at all clear to me what some weenies will try to use to signify wealth and status, but it need not be money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> These type of articles always come with stark warnings that in the future many people won't have jobs, however if you compare today's technology versus the 60s and 70s, the data would tend to disagree.

In the US the unemployment rate is now at it's lowest point for 15 years, and if it continues to drop like this will be at the lowest for half a century. What's going on here, is it just the criteria for unemployment has changed?

[https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment- rate](https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/unemployment-rate)

<comment><USER13> Unemployment only measures people looking for work. So anyone who is retired (we have an aging population) or who has given up looking (for lack of skills, drug conviction, drug addiction, etc) also don't count. A more interesting graph is labor force participation.

<comment><USER14> But when so much of the change in labor force participation rate is so easily tracked to aging, why would you make inferences about automation based on that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wonder if the presence of automated everything, be it through software or AI or robots is going to be a long cycle self titrating process. If we automate too much, there will be less money in people's hands to buy goods and services and so less demand. The problem with this is that the lag time to seeing this effect is high. Then many people will be impacted.

<comment><USER15> Just wanted to point out that people maybe will have less money, but the goods and services will also be a lot cheaper to produce.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I see no data to support such a 'disruption'. On a related note why is everywhere i look it's people freaking out over AI. Even the title of the article is telling me to start worrying.</comment>


Show HN: PlayBot, a Google Play task robot - <AUTHOR> http://github.com/vijumathew/playbot

<comment><USER2> Cool project! How do you see people using this though? I can only imagine integrating this with a CI environment to automatically push production builds to the Play Store.</comment>


Lacking inspiration for you class comments? Try the Russian national anthem - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/PowerDNS/pdns/blob/master/pdns/botan110signers.cc <comment><USER2> Haha. Also, completely missing the point of comments: "there _needs_ to be a comment? Okay, here's a few bytes of anything irrelevant to the code."</comment>


Tesla loses billions after Elon goes on Twitter rant, vows to become homeless - <AUTHOR> https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/tesla-loses-billions-in-value-after-elon-musk-goes-on-bizarre-coronavirus-rant-and-vows-to-become-homeless/ <comment><USER2> What is this garbage headline? He said he'd sell his house, not be homeless.</comment>


Databases and Distributed Deadlocks: A FAQ - <AUTHOR> https://www.citusdata.com/blog/2017/08/31/databases-and-distributed-deadlocks-a-faq/ <comment><USER2> Reading this makes me wonder in which situations locking will actually help. If you have two distributed updates like "UPDATE table SET value = 6 WHERE key = 'world'" and "UPDATE table SET value = 5 WHERE key = 'world'", isn't there some kind of design (or usage) issue? Are immutable tables transformed with monads going to be a thing in distributed relational databases?

<comment><USER3> Consider UPDATEs that depend on each other:

        UPDATE table SET value = value + 2 WHERE key = 'world';
        UPDATE table SET value = value * 1.1 WHERE key = 'world';

When these UPDATEs are executed concurrently, PostgreSQL guarantees that they are serialised such that the value becomes either (value+2) * 1.1 or (value * 1.1)+2, i.e. there's no lost update. To achieve this, PostgreSQL blocks the second update until the first one is committed using a row-level lock.

An alternative mechanism could have been to create a log of changes. The order in which the changes are added to the log then determines the order of execution. That way, we don't have to block the UPDATE, right?

Unfortunately, things are a little more complicated in an RDBMS. Each of the UPDATEs could be part of a bigger transaction block that could (atomically) roll back. Moreover, the RDBMS provides consistency which means that the new value should be visible immediately after the UPDATE. However, the new value cannot be determined until all preceding UPDATEs have been committed or rolled back. So in the end, the UPDATE will have to block until all preceding transactions that modified the same rows are done and the new value can be computed, just like what would happen with row-level locks, except with more bookkeeping (and serialisation issues).

If you strip out some of the functionality of an RDBMS such as multi-statement transaction blocks or consistency, then you could potentially avoid locks, but Citus distributes PostgreSQL, which does provide this functionality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is definitely a challenge and something you have to address when building on top of Postgres because of its architecture. But I want to highly encourage people that you can avoid having to deal with this stuff if you approach it with CRDTs (go google them, they are fun!), like what with Cassandra does - (edit: disclaimer, I work for a competing system) I did this tech talk ( [http://gun.js.org/distributed/matters.html](http://gun.js.org/distributed/matters.html) ) a few years ago in Berlin on the things to avoid and the possible solutions (and their tradeoffs / dangers).

<comment><USER5> I'm actually very interested in CRDTs and related approaches, and I've been exploring active research directions in the area, but I'm not sure they share many usage patterns with data stores like Postgres, which support very general access and update semantics.

The primary restriction for anything involving CRDTs is that no operation can "take back" something added by a previous operation, so the data in question can only evolve monotonically. It's great when you can get away with it, but it's unclear how often you can actually get away with it.

<comment><USER4> Yes, very true. Kyle Kingsbury was at the conference and I talked to him about this, and his conclusion from his research is that Postgres is still all around the best database out there. Especially if you need to do things that CRDTs aren't yet equipped to handle.

Have you made a compilation of your thoughts from the various research you've done? Would love to see them!</comment></comment></comment>


GoAccess: Terminal Visual Web Log Analyzer - <AUTHOR> http://goaccess.prosoftcorp.com/ <comment><USER2> This awesome, I like how reports are generated. <http://goaccess.prosoftcorp.com/goaccess_html_report.html></comment>


Y Combinator's "The Process" - <AUTHOR> http://www.mattmazur.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/sorrow.jpg <comment><USER2> That techcrunch of initiation boost is way too high, same height as the acquisition point lol</comment>


Show HN: Open-source atmospheric water generator – first lab reports - <AUTHOR> https://openawg.github.io/2016/03/22/fresh-from-the-lab.html <comment><USER2> The problem places have with lack of good water; is a lack of money. Not a lack of water.

There are way more energy / cost efficient ways to produce water than a dehumidifier.

If you want to get into solving clean water; you really should be working on cheap energy.

<comment><AUTHOR> Our current approach is to get the AWG module working, then add a module which boils urine and feeds the vapor into the AWG module for distillation and filtration.

Ideally, we'd like to use a gasifier for carbon negative power generation, as local biomass can be utilized.

Does this make sense, or do you have a more effective approach?

<comment><USER2> Like I said.. There isn't a 'lack' of water.. there is a lack of energy for purification in rural places.. In these places you should be figuring out purification via chemical and physical methods.

[https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/736x/83/a6/d9/83a6d9886...](https://s-media-cache- ak0.pinimg.com/736x/83/a6/d9/83a6d988650f72e279c10f6d5851736a.jpg)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey everyone, I'm around for a bit to answer any questions you might have :)

<comment><USER3> So... this is basically a dehumidifier. Dehumidifiers typically use some sort of air cooling to reduce water below the dew point to draw water out of the air.

And that takes a _lot_ of energy.

So what is the purpose of this device? It can't be to provide potable water to areas without it, since those same areas are likely to lack a significant source of power.

I don't mean to be overly cynical, but I feel like I'm missing something here.

<comment><USER4> Let's quantify "a _lot_ of energy": the dehumidification part is 210 watts per person. Maybe Clay can provide actual power consumption numbers that include the other parts of the system, such as filtration.

Typical coefficients of performance for air-source heat pumps, like air conditioners or dehumidifiers, are around 2; that means for every 2 joules of heat that it removes from the cold reservoir, it consumes a joule of electrical energy (dumping it as heat into the hot reservoir along with the heat it's pumping). The enthalpy of vaporization of water, at almost 41kJ/mol, is huge compared to the specific heat of air or even water itself, so that's a good approximation to how much heat you need to extract to condense the water. Water's molar mass is about 18 g/mol (two hydrogens of 1.0001 or so and an oxygen of 15.9994) so that works out to about 2.3kJ/g. At 10¢/kWh, this means your water costs 6.3¢/ℓ or US$78000/acrefoot.

This is a lot cheaper than bottled water, and a lot more expensive than what farmers can afford to pay for irrigation water, and a lot more expensive than reverse osmosis desalination, which I think is around $8000/acrefoot. (Corrections welcome!)

If we figure that a person needs 8 ℓ / day for cooking, drinking, and bathing (more or less what we use at Burning Man; if you're somewhere less hot and druggy then you might need less) which is about 210 watts. If a photovoltaic panel produces a 24-hour average of 13 W/m², which is what a friend of mine in England is getting, you need about 16 square meters of photovoltaic panels to power the device, which costs about US$2000 at this point. That's well within the bounds of feasibility, although it's a big enough asset to be a temptation to thieves.

So when you say, "I feel like I'm missing something here," I agree: you were missing quantitative understanding of the subject, and as a result your quantitative conclusions were completely wrong, even though they were based on correct qualitative understanding.

<comment><USER3> So for one person you'd need $2000 worth of solar panels, 16 square meters of panel.

One person.

It seems like you've supported my point, not refuted it.

But I appreciate your analysis, even if I dispute your conclusion! Thanks!

<comment><USER4> Does US$2000 per person for the energy to solve the potable water problem for 30 years seem like a lot to you? Compared to the cost of other survival necessities (housing, food, sanitation, heating, cooling — [http://resiliencemaps.org/](http://resiliencemaps.org/)) it's quite reasonable. 16 m² is also pretty small compared to the space customarily used for housing.

However, I made an error! It turns out I left out the coefficient of performance in my calculations. So it's actually 105 watts, 8 m², and about US$1000:

        You have: (8 liters / day) * (41 kJ / mol) / (18 g / mol) * (1 g / cc)
        You want: W
                * 210.90535
                / 0.0047414634
        You have: (8 liters / day) * (41 kJ / mol) / (18 g / mol) * (1 g / cc) / 2
        You want: W
                * 105.45267
                / 0.0094829268
        You have: (8 liters / day) * (41 kJ / mol) / (18 g / mol) * (1 g / cc) / 2 / (13 W / m^2)
        You want: m^2
                * 8.1117442
                / 0.12327805

My guess of US$1000 for 8 m² is based on my guess that 8 m² is about 8000 watts of solar constant, and at 16% efficiency that's 1280 peak watts, and people quote PV modules as below US$1/watt, which I assume is a peak watt. The actual price right now is about US$0.55/watt, depending on where you are, so a more precise estimate is actually US$700:

        You have: 8000 watts * 16% * $ 0.55/watt
        You want:
        	Definition: 704 US$

My friend who's getting those 13 W/m² has her panels in England, though. So that's kind of a worst-case number. You'd need a fraction of that (like, say, 20% or so) in an equatorial desert.

If PV modules return to their previous price trend (they were dropping fairly smoothly by 36% per year in 2010-2013, but have been nearly plateaued since hitting grid parity in much of the world in 2013 and therefore having a hard time with capacity keeping up with demand) then they'd drop by another factor of 4. The Credit Suisse doc posted earlier today to HN [https://doc.research- and-analytics.csfb.com/docView?sourceid...](https://doc.research-and- analytics.csfb.com/docView?sourceid=em&document_id=x691349&serialid=L3f%2bdcbQOUfpFcJ2bz9CDEuCoQT2wz09vthmZKbV4oU%3d) about how we are now in a "solar manufacturing oversupply" situation suggests that something like that might actually happen. Like what happened to DRAM prices in 1996 after the price-fixing cartel collapsed and they went from $40 a meg to $10 a meg almost overnight.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Would it be possible for me to use something like this on a boat I live on to generate fresh water?

<comment><AUTHOR> It would, but it would most likely be less efficient than filtering the water you're floating in :)

A good way to increase the efficiency of this machine would be to increase the relative humidity by adding moisture. This is the reasoning behind our next planned experiments of reclaiming water from urine!

You might be able to get away with using the reverse osmosis system we have, [0] but send the water to a lab to test influent (intake) and effluent (output) before consuming :D

[0]: [http://123filter.com/catalog/ispring-7-stage-75-gpd- reverse-...](http://123filter.com/catalog/ispring-7-stage-75-gpd-reverse- osmosis-uv-filter-system-rcc7ak-uv_cpath-70_1_67.html)

<comment><USER5> Thanks for the reply! I'd of course use a watermaker first (very simple operation, relying on only a pump and a membrane) but its always smart to have redundancy in life critical systems ;)

Absolutely love your project. I think its going to help a lot of people!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you! I hope it does too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Can you please explain how this differs from a dehumidifier?

<comment><AUTHOR> The only difference is the addition of a filtration system to render potable water.

Dehumidifiers are not designed to produce potable water.

Adding a filtration system removes the contaminants from the non-food grade components and anything else which was once floating in the air.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > pH does not have a MCL (Maximum Contaminant Level) defined in the EPA's > National Primary Drinking Water Regulations [...] but does have a [..limit > defined in..] non-mandatory guidelines for aesthetics

Wait, there's _not_ a pH range limit on _drinking water_ in the U.S.?!

<comment><USER8> If I had to take a guess, the EPA probably issues MCLs for acids and bases and not the resulting pH of them combined.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Ok, I really hate to shit all over somebody else's livelihood, but this whole project seems like a total waste of time.

A dehumidifier isn't a complicated mechanism. This is not a novel invention. It also isn't going to produce a sustainable amount of drinking water at a price affordable to the people who need it most.

The team running this seems to just be a group of friends who have none of the experience actually make a difference. We've got an Artist/Engineer, and artist, another artist, another Engineer and a product manager who have no meaningful job descriptions (apparently they "do things"), A "Web Engineer", and an advisor whose only task appears to be possession of knowledge of chemistry. It doesn't seem that this team was chosen due to what they could accomplish, but instead because they all pitched in to get an IndieGoGo project going...

I'll give them credit for their cause. At least their hearts are, presumably, in the right places, but this little device isn't going to change the world even a little bit. It would win the science fair without a doubt, but it's not much more impressive than that.

<comment><AUTHOR> Where should we spend our time instead?

Definitely not novel at this stage, but once we modify the AWG to achieve water reclamation from urine, would that be considered novel?

The next milestone is to create open source designs for larger-scale, commercially available machines that are prohibitively expensive, and improve upon them. The machines exist and there is a market for them. Is it not worth the time and effort to increase access to technologies like this?

Not just knowledge of chemistry, but actively developing eyedrops to cure cataracts :)

[http://www.viewpointtherapeutics.com/team/](http://www.viewpointtherapeutics.com/team/)

EDIT: Wording. Added question.

<comment><USER9> >Where should we spend our time instead?

That's for you to decide. There's nothing wrong with your project, I just don't see any real-world utility.

>once we modify the AWG to achieve water reclamation from urine, would that be considered novel?

Not at all. It wouldn't even be a "Atmospheric Water Generator" anymore. You would just be putting an evaporator in a closed space with your condenser... This isn't a new or novel technology, and it's already available for public use.

>Not just knowledge of chemistry, but actively developing eyedrops to cure cataracts :)

That's really cool, and I am not doubting her credentials, but it has nothing to do you with your AWG. We're talking about a device that condenses water vapor into liquid water. If you have access to Freon and and a pump (or even ice cubes and a glass) you can achieve the same thing.

Again, I don't take any personal offense to what you're doing. I would never invest in it because I don't think any amount of funding would ever turn this project into a success. It doesn't even address the real issues behind water scarcity, which has nothing to do with a shortage of liquid water...

<comment><AUTHOR> > This isn't a new or novel technology, and it's already available for public > use.

Can you point me in the direction of this project? I'd like to see what the current implementation looks like.

> (or even ice cubes and a glass) you can achieve the same thing.

We're trying to do it at scale and improve on the technology.

> real issues behind water scarcity, which has nothing to do with a shortage > of liquid water

Can you elaborate on this point?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The lower the pH, the more basic the water.

It's been a couple of decades since I took chemistry, but I think you've got that backwards.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops, thanks for the feedback. Fixed :)</comment></comment>


The beautiful art of book binding - <AUTHOR> http://forreadingaddicts.co.uk/the-classics/the-beautiful-art-of-book-binding/287

<comment><USER2> Another relevant video about artisanal book making: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9a5hH5idQc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9a5hH5idQc) – a timelapse of the making of a limited edition book (35 books).</comment>


OpenSSL wins the Levchin prize - <AUTHOR> https://www.openssl.org/blog/blog/2018/01/10/levchin/ <comment><USER2> Can't help but find it ironic the winner of the 2018 Levchin Prize for Advancements in Real-World Cryptography has an invalid SSL certificate on his research website.

<comment><USER3> Also the levchinprize.com website. (not that there is a link to it; and it might not even attempt to do ssl)

       levchinprize.com uses an unsupported protocol.
       ERR_SSL_VERSION_OR_CIPHER_MISMATCH

Classic.

<comment><USER4> At first glance they do support _SSL_ , but not _TLS_ ; basically your browser laughed at their antiquated protocol.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> What about LibreSSL?

<comment><USER6> I was think along the same lines. It great that OpenSSL have improved quality, yet it feels like they're rewarded for cleaning up their own mess.

Honestly, given the background for the award, cleaning up your code base shouldn't qualify you:

> The prize honors significant contributions to real-world cryptography and > celebrates recent advances that have had a major impact on the practice of > cryptography and its use in real-world systems.

Improving code quality doesn't actually impact "the practice of cryptography".

<comment><USER7> > It great that OpenSSL have improved quality, yet it feels like they're > rewarded for cleaning up their own mess.

Though to be honest, an insane amount of stuff relies on OpenSSH for their security, and has for years. If their code was messy earlier, ok, but they have still been basically de facto standard SSH client for much of networking. I'd say their prize is well earned.

<comment><USER8> The reward was given to the OpenSSL team.

OpenSSH is a different project, developed by the OpenBSD project. OpenBSD also works on LibreSSL which is a fork of OpenSSL.

OpenSSL itself has NOTHING to do with OpenBSD and OpenBSD related projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If you haven't seen the difference in quality and design from older versions of OpenSSL to more recent versions, it's a quite impressive transformation.

I definitely learned a lot of new techniques for writing quality modern C from the recent versions of OpenSSL.

Congrats on the award.

<comment><USER10> Can you provide a short example?

<comment><USER9> take a look at this current pkey impl: [https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/OpenSSL_1_1_0-stable...](https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/OpenSSL_1_1_0-stable/crypto/evp/evp_pkey.c#L21)

and compare that to 0.9.8: [https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/OpenSSL- fips-0_9_8-s...](https://github.com/openssl/openssl/blob/OpenSSL- fips-0_9_8-stable/crypto/evp/evp_pkey.c#L81)

You'll notice how much _cleaner_ the code is. Error conditions are more consistently handled. Many fewer macros interleaving the code... etc.

<comment><USER11> Yes quite true, it is like night and day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Every time I see openssl rather than libressl getting attention, I'm reminded of how often incompetence is rewarded.

</comment><comment><USER13> Does OpenSSL have useful documentation yet?

<comment><USER14> No.

Source: writing code using openSSL

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Congratulations!

When money cannot be given, at least kudos can be given.

Words to live by.

</comment><comment><USER16> Didn't hear of the prize before, so searched for it. From the website of prize.

>>>>>The Levchin Prize was established in 2015 by internet entrepreneur, Max Levchin. The prize honors significant contributions to real-world cryptography and celebrates recent advances that have had a major impact on the practice of cryptography and its use in real-world systems. Up to two awards will be given every year and each carries a cash prize of $10,000.<<<<<

2015\. That is pretty new. So, for me it's more of a publicity for the "prize" itself the the"advancement".

<comment><USER17> It's a serious conference with a steering committee of serious experts who award the prize for serious work. Take a look at the previous winners. I think the only thing you're getting right here is that the prize is relatively new.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What are some pros/cons of working for big/small companies? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Currently working at big (>25,000 global staff) company, with professional history of small (<200) companies

Big pros: Better work-life balance, slower pace, opportunities to switch roles internally, great benefits, stable pay, strong career move.

Big cons: Occasionally frustratingly slow due to processes, harder for upward movement past a certain point, impossible to adopt newer tech due to internal restrictions

Small pros: Exciting day-to-day, younger and more enthusiastic employees, get to work on cutting/bleeding edge tech, more opportunities to really stand out.

Small cons: Atmosphere largely dictated by boss' mood, volatile and unpredictable work life, worse work-life balance, greater pressure to keep up or get out, worse pay and benefits.

Based in Northeast US, not New York.

</comment><comment><USER3> big company cons -

can't get anything done quickly because there are processes in place to make sure you don't do things maliciously or just mess up.

boring long meetings that are nearly incomprehensible.

you are not allowed to go work on anything that you can do that the company has decided is not in the skill-set they want you to exercise therefore your skills atrophy.

someone else has made the choice how you should solve a problem, and that choice is idiotic in your opinion.

target for attack to shut down your systems

big company pros -

generally great food cheap.

generally pension, bonuses, insurance.

small company cons -

since no processes in place to keep people from doing stupid things sometimes someone does something stupid and everything is ruined.

sometimes moving to fast and breaking too many things so no time to stop and talk about what you are doing.

you will have to go outside your skill-set to get things done which is stressing.

small company pros -

probably your choice how you want to do anything.

sometimes there is the idea that you will build the small company into a big company which can be exciting.

</comment><comment><USER4> I usually see them like this and these are my "pain areas".

Big company Slow, lots of complex processes to follow, good pay, lots of budget to do changes

Small company Fast, not many processes, more flexible Pay = low to average, every penny counts</comment>


My least favorite VC behaviour?  - <AUTHOR> http://asack.typepad.com/a_sack_of_seattle/2011/07/my-least-favorite-vc-behaviour.html <comment><USER2> A common (although I haven't seen it) but also lame VC thing is for them to say "No, we don't want to invest, because ..." where "..." is some random reason which sounds plausible and is non-confrontational ("we want to see more traction") vs. the real reason ("we think your team sucks", "we like a competitor more", "we don't actually make new investments, since we couldn't raise another fund").

As many have said, believe the No, but not anything that comes after it.

</comment><comment><USER3> And then, when your company gets some serious press/traction/money they usually call you back again acting like best friends who always thought you had a great idea.

<comment><USER4> Maybe one should make it clear that if they don't take you up on your offer now, they won't have the opportunity to do that later.

Obviously this should only be done with second rate firms, but since most deals don't make them any money they cannot afford to miss the few which do make money.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> With VC's you always have to consider the possibility that they have already funded a potential competitor, and that they are actively but subtly trying to hinder you in order to help that competitor. You even have to keep this possibility in mind after they have funded you, because they may view writing you a check as simply a cost-effective way of keeping you under control.

<comment><USER6> Don't VCs publish lists of the companies in their portfolio?

The first part is sensible, the second part sounds a bit paranoid. I've never heard of a VC funding a company that competes with another one in their portfolio, just to sabotage it.

<comment><USER5> > Don't VCs publish lists of the companies in their portfolio?

Yes, but only _after_ they make the investment. If they're still in negotiations you generally won't know.

> the second part sounds a bit paranoid. I've never heard of a VC funding a > company that competes with another one in their portfolio, just to sabotage > it

I confess this is pure conjecture on my part, and it would be pretty farfetched for a VC to make a _major_ investment for this purpose. But many VC's have seed funds now. For $100k they can buy an awful lot of influence at an early stage company, and the interests of that company may or may not align with the interests of the VC's overall portfolio.

The chances are small, but I think not completely discountable, especially in cases like the one described by the OP.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> From my understanding, VCs don't like to decline so that they don't close any doors. They may not want to fund at the time, but may jump on it later.

<comment> daniel-cussen Do they any make an effort to leave the door ajar?:

"We'd like to back you, but we need to see more traction before we can. Come back when you have enough to make funding merely a bold move (by VC standards) and less of a leap of faith, as based on objective milestones."

That plus a few revisions. Has anyone seen this in the wild?

<comment><USER8> > _Has anyone seen this in the wild?_

It's practically a meme:

<http://d.pr/nJpH>

EDIT: Tracked down the Tumblr where I saw that slide:

[http://bryc3.com/post/172703130/i-ganked-this-slide-from- joe...](http://bryc3.com/post/172703130/i-ganked-this-slide-from-joe- beninatos)

Slide text:

      How VCs Say "No"

      - <strike>"No"</strike>
      - They don't return your calls or emails
      - "We love what you're doing but would like to see more progress"
      - "We'd like to see what your beta looks like"
      - "Have you thought about hiring a _____"
      - "Have you thought about approaching _____"
      - "We're interested, but we don't want to lead."</comment></comment></comment>


Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Now Supported by Coreboot - <AUTHOR> https://review.coreboot.org/cgit/coreboot.git/commit/?id=db508565d2483394b709654c57533e55eebace51 <comment><USER2> The supported version appears to be the first generation, released in 2012 and using Intel's Ivy Bridge series.</comment>


Tesla Battery Swapping Tech For Long Trips Without Charging Stops - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/18/tesla-battery-swapping-tech-for-long-trips-without-charging-stops-to-be-demoed-june-20/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's actually going to be demoed on the 20th, but the title was too long for hn.

</comment><comment><USER2> Elon Musk will find every single excuse we use to not go electric and squash it. And then he'll lower the price. And then he'll lower it again. Exciting times!</comment>


Ask HN: How do I get a job at the LHC? - <AUTHOR>

Hacker News is filled with a wide variety of people, so I am hoping someone on here might be able to help me out with regards to what the best route is for working at the large hadron collider.
I am a chemical engineering graduate student in the first year of my doctoral program.  I've already done research in molecular dynamics simulations in conjunction with the supercomputers at a national lab in the US.  I realize this is somewhat different than the work that most people do at the LHC, but there's always interesting niches that need to be filled.
My interests are more in the theoretical, physics-based side of chemical engineering instead of the engineering aspects, so a research career would be my best hope.
I will pursue the conventional means of trying to get a job at CERN, but as it seems like an incredibly exciting and unusual place, I am hoping that some folks on here may have some insight into a good route to get there.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> I got some feedback, I'm not sure how useful it would be, but the first option is you could get a job position there, as you mentioned; or join a research group.

It is apparently very difficult to get in by yourself, so you would have to focus your research topic towards physics (not necessarily particle physics), and work with a supervisor who is already working on research with the LHC. You could check with your university physics department if they have an LHC program, or you could ask your university to apply to join.

The other option, is to get involved in the programming and information processing, the main language there is c++ with ROOT, my roommate is working with atlas and programming at the moment; but as a contrast another one of my friends is with new material development or testing for the accelerator and sensor hardware.

Unfortunately they had no information specifically related to chemical engineering opportunities.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I appreciate you asking your friends. I'm thinking my best shot may be the programming route (post-processing results).

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> All my friends are doing their Phd's and working with Cern, I'll ask them if they might have any ideas for you once they wake up</comment>


Your real tax rate: 40% - <AUTHOR> http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/YourRealTaxRate40.aspx <comment><USER2> The actual paper is here:

[http://www.kotlikoff.net/sites/default/files/Does%20It%20Pay...](http://www.kotlikoff.net/sites/default/files/Does%20It%20Pay,%20at%20the%20Margin,%20to%20Work%20and%20Save.pdf)

and perhaps the most practical bit is here:

 _The paper provides four main takeaways. First, thanks to the incredible complexity of the U.S. fiscal system, it's essentially impossible for anyone to understand her incentive to work, save, or contribute to retirement acounts absent highly advanced computer technology and software. Second, the U.S. fiscal system provides most households with very strong reasons to limit their labor supply and saving. Third, the system offers very high-income young and middle aged households as well as most older households tremendous opportunities to arbitrage the tax system by contributing to retirement accounts. Fourth, the patterns by age and income of marginal net tax rates on earnings, marginal net tax rates on saving, and tax-arbitrage opportunities can be summarized with one word - bizarre._

<comment><USER3> I don't get the arbitrage takeaway? I thought that income tax was only a part of the puzzle. Maybe half. The other taxes you pay aren't affected by what you put in retirement accounts.

<comment><USER2> Tax arbitrage means using the difference in tax rates to make extra money. If the tax rate when you contribute to a tax-deferred investment account is higher than the tax rate when you pull the money out, voila, you've profited from tax arbitrage. So I am not sure why you are thinking of income vs. other taxes. The authors are simply saying, if you are a high earner in a top federal tax bracket, it really pays to put money into tax-deferred investments.

<comment><USER3> OK, I thought the takeaways were implying that you were finding some inefficiency in the system. Rather they were simply saying that retirement accounts work as advertised.

Just an odd takeaway, since that's the expressly stated purpose of most retirement accounts. But fair enough.

<comment><USER4> The strange thing here is that retirement accounts with a tax deferment policy benefit the higher earners much more than they benefit people in lower tax brackets.

This isn't very consistent when the social issue that has really driven these polices into existence is trying to convince lower earners to save for retirement so that the state doesn't have a huge outgoing on pensions etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've used 50% as a conservative estimate for all my back-of-the-napkin calculations for years and it has served me well, especially in consulting projects. Sure I can lower that by showing expenses etc. but in the general sense, if I charge $100/hour, what I'm really doing is enabling myself to spend $50/hour in the future. The true benefit of this is that I don't have to feel worried about over/under charging my clients.

<comment><USER6> > The true benefit of this is that I don't have to feel worried about > over/under charging my clients.

Why not? If you could (should) be charging $120 then that'd be $60 of future spending.

<comment><USER5> I charge $100 because I really feel the effort is worth $50 to me and the client won't pay more than $100. Think of it this way: The lower bound is set by how much I feel the effort is worth after taxes. The upper bound is set by how much I think/know the client will pay. If half of the upper bound is less than my lower bound, I don't do it. This way I don't under-charge.

By over-charge, I meant to say that even though I feel my effort is truly worth $50 after taxes, I don't have to worry about charging $100, because I'm not really over-charging the client since half of $100 is going to taxes. Without taking 50% taxes into account (which is what a lot of people do), asking $100 for something I truly feel is worth only $50 feels like overcharging.

Over-charging new clients is never a personal issue because they can always say no and walk away. But over-charging existing clients can cause you to lose a steady stream of income, especially after you've invested time and effort to establish a relationship and understanding of their needs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Very cool, it seems the researchers took into account all sorts of things like state sales tax, state income tax, corporate tax, welfare / handout type programs, and spending + savings habits.

From what I can tell the key inflection points in the graph come from four issues.

1.) How much can one contribute to retirement accounts to avoid paying income tax that year?

2.) Where are the key discontinuous cutoff points in the tax system? (social security maxes out, certain payments to the needy disappear, etc)

3.) What is the typical marginal propensity to consume?

4.) How much wealth has one accumulated by a certain age in life, which can be invested, which is only taxed at lower capital gains / dividend rates?

My thoughts on the first are mixed. Yes, we don't pay taxes this year on money we stash into a non-roth 401k, but I hope they aren't doing the bad accounting of treating that as 0% tax... we will eventually pay SOME tax when we withdraw on it, just not this year.

The second point is very valid... there is a magic range around $110-$160K income right now where your marginal tax rate from paying social security is almost 12% lower than the guys making $80K-$110K. In the US, you and your employer each pay 6.2% of your earned income to social security, but it caps at $110K (the rationale being you won't get credit for more than that at retirement, so they won't take more).

The final points are a bit bogus in terms of providing us guidance, but they are more of the author's observations from the data they studied. Poor people consume more as a percentage of their income and hence pay more sales tax each year. Wealthier people buy more, but less as a percentage of their income, so they pay less sales tax, and save more over time which can be turned into investment income.

[http://people.bu.edu/kotlikoff/Does%20It%20Pay%20to%20Work%2...](http://people.bu.edu/kotlikoff/Does%20It%20Pay%20to%20Work%20and%20Save,%20December%209,2006.pdf)

<comment><USER8> Really rich people have little or no income. The dodge comes in taking your jet, car, residence, living expenses etc as work expenses. While you OWN billions, your income may be thousands.

<comment><USER9> If you own "billions," you presumably own equity or debt (maybe some commodities, but it's not likely). If you own debt, you're paying taxes on the interest. If you own equity, the value of that equity is the net present value of future cash flows--meaning it's 'taxed' at the rate at which corporations are taxed.

In addition, spending a lot of money and then making it a 'work expense' still requires lots of income. You can't effectively write off your limo charges unless your income at least equals them.

And I don't know how common it is to treat a residence as a work expense. There's a home office tax deduction, but that is a common audit flag.

<comment><USER10> As a side note, one interesting difference between owning equities from a company that you started versus that you purchased from savings is that your work invested into the company is NOT taxed.

If you can create $100k of value a year in your own company or earn a salary of $100k (which after taxes nets you only $60k that you can contribute to purchasing assets), it will take you a lot longer to build up the value of your assets. Of course, capital gains distributions from either asset are taxed the same.

<comment><USER9> Your work is not normally taxed; your income is. If your company is worth something, it's based on some kind of future earnings. And those future earnings are taxed.

<comment><USER11> Consider two developers that make 100k per year before taxes and live off of 40k / year. Now assuming they work for each other they pay 100k and get 65k after taxes, spend 40k and get to invest 15k which they spend on advertizing for their company.

Now assume the work for themselves They pay they only need to live off of 40k so they pay themselves 70k and get to invest 30k on advertizing without paying taxes on that value. Note: numbers are not accurate but they do give context. The idea, is companies can invest in future earns though things like advertizing or R&D without paying taxes on the income uses to pay for that advertizing.

Now you are supposed to pay yourselves market rate, but if you generate 300k in value each year you don't need to pay yourself that money.

<comment><USER9> Right, if you invest that money, you will only realize the value through dividends or selling a stake. And the value of that stake is once again based on the NPV of future cash flows, which are taxed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you think that's high you should be happy you don't live in Denmark.

 _"The large public sector (30% of the entire workforce on a full-time basis) is financed by the world's highest taxes. A value added tax of 25% is levied on the sale of most goods and services (including groceries). The income tax in Denmark ranges from 42.9% to 63% progressively, levied on 4 out of 10 full- time employees. Such high rates mean that 1,010,000 Danes before the end of 2008 (44% of all full-time employees) will be paying a marginal income tax of 63% and a combined marginal tax of 70.9% resulting warnings from organisations such as the OECD"_

Oh and if you want to buy a car you'll be hit with a 180% taxation of your new car on top of the 25% valueadded tax.

source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Denmark#Tax_Burden_a...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Denmark#Tax_Burden_and_employment)

<comment><USER13> The people who _do_ live in Denmark seem pretty happy about doing so, though ([http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061113093726.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061113093726.htm)). One reason might be that they're fairly wealthy to begin with, so it's taking a large percentage out of a large pie (Denmark's per-capita GDP is ~DKK 375,000 = ~$62,000). The social safety net is also rather strong as a result of the government's large amount of income, and it's popular, partly because nearly everyone uses parts of it--- free education, free adult education, free health care, free child-care, pensions, job retraining, etc.

<comment><USER14> And interestingly their unemployment rate is lower than ours* (at least since 2004). Evidence that providing more government services doesn't lead to people just sitting on their asses and cashing their welfare checks.

* [http://globaleconstats.com/wp/2009/08/25/the-unemployment-ra...](http://globaleconstats.com/wp/2009/08/25/the-unemployment-rate-in-norway-is-low/)

<comment><USER15> I bet that if you put 30% of Americans on the public payroll, our unemployment rate would go way down too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Canada is quite similar: In 2006, from $14k up to $88k the combined Federal+BC income taxes, payroll taxes, and sales tax credits worked out to a flat rate of 26% plus or minus $250. (Above $88k the rate goes up, but mostly due to a cap on the amount which can be "hidden" in retirement funds.)

Graduated tax rates plus low-income tax credits equals a flat tax.

<comment><USER17> Really? Effective US tax rates are about a third higher than Canadian rates?

I find that difficult to believe, but I'd be greatly amused if it was true.

<comment><USER16> Well, it depends in part on what you include. The 26% I mentioned is for income taxes, payroll taxes, and (income-based) sales tax credits; but Canadians also have to pay a federal sales tax of 5% and provincial sales taxes (typically around 7-8%) on most purchases.

I believe the total tax burden ends up being fairly similar between the US and Canada -- while Canada spends far more (per capita) on social services and health care, the US spends a similarly larger amount on the military.

<comment><USER18> Canadians also pay much more for gasoline than Americans. Of course, not all of this is in taxes.

To check this: find a "gas buddy" site for a place in Canada, then find one for the nearest US city/town close to it (to control for price disparity due to shipping).

Multiply cost per liter by 3.6 to get equivalent US Gallon; then adjust it by current exchange rate.

Example: lowest for Vancouver, BC: <http://www.vancouvergasprices.com/> is currently 106.9 per liter ($1.069 CAD) , times 3.6 = $3.85 CAD , about $3.66 per US Gallon in USD.

Closest city on the US side is Bellingham, WA, lowest price there is $2.82, or about US $ 0.80 difference per gallon.

Assuming a fill-up is 12 gallons, that is ~$10 per tank difference.

<comment><USER19> Go down to Seattle and it's probably $2.50. We Bellinghamsters have been getting screwed for years (at least relative to the Seattle metro area).

There's an odd effect where a high-price area spills over into the neighbo(u)ring areas. I haven't quite figured out an explanation.

<comment><USER20> I wish it was $2.50 in Seattle. I'd even be overjoyed to pay the Bellingham price of $2.82. I paid $3.11 to $3.17 the last two times I filled up last week.

<comment><USER21> Don't complain. Here in the Netherlands it's around $7.6 per gallon.

<comment><USER22> $6.31 is Paris at the cheapest ever station that I never heard of because it must be so out of the way. $6.90 seems to be average.

Sure would love me some $3 gas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Someone enlighten me, how can the author talk about a marginal tax rate for the entirety of ones income?

Isn't a marginal rate by definition the rate which applies to earnings above a specific benchmark (thereby providing no disincentive to cross it)?

<comment><USER17> The author didn't do that. Instead he reported on research that found that the effective marginal tax rate across a broad range of incomes and life situations was generally close to 40%. So no matter what your income, your marginal tax rate is probably close to 40%.

<comment><USER24> To put it simply: if you earn a dollar more of income, about forty percent of that dollar will end up going to the government.

<comment><USER25> Or, in other words, in a 5 day week, Monday and Tuesday you work for the government. Wednesday through Friday is for yourself.

<comment><USER24> No, that's not right, because the dollars you are already earning might not be taxed at the marginal rate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I just hope that capital gains taxes stay reasonable. I think they provide a large incentive for small companies to grow and NOT just be lifestyle businesses.

</comment><comment><USER27> This is one of the least enlightening articles I've seen in a long time. I understand that it's a challenge to succinctly summarize a 73 page paper in 300 words, but here the author seems to be happy to use the paper's "findings" to support a extremely simplified "fact" about the current tax system.

The numbers cited in the article are based on a wide collection of parameters/assumptions, but that is ignored in the summary.

Interestingly, the paper on which the article is based was directly supported by fairtax.org- an organization solely dedicated to a drastic restructuring of the tax system.

The all in tax burden at different levels of income is a very interesting concept to explore. But here it seems like both the journalist and the paper's authors have addressed the issue with a bias which takes away from what could otherwise be a very interesting subject.

</comment><comment><USER28> As a person who wants to pay as little tax as possible (until of course, they start spending the tax money in ways that I see fit, which don't include blowing things up), I have always been against the concept of a single national sales tax, or a flat tax. However, more and more I am realizing that the benefits of axing most of the IRS (wow, talk about administrative overhead) would actually effectively lower everyones tax burden by several percentage points. You can't dodge a sales tax aside from buying used (great incentive to curb our plastic consumer culture), but the good might outweigh my original objections. Let the states decide if they want to makeup the rest with property or sales tax, and the simplified tax system results in huge benefits.

<comment><USER11> _wow, talk about administrative overhead) would actually effectively lower everyones tax burden by several percentage points._

??? Where is the savings? The IRS is a tiny fraction of US government spending.

Edit: IRS $12.15 billion in 2010, total federal expenditures $3.552 _trillion_. So it's 1/3 of 1% of the federal budget.

<comment><USER29> You could always try the military... you've got one hell of an expensive lean, mean fighting machine there. I'm pretty sure it would still be as good for defence at a fraction of the cost.

<comment><USER30> Be careful with that. Warfighting is every bit as complex, technical and dynamic a discipline as computers. Maybe more so. Do you have a developed opinion on ballistic defense, our nuclear posture, our relative emphasis on COIN vs. conventional warfare? No? Then you are in the position of an executive eying the expensive IT department with a foggy notion that it could get the job done for half the cost, without a clear idea of what a server is or does or why the administrator is so dang expensive.

I recommend poking around the Quadrennial Defense Review site to get a primer on the major issues. It's a report the DOD does every four years to evaluate its priorities and capabilities, explain its budget, etc. There are lots of executive reviews, intelligent and opinionated commentaries, that sort of thing. <http://www.defense.gov/qdr/>

<comment><USER11> There is a huge gap between the US and the second best military in the world. After a 15% cut in DoD budget we would still maintain that #1, so the real question is how much of a lead do we need to feel safe? Must we be able to crush #2 - 5 at the same time?

<comment><USER30> Well, it's not a horse race. It's not a question of being able to beat the other guy, but of capability. It's not about who you can beat, but what you can do. (Though the amusing answer to your last question is yes -- for many recent years, the direction was that the military needed to be at a level to prosecute two overseas wars while maintaining homeland defense).

One of the QDR review panels talked about current issues in defense. It's not authoritative direction, but it does give a taste of how the military is about more than just competing with the next peer. Here's what they had to say about its goals:

      1. America has for most of the last century pursued
      four enduring security interests:

        a. The defense of the American homeland

        b. Assured access to the sea, air, space, and
        cyberspace

        c. The preservation of a favorable balance of power
        across Eurasia that prevents authoritarian domination
        of that region

        d. Providing for the global ―common good through
        such actions as humanitarian aid, development
        assistance, and disaster relief.

      2. Five key global trends face the nation as it seeks
      to sustain its role as the leader of an international
      system that protects the interests outlined above:

        a. Radical Islamist extremism and the threat of
        terrorism

        b. The rise of new global great powers in Asia

        c. Continued struggle for power in the Persian Gulf
        and the greater Middle East

        d. An accelerating global competition for resources

        e. Persistent problems from failed and failing states.

      3. These five key global trends have framed a range of
      choices for the United States:

        a. These trends are likely to place an increased
        demand on American "hard power" to preserve regional
        balances; while diplomacy and development have
        important roles to play, the world's first-order
        concerns will continue to be security concerns.

        b. The various tools of "smart power" – diplomacy,
        engagement, trade, targeted communications about
        American ideals and intentions, development of
        grassroots political and economic institutions –
        will be increasingly necessary to protect America's
        national interests.

        c. Today's world offers unique opportunities for
        international cooperation, but the United States needs
        to guide continued adaptation of existing international
        institutions and alliances and to support development of
        new institutions appropriate to the demands of the 21st
        century. This will not happen without global confidence
        in American leadership, its political, economic, and
        military strength, and steadfast national purpose.

        d. Finally, America cannot abandon a leadership role in
        support of its national interests. To do so will simply
        lead to an increasingly unstable and unfriendly global
        climate and eventually to conflicts America cannot
        ignore, which we must then prosecute with limited
        choices under unfavorable circumstances -- and with
        stakes that are higher than anyone would like.

It's not a question of just saying, "Do the same job with less." The military we have exists to do certain jobs and there are a lot of very smart people interested in doing those jobs very efficiently. No, if you want a cheaper military, you need to do less. You need to start picking goals to give up. If you really wanted to pare the military down to just homeland defense, you probably _could_ do that job with a lot less, but you wouldn't be able to render humanitarian aid or make the world a safer place for everyone (us included).

Here's another example of a policy goal not directly related to homeland defense or beating someone else's military (This from the Nuclear Posture report):

        Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons

        The long-term goal of U.S. policy is the complete
        elimination of nuclear weapons. At this point,
        it is not clear when this goal can be achieved.
        Pursuing these NPR recommendations will strengthen
        the security of the United States and its allies and
        partners and bring us significant steps closer to
        the President's vision of a world without nuclear
        weapons.

        The conditions that would ultimately permit the
        United States and others to give up their nuclear
        weapons without risking greater international
        instability and insecurity are very demanding.
        Among those are the resolution of regional disputes
        that can motivate rival states to acquire and
        maintain nuclear weapons, success in halting the
        proliferation of nuclear weapons, much greater
        transparency into the programs and capabilities of
        key countries of concern, verification methods
        and technologies capable of detecting violations of
        disarmament obligations, and enforcement measures
        strong and credible enough to deter such violations.
        Clearly, such conditions do not exist today. But we
        can – and must – work actively to create those
        conditions.

Applying effort toward achieving those goals may require a larger or smarter (more expensive) military. We do it, not because we want to beat China, but because it's something we want to do and think is worth the cost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The main issue is that we're still taxing income, instead of taxing consumption.

We (no matter the country) could save billions in administrative costs simply by moving all tax to point of sale style VATs. (As a sidenote this does not mean that something like the FairTax proposal is a good example of this concept.)

<comment><USER32> I'm no fan of excessive taxing, but if you shifted the source of all current tax revenue to consumption based transactions, this would cripple the poor and middle class.

For much of the lower/middle class, a significant, sometimes 100% of their income goes to consumption. For the wealthy, consumption as percent of income can be very small.

<comment><USER31> Your argument makes a major assumption: That this isn't already the case.

The current system is regressive in practice, though not in theory. If this wasn't the case, Buffet wouldn't be paying 17%.

Spending 100%+ of your income on consumption can be the norm for lower income earners, it is true. That does not extend however into 100%+ of income spent on consumption that is required for basic sustainability, especially in rich countries such as in North America or Europe.

There is no incentive under the current system for any income bracket to spend within their own means, regardless of what those means may be. The high levels of unsustainable personal debt illustrate this perfectly.

This results in overspending on "luxury" (i.e. not "required") goods - even by the "poor". There are few incentives that encourage the poor to establish wealth through savings. There is also no incentive in the system to have individuals increase their income to match their spending, although that's admittedly a much harder accomplishment.

With an income tax system that isn't perfectly flat, the problems you highlight are simply hidden, if not encouraged. With a flat based taxed, they are not, but it is regressive.

With a flat consumption based tax with a level of social control through either personal spending exemptions or through item based exemptions (baby food, for example) we could do a better job of managing the regressive nature of tax systems in general than we do right now.

In addition, we expose basic economics to those who have difficulty understanding the concept by providing strong incentives to build wealth and consume less, regardless of income bracket. This is something we should do.

<comment><USER33> Now, how about a progressive consumption tax? Impossible to implement, but perfect for the situation you just described.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> It's not like the entire tax goes into a black hole -- it would be interesting to see what the return is on the average tax rate: how much benefit is derived from state, federal, and city services (roads, water, security, libraries, parks) and benefits (unemployment, social security, disability).

<comment><USER35> _It's not like the entire tax goes into a black hole_

It's arguable that we'd be better off were that so... part of the tax burden is all the people employed by those taxes who don't actually contribute anything to society on net (that is, whose jobs wouldn't be done at all on the free market)... in this way, taxes can have something like double their cost in harm, potentially.

<comment><USER36> Airlines wouldn't exist in the "free market". Are you arguing that air travel has no net value?

<comment><USER37> Citation needed, Southwest is quite profitable, can you explain what they are getting in subsidies (I just may be unfamiliar with your argument).

<comment><USER36> <http://hasbrouck.org/blog/archives/001001.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> In UK the income tax for high-rate earners (anyone earning about $70k) is 40%. As in, that's what is reflected in your pay check.

Then you add on council tax _(equiv of state tax although it's calculated based on value of house)_ , VAT _(sales tax, 17.5% moving to 20% next year)_ , property tax _(only at sale and if you own more than one)_ , and all the sin taxes _(cigarettes and gas is WAY higher cos it's mostly tax)_.

I like living in California and America... the taxes are so low here!

 _(caveat: yes we get health care paid for in UK which I have to pay for here)_

</comment><comment> alok-g If I buy something for $100, I would pay sales tax on it. But is that really it for purchases? Isn't the government collecting taxes at several other points as the good is being made and brought to market? Taxes on raw materials, on components making the product, taxes on shipping, etc.

All in all, if I buy something for $100, how much is the tax collected by the government (in addition to what is taken from my income leaving me this $100 to spend)? Is all of that taken into account in this report?

<comment><USER32> Sounds like an excellent thesis for an economics grad student.

I'd love to see this data in an easy to read format for a variety of goods and industries

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Semi-related: Can someone explain to me California CRV on recyclable containers? My understanding is that this is meant to encourage recycling, but the deposit amount you pay at the store doesn't equal what you get when you recycle your containers. I checked out the Wikipedia page, and it explains how the "Redemption Value" has changed over the years. If you take one of those large 2.5 Gallon containers of Arrowhead Water you are charged an additional $.50 each! There is no way you get that much to recycle it. How many bottles are sold annually in California? That looks like clear additional tax revenue. To add insult to injury, you are charged sales tax on the CRV deposit!

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

<comment><USER13> I believe the private recycling companies that operate the redemption centers do get the full CRV, rather than the state keeping it (though the state keeps the sales tax on the CRV). If you go as an individual to a recycling company to return containers for a refund, they pay you less than the CRV, the difference going to their costs and profit. Since it seems to not be a very competitive market (recycling centers aren't really competing for your business by offering higher redemption values), almost all of them pay the minimum redemption value that CA law requires them to pay.

<comment><USER39> Thanks for the explanation, but I don't think I feel better about it. If the recycling center gets my deposit I'm wondering why they need it. I thought the point of a recycling center was that the material they collect (aluminum, plastic, paper etc.) is profitable to collect. The CRV is labeled as a "deposit". To me that should be like a bank term, i.e., you can reclaim what you leave initially. I'm at a loss to understand why this deposit is not fully refunded (which would further encourage recycling!), or at least something reasonable like say 75%.

<comment><USER13> I think only aluminum is unquestionably profitable to collect; everything else is marginal or a loss. But yeah, there does seem to be some bait-and-switch here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Man, those percentages in the chart at the end are really whacky.

Someone making $75,000/year pays a higher % tax their entire life than someone making $200,000/year? Someone making $20,000/year (at 30) pays almost twice the % as someone making $50,000/year (at 30)?

That doesn't seem right.

<comment><USER41> SS and FICA are very regressive. It's interesting that the lowest rates roughly correspond with the median income - as if the rates were tailored to get the lowest rates to the majority of the voters, while screwing (relatively) much smaller groups at the ends of the scale.

<comment><USER42> It's not so much regressive as it is "supposed" to be a penion insurance plan separate from the rest of your taxes. There is a cap on benefits, so there's a cap on what you contribute to it, not unlike the cap on contributions to a 401(k) or IRA.

Of course, we never got our lockbox so the upcoming generation of retirees elected governments that spent that retirement money on other stuff now wants to raise taxes so that the current young folks can pay for their irresponsibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> That is so low compared to the UK.

<comment><USER44> It's not. We British like to complain about being ripped off but we're better off than we think. Having moved to Canada much more leaves my paycheck than it would in the UK and, according to an online calculator, the same would be true if I moved to the States.

The things that really hurt in the UK are things like power and fuel costs, council taxes, and various other mortgage-related taxes. That's where I'm really seeing the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> Anyone know why there's such a big dip for 30yrs at $50K?

<comment><USER46> I'm guessing they assume a 30-year old couple has purchased a house recently (large mortgage interest deduction), and has student loans still (student loan interest deduction up to 6K/year I think, which goes away after 80K or so. IANAA).

Between those two things, plus the general tax benefits of being married (and 50K not being that much for two people imho) give them a low tax rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> the true tax rate = total government spending divided by GDP.

This is why Republicans, who've historically increased government spending, thus have increased real tax rate (while of course giving narrowly targeted breaks to themselves)

</comment><comment><USER48> Seriously, a 2007 news article based on a 2006 unrefereed paper is on the front page today?</comment>


Google's serverless containers platform Cloud Run is now GA - <AUTHOR> https://cloud.google.com/run/docs?GA <comment><USER2> Discussion at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21537642](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21537642)

</comment><comment><USER3> Anyone have info about latency for Cloud Run vs aws FireCracker MicroVMs?

<comment><USER4> By AWS Firecracker microVMs, do you mean AWS Lambda? Cloud Run is a managed service. It wouldn't be a good comparison to compare it to the Firecracker open source project. It would make more sense to compare Cloud Run to AWS Lambda.

<comment><USER5> While Cloud Run is a managed service, it is built upon Knative as far as I'm aware, so in theory a self-hosted version could be compared to Firecracker. You are correct that a Cloud Run to Lambda comparison would be more 1:1, though.</comment></comment></comment>


Android And Symbian To Merge; iPhone Still Best - <AUTHOR> http://www.charlesju.com/2008/07/android-and-symbian-to-merge-iphone.html

<comment><USER2> Uh... that title is completely fiction as far as I can tell.

<comment><AUTHOR> [http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/25/analyst-predicts-merger- of...](http://venturebeat.com/2008/07/25/analyst-predicts-merger-of-android- and-symbian-mobile-oss/)

<comment><USER2> "To merge" is a lot different than "some guy thinks they might".</comment></comment></comment>