Ask HN: Is GDPR hurting European tech valuations and acquisitions? - <AUTHOR> I heard a concerning anecdote from a friend. He (American) was trying to make a relatively small acquisition of a European SaaS business. 6 figure deal for a company with ~100k MATU. They were running out of cash and needed to be acquired.
Ultimately the deal did not go through because of GDPR. I am fuzzy on the exact details, but he claimed that per GDPR requirements, every single customer would have to sign back up for the service and they could not be shifted over to the new company without explicitly opting in. So the MATU would be zero until they re-acquired the users.
So the deal did not go through and the company shut down. Has anyone else noticed issues with European valuations and M&A because of GDPR? <comment><USER2> I'd say the law has worked very well in this case: The customers private data was at risk (being moved out of the jurisdiction that protects it) and an unscrupulous buyer preferred to pass on the opportunity than assuring the customers their data was going to be as safe as before.

I see no culprits or bad actors here. Everyone looks after themselves.

<comment><USER3> It may have worked very well. But it will mean that because of these regulations, there will be less investment in any companies under the EU from outside companies.

Eventually, the EU will have its own companies and separated Internet. Is this really a good thing?

<comment><USER4> I can see the case that it might be harmful for the GDP, but how would less investment translate into a separate internet?

<comment><USER3> Companies are already blocking IP addresses from the EU due to the new GDPR regulations. As restrictions and laws increase (which seems to be happening already), it will make sense to just block access rather than deal with draconian regulations.

The end result will be a separate Internet for people in the EU because so many sites will be unavailable to them.

<comment><USER5> Maybe they will block access at the beginning, but here in Europe we have a huge market and I do not really believe that companies will stay away just because they cannot steal our data. If so, then we will be very happy about it and someone else will get their pie slice..

<comment><USER3> It's not about 'stealing data'. It's the vague regulations and overreach by the EU that will stop companies and investors from entering the EU market.

"If so, then we will be very happy about it and someone else will get their pie slice.."

An interesting unintended consequence is that small companies will be pushed out of the market in favor of large companies that have the money to pay for all of the legal hoops you have to jump through.

A few large players dominating the market is not really in the best interest of anyone...except the companies that are able to keep out all of their competitors.

<comment><USER6> This. GDPR is not merely a list of bad things not to do, compliance requires a lot of new work and risking huge penalties if someone decides your lawyer should have interpreted the (untested!) law differently.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wish we have this rule in the US. So many times I start getting spam from random companies that after closer look it turns out they are owner of some servicev I signed up years ago.

</comment><comment><USER8> You can look at it the other way around: GDPR can be a barrier to entry in the European market, therefore making EU compagnies more resistant to outside competitors, which increases their valuation.

As a foreign company, if you want to enter the European market you can either comply with GDPR (which honestly is not that hard despite all the FUD), or take a stake in an existing EU company, _provided you let it continue operating as it currently does or at least in a GDPR-compliant way_. Buying a EU company to siphon off its customer data (even if it's just to merge with your own platform) is a big no-no, unless you yourself are GDPR-compliant.

<comment><USER9> Lack of competition makes you less resistant to competitors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's a very well documented topic. If they planned to move the data out of EU and/or process it in new way it doesn't surprise me that they'd need to get new agreements. But if you don't have the details it's hard to tell.

[https://www.dickinson-wright.com/news-alerts/the-gdpr-and- me...](https://www.dickinson-wright.com/news-alerts/the-gdpr-and-mergers-and- acquisitions)

[https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/2018/0...](https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/2018/06/the- impact-eu-gdpr-on-ma)

[https://gdpr.report/news/2018/06/21/buyer- beware/](https://gdpr.report/news/2018/06/21/buyer-beware/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, GDPR wasn't created to maximise profit or simplify the production of shareholder value. So... there.</comment>


Lawmakers ponder what's worse: A Google/Yahoo deal or a Microsoft/Yahoo marriage? - <AUTHOR> http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/lawmakers-ponde.html <comment><USER2> I dont think either is a particularly good idea, but in the absense of both deals falling through I'd say the best bet is the lesser of two evils.

Unfortunately, that would be a deal with Microsoft - thats not to say I dont like Google, I really do... but for them to control even more of the Internet advertising space will only end up driving up the prices for advertisers.

So the end consumer will more than likely lose more in a Yahoo/Google than in a Yahoo/Microsoft deal. Funny little paradox that - being cheaper with Microsoft.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why are lawmakers pondering this problem? Its none of their business.</comment>


The Security of Data Deletion - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/01/the_security_of_10.html <comment><USER2> I can't help but feel this is a ship that long sailed. I ultimately support the idea, but we seem to have turned into a society of hoarders, when it comes to data. And, indeed, for many purposes this is quite useful.

As far away as I think the day is, I think we are more likely to enter a society that is more tolerant of people's behavior and private views than we are of one where everyone deletes data after a time.

<comment><USER3> From one point of view, the history of computing has been one of trying to maintain data integrity, which in turn makes it harder and harder to permanently delete anything.

On the other hand, I can think of very few downsides to a more tolerant society, and fervently believe that it can't happen soon enough.

<comment><USER4> And not just data integrity, but capacity and culture work against "digital forgetting" as well. Capacity (re: cost per unit) has been growing ( _much_ ) faster than our ability to generate correspondence. Now, the new default is to just go with the flow of our digital memory. Likewise, IT organizations have built in policies and practices around backing up and preserving data. New effort and planning around comprehensive deletion policies would seem to be the next frontier, both at the IT and individual levels. Deletion policies exist now, but in my experience these are often half-hearted compared to retention policies.

Even (especially?) for individuals in companies, email and the like become a memory prosthetic. You don't need to make external notes, because you can always go back to email. Speaking personally, I know of many, many occasions where I've had to refer back to communications at least two months old. At some organizations, trolling the last year's email has been practically obligatory when slogging through annual reviews.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Localization, localization, localization. Tighten up the security for tiny islands within the organization. Don't just do perimeter defense [1] and don't give a single computer access to thousands of other computers.

Don't route and don't monitor everyone's emails through a single server. Use end-to-end encrypted email and ephemeral messages, as Schneier says. Something like Kobeissi's new Peerio tool would've helped Sony and MPAA from having embarrassing emails leak out (not that I wasn't glad to see them leak out).

[1] - [https://community.rapid7.com/community/infosec/blog/2015/01/...](https://community.rapid7.com/community/infosec/blog/2015/01/07/the- sony-breach-demonstrates-the-importance-of-moving-beyond-perimeter-defense)

[2] - [https://peerio.com/](https://peerio.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> At my previous job the company lawyers sent out monthly reminders to archive all emails and documents in case we got sued. Oddly enough the company could have easily done this from the server itself. I wonder if perhaps making employees do it meant it would never be saved as the server removed things older than 90 days.</comment>


One way to improve usability in error messages - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/pfrazee/status/919261791263244288 <comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't thought of this approach. Not a good alternative to a meaningful (to the user) message like "Disk is full", but an interesting alternative to an opaque error number/code.

Original Reddit post: [https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/76br2t/til_ab...](https://np.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/76br2t/til_about_the_residents_of_a_neighborhood/dod0izx/)</comment>


Lisp Enlightenment and Emacs Frustration - <AUTHOR> http://www.erik-rasmussen.com/blog/2007/07/06/lisp-enlightenment-and-emacs-frustration/ <comment><USER2> Oh nooo... It's a 2007 article, but I wish I had been able to go back to that time and shout, "You can use vim! It's okay!" slimv... screen, vim, sbcl in an alternate window with linedit... I think the only real things emacs ever gave me was some intellisense and a slightly enhanced debugger over sbcl's stock debugger. I do not really feel slowed down, though; maybe the problem is that I am not regularly experiencing the speed-ups. :)

But whatever the case, emacs should not be a barrier to Lisp. I might even recommend for new Lisp users: avoid emacs. First learn Lisp. Play around a bit. Most of your environment should be the REPL, and you can copy-paste from your favorite editor. You can use "(ed)" in the REPL. Go from there. Then, later on, try to get emacs to work with your Lisp. Mainly, you will want to experience the interaction, the environment with Lisp. Finally, switch back to vim when you are ready to get your real work done quickly.

I couldn't help the last line... :) Use both editors, depending on your immediate need. But learning Lisp is separate from learning emacs.

<comment><USER3> I completely agree. I've tried doing the Lisp + Emacs combo, and it's just too daunting for someone starting out. I'm happy as can be using Vim for now. I fully intend to give Emacs a thorough chance once more, but not until I'm more thoroughly entrenched in Lisp.

<comment><USER4> My fingers are broken. I dust of emacs every now and then but I end up typing vim commands on the screen when I want to do things. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One time I tried using Eclipse for a screencast, and it felt like coding with oven mitts on. However, I didn't blog about the experience, because it contributed nothing useful. I wonder if the same thought occurred to the author.

</comment><comment><USER6> If all you want to do is learn the beauty of Lisp don't waste time mucking around with arcane (and great) editors like Vim or Emacs. I'm using LispWorks 6.0 Personal Edition to work through Norvig's PAIP - no headaches.

<comment><USER7> DrRacket (packaged with the Racket variant of Scheme) provides some indenting and paren matching that is helpful, at least compared to a basic text editor.

<comment><USER6> DrRacket isn't just helpful, it's a downright fantastic IDE if you're digging into Scheme :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Does it have vim keybindings?

<comment><USER8> The keybindings are customizable (in a previous version I added Alt-Backspace for "Undo".). But the procedure is not straightforward, you have to create a special module: [http://docs.racket- lang.org/drracket/Keyboard_Shortcuts.html...](http://docs.racket- lang.org/drracket/Keyboard_Shortcuts.html#\(part._defining-shortcuts\))

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hey, Emacs keybindings suck. Why don't we fix them, instead of complaining?

Surely, it will not be easy -- there are some problems visible even from distance. One of them are people like me who grew accustomed to Emacs' idiosyncrasies -- they're small problem. The big one are people who firmly believe that C-f,b,n,p, C-y/M-y, mainly useless functions having single-key bindings and really useful ones concealed under complicated binding, like C-x b or C-x o, or without any binding at all, like replace-string or query- replace, etc, is the way to go.

<comment><USER10> As a Vim user who switched to emacs I find emacs bindings inconvenient as hell [1] however I don't think it is possible to fix them now. Most 'prominent' emacs users are simply used to them and won't change their habits, it's really unlikely that new bindings - no matter how cool they would be - would acquire much attention.

[1] Well, I may be biased, however I already use emacs commands automatically e.g. acquired some muscle memory and some things actually are better in vim - after long coding I can actually feel some strain from pressing C-M, and navigation still is much slower, and I doubt it will get faster with time.

<comment><AUTHOR> You might want to check out viper and vimpulse:

<http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/ViperMode>

<http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs-es/Vimpulse>

<comment><USER11> or Vim mode: <http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/VimMode>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Emphasis seems odd here. Keybindings are just about the most trivially (and commonly) customized part of Emacs, and things like CUA-mode and customized Mac builds of Emacs are common ways of dealing with the issue. Whereas the major benefit of Emacs for Lisp development---having your development environment written in Lisp, by Lispers, who have collectively spent 30 years or so improving its Lisp editing/development capabilities both in included and in third-party elisp libraries---is not mentioned.

I think the poster implicitly points out something interesting---that Java and Common Lisp are both large languages that require sophisticated tools to use effectively. I'm not talking about Emacs versus Eclipse here, I mean the toolset in your brain. Money quote:

"IntelliJ makes Java programming as easy as it can possibly be. It more or less compiles your code as you type it, points out most bugs as they occur, intelligently suggests code completion to finish your words for you. I generates all the annoying repetitive code, like getters and setters and equals() methods for you. Without it, Java would be much more laborious to program in..."

So to Java users, writing annoying repetitive code is a life-saving feature of the IDE, whereas for Common Lisp it would simply be bad style.

</comment><comment><USER13> Hm.

I'm using emacs just several days.

I've used: vim, visual studio, Delphi/CBuilder IDEs, PyScripter, notepad++, PL/SQL Developer, TOAD, others.

What I found pleasant in emacs: It does not have learning curve at all.

All I need to figure is just Alt-x (M-x). Than it became fun.

I've read documentation only for cua-mode. Everything else was found through guessing and experimentation.

Of course, maybe I'm just novice and I do not know some hidden emacs dangers, one day they will pop up and bite my ass. Dunno.

</comment><comment><USER14> Ha! Editing Clojure source with UltraEdit over a WinSCP SSH connection to my server! There is no need to force yourself to using either emacs or vi (both of which I use sometimes).

</comment><comment><USER15> Poor guy, I hope he stuck with it. After all, doesn't pg use vi?

Eta Someone indeed pointed this out as the first comment in 2007.

</comment><comment><USER16> It baffles me whenever someone announces their discovery that Java didn't invent objects and garbage collection as though that invalidates the whole language. I wonder what rock they have been hiding under. How could any true language enthusiast not have an understanding of their language's history?

====

Java has very few original features. However, it did serve as a sort of 'feature aggregator', where it pulled in a very large pile of features from other languages and housed them all under one roof.

What I (vaguely) remember about Java from the early days as being it's (other) main advantages were:

(1) incredibly easy networking (compare sockets with C for example)

(2) applets (yes they suck(ed), but no other language had that browser adoption)

(3) it wasn't Microsoft (not such a big deal now, but back in the day Microsoft were a lot more aggressive)

(4) it was open(ish) (you could look at the library code to figure out how it was doing stuff) (compare with Visual Basic where everything either magically works or magically doesn't)

(5) Threads (compare again to semaphores)

(6) Free (as in beer)

In some cases, such as early Java, I think a feature most people don't really take into account is not what was put _into_ the language, but what was left out. By hiding pointers behind the curtain, it made the language a lot easier. Easier to write, and easier to read. Even then it had its wrinkles, the people I know who were uber-productive in Java tended to use a small subset of the languages features.

Over the years of course feature creep has slipped in, so it now has bits of perl (regex) and bits of C++ (templates/generics). A lot more of the base code is a lot uglier than it used to be....

====

As for Lisp, I don't really buy the argument that lack of a good IDE held it back. I think the following reasons are more to the point:

A) butt ugly syntax (I'm talking about the random lengths of indents, not the ()s - to understand why this is bad, go learn you some usability)

B) greedy corporate interests (if the developer kit for Java had cost $10,000 no one would ever use it either) (early on)

C) language fracturing and speciation (there are too many 'little lisps' for any one of them to gain momentum) (later on)

D) lack of well written textbooks (compare to the veritable explosion of books for Java in its early days. Back when I was actually interested in Lisp I used to pick up books on it, and they'd invariably spend the first 2 pages showing some vague equivalency to lambda calculus and then it seemed as though they felt their teaching duty was done)

speaking of the lambdas...

E) programmers got better at naming variables and functions (having anonymous functions may be a neat party trick, but nowdays when we put on our big boy pants we like to name stuff)

F) missed the OO boat because they were too caught up in their own cleverness (early OO implementations in Lisp were butt ugly and broken (didn't do encapsulation and/or inheritance well)).

You may argue (as the author of the original article does) that currently Lisp does wonderful OO, but you have the same problem as say Java does, overcoming the slowness myth(s).

I wonder if it is possible to predict the critical junctures where the myths about a language solidify. In any case, it doesn't help to make a new lisp with more/better/faster features (in an attempt to create new myths), because that just feeds the confusion (see point C above)

edit for irony: missed a )

<comment><USER17> > D) lack of well written textbooks

1\. How do I program? I dont know how to build abstractions. I dont know how to write correct, modular and reliable codes. I'll start with "How to Design Programs"

2\. I want to learn more about recursion. I want to master thinking recursively because I have found that they solve a lot of my problems. Let me see "Little Schemer".

3\. I want to learn more powerful constructs like continuations, tail calls and what not. I want to learn to solve harder problems in Scheme. Let me pick up "Seasoned Schemer".

4\. Wow macros are pretty nice. I want to learn more about them. Let me first see how to write unhygenic ones. Paul Graham's "On Lisp" is amazing!

5\. Constructing higher levels of abstraction is something that I really want to master. What kinds of abstractions can I build? What are the ways to construct large programs? What is the way to organize programs? What is programming? Let me read SICP

6\. What is a loop? Why doesn't scheme have it? How can I build it? How do I build these kinds of abstractions? Wand's EOPL is my bible at this stage.

7\. Let me do something useful in Scheme. How do I write much more powerful macros? I love my types. I love my modules. I love my libraries. Racket, I think you are the most powerful thing out there.</comment></comment>


Personal Policy with CFEngine - <AUTHOR> https://cfengine.com/company/blog-detail/personal-policy/ <comment> Lex-2008 good beginning! Although it should be "точно", not "точна", your command of Russian is admirable. Looking forward for follow-up blog posts!</comment>


An Ecomodernist Manifesto - <AUTHOR> http://www.ecomodernism.org/manifesto-english/ <comment><USER2> One relatively new thought in the manifesto is the explicit disagreement with the old assertion that the finite resources of our planet cannot sustain continued economic growth.

The fundamental reason why economic growth can continue at a fixed or even shrinking environmental footprint is that economic growth and environmental footprint measure different things. The former measures the creation of economic value while the latter measures the use of land and raw materials necessary to create that value.

More and more economic value of what we consume derives not from land and raw materials but from human inputs like design, creativity, engineering and services. This means that a smaller amount of raw materials is necessary to produce one dollar of GDP than it used to.

At the same time, more and more of the raw materials are reused via down-, re- or even up-cycling. In theory, a very sophisticated economy of a demographically stable society could thrive and grow entirely on a closed cycle of raw materials and fixed amount of land. Even if we don't get there we could still reduce our impact below environment's capacity for self-renewal.

I think we must urgently stop the increase and soon begin shrinking our environmental footprint. The realization that there is no fundamental contradiction between continued economic growth (and all its perks including poverty reduction, scientific progress and continued human development) and the protection of our planet should highlight that this ambition is achievable.

<comment><USER3> _> More and more economic value of what we consume derives not from land and raw materials but from human inputs like design, creativity, engineering and services. This means that a smaller amount of raw materials is necessary to produce one dollar of GDP than it used to._

Very much this. It isn't, however, a new insight to economics. That the limits to growth argument is a fallacy based on conflating increased value with increased resource use is standard economics but misunderstood by almost everyone else, hence the trend for physicists to write blog posts calling down derp on econ types. This is explored by Tim Harford in a piece on Freakonomics [0].

I would highly recommend Harford's book _The Undercover Economist_ to anyone with even a passing interest in the field. It's one of those humbling books which demonstrates that everything you thought you knew about a subject was basically wrong.

[0][http://freakonomics.com/2014/01/24/can-economic-growth- conti...](http://freakonomics.com/2014/01/24/can-economic-growth-continue- forever-of-course/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Bruno Latour's response to this text can be found here: [http://entitleblog.org/2015/06/27/fifty-shades-of-green- brun...](http://entitleblog.org/2015/06/27/fifty-shades-of-green-bruno-latour- on-the-ecomodernist-manifesto/)

<comment><USER5> To this I say: what's wrong with the e-cigarette? Why NOT have your cake and eat it, too, if you actually can? There is no virtue in meaningless asceticism.

<comment><USER6> > "There is no virtue in meaningless asceticism."

Quite right.

As a side note, that's not the case with e-cigarettes, the health risks are largely unknown and there appears to be a fair amount of variation in the chemical composition of the different brands. Here's a level-headed article about some of the early studies into e-cigarette health risks:

[http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/electronic-cigarettes- hel...](http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/electronic-cigarettes-help-or- hazard-201109223395)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> At least the writers confess they are moved by "deep love and emotional connection to the natural world". And from there I guess it's not too difficult to build up a dream that morally allows you to keep your current over-consuming habits which are trashing the planet, while claiming that you LOVE nature and at the same time not pissing off anyone by avoiding all politics to get in the mix.

The ecological problem is a bit more complex that blind trust in technology and efficiency progress. Blind faiths, simplifications and master plans have added little (from ecomodernism to primitivism). The problems of democracy, discrimination and redistribution of wealth have a lot to say, but that's too tough for a cute little manifesto.

They speak of technology "applied with wisdom", "with proper management". So I take that, until now, we have just mismanaged technology and applied it in dullest ways. Or I guess they have a secret plan on how to manage technology correctly from now on. Or perhaps they will come to realize that technology has and will always have a good and bad side, and that most of its consequences (good and bad) are often unforeseeable, and as such, hard to steer. Let's not even think of WHO actually controls technology.

What's more, the "decoupling" of human well-being from human impact is a myth. The impact has just been transferred to third world countries where sure none of these ecomodernists live or probably ever visited. Lol when they take "New England" and "France" forests as examples. Any plans to bring up the 80% of undeveloped countries to the pace of the 20% with nice growing forests? None.

This is the typical manifesto which is absolutely nothing new, sounds super nice, but changes nothing, provides nothing, and feels about right in the hands of the rich and ruling elites because it absolutely avoids to question any status-quo whatsoever.

<comment><USER8> Something they explicitly mention is nuclear power, which has a far smaller footprint on the environment than fossil fuels, but is often passed over by environmentalists wedded to a low-energy ideal.

<comment><USER5> Environmentalists are not wedded to a low-energy ideal, they're wedded to a non-polluting one. Speaking for myself, I'd be happy with, say, a P-B aneutronic fusion system and would vastly prefer this over solar or wind. But we don't have this right now, and solar or wind are the least polluting alternatives, and considerably cheaper to develop than nuclear options.

<comment><USER9> > solar or wind are the least polluting alternatives

Not even close, but unless you live in mainland China you don't see the pollution.

[http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place- on-...](http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth)

[http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy- isnt-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always- as-green-as-you-think)

<comment><USER5> Yeah I'm not happy about PV, but there are solar systems that are not as polluting (solar concentrating systems, heating systems), and wind systems are relatively inert compared to PV or nuclear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm sympathetic to this cause, but that introduction contains a lot of waffle. If the author is reading this, you can summarise the key driving forces for change as...

1\. Cannot rely on infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources.

2\. A better balance between human life and the rest of life on the planet relies on allowing nature to regrow without competing with human development.

You don't need to have all the answers up front, the solution is going to evolve naturally once we agree on what why it's desirable to change and get the discussions going.

<comment><USER3> The authors summarise their disagreement with your 1 in TFA.

 _Despite frequent assertions starting in the 1970s of fundamental "limits to growth," there is still remarkably little evidence that human population and economic expansion will outstrip the capacity to grow food or procure critical material resources in the foreseeable future._

<comment><USER6> So the suggestion is that because it hasn't been a problem for us already it won't be a problem in the foreseeable future?

We can have an economy based on abundance rather than scarcity, but that's not going to be achieved overnight, the priority for now is to slow down the damage.

To give an example, look at the problem of overfishing. Taking the attitude of the authors you could argue it's not causing us problems in the foreseeable future, but the longer we leave it the worse it gets, and our depletion of fish populations is directly linked to our consumption and growing our economy without addressing this problem is going to cause problems with decreasing the variety of life found in rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> See: Systems Theory

Sometimes the greatest harm is born out of the most sincere intentions. Anything founded on false, internally inconsistent premises will fail. Often, the longer it takes to fail, the more harm is done. Like it or not, humans cannot completely extricate themselves from "nature", unless we are talking packing up and migrating every last human off Earth to Mars. That's not happening; this won't work. Come to grips with that sooner, not later.

</comment><comment><USER11> Given the understanding that the environment is unavoidably inked to humanity it seems a little doubtful that we can just decouple so absolutely. This is a common attitude in rural and urban planning where the world is neatly divided up into zones of urban, agriculture, industry, etc. Making room for nature in that kind of world is very difficult as it will always lead to a loss from another interests that are already in conflict with one another. It is particularly problematic in places like Sub-Saharan agriculture where people, nature, and agriculture are in such close proximity and these conflicts are a more of a social issue.

I think it is better to have more fuzzy edges and make ecology an intrinsic part of development that people will want to defends. For example a new development should surrounded by a buffer of woodland/wetlands/grassland that will be valued by residents.

</comment><comment><USER12> [http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage](http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage)</comment>


The Price of Nice Nails - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/nyregion/at-nail-salons-in-nyc-manicurists-are-underpaid-and-unprotected.html <comment><USER2> If the nail salon owners all followed the law and paid their employees properly, the average price of service would increase. The race to the bottom is only because of en masse violations of the law.

The state needs to do their job. One year and a thousand or so lawsuits (exactly 0% chance the state has the resources to do this) and the problem will go away. Manicures will end up costing $20 instead of $10, and workers will be able to live like people and not animals.

<comment><USER3> >Manicures will end up costing $20 instead of $10, and workers will be able to live like people and not animals.

Are you accounting for the loss of customers that doubling the prices would cause?

<comment><USER4> Who cares? Manicures are just about the most useless status symbol product there is.

The ladies doing the manicures will be unemployed, but since they're not getting paid now, they'll actually be better off.

They need to skip the lawsuits and throw the owners in prison. Working for weeks with no pay is practically slavery.

Edit: Now that I think about it, why isn't the IRS looking into this, too? I have a hard time believing the owners aren't paying their workers, but are paying proper taxes and withholdings for them.

<comment><USER5> The IRS is underfunded as a means of inhibiting enforcement because the dysfunctional Congress is unable to make law. The IRS only goes after lucrative targets (big fines and large back taxes) and cannot afford to enforce the law.

Why? The electorate is stupid and being made stupid by eagerly consuming media selling information entertainment, acting on the political and financial will of their owners.

Partisan bullshit, and the willingness to participate in it by citizens on _every_ side, is the major threat to our democracy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The posts here are quite funny to read for me.

Specifically the idea of 'maybe this job shouldn't exist, if it can't pay a fair wage'.

Minimum wage is really not a fair wage. In the UK, double minimum is getting close in some cities. In London, triple minimum wage is still essentially a child's salary, good for renting and playing around but not for building an actual life - state assistance is essentially required.

If you eliminate jobs that do not pay fairly (I think that the faint possibility of ever being able to do anything but work and/or suck on the State's teat is a reasonable definition of fair), there will either be nothing left for most of the population, or huge wage increases. I don't know which. I actually think it's worth the gamble, then we can actually deal with what unemployment (and the euphemism-tastic 'underemployment') actually means.

<comment><USER7> "Fair wage" is a meaningless concept. If one person is willing to pay $X for a job and another person is willing to do it for that price, other people should butt out.

<comment><USER8> The problem is when there are confluences of conditions that systemically prevent someone (or their 'class') from having the mobility to exit their condition, even when they have enough merit to otherwise warrant it.

Take for example indentured servitude, or third world sweat shops. Sure, working for $0.28 a day in a (dangerous, unsanitary) factory is better than subsistence farming. But if this opportunity is enough to feed a family but not enough to lift the family from a condition whereby it can exit from needing to work in the factory, how is this so very different from perpetuated servitude?

Take serfs. While serfs were 'bound to the land', the condition of the serf was voluntary and mutually beneficial: Wikipedia reads "Serfs who occupied a plot of land were required to work for the Lord of the Manor who owned that land, and in return were entitled to protection, justice and the right to exploit certain fields within the manor to maintain their own subsistence."

Certainly it was a better deal for the serf to labor underneath a lord than live in the wild - especially since all fertile lands had already been captured by lords. And indeed, you see the language and argumentation during the time period repeat a variant of your argument: both the serf and the lord benefit from the situation and therefore it is good. Similarly, whites made similar arguments about black slavery throughout the history of American slave trade.

But a situation where both parties have no benefit by changing their 'local' stratety by small amounts represents a local Nash-like equilibria at the best - and not anything one could argue is a 'global' optimum. And in fact, if one truly buys that markets are meritocratic, one should be willing to subsidize the equality of opportunity so that as many people start off on an even footing as possible.

In sum this is to say that, like Braess's Paradox, locally rational decisions lead to local but not global maxima - whose gaps can be seen to be gigantic from history. When we discuss opportunities for labor, wealth and quality of life, this becomes an ethics question.

It is not so clear, at least to me, that the principle of trade (especially given its other major problems not covered here) should be prioritized over ethical considerations. Quandaries like this do lead us to ask what sorts of wages and opportunities are 'fair'.

<comment><USER6> The idea of mobility is a warping of the term 'fair'. It assumes the existence of a system in which people are poor and rich, it's a priori unfair, regardless of whether movements are possible.

I am (was...) working class. I had the 'merit' to rise.

Do you understand what that means?

It means that completely randomly I was blessed with a talent. I also put a bit of work in (the willpower to do so is arguably a talent in itself).

So I win (in a limited sense. I'm not really well off, just relatively). And my schoolfriends do not.

How is that 'fair'? How does that concept of merit make any sense at all? It may result in more efficient allocation of resources, but only within the current system that ensures most people have restricted autonomy. In a reasonable world the difference between a lower and higher paying job would be toys, not serfdom vs. fu money.

The issue is not individual decisions of how to allocate capital, about wages being 'low' or 'high'.

The issue is wealth and ownership and the huge differentials. Especially on basic necessities. Ownership is useful and probably something we desire, but the ability for groups to monopolise/oligopolise the necessities of life (e.g. land) and then use force to defend them against people who need them is broken.

Worker lives in a flat, landlord owns the flat, the landlord owns a fraction of the workers' labour. Why should they need supernormal amounts of merit in order to escape that situation? Why should they need to be above average in order to live the life they already do but with the exploitation removed? It makes no sense.

<comment><USER8> I think we're trying to say the same thing. I am not suggesting that anyone should need supernormal amounts of merit to escape their condition.

<comment><USER6> Probably.

I think what frustrates me is the idea of there even being a 'condition'.

It sort of makes sense globally. But in Western countries we can house everyone by just shuffling wealth about a bit, literally just writing words on paper. But we don't. To the rich money is a video game, to the poor it is a ball and chain...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Kind of off-topic, but recently there was a front-page post here on Vietnamese-Americans' dominance of the nail salon industry, which is what I think of when I think of the manicure business, too. Though come to think of it, in New York, I rarely saw any Vietnamese-owned salons:

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32544343](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32544343)

<comment><USER10> Probably depends on which coast youre in. West coast and California is probably Vietnamese and east coast and new York is Korean.

<comment><USER11> Around D.C. it's a mix (same with Barbers)

It helps to have the 3rd highest concentration of Koreans in the U.S. and a large Vietnamese population in Northern Virginia. Go down one street and there's nothing but Vietnamese nail and hair businesses. Go down another and you'll find Koreans.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've done below-minimum-wage jobs, and I'm grateful for them, as someone who just didn't know what all the helps are (or not qualified to get help, like those illegal immigrants), where to find jobs and what are available. Those jobs prevented me from starving, gave me confidence, and eventually lead to better paying jobs.

Although it would suck if I were illegal immigrant and got stuck on one of those jobs, which this article seems to hint. We need to figure out a way to treat illegal immigrants as normal human beings instead of forcing them into urban equivalent of subsistence farming.

Maybe not quite handing out citizenship freely like some of the troubled European countries, but there should be opportunities and hopes to get out of survival mode if they worked hard for it.

</comment><comment><USER13> The worst thing has to be the fumes. Anytime I walk by a nail salon, I hold my breath. I can't imagine being in one all day, every day.

<comment><USER14> I was just in a Costco tire center. Man those guys at the cash register in the big room with tires are breathing in some nasty smell all day.

<comment><USER15> Sorry, but you're wrong :) The smell of tire shops is awesome.

(But then again, I also like the smell of poorly-maintained diesel engine exhaust.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Somehow I was expecting to read about artisanal fasteners disrupting the industry. I suppose the actual article makes more sense.

</comment><comment><USER14> While I agree about the exploitation and breaking laws is bad, every single one of us in US is guilty of benefiting from slave labor.

The article got me thinking and I did some searching. A worker in Chinese factory assembling $700 iphone makes about $500 a month salary. No tips. Working 60 hours a week.

<comment><USER17> The dollar amount doesn't matter. What matters is if that income is sufficient to lead a decent life (shelter, food, leisure time, keeping children in education). Unless you know that, you can't comment on their salary.

If hey he Chinese person is happy with their job, and you're happy with your iPhone, no real harm is being done.

By putting a fantastic piece of hardware in your hand, at a pretty reasonable price, it allows you to be more productive, thus leaving you with more to spend on other purchases. It also enables an entire ecosystem, allowing other people to be productive, and so on.

All these things are infinitely better than the Chinese worker not having that job, and you not having an iPhone.

<comment><USER14> "All these things are infinitely better than the Chinese worker not having that job, and you not having an iPhone."

And all these manicurists would be doing something far worse working as nail- techs.

And the Chinese person is not happy. There were tons of articles about suicides among the workers. I'm sure you read those?

And the lower/middle class ladies paying $20 instead of $100 for a nail treatment has $80 to spend in the expensive city called NYC.

So we agree going after the nail shops is frivilous?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Well researched and typed article. This is a little tangential, and maybe I'm just now noticing it, but as of late the New York Times seems to have drastically shifted where it's journalistic effort is going. I've always been heavily influenced by Aaron Swartz thoughts on news[0], but as of late the NYT has been directly countering the primary complaint of Aaron, that "none of these stories have relevance to my life". While I don't get my nails done, there have been a significant amount of stories lately that I can directly relate to that have been front[1][2] and center[3][4] of the NYT, and HN.

I've never been that big of a fan of the NYT to be honest, but it really seems that the NYT has made (at least a digital) shift away from scare tactics, and un-relatable news. The first thing I thought of is that this was driven by a campaign or organization (an attempt to saturate HN with NYT articles) but outside of a few regular posters in the last month, it doesn't seem too irregular[5]. However, it is odd that the _whoishiring account (I know it's not official), posted one.

Outside of the conspiracy theories, what I do like about the articles is the long form dedication to researching a topic, visualizing some interesting portions of it, relating it to the reader, and making sure it's interesting and meaningful. This article in particular make me look at nail solons, which I drive past everyday, in a very different light.

[0] [http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews](http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/hatethenews)

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/business/dealbook/bitcoin-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/08/business/dealbook/bitcoin- exchange-receives-first-license-in-new-york-state.html)

[2] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/business/owner-of- gravity-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/14/business/owner-of-gravity- payments-a-credit-card-processor-is-setting-a-new-minimum- wage-70000-a-year.html)

[3] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/want-a-steady- inc...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/magazine/want-a-steady-income- theres-an-app-for-that.html)

[4] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/business/dealbook/ex- goldm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/business/dealbook/ex-goldman- programmer-found-guilty.html)

[5] [http://pastebin.com/j7m8MD5r](http://pastebin.com/j7m8MD5r)

<comment><USER19> In this particular case it's a privilege that this article has no direct relevance to your (or my) life and it's good to be reminded of that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've never seen an article offered in English, Korean, Chinese and Spanish all at once. Is this more common than I know or does the Times just think this is a really important piece?

<comment><USER19> The idea is to include the very people who's exploitation the article describes in the conversation.

<comment><USER20> That's more or less what I thought as well, but I've never seen them do that before, even for other articles about non-English-speaking ethnic populations. The fact that translators were already involved in so much of the reporting process[0] might have something to do with it, though.

[0] [http://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/05/07/something- ro...](http://www.nytimes.com/times-insider/2015/05/07/something-rotten-in- the-state-of-nail-salons/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I read the whole article and didn't see any figures on how much they make in tips - only that tips were "meager" and "frequently skimmed".

Given that these women aren't doing this for love, I have to imagine that having a steady clientele allows them to beat minimum wage. But the article makes it hard to tell.

<comment><USER22> My impression from the article was that they only matched or beat minimum during sandal season. Didn't see any figures though. Still pretty bad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is a huge misunderstanding of economics in this article.

Companies can not and will not pay more than the market wage. Nor should they. It is the governments responsibility to make up the difference between the market wage, and a living wage, not the companies.

There a numerous benefits to doing it this way. A negative income tax.

<comment><USER2> A market wage can only be set if there is equal negotiating possible between employee and employer.

In the case of a power asymmetry, it is up to the government to bring the power back into balance.

Granted the reason for the power imbalance is government interference with the free market to begin with, immigration laws give the employer power over the employee that would be absent without the fear of deportation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I thought this was like construction nails before I clicked, which is actually an equally interesting topic according to my friend who owns a contract business. Apparently it has been harder to guaranteed high quality nails in recent decades as a result of cheap manufacturing abroad.

</comment><comment><USER25> The fact that most of these businesses are owned by immigrants and staffed by even more recent immigrants is a major factor in how they can operate so blatantly in defiance of the laws.

The article mentions in passing that the Labor Department has a severe shortage of investigators who can speak the languages the manicurists speak (mostly Korean and Chinese -- they have more people who can speak Spanish). But even if they could, what would they find out?

Every major Western city has at least one Korean-run website with an informal classified section (usually just a forum), where employers proudly announce below-minimum wages as if they were doing a great favor to the hapless kids who end up working for them. Ditto for the Chinese, and I'm sure other immigrant communities have them, too. Why aren't people reporting these ads to the Labor Department and/or IRS? Yeah, those posts aren't in English, but nothing a few minutes of Google Translate can't fix.

It's because immigrant kids really have nowhere else to work, with their abysmal English skills and zero knowledge of the American job market. Many of them are international students who are at risk of deportation if the authorities find out that they've been working. A friend or relative probably introduced them to the nail salon, so if they ever betray their employer, the friend or relative will be very disappointed and they'll have a hard time finding another job through that channel ever again.

Moreover, insular communities like Koreatown don't look kindly upon "traitors". Even though Korea itself has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, most Korean communities in large Westerm cities are stuck with the mentality that early immigrants brought with them 50 years ago. That means the employer is doing you a totally undeserved favor by offering to hire you for $3.50/hr, no pay for the first 3 months, and oh, you gotta return the favor by paying your employer a $100 fee when you start. It's seriously backward. It would be difficult to get away with shenanigans like that in Seoul. But in LA, in NYC, nobody questions it. And if you do, good luck walking around Koreatown with a straight face ever again. Your parents will be ashamed of you, etc. etc.

Still, there's some good news. Younger Koreans no longer give a shit about what their parents think an ideal employer-employee relationship should look like, and they can often just go back to Korea if they aren't happy with life in America. The Chinese are still suffering massively, as the article describes at length, because they don't have that luxury. But if an abusive Korean business owner ever hires a non-immigrant kid, which they increasingly do because so many American youngsters are out of jobs these days, that's a ticking time bomb to a massive lawsuit.

The article mentions a Korean nail salon owner who finally got sued and was ordered to pay $474K. A few weeks ago, a Korean restaurant owner in NYC was ordered to pay $2.6M to his abused and overworked employees. More of this needs to happen, and more of it _will_ happen. It's about time the Korean immigrant community stopped giving a bad reputation to Korea.

</comment><comment><USER26> Is it implied that everybody able to read this article has an adblocker installed?

As I try to scroll through it, the page forcefully takes me back to be at eye level with one of several video streaming ads at various heights, making reading the entire article essentially impossible.</comment>


Lithium batteries: Difference Engine: An innovation too far? - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2013/01/lithium-batteries <comment><AUTHOR> I don't understand the quote "Riskiest of all, it ditched the conventional hydraulic systems used for actuating a plane's moving parts, and replaced them with electrical controls." This isn't true at all. It has hydraulics and the only difference is one of the lines (center) uses electrical hydraulic pumps. Makes you wonder about the article..</comment>


Albertus and the Prisoner - <AUTHOR> http://www.wemadethis.co.uk/blog/2015/02/albertus-and-the-prisoner/

<comment><USER2> When I read the first couple of sentences I was going to mock the article. I remember the visual elements from the Prisoner but I more remember the costumes, the sets, and the large condom beach balls.

But then I looked at the pictures in the article and I'm convinced. The fonts tied into the visual style of the show. Maybe not to the extent of the rest of the filmography, but the consistency was a nice touch.

</comment><comment><USER3> That styling is wonderful, and not just the typography. From the pictures in the article it looks quite consistent, too. I never knew of its existence, have to go look for downloadable episodes.

</comment><comment><USER4> Wat? Oh, Font nerding. Neat!

</comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for introducing me to this great show!</comment>


Talking Point: The Time Is Right for a Nintendo Phone - <AUTHOR> http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2014/12/talking_point_the_time_is_right_for_a_nintendo_phone

<comment><USER2> Just imagine dialing that 16 digits friend code to give your friend a quick call to invite them out for lunch!</comment>


Defcon-20 DVD mirror - <AUTHOR> https://www.dropbox.com/s/o7qtlggld3402oa/defcon-20-dvd-original.iso

<comment><USER2> Why mirror it? The first-party link still works fine. <https://media.defcon.org/dc-20/defcon-20-dvd-original.rar>

<comment><USER3> I'm getting capped at ~25mbits from defcon's site. I'll post a 1gbit mirror once I finish downloading.

Edit: Defcon's download is down to 3mbit or so.

<comment><USER4> Can you please make bitorrent mirror. It would benefit us all.

<comment><USER3> [http://img.uncod.in/img/04FE90016AE14424AA842974502E701E.tor...](http://img.uncod.in/img/04FE90016AE14424AA842974502E701E.torrent)

<comment><USER2> Upvote here for visibility <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4397245>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you'd like to see what it contains without the 4GB download, I've mirrored the contents: <http://mirror.die.net/misc/defcon-20/>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've made a dropbox account: email@example.com / password, and shared a folder containing the ISO from my Dropbox account.

Use a desktop Dropbox client to connect.

Let me know if this works?

<comment><AUTHOR> If not, try logging in via Dropbox's web interface and download from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> uncoder0 made a torrent, upvote here for visibility <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4397245>

</comment><comment><USER6> Overloaded and shut down. Description please?

<comment><USER7> Looks like it might be a DVD of the Defcon 20 conference?

<https://media.defcon.org/></comment></comment>