American Democracy Is Drowning in Money - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/opinion/democracy-drowning-cash.html <comment><USER2> I am actually amazed at how little money is needed to influence politicians.

Lobbying exists because the return on investment is ridiculously high in favor of person asking for favorable treatment from politicians in policy making. It is peanuts invested and Boeing 747s harvested.

If anything the cost of buying a politician should increase multiple orders of magnitude. Currently hundred, two hundred thousands to a senator's re-election campaign can buy really serious attention to your concerns. It needs to be hundreds of millions to buy a senator.

Politicians should start Patreon campaigns to get livable wages from supporters and then just execute on what they stand for. Bernie and Trump was essentially that, self/people funded efforts.

<comment><USER3> You just need to increase the number of representatives multiple orders of magnitude. Imagine if we had 10000+ congressmen, it would much much harder to buy influence or lobby. The votes would eventually start to resemble the will of the people.

Bernie and Trump were just the beginning, the internet has allowed the people to wake up and field their own candidates instead of just taking what the political old guard give us.

<comment><USER4> Might as well do away with the position of president too. That's way too much power in the hands of a single person who, as donald regularly demonstrates, could act arbitrarily.

<comment><USER2> Actually presidential election is only time where special interests can't tip the scale easily. Right now that's the only change where people get their say.

Just 1/3rd of senators get elected every two years and only handful among those races are balanced where special interest can tip scales with little effort. Same for congressional elections, few places with 50/50 spread where money can easily gain influence.

Presidential election is too big, at the exact same time, for money to wield influence. I for one am glad that we have presidential elections, people have some voice, at least.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If it costs millions of dollars to be a viable candidate, is it still accurate to call it "democracy"?

<comment><USER6> It is some consolation that campaign money does not directly correlate with success.

The Jeb Bush campaign spent roughly 130 megadollars on the primaries alone. The Donald Trump campaign spent less than 280 megadollars from primary to president; where the Hillary Clinton campaign spent about 1.2 gigadollars (along with huge amounts of spending outside the direct purview of the campaign) and lost fair and square.

<comment><USER7> > lost fair and square.

Depends on your viewpoint of the Electoral College vs Popular Vote of course.

In any case, its clear that Mr. Trump won with less money spent. Bernie Sanders is similarly a candidate who famously spent less money that Ms. Clinton but also had a chance.

The main issue is that these candidates (Trump and Sanders) were far more willing to participate in reality-distortion-field politiking, which is something that the mainstream candidates did not do as much. But that's a different debate... I would definitely argue that money has a role in politics, but it isn't as strong as most people think it is.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's reasonable to call winning via the only electoral system we've ever had not "fair and square."

<comment><USER7> But the design of the electoral college was to deadlock the states and provide Representatives in the US Congress the final say in the matter. In effect, our country's founders were AGAINST the founding of political parties, in part because they knew it'd break the system that they worked so hard to set up.

Alas, not all plans work out. Our current system is an accident, created in the ignorance / naivete of political parties with little thought or design put into the real operational use.

The only thing that DOES work is that our constitution can (and regularly does) change when everyone is convinced that our rules and regulations are in need of an update. And more and more people are beginning to think that this whole "Electoral College" crap is stupid.

<comment><USER9> Sounds like the problem is with having political parties, not the EC.

<comment><USER7> It seems far more likely that we design our system to actually work with Political Parties (instead of being corrupted by Political parties), rather than trying to ban political parties.

Tribalism, Cheerleading, Echo-chambers, "Fake News", Yellow Journalism, Propaganda... these are facts-of-life in America and no amount of legal writing will prevent humans from being humans. We will always separate ourselves into camps during political decisions.

Its a bad thing for our democracy because our system wasn't designed for it. But alternative voting mechanisms or improved systems can allow us to make progress in spite of the corrupting influence of human nature.

What have we learned in the past 250ish years of this country? And what can we do with that knowledge to improve our country? In general, this country learns to harness human nature, instead of trying to defeat it.

When you try and defeat human nature (say: Amendment 18), you are only met with failure.

<comment><USER2> >can allow us to make progress

As long as there is healthy debate on what is progress, I am all for it. No suppression of free speech.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Singapore model. Market wages for the best talent (millions+). Huge penalties for corruption.

</comment><comment><USER11> TL;DR: democracy is being replaced with plutocracy and legalized corruption.

<comment><USER12> Yes, more or less, but ...

> Today, commentators in Europe often describe the American way as "legalized > corruption."

... and ...

> But is it corruption?

Well, maybe not, except that people get elected who further the interests of the affluent:

> This perception is borne out by research from Martin Gilens, a politics > professor at Princeton University, which shows that American economic > policies over the last 40 years "strongly reflect the preferences of the > most affluent, but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor > or middle-income Americans."

So yes, plutocracy comes close. Or kleptocracy.

But democracy? Not really. Just the illusion of democracy.

Wait, you may say, Trump got elected, as an outsider. Well, outsider or not, he threw a ton of money at the sucker. And his people brought in Cambridge Analytics, and manipulated the disaffected. But he's really favoring interests of the affluent. It's the standard Republican thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From the article:

"Of course, it takes more than money to win elections. In both the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, the candidates who spent the most money lost."

<comment><USER14> It's generally true for all legislative seats, except ones where the incumbent is running. (For seats where the incumbent is running, the win is strongly biased due to name recognition and the perception of job experience and, and thus that in and of itself attracts money). Perhaps if we were serious about ending political corruption, we would institute term limits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> In 2016, US GDP was over 16 trillion dollars. Spending approx 0.033% of GDP every 4 years (~6bn per the article) in a Presidential election doesnt seem all that unreasonable to govern such a large economy.

[edited since i had my original order of magnitude too low!]

<comment><USER16> The president doesn't govern the economy...

<comment><USER15> He or she, along with Congress (whose elections are included in these numbers), are directly responsible for the policies that impact trade, deficits, employeer/employee relations, etc. All of which are instrumental in how our economy functions. They may not "govern," but they have immense influence.

<comment><USER16> I apologize. Should have said "the president shouldn't govern the economy." You are right, the president does have immense control and influence over the economy. "what is your vision for the economy?" is an easy to imagine debate question.

When the president or politicians in general have so much power over the economy, can we be surprised when people value influencing that process as much as they do?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > "The corruption in the U.S. does not stem from officeholders putting money > in their pocket," he said. "This is systemic corruption of the process > itself. When you are dealing with billions and billions of dollars, much of > that focused on buying influence, it overwhelms the system, and it is much > harder to defend against and maintain representation for ordinary > Americans."

In other words, if you accuse someone of taking a bribe, you had better be able to back it up. If you hand-wave about "systemic corruption," no proof is necessary.

<comment><USER18> > If you hand-wave about "systemic corruption," no proof is necessary.

This has been looked at. It looks like government lobbying has a 400x return on investment. If these corporations weren't benefiting from all they spend, they wouldn't spend it.

[1] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-donius/goldmans-great- ret...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-donius/goldmans-great-return- on_b_549900.html)

<comment><USER19> Should politicians pass legislation negatively impacting the ability to do business and be completely insulated from feedback?

<comment><USER18> Should politicians maintain legislation that prioritizes corporate profits over quality of life for its citizens?

<comment><USER20> In the end, who are the Politicians representing? When the interests of the multinational corporation come in conflict with the interests of the general public, who wins? In a market economy the one with the money wins, should the same be true of the government representation too?

Ultimately, markets have a built in bias towards the top. In a theoretical perfectly functioning market the money will accumulate at the top until one person controls all of the money, at which point the economy completely collapses. Despite this flaw, markets are still the most efficient way to allocate resources and grow the economy. So the best solution we've found so far is to have the Government act as a backstop, draining money from the top and feeding it back into the bottom so the market doesn't collapse itself. Unfortunately, governments sometimes forget that and their economies suffer.

Plus, despite what many economists may think, money isn't everything. Money is only a means to and end, where efficient distribution of resources provides the greatest overall happiness in the population. A system where half of the population is abjectly poor and 0.01% are so rich they have no idea what to do with their money except to use it to make more money has failed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> solution: Make the political system have less influence in our lives. Make politicians less valuable to purchase

<comment><USER21> I can't figure out why this attitude is so prevalent among techies. Imagine if we gave up on computers because there was a bug!

<comment><USER16> Far from an appropriate analogy. More like, spilling coffee on my keyboard makes it work like shit. Better fix it by pouring more coffee on it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Bernie _almost_ ran a good grass roots campaign in 2016. (Funded by $27 donations). But of course Big-Bucks Clinton controlled the DNC and cheated that race.

Trump actually spent less than his competitors and managed to win both the primary and the election. It wasn't a budget campaign, but he did seem to get good bang for his spent dollars.

</comment><comment><USER23> The thinking is wrong I believe.

Our current world system and world view has long overcome it's peak. There is not much to gain, and the whole system slowly breaks and falls apart. That means there are not many true opportunities to grow value anymore. And the old profit and safety providers are getting rarer and rarer. For instance putting your money on the bank or buying index funds is no guarantee for safety anymore.

In that time of decline of course people pay more and more to get the same level of safety, which really becomes more valuable by becoming rare, and also becoming more pricey by the money having less internal value.

What is money worth if the amount of islands to stay on gets smaller and nobody being willing to trade his island for a few slices of paper?

<comment><USER24> What are you even talking about?

> _there are not many true opportunities to grow value anymore_

There are more opportunities than ever in human history. The knowledge and data are extremely accessible. The amount of spare money people have is near all-time-high. You can literally become a multimillionare without leaving your basement, simply by pressing keys on your keyboard.

> _buying index funds is no guarantee for safety anymore_

It never was. There's never a guarantee, your bank can go bankrupt, so can FDIC. But it's still one of the safest ways to invest.

Your investment options are extremely diverse as well. Only 50 years ago you had to call your broker to buy a stock. Now you can do that with a few mouseclicks. You can invest into foreign markets, cryptocurrencies, ICOs, you name it.

<comment><USER23> You think that because you read it in blogs and don't have the experience yet to see which of these articles are bullshit.

It's not true though. The reason it seems that way is because the human species is so rich, that you can make a good living for 2-3 more generations by screwing other humans over. And if you're not one of the screwers the blog article you read is certainly tailored to screw you.

Maybe if space flight becomes more available, but here on this planet all of value is already controlled by someone. And they don't intend to share it with you.

Without growth there is no stability in society, exactly because people need to screw each other to stay floating. So the system is on a downturn. And you can be sure that no matter what we find next to exploit, it will require another system to stabilize on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Democracy is a very silly way to do anything. How many people in your town or city do you think could give you seriously valuable political advice? Think of the most effective companies in the world: Are they democracies internally?

(No. They have a board of directors who appoint a CEO-person with wide latitude and therefore real political will to implement improvements. Shareholders watch or they can revolt, but not much else. Thankfully.)

If you want to do democracy, the best way to do it would be as bottom-up. The more distributed things are, the harder it is for money to make a mark.

The best democracy would be one where people care fiercely who their local politicians are, and are more or less disinterested in who the president might be.

<comment><USER26> I would take it a step further... Why should it be hard for money to make a mark? Why should the voice of someone who sacrifices little or who has no or next to no "skin in the game" be considered equivalent to the voice of someone who is willing to sacrifice real, tangible resources?

In modern corporations, there is a distinction between those who have stake in the future of the firm (shareholders), those who are trusted to act on their behalf (board, executives, and employees to a lesser extent), and those who receive services from the firm in exchange for revenues (clients and customers).

Customers do not make managerial and strategic decisions for the firm, and for good reasons. Indeed, does anyone really care exactly who is running walmart or amazon or apple so long as their products and services provide value? Why do people tend to see governments, essentially massive corporations, as inhabiting such a different realm, expecting them to follow entirely different laws of human behavior?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Right now I think things like the current debt based economy is a bigger problem than campaign donations at this point.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Our democracy is drowning in money" can also be branded, "Our democracy is drowning in speech."

<comment><USER28> The money is speech legal argument never made sense to me. The thing about speech is that no one has more of it than anyone else.

<comment><USER19> Then let's shut down CNN and all the newspapers.

<comment><USER29> While it is true pretty much every major TV network and newspaper exists solely based on state bias and special privilege to get them where they are now, you aren't mandated to consume any of them. At least with the Internet speech is as restricted as you want to let it be - at least until Ajit Pai gets his way.

The millions who like being misled by mainstream big money media are doing it wilfully at least. They believe what they want to believe. The only problem I see is how many of them have never been presented with an objective choice between being rational and skeptical versus blind trust of major brands that were pressed upon them from youth.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> > In fact, the United States performed well on Transparency International's > 176-country Corruption Perceptions Index from last year, ranking 18th, > behind Denmark (1st) and Germany (10th), but ahead of France (23rd) and > Russia (131st).

This is no wonder, the index is only about perception. In richer countries like Germany corruption in high politics and big companies is rarely seen by the population as corruption.

</comment><comment><USER31> Pay politicians multi-million dollar salaries like they do in Singapore and you'll get top talent that doesn't need to be bribed and can focus on their actual jobs instead of pleasing lobbyists.

<comment><USER32> Seconded. It infuriates me when people get enraged about lobbyists, but also whine about representatives being payed too much. The only thing that seems to make those folks happy is if the person is independently wealthy (see Trump).

<comment><USER33> Considering the tendency for politicians to be drawn to money and become millionaires while in office through various means, I'm not at all convinced that large salaries would cause them to turn away people handing them more money.

<comment><USER31> You'd get different people drawn to politics if it looked like a move up the career ladder. With the salaries beinf pathetically low, only those who have low enough morals to make it work via corruption are the only ones who will participate in it long term. Singapore has one of the least corrupt governments on earth according to Transparency International.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Tell me again, why do we use voting instead of polling?

[http://magarshak.com/blog/?tag=polling](http://magarshak.com/blog/?tag=polling)

Voting is susceptible to many things, including voter turnout and gerrymandering.

Polling can be strictly better, and in fact it is what statisticians use who actually figure out what the population as a whole thinks.

<comment><USER3> Sortition takes this even farther. Imagine if the entire congress was drawn at random.

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Seriously? No mention of how Barack Obama rejected public funding in 2008 and singlehandedly opened the floodgates on campaign spending? [1] The fact that this isn't directly mentioned anywhere in the article speaks to how far the credibility of the NYT has fallen. [2]

[1]: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9595714...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95957148)

[2]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/us/politics/20obamacnd.htm...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/20/us/politics/20obamacnd.html)

        ----

edit: for a visual on how unprecedented his 2008 spending was, see charts here: [http://metrocosm.com/2016-election- spending/](http://metrocosm.com/2016-election-spending/)

Note the stability in spending starting in 1976 when public funding was introduced.

<comment><USER36> Because he wasn't the first: [http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/16/us/bush- forgoes-federal-fu...](http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/16/us/bush-forgoes- federal-funds-and-has-no-spending-limit.html)

<comment><USER35> That's just talking about funding for primaries, and Bush wasn't the first in that regard.

Barack Obama was the first candidate to reject public funding for the _general election_ , and the spending limits that come with it, since the program was introduced in 1976.

See here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campaign_finance_in_the_United_States#Public_financing_of_presidential_campaigns)</comment></comment></comment>


Stripe Connect - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/connect

<comment><USER2> It's almost impossible to overstate the disruption Stripe is causing, and this is taking it to a whole other level.

We have an app (<http://tulasoftware.com>) that yoga studios use to run their business and we're able to compete with some very well funded companies in no small part because of our Stripe integration.

We've been guiding people through the stripe account creation process though, and having them manually enter their API keys. This basically eliminates the need for any manual intervention at all.

So awesome.

<comment><USER3> I'm interested to hear how you guys are doing the integration? (Integration meaning your users create Stripe accounts). Do you guys direct them to Stripe.com and offer instructions on how to do it?

<comment><USER2> Yeah, right now we essentially say 'hey, go get a stripe account, then come back and give us your api keys'. We give them some video tutorials along the way to explain what an API key is, how it works, and how to set up the integration.

It's relatively smooth, but definitely not as smooth as this new feature allows for.

<comment><USER4> I'm very impressed that works for Yoga studio owners. Do you have anyone balk at the requirements for this such as the bank account?

<comment><USER2> Not really. Most of them understand that in order for them to get their deposits they need to provide their bank account info.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Since the other submission seems to have disappeared, here's the associated blog post:

<https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-connect>

</comment><comment><USER6> This is a great feature, but before I start sending my clients to Stripe to create an account, they need to build a portal designed for that kind of user. "Payments for Developers" doesn't sound right to them.

<comment><USER7> <https://stripe.com/docs/connect#payments-flow> \- The screenshots on this page are what your clients would see if you told them to create an account with Stripe.

<comment><USER6> That's pretty cool, I didn't know that, but it isn't going to be enough. Would you sign up for a site that needs your bank routing number simply based on a small dialog?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When is Stripe coming to Liechtenstein? Really, what's the hold up?

<comment><USER9> I cant tell if this was a joke or not... EVERY SINGLE post about stripe, the first comment is always "When is stripe coming to X country".

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm recently converted to Stripe Connect for <http://www.buyplaytix.com> and I LOVE it. So far I haven't had a single ticket seller complain about having to switch over to it, and not one support request.

</comment><comment><USER11> We've been using this for awhile for Zenbox, and it's been such a pleasure. The implementation was straightforward, and it instantly made Stripe the easiest integration for our users. We've since pushed every one of our providers for OAuth as it's just _so_ much nicer from a user's perspective.

Well done to Stripe for such experience-focused feature releases.

</comment><comment><USER12> Dear Stripe, please come to Europe and take my money.

<comment><USER13> Same for Asia. I'm reckon the revenue generated by expanding their services overseas would be well worth the additional headache.

Can anyone more knowledgeable (who knows about this industry or finance) enlighten me regarding what could be the possible reasons that may be stopping this company from doing so despite all this demand?

<comment><USER14> I would assume that Stripe would like to be in every locale and demand has nothing to do with it, they are just having to make sure they're fully compliant in each major area of the world they want to enter. That is probably a very large obstacle to overcome.

<comment><USER15> Stripe already works everywhere for customers, so it's compliant, right? I.e. Stripe can accept credit card payments from everywhere. The current problem is setting up payments for businesses. Could someone explain why the recipient country matters?

Startup idea: Set up US based company that redirects money to countries outside USA.

<comment><USER16> If you want to create a marketplace. your user has to be in the U.S. in order for them to get paid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Any idea if or when we'd be able to white label the account creation process and/or use the API to register users?

I know it's a bit of a leap to get someone willing to sign up for my service just to have to say "okay, now you just need to sign up for this _other_ service you've never heard of..."

<comment><USER18> We're currently thinking about this, but no concrete plans or timeline yet -- sorry!

We've tried to make it as seamless as possible for your users to create an account; it's baked right into the authentication flow instead of having them separately register. Hopefully that helps, would love to hear your thoughts here (email@example.com).

<https://stripe.com/docs/connect#payments-flow>

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the response, Amber. This is definitely the best alternative to just saying "I need you to create a Stripe account, come back when you've done it."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Whenever I see stripe use oauth in a new product I get excited thinking that they're offering OAuth to buyers. I would love to see a service that serves OAuth with integrated recurring payments. Think DailyCred but with monthly paid plans for users.

<comment><USER20> It's on our roadmap. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Please Stripe, hear me: micropayment support.

<comment><USER22> It pains me to watch all these awesome features rolling out but knowing that the pricing is keeping me from signing up. The app I'm building will allow sellers to charge ~$1 for items, and with the 30¢ + 2.9%, Stripe's fees take up a third of the revenue. Hard to convince sellers to use a platform that takes that much.

AWS and PayPal seem like the only viable options for us, at this point, but I anxiously await the day that Stripe rolls out a micropayment pricing tier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Payments to users is a HUGE deal for lots of services. Really happy to see that.

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a game changer to me. Everyone has always been really gungho on systems to get paid, but there is relatively little activity around paying people or facilitating others getting paid. Really only Paypal, Wepay, and Poundpay/Balanced are in this space so it's much wider open to better players than the getting paid side of things.

</comment><comment><USER25> We've been exercising this API for a couple weeks at DigMyData. So far so good. Right now the API event history only goes back 30 days so we're having to "create history" so we can offer some metrics that need events (like cancellations). Keep up the great work Stripe.

</comment><comment><USER26> It seems as though Kickstarter should be using this. They currently charge up to 10% for successfully funded projects. Their rationale is they use Amazon Payments to process transactions. Amazon charges 3-5% on top of Kickstarter's cut of 5%. If Stripe charges 2.9% + $.30 that still leaves a couple points on the table for either Kickstarter profits or to lower the fee for creators. [http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics#Wha...](http://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics#WhatAreTheFees)

<comment><USER27> Amazon's rates are actually pretty much the same: <https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/about?nodeId=6022>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I implemented stripe connect on <https://donat.io> and it is awesome! The webhooks are great and the ouath flow is super simple too.

Loving it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I love Stripe. Really I do. But until I can accept users from around the world, it seems pretty pointless to use it for a marketplace.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is awesome and I've already been building an MVP based on Stripe connect. Hoping to launch it this week.

FYI, for Rails developers, there's a nice Omniauth/Stripe strategy: <https://github.com/isaacsanders/omniauth-stripe-platform>

<comment><USER30> Btw, this has since been changed to: <https://github.com/isaacsanders/omniauth-stripe-connect>

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> How many end users _know_ they have a Stripe account? Actually, do any end users currently have a Stripe account?

<comment><USER32> Sorry, I'm not exactly sure what you mean, but in case it helps to clarify: Stripe Connect is for sellers, not buyers.

<comment><USER31> Right, so let's say I run a marketplace for video games and such. Back in the day, we used PayPal MassPay to send payments to our sellers. That required the sellers to have PayPal accounts to sell on our platform, which almost all of them had already. Seems like for Stripe Connect to work, our sellers would have to create Stripe accounts.

My understanding until now was that only developers of websites would have a need for a Stripe account, and if I merely purchased something via CC on a Stripe-enabled website, I did not have a Stripe account. So as a marketplace, I have to encourage/demand that my sellers create an account with a third party that they haven't heard of before.

Given that I would want to use Stripe if I were building Dawdle from scratch again, is there a way to have them create a Stripe account without them _knowing_ they're creating a Stripe account?

<comment><USER32> Ah -- so, users can create Stripe accounts during the OAuth flow.

Check out <https://stripe.com/docs/connect#payments-flow>, for example. A logged-in user will see the page on the left, while a new user will see the page on the right.

That make sense?

<comment><USER31> Yup, gotcha - I'd want to customize that page on the right, although maybe that's not possible. (I already know the level of transactions for my accounts on average, but perhaps you need that data for underwriting?)

<comment><USER18> We let you pre-fill certain information (for your user's convenience): [https://stripe.com/docs/connect/reference#get-authorize- requ...](https://stripe.com/docs/connect/reference#get-authorize-request)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not sure why this is "hot news" its been around for awhile. It was known as Stripe Apps before.

</comment><comment><USER34> We are using Stripe for payments, and this new Stripe service would really help us make it easy to pay our affiliates!

</comment><comment><USER35> I love Stripe. First Canada, now this?

</comment><comment><USER36> Love the application fee. Heres to hopping it comes to subscription billing soon!

</comment><comment><USER37> Am I the only one who thinks Stripe might be the most important YC startup ever?

</comment><comment><USER38> What are the fees when transferring between stripe accounts?

<comment><USER39> You can't transfer between Stripe accounts. Charges going through Connect have the same fees as ones not going through connect (namely, 2.9% and $0.30).

If you're using our application_fee parameter to take your own fee out of a transaction, you get the full amount you request. Both that full amount, and the Stripe fee for the charge, are subtracted from the total amount paid to the seller.

To illustrate, a $100 charge with a $1 application fee would end up sending $1 to the application, $3.20 to Stripe, and $95.80 to the seller.

<comment><USER38> This is a huge problem for me. My marketplace was designed to take commissions out of each sale so our application fee is $0. I have to charge the customers who buy the products the full amount, and then a percentage of the sale is disbursed to the seller and our site (the application).

If there are multiple parties involved in referring the sale, I will be charged not one but a multiple of the Stripe fees whenever money is disbursed to appropriate parties involved in one single sale.

Furthermore, because I have to process returns I will not be able to send the payment directly to the seller immediately. The payment would be retained in my account after a period of time before I could transfer it to the sellers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Love this company.

</comment><comment><USER41> Enough already. We all love stripe. Agreed. Lets not upvote just because.</comment>


Google-Verizon Deal: The End of The Internet as We Know It - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-silver/google-verizon-deal-the-e_b_671617.html <comment><USER2> Unsurprisingly Huffington Post has turned sketchy information into a ridiculously emotive argument that one's freedom on the internet is at stake.

Exactly like OSNews did about H.264/VP8. The only thing this article didn't have is a selection of people's opinion from twitter.

<comment><USER3> Please explain to me why his argument is ridiculously emotive and not the likely death-knell of bootstrapping.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Execute teamocil files natively in iTerm (without tmux) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/TomAnthony/itermocil

<comment><USER2> This is absolutely brilliant, thank you so much Tom - I've been wanting exactly this for so long.

Suggestion: Why not get in contact with iTerm and see if you can work together to make it part of the official build?

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome to hear! I thought there must be lots of people who need something like this. I did - hence the build.

I did tweet it to George Nachman so he knows about the project ([https://twitter.com/gnachman/status/629372966879526917](https://twitter.com/gnachman/status/629372966879526917)). I think he is quite busy working on the next big iTerm release, but I've been reporting issues there. Part of what George is working on is far improved Applescript support, allowing for improved addition of these sorts of features. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I built this as I found teamocil files were great, but I wasn't using most of tmux's features and preferred the native UI in iTerm.

Now I use my teamocil files to auto load tabs and panes and pre-populate them with commands, but don't use tmux much at all. :)

Would love to hear from anyone who has any feedback or suggestions for improvements. :)</comment>


ZPAQ: Incremental Journaling Backup Utility and Archiver - <AUTHOR> http://mattmahoney.net/dc/zpaq.html <comment><USER2> If anyone wants to help get a newer version of ZPAQ into Debian - [https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=777123](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=777123)

</comment><comment><USER3> Most important is that the decompression algorithm is stored in each block so that you are able to improve the algorithm without breaking compatibility. Also it allows to always select the best algorithm for the input data and tweak it or even none for random data.

</comment><comment><USER4> surprised to not find attic/borg in those benchmarks. rar, zip and obnam are not exactly known for being fast backup software...

still, quite interesting project!

</comment><comment><USER5> It also deduplicates based on a rolling checksum (similar to rsync). Pretty cool archiver.</comment>


How Many Data Centers Needed World-Wide - <AUTHOR> http://perspectives.mvdirona.com/2017/04/how-many-data-centers-needed-world-wide/ <comment><USER2> Disclaimer: I work on Google Cloud.

This is a great post! One logical nit though is that just because Netflix (and YouTube) have ~1000 edge locations doesn't actually imply that the world needs that many "medium to large data centers" (with large at presumably 30MW).

The number of world-scale massive _bandwidth_ applications is pretty low. There are so many humans, they're only watching so much video, etc. and that's why Netflix and YouTube before them are at your ISP. Online gaming would be another such example, but would again be served by the minimal number for _latency_ not bandwidth (this depends on your opinion of the relative popularity of gaming versus media consumption).

The regulatory / data locality angle is more likely to be the main driver for needing more data centers beyond the latency requirements. Otherwise, most customers just don't have the bandwidth requirements to necessitate a large facility.

Again, Disclosure: I work on Google Cloud.</comment>


Show HN: Learnawesome.org – Open-source learning map for humanity - <AUTHOR> Hello HN,
Over the last 12 months, I have been building https://learnawesome.org
This idea came from Danny Hillis' 2012 talk at OSCON, which itself was inspired from Neal Stepehenson's _The Diamond Age : A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer_
The dream is to build a tool that matches the right learning material to the right student at the right time. Wikipedia is great, but it doesn't do a good job of leveraging the rich variety of learning resources that exist on the Web. Same applies to GoodReads - which is focused only on books, whereas these days we actually learn from videos, articles, MOOCs, tweetstorms, slack/discord groups, podcasts, livestreams, newsletters, online conferences, apps & games, interactive explorables and much more.
For now, I am building it as a social network for lifelong learners. It's open-source, built with Rails + PostgreSQL, and complies with standards like Dublin Core's LRMI extension of schema.org and ActivityPub for integration with Fediverse. A GraphQL API is also available if others want to build alternative clients.
I have made decent progress so far: Imported thousands of courses and book summaries, built a browser extension for quick lookup/addition to the repository, a spaced-repetition based flashcard practice module. Users can even discover learning resources by recommendations ELSEWHERE (for eg: "Show me books on History which are highly recommended by venture capitalists")
I originally started building this as something to help with my daughters' and my own learning. But it made sense to build this as a public good.
It would be great if you can give it a try, and share ideas on what would make it better. <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: [https://learnawesome.org](https://learnawesome.org)

Code repositories for:

\- Web application: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn](https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn) (license is AGPL 3.0)

\- Browser extension: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/webextension](https://github.com/learn-awesome/webextension) It cleverly generates a question/answer pair from a simple text selection from your Web reading: [https://medium.com/learn-awesome/practice-what-you-learn- usi...](https://medium.com/learn-awesome/practice-what-you-learn-using- learnawesome-orgs-flashcards-3343d57a33b0)

\- Reusable flashcard practice widget: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/flashcard](https://github.com/learn-awesome/flashcard) This is built with VueJS and lets anyone create articles with spaced-repetition built-in similar to Andy Matuschak's fantastic posts on Quantum computing.

\- There's even an absolutely rudimentary mobile app on Android built with Flutter: [https://github.com/learn-awesome/mobile- app](https://github.com/learn-awesome/mobile-app) which just makes it easy to look up links or add them to the repository

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the features HN users might like: On a book's page, you will also find links to summaries others have written, or author's podcasts/TED Talks etc - all in one place. Example: [https://learnawesome.org/items/5c731d15-6a53-432e-82e4-a4de9...](https://learnawesome.org/items/5c731d15-6a53-432e-82e4-a4de9fecb2d1-the- first-20-hours)

For this to work, I imported links to summaries from sources like sivers.org, blas.com, fourminutebooks.com, sipreads.com etc. Will need help from users in making this dataset even better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> If knowledge has dependencies on other knowledge, you could represent that (a la package managers). If something's general enough, you could have multiple virtual packages teaching it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, the topic/knowledge taxonomy is an important part of it. There are ideas from ConceptNets to Faceted classification. For now, I have taken a pragmatic call to have maximum two parent topics for every topic node here. This allows me to show the hierarchy here: [https://learnawesome.org/topics](https://learnawesome.org/topics)

This taxonomy design is being discussed here: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn/issues/14](https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn/issues/14)

Feel free to suggest better approaches.

<comment><USER3> Probably not directly applicable to your project but do you know about a project with much more granular skill dependencies? An example are this three skills:

"juggling 3 balls" depends on "juggling 2 balls" depends on "throw 1 ball to your other hand without that hand moving much".

I'm thinking of a big skill tree like Path of Exile: [https://media.esportsedition.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/04/...](https://media.esportsedition.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/04/Path-of-Exile-Skill-Tree.jpg)

<comment><AUTHOR> Check how underlay.org is trying to build a really granular graph of claims and assertions. Building something similar for skills is what LearnAwesome is interested in.

I'm not sure if a "tree" is the right data-structure. See this article called "The Spiral Approach to Thinking & Learning": [https://learnawesome.org/items/1ef5ff78-7c37-4f5d-bbdd-1cd0b...](https://learnawesome.org/items/1ef5ff78-7c37-4f5d-bbdd-1cd0ba40479c-the- spiral-approach-to-thinking-and-learning)

For this spiral approach, I think, for every skill we could have certain levels (beginner/intermediate/advanced/elite) and the dependencies could be to those levels.

<comment><USER4> Frankly, I would _love_ to see _either_ of these ideas (skill dependencies, or spiral approach) implemented in code, in a way where I can look at the materials and see how I'm going to travel through it.

In anything you've linked here, I feel overwhelmed as a student. I get that, in the spiral approach, the starting point isn't so important, but if I don't know where to start, it's much easier for the teacher to pick for me, then for the teacher to tell me, "it doesn't matter where you start, so pick whatever". If the choice really doesn't matter, then don't make students choose.

In this way I think the skill dependencies approach allows the student some visibility into why they might choose one starting point over another.

There's also a problem where students come in with some prior knowledge, so when you're trying to teach them a complex idea, you need to fill in the gaps in their skill prerequisites. It seems like with the spiral approach, you'll get there eventually, and in a class where you can't go through each student and pinpoint the missing prerequisites, the spiral approach seems to make sense--but the negative side effect here is that you're going to be reviewing stuff for a lot of students who already know it. With individual students, this is a complete waste of time, and it's better to test what they know and then fill in gaps. A skill dependency tree might do better at empowering students to test their OWN knowledge and fill in the gaps.

<comment><AUTHOR> GitHub is down currently. But we're discussing the personalization aspect on one of our issues. We want to recommend learning paths which take into account users' background (what they already know), constraints (what formats are best for them) and goals (what do they want to achieve).

Please do join our Slack for these ideas, even if, you can't contribute code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Submitted contents are not editable and there is no way to change the title of the submitted content. And there is also no way to delete what you have submitted. From a UX point of view I think this is very none-intuitive.

(UI-wise it is not bad in general except when you want to select the topic it shows up a dropdown list of 2000 things. Also having fake comments auto- generated makes me feel like this is not a finished product but a POC.)

And not sure how but I ran into Error 500 quite a few times.

Overall I think the idea is great conceptually but as a product it is trying to do too many things at once. If OP intends to scale it up I think it would be nice to focus on fullfiling a particular niche first. Or in Paul Buchheit's words: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy i.e. at least from a product standpoint. Of course as a hobby project I think this is still pretty cool!

Haven't read the source so can't comment too much on the arch and code. I think it has the potential to be further developed into a very powerful CMS for domain-specific knowledge management, or a CRM, etc. B2C-wise as a content-discovery plaftorm I don't see how this is going to work, except becoming a haven for ads which is probably the last thing OP wants. Suppose it does become a social network as OP has intended, when it grows to a certain scale it will run into the same content moderation problem as hn, etc ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806426](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23806426)). On the other hand B2B-wise it may be able to become ramen profitable.

p.s. to OP: can you delete the duplicated entry for me? Thanks. Due to the crashes and the name not showing up properly I submitted my app [https://archy.sh/](https://archy.sh/) with mutiple entries.

<comment><AUTHOR> Edit/Delete rights are given when user's profile score reaches a certain threshold.

Spam will have to be contained. One approach is to show users only those items which have been recommended by users they follow.

Building this as a CMS/CRM is a very interesting idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great to see more efforts to map out knowledge for humanity :)

Life-long learner myself as well, and I built this tool for maintaining and connecting the dots from disparate learning resources online: [https://getrumin.com/](https://getrumin.com/)

</comment><comment><USER7> I used a suggested filter, but changed the topic to something else ("Tribology", randomly picked). There were no results, and I removed filter after filter, but still nothing until I had removed all other filters. In the end, there was just one Tweet.

It would be nice if removing filters was easier and quicker, perhaps even a button to remove all filters but topic.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Created this issue for this fix: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn/issues/184](https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn/issues/184)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> why do i need to login to simply see the syllabus? I'm not opposed to eventually signing up, but forcing me to before i'm sold on the platform seems premature.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fixed this as multiple users pointed it out. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm curious as to how you're developing the matching algorithm or recommendation system between learning material and students? I'm trying to do the same but for socially isolated seniors and programs/resources/interventions. Seems that all the examples online are of cases like Amazon, Netflix, or Pandora.

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks pretty good, but when you call it a map it makes me think that it would make the connections between topics, i.e. show the sequence you need to follow to learn things, what are the pre-requisistes for each topic, etc. I don't see that on learnawesome... or am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> See the discussion on this related issue: [https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn/issues/14](https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn/issues/14)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> UI bug: when you expand a card under topics, if you click a link that was previously hidden, it doesn't take you to what you click, it activates the click event to collapse the card. (example: Programming languages, "and 27 more", click Ruby)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for pointing it out. Filed an issue for this: [https://github.com/learn-awesome/learn/issues/185](https://github.com/learn- awesome/learn/issues/185)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I liked the Digital Garden Setup guide (needs login): [https://learnawesome.org/digitalgardensetup](https://learnawesome.org/digitalgardensetup)

<comment><USER13> Thank You for pointing it out and thank you OP for building the tool. I have been playing around with it for last 10 mins and I love it. Looking forward to using it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Learnawesome has become my goto resource to find useful links.

Thanks for building this!

How do you plan to scale this collection while also ensuring quality and up- to-date content/minus the link-rot?

<comment><AUTHOR> The plan is to leverage the social graph for this. Users can follow each other, and they'd see items which are highly recommended within their network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> > To see this syllabus, please log-in and revisit this page.

Uhhh... no.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, this feedback has come a couple of times. Fixed this now. :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Great job with knowledge graphs. Specially love the programs part. Any plans on adding more programs to it? Can we build our own programs?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, this is where the user community will play a big role.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> so, i changed the default theme on settings, and now i keep getting an Error 500

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, I had just removed the old Bootstrap-based code, but forgot to remove this option. :facepalm: I have reverted the theme for you.</comment></comment>


Why Isn't California Criticized Like Florida on Covid-19? - blinding-streak https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-07-10/why-isn-t-california-criticized-like-florida-on-covid-19 <comment><AUTHOR> I wonder when and if there will ever be room again for objective reporting in the US. In many European countries there is still something resembling that, albeit has gotten worse. I'm familiar with the German model and it comes at a high price. Every household pays a flat fee of around 20-30$ I think.

Even the "independent" news in the US are far from objective reporting.

What has become of the New York Times in recent years is sad to watch. The last couple of weeks just finished up a trend. The entire country is unlearning how to debate, and is descending into tribalism.

</comment><comment><USER2> It's a disgrace honestly and upends narratives...if California's really had excellent handling, and _masks work_ : why are the case numbers rising so much (or rather how does this harmonize with the media narrative)?

<comment><USER3> That would be an excellent question if you had any intention of trying to answer it. As a rhetorical question, not very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Democract v. Republican governor. Duh.</comment>


Ask HN: I am visiting SFO should I rent or use zipcar? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
So I am visiting SFO in few days. Staying in a hotel near union square. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to use ZipCar or Rent a car? I am trying to save some money from expensive parking. The cheapest all day I have seen so far is $25/day for 3 days it's $75 dollars. Assuming I get a really good deal I would pay $200 - $300 for car rental. I am traveling with my baby so having a car is must for me. I saw ZipCar I am not sure about it's hourly rate, while I like the fact I can pick a car from Airport and drop it at any ZipCar parking in city, it makes decision hard for me.
Any ZipCar customers here? Any recommendations? Should I go for Rental or ZipCar when I am staying there for 3 days? <comment><USER2> ZipCar (actually, Uber is probably even better). Parking is absolutely miserable in that part of the city - I've heard that at any given moment, half of the cars in SF are searching for parking. The hotel garages may charge up to $100/night for parking, while the public garages tend to fill up very fast and run about $36/day.

I also wouldn't rule out public transportation. Union Square is right by BART so you can use it & muni for anything in the Market Street/Embarcadero corridor, and BART will take you straight from the airport to the hotel. By the time you find a parking spot it may actually be a longer walk to your hotel than walking from BART would be.

<comment><AUTHOR> Does Uber/Lyft allow infants with carseats?

<comment><USER3> Short answer is yes, long answer: it costs a bit more. [https://help.uber.com/h/3abcbae1-132b-42a9-8277-0dab00fa3879](https://help.uber.com/h/3abcbae1-132b-42a9-8277-0dab00fa3879)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> ZipCar daily rates are terrible compared to subcompact rentals at SFO. Are you planning to leave SF city limits? If not take the train (BART) to/from your hotel/airport and use Uber the rest of the time. Parking a car near Union square will set you back 30 to 40 bucks a day btw.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am planning to go to Golden Gate bridge, Mountain View to meet some friends, and probably within city for food and site seeing.

<comment><USER5> You probably want to take CalTrain to Mountain View rather drive up and down 101. It's awful at the best of times and right now it is covered in potholes so there is a non-zero chance that you'll end up hitting one and blowing a tire.

45-50 minutes if you get on an express. 1hr and 10 for the local trains. It'll take 47 minutes to drive if there is no traffic and anywhere from 1hr 20 to 2hr in rush hour.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Does SF have ReachNow or Car2Go? I like the fact you can just pick up and leave a car without having to block out specific time like with Zipcars.</comment>


Improve the speed and security of your SQL queries - <AUTHOR> http://antoniocangiano.com/2009/09/09/improve-the-speed-and-security-of-your-sql-queries/ <comment><USER2> I know I'm going to burn Karma, but, Parametrized SQL queries on HN's front page? really?

BTW, Does anybody knows why the question mark is used instead of something more descriptive? Oracle's JDBC driver allows the use of ":param" syntax and I can't imagine why is not the JDBC's standard way.

<comment><USER3> The simple answer is that Sun panicked when Java failed to gain any traction for applets vs Flash and JDBC was rushed out of the door as they flailed about trying to rebrand it as "Enterprise" by people who had very little experience of writing database apps.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This article does not touch on speed that much, but saving your database from reparsing the same SQL over and over is a great thing. Bind variables should be used in the place of literals whenever possible.

There is a gotcha with this though. Say that you have a table with a column having three distinct values with the following distribution:

"John" - 80%

"Sally" - 10%

"Mary" - 10%

If the first time your database parses a statement where the bind variable has the value of "John", then the shared SQL will have an execution plan optimized for values of "John". Obviously, in this case, using an index to search on that column for values of "John" would not be worth it. However, you absolutely would want an index when searching for values of "Mary". So beware! Your prepared SQL can be suboptimal!

(Note: I speak to the Oracle DBMS of versions 9.2 through 11 only)

</comment><comment><USER5> Were SQL developers never taught the importance of reducing code duplication?

Seriously, I see it a lot "in the wild". Databases that are filled with duplicated data, duplicate procedures, duplicate views. It's a bit sickening.

<comment><USER6> I think it is hard to underestimate how much SQL code and database design is an afterthought on many projects. I tend to see lots of ad-hoc relational table/view/procedure creation by developers on the fly, without much thought put into how to best use a relational database and SQL to reduce the amount of code needed to implement a simple and straight-forward solution.

So I would argue that you're not seeing the work of SQL developers, but rather the outcome of letting the db design and SQL code be done by inexperienced developers with backgrounds in imperative languages.

Part of the problem is that SQL developers (and I'm in that group, both from personal viewpoint and job title) are not necessarily seen as necessary for a software development project, even when there is a significant relational db design and SQL code component in the project.

Add in the fact that most of the db backend work is poorly understood and documented in the first place, and you really quickly get into exactly the situations you describe.

<comment><USER5> I agree with you in principle, that SQL developers are definitely needed, I just think that anyone espousing to be a programmer should be capable of proper database design and programming. Well, I guess the people who aren't are usually not that great at imperative programming either...</comment></comment></comment>


The 99 percent - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/10/income-inequality-america <comment><USER2> Five points for the OWS guys.

1\. Transparency. We need to see where every dollar of the US federal gov't is spent. It needs to be on the internet, and it needs to be easily accessable. An exception can be made for classified spending in specific, but not so categorically (IE we spend X on classified stuff). Additionally, just like there is a Surgeon's General Warning on cigarette packages, there needs to be a link on every candidates webpage that lists their top 100 donors, and what industry they are in. This website URL needs to be easily visible and placed in every television and radio advert as well.

2\. Investment banks cannot also be commercial (depository banks). Investment banks become partnerships where c-level owners are financially responsible for the actions of their banks. The banking system survived before things changed from this, and it will survive afterward.

3\. There should be a small federal tax on the sale of any type of derivative, bond, stock, or other financial instrument every time it is sold. Say $.10 per share, every time. The financial markets are for raising capitol for companies, not for financial hackers to make money. HFT is a waste of time and energy, adds unnecessary volatility, and has yet to be shown to be anything more than tangentially related to the goals of a financial security market, established for the purpose of raising capitol.

4\. The tax code needs to be simplified. There are a number of ways to do this, but the end goal should be to end loopholes that allow companies like exxon to pay no federal taxes. Or any company for that matter to realize losses in the US and gains in a foreign country.

5\. Finally, there should be a 4 term limit on US Senators, and an 8 Term limit on US Representatives. Self-explanatory.

<comment><USER3> Can anyone with more experience and knowledge explain the effects of #3. I've read that HFT is actually a good thing because it basically acts as a market maker. This is just a back of the napkin opinion, but it seems that #3 would reduce liquidity in the markets.

We know that markets aren't perfect or else Buffet and other value investors couldn't survive. Does HFT make markets more or less perfect at pricing? Does this matter for making markets more efficient in reality, not some hypothetical perfect market?

<comment><USER4> The standard response to claiming HFT as a market maker is that it provides minute amounts of additional liquidity and its costs and drawbacks, or potential costs and drawbacks, outweigh the benefits. Of course some amount of market making is necessary, but you could claim that without HFT you'd just settle your trades in 0.1 s rather than 0.02 s and with 0.5% spread rather than 0.49% spread.

I don't know enough to form a proper opinion whether or not this is the case.

Of course part of the problem is defining HFT or algorithmic trading. If you build a robot to press an appropriate button at a trading terminal really fast, is that algorithmic, HFT, and should that be banned? Do you fix the tax at 10 cents, and if so how do you react if companies just create massive securities worth millions of dollars and trade those?

<comment><USER5> According to some recent research, HFT appears responsible for lowering spreads by more than an order of magnitude: [http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/10/mor...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/10/more- on-high-frequency-trading-and-liquidity.html) That's a definite social good that would go away under proposal #3.

<comment><USER4> Right, we'd have to get some concrete numbers for the drawbacks of HFT (if any) and then compare with the benefits. What's the societal value of having a $20 spread vs a $230 spread on a million dollar transaction? What is an acceptable trade-off spread value, how do we define it in the first place?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The graph is a bit hard to read since it's labeled poorly. The X-axis is the year. The Y-axis is the percentage of income relative to 1979, after-tax. They do not mention if these numbers were adjusted for inflation, but the report linked to on the page says the numbers are adjusted for inflation:

 _Income is adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' research series of the consumer price index for all urban consumers (CPI-U- RS)._ -[http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome....](http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf)

That report is much more detailed than the Economist's summary.

So, in 2007 the top 1% made ~375% of what they did in 1979 (~275% gain). In 2007 the bottom 20% made ~120% of what they did in 1979 (~20% gain).

<comment><USER7> > They do not mention if these numbers were adjusted for inflation...

The graph is labelled "US _real_ average after-tax income" (emphasis mine). Real income is, by definition, income that has been adjusted for inflation.

<comment><USER6> Ah, I missed that. Nice catch! :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Here's why the rich get richer: because the 99% _produce_ too damn much.

Consumerism worked for a while to keep things even, but we've reached a plateau. People can only buy so much crap. But we're more productive now than ever [1].

So where does all that extra money go? The people at the top take it. CEOs don't give their employees raises, and pocket the rest. Bankers play games with your excess money you've dumped into the market and "lose" it. etc.

No-one's missed that extra money until now, because there's always been enough work to go around. Now there's not. Maybe people aren't buying because their "confidence" is shaken. Maybe the Chinese are "taking our jobs". Maybe people don't need more crap.

Guess what, it doesn't matter. Everyone's stuck on debating _why_ there's not enough work to go around. But really, the solution's simple.

Everyone should do less work.

The _only_ way to _simultaneously_ (a) reduce the income gap, (b) lower unemployment, and (c) not return to wasteful excessive consumerism is to _shorten the work week_ and _raise the minimum wage_.

Those at the top will be forced to pay more per hour worked due to decrease in supply. This will fix the income gap.

The unemployed will suddenly find work, now that more workers are required to perform the same amount of work.

And no-one needs to find any arcane means of "increasing consumer confidence".

I propose a mandatory maximum of 35-hour non-overtime weeks, coupled with a 20% (or greater) increase in minimum wage. Necessarily will likely be a short- term (5-year or less) exemption from these policies for small business owners (defined as those whose executives take home in salary + bonuses less than some threshold, say $200k).

There once came a day when humans were productive enough that a two-day weekend was warranted. As we continue our march down the road of automation, it is only natural that we give ourselves more time to enjoy the fruits of our labors, and not devote our time to serve those more fortunate than us.

[1] <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USARGDPH>

<comment><USER9> Hoo boy are you wrong.

You are so, so wrong.

I was hoping you were being ironic, but apparently you're serious.

Raising minimum wage and cutting working hours will drop productivity like a stone. You're effectively saying that all workers are equal, and interchangeable. You want to forcibly stop the more productive ones from working, so that their tasks and livelihoods can be given to others.

In the case of a software company you're introducing the twin evils of bad hires and oversized teams. For what? An inferior product produced at a higher price.

Dropping productivity means a drop in living standards for everyone, not just the rich people.

The reason people are out of work is because too many people are paying back too much debt, and that equates to negative savings.

Minimum wages increase unemployment because they set a price floor above the clearing price for the going price of a worker. Now, that's not an argument for getting rid of minimum wages, but you can't argue against the reality of what they do.

The solution is to continue paying back debt, and learn the lesson not to borrow so much next time around. Yes, that sucks, but hard lessons seldom have pleasant consequences.

If you want to stop a lot of wealth accumulating at the top end of the pyramid, by all means break up banking cartels and break the ties between legislators and big business, you won't get many arguments from most people. But fairyland schemes to force people to pay more than wages are worth, and force people to work less hours than they want? Hello, central planning. Hello, centralised control. The only way for this to work is to put the needs of the state above the needs of the individual. Which must, _by definition_ , mean less individual freedom and more state control. What are you going to do with someone who works more than 35 hours? Lock them up at the point of a gun?

"Wasteful excessive consumerism" is an entirely relative proposition. One persons waste is another satisfactory standard of living. To impose an arbitary living standard on someone is to completely control their lives.

You're asking everyone to do less work. Less work by definition means less production, and less production means a lower living standard. And guess where the bulk of that lower living standard will fall - that's right, you can bet your peasant clothes it won't be on the 1%.

To conclude : you're effectively asking for centralised control of peoples wages, centralised control of how much a person can work, and centralised and arbitary division of what is small, medium and large business for the purposes of handing out favors, subsidies and handouts. Eventually businesses will start to fail and so will seek more handouts, bailouts, concessions or are nationalised because they are vital to society (eg mining, energy, farming).

You've effectively described a blend of National Socialism and Stalinism. And we know that both eventually lead to mass murder and misery of millions. This experiment has been tried before, it ends badly for all involved.

I hope you're young and still learning, because if you're of any reasonable age, you should know better by now.

<comment><USER10> You're exactly right - by killing productivity and massively increasing employment without reason, you're going to have massive increases in exogenous consumption.

Fantastic, except where are all of these consumed goods going to come from? You'll see huge inflationary pressure which means tighter monetary policy; higher interest rates and reduced borrowing and lending. Yes, there will be economic growth and increased GDP on paper, but there won't be any benefit to society. Furthermore, inflation actually helps the '1%' through arbitrary redistribution of wealth.

First year macroeconomics - I seriously think it should be a prerequisite to adulthood.

<comment><USER9> Unfortunately history tells us that the person who promises something for nothing to the people who want more will always get traction. It is very difficult for people to accept the reality of the world and many people spend hours creating fantasies about how, if they were in control, they could 'fix things' which is just code for controlling everyone else and arranging things the way they like it, and phooey to whatever anyone else wants.

You can't herd invididuals, as anyone who has tried to round up a group of cats knows. You either accept that individuals have the right to be individuals or you have to force people submit to your plans and forego their individual choices. Too many people come out of education nowadays thinking they could organise society, if just given a chance. But the truth is that society is a loose collection of individuals, and by nature can only be convinced, not coerced. You either believe in the fundamental human right to choose your own destiny, or you don't - there are no half measures.

<comment><USER11> I mostly agree with your point, but I want to ask a question: if you had the power to kill about 50,000 people of your choice, at the times you wanted, without any repercussions on you personally, do you think you could use this power to effect a much better world than we currently live in? Major choices that have huge consequences are increasingly being made by individuals, major choices that affect a lot of people for the better or worse. Remember Petrov Day.

<comment><USER9> >if you had the power to kill about 50,000 people of your choice, at the times you wanted

What kind of question is that?

No, I wouldn't want to harm anyone. You definitively can't make things better by killing people. You can make things better by letting people get to work and build their lives and families in peace.

Kill anyone? I'm aghast at the way Gaddafi was treated, even though I thought he was an evil despot.

<comment><USER11> I ask it in the way those annoying moral dichotomy type of questions are asked. The goal is to see what you would actually do or believe, not to get your opinion why the situation would never happen or why the situation is Forbidden. I agree with you completely on the notion that killing people is wrong, I find it sick how he was killed and how his body was treated, however I recognize that, in the following toy scenario, killing is the optimal choice from the set of available choices {kill, do nothing}: an Oracle reveals to you that if you don't kill Mr. Bob within the next five minutes, 5 billion people are going to die; do you kill him?

Even Gandhi recognized the right outcome here, but I agree with him that in most real cases the set of choices usually contains something else, such as maiming or more generally "disabling" to include relatively harmless things like tackling. (Hence I still criticize soldiers who shoot-to-kill brainwashed and/or insane kids coming at them with a machete for not shooting them in the knees or somewhere easier to hit but less likely to kill.)

My original question is dependent on you believing that there exists some real situation where killing one or more people makes the world better, the classic (sorry to Godwin the topic) being to kill Hitler to save who knows how many lives (regardless of if the war still happened). Since you've said you don't believe that, I guess I got what I really wanted to know. I should have just framed it that way to begin with. I agree with you that too many people falsely believe they could fix things, I don't agree with you that a single person couldn't fix things given the right opportunities such as being able to kill the most damaging 50k people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> _Second, that the people at the top have made out like bandits over the past few decades, and that now everyone else must pick up the bill._

I have no idea what _The Economist_ could possibly mean by "pick up the bill" in this context. They know as well as anyone that wealth isn't conserved. If my company makes twice as much money next year as this one, I've _added_ to the world's wealth, not subtracted from it.

<comment><USER13> I think everyone understands that companies are creating wealth. The question is: who is capturing that created wealth? Right now the scales are heavily skewed toward the 1% capturing a _lot_ more than they traditionally did.

<comment><USER12> "Capture" is a loaded term. It could be that "the 1%" are simply creating more than their previous share of wealth. Clearly, some of them are looters, but lumping the looters in with the creators does the latter a tremendous disservice.

I think both _The Economist_ and the Occupy Wall Street protestors are conflating two distinct groups: those who get rich by creating wealth, and those who get rich by diverting the revenues of the state into their own pockets. The latter group consists of special interest groups—and certainly includes virtually the entire banking and finance industry. What most of the protesters seem to misunderstand is that their target shouldn't be capitalism, but rather special interest groups—and the system of government that allows such groups to thrive. Unfortunately, the latter is a problem so big it's hard to grasp, and solutions aimed at the actual source are, to put it charitably, off the political map.

<comment><USER13> >It could be that "the 1%" are simply creating more than their previous share of wealth.

No, the 1% are generally company executives. _The company_ is indeed creating more wealth but right now executives are taking a very large portion of that created wealth and actual workers are getting a very small (relatively) portion.

>those who get rich by creating wealth

Here you probably have in mind people like Zuckerberg, the google guys, etc., but this is a small minority. Most of the guys getting capturing so much wealth are just executives. They're creating wealth cut are they really creating hundreds or thousands of times more wealth than the people actually doing the work?

>to put it charitably, off the political map.

Anything that would actually help is off the map. People want sound-byte fixes. Something you can describe in one sentence. What is actually needed is a multi-pronged approach to encourage the right kind of change. Personally, I would like to see a law that says companies must disclose full compensation for _every_ employee. They don't need to say _who_ gets what but they would need to list each position and what the total comp was for it (this could be made a bit more generic so it's harder to tie to exactly who gets what). The free market works for buying products because we see what the product costs and we see what everyone else charges. With wages it's hard to pin down exactly what market rates are. If this data were forced to be disclosed I think it would strengthen workers' position in negotiation, hopefully driving labor prices up (and hopefully this combined with market competition would force executive salaries down closer to realistic numbers).

And that's just one thing, we would need a great many changes to encourage markets to correct after years of various interest groups doing what ever they can to distort markets in their favor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Spending years and tens of thousands of dollars studying things no one is interested in isn't normal, but in the American middle class it is.

the top 1% of earners pay 38% of all income tax while earning 27% of all income. The top 50% pay 97% of all income tax.

Broken windows fallacy, broken window fallacy and zero-sum thinking everywhere in this whole debate.

<comment><USER14> if you downvote me enough maybe it won't be true!

<comment><USER15> Your comment is a commonly claimed statement, which hides many points.

How much of the income does the top 50% get? Without that, your figures are useless.

Just concentrating on income tax hides the fact lower earners tend to spend a higher proportion of their income on other taxes (such as sales tax).

ycombinator is not the place to repeat poorly researched, often quoted and misleading statistics, without a proper discussion of how they effect the current discussion. Sorry.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That graph doesn't really pack any punch. Leaving politics to one side, this graph <http://www.lcurve.org/> and this article [http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top- one-p...](http://www.vanityfair.com/society/features/2011/05/top-one- percent-201105) have more interesting numbers that better highlight how stark the disparity in income (and wealth) distribution is in the US.

</comment><comment><USER17> Graph looks a little suspect.

1\. Choosing 1979. If you started from 1999 all the graphs would look nearly the same. So, does that mean in the last 12 years the 1% is no better off?

2\. Notice that the 1%'s advantage drops down significantly in a recession. They seem to have ignored the last one though, and stopped right at the height of the bubble.

That's what I can read.

</comment><comment><USER18> The number missing from all these articles is how much taxable income is generated from the activities of the top 1% (including business tax, employment tax, sales tax from purchases, etc).

</comment><comment><USER19> Perhaps it is necessary for the 1% to have huge sums of money and income compared to the rest in a flourishing economy. For one, it means they can spearhead the direction of capital. If you look at the graphs, everyone is doing better. It also leaves out many products that you can get now for less money or with more features. Everyone uses the same iPhones, college students and the rich.

There is not an inherent problem in income inequality if everyone has an acceptable standard of living. The problem is when the poor go without health care, food, shelter, education, Internet, and heating. Unemployment can be a large part of this.

<comment><USER20> The problem is that the staples are rising in cost (healthcare, housing, food), while middle class salaries aren't keeping pace. It's called the _middle class squeeze_. It's real and has been happening in North America for a while now.

I don't use an iPhone myself by the way. The smartphone plans are ridiculously expensive here in Canada. Any middle class family bearing iPhones are making other non-trivial sacrifices to do so... like education or retirement savings.

<comment><USER21> The graph in the article says otherwise: inflation-adjusted income for _all groups_ has been rising.</comment></comment></comment>


Is Microsoft.com down? - <AUTHOR> http://www.microsoft.com

<comment><USER2> Nope, at least not in the UK!

<comment><AUTHOR> I just checked it and it is now online again. Weird. Maybe the Skype post broke the site temporarily.</comment></comment>


What keeps modders modding? - <AUTHOR> http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2015-12-13-what-keeps-modders-modding <comment><USER2> Ive been running ModDB.com proudly now for 13 years and I believe the simple answer to be, some people enjoy playing others enjoy creating. Their achievements are amazing and modders have pushed gaming so far forward in the last 15+ years

</comment><comment><USER3>
        > "The whole paid mod thing was really frustrating for us.
        > Basically some people thought we kept it free for the wrong reasons.
        > I know it's just a case of those who shout the loudest are the ones
        > you'll hear but it was frustrating because we were certain people
        > appreciated our work and now we're not so certain anymore.
        > It feels like they only appreciated it as long as it they
        > get it for free.
        >
        > "Even at the thought of players paying just one dollar - some began
        > threatening us and some of the reactions were so over board.
        > We heard the creator of SkyUI got death threats for what he proposed!"

It's sad that modding is limited to only the people that make a bunch of personal sacrifice like these guys who work 40-60 hour weeks full-time for free.

"Just add a tip jar", the first comment reads. Right, mate. You can head over to Wikipedia right now to see how hard it is to get people to give you money:

[http://i.imgur.com/rOyVz43.png](http://i.imgur.com/rOyVz43.png)

I'd like to see Valve take another shot at baking mod monetization into the Steam platform.

<comment><USER4> It's more complicated than you think and there is several issues with mods become paid:

\- Most of complex mods aren't made from scratch, they're heavily based off many other people's work, some free games assets and usually even illegally extracted assets from other games. Nobody care about that when it's not commercial activity, but for paid product issue with licensing is huge.

\- Same issue with other copyrighted stuff that isn't game assets: trademark, fictional universes, etc. Currently there is a lot of freedom and you can do whatever you want, but once there going to be any money copyright holders include the worst ones going to put huge pressure on community. So mods based off books, movies, series going to end up with DMCA takedown notice really fast.

\- % that belong to platform owner and game publisher is abysmal especially considering that some mods is hardly derivative work. So modder who crafter own everything (3D models, textures, animations) still going to give same cut as someone who just reused game assets.

\- There is huge issues with quality and support. Even now there is issues with broken games on Steam and I have no idea how Valve can handle that. What worse modders can't fix some bugs on their own and there is many cases when game developers just don't care.

And that all not include fact that weird monetization model going to demotivate many tool and content creators. Not every game is suitable to sell hats.

        > I'd like to see Valve take another shot at baking mod monetization into the Steam platform.

I would be more happy to see platforms like Patreon become more popular. Support modders or teams directly is much better idea than selling mods. As example here is one of OpenMW developers:

[https://www.patreon.com/scrawl](https://www.patreon.com/scrawl)

It's not huge amount of money, but OpenMW isn't most popular project around. This isn't really "mod" too, but I remember I seen few Minecraft mod creators there as well.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, pretty much this. I mean, back in the olden days one of the best mods for Doom was Batman Doom, which replaced the Doom enemies with the characters from the comic series and what not. It'd be a legal nightmare to try monetising something like that. Same with the various Lord of the Rings inspired mods for open world games, Zelda Total War, the various mods for GTA that adds characters and vehicles from other franchises...

Try and monetise mods, and you pretty much kill this part of the hobby all together.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Being one of the developers of the Project Reality mod for Battlefield 2 for the past 10 years, I can say I worked on it at first for the challenge of changing/fixing some stuff that I thought were broken in the vanilla game, and then for the potential of creating new gameplay with that foundation.

I'm not an artist, as me being here on HN can already tell, so my work was on the gameplay aspect of the game. Changing or adding new things to do, with the focus that teamwork should come first, and trying to make things more authentic with real life weapons/vehicles/tactics. I can say we were pretty successful with that goal, even with all the limitations of the game engine, and it's amazing how different from the original game the mod looks and plays.

We also saw people coming and going over all these years. By being a volunteer project, we get the cool thing of getting very passioned players that see the same potential that I did when I started. Not many will stay for long and that's normal, we only ask that people work on what they want. If something doesn't get worked on, oh well, so be it.

The community can't really complaint, if they do, we can always say: "if you want to change that, learn how, and do it yourself". And that's pretty much our process of getting new team members. It requires a lot of commitment to get something done right, so in that time we help as much as possible and see if the person will be a good fit to join the actual development team. Not just things like the actual quality of the work, but what their attitude is, if they listen to criticism well, if they work well with others, if they have initiative, if they have the same vision as the project, etc. If they seem fit, they start taking part of the actual decisions for the future of the mod.

My experience with the mod was priceless. It requires some strong leadership, like in any endeavor, and that leadership does change over time as people leave and others arise to the occasion. We have been managing it quite well, I would say, and it has been a fantastic project to have worked on.

<comment><USER7> Is PR2 effectively dead? Has the rapid progress of Squad helped PR in some way? How do you think Squad will affect PR as it stands today?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many game developers say that modding it's great way to check if game development for you or not and I agree with them. Not everyone can try to become full-time developer for many reasons, but almost anyone can make some item for game they like, write story or make map.

I spend some time on modding in long time ago and now spending my free time on open source engine for game I play since 1999. Reason I doing that is to make it feature-complete so I can eventually implement my own additions to game mechanics and see how they going to work.

Also I always wish to work in game development, but life don't always work as we want to. I'd helped to test and support other commercial game as volunteer and now my own attempt to check how it's looks like to make games.

I feel like other people have similar motivation.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't understand how modding works. I mean, are the games even open source? How can you achieve such marvelous things without having access to the source code? I'm always impressed by the speed of which these mods come out after game release as well.

<comment><USER9> Most game engines are _heavily_ content driven due to the common team makeup of a modern AAA title(last game I worked on was ~10 programmers and ~70 art/design). Sometimes you get a subset of the source(Half-Life/Quake era stuff was like this).

Some times you don't get any source but the tools are powerful enough to build an entirely new experience(see DOTA/Starcraft mods).

<comment><USER10> > Sometimes you get a subset of the source(Half-Life/Quake era stuff was like > this).

My understanding was that the first Half-Life essentially was just a Quake mod. Amazing stuff.

<comment><USER9> Nah, from what I remember of the source(the modding SDK exposed a lot of the engine internals) it was a mix of Q1 + Q2(I think the Q2 part was mostly networking code).

Keep in mind there was Hammer(the level editing tool) which grew into it's own thing as well.

<comment><USER11> It was a Quake 1 / QuakeWorld mod... I remember playing it via GLQuake, only time I ever played a game more than two days in a row... played so much over that first weekend-week, my muscle memory reset, at work my hands didn't go to the home-row keys on the keyboard for a week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just a note about font choice on this page. I spent half of the article quite unsure the name was SureAI or SureAl. I really think it's important to distinguish L from I in font, specifically in a case like this where it could have gone either way.

<comment><USER13> Duly noted, your feedback in this regard is most appreciated. Good eye!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've never been into game modding, or development of games in general... I'm curious why more full-replacement mods don't just go with a full engine that's either open source or has a fairly liberal commercial license (unreal engine comes to mind here)?

Is it really that much harder to use a full engine and kit over modding and replacing everything in an existing game?</comment>


Amplitude acquires ClearBrain to add predictions to analytics - <AUTHOR> https://amplitude.com/blog/clearbrain-joins-amplitude <comment><USER2> Congrats Bilal & Team!</comment>


Koala converts any Excel file into python and enables on the fly calculations - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/anthill/koala <comment><AUTHOR> This library enabled us to convert 14.000 business models represented by huge excel files and use AWS EC2 to parallelise the calculations. An iteration of the prediction model that use to take more than one week, now takes 20 minutes.

Other contributors are using it in investment banking and trading and we feel there is a lot more that can be done with it. Feel free to give it a try.

<comment><USER2> Excel sheets in banking often use .xll addins and VBA macros: how does Koala handle those?</comment></comment>


Take That, Twitter: Google Hot Trends Integrated Into Google Search - <AUTHOR> http://searchengineland.com/google-hot-trends-integrated-into-google-search-26717

<comment><USER2> I don't know that this really hurts twitter. Unless people still think twitter is a realtime news outlet, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate those "web2.0 popup" like searchengineland.com has once you jump into their website grrr

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't know why Google copy twitter so much in search, Reader and coming Gmail. Google can do a much better innovation on itself than twitter copycat.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Bootstrap Resources? - <AUTHOR>

Looking to use Bootstrap on a new project and I was wondering what the best resources out there are? Any great ebooks or websites? <comment><USER2> This is most of them: [http://bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of- twitter-boot...](http://bootstraphero.com/the-big-badass-list-of-twitter- bootstrap-resources/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://startbootstrap.com/](http://startbootstrap.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Several good Bootstrap resources here -

[http://mashable.com/2013/10/20/bootstrap- editors/?utm_cid=ma...](http://mashable.com/2013/10/20/bootstrap- editors/?utm_cid=mash-com-g+-main-link)

</comment><comment><USER5> [http://www.phpstrap.in/](http://www.phpstrap.in/)

</comment><comment><USER6> check out these [http://bootsnipp.com/snipps](http://bootsnipp.com/snipps) [http://bootsnipp.com/resources](http://bootsnipp.com/resources)</comment>


My first Mac. 50 months and counting. - <AUTHOR> http://www.sebastianarciszewski.com/archives/347

<comment><USER2> I'm on my second because my first lost a battle with my 3yr old.

I got a MacBook Pro Retina and expected to have buyers remorse over the price tag.

It just didn't happen. The extract crispness of the display is wonderful. The SSD gives me much longer battery life and I put 16GB RAM in it.

You simply cannot get a PC that has anything close to the same quality. Too bad.</comment>


Confirmed: Windows 9 to be a free upgrade for Windows 8 users - <AUTHOR> http://news.yahoo.com/confirmed-windows-9-free-upgrade-windows-8-users-133033409.html

<comment><USER2> Note that this has still not been officially confirmed but that "confirmed" in this context means that Microsoft Indonesia's President stated it in front of an audience last week. I wonder what the price structure will be like for customers still using older versions of Windows...

Also,

> This article was originally published on BGR.com > ([https://bgr.com/2014/09/28/windows-9-upgrade-free- > download/](https://bgr.com/2014/09/28/windows-9-upgrade-free-download/))

<comment><USER3> I think the title is misleading. The Microsoft Indonesia incident is old news... :-/</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do some big tech firms like Uber/Yahoo not promote CEOs from within? - <AUTHOR> Why do they insist on searching outside the company for a "rockstar"? Wouldn't someone within the company with tons of proprietary knowledge of the organization make more sense? <comment><USER2> In Uber's case public perception was that their structure was dysfunctional so an outsider was needed to try to make a break from that troubled past. An insider would have perceived baggage from all the scandals. Also they might need specific skills needed (e.g. IPO, growth, merger).</comment>


AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Fires Patch Employee In Front Of 1,000 Coworkers - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-audio-listen-to-aol-ceo-tim-armstrong-fire-a-patch-employee-snapping-a-photo-2013-8

<comment><USER2> ProTip for Patch employees:

I've heard this speech a couple of times personally and I've heard _of it_ happening dozens of times from other developers, and I can't think of a single instance where this speech was delivered and the company existed as anything but a shell entity a year later.

Polish those resumes!

</comment><comment><USER3> Damn, that was a dead pool moment. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fucked_Company)</comment>