The Zuckerberg Tax - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/opinion/the-zuckerberg-tax.html

<comment><USER2> This is a bad idea for so many reasons. People have to understand that the current trading price of a particular stock does not mean as much as they think it does.

Just because a stock is trading at price X at a particular time does mean that one can sell a million shares at price X. Thus if one has a million shares of that company, it is unfair to assume that they have X times a million of ready money. Thus, this tax is unfair and dangerous. It can easily cause a stock's price to collapse as an investor is dumping shares to pay the IRS.

Furthermore, it will probably cause more large companies to go private, which will result in great inefficiencies in our economy.

The problem here is that certain people are trying to think up some weird exotic tax which will satisfy the popular desire to tax the rich more fairly and yet leave those certain people untaxed.

As far as the supposed unfairness of the examples provided by the article that is caused by a loophole that happens at death more than anything else. It seems that when someone dies their heirs get to have a higher basis on their assets without paying any income tax on the asset gains. We can easily close this loophole without enacting new exotic taxes. You can simply make it so dieing does not result in increasing the basis, which is the logical thing to do anyways.

<comment><USER3> Author is a tax lawyer. The more nonsensical the tax code, the more money he makes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > If his Facebook shares decline in value next year, he'd get a refund.

This seems like potentially the biggest problem with the scheme, at least in a sane world. What if, as happens in the markets, the shares decline in a big way? The author addressed it briefly in the end but I felt it was half-assed and an overall unsatisfying answer. The government is happy to take $X where X is huge but next year $X is gone on government spending and the refund due to any reason (bad economy, bad company) is basically created out of thin air. Unless the government happens to be better at using $X to create $X+$c than the original holder of $X, the refund has to be artificially created or deducted from other government programs. Nothing new for our government though, especially for amounts as insignificant as billions of dollars when trillions are so easily created. Seriously, justifications like this:

> A mark-to-market system of taxation on the top one-tenth of 1 percent would > raise hundreds of billions of dollars of new revenue over the next 10 years.

don't sound very convincing to me at all. All this arguing over a few hundred billion dollars over 10 years? The US government is still spending trillions of dollars each year, we're still trillions of dollars in debt. Maybe the government can keep going for another 100 years in this crazy state, maybe it can't. If it can't, I'd rather get the worst of the possible financial problems over with now and have the US citizens deprive the feds from all sources of income and talk about things like taxes and valid uses of tax revenue from a fresh start with an entirely new government (even cooler, a saner and more distributed approach to government than massarchy). This might be radical enough to get some downvotes but I don't think anything less than a radical change will fix things in a way the huge majority will enjoy. (Other radical changes I'm banking more on and care more about are things like a positive Singularity.)

<comment><USER5> > What if, as happens in the markets, the shares decline in a big way?

The government could wait a full year before spending the money so that refunding from the previous year would be easy. I'm not sure I really understood from the article if refund only happens from one year to the other though and if not how fair would that be.

<comment><USER6> Actually holding on to cash is a serious issue at the size we are talking about. Over night the feds would be the biggest investor in everything. A small country can go set up a sovereign wealth fund but the US would probably just hold its own paper which is equivalent to spending the money in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the most frustrating article to read I've ever seen on HN. The proposal is completely ridiculous. Ellison and Jobs never selling shares has so much less to do with avoiding taxation as it does with maintaining control and upside exposure.

This proposal would effect a slow creep of management being universally excised from their companies over time, as they're compelled to sell shares to cover their tax liability. I fail to see any good whatsoever that would come of this. All it does is introduce a time decay of company control for founders and owners. The secondary effects of trying to collect a little more tax here would redefine industries.

<comment><USER8> Yes, this is a very big problem especially for startups.

Ex: Let's say I set up a nice startup that receives attention from an investor who purchases a 10% stake in my company for a million dollars. My company is now worth 10 million "marked to market". So I will need to pay tax on the appreciation of my 90% stake from next to nothing to 9 million when I haven't actually earned a single buck!

Badly thought out article in my opinion. This move is practically untenable.

<comment><USER9> There are problems with the proposal, but it does explicitly say it's for publicly traded stocks only and, thus, wouldn't apply to startups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> As the author off-handedly implies, this only works for liquid investments. It's obviously unworkable for someone with a massive paper gain in an illiquid investment -- e.g., shares in a privately held company whose stockholder agreement prohibits transfers.

But if the proposal would be to force paper gains only in publicly traded companies to be marked to market, then everyone will work awfully hard to avoid ever _directly_ holding shares in publicly traded companies... which, I don't know, seems possibly problematic.

Seems more realistic to go after the revenue on its way _in_ to companies. (E.g., require companies with executives domiciled in the US to pay US taxes on worldwide profits. No more "Double Irish" and zero US taxes for GE, unless Jeff Immelt wants to move to Dublin.)

<comment><USER11> Your cure is worse than the disease. Who really cares whether they work in Geneva or New York or Sydney or SF? They are all nice places to live, and that plan would be a national disaster.

The US just needs to tax capital gains as ordinary income, and cut the corporate income tax to 10-15% with no exceptions to be globally competitive. The goal is to have more multi-nationals based in the US, not less.

<comment><USER12> _The US just needs to tax capital gains as ordinary income, and cut the corporate income tax to 10-15% with no exceptions to be globally competitive._

This only makes sense if the income used to buy the capital hasn't already been taxed once, when it was earned. Since it already was, you're in effect arguing for double taxation. Which is why capital gains are taxed differently in the first place.

<comment><USER13> The capital was taxed at ordinary income, yes, but the capital gains was not.

He's right, it's time to start treating capital gains as ordinary income. My fifty dollars of capital generated by fixing a bug at work is equal to your fifty dollars of capital generated by the time/risk value of money.

<comment><USER14> If anything, I would tax capital gains at 30%-40% while taxing ordinary income at 15%. Actual labor has more utility than raw capital.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > That's what Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of Oracle, did. He > reportedly borrowed more than a billion dollars against his Oracle shares > and bought one of the most expensive yachts in the world.

I believe this is also what Markus Persson (Notch) of Minecraft fame did. He mentioned a couple of months back about how it's cheaper for him to borrow money than it is than for him to take money out of the company. He's not as rich as Zuck though.

<comment><USER16> At some point though the borrowed money needs to be repaid, and this would be with income (capital gains or earned income) that is taxed, right? So, I am curious how this works out in the long run. I imagine there is a twist to this I am missing...

<comment><USER17> Yeah, I'm trying to figure this out myself.

<comment><USER15> He only casually mentioned it (Twitter link here: <https://twitter.com/#!/notch/status/110068027608932352>) so I too have absolutely no idea.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I hate when they bring up Warren Buffett. He skirted the US tax laws for the majority of his life and now that he's older, he wants everyone to pay more in taxes.

If he really cared, he would have fought for higher tax laws earlier in his life.

<comment><USER19> Agreed. Obama recently spoke at the university I attend. At one point in his speech he mentioned that Buffett's secretary told him that they have a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett. Then literally two minutes later in his speech he praised Warren Buffett for addressing the issue of needing to increase taxes on the wealthy. What a joke.

<comment><USER20> I don't see the problem here. Warren Buffett pays the 15% capital gains tax and wants to see it increased. Are you criticizing him for not paying _more_ than he is taxed?

<comment><USER21> If its a good idea after the government makes a legislation, surely its a good idea even otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Not a tax lawyer, but doesn't the Jobs family pay 35% death tax? The writer intentionally does not mention this. Although this is not income tax, its false to suggest that they are someway cheating the system.

Edit: grammer

<comment><USER20> You are referring to the estate tax. The term "death tax" is deliberately misleading and used as a propaganda term by those who want to repeal the estate tax.

<comment><USER4> I'm not an admirer of Luntz's work, what he does is evil. His active spreading of the "death tax" term, however, is one exception. "Inheritance tax" is better of course, but "death tax" is still better than "estate tax" in terms of conveying the actual meaning and causing less confusion than "estate tax". In any case, this discussion has served little utility (especially considering the GP's question on Jobs' inheritance tax) and I wouldn't mind someone downvoting the whole comment chain.

<comment><USER20> Do you really think that spreading the term "death tax" caused _less_ confusion than before? _Really?_

It is a _brilliant_ propaganda term because it makes people think they will have to pay when their loved ones pass away even if they own nowhere near the $5 million cutoff (as of 2011) for paying federal estate tax. In reality, these people are opposing taxes that they will never see.

<comment><USER4> Good point, you've raised some interesting meta-concerns. I guess it's an interesting philosophical question if a term and its evangelical spread that brings knowledge to more people while simultaneously confusing a subset of them is better than never having the term in the first place and leaving more people ignorant (and thus not confused). I know some people reason by literal terminology and when faced with experimental fact that a term doesn't correspond to what they think it means, they still refuse to change their mind on what they think it means. (Or the inverse of ignoring any evidence associated with a particular term because they think they apply their prior on the term alone, not what it means--my poster-child on this is global warming, every winter you'll hear the same things.)

I don't think it's that interesting that people are actively opposing things that don't affect them, even if in some cases it's fun to point and laugh.

It is definitely a brilliant piece of viral marketing. You know your right- wing propaganda is working when even the few progressive media outlets fall into saying the same things. I'm just not really in agreement with how large the subset of people confused by the term from the name alone is and I think most people confused by the term are likely confused by so many other things that it doesn't matter stressing over the one term causing confusion when the aggregate should be looked at. This may explain why I used to be a grammar nazi when I was a young teen, then realized that there are much larger problems with people's handle on English than problems like typos, their/they're, u/you, and so on. Unsolicited correction these days is mainly for trolling and "lulz". I still get deeply annoyed at the most egregious abuses of English (my pet peeve being the simple then/than), so I can see where you're coming from now. Unlike you, I have yet to run into anyone confused by death tax in such a way as you've mentioned. Of course, I think saying "No, it's not death tax, it's inheritance tax" can mislead them toward the truth in 3 seconds, while saying "No, it's not death tax, it's estate tax" doesn't. All these terms go to the same Wikipedia article.

At the very least I think most HN readers aren't confused in the ways you've highlighted, though they may be misinformed about specific facts like the amount of the cutoff. Maybe I'm wrong though and overestimating the community knowledge. If I'm right, then pointing out the potential terminology problems reduces to a more pedantic point about encouraging habits that will save you outside the community. Just because most of us are emotionally capable of handling abusive statements mixed with other comments (2+2=4 you dumbass) doesn't mean we ought to get in the habit of writing abusive comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> This should be combined with my even more radical plan for fixing some irregularities in the year-by-year accounting system for income tax (notably, the fact that progressive taxation punishes you more for earning nothing for nine years and then $1m the tenth year, than for earning $100k steadily each year):

Annually, you calculate how much income you've earned over your entire life (and of course subtract any deductions you've become entitled to over your entire life). Then you look that up in a progressive (i.e. convex) tax function which tells you how much tax you owe for your entire life. Subtract the amount of tax you've already paid with all prior years' returns, and pay the difference.

<comment><USER24> I think your suggestion is more "fair" for someone who earns a steady income every year of their life, but is horrible for people (like me) that drop in and out of earning money every few years.

Lets say I earn $100k for 5 years, and pay taxes on it during.. then take 5 years break, and only earn something like $10k a year to keep rent ticking over. So I would have to pay tax on $550k over 10 years... that effectively means my tax rate during the later 5 years was calculated on earnings of $55k a year, even though only $10k actually came in. So I have to pay more tax that I'm earning for those later 5 years. Lets hope I saved a bunch during the first 5.

Conversely, my brother is a ski bum and has not earned over $10k a year for the last 10 years. He's actually an Aerospace Engineer, so lets say he now goes and gets a big-wig job for $200k a year for just 3 years. During those three years, he'll only pay tax on an (average) income of $53k, even though he had $200k coming in those 3 years.

It's certainly more appealing to not go to work until the last few years and earn as much as you possibly can in those years... somewhat like the opposite of retirement I imagine.

<comment><USER23> You're imagining the tax rates as being much higher than they would actually have to be (and I think you also missed that the taxes you pay always end up being a tax-rate proportion applied to the amount you earned that year). Assume for simplicity that people typically have a 40-year working life.

Then when you earn your first $500k in five years, that will be taxed at a rate appropriate to someone who earns $500k over their working life (that is, $12.5k/year). What's the U.S. tax rate at that level, currently? 15%?

So I envision your annual taxes, in your example, as looking something like:

      Year  1     Earn $100k   Rate 10%   Tax  $10k
      Year  2     Earn $100k   Rate 10%   Tax  $10k
      Year  3     Earn $100k   Rate 10%   Tax  $10k
      Year  4     Earn $100k   Rate 15%   Tax  $15k
      Year  5     Earn $100k   Rate 15%   Tax  $15k
      Year  6     Earn  $10k   Rate 15%   Tax $1.5k
      Year  7     Earn  $10k   Rate 15%   Tax $1.5k
      Year  8     Earn  $10k   Rate 15%   Tax $1.5k
      Year  9     Earn  $10k   Rate 15%   Tax $1.5k
      Year 10     Earn  $10k   Rate 15%   Tax $1.5k

You won't move into the 25% band until you've earned something like $1.3m over your life.

<comment><USER25> Let's say I earn 100K a year, steady.

When I move into the 25% band after I hit $1.3m in lifetime earnings, do I have to pay back taxes on the rest of my income that I've been paying 10% on the whole time? If so, then I'm going to owe about 200,000 that year, which is more than my income. "smoothing" not the word I would use here.

Or, do I just start to pay 25% going forward? If so, your plan amounts to a massive tax cut for young people and a massive tax increase for retirees. As a young person, I can live with that, but it's absolutely terrible public policy.

<comment><USER23> 25% going forward.

When you introduce the system, of course, you have to give people credit for all their past income tax paid. Most people of working age will have overpaid and will get a windfall in the form of a huge one-off tax credit, which will compensate them for the higher tax they will pay later in their lives.

If letting people hold onto their money early in life and give it to the government later is considered to be undesirable public policy, it would be possible to even out the tax by including tax deductions based on age. For example, when computing your lifetime taxable income, subtract a "lifetime personal exemption" of $4k times your age. This causes no problems other than that your annual tax bill could potentially be negative (if you earned less than $4k that year).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> In case you wonder what the term "superwealthy" means in practice, the HEART Act of 2008 could offer some help. The act introduces a mark-to-market tax for people who wish to give up their citizenship, as well as long-term Green Card holders if they give up their Green Card. To prevent the super-rich from avoiding taxation. Senator Kennedy called it "the billionaires' amendment".

Now who is a billionaire according to Senator Kennedy? Anyone with (a) the tax liability above $139k on average over the past five years (inflation adjusted), or (b) the net worth above $2M (not inflation adjusted).

Hope that helps.

</comment><comment><USER27> Taxing someone based on their unrealized gains only makes sense if you have liquidity! Instead of making the tax system more complicated with propositions like this, we should just switch to a consumption based tax system.

<comment><USER28> A consumption based tax unfairly places more tax burden the poor, who is less likely to be able to afford it.

<comment><USER29> The tax doesn't have to be flat- luxury goods can be taxed at a higher percentage.

<comment><USER28> And who gets to decide what is "luxury goods"? I think consumption tax is still considered unfair, whether it's tweaked to be "unfair" to the rich, or "unfair" to the poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Do I understand this correctly? If an American sells an asset the day before he dies, he pays tax on it, but if his widow sells the exact same asset the day _after_ he dies, she doesn't pay any taxes?

I think the colloquial phrase for that is "fucked up".

<comment><USER31> As far as I can tell, the entire problem can be solved by just fixing this flaw. You don't even have to tax most of the estate, just tax realized gains by the widow/heirs when they sell the stock. And this entire 100 comment+ thread can be avoided.

Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER30> Yes, eliminate the "tax cost of asset gets reset by death" rule and the entire problem evaporates.

Which, incidentally, is exactly what Canada does in the case of assets inherited by a spouse. (Assets inherited by non-spouses are usually but not always considered to be sold at market value, resulting in a tax bill for the estate. I am not a tax lawyer and this is not legal advice.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> This article has a fundamental flaw. It starts with the premise that some outrageous tax revenue level is necessary, and from that premise tries to analyze the fairness of the existing tax code.

There's one thing I would really like to understand. I've been mulling this over for a couple of months, and I'm coming to the conclusion that a vote in favor of ANY tax is immoral.

If I cast a vote for a tax, I am voting in favor of taking money from someone else, with the force of gunpoint and the threat of prison. How can that be moral?

Since coming to this conclusion, I have tried to find arguments, and they usually start with "well, we need to have a tax, or no one will pay." (Romney even said that in one of the debates.) But I can't find any proof to this statement, and I find lots of things that disprove it.

1) The United States was founded with a volunteer militia funded completely voluntarily. (And at the time, citizens had to pay tax to the enemy of the revolution, England.)

2) Numerous organizations ranging from charities, to huge churches that have survived several millenniums, to a complete country (Vatican City) are funded voluntarily, and do that quite successfully.

3) Free people freely give to causes that they believe in. And people believe in freedom. It would not be a hard sell.

The whole argument that we have to get more from the rich (or more from anyone, for that matter) is standing on this shaky ground - that somehow it's moral for "the majority" to steal from others through a diffuse system of voting, representatives, laws and organizations like the IRS. But it's you and me, stealing from other people, and using organizations like the IRS and the police force as our weapons. And that can't be right.

Honest question: Can someone convince me that it's not immoral to vote for a tax? Please don't down-vote me for asking a question, because I am honestly trying to understand. If you disagree, help persuade me.

Edit: I WANT to pay for freedom. I DON'T want to FORCE someone else to pay for freedom (which has an obvious contradiction).

<comment><USER33> Well, for starters, where did you even get the concept of "money" from? That's not "yours"; you didn't invent it. Someone else gave it to you. It essentially came from the same place that gave us taxes.

The premise that "taking money from someone else" is inherently immoral is trying to assume an impossible ideal that each person is an autonomous being, and that our lives aren't inextricably interwined with everything around us (or at least that's as much as I can gather from your reasoning). Would you also agree that a police officer arresting a citizen is immoral under any circumstances?

Now I don't necessarily disagree with your notion that taxes are unnecessary (or at least some taxes). I'm sure that it's possible for the government to be at least an order of magnitude more efficient. One somewhat surprising thing I learned (from Ron Paul) is that the income tax didn't even exist until the 20th century. So it's far from clear that it's even necessary.

But I would not start with the assumption that money is a inalienable right. And I don't really understand your alternative. Who is going to beg others to fund things like roads and sewers and subways and food inspection? Fund- raising costs money.

Also, there are a few things that are most efficiently done by a government monolopy -- i.e. it's not practical to have 5 competing subway systems in NYC.

So anyway, I think you're trying to come down too conclusively on one side, whereas the answer is probably more mundane and in between.

(Also, I think you are being slightly dramatic in that in all likelihood no will point a gun at you if you don't pay your taxes. More likely you will get a bunch of letters from IRS over many years.)

<comment><USER34> > One somewhat surprising thing I learned (from Ron Paul) is that the income > tax didn't even exist until the 20th century.

Before the 20th century, the majority of Americans lived in rural areas working on small farms. Industrialization dramatically increased the level of division of labor in the society, and of course as you increase the degree of social inter-dependence, it's no surprise that your organization overhead increases, super-linearly.

If we were talking about any system other than the political system, the proposition that bigger, more complicated systems have exponentially- increasing amounts of organizational overhead would be completely uncontroversial. It's a phenomenon that us engineers see in systems constantly. Yet, when we see it in the political system, we assume something is wrong.

When I work on a small farm, and you work on a small farm, we don't need an EPA. When we live in a city and your factory dumps poisons into our shared river and makes my kids sick, we do. When we work on small farms, we don't need an SEC. When we work in the city and our savings consist of securities rather than silos full of grain, we do. When we make all our own clothes we don't need a Consumer Products Safety Commission, when we grow our own food we don't need an FDA, when we work for ourselves on our own farms we don't need an NLRB or an EEOC. When we ride horses to work we don't need an FAA. When we don't depend critically on Middle Eastern oil we don't need a very big Army. When people die naturally of old age at 45 we don't need Social Security. When small, stable, farming communities take care of their poor we don't need Medicaid.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> At this point, congress should be focusing on cleaning up the tax code, not trying to tax Zukerberg.

What's unfair is that we got a byzantine taxation system with all sort of exceptions, subsidy, loopholes, plugs, punishment, etc.

<comment><USER34> That's kind of like saying we should rewrite the Windows codebase because it has all sorts of patches, hacks, etc. Do you have any evidence on how much those things are actually costing us?

I don't (I'm not the one making dramatic claims), but my hunch is that most of the real revenue losses in our tax system are from some broad failings, not little loopholes. Our ridiculously low capital gains rate, for example.

To the point of the article, there is actually a deep-running theoretical difference between various realization schemes. This isn't just "trying to tax Zuckerberg" but rather figuring out how to properly compute "income = net accession in wealth." The theoretical amount subject to tax is: Gain = Net income + Delta(value of property). Theoretically, you could compute the latter term at any interval you like (every year, etc). As a general policy we compute the term at sale of property because it's the easiest time to do so (the valuation is fixed precisely by a market transaction). But for something like a publicly traded stock, that rationale carries much less weight. And the counter-veiling concern of ensuring that the amount does get fairly taxed (instead of being held on-to indefinitely) probably outweighs that rationale in this case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The one aspect I'm not seeing anyone mention here is the very real implications this has for the company in question. I don't have the numbers, but a tax like this could (and probably would) cause Zuckerberg to no longer have control of Facebook since he had to sell shares. Or Bezos to lose control of Amazon, etc.

I, for one, think this is a big negative.

</comment><comment><USER37> What concerns me about Mr. Miller's proposal is that if we went to a marked- to-market and in year 1 the stock gained 100%. Then let's assume that provided the government with $5Bil in taxes, the government would spend that money like a kid in a candy store. Then what would happen if that stock lost 50% of it's value in year 2? How would the government have the funds to "refund" that $5Bil back? Would they just print more money?

This idea doesn't take into account how volatile the market is and the nature of government to spend during any surplus. Not to mention all the overhead needed to find fair "marked-to-market" values for pre-IPO companies.

And as other comments have stated, if this were to happen, what would be the motivation of CEOs to drive the price of the stock higher? Wouldn't it be in their best interest to keep it low so their tax bill would be lower?

</comment><comment><USER38> Or you could simply regulate loans made using stocks as collateral by either setting the minimum APR to say 20% or making the whole practice illegal.

Seems a lot easier than getting a new tax passed (loans are well regulated already) and won't harm the poor guy who is paper wealthy but can't actually sell his shares.

<comment><USER39> I'm still trying to figure out where they get the money to pay off the loan.

<comment><USER40> I believe the implication is that it is simply cheaper to refinance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> "If Mr. Zuckerberg never sells his shares, he can avoid all income tax and then, on his death, pass on his shares to his heirs."

Assuming that Zuckerberg has a normal life expectancy, what's the probability that Facebook will still be around in 60 years? Not very many corporations have lasted that long.

<comment><USER29> This is the risk the banks take using shares in a tech company IPO as collateral. How does this weigh in on the proposed tax?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> All the comments on this thread agree that the proposed tax rule sucks, so they prefer the existing capital gains tax rules. But there is a third option which I think would be the best.

There is clearly a problem with the current capital gains tax rules because it favours people who hold their shares over those that trade frequently, even when the rate of return is the same.

For example, suppose I have two trading strategies: Strategy A buys shares and holds them for 20 years. Strategy B buys shares but trades them once a year for 20 years. Also assume that both strategies produce an annual capital gain of 10%. With the current capital gains rules, Strategy A pays far less tax overall than Strategy B - distorting the market and leading to inefficiencies.

So here's my proposal: make the capital gain percentage a function of the duration of the investment and the average rate of return. For example:

If your investment return was 10% over 1 year your capital gain tax is 15%

If your investment return averaged 10% over 3 years your capital gain tax is 16.23%

If your investment return averaged 10% over 20 years your capital gain tax is 28.21%

If your investment return was 20% over 1 year your tax capital gain is 15%

If your investment return averaged 20% over 3 years your capital gain tax is 15.94%

If your investment return averaged 20% over 20 years your capital gain tax is 21.30%

etc...

Ok, it's not the simplest tax rule, but it would greatly reduce the distortion of the current capital gain tax system.

</comment><comment><USER43> "Some would argue that it is inherently unfair to tax "paper gains" before they are realized — Mr. Zuckerberg won't receive $28 billion in cash; he holds only paper. Moreover, markets are inherently volatile; one year's paper gains is another's real losses. However, these arguments are far less credible when paper losses give rise to real tax refunds."

Wouldn't it be simpler and more consistent to get rid of these tax refunds, and have neither paper gains nor paper losses taxed or refunded, than to have a separate tax for gains and refund for losses?

</comment><comment><USER44> To me, the loophole seems to be 'Now his widow can sell those shares without paying any income tax on the appreciation before his death. She would have to pay taxes only on the increase in value from the time of his death to the time of the sale. '

Why doesn't the widow need to pay taxes on the increase from the original cost basis to time of sale? What is the reasoning for resetting the cost basis to 'value at time of death', when no taxes are paid at that time?

</comment><comment><USER45> Sounds like the perfect get-rich-quick scheme:

1\. Buy a publicly traded company 2\. Surreptitiously drive it into bankruptcy while maintaining semblance of fiduciary duty 3\. Collect refund from government from loss in share price

Oh wait, they've already done that: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program>

</comment><comment><USER46> This could never work in practice because it would unfairly penalise founders of small companies whose share value may not be so spectacular.

The principle of paying tax on a notional value (which is what the market share price effectively is) is crazy - as the author points out the value can go down. Who's to say that it doesn't go through the floor at some point, which by his reckoning would allow for you to claim some of the tax back? Talk about volatility - you would want the stock to be massively unstable!

The author suggests that selling stock to pay for a tax bill as a solution - but that sale would also be taxable. Therefore you could never fully pay off your tax bill, and what would happen if you ran out of shares to sell?

I think the rot stems from the practice of lending where shares in public companies are used as security. This is not security at all and should be stopped. The impact would be clear it would force companies to either pay a (taxable) salary to it's founders and directors (like SMEs) or let them sell shares to realise income.

</comment><comment><USER47> Taxing the super-rich is rife with problems. They will find other ways to avoid taxes. The only tax that makes sense to me is a sales tax on luxury goods. Let them keep their money however long they want. It doesn't affect anyone: until they buy that yacht that takes 100 man years of labor to make. Charge big taxes on those yachts, etc.

<comment><USER48> Why wouldn't they then lease it, or have it owned by some foreign entity not subject to local/national taxes, or have an exemption lobbied into existence for this particular yacht? Cargo ships get flagged Panama or Liberia for roughly this sort of tax-dodge reason, I would think luxury craft would fare the same...

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I still don't see the appeal of raising taxes for the wealthiest income bracket. Do people expect faster lines at the dmv and world class public schools to suddenly appear once we start taxing the rich more?

</comment><comment><USER50> How does this tax lawyer know that:

 _The $5 billion he will receive upon exercising those options will be treated as salary_

Was it in the S-1 that Zuckerberg did no tax planning?

</comment><comment><USER51> > He could sell some shares to pay the tax (and would be > left with over $20 > billion of Facebook stock after tax), > or borrow to pay the tax. > > If his > Facebook shares decline in value next year, he'd > get a refund.

What happens if the market goes through a downturn and the government has to refund all the superwealthy their taxes?

I can imagine this working well in a bull market, but when a bear comes around the corner it could be disaster for the budget.

</comment><comment><USER52> The simpler solution to the proposed problem is an estate tax on capital holdings. This could be done by simple requiring the shares be sold on death and repurchased in the beneficiaries name.

Mark-to-market adds voodoo to tax valuation, has the government managing investor cash flow, and rewards investment losses more than the current system. Why reward poor market performance?

Personally, I think this seems like a suggestion for bad governance trying to appease wealth envy.

</comment><comment><USER53> If anyone would like a more detailed investigation of this topic, there's a good article on SSRN by another tax professor (<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1734601>), or Miller's own more expansive article ([http://www.cadwalader.com/assets/article/120505MillerTaxNote...](http://www.cadwalader.com/assets/article/120505MillerTaxNotes.pdf)).

</comment><comment><USER54> By only taxing publicly traded equity, it seems like they'd also hit small retail investors pretty hard too, while only serving to retard valuable new IPOs even more.

</comment><comment><USER55> The idea of owing tax the moment a company goes public seems tremendously stupid. Not a single person I know who's had shares in a company that went public was able to sell them immediately. They all had to hold onto them for some set period, and some of them actually had to pay tax on the gains before they could even sell the shares (to get the liquid capital to pay the tax). Maybe I'm missing something?

<comment><USER56> Yes, you're missing that management gets to choose the "lockout period" before existing shareholders can cash out. Usually, management imposes a 6 month lockout period but exempts management (i.e., board or executives)

Mr. Zuck _is_ management at Facebook.

As for the taxes, you're thinking of the imputed income from exercising options at below the market price of the shares when exercised (i.e., an option to buy a $10 share of PublicCo for only $2 is $8 in imputed income b/c you could then immediately sell the shares for $8 in gains).

<comment><USER57> It's the underwriters of the IPO that impose the lockout periods, not management. The lockouts apply to all pre-IPO shareholders (excluding shares explicitly included as part of the offering).

Lockouts may also include provisions that any early release granted to management or dominant shareholders must also be granted to all other parties on equal terms; that was true of the one lockout agreement I was subject to.

<comment><USER56> And management chooses the underwriters, who therefore will conform their requirements to management's demands, _as they have here_.

Underwriters frequently try to impose lockouts, but its the management who actually sets the terms, which is why some lockouts are as short as 3 months while others are as long as 9 months. There is no requirement that the lockouts apply equally to management/dominant shareholders and other shareholders, though management frequently accept such restrictions b/c its not usually worth the cost to carve out such an exception.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58>
        Our tax system is based on the concept of "realization."

Interesting that the same system that un-taxes the original corporate owner (Zuckerberg, Jobs) punitively taxes rank and file staff who exercise options in pre-IPO stock as "realizing" gains as "ordinary income", even though the stock is illiquid.

</comment><comment><USER59> According to many people in favor of higher taxes, quantitative easing has no ill effects. Why don't they just ease $5B into existence?

And why don't people concerned with "unfair" taxes call for Gaga's rate to be lowered rather than Zuck's to be raised?

Miller doesn't seem to understand that the superwealthy also tend to be highly intelligent and resourceful. They are not stationary targets. A tax like this would push growing startups to grow outside the US a few years before IPO. A multinational can change its base of incorporation, and many people can and will change their citizenship over a million bucks, let alone a billion. This kind of foolish proposal would just drive more US businesses overseas.

<comment><USER60> Tomfoolery.

>According to many people in favor of higher taxes, quantitative easing has no ill effects. Why don't they just ease $5B into existence?

It increases inflation. Right now, it's better to have more people employed/have the economy growing than it is to have inflation below 2%.

QE isn't exactly a progressive tool of choice, and I'm only minimally informed, but iirc that's the broad keynesian view as to why in theory it's at least _better than doing nothing at all_.

>And why don't people concerned with "unfair" taxes call for Gaga's rate to be lowered rather than Zuck's to be raised?

Because I'm not worried about Gaga's overall income. In fact, she probably ought to be taxed at a higher rate, because people like her comprise of almost zero per cent of the population. Cry me a river, in other words; it's not at her income range we're concerned with inequality.

>A tax like this would push growing startups to grow outside the US a few years before IPO.

Serious question time. Is this even reasonable?

If Zuck could have saved a cool billion in taxes, what's stopping him from doing just that?

If I'm say a Canadian citizen and I live in Canada but I own a fuckload of Facebook stock that qualifies as a salary, where do I file income taxes?

>This kind of foolish proposal would just drive more US businesses overseas.

These kind of astronomical windfall events are extremely rare and as I've denoted above, what you describe is already currently possible. So… why don't we already see this?

Other than the fact that you there are many advantages to having lots of engineering staff located in the United States/North America.

<comment><USER61> > > According to many people in favor of higher taxes, > > quantitative easing > has no ill effects. Why don't they > > just ease $5B into existence? > > It > increases inflation. Right now, it's better to have > more people > employed/have the economy growing than it is > to have inflation below 2%.

There's an orthodox misconception here that is taking some time to be fixed / properly understood by economists.

Quantitative easing is nothing more than an asset swap for banks. It increases the reserves in the banking system, yes, but it does not actually put more money into the hands of people who will spend it in the real economy. Its effect is at best indirect: it pushes the interbank lending rate down, and that can increase the pool of potential borrowers. But the effect is marginal at best.

Note in particular how the "money multiplier" dropped after QE: <http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MULT?cid=25>

<comment><USER60> Right. I tried to caveat myself, for I forgot the exact reason I wasn't supposed to like it.

Institutionally, we seem adverse to any sort of intervention that does not go through a banking intermediary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What would stop the unscrupulous from creating a shell company, attract investors at a huge markup for a extremely small share, then declare the loss the next day (and split the refund check or do the same in return).

</comment><comment><USER62> Tax-on-profit/refund-on-losses are, in terms of economics equations, "elegant". It appears to minimise distortion.

But there's two problems in practice.

1\. Hollywood Accounting. "I get a refund for losses? Look how much I lost this year!" It would just lead to a new round of shuffling deck chairs.

2\. Sovereign Risk. Sure they promise to pay you back. But does anyone honestly expect that politicians would be prepared to allow a $1 billion cheque to be cut for a billionaire?

Both of these are why such taxes are neat in theory, economic kryptonite in practice.</comment>


Blazor: Using C# for client-side web development - <AUTHOR> https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/client-side/spa/blazor/index?view=aspnetcore-3.0 <comment><USER2> Blazor is and has been an incredibly interesting idea coming out at an incredibly interesting time with regards to Microsoft. I hope the tech matures well and that people end up doing some interesting things with it.</comment>


How Wong Kar-wai inspired filmmakers like Sofia Coppola and Barry Jenkin - <AUTHOR> https://www.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3093301/how-wong-kar-wai-hong-kong-director-mood-love-chungking <comment><USER2> Bertolucci's "Besieged" (1998) surpassed WKW, but few people have checked it out.

<comment><USER3> Ebert really didn't enjoy it. I assume you have good reason to recommend. What did he miss?

[https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/besieged-1999](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/besieged-1999)

<comment><USER2> The French New Wave wandering spirit, the dynamic almost music video aesthetic etc. got a new life in WKW and with "Besieged" Bertollucci seemed to say, nice try kid, now watch this. All of the above plus politics, even more beauty and uncompromising vision.</comment></comment></comment>


Make 8-bit art - <AUTHOR> http://make8bitart.com/ <comment><USER3> I made something similar a while back: [http://jathu.me/pixels/](http://jathu.me/pixels/)

Check the source: [https://github.com/jathu/pixels](https://github.com/jathu/pixels). You can also undo/redo by pressing z and y on the keyboard.

<comment><USER4> Very nice. I like the simplicity of your interface.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It always makes me smile when I hear the term "8-bit" used to describe art. The strict hardware and software limitations of early computers spawned a complete visual aesthetic!

<comment><USER6> And yet I can't think of many 8-bit systems that let you set any pixel any color like most of today's "8-bit" art. Most had tile based systems with various color limitations in each tile, to save memory. Graphics on different systems had a distinctive look because of this. Most of today's "pixel art" games look pretty samey.

<comment><USER7> The current 8-bit art just uses some inspiration from old games, it does not aim to remake the same experience (which will be pretty boring because there already is a ton of games like that).

And I have to disagree to the fact they all look the same. When I watch Super Meat Boy, Shovel Knight, Void & Medler, Swords & Sorcery etc. they have really distinctive design.

<comment><USER6> You picked an interesting one, Shovel Knight, because its graphics engine actually emulates how the NES graphics chip works (with a few enhancements). That gives it a look that stands out from a lot of others.

Super Meat Boy is an example of the visual sameness in my opinion. It looks exactly like Broforce or Super Time Force Ultra or a million others. The aesthetic seems to be 256 color VGA with really tiny sprites. It doesn't really remind me of anything or look inspired by anything in particular IMO.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> aseprite [0] a great open source (desktop) pixel art editor

[0] - [http://www.aseprite.org/](http://www.aseprite.org/)

<comment><USER9> Seconding the aseprite recommendation. The support for layers and animations is really nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great work @jennmoneydollars! This is fun.

I feel that I missed my calling as an artist. [http://imgur.com/zxE2QKC](http://imgur.com/zxE2QKC)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you have any problems, open an issue on GitHub (jennschiffer/make8bitart) or tweet at @jennschiffer. She's about to have time to work on stuff soon hopefully.

</comment><comment><USER12> My personal favorite: [http://www.danielx.net/pixel- editor/](http://www.danielx.net/pixel-editor/)

Source: [https://github.com/STRd6/pixel- editor/](https://github.com/STRd6/pixel-editor/)

Let me know if you want any tips for reliable undo, Bresenham's line algo, or flood fill.

</comment><comment><USER13> [https://jackschaedler.github.io/goya/](https://jackschaedler.github.io/goya/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Cool. This works pretty well with a Surface pen. The only limitation seems to be that it doesn't recognize the eraser as distinct from the tip; it would be neat if the eraser would draw the transparent color.

<comment><USER15> i'm assuming the eraser only triggers a touch event in the case of a web browser, so i'm not sure if there is anything i can do to change that but i'll look into it!

<comment><USER14> I decided to learn something today and got this working :). I sent a PR on GitHub.

<comment><USER15> yessssss thanks I will be able to check it out early this week!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Check out also Draw![0], you can use it to draw tiny pixel art pictures and GIF animations.

Update: I made a while ago to experiment with Redis and the <canvas> element. The code is open source at [https://github.com/potomak/drawbang](https://github.com/potomak/drawbang).

[0] [http://drawbang.com](http://drawbang.com)

</comment><comment><USER17> Getting around the challenges of portably saving files from a JS application by using imgur's API is clever- I may use the same idea in a project I'm working on. I make little coding sandbox things and allowing users to easily record gifs or screenshots without a separate tool would be a boon.

</comment><comment><USER18> The auto-upload to imgur is a nice touch!

This is me: [http://i.imgur.com/5JUJt5g.png](http://i.imgur.com/5JUJt5g.png)

</comment><comment><USER19> Well gee, as long as we're adding our competing projects in the comments, here's mine:

[http://pix.pe](http://pix.pe)

</comment><comment><USER20> Awesome. Also, love @jennmoneydollars.

<comment><USER15> <3

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Looks like it doesnt work on Android.

<comment><USER22> Yep, I also tried in Chrome for Android. Won't paint or grab anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The flood-fill tool seems a little slow. It seems like it is doing something much more complicated than I would expect (simple breadth-first search) - <USER2> I get some weird results with different brush sizes.

</comment><comment><USER24> Very cool little time waster. Kids will love it.

</comment><comment><USER25> But it's 32 bit..?

<comment><USER15> don't let the cops know!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> should implement a proper line drawing algorithm

<comment><USER15> yes, i'm working on it but have been v busy with work lately. gave a talk about bresenham's line algorithm at genius back in march ([https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytBpLlSHms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zytBpLlSHms)) embarrassed it's been so long without a product. #opensourceisaprison

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> cool, but runs like a dog for me :(

<comment><USER15> oh noooo pls let me know what environment you're running it on!

<comment><USER27> i'm really enjoying playing around with this actually!

one other small niggle i've found is that it doesn't respect my swapping of cmd+ctrl on mac for e.g. cmd+z undo. tiny niggle, but niggling all the same. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Why I Use SaltStack - Rackspace Developer Center - <AUTHOR> http://developer.rackspace.com/blog/why-i-use-saltstack.html <comment><USER2> Could have done with more comparisons to puppet and chef - the strengths of salt lie in a zeroMQ message passing (each minion calls back to the master for instructions on the queue - makes for simpler firewalls) and the essence that agents on the minion can do anything, it's very easy to extend into, well, anything.</comment>


Ask YC: what laptop to buy? - <AUTHOR>

I am thinking of buying a laptop and would love to get your advice on this topic.
Some info:
- Price is not that much of an issue, I see this as an investment that will pay itself off.
- I will be spending 99% of my time on this laptop, and it will pretty much be a desktop replacement for me.  I will not be playing games on it, but will be doing most of my development there. OS is no problem since I use linux.
- Screen resolution is very important to me.
- I think a 15" would be good, not much smaller and bigger
- It must be light, I will have to be able to take it around easily and all the time must have long battery life
- the rest is simple, 1G+ RAM, 150GB+ hard drive, good graphic card ...

Questions:
- is there anything else I should care about?
-  what are your suggestions, i.e. what brand and models?
- should I wait for something that is coming out soon?
- when is the best time to buy, b/f chirsmass, after it ...?
- I was looking at the MacBook Pro? what do you think?
-  where are the best places to check for reviews and suggestions? (I have looked at PC mag and CNET)
- what do you have and are you happy with it?
Thanks a lot in advance for all the suggestions.

<comment><USER2> If I were you, MBP.

However, I would seriously consider a macbook. It is smaller, lighter, and I extremely happy with it (had it for about 1.5 years. You may have more of a need for a good graphics card and such.

Upgrade the ram and harddrive yourself, it is trivial, and will take ~ 5 mins.

I wouldnt put linux on it, again unless you have a specific reason to do so. I dev in OSX, deploy on linux.

<comment><USER3> Putting Linux on it really isn't as big of a deal as it was at one point. I've only tried with Ubuntu though, for what thats worth.

7.04 was somewhat of a nightmare. Off the top of my head... you couldn't use the normal installation media, graphics drivers had to be installed manually, likewise with sound drivers, likewise with wireless drivers.

7.10 on the otherhand was simple and straightforward. Everything except for the wireless card worked right out of the box. I'm quite happy with it and use it most of the time on my MBP.

<comment><USER2> Not so much because it is too difficult or a big deal, or anything like that.

I have found OSX to be more than an adequate operating system for efficiency while coding. Unless you have a fairly good reason to go with Linux (Ubuntu in your case), I don't see the motivation to do it. However, if I was getting a Dell, I would instantly go Linux for obvious reasons - I need to be running my dev stack on my local machine, remotely connecting won't cut it.

<comment><USER4> Easier to install and update LAMP-related apps, and not having to reboot for Software Update all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thinkpad T60 or T61

I love mine, even wrote a little mini-review here: [http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/08/best-notebook-for- linu...](http://kontsevoy.blogspot.com/2007/08/best-notebook-for-linux.html)

Thinkpads are designed _for doing actual work_ \- "UltraNav" unit and the keyboard are to die for. They are #1 reason why I picked ThinkPad over Mac.

My distant 2nd choice would be MBP, and 3rd - Dell Vostro.

<comment><USER6> I'm a macbook user when I'm on a laptop, but if I were planning to work _all day_ on a laptop, I would also recommend a Thinkpad, hands down. They are amazing machines, and rock solid as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I have a Lenovo X60 and love it. As far as hardware is concerned, it's the Lexus of laptops. The attention to detail is impressive, and the build quality unparalleled.

It's light as a feather, even with the extended battery (which is a necessity) and has enough juice to last me the entire San Francisco to Cleveland flight (~5 hrs). The keyboard is pretty awesome for a laptop too, though my one gripe is that they put the Fn key bottom left and pushed CTRL to the right. That's more annoying than you may think.

If you need a bit bigger screen, the T series is still fairly lightweight, and is pretty comparable. I used to travel a lot though, so the extra 1.5 lbs of weight made a big difference.

Say what you want about OSX vs. Windows and I probably wouldn't argue, but Mac hardware has always been overpriced and underwhelming. If you're slapping on Linux you'd be nuts to go with a Macbook.

</comment><comment><USER8> I used to LOVE the Thinkpads, but ever since they became Lenovo, the quality seems to have suffered.

What was once a nice rugged feeling case, now feels like cheap plastic.

We've had a rash of Lenovo issues lately. Failed hard drives, weird hangs, randmonly blank screens, etc.

Myself, I use a MacBook. I had an MBP before this, and will probably get another one soon. I went from a 17" MBP to the MB, but I miss the more powerful MBP graphics.

<comment><USER9> No complaints here about the Lenovo quality on a T60P. When I say 'here' I mean in my first hand experience with it.

Here's someone who agrees with me: [http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2864&Re...](http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2864&Review=Lenovo+ThinkPad+T60p)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I love my macbook pro. It has native unix (for work) and a great desktop environment (for everything else). It's also light and thin. I like that I don't have to worry about the sysadmin shit that I'd have to deal with on a regular basis with Linux, or FreeBSD, etc.

</comment><comment><USER11> The macbook. Just plain macbook. I have both MBP and MB and I use the MB by far more. Longer battery, cooler running, lighter, no hooks to latch shut - all magnets and here comes the most important thing of all...

Sleep. Yes sleep. Before I got macs I didn't think it was possible for a computer to come in and out of sleep so well. You can open and close the lid and it sleeps in seconds! Every time. Open and close it three times in a minute just to jot down a note or two. No prob. I can go days without recharging just popping it open when I need it. Forget to recharge, no prob, it has silently placed a hibernate image on the disk, just connect power, open lid, get back to work.

This is a class act all of the way that no other manufacturer has even come close to imitating. Sleep on windows machines is laughable at best. Linux alomst universally bungles it unless you have "lucky hardware".

I know, lots of people say "hey my XP laptop sleeps just fine"... No, apples do this spooky good. You just have to see it to beleive it.

Get it for the good hardware and good support. Love it for closing the lid and never worrying that your work will be right there for you at a moments notice when you open it again.

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't it make sense to wait until January 15th, though? Rumor has it a new Apple Notebook will be announced...

<comment><AUTHOR> do you know any details of this one? I could def wait that much if its something good!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Because it hasn't yet been mentioned, you might consider an OLPC. They're small screen size is, imo, greatly compensated for by their durability, portability, and mobility. They run debian and can be used in direct sunlight. Did I mention the price is right? Oh, they also have much better antennae than the thinkpad. :D

I'm not sure if the needs you outlined above are driven by some technical requirement or if that's just a list of the laptop-de-jour to which you are aspiring.

If nothing else, check out the hardware specs for the pure geeky pleasure: <http://www.laptop.org>

</comment><comment><USER14> I was going to suggest MBP until I saw that you'll use linux on it. I have one, but I wouldn't suggest buying it just for the hardware. But then, all your other constraints call for a MBP. So I'd say either a thinkpad or a MBP.

<comment><AUTHOR> MBP was also on top of my list, but whats wrong with putting own linux on it??? also I have never had apple before so I might even switch!

<comment><USER8> Nothing is wrong per se, but I think you have better hardware options from other vendors if you're not going to use OS X.

To me, the beauty of Apple is not the hardware, or the software, but the (mostly) fluid integration of the two. If you're going to not use the software, the hardware is really not all that special (IMO).

In fact, while I was very happy with my MBP, the screen locking thing turned out to be pretty fragile. It ended up breaking on me after a few months, so my screen wouldn't stay shut unless I squeezed it a bit where the little "hooks" drop down and sort of shook it a bit. It was constantly popping open, and the spring-loaded hinge was always popping up. Big pain in the ass.

<comment><USER2> > It ended up breaking on me after a few months, so my screen wouldn't stay > shut unless I squeezed it a bit where the little "hooks" drop down and sort > of shook it a bit.

My friend had that and they fixed it for him in about an hour at the local apple store. Take it in since it is just a few months old, it will be covered for sure.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, but that laptop is gone now :)

I was pretty sure it was an easy fix, I was just traveling so much I never really had a chance to take it in for a fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _"... is there anything else I should care about? ..."_

Usage. Is this to be a min dev machine? ("99%") if so look into 3 things

\- port replicator: some way to plug in ergonomic keyboard, mouse + external screen

\- power & recharge (at a power point? or are you mobile all the time?)

\- Operating system availability: (are you happy with using Windows, OSX or do you want to install _inux/_ nix?)

\- Warranty (can you extend it?)

For me the sweet spot is a ThinkPad T61. Reliable, durable, has necessary accessories and you can get Linux pre-installed (by third parties)

<comment><USER16> "- Warranty (can you extend it?)"

Generally electronics warranties are an overpriced scam (sort of like the insurance car rental agencies try to talk you into). I've heard from several places, though, that the Apple warranties are a great deal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I have a macbook. It's solid but I'd avoid it for linux (which I've decided I prefer to osx) - the single-button trackpad alone makes it a bad choice for linux. If I were getting a new laptop now I'd get a high-end thinkpad with lots of RAM so I could use vmware effectively. I have a friend who has just done this and raves about it - he runs Ubuntu.

Some people can get X11 configured to do wacky things with the keyboard so you can run linux. I figure - why bother?

<comment><AUTHOR> I love ubuntu, tis really good... and I am starting to get a feel from everyone's comments that if I go with MBP then I should stick to OSX ... so I guess I can either find an alternative like you said that would make me happy, and have my ubuntu, or switch entirely to apple and get a MBP

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> > \- Screen resolution is very important to me.

> \- I think a 15" would be good, not much smaller and bigger

But then:

> \- It must be light, I will have to be able to take it around easily and all > the time must have long battery life

and

> \- the rest is simple, 1G+ RAM, 150GB+ hard drive, good graphic card ...

You may may to make some choices. I was laptop shopping recently, and wanted basically the same features you listed, but found that light + powerful was an odd combo.

I decided on a Dell D830 with WUXGA 15" screen (19020x1200) and the 9-cell battery.

Weight: ~6 lbs.

I was considering the MacBook pro, but wanted the higher rez screen.

     I got the FreeDOS version; Ubuntu will go on it, and  went for the least amount of bundled RAM, since it is WAY cheaper to buy that separately.  It's even cheaper  to buy it as a separate item from Dell themselves.  But better yet to go through Fry's or newegg.com

</comment><comment><USER19> Acer makes really good laptops at decent prices. I've had my Travelmate for 3 years without a problem, not even a failing jack. The Sony Vaio I had before it was falling apart after less than a year.

My next computer may be a Mac, though. I've heard lots and lots of good things about the new MacBooks.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've done really well with Toshiba. I've had a number of different Satellites and they've all been good.

Once, I dropped one when I was literally running from one end to the other of the Denver airport, trying to catch a connecting flight. It bounced on a metal plate on one of those moving walkways so hard that people turned to see what the big noise was. When I got on the plane, the case had a visible dent in it and I was sure I had cracked the LCD, but was too exhausted to deal with it on the plane. When I got home, I opened the case to find the LCD was fine and it ran like a champ. Anecdotal evidence, surely, but I've stuck with them ever since and not regretted it once.

But, I know several people who have switched to MB for their only computer and seem to be doing just fine with it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have a toshiba satellite myself, and I love it... but I find them to be a bit heavy, and really bad on battery... and if you are willing to buy the high end ones then you have some other interesting alternatives!!! but I must mention the graphic card and the LCD _are amazing_ can't recommend it enough

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I got one of these:

[http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us...](http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/ubuntu?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&dgc=IR&cid=11973&lid=471885)

And have had ok luck with it. The hard drive died after a few months, but on the other hand, 24 hours after calling their service department, I had a guy show up at my house in Innsbruck, Austria with a new drive - and I bought it in the US.

It's not all that light, though... it's sort of clunky looking, to tell the truth, but it was relatively cheap. Be sure to look for the discount codes if you buy a Dell.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks davidw thats actually a cool bundle, I use ubuntu myself

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'm mostly happy with my Thinkpad Z61m. It's a 15" widescreen machine that's fairly heavy. Its replacement, the much lighter T61 widescreen should be appropriate. It's much more configurable than the MBP; base configurations are much less expensive, and comparable configurations are a bit less.

I think Thinkpad quality peaked around the 600-series of the late '90s (mmm... carbon fiber) and has been dropping ever since. The Lenovo takeover hasn't helped, but IBM was so far ahead of everybody but Apple that I don't think anybody has caught up yet.

</comment><comment><USER23> I could not recommend my laptop enough - Samsung Q35.

There's now a Q35 Pro ([http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3512&re...](http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3512&review=Samsung+Q35))

And there's a newer model, the Samsung Q45 (<http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3869>).

I get 3-4 hours battery out of it, I really like the display, the spec is good, and it's really light and robust.

</comment><comment><USER24> <http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/x-series>

my friend just got a job at Google, and that's the laptop they gave him. it's pretty amazing. super lightweight, very snazzy dock thing. this laptop is incredibly tiny, well built, and just about perfect. like 8 hours of battery life, and you can even get a fingerprint scanner on it for like $30!

dont get a macbook pro. they are so expensive for the hardware, especially if you want to run linux.

<comment><USER25> I have an x61s, and highly recommend it. Lightweight (<3lbs), durable, great battery life, performs well (Ubuntu 7.10). If you are willing to wait a few months, a mac ultraportable is in the works and likely to be released: [http://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/04/apple-orders-13-3-led- ba...](http://www.macrumors.com/2007/12/04/apple-orders-13-3-led-backlit- screens-for-upcoming-laptop/)

The two constraints you have that will conflict the most are lightweight and large screen. If you are using this as a primary desktop replacement, I'd go with a 20"+ LCD for desk usage.

<comment><USER24> as the other poster said, you are going to have a hard time finding such a large screen in such a small package.

just get a nice lcd monitor, keyboard, and mouse. when you're at your desk you have a desktop, and when you're out and about you have a small little window into the internet.

imo, though, the thinkpad x series is the best out there. amazing how well engineered it is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Latitude D830, 15.4 inch Wide Screen WUXGA LCD Panel, 128MB NVIDIAX Quadro NVS 135MX

I use Linux exclusively and that's what I just ordered for my new laptop. ~$1300 the way I configured it (with Dell "Instant Savings"). I insist on NVIDIA so high speed drivers are ensured under Linux. Apple doesn't even make a 15" laptop that runs at 1920x1200 and the others that do charge a premium. Dell is a great option if you (like me) expect to replace your laptop every 2 years and don't care that it's not a Mac.

</comment><comment><USER4> HP Pavillion DV. I'm using a DV 2000.

There are Ubuntu 100s. Everything works out of the box at the end of the install with zero setup required.

Compiz, webcam, touch sensitive multimedia keys, wireless, bluetooth, touch slider on trackpad, multimedia card reader, and all the usual bits and pieces.

They're also great looking, and have won a Red Dot award to prove it.

</comment><comment><USER12> The biggest issue of todays notebooks is the fan noise. I personally would avoid buying a notebook with a fan, because they all seem to suck. I returned several fan-books untill I happily found the Dell Latitude X1 which is fanless. It's modernised brothers are available from Samsung.

Another thing to look out for might be a DVI connector.

</comment><comment><USER27> <http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html>

</comment><comment><USER28> I would recommend a larger than 15" screen, and definitely get another 21"+ monitor for when you're using it at your desk. Drastically increases productivity.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sorry guys MBP = fail. On price.

Get this instead (windows, but you can install linux on it if you have the chops). Its ~$700 cheaper.

[http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProc...](http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/SYCTOProcess?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&LBomId=8198552921665234522)

<comment><USER2> I hate to be "that guy"

~700$ cheaper? For the base model, yes. Make the specs comparable to the MBP: 2x2.2ghz, 2 gigs of ram, read/write drive, comparable battery: ~200 cheaper. They still dont exactly match, the MBP now has a better vidcard still, and the Sony has 1280x800 resolution instead of 1440x900.

Apple hardware is very comparable in price to most other providers.

<comment><USER29> Not everyone needs 1440x900, or a $2k comp. I am simply providing an alternative to the largely unjustified, yet astronomically priced MBP. I guess I should have looked for a budget.

<comment><USER6> Well, the VERY FIRST point he lists in his criteria is that he's not concerned about cost as much as he is a quality machine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


I studied hard for a year and now I have an AI job building robots - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@TomPJacobs/i-studied-hard-for-a-year-and-now-i-have-an-ai-job-building-robots-51acda72383c <comment><AUTHOR> And you can too!</comment>


Startups Are Making Real Estate Businesses More Efficient - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/11/how-startups-are-making-real-estate-businesses-more-efficient/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29 <comment><USER2> I have some experience with this that I figured is worth sharing, though it's not directly related to the article. Recently, I developed a quick tool that checks the demand for a given type of property in a given geographical area and compares it with the demand for a single listing in question in order to find discrepancies. The discrepancies are typically asking prices that are either far lower or far higher than the demand for that kind of property in that area. I marketed this to a number of brokers as a way of calibrating how quickly they wanted to have a listing turn over, and offered a few price adjustment suggestions to their listings.

I failed for a few reasons, and I think it's worth outlining them here so that other people don't fall into the same traps if they decide to make tools for the real estate industry. YMMV, and take what I say with a grain of salt.

1\. Real estate isn't as quantitative as I wanted it to be in my mind. Emotional "pulling out of their ass" price assignment was the rule, with no exceptions. Most of this works to the advantage of the people handling real estate, as it prevents them from being held accountable for judgment mistakes (as decisions are completely and purposefully subjective) within their own organizations.

2\. Real estate folks aren't tech-savvy. Not even a little, and not even the ones that claim to be. Even getting the full functionality out of Zillow was beyond most of the folks I talked to. The best I saw any of them do was a table that calculated averages in Excel. This fact means that any product you deliver or show them has to be non-beta, completely polished, functioning flawlessly. They are used to selling people on existing features, and analyze products as such.

3\. Honesty in business practices isn't considered desirable. Point blank, one of my early clients told me that they'd have their representatives at the open house try to screen out people who didn't appear wealthy enough to purchase the property at the high-end cost estimate they had agreed on internally. I was trying to sell him a way of justifying different price points quantitatively rather than qualitatively, but I'd completely missed that such justifications aren't wanted because having a formal structure prevents casual exclusion of the "wrong" type of people.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the detailed post - very helpful for me. If I may ask, what were some of the factors that you used to determine the demand for a property in a given area?

<comment><USER2> Median turnover time, price shift from month to month, demographic/socioeconomic data on prospective buyers. It's all quite simple, and behaves exactly as you would expect within urban areas-- as skeptical as the brokers were, their narrative to justify prices almost always ended up very close to the quantitative estimate. Suburbs and commercial real estate are much harder to nail down correctly.</comment></comment></comment>


Introspected REST: An alternative to REST and GraphQL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vasilakisfil/Introspected-REST <comment><USER2> REST is one of the most blogged about, argued over bike sheds in tech. Once you stop agonizing over status codes, media types, routes being nouns, resources, etc. it becomes surprisingly easy to be productive with HTTP. There are just a few simple rules to follow. GETs shouldn't make changes. PUTs should make idempotent changes. 2xx status codes are for success. 4xx and 5xx are for failure.

<comment><USER3> You're describing RPC over HTTP. REST does rely on resources and does use a limited set of CRUD commands to operate over the resources, but REST also requires automatic discovery from a single starting resource/endpoint (see HATEOAS).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think that a big part of the problem is that HTTP was initially designed for transfering static files and static data over potentially unauthenticated connections. It wasn't designed to deal with application data that is complex and changes frequently with many concurrent users.

I think that HTTP has been popular for so long that many people just refuse to admit that it's not suitable for handling complex dynamic data. They will go to desperate extremes to try to make it work; e.g. GraphQL over HTTP or Introspected REST.

To deal with complex, fast changing data, we need to step away from HTTP and look towards simpler bidirectional connections as a starting point (e.g. WebSockets).

<comment><USER5> I'm not so sure about this. The methods POST and PUT for example reflect the intention of updating data on a server.

Also, HTTP is just a transfer protocol, I see no problem building abstractions on top of it to handle data transfers for complex applications. Could you explain with more details what properties of HTTP makes it hard to deal with complex data?

<comment><USER6> > Could you explain with more details what properties of HTTP makes it hard to > deal with complex data?

There are a few but one of the first that comes to mind is what happens if two users modify different fields/properties of the same resource at the same time?

If you want to support concurrent editing by multiple users, you need a way to either automatically resolve conflicts or to avoid conflicts altogether. With REST over HTTP, because updates typically involve overwriting the whole resource in a single POST or PUT, one user will fully overwrite the changes made by the other user; even if they were editing different fields of the same resource.

<comment><USER7> You seem to be describing a use-case for HTTP PATCH.

What is there about what you're describing that's more difficult with PATCH than alternative protocols?

Unless of course you have two users directly editing the same field simultaneously, but this is a direct conflict case that any underlying implementations will have to have their own strategy for—HTTP wouldn't be any different to anything else here.

<comment><USER6> That's true, PATCH would solve that specific writing aspect of the problem, but there is still the issue that each user would not know that the other user has changed another property; we need some kind of server push mechanism to inform users that the underlying data has changed. Also, if users update one field at a time, it's more expensive to have one HTTP request per field (considering the HTTP headers overhead and potentially having to open a new connection) rather than using one WebSocket frame per update.

<comment><USER8> Server-sent events might be a good fit here.

Note that SSE belongs to the content layer (HTML) rather than the transfer layer (HTTP) so its specifically about notifications to active clients about content changes to resources they're observing.

Here's someone describing their experience with it: [https://medium.com/axiomzenteam/websockets-http-2-and- sse-5c...](https://medium.com/axiomzenteam/websockets-http-2-and- sse-5c24ae4d9d96)

<comment><USER6> The fact that the SSE connection is unidirectional makes it impossible to quickly and efficiently detect disconnection from the server-side; this costs extra in terms of performance.

Also, SSEs make it essentially impossible to implement features like real-time user online/offline presence and automatic renewal of authentication tokens (without closing the previous real-time/SSE connection).

<comment><USER8> Good points about the limitations - SSE certainly won't be useful for lots of scenarios and you might prefer resorting to traditional approaches in those scenarios (in lieu of or in concert with an SSE channel).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15140908](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15140908) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15211604](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15211604) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422095)

</comment><comment><USER10> "Basically misunderstood REST and added back the discoverability that was there to begin with" approach.

You can see from his "proper" implementation of rest that his test understanding is partial at best, for example the user object doesn't return links to change his state (i.e. suspend, delete) not the users resource exposes an endpoint to add a user.

Then he added it in the "introspected" approach, but it's nothing novel.

<comment><USER11> I think that if discoverability would be there from the start, we wouldnt have things like Hateoas or GraphQL developed in the first place - why do that if its there ?

First example shows how most APIs on Internet look like right now with all possible enhancments after that - presenting that they are far from ideal. After that is a section which shows how to limit human interaction with API because it should be "machine to machine" designed and how it can be accomplished using the new approach.

Tho i understand its hard to get at first, some TLDR wouldnt hurt.

<comment><USER12> _I think that if discoverability would be there from the start, we wouldnt have things like Hateoas_

HATEOAS _is_ there from the start; in fact, it's an integral part of the concept of REST.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Really needs a TL;DR style summary at the start. Or at least a couple brief examples to show the approach in a concise manner.

While I could spend significant time reading the entire manifesto, I'd appreciate a way to see up front if it's worthwhile doing so.

The author has rejected similar calls before: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18425581](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18425581) but I truly think it would be beneficial to a lot of potential readers.

<comment><USER3> If the author can't be bothered to explain his idea in intelligible and clear terms, and also is unable to present a concrete example showcasing his proposed approach, then there is no point to waste time reading a manifesto as the creators themselves are incapable of leveraging the idea to produce any result.

<comment><USER6> I also agree. If something cannot be explained in simple terms, then there is no way that it will be understood by enough people to actually trigger a change in collective behavior.

There needs to be some kind of marketing to give people an incentive to read the whole thing.

The marketing can be technical but it needs to be short and it needs to appeal to a common set of principles which people already have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article has been posted and re-posted 4 times on ycombinator starting a year ago:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=alternative%20to%20REST%20and%...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=alternative%20to%20REST%20and%20GraphQL&sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

REST works great without an "introspected REST". The repeated reposting of "Introspected REST" here reminds me of the Far Side's Little Bang cartoon:

[https://dakiniland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/little- bang-t...](https://dakiniland.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/little-bang- theory.jpg)

<comment><USER15> > REST works great without an "introspected REST"

Cars work great without electric engine

Bikes work great without pedals

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> The biggest misconception to get over is that REST has nothing to do with HTTP.

You can implement REST over any transport protocol. Clean URLs, status codes, and methods are irrelevant.

Everything revolves around media types. Your service provides resources with well-defined media types. Your clients send requests with recognized media types.

That said, this simple architectural style is exceedingly difficult to pull off.

Most of what people call "REST" is nothing more than JSON-RPC. There's nothing wrong with that, but Fielding invented REST, so he gets to say what it is.

Fielding's dissertation, where REST is defined, isn't much help though. The biggest problem is its highly abstract nature with few clarifying examples of what REST is and is not.

This article provides these examples, and so should compliment Fielding's dissertation.

</comment><comment><USER17> Previous discussion, only a month ago

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18422095)

</comment><comment><USER11> As someone who simply dislikes the half-baked approach of HATEoas and its alternatives, this anew approach suits me better.

<comment><USER12> Why is HATEOAS (which is simply a description of how sites work) half-baked?

<comment><USER11> Manifest contains answer to this question in the section dedicated to hateoas

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> GraphQL rules, will never go back to rest if I can help it.

</comment><comment><USER19> my favorite part, every time this shows up here, is that an example of a simple api with all the info the client needs to understand the data is:

"""application/vnd.weather+yaml Media Type that is only supposed to provide a single attribute with its value, as Integer:

temperature: 25"""

which completely ignores the unit ;)

the fact that no human would ever know the actual temperature, shows how disconnected from humanity most protocol design committees are.

<comment><USER20> temperature_in_c would do, so would latency_in_ms, or distance_in_km.

I think an API is not for humans in general, but for the specific sub-group of humans that are programmers (and machines obviously). So some disconnect from humanity as a whole is, I believe, acceptable in API design.</comment></comment>


How to Talk to Your Customers - <AUTHOR> http://howtomarketagame.com/2020/02/17/how-to-talk-to-your-customers/ <comment><USER2> Kind of off topic, but I'm amazed by this website's home page with the "steps". I like the format. Jordan Belfort said in his book that one key characteristic of good salespeople is that they take control over the sales process, making any kind of potential customer walk the steps you have defined as your sales process. When you take that lead and master it, you can sell to virtually anyone in front of you.

<comment><USER3> Hi thanks a lot for the comment. That is my site.

I just hate it when I discover a cool blog post and the person seemed cool too but then I didn't know what to do next. So I thought I would just walk them through what I want them to do.

also I totally stole this idea from this author who writes about marketing books: [https://selfpublishingformula.com/](https://selfpublishingformula.com/)

<comment><USER2> Cool. Thanks for sharing the link. That website takes the idea of steps to a whole new level. It's definitely not a "one man company".

Hey, by the way, I just checked your HN profile and it doesn't have a link to your website.</comment></comment></comment>


Hiring - Must be godlike to apply - <AUTHOR> http://tomcreighton.com/2012/02/hiring-must-be-godlike-to-apply/

<comment><USER2> That sounds like another one of those If You Qualify, Why Aren't You Starting Your Own Company? situations.

If the four people (actually five, I agree with Tom that number four is really two people) they're looking for got together on their own, they could start a killer startup of their own, and just hire a biz dev guy as a non-founder.

I'd love to know what this startup is, and what value the existing founders bring to the table.

<comment><USER3> Hint - they post their jobs page to Hacker News regularly, and you can apply via API.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I saw that ad, thought about applying, but decided not to.

Here is why:

\-- A list of common languages is something that pushes me away. Why? Because it tells me (by experience) that they want someone who can do it all (impossible). Its fine to list 2-3 languages or frameworks, but more than that just makes me very suspicious.

\-- A bachelor's degree. I don't have one, I will not get one. Why ask for one when a lot of CS graduates can't program?

\-- Experience? Sure, lots. But when you get older (I'm 32+), everything looks the same: just data sets, and problems to be solved. There is a blurry line between languages/frameworks/etc. Everything is just more of the same (I do, however, enjoy it!). Ask for experience in engineering, and not for experience in the latest dohicketydo.

<comment><USER5> _A bachelor's degree. I don't have one, I will not get one. Why ask for one when a lot of CS graduates can't program?_

This is logically flawed. It is entirely possible that by removing the barrier of bachelor's degree, they will receive _even more_ applicants who cannot program (percentage-wise).

I have no grounds on which to claim this _is the case_ , but it seems entirely feasible and you have simply skipped over it.

Note that I am not taking issue with your personal choices regarding a degree. It is your choice to make, and I respect that.

<comment><USER6>
      > This is logically flawed. It is entirely possible that by
      > removing the barrier of bachelor's degree, they will
      > receive even more applicants who cannot program
      > (percentage-wise).

While certainly true, this line of reasoning works a lot better for big companies than small-ish start-ups. Remember: requiring a CS degree acts as a filter with a certain probabilistic efficacy given that CS degree and engineering ability are correlated but distinct.

If you get 10,000 applications a year (as enterprises like Google, Facebook, and Apple do), you don't really have to give a damn about your false negative rate. Go ahead and install severe formal requirements (e.g., needs CS PhD) -- you're still going to get a number of applications that is sufficiently large to statistically guarantee multiple highly suitable candidates, and you'll save tons of money and time in the process.

Non-behemoths can't really afford many false negatives because the applicant pool is far more limited. False positives at the CV/formalism stage are relatively easily filtered at the interview stage due to, again, smaller _volume_.

<comment><USER4> Yes, good point.

Plus, if you are google/facebook/apple material[1], then a degree is just icing on the cake for them.

Building something that gets a lot of attention is also very attractive to these types of companies.

[1]Whatever that is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I stopped reading job ads because it made me feel unqualified to do anything. I have a lot of experience. I've solved a lot of hard problems. I've built a lot of enterprise software that a lot of people actually use. But of course, that's not good enough these days. You have to be a real genius to get a job. I'm not a genius unfortunately so I'll stick with trying to do start my own company and hire geniuses.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you match half the qualifications, ignore that and apply. You probably have lots of unlisted skills they are looking for, too, and you can probably pick up new things if nobody is filling the role.

They are looking to meet a bunch of needs. You have an idea what the needs are and think you can meet many of them. So apply. It's unlikely to be set in stone that the needs have to be met by hiring the exact roles listed in the job posting.

<comment><USER9> I'd say that the point is more on the company's perspective.

Even if some people realize <what you said> and know to just go for it, the job description scares away some people who could otherwise be qualified.

And a new startup probably can't afford to scare away potential hires.

<comment><USER8> It's really hard to convey what you want to in a job listing, especially one that lists specific roles, like job seekers expect. And I'll agree that this one may not be very effective.

But it's a really hard problem. One suggestion I would have is to have a really clear list of things you're looking for that's separate from your individual job postings. Part of the goal with job postings is to get all the skills you're looking for listed _somewhere_ on the posting site, because you want to make sure if someone with that skill sees your site, it registers with them. Need someone familiar with A/B testing but can't fit it into the well- defined roles people are looking for? Put it in a paragraph above all the roles.

I agree that a new startup doesn't have a lot of room to scare away potential hires, but they also don't have a lot of room to waste time looking into everyone that spams their resume to anything it matches.

In some respects a tradeoff needs to be made here, and I'd rather select for people who are willing to dive into something that looks a bit above their head than select for people who are looking to apply to jobs they are already perfectly capable of.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> With me, these kinds of complaints by designers conjure up an image of an ivory tower artist that is offended by being asked to take notice of some practical obstacle to his artistic plans. "Take me as I am, on my conditions; I don't care for what the world wants: I am an artíste" (read with French accent)

A job posting for a "project leader/lead developer" will ask for "an excellent project manager, team leader and software engineer, with the skills to communicate with clients and programmers", with some some technologies and methodologies thrown in. Every full-time manager can tell you that managing complex projects or teams is an art in itself. You can spend a lifetime excelling in only that. They could equally well argue it is ridiculous to ask that someone is an excellent software engineer as well. However, they don't: it is perfectly acceptable that one should be skilled in both project management and programming. That one should have people skills and technical skills, even though each of those could be a specialization in it's own right.

The exact same holds for design. If you are offended by people look for a designer/front-end programmer, but not by people looking for a project leader/software engineer, than you are suffering from a delusion of grandeur about the importance of 'design'. There are precious few companies that can use excellent 'pure' designers. All the others are perfectly content to hire someone with adequate design skills and a set of additional adequate skills that make him useful to fulfill several roles. If that is offensive to your, you need to leave your artist-ego at the door when you go looking for a job.

<comment><USER11> I'm a programmer that does more front-end (html5/js) than back-end, and perhaps 'adequate' design skills (I don't do graphics, but can make decent- looking prototypes with enough css).

When looking at the description for the designer job in the OP, its not the design/technical combination that seems over-the-top, but those two jobs _and_ a third job doing A/B and conversion rate testing. That needs to be delegated to somebody else, either a separate designer, a Quality-Assurance person, or the project lead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Job ads like that are a HUGE sign that the company does not value Front End Engineers, and should be avoided (they are a backend company)

And a link to a great article about how to actually hire Front End Engineers <http://allenc.com/2012/01/how-to-get-front-end-developers/></comment>


Revolut Oct.30th incident post-mortem - <AUTHOR> https://blog.revolut.com/revolut-app-issues-30th-october-what-happened-and-what-we-did-to-fix-it/ <comment><AUTHOR> TL;DR; non-backward compatible schema migration (dropping an « unused » column) triggered errors on the previous authentication service version during rollout</comment>