What's A Fair Value for Facebook Stock? - <AUTHOR> http://www.econmatters.com/2012/05/whats-fair-value-for-facebook-stock.html

<comment><USER2> I'm not rushing out to buy Facebook, but the arrogance and condescension of this article is overwhelming:

> _valuing Microsoft (MSFT) when they went to IPO was tricky - back then what > was going to happen was hard to predict. Valuing Google was a lot easier, > and valuing Facebook is a cinch._

Right, it's just a _cinch_. The ineffectual ads Facebook has been toying with are the only endgame. There's no possibility they could you know, _improve_ the ads, or completely overhaul them, or make money from other channels. I mean the guys who built the biggest, stickiest social network in the world that destroyed all the myriads before them could never possibly come up with a fresh idea for how to make money.

Instead let's just do a traditional market analysis so that we can feel very smug and turn the snark up to max.

<comment><USER3> Couldn't you say the same about any company though? "Sure XYZ are doing badly, but they've got some really smart guys there, all they need to do is come up with a fresh idea for how to make money"

We can only really judge Facebook on what they are doing now, not a revolutionary new way of making money which no-one has yet thought up.

<comment><USER2> No you can't. Facebook is still growing and still innovating. They have more user data and more user engagement then anyone and they're sinking their hooks ever wider via social widgets and authentication services. They haven't hit a wall yet, and there are still many potential areas they are well positioned to expand into.

Everyone is concerned that they are plateauing, but that's just because of the tremendous numbers they have. Just because they're running up against the limitations of human population at this time doesn't mean the product has plateaued.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I admit I don't fully understand financial analysis, so I don't understand how he got to $10. However I do know math and I figure I could do a reasonable comparison of stock prices. What I wanted was an apples to apples comparison between FB and GOOG. To do this I figured out what FB's price should be if it were valued like GOOG.

What I needed to know were the number of shares outstanding, the current stock price, and their revenues. A simple lookup gives me the first two items, and I have the last one from the article itself.

To get the values in terms of revenues, I multiplied the number of stock outstanding with the stock price, and then divided by the revenue. This gets me the stock to revenue ratio of GOOG.

        Shares * Price
        </comment><comment></comment><comment>-- = Stock to Revenue ratio
           Revenue

GOOG's equation looks something like this: 326M * 613 / 36.5B ~= 5.475 S:R

Knowing this, I can now start calulating FB's ratio and solve for it's stock price.

2140M * FBStockPrice / 3.71B = 0.576 * FBStockPrice

Solving for FBStockPrice...

0.576 * FBStockPrice = 5.475, FBStockPrice = 9.4917

Refs:

[GOOG]: [https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:GOOG](https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:GOOG)

[FB]: [https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:FB](https://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=NASDAQ:FB)

 _TL;DR_ : This doesn't mean anything. I just like math.

</comment><comment><USER5> Wow. That's a lot of words for what's essentially just a back-of-the-envelope estimate.

Besides, claiming that the fair value is $10 but you should only buy at $5 is really odd. You must be extremely risk averse to require a 100%/year return. And that's after he discounted 30% relative to Google. Also, if predicting Facebook's financials is easier than it was to predict early Microsoft's, why should anyone expect returns as large as early Microsoft investors?

I suggest the saner, and much more concise estimate by NYU's Prof. Aswath Damodaran:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/valuation-guru-facebook-is- wo...](http://www.businessinsider.com/valuation-guru-facebook-is- worth-29-2012-5)

</comment><comment><USER6> I think about it this simplistic way: If Microsoft and Google had the opportunity to acquire Facebook for $40bn, would they pass on it and risk the other getting it? Hell no.

So I'd say it's worth at least around $18.

</comment><comment><USER7> tl;dr: $10. His advice: don't pay more than $5.</comment>


Clinton campaign chair: Americans 'can handle the truth' about UFOs - <AUTHOR> http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/clinton-campaign-chair-americans-can-handle-the-truth-about-ufos/ar-BBrwmu5?ocid=ansmsnnews11 <comment><USER2> Sounds like an attempt to score votes from frequent callers to the UFO Hotline and the "Coast to Coast AM" crowd.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Reactions from the Religious Heads and their followers would be one of the most interesting things to watch unfold.</comment>


Show HN: JS2HTML – Formatting JavaScript as HTML - <AUTHOR> http://online.codedrome.com/js2html/js2html.htm <comment><USER2> It doesn't seem to like non-ascii characters.

        "ěščřžý";
        "привіт";
        "<emoji><emoji>"; // HN stripped the actual emojis

turns into:

        "undefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefined";

        "undefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefinedundefined";

        "undefinedundefinedundefinedundefined";

</comment><comment><USER3> What is up with your SSL certificate? snazzygal.co.uk ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on it! I've just renewed the certificate and my hosting company seem to have screwed up :(</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to deal with anonymous rants about your project - <AUTHOR>

There are thousands of open-source projects out there, so lots of maintainers.  Who among you has seen this problem...
Basically, a user downloads your software, and finds a bug; but, instead of actually telling you about it, they angrily "go public" and rant somewhere.  If you're really unlucky, they'll choose a place with enough pageviews that your project's reputation is quickly tarred, and others wonder why they should even bother to download.
What's really insulting about this behavior, is that these are people who have sent no E-mail, filed no bug reports, and donated no money, code, time, or anything else.  The bugs can be obscure, and even hard to reproduce.  These people feel entitled to shred your years of work: they spend a few minutes clicking on something, and head straight for the forums.
How do you deal with this?
I can tell you as a maintainer that it hurts, but I still try to suck it up, and I respond to even destructive criticism with action.  If I can figure out what problem the person is referring to, I fix it, even if I'll never be able to tell them that it's fixed (and they probably wouldn't care if I did).
But sometimes I think people need to be educated again.  Clearly anonymous posters feel invincible in a way that wouldn't translate to real life.  Imagine coming to my house, receiving a wonderful free meal, and then throwing it in my face while screaming how horrible it is because it's missing a dash of salt? <comment><USER2> Yesterday at work a man came to me and talked about one of his superiors who criticized this Excel file he (the first man) made. He made the Excel file because he needed to run some reports, and then word spread around and he shared the file and it got to this particular superior, who called him and complained that there were not enough good data filters.

makecheck... (the first) man was pissed.

There was also this man who used to work 2-3 hours per day creating some crazy Excel files. 16 blocks of with dozens of cells with relevant information, 1000 rows. I made some software for him which generated 99% of the Excel file in 10 minutes. His first comment? Something along the lines of "inerte, this is not very good, it's taking me 10 minutes to fill the 1% remaining".

From 3 hours down to 10 minutes, and he complained.

Anyway, I'm sharing these two tales to tell you that IT HAPPENS (yes, sadly).

So here's what I think you should do. Fix the bug, say that you did, try to contact the person who found it, and move on.

And see the bright side. Someone used your app, found a bug on it, and now you have the OPPORTUNITY to show how quickly you fixed the bug and how you tried to make your users happy. On the brighter side, what happened and could happen is something AWESOME. Someone actually found and tried your software. You have users! And they found bugs for you that you were not able to! And now you have the chance to show others how do you respond!

</comment><comment><USER3> May be you don't have a good enough way for the user to report it to you. If you know your product is going to have problems, have a always visible feedback form and a live chat one click away from your users.</comment>


Engineers Combined a Plane and a Blimp to Make a Plimp Airship - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/42589-plane-blimp-plimp-aircraft.html <comment><USER2> I believe it was Sam Clemens who said that if history doesn't repeat itself, it certainly rhymes.

John McPhee wrote about a similar flight mechanism in the Deltoid Pumpkin Seed back in '71.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEREON_26](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AEREON_26)

</comment><comment><USER3> Wonder if it could be powered solar.</comment>


3D printing has stagnated, says pioneering designer Francis Bitonti - <AUTHOR> http://www.dezeen.com/2015/06/25/3d-printing-industry-stagnant-francis-bitonti-interview-intellectual-property-makerbot/

<comment><AUTHOR> > Speaking to Dezeen in New York last month, Bitonti said that the 3D-printing > industry needed to open up its intellectual property so that the design and > manufacturing community could help drive forward improvements.

> "They've got to open up," he said. "It's not that they need to open up all > of their IP, but it's a lot of things. You see a lot of tinker toys because > they're treating it like a copy machine. I think they need to change their > mind and understand that it's a manufacturing technology."

> He added: "The industry is just completely choked by intellectual property > law right now."</comment>


Think Windows is insecure? You're wrong, says security firm Kaspersky. - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.computerworld.com/18791/think_windows_is_insecure_youre_wrong_says_security_firm_kapersky <comment><USER2> People who say Windows is insecure aren't comparing it to Flash or Java, they are comparing it to OS X, Linux, or *BSD. Without addressing that comparison, this article is useless.

<comment><USER3> It's amusing that Windows only recently introduced both real home folders and UAC, when *nix had been working like that for years.

Imagine how much trouble could have been avoided if MS had used that model in the first place...!

<comment><USER4> Home folders and UAC have very little to do with the real-world security of Windows vs. other operating systems. The reality is, even today, if you get arbitrary code execution _on any operating system_ you are probably boned.

<comment><USER3> Even when arbitrary code is being executed, if the user has limited permissions kernel-level, a program can't screw up the whole system.

The Android NDK is reliant on this - any application in Android can perform your arbitrary code execution, and it seems to be working out alright.

<comment><USER2> The kernel is not some almighty bug free program. The question is then just whether or not the person who has gained the capacity to run code on your system knows an exploit that will give them root privileges.

The Android thing works because you aren't just running arbitrary code, you are probably running code that you got from the Android Marketplace, which was probably screened to make sure it doesn't do something bad.

<comment><USER3> How would they be screened? If you include native libraries in your APK, they're binaries, not code. They could scan the binary for API calls, but you're permitted to call dlopen() etc, so you could always hide a shared object in there and call it dynamically.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Windows 7 is pretty damn secure, perhaps more so than Mac OS X and Linux with a default install. The problem is all the common shortcuts people (in some cases are forced to) take to use the applications they need/want.

I still see regular end users routinely made administrators of their computers for no good reason, or due to sloppy software (hello, Intuit).

<comment><USER6> > _Perhaps more so than Mac OS X_

Windows 7 is many orders more secure than OS X—just look at Pwn2Own, OS X is regularly the first to be eliminated.

<comment><USER7> Pwn2own doesn't work the way you think it does. The participants use prepared exploits. You can't infer anything about the relative security of different systems that both get exploited there.

<comment><USER8> Zero day hackers and the malicious Chinese hacker spies also use prepared exploits, so you can infer _something_ about the relative easiness of finding exploitable holes.

<comment><USER7> What do you think you can infer?

<comment><USER8> Pwn2own may use prepared exploits, but researchers tend to go for the easy low hanging fruit, so there is a lot to infer from who falls on the first day etc.

Read this from the horse's mouth and see what you can infer from it. [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/questions-for-pwn2own- hac...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/questions-for-pwn2own-hacker- charlie-miller/2941)

<comment><USER9> I thought the Mac was exploited first because a Mac is more valuable than most Wintel machines, thus a better material prize.

<comment><AUTHOR> You really think the hackers who spend hours of meticulous planning in preparing the hacks do it for the material prize? Insightful...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'd agree with these findings.

Windows 7 especially does seem fairly safe and secure. The only time I've had a virus on my current computer is when I've actively downloaded files and run them without properly scanning them first (which is 100% my own fault of course; not a wise idea to download when rushing!)

I know some non-tech-savvy users who literally have 200+ programs installed and 3+ of those spammy toolbars on their IE installs. When you've got people who will download anything and everything they see, it's no surprise they get loads of viruses - and then blame Windows when thing go awry.

I agree that the architecture of Unix-based OSes is probably more secure than Windows 7 overall, although this doesn't mean that W7 is insecure.

</comment><comment><USER11> "...that conventional wisdom is wrong..." ... "...For the very first time in its history...". So people are wrong to assume that windows products are vulnerable just because for the first in years it happend not to be ?

This article is pointless imo, doesn't explain why is it any safer, only assumes it because some hacker HIRED by microsoft said so.

<comment><USER12> Even worse : it just says that flash is more insecure than windows. Nothing more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Security isn't just about lack of buffer overflows. It's in the way users interact with the system, and the way they're encouraged to interact.

In most Linux distributions, the user is encouraged (by the design of the system) to, in almost all cases, either install cryptographically-signed software packages vetted and maintained by the vendor; or download a source package and compile it themselves. In Windows, the user is encouraged (by the design of the system) to download unsigned binaries from all over the Web and run them.

That's why I'll never consider Windows to be comparably secure to modern Linux distributions. Sure, you can keep a Windows system airtight, but the way the system is designed makes it require effort, so users, in general, don't.

<comment><USER14> I'm a Linux user and I do agree, but I do have to tell you - the lack of universal binaries that you can just download and install on a Linux workstation is one of the reasons Linux will never be as popular as Windows or even OS X.

People want convenience over anything else. A computer has to be secure in spite of people downloading software from all over the web.

<comment><USER15> Considering how i use computers, most of the time i found it far more convenient to apt-get search and 20s latter install (or the equivalent with the package manager you use) than downloading a random piece of software from a random internet site, which from this point might become a risk if it does not auto update, and if it does it's with a stupid yet-another rewritten auto update program that always uses 50 MB of RAM for just one program installed on the system, even when the program does not run.

And considering the success of "app stores" and the general dislike of the traditional windows desktop computers by the general public (except if you are fool enough to help them for free doing all the busy work maintenance tasks that can't even exist on serious systems), I guess the centralized packaging and distribution model is also pretty convenient for the general public...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _> living in the past_

Yeah and so is everyone on XP, and there are a lot of them worldwide.

<comment><USER17> Its not necessarily my favorite OS but I think that in general a lot of commenters have been living in the past (particularly wrt performance and reliability) since windows switched from 3.1 to NT.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> To be fair, almost all of the proclamations I see from people about Windows being insecure are based on old, pre-SP2, pre-SDLC anecdotes and experiences (which were definitely true at one point, but haven't been true for quite a while).

It would be like if I railed against Linux being usable by complaining about how bad the sound subsystem was...

This Usenix video from last year of Crispin Cowan going over improvements to Windows security was interesting:

<http://www.usenix.org/multimedia/sec10cowan>

</comment><comment><USER19> Im not a security expert but saying something isn't in the top 10 worst anymore isn't the same as saying its now better, Flash & Java may have become more insecure.

</comment><comment><USER20> Define insecure/secure.

I know that if a popup tells me I can get free cat screensavers at 'randomwebsitewitharandomname.com', it's most likely fake and might have a virus attached. I don't download it and my system is 'secure'. However, if I don't know it's fake (i.e., I'm not experienced with computers at all,) I might download it. Now my system is insecure. Whoopee.

You could say that a system is only secure if it can catch things like that before it's too late. The problem there is that Windows, like other OSes, does not come with any anti-virus program built into the system itself (I'm excluding security measures built into Windows as this doesn't fully protect it.) Windows is only secure from viruses when an antivirus program is used.

Of course, that doesn't make other systems safe. Just because Mac and GNU/Linux viruses are rare doesn't mean it's secure. This mentality is 'security by unpopularity'. The real argument is in how these systems would protect themselves from viruses that actually ran on them if those viruses were as prevalent as Windows viruses and the systems were used as much as Windows. On that, we can only speculate.

My point is that I'm only secure if I know what I'm doing; software is not built to replace common sense

<comment><USER21> * I'm only secure if I know what I'm doing; software is not built to replace common sense*

That's an excellent and succinct statement of security; can I use that line?

<comment><USER20> Haha, sure!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> BS. Kaspersky and others biggest market is on Windows. They thrive on sold Windows copies.

<comment><AUTHOR> by that logic touting that their biggest market is a secure OS does not help their bottomline does it?

<comment><USER23> Not necessarily, it could mean that one market is saturated and they are looking to open up new markets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I don't understand why in Windows Vista the security escalation dialog box has several different appearances depending on the context.

<comment><USER25> It's explained here:

[http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/03/30/19916...](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2007/03/30/1991616.aspx)

<comment><USER24> interesting! thanks for posting that.

I still think it's bad design b/c it fails to train the average user to avoid false privilege escalation dialog boxes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> On the one hand, the evidence provided to back this claim is pretty lame:

      1. Microsoft vendor says so.
      2. Windows blogger says so.
      3. Person *hired* by Microsoft says so.

That said, if Adobe can no longer say "hey, at least we're not as bad as the people who make the operating system", we may finally see some effort by them. More public shaming the better.

<comment><USER27> Kapersky sell security software, if anything they're likely to make claims about how bad security is so that people will buy their software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The millions of hijacked Windows XP machines ready to a botnet's bidding might beg to differ.

Let us never forget that Microsoft Windows is responsible for, among much else, the transfer of critical trade secrets, diplomatic communications, and weapons technologies to our competitors and enemies. If China wins World War 3 in 50 years, Windows, albeit indirectly, will be significantly responsible.

Windows 7 may be more secure, but XP is still a major drain on society.

<comment><USER8> By that same token, Windows was responsible for commoditizing the hardware by keeping the OEMs in competition with each other, leading to free fall of computer prices and thus putting a computer on almost every desktop and in most laps around the world. Even Apple moved to the x86 platform to take advantage of the scale and prices.

If you think Apple hardware is overpriced now, imagine if they didn't have any competition from Sony, Dell, HP, Acer, etc.

Back to your argument. Lets see:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/technology/02google.html?p...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/02/technology/02google.html?pagewanted=all)

>She highlighted a fake document titled "Draft US-China Joint Statement" that was circulated among people with e-mail accounts at the State Department, the Defense Department, the Defense Intelligence Agency and Gmail. Clicking to download the document directed users instead to a fake Gmail log-in page that captured their passwords.

So that attack wouldn't have worked if the user was on an iPad or Droid or a Macbook Air or running the most hardened Linux computer. Right?

Zero days have been found in every browser/OS combo around. It's hard to see how OS X would fare better in a very targeted attack as Safari/OS X is usually one of the first to fall in PWN2OWN where the reward is a Macbook (not a win in a World War).

Stop getting your news only from places like Boyocott Novell, Groklaw,Slashdot, HN and the comments there. It warps your mind.

<comment><USER28> You are correct that Windows was responsible for the commoditization of computing. You are also correct that many hacks occurred through means other than unpatched Windows machines. Neither of those truths changes the fact that Windows XP has been and continues to be a serious issue for national and corporate security.

Almost every computer in China runs a pirated version of XP that can not be patched and is vulnerable and likely infected with some sort of botnet software. Many corporations and agencies in the US have been compromised in this way as well.</comment></comment></comment>


Psilocybin found safe for consumption in largest ever controlled study - <AUTHOR> https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/magic-mushroom-depression-psilocybin-trials-kcl-mental-health-addiction-a9251451.html <comment><USER2> From what I've read about psilocybin, it has the ability to produce long-term, positive changes in perception that can last a lifetime. Hopefully with the decriminalization of shrooms in Denver (from Initiative 301) we'll start to see other states follow suit and explore the possibilities for good that can be made with this class of drugs.</comment>


Ask HN: How many "tell me when it launches" email addresses did you have? - <AUTHOR>

On my app I have about 450 beta signups now (we haven't done our public beta yet) and I think that's pretty good for the moment. But I am curious about others. Did you do anything special to get interest prior to your launch?<p>And in the end, did any of those people convert to paying customers? <comment><USER2> We have a "Tell me when this feature is ready" button. So far 50 emails in the last month, but people always had something usable from the moment I bought the domain and set its A record to my home DynDNS IP.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've had the signup page up for almost a week now and I have 3, so don't feel too bad about your 450.

</comment><comment><USER4> I had about 200 in two weeks that I generated from a related site.</comment>


Science Fiction Timeline of Inventions - <AUTHOR> http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/ctnlistPubDate.asp

<comment><USER2> This is a great collection of ideas, some of which we have seen turned into products. (would love an anti-gravity belt but alas).

A entrepreneur friend of mine and I were debating the "value" of an idea vs the making of it into a real "thing." I'm in the camp that execution, the getting it made into reality is the 'hard' work and coming up with the idea is the 'easy' work. He was taking the other side that imagining something that nobody had yet thought about or mentioned was much harder.

Most of his argument rested on the claim that the creative spark was rare and could not be duplicated by any sort of process. Thus ideas, like music or art, were intrinsically valuable because only one person in the world could have them.

While I agree in principle that the idea is a requirement before execution can begin, my counter claim was that ideas are probablistic expressions of a useful combinations of available technology. Given that things could be combined in a useful way, I claim there is a finite probability that someone seeing all of the components, will realize the combination as a viable idea. So the more people you expose to the components, the more likely that one of them will see the idea and share it. This is subtly different than there is one person who is uniquely qualified to come up with the idea.

I don't believe either of us left the discussion with a truly different point of view.

I was wondering if the expression of ideas in science fiction would provide data to help illuminate his position or mine. I conclude that it does not as good writers should be familiar with the writing and concepts of the other writers, this would lead to limiting idea re-use since a writer would not want to be perceived as plagarizing their ideas from their peers.

There was a series in Scientific American that compared the ideas in Star Trek with what was available today. One of the claims in that article was that engineers were inspired as children watching the series to build the gadgets they saw on the screen. If that linkage was born out by solid research data it would make a strong case for having the characters in science fiction creating solutions to problems posited to occur 20 - 30 years hence. Prepping future engineers to start working on solutions early.

<comment><USER3> >If that linkage was born out by solid research data it would make a strong case for having the characters in science fiction creating solutions to problems posited to occur 20 - 30 years hence.

So that means we're about due for a time traveling delorian, right?

<comment><USER4> I'd settle for a hoverboard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I was hoping for more of a side-by-side:

Invention - Date Invented in Fiction - Date Invented in Reality (if ever)

Knowing when someone dreamed it up is neat, but I was hoping to see how reality stacks up next to their predictions.

<comment><USER6> I would add another column before the last: date fiction claims invented in reality.

For example:

Warp Drive - 1966 - 2063 - N/A

But alas, the site appears to be dedicated to books, so Star Trek's reinventions of older ideas would probably be ineligible for inclusion.

<comment><USER5> That's actually what I had in mind. My columns would have been:

Warp Drive - 2063 - N/A

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Slightly related, time-line-wise: [http://scimaps.org/submissions/7-digital_libraries/maps/thum...](http://scimaps.org/submissions/7-digital_libraries/maps/thumbs/024_LG.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER8> I vote we prepend "Claims:" to this fabulous list, submit it to the patent office and put Myhrvold out of a job.

</comment><comment><USER9> some of those seem off. The first EV, for example, predates its "prediction" by like 60 years: [http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/History- Of-...](http://inventors.about.com/od/estartinventions/a/History-Of-Electric- Vehicles.htm)</comment>


We upgrade the OS of 80k appliances every two weeks - <AUTHOR> https://datto.engineering/post/how-we-upgrade-thousands-of-appliances-every-two-weeks <comment><AUTHOR> Full disclosure: I am the author of the post. Hope it's okay to post this here. I thought it'd be pretty interesting to other people too.</comment>


A Cautionary Rare Earths Tale Can Be Found in Molycorp's Rise and Fall - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-29/cautionary-rare-earths-tale-found-in-molycorp-s-rise-and-fall <comment><AUTHOR> The rumor going around is that Molycorp was effectively pumped and dumped by Goldman. Anyone able to confirm if this is true or not?</comment>


Elon Musk claims employee pushing to unionize is a paid agitator, UAW denies - <AUTHOR> https://electrek.co/2017/02/10/tesla-union-elon-musk-uaw/ <comment><USER2> From the comments: 'This response from Musk comes across as "when someone has a complaint, attempt to discredit them instead of responding to said complaints," which is just deflection. If Tesla feels that these complaints are misleading and has systems in place to address them, explain those systems and respond to the criticisms themselves, don't attack the messenger.'

Agree with this comment. The details in the article make it seem unlikely that the counter claim that the person in question was a plant of UAW seem unlikely. Unfortunate that Musk didn't use the opportunity to make this a positive response rather than a negative one.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Our understanding is that this guy was paid by the UAW to join Tesla

Calling it his "understanding" gives him a lot of latitude to say anything that happens to be convenient without offering any evidence. Let's check back if he actually produces any. Until then, we should be aware it's lazy and dangerous for the media to present opposing sides of just any point as equally legitimate when one side has a definitively greater burden of proof.

<comment><USER4> Key evidence against Musk's claim:

> Considering the employee in question has been working at Tesla for four > years and this is the first evidence of "agitating for a union", it would > truly be a "long con", if true.

<comment><USER5> Playing devil's advocate, he could have been an employee before being recruited as a paid agitator.

<comment><USER6> That would directly contradict Musk's claim that the UAW paid the employee to join Tesla.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Musk is a 'paid agitator' for environmentally responsible consumption, for the benefits of interplanetary civilization. For, generally, Silicon Valley's ethos of progress. It does not discredit him. Readers here know that intellectual & ideological workers labor as much as any farm or factory hand. To pay them does not impugn their sincerity (nor would their volunteerism imply idealism). Open source software may be malicious, closed source software commendable.

Musk is a thoughtful capitalist: the above notion has occurred to him. He speaks cynically. Though a paid agitator for shareholder value, I had thought him until now sincere. Disappointing!</comment>


Is unit testing overrated? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bureau14.fr/blogea/2009/08/unit-tests-the-obvious-the-bad-and-the-good/

<comment><USER2> Just like anything else, I think people get a bit overzealous about unit testing and assume it's going to solve all of their problems.

I think unit testing is best used to make sure that your core functionality still works between revisions. It's foolish to think that you're going to write a unit test for every little case that may come up in your code...that's something for valgrind or a fuzz test to take care of.

<comment><USER3> As one wise man said to me: Unittests push all those annoying little pebbles out of your way, so you can walk easier. Certainly, there might still be a hole you fall in, or a gigantic rock you will need to navigate around, but all those tiny annoying pebbles which easily make you slip are gone.</comment></comment>


Ajax Secure Service Layer - <AUTHOR> http://assl.sullof.com/assl/

<comment><USER2> Looks good, however, I don't know how secure users will feel without the indication of security from the browser. Though this is clearly useful for logins, but probably not for e-commerce.

<comment><AUTHOR> One more <http://www.andrewpeace.com/rsajax/></comment></comment>


Show HN: Product Hunt with Rewards: Sharkit - <AUTHOR> http://sharkit.co/?hn

<comment><USER2> Really like the concept of featured images. Though, might need more differentiation from Product Hunt given that its already grown to be so popular!</comment>


Ask HN: Is There a Hacker News RSS Feed? - <AUTHOR> I can't find one. It seems unusual for a site like HN to not support RSS.<p>The FAQ page does not mention RSS either. What's the deal? <comment><USER2> There's [https://news.ycombinator.com/rss](https://news.ycombinator.com/rss) but you're right, it should probably be linked somewhere in the FAQ.

<comment><USER3> Didn't know about this one, but there's another one I personally use, which is [https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/](https://edavis.github.io/hnrss/)

<comment><USER4> I didn't know about the show feed either, I also use HNRSS and love it, mostly for the searches.</comment></comment></comment>


Deutsche Bank Ignored Its CDS Problems Until They Went Away - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-26/deutsche-bank-ignored-its-cds-problems-until-they-went-away <comment><USER2> Every time I think I know a little bit about economics, I read articles like this and realise I'm playing with wooden blocks while the big boys are playing with space shuttles. ...except they made the space shuttle out of wooden blocks, and they're just pretending _really_ hard that it's going to work.

<comment><USER3> If you have a small group of brilliant computer scientists, they can create world changing software. How many folks were required to get Snapchat or Youtube off the ground?

What happens when this level of genius in small groups is cut loose on financial markets where "Make money is the only goal"? You get these space shuttles. They are so complex because that's all these people ever think about.

<comment><USER4> > _If you have a small group of brilliant computer scientists, they can create > world changing software. How many folks were required to get Snapchat or > Youtube off the ground?_

Snapchat is world changing and the work of brilliant computer scientists? Did I miss something? I can only hope that your post was intended to be sarcasm.

<comment><USER5> I think the meaning is "It only takes a small high powered team to 'change the world'/add tremendous value if they have skills and a good idea." Snapchat is one example of many.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate to use a redditism here, but could someone ELI5 this for me?

I got lost somewhere around the first appearance of the word tranch,

<comment><USER7> In the financial markets you can buy insurance such that if a company fails e.g. Microsoft, you get a payout. It's called a credit default swap.

Deutsche bank sold lot's of this type of insurance.

If the markets had turned and some large companies had gone bankrupt they would not have had the means to pay the people who bought this insurance.

Basically they took very low quality insurance and re-packaged it as high quality insuarance.

<comment><USER8> Excellent explanation. CDSs are insurance. So why can't you buy the equivalent product from an insurer, labelled and regulated as insurance? Because the capital requirements under insurance regulation would have been prohibitive.

So why weren't the banks charged with illegally selling insurance products and/or violating insurance regulations? Because fuck you, peon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The insurance in question would only pay off under some very improbable and dire circumstances. And under these circumstances the chances of getting a payoff are rather slim because, you know, the world is crashing and burning. Some time during the crisis the risk became very real which was reflected in the market prices of credit protections. But DB and "investors" continued to act as if the risk was small.

What I don't get is who paid for that risk in the end. I suspect it was the government which bailed everyone out with public money so that the doomsday scenario was never realized.

</comment><comment><USER10> The money moves around and around and around (notionally) a dizzyingly large number of times because the more opaque the process and end product, the less immediate introspection it receives, the less well the average Joe can understand it, and the firm can continue 'alchemy'. Kudos to the regulators for the arduous task of unravelling the large ball of string and following it to the conclusion!

<comment><USER11> It reminds me a lot of large code bases. At some point people face a choice between a) forcing sufficient simplicity and clarity that one has a chance of understanding what's going on, and b) saying "fuck it" and letting complexity metastasize to the point nobody really understands what's going on.

The difference, of course, is that with software the opaqueness is pure cost. Whereas in the financial markets the opaqueness is often a profitable resource from somebody.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Long time back i was studying Asset Backed Commercial Papers (ABCP) as a special purpose vehicle conduit and its effects on market runs during the financial crisis.

For those who want to understand it , these might possibly help(These are only personal notes.):

[part 1][https://medium.com/finance-and-economics-studies/read- note-o...](https://medium.com/finance-and-economics-studies/read-note-on- asset-backed-securitization-special-purpose-vehicles-and-other-securitization- issues-a715f980bb1c?source=latest)

[part 2][https://medium.com/finance-and-economics-studies/asset- backe...](https://medium.com/finance-and-economics-studies/asset-backed- securitization-special-purpose-vehicles-and-other-securitization- issues-98e7ad3231f9)

</comment><comment><USER13> Deutsche Bank is hardly a bank in the traditional sense considering their balance sheet. With $72.8 trillion euro in derivative exposure (the largest in the world, 21x the GDP of Germany) this will have to blow up in a spectacular fashion once one of these counterparties fail:

[http://imgur.com/MNECKC4.jpg](http://imgur.com/MNECKC4.jpg)

A former Kansas Fed president called them "horribly undercapitalized", with a leverage ratio of 1.63 percent:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-financial- regul...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/14/us-financial-regulation- deutsche-idUSBRE95D0X620130614)

<comment><USER14> The notional amount doesn't tell you anything meaningful in term of risk. Say I am Deutsche, you are Citi. I trade a €1bn 10 year interest rate swap with you and then another €1bn 10 year interest rate swap with you in the opposite direction. The risk is exactly zero (the two transactions will be netted to zero in case of an insolvency) and the cash flows will perfectly offset each others. We each have €2bn of notional of derivatives outstanding.

Banks like Deutsche aren't in the business of taking large directional derivative bets. They are market makers so the quasi totality of these 72 trillions are offsetting positions, which are mostly collateralised, i.e. each counterparty has to post assets to match the evolution of the value of the derivative in order to keep the credit exposure minimal.

With such a massive book, there will be residual risks all over the place but 72 trillion is a meaningless number for assessing them.

<comment><USER13> Yes, gross derivative exposure is irrelevant... until there is a breach in the counterparty chain and suddenly all net becomes gross (as in the case of the Lehman bankruptcy), such as during a financial crisis.

Perhaps rather than total notational outstanding, a more meaningful number is the amount of real assets this is all backed by. According to the IMF we have $600 trillion in gross notional derivatives backed by a $600 billion in real assets, i.e. 1000x systemic leverage:

[http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2012/sdn1212.pdf](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2012/sdn1212.pdf)

One can imagine this to become just a tiny bit problematic once collateral chains start breaking, such as when "AAA-rated" AIG failed :)

<comment><USER14> Your exposure is not the notional, it is the mark-to-market minus any collateral received or posted. This will be a small fraction of the notional.

<comment><USER13> Well the point still stands... in case of an "event" that blows up collateral chains, Deutsche will be in big trouble.

Also, interestingly, from the piece I quoted, a lot of these derivatives get to be created without any collateral being posted at all:

"Another important metric is the under-collateralization of the OTC market. The Bank for International Settlements estimates that the volume of collateral supporting the OTC market is about $1.8 trillion, thus roughly only half of exposures. Assuming a collateral reuse rate between 2.5-3.0, the dedicated collateral is some $600 - $700 billion. Some counterparties (e.g., sovereigns, quasi-sovereigns, large pension funds and insurers, and AAA corporations) are often not required to post collateral. The remaining exposures will have to be collateralized when moved to CCP to avoid creating puts to the safety net. As such, there is likely to an increased demand for collateral worldwide."

<comment><USER15> > Well the point still stands... in case of an "event" that blows up > collateral chains, Deutsche will be in big trouble.

Not for bilateral derivatives that can always be netted, even in bankruptcy, which make up the bulk of the notional outstanding. If you read the ISDA Master Agreement[1], derivatives can always be netted as there is a provision that exempts derivatives from the usual bankruptcy automatic stays to stop literally this exact threat you posited [2]. Even beyond the bilateral case, the multilateral cases are increasingly cleared through central clearinghouses[4]. But even when they aren't, multilateral nets can still be pushed through, in one of two ways: 1) even when Lehman failed, there were some multilateral nets that greatly reduced the exposure, under mutual agreement by all creditors, and 2)The Dodd-Frank Act, since 2009, has also greatly helped this, giving the FDIC and Fed enhanced powers under the Orderly Liquidation Authority[3], which allow them to multilaterally net to reduce contagion risks even if there is no such master agreement that a priori would have let them do so[5].

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDA_Master_Agreement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISDA_Master_Agreement)

[2] A Dialogue on the Costs and Benefits of Automatic Stays for Derivatives and Repurchase Agreements, by Duffie and Skeel, alternatively see [3], or [4]

[3]The New Financial Deal: Understanding the Dodd-Frank Act and Its (Unintended) Consequences by David Skeel.

[4] The Risk Controllers by Peter Norman.

[5] Even pre Dodd-Frank, when there wasn't a law that let this happen, usually the creditors come together and fix things, a la LTCM "bailout"[6], which was funded entirely by the creditors and unwound in an orderly fashion through multilateral netting. Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers were the only creditors that stiffed everyone else, by refusing to participate, and that was partly why they got fucked in 2009 since the other bankers remembered their unwillingness to help out in 1998, and reciprocated.

[6] I hate that this is called a Bailout. No taxpayer funds were spent. The creditors (i.e. big banks) bailed out one of their own by pooling together money and fixing their shit. The only governmental involvement was that the Fed president called the CEOs of the big banks and said "yo fix your shit before it spreads", and they did. That's not a bailout in the sense of "taxpayers bailed them out". They bailed themselves out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Off topic but this reminded me of a movie i saw last year, "Blackbox BRD" ([http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Box_BRD](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Box_BRD)) which relates to Deutsche Bank past and has an interesting interview with a high level staff (Bank president?) and found it curious to glimpse on how they think (or thought).

</comment><comment><USER17> Ignoring problems until they went away? Sounds like my IT department...

</comment><comment><USER18> I love Matt Levine's articles. He's good at simply explaining the arcana of Wall Street.

But when I read this article, I can only say one thing: Why?

Why is Wall Street spending all this time and energy in creating all these different securities? I suspect that any excess "profits" or "returns" to be had from them accrue 90% to the bankers and 10% to the muppets funding them. So why do the muppets keep playing this game?

<comment><USER19> To expand on the other replies, and based on experience:

1) The way you get to sell products to investors is by promising some sort of alpha: "My fund is less risky, my derivative pays more for the same risk, etc."

2) But magic does not happen in the financial markets (and when it does is through the old stories.. diversification, transferring the risk to those of broader shoulders, etc.)

3) So what you do is _HIDE THE RISK_. There are many ways to do that, and they usually involve COMPLEXITY. Complexity and opacity are your friends, as they confuse investors who don't realize there is a hidden risk somewhere there, or a scenario you haven't told them (but put on page 350) where if A B and C happen, then he will lose a lot of money.

I'm not joking here.. sometimes complexity is good as it allows you to e.g. reduce mismatches in your risks (your income is in USD and expenses in EUR, your debts are long term and assets short term, etc.). However, the ultimate purpose of most complex products is that they allow you to sell stuff that appears better than it really is. And IT WORKS. Everytime. Against millionaires and against folks buying silly combos of insurances plus deposits (forgot their names).

<comment><USER11> And I would almost be ok with this if the complexity-generators understood all their complexity and were using it as a great trick to steal money from idiots. What really scares me is that a) even the complexity-generators can easily miss potential issues, and b) when you throw all this complexity together, nobody has any clue what's going on.

And then we wrap it up all with a bow by allowing finance people to alternately claim that a) they are so smart they deserve to personally make millions to billions, and b) they couldn't possibly be held accountable for systemic fuckups, because nobody could possibly have known. I'll accept one or the other, but the combination is incredibly dangerous.</comment></comment></comment>


A discourse on web-frameworks - <AUTHOR>

* Zeus would rather write his own.
<Pandora> your own what?
<Zeus> Web framework.
<Pandora> I don't know what that is
<Zeus> Pandora: An app that takes care of the glue for web applications
<Pandora> what is the glue?
<Zeus> Pandora: Well, you need a webserver, usually a templating system, a nice interface to the information provided to the webserver, a way of routing URLs to specific modules, &c.
<Pandora> why make it so complicated?
<Zeus> Pandora: As opposed to what?
<Pandora> simple
<Zeus> How do you propose making it simple?
<Zeus> Pandora: There's a lot of bookkeeping involved in any web app of a decent size
<Pandora> what sort of bookkeeping?
<Zeus> Forgetting, for a moment, the issues of making a webserver (say you're using FastCGI with Apache or something), having bits of HTML scattered through your program really isn't a neat way of doing things, and it becomes completely unmanageable very fast for applications of any appreciable size
<Pandora> ok so you need lisp macros
* Zeus laughs.
<Pandora> am I wrong?
<Pandora> what's funny
<Zeus> Pandora: Do it and show me.
<Pandora> Zeus: I still don't know what's funny
<Zeus> If you tried it, you would.
<Pandora> Zeus: exactly what is it I have not tried?
<Zeus> Apparently, designing any kind of large web application :-)
<Pandora> Zeus: that is the problem right there, you are complicating things
* Zeus laughs.
<Pandora> Zeus: Why would anybody write a large program instead of a small simple one?
<Zeus> Er, because as great as the UNIX philosophy may be, sometimes people need an application that does more than a single string transformation.
<Zeus> I direct you, for example, to http://www.amazon.com/
<Pandora> Zeus: Right, and there is the false assumption, there's no reason a program that does more than a single string transform has to be complicated
<Zeus> I see
<Zeus> So how do you propose offering the features of Amazon without the program being complicated?
<Pandora> Zeus: You're only asking me that so you can laugh again
<Zeus> Of course.
<Zeus> That would be why you didn't answer this question last time, either?  :-) <comment><USER2> Hahahah. Heh. Heh.

I don't get it.</comment>


Syscalls – A tool for building seccomp-bpf policies - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/avilum/syscalls <comment><AUTHOR> I couldn't find any end to end solutions for seccomp-bpf policies definitions. The idea is to monitor a flow of an executable, on the run, and get a set of all the syscalls it performs.</comment>


No more RT - use Fav.Tweets instead - <AUTHOR> http://www.sixteenseven.com/fav.tweets/

<comment><AUTHOR> Ideally, I don't always like to see the re-tweet noise in my feed so this would be my suggestion for twitter:

# No more re-tweets, use the star (favorites) feature already available # Clients could implement a 'show your friends favorites' \- for example TwitterFox could have a 'favorites' tab that shows your friends latest favorites # Multiple digg-like tools could be built on top of this if everyone would use the same method that would allow mass-audience to see that latest trending topics, etc.</comment>


Target's Delivery App Workers Describe a Culture of Retaliation and Fear - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/dygxzw/target-shipt-delivery-app-workers-retaliation <comment><USER2> This feels like a remarkably flimsy hit piece.

The core of the story revolves around a few gig economy workers being removed from the platform after posting negative comments on the company's 100,000 user public Facebook group. They don't share the exact posts that were removed, but we're supposed to assume the company was in the wrong.

They also complain that the company's public groups are moderated to remove inflammatory comments. Not really surprising, as I wouldn't expect any company moderated forum to let venting and angry discourse run unchecked.

This recent trend in journalism of finding disgruntled employees to criticize tech companies feels forced. If anything, it's going to become a "Boy who cried wolf" scenario where readers grow numb to the constant stream of iffy complaints against tech companies, to the point where the legitimate problems won't get the attention they deserve.</comment>


Kafka: the Impossible Biography - <AUTHOR> http://www.publicbooks.org/kafka-the-impossible-biography/ <comment><USER2> Isn't the literariness of biography precisely how it approaches the questions asked in this article, and in the biography on Kafka? It comes up again and again in most renowned biographies. On the surface they are about an individual, in their depths, they are about how one tells the story of a life and the many conceptual choices one takes while writing. The best make that superficial/deep relationship seamless. I guess these ones on Kafka don't.

Aside, can anyone recommend the best work to start with for Kafka?

<comment><USER3> Here is one of my favorite Kafka stories, _Before the Law_.[1] It's very short. You can read it in maybe five minutes.

[1] - [http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/beforethelaw.htm](http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/kafka/beforethelaw.htm)

<comment><USER4> I don't understand. Is this a reification of the social construct of "law" to which he desires entrance, or do I not understand an archaic idiom?

<comment><USER3> To my eyes, what "the law" is is actually immaterial to the story's point. It's something the protagonist desperately desires, and the story is about how he goes about trying to attain that desire and what stands in his way. That's the important part.

<comment><USER5> To me, it was getting obsessed with breaking through the first obstacle, but forgetting the eventual end goal. Despite gifts and conversation, he never once made his own luck. He trusted that the guardian was telling the truth, until it was too late for him to even try. Better to fall down trying than to never succeed without even attempting. I've never been one for literary analysis, however, and may be missing the point.

<comment><USER3> Part of the story does have to do with the protagonist's passivity and lack of initiative, but also with his deference to authority. Kafka has the gatkeeper speak in ambiguous ways, hinting at something that's never made clear. Is he on the supplicant's side, or is he against him? Does he wield vast power, or is it all a bluff?

Kafka does not give us any answers to these questions, but really challenges us to reflect on them ourselves, and to perhaps see some parallels to this in our own lives. The whole story could be seen as a miniature version of all too many desperate, futile lives that people live today -- they yearn for something, but meekly, perhaps out of some defect in their characters (a defect but perhaps also a virtue -- that of trust and obedience or deference to authority) fail to attain what they yearn for.

We could probably go on analyzing this tale for some time. I find the it to be quite deep and rich in meaning, and that's why I love it.

<comment><USER6> I'd like to offer a different perspective. I read this story in high school in class.

Kafka intended to be a chemical engineer, but he studied law at his father's request. He had talent for writing, but stuck being a clerk drafting legal documents.

I had (have) a very similar story. At the time I read Kafka's "the process" and then consecutively this story, I had felt helplessness in insufferable amount. Computers were all that interested me, I believed I was really talented, I always believed that İ had a calling. But in real life, I had little prospects for getting into college, although I was a real good student.

At the end I conceded like I always do, and started Law School.

I guess Kafka's trying to say that don't be a conformist, stand up for your self. The protagonist (of the Process, which includes this story as far as I can remember) had a job (but he didn't like it), he had a girlfriend (but he didn't care for it). He didn't enjoy life, he He believed that he had to accept everything imposed upon him and this got him killed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Coronavirus Risk Quiz - <AUTHOR> Hi all. Hope everyone is staying safe during this time.
Given the shortage of healthcare resources in the US right now, many of us are being asked to exercise our own judgement in, for example, deciding whether to call a healthcare provider with flu-like symptoms. My friend and I put together a quick quiz that may help contextualize your concerns and risk factors. We are not physicians and this is not meant to be a diagnostic tool, but rather a way to deliver available CDC and WHO information in an easier-to-consume format.
https://doihavecoronavirus.typeform.com/to/yvZwa8
Please check it out if you have need and let us know if there are any issues. <comment><USER2> For those who want a self-assessment site that's actually created by professionals, there is this one:

[https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Journey/COVID-19/Pages/COVID- Sel...](https://myhealth.alberta.ca/Journey/COVID-19/Pages/COVID-Self- Assessment.aspx)</comment>


Angular Material 1 will enter a maintenance mode - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/ngmaterial/4ActiQp3nA0 <comment><USER2> The title is misleading, discussion linked has a clear explanation:

> You are correct that many valid issues/bugs have been closed without > resolution.

> Our team simply does not have time to address all issues AND build Angular > Material 2. (This is what we have consistently stated in our Forum posts).

> We welcome community leadership with Pull Requests. Often those PRs have > side affects, their scope of changes is too large, and ultimately the risk > is simply too great to merge.

> So we close/reject the PR... we do this to protect the existing user base. > Pull Requests that have granular improvements and fixes are much easier to > assess, test, and merge... and thus can be quickly merged.

> Pull Requests that are submitted referencing closed issues will then trigger > us to reopen those issues; until the merge is complete.

> After Angular Material 2 has been released, we expect to continue to support > and improve Angular Material 1 for many quarters.

> Both versions are important. Both are need to support the Angular 1 and > Angular 2 developers

For me it's clear while the work on Material 1.x is not prioritized, it's not officially deprecated and PRs are still welcome if they are reasonable in size and impact.

<comment><USER3> The fact that you felt that you needed seven lines of pull-quotes to repudiate the "misleading" title is a pretty good indicator that titles are, um, titles and thus cannot carry as much information as one might want. But even after reading the material you quoted, I don't see the title of this submission as inaccurate.

<comment><USER2> Well, how about using the original title - "Surge Focus on Material 2"? It seems more appropriate as nothing in the discussion included a notice on deprecating the 1.x branch.

<comment><USER4> Since people are concerned with Material 1, we've replaced the title with what seems to be the most representative phrase from the article about Material 1. I couldn't fit in the bit about bugs in the 80 char limit.

(Submitted title was "Google deprecating Angular 1.x Material library and is just closing issues and PRs", which was wrongly editorialized, since the article apparently doesn't say they're 'deprecating' the library, and 'just' is just spin. Submitters: please don't rewrite titles to put your spin on a topic, especially not to gin up controversy. If a title is misleading or linkbait, it's ok to rewrite it (see the HN guidelines), but the new title needs to be accurate and neutral, and should preferably use representative language from the article itself.)

<comment><USER5> Given the exact words of the post, I'd've added "for Q3", since they didn't say the maintenance mode is permanent.

Not sure if that helps that much though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have determined that relying on Google products is just a bad idea.

I once included Google's V8 engine on a project I was working on. Google would regularly make breaking changes with _no documentation_. Developers were required to figure out the new interface on their own... occasionally you would find someone else on a forum somewhere who had reverse engineered it, saving you the time.

Sure, Google can do whatever they want. They have no obligation to people using their open-source projects. But he result is that many developers will be reluctant to use those projects in the future.

<comment><USER7> > But he result is that many developers will be reluctant to use those > projects in the future.

For the short term foreseeable future, there's a continuing larger number of people coming in to the field who've not yet been burned, and will continue to choose Google libs/projects without that experience. Google doesn't seem to need to worry about burning a few bridges here and there, yet. Maybe they'll need to adapt in the next 10 years?

<comment><USER6> Google probably doesn't care whether developers use their open source projects -- they hardly make any money from it and they make 95% of their money from advertising.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> By just simply closing Issues/PRs and not engaging the community better, lots of developers are going to be reluctant to invest time/effort in using Angular Material 2 due to the potential of a future Angular Material 3 surge.

<comment><USER9> Not just that, but if you've tried to write a serious project using Material 1 (I have), you'll know just how incomplete and feature-lacking Material 1 is. I personally would never touch Material again. Not in the next 3 years at the very minimum.

<comment> squeaky-clean When I realized that the sidemenu on the Angular Material documentation site was not actually made with Angular Material.... that's when I realized I made a bad decision in using it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I am the author of a slightly popular CSS library [1] and JS library [2] and I feel the pain explained here, trying to keep up the pace of issues and PR is daunting.

However, cmon Google! You are not a sole developer lost somewhere in Spain. Get your act together and _really_ support your own libraries for a sensible amount of time. Or hire more people to do so.

[1] [http://picnicss.com/](http://picnicss.com/)

[2] [http://umbrellajs.com/](http://umbrellajs.com/)

<comment><USER11> Not sure if sarcastic or serious.

It seems to me that a major problem for Open Source in 2016 is assumption of support from the originating entity or person.

Does this base assumption not risk alienating individuals and organisations into saying, "Should I release this at all?".

Why should they hire people to support something which generates, as far as I can see, no revenue for Google?

<comment><USER12> > Why should they hire people to support something which generates, as far as > I can see, no revenue for Google?

The reason most companies release projects open source for free is that they created them to solve a problem for themselves, but want to benefit from community contributions. Google's ease of abandon suggests they are not really using this library internally.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I truly feel sorry for those who started learning web development somewhere between 2009 and 2014.

During that time, it seems like what would be accepted as the new standard for creating web applications was completely up for grabs. You had Angular, Backbone, Ember, and probably many others that just didn't get noticed.

Can you imagine being a new developer during this time, trying to learn how to create a web application with no prior knowledge?

When I started getting serious about this in 2006 or so, it was difficult enough just learning the basics of HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and how everything worked together. I have been into computers and programming my entire life, had learned C and a few other languages, and it still took me years to become an intermediate 'full-stack' developer. Again this is before any of these MVC frameworks were out.

I think the main problem comes in when you try to engineer a completely new standard on top of an already existing standard.

Whatever happened to using servers and browsers as they were meant to be used? Why are we constantly trying to reinvent the standard and giving these libraries which make everything more complicated attention? Is the reduction in requests to the server by having everything on client side really that beneficial with today's computing power and language capabilities (Golang [http://marcio.io/2015/07/handling-1-million-requests-per- min...](http://marcio.io/2015/07/handling-1-million-requests-per-minute-with- golang/))? The logic here escapes me.

Angular wants you to basically use a new language and web architecture, complete with hundreds of pages of documentation specific to Angular, on top of the standard. I didn't hear about Angular Material until now, and it's even more mind boggling - are we trying to have every site look and function just like the Google platform now? There's already a standard for that - no styling on inputs (granted it will look different from browser to browser).

Luckily though, after half a decade, it seems like the community has a better understanding of what would be best and the tools have been built for it. I think in the near future, we'll see Golang and React take the lead in their respective areas of web development.

<comment><USER14> 2009-2014 is a huge timeframe for the web, as mobile compatibility became increasingly important.

Seven years from now we'll probably be talking about how much the web changed for VR/AR - or something new altogether.

<comment><USER13> I think the transition could have been much smoother and did not require engineering a new MVC framework on top of an already existing MVC framework. The only thing needed to make a page mobile ready is responsive CSS. What is more of a concern for mobile, and especially was back in 2009, is how much processing power a page needs to render and function fluidly.

The truth is React isn't doing anything that requires new technology, it could've been built in the early 2000's. I guess ideas like Angular taking off are just the natural way of things when you have a big company supporting it. It goes to show though that even the largest companies on the planet sometimes get it wrong (but also get many things right, Google with Golang and Facebook with React). Did it really take 4-5 other inferior frameworks though to see the simplistic idea behind React and build it out? If so, people who see these bad practices happening and are capable of doing something about it should do so immediately, for the sake of the development community.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been in a situation where I've had to regularly maintain the "new" and "old" codebase. It's not sustainable.

The problem is that such a situation quickly devolves into a scenario where porting changes between the two versions of the product takes a sizable development effort. Once v2 has 2-3 major refactors, merging a change in v1 means that the change essentially has to be completely re-implemented for v2.

What causes this? Basically, management thinks that "new" is just a feature bolted onto "old;" or management wants to "have its cake and eat it too." Resolving this situation requires careful planning and communication early in the project stage, before creating "new."

\- What are the features that can be made in isolation from "old" code, so that merging changes into "old" doesn't create lots of merge conflicts?

\- When is the point where we can freeze "old," so that major refactoring can happen on "new?"

\- What is the soonest we can move users onto "new," even if it means that we don't build all the features we need?

\- What parts of "new" really should be build on "old," or, what refactoring should be done on "old," so we can avoid branching issues?

</comment><comment><USER16> Even though its deprecated, google did say Angular 1 was still supposed to be available as a fallback, and just closing issues and PRs is never correct, even if you are trying to phase it out.

<comment><USER17> This isn't Angular, though. It's specifically Angular Material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When using monolithic frameworks you have to be prepared for this moment, EOLing. It suddenly just made lots of Angular 1 apps at companies not very fun to work on.

It is usually around this time (EOL or new flashy framework comes out) that people see past the hype on the last one and then see all the bloat, overly verboseness, and tons of code they didn't write that they have to support now that the hype train has left.

To keep projects from getting to this dungeon, better to use microframeworks while controlling your own systems and not buy into monolithic frameworks that change too much on top of the core with too much abstraction, basically vendor lock-in in a way.

</comment><comment><USER19> Angular Material is still missing a few essentials, but it is a good idea to speed up work on Material 2 now. Angular 2 will be out soon and many people will be unable to switch until Material 2 has caught up with the original.

<comment><USER20> Doing that takes somewhat of a leap of faith. Why would one believe that, a year from now, we won't be in the situation of

 _" Angular Material 2 is still missing a few essentials, but it is a good idea to speed up work on Material 3 now. Angular 3 will be out soon and many people will be unable to switch until Material 3 has caught up with the original."_

? If one fears that, it may be better to switch to another library.

<comment><USER19> I am also a bit afraid about the future of Angular, primarily because the Angular team is working on way too many projects that sometimes seem needlessly complex. I don't think anyone could pick this up for Google if they dropped the ball on Angular. A hypothetical Angular 3 worries me less. The bulk of the differences between Angular 1 and Angular 2 come down to making use of technical improvements to JavaScript itself. There will be further changes in the future, but nothing as radical as modules, classes and the different asynchronous-related features.

I also hope it will become somewhat easier to switch from Angular 2 to a different framework or from Material 2 to a different UI framework, because the new JavaScript language features create obvious best practice solutions where frameworks previously had to come up with their own conventions.

<comment><USER20> _" There will be further changes in the future, but nothing as radical as modules, classes and the different asynchronous-related features"_

I expect huge changes. I foresee a future where each webpage is an almost empty <html/> tag that does little more than defining a grid that loads a big blob of WebAssembly that builds the actual 'page' (if you can still call it that by that time). One advantage would be that, say, a Python or Rust framework can run Python/Rust in the browser. Another 'advantage' would be that large companies could keep their front-end code more secret (WebAssembly obfuscates better than minifying does)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The old joke about sleeping through the birth, life, and death of a JS framework is still alive and well I see.

<comment><USER22> This is just going from version 1 to version 2. It's not like the new framework[1] that's replaced React. /s

1: [https://github.com/developit/preact](https://github.com/developit/preact)

<comment><USER23> Except preact won't replace react.

<comment><USER22> I'm pretty sure it already has.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Sounds like someone is upset their PR wasn't accepted. Poor baby.

<comment><USER4> Please don't do this here.

<comment><USER24> Maybe you object to the tone? There is a real community problem with sense of entitlement - just because a project is open source doesn't mean that you are entitled to have every PR accepted to that project. I'm getting tired of this kind of dirty laundry being aired publicly to shame projects into accepting PRs.

<comment><USER4> Comments here need to be civil and substantive. Yours was neither. That's more than "tone".

I'm sure there's a civil, substantive way to make your point.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Anyone doing a startup part-time while working? - <AUTHOR>

I am just coming out of school and have been bootstrapping a startup for the last 8 months. We're not quite ready to raise capital yet (in this market) and cash is getting tight.
I was contemplating getting a full-time job (ideally 30hrs/week). But there's always a million things to do to get a startup running and I'm not sure how feasible it would be.
Does any have experience running a startup on the side? Is it possible? Any advice? <comment><USER2> I've been doing it for 2.5 years now. Its gone from "Ooh, I can afford to buy myself a Wii" to "Oh, erm, it appears that I made more sleeping than I did while awake three weeks out of four last month".

I've blogged pretty regularly about it. See profile.

My advice: find a job which is OK with you having a side business. I have an arrangement with my company that is mutually beneficial: I firewall my extracurriculars from the day job, I bring them the stuff I learn about engineering and business, they wish me the best of success and officially ignore the existence of my "personal hobby".

Make a business which is designed to have returns which are super-scalar to your time investment. I am religious about automating, outsourcing, or eliminating just about anything that I have to do more than once in a blue moon, even if it only takes me 5 or 10 minutes to do manually. My entire life is a series of 5 minute increments and I don't want to waste any licking stamps. (Somebody does that for me these days.)

Remember that there are more important things in life than working. If you neglect them, the lack will bite you in the hindquarters, both in more important respects and in impacting your work/business.

</comment><comment><USER3> Really depends on the type of startup your running. Is it just developing technology? Then that can be easily done nights, weekends (and overnights). But if your startup involves significant operational work, dealing with customers or meeting with clients/partners, then it's almost impossible to do unless you have that work 'outsourced' someway, whether to partners or to other firms, etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> We're building a B2B SaaS app, so it requires working with customers and meetings. Both my cofounder and I handle the tech and business.

At this point the technology is nearing production ready.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you've been working on it for 8 months you probably have a better idea than we do of whether you can handle both ;)

If you need the cash, you need the cash. But there are other sources, and a job should be your last resort. Yes, people have done it, and it generally involved having a fairly flexible job that didn't mind you taking business calls etc; and not getting a lot of sleep!

</comment><comment><USER5> Does anyone have any experience based advice, on whether a side job that paid less but did not involve computers or any relation to the startup (for example, being a night stocker in a grocery store) would be better than a day job programming ?

</comment><comment><USER6> Yup. It's possible, but extremely difficult. Moreso if you have a family.

Take pg's advice here if you at all can and stay away from that day job. Couldn't you monetize your service immediately instead?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're trying to monetize it ASAP. Running out of cash turned out to be a great motivator for turning an concept into a real business.</comment></comment>


Show HN: My first crack at d3js - Presidential debate bi-focal word cloud - <AUTHOR> http://denniskchan.com/blog/presidential-debates-re-visited-a-word-cloud-project/

<comment><USER2> Very interesting, though it would be nice to be able to track a given word or words between debates to see how their frequency shifted. Right now, the transition is so quick that's it's difficult to see this.</comment>


Calculated drop shadows in HTML5 canvas - <AUTHOR> http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/08/calculated-drop-shadows-in-html5-canvas/ <comment><USER2> Luckily enough for us, there are a couple of filters we can use to make this work: The DropShadow filter and the Shadow filter. The problem with the DropShadow filter is that the shadow is solid, and not fluffy as desired, although it offers easy values for X and Y. The Shadow filter on the other hand offers a nice shadow, but instead of x and y offset, we need to specify direction and strength the set the length of the shadow.</comment>


App Lists (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://www.pinterest.com/appew/app-lists-2014/ <comment><USER2> In terms of design, hell even story, Monument Valley is an absolute must have.

That VentureBeat list had a pretty nice looking cocktail companion app.</comment>


Show HN: Embeddable Nic Cage Gif Randomiser - <AUTHOR> http://nic-cage.xyz

<comment><USER2> That's funny. It's bookmarked.

Just curious, especially since Hacker News is that type of site, how do you go about building something like this? IE what's the stack? Any tricks used?

Are the Nic Cage GIFs stored in a repository or do they just come down to your server from the heavens (or maybe using image search tools from Google, Bing, etc.).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :).

Stack wise it's a very simple web proxy written in Go, nothing fnacy. It basically just responds to every request with a random Nic Cage gif hosted on Imgur. The URLs are just an array in the source code itself. MVP and all that ;).

Here's the source code in Gist (without the full array) [https://gist.github.com/janstenpickle/975358c427e8af844ae7](https://gist.github.com/janstenpickle/975358c427e8af844ae7).

<comment><USER2> Haha cool, thanks! Never really looked at Go code in use, didn't realize you could hack something out like that with so few lines! Very cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of [http://www.placecage.com/](http://www.placecage.com/).

<comment><AUTHOR> It's pretty much the same, but I wanted something completely random for pull request comments and I'm not worried about sizing :).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Slackbot in 3,2,1....</comment>


The Backbone: Introduction – History of the Internet - <AUTHOR> https://technicshistory.wordpress.com/2018/06/13/the-backbone-introduction/ <comment><AUTHOR> This is by the author of "The Switch"[0], a history of the electronic switch. I found the series fascinating and am looking forward to this new series on the Internet.

[0] [https://technicshistory.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/the- switch-...](https://technicshistory.wordpress.com/2018/05/06/the-switch- introduction/)</comment>


This story gives great insight into the nature of the human spirit. - <AUTHOR> http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeremybrooks/2473047860/

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the only title I could think of that didn't start with "So, Mr. Angry Overreaction Man, your photo is now on the internet. Call your lawyer."</comment>


The World's Oldest Blockchain Has Been Hiding in the New York Times Since 1995 - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/j5nzx4/what-was-the-first-blockchain <comment><USER2> I call bullshit, with being the first block chain. There are examples of depression era script currencies where the individual holding the currency would sign their name on the currency when they spent it, so the current owner knows who owes the amount of the script currency. There are example in the smithsonion from 1933</comment>


Using Asyncio in Python book examples - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ckarageorgkaneen/using-asyncio-examples <comment><AUTHOR> This project contains the examples of Caleb Hattingh's O'Reilly book "Using Asyncio in Python: Understanding Python's Asynchronous Programming Features":

[https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/using-asyncio- in/978149...](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/using-asyncio- in/9781492075325/)</comment>


Search for "never gonna give you up" in Google Ngram Viewer - <AUTHOR> http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=never+gonna+give+you+up&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

<comment><USER2> "This video is not available in your country"

... ok, then I'll sit and wait for someone to produce a localized version of the rickroll video and market it in my country. I alway knew that they will never let me down.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does this qualify as a rickroll?</comment>


What Ostracism Really Means - <AUTHOR> http://asserttrue.blogspot.com/2013/02/what-ostracism-really-means.html

<comment><USER2> One of the key tenets of liberal democracy is protecting the rights of individuals, regardless of how popular they are. I don't like this idea at all, even if it is only in jest.</comment>


Hate scribd? Try Libboo - <AUTHOR>

Okay, it's not the same as Scribd but it really yanks my chain when I see authors being exploited.
I made Libboo - www.libboo.com - It's free, I dont make any money out of it, no advertising etc etc... it's just a fun and friendly way to share your stuff with the world.
But it has (at least) one key awesome bit. You can collaborate. Not like Google Wave or any of this pointless 'live writing' (where you see each other type = catastrophe when writing) - but as a team like you do in the real world.
When you publish, all your stuff is available for free. It's like a 'Myspace for Books'
Okay - sorry to make this sound like spam, but I recently read the 'hate scribd' thread and it really wound me up. Hard working souls like myself (I am also a writer) work our cotton little socks off for next to nothing and then these bstards who care not about the 'art' sometimes go that step too far.
Anyway - let me know what you think!
And... remember.... I do this for free... don't hate me too much if you don't like it! <comment><USER2> How are you a replacement for Scribd? I don't see the similarity.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess it's not a replacement.

I am trying to make a 'myspace for books'. Whereas scribd is a kind of repository. Libboo lets you write things online and/or upload your stuff.

Make sense?</comment>


In need of advice - <AUTHOR>

Hello strangers I am here in need of advice. Some background; I started college doing chemistry/physics half way having all the pre engineering completed I decided to switch over to the engineering department--it was a last minute thing my sister convinced me to do. Meanwhile I have also been dedicating time to a part time job I found at a small non profit that deals with educational mobile apps. These are mostly browser based apps that are being ported from flash/java. I find myself most of the time stressed out and with no direction in sight. Even when I go out with friends to grab a drink there's just no incentive to try and talk to women or meet new people, this is all I think about. I gave up on this semesters course load because it was just becoming a grind and I found myself hating it. I feel like a worthless piece of shit. I don't know what I am doing. I don't have a direction in my life and its freaking me the fuck out. That little stupid part time job is the thing that probably keeps me going. I have been thinking about switching to computer science but even so I am not sure. I really just want to dedicate time to SOMETHING. I WANT TO DO. I don't want to sit around and whine and think about this shit; I don't know what to do. Most of all I fear I will never accomplish anything and will just end up settling for a wage. Well that's it I suppose.<p>PS* After reading this Im thinking this might sound suicidal or something lol..I am just unhappy that I have nothing going for me, I feel most of the time I am wasting the potential I have--its driving me nuts. <comment><USER2> Have you been thinking of switching to computer science because you enjoy the part-time job you have coding? Do you love coding? Is it something you kinda enjoy, but are thinking it might be a good career?

I didn't go to university, and am damn happy that I didn't. I was very fortunate to work for a large conglomerate when I was 20, where every few months somebody would come along and say " we need somebody to do xyz (Customer Service, Retail Buying, Food & Bev, Accounting, IT, Marketing, Public Relations, etc, etc). This gave me experience in a huge diversity of areas, and was a ton of fun and constant learning.

The reason I mention this, is maybe you need some time away from university? I'm pretty sure most universities offer their students a way to take a semester off or something, don't they? If you took 6 months off, could you work in two different areas that interest you for 3 months each, and see what you like?

Or maybe you could continue at uni, but reduce your coarse load while you figure out what direction to take.

You may even decide that university isn't important. I think I'd struggle to get through a Google interview, with all the data structure type questions, but I've built some cool industry leading stuff and have a great time in my career so far.

You want to dedicate time to SOMETHING YOU WANT TO DO, than dedicate time to finding what it is you want to do.

My one other bit of advice is this. If a university degree is something you always thought you'd have, and something that you truly want, don't take too much time working in the real world. I think it gets tough to go back to school after a certain age or time has passed. Also, you get used to have a (hopefully good) income, and you won't want to loose that.

Lastly, have you spoken to your friends about your not wanting to talk? Have they noticed a difference? The reason I ask, is it is important to learn how to ask for help, it is important to talk about these sorts of things your thinking with your inner circle. You may find that everybody is feeling the same way, which may go a bit to alleviate your feelings. If not, you can be proud that you didn't cower away in the corner when you've had an issue.

Hope that helps.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is much help! A university degree is not something I thought I have always wanted. The only reason I even started going to school was because it was already paid for so I decided to take some calc/chem/physics since I was not sure what I wanted but I knew a liberal arts degree was just a waste of my time. Then when I was taking some of the upper level physics I really just found it boring so when I mentioned to relatives they just said hey go into engineering, you are already half way there and finding a job wont be that hard.

This semester the engineering courses are just as boring as the physics one. Its really just rinse and repeat from certain principles, which is what boring means for me. I find the part time job really far away from the rinse and repeat stuff. You can always optimize your code, you can always find a neater way of doing something--its just cool. I also have smart people around me so when ever a have a hunch I am going about something the wrong way I usually consult with them and I always end up learning something new.

Regarding the friends thing, I feel a strong pressure in my stomach all the time, this shit has really been driving me nuts--cant sleep etc.... When we end up going out I try to just motivate them to talk to girls and have fun. Being social has become a chore for me because all I am thinking about is what the hell am I going to do. The friend I did speak to said to me I just look like I always do lol--that he also has that fear of settling for a wage and doing something more fulfilling.

<comment><USER2> Happy to have helped. What a part of the world are you in? If you don't mind my asking. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. My e-mail is in my profile.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am located in the US, went to your profile did not find an email address. What I see: [https://www.dropbox.com/s/0pbj465wf4fn14n/pete.PNG](https://www.dropbox.com/s/0pbj465wf4fn14n/pete.PNG)

<comment><USER2> Sorry about that, you are correct. I just added my e-mail and linkedin details in my profile. Or pete [a] kitchon.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I don't think switching majors is that important. The important thing, at this point, is just graduating since you're already in a BS program. Switching majors takes a lot of time, and a CS program can be very daunting. An engineering degree, or even chemistry/physics, will get you past many of the HR filters. You'll miss out on some entry level jobs that filter strictly on comp sci graduates, but with some experience and a BS I don't think you'll be at much of a disadvantage.</comment>


With Spindle, Ex-Microsoft Engineers Rethink the Social Discovery App - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20120809/with-spindle-ex-microsoft-engineers-rethink-the-social-discovery-app/

<comment><USER2> The article makes Spindle sound like Foursquare's local deals, but organized into a list of advertisements based on proximity, instead of a map of advertisements based on selected location.

I'm predicting a pivot...</comment>


Twitter used two-factor phone numbers/emails to serving targeted ads - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/08/twitter-admits-it-used-two-factor-phone-numbers-and-emails-for-targeted-advertising/ <comment><USER2> Lock Jack Dorcey Up!! >:)

<comment><USER3> Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? and please stop making accounts to break the site guidelines with?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Building Brainfuck with Racket - <AUTHOR> https://www.hashcollision.org/brainfudge/ <comment><USER2> The following is related and has been featured on HN before:

[http://beautifulracket.com/](http://beautifulracket.com/)

"how to make your own programming languages with Racket"

<comment><USER3> I think Butterick's treatment in Beautiful Racket is far more clear than TFA, especially for those less familiar with lisps and DSLs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wow, this was much more comprehensive than I expected. Also, I really love it when people write "brainf*ck". It reminds me of the times we had substring based spam filters instead of bayesian or markovian ones.

<comment><USER5> Danny Yoo isn't one to swear :-)</comment></comment>


Former NYTimes editor on policy of matching coverage to predetermined narrative - <AUTHOR> http://deadline.com/2016/11/shocked-by-trump-new-york-times-finds-time-for-soul-searching-1201852490/ <comment><USER2> "It was a shock on arriving at the New York Times in 2004, as the paper's movie editor, to realize that its editorial dynamic was essentially the reverse. By and large, talented reporters scrambled to match stories with what internally was often called "the narrative." We were occasionally asked to map a narrative for our various beats a year in advance, square the plan with editors, then generate stories that fit the pre-designated line."

Somewhere, Moldbug is wearing a shiteating grin.

I'd be shocked, just shocked, if 'The Narrative' was functionally identical to 'The Cathedral' in every way.

Forget vote rigging, millions of people have their reality rigged on a continuous basis.

You know the Japanese get a lot of criticism from Westerners for being a collectivist society, but I now believe we've reached the point we've outstripped them and they have become more individualistic than we are.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The policy of predetermining a narrative and looking for news that will support it is virtually guaranteed to produce a non-representative sample. You have a giant bin full of balls that is so large that it contains at least a little bit of every possible color and decide you want to report that the bin is mostly red balls, so you tell your reporters to look for red balls and report anytime they find one. You then use your sample as evidence that in fact the population of the bin is mainly red balls.

It's hard to imagine that Ivy League grads who pride themselves on being so much smarter and valuing science so much more than the rest of us would accidentally mistake this process for actual analysis of evidence in search of the truth. It's almost as if that wasn't their objective.</comment>


Where are the best sites to post about free Linux strategy games? - <AUTHOR> <comment><AUTHOR> My subject is award-winning, hardcore strategy games rather than light entertainment. Most of the games are open source. You need to know linux command line to use the game package I've put together.

I thought Hacker News was a good place to post about this, but didn't get much interest when I tried [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23725254](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23725254)</comment>


How to Think Creatively - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/how-to-think-creatively/248211/

<comment><USER2> Robert Weisberg's book "Creativity: Beyond the Myth of Genius" revolutionized my understanding of creativity. Now I see the mainstream view of the Genius creator struck by the muse as over-romanticized, whereas people who history has called genius work in a more structured fashion.

I recommend his book to anyone who creates or wants to create more. He doesn't tell you how to think, but you can figure it out. He reveal how myths confuse things and could send you down unproductive paths.

I talk about it more here -- <http://joshuaspodek.com/creativity>

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not too sure about the left/right brain aspect ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hemisphere#Hemisphere_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_hemisphere#Hemisphere_lateralization)) but I agree with switching between logical and intuitive ways of looking at a problem, and immersing then allowing insight to come of its own accord.

 _It is by logic we prove, it is by intuition that we invent_ <http://www.gap- system.org/~history/Biographies/Poincare.html>

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the link on Poincare. It was much more interesting than the original article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Start by ignoring articles that tell you how to think.

<comment><USER6> Your statement is a paradox!

<comment><USER5> A paradox not to be understated.

<comment><USER6> Sure!</comment></comment></comment></comment>