The Quest for the ideal CEO-type Co-Founder - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/564d3cecb110 <comment><USER2> Please excuse my ignorance if I should know this already, but nowhere in the article does it explain what makes the author an authority on this particular topic. Perhaps a couple of previous experiences with different types of CEOs, some of which worked vs some of which didn't?

</comment><comment><USER3> The biggest mistake you can make is to find someone as passionate about your idea and making sure he stays on the top. Become CEO yourself, it's not hard and you don't need to know "business".

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd argue that it's really hard for a single founder to creating a "scaling" startup. Evidence suggests the same (there are exceptions).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What about leadership ability? You describe a number of absolutely necessary talents, but without the ability to lead your team on the task of executing the vision, those talents don't matter for long.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting point. By the way, have you found your match yet?

<comment><AUTHOR> Good question! I might have, time will tell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The most important thing for a CEO to do is make sure that Bullshit never intrudes on the technical work. That usually means he or she not only needs to be a "10x" hustler, but also requires coming with the resources to get started on real work already in hand.

That's something we struggle with, as technical people. We want to believe that "what makes a good CEO" is meritocratic, but it's largely about contacts. Can this guy get us to full salary on an idea alone, so we can build something? Same for college presidents; they aren't hired for the work they can do, but for the contacts they can bring in to the university.

See, part of being a CEO is bridging the gap between the meritocracy we wish to create (because we won't be able to compete if people are already playing political games at <10 people) and the connections-based non-meritocracy of Bullshitland outside. Freedom (or meritocracy, in our case) turns out not to be free, and the CEO's job is to make it happen because most talented people come from the working and middle classes (this isn't a dig against higher classes; it's just that the lower classes are much larger) and have zero in the way of such resources.

That requires an extremely rare combination:

1\. Comes with the resources (i.e. funding, contacts) already in hand.

2\. Not arrogant about it. The problem is that people who have such resources are usually such dicks about it that they become sources of Bullshit, rather than being able to protect others against it.

<comment><USER7> > Can this guy get us to full salary on an idea alone

I'd like to pick this point out, I think it's worth discussing. No one should get to "full salary" on an idea. Investment money (which presumably is all you'll get on an idea) is to build the business, not pay you a cushy salary, if you're a founder with significant equity. You get a nice salary from the business when it can be taken out of profit. Until then, you should be on "minimum to not be preoccupied with personal finances".

That last point is why I would be cautious going into business with someone who has significant personal outstanding debt.

<comment><USER6> _No one should get to "full salary" on an idea. Investment money (which presumably is all you'll get on an idea) is to build the business, not pay you a cushy salary, if you're a founder with significant equity._

Full salary == market compensation, not "cushy salary". Considering that you're working 5x as hard as a typical checked-out corporate worker, you're actually taking an 80% haircut already.

I don't think a mid-career software engineer should take $750,000 per year out of his startup, because even though their work is arguably worth that-- of course, this is an expected value calculus because the realized value is zero or $10+ millions-- VCs wouldn't be able to make any money if founders demanded that.

I do think that it's not unreasonable for a decent idea to merit full salary. Again, "full salary" to me means a market salary, not "cushy"; it's not the half-million or more that a decent software engineer is arguably worth. It's the $100-150k that he'd be able to get on the market right now.

The difference would be that the entrepreneur is working 5-10x harder than anyone in a corporate job and only getting 1x what corporate denizens get. That's a hell of an improvement over 0x or 0.5x.

If you can't already tell, I fucking hate the VCs who earn $500,000+ per year and take absolutely no professional risk but get sanctimonious about "skin in the game" when a software engineer (intending to work 60-80+ hours per week) asks for the 125-150k he'd command on the market. That boils my fucking blood.

<comment><USER7> It has nothing to do with the amount of work you do, or your value as an employee in the market. If you're one of the founders, it's your business to make or break. Particularly early in the game, you're going to need to maximize your runway. So if you take typical first seed round, and then pay yourself $150k of that because "that's market rate", you're significantly impairing your business' potential for success. You should be able to go _at least_ a year on your first seed funding, which for argument's sake let's peg at the $100k you get from YC. Presuming you have 2-3 founders, _and_ a number of expenses, you can see that your own take is minimal. It's conceivable that in the first few years even, some employees may have higher salaries than the founders. But the founders should have enough equity that the payoff at the end is worth it.

If you're not going to operate that way, don't try and run your business as a startup that takes funding. You'll be doing everyone involved a disservice, including yourself.

<comment><USER6> Ok, you clearly just don't get it. People shouldn't have to work below market rate (or for free, as they often do) to implement their own ideas.

Because they actually care about their work, they'll be 5-20x more productive, and that's what the value of the equity (shared between them and investors) comes from. I argue that they should be paid _at_ market rate for more typical work. Why should they have to _pay_ me to work for me when they're already signing up to work 5-20x harder than typical corporate employees?

Yet sanctimonious VCs still talk as if they're performing a charity rather than investing. It should be a symbiotic relationship (a transfer of control over capital from those who have it to those who know what best to do with it) rather than this "I've got the money, so lick my balls" arrangement that currently exists.

My argument is that valuations should be higher in order to include a fair salary for the founders. In fact, given the monstrous amount of bullshit involved in raising money, I'd argue that an even higher salary is in order.

By the way, the reason VC is losing money is not that they valuate companies too high or that founders take too much out in salary. It's that they have a herd mentality and they suck at picking companies. Have you _seen_ some of the assholes they fund? I could do a better job than 99% of those gatekeepers, and I don't even have an MBA. I'm just a far better judge of talent than they are. (I'm not a great judge of character, which is why I've worked for some horrible companies; I'd need to hire a partner for that. Judging talent and character are opposite skill sets. But I'm one of the best judges of talent out there, and almost certainly in the top 100-- at judging talent, not in having it-- in the world today.)

VCs are trying to put founders into a race to the bottom, not only on valuation/salary but more dangerously on terms (e.g. liquidation preferences) and autonomy; those are far more severe because they create an adverse selection where the best people avoid you outright. I'd do it very differently. I'd give very generous terms-- I would actually make it a fireable offense for any associate even to suggest participating preferred or multiple liquidation preferences-- but make a lot more money than any of them by not falling into the traps (mostly, social obligations to fund undeserving morons to return favors) that cause other VCs to fund idiots.

<comment><USER7> > People shouldn't have to work below market rate (or for free, as they often > do) to implement their own ideas.

I think this is the crux of what you are struggling with. A VC investing in _your business_ is not hiring you as an employee. If you have an idea you want to implement as a business, _that's on you_. The VC is offering money in return for equity in hopes of generating capital for the fund's investors. The person managing that investment for the fund is paid a salary based on their ability to do that.

Conversely, you as a founder of a business are compensated based on your own success. _Taking investment is not an indicator of success_. Investment money is to grow the business faster than it could on its own. Revenue, and more importantly profit, are where you see your own success. The large exit for many funded startups is also more commonly heard about success indiactor, because solid monthly margins aren't a) usually reported for private companies and b) don't make very interesting news, where as a big sale usually is/does.

Starting and owning a business is an entirely different world from being an employee, and never should you apply the principles of one to the other.

<comment><USER6> VC-istan is no longer real entrepreneurship. VC's have set themselves up as between-companies executives who get to dip their fingers in tens of pies. If you don't accept their term sheets, they can't fire you per se, so they'll just fund your competitors and put you out of business.

<comment><USER7> This has not been my experience in recently helping build a startup and seeking VC money (that they are overly exploitive), but perhaps we had more realistic expectations going in. Anecdotal surveying amongst prior founders that came in as mentors during our recent accelerator stay suggested that at a typical $20-50mil exit (an average "successful" tech company sale), "unproven" founders should each expect to have 3-5% in equity remaining. That's after 1-2 seed rounds, and at least A and B rounds.

Terms significantly improve for "proven" founders.

<comment><USER6> 3-5%? After Series B? Dude, you got fucking robbed. That's all I'm going to say.

<comment><USER7> I'm not there yet. I'm saying that's a typical number I got from founders who exited at that point.

Out of curiosity, have you ever gone through the process of building a funded company yourself?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I talk to clients before taking a full time job? - <AUTHOR>

I am a recent grad doing part time work on the side for a small startup and they are now offering me a full time position. I have a comfortable internship with a large corporation that I would have to leave.
I know very little about the startup. Should I talk to the clients I have been working with "off the record" to see how they feel about the company? Is that a good indicator of a good work environment?
Is any full time position better than an internship?
Thanks for any advice! <comment><USER2> My first advice is follow whichever position you are most passionate about.

All else equal, I assume you can get another corporate internship if this startup doesn't work out. In the meantime, you will probably get a wealth of experience. If what you want most is a job at the corporation walk in the door and tell them you are going to take this other job unless they give you a job and see what they say, if they can't commit to you now, there is no telling when they will commit to you in the future.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm trying to build up the courage to speak with my boss :)

The problem is I don't want to make them think I'm leaving until I'm sure I would take the full time position.

<comment><USER2> Good Luck. Based on the fact that you have two options means you are better than a majority of the workers out there. I left corporate work 6 years and never looked back. You will land on your feet no matter what. Follow your heart.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> For a recent graduate like you, I think a startup would provide you the best opportunity to learn, expand, network, and make a niche to something you have the passion at.

Talking with the clients to gauge how they feel about the company could be a good aid in your decision making, but ultimately, you would never know unless you actually jump right into it.

It is quite hard to compare a full time position with an internship based on a lot of factors which satisfies your requirements. Some people may find internship better than full time salaried positions because they find the latter more enjoyable and goes in line with their values in life.

Good luck on your decision. You should be able to make the right choice.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I think my end game is building my own startup so I am definitely leaning towards getting some first hand experience with a smaller company. It's just I have quite a bit of job security with my internship (basically until I choose to leave) so it makes me a bit nervous to give that up. Typical problem, I know.</comment></comment>


Are you good enough to be a tennis line judge? - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.wsj.com/are-you-good-enough-to-be-a-tennis-line-judge/

<comment><USER2> Pretty fun, I wonder if having a more expensive monitor would help with the score</comment>


18 Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies indicted in FBI jail probe - <AUTHOR> http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/7-la-sheriff-deputies-arrested-fbi-jail-probe-article-1.1542319

<comment><USER2> > Four grand jury indictments and a criminal complaint allege unjustified > beatings at downtown Los Angeles jail facilities

Wait. Is there such a thing as a _justified_ beating in a US jail?</comment>


With Kickstarter, Who Needs the National Endowment for the Arts? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/07/the-power-and-the-peril-of-our-crowdfunded-future/259304/ <comment><USER2> I'm sure this will get down voted but why, in the last 30 years, have we needed the National Endowment for the Arts at all?

Art is massively funded. The Motion Picture Arts, The Musical Arts, The Art of Literature, The Art of Architecture, The Popular Arts (as San Diego calls comics and graphic novels), The Video Game Arts

Kickstarter will help fund more art. That's great. I doubt it will get rid of NEA. The NEA is about funding things nobody wants. If people wanted them they'd already fund them directly.

<comment><USER3> > The NEA is about funding things nobody wants.

That's an interesting perspective. I see it more as a tragedy of the commons situation. It's possible to make important and influential art which is not commercially viable. NEA is great for funding art that wouldn't look good on a T-Shirt, but is beneficial to the culture as a whole.

<comment><USER4> Is it?

The majority of art created today isn't founded because it doesn't look good on a T-shirt. It is because it is crap.

And you art doesn't have to fit on a T-shirt to be founded. Stories could be printed in beautiful books, movies and documentaries made available as high quality downloads, paintings as posters, etc.

The only art you couldn't found this way would be art that didn't say anything to anybody. §100/year from 10 thousand people is a pretty good wage. If you can't get 10 thousand people to see something in you art, then it is properly because your art is crap.

<comment><USER5> Is it?

You equate financial viability with artistic value. But, there was Vincent van Gogh; large swaths of what we consider art today was commissioned by kings and popes and presidents on their dime, not sold or traded; it is virtually impossible, in the Kickstarter model, to fundraise sculptures and installations.

I certainly don't think art needs an erudite committee approving it for 'value' (in a non-financial sense), but neither does it need to be subjected to the tyranny of the majority, lest we want to limit ourselves to bazaar kitsch dolls and whatever else can be easily mass-made and sold. So while Kickstarter can certainly replace entities like NEA for many artists (many projects seem easier, logistically, to fund through KS) I don't know this says NEA is no longer needed.

<comment><USER4> But that is the key issue, you are not subject to the tyranny of the majority. Your quest is just to find a few people who like your art. The majority can hate it, consider you a witch and attempt to burn you at the stakes.

All of that doesn't matter. Just that a few people like you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I will make a slightly more controversial claim: With Kickstarter, who needs government granted monopolies for the arts? (ie., copyright)

One should realize that most of the greatest artworks in history were created without the "benefits" of copyright (and in many cases would have required infringing on copyright, writers and painters have borrowed from each others works all through history).

<comment><USER7> I don't think you can argue that at all. Until very recently (on an historical time scale), mechanical copying wasn't possible at all, so copyright isn't some new thing, practically, it's just that in ye olde days it wasn't a relevant concept because you couldn't copy art - there were no CDs or records, lithography, etc.

If you wanted to hear a Beethoven symphony, you had to find an orchestra that was playing, and travel to see it.

Even duplicating printed work was much more work, since the type would have to be reset by hand.

While the funding model was certainly different, the era was much _more_ different. Using the romantic era or earlier as proof that (in modern society) culture could flourish without copyright is ludicrous.

<comment><USER8> Cervantes had to deal with a ripoff of Don Quixote while he was writing the second part of Don Quixote, after publishing part I. It even makes up part of the plot of part II.

Another author published what they claimed to be part II.

It's a different form of IP infringement than simple unauthorized duplication of a work, but it's been around for a long time.

<comment><USER6> Shakespeare and many others also "stole" from many other authors, both classic and contemporaries.

Art, by its own nature, tends to infringe so called "intellectual property" rules.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the article: In 2012, Kickstarter has provided over $150 million in arts funding, more than the NEA.

<comment><USER9> The best part of that is that every drop of that kickstarter money was voluntary. That is to say that the donors gave their money up willfully without the application of compulsive force. The same cannot be said about the NEA.

Regardless, the article hints at the primary problem with the replacement suggestion: this would effectively replace the current, centralized, political decision making with a distributed form of decision making. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Could we please cite some facts in this mounting tirade against public funding of the Arts?

<comment><USER11> To what extent are facts necessary? Public funding of the arts is in a large part a philosophical issue. Either you believe that it should be done or you don't. That's primarily a question of what you think the role of government should be.

It's only if you agree that public funding of art is a good thing that then facts can come into play. What is the best, most effective way of doing it?

<comment><USER12> The criteria the NEA uses for funding work is unusually absent from this discussion.

And the comparative question, are differences in the results between kickstarter and the NEA significant? If so, are the NEA's results valuable?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The NEA is a grant-maker. Kickstarter is a platform for a capital campaign. These are two incredibly different types of "unearned income."

I have never seen an organization have a successful annual campaign through something like Kickstarter. Kickstarter itself makes it very clear it is to be used for capital campaigns with very specific purposes.

Take a look at the 2012 NEA grants and think about how many of them would thrive on Kickstarter. The BSO for example, the Tanglewood grant miiiight be able to be funded but the general grant almost certainly would not. These arts organizations are modeled around an in person annual campaign through their development offices, and large-scale grants from charitable foundations (or the NEA). The entire model would break down if all funding came direct from patrons.

Whether or not that model should be broken down and disrupted is a different story, but almost none of the arts organizations that are receiving MAJOR grants from the NEA are set (or may ever be set) to deal with it.

</comment><comment><USER14> The only problem I have with the NEA is I'm being forced to pay for something I don't want. I don't care if you make a painting of the Virgin Mary out of elephant poo or put Jesus in a jar of your own piss but I do care if I'm forced upon pain of imprisonment to pay for it. I will never understand the "Greater Good" argument and the "Tragedy of the Commons" argument is just stupid in this case.

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

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

EDIT: The Virgin Mary painting was not, according to wiki, paid for by the NEA.

</comment><comment><USER15> National funding is for things that can't get done by themselves. If kickstarter works for you, you don't need NEA there are plenty of valuable art undertakings that do not have public appeal. that is what the NEA should be doing.

<comment><USER16> I don't mean this as snark. When it comes to art, if nobody wants it, why is it valuable?

<comment><USER17> It's possible that the art in question is ahead of its time, or expresses radically unpopular ideas.

I'm not saying that a piece of art that no one ever cares about after it's created is valuable, but it's hard to judge the value of art based on _current_ popularity. Plus, the judgement of popularity is influenced by the culture at a given time, and the existence of a given work or works might have a pretty big impact on the course of that culture's evolution -- regardless of its initial ability to gain funding.

There are also the practical difficulties of making sure that the funding request gets in front of the people who'd appreciate the work in question, and that they have the money to be able to afford to donate, and that they're not disinclined from donating for reasons that have nothing to do with the artwork in question (e.g. they think kickstarter is some phishing site, or think there's no point since they can only give a very little bit).

<comment><USER4> You would have to express an idea that you couldn't get 10 thousand people to support with 100 usd. In the entire world.

That seams a pretty damming statement against your art, from my point of view.

<comment><USER13> Two words: educational programming.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My experience building a 761 TiB ZFS file server on FreeBSD - <AUTHOR> https://aravindh.net/post/zfs_fileserver/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

I shared my blog post/notes of building a ZFS file server and testing its write performance. Thought it might of interest here. Appreciate any feedback. Not just the tech stuff - this is one of my first blog posts. So, any kind of feedback (website/writing/content) is welcome.</comment>


Hybrid Police Interceptor Is Twice as Efficient as Conventional Police Car - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/cars/2017/04/fords-police-responder-hybrid-sedan-twice-as-efficient-as-the-average-cop-car/ <comment><USER2> It's not a police interceptor, it's a "responder". I don't think a 2.0L four- banger is going to intercept anything but jaywalkers.

<comment><USER3> Hybrids can deliver substsntially more power than the output of their internal combustion engine.

<comment><USER2> Regardless, Ford isn't calling it an "interceptor", and the original headline didn't say that when I read it (allowing that it might have been changed since posted here).</comment></comment></comment>


How the Srizbi botnet escaped destruction to spam again - <AUTHOR> http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/blogger/2008/11/30/how-the-srizbi-botnet-escaped-destruction-to-spam-again/ <comment><USER2> _Unfortunately, FireEye did not have the resources to carry out its plan and was forced to abandon it, but not before seeking help from other companies and organizations with deeper pockets.

File this one under opportunity, lost._

Grrrrr :( I'm pretty sure they could have raised enough by donations. I'm sure HN people would have donated.

And the snubbing by VeriSign and Microsoft... the companies that own registrars and have billions in revenue?!? Come on! Did they reach the right people at these companies? Who said no to them? Must have been a breakup in communication somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> The article quoted is: [http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/11/srizbi_...](http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/11/srizbi_botnet_re- emerges_despi.html)

The important bit for me was:

"The problem, FireEye quickly found, was that each variant was designed to seek out a different set of four rescue domains every 72 hours. To make matters worse, the company identified more than 50 variants of Srizbi in circulation, impacting 500,000 systems. Those that were deficient or ill- programmed in some way controlled fewer victims -- anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand computers. The more virulent strains of Srizbi, however, controlled upward of 50,000 systems, FireEye found.

That meant that to prevent the Srizbi authors from regaining control over their herd, FireEye would have to register more than 450 domains each week just to stay a step ahead of the bad guys. But each domain name registered costs money. FireEye spent $4,000 buying up future domains that might be sought by stranded Srizbi bots."

It would be interesting to see what sort of intelligence they were able to gather while they were running this operation.

</comment><comment><USER4> They couldn't roll out updates? I heard the botnet writers hardcoded some sites after they regained control.

.

 _"The updated Srizbi includes hard-coded references to the Estonian command- and-control servers [..]"_

[http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewA...](http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9121678)

<comment><USER5> Strange that the C&C servers are in Estonia still, one would imagine EU and for that matter Estonia itself could take matters in its own hands, if appropriate authorities could be provided with a list of those servers.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Aside from the obvious stupidity of the 'established players', i have to say, that is one hell of a bootstraping technique.

<comment><USER6> > Aside from the obvious stupidity of the 'established players'

Surely it's a short-term solution at best? As soon as one bot network is killed like this then another will emerge with more complex (and costly to patch) security measures - ?

Wouldn't it be easier to attack it at the DNS management level itself? Model: have a provision for creating a kill list for domain names that extends from ICANN down to the registrars. Would allow ICANN to blacklist certain names.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whatever level the nevessary action needed to be performed on, it needed the big boys (and girls) to get involved. And the chance has been lost for this round it seems.

Thinking about your solution a bit more though, and it does sound good at first, what happens when the black list starts approaching a material percentage of the total of usable domain names? are we eventually going to blaclist the entire domain-space? This is just another reason why DNS is very, very broken.

<comment><USER7> What do you think a non-broken replacement for DNS would be like?

<comment><AUTHOR> just because I mentioned the problem does not mean I have the solution :). If I had to venture a guess, I would say it would look much more like a distributed identity/trust model than the current semi-centralized DNS solution.

<comment><USER7> I agree that DNS is pretty broken, and it's a really important problem to solve. I was hoping you might have insights on what to do ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter accounts are disappearing, help to find out why - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@tair/wtf-my-twitter-account-disappeared-e3e670e0a87f#.pgkppzux5 <comment><USER2> I have the same problem.

Managed to get the reset password mail (from second or third try), but it didn't work (account not found again).

UPD1 Hmm, now the account page is visible, but I can't login (it silently redirects to twitter.com page).

UPD2 Another recent discussion I found: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/50mesy/my_twitter_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Twitter/comments/50mesy/my_twitter_account_has_suddenly_for_no_reason/)

UPD3 "Some people may have briefly been unable to access their Twitter accounts. This issue is now resolved, thanks for your patience!"

[https://twitter.com/Support/status/771328578013241346](https://twitter.com/Support/status/771328578013241346)

Not completely fixed here, though, still can't login.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This seem to happen again :( as discussed in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12243294](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12243294)</comment>


Ask HN: Lying on your resume - <AUTHOR>

To make it clear, an ex lied on her resume for a $100k+ job. If you were in my shoes, and knew the company, what would you do?
The second piece to this question- what do people think of lying on your resume? I can't stand it- but I think it may be common place.
Thanks for your thoughts! <comment><USER2> _If you were in my shoes, and knew the company, what would you do?_

What would I do? Not a damn thing.

It's not your job to right every injustice in the world; and it's questionable if there's any injustice here in the first place. Ok, she lied on her resume... big deal, getting a job is one thing, but keeping it is about performance. If she - in the end - can DO the job she was hired to do, does the lying on the resume bit really hurt anything? Not that I'm advocating lying, I'm just saying that "what's done is done" and that it's not your place to get involved.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why are you even thinking about this? Move on. There's not much upside to you telling them (they might know, they might not care, hurt you down the line).

Either way, why are you even thinking about this? This is wasted time you could have spent doing something productive.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would do absolutely nothing. The primary reason I can see you asking this question is that you are looking for justification to take revenge upon your ex. If that is correct, it is better for your own well being to move on.

Even so, the resume has little to do with a hiring decision once getting someone passed the initial bar. Hiring is completely dependent upon the interview and the background check. The resume is not used for much more than a sanity check.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have you considered that it might be illegal to tell them? There are laws that prevent other companies from giving most information to a hiring company unless the applicant has listen a person as a reference, and then only that person can give more info.

I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me this is really risky for you and doesn't provide any benefit other than revenge.

<comment><USER6> In the US it isn't illegal for companies to give information to a hiring company, they don't give out information because of the risk of being sued by the applicant if they give out information that may cost the applicant the new job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are you stalking the ex? There should be a seven-year waiting period before doing that kind of thing. Then it's just "catching up on Facebook."

If your knowledge of the company is material, then the most you'll want to do is possibly telling them to do their own fact-checking. I.e., if it's your best buddy's startup[1], then you call him or tell him face-to-face, with no written record. Use tone (sarcasm is good here, but when isn't it?) rather than word choice to convey that not all is as it seems.

It's possibly grounds for a slander or defamation lawsuit if your ex finds out that you called potential employers and called her a liar, so think about whether you are still carrying enough baggage that it's worth exposing yourself vs. using this as an opportunity to move on.

[1] In which case, your first words should be,'hey, bro code violation–stay way from exes!' Then you get to punch him once in the stomach the next time you see him.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think anyone that can get a 100k+ job probably doesn't really get it because of her resume. And you shouldn't care. Move on.

</comment><comment><USER9> Big lie or little lie? Did she say she was manager of a large project when she shared most of the management duties with another employee? Or, is she fabricating a medical degree out of thin air?

Everyone puts their best face forward on a resume - and will usually stretching the truth a bit. But most don't engage in outright fraud to land a job. If she is doing _that_ , well she may be facing liability down the road.

It's impossible to discern the severity of the lie from your question alone - for all I know you could be nitpicking douche-bag - OTOH she may be a conniving, money-grubbing harpie. Details, please.

</comment><comment><USER10> 1\. It is common place as f'd up as that is.

2\. A lot of times, for higher level positions, it'll catch on fast and it's not uncommon for people to be let go.

3\. As to whether or not you should let the company no, this part is tricky. The right thing to do is obviously tell the company whether or not she could perform the tasks. The problem though is it may ruin your relationship. It would have been better to prevent it from happening but what's done is done.

In reality it's not really your place to interfere but you're going to have to make a judgement call on whether or not you want to step in on this.

</comment><comment><USER11> Relevant: <http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/2011-02-20>

According to Dilbert at least, lying is common...

</comment><comment><USER12> I don't lie but I sell myself, I also don't really create a resume but more of an overview of what I can do and a why / why not. On the other hand as an employer I don't care about previous jobs unless they're exceptional and I want to know what you know and why I should hire you and also why I shouldn't and a few references to chat to, if I need anything else I call the person.

</comment><comment><USER13> You can't separate work and lying ... if further explanation is needed, just check Feb 20 Dilbert!

</comment><comment><USER14> It probably happens all the time and you are just wasting your time even thinking about it.

</comment><comment><USER15> Lying is wrong. I'm glad that person is your ex, not your current partner.

</comment><comment><USER16> You want to be a startup founder, right? Look forward.

Your Ex may turn into a valued contact in the future, or might be your future boss, you never know. If they lied then it will really depend on whether they can do the job or not, and a resume only gets you in the door, interviews are what gets you jobs anyway.

That said, I once received a resume from someone who listed as one of their past employers a company I'd also worked for. He listed his work there as being on a project that I'd worked on, and partially led. One with less than 6 people on it. One that happened without him being involved at all!

I was amazed at the nerve. Would have been easy to call the company if we'd been reference checking and found out, but worse, I'd worked there so I knew right away it was a lie.

We uninvited him from his interview.

<comment><USER17> _We uninvited him from his interview._

That's too bad. It would have been a very interesting interview.</comment></comment>


So I got my first bill from Amazon Web Services after moving off the free tier - <AUTHOR> http://i.imgur.com/W6VSL.jpg

<comment><AUTHOR> $2.12 I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting that. I use AWS for all the images on my website, because after doing some testing there was a notable difference in speed. I used the free tier for one year, then on November 1st, I started having to pay. I didn't really pay attention to the billing amounts in the past because I wasn't paying but I was expecting a much higher price.

Also notable, this is the biggest month I've in the history of my website, I hit the front page of HN 3 or 4 times, and the front page of Lifehacker and Adafruit industries blog. Most of my days were around 5k uniques, with spikes up to 20k with the plugs from the big sites.

All I can say about this is if you're thinking of using S3 for your CDN to make your website faster and save hard drive space, don't let monetary cost be an obstacle. This is a hell of a bargain, that's why I'm sharing it today.

<comment><USER2> I guess your mileage may vary...</comment></comment>


Ask PG: Fix the broken flagging system? Surface article just got flagged off FP - <AUTHOR>

Just like it happens like clockwork on any Microsoft article that is not negative on them, the Surface Pro pricing announcement just got flagged off the front page.http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848998
If there's anything flag worthy there, can anyone please tell me what it is? From the HN guidelines "If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link."
As usual, I suspect it's the overzealous MS haters armed with the flag button. Simlar things happen to some anti-Google and anti-Apple stories.
I think the logic behind the flagging system was that someone good enough to get enough karma(now 500) would be objective enough not to flag anything legit that show their favorite company in bad light. Clearly that has failed. Paul Thurrott's Winsupersite is completely banned from HN because of this and any articles that reach front page that paint MS in good light are flagged to death. I have multiple screenshots of this happening if anyone cares to want them.
The flagging system is clearly  outdated and broken and doesn't account for people with good karma trying to censor legitimate news articles they don't want others to see. <comment><USER2> Exactly the same thing happened just a few days ago on the article about Windows 8 reaching 40million sales. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4839972>

<comment><USER3> Could be related to the similar app numbers story being exposed as questionable?

People generally don't like sales stories that promote a product unless its from a trusted source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What does "flagged off" mean? Where are you seeing the number of flags, and how are you concluding that flagging causes something to fall off the front page any faster than normal? AFAIK the front-page sorting has always been counter-intuitive.

You (and recoiledsnake) seem to make the exact same accusations on a very regular basis, but I'm not clear on how you're arriving at them.

<comment><USER5> You could've just asked me earlier. Anyway, there is a hotness rating which is combination how fresh the article is, and how many points an article has.

For example, an article with 45 points posted 10 minutes ago will have a higher ranking than an article with 10 points posted 45 minutes ago.

The Surface article with 50 points was ranking much lower than articles with less points posted _before_ it. That indicates flagging.

As to the front page being wonky, can you point out any instances of articles with 50 points posted 1 hour ago being in the second page?

>how are you concluding that flagging causes something to fall off the front page any faster than normal

That's the whole point of flagging. If the flags are many more, it will even kill the post completely.

Also, see <http://hnrankings.info/4848998/>

The sudden plunge does not happen with other stories.

<comment><USER4> _You could've just asked me earlier._

In all sincerity, the quality and quantity of your earlier comments on this left me with the impression that you had nothing but accusation and rage. (Disclaimer: I use Windows on a ThinkPad. I have a Samsung phone.)

Also, I don't rely on the front page, rarely vote on stories and have flagged maybe two or three times, so this isn't something that I am particularly concerned with or think anybody else should be. But comment quality I _am_ concerned with, and so I care to the extent that addressing this issue will assist you and cooldeal posting fewer of the same angry comments.

So, to that extent, while I remain unconvinced that the problem is as described, I appreciate the effort.

 _That indicates flagging. [..] That's the whole point of flagging._

You answered neither of my questions: How are you counting the number of flags? Where are you getting the idea that flagging is effectively a downvote? I've never understood flags to cause anything to happen without a human moderator.

<comment><USER6> _"I've never understood flags to cause anything to happen without a human moderator."_

That's the way most sites work. HN isn't most sites. Unlike vBulletin, etc. content on HN isn't static. Like up and downvotes, flagging allows community moderation without the moderators getting involved. They can work instead.

People know how flagging works on HN because the basic code is available for inspection.

<comment><USER4> I have looked at news.arc and I do not come to the same conclusion about how flagging works. Without any additional information to understand the allegations, I've concluded that this is probably bullshit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> In fairness, Microsoft's announcement _is_ competing with the actual sighting of a Linux laptop on Dell's website.

<comment><AUTHOR> Err, I believe you're referring to the Wired article, while this post talks about the earlierMS Blog post that got flagged off the page.

<comment><USER6> "Err" is correct. Your belief is mistaken. I commented upon the topic at hand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> iOS developer here, see the same thing with any article writing positively about an Apple product

<comment><USER7> Another example of a Microsoft article getting hit today:

<http://hnrankings.info/4849090/>

Microsoft mocks Internet Explorer haters in new ad

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4849090>

<comment><USER8> Urm, Microsoft should not be mocking people for suffering their late and fragmented attempts at web browsing.

They should be thankful the dev community is giving IE10 a go and actually being encouraging to some extent.

<comment><AUTHOR> That is completely orthogonal to the fact that the _news_ about such an ad needs to be flagged, which is meant for spam and offtopic links.

<comment><USER9> > _flagged, which is meant for spam and offtopic links_

It's meant for bad links. Spam and off-topic articles are included, but that is not its exclusive use. For example, a post about how much the author hates gay startup founders is more on-topic than a lot of stuff that gets posted here, but is nonetheless inappropriate on numerous levels.

I don't know if I would flag a news story about a Microsoft ad campaign, but I'd probably at least consider it, because those are not generally very intellectually stimulating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Eh, it's nothing new with the fanboys here who form a defacto "Bury Brigade", if you remember that term on Digg where articles just used to die a sudden death.

They're just waiting for the inevitable Gruber's, Marco's or Siegler's deprecating takes and hit pieces on the Surface Pro pricing. Those will stay on the front page for days. This typically happens with any important MS related announcements or launches.

A good start would be to make it a bit transparent by actually showing the number of flags. I sometimes also wonder if it's the shareholders of competitor companies or some of their employees doing the flagging.

<comment><USER6> It's more than a defacto action in regards to Windows. WinSuperSite articles are killed upon submission automatically.

<comment><USER5> True, perhaps all the user flagging made the HN server think it was a spam site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4848998>

HN Rankings graph showing the sudden plunge. <http://hnrankings.info/4848998/>

<comment><USER9> I'm not pg, but that looks to my untrained eye more like the voting ring detector going off than the effect of flags.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Stop acting like you need special treatment because you're some kind of starved minority.

Windows has ABSOLUTELY dominated the world (in numbers, at least) for over two decades and is still #1. What's your problem? Not enough attention? Not getting enough hipster love for your c0rp0r4t10n?

There are 2 stories about Windows and one about Microsoft on the homepage. Boo hoo?

<comment><USER8> Hmm... pointing out the heavy amount of MS stories on front page... pointing out MS dominate the OS space.... obviously this must be down voted at all costs.

<comment><USER10> It's being downvoted because the the tone of your post does not fit the kind of conversation that Hn users want to have here

<comment><USER8> And MS items get flagged off often because microsoft cannot buy peoples hearts with a billion dollars in advertising after decades of an ugly monopoly.

Works both ways.

<comment><USER3> Seems MS do get adequate coverage based on the number if stories I see on first few pages and an hour on the homepage isn't woe.

They are attempting to change their tact, from ruthless business tactics to inspiring the people. Maybe that hasn't translated yet to the HN mind</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Weak Consistency and CAP Implications - <AUTHOR> http://www.igvita.com/2010/06/24/weak-consistency-and-cap-implications/

<comment><USER2> >> Finally, if you are working under weak consistency, it is also worth noting that it is not a matter of picking just a single strategy. Depending on the context, the application layer can choose a different set of requirements for each data object!

This is the part that is the most important. You don't have to try to pigeonhole your application to fit into CA, CP or AP. You can say things like "writes to the user's profile must propagate everywhere instantly" or "status updates can appear a little late, no biggie.". You have significant flexibility in the amount of consistency you impose on a per query basis.</comment>


Google is magic. - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/googles-2010-us-economic-impact.html <comment><USER2> I'm not sure how this meshes with some of the claims of Tyler Cowen's _The Great Stagnation_ [1]. He says that, although the web is an innovation that makes us greatly happier, it does it so efficiently that far, far fewer people need to be employed for the benefits to be reaped.

So here we are with Google's work force of 20,000 delivering $64Bn of value. That's great, but on the other hand, that's a lot of traditional jobs that don't need to exist (for those that think "full employment" is the most important thing)

On the other hand, anything that can pump so much value into the economy has to be a good thing. That value would, I assume, multiply into much greater benefits in ripples through the economy.

[1] <http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/01/growth_2></comment>


How I Got into Techstars, Was Almost Kicked Out, and Fought to Stay In - <AUTHOR> http://editorialiv.com/2014/08/07/how-i-got-into-techstars-was-almost-kicked-out-and-fought-to-stay-in/

<comment><AUTHOR> An oldie but goodie. At the end of the day it's all about adatability...knowing when to hold'em and when to fold'em.</comment>


On writing real CSS (again) - <AUTHOR> https://blog.colepeters.com/on-writing-real-css-again/ <comment><USER2> I am not the biggest fan of preprocessor ether, and i think many functions are really not necessary. But i love embed blocks what imo creates a brilliant readability in opposite to CSS alone. Also variables can come very handy.

I barely use mixins and other methods tho.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I can have variables + nesting I'm basically good too. You can have both nesting and variables when using cssnext. See [http://cssnext.io/features/#nesting](http://cssnext.io/features/#nesting) and [http://cssnext.io/features/#custom-properties- var](http://cssnext.io/features/#custom-properties-var). Variables in future CSS are called "custom properties".

I think cssnext is the way to go, just the same way Babel or Traceur is the way to go for JavaScript. Writing in the standard syntax makes your code portable and reusable.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: default code width formatting at 120? - <AUTHOR>

It's been for several years now that we have high resolution monitors, and 4K (for programmers!) is upon us. I think it's time to part with ancient 80-character default width for source code.
On my 1920px width monitor I code comfortably at 100-characters width in two editors side-by-side, although the font is a bit small at 10. On a 3840x2160, I expect to turn the monitor in portrait mode (it's gonna be too wide for web browsing at 3840, 1920px already breaking lots of sites!) and squeeze two code windows side-by-side with at least 120 characters usable width. This is a 50% increase over the standard 80-column width for editors !
Moving to 120 characters code width seems to have a lot of advantages; we can use longer variable names, we have space for longer expressions, e.g. lambda functions or generators; and the commit messages (I look at you, git) and comments will not be awkwardly split in a quarter of the screen.
Question is: how do we start moving everybody to use 120-characters default width for their code ? <comment><USER2> Shorter lines are easier to read. Long uneven lines are hard to read. This is why all newspapers use multi-column pages with advanced layout algorithms to make the lines as even as possible.

I also don't think being able to fit a "lot of action" on each line is an advantage at all because code like that is hard to follow, debug and refactor. If you instead split it up over multiple lines it becomes easy to see what the common parts are and refactor them into new functions.

There is also a lot of people with poor eyesight who uses large fonts and would have to horizontal scroll (big pita) 120 char wide lines.

</comment><comment><USER3> I've never watched for this, or even known there where 'limits'. I just make sure my lines aren't too long.

Is it common for IDEs or editors to set line width limits? Does the character limit include tabs (I assume it does)?

</comment><comment><USER4> Please, do not stick to a number. Use your common sense.

You can use this simple question:

1\. In which way is this chunk of code easier to read, one liner or split?

That is it.

</comment><comment><USER5> Everybody? Just move your own stuff. Others will follow. Our code has been at a _soft_ limit of 120 for 5 years or so now.

<comment><AUTHOR> I already moved mine on 120. But common expectations of 80 are there for a reason.

How do we change the reasoning ?</comment></comment>


Interior Mapping: rendering real rooms without geometry (2018) - <AUTHOR> https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JoostVanDongen/20180925/327159/Interior_Mapping_rendering_real_rooms_without_geometry.php <comment><USER2> Seems very similar to parallax occlusion mapping, where you essentially use height and surface normal maps on a single plane mesh with very few triangles to simulate a very complex surface. This is accomplished by ray tracing each pixel that the plane is occupying to determine where the view ray would intersect with the height map how it would reflect based on the surface normal map. It's a very convincing effect unless you look at the surface at a glancing angle and realize that the geometry is 100% flat.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpWqUqeqeQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpWqUqeqeQ)

</comment><comment><USER3> There's another nice discussion of this sort of effect in prior games here: [https://simonschreibt.de/gat/windows-ac-row- ininite/](https://simonschreibt.de/gat/windows-ac-row-ininite/)

</comment><comment><USER4> I remember Pixar doing something similar for the interior rooms of the cruise ship in _Wall•E_ , it's surprisingly realistic.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice write up. I'm pretty certain this technique was being used in offline rendering for VFX prior to 2008 though.

</comment><comment><USER6> This might be a dumb or obvious comparison, but this is somewhat similar to how Wolfenstein 3D made its breakthrough to "3D" in a lot of ways. It wasn't 3D so much as a clever 2D hack, or "2.5D".</comment>


Monzo now supports IFTTT - <AUTHOR> https://monzo.com/features/ifttt/ <comment><USER2> Monzo are a new UK bank, and the first bank to get onto IFTTT. It's really interesting to see what automations users are creating to make automatic transfers to savings pots, based on things like sleep, exercise, social media activity.

It's been a day so far, so once they open out more features it could be quite a gamechanger.</comment>


Geek Porn (chartbeat) - <AUTHOR> http://betashop.com/post/239322340/geek-porn <comment><USER2> I really really dislike when services do not disclose pricing. I cannot find anything other than "Try it free for 30 days." Clicking "Learn More" gives me no more info. Regardless how much it is, this just gives me an underhanded feeling. I thought it was common knowledge these days that full disclosure of pricing is what works in generating user interaction. Not knowing what the price will be after those 30 days, I simply will not "Try it".

<comment><USER3> The sign up page (<https://chartbeat.com/signup/>) says that the price is $9.95 per month.

<comment><USER2> Ah I see that now. However, I was unwilling to even click on the "Try it" button, so I would not have gotten that information anyway. The web is too full of services that do the "try-it-free" and then the "good-luck-trying-to- cancel-the-service" that I would highly recommend they disclose the pricing up front.

I did also notice their FAQ had it after clicking around, but again, that still feels like they are hiding it, as that is a link hidden at the bottom of the page in the footer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Why linking to a blog post with no content instead of <http://chartbeat.com/> directly?

</comment><comment><USER5> Meh. I think geeks look at the repeated RPM-style gauges and start thinking how they could design the interface better.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a link to view the real-time traffic on betashop.com. Pretty cool to see the Y-Hacker News impact.

[http://chartbeat.com/dashboard/?url=betashop.com&k=1fd04...](http://chartbeat.com/dashboard/?url=betashop.com&k=1fd047d939c5e98584b781508e3b3cdb)

<comment><USER3> Just a quick heads up... When the dashboard is "paused", the page is not properly masked. When I clicked to resume, it opened a link in a new page.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hey, thanks for putting the word "porn" directly in the URL itself. I'm sure the company content filters are going to love that.

</comment><comment><USER7> Related: <http://lloogg.com>

I provide this service as free for now, its more than one year at this point, not sure about the future. Well at least this is how Redis got started :) (*SQL was not good for real-time stats, really).

</comment><comment><USER8> Chartbeat also has a free iphone app with push notifications.

</comment><comment><USER9> just added it for pitchfork.com, and loving it.

</comment><comment><USER10> I always thought geek porn was real porn, but on the internet.

<comment><USER11> I was under the impression that it was porn of geeks...</comment></comment>


Protein capable of blocking novel corona binding discovered - <AUTHOR> https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200402144526.htm <comment><USER2> Huh. That's actually pretty close to the naive approach I used in Foldit for some of the earlier coronavirus puzzles. Take the protein the thing already binds with, and just swamp the bloody thing. Wasn't terribly great scoring, but I got it above the the threshold for the cellular receptor.</comment>


Why we should all have a basic income - <AUTHOR> https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/why-we-should-all-have-a-basic-income?income <comment><USER2> Isn't the question "Why should we pay a basic income" instead of "Why should we receive"? No amount of "should receive" can balance zero amount of "should pay". The ones that pay are the ones that need convincing.

Unless both amounts are zero: zero reasons to pay and zero reasons to receive is a fine solution.

<comment><USER3> The version of basic income advocated by some conservatives abolishes all other welfare programs to fund basic income, the idea being to eliminate expenditure on means testing overhead.

<comment><USER4> But I'm a wooly liberal and I agree with that, if you keep the BI high enough to truly replace the need for it. I would rather everyone had a basic, flat rate that had basically 0 bureaucratic expense to dole out. Maybe you could have a pension-like program where if you are over retirement age or can't work you get extra pay, but any more complexity than that is probably not worth the wastage that comes with it.

If I'm missing something here, please tell me.

<comment><USER3> There are a couple of issues.

The first is that the means testing ensures that a small minority of the population receives welfare. If you dissolve the entire apparatus, and distribute the proceeds to all working adults then, in the US, it only comes out to something like $5-6k per year per person. Certainly below the 'living wage' $15/hr = $30k/yr + 'cost of living' adjustments that some are calling for (although this would require almost triple current tax revenues).

The second is that each and every welfare program is the end result of a hard fought political battle, and not a single program will go quietly into the good night. The optics of people suffering due to a particular lost welfare program will receive orders of magnitude more attention than the provision of basic income, no matter how generous. Basic income will become status quo, but sharp recriminations will go on, until at last each and every program will be reestablished. This is more likely the closer the level of basic income is to the $5k "cost saver."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The one thing I don't get about the Basic Income push is . . . what will be done about inflation? With more and more money chasing the same amount of resources, goods, and services, basic income would push up the overall price- level and undo itself by pricing out those who live at the basic income level

. . . am I missing something?

<comment><USER6> This is my question as well. If the UBI is $1000/month, doesn't that become the new $0? But, this is what I figure, not being an economist, and just being someone who really wants UBI to be a thing:

With an influx of cash, people will be able to buy more, which creates incentives for actors in the market to create more products to eat up the new cash. More products = competition, which keeps prices low. Plus, people already have in mind how much they want to spend for a certain item. Take, for example, peanut butter. Rather than raising the price, the makers do things like decrease the amount of the product in the jar through redesigned packaging.

Just my pet theory. What I wonder is for things with terrible competition (rent, for example) what prevents those markets from just gobbling up the gains.

<comment><USER7> Is it perhaps possible that your hypothesis might not account particularly well for inflation? One cannot pump cash arbitrarily into an economy with a limited amount of value. Past a certain point, the scarcity of money changes.

If the UBI was $1,000,000/mo, I expect rents everywhere might soar and bread might cost $10k a loaf. There's more money, but the scarcity of goods doesn't change, so what happens is everything sprouts a couple of extra zeros. This is what runaway inflation can look like.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Basic Income is a completely broken mental model. Some reasons:

1) Inflation.

The minute that $1000 hits your bank account, it will be worth less than you think. Every social services program struggles with this fact.

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/09/it-was- obsol...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/09/it-was-obsolete- before-we-opened.html)

2\. Human Nature.

Everyone who writes these articles assumes that people are inherently good and would make better decisions if freed from the evils of needing to earn a paycheck. History tells us otherwise.

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/10/ancient- wisd...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/10/ancient-wisdom-tells- us-idle-hands-are.html)

3\. History tells us this does not work.

We have tried some version of this before. It works fine at the "testing" stage where some small-ish group of committed, idealistic people come together and decide to share and share alike. The minute it is opened up to the general public and ALL people, no matter how badly they behave, are ENTITLED to their share, it falls apart.

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/01/ubi-we- tried...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2016/01/ubi-we-tried-this- before-and-its.html)

I could go on. And I have:

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/01/industrial-r...](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2017/01/industrial- revolution-2-electronic.html)

[http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/ir2.html](http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/p/ir2.html)

</comment><comment><USER9> UBI does not directly address drug use, mental health, indebtedness, or homelessness. The idea that you can solve poverty by giving "free" money to individuals who can not spend wisely while at the same time eliminating nutritional and mental health programs can only have bad results.

<comment><USER10> You're focusing on just one group - those who don't have jobs. Consider that a UBI would directly address bad employers, such as mine. Let me explain the situation, a very common one where I am:

My employer feels that, because he pays me minimum wage for some hours a week, I owe him my complete allegiance. I should work very hard for him during my work hours, and then we have a post-work meeting that assesses our productivity for the day, and our mistakes - which also includes hardware failures. The IT department just notes "Operator error" when a piece of equipment fails. This meeting is mandatory and unpaid, an illegal combination. If I refused to attend, even though it's illegal for the boss to do so, I would be fired. Most catch-up work (when their antique equipment fails) is unpaid, too. I'm owed several thousand dollars in back pay, including public holidays (which they are legally obligated to pay me for), which I will never see.

According to my employer, the role includes training everyone who comes through the door, supervising them in every aspect of what they do, and if they screw up the finger gets pointed at me. (If you looked at my actual contract, you would see that this is not a job requirement.) If computer equipment fails, and we have a 21 year old box running some crucial software which is built by the corporation (so updating it to support a modern machine is no problem), I'm expected to diagnose it and offer solutions just because I have a CS degree. Again, this is not in my contract. I don't even have the superuser passwords, but it's still my job in their eyes. I have a raft of further responsibilities, including ensuring that some high-end equipment works correctly even though I'm not allowed to touch it.

I did once ask for a pay increase, but I was told that there aren't many jobs around here so if I don't like it, I can quit and good luck getting another job with the reference they were threatening to give me.

A UBI would mean I could quit ("Take this job and shovel it") and look for an actual job where the staff are valued, perhaps even save enough to leave the city and look everywhere around the country. The lack of a UBI (as well as the governmental and social requirement to accept any "reasonable" job) means that I have to suck it up and keep working.

That would be the most powerful reason to implement a UBI, to my mind: the ability to tell bad employers that you don't need them to live.

<comment><USER11> I don't see how UBI is a solution for that problem. That problem may be perpetuated by your unwillingness no quit, which may be tied to your income level, but UBI doesn't affect your unwillingness to search for alternatives or even prepare to quit.

Bad employers are enabled by tolerant employees. Establishing a side-income scheme does nothing to address how employees are willing to be mistreated.

<comment><USER12> "Tolerant" employees often don't have a choice if there is more demand than supply for jobs in a market. UBI removes some of the coercive power the employer has, since employees aren't forced to choose between their job and food/a place to live/etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I really wish the notion that wealth equals income would die. I too believed that the distribution of income is what our problem is in our economy. But after learning how real economics works it doesn't matter how much money goes where. What matters is production. Remember currency has no actual value unless something is being produced. If money is redistributed in one area you are not producing anything. What you are doing is reallocating production from one business sector to another. Recall the barter system, which worked for thousands of years. You are exchanging your product/service for something else. Currency is a means to divide out production.

<comment><USER14> I think you've got the premise of Basic Income back to front. No one is suggesting that handing out money creates wealth. Rather, the premise is that the system is imbalanced, that as things stand the money distribution is not an accurate representation of value provided.

Take Warren Buffet. Did he really contribute 76 billion dollars worth of value to society? I don't think so, and I don't think even Buffet himself does (he has said that to spend his vast accumulated fortune on himself would divert resources from important things). But once you make beyond a certain amount it's almost hard not to make more, without doing anything at all! Here's[1] an interesting personal account of this on our very own HN.

Conversely, someone at the bottom of the ladder can work 60-80 hour weeks in multiple jobs and barely make ends meet, let alone save.

I would even argue that an unemployed person actively seeking work is probably contributing various forms of value merely by existing - most obviously in the form of liquidity to the employment market, but also in all the other ways a living person is valuable - they listen and talk, make friends, form opinions, vote, and otherwise reinforce the fabric of society (hence why it is still a tragedy if such a person gets hit by a train, and a crime if they are murdered).

Moving further down still, when push comes to shove, most people would agree that even the most miserable, useless wretch does not deserve to die, if the resources for their survival are readily available. There is value, moral value, in compassion. A society that takes this view is spiritually wealthier.

So you have a scenario where, monetarily, the people at the top are systemically overvalued, and the people at the bottom systemically undervalued. This seems to be a deep property of the system that can't be fixed by fiddling taxes within the existing framework - money trickles up, where it accumulates. Closing the loop with a basic income, even a nominal one, is a direct and practical solution that doesn't have to hurt anyone.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13698121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13698121)

<comment><USER15> Is "back to front" how Brits say "backwards"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> As far as inflation goes: think of money as a signalling mechanism, not as a reserve of wealth. This is true for the wealthy, and as the marginal cost of producing goods drops, it becomes true for more and more of the population. When factories can more flexibly adjust production, you'll find increased demand for, say, iPhones, and decreased demand for, say, TVs, will shift production and damp the price inflation.

Secondly, consider that an economy without a UBI yet with mass unemployment will suffer a liquidity trap. This is a more efficient way to fight that than QE (which I'm not criticizing as it was the best tool available for the times)

</comment><comment><USER17> Yuval Harari makes a good point: when it's said that "we" should "all" have a "universal" basic income, aren't people actually talking about a national basic income? Is the US or Norway going to provide a basic income to people in Bangladesh? Or Iraq?

Harari discusses this in his book "Homo Deus". You can also see him discuss it here: [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=szt7f5NmE9E](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=szt7f5NmE9E)

</comment><comment><USER18> What I really don't get is, why do everyone advocate for universal basic income, instead of a negative income tax.

The negative income tax model achieves the same basic income with less negative motivation for people who want to pursue work at the low-end.

It also avoids wastefully paying it to people who don't need it.

This is my inspiration : [https://youtu.be/xtpgkX588nM](https://youtu.be/xtpgkX588nM)</comment>


Dbanay/Smalltalk – "by the blue book" C++ implementation of Smalltalk-80 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dbanay/Smalltalk <comment><USER2> Slight off-topic but: The author may not be aware that MVC (the classic Smalltalk look) is still supported in Squeak (and maybe Pharo, although I suspect not.) You just create a new MVC project. That said, since it isn't often used some bit-rot is almost inevitable.</comment>