Charles Schwab to buy TD Ameritrade - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/25/charles-schwab-to-buy-td-ameritrade-in-a-26-billion-all-stock-deal.html <comment><USER2> This is positioning them to increase prices. CS is tired of discount brokers like Ameritrade under-cutting them, so they're going to try and buy out a handful and see if they can pay for it with fee increases.

How long until Robinhood gets purchased? I'd be surprised if it wasn't consolidated this time next year.

<comment><USER3> I think you actually have things backwards. Charles Schwab cut their trading fees before Ameritrade did and this move to $0 trading fees affected CS less than Ameritrade because CS makes more money from other sources.

An interesting article about it: [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-21/schwab...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-21/schwab- broke-ameritrade-to-buy-it)

<comment><USER4> I think most brokerages make the bulk of their money on interest for margin trades and management fees. I read about Fidelity's new 0% ER funds (e.g. FZROX), and it's a loss leader for their larger margin business.

Schwab has a good business going with offering mutual funds and retirement accounts, but I don't think they have a solid margin business, but I think TD Ameritrade does, which is likely why they're making this acquisition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This must really hurt for E-Trade. They're getting boxed in on both sides now, with Robinhood beating them in the discount brokerage market and the soon to be Schwab/TD on the premium side.</comment>


Ask HN: Is there a usable way to browse the jobs section? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for a job posting from a week ago but I'm finding it hard to dig up.  The jobs page [1] only lists 3 days worth of items, why is there no paging button?  The page does nothing if you pass in paging parameters in the url.  And nothing comes back in the search results if I search for the title text.
I also found an API link [2], but it's pretty much useless.
Do you know if there's a better way to browse the jobs section?
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/jobs [2] https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/jobstories <comment><USER2> Please email firstname.lastname@example.com and we can help.</comment>


Elon Musk's plan to build one Starship a week and settle Mars - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/03/inside-elon-musks-plan-to-build-one-starship-a-week-and-settle-mars/ <comment><USER2> The pace of innovation here is absolutely ludicrous. They designed and built a custom welding machine _and_ a custom x-ray machine for building tank domes in four _weeks_? They've gone from a production rate of one prototype in 8 months to one prototype every 2 weeks in less than a year. They doubled the size of their workforce in less than 48 hours. I'm gonna have to agree with the article author here: this is absolutely mad.

<comment><USER3> It's really helping them that they have some of the most motivated employees on Earth. Their people absolutely believe in this vision of colonizing Mars just as much as Elon Musk does. (Hell, I do too, I just don't work there.)

Meanwhile I'm working at an advertising company.

<comment><USER4> > Meanwhile I'm working at an advertising company.

That's a funny way to spell Google.

<comment><USER5> Or Facebook. Or heck, even Microsoft, Amazon, Adobe if you're in the "wrong" department. I bet even some Apple employees might occasionally feel they work at an advertising company.

<comment><USER6> Well, Apple is a marketing company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Excerpt:

"Just iterate, baby"

"I've spoken with plenty of the earliest engineers who worked at SpaceX, and almost all of them have noted that Musk tackles the hardest engineering problems first. For Mars, there will be so many logistical things to make it all work, from power on the surface to scratching out a living to adapting to its extreme climate. But Musk believes that the initial, hardest step is building a reusable, orbital Starship to get people and tons of stuff to Mars. So he is focused on that.

 _He knows he won't get Starship right at first. He employs some of the smartest engineers on this planet, and they're still, in many ways, fumbling toward solutions for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of Earth's gravity well into orbit—then to land it and fly it again. Musk has come to believe the only way to realistically achieve this is through trial and error, by iterating closer and closer to the right design._ "

<comment><USER8> > for the extremely hard problem of getting a super-large vehicle out of > Earth's gravity well into orbit

Why does it need to be super-large? To simulate gravity?

<comment><USER9> Tonnage. If you're wanting to move 7/8 figure tonnage loads over a period of time, you're going to need a big trunk.

In space vehicles, that means everything gets really, really big.

<comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payload_fraction)

Launch vehicles tend to scale payload capacity at a greater rate than dry mass. So a small launch vehicle like RocketLab's Electron might have a wet mass of 12,000kg at launch and an LEO payload capacity of 225kg (225/12000 ~ 1.8% payload), the SpaceX Falcon9 has a wet mass of 550,000kg and an LEO payload capacity of 22,800kg (22800/550000 ~ 4.1% payload).

This just tends to mean that, very generally and with exceptions, larger vehicles can get mass into space with less fuel.

<comment><USER11> A Falcon 9 has a LEO payload capacity of 22,800kg in expendable mode, something SpaceX does not like to do. The largest payload mass they've carried to LEO was Starlink-2 at approximately 15,600kg (60 satellites at 227 kg each).

<comment><USER12> Electron is not reusable, so expandable mode is a fairer comparison.

<comment><USER11> Maybe, but SpaceX strongly dislikes doing expendable mode, if at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Slightly off-topic but apart from Mars-related things, I don't think are appreciating how big of a deal Starship/Super Heavy will be.

Because space is hard and expensive, when designing payloads, they also have to be over-engineered to make sure you're getting the most out of your ride, which then makes the rockets over-engineered and expensive to make sure they don't blow up carrying the precious cargo. It's a positive feedback loop. So we end up with incredible telescopes like Hubble or James Webb, but it's literally a once-in-a-generation event. There's no tolerance for failure, so budgets and timelines ballon.

What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime? Why not mass- produce slightly lower quality telescopes instead of these masterpieces. The JWST's successor is LUVOIR, slated for sometime in the 2040s (!!), why not build a dozens JWST-like telescopes and use interferometry to build giant telescopes larger than the earth with higher light-gathering ability than even ground-based telescopes? This is the technique used by Event Horizon Telescope to capture the first picture of a black hole last year.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-long- baseline_interferome...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very-long- baseline_interferometry)

<comment><USER14> > _What if you knew you could get a cheap ride anywhere anytime?_

That's exactly the premise of Starlink. SpaceX know they can launch those things 100x cheaper (1000x ?) than ever before in history, so they're churning them out and throwing them up. Even though the ones going up right now aren't "finished" it doesn't matter, because replacing them with new and better ones is so cheap.

<comment><USER15> 400 Starlink satellites per Starship launch costing $2M is $5,000 per satellite per launch. Basically nothing compared to the eventual mass-produced cost to make each satellite which might be $100,000.

[https://youtu.be/Exd1IO52exs?t=361](https://youtu.be/Exd1IO52exs?t=361)

<comment><USER16> Musk recently said that they need to get Starship working because the launch cost on Falcon 9 is already exceeding the cost of the launched Starlink satellites. With a launch cost of approximately $30M and 60 satellites, they are already at $500k per satellite at most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it.

Purpose is so hard to come by now because we all don't know what we want. When we do know, we're constantly unsure about it.

Such a clear goal makes it easy to have greater purpose that you don't second guess.

This isn't a scheme to get rich, a zero sum political movement, or a narcissistic artistic endeavor. It's pretty unique there.

There's that whole danger of a cult of personality but the project is bearing fruit.

<comment><USER18> > It's quite inspiring to see a real goal and drive towards it.

I'm throughly uninspired... As a friend of mine once said: "progress when you're going the wrong direction, is turning around".

The idea that we'll settle Mars while the Earth burns in borderline sinister. It reminds me of the elite outpost from Kingsman (the movie).

We have a planet that is in dire need of this kind of motivated action, and yet Elon would rather be distracted by this dream.

Don't get me wrong, I can appreciate the "cool" factor of expanding to other planets. I too enjoy a good science fiction story. Who wouldn't want to escape the problems we've inherited, and proliferated.

But escapism solves nothing for "us", and it's foolish to think Mars is anything else. If we as humans can't live on Earth responsibly, we frankly don't deserve to exist at all.

(Perhaps we should pull a Titan A.E., and preserve some DNA in the vast wasteland of space. Just in case an alien species decides to give us another go)

<comment><USER19> > We have a planet that is in dire need of this kind of motivated action, and > yet Elon would rather be distracted by this dream.

What? You see a motivated person with the resources and drive to pursue his dream and you're upset that he's not putting his vision aside to pursue what you think is important? Musk doesn't owe you anything.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a spectacular gamble, however Musk has a track record and I think Superheavy/Starship will pay off with unpredictable dividends.

But the elephant in the room that Musk appears to be ignoring is the life sciences side of things. Only 12 humans have sortied outside the Van Allen belts (which protect us from the deep space radiation environment). Nobody has spent more than 18 consecutive months in space or reduced gravity, and we _know_ there are biological changes that affect astronauts. The same goes triple for the plants and bacteria and fungi (never mind animals) we depend on for agriculture, and a closed-loop agricultural system and air plant is implicit in Musk's goal of a self-sufficient colony on Mars. We haven't even repeated the (failed) Biosphere 2 experiment.

We need the giant payload capacity before we can test the life sciences problems in a realistic manner (small and ferociously expensive lab experiments on the ISS are useful but fail Musk's iteration test because the lead time for running one is measured in years if not decades).

So we won't know if a Mars colony is even possible until some time after Musk builds the ships to put one there.

<comment><USER21> Then we'll _merely_ go to the Moon. :-) (And LEO and the Lagrange points.)

You raise a good point IMO in re: _viability_ of space. In the limit it may turn out that humans can't live anywhere but on or near the surface of Earth. What is certain is that living in space will suck for many years, or likely decades. It will be like living in a mine, but there are more things that can kill you and you're much _much_ further from fresh air and safe ground. And I suspect living on Mars would suck anyway just due to the ~0.4G surface gravity. At least on the Moon you can go home (in a few days rather than lots of months) or fly like a bird under your own power if your cave is big enough. ("The Menace from Earth", Heinlein; "Welcome to Moonbase", Bova)

But even if we can't live there it's still really useful and important to go: micro-gravity manufacturing; robotic asteroid mining; _science_...

I hope we can live in space, I _want_ to colonize the galaxy. (The _green galaxy_ on the cover of "The Millennial Project" book is one of the more compelling images I've personally ever seen. A photosynthesizing galaxy... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Coloni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millennial_Project:_Colonizing_the_Galaxy_in_Eight_Easy_Steps) )

But even if we can't go at all these rockets are really important!

<comment><USER20> This is why I like to draw a distinction between space _exploration_ and space _colonization_. The former is definitely within the realm of possibility, using existing technology (never mind the Superheavy/Starship system).

But Musk, with his talk of a self-sufficient city, is clearly targeting the latter, and there are a whole lot of details we haven't worked out.

<comment><USER21> It's one of those things, robots are much less romantic than astronauts, but they make so much more sense it's not even a contest.

I wonder how starry-eyed Elon Musk really is in re: Mars colonization? I know for myself that it was _hard_ to admit robots make more sense (at least at first).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is it me, or does this article basically romanticize abusing workers and glorifies running projects without a plan, just with a goal?

<comment><USER23> If you want to change history, you'll put up with a brutal working schedule.

If you want a cushy 9-5 job, just apply to the nice big corporation down the street. At the end of the day, you just go home and enjoy your comfy bunny slippers.

<comment><USER24> This sounds suspiciously identical to a tweet Elon posted last year that went 'viral', including the bit about how people working 9-5 (like that even exists at most corps today) as somehow being 'weak'.

<comment><USER23> > _suspiciously_

lol, you've found the nefarious element!

(It could be that I'm actually quoting from memory but, if so, it's not conscious.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This article from October 2019 also does a great job explaining the enormity of vision.

[https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex- sta...](https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2019/10/29/the-spacex-starship-is- a-very-big-deal/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Why Mars, specifically? Why not "settle" Antarctica or Marianna's trench? Aren't these orders of magnitude easier?

<comment><USER27> The overarching goal is to have a "backup" of humanity so to speak. Having some of society living on Mars so that if something were to happen to Earth, humanity wouldn't cease to exist. Settling Antarctica doesn't solve that problem.

<comment><USER28> I'm a huge Musk fan and would love to see us settle mars.

But. Really. What's the threat model here?

Mars is meant to be a backup of humanity. OK. Against what threat? We can think of many, but a self-isolating base in the Antarctic would survive nearly all of them with better conditions than a Mars base.

Nuclear armageddon? Not much fallout over Antarctica and OK, you can't go outside of a while. Still better than Mars where you can't go outside ever.

Runaway global warming? The ice will melt but at a slow pace that leaves plenty of time for adaptation, the climate will become _more_ hospitable at the poles rather than less, and at least you will have lots of fresh water. Unlike, say, on Mars.

Global pandemic? An Antarctic base can self isolate, no problem. Just lock the doors and let anyone who tries to reach you freeze to death. A serious Mars base would need some sort of border control policy too, if Musk had made it cheap to get there.

Massive asteroid strike? I guess it'd wreck the atmosphere but ... well, then you're no worse off than on Mars which doesn't have one to begin with. And you're much more likely to get nuked by a 'roid on Mars where there's no atmosphere to burn it up.

I dunno man. I'm trying to think of a problem that a serious Antarctic city couldn't solve and coming up blank. Short of Earth getting sucked into a black hole or something, what scenario is survivable on Mars that isn't at the poles?

<comment><USER29> Antarctic city is good. I like underwater cities personally.

A decent depth of water is very good protection against an awful lot of stuff, including almost anything Mars would be good for, and if you still love space, any technology we build to live deep in the ocean can probably be reused on Europa.

It's also, to bring it back to the 'iteration' discussion way way easier to iterate building underwater cities than building habitats on Mars.

<comment><USER28> Yeah, exactly. Problem is 'underwater base' is probably too easy to build. Within a few years you'd be asking people to actually live there and then ... well good luck motivating employees with _that_ vision!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Has he ever talked about how people would survive on Mars without a magnetosphere?

<comment><USER31> most likely using martian soil as a radiation shield. Either built up in mounds around structures, or by tunneling under the ground (boring company?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Self-promotion:

If you want weekly updates about SpaceX's progress, and about space science and the space industry in general, I write a newsletter for just that purpose: [https://orbitalindex.com](https://orbitalindex.com)

</comment><comment><USER33> I wonder how they handle differences in plans/knowledge/outlook between the 4 shifts. I can totally see the AM team working towards different quality standards or designs than the Evening team because they never talk to one another.

<comment><USER34> usually people change across shifts over time, you don't always work with the same people every time, so there would be a continuous sync up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This Musk quote from the article resonated with me:

> There's plenty of forgiveness if you pass me the buck. There is no > forgiveness if you don't.

<comment><USER33> Next week, Musks inbox is flooded with "Weld 28467 is looking slightly bubbly. It'll probably be okay, but wanted to pass the buck to you".

<comment> I-M-S That was my first thought as well - how does the spiritus movens behind both Tesla and SpaceX have the bandwidth to pull off that level of (micro)management?

<comment><USER36> He doesn't, plain and simple. So either it is propaganda or dilution or hybris. Probably a combination of all three.

<comment><USER37> People say he doesn't over and over - but he beats expectations over and over. Hmm.

<comment><USER38> Once working on an important project (and the work went round the clock), Sergei Korolev ordered people to literally wake him up at night if some serious questions or problems surfaced up. His team took that literally, and Korolev was woken up a few times at night. Later he said "you seem to conspired to not let me get some sleep", but nobody was fired[1], and the team still adjusted to a balance between importance of problem visibility and importance of getting rest.

Sorry for no references, writing from memory :) .

[1] Firing in Korolev's team was a whole 'nother story entirely. For example, Korolev used to fire people in the morning only to require them to work extra hard in the same afternoon. The team got used to this feature. In reality, nobody wanted to be fired - people saw the importance of their work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Wonder if friction stir welding would be suitable instead?

That seems to be used when very strong + predictable welding is needed.

Not sure if it's generally used for 4mm thick material though.

</comment><comment><USER40> Living without big plans & big dreams is bad, don't matter how crazy they are. Why I support Elon.

</comment><comment><USER41> So we've accepted that we're never going to find life on Mars, and that there's no concern of "contamination"? Or is this just a big plan to build a city in the first bit of "unspoilt" wilderness we can find off planet?

</comment><comment><USER42> I hope he gets to solve the terraforming part of going to Mars, as well. Also, maybe he sets his eyes on colonizing the ocean space on Earth - lots of empty space in the water.

<comment><USER43> Do a simple lower bound calculation, and you see that Elon is talking out of his ass.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Curious, does spacex have any work from home software dev jobs?

</comment><comment><USER45> So I guess this is how living in the 1960s felt like? :)

</comment><comment><USER46> godspeed

</comment><comment><USER47> Settle _on_ Mars

</comment><comment><USER48> Who da hell wants to go live there seriously??

</comment><comment><USER49> Humans are not biologically adapted to surviving on Mars, and for that reason, any settlement to Mars is bound to fail in the long term.

<comment><USER50> Humans are not adapted to live in space either. But because of a couple brave people, we now know a little about how to counteract zero gravity's degradation on the body (Bone and muscle loss -> stricter workout regiment). Bound to fail in the long term is quite the statement to make given our ability to build tools based on data that could increase our chance of survival.

<comment><USER51> Low gravity is one thing. But the radiation outside the Earth's magnetic field is quite another. People colonizing Mars will need to shield themselves from several types of harmful radiation. Wich means in practice: living underground.

<comment><USER50> Could be living underground. Water is also an effective radiation shield. Combined with predictive modeling, we might have a chance.

[https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/ind...](https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sunearth/spaceweather/index.html#q18)

<comment><USER51> Agreed. You could cover your above-ground pressurized habitat with blocks of ice. Or with a thick layer of dirt. But the subjective experience remains about the same as living underground.

<comment><USER52> There are a lot of people who live indoors almost 100% of the time in the winter in northern climates. A lot of the larger northern cities have underground walkways between buildings with subway access etc. No one wants to even walk across the street when it's 40 below. :)

I expect that designs for 'permanently underground/inside' cities would need to include some high-ceiling park-like areas with some bright UV lights, and other considerations, but that sort of thing seems pretty doable. Whether it would be enough to maintain a population's mental heath I guess would need to be seen, but generally speaking I think humans are a pretty adaptable bunch...

<comment><USER51> > I expect that designs for 'permanently underground/inside' cities would need > to include some high-ceiling park-like areas with some bright UV lights, and > other considerations, but that sort of thing seems pretty doable.

Definitely doable. But then there's no longer any special appeal to living on Mars, as opposed to: living in rotating space habitats among the asteroids.

If we reformulate Musk's goal as being: "Create off-site backups of human civilization", then I think asteroid mining & space habitats have a better shot at bootstrapping this process than colonizing Mars.

Once we are leveled up this way in resources and technology, building settlements on Mars can be a side-effect of this outcome. Just like the burgeoning scientific outposts on Antarctica are a side-effect of our current civilization.

<comment><USER52> I like the idea - why waste all that energy going up and down, and missing out on swimming in zero g? :)

But rotating space habitats might not be as good at replacing gravity as some think. Even with the really-huge 'O'Niell cylinder' scale (8 kilometers diameter), coriolis effects would be noticeable. I suspect a number of industrial processes would be affected by it.

I expect some of the major industrial processes will still need/want to be done on a big pile of rock or sand, rather than in a more fragile object that inherently wants to explode and fling apart all the time :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Steve jobs was super rude to Elon Musk! Right.

</comment><comment><USER54> What is the benefit of settling on Mars?

Until we explain that in some kind of sane way that doesn't just involve the earth being a crutch for raw materials, it all seems rather stupid to me.

Settling an earth-like planet? Sure! Seems logical. Mars? Not really.

<comment><USER55> Ability to survive nuclear war. He doesn't just want to settle, he wants to settle with a _self-sustaining_ colony. It's a contingency plan.

We've almost plunged the world into nuclear holocaust a couple times before. India and Pakistan are at each other's throats, and rising ethnonationalist populism and climate change are threatening to strain these tensions further. This is a real risk.

<comment><USER56> I'd buy into Musk's Mars bullshit if he built a sealed self-contained colony in New Mexico. We have experience with two long term space habitats, Mir and the ISS. Despite all of the engineering know how that built both shit breaks on them all the time and needs to be repaired. They also need regular resupply because they're nowhere near self sufficient. They also need a Soyuz capsule docked at all times in case they need to evacuate.

The Starship is an iterative design with seventy years of engineering knowledge behind it. Keeping humans alive outside the Van Allen belts for a long duration and then on a completely inhospitable planet has very little engineering knowledge behind it.

Also to suggest a Mars colony is a contingency plan is ludicrous. In order for a Mars colony to be a human civilization contingency plan it would not only need to be self sustaining but self perpetuating. Otherwise a life ending event on Earth would just give the Mars colonists a few months to come to terms with their mortality. Then no kore humans.

There is nowhere in the solar system that can support humans in the way Earth can. In fact everywhere else is _so_ hostile we need to take significant amounts of Earth with us just to not die immediately.

If you want to live in underground colonies have the Boring company build you tunnels here on Earth. At least when you need parts for the GECK you can go above ground with just a gas mask and rugged clothes instead of a bulky space suit.

<comment><USER57> Arthur C Clarke opined that we should be building self sufficient settlements under the ocean before moving on to space

Not really a reference, but related, [http://socialsciences.cornell.edu/wp- content/uploads/2014/02...](http://socialsciences.cornell.edu/wp- content/uploads/2014/02/Helen-Rozwadowskis-paper.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Not a bad idea, it's a good way to save the few healthy/surviving ones if coronavirus (or nature, or humanity itself) ends up wiping all of humanity.

</comment><comment><USER59> Elon Musk is beyond obsessed with reaching Mars. I feel bad for his employees

<comment><USER60> They can always leave.

I'd presume that many of them are on-board in the first place because they're engaged by the idea.

<comment><USER61> I suspect we have a few groups. Those who drank the kool-aid and liked it. Those who used to believe in it but after abuse are now stuck in an endless cycle where they have no time for job searches. And those that never drank the kool-aid and will leave after getting time on their resume.

It takes a great mix of super smarts and super stupid to work there.

<comment><USER62> > I suspect we have a few groups.

I think that's pretty much accurate, and what I saw when I was at the Job Faire in Browning last month, most were surprised by how extensive my experience was before I applied to get there: I worked for one of Kimbal's companies, I did a short stint at the Mars Desert Research Station, and got to know the Director and was asked to come back under her on a crewed mission etc...

Most were there to dip there toes and see what it was all like, but some of us were kool-aid drinkers for sure.

I met a SpaceX engineer in S. OC at an inn/out years ago and struck up a chat and the way he spoke about it was inspiring; despite the commute, long hours, fears of possibly going bankrupt before every launch (this was before Falcon 9 was recoverable) he seemed very fulfilled: like this is what he was here to do.

I got to stay after hours and hang out with some the crew in Browning as they were having dinner-lunch and it was the same vibe--smiles everywhere and just a really warm and inviting environment as you knew you among similar 'crazies.' I'm not sure if its cult-like or not but it was one of those rare moments I've had in Life where people genuinely wouldn't want to be anywhere else than where they are.

Money can't really buy that, and that is probably why I'm so drawn to it. If you're there trying to have a cushy work-life balance in any Musk corp you're deluding yourself.

<comment><USER10> There is some segment of the population that would pity your perspective as the disillusionment of an abused spouse. I don't. I get it.

<comment><USER62> > There is some segment of the population that would pity your perspective as > the disillusionment of an abused spouse. I don't. I get it.

Thanks, I often wonder if this is healthy practice myself as it can be rather personally-abusive to be so mission-centric, but then I see the consequences of the alternative: consider how many people in the US alone consume psychotropic drugs just to cope with depression despite having access to so much of everything but being so inherently listless and distracted.

I won't bemoan about the pitfalls about the Human Condition, but I will say that despite the hardships and loss I still see this as a worthwhile endeavor and wish to be part of it all, especially when you understand the implications it may have for the Species if we get this right.

Which right now as we're seeing the blow-back of something significant (albeit minor in the grand scheme of outbreaks) like Coronavirus is really alarming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> A Linguistic Beef:

The word "Starship" means specifically that the ship is capable of traveling between stars. At a minimum, it should travel from it's home star to the nearest neighboring star.

What we're talking about here are "Spaceships". \-- The only way I can lighten up and enjoy the name Starship in this context is to assume it's being used ironically... like someone who's named their cat "Dog".

<comment><USER64> There are other vehicles called "Starship" that aren't actual starships either - the Beechcraft Starship (a twin-engined turboprop pusher aircraft) or "The Starship" (a Boeing 720 used by Led Zeppelin and other bands). It's a proper noun chosen as a name or model designation for the vehicle, as opposed to a common noun describing the vehicle itself (a spacecraft).

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I don't get the point

1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn't it be good to solve that first?

2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn't be better to fix that first? (No, electric cars won't suffice)

3) is it really necessary to spoil astronomy/night sky to finance one's dream? (No, vantablack won't solve the issue)

4) our technology presently rely on mining 100+ elements. Does anyone here believe one can mine all of those on an a planet that misses an atmosphere? Using Earth ressources for a "colony" seems a dubious idea.

5) has anyone an idea of the CO2 equivalent cost of bringing one person to mars?

6) there is growing evidence that there is life in the Martian underground. Should we take the risk of destroying another biosphere?

<comment><USER66> 1) we are plain in the middle of a mass extinction event, expected to get much worst in a decade or two. Wouldn't it be good to solve that first?

I don't see why we can't do both. Maybe if you come up with an actionable plan you can start your own company like Elon and tackle that problem.

2) we need a 4th industrial revolution to survive global warming as a civilization. Wouldn't be better to fix that first? (No, electric cars won't suffice)

No electric cars won't suffice, but they are a start. As is an increase in nuclear, and renewables in areas it makes sense. Again I don't see how this detracts, especially looking at Elon's other ventures. Maybe you can create a company that tackles the concrete problem, that's a big one.

3) is it really necessary to spoil astronomy/night sky to finance one's dream? (No, vantablack won't solve the issue)

That's subjective and you don't know if it can be solved or not, seems they are working on it. Why do you think a non-reflective coating won't work?

4) our technology presently rely on mining 100+ elements. Does anyone here believe one can mine all of those on an a planet that misses an atmosphere? Using Earth ressources for a "colony" seems a dubious idea.

We don't have to mine all of them at first. Look where we started here on Earth, from scratch.

5) has anyone an idea of the CO2 equivalent cost of bringing one person to mars?

I'm sure it's negligible relatively. Was that rhetorical or do you have a number?

6) there is growing evidence that there is life in the Martian underground. Should we take the risk of destroying another biosphere?

Are you talking about the ice found? The martian biosphere is already destroyed, terraforming it would bring life to the surface and if there is life it's underground and must be pretty hardy.

<comment><USER56> You can't start from "scratch" on Mars with respect to mining or industry. Cavemen wearing mammoth pelts won't work on Mars. In order to simply _survive_ people would need high levels of technology. Even the most basic living on Mars would need steel and glass and equipment to machine both.

Making a steel or glass plate requires a lot of industrial capability and a capable supply chain to say nothing of raw materials. Both are cheap on Earth because we've built that infrastructure over the past two hundred years. That infrastructure was relatively easy to construct because the workers could wear overalls and hard hats rather than space suits. Taking a lunch break doesn't mean disrobing and piling into a pressure vessel.

Go camping for a weekend in the desert or in the snow sometime. Consider all the crap you need to take with you to not die of exposure or thirst. In those environments where you've got air for free and usually water if you know where to look, you've still got a fair bit of equipment. If you forget anything or lose it you could end up seriously injured or even dead. That's somewhere that's lousy with breathable atmosphere, protection from most ionizing solar radiation, and an average temperature high enough your lungs won't freeze.

Surviving inhospitable environments on _Earth_ requires effort and technology. Surviving outside of Earth is several orders of magnitude more difficult. _Thriving_ outside of Earth is more orders of magnitude beyond mere survival.

<comment><USER66> You're taking it too literally. No one is suggesting we wear mammoth pelts, only that our efforts will have to be gradual.

If we want to survive as a race in the long long term, we have to start colonizing at some point.

I just don't see why you're so pessimistic. Let these people go after their dream.

<comment><USER56> Colonization efforts off Earth _can 't_ be gradual. There is a baseline infrastructure necessary for people to live. There are no readily available resources on Mars that exist like they do on Earth. There's no safe places for people on the planet.

Everything people need to survive needs to be brought from Earth. Every aspect of life on Mars needs to be bootstrapped from absolutely nothing. There's no working models for any of that on Earth. That means it all needs to be designed, built, tested, and iterated upon before a single person boards a SpaceX Starship.

Even with Elon Musk's billions that is a vast expense. Even if it was all built, it's billions spent to send people to Mars to simply not die in case a nuclear war wiped out Earth.

It's not pessimistic to point this out, it's realistic. Dreaming about colonizing Mars and hand waving away every practical consideration is just fruitless fantasizing. It's not a plan. It doesn't actually move towards a colony anywhere.

The opportunity cost is billions of dollars and a lot of engineering effort not spent on solutions to more immediate problems that might benefit more people.

Musk talking about colonizing Mars is 90% PR for SpaceX and 10% ego stroking. If SpaceX could build a Starship a week to send people to Mars it would be Musk's friends and billionaires and millionaires. I doubt there's more than a car load of people that work at SpaceX that would be able to afford a Mars ticket. I can't fawn breathlessly over a billionaire describing his fantasy of leaving all us poors to rot on a planet his fellow billionaires ruined.

<comment><USER66> I agree. I'm for the PR stunt of sending humans to Mars.

I really loved America's stunt of going to the Moon and I want a sequel.

Eventually I would like us to have some sort of habitat on Mars which I do not think is far-fetched. I believe SpaceX will spur this movement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> I respect the clarity of the vision and the drivenness to make the vision a reality.

I disagree with the vision. The best analogy I can think of right now is high school kids renting a hotel for a party and trashing it and then doing the same thing next week. That's humanity right now.

There is no Planet B until we build a mutualistic relationship with the one that created us.

And yes when I say "there is no Planet B" I'm being vaguely spiritual. I believe Earth is a creature and somehow won't allow one of its creations to explore the stars until that creation learns mutualism. But I'm also being pragmatic: A) colonialism was a big motivation in our last 2 world wars and we still have intense colonizer memes circulating through our societies B) we now have the means to destroy ourselves thoroughly C) Mars is the crown jewel of potential colonies right now.

<comment><USER68> The pursuit of sustainable living and the pursuit of a multi-planetary existence are parallel endeavours, not serial ones. Perhaps the view from Mars will instil a renewed perspective on our dependence on Earth, and teach us lessons on ecological management via terraforming.

<comment><USER69> I would argue that achieving self-sustainability on Mars forces the issue, even. The problem we've had on Earth is that because the costs of being wasteful, polluting, etc are externalized, which makes such behavior "cheap" in the short term — on Earth, the environment is constantly handing out loans that we rarely if ever repay.

That's not an option on settlements beyond Earth's surface. There, you're forced to live with every decision you make almost immediately, so if you're wasteful or stupid it's promptly going to bite you in the ass and potentially threaten the lives of everybody involved. You're not given the option of fixing things later, you have to do the correct thing now, and I think that's the type of environment it's going to take for humanity to change its ways.

<comment><USER67> "Forcing the issue" is an interesting perspective, thank you.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Press F5 on HN for 3 seconds to get IP banned. - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER3> I'm betting this is a joke - as 'xdrthgcv' user account was created 8 minutes before this post.

Also, it makes no sense. The F5 key doesn't initiate remote functions - <USER2> HN is coded to, which doesn't seem logical.

<comment><USER4> F5 is refresh. If you make too many HTTP requests HN bans your IP for aggressive web crawling. (As I understand it.)

As for 3 seconds being enough, _shrug_. Not something I feel like testing.

<comment><USER5> There's an un-ban page somewhere around here. PG posted it because he figured out that the problem exists.

<comment><USER6> Yup. <http://news.ycombinator.com/unban?ip=ipaddress>

<comment><USER4> Keep in mind, this will only work once.

Source: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4761102>

<comment><USER7> Ah, well, that explains why the unban isn't working. Didn't know it was one time only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a slightly paradoxical problem, I have a static IP, the only way to validate this is for me to get this account banned too.</comment>


The ideal bot is an elder god, not a puppy - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@enkiv2/the-ideal-chatbot-is-not-a-butler-or-a-puppy-but-an-elder-god-10f243372e6f#.umybcidfa <comment><USER2> So how long until we start existing as Mi-Go brain boxes?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi-go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mi-go)

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't consider the Mi-Go elder gods. They are alien and older than man, but they have plans that involve man. I'm thinking more Yog Sothoth and less Brown Jenkins.

The current state of chatbot tech is _very_ Brown Jenkins.</comment></comment>


YC W20 Online Demo Day moved up due to investor interest - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day-now-on-march-16/ <comment><USER2> I'm glad they're moving Demo Day up. The whole point of YC is to level the playing field for all kinds of founders, and this would help keep the focus on Demo Day rather than the behind-the-scene investor meetings that tend to benefit connected, established founders.

Personally, as a YC W19, first-time founder of Wanderlog [1], I didn't do any fundraising before Demo Day. But I heard from friends in the batch about cold emails, "informal" dinners, and all kinds of shenanigans to get ahold of founders earlier.

Demo Day helps even things out by giving attention to all startups in YC, and not just the companies with connections. Everyone's given the same amount of time on stage, and off stage (in any other year), everybody's milling about in a huge hall. You can't tell who's the recent college dropout, and who's a former co-founder of a co. with a billion-dollar exit.

I can totally see investors really taking the coronavirus/lack of an in-person Demo Day [2] as an excuse to double-up on their outreach, leading to an even more imbalanced process. Good work on the YC Partners' part for short- circuiting this and helping the first-time founders and the traditionally disadvantaged

[1] A trip planner for vacation itineraries: [https://wanderlog.com](https://wanderlog.com)

[2] [https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day-now- on-m...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/yc-w20-online-demo-day-now-on-march-16/)

<comment><USER3> > all kinds of shenanigans

I don't understand - why do you care if another company fundraises or not? What's it go to do with you? YC isn't some kind of competition is it?

<comment><USER4> 1) YC may not be, but fundraising is a competition ([https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving- away-21-...](https://techcrunch.com/2020/03/09/sequoia-is-giving- away-21-million-to-a-payments-startup-it-funded-as-it-walks-away-from-deal/))

2) Herd Mentality: There is subtle signaling if a company being presented right beside you already has 50% of their round closed, vs a company that hasnt received this early interest.

These are not my ideals (I'm a fan of self-funding and sustainable growth), just the reality.

<comment><USER5> Have done demo day twice, and I can confirm. It was way, way worse the second time around. Lots of companies had filled out their rounds by demo day, despite the official YC advice (i.e. _" don't fundraise until demo day"_).

Also, it's not a subtle effect at all, particularly now that demo day is split up into batches with similar companies grouped together. If you're presenting on the same day as some company close to your space that has raised millions, it looks bad. Investors routinely ask who else has invested in your company. If company X has a long list of name investors and you don't, investors want to put their money in company X. It's a downside of the dynamics of the feeding frenzy created by demo day -- investors have little to go on, so they make a big deal out of herd signaling.

Obviously, this doesn't matter for the hottest deals, but most companies in a batch aren't hot deals, and the hot deals don't need demo day in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seems like a classic case of market unraveling:

[http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2009/06/unraveling.html](http://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/2009/06/unraveling.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> This is smart. If coronavirus is growing by a factor of 10 per week then we are all going to be in lockdown/isolation in two weeks time and probably not focusing on doing seed deals.

<comment><USER8> My thinking exactly.

<comment><USER9> Ancillary to this health wave being an exception. Here is what I posted on Twitter earlier: "Business owners with unaligned or rigid products or services unable to adapt are actively sinking. I've halted most everything and have never felt so much pressure to iterate for something and the coming months of shifting consumer priorities."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> >>They can sort companies by industry and geography, and will be able to export the list of companies to a spreadsheet.

4 days ago I commented here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22506013](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22506013)

"I think YC should add a sheet for us to write our comments/ratings and decision" I shared my experience on how I get bored and excited.

Many people reached out since then asking me to share my spreadsheet. This sheet will be very helpful.

Whether YC partners read my comment or not I'm so grateful for this feature.

THANK YOU YC<3

<comment><USER11> Would love to see the spreadsheet/notes that you have been taking. Email is in profile. Thanks!

<comment><USER10> will do

<comment><USER11> Updated my profile with my email address. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't really understand this, doesn't YC strongly encourage investors, to the point of punishing those who violate, to wait until Demo Day? That way they get to build good market conditions for raising.

<comment><USER10> >> doesn't YC strongly encourage investors, to the point of punishing those who violate, to wait until Demo Day? That way they get to build good market conditions for raising.

I'm not sure what's your source because the first paragraph contradicts what you are saying "Over the last few days, a large number of investors have accelerated their outreach to our current batch of founders. They are moving quickly to make investment decisions, and we're going to match their pace and accelerate our schedule by one week. YC W20 online Demo Day will now be on March 16."

<comment><USER13> It's discouraged but people do it anyway. It's in YC's interest to help all the startups in the batch; presumably they decided this was the best way.

(I have no inside info; in fact I just found out about this from the HN submission.)

<comment><USER10> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Is there any way to participate as investor? I did not immediately find a way to sign up for it but would be very interested.

<comment><USER15> You need to apply to attend. The application has already passed for this batch ([https://apply.ycombinator.com/events/246](https://apply.ycombinator.com/events/246)), but you can check back later to apply for the next one.

<comment><USER14> ty for the pointer!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why are they giving us details like sorting options on the website, it's not going to be open to the public is it?

<comment><USER17> This post is for the VCs and investors, but since YC is very transparent, they make the post public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Should continue to do online demo day in conjunction with live ones. Would be a great way to scale the platform

<comment><USER19> YC's Demo Day attendee portal has had an online component at least since Winter 2018--the first I attended. The pitch videos were made available a few minutes delayed from real-time live.</comment></comment>


Racket 5.1 Released - <AUTHOR> http://blog.racket-lang.org/2011/02/racket-v51.html

<comment><USER2> Racket has been rocking my world lately.

In particular, I love that you can arbitrarily define (or redefine) patterns for the match construct using macros.

It leads to some damn elegant code:

<http://matt.might.net/articles/red-black-delete/>

<http://matt.might.net/articles/parsing-with-derivatives/>

<comment><USER3> I played around (rather ineffectually) with David's Haskell code, back when the whole "Yacc is Dead" stuff was here, and I still tend to believe that Haskell results in less code when laziness is involved :)

That said, I think I really like define/fix

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Summary for the impatient:

\- A completely new GUI and drawing layer. Replacing 200,000 lines of C++, Xt, Win32, and Carbon with about 30,000 lines of Racket that builds on Gtk, Win32, Cocoa, Cairo, and Pango. Nice. \- Web server changed semantics \- Scribble documents can now hold any image \- Module dependency tools

</comment><comment><USER4> Racket seems to be really neat with support for features like JIT and futures (which have been around before 5.1).

The other day I tried a simple benchmark (nothing elaborate - just fib) and found it to be significantly faster than Python. Unfortunately I don't have the numbers right now.

Does anyone have any experience to share regarding the use of Racket in a production app?

<comment><USER5> benchmark game comparison: [http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all...](http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u32/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=racket&lang2=python)

Yes, Racket looks to be almost an order of magnitude faster on most of the benchmarks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> In case I'm not the only person who thought "What's Racket?", it's the language formerly known as PLT Scheme. It was renamed last year.

<comment><USER7> And, to everyone's surprise, the wiki page has not been marked for deletion yet. Doubleplus good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Back using Racket after a long hiatus. Racket I never should have left you. There are but two languages I'll use. Racket and Scala.

<comment><USER9> Ditto, only for Scheme in general (I used Chicken the last time around). I chose Racket this time for all the "batteries included" stuff.

I've never shipped anything written in Scheme, but my excursions into it have always left me a wiser programmer.</comment></comment>


Android Pie cripples WiFi network analyzer and indoor navigation apps - <AUTHOR> https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/79906367#comment15 <comment><USER2> This will cripple network diagnostic, security, net-stumbling apps too. Seems like at a bare minimum, higher frequency scanning should be a request-able permission rather than simply outlawed.

</comment><comment><USER3> ? without login ?

<comment><AUTHOR> The WifiManager.startScan() usage is limited to: \- Each foreground app is restricted to 4 scans every 2 minutes. \- All background apps combined are restricted to one scan every 30 minutes."

Mark startScan() as deprecated so that we can take away this API in future releases. [https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...](https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/478ee74428e04522d6ac0bf10c30ddaaf62028a4)</comment></comment>


CES 2018: Look to the Processor, Not the Display, for TV Picture Improvements - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/ces-2018-look-to-the-processor-not-the-display-for-tv-picture-improvements <comment><USER2> Hmm. Reminds me of [https://superuser.com/questions/1282598/what-sense-does- it-m...](https://superuser.com/questions/1282598/what-sense-does-it-make-for- sharpness-to-be-adjustable-on-a-monitor/) \- what's happening with these "picture improvements" is effectively post-processing "photoshop". They will generally be displaying TV from digital sources, so the need for denoise is questionable. Anti-banding might give you nicer sunsets. But fundamentally you now have a TV that rather than displaying the input signal decides to give you something it considers better. Results are likely to be variable.

Also:

"Samsung, though it didn't tout a new processor, promised that all its gadgets, big and small, will be a lot smarter this year—and will, by 2020, be using AI and talking to the cloud."

Fully compliant with all major buzzwords. Also employing a black box user surveillance engine.

<comment><USER3> I was recently shocked to learn that you cannot buy "dumb" TVs from any of the major brands any longer.

The only source I was able to find were random brands from China, and commercial displays from companies like NEC. Unfortunately commercial displays are optimized for longevity and not picture quality :/

If anyone knows where I can get a decent dumb TV please share.

<comment><USER4> It's been my belief for a while now that there's a market for premium dumb TVs. They would:

\- Use high end best binned panels (lowest possible image retention for OLED, etc)

\- Traditional LCD models would have very high standards for backlight consistency

\- Do little to no image processing

\- Be designed around being hooked up to external media boxes

\- Have a nice modern OSD text

\- Allow you to use your phone as a remote via Bluetooth (and control other media center components via IR cables and HDMI commands)

\- Not have any means of internet connection or any other smart functionality whatsoever

Effectively, they'd be to TVs as studio monitor headphones are to audio. Enthusiasts would jump all over something like this despite inflated prices, I have no doubt.

<comment><USER5> the reason the premium consumer market doesn't sell dumb TVs is that it would wring all of the profits out of selling TVs. consumer electronics companies want to be seen as "adding value" on top of the display. if they don't, then manufacturers can just go direct to consumer, cutting them out of the value chain and redirecting profits to the manufacturers (and some to consumers in the form of lower prices).

if they priced dumb TVs higher than their smart TVs, it would signal the negative value of the "smarts" in the TV, so they don't want to do that.

so none of the electronics manufacturers really want to sell dumb TVs to the mass market, since it would be akin to committing corporate suicide (in that particular product category).

of course one way around this is to brand a technical feature (as with sony's trinitron back in the day) and make that carry the value premium in the dumb TV, which would be how you'd approach the enthusiast segment you mention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "In the shorter term, the technology would enable scenarios like someone asking the TV what is in the refrigerator, then having it display a recipe then send that recipe to the stove."

From now on, I will interpret this being the first idea floated as the use for some IoT tech as "we have no f'ing clue what we're going to use this for".

Thirty years ago, this problem was perhaps unsolved. Now it's solved in at least two ways, with tablets and voice interactions, and those are better.

Sorry, Sony, Samsung, etc, there is no way my TV, which is in the ENTIRELY WRONG ROOM, is going to wedge its way into my recipe workflow, and if that is the best idea you have, as evidenced by it being the first idea mentioned in this article... _you have no ideas_. Note how even in the example I quote above, WTF is the TV doing in that interaction flow in the first place? What I should be "asking" what is in the fridge is my cell phone, and by extension since they share OSes, optionally a tablet.

(The core problem here is that Smart TVs are now mature. Ignoring surveillance and privacy issues, what we need are just more responsive UIs, and preferably, some sort of plan for how we're going to maintain these TVs in the future because especially at the high end these things are too expensive to be treated like cell phones that don't get updates after a year and a half. But that sure doesn't win any CES awards.)

<comment><USER7> I just want the display, not the device. More and more it's like Goodyear wants to sell me a car with the tires.

<comment><USER8> Precisely that, be great if they were moremodular to a standard, but then, that's what PC's are, just not at the lego level for the common consumer.

Then consumers wonder why due to software support obsolescence that their working TV becomes less functional after a few years.

So it is like Goodyear selling you a car with the tyres that they stop supporting way before the tyre is even close to end of working life.

<comment><USER9> > be great if they were more modular to a standard

There is actually. The Open Pluggable Specification [1] which is primarily used for digital signage screens. It's a shame consumer TVs don't use this standard (or something similar).

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why on earth does a TV need denoising built-in? I've noticed this trend—when I rarely visit electronic stores—where all the display models have huge vibrant screens, but whatever they show on them is always oversaturated, sharpened, and in general overprocessed. On top of that, when I visit some people's houses, they have everything setup completely wrong: stretching the picture to avoid letterboxing, upscaling from a lower resolution signal (acceptable depending on your distance, but better to have an HD signal for an _HD_ TV), motion interpolation, and so much more. What ever happened to a television naively playing what it was given? Why does everyone want a neon prickly picture and assume they know better than the people who mastered the content? I know some will say "personal preference", but there's no accounting for taste and settings like these can ruin something carefully crafted. Lastly, to get back to denoising, noise is actually detail, stop removing it (and you'll almost never have it in modern stuff, mostly just old films—where it's part of the actual negative). This trend extends to photography as well, with editors not knowing when to ease off the saturation (the greens would hurt your eyes IRL) and contrast sliders, which might explain public perception or expectation.

<comment><USER11> Yeah it's unfortunate. It started I guess with TV makers implementing processing to fix problems with broadcasts before digital came around, and then just got progressively worse over time as the makers try to out-do each other with features that "improve" picture quality.

What's worse, at this point people are so accustomed to the soap opera effect of these features that when they are turned off they think something is wrong. Try it at a friend's or relative's house – change their settings to turn off motion interpolation and noise removal and such, and I'm sure most will start thinking something's wrong with their set. It's sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Its always about the buzzwords... a few years ago I tried to buy a TV without 3D-support because I didn´t want to spend the money on a useless feature (for me). Guess what, no major brand offered a TV without 3D, I ended up buying the usual suspect. But now the situation has improved ! It got easy again to buy a TV without 3D-support at least :D Same for the current must-have features...

I think the common nerd would love a _dumb_ display with decent calibration etc. out-of-the-box, so he could just connect his favorite media-box and have fun for a reasonable price. But this isn´t where the profits are made!

edit: Because you could just replace your mediabox after a few years, when e.g. netflix stops playing on it. I´m really waiting for a new player who gives us this _dumb_ high-quality display so many nerds are waiting for.

<comment><USER13> If you block your TV's MAC addresses at your firewall, all the intrusive "smart" features stop working.

Or have DHCPd map them to static IPs and block those.

Either way, most people on HN can do this... and most TV purchasers aren't even aware that it's an option.

<comment><USER14> I'm curious why you would need to block MAC addresses. Why wouldn't just not plugging in ethernet and not giving it the WiFi password be sufficient to stop your TV from going online?

<comment><USER15> Just a guess: having the TV think it has an internet connection might prevent annoying prompts to connect it to the internet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Games designed to be played in 4K 60FPS HDR can feel pretty "future-proof". Playing Horizon Zero Dawn, an open world rpg with mech dinos, on the PS4 is stunning. Even if rather buggy. You are reminded it has been some time since you last were awed by the quality of snowflake particle effects.

I realize a $2K+ setup is beyond the reach of all but hard core enthusiasts. Especially as Gigabit connection speed availability is all but required. But 4K video will probably remain the standard for the next 4-5 year time frame.

<comment><USER11> Man, HZD looks insanely great at 4K HDR on a 65" OLED – buy far the prettiest game I've ever played. It doesn't play at 60fps though, as far as I know it's capped at 30fps. Presumably they can't guarantee stable frame rates higher than that, which probably makes sense given the insanely great graphics. At 30fps thought it's super stable, I've never seen it stutter and I've finished both the main game and DLC. Great game, can't wait for the sequel!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> > The company gave a don't-blink-or-you-might-miss-it peek at what it says > will be the world's first commercial MicroLED display, available sometime > this year. MicroLED technology operates like the Jumbo Tron in a football > stadium, with a dedicated LED for each colored subpixel—shrunk down to the > size of a standard TV, that is, with subpixels so small your eye can't > distinguish them. It doesn't require filters or backlights, so color and > brightness can be exceptional.

Isn't that what OLED is?

<comment><USER18> The big difference between them is chemistry. MicroLEDs are using inorganic semiconductors, which are supposed to give it better lifetime performance.

<comment><USER19> Could you explain to me what, in the context of display technology, organic even means? Presumably oLED displays don't contain organisms.

<comment><USER20> Same as in "organic chemistry": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_chemistry)

Roughly: Primarily carbon or carbon-hydrogen-based, often complex, molecules. If not naturally occurring in organisms, then made from the same "toolbox".

(The liquid crystals in LCDs generally are organic compounds as well, but traditional LEDs are not, thus the OLED distinction in that case)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Will these household appliances with general purpose CPUs and WiFi chips receive the necessary updates for an entire lifetime? I have a CRT TV that is over 17 years old and still works. Will manufacturers provide even 5 years of security updates? Because if not, the next big vulnerability could mean we're all screwed.

<comment><USER22> My 2 year old LG TV isn't receiving updates to the webOS anymore, and there are some apps for their store which aren't available for older OSes. I don't know how long I can keep buying 'other devices' like Chromecast/Roku to get around the problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Isn't one of the problems of all those picture improvement technologies that they increase input lag?

<comment><USER24> Yes, making these "improvements" completely useless to anyone who occasionally plays videogames (and therefore most likely leaves their TV in game mode).

I'd honestly pay extra for _less_ processing: give me a 65" dumb monitor with as little latency as possible, please.

<comment><USER25> NVIDIA has a product for you: [https://www.geforce.com/whats- new/articles/bfgd-big-format-g...](https://www.geforce.com/whats- new/articles/bfgd-big-format-gaming-display)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sadly, from a usefulness perspective, it seems these improvements are incremental, and the increments are getting smaller every year.</comment>


Trust: Our World in Data - <AUTHOR> https://ourworldindata.org/trust <comment><USER2> Research as taught in my Masters has generally broken away from the big general quantitative research in values. It is seen as banal results from banal questions. Trust is an important part of culture and therefore has to be interpreted in a _rich_ context which is taken away. It makes just sense to evaluate _trust_ if one takes into account the other values in a cultural system as its value is just given by the other concurring parts, e.g. honor, privacy.

</comment><comment><USER3> > See source for further details regarding specific survey question.

Can't locate the actual survey questions. Trust is a highly interpretive concept. It'd be great to see the questions on the survey before diving into conclusions.

<comment><USER2> See here for the actual questions.

[http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp](http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I just want to point out the notably inconsistent formatting of the presented data in this article. It's like a tour de force of how to create misleading representations from "accurate" data. Specifically, keep an eye out for what is used as the min/max values on the various axes, as well as interval sizing.</comment>


Geologists find fault system that could be first signs of future supercontinent - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-06/18/atlantic-rift-closing-together <comment><USER2> There was a rough precursor to the Atlantic - the Iapetus Ocean:

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

Scotland and England were on different sides of this ancient ocean...

<comment><USER3> Fascinating. I have this visual of two strains of bacteria, long segregated, fighting over recently conjoined petri dishes...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The alternative hypothesis is that the Pacific Ocean will continue to shrink, and the next supercontinent will form when the Americas join Asia.

</comment><comment><USER5> Quick, buy up land on the bottom of the Atlantic!

Seriously though its pretty cool to think about the continents moving around, and yes that will cause all sorts of problems (and new opportunities).</comment>


HN Feature request: Comment-folding - <AUTHOR>

I don't know if its been brought up before, but twice in the last week, I've upvoted/downvoted a comment (I don't even know which!) instinctively trying to get it to fold.<p>I can has comment thread folding? <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363></comment>


Ask HN: Review My (Twitter) App: Follow Ham - <AUTHOR> http://www.followham.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I learned a lot about machine learning in AI courses the past year and a half in college, and really wanted to apply it somewhere outside of the classroom. This was a one-day project app, so it's really functionally simple. It looks at your Twitter follower and following list, computes the difference, decides if each of those people is "spam" or "ham", then recommends which you are safe to follow and which you should block. Since the API calls can take a while, it does it all with a background worker and e-mails you when the results are ready, rather than doing the work synchronously while you wait at a browser.

The hard part was getting ready for it. I decided to do a very basic spam filter for Twitter, one which looked only at the profile information, and not the text of anyone's tweets, since that'd require too many API calls without special access beyond even a whitelisted API account. I wrote some scripts that would use Twitter's search API to find tweets directed at @spam for a week and a half. It took that long because looking at old tweets would yield accounts Twitter had already suspended, meaning I couldn't get any info about them through the API. I had to get the reports while they were fresh and download the profile info of known spammers to build a training corpus. For the "ham" examples I used the following lists of trusted friends with various interests.

I used that corpus to build and prune a decision tree, which tested to around 99% precision/recall accuracy with 2000 ham and 2000 spam examples. Then I manually rewrote the tree as simple conditionals in PHP to create the classifier for the website.

Note: I'm about to hit my rate limit (on a whitelisted account, so 20k calls) in only half an hour...

<comment><USER2> If you authorize the requests, you'll get a boost of the individual user's available requests after you run out of whitelist API requests for your IP (20000 + (users * 150)). Also, make sure you're using the api.twitter.com/1/ URL format, as they're going to be upping the rate limit for users to 1000 "soon" (it was announced at Le Web 1.75 months ago...).

Also, that only applies to OAuth, so you should get on that boat soon. They're deprecating basic auth this summer.

<comment><AUTHOR> For many accounts with more followers than they follow, there are more than 150 profiles I need to download. Someone just passed me an account with 6000 followers he's not following back. That's 6k API calls. I thought at first of using the 'followers' timeline' request to get 100 at a time, but the profile information it gives for each follower is abbreviated. I need other information, so I have to make a separate API call for each and every profile I want.

Using up someone's entire API usage in a flash while they need it for the rest of the hour to run their Twitter client isn't gonna fly.

The best I can do right now is make 20k authorized requests from my whitelisted account, and 20k unauthorized requests from my whitelisted IP. I just built in some status checking on the homepage so it won't let more people add themselves to the queue when it's already overloaded for the hour.

<comment><USER3> AFAIK, Twitter's API rate limit is _per IP_ \+ per user (i.e. you can do X api requests per user on each machine). Also, on a whitelisted IP you get 20K requests per _user_.

There was a long discussion about that a few months ago on the dev mailing list, whether this by purpose or mistake. Back then, the official response was that it's by purpose, but verify if that's true. If it is, you have plenty of API calls you can do per user.

<comment><AUTHOR> It does seem to be. In this case, I have added reason to implement OAuth!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Here's an idea - instead of emailing the report, post it on Twitter: "@arikfr 152 of your followers look spammy, while another 3334 look follow-worthy! <http://www.followham.com/show.php?username=arikfr>

This way you gain two things - 1\. More users will try the service (giving away Twitter username is easier than giving away email address). 2\. More chances that people will RT this messages and spread the word about the service.

And as @dschobel mentioned - you should register @followham.

<comment><AUTHOR> I implemented this and Twitter suspended my account 3 minutes later.

<comment><USER3> WOW, sorry for that :/

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I love the background. I think you do a decent job of explaining what's about to happen.

My only suggestion: perhaps you could tell me how many are in the queue ahead of me, and estimate time till arrival?

<comment><AUTHOR> I added the size of the queue to the message you get after submitting the initial form. I didn't attempt to estimate time just yet as that's dependent on how many followers the accounts in queue have, which isn't known until they get processed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really like the idea. I think if you provide some interesting statistics as example can make it viral. For example: how many spammy followers aplusk, techcrunch, mashable etc. have. How many of them are common to all etc., etc. This might get you a follow up article on techcrunch or the likes too. :)

<comment><USER6> Not to mention that having a birds-eye view of the spam situation will let him black list accounts, because a spammer is a spammer for the first user he follows as much as the next hundred.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was able to submit the form without entering an email. You should add some form validation.

</comment><comment><USER8> My review:

Don't ask for an email address. Just give the user a unique page that auto- updates and tells you what the wait time is. If the users wants, let the user enter their email on this second page.

Asking for an email (even with a disclaimer that says trust me, I will never ever spam you, etc.) is a __huge __barrier to entry.

<comment><USER8> Ok, got the email, so I can review the second half.

Don't ask for my Twitter login / password. That's a terrible, terrible practice which trains people to get phished. You don't even use SSL, so the username and password is transmitted in the clear!

At the very least, you should warn people about the dangers of giving a third party 100% access to their Twitter account and the dangers of transmitting their login credentials openly. This is true for any site -- let alone a project with 0 reputation. As it stands I have to say that your web app seems really irresponsible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like the concept, but I worry about the accuracy for a feat like this. For my results (@jfornear), about 1 in 5 of the recommended follow backs would be considered spam by a human. There were about 26 accounts without pictures that were recommended follow backs, and all 26 were spam or dead accounts.

I'm actually working with the Twitter API right now myself and have been meaning to filter out accounts that don't bother to upload their own picture. That might be something you could think about.

All (and only) default images are stored on <http://s.twimg.com>, I think.

</comment><comment><USER10> Just one question: why not use Twitter OAuth?

<comment><AUTHOR> If anyone actually uses the site I'll take the extra time to implement that, I considered it non-trivial for me to learn that in addition to building something in a day.

<comment><USER3> I would recommend: <http://github.com/jmathai/twitter-async/> \- it implements Twitter's OAuth API. Will save you some work.

<comment><USER11> I can vouch for Twitter-Async.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a really, really useful app. Helps me bounce back wife's questions when strange "chicks" follow me on Twitter out of nowhere. Of course, they're bots!

I wonder where you got the background.

</comment><comment><USER13> Immediately left the site because the background was taking forever to load. The other thing that made me leave was the requirement of an e-mail address.

</comment><comment><USER14> I like the idea, and I like the simplicity of the interface, but I was disappointed by the results. Most of my results were classified as "not spam," but a cursory inspection suggests that at least 70% were actually spam. Conversely, one of the three accounts marked as spam was definitely not spam.

As an example, here's one of the accounts that was marked as "not spam": @PhatApples (NSFW!)

</comment><comment><USER15> It was very, very difficult to read what the site did because of the noisy background. The tool is great, and the background would make a good wallpaper, but it was very distracting.

It seems that the image adjusts to the size of the screen, so when I had FF maxed out on my monitor (1680 x 1050) it blew up the image and made it much louder.

<comment><AUTHOR> The white background to the black text is only 5% transparent. Does it look more transparent to you? Maybe it's a bug. I know I have some bugs on IE, but only 3% of the visitors have used IE so I let those go for the first day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> 2 of the 5 "ham" users were ones I knew irl and really should be following. Thanks Follow Ham! :D

</comment><comment><USER17> The results page made my Firefox (3.0.17 on Ubuntu 8.04) slow to a crawl.

Other than that the results were interesting.

</comment><comment><USER18> i just got the report. i.e., <http://twitter.com/1000free> is considered ham by your app, looks like spam to me. maybe a feedback button would be appropriate (mark as spam/ham.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I said, it doesn't look at the account's tweets, just its profile. That account has a good follower/following balance, it's not brand new, it hasn't sent a ton of tweets in a short time, it has a profile image... basically it looks safe.

Yes feedback is definitely needed to improve it! And to identify spam for other users with the same followers.

<comment><USER3> I guess that you use users/show endpoint to get the user's profile. Instead you can ask for each user's timeline - it is still 1 API call, you still get their profile data, but you also get their tweets.

The only downside is that the request might take longer.

Btw, beware that some spam accounts use others tweets to look legit. I can send you some for example, if you're interested.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> very cool. you need to register @followham though and add it to the "do you want to tweet about about this?" message rather than "follow ham" as it currently is so we can refer directly to you to spread the site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah unfortunately someone already has it

Edit: I just registered @spamorham for this

<comment><USER3> I have the account @spamcop on Twitter. If you want, I will gladly transfer it to you.</comment></comment></comment>


Creating easy to remember passwords - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2009/12/28/tip-creating-easy-to-remember-passwords/

<comment><USER2> This relies on security by obscurity in keeping one compromised password from being used to access the other sites. An attacker who knows of the procedure can trivially detect passwords probably using it and substitute the domain identifier.

A modification that doesn't have this problem and keeps passwords retrievable using a single master password, but does require using a helper program, would be to take a cryptographic hash from the concatenation (master_password^site_id) and deterministically generate the desired password from the hash value.

Quick Python example:

"".join([chr(((ord(x)-33)%94)+33) for x in hashlib.sha256("hunter2"+"facebook").digest()[:8]])

<comment><AUTHOR> True. In fact I have a partially complete firefox plugin that does almost exactly that. Problem is you need a bit of software installed which not very portable.

The technique in my post offers much better protection then most people are currently getting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've always found pwgen to provide usefully memorable passwords. Just have to run it a few times and find one I like.</comment>


Ask HN: Any resources on how to extract insights out of social conversations? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Give the book The Secret Life of Pronouns by Pennebaker a read.

</comment><comment><USER3> What do you mean by this? Like, tips on being an active listener?</comment>


Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Was Revealed - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-07/three-equifax-executives-sold-stock-before-revealing-cyber-hack <comment><USER2> So, does this count as insider trading? My intuition says 'yes'. But my intuition about a thing and what the law says don't always match.

<comment><USER3> Insider trading is any trading performed using non-public knowledge. Theoretically even a pre-scheduled trade could be insider trading, if it relied on non-public knowledge which remained non-public until the time the trade executes. Of course, that's a pretty hard scenario to concoct, so generally pre-scheduled trades 3+ months out are considered safe for even high-level insiders. Not to mention all the extraneous movement that might happen within that same time period that could very well nullify any knowledge advantage.

<comment><USER4> Interesting fact: commodities were not subject to such a law in the USA until Frank-Dodd Act. The rule was named for Eddy Murphy, who played a commodities trader in Trading Places[1].

The reasoning, as I heard it, was that all farmers who hedged their own crops with commodities trading, had some amount of insider knowledge just by looking at their own farm/crop/weather. Stealing a data report before it is publicly announced, however, seems like it would violate some laws. Paying to access reports early seems to be a lucrative offering of some of the data providers.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places#Legacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places#Legacy)

<comment><USER5> If you haven't seen Trading Places, please please please make the time to watch it. Its both educating and entertaining!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> John Gamble (CFO) has been dumping heavily since May 20th ([http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/insider- trading/EFX?sy...](http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/insider- trading/EFX?symbol=&name=&pn=1&sortDir=&sortBy=)).

<comment><USER7> Am I the only one surprised a CFO is making this amount of money?

<comment><USER8> Yes. You must be a new college grad?

A CFO of a $17B company making $3m/year[1] is normal.

[1] [http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officer- profile/EFX/25...](http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/officer- profile/EFX/2507742)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> So one guy sold 1 mil of stock, the stock dropped 6%, so he avoided a 60k loss. Let's say he expected a 20% drop, and he saved 200k.

If a were a millionaire, I wouldn't risk prison for 200k. Even the litigation to avoid prison could cost 100k.

And this is the kind of thing you know all angles will be looked into (it took a news agency a few hours to unearth this).

If he did it (insider trading), he is very stupid.

<comment><USER10> Martha Stewart was a billionaire and wound up spending prison time over an insider trading savings of $45,673. Logic doesn't always apply.

<comment><USER11> I thought she went to prison for lying about her insider knowledge, not the trading itself.

<comment><USER12> 45k still landed her in prison though

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> FTA: " _None of the filings lists the transactions as being part of 10b5-1 pre-scheduled trading plans._ "

Anyone with more knowledge: How normal is this sort of behaviour?

<comment><USER14> Pretty normal. Their lawyers likely said that as long as they reported in (via Form 3 and Form 4) then it would be complaint enough.

So this was still transparency, and its just fodder for reporters to debate about, because without the Form 3 and Form 4 regulation, you would never know.

Cost benefit analysis.

<comment><USER15> Uh, what? As another comment noted, they possessed "material non-public information" when they traded. Forms 3-5 just disclose the transaction, not _the non-public information that we all just learned about._

This doesn't mean they are guilty of insider trading, especially if there is a pattern of recent sales, but it certainly doesn't absolve them. Definitely smarter to hold off on ad hoc trades until all material information goes public -- or go with a scheduled plan.

<comment><USER14> here are the sells

[http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/?sym=EFX](http://google.brand.edgar- online.com/?sym=EFX)

All of the guys in question all own 40,000 more shares than the few thousand they sold. Doesn't mean they weren't insider trading or avoiding losses, its a good defense though.

Selling outside of a predefined schedule is always at risk of some scrutiny, because they always have inside information.

Given the size of these sells, they probably need it to cover a margin call, since its common for people to borrow against their shares. Would suck if thats what it was because its damning for civil and criminal liability and would have been likely necessary for their solvency.

Enjoy

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That seems incredibly stupid. The CFO especially would be hard pressed to convince anyone either that he 'didn't know' there had been a breach or define himself as not an 'insider.' If the facts are as reported these folks are in a world of hurt.

<comment><USER4> It perhaps was stupid, but you forget that the burden of proof is the other way around.

I was under the impression C-suites and directors had to file with the SEC in order to sell stock. I'd wager they did and that's how Bloomberg found out about it.

<comment><USER17> The burden of proof for criminal charges is the other way around. I can think of a few ways he could "in a world of hurt" without being found guilty of criminal charges; in fact without any formal burden of proof:

* A trial or even just discovery for a trial and having to pay lawyers more than he gained from selling this stock.

* Angry shareholders or even board members could demand consequences such as docked pay or termination.

* Negative media attention such as this article.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> That reminds me I need to update my address on Equifax. I found out it was wrong after being refused to be allowed to buy a mobile data plan (even though I had all the cash it counts as a credit issue).

After 5-6 phone calls to get the address added to their system, I never did the final one a few days later to get them to update me once it was in their system.

Absolute bunch of arses.

<comment><USER4> It's amazing how they make it difficult to give them more information. Granted, you aren't paying them directly, but you are effectively making their business more valuable by linking more accurate data to their profile of you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Aren't senior executives legally required to submit their trading plans well in advance of any stock sale? That certainly seemed to be the case at my last employer.

<comment><AUTHOR> From the article:

> None of the filings lists the transactions as being part of 10b5-1 pre- > scheduled trading plans.

<comment><USER20> That doesn't answer the question. We all read that the trades were not planned in advance. The question is, is that by definition illegal? Or were the trades only illegal because they had insider knowledge that the price was about to drop?

<comment><USER21> If they had access to material non-public information and then decided to trade it would be illegal. Trades that are not planned in advance are not illegal in and of themselves.

<comment><USER20> Do you think executives ever do not have access to material non-public information?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Credit reporting agencies are the cancer of the modern economy. They are rife with inaccuracies, and on top of that, highly vulnerable to hacking , as software engineering is just a cost for them, not their focus.

Their entire function needs to move to the blockchain. Their only value is that of a distributed, trust less ledger, and they charge horrible fees and sit in the middle for doing that terribly

<comment><USER23> This strikes me as sadly typical of so many "just use a blockchain" plans: it has a hopelessly naive understanding of the topic.

Credit reporting agencies aren't just a big ledger. They collect a lot of information from a variety of sources, verifying and evaluating them. They contextualize, evaluate, and summarize the information. They comply with extensive laws that regulate the use of the information. And then they, with obviously varying levels of success, control who has access to that information.

This work all costs money. It could surely cost less. But dumping terabytes of ungroomed personal data into a public database and then crossing our collective fingers is a startling bad idea. (If you disagree, then please put your last 5 years of financial statements, bills, and receipts unredacted in a GitHub repo and put the link here.)

<comment><USER22> This is a naïve interpretation of my comment. Here's a real product [1] that considers all the pitfalls you enumerated, and achieves what I had in mind. [1]: [https://hellobloom.io](https://hellobloom.io)

<comment><USER23> It's a pretty straightforward reading of your comment.

Bloom is a fancier but also naive attempt. Nobody on that team has experience with loan origination, loan underwriting, loan rating, loan syndication, credit reporting, credit scoring, credit cards, debit cards, or debt collection. Having read the white paper, it is weirdly specific on record formats, and weirdly hazy on almost any important issue. It seems a fine example of the XKCD cartoon about physics majors. [1]

Remember when somebody who built a Magic the Gathering card exchange and then decided they could build a currency exchange? I'm not an expert [2], but that's what the Bloom.io stuff reads like to me. People joke that Bitcoin is basically the Dunning-Krugerrand, and things like Bloom don't do much to challenge that view.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/793/](https://xkcd.com/793/)

[2] Although I have build financial trading software, worked on a loan accounting system focused on the underbanked, and am currently consulting for a commercial lender, so I'm not entirely ignorant.

<comment><USER22> Again, your response is typical of incumbents in any sector. AirBnb founders weren't hoteliers, Uber founders weren't taxi industry veterans. Everything you know can be learnt from a book, or obtained by hiring someone like you - and there are PLENTY of your kind to hire.

Now, for every successful Uber, there have been 100 failed attempts at the same. Will HelloBloom be the Uber of credit reporting- can't say. But will credit reporting be disrupted by someone like Hello Bloom, definitely.

<comment><USER23> I'm not an incumbent in the industry. Nice try, though.

My issue here isn't with industry disruption, which I generally like. It's with hallucinatory blockchain-based hype. For years I've been hearing that Bitcoin or some other blockchain technology will disrupt money transfer and online purchasing. But Bitcoin never got any foothold in international remittances and is actually in retreat in e-commerce. Now the Bitcoin hype had metastasized into blockchain and ICO hype, but I don't think there's any more meat to it.

But if you're so sure, let's put money down. I have $500 that says no blockchain-based startup will get even 1% of the US credit reporting market in the next 5 years. We can put the bet up here: [http://longbets.org](http://longbets.org)

You in?

<comment><USER23> You reply:

>

Yeah, that's what I thought you'd say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> If this is deemed to be illegal then so be it, may the law deal with them.

If not, I think it'd be hard to say that in the same situation I wouldn't do the same.

</comment><comment><USER25> So the company stated that they (3 of them) did not know about the breach.

I'm interested in what it takes to begin an investigation?

<comment><USER26> [https://denebleo.sec.gov/TCRExternal/index.xhtml](https://denebleo.sec.gov/TCRExternal/index.xhtml)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If they wanted to do insider trading why would they sell only a small portion of their shares?

</comment><comment><USER28> Is it possible or are there free data sources if an average person wants to dig into tradings of Jul 27, two day before official date of discovery.

<comment><USER29> No, that's not possible. These trades are only public because there is regulation that mandates Equifax to file trades by their employees above a certain level.

Statement of Changes in Beneficial Ownership: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_4](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_4)

Otherwise you have this trading information spread across thousands of brokers (and it doesn't become public)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Wouldn't they have scheduled these trades months in advance like most employees of public companies with insider trading policies?

</comment><comment><USER31> Equifax was down for a long time the other day. I should've treated that as a signal to short the stock...

</comment><comment><USER32> How many Equifax managers are there trading? Could this be law of large numbers?

</comment><comment><USER33> Out of curiosity, how would I go about looking this up?

<comment><USER4> Someone else in this thread linked to:

[http://google.brand.edgar-online.com/?sym=EFX](http://google.brand.edgar- online.com/?sym=EFX)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is all kinds of unethical.

<comment><USER35> Nope, this is more likely all kinds of illegal!

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Smart guys, they can get a presidential pardon. Great guys, the best.

</comment><comment><USER37> Hello insider trading !

</comment><comment><USER38> The only reasonable punishment for this is decades in jail. If they can't put these assholes in jail for running the credit check companies themselves, at least convict them for insider trading. These businesses should not exist to being with. I'm not sure what the penalty for insider trading is, but if the prosecutors a little creative, they could convict for each share sold. That should keep these scumbags in jail for the rest of their lives. Oops, I must be dreaming again ...

<comment><USER4> > If they can't put these assholes in jail for running the credit check > companies themselves

Who is "they"? You realize Congress has effectively cemented the place of the big three credit bureaus in the daily life of all Americans, right?</comment></comment>


IBM Turns 100 - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7369792n&tag=exclsv#ixzz1P66UKO3z

<comment><USER2> Congratulations IBM! What a wonderful 100 years it has been I can't wait to see part of the next 100 years and what you'll do.

<comment><USER3> The longer you work in IT, the more you realize that the last 40 years has been spent re-inventing IMS, CICS and VM. Where would be we now if we hadn't wasted all that effort?

<comment><USER4> Paying per MIPS? ;-)

<comment><USER5> Snarky answer but true. IBM certainly invented ideas like virtualization first, but without competition, I don't know how cost-effective they would have been.

Mainframes get dissed a lot, but a lot of great technologies were pioneered in that environment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Don't forget that IBM is HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey if you move each letter over one on the alphabet.

(H A L) - (I B M)

<comment><USER7> Nice! Also, IBM was named by one-upping ever letter of NCR.

<comment><USER8> I'm not certain if you're trolling, but IBM stands for International Business Machines.

<comment><USER7> No trolling here,

International > National

Business > Cash

Machines > Registers

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> happy birthday, the establishment!

</comment><comment><USER10> While their jew counting, Nazi profits turn 66.

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

<comment><USER11> In this spirit, Samuel Colt is responsible for the death of millions upon millions. Nonsense.

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

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately, the relationship was not as indirect. See Edwin Black's book on the issue: <http://www.ibmandtheholocaust.com/> The evidence Black presents that there was knowledge at high levels about what was going on is disturbing but convincing. I am an IBM employee, and I made myself read the book because I felt it was something I should know about.

<comment><USER10> The internet brings people closer to facts than they have ever been in history; yet no proximity will ever exceed what you already believe to be true. IBM knowingly participated, and apologized only a few years ago, but never returned any of the profits. The distinction made throughout the responses here is that IBM knew nothing so are as non-culpable as someone who invents a weapon or a utility that is later weaponized. This is untrue, as you read, but that disbelief is part of what allowed the holocaust to continue. I read a narrative once of someone who was watching World War I brew, describing it as a non-event that would not transpire because he could not imagine people with top hats engaging in the brutish behaviors of their predecessors.</comment></comment></comment></comment>