What $50 buys you at the Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen, China - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@keyboardio/what-50-buys-you-at-huaqiangbei-the-worlds-most-fascinating-electronics-market-f0384d9fca32 <comment><USER2> From this and other accounts, it is clear that a lot of the low cost in China is due to that fact that transaction costs (the cost of writing contracts, lawyers, specifications) are reduced by replacing formal contracts by interpersonal relations[0]. So if someone screws you[1], it will hurt their relationship with you and their reputation.

Of course there are other considerations like cheap labour and the ability to rip-off Western IP (though I don't think those goods make it to the West). But these can't explain why China in particular is so dominant in manufacturing.

[0] I'm told that the term "guanxi" has two meanings. First as a generic term for "connection" or "relationship" and second as a proper noun for the way people indirectly bribe government officials. Here only the first meaning would apply since I'm talking about B2B relationships. And since it's a generic term, there is no reason to use the Chinese word.

[1] Or screws you more than is considered fair game.

<comment><USER3> Probably also by externalising a lot of costs — such as waste management, by tipping toxics into holes in the ground?

<comment><USER2> Well from the point of view of China the nation, these aren't externalized: Chinese people will have to pay this cost. But you're right that this contributes to lower costs. I still the main reason is the first one I gave though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A few years ago I lived in Shanghai, and it was always fun to stop by the black markets to check out the fake iPhones and Apple gadgets that they were selling.

It was amazing how close they were to copying a real iPhone in terms of the hardware design, but it was always funny to see them run a version of Android. They were selling them for $10 a pop as well. It's incredible to check out these electronic markets in China and see the effort that goes into these fakes.

<comment><USER5> Wait, they were selling a phone whose hardware was close to an iPhone's, for $10? What am I misunderstanding?

<comment><AUTHOR> It looked like an iPhone. It didn't work like an iPhone.

<comment><USER6> How so? Was it like, there is no screen but just a paper cutout? Or, there is screen, but it is 120X60 resolution? Thanks :)

<comment><USER7> Poke around alibaba and you'll find several companies selling 4-5" touch screens with decent resolutions for around $2-3 a piece for order of 1000+ units. If you're on the ground and speak the language you can certainly get a much better deal than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The chips, resistors, capacitors etc are all mostly functionally equivalent. The transistors, regulators ICs etc will all do what they're spec'd to do, at a basic level.

Where it gets dicey are fringe cases, and on poorly controlled specs. Care about the temperature drift of your resistor, the slew rate of your op-amp, the beta of that BJT, or the mismatched LED strings in the COB?

Better test it to make sure it'll work for you, because 90% of the time, it's bullshit.

For common parts, it's easy to set up a new line, running off good parts -- the 555 timers and lm317s do enough volume for a new line to make sense. These chips are usually better characterized. If it's a small volume part, or something old as dirt, it's usually pulls, a new part in an old case, or just a normal part remarked.

<comment><USER9> Actually read the article, it's pretty interesting.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Discovering aliexpress was pretty awesome when I got started working with electronics hardware. Easily 1/5th the price of buying from an American store, in some cases as low as 1/10th the price. I've spent $500+ on stuff from aliexpress that would have been over $3k from a place like Adafruit, and I've had very few garbage pieces (though admittedly haven't used/tested a lot of it).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. And Taobao is often even cheaper.

Sadly, a lot of the Aliexpress stuff is so cheap because it's unlicensed/knockoffs. It'll work, but in a lot of cases, it's the hardware equivalent of pirating software. :/

<comment><USER11> The lack of a proper english translation for Taobao is a game killer for me though..

<comment><USER12> [https://www.baopals.com/](https://www.baopals.com/)

All the expats in China use it. You need to figure out shipping though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Forget the west. In my experience there are a lot of legitimate products which you can buy in Shenzhen but not on Taobao. Recently my [http://8-food.com/](http://8-food.com/) co-founders and I visited Shenzhen from Kunming (much nicer weather) and found micro SD cards (256MB @ 3.5元 / 0.50USD) and micro SD card readers (0.5元 / 0.07USD). Although these were largely falsely marked as larger cards and intended for immoral mobile shops to dupe unsuspecting peasant customers, in reality they are great for low volume industrial data storage on physically modular components. Far cheaper and faster to integrate than a microcontroller! I would say that in our case, discovering the availability of USB lowball storage and validating this approach architecturally paid for the entire trip.

<comment><USER14> Your vending machines look great.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The most interesting takeaway from this for me was the "32 GB" SD card.

<comment><USER16> Here's an interesting, relevant article with a teardown of some fake SD cards versus a real Kingston: [https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022](https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?page_id=1022)

<comment><USER15> Quite some insight in to the way competitive retail markets 'work'. "Hooray for capitalism"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What's crazy is that these prices include profits for the whole chain of production and transportation.

</comment><comment><USER18> Sounds like there is an equivalent side business to candy Japan.

<comment><USER19> I've actually purchased a few 12VDC RTC timers insanely cheap on Aliexpress with the intention of writing good documentation and reselling them at 10x markup into a niche market. Right now I'm checking them out to see that they maintain time well.

Even at that markup, I'll be the low-cost supplier, so maybe I should go for 15x. If it works out, I can think of a few other markets that have a need for something like this.

It's amazing: no way in hell could I even buy the raw parts, much less assemble and test full units, for what I can purchase these for.

<comment><USER20> Also interesting IMO is how some in China (not sure if it's mostly a HK thing or goes for mainland as well) are focusing on producing very high-quality stuff vs just the race to the bottom on price. One niche example that I've had very good luck with is Ghent Audio, which sells audiophile hobbyist gear: [http://www.ghentaudio.com](http://www.ghentaudio.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> Jean-Philipe Uhm... well, actually, some of those things are pretty cool though! Programmable LED name badge, mini drone, a dirt cheap smartwatch - I wouldn't necessarily call that crap or dreck.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm surprised they are so awed by the "Lightning/MicroUSB" cable but gloss over the (spring-loaded?) "USB-A/MicroUSB" plug of that selfie fan. The latter seems even more insane to me.

As for the fake SD cards, I'm kind of disappointed they didn't take the opportunity and produced the world's first 100TB SD card (patent pending). I'd be curious how many phones would be wrecked by such a card just because of the announced size.

<comment><USER20> There's probably some limitation based on address size that you can advertise, possibly the number of bits used to represent the size. Not sure on the exact spec.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I'd like to read a breakdown of where the 14.39 difference between the 0.60 ring in Shenzhen and the 14.99 ring on Amazon goes.

<comment><USER23> I don't have a breakdown for the ring, but from experience that's not much more than what it takes to keep the product flowing to people's doors in the US at modest volumes.

Anyone can buy these in any quantity. If you have a few hundred dollars and are interested in learning a little about business in China, it would be a fun exercise to import and sell something like these rings on Amazon.

<comment><USER24> I did this with phone cases like 6-7 years ago. I setup a website with Magento, took nice photos of all the cases (which I found out is kind of hard). And started running some Google and Facebook ads. I couldn't seem to make a profit that way (duh). In hindsight I should of pursued Amazon. I bought like 300 of them.. and 290 or so ended up in the trash.

It was really interesting to do though. Talking with the Sales people on Skype was kind of funny, I remember in one profile picture, the guy had a western outfit on (cowboy hat, bandana, the works). I think a lot of the Sales people did that kind of stuff to connect and seem more trustworthy with Americans.

I also picked up some single units of headphones and breathalyzers. All the headphones were garbage. Some of the breathalyzers actually seemed pretty nice, but they would be expensive to purchase in bulk, and it seemed legally risky.

The main cost/challenge I found was shipping. Air is quick and easy, but really expensive. Going by sea is cheap in comparison, but requires you operate at a bigger scale. There's a name for companies/people you can hire that will handle all the tricky parts of shipping by sea (I want to say Freight Agent but am not sure).

<comment><USER25> Heh, this mirrors my experience almost exactly, except with Nintendo Wii / DS accessories. The day Google banned R4 cards on Google Shopping was pretty much the day the entire business died. I still have a big box of stylii / cases / plastic Wii controller accessories that I haven't had the heart to throw away. It even moved house with me. :)

Completely unsustainable (the tiny margins I did make would have been completely wiped out if I was paying proper taxes) but did teach me a lot about business.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Can anyone shed some light on how that stencil is used? do they apply the solder to the stencil and then push the chip into it?

<comment><USER27> Yes.

You screen print solder paste through the stencil, onto the board.

You then push the components onto the paste.

In the past you didn't have to be too precise, because surface tension of the solder as it flowed would pull it onto its pad, and would align the component correctly.

For production you'd have camera aligned tables.

Re rework you have little tiny masks.

Here's a bit of video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaqeLrLxYOg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaqeLrLxYOg) (Screen printing starts at about 1:40)

I used to operate a screen printer, pick and place machine, and reflow oven. But that was 12 years ago. The machines are amazing now.

<comment><USER28> In reality I would expect all these components to be squeezed tightly together so I don't see how the large stencil plate would be of much use for rework. Presumably it would need to be cut up into small "per IC" units if someone wanted to put down solder paste on to a PCB which was already populated with other ICs.

<comment><USER29> As implied by jdietrich, they (seemingly) stencil the chip rather than the board.

[https://youtu.be/Iu0pd6OsNF4?t=235](https://youtu.be/Iu0pd6OsNF4?t=235) [https://youtu.be/2bGb5AOwp44?t=109](https://youtu.be/2bGb5AOwp44?t=109)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I'd love it if there was an equivalent service that shipped to the UK, perhaps aimed more at components. I'm always buying cheap stuff from china.

<comment><USER28> AliExpress (as mentioned elsewhere) is a great place to look: [https://www.aliexpress.com/](https://www.aliexpress.com/)

I have ordered lots of stuff from there and it has all turned up approximately in my mailbox 3 to 6 weeks later. I have generally ordered items which are less than the ~£15 customs threshold. More expensive items might be liable to VAT or other duties: [https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from- abroad/overview](https://www.gov.uk/goods-sent-from-abroad/overview)

Other sites have begun started to ship from warehouses inside the EU to avoid customs issues, e.g. [http://eud.dx.com/](http://eud.dx.com/)

If you have never seen these sites before then you should be warned that they even simple searches will return hundreds or thousands of results. You might spend a long time searching though the results for even something mundane like LED bike lights:

DX 380 results: [http://eud.dx.com/category/bike- light-1644](http://eud.dx.com/category/bike-light-1644) Aliexpress 18000 results: [https://www.aliexpress.com/category/122803/bicycle- light.htm...](https://www.aliexpress.com/category/122803/bicycle-light.html)

EDIT: since you specifically mention components:

e.g. a search for 100nf capacitors:

DX: [http://eud.dx.com/search/100nf%20capacitor](http://eud.dx.com/search/100nf%20capacitor) \- Frankly the results are poor, DX is aimed at more end user products.

Aliexpress: [https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=S...](https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB_20161013161521&SearchText=100nf+capacitor) \- Results have several suppliers offering 100 pieces at <£1 including delivery! I have ordered capacitors and resistors similar to these and they all turned up in the post several weeks later, just as I expected.

<comment><USER31> In my experience, most stuff over the £15 threshold slips through the net without being taxed. Chinese sellers seem to have a knack for it. Paying VAT seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

If you're getting started in electronics, I'd suggest buying mixed value kits of common passive components. They're really cheap and very handy to have around. If you work with SMD components, these sample books are a huge timesaver:

[https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=sample+book](https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?SearchText=sample+book)

PCBs from China are cheap enough that I haven't etched my own boards in years:

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

Aoyue and Yihua make very cheap and surprisingly usable soldering tools. You can get a perfectly acceptable temperature-controlled soldering iron or hot air gun for about £25. You might as well stock up on solder, flux and wick too.

Taobao is a bit of a crapshoot if you can't read Chinese, but it's where you'll find the really insane bargains and the sexy new chips. There are a variety of English-speaking agents who can buy stuff for you for a reasonable fee. Dangerous Prototypes have a useful forwarding service - have stuff delivered to their office and they'll send it on to you for $3 per parcel plus the cost of shipping.

[http://dangerousprototypes.com/store/china_forwarding](http://dangerousprototypes.com/store/china_forwarding)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> That says again that there is absolutely no way to compete against them on the manufacturing side.

<comment><USER33> Automation. It doesn't matter where you locate lights-out factories.

<comment><USER13> Except that you have to stock the factories with a global supply chain, 95% of which is located in Guangdong province or other parts of south-east mainland China. This also means that, unless you are producing a consumer product, most of your market is likely to be located there as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Love it, and thats some amazing stuff to get in a relatively cheap box. Does anyone have any pictures from the markets, I'd imaging they're all very 'no photos' sorts of places but still.

<comment><USER28> If you are in the UK then the BBC Click series did an episode where Bunnie Huang visited various stores:

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jhs3m](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07jhs3m)

<comment><USER35> And if you're outside of the UK and are looking for this via other means, it was (re)broadcast on 2016-06-25. Still looking for the other part, but I believe it was broadcast on the 11th (also in June) or a week earlier.

BBC Worldwide: I'd buy (a subscription to?) this series - do you want my money?

<comment><USER20> I wish I could pay for iplayer as well. I'm guessing it's complicated because of BBC being publicly-funded EDIT and international content licensing issues, but if they're producing the content and they own the IP, I'm not totally sure what the hold-up would be. I'd gladly pay $10-15 a month for an all-access pass to BBC content on streaming.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> You probably overpaid for everything being an American. Amazing how companies are selling the same stuff for huge margin here in States.

<comment><AUTHOR> Certainly. I also didn't bargain particularly hard.

Though I did have a native speaker (Helen) who lives in Shenzhen with me the whole time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> Slightly off-topic. What is going on with the keyboardio? Is it shipping? Have people received and tested it? Is it worth $300+ ?

<comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/the- model-01...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/keyboardio/the-model-01-an- heirloom-grade-keyboard-for-seriou/posts)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Why were the boxes taped so insanely?

<comment><USER39> Cheap waterproofing, tamper proofing, 'packet' anonymization, and a means of tailoring a box to the custom size.

It needs the waterproofing in part because of the insane monsoon weather that blows into south China and will soak you in seconds and because a lot those packages get shuttled around in the back of open half-truck-half-motorcycles until they get to major distribution nodes.

It's 10 cents per square meter.

It's also partly cultural (everyone else does it this way) - and most sellers are small operations of a handful of people.

It provides seller protection for online purchases.

It doesn't make high value items look inviting.

The cardboard is frequently sourced or reused from whatever is lying around and cut to size so there's less need for filler when using 'standard' Amazon A1, B14, F3, etc style boxes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I once bought a wireless charger on amazon. Probably would go HQB next time

</comment><comment><USER41> Is interesting the parallel:

\- If is a hardware rip-off is bad \- If is a software rip-off is open source!

\---

Consider that the bulk of open-source ignore all that pesky patent and IP and is directly people-to-people.

</comment><comment><USER42> Awesome posy. Sign me up!

</comment><comment><USER43> I think these cheap Chinese rip-off are bad for the electronics market and consumers. If your biggest concern is price when buying electronics, completely ignoring the fact of quality, care, and engineering you're contributing to decline of quality built electronics.

They don't do any of the hard engineering or go through meticulous testing and QA. They blatantly copy, and as such provide no innovation. Stop supporting this behavior, have some pride for the products you buy.

<comment><USER44> The fake iWatch:

 _The device looks a lot like an Apple Watch, but the functionality is a little bit different. Sure, it has a pedometer and a sleep tracker. If you pair it with your phone, it can act as a bluetooth speaker and microphone. What sets this device apart is what you'll find when you pop off the battery cover and remove the tiny little battery. There's a SIM slot and an SD card slot. If you drop a SIM into the watch, you can make calls and surf the web. If you drop an SD card into the SD slot, you can use the phone's camera to shoot grainy, low-resolution photos from your wrist. The vendor assured us that the watch would last about 3 days on standby._

So when Apple ships an iWatch with the ability to run standalone without an iPhone, remember "they blatantly copy, and as such provide no innovation"

<comment><USER25> I'd add the mini drones and MicroUSB / Lightning cable as well. Saying these people aren't innovative is really doing them a disservice.</comment></comment></comment>


10k personalized product recs/second on GKE and Bigtable - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/bluecore-engineering/using-google-cloud-to-serve-10-000s-of-personalized-recs-per-second-d86b7cf6b6da <comment><AUTHOR> Our experience building a rec service for Bluecore's email marketing platform. Welcome any questions or suggestions!</comment>


The Domestic Life of Alchemists (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://resobscura.blogspot.com/2011/01/alchemists-at-home.html <comment><USER2> Adam McClean's site provides many historical alchemical texts, some digitised no-where else. [http://www.alchemywebsite.com/texts.html](http://www.alchemywebsite.com/texts.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it's a fantastic resource. It seems that he recently started improving the resolutions of the images in his alchemical emblem collection too, which was my biggest problem with the site in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> If "Managing an Experimental Household: the Dees of Mortlake and the Practice of Natural Philosophy" sounded interesting to you too, you don't need JSTOR access: [http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic472431.files/WK11...](http://isites.harvard.edu/fs/docs/icb.topic472431.files/WK11Harkness.pdf)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for that, I'll change the link. It's a fantastic paper and Harkness's book length study of John Dee is even better. I was actually planning on doing my PhD work on Dee until I read it and realized that the book I wanted to write pretty much already existed:

[http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/histor...](http://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/history/history- science-and-technology/john-dees-conversations-angels-cabala-alchemy-and-end- nature)

<comment><USER4> I'm curious, what causes you to be interested in John Dee's work as opposed to say the output of any modern 'spirit channeler' or 'UFO contactee' ?

Is Dee's work academically interesting to you simply because of how it's embedded historically with the British empire or is there some other factor ?

<comment><AUTHOR> One of the things I find so fascinating about him is that he was also one of the leading English mathematicians of his generation (his "Mathematical Preface" to the first English edition of Euclid would've made him important even without any of the magic/occult stuff) and according to one book historian he also had one of the largest private libraries in all of Europe. So he's important as a Renaissance polymath and not just as someone who thought they were channelling sprits. Which in turn sheds light on why someone like Newton would have a similar range of interests. The British imperial stuff was going to be my focus though, because of the fact that he was an original partner with Sir Walter Raleigh in his attempts to settle colonies in the New World. Plus (along with Merlin) he's essentially the archetype of the wizard in pop culture!

<comment><USER4> oh yea I almost forgot about pop culture. There's the Bond connection to boot.

Hell sometimes I theorize that maybe somehow almost the entire artifice of western pop culture was conjured up by Dee and associates in some kind of..

well I dare not speculate too far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thank you for posting this. I am fan of alchemy and really enjoy it's view on the world.

</comment><comment><USER4> Dee conjuring spirits on Hackernews ? hella creepy bro.</comment>


End-of-Life Warning at $618,616 Makes Me Wonder Was It Worth It - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=avRFGNF6Qw_w Solid long-format article about the costs of healthcare for a dying husband. <comment><USER2> Seems pretty clear that it was worth it. The actual bill was closer to $250,000 -- $618,000 was without any discounts.

We work and save and pay premiums for decades specifically so that we CAN have someone pay $250,000 to extend our lives by 17 months. That is the PURPOSE of a health insurance policy.

It's hard to see this one as an example of our (admittedly terrible) healthcare costs.

<comment><USER3> Also, the money that was spent didn't just go to extending his life. A lot of that money was spent on pharmaceuticals where he was an "early adopter". People like him covering the massive costs of developing those pharmaceuticals are paving the road for the day when they can be available as cheaply as the vaccinations the article talks about.

<comment><USER4> _People like him covering the massive costs_

You mean people like us, the ones that pay the premiums, subsidizing the research of pharmaceutical companies?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm sure we can find ways to view the US healthcare issue as "Hacker News," but please let me have some sanctuary.

<comment><USER6> It's of relevance to anyone in the US who is considering working for startups, since anyone who does so runs the (admittedly low-probability) risk of being murdered due to unaffordable or inadequate health coverage.

<comment><USER7> I think steveplace covered that when he wrote 'we can find ways to view the US healthcare issue as "Hacker News"'.

In that sense, almost any political news can be made to be "relevant" to HN. The California budget deficit, Iraq, the tax code, the next elections, you name it.

And when the topic is politics, even though people here tend to remain civil, the level of discourse inevitably goes down.

For instance, consider your superlative usage of "murder". This sort of thing practically precludes any further fruitful discussion: anyone who disagrees with you is automatically in the uncomfortable position of "abetting murder".

<comment><USER8> I think it's fairly relevant. For example as relevant as all the startup visa stuff.

I would never startup in the US, and one of the reasons would be lack of public healthcare.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think a partial solution to this is to require some small portion of health care costs to be covered by the patient. Would she have spent 5% of $40,000 if he was probably going to die overnight? If if she could afford it she probably wouldn't have. What about the previous two times when there was more hope? Probably so.

Alternatively, she paid higher premiums under the assumption that some extreme end of life dollars would be nearly wasted by some policy members, but that's okay because that's what they chose to pay for so that they would never have to make a cost benefit analysis in their own care. I don't think she needs to wring her hands about it, that's what she bought.

<comment><USER8> >> "I think a partial solution to this is to require some small portion of health care costs to be covered by the patient."

What the hell??? Health care should be a right. Something you don't have to ever worry about. If my kid is lying in hospital sick, I'm not going to make a decision based on money, because I'd always say "Yes take all my money", and that puts me in a very vulnerable position indeed. One that could be exploited by evil companies if given the chance.

Health should always be far far far more important than money, but to prevent evil companies making a ton of money out of desperate people, it should be provided by the government.

Why is there such a disconnect in America between socialized war mongering, and socialized health care?

<comment><USER10> > Health should always be far far far more important than money,

I'm pretty sure that your own behavior proves otherwise. (I'm not claiming that your choices are wrong, but they do show that health isn't always your highest priority.)

> but to prevent evil companies making a ton of money out of desperate people, > it should be provided by the government.

In what universe can govts provide unlimited healthcare?

The current US healthcare "reform" includes significant cuts in Medicare spending on certain conditions. Folks who have those conditions will get less care. You know, pre-existing conditions....

Feel free to provide a checkable citation to any govt healthcare system that doesn't limit the amount of care.

<comment><USER8> I didn't say "unlimited" health care, anywhere.

I just believe that in this day and age, the US should join other first world countries in valuing life above military.

>> "I'm pretty sure that your own behavior proves otherwise. (I'm not claiming that your choices are wrong, but they do show that health isn't always your highest priority.)"

Care to elaborate?

<comment><USER10> > I didn't say "unlimited" health care, anywhere.

You said that it was wrong to limit healthcare access. If there aren't limits, it's unlimited.

> I just believe that in this day and age, the US should join other first > world countries in valuing life above military.

What makes you think that it doesn't? The US spends far more on health care than it does on the military.

Yes, that's true of the federal govt. Note that state and local govts also spend money on health, and they spend very little on the military. And then there's private spending.

In fact, one of the big arguments by folks arguing for more govt healthcare is that they claim that it will cost less than the current system.

> Care to elaborate?

If I observe your life, I'm pretty sure that I'll find several things that you do that are not as good for your health as they could be. (Here are easy ones - is your weight ideal? Do you exercise enough? How about sleep?) Their existence proves that health isn't your highest priority.

I'm not saying that you're wrong to have priorities other that health, but it is absurd to criticize others for doing the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Since the article is talking about examining the detailed costs of the long, drawn-out process of his slow decline, it is important to note that she says he was an overweight ex-smoker, which made him (she says) a prime candidate for kidney cancer.

The biggest cost in western-style health care is not end of life care, it is lifestyle-induced illness that leads to an explosion of totally preventable terminal diseases.

<comment><USER6> Cancer is not "totally preventable". Non-smokers die of lung cancer (and other cancers) too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Even oncologist question their utility today when they can offer the average cancer patient only meager life extension, and those are often pain-filled years at that.

But it's a good business model: people will often spend their net worth to extend the life of themselves or their child a few months. But in the end they almost always die the same miserable death. So I expect even more "childrens' cancer centers" to open and rake in millions.

<comment><USER13> This is an emotionally charged issue for me, I lost my mom to ovarian cancer. My bet is that you, quite frankly, have no damn idea what your talking about.

My mom was supposed to live 6 months longer (at best). Instead she made it more than 2 years. Where they difficult years? Yep. However, they where still valuable ones. She got to see me marry. She met the future mother of her grandchildren. She got to see and do things she always wanted to do. She saw her estranged family again.

The value of those oncologists simply can't be discounted. It's an incredibly difficult profession, one in which most of your patients die. However, the ability to extend lives...even by a few months... and manage to make those last days as painless and productive as possible makes them angels in my book. Not profiteers.

It was interesting getting to know her oncologist. He clearly struggled with the emotions of his job. In the wake of her death he couldn't bring himself to attend her funeral (understandable). There was hardly a human being who knew her better in those last two years... and for that I'll be eternally grateful to him.

<comment><USER12> Your anger is misguided. I have weathered the deaths by cancer of several whom I care about very much. I found it grueling, relentless and painful for everyone. In every case much money changed hands in a very short period of time, always to the benefit of the oncologist and associated institution.

Your wishes aside, most doctors are profiteers. Take the profit out and most would find another professions. Don't you remember the attitude of hopeul medical-school bound students in college? Very few go to medical school for noble causes.

Your mom's oncologist likely attended very few, if any, of his patients' funerals.

As for: "It was interesting getting to know her oncologist. He clearly struggled with the emotions of his job. In the wake of her death he couldn't bring himself to attend her funeral (understandable).There was hardly a human being who knew her better in those last two years... and for that I'll be eternally grateful to him."

I must call you on your claims. Oncologists necessarily don't spend much time with each patient and it is very unlikely that

\- you "got to know her oncologist",

\- he "struggled with the emotions",

\- he "knew her better" than anyone else .

The only way the last could be true is that your mother had no friends. Was she wealthy also? Oncologists do make exceptions for wealthy patrons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Some friends lived with me for a few months while their daughter was in the NICU because she was born extremely prematurely. I don't know the final tally, but at some point the calculated the total cost to be just north of $2,000,000. I don't think it is possible for me to rationally discuss if is worth it because I'm emotionally involved (they now have a beautiful, healthy little girl), but it's easy to see that it doesn't take many cases like hers to jack insurance premiums up pretty high.

As our medical skills are improving we can keep people alive that used to die. Unfortunately our medical skill isn't advanced enough to do it cheaply. Perhaps the luxuries of time and money will get us there one day.

<comment><USER15> the same 2 million dollar treatment probably costs 3-5 grand in Mexico or India. Personally I think health tourism is going to be much more popular soon, since the healthcare costs in the states are getting less and less affordable.

<comment><USER16> Are you honestly suggesting that someone would travel to Mexico or India to put their premie in newborn intensive care unit there? Really; that seems remotely reasonable (or even possible) to you?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The real problems start not when "end of life" becomes very expensive (which it has) but when technology advances to the point where it is possible to keep someone alive indefinitely but at geometrically increasing costs. We've set it up so that everyone will feel entitled to that one extra week, no matter what the cost.

<comment><USER18> I doubt that costs can increase geometrically for any significant period of time. The technological ramp would have to be enormous. Unless your belief is that current technologies will remain at their current prices and new technologies will be built at exclusively higher prices.

<comment><USER17> Its not about any particular technology, per se. It was cheap to die in 1600 no matter what killed you simply because there was very little that could be done.

Each year we add more and more expensive interventions from ECMO machines to artificial hearts. Put this together with the "if it can be done, it should be done, damn the cost" attitude we've trained ourselves to expect and we could find ourselves in for a severe reality check.

Medical technology seems strangely resistant to Moore's law (witness the price of a CT scan over time), but even if it weren't, the improvements in individual areas might not be enough to offset the growth of intervention technology in general.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> ice cold alert.

what was gained by keeping him alive, in a bed, not creating value, for 400k? the family suffered with him while he died.

let him die, grieve, get on with your lives.

and save the rest of us the 400k.

<comment><USER20> Will you be this cold when you are dying? What about when your wife and kids are dying?

Maybe I am just a hopeless optimist, but personally, if my wife/kid is dying, I am probably not going to say "BAI!1!", rip the cord out of the electrical outlet, and grin as I watch his/her eyes close for the last time. Ever. Instead, I am going to spend a lot of money to hopefully avoid ever seeing that. Because while you can always make more money, we can't clone people yet.

<comment><USER21> Some people are different. If I was that dude, I would have hoped my wife would have just pulled the plug and saved everyone the money.

Living in a hospital bed is not living.

<comment><USER6> He fought cancer over the course of 7 years, and it sounds like his quality of life was reasonable for most of that time.

I think pretty much everyone would rather die than linger on in a hospital bed without hope. At a certain point, utility of future life becomes negative and returning to a positive state is not possible. The problem is that it's not so clear cut and obvious at the time that this is the case. A big part of this is that doctors often want to save the patient at all costs, and often deceive themselves as to the patient's prospects. So often even the patient has no idea how bad the situation is.

<comment><USER21> Of course. By reading a blog post, I have no idea what the situation was truly like. I should have probably qualified my response with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I like the "That moron Bush" quote when he can't remember anything but the response to who the president is.</comment>


10 of the best growth hacks of all time - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/what-i-learned-building/bdca8a4df32f

<comment><USER2> Genius!</comment>


Being able to count your own heartbeats correlates with better decision making - <AUTHOR> http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2009/10/listening_to_your_pulse.php

<comment><USER2> I found the conclusion of this author, and, presumably, the scientists, to be questionable.

Rather than to praise "the body" for "knowing 40 cards before the brain, which deck was the bad deck", I would submit that no praise is necessary.

We all learn, eventually, to discount failed trials in the experiments of daily survival. We don't quit asking out girls the first 10 times in a row we're shot down. We don't quit fishing the first 10 times we come back empty handed. We don't quit trying to light a fire, the first 10 times the spark from our rock doesn't ignite our dry grass.

We do, eventually, figure out when the game is rigged. When the girls are married, the fish are sleeping, and grass isn't really that dry, we do, eventually, give up. We're not idiots. However, we've learned that the body is not as smart as we are. Too often, it's told us to quit, when, by ignoring it, we've succeeded. The body's responses are the instinctive, reptilian responses of the cortex, while we succeed on this planet by using our mammalian frontal lobe to find less obvious solutions.

So ...

My point is that, the scientists rigged a test, where the reptilian response of our body was the correct one, and then brag about how smart our body is. In this instance, like a stopped clock, it happened to be right. But I'm not trading in my frontal lobe just yet.

<comment><USER3> I think you misinterpreted the results. The point is that better bodily awareness enhances other cognitive abilities which sounds quite reasonable.

<comment><USER2> I fail to see how "bodily awareness" can "enhance cognitive abilities". You'll have to spell it out a little more carefully than that for me to understand you, as that sentence alone makes no logical sense to me.

I don't think they, or the author, are so far down the rabbit hole as to imply anything like that. What they are implying is more rational, but still, in my opinion, is wrong.

<comment><USER3> Emotions are a rudimentary form of decision making and processing. Many people are aware of strong emotions only in relation to how it makes them feel physically so the more aware you are of your body and how it reacts to various emotional cues the better you are able to asses where that cue is coming from. Plus, you don't need to be down a rabbit hole to suggest what I suggested.

<comment><USER2> "Emotions are a rudimentary form of decision making and processing."

Well said! We agree then. Rudimentary vs Advanced decision making in a rigged test where rudimentary happens to work better, doesn't really mean anything.

We are, as they say, in violent agreement as to our interpretation of the article. You, however, still maintain there is value in this emotional information, because a rigged test indicates there is, when as a species we've done really well by painfully learning to minimize emotional information in our decision making activities.

Now, let me throw you a bone. There are definitely cases where it's good to know our body and it's responses, so that we make better decisions. Absolutely! Thousands of them. Knowing this is vital, if you're a day trader in stocks. It's also pretty important when you're making a sale, or being sold to. There are tons of times, when the knowledge that you are being influenced by your cortex will help you.

But that's exactly the reverse situation. "Bodily Awareness" allows you to ignore your body's panic so you can make better decisions. The article implies that you should "tune in" to your body, and listen to it. This just isn't true. The instinctive "fight or flight" responses of the body are important, of course. They get us out of jams that our conscious mind is too slow to logic it's way out of.

But if you actually have time to think "I wonder what my body's opinion of this is?", than you are in a situation where your body is much more likely to be wrong than you are.

<comment><USER3> I disagree. All learning and decision making is emotional. If it wasn't then computers would be quite good at it. I have yet to see a single digitial, rational decision maker that is as good at learning from mistakes as humans and other emotionally driven animals are.

<comment><USER2> I have made my case, and with your help, made it even more clear. I think you are completely wrong in your position ... but then again, emotion may be clouding my judgment!

<comment><USER3> The rules of the market change quite infrequently and even your algorithms will be quite poor at predicting market panics and other changes that deviate drastically from the rules. Such predictions still require a holistic approach that only well trained humans are capable of. If you think I've helped make your case then good for you. I was simply trying to clarify my stance on the issue and at no point was I trying to be correct or incorrect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Interesting. But shouldn't the title be something like "Those better at counting pulse are better at decision making". Right now it suggests that if you count before making a decision, it will be a good decision.

<comment><AUTHOR> True - thanks. I've modified it by parsing the first sentence in his post.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How I wish we had some data on the same people, before they had their heart replaced by the new pulseless heart* and then afterwards!

* [http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/...](http://www.straitstimes.com/Breaking%2BNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_436300.html)

<comment><USER3> Pulse or no pulse is not relevant for the results. They just needed some metric to measure bodily awareness.</comment></comment>


Denmark Raises Antibiotic-Free Pigs. Why Can't the U.S.? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/health/pigs-antibiotics-denmark.html <comment><USER2> Denmark only does this because of public pressure. Until recently, or perhaps even now, Denmark had a dangerously high use of antibiotics in livestock production using far more in routine dosing of livestock than in treating humans.

European countries are getting serious about the threat of antibiotic resistance, the US not so much.

By the way: you can use Firefox reader mode to read the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> As a Dane.. Denmark raises a crazy amount of pigs, most are filled with antibiotics and a lot have MRSA.

<comment><AUTHOR> Please, can you quote a source so that those who're interested may contrast between the claims in the article and your observation? Thank you.

<comment><USER4> "Despite a national action plan to control LA-MRSA in the Danish pig population, 88% of pig herds tested positive in a 2016 cross-sectional study of 57 herds."

Ref:[https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37075-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37075-8)

Also although I cannot reference it, I also recall a documentary on MRSA cases jumping from livestock to Humans in Denmark, it was mostly farm and abattoir workers.

I am not one to disagree that we need to reduce antibiotics on livestock as a whole. But the reality is that this is likely hard to achieve without decreasing the population density of livestock per square meter in farms and that is likely to not be possible at the price point people are willing to accept to buy meat. So something eventually will have to give or nature will take it's course and find a way.

<comment><AUTHOR> The study quoted [1] is a simulation study of LA-MRSA among Danish pig herds between 2006 and 2015. The study concludes: "Combinations of control measures reduced the spread of LA-MRSA, especially when all four strategies were combined. Using an extreme scenario including limiting the use of high-risk antibiotics, reducing the risk of spread via indirect contact by 75%, implementing movement restriction and culling a percentage of positive herds led to a prevalence reduction to only 6% with initiation in 2007 or 13% in 2010."

Now compare that with the reduction in antibiotic use during 2015-2018 [2] and there seems to be no reason why it would go back to historically high levels. There should be optimism that in such a relatively short time, significant changes can happen. The main thrust of the Times article is precisely that.

[1] [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37075-8](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-37075-8)

[2] [https://www.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/english/Animal/MRSA/Pages/...](https://www.foedevarestyrelsen.dk/english/Animal/MRSA/Pages/Low_use_of_antibiotic_in_Denmark.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The article doesn't really highlight this but anti biotic use on livestock isn't just to keep them from being sick. It also causes growth, which means each animal is more profitable.</comment>


The Art of Peering: The Peering Playbook - <AUTHOR> http://drpeering.net/white-papers/Art-Of-Peering-The-Peering-Playbook.html

<comment><USER2> I read this a few weeks ago and it was pretty eye-opening. It really goes into the economics and underhanded ways that are used to move traffic cheaply.

Even if you're just a buyer of transit this is worth a read as it can help you negotiate better rates and make sure you're getting the service you paid for.</comment>


Accounting for Computer Scientists - <AUTHOR> http://martin.kleppmann.com/2011/03/07/accounting-for-computer-scientists.html <comment><USER3> Two observations.

First, coming from computer science, introductory accounting - the bookkeeping mechanics - is quite easy. I took a 101 class and was surrounded by future Lords of The Universe who complained about how "hard" it was to add and subtract numbers according to a small system of rules.

Accounting is a system of metrics. The system under measurement is your business. Its purpose is to give an accurate readout of business performance. The nice thing is that accountants produce lots of metrics and these can be used to probe the behaviour of different parts of the system.

Secondly,

> One thing to watch out for: profit doesn't say anything about your bank > account ... That's why it's possible for a company to be profitable but > still run out of money!

This is why accountants produce a third document, the cashflow statement. It shows how cash is coming in and going out. This is different from the P&L statement, which deals with _revenues_ and _expenses_ , both of which may include _future_ events as opposed to actual cash changing hands in the period covered by the report.

If there's one thing you _absolutely must learn from accounting_ , it is that positive cashflow and profits are not the same thing. But if you run a business without _both_ of them, that business is doomed.

<comment><USER4> I agree with observations and comments.

Well you can live without profits for sometime, if you run out of working cash, your stuffed. This is why loans, and factoring come in and is why even profitable business require loans because of bad cashflow.

One easy way to try avoid this, is to always try to get in flow payments coming in faster, and outgoings slower. Even if the net total is the same in end, it allows more flexibility with cash flow.

Accounting is obvious to me, but we probably haven't encountered the hard problems yet.

<comment><USER5> Most of the hard problems are to do with depreciation, and the legalities of how you classify them.

For example, Police departments have dogs. Dogs are assets. If all government departments are told to use accrual (rather than cashflow), they need to depreciate assets.

So the account needs to figure out how dogs depreciate. Should you assume that a dog has a useful life of 10 years, and loses 10% of its initial value every year? Or that it exponentially decays, as it gets older and less able to sniff bad guys? Or should it only be 5 years? What do you do if a dog ends up working long past its expiry date?

It can be tricky to come up with sensible numbers. Especially when accountants don't have domain knowledge, and people who do don't like speaking to them.

<comment><USER3> > Most of the hard problems are to do with depreciation, and the legalities of > how you classify them.

I would generalise that to say that all the hard problems in accounting are ones of classification.

Does sale X fall in 2010 or 2011?

Do we book the inventory when we order it, when it is delivered to our warehouse, when it is delivered to our shop, or all three? And if we use some combo, how do we combine them in LIFO calculations?

We've just donated $100,000 to Fashionable Cause, a charitable foundation founded by Irish rockstar Nobo and in exchange he will wear our platform shoes exclusively. Do we book this under philanthropy or marketing? If philanthropy, do we consider it part of the overhead cost for the shoes sold?

And so on and so on.

Most of the big bucks in accounting comes from coming up for clever excuses as to why something should be categorised in a certain way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "User-friendly" accounting software (such as QuickBooks) tends to obscure the fundamental simplicity of double-entry accounting.

If you want to actually understand your books, use something simple and powerful like John Wiegley's ledger:

<https://github.com/jwiegley/ledger/>

<comment><USER7> I wish I could vote this up twice.

Ledger is awesome and strips away all the crap that gets in the way of actually seeing the data.

There are also haskell and python implementations out there if that's more up your hacking alley.

<comment><USER8> My favourite feature is this: like the article, ledger completely ignores any the concept of debits and credits. Negative numbers FTW!

<comment><USER9> I find this strange. Last time I had some interaction with a ledger negative credit and positive debit were different beasts. Granted, their contribution towards the balance was the same, nevertheless they were different things.

In particular a correction of an erroneous debit entry was stored as a negative debit, not positive credit. Representing both with the same number seems a bit suspicious to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's always enlightening when someone manages to explain a somewhat complicated subject in terms of an abstraction that the audience understands. This is a great example of that.

And it works the other way too.

When you've read this article and understood it you wil know how to explain graph theory to an accountant - _"see it's actually not that hard, it's just like bookkeeping"_

</comment><comment><USER11> If you have a formal systems bent, as I do, you might enjoy "Algebraic Models for Accounting Systems" ([http://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Accounting-Systems- Salvador-...](http://www.amazon.com/Algebraic-Accounting-Systems-Salvador- Rambaud/dp/9814287113)).

"This book describes the construction of algebraic models which represent the operations of the double entry accounting system. It gives a novel, comprehensive, proof based treatment of the topic, using such concepts from abstract algebra as automata, digraphs, monoids and quotient structures."

Think of it as a primer for building yourself an exceedingly awesome and utterly-unnecessary Haskell-based QuickBooks.

<comment><USER12> OK, that sounds pretty amazing, but is it as good as it sounds? For example, Leon Sterling wrote a 400 page book that included a crappy unrealistic example of how to write a Tamagotchi program. <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0262013118> Funny, considering Luca Cardelli's paper about biologist's fixing tamagotchi's.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Having recently taken an accounting class, this is amazing.

The course I took was chock full of "because that's the way it is" explanations of terms and practices, which without fail left me feeling confused and unsatisfied. I think most people here are like me and really need deep explanations of the lower level concepts in order to be able to apply higher level concepts. Accounting coursework is absolutely horrible at this.

<comment><USER14> Accounting courses are horrific, but in fairness they try to get you up to speed on the basics before diving into the detail.

A typical CSI 101 course is often like this -- you learn about operators, etc without understanding how things actually work until later.

<comment><USER12> I had really great accounting professors, who explained WHY things were done.

As with anything else, assume a normal distribution of teaching talent, and hope you end up being taught by somebody on the right side of the curve.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _If you're a real accountant reading this, please forgive my simplifications; if you spot any mistakes, please let me know._

There is one pretty important section of the P&L / Balance Sheet that's missing . . . taxes.

On that note, I am hosting a tax workshop on 3/15 @ Hacker Dojo in Mtn. View (very close to YC's office)

<http://www.transparentaccounting.org/self-employment>

<comment><USER16> Please make a recording available more widely afterwards, for those of us who can't attend. I'd pay the same amount you're suggesting as an in-person donation for this, if it comes to that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> David Friedman wrote a very short post 5 years ago on accounting:

 _"I have been teaching a new course that includes two weeks explaining accounting to law students. To do so, I first had to understand it myself. I think I now do, and in the hope that the information might be useful to others ... ."_

[http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2006/02/understanding- acc...](http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2006/02/understanding-accounting- short-version.html)

</comment><comment><USER18> I am not an accountant. That said ...

There are a few key pieces of functionality missing from this description, and what (I think) is a really important insight that wasn't really emphasised.

Key pieces missing: the hierarchical chart of accounts, and grouped transactions. (You want to be able to find each 'transaction' with Dell, even though one given transaction might include $4000 in depreciable assets, $1000 in extended warranties and other services, shipping, tax... each of which could be a different 'edge' on the graph itself.)

And the insight is that it's the edges that count; nodes don't matter -- if you're storing "account" objects with a "balance" property, it ought only to be for caching.

</comment><comment><USER19> As someone who both 1) checks the comments to see if I should click a link I think might be dodgy, and 2) thinks a lot of links look dodgy, including this one at first, let me give a hearty recommendation to this article. Well worth reading from start to finish.

</comment><comment><USER20> For a programmer I'd rather explain it in database terms. It's a single table T, which basically contains the edges of Kleppmann's graphs.

      amount  source  target  (metadata like date ...)

For each account X you get the left and right side with simple SQL queries:

      select * from T where source=X
      select * from T where target=X

All the other mumbo-jumbo about double-entry bookkeeping is implicitly baked in. For example, "The double-entry bookkeeping system ensures that the financial transaction has equal and opposite effects in two different accounts." Of course, each entry subtracts amount from the source and adds it to target.

While this representation is easy to implement (see ledger, i suppose), it does not lead to pretty graph pictures.

</comment><comment><USER21> This analogy seems a bit off, and I don't see how it simplifies things.

I guess this is similar to the "Monad tutorial" problem, where the author forces a (typically way off) analogy onto the reader.

One concrete problem with "accounting as graphs" is that a transaction typically involves more than two legs, while Graph edges are ALWAYS associated with exactly two nodes. You can emulate this, of course, and the author hints as much in his description of complex "deals", but it raises the question whether graphs are the best analogy.

</comment><comment><USER22> Loved this post. Starts to convince people that Accounting really can be beautiful, in many of the same ways that software can be beautiful. It does tend to get overrun with terminology, edge cases, and other necessary issues given the consequences of ambiguity, but at the lowest level, accounting is just telling a story. Wonderful post!

</comment><comment><USER23> OH MY GOD! I finally understand why Sales is a liability on all the balance sheets I translate! !!!

<comment><USER24> It's not actually a liability; it's an account with a credit balance. Sales flows into retained earnings which is an equity account, which has a credit balance per the accounting equation of Assets (Debit balances) = Liabilities + Equity (Credit balances).

<comment><USER23> I think the rules may differ in Europe (the way things are classified) - <USER2> the insight I had was that something that seems clearly to be an asset to my naive view (sales) can actually be a sort of accounting fiction to make the balances come up right, and thus be shown as a liability. Without checking my notes on a specific translation I did about 15 months ago, I don't even remember if it was sales or not. (I have computers so I don't have to remember things, obviously, ha.)

<comment><USER25> _I think the rules may differ in Europe (the way things are classified)_

Nope. Sales is NOT a liability, and there is no accounting fiction. Sales are also not an asset. They are an income. The money earned from the sale is the asset. I think you may be confusing ledger credits with liabilities.

All credits are not increases in liabilities, but all increases in liabilities are credits.

Good background on Wikipedia: [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debits_and_credits> ] [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_accounting_system> ] [ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_equation> ]

<comment><USER23> Ah - finally I found the balance sheets I was thinking of (some Deutsche Bank stuff from 2009). Turns out I was misremembering; it was equity capital that falls under liabilities, which is counterintuitive to me. Capital is, after all, something I have - but I suppose since it's an investment, it represents something I owe.

And I see capital is shown in the balance sheet in the original post as well - but what struck me as counterintuitive in the original post is representing sales as, effectively, a cash flow towards the customers. If not a fiction, surely you have to grant it's an abstraction.

<comment><USER25> Equity is on the _same side_ of the balance sheet as liabilities because of the accounting equation: Assets = Capital + Liabilities.

See this tutorial as well: <http://www.principlesofaccounting.com/chapter%201.htm>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> This i found very enlightening to read. I wonder how many accounting apps actually store their data as he describes in this article, to aid their calculations

<comment><USER27> There are some further complications that make it impossible to use that exact representation without change; for instance a single transaction may involve more than two nodes; you could buy furniture and computers in one transaction and something in the system needs to represent this was one purchase, even if it is further broken apart after that. But with suitable modifications it seems like this ought to work. Whether or not it is actually done this way, I don't know... and to be honest, I doubt it, filed under "I don't need all that theory crap, I've got problems to solve!". Programmers are often quite happy to write much more complicated and redundant programs if it means not having to learn about graph theory. Not that they think of it that way. And I find it unlikely anybody started a real accounting project with "First, let's learn all about accounting and strip it down to the minimal conceptual core", rather than "Our accountants say this is how it works, so let's start putting together the matching class hierarchy", which will not produce a clean graph structure where one did not previously exist.

(And yes, theory can't be perfectly followed either, all systems will generally need some amount of dirty things, but the correct balance IMHO is definitely not 100% "pragmatic".)

<comment><USER28> Accounting programs already employ such directed, weighted hypergraphs. They are just not storing pretty pictures, but the incidence matrix.

The programmers probably don't think of their tables as an incidence matrix though, and end up coding lots of special cases, instead of re-using general graph algorithms.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Accounting gets interesting when you get derivatives and the fed involved. You own a volatile asset, so the price can go up and down, everyday. However, you don't necessarily know how much said asset is worth. So, you have no P&L. You can possibly borrow against said to cover cash flow, but if asset declines in value, your creditors can demand payment.

Furthermore, your balance sheet can look great. However, if your debtors go bankrupt, a solid balance sheet can quickly deteriorate. If your customers pay late, and you can't borrow money, the delicate balance can collapse.

</comment><comment><USER30> I think it'd be worth mentioning this is accrual basis accounting. In cash basis you wouldn't write down things which haven't already happened, like the anticipated payment from customer 2.

</comment><comment><USER31> Tony Bowden described an accounting system built on Semantic Mediawiki in 2006.

<http://nothing.tmtm.com/tag/finance/>

</comment><comment><USER32> Interesting. One of the side effects of having the zero sum rule for all transactions means that graphs can be superimposed on each other and also get a valid balance-sheet graph. Cool! Are loops possible? What do they mean?

<comment><USER33> loops represent the economy. Other than new currency from the Federal Reserve or Treasury, or physical dollar media being destroyed, its a closed loop system.

<comment><USER34> The "new currency" exception is very significant, because under our fractional-reserve banking system, banks have the power to create money.

If you deposit $100 in a bank, the bank can immediately loan out $90 of it to borrowers (who may put that money in their own banks, etc. etc.), thus creating money from nowhere. I.e., if those borrowers can't pay back their loan and the bank writes it off, your $100 is still safe.

<comment><USER35> I thought fractional reserve meant that the bank can now loan out _$900_ , which is the creating money part. (perhaps you had a typo?)

<comment><USER8> No, they only loan out $90. But that is creating money. Where did that $90 come from? It didn't come out of your account; you still have $100. Imagine how pissed you'd be if you went to make a withdrawal and the bank said, "no, you can only have $10 right now, we lent the rest to somebody and they haven't paid it back yet."

<comment><USER36> The $900 figure comes from the assumption that the $90 they lend out eventually lands in somebody else's account, and they then also lend out 90% of that $90, and then recurse that all the way down till there's nothing left to lend out again:

perl -e'$s = 100; while($s > 0.1){$t = $t + $s * 0.9;$s = $s * 0.9;} print $t'

899.140495544283

(edited: I have no idea why HN dropped out the asterixes in that code...)

<comment><USER30> Asterisks without whitespace (or a leading indent) mean italics: <http://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Anyone willing to recommend a good book that introduces graph theory?

<comment><USER9> The wikipedia page on graphs contains much more material than it is needed to understand the article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A good effort but all the sign flipping gets confusing

</comment><comment><USER38> substituting programmer jargon for accounting jargon is the answer?

</comment><comment><USER39> Hard to believe this article didn't contain the word "invariant."

</comment><comment><USER40> Nicely done thanks. Much clearer than quickbooks or quicken.

</comment><comment><USER41> Someone should write one of these for aspiring MPs. I'm pretty certain most modern Western Governments seem to have forgot the basics.

</comment><comment><USER42> There should be an app for this. A dashboard even.

( I mean one that actually displays and lets you edit your books as a graph)

</comment><comment><USER43> Was a fun read. But you don't have to get complicated.

Accounting is just taking notes. No matter how you write then

</comment><comment><USER44> Check out accountingcoach.com</comment>


Ask HN: How do you switch domains / industries? - non-entity In software development, it seems that many domains and industries prefer to hire people who have professional experience in that industry. In one particular case, I saw a job listing that strongly preferred people who had worked at a small set of competitor companies.
How does a developer manage to switch to a domain or industry completely outside their experience? <comment><AUTHOR> It is easy to switch domain. You simply need to learn skill and do a project on it and show that result in the interview.

Right now dropshipping is a new skill you can switch by learning its softwares. See this to learn few of them - [https://www.howtobuysaas.com/blog/software-for- dropshipping/](https://www.howtobuysaas.com/blog/software-for-dropshipping/)

</comment><comment><USER2> I switched to Investment Banking when they where looking for Java people 20 years ago.

So this was a case of the demand for a tech skill outwaying the supply and therefore the banks didn't get to be too choosey.

So perhaps one way to switch would be to learn a tech skill and use that as leverage. i.e. Rust to get into blokchain/crypto.

Julia to get into Bigdata, AI and ML.

Kubernetes to get into DevOps/CI-CD etc.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.howtobuysaas.com/](https://www.howtobuysaas.com/)</comment>


A Dependable iPad - <AUTHOR> http://www.randsinrepose.com/archives/2012/03/03/a_dependable_ipad.html

<comment><USER2> Anecdotally, I loved my iPad and used it daily until I got an 11-inch Macbook Air. Now it sits on a shelf for a month at a time without being used. I don't even really understand the appeal any more, I'm positive that most of my daily tasks like web browsing and email are much faster on a full laptop (efficient tab-based web browsing is a huge win) with only a very marginal decrease in portability.

Maybe this is just a power-user thing, though?

<comment><USER3> A different POV: I have a 2 year kid and I feel like the macbook air's screen wouldn't stand a single pull from his fingers. The ipad in its case? he can walk on it, throw it, it won't matter.

Before the little monster gets to sleep, any form of computing is limited to the ipad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > The use case for the iPad's camera is FaceTime, and for me and I'm likely in > the minority here, FaceTime is a classic You-Gotta-See-This-Once feature. > You demo it once and never use it again. The line I draw for the cameras is > "it can't be crap."

Am I the only one that uses FaceTime on a regular basis?

I have family scattered all around the world and pretty much every call I get from them comes in as FaceTime. Most of my family has iPhones and it just works for them. The audio quality is great and it's so much better than a normal phone call. Does everyone else use Skype? Are your family members comfortable with using that?

I would love a very high definition front facing camera on the iPad 3 to compliment a possible retina display. I think that would make it a very compelling video conferencing device.

<comment><USER5> I think there are a few problems with FaceTime.

First, there's a bit of a trend toward somewhat less interactive conversation. If text messages are rising in popularity as phone calls wane, it would also make sense that FaceTime wouldn't be the most popular. Plus, with FaceTime, you might not want to use it on a saturday at noon when you're still disheveled in your pyjamas.

Second, it only works with other Apple stuff right now. AT&T announced that they wanted to push for a video calling standard. I hope that the industry really coalesces. That will probably mean Google adopting FaceTime for Android handsets and Google Talk/Google+. Even if I have an iPhone, only one other member of my family has an Apple device. Many of my friends have PCs and Android handsets. That limits how important it can become for many people.

That said, my friend's grandmother loves it. She's too old to travel, but can see her grandchildren 4,000 miles away with it. It's really special for her.

Still, it will remain a bit more of a niche product since there isn't broad compatibility and, at least right now, there might be a stigma to using it when one doesn't feel put together.

<comment><USER6> Actually, Google Talk on Android already has a video chat feature that's great because: 1) It works over 3G 2) It works with anyone else on Google Talk who's online, regardless of what device they're on

All you have to do is open Google Talk (I have it running all the time anyway) and tap the camera button next to someone's contact.

I frequently use it to chat with my girlfriend or to show her something on the go, and it doesn't matter if she's on her Galaxy Nexus or her MBP at home.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's pretty amazing that Apple is bucking the trend by releasing the iPad and iPhone once a year despite the rest of the industry releasing new models every month or two.

There's nothing more frustrating than shopping for an android product knowing that it'll be out shined in a few weeks and out dated in a few months.

Edit: this is coming from someone that owns 3 android phones and an android tablet and zero ios devices (at the moment).

<comment><USER8> I don't really understand this point. That should be true even if you buy an iPhone. If there are better/more powerful/higher resolution phones out there 2 months later, that will be true when compared to the iPhone as well. This is just competition in a high-growth market.

So yeah, that doesn't make sense to me, unless you want to pretend that once you get into the Apple ecosystem, there is nothing better out there until Apple releases the next version of the device.

<comment><USER7> I guess I look at the iPad/iphone/ipod touches more like consoles than computers, where I look at android more as computers.

When you have a console, you want that eco system and hardware to last longer than it takes to develop the next gnu or cpu. Android updates on every single new advancement in mobile tech, which I find completely overwhelming.

It's very obvious that the carriers get overwhelmed because they have significant trouble updating their devices that are over a year old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I want an iPad with high resolution _input_. I want Wacom-tablet quality input. Steve Jobs' paint-by-numbers level of quality is a pile of suck. I have tried every beautiful stylus and drawing app out there, they all suck compared to a Wacom tablet. Which is a shame. Because not putting the pen on the drawing is soul-crushing. I have several 0.3 mm Pentel pencils that remain my mainstay for drawing and math. I will not name the model, as they occasionally come up on eBay and last time I tipped my hand on another work-a-day model, the eBay prices shot up 400% and have stayed there for a year.

I want a MacBook with 4G. I would change carriers in a heartbeat to get that. In fact, our contracts are up, we're month to month, primed, waiting, for exactly that.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have no idea why the post is called "a dependable iPad". If the "old" model is good enough that you don't need to buy the new one every year, didn't that just prove it's dependability?

It looks like he's complaining about _something_ , I just can't tell what. Maybe the next iPad should fly, teleport and make coffee so that everyone wants to update?

 _Sent from my iPad 1_

</comment><comment><USER11> I never understand why people feel the need to spend time trying to advertise what they want out of and Apple product. The company doesn't care what the customer wants. They simply make things that sell and discontinue those that don't. The iPad 3 will probably outsell 1 and 2 combined, and they know this already. And they know that as long as they keep making improvements to iOS, every other platform/manufacturer is simply copying them and are one or two generations behind with no insight as to where Apple is headed.

Also, one would be surprised at the number of people out there taking pictures with an iPad. It looks weird but you'll get used to it eventually.

<comment><USER12> Its a blog article. I think he is just expressing himself. If Apple and iPad happen to be highly valued keywords, then so be it.</comment></comment>