India to launch its first mission to Mars [video] - <AUTHOR> http://venturebeat.com/2013/10/14/india-to-launch-its-first-mission-to-mars-video/ <comment><USER2> This is sheer awesomeness, not just with regards to what they are doing but how they are doing it. ISRO is operating at a near throw away budget, almost a near rounding error in India's national budget. And these people have delivered at a whole new level.

I remember when chandrayaan-1 was launched, that morning I was traveling early morning to office. It was a big moment in the history of Indian space research, we were so excited we were hardly able to work the whole day. ISRO is just redefining how government run institutions must function.

On a side note, I went to ISRO as a part of our college's industrial tour. Many of my classmates just dismissed the whole thing and never showed up for the tour as they wanted to go to IBM, Microsoft and Google etc. Of the few of us who went there, we had a humbling experience as to what we saw. There were no AC rooms, plush cubicles, carpets and other perks we have in our large Indian IT companies.

These people were working on ordinary steel tables, with a near dying fan over their had, windows open and sipping tea in a steel cup for 50 paise. And these guys were writing the control system software that would run on the moon mission. It was an humbling experience.

<comment><USER3> Many a times I used to be stuck behind an ISRO bus while driving to office. Their bus can be described as more suitable to transfer prisoners than the best minds in the country. Then they will go off to work on rocket science as I inched my way towards building a web application for GM. Feels kind of weird. I guess it is about time that their funding is increased to be more in line with the quality of people they have and their contribution to the country.

Hats off to the whole lot at ISRO, BARC, TIFR and myriad other such institutes...

<comment><USER4> I have fond memories of ISRO. I did my internship there working on wavelets and remote sensing data. ISRO is a shining diamond compared to all other government agencies here in India. Go ISRO.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5>
        The MOM craft will cary thermal infrared imaging
        spectrometer to map Mars' surface composition and
        mineralogy. These findings — coupled with the information
        gleaned from the NASA's Curiosity Rover — will give us a
        better understanding of Mars' surface, in preparation for
        the first human visitors to the Red Planet.

So serious question: why do we keep only planning on missions to Mars? It seems like setting up a permanent moonbase would be a very prudent goal to work on at the same time that we are looking to head to mars.

<comment><USER6> Mars has a better atmosphere and magnetosphere. Setting up a base would be easier (in the long run) on mars and compared to moon because of the amount of upkeep required. That and marks is a lot more interesting (geologically) than moon since we now know that it once had free flowing neutral water. Plus the length and temperature of day/night cycle is more manageable and earth like for mars as compared to moon.

<comment><USER7> Mars has basically no magnetosphere. It still has an atmosphere, and thin as it is it'll still protect you from a lot of cosmic and solar radiation. (Not as much as Earth's atmosphere does, though.)

I agree it's definitely way easier to colonize Mars than the Moon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A secondhand anecdote about ISRO: Was out drinking with friends a few years ago when we saw the news about (or was it Leno joking about?) the moon impact probe successfully crashing into the moon.

Turns out one of my friends had done his Bachelor's engineering project (kind of like the BS Senior Design project in US colleges) at ISRO, and he was working on something that would be part of the probe project. He was there when the goverment pulled off Pokhran.

He tells me that because of the diplomatic fallout, all international technology transfer deals ISRO had with various Western organizations _instantly_ were unilaterally canceled by the foreign parties. (Even in the commercial arena, I know of international collaboration projects that were abruptly canceled. I think Pokhran was a very stupid, shortsighted move by the government to score brownie points with the population just to confirm what the world already knew.)

My friend estimated the Pokhran fallout set them back at least 4 years, because suddenly a bunch of technology they were expecting to get ready-made, they had to start researching and developing themselves from scratch.

And yet when the Moon Impact Probe finally happened, it was _right_ on schedule.

<comment><USER4> This anecdote tells you how many good people still work at ISRO. I have been in SW industry in India for the last 13 years and I have seen more than a couple of dozen ISRO employees quitting ISRO and joining the SW industry. I guess ISRO can achieve even more if they can offer better remuneration and purely merit based promotions. One can dream.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There will be people here who will chastise government for undertaking such an ambitious activity when there are many other problems the country is facing.

To all of them: your logic is flawed.

</comment><comment><USER10> Ad Astra ISRO! Good luck and Godspeed.

Two men, once looked out of the bars. One saw the sand and the other saw the stars.

(Haters gonna hate and all that ...)

</comment><comment><USER11> Single line i want to say "Proud to be an Indian".

</comment><comment><USER12> This comment has nothing to do with India, ISRO, politics or Mars, but I am curious if anyone with expertise can comment on the clean room practices seen applied in this video. Is it odd that the workers don't have on full 'bunny' suits and have (what seems to be) a relatively large amount of skin/hair unprotected? I don't know if it matters that much, it just seems a little lax given the cost of failure.

<comment><USER2> Firstly, I've visited ISRO Bangalore(A few years back). And I did see the exact things you mentioned. I did ask the guy(Not sure, if he was the PR guy) who took our class for the tour. His answer was, they were likely assembling some test equipment and not the real equipment that was going to space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems like the article only talks about the MOM probe. What rocket are they going to fly on? Very cool though, especially on the budget constraints! Ad astra per aspera.

One day I look forward to seeing my American, Indian, Chinese, African, etc... brothers and sisters on Mars toasting humanity and it's achievements. What a glorious day that will be!

<comment><USER14> MOM probe will be carried by ISRO's PSLV-XL (Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle - Extended). More info here:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The mission may be postponed to 2014 if the US government shutdown continues.

<comment><USER14> Not necessarily. ISRO needs NASA's Deep Space Network to communicate with spacecraft only when it gets too far away from Earth. ISRO's Bangalore DSN can handle it during initial days (how many?) of launch.

Moreover, NASA is launching MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) in November. So, it looks like NASA's DSN will indeed be operational despite govt. shutdown. Let's hope for the best.

[http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/indias- october-28-m...](http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/indias- october-28-mars-mission-on-schedule-isro/article5204371.ece)

\</comment></comment><comment>-

Update:

"NASA/JPL authorities have reaffirmed support for the MOM as planned and stated that the current US government partial shutdown will not affect the schedule of MOM," Bangalore-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a statement."

[http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/nasa-reaffirms-support- to...](http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/nasa-reaffirms-support-to-indias- mars-orbiter-mission-isro/1/313321.html)

</comment><comment><USER16> This must happen- India's only hope is massive Govt Funded projects that accomplish something and hope the engineering debri to spawn an ecosystem of high tech companies.(hope they dont migrate to the US)

</comment><comment><USER17> Nice. I hope they put all our politicians on it too.

I love science, and I am from India -- but then there are a lot of other economic machinery related things that we need to figure out first. I mean the usual things which are NOT rocket science. By the time ISRO of India matures up, rocketry elsewhere will move away from public institutions to the more competitive and cut-throat marketplace of private players. So I just don't see the point, enlighten me if there is one.

Besides Indian Government should rather (and at least) be focusing on the more serious issues drowning 'our country in our own poop' \-- things like corruption, poverty, malnutrition, malaria, dengue, power outages etc. What not!

[Update: Wow. So many reactions, some name-calling too. All answers address the usual aspects of 'why science should run in parallel and not in series' and other advantages. These are UNDERSTOOD, for if they're not why even discuss?

Can someone explain how ISRO is gonna compete tomorrow, and do the same space exploration at a competitive cost, when the rest of the world would have moved to space industry being managed by private players and even start-ups? Someone indicated below that ISRO operates on a shoe-string budget. Can we fix that at least? No, kill the messenger instead.]

<comment><USER18> People like you are outright hindrance to science and progress. We do not need to do serial problem solving, it can go on parallely. But please let Indian students relish good science. They deserve it. Good, you are not deciding any budget for these matters. Let's see the disparity:

NREGA (Solving indian poverty) budget: Rs. 4, 000 Billion

ISRO budget : Rs. 56 Billion (0.3% of Indian Budget)

Indian Budget: Rs. 17, 000 Billion

India has lot of other problems to solve. Yes. But this news is about Indian science, and let's keep it so. Let's not take away from the scientists who are delivering good value on budget. There are platforms to vent your opinions, but this one is not the one.

If it was not for ISRO who launched INSAT 3D, cyclone phailin would have had a devastating effect. How will this help India? Indian science is progressing. Indian scientists are taking ambitious missions. It will help propel more people into these fields. Technologies do not exist in vacuum and have derivative uses.

<comment><USER19> Exactly. No reason progress on both ends can't be parallelized. Also most of the time progress in science and technology leads to alleviation of poverty. It is seldom the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I guessed I missed the solution to millions of starving people hanging about with no job prospects.

<comment><USER21> You all missed out when they were handing out decency and common sense.

[Someone who has spent a stint at awesome ISRO.]

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Really? Resources would be far better spent providing uninterrupted electricity and clean drinking water to its citizens. Instead India spends it's capital on trying to promote national pride and patriotism.

<comment><USER19> What does patriotism have to do with this? Does NASA conduct research to promote American pride? The thinking is that development of space technology will spawn new techniques/materials that could lead to new areas of research, find use in day to day life and overall, spur the economy. Every country in the world has poverty. You don't see them stopping all work to help them out.</comment></comment>


Project Management Using GitHub Issues and Waffle.io - <AUTHOR> https://blog.planrockr.com/project-management-using-github-issues-and-waffle-io-75ece23c6b2f#.e837a1yfi <comment><USER2> How's this compare to [https://zube.io/](https://zube.io/)?</comment>


Ask HN: How important is typing speed for a programmer? - <AUTHOR> Apart from the obvious advantages, are there any downsides, for example: biologically ?<p>Are touch typists more prone to eye strain as they constantly look on the computer screen? Or touch typing is actually beneficial because it reduces head/eye movement. <comment><USER2> It's irrelevant, mostly. Your productivity as a programmer comes from identifying and solving problems with minimum wasted effort, typing is just a thing you do at the end when you're done thinking about the best way to solve a problem.

More about productivity mindset: [https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/](https://codewithoutrules.com/2016/08/25/the-01x-programmer/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Only times typing speed really comes in handy for me is when its almost the end of the work day and I want to finish one bit while its fresh in my mind or during programming competitions where it really adds an advantage. Most times I'm doing more contemplative coding.</comment>


[Ask HN] What is the minimum amount of money you would need to quit working? - <AUTHOR>

I was inspired by this reddit post: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/a1gyi/askreddit_how_much_money_would_you_need_to_quit/ , but it seems most of the answers are just one liner jokes.
Here's the original question:
I'm in the late stages of my college career and wanted to know how much money I would need in my bank account to be financially stable for the rest of my life without any other source of income. Obviously this depends upon my lifestyle and current age, so feel free to make liberal assumptions with either.
I've been wanting to know because I have no real concept of money beyond a few thousand dollars. I feel this would give me a grounding for things like job salaries or just general financial well-being.
Thanks <comment><USER2> This formula is really, really simple:

S = 25 * N

Where S is the amount of savings you need, denominated in anything you want (present dollars, bars of gold, whatever) and N is the amount you want to spend per year.

The derivation of this formula is decidedly less simple. It comes down to "The overwhelming majority of portfolios with a standard 60:40 stock/bond allocation which model the historical returns of the US stock market will not be depleted within a human life span if you restrict the withdraw rate to 4% per year. Go above that and things start to become dicey, quickly. This is backtestable but, obviously, not forwardtestable."

Thus, if your desired standard of living requires (present day dollars) $40k a year, you would want a million present day dollars saved to retire today.

<comment><USER3> Conservatively speaking, shouldn't 3% more be added in to account for inflation?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clearly this depends on how much you need to make per year, and on how much risk you're willing to tolerate, but given those variables it's not hard to calculate. We can get 5% return at basically no risk, which is on average 2% real yield post-inflation, so you need 50 * N where N is your 'salary' per year. Which is twice what @patio suggests, because I'm allowing a lot less risk than he/she is. So if you want $100K/year, you need $5M.

As has been mentioned in other similar threads, that's "do nothing" money. You'd need a lot less for "do anything" money, where you would continue to work but could choose most any job regardless of what it pays, and/or could work less than full-time.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'd say about 2M.

*0.04 == 80k from passive investments, and put half of that back into the principal to combat inflation.

<comment><USER4> You plan to live indefinitely on $40K/year? Where I live, that's below poverty level for a family.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is more complicated than you may think. For example, if you live in the USA, how do you estimate the dollar's fall in value over the next 10 to 20 years?

<comment><USER6> Also, here in the USA, our government (for very good reasons) underestimates inflation. In the last decade, stuff like the cost of food, medical expenses, and housing have been removed or diminished in the inflation rate calculations. Stuff like the drop in consumer electronics is factored into this calculation with a strong weighting factor.</comment></comment>


Linux Kernel Library - <AUTHOR> http://www.researchgate.net/publication/224164682_LKL_The_Linux_kernel_library <comment><AUTHOR> Though this paper is from 2010. it is interesting because of the recent set of commits. [http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1511.0/01898.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1511.0/01898.html) [http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1511.0/01980.html](http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1511.0/01980.html)

I find it similar to rumpkernel(based on netbsd), but based on linux, so drivers are available for more devices. Wondering if this would allow me to use nvidia CUDA libraries in smartos/illumos.</comment>


Printed RGB colorspace atlas (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.designboom.com/art/tauba-auerbach-rgb-colorspace-atlas/ <comment><AUTHOR> The artist has printed three books that look something like an RGB color- picker. There's an irony to this work that most of the design blogs that have picked it up fail to notice: RGB isn't a print colorspace at all.</comment>


Charles Schwab Buying TD Ameritrade for $26B - <AUTHOR> https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/charles-schwab-buying-td-ameritrade-for-26b <comment><AUTHOR> CNBC now is another source [0]. I expect official news on this to break quickly this morning.

[0] - [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/charles-schwab-in-talks- to-b...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/21/charles-schwab-in-talks-to-buy-td- ameritrade-a-deal-could-be-announced-as-early-as-today-source-says.html)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> More from Reuters:

[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schwab-td-ameritrade-deal- sho...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schwab-td-ameritrade-deal- shows-191133413.html)</comment>


In a Big Network of Computers, Evidence of Machine Learning - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/technology/in-a-big-network-of-computers-evidence-of-machine-learning.html

<comment><USER2> The original article appears is <http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.6209> (as noted in the article).

I did only print it (yet), but from the abstract it appears that they did mainly tried face recognition, not trying to find cats.</comment>


Warning Signs for the Likes of Vitaly Borker @ DecorMyEyes - <AUTHOR> http://blog.junonutrition.com/2010/12/vitaly-borker-and-decormyeyes-vs-paul-seelig-and-great-specialty-products-which-is-the-bigger-fraud/

<comment><AUTHOR> Our site was at the center of uncovering an individual with similar behavior this time last year. There are several similarities that may be helpful in identifying if an online retailer is fraudulent.</comment>


Show HN: I'm building a social news site on top of Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://tweetfad.com/posts/hot/technology/

<comment><AUTHOR> Some features of the website:

\- I've used an exponential decay similar to the one used in HN, except much faster in decaying.

\- Only tweets from today are shown.

\- The rating of a tweet is determined by 2 factors: the number of retweets and the votes on TweetFad (retweets have a much smaller weight compared to votes).

\- Users can add their content by simply including the hashtag '#TwtFad' in their tweets. To submit tweets to a particular category, the users can add #[category_name].

\- For each category, I've added some influential twitter accounts and hashtags to monitor for tweets. These are automatically added to the listing if they have a retweet count greater than a threshold.

I would love to hear the comments and suggestions of the HN community. I'm a long time reader of HN, and this community has helped me learn a lot I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone here!</comment>


This pretty much sums up my position on gun control - <AUTHOR> http://munchkinwrangler.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/why-the-gun-is-civilization/ Read it or don't.... I don't care. <comment><USER2> q.e.d.</comment>


Power-Line Communication - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication <comment><USER2> BPL is a neat concept for very rural areas, but was expensive (iirc a broadband regenerator unit is needed for a certain length of line (Ex: every 1 mile) and is not cheap. Also, the interference for things like radio communications was never really accepted.

<comment><AUTHOR> i dabbled in it early on for LAN usage. This or a varient of this tech is apparently how the electric utility predicts power usage and upgraded line requirements, in my area. they send a report along with your bill and it contains a graph of daily usage, and you can see houly usage and current spikings online. Im sure they know more than they are telling, and probably searched for certain devices before legalization of a certain brand of tobacco.</comment></comment>


Please comment on our startup - The Resumator - <AUTHOR> http://www.theresumator.com

<comment><USER2> very nice. unsure on the price point, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> What do you think would be a fair price?

<comment><USER2> i'm unsure. part of the issue is that i don't have any hiring needs or budget, so my viewpoint is probably skewed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Still, thanks for the comment.

<comment><USER2> no problem. i've not played with it enough, yet, but it seems like a very nicely constructed site and product. i'll have more time to play with it later.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


US generates more electricity from renewables than coal for first time ever - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/26/energy-renewable-electricity-coal-power <comment><USER2> True but misleading. Natural gas has taken over, not renewables. Either way, hope to see an article declaring renewables make more power than natural gas soon.

<comment><USER3> Natural gas emits far less co2 per heat generated (don't know how much exactly). Burning natural gas is bad, but not as bad as burning coal.

<comment><USER4> Getting at the natural gas requires fracking which ruins the surrounding environment. Large swaths of land across the US are uninhabitable with toxic water, soil and air as a result of fracking.</comment></comment></comment>


Tom Wheeler Resigns from the FCC - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/2016/12/tom-wheeler-resigns-fcc-long-net-neutrality/ <comment><USER2> I was recently at a conference in DC called "Transforming Communities: Broadband Goals for 2017 and Beyond" which was largely focused on public policy related to the lack of real broadband in America. Gigi Sohn, who is the counselor to the chairman of the FCC, spoke.

She was very candid about the position of the FCC and the fact that she was finally able to speak her mind because this was going to be one of her last public appearances as a government official. One thing that stuck me was what she said about Tom[1]: "He actually believes that the consumer, the american people, are his clients. He's said that from the first day and he'll say that the day he leaves. Trust me, he doesn't like any of the companies [laughter]". The loss of the current administration of the FCC (including but not limited to Tom) will be a great loss for the American people in my opinion.

The conference was interesting and somewhat sad, because it was planned before the election and probably with the assumption that the new administration would not be totally hostile. Instead of the original direction of "here's what we've done and how we plan to carry these goals forward" it ended up being more of a retrospective on progress that had been made at the federal level that was about to be erased.

From the people I saw, there did not seem to be anyone there representing the new administration.

[1] [https://youtu.be/O5drVTSpH5g?list=LLDlLvM2YAVFtSXvebIrlE0A&t...](https://youtu.be/O5drVTSpH5g?list=LLDlLvM2YAVFtSXvebIrlE0A&t=6509)

<comment><USER3> It's worth noting that whenever there is a change of parties in control, the incumbent party is always going to lament the fact that it's the end of the world. Time will tell if the new FCC administration is actually bad for the consumer.

<comment><USER4> While I in many scenarios in theory could agree with you, this portrayal is very disingenous unless you think Net Neutrality is somehow bad for consumers, because going off party politics on these issues, this WILL be bad.

<comment><USER5> I think Net Neutrality is bad for consumers, because it entrenches dependance on eg. Comcast. Instead, if we'd just let Comcast do whatever it wants with its networks (yes, we have stupidly built a lot of laws/rules around network sharing, that enable nasty behavior by Comcast, et. al.), then they'd jack up the price for whatever they want and (in a handwaving way) we'd have a market for citizen built mesh-networks.

Those are great things.

as a further stretch of the imagination... Fuck Video Bandwidth... why are we encouraging more Netflix with Net Neutrality? Do we really want more television?

Fuck codifying anything about Comcast's business into legal frameworks (laws/regulations/etc...)... let's do what humans have done for many many thousands of years, and communicate among ourselves, instead of through the king's network.

And, to be sure, Comcast is King. Well, money is... Or we wouldn't be worried about FCC chair change-over.

/rant

[ edit - thanks for the down votes ]

<comment><USER6> So what you're arguing is that NN is artificially keeping the cost of network access down? That's actually an argument I haven't heard before. Thus the only companies that can afford to eat the cost of NN are huge ISPs. I don't know whether this is true or not but I'm at least interested.

NN is largely independent of the _type_ of content being sent over the network. NN helps Netflix because they're in competition with services that are owned by or partner with ISPs -- it doesn't, on the surface, seem to foster the creation of more streaming services.

Comcast was extremely anti-NN because they want to push cable and their own streaming services via network restrictions. I'm not sure what part of CC's business is begin codified into NN regulations or what nasty behavior it enables.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a chance to meet Tom Wheeler to discuss net neutrality in the summer of 2014. It was coming off of a bad press cycle for him (John Oliver calling him a dingo), so I didn't know what to expect.

He was extremely reasonable and very receptive to the needs of the tech community and small businesses. I came away from the meeting pleasantly surprised and have been happy with his actions during his tenure. Sad to see him go.

<comment><USER8> That may have been the exact moment that John Oliver jumped the shark.

<comment><USER9> John Oliver was hardly alone in their skepticism that a former lobbyist would make for a good FCC chairman, but I think everybody can agree that he has been a pleasant surprise.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> One of the problems with Net Neutrality is that techies (us) and the media have both had a hard time explaining it clearly.

Meanwhile those opposed have been able to come up with analogies that while false and misleading, are easily understood.

What is the best way to explain the concept that can be quickly understood by those that are non-technical?

<comment><USER11> If all roads were owned by companies, should it be OK for UPS to charge FedEx or ambulances more to drive on its roads?

This is imperfect, obviously, but I think it gets close to the core issues fairly concisely.

Frankly, I, as a citizen, think you should be allowed to sell the pipe, what goes over the pipe, or what the consumer connects to the pipe, but only one of the three. I like that this has reasonably clear divisions and provides competing interests that keep the other parties in check.

<comment><USER12> Yes, UPS should because different vehicles cause different amounts of wear to the roads and take up different amounts of space.

<comment><USER13> But can we truly say that these for-profit, mostly un-regulated telecom providers whose mandate is to make money for their shareholders, will put that money towards "wear to the roads" and "upgrading the road system"? How many homes in America don't have access to Broadband internet? IN 2016?

Even more, how do we know that these telecom providers will only charge as much as is needed for the maintenance of the roads, and not just slap on more costs?

We can't even really blame the telecom companies for this, either, as they do have a responsibility to their shareholders to make as much money as possible, but in a monopolized market, as ISPs are in most cities in America, the government has to step in at some point to protect the consumer's interests.

<comment><USER12> > But can we truly say that these for-profit, mostly un-regulated telecom > providers whose mandate is to make money for their shareholders, will put > that money towards "wear to the roads" and "upgrading the road system"?

Yes, because of competition or the threat of competition. This works for CPU vendors and toll roads; why shouldn't it work for internet service (which is rather fungible)?

> How many homes in America don't have access to Broadband internet? IN 2016?

I don't know; what are you trying to tell me? Are you saying it's too little or everyone has broadband internet?

> We can't even really blame the telecom companies for this, either, as they > do have a responsibility to their shareholders to make as much money as > possible, but in a monopolized market, as ISPs are in most cities in > America, the government has to step in at some point to protect the > consumer's interests.

Assuming a monopoly:

a) Wouldn't antitrust law work if the ISP tried to prioritize their own pages (like their streaming video services)?

b) If people wanted net neutrality the ISP would offer such a plan. But then you might say the ISP will price that too high. But why didn't they price normal non-neutral internet service too high then? The threat of competition forces them to price plans reasonably.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This isn't really news, more of a mere formality. The federal government department heads are all expected to resign or be fired when there's a regime shift in the Oval Office (party change).

<comment><USER15> Incorrect. FCC commissioners serve a term and Wheeler's term was up June 30, 2018, so this is an early resignation and opens up a spot for Obama or Trump to fill.

<comment> shawn-butler According to sources on the hill, his resignation is part of a deal to ensure Jessica Rosenworcel gets confirmed for an additional term.

They won't fill up the spot until the next administration.

<comment><USER16> That's what he was saying he'd do a week ago. The Senate convened on Saturday without acting on Rosenworcel ([http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning- tech/2016/12/tech-...](http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning- tech/2016/12/tech-heads-to-trump-tower-this-week-217815)) and Wheeler quit anyway, so Trump gets a 2-1 majority to start his term.

<comment><USER17> This resignation is very bad for consumers. I'd hoped that Wheeler would stick it out and at least be present to bring consumer perspectives to the discussion and get consumer concerns on the record in commission meetings. But I can understand why he wouldn't personally want to finish out his term as a lame duck dissenter.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> What I'm curious to know, is how will any of this truly affect users who aren't necessarily streaming/torrenting/big bandwidth users, like those who focus on education, research, computer sciences, among others. Not meaning to sound too vague, but speaking for myself, most of the Internet-related things I depend on don't necessarily involve constant high-bandwidth usage (like online gaming, for example). If the internet gets completely throttled I want to know what I have to look forward to.

<comment><USER19> Throttling is far from the only sort of shenanigans ISPs like to play on their subscribers. A very cynical view might be that any (potentially innovative/interesting) network protocols that aren't easily productized will suffer from deprioritization to the point of becoming unusable. The ISP's response will be that you have no business doing that over a home connection, and that you need to pay 10x for a Business class connection.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Dammit. We were so close. So close.

Hang in there, guys..

<comment><USER21> I'm assuming you're referring to getting Net Neutrality? If so, I have a similar sentiment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Got an error when clicking on that link:

"Wired.com is not included in your Comcast Internet Basic package. Click here to upgrade to Comcast Internet Extreme for $9.99 more a month, for access to Wired.com and twenty other premium web sites!"

<comment><USER23> This type of thing has been said for years. I placed a long bet with a friend 7 years ago when he said "in 5 years" we'll have what was described above. Hasn't happened. Won't happen.

<comment><USER24> There's a reason it hasn't happened yet; it's not some sort of deterministic process. Many people worked hard to stop it from happening, and a new FCC chairman could change the status quo.

<comment><USER25> As another example of a self-defeating prophecy, consider Y2K. There was no major disaster because thousands of people worked incredibly hard to make sure there was no disaster.

Sometimes working in technology feels like working stage crew -- the audience doesn't give a crap about your existence until you screw up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Wait, he's the cable industry shill, right? So this is the best news ever?

<comment><USER27> He was the opposite in the recent times. Unlike any of his predecessors, he pushed a tremendous amount of consumer friendly policies and curbed monopolistic abuses of incumbents. He failed to repeal anti-competitive local state laws which ban municipal Internet, but he managed to pass Net Neutrality rules.

It would be a pity if all that effort will be dismantled by corrupted commissioners backed by monopolists who hate competition and progress.

<comment><USER28> Absolutely, he pushed a lot of things forward, as well as cracking down on obvious things like bandwidth capped accounts advertised as "unlimited" etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> ... and announces return to Outback Australia</comment>


Telegram: 1.5m New Brazilian Users, SMS Gateways Overloaded - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/telegram/status/677313217866125314 <comment><USER2> Did 1.5m brazilians just decide to sign up for Telegram, or is number the total amount of Telegram users?

The tweet isn't exactly clear on this and doesn't actually even indicate that these are brazilians.

Edit: This shines some light on it. Brazilian Judge Shuts down Whatsapp, leading to more Telegram users. [http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/16/brazils- congress-has-shut-d...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/16/brazils-congress-has- shut-down-whatsapp-tonight-and-the-rest-of-the-social-web-could-be- next/?ncid=rss)</comment>


Consciousness isn't a mystery - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/opinion/consciousness-isnt-a-mystery-its-matter.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region <comment><USER2> "Mysteriousness" is even more nebulous than consciousness-- to one person something will feel mysterious, and another it won't.

Personally I do not think we know what consciousness is because we can't replicate it or test for it. How "mysterious" is it vs. other mysterious things like the frontiers of physics? Hard to say.</comment>


Automation will be the end of banks as we know them - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/03/automation-will-be-the-end-of-banks-as-we-know-them/ <comment><USER2> No it won't. Not a chance I switch to a below the table bank that conjures up fake financial products and claims them to be sound. My bank will give me hard copy records for free. Once they sent a 200 page fax for free. I'm sick of law breakers claiming their methods are innovation.</comment>


Tell HN: Thanks for everything and have a safe holiday - <AUTHOR>

It seems that everyone I know here on HN has a trip home to family this weekend.  Just wanted to say thank you to the whole community for provoking great thought and discussion and for all your advice, not just to us at Dawdle but for the advice you give all the startups here.  It makes everyone stronger and hopefully more successful.<p>Drive slowly, take your time, and don't forget to tell you parents/siblings/whoever that you love them when you come back to your office/apartment/cage. <comment><USER2> I want to thank every one here on HN who is smarter than me. I am on the low end of the spectrum here on HN, i have only the basic programming knowledge and i have just a little more than a year of experience, and being surrounded by all the smart people on HN i have learned a lot and i am thankful to all that are smarter than me! I also want to thank some of the people that have downmoded my comments, some of them were stupid and i deserved it. Some of you were just assholes and downmoded me because i didn't conform to your view to the world, but you were the exception, most of the people that downmoded me were right!

Happy holidays to HN from me to!</comment>


Apple Event – September 9, 2014 - <AUTHOR>

It is official: http://www.wired.com/2014/08/apple-event-september-9th/ <comment><USER2> The most interesting thing about this is that it's being held at a different venue this year, and apparently one that has historical significance. Per MacRumors:

> Performing Arts at De Anza College in Cupertino, the same location where > Steve Jobs introduced the original Mac 30 years ago.

Let the insane speculation begin!

</comment><comment><USER3> credit card, locked and loaded!</comment>


Web Site Makes Millions by Connecting Cheaters - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88137694 <comment><USER2> I'm going to completely ignore the ethical and moral questions this services raises, and instead focus on this:

 _Don, a 52-year-old IT specialist living in Southern California who, not surprisingly, preferred not to give his real last name, is one of the site's hundreds of users._

I'm hoping this guy didn't give his real first name, either. Southern CA has millions of people, but I bet there are less than 10 who fit that description exactly. Hell, there might only be one.

<comment><USER3> I am reminded of that "33 bits" blog that pops up here periodically. Every living person is uniquely addressable with 33 bits of the right information. "California" is worth 8 bits by itself. Male gets you another 1. Age within one year is probably 6 or so...

Ah, here's that blog: <http://33bits.org/>

Its fundamentally changed the way I think about anonymity. (I used to think it might be possible.)

<comment><USER4> I can't upvote you enough. What an elegantly simple way to think about anonymous data. Thanks for the link.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This site has the exact same problem as AdultFriedFinder, which is that no woman needs it. If one really wants some NSA relations, all she has to do is go to a bar, rather than publicly post her picture on the net where anyone (including her husband) can find it.

I suspect both of those sites are almost entirely men chasing fake accounts.

<comment><USER6> I dunno, there's probably a large market of women who don't really want some NSA relations, but still want to play around like they do. Or that aren't sure if they do or not and just want to dip their toe in. Or that do, but don't have the courage to throw themselves into the bar scene.

<comment><USER5> I think the bar scene is FAR less courageous than AFF.

<comment><USER6> Why? The bar scene, it's you unmediated. Even if you adopt a different persona while you're out, you have to work to keep it going the whole time. Rejection is immediate and in your face, oftentimes cold. If you're not in a huge city, you always risk running into someone you know.

On the web, you can construct whatever reality you want, and you don't have to throw your whole self into it while you do so. You can put up fake pictures, you can flirt from the comfort of your bathrobe. You can keep your anonymity until the actual moment of interaction, and you know the groundrules going in.

<comment><USER5> It's a bunch of slimy, anonymous strangers on AFF. You think the average woman wants anything to do with anyone who would be on AFF?

<comment><USER6> 1\. You're changing the subject, from 'courage' to 'desire'.

2\. We're talking about a woman who goes out and picks up random strangers, either in a bar or online. Is that the 'average' woman?

3\. I wasn't talking about AFF in particular, just the idea of cheating via the internet vs. cheating via the bar scene.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I pride myself on having nearly no ethical or moral constraints, but damn, "Life is short, have an affair!" is a bit much even for me.

And considering it costs roughly $2.50 to send an email it might be cheaper in the long run to just get a divorce. Okay, maybe not...

<comment><USER8> OT: Out of curiosity, why do you pride yourself on having nearly no ethical or moral constraints?

<comment><USER9> Not intending to speak for the poster, I think he's referring to have no ethical or moral constraints when it comes to a business.

There is certainly a lot of money to be made in areas where morals are gray or downright black...

<comment><USER10> Actually, Tom's a crazy psychopath.

(This will be downmodded by reasonable people; YC founders who actually know Tom will upmod. :) )

<comment><USER11> can you cite examples? :P

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Those guys really must enjoy sleeping soundly at night. At best they're taking money from people for dreaming of better partners. At worse they're actually helping people screw each other over.

Along these same lines, we can have sites for people who want to cheat on exams, cheat on taxes. Maybe we could even have sites where people could plot crimes together -- anonymously, of course.

<comment><USER13> those sites already exist and are fairly well established.</comment></comment>


Why Isn't the Price of Broadband Obeying Moore's Law? - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25748/?p1=A4

<comment><USER2> Because the cost of digging up sidewalks, laying fiber, installing routers and switches has F __* all to do with transistor density?

<comment><USER2> Although strangely it does seem that the size of hamburgers does follow Moore's law.

<comment><USER3> And the Burger King quarter-tonner is particularly tasty.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wish the author hadn't decided to use Moore's Law as a standard to measure the price against. It takes away from the point, or maybe is the wrong point entirely. I do feel prices are higher than they need to be for the consumer, and I very much feel this is because I as a consumer (at least where I live) have only one choice in the matter, cable or DSL. I wish we were debating that and not discussing why Moore's Law doesn't apply to this situation.

</comment><comment><USER5> Have a look at the comments on that site. Very US centric. People are proposing all sorts of theories, while ignoring the data point from outside the US. And the article itself points those things out.

</comment><comment><USER6> Because Moore's Law does not apply to broadband.

"Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware." - <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law>

</comment><comment><USER7> Because Moore's law speaks to transistor density, mentions nothing of price, let alone broadband price, and the last mile of the broadband market is dominated by the market forces of regulatory capture and cartels. Also, the dominant technology in the last mile is copper wire, not silicon.

I used to pay $30 a month for dial-up (14.4 Kbps), and now pay $40 for 7.5 Mbps, thats a doubling factor of 8.6 over ~20 years which is roughly 2.3 years per doubling, thats awfully close to Moore's law. The reason prices aren't decreasing is that new applications are coming out which consume the extra bandwidth and that people value the decreased time to load more than the reduced amount of money. It's the same reason that a processor still costs $200.

<comment><USER8> I wish more people would take the small amount of time required to find out what Moore's Law really is. Since it only addresses increases in transistor budgets (due to density), it has nothing to do with price.

Another point that more people need to understand is that price = cost + margin. In a competitive market, that margin is determined by perceived value, so if you managed to convince someone that your widget is worth more than the next guy's, you can charge them a higher price... even if you originally bought the widget from the same supplier as the next guy.

<comment><USER7> The other issue to consider is how much price affects the perception of value.

<comment><USER8> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My Shannon–Hartley theorem applied to a pair of copper wires trumps your Moore's law.

</comment><comment><USER10> Simple.

 _Because it doesn't have to_ (in the USA). The market drives price, not Moore, and people are willing to pay the relatively cheap cost to get internet in most locations.

And because the long tail to distribution in the USA is _very_ long indeed, due to all the space, and that takes a lot of time and money which is sucked from the people who have it / can afford it.

<comment><USER11> What makes me curious is why transistor density _does_ follow Moore's law. My theory is that it sets a benchmark to manufacturers.

<comment><USER12> It's well-known that Intel roadmaps are influenced by the expectations created by Moore's law, yes.

<comment><USER11> Now I'm _really_ interested, could you show me a press release or a news article or something that mentions this? I've long suspected that this was the case but I can't really prove it.

<comment><USER13> There are a couple of references here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#As_a_target_for_i...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#As_a_target_for_industry_and_a_self- fulfilling_prophecy)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Because of the cost of digging up sidewalks etc (as mentioned: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1694456>)

But ALSO because of the massive teaming people calling their cable company when their wireless network doesn't work. Ever wonder why they give away wireless networks with data plans? It's to streamline the service they give to their buyers. It isn't just anybody that can setup a router or diagnose a DNS problem from a loss of connectivity one.

</comment><comment><USER15> Perhaps because of increasing amounts of people wanting broadband, and it being viewed as a civil right, the prices have to be held in order to support the network expansion to the more rural areas?

<comment><USER5> Perhaps. But you should look at what the companies are really spending their money on. That argument only works if the share of (rural) investment in infrastructure is sufficiently high.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why Isn't the Price of Sheep in Sudan Obeying Moore's Law?

</comment><comment><USER17> I pay $2,500/month for full use of a 1gbps circuit at one of my datacenters. 10 years ago I would have paid about $250k/month for that sort of capacity (and another $100k for a router/firewall that could handle it).

Bandwidth has definitely gotten significantly cheaper, which of course doesn't solve the broadband problem. If you live in the suburbs, or on a farm, then you've chosen a lifestyle which is inherently wasteful & inefficient, too much so to facilitate rapid infrastructure upgrades. Move to a city if this matters to you. Here in SF I pay $33/month for a synchronous 100mbps ethernet connection.

<comment><USER18> Who do you use for the 100mbps connection?

<comment><USER17> <http://web-pass.com/> .. We actually found our apartment complex by calling up every building on their list of lit buildings and asking if they had any condos or apartments for rent. Turned out that there are at least 3 other geeks here I know!

My friend John has a similar offer in Seattle too, at <http://condointernet.net/>.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, that's what I figured. Unfortunately, I'm not willing to move for an internet connection.

(For those who are wondering, this is an extremely special case -- most home bandwidth in the bay area is in the <10Mbps range, asymmetric. The OP is using a service that's available at only a handful of SF apartment buildings.)

<comment><USER17> It's growing, quickly. Others are entering this space, their main obstacle (besides the cost of running fiber) is that so many buildings have signed exclusivity agreements with comcast which have questionable legality. The economics make it easier to do in a city.. pay $20k to run fiber to a building with 1100 units, sell 25% of those units at $35/month, you gross $120k/year from that building. You probably have another $10k-$12k in equipment costs per building as well, but this sort of a network is quite simple to run.

This sort of connectivity will never be feasible in the suburbs without massive government subsidies (something I had hoped our current administration would see the value in).</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


"He started programming when he was 6" - <AUTHOR> http://mjohn5ton.com/blog/2011/9/1/he-started-programming-when-he-was-6.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think most people are bragging about when they started programming.

For me, it's just a fact I throw out to emphasize that it's my life, not just a hobby or a job. It's seriously part of who I am, right to the core.

For the record, it was 4th grade for me... About 10 years old. Had it been younger, I'm sure I'd still have glommed onto it just the same... That was just the first exposure I got. Hint: Expose your kids to things young. It could make a big difference in their lives.

<comment><USER3> I agree with this. The author seems to think that saying you started programming early is some sort of statement about virtuosity, but at least for me, it was more about curiosity.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see how you got that. My argument was somewhat unclear, but the point I was trying to make was that celebrating the age at which people started programming makes it seem less accessible to those who don't program. And I think that's counterproductive to the goal of encouraging more people to program at all ages (which is a goal you may or may not agree with).

The discussions below about sports are interesting, though. Lots of kids seem to play basketball even though (or arguably because) the stars are put on pedestals. But not everyone plays basketball.

<comment><USER4> Totally agree with 'seem less accessible' part.

Starting to program at the age of 6 is nice and good(if that is out of curiosity), but for me - I'd say - wait for sometime,do the things that you are supposed to do at that age, and when the time comes to be different, you'll know and follow it then. There is no point in bragging about when a person started to code.He might miss out on a lot of things as a child which might make him a different person and constrict his 'social' network. As a child spending more time in the programming world is not desirable, after all we all are programming towards making things work like humans would work, and we are missing out on the 'being human' part by programming in the time in which we are still growing as a human?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm a big believer in the 10,000 hours thing, but people always forget the 'deliberate practice' part. The reason I'm still a bad driver after easily putting in 10,000 hours is that I've never tried to get better.

I started programming much later in life but my skills improved quickly because I made (and still make) an effort to put in 1-3 hours a night of practice, doing exercises, trying something new, etc. Writing 10k hours of code does not make one an expert (otherwise there wouldn't be so many awful programmers out there).

The real advantage to those who start young is that later on in life they don't have the start up cost of lots of fumbling and learning just to get started. Additionally if they go the CS route a lot of the intro classes will be easier allowing them to get ahead faster if they so choose.

The same is true of musicians, if you think back to high school there's tons of kids that play guitar, but the group that goes home and practices scales all night rather than just playing their favorite songs tend to be the ones that go one to be serious musicians later on.

<comment><USER6> Absolutely right. I don't remember what age I started programming. I'm 34 now and I started by typing in BASIC programs from Byte magazine when I was in elementary school.

I was an awful programmer until I started doing it professionally. It was only then that I deliberately worked at improving at it.

Now I'm in college but if I had gone after high school my only advantage would have been a familiarity with the tools and syntax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> "Programming is so hard that in order to be good at it, you should've started when you were young."

Strawman.

Putting in 10,000 hours on _anything_ is so hard that you should've started when you were young. That way when everything else in life (schooling, emotional & physical maturity, legalities, social networking, etc.) converges you're ready to take full advantage of the opportunity at a point where most would-be competitors are just getting their bearings.

I started programming in 4th grade. For medical reasons, bypassed the usual school sports route and got in 2-6 hours every day programming. Sold my first program before leaving high school, having already gotten my 10,000 hours in. First two jobs were programmer - before college. Not bragging; making the point that there's no way I could have been that far ahead of fellow students without having started at age 10. It's not that it was hard, it was that I couldn't have gotten to that level of mastery of _anything_ by graduation had I not started early.

Kicking numbers around, I notice that 4 years of college amounts to cramming that 10,000 hours in on the subject of your choice once you realize you in fact need to master a subject to make a living.

</comment><comment><USER8> I started "programming" when I was somewhere around 6, when my stepfather made me type 4000 line BASIC programs into his Commodore 64 out of a hobbyist magazine. He taught me very simple debugging (syntax error on line 1230? 1225 GOTO 1235 and retype that line on 1235).

I barely understood what the code was doing, but it ingrained in me from a very young age that programming was something that I was capable of doing. I never thought that that programming was some mystical art beyond the capabilities of mere mortals, it was just another toy to play with.

Later on in 1st and 2nd grade, I used to impress my friends and teachers by writing very simple choose your own adventure games in BASIC during computer class. This taught me that not only could I do it, it was something that was WORTH doing, and later in 5th-6th grade my group always had the best Logo programs and Lego Logo creations. When I got my first modem (300 baud), AT commands didn't faze me one bit and I discovered the magic world of BBSes, text-based games on GEnie, and eventually the Internet. Teaching myself HTML in 8th grade was a snap, and my friends and I used to always try to one-up each other with our webpages (I was so jealous when my friend Dylan got on Cool Site of the Day with his paper airplane page).

I honestly don't think that I'm smarter than your average hacker or that I have some innate aptitude for programming. I would say that learning even simple programming at a young age is extremely valuable because it instills a hacker mindset in you. Like the article says, if you can read, type, and think, you can program. Starting from a young age, you never question that. The biggest obstacle to learning how to program when you're older is convincing yourself that you can actually do it.

</comment><comment><USER9> I started programming when I was about 8, but I'd never admit it because that means I've been programming for over 30 years and I'm still _this_ awful at it.

<comment><USER10> Indeed. "I've been doing X for Y years" doesn't tell me anything about how good someone is at X, but it does set expectations about how much their level may change in the near future.

If you've been writing C++ for a year, there's a good chance you'll get much better at it within the next year. If you've been doing it for 20 years, chances are your improvement over the next year will be marginal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I think the key word here is "intensity".

For example, it is typical in martial arts to hear people bragging that they did Kung-Fu for 5 years or Karate since age 10. But if the training was nothing more than a 30 min warmup once or twice a week at a downtown studio with "World of Karate" sign, it is actually worse than not having any training at all. People with such training track genuinely overestimate their ability and put them self through unnecessary health risks.

Someone who followed peer-reviewed journals on software and design and implemented complex system in a 5 year span is simply going to be better anyone who did HTML/Javascript websites for 20 years, no matter what their age difference is or when they started programming.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm curious here: would HNers please share their stories or knowledge of people who are good programmers, and who started 'late' in their lives? (Say - 18 and older, as an arbitrary metric).

Of course, what a good programmer means would probably vary from person to person - I'd appreciate it if you mention in passing what you mean by it.

<comment><USER13> I didn't do any programming until my senior year of high school, in a terrible intro to C++ class. I learned very little; I produced some small programs that solved brain teasers, but I had very little understanding of what I was doing. I had almost no understanding of how the program worked, no concept of the abstractions I was using, and no understanding of how a computer system worked. I didn't truly start programming until my freshmen year of college. (And 11 years later, I actually taught a section of that college course.)

I consider myself a good programmer. I have an understanding of the whole system stack (processor, kernel, the kind of code the compiler produces to support the abstractions I use, and understanding of the semantics of the languages I use), and I can reason about and implement non-trivial systems with understandable solutions.

My papers and some code are available here: <http://people.cs.vt.edu/~scschnei/>

<comment><USER14> In the companies I have worked at, there were always a bunch of 45+ programmers who were quite good at it. Most of them seem to have started only in their early 20s. (Anecdotal of course)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sidebar: you'd have to have access to a computer at 6 to start programming at 6. This was not a given even for a lot of Gen Y today. Not to mention the parental (or other source) mentoring and guidance that leads to a kid pursuing programming as a hobby at 6. While this is an easy opportunity in middle-upper class families, not every capable kid is going to grow up in that type of environment. IMO, this is where access to technology is a equal opportunity issue, as these high tech jobs and paths to entrepreneurship now often pass through these formative years in childhood.

<comment><USER16> Back in my day, the BBC Micro ecosystem meant that your parents had very little to do with it -- you had access to a good programmable computer at school. I was lucky enough to have a ZX Spectrum at home, which my (decidedly not middle/upper-class) parents bought to keep me occupied with games, and which I figured out how to program; but there was no mentoring, guidance or stacked decks of computer science PhD parents in my history, and neither in many of the histories of similar inquisitive kids who had a manual and a basic home computer.

I'm actively thinking about ways the technology of today can be used to bring back this golden age of opportunity, thoughts are welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well, the analogy "I started talking at 2" _is_ silly, because _everyone_ starts talking around that time (assuming normal circumstances), it's built in, while starting to learn other skills at a very young age would sound impressive. Consider someone who says "I started to play the piano when I was 4", wouldn't you be impressed?

I think we all agree that the earlier you start somethings the better you get at them, e.g. by age eight they say you are too late to start learning the violin, if you want to become extremely good with it. Learning a language is like this, too. Is programming, or for that matter math one of these skills? I think early exposure definitely helps, but is by no means a determining factor for later success.

<comment><USER12> I have two responses: (both in agreement)

1) We don't see such comparisons in some fields, which I find curious - tennis, for instance, is one where all its stars started playing at a young age. Nobody really comments on the age these players started playing anymore, since it's taken for granted that to be good you _have_ to start really young.

2) G. H. Hardy makes a somewhat related observation in A Mathematician's Apology:

 _To take a simple illustration at a comparatively humble level, the average age of election to the Royal Society is lowest in mathematics. We can naturally find much more striking illustrations. We may consider, for example, the career of a man who was certainly one of the world's three greatest mathematicians. Newton gave up mathematics at fifty, and had lost his enthusiasm long before; he had recognized no doubt by the time he was forty that his greatest creative days were over._

[http://amathematiciansapology.pandamian.com/4/#p[IhbHmb],h[I...](http://amathematiciansapology.pandamian.com/4/#p\[IhbHmb\],h\[IhbHmb,3,4,5,6,7,8\])

In fact, I would think that chess and math and perhaps programming(?) are more similar, and starting young seems almost to be a constant amongst its greats. So I'm really curious if anyone here on HN can point to a counter-example.

<comment><USER18> I think you have to start very young in most sports now, not just tennis. I know swimming is that way, and Michael Phelps is a bit of an exception because he started training at the late age of 7!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> A correlation to this is "I've been doing this for 20 (or 25, or 30, whatever) years..." whenever someone is trying to establish themselves as a position of authority,

My standard response is a knee-jerk: "You can be bad at something for 20 years, it's not something you should point out, though."

It's fine if you are having a discussion and some context is helpful, such as, "I've been selling residential real estate in the area for about 20 years" as opposed to "Why would I need to protect against SQL injection? I've been working with databases for 20 years and it's never been a problem."

</comment><comment><USER20> If you chimed in on this thread just so you can say what age you started programming, then chances are, this behavior is just exactly what the author is talking about.

What annoys me the most is when these forms of expression are injected as a way to gain legitimacy, because quite frankly, its just narcissistic and shows insecurity.

Its the same league as saying 'oh, look I believe my penis actually is bigger than yours'. -- 'Oh hmm okay, cool, good for you, you are so special.'

SHOW ME THE FUCKING CODE!

</comment><comment><USER21> Most of the people I know started coding before 14 years of age. I think it's difficult for older people to learn simply because older people don't have the time to commit to coding, since there are other obligations, like work, etc.

Wish they made a website like that for C++.

<comment><USER22> That's selection bias. I'm guessing you don't know wide amounts of people who learned to code something real after finding VBA was a few miles short of where they needed to go.

Work in a non-computer industry, you'll see several people who learn to code at 25+ or even 35+. They often don't take huge amounts of self esteem out of this (it's just another thing they do at work) and don't go hog wild for "geek culture", but they program nonetheless. They often think people who _do_ go far into that stuff will be contemptuous of them, so may be hiding it from you. I know I have a reputation of being nice to everyone but liars, and have had lots of questions on this stuff from random professionals about their personal coding

There is little that is special about this thing we do in the grand scope of things that humans do.

BTW, professional assistant/secretarial types love them some VBA/bash scripting once they figure out what it is (a way to do less repetitive work). I've seen 3 take up automation of excel or word.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I disagree with this on so many levels.

"My biggest problem with celebrating the young age at which some people started programming is that it sends the wrong message. It says: 'Programming is so hard that in order to be good at it, you should've started when you were young.'"

In what way is this the "wrong message?" I think it's perfectly fair. Yes, programming (well) is difficult, and yes, starting at a young age will have more of a transformative effect on the way you think.

As the son of a computer programmer and a math professor, I was exposed to large amounts of math at a young age, and learned a little calculus before finishing elementary school. High school didn't have anything more advanced than calculus to teach me, so my peers (the math majors among them, at least) have more or less caught up to me in how much math they've been exposed to. But - in my opinion, at least, and maybe I'm just a narcissist - I'm fundamentally more of a quantitative thinker than they are.

"Were you programming non-trivial apps soon after you wrote your first line of code? Did you immediately proceed to program lots of apps, even complex ones, all by yourself, and collect payment for your work?"

Most people who start programming young make games, because that's what kids think computers are for. As a kid, I made scores of computer games. Games are complex and, when done well, independently developing games can be extremely stimulating. Before I turned 10 I was tackling things like I/O, creating intuitive user interfaces, sound, 2D graphics, and rudimentary AI. In each instance I had few resources and no training so I had to come up with ad hoc solutions myself. That I went through this process, and that I did it _young_ , has been a huge benefit to me throughout the rest of my life.

And, side note: payment makes absolutely zero difference to your ability to do something well.

Disclaimer: I started when I was 7, so I may be biased. Not to brag or anything.

Edit: if you disagree, a comment is more helpful than a downvote.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's only the "wrong message" to people who aren't young anymore and don't program yet, which is most people. It makes programming seem less accessible.

To young people, I agree: start now.

I realize this seems circular, and there's probably a better way to make my point. My motivation is all the non-programmers I meet who think programming is scary. I don't believe it is (hence the mention of codecademy.com at the end of the post).

As for payment, you're right: making something people want is a better measurement of value, regardless of whether others pay for it, and even that's not a complete measurement of your ability. But Mozart made money early, which is why I mentioned it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Well I've had the pleasure of working with someone who started programming when they were 6, is proud that they did so, and seems to believe that all you need is a belief that it can be done. Said individual was very good at delivering cut-and-paste work and "hacking" it so the page loaded from a straightforward database. But the first sign of a business requirement beyond this resulted in delay after delay, excuse after excuse and promise after promise. Eventually they were let go. The guy could talk the talk all day, and get the first week or even month of tasks done. But beyond that, a total failure, and on increasingly critical tasks.

So, no, someone _saying_ that they've been programming since they were 6 is _not_ a useful indicator.

</comment><comment><USER25> I don't know if there is any correlation between the age someone started coding and the quality of the code they produce, but you can be sure that someone who programmed as a kid enjoys the practice[1], which is orthogonal and also important.

[1] or at least used to enjoy it

</comment><comment><USER26> This is spot on.

The whole "I've been programming since X" attitude is BS and does nothing but continue stereotypes, I suspect stuff like this is a big part of why there's such a lack of diversity in CS.

As someone who "started programming at 14" and a current CS undergrad, I know enough to know that I know next to nothing. I know plenty of people who'd never programmed before college who are way better at it than me.

That said, I would really love to see programming taught early on, since I'm sure a lot of people who'd really love it get put off by this sort of attitude and just never get exposed to CS (every chance I get, I point people towards my school's excellent intro classes).

</comment><comment><USER27> _The age you started programming doesn't matter._

Totally agree. I don't even remember when I started programming. My parents say I was 3 or 4. But before I can remember (supposedly on a Vic 20 but first computer I remember was the BBC Micro!). And while it may have helped me have an _interest_ in programming later on, I'm pretty sure it hasn't helped my aptitude.. hard practice and effort, even as an adult, are the only things that help there.

There are plenty of people who started coding as teenagers or even adults who could code me into a corner in seconds. Starting at a young age may foster the initial interest but it's not going to help the long-term skill IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER28> The age you started programming doesn't matter.

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

Sure it does ... if they've been programming pretty regularly from age 6, by the time they're 20 they have 14 years of solid experience on someone who starts at the same age, plus you pick things up much quicker when your younger. Its the reason a lot of sports professionals (even musicians) start out pretty young.

Starting at a later age doesn't mean you can't be very good, it's just that _all things being equal_ the person who started earlier has an advantage over you, lets not try to act like that doesn't matter ;)

</comment><comment><USER29> Good Point. I was interested in computers all my life.

I went to a computer class when I was like 14 and was first in the class (they taught how to use MS Paint, Play prince of persia and solitare, I knew using MS Office). Then the summer class was over, and from then, I only used computers from browsing cafes sparingly.

After seven long years, I got my own PC. Then, I learned lot of things, everything on my own with the help of generous people in the interwebz. After three years, I started my first company, with my first computer. While I started, I was proficient with HTML/CSS and fairly okey with PHP. I've built real websites and worked for real clients, all because of 3 years of my hobby time.

/End_Brag

My Point is, if you like programming or hacking tech stuff, then amount of time doesn't matter.

The only envy I have with coding kids is, they are free, in the sense they don't have pressure to earn money, as we adults have, So, they can enjoy the fun part of programming more.

</comment><comment> buff-a _The age you started programming doesn't matter._

False. But it is only one indicator, and people lie.

I believe that there is natural aptitude, there is experience, and finally there is motivation.

The age you started programming is most certainly an indicator for experience, and also I believe motivation. But it is only an indicator, not an accurate measure. If someone started programming at age 6, but didn't do anything with it till college, then they have less experience than a social outcast who came home from school every day and programmed to the detriment of homework. It would also suggest a lack of motivation.

Logically, the best programmer maximizes all three, but how does one measure them and how common is such a person?

</comment><comment><USER30> I can see why you would argue that you need early exposure to become a programming prodigy, but I honestly don't see why you would say that all hope of becoming a "good" programmer is lot by the time you're in your early/mid/late teens (or at any other age for that matter). I always saw programming as a meritocratic field where motivation and determination got you a long way as long as your code stood the distance. As a CS college student, I see a fair amount of people who have been coding for years being blown out of the water by people who hardly programmed before college. They might not be prodigies, sure, but saying that they'll never become serious programmers is a pretty narrow-minded statement.

</comment><comment><USER31> I often say that as a starting point to establish my background but I follow it up with: in my teens I wrote shareware games for pocket money, I did comp- sci for 3 years at high school and after school did I a 3 year course in IT. And now I have been doing commercial software development for nearly 18 years.

The advantage of starting early of course was that I looked like a boy genius when I first started working in the industry but actually I just had, had more experience then my peers and I have always been able to stay ahead of the curve ssince then :-)

Scarily this all means that I have been coding almost daily for 30 years which is conservatively is more then 35000 hours...

</comment><comment><USER32> > How silly would it be if we bragged this way about other things? "I've been > talking since I was 2!"

Actually not silly at all if the language is something your job requires, like a second language.

Experience matters. A lot.

</comment><comment><USER33> Haha.. A little ominous but also kind of encouraging. I started at 27 and am now 29. My path has been biotech grad in industrial lab, kindergarten teacher in Japan, handling manufacturing and accounting for a Japanese toy camera maker, PHP hackishness and now joyfull obsession with ruby and JavaScript.. By all accounts I should give up now but it's just too much fun. Oh, and when I was 6 I mainly liked Lego, futzing about with a chem set, digging trenches and searching for frogs at the river and exploring forests with 2 dogs. Not exactly career enhancing activities but I'd say it was time well spent.

</comment><comment><USER34> The best programmers I've hired where those who love programming. It's probably the case for any skills. The critical question I ask is if the developer has personal programming projects. It's usually an indication that the person breathes/loves the stuff.

Starting at an early age is great but doesn't mean much. Continuing doing it with dedication and just for fun into adult life is awesome. If you're still sticking with it professionally and still liking it, chances are you're a great developer. But of course, that kind of path works from whatever age you start getting into it.

</comment><comment><USER35> I absolutely agree with this article. I had never done any programming before college (6 years ago). On the first day of my freshmen year I began learning HTML. It was completely new to me at the time. After graduating I'd noticed that my coworkers 1.5 times my age who had been programming since they were in middle school were frequently coming to me for help.

The reason, I believe, is that our industry is constantly evolving. Once you've learned the basic concepts of programming, the only thing left to do is to keep up with new technologies as they come.

</comment><comment><USER36> Another true gem is "The team has 120 years of combined experience between them". Never could quite figure out what a person who wrote something like this meant to actually say.

</comment><comment><USER37> I started programming (in C64 BASIC) at 3, but I didn't get really serious about learning to program well until my twenties. I think the latter experience (and intensive self-study program) was a lot more important.

</comment><comment><USER38> Hmmm, this is probably a good way to get in touch with hackers on HN who actually started programming at the age of x, don't you think? Are you hiring at the moment?

</comment><comment><USER39> Did my first programming at age 10 or 11, but I can't say I wrote any _decent_ code until I was 20 or something.

</comment><comment><USER40> What total BS. The truth is that if you ask good programmers, they almost all started before they were 15, most before they were 10. Almost all contributors to Debian are the same way. The vast majority DON'T talk about it, it's assumed.

It's pretty damned rare for somebody to learn late in life (after 18). That's the hard ugly truth of the matter.

<comment><USER41> Late in life is after 18? Where in the world did you get this number from? Are you saying that if you're 20 or older you can't learn anything else?

Yes it's true that a lot of programmers started early but please you are making the correlation == causation fallacy here. There's NO proof that starting earlier means you're better. I've met some really good programmers who started later in life because they thought they wanted to do something else, and when they found programming, it clicked, and then went crazy with it.

Time spent doesn't mean you're better after that time. Time spent trying to get better DOES mean you'll get better over time, and that has nothing to do with how early you start.

This also isn't only for programming but any profession.

<comment><USER42> I don't see where the post you replied to implied causation.

<comment><USER41> What I read is he said "as many good programmers started programming young, it must then be true that starting young makes you a good programmer."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Curiosity and prodigy go hand in hand!</comment>


The Book of Plex, Volume III: Plex Cloud - <AUTHOR> https://www.plex.tv/blog/book-plex-volume-3-plex-cloud/ <comment><USER2> this is going to bomb. most Plex users pirate their content and aren't going to be too keen on uploading it all to Amazon's servers. I love Plex and use it daily but this wasn't a well thought out idea.</comment>


Moving Fast with Software Verification - <AUTHOR> https://research.facebook.com/publications/422671501231772/moving-fast-with-software-verification/ <comment><USER2> I like it, finally someone is talking more about real-world user-facing impact of software verification. Facebook is using OCaml and their partnership with INRIA is awesome</comment>


Watch live today SpaceX to launch first astronaut mission for NASA - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html <comment><USER2> Liftoff is set for 4:33 p.m. EDT (2033 GMT).</comment>


An open letter to thesixtyone.com - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulbailey.us/2010/01/21/an-open-letter-to-thesixtyone-com/

<comment><USER2> If the author reads HN.... You've been hacked. Try visiting your site with JavaScript disabled:

<http://imgur.com/GkFJ7>

...unless you're trying to up your SEO with the Viagra crowd.

Tried to comment this on the blog, but registration is turned off. Sending an email at the "contact me" page a note...

<comment><USER3> changed comments and found the code in my header.

thx

<comment><USER4> Still there

<comment><USER2> Gone now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I've spent more time on the site today than I have any other day in the past.

My problem before was that I would quickly scan through artist names/song titles and listen to one here or there and then move on. Now I give almost every song a chance before I go to the next. I get instant visual connection with each artist via the high-res pic, and i'm diving deeper into learning about artists with the little bios and pics that pop up during playback.

This is a win for music discovery UI's, even though it may be a loss for the social network aspects of their site.

</comment><comment><USER6> The author of this post has nailed this on the head. Without viewable lists the discovery part of thesixtyone seems to be lost.

I was/am a big fan of the site but this new UI has kind of sucked the wind out of it for me. I feel like thesixtyone is now an extremely unintuitive web- based version of iTunes that I have absolutely no control over. Or, even worse, a weird music centered web screensaver.

The interface is definitely slick and would have made a great alternate means of using the site but as the sole method of getting around it might be a bit too cumbersome. I suppose, as with all things, people will get used to this and simmer down... at least I hope so for the sake of the folks behind the site.

</comment><comment><USER7> The problem here is not that there is change, but the manner in which the site was changed. I'm going to repost my comment from the earlier T61 post because I think it's relevant.

As a relatively new artist (about a year), thesixtyone has been an amazing place. I met a lot of new people, generated interest in my music and learned a lot from the other artists there.

With the redesign that's all gone. All of the community and social aspects of the site have disappeared and we are left staring a giant background image. I didn't go to the sixtyone to look at cover art. I went to listen to music and to discuss it with my friends and fans.

The other thing I find baffling is that they were making real money with tip and album system. Fans were actually supporting the artists directly. It was working. That feature has been buried in this design. And, by burying the discussion between artists and fans, they have effectively killed the primary reason to tip an artist.

The worst part about it is that James and Sam don't talk with their absolutely fanatical users. There was no mention that a redesign this drastic was going to happen. There was no beta period for testing. All of those people commenting on the T61 Facebook page are their true fans. James and Sam haven't said a single word.

</comment><comment><USER8> This letter is very contradictory to the tweet I sent out earlier today:

 _@jzy That is a wicked UX. Love the website. Re:<http://thesixtyone.com/> _(<http://twitter.com/mattwdelong/status/8037231259>)

Reminds me of the uproar when Facebook makes changes; go with it people. On another note, if it WASN'T for this change, I wouldn't know about this site. I listened to it for a couple hours today and then tossed the link to a musician friend of mine who is well entrenched in the Atlantic Canadian music scene.

<comment><USER9> If this is the first time using the site I could see not having a problem but I stopped using the site when they first made heavy javascript visualizations automatically occur after a certain time. I saw that there was a new UI and went to check it out today and I must say it is awful, it took me a minute to find where to login and once I logged in the reputation points for songs started appearing in the middle of the page (used to be at the bottom right and weren't really annoying), and the whole thing just seems terrible and I can't even use it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a definite win for thesixtyone. Thanks to the publicity surrounding the change (whether negative or positive), a whole lot of new users have been introduced to it. Existing users still have <http://old.thesixtyone.com/> to fall back on. And if the new site doesn't work out, they can always switch it back.

</comment><comment><USER3> @spydez thanks for pointing out that my site was hacked. any idea how i remove it? (i'm just a musician, not a webdev)

<comment><USER11> search for "graduate.asu.edu" in your database and public_html directory.

        cd dir_my_website_installed
        grep -R "graduate.asu.edu" *.*

<comment><USER3> thanks

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I feel as strongly as the author that the new UI basically screwed up the 'character' of the site, but most importantly its usability. For the first time in the last three months I did not spent time on the site. The new UI looks good but it doesn't flow well. In any case it is my strong belief that any site redesign should be incremental and not as dramatic as this one.

<comment><USER13> Anecdotally, I had the same experience as well. I usually have t61 on most of the day (including the first day I ever used the old interface). I purposefully didn't use <http://old.thesixtyone.com/>, to see if using the new interface stuck. It didn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow this is incredibly timely. A coworker and I listened to the sixty one non stop last summer in the office and it sort of dropped off after a few months. Today of all days we wonder what that site is up to and cry when we see the new UI. I can't understand why they made such a huge UI shift but I really can't stand the new design.

</comment><comment><USER15> Here is my thought process in trying to navigate the new site. I'm typing it up as I go through it so it's very rant-like:

This new UI is a nightmare to navigate. I was trying to listen to some songs I had saved. Where are my saved songs? I guess I'll go to my profile. Hmmm, no "Saved" link. History seems close enough. Not exactly what I'm looking for but some of the songs are there. I guess I'll remake my saved list. Maybe this "+" symbol? Nope, that's for playlists. Okay, close enough. How do I find the old songs I liked that I want to put on my playlist? Where's the search? How do I navigate by category? I guess I'll click explore. Well that took me to another page and started playing a different song. Definitely not what I wanted. At least I found the "search" link in the "explore" dropdown. Well, this search sucks. I'm trying to find The Bloody Beetroots so I search for "bloody". It brings up a list of songs with bloody in them. Fair enough. I'll just click "artist" to search for artists. Nothing happened. Does this mean it timed out? Are there no results? Screw this I just want to listen to the two songs I got into my playlist. Shit where is my playlist? I guess go back to my profile. Ah there it is. I just click on this song to play it. Good good. I'd like to skip to the next song in my playlist. How about this giant green arrow button pointing to the right? Nope, that just stopped the song. Nothing else happened. Ah, it's because I was on the last song. Well back to my profile to get to the first song. Screw this.

</comment><comment><USER13> For those of you who haven't used the site before, the old version is at <http://old.thesixtyone.com/> for you to explore.

<comment><USER16> Spot the difference: <http://meccho.com/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This site has been hacked. I'm not jumping through the hoops to get a login to post a comment. View source and search over it for "viagra". Or turn off javascript (used to hide the links) and you can see it. Browser beware, though I think this is just a wordpress hack.

</comment><comment><USER18> on a positive note, i tend to discover more music with the new layout. and i take time to enjoy the discovery process a bit more, rather than rush through it.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm all for new layouts and ideas - people will get over changes like this. Facebook redesigns have taught us many times.

From what I can tell though, Sam and James could've done a much better job of communicating and working through the changes with their current users, especially power users. A "what's changed" and why guide would've been useful; the one blog post they wrote is not sufficient.

<comment><USER14> Facebook never scrapped their entire UI and eliminated wall posts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> People really hate change.

I am sure t61 team will fix the smaller issues around the design, but I think the new UI is likely here to stay.

<comment><USER21> Well, the business should probably be interested in what their users hate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> the new site is nice-ish, but without question the prior site is superior...vastly so. why make such a huge divergence from the prior design? its a step backwards - I hate to say it. The new site is a tv station...that's not progress.

However, I do see how - like a tv station - they may be looking at this from an ad persepctive...

</comment><comment><USER18> this design actually makes more sense in my mind. i used the old site mostly to replay my favorites until i got tired of them. i think they want you to take that behavior off the site and onto your mobile devices (so download or buy the song if you prefer to listen to them on autoplay). i think the site pushes you fully in the direction of new music discovery, and i welcome that change. i've discovered much more music since the site changed, my habits are completely different now.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think the author may also like a faster horse

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I find the new site to be one of the most beautiful, and innovative sites I have yet to seen. Unfortunately they gave up a site with fantastic usability, and many users are up in arms about this. So up in arms they're spreading the word about how much they detest the new layout which is having the effect of bringing in record number of listeners.

The entire scenario is extremely interesting.

<comment><USER23> I agree. Wow. What a site! What's wrong with it? (are my thoughts)

Only a few minor issues with usability though, like "what does this button do" how do I "find a different category of music" that was solved by clicking a couple of buttons.

<comment><USER7> If it's your first time on the site, nothing is wrong with it. It looks awesome.

But if you've been using it for a year or two, you'll find that all of the social interaction between fans and artists is gone. The group interaction is gone. Your saved songs are gone.

It's a very pretty shell of what it used to be.

<comment><USER18> i thought my saved songs were gone too. they're not, they're just in "history."

and if you use your keyboard to tap next, it should persist on that window and not switch album covers. at least it was for me.

<comment><USER9> In my history it is the history of hearted songs not my saved songs which before I stopped using thesixtyone I used as a playlist on shuffle (I never really liked tagging songs).

<comment><USER18> i think the new site is about discovery. if you like the music, stick it on your iphone or listen to it in itunes--it probably consumes a lot of bandwidth to constantly replay the same music. use the site to find new music. that's just my opinion on it.

<comment><USER7> The old site was about discovery. I found more new music through the old T61 than any other way I've tried. New t61 doesn't provide a very good method of discovery. It's hard to see which artists are related.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Private Share Sales Getting Bigger - <AUTHOR> http://www.pehub.com/58270/private-share-sales-getting-bigger/

<comment><USER2> This got me thinking: it'd be nice if there were something like sharespost for startups at the seed stage. For instance, a site where you can post your pitch and sell equity in your startup to raise initial capital. With low enough valuations I'm sure it would attract buyers, especially if there were easy diversification options (kinda like lendingclub has) for buyers.

Is there anything like that?

</comment><comment><USER2> Also, does anyone else think that this accredited investor stuff is BS? Why is it darn-near-impossible to invest in private companies unless you have $1mil?</comment>