California's housing bill SB 50 has died in the state Senate - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/30/californias-controversial-housing-bill-sb-50-fails/4614387002/ <comment><USER2> California has a more principled approach to housing capacity planning called RHNA, in which the state sets a zoning budget (like that proposed by David Schleicher [https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/4955/](https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/4955/)) and then delegates to local governments the responsibility to zone to allow enough houses to meet that budget. Unfortunately, the RHNA has numerous flaws including vastly underestimating the "need," lax enforcement, and having very long cycles. Scott Wiener has previously addressed the flaws somewhat (SB 35 (2017) and SB 828 (2018)), but there is still a lot that must be done to fix the RHNA; see this good overview for more information and potential administrative improvements ([https://law.ucdavis.edu/centers/environmental/files/Elmendor...](https://law.ucdavis.edu/centers/environmental/files/Elmendorf_et_al_Making- It-Work1.pdf))

The appeal of Wiener's SB 50 was that it would have quickly increased the capacity of housing using fairly good heuristics to improve access to opportunity (already residential, near transit stops or jobs, not high fire risk). It's unfortunate that the state senate doesn't seem to want to treat the housing shortage with the urgency that it deserves.

<comment><USER3> Principled is a way of making it sound less terrible than 'restrained'. California is a perfect example of what happens when you let environmentalists handle housing policy, the poor suffer because environmentalism is classism in disguise in these social contexts.

<comment><USER4> This is literally the exact opposite of what an environmentalist would want in terms of urban growth and planning. Environmentally friendly planning means you have housing near where people work to avoid highly polluting long commutes.

The problem is NIMBY bullshit in the purest sense. People will use every excuse in the book to prevent new housing in their neighborhood. While a fair amount of the time environmental policies are abused to block development, zoning laws are also abused, parking/ land use legislation, hell I've seen houses blocked because they increase the _shade_ in a park by 2% for half an hour during the evening.

None of this is "environmentalism", its rich people standing on a high hill screwing over everyone else beneath them.

<comment><USER5> It's not rational environmentalism, but I'm sure a lot of NIMBYs are honestly convinced they're fighting for Mother Earth, and the simultaneous explosive value increase of their home is purely coincidental.

Motivated Reasoning is a hell of a thing!

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

<comment><USER6> Prop 13 and rent control both highly encourage NIMBYism and I would say are more important factors than property values. If a large apartment is built next to your house and you don't like the extra noise, the big shadow, and lots of people looking into your back yard, you could decide to move. Without prop 13 selling your house and moving a few blocks over to a location you like better is a pain in the ass and you have to pay off the realtors, but once you move, you just get on with your life. With prop 13 your property tax could double or triple, say going from $1000 a month to $3000 a month. This $2000 a month, every month, is going to make you mad and hurt you financially constantly for the rest of your life. No wonder people fight so hard to keep things like it was when they moved in.

People with rent control are under the same incentives. Have a $2000 rent controlled apartment that would rent for $4000? If something changes in your neighborhood the makes you want to move, you don't really have that option. So you fight really hard against changes.

The longer Prop 13 is around the worse it gets and California has just passed statewide rent control. Things will continue to get worse on this front and I don't see a way for California society to change the situation.

<comment><USER7> This logic makes no sense and people like myself can afford to keep our houses mainly because of prop 13. Since buying my house almost 8 years ago the market has double at no fault of my own. This would double my taxes making a good portion unable to be written off thanks to new IRS rules. Yet, you want to call that locked-in? I love my house and where I live but it would be painful with that extra $2k a month tax bill you mentioned.

<comment><USER8> When someone proposes a four plus one housing development around the corner from your house to help address the state's housing shortage, would you oppose it? You can't move if you don't like it, after all, since you'd lose your property tax break.

If you oppose such developments, then the higher value of your home _is your fault_.

<comment><USER7> Im in favor of any housing that makes sense but dont espouse the logic that just because someone wants to move to a town everyone has to agree to let giant apartment blocks get put up. I did indeed buy where Im at because I enjoyed the small town culture but I understand the need for managed growth. My town is already overwhelmed with infrastructure and water issues that poorly planned growth will exacerbate. There is a lot of land in Cali we dont all need to live on the coast. Being here is a privilege not a right and Im not being selfish wanting to keep that for which Ive worked hard. Growth is inevitable ... Poorly planned cities are not. Just look at Daly city if you want to see the ugly side of unhindered housing expansion and poor infrastructure. Further, your argument still doesnt engender the need to get rid of prop 13...

<comment><USER8> All of your arguments have the side effect of increasing the value of your home, thereby making you more dependent on Prop 13.

<comment><USER7> So youre for poorly planned cities or gentrification? The value of my property is simply that it is the house in which my family and I live. I gain no benefit from the market increase until I actually sell my house (I suppose there is financial wrangling that could be done but I dont have the money or time for that). Anyone that buys my house or any house in a high value area is going to be paying a higher tax rate simply based on the cost. Prop 13 insulates me from that and encourages/allows me to stay put while still setting the tax rate for all new purchases. I will indeed resist poorly planned additions to my town and will insist on proper infrastructure in place before conceding to any mass buildings. Im not interested in living in an Oakland'esque place with ghost ships everywhere. Ill let you do that elsewhere. Further, you still havent reasonably outlined how getting rid of prop 13 is going to fix things. There are plenty of wealthy people around to pay the taxes assessed on a home purchase ... plus, they can probably afford CPA's to dodge taxes otherwise. Youd be better off trying to fix the socioeconomic disparities so prevalent in our society ... and if you think eliminating prop 13 is going to help toward that end then I got a bridge in Arizona for ya ...

<comment><USER8> Each time you interact with anyone employed in your area, you should ask about their commute. There's a good chance that the staff who care for your children, the staff who stocks your groceries, the staff that cleans your workplace, all have soul-crushing commutes. Your "managed growth" policy forces _them_ to pay for your "small town culture" with their time. That's gentrification, by definition.

<comment><USER7> What makes you think I don't commute to afford being here? You still haven't addressed how making my property taxes double is going to encourage me to accept poorly planned building ... I'd argue I would be doubly against it. Again, anyone that purchases a house now pays taxes on the market rate. People buy in my town not for jobs but for the culture and location ... If houses get cheaper here the wealthy will just buy two. Now if you said something thoughtful like eliminate prop 13 for anything but primary household you might be onto something but otherwise you're failing to convince me. You might also stress increasing minimum wages such as my town recently enacted. I'm curious if the obvious will happen: business that rely on ultra cheap labor will fold (which I'm ok with) and/or more workers will be attracted from further away (which I'm not ok with). I know Costco and Starbucks already pay a bit above state minimum and a large portion of the service industry folk I patronize are my town neighbors. Why do you have a problem with improving to middle class taste? I definitely prefer my neighbors not living in squalor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The SF board of supervisors has voted on resolutions opposing this bill several times now. If you care about housing and live in SF, take a second look at your supervisor. Their votes may not make a difference with respect to SB50 but they can certainly block housing in the city and too often they do.

<comment><USER10> They all need to go. Not one is a housing advocate. All spend their energy to limit housing. They say they are for affordable housing, but their mandates are designed to exclude both groups of people and housing.

<comment><USER11> It makes me sad that my supervisor got replaced with Dean Preston, whose entire persona is crafted around housing policy; yet, he is so staunchly against actually building housing.

He's the epitome of everything wrong with SF Supervisors: they pit communities against each other to create political gridlock and build voting blocs for reelection, but do fuck-all to actually solve San Francisco's problems.

No matter how many times they say "gentrification" in the same tone as "boogeyman," it won't refute basic supply-and-demand. Inaction just makes all the problems worse.

<comment><USER10> Dean is a nice guy but I believe the way he looks at the problem is naive. He believes land lords are to blame for high costs - but I see this as a function of what the market is willing to support. He could guide the invisible hand of the market if he would allow more housing. But he favors character of the neighborhood over housing.

<comment><USER12> Landlords are to blame for squeezing people like lemons (which extracts a lot money from software engineers and the like while leaving lower classes without decent housing), but the underlying problem is indeed insufficient supply. But what's really being done about either of these things?

<comment><USER10> No they are not. You could become a landlord and find out for yourself. Or you could simply do the math. Mortgage plus Insurance plus Earthquake insurance plus upkeep plus taxes. Costs are incredible.

The only way to bring down rents is to increase supply.

Everyone else is lying to you.

<comment><USER13> I suspect you are being down-voted because a lot of landlords are renting out their first home while they have moved out and into a newer, nicer home and are now just exploiting the underclass.

Presumably the mortgage on the first home is quite far below current market prices, but this is not enough to drive the landlord to offer a price that is necessarily in line with rents at the time the home was purchased.

The mortgage interest is no longer tax deductible, so effective cost of ownership is higher than when compared to someone paying a mortgage on a home they live in.

The profit from renting is compared against profit from selling. If the rental price is driven too low, the owner will prefer to sell and collect the profits (and the home will likely be taken off of the available rental inventory, which will further drive up rents).

<comment><USER10> > and are now just exploiting the underclass.

The only people exploiting the underclass are politicians that make building housing impossible. This dynamic is only possible through their help. A price is set by what the market - not by landlords.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> To combat many problems, the government would certainly be helpful, but isn't necessary.

Take climate change. If every corporation took a carbon negative stance like Stripe and Microsoft, that would make a big dent in carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, a lack of housing is a problem that the government created. And it's a problem that only the government, in my view, can really fix.

As long as housing supply is artificially restricted, I don't see how this gets better.

Please let me know if I am wrong.

<comment><USER15> > If every corporation took a carbon negative stance like Stripe and > Microsoft, that would make a big dent in carbon emissions.

Sure, but it's a lot easier for a software company to go carbon neutral than a power company. Which is not to take away from what they're doing, it is still hard to do!

The way I see it, we have two basic technologies for coordinating as a society: free markets, and governments. Neither is perfect all of the time. But when it comes to problems rife with externalities (like pollution, or intellectual property), free markets on their own tend to be bad at aligning incentives, and governments are the least-worst solution.

Edit to clarify: this was about the climate change part, but I agree that the government is causing the problem here wrt. zoning.

<comment><USER16> _> governments are the least-worst solution_

No, they're not, because while externalities and other forms of misaligned incentives are departures from the norm in free markets, they _are_ the norm in governments.

<comment><USER15> It took governments less time to fix the Ozone hole (remember the Montreal Protocol?) than it took for the free market to converge on one type of phone charger that works on multiple devices.

Unfettered faith in free markets and unfettered faith in governments are equally bad things.

<comment><USER17> CFC emissions took some time to subside after the Montreal Protocol. We also know there's a current Chinese source[0] which is still emitting CFCs in 2019. So I dunno if 'governments' have the advantage on that one.

[0] [https://www.bbc.com/news/science- environment-48353341](https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48353341)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> There's one thing that constantly confuses me with the housing crisis, which is why more people aren't moving to other cities (or at least a lot faster than they currently are). Perhaps my mentality is different than most, but if I can improve my economic situation by moving elsewhere I will. I know for some people it is difficult to move because of family ties or costs associated with moving, but I would have thought this would be a small minority of people, not the majority of them. Or are most people so rooted to where they grew up that they don't want to leave?

The other thing that confuses me is why companies aren't moving either. It's been a long time since a "new" city was created, but we have plenty of land available, and a lot of it is in pretty (but not natural park) locations. Is there that much of a network effect with talent being in one region that companies would rather pay a 4x compensation premium than relocate to new or lower cost locations? Are there any examples of big companies that have relocated their HQ to lower COL locations and then failed because they couldn't attract talent to move there, or is it just conjecture that this would occur?

<comment><USER19> A surprisingly large number of adults live very close to their parents [1].

[1] [https://source.wustl.edu/2015/12/most-americans-live- surpris...](https://source.wustl.edu/2015/12/most-americans-live-surprisingly- close-to-their-mothers/)

<comment><USER20> Ironically Prop 13 makes it more difficult for kids to afford homes near their parents.

<comment><USER21> You have it backwards. Prop 13 overall increases house prices, yes. But kids, whose parents own a home, benefit the most from Prop 13.

<comment><USER20> Until 2018 you could inherit homes from parents or grandparents and keep the original assessed value, but that's no longer the case. So unless the kid is earning enough to pay taxes on a massively appreciated house, they're going to have to sell and/or move away.

EDIT: I was wrong about this.

<comment><USER22> Source for that no longer being the case? My SF housing activist friend says that this has not changed.

<comment><USER20> You're right. I confused it with something else.

<comment><USER22> No problem.

To an outsider like me, this seems like one of the worst features of Prop 13. Over time it separates people into two classes: those whose family has owned property for a long time, and everyone else who can't afford to buy a house because the taxes are prohibitive. (Even if you're very rich, it will make more sense to rent than to trigger tax reevaluation.) Call it neo-feudalism.

<comment><USER23> Taxes in CA are far from prohibitive, even with today's prices. The gap between affording something in the first place and being able to cover the tax is not that large. But the base prices are the killer.

But that's also largely a factor of mostly high-income people moving in, while mostly lower-income people are moving out. Keep up the business climate that fuels the inward funnel of money, and you'll keep prices high. Even if you reduce restrictions to building supply, you'll have a game theory bit of not lowering prices in any hurry since people can so clearly afford them and are so clearly willing to pay them.

<comment><USER24> My thought on that is prices reflect the ability of people to pay principal, interest, taxes, and maintence. Lower the property tax rate and prices just go up. Difference is taxes go to pay for public goods and services. Principal and interest do not.

Prop 13 benefits corporations, long term property owners, and people that inherit property. At the expense of renters, new home buyers, and beneficiaries of public goods and services.

<comment><USER25> Precisely true. Give a mortgage interest deduction, or lower interest rates? Good news! You can afford more house! _and so can everybody else_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Jerry Hill is the Senator for most of the SF Peninsula. He voted against the bill. [https://sd13.senate.ca.gov/](https://sd13.senate.ca.gov/)

<comment><USER26> He is termed out. The author of SB50 has endorsed Shelly Masur for the open seat. She is, I believe, the only candidate for the seat in support of SB50.

Endorsement: [https://padailypost.com/2019/08/30/sb50-author-wiener- endors...](https://padailypost.com/2019/08/30/sb50-author-wiener-endorses- masur-in-state-senate-race/)

Her campaign page: [https://www.shellymasur.com/](https://www.shellymasur.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> What a mess. Sad to see "tenant" organizations yell and scream about gentrification and displacement, ignoring the fact that both of those things are happening right now.

<comment><USER28> SB50 would make the problem worse the way it's structured.

<comment><USER29> How is increasing the supply of housing going to increase gentrification? The housing shortage has resulted in high housing prices, which is the main driver of gentrification.

<comment><USER30> Because it will displace communities while the housing is built and there's no guarantee the tenants can move back.

<comment><USER29> > Because it will displace communities while the housing is built and there's > no guarantee the tenants can move back.

Increasing the supply of housing displaces no one. What do you mean "no guarantee that tenants can move back"? A new apartment building creates units that new residents can move into _instead_ of out-bidding residents on the existing supply of housing. An apartment that doesn't get built is an existing resident that now has to compete with more prospective renters, or further subdivisions of the existing housing.

<comment><USER30> People cannot live in a building under construction, they have to find somewhere else to live while it is being built. To build a new apartment, you need to tear down some existing housing.

And they probably lose their rent control in the process. So, some percentage of current residents will be forced to leave permanently.

This is fixable with some regulation, but it's a really common oversight in these discussions. It's not just beginning and end state we have to think about, we have to consider the way the housing is built and what happens to the people during that time.

<comment><USER29> > People cannot live in a building under construction, they have to find > somewhere else to live while it is being b

Incorrect. Apartments can be built on empty lots or on land currently used for things other than apartments. Yet this kind of construction still meets fierce opposition from people claiming to be preventing gentrification:

[https://missionlocal.org/2019/02/how-the-developer-of-sfs- hi...](https://missionlocal.org/2019/02/how-the-developer-of-sfs-historic- laundromat-quietly-won/)

[https://reason.com/video/san-francisco-mission-housing- crisi...](https://reason.com/video/san-francisco-mission-housing-crisis/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> It's getting very difficult to see how California works its way out of this mess. SB 50 like measures can be passed at the local level in theory but if I've learned anything from these fights it's that older, wealthy homeowners will cripple any attempt to do so.

<comment><USER32> They can't be passed at a local level without CEQA review and a torrent of unending lawsuits. That's why it needs to happen at a state level.

<comment><USER33> That's not true. Any city in California has total authority to adjust their zoning code. Cities change zoning as a matter of routine business. The reason cities have not done anything constructive is each individual small government is held hostage by its own incumbent land owners.

<comment><USER32> They can do it, it takes 8-10 years. Look at the eastern neighborhoods plan in SF, it literally took 20 years. Part of that is shitty nimby neighbors, part of that is area plans are able to be litigated under CEQA, which Is basically guaranteed, and it adds 4-8 years to an area plan project. My point is that it's literally illegal to do, but it's functionally impossible, or at least extremely difficult and it takes a very very long time. Ballot box rezoning is not subject to CEQA and therefore can pass quicker (it's how JJJ skipped CEQA review in LA) but that's a whole other can of worms.

<comment><USER33> Cities don't need area plans to achieve this. They need only amend their codes to change the parameters of their existing designation, like R-1 or whatever. No public outreach is needed to write down that a duplex is permitted in the zone called R-1. No EIR need be written before raising maximum heights from 25 to 45 feet. Any city government can put the item in their agenda and do this in a single sitting.

You're right that people will sue over anything, and that's why I support state preemptions in this case, but there's no excuse for what cities have failed to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> California's housing policy failures have repercussions up and down the west coast.

It's sad they didn't follow Oregon's lead and legalize some more diverse housing options.

<comment><USER35> The real answer is to legalize _and_ tax it. Prop 13 is a huge distortion on the California real estate market.

<comment><USER36> Prop 13 is a huge distortion to tax and revenue generally, but it doesn't promote anti-development NIMBYism. If anything, Prop 13 should make denser development more tolerable to existing residents as otherwise denser development in their neighborhood would lead to accelerated increases in assessed land values. That's the very reason Prop 13 was enacted in the first place--to improve ownership security in the face of rapid changes in the neighborhood.

The one and only fix for NIMBYism is to remove local control. Cities have every incentive to continue restrictive zoning because the immediate costs are externalized to the larger region, while the benefits--satisfaction of home owning voters who don't want multi-family dwellings in their neighborhood-- inure directly to the city leaders. It's a collective action problem. Mandates don't work well because leaders who comply are voted out of office, while those who find loopholes or simply ignore mandates are favored at the polls.

So when politicians complain that SB50 and similar bills remove local control, _that 's_ _exactly_ _the_ _point_. But nobody wants to say that aloud because to most people "local control" is in the abstract a good thing, and losing local control a bad thing.

<comment><USER37> _Prop 13 is a huge distortion to tax and revenue generally, but it doesn 't promote anti-development NIMBYism._

When the carrying costs of a piece of property are artificially low there isn't nearly as much incentive to put that piece of property to its best and highest use, so you end up with people being just fine with single family houses instead of multi story apartment buildings.

<comment><USER24> Two things. The low tax rate drives up the price of existing real estate. Which makes it more expensive to buy and redevelop.

And then redeveloping resets the tax basis.

Both of these appear to favor holding onto older substandard property.

<comment><USER37> Yes, those things too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The gentrification boogeyman comes off to me as privilege masquerading as the voice of the oppressed. It's regularly used to bludgeon the poor into homelessness, while the areas that are rife with actual gentrification seem to have far more diverse and affordable neighborhoods.

<comment><USER39> It's a little of both. There are plenty of people who genuinely believe they can help keep gentrification at bay if they preserve the housing approval systems that exist now. In practice that can mean anything from blocking everything to using approvals to extract design and donations to charities.

There are also, as you say, those who are quite privileged and wish to preserve that. To them, gentrification is a great way to scare other people into averting change.

<comment><USER40> > _There are plenty of people who genuinely believe they can help keep > gentrification at bay if they preserve the housing approval systems that > exist now_

It's a complete reversal of cause and effect. New buildings don't cause demand; new buildings are a response to demand. You can't make the sun shine by passing a law against rain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Question from an outsider: Is it really necessary to have a state-level bill for this as opposed to county-level? Is the diversity of the localities in the state small enough where such a measure can be decided so centrally? (I admit I haven't read it or saw if it had conditions on population).

<comment><USER34> They have been failing to do anything at the local level for years, because it's easier for a small group of angry wealthy homeowners to get their way in local processes.

So they were looking to do something statewide, to put everyone on a level playing field.

<comment><USER42> You'd be surprised at the diverse makeup of "do nothing" advocacy groups. Some don't want the makeup of the neighborhood to change. Some don't want a building style to be different. Some want their particular disenfranchised group to be represented before any permits are granted. There are many people up and down the spectrum who make up different shades of the NIMBY groups.

For example, look at the reaction to Uber building a new HQ in Oakland, which they ultimately abandoned[1]

> _Residents were not as thrilled. After watching the rapid gentrification and > rising real estate costs in neighboring San Francisco, many feared Uber > would accelerate similar trends in Oakland. The area was already struggling > to hold onto its own history as a diverse, working-class area known for > activism while absorbing a wave of wealthy new residents._

[1] [https://money.cnn.com/2017/08/25/technology/business/uber- oa...](https://money.cnn.com/2017/08/25/technology/business/uber-oakland- headquarters/index.html)

<comment><USER43> [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/voxs-the- weeds/e/66321406](https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/voxs-the-weeds/e/66321406)

Boston University's Katherine Levine Einstein explains the dysfunctional politics behind America's housing crisis.

[https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders- Participatory-...](https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders- Participatory-Politics-Americas/dp/110870851X)

"Since the collapse of the housing market in 2008, demand for housing has consistently outpaced supply in many US communities. The failure to construct sufficient housing - especially affordable housing - in desirable communities and neighborhoods comes with significant social, economic, and environmental costs. This book examines how local participatory land use institutions amplify the power of entrenched interests and privileged homeowners. The book draws on sweeping data to examine the dominance of land use politics by 'neighborhood defenders' \- individuals who oppose new housing projects far more strongly than their broader communities and who are likely to be privileged on a variety of dimensions. "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Massachussets has a law that enables developers to bypass zoning restrictions if they are helping bring low income housing to an area: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Comprehensive_Pe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massachusetts_Comprehensive_Permit_Act:_Chapter_40B)

I think it's sometimes used to threaten local zoning boards to capitulate to other developer demands, but it does contribute somewhat to the supply of affordable housing.

<comment><USER45> California's SB 35 is similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Here's the voting breakdown: [https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/SB50/id/910526](https://legiscan.com/CA/rollcall/SB50/id/910526)

<comment><USER47> Yea: 18, Nay: 15: Not Voting: 6

The measure fails despite more Yea than Nay votes. The California State Senate has 40 seats and always require 21 votes to pass. Vacancies (currently 1), absences and abstentions don't appear to affect the denominator of the 51% threshold. As a result, Not Voting is essentially a disguised no vote.

<comment><USER37> _Not Voting is essentially a disguised no vote._

This is such a lame rule. People wanting to vote no should have to say so and vacancies shouldn't make it harder for bills to pass.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> It's a shame.

One only has to look at San Francisco's current zoning map to understand why this bill was important to solving the housing crisis in the state.

[https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02...](https://sfplanning.org/sites/default/files/resources/2019-02/zoning_use_districts.pdf)

In San Francisco, most of the city is zoned RH-1 or RH-1(D). Areas not zoned RH-1 (Essentially residential areas that allow the construction of multifamily apartments and other larger condominium projects) are seeing an explosion of growth and change; mostly in lower income minority neighborhoods where developers can affordably purchase property.

It's incredibly unbalanced; and senate bill 50 would have balance the scales to favor more housing options in some of these areas with stringent zoning for only residential single-family homes.

Even though Senator Wiener is from San Francisco, the city council itself came out against this bill. San Francisco is the densest large city in California, with a larger ratio of the population living in apartments then most other cities in the state. Sen. Weiner is pretty safe from backlash as a majority of San Franciscans understand that other cities around the state need to do their part in building housing just like San Francisco has over the last century.

For other politicians around the state, senate Bill 50 is Kryptonite. Like everywhere else in America, Politicians are elected by residents. The largest constituencies of voters tend to be those in single-family homes because mostly California lives in single-family homes. Very expensive single-family homes.

People do not want to change the neighborhood to drastically in a way that would alter the equity they have accumulated in their home.

The best way to not be reelected is to support this bill. Why support multi family apartment construction for people who do not live in their district? Very much the "I got mine" attitude.

There is no panacea here. It's going to take a ballot referendum, which is not likely to pass for the same reasons. Or change to the fair housing act. In the 50s and 60s, California zoning was indeed complicated with racial bias and exclusion. Above all else, it is the epitome of Systemic racism for the time period; and the biggest flaw in the fair housing act. As it turns out, the system is still working as originally intended. Fixing the fair housing act to cover residential zoning might be more achievable then anything California can do on it's own.

</comment><comment><USER49> This is a great read for anyone who wants to learn more about how we got here: [https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders- Participatory-...](https://www.amazon.com/Neighborhood-Defenders- Participatory-Politics-Americas/dp/1108477275)

Katherine Levine Einstein was on The Weeds podcast a few weeks ago and gave a really good summary of her findings. She doesn't have an answer, but it at least frames the situation in a way that seems solvable.

[https://open.spotify.com/episode/6VfqIzzoOlYtkuKvwGDq1K](https://open.spotify.com/episode/6VfqIzzoOlYtkuKvwGDq1K)

</comment><comment><USER50> Would never accept job offer from the Valley exactly for that reason, unless it's a CEO position. Living in Asia, I can rent a perfect house for about $1000, including utilities and cleaning services. Remote job gives equal opportunities

<comment><USER51> I dunno man, I ran the numbers and came out WAY ahead in the Bay Area

As a senior engineer, I was able to negotiate 150k for remote work (and I'd rent a house house in a nice Midwestern city or a nice apartment in Tokyo for $1200/month) vs 300k+ per year in Mountain View

Even with $3000/month rent, $6 gallons of milk, etc, I'm saving up way more money per year for a similar quality of life. Not to mention that I'm making way more connections and learning more in my time here, so I'll be in a way better spot after 5 years career-wise

<comment><USER52> I think you can get about 33% more both in Tokyo and in the Bay Area.

I took the Tokyo side of this trade. I don't think my learning and connections are significantly impeded by being in Tokyo, and my quality of life is leaps and bounds greater.

Examples: Strangers regularly assault or shout slurs at me in San Francisco while I am distracted by trying not to step in the human feces on my way to work. In Tokyo, while I was waiting at a crosswalk in the rain without an umbrella, a stranger placed his umbrella above me. In Tokyo, everyone uses a form of bike lock that's essentially an extra back brake with a combination lock. In San Francisco, I lost my $500 bicycle from inside the trunk of my locked car in a private garage. In Tokyo, I do not really have any reason to own a car.

I will save a little bit less money per year, and I will not get to deduct as much money per year from my income due to theft. I think it comes out alright.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Well the only solution is a ballot initiative to repeal prop 13. That will change things.

<comment><USER54> Prop 13 was created because it was forcing people out of their houses because of inflation property values on paper. That is detrimental.

You shouldn't scrap it completely; you should limit it to primary residences (spend more than half the year there). That would get rid of some of the worse issues.

It shocks me every time I hear fellow left-of-center people talk about scrapping Prop 13, but then also rail against gentrification or some other issues. Absent Prop 13, people would literally be forced from their homes from high taxes.

Prop 13 was a response to the inflation of the 1970s that drove asset and investment prices higher.

<comment><USER55> Limit to primary residence and cap the increase at 10% instead of 2% (I think Michigan does this) might be okay.

Low income seniors have [https://www.sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html](https://www.sco.ca.gov/ardtax_prop_tax_postponement.html) so Prop 13 is wholly unnecessary for them.

<comment><USER56> Jesus Christ. I didn't know CA already had that law. As you said Prop 13 is absolutely not required.

That law basically says if you can't afford the increases, we'll bank it. If you can, pay up.

<comment><USER54> That isn't nearly enough. It only applies to 65+ or with disability who make $35k or less.

This is part of the problem is that people are unwilling to compromise. On one side you have those who view even the risk of a single person being displaced by gentrification and rising housing prices as unacceptable.

On the other side you have those will accept nothing less than displacing everything. I make enough that I don't care, and I don't really want to live in CA long term (from NYC).

But I think a primary residence carve-out that applies to everybody would be a good compromise, but that seems to be a dirty word in CA politics.

<comment><USER55> Is $35k not good income for retirement? They already own a house which has gone up in value and have had years to accumulate savings.

I lived in Los Angeles for the better part of a decade making less than $35k and it was fine (and I didn't own a house).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> > He acknowledged, however, that more work is needed on SB 50, and asked his > fellow lawmakers to approve it so the Assembly could continue that work.

So why not do that work before sending it for a vote?

<comment><USER37> Because there is a time limit on these things. I don't understand all of the procedural rules but since it didn't pass this vote now nothing can be done for a year.

If it had passed this vote now it could have been tinkered with between now and a possible eventual passage in the next several months.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Expensive housing is a feature and not a bug for the tech industry. They prefer to hire young, single workers because they will work longer hours in worse conditions, and if they can keep them rent- and commute-burdened they are less likely to switch jobs, start a family, take up a hobby, etc.

<comment><USER59> That's funny considering that Google was literally trying to build housing for its employees and the Gov blocked them because nimby. Blaming the tech industries for California's terrible idea of governance is pretty laughable. The state would be bankrupt if not for the valley.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> So, I guess the question is, if tech companies keep feeding the monster, they are complicit in this.

California is not just SV for a start. What's the point of having all your workers in a high CoL area again?

Get a small office to appease VCs but have your workers somewhere else. Your money will go further as well

</comment><comment><USER61> Only one word can describe these politicians: Despicable

</comment><comment><USER62> Pathetic.

<comment><USER63> Well this is for sure a bummer

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Thank the lord, these places already are terrible.

</comment><comment><USER65> Housing has been a bitter historical and cross-cultural source of class conflict and oppression. In its current form in America, the bourgeois accumulate as much as they can like any unethical entity, and leverage it to maximize personal utility at the cost of the living conditions of the masses. It's always interesting to see how people use capitalism to indirectly (which is no excuse) cause this natural brutal nature of existence, to cause the common man (or woman) to "groan and sweat under a weary life".

<comment><USER66> To be fair, a continual rent treadmill that forces everyone to work full time is _the explicit overt policy_ of the Federal Reserve. But any candidate that brings this up gets memory-holed by the mainstream propagandas.

<comment><USER67> Woah. What kind of language do they use to describe said policy?

<comment><USER66> [https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/money_12848.htm](https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/money_12848.htm)

> _The objectives as mandated by the Congress in the Federal Reserve Act are > promoting (1) maximum employment, which means all Americans that want to > work are gainfully employed, and (2) stable prices for the goods and > services we all purchase_

The qualifier "want" is a distraction, as everyone "wants" to work if that's what it takes to have a reliable bed to sleep in.

Furthermore, "stable" prices are untenable in the face of technological progress that makes everything less expensive. In order for the CPI average to keep going up, the price of housing has to shoot through the roof.

edit: Try drawing out the basic feedback loop. The Fed acts by creating new money. It doesn't simply give this money away to everyone (which would cause across the board price inflation), but it can only be accessed by taking on loans. Anything that can be financialized becomes awash in this new money - housing, cars, education. Consumers then have to settle for paying interest payments (rent) on sky-high asset valuations, rather than having smaller loans that can be paid off early to achieve economic bargaining power.

<comment><USER62> This conclusion you're coming to is quite the massive reach based on the logic you used to analyze that sentence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Well, I guess I'll just copy/paste my comment from another unrelated HN story 10 minutes ago:

"And once again, any US organization allowed to use a .gov domain loses yet ANOTHER notch of credibility, and confidence in their competence."

Our "Governments" are becoming obsolete... meanwhile we'll continue to delegate more and more of the responsibilities to provide the utilities we need to technology companies.

</comment><comment><USER69> Alright, please see this as an olive branch to YIMBYs. The results are pretty clear. The YIMBYs do not have the votes on their own to get this done. Unless you are some suburban retiree you probably recognize that the solution is building more housing.

I think based on the voting records YIMBYs should join forces with PHIMBYs and make the next iteration of SB50 really take public and affordable housing seriously. The existing provisions added to SB50 already got the bill much closer. Why not add some provisions from AB1279? Maybe repeal article 34 in the constitution? Maybe repeal Costa-Hawkins? There are NIMBYs that are pretty clearly hiding behind affordable housing that we know are insincere. We know their cities and counties aren't doing enough to help poor folks. But the evidence suggests there are enough people that want to upzone and build housing to get this done.

Does this strike others here are a reasonable path forward?

<comment><USER70> The reasonable path forward is to write off SF as a good place to live or do business. Tech badly needs a new economic zone, one where it is actually welcome.

<comment><USER69> My way or the highway doesn't work in politics. I'm sorry if you were told otherwise.</comment></comment></comment>


InVision, valued at $1.9B, picks up $115M Series F - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/11/invision-valued-at-1-9-billion-picks-up-115-million-series-f/ <comment><USER2> As someone who uses InVision daily, I have become more and more frustrated with the experience.

Building a large project feels like building a house of cards. I often run into small but infuriating UX issues inside their app. One example of this is uploading artboards from Sketch using the InVision Craft plugin. Uploading a new artboard that has the same name as a previously uploaded artboard overwrites the original without asking or telling you what happened. I spent way to long trying to figure out why one of my artboards wasn't uploading, and then it took me even longer to figure out where it ended up once I realized the problem. When you have hundreds of screens in a project every upload from Craft starts to feel scary.

These little interactions are all over the app and the amount of frustration they cause becomes exponential over time, like a repetitive strain injury.

I've been an InVision user for a long time and it seems to me that the core features have not improved, but have actually degraded over time. I assume because they put all their resources into Studio.

I hope they use some of this money to improve their core offering. Sketch users aren't going away and I think it would be wise to try and keep as many of them as possible using InVision.

<comment><USER3> I think it's a pretty good product, and has grown fast (hence the valuation) but they really need to improve the core product. It's got too many bugs and feels like it's had zero effort in the past 1-2 years.

Sketch and Figma now have very similar clickthrough prototyping tools built in, and it's probably a question of time until they catch up.

<comment><USER2> Agree about the sketch and Figma click through stuff. One of the only things I see holding all of the competitors back from eating InVisions lunch right is that it's easier to share and collaborate (internally and externally) with InVision. Being able to login, comment, and share a URL seems to be a big part of it.

I would also say the inspect feature is a big plus, but that doesn't even play nicely with some sketch plugins right now.

<comment><USER4> You can share a link, comment and even collaborate in real time (with 2 cursors, each person working on a separate part of the file) with Figma.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Can someone please create Series as a Service (SaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with funding?

InVision is cool and everything, but these funding rounds are on the order of 1000 times larger than what a couple of indie devs need to create similar functionality. I would like to live on a beach, or in a cabin in the woods (preferably both, seasonally) and create software remotely. I also need to be left alone for a year so I can create the next-gen tools in the spirit of Firebase, Elixir etc so I can focus on the work instead of the minutia/infrastructure surrounding it.

Unfortunately after writing this, I realized it's all about the customer base so never mind. Actually, can someone create Customer Base as a Service (CBaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with customers?

<comment><USER6> > Unfortunately after writing this, I realized it's all about the customer > base so never mind. Actually, can someone create Customer Base as a Service > (CBaaS) to facilitate connecting startups with customers?

Someone did. It's called Google, and businesses pay through the nose for a chance to reach customers through it :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Invision must dogfood their own ui design tools, right? The thought of trying to mock up ui changes to their app within their app cracks me up.

<comment><USER8> It's not too different from having a C compiler written in C. Once you bootstrap[1] the first version, you can create subsequent versions from the first one.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28compilers%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping_%28compilers%29)

<comment><USER7> Sure I get that. It's just visually I know that when I'm taking screenshots of app windows, and I have said windows open, I confuse myself sometimes. If I were trying to mockup a mockup app I'd want to use a different, visually distinct, tool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If I were Invision, I would either invest in or buy out Figma, and have it replace Invision Studio. Figma is on the up and up, and from what I heard Invision Studio looked good, but the execution was poor.

<comment><USER10> Yep, it is a fat client with lousy performance. They tried to build Sketch + Principle in the same tool. Both those tools are super complicated software products. They should have created separate tools which complement each other.

<comment><USER11> Worse, they tried to accomplish this not with a Cocoa app (as Sketch and I believe Principle are), but in a heavy Electron app.

[edit] Sorry, I typed "Figma" for some reason when I meant to type "Principle."

<comment><USER12> Figma is definitely not a native app. It's a WebGL app that has been heavily optimized for performance, but it relies on a browser or browser-technology to do its job.

[https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design- to...](https://www.figma.com/blog/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the- web/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> $100M ARR and fully remote!

<comment><USER14> This is definitely worth highlighting. Why so many businesses are still deluding themselves into thinking that work is better done when cramming people into an office is beyond me. Remote work is still the minority. My hypothesis is that it's actually just covert ego/power/distrust at play because founders and executives like to be able to say they have an office, and they like to see their employees "working." This mostly only applies to "new" businesses though (i.e. founded in the last 5-10 years); older businesses have an excuse because they're just doing what they already know.

In any case, huge respect to InVision for being one of the leaders in advocating remote work.

<comment><USER15> Is there a company, equivalent (or larger) in size to InVision, that is an example of a remote work org.? $100M ARR isn't anything to scoff at, but I'm not sure InVision's success (so far) puts the nail in the coffin to the idea of a non-remote work org.

I'm young and still find it invaluable to be able to walk over to Jane in engineering or Bob in marketing to hash things out in-person.

<comment><USER4> GitLab is also a fully remote company.

<comment><USER16> That's right. You can read more about it at [https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all- remote/](https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/). There you'll find how remote work is changing the workforce, how it changes the organization, advantages for employees and organizations and what did we learn about remote working.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm curious, what reasons would lead a company with $100M ARR to seek a funding round for close to their ARR? Are there no other avenues for securing capital that are close to you ARR?

<comment><USER18> Probably cheap capital in case the markets turn down. It's expected that the venture capital money will dry up a bit and the fed raising interest rates means that taking loans will be more expensive. I've seen a lot of VCs say if you can take it now, take it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Hey UI/UX experts, I am wondering how should you go about mastering UI/UX of mobile app/web app.

I've a girlfriend who wants to start in this area but is pretty clueless. Can anyone please provide a path to follow?

Is this good:

1\. Learn UI design in Paint.net/MS Paint

2\. Read book on color theory, typography, whitespace

3\. Design in dragdrop software like photoshop/illustrator

4\. Learn CSS and recreate your design in CSS.

5\. Lean some JavaScript for animation and visualization/charts etc...

Is this a decent path? What software tools/books do you recommend for a new self learning student?

<comment><USER20> My advice is to skip 1 and 2.

She should learn Photoshop/Illustrator (or equivalent software) and recreate famous interfaces. (Facebook, Google Docs, Gmail, etc.) If she can get them to be pixel perfect, she has enough technical skill and can start exploring.

She should work on industry tools right away. She should skip theory - she'll learn more from doing. She can go back to theory if she feels like she's missing something.

<comment><USER21> I'd actually advise #2, but I'd do it at the same time as the others. Why? Because I did a lot of design classes and studying and I really, really wish I had taken typography.

The designers that works with fonts well make the nicest and most pleasing designs. Just copying others will ensure you can copy well. Understanding the theory behind those designs will allow you to make anything you want, and do it well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've used invision multiple times for university courses. It's really great how they made an extension to photoshop to render out artboards to generate the screens. My support experience is also quite pleasant. Even just with a single free prototype, it takes a lot of hassle out of making interactive demos when I'm exporting straight out of what is essentially mockup material

</comment><comment><USER23> I know this will sound trite, but this is NOT a startup, and I dont know why the editors techcrunch cant seem to figure that out.

> nVision, the startup looking to be the Salesforce of design, has officially > achieved unicorn status with the close of a $115 million Series F round,

You are no longer a startup when you are on series F

<comment><USER24> How do you define a startup? I thought it's usually defined as a company that's more focused on growth than profit and return to shareholders. That would not limit the number of funding rounds

<comment><USER25> Before the start-up hype I think in the Netherlands you need to be in business for 3 years to no longer be considered one. But that definition has shifted quite a bit there too.

The company you describe I would describe as any typical corporation. In my head I still see start-ups as a scrappy, small team in a fairly young business.

The dictionary definition says:

1 : the act or an instance of setting in operation or motion 2 : a fledgling business enterprise

Both of these definitions suggest it really just describes 'new' ventures.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Random question for anyone who uses InVision, as we're considering making it central to our process. Is it easy for frontend devs to recreate the designers' prototype in code? What pitfalls should we look out for?

<comment><USER27> > Is it easy for frontend devs to recreate the designers' prototype in code?

No. The designers have to build the designs in a very particular way in order to get anything useful from invision. Good luck telling your design team that the way they build their sketch files is all wrong.

I have used invision professionally for 2 years now, it is a glorified screenshot host. It's biggest pitfall is that you have to use it in a very particular way, otherwise it's totally useless.

<comment><USER28> From UX perspective, it's one of the best tools for managing the design process. 1-click to update / push mockups from Sketch. Ability to do light interactive mockups, commenting, and CSS specs.

We've been testing most of the tools on the market (Zeplin, UX Pin, Avocode...). InvisionApp beat all of them.

<comment><USER27> I am happy that you found some use for it. Have you asked your devs how they use it? I do understand that mockups aren't just for developers, but you might be going to all that expense and effort for nothing. When I joined my team, after 6 months the designers asked me for some feedback on how I was using invision and I said it's just a screenshot host and they were shocked. _But all the design specs are in there!_. Yeah great, I know what 3em padding and 16pt font looks like, I'm not spending 2 hours poking through a clunky web app to find that out.

The CSS specs invision spits out aren't helpful. If you are developing with a framework like React or Angular, and use a CSS preprocessor like SASS, then you have to rework everything invision gives you. It would be far easier if my designer would just email me a list of hex codes and some basic rules for font sizing and whitespace.

<comment><USER28> The basic rules should be documented in the style guide, design system, and/or libraries. What would be interesting is to bridge the gap between the Invision Specs and what you expect.

Indeed, I ran a survey on 8 devs, and I've been monitoring how they typically use it over the years (Invision, Zeplin, basic screenshot hosting...). Some Devs won't use the specs at all, sometimes delivering something off. Others, love it since it will reduce the back and forth during audits.

You're right, specs will only be usefull to provide the dimensions and colors. However, this part is automated on the UX side, it prevents us from writing it down, which would be a waste of time: Mockups always change, we'd have to manually update the said specs so many times... This wouldn't scale well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ux-app sorry for inserting my own product into the conversation, but I am running out of ways to understand the failure of my product.

I wrote a prototyping application ([https://www.ux- app.com/dev/editor](https://www.ux-app.com/dev/editor)). It's on life support at the moment and brings in only a couple hundred $ per month.

I think it's a lot more powerful than inVision and many of the other successful tools. If you have time then add a mobile table view to see how powerful the editor is.

Why is it failing so hard? Any ideas?

Thanks, Eli

<comment><USER26> I would jump over to the Indie Hackers site and ask for feedback there. I'm sure it will spark a useful conversation.

From my quick survey of your marketing site, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to improve the UX on mobile. I would suggest working with a designer to improve the graphics and checking that the layout works on different browsers/OSes/breakpoints. Might be easiest just to start over with a premade template for the marketing site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Congrats to them!!! The founders have been nothing but awesome people through the years (especially in the ColdFusion community), even before finding InVision. Glad to see they are succeeding!

</comment><comment><USER30> Their main application is down right now. Bad timing, I guess. ([https://status.invisionapp.com/](https://status.invisionapp.com/))

</comment><comment><USER31> What makes Invision - a mockup app - worth THAT MUCH??

<comment><USER32> From the article, sounds like good old fashioned customers who need a mock-up app and are willing to pay.

<comment><USER33> That's still an absurdly high multiple of ARR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not bad for a 100% all-remote team. We use it daily. Only wish their main app had an API. Kudos!

</comment><comment><USER35> both InVision and plaid announced funding today from spark and Goldman sachs. Thats a lot of cash.

</comment><comment><USER36> "Chrome has quit unexpectedly. Do you want to send a crash report?"

</comment><comment><USER37> In my 9 years of making mobile apps, I've never hated a tool more than I've hated InVision. But congrats to the team on this pick up I suppose.

<comment><USER38> As a general rule, these kinds of comments are not helpful and don't add to the discussion in any way. As the other respondent said, if you don't like the product, please let us know why! I've used InVision and have always liked it, but I've really only used it from a "designers sent me an InVision deck to build", so I'm genuinely interested in how other stakeholders may find problems with it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Favourite Niche Subreddits? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I have a personal theory that Reddit is a great source of startup ideas. There are many communities that have special behaviours that can be a source of inspiration for such ideas. A good example is /r/borrow where you can take a loan from another person in the community. But targeting niche subreddits is a very good strategy :)

</comment><comment><USER3> /r/AskHistorians is an amazing resource.

SMEs engaged in oft-vigorous debate, accompanied by authoritarian moderation (to include sourcing requirements) generates some truly excellent content.</comment>


Twitter chooses the NYSE for its IPO [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnbc.com/id/101065745

<comment><AUTHOR> Excerpt from updated S-1 filing [1]:

      We intend to list the common stock on the New York Stock Exchange
      under the symbol "TWTR".

[1]: [http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/00011931251...](http://edgar.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513400028/d564001ds1a.htm)</comment>


Online Math Editor – Write and share your Math much easier - <AUTHOR> https://www.mathcha.io <comment><USER2> This is great. Are you planning to have it export also to LaTeX just in case?

(I read the about, the whole point is to have it for people without knowing LaTeX, but it might be interesting anyway)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes you can export to LATEX (Math Mode only), you even can import from Latex (still only for Math Mode). It support most of LATEX commands (not TEX and advanced commands like macro..)

We may support exporting to LATEX in Text Mode in future (if people really need that feature)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is awesome !</comment>


Ask HN: Postgres 9.5 has row level security, should my web users get an account? - <AUTHOR> With Postgres row level security it becomes practical to set high level security policies.
https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/What's_new_in_PostgreSQL_9.5#Row-Level_Security_Policies
I'm thinking of using this in a new web application, giving every user who signs up a Postgres user account, and using that role for every database query.
Is there any reason why it would not make sense to do so? <comment><USER2> Note that the RLS implementation in postgres does _not_ require that different database users are being used.

That's one of several possible ways to use it.

You e.g. alternatively can define a function that sets up a connection's user, where user refers to a concept of your schema. That's then stored somewhere in the session's state (trivially e.g. in a temporary table). All the row level restrictions can then refer to that user.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's new. It's shiny. It provides something to learn. Sure.

What problem is it solving? What are the alternatives? What pain does it inflict? What pain do the alternatives inflict? What are the implications of removing a layer of abstraction for security, maintenance. and agility as the project ages?

Good luck.

<comment><AUTHOR> Multi tenancy applications that use a single database to store the data of multiple organisations (for example CRM data) require strong isolation between tenants. It is much more reliable and makes for a more simple system if the isolation is enforced as a database policy rather than saying to the developers "OK folks, can everyone please never, ever write a query that doesn't properly WHERE the correct client. No bugs ever please for the lifetime of this software. Thanks!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> public website or more like an internal application?

internal apps are an easy yes. a public website requires a few bits to make sure everything is secure but it can be done safely. be thorough and it'll be safe.

<comment><AUTHOR> Public.</comment></comment>


How to get a massive viral spike (if you don't tick off your users first) - <AUTHOR> http://www.rp0229.com/blog/2007/05/14/hats-off-to-tagged-aka-how-to-get-a-massive-viral-spike/ <comment><USER2> It gives Tagged the power to steal emails for corporate blackmail. Should you trust them?</comment>


Implementation of Proactive Spam Fighting Techniques with Akonadi - <AUTHOR> http://blog.martin-graesslin.com/blog/2011/03/proactive-spam-fighting-with-akonadi/

<comment><USER2> Please don't implement this sort of system---it's a headache, and can hurt users more often than not (important email from many important sources is unlikely to be authenticated, say a recruiter, or a contact for a new job, or a distant great-aunt who can't use computers), plus it's really annoying when, for example, mailing lists get this sort of annoying check back almost every time they email a new user.</comment>


DRY: Do Repeat Yourself - <AUTHOR> http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2016/05/dry_do_repeat_y.html <comment><USER2> _Again, we must repeat ourselves by creating a server-generated template in addition to the Ajax script. The button will link to the template, although Ajax will override that if the JavaScript is fully loaded and supported. This is a requirement, by the way, and not a nice extra. It's the fundament of web development. Not repeating yourself is unprofessional in this situation._

This is terrible advice to anyone in web development. DRY is a principal for a reason that applies to web development just as much as every other form of software development: management of complexity. The more code existing in a system relates correspondingly to he complexness of the system. More complex systems, in-turn, are harder to change and harder to test. DRY limits complexity and makes it more responsive to change by (1) reducing the total amount of moving parts in the system and (2) reducing the scope of the change itself.

The writers arguments are strawmen that don't actually say anything about DRY. Needing to ensure your application works without Javascript can be solved in various DRY ways, one of which being shared client / server JS.

<comment><USER3> "Not repeating" can trade linearly growing complexity via additional lines of code for potentially polynomial or exponential growth of complexity via dependency graphs. Padleft is an example of butterfly flaps disrupting global commerce even if "Github is down" tweets are the more normal mode of distributed failure via side effects.

There are silver bullets. It's a good idea to dodge them, even for non- werewolves.

<comment><USER4> host it yourself, and vet your garbage

<comment><USER3> My apologies for not understanding your comment. Please clarify.

<comment><USER2> He means that _left-pad_ was an example of an issue with package managers, not an issue with DRY. Running a production system reliant on external services like NPM is a bad idea and is bound to fail eventually. Running an internal mirror of NPM that you control mitigates the issue without breaking DRY.

<comment><USER3> Mirroring NPM creates a nonDRY context in the network context. Perhaps it makes the software engineering tradeoffs of DRY versus nonDRY in source code explicit: availability versus consistency versus partition.

Repeating the same code in two files/modules/functions/blocks facilitates diverging independent development directions over time. A possible benefit if it turns out the business logic needs to be less similar than I thought originally to handle the two cases: in a building the shared logic of toilet rooms and kitchens is of less importance than the divergent logic of eating versus shitting, even though each is captured by a bubble on the initial space diagram and connected to waste, water, hvac, and electrical systems in the instantiation.

As a strategy, solving padleft type via generalized copying makes package management partition tolerant and available. It comes with the security problems of delayed patching, i.e. CAP's consistency.

TANSTAAFL.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


UX design experiments of a Number 1 app - <AUTHOR> http://discovr.info/2011/12/ux-design-experiments-for-a-number-1-mobile-app/

<comment><USER2> I really like the iterative approach you took. Did you find it odd to overlay the artist photo with the help? My first thought would be to point to one of the artists with the tutorial, but I think your method works better.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am a huge fan of the baked-in approach. I think that's very clever. I'm no designer, but I think that is great UX.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> thanks for the feedback. Everything is still very much a learning process for us. Nathan, pointing to the side of the artist nodes is definitely cool, but the reason we had to steer away from that is that we're currently planning to add some new elements to the UI that do exactly that. (this would mean that the help and the UI elements would be doing the same thing in the future, which might get confusing).

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> _this time with correct link_

</comment><comment><USER4> Your solution is elegant.

Question - how are you tracking efficacy of the experiments for the end user?

Are you measuring against engagement / use or?

</comment><comment><USER5> For not being designers, the UI/UX is fantastic! Great work guys.</comment>


The Command Line Crash Course Controlling Your Computer From The Terminal - <AUTHOR> http://learncodethehardway.org/cli/book/cli-crash-course.html <comment><USER3> > The next warning is stay off IRC or other places where "hackers" hang out. > They think it's funny to hand you commands that can destroy your computer. > The command rm -rf / is a classic that you must never type. Just avoid them. > If you need help, make sure you get it from someone you trust not from > random idiots on the internet.

I don't really agree with that. I know for sure that popular channels in OFTC and Freenode are monitored by very smart and responsible people that would never let this happen. In my many years on IRC I have not seen a single novice guy looking for help actually get had by someone intentionally trying to mislead/screw over.

I would instead encourage novices to read this: <http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#usefora> (' _How To Ask Questions The Smart Way: Web and IRC forums directed towards newbies often give the quickest response_ ')

<comment><USER4> My first experience on IRC was looking for help with my first Linux install. Someone in the channel telnet'd into my computer and wiped my hard drive while I was chatting.

I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and my root password was one of those common strings (12345, abcde, I don't remember at this point). It had taken me 3 days to learn how to download Linux, make a stack of installation floppies, find and use partitioning tools, install Linux and set up a boot loader, etc. I cried when I realized what had been done to me.

<comment><USER5> Unless someone 'fessed up to it, you really have no way of knowing who did this. It could just as easily have been a drive-by script.

And regardless, it was a hard, cheap, early lesson in the importance of ensuring fundamental levels of system security. I've ... suffered worse.

I strongly suspect you'll never forget this.

<comment><USER4> This being more than a decade and a half ago, I doubt it was a drive-by script. I was dialed into AOL on a 4 letter screen name. I had just informed a channel of Linux users, who knew my public IP, that I had just installed Linux for the first time. The chances it wasn't someone from that IRC channel are near zero.

<comment><USER6> stop crying

<comment><USER6> Hah! Downvote it all you want, you know it's true. He needs to stop crying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> File and directory names can contain spaces and require special treatment. This should be addressed up front, before introducing commands with side effects.

<comment><USER8> Oh yeah, thanks I need to put that early in the exercises.

<comment><USER9> How about including some examples of globbing all files of a given type including filenames with spaces?

e.g. 1) Find all file names in a directory that contain spaces and replace spaces with _

2) E.G save mp3 format sound out of a directory full of flv files using ffmpeg, flv files can have arbitrary file names, mp3 file names saved with no spaces

That kind of activity would be interesting to younger proto-hackers

I'm a teacher. A group of teenagers in a computer room (which is not your target audience) would not actually _read_ your tutorial in an a to b fashion, but, when set a task would raid your work for the bits that help then achieve the task. I'd then follow up with a multi-choice quiz in Moodle or something similar to structure recall like your flashcards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I just wrote to Zed:

I haven't read past section 0 yet, but I do have a suggestion for people who want to learn how to memorize things faster: use SuperMemo or a modern equivalent, like <http://ankisrs.net/> . Such programs use spaced repetition techniques to improve memory speed. I used Anki for improving my French and recommend it. If you'd like to learn more, see [http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_woznia...](http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/magazine/16-05/ff_wozniak?currentPage=all) .

Cheers,

<comment><USER11> Anki and Mnemosyne (<http://www.mnemosyne-proj.org/>) are both available from the Ubuntu repos.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I was recently given a small netbook and took the plunge with arch / xmonad and it has been pretty eye opening.. Going from "I need more control over screen brightness", to being able to assign keys that control the display precisely how I want has been frustrating and satisfying in just the right way. Thanks Zed for another great source!

</comment><comment><USER13> On page 3, about "whoami"

> type this command 20 times and say it out loud

I have many years of daily command line use behind me and never needed to use this command. I don't like being taken for a child.

<comment><USER14> I agree. The tone is not for me and it sounds really put on.

"The only piece of advice I am going to give you is this:

Shut the hell up and type this in then try to understand it.

Sorry to be mean, but that's what you have to do. You have an irrational fear of the command line and the only way to conquer an irrational fear is to just shut up and fight through it."

Why say "shut the hell up"? Why assume that the reader has an irrational fear? Most people are just trying to learn because they currently don't know. Not because they are afraid. They don't need some kind of drill sergeant to aggressively push them into it. They've already taken the initiative to seek out the knowledge and begin reading it.

<comment><USER8> Is it the word "hell" you disagree with or being told to do something? If it's "hell" I can remove that. If it's just because you don't want to be told to do something then don't read my book. You won't learn anything from it since the entire book is me telling you to do repetitive boring tasks.

As for why I wrote it: _You_ may not have an irrational fear but a huge number of Windows and OSX users do. They've been told that the CLI is dangerous and antiquated so they avoid it and panic over it. Having someone like me just push them through actually gets them past that and on to learning how to use it.

<comment><USER14> First off, thanks for writing something like this in the first place. I do believe that overall it is a helpful addition to the vast collection of instructional material that is available online.

Regarding the tone of the text, it's not the word hell specifically - it's the overall tone, which is echoed elsewhere. You could've said "Shut your yap..." and that would have been just as bad. Why are you browbeating or scolding your readers as though they are misbehaved children? Telling someone to shut it is condescending, dismissive, offensive, and simply rude.

It's like you're trying to help me, but you've been pushed into it and are now pissed off. And god damnit we're going to get through this one way or the other and if you have to beat me into submission and force my hand then that's what you'll do.

It's just a personal opinion. I find it makes the experience less pleasant with that kind of writing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know the OP is not the author, Zed Shaw, but I simply wanted to say Thanks to Zed for this.

<comment><USER8> You're welcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> pushd / popd where have you been all my life?! How did I not know this? Thanks Zed!

<comment><USER17> Related to that... the 'cd' section seems to be missing "cd -" (ATM).

        $ cd /some/really/long/dir
        $ pwd
        /some/really/long/dir
        $ cd ~
        $ pwd
        ~
        $ cd -
        $ pwd
        /some/really/long/dir

I'm pretty sure "cd" and "cd -" are my most used commands. CDPATH ranks pretty important too.

<comment><USER18> What is the difference between the three?

<comment><USER19> ~ is your home directory. - is the last directory you ran cd from. For CDPATH see this <http://www.caliban.org/bash/#bashtips>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've been watching this for a little while. With powershell, a lot of the *nix commands have been or can be aliased to the windows commands (e.g. ls and Get- ChildItem). Judging from his notes so far, he isn't taking advantage of this, but hopefully he will.

</comment><comment><USER21> I got 1 upvote for anyone that can provide me a pdf of this thing.

<comment><USER22> <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8605032/cli-crash-course.pdf>

git clone git://gitorious.org/the-cli-crash-course/the-cli-crash-course.git

Use dexy with a Tex install and it's a cinch. Only hiccup might be a few specialized Tex packages it complains about needing.

<comment><USER21> I was very psyched to see this, however, I am afraid to tell you that this is missing parts of the text. It is missing the 'Do This/Source Examples' - <USER2> vital part of the text for sure. Replace with fixed copy and report back! Thank you kind sir!

<comment><USER22> Updated to the latest version of dexy and all appears to be well. The link should now have a working copy.

<comment><USER21> Very good, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Zed's productivity is truly inspiring

</comment><comment><USER24> Am I just a cranky old geek or does anyone else find Zed teaching CLI skills mildly amusing? Or is there truly a large population mentally bound by the graphical interface?

Know the basic commands of getting things done isn't just for the experienced admins/developers like myself who have been using keyboards and terminals since the early DOS and VMS days. Ordinary users were able to create documents, check mail and write simple Excel macros, etc. Coworkers shared tips, people had books and kept notes. None of this has ever been rocket science.

<comment><USER8> Yes, sadly Microsoft (and to a certain extent Apple) have done an excellent job convincing people that the CLI is both dangerous and antiquated. So when they come to my other books and I tell them to use the CLI they have major problems. I'm writing this mostly as a quick way to get them over that speed bump then on to more useful programming topics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've been waiting for something like this. Thanks a lot Zed!

</comment><comment><USER26> Once again - another resource with almost no windows support. At least he has a todo. . .

Back when I just did PHP and never used a command line having a widows box was painless. Recently I have been learning UNIX at work and Python at home and have been impressed by the lack of resources/support for working with Windows.

I suppose I should stop complaining and just blog what I've learned so far . . . though admittedly it isn't much.

<comment><USER27> No problem, just install mingw. Or install msysgit and you get git-bash which comes with it. CMD.exe is a pile of garbage. I would understand if you wanted to learn about powershell, though. That's definitely on my todo list.

Also, CMD.exe has copy + paste, you know? You can right click to start a mark, then left click and drag. Enter performs the copy. However, it doesn't understand newlines or line wrapping, so you end up getting artificial newlines where the end of the terminal is (which is unfortunately capped at 80 chars, so if you wanted to make it bigger, you couldn't)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I like the tone of the books. It makes things interesting and you feel like stuff is getting done. Just wanted to throw that out there since most of the comments are complaining about it. I don't want you, Zed, to get the perception that everyone is sheepish about it.

</comment><comment><USER29> Was talking about going Linux soon, and this'll help me work from Terminal exclusively. Thanks!

<comment><USER30> I use a macbook as my main workstation, but all my development happens in linux VMs. It only takes a few minutes to install a headless ubuntu in VMWare, so I create a new one for every project I start. This has several advantages:

\- No configurations/installs from previous projects screwing things up (I know you can use tools like RVM and virtual-env, but in my experience starting from scratch is easier).

\- Snapshots. It's great to be able to restore from a snapshot when you bork an upgrade.

\- I've become very good at configuring a basic LAMP stack from memory.

Screen+Vim and the ability to suspend/resume machine images makes for an extremely flexible and ubiquitous development environment. I've considered doing this with AWS but there are still odd times where I find myself without an internet connection.

<comment><USER31> Hey - I like doing this but find the power consumption of my laptop goes through the roof, and it gets uncomfortably warm. Does anyone have any tricks for beating this? I've just upgraded to latest vmware but haven't deliberately tested this yet.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> always considered myself an ace of the command line... heck for some time i even used X only for webbrowser (while cursing) and used TTY1 for vim and TTY2 for a shell where i'd run version control commands and build...

but yesterday, installing debian-testing on a new notebook, the radeon cards didn't worked out even with the vesa drivers and i had to use the console for a few hours...

i panicked when i realized I had no idea how to bring the wifi up.

...and everytime something like this happens (previous one was some punk changing the kernel parameter "single" or "1" or "init 1" to "text")... i feel old and outdated. it hurts.

<comment><USER33> I find wifi on the command is still surprisingly hard if using just primitives like iproute2. I'm trying to force myself to use just that for a bit to learn the new(ish) ip / iw commands.

Really, though, wpa_supplicant seems to be the most troublesome critical wireless "primitive". Not fun command line syntax.

<comment><USER34> I've had successful experiences with ceni--a relatively unknown interactive network manager. <http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=918442></comment></comment></comment>


Watch the RICON 2012 Live Stream - <AUTHOR> http://basho.com/community/ricon2012_live

<comment><USER2> Kudos to Basho for live-streaming this. I wasn't able to be in San Francisco for the conference, but would have paid for videos after the fact. (Still will if that's the plan.)

<comment><USER3> My understanding (confirmed with Mark "phark" Phillips) is that the videos will be available after the fact.

Disclosure: I'm a Basho employee :)</comment></comment>


Newton Mail is shutting down in September - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/7/17661488/newton-mail-email-app-shutting-down-september-2018 <comment><AUTHOR> I'm really disappointed about this. It's one of the apps I pay a yearly subscription for and one best UIs for managing multiple accounts.</comment>


Welsh funeral service interrupted by pornography played on Smart TV - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/01/28/welsh-funeral-service-interrupted-by-pornography-played-on-smart-tv/ <comment><AUTHOR> At least he was already stiff.

This may seem humorous at first, but seriously... it makes me a little bit sad that normal people can't even sort their TV's out any more without an "engineer".</comment>


Jet-Powered Hoverboard Sets New World Record - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/54622-jet-powered-hoverboard-sets-world-record.html <comment><AUTHOR> This link has a better video

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/2/11564304/flyboard-air- video...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/2/11564304/flyboard-air-video-world- record-hoverboard-flight-franky-zapata)</comment>


Domain-squatting parasites not interested in haggling, apparently. - <AUTHOR> http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/08/domain-squatting-parasites-not-interested-in-haggling-apparently/ <comment><USER2> I dont get how the guy is a parasite. He has a product and this guy wants it. An offer is made and if no agreement can be reached then it doesn't happen. It's called the free-market.

Or is it just because the guy wouldn't sell it for $200 that he's a parasite?

<comment><USER3> > I dont get how the guy is a parasite. He has a product and this guy wants > it.

The reason he is a "parasite" is that he adds no value and charges money for it. His "product" consists of laying claim to something, then charging a lot of money to someone else for it.

The squatter didn't create anything and doesn't increase the value of anything, he just holds it waiting for someone who is willing to pay for it. He didn't even buy something someone else created.

This is similar to patent trolls, with the exception that it's possible there is a real innovation in a patent, and that the existence of the troll gives incentive for innovators to create knowledge that benefits society.

The closest you can get to arguing a domain squatter adds value is that he prevents someone who doesn't value the domain as highly from getting it, keeping it available for someone who will pay more for it - but surely some low-value user of the domain would be willing to sell for a price similar to what the squatter asks.

No value add, taking resources (dollars) from productive market participants = parasite.

<comment><USER4> > His "product" consists of laying claim to something, then charging a lot of > money to someone else for it.

Which is the exact same model behind the real estate market (excluding property flips).

I hate domain squatters as much as the next guy, but it's as viable a business model as buying up land 30 miles from a big city and waiting 20 years for the value to appreciate and then selling it for a huge profit. How is that any different? Seems to be an acceptable practice in today's society, no one labels them parasites.

<comment><USER3> There are two differences with real estate:

\- real estate "squatters" provide liquidity for property owners (this is theoretically possible in domains, but I've never heard it claimed to be a common case)

\- lack of homesteading

When "new territory" opened up (in the US), people could be granted chunks of land if they improved the land, making productive use of the property for some time (homesteading). They could then file a claim for the land and have it deeded to them for continued ownership, resale, etc.

That initial productive use is lacking in domain squatting. No one has "improved" the claimed domain name or made productive use of it. The squatter has only filed a claim for it, hoping for a profit.

<comment><USER2> what qualifies as an improvement? links? the ocassional post? a pic of gramdma? who gets to decide? you? or should we have a government agency for that?

what if they want it for just email? what if they had plans for it but life happened and they didn't get around to it?

if it wasn't a .com would there be all this stink?

like i said below a domain is not a physical asset. it's 0's and 1's. it's vapor. the value of that domain exists in peoples minds. it is not like land at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> jwz is just clueless about the current domain market. Offering $200 for dnacafe.com is a slap in the face and shows he doesn't know the market at all. It is not even worth my time to do a transfer/escrow for $200.

There are already tons of local businesses called DNA Cafe, and so the domain is worth at least $5k.

<comment><USER6> The post is part tongue-in-cheek. You can't call him clueless just because the domain is only worth $200 to him.

<comment><USER5> I agree that he is being snarky, but if he wasn't famous, the post would just come across as another clown on the internet trying to get something for nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Most half-decent domains were registered back in the mid to late Nineties, at the then normal price of around $100 per year, renewal prices only came down to their current levels a few years later. Pretty much any decent domain registered in the past ten years would have been acquired through a drop- catching service for at least $69, probably much more if more than one person wanted it and an auction ensued.

When you come up with a great name for your business, it is natural to be disappointed when you discover that someone thought of it before you and registered the .COM.

It is, however, a sign of stupidity to then allow your disappointment to grow into anger and decide that the owner is a squatter, to allow your anger to distort reality.

.COM domains have always been first-come-first-served, so, by definition, a domain owner cannot be squatting unless someone has a trademark that pre-dates its registration.

Many .COM domains are openly offered for lower prices on any of the hundreds of online marketplaces but if a domain has NOT been listed for sale and you want that one specific domain, you want someone else to give you their property which they have been renewing for years, a low-ball offer like $250 is ridiculous.

Think about it: most domains were originally registered, purchased or bought at auction for a lot of money because someone, much like yourself, had an idea for it. Like most ideas, it didn't happen but the owner continued paying the annual renewals, aware that the name had value. The chances are that the owner has been paying annual renewals on at least a few dozen names, because most idea guys have dozens of ideas over the years.

Now, in mid-2011, you come along, all excited because the same idea has now occurred to you ten years later, and you say "Gee, thanks for keeping this lovely domain for me, here's a couple of hundred bucks, bye!".

If he doesn't jump at the chance to let you cherry-pick the best of his domains for probably less than he originally paid, he's suddenly a "domain- squatting parasite"?

Should he spend his valuable time "haggling" with some idiot who has no idea of the actual value of a good domain?

Or should he just wait for a real business person to come along, someone who understands and is willing to invest in a good name, someone who, unlike the no-clue, cheap-ass kid, will probably be organised enough to actually complete their project and use the domain?

If you are serious about your business and manage to find, as late as 2011, the perfect name for under ten grand, be glad that it has been kept for you by someone that is actually willing to name a price.

<comment><USER2> well at least there is one logical person here.

<comment><USER7> You would be amazed by how many down-votes my attempt to describe the realities of the situation has gotten.

This is one of those taboo subjects about which people are in serious denial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm annoyed by domain squatters as much as the next guy - but how is this different than owning any other property? Do you hate the land owner that sits on vacant land waiting for it to appreciate?

<comment><USER9> The price of the property.

The price for a domain name have basically been too cheap.

<comment><USER10> although this probably wouldn't be true for dnacafe.com, if the reg fees were like 25 bucks a year instead of like 7 or whatever people with reseller accounts pay you'd see a lot less of people trying to own every single combination of two dictionary words. and the increased prices wouldn't be much of a burden on very many people/business.

<comment><USER11> Not true. Many people grabbed names way back when the reg fees were $70 (you had to get 2 years at $35 through Network Solutions). Back then it wasn't obvious that these names would be worth much. Or more people would have done that. That's not the case with this name of course. Of course you can grab more names at a lower price. But you still have to spend time deciding what names to grab.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The best way to get a response from someone you're trying to do business with is to laugh at them and then low ball them. Definitely.

<comment><USER13> Probably the point was he didn't want to do business with them (at least not anymore after being asked outrageous 10,000$ for the domain).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I worked with a domain squatter at a previous job. Seemed to be a completely slimy business. He would scour the GoDaddy domain aftermarket and after purchase usually throw up a "<site here> is closed for business, but we are working with investors to get things back online shortly" sort of page in an effort to extort more out of the people.

there are just some ways I dont want to make money...

<comment><USER15> Maybe I'm jaded, but that doesn't sound very slimy to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. I`m sure this will come back to bit him/her in the ass. DNACafe really isn't that great of a domain name, definitely not $10k worth of greatness.

To anyone here who has been/is a domain squatter - how many offers do you typically pass up on per domain (I'm sure it varies, so generalize)? Is there some sort of offer that you could not pass up on? Do you think this guy would even pass up on $1k. I don't understand the mentality behind it all.

<comment><USER11> Squatter is a derogatory term which has played well in the media. It implies no right to the property. That isn't the case with most domains. You register the name, you pay for it. It's your name. The usage of squatting got it's start basically with people doing typos or grabbing famous names (panavision.com) who basically had no right at all to a famous trademark and were trying to extort money. It simply doesn't apply to a name like dnacafe.com in this particular situation. There is of course a company called dnamededcafe.com and it would be possible to start a cafe somewhere called dnacafe.com that has no affiliation with dnalounge.com. And dnalounge.com clearly calls itself dna lounge in it's logo. Not dna cafe.

<comment><USER16> Squatter is a derogatory term, and I would lump in anyone who intentionally buys a domain with no intent to use it other than to sell it at an increased profit margin. I guess you and me differ here, you may think it's okay and perhaps it's the market at play, but I think it's just sleazy way to make money. Squatting has made it nearly impossible to come up with a decent brand. This is just my opinion, you don't have to agree with it and you're well within your right to squat on domains, but you can't really argue semantics here when it's entirely opinionated.

<comment><USER11> You're assuming that if the "squatter" hadn't bought the name it would be available for _you_ to use exactly when you wanted to use it. It's also possible that someone would buy it and use it for a business or personal use and then it would actually either not be available at all at any price for you or you'd have to pay more money for the name then a squatter would have charged.

Here's another different example. Someone buys up land near a proposed hiway exit. And then they hold out until a fast food chain wants to buy the land for the restaurant and pay the price that a large corporation can pay for that type of land. Somebody made money on that transaction. But the small restaurant is upset because "all the good land is taken by squatters and I can't locate my restaurant there because I can't pay the price what gives them the right to charge me all that money.".

Does that make sense?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Could someone define the term: domain-squatting parasites

I own a few domain names that I had really big plans for--but just haven't gotten around to developing them (so they're parked at the moment).

Does that make me a domain-squatting parasite? I sure hope not!

<comment><USER18> I'd imagine every person that is using the phrase "domain-squatting parasite" in this thread has a couple, if not a handful of domains, that they aren't using right now and would charge a premium for if they were asked to sell. hypocritical to say the least.

<comment><USER19> Are you the same a strong that was squatting on frederics.com a typo of Fredericks of Hollywood, a domain you used to advertise products of competitors to Fredericks? Are you the same a strong that was sqautting on TrumpCardCasino.com which you used to divert traffic intended for trump to slot site advertising the services of competitors to Trump? Both of these names were taken away from you by way of legal proceedings initiated by the respective trademark holders. It is actions like these that define cybersquatting and label you, and those like you, as domain squatting parasites. Whos the real hypocrit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Yes, domain-squatting parasites are the worth scum ever.

By the way, to french-speaking people: I've bought quite a few nice french- sounding SEO-optimized domain names and am willing to sell some of them for less than $10000 :-)

</comment><comment><USER11> dnacafe.com wasn't registered until 2007. dnalounge.com was registered way back in 1995. Either dnacafe.com was registered and dropped (and jamie could have grabbed it using the proper techniques) or it was always available. (I don't have time to check the whois history.)

People who don't own a particular domain name that they want seem to feel entitled to that name at the price they determine is acceptable. This defies everything out there about a free market system.</comment>