Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-04/ocasio-cortez-says-70-ultra-rich-tax-could-pay-for-climate-plan <comment><USER2> I look at these "tax the super-rich" ideas like this:

>"Added together, the total net worth for 2018's billionaires was US$9.1 trillion" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires)

Meanwhile, the US federal government spends ~$4 trillion per year: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:CBO_Infographic_2017.png)

So even confiscating all the wealth of the top couple thousand richest people in the world (not just US) would only fund the US government for 2-3 years. And that would be a one-time event.

Basically, the amount of money spent by the US government is already so massive that I don't see how giving it more can possibly help with anything. It would be much more realistic to attempt making the government slightly more efficient and then reallocating the money saved.

And that ignores that barely anyone will end up paying these 90% taxes, just like almost no revenue was collected from the 90% bracket in the 1950s since various accounting methods/etc were be used to avoid it.

<comment><USER3> Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people.

If this seems radical, notice that this is already part of the American social contract. We already tax people to provide services and invest in long term projects. All this does is change the rates and the allocation direction.

<comment><USER4> > Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a > reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to > things that we want as a body of people.

That simplistic logic fails to account for the fact that pursuing income is an incentive to allocate resources to productive investments that are self- sufficient and pay off tons of taxes directly and indirextly, such as by paying salaries and generating demand.

Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms", not only are you eliminating incentives for productive investments as they effectively cease to be productive due to state intervention and actually create incentives to move production and industrial capabilities out of the country.

In short, you're advocating that the goose that lays golden eggs should be slautered to get to someone else's eggs.

<comment><USER5> > Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms"

You mean, like a heirarchy of preferential tax rates for different income sources where capital income is favored over general income which in turn is favored over labor income?

<comment><USER4> Robbing someone of 70% of their income is way more aggravating and profoundly totalitarian than a simple progressive tax. It's one thing to grant a small share of your income to the state in order to keep social institutions running, but it's an entirely different thing if the state robs you off the majority of your total income for no reason at all.

In a free and democratic society, a citizen has the right to the fruit of his labour, not just to a small fraction of what he worked for.

<comment><USER5> You seem to be responding to something other than the post yours is attached to, but:

> Robbing someone of 70% of their income is way more aggravating and > profoundly totalitarian than a simple progressive tax.

A 70% top marginal rate isn't taxing (much less "robbing") 70% of your income, unless your income is literally infinite.

Also, the top marginal rate was at or above 70% for every year from 1936 through 1980, yet for some reason those 44 years aren't usually considered a "profoundly totalitarian" period in US history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I applaud ambitious efforts and I'm open to raising taxes for the very rich (albeit easy for me to say down here in the middle class), but AOC doesn't strike be as competent in the slightest (although as her supporters are so fond of rationalizing, she's not the _least competent_ public official). She has charisma, which is an important leadership quality, but not much else as far as I can tell. Certainly not the person I want leading the charge on climate change.

<comment><USER7> I'm not... I've seen enough government operations that you cannot convince me that additional taxation is necessary vs. reducing excess spending and bureaucracy.

<comment><USER8> Haha. You will never be convinced the. There's been ample examples of austerity and cutbacks and government audits at all levels of government in all countries. This libertarian ideal of wasteful spending and government mismanagement is kind of a dumb one. Things are actually pretty well done unless the politicians are corrupt. But if corrupt politicians are the problem then the solution is to fix the corrupt politicians.

Every large organization (public or private) has waste the same way every large computer system has waste. Management is complex and there's simply no way to optimize all resources in real-time. In software we may lament some of the bloat but we generally accept it as a necessary evil. In places where performance is extra valuable we profile and optimize the path. Well the same thing happens in government and corporations. Government of Ontario spends a good chunk of money on grants to health care system researchers to incrementally make things better and the system is doing really well considering how underfunded parts of it are.

<comment><USER7> I've seen $80k phone systems denied, while $180k systems get approved... I've seen fixed telecom rates nearly 5x what private businesses pay. I've seen contracts burn through cash only to cancel projects after billions have been spent. I've seen $100 office chairs denied, and $580 chairs ordered instead... because of anything from approved vendor lists, to just plain shifts in corruption. In the end, it all sucks a lot.

These are just off the top of my head. I'm not saying there aren't things that do run relatively effectively... I will also say there is gross overspending at all levels.

For the most part, the military could be cut to a fraction of the current size without much lost. A lot of the rest could be made up by shifting IP registration costs, and reducing protectionism. There's plenty of fat to trim...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not a word about the logistics of making such a huge change in such a short amount of time? Surely AOC realizes that money isn't the only obstacle, but also replacing an enormous amount of infrastructure. When you think about how ubiquitous our usage of gasoline, home heating oil, CNG for heating and cooking, and on and on, it quickly becomes clear that while finances would be very difficult, that's dwarfed by the amount of physical change that would be required.

Start looking at how all the replacement transportation can be put in place 11 years - either getting all cars off the road, and manufacturing new electric ones; or building other mass transit that can serve everyone (and how long does it take to get a train line built these days?). How are we going to find enough building contractors to install electric heat or heat pumps into every house that uses oil or gas, and to build and install electric stoves?

And of course there's the upheaval of jobs for all the people in the current industries, and trying to find a place for them in the new industries.

Money's not the bottleneck here, we're more constrained by logistics.

<comment><USER3> I'll leave the tax plan aside to respond to this. As slow and creaky as the world is, when a government as powerful as the United States aggressively puts forth a vision for the world the systems of the world bend to make it work.

Remember also that the vast majority of logistical challenges with climate change aren't developing new products, but handling coordination problems around deploying existing ones.

Things that might happen if America decided to commit seriously to a Green New Deal: \- automotive roadmap overhaul to 80% electric drivetrain for all deliveries in the United States by 2030 \- tectonic shift in land use around the country to higher density zoning, mass transit, HSR \- hundreds of billions of dollars of research to public and private institutions to map all the carbon in our system and the most effective ways to remove it

But these are all giant changes. Here are simple ones that are straight up applications of government power: \- switch all major urban areas to Tokyo style zoning with property taxes tied to mass transit investment \- steep cliff on ICE vehicles delivered in the United States hitting some x00% in 2030 \- end all fossil fuel subsidies \- move all energy supply to a Texas style market

Emergent properties of human behavior responding to incentives would take care of the rest.

<comment><USER9> _Remember also that the vast majority of logistical challenges with climate change aren 't developing new products, but handling coordination problems around deploying existing ones._

Yes, that was exactly my point. There simply aren't enough people making electric cars, heat pumps, and all those other new products, to eliminate fossil fuel dependence by 2030, which was what AOC was advocating. Diverting enough resources would be disastrous to other industries, and then once we've made the huge investment to build all that, we suddenly don't need the capacity once we hit the goal. It's economic suicide.

 _Emergent properties of human behavior responding to incentives would take care of the rest._

You're outlining programs that would push us in the right direction, which is good. These are not things which will eliminate fossil fuel dependence by 2030, which is what AOC was shooting for, and which I'm criticizing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates)

> During World War I, the top rate rose to 77% and the income threshold to be > in this top bracket increased to $1,000,000 (equivalent to $19.6 million[68] > in 2018 dollars).

> During 1944 and 1945, the top rate was its all-time high at 94% applied to > income above $200,000 (equivalent to $2.85 million[68] in 2018 dollars).

Nominal Tax Rates and Brackets, 1913-2013: [https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/fed_individual_r...](https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_nominal.pdf)

Inflation-adjusted Tax Rates and Brackets, 1913-2013 (in 2012 Dollars): [https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/fed_individual_r...](https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/fed_individual_rate_history_adjusted.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER11> The vast majority of wealth is stored in abstract things like stocks and bonds, not possessions stored in a bunker somewhere.

To pay high taxes, that means liquidating those stocks and bonds (or in the case of income taxes, never buying them in the first place). That limits the financing that corporations can get, preventing expansion or causing them to downsize.

In other words, taxing the rich actually takes from corporations. Maybe that's the goal, but it has consequences, like job losses, greater dependence on foreign investment and imports, etc.

</comment><comment><USER12> I openly admit I am a republican but I have never understood why there are not more tax brackets. A person making 100k per year is not even close to the same as a person making 100m per year but are taxed at the same rate.

<comment><USER13> I've never really understood why there are brackets in the first place, can't we just write a function to calculate your taxes based off your total income?

<comment><USER14> Because income tax in the first place is a compromise with people who don't want that system at all. So you get a solution that isn't what anyone wants.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> To put this in context, a 70% rate on the top marginal income tax bracket is not unprecedented, or even high by historical standards [1]:

 _> Sanders said income tax rates under Eisenhower were as high as 90 percent.

> A look through the records shows that top earners in the eight years of > Eisenhower's presidency paid a top income tax rate of 91 percent. It was > even a bit higher before he took office.

> We rate Sanders' statement True._

[1] [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/nov...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2015/nov/15/bernie-s/income-tax-rates-were-90-percent-under- eisenhower-/)

<comment><USER16> > income tax rates under Eisenhower were as high as 90 percent.

Climate change is not WWII.

<comment><USER17> You're right - the stakes are much higher with climate change.

<comment><USER16> Sure, but they are not imminent (what is the pearl harbor of climate change?). Further, climate change is highly politicized whereas WWII mobilized the _entire_ country in purpose.

<comment><USER18> > what is the pearl harbor of climate change?

I'd say Katrina, Sandy, Irene, Maria, Camp, Woolsey, and Mendocino, but if you're not convinced already you'll never be.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> 70% was the highest tax rate in 1980, so this is not as insane as it might seem on the surface.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Historic...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Historical_Marginal_Tax_Rate_for_Highest_and_Lowest_Income_Earners.jpg)

<comment><USER20> IIRC the _effective_ tax rates that the top 1% pay haven't really varied much over the past half a century.. it's always hovered around 30-40%: [https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170804133536/Average- Effec...](https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170804133536/Average-Effective- Tax-Rate-on-the-Top-1-Percent-of-U.S.-Households.png)

Note I just grabbed the first google result, may be inaccurate / biased

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Ultra-Rich" and "Could" are going to have to be refined as ideas; bearing in mind that a) the proportion of GDP which goes to taxes has not changed in any great measure for a very long time, including since the top marginal tax rates were already that high (though the bracket was... pretty high, and other factors reduced its purpose), and b) the U.S. already has the most progressive income taxes in the developed world as far as I can tell.

I know it's fashionable these days to play on people's resentment for "the rich" (however that is conveniently defined at the time), but this is budgetary advice from somebody who didn't think far enough ahead to budget her first month of rent in DC (or find a roommate), and who once said that the reason unemployment is low is that "everyone is working two jobs".

If you want a progressive policy, this person is not likely to be able to hold that policy's basic premise in her head, let alone any important details. I'm not a progressive, but surely it's easy to see how a Tulsi Gabbard, for example, is actually likely to produce some form of meaningful policy on at least some issues, whereas AOC mostly relies on desperately clawing to relevance through cheap popularity stunts and gaffes.

</comment><comment><USER22> She cites Lincoln and FDR as evidence that radical ideas can be good ones. But "there have been radical ideas that have been good" does not imply " _this_ radical idea is a good one".

Her idea may in fact be good, but on this point, her logic does not work.

As for the idea itself: IIRC, there seem to be significant second-order effects that keep the federal government's income at 18-22% of GDP, no matter what the tax rates are. So raising the rates like this may provide significantly less new income than she expects.

What's more, if you have a pot of new money, there will be competing ideas for how to spend it. This green initiative may be a good idea. Somebody else may have a good idea - say, Medicare for all. And a different somebody may have another good idea - say, guaranteed basic income. The problem is, even if raising the taxes provides the expected money, the money is only enough for one of these ideas. You can only spend that pot once. But Congress being Congress, they're going to want to spend it three times. (Note well: This specific paragraph is not a criticism of Ocasio-Cortez's idea; it's a criticism of Congress in general.)

<comment><USER5> > She cites Lincoln and FDR as evidence that radical ideas can be good ones. > But "there have been radical ideas that have been good" does not imply "this > radical idea is a good one".

But it does rebut the common line of argument that it is preemptively deployed against, which is "Radical ideas should be rejected as bad _merely because_ they are radical."

> As for the idea itself: IIRC, there seem to be significant second-order > effects that keep the federal government's income at 18-22% of GDP, no > matter what the tax rates are. So raising the rates like this may provide > significantly less new income than she expects.

To the extent that revenue seems relatively stable with apparently large changes in rates, I don't think those are "second order effects", I think that they are coordinated changes to tax policy other than rates. The US doesn't have some kind fof special _sui generis_ immunity to policy changing effective rate of total taxation.

Also, US federal tax revenues were 27.1% of GDP in 2017 [0], so the 18-22% range is not only not immutable, but also not what is recently observed.

[0] [https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united- states.pd...](https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pdf)

<comment><USER22> Your first part is fair, and your second part has actual data. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted.

There might be some kind of gaussian distribution on good ideas, though. The more radical an idea, the lower probability that it's correct. It's still not zero, and the idea should be judged on the merits. But the further out the idea is, the more radical it is, it seems reasonable to say that the level of skepticism should go up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal)

\-- Government-led investment in energy and resource efficiency, as well as reusable energies and microgeneration;

\--Low-carbon infrastructure redevelopment in order to create jobs;

\--A directed tax on the profits of oil and gas companies with proceeds being invested in renewable energy and energy efficiency;

\--Financial incentives for green investment and reduced energy usage, including low interest rates for green investment;

\--Re-regulation of international finance, including capital controls, and increased scrutiny of financial derivatives - likely along the lines of Basel II;

\--Curbing corporate tax evasion through compulsory financial reporting and by clamping down on tax havens;

</comment><comment><USER24> Diminishing returns sounds like a good idea on paper, because then the richer you get, the more you contribute. But remember that the people who are experiencing the diminishing returns aren't going to like it (besides Warren Buffett) and will probably fight against it.

It's a bit of a conundrum. The richer you get, the more power you have (via money). We want to tap into that wealth/power for the greater good. Those affected might disagree and can wield said power to prevent you from doing so. You might be able to legally force them to using the power of democracy, but this could cause all sorts of other problems (the rich fleeing to other countries, etc.)

<comment><USER25> Because if I'm able to make myself sufficiently wealthy, I should be trusted to handle my money myself, not have it redistributed by some third party that doesn't always operate very efficiently.

<comment><USER26> This isn't about trust, no one cares whether a rich person can handle their money. That's not why they pay taxes or that those who aren't super rich pay taxes because they can't be trusted. It's about funding the society that helped enable you to become wealthy. That instead of relying on the christian idea of charity that we instead fund a society that can create a more stable environment.

<comment><USER7> And what's so wrong from wanting to support charities that pay for the things you want and care about vs. more money to the militarization of police, or the military industrial complex in general?

<comment><USER8> Charities are only needed because the government doesn't provide the necessary services in those areas. The unfortunate thing with charities is that it's a whim of the donors what gets covered (1 dollar = 1 vote) and sometimes they are religious (not all inclusive)

<comment><USER7> I'm not a socialist and am in favor of maximizing personal liberty. Likewise I'm against corporate protectionisms and in favor of reigning in IP law. I don't want more government as a general rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> > Income tax hikes are dead on arrival while Republicans control the Senate > and White House. Such a steep increase also isn't likely to find much > support among many congressional Democrats.

And rightfully so. When pretty much everyone benefited from lax climate controls and externalities that are not directly included in the price of a product or service, why should only on special group pay for it? If there were a global move towards pricing in climate change into the end price, however that may work, I would strongly suggest that everyone has to pay their share. Or am I missing something here?

<comment><USER28> > When pretty much everyone benefited from lax climate controls and > externalities that are not directly included in the price of a product or > service

I think the argument would be that the ultra-wealthy benefited more from a carbon-based economy than the average worker, in the form of their accumulated fortune.

<comment><USER27> I think that argument is not valid. The "ultra rich" would benefit from any kind of capitalistic economy, they are "ultra rich" because they have more capital than 99.9% ( or whatever) of the population. And most of this fortune stems from having shares in businesses.

However, IF we would have taxed the greenhouse gas emissions into every product, maybe not even the middle class would have been able to afford it. But since gas was cheap, a lot of people were able to afford having a car, building houses, getting to their jobs without moving their homes and were able to improve their lives.

I do see the point in your argument, I just think it would be a fairer solution to tax everyone for the climate change linear to their consumption.

<comment><USER8> Consumption is one way to see it. But if, as you were saying, society benefited a lot from greenhouse gases then perhaps tax those that benefited most from our society :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In federal accounting how does one allocate tax revenue to a project? Is it not just a big fungible resource that then gets allocated? To me the funding doesnt seem to be the problem in so much as making tackling climate change and allocating actual dollars.

<comment><USER22> Congress at least nominally operates under pay-as-you-go rules. If you're going to propose a new program, you have to propose where the money's going to come from.

(I say "at least nominally" because I'm not sure that this actually works as advertised. If it did, the deficit shouldn't increase from one year to another, except perhaps in an economic downturn.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Here's what I don't understand - the US emits in the range of 15-20% of the world's total carbon emissions. If we were to reduce that by 20% (which would be a huge undertaking), we're talking about a 4% worldwide decrease at most. In order for any drastic change to happen, the US cannot do it alone.

Therefore, domestic policy is not the place where a real impact can be made. It's a foreign policy matter, and something that can really only be accomplished through treaties and the like.

China's contribution to carbon emissions is approximately twice the US's. Trump wants to threaten to harm China's economy through tariffs. Why not combine those two goals and craft legislation so that tariffs are set on a sliding scale based on the origin nation's total carbon emissions?

</comment><comment><USER31> Man, that article is _very_ light on actual content.

</comment><comment><USER32> Agree or disagree, there's a few things this article left unclear.

First, the US has a progressive tax code. So, you wouldn't be taxed 70% on your entire income, only the money over a certain amount. Plus, due to deductions and other loopholes, nobody will actually pay this full amount.

Secondly, this rate isn't a new idea. It was 94% under FDR (democrat) and 91% during the Eisenhower (republican) administration, and both resulted in times of prosperity. And it was 70% as recently as the 80s.

<comment><USER33> The first point was mentioned in the article.

<comment><USER32> It does include the quote "That doesn't mean all $10 million are taxed at an extremely high rate", however it wasn't explained for anyone who's unfamiliar with our system.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The US has previously had top marginal income tax rates even higher than 70%. As far as I can tell, currently the highest tax bracket is 37% at income over $600,000. Why not add more brackets with progressively higher rates? The largest barrier is that usually to get elected to to the federal positions that are required to pass this policy you need the support of the donor class, exactly the constituency that would be opposed to the policy.

</comment><comment><USER35> What if we were to have an amendment to the Constitution such that income taxes for each income group would have to be approved by a plebiscite of those actually IN that income group? I wouldn't feel nearly so uneasy about taxing the ultra-rich at 70% if the majority of them were in favor of it.

<comment><USER5> > What if we were to have an amendment to the Constitution such that income > taxes for each income group would have to be approved by a plebiscite of > those actually IN that income group?

Similarly, we should also require that regulations on industry be approved by the regulated industry, and that criminal punishments be ratified by those who are guilty of the specific crime.

<comment><USER35> Well, I think if we can impose 70% taxes on the ultra-rich, perhaps we should pass a law that Asians have to pay 50% more than other groups; I believe we still can outvote them.

<comment><USER7> I know you're probably trolling/joking, but I've thought that we should have something like this for non-citizen workers combined with more open borders for migrant workers and H1B floors for pay.

<comment><USER35> Well, I would say it is neither trolling nor joking, but rather a kind of thought experiment. Isn't soaking the rich (if I'm not rich) very similar to placing exorbitant taxes on the Asians (if I'm not Asian)? It's really just a matter of how far you think we can take the notion of the tyranny of the majority until it becomes morally repugnant.

<comment><USER7> I, honestly think that taxes are all around too high, and spending more so. I'm in favor of flat taxes. I would suggest that higher non-citizen taxes as well as a pay floor (must be at least X) for h1b visa workers. Those would be mainly to offset immigration. I'm not against immigration, however drawing too many people will create resource constraints on one side, and depression of income and lifestyle on the other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Although Ocasio-Cortez minored in economics, she doesn't seem to understand simple concepts such as unemployment rates. In a recent interview[1], in response to a question about how low unemployment rates undermine her message of the working class falling behind, she said the following:

> I think the numbers you just talked about is part of the problem. Because we > look at these figures and say, "Unemployment is low. Everything is fine." > Well unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low > because people _are_ working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed > their kids.

This was so incorrect that Politifact rated it "pants on fire".[2]

AOC also doesn't seem to have an understanding of basic historical facts. Immediately after she put her foot in her mouth on labor stats, she said:

> Right now we have this no-holds-barred wild west hypercapitalism. What that > means is profit at any cost. Capitalism has not always existed in the world > and it will not always exist in the world. When this country started, we > were not capitalist. We did not operate on a capitalist economy.

That is not the sort of mind that I want tinkering with the economy I am part of.

1\. Starting around 5:45 in this video: [https://www.pbs.org/video/alexandria- ocasio-cortez-barhhq/](https://www.pbs.org/video/alexandria-ocasio-cortez- barhhq/)

2\. [https://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2018/jul...](https://www.politifact.com/truth-o- meter/statements/2018/jul/18/alexandria-ocasio-cortez/alexandria-ocasio- cortez-wrong-several-counts-abou/)</comment>


Viennese Mazes: What They Are, and How to Make One - <AUTHOR> http://zulko.github.io/blog/2014/04/27/viennese-mazes-what-they-are/

<comment><USER2> I love the idea of constrained mazes like this. Another related idea is that of "plank puzzles" ([http://www.clickmazes.com/planks/ixplanks.htm](http://www.clickmazes.com/planks/ixplanks.htm)), which constrain available moves based on which planks you currently have access to.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very cool puzzles and nice to share the code.

One thing about the example mazes/solutions. On the hard one, isn't tqp-khe- bdc-a a faster solution to the hard one listed?/Doesn't going t-r first violate the red light rule?

<comment><USER4> You are reading it backwards, you must start in (a).

<comment><USER3> The old holding the map backwards mistake. /facepalm

Thanks for letting me know though, my brain went with starting at the bottom for some reason rather than the letters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Sounds very similar to logic mazes (classic example for me is Theseus and the Minotaur)

<comment><USER6> …and for anyone wanting to try out more logic mazes, I suggest you check out one of the masters of creating them: Robert Abbott: [http://logicmazes.com/](http://logicmazes.com/)

<comment><USER5> Yup, it's a very interesting page. I learnt about logic mazes there, after learning (and playing) Theseus and the minotaur. Just didn't want to add links to avoid sounding spammy (not implying that you do!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the example solutions breaks the rule of "only pass a light once"

<comment><USER4> It doesn't say that, it says "twice in a row". This means you cannot half-turn and just go back the street you came from.</comment></comment>


You're hired, but first, some rules - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/swlh/you-re-hired-but-first-some-rules-6fdf94e64098#.xk7vstfef <comment><USER2> _" We curse in the office, we play loud music and sometimes we drink whiskey before 5PM. We don't expect everyone to do this, but it is something that won't change."_

And yet...

 _" Respect the space. You don't have to wear a suit or a dress everyday, but we expect you to dress professionally. Keep t-shirts, sandals, polar fleeces and hats to a minimum. If you wear sweatpants to work, you are going home."_

So the office has the ambience of a frat house, but employees have to dress professionally? That's certainly an interesting combination of rules.

And strangely, on their "About Us" page, where they present their company to the world and to potential employees, one of the founders is wearing jeans and a t-shirt:

[https://www.fohrcard.com/about](https://www.fohrcard.com/about)

<comment><USER3> Reading the document as a whole it becomes clear that you're not going to get rules that are hard, fast, and legalistic. They are trying to set a tone, a balance between the different forces that pull on a company and culture. If you're expected, or needing, black and white rules, this isn't the place for you.

For some programmers, accustomed to a world of clearly defined languages and semantics[0], this can be hard.

[0] Although some programming languages and environments are surprisingly poorly specified.</comment></comment>


Our Google Government - <AUTHOR> http://philosecurity.org/2009/12/24/our-google-government

<comment><USER2> This seems very ridiculous. Google hosting government services, especially at the typically non-confidential city/state level, is _less of an issue_ than hosting services for private companies. Almost everything those governments do is supposed to be open to the public. There is nothing (or at the most, very little) to compromise.

Any organization, public or private, should be backing up their Google- provided services on their own.

<comment><USER3> I totally agree with your overall conclusion that the article is silly alarmist. However, even government bodies that don't deal with "secret" information house lots of "sensitive" data whose public release would be a big deal. Departments / agencies have lots of confidential and proprietary business information of the private companies they regulate and most agencies have truckloads of personal data belonging to their constituents.

To say that Google Apps, etc is a new and unique threat to it is silly though. At this point between contractors and private infrastructure providers there is little or no government data that is handled only by government employees.

edit: Also, on the federal level one of the big pushes of the new CTO is for GSA to build out its own "cloud" of datacenters with which to host applications and house data for the rest of the executive agencies. While the government might well hire could services from private companies, the goal is to warehouse data inside a government controlled environment.

<comment><USER4> Why suppose that p(in-house sysadmin gets sticky fingers) < p(Google sysadmin gets sticky fingers)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's worth keeping in mind that when Google proudly proclaims, "hey, so and so many people have gone Google," they've chosen their definition very carefully:

"The reference to Going Google refers to US state governments using _one or more_ of Google's enterprise products..."

Let's not forget that Google's enterprise products include their search appliances, Google Earth (to some extent), etc. This isn't by any means saying that upwards of 50 percent of state governments are using Google Docs.

</comment><comment><USER6> Good data in the post on Google (people are definitely more wary of them now that they announce more and more projects in more and more areas of internet architecture), but small fries compared to the military contractor complex's influence on the federal government, in northern Virginia and Maryland...

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm pretty sure the US gov't could "persuade" Google to hand data over if it really came down to it.

</comment><comment><USER8> I think MS posted this.</comment>


Ask HN: HR and accounting software for a fast growing saas company - <AUTHOR> Hi, we are a fast growing saas company with a team both in US and Europe (8 and we are hiring aggressively). Still paying people based on 1099 contracts, but need to switch to hiring full-time asap. We also need to take care of our finance reporting.<p>Is Zenefits still the best way to go? What about accounting? We need to see clearly where money goes. Freshbooks? <comment><USER2> You need a person, not a software selection.

I say this as a tax lawyer, finance guy, and small business owner. I have lived (and continue to live) in this problem space.

HR. I am sorry, but software will not solve your problems. Governments (and you are dealing with more than one) tend to be actively hostile to employers. California (where I am) is the worst. You _will_ make mistakes. A single overtime claim can cost you tend of thousands of dollars.

For HR I hired a consultant to document everything. The consultant's work was cross-checked by a labor lawyer. We do quarterly reviews of the employee manual and all procedures. You have to live by the rules you write.

I hate being an employer. I really like the people who work with me. They are great.

You, as a founder, should preserve your attention. You should also protect your reserve of courage -- don't have incipient, nagging fear that you are doing it wrong. I suspect you are there now, by your comment about converting your people from contractor to employee.

Accounting. Hire a really, really good bookkeeper. At your size you need someone in house, at least part-time. We have have our outside accountant and two part-time bookkeepers (a junior day-to-day person and a senior manager- level person) feeding data to our accountant.

Software: Xero. My personal opinion is that QuickBooks is shit, but you use the tool that the craftsman favors. Our senior bookkeeper loves QuickBooks Online and can make it sing.

International. I happen to be an international tax lawyer. I know about the complexity of having employees in other countries. This simply means that the true cost of having a distributed team is higher than you think.</comment>


Why Silicon Valley Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Returning Home - tomh- http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/06/why-silicon-valley-immigrant-entrepreneurs-are-returning-home/ <comment><AUTHOR> Yet another Vivek Wadhwa story with his same pet theme. Here is my question: is there any Vivek Wadhwa story on this issue in which he shows detailed figures for NET immigration flows into and out of the United States in comparison to countries like China and India? Or does he consistently do as I have seen him do here and in other stories, relating individual anecdotes and asserting the existence of a problem (too few high-skill immigrants to the United States from India or from China) that may not actually exist? What do other authors have to say about this subject?

And, by the way, what countries offer better opportunities for immigration to found start-up businesses for young people from India and China than the United States offers? What are those countries' rules about immigration? Do young people from African countries also find it easy to emigrate to those other countries? Can anyone from anywhere in the world settle in any European Union country to found a start-up high-tech business? Is it possible for foreigners to settle in China or in India to found start-up businesses? What visa rules apply to cases like that?

<comment><USER2> It is difficult for foreigners to start companies in the EU, even modulo the fact that it's somewhat difficult for residents to start companies in parts of the EU.

I don't know anything about Asian immigration, but I know a very little bit about EU policies, and I don't think they're a competitive threat to us here.

<comment><USER3> Huh? This sounds totally wrong to me.

The UK and Germany, the two strongest EU startup countries, both already have founders visas and there's nothing special about a foreigner owning shares in a Ltd or GmbH, the respective equivalents of a US incorporation.

Also, in my experience, founding a UK Ltd is even _easier_ than doing a US Inc if for no other reason than that you don't have to deal with both federal and state institutions as in the US. The stuff that the Companies House sends you is super straight-forward (impressively so, other countries should take note), and can be done mostly online. Germany is (surprise!) more bureaucratic and things take a bit longer, but it's still not rocket surgery.

On the whole immigration and getting permanent residence is much easier in both countries. The UK has a point system for highly skilled immigrants, and you can get permanent residence in both in 5 years without having had to stick around at a single employer.

<comment><USER2> I have several degreed acquaintances who were ejected from the UK and EU. I'm married to someone who immigrated to Switzerland for work. The impression from people I know is that it's not particularly easy to move to Europe from the US.

I'm not sure what you mean by state / fed institutions, unless you mean that you have to pay both state and federal income tax (... but so does everyone, whether or not they own a company). When we set up Matasano, the only thing I remember us having to do with fedgov was getting an EIN.

<comment><USER4> Switzerland has a very restrictive immigration policy compared to other European countries.

<comment><USER2> Erin wasn't ejected from Switzerland; the most recent ejection instance happened to an acquaintance living in London.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have stopped reading what Vivek writes. It almost feels like he's writing inflammatory articles just to keep his name in print.

I came to this country (US) more than 20 years ago. The I.N.S. (Immigration and Naturalization Service) were as big dicks then as they are now. Nothing has changed. It's just plain old government bureaucracy; but in this instance, their clients can't vote either, so there's no fear of a backlash.

And yet, despite the INS's dickitude, the country churns out startups like crazy.

Why did the founder of Chatroulette move here, instead of China or India? I'll give you why: pound for pound, it is _way_ easier to come to America, register your startup and get rolling than in any other country, bar none. (Aside: do read DeSoto's "The Mystery of Capital" if you get a chance).

Heck, why is Vivek Wadhwa in this country? Why isn't he in India, if things are so great there? I'll tell you why: because when all is said and done, there is NO country on earth as welcoming and safe for immigrants as the USA, bar none.

I have friends who've gone back to India. Most of them went for a variety of reasons; chiefly among them being family.

And I also know some who went back because their H1B visas expired; but you know what? It is good to see that. Just like seeds from a flower spread far and wide with the wind, I hope the seeds of entrepreneurship spread far and wide; the world needs more entrepreneurs. Silicon Valley has more than enough.

<comment><USER6> >I came to this country (US) more than 20 years ago. The I.N.S. (Immigration and Naturalization Service) were as big dicks then as they are now.

Okay... so...? Did you wait 10 years for a Green Card while in immigration limbo? Do you even know the difference between then and now?

>And yet, despite the INS's dickitude, the country churns out startups like crazy.

So enough is enough? Will more hurt, esp with 10% unemployment? Maybe we should shutdown some VCs as well, since there are enough startups.

AFAIK the Chatroulette founder was on a temp visa and was exploring options for a longer term visa. Can you reference how he 'moved' here?

>And I also know some who went back because their H1B visas expired; but you know what? It is good to see that. Just like seeds from a flower spread far and wide with the wind, I hope the seeds of entrepreneurship spread far and wide; the worlds needs more entrepreneurs. Silicon Valley has more than enough.

Your argument doesn't make sense. According to you the US/Silicon Valley is the best place to breed startups.. but you want the potential founders to go elsewhere where they might not have the best chances. Does not compute.

<comment><USER5> > Okay... so...? Did you wait 10 years for a Green Card while in immigration > limbo? Do you even know the difference between then and now?

I waited 11 years, if it makes you feel better. And yes, I do know the difference between then and now. And you know why it's worse now? Because the demand is much higher! So, despite the INS's dickitude and the so-called "broken" immigration policies, _MORE_ people are wanting to come here.

> So enough is enough? Will more hurt, esp with 10% unemployment? Maybe we > should shutdown some VCs as well, since there are enough startups.

You need to comprehend before responding. The immigration system was as broken 20 years ago as it is today. During boom times it's broken; during bust times it is broken. During the dot-com boom, it was broken, and yet the dot-com boom still happened. It is a constant; you just route around it.

> Your argument doesn't make sense. According to you the US/Silicon Valley is > the best place to breed startups.. but you want the potential founders to go > elsewhere where they might not have the best chances. Does not compute.

It "does not compute" because you're not reading, just responding. I'm not saying that the founders should "go somewhere else". I'm saying that if they do choose to "go somewhere else", then that is not a bad thing; in fact, it has a lot of positive aspects to it. SV will be just fine.

<comment><USER7> >I waited 11 years, if it makes you feel better. And yes, I do know the difference between then and now. And you know why it's worse now? Because the demand is much higher! So, despite the INS's dickitude and the so-called "broken" immigration policies, MORE people are wanting to come here.

Are you saying that just because people faced hardship earlier, it shouldn't be made easier now? If anything, the numbers show that MORE people are getting affected by the policies and MORE potential startups are getting nipped in the bud.

>You need to comprehend before responding. The immigration system was as broken 20 years ago as it is today. During boom times it's broken; during bust times it is broken. During the dot-com boom, it was broken, and yet the dot- com boom still happened. It is a constant; you just route around it.

I don't see any reason given for not fixing the system except handwaving here. Let me quote the article here:

>Unlike a lot of problems facing our country, this one is easy to fix. We just need to increase the numbers of permanent-resident visas available for those trapped in "immigration limbo". And we should create a Startup Visa that is more inclusive than the VC/Super Angel bill that is being proposed. This may give the economy a significant boost at no cost to taxpayers.

What are your arguments against that paragraph?

It is like someone in the 1920s arguing against women's suffrage. 'Hey, we never had the right to vote, but we always still influenced politics by working around it. There are some positive aspects to not having the right to vote. Lets not support it.'

<comment><USER5> You seem to be arguing two orthogonal points here.

On the one hand, you're saying that America's future will suffer dire consequences if the immigration system is not fixed.

On the other hand, you're saying it is such a hardship that people have to go back when their visas expire, things are tough for immigrants, etc.

Just step back a little and think rationally a little. If things are so bad, then why _are_ people trying so hard to get in? Do you see long lines outside the Chinese embassy? The Indian embassy?

Once again: in the 20 years I've observed the system, it is as broken as ever. And during these 20 years, we've been through the Biotech boom, Internet boom, and are on the verge of another boom.

<comment><USER8> cooldeal's criticism is that your world view is binary; there is no "better" or "worse", only "broken" and "just dandy".

The problem argued is that the system prevents people from starting a business in the U.S. - something a "rational" person who is able to "comprehend" wouldn't conflate with _everyone_ being prevented from starting a business.

The system could be better. That's hardly a controversial statement.

One of the biggest problem in this environment is the survivorship bias.

<comment><USER9> His worldview isn't binary. He's merely providing some perspective by pointing out the system has been similarly broken for a while and apparently startups have still been starting up all the while.

As a non-American without Green Card, I still think the startup visa is dubious. People who _really_ want to do software startups in the US have been doing it for a while (typical example: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Kahn> ). I strongly doubt the US government (or board of VCs etc) will be able to predict success when deciding who should get the startup visas and the employment argument isn't convincing. Reddit, YC's most successful company, employs about 4 people I think?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is true not just for SV but also the biotech/pharma R&D sector. I personally know people who have already moved out of the US to places like Singapore and India, and are doing way better in terms of peace-of-mind, moving ahead with their lives, having kids, putting down roots etc. On the other hand, I know a few others who are much like nomads within the US, moving from job to job just to keep their H1-B visa status valid. The biggest threat for them has not been joblessness but the threat of deportation if they do not land a new job within the ridiculously low time span exceeding which would put their legal status in jeopardy.

<cynical>It appears that the US citizens and their government just do not give a damn about any of this.</cynical> It is only in the last 12-18 months that some murmurs are being heard in the MSM in this regard.

I have to wonder: the US taxpayers financed this advanced education, almost entirely in case of Bio/Pharma PhD programs, and then to throw out (literally) all that investment out the door makes absolutely no sense whatsoever!

My time is coming soon... I am very apprehensive as to what the future and this country has in store for me. :-/ :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> _I personally know people who have already moved out of the US to places like Singapore and India_

May I ask some follow-up questions to make sure I understand your point of view on this issue? Are you referring to people who are originally from Singapore or India, or to people from third countries who settle in Singapore or India rather than settling in the United States? How does the number of those persons compare to the number of persons who stay in the United States after completing higher education? Aren't there official statistics about this?

It appears from your post that you too come from another country and have studied in the United States. Why did you think originally that it was a good idea to study in the United States rather than in your country of citizenship?

After edit: I have lived abroad myself, for two three-year stays in different decades in a country across an ocean from the United States. So I am always curious, as an American who left his country of birth, why people leave their country of birth and take on the challenge of living with new laws, perhaps a new language, noncitizen status at least at first, and perhaps new climate, food, and social customs too. What countries these days are best succeeding in attracting immigrants from all over the world? What example can those countries provide to countries that are less attractive to immigrants?

<comment><USER11> Why I left my country (USA)to become an immigrant in Vienna Austria.

Indeed, why would anyone leave their home for new laws, different language, different foods, different social customs.

The very same reason both my great grandfathers left Ireland to come to America, opportunity, and a better way of life!

Our family are all US born citizens. I am a registered republican, highly educated, and have founded 2 successful companies in Silicon Valley, and now a third in Vienna, Austria. Our family left the United States 9 years ago. We will not return until the US is once again a land of opportunity.

I am a proud American. I am proud of my country,and it's citizens. I am not proud of the kleptocracy that the State and Federal governments have become. I saw the financial industry collapse and "great recession" as inevitable back in 2002 when we left.

Yes the immigration system in Austria is highly dysfunctional and just as self defeating to entrepreneurs as in America.

Attractions:

Austria has a highly effective social welfare system, social health insurance system, career training, apprenticeships, and no cost higher educational system. As a direct result, Viennese society is one of the safest on the face of the earth. Kindergarten children take the subway and streetcars to school by themselves.

The European Union actively funds "open source development", and requires much of its research to be made open source. Software patents in Europe, which exist, are unenforceable. The US government sells its research to the highest bidder, depriving its citizens of its use. Europe believes in returning its research to its citizens use.

Austria, Germany Switzerland, and France are growing rapidly, and have record low unemployment rates. Austria is currently at 4.6 percent.

Vienna has been the top Mercer world city for 2 years in a row. A very trusting society, papers are placed in plastic satchels, with a coin box attached. The subway and train systems have no entry / exit barriers or gates. A simple ticket stamping machine sits on a post. In a highly trusting society, there is no need for steel newspaper boxes or oppressive barriers.

Austrian's are protected by law from overwork, and as a result, are very healthy, utilizing far less heathcare services than the typical American.

Austria, Germany, and France are the best countries for an American to emigrate to.

Vivek Wadhwa fails to realize that immigrant founders actually deprive Americans of key jobs. Founders jobs. Immigrants are the only people desperate enough to accept the immoral yet legal terms offered by many Vulture Capitalists. A legal form of slavery. Nothing else explains the high percentage of immigrant founders adequately. I was witness to several immigrants having lost control of their own companies just as they became profitable.

The US must actively recruit each and every foreign born entrepreneur, engineer and scientist they can find, in order to grow the economy to at least 7 percent a year, or it will be bankrupt before 2025.

By throwing wide the doors to foreign immigration, the Vulture Capitalists would be unable to exploit foreign immigrants. The playing field for both immigrant and US citizen would be equal. The US would, within a few years, drastically reverse its trade deficit to a significant surplus. Just as Austria, Germany, and France currently enjoy.

I don't see that happening, and so the US government will be deprived of vital tax revenue from the next great technological advance. US corporations have parked 2 trillion dollars of profits overseas, to avoid paying US taxes.

I highly recommend US citizens act with haste to emigrate to a new home in either Europe or Asia before the Hobsian society arrives in force, resulting in an exodus tidal wave of Americans.

<comment><USER9> I can understand Americans who move to places like Brazil or India in search of opportunity, but it's surprising to see central Europe as a destination. (I'm not American nor European, but live in NYC and worked in the EU).

I doubt Germany, Austria and France are churning out more scientists & engineers than the US. They most definitely are not churning out more entrepreneurs. In fact they're barely producing a next generation - these are aging demographics, and their advanced social benefits (which in general I support) will be especially hard to sustain when there aren't enough working age tax payers around.

Pretty much every criticism of American government & big business easily applies to these nations, and in addition they are also now tethered to corrupt governments like Greece and malfunctioning economies like Spain and Ireland.

Visit NYC and Silicon Valley, and you'll find EU expats who come there to fulfill their entrepreneurial ambitions. TThat's part of the reason a "startup visa" is even an issue in the US.* You don't hear much talk of startup visas in Europe - not because it's easier to migrate there, simply because there aren't thousands of people who want to move there and start companies.

There isn't a single place in Europe that's even close to Silicon Valley or even Boston in terms of startup environment. America has a lot of problems, but the EU is at least in as bad a shape.

<comment><USER11> Clearly, starting a business in Europe is far more costly and time consuming than in the US. It took 3 months to get approval by the Handelsgericht (commercial court) to obtain approval of the incorporation papers. In Austria, you must have a minimum 35000 euros of "startup capital" invested "on deposit" to form a company. In the US, it can be done in an afternoon.

Regulations and oversight in Europe is far greater, and intrusive, than in the US, which can be frustrating to me as an American, however I understand the reasons, and clearly can see the benefits of this in the stability of the financial and business industries. With kurzarbeit, there was minor economic damage to either Germany or Austria.

The key economic drivers of European growth, Germany, France, Austria, Norway, Finland, Switzerland tend not to have boom / bust cycles like the US.

The Euro definitely has issues in the absence of an "economic union", however if any country goes into default, it does not bring the entire union down.

Europeans tend to focus on R&D of "long term sustainable" "tangable technology" rather than the modern silicon valley focus on "short term fluff" of facebook, zynga, iPhones, iPads etc.

Airbus kicks Boeing's ass in Aerospace (not to mention business efficiency (787 outsourcing debacle) European research is superior in almost every category, and is at par with the best that the US has to offer. Europeans do not turn over their core R&D in order to do business in China, or India.

NASA manned spaceflight (the 11 billion dollar boondoggle of the canceled ARES / CONSTELLATION)(and the new heavy launcher designed by politicians) is a huge embarrassment for US expats like myself. For Europeans, this is clear undeniable evidence of the US having lost its technical superiority, and Europe's rise to supremacy.

Europeans tend not to do business arrangements with dictators as often as the US. And I think that it is immoral to exploit citizens in another country which tolerates slums (Brazil favelas), and does not work actively to lift its people out of poverty (China/India). Check out the favela tourism (predominantly patronized by US citizens) next time you're in Rio.

Yes, Europe in general is not as astute in funding of high tech startups, and culturally are more risk averse to funding the silicon valley fluff.

Greece Spain Ireland: Unlike in America, if California or Illinois, or Ohio declares bankruptcy, its fatal to the entire country. In Europe, it would cut Greece loose from both the Political and Monetary unions in a snap.

Not so easy to kick states out of the United States union.

As far as EU expats, I've personally met many Germans and Austrians who have returned from the US, and vow never to live there again (violent crime / fascism / kleptocracy). Most would like to visit again, because of the friendly people and the beautiful landscapes. These folks in particular "get why I am here", and the advantages of Europe over the US. There is a weekly television show in Germany and Austria called "Goodbye Deutschland", which chronicles such expat adventures primarily to the US. The vast majority return home with a newfound respect for their home country, and wiser about the world in general.

[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_Deutschland!_Die_Auswan...](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_Deutschland!_Die_Auswanderer)

Really, everybody with the opportunity should leave their "country of birth" for a few years as an adult. It helps to truly put your country in perspective with the rest of the world.

The US is a beautiful country with a majority of wonderful caring and friendly decent people. It however pretends to be a democracy and operates as a kleptocracy / fascist republic. Yes there is corruption in Europe as well, however here, people go into the streets and demand justice, whenever the politicians fail to act in the best interests of its citizens!

Wisconsin is the "first shot heard around the world" for the next US revolution. With people equally divided on critical issues, and politicians unwilling to negotiate and compromise (kleptocracy), the next 15 years are going to be witness to the next US civil war.

Europeans has survived fascism, and will never allow its return. America is in the throes of fascism, and it will be Europe and the rest of the world paying to rebuild the USA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> As an American I see this as a problem for America. However, there is a big upside to this. The rest of the world gets some of its talent back, which will help it develop faster. There are over 1 billion people in India, for example. They deserve to be more than a call center or a place to outsource for the US.

<comment><USER13> I disagree. The rest of the world gets talent back at the cost of those talented individuals. You are one individual starting a startup and the government, the people, everybody is against you. You must own a strong corporation with R&D centers to be able to swim against that tide. It's not for individual entrepreneurs. I think this way because I have been through it and now closing down in my home country, moving to the U.S.

How would you fix it? The leaders in those countries should fix it.

<comment><USER14> They should be honored to be pioneers, bringing their country up to speed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> While the tax and jobs benefits are there, I'm not sure it's that big a deal. IT companies create less jobs per revenue dollar than traditional industries, do their manufacturing in asia and shift significant operations to overseas tax havens when they get big. It's not that I'm saying the US doesn't benefit from high tech startups, just that the effect is somewhat muted.

On the other hand, with such a majority of the world's service providers concentrated in just a few west coast cities I think there are some risks for the global Internet. What if someday we all found out that facebook, twitter and google were all collaborating with the government in a massive warrantless wiretap program ala AT&T et al. Wouldn't you be happier knowing there were some viable competitors out there based in .au .tw .ch .in etc? Is it possible that would have prevented it from happening to begin with? I'm not saying that's likely, but clearly there could be some benefits to a more politically and physically distributed infrastructure. What happens to the world if the US triggers their Internet kill switch? A lot more than when .ly did presumably. What if the world misses out on the next big thing because of the tight knit group think that exists in the bay area capital scene? Mother of all earthquakes? State government collapses? Dirty bomb?

I'm not saying I'd bet on any of those happening, or that SV isn't a good place to start a tech firm, or that anyone should pack up and leave. Just that I wouldn't shed many tears if I saw more of <http://thenextsocialhotness.eu/>

Monocultures can be pretty fragile when exposed to a brand new threat.

<comment><USER16> The biggest impact that tech companies provide to the economy is increasing productivity and creating new industries.

IBM, Microsoft, and Apple's contributions to creating the first personal computers when they started up created an entirely new segment of the IT industry that hadn't even been conceptualized before. As time passed, there were millions of people getting jobs as technicians, programmers, system administrators, and service providers.

Cisco, Sun Microsystems, and Netscape enabled the Internet to be a viable platform and communication medium. You had even more jobs created: more programmers, web developers, web designers, and service providers.

Google did their thing and revolutionized how people could monetize things on the Internet, and how people could get their websites, products, and services discovered. It`s pretty much because of them that many websites became viable businesses, to say nothing of how SEO also became an industry in its own right.

Now see Facebook, Twitter, Android (acquired by Google in 2005; if you want, you can throw Apple's iPhone group in there too, though by this time, they can no longer be counted as a startup). They've created social media ad agencies, app developer economic microcosms, and so on.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The benefit that tech companies create is not from direct employment. It`s from overall worldwide productivity gains and creation of new industries. And if it happens in your home nation first, you get a head start to ride the wave before the wave really takes hold in other nations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I became an adult in the States - studying than working for a total of six years. I absolutely share the frustration with the visa laws, but I don't think the economic argument holds much water.

Yes, startups create jobs, but just like all other small businesses, they lose a lot of jobs as well because of a high failure rate. You certainly want to give people the opportunity to start companies, but it isn't at all clear that you're actually boosting the economy significantly by making it easier to start a new business.

Additionally, making visas available for foreign entrepreneurs opens up the market for more trade, which would certainly mean downwards pressure for salaries, which would decrease demand. To cancel that out, you'd need to make an argument that you'll make that money up through increased market efficiency - certainly tech products will cost less if the people making them have lower salaries. However, I'm not sure that most households or businesses spend _that_ much on tech. There are certainly less efficient economic sectors (health care topping that list). In fact, most price anomalies in the technology sector are due to copyright and patent laws, so if you really wanted to increase efficiency you'd tackle that instead.

Finally, there's the talent-drain on countries like India and China if such laws were passed. Training an engineer is expensive and you don't want large parts of that investment to just vanish into other markets. I don't claim to have this figured out, but my bet is India, China, and the other growing economies rely heavily on their engineers to sustain their growth. If they begin to stagnate the whole world will suffer economically, and the States in particular given their exposure to these economies.

So, yes, personally I would love the visa laws to change. Would I take advantage? Absolutely. Would it drive the American economy? Probably not.

</comment><comment><USER18> People with marketable skills and talents will eventually move to destinations that will favor them best. In the past and up to now, it has been the US. Tomorrow it could be Brazil, India, China etc. One of the best things about working in hi-tech sector is borders do not necessarily limit your potential to implement your ideas. Governments have the option to decide how welcoming they want to be.

</comment><comment><USER19> I feel bad for criticizing this article because while I agree with the author, I feel that he needs to write something else at the same time. It's the same old thing he's been talking for ages.

<comment><USER20> He had what could be considered a rough week with one of his other pet ideas... why Silicon Valley reigns supreme: [http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2011/03/wh...](http://www.boston.com/business/technology/innoeco/2011/03/whats_the_point_of_boston_vs_s.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am about to move to mountain view to create an american presence for my startup. This is simply because the rest of the world is way behind in adoption of new technology and helping entrepreneurs. But the visa issue is an exception to this forward thinking attitude.

Still, I will do my best to keep up a US presence because it is quite worth it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Enh, his motives may not be what they seem:

"I was one of the first to outsource software development to Russia in the early '90s. I was one of the first to use H-1B visas to bring workers to the U.S.A.," Wadhwa says. "Why did I do that? Because it was cheaper."

from here:

[http://www.cio.co.uk/article/527/the-next-wave-of- globalisat...](http://www.cio.co.uk/article/527/the-next-wave-of- globalisation-offshoring-rd-to-india-and-china)

</comment><comment><USER22> 15-year US resident here. Got my Green Card after 7 years. Was transferred to London and came back to US as Multi-National Manager. Got my GC within 6 months of application (i.e applied after 6.5 years) .

One thing I want to share is that, if you wanted to start a company on H1 / L1, it is fine and there are very few restrictions. You might have to do it part time and declare it to your employer and INS, and you cannot sponsor your own GC etc.

And how many H1 / L1 holders _really_ want to start a company on their own? I doubt if the numbers are sizeable.

Even if you are raving to start a company tomorrow on a H1 / L1, what is the problem with tying up with a local GC or Citizen and register a company?

I am not being cheeky, just trying to understand where the pain points are.

</comment><comment><USER20> The article is a basically a video re-cap, without much added insight. If you're gonna get to the bottom of the article and watch the videos anyway, just skip right to it and watch the videos from the git-go.

</comment><comment><USER23> The problem is how difficult it is to start a startup somewhere else. Only the US has the investor power and mentality about it. Try finding an investor here in Canada or even a VC or Angel that knows the potential of the web..... of course there are, but the USA, especially Silicon Valley, is THE place to be!

</comment><comment><USER24> > _They mistakenly believe that skilled immigrants take American jobs away. > The opposite is true: skilled immigrants start the majority of Silicon > Valley startups; they create jobs._

This is relevant only if you assume that no native would have started a competing startup.

</comment><comment><USER25> Heck, I always wonder if the USA immigration system is broken (past and now) how the hell is 50% of Silicon Valleys big companies are founded by immigrants. And if they are so, and it's a good thing, then why change it? It already proved that it works.

</comment><comment><USER26> Having looked into emigration _from_ the US, I am under the impression that, by comparison to other developed nations, we have wonderful immigration policies.

</comment><comment><USER27> US cons:

\- imigration

US pros:

\- open a company with one phone call to IRS

\- get funding is feasible

\- most companies will deal with you (e.g. app store)

non-US pros:

\- easy to get visa

\- health care :)

non-US cons:

\- a full month of bureaucracy to open a company.

\- some three months to close it. more if you ever had any employee

\- funding? hahahaha

</comment><comment><USER28> America has a lot of cute women. (hint)</comment>


Can Quantify compete with Basecamp - <AUTHOR> http://www.lewro.com/design/can-quantify-compete-with-basecamp

<comment><USER2> Quantify looks beautiful from the smallish images, but it doesn't jump out at me as being infinitely more usable than basecamp.

I'm not a fan of basecamp, but have used it and some of it's competitors on different projects. What struck me about all these services isn't the design (though it isn't great), but that we rely more on email and local files to share the info, and basecamp is just something that is somewhere else that you are supposed to update.

It isn't integrated into the workflow, and that is the challenge I see, not design.</comment>


Has a surfer Ph.D. rewritten physics? Maybe. - <AUTHOR> http://outside.away.com/outside/culture/200805/garrett-lisi-1.html <comment><USER2> Have a pleasure of knowing Garrett, his foot once helped bring traffic to my site: <http://joe.jaanix.com/22679-nuke-cerenkov-glow> :)

You might also soon hear about his friend mentioned in the article, Brandyn. He's working on a problem that is just as important as ToE. They had a running joke: who would find ToE first, Garrent by math and thinking or Brandyn by inventing AI that would do it for him.

<comment><USER3> *"... Have a pleasure of knowing Garrett, his foot once helped bring traffic to my site: <http://joe.jaanix.com/22679-nuke-cerenkov-glow> :) ..."

Hey Joe thanks for reminding me of jaanix again. I seem to remember it being reviewed in HN a long while ago. Looking at it again the sig/noise is pretty good. Is the site pulling HackerNews from RSS?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My knowledge of mathematics is dwarfed by anybody with a higher degree in the subject, and Algebra (the abstract kind, not the kind with lots of letters) was my worst subject, but part of me is a bit pleased that E8 might be related to an important bit of physics. It's a rather interesting structure, although not 'the largest' as the article claims, as there are some which (if I recall correctly), reach into million-dimensionality.

E8 also has some interesting properties relating to symmetry, so I'm not surprised that it gets used in physics. It's just a pity that the universe couldn't be related to A4, or A8, because I can actually grasp what's happening in those groups.

Even if he's wrong, it goes to show that stepping outside the mainstream can often times be the only way to starting out on a novel, and potentially revolutionary, approach.

<comment><USER5> E8 is an exceptional Lie group (ie a group that is also a manifold, hence in particular infinite). You seem to be mixing it up with the exceptional finite simple groups. Wikipedia explains.

<comment><USER4> Spoken like a man with a drastically better grasp of group theory than my own. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm not entirely keen on the hubbub refered to(the articles on Lisi from about this time last year?)

Here is another article I read the other day, probably pretty similar, but it wasn't bad

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_wallacewells?currentPage=all)

<comment><AUTHOR> Not surprising given the source, but that's a much better version. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here is a nice observation from Lee Smolin about this theory,

"I don't see it as a finished theory," he says of Lisi's formulation. "I see it as some mathematical observations and then a proposal."

</comment><comment><USER8> No. Even though particle physics gets all the media attention, theories like this (and string theory for that matter), are shallow in comparison to statistical mechanics and thermodynamics.

It's exciting to find out what the smallest building blocks look like, but all the real structure in the universe arise from the interactions... and statistical mechanics addresses the interactions at all scales.

Modifications to our understanding of the smallest scales will trickle up to stat mech and thermo, but statistical mechanics is the true heart of physics.

</comment><comment><USER9> No, he has not. [http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/001505.htm...](http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/blog/archives/001505.html)

<comment><USER10> I find that blog post characteristic of what's wrong with academia. Lisi's obviously not a nutjob, and obviously not an idiot, and he's treated with contempt for proposing a big idea that might be wrong; might even be spectacularly wrong. Academia as a whole would usually rather see people get back in line and go on solving irrelevant problems. I found it encouraging that in the originally linked article that he at least did find some people in the scientific community that would treat him with a modicum of respect even if it was just in taking the time to explain why his theory doesn't fit the bill.

<comment><USER9> There are "big ideas" which look interesting and fresh for a general public, but they are boring and plain wrong for any professional in the field.

I'm sure you can find such things in your area of expertise.

All that glisters is not gold.

<comment><USER10> Sure, but boring and correct isn't a whole lot more interesting, and academia seems to produce a seemingly endless stream of such in my field of expertise. Many of the breakthroughs would have seemed naïve prior to having become dominant. Incidentally, some of my most productive research while in college was sparked by reading a paper that was patently wrong, but off-kilter enough to get me to look into some previously unexplored corners for new models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really don't know enough to say one way or the other, but for those who care, here is some skepticism about Lisi's paper: [http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/exceptionally-simple- theor...](http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/11/exceptionally-simple-theory- of.html)

<comment><USER12> This Lubos Motl guy seems to be a sort of Erik Naggum of physics. Yikes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't remember where I read it, nor the exact wording, but there is a quote that is perfect for this. It went something like this, "Godel proved incompleteness. Anyone who thinks there is a theory of everything laughs in the face of Godel."

My point is that physics does not exist in a vacuum. It is built up from observational data found in nature and taken from experiments. If mathematics can't come to complete truth (Godel has proven this), then there is no hope for a theory of everything in something that uses mathematics as its language.

<comment><USER14> That's complete nonsense. There's nothing about Godel's theorem that says the physical rules of the universe can't be described. You're babbling religiously.

<comment><USER15> "A small number of scientists claim that Gödel's incompleteness theorem proves that any attempt to construct a TOE is bound to fail. Gödel's theorem states that any non-trivial mathematical theory that has a finite description is either inconsistent or incomplete."

That's from the Wiki, FWIW. I'm not big on using Wiki as a source.

"Babbling religiously" is right on the line in my opinion. It makes you sound like an arrogant jerk. If you have problems with the content of the comment, state your case in neutral terms.

Learn to live with other people's ambiguity and looseness in phrasing. Then perhaps they'll be more forgiving of yours. (Downmod)

<comment><USER16> You appear to misunderstand the meaning of the terms "inconsistent" and "incomplete" in the context of Gödel's theorem.

"Inconsistent": There is at least one statement within the system that can be proved both true and false.

"Incomplete": There is at least one statement within the system that is true, but cannot be proved to be true within the system.

Since Gödel's theorem applies to formal systems in mathematics, it does not say anything about the possibility or impossibility of constructing a "complete" (whatever that means) mathematical description of our reality.

<comment><USER15> Thank you.

If I understand your last statement correctly, you are saying that a complete but non-formal mathematical system could exist which models our reality.

I'm not sure that's where you wanted to go, but I appreciate the help and clarification.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Well leaving aside Godel, I think one can have a theory of everything that has, as Rumsfeld would say, "known unknowns", i.e., a theory of everything which "manages" in some way unknown parameters. Like infinities in quantum field theory go away by the nature of string theory's elimination of arbitrarily small distances. Anyway. I think I'm keeping my money on string theory, but an interesting thought nonetheless!

<comment><USER15> If you read a bit of Wolfram, he asks a provocative question: suppose the universe is, in fact, discrete and not continuous. If this is the case, and I think that's non-controversial now, then it may be that Sir Newton took us way down the wrong road with his discovery of the integral. We've been doing continuous math-type things with a universe that simply does not work that way. The integral was simply a cheat -- a numbers game that looked as true to reality as we could possibly verify at the time.

So we're working with known unknowns. That is, the integral works so well in most everything we do we're comfortable where it falls apart -- right around ToE, probably. But if we went belly-up as far back as Newton, where to start to fix it? I know I'm sounding like a shill for NKS now, but I _did_ find it had some really interesting ideas. In a computational universe, we could have really simple physics that lead to incredibly complex and non-intuitive results.

<comment><USER18> I didn't think the question of continuous versus discontinuous universes has ever really been resolved in a convincing way. Do you have any references?

<comment><USER19> No references and I may be going down the wrong path here, but wasn't there some relatively recent activity with respect to the quantization of space, with the Planck length being the minimal quantum?: [http://www.scienceandresearchdevelopmentinstitute.com/planck...](http://www.scienceandresearchdevelopmentinstitute.com/planck.pdf)

<comment><USER18> As far as I know the question is completely theoretical: we haven't been able to use the idea to produce any predictions which we might use to measure whether the universe is this way or isn't.

Also, that linked paper seems to be nothing other than numerology. It is interesting that the numbers are so close, but that could be a pure coincidence.

<comment><USER19> Numerolgy, hilarious. I have to use that one someday, hope you don't mind. At any rate, I meant to post a Smolin paper on LQG that posited quantized space, and if I recall there was supposed to be some data coming in from an observatory that could lend some weight to the theory (back in 2005?).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Complex stuff.</comment>


The Resuts – Pwn2Own 2017 Day Three - <AUTHOR> https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/blog/2017/3/17/the-results-pwn2own-2017-day-three <comment><USER2> I'm used to seeing browsers and kernels pwned left and right, but multiple VMWare escapes? Is this how all VMs are nowadays or just something wrong with VMWare in particular?

<comment><USER3> It would be interesting to compare the number of VMware escapes, before and after the entire US development team was laid off and replaced with a maintenance team (in China?).

[https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/vmware_fusion_and_w...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/27/vmware_fusion_and_workstation_development_team_fired/)

<comment><USER4> Interesting perhaps, but useless. The number of successful attacks we see on a product is an equation taking in the number of interested parties, the amount of collective experience (in the product) those parties are able to draw from, and the relative reward that the attack can give you.

Assuming that the reward doesn't drop (and it certainly hasn't -- that's gone up every year as VMs have become more and more critical), the collective knowledge keeps growing and thus this will always trend towards more attacks, not fewer.

<comment><USER3> The layoffs were only a year ago and the product itself was in a mature/stable market, which was one reason for the layoffs. Pre-layoff, VMware's desktop hypervisor had existed and been attacked for more than a decade. Other complications are a shrinking PC market and new versions of Windows.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It is disappointing to see that no matter, how many exploit mitigation and sand-boxing techniques are used, Edge+Windows is still an exploitable combination (multiple exploits targeted this successfully). I am a bit disappointed to see this since it was a new browser from ground up, and they could have gotten things right. But then browsers and operating systems are big attack surface and it is difficult to get everything right. That is where exploit mitigation techniques come into play. Apparently they also do not offer much.

Secondly, it is interesting to see that all (except one) security teams, that won the contest, were Chinese teams. I am surprised at the absence of US/Russian/EU hackers. Perhaps they are selling their exploits at much larger premium in black market, to NSA et all.

<comment><USER6> > I am a bit disappointed to see this since it was a new browser from ground > up

It's really not. The browser does have some new innovations... But it isn't something new from the ground up.

EdgeHTML is a fork of Trident. They dropped legacy code, and fixed a ton of things... But still a fork. In fact, EdgeHTML was available as an experimental feature in IE11.

Chakra is a fork of the JavaScript engine that was running in IE.

Edge is nowhere near a brand new browser. But it does look like they're on the way to get IE right under the new name. (Though security still needs some more work, apparently.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Every single bug I saw here could have been prevented if systems were coded in a safer language than C.

<comment><USER8> I hear this so often... Do you think these would ever been written if the devs had to fight the borrow checker all they long?

<comment><USER9> I think more complex stuff might be written under those circumstances:

[https://www.redox-os.org/](https://www.redox-os.org/)

Or they could give up to do a better architecture instead for damage containment with interface checks on potentially-malicious input:

[http://hypervisor.org/](http://hypervisor.org/)

[https://genode.org/about/index](https://genode.org/about/index)

[http://www.perseus-os.org/content/pages/Architecture.htm](http://www.perseus- os.org/content/pages/Architecture.htm)

Such architectures have been commercially deployed in embedded, mobile, and desktops for quite a while. Earliest one I remember still supported was about 2005 for x86 desktops. All by companies or CompSci groups _much_ smaller than VMware in labor and budget simply applying methods that worked in the past in high-assurance security. Cutting assurance down where complexity or budget demanded but _only_ where it was necessary. These big, mainstream companies cut it _way_ down for reasons of _profit maximization_ of existing market share. Then they end up at Pwn2Own or their customers on breach lists.</comment></comment></comment>


Connect Watch: first AsteroidsOS powered smartwatch - <AUTHOR> http://connect-watch.com/en/ <comment><AUTHOR> Very excited to see AsteroidsOS getting it's first hardware product. Hopefully this will stir AsteroidsOS adoption in general.

I like having an open source, free smartwatch OS as alternative to Wear.</comment>


Was classical BASIC ever used for commercial software development? - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/u11xi/was_classical_basic_ever_used_for_commercial/ <comment><USER2> I started my career was a programmer in a company that was developing inventory management software in BASIC for 8-bit computers running CP/M. It was plain vanilla old BASIC, with line numbers and 1 or 2 letter variable names.</comment>


Nobel Laureate Roger Tsien Dies, Age 64 - <AUTHOR> https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/2016-08-31-nobel-laureate-roger-tsien-dies.aspx <comment><USER2> Terrible loss- he was a great scientist. Gave one of the greatest talk I ever heard.</comment>


Show HN: My inherently "viral" experiment: 3Pics.me - <AUTHOR>

As you can tell, it's heavily influenced by Mark Bao's threewords.me. The concept is simple, upload three pics and let your friends vote on them. In fact, I think I may have ripped the concept off a post about threewords.me. Anyways...
Basically, I just wanted to build something stripped down to a core functionality and a little different from my usual projects. I've spent a lot of time polishing the flow and trying to make sharing an inherent part of the app.
It's built on Ruby/Padrino/Sinatra, Postgres and uses S3 for image hosting. This is actually my first Ruby project coming from a pure Django/Python background. It was a ton of fun to build and the guys behind Padrino were super helpful.
I'm not really expecting much in the way of adoption, but it will be fun to watch either way. Anyways, let me know what you think of it! Enjoy! <comment><USER2> I really like the idea, and thought the site was aesthetically pleasing. I don't mean to sound like I am complaining, as this is my first post, but I want to help you improve the site. (I am no expert on viral sites, but I assume the better the site the more likely it will go viral.)

There are two things I see possibly going wrong: 1\. www.3pics.me should redirect to 3pics.me. I know most techies think this fairly common knowledge, and it is quickly becoming so, but I still have family who think you have to tack www on front of all websites you go to. So my basic thought is if Joe Average can't find the site, it will severely limit your audience.

2\. You are using just a cookie to remember if someone has already voted. This is a problem. A small script such as the following could quickly inflate the results.

for i in $( seq 10 ); do wget --no-cookie --post-data='upload%5Bid%5D=34' 3pics.me/1; done

(I tested it to check to see if my suspicion was correct, I only ran with 10 requests with one second intervals between each request to minimize any possible damage. upload[id] =34 has 10 extra votes. Sorry.)

Like I said, I don't want to sound like I am just a grouch, but I wanted to give you a heads up before someone else figures this out and abuses it.

I hope you succeed, pwp

</comment><comment><USER3> Cool idea!

Some feedback:

\- The buttons browse and upload are too far apart. I thought the upload was a seperate button. Why not upload the photo as soon as an image has been selected. Seen it in other places, so it is technically possible

\- Loose the C:\fakepath\\. I use a Mac so that is rather daft. Just show the filename. And oh yeah, make sure it fits the box and doesn't wrap lines.

\- Throw same random numbers in the URL as an identifier. I don't think people will like it if other people outside their social graph can view their picture. Just a precaution..

\- Integrate the proper Twitter share button instead of linking to the Twitter site. Much cooler and more handy!

\- Make the #1 #2 and #3 result balloons easily recognizable as which one is winning and which one isn't. Now it's just random colours.

Hope this helps!

<comment><AUTHOR> The fakepath thing is a Chrome thing it seems. Dunno why it is like that.

I thought about extra random numbers, but security through obscurity just never rang true to me.

Thanks for the feedback though! Hoping to get a little more traction and go from there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I really like the design of the site.

When I visited <http://3pics.me/1> my first response was to click on the text that said "Click to vote for pic X!" as opposed to clicking on the pic itself.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool!

Ripped concept or not, it looks to me like something that has all the potential to go viral (probably short-term).

I'd suggest the following:

1\. Line up some revenue streams (AdSesne /Aff etc.?)

2\. Prep up the backend/code/servers etc. for a huge spike (probably lasting a few days)

3\. Submit to as many Web 2.0/social media focused destinations as you can (following up on each response)

4\. Keep fingers crossed :-)

All the best.

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome project bryan! Glad we could be helpful during your first Ruby / Padrino project. Look forward to future projects.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's been done before, e.g. <http://www.okcupid.com/mybestface>. Knowing the OKCupid guys, they might have some useful data on their blog...

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickables: <http://3pics.me/> and here's my voting page: <http://3pics.me/1>

</comment><comment><USER8> I have t a totally new viral concept like this, will top all others, but need a developer to help. PM me :O)

<comment><USER5> Sounds interesting. Your email is not in your profile. You can email me (via my profile) - let's see what we can do.

<comment><USER8> fixed. thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> very elegant design man. How did you do the design and create the logo?

From my perspective, i think it could catch on given that it gets to the right people initially. It reminds me of hot or not accept your facing off against yourself.

</comment><comment><USER10> you should post this on <http://reddit.com/r/amiugly></comment>


PHP vs. Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://webapplog.com/php-vs-node-js/

<comment><USER2> This is a flawed comparison. I love Node.js but it is not suitable for every type of site and is not an ideal replacement to PHP yet. For ex, CPU heavy apps with minimal use of IO are immensely bad use cases for node.js

</comment><comment><USER3> The article mentions that PHP has a "functional nature", I'm not sure I understand where the author is going with that. Not sure where he got that from either for that matter.

</comment><comment><USER4> "[PHP] - had a functional nature which is easier to learn than the object- oriented programming"

This is the first time I've ever heard of PHP (in the early 2000s especially) called functional. And the first time I've heard functional programming called easier than OO! I can only assume OP means something else.

The article is full of typos, spelling mistakes, and weird not-quite comparisons (claiming:

echo 'hi';

and

console.log('hi')

are equivalent.

Weird. Not quite sure who the intended audience is.</comment>