Stripe Capital - <AUTHOR> https://stripe.com/capital <comment><USER2> The way Stripe Capital has structured repayment of the loan -- fixed fee, dynamic loan term -- is is an interesting way to make it hard to compare against other lenders, which typical express their fees through APRs.

The term of the loan is variable, and depends on daily sales, but assuming you have a high volume of sales and take out a small loan, the effective APR is going to be through the roof!

For instance, suppose I take out a $25K loan with a $2.5K fixed fee. Now 15% of my sales go toward repayment. Let's say I pull in a little over $30K in sales a month. The loan will be repaid in about six months, and my effective APR is 20%! Might as well put it on a credit card!

You can get a small business loan at _FAR_ better terms elsewhere: [https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-small-business-loan- int...](https://www.valuepenguin.com/average-small-business-loan-interest- rates)

So it seems like the main reason you'd go with Stripe Capital is that they've made the whole process practically effortless.

But one thing strikes me as odd about this whole arrangement. The better a business performs, the quicker it is able to repay the loan, and the higher its effective APR becomes! It's essentially a prepayment penalty in disguise. So you'd better make sure the loan doesn't help your business _too_ much, or you'll end up getting hosed by the loan fee.

<comment><USER3> [Stripe cofounder.]

> _But one thing strikes me as odd about this whole arrangement. The better a > business performs, the quicker it is able to repay the loan, and the higher > its effective APR becomes! It 's essentially a prepayment penalty in > disguise. So you'd better make sure the loan doesn't help your business too > much, or you'll end up getting hosed by the loan fee._

Yes, this is right -- if your business suddenly starts doing a lot better, your effective APR will be higher.

What we heard overwhelmingly from customers, though, is that the downside risk of credit obligations they can't meet (liquidity problems are asymmetrically damaging!) _substantially_ outweighs the theoretical "risk" of a higher effective APR caused by significant outperformance in the business. (Stated differently, _we 're_ taking the risk of your business underperforming, in return for you paying us back somewhat faster -- but still at a capped rate -- if things go better than you expect.)

I think the model we have makes more sense for most businesses. But there's no dogma; we'll certainly revisit this over time if we find that a lot of customers seek a different risk profile.

<comment><USER4> Just popping in to say this is one of the most impressive C-level replies i have ever seen. Straight acknowledgement of the criticism from OP, but explains the reasoning and demonstrates the benefit to both customer and stripe. Closes with willingness to change if business model doesnt produce results matched by test market. Doesnt read as defensive or marketing buzzwordy, just straightforward and simple.

I hope to one day open some businesses and be cursed with high performance and pay a penalty to stripe.

<comment><USER5> It's a solid response. Not sure if it's worth pointing out but you are totally fan boying PC and making his response out to be way more than it is.

<comment><USER6> Regardless of the particular response or the company, it's good to see transparency and lack of bullshit exec speak from C-levels. It might be more common among tech startups, but plenty of non-tech startup founders do it too.

I wonder if the correlation might be age, since it seems to me that younger people try to avoid bullshit and seek out authenticity (giving or receiving) moreso than older generations, which were embedded in more traditional business models across all industries. (I could be completely wrong about this being related to age or generation, though; totally guessing. Authenticity does seem to be a universally growing trend.)

<comment><USER7> I think _most_ executives could post a coherent and informed response online (with some notable exceptions), but older and more established companies tend to have layers of lawyers and PR specialists in between the CEO and the public.

<comment><USER6> True. Some could do it but almost always self-censor or are censored by their minders, and some truly are full of nothing but hot air. A lot would probably be capable of it if they actually had total freedom, though I'm not sure if it's most.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's a twitter thread from John Collison detailing why they launched this. It sounds pretty innovative (not exactly a surprise considering it's Stripe!).

[https://twitter.com/collision/status/1169660488374001664](https://twitter.com/collision/status/1169660488374001664)

> Since 2008, loans made to small businesses have decreased in absolute terms > by 41%. Banks have been pulling back from SMB lending.

> When businesses _can_ get a bank loan, they spend an average of 25 hours on > paperwork and wait weeks or months for approval.

> For internet businesses, capital is vital to growth: for marketing spend, > inventory, engineering, and much else.

> Stripe users report access to capital as one of the top factors affecting > their growth.

<comment><USER8> Based on the amount of junkmail I get offering my small business loans, I have a hard time believing the "filling a niche no-one else is offering" narrative.

We get about 2x mailers per week from AMEX alone offering business loans of up to $500k, not to mention the many other offers we get less frequently.

I like Stripe and think the offer a great product, but I don't think they're doing this because no-one else will.

Even this specific type of loan, called a "Merchant Chash Advance" \- exists, and isn't anything new: [https://www.fundera.com/business-loans/merchant-cash- advance](https://www.fundera.com/business-loans/merchant-cash-advance)

<comment><USER3> [Stripe cofounder.]

> _Based on the amount of junkmail I get offering my small business loans, I > have a hard time believing the "filling a niche no-one else is offering" > narrative._

Leaving aside questions about how good those lenders actually are to work with, it's still a surprisingly inefficient market. Businesses built on Stripe still report that access to capital is one of the _very top_ limiting factors on their growth. The uptake rates we've seen in the Stripe Capital beta over the past year corroborate this.

Our hypothesis is that existing lenders are disproportionately ineffective at detecting and underwriting internet businesses, since they have such different capital and growth dynamics.

<comment><USER9> >Our hypothesis is that existing lenders are disproportionately ineffective at detecting and underwriting internet businesses

Is that because you have a view into your business customers cash flows, so you think you'll be able to better assess risk than traditional lenders?

<comment><USER3> Yes, but much of it is simply taking the problem more seriously. In principle, others could build this by leveraging bank account data. (Or by using Stripe Connect.)

We were so struck by the extent of the problem reported by Stripe users, and by how that remained constant over time, that we decided to go tackle it directly.

<comment><USER10> You should research as much as possible about ONDK, the 800lb gorilla in SMB lending. They're a public company so the data is in their quarterly reports.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Stripe offered my 1 man shop a cash advance.

$12,500 $1,250 Fixed fee then 10% of sales withheld.

$18,500. $1,850 Fixed Fee. 14% of sales withheld.

$25,000.00 $2,500 fixed fee. 20% of sales withheld.

terms: No lengthy application: You're pre-qualified for your advance—no time- consuming application process required. No hidden fees: We charge one fixed fee for the advance—there are no interest charges or late fees. Pay when you get paid: Stripe withholds a set percentage of your daily sales until the total amount owed is paid down, so your daily payment adjusts to your performance.

<comment><USER12> The important question here is what are your average monthly sales? (e.g. what is the expected term and thus APR of the loan?)

<comment><USER13> I'm confused on why everyone is focusing on this so much. It matters on interest-based loans because a higher APR means you are going to pay more in X amount of time. But here you are paying a flat fee, regardless of the amount of time it takes to repay.

Why does the APR matter?

<comment><USER14> Because if you have the option of getting the loan through Stripe or a bank that offers a loan with a regular APR, you may want to compare which is a "better deal".

<comment><USER13> Ah that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Stripe is really coming after Square. Square Capital is an extremely similar product (prequalifies you & autopays based on your payment volume).

Square has a platform / payments SDK but if you look at the Github repo it's a disorganized mess versus Stripe's with virtually no "stars".[1] There's also Stripe Terminal which is a platform-y approach to Square's register/terminal. I wonder how much longer until they go after Square's cash app.

[1] [https://github.com/square](https://github.com/square) [https://github.com/stripe](https://github.com/stripe)

<comment><USER16> Not to nitpick, but a quick check shows Square has way more stars overall. (233,343 stars for Square repos and 30,982 stars for Stripe repos.) If you're talking about Square's brand new SDKs, they of course start with zero stars and some are just weeks old.

<comment><USER15> Wow, looks like Square is updating its github repository in response to this thread! Just saw they pinned their SDKs. Good job Square, that helps.

Square if you're listening, also work on the docs and dev experience. For example I noticed that Stripe's docs immediately show you how to work with charges. Whereas with Square the first step is... setting a location. It's just another little dev experience hurdle. What if I don't have a location? What if I'm an online store that spans all my locations? Stripe has put a lot of attention to detail here. Pinning repos is just the tip of the iceberg.

This is important because developer mindshare matters. For instance it seems like lots of devs here think this stripe capital product is novel/brilliant, a testament to wunderkind founders, etc. etc. That's all Stripe doing an A+ job grabbing and holding developer mindshare. GET ON IT SQUARE.

P.S. I think my characterization about the SDK stars is correct. They have some other open source projects that are very popular, but their SDK is trailing way behind Stripe by this measure (even years old repos), by like a couple orders of magnitude.

<comment><USER17> [Square employee, on Developer Relations team]

We are most definitely listening. We appreciate the feedback and are always looking to improve our developer experience. Stripe has done an excellent job in that regard.

If you would be open to it, we'd really like to chat with you on your thoughts about our SDKs & documentation. Feel free to shoot an email to email@example.com or message our Twitter @SquareDev.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My company was auto-enrolled in the Stripe Capital beta some weeks/months ago (not sure when). I never accepted the money. Here's what they offered:

$12,500 advance; $1,250 fixed fee; 3.8% of sales towards repayment.

$18,500 advance; $1,850 fixed fee; 5.6% of sales towards repayment.

$25,000 advance; $2,500 fixed fee; 7.6% of sales towards repayment.

My company grossed $45,600 MRR this August. I love Stripe and swear by it, but I don't really understand why someone in my position would want this offer. The highest amount represents only about 17 days of revenue.

<comment><USER19> I think you might be on the "high side" of the businesses they're looking to support? 25k seems to be the highest they're offering at all.

I'm not really sure what their rates look like for smaller accounts, but I feel like the target audience is one person startups and such, who have some income from their hobby (let's say 1k a month) and want to grow to a full-time job.

<comment><USER20> I'm guessing it's because they are trying to maximize a 12 month window. In lending, the longer the money is out there, the less money you make on it. At 25K, even though they could qualify for more, Stripes assumption is that they are going to pay it back relatively quickly and be able to lend more after that period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Klarna, a Swedish competitor in some European markets, has been offering an identical fixed-fee repay-as-you-earn business loan to its customers, and even customers of some other e-commerce firms, for a while now.

English press release: [https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna- launches-b...](https://www.klarna.com/international/press/klarna-launches- boost-to-supercharge-sme-growth/)

Swedish marketing website: [https://www.klarna.com/se/foretag/products/foretagslan/](https://www.klarna.com/se/foretag/products/foretagslan/) (they claim it's available in the UK on that page, but I can't find a UK marketing page for it?)

</comment><comment><USER22> I am shocked that nobody has mentioned adverse selection here. Stripe presumably has some sophistication that allows them to predict the probability of future cashflows. They're not going to lend to companies that are going to 'default' with crappy future revenue. They'll just choose to lend to the 'winners.'

It's an interesting twist, because this makes the terms relative to a standard loan worse: PC mentioned that customers are asking for downside protection, but under the assumption of adverse selection, it's being extended to those that need it least.

<comment><USER20> Would you lend money to someone who you knew was going to lose you money? Stripe is a business too.

And offering capital is pretty common among many independent credit card processors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Welcome Stripe :) Let's keep making access to capital better! ([https://clearbanc.com](https://clearbanc.com)) ([https://20mintermsheet.com](https://20mintermsheet.com))

</comment><comment><USER24> I love seeing Stripe announcements primarily because I just love their frontend design. It's just so dang clean.

</comment><comment> edouard-harris What's most interesting about this is that, reading between the lines, this is effectively an income share agreement for businesses, capped to the loan amount: you pay back a percentage of your revenues until you hit the cap.

This could be huge, and Stripe is perfectly positioned to execute on this.

<comment><USER25> It's only ISA-like for businesses whose low-profit times are their low-revenue times, like seasonal businesses. But often businesses have a relatively steady stream of revenue and fluctuating/unpredictable net profit/loss (especially if they're dealing with non-software margins), and this model isn't much of a downside-risk-reducer for them.

<comment> edouard-harris That's absolutely correct, though financial technology of this type can also make it easier to start a seasonal business by effectively evening out its cashflows. This won't be hugely impactful for B2B SaaS companies, but it might be a game changer for e-scooters and vacation rental companies, for example - and thereby expand the market for seasonal companies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm a heavy user of Stripe with 3 businesses >50k MRR and for me charging 10% (even if it's 1 year loan), let alone a >25%+ APR is RIDICULOUS. I'd certainly never use it. I mean this as constructive feedback. I'm actually very disappointed by this ridiculously lousy offer for customers, because that's the opposite of how I've known Stripe: friendly and customer-oriented.

Cut your fees by 5X and then you have a product we're talking.

<comment><USER27> Do you actually need to finance your business? It just sounds like you don't value access to cash. This is an alternative to traditional small business lending and receivables factoring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is like a pay day loan. It's a brilliant move by Stripe to monetize their float/net deposits.

I wonder what the effective interest rate will be.

Edit:

I meant "merchant cash advance"

Reminds me of this article:

How Two Guys Lost God and Found $40 Million [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-10-06/how- two-g...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2015-10-06/how-two-guys- lost-god-and-found-40-million)

</comment><comment><USER29> it's smart because they already have cash flow insights and also control your revenue stream.

but i wonder how this nets out in terms of:

1\. do i want the entity holding my loan to also control my billing/revenue management?

2\. aren't smb rates much lower than this usually? so crazy that certain usurious rates are just explicitly allowed

<comment><USER30> Harsha from the Stripe Capital team here. Access to capital has been one of our top user asks, and users were excited about the possibility of Stripe leveraging our knowledge of their business to offer them an integrated solution for their capital needs.

As for pricing, the cost of the loan is a single fixed fee that adjusts to the loan amount, and it is paid over the course of the loan—there is no interest rate or additional fees. The effective APR is dependent on how long it takes to repay the loan. We're priced very favorably compared to alternative lenders.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This is really great to see. Makes the "should I get a loan for this" question a lot less cumbersome to answer—the repayment via percentage of sales is quite clever.

</comment><comment><USER32> This is genius. Stripe is uniquely positioned to lower risk because they are in middle of payment flow for a lot of digital companies, and they can lower application requirements.

I could easily see lots of businesses taking a little higher interest rate for faster / easier capital and without putting up core business assets: it's all pledged on future income.

It's a win win, bravo.

</comment><comment><USER10> I worked in SMB finance for four years. Here's the big players:

1) OnDeck (Now a public company)

2) Kabbage

3) Square (For their own customers only)

4) Paypal (For their own customers only)

Stripe is obviously following the Square/Paypal model which already own the customer - life is tough for OnDeck and Kabbage since the default rate for standard SMBs is so high and competition is so fierce for them across marketing channels.

<comment><USER33> Afterpay and Klara are interesting as well... point of sale.

Smile Club rolls their own (65% of customers finance their purchase according to S-1).

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> So am I understanding this correctly?

It is a fixed 10% fee, irrespective of the payment schedule. And then the payment schedule is simply taken as ~12%(increasing as the amount loaned increases) of transactions processed through Stripe until 110% of the loaned amount has been deducted?

<comment><USER30> Harsha from the Stripe Capital team here. The loan amounts, repayment rates, and fees shown on the landing page are just used as examples. That being said, the example you walked through is correct: for a loan with a 10% fee and a 12% repayment rate, Stripe will deduct 12% of your Stripe sales until 110% of the loan amount has been repaid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> How does this compare to Square Capital? IIRC that business has been around for years. Same with Kabbage (SoftBank-backed).

Point is, I'm pretty sure SMBs have had a lot of options outside of traditional banks for awhile now.

</comment><comment><USER36> The FAQ button goes to [https://stripe.com/docs/capital/faqs](https://stripe.com/docs/capital/faqs) which currently 404s for me.

<comment><USER37> It's up now! (Sorry about that.)

<comment><USER36> It's all good. Just wanted you to know and fixed it before to many other people saw the 404.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wow. This is amazingly innovative and scary. The "flexible" mechanism could unwittingly lead to very high APRs. That they get the money before it gets deposited to your bank account (and used for other expenses or withdrawn prior to bankruptcy) and the application is instant-- wow.

In two years or less, Chase and other innovative banks will be hitting Stripe APIs and emulating this. But they will never match the ease exactly and they will never have first dibs on the _revenue_.

</comment><comment><USER39> I have a small business. As soon as I hit the 5 year mark, the offers for financing started pouring in. Two entities I deal with a lot for online business purposes (including payment processing) hit me up every week.

In other words, Stripe is not the only one playing in this market, and traditional banks are not the only option.

The repayment approach is interesting, but will it be enough if Stripes' effective rates are too high compared to the competition?

</comment><comment><USER40> > Eligibility is determined solely based on your history with Stripe. There's > no lengthy application process, and funds typically arrive the next business > day.

Oh my. Basing credit decisions solely on revenue, not profit, data.

Who's here shorting corporate credit, and how? So far the best idea I could come up with is LEAPS puts on $BKLN.

</comment><comment><USER41> Based on some of the other comments on this post, this fills a gap in the payments vertical Strip operates in; it's going to be much simpler for their current users to get capital rather than switching payment providers or getting "outside" capital from a traditional lender, credit card, etc.

</comment><comment><USER42> Looks interesting! Has anyone seen a copy of the agreement yet? I'd be interested to see how they handle things like guarantees / security, and whether or not there's any longstop date at which they would expect you to make a single payment if outstanding amounts remain.

</comment><comment><USER43> If it is automated this could be amazing. A business is a machine for turning money into more money. Being able to hit the gas on demand is a good thing. Especially for SAAS that needs to do $10k of AWS crunching for a client with good credit not on retainer.

</comment><comment><USER44> so they know your business better than anyone else, making it painless to approve /deny. They also can keep your loan payment directly (on the source, don't send that part to you) Pretty smart.

</comment><comment><USER45> I've probably missed something, but for how long does the borrower have to pay 9% of their sales? Is the debt paid in full once $15k (+interest?) is paid back? What is that interest rate?

<comment><USER46> There is no interest, you just have to pay back the fixed fee.

<comment><USER30> Hi there, this is Harsha from the Stripe Capital team. You are correct that the repayment rate (9% in this example) will stop once the loan amount and the fixed fee has been repaid. There are no interest charges or additional fees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have the feeling that this will have the same net effect for startups -- or even more -- that Stripe-as-a-payment-gateway also had. This could be an instant accelerator to self-funding.

<comment><USER48> The thing about taking money in the form of debt is if the company gets into trouble, debt holders are the first to get paid and or get a stake in the company. That is why it can be dangerous for startups to take on debt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Square had similar program called Square Capital. I actually didn't make the last 2 paymenta totaling around $2500 and they stopped emailing me after a while. No collections nothing

<comment><USER50> lol what so you got $2500 for free?

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Shopify capital is similar. The APR can be high, but then you usually can't get loans on that short term. Also seems to be very popular with shopify.

</comment><comment><USER52> My country (Cyprus) is not yet supported by Stripe. Is Stripe Capital restricted to countries that are not yet supported? How does this work?

<comment><USER37> It's only available for businesses that use Stripe in the US (for now). After we look at their histories with Stripe, we send personalized offers to businesses that we think could benefit from Capital.

We do want to be available for businesses in Cyprus (Stripe itself and Capital), but we don't have a timeline yet. You can sign up for updates at [https://stripe.com/global#CY](https://stripe.com/global#CY)!

<comment><USER52> Thank you very much.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I know several people in the merchant cash advance business and I wouldn't trust any of them. This is the lowest rung of finance.

</comment><comment><USER54> Wow, super cool and they also allow you to provide Stripe Capital through connect to your customers!? Insane.

</comment><comment><USER55> When will they launch Stripe Acquisition - automated acquisition offers based on revenue streams

</comment><comment><USER56> Does Stripe offer (or will soon offer) a similar loan program for EU based businesses?

<comment><USER30> Just in the US right now. We know the need for capital is global, and we're working to expand this to EU businesses soon! However, we don't have a specific timeline at the moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> I feel that that this is the startup equivalent of racking up credit card debit.

</comment><comment><USER58> The guys at Square are probably looking over their shoulders right now...

</comment><comment><USER59> Always been impressed with Stripe's commitment to users

</comment><comment><USER60> Stripe's payments platform is missing some pretty basic functionality that they should probably focus on before pursuing these side project ventures.

<comment><USER37> What do you think is missing?

Would love to chat more to see if we can fix that. :) email@example.com

<comment><USER61> I work at Stripe, too. Please do chat with Edwin!

We are building new functionality daily. To achieve global reach for our features, there is still a lot of work to be done. This isn't a place like some of the big tech companies where some folks are working on low-value-add projects.

If you want to help build Stripe, too, come apply! [https://stripe.com/jobs](https://stripe.com/jobs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> So its basically like Square Capital.

</comment><comment><USER48> So will stripe be considered a bank?

</comment><comment><USER63> When is this launching in the EU?

<comment><USER26> In the EU you can get credit for 1% and less at any German/UK/French/... bank. Do you really want to pay 10-30% instead at Stripe?

<comment><USER64> Banks don't offer a suitable alternative. As a SMB, applying for a loan takes ages in comes with a boatload of paperwork. Same as in the US, where you can probably also can get better terms with a traditional bank.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> It does not please me that this announcement comes at a time when Stripe took an unprecedented FIVE DAYS to transfer incoming payments to my bank account.

Is this the new ultra-capitalism? Delay my payments so that I am forced to take on loans on unfavourable terms?

<comment><USER37> Ah, sorry. We tried giving you a call earlier. It was a holiday weekend in the US (Labor Day was Monday), and most banks don't process transfers then. It takes 2 business days to send a payout, but these three holiday days pushed it out. If you've any more issues you can email me at email@example.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> What a fucking amazing company. The biggest challenge in making a loan is getting repaid. When you control the vehicle by which your debtor gets paid by their customers, you can easily and frictionlessly take your repayment without having to make calls and send increasingly agitated letters. Genius

<comment><USER67> Not legally, they would still need to have a legal order for garnishment, I assume.

<comment><USER68> Garnishment is against accounts held by a third party. If the right to withhold or draw from already-authorized sources is part of their contract on either the payments or lending side (and I can't imagine it wouldn't be), no garnishment should be needed as they're in direct contractual privity.</comment></comment></comment>


Fractal Platformer - <AUTHOR> http://entire.spacebar.org/ <comment><USER2> Interesting concept.

detail: Holding shift pauses the game and then the arrow keys let you navigate the 'map'. (Windows, Firefox 34.05)</comment>


What do you think of my startup? - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupfind.it/

<comment><USER2> So this would pair startups to help each other? For instance if I need designers I would use this service to find a startup that provides this service?

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty cool - who are you trying to help exactly.</comment>


Reddit automated Voice Assistant. - <AUTHOR> http://www.thingist.com/item/2945/

<comment><AUTHOR> Totally pointless, but a cool demonstration of something that you could do with twilio :)</comment>


Silicon Valley pastor decries hypocrisy of area's rich liberals - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/may/22/silicon-valley-pastor-gregory-stevens-wealth-liberals <comment><USER3> Large SV companies have nowadays become cash-making media machines of a gargantuan scale, acquiring that cash from all over the world for a service of questionable value, and investing it back in a relatively small area while providing only a few tens of thousands of jobs there. This distribution of capital creates a huge imbalance, no matter how "liberal" the stakeholders are.

<comment><USER4> My sense from reading was that he was upset by what he perceived to be hypocrisy on the part of the wealthy. In that they talked the talk about charity and making the world better, but their actions spoke differently. So liberal words, liberal values being expressed, but pure greed when it mattered.

<comment><USER5> I commute between New York and the Bay Area, and am consistently struck by how plutocratic of a city San Francisco has become. Most social functions are held in private venues and heavily segregated by race and class. Leaving a charity event, a millionaire will casually step over a homeless person en route to their apartment. They will talk about poverty in Africa and then vote in NIMBYist politicians. A total gutting of humanity, and I'm saying this as a New Yorker.

<comment><USER6> It's a dangerous trend that people with money less and less interact with people with less money. Private schools, super expensive neighborhoods, super expensive gyms, bars and restaurants. These people have the power to influence political decisions but they have no idea how most people live.

<comment><USER7> You have articulated brilliantly something which as a Brazilian disturbs me to no end. I despair seeing cities change their structure to accommodate the desire for segregation.

<comment><USER6> Speaking of Brazil reminds me of a documentary about Ayrton Senna I watched years ago. He flew his beautiful helicopter to his beautiful skyscraper in Sao Paolo, then to his beautiful beach house and then taking out his beautiful boat. All that with dirty, poor kids and the slums in Sao Paolo in the background. It was a really jarring experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pastors deal with so much frustration every day. Working with people in any job is messy and can be very draining. In the context of a church, working with people is significantly messier and more draining.

Pastors burn out all the time. But it is still sad to see.

If you attend a church or know a pastor, just know that they are probably dealing with a lot of stuff you don't know about.

<comment><USER9> Apparently the pastor has had difficulty growing his congregation. I wonder how many people there are in Palo Alto who partake in charitable activities but not when they're affiliated with organized religion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My wife and I moved out of PA / Menlo partly because of this. Shallow people, spoiled children and the rude entitled behavior of almost everyone.

Each year at my kids school they had a gift tree with cards with things the kids on the other side of the 101 (East PA) wanted. 99% of it was shoes. They just wanted a shoes. Every year we would take a few cards and wait for others to do the same. Every year at the end there where still cards on the tree and my wife and I would take every last one. How f'ing hard is it for someone to do this? Why the hell would there be anything left?!? I never understood that until I realized it would take time out of their schedule to have to do this. Sure people gave money, but god forbid they had to do any work.

</comment><comment><USER11> It's easy to resolve this discrepancy when you realize these people are not actually liberal or progressive.

<comment><USER12> No True Scotsman fallacy?

I personally give the respect to people to refer them as they would like to be identified. If a Muslim jihadi says he is a jihadi, I respect his self identification and call him that. Similarly, I respect these people's self identification as liberal or progressive.

<comment><USER13> Claiming someone's actions don't line up with their words is not a no-true- Scotsman scenario.

I think he's simply alleging that their revealed preferences do not line up with their stated preferences.

<comment><USER12> I think what you describe is pretty much exactly the no true Scotsman fallacy.

[Delete rest of comment, not relevant]

<comment> vertex-four It is not fallacious to have defined criteria for membership of a group - <USER2> fallacy is to create new criteria on a whim in response to criticism.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm saddened that he felt compelled to resign. The Gospel advocates poverty, whether you take that in the literal sense or whether you take it to mean humility, I imagine the stark divide visible in SV would probably be pretty hard to understand.

<comment><USER14> You'd rather say the Church advocates the responsible use of wealth.

<comment><USER4> Not quite. I don't know what the church is nor can I speak about it's motivation. I'm speaking about the gospel. Matthew 19:23 specifically:

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.

It's a rare thing for Jesus to make a pronouncement like that in the text. Which leads me to believe it's an important part of his teaching.

<comment><USER15> I think that 19:23-26 may be more clear than 23 by itself?

Also, out of curiosity, what translation is that?

<comment><USER16> >> _Also, out of curiosity, what translation is that?_

First returned Google result in Firefox private mode[1] indicates this wording is specific to the King James Version (KJV).

[1] [http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19-23.htm](http://biblehub.com/kjv/matthew/19-23.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "The city had also made it hard for the church to provide meals for the homeless by requiring costly permits, he said."

Is that true?

<comment><USER18> I don't know SV municipalities specifically, but I'd guess its probably true [http://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing- homeless-...](http://www.newsweek.com/illegal-feed-criminalizing-homeless- america-782861)

Its been enforced haphazardly in Atlanta over the last couple of years.

<comment><USER19> Yep.

In Tampa, Food Not Bombs was arrested for not getting a permit for "having an event on public land". [http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation- world/national/article1253...](http://www.sacbee.com/news/nation- world/national/article125306029.html) even though they've been feeding the homeless there for 10 years. The real cause for the crackdown appears to be when there's some event going on in the city, like football championships, where visibility on the city's homeless problem could be problematic for politicians.

In Orlando, Food Not Bombs also gets arrested for feeding the homeless. [http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-homeless- feedin...](http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/crime/os-homeless-feedings- arrests-20110601-story.html)

It was illegal in Fort Lauderdale, until the police arrested a 90 year old man for feeding the homeless. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2014/12/0...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post- nation/wp/2014/12/03/after-90-year-old-is-arrested-florida-judge-halts-law- that-restricts-feeding-the-homeless/?utm_term=.29b78183eadc) It's probably still illegal, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> His critiques, while vulgar seem pretty fair and I hope he finds a new position somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER21> A lot of commenters are saying that Pastor Stevens is right, and that more should be done. I encourage all people to volunteer and to try to make our world a better place, not just through donations, but through labor as well. The joys and rewards of volunteering and helping others are innumerable and ever growing; even _The Economist_ of all magazines thinks so too [[https://www.economist.com/node/8023307](https://www.economist.com/node/8023307)]. If you see that your world is not what you want it to be, please consider volunteering. Here are some organizations I have worked with and can vouch for:

[http://www.bacbsa.org/contact/48588](http://www.bacbsa.org/contact/48588)

[https://www.bgcp.org/](https://www.bgcp.org/)

If you know of other organizations in need of volunteers, please reply for others to see too.

</comment><comment><USER22> Recently I was in a late 1800's home in Denver. From the outside it doesn't look mansion-like huge, but it was huge. It had over a dozen rooms, and long since renovated "servant's quarters".

Hindsight isn't really 20/20, is it? I look back on that era and think how blatantly racist and classist it was. But in contrast to today's segregation based on race and class, all we've done is move the servants out of the homes they serve, put them on public transit, and make them live 50 miles away. It's just feudalism vs a kind of neo-feudalism.

And meritocracy in practice is different than meritocracy as an ideal. Perhaps Vulcans have the extreme discipline required to actually adhere to a strict system of merit. But humans do not. Anyone in a meritocratic environment lowers the ladder to friends and family, people they like, which immediately corrupts the meritocracy. Meritocracy in practice corrupts itself, the very thing the ideal proclaims to avoid. And even the ideal version pretty much pre-supposes that those without merit, without wealth, don't really deserve anything other than what they have (or don't have), there isn't anything to do about it, and it might even be immoral to intervene.

The book of Job, and numerous stories of Christ in the New Testament are very critical of wealth and merit. And that's probably why the message doesn't go over very well anywhere with institutional power and wealth, be it the Pharisees, or Silicon Valley's wealthy (and regardless of whether they're liberal or conservative).

</comment><comment><USER23> This hypocritical behavior goes all the way to the top. AL Gore, for example, routinely flies on a private jet to various functions throughout the world. Compare this to Mahatma Gandhi who was barefoot and not in the Rolls Royce.

</comment><comment><USER24> He's not wrong.

</comment><comment><USER25> "Jesus was a homeless Jew who said it was harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to get through the eye of a needle"

Ok, I agree, but that seem to be unusual take for American nominations. At least my impression was that they did not tend to preach help to poor, rather the opposite.

Did I had wrong impression or is this take really the minority one?

<comment><USER26> I think you have the wrong impression. Studies repeatedly find that religious Americans give significantly more to charity than non religious Americans, e.g. [https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans- Giv...](https://www.philanthropy.com/article/Religious-Americans-Give- More/153973)

<comment><USER27> Sorry, if you remove donations to their own churches, the unchurched do better.

[http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are-...](http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2013/11/28/are- religious-people-really-more-generous-than-atheists-a-new-study-puts-that- myth-to-rest/)

<comment><USER28> > Sorry, if you remove donations to their own churches, the unchurched do > better.

That result is both unsurprising and meaningless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> [https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65...](https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/65063)

The posts in question

<comment><USER30> >Gregory Stevens has a public Twitter account. I thought some of his troubling recent tweets should come to the attention of Palo Alto city leaders and the residents of Palo Alto. []

>Should this type of person and the organization he represents oversee a Palo Alto Community Center?

Haha, wow. Can you get more stereotypical Silicon Valley than running to the nearest authority figure because you don't like someone's opinions and choice of (not even that) strong language?

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Why did he resign though? Because he felt bad about he tweeted?

<comment><USER32> Sounds like he was forced out, because of his "offensive" comments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17112771).

</comment><comment><USER34> Now gamify this so people can get quick gratification and level up and that might actually work.

</comment><comment><USER35> Has anyone else read "The Golden Age" by John C. Wright?

I'm really fascinated by the idea of the College of Hortation.

I think Wright actually sees it as sinister, but I thought it was a good idea.

Rough idea:

Make all laws extremely libertarian, and then have a voluntary group people join that does things liberals say they want (free healthcare with progressive membership dues, etc.)

Except in his book, if you weren't a member, no one would do business with you - because it was against the terms of membership, and almost everyone was a member. So then those people who rejected society could, but they couldn't trade with almost anyone.

</comment><comment><USER36> He may have been a bit profane, but he's not wrong. Rich and upper-middle class liberals, particularly in places like the Bay area, need to take a serious look inward.

</comment><comment><USER37> People complaining about how other people should be spending their money. Huh.

<comment><USER38> Less about how someone spends their money and more about their ideals. These people are fake and only value wealth. Their values are weak and mold to where the money is. The same people would be racists or bigots a 100-150+ years ago because they would be wealthier with those values. It's socially damaging to be those things today and actually impedes wealth so of course they believe they are "socially liberal".

Including blue collar workers in their community or network of friends does not grow their wealth. They provide no benefit to these people's social worth in their eyes so they are exiled from the community.

<comment><USER37> The entire Christianity and Catholic church has been the biggest examples of bigotry, racial, hatred and unimaginable violence. A Pastor should not engage in this type of virtue signalling.

When you create wealth you are already helping poor people and blue collar workers. Who do you think mows Mark Zuck's lawn ?

<comment><USER38> "The entire Christianity and Catholic church has been the biggest examples of bigotry, racial, hatred and unimaginable violence."

True but why? Most of this was rooted in power and wealth. The Catholic Church is one of the most wealthy empires ever to have existed. Why do you think they became bigots, and racially radicalized? They wanted power, exclusiveness, and wealth. Legitimizing servitude and slavery through religion made them incredibly powerful.

"A Pastor should not engage in this type of virtue signalling.""

Like everything else religion is evolving, this Church is LGBT friendly. As someone who has a gay family member who attends an LGBT church these things do exist.

"When you create wealth you are already helping poor people and blue collar workers. Who do you think mows Mark Zuck's lawn ?"

That's fine, as long as you pay them enough to live near where they work in a house that isn't a shanty or ghetto. We don't need modern age indentured servants in the United States.

I'm assuming you identify with the Republican party? My only interest is if you identified as being "Liberal" because you definitely aren't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> While I'm not a religious person, this is a man whose convictions I can respect.

Keep fighting the good fight Gregory, this evil atheist is on your side :-)

<comment><USER24> He seems like the kind of religious person i wish i seen more of in the world.

<comment><USER40> He is more common than you think.

<comment><USER39> I live in the Bible Belt, so not very common here.

Reminds me of "liberal" SF/Bay Area. Everyone talks the talk, but no one walks the walk. It's quite sad really.

<comment><USER36> If you live near any urban area in the Bible Belt, it is more common than you think. Granted, if you're in a small town or rural area, you're absolutely right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> People should just move out of the area and find a better for themselves. Whining has never solved anything for anyone, and, when successful, end up in "socialist" revolutions that turn the country into a shithole. (Venezuelan here, and I don't like Trump, by the way)

<comment><USER42> It is the homeless people who should stop whining and move away? Or the priest who wanted to help them?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Good for him. Thankfully I'll be living in placid Seattle where the kind liberals are, surrounded by beautiful nature and a society grounded in a cannabis induced peace.

<comment><USER32> wat

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> The world is a little upside down at the moment.

Most of the "liberal" folks today are really old-style chamber of commerce republicans with a different flavor of conformity. More accepting of old social taboos, and we've replace suits with khaki.

Religion is defined in the popular consciousness as regressive right-wing fire and brimstone types, with a helping of swarmy prosperity ministry. The success of the political parties of polarizing folks on wedge issues like abortion is incredible and dangerous. The catholic church I grew up in, for all its faults, was basically the backbone of the social services sector in my region. Now many of the holy-roller types are so aggressive about pro-life activity they are supporting GOP candidates. That's leading to more political rally nonsense, less service like food pantries, helping the aging & sick, etc.</comment>


Facebook Bug Exposes Users' Hidden E-mail Addresses - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2010/03/31/facebook-bug/

<comment><USER2> I think a common practice should be to push your code to a staging server that uses production data once you think your code is ready for the wild. That way you can have QA make a final pass to make sure you don't make embarrassing mistakes and expose a user's private information.

<comment><USER3> fb optimizes for dev speed. They're bound to make mistakes to keep their agility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Here Come the Spam Jets</comment>


TV maker Vizio may finally get paid after beating 17th patent troll - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/04/24/tv-maker-vizio-may-finally-get-paid-after-beating-17th-patent-troll/ <comment><USER2> It's really too bad that it's so difficult to recoup these costs, especially in patent cases. It would be quite the disincentive to NPEs if they had to make a double-or-nothing bet every time they litigated over a patent they didn't actually use.

That is to say nothing of the insanity of US patents and the concomitant trolls, but it would be a small change for the good if the NPEs/trolls had to pay fees if they lost.

<comment><USER3> I just wish the court system was faster and less expensive.

It would be fine if you paid a lawyer for a day or two of preparation, walked into the court room about a month after the case was officially brought, and had the stupid patent suits thrown out after a couple of hours in there. "Wow that's a fancy lawyer you brought. Too bad this patent is clearly bullshit. NEXT"

EDIT: also, cheers to Vizio and NewEgg, for never settling

<comment><USER4> A small part of the problem is non-lawyers not being allowed to offer legal advice. So for trivial cases, you get people paying thousands for a lawyer to tell them what stackexchange would have done for free in any other field.

<comment><USER5> so saying IANAL is a legal disclaimer? What exactly are the repercussions of this concept?

I thought people were allowed to self-represent at least...

<comment><USER6> Corporations are not allowed to self-represent; they must use a lawyer (at least in some jurisdictions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As in this case, and many others, Intellectual Ventures are the world's leading patent scumbags. One of the financial backers of the said company is Bill Gates; for all the good he purportedly does he really never believed in innovation (and has always hampered it -add).

<comment><USER8> While IV may or may not be scumbags, I highly doubt they were involved here (as I said elsewhere: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439950](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9439950))

Joe Mullin has notoriously poor understanding of patents (and I'm being charitable here, else I'd say he writes deliberately misleading language to pander to these types of crowds - his earlier work certainly betrays a more nuanced understanding of patents). Acquiring patents from somebody does not make you a shell company of theirs. The types of shell companies these entities use exist literally only on paper. Apart from their IP assets (which also exist only on paper), the only thing they have is a PO box, which they share with thousands others. They have no offices and no employees, let alone a website.

On the topic of Bill Gates, he literally enabled the computer revolution. Without Microsoft, we'd be in an industry ruled by hardware makers, each a mini-Apple, with their own walled-garden ecosystems that would not interoperate with any others. It's just that he happened to disagree with the most popular religion around these parts that has earned him the ire he gets.

<comment><USER9> > Without Microsoft, we'd be in an industry ruled by hardware makers, each a > mini-Apple, with their own walled-garden ecosystems that would not > interoperate with any others

Yes, IBM, the incumbent company with the largest market share, _definitely_ tried to start a walled garden. /sarcasm

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

<comment><USER8> IBM actually came late to the PC (or microcomputers as they were known then) game, but the world it entered was full of walled gardens. However due to its lateness, it was forced to make architectural decisions that made future cloning easy. But you do know that the "IBM PC compatible" clones that made the PC a standard and commoditized hardware were reverse-engineered, right? As in, without IBM's approval? If IBM wanted a truly open system, people would not have had to reverse the BIOS.

Microsoft's masterstroke was in foregoing exclusive licensing to IBM for lower royalties, and then making the same software available on all computers, thereby creating a standard platform that more software could be written for. The true value of a machine is in the software, and as more and more software is written, more and more value is created (which MS was perfectly positioned to capture a large chunk of), whereas hardware becomes fungible, causing hardware makers to enter a race to the bottom. This made hardware cheaper and more accessible, leading to even more software being created. I doubt any other company drove that shift as much as MS did. Certainly not IBM, which didn't even realize what was happening at the time, and if it did, it certainly would have fought its own commoditization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The only way out is "loser pays, always, period".

Don't have a strong case with risk of losing? Don't go to court!

Have no money but a very strong case? Good. Go to court, you'll get your cost back if/when you win.

That alone would end many of the - shall we say - speculative lawsuits.

<comment><USER8> This trivializes the complexities and uncertainties involved in many lawsuits. I know someone who was a juror on a case where the entire jury agreed that real financial harm was done to the plaintiff, but could not return a verdict awarding any damages because of how certain business relations were structured and how the relevant laws applied to them.

<comment><USER11> As a juror, you're free to return any verdict you like. Here's the list of juries who suffered consequences for returning the wrong verdict:

<comment><USER12> How do you establish what a wrong verdict is? Another jury? And then a jury auditing that jury?

<comment><USER13> This is the basis of 'jury nullification'. You can't hold a jury responsible for returning a 'wrong' verdict - that's why they're there in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article says Pragmatus is a shell of Intellectual Ventures, and assumes so because it acquired its patents from IV. Being familiar with how shells are used by patent assertion entities, I highly doubt that is the case. For one, these sort of shell companies don't bother with websites: [http://www.pragmatus.com/](http://www.pragmatus.com/)

<comment><USER14> They got a special mention [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bxcc3SM_KA) so they must have a website! Good episode by the way.

<comment><USER8> While that was entertaining and accurate at a high level, John Oliver repeats the same mistakes other media outlets make regarding the finer points of this issue:

1\. He references the roundly debunked "Patent Trolls cost X trillion dollars" study and accepts it as fact.

2\. He calls ED Texas "plaintiff friendly", which it hasn't been for a while ([http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1597919)) - these days it's popular because of other factors.

3\. He shows a video clip of that M-CAM guy, who's famous for claiming there's a "patent on toast" (there's no such thing) in that NPR episode on patent trolls. Which, BTW, had journalism worse than this clip. M-CAM is a laughingstock of the IP licensing world as they appear to have no idea how patents really work.

4\. The whole "trial lawyers killed patent reform" thing is a red herring if you just stop a second to think about it. As Oliver himself says a few minutes earlier, the whole patent troll business model is _avoiding_ trials by settling for less than the cost of a lawsuit. In fact 97% of patent lawsuits, patent troll or otherwise, settle without trial. Statistically, trial lawyers have very little skin in the game. I don't know what really killed this patent reform bill (my guess is the pharma lobby), but I'm really curious why people decided to blame the trial lawyers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _US District Judge Mariana Pfaelzer published an opinion (PDF) detailing Oplus ' "overly aggressive" and "uncooperative" style of litigation that was "outside the bounds of professional behavior."_

 _" At each step of the case, Vizio's credibility increased while Oplus gathered rope to hang itself," she wrote. Yet Pfaelzer denied Vizio legal fees. Now, the Federal Circuit has ruled (PDF) that Pfaelzer needs to reconsider that decision._

Why, after such observations, would she deny Vizio legal fees?

<comment><USER16> _She ruled that despite its behavior, Oplus ' infringement allegations were not baseless and the case "followed an expected course of motion practice." As a result, "there is little reason to believe" that Vizio incurred significantly more litigation expenses than it would have otherwise, she said._

 _" Oplus alleged sufficient facts to support its claims, gathered limited discovery, and lost on summary judgment, as it would have even without its misconduct," so attorneys' fees are not appropriate, the judge concluded._

[http://www.law360.com/articles/507269/vizio-denied-fees- trol...](http://www.law360.com/articles/507269/vizio-denied-fees-troll-s- attys-slammed-for-misconduct)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Between Vizio fighting the good fight and Samsung 1984-ing my living room conversations, I might start buying Vizio.

<comment><USER18> FWIW, my Vizio TV applies firmware updates without asking me first (and tells me about it on next boot), and their ToS is similarly liberal in what they might collect: "including but not limited to the identity of your broadcast, cable, or satellite television provider, the television programs and commercials you view".

<comment><USER19> Just don't give your TV an internet connection to report that data then.

<comment><USER20> Or proxy the connection, blocking the tracking/spying requests.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> If they prevail what are the odds that the troll can actually pay up?

<comment><USER22> If the can't pay, then they should assign their patents to Vizio. Really, the big law firm footing the bill on contingency is just as bad as the patent troll shell companies. They have an identical profit motive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The patent system is bankrupt of value. It needs nothing less than a complete gutting. The amount of resources wasted by legitimate companies on patents is atrocious.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why not require companies pursuing claims such as this to put money in escrow, up front, if they cannot concretely show that the company behind the suit has sufficient assets? If the company pursuing the claim has no assets, then there is little chance of accountability.

When you're sued, you often have to put aside money to cover the potential cost due to losing. So, this seems reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why is it typically so difficult to recoup attorney's fees? Seems like it should be more common but I guess it's not.

<comment><USER26> Because the default in the US is for everyone to pay their own way. It is so that poor can access the legal system. Otherwise only people with big pockets could engage in litigation.

<comment><USER27> The poor can access the legal system?

<comment><USER26> Some would argue too much access. Contingency payment means a lot attorneys troll for clients to sue anyone with money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> and they do a good job on products - well worth prefering their stuff...</comment>


Ask HN: Good stock simulators/educational sites? - <AUTHOR> I want to understand how stock market works through tutorials or through simulators. I do not want the clutter of breaking news and things like that. <comment><USER2> ThinkOrSwim and trade in a practice account.</comment>


Friends Are Genetically Similar (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/scitable/blog/accumulating-glitches/friends_are_genetically_similar <comment><USER2> This is interesting as I've typically made friends along lines of interest. I guess my next question would be are genetically similar people more likely to have similar interests.

edit: corrected grammer

<comment><USER3> > I guess my next question would be are genetically people that have genetic > similarities more likely to have similar interests.

If that is the case, it would lead to the politically uncomfortable question of different genders or ethnic groups being more likely to have particular interests.

<comment><USER4> I think it's trivially obvious that they do?

The uncomfortable questions are whether people are genetically predisposed to, or naturally have a greater aptitude for, some particular interest, particularly on racial or gender lines. For many physical activities this is a settled question for gender, but that's about all we know.

Even this alone is not necessarily controversial, the problem as we've seen time and again is that the reaults of such a study are taken as a basis for discrimination. If we could rigorously quantify and prove a statement like "people of East Asian descent show a 2.3% greater aptitude for mathematics," it doesn't mean that the Chinese guy sitting in front of you has any such aptitude. Historically the metrics by which we have attempted to measure such things have been deeply flawed and biased. I'm not sure it will ever be possible to make such assertions in any rigorous manner, the factors behind cognitive tasks are just too complex.

<comment><USER5> > The uncomfortable questions are whether people are genetically predisposed > to, or naturally have a greater aptitude for, some particular interest, > particularly on racial or gender lines.

The answer is obvious here: yes. The only question is the size of the effect.

<comment><USER6> > The answer is obvious here: yes.

Let's say the statistical size of the effect is something around a millionth of a millionth of a percent, then I think most people would answer the question with "no" and be understood correctly by everyone. These kinds of questions almost always have a "big enough to have a perceptible impact"-clause implied. Pretending they don't feels needlessly pedantic.

<comment><USER7> I took the comment as saying obviously it's not "millionth of a millionth of a percent". You are strawpersoning here.

There are going to be definite real world measurable differences.

OP leaves open the possibility, for instance, of cultural differences that have a effect an order or two of magnitude larger though.

Personally I doubt this, but OP seems open to the idea the size might be small.

<comment><USER6> In that case I would like them to define a lower bound of a "measurable difference" and give a clear case why the effect is obviously higher than that. Simply saying it's obvious when many people actually disagree is not very constructive.

I'm not saying they are wrong, I just disagree with the tone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > The tendency for friends to have similar genomes might result from people > befriending those of similar ancestry, but the duo are confident that isn't > the case. Not only did they control for the effect of population structure > and ancestry, but the Framingham data is relatively homogeneous in terms of > ethnicity, consisting largely of people of European descent.

How did they control it? Even amongst Europeans, I imagine French people are just more likely to have French friends.

<comment><USER9> Framingham, MA is old school New England. I wouldn't be surprised if 75+% of the participants are of direct English/Anglo-Saxon descent, even though the article describes it as "European" descent.

<comment><USER10> Framingham is pretty much just like that, although it's less than 75% it's still a supermajority.

[https://datausa.io/profile/geo/framingham- ma/#demographics](https://datausa.io/profile/geo/framingham-ma/#demographics)

<comment><USER9> Remember also that the dataset they are using began back in the 1940s when the towns demographics would have been much farther skewed towards English/Anglo- Saxon. And while they've included more participants over the course of the study, it's mainly been adding the descendants of the original participants.

<comment><USER10> Good points, but either way the go study is doubtful as hell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I have anecdotally noticed this with tall people and short people, I will notice a group of friends who are all 6'2"+, or who are all <=5'7", both of which seem statistically unlikely. There are plenty of more diverse groups (in terms of height) but its hard to say whether they are work friends or something else where you have less overall choice.

<comment><USER12> A few possible explanations:

* People who are statistical outliers tend to seek out similar outliers to form a support network.

* People who are involved in activities in which their physical size is pertinent (e.g. dancers in the Rockettes) tend to befriend others in those activities.

* If height affects success (whether or not that is warranted) and if friendships are stratified along success-based lines, then you might expect groups of friends to have similarities in height.

<comment><USER13> Also: One might be more likely to _notice_ groups of mostly tall or mostly short people more than generic, mixed groups.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _" The opposite pattern held for genes related to immunity -- friends tended to be less similar at those parts of the genome."_

It would have been more accurate to title this article "Friends Are Genetically Similar in Some Ways and Different in Others" but I guess that would not have been as edgy.

EDIT: The overall trend reported is that friends are more genetically similar than would be expected, as pointed out by user _Real_S_. Good title, after all.

</comment><comment><USER15> It would be interesting to cross-reference this with the genetic dissimilarity between enemies, but that's problematic for obvious reasons.

<comment><USER16> Yeah I agree the results would be interesting as well as hard to collect.

If I were to volunteer for this study, all of my 'enemies' (more just people I don't care for) would either be people who I haven't seen in forever because I don't want to associate with them or people that I see too often that I wouldn't want to bluntly declare as my enemy and deal with the consequences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The study mentions the 1% similarity, which is the genetic equivalent of fourth cousins. That's fine, but isn't there a heavy correlation between DNA origin and geography, and another correlation between friendship and geography??

<comment><USER18> Also friendship and family are tied together. I would think they controlled for these things? I did not read the paper.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> There was a book I read in the 1970's about "sociobiology" that explained this. If I remember right:

People share exactly 50% of their genes with their parents and children, but only _probably_ 50% of genes with siblings -- it could be 51%, or could be 48%. To preserve their own genes, people will feel altruistic to give their lives for three of their siblings (about 150% of their own genes saved), but not for one sibling (only about 50% saved). People share between 90% to 110% of their genes with two siblings (I'm guessing the variance here), so will give their lives for two siblings they share 110% of their genes with, but not two they only share 90% with. The feeling of "liking a sibling as a friend" is the same as being willing to give one's live for them, so in today's age of large urban groups where friendship is a proxy for one's siblings in small tribes during the hunter-gatherer era, it follows people choose their friends _because_ they share more than the average genetic material with them.

<comment><USER20> > People share exactly 50% of their genes with their parents and children, but > only probably 50% of genes with siblings -- it could be 51%, or could be > 48%.

I don't see why the percent shared could not be higher than 50% with your parents or children. You can share a gene with someone that you did not get it from or give it to. For example, suppose some particular gene has three variants, V1, V2, and V3. If your mother has V1/V2, and your father has V2/V3, the possible cases for you are V1/V2, V1/V3, V2/V2, and V2/V3.

In two of those cases you share 50% of that gene with each parent. In the other two cases you share 50% with one parent and 100% with the other parent.

<comment><USER19> What I wrote is what I got from reading the book a long time ago. Of course biology has advanced since the 1970's -- and of course my memory or understanding of it could be faulty because I read it as a teenager.

What you wrote might explain why parents have "favorite" children they're more likely to give their life for.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> > Topping the list for common genes were those related to our sense of smell. > One explanation for this is that people with similar olfactory genes will > smell things in the same way and so be drawn to (or repulsed by) similar > environments... The opposite pattern held for genes related to immunity -- > friends tended to be less similar at those parts of the genome.

This makes me think of the thesis of "Sex At Dawn" by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha. If humans evolved as polyamorous foragers for whom communal bonds were more important than paternal certainty, then it makes sense that you want your friends to like the same environments and add immunological diversity to your shared gene pool.

</comment><comment><USER22> The same is true of spouses, and in fact, the healthiest couples (or at least those with the most children) seem to be third or fourth cousins:

"Third Cousins Have Greatest Number Of Offspring, Data From Iceland Shows"

[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/02/080207140855.htm)

Not exactly what you'd expect given how often we see "hybrid vigor" touted as a purported benefit of interracial marriage.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I think "hybrid vigor" is probably nonsense. However, interracial couples tend to be left-leaning, which also implies fewer children, so I don't think it makes sense to infer causality (or lack thereof) the way you are. Too many competing factors.

<comment><USER22> At a minimum, the study suggests that the fitness golden mean between inbreeding depression and outbreeding depression is actually much closer to the intraracial side of the spectrum than the interracial.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Basing this on the Framingham study doesn't say much. We do know homophily is very common world-wide, but Boston in particular is extremely segregated. Out in the burbs it'll be largely small pools of ethnic (European) groups. While the summary at least touches on this, it would totally flop in diverse areas like SF or NYC. Most of my friends are from all around the world — if they all still shared some genes in a way that was uncommon I'd be extremely surprised.

</comment><comment><USER25> Reminds me of this: [http://www.neatorama.com/2013/12/15/When-the-Actors-in- Plane...](http://www.neatorama.com/2013/12/15/When-the-Actors-in-Planet-of- the-Apes-Donned-Their-Makeup-They-Spontaneously--Segregated-Themselves/)

Humans are still amazingly tribal creatures.

</comment><comment><USER26> Anyone know if the genetic similarities that we become friends around according to the study aren't related to race? To me that would be the most interesting part (if it wasn't).

I am pretty sceptic about this study and it seems kind of filled with opportunity for interpretation and bias plus have no idea of the data set.

<comment><USER27> As other's have mentioned in this thread I believe the group under study were primarily, if not all, Europeans. So in that case in a sense the genetic similarites weren't related to race because race wasn't a variable.

But as far the relation of genetics and genetic similarities to race, all genetics are related to race.

In terms of the fact that a single Adenine molecule alone is fairly useless, it is only when that molecule is combined into the structure of a genome that it takes on meaning[0], and genomes have a race, so I don't think in that sense there are any genes or genetic similarities that aren't related to race.

Every member of a race is more genetically related to every other member of that race than they are to any member of any other race.

What "genetic similarities" could there be that are more similar across races than within races?

[0]"Meaning" at the level under discussion in terms of human relationships and whatnot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I figured friends were more driven by proximity first then shared experiences second.

<comment><USER29> This is the rare study I'd be really interested to see repeated with college students.

The population used in this study was the population in the Framingham Heart Study, presumably because they had the DNA and friendship graph already lying around. But starting from a small town's population, you've got pre-existing social networks which will both influence the future genetics and the future social networks of the town. You could get a lot of confounding correlations like "you're more likely to be friends with someone you live nearby to and you're more likely to live nearby to people you are related to".

If you repeated this with college students you'd have friendships formed between people with few if any previous connections.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> And don't we fall in love with people that are genetically different? Something about not liking the smell of relatives

<comment><USER27> Only in the genetically different immune systems as discussed in this article, otherwise opposites don't really attract. I don't think it would be that surprising to find similar results(maybe less, but still greater than random in terms of similarity) among married couples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> This seems to make the kin selection vs. group selection controversy even more trivial: [https://blog.oup.com/2015/01/kin-group-selection- controversy...](https://blog.oup.com/2015/01/kin-group-selection-controversy/)

</comment><comment><USER32> Hmmm... As someone of sub-continental heritage, I have close friends from about 3 different ethnic groups. I have NO friends from my own cultural/regional heritage at all in 5 decades of walking this planet.

</comment><comment><USER33> Study summary in one picture :)

[https://iwsmt-content- ok2nbdvvyp8jbrhdp.stackpathdns.com/525...](https://iwsmt-content- ok2nbdvvyp8jbrhdp.stackpathdns.com/52520132332151.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER34> Does this mean that if you have similar experiences, then your genes change? I have found that experiencing things together forms friendships much more than genes.

</comment><comment><USER27> Is it anymore likely that people with 1% genetic similarity have that connection randomly than the possibility they in fact share g-g-great- grandparents? i.e. 2 slots in the 32 level of their family tree, or what if they are double fifth cousins, sharing four slots at the 64 level?(is that math correct?)

So in effect for these similarities to present, they have to be cousins on some level right? Whether that is sharing N slots at the 2048 level, or some other combination?

In a sense all of humanity are cousins, and races are clusters with a higher coefficient of cousin-ness than the global average.

</comment><comment><USER35> i found out recently that my lifelong best friend and i share a relatively uncommon paternal haplogroup, despite our families coming respectively from germany and scotland for the most part (the group is relatively prominent in frisia). anecdote, not data obviously, but i'm curious if anyone else has any similar experiences.

<comment><USER36> R-M405? Me too; but my paternal line hails from Venice. Seems our forebears scattered around.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> friends are economically similar and how much money you make relative to the rest of the society depends almost entirely on how much money your parents made relative to the society. Wealth passes alongs genetic lines so does friendship.

</comment><comment><USER38> what about emotional epigenetics ?

</comment><comment><USER39> Having read "The Selfish Gene" I wasn't surprised. This study conclusion fits pretty well within the general theme of the book.

If you haven't read it yet, I highly recommend it!

<comment><USER40> Upvote for "The Selfish Gene". Should be mandatory for anyone interested in science and/or biology! A great eye opener about how evolution really works.

<comment><USER41> Definitely. And you shouldn't let the fact that it was written by Richard Dawkins scare you off if you have a negative opinion of him -- it has very little to do with his atheism.

<comment><USER42> Also the subject of atheism should itself not scare you off. It is quite a reasonable position to hold.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> People need to realize we are built on hardware that is hundreds of millions of years old. We share a similar hormonal dominance hierarchy system with fucking lobsters. You can't just say it's </CURRENT YEAR> and expect these things to disappear. Tribalism was important for survival, trusting someone who didn't look like you could mean death and thus was selected for over long periods of time.

<comment><USER12> And then we became human and started not acting like lobsters.

We have intellects, a sense of morality, and a will. Those allow us to drastically curtail what might otherwise be instinctive behaviors.

I know there are some determinists who say that free will is illusory and we're as much slaves to our genetics and instincts as lobsters are.

But it certainly seems as if, in practice, tribalism (at least the clear-cut type you're describing where we exclude people who don't look like us) is recognizable and avoidable.

<comment><USER44> You are on a cocktail party. Have had a few drinks with friends. You all start talking about spiders. How they are these wonderful tiny creatures to be protected. You know, they got rid of insects and it's actually good to be above this. After all we have intellects, a sense of morality, and a will. We're not some freaking lobsters driven by phobias. And you know what? At this wonderful evening party, we all agree, that this is just the case. And then we all go home. Where, right after opening the door, you see this diguisting, big spider crawling on the floor. Without thinking twice you crash it with your shoe. And then -- using toilet paper perhaps -- pick up its remains and flush it in the toilet. Just to be sure that the motherfucker is really dead. Not to mention your 3 year old and 5 year old living in this house. And then, then, you realize. What happened? Just talked about it an hour ago. And then I got rid of this poor bastard anyway...

In a social setting, with people around having conversations, your brain cortex fires off. It's spinning like crazy. And the cortex is all about logic. It's all about intellect, a sense of morality, about a will, and group hierarchy, and talking, and relaxation. You get the picture. When the phobia kicks in... guess what... the first thing that will happen is that cortisol will turn off your cortex. In the stressful situation, in fight or run situation, your cortex is switched off brother. That's why this spider is dead. That's why after 30 years of perfect marriage you might do stupid things when 23 year old hot blonde is sexually provoking you. That's why live isn't white and black. Even in 2017.

<comment><USER45> Or, like my father-in-law, you go and grab a paper towel, pick up the spider, and let it go outside on front lawn. I have never seen him kill a spider. And some percentage of the time, more and more with each passing year, even though I am terrified of spiders, I don't kill them because of conversations like the one you describe.

Just because some people react with their emotion doesn't mean everyone does and it doesn't mean we have to.

<comment><USER46> This depends on your up-rising for the most part. When I was very young, there was this spider that had its house below my small desk. I grew up accustomed to these spiders and didn't allow my mother to clean them up.

Now, I don't fear spiders and also don't mind them as long as they don't wreak the place with their filaments. I was surprised when a cousin of mine was freaked out by one of them and wanted to insta-kill it.

Now if there is a bug... that's a whole different story. Even though, logically thinking, these beasts are the same.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> What does this say about racism? Segregation?

<comment><USER48> The article specifically mentions olfactory similarities being pro-friend and immune differences being pro-friend. It didn't mention ethnic markers like melanin, face shape, nose width, ear size, or relative toe length at all. In fact, it said they attempted to control for racial and ethnic differences. How well that was accomplished wasn't really made clear in the article.

I can imagine that whether or not cilantro tastes like soap, whether or not you love the smell of books, similar allergies, and if you can stand to eat spicy foods goes a long way toward the likelihood of friendship. There are bound to be social factors, geographic factors, and other factors. This study is just pointing out that friends are likely to be more similar in certain ways than people who aren't friends. Don't jump to too many conclusions on just the summary article about the study.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Birds of a feather, no?</comment>


Why I Chose to Learn C - <AUTHOR> http://viget.com/extend/why-i-chose-to-learn-c

<comment><USER2> C really is fantastic language to learn. When I learned it, I also came from the scripting language world (Python, PHP). Having that as a base, then learning C, lead to revelations about how those scripting languages are created, and how the data structures I took for granted in a scripting language are actually implemented.

From what I understand in formal CS courses, you learn from the bottom up, but learning from the top down was much more enlightening for me.

<comment><USER3> I too started with scripting languages, and also learn in a similar way. Hearing the value that learning C provided you makes the decision to learn it myself a simple one.

To those versed in C, is the tutorial linked in the original article a recommended one?

<comment><USER4> I would enthusiastically recommend Learn C the Hard Way, even over K&R (which hasn't aged well, for reasons LCtHW explains (<http://c.learncodethehardway.org/book/krcritique.html)>).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> C programming is still alive and well is many parts of our profession. The biggest reason why is that even though c++ _can_ do memory management like C most of the time programs implemented in it don't and you can really start to loose a grasp as to what your asking the computer to do when you abstract away where your putting all the stuff your unknowingly asking it to make.

<comment><USER6> In the other hand, I find that C++'s ability to add semantics to memory management is _extremely_ valuable in doing the right thing at all times.

unique_ptr<>, scoped_ptr<>, and shared_ptr<> all say different things about heap memory lifetime, and those make it _easier_ to maintain your grasp on what you're asking the computer to do.

Like many things in C++, you can do that in C too (e.g. by using a variant of Hungarian notation). But the important thing is to do it.

<comment><USER7> I've been playing w/ Rust this past week, and I've had something of an enlightening experience related to the pointer semantics you describe.

Rust's memory management works similarly to what you describe in C++[0], but things like unique_ptr, et al. are baked into the syntax and compiler. -- It's basically syntactic sugar for memory semantics.

Coming from a background of GC'd languages (Java, Go, and Ruby) these different allocation semantics were Very Hard(TM) for me to understand at first. I kept battling w/ the type checker, throwing different pointer types at it until the example compiled. (Rust's compiler is _very_ intelligent, w/o using "unsafe" code, you basically cannot have a "use after free" condition in Rust. -- It will not compile.)

As the parent points out: I've never really spent any length of time _understanding_ the allocations I'm asking a computer to make. I just generate things, they become garbage, and the runtime cleans it up eventually.

Once Rust "clicked" for me, I realized something: I know the lifetime of _every single variable_ in this piece of code.

I know when it's allocated, where it's allocated, and when it gets freed.

The reason it was so hard for me to initially grok Rust was because I'm _not used to reasoning_ about memory allocation.

Once I understood the semantics though, it was as though I had an _entirely new_ level of abstraction at my fingertips.

These semantics are definitely some powerful stuff, and I'm very glad I'm taking the time to try and understand them.

[0]: [http://pcwalton.github.com/blog/2013/03/18/an-overview-of- me...](http://pcwalton.github.com/blog/2013/03/18/an-overview-of-memory- management-in-rust/)

<comment><USER8> The biggest problem with manual memory management is when doing software in large teams.

Suddenly you have distributed knowledge across team members with various skill levels and producing memory leaks is very easy.

Nowadays automatic memory management in the form of GC or reference counting is the way to go.

<comment><USER5> Or you can do what c++ and rust did which is neither reference counting or GC ( yes I know rust has a GC just stay with me for a little). Its a strong and distinct message about what you plan on doing with the memory your getting. When I run across a int* i don't know what your doing with it just by seeing its type, but if I run across a shared_ptr<int> I know its reference counted and will stick around until I am done with it and if I am the last one it will be free'd. In the same manner If i see a unique_ptr<int> I know that if i need it I must take it from someplace and the compiler will be kind enough to tell me if I messed it up somehow.

<comment><USER8> I fail to see how that is not reference counting, even if implemented at library level.

<comment><USER6> shared_ptr probably does use reference counting, but unique_ptr doesn't.

There's literally only ever one "owner" of a unique_ptr, which is why the parent comment talked about taking it from somewhere.

C++ exchanges ownership of unique_ptr's in the move constructor or assignment operator (i.e. there's no "copy" operation available, unlike with std::auto_ptr). If a unique_ptr still happens to own a pointer when the unique_ptr is destructed, it knows to destroy the pointed-to object as well and free the memory, but the object itself is not reference-counted per se, there's only the Boolean sense "alive/dead".

<comment><USER8> That is still reference counting in any CS book about automatic memory management algorithms.

<comment><USER6> Only in the sense that

        MOV EAX, EBP
        XOR EBP, EBP

is "reference counting".

<comment><USER8> x86 implementation detail....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For those who hit a wall with C when it came time to learn pointers, I'd like to plug a YouTube video I made that people seem to really like.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkyWCOUY8V4>

The terminology may not be completely accurate (although I did try very hard to not say anything incorrect), but I honestly think it does a good job of showing you how to actually use pointers. I know the resident C experts will probably find something wrong, but I've received tons of comments and emails from people saying they finally "get it". It's something I'm proud of.

<comment><USER10> I never really got why people found pointers to be complicated. I suck at writing C code, but pointers are something I understood pretty easily. It in the name really, it's something that points to (the location of) something else.

I doubt that anyone struggles to understand pointers, they/we struggle to understand the implementation of pointers in C, in some cases. If you want to explain pointers, to people from a object oriented programming background, you might start by comparing points to "by reference" and "by value".

My issue has always be why I would care about the memory address of a variable, rather than getting the value as the default behavior, but that might be why I suck a C.

<comment><USER9> Just because you understood it great the first time doesn't mean everyone is like you. I was turned off to C for a long time due to how awful my teachers were at explaining the concept. My first time being exposed to pointers was in a binary tree traversing algorithm handout given out by my teacher - it was just way too much at once.

<comment><USER10> I just think it's weird that pointers are made to be so complicated, when the part I don't get, which is header files, get no attention. Header files might be the sole reason why I didn't care for C. I don't understand them and they are never properly explained.

<comment><USER11> _I don't understand them and they are never properly explained._

There is nothing to get. They're just text, inserted wherever you told the preprocessor to insert that text, exactly as if you had typed the whole lot in yourself. What you choose to do with this ability is up to you. Many people choose to use it to avoid having to copy the same text over and over again into other files.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well now I feel old. When I was in high school, CS was a required course for graduation and it was taught in C++ (that being the pedagogical language of the APCS exam). It wasn't even that long ago (late 1990's).

<comment><USER13> Here's another surprising (but fully understandable) perspective given in the OP:

"Function pointers — It was interesting to me to see that such a low-level language contained functional programming concepts."

If you started from assembly and worked up, this looks very different, because at that very low level, functions and data look the same too. (Just like Lisp).

<comment><USER14> How is that assembly has code as data just like Lisp? Is it possible to create executable code during runtime, change the language's syntax, and stuff like that, using assembly?

<comment><USER13> Of course, I did not say assembly is just like Lisp in every respect.

But as long as we're picking nits --

It is of course completely possible to create executable code during runtime, using assembler. Often not advisable. (Recall the punch line of: <http://www.cs.utah.edu/~elb/folklore/mel.html>)

<comment><USER14> Reading the story on the link made me feel envy :)

I admire those who really understand how it all works under the hoods.

Although I tried to learn assembly on my own a long time ago, I never went much further than reading some imput and printing it to the screen. It seems it is a very specialized knowledge nowdays.

<comment><USER12> The best way to learn assembler is by writing an assembler, which you can do in pretty much any language you're comfortable with (<https://github.com/rayiner/amd64-asm>) with just a manual ([http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/24594_APM_v3.pd...](http://support.amd.com/us/Processor_TechDocs/24594_APM_v3.pdf)) . I think x86 is really not a bad pedagogical tool. For all the crap it gets, it's really a fairly clean architecture. And while we think of 32-bit and 64-bit extensions as having "piled on cruft" what's really happened is that they have made the architecture conceptually cleaner and more orthogonal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I learned C as first language. I haven't used it for any real-world work, but it was fun way to get into programming. K&R told me not just C but how to program, then I read TUPE which told me how to effectively use the best development environment, Unix.

</comment><comment><USER16> Quote below from _Learning C the Hard Way_

" _For Windows users I'll show you how to get a basic Ubuntu Linux system up and running in a virtual machine so that you can still do all of my exercises, but avoid all the painful Windows installation problems._ "

A bootable Ubuntu USB stick with persistent storage might be easier to get started with? Can be created from a Live CD.

Interesting idea.

<comment><USER9> I dual booted for about a year, and then I used virtual machines instead for the last year. Using virtual machines has been a LOT easier. I use Lubuntu on Virtualbox, and I don't plan on going back.

Things that annoy me about Ubuntu dual boot

* My Wacom tablet is terribly hard to configure on Ubuntu. * Flash support seems to be hit or miss in terms of out of the box functionality. Sometimes it works right when you install chromium, sometimes it doesn't * Windows weird partitioning. Windows will only let you have 1 or 2 of these special types of partitions on your HDD, and I somehow maxed out that partition count and couldn't fix it. It was very difficult to work with.

<comment><USER16> Whatever works with your hardware and use cases!

I was thinking more of a group of people meeting to work through the _Learn C the hard way_ book, perhaps in a coffee bar or something, bringing their own laptops. A bootable stick might make a C environment more accessible to them.

The puredyne project produced a bootable linux specifically to provide a _common environment_ for training in audio production. Seemed to work for them.

<comment><USER9> If you bring a copy of the ISO you can have them all on starting from the same Virtualbox install (takes 5 minutes to set up without knowing the software + Ubuntu installation time).

But I've heard Vagrant is good for use cases like yours, though I haven't personally used it.

That sounds like a fun activity by the way, have fun with that :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Re Valgrind: Last time I worked through CTHW, I couldn't use Valgrind because of missing OS X 10.8 support and I felt like I was missing a lot by not using it. I'm tempted to go back and work through it again, this time with a VM.

<comment><USER18> This is the kind of thing which makes OS X generally less productive for (non- Apple) development than it could be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Spending some time learning C, ML and Scheme is well worth it. Virtually all modern languages derive from these three languages - and all 3 of them are internally consistent enough to be beautiful.

</comment><comment><USER20> I know learning C might seem a bit of a waste of time, but given Obj-C, C++, Python and Ruby can leverage it for performance it's not a bad thing to learn.

<comment><USER21> Objective C and C++ can leverage it for performance? Objective-C is a strict superset of C and C++ a near superset. If you learnt Objective C or C++ properly, you _already know_ C (!).

<comment><USER22> While your statement is technically correct, in practice C is a very different beast from C++/Obj-C. For example, in C dealing with global state is a important problem, while one would just encapsulate the state in a object in C++. So someone who learns just one of the supersets can easily miss all the details which the additional features of C++/Obj-C hide.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: OpenSourceWeekly.org – The best open source projects, curated by hand - <AUTHOR> https://opensourceweekly.org <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN,

While developing Bloom[0] I realized how much I love open source. So I decided to share this passion with the world. Whether it be in software, in hardware, in education, in science or in agriculture, open source have proved its superiority.

However it's very difficult to find interesting and quality content in this ocean. Just GitHub had over 100M repositories in 2018!

So I created the Open Source Weekly letter, where you will find the best projects, people and articles on open source, curated by hand.

Whether you want to make your first contribution, discover new interesting projects or people, I will do my best to satisfy you.

I think we are just at the beginning of the open source revolution and I want to contribute to spread its greatness.

Sylvain

[0] [https://gitlab.com/bloom42/bloom](https://gitlab.com/bloom42/bloom)

[1] [https://github.blog/2018-11-08-100m-repos](https://github.blog/2018-11-08-100m-repos)

<comment><USER2> How are you curating what goes into the newsletter? Who decides? How?

<comment><AUTHOR> Me, by summarizing my findings when I browse internet and following my instinct to what can be interesting for the readers. Also I have planned some special editions like gaming, going 100% open source, ecology, education and so on...

I'm open to any suggestion (as long as it's not a disguised ad) either by opening an issue: [https://gitlab.com/bloom42/open_source_weekly](https://gitlab.com/bloom42/open_source_weekly)

Or sending me an email: [https://opensourceweekly.org/about/](https://opensourceweekly.org/about/)</comment></comment></comment>


ZFS on LUKS in Ubuntu 16 - <AUTHOR> https://nixaid.com/zfs-on-luks-ubuntu-16/ <comment><USER2> > I have used lz4 compression as it has high performance and data > deduplication dedup=on to save space.

Nice writeup but IMHO it's wrong to assume enabling dedup will make sense under any circumstance, especially regarding the performance drawbacks on systems that can't handle it. It might deserve a little more consideration than just setting it on by default in a somewhat copy-pasteable command. Oracle published a nifty guide on how to proceed with dedup:

[http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/servers- storage-a...](http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/articles/servers-storage- admin/o11-113-size-zfs-dedup-1354231.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you, @janwh! I have added a warning to my write-up and have also updated/shuffled some sections around to get it a better shape :-)</comment></comment>