Tesla Plunges After a Conference Call - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-03/musk-says-don-t-buy-volatile-tesla-stock-investors-take-heed <comment><USER2> I was on this call. It was extremely cringey/embarrassing to hear Elon dismiss valid questions.

At the same time, it was fantastic to see a young, smart, retail investor (Gali from Hyperchange) get to ask so many questions directly to the leadership team. I thought before the call that Gali would get to ask only one question, like the other analysts. He was able to ask almost 10!

It was surreal. I was left feeling that the team overall did a great thing by allowing Gali but wished that Elon didn't insult the institutional investors by (at least so harshly) dismissing valid questions.

<comment><USER3> Disagree about it being embarrassing and cringey. I appreciate his no-bs and no-fluff candor.

Elon called out the press for writing misleading articles to generate clicks. He went as far as calling it irresponsible and dangerous.

He also called out day-traders, saying of you can't handle volatility then sell your stock. "I am not here to convince you to buy Tesla stock."

You can listen to the call at [https://edge.media- server.com/m6/p/nwvzygvo](https://edge.media-server.com/m6/p/nwvzygvo)

<comment><USER4> Yeah I agree with you nodesocket. Musk comes off as focusing on the right things, not getting bogged down by a x% difference on capital outlay here or there.

<comment><USER5> > not getting bogged down by a x% difference on capital outlay here or there.

People would not be after him so much if he hadn't missed almost every prediction he's made. The company is quickly approaching a cliff that the Musk cheerleaders cannot simply cheer him across. Timelines really start to matter when your runway is running out.

<comment><USER4> There is no fast approaching cliff or any such nonsense. Tesla's market cap is $50B. They can release stock and dilute current shareholders if they need to. Talking about whether it is a $4.4B capital outlay or $4.0B capital outlay doesn't matter.

What matters for Tesla is making sure that their core offering doesn't get overshadowed by an established automotive manufacturer before they can scale. What matters for Tesla is that petrol prices don't plummet due to some new unforeseen technology of economic downturn. What matters for Tesla is that their cars wear reliably so they don't tarnish their reputation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Elon has always seemed to have the attitude of "not everyone should invest in this stock". I find this refreshing. God forbid a CEO do anything except try to drive the share price as high as humanly possible.

I don't know if this carries the same weight in a public company, but setting expectations with investors is super important in a startup and prevents a ton of wasted time wrangling investors who don't get the true cost/benefit ratio of what you're doing.

<comment><USER7> Actually as a CEO he has a fiduciary duty to maximise shareholder value.

<comment><USER8> I'm not sure why you are down voted... that is his _legal_ obligation.

<comment><USER9> That's a commonly held _myth_.

[https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are- co...](https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations- obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/09/09/how-t...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/09/09/how- the-cult-of-shareholder-value-wrecked-american-business/)

[https://medium.com/bull-market/there-is-no-effective- fiducia...](https://medium.com/bull-market/there-is-no-effective-fiduciary- duty-to-maximize-profits-939ae50d0572)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_und...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiduciary#Fiduciary_duties_under_Delaware_corporate_law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> What a weird call. Especially the callout of the diamler CEO.

Elon says that the diamler CEO does not understand physics "He doesn't know much about physics. I know him. I'd be happy to engage in a physics discussion with him. I actually studied physics in college."

Wiki says otherwise:

"... studied electrical engineering from 1971 to 1976 at the University of Karlsruhe; he graduated as an engineer. He completed his doctorate in engineering in 1982 at the University of Paderborn."

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

<comment><USER11> Engineering students are usually required to study physics.

<comment><USER12> I think he's talking about the other CEO. Musk is 46, meaning he couldn't have graduated in 76.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Tesla is clearly flying close to the sun, and Musk is not incorrect to suggest that investors who can't take that kind of risk should not be along for the ride; however, it probably would have been more prudent to hold back on that pronouncement, given that many investors seem to have taken the hint and exited the stock...

Tesla is a giant confidence game - as are most high growth opportunities.

<comment><USER14> > _Musk is not incorrect to suggest that investors who can 't take that kind > of risk should not be along for the ride_

Risk is fine. Blind risk is not. Questions about cash position for a money- losing company with less cash on hand than it burned in the trailing 12 months are prudent.

<comment><USER15> All the capex info was in their letter and they talked about it in the call as well. Why should all the investors have to listen to them repeat themselves? I for one appreciated that he skipped the question and did not waste my time. Also the reservation holder conversion rate is a highly strategic information and I don't think they should release that to the public. And to be honest it is irrelevant while they have such a giant backlog of orders. my guess is that the intent was to gather material for negative press. Let's not kid ourselves. Tesla has been the target of a massive propoganda/trolling campaign recently. (HN included)

<comment><USER16> Who do you imagine being behind your imagined propaganda campaign?

<comment><USER17> Context notwithstanding; as a long-term Tesla shareholder I am a bit skeptical towards the Musk's behavior on this call. (Haven't heard it myself yet).

That said, Tesla currently has 38 out of 170 million total shares sold short. So there is a strong economic interest in the company failing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I have been investing a portion of my paycheck every month for the last three years and never sold TSLA. It's bothering me to see so many high profile departures particularly in finance/accounting groups. And yesterday's conference call was a disaster, I see it as dodging valid questions related to current state of the company and answering open ended interesting questions like "When will Tesla launch its own network of driverless cars?".

I just dumped all the $TSLA stock I have bought for the last few years.

<comment><USER19> Nice, helping make it cheaper for us :)

I for one have been loving the dump, makes it real easy to buy.

<comment><USER20> I have a feeling that posts like this are going to be very entertaining to read in a year or so.

Just like the "Dropbox is a stupid idea because..." everyone loves to quote.

<comment><USER19> Given how much content people post, we can just wait for _any_ company to fail, then google their ticker on sites with comments, find some "idiots" talking about buying their stocks, and laugh at them.

<comment><USER20> True, but I think Tesla is unique in the quantity and enthusiasm deptartment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is apparently a common practice, although rarely this blatant. Paper:

[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2479542](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2479542)

Paper finds that "firms that 'cast' their conference calls by disproportionately calling on bullish analysts tend to underperform in the future."

<comment><USER22> Haven't read the paper, but isn't the causality the other way around? As in, troubled companies call on bullish analysts to try to keep up good appearances, but then underperform anyway because of their problems?

<comment><USER21> Yes, that's actually the causality they suggest in the paper.

<comment><USER22> Ah, thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The strange thing is, Tesla finally seems to be getting decent production rates on their Model 3 line.[1] They got 2500 cars out the door in a week at peak, which is respectable. Until recently, output was so low that it was clear the line wasn't working right. They then shut down to retune their production line, which makes sense. They should soon be cranking about 2500-3000 cars a week without much fuss. Once first shift is running smoothly, they can add a second shift.

Tesla may be over the hump on getting the business working. But profitability is still a ways off. Tesla may need more capital to get there.

What Tesla doesn't need now are distractions. The truck, the new roadster, the next model, self-driving. They need to focus on shipping product before the money runs out.

[1] [https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla- tracker/](https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-tesla-tracker/)

</comment><comment><USER24> Musk sounded exhausted.

If Smith & Wesson launched a consumer flamethrower there would be outrage...Musk has been able to distract with lots of shiny objects but the clock is ticking, even amongst his niche fan base...I hope all the people who are working so hard in Musk's various companies come out of this ok...

<comment><USER25> For the sake of society, I hope Musk succeeds. We've spent too much time as a culture celebrating fairly useless achievements and being unwilling to dare to do the things that will truly take us forward.

<comment><USER26> The important part of Musk's plan has already succeeded. He made electric cars cool and competitive. If Tesla folds tomorrow, there will still be a large market for electric cars, and multiple other companies serving that.

Depending on your needs, that has arguably already happened. While Tesla is still the "coolest" brand of car, there are better/cheaper electric cars from many non-Tesla companies already widely available today. That will not go away, even if Tesla implodes.

<comment><USER27> > While Tesla is still the "coolest" brand of car, there are better/cheaper > electric cars from many non-Tesla companies already widely available today.

No, there are a very small handful of cheaper electric cars that may be subjectively better for some uses but worse for many others. Bolt, i3, Leaf - that's about it for mass-produced cars being bought in any volume, and the manufactureres are taking a bath on them.

GM is reportedly losing ~$7,500 for each Bolt they sell, how long do you think that would go on if Tesla were to disappear overnight?

<comment><USER28> there is also Prius Prime, Clarity, Volt, Fusion, Ioniq, Outlander and more

[https://insideevs.com/april-2018-plug-in-electric-vehicle- sa...](https://insideevs.com/april-2018-plug-in-electric-vehicle-sales-report- card/)

<comment><USER27> You're conflating plug-in hybrids with pure EVs here, and even then most of the ones you lost won't ship 1000 cars per month, let alone 5k. Those are peanuts.

My point is, the needle is just barely starting to move toward EVs - it's not pegged yet by any means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Felt very reminiscent to Skilling's infamous earnings call. I'd have to imagine any TSLA investors are very concerned after that performance.

<comment><USER2> I'm not too worried. The earnings themselves were better than expected. Elon said this in a tweet but its reiterated in the earnings - projecting positive cash flow in Q3 and Q4.

And such dismissive behavior (as much as I am not a fan of it) is not uncommon among stressed-out CEOs - Jobs, Gates..

<comment><USER30> Why does Elon Musk have any credibility regarding the cash position of his company? He's repeatedly made similar statements that didn't turn true too.

<comment><USER2> I take what he says, especially in tweets, with a grain of salt. That's why I ignored the tweet - but I looked at the earnings, which re-iterated this (as I said in the comment above)

<comment><USER30> The earnings, though better than expected, still show a company in a precarious position that is going to have to raise more capital if it doesn't reach cash flow positive by Q3 or Q4 of this year.

And if it does raise more capital, how do you justify the $50 billion market cap if your earnings are crippled with so much debt financing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is Musk still working long hours and sleeping at the car factory? Maybe he's a little under the effects of sleep deprivation.

<comment><USER32> Or he's just in a manic episode of his BPD.

<comment><USER33> BPD is 'Borderline Personality Disorder', not 'BiPolar Disorder'. Very different things.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Anyone know of a call-in number to hear a playback of the call? Or is it online anywhere?

<comment><USER35> Here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-dyiASgGkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-dyiASgGkk)

<comment><USER36> There's also a transcript on Yahoo Finance. [1]

[1] [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/edited-transcript-tsla- earnin...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/edited-transcript-tsla-earnings- conference-095541387.html)

<comment><USER37> This is of the November 2017 earnings call. That's not the one being discussed here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Not that it's going to happen.

But Apple is sitting on ~$270b of cash (1).

And is run by a guy in Tim Cook that is a world class operator and fulfillment guy.

And who has been criticized for lacking vision :)

We can dream right?

(1) [https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/apple-q2-2018-earnings- heres...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/apple-q2-2018-earnings-heres-how- much-money-apple-has.html)

<comment><USER39> Apple buying Tesla would be a gigantic waste of money. Ben Thompson has explained why in a couple good Stratechery posts, but the tl;dr is, a large percentage of Tesla's valuation is goodwill (its reputation and "coolness factor"), and Apple already has plenty of that, so all the money Apple spent for that piece of Tesla's value would be pure waste. And that's before you get into the fact that huge acquisitions, where the acquired company is in a totally different sector than the buyer, almost never work.

<comment><USER40> Both Apple and Tesla sell luxury electronics. The difference is in just in the size and the number of moving parts.

<comment><USER39> That's like saying that both Ford and SpaceX sell freight vehicles.

<comment><USER40> Apple and Tesla both sell to consumers of a rather similar demographic. You can not say the same for Ford and Spacex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Perhaps a buying opportunity. Sounds like investors are being spiteful.

<comment><USER36> Asking how he is going to reign in capital expenses, when their burn rate will drain them of cash in 8 months is not being spiteful.

It's called being an investor.

Refusing to answer that question, is either being spiteful, or disingenuous. It's a bit of a red flag.

<comment><USER42> That wasn't the question he refused to answer; he refused to (I think in his opinion) sit there and do a bunch of simple—yet almost entirely spitballing—maths that any financial analyst could do, to tell them how much his proposed steps would save the company.

<comment><USER31> _" And so where specifically will you be in terms of capital requirements?"_

This is a question that can be answered by "any financial analyst"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Having watched clip in the article and given I don't have any Tesla stock. Additionally having been an operations manager I have some sympathy for Musk. Every Tom, Dick, and Sally has an opinion but very few have the know-how to help. But in today's world who needs to be an expert to comment or pass judgment. On the one hand we have CEOs who chase the quarterly earnings at the cost of long-term sustainability. Musk says he isn't interested in short-term (in not so many words). Either way, you going to piss someone off. Like I said I don't have stock in the game.

<comment><USER44> Firstly, this was not some PR event. Musk had large number of people knew what they were talking about wanting to ask tough questions. What Musk is interested in is not relevant.

Secondly, Musk can't avoid short term investor questions because unless he answers them, there may be no longer term. This kind of clear avoidance of difficult questions can easily add one percentage point to Tesla's future loans and reduce the amount he can collect.

Tesla is down almost 12% from the beginning of the year.

<comment><USER45> Investing is what we make of it. The reality is for everyone but the top 1%, investing is long term. It's tied into 401ks, it tied into RSU, its tied into Options unless you're the top 1% in which case the only benefit of short-term markets is the ability to manipulate them for your own benefit. Many CEO's know this and Tesla isn't the only company that faces this problem. Amazon has to think long-term, many tech companies have to think long term. Trying to get an entire industry/society to move forward or make systematic changes is a LONG TERM proposition.

sure, we can day trade or buy stocks and sell whenever we want, but we're not the ones causing market swings, we're positions in computational modeling where the market makers aren't even offering our positions to the market but using your sell to do another buy and make money off us reacting/acting on the market.

The end result is still that Tesla seeks a profit - but its business goal is to change the market. If you don't like that, don't buy the stock.

<comment><USER44> Even long term investing is fundamentally risk management. Tesla has so much debt and burning trough so much money that Tesla has problems with the future.

You want to quantify the risks you are taking. Answering questions would help.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I was reading all of the thoughtful critiques of Elon's behavior when something occurred to me: there is an awful lot of brain power here that is spending an awful lot of time analyzing the decisions and words of one man.

It's actually odd when you think about it: we do a lot of observing and commenting these days (myself included) and I wonder how much more productive we would be individually and as a society if more of our energy was invested in creation and building.

<comment><USER47> I was reading a fun essay by Thoreau about this the other day. I tend to agree that a lot of people pay too much attention to ephemera with minimal value.

[http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/walden/essays/life.html](http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/walden/essays/life.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I don't know all that much about finance but I do know when someone is dodging challenging questions because they don't have good answers...

</comment><comment><USER48> Musk literally said to an investor "Please sell our stock and don't buy it.".

Transcript : [https://seekingalpha.com/article/4169027-tesla- tsla-q1-2018-...](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4169027-tesla- tsla-q1-2018-results-earnings-call-transcript?page=15)

<comment><USER2> Context is important :) He was talking specifically to and about day-traders:

"We have no interest in satisfying the desires of day traders. I couldn't care less. Please sell our stock and don't buy it."

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> It sounds to me like Musk has a card up his sleeve. If he were truly in fear for the continued existence of Tesla, he would have been very patient and accommodating toward those whom he might need to approach later for more capital. I suspect that he has already secured the capital (or assurances that he will).

<comment><USER50> > It sounds to me like Musk has a card up his sleeve.

It sounds to me like Musk has been projecting near term (<1 year, sometimes even "next quarter") transition to being cash flow positive and not needing new capital regularly for six years now and is used to just getting away with it even though it's been wrong every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> It's alarming to see the volume of kneejerk defensiveness here. You can idolize Elon Musk but still have a fact-based, rational perspective. You can be rooting for Tesla in the most tribal and idealistic way imaginable and still see their financial challenges clearly and analytically.

</comment><comment><USER52> One of the things I was really was going to happen with Tesla would have been a revival of the boutique auto industry - whereby, one could buy all the subcomponents of the Tesla - a full drive-train-chassis setup with all controls and then build custom bodies on top of them

Like trucks and vans etc.

Pipe-dream sure, but I was really hoping that this would happen.

How hard would it be to extend the length of the chassis only to allow for a long van/bus/truck be built on top of it (and by how hard, I mean "how hard" \- not "it couldn't be that hard, could it" type of question)

<comment><USER53> Tesla is literally the opposite of that dream.

Tesla is effectively the Apple of the car world. The whole thing is locked down, and if you make modifications to the car, they will brick it with software.

You don't really "own" that Tesla.

<comment><USER52> Sadly, I know - thats why I said it was a pipe dream.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Tesla earnings call was the best I've heard in a long time, says Jim Cramer (a CNBC popular analyst):

[https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/03/tesla-earnings-call- wa...](https://www.cnbc.com/video/2018/05/03/tesla-earnings-call-was-the-best- ive-heard-in-a-long-time-says-jim-cramer.html)

<comment><USER30> In the entertainment sense, sure. But Musk is running a $50 billion company, not performing stand up.

<comment><USER55> Jim Cramer, though, is.

<comment><USER30> _presses button to make recorded bull sound_

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Musk is Willy Wonka for the 21st century, for all his flaws you still gotta love him and lets face it Wonka Chocolates just wouldn't be the same without him.

</comment><comment><USER57> I always have an issue about the statistical viewpoint about safety. Musk finds it outrageous that AP like products are nailed by the press but I find it quite normal. It's a new thing, and it's related to injury, it will be pinned. I wouldn't expect any otherwise. Musk should just swallow the pill and just work around that. Press won't write about your car that doesn't kill people. That's absurd.

<comment><USER58> Unless that's your brand - see Volvo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> It's so hard to see them starting to falter. They were on the cusp of mainstream success.

<comment><USER60> They don't seem to be faltering to me. They're doing better than they ever have been. They sold almost as many cars last quarter as they did in all of 2014 (which happens to be when I ordered mine). Model 3 production is ramping up much faster than Model S or X production did, and is only a few months behind Elon's notoriously optimistic predictions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I'm curious: was the word "bizarre" always missing in the title or has it been dropped later?

<comment><USER62> It was dropped.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Any place to get the audio, given the entire transcript is available?

</comment><comment><USER64> I for one completely defend him. It must be excruciating getting the self serving type of questions that all boil down to:

"how well can I infer you're doing so I make sure I make more money or lose less money in the next 6 months?" Over and over and over...

<comment><USER30> If he actually answered it with any new information or to any real degree of satisfaction it wouldn't have been asked so often.

<comment><USER65> Didn't he provide all of the actual numbers? What else is he supposed to provide?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER66> Good. Dumbass "Analysts" can go eat you know what. Tesla is not there to earn some granny their pension, it's there to be life changing company

</comment><comment><USER67> It may be a strange call but it's not the first. Overstock's former CEO, Patrick Byrne, had worse calls where he discussed his personal issues.

</comment><comment><USER68> Please un-editorialize title.

</comment><comment><USER69> The news I dread to hear: "Tesla files for chapter 11".... It almost makes wail.

I wish I had enough money to give Tesla a runway, free of Wall Street scrutiny for a year. But that's not in the spirit of capitalism I guess.

</comment><comment><USER70> Elon did come across very Trumpian on the call, which, in the longer term may serve his interests well. He's pretty upfront about not caring about what the public markets think of him (or Tesla), and acts accordingly. Maybe if he can devalue analysts, and their questions, in the long run these calls will have less impact on value of the company.

I mean ... if I were an institutional investor in Tesla, I'd really wish he would have answered those questions. He must have known what the outcome would be.

</comment><comment><USER71> >'the CEO said an analyst was asking "boring bonehead questions" that were "not cool."'

The thing is that he isn't wrong. I listened to one of these earnings calls the other day and literally fell asleep.

<comment><USER72> It's literally his job to talk to investors. He explicitly invited those questions, too.

Obviously it would be boring to you as a layman with no money on the line. I'm sure I'd be bored too. That's not relevant though.

<comment><USER71> >"It's literally his job to talk to investors. He explicitly invited those questions, too."

I totally agree, still in my experience they are quite boring. I'm not even advocating for any kind of change or anything, they are probably supposed to be boring.

>"Obviously it would be boring to you as a layman with no money on the line."

Why would you I assume I was listening to an earnings call without money on the line? But actually, now that you mention it, recordings of those calls could be a good insomnia cure.

<comment><USER31> Why do you have an expectation that a Q&A about financials should be emotionally exciting?

<comment><USER71> I don't. I even say this in the post you are replying to.

<comment><USER31> My comment is directed more toward your opening rationalization: _" The thing is that he isn't wrong."_

I don't believe Musk's critics are specifically disagreeing with how boring earnings calls may or may not be. I guess if I expected these calls to be not boring, I would think Musk had made an interesting observation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Oh good, TSLA is on sale at 10% off.

Setting aside the abject glibness of this comment, the likelihood of it recovering at this time tomorrow is pretty much guaranteed, and by his logic (not everyone should own this stock) it will be owned by the right people (those that believe in Tesla's ability to deliver a compelling product rather than healthy stock returns).

</comment><comment><USER74> I get the feeling Elon thinks of Tesla as an OLPC for EVs: he doesn't care if the business fails so much as it gets the concept of consumer EVs out there and in people's minds.

Which probably doesn't make investors happy and understandably so, but the Musk moves in mysterious ways.

</comment><comment><USER75> Wall Street and their car industry friends want to kill Tesla. They use every opportunity. They probably pay "PR" firms to do anti-Tesla propaganda, judging from the shill YouTube comments I've seen.

None of it matters if Tesla produces products that people love. So far they're doing a great job of that. If they keep up the "pace of innovation" they will succeed, and if they don't, they will fail.

None of this drama will matter in the end. As a Musk fan since before he was cool, this just makes me like him that much more.

<comment><USER72> You've clearly wrapped up way too much of your identity in Musk. If you actually care about his enterprises you should care about their financial sustainability.

Want to kill Tesla? Do you understand who he was talking to? These people are Tesla _investors_. Well, maybe that should be "were" now.

<comment><USER75> Your ad hominem attack is against the guidelines of Hacker News.

I simply believe that founders, products, and teams determine success and that investor happiness is a lagging indicator. This is clearly what Elon Musk believes too.

Wall Street investors are like sheep. You can curse at them all you want. They can bleat all they want. They'll still come running when the food is ready.

Believing investors could be loyal to Elon Musk based on his personal behavior is a good way to kill Tesla. They only value the profits that he can generate for them, and he knows it.</comment></comment></comment>


NY Times charges: A quick look at the numbers/opportunities - <AUTHOR> http://blog.newscred.com/?p=226

<comment><USER2> nice back of the envelope numbers. And good enought to convince me, to be sure. But I'd love to know the numbers the NYT ran...

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks - that would have been a perfect fly-on-the-wall meeting when they debated and took this decision. obviously their numbers are different and more optimistic, but I commend them for giving it a go.

since we entrepreneurs have irrational expectations/optimism, why can't they?!</comment></comment>


Neoliberalism: Oversold? (2016) - <AUTHOR> http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/ostry.htm <comment><USER2> This is certainly my feeling. For me, the biggest things I wrestle with are the contradictions that seem exist in a "Neoliberal" economy.

-Neoliberalism views competitiveness as an inherit trait, everyone must be competitive! Competition is good and produces better outcomes for all! But private actively entities strive to monopolize and reduce competition

\- so _incentives_ for competition must be continuously increased using political means

\- Everyone wants to be wealthy, but we have to keep the tax and regulatory burden low so we don't discourage anyone from striving for wealth, to the point of shaving base points off of niche taxes

Basically, Neoliberalism doesn't seem to be societies natural order. It's an ideology imposed on us that, ironically, doesn't offer you any direct benefit if you adopt it. If I crush my competitors, I'm better off. If just accept tax and regulations as the cost of doing business, and don't allow it to discourage me, I stand to make more money than the "scaredy-cats" sitting on their thumbs, waiting for deregulation to happen (and also better positioned when the barriers are lifted).

It feels like Neoliberalism's primary benefactors are those who reject it.

<comment><USER3> > Basically, Neoliberalism doesn't seem to be societies natural order.

That's probably right. The human instinct is tribal and quite suspicious of outsiders, so oppressive conservative totalitarianism is probably the "natural order" for humans, and this explains why we've had to endure so many different instances of it, both left and right, while liberalism (both social and economic), regardless of mind-boggling amounts of evidence in its favour, remains suspicious in very large circles. It _feels_ wrong. Homosexuality? That's against the natural order. Competition? That's against the natural order.

> It's an ideology imposed on us that, ironically, doesn't offer you any > direct benefit if you adopt it.

No, the irony is that it does indeed bring direct _huge_ benefits, and you can see the benefits in macro numbers almost instantly. Look at China under Deng Xiaoping. Eastern Europe is night and day between the countries that implemented liberalism after the fall of the Soviet Union, and those that didn't. Pinochet implemented liberal economic policies in Chile, and despite being a horrible totalitarian despot, Chile surged ahead almost immediately, and is still today significantly richer than South American peers with more "natural" policies.

<comment><USER4> How would you analyze the gains the gains Hugo Chavez's Venezuela made?

<comment><USER3> Gains? I, uhh, wouldn't. (And also $100 oil).

<comment><USER4> Really? Lower infant mortality, higher gdp, lower unemployment, much lower extreme poverty, etc...

<comment><USER3> And much lower availability of fucking _toilet paper_. Get over yourself.

(yes, I know, it's a "manufacturered shortage" and also big bad USA)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> From The Guardian long read today: "Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world"

[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-t...](https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism- the-idea-that-changed-the-world)

<comment><USER6> See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15048024](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15048024)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > The link between financial openness and economic growth is complex. Some > capital inflows, such as [...] transfer of technology or human capital [...] > do seem to boost long-term growth. But the impact of other flows—such as > portfolio investment and banking and especially hot, or speculative, debt > inflows—seem neither to boost growth nor allow the country to better share > risks with its trading partners.

I know very little about economics, but this makes a lot of sense to me. Industries playing "zero sum games" (i.e. investment banking) _can't_ result in overall growth because there must be a loser for every winner, but sharing true value-creating technology will raise the GDP for everyone.

<comment><USER8> > Industries playing "zero sum games" (i.e. investment banking) _can't_ result > in overall growth because there must be a loser for every winner,

Actually, that's not even remotely true. Just because a seller sells high it doesn't mean that the ones doing the buying are being left out to dry. Investors seeking long-term profits or cashing in dividends may be willing to buy without many concerns regarding current short-term market trends, and investors seeking short-term profits may be cashing out their shares to generate liquidity to invest somewhere else.

In the US,the Dow Jones industrial average is essentially showing constant growth for over a century, and this would not be possible if an economy was a zero-sum game. Economies do grow, and transactions can in fact be beneficial to all parties involved.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> >These findings suggest a need for a more nuanced view of what the neoliberal agenda is likely to be able to achieve. The IMF, which oversees the international monetary system, has been at the forefront of this reconsideration.

I am pleased that the IMF has arrived to this conclusion. To me it always seemed obvious but I met a lot of economics fanatics who think that they have it all figured out in a handful of simple rules that must be adhered to religiously. I never understood those people.

</comment><comment><USER10> Since when is austerity a neoliberal policy? Or neoconservative? Or anything from any prevailing modern style of politics?

<comment><USER11> "Neoliberal" refers to economics, not politics as such. Obviously, the two are inextricably linked on some level, but neoliberal economics tends to be associated with what most people would call conservative politics these days, tending towards libertarianism.

<comment><USER8> > "Neoliberal" refers to economics, not politics as such.

"neoliberal" is actually an entirely political philosophy which specifically dictates what the role of a government and state should be in a capitalist economy.

Without the neoliberal diktats, it's just plain old capitalism.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 'Neoliberal' is a stick to beat the dog and nothing more. I skew authoritarian and although I'm not , I do see eye to eye with them on some axioms (chiefly utopian ideals, and meaning preceding existence). Neoliberalism thinking is more or less classical liberalism with some recompiling to reduce tension with international / global interests. I haven't spent a ton of time thinking about it but I'd say that they probably formulate classical ideas around things like bureaucracy and Government. It's hard to argue against neoliberalism where it's successful but the term has been stolen by rent-seekers who seek rent and call the arrangement neoliberalism.

The U.N is a great example of failed neoliberalism – by and large it's not a highly effective organization, but it does provide a venue for effective actors to collaborate. It's apparent that the U.N could be more cost- effective. I'm sure there are a million counter examples but most of the functional value of the U.N could be replaced by slack. Before you show me the million counter examples, just consider, "if the U.N were using its budget effectively, wouldn't there be more examples of the good work they do?".

The Marshall plan is a great example of successful neoliberalism. Say what you will about authoritarian systems but they get one thing right about recessions / depressions: it's a waste to have so many good workers sit idle. The Marshall plan made it possible to hire Europeans to rebuild their country. The heavily indebted, war torn nations couldn't afford to do that themselves (at least under capitalism – which is why it was critical to execute the plan so that people didn't have to revert to more communist / centrally planned regimes) and it's probably better to get folks back to work rebuilding their nation than letting them stew about and wonder what a glorious revolution would look like.

You can call austerity thinkers whatever you want, but the doctrine seems to be correlated with multi-national corporatist favoritism and a fetishized view of free markets. Regardless of their intentions, the people called 'neoliberals' have created a system where massive gains are privatized, the rule of law is pervasive but the application of law has an impact bias, and losses are socialized except when they aren't in which case they seek the pound of flesh from people who can't say no rather than people who should have had skin in the game. At best, this is 'business as usual' (at least for the status quo that's seen the world massively destabilized), at worst this is the worst type of welfare / theft – coerced wealth transfer from working stiffs to people who have entrenched interests.

We can compare and contrast two relatively similar approaches. You know who rebuilt Japan after the war? Japanese folks did. You know who rebuilt South Korea after the Korean war? The Koreans. You know who rebuilt Iraq? Politically connected Americans.

Maybe the Americans were more cost-effective, but I doubt it. And even if so, maybe it's better if we keep the surplus value in the country. It seems like people tend to value stability higher as they get wealthier. I imagine ISIS would have had a harder time changing things up in Iraq if people were happier with the status quo – better institutions, more opportunity, and surplus value (profit) is key to making investments. The guy who started Hyundai got his seed money from repairing jeeps for the U.S Army during the Korean war. Now, his company employs 65k South Koreans. Entrepreneurs need a way to get to their first success, and good neoliberals seem to value that and bad neoliberals seem to have a bias towards "we'll only consider the people who are already entrepreneurs".

But South Korea became a first world nation and Iraq became the birthplace of ISIS. You know who bears the worst consequences of ISIS? It's not the Americans who got money to rebuild Iraq – although they may get some more business.

Tl;dr and conclusion - All politics is tribal, and the fundamental political question is that of "who is my friend, and who is my foe?". Scarcity seems to make people draw tighter lines around their tribe and see less in common with their foe and that's really bad for diverse democracies. Neoliberals seem to pay lip service to acknowledging problems but their solutions don't seem to address the underlying problems so long as someone is making money off the problem.

A neoliberal strawman might agree "rents are too high" but it'll say "let's just sell public housing to developers and cut rent assistance – it'll work itself out". But they won't do things like strike down zoning laws and invest in transportation to reduce the cost (in time / money) of getting around.

<comment><USER13> Neoliberalism is an economic policy school of thought that focuses on fostering economic development by encouraging private entrepreneurship by limiting the tax and regulatory role of the state, it's mostly a late-20th century reaction against the welfare state.

> The U.N is a great example of failed neoliberalism

The UN is not an example of neoliberalism, being both prior to it's emergence and not primarily motivated by economic policy concerns.

> The Marshall plan is a great example of successful neoliberalism.

No, it's not. Again, it predates neoliberalism. And, also, as economic policy goes, it's not really neoliberal (in fact, some of the criticism of it a the time prefigures modern neoliberal ideology.)

<comment><USER12> Obviously we're talking about two different things. But I find it hard to believe that neoliberalism is about limiting the tax and regulatory authority of the state when neoliberals gave the ACA to America - a policy that increased the tax and regulatory authority of the State.

To the extent that people identify centerist DNC politicians with neoliberalism, I'll say "that's what neoliberalism is".</comment></comment></comment>


RFC 1984 status updated to "best current practice" - <AUTHOR> https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc1984 <comment><AUTHOR> The rationale for this decision is discussed here: [https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf- announce/FXpz3-UE...](https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf- announce/FXpz3-UELhF7S5kBxXvTrRDXSgs)

An excerpt:

"For both symbolic reasons (that the technical position then is the technical position now) and to better ensure that IETF specifications reflect the spirit of RFC1984, a number of participants in the discussion felt it would be advantageous to recognize the substantive content of RFC1984 as a BCP."

Also, the RFC number is worth emphasizing.</comment>


I run a small web server. Apache Struts CVE-2017-5638 - <AUTHOR> http://blog.trendmicro.com/trendlabs-security-intelligence/cve-2017-5638-apache-struts-vulnerability-remote-code-execution/ <comment><AUTHOR> I checked my debian install dpkg -l |grep struts

I do not have it installed. so nothing to patch. i was thinking of making a fail2ban filter to add people who scan for the exploit to a list I share among my different servers to block it but still not clear what to look for in the logs

<comment><USER2> dpkg might not show it. Struts can be bundled in any java application and you'd never know.</comment></comment>


Saudi Arabia Quietly Pumps Up Its Stock Market - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-pumps-up-stock-market-after-bad-news-including-khashoggi-murder-11544727772 <comment><USER2> Good. Injustice should be really, really expensive in the 21st century. I hope the bill just keeps getting bigger for them.

<comment><USER3> Nah - They're only putting money into their own pockets by doing this. Look at it this way - you own 75% (a guess - but prob not far off) of a couple $trillion market. If you take some of your idle cash ($1billions) to pump the stock up - even if you "lose" that cash - but manage to stabilize the market - you're still doing pretty well for yourself...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > the Saudi government has placed huge buy orders, often in the closing > minutes of negative trading days, to boost the market.

This sounds quite exploitable. Buy low before the end of the trading day, sell high at the end.

<comment><USER5> Interesting to ponder how this would actually be structured as puts and calls, i.e., what does the arb trade look like to exploit the fact that the KSA government will always shore up bad trading days. Paging Matt Levine....

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> [https://outline.com/rCAanC](https://outline.com/rCAanC)

<comment><USER7> An alternative is to put the word full before wsj in the URL. It opens a redirect page from Facebook, and effectively bypasses the paywall.

[https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-pumps-up- stock...](https://www.fullwsj.com/articles/saudi-arabia-pumps-up-stock-market- after-bad-news-including-khashoggi-murder-11544727772)

<comment><USER8> Wow, didn't know that. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nothing new - if there was 1% of the oversight on the markets that there is in the US, 90% of traders on the Saudi market would be put in prison for some sort of insider trading.... Rampant pump & dump has been going on for years.

</comment><comment><USER10> Its like political quantitative easing, seems like a scary house of cards assembled.

</comment><comment><USER11> Buying on the dip is rational market actor.

Devious is shorting stocks or buying put options then creating mayhem to crash the market and really making $$$.

<comment><USER12> yes. 100% of the time when the price goes down you should buy. smart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This makes me feel a little-bit conspirologist like if the stocks were dropped down intentionally to let them buy more.

</comment><comment><USER14> > We need to highlight to the world that Saudi investment is good

That is, of course, if you're ok with some people being lured into an embassy and cut up into little pieces.

<comment><USER15> I don't understand why Kashoggi is brought up so much more frequently compared to what Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen.

<comment><USER16> Yemen is a civil war that has turned into a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Things aren't black and white and its very hard distinguish between propaganda and facts.

Khashoggi is very black and white. A US journalist was killed after being lured into a Saudi embassy.

<comment><USER17> Exactly. The fact that 1) he has a face we can identify with, and 2) they lured him into an official establishment of their government and then killed him in cold blood. A place where you might otherwise expect the rule of law to prevail.

<comment><USER18> Saudi laws aren't even codified. There isn't really a rule of law there.

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

<comment><USER17> Yeah I understand that, what I mean is that from our perspective a person should be able to walk into a government office and be safe from extra- judicial sanctions. So a Saudi national may not feel that safe themselves, but it is harder for someone from a Western-style liberal democracy to intuitively understand and is therefore horrifying.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Thank you for this. I don't know why people keep posting links that are behind a paywall.

<comment><USER20> If there's a workaround, it's ok. Users usually post workarounds in the thread.

This is in the FAQ at [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html) and there's more explanation here:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10178989)

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=by:dang%20paywall&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix&page=0)

We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677791](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18677791) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Or we could actually support journalists so we don't end up in a dystopia where we have to get all our news from BuzzFeed and Mashable.

<comment><USER22> News Corp ( WSJ's owner ) is one of the largest companies in the world. It's founder is one of the wealthiest men in the world. I don't think anyone at the WSJ is starving. Besides, if you want to support journalism, find and support independent journalists doing real journalism rather than mega corporations. If anyone needs support, it's the independent journalists.

<comment><USER23> It's not up to you to decide from whom you're allowed to steal content. You can't steal money from Bill Gates's wallet just because "you don't think he's starving," even if you plan to give that money to a needy charity.

<comment><USER24> Oh come on. When does circumventing of paywall become stealing?

<comment><USER23> Reading proprietary content behind a paywall for free isn't stealing? What else could it possibly be?

How about "circumventing" the ticket window at your local movie theater by walking in the exit door. I mean, they are showing the movie anyway, and there are empty seats...

<comment><USER24> Little bit late to answer, but it's a bit different situation with this exact paywall. It's movie theater that give everyone access for free, but randomly decide not to provide these access based on where you come from.

So using 3rd-party website to access their content is not any different that accessing the site through Facebook redirect for instance since in both cases you get content for free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have no problem paying for good journalism, but it's the equivalent of posting a link to a book or a paywalled research article on HN. Useless to anyone that doesn't buy it or have a subscription.

<comment><USER25> Regarding downvotes for an opinion you disagree with: instead of taking the opportunity to present an argument that would change my mind on the issue, you'd rather that I continue flagging all WSJ articles and feel bad about being downvoted.</comment></comment>


How long is Last.fm gonna last? - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/03/05/how-long-is-last-fm-gonna-last/?awesm=tnw.to_17X1h&utm_content=twitter-publisher-other&utm_medium=tnw.to-other&utm_source=direct-tnw.to <comment><USER2> Until another service comes along that allows users to record which songs they've listened to, and be as ubiquitous (there's a Last.fm plugin of some sort for practically _every_ music software player, and even for some hardware players), I think Last.fm is safe.

With services such as Spotify competing with it, though, I think Last.fm has lost its chance in the music streaming industry. I have plenty of friends with Spotify accounts but very few with Last.fm accounts (and those that do have them solely as vestiges of the MySpace era).

As the article says, the problem is, as with so many of these small, new companies that get bought by much bigger ones (Flickr and Delicious come to mind as similar cases), they stagnated and have done nothing new.

<comment><USER3> (I work at Last.fm)

Spotify is trying to be the perfect on demand music service, Last.fm isn't. It's something we tried and ended up moving away from a year or two back.

On demand music is a very difficult market to be in. There are lots of companies trying but many failing or hitting difficulties, like Spotify in the US. There are real challenges in a) being profitable and b) stay on the good side of labels.

Personally I believe that the on-demand part of music streaming is commodity and more can be easily replaced, where as scrobbling provides a richer and more personal experience. However, I do agree with parts of the article, Last.fm hasn't moved as fast as it could have, some features need adding and some improving. That's part of the plan for this year.

<comment><USER4> There are so many features, integrations, interesting things, etc. that you could do with your platform, userbase, and data, it just seems like after the acquisition, all future dev. halted. It is a shame, and I'm now looking for an alternative after years of scrobbling, and being an avid user. Lately I've been using <http://hypem.com> \-- it would be fantastic if they could mine my own personal scrobble data and make recommendations based on it.

<comment><USER3> I can entirely understand that, and kind of agree. We have more data that anyone could know what to do with, but we should be doing more, I'd certainly like us to be.

To try and explain the apparent lack of activity; the last couple of years have had a lot of sorting-house, changes in product (moving away from on- demand, charging for some services, etc) and some technical "house keeping". Last.fm has been around for ~8 years, that is a long time and comes with a lot of technical debt, it can slow you down.

PS: One of my favourite things about Last.fm is our approach to openness of data, our API makes it totally possible for hypem (who are awesome, especially Anthony) to use your scrobbling data, even the recommendations we generate for you, on hypem.

We believe that if the data is visible on the website then there should probably be an API for it, because if there isn't, then someone will have to scrape it anyway.

<comment><USER5> Is there a way to dump or export all my data from Last.fm, all at once?

<comment><USER3> There isn't a Facebook style "Give me a chuffing great zip" option, but there are lots of API wrappers to pull down your scrobble history (for example). It could be friendlier to non technical users, but it's entirely possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been using last.fm for just over 7 years (and I was one of the last of my friends to join). I love it. Why? Because unlike other "social networks", last.fm is actually useful. For me, its is about data, both aggregating my listening data (across several devices including desktop laptop and squeeezebox) and using it to recommend new bands to me as well as local concerts to go to.

This article is laughably bad. It's creating a problem where there isn't one. Last.fm is not on the decline. It is not any less exciting than it was 5 years ago. In fact, the service only gets more interesting the longer you use it. IMO the premise for the article is false. Moreover, the recommendations for improving Last.fm are weak and for the most part frivolous.

</comment><comment><USER7> The amount of bad data on last.fm and their lack of interest in cleaning it up makes me sad. You can see a small example just by looking at the current top songs: <http://www.last.fm/charts/track>

_Morning Mr Magpie_ is in position 8 instead of position 4 where it should be, because 8105 people scrobbled _Morning Mr. Magpie_ with a dot. Tip of the iceberg.

Really egregious are the albums with no scrobbles because every track on the album has "(Album Version)" or some such affixed to its name.

Once on a Pandora station they played me a track by a band called Burial, instead of the dubstep artist Burial I had added to the station. So I sent them an email and they thanked me and told me the issue was very important to them and they cleaned their data. Last.fm doesn't bother, even when it causes their top-20 charts to be completely wrong.

<comment><USER8> Actually, we do clean that data up with our corrections system. We have a large fingerprint database which allows us to work out when a track is the same and we update the charts across the site to reflect this. We even expose this as a service in the API:

<http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=446> <http://www.last.fm/api/show?service=447>

What you're probably seeing there is tracks which are so new that we've not determined similar fingerprints for them yet, or those changes have not propagated to the charts (we use a lot of caching as you might imagine). In fact, checking the chart now it seems that that particular problem has cleared up.

Also, artist disambiguation is a _hard_ problem, but it's something that we'd very much like to address.

<comment><USER7> _What you're probably seeing there is tracks which are so new that we've not determined similar fingerprints for them yet_

I don't think so. Look at Kanye West: [http://www.last.fm/music/Kanye+West/+charts?rangetype=week&#...
Monster should be in place 3 with 14,757 listeners. Instead it's in places 12, 16, 27, and 61. It was a top 20 track for some number of weeks, but it didn't show up in the top 20.
In fact, checking the chart now it seems that that particular problem has cleared up.
I'm not sure what you're referring to. I've never seen this problem clear up.
Also, artist disambiguation is a _hard_ problem
I understand that, and I'm not criticizing that. I'm just pointing out that Pandora is making an effort to work on that hard problem while Last.fm ignores very easy problems. Specifically the easiest problem: albums in which all the track names are wrong because they all have "Explicit" or "Album Version" or some other string appended to their names.

<comment><USER9> The real killer for auto-correction is that it seems to require many users to work - artists in the thousands don't seem to ever get corrected.

It also doesn't help that Pandora has terrible tagging. I have a number of "Horner, James - Braveheart, Film Score"-esqe scrobbles that originate from them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For me last.fm died (after years of being a subscriber just to support them, first during the "open for everyone" time and then during the "I'm from Germany and wouldn't need to pay" time) already. Scrobbling makes only sense for me if I actually do something with _my_ data. Which - I don't.

Listening to music on last.fm became unbearable after a while due to their inability to fix their product to distinguish artists by similar or the same name. ABS and A.B.S. is not the same. If there's both a punk rock band and a rapper with name "Foo" it probably doesn't make sense to mix them..

<comment><USER2> > _If there's both a punk rock band and a rapper with name "Foo" it probably > doesn't make sense to mix them._

Damn right. And yet Last.fm does. An example: Felt. "There are three artists with the name _Felt_ "[1]. I'm wondering if using MusicBrainz or another service they could manage to differentiate them.

[1] <http://www.last.fm/music/Felt>

<comment><USER11> I could see some sort of "disambiguation" feature like on wikipedia. So when I click on your link above, it could give me links to Felt (rock), Felt (rap), and Felt (classic).

I made up the genres, but the point remains. Then clicking on Felt (rock) takes me to last.fm/music/Felt(rock).

<comment><USER3> That's the easy bit :P Copy wikipedia, disambiguate by genre and/or country .

It gets harder when someone scrobbles a track by "Felt", to which artist do you attribute it? There's a whole host of problems like that to solve too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> <http://siteanalytics.compete.com/last.fm+thenextweb.com/>

Just sayin' and that's not even counting the amount of people that don't go to the website and just scrobble all day (me), or use the streaming app (me sometimes).

Last.fm is far from dead, in fact I love it (and many people does). Like a previous comment said: it's actually useful.

</comment><comment><USER13> This sounds like a one-sided personal feature request list. I don't think these feature ideas are even insightful. Last.fm's killer feature is scrobbling. It's almost a diary of my life through music. I'd continue to use Last.fm even if all it did was provide stats.

</comment><comment><USER14> Here in the US I use last.fm fairly regularly via firefox toolbar add-on fire.fm. With it I just hit play, pause, fwd and stop to listen to my last.fm station; it's controls sit at bottom right of my browser.

On my iPHone though I use Pandora more then Last.fm. Pandora for non indie/vanguard music plays better recommendation then last.fm does.

</comment><comment><USER15> Last.fm is much better than grooveshark/spotify if you use this chrome extension: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbncpldmanoknoahid...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bbncpldmanoknoahidbgmkgobgmhnafh)

I am listening to all the music through this plugin for last 1 year.

</comment><comment><USER16> The things I think Last.fm has going for them:

* Charts (of course)

* Recommendations: I use last.fm for two kinds of recommendations: (1) where it uses listener history to figure out similar bands and albums, which in some ways is inferior to feature-based recommender systems like Pandora, and (2) where it uses neighbor listening history (e.g., neighbor radio) -- I can't count the number of times I've been introduced to awesome bands in genres I wasn't looking for just because a neighbor had it on their charts.

* Shoutboxes for each artist, album, and song: I can't count the number of times I've just instantly "loved" a song and needed someplace to shout something out with others who like the song.

Last.fm has a huge user base and should try to be a one-stop shop for music, like Netflix is for video. Here're some tips

* Revamp your business model: copy Grooveshark's business model if you have to, but get anyone who wants to listen to a song come to your site and not go to Youtube for a low-quality version.

* Increase avg. time on site: If you implement the suggestion above (where I can play any song I like), then you have a wealth of _real_ related song/album/artist to offer the user. You may be able to remove annoying audio ads and just rely on click ads. It also helps if you implement a site-wide list like youtube's playlist.

* Improve recommendations: Netflix had a decent algorithm, but conducting the Netflix prize got them a lot of publicity _and_ a much better algorithm. You could do the same with the ton of data that you have. Yahoo! is already ahead of you in this: see this year's KDD cup: <http://www.kdd.org/kdd2011/kddcup.shtml>

<comment><USER17> It's actually pretty debatable whether this year's KDD Cup will really help the science of music recommendation:

[http://musicmachinery.com/2011/02/22/is-the-kdd-cup- really-m...](http://musicmachinery.com/2011/02/22/is-the-kdd-cup-really-music- recommendation/)

Because it's _entirely_ anonymised, not just the users but the artists too -- c.f. Netflix's problems with deanonymization:

<http://33bits.org/2010/03/15/open-letter-to-netflix/>

This means you can't use any interesting characteristics of the music itself, or the associated metadata, to aid the recommendations. All the interesting domain knowledge is stripped out, which likely means the best solutions still won't work as well as algorithms that use metadata (like Last.fm's) or content analysis (like Pandora's) or both, and certainly won't lead to any particularly interesting insights about what drives people's tastes.

Disclaimer: I work at Last.fm

<comment><USER16> Very interesting; thanks. I had only taken a cursory look at the KDD cup page.

I didn't know the dataset was crippled, because I doubt the netflix attack would work with music.. there's no IMDB for music that acts as an independent dataset. Unless they intersect the set with last.fm, of course :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I use Last.fm to scobble and for music/concert recommendations, it knows my library really well so is great at recommending stuff.

</comment><comment><USER19> Last.fm and Dropbox are the only consumer services I pay for. Their streaming radio works well.

</comment><comment><USER20> Considering the fact that they recently settled on charging users for listening to their stations on the iPhone, and that Apple added the 30% subscription demand shortly after that, I'd say, well, prediction is bullshit.

</comment><comment><USER21> I love last.fm

I don't even use the scrobbler or anything like that, I've just found last.fm to be the best "make me a radio station that sounds like an artist" service.

</comment><comment><USER22> I quit Last.fm when they sold out to become yet another mouthpiece for the music industry instead of a social service for music lovers that put their users first.

I use Spotify these days, which never pretended to be anything else but a music industry outlet, but I'm not half as passionate about it as I used to be about Last.fm. I really miss Last.fm's sofar unrivaled community driven recommendations.

I'm afraid the perfect music service will only come if the industry finally gives up its outdated restrictions.

<comment><USER23> _I quit Last.fm when they sold out to become yet another mouthpiece for the music industry instead of a social service for music lovers that put their users first._

Can you explain what that means? I'm only a casual user of last.fm, so I wouldn't notice a negative change even it slapped me in face; I'm genuinely curious about how they've become a mouthpiece for industry, and how that's changed the user experience.</comment></comment>


The Ripple Effect of Death in a Hotel - <AUTHOR> https://lithub.com/the-ripple-effect-of-death-in-a-hotel/ <comment><USER3> _...For this reason, most Las Vegas hotel rooms have neither balconies nor windows that open more than the inch or two that will permit the minimum required ventilation._

This actually isn't true. The Cosmopolitan, right in the middle of the strip, is famous for the balconies on most of its 3,000 guest rooms and suites. There have been suicides and even drunken falls from Cosmopolitan balconies, but they have been relatively rare. Palms Place also has balconies on almost all of its rooms, as do a large percentage of the rooms at the Signature at MGM Grand. Others include the Grand Lakeview suites at Bellagio, the Skyline Terrace suites at MGM Grand, and the Sky Villas at the Palms. Finally, the hallways of almost all floors of the Luxor pyramid look down on the inside of the building, and could easily be jumped from. They have also had jumpers, but those have been rare.

<comment><USER4> Out of curiosity do you know approximately how much they run? I spent a summer in a large city once where I had a balcony overlooking downtown, and it was very nice/relaxing to have a morning coffee or evening tea out there. I imagine it would be especially nice on a Vegas night with all that neon.

<comment><USER3> Casomopolitan is probably the best hotel experience in Las Vegas _because_ of the balconies. Pricing varies wildly depending on what type of room/suite you want and the time of year, but rooms with balconies can often be had for less than $200/nt. Be warned that there are some rooms there that do not have a balcony. The room types of all those that have balconies have "terrace" in the name - if the room type you book doesn't have that in the name, it doesn't have a terrace (unless you book a penthouse). Cosmo is also pretty much the dead center of the strip, with Bellagio to one side and Aria to the other.

You can view all the room types and book here: [https://www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/resort/rooms- suites](https://www.cosmopolitanlasvegas.com/resort/rooms-suites) . I prefer the wraparound terrace suites w/Bellagio fountain view, because they are large (1200sq ft, with a balcony that wraps around the side of the building - <USER2> 500 sq ft of balcony space) and have perhaps the most striking view in all of Las Vegas, but they are often ~$500+/nt (though sometimes as low as $350). Well worth it IMO, especially if you can write off the expense.

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the tip. I would be paying out of pocket, so I want to keep it to ~250 (effectively 200 + resort fee). Might be out of my price range. Also they're not part of Caesars OR MGM IIRC? I want to try to stay with 1 to build comps.

<comment><USER3> Sadly, they are not part of the MGM or Caesars system. But they do have a link with Marriott's rewards program, so you'll earn points with Marriott. Also, Cosmo is fairly generous in terms of comped room offers, even for people that give them very little play. Make sure you sign up with their player's club as soon as you get there and attach your card number to your room so you get credit for your full trip spend, not just your casino play. Charge all your meals etc to your room to get points for those as well. After a trip or two, they'll usually give you a few free nights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Unfortunately for hotel owners, suicidal guests—since they know they will not be paying their bill—tend to choose large and luxurious rooms for their last night on earth._

I'm quite open about my struggles with being suicidal due to overwhelming personal problems. I find myself rather appalled to read the above. I cannot fathom intentionally and completely gratuitously dumping on other people like that as my final act.

I have every sympathy for "I don't want to suffer anymore. Let me out of this miserable life that seems like it can't possibly ever get any better."

I have no sympathy for "And, on my way out, let me actively fuck over other people who are innocent bystanders that have nothing to do with why I'm suicidal."

I say this as someone who used to have really dramatic fantasies (in my teens) of using my suicide as a final message to the world concerning why I was saying "Goodbye, cruel world!"

<comment><USER6> Someone once told me that suicide is the most selfish act, as it pushes your suffering on others. Is it really more selfish to get a bigger room?

<comment><USER5> I generally hate the messaging that suicide is a selfish act. The implication there is that you are obligated to suffer so others can be more comfortable. In many cases, people are suicidal in part because "Hell is other people."

Nonetheless, I stand by my above comment that I cannot fathom gratuitously pissing on random strangers in the process of saying "I've had enough and I'm out of here."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Tangentially related documentary on what happens when those with no next of kin die: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErooOhzE268](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErooOhzE268).

</comment><comment><USER8> I was intrigued by an article's title mentioned in this link: "How to properly respond to a guest death in your hotel". I found the article. Unfortunately, it's without any paragraph breaks, but should still be readable.

[https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-properly-respond-guest- de...](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-properly-respond-guest-death-your- hotel-mukesh-dhankhar)

<comment><USER9> Here it is with paragraph breaks but as a PDF: [http://hospitalitylawyer.com/wp- content/uploads/Responding-t...](http://hospitalitylawyer.com/wp- content/uploads/Responding-to-guest-deaths.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> It's both sad and frustrating that an entire industry treats suicide as merely a cost of doing business. That these statistics are hidden from the public is also a shame.

Instead we prefer to sweep away the deaths of people because it's bad for business. Because it's gruesome and the reality is too much to bear.

<comment><USER11> I'm curious how you think the industry should be treating suicide? I'm not sure if the hotel of death is the right way to go about things, and checking up on every guest from in-town to see if they are going to kill themselves doesn't seem very practical.

> Instead we prefer to sweep away the deaths of people because it's bad for > business. Because it's gruesome and the reality is too much to bear.

I assume the "we" here refers to society? If so, I don't really see the issue of not announcing to everyone that there is a dead guy here and parading them around or something.

The issues behind suicide are quite complex and even if we are talking about suicide driven by a disconnection from all aspects of society, i don't see how hotels can even hope to help fix this problem.

<comment><USER12> There are some quick easy things hotels can do.

They can sell only small quantities of medication commonly used in suicide attempts.

They can make it harder to access the rooftop of buildings.

They can put small signs giving contact details for a suicide prevention organisation in key places.

These aren't going to end suicide, but they do help reduce the numbers.

<comment><USER13> They do already, even without any goodwill, a suicide costs north of a few thousand, so it makes sense to try to reduce them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I wonder what the probability is for a Vegas hotel room that there's been a suicide in it.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've thought of going to Vegas and playing everything on red and proceed with suicide. I think it would be epic but would prefer a suicide that is more humane. People should just allow suicide by administration from a machine in a hospital. What society does now for people that suffer is so irrational, I might as well go to a church and be told to pray for things to get better because that is exactly what mental health professionals do with some drugs thrown in to distort reality. People that want suicide are rational and suffer from a reality that doesn't favor them.

<comment><USER16> I'm sorry that you're in pain.

If you are considering suicide, please don't do it. Many people want to help you.

If you're in the US, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255, 24/7\. It probably works from outside the US too.

<comment><USER17> Does anybody else find this kind of response patronizing? The parent said nothing about being in pain. The parent posted a completely rational statement. Here someone comes along trying to sound as though there is some moral or intellectual superiority to the opposite action and that this person needs help of some kind.

Perhaps we would have more humane suicide options if society were to stop regarding suicide as some kind of dysfunctional behavior. There are plenty of rational reasons to commit suicide, and there are plenty of cases where not committing suicide seems rather irrational.

<comment><USER18> > Does anybody else find this kind of response patronizing?

No. "compassionate" is the description I would use.

> The parent said nothing about being in pain.

They repeatedly used the word "suffering".

> The parent posted a completely rational statement.

Not really, no.

> Here someone comes along trying to sound as though there is some moral or > intellectual superiority to the opposite action

There is.

> and that this person needs help of some kind.

They do.

> Perhaps we would have more humane suicide options if society were to stop > regarding suicide as some kind of dysfunctional behavior.

But in the majority of cases, it _is_ a dysfunctional behavior.

> There are plenty of rational reasons to commit suicide,

Very few, really.

> and there are plenty of cases where not committing suicide seems rather > irrational.

The absolute number may be large, but a tiny fraction of the number of people who consider suicide for irrational reasons.

<comment><USER19> As you've already conceded that there are few but existing rational reasons to commit suicide, the next question is who gets to decide what reason is rational and what gives them the right to decide that for someone else?

<comment><USER20> We could start with "Do at least 1/3 of the population think it's justified?" I believe that puts depression on the "no" side and painful terminal illness on the "yes" side with extremely large margins. Work from there to refine the criteria.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Porting a 15 yr old .NET 1.1 Virtual CPU Tiny OS school project to .NET Core 2.0 - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/PortingA15YearOldNET11VirtualCPUTinyOperatingSystemSchoolProjectToNETCore20.aspx <comment><USER2>
        Porting a 15 year old .NET 1.1 Virtual CPU Tiny OS school project to .NET 2.0 (hanselman.com)
        2 points by riqbal 33 minutes ago

This title is misleading, it's .NET Core 2.0, not .NET. The blog post gets it right.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for that. I've edited the title</comment></comment>


Smartphone overuse may 'damage' eyes, say opticians - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/26780069

<comment><AUTHOR> Opticians say people are so addicted to smartphones they may be increasing their risk of eye damage.

"It's the combination of not blinking enough and bringing the device closer than you normally look at objects - it strains your eyes."

</comment><comment><USER2> What screens still use blue violet light? If i'm not mistaken, it was several years since they stopped using screens that has that wavelength of light that was damaging.</comment>


Ask HN: Web apps source code? - <AUTHOR>

Can someone point me to some web apps source code? (in as many languages as possible) <comment><USER2> <http://noostr.com/download/> :) The version there does have a number of bugs and unfinished features though, it's still beta-quality.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out <http://sourceforge.net/>

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you give precise examples?

<comment><USER3> Joking?! There are tons of open source projects hosted on that site. As on github. Use the categories to browse them. Use the search engine to search for them.

To answer your question: No.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> or <http://www.github.com></comment>


Ask HN: Which 3G dongle to use in UK (and London info)? - <AUTHOR>

I'm traveling to UK (Rumford, near London) next week and need Internet access for my Macbook Pro. Which 3G dongle should I use, since I'm clueless about the situation outside US. I'll also buy a pay as you go SIM card, which one should I buy.
If you know the London area any other information (pubs, cool places to see, beer, how to greet royalty if I see them, etc.) would be much appreciated.
Edit: Thanks for all the responses. Yep, it's Romford, not Rumford :-) Also, is having free WiFi common in UK stores, like in the US, e.g. in Starbucks? <comment><USER2> Free WiFi is not as common as in the US. Starbucks have a partnership with BT Openzone - but if you load a Starbucks card you can register for free WiFi at Starbucks locations.

</comment><comment><USER3> Network 3 or Voda are the best one. I worked in Carphone Warehouse for 2-3 years during my undergrad/masters and those were the best ones to buy.

</comment><comment><USER2> Much of a muchness in the UK, especially so in London (I assume you mean Romford - Rumford is in Cornwall if memory serves).

You can get a stick with 1GB of data for about £20/$35 from most supermarkets or phone shops. Eg <http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.207-7408.aspx>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, it's Romford, my bad. In fact, I'll be very close to a Tesco store, so I can buy this there.

<comment><USER4> Make sure the Tesco you are near has these (maybe phone up or paste up the branch and I'll do a quick check for you). Not all Tesco stores are created equal - there are Tesco Metro stores are really only food, Tesco Extra carry pretty much everything (food, clothes, TVs, laptops, mobile phones etc), plain old Tesco stores might have an aisle or two of AV/electronics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are five 3G UK networks: Vodafone, O2, Three, Orange, and T-Mobile. They will have coverage checkers on their websites, but some of them you will need the postcode of the address you're staying at to use. (Note: you mean Romford, probably the one in North East London (near Havering).)

</comment><comment><USER6> This might be cheaper, depending on your requirements: <http://www.btopenzone.com/buy/>

<comment><AUTHOR> This sounds good. I don't think there are any WiFi spots near where I'll be working, but I can use this for evenings.</comment></comment>


Appify-UI - Create the simplest possible Mac OS X apps, using HTML5 for the UI - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/subtleGradient/Appify-UI

<comment><USER2> Having worked extensively on a project that used something similar (we switched from Titanium Desktop to Mozilla's Chromeless project over the course of the dev cycle) as an underlying technology, I see a few things this needs to address. There IS a valuable niche here - Chromeless and Titanium are the only real competitors - and neither are solving it particularly well (though both slightly nicer than Appify as it currently stands).

First: Lower-level APIs. That means I need Javascript hooks into file access, menu bar content, cross-domain requests, camera and microphone, etc etc etc. Without this, no meaningful apps can be created.

Second: Config. Let me specify the startup window parameters (perhaps using a config JSON file included with the app source). Height, width, and position at least. Maybe support for multiple windows?

Third: Support. This one is where Titanium and Chromeless both fall flat on their face. Titanium Desktop is dead; the company has shifted 100% of efforts into an equivalent platform for mobile devices. Things are broken and aren't getting fixed, which makes it unfeasible to use for long-term development. The same applies to Chromeless; I've submitted dealbreaking bugs to the github - things simply Don't Work - and receieved no developer response whatsoever. Again, it seems as if the dev team has lost interest.

I really hope that you're planning on pursuing this as more than a one-off github project, because you have the opportunity to dominate an area of the "app development for web developers" market that NOBODY is currently solving. Best of luck.

 __*

EDIT: And for all of those who (largely correctly) will claim "desktop is dead, stop pretending it's the web" - you're right. The thing is, the project I was working on found ourselves in an interesting position, and we certainly weren't the only ones. We wanted to build a web app, and knew that the web was the future of our product. However, there was functionality we needed (filesystem access, non-flash microphone access, etc etc) that simply doesn't exist (yet!) on the web. Specifications and standards have been proposed and are being implemented, but we unfortunately can't assume that every potential user has a Chrome nightly build. Distributing an app running in an invisible web environment allowed us to develop the code we would be able to use long- term, while giving us a predictable, highly up-to-date, and _extensible_ (via native hooks thru javascript) access to the local machine.

Also: cocui looks awesome, and worth checking out. My team has since decided to accept our limitations and move to strictly web, but if I was considering a similar project again I would definitely consider it.

<comment><USER3> One of the things that I've done for iOS developers is provide something called "WebCycript": a reasonably seamless way for you to just <script language="text/cycript"> in an HTML document being rendered (in this case, on the lock screen, to allow for easy-to-make lock screen widgets), and then have access to Objective-C APIs (even using Objective-C syntax; cycript.org for some example code; and I now wish I had finished putting up the new fancier website I was working on a few weeks ago ;P). If I supported something like this on desktop systems (along with the other arguably-simpler things, such as the embeddable browser), would that be valuable help for this problem space?

<comment><USER4> Cycript definitely looks very interesting. :) I could just put nice JS api on top of ObjC calls, which makes it just perfect for writing apps. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you want features, be sure to check out <https://github.com/rsms/cocui>

I made this thing to add a quick UI to some shell scripts. This is not intended to be a serious project for desktop app development. Just a utility for nerds.

<comment><USER6> Funny, I was just going to learn Cocoa so I could do just this. I will try this out once finals are over :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you are building desktop apps with web app technologies, you are really making compromises on a lot of important areas (native UI, responsiveness, runtime footprint, respecting platform conventions[1]). I can understand forgoing all of that, if doing so at least buys you broad cross-platform support.

However in the case of platform-specific projects such as this, you're not even getting that.

[1] <http://readthefuckinghig.tumblr.com/>

</comment><comment><USER8> From the readme:

"Similar Projects

<https://github.com/rsms/cocui> is probly better in every imaginable way."

</comment><comment><USER9> Are there screenshots that are readily available?

<comment><USER10> Here you go <http://cl.ly/0c1D0g06133B0V3n1u1z>

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome. I was just thinking I needed this for a new project.

Assuming it's Webkit under the hood... right? IE Safari-ish.

</comment><comment><USER12> how does this compare to Titanium? [1] i'd research myself, but there's not much to look at.

[1] [http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-desktop- applic...](http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-desktop-application- development/)

</comment><comment><USER13> This is really cool. I've been wanting to mess around with HTML5 for a mac app

</comment><comment><USER14> I feel this, like PhoneGap, this is a tremendous regression in web development. Just build web apps, stop with all this native/web hybrid nonsense.

<comment><USER15> It's a direct response to the failure of browsers to include API hooks into what has become basic and essential device functionality - camera access, for example.</comment></comment>


How verizon failed to figure out a migration strategy for contacts - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/smoothgrammer/status/642026817956769792 <comment><AUTHOR> Basically, their developers couldn't write a SQL statement to get data from the database holding contacts in their 'old' backup assistant application backend, and move it to their 'cloud' backend. They failed to notify customers about needing to use the cloud app.

This is a sleeping time bomb, and their customer service has a IDGAF attitude. This is a great example of how to lose customers, and is a good case study for people on HN.

As a long term lurker I think people would appreciate this.</comment>


Daimler to build cars for Uber - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/technology/uber-daimler-self-driving-car.html?module=WatchingPortal&region=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=1&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F01%2F31%2Ftechnology%2Fuber-daimler-self-driving-car.html&eventName=Watching-article-click <comment><AUTHOR> This would seem to be a shift from earlier speculation that Uber would be seeking to build their own cars (or are they more narrowly focused on building their own autonomous driving capability for any vehicle?).</comment>


Pokémon Go Away – Chrome extension to "hide 'em all" - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/pok%C3%A9mon-go-away/mgfflemjklllfdkfgnaecoebpplbnhcj <comment><USER2> Somewhat related, an article on the Guardian about "cultural cantankerousness" and the rejection of popular things as a defense mechanism: [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/24/why- oli...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/jun/24/why-oliver- burkeman-wont-see-hamilton-boyhood-must-read-books)

<comment><USER3> You should submit that as its own post if it hasn't been already. What the author describes is a feeling I've frequently had but have never been able to describe. I do my best to notice it and stop myself but it's difficult to override the aversion.

Another feeling I've noticed myself having which seems related is an aversion to hype with the rationalization that "If it was really that good, it wouldn't need to be hyped and evangelized". I'm not totally ready to give up that aversion yet as it seems to be correct often enough, though that's probably just rationalization on my part.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seriously? Any new thing has hype? New presidents, scandals, etc. You can just read over the topics and continue to upvote items that you find worth while.

</comment><comment><USER5> Seems like every time something becomes popular a chrome extension comes about to make it go away. Or something like cloud to butt. (which, imo, is never not funny.)

<comment><USER6> It's never funny.

I did see someone accidently use it while editing a wiki page once.

Would have been funny, except it made the page pretty much impossible to read properly and I needed to read it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Asks for full permissions on all sites, so it's likely going to be replaced by adware / malware once the hype is over.</comment>


Rate My Startup: Try A Tune - Home - <AUTHOR> http://www.tryatune.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Design is a little shabby and definitely needs work, but, work in progress...what I really need is the Google mindset of always being in "BETA"

</comment><comment><USER2> There is absolutely no reason for you to ask users to use their paypal email for login...it makes you look like a scam site.

<comment><AUTHOR> Valid point - from our perspective we though it would actually make things easier. We use the approved PayPal transaction to then generate a user ID for the person (using their PayPal e-mail address). So you can't just login with your PayPal e-mail address off the bat - but you bring up a valid point, people might think we're trying to phish for their paypal e-mail/password combo and enter it into our username/password fields...thanks for the comment!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback run4yourlives! We debated the RIAA bit for awhile, and they seem to clearly state "renting, leasing, etc.," of a CD is illegal, the theory behind the site would be we're assisting each person on the list to sell the CD to the next user (convoluted, I know, but think eBay in a strange way)

<comment><USER3> Hmm. In that case, I think you'll eventually need to reword things to say that you can buy a used cd from people, and sell your cd's online as well for fixed prices. Tricky stuff to navigate nonetheless, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Good luck to you!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Will be nice to have a search. I wonder if people will pay a dollar to try a CD, great idea by the way!!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thinking an album search on the main page? Or just one on the CD listings page? That page (albums.php) is so ugly right now, I didn't even know where to add one, but I like the idea.

<comment><USER4> Classic search on the main page for CD title, song or artist.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Very neat. You may want to be clear on who pays to ship the CD from my house to the next user.

Oh, and RIAA is going to be all over your ass in a heartbeat should you actually become popular.

</comment><comment><USER5> Cool idea, although it seems a bit scammy. I especially agree with the earlier PayPal comments in regards to the login...

Your description of 'how it works' on the main page should also have something like ...

"... don't see anything you want? No problem -- start a request list yourself!"

Maybe even a short flash demo for those of us with 30 second attention spans...

I don't understand the criteria for what CDs can be requested... do I pick it from thin air, or do you have a 'master catalog' from a distributor ya'll order from that you will make searchable? Are you placing bulk Columbia House orders??? (20 CDs for a penny!!) :)

Your web site is an absolute disaster design-wise... sorry I don't have any constructive tips but I'd say to get someone with an eye for that on board... it looks very retro Geocities...

Please explain your business model? Do you basically require 20 people (I'm making this number up) to sign up for a CD (earning you at least $20) and then you go about acquiring a $10 CD and distributing it to the first person, thus netting you some profit in the arbitrage?</comment>


Next-gen iPhone, iPad expected to get Near Field Communications - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/01/apple-expected-to-finally-add-nfc-to-ipads-and-iphones-this-year.ars <comment><USER2> Funny how history doesn't really repeat itself, but it does speak in rhyme.

This is how paypal started out. You'd run a paypal app on your Palm Pilot (remember those?) and you'd use it to pay people electronically device-to- device, "beaming" cash over the infrared port.

</comment><comment><USER3> With the McDonalds restaurants in Europe getting NFC for payment processing, this might actually work this time around. I have my doubts, yes, but with Apple behind it the technology might get a push as being a trendy thing socially.

</comment><comment><USER4> I could really see this taking off in London if you could use it as an Oyster Card:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oyster_card>

On a personal note I also use an RFID to unlock the front door to my apartment block and to set the alarm at work. If I could clone them onto my iPhone I could lose two of the three things in my wallet. If I could pay with it too I'd have no need for a wallet (I already keep photos of my kids and a PDF scan of my Driving License in my Dropbox).

</comment><comment><USER5> Is this the first technology to appear first on Android and then be copied to iPhone? If so it is good news as it means that we have a truly competitive market.

<comment><USER6> Well, multitasking and folders are an earlier example. Of course, I am of the opinion we had a competitive market in quality for about a year now. And that sales markets often have very little to do with quality.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Why limit the thought to simply monetary transactions? What about communications with other types devices. Inventory management at warehouses, package sorting by shipping companies, communication with other consumer devices. Your phone will become the data hub. New business models can be derived... the possibilities are endless.

<comment><USER8> There are some practical limitations on NFC that make this unlikely. The difference between NFC and RFID is that RFID used backscatter for transmitting information while NFC uses induction, with the latter you get an inverse square drop-off in the communications link as distance increases. The range for NFC is unlikely to get beyond 10-20cm while RFID can be read over a hundred meters or so given the right equipment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There's really an enormous amount of hype around NFC, and the fact is that the readers are still really expensive. We've been operating on the assumption that barcodes will prevail because they're about 10X cheaper to read, and the recent Starbucks nationwide rollout of barcode-based mobile payments supports that.

Also unless I'm missing something the Android 2.3 NFC spec is pretty incomplete. It lets you read an NFC tag with a phone but not broadcast as though your phone were a tag. This means that you can't really do mobile payments after all (again, I might be missing something obvious, but I don't think so). Hopefully if this really is an omission it will get resolved with the next release of Android. For now there's not a whole lot we can do with it.

Anyway, NFC is great, but in reality scanning a barcode isn't that much harder or faster, and it's certainly cheaper--it's been working at grocery stores for years.

<comment><USER8> The difference between NFC and barcodes or RFID is that the former uses induction between the tag and reader and the tag can modulate the signal it is returning. In short, two-way communication between tag and reader and not just one-way data delivery. The current Android spec is only half of a NFC solution but most of the rumors so far indicate that Apple is going the full distance and the new hardware will be able to act as both a tag and a reader. If this turns out to be true then there are a lot more possibilities that this will open up.</comment></comment>