A Silicon Valley down payment could buy you an entire house in much of the U.S - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/16/a-silicon-valley-down-payment-could-buy-you-an-entire-house-in-much-of-the-u-s/ <comment><USER2> > "My client was maxed out," Wang said. "He wanted to be self-sufficient: `I'm > independent. I don't want my parents to help me.' But now he's realized he's > got to have that conversation with his mother to borrow a couple of hundred > thousand dollars, just in case that situation happens again."

Must be nice to have parents who can just loan you ~$200k to make an offer on a 2 million dollar house in Sunnyvale of all places.

I can't get over how ridiculous the market in the bay area is right now.

<comment><USER3> >"the median home value is $961,600, according to Zillow."

Being from the Midwest, this is such a foreign concept to me. Looking at Des Moines, $955,000 will get you a 5 bedroom with 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, 1.26 acres, 7037 square feet, and a 5 car garage. And that house has a really nice interior too!

That house in the first picture of the article would probably be $100,000 or so based on its size.

I understand larger cities offer a higher salary, and that the salary can more than offset the cost of living increase, but it would pain me to think about spending that much money on housing (whether renting or buying).

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Greenwood-Ter-Des- Moine...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Greenwood-Ter-Des-Moines- IA-50312/794318_zpid/)

<comment><USER4> The advantage is that even with the insane housing costs I'm still able to save significant amounts of money. For example 2 years out of school a developer can command $160k salary at the best companies (and those companies have a lot of positions to fill). Assuming $3600 a month on rent you have about $65k after taxes. (I guestimated most of these calculations in 5 seconds so be easy on my math)

<comment><USER5> If $160k 2 years out of school is typical, I need to know where you work so I can apply[0]. :P

In all seriousness, that is not a typical salary for the vast majority of people in the Bay Area. Not everyone is a software developer working for a company with money to burn.

\---

[0]: In spite of the smiley, this is also true.

<comment><USER6> That's a humblebrag, don't get baited. :P Yes you can get 160k 2 years out of school if you're a top student and/or have awesome GitHub/sideprojects and performed well at the company to own something, move up the chain, or are a cleverer bear than your average.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> There's no rational financial calculus going on.

It's part of the Pacific Ring Asian hot-money bubble. Same as in Vancouver and Sydney. /r/vancouver has some good investigatory articles

$2 trillion left China illegally, and this is where some went

This doesn't end well, by the way. Neighborhoods turn into ghost towns because "renters damage property". Great businesses close. Vancouver had something like 30 empty multimillion dollar houses burn down last year.

<comment><USER8> Are they burning the houses for insurance fraud, to cash out and essentially launder the money?

<comment><USER7> I think it's more accidental fires from squatters.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bay Area has a housing affordability issue for people who are in non-tech sectors.

For those in the tech sector, there is no affordability issue, only entitlement issue

If they are married, both in tech, their salary will be in the 300k-400k range, that's about 25k - 33k/month before tax, or about 15 - 20k/month after tax. with today's interest rate, $1MM house will need a monthly payment $4k - $5k/month including property tax. The couple will still have about 10k/month left after paying the mortgage.

Assuming they are renting and are fiscally responsible, they should be able to save about 70 - 100k on 300 - 400k income/year. which means they will just need 2 years before they can save up for the down payment.

So where is the issue? The issue is they jumped their league - Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, Mountain View, SF are the 'major leagues' \- foreign cash buyers, tech execs or, more commonly , average Joe who sold their first house with $500k+ gain in tax free equity - (not hard to do in the bay area btw). First time home buyer will have a tough time competing in this league.

Try the minor league instead, try east bay, dublin($900k), livermore still in the $700k - both good schools but 60min+ away, or how about places like Newark or Union City, still in the $700k, both within 30 mins drive (but so so schools).

If they are struggling to buy a $2MM home because they have to buy in these neighborhoods. it's an entitlement problem, not an affordability issue.

<comment><USER10> Or they buy smaller and have a condo and kids share a room

<comment><USER11> Absolutely! I definitely feel for the plight of those making <$80k or so here. But if you make more than that, I can't bring myself to have too much sympathy. You can afford a 2br apartment, to max your 401k, to feed and clothe yourself, and to take a few decent vacations a year, which is more than most Americans get.

Separate bedrooms are not a human right, especially for children. Hell, my brothers and I slept in the same room for a long time even after our parents were able to afford a house with extra rooms.

You wanna see someone taking it to a beautiful extreme, check out [http://5kids1condo.com/](http://5kids1condo.com/)

<comment><USER12> I don't think 90k/year in the bay area is nearly enough for even a couple (and you mention children?!). A 2br apartment will go for $2500/month with a long commute. I presume you're talking pre-tax 80k.

<comment><USER11> 2br in Sunnyvale can be had for that much with some looking. A buddy of mine is renting a decently nice detached house with 3br for 3000/mo.

So the apartment costs 30k a year. Taxes will be quite low if a 401k are being maxed -- maybe 15k in total taxes? So we have roughly 80k - 15k - 25k = 30k to cover everything other than housing. This is very doable. It is not a lavish lifestyle but it's more than most Americans get to cover the same slice of expenses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I live in the Bay Area. My wife and I, early thirties and a few years out of grad school, make about $300k combined and in our area (Sunnyvale) there are maybe 2 or 3 houses for sale at any given time under our rough budget of $1.2 million, which would be below the median list value for a house in the city. I say this as dispassionately as possible, but I would really like to know more about who is able to afford these houses. The article gives one example (doctor married to an engineer, no age given), but I wonder if that case is typical.

<comment><USER14> Your mortgage on that 1.2M house is 5k a month (assuming 20% down). And most of that is tax deducatable. How did you determine 1.2M is the most you can afford?

<comment><USER13> Our jobs are high stress, evidenced by the median tenure at our jobs being about 3 years. The people that leave are not job hopping, they're having existential crises and changing career paths. Basically, we don't want to risk being shackled to our jobs to pay the mortgage.

<comment><USER15> Then, honestly, why are you looking to buy? Why do you have a budget of 1.2MM if you don't want to be shackled to your house? If you legitimately don't know what you're going to be doing in 3 years, buying an expensive house is a terrible idea.

<comment><USER13> We don't want to be shackled to a house we can only afford if we make at least our current salaries. A $1.2 million dollar house would not be such a house, as even if we made only $200k we could likely afford it. We are planning to live in the Bay Area long term for personal reasons, so buying something makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Fun fact: in Tokyo prices are 3x lower than in the bay area, in large part because new housing is legally much easier to build.

If you want to make the bay area more affordable, check out the great work these folks are doing to legalize building new housing: [http://www.sfyimby.org](http://www.sfyimby.org).

<comment><USER17> Isn't the Japanese population declining?

<comment><USER18> Yes, but the Tokyo population is increasing. [1]

1 - [http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.ht...](http://www.metro.tokyo.jp/ENGLISH/ABOUT/HISTORY/history03.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Two things are powering this insanity.

1 - low interest rates and speciality jumbo programs to lock in high earners are providing balloon capital. When this pops people won't lose houses because they have fixed rates, but they will be equity poor or underwater as prices will correct at least 20% with interest rates rising.

2 - cash investors chasing yield and security. The "cash" offers clogging every market are disproportionally inbound from foreign nationals and now even starting to be private placement. Blackstone and other huge PE firms now consider "single family" to be a category akin to multi-family and are placing billions to buy and rent homes for yield. All this blows up when interest rates normalize - eg investors would rather own treasuries / CDs / etc at 5% vs homes at 5%.

Sam Zell - an infamous CRE investor nw $5b - has recently said he believes there is a material value of 10-15% a year of holding CASH - eg that the market is just about ready for a major correction and I agree wholeheartedly(1)

(1) [http://www.horizonkinetics.com/sm_cash_as_liability_zell.asp](http://www.horizonkinetics.com/sm_cash_as_liability_zell.asp)

PS - Some further evidence around interest rates driving home prices from this bloomberg article last year outlining the 0% down and "equity as collateral" from bay area landers -=> [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-27/zero- down...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-07-27/zero-down- on-a-2-million-house-is-no-problem-in-silicon-valley)

<comment><USER20> Whats the rental yield on a SF property?

Here in Sydney you are lucky to get gross 4% on an apartment, 3% on a house.

It kind of implies that there isn't "too many people" because if so the rents would shoot up too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder what the thought process of people buying $1MM+ houses in SV really is. I mean how much more are the prices going to go, so that's clearly not an investment. Even if the only job you could get was in SV, required you to stay close by _and_ paid enough, you are still paying a big chunk of it towards housing! Oh and you're going to live in a smaller house too!

It makes little financial sense. You'd be much better off earning less in the southeast or midwest and living big. Also wonder what the sweet spot is wrt city/jobs/salary/savings/housing.

<comment><USER3> > I wonder what the thought process of people buying $1MM+ houses in SV really > is.

I think at that order of magnitude, it you would have to consider it a true investment, and you should be really bummed if you're holding on to it when the prices drop. I would be hesitant to question how much more the prices can go up. People say the same thing with the stock market all the time, but the long term trend remains up.

I'm from the Midwest, so I'm not exactly up on everything in California, but from a number of articles I've read I understand that San Francisco is really worried about maintaining their skyline. Because of this they don't want to develop anything really tall.

Venture capital firms are mostly in the same area (San Jose?), and the further out your startup is from there, the less likely they are to consider you. I'm guessing it's a waiting game for a big tech bust leading to a housing bust of some sort.

I'll take my $830/month rent for a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom (cable and internet included) in Iowa for the time being.

<comment><USER22> It's not so much the skyline in SF, it's that somehow "not building anything" has become a sort of "progressive" litmus test - if you are in favor of making any changes that would result in more housing being developed, you are a neocon shill for developers who wants to "Manhattan-ize" all of our neighborhoods, and if you want to continue preventing any substantial amount of housing from being built, you are a true progressive defending the poor and downtrodden. And everyone in the Bay Area wants to be a progressive, so you end up with this weird groupthink where because "not letting developers make profits" is progressive and everyone identifies as progressive there's this incredible opposition to making the policy changes that would result in more housing getting built.

It's really weird and makes no sense to me, especially since the people who get really fucked by this are people working in services who end up commuting from places where housing is cheap like Tracy all the way to San Jose where all the jobs are, who are exactly the kind of people you would expect "progressives" to be doing anything to help.

Also, San Francisco (and the Peninsula) really don't need to develop anything really tall, they just need to develop _a lot_ more 3-8 story buildings, particularly in areas that are currently single-family homes. Nearly all of the Peninsula and most of San Francisco are currently single-family homes on ~1/4 acre lots, i.e. very suburban character.

<comment><USER23> It's happening in Menlo Park and Mountain View.

BTW, I see mostly 6000-7000 sq ft lots, which is 1/6 or 1/7 of an acre. But how do you replace those with 3-8 story buildings? Those people have lived there for 20-30 years. Do you declare a housing crisis and evict them?

<comment><USER24> You zone for multifamily which will raise the value even more. Then a developer will buy it and put up condos.

<comment><USER23> Are there examples of where this was done? I would love to know how fast it occurs, and see a graph of adoption/change over time.

I would imagine 5-10% of people would sell (to the developer) immediately. But those lots probably wouldn't be adjacent. Maybe after 3-5 years, enough adjacent lots could be found to make it appealing to a developer. (The developer wants economy of scale, and economy of multiple units sharing common space.) Where is the tipping point?

If the developer offered to buy homes at 20% over market rate, I wonder how the graph would change, vs. market rate.

But the developer needs to start buying immediately, yet can't recoup their investment for several years. They may not like that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've wondered why SV companies don't lobby hard for pro-density policies.

Wouldn't they benefit from lower salaries (due to lower rent/costs of living) and higher productivity/lower turnover due to shorter commutes?

</comment><comment><USER26> Because consumers are primarily used to buying consumables, it results in them not having an intuitive sense when it comes to investments. Buying a house is essentially mostly an asset allocation problem, not a purchasing problem.

Think of it this way, would you rather buy 1 house in Palo Alto or 5 houses in Des Moine? What would 5 houses in Des Moine get you? Well, you could rent the other 4 houses out and get some sort of rental income but you get a higher salary working in Palo Alto, both are income streams.

After X number of years, your 5 houses in Des Moine will be worth some amount and your 1 house in Palo Alto will be worth a different amount. Your houses in Des Moine are probably $600,000 worth of brick and concrete which are guaranteed to depreciate over time and $400,000 worth of land which may appreciate. Your Palo Alto home is like, $200,000 of brick and concrete and $800,000 worth of land so much more likely the growth in land will make up for the depreciation in house. Plus, in Palo Alto, you can be a part of the NIMBY coalition that defends against any law that threatens the value of your house while encouraging office space to be built that increases it's value.

You can apply the same calculus to say, buying a $200K Des Moine house and $800K of index funds or renting in Palo Alto and buying $1000K of index funds or any other asset allocation mix you like.

At the end of the day, even though they look like big scary numbers, the relative impacts are much tinier because you're just shifting assets between different classes. Most asset classes grow at about the same risk adjusted rate because the market is efficient (excepting brick and concrete which is guaranteed to depreciate as a consumable).

Of course, this is assuming every person has essentially access to infinite amounts of credit providing they can put up the collateral to back it up. Once you get into the nitty gritty of who can and cannot gain access to credit, then issues of privilege also get involved.

</comment><comment><USER27> I understand not everyone works in tech but it's not unusual for Bay Area couples to make $300k-$400k per year 6-8 years out of college working in tech.

Consider an example of new grad with CS major working in major software company. Currently new grads start at $120k total package (base + RSU/stock + bonus). After maxing out 401k, taxes, rent(with roomates), car payments etc., one can save $35k-$40k per year. So for a couple having worked for 5 years each could save $35k * 5 * 2 = $350k in total. Use $250k to make downpayment to buy $1.25M home making most of mortgage interest deduction. That's how myself and most of my Indian tech friends in Bay Area bought homes. Being lucky in an IPO also helps. Above calculation assumes no student or credit card debt.

<comment><USER28> I'll never understand how this is not unusual. I make decent money and could offer my portion of the 300-400k total, but every girl I've dated out here is making < 40k/year.

Is there a TechMeetDoctor dating site I'm missing?

<comment><USER27> It's more like engineer meets engineer. Meetings are arranged by parents, matrimonial sites or friends.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What are all the people going to the bay area planning on doing long term? Was it never a long term place for most people? Just not thinking about it? Renting and living with roomates forever?

<comment><USER30> Some of us have always lived here, and find it hard to move away from friends/family. I'm in that camp at the moment, but if I ever want to own a 'middle class' house, my partner and I will undoubtedly move (she teaches preschool and I'm a software engineer). Renting seems like the more 'sane' option because home loans are front-loaded with interest and non-equity payments anyways.

<comment><USER31> You could probably afford something in San Jose.

<comment><USER30> Depends on where - we basically live in SJ (Campbell) and the prices are still near 1M for a decent place. A friend just bought a >1M house in South SJ, far away from just about everything except Netflix.

Midtown SJ is cheaper, and hopefully on the up-and-up. East SJ is cheap but sketchy. Downtown is getting nicer but is definitely on the more expensive side unless you want to live under a freeway.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So is this due to zoning regulations or what?

Seems kind of ironic for the former hippy capital of the world (speaking of the bay in general here) to be pricing non-millionaires out of the area.

<comment><USER33> It's a combination of a number of reasons but yes, it is in large part due to zoning and NIMBYism. SF and the Bay Area as a whole are incredibly expensive places to build housing. Much of the peninsula is completely hostile to density, and to an only slightly lesser extent, so is SF. It doesn't help that through subsidies such as Prop 13 and rent control, a large part of the voting block is essentially insulated from the horrible policy decisions they support.

In addition, you shouldn't be so surprised that this is what has become of the former hippy capital of the world. SF style liberals aren't actually nearly as progressive as they would like the world to think. Many of those who you might identify as hippies are simply self entitled white people from middle class and above childhoods. The real working class of this country didn't have the ability to move to SF in the 60's to be part of the whole counter culture movement. It should come as no surprise that those who did aren't too fond of poor working class people living in "their" city.

<comment><USER23> I have friends who are NIMBYs, so I've come to understand how they feel. I don't think it helps to label and disparage them.

They feel a bit like the Native Americans felt when white men took over their land. They were here first, living peacefully. The NIMBYs didn't ask for tech companies to take over their cities, and try to drive them out.

Some still want to stay, because they grew up here, and all their friends are here. Others are sick of the congestion we've created, and would like to move outward to, say, Woodside or Saratoga, but those places are even more expensive. And yes, property tax would be brutal if they moved. So can't capture the gains on their homes either. They're stuck.

I wish I could suggest a good alternative to them... are there any?

<comment><USER33> You're right, perhaps I shouldn't be so disparaging of SF NIMBYs, although likening their situation to the forced taking of land from Native Americans is surely overly sympathetic, if not down right insulting.

For the record, I spent part of my childhood in the Bay Area, I graduated from high school in SF, most of my closest childhood friends were made during my time in SF/Oakland, some of my best childhood memories were made there, and I could not reasonably afford to live there today if I were to move back. So, in many ways I am very sympathetic to the human toll that increased housing costs result in as they keep me from ever moving back.

With that being said, SF and the Bay Area as a whole have been underdeveloping housing for decades, this is not a recent trend related solely to tech. I have a very hard time feeling sorry for a group of voters who vote down any sensible housing and density initiatives and then years later complain about increased housing costs. It doesn't take a policy expert to predict what will happen here. I particularly don't have much sympathy when those same voters who are incredibly adept at holding back high density development are perfectly fine greenlighting corporate parks and commercial development. It seems to me that many Bay Area municipalities, and by extension their voters, love the added tax revenue that large employers bring in but don't want to adapt the environment to house said employees. So no, in short I'm not buying the argument that they didn't ask for the tech companies to take over their cities. In fact, they wanted exactly this. They also wanted some other municipality to shoulder the cost of housing those employees. They are now realizing that they probably can't have it both ways.

With regards to congestion, this is just as much the fault of a population increase as it is the fault of communities in the Bay Area being unwilling to make the necessary investments in housing and transit. And of course it's been long time Bay Area residents who have fought those investments.

>So can't capture the gains on their homes either.

They can't capture those gains right now. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to capture those gains in the future when they sell or pass on their houses to their kids. This is what really bothers me about Prop 13.

If CA voters are truly worried about grandma being forced out of her house due to tax increases, then sure, lets have some mechanism to insure that doesn't happen. Personally, I think the result of such programs is that you end up with grandma living alone in a 4 bedroom house on a 7,000 sq ft lot in Palo Alto, not exactly an efficient use of land. But I get it, people don't want to downsize later in life.

Maybe instead we could have a system were the property taxes are capped at a predefined rate while owning the home, as currently happens under Prop 13, but the difference between the capped taxes and the current taxes are accrued and held as a lien against the home so when it is sold the back taxes are paid off. The current system were long time homeowners are subsidized by newer owners but are allowed to reap the rewards of increased real estate prices seems terribly unfair.

If we're going to have rent control, I'd also like to see that it's means tested so we don't have upper income renters holding on to SF property as pied-à-terres.

Ultimately, the only real long term solutions will be to build far more dense housing, and the transit to go along with it, or make the Bay Area a less desirable place to live. If the residents of the Bay Area want to preserve it as it currently is, that's fine by me, but then they don't get to complain when they can no longer afford to live there.

>They were here first, living peacefully.

This argument to me basically boils down to "I got mine, so screw everyone else". Sorry if I'm not too sympathetic to it. If Bay Area residents are so against other Americans moving to their cities, perhaps they should organize politically to introduce a Constitutional amendment that forbids "non natives", good luck defining that, from living there. They could even set up border checks when entering the cities. Of course, other cities may then similarly choose to ban Bay Area residents from moving in. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that Bay Area NIMBYs will suddenly think that this is horribly unfair.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This has been true in Manhattan for how long?

<comment><USER35> Comparing Silicon Valley to Manhattan is disingenuous. What's the Queens, Staten Island, or northern New Jersey for Silicon Valley?

<comment><USER36> South San Francisco, Brisbane, San Mateo, Albany, Pacifica, Daly City, San Leandro, Castro Valley...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I don't know. I personally am more scared of carrying such a huge mortgage on myself.

A home worth $1M means $200,000 liquid cash + $800,000 in mortgage principal + $570,000 in interest + $300,000 in taxes...over 30 years.

Will house values keep growing to offset $570,000+$300,000? At what point does this greater fool theory end?

<comment><USER38> The house value does not need rise enough to offset the interest + taxes unless you're buying it and leaving it unoccupied for all this time.

If you need a house to live in, the monthly rent for a 1MM house is likely going to be over $3k. Over 30 years this will come out to be $1.08M, much more than the $870k in mortgage interest + taxes for owning the house. On top of that there's the 20-30% tax discount on the mortgage interest that will make owning even more favorable.

<comment><USER37> >> If you need a house to live in, the monthly rent for a 1MM house is likely going to be over $3k.Over 30 years this will come out to be $1.08M, much more than the $870k in mortgage interest + taxes for owning the house

Over 30 years, if house prices go down due to whatever reason, so will rents (more or less). Homeowners will be underwater and suck up all the downside risk. Renters will remain free of crushing debt.

The only way homeowners are protected is if the house appreciates enough to eat up that downside risk before a future catastrophe arrives, right?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This will end up being what normalises remote working

<comment><USER40> Hopefully, otherwise remote working will increase in popularity at about the same rate it is currently but people will just continue to leave such high rent areas.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> At least you're not in Singapore. Here, 1 million USD won't even get you a small condo. A house will cost you around 2 million USD,and that would be a cheap one. In a prime location the price goes up to several times that amount.

</comment><comment><USER17> This isn't just Silicon Valley, the same is happening in many parts of the world, like London, Vancouver and Sydney. At least in SV there are still a lot of people that can afford those inflated prices, the rest of us have to wait until the bubble pops.

</comment><comment><USER42> In our case, we sold TWO houses that we owned outright in another state, and this was our down payment for our house in silicon valley.

</comment><comment><USER43> Or four of them in much of the entire world.

</comment><comment><USER44> For a downpayment in Silicon Valley you can start a career as landlord in Latin America.

<comment><USER45> My favorite part is where they are talking about $40k down payment, when you can buy a house for $40k.

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/309-W-Maple-Ave-Mc- Cracken...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/309-W-Maple-Ave-Mc-Cracken- KS-67556/91263818_zpid/)

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/403-W-1st-St-Pratt- KS-6712...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/403-W-1st-St-Pratt- KS-67124/91250312_zpid/)

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/603-5th-Ave-Chester- SD-570...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/603-5th-Ave-Chester- SD-57016/2095669920_zpid/)

[http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1109-11th-Corso- Nebraska-C...](http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1109-11th-Corso-Nebraska- City-NE-68410/97890840_zpid/)

<comment><USER44> And you can buy a foreclosed place for even less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Is this news? I could buy a Ferrari before I could buy a house here.

<comment><USER47> You could lease a Ferrari before you could lease a parking space a Honda Civic here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> A couple hundred thousand is right - nobody is buying a home unless they're dual income couples making at least $100K/year each. That's just it.

And that's why this area is soul sucking and tragic.

</comment><comment><USER49> That website screwed up my scrolling on Chrome, works fine with scroll wheel but the trackpad two-finger scrolling just does weird side scrolling.

<comment><USER50> Something really weird is going on there. There's something really odd in Safari too.</comment></comment>


Start-Up Intern for Sale (Free) - <AUTHOR> http://sarenamayar.wordpress.com/2013/01/17/start-up-intern-for-sale-free/

<comment><USER2> "I am, at heart, a nice person" and yet you want to kick him out of the company...right. Something doesn't add up.I just have that feeling that your hiding something.And why can't he find a job if he is as good as you say he is? I will stop right there cause there are too many holes in the story.</comment>


Birth of BASIC (2014) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYPNjSoDrqw <comment><USER2> For anyone who has only used Microsoft dialect BASICs, seeing the original Dartmouth BASIC features might be surprising. I learned BASIC on a Wang 2200 computer (circa 1973), which followed Dartmouth BASIC pretty closely and added a ton of quirky Wang-specific features on top. The following, as far as I recall, would have been valid in the 1964 Dartmouth BASIC:

        10 DIM A(5,5), B(5,5), C(5,5)
        20 MAT READ A,B
        30 DATA <a list of numbers for matrix A and B here>
        40 MAT C=A*B:REM matrix multiply
        50 MAT PRINT C:REM print the contents of C in five rows
        60 MAT C=A*(2):REM scalar multiply
        70 MAT C=A+B:REM matrix addition
        80 MAT C=A-B:REM matrix subtaction
        90 MAT C=TRN(A):REM matrix transpose
        100 REM C=IDN:REM fill C with identity matrix
        110 REM C=ZER:REM fill C with zeros
        120 REM C=INV(A),D: REM invert A, and put determinant in variable D

By combining INV with matrix multiply, it was a snap to solve systems of linear equations. The examples above are all square matrices, but many of the actions worked on non-square matrices too. It was also possible to change the dimensions of a matrix so long as the total number of elements was the same or less than what was allocated by the original DIM statement.

<comment><USER2> Lines 100-120 were intended to start with MAT C=..., but I had a thinko and typed REM instead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I think what was great about BASIC back in the day on early home computers was that it gave direct access to the hardware. You could PEEK or POKE to any address in memory and write programs that could manipulate any of the features of any attached hardware at the lowest level with individual commands. You didn't even have to write a program, but could just invoke commands imperatively. It was an incredible learning environment. I remember hacking a BBC Micro so that it mapped system memory directly into the video display, so the colour of each pixel on the screen represented a byte of memory, which changed in realtime. Learning Pascal on a Prime minicomputer was fine, but never had the same fun factor.

<comment><USER4> The feedback loop with BASIC was faster. You could execute the program directly from the editor (if not from an interactive prompt, our computer, a Tandy 1000 circa 1988/1989, didn't have that though). Even without the prompt, it was very close to the REPL experience (write a line or two, hit F5 to run it, see the result, edit, repeat). I didn't come to other languages until later, but even so the feedback loop was just slower: bring up editor, write code, save, compile, run, repeat. That extra bit of friction is noticeable after a while. And then there's just what makes a minimum viable program. In C it's something like:

      #include <stdio.h>
      int main(void) {
        printf("Hello, World!");
        return 0;
      }

In BASIC it's:

      10 PRINT "Hello, World!"

4 extra lines don't seem like much, but to the novice it can be a massive difference. Especially when all that other stuff seems like magic, versus the BASIC program which just gets to the point ("I want to print something, so I tell it to print and it does.").

<comment><USER5> I wonder why C didn't just include stdio.h as a default library?

<comment><USER6> I guess, because compared with other systems programming languages since the early 60's, C grew out of language used to bootstrap compilers and its authors were happy with it being a kind of friendlier macro Assembler.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the advantages of the Commodore 64 was its crappy BASIC dialect. To do anything with graphics or sound, you had to pretty much learn assembly. I'm pretty sure that whoever decided to stick Commodore BASIC v2 in that thing had no idea they were creating an entire generation of assembly programmers.

<comment><USER8> It certainly made me want to learn assembly, but I didn't have access to the Programmer's Reference Guide or any other useful resources for assembly programming, let alone an assembler cart.

At the same time, my school had a room full of Amstrad CPC 6128 computers with a very rich BASIC dialect that was good enough for making decent games. I'm very fond of that machine, but they're extremely hard to come by now, as are the 3 inch disks.

<comment><USER9> It's possible to adapt CPC6128 to the modern world. I have a CPC6128 with an external 3.5" drive attached. There are even SD card modules for 6128, fyi :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> vanilla-almond Something I've wanted to asked ask for a while: who is programming in Basic today?

The language has evolved substantially from its early days and there are many dialects. But it's rare to hear someone admit they program in Basic (at least on this forum). Programmers can be quite judgemental about choice of programming language.

Does anyone want to share their reason for using Basic? It is by choice or by necessity (e.g. maintaining a legacy codebase)?

Are there modern incarnations of the language that you feel are overlooked? (For example, I recently came across _Pure Basic_ , a cross-platform compiler that lets you build self-contained binaries for Windows, Mac and Linux).

<comment><USER10> There is also a free (except for iOS) version of BASIC ([https://www.b4x.com/](https://www.b4x.com/)) that compiles to executables that run on Android, iOS, Windows, OSX, Linux, etc.

It's very much like Visual Basic, including a visual UI editor, and has a very strong community. The developer (one guy!) often answers questions in the forums.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> 10 INVENT NEW LANGUAGE

20 GOSUB 10

30 PROFIT

<comment><USER12> Captain Nitpick here. That will eventually run out of memory and crash, because of GOSUB instead of GOTO.

Clever, though...

<comment><USER11> Eventually, when it reaches the obvious RETURN statement, it should then get to the PROFIT.

And memory? Memory is unlimited! This is Java! Oh, wait, it's BASIC, memory isn't unlimited. Nevermind.

<comment><USER13>
      10 INVENT NEW LANGUAGE
      20 REM ???
      30 GOSUB 10
      40 PROFIT

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Imagine if they had put a Forth interpreter instead? That would have been real genius... but alas we got a crappy BASIC because everyone else had one.

<comment><USER4> To be clear, BASIC came out in 1964 versus 1970 for Forth. I'm not sure how the creators of BASIC could've used Forth instead.

<comment><USER14> In popular micros that came out in 1980? In 1970 you still huge expensive boxes as computers...

<comment><USER6> Besides the Jupiter Ace pointed about, I used to see ads in YourSinclair and Crash about Forth units to plug into expansion ports.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Trump: Low interest rates are creating a false market - <AUTHOR> http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-says-fed-policy-he-supported-now-partisan-conspiracy-n646821 <comment><USER2> The market will probably sell off if there's a rate hike, even if it's as small a shift as 25 or 50 basis points. A small hike won't qualitatively affect institutions' ability to access money, but it would lead to a cosmetic downtick in the stock market.

In that sense, you can argue that there has been a false rally in the stock market.

Maybe Trump is trying to seem market savvy, or maybe he actually wants to see a rate-hike-initiated selloff that reflects poorly on Obama, and by association Clinton.

<comment><USER3> You don't think a real estate developer, who's the son of one, isn't _exquisitely_ aware of the importance of interest rates? He did, after all, start during the period when they were a more sane ~5%, and experienced the run up to the peak of 21.5% on December 19th, 1980 ([http://www.fedprimerate.com/wall_street_journal_prime_rate_h...](http://www.fedprimerate.com/wall_street_journal_prime_rate_history.htm)) and the lengthy decay---my goodness, it wasn't until 2001 that they got back to ~5%, and that was of course due to post dot.com crash Fed intervention.

I can attest from my family's businesses in the very early '80s that it was very hard to do more than keep them afloat while hoping they went down to something more sane. Now that we're in a regime of financial repression ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_repression)) they're earning a pittance out of their retirement savings, they're as I recall getting more from Social Security (!), and due to their work history in a very low cost of living that's not all that much, significantly less than I'm getting having worked in the high cost Boston and D.C. areas.

<comment><USER2> I'm assuming that Trump knows the consequences of what he is suggesting. I don't see a place where I insinuated that he isn't aware. I did say he might want to seem market savvy. It makes him come across as knowledgeable and professional, which are two traits that his critics generally claim he lacks.

Still, even a knowledgeable person may have ulterior motives for wishing to see a market sell-off. Especially one who is running for president against an incumbent party.</comment></comment></comment>


Prenda Law and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Appellate Argument - <AUTHOR> http://popehat.com/2015/05/04/prenda-law-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-appellate-argument/ <comment><USER2> I found the video source fascinating - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObZDipKRH0c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObZDipKRH0c)

Specifically, the judges' exasperation at Voelker's request (at first) that they remand the case for criminal proceedings.

Also Judge Nguyen and Judge Tallman repeatedly attempted to steer Voelker into a course where he might have some merit, but he kept outrageously denying that the case had any legitimacy at all. I don't think he was winning them over much with those arguments.

I've really enjoyed watching this channel and I don't think it gets enough views - this is part of the court system's inner workings, laid bare.

<comment><USER3> I particularly enjoy the history lesson 30mins in: [https://youtu.be/ObZDipKRH0c?t=2000](https://youtu.be/ObZDipKRH0c?t=2000)

<comment><USER4> The "history lesson" was delivered by Judge Pregerson, who is 91 years old [1] and presided at the argument. Popehat's article notes that Judge Pregerson began the day by announcing that it was the 70th anniversary of the day that he, then a young Marine officer, was severely wounded in the Battle of Okinawa. If he had said he'd been wounded at the Battle of _Gettysburg_ , it would have been only a little more surprising. It's both amazing and wonderful that a WWII veteran is still actively serving on the bench.

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

<comment><USER5> And not being the image of an ancient, out-of-touch jurist:

" _Pregerson: And you 're a great lawyer._

" _Voelker: I appreciate you saying that, Your Honor._

" _Pregerson: I mean, it says so, right there on your web site._ "

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> As a fan of wry judicial humor, this excerpt is a MUST-SHARE:

Pregerson: And you're a great lawyer.

Voelker: I appreciate you saying that, Your Honor.

Pregerson: I mean, it says so, right there on your web site.

<comment><USER7> And right after that:

 _Pregerson: I wonder how many super lawyers there are in this country_

 _Voelker: There are a lot of 'em._

 _Pregerson: And a lot of 'em is BS._

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I believe this quote from the article sums it up:

You want us to send this back for criminal contempt proceedings?" asked Judge Tallman, with the air of a parent asking a toddler whether he really wants to hurl himself down the stairs. "Do you understand that the maximum penalty for contempt is life imprisonment?"

<comment><USER9> This Prenda stuff is funnier than the "SCO vs Linux, IBM, and Basic Rationality" nonsense from a while back. It's a Three Stooges bit slowed down to litigation speed: Slapstick with all of the slow deliberation and unswerving inevitability of a glacier bearing down on the supposedly- professional protagonists.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can someone fill me in? It looks like there's a ton of backstory to this on popehat, but no good summary.

<comment><USER11> People who downloaded certain pornographic movies over bit torrent were getting legal letters from the copyrights owners asking for a payment or threatening to take the downloader to court.

But the company that "owned" the IP was a shell company set up by the lawyers sending the letters. They created the company and then represented that shell company. It's not certain whether the IP could be transfered in the way Pre da said it had been. In some situations Prenda law just lied about it and forged signatures.

One person stood up to the legal threats and it all started going downhill from then on. Multiple judges across the US have expressed disappointment with Prenda and surprise at the shennanigans.

Wikipedia has a rather jumbled timeline. [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prenda_Law)

<comment><USER12> Additionally, there's good evidence that principals of Prenda Law were the ones that uploaded the movies in question to bittorrent in the first place. These movies were never released through more conventional channels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Why the hell is this case still going? Put these guys in jail and take away all their money already!

<comment><USER14> The gears of the judiciary grind slowly, but grind they do. They're grinding these Prenda guys down to their component atoms. That can take a while.

<comment><USER13> And in the meantime, it slows up the system for everyone else. The grinding can go both ways you know.

<comment><USER15> the system is "slow" by design. The ability to appeal means that a potentially wrongly-accused person has a second chance for justice.

I'm not saying it's not frustrating; I am definitely frustrated with it at times as well. But this part of the system, at least, is attempting to maximize "justice" (at the very least, to counteract the parts of the system that do _not_ attempt it)

<comment><USER14> This is why there are turtles at the base of the columns at the Supreme Court.

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/morgonmae/2437913438](https://www.flickr.com/photos/morgonmae/2437913438)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> At some point, I'd like a book-length examination of everything that's going on in this case. Preferably by Ken White.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is absolutely hilarious, really worth a read.</comment>


Can a 700 M.P.H. Train in a Tube Be for Real? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/opinion/can-a-700-mph-train-in-a-tube-be-for-real.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region&region=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0 <comment><USER2> Hyperloop feels a lot like supersonic, vactrain, maglev PRT--which is to say, 4 technologies that have all ended up miserably failing.

It's worth noting that the skepticism involved is not in any way displaced by the recent test. The major problems with Hyperloop boil down to:

1\. High-speed switching, necessary to expand more than single-city pairs

2\. Ability of the loop to maintain tolerances and structural integrity after weather and seismic considerations (particularly CA!) take their toll

3\. Right-of-way feasibility, both in terms of cost-effective land acquisition and in terms of curve radii tolerances (note that even 300 km/h HSR systems in practice often have effective speed limits lower than that on much of the track)

4\. The ability to get safety certifications--and the implications that would have on headways and consequently passenger throughput

5\. Ability to maintain the necessary pressurization of such a long pneumatic tube

6\. The cost/benefit of hyperloop relative to other technologies (like conventional HSR, maglev, even highways and airports).

The way that the company seems to be shrugging off all of these questions is not a good sign.

<comment><USER3> Not to mention it might be economically cheaper to pursue automated automobiles since we already have the roads built.

<comment><USER4> > Not to mention it might be economically cheaper to pursue automated > automobiles since we already have the roads built.

Automated automobiles won't help cutting trip times, which is the main reason why people pay to fly or to ride a high-speed train.

<comment><USER5> Not immediately. But in a future where all vehicles are automated it might be safe to have 200 mph highways or cars that automatically drive onto high speed trains, or cars that can also run on rails, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The shit talking about this is disappointing to me. Isn't this the route of crazy idea that moves us into the future? It's not supposed to be easy. You think people would put their livelihood and reputation on the line for something that they think is a sham?

Seriously, if this mentality were pervasive we would not be having this conversation on the internet or driving cars to knowledge work jobs, we would be riding horses to the field.

I love the nerve and ambition it takes to try something that seems impossible, these are the people moving the world forward.

Edit: words

<comment><USER7> Being a realist I have to be skeptical about the idea of building miles of vacuum tube through earthquake country.

It still smells like one of those crazy Sci-Fi ideas that crashes and burns when people do the math and discover that they'll need to charge $10,000 a ticket and be at 100% capacity for decades before they break even.

The cost estimates I have seen for constructing the tubes are hilarious lowballs thus far. It's definitely not going to be cheaper than high speed rail per mile, especially when you're talking about California (land of NIMBY).

<comment><USER8> Perhaps, but by all accounts Elon is a pretty smart engineer and has ready access to smarter engineers. Not to mention those actually working on it. It just seems unlikely to me that none of them accounted for something so obvious? Certainly they did and felt it was a solvable problem.

If nothing else, if it increases expectations people have about transit then that's good. The currently planned California "high-speed" rail is pretty underwhelming.

<comment><USER9> I have heard, but don't know whether or not to take seriously, the argument that the proposal is designed to derail CAHSR in order to sell more cars. If that's the case, it seems to be working.

What part of CAHSR do you find underwhelming (other that it will take too long to build?). I disagree with some of the routing decisions (I think it should go SJ ->SF -> Oakland -> Central Valley -> LA ), but what would conceivably make it better?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> We had a project[1] like that for Switzerland, but it was canned in 2009 (underground: too expensive).

Above ground tube is probably going to make it for flatter countries.

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

</comment><comment><USER11> We've been there already in the 90s, and it was too expensive [1]. Has the technology changed that much ?

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

</comment><comment><USER12> Best part of the article:

"Mr. BamBrogan's real first name is Kevin. This is just one of many aspects to this undertaking that makes me feel that it will all be revealed as a breathtaking piece of performance art."

Is entrepreneurship sometimes completely, or partially, performance art?

<comment><USER13> Everything is performance art from some perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm reminded of when those tubes that drive-through bank tellers send get stuck and go out-of-order. And i'm reminded of earthquakes. Burying the tubes? Maybe not such a great idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> How does one get a name like "Brogan BamBrogan"?

</comment><comment><USER16> Sounds like a bit of a "pipe" dream

<comment><USER17> I see what you did there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's sorta clever how Elon Musk convinced Ayn Rand-besotted train-crazy tech bros to invest in his testbed for a Clarke Mass Driver.

<comment><USER19> Please don't call names in arguments on HN. This is in the site guidelines: [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).

Especially please don't post comments that do nothing but call names.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I can't believe how many adults actually fall for this garbage. There's too much that's just broken about it, from fundamental design to implementation.

Some people LOVE bad ideas.

<comment><USER19> Please don't post unsubstantive dismissals to HN. Claiming grandly that an idea is broken (and putting other people down) adds no information.

On HN, the idea is to post civilly and substantively, or not at all. For example, neutrally explaining _how_ an idea is broken would be substantive.

<comment><USER20> That's nice and all but the article itself lists all of those, and this would be a reaction to the article itself, instead of repeating it.

(I'm assuming everyone read the article?)</comment></comment></comment>


Apple predicted to 'strike back' at Google with purchase of Nokia or RIM - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/08/16/apple_predicted_to_strike_back_at_google_with_its_own_patent_purchase.html

<comment><USER2> Um, the title is very misleading. The analyst in the article predicts Apple will strike back with a _patent_ purchase (plausible) as opposed to a company purchase (which sounds crazy even if they could it past the anti-trust watchdogs, particularly in Europe).</comment>


Starting vs Joining - <AUTHOR> http://thegongshow.tumblr.com/post/941925410/starting-vs-joining

<comment><USER2> He gets it in his the first point. Exits are so low these days that a <1% pre- dilution employee grant is basically meaningless. Unless you work for the next Google (and how many of _those_ have their been in the last decade?) the best- case scenario is that your equity makes up for all the unpaid overtime you worked getting to the acquisition. The risk/reward ratio is far more in your favor as either a founder or an employee of a funded company.

</comment><comment><USER3> "The entrepreneurs that impress me the most are the ones that are completely rabid about solving a need"

So what impresses you the most about developers who join startups?

<comment><USER4> Joining a startup is not inherently impressive. The characteristics of employed developers that I most admire are: intelligence, loyalty, and ability to execute (read: ship code). Being employed doesn't affect my opinion of someone regarding those characteristics.

<comment><USER3> I was just trying to arrive at the conclusion of the article. I think it starts out listing reasons why developers choose to work on their own startups rather than join other startups. Then it says that the listed reasons are not really good reasons (they don't tend to produce impressive entrepreneurs). The conclusion seems to be that the respective developers would be better off joining startups instead. Hence my question if that would be more impressive than working on one's own startup for the wrong reasons.

Another way to interpret it would of course be to still opt for the own startup, but for better reasons.

<comment><USER4> Fair point. Most of my posts drift like that because I write my way into ideas. It's like thinking out loud... and then I hit "post".</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Looking for a cofounder?  Help us help you. - <AUTHOR>

Wondering how to find the co-founder you've been looking for?  FounderDating puts together events with equal balance of top business and top tech talent in hopes of making matches with our free but invite-only events.  Apply for an event in your town: founderdating.com.<p>We're working on an improved online version, and we need a Django guru to help us take our website to the next level.  Want to get involved?  Please email us at firstname.lastname@example.com <comment><USER2> There's a great need for Founder Dating events in New York City. Any plans to head our way?

</comment><comment><USER3> Other cities?</comment>


Startup Lyrics - <AUTHOR> http://tipjoys2cents.blogspot.com/2008/04/startup-lyrics.html <comment><USER2> Lindsay Mac has a song on her upcoming CD about business and change and rethinking our definitions of progress:

 _It's 1902 and the sky is not blue / it's the familiar color of steel / and the smoke from the stacks / that will lay down the tracks / of a country's birth at the wheel._

 _Suspended on high with suspenders on tight is a man connecting the beams / of a building so big it will rip up the seams of a thousand competitor's dreams._

 _Intense fields of grain / yes it's perfectly tamed / for as far as the eye can see / now a view from above / where the prairie once was / is perfectly right angled beams._

 _When he gets done from spraying he finds the kids playing in the pond with nets and fish line / and they hoist up their prize of a frog with three eyes as they dance with delight at their find._

 _I'm finding it tough to have just enough when there's so much out there to try / my affair with machines is all for the dream I might have just a little more time. When I tell you goodnight through the beam of a satellite it seems like an awfully big bet / to cut all the anchors to say its just human nature it's all in the name of progress._

<http://youtube.com/watch?v=zwAk6yusvFY>

She also has a song called Lucy, which is about quitting your day job and following your dreams. You can actually stream it from <http://www.lindsaymac.com>

</comment><comment><USER3> When things are going well, Sinatra:

 _"... But through it all, when there was doubt, / I ate it up, and spit it out. / I faced it all / And I stood tall / And did it my way. / ... For what is a man, what has he got / If not himself, then he has naught / To say the things he truly feels / And not the words of one who kneels. / The record shows / I took the blows / And did it myyyyyyy way"_

When things are going not so well, Leonard Cohen:

 _"I said to myself, 'Where are you golden boy, where's your famous golden touch?' / I thought you knew where all of the elephants lie down. / I thought you were the crown prince of all the wheels in ivory town."_

(that's Dress Rehearsal Rag)

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

 _"And there are no letters in the mailbox, / And there are no grapes upon the vine, / And there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore, / And there are no diamonds in your mine"_

(that's Diamonds in the Mine)

You really gotta hear 'em for the full effect.

</comment><comment><USER4> Remember the Name by Fort Minor. The chorus:

"This is 10% luck, 20% skill, 15% concentrated power of will, 5% pleasure, 50% pain, and 100% reason to remember the name"

</comment><comment><USER2> "And the men who hold high places / Must be the ones to start

To mould a new reality / Closer to the heart"

</comment><comment><USER5> How about "Get a Life" by Freestylers?

[http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?...](http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewAlbum?i=62373837&id=62373843&s=143441)

If that's not a startup anthem, I don't know what is.

<comment><USER2> The Cause by NOFX:

 _Isn't for the money Nor is it for the fun It's a plan, a scam, a diagram It's for the benefit of everyone You gotta have a little respect Subterranean ideals Traditional neglect Reflect on how it would make you feel_

 _The cause- we're just doing it for the cause_

 _No it isn't for the fortune, It isn't for the fame It's a scheme, a dream, a barterine We want everyone to think the same Because you know what you know is right And you feel what you can't ignore And you try so hard to point the blame A shame- what are we doing this for?_

 _The cause- we're just doing it for the cause_

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Palo Alto by Radiohead seems appropriate...

<http://greenplastic.com/lyrics/paloalto.php>

</comment><comment><USER7> I love "Little Room." I could link to my blog post about it a while back, or blather some more, but I think I'll just play the song.</comment>


'Guaranteed hit' tech could be added to army's next-gen squad weapon - <AUTHOR> https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/01/29/guaranteed-hit-tech-could-be-added-armys-next-gen-squad-weapon.html <comment><USER2> _" Once upon a time, in the very earliest days of interplanetary exploration, an unarmed human vessel was set upon by a warship from the planet Kzin-home of the fiercest warriors in Known Space. This was a fatal mistake for the Kzinti, of course; they learned the hard way that the reason humanity had decided to study war no more was that humans were so very, very, good at it."_ \-- from the jacket of the anthology 'Man-Kzin Wars'.

The same technology that makes for beautiful eye-detection autofocus in portraits can also make for efficient slaughter of those designated to die.

We must each choose the world in which we wish to live.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure it changes anything. If you've seen the horrible footage of modern aerial platforms turning unsuspecting enemy infantry into red mist, you might be surprised to learn that they haven't, in response, abandoned their AKs and RPGs in terror.

I'm not sure there's a killing technology so exacting and guaranteed as to change the fundamental behaviour of these enemies.

Though maybe I'm wrong and there is some magic bullet out there that will change modern warfighing.

<comment><USER2> It has been a long while since the world has seen first-class militaries battling one another for survival. Current conflicts frequently have restrictive rules-of-engagement behind which inferior opponents can shelter. Furthermore, the 'insurgents' of today may feel that they have no other choice than the course of actions that they have selected, even if death loiters above.

The next major conflict will have episodes that emulate some of the battles of World War One, where machine guns and chemical weapons utterly massacred those who were unprepared to face them. Imagine a 1990s-era armored column beset by a few thousand drones with small shaped charges -- it would be an attack without countermeasure; utterly confusing and over in minutes.

<comment><USER4> "I don't know what weapons world war 3 will be fought with, but world war 4 will fought with sticks and stones"- idk

A true major conflict would be annihilation and utter devastation across the globe.

<comment><USER5> Not really.

Imagine a nuclear war between US and USSR, which were on the brink of it several times.

For simplicity, let's consider that 100% of populations of both countries, and half of Western Europe's, get killed in the war. This makes, roughly, 150M + 300M + 150M = 600M. With world population being around 6000M at the time of the demise of the USSR, that would make 10% of world population. Hardly a complete devastation.

Much harder consequences would be the climate impact ("nuclear winter"; its original prognosis was reviewed since 1980s, it should be less severe), and radiation pollution (which, as we know from e.g. Chernobyl, is nasty but not immediately deadly after some time).

Of course, the world has enough nukes to kill the entire population, but likely only if carefully planned for it, unlike any even remotely realistic conflict scenario.

<comment><USER6> I think you underestimate how efficient and fragile the civilization is. If you take a modern city and stop transportation of products into the city, in a few days there'd be nothing to eat there.

<comment><USER5> Yes. But we also underestimate how many people in Africa and even east Asia live not in efficient cities, but off the land, in poverty but also in relative independence.

<comment><USER6> There was a civilization collapse before, around 500 C.E. Cities abandoned, books burned, technology forgotten. It took 1000 years to get back to the level of that civilization. People living off the land only have so much time in the day. Some of the causes of collapse included military spending, constant wars, erosion of traditional polytheistic values by intolerant religion, government corruption and political instability, lead pollution, soil erosion and deforestation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Marksmanship isn't a problem. I don't understand what problem this solves except for snipers. Most infantry engagements happen within 150yds. Anything further (like across a mountain valley in Afghanistan) your target is the muzzle flashes of the enemy. Is this thing going to be an aimbot for muzzle flashes? This is where crew served weapons come in handy, and snipers. This device would not have helped me getting ambushed within 100yards or being the first guy in the door on a raid.

<comment><USER8> Most fire is suppressing fire. If you could have the equivalent of suppressing fire without needing to waste bullets that'd be a huge change.

<comment><USER7> Suppressing fire is used to keep the enemy's head down and to reduce their volume of fire even from defilade so that you can move shoot and communicate. Obviously it is preferable to kill your enemy but you can't always see them.

<comment><USER8> If they know there's a high probability they'll be hit they'll adapt their behavior. The uncertainty of whether or not you're painted is significant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> That technology has been for sale since 2013.[1] The original version cost $22,000 and was quite bulky. This looks smaller, but still on the bulky side. It will probably be made smaller and cheaper in the future. There's less electronics than in a cell phone in there.

[1] [http://www.tracking-point.com/](http://www.tracking-point.com/)

<comment><USER10> That's pretty awesome. I wonder if it would be feasible with modern tech to build a neural net powered autotracker on a raspi (or some other cheap, compact, low power microcontroller). Mark a target with a button on the side of the rifle, have the controller lock the trigger until target it aligned. Could build in range compensation and might not even need a neural net to track simple targets. But you need a way to segment target pixels and track them as they move.

<comment><USER11> We have distinctly different definitions of awesome.

<comment><USER12> Awesome: _adj_ inspiring awe

Modern general usage aside, it's always meant 'overwhelmingly impressive' rather than 'good'.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The main problem for the military with those kind of electronics assisted weapons are the fucking batteries. Infantry already has a heavy load to move around. Adding battery packs does not help. Best case scenario you're tethered to some vehicle. Worst case your heavier rifle has no special system anymore because your 10lb of batteries are depleted.

For militarized police which do fast action like SWAT the battery problem is not a thing anymore.

<comment><USER14> Why do they need so much power? A phone can run all day off a 200g battery and has enough processing power to do autofocusing and image processing. If it's on standby it should consume next to nothing.

<comment><USER15> Hmm are soldiers using LiPo batteries? Given that they're flammable when damaged, and don't work well in extreme temperatures.

<comment><USER16> But on the other hand, you're already wearing body armour, so what's a little explosion? Little explosions come out the back of your rifle every minute. (LiPo batteries really don't deflagrate _violently_ , even when shot. They just burn.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember reading somewhere that there is money to fight climate change. It is just that it is being spend on weapons, like this one. Efforts would be much better spent, trying to reduce the rate of destruction of ecological services. There are between 200 and 2,000 species extinctions occur every year. Could one be saved for a price of one rifle like this?

<comment><USER17> Nature has devised molecular machinery specific to our time on this earth. Want to freeze yourself for a deep space trip? There is a creature that can do that. Want to regrow limbs? Survive like a tardigrade? Not get cancer? Everything we need is out there. Some of it will be key to the future. In some cases it took many millions of years to evolve. Vancomycin came from soil, what else lies in wait for bio-prospectors and molecule hunters? Nothing if its all dead. There should be a prime directive and it should be for life on this planet

<comment><USER18> It's truly criminal that we're potentially losing out on gamechanging biotech in order to facilitate archaic profit generating schemes like chopping down trees for lumber or digging up coal to burn.

Our future is getting mortgaged in more ways than one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I hope someday humans can evolve past war. The cold unfortunate truth is there are people in the world right now that seek to gain power through whatever means they can. To that end, it would be incredibly naive to not develop these weapons systems, and police ourselves to use them for purely defensive purposes. The alternative is to face annihilation when they are developed and used against you. I'm will forever be anti-war, but in order to be peaceful, one must first be dangerous.

<comment><USER20> > _it would be incredibly naive to not develop these weapons systems, and > police ourselves to use them for purely defensive purposes._

What happens when the person in charge is insane? Or, worse, unethical? Or, even worse, Dunning–Kruger? How would we police ourselves then‽

<comment><USER19> "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Suddenly adversarial AI becomes more than a cool tech talk and paper.

It seems reasonable to imagine spies and hackers trying to acquire the models from sights so that, on the day of actual battle, their soldiers can be given carefully prepared masks that defeat the sights of the enemy etc.

<comment><USER22> Considering scaling, rotation, lighting, smoke, dirt, etc, it's hard to imagine being able to effectively use an adversarial image on a battlefield.

Much easier to simply obscure or mask whatever features the model detects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> There is an early window with tech like this where it feels okay because the "good guys" have it.

Only soon enough everyone has it.

Every dollar towards tech like that is effectively R&D for every regime on Earth.

</comment><comment><USER24> This doesn't really seem like technology that is "needed". When you can actually see the enemy a holo sight in the hands of a trained soldier is probably more than sufficient. Whether it takes one round or 3 to stop the enemy it doesn't matter. Watching this tech it seems super slow to use. Perhaps it might be useful for hitting a target at 1000 yards. But that's such a rare use case.

<comment><USER25> Just love that on HN killing somebody is discussed as a use case.

<comment><USER26> What's wrong with that? Not everyone is a pacifist --- far from it. There are legitimate uses for violence.

<comment><USER27> The only legitimate use of violence is to end violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Details are lacking, but this seems ok-ish. It sounds like this is focused on _" found my target and now I'm in the figure 8 where my sight is bouncing around because of my heartbeat or other outside physical influence"_. Assuming it's focused on that sort of bias, it seems fine. If it reaches beyond that it clearly needs more research.

</comment><comment><USER29> Adding to that: most soldier who died in WWII didn't fire a single shot, and never seen the enemy.

A lot more of who survived just spent the whole war walking and doing maneuvers.

</comment><comment><USER30> I suppose you could equip a team with these and bluetooth an AND function. Every team member could pick a different target, all weapons would fire simultaneously when every weapon met 'guaranteed hit' criteria, not before. Should make for a highly effective one-shot tactic against multiple targets.

</comment><comment><USER31> Didn't tracking point have a security flaw because it worked on local wifi or something? Don't recall for sure. Looks like they just put everything on the weapon now. Interesting what modern miniaturization can do. Same tech that advances smartphones makes guntech better.

</comment><comment><USER32> Can use this tech to train it to recognize hogs for pest control

</comment><comment><USER33> It's so funny how sci-fi gets so many things wrong. In the future every infantry level soldier will never miss, yet we have Star Wars.

<comment><USER29> Even "realistic" WWII movies got near everything wrong.

War wouldn't look glamorous if 4 out of 5 soldiers die a "glorious" death from artillery fire from 20 kilometres away.

Analogously, WWIII will likely be about thousands of soldiers being vaporised by atomic weapons, and blown to pieces by drones flown by men sitting in comfy bunkers on the other side of the globe

<comment><USER34> Or maybe for WWIII weapons will be so destructive that we instead will fight it through propaganda, surveillance and trade. Maybe a country will build some militarized, new island, but nobody would date to touch those because weapons are already to scary. Even if one country managed to install a puppet president in another, no military action would ever result because escalation to nuclear weapons is too frightening of a possible consequence.

<comment><USER2> I think this outcome is a reasonable prediction, but it requires three key assumptions -- that those people making the decisions actually understand how terrible these weapons are, that mutual destruction is actually assured, and that those people actually care about losing.

<comment><USER35> It's not prediction. It's history.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> so they implemented a triggerbot irl. gamers rise up.

</comment><comment><USER37> Hard not to read this with some sadness and bitterness ...</comment>


AMD Ryzen 3 Linux Benchmarks - <AUTHOR> http://openbenchmarking.org/result/1708035-TY-RYZEN351587&obr_sor=y&obr_rro=y <comment><USER2> I'm most impressed by the Ryzen 7. Only the i9 is faster and it's less than half the price of the i9 7900.

It outperforms the i7 5960 and it's similarly less than half the price.

AMD can compete well in the enthusiast-on-a-budget segment of the market.

<comment><USER3> I'm impressed too, if only it wouldn't have those nasty mce and segfault bugs, and AMD could actually explain what's going on after all this time testing it.

<comment><USER4> I don't know why you are being downvoted (I am no expert), but it seems like the segfaults are a big deal.

<comment><USER5> AFAIK it's currently being blamed on a bug in the PHP testsuite that segfsults in Intel too.

<comment><USER3> Segfaults happen under heavy compilation workload - nothing to do with PHP specifically, for instance compiling Mesa produces it. And mce bug means random freezes and reboots, when CPU core wakes up from some sleep C state.

<comment><USER5> I'm still quite certain that some test suite had a faulty PHP benchmark that segfaulted on both vendors and people claimed it was Ryzen only.

Oh well.

Either way, IMO it's not a roadblock for office and gaming usage.

<comment><USER3> It is a roadblock, if you need to build something from source and it segfaults. Can be quite useful for gaming too (building Mesa, Wine, open engines and what not).

Besides, mce bug is more critical, since it actually makes the whole system unstable.

<comment><USER5> The MCE bug might explain some behaviour on my system, however, I could just as easily also blame frequent brownouts.

On the other hand, the compile thingy has never been an issue yet, despite me compiling a lot of things. (Ryzen 7)

And for gaming, I've never had a game crash, I do doubt that many people really game under Linux yet, most gaming happens on Windows.

Office use is not roadblocked at all.

<comment><USER3> These bugs aren't consistent, and likely affect only part of Ryzen CPUs of the same model, not all of them. That's why the results are so over the place for different people. It also can be affected by power setup, which adds a lot of variables and makes it harder to reproduce.

By the way, for users or Gentoo or other distros which actually build packages when installing them, these segfaults are a very major roadblock for any kind of use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Take any tests with scaling governor "powersave" using the intel_pstate with a grain of salt. This powersave mode has nothing in common with the acpi_cpufreq's version of powersave and is quite aggressive at clocking down the CPU, even in periods of 100% CPU usage (when it decides that the throughput benefit of remaining highly clocked isn't worth it). This happens especially on memory-bound codes.

See for example [https://stackoverflow.com/a/45201673/149138](https://stackoverflow.com/a/45201673/149138) and [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43343231/enhanced-rep- mo...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43343231/enhanced-rep-movsb-for- memcpy) \- both of which show large performance variance between powersave and performance. In the first example, the CPU clocks down indefinitely to 1.1 GHz from a nominal 2.6 GHz despite being 100% CPU-bound, and performance is cut in half.

Despite having the same governor name, "powersave" with acpi-cpufreq has no relationship. It's using low-frequency software control and generally ramps up to 100% frequency (highest pstate) once CPU-bound code starts running and stays there.

</comment><comment><USER7> Presumably, as a brand new architecture, there's more chance of AMD improving single-core performance (either through frequency or IPC) in the next iteration of Ryzen than Intel doing the same with Core i3/5/7?

<comment><USER8> Clock speed increases are a likely benefit we'll see when Zen 2 is released on Global Foundries 7nm+ process, right now that's the biggest reason Zen seems to fail against Kaby Lake in single-threaded performance minus some minor IPC differences. A Ryzen 7 1800X tops out at 4GHz boost (it can usually run stable at 4GHz overclocked with a vCore bump, but you're playing the silicon lottery) meanwhile a Core i7-7700K has a base frequency of 4.2GHz - a 5% difference, ignoring the 7700K's 4.5GHz boost frequency.

On a similar note, it looks like fab processes are likely hurting AMD with their GPU's. From what I can gather they opted to produce Vega at GloFo's fab on their 14nm proccess, which might explain why they are shipping the air- cooled Vega 64 with a 1.24GHz base clock at a pretty ludicrous 295W TDP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Really cool to see the Ryzen 3 at i3 prices beating i5s in some benchmarks! Really looking forward to the future of AMD.

<comment><USER10> ..and some Ryzen5 beating i7. Pretty nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Source: [http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd- ryzen...](http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=amd-ryzen-3)

</comment><comment><USER12> What's going on in the Himeno poisson pressure benchmark? Scientific optimizations all intel processors have but AMD lack?

<comment><USER13> Zen cores actually have half sized SIMD units compare to Intel. They will execute AVX instructions, but for programs that use AVX well, Intel should win. Using AVX at all is still rare, using it well even more so, but Intel's AVX SIMD performance is pretty stellar.

<comment><USER14> Yeah, the execution unit differences are really complicated.

Ryzen has four ALUs plus four partial vector units. These vector units are all 128 bit. Two can add and two can multiply. An adder and a multiplier can combine to do FMA.

Skylake has four math ports total, all of which can do basic ALU operations. Two of them have 256 bit vector capabilities, and each of those can add or multiply or FMA. A third has limited vector capabilities.

10 core (and higher?) Skylake-X chips upgrade those limited capabilities into an entire new 512-bit vector unit, also capable of FMA.

Depending on your exact needs, Ryzen can be slower or faster than Skylake, but it's usually slower on programs stuffed full of vector math, especially FMA.

I think I got that mostly correct.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Not an option until they fix Linux crashes and hangs. Threadripper would be pretty neat for a 4 GPU deep learning server, but I've had nothing but trouble with plain Ryzen

</comment><comment><USER16> Ryzen performance is awesome, but the design of that page, omg, it is almost unusable based on how bad the information is presented on Linux/Firefox.

<comment><USER17> I had the same reaction immediately as I opened that page. Without even known the context, I could have guessed this was a Linux related site. It's as if the entire Linux ecosystem consistently wants to present the ugliest interfaces to their end users. I don't get it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Sounds like the perfect option for people in the market for a new gaming machine. You absolutely don't need top of the line performance in CPU anymore. My six year old Xeon X5675 is still killing it, which only recently replaced an I7 920 from 2008 on the same motherboard, and RAM. Besides swapping out video cards every couple of years, this thing maxes out anything at 2560x1600.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm blow away by the fact that nobody here is calling out the shit setup for testing. E.G. the Intel rigs have 16 gigs of RAM, but the 8370 rig has 8 gigs. Wat? They don't standardize RAM, SSD, or anything across platforms. Shit benchmarks.</comment>


Ex-cable and wireless lobbyist confirmed as FCC chairman - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/10/ex-cable-and-wireless-lobbyist-confirmed-as-fcc-chairman/

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn was doing a pretty good job. Why couldn't she be installed permanently?

I don't understand why these kind of shenanigans have to go on, there is no way a progressive leader can honestly argue a former lobbyist is going to best represent the people against an industry.

added: (sheesh)

 _Republican Senator Ted Cruz removed a hold on Wheeler 's nomination after the nominee reassured him that regulation of campaign funding disclosures, without Congressional action, was "not a priority."_

</comment><comment><USER2> As usual. Regardless of political party corporate wins and citizens lose. Guessing unbundled cable and cheaper internet are not a priority.</comment>


AngelList Growing, Will Add Reviews Of Angels/Founders - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.forbes.com/tomiogeron/2011/06/20/angellist-takes-angel-investing-to-warp-speed/ <comment><USER2> Ultimately there's no substitute for human judgement to filter things. It's just a question of who makes the call, and how "democratic" the process is.

       "Interestingly, about 95% of companies that apply to be featured on AngelLiist do not get intros. Only the top 5% are emailed out to angels for review. Ravikant and his team select companies only if they can show some growth, an angel or founder who is a known entity, or a known advisor or colleague who endorses the company."

</comment><comment><USER3> Nice - this is something thefunded is lacking.</comment>


Show HN: Price.hospital - <AUTHOR> https://price.hospital/
I'm attempting to make US hospital prices searchable and comparable after congress enacted price transparency.
I'm aware that there are severe problems here as the prices are so opaque. The prices quoted are not the insurance-negotiated prices, it's taking time to load in and clean up all the data, hospital compliance with transparency is... mixed... But we have to move the ball forward somehow. Also the site is missing many obvious features that I'm hacking (like human-readable procedure names like "cat scan" = "ct imaging" but hey.
All feedback welcome, thanks! <comment><USER2> Where did you source all of the prices from?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, that's part of the hard work. Each hospital publishes it in a different way, usually behind a lot of walls, and in different formats.

<comment><USER3> Is there an example you can point us to?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Are we allowed to submit filthy socialist country prices like Norway? * runs away _</comment>


Children Hurt Women's Earnings, but Not Men's - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/05/upshot/even-in-family-friendly-scandinavia-mothers-are-paid-less.html <comment><USER2> > But policy alone would not be enough to overcome gender inequality. It would > require changes in behavior — including by men. There is evidence that the > gap would shrink if fathers acted more the way mothers do after having > children, by spending more time on parenting and the related > responsibilities.

Is this really just an individual decision? Men and women don't make their decisions about child-rearing in a vacuum.

<comment><USER3> These individual decisions aren't in a vacuum. There are other inputs, including society's expectations around women doing more labour around raising a child than men.

<comment><USER2> Yes, precisely.</comment></comment></comment>


AirBNB could get a €12,5 Millions fine in Paris - <AUTHOR> https://www.capital.fr/economie-politique/la-mairie-de-paris-assigne-aibnb-en-justice-et-reclame-une-amende-record-1326989?amp&__twitter_impression=true <comment><AUTHOR> Summary in English (didn't find any english article yet):

AirBNB failed to properly register many housing as short term renting in Paris and may have over rented some housing (over the limit of 120 days/year by law).

Due to this, AirBNB might have to pay a fine for each housing that was concerned which might lead to a 12,5 millions euro fine.

The Mayor is concerned that AirBNB will slowly make normal renting more difficult in Paris. A city where the housing market is already very tense.</comment>