Monzo, a U.K. challenger bank, raises £85M Series E - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/10/30/monzocorn/ <comment><USER4> Monzo is awesome; they deserve all their success. They have single handedly forced banks to compete on UX, though Monzo still wins by a significant margin.

Huge stat from the article;

> And in terms of customer growth, extrapolating stats from a recent > Nationwide annual report (PDF link), the challenger bank says it now > accounts for 15 percent of all new bank accounts opened each month in the > U.K

Is this accurate? 15% of bank accounts opened in the UK each month are for Monzo? That's an insane stat.

No affiliation, just a happy Monzo Beta user.

<comment><USER5> I don't understand debit culture in the UK

I'm an American who has a Monzo card and has spent a fair amount of time in London. Why don't people use credit cards???? The rewards are usually pretty good and as long as you pay off your balance every month, you're getting ~3% of your purchases back in rewards/credit

I stopped using Monzo because there are no rewards! Sure it gives me notifications and is easier to see my balance/add money than my Barclays account, but what is the point of the good UX/UI? Is it for fraud detection and making sure the merchants/bank aren't cheating you?

I ended up going back to using my oyster card/barclays card when contactless was the only option, and credit for everything else. Transferwise was also a godsend for converting money with clear visibility into the exchange rate/no fees

I agree that Monzo has been a great catalyst for UK banks to get their shit together on mobile apps etc. but there is nothing fundamentally different about their business...they're a debit-only bank with no physical presence and a nice app - and why don't more people use credit cards instead? Is it because it makes P2P transfers easier than the archaic bank transfers?

<comment><USER6> I'll try to provide an answer, as I'm European but moved to the US. We don't have this "you're in debt" culture that I think you create when you start school in the US. Very early you have to take a loan in order to study, which facilitate the idea of owing banks.

I opened a secured card here in the US, but I never use it, because it just feels weird to "owe" the bank money and not to be able to pay it back as fast as I can. I usually have to wait for the end of the month, and if I mess something up then I have to pay huge fines (that you cutely call APR).

The more you get into this system, the more you seem to collect credit cards. I have friends with dozens of them. What happens if you lose one? Or if you get your wallet stolen? Or if you forget that after the first year you start paying fees on it? etc.

Most of us can live without the rewards if we get other benefits. For example with Monzo, you get added security, you can use it all over the world for free, you can send money to your friends or split the bill easily, you can track your finance, set limits on your budgets, see what was that 30$ you spent a month ago and where it was, round up your purchases to save money, etc. There's just so much benefits that you end up using it all the time as your default card. That's how they get you I guess. But it's so much more practical and easy to use that people have fell in love with their branding as well.

<comment><USER7> > We don't have this "you're in debt" culture that I think you create when you > start school in the US.

I think an entire generation of students in England and Wales who now are paying up to £9000 per year of study would likely disagree with this.

While this is still less than many US examples, it's still a ton of debt for the average UK student who is unlucky enough to have an English or Welsh postcode (Scotland continues to offer free higher education). Especially so when you consider average graduate salaries in the UK.

<comment><USER8> The big difference here is that student loan repayments are based entirely on your future earnings. It is, for all intents and purposes, a graduate tax. The majority of people will not pay off their loan before it is forgiven, and many will never pay anything at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Good on them. It's an outstanding product and they are iterating very quickly on it. The app UX is starting to feel like it's bursting at the seams - they've added in loans, and overdrafts, and savings pots, and international transfers and no doubt more is to come.

I hope they take the time now to streamline their UX. A mobile-first bank is an outstanding idea and Monzo have been the best to execute on it, but avoiding bloat and maintaining speed and simplicity will be one of their biggest product challenges.

<comment><USER10> _> ... maintaining speed ..._

Sorry I know this is not the point of your comment, but I couldn't let this go: the Monzo app is by _far_ the slowest app on my phone. Until their more recent updates it was nearly unusable on an iPhone SE. Still has >1sec response times on almost any touch event. (comments on the forum suggest this is because they use O(N) algorithms somewhere, and after 2y worth of events the app slows to a crawl. doesn't inspire confidence, to be honest.)

To the point that I focus on putting as many spends as possible on another card that has a better app, just so I can avoid spending any time in Monzo.

To end on a positive note: their support is so much better than the competition it isn't even funny. Apparently they are the only bank with a "brain required" policy for CS.

<comment><USER11> Apparently their Android app has better performance and they're working to fix this on iOS:

[https://monzo.com/blog/2018/09/18/ios-app- performance/](https://monzo.com/blog/2018/09/18/ios-app-performance/)

<comment><USER12> I just loaded up the android app for the first time after booting. 5 seconds before I could see balance, another 15 seconds before the graph loaded. It used to be fast, but I hardly use it any more because it's slow to check my balance.

<comment><USER13> I am on Android, and for me it used to be slow, but recently has become very fast again. I just opened the app and it took <=1 second to get to see my balance. I am on a very new phone though (oneplus6), and I don't know enough about how different hardware affects speed.

That said, since I changed some settings to reduce battery/data usage, the notifications for spending often don't turn up for several minutes, where they used to be instant (before being able to put my card back into my wallet).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I haven't used Monzo, but I have now fully switched to Starling, which seems extremely similar - it's part of the new banking avant-garde in the UK and a significant step forward compared to traditional banking.

After 5 years with a Natwest account, I would never go back. I find it incredible that it still takes traditional banks 2-3 days to update my statement with my latest transactions. I'd have scares regularly because I'd have 300 pounds disappear from my account and I wouldn't know why for a few days.

Another example is changing my address - it literally took less than a minute with Starling, all from my mobile app. With Natwest I had to physically walk to a branch, wait in a queue, talk to someone - in total, probably more than an hour lost.

Yet another example - it takes about a week to open a business bank account with Natwest. It took 5 minutes with Starling, all from home.

If anyone has any second thoughts about switching to something like Starling, then just open an account. It's about as painless as you can imagine - <USER2> download the app, apply for it with a 10 second video and then a card gets mailed to your address. I can't believe I didn't do it sooner.

<comment><USER15> Do any of the challenger banks do join accounts yet? Last time I looked Monzo didn't. If they did I'd jump on it immediately.

<comment><USER16> Monzo recently launched joint accounts. I've set one up and got the cards, but we haven't made the switch quite yet (apparently automated switching isn't possible coming from existing joint accounts, so I need to spend an hour or so updating existing payments).

<comment><USER17> It's a bit odd the way they handle it, from what I can see you both need your own account then you share a third joint account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I was sceptical at first, but I've gone "full Monzo" recently, because the experience of using this as a bank account is just _that much better_. Things like an actual usable app, instant notifications, proper direct debit management… the experience is an order of magnitude better than the mainstream bank accounts I've had.

I get the impression that the current account offering is now stable-ish, so we should expect to see other financial services being rolled out so that they can start making some serious revenue. And if it doesn't work out, at least it will have been part of the movement that is forcing older UK banks to improve their offerings.

</comment><comment><USER18> I like Monzo, and indeed I'm a customer, but I do wonder how they're going to generate sufficient returns to justify all the money raised.

Retail banking is fundamentally a pretty boring and low margin business, it usually doesn't make the kind of money that VCs expect as returns, without something like a sale to another company (something Monzo have said they don't want)

<comment><USER19> Clydesdale bank has 38m gbp in assets, and they're a relatively not-heard-of obscure bank operating in the UK. I think monzo could bring want consumers want globally.

I was preaching it's virtues here in the US until they disabled international customers; I really look forward to being allowed back on.

At risk of sounding cliche: the banking sector really needs some serious disruption. It has for too long. There's not a single conventional bank I'd miss if it were replaced with Monzo.

So I think there is insane prospects. It's thin margins, but without ever bothering with stores and being tech focused, they can hopefully grow fast and spread wide.

<comment><USER18> Small correction, if you're going via the Wikipedia page Clydesdale has £38B not M in assets :) Interestingly Clydesdale is one of the major old scottish banks and one of three that have the rights to print their own bank notes. Whilst they're not as popular these days as once they were, they're a pretty major operation in Scotland and Glasgow's largest bank.

Global banking is extremely complex due to regulatory concerns. Whilst you may be able to re-use an underlying technology platform, which would have benefits, most of the hard work is in complying with regulations and fitting in with the local market place

I wouldn't disagree at all that the banking industry is in need of disruption (I worked in banks in the UK for ~10 years so have had some exposure to how their system do or do not operate)

what I'm not so sure of is that the kind of returns that can be generated without getting into other areas of banking (e.g. investment) will give the kind of returns VCs expect.

<comment><USER20> > ...and one of three that have the rights to print their own bank notes.

Wow, I've never heard of this before - who are the others?

<comment><USER15> Ah, Scottish banknotes. Clydesdale and both of the banks of Scotland (RBS and HBOS) can print their own banknotes, but they must be backed by sterling on deposit at the Bank of England. A similar arrangement is in place for Northern Bank of Northern Ireland, which produced one of my favourite UK banknotes: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern- ireland-37342948](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-37342948) (Plastic! Portrait format! Space shuttle!)

One of the tiny frictions of British society is seeing whether people outwith Scotland will accept Scottish banknotes.

<comment><USER21> In my experience when an English shop tries to refuse a Scottish banknote a Scottish person will always appear from nowhere to remedy the situation. ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This kind of growth is starting to make me be concerned as a customer - <USER3> performance and latency have deteriated over time, and most importantly customer service has also changed. Scaling good customer service for an effectively free product whose revenue currently derives only from overdrafts and very minimal fees from over-use is going to be very challenging for a bank not yet profitable.

</comment><comment><USER23> Monzo are brilliant.

Prior to the existence of their mobile app, I used cash wherever possible because it didn't require an extra budgeting step (10 quid in my wallet = 10 quid left for today, with a debit card I'd have to write things down or wait ages for online banking to load whenever I did a thing).

Because their app actually updates in real time and doesn't require 50 levels of nonsense 'authentication', I don't need to do that any more.

I do worry about privacy. I'd prefer to have an anonymous digital payment method. We need to step up UX to get to this level of simplicity.

</comment><comment><USER24> Why is it possible for so many small banks to start and flourish in the UK but not in the US?

<comment><USER25> This is actually related to a very deliberate initiative from the Bank of England to make becoming a bank easier.

[https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prudential-regulation/new- ba...](https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/prudential-regulation/new-bank-start- up-unit)

They recognized that it was basically impossible to enter the industry at one point and its been stifling competition for a very long time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> After they announced they were removing the ability to top up via debit card I was concerned as much of their utility at the time came from being able to share costs with friends from an isolated account with a lower balance. The app has lower friction for most actions however, so I now use Monzo as a distribution account to send funds to my other bank accounts.

I still don't use the card itself at all however as they have no cash back, and fwiw the app has started slowing down in recent months. The frame rate consistently drops noticeably below 60fps when scrolling through my transactions, for example.

<comment><USER27> Depending on what you mean by "share costs", [https://monzo.me/](https://monzo.me/) is still a thing.

If it must be you topping up via card and you can't transfer traditionally, Starling stil have the ability and I prefer it/them overall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I just moved from the UK to the US, and it looks like my options are pretty bad in terms of bank:

* I am not allowed to use Monzo without a UK residence.

* To top up Revolut, I need to pay 3% of fee to Revolut and 3% of fee to Chase. On top of that it is not instantaneous.

I still continue to use my Monzo card here because it's just so practical (and free), but at some point I'm really expecting something similar to disrupt banks in the US.

If you see that orange card in San Francisco, that's probably me ;)

<comment><USER28> Check out Charles Schwab. No fees on the bank account or foreign transaction fees. Then it includes a low fee brokerage to invest your money with some of the lowest fee ETFs around.

I've been a happy customer for 5 years.

PS you don't get the same UX or notifications etc. But they have good service. Most people in the US use Venmo for P2P

<comment><USER6> I actually have a debit card with Schwab but the app is nothing like Monzo unfortunately :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> They have a very interesting idea, more such ideas should find place in commercial banking and finance. I hope they succeed and probably be a formidable competitor to Barklays and Citi of the world. Would definitely love to use this once i move to UK.

</comment><comment><USER30> If they had a proper banking website and didn't expect you to use an "app" on your phone I might be more interested.

<comment><USER31> Err, that is what they offer, banking via an app. If that is a problem for you, maybe you aren't their ideal customer.

<comment><USER32> Why though? Why insist that their offering only works on the most insecure class of device that people own?

<comment><USER18> LOL, whilst I won't necessarily include all Android devices in this, I'd argue that iPhones and better Android setups are likely the Most secure device that most people own.

Traditional PC security is way too complex for non-technical people to manage effectively, so the approach of walled gardens and vendor managed security is the way to go.

Not to say that a technical person can't achieve a better level of security with a PC/Mac, but for non-technical users, it's going to be mobile all the way.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Darn it. I tried to buy in in their 2017 crowdfund at a £30m valuation but it was oversubscribed. Still good luck to them.

</comment><comment><USER34> Have any of you challenger bank people had Barclays?

I don't quite see what can be done better. There's an app, I can see my personal and company accounts, payments can be done in a few seconds, direct debits as well. There's also a website I can use to do the same stuff. I have had quite a few online banking setups in various countries and I can tell you there are much more cumbersome UIs.

What do I gain from changing to Monzo, Revolut, or the like?

<comment><USER35> I don't use Monzo but the big benefits tend to be -

\- Low or no fee usage abroad \- Real time transaction notifications on your phone. \- Transactions showing immediately on the account. \- Automatic categorising of transactions. I.e you can see what you spent in restaurants, shops, public transport etc. Monzo also let's you set budgets for individual categories. \- Automatic saving. I.e. Chip monitors your account and takes moves what it thinks you don't need to a savings account. \- Ability to freeze the card in app (if say you lost it).

<comment><USER36> Anyone want to comment on the disadvantages?

Off the top of my head I know they don't have branches so you can't speak to someone face-to-face like you might with a traditional bank. Is online/telephone support generally good with these challenger banks? Are there any other negatives I should be aware of if I sign up?

If I deposited a large sum of money into my account would I have all the regular protections of a traditional bank or are there additional risks associated with these small challenger banks?

<comment><USER37> Monzo uses Intercom inside their app for customer support. I far prefer it, because unlike with calling a typical bank it doesn't demand your full attention. You can just shoot them a message, go off and do something else, and reply in your own time.

Even then, their response rates have been pretty fast.

In terms of financial protection you get the exact same FSCS protection as anywhere else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What's special about Monzo compared to Simple?

<comment><USER37> They operate in completely different countries so they don't compete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> If only their customer service could match Metro Bank</comment>


Predictably Fast Clojure (2014) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQwQXVM6oiY <comment><USER2> No idea why this is here, but I'm the speaker and happy to answer any questions.

<comment><USER3> Ha. I was wondering the same thing. I have a somewhat unrelated question for you, though.

You've been using Clojure for a while. Do you still like it? If you were to start your current project(s) over today, would you still use Clojure?

Clojure is on a list of technologies my team is considering using instead of Ruby/Rails. Our goal is to move to a stack that discourages complecting, encourages what we consider to be good practice (immutability, function composition, explicit dependencies, etc), and which has reasonably good performance characteristics. Clojure seems to fit the bill, and has the added benefit of syntactic simplicity which I really like.

Lack of static typing is probably the biggest downside vs some of the other languages we are weighing.

<comment><USER2> Clojure is the language I'm most productive in. At the beginning of the year I quit my job to write a book about Clojure [1], do some consulting, and build a developer tool I've been talking about for a few years.

For the tool, I'm using a client/server model, and on the client side latency is a huge concern, so I'm using Java. Java is basically assembler for the JVM, and has extremely predictable performance characteristics. Where performance is a non-issue, or I only care about throughput, I'm using Clojure, because it's much more expressive. I think the tradeoffs of the two languages are very complementary, but also much less extreme than, say, Ruby and C.

I find the inertia of the core implementation of the language annoying, even if it's not a huge problem for most applications. Clojure's immutable data structures were world-class when the language was first released ten years ago, but there have been a number of papers which detail improved approaches since then. I've implemented most or all of them [2], but the chance of getting these back into Clojure is effectively nil. That doesn't affect me (I can just use my own data structures), but it does give me some concern as to where the language will be after another ten years.

[1] [http://elementsofclojure.com/](http://elementsofclojure.com/)

[2] [https://github.com/lacuna/bifurcan](https://github.com/lacuna/bifurcan)

<comment><USER3> A. Thanks for the response.

B. Interesting. I saw a recent article on high-performance immutable data- structures[1], and wondered what the odds of Clojure implementing them might be. Sounds like you think the odds are minuscule.

C. I've heard great things about your book, and it is on my reading list! Thanks for writing it.

D. Given your hesitancy about the future of Clojure, what is your opinion of a more future-proof stack that has similar properties to Clojure (functional, simple, data-oriented, etc)? I can't think of many. ReasonML is interesting, but immature and definitely more complex than Clojure. Elixir seems to be promising, but I don't like the language, and I don't like being constrained to doing everything the BEAM way-- JVM is nice for high-perf computing when needed... Anyway, I'd appreciate your thoughts!

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005569](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15005569)

<comment><USER2> The chance of my implementation being folded into Clojure, as opposed to whatever Rich writes himself, is definitely tiny. But there's no telling when he might get around to it, so the best way to stay sane is to assume it will never happen.

Clojure occupies a really nice local maximum, and I don't think any other language is trying to compete for that niche. Since Clojure is just a Java library, it's relatively easy for you to extend or replace any part of it, so I don't think the future is a concern for anyone who enjoys the language and is motivated to use it.

Rather, I worry about the growth of the community, since that's largely predicated on the out-of-the-box experience. As an author and consultant who is focused on Clojure, that affects me far more than a company which builds its product using Clojure (assuming you're willing to hire people with an interest in FP and teach them the rest in their first month). I don't claim expertise in how to grow a community around a language, but it seems to be at best a part-time job for the people at Cognitect, which is not ideal.

<comment><USER4> I am seeing pretty healthy CLJS adoption, especially as NPM access becomes easier and easier. The things that are happening on the client side seem to be out front of the rest of the industry fairly consistently over the past few years. I think that bodes really well for the Clojure community overall.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


CIA Secretly Plucked Soviet Submarine from the Ocean Floor Using a Giant Claw - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/during-cold-war-ci-secretly-plucked-soviet-submarine-ocean-floor-using-giant-claw-180972154/ <comment><USER2> If the soviets abandoned the search for their sub, is it really stealing if you salvaged it from international waters? If they wanted to keep claim they should have stuck around looking for it.

<comment><USER3> Stealing isn't really a concept between states, I believe, but this would qualify. "Giving up the search" doesn't equal "abandoning your property rights". If you find something, pocket it, and don't take the appropriate steps to try to return it to it's rightful owner, you're guilty of theft/stealing/larceny by finding.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Original headline was too long to submit. Full headline:

"During the Cold War, the C.I.A. Secretly Plucked a Soviet Submarine From the Ocean Floor Using a Giant Claw"</comment>


BackType Gets More Conversation Tracking Features, Seed Funding  - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/06/backtype-gets-more-conversation-tracking-features-seed-funding/

<comment><USER2> I want BackType to figure out that I'm not the other Sachin Agarwal. God, you think it'd be able to tell the difference between two good-looking Indian guys who are co-founders of internet startups focused on reducing friction and making it easier to do everyday tasks.

Seriously, though, congrats! Alerts and analytics around commentary around the web are going to become huge for everyone: these guys are going to be Summize for the web and that could seriously be a huge part of health care and journalism, let alone the "softer" stuff of branding and customer service.

<comment><USER3> Backtype says you don't exist:

<http://www.backtype.com/people?q=fake+sachin>

<comment><USER2> Backtype clearly needs to use their $300,000 to make their product better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Backtype continues to focus on core tech and hard problems. They're _actually_ the google of this commenting space -- their founders are hardcore technologists who focus specifically on that which is most useful -- while many of their competitors flounder about with bad design and even worse implementation.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow these guys have been busy. The backtype alerts are excellent, let alone all the other services they provide.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great job Mike and Chris! Backtype just gets more and more impressive.

</comment><comment><USER6> I am using both Google alerts and Backtype alerts and Backtype brought a lot of valuable comments google alerts has missed (if they are searching through comments at all).

</comment><comment><USER7> They support Hacker News! Why would anyone here use friendfeed?

</comment><comment><USER8> thanks guys!</comment>


AI Designing AI: An AutoML Review - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/syncedreview/ai-designing-ai-an-automl-review-2a684dc5def6 <comment><USER2> Recently I did a list of AutoML open and close source packages [https://mljar.com/blog/automl-software-list/](https://mljar.com/blog/automl- software-list/)</comment>


Does USA need an Arab Spring? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/22/opinion/sunday/friedman-down-with-everything.html?ref=opinion

<comment><USER2> I don't think anything but a campaign finance reform, that will cut the tie between companies and Government, will work.

Currently the strongest relationship is between Corporations <-> Government, and not People <-> Government. That's what's creating the whole mess. In other countries such strong ties with companies and so much funding from them would be considered illegal, and taken as bribing or corruption. But not in US. In US their crimes have been legalized.

So I think the only solution is to outright ban companies from donating to campaigns (that includes SuperPAC's and whatnot). There's an argument that what if a company needs to preserve its rights or something? Well, I don't see why a few people at the top of that company should decide that. If everyone working for that company thought their company is in danger because of a new legislation then they should all donate to their preferred candidate.

Of course such individual donations need to be capped to a few thousand dollars at most, too. Otherwise rich individuals can still donate millions at a time, which could easily make their candidate win a state or two. Do we really think that allowing _one_ individual to completely change the outcome of an election within a state, is what's "normal"?

The democratic vote is supposed to give everyone "equal power" to vote, and that's still true when you're literally talking about the vote. But there's also this virtual parallel vote, which is the money you can use to fund a politician, and right now that "vote" can dramatically skew the results, when cast by a few rich individuals or corporations. So you can see this as a loophole in the voting system. Even if millions of people have their vote equal, this parallel money-vote is not equal in power, and what's worse is that it's also used to influence the real vote.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's coming to Italy in 2013 - watch out! :)

</comment><comment><USER4> [http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/egypt/article_1...](http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/egypt/article_1512686.html)

<http://www.aina.org/news/20120208194830.htm>

[http://urbanchristiannews.com/ucn/2011/11/coptic- christians-...](http://urbanchristiannews.com/ucn/2011/11/coptic-christians- in-cairo-attacked-again-during-march.html)

[http://www.meforum.org/3085/muslim-declares-christians- infid...](http://www.meforum.org/3085/muslim-declares-christians-infidels)

<http://www.aina.org/news/20111030133621.htm>

<http://www.aina.org/news/20111215163322.htm>

<http://www.aina.org/news/20120127193942.htm>

<http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2011/11/16/177570.html>

[http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/12/11/discriminatory- qualif...](http://www.tunisia-live.net/2011/12/11/discriminatory- qualifications-for-tunisias-president-cause-controversy/)

[http://standwithus.fr/06/01/2012/virer-les-juif-tuer-les- jui...](http://standwithus.fr/06/01/2012/virer-les-juif-tuer-les-juifs-scande- a-laeroport-tunis-carthage/)

[http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2899/tunisia-islamist- poli...](http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/2899/tunisia-islamist-police)

[http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/38133/World/Regi...](http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/38133/World/Region/Salafists- attack-Tunisias-stage-actors--.aspx)

[http://uncut.indexoncensorship.org/2012/04/tunisia-two- athei...](http://uncut.indexoncensorship.org/2012/04/tunisia-two-atheist- friends-convicted-for-blasphemy/)

[http://www.investigativeproject.org/3537/waiting-for-al- qaed...](http://www.investigativeproject.org/3537/waiting-for-al-qaeda-in- libya)

[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106230/Insult- WWII-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2106230/Insult-WWII-heroes- Graves-British-soldiers-smashed-desecrated-Libyan-Islamists-protest-U-S- soldiers-Koran-burning.html)

[http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2012/02/13/libya-tells- un-...](http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2012/02/13/libya-tells-un-rights- council-gays-threaten-continuation-of-human-race/)

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianoce...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/9059989/Libyan- militia-accused-of-torturing-to-death-ambassador-to-France.html)

[http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2104578,00.htm...](http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2104578,00.html)

[http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-18/libya-s- islamist...](http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-11-18/libya-s-islamists- ransack-mosque-graves-in-power-struggle.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/world/africa/libyan- leader...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/world/africa/libyan-leaders- remark-favoring-polygamy-stirs-anger.html?_r=1)

[http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/is-al-qaida-in- the-...](http://thewasat.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/is-al-qaida-in-the-islamic- maghrib-gaining-influence-in-libya/)

<http://www.vice.com/read/al-qaeda-plants-its-flag-in-libya>

<http://www.persecution.org/>

No.</comment>


Help Toronto make uberX legal - <AUTHOR> https://action.uber.org/toronto/

<comment><AUTHOR> Who knows how much these really help, but every little bit counts.</comment>


Microsoft is sponsoring fsharp tooling improvements - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/lambda-factory/ionide-a-new-hope-a8b5ccac33ac <comment><USER2> I don't know the details of the contract but it is highly probable that sponsoring Lambda Factory is a lot cheaper than paying MSFT employees.</comment>


Web Usability Blunders That Still Piss Me Off - <AUTHOR> http://www.snipe.net/2009/01/usability-blunders-that-still-piss-me-off/ <comment><USER2> Looks like he forgot "Don't put textured background behind site content".

</comment><comment><USER3> I am sorry -but your site could also be considered a Usability blunder. Will not go over too many issues I have but for instance having the link text one shade darker then primary color is considered bad.

<comment><USER4> I can't believe he used the stock Photoshop blue-brown landscape gradient for his site logo. Ugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I agree with most of his points, but two of them seem a little off to me.

STOP underlining text that isn't a LINK - There are a lot of places where underlining makes sense. If you've got the links in a different color, then it shouldn't be an issue; besides, after one click users will figure it out (please don't tell me this isn't true or I'll lose all faith in humanity).

I still really hate dynamic dropdown menus. A lot. - Sometimes they make sense. They probably shouldn't be part of your main navigation, but they work well for things like country and state/province selectors. Remember to have it degrade gracefully, though.

<comment><USER6> I agree about underlined text, and I found one other glaring error:

 _At first glance, this makes perfect sense - except for the fact that not everyone visiting your website will be English-speaking, and the word for "information" doesn't start with an "i" in every language._

Visitors to my sites written in English will be English speaking. Either that, or they'll face much more pressing problems than how I abbreviate the word "information".

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One extremely annoying thing that is rarely mentioned is very very slow scroll speed.

I think it may have something to do with background images and/or transparency.

Even some quite prominent sites suffer from this flaw (making them almost unusable for me):

<http://ajaxian.com>

<http://jayisgames.com>

<comment><USER8> This is barely noticeable on faster computers, so many designers miss this. The browser has to re-draw the whole page because some of it scrolls, yet the static background doesn't.

<comment><USER7> That's it.

Now I realized I have seen a naturally occurring test case: Twitter user pages with and without static background images. Everything else is the same, yet the ones with the static background image (CSS => background-attachment:fixed) are much slower.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My personal pet peeve is when sites don't resize gracefully. Text should wrap, rather than float off the left side of the browser. Many sites, including this one, are unreadable at a width of 500 pixels, which is my preferred reading width.

Having to use the FF web developer addon to disable CSS on page after page gets old.</comment>


How to kill an unresponsive SSH session - <AUTHOR> http://www.laszlo.nu/post/553591402/how-to-kill-an-unresponsive-ssh-session <comment><USER2> Why two identical stories in one day? What is different from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11117376](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11117376) ?</comment>


Ethereum co-founder plans a social "super app" for dapps - <AUTHOR> https://decrypt.co/36917/ethereum-co-founder-plans-a-social-super-app-for-dapps <comment><USER2> I'm a bit confused here... I've read through the article, and through Akasha's announcement post, and I'm having trouble understanding what exactly about this is a "super app" for dapps and not just another decentralized social media site.

If anything, this just seems like a "now there are fifteen standards" situation. Am I missing anything?</comment>


First Rule of Google Fuchsia OS Is to Not to Talk About It - <AUTHOR> https://fuchsiatalks.com/2017/05/19/first-rule-google-fuchsia-os-not-talk/ <comment><USER2> Saw this rant about Fuchsia on reddit that appears on the surface to make some good points: [https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6a026o/googles...](https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6a026o/googles_fuchsia_smartphone_os_dumps_linux_has_a/dhbjmvx/) Not my area of expertise for sure though.

Any kernel dev types here had a chance to look at Fuchsia? Is the criticism warranted?

Update: Fixed link to point at the right comment.

Edit: Should have mentioned the tone is a bit over the top. More interested in the actual points raised though.

<comment><USER3> We all have bad days, but some of this rant is really toxic.

 _Dear god. I looked at the kernel and it 's awful_

 _Stuff real operating systems have solved decades ago_

 _WTF?_

 _This is hilarious. Did they decide to reinvent all the wheels badly just because someone at Google was bored?_

 _The ex kernel developer in me feels insulted that a serious company would release something this immature_

So, have they actually released Fuschia? I was under the impression that this was still being developed in the open until such time as it actually becomes a "real operating system"? And IMHO the world needs a good open-source microkernel OS; I'm ok if the scheduler is suboptimal on release - that can be fixed eventually. Linux will never be a microkernel OS, but Fuchsia can always be optimized. Performance-wise it just needs to be good-enough on release.

<comment><USER4> > Did they decide to reinvent all the wheels badly just because someone at > Google was bored?

This is how projects are born and die at Google. They live until no one is interested in them anymore and they are abandoned.

<comment><USER5> > They live until no one is interested in them anymore and they are abandoned.

Sometimes they don't even wait until no one is interested!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Since site is down:

[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ej2flu...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ej2flu1TlrgJ:https://fuchsiatalks.com/2017/05/19/first- rule-google-fuchsia-os-not-talk/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

<comment><USER7> They plagiarized our story. Please don't link to them.

Original: [http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave- burke-f...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave-burke-first- rule-fuchsia-dont-talk-fuchsia/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not really any new information here. It's fun to speculate about what Fuchsia might become, but it's pretty clear Google's not ready to announce anything yet. The only reason we even know it exists is because they made the source code public.

<comment><USER9> Exactly this. And So fun to speculate on something far from its likely end goal or release state, because _only_ of who made it public.

A lot of cooks in the opinion kitchen looking out the window at wheat growing, pretending it's already a baked cake, and of which they already dislike the taste.

(Disclosure: I work at Google, not on this.)

<comment><USER10> Since I work on Android, I try to follow Fuchsia closely since it might impact me greatly one day.

The funniest part is that I have seen reviews of Fuchsia on Youtube.

I am not at Google either but there are 99% chances that the UI that is committed right now is just a tech test designed by devs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> My guess is that some Google engineers started an OS project to scratch their own itch, or to test the waters on an anticipated business problem. Detailed speculation is probably useless at this point.

That being said, I really think the time is ripe for a new desktop OS. There's a lot of lessons from iOS and Android that just aren't showing up on Mac and Windows.

<comment><USER2> I can appreciate that, but I am also not excited about a walled garden growing around desktop.

<comment><USER12> Given that Google is progressively building higher and higher walls around Android, thinking a Google project is going to save you from walled gardens is perhaps a bit silly. Right now it's not marketable, but once it is, expect the business people at Google to start pushing Play Services and the like onto this platform too.

That being said, there's a lot of things about Fuchsia that are pretty interesting, and I'm definitely curious what ends up being done with it.

<comment><USER2> > thinking a Google project is going to save you from walled gardens is > perhaps a bit silly

Not sure where you got that impression. I do not think this project will save me from anything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The first rule of almost any project at Google is not to talk about it. It the only job I've ever had where I could not tell my wife anything about my work, aside from how lunch was. My wife joked that Google was almost as paranoid as the DoD or NSA, and thought it was very presumptuous of them to force so much secrecy.

<comment><USER14> I had the same experience at Amazon with their secret projects, including each iteration of their kindle fires

<comment><USER15> Yeah, every company kinda does this. It seems like most of the the time it's a combination of:

a) we have no idea if this is unique or not (hint: a Kindle Fire revision probably isn't)

b) it makes things seem more exciting.

The weird thing about Fuchsia is that all of the development is done in the open, but noone wants to give any context.

<comment><USER16> Well if the company is publicly traded, secrecy of internal matters is a legal requirement and contingency of employment.

<comment><USER15> By default, certainly.

Btw: In February I spent some time looking at the then about 100 committers to Fuchsia/Flutter. Some quite impressive names. I think Fuchsia is a _really_ serious effort in the Chrome team.

<comment><USER17> > I think Fuchsia is a really serious effort in the Chrome team.

There's definitely a lot of ex-Chrome people there, but I don't think it follows that it is in any way in the Chrome team. I'm still curious as to _why_ all of them are essentially creating a new OS, though! Quite the departure from what they've worked on before (and many have been working on the web for two decades).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This looks to be plagiarized from Android Police.

[http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave- burke-f...](http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/19/googles-dave-burke-first- rule-fuchsia-dont-talk-fuchsia/)

EDIT: And the submitter has only submitted links from this blog.

</comment><comment><USER19> > Did they decide to reinvent all the wheels badly just because someone at > Google was bored?

If I had to guess, it would be that (bored), or perhaps trying to specifically avoid existing patents/copyrights/etc by showing that they did completely reinvent the wheel instead of copying from existing "common knowledge"?

I'm no lawyer though, especially not a patent lawyer, so I could be way off the mark...

</comment><comment><USER10> Not exactly surprising.

Even something like Kotlin as 1st party language has been kept under wraps until the last moment.

Whether Kotlin is an experiment, the future of Android or something else, Google is not going to discuss about it for a while.</comment>


The resource leak bug of our civilization - <AUTHOR> http://countercomplex.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-resource-leak-bug-of-our.html <comment><USER4> Every once in a while a company like Tesla comes along and reconstructs a particular product gaining incalculable advantages over its competitors.

Every once in a while a doctor is forced to re-break someone's arm which didn't recover properly.

Every once in a while severe economic recessions comes along and wipes out all the badly managed companies kept in life support by banks/government.

Every once in a while a programmer writes a piece of software that has almost the same functionality as an existing one but, is, some how, just better.

And every once in a while there are revolutions that completely destroys the existing system of governance, when it can no longer fix itself properly.

And that's when resources get deallocated.

Civilization will fall, and it will rise again from its ashes.

Looks like the world uses stop-the-world garbage collection on particular threads keeping the rest of the world running.

<comment><USER5> This happens at the micro level (one employee is swapped for another who is better) and at the macro level (banks/tesla) and at the country level (socialism is replaced by more efficient and humane capitalism as in ussr/GDR).

The problem is when the bad employee cannot be removed, the bank is bailed out or the people are unable to get themselves a new form of government.

The key to efficient reallocation is not letting too much power concentrate in one location. And I think that is the thing at risk the most right now. Governments have become too powerful and are preventing the necessary creative destruction, like an operating system refusing to run the garbage collector and preventing new programs from running.

<comment><USER6> The problem with the USSR wasn't its economic system, it was the fact it was a corrupt dictatorship.

<comment><USER7> Which was required by its economic system.

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

<comment><USER8> Then why was national socialism such a huge success in Germany?

<comment><USER5> It's a late reply but national socialism only ran for a short time before being replaced with a wartime economy. In effect the program ran fine because it didn't run long enough for garbage collection to be an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is no mention of all the benefits that encapsulation gives us - to take the blogs argument to the extreme imagine writing your own web server, caching layer, load balancer, JSON/HTTP parser, frontend logic for every platform, and a hundred other layers of abstraction I may not even know about every time you want to write a blog.

There is a real tradeoff between programmer productivity and resource usage, because every library that isn't tailored for your exact use case (i.e every library) is an inefficiency. Given programmers wages vs. cost of CPU/RAM/storage, and the long term trends (technology makes one cost lower, the other cost higher!), it is economically insane to reject encapsulation.

I definitely see the appeal viewing programming as craft. In that case, its no coincidence that "reinventing wheels" is good advice to learn how to program. Its just not how to run a business.

<comment><AUTHOR> _to take the blogs argument to the extreme imagine writing your own web server, caching layer, load balancer, JSON /HTTP parser, frontend logic for every platform, and a hundred other layers of abstraction I may not even know about every time you want to write a blog._

I see the argument as saying that all those layers are not really necessary. Take HTTP for example: it's a large complex protocol that requires plenty of code to handle correctly (e.g. the size of a request, and the various pieces inside it, are not specified and the parser has to read through the whole request sequentially to figure this out), and the majority of applications using it never need the full functionality. What if it was a simpler, easier- to-parse format that was as extensible?

One of the points I get from his argument is that encapsulation has encouraged us to build massively overcomplicated systems by piling layers upon layers with little understanding of how everything fits together, when we could instead be building much simpler and more efficient systems that could still be using abstraction but in a far more cautious manner.

<comment><USER10> I think you are partially right, but the situation (I'd rather not label it as a problem just yet) goes on many levels.

By example, Moore Law has allowed us to pack incredibly large amounts to transistors in reasonably affordable machines, and what we do is... virtualization, a.k.a. write software that (presumably) simulates being a (much slower and limited) hardware system so a third party can run other programs on top of it, for a fee.

That kind of makes economic sense (because customers have a big appetite for computing power... just as long as they do not have to keep those pesky sysadmins on the payroll), but from a purely technological point of view is craziness. Every component you add into your stack is a potential source of error, and you do not gain any extra features because you are simulating real hardware... so, why to do it in the first place?

I think the answer is: because nobody would buy all those transistors if we didn't do so.

<comment><USER11> Another, possible answer is: Because transistors are really cheap, and energy only a bit expensive. But that wasting saves competent people time, what's a very expensive and limited resoure.

Why does everybody ignore the obvious explanation, that you'd get from the mouth of any participant, for a convoluted one that only fits the criterium of political correctness?

<comment><USER10> I do not think anything you say here contradicts what I originally said. Yes, there are economic reasons why this makes sense, probably having to do with labor compensation.

Having said that, please excuse my ignorance on system administration but, how does running a virtual machine that pretends to be a Linux/x64 box... on top of a real Linux/x64 box saves anybody at least some time? As a software developer who drank the Java kool-aid back in the 90, at least the "write once, run everywhere" mantra did make some kind of sense in those terms, but this other example is genuinely beyond me.

To me it has more to do with a tech company being able to put together an A-class team to serve a large number of customers that would not stand to pay the salary of a single full-time B-level IT guy if their business model depended on it.

<comment><USER12> "[...] how does running a virtual machine that pretends to be a Linux/x64 box... on top of a real Linux/x64 box saves anybody at least some time?"

To borrow someone else's words: [https://blog.engineyard.com/2014/pets-vs- cattle](https://blog.engineyard.com/2014/pets-vs-cattle)

Or, in summary, it's a heck of a lot easier to instantiate a new instance of a machine from a snapshot than instantiate a new machine from a set of directions and some auto-config scripts.

<comment><USER10> I agree standard images are much easier to set up than a hand configured system. That does not mean said image should run on top of an emulator.

I see some value in having a running system right now, instead of waiting for a long latency while the image is downloaded to real hardware... at least in some situations. However, is taking a permanent performance degradation of an order of magnitude worth that advantage?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nobody knows how to make a pencil, and that is not a bug. Division of labour is how humanity improved its lot so far.

[http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil](http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/I,_Pencil)

<comment><USER14> "Improved" is a relative term and says nothing of the associated costs. Could we maybe reduce costs and still "improve" at a slower, more sustainable pace? It's worth exploring the notion without turning to the dogma of efficiency at any cost.

<comment><USER15> Exactly. "At any cost" should only apply to long-term full-scale survival threats. With every other problem, you should only ever except "at reasonable cost."

And in order to know what cost is reasonable, you have to do some kind of rational analysis. There are few things less efficient than an ideology without an understood purpose.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This entire thing is just a rant against specialization and abstraction. Both in economics and computer programming. This is just ridiculous. Without specialization the world wouldn't function at all. No single human being can build a car by himself from raw materials. Programmers shouldn't be expected to write their web apps in assembly, and can you imagine the mess if everyone tried that.

The author starts out with a legitimate complaint that things are suboptimal. But his cure is worse than the disease.

<comment><USER17> The second comment on his blog says he's just repeating what Marx said, which is not quite correct but in the right ballpark. People who don't know anything about economics tend to do that.

The "problem" of exponential growth is the belief that it will result in using up all available resources rather than finding more efficient ways to use resources we didn't even know we had. Engines become more efficient, power generation becomes lower cost, food production moves from farms to factories... all of these are good things. We feed the world with far fewer resources today than we did a century ago when many more people were starving, even while we use more resources building smartphones and sending spacecraft out to explore the solar system. We solve problems our ancestors didn't have because they still hadn't solve the problems they faced.

Economically, exponential growth is required to keep the monetary system stable, but in human terms we live in a world where new problems always arise, and require new solutions.

Before Watt and Newcomb we didn't have many problems related to steam power. Before the Wrights getting to the airport was just not an issue for most people. Human invention creates new problems which human invention solves, and that is a treadmill we cannot get off.

Capital markets turn out to be a remarkably good method of funding new solutions, and private enterprise turns out to be a remarkably good way of exploring the landscape of new solutions. No one has ever been able to figure out how to incentive socialist managers to explore that landscape with anything like the same efficiency--particularly given the opportunities they have for corruption--and when you look at how inefficient capitalism is you'll realize that's saying something.

So we continue to press on, while a certain type of person who has been more- or-less loud in the past two hundred years shouts at us that it is all going to end badly Real Soon Now.

Somehow it never does. It could, certainly, but we're centuries away from that. Possibly millennia. In the short term, if the naysayers are so sure of their analysis, I recommend they apply it to the stock market and use their impressive prescience to get rich. It shouldn't be difficult for anyone who has the kind of deep insight into the workings of the world that they claim to have to manage that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Going to the extreme, instead of using blogspot you can write your post in raw html and host them in your own server. But the blogspot abstraction layer is much easier (and it can handle the HN load), so you have more time to do your unique activities.

</comment><comment><USER19> From what I can tell the writer is arguing that abstractions and encapsulations are wasteful of resources. The author claims that this is an inherent problem of abstractions and a lack of understanding of their implementations. The justification for this is that time and mental energy are resources as well and although we are being wasteful of other resources we use up less time and mental energy. The author states "However, during recent years, I have become increasingly convinced that the portion of true tradeoff is quite marginal" however doesn't seem to give anything quantifiable to illustrate this marginality. Much of the argument is based on anecdote and personal ideas on general human nature.

I am inclined to think that the author has come to this conclusion because time and mental energy are less valuable to them than other resources and that's not an unreasonable stance to take. However I don't think this view is widely shared and that thought most people agree that premature optimisation is the root of all evil.

</comment><comment><USER20> Parts of the post are interesting and challenging, and to some degree I agree that the cost of layering abstractions is often underestimated, but the final few paragraphs read like a naive manifesto...

</comment><comment><USER21> I maintain a small outfit of old, antiquated, 'un-useful' computers, the eldest 30+ years old. I have pretty much never thrown a computer out - <USER2> is _always_ a use for it.

Computers do not die; their users do. ("s/Computers/ConsumerToy/g")&etc.

The leak can be plugged, and it starts like this: don't use technology you don't understand, or .. to put it likewise: use all technology with full understanding. The only reason we threw away our old computers was because we didn't think anyone could/should use them; they are nevertheless: still useful. The 'usefulness or not' is _entirely_ a spiritual decision, however, because the machine does not care, and it is this fact - and ignorance of such spiritual components of so many facets of human culture in general - is the blind spot in the debate, imho. Things are only as they are, if we decide they are; the usefulness of a computing device is absolutely not dependent on its physics properties in any way other than: can you turn it on, does it work, can the user do something with it? It is the User who makes the decision, all along the way to actual, real, usefulness.

I'm still using my computer to send email, just like I did in the 80's and so on, albeit it now requires a much more sinister amount of maintenance, and general abstract stress it seems, emotionally, than the old hazeltine connected to a Vaxen we used to have to use to 'get things done'.

tl;dr: there is no fault in our machines but that which the user decides and identifies.

<comment><USER22> As a working definition, a piece of hardware really isn't _useful_ if another piece of hardware will do the same task better, at a lower cost.

You can run a low-power PC and check your email like it's 1980 just fine, and these days they're VERY cheap. A $30 5W Raspberry Pi is more than capable of running 'mail' on the command line. For a bit more power, quad-core 1.6ghz ARM SOCs are about $60-70. For fileserver type stuff, a 15W Liva with a Baytrail-M can be had for $115, or you can build out a full quad-core mini-ITX for something like $175.

The reduced power usage very quickly amortizes the cost of the hardware. If you would save 200W by retiring a dinosaur - that's $17.28 per month of 24/7 usage. If you've got a Rpi on for 4 hours per day checking your email - <USER3> amortizes out within 10 months.

This totally ignores the additional headaches associated with old, failing, unsupported hardware. You yourself described it as a "sinister amount of maintenance and stress".

You can make a philosophical argument here that a piece of hardware is never truly dead if it'll still push bits, but be honest here - if you're running up your power bill to avoid spending $100 on new hardware, if you're putting up with a PITA system for the heck of it - it's not _useful_ , it's _your hobby_. Hobbies are fun, I think it's fun to keep old gear going too, but be realistic about the merits of such activities.

<comment><USER21> >> a PITA system

Entirely subject, utterly arbitrary. I can still use an 8-bit machine to write a good letter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Buggy civilization? I don't think so, the improvement through evolution favors those who aim to grow exponentially. The alternative, micromanaging extremely complex systems, will unfortunately fail.

Trying to force the global economic system into a software analogy just feels silly and wrong.

<comment><USER24> _> Trying to force the global economic system into a software analogy just feels silly and wrong._

It's the same thing you see software developers do all the time. "I know this one thing, let me apply it to everything. No no, your job can't be hard, I'm a _software developer_ , let me think for you."

Breadth matters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think as a developer I am attuned to this most acutely. I see garbage ok the street or read about Amazon's new warehouse and think, "yeah, we may have 500 years to store our garbage, but then what?" When gas prices go down I think "past peak oil, we are just accelerating running out". Or when I read about overfishing, etc I think how we could irreparably disrupt ecosystems with a cascading effect.

But then I think how big this planet is and how ingenuous humans are collectively, and wonder - am I overworrying? I see small waste accumulatung but in scandinavia they're discovering ways to recycle garbage into resources!

So, I don't know. Thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER26> Two links, one agreeing and one disagreeing:

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on- moloch](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch)

[http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/08/23/waste-creativity-and- go...](http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2012/08/23/waste-creativity-and-godwins- corollary-for-technology)

</comment><comment><USER27> Meh. Describe an alternative to a growth-oriented society that isn't either feudalism, some kind of white agrarian fantasy, or an even more imaginary "sci-fi utopia where everyone wears togas." (Google The Venus Project and the Zeitgeist Project for an example of this stuff.)

<comment><USER10> Don't discard feudalism just yet. If nothing is done (and there are reasons to believe that not enough will be done to count as "more than nothing") this is what we will be getting by default.

Also, do not conflate the social concept of feudalism (survival by pledging allegiance to a chain of command that competes with other chains of command for access to resources) with the particular customs, laws (or lack thereof) and religious & aesthetic sensitivities that occurred historically the last time this happened in Western civilization. It can be argued that global corporations are already modeled on those basis and beyond the control of outdated national democracies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> The bug in this article. Economically speaking (in other words: in the real world, where you are not the only player), which is optimal :

1) optimizing resource usage

2) maximizing resource usage

(it's easy to see why some others are suboptimal, e.g. minimizing resource usage)

From a long term perspective (ie. which of these guarantees you'll survive and doesn't provide another player with an easy way to destroy you). Other way of putting this question, which is the Nash-equilibrium answer ?

The answer is : 2.

(Is it pareto-efficient ? yes !)

In other words, no matter how good it sounds to conserve resources, it's a mistake. If a civilization did that, either it would get run over by another civilization, or, if it came to that extreme, by evolution itself.

So this is not a bug, it's a feature.

<comment><USER29> Can you expand on this? It seems like you're saying that, for example, taking all the world's oil and lighting it on fire, or (more dramatically) firing all the world's resources out of a giant cannon and into the sun, is an optimal economic strategy. I'm not an economist, but that doesn't sound right.

It seems like the optimal economic strategy, assuming finite resources, is to optimize your use of resources. Then, there is a complementary defense strategy, which is to monitor other civilizations so that they don't get the drop on you. This might also include acquiring resource pools for future use, or simply to deny them to adversaries, but it doesn't mean you need to burn through them as quickly as you can.

<comment><USER30> Maximising deprives others of the resource, optimising doesn't. I think that's the point being made.

An economy that first maximised, then second optimised, would beat an economy that first optimised, then second maximised, because the latter would have nowhere to expand.

An economy that optimised _and_ maximised would beat an economy that only optimised.

<comment><USER29> This doesn't take resource exhaustion into account. Which is to say, that by maximizing first and then optimizing, you may be only ensuring the extinction of our species, and the fact that your civilization will still be around when the lights go out will be cold comfort.

I mean, this discussion is absurd, of course, since we seem to be operating under the assumption that the problem of how to do civilization can be solved with a half-dozen variables or so. But, even within that simplistic framework, the approach being laid out by you two is pretty daft IMO.

How about, an economy that achieves hegemony, and then continuously optimizes, increases resource consumption as appropriate and only to the extent that such consumption is sustainable (over some reasonable planning horizon anyway), and seeks out and destroys rival upstart economies that are a threat to it (especially when they have an unsustainable model of resource consumption), will tend to be successful and stay successful.

<comment><USER30> I'm not saying that I wish that it were true, or that I think it's a good thing. I agree that it's daft. But over the short term, pillaging societies appear to beat conserving ones. And it's a fact that we do seem to be (as a species) adopting a short-term-profitable long-term-suicidal approach.

(An interesting model is Norway's oil – they're maximising in the sense of getting all the oil out from under the sea, but they're stashing most of the profits away as a rainy-day fund, which puts the country on very secure footing for about the next hundred years or so. You might call that 'maximising without consuming', or 'camping'.)

I think the future of the human race depends on finding a better answer to this whole question, but I think accepting that pillagers beat conservers in a lot of cases is a necessary step to finding something better.

(I don't think we actually disagree; we seem to be arguing different points.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> tldr: civilization needs some goddamn refactoring.

<comment><USER32> It is my opinion that unfortunately no amount of refactoring will save our civilization.

We need to restart it from scratch.

<comment><USER33> Young whipersnapers and their throw the old code away syndrome...

You don't restart from scratch and hope for the best. If the systemic conditions that make our civilization ill persist, they will affect version 2.0.

It is much much better to incrementally improve the current system, even if the end game is not clear yet. A full rewrite always throws out the good along with the bad, and it is clear our civilization has many good characteristics in it.

I, of course, disagree on the need to restart from scratch.I think that the resource problems we face are slow moving enough that we will avoid them. The real danger is in fast moving problems that we do not know about yet.

<comment><USER32> Well I think we will be forced to restart from scratch since we can't manage to make even the easiest incremental changes needed ... imo we're bound to collapse a la USSR style.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


TrustEgg (YC W11) Allows Anyone To Set Up A Trust For Their Kids - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/29/trustegg-allows-anyone-to-set-up-a-trust-for-their-kids/ <comment><USER2> I sincerely hope that you succeed. This is a brilliant idea. Here's why:

I think that we're at a Nash Equilibrium for Trusts, at the moment. That is, Trusts are only useful and good for sheltering assets because only a privileged few know how to use them to their advantage. Since the volume of people is small, and enough of those people are sufficiently influential, the IRS looks the other way.

As soon as a large amount of people can create trusts easily, I predict that two things will happen, roughly in order:

1) The IRS will attempt to reclassify trusts in a way that preserves revenue.

2) The privileged few who have always used trusts as a matter of routine financial planning will seek to create a new class of trusts that will not be vulnerable to #1.

Given that #1 is inevitable, and #2 will add some sunlight on things, I have to say that this is fascinatingly disruptive.

<comment><USER3> >That is, Trusts are only useful and good for sheltering assets because only a privileged few know how to use them to their advantage. Since the volume of people is small, and enough of those people are sufficiently influential, the IRS looks the other way.

I think this is maybe a little misleading (at least to those who don't know much about them) because trusts generally don't really shelter income from the IRS. For the most part, they just change timing. Trusts, in fact, can actually be subject to higher tax rates than most individuals are. As I understand it, the tax benefit usually comes from giving money _now_ and not having to worry about gift or estate taxes on a higher future valuation, only the current valuation.

Trusts are good for _anyone_ who wants to avoid probate costs, which depending on location can be 5% or more (in addition to the other disadvantages of probate). Many middle to upper middle class families would fall into a situation where a simple trust could save their children tens of thousands of dollars in probate court costs.

There are also a number other situations where the non-"privileged few" can and do benefit from trusts, including the one that this seems to be set up to handle -- gifting money to a child or grandchild for their future, without giving them immediate access to it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I hope this succeeds. I have 2 kids , and my basement is full of gifts from birthdays past, that they will probably never use. Now bear in mind that these gifts are from relatives with great intentions. If instead of those gifts, my kids had received a contribution to their trust funds , I think that would have been more beneficial.

<comment><USER5> Jeff - Founder/CEO - This is exactly what we want to do. Most parents we've talked to have made the same comment. Saving for a child's future should be easy, and involving the child's family/social network is our goal.

<comment><USER6> Thanks for doing this!

I had fully intended to set up the trust ... the old hard way ... but this will make things easier.

Will you be offering trusts that can pass on digital assets?

<comment><USER5> Jeff - Founder/CEO - In the beginning we will only be able to accept deposits from a bank account. Taking on other assets would require more infrastructure and cost. We hope to expand and offer more trust products as we grow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does someone who opens a trust account in 60 seconds on a web site really understand the legal, financial and tax implications of what they're doing?

<comment><USER5> Jeff - Founder/CEO - This will all be made clear. It's a UTMA and very easy to use. We will also be handling everything behind the scenes. Saving for your child can be complicated, but that is what we're going to change.

<comment><USER8> Can you explain how a solution based on UTMA account is a better solution compared to a 529-based solution. 529's seem to have much better tax advantages when the primary focus is saving for college (which I assume will be the primary audience for your service).

<comment><USER5> Jeff - Founder/CEO A UTMA can be used for non-education expenses without a penalty. Gains, to an extent, on the account can also be offset by the kiddie tax exemption. We will be providing the education and tools to explain this and make it as easy as possible. A family could also pair a 529 plan and a TrustEgg account to save.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is exactly the kind of startup that we should encourage the most - it is taking a messy, complicated real-world problem that can only be solved by spending lots of money or doing tons of paperwork and turning it into an app that grandma can use!

Best of luck to the founders! Just signed up and sent the link to my friends with kids.

</comment><comment><USER10> Brutally honest: if you can't get basic things like mixed content issues worked out, how do I trust you with the security of my money? First impressions are really important.

<comment><USER11> "[getting] mixed content issues worked out" seems like such an incredibly weak signal to determine whether someone is trustworthy "with the security of my money". Is this really the best tool you have available to decide whether to trust or not?

<comment><USER10> I totally 100% agree with you but I'm not the average web user who will see a red lock icon with an X over it and think "these guys aren't running a secure site". As web-savvy folks, sure, we know that it's a basic change and the security shortfall is minor (potentially not, though! there's a reason for mixed content warnings). You're average user has to be conditioned to even look for the lock or the https and seeing a big red X over it isn't doing anything for trustworthiness.

<comment><USER12> The security shortfall isn't minor. In Chrome (other browsers don't distinguish the severity), a crossed-out HTTPS means that a MITM attacker has the ability to run arbitrary javascript on the page. It doesn't even bother running severe mixed content now, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> HN has a very diverse set of readers; is anyone knowledgeable able to provide insight as to why we would want to open a trust, and any implications it would have?

As a single-father I am very interested in any knowledge that can be shared on this subject.

<comment><USER5> Jeff - Founder/CEO - A trust is protected and in the child's name. Can't be touched by parents or the parents creditors. We also let you take advantage of the Kiddie Tax exemption. There are also no minimums. We offer access and ease.

<comment><USER14> I am familiar with the Kiddie Tax. I do not recognize the phrase "Kiddie Tax exemption." Please explain what that is.

<comment><USER5> Jeff - CEO/FounderThe first $950 of investment income for a child is tax free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can anyone quickly sum up the benefits of trust funds over other forms of savings? Is it just a tax deduction?

<comment><USER16> I believe a trust fund lets you put conditions on what would otherwise be a "gift". For instance, if you die and you'd like to ensure your children go to college, you can set that as a condition for their inheritance by setting up a trust with an executor who's job it is to respect those conditions. I am sure that there are limits on said conditions and they could be challenged, but I'm pretty sure that this is a major benefit over just stroking someone a check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is really interesting. I've always thought there are a lot of opportunites in democratizing this sort of legal stuff.

Have you guys considered branching out into other types of trusts?

<comment><USER5> Jeff - CEO/Founder - We will be creating other trust products down the road, but for now we're concentrating on children's savings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> So how is this better than opening an account (savings or brokerage) in the child's name with the parent as the custodian?

<comment><USER5> With TrustEgg you will be able to share the account with grandparents/aunts/uncles, etc and they can make deposits as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think the article might be exaggerating the success of the UK scheme. I am sure it was fairly successful when the government was giving kids money, but now it is just a tax exempt savings scheme (like children pay tax anyway) not sure it has made a difference.

<comment><USER5> Jeff Founder/CEO The government seeded the accounts, but it prompted families of all income levels to begin saving. [http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/may/25/child-trust- fund...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/may/25/child-trust-funds-zoe- williams#history-link-box)

<comment><USER19> And the scheme has subsequently been canned. They have replaced it with a child ISA instead. Not sure if that was due to be being too successful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Interesting idea but the branding is terrible and completely out of touch with the times.

<comment><USER21> They're supposed to get branding perfect before launching a pre-beta signup form? What if they don't get the necessary traction, investment or licenses? Sounds like a terrible waste of money and bad prioritization for a startup in their situation.

<comment><USER22> Disputing feedback when people give it is a surefire way of making sure that no feedback is given in the future.

<comment><USER21> When I see constructive feedback, I'll take that into consideration.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> How does a trust compare to a UGMA/UTMA?

<comment><USER5> Jeff - Founder/CEO - A TrustEgg account is a UTMA. TrustEgg is the custodian and we will provide the infrastructure for parents and other family members to make easy transfers into the account - both one time and recurring deposits.

<comment><USER23> Ah, that makes a _lot_ of sense. Is there a process for using money for the beneficiary before they reach majority?

That seems the only downside of not having one of the parents retain custodianship (which is bad tax-wise if they die). It's not really a big deal for me, since I'm using my kids UTMAs as college-savings/nest-egg and have no plans of using it before they are 18.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does it guarantee dreadlocks?

</comment><comment><USER25> This should be a great way to fleece unsuspecting unsophisticated investors trying to provide for their children. For instance, front-loading a bunch of fees against the deposited amount, so that if, say, the child dies, you get to keep most of the money.

[http://www.moneyville.ca/article/1244729--fees-eat- up-90-per...](http://www.moneyville.ca/article/1244729--fees-eat-up-90-per- cent-of-parents-refund-on-education-plan-after-baby-s-death)

Be sure to market it to the poor primarily. The marketing tagline can be something like "The wealthy use trust funds to provide for their children - now you can too!"

Should be highly successful, even though there are zero benefits to trust funds for 99% of the population. Actually it's probably a net minus for most people, due to the way college financial aid is calculated.

I give it an A+ for income potential, C- for utility, F for ethicality.

<comment><USER26> Could you explain why a trust fund is a net minus for most people, and how college financial aid is affected by it?

<comment><USER27> At many of the top colleges and universities in the US, the institution is able to meet 100% of the "demonstrated financial need" of the family. At several schools, all of the provided financial aid comes in the form of grants, which is basically free money.

At all of these schools, while the tuition price tag might be $50,000 per year or more, relatively few families actually have to pay this sticker price. At my alma mater, Bowdoin, the overall cost is around $54k, but the average financial aid package (according to the College Board) is $41k, leaving the average Bowdoin student on the hook for only $13k a year.

If you're a family that otherwise would qualify for a large amount of financial aid, but you've saved up into a trust or other savings plan for the purpose of funding your child's education, you'll lose this free money. The institution will count this amount against your demonstrated financial need.

Some families with means are able to hide away these funds, and still get significant financial aid from a school like Bowdoin, but most families don't have the resources or savvy to do so.

Of course, if we're talking about institutions that don't have such strong financial aid programs – which is the vast majority – you probably want that savings. Deciding to save for your child's education is, statistically, usually a good decision. If your child ends up going to one of the above, though, it can be a costly one.

<comment><USER28> But it also depends on how the trust is created. I have no idea how TrustEgg establishes the trusts, but many people set up trust funds for their children - but name the child as an alternate beneficiary, after themselves. So, if I set up a fund for my child - the trust fund would be mine until I died. Assuming I was still alive while my kid was at college, the trust fund would be mine and not hers.

<comment><USER29> From what I recall the parents assets can be used, up to a certain percentage, to determine what the child is eligible for. One way around this is to use a Roth IRA, since it allows you to take money out for college without a penalty and would not be used to determine FAFSA.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: eslint-config-hardcore – 17 plugins, 500 rules, and counting - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/EvgenyOrekhov/eslint-config-hardcore <comment><AUTHOR> It is a framework-agnostic "batteries included" config that aims to enable as many plugins and rules as possible to make your code extremely consistent and robust. It uses Prettier code style and autoformats your code with eslint- plugin-prettier.

There are dozens of great ESLint plugins out there. Did you know that there is a plugin that can optimize your regexes for you? Or did you know that ESLint can validate *.json files? This config allows you to gain the power of all those awesome plugins with a single `npm install`.

Fun (and useful) fact: you can use typescript-eslint for linting your JavaScript code. That's right, you can take advantage of typescript-eslint's type-aware rules, like `@typescript-eslint/naming-convention` and `@typescript-eslint/prefer-optional-chain`, without the need to switch to writing TypeScript. Use the `hardcore/ts-for-js` config for that.

Also, did you know that when you enable an ESLint rule with "rule-name": "error", you don't get all the benefits the rule can provide? Many rules have advanced options that are disabled by default. For example, the `no-unneeded- ternary` rule has the `defaultAssignment` option that can enforce using `foo = bar || default` instead of `foo = bar ? bar : default`. And the `no-param- reassign` rule allows you to modify parameter properties by default, which is considered a bad practice. This config uses those stricter options whenever it makes sense.

Back in 2016, when I started compiling this config, it was helping me begin my JavaScript journey. I was using it on small projects, and it was helping me avoid many JavaScript pitfalls. Over the years it grew and proved itself as an extremely useful tool for all kinds of projects, both backend and frontend. Now, I can't imagine what I would do without it and how much more painful our code reviews would be. And I really want to avoid any kind of nitpicking in pull requests. Let ESLint catch (and most of the time autofix!) all problems early.

The funniest thing: 500 rules are still not enough. We still spend time in code reviews catching issues and inconsistencies, especially when there are new developers on the team. So, expect to see more and more plugins and rules in the config in the future.

Let me know what you think. Try it out. Suggest more plugins.</comment>


Best Practices for Scientific Computing - <AUTHOR> http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.0530v1

<comment> johnx123-up Recent version is v2 <http://arxiv.org/abs/1210.0530v2>

Summary:

      1. Write programs for people, not computers.
      2. Automate repetitive tasks.
      3. Use the computer to record history.
      4. Make incremental changes.
      5. Use version control.
      6. Don't repeat yourself (or others).
      7. Plan for mistakes.
      8. Optimize software only after it works correctly.
      9. Document design and purpose, not mechanics.
      10. Conduct code reviews.

<comment><USER2> This sounds like best plans for computing in general, not just scientific computing

<comment><USER3> Yeah for scientific computing specifically i was more expecting to see concerns like ensuring intermediate working state is persisted to a durable medium and facilitating restarting from a working state "dump" instead of from the top each time.

<comment><USER4> Around the end of summer there was a post on just this topic. I can't find it now but it had really solid practices in this area. If anyone remembers it / finds it I'd love to be able to read it again.

<comment><USER5> You may be talking about a post by S. M. Ali Eslami called Patterns for Research in Machine Learning[1]. There was some discussion here as well[2].

The patterns he pointed out were:

      1. Use version control.
      2. Separate code from data.
      3. Separate input data, working data and output data.
      4. Modify input data with care.
      5. Save everything to disk frequently.
      6. Separate options from parameters.
      7. Do not use global variables.
      8. Record the options used to generate each run of the algorithm.
      9. Make it easy to sweep options.
      10. Make it easy to execute only portions of the code.
      11. Use checkpointing.
      12. Write demos and tests.

EDIT: Added list of patterns, formatting.

[1] <http://arkitus.com/PRML/>

[2] <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4384317>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very good points (indeed, I totally agree on each and every of them!), but there's the risk that someone writing a software just for sake of the task will just argue «I'm not interested in doing this, but in the task».

This is exactly what happens for many users when you suggest them to install GNU/Linux and enjoy freedom. They say: «I don't want to learn another OS. I just use the computer to get things done». Then they'll keep using Excel.

<comment><USER7> > there's the risk that someone writing a software just for sake of the task > will just argue ...

It's not a risk, it's a certainty! That's why the the last point is about conducting reviews.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> In practice, scientific software is always work-in-progress in general, people who write it are in many cases novices and software remains unattended after the results have been published. Although scientists should learn to write good programs, we shouldn't expect them to write the best software; a lot of science is not engineering.

</comment><comment><USER9> Honestly,

I shall never understand why a work like this (useful and to the point) needs a 'Conclusion' section. There are no conclusions, just a list of practices.

I know this is an absurd rant but can we stop this nonsense?

Conclusion: please stop concluding something which is not an argumentation.

<comment><USER10> Because scientists are aggressively selective in what they read (you have to be, given the volume of text produced) and skip large parts of the paper to see if they're interesting. A very common paper reading approach is:

      1. Read abstract. Interesting? Go to 2, else stop reading.
      2. Read introduction. Still interesting? Go to 3, else stop reading.
      3. Read conclusion. Still interesting? Read the rest of the paper, else stop reading.

The conclusion is there to summarise everything and let people decide whether they want to bother reading the entire thing.</comment></comment>