Ask HN: IE Javascript Engine Simulator? - <AUTHOR>

I've got an ajax javascript that isn't running properly under all flavors of IE, according to several IE users and confirmed by http://browserlab.adobe.com
My environment is linux and Mac exclusively, so I cannot (directly) run IE.
Short of installing a Windows VM from virtualbox (or similar), are there any web-based javascript engine emulators where I could see IE's error console? <comment><USER2> I don't know of any emulator, but I've had success running IE under Wine on Linux, using IEs4Linux: <http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page>

(Note: Google currently has a malware warning for that domain, so take reasonable precautions, don't use an unpatched browser or OS...)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the suggestion.

If I have to install anything on my machine, though, I'll just as soon go with a windows VM from virtualbox.

I was hoping for something completely web-based, like jslint.com, but which would reflect IE's javascript engine and error console.

<comment><USER3> Microsoft didnt write js engine well, I wont expect a simulator even. dnt worry abt IE compatibility, Firefox is a go.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Did I get in cheap because of Visa? - <AUTHOR>

About a year back I joined a startup in San Francisco which was acquired by one of the big four companies. I am on H1B visa and had 7 years of experience by that time. I accepted salary of $122,300 for Data Analytics Lead position.
Did I get in cheap because of H1 visa ? I am seeing hundreds of 22 yrs old getting more than $100k as starting salary.  I am quite good at technical stuff, actively code and have fair understanding of business as well. I can't change job right now since in 6th yr of visa.
If I was American citizen would I have commanded more salary ?  I see many posts going around for negotiation but what's effective strategy to negotiate when you are on visa. <comment><USER2> The predicament of the H1B is that they've got you over the coals unless you can make them believe that you don't returning to your home country.

6 years on a H1B - can't you get a Greencard? Won't you have to leave the US for a year anyway after your 6th year?

It's easy to read HN and think that everyone makes a boatload of money. I read that patio11 turned down a consulting gig that offers $750k a year. He must be one of only a handful of people to have an opportunity like that. It's certainly the exception, not the norm.

The #TalkPay discussion has been quite good in bringing people back down to earth. Developers that I admire and are clearly better than me are earning not much more than I do and much less than the figure you have quoted.

I'm going to have to call you out on the 'hundreds of 22 years olds earning more than $100k'. In the Valley, New York maybe - then again I can't see this being the majority.

<comment><USER3> >The #TalkPay discussion has been quite good in bringing people back down to earth. Developers that I admire and are clearly better than me are earning not much more than I do and much less than the figure you have quoted.

Out of curiosity, since I was out of the loop about the whole #talkpay thing, which developers do you have in mind with that statement?

<comment><USER2> James Coglan was one of those that revealed figures. Just search on the hashtag to find more.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It is your employer's job to pay you a living wage that keeps you working there. Do you want a raise? Have you asked for one?

I would frown upon an employer paying you less if you were an equal candidate, but if you are a non-native english speaker and they have to sponsor the visa then I think it is reasonable to pay you less because of the additional costs.</comment>


'Not compliant' – Two words that are killing Coronavirus app innovation - <AUTHOR> https://www.mysymptoms.app/open-letter-to-google-apple-my-symptoms-app <comment><USER2> Well, I'm not convinced on this open letter to Apple and Google to relax government or institutional backing of apps categorised in heavily regulated industries. No medical professional would ever use a 'medical device or app' which isn't compliant by healthcare regulations and not vetted by doctors and researchers, especially if it were built in a hackathon to be published straight into the App stores. Just like if one was to use a 'banking app' that is not compliant towards financial regulations, in both industries it would be _unsafe_ to use.

These regulations and rules don't kill app innovation, it increases the quality of them and ensures the user, whether if they are doctors or those seeking medical advice that they are safe to use. Would you use a medical or banking app that hasn't passed any regulations but looks nice? I certainly will not and if professionals find out that thats the case if your app becomes popular, prepare for industry scrutiny and Apple / Google will eventually pull your app down.

The authors use the KCL COVID-19 [0] and Howwefeel [1] apps as reasons for the case of a new quality globalised COVID-19 app. But there are already plenty of apps that not only do more than COVID-19 symptom tracking and are available worldwide [2][3][4], and are all registered medical devices.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid that I would have to side with Apple and Google here.

[0] [https://covid.joinzoe.com](https://covid.joinzoe.com)

[1] [https://www.howwefeel.org](https://www.howwefeel.org)

[2] [https://www.khealth.ai](https://www.khealth.ai)

[3] [https://ada.com](https://ada.com)

[4] [https://www.babylonhealth.com](https://www.babylonhealth.com)

</comment><comment><USER3> Why should they reduce their guard when there are many scams and abusive apps being created to take advantage of the panic?

There's another half to the story.</comment>


SEC Shuts Down Munchee ICO - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2017/12/12/sec-shuts-down-munchee-ico/ <comment><USER3> Honestly, i'm kind of annoyed by everyone offering an ICO for [insert irrelevant product here]. It's creating a misleading advertising scheme built on top of a current tech _craze_ that will likely leave a lot of "investors" out of money.

The problem is that you're giving money to a relatively unknown company while speculating that the company will create inherent value. Unlike with stocks, you don't have ownership in the company or any voting rights. There is nothing stopping the company's creators from distributing the ICO money to themselves (there might be a board, but since the company isn't public who knows who the board is).

In this case the SEC is right to step in so there aren't a ton of unregulated securities going around and a lot of consumers potentially getting screwed.

Even with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, it can be scary. You're literally getting into the ForEx market, which is known to be one of the riskiest markets in existence. With other currencies, at least they're backed by a government that (at least at least attempts) to regulate it's value and protect it from manipulation. With bitcoin, I saw that 40% of all coins in existence are owned by less that 1,000 people. How do we know that the current price inflations aren't a manipulation (or collusion) to jack up the price, sell for USD, then crash the market? It's not illegal/collusion because Bitcoin isn't regulated.

This is definitely a rant, but I have some serious concerns as to where this market is going. Would love to hear other's thoughts.

<comment><USER4> ICOs are in a hype. But there is real value. First, they can be used to bypass a lot of (but not all) regulation. This is good, because the financial sector is overly regulated (and wrongly regulated). Second, there are applications that are not possible in the traditional financial system. For example, the smart contracts behind the Bancor system (another overvalued ICO) provide automated market-making on the blockchain. These smart contracts have a capital buffer no one can touch and that is used for completely transparent market making, thereby ensuring that you can always buy or sell shares. I won't go into detail, but it basically solves the liquidity problem for penny stocks.

In the medium run, I see ICOs as a light-weight alternative to IPOs, but not as a seed-funding instrument. This is non-sense.

<comment><USER5> >First, they can be used to bypass a lot of (but not all) regulation.

It's entertaining that many seem to believe this for no apparent reason, but the SEC (and other regulators around the world) doesn't seem to agree.

<comment><USER6> They allow you to avoid regulation if you avoid countries that regulate them like the US. A number of ICOs these days seem to forbid US investors.

<comment><USER5> The US isn't the only jurisdiction cracking down on ICOs:

European Financial Regulator Warns Investors On ICO Risks [https://www.coindesk.com/european-financial-regulator- warns-...](https://www.coindesk.com/european-financial-regulator-warns- investors-ico-risks/)

Germany's Securities Regulator Warns ICOs Pose 'Numerous Risks' [https://www.coindesk.com/germanys-securities-regulator- warns...](https://www.coindesk.com/germanys-securities-regulator-warns-icos- pose-numerous-risks/)

Japanese Financial Watchdog Issues Warning over ICO Risks [https://www.coindesk.com/japanese-financial-watchdog- issues-...](https://www.coindesk.com/japanese-financial-watchdog-issues- warning-over-ico-risks/)

I can't imagine any developed nation won't end up regulating ICOs as securities. That might be a message to which it's worth paying attention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What Is the Howey Test? - <USER2>

[http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the- howey...](http://consumer.findlaw.com/securities-law/what-is-the-howey- test.html)

"The final factor of the Howey Test concerns whether any profit that comes from the investment is largely or wholly outside of the investor's control. If so, then the investment might be a security. If, however, the investor's own actions largely dictate whether an investment will be profitable, then that investment is probably not a security."

Howey Test [https://youtu.be/9lTS1Zofw8w](https://youtu.be/9lTS1Zofw8w)

<comment><USER8> This seems, to me (a layman), to indicate that most any ICO will fall under "security." Can anyone provide an example where an ICO would not be a security as defined by the Howey Test?

<comment><USER9> Interestingly, cash would seem to be a security under this definition. Except it is _explicitly exempted_ :

> The term ''security'' means any note, stock, treasury stock, security > future, security-based swap, bond, debenture, certificate of interest or > participation in any profit-sharing agreement or in any oil, gas, or other > mineral royalty or lease, any collateral-trust certificate, preorganization > certificate or subscription, transferable share, investment contract, > voting-trust certificate, certificate of deposit for a security, any put, > call, straddle, option, or privilege on any security, certificate of > deposit, or group or index of securities (including any interest therein or > based on the value thereof), or any put, call, straddle, option, or > privilege entered into on a national securities exchange relating to foreign > currency, or in general, any instrument commonly known as a ''security''; or > any certificate of interest or participation in, temporary or interim > certificate for, receipt for, or warrant or right to subscribe to or > purchase, any of the foregoing; but shall not include currency or any note, > draft, bill of exchange, or banker's acceptance which has a maturity at the > time of issuance of not exceeding nine months, exclusive of days of grace, > or any renewal thereof the maturity of which is likewise limited.

From The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (N.B. IANAL).

So, will cryptocurrencies, possibly including ICOs, be exempted? Only history will tell.

<comment><USER10> Nobody is saying that crytocurrencies 'in general' are going to be declared securities.

This is about ICOs. IE, a tokens that are a 'FUTURE' promise for something that doesn't exist yet.

If Bitcoin was a security, the statement from the SEC head would be very different.

<comment><USER9> > Nobody is saying that crytocurrencies 'in general' are going to be declared > securities.

I agree with you, but the fact is plenty of people do. Maybe not in the corner of the world, but look broader. This also wasn't the point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Related to this bigger HN submission from yesterday ("Statement on Cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings"): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15902054](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15902054)

That statement was released on the same day as the Munchee decision, and the Munchee decision is linked from the statement

Context (the Munchee decision is in footnote 6): "I urge market professionals, including securities lawyers, accountants and consultants, to read closely the investigative report we released earlier this year (the "21(a) Report")[5] and review our subsequent enforcement actions.[6]"

</comment><comment><USER12> To put this in perspective, Token Report analyzed its database of ICOs and found each one that currently uses similar language to Munchee; or, promises returns to investors. [https://medium.com/tokenreport/token-report-whos-been- breaki...](https://medium.com/tokenreport/token-report-whos-been-breaking-the- rules-only-12-icos-opening-this-week-c6820bff9602)

</comment><comment><USER13> For better or worse, this sets a fairly clear precedent. Will be interesting to watch people try to get around it.

<comment><USER14> I am a co-founder in the cryptocurrency space. Our lawyers were smart and advised us against releasing a utility token ICO because they predicted that these SEC actions would be coming.

Our approach to "get around" this is to file all the necessary paperwork for a legal security and then only sell the token to accredited investors.

<comment> 52-6F-62 So basically, follow the existing law that governs securities and investments. I personally don't see a big problem with that, considering the laughable scams that have occurred over the past six months.

I am curious, though, how that works with proposed international investors. (I'm not well educated in the financial space)

I hope that these actions clear house of the scams, and open room for good projects to exist without some shade of doubt cast over them—at least not for the reasons there exists some kind of shade now.

<comment><USER15> > I personally don't see a big problem with that

It protects the monopoly the investor class has on investments like these.

<comment><USER16> > It protects the monopoly the investor class has on investments like these.

False.

If anything, it exposes consistently _larger_ "chunks of value" to the risk involved in the investment. Given accredited investors are used to evaluating risk it simply allows the to participate freely in the unknown risks of these types of investment vehicles without getting smaller investors involved in the mix. (It also prevents them from using their position against lower investment amounts made by lower accredited individuals.)

The "protection" afforded here is to the common investor, who by definition does not carry a large store of value with them. By preventing them from investing directly, by way of limiting their involvement based on their stored values, the SEC is protecting the "collective stored value" of the lower classes. And, this makes sense, given the dollar's value is based in part on what people are willing to pay for a given set of objects. This is the responsibility of the Fed to US.

An analogy would be the Yap allowing their children to go and mine Rai Stones by themselves. No sensible society would allow this to occur, given the dangers. And, yes, I'm comparing lower accredited investors to children, when considering the amount of knowledge they may carry with them regarding risk.

<comment><USER17> And yet anyone can buy 3x leveraged ETF/ETNs and not understand how the products are structured. Some of those products, due to the structure, will always lose value over time as the futures used to replicate them are normally in contango.

So some financial products where they will always drift to zero are fine, but investments in companies that have a chance to profit aren't allowed.

<comment><USER18> You can create a company that has ludicrously limited opportunities to return its capital, and sell those to the public. You simply have to comply with the SEC's registration and disclosure rules --- in particular, you have to publish quarterly audited financials confirming your limited prospects.

That is the difference between the "3x leveraged ETF" and the "company that has a chance at profit" in your example, not some weird value judgement the SEC is making.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > In short, Munchee was undone by two things: depending on the token sale as a > vehicle to raise cash for operations and using the typically spammy and > scammy marketing efforts most ICO floggers use now, tactics taken directly > from affiliate marketing handbooks.

It seems that most ICO do both the things. If not a self-inflicting post about the token growth but at least the raising cash for operations part.

<comment><USER20> > It seems that most ICO do both the things.

That doesn't make it OK. I think what's happening here is that ICO's are raising large enough funding to finally warrant involvement by the SEC.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm confused; if you can't use ICO proceeds to fund operations, then what can you spend them on? Where is the money supposed to go?

<comment><USER22> The money for funding operations is supposed to flow through a registered or otherwise legal security instrument, which this ICO was not. The law hasn't changed, just the supposedly innovative ways of pretending the law doesn't exist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Is CryptoKitties a security then?

</comment><comment><USER24> I just hope that the current ICO bubble doesn't pop so fast that HBO's Silicon Valley misses the opportunity to skewer it next season.

</comment><comment><USER7> What about CryptoKitties? is it a security using the "Howey Test"?

<comment><USER25> Yes, because they pay dividends in the form of new baby crypto cats.

<comment><USER26> That's not how it works.

The kitty tokens are more like a product than a security I think as each kitty token is unique, but I'm not a lawyer

<comment><USER27> That's considered collectibles.

Take this difference, for example: if you buy a collectible Ford Shelby GT from 1964 and you pay 10x more what the previous owner paid, you do so with hopes that its a good investment into collectible that eventually someone will give you a better price in the future. Your asumption/feeling of security (hence name "securities" btw) is not guaranteed by anything more than hope that someone will eventually pay more (they never may be such person).

Meanwhile if you buy Ford stock with the same purpose of re-selling it later down the road for hopefully higher price, you are being reassured aka "secured" by the company financial standing, their technical analyze, current market value, future strategy for the corp, etc. If these are phony then hopefully/supposedly SEC steps in to protect you from what most likely will turn out to be scam. Collectibles (genuine one of course) do not come with guarantee/security that their current value (what you personally gave for) will remain in the future, or be repriced higher.

<comment><USER28> Thank you for the explanation -- I was wondering how securities law is written to exempt the classic-Ford case, when "investors" expect a gain in value that isn't e.g. related to dividends but rather popularity quirks. Your distinction makes sense.

<comment><USER27> You welcome!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Munchee was able to return all $15 million to the 40 investors..."

Is this number correct? 40? 375.000$ on average seems unlikely...

<comment><USER30> The article is very misleading here. The cease-and-desist letter is clearer[0]. They intended to raise $15 million, but the SEC stopped them within a day of their ICO launch, when they had only raised about $60,000

[0] [https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2017/33-10445.pdf](https://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/2017/33-10445.pdf) Fact 27

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> These rules will only apply to companies within the jurisdiction of the SEC, correct? Hypothetically, I don't see how the SEC could shut down ICOs from companies registered outside the US, even from Americans.

<comment><USER32> companies run into problems if American citizens "invest" in them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's about time.

</comment><comment><USER34> The hype will die down as the SEC gets involved and regulations are pursued. Smart time to take profits in my opinion. Many will be left holding the bag as we see a correction to more sustainable levels. Bitcoin is here to stay, but these prices are not rational, driven purely off of emotion.

</comment><comment><USER35> Seems to me they were not engaged in anything different from video games which allow you to purchase ingame virtual currency. What's the difference? Genuine question.

<comment><USER36> For one, there isn't a market where you can buy and sell them; usually the developer decides on the price, and you can't exchange them back into USD.

<comment><USER37> Also, the terms of service usually forbid sale between individuals

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> What is the world of blockchain going to look like in a year?

</comment><comment><USER39> I keep hearing pundits talk about cryptocurrencies as being "outside the regulation of any government" over and over. They need to stop saying this.

</comment><comment><USER40> why is ethereum itself not a security by this logic. Clearly the purpose of buying ETH in the ICO was appreciation, no?

<comment><USER41> as long as they don't promote 'increase in value' and 'gain on your investment' they are safe.

<comment><USER40> but did they not make any statements implying an increase in value? why would you have participated in ETH ICO if you didn't expect an increase in value?

<comment><USER41> You can expect increase in the value, actually even everybody can expect, but as long as there is no marketing of increase in value, or misdirection it is fair game.

If you are investing in real estate, you have an expectation in increase in value, but if the real estate agent is promising you, increase in the value, and promising you to do the all marketing, etc and selling part. Then it is something else.

The point is basically intentionally misleading investor.

<comment><USER40> where in the howey test does it say anything about marketing?

It is an investment of money There is an expectation of profits from the investment The investment of money is in a common enterprise Any profit comes from the efforts of a promoter or third party

<comment><USER41> "Any profit comes from the efforts of a promoter or third party" this part.

As long as profit depends on someone else's work. (this third party is not other investors, or market appreciation, this is direct promotion or work)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I don't get how the SEC differentiates between ICOs and kickstarters (not considering the ICOs that promise their token value to increase over time). How can there be any kind of innovation in fund raising space if the SEC wants every thing to be registered as securities. What bugs me the most is that many ICOs are funded by virtual currencies (btc or eth) and still SEC considers it self to have jurisdiction over the transactions that grown-up individuals do. Instead of considering $1mil net worth investors are accredited, SEC should have a certification test that an individual can take to prove he understands finance. If someone has $1mil, it doesn't prove a damn thing. It could very well be that they inherited it or won in a lottery.

<comment><USER43> I think it's because ICOs give you a tradeable token; kickstarter contributions cannot be traded for profit.

<comment><USER42> Contributors can as well sell their future orders as backorders on ebay or amazon or directly. Many successful kickstarters had their products sold at much higher prices after they are received (mainly the early bird ones).

<comment><USER18> If the marketer of a Kickstarter promoted their product as an investment-grade asset, they could indeed have legal problems. People forget that a big chunk of what the SEC is concerned about is marketing and promotion.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


New quantum computer approach from University of Sydney  - <AUTHOR> http://sydney.edu.au/news/84.html?newscategoryid=2&newsstoryid=9081 "The projected performance of this new experimental quantum simulator eclipses the current maximum capacity of any known computer by an astonishing 10 to the power of 80. That is 1 followed by 80 zeros, in other words 80 orders of magnitude, a truly mind-boggling scale." - is this at all credible? <comment><AUTHOR> They claim that "The projected performance of this new experimental quantum simulator eclipses the current maximum capacity of any known computer by an astonishing 10 to the power of 80. That is 1 followed by 80 zeros, in other words 80 orders of magnitude, a truly mind-boggling scale." Is this even remotely credible? Or is this applicable to some specific category of computation?

<comment><USER2> Some specific category. In general, the best we know how to do is a square- root speed up, which would only be applicable here if the number of possible solutions were 10^160.

(Specific categories do appear to have marvelous exponential speed-ups, such as factoring.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This article is void of any information.

<comment><USER4> It links straight to the paper in Nature pretty early on - [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7395/full/nature1...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7395/full/nature10981.html)

<comment><USER5> Now we just need something in betweeen ...

<comment><USER6> From briefly skimming the abstract, it appears to be analogous to a hard-wired circuit built to execute a specific calculation. i.e. It is not a programmable quantum computer. This is similar to the sort of thing D-Wave has been doing, although likely for a different purpose.

The speed-up figure is plausible, but only for the specific single algorithm this quantum circuit implements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Good luck; my attempt on this story got flagged in seconds. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3893103></comment>


Show HN: Brooce, a language-agnostic job queue written in Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/SergeyTsalkov/brooce <comment><AUTHOR> Hey Hackers! Brooce is a language-agnostic job queue I made in Go. I built it because I like to work on personal projects in a variety of languages, and I want to be able to use the same job queue regardless of what language I'm writing in. I like a lot about Resque, but it has the same flaw as many others: you're all-but-forced to write jobs in its preferred language, Ruby.

Therefore, I built a job queue system where the jobs themselves are just shell commands. It's really simple to get started: you just grab the brooce binary and run it on any Linux system. You then use redis to LPUSH some shell commands to a queue, and then brooce will run them in sequence.

That's really all you need to know to use it, but there are some advanced features under the hood. There's a resque-inspired web interface, multi- threaded job execution, locking, and automatically scheduled cron-like jobs. All features are baked into a single binary that runs on any Linux platform, and can be deployed on an unlimited number of servers. If they can all access the same redis database, they'll all coordinate amongst themselves to work on jobs.

I've been personally relying on brooce with great results! If you try it out, I would welcome your feedback!

Check out the github page for the documentation: [https://github.com/SergeyTsalkov/brooce](https://github.com/SergeyTsalkov/brooce)

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice! Lately I have started doing Go and was wondering about it. I am going to try it.</comment>


Ask HN: Settle for less salary or change to make more in prime years - <AUTHOR> Hi,
I am in a tricky situation and hoping someone here can provide some guidance. Also figured the answers might help someone who has a similar situation.
I am a sr dev with ~8 yrs of experience currently working in one of the top financial tech companies in nyc for ~5 years. I work in a good team and clear a little more than 150K/yr, but I recently got to know that my total compensation is quite low (~50K) compared to others in the same grade that doesn't sit with me well.
My responsibilities have been growing, but I feel I don't see the same growth in the salary. I've thought about asking my lead/managers about the difference, but I know it would backfire since I know the managers well and they would just say I have to work really hard to close the gap. I also believe that this gap will never close since the review is dependent on previous reviews and impressions. (Long story, my first reviews took a wrong turn due to bad managers and it took me years to get it above the average).
My dilemma is should I work hard in the current company trusting them to right the wrongs knowing its unlikely, or should I find a new job and invest the effort there outright. Also, I know the I will get a increase of ~50-75K or higher total comp if I jump ship to a good company (think Big 4) with similar benefits, but I am worried about losing some perks (flexible working hours & ~7hrs/day, work from home ~20d/yr, hike rate of ~7% etc). Being in my prime years(early 30s now), I feel I should make as much money I can before I become the older person in the group. Lastly, I am on a work visa so thinking about the risk of landing in a bad team/company only to change again.
Appreciate the opinions.
New user here so let me know if I made any mistakes in posting or if I missed anything important.
TL/DR: Good position at good company with ~30% less pay than others, settle for less money for comfort/perks/culture or jump ship for maximum value in prime years. <comment><USER2> I think you already know that practically, it is pretty much impossible that you will close the gap at your current company. The fact that such a large gap has persisted over multiple years demonstrates that your management doesn't reward performance in a competent manner.

If you land a position at a Big 4/5, you can expect to make 300k+ (total comp), and still retain flexible work hours, PTO, etc. Competition for dev talent is fierce, and with good interview / negotiation skills, it is possible to make integer multiples of your current comp without sacrificing perks such as a good team and flexible hours.

Also, read this: [http://haseebq.com/how-not-to-bomb-your-offer- negotiation/](http://haseebq.com/how-not-to-bomb-your-offer-negotiation/)

<comment><USER3> > _The fact that such a large gap has persisted over multiple years > demonstrates that your management doesn 't reward performance in a competent > manner._

The fact that the OP has been paid 25% below his peers for years shows that his bosses did a good job managing the budget and OP didn't really have a sense of what he was worth or what comparable positions like his should be making.

Turning the tables it is entirely possible he can make up most or all of that gap. Whether he still wants to work there after being paid 25% less than everyone else is another issue.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was massively underpaid in one of my past jobs, when I found out I just asked for a 25% pay rise, I didn't have another offer back then but was approached by recruiters. Then my boss gave me a 30% pay rise, make me realise I was even more underpaid than I thought, so after that I ask for pay rise every year and get it most of the time.

I didn't have the baggage you have, but if you like your job, ask for a pay rise, if they like you equally, you'll get it, it doesn't always come with a better annual review. Meanwhile prepare to leave for a better company.

a fintech company in nyc, bloomberg? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the data point. I feel that this is rare, but you make a good point, worth a try I guess.

<comment><USER3> If you're underpaid by 30% and ask for a 20% raise it's unlikely your boss will put up a huge fight. They may do less just to see if you accept it, but it's rare for them to both know you're underpaid _and_ refuse to bridge part of that gap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's completely obvious the situation you are in is not going to improve significantly according to your description. Rarely established situations change, and you've been there for 5 years. You have learned what you needed, move on. The immigrant status is something to be considered, make sure you make your move with your eyes wide opened. Out of curiosity, why are you still on a work visa after 5 years? Usually employers... help after all that time. Does your employer plan to help you get a permanent visa?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks ! Thought so, this is a reality check in a way. Regd the visa, yes companies do sponsor for perm, but it still takes many years to get a permanent one depending on the country of origin due to the current immigration system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Go get the money. Don't feel guilty about it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > should I work hard in the current company trusting them to right the > wrongs...

Senior executives (especially in FinTech) do NOT think in these terms. Their focus is purely bottom line, what have you done for us today?

> I am on a work visa...

Apply for a permanent status, you will be free to chart your own course. Pay for your own attorney to navigate the system. Do this TODAY!

> I am worried about losing some perks ...

Easily negotiated into your next compensation package. Simply let a potential new company know your current perks-- expect they will meet or beat what you have.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you're 80 and tomorrow is your last day, what advice would you give to your 30 year old self? Then I suggest listening to that advice.

</comment><comment><USER9> Go get the best offer you can. If you're still conflicted about leaving, and the offer is substantially better (not sure why you would be), you can use the offer as leverage to get a raise and improve your position. But only go that route if you're truly prepared to leave.

</comment><comment><USER10> If I were you I wold check my motivation before jumping ship. There will always be people working less and earning more than you. Just think of the lottery winners. Following this path you may hit the line of 300k/yr but won't find contentment. Don't get caught by the hedonic treadmill!

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

On the other hand if you just want to earn 300k/yr regardless of the salary of others than you know what you have to do.

<comment><AUTHOR> True, this is one of my worries, but honestly, I don't feel happy knowing that I am underpaid than my market value too. Thanks for the input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> It's hard to give good advice with this much information it's all up to you in the end. However I can tell you sticking around and hoping for a company to "wake up" and so on is a delusion.

I think in general people should appreciate that a lot of jobs are not as special as you might have come to believe.

So if I were in your shoes I would probably interview and find something I'm happier with and then jump.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. Reality check, done.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One thing to keep in mind are retirement goals. If you want retire early or do your own startup someday I'd say go straight for the money. If you're planning a full career, retirement shouldn't matter too much and work/life balance is more important.

</comment><comment><USER13> Sometimes it's better to invest in yourself, if your current role is helping your grow. You want to make sure, you're not only enjoying your current role but you'll be more marketable as well if you continue.

</comment><comment><USER14> The only time I've ever heard of someone getting a raise to market was when I left the company and they were the last developer left. As the sales guys say: "Your W2 is your review"

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah this is rare I feel. Oh well, worth a try. Those sales guys surely know better in this case :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> After tax and living expenses , how much can you save annually?

<comment><AUTHOR> I save some after everthing, but I don't see how this relates to the situation as I still would be leaving money on the table regardless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> If you are over 30 you might be too old to get a job in the valley.

<comment><USER17> So you're saying experience doesn't matter. We just need people who use whatever trendy frameworks this month?

Sounds about right. /s

<comment><USER18> Lets put it in another way - when you're over 30 you don't have that much naivety anymore to waste your life working on somebody others ideas and be underpaid, and you understand that startup stock options are bullshit.</comment></comment></comment>


US Freezes Putin's Netflix Account - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2014/03/us-freezes-putins-netflix-account.html

<comment><USER2> I can't believe this is a real thing. It's not like there isn't anyone else in Russia with a Netflix account.

<comment><USER3> "The Borowitz Report: The News Reshuffled" certainly sounds like parody to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Duh.

That makes me feel better.</comment>


Zcash, an untraceable Bitcoin alternative, launches in alpha - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2016/01/zcash-an-untraceable-bitcoin-alternative-launches-in-alpha/ <comment><USER2> Of course, once these techniques were in place, they conclusively destroyed the ability of governments to control the flow of electronic funds, anywhere, anytime, for any purpose. As it happened, this process had pretty much destroyed any human control at all over the modern electronic economy. By the time people figured out that raging nonlinear anarchy was not exactly to the advantage of anyone concerned, the process was simply too far gone to stop. All workable standards of wealth had vaporized, digitized, and vanished into a nonstop hurricane of electronic thin air. Even physically tearing up the fiber optics couldn't stop it; governments that tried to just found that the whole encryption mess oozed swiftly into voice mail and even fax machines.

...

Alex did not find it surprising that people like the Chinese Triads and the Corsican Black Hand were electronically minting their own cash. He simply accepted it: electronic, private cash, unbacked by any government, untraceable, completely anonymous, global in reach, lightninglike in speed, ubiquitous, fungible, and usually highly volatile. Of course, such funds didn't boldly say "Sicilian Mafia" right on the transaction screen; they usually had some stuffy official-sounding alias such as "Banco Ambrosiano ATM Euro-DigiLira," but the private currency speculators would usually have a pretty good guess as to the solvency of the issuers.

\- Heavy Weather

<comment><USER3> It turns out that there's a pretty easy fix for this. People have to start caring how the money they're accepting has flowed through the economy. You don't need a government to sanction bad actors. The people can do it on their own.

Money is power. Anonymous money prevents you from choosing which power you'd like to submit to. Decentralized money prevents governments from restricting power. Let's keep the decentralization and remove the anonymity so you can reject power you find undesirable.

The first application of this mechanism will probably be restoring our democracies by rejecting the power of money to influence them. It won't be the last application—I think we'll use it to enforce any rule that has a broad consensus behind it. The boundaries of the enforcement will be the same as the boundaries of our economy: there aren't any. We'll have global governance without a global government.

This is merit capitalism. [http://meritcapitalism.com/](http://meritcapitalism.com/)

Zcash is cool, but if you accept it as payment, you're making yourself powerless.

<comment><USER4> This is an interesting idea, and seems worth considering.

What would you think of a system that instead tracked materials and manufacturing process?

So, each step in the manufacturing process would use proofs received from previous steps that the amount they claim to have produced is not more than they could make with only the materials that previous steps have said they supplied?

So, e.g., if there is a place that makes good(?) grain, they would include some cryptographic signature that they provided the amount of grain, and then a baker receiving it would be able to produce a signed claim that they made so many breads with only grain from there, and they wouldn't be able to fake making more by adding grain from elsewhere, because the total of all their claims of how much of the grain is used in each bread could not total more than the grain which was signed as provided?

Or something like that.

I don't remember the specifics.

Would it be better to track who owned the money before you, or to track how the product was made? Or both?

I think there are probably some advantages of anonymous money, but I don't know that they outweigh the costs that you mention. (I suspect non-anonymous money makes auctions and things more difficult, and might reduce effeciency, but that might just be the acceptable cost of influencing the world against people doing harm)

<comment><USER3> > What would you think of a system that instead tracked materials and > manufacturing process?

I think it's a great idea, and people are building it.

[https://medium.com/@jutta_steiner/using-the-global-trust- mac...](https://medium.com/@jutta_steiner/using-the-global-trust-machine-to- solve-transparency-in-supply-chains-c6bdc90c3f15)

The decentralization renaissance is hitting full steam. If you like thinking about this sort of thing, you should find a way to make it your day job.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love the idea, but...

> Zcash is launching as a for-profit company.

That's their downfall right there. With someone visible to track they've given up the game before they started. Real people running real companies are really vulnerable. The real test of a security system is its weakest link. And that link is almost always a person. Right?

IMHO the subtle political reason Bitcoin has gotten as far as it has is because it's creator has remained anonymous, and not tried to visibly profit from it.

Why do I think that? Because governments are very territorial about their money. Banks too. The regulations for banks are pretty tough, as you may know, Know-Your-Customer edicts and such.

<comment><USER6> > That's their downfall right there. With someone visible to track they've > given up the game before they started. Real people running real companies > are really vulnerable. The real test of a security system is its weakest > link. And that link is almost always a person. Right?

The company that is launching this consists of a team of brilliant cryptographers and security engineers.

How does "their identity is known" translate into an attack?

How does "they're a for-profit company" weaken the security guarantees of a zero-knowledge proof?

<comment><USER7> > How does "their identity is known" translate into an attack?

They can be coerced into actions based on threats to themselves or relatives.

<comment><USER8> Virtually everyone involved in Bitcoin's development is also well-known and presumably "coerceable." The company makes no difference as far as I can see.

<comment><USER9> When someone has a legitimate claim to be an owner, that person will have sway to do crazy things like make it closed-source or change the critical constants. Not saying it's a deal-breaker, but it's more risk than if no one can claim to own it (if bitcoiners are angry about the excessive power of the people with admin permissions to the github repo, just imagine how difficult it would be to wrench control from a company that invented the product and has copyright claims to it). I guess what I'm saying is you don't get much leverage if you convert a bitcoin dev but if you convert the owners of this company you'll get a lot of leverage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> For anyone interested in how Zcash (formely Zerocoin) works and who understands German, I've written my Bachelor thesis about it in 2013: [http://www.math.uni- bremen.de/~jhasse/Kryptografische%20Grun...](http://www.math.uni- bremen.de/~jhasse/Kryptografische%20Grundlagen%20von%20Bitcoin.pdf) (Part IV)

<comment><USER11> Hey!

Can you help me understand something about Zcash? Do buckets need to be decrypted for the network on spend? Or is there a way to append a zk-proof that the bucket contains enough to fund follow-on buckets?

I'm probably wasting your time a little by asking, but I don't want to rely on my own reading to get a solid understanding.

<comment><USER10> What exactly are buckets? I think they used some other terminology back in the Zerocoin days.

<comment><USER11> The github explains that you create a transaction as follows:

1) You have 50 coins in a 'bucket' or address? 2) You send 18 to a friend 3) You send 32 t yourself.

So you create two encrypted buckets, 18 in one, and 32 in the other. They seem to be the equivalent of UTXOs. I'm not clear if they need to be 'revealed' to be spent though.

<comment><USER10> IIRC: No, they aren't "revealed". The 32 newly created coins in your bucket will be made public with a "commitment". I think this was called forging a Zerocoin. When you use them later you're using a zero-knowledge proof, which means others can't link the coins you spend with the forged coins from earlier.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This issue is mentioned in a small sub-comment and has drawn no replies but it seems to me like the Heffalump In the Room:

"For its first four years online, a portion of every mined Zcash coin will go directly to Wilcox's Zcash company and a smaller portion to a non-profit he's creating to oversee the Zcash code and community longterm. Wilcox says that he plans for 1 percent of Zcash's currency to ultimately go towards that non- profit, and 10 percent to be paid to the for-profit startup."

Who is going to want to engage in commerce in a system that creams off a 10 percent vigorish on every transaction? Credit card companies are hated by small merchants for taking a third that much.

<comment><USER13> Credit card companies take at least that much from the transaction. They charge both the supplier and the holder.

<comment><USER14> Credit cards are more expensive than most would like them to be. We don't need another expensive system.

Besides, credit cards offer protection in that they are able to give insurance on purchases by doing charge backs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> There's an interesting property of fully untraceable currency, and that's that it's possible to perform 'perfect crimes' [1]. Often the weakness in committing, say, a kidnapping or a drug sale is handling the associated money obtained with it which can be traced back to people due to circumstances. Fully untraceable currency by definition completely avoids these circumstances.

The inevitable question "should we want this?" is moot because evidently such systems are possible (iff they provide a practical currency for such transactions) and will inevitably be used for this. Furthermore, Bitcoin already achieves something close to it in practice. It's just worth pointing out that untraceability will have nasty consequences as well as good ones.

As an interesting aside, David Chaum, who has lately been infamous for advocating ways to backdoor encryption, may be considered the father of fully untraceable (but not decentralized) digital currencies. Ironically, after [1] was published others in the cryptographic community spend a number of papers on building what they called 'fair' blind signatures, which constituted basically of varieties of Chaum's basic idea but where untraceability could be lifted by an "independent party posessing the right private key" (i.e. a public "police backdoor"). They were trying to backdoor Chaum's encryption...

[1]: [http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.465...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.465.9796&rep=rep1&type=pdf)

<comment><USER16> Currency is merely one investigative method. There are plenty of others and like all crypto systems there will be cracks, people will make OPSEC mistakes, and ultimately law enforcement agencies have access to hacking/CNE.

Additionally, the money by itself may be anonymous, but that person will have to convert it to other currency or make purchases. Those purchases may be physical objects like cars, or rent, or any other large purchase which the person will have to demonstrate how they could afford to purchase it. The IRS would still be able to detect irregularities in consumption.

If anything it will be a boone for the information security industry, they will have to stop selling snakeoil and start selling solutions that actually prevent peoples money from being stolen.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Zerocash had a possible backdoor, which was its' biggest drawback. I don't see it mentioned on the web page, which seems like they're hiding it (it's cruital to know who we need to trust with the setup part, and whether anybody has the right to take part in it).

,,Security of Π relies on a trusted party running Setup to generate the public parameters (once and for all). This trust is needed for the transaction non- malleability and balance properties but not for ledger indistinguishability'' \- from the zerocash paper

<comment><USER8> Zcash is planning to use a new multi-party trusted setup scheme that allows a group to securely compute the mathematical structures necessary to protect the zero-knowledge proof integrity.

(Secure Sampling of Public Parameters for Succinct Zero Knowledge Proofs, Ben- Sasson, E. ; Chiesa, A. ; Green, M. ; Tromer, E. et al.)

Only if every member of this group were compromised or dishonest will the setup fail. That is, only 1/N participants need to be honest.

<comment><USER18> Would this new "multi-party trusted setup" happen to be based on a block chain of its own?

If so, then they've introduced a new sort of meta 51% attack potential in a system that gives no economic incentive to mine (i.e., 51% attack is much easier when its not "51% of everyone trying to earn coins", but instead is "51% of those donating computing to protect zero-knowledge proof"), right?

If not so, then how? (rewind to Jan 2, 2009...)

<comment><USER19> Most zk-SNARK constructions are in the "common reference string" model, which requires a one-time trusted setup of a random string accessible to all parties: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_reference_string_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_reference_string_model)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This will be massively labor-saving for a key cryptocurrency use-case: exchange operators who "get hacked" won't have to worry about whether they sufficiently hid the outbound funds... ;)

<comment><USER8> One of the most important properties of Zcash is "selective disclosure." Effectively, you can audit and perform proofs-of-solvency with the same security as in other cryptocurrencies.

But yes, if someone on the inside "steals" the money, nobody will figure out where it went.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'm still a believer in a universe of huge numbers of diverse Chaumian token issuers intermediated by markets, but Zcash is an amazing system.

Zooko, btw, used to work for DigiCash long ago. The world of anonymous ecash has been...without a lot of progress, overall. Hopefully Zcash changes this.

</comment><comment><USER6> For anyone who wants to dive headfirst into the code:

[https://github.com/Electric-Coin-Company/zcash](https://github.com/Electric- Coin-Company/zcash)

</comment><comment><USER21> >Zcash isn't intended to facilitate crime, but also notes that the company isn't liable for any criminal applications for which Zcash is used. "The people who built the first cars weren't held responsible for car accidents or bank robberies,"

Good luck with that, especially as a registered for-profit organization.

Car manufacturers are required to report VIN numbers and allow for license plates, on top of a number of other mandatory regulations. Road access is also a priviledge, and automobiles not meeting certain standards are not allowed.

<comment><USER16> Car manufacturers can report VIN numbers without destroying their business. If zcash is compelled to then they're business will no longer exist, as the primary incentive to using it (privacy) is no longer there.

The question is whether a judge is willing to destroy a company in order to pursue law enforcement goals.

Regardless, this doesn't mean zcash will die necessarily. As it will be open- source and has the ability to continue functioning without a centralized organization.

<comment><USER22> Zcash can't get around financial institution regulations simply by disclaiming liability. If that worked, banks and other institutions would have done so by now.

But yes, a judge would be perfectly willing to destroy a company in violation of the law. See, e.g., Aereo and its ilk.

<comment><USER16> Indeed, but as consumers this doesn't affect us if an OSS version comes out as a result? Nor would it be an effective law enforcement tactic.

<comment><USER21> It would definitely affect user adoption with the majority of merchants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm not really sure how Zcash's privacy features differentiate it from a Cryptonote protocol, like Monero.

Disclosure: I own Bitcoin, but do not currently own any Monero. I have no financial incentive to promote it, I'm just legitimately curious as to how Zcash is different.

<comment><USER8> Monero and other ring signature schemes can only feasibly "mix" your transactions with a small number of previous transaction outputs, opening the door to statistical attacks.

Zcash mixes your transaction with every previous transaction. In fact, it goes to great lengths to make transactions indistinguishable from each other.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I applaud the cryptography work here, it seems like a damn cool application of ZKPs, but I think their missing what made Bitcoin work. The tech people took to BTC because it was something that they could verify worked correctly, and had no centralized party who could change it on a whim. Once it had the backing of those tech people, _then_ it spread to everyone else. These guys might be able to get a small portion of customers who don't care about a centralized party, but that just isn't going to be enough, those aren't the people who are going to evangelize it.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's a customer-base problem here. Bitcoin's expansion is based on who is willing to consider something different. A new alt-coin promising to do the kinds of things Bitcoin does but better (not crack new customers) can only exist by taking Bitcoin's market-share (which is not big). Being honest with ourselves, this is likely to get lost in the noise until bitcoin is large enough and this weakness of it is exploited enough that a substantial amount of people look for an alternative.

<comment><USER16> The iPhone still exists despite Android coming out.

I see no need for a single currency at a time. There may be ultimately a winner, but there is no stopping each from finding their own niche. What if Bitcoin becomes the currency of Wall St - which is better served by pseudonymous currency - while ZCash fills the more privacy oriented niche for projects like Open Bazaar?

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This literally has no use case other than illicit transactions - the one and only substantial Bitcoin use case in practice. They're even asked about this directly and can't come up with any!

So the question is: can Zcash compete with Bitcoin in the darknet markets? Is there any DNM that does _any_ substantial business in a crypto other than Bitcoin?

<comment><USER26> > This literally has no use case other than illicit transactions

My thoughts exactly. But they must have made a good case that there were other uses to their investors, they netted some pretty high-profile names.

I would imagine Dash is getting traction on darknets, but I haven't seen anything on that one lately

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Various governments were not happy with BitCoins ... I'm sure this will drive them crazy x10 if it catches on.

</comment><comment><USER28> It's kind of frustrating as a person wanting a decentralised payments system having to work with people who want the most anonymous payments system possible.

Enabling anonymous financial actions _is the very definition_ of money laundering. Though the protocol could be freely distributed, any form of business built on it will have a lot of trouble existing in any useful form. Starting from that point is going to make your life so much harder.

And of course, the irony in trying to use Bitcoin as a basis for anonymous transactions is solved with Zerocoin. But I don't know how a law-abiding business can have reasonable knowledge of the parties in the transactions (a requirement to not be money laundering) without meeting the wishes of the fanbase.

<comment><USER29> Actually, anonymous financial transactions are quite common. Every time you purchase something with cash, the seller receives payment with no knowledge of who you are or how you got the money.

And the definition of money laundering is hiding the source of _illegally obtained_ money. An anonymous transaction isn't laundering if there's nothing dirty about the money in the first place.

<comment><USER30> Paying in cash involves turning up in person with cash. That's definitely not anonymous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Can someone ELI5 how Zcash works?

<comment><USER11> Zero Knowledge proofs take the place of a digital signature proving ownership of an address in Bitcoin.

Well, that's explain like you're a crypto undergrad. But, it's a start.

There's quite a lot of interesting cryptography and engineering involved in making this work; the last zerocash presentation I saw in 2014 mentioned they had been working on shrinking ZK proofs from 25k down to a manageable size for a blockchain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Does anyone know how anonymous transactions remain if e.g. law enforcement take your (unprotected) laptop from you?

I've got to say, I don't have much confidence in the company itself, specifically:

>Wilcox maintains his stealthy digital cash startup isn't intended to facilitate crime, but also notes that the company isn't liable for any criminal applications for which Zcash is used.

It's almost like they've never heard of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-gold) or its many, many variations.

<comment><USER33> > Does anyone know how anonymous transactions remain if e.g. law enforcement > take your (unprotected) laptop from you?

This is why you should do full disk encryption, and travel without your hard drive. At the end of the day, there's probably forensic methods on your laptop that would be far more damaging than just deanonymising your past transactions.

<comment><USER32> >This is why you should do full disk encryption, and travel without your hard drive. At the end of the day, there's probably forensic methods on your laptop that would be far more damaging than just deanonymising your past transactions.

While that's all very good and all, it doesn't really answer my question :)

<comment><USER33> > >This is why you should do full disk encryption, and travel without your > hard drive. At the end of the day, there's probably forensic methods on your > laptop that would be far more damaging than just deanonymising your past > transactions.

> While that's all very good and all, it doesn't really answer my question :)

I probably should've proceeded that with "I don't know, _but_ ".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Correct me if I am wrong, but to generate a Zcash coin you need to send a bitcoin to a escrow account, and to redeem it they will send a bitcoin from the escrow account to where ever you want?

I would be much more comfortable with generation being tied to destroying bitcoins or simply running yet another blockchain and letting the market deal with exchanges from BTC to Z.

Looks like they made some very cool progress though.

</comment><comment><USER35> But does it has the same scalability issues as Bitcoin?

If yes, I don't give crytocurrencies a single chance to replace the current currencies.

</comment><comment><USER36> Bitcoin is already very untraceable. Yes, there's a public ledger of all transactions, but it has no identifying information. There are some public addresses whose owners are known, because they volunteered that information. Exchanges also know the owners of certain addresses. But that's about it.

Bitcoin's address space is huge, something like 10^48. I can make a thousand of them in a few seconds, along with the private keys. I can send the money to any of them, and you will never know who owns it. I can send my money between these 1000 addresses as much as I want, and all you will see in the leger is money going from A to B to C, just like the rest of it.

Bitcoin network doesn't know any difference between me buying something on Overstock, or me sending the money to my brother across the globe, or to myself.

<comment><USER8> This video should give you a better idea of how anonymous Bitcoin is.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AypRF9q0llU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AypRF9q0llU)

There are also several startups dedicated to performing Bitcoin blockchain analysis for this specific purpose.

<comment><USER36> Do you realize that this video doesn't contradict what I said? The hacker got caught, and (some of) the money got returned, and that's what they are showing in that video.

If the guy didn't get caught, they would have never found anything, unless the thief is dumb enough to send these coins to his exchange.

If it were me, I would randomly mix 40,000 coins between random addresses, random amounts, random times for like a year. Never using the same address again. I would mix them with other coins. You might end up with 10,000 addresses holding random amounts of coins, but that's not a big deal at all. You need some cash? LocalBitcoins in a neighboring town. Or create an online business and buy your own product from yourself. Or build a website, put ads on it, and buy quality traffic with bitcoin (arbitrage).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Oh good, Roger Ver is involved as an investor.

Steer clear, fellas. Steer clear.

<comment><USER38> Mind explaining who this is, and why this is an issue?

(I genuinely have no idea, and I figure you can probably explain better than a Google search could.)

<comment><USER37> His wikipedia page is a good place to start:

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

* He sold explosives on ebay back in the day, and went to prison for it.

* He renounced his US citizenship to avoid paying taxes...

* ...but was for some reason VERY annoyed when the US government wouldn't let him back in.

* Of _course_ he funded Ross Ulbricht's defense in the Silkroad trial.

Mostly though, he is the subject of waaaay too many posts on /r/buttcoin. Who you take money from shows what kind of organization you want to build. ZCash is currently failing this test for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Rather than recreate, they should see what Dashcoin is doing. IMHO Dash is the most progressive altcoin working to fix major issues found with Bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER40> Can someone explain how these "Zero Knowledge Proofs" are "untraceable"?</comment>


In Google Earth, a Service for Scanning the Heavens - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/technology/22sky.html?ex=1345435200&en=54c20b9d89f2e2df&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

<comment><USER2> totally flippin sweet, a copernican revolution if you will, vive la revolution, companeros!</comment>


Blippy Reborn - GIF's on your iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20131114/new-blippy-mobile-app-will-help-you-find-the-perfect-reaction-gif/

<comment><USER2> Slick tool --

Definitely amplifies the ability of anyone to create novel GIFs to share with friends.

Something tells me there is a pretty big audience for this tool. I dig it!

</comment><comment><USER3> Animated GIF are the worse-is-better solution of moving images, yet I can't argue with their popularity.

<comment><USER4> what are the main problems with animated GIFs in your mind? for us being playable in just about every context on the web/mobile was really important

<comment><USER5> One problem that I can think of is that the palette for each frame is restricted to 255 colors. That being said, there really isn't any other widely-supported option at this point :-).

I like the app concept! Nice work!

<comment><USER6> Blippy co-founder here. Yes, GIF is a really old format. We have to work a lot on optimizing for performance. Surprising that it is the only popular one that allowed any animation. Others like Animated PNG did not take off.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My first thought was "what do automated sharing of purchases have to do with animated GIFs?"

<comment><USER4> hahaha... well, they're both silly ideas? :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We're really excited to bring GIFs to the iPhone!</comment>


9 Die in Fire Destroying Argentine Iron Mountain Bank Archives - <AUTHOR> http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/die-fire-destroying-argentine-bank-archives-22373564

<comment><USER2> * a fire of unknown origin that destroyed an archive of corporate and banking industry documents *

That's not suspicious at all, is it? Let's see, nobody, especially not the banks or their holders, lose money, but records about where the money came from, who allowed it in and out, those records are all gone.</comment>


Show HN: UniFi – Custom external guest portal (go, docker) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/johnweldon/guest-portal <comment><AUTHOR> I had a hard time finding a customizable UniFi external guest portal, other than ones written in PHP.

This is a Go and Docker solution that fits my home needs - feel free to review, comment, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: Browsers Crashed When Streaming from Netflix - <AUTHOR>

I was trying to stream movies from Netflix and my browsers (I.E. 8, Firefox 3.5) all crashed on two different PC with Win 7 and XP. Does anybody know how to correct the problem? Thanks! <comment><USER2> Try this : <http://www.opera.com/></comment>


The High Frontier, Redux (On Space Colonization) - <AUTHOR> http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html

<comment><AUTHOR> mechanical_fish:

 _I'm not at all sure that we have the means to make the Earth less habitable than the Moon or Mars. The Moon is pretty darned uninhabitable. Mars likewise. Assuming the absolute worst of the nuclear winter hypotheses to be true, we could perhaps destroy most of the higher life on Earth. But even after a nuclear winter the Earth would still have substantial amounts of water and oxygen, and almost certainly a functioning biosphere of some sort. [1] Which is more than can be said for the Moon or even Mars. Meanwhile, we most certainly don't have the technology to reach an extrasolar Earth-like planet, and spending tens of billions of dollars to have humans dork around in near- solar orbit won't change that fact one bit. If you really do dream of settling other planets, you need to spend far fewer dollars on far more radical experiments. Or you need to read Charles Stross:[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2007/06/the_high...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog- static/2007/06/the_high_frontier_redux.html) Possibly both. \-- [1] Bacteria are hard to kill. Many of them thrive on the lightless ocean floor at extremely high temperatures. And unicellular creatures built our oxygen atmosphere, so the loss of it probably won't bother them too much._

Originally from this thread: From this thread - <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=832280></comment>


Police activity blotter in an expensive zip code (Atherton, CA) - <AUTHOR> http://imgur.com/a/aNPaI

<comment><USER2> Haha...so funny..Atherton seems such a quiet area whenever I drive thru that but I know a lot of Silicon Valley hot shots live there so city must have good policing. Some of the calls are just funny though.</comment>


The AWS Milan region is now open - <AUTHOR> https://www.allthingsdistributed.com/2020/04/aws-launches-europe-milan-region.html <comment><AUTHOR> Data transfer on par with first tier regions. S3 a hair more expensive (starts at 2.4 cents per GB rather than 2.3). All in all, not bad price-wise.</comment>


ESPN Developer Center - <AUTHOR> http://developer.espn.com/ <comment><USER2> Despite the restrictions, I actually thought this would be cool. Maybe I can cook something up something useful for myself and my friends?

However... NO SCORE DATA in the free API?! That's the only useful information. Just limit free API usage so I can at least toy with it without having to completely sell my soul.

So basically, all I can do through the public API is pull news headlines. Without paying ESPN, all I can build is a free app (no ads either!) and use it to add headlines to direct traffic to your site. There is no incentive for any developer to use this.

Here's a hint ESPN: you already have free "Headlines API." They're called RSS feeds.

<http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?page=rssinfo>

There, every headline you could want from ESPN.

Oh, you want something more specific? Here, I just created my own feed for LSU Baseball: <http://search.espn.go.com/rss/lsu-baseball/>

</comment><comment><USER3> CBSSports.com <http://developer.cbssports.com/> launched a similar product a few months back - it seems to be going well and offers more data than ESPN does, including fantasy data. My initial reaction is that ESPN hastily cooked this up as a response to what CBS did.

Disclaimer, I work for CBS Interactive, the parent company of CBS Sports.

<comment><USER4> The TOS is horrible.

"Your Application must be designed to permit CBSi to comply with it's Privacy Policy, which may be updated by CBSi from time to time without notice to you. "

Pretty much everything in the TOS is some variant of "you must comply with this" and "we are not responsible for notifying you when we change it." This seems like a raw deal to me.

Updating for bugs is hard enough. But, this API forces developers to comply with UI guidelines (which are impossible to even write tests for) without anything back.

The API even requires that all financial transactions go through CBSi. Wow.

<comment><USER4> Apple and other app stores have gotten a lot of shit for changing requirements of their app stores, and rightly so. But, they started with compelling and clear offerings of the opportunity. The TOS of this API look so terrible up front I would not consider using it as a small developer. If your bosses at CSBi want to attract these types of people, I would recommend coming up with a tiered approach. ESPN does this better in this case.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I checked out their FAQ. Holy restrictions Batman. I've been wanting to do something with score data for awhile but with this many restrictions, why bother? I'll just crawl the data from other sources. Good effort ESPN...

<comment> a-priori I quote from <http://developer.espn.com/terms>:

      The following default rules apply to all Apps:

      - Branding. All Apps must include an approved ESPN trademark, logo or other
        intellectual property (each, an "ESPN Mark").

      - Advertising. No advertising or sponsorship of any kind may appear on or be
        associated with any App (unless included in the Content made available by
        ESPN).

      - No Charge. All Apps must be offered free of charge to download or
        otherwise access and may not contain any in-App purchase features.

      If you are interested in creating a for-profit App, please
      contact us at email@example.com to discuss a
      potential partnership opportunity. All for-profit Apps
      must be pre-approved in writing by ESPN (such approval to
      be granted or withheld in ESPN's sole discretion). To the
      extent any for-profit Apps are approved in writing by ESPN
      (in its sole discretion), you will be solely responsible
      for any and all taxes due in connection with the
      distribution of such App in any territory.

Kind of limits the use cases...

<comment><USER6> Word on the street is that ESPN has a tendency to listen to an idea, not make the deal, and build it themselves instead. So even going the partnership route is risky...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Reading their Terms of Service... Section 3...

"Branding. All Apps must include an approved ESPN trademark, logo or other intellectual property (each, an "ESPN Mark"). Advertising. No advertising or sponsorship of any kind may appear on or be associated with any App (unless included in the Content made available by ESPN). No Charge. All Apps must be offered free of charge to download or otherwise access and may not contain any in-App purchase features."

Correct me if I'm wrong - but they've made it impossible to monetize my effort, correct? I don't see how this will go anywhere if that is the case. It seems like they just want developers to build extra ESPN apps for them, and then give them all away for free. Ugh.

<comment><USER8> They explain how to contact them if you'd like to sell an app. The idea is that they do not want you earning money from their data without them getting a cut. Similar to how Apple does not allow you to use their distribution channel without taking a cut.

<comment><USER7> Apple's solution is _much_ more clear, however. Before you ever develop an app, you know to expect a 70/30 cut. If ESPN provided those details upfront, I'd be much happier. As it stands, seems like quite a risk to take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Too bad ESPN half-assed this. The pro sports industry is so perfect for doing awesome data-based products. All that data that drives all the on-screen stats/replays/camera angles during a TV broadcast... you could just build awesome interfaces around that. Stuff that would greatly enhance entertainment for sports nuts and casual fans.

The data is there. The tech is here. It's the lawyers holding this back. And the CEOs who think they'll still be able to rake in huge profits from selling TV rights 5 years from now.

ESPN, you know cableTV is what made you, you should be smart enough to realize that cableTV has started its decline.

Would love to see ESPN/Disney/ABC partner with Apple to build a real interactive TV platform.

<comment><USER10> "Would love to see ESPN/Disney/ABC partner with Apple to build a real interactive TV platform."

With Iger being on the Apple board of directors and recently purchasing a chunk of AAPL stock for himself, it's quite possible that he'll do whatever he can to help Apple get access to ESPN/Disney/ABC content.

Probably not going to happen but to entertain a wild speculative guess, he could finesse an AAPL buyout of Disney/ESPN/ABC too if the partnership is successful from their business viewpoints.

<comment><USER9> There is an incredible opportunity for Dis/ESPN/ABC to partner with Apple. They have amazing content. That kind of content deal with a new AppleTV is the kind of thing that would finally fundamentally change the whole TV platform, I think at a level that your normal consumer would understand and want.

Lots of family-friendly products too, which is something that is always key for both companies.

The time is now. Consumers are increasingly not seeing the value in cable TV any more, where is that $100+/month going to go? Apple, Amazon, Netflix? Apple has the closest thing to a real TV app platform, and lots of developers behind it too. The content is the missing piece.

Possibly an indicator of how this will go: watch what the newspaper/mag/book publishers do with a new retina iPad. Do they finally embrace? Do they stop putting out glorified PDFs of their print products and calling them digital magazines? Was Apple able to partner with anyone for the iPad3 launch? 5 years from now it's going to be an expensive luxury to get a printed newspaper or magazine delivered to your house. Everyone is ready for this EXCEPT the content producers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Good job ESPN. I was excited about this until I registered and realized I could only use headline data. This thing is completely useless without giving everyone access to at least two more data streams. (No scores?!) FAIL.

Nice try though.

</comment><comment><USER12> I really wish they shared score data, as thats most relevant to me. headline data only drives more traffic to them. You apparently have to be a premium partner to get the "good" data. <http://developer.espn.com/docs>

<comment><USER13> Yeah, this is really unfortunate. I run a game thread generator for the NBA subreddit (essentially just builds a nice pre-game data table for a user to create a thread), I guess it's going to stick with insane scraping for now: <https://github.com/alex/nba-gamethread>

<comment><USER14> Very cool Alex. I was actually seriously considering advertising in the /r/NBA reddit. It seems like it has a loyal following of well informed fans. Just what I love! :)

The only problem is that I'm not sure how many play fantasy basketball.

<comment><USER13> I don't play fantasy basketball myself, but from reading the comments a lot of the other commenters do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> ESPN Exec: Hey, we should have one of those API things like Facebook does. Just make sure we don't give away any of our data. Developer: Sigh. Ok.

<comment><USER16> That's about right. Without teams/scores/standings an ESPN API is useless. Fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Congrats ESPN. You're going to get a lot of boring derivatives of what you already have. Meanwhile, developers interested in making money will build right around you. There has been staggeringly little innovation in products for sports fans. ESPN is ensuring that "the Worldwide Leader" doesn't appear anywhere on the next great product.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm hoping the data available at the "premium partner" level will come down to the basic users as time goes on, and it's just to make sure nothing is overwhelmed the first week or so.

For those curious, the API limits for basic users:

>1 Calls per second

>2,500 Calls per day

<comment><USER19> Don't bet on it. A lot of sports data is highly encumbered by copyright.

<comment><USER9> You sure? Facts can't be copyrighted, I think sports scores are considered facts.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately, some people think facts can be copyrighted: see [http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/football- dataco...](http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/football-dataco- statement-010312.html)

<comment><USER21> I'm sure like a lot of other things it's open to a countries laws and interpretation. According Corynne McSherry, EFF's Intellectual Property Director, "It's a fundamental principle of copyright law that facts are not copyrightable" State side something like this should be ok.

However, it doesn't sound like the same protection is afforded in the UK with regards to the English and Scottish Premier Leagues based on the link you provided.

Source: [https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-wins-protection- time-...](https://www.eff.org/press/releases/eff-wins-protection-time-zone- database)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> A lot of people seem to be surprised about the ToS for this.

It sounds to me to be clearly a tool for _fans_ , not "Entepreneurs". I know _tons_ of people who would love to analyze sports data for enjoyment, not profit. Since the data is so hard to get access to anyway, this API is a way to let those who are interested play around with things without being a potential competitor. ESPN wins, fans win. "Sort of like Zynga for sports- focused Foursquare groups" gets no dice, apparently.

</comment><comment><USER23> For Fanvibe (YC S'10) we looked at a variety of sports stats providers, including TSN, Stats, and SportsDirect (who we used). These are the guys that license all the structured data to ESPN and others. No matter who you work with, its pretty painful to use this data and their schemas. And they all make you sign paying contracts before you can play with the data.

We used services like Superfeedr to grab a variety of RSS feeds, including ESPN's, to grab headlines.

ESPN, CBS Sports, the Yahoo Fantasy Football API are all middlemen when it comes to sports. The only thing they own is original video content (talking heads, not highlights) and their headlines & articles. Don't look to them for the solution. Its a big step forward for an organization like ESPN to do this, but its going to be much slower than the speed of tech-focused companies that are the usual on HN.

From my experience, better to build around ESPN and others than to try to work with them to push innovation forward.

Disclaimer: I'm one of the founders of Fanvibe, and also used to work at ESPN.

</comment><comment><USER24> Please don't call me a nerd.

</comment><comment><USER25>
      if(ESPN_API.CommercialApplications == NOT_ALLOWED)
      {
        // Work for free to further ESPN brand
        // Can't make any money
        ESPN.GoPoundSand(TRUE);
      }
      else
      {
        // Now they are being realistic
        // We can all make some money
        ESPN.MaybeYouHaveADeal(TRUE);
      }

</comment><comment><USER26> I've also looked into licensing live sports data from Stats, Inc. and it is prohibitively expensive (i.e. tens of thousands of dollars to get started). It seems like the timing is right for a crowdsourced solution for live sports data that is developer friendly.

<comment><USER14> That is a heck of an idea. Live data is definitely out of my price and would love to help if someone decided to crowdsource live stats. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sports is a huge market that is dangerously behind the access curve. We built Football Verdict (<http://www.footballverdict.com>) using QuickStats, which was a reliable NFL score service.

</comment><comment><USER28> I've always wanted to set up my own fantasy league for football (UK), but the data is prohibitively expensive. Any move to make stats more available can only be a good thing, even if it's not exactly perfect (yet).

<comment><USER29> If you've got time on your hands and you aren't trying to run a live exchange, it's not that hard to write something that checks into Yahoo! Sports, or the madduxsports lines or linesmaker.com and scrapes the scores and lines every few hours.

Or you can try OddsMiner.com, I don't know what their pricing is like but if it's a small project it sounds like they're flexible.

<comment><USER28> Thanks for the sources, will look into them. OddsMiner could be useful.

My first reaction was to scrape data, but as it's for a fantasy league, which runs for at least an entire season, there is a good chance the scraper will break a few times during the season, potentially requiring a re-write. This isn't ideal if on the week it breaks I don't have time to update the code.

<comment><USER30> I scrape ESPN data for this tool:

<http://recaps.raptorsrepublic.com/>

Generates recaps/box-scores that are used by....yup, ESPN TrueHoop bloggers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> So how does one become a 'Premium Partner'? Can't seem to find out how.

<comment><USER32> It's confusing too. The API suggest 4 tiers but then in the FAQ it mentions 3 tiers. The top tier is for ESPN itself?

ESPN: "Hey guys we are cool, right? We opened up our API so that anyone at ESPN can use. Let's tell the world!!"

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> So they're asking us to build apps that perpetuate their branding and marketing efforts without giving us the opportunity to generate revenue.

Pass. Nerds.

</comment><comment><USER34> I work for a company that does the sports websites for a lot of college clients, we provide tons of rss feeds with scores, schedules, news, and all kinds of other information all for free. ESPN is in this to help themselves from it, not to get the information out there and help fans.

</comment><comment><USER35> I was researching a local sports startup about 10 years ago, but the barrier to entry was so high that it was impossible to even build an MVP without outside funding. Professional sports is an industry that will be dominated by the major outlets for many years to come.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'd begin taking this seriously the day they started making the Wisden cricket database available. For quite some time now, I've been looking for the ball- to-ball accounts of cricket matches since the formation of the ICC.

</comment><comment> angry-hacker Does anyone have some alternatives? Someone already mentioned cbs sports. But some API that have access too football (soccer for Americans) league tables, match times, scores etc.

</comment><comment><USER37> its very limiting who wants to access new we want to access scores, league match schedule etc, this api is very limiting

</comment><comment><USER38> check out <http://xmlteam.com/fod/>. Pay as you. I was considering them except my site does not generate enough (any) money to justify the cost. Ended up using YQL to scrape the data from another site.

<comment><USER30> I consult for XMLTeam, and if you call them up, explain what you're trying to do, they'll be reasonable about it. Good guys, there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Please have an espn3 api, please have an espn3 api, please have an espn3 api...

well darn!

</comment><comment><USER40> The landing page makes a nerd joke. How cliché.

</comment><comment><USER41> ESPN is one of the greatest brokers of all time.

</comment><comment><USER42> time for a Fantasy Hockey app! Just in time for the end of the season!</comment>


What Ticketmaster is doing about technical debt - <AUTHOR> http://tech.ticketmaster.com/2015/06/30/what-ticketmaster-is-doing-about-technical-debt/ <comment><USER2> Look at them cleverly placing themselves next to prominent systems like the air traffic controller, while toting their millions of lines like it's some sort of accomplishment. For a business that really only needs to accomplish two things to make their customers happy: 1) print tickets and 2) stop scalpers, they do absolutely terrible at those 2 things. I don't mean terrible as in they do the job poorly, it's just that they care 0% about the user experience during the entire ticketing process from end-to-end.

<comment><USER3> Ticketmaster is essentially enterprise software-as-a-service: the people buying it (the venues) are not the people using it. From that perspective, complaints are not surprising at all.

<comment><USER4> Agreed I helped out a uk cinema system with their system based on the effective monopoly supplier's system.

It was "interesting" in the Chinese sense but an absolute PITA to work with.

And that's not mention the WAN linking the cinemas based on packet radio that blocked :-)

<comment><USER5> > "interesting" in the Chinese sense

What's that?

<comment><USER6> Possibly a reference to a supposed ancient Chinese saying "May you live in interesting times". "Interesting" here means dangerous and troubling in contrast to "uninteresting" or peaceful and stable.

It's actually neither Chinese nor ancient: [http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/may-you-live-in- interesti...](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/may-you-live-in-interesting- times.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems nobody has reviewed the actual article... So, I will: it's great. I could see this model, esp illustrations, getting somewhere with lay management that run things by the numbers and ROI. I'd like to try it on bankers given they're experts on getting people stuck in debt. Last thing they want to do is be caught in their own type of trap. I'd like to see more work like this, esp improving manual measurement areas.

<comment><USER8> Can you summarize how they _quantitatively_ measure aspects of tech debt? Because that seems to be a hard problem and I kind of don't believe that they have pulled off this feat

<comment><USER7> It's described on the page along with qualitative measurements they use. They used each where it made sense to produce something pretty solid for management to work with. The alternatives are currently... I don't know any...

So, until I see them, I think they did a good job going from using a vague concept to practical metrics. Baby steps, for sure, but with immediate, payoff potential.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not to disparage the hard work of the techies there, but as a de facto monopoly, Ticketmaster can probably survive technical debt better than most.

<comment><USER10> They could just add yet another surcharge to cover it and what can we do?

Basically nothing.

<comment><USER11> "Server operation fee....$15.00"

<comment><USER12> "Server Delivery fee: $11.25"

Yeah, I'm beating on them. But I worked at a Ticketmaster outlet in college, and the convenience fee was only $2. That paid for the special ticket printing machine, the leased line to their network, and the blank ticket stock & ink rolls. These days, they don't have those costs as the customers are the ones supplying the hardware, internet connection, and doing the printing. So there's no reason for the high fees.

Story time: Our best customers? Grateful Dead fans. They were happy to sit anywhere. Worst customers? Sports fans. "Can you show me that other seat? Can I see better from there?" "I'm sorry, that seat was sold to someone else."

<comment><USER3> >These days, they don't have those costs as the customers are the ones supplying the hardware, internet connection, and doing the printing. So there's no reason for the high fees.

Unless you buy tickets online, as the vast majority of people do.

<comment><USER12> I think you misunderstand. The customers (people buying tickets) are using their own computers, their own internet connection, and their own printers (with that oh-so-cheap ink) to buy and print their event tickets these days. So Ticketmaster is no longer supplying all that specialized equipment to the stores and no longer has those costs.

<comment><USER13> For some venues and ticket types, you can just let them scan the PDF on your phone. For a subset of those, there's an actual mobile ticket type where the only way to get in is to show the ticket from the TicketMaster/LiveNation app, and there is no PDF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Firstly I'll admit, I don't buy many tickets in general. However the times I used Ticketmaster I've had a neutral to positive experience. I'm always a bit annoyed at the service fees. But it takes little time to buy them, and the tickets go straight into my inbox. Whatever. I think there are more pressing issues to complain about

<comment><USER15> If you've ever tried to purchase tickets for a concert that you know would be sold out, the process is horrendous.

I mean, they know when they'll have a surge in customers (there's a freakin countdown clock to the purchase time) and yet they still can't set up something more elastic that actually allows me to load the page?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Could somebody please disrupt this business! No user likes Ticketmaster and their "service fees".

<comment><USER17> You can't disrupt Ticketmaster's service fees because _it 's the venues and the peformers_ that are also profiting from those service fees.

Apparently, Ticketmaster's business model is based on taking the negative public relations hit for charging higher prices on behalf of their customers.

If you create a startup called CheaperTickets.com with the noble intention of not charging those hated service fees, you won't get any customers. (Keep in mind it's _the venues & the artists_ that are the real customers of Ticketmaster and not the ticket buyers). The venues _want_ the lucrative cut of the service fees while Ticketmaster gladly takes the heat.

[1][http://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants- band...](http://www.laweekly.com/music/ticketmaster-and-servants-bands-get- cut-of-service-fee-2158605)

[2][http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1xlt0i/til_ti...](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1xlt0i/til_ticketmasters_service_charge_fees_are_added/)

<comment><USER18> I don't know TM's numbers, but I know it is correct that processing fees are not always going 100% to the ticketing company. My company is in the music business and one of our products is for internal ticket sales. We collect fees on behalf of the seller. The sellers portion varies, but is usually about 75% of the fee - meaning that we, the processor, are only getting 25% of the fee that the customer sees.

<comment><USER19> Similarly, I've worked for an organization that charges a per ticket service fee. They take a 100% cut off this, when you consider their ticketing contract was negotiated as a fixed annual cost, not a per-ticket or %-of-revenue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Strange how no-one here seems to have actually read the article. Do people have thoughts on how they handle technical debt and manage code quality? This was a well thought out way of structurally improving code quality in a code base that supports a big business driving 10billion$+ transaction volume. Do people have a better solution to what they should be doing?

RE:disrupting their business model, why is charging money for a service wrong? You cannot keep things for free by burning VC money. That only lasts so long...

</comment><comment><USER21> Technical Debt Fee: $15.00.

Problem solved, no?

</comment><comment><USER22> I never had a good experience using Ticketmaster. I doubt more tests is going to solve that.

</comment><comment><USER23> What about moral debt?

</comment><comment><USER24> They couldn't easily define or decide what technical debt was? Wow.

</comment><comment><USER25> How an individual business has more lines of code than the largest and most complex scientific experiment ever conceived by human beings is...I dunno, embarrassing?

</comment><comment><USER26> What is Ticketmaster doing about outrageous fees?

<comment><USER27> chuckling nervously?</comment></comment>