Metrics and Monitoring at Soundwave, a Music Tech Startup - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@davefromdublin/the-noise-and-the-signal-metrics-monitoring-and-alarming-at-soundwave-c544d2527e75 <comment><USER2> David, Awesome article. Performance metrics collection is becoming a real interest of mine. What application do you guys use for your dashboards?

<comment><USER3> Datadog - [http://datadog.com](http://datadog.com)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What will you build in 2020? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Okaq Human Play Lab

Collecting data on "How Humans Play"

Nano games measuring: human reaction time, human memory test and global psychism assessment(!) to be released imminently

Screengrab:

[http://okaq.github.io/reax_0.png](http://okaq.github.io/reax_0.png)</comment>


Ask HN: How bad is the employee turnover at Amazon for SDEs in Seattle? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> A friend of mine who just left amazon said that the average tenure was only 18 months. He had been there 2.5 years at the time which is way longer than the rest of the folks he worked with.

Which sounds insane to me.

<comment><USER3> Did your friend share any reasons why the turnover is so high? I've heard Amazon pays well and it seems like there would be interesting work to do.

Is the environment bad or do people just find it easier to move up to better jobs at different companies once they have some experience with Amazon on their resume?

<comment><USER4> Anecdotal at best, but from a friend who worked there, I gleaned that the pay was not particularly good. They were overworked and there was on-call which came with quite a bit of stress since my friend spent quite a few sleepless nights on calls. Lastly, it seems there was not a lot of room for advancement.

<comment><USER5> The consistent element in every story I've heard from Amazon is that it's crazy stressful. I get the impression that they've basically made burnout a corporate value.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm going to say 25%, so the company replaces 10k SDE's every four years at a cost of $4.5 billion dollars (based on 4x salary replacement cost and 10k SDEs). Why 4x? There's an army of HR and recruiting people. There's tens of thousands of interviews. And people don't really start paying off until their third or fourth year in a new job.

<comment><USER7> I'd love to see a citation on that 3 or 4 year payoff note.</comment></comment>


Stop Styling React Components with JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/front-end-developers/stop-styling-react-components-with-javascript-8b4a7ec96eea#.c2us4m1j8 <comment><USER2> The author didn't even mention speed. Dynamically injected styles will always be slower than static stylesheets. Unless you have a very compelling edge case, use JavaScript for what it was intended: functionality.

</comment><comment><USER3> Styling in js != styling inline</comment>


FINRA takes a hard look at usefulness of Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://www.cyberscoop.com/finra-securities-blockchain-whitepaper/ <comment><AUTHOR> The white paper (.pdf) ::

[http://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/FINRA_Blockchain_Re...](http://www.finra.org/sites/default/files/FINRA_Blockchain_Report.pdf)

<comment><USER2> This primary source would probably be a better submission than the mostly empty blog post.</comment></comment>


SpaceX Plans to Start Launching Rockets Every Two to Three Weeks - <AUTHOR> http://fortune.com/2017/02/07/spacex-rocket-launch-falcon-9/ <comment><USER2> Maybe there will be something to watch regularly after the long pause? Let's hope nothing bad happens even though the launch frequency would go up by a factor of more than 2.

</comment><comment><USER3> Although I'm a SpaceX fan, I wouldn't hold my breath. They have been saying that for a while. (I would be happy if they prove me wrong though.)</comment>


Povio, the polite photo app that students love, joins YC's winter batch - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/24/povio-the-polite-photo-app-that-students-love-joins-ycs-winter-batch/ <comment><USER3> Definitely a good "disruption" to all the noise that is broadcast on twitter + instagram by all those that you follow. I think they also nail it pretty much with their tagline: _Play photo ping and stay in touch with friends_

If the founders are reading this, was this the original idea ? If not, I'd love to know what did you all start with, and how you all pivoted to this particular idea? (Crunchbase says: founded in October 2012)

<comment><USER4> I came up with an idea when I was on the top of a snowboard ramp(i was a snowboard pro), trying to capture the moment and share it with my friends over Instagram. But it felt like bragging, I didn't want to collecting likes, comments and build my ego. Than I thought - if my friends would ask me where I am right now, I would be glad to show them and it would feel totally unintrusive!

So that was the initial idea for pull photo sharing app!

<comment><USER5> As a beta user for a year or so: it really feels good to be pinged. :)

And it's great entertainment to just browse what friends have been doing for last 24h.

+1 from me

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What did I just read? I have really, really low standards for web content, but this seriously reads like a fifth grade book report. "Povio is for now 100% focused on growth. It actually sounds like Povio has some kind of shot in the space."

<comment><USER4> That's true! But doing things that only have 1% chance is exciting. That's what life is all about! You know what is even harder? What has even lass that 1% chance? Winning a World Cup in bigair snowboard competition!

And I managed to do that 4 times.. If I don't choose the hardest tasks out there, my life would be boring ...

Easy as that.

<comment><USER7> OP is quoting and criticizing the article's writing not startup odds.

<comment><USER6> What's going on here...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interesting idea. A couple of suggestions: 1) Don't do the auto countdown thing with the camera. Just let me take a picture. 2) My knee jerk reaction when I received a photo was to ping my friend for another one right away. In fact all my friends did this until we got fed up with each other. Maybe limit pings to once an hour or something. 3) Give comments more focus. If someone sends me a photo I want to interact with them about it. Maybe that's why I'm heading to ping them so quickly...

Otherwise I'm happy to see a novel approach to social networking.

<comment><USER9> Definitely agree on getting rid of the countdown feature. It's definitely bad as a first user experience; almost certain the first picture anyone takes will be bad and they may not see the "Slide down to retake" text.

Also, I like to be able to send text with the picture too, just to give a bit of context. I really imagine using this as a reverse Snapchat that let's me get pictures instead of sending them. Being able to give context to the picture is great. On a related note. I like being able to see comments on a picture when scrolling through the feed. Making the comment viewing section a separate screen in the app makes it less useful.

Also as a comparison to Snapchat. How long do the pictures stay around. Forever?

<comment><USER10> Agree, it can be a little tricky for 1st experience...but for the ones that stay, is a convenient feature.

I think the comment next to the pic would make it worse - pics are the easiest/the fastest way of consuming the content. This is why the News feed is now really light - you can scroll/check out new pics really fast, and I like that. If I want "heavier News feed", I go to Twitter/FB/...

Pic stays in the News feed for 24h, as far as I know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Instead of creeps silently going through photo feeds, they can directly ping you for more photos!

Seriously though, I hope this idea catches on and it can possibly be the start of a trend of social media users becoming more "humble". It would be nice to see things flipped on it's head and move away from the push model of "here I am, here is a constant stream of useless shit about me".

<comment><USER12> Agreed. I definitely think this is the sort of thing that would encourage you to share photos with your close friends (would you ping a random stranger for updates?). Think many smaller circles, instead of gigantic newsfeeds.

However, by nature of that alone, photos thusly shared are more likely to be of a private sort. I'm curious about what level of privacy these guys will offer and how they intend to back it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Is this thread being astroturfed? So many lo-karma/zero-karma commenters.

<comment><USER14> You actually went and checked? :)

<comment><USER13> A lot of the comments look like Yelp reviews from the cousins of a pizza shop owner.

<comment><USER14> Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the team is Slovenian, and we're quite proud of what these guys have achieved, and if we can help in any way, we do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "Photo apps today are about a traditional feed model — you post, and it gets pushed out. The problem with that is it does not work terribly well with shy people – and into that category fall millions of teenagers."

Shy people still won't ping others. Don't see how this will solve that problem.

Oh well.

<comment><USER16> Shy people will get pinged by their friends and feel like they've been invited to share. I think that's what they're getting at, not positive.

<comment><USER17> Yeah, it's flattering _and_ would make me want to take a picture to oblige. Very clever.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I really liked the idea, so I just tried it out on my android tablet. Of course critical social networking mass isn't there yet, so I wanted to invite some friends.

Here are a couple of things I noticed * It took me a while to figure out that the app wanted to send invitations via SMS, which of course want working on my tablet. * you can't uninvite the people you've invited (tapping should toggle the invite state) * there isn't any OK button to send the invites.

</comment><comment><USER19> Really nice idea, and I love the name! Out of interest, does anybody know how they went about seeding it in a university? The article just skips over it as a quick step along transitioning to SV, but it sounds really hard to do.

</comment><comment><USER20> I like the concept, and event want to use this, but maybe you can have more thought put in to the example friends. I do not categorize my friends as Mr. Example, Miss Hotty, and Best Buddy....especially as a woman. The Miss Hotty is especially creepy - you want guys to send pings to just hot girls? This feels like harassment.

<comment><USER21> Pretty cheesy right?, I wrote my thoughts about it in this post [https://medium.com/p/c0cc85f9c6db](https://medium.com/p/c0cc85f9c6db)

<comment><USER20> "Mr. Example shares a photo of his delicious food, Best Buddy shows off his coffee and Miss Hotty shares a photo of her lingerie laying on her bed and a body shot in a changing room. "

Wow! I did not get to that screen, but that's seriously disturbing. Thanks for posting. Surprised none of the mentors at YC mentioned this to them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> One of the things I liked about Snapchat was the ability to find friends _without_ using Facebook. I think that would be a good addition here.

</comment><comment><USER23> How is it "joining" the winter batch? Isn't that batch just about done now?

</comment><comment><USER24> Great success story. @matevzpetek would you mind sharing more detailed steps on how you seeded the app at Santa Clara University? Impressive stats - <USER2> 4 weeks, 30% of the University's students – 1,200 students – signed up for Povio

</comment><comment><USER25> Android user here - anyone else having a difficult time using this app? So much of it feels like a hackathon hack. It's shoddy, unresponsive, and overcomplicated.

Take pinging for example, when I added a new friend (and she accepted) I couldn't ping her. The orange circle never showed up. I had to navigate to several different views for it to activate. Also, commenting on a photo opens a.... popupbox? What?

I think the idea is kinda fun and I hope these guys succeed, but I also think they need to rethink their UI.

</comment><comment><USER26> I like that this both starts a conversation and provides a conversation topic in the form of an appealing picture. Definitely would use this if it was in my area.

</comment><comment><USER27> This looks pretty interesting (I just saw a demo); the old facebook strategy of winning a specific college campus, then replicating to other campuses, seems to work well.

(It's also interesting how a world-class athlete has gone into startups; there are definitely a bunch on wall street and in sales, but doing a startup, outside sports, isn't as common I think. Pretty awesome.)

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm always taking a photo of my screen. I need blur functionality, because I don't want people to read my code. I solve this now by shaking the phone, but since I did this 500+ times already, you might consider a feature.

<comment><USER29> I think they shouldn't. Simplicity is the key of Povio and they are doing an amazing job at keeping it minimal ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've been using Povio for the last 3 months; pinging friends is incredibly fun, and the network effect it has is amazing.

Povio is a great way to stay in touch with remote friends.

</comment><comment><USER31> Very well done product video on their site. No voice over or explanation at all. Right into showing the product in a perfect use case. Catchy tune also!

</comment><comment><USER32> I'm addicted to POVIO! my friends and I are having a ball using it. much better and more chill than snap chat in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER33> I still don't get how this is different from just texting.. I must be too far out of the loop on this stuff.

</comment><comment><USER34> I really like this concept. This actually sounds like a photo app I would use, not just browse occasionally.

</comment><comment><USER29> been using this since the start and the evolution of the product is just amazing. The team is doing a wonderful job at simplifying everything around a very good core experience.

I hardly open Instagram these days and don't use Snapchat, but have been using Povio 5+ times/day over the last year.

</comment><comment><USER35> It's a really polished application (iOS), I was quite impressed when trying it out.

</comment><comment><USER36> How does Povio make money?

<comment><USER15> It doesn't. It waits to be bought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm using it on a daily basis, more than twitter actually.

</comment><comment><USER37> Love it! Way more useful than FB or Snapchat!

</comment><comment><USER38> I love this app. It is the most used 3rd party app on my iPhone. I cant imagine better way for fast communication with frends. Keep up the good work !!!

</comment><comment><USER39> I like this, I can see it being popular.

</comment><comment><USER40> Simple, fun & fun. I love it.

</comment><comment><USER10> The easiest way for staying in touch with my friends and family, love the simplicity.</comment>


Violence Against Women in Papua New Guinea - <AUTHOR> http://www.vladsokhin.com/work/crying-meri/ <comment><USER2> Port Moresby is one of the more dangerous places to travel, no matter what gender you are:

[https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/papua-new- guinea/sa...](https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/papua-new- guinea/safety-and-security)

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/22/population.dav...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/22/population.davidfickling)

[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/09/20129289...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2012/09/201292892518329408.html)

If you're male you're less likely to get raped by the local criminal gangs (who I presume are predominantly not interested in sexual relations with men), but just as likely to get stabbed/beaten/robbed and left in a ditch.

<comment><USER3> Thank you for saying that violence can happen to anyone. In Australia, we have a very sexist attitude toward violence. The media (and our own minister for sexism) only ever talk about male perpetrators and female victims.

This article mentions twice that the majority of victims are women(about 2/3), but it purposely ignores violence against men.

My wife said to me the other day, "today's society is more sexist than we've ever seen, isn't it". Unfortunately, I couldn't agree more.

Violence against anyone should be condemned, regardless of the gender of the perpetrator and the gender of the victim.

I like HN because it is less sexist than most information sources, however, the price of non-sexism is eternal vigilance. This article raises a tragic issue In an unnecessarily sexist way. My wife is right yet again.

<comment><USER4> As a fellow Australian, you're misrepresenting the issue. Yes, there is currently a government program to try and reduce domestic violence against women. Yes, domestic violence happens in the other direction, and in gay couples as well, but the preponderance of the damage done is received by women. It's a social problem, and the government's job is to try to help social problems.

There's also social movements around violence against men. Have a look at Aussie Rules and how 'family-oriented' it has become. Long gone are the days where playing on through a bloody face was a mark of honour. The official football groups condemn violence left, right, and centre. It's absolute nonsense that it's only violence against women that's being condemned.

If you honestly think today's Australia is more sexist than we've ever seen, then you haven't had a look at how it was before. Women were legally paid 2/3rds as much as men - my mother was a teacher in the 70s and tells that story. Similarly, it was shameful to be seen as simply being pregnant in public, let alone breastfeeding, and there was no male analogue for that, no physical state men could be in where they had to hide from public view. There is plenty more, so I'd strongly encourage you to look at the rights that first-wave feminists were fighting for, if you think that it's more sexist now than ever before.

<comment><USER5> He's not misrepresenting the DV policy when Turnbull makes comments like, quote: "domestic violence - which is just violence against women". 40% of DV homicide victims in Australia are male and 20% are children (52% of those kids killed by women). That's from Australian Institute of Criminology (2015) on 10 years of official National Homicide Monitoring Program data. Women aren't even the majority of DV homicide victims in Australia - and homicides are at the extreme end of gendered violence - let alone DV being exclusively against women. Yet DV funding & research in Australia is exclusively for women. ANROWS, WLS, White Ribbon, OurWatch, DV NSW & Vic (which are really Women's refuge, just renamed), etc etc. all have officially gender discriminatory chartered mandates and act accordingly. Funding isn't put towards "reducing DV" and assigned proportionately to injury or anything. It's assigned for "reducing DV against women", ONLY (or maybe 'women and their children', as if fathers simply don't exist). In NSW for instance, the DV portfolio isn't part of Health or Justice, but is officially owned by "Women NSW" (a genuine matriarchy). Now feminism is all well and good when in cases where it truly is about equal rights, fair opportunities, etc. But that's not what's going on here.

DV has become massively politicised, and if you can't recognise that, when a $30M media campaign is announced within 24 hours of a Federal election, then you're not paying attention. The DV agenda in Australia is far more about helping Turnbull look different to Abbott, because LNP was (rightfully) hemorrhaging in female voter polls. Every other party to the Left has just been trying to out-do him on that since.

If you're genuinely interested in reducing harm against women, then I recommend taking into account data like [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1854883/).

Australia is not PNG. Our DV problem is not caused by gender pay inequality etc. Neither is that the cause in most advanced economies (look at Scandinavian countries with up to 50% of women reporting DV, which having the highest rates of gender equality in pay, opportunities, etc in the world).

I agree first-wave feminism had a lot to fight for. I agree there's still issues for gender equality in Australia. But we're also completely ignoring other gender inequalities, like that 20% more women are graduating from universities today than men, while the overwhelming number of gender-based scholarships here still exclusively support women.

Australia has a long way to go before it starts truly understanding what being anti gender discrimination actually means. "The standard you want past is the standard you accept", should also imply a single standard. When we talk about violence being cause by a lack of respect in relationships, we should be dealing with that by building _mutual_ respect, not just building more gender divides. There's no discussion at all of the impact of psychological abuse in DV relationships against men, despite there being more male suicides every week than all the women killed in DV here each year. Nor is there of plenty of other issues related to DV.

I'm aware this is particularly sensitive topic in IT, because I _know_ discrimination against women still exists in a lot of companies. I've witnessed it more in private companies than public ones, but can attest that it varies WIDELY between companies. There's times when I've even sought to hire women over men, for the sole reason that some environments were severely unbalanced, that it was harming performance. There's also cases though where it goes the other way, including that women are generally paid more than males upon graduation in this industry (maybe the ones who make it through are better, but who knows).

Anyway, I just think the whole discussion needs to be FAR more nuanced than what we've seen across media and government.

<comment><USER4> You are making the mistake of assuming that DV is only represented by homicide counts. It's a bit like those anti-abortion campaigners who only use third- trimester abortion as their talking point, when third-trimester abortion accounts for less than 0.1% of abortions. Using the extreme case in place of the general case doesn't do anyone any favours. Your link does point out that violence swings both ways and that women tend to be the more violent partner, but it also points out that women are more likely to be injured. Men aren't getting dangerously injured by DV to the point where there's enough to support several battered men's shelters in every major city.

And you know something? "So what"? So what if women get this one in their favour? Who really gives a fuck? Men get plenty of other things in their favour, let the women 'win' one for once. I never see this kind of impassioned reasoning and stats-counting from men arguing for things that benefit women. Women's sport funding is an absolute joke in comparison to men's funding in this country, but I don't see frothy stats about that. Similarly there are government awareness programs targeting _men 's_ depression that women don't get. And is 20% more women graduating uni really that much of an advantage, given that men _heavily_ outgun women in trades apprenticeships (more lucrative than many uni degrees, certainly more lucrative than mine), and degrees mean less and less as time goes on?

You talk about building respect, but you're also arguing _against_ any effort that's not totally even-handed if it benefits women. Targeted campaigns work, and there's no reason why we can't have one for men in the future, but seriously, by demanding perfect you are being the enemy of good.

Yes, there's sexism against men. I remember in my early twenties when a woman who liked me punched me on the arm so hard it left a sizable bruise. I didn't mention it, because as a man you're 'supposed to just take it', and of course if I did the opposite it'd make the entire pub fall silent. Likewise, a hippy acquaintance of mine says that he feels like he can't watch children play in the park because people act like he's a paedophile, when he's just enjoying kids having fun. That doesn't mean we should mope about government initiatives because they don't target us. Do you decry any assistance aborigines get that white folks don't? Think that Abstudy is unfair compared to Austudy? Do you decry language assistance to immigrants because aussies don't get assistance to learn foreign languages?

I fully support the anti-domestic-violence ads, because they get this distasteful topic out into the open and overtly say "this is not on". I don't care that it's targeted to violence against women. It's a good thing in and of itself (the ads, not the violence :) ), and whether or not it's politically motivated is beside the point of the good it can do. And if you want actual gender equality, that means giving up a lot of things that us men take for granted, like the aforementioned sports funding.

Perhaps a better way for me to put it is this: stop whiteanting things that women have built to better their lot, and do something to better men's lot (or everyone's lot). I see this in a lot of complaints that men have about gender bias against men - they only start talking when women succeed at getting a project off the ground. I have _never_ seen a man talk about DV in a public forum without DV against women starting that conversation, and a decade ago I used to do the same thing: pointing out DV against men and supplying links, but only in response to discussion of DV against women. Thing is though, those projects to help people do take a lot of work, and they're better for society in general. So instead of decrying the ones that do exist, people should promote ones that aren't off the ground yet if they feel there's an imbalance. Do something constructive for the men (or for all), rather than destroying something for the women. Inevitably the "what about the men" is forgotten about until the next time a women's initiative takes off. So rather than say "God, that's sexist!", say "Fucking about time we got into a public discussion about DV and how to stop it!". Talking about DV doesn't mean we can't also talk about mental health, and it may even help strengthen the push to improve mental health.

I do agree that the topic is more nuanced, but the media, government, and general public aren't into talking that level of nuance (to whit: One Nation is going to get two senators and possibly a lower house seat, and Hanson makes Trump look educated).

<comment><USER5> > "And you know something? \"So what\"? So what if women get this one in their > favour? Who really gives a fuck? "

Maybe the rest of the family of kids who women bludgeoned to death, burnt alive, cut into pieces, stuffed down drains etc (all recent cases here). Maybe also the guys who've been stabbed a few too many times, hit in the back of the head with frying pans, etc.

p.s. Hospital record audits show extremely similar injuries for both genders from DV in Australia, with the exception that men present with more lacerations (because women use weapons more) and women present with slightly more bruising (because men rarely present unless life threatening). The only likely exception to that is Aboriginal communities, with somewhat different traditional gender roles (women at significantly higher risk) than the wider population and more commonly impacted by poverty, drugs & alcohol etc.

<comment><USER4> > _You are making the mistake of assuming that DV is only represented by > homicide counts._

I'm just going to quote myself here. You're both arguing from outliers and arguing from emotion.

Hell, fuck it. You win. The anti-DV campaign should stop because it's not completely even-handed. Fuck those infants beaten to death because their dads can't hear the footy. We should close down all the battered women's shelters as well. Those beaten humans with broken bones in their face are clearly benefitting at the expense of us males. Never mind that we can use success with anti-DV for women as a springboard for anti-DV for men, getting it into the public dialogue.

After all, if we can't help _everyone_ , then we shouldn't help _anyone_. Absolutely no step of the way shouldn't ever be even-handed. That would be unfair.

<comment><USER5> Was that you who flagged me for quoting your expletives? Or are you flagging me for quoting AIC 2015 data on 10 years on NHMP and case notes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Every day most of the crimes committed are against women from the Port Moresby slum areas._

Ah, systemic poverty rears its ugly head again. This is, no doubt, related in part to the fact that 97% of the land is owned as tribal land, which seriously hampers modern economic development:

 _The PNG legislature has enacted laws in which a type of tenure called "customary land title" is recognised, meaning that the traditional lands of the indigenous peoples have some legal basis to inalienable tenure. This customary land notionally covers most of the usable land in the country (some 97% of total land area);[56] alienated land is either held privately under state lease or is government land. Freehold title (also known as fee simple) can only be held by Papua New Guinean citizens.[57]

Only some 3% of the land of Papua New Guinea is in private hands_

American indigenous peoples also face this problem: You cannot get a mortgage to build a house if the land it sits on cannot be taken by the bank if you default on your payments. This is part of why indigenous peoples are so very poor.

I don't know what the answer is. Perhaps there is some answer that preserves the tribal lands system and also alleviates the stranglehold that has on development. But I have pondered this on and off over the years and come up with no ideas on how to fix it and have not yet seen anything written up that sounds plausible.

In the US, tribes that have improved their economic status seem to mostly do so by taking advantage of the legal loophole that they are sovereign states, not subjected to state laws, and they create casinos on their lands. This provides employment as well as becomes a cash cow for paying for schools and the like.

Most people do not think casinos represent serious economic development per se. It is a way to filch some wealth from the pockets of the white men that stole their lands, but real wealth is generally rooted in industry and commerce. Casinos are largely a means to redistribute money, not create new value. Merely redistributing money is very much decried as a bad thing when we do it in the form of welfare.

<comment><USER7> > Casinos are largely a means to redistribute money, not create new value. > Merely redistributing money is very much decried as a bad thing when we do > it in the form of welfare.

This would apply just as much to the music industry as it does to the gambling industry. Casinos _do_ create value; they create entertainment value. It doesn't become less valuable when a company you don't like produces it.

<comment><USER6> As someone who writes fiction, I respectfully disagree. Art, music and other forms of so called entertainment often elevate the mind and spirit, help people cope with emotional issues and accomplish a great deal more than pissing the night away.

Video games and other forms of entertainment are generally going to have more value for developing people than your typical game of gambling.

It has nothing to do with me personally disliking it. It has to do with me being concerned that this solution doesn't add real value to the system to help people eat nutritious food, breathe clean air and so on.

I think entertainment has real value for the human species. But not all entertainment is equally valuable.

<comment><USER7> > I think entertainment has real value for the human species. But not all > entertainment is equally valuable.

> It has nothing to do with me personally disliking it.

<comment><USER6> My father was a gambler. I deal left-handed because you couldn't have a relationship to him if you didn't play cards, so I learned to deal at age 4 when I was too young to understand that mirroring what he did caused it to be the opposite hand.

I caught him cheating when I was 12 because I was skinning him alive and his ego couldn't take it. We were betting with Christmas cookies and I was winning about 2/3s of the hands and he balked at that.

I have zero problem with gambling and I no way _dislike_ it.

I still believe that, generally speaking, music (your example of entertainment) as well as art, fiction and many other forms of entertainment generally provide greater value to the human race than gambling does.

So, please, kindly, stop with the ad hominems -- "YOU just don't like it" \-- which are against the rules here, and give me your argument as to why gambling has as much or more value as other forms of entertainment or kindly leave me alone.

Thanks.

<comment><USER7> > give me your argument as to why gambling has as much or more value as other > forms of entertainment or kindly leave me alone

I hardly need to do this; you are self-refuting.

You've said that better forms of entertainment produce value by "elevating the mind and spirit" (this is a raw statement of your personal values, not a phenomenon that can be observed) and "helping people cope with emotional issues" (as do all activities).

You've said that gambling is not valuable because it doesn't "help people eat nutritious food, breathe clean air, and so on". Neither do any other forms of entertainment, such as the art and fiction you praise. You've complained that the economic effect of gambling is purely redistributive. Once you've assumed away the benefits, that's true of almost all services.

Your stated concerns make no sense. People who like gambling and dislike pleasure reading are alien to me, but you have no grounds from which to say that they're wrong to believe they get more value from the gambling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This was a harrowing article. The described cases are surreal in how the brutal violence seems to be an everyday occurrence, something that the men just happen to do when drunk.

I knew things are bad in PNG, but I didn't really comprehend how bad it can be.

</comment><comment><USER9> I came across this a few years ago watching an interesting documentary about surfing and Papuan culture called "Splinters". Even taking into context cultural differences, this can be considered nothing but horrific.

</comment><comment><USER10> Cruel and unusual violence is also the case for the South African townships. The crime statistics for that country are a fiction. One judge said she never met a girl over the age of twelve who had not been raped.

</comment><comment><USER11> The problem is Western and other more developed countries still do business with the country, inevitably enabling and persisting their systemic corruption.

See ExxonMobil projects in PNG: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPIUFZl7f-U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPIUFZl7f-U)

</comment><comment><USER12> article gave me a whole new perspective on Papua New Guinea. what these women face is horrendous.</comment>


Aptt - Show the world what you know - <AUTHOR> http://aptt.me/ <comment><USER2> Is there any way for me to see examples of the kinds of stuff it does? I wanted a peek at how this was different from other sites of the same kind and there isn't any information readily available. And then I thought I had to signup to look inside, which I figured I'd do to give feedback - and then it's not available yet?

How will this be different from using Stack Overflow or TopCoder? Is this meant to be a general purpose site of the same kind? How does it work?

What is this?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, we'll definitely make it clearer.

To answer your question, Stack Overflow is for getting information, and this is for proving you have knowledge or skills.

The proof is through solving community-made problems, and discussion.

This is an accurate score that indicates whether someone is qualified with a skill or not, and we imagine people showing their Aptt scores on resumes, rather than needing a college degree.

The page we made was just to basically see if this is something people are interested in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Do you have the landing page for authors of those problems/cases to solve? Because they are the crucial part of this thing. And I'd suggest you to avoid overpromising - the Appt score can't be considered as an ultimate indicator of the skill, due to lack of standardization and normalization. Anyway interesting concept - I wonder how are you gonna differentiate from Quora?

</comment><comment><USER4> This points to a sign up website, nothing else. Flagging.</comment>


Ask HN: What is the state of trust in the Android rooting community? - <AUTHOR>

I've never followed the rooting community closely. From a distance, it appears reminiscent more of the warez scene than the free-software scene. Is this a flawed perception of mine? I want to know whether following a rooting guide is like installing Ubuntu or like installing a pirated copy of Photoshop. <comment><USER2> I'd have to say that it is "like installing Ubuntu". Maybe kids that want to look all 1337 H4x0R5 make it sound like more than it is (eg. "like installing a pirated copy of Photoshop"). But what you are essentially doing is 'unlocking your phone'. What would be equal to "installing a pirated copy of Photoshop" would be to download and install (illegally) an apk of a non-free (as in beer) program.</comment>


Defcon password cracking contest - <AUTHOR> http://korelogic.com/defcon_2010-contest.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Any idea on the percentage of cracked passwords one would need to win the contest, or at least be competitive? I was thinking 20% (about 10,500 passwords) but that's just a wild guess.

Also, some suggestions on what hash types to focus on. Unix crypt has so many variants it's hard to decide. I can handle most of the other hash types (ssha, nt, md5, etc.) no problem. I have my own tool that I wrote. I am not using JTR, ophcrack, etc. Nothing against those tools, but it's more fun to write my own code to see how it compares.

Any tips are appreciated.</comment>


How Facebook ruined comments (at least for me) - <AUTHOR> http://techland.time.com/2013/05/12/facebook-comments/

<comment><USER2> Google+ does this too, except for top-level articles. My office was using G+ to share articles and status updates, but Google seems to have gone out of their way to make that as frustrating an experience as possible. There's no chronological view anymore, and sometimes it just doesn't show articles from some people unless you go directly to their profile.

</comment><comment><USER3> We've had the same issue on our page (VLC 93000+ likes), and we really thought it was a bug: the reply was above the question...

We tried to remove and redo the comments, but it always ended like that.

I'm glad to not be alone :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Commenting online is an afterthought, and it is really sad to me why this is so. Disqus and Livefyre are what most people use, but they have a ton of room for improvement. Some might say that they are doing really well, which would be true; however, there is hardly any competition, so anything Disqus and Livefyre do will be perceived as well, or simply, good enough.

I've been working on a way to redo commenting in my spare time, and I would like for it to become a thing. My idea consists of synced comments, an RSS like feed, a one column design (no threaded comments!) with expanding and minimizing replies, and a currency connected with real money that people can use to tip one another. I know it sounds far fetched, and it is, but I truly believe that commenting should be given saliency if writing and publishing online is going to move forward.

The next step is making my designs and ideas into a reality, however, I don't know how to code. I'm seeking someone who does, and in the meantime, I am teaching myself how to get starting with programming. The thing is, I could spend the next 1-2 years of my life learning how to code what I want to do when there is someone out there who knows how to do it already.

I suppose this comment is also to raise awareness for what I want to do for the future of commenting online. Send me a DM on Twitter @raymondduke if you are interested. I do have a plan to monetize from day one. I'll gladly tell you what I want to do and if you are interested maybe we can start making this happen.

<comment><USER5> Bite the bullet and learn to code. I did. It's easier if you have a project in mind. You can be competent enough to whip up an MVP in about 10-12 weeks if you work hard learning Ruby On Rails.

<comment><USER4> I've tried to get started a few times and I am finding it to be the most frustrating thing I've ever done in my life. I think there is something in my brain that is completely against what is involved with coding; it's like I have some cognitive-allergic reaction to it.

But, I see your point. And I want to put what I want to do a reality, so I will keep trying. I think it would just be so much better if I can find someone to work with instead of try to do it all myself.

<comment><USER6> _I've tried to get started a few times and I am finding it to be the most frustrating thing I've ever done in my life. I think there is something in my brain that is completely against what is involved with coding; it's like I have some cognitive-allergic reaction to it._

Nah, that's just what's it is like learning to code. You just have to get through it and get more experienced. Once you're past the frustrating parts it becomes really enjoyable.

However, I don't know what language you're starting out with but that also makes a huge difference. Some approaches just click better with people than others. I love Lisp, others can't stand it. I hate C pointer syntax, it always confuses me while I had no problems with 'pointers' in 68000 assembly for example.

Just try out a couple of languages.

<comment><USER4> A couple of languages have been suggested to me already. I just don't know what one is best for my purposes. I was told to start with HTML5 and CSS3. Someone told me to stay away from Django, but to learn Python.

Does all code get the same results? Is it just a matter of preference? Or can some code do things that other code can't , thus making certain goals only possible with certain language?

<comment><USER7> <http://autotelicum.github.io/Smooth-CoffeeScript/> is an excellent introduction into just-enough-code to make something. coffeescript is a much easier to understand javascript and if you combine it with node.js to do a web app, you can code your entire project in one language (plus some html and css markup).

<comment><USER4> I'm checking it out, thanks. From what I've been told, what I want to do is a "big project" -- in the words of another commenter: "you're going to need front end design and code (html, css and javascript), some sort of server side code (php, python, ruby, c# ...) and a database of some sort (MySQL, NoSQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle ...). the best place to start would be html and css though"

So far the link you shared seems to be doing a good job of introducing code at the entry level, but as being able to code my entire project with it, I am skeptical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> k-mcgrady I haven't noticed this myself (and I have the replies feature) so maybe it's just one of many things they're testing with a limited number of users. I agree with the OP though, I don't see how this would be useful for anyone.

<comment><USER8> _> It turns out that the change doesn't affect most personal Profiles. Instead, it's only applicable to Pages — such as the one for TIME — and for individuals with more than 10,000 followers, who Facebook thinks are likely have active communities on their pages._

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Threaded comments are a good thing. This seems like a UI problem. One suggestion:

1) Put the thread reply text field at the top of the comments and show new replies at the top, at least for the user who made the comment.

2) Replying anywhere else should require clicking on Reply under that comment.

This makes it intuitively clear that thread replies are not replies to a thread comment.

This would take users some time to adjust to, but should fix the problem.

I know at least one site that does this. Ahem.

EDIT: Looking more carefully at the second screen shot, it looks like they did this. Seems like a non-issue in that case. The first screenshot for some reason doesn't have that change. Who knows if they are A/B testing or what. Strange that the OP did not notice this difference.

<comment><USER10> Threaded comments are a bad thing. I've gone through this thoroughly in a blog post ([http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why- thre...](http://blog.iroquote.com/post/45908133231/5-reasons-why-threaded- discussions-stink-and-a)), but here is an overview of why:

1\. Screen width limits the depth of threaded replies.

2\. Indented replies look horrible on mobile screens, and make the depth of reason (1) even smaller.

3\. We (typically) lose chronological order.

4\. A complex comment tree makes it cumbersome to track who replied to what.

5\. Non-techy users don't get it well, which eventually leads to a inconsistent tree.

I think the search for an ideal comment system is a problem worth solving. IMO it is best solved by:

1\. A single thread in chronological order.

2\. Quote feature, like in forums, to allow direct replies.

3\. Some summarization technique to highlight relevant comments.

That's what I'm doing at my startup, and I would like to see other approaches too, because it's about time we figure out how to do an intuitive and powerful comment system.

<comment><USER11> I have to say, having used newsgroups, forums, and reddit for years and years, I totally disagree - conversations by their nature are threaded, not linear - people need to have the freedom to break off and discuss tangents without impacting the main thing.

With the quote feature you just end up with giant quote pyramids and impossible to track discussions.

That said, with Facebook it seems they have a) broken the chronology, which is insane, and b) not made it damned obvious that it's a threaded system, hence the confusion.

<comment><USER10> Giant quote pyramids are a big mistake of old forum systems. But imagine quoting without quotes-in-quotes. Combine that with "click on quote" to see the post.

BTW, HN also breaks chronology.

<comment><USER9> HN only breaks chronology on sister threads, where it doesn't matter.

In 8 years (or whatever) of reading HN comment, I've never once had an issue with chronology of comments.

If there were no threads, it would be such a mess, it wouldn't be worth reading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How can they make a mistake like this? Unless they are aiming to change how people comment on things. That won't happen without an interface change IMO because people are used to the way it was for about 4-5 years..

<comment><USER13> Well, they needed to do something about the comments on really large pages, because those were useless before: you'd see a disconnected selection of the 25 most recent comments and a link "2864 comments, click here to show 25 more". Those people were only sort of / sometimes responding to each other, and even when they were the comments all had tunnel-vision on the most recent 25. Even just showing "comments on this massive post made by your friends" would be an epic improvement (and something it seems they are now both able to do and are actually doing), but that already breaks chronology even without "bubbling".

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Yep, this is a huge failure. I've made sure to tell all page admins I know to not enable it.

<comment><USER15> For pages over a critical number of likes it's still better though. Once you hit over 100 or so comments, unthreaded commenting is just too hard on Facebook (especially since you can't easily load all the comments at once and Ctrl-F for what you're looking for).

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is only an issue because the mobile app doesn't have Replies yet. once the mobile apps support it the chronological issue will go away. Relax.

</comment><comment><USER17> I think it blends in well with the nature of Facebook comments. Most of the comments are quick observations about a post. So it's better to absorb the relevant observations first then continue reading if it sounds interesting. Plus the reply feature fixes any chronological issue.

<comment><USER18> How does the reply feature fix the chronology problems? If you want to make a comment that refers to two previous comments, where do you put it to guarantee it stays after both of them?

<comment><USER17> That kind of reference is messy even with chronological order. It's better to directly quote a post.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've noticed that when I comment on a page and come back later, my comment appears at the top. Now I realize it probably only appears that way to me. That's good, because I was wondering why FB was choosing to highlight the comments that it did.

</comment><comment><USER20> I think it's a bit like the weather in New England, if its not to your liking you need to go inside and have a cup of coffee and then come back outside, all new weather. :-)

</comment><comment><USER21> I turned it on for a ~75k page and regret it. Does someone know if it can be disabled? I did not find anything in the settings.

</comment><comment><USER22> HN has the same problem (comment threads get reordered to put the "best" first, so it's very hard to tell what you have and haven't already read), but we seem to be ok with it.

</comment><comment><USER23> I find it annoying that I still have to click 'load comments' several times in order to find my own.</comment>


Zillow to Acquire Trulia for $3.5B - <AUTHOR> http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/07/28/zillow-to-buy-trulia-for-3-5-billion/ <comment><USER2> Having bought real estate, I can say that Zillow/Trulia are both a blessing and a curse. They are great in that you can see what's been listed for a while, scan a map, and generally put a pretty interface on house searches. This I imagine is their great advantage. I also found my mortgage company through Zillow's mortgage rate search.

Their big disadvantage is that their records are not updated as fast as the conventional MLS. The house I bought recently came on the market 7 days before I made an offer. It was not on Zillow even by the time we had the contract signed. The sellers, for whatever reason, put a very reasonable (possibly even low) price on the house, and I was at the end of the search, having seen enough locations in the area to know that this was a great value.

Another random personal experience: when I first saw Zillow I remember thinking "who needs real estate agents if you have all this?" Then I got an agent to buy my first house. All I have to say is "you do not know, what you do not know." While I do wish that agents simply took a set fee instead of it being a (very large) percentage of the purchase price, they provide a hugely invaluable service. I am not saying it's impossible to buy real estate if you don't have an agent; but if you can do it, you are probably a real estate agent.

<comment><USER3> _they provide a hugely invaluable service_

What is that service? I'm not being snarky; I'm genuinely curious, as the structure of the industry (and fee level) is significantly different than where I'm from. I don't get why you need a real estate agent to help you buy.

<comment><USER4> I'm in the process of buying my first home, and it's been hugely helpful to have an agent. Services include:

\- Tours of homes; seeing something online and seeing something in person is an impressive difference. Some houses look amazing online and terrible in person, or vice versa. Cannot possibly overstate the value of this.

\- Negotiation; he's a professional negotiator, and he has years of experience negotiating in the exact market that we're buying in.

\- Documentation; there's a RIDICULOUS amount of paperwork to file, and all I have to do is read/sign it.

\- Inspections; he has handymen and inspectors on file, and knows that they're trustworthy.

\- Knowledge; he's done this dozens/hundreds of times. He knows about how long things take, he has reasonable estimates of how much things will cost, and he has the patience to answer all of my questions.

<comment><USER5> I'm also in the process of buying a home for the first time, and did some search on Trulia/Zillow. It was OK, but the data gets really stale. One home was sold already before it was taken down. I did find out that Houston has a really nice site, har.com that lets you do basically everything Trulia & Zillow does. Realtors have other interface(s) into the same data, which lets them do different things like N sided polygons instead of just squares for map searches.

Tours vs images is definitely an issue. Some people are just bad photographers, some only have 6 images (Houston MLS requires 6 images for a posting). Some are good photographers, that make things look bigger than in person.

Experience is hugely variable though. I called 2 agent offices, and got stuck with their most inexperienced Buyer's Agent. The more experienced people are doing sales of homes or commercial, and getting a cut of the commissions of the people under them. Some Googling led me to roughly a 60/40 split between agent & office, along with the agent paying a desk fee (~$50/monthly). Since the principal is still getting paid, you can involve them if needed for second opinions or more nuanced explanations. Agents are getting roughly 3% of the sales price.

Still read all your documents. I've caught things that slipped past my realtor, and also brought up questions for her to answer.

Inspections are a mixed bag. They have a preferred list, and should also provide you a legal document stating their incentives for any recommended providers (including home warranty companies). I ended up going with one of my realtor's preferred inspectors, but only after calling all 5 on their list, and several more listed on Yelp.

Knowledge goes back to experience. My agent was basically bowled over by 2 of the new home builders in the area. It was so bad I considered buying the Realtor's Residential Construction Certification program (1 day course, ~$300, they'll sell to anyone) and going through it myself if I went with new construction.

Another point about knowledge is that even with experience, you can come up with stuff they don't know. Neither my agent or the broker (my agent's boss) had worked with anyone that negotiated their lender origination fees. I got $500 off one lender and $1000 off another.

<comment><USER3> _Agents are getting roughly 3% of the sales price._

In the US, agents get roughly 6% of the sales price. The sellers's agent gets 3%, and the buyer's agent gets 3%.

In the UK, agents get roughly 1.6% of the sales price. The seller's agent gets 1%-2.5%, and there is no buyer's agent. There are other costs (survey and lawyer fees) but these are not large either, and aren't related to the price of the property.

<comment><USER6> Regarding the US, I think the typical deal is that the seller's agent and broker each get 1.5%, and the same for the buyer's agent. Some agents are their own brokers, but I believe that's rare.

<comment><USER3> This split is about how the realtor splits their commission with their employer and/or the umbrella company which provides marketing, access to MLS etc., right?

<comment><USER6> Yes. The broker is the one who is "really" doing the transaction. A broker can handle a deal on their own; an agent must use a broker as well. Wikipedia's not-entirely-clear description is here: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker#The_differen...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker#The_difference_between_salespersons_and_brokers)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I interned for Redfin last summer. This is a really interesting space, and most people don't realize that Zillow/Trulia are operating drastically different businesses from Redfin.

Some background: The US real estate industry is broken up into regions (e.g. SF bay area, Orange County, Lake Tahoe, etc.). In order for a brokerage [1] to operate in a region, it needs to employ agents specifically licensed in that region, and have a real office there. Importantly, each region also has its own data feed of listings, called an MLS feed [2]. Amongst real estate agents, the MLS feed in each region is considered the primary source of real estate listings. If a house is not in the MLS, it's not for sale. BUT, only brokerages have access to MLS feeds.

There is no standard for MLS software. It's truly terrible. No joke, in some regions, the MLS service -- responsible for all real estate listings in that region -- is an archaic Windows program running on a desktop in some guy's Lake Tahoe cabin. Generally, MLS feeds are _similar_ in structure, but there is no semblance of standardization, API, or developer-friendly solution for accessing it. Every region has its own MLS feed with its own structure, access restrictions, weird rules, etc. It's a nightmare to develop against.

Zillow and Trulia set out to solve this problem. They are listing aggregators, essentially filling the same role as MLS software. But because Zillow and Trulia are not brokerages, they cannot access the MLS feeds. So they have to get the data on their own. They depend on real estate agents manually inputting their listings into the Zillow/Trulia platforms. Nowadays, most agents _do_ input this data, but that was not always the case, and IIRC Zillow/Trulia still only have something like 80% coverage compared to MLS feeds.

So Zillow and Trulia are simple listing services. They are basically advertising platforms for real estate agents. Their revenue model depends on agent referrals, paid listings, etc. They have no direct role in selling a house.

REDFIN IS A BROKERAGE. Redfin actually employs real estate agents who will help you buy a house. And instead of earning commission proportional to sale price (a huge moral hazard -- see: Freakonomics), they earn commission based on customer satisfaction. So Redfin agents are inherently motivated to work in the customer's best interest, instead of their own, which is getting the price as high as possible.

Because Redfin is a brokerage, it is entirely different from Zillow and Trulia. This is the reason that you only see Redfin in "some" areas (although they have coverage in most major metropolitan areas at this point), while Trulia/Zillow are nation-wide. When Redfin expands to a new area, it needs to establish an office, hire and train agents, file paperwork, etc. This takes time, but often when Redfin gets to a new area, there are already thousands of customers who have been waiting for them to launch there.

Also, because Redfin is a brokerage, it has access to MLS feeds. So Redfin gets its data directly from the source, instead of depending on real estate agents to enter their listings directly into its platform. Because of this, Redfin has 100% coverage in all the regions it serves, compared to ~80% (IIRC) of Trulia/Zillow.

So now it looks like the market will come down to Redfin vs. Trulia/Zillow. I'm curious to see how this plays out. On one hand, Redfin has a far more defensible model -- they have an office in every region, and actually make a lot of money from each listing. And they have a far better value proposition for the customer. Why would you use a real estate agent trying to pump the price as high as possible, when you can use one who will be paid entirely based on your satisfaction rating?

On the other hand, Zillow/Trulia have wider reach. There is nothing stopping them from opening a brokerage in their most popular markets and simply copying Redfin's model. But if they do that, they are already way far behind.

Personally, and I'm biased because I worked there, I think Redfin is going to "win" this battle. There's no reason why Zillow/Redfin can't coexist harmoniously, but I expect we will see Redfin making far more money in 10+ years than Zillow.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker) [2] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_listing_service)

(EDIT since this is getting so many upvotes: I DO NOT SPEAK FOR REDFIN AT ALL, I DO NOT WORK FOR REDFIN. I worked there one summer last year.)

<comment><USER8> Isn't the MLS run by the real estate agents that RedFin is trying to disrupt?

>They depend on real estate agents manually inputting their listings into the Zillow/Trulia platforms

Are you sure that Zillow isn't just scraping the MLS data from broker sites?

<comment><USER9> I'm trying to buy a house right now in Fremont, CA. I can confirm that Zillow has errors and omissions whereas Redfin has entirely accurate data. Every Thursday my realtor sends me MLS listings; in every case, Redfin has the new listings.

<comment><USER10> Hi CJensen! I'm part of the friendly team over at Movoto. Have you tried using us? Send me at email at firstname.lastname@example.com and I'd love to help you in any way possible.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Just adding some anecdata to the chatter about these sites and the experience of buying a home:

I began searching for a house in the East Bay about two years ago, culminating in a purchase in June 2013. The first year or so I was using Redfin, Zillow, and Trulia to track availability, prices and neighborhoods. While I got some good information, it wasn't until I started talking to an agent with about thirty years experience in the region that I actually got good leads. The listings on all of these sites seemed to trail the MLS leads she would get by days to weeks. I made several offers over many months, each one more than the last, each time watching the stock get thinner and bids climb higher. My agent was not only finding good potential properties, but also providing a lot of perspective and emotional support.

The house I ultimately bought was something she found via her network of colleagues before it even was placed on the market. I made a bold offer and gulped at what I was putting on the table, but in retrospect I was fortunate considering what's happening in the bay area housing market right now.

Maybe I'm a dummy, but I cannot envision going through the process without a real human pro providing guidance and leads.

<comment><USER12> Funny I've bought two houses in Berkeley in the last 4 years (bought one, sold it, bought another) both times I found the Redfin data to be spot on, ie new listings every Thursday the same list I'd get from my agent. This won't beat finding an agent with a listing before it hits the market but the East Bay is hot, if I'm a seller theres no way I'm not putting a house on the open market.

The first house we bought my wife and I found on Redfin (we timed the bottom of the market - by luck - and bought in December of 2010) and had a friend who's an agent in SF just help with the paperwork.

The second time we had a Berkeley based agent (we worked with her to sell our house so she got our "buy" work as well) but again found the house ourselves on Redfin. During our 4 month search our agent never got us a lead that wasn't on redfin. Truth be told if we buy again we may go the Redfin route, we really didn't get a ton of value from our agent on the buy side of our transaction. No way I'd sell a house without an agent however.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I trade stocks as a hobby and I was wondering what I'm missing here. This morning Zillow offered .444 shares of Z for TRLA. Currently (1:50 pm EST) TRLA is trading at only a 0.411 valuation of Z. What's to stop me from shorting Z and buying TRLA to lock in the difference as profit? It seems both have agreed to the 0.444 ratio. Is it a regulatory issue? What else would cause the deal to fail?

<comment><USER14> Look into merger arbitrage. Its a huge area that has spawned many hedge funds, including the one I work at.

The difference is the market saying the deal might fall apart.

Some issues with shorting:

\- very limited borrow, not much more than 2 million.

\- very concentrated borrow.

\- the spot rate for us to borrow is 2-3%, but with such a small amount of float avaiable to borrow the chances are high that you won't be able to get any and you won't pay anything close to 3%

Here is a good primer:

[http://www.barclayhedge.com/research/educational- articles/he...](http://www.barclayhedge.com/research/educational- articles/hedge-fund-strategy-definition/hedge-fund-strategy-merger- arbitrage.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Zillow 2013 revenues: $225M, profits: -$12.5M

Trulia 2013 revenues: $175M, profits: -$17.8M

<comment><USER16> You would expect this from the two most innovative companies in the industry. Both companies are leveraging their revenue to grow rapidly. A concern for profits at this point is premature. Trulia was profitable years ago at a vastly smaller revenue number.

<comment><USER17> profit isnt the only concern; the revenue numbers dont seem in-line with companies that have such high valuations.

<comment><USER6> Hmmm... Combined market cap is about $10bn, which is about 25x revenues. The similar ratio for Google is 12x. Dropbox's revenue is reported at $200m with a $10bn valuation, which is 50x. So the ratio doesn't seem crazy to me given the assumption of growth potential and the ability of the new company to better control pricing. When you say the numbers don't seem in line, what examples were you thinking of?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does that leave any real competition in the space?

<comment><USER19> Direct sources.

Here in Houston, nobody uses Zillow because their data is not reliably up-to- date. The city has a custom solution: har.com. It's not as pretty, but it's what all the realtors in the city actually use.

<comment><USER20> Yeah, here in the D.C. area, nobody's using Zillow for much either since the "Zestimates" are pretty wildly off of actual market value and even in between homes in the same area.

For example, it puts my house at about $50k under my next-door neighbor's house, despite my home being larger, with more upgrades (about $100k worth), with one more bedroom and an additional full bathroom.

The identical house to mine, a block over, is $30k more than mine, but still $20k under the neighbor's home. A home another block away, similar to my neighbor's, but slightly smaller is actually on the market for $2k more than theirs.

Another house, identical to mine, half a block over in a different direction is Zestimated at almost $90k more than mine. And a similar house down the road is on the market for $75 more than mine.

My neighbors, directly behind me, have a model one size smaller than mine, and have done a tremendous amount of work on their home. Custom landscaping, high- end playground for their kids, fences, completely remodeled basement, and one more bedroom than my house, Zillow puts it at $10k under mine.

So within, basically 2.5 blocks, in a cookie cutter suburb, we have almost $100k variance, with Zestimates _at least_ $50k under market prices in some cases, and $50k _over_ in others, and smaller homes Zestimating to be worth more than larger homes next door.

Believe it or not this is an improvement from a couple years ago, but no reputable agent in my area uses Zillow for anything.

Trulia, by way of comparison, puts my house at $20k more than Zillow and flips the relationship of small/big houses so they make slightly _more_ sense pricewise.

Redfin seems to be the closest.

<comment><USER21> >So within, basically 2.5 blocks, in a cookie cutter suburb, we have almost $100k variance, with Zestimates at least $50k under market prices in some cases, and $50k over in others, and smaller homes Zestimating to be worth more than larger homes next door.

Zillow will only know what a house is worth when it is either sold or when you have it appraised and manually enter the details. I don't think any reasonable person would expect Zillow to know about improvements made (like work done inside a house or landscaping).

My neighbor just listed his house for a price that I thought was kind of high. He sold it within a day of holding an open house. My zestimate went up 2 days later.

I think Zillow actually works surprisingly well, for what it does.

<comment><USER20> > I don't think any reasonable person would expect Zillow to know about > improvements made (like work done inside a house or landscaping).

Well sure, but one of the reasons local realtors have dumped it as a source of information is that buyers and sellers were starting to latch onto the Zestimates like they were gospel.

If a Zestimate was too high (like my neighbor's house), the seller would insist it go on the market at a very high value, and then end up with a bad relationship with their realtor when it didn't sell. Realtors don't have time for this nonsense.

If a Zestimate was too low (like my house), buyers would want to negotiate down under a fair market value. Again, realtors don't have time for this kind of thing.

In either case, Zillow was skewing the market. And we're not talking by a couple thousand dollars either, but on 20-40% swings.

In a neighborhood like mine, where the Zestimate is off by up to $100k from one house to the comparable one next door, the Zestimate becomes a hindrance on the fair market and causes more problems than it's worth.

It's like people getting medical advice off the internet, it's better not to because it causes too many problems in the established industry and not in a good startup "disruption" sense but in a "fucking everything up" sense.

The reaction from local realtors has been pretty swift and strong against Zillow for these, among other reasons. In an area like mine, I'm not even sure what it's useful for: the tax assessment fmv is wildly different, actual buy/sell prices are wildly different, it provides almost no value for pricing your own home to sell, and no value when buying a home that your local MLS doesn't provide (and even worse it's frequently wildly out of date). I suppose if I was looking for a rental it might provide some value, but the few rentals in my area have long since been occupied and Zillow still shows them up and available.

It's basically the worst kind of disinformation, close enough to look reliable, but ultimately a waste of people's time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> All real estate news and websites are biased and always suggest you that buying a home is a god think. In the SF bay area, I hear real estate agents speak on the radio. Before recession, they said you should buy a home immediately so that rates may increase....Then during recession they say you should buy a home as rates have fallen to historic lows..for last 1-2 years, whenever you hear...they say the interest rates are low, so you should immediately buy it, irrespective of dynamics between interest rate and price of house.

I wish there was a website/service which actively debunks what real estate agents, radio channels are propragating.

<comment><USER23> `god think`

<comment><USER22> Can you please expand...I missed any reference...if you meant one.

<comment><USER23> You said "god think", I think you meant "good thing", unless I missed something.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I listened to Sami Inkinen talk about how proud he was that Trulia was the underdog to Zillow several months ago. I assume that the acquisition talks had probably already started, even as he was talking about this. I'm not incensed at this, I just think we need to be honest with ourselves. When your competition wants to buy you, then you've probably done something very right. But everybody has a price and Zillow obviously found theirs! Congrats to them, they've done a lot for dragging the real estate market kicking and screaming into the future.

</comment><comment><USER25> It will be interesting to see how the home value estimates play out. Zillow and Trulia each have their own methodology for determining a home's value and the disparity between the value of each service lists can be significant.

I purchased a home two years ago in Portland, OR (South East). At the time of my purchase, its price on Zillow was listed as ~$70K less than it was appraised for (I had two appraisals and both were within $1K of one another). Trulia listed the value within $1K of the two appraisals.

In two years time, the value on Zillow is listed as the original purchase price. On Trulia, the value is ~$60K more (it is based on an average appreciation of 8% annually of homes in my neighborhood).

I know a home's value is only what someone is willing to pay for it, but the disparity in estimates between those two services has always bothered me.

<comment><USER26> Most of the difference is likely just a matter of data. If Trulia has better data than Zillow, their estimate will likely be closer to reality. There is the added difficulty of coming up with what's basically one methodology that has to work everywhere. My guess is that if you're in a funky place, like on the border of two neighborhoods, or if you're in a rural area, your estimates are likely to be further from reality than if you live in a cookie-cutter subdivision or in a downtown area.

The point is: yes, it's frustrating, but it's also complicated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> A different article, which I'm having trouble tracing back now, mentioned that this acquisition is more like the same company owning match.com and tinder.

Does anyone know if the intention to leave both up?

article: [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-28/zillow-to- acquire-t...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-28/zillow-to-acquire- trulia-for-3-5-billion-in-stock.html)

"Rascoff said in an interview that the deal to buy Trulia signals that Zillow is creating a portfolio of online real estate brands, which lets the company appeal to the broadest audiences and attract the biggest set of real estate advertisers. The strategy is akin to how IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) has multiple online dating brands such as Match.com and Tinder, he said."

Seems odd to leave both up when they're so similar.

<comment><USER28> Well they bought hotpads + several others and left them up in this same way. Acquire, put on back-burner, repeat. Not a bad strategy, I suppose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> It seems like every time I see an interesting deal Qatalyst Partners are involved (Priceline/OpenTable, Elance/oDesk, Yahoo/Tumblr, probably some more I'm missing). Those guys get to work on some really interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER30> A question for the RE insiders here. What restrictions are there for building services off Redfin/MLS and Zillow listings?

Am I allowed to blog about listings or do I need to be an agent to use image and listing data? I get mixed opinions elsewhere about whether this falls under fair use.

I notice that Redfin provides OpenGraph annotations but the TOS disallow sharing. Am I permitted to share on Facebook, Pinterest, etc? What about on other websites? Is it possible to build a vertical search engine based on these details?

<comment><USER31> You need an attorney for these sorts of questions, not a real estate insider. These are IP and contract concerns, not real estate concerns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> As someone from the UK, I've never heard of either of these sites.

Kind of amazing that a business that's limited to one country can be worth so much.

<comment><USER33> Only when that one country has a GDP roughly the same size as the entire EU or ~6x that of the UK.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomin...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_\(nominal\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Curious how this impacts Streeteasy, which Zillow just bought some time in the past year. Streeteasy is the defacto MLS (in a sense) for NYC (Manhattan doesn't have an MLS, nor does Brooklyn. Uncertain about Staten Island, Queens or Bronx).

<comment><USER35> New York City does have an MLS. Its run by the Real Estate Board of New York ([http://www.rebny.com/content/rebny/en.html](http://www.rebny.com/content/rebny/en.html)) and is called RLS (REBNY Listing Service).

Streeteasy simply never had access to RLS so they had to get their data from other sources, primarily from scraping websites and emails, as well as some direct data feeds from brokerages that agreed to work with them.

source: I work in technology in the New York real estate sector.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The thread from when this was just a rumor: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8081176](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8081176)

</comment><comment><USER36> My first reaction was this headline has to come from a markov chain built out of Business Insider and My Little Pony.

</comment><comment><USER37> Trulia was so much better then Zillow -- reminds me of Flipboard buying Zite.

<comment><USER38> I'm hopeful that Trulia won't get worse. I'd like to see the best of the two sites available in one site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Don't sleep on Homesnap! * Snap a photo of any home to find out all about it * Similar to Redfin in terms of model and data access * Unique iPhone, iPad, Android and Web experience

[http://www.homesnap.com](http://www.homesnap.com)</comment>


Live: World's Largest Plane Departs Toronto Pearson - <AUTHOR> http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=68597&playlistId=1.2108860&binId=1.1147261&playlistPageNum=1

<comment><USER2> That started getting airborne at a much lower speed than I expected. Crazy.</comment>


EU GDPR and personal data in web server logs - <AUTHOR> https://www.ctrl.blog/entry/gdpr-web-server-logs <comment><USER2> This is a little over the top, it could easily be debated that an IP address isn't personal data under "Article 4, Point 1" since at least in the case of IPV4 address it will likely be shared by multiple people and the only way to "indirectly" identify the person paying for the IP is via the courts so I'd have said that was pretty secure by default. Plus, why would a regulator consider IP address as personal information? It just makes more work for them that doesn't benefit the "people" the law is designed to protect.</comment>