Hacking Ikea products to make them personal - <AUTHOR> http://www.thisismykea.com/

<comment><USER2> Wow, that was disappointing.

In _Shop Class As Soulcraft_, there's a chapter about the death of the tinkering spirit in American culture, where he takes to task Build A Bear Workshop (although, _come on_ , they're kids!) and a bike manufacturer that allows enthusiasts to "customize" their bikes by custom-ordering variants of the bike or buying bolt-on kit parts. This site made me think of that.

It's all well and good, I guess, to stick decals on your Ikea furniture. I was just hoping for actual woodworking.

<comment><USER3> <http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/>

<comment><USER4> Now that's what I call a real Ikea hack. Thanks for the link @alexophile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm not sure I'd call this "hacking" (I expected a bed to be pulled apart and turned into something else). This is a fun idea, but it's simply "decorating".

<comment><USER6> It's a great marketing hack actually.

Edit: why the downvotes really ? I really believe it's a clever way to build upon an existing brand while providing a service that people I know are willing to use.

<comment><USER7> Really it's more a case of extending the 'funky vinyl decal' market from laptops and other small electronics to Ikea furniture.

Limiting it to (some) Ikea furniture gives them a selection of items of known sizes to work with when sizing and cutting the decals.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome startup concept! Take a product that everybody knows and almost everybody buys. Add some sort of modification that will appeal to a lot of people. Let your users create the merchandise and start earning.

Very well done!

</comment><comment><USER9> It's odd that LACK table costs $8 but to decorate it you have to spend at least €12.

<comment><USER10> Not odd at all. There's probably a slight difference in the number of LACK tables built vs these prints…

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I read an article a while back ( not the story I read but the same idea <http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/ikea-and-india/>) that talked about how in India the new middle class want Ikea stuff but they aren't there yet. So these people will take Ikea catalogs to local craftsmen and have them produce furniture that looks just like the stuff in the catalog. I would suspect that the quality is much higher (materials and whatnot).

Personally when I am in Ikea I think that where things are headed is to make the stuff infinitely customizable using the website. I mean image if you went to their site and started with one of the basic notions like 'chair', 'table', or 'shelf' and could (w/in reason) stretch and distort the base product. Then they figure out how much it would cost to build that and ship it to you. Maybe even work out custom assembly instructions etc. It would be cool to stretch a table and watch the price change continuously then maybe jump up quickly. You could investigate and see that at that length it would require an extra piece of metal for support for example.

</comment><comment><USER12> I wish they could support Inkscape. Anyone wants some XKCD pictures on their furnitures? Now that I want to see

<comment><USER13> that would be great indeed! Both for inkscape as well as for XKCD, dilbert would be cool as well, though :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> sorry for the meta comment here but how can such a post end on the front page? Custom furniture stickers. OK there is a startup. This seems so out of place don't you think?

EDIT: Please no need to downvote me if you disagree - just state your POV. Thx

<comment><USER15> It's about identification of the market and implementation details. See comment by ulf <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1924463>

<comment><USER14> points well taken, but would it be OK to then post a few years ago about this for instance which also showed (now proven) promising prospects based on a winning marketing strategy: [http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=CN&#...</a>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have a friend at <http://maomium.com> who is customizing (or decorating, as you wish) standard Ikea furnitures. Each piece is unique as he draw everything by hand (lots of work and dedication involved here).

</comment><comment><USER17> Another great idea is Comfort Works, which makes slipcovers to Ikea sofas: <http://www.comfort-works.com/>.

<comment><USER18> What, no Karlstad?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Brillant concept :) Will have to try it out soon!

There is some latin on the How to cover page (last step)

</comment><comment><USER19> did you want your title tag to be "customize _you_ Ikea furniture" as in the "learn you a <programming language>"? or should you have an "r" in there?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm surprised that page calls IKEA furniture "well-designed". To me, and to some other people I know, it seems that they work hard to make it s ugly as possible. Or at least pretty bland.

<comment><USER7> Consider the competition, at least in the US, in the 'cheap assemble-it- yourself furniture" space.

IKEA looks better than the stuff sold at Wal-Mart or Target, especially the stuff they were selling 20 years ago before IKEA had many stores in the US. (Let alone the smaller regional retailers, like Bradlees and Caldor in the northeast.)

Clearly, if you've got the money to spend, you can get better-looking, longer- lasting furniture. But if you're only furnishing a dorm, or an apartment, and aren't decorating a house or other long-term residence, IKEA's pretty good.

<comment><USER10> Jonathan Coulton - IKEA: <http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6925417691218729871></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: BeerDonation - 100+ Beers Bought So Far - <AUTHOR> http://www.beerdonation.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is an added bonus for my HN friends: I created a video showing exactly how I built (and released the source code) the Stripe Platform connection:

[http://www.markhagan.me/Samples/Stripe_Platform_Authorizatio...](http://www.markhagan.me/Samples/Stripe_Platform_Authorization_Example)

</comment><comment><USER2> This is a fun site, nicely implemented, and a subject close to my heart.

I can't help but wonder why some Show HNs get 50 points easily and others languish in indifference with none. Perhaps the key is the poster's network rather than site quality?

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like the site!

I am starting to think the same thing about HN. :( Maybe it is time time of day I am posting things too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Nice idea, i am still waiting for the day stripe will come to the UE, or at least UK. That will be a day to celebrate.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot! You aren't alone. I sat in the Stripe campfire room for many hours while developing the connectivity and that question was asked by a lot of different people during that time.</comment></comment>


Web Development Tools for Linux and How to Install Them - <AUTHOR> http://www.linux.com/community/blogs/133-general-linux/778308-web-development-tools-for-linux-a-how-to-install-them/

<comment><USER2>
      Often due to some restrictions by the web development company, most of the web developers are forced to use free open source platforms such as Ubuntu.

Isn't the opposite the more common case, like having to work with Windows?

      How to install Gimp on Linux
      sudo apt-get install gimp

Applies to just Ubuntu. Debian doesn't even have sudo configured by default, and most other distributions don't have apt-get.

Overall a pretty biased and poorly written article.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, the whole "how to install X on linux;apt-get install X" is asinine. Would almost be OK if they said "Ubuntu" instead of Linux, though.

<comment><USER4> >In this article, we are going to see a good list of Web Design / Development tools for Linux. Additionally, the installation steps given for each tool are specially for Ubuntu, however it should also work on Debian operating system.

I think most people using Debian should understand the concept of root and what they need to do to install software using apt-get. If not they _should_ be using Ubuntu.

<comment><USER3> I'm more concerned with the usage of Linux and Ubuntu (or even Ubuntu and Debian) as synonyms.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Very thin on the ground article. It would be better written as a 'tools that I find useful for web design under Ubuntu Linux' article.

> However, there are some similar tools available for Linux that can be used > in the web development.

What does this even mean?

What's drush got to do with web dev? That's pretty niche. Why Virtual Box? What is it, what would you use it for?

As others have said it's a little Ubuntu focused. And it's probably best to avoid the install instructions for applications, just link to the project pages/install instructions.

Bin or rewrite needed.

<comment><USER6> Truth. Though, in my experience, most articles are Ubuntu focused. Personally, I prefer Fedora but in most cases instructions are as easy as substituting apt-get for yum.

I'd say put it in the bin. There are a million similar blog posts with much better info.</comment></comment>


Wordpress plugin for Hosted JupyterNotebooks - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewchallis.co.uk/portfolio/php-nbconvert-a-wordpress-plugin-for-jupyter-notebooks/ <comment><USER2> Why not build the CSS bit into the plugin? WordPress has really simple APIs for registering a new style sheet from within a plugin. If it's really small, you can even hook into the document head and dump out a style tag.

Other than that, seems like a neat idea.</comment>


Is it rude to be too early for an interview?  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.scsuscholars.com/2010/04/is-it-rude-to-be-too-early.html

<comment><USER2> Yes.

It's actually rude to show up excessively early for ANY sort of social engagement and, despite the business context and objectives involved, an in- person interview IS a social engagement.

Despite the professional context, you are still considered a "guest" and the employer is considered the "host". In most cultures, the host is expected to provide some sort of accomodations for the guest--if only acknowledgment of arrival and a simple waiting area considered a non-public space. By showing up excessively early, you're placing an "excess of obligation" upon the "host".

If you find that, by happenstance, you'll arrive "excessively early" for your interview. The default behavior is bide your time in some fashion that does not involve any obligation on the part of your "host" until just shortly prior to the appointed time.

Depending on the circumstances of your arrival, one can try calling ahead to ask the other party "If they would prefer, it's unexpectedly become possible to move up your meeting". I generally don't recommend this as it can greatly over-complicate previously agreed upon schedules and, if not handled delicately, can convey the impression that one or both parties don't place enough value on each other's time, attention, and prior commitments.

</comment><comment><USER3> Of course not. Just say traffic was lighter than expected, and produce something you brought to read - one's choice of reading material could be a positive factor as long as it's not just a prop.</comment>


MIT Graphene Multiplier May Push CPUs to 1,000 GHz - <AUTHOR> http://www.insidetech.com/news/articles/4375-mit-graphene-multiplier-may-push-cpus-to-1000-ghz <comment><USER2> Reading the article, it sounded an awful lot like this means we can have timing signals that run at 1000GHz. This doesn't mean anything at all about our ability to have other components actually running at that speed.

</comment><comment><USER3> Just throwing it out there, light (potential, or any signal) can travel about 0.3mm in one picosecond, which is a clock cycle if you're operating at 1THz.

I don't know how tiny these cores will be, but based on my back-of-the- envelope calculations, it doesn't sound like it'll be too realistic if we're talking about CPU cores operating that quick.

<comment><USER4> Well, assuming a current cpu core is ~30mm square, you would need to shrink the feature size by two orders of magnitude... so current 45nm features would need to shrink to ~500 picometers.

According to wikipedia, a 'standard atom' is between 60 and 600 picometers in diameter, so yeah, you'd need transistors the size of atoms.

Of course, this is assuming the same general processor design. You could go 3D and get everything closer together without shrinking transistors as much... or you could change the design all together.

<comment><USER5> That's one option the other is using a longer pipeline.

However, the cache does not need to operate at that speed only the core so it's best to ignore the cache, but I can't find good numbers on a naked CPU. Anyway, using a 55nm GPU 285 GTX that has a 470 mm die size and 240 processor elements we can see each element is only using ~2mm of die. Which is only off by a factor of 4 so ~14nm would work.

In theory you could end up with a ~1THz GPU with ~1000 SPs and around 4000x more processing power. But it would need insane memory bandwidth etc.

<comment><USER6> Longer pipelines proved to be pretty much a dead end with the Pentium 4.

They're great and all when it comes to benchmarks and stuff, but their design has a number of serious drawbacks:

1) The control lines for a long pipeline are incredibly convoluted/complicated as necessitated by the movement of individual instructions from one stage to the other along the pipeline across many, many cycles (all of which involve storing the results of the current cycle to a register somewhere along the pipeline, adding immense overhead in today's systems).

2) Flushing longer pipelines is an incredibly taxing procedure. You either flush the entire pipeline and lose a huge chunk of work, basically throwing out several thousand cycles of work as a result of a single branch or value mis-prediction; or you can selectively clear the pipeline which is an extraordinarily difficult feat that involves keeping track of which operation in what order wrote back what data to which register... for dozens of operations.

<comment><USER5> All modern PC CPU's have a pipeline.

Granted long pipelines suck, but my point was you can have a higher clock speed than the time it takes light to travel from one end of you're CPU to the other and back. One of the more interesting options IMO is to have 2 separate threads with separate registers using the same hardware so you can interleave calculations without a long pipeline. The issue becomes do you have 2 half speed virtual cores or a single high clock speed core and what do you do about instructions that take more than one clock cycle.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I'm not denying the merits of pipelining - no one can. I'm just saying that nothing is good when taken to the extreme.

The "more interesting option" you're referring to is implemented in P4 and Nehalem under the trademark of "HyperThreading."

<comment><USER7> The non-marketing name is Simultaneous Multithreading (SMT), but I've never been impressed with SMT performance. I think the emerging processors that use many simpler cores will have more impact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It is just a clock multiplier. Generating high clock frequencies was never the biggest bottleneck to faster CPU speeds.

They are spinning their research to be more mainstream. This probably has better application to THz communication and imaging applications like those airport scanners that can see through clothing. Currently, they generate the THz signals using lasers.

</comment><comment><USER9> Modern processors already run 250 times faster than the memory system is able to feed data into it. Caches can't help to cover this lag much. I wonder how that machine might run things faster than what current processors are doing unless this memory speed problem is fixed.

By the way, human brain works at 10 Hz only (not even KHz) and can still process information faster than all these CPUs.

<comment><USER10> the information I have about the human brain is that neurons works at about 200hz (there is variability).

It's not faster than CPUs in many things, but where it is, it wins because it is massively parallel (so that helps for pattern recognition, but not to solve difficult linear equations).

<comment><USER11> I'm sitting in on Marvin Minsky's Society of Mind class, and he keeps reminding us that MASSIVE PARALLELISM IS NOT THE INTERESTING ASPECT OF THE MIND.

Think about playing chess. Each move, there's 30 branches to follow. If you have a million machines, you can evaluate about 2 moves ahead before parallelism runs out. If you have bad branch prediction, you'll follow all the wrong paths.

Humans beat machines at creative endeavors because computers don't know what branches to follow. There was nothing interesting about the implementation of Deep Blue. It would be like implementing the Internet by shipping immense hard drives around to convey information: brute force, unintelligent, and immensely successful at delivering throughput.

We process information much slower than CPUs (how fast can _you_ read Wikipedia?), but we know when to give up, we know when to follow an interesting path, we know how to move processing to the subconscious.

<comment><USER12> Biology is very much a show-me science and I've always wondered about Society of Mind ... what's his proof?

I mean seriously, is it all just reasoned out? Is it like philosophy?

<comment><USER13> Ya know what, I dunno why you guys are all philosophising about all this stuff, as opposed to just having it BUILT ALREADY. I mean really, what does it take? So you take the ATX motherboard design, and scrap it. It's crazy old anyways. And if you can grow, or create graphene in a controlled environment, WHY does the graphene have to be a "CPU only" material? Why not use it for RAM, GPUs, and Cache??? I mean really. And this is what I want to know... WHERE is Intel in all of this. THEY are the major chip-maker of planet earth. It's not like they don't have the money to build a new architecture for graphene. It's not like they can't build a proper fabrication plant. So WHY isn't MIT working with Intel on this one...? Duh.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This seems entirely uninteresting for CPUs since there are all sorts of issues with regard to that. However, THz frequency signals have all sorts of other uses (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terahertz_radiation>)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm thinking, even if we had infinitely fast CPUs, we might not gain so much because it would just reveal other bottlenecks. Not that I'd mind having an infinitely fast CPU...</comment>


Don Buchla, modular synthesizer pioneer, dies age 79 - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/16/don-buchla-modular-synthesizer-pioneer-dies-aged-79 <comment><USER2> This is an amazing quote, applicable to much more than modular synthesiser hardware :

"The tendency, as Buchla once argued, was that when engineers designed instruments, "they design from the inside out. They design the circuits, and then they put knobs on them." But if a designer expects to design legitimate instruments, he has to design them from the outside in. He has to build the outside of the instrument first. This is what the musician is going to encounter. You cannot become obsolete if you design a legitimate instrument from the outside in."</comment>


Ask HN: Is there any US bank with a sandbox or API? - <AUTHOR> I'd like to test integration with various bank systems, is there any API/Sandbox for Citi, HSBC, JP Morgan Chase or any other American Bank - similar to PayPal's Sandbox? <comment><USER3> Capital One provides this toy API: [http://api.reimaginebanking.com](http://api.reimaginebanking.com)

If you want to create an app or startup that does anything involving banking, look elsewhere. The chances you will get approval from banks and regulators are zero. To have a halfway decent shot, you would need years, significant industry connections, expensive lawyers on retainer in New York and Washington, and the ability to prove you have cash on hand in the high 7 figures.

Here's a good example of what I'm talking about: [https://medium.com/@oscargodson/thatll-do-pig-that-ll- do-899...](https://medium.com/@oscargodson/thatll-do-pig-that-ll- do-8998f9df9f77)

<comment><USER4> > The chances you will get approval from banks and regulators are zero. To > have a halfway decent shot, you would need years, significant industry > connections, expensive lawyers on retainer in New York and Washington, and > the ability to prove you have cash on hand in the high 7 figures.

Full disclosure, I work for Capital One now. So... C1 has stated publicly it's interested in this space and some of its prominent employees are in prominent public technical groups trying to make it happen. The liability and fraud stories are really unimaginably complicated.

For people looking to make a product today, I've decided to add a quick primer:

Finicity, FinancialServices, and Plaid are all financial aggregators that you can use in combination with novel (read: quasi-legal) mechanisms you can use to provide financial services within the confines of the beleaguered law.

In general a financial product's engineering cycle looks like this:

1\. Find a data aggregator you can partner with and give most of your profits to. 2\. Work very hard on experience driven products. 3\. Find a good lawyer who can help you produce a novel interpretation of the law that works with a specific financial product. 4\. Still have limited success because fintech products have linear adoption curves (even Mint).

Examples in this space of novel mechanisms that use existing payment services, data aggregation products and very clever lawyers: Acorns, Digit, Tally.

I was one of the founders and the founding engineer of Level, and worked on Simple. My general observation is that most of the challenge is around data quality and aggregation on the technical side of things.

A lot of the challenge of making these apps work is balancing your fraud risk with your customer experience. Customers are apathetic and inclined to ignore the space, fraudsters are diabolically clever and very engaged.

<comment><USER5> heartily agree with "give most of your profits to"

Even though Plaid comes up a lot in these conversation, I haven't found their pricing any better or startup friendly than any other provider (fincity, yodlee etc).

Better marketing yes. Better api? Meh.

Anyway, I see the current set of financial data aggregators being fine for market validation for some type of applications, but they are too expensive to allow for wide-spread innovation.

<comment><USER6> Has Plaid changed their pricing model significantly over the past year?

The way Plaid structures (structured?) their pricing is much friendlier than Yodlee in that there are no monthly minimums, setup costs, or term commitments. Simple volume based pricing is generally much more startup friendly, at least in the initial stages.

<comment><USER7> They have a $500/mo minimum, last I asked (a few months ago.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm working on Teller ([https://teller.io](https://teller.io)), which is a universal banking API. We don't support any US banks yet (but we certainly plan to), but we will be publishing a sandbox API in the near future along with the GA release of our production APIs.

In the US I recommend you check out Plaid ([https://plaid.com](https://plaid.com)), although I believe they offer read only APIs.

There is also the Open Bank Project ([https://openbankproject.com](https://openbankproject.com)) which is also intended as a universal API but I don't believe has any production integrations, although they do have sandbox APIs.

Email address in profile if anyone wants to chat more about this topic.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for sharing the open bank project. I'd never heard of it. I'm actually working on something similar to you.

It's called POSADA (personal open source automated digital assistant). It's a open source digital assistant. The primary use cases are financial (paying bills, transferring money, etc). It will open source and user hosted. People host their assistant on pre-loaded, plug and play raspberry pi 3s. Hopefully there will be a community of developers that will share integrations (ie, scraping scripts). So if I want my assistant to work with my local bank, I build an intergration and now anyone else that has the same bank can connect to it.

POSADA's logic will be programmable as well. So you can customize when it alerts you, requests confirmation, or automatically transfers money from one account to another to pay a bill.

One of the use cases I'm most excited about is the ability of POSADA to make donations to organization and charities you care about. So rather than setting up an auto-pay thing with a 3rd party, you tell POSADA how much you want to give, how frequently, and can even adjust the amount based on an assessment of your current financial position. The user would be in total control and I hope that will encourage more people to financial support media outlets, open source projects, and other worthy causes on a regular, sustaining basis.

I've got a mobile app prototype that handles two factor authentication and will eventually grow to become the front end of the assistant. I'm currently leveraging the built in speech-to-text capabilities of android phone to allow the user to communicate with their assistant via voice.

<comment><USER10> This is great! I too am working behind the scenes (nothing on Github yet) on a set of scrapers that pull in data from various financial institutions (my bank, a credit union, a CC account, ect.) along with a 'manager' application that recieves results from these scrapers and displays the data to me. That's step 1. Next I'd like to fully automate the paying of my bills and setting up arbitrary actions based on certain conditions. For instance, send money to some investment account when primary checking scraper sees a new ACH deposit from my employer, ect.

Have you opened this up anywhere yet? I'm interested in using some of your ideas and/or contributing to them. :)

<comment><USER11> You may want to check out [https://github.com/bankbotsbank/bankbotsbank](https://github.com/bankbotsbank/bankbotsbank)

<comment><USER9> I just noticed you're the creator of bankbotsbank. We essentially have the same idea. We should collaborate.

I'm currently using protractor (webdriver) for my crawler but I would open to switching to nightmare to be compatible with you as long as I am able to get that stack running on a pi.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Nope, up until earlier this year I worked in the 'innovation lab' of a top 3 US bank, that was supposedly leading in the banking API space (one of current hottest payment companies uses our backend/wholesale services) and we only offer APIs to big customers and not public, let alone a sandbox environment. My impression with all the regulatory and compliance issues it will take a long time (if ever) that banks will release such tools publicly. By that time hopefully someone will figure out a better system to bypass altogether...

EDIT: Yes, there are aggregators who have agreements with banks, but I believe the OP asked for directly accessing a bank's API, which I believe is not possible with the exception of some beta programs here and there that gives access to some non trivial bank data.

<comment><USER13> Barclays, Citi, or JPM? :) Oh sorry, you were probably under a take-your- firstborn-NDA.

Either way, the internal incubators at leading banks - at least in NYC - <USER2> actually very promising. As parent said, almost every bank has agreements/internal APIs, but they are VERY VERY careful with who gets access. Primary issue, aside from privacy/compliance/PII is that transactional data can be mined so heavily for purchasing patterns and thus predicting revenue for publicly traded companies. In fact, there are a couple of startups trying to do exactly this that popped up recently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> US Bank has a hackathon site: [http://thinkbighacksmall.com](http://thinkbighacksmall.com) or [http://usbinnovationsd.apiportal.akana.com/](http://usbinnovationsd.apiportal.akana.com/)

US Bank's Elavon: [https://developer.elavon.com/#/home/landing](https://developer.elavon.com/#/home/landing)

Barclays: [https://developer.barclays.com/static/landing/landing.html](https://developer.barclays.com/static/landing/landing.html)

Capital One: [https://developer.capitalone.com](https://developer.capitalone.com)

</comment><comment><USER9> You're going to have to scrape. I'm working on an open source competitor to Mint. I call it POSADA (personal open source automated digital assistant). People run their own scrapers (plu and play, dockerized rasperry pis) so they don't have to trust their credentials and personal data to a 3rd party.

I envision a repository of integrations (ie, scripts for certain sites) so as people create integrations, you share them with the community. There's also a mobile app that allows users to get updates from the assistant, makes requests to it, or give confirmation before the assistant takes action.

<comment><USER15> Wow, I had this very same idea recently, but I'm glad someone is already working on it! One of the other problems with Mint is that despite their claims to the contrary, it's not exactly actively maintained. Do you have a git link?

<comment><USER9> I don't have the code up here yet, but I created a repo. Please follow it and I will have some code up very soon. I really hope once it gets going you'll be a contributor!

[https://github.com/ShamariFeaster/posada](https://github.com/ShamariFeaster/posada)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> In Germany i do not know any bank that does not support [0]FinTS when using online banking with your account. I would consider that a documented API for external use.

However, you asked for american banks and i haven't seen options to get a sandboxed variant albeit i am sure these exist. Another option would be to open accounts at some Banks....

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

</comment><comment><USER17> While I would expect we will see every bank releasing APIs sooner or later ([http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/consumer_trust_centr...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/10/consumer_trust_central_to_success_of_uk_initiative_on_open_data_in_banking/) shows the UK heading this way already), you may find it easier to work through an aggregator (plaid, yodlee, quovo, etc) initially for consumer-facing experiences.

Other commenters point out that some US banks have shared some early APIs, but most are not for public consumption and are limited to "partners". I suspect we'll see some restrictions on API access for a while still while regulators and banks get comfortable with an API approach.

Citi has had a Mobile Challenge for a few years with some API test access ([http://www.citimobilechallenge.com/](http://www.citimobilechallenge.com/)), and the Open Bank Project has a sandbox ([https://openbankproject.com/](https://openbankproject.com/)) for their version of banking APIs.

But for now, unless you want to leverage aggregators, I think you'll need to just keep reaching out to the banks to be included as a "partner" and try to get early access, or wait til they open broadly, and I wouldn't expect to see that til the next few years for most large banks.

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't that what Plaid [0] provides?

I know in the UK the only production banking API is Teller [1].

[0] [https://www.plaid.com/](https://www.plaid.com/)

[1] [https://teller.io/](https://teller.io/)

</comment><comment><USER19> We are a young unfounded company and work with most of the major us investment banks and the answer is there is no sandbox or API that they will share with you. Our experience is that the banks won't waste their time on anything that feels beta so you have to invest in having a solution built out and people using it (a catch 22). The exception to this rule however is that banks work for their clients (this pertains to investment banks not retail) and they will use a new tool in the context of an engagement when asked by the issuer, investor or firm they are representing. Not sure what you're planning to build but go to their customers first (issuers or large investors) who are much more agile. Once you're in the system you can navigate through the onboarding. Happy to share our experiences further if you want to discuss - reach out directly.

</comment><comment><USER20> A lot of banks support the Open Financial Exchange format [http://www.ofx.net/](http://www.ofx.net/)

Here's a list: [https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settin...](https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings)

Note that some banks (I think Bank of America is one) turn off this access by default on your account to prevent people being tricked into providing access but a quick call to them will get it enabled on your account.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is a marvelous thread! - I'll read it more carefully, but from a glance it looks like most of the functional links are the right ones... I'll speak more to the theory.

I've recommended that every Bank I've done work for (which is quite a few) consider an external facing API to enable Lead User Behavior (see Von Hippel et al from MIT and MIT Press) and the concept has never gotten good air, for a variety of reasons which, no doubt, make sense to the their reference business models. Much of that can be explained be the theories of Disruptive Innovation (see Clay Christensen, et al, Harvard Business Press).

While I can't speak on this front, I think it's also acknowledged by anyone with a fully functioning brain stem that the various screen scraping solutions are sketchy for all concerned. There are some stable providers (Plaid seems pretty shiney and exciting. Fiserv and Yodalee have been around, and I'd only say that one of them seems yo have more clout than the other.

I think you'll see some exciting possibilities in the not too distant future, but I'd have trouble seeing a major Bank opening their doors to the public for all the reasons mentioned here. If the theories of disruptive innovation hold water, I'd say that once robust services come available that allow smart developers to apply modern thought to services, the disintermediation will be annoying to the big Banks if it strips away their best customers, which it's not likely to.

The problem (from the theory side) is a) there's not much money in providing a service, there's money in selling accounts, and that's where it's really hard for a small player to gain entry and b) in a battle where the incumbent is motivated to fight, that incumbent will likely win, and I personally don't want to fight with an incumbent who makes 5BB a quarter.

</comment><comment><USER22> 100% agree, but there are some exciting banks out there doing innovative things (e.g. BBVA, Santandar, US Bank, Fidor, Silicon Valley Bank). There future of Open Banking is coming... It's just not here yet and I wouldn't hold your breath.

In the meantime...

Work at Dwolla. What us and others, like Plaid, have done is taken these partnerships, resources, compliance requirements, etc. and smashed them into endpoints, creating [hopefully] something you're looking for. Our White Label and co-branded APIs ([https://developers.dwolla.com/](https://developers.dwolla.com/)). A quick list.

Create Bank Transfers - Yes Know Your Customer Verification - Yes Sandbox - Yes Bank account verification - Yes Webhooks - Yes Oauth - Yes (Co-branded only) Create Customer Records - Yes (White Label only)

Reach out to email@example.com, if you think we can help to. (While we don't work directly with Plaid, we can be complimentary).

</comment><comment><USER23> In practice, everyone uses products by companies like Yodlee, they barely work and have a ton of production bugs and they're expensive but they sort of get the job done and they "work" almost everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER24> I'm playing with [https://github.com/euforic/banking.js](https://github.com/euforic/banking.js) right now, looks promising, sounds like other ppl have used it to connect via OFX to their respective banks (I use chase which requires a $10 per month fee to access)

</comment><comment><USER13> Look into FinTech Sandbox (boston) - they are backed by Devonshire/FMR (aka Fidelity) and provide an incubator-like program for anything fintech-related. Its probably a best place to start if you want to do anything in the banking space and dont have high millions raised already for connectivity alone.

</comment><comment><USER25> Not necessarily a big bank but Visa also has a developer site with several APIs that include Payments, Data and Analytics, and Fraud. Their website can be found at [https://developer.visa.com/](https://developer.visa.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> Banks suck at APIs (even if one exists). If you are trying to move money between bank accounts, you can checkout [https://checkbook.io](https://checkbook.io), they have a white label, token based API to create bank transactions.

</comment><comment><USER27> What about Geltbox Money? it doesn't use any third party Aggregation site (the user can aggregate his own data without exposing private data to any third parties /web site. It is a new way of aggregating data privately.

</comment><comment><USER28> US Bank just opened up their read-only API for a hackathon this weekend: [https://usbinnovationsd.eap.soa.com/#!welcome](https://usbinnovationsd.eap.soa.com/#!welcome)

</comment><comment><USER29> Depending on your use case, [https://plaid.com](https://plaid.com) may be able to help. Used by Stripe, Venmo, etc. and supports more than 15,000 banks.

<comment><USER5> Their pricing isn't really prototype/startup friendly though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This was the business model for Standard Treasury before they got acquired by Silicon Valley Bank. If you want details, you should talk with Dan Kimerling, one of the founders.

</comment><comment><USER31> Dwolla provides a sandbox and they can connect to banks. So, there is a layer between your app and the bank, but it may give you the functionality you are seeking.

</comment><comment><USER32> Have you tried Yodlee? They serve as the API for many banks.

</comment><comment><USER33> [https://developer.mastercard.com/apis](https://developer.mastercard.com/apis)

</comment><comment><USER34> Most banks support, NACHA files over SFTP. But you will need a contract and stuff.

</comment><comment><USER35> perhaps this [http://www.programmableweb.com/api/capital- one](http://www.programmableweb.com/api/capital-one)

</comment><comment><USER36> What do you want to do? Pull transaction data or something else?

</comment><comment><USER37> BBVA has public APIs in the US and Spain -[https://www.bbvaapimarket.com/](https://www.bbvaapimarket.com/) More APIs are coming too.

</comment><comment><USER38> Silicon Valley Bank (svb.com)

</comment><comment><USER39> _

<comment><USER40> Check out [https://developer.capitalone.com](https://developer.capitalone.com) for three APIs that Capital One has published. There are also open source reference applications at [https://github.com/capitalone/](https://github.com/capitalone/)

(By way of full disclosure, I work in Capital One's Open Source Office.)

<comment><USER41> Open source office? cool! (I am a happy customer)</comment></comment></comment>


Haddock: Built because I want web apps to make passwords fun - <AUTHOR> http://stephencelis.com/2009/03/29/whats-the-password-haddock.html

<comment><USER2> The name is unfortunate. Haddock is Haskell's documentation generator, which may be familiar to the same techie crowd.

Also - something I learned from working at a big company: For secure memorable passwords, it's better to take a phrase and abbreviate it than to take a couple words and concatenate them together with numbers and symbols. So from "Haddock: Built because I want web apps to make passwords fun", you might get "H:Bb1wwa2mpf", which looks like random noise to any password cracker yet is still reasonably memorable to anyone who remembers the original phrase.

You can get a lot of use out of song lyrics for this, say "Bbmap,dmc2tlbtlwd" from American Pie or "Yccatyl,bycnl" from Hotel California or "Mhfjl2b" from Comfortably Numb. Long, line noise, completely unrecognizable - yet you'll never forget the underlying lyric.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's unfortunate that Haskell's Haddock wasn't Haddoc or Hadoc. "Haddock" made the most sense to me as a name for a blathering password generator (with those nods to the Marx Bros. and Hergé). I've named the command-line utility "ha- gen", though, to avoid collisions.

And "H:Bb1wwa2mpf" may be more secure than a similar-length haddock password, but its pseudo-acrostic nature is much less digestible to your average user. Meanwhile, with a few potential modifications I outlined, haddock would still be more memorable _and_ just as secure:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=537562>

<comment><USER2> The point's to remember the phrase, not the password. :-) The password is trivially reconstructible from the phrase.

Actually - since any good programmer won't put a maximum length on their passwords, I wonder if it'd be better to get users into the habit of picking really long phrases as passwords. Type in "Haddock: Built because I want webapps to make passwords fun" in the password prompt. Maybe that'll just take too long to input though, each time you want to login.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have vague memories of acrostics I formed for study in college...and not-so- trivially muddling them ;)

I still agree with you that this kind of phrasal munging is a good method, but I also think haddock has the slight, memorable edge :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Haddock seems like a brilliant way to generate passwords with a great memorability to length ratio, but it's not clear to me that they have a great memorability to security ratio.

Haddock uses the UNIX wordlist with a known algorithm for password generation: words = %W(#{random_word} #{random_symbol}#{random_word}) if I'm reading the source right. It seems like it's reducing the search space drastically for a gain in memorability that is difficult to quantify. Might be a win, but might be a loss.

But I don't really know this stuff so well-- any real crypto folks care to comment?

<comment><USER4> I'm no security guru but with a little sensibility on the website itself could lessen the security risk from dictionary attacks. If you allow 3 login attempts before requiring a captcha, or set a maximum number of attempts per hour, giving your users more memorable passwords shouldn't be too much of a risk.

<comment><AUTHOR> A very good point, though I would encourage something closer to 25 or 100 login attempts. Don't punish clumsy users for having a secure password, but prevent brute-forces by all means.

<comment><USER5> 25 or 100?

First attempt: quick typing, conscious mistake.

Second attempt: quick typing, wrong password again.

Third attempt: _okay, I'll type it in carefully now_. Wrong password.

Fourth attempt: _oh, yes, that was my Yahoo! password_. Remembers password and enters it cautiously, because he/she knows that he has a maximum of 5 login attempts.

Five are enough for me. Or at most 10. 100 seem ridiculous. How often does it happen that you mistype your password 99 times and get it right on the one- hundredth, before you're tired of being shown the "wrong password" message and click the "forgot password" link?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm only suggesting an implementation that is transparent for the user. 10 would probably be just fine, but 25 would be closer to an impossible situation without significantly increasing the odds of a successful attack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Hmmm... Using the UNIX word list for password resets may lead to passwords like "oversexed#asshole". May not be the best password to send to your users.

I would suggest trimming the wordlist before use, if you plan to use it for handing out passwords.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah. I addressed that in the post. The odds are low, though, and come on, most users would have a good laugh ;)

<comment><USER7> Nope. There is no such thing as an average sense of humor. At a company I worked for we got a lot of crap for sending out passwords like "invisible*negro" and "murdered#pakistani". The odds are not as low as you think.

Hell, we got crap for adding the tags "Russian" and "Jew" to people who were, in fact, from Russia and Jewish.

<comment><AUTHOR> Agh! Good point! Some kind of regex should definitely be included.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I use song lyrics as passwords. I pick a song, then take the first letter from either each word, or each line (depends what works best).

</comment><comment><USER9> gotta start stopping my own password generating algorithm based on temperature, first name of the first person pops in my head, and crazy md5/sha hash of whatever something like

45john5hit

</comment><comment><USER10> completely solid.</comment>


Firefox Home iPhone app - Adults Only - <AUTHOR> http://robert.accettura.com/blog/2010/07/16/firefox-home-adults-only/

<comment><USER2> And to think Microsoft got fined millions for just objecting to having competitor's software bundled with Windows. At least they didn't portray other browsers as sinkholes of vice and crime. Their rating policies seem almost designed to generate complaints to the FTC.</comment>


Can government spending really increase happiness? - <AUTHOR> https://psmag.com/news/can-government-spending-really-increase-happiness <comment><USER2> Clickbait question.

Of course it could. And of course it could reduce happiness. It all depends on what you spend it on, how much, etc.</comment>


Thumbtack raises $4.5M, already half the size of Yelp - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/09/local-services-marketplace-thumbtack-raises-4-5-million/

<comment><USER2> What defines the "size" of a company in this context is the number of users/buyers, not the number of listed companies. Thumbtack may have half as many pieces of company info, but I bet the number of users that go to Thumbtack for info is tiny compared to Yelp.

I once read that the Yahoo search ad platform has more advertisers than Google, due to more lax standards. Does that mean that Yahoo ads are bigger than AdWords?

<comment><USER3> Good point... I also thought the title was very misleading, and just lame, to be honest. Also Yelp isn't even in the same space.. Yelp is more for local businesses, not for contractors. Thumbtack is more like Angies List.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Any chance that Thumbtack will produce an API?

It would be nice to have a way of getting at the data to embed recommendations, connections, etc inside other apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great point. This is something we're thinking really hard about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Thumbtack seems like a nice upgraded version of craigslist and all, but it just isn't conducive to the same high _successful_ transaction rates. My experience after a year has been completely underwhelming.

<comment><AUTHOR> (I'm an engineer at Thumbtack.) Thanks for the feedback. I'm sorry to hear you say that you had a difficult time, since usually we hear the exact opposite. Of course, any transaction between two real people always is burdened by the complexities of a real interaction.

If you have specific feedback on what we can do better, we'd love to hear it -- either here or you can email me directly: chris at thumbtack.

<comment><USER5> I think that mostly things on thumbtack just seem rather static, whereas craigslist is fluid. Craigslist is pretty close to pure UGC. On thumbtack the leads come in kind of slow (0-3 a month) and everyone competes with static profiles and a chance to write a short note (which is nice, but also can feel stale, and untimely)

I want to go to the website and connect with people ready to work together right now, or at least communicate with people in real-time. If you are active on craigslist and have the time you can email people until this happens, and it usually doesnt take that long.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great, thanks for clarifying. The problem you're describing is essentially one of volume, if I'm understanding correctly. As you might imagine, increasing volume is one of our top priorities. If you have further specific thoughts or feedback, please let me know.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Elementals - <AUTHOR> http://apps.angryrobotzombie.com/theelementals/ <comment><USER2> Sadly, this does absolutely nothing to help you understand the _periodic_ part of the table.

Without showing the structure of electron levels, I fear it's actively misleading. (They specifically show the electrons all orbiting at the same radius.)

It might be _hard_ to make that look as cute, but I doubt it's impossible -- and in any case, not an excuse for sacrificing the one most important thing about the table!

(Also, what happened to the poor neutrons?)

</comment><comment><USER3> I was expecting to see the electrons at their different energy levels and was a little surprised when I didn't.

Still, beautiful site.

</comment><comment><USER4> I wish I could put multiple elements on the page to bond them together. Cool design though!

</comment><comment><USER5> I really like this! I just wish it didn't go behind the table when I clicked a new element.

<comment><USER6> I wish the table would fit on my screen. And this is on a MBP, I'm sure it's worse on my macbook at home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Cool! This reminds me of Meet the Elements by They Might Be Giants. Good background music whilst brushing up on your alkalines.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy0m7jnyv6U></comment>


I wrote a SciFi novel for fun which everyone that has read it loves it - <AUTHOR> For fun my side project was writing a SciFi novel. I've gotten a dozen or so people to read and and respond and it seems to be universally loved.
I've done the submitting to agents and getting the mountains of rejection letters.
Has anyone on HN gone through this, how do I get my book into the hands of an agent? <comment><USER2> I recommend reading up on Andy Weir as he started out self-publishing and was eventually approached by a publisher... [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Weir)

The other author I am familiar with is Tui Sutherland who started out working at a publishing house, then working on the Warriors book series with several other authors before starting her own series Wings of Fire.</comment>


Statement by Jeff Bezos to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary - <AUTHOR> https://blog.aboutamazon.com/policy/statement-by-jeff-bezos-to-the-u-s-house-committee-on-the-judiciary <comment><USER2> I know that he (and others in positions like CEO in such industries) cannot say it, but I would be glad to hear him say:

 _" Representatives, Amazon is a company focused on innovation, efficiency, and getting the best and most out of people, and giving the best and most to people, wherever it can.

Tech allows us to tap into economies of scale, create new products and give consumers choices never seen before, squeeze out waste in ways that were not possible up to now, and create net benefit for people in this country. Each one of you can probably personally think of how Amazon technology has improved the lives of yourselves and people you know.

We seek to do this as far as the law allows us to do, and other companies do that as well. We operate within the rules placed on us by the legislatures of this country and its states.

As you know, sometimes even under fair laws, some people will lose out compared to others. Innovation comes with risk and change -- that's an unavoidable consequence of progress. And technology has been doing this for hundreds of years. But that's what laws are meant to set the boundaries of, based on people like you determining how best to create those rules.

If this body is concerned with what we are doing within the laws, it should change those laws based on the best interests of this country and its people. And Amazon will follow those laws.

We want that clarity, and want to follow our responsibilities under the law. It's your responsibility to set out those laws. Amazon welcomes performing our responsibilities to American consumers, and we invite you to do the same to the people you are responsible to."_

<comment><USER3> Isn't it hypocritical to make a comment like this while also lobbying the government for laws that favor your business? "I'm just playing by the rules" shouldn't be a valid defense when you are actively taking a role in deciding those rules.

<comment><USER4> but maybe problem here is in that corrupted thing called lobbying is allowed in the very first place.. I don't see how legal buying politicians this way is different from illegal corruption.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, as an immigrant in the US, I still can't wrap my head around it. I originate from a country with rampant corruption amongst beauracrats and politician. The most common, that's always in the news, is one where the wealthy pay off political leaders to influence policies. But in the US, it's just legal!

<comment><USER6> > _I still can 't wrap my head around it_

Pick something you're knowledgeable about. Uniquely knowledgeable. Now imagine the Congress is writing legislation on it. Would you think your views might be helpful?

Let's say you and a few other people are in the same position. Travelling to D.C. isn't free, so you decide to--as a group--reimburse the expenses of the person who travels. Would this be unfair?

Scale that up to a full-time job, as an explainer of specific things to lawmakers, and lobbying makes sense. Barring lobbying would mean barring people knowledgeable about specific topics from organising to inform lawmakers. That applies to large companies as much as to the Sierra Club.

The trouble is in campaign contributions, post-service jobs and _e.g._ fancy dinners. These are closer to, or overtly, bribery. Democracy can't exist without organisation and education of lawmakers, and that means it requires lobbying. Democracy also cannot survive in the presence of chronic bribery. These aims aren't mutually exclusive.

<comment><USER2> This is very true.

Lobbying, for its many faults, helps lawmakers (who are understaffed and generally underresourced) filter and figure out which opinions are worth listening to. Even the most well-intentioned / good ideas have trouble being advocated by one smart person in this system. You need an organization to attach to that gives you credibility.

Not saying that this is the right way -- and certainly often the less privileged opinions get short shrift in this system. A good government/political structure would give lawmakers effective ways to not have to have to rely on lobbyists.

But it is the system that has arisen in the absence of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The statement is a work of art, and should be read, perhaps even studied. It's perfect. Jeff is a master at doing PR. Learn from him.

The big question for him and Amazon should be: why does Amazon paid an average of 8% tax rate [0], when average people pay much more?

[0]: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-amazon-really-pay-no- taxes...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/does-amazon-really-pay-no-taxes-heres- the-complicated-answer-11560504602)

<comment><USER2> It pays 8% because US tax law is set up to allow that to happen. Perhaps, even incentivize that.

And maybe that's not a good thing. But there are well defined ways to change that. If we can't, then there is something else wrong.

<comment><USER8> Yes and the whole multi million/billion dollar law business exists around it. Tax law and tax attorneys. Their job is to find legal loopholes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > It's not a coincidence that Amazon was born in this country. More than any > other place on Earth, new companies can start, grow, and thrive here in the > U.S. Our country embraces resourcefulness and self-reliance, and it embraces > builders who start from scratch. We nurture entrepreneurs and start-ups with > stable rule of law, the finest university system in the world, the freedom > of democracy, and a deeply accepted culture of risk-taking

I don't disagree, but in my opinion, many of these things are actively under attack. We used to have stable rule of law, but since the protests I'm not so sure now. We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society.

<comment><USER10> > We used to value self-reliance and risk taking, but a growing chunk of > America now wants a more risk-averse government-reliant (in the form of > guaranteed pensions, etc) European style society.

I'd be happy if that's all they wanted. Some people want to "dismantl[e] White Supremacy, Patriarchy, Capitalism, Imperialism and the role the state plays in supporting them." And instead of saying "hey, one of those things is not like the other" I now drive past a street in DC every day named after an organization that has this quote on their DC chapter's front page. (Technically, it's an honorary name, but DC streets have proper street signs for those.) Meanwhile, the Smithsonian is publishing materials condemning "objective, rational linear thinking" and "progress" and "competition."

I get that these are fringe academic ideas that fringe people have injected into an otherwise really important conversation. But I'm pretty alarmed about the degree to which mainstream sources are implicitly sanctioning these kinds of assertions. Silicon Valley as we know it can't exist within this intellectual framework.

<comment><USER11> Why are you alarmed by this, when all the available evidence suggests that the mainstream of America is receptive to the obvious parts of these ideas ("stop killing unarmed black people") and not at all receptive to the rest ("seize the means of production")? Look at who won the nomination.

<comment><USER10> I mean that's fair. To calm myself down I listen to Keisha Lance Bottoms talk about public private partnerships. But, I do need that talking down because:

1) I don't trust academics and I think they have outsized influence on culture. I think, for example, academics destroyed the original understanding of the Establishment Clause, and thereby hastened the decline of organized religion as one of the institutions of civil society. I think that is a bad thing. I worry about what's next on the chopping block. For example, while I don't think the government is going to seize the means of production, I worry "life, liberty, and property" doesn't have the cachet it used to. Many people don't really believe the constitution protects economic rights.

2) Related to (1), I'm worried some well-meaning teacher will tell my brown daughter that "rational linear thinking" is "white culture." (That would result in a lawsuit.)

3) I know few people my age and economic/educational class who actually wanted Biden to win. The "wonk" set seems to be much more amenable to these fringe ideas. And because we've sanctioned an unconstitutional administrative state where unelected wonks wield great power, I worry.

4) There is a disconnect between what I consider mainstream sources out of historical inertia, and maybe what they are now. I have a hard time reading the NYT these days. But I also recognize that, due to massive declines in readership, the NYT is more of a niche source than it used to be. But who still reads it? See (3).

<comment><USER11> By all the accounts I've read, what we're looking at right now is nothing even close to the Long Hot Summer. You'd have to know where to look to find evidence of protests in Chicago.

It's tough to metabolize not knowing anyone who wanted Biden to win, because he won the primary overwhelmingly; compare the map in Michigan in 2016 to 2020. Biden won Washtenaw County! Single-payer health care polls well in the abstract, but failed as an actual ballot measure in Colorado and Vermont; people support all sorts of things in the abstract, but in reality don't support radical change.

I have the same contempt you do for the "rational linear thinking" thing and haven't shut up about it for weeks. But then, the Black History Museum took down the poster; it looks like it survived as long as it did because nobody was paying attention to it. Both The New York Times and the Washington Post ran reviews tearing down _White Fragility_; when people actually _read the book_ , rather than nodding their head to the title (it's a great title! admit it!), the scales from their eyes.

If anything, I think the most reasonable concern is that we won't change _enough_. The police violence and accountability problem is very real and very serious.

<comment><USER10> > If anything, I think the most reasonable concern is that we won't change > enough. The police violence and accountability problem is very real and very > serious.

That's reasonable, but there is also another possibility: we'll make changes in form but not substance. There are attempts underway to rename the high school I attended (named after Thomas Jefferson). Those efforts arose as a result of the fact that this year no African Americans were admitted in a class of about 450. At the moment it seems like changing the name is a lot more likely than changing admissions or recruiting policies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If nothing else this is going to be a fun show. I have a feeling the House is overmatched.

<comment><USER13> Overmatched in intellect but not in raw power. Bezos has managed to piss off Democrats and Trumpists so any anti-Amazon legislation is viable.

<comment><USER14> Let's not pretend that Bezos spent much time on this statement. His lawyers and other employees wrote it for him.

<comment><USER15> I would think a smart, driven person who is passionate about the topic would be more than happy to write this and spend a lot of time on it.

Seems like his writing style.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > I founded Amazon 26 years ago with the long-term mission of making it > Earth's most customer-centric company

I wonder if he still thinks that's the case.

<comment><USER17> I feel like customer centric is just another way of saying money centric. Big difference between customer-centric and people-centric

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Am I the only one who thinks that Bezos gives the same generic statements everywhere. I have heard all of these before in an interview with David Rubinstein and other interviews before that.

</comment><comment><USER19> You know it's 2020 when a judiciary committee address begins with a billionaire attempting to cloak himself in a victim narrative.

I can't wait for the world to go back to normal, so it once again becomes shameful to show any weakness and immorality, so we can deal with people's actions rather than their position on the victimhood totem pole.

<comment><USER20> Bezos is a victim of intrusive government.

<comment><USER21> and how mightily he suffers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Lays on the schmaltz pretty thick in the beginning. In fact I couldn't even get past all the schmaltz. Then I remembered he has warehouses where underpaid workers pass out from exhaustion and I stopped reading.

<comment><USER23> I'd you'd continued lower down, you'd have read:

> Amazon employees make a minimum of $15 an hour, more than double the federal > minimum wage (which we have urged Congress to increase). We've challenged > other large retailers to match our $15 minimum wage. Target did so recently, > and just last week so did Best Buy. We welcome them, and they remain the > only ones to have done so. We do not skimp on benefits, either. Our full- > time hourly employees receive the same benefits as our salaried headquarters > employees, including comprehensive health insurance starting on the first > day of employment, a 401(k) retirement plan, and parental leave, including > 20 weeks of paid maternity leave. I encourage you to benchmark our pay and > benefits against any of our retail competitors.

They might still be 'underpaid', but maybe they're less underpaid than other similar businesses? Could it be true to say that all entry-level jobs suck, but maybe working for Amazon sucks slightly less than some others?</comment></comment>