US bans WeChat, TikTok from app stores, threatens shutdowns - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/a439ead01b75fc958c722daf40f9307c <comment><USER2> Banning a speech app should trigger strict judicial scrutiny for first amendment infringement in the same way that banning a newspaper would:

1\. Is it necessary to a "compelling state interest"?

Maybe they are CCP surveillance apps, but that needs be shown in court, not merely asserted.

2\. Is it "narrowly tailored" to achieving this compelling purpose?

This seems narrowly tailored to two apps.

3\. Does it use the "least restrictive means" to achieve the purpose?

Like demanding that they change the apps rather than banning them.

<comment><USER3> I am focusing on WeChat only with this comment.

It is not narrowly tailored or least restrictive. Narrowly tailored means the law must be precisely written to minimize the 1st Amendment impact. In this case, this order prevents millions of Americans from using their primary (and oftentimes only) method to communicate with family in China. There is no practical alternative to WeChat as all other similar apps are banned in China, so this order is extremely restrictive.

<comment><USER4> > In this case, this order prevents millions of Americans from using their > primary (and oftentimes only) method to communicate with family in China.

Didn't look that way to me? The order prohibits services from providing the application or updates to it via an "online mobile application store in the US", it prohibits services from doing any payment processing for WeChat, and it prohibits services from providing hosting or content delivery for WeChat. But while it's doing its best to make it difficult for Americans to _obtain_ WeChat, (1) it does not actually prohibit them from doing so, and (2) it very much doesn't prohibit anyone from _using_ WeChat. (Except for monetary transfer; that's prohibited.)

<comment><USER5> Translated to a more familiar medium, the analogy would be: "bookstores can no longer sell that title, but that's ok because people who already own a copy can still read it." I'm not a constitutional scholar, but this seems like a pretty weak counterargument to me.

<comment><USER4> I agree with your analogy, and I agree that this is a terrible move.

But for the demographic mentioned ("this order prevents millions of Americans from using their primary (and oftentimes only) method to communicate with family in China"), I find it vanishingly unlikely that _any_ of them doesn't already have wechat. The order has essentially zero immediate effects on them.

<comment><USER5> On the contrary, I think it's vastly more consequential than the corresponding argument wrt a hard-copy book or CD-ROM. A single OS upgrade can render an application completely inoperable. Had this ban been timed slightly differently, the recent iOS 14 update could have shut down every copy running on iOS devices. Every typical iOS user (and many Android users) are "N days" from total failure of the app on their device, for values of N ranging to a few hundred.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> We see another side effect of app stores: gives governments easy leverage to tell you what you can do with your computer.

<comment><USER7> I hadn't even thought of this.

What if WeChat was a traditional installer (.msi, .app, .exe, .run) that you download from some sever and which is mirrored all over the place?

Does the same authority apply? Can the government say "it's illegal to have this binary executable?"

Or is this only possible because there's one central repository for these platforms, and the government can simply compel the platform (legal and ethical questions aside) to remove them?

<comment><USER8> You actually can, there's a desktop version.

<comment><USER9> Yes, there is, but it requires you to scan a code with your mobile phone before you can use it!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I'm genuinely curious what the perceived threat is here. Is it as simple as "China is going to read everyone's stuff and use machine learning to figure out what the cool kids are doing and then brainwash them?"

<comment><USER11> So, separate from the Trump Administration's actual motivations (which I think are at best vague and at worst petty retaliation), I thought this NY Times editorial made a pretty strong case in favor of banning these platforms:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/opinion/tiktok-wechat- ban...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/opinion/tiktok-wechat-ban- trump.html)

TikTok and WeChat benefit from being the only social networks that can be accessed from all of the largest internet markets in the world. And the only social networks that can do that are... the ones from China. When the US is permissive, and China is not, China gets to write all the rules.

This gives China the ability to effectively export their restrictions on speech around the world, as they have shown an eagerness to do. If you want to be a global social network, you have to play by China's rules, globally.

I'm not personally convinced that banning these platforms is the right move, but I think the case is legitimate, and it's certainly a major problem.

<comment><USER12> Imagine that Russia bans Facebook because of those reasons. Do you think that would be a good move?

<comment><USER13> Doesn't Russia have VK, and isn't it the most popular site in Russia? FB is certainly popular in Russia, but it's not like people there wouldn't have another place to go if FB were banned.

<comment><USER14> The sort of people that use Facebook in Russia know their way around a ban.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> US Government just provided another case study in why we need to be able to side load apps.

<comment><USER12> Ban is a heavy word. Can Google issue command to android phones to stop running some particular program? For example as a security measure to stop malware? I think that Google have that ability, even if that malware was side- loaded. Apple definitely can do that on Macs. That feature could be abused to prevent running any forbidden program and side-load won't help you.

Android is still better than iOS in that regard, because it's open source and you can disable anything. Just side-loading might not be enough.

<comment><USER16> There should be an option to opt-in to side loading, and opt-out of remote app deletions.

Bury them deep in settings, have a ton of recurring confirmation prompts, etc., but we should have laws to ensure these options are available on the devices we own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It seems like WeChat access is pretty hard to get in the US currently if you don't know anyone that uses it. I registered an account to try and get support for my Ender 3D printer(nightmare). After a few fields the app asked me to have my sponsor enter my number and I wasn't able to progress further so I uninstalled.

<comment><USER18> Wait what? You need a "sponsor" to use WeChat?

<comment><USER19> Sponsor is perhaps a strong word. You need another WeChat user to verify your account by scanning a QR code displayed on your app using their app. You need to do this when you create an account, and also if you haven't used your account in a while. I assume this is some sort of anti-spam/anti-bot feature.

Note that the above is just for the chat feature. You have to jump through more hoops if you want to make payments using the app.

<comment><USER20> Not only is it an anti-spam feature, but a single personal connection gives substantial insight into a person's social graph.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wechat has an inherent advantage that in order to chat in China or too chat with anyone living in China, you must use wechat.

No American or European chatting app has this same benefit. And since chatting apps and social media in general tends to gravitate to the service with the most users, this puts wechat in a great position. Why use wechat to message your friend in China and WhatsApp to message the rest of the world, when you can just use wechat for both?

</comment><comment><USER22> Although this is very reactionary and targeted, I hope it eventually spurs a structured process to handle issues like these, ie:

a) Clear criteria for what constitutes an app national security risk

b) An actual government process to evaluate, respond, and enforce against all potential app threats (not just based on popularity, though scale is a factor in prioritization)

<comment><USER23> I'd rather they not institutionalize this. More bureaucracy isn't going to be meaningful if this is the model, the bureaucracy will just exist to whitewash this stuff in the future.

<comment><USER24> I also prefer "less authoritarianism" to "more reasonable authoritarianism".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Why does the rest of the world tolerate American bullying is beyond me. At least in Europe, we should ban every Facebook app immediately. This would have the added benefit of letting regional apps emerge.

<comment><USER26> One big reason is that America controls the SWIFT network for settling international transactions. If you hate American commercial bullying, perhaps the biggest thing to be excited about is Europe's SWIFT-alternative, INSTEX.

The world is so reliant on SWIFT currently that America can grind your commerce to a halt if you don't refuse to do business with entities it doesn't want you to.

(I realize this current TikTok action is domestic-only and unrelated to SWIFT, but I'm speaking more broadly).

<comment><USER27> "SWIFT" is already in Belgium and INSTEX isn't a SWIFT replacement.

This isn't a technical problem (one can transfer money other ways as well, for example). If an entity does business with Iran it risks being put on the US Entity List (think Huawei) or other sanctions. US influence currently is still far reaching and many businesses don't want to risk (future) complications for little gain (Iran isn't that large of an economy). The calculus changes if it is a market as large as China, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> When China does not allow foreign companies to operate in their land (Facebook, Amazon, and a host of other companies) then why should we allow their companies to exist here?

</comment><comment><USER29> Any concern about apps accessing data is a great argument for sandboxing apps completely from the rest of your phone (e.g. no shared file access, no shared camera roll, no genuine GPS data, 2-way logged/firewalled network access, etc.)

</comment><comment><USER30> WeChat ban is just evil, no justifiable benefit. Almost all the users in America are overseas Chinese who use it to talk to friends and family in China and send money.

<comment><USER31> Calling the ban evil is a bit hyperbolic IMO, or maybe just incomplete. Phones with the software could easily be compromised. Users with the software can be profiled and tracked by the Chinese government pretty easily. The Chinese market bans most of America's social media software, and we're entering a trade war. All these are real, legitimate reasons to ban it.

<comment><USER32> > The Chinese market bans most of America's social media software, and we're > entering a trade war.

America is not China and should not frame its policies based on China's policies. While, I agree there is a need to retaliate but 'be like China' is hardly the way to do it.

<comment><USER33> I agree that the US shouldn't justify acting like an autocratic state because China does so, but on the side of punishing an autocratic state there is precedent all over the place. The question we should ask is more how the US ever allowed China such exception in the first place, when Cuba for example has a full on total sanction against it, and so do many other autocratic states. So how did China get away without that for so long?

<comment><USER29> > So how did China get away without that for so long?

Cheap labor for US manufacturing

<comment><USER34> Unfortunately, Cuba values its citizens' lives more than China does, hence it turned out to be more profitable to keep manufacturing at America's biggest rival, all while Cuba gets stuck in middle income gap. Just an addendum.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wonder what would happen if WeChat/TikTok opened up their protocols and let people connect with arbitrary software, including self written and open source stuff.

The malware vector concerns would be gone. They could still spy on communication that wasn't E2E encrypted or impersonate users but that concern arises with essentially every communications service.

<comment><USER36> I doubt that realistically it would make any difference.

There being open source alternative apps to consume a service means exactly nothing to the officials pushing for this ban.

The action seems to be politically motivated, and technical details like "the protocol is open" are not going to be understood by politicians.

<comment><USER37> It wouldn't make a difference if only client code was open-sourced, sure.

But if the _entire system_ was open for Americans to peruse and operate their shards of, that might be a different story. Not saying that is practical, but I've never seen an objection on nationalist grounds to the fully open-source code I wrote from China while employed by a Chinese company in 2012-14.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Is WeChat even useful in the US? Is it used at all?

<comment><USER39> I'm guessing you don't have many Chinese friends, if you do I would recommend asking them how important it is for them.

It is an essential form of communication for the large community of Chinese citizens in the US. If you have any Chinese friends I can promise you their families are worried about how they are going to keep in touch. It's also heavily used for intra-US communication in various Chinese communities. In the NYC area there is almost an entire other city available to WeChat users.

It's a big, and I do believe intentional, 'fuck you' to the Chinese community.

<comment><USER16> It's a big pain, but surely they'll find another way to keep in touch, though?

What do western people do in China to keep in touch with their families back home, when all the western social media apps are banned?

It's hard for me to believe that a state-backed communications app is the only option available to Chinese expats.

<comment><USER40> > What do western people do in China to keep in touch with their families back > home, when all the western social media apps are banned?

They change the country of their app store.

<comment><USER41> Huh? It's not just apps are banned from the store but you can't get out of the Great Firewall even if you have the apps.

<comment><USER40> You have to get the apps to use them, the rest is a VPN or something similar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> What was the point of selling TikTok to Oracle if it's just going to be banned anyway?

<comment><USER43> It wasn't, the deal was never completed; the point of the ban is to coerce them into selling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> What really makes me afraid is that the USA Gov is so scared of a foreign social network app, they must really know how powerful are these apps. How would I trust the social networks under the American Gov?

<comment><USER45> > How would I trust the social networks under the American Gov?

Presumably a country probably wouldn't if they are an enemy of the western world.

<comment><USER46> Such as China (see: Facebook, Youtube and Instagram).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> > Users, meanwhile, face a security "nightmare" because they won't be able to > get app updates that fix bugs and security vulnerabilities, he said.

This is because people who already have the app will be able to continue using it, just without updates.

So we can probably expect to see a mad rush of new users downloading the app over the weekend before it gets banned - and then keeping an outdated, insecure app on their devices without any security updates...

<comment><USER12> I saw people selling iPhones with Fortnite installed with some premium. That story might be repeated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> When will Apple and Google come out and say "no" to this? What is the legislative mechanism that gives the Dept of Commerce control over what code (speech) is transmitted on their app platform?

Calling it a "transaction" is a stretch - using that logic, Department of Commerce could ban any online download they wanted. That's clearly not a good outcome, and not an interpretation we as technologists should accept.

<comment><USER49> Can't they? Aren't there bans on open source contributions between Iran and the US?

See: [https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban- us](https://github.com/1995parham/github-do-not-ban-us)

<comment><USER13> I think there's a legal difference between declaring an entire country and its citizens subject to these sorts of restrictions (which is allowed), vs. singling out specific companies.

But unfortunately the executive has been granted a lot of ambiguous and murky power under the guise of "national security" and things like that, so I wouldn't be surprised if these actions are indeed legal, but the root of the legality is something other than ITAR or OFAC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I really hope there is more to this story than the public is privy to, and I hope we find out about it soon.

</comment><comment><USER51> On the flip side maybe Fdroid will take off. Is fdroid open source repos only? If Bytedance was gutsy they could release an open source version of tiktok. They could keep their algo as closed off either as compiled code or for the app to make API calls?

The rest of the code base, everyone could see.

<comment><USER52> > On the flip side maybe Fdroid will take off. Is fdroid open source repos > only?

FLOSS repos I guess, but they are 'opinionated' in which open source software they allow on f-droid which this statement goes against the entire idea of FLOSS. Even if the software is open source and free software [0].

As you said, Bytedance must essentially do the same thing as Telegram and relicense it as GPL3 [1]. That includes everything.

[0] [https://www.f-droid.org/en/2019/07/16/statement.html](https://www.f-droid.org/en/2019/07/16/statement.html)

[1] [https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.telegram.messenger/](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.telegram.messenger/)

> If Bytedance was gutsy they could release an open source version of tiktok. > They could keep their algo as closed off either as compiled code or for the > app to make API calls?

Hence the above, I don't see this happening.

<comment> em-bee f-droid clients support multiple repos. the main repo is just one. in the f-droid forums you can find others which employ different policies.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> So, we are supposed to have a congress that deliberates and passes laws. This is the notion that we are a society of laws.

However, here, we have a president that acts by decree, similar to a dictator. No deliberations. No industry consultations. Nothing. Just some vague excuse that this is a national security issue, so no further questions are allowed.

Welcome to the new Totalitarian States of America.

</comment><comment><USER54> China bans WhatsApp. The U.S. bans WeChat. Great, no I have no official app besides good old text and phone to communicate with my fiancée who is still banned from reentering the U.S. despite still having a job here.

The U.S. has simply become an authoritarian state of a different color. My fiancée is prevented from returning and we are prevented from using our primary communication method simply because the so-called president wants to personally gain from these actions (i.e., swindle a re-election).

And what am I supposed to use to pay for things when I visit China now if WeChat is removed from AppStores?

Freedom my ass. Facebook, Google, and the others all collect the same if not more data than these apps, and those companies have shown time and again they do not have the American people's best interests at heart and abuse the data collection and their power. So what are we doing here?

Instead, I suspect there was collusion between Facebook and Trump's cronies for them to have released Instagram Reels when they did.

<comment><USER55> I thought the border restriction was just about having been in China in the last 14 days. Couldn't she get back into the US if she went to a different country first for 14 days?

<comment><USER54> No. The U.S. refuses to even process visas. Early on, the U.S. initially held her passport (a foreign one at that!) for over a month, preventing travel to countries she had valid visas to. When she eventually did once the passport was returned, the U.S. canceled her appointment, forcing travel back to China. Such foreign visas have now expired. The U.S. continues to allow appointments to be made at embassies and consulates and then cancels them right before. She actually falls into one of the conditional allowances that should get her back, based upon lawsuits from large employers, but the U.S. is not keeping appointments and not processing visas. So whatever they claim is allowed (which is not much), they are blocking that and more on a procedural level, just like they were doing since January before any bans were even in place. They don't care.

H1Bs and others (at least from China) are banned at a minimum until January 2021.

<comment><USER55> That's rough.

We are in a similar situation. She's got a tourist visa though, and while we think it would technically be possible for her to enter the US, we're kind of afraid to try.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Under what analogy might the United States be justified in doing this?

</comment><comment><USER57> duplicate thread of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24515540)

</comment><comment><USER58> This has nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with foreign policy.

China doesn't allow US social apps. For historical reasons to do with attempts to establish trust, the US has allowed Chinese social apps.

That trust is arguably no longer reasonable to hold.

It is entirely reasonable for the US to want to trade with China on an equal footing.

It's notable that China is the worlds largest economy, and proclaims the superiority of their socialist system over western democracy.

Obviously the US claims to be the worlds largest economy, and proclaims the superiority of western democracy over socialism.

Regardless of who is right, there is no legitimate argument supporting a continued imbalance in the playing field.

Trump may be doing a stupid and clumsy thing here, but the motivations seem reasonable.

</comment><comment><USER59> For a country to purport itself to be about freedom...

<comment><USER45> Isn't this just an embargo? The fact that it is on software is new but embargos have been a thing in just about every western democracy

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Shutting We Chat is pretty huge for the diaspora.

</comment><comment><USER61> What happens when the next one comes along ? Does that just get banned too?

It wouldn't really been hard to imagine they take almost the same codebase rebrand and relaunch.

</comment><comment><USER62> I'm confused: How does the executive branch have the right to unilaterally edit app stores? If Trump says "I'm sick of Barron playing CandyCrush at the dinner table, let's just ban it" can he do that? How? Shouldn't this require legislation?

As an American, this seems very... "unamerican".

<comment><USER63> I have been trying to figure this out as well. I am just guessing as I haven't found anything specific, but since this is being issued by the department of commerce, I would assume that downloading an app from the Google Play or App Store would constitute a transaction, even if the price of the software is free, and the government can order that these are products that constitute a national security risk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> Well, since US fails to compete in other ways...

<comment><USER16> What? The U.S. failed to create competing social apps?

You realize the only reason WeChat exists is because China didn't let western companies compete, right?

<comment><USER13> I wouldn't say it's the _only_ reason. WeChat is more than just a chat app; it's also a social networking and payments app. For digital payments, at least, the US is far, far behind the ease of use and merchant buy-in that apps like WeChat offer.

I know people in China and other Asian countries who rarely pull out cash or even a credit/bank card, and handle nearly all of their payments through apps.

Think of it like Venmo, but all merchants accept it directly, and you can complete transactions in the middle of a chat session (with a merchant or a regular person) without having to switch to another payment-dedicated UX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> This, I'm afraid, is purely Trump's vindinctive revenge on tiktokkers as a million of them wrecked his rally by booking tickets to it and never showed. Isn't abusing his powers and dishonouring the Presidential Office an impeachable offence anyway?

</comment><comment><USER66> Trump attacks a children's app because he is unable to do much against China otherwise.

US apps from Facebook and Google collect far more personal data and use it more malevolently.

<comment><USER67> > US apps from Facebook and Google collect far more personal data and use it > more malevolently.

Source? What 'malevolent' use has Google made of your data?

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> [redacted]

<comment><USER69> Trump wasn't elected because of magic mind hacking by Facebook or whatever. He appealed to issues that people were concerned about, whatever you may think of those issues, and so they voted for him.

<comment><USER70> Watch the latest Triumph bit from the Colbert show to see the mentality of Trump supporters. We are living in an idiocracy now. 51% of Americans have no critical thinking skills. The "issues" are whatever you can use to trigger an emotional response from someone who is easily manipulated.

<comment><USER71> >Watch the latest Triumph bit from the Colbert show to see the mentality of Trump supporters.

Not a defense of Trump supporters here, but do we know how many were edited out that intelligently spoke on issues to form the Triumph bit? Without that, you can't really make any determinations. On top of that, the sample size is likely very small.

<comment><USER70> Editing doesn't matter. They all signed a release knowing that their recorded statements were perfectly fine in their own heads.

<comment><USER71> You misinterpreted what I said. The point I was trying to make was not that what they were saying was edited, but that the choices of people who were selected to be in the bit was chosen, for the bit. There could have very well been a majority of well informed people, but that wouldn't have made for a great Triumph bit. You cannot make generalizations based on that video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> The cynic in me wonders if the TikTok ban is just to try to drive the price down for Trump's friend Larry Ellison.

</comment><comment><USER73> That's a good start. Next up: twitter, facebook, instagram, ...

</comment><comment><USER74> Even when the actions of this administration seem facially justified, I always assume they are acting in bad faith.

</comment><comment><USER75> Just 3 months after TikTok users embarrassed Trump at his Tulsa rally, where he left visibly upset.

He's called for the repeal of section 230 because of "tech bias". He attacks news outlets for "biassed" reporting. He attacks whistle blowers. He attacks people that supported him and later changed their minds (mattis, kelly, etc). He attacks Amazon for owning Washington Post. He attacks anyone that opposes him.

I'm surprised people are taking this ban at face value.

And what's sad is that he's made it clear he would attack US tech companies if he can find a legal basis to do so. There's zero doubt in my mind that this is all about Trump silencing opposition. It's his modus operandi.

Edit: Even the sale was politicized. He came out against Microsoft owning it, and publicly supported Oracle... Ellison being one of his friends.. whom I would guess Trump assumed would make the platform more friendly to him.

<comment><USER48> > I'm surprised people are taking this ban at face value.

Yeah, it's astounding how quickly these discussions focused in on "well, what are the pros and cons of banning an app? When is an app a national security issue? What is an appropriate trade retaliation?" and completely missed the fact that - hey, the US government is, for the first time, using the Commerce department to dictate what code you can execute on your own device. It's absolutely disheartening how many people are getting distracted from the real issue here.

This is another trial balloon to expand executive power, and they're going to get away with it because "national security."

<comment><USER76> Pretty soon they will dictate how we should arrange furnitures at our own home ....

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> It is great to be an idealist but in the end, we will lose precepts of the Enlightenment unless we act strong and intelligently.

</comment><comment><USER78> Love how people criticize the Chinese security state for banning websites and apps as infringing on free speech, but of the U.S. does it, it's a smart move.</comment>


Ask YC: Has anyone incorporated as a Vermont Virtual Company? - <AUTHOR>

I'm setting up an online store, and I need an merchant account to accept credit cards.  I've thought about  incorporating as a Vermont Virtual Corporation or LLC, I don't know any one else that has done this.<p>Anyone here done this?  Tips, tricks, caveats? <comment><USER2> If your goal is to simply set up a merchant account, you don't need to register a corp/LLC. You can just go to your local city hall and obtain a DBA (doing business as). The DBA will allow you to open a bank account, which in turn will allow you to open a merchant account.

Long-term, I would advise to register an umbrella corp/LLC and obtain a DBA for each of your websites. In my experience, most banks do not understand that a single company can operate multiple domain names so eventually you end up with multiple corporations and LLCs just so that you can maintain multiple merchant accounts. DBAs are a much simpler and cheaper way to get around this.

The main benefit of this setup is that you can still do offline work (e.g. consulting) where you live. Since you are required to foreign-quality in every state you do business in, it wouldn't help you to incorporate in Vermont if you have local clients in another state - you'd just be doubling your paperwork, yearly filing fees, taxes, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> I am selling online, and I am not even American, and I never been in America before!

Apply for Employr identification no., and then apply for PayPal Payments pro. It will cost you around $30/mo.

Also you can have it hosted on Yahoo! stores/ small business - which is invented by PG - former known as viaweb :D

I think this is a good, fast and reliable solution for you.

<comment><USER4> Did you get a bank account in the US? If so, how?

<comment><USER3> Good question!

I asked my best friend - which is American - to do it using her personal info, so she created a bank account specially for it, and she applied for EIN, for the taxes.

I am from Egypt, and Paypal is not even enabled for Egyptians, so it could be impossible for me to do it, without the help of "someone American".

<comment><USER4> Thanks for info! For the same reason (PayPal for businesses is not available in Russia), I have a reseller contract with a company that accepts payments, including PayPal.

<comment><USER3> I think that Godaddy offers a service for international merchants who want to sell online. I am not sure if their service is reliable or not, but it's expensive anyway.

If you know someone American who trust you so much and vice versa, then you can do the same I did. Believe me, I never met that friend in real life, because I never been in America!</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Close to Acquiring WhatsApp for $1 Billion? - <AUTHOR> http://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/08/google-close-to-acquiring-whatsapp-for-1-billion/

<comment><USER2> It's interesting how users and not technology are what create value for a start up in the consumer focused web age</comment>


The Glasgow Haskell Compiler and LLVM - <AUTHOR> http://blog.llvm.org/2010/05/glasgow-haskell-compiler-and-llvm.html <comment><USER2> LLVM and GHC are, at least in my book, currently the most exciting developments in the open-source world. I haven't been this excited to track a changelog since the Linux 2.0 series.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm glad this article was posted, because I had missed another article it references regarding Don Stewart's work using genetic algorithms to evolve good optimizations...which was far more exciting than the HN discussion would indicate:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1158300>

A sample from that article: "Which LLVM passes to use, and which order to run them, with what analysis in between, is a huge search problem, though. There are roughly 200 optimization and analysis flags, and these, mostly, can be run in any order, any number of times. If we want to run say, twenty of the passes (about what -O3 does), that's what, about 10^46 arrangements!"

</comment><comment><USER4> Is LLVM going to be a good thing for every language? I see more and more moving towards it.

<comment><USER5> I'm going to be jumping on the bandwagon at some point for FridgeScript... made the decision a while ago, just need to take some time to do it. :)

Not that any significant number of people use it yet...

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Now I have a better understanding on how the LLVM can be used as a backend for the GHC and the benefits that come out of it.

I'd give this kind of a post 2 thumbs up if I could.

<comment><USER7> There. Added mine to help you out.</comment></comment>


Antialiasing: To Splat or Not - <AUTHOR> http://www.reedbeta.com/blog/2014/11/15/antialiasing-to-splat-or-not/

<comment><USER2> For some reason I find the test image that was used to be quite fascinating on its own. Were I given that image in isolation and told "write a program to generate this" I wouldn't have any idea where to start. After consulting the source code I now realize how it was created, and if anything that makes it even neater, that such a simple approach generates such an interesting-looking image.

<comment><USER3> Yeah; that's the most interesting part of the article. Everything else is pretty much a dude screwing around with getpixel/setpixel without understanding basic signal processing. Looks like he made the classic log/linear error too.

<comment><USER4> > Everything else is pretty much a dude screwing around with getpixel/setpixel

That's not very constructive. Can you point where he did that? For reference, source code is here: [https://gist.github.com/Reedbeta/893b63390160e33ddb3c](https://gist.github.com/Reedbeta/893b63390160e33ddb3c).

> without understanding basic signal processing.

I got the impression he approached it from visual pleasantness point of view. Which is more than perfectly valid when generating images _for people to look at_. In that business, if it's fast to compute and looks visually good to human eyes, it is _perfectly acceptable_ to do a slightly "wrong" thing from signal processing point of view. At least until we have infinite computing resources.

I didn't read the source code, but judging by the article and images, he did appear to understand signal processing and sampling theorem. He appeared to look for a better sampler for a scan-line (think Pixar Renderman) or ray- tracer renderer (think POV-Ray).

My take is to have per pixel adaptive sample count as a function of standard deviation in certain sample radius larger than a pixel. Oversimplified, the higher the deviation, the more samples should be taken until the contribution is below some adjustable threshold. For example in a real ray-tracer you probably want to consider other variables as well, such as computational cost per sample. Ultimately the problem in visual renderers is how to get the best visual quality for computing resources available.

> Looks like he made the classic log/linear error too.

I can't see any telltale sign of doing linear processing for log space data in the images themselves. They all look correct. Retina / high-dpi display? Make sure your web browser is not resampling the images linearly in log space! Or worse, your monitor or graphics adapter, in case you're using a non-native resolution.

<comment><USER5> In general, things are not "wrong" for reasons of ideology, they are "wrong" because they are "suboptimal" or "don't work."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> Ono-Sendai This is quite an interesting question. If you splat, you're effectively sharing some information between neighboring pixels, which is efficient. However you do introduce some variance at each pixel since you're not perfectly importance sampling the filter function. So it's a trade-off.

</comment><comment><USER6> Server is straining. Here's the Coral Cache mirror:

[http://www.reedbeta.com.nyud.net/blog/2014/11/15/antialiasin...](http://www.reedbeta.com.nyud.net/blog/2014/11/15/antialiasing- to-splat-or-not/)</comment>


Launch HN: Trace – simplify purchasing and budgets for your business - <AUTHOR> Hi, I'm Mike, one of the founders of Trace.
We built Trace for anyone who's had to make a purchase or manage a budget at a business. If that's you, you're likely familiar with budget requests, vendor reviews, contract policies, BvA meetings, and for those truly unfortunate, POs. No, your Finance team doesn't hate you, they're just dealing with old-school finance technology like planning systems, Excel, and ERPs. I know first-hand as a former VP of Finance at a 1,500+ employee business.
Along with my co-founders Martin Destagnol and Matt Gonzalez, we set out to shield people from complex financial systems and make working with Finance simple.
Trace is the first Budget-to-Pay platform providing smart and collaborative financial operations and analytics. With Trace, teams can manage their budgets, make purchases, and track their performance. Trace is for early Procurement teams and advanced FP&A and Accounting teams ready to automate their work and delight their budget-owners and purchasers.
Here are some of the things Trace provides:
• A purchase experience that guides buyers with a single flow – orchestrating teams and integrating systems for budget requests, security and contract reviews, and purchase orders.
• Lightning-fast analytics that connects your ERP and budget data – so your analysts can navigate from summary level dashboards to granular purchase and contract information in an instant.
• Onboard new vendors, track key contract terms, and automate spend management processes, audits, and analysis.
Our team is relentless in our common pursuit to make Finance simple and we do this to improve the financial health of all businesses so their people can thrive. Our mission is now more important than ever.
We'd love to hear from you:
• Check us out on product hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/trace-93c507a7-2825-4373-aaf3-b441bea40813
• If you're interested in joining our team, please visit www.tracehq.com/about#careers. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://www.producthunt.com/posts/trace-93c507a7-2825-4373-a...](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/trace-93c507a7-2825-4373-aaf3-b441bea40813)</comment>


Chinese gov't recruits 20K people to author its Wikipedia with 300K+ entries - <AUTHOR> http://news.vice.com/story/china-is-recruiting-20000-people-to-write-its-own-wikipedia <comment><USER2> dynasties, culture, math, ancient lore, dragons these are the articles I want the most. Technology is boring, another doo dad that does X. Give my heart the struggle, pain, love all the emotions or let me die without seed for you to take as spoil</comment>


Show HN: A clean, modern, interactive periodic table - <AUTHOR> http://periodicstats.com/ <comment><USER2> A great CSS work! Congrats for the idea and implementation.

Some ideas for user-experience improvement:

\- I subscribe to xparadigm's comment: adjust the mouse pointer on the complete cells to get the right pane. I did not notice it before reading the comment.

\- Maybe add a red cross in the pane to close it. I did not see an obvious way how to close it

\- Another idea : when the pane shows up, the Mendeleev table could resize down to keep being fully visible.

Already great as it is.

FYI: I browsed your page with IE11 :-/

</comment><comment><USER3> Looks great! I would alter the look slightly to ensure the atomic numbers are closest to the symbols they refer to. At the moment, your atomic numbers for one line seem to be closer to the symbols of the next line; this might be confusing at a glance.

</comment><comment><USER4> Good job. Maybe if you changed the cursor property to pointer in search results. Also in table, not only over atomic number but also over the chemical symbol, maybe.</comment>


The Fifth problem: Math and Anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union - <AUTHOR> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-Fifth-problem--math---anti-Semitism-in-the-Soviet-Union-7446 <comment><USER2> "The fifth line" on the Soviet passport which listed the bearer's "nationality" (what we would usually call ethnicity in English) was only removed from Russian passports in 1997. But Edward Frenkel was picked out as a Jew because of his surname even though his nationality was listed as Russian, like most children of mixed marriages between Russian and non-Russian parents.

What if Edward Frenkel's father had been Russian and his mother Jewish instead of the other way round? Well, the commander of the Soviet Air Force in Ukraine when the Soviet Union broker up was Kostyantyn Morozov, then Konstantin Morozov. He had a Russian surname and his nationality was listed as Russian. If it had been known that he had a Ukrainian mother and had Ukrainian sympathies, he would never have been given such a powerful post by the Soviet authorities. As it was, Morozov announced his allegiance to the pro- independence cause to become the first defense minister of an independent Ukraine and to establish the Ukrainian armed forces.

Would the breakup of the Soviet Union have gone differently if all the high- ranking generals in control of Soviet forces in the biggest non-Russian republic were pro-Russian? It makes you wonder how many accidents of history can be traced to the arbitrary custom of inheriting surnames from fathers.

<comment><USER3> _" The fifth line" on the Soviet passport which listed the bearer's "nationality" (what we would usually call ethnicity in English) was only removed from Russian passports in 1997._

Bit of an aside, but this used to be pretty common. Religion, in practice a proxy for ethnicity, was only removed from Greek identity cards in 2000: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_identity_card#Removal_of_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_identity_card#Removal_of_religion_and_nationality)

(It's a proxy for ethnicity in Greece because religion has traditionally been rooted in ethnic groups in the region, so whether someone's card said "Greek Orthodox" indicated whether they were ethnically Greek, vs. a member of the Turkish or Albanian minorities.)

<comment><USER2> The Resident ID Card of the People's Republic of China still lists the bearer's ethnicity: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Identity_Card](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Identity_Card)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The line about how under official doctrines all nationalities were equal reminds me of a story I learned in college.

In the early days under Lenin, Stalin was appointed to formulate the Party's nationalities policy. One of the policies they came up with was that each of the nationalities was supposed to have a national homeland. Under the Czars, Jews were required to live within a "Pale of Settlement" which was in the extreme west of their European holdings. So somewhere in that neighborhood would have been a logical spot. Instead Stalin decided to found the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, capital city Birobidzhan, on the border with China in far south-east Russia about 400 miles inland from the northern Japan Sea. Many thousands of Jews were deported to this wasteland, where needless to say they did not prosper.

It is a sad testament to how manipulated the US communists were that when I told this story to my grandmother who had been active in those movements, that she had heard of Birobidzhan, and that they used to sing songs about it in Yiddish and thought of it as a Jewish Worker's paradise.

<comment><USER5> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birobidzhan](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birobidzhan)

This Birobidzhan? Doesn't particularly look like a wasteland.

<comment><USER6>
      Doesn't particularly look like a wasteland.

Not any longer.

But truly, the jokes about frost-resistant Jews are so old now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sadly, ethnic discrimination is still pretty rampant in areas of the former Soviet Union. Although it does seem to be getting better. I suppose it takes more than a generation or two for that to fade away.

<comment><USER8> It's also pretty rampant in the US and in Europe.

The odds of being hired when you have an Arab name in Western Europe is frightening, regardless of qualifications.

For the US, just look at the ethnic distribution of death row inmates.

<comment><USER9> Still quite more worrying in Russia, there is not that much more freedom of speech in there nor a very good justice system.

<comment><USER10> > _nor a very good justice system_

Compared to the government-can-do-as-it-pleases, life-in-prison-for-having- done-3-BS-offenses, largest-incarceration-rate-in-the-world, disproportionate- amount-of-blacks-in-prison, slap-on-the-wrist-for-rich-folks, private-prison- racket system?

<comment><USER11> The US justice system is flawed but is nowhere near as bad as Russia's.

<comment><USER10> I'm not so sure. What I hear about Russia's is mostly cronyism. That happens in the US too, but let's say that it happens way less.

How is it for the average citizen, and normal disputes? Do they have something like a huge minority (blacks) that they consistently discriminate against in their justice system?

Do they have as absurd laws as the three-strikes?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you're interested in seeing some of these "killer questions" there's a book of them called "You failed your math test, Comrade Einstein."

Coral CDN link (since the author's file server seems ridiculously slow): [http://www.ftpi.umn.edu.nyud.net/shifman/ComradeEinstein.pdf](http://www.ftpi.umn.edu.nyud.net/shifman/ComradeEinstein.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER13> Despite being messed up, there's a sort of cultural logic to it. Here's the thing, a lot of cultures really want to keep things to themselves. The mentally goes like this: "This land is ours, our ancestors fought for it so our culture can have a place to flourish and live on, it's not here for you, get out please." It's not just a European thing, Asian countries are the same way they don't even give you the chance to become a citizen. I've learned to understand it as a natural part of human psychology. It's also not a problem when there's only one ethnicity in the whole country like Japan which is 98% ethnic Japanese but a lot of European countries tend to let others in who are different than them (Jews, Roma, North Africans, Arabs, Indians) and then have problems with assimilation and integration.

Russia's kind of weird, didn't they just open a Jewish history museum dubbed the "Jewish Disney Land" to try to get more Jews to move back? [http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/state- of-...](http://www.themoscowtimes.com/arts_n_ideas/article/state-of-art- jewish-museum-opens-in-moscow/471347.html) Somehow I think leaders want Jews back but the public doesn't.

<comment><USER14> I only partially agree with you. Xenophobia is everywhere and in every country of the world, but racism and antisemitism, which are not really based on ethnicity or national identity, seem to be a particularly European disease.

<comment><USER15> Not true. Take the middle-east:

Racism: [http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/sep/08/racismi...](http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/sep/08/racisminthemiddleeast) [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/opinion/10iht- edeltahawy.1...](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/opinion/10iht- edeltahawy.1.18556273.html)

Anti-semitism (too easy): [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world)

Or the rest of the world:

A comparison of countries, not sure if you should trust this as an indicator: [http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/05/15/a-fascinating- map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-racially-tolerant-countries/)

Books with anti-semitic conspiracy theories are bestsellers in China: [http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/china-anti- semi...](http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/02/china-anti-semitic- conspiracy-theories-and-wall-street/)

Discrimination against black people in China: [http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/world/asia/china-tinted- prejud...](http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/24/world/asia/china-tinted-prejudice/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have collected some of the stories and links to further reading here: [http://www.livejournal.com/community/kerosinka/1633.html](http://www.livejournal.com/community/kerosinka/1633.html) Majority of the material is in Russian, but a large minority in English, for those interested.

</comment><comment><USER16> It is bit more complex.

Socialism discriminated 'intellectuals' in favor of 'proletariat'. For example son of doctor had lower chances compared to son of factory worker. Jews were perceived as intellectuals.

Similar discrimination is today in US. Jews are discriminated for being white.

<comment><USER2> Unless you claim that the officials of MGU went great lengths to keep young Edward Frenkel out of the university for some other reason than his Jewish surname, you are giving an ex post facto excuse for the continued and long- standing discrimination against Jews that the Soviets inherited from the Russian Empire.

Although it was nowhere as bad as in the Old World, Jews were historically discriminated against in the U.S.—universities had Jewish quotas, for example. This had nothing to do with "being white", even if we limit ourselves to white European Jews. The whole "reverse discrimination" angle you try to bring in is neither here nor there.

<comment><USER16> > Unless you claim that the officials of MGU went great lengths to keep young > Edward Frenkel out of the university for some other reason than his Jewish > surname

That is exactly what I am saying. Examiners could got orders to fail him, if for example his uncle lived on west. Officially there was no discrimination, so it was mostly done by bulling people at exams.

White (perhaps even heterosexual male) has statistically lower chances to study for free. It fits definition of discrimination as a glove.

<comment><USER2> What you say might have made sense if not for the fact that countless other Jewish students were similarly denied from MGU. Did they all have uncles that lived in the West?

In Frenkel's story, the lady from the correspondence school hears his name and that he wants to apply to MGU, and immediately asks for his nationality. When he replies "Russian", she keeps asking until he replies that his father is Jewish. Then she flat-out says, "Do you know that Jews are not accepted to Moscow University?". I think it is fairly clearly established that this is the reason he was denied a place there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I shall tell you one name - Landau.

The "fifth line" was not a problem. What is a problem is when russian jew with Soviet M Sc in maths goes through NARIC in the UK, he gets B Sc only. It is the West who is discriminating Soviet degrees.

<comment><USER6> Oh please. Nobody discriminated against my degree from Kerosinka, the 5-year course of classes was admitted as equivalent of MS in Applied Math. There is discrimination, in a very certain way, against medical degrees, for a variety of reasons, some are good reasons, some not; that seems to be an exception.

<comment><USER17> Oh man, you trapped. There was a special research about disproportionally high level of Jewish students and graduates in Kerosinka. [http://kerosinka.livejournal.com/1633.html](http://kerosinka.livejournal.com/1633.html)

<comment><USER6> Do you even understand what I said? The conversation was about (alleged) discrimination against Soviet education in Western countries. I said I graduated from Kerosinka and was not discriminated against (in the US), on the contrary, my 5-year course of education was counted (in the US) in as an equivalent of an MS degree in Applied Math. Don't play a fool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those interested in deeper understanding and more interesting facts (yes, distribution of Jewish Math university entrants was not even, and applied sciences in the USSR gained a lot from that) - the classy article by Mark Saul, Kerosinka: An Episode in the History of Soviet Mathematics. Notices of the AMS, vol.46, no.10, November 1999. ([http://www.ams.org/notices/199910/fea- saul.pdf](http://www.ams.org/notices/199910/fea-saul.pdf))

</comment><comment><USER18> Propaganda at those times said that Jewish people will get "the best education in the world" for free and then leave the USSR without paying back for it.

<comment><USER19> Mass immigration to Israel from USSR was true though. Stalin was also irked that Israel didn't go communist. So their fears were well founded at that time

<comment><USER20> Their fears were well-founded only if you use the hateful and twisted "logic" that the USSR used at the time.

My American university provided lots of financial aid to international students. Need-blind! Many of these students came from countries with very un- American political systems. And many of them simply returned to their home countries after college.

And yet these students did not have to go through the Kafka-esque (and just plain wrong) system that this author describes. They were treated like everyone else.

<comment><USER19> You have to understand the place the time this "logic" was applied. America was not brutally attacked twice with a span of couple of decades. America did not loose 30 million people in resource/territorial aggressions. America was not surrounded by technologically and economically advanced nations salivating at its riches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Happened to my dad as well. He couldn't get accepted into a PhD for quantum physics so ended up studying physical chemistry.

</comment><comment><USER22> See also: [http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556](http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.1556)

</comment><comment><USER23> Previous HN discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4752047)

Top thread points out that the US obviously does the same thing.</comment>


My Top UI/UX Prototyping Tools for 2016 - <AUTHOR> https://blog.jixee.me/my-top-ui-ux-prototyping-tools-for-2016/ <comment><USER2> Unless you're building an app, why not just use html and css?

<comment><USER3> Prototyping tools are faster than HTML/CSS for many people, even those who know HTML/CSS well enough to implement the end product unaided.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even better point. Thanks for sharing!</comment></comment></comment>


What's the most cutting edge weather product? - <AUTHOR>

After the third timeout trying to log in to weather.com, it's time for me to seek an alternative. <comment><USER2> Though they've recently been bought by TWC, wunderground.com is and always has been my go-to place for weather info. Never had any luck with weather.com's site or mobile apps myself.

<comment><AUTHOR> The wunderground app is awesome, life upgraded.</comment></comment>


A Guide to Preemptive Funding Offers - <AUTHOR> https://blog.ycombinator.com/a-strategic-guide-to-preemptive-funding-offers/ <comment><USER3> _To be clear, an offer is only an offer if it is a term sheet. Anything short of that is an attempt to get a founder to reveal more information._

Good succinct point that I think gets lost in the shuffle of founder optimism when fundriasing.

That said, my entire mindset around funding a company has shifted after having gone through the spanking machine a few times.

I'm convinced that the entire process of hot intro > send deck > partner pitch > term sheet > shop the term sheet > revise deal > do deal > press release etc... is basically a waste of time if you want to build a massive paradigm shifting company.

It's just a process for the founders to grow their network and build the signals for major corporate acquirers. You'll get market standard terms and have spent a ton of time away from your product. You'll go back to work, build up the team, get enough traction in a niche need to look good for a acquisition by FANG.

It's basically the process for being in the feeder league for being a rookie in the Big Leagues. If that's what you want, then great.

If you intend to completely upend how business is done, there will be a lot of these preemptive offers, IMO it's the best signal that you're on to something completely massive.

Said another way, if you aren't getting preemptive offers, your best long term outcome is likely a middling acquihire.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand where you're coming from, but don't actually think this is true. Quite a few of our best companies had difficult times raising their As - <USER2> were often too early or too different or too little of a pattern match to what investors wanted at that time.

Preemptive offers can be a signal that what you're building is working, or it might be a signal that you're good at fundraising.

<comment><USER3> I think it's important to unpack the briefcase term of "best companies."

As clarification I'm not saying that great companies, with great products and wonderful teams don't often have a hard time fundraising.

What I'm saying is that market transforming companies, like Docker and Whatsapp will get good offers without having to "fundraise" in the grinding format that we all know well and is written about and pored over in thousands of blogs and bootcamps and all (the one I described).

<comment><USER4> Is Docker the best example here? Before Docker built "Docker" they were dotCloud and doing the fundraising game. Had they not done the fundraising game, they may have never built Docker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm generally wary of any advice given by people who inherently need to talk their book, especially VCs like YC, however blog posts like this are genuinely helpful. They set the ground rules that appear to be fair for everyone, and if some unscrupulous VC tries to bully a young founder, she just needs to cut and paste the URL for this article and it will instantly shut the VC up.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand the skepticism, but I'd point out that, if I was trying to tilt the scenario in my favor, I'd have written about how founders should always take a preemptive deal quickly and secretly. That way, every time I made an offer, someone would accept it.

I was a founder before I became an investor and, for the most part, that's still how I approach advising startups. That's been the ethos of YC from the start, and it seems to work well.

Also, I like your framing - I'm spending quite a lot of time trying to establish norms and ground rules so that founders (and investors) operate on a level playing field. That's been the driving force behind much of my work the Series A Program, and generated resources such as our standardized diligence checklist and term sheet.

<comment><USER6> Noted your work, and greatly appreciated. Keep rocking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> YC blog's wispy-dark-grey text on a light-grey background is a bit hard to read. I don't recall noticing this earlier. Is it a recent change?

<comment><USER8> Now that you mention it, I agree, and don't recall having this discomfort in the past. I find it significantly less uncomfortable to read if I disable the custom font (Avenir Light).</comment></comment>


A better representation of how the planets revolve around the sun - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/EducationalPics/status/823757863017295872 <comment><USER2> No reference frame is "better" than another. For interplanetary contexts, sun- stationary makes sense.</comment>


Get A Web Designer Right Now - <AUTHOR> http://dreamand.me/web/get-a-web-designer-for-enterprise-application/

<comment><USER3> It's a good call for action, but from my own experiences the cost of rebuilding things (time,money,breaking stuff) is so great, and there's no real incentive for anyone within the company to do so. On the bright side - <USER2> does open a window for new enterprise start ups to redo these kind of systems and win over large and legacy software.</comment>


Ask HN: Are EMBA programs worth it? - <AUTHOR> Is an EMBA from a top program worth the time and money? <comment><USER2> This summer I started the Wharton EMBA program. Here are the few things that struck me

1\. The program is truly demanding. I do believe the program weeds out candidates who might not able to handle the demands of the program. But I see a lot of my fellow classmates struggling to balance work, life, and school. This is the #1 consideration if you'd like to pursue EMBA from a top school. Make sure you have the buy-in from work and family. They will not see you for a long time!

2\. Cost - it can be extremely expensive. Our tuition is 180K+ for two years

3\. Travel - if you are an out of towner, don't ignore the costs + time to travel. Jetlag can be brutal

Now the pros

1\. Everyone in the class is extremely smart and motivated. So much so that coming back to work will means having to deal with not-so-intelligent colleagues. A classmate summed it up very well - she said her life is now measured by 'days to class'

2\. Networking opportunities outside of your classmates too. Just last week we had a fireside chat with Steve Blank!

3\. Amazing professors and staff. It goes without saying that the professors are truly phenomenal. The staff does whatever it can to make our life easier

At the end of the day though, what really matters is what you are looking for at the end of the EMBA. If you are looking for a change in career, you will have to work for it yourself. If you are looking for more knowledge or vertical movement within your current org, then go for it

Let me know if you have any other questions

<comment><USER3> _Everyone in the class is extremely smart and motivated. So much so that coming back to work will means having to deal with not-so-intelligent colleagues_

I couldn't help but think of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room) when I read this.

<comment><USER2> Haha! I actually happen to know quite a few guys from Enron and they are actually quite smart. I guess evil + smartness is not a good combination

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I worked in the admissions department for a top 20 MBA program for two years. I'd say that if you're going invest the money and time to get your MBA, you should get it from a high-ranking school. Name/brand recognition does matter. Plus, you want a degree you can be proud of.

EMBA programs are great but as talltofu said, the travel time and costs can be brutal. There are one or two MBA programs that are comparable to on- campus programs (in terms of quality and the degree you get when you graduate)- that would be my suggestion. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> I'll take a stab at this one. EMBA programs tend to be tailored to people who already have a relatively significant position within an organization. My understanding is that a large majority of people attending these programs have them payed for by their employers. The idea is to provide additional training to people who will have future, higher level roles within the organization.

I think that there are probably different flavors of this type of program depending on where you attend, but from my observations (regular MBA who had some minor interactions with EMBA's during school), they tend to fly/drive in for the weekends and return to work during the week. Depending on the program, you may or may not be exposed to "hard skills" such as finance, accounting, etc, as there is a presumption that students already have some of these skills. My understanding is the focus tends to be more on soft skills like leadership, management, etc, which will help competent employees become better managers in the future.

From the way you posed your question, it sound like you are thinking about paying for this yourself. If that is the case, and you don't already have an undergrad or grad business degree, then I would probably recommend either a full-time or part-time MBA, instead of executive MBA. You will probably get more for your money out of one of these programs.

<comment><USER2> a large majority of people attending these programs have them payed for by their employers

\- Not true. This is number is < 35%

<comment><USER5> That was just my understanding, having spoken to people in the program where I went to school. It seemed like most of them were being sponsored by a company. It would be interesting to know whether this number changes based on the quality of the program. I think many companies will only sponsor a candidate who gets accepted into a top program. Across all EMBA programs, the 35% figure seems right, based on Google.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Based on my own experience in EMBA program and then finally dropping out 2/3rd of the way. I also know several people who have gone to top-rated EMBA program and have good idea of their results before and after EMBA program.

Goal \---- If you are interested in entrepreneurship/startup, EMBA is not worth a penny. You are better of taking the EMBA fee, spending some on buying a few book focused on starting a company and investing the rest in your startup. But if you are corporate type in large organization, the EMBA degree might help you get up the ladder.

To give an example, couple of my classmates decided that they wanted to build a business based on the idea and business plan they developed in the entrepreneurship class. After finishing MBA program, they invited me to join the dinner to discuss about getting started with their idea and next steps. They were interested in bringing me on the team. The outcome of the meeting was they wanted to rewrite the business plan document already written during the program. That's when I knew these guys will never start the business and declined to join them. And, they never did start! They wanted to plan first. They kept planning and strategizing and never executed.

Knowledge \</comment><comment>--- If you are the type who can self-learn and don't need external stimulation/kick in the behind to get started, you can learn on your own what you need in business. EMBA program will actually be drag on your learning. These programs are much more appropriate for people who need to be fed information in small bite-size chunks.

Majority of the information I received during my time in EMBA program was something that I already knew and/or rarely have used. But couple of my fellow classmates have really benefited from the structured way of delivery of information, the basic business knowledge program provides and training on developing framework/process to evaluate and address issues.

Networking \</comment><comment>----- Over-rated. Majority of EMBA students are mid-career level and corporate type either trying to move into management or move up the management chain with limited future upside potential. The homogeneity of the type of students makes networking with them not as rewarding to both parties because everyone in the same boat. In addition, with family and job pressures, you/they are least likely to go out of the way to respond/help/meet after the program.

<comment><USER7> So why did you quit?

or better, why did you enroll?

<comment><USER6> >Why did you enroll?

In hindsight, it was a mistake. I should have listened to one 'lone' dissent voice from a Wharton EMBA graduate who had said that I most probably be disappointed with the program if I am expecting to meet intellectually smart people, interested in learning, interested in startups/business growth and that program will impart any "significantly" new business knowledge or insights.

>Why did you quit?

Finally, I realized that by quitting, I can save enough money by not paying rest of the tuition and put it toward my business. Previously, I kept going because I kept getting convinced from classmates and other EMBA acquaintance that things will get better but by 2/3rd of the way I pretty much figured if things haven't improved by now they never will.

I believe I had mis-impression of what program will offer and how it may help my career and things I want to do. A better job by the programs of selling and poor judgement on my part to buy most things I heard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are a lot of reasons to get an MBA - to the extent the intelligence of your fellow students matters, I thought I'd chime in with my observations. I've had the opportunity to interact with quite a few students from HBS, Wharton, Sloan, Stanford, and other reputable schools. My impression is that among the top 3 - HBS, Wharton, Stanford, 1/3rd of the students are would I would consider to be pretty intelligent. Another 1/3rd are okay in terms of intelligence, while another 1/3rd leave you wondering if they got in through massive donations from their parents. This ratio declines rapidly (away from intelligence) as you move down the rankings (as early as the #4 spot), at least from what I have observed.

Again, intelligence isn't everything, so I don't mean to say you should make your decision based on that. Just offering my observations in case they are at all helpful. Also, I should mention that this is all for the normal MBA programs - haven't had enough interaction with EMBA students to make a judgment.

<comment><USER9> I have a feeling that your sensitivity for "pretty intelligent" might tuned a bit tight. Sure there are a few "massive donation" students but otherwise HSW students in particular are pretty much exclusively 99th percentile types, both "objectively" (GMAT/GRE, Undergrad Institution + GPA) and from career progression standpoints. It's surprising that you would find so many of them to be merely OK or worse, so I'm kind of curious what you're looking for when you judge people's intelligence, if you wouldn't mind sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't have one, but I can tell you that it completely depends on your unique situation. Can you provide more details to help people answer the question?

What industry/product are you looking at? What type position (dev, design, business) do you have or want to have? If you're currently employed, does the company prefer it for you to move up? Are you looking to learn or just add to your resume (or in between)?

One major reason (some of my friends with MBAs from top schools say the only reason) to get an MBA is for the network. With an EMBA, you don't spend as much time around other students as you do with an MBA, so you don't get a chance to build as strong as a network.

</comment><comment><USER11> I started the Berkeley EWMBA (halfway through) and am bitterly regretting it (though work is fully comp-ing tuition for me). I'm going to stick it for another year and complete it. 1\. It is a lot more work that you can imagine 2\. You will have to learn a great deal of stuff that you know you will never use again. The benefits you get out of it are the networking and some basic business knowledge which you could get for a lot less if you are motivated. I'd say don't consider it unless you are getting some tuition reimbursement. Not worth the $125k-$175k otherwise.

<comment><USER12> The coursework isn't valuable, the imprimatur is. What is your opinion of the opportunities the degree will create?

<comment><USER11> For a startup? If you are poor at networking and going to events and such I think you will get value out of it in growing your network. Other opportunities: Depends. I think its a great idea for people who are mid level accountants, finance folk in big firms like Cisco or Google (classmates of mine) who need this to get anywhere. For engineering, not too sure.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> i loved my part-time MBA program. with a primarily technical background, i had two key disadvantages that the program was meant to address:

1) weak business network 2) no prior business training

it accomplished these things well. could i have done it alone? possibly, but the program provides focus & structure, which are hard to come by otherwise. it also gave me closure on one chapter of my life so i could move on to the next. no single class is earth shattering, but taken together give me much more confidence when, for example, i walk into a negotiation with a VC, since i now know how to calculate the NPV of the deal terms.

my advice is to take classes around two poles: (1) managing people (teams, negotiations, incentives, etc.) and (2) quantitative measurement (stats, marketing analytics, entrepreneurial finance, etc.). strategy, branding and domain-specific (e.g., media management) classes in particular didn't seem to impart much actionable knowledge.

and network like crazy (but with purpose).

</comment><comment><USER14> If you are running your own company that grew and stabilized a bit, and you have time to learn about how other established companies do their stuff and most important connect with other people in a similar situation, it's worth it. If you want to get just another title to show how good you are, it's not a good use of your time.

</comment><comment><USER15> EMBA programs differ with each school so it's a good idea to sign up to their open days so that you can sit in on the classrooms. With one of the schools that I researched, the cohort were very finance heavy so that school is a good choice if you work in finance.

</comment><comment><USER16> It really depends on what you're looking to get out of it. A job, networking opportunities, better understanding of business? Also, look at cost factors, are you paying for it, is your work? How much time can you invest?

</comment><comment><USER17> This program at the University of Maryland[1] seems like it would be worth it.

[1][http://www.mte.umd.edu/](http://www.mte.umd.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER12> They are not particularly prestigious.

<comment><USER18> Some EMBA programs aren't trivial to get into... Especially ones like the Wharton EMBA or the Harvard EMBA.

Prestige aside, I think the value of the MBA (or the EMBA) still lies in the potential to network with other individuals who work in similar spaces as you do. This is probably one of the best / only reasons to do it.

<comment><USER12> Can you give some examples of people who have EMBAs and are widely considered successful? Were they successful before the EMBA?

<comment><USER7> I don't think it matters to be considered _widely_ successful, only to better your career, life and your family's.

Just go to any program's website and you will see they are regular people. They will have a list of alumni and their titles. That could give you an idea. These are Directors, VPs and CEOs. Are they "widely" considering successful? Well, they are not as known as say the Pope or the President.

But, here is a list (notice it applies to MBA)

[http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20101130/25-highes...](http://images.businessweek.com/slideshows/20101130/25-highest- paid-ceos-with-mbas)

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattsymonds/2012/01/16/the-m- b-a...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattsymonds/2012/01/16/the-m-b-a- megabucks-ceos/)

"An impressive 40 of the 100 best paid CEOs in corporate America last year have an M.B.A., according to the Forbes list of America's Highest Paid Chief Executives."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Depends, are you in startups/technology? If so then probably not. YMMV

</comment><comment><USER7> They don't just allow anybody to enroll. The majority of these programs have experience requirements. If you don't want to spend the time with "clueless" 20 somethings just out of college or with 2-3 yrs of experience, then that is valuable. The problem is that the workload is huge. You basically won't have a life for two years. Get up at 4, do homework, go to work, do homework at lunch or study, leave work at 6 or so, study, do homework, go to bed at midnight. Weekends? Forget them.

For most, you will need to take days off work, which hopefully your employer allows for (this is actually a requirement, so without this flexibility you won't be able to enroll).

Is it worth the time, money and sacrifice to you? \- Traditional programs require you to quit your job, which is a cost of opportunity \- The network is valuable \- the learning is valuable \- You could get a bigger salary. Could. Or could not.

So the math depends on you really.</comment>