Investors think Snapchat is worth $4 billion. That's insane. - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/31/investors-think-snapchat-is-worth-4-billion-thats-insane/ <comment><USER3> These start ups get massive investment, IPO for retarded valuations, and all the venture firms/owners cash out leaving the market and institutional investors holding the rest. Slowly these companies die.. but the original people have already made their money and are on to something else. Classic. For instance, is there any sane reason why a website like rapgenius.com needs to IPO to raise public funds? The answer is no, they IPO in order to get a liquid market to sell their shares in.

<comment><USER4> Nailed it.

<comment><USER5> If by "nailed" you mean "reduced a probability of rational discourse by trolling" then sure, he nailed it.

<comment><USER4> You're reacting more to his tone than his content.

He's right about how VC-istan works. There's this new engine of extreme productivity that no one understands well; those with early access loot it (getting into private financing rounds where prices are set on the golf course; using VC connections to be air-drop executives) and the public (including Bay Area engineers) eats the bill through failed companies and sudden job-loss, an innavigable career ladder, financial crashes due to overvalued stocks (pump-and-dump), and exorbitant housing prices just to have a chip and a chair.

He might be damning his credibility by using "retarded" in such a way, but he's on to the meat of the problem.

<comment><USER5> Well, I naively continue to expect rationality and solutions on HN including the solution to these VC shenanigans.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Here's how I like to view these 'valuations': I am certainly a 'nerd', 'geek', 'tech-head'; whatever sort of label you want to throw at me. I am also the furthest you could get from somebody who has half a clue about stocks, mergers, IPOs etc.

Forget about the hype, the amount of users, the "mindshare", the paradigm- shifting omg-teh-adsense-ponies. To a 'regular joe' like myself, all I think when I hear anything about these sorts of companies is this: Do they currently make money from the service they provide? If so, for how long will this be a viable revenue stream? If not, does anybody realistically expect this situation to magically change at some future date?

As others have pointed out, this kind of investment prospect is often an easy way to make a quick buck for people in the know/money. I do understand this.

What I don't understand is how there can be such a lack of retrospective caution exercised by so many people who may have a hand to play in the outcome of these IPOs.

Despite not having the slightest clue about stock markets and financial investments, when it comes to these 'Web 2.0' companies, I do know a viable business model when I see one.

How the hell do all these people involved in the artificial inflation of the value of these companies not think back to what happened with the first web/tech bubble of the late '90s and early '00s?

I'm an uneducated oaf in the tail end of my 20's and even I can recall the ridiculous shit that went on back then. How can people with so much more technical and financial wisdom seriously think services like these are worth so much?

<comment><USER7> This definitely feels like the 21st century gold rush where everyone's just rushing in before it's too late just in case that hot tech startup becomes the next Google. I don't know if wisdom can overpower the greed that people have.

<comment><USER5> Gold rush is a zero-sum game with unsustainable business model, while startups are not any of these things. I feel that such comparisons are misplaced and do not provide useful abstractions to effeciently reason about startups.

<comment><USER7> Fair enough that gold is a zero sum game and perhaps gold rush might be the wrong terminology to use. What I really was referring to was the fact that many investors just jump on the bandwagon to avoid missing out on the next big thing. Even when the business model is unclear.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Only $200 million was raised this round for 5% of the company. All that means is that 5% of SnapChat is worth $200 million to a very small number of people. It does not mean that the other 95% is worth $3.8 billion, nor that the other 95% worth of value actually exists.

Funding rounds are just deposits on houses. I can put down $40K for 5% of a house today, and choose to never pay the rest if someone gives me that option, implicitly valuing the house at $800K. But when the time comes to actually sell, it doesn't mean that I'll get $40K back. It just means that at the point of my deposit, the value of acquiring the option to acquiring the house was worth $40K.

That's all. Valuations are bullshit.

<comment><USER9> Very wise words.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> While I have no idea what information investors are basing their decisions on, it's probably some evidence that Snapchat is starting to replace Facebook among some bellwether set of users. That could be a reasonable bet, depending on what the evidence is. But I don't know what the evidence is, and without it there is no way I can estimate what Snapchat's valuation should be.

(Hint: and neither can _The Washington Post_ or any of you.)

<comment><USER11> I'm torn on this, I didn't think Instagram was worth 1B until my 16 year old niece told me the only things she used was Twitter and Instagram.

If you tell me Snapchat is what all the kids are using I'm going to give it some leeway - though I still think there's a lot of greater fool investing going on.

My biggest concern with these services is the seemingly fickle nature of their audience. Even if they're able to turn the service into something profitable - how long can they maintain it?

<comment><USER12> I actually use this strategy. Because I mentor high school students, I sometimes ask them what they use the most. Facebook is not on that list. Instagram and Tumblr for sure and maybe SnapChat. That's not to say that FB is out. Sometimes the best way to reach them is via FB messages.

The good thing about teenagers is that: 1\. they're trendy or try to be 2\. have short attention span

If you can get a teenager to understand and like your product, you have a good chance of going viral, popular, or whatever it is kids call it these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Part of the argument here for the valuation is that teens are leaving Facebook and moving over to services like SnapChat and Instagram.

Maybe I'm missing something, but do teens really have that much disposable income? Do they click on / respond to online ads?

Surely older people are a much more valuable target market? When I look at my parents, they are much more likely to be duped into buying something through clicking on ads. Most of the time my parents don't even realise they are clicking on an ad.

Sometimes I think this tech market is aiming as the wrong segments.

<comment><USER14> No, but those teens are going to transition into adults, with (hopefully) some disposable income at that time. Don't know if it justifies the valuation, but certainly being a default in a large market is worth something to somebody.

<comment><USER15> And they'll transition into the next big thing, too, just as quickly as they transitioned onto Snap-Chat?

There can probably be made a good argument that younger generations don't have brand-affinity like older people. Younger people are being raised to move quickly from thing-to-thing? (I don't really know, but it sounds like someone should research this.) I cite some personal experience of younger family members who used to use Facebook when they were in college and when it was a college-only-thing. Now they don't use it anymore.

<comment><USER14> Excellent point, and I think that's the bet -- capture their attention _long_ enough to keep them around. Hard to imagine, but someone has to be thinking about that problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> To quote Paul Graham: "Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, working on things that could be dismissed as "toys" often produces good ones. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. But if you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think."

To put into context, how much do you think a telco company with 26 million US customers is worth ?

If Snapchat is displacing text and calls as the medium of transient communication of the next generation, it could feasibly end up being worth a substantial amount.

(My personal opinion is that it's over-valued; but it's important that someone makes the reasoned counter-argument)

<comment><USER17> "To put into context, how much do you think a telco company with 26 million US customers is worth ? If Snapchat is displacing text and calls as the medium of transient communication of the next generation, it could feasibly end up being worth a substantial amount."

But things aren't as "sticky" as they used to be. You used to have to rent your phone from the telco, and you had no alternative providers. Today, users can drop their telco carrier and switch to a variety of alternatives - <USER2> their number with them, or switch to VOIP altogether and keep similar functionality without a noticeable loss of functionality. The same is true for the app of the moment. Maybe it'll be hot for awhile, but the barrier to entering the marketplace is so dramatically reduced that it's difficult to see the same type of longevity from today's companies that you've seen from the previous generation of big businesses.

<comment><USER15> You captured my sentiments better than I could above.

Virtually no barriers to switch apps + young generations being raised in an environment of reduced fear when switching.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> It could be true but how come snap chat is worth so much and not what's app. Is it because they have actual revenue model while snapchat's value is speculative?

I don't really understand how valuations work. I read somewhere that they intend to make money by flash sales which I think is a really good idea for low priced products but it is not clear if they will make the money off transaction or allowing the product to be sold on their market place.

It would be great if investors could shed some light on what they think is so valuable about the company in which they are investing so much.

</comment><comment><USER19> I predict in the long run they should have taken the $1B from Facebook. Yes they have users, but where in future will revenue come from? Startups like this come in two kinds, one that can become a standalone business (think Apple or Microsoft or Google) and the other an IPO or sellout business (like Youtube or Instagram) that eventually makes sense to a buyer as a piece of their revenue puzzle. For the former you need products that people buy and the latter you need buzz that attracts buyers. For the latter any excitement increases the chance that someone will eventually buy it. To me Twitter is the latter kind but it's still trying to be the first.

</comment><comment><USER14> Valuation conversations always remind me of something George Carlin once said: "ever notice that everyone who drives slower than you is an asshole, but everyone who drives faster than you is a maniac?"

I call it the Water Level Theory. It is that subconscious assumption that our personal thresholds for risk tolerance and boundaries of acceptability are the standard, and everything else is classified accordingly. It is in a similar vein to the notion of "one man's trash is another man's treasure."

As for Snapchat, I hope they're worth $4 billion. It gives me hope for my dozen or so crazy ideas being worth only a few hundred million each. :-)

</comment><comment><USER20> While I think the Snapchat approach may be a major tenant of online communication going forward (just like in the offline world, there is a great amount that need be communicated but not published), an idea itself is not where the value lies for investors. It's about execution and, for investors, monetization. I think Snapchat will be seen as the nexus of a major change in digital communication, but I'm not sure whether it's Google or Alta Vista.

</comment><comment><USER21> Does no one remember the late 90's bubble?

</comment><comment><USER22> Here I am as co-founder of a SaaS company that has actual customers, pays 3 of us a salary and still makes profit and I almost feel like a failure because no-one has valued my hard work at millions of dollars, let alone billions.

</comment><comment><USER23> Wouldn't you as an investor/owner/marketer for a network-effect platform try to get as much media attention as possible? I think hyping up your startup in the billions range is the perfect way to do so.

</comment><comment><USER24> To put it in perspective, they could spend that money /differently/. Blackberry is worth just a touch over $4 billion

[http://i.imgur.com/QcXiC9E.png](http://i.imgur.com/QcXiC9E.png)

<comment><USER25> Where do you think Blackberry is going though? I would wager it'll be worth less than 4bn in 2 years time, where-as investors are banking that Snapchat will be worth more.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> On one hand I think this is disproportionate amount of value, but on other I think investors with lot of money are not really that stupid and see some sort of value in this.

<comment><USER27> Economist Joseph Lawrence of Princeton University in 1929: "The consensus judgment of the millions whose valuations function on that admirable market, the Stock Exchange, is that stocks are not at present over-valued. Where is that group of men with the all-embracing wisdom which will entitle them to veto the judgment of this intelligent multitude?"

Alan Greenspan in 1999: "To anticipate a bubble about to burst requires the forecast of a plunge in the prices of assets previously set by the judgments of millions of investors, many of whom are highly knowledgeable about the prospects for the specific investments that make up our broad price indices of stocks and other assets."

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> HN who is going to pick this company up? Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google or Microsoft?

<comment><USER29> Spiegel turned down Facebook already and they have tens of millions of cash with a license to burn. A buddy of mine that went to Stanford with him recently quit his Wall St job to help them work on monetization schemes. No chance they sell in the foreseeable future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Insane, tilting on the criminal side.

<comment><USER31> Rich people throwing their money away on hare-brained schemes to make more money by paying software engineers - insane, maybe, but this is borderline _criminal_ now? What are we, the Bolsheviks? :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> These bubbles (housing, social web) are ways for rich people to give money to each other. But it's a zero-sum game (true value-creators like engineers are second-class citizens in the contemporary VC-funded world; they can't even buy houses) so someone is losing.

The lower-middle-class gets strip-mined. The upper-middle-class gets entertainment (cf. Valleywag) to make stagnation bearable.

For more on the underlying change, read here: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/vc- istan-4-si...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/vc- istan-4-silicon-valleys-tea-party/)</comment>


How Harvey Mudd Transformed Its CS Program And Nearly Closed Its Gender Gap - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/10/how-harvey-mudd-transformed-its-computer-science-program-and-nearly-closed-its-gender-gap/ <comment><USER2> Here are Harvey Mudd's acceptance rates by gender:

Men 14.4%

Women 38%

Source: [http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-545-harvey- mudd-c...](http://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-545-harvey-mudd- college.html)

I am perpetually bamboozled how anyone can think anecdotes like this matter. If Harvard wanted too I am sure they could make half their undergraduate population disabled black lesbians. That does not prove that your average state school is horrible and discriminatory just because that is not their class composition.

Elite schools get more applicants of either gender than they have room for and those applicants are of very high quality with very high levels of interest in the subject matter.

<comment><USER3> Well, the higher female acceptance rate may be because only good female students do CS. If you have a hostile environment, only the most motivated will succeed. It's like a sieve. You are applying selective pressure against a certain group of people succeeding. Expect to get only the most motivated.

Not saying this is the case in reality, but I think the conclusion that they're indiscriminately accepting women is facile.

<comment><USER4> Citation needed.

It is much more plausible that these engineering colleges have laxer requirements for females in order to get a 50/50 gender balance rather than public school discrimination.

<comment><USER5> Citation needed.

Anecdotal rebuttal: I know a bunch of female students at Harvey Mudd and that doesn't appear to be the case.

<comment><USER4> It doesn't need a citation, it is supported by Occam's razor while you are suggesting a complex explanation.

How does Harvey Mudd magically close their gender gap as though they suddenly decided to stop discriminating against females all these years?

If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

<comment><USER5> > If the girls you knew were, say 10% less capable compared to male > applicants, would you be able to tell? I doubt it.

If you can't tell then what difference does it make?

<comment><USER4> It makes a difference to the male applicants that would've been accepted if there wasn't a bias.

<comment><USER6> A program erasing the current cultural bias/momentum against females will make a difference to all the females who will not have to face said momentum/bias.

<comment><USER4> But how do you know that a 50/50 balance is even natural in engineering fields like CS?

Why isn't there a 50/50 balance and other similar initiatives for males for female dominated subjects like nursing and education?

<comment><USER6> Is there solid evidence of an IQ difference between the genders or a general subject, with a biological understanding of why such a difference exists?

I currently have not come across any such solid evidence and biological understanding. Seems unproductive to operate under an understanding far from 50/50 when I do not have solid evidence that I should be.

<comment><USER4> I never brought up the argument that males are smarter than females.

Why wouldn't you consider the possibility that most females don't want to sit in front of a screen all day with minimal social interaction often working 70 hour weeks?

Is it because you feel that the field of CS is so superior that no one could dislike it?

<comment><USER6> > I never brought up the argument that males are smarter than females.

I was not implying you did. IQ is one well know metric but others such as "a general subject", as I asked for before, are welcome as well.

I asked for solid evidence that operating away form 50/50 is more productive. If you have some I am willing to look it over.

<comment><USER4> I don't know why you assume that 50/50 is the desired ratio when acceptance is supposed to be self-selected and merit based.

This CS professor from MIT explains why fewer females choose engineering studies like CS.

[http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in- science](http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science)

Specifically this quote.

> What about women? Don't they want to impress their peers? Yes, but they are > more discriminating about choosing those peers. I've taught a fair number of > women students in electrical engineering and computer science classes over > the years. I can give you a list of the ones who had the best heads on their > shoulders and were the most thoughtful about planning out the rest of their > lives. Their names are on files in my "medical school recommendations" > directory.

<comment><USER6> > I don't know why you assume that 50/50 is the desired ratio when acceptance > is supposed to be self-selected and merit based.

I was not trying to communicate my desire. Rather what is optimal? I need strong evidence to operate far from 50/50.

> Specifically this quote.

This counts as evidence, but not enough evidence to get me to think the optimum is close to having 14-18% female CS degree recipients(2010).

Nice graph over time: [http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/computerworld.com/files...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/sites/computerworld.com/files/u28/women2.jpg) from article: [http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-careers/21993/women- comput...](http://blogs.computerworld.com/it-careers/21993/women-computer- science-visual-trendline)

Summary statistics: [http://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/legacy/pdf/BytheNum...](http://www.ncwit.org/sites/default/files/legacy/pdf/BytheNumbers09.pdf)

<comment><USER4> You prefer 50/50 but you have no evidence to even suggest that this is the "best" distribution for CS let alone any other major.

Why can't you accept the possibility that females do not like CS as much as males do not like things like nursing or human resources?

If there is a social stigma, should we really force people who normally wouldn't choose it so we can have a 50/50 ratio just because that is the probability to be born as?

Who are you to say that they are happier doing CS instead of what they would've chosen without all this influence?

<comment><USER6> > You prefer 50/50 but you have no evidence to even suggest that this is the > "best" distribution for CS let alone any other major.

50/50 is the default with out additional information. Again I am not trying to statement my preferences.

> Why can't you accept the possibility that females do not like CS as much as > males do not like things like nursing or human resources?

I did not say I can not. Like any idea I want good evidence and solid understanding to make strong claims.

> If there is a social stigma, should we really force people who normally > wouldn't choose it so we can have a 50/50 ratio just because that is the > probability to be born as?

I have not seen anyone make the argument to force people to take CS courses.

> Who are you to say that they are happier doing CS instead of what they > would've chosen without all this influence?

Trying is better then not trying. Influence exist weather intentional or not. Unintentional influences are not inherently better then intentional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You know, on reflection, this is actually a good thing. Not because of the diversity - screw diversity. Because you'll have more people with aptitude admitted. Programming aptitude is mostly evenly distributed regardless of gender and race, therefore if you keep your number admitted persons constant, but give a good incentive for every kind of person to apply, you'll end up with better applicants. Or to put it another way, the best 1000 white male americans are worse than the best 1000 americans in general. And at least in this case, I'd expect that there would be about as many capable females as males. Things might go skewed if we try to have the same number of heterosexuals and homosexuals or left-handed and right-handed people though.

<comment><USER8> "Programming aptitude is mostly evenly distributed regardless of gender and race,"

Is it really?

<comment><USER9> Independently of whether it is or isn't, there is benefit to trying to get as broad a swatch of the population into programming as possible.

My thinking on this has changed over the years. I used to view programming as a pure meritocracy. Then I realized that the same thing could be said about so many other male dominated fields, whose barriers eventually broke down. (Law, Accounting, Teaching...) Now my inclination is to believe that there are other things at work: parental expectations, mentorship, etc. that are bigger drivers.

And how much downside is there if we smartly (key word!) try to be more inclusive in the field? I don't mean lowering standards, but I do mean outreach, identifying mentors, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Harvey Mudd's come a long way. In the 1970's, the few women (less than ten) were joking referred to as "non-males".

</comment><comment><USER11> Super cool. I hope more departments follow their lead. (Of course, most CS departments are not headed by women.)

<comment><USER12> There may be more than you think, for instance:

Stanford Computer Science is headed by Jennifer Widom.

Berkeley EECS's Associate Chair is Tsu-Jae King Liu.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> It seems a bit odd that they're quoting their Junior class makeup-- makes me think that's the best data point they have, and it exaggerates their success. My understanding is that CS enrollment by gender isn't the issue, it's CS graduation rate.

<comment><USER6> In my lay observations most universities have a problem with females transferring out in the first two years. So it can across as impressive to me that they had such an even split in the 3rd year of classes. The program has only been going on for 6 years so I would be surprised if all of the upper level curriculum has even been transferred over flexible homework/project structure described so their is probably still room for improvement by continuing to apply the same strategy to the high level classes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> How big is Harvey Mudd's CS program?

<comment><USER5> about 200 students, iirc.

<comment><USER15> Great instructors. Zach Dodds is the man!</comment></comment></comment>


Open Access Bill for (nearly) all US publicly-funded research - <AUTHOR> http://doyle.house.gov/press-releases-1/2012/02/doyle-introduces-bill-to-ensure-public-access-to-federally-funded-research.shtml

<comment><USER2> I really like seeing this bill come up - the opposite of the Research Works Act, and a bill that will greatly improve access to research in the U.S.

I am concerned, however, that it uses "peer reviewed journals" as the standard for mandating publication. Computer science does most of its ongoing publication in conferences, not journals; also, specifically naming "journals" seems to me to invite name games, unless journal is defined sufficiently broadly in the bill's text.

I would prefer to see the requirements kick in when research is published in any peer-reviewed publication.

But still, this bill is a great step forward, and things like this are details that can hopefully be worked out.

</comment><comment><USER3> Worth noting that this bill allows but does not require access for text mining. For example, papers in PubMed Central can not be systematically downloaded (PMC is the result of a previous rule within the NIH).

According to Peter Suber, "If it's passed, agencies will have a year to adopt their own policies, and we can then press them to require libre."

[https://plus.google.com/116956861224568841998/posts/DPcA4f1q...](https://plus.google.com/116956861224568841998/posts/DPcA4f1qEs5)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The short summary is that this act (FRPAA) will require free online public access to most publicly-funded research in the US.

Many more details are available here: [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Notes_on_the_Federal_Resea...](http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/hoap/Notes_on_the_Federal_Research_Public_Access_Act)</comment>


Ask HN: Is Linode Performance Terrible for Anyone Else Today? - <AUTHOR>

...or is it just me?  Even their website/dashboard is barely usable.<p>Corrected: s/barely/simply not/ <comment><USER2> Everything is working fine for my linode. Dashboard is responsive and my web app is fast as ever. I'm on the California server cluster though. It may be location specific.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have one in Atlanta and another in Fremont, both working perfectly. Dashboard is fine too.

</comment><comment><USER4> Submit a ticket and we'll help you out.

<comment><AUTHOR> All fine now on all my 'nodes. Thanks (to all)!</comment></comment>


Make Windows Genuine by a simple trick - <AUTHOR> http://www.nokiasoftware.net/pc-applications/4452-make-windows-genuine-simple-trick.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think linking to tools to aid piracy really is acceptable. As much as I think Windows isn't worth paying for you still need to respect M$ property.

<comment><USER3> I'll admit it does aid piracy but, as a Windows user, I've been told that my version of Windows wasn't Genuine often enough that I don't give a damn. My versions are all bought and paid for but, through software bugs @ MSFT, they get treated sometimes as pirated. When you make me upset, I wish the whole Genuine Advantage thing would go away because it's so invasive and buggy - maybe this will be a means to that end.</comment></comment>


ZeniMax is suing Samsung after winning its case against Oculus - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/15/15643718/zenimax-samsung-oculus-gear-vr-john-carmack-software-lawsuit <comment><USER2> It pains me to see Carmack at the center of this, as he's definitely one of my nerd idols. But my biggest concern is what this means for the future of VR. Did it just slow down thanks to software patents or are the others not affiliated with Oculus (SteamVR, etc) going to be able to keep pushing forward without fear of some bs East Texas lawsuit after Samsung has its day?</comment>


The cost of using different sites on mobile networks around the world - <AUTHOR> https://whatdoesmysitecost.com <comment> yoz-y This site is useful and informative but I have a problem with their statement in bold. From what I understand, they use the cheapest plan that satisfies two conditions - it provides over 500MB of data and is valid for over 30 days. They present that this is the _best case scenario_. This is false of course, cheap plans have often a shitty value ratio. For example in France you can easily get 50G non-renewable contract for around 20-25 euros, SFR even offers 100G for 20. Maybe these are not the cheapest plans you can get, but they have much better ratio than what this site presents as a best case scenario for France (which is ~$0.1/MB)

<comment><USER2> You get 3-5GB for 20 euros from SFR.

What is the magic plan that gives you 50GB for 20 euros?

<comment> yoz-y SFR RED gives you 100GB of which you can use 5GB in Europe. [https://www.red- by-sfr.fr/forfaits-mobiles/forfait-4g-100go-...](https://www.red-by- sfr.fr/forfaits-mobiles/forfait-4g-100go-sans-engagement/)

<comment><USER3> From June onward there will be a new EU legislation which would make it so that you can use thee whole 100GB in the EU (under small roaming restrictions).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've been traveling more so i've been studying data and usage as it applies to my personal usage.

The result: I've had to completely turn off cellular data for web browsing.

I can use mobile apps fine; chess.com, slack, telegram, email, etc. Streaming even pandora is out, but luckily they have an offline mode that allows you to download your station when you're on wifi and then play back whenever. But I can't browse the internet at all.

I'd be willing to spend up to $50 a month for a limited package, but at most that seems to get me is 1-2GB when I'm in Canada unless I want to sign another long term contract.

Every page i download, every news article, easily 2-3MB, and when your total data allotment is 500MB, you just can't browse the internet. Even hacker news, a popular post ends up being 1MB worth of comments.

<comment><USER5> >I'd be willing to spend up to $50 a month for a limited package, but at most that seems to get me is 1-2GB when I'm in Canada unless I want to sign another long term contract.

[http://prepaid-data-sim-card.wikia.com/wiki/Canada](http://prepaid-data-sim- card.wikia.com/wiki/Canada)

Some of the roaming options on there look a bit better.

<comment><USER6> I guess Canada doesn't have the population to scale the cost down. It's a huuuuuge country with a big spread of people.

$50 for couple of gigs is insane. I pay $50 with T-mobile for unlimited everything except international calls. You could say unlimited for 20 gigs before I get a bandwidth cap which is still usable. LTE speeds are faster than my home Internet with Frontier Fios

<comment><USER7> The issue is that whenever resellers pop up in metropolitan areas with great prices they get aggressively acquired by the big players and prices stay up.

<comment><USER8> I'm just not sure how this works. AFAICT there's four networks in Canada. Why would they onsell their network, then have to acquire the company to stop the competition? Why not just not onsell it in the first place?

Maybe there's some regulation saying they have to onsell it?

Just curious because it seems a bit similar in Australia.

I was with Vodafone then discovered a much better deal through Kogan which uses the Vodafone network. I asked Vodafone to match the deal to keep me as a customer, and they couldn't! They wanted me to pay something like 30% more for the same network/data usage. I told them thanks but no thanks.

<comment><USER7> e.g. Public Mobile would have a small network that operated only in cities and metropolitan areas. Unlimited data, unlimited talk time over the entire Canada and unlimited text messages. This cost me around $35/month. Telus purchased them and changed it down to 1gb of data and incrased the price to around $40-45. They killed all the Public Mobile physical stores and made it so that getting support was a pain.

A few month ago every Public Mobile clients received a SMS. The SMS was a promotion to switch from Public Mobile to Koodo. We would get the same deal we had right now (or better price), a new cellphone and $150 in Koodo store credits to get goodies. Everyone switched over. Right now I'm on a $50/month plan with Koodo that is worst than the $35/month PublicMobile could give me.

Now nobody offers unlimited data or Canada wide data for $35.

(Disclaimer: I have a bad memory for dates and prices. This should however describe the situation correctly enough.)

<comment><USER8> But how could Public Mobile afford to offer such a good deal?

Presumably they were onselling another companies network, why would that company sell their own network so cheap?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Wow the prices people pay in here are exorbitant. I have a UK no contract SIM and pay 25 pounds a month, this includes uncapped internet and quite a number of texts + minutes. I pretty much only use it for the internet as it's such good value.

The best thing about it is that the uncapped internet works in pretty much any EU country I've been to. This is really surprising from UK as most of the stuff in there is usually more expensive than in the rest of the EU, however I don't think I've ever seen a plan with uncapped internet and free roaming in any other country.

<comment><USER10> > uncapped internet works in pretty much any EU country I've been to

This is merely providers trying to be competitive and gain market share before EU abolishes roaming fees on 15th June [0].

A lot of providers I've seen have in the small print a limit for the time you can spend outside the home country (e.g. Three with their 'Feel At Home' limit you to two months a year abroad), so it'll be interesting to see what they come up once this comes into effect.

I'd be very surprised if my €5/month 'unlimited' (fair usage) 4G will really be unlimited throughout the EU.

[0] [http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/telecoms- inte...](http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/telecoms- internet/mobile-roaming-costs/index_en.htm)

<comment><USER11> Last year, I had a 3 UK data sim (30pounds, 12 gig, 1 yr) that travelled with me, and it was good. Ireland was fine, France was fine.

This year, I got a new one, and once I cross into Ireland it's throttled pretty badly. Which is better than my Irish one that goes on roaming at .25/meg once I cross the border, but it's still not as good as it was.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just got a bar graph full of $0.00 ([http://imgur.com/uciLhOG](http://imgur.com/uciLhOG)). Maybe there's a bug in measuring images and fonts referenced by CSS? More decimal places are a good idea.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it's a rounding thing. I'm guessing your site is so lightweight that the cost ends up being negligible. You should be able to click through from the result page to a fully detailed report from webpagetest.org.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> There's a dilema of browsing with a web app(firefox, opera, chrome) and navigating using a native app when you are in development countries. Using web browsing consumes your data pretty fast and the cap limits are low(~500mb), but it gives you good energy consumption. Using apps to navigate is more efficient with your data consumption; however, battey life drains pretty fast. The latter is due many cheap or mid mobile phones; if you have a high end phone shouldn't be a problem. I used to live in Peru, and worked in mobile geo localization services.

<comment><USER15> I'm pretty sure native apps with the same functionality consume less energy than web apps. Native apps and their frameworks are highly optimized.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In 2013 Amazon (I think) estimated that 1 second delay would cost you 7% of your sales.

And while most developers know this there are still developers creating slow and bloated sites.

So this site is also nice, but I don't think it will change anything. Unless the loss would be cut from the developers paycheck.

<comment><USER17> Cut from the designers paycheck...

Most of the size in modern sites is due to developers building out the design they've been given.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, it's not developers pushing video header backgrounds, ten analytics packages, and form designs that require 2mb of JS, CSS and images to achieve cross-browser. Designers, marketing/growth-hackers. Clients. Developers aren't blameless but we can only push back so much (usually very little—few trust us on design/ux, even when we're right)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I am in Canada and the prices seemed a bit high on this website. Here is the math for my situation:

I use Freedom Mobile, an urban focused discount mobile service, formerly known as Wind Mobile: [http://www.freedommobile.ca/plans-and- devices/plans](http://www.freedommobile.ca/plans-and-devices/plans)

I get 9GB for $60/month, so that works out to 150MB/$ if I am at full usage.

Realistically I am average about 2GB/month so my real costs are 33MB/$.

The average website is 2.552MB according to this website.

Thus at full usage (9GB/month) my costs are 1.7 cents CAD (1.25 cents USD) per average website (2.5MB).

At average usage (2GB/month) I am hitting 7.7 cents CAD (5.6 cents USD) per average website (2.5MB).

I may be getting a better than average deal in Canada.

<comment><USER20> > I may be getting a better than average deal in Canada.

Pretty much.

Freedom Mobile has limited coverage and is still rolling out LTE to the coverage it has. You can't really use it as a counter-example when it's a no- go for many Canadians. The site seems pretty close to what you can get if you shop around (it's exactly what I pay for example).

CRTC continues to do a bang up job of protecting Canadians!

<comment><USER19> > You can't really use it as a counter-example when it's a no-go for many > Canadians.

It covers most of the main metropolitan areas.

<comment><USER20> How is that not still a no-go for many Canadians?

I even live in a "main metropolitan areas" and can't use it because I regularly travel out of "main metropolitan areas".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> We crashed it... apparently the performance cost is the greatest of all...

</comment><comment><USER22> I'm happy to see that Poland has the cheapest mobile internet :)

<comment><USER23> Poland, Russia - these are not exactly cheap countries. What makes data services so inexpensive in those locales?

I know that in Russia the telcos were able to grab the spectrum at almost zero cost. Bad for the state budget, great for telco market cap, but looks like it's also good for consumers.

<comment><USER22> I think that there are few different reasons:

\- Polish people are tech savvy and get easily excited about new tech, so there's high demand for data services

\- there is a lot of competition. There are four major vendors, and there's already more than one mobile phone per citizen (and that's including infants). So the only way of acquiring new customers is to make them switch from other telecom.

\- Poland is pretty small and have relatively high population density, so it's pretty easy to have good coverage.

\- It is easy to avoid taxes (and even if you pay them, they are pretty low), so telecoms have a lot of spare cash to invest in the infrastructure :)

<comment><USER23> Makes sense but the driving factor has to clearly set Poland apart from the likes of Germany or South Korea which also have savvy consumers and rapid adoption.

In the U.S. there are multiple competing carries of meaningful scale but the data plans tend to be expensive.

<comment><USER24> Yeah,but in the US you have coverage problems with most of them. And in Poland, basically they all have great coverage. I've used two of the major carriers, didn't have coverage problems even in remote parts of the country. (HSPA+, but even LTE is getting pretty universal)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Ooooh, hurrah! 10% of normal page weight (at ~260kB)!

[http://m.earth.org.uk/](http://m.earth.org.uk/)

But if it weren't for the single Google ad it would be reduced to more like 1% of normal page weight, which is more like my mental target for pages, ie 10s over dial-up...

PS. Yes, [http://www.exnet.com/](http://www.exnet.com/) from the days when I was _providing_ dial-up in the UK, is ~20kB.

</comment><comment><USER26> Pretty cool. Also nice to see that [http://taoofmac.com](http://taoofmac.com) is confirmed to weigh in at only 0.33MB - I do progressive image loads and strip everything I can precisely to cater to mobile users...

[https://whatdoesmysitecost.com/test/170425_QK_0642ee2ef13f49...](https://whatdoesmysitecost.com/test/170425_QK_0642ee2ef13f4993060467d0ad4fe740#usdCost)

</comment><comment><USER27> O Caaaaaanaaadaaaa, our home and native land.....

<comment><USER28> We're number one!

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Japanese carriers have a very high base rate on all their "smartphone" plans that they justify by forcing you to get an unlimited calls plan. You can get a far better deal on data with the multitude of MVNOs; the majority of which are on the former telco monopoly, NTT docomo, since the telco regulator has more influence on them. You'll get drastically lower priority on the network though (in the tune of 2 MBit/s instead of 20 Mbit/s as soon as the network has any load)

</comment><comment><USER30> Those page size's are a bit less to what I get in chrome. Must be hard to catch all the dynamic content.

Still a cool site.

</comment><comment><USER31> I'm sceptical of these figures. How can the US rank higher than Botswana and Brazil in PPP adjusted dollars, when it ranks lower in unadjusted dollars and the cost of living is higher in the USA?

<comment><USER32> Because US telcos are some of the most price gouging in the world?

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I tried it with SS64.com, the chart shows that $0 is four times bigger in Canada than $0 in Italy ([https://ss64.com](https://ss64.com) weighs 0.02MB)

<comment><USER13> Ha! I'll try to add some decimal points for sub $.01 sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Can't view the site properly right now (I'm text-only), but is it possible to see how much your ads cost your users? I would looove it if businesses/developers cared about that.

<comment><USER25> See my comment earlier: for my front page _very_ roughly one AdSense ad is 90% of the entire page weight (well over 200kB of ~250kB).

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> So my side project costs about 2 cents in most developed countries and 1 or 0 cents in developing nations.

Is that good? I wish there was some comparison to say the major internet sites.

</comment><comment><USER36> I'm happy to see that my server side rendered react site is cheaper in every country other than my own. In most countries less than a cent.

</comment><comment><USER37> Would also be nice to measure the typical battery percentage consumption based on a standard usage pattern.

</comment><comment><USER38> This site rather tells differences between national mobile data plans than how expensive your site is.

</comment><comment><USER39> Did we crash the site?</comment>


Square Inc. Co-Founder Tristan O'Tierney Dies at 35 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-02/square-inc-co-founder-tristan-o-tierney-dies-at-35 <comment><USER2> Sorry to see this. My last year of college, with absolutely zero experience in tech I tried to build a fintech startup that needed seamless processing of micro-payments and so I pinged Tristan in the early days of Square's beta program when they were just shipping out card readers asking if they might expose an API in the near future. Small interaction, but he got back to me and coming from the Midwest, that was my first experience with how open Silicon Valley can be, with a co-founder at one of the hottest startups taking the time to respond to some random college kid interested in kicking the tires on his project. My project went nowhere but I had fun exploring the tech involved, decided to learn to code, made it out here and am now running a venture-backed startup after a couple engineering jobs. I thought just the fact that he responded was really cool at the time and try not to blow off cold emails like that as a result.

<comment><USER3> I went to high school with him. That's how he was with me as well when I randomly said to him one day, "Hey you seem better at this computer programming thing than me. Let's hang out." I too credit Tristan with helping me transition from computer programmer novice to computer programmer professional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Last year, at age 35, I started drinking heavily. I would buy a bottle of Absolute and would not stop till I see the bottom of it. 2 bottles a week at min. About 5-6 months, I've stopped drinking without anyone's help.

Yesterday and today, I'm having a strong urge to get completely wasted. Just go to the store around the block, buy bottle of Absolute.

Yesterday, while driving on I-695, I saw a guy with a child seat on the back seat and thought to myself: "I want that too".

Tristan O'Tierney dies at 35, survived by his three-old-year daughter.

<comment><USER5> I'm surprised you were able to function the next day with that amount. I recently turned 30, and I definitely cannot drink as much as I used to. I get an allergic response to alcohol, which really sucks because I used to enjoy it. There is a mutation in OPRM1 in certain populations that causes your opiate receptors (particularly mu subtype) to release endorphins when drinking. I've definitely had that happen to me when I used to drink heavily. But that changed when I took LSD-25. While I still drink, it is nowhere near the same level as when I was younger, and I attribute that to my psychedelic experiences. Stay strong.

<comment><USER6> You'd be surprised how much a person can routinely drink and still function. I grew up and now work in a high alcohol abuse area, and some of the folks that were abusing surprised me. Sadly, I'm sure when their body said enough it came as a surprise to them too.

Keep safe folks

<comment><USER7> It's important to say that the way of drinking is probably everything. No shots, avoiding sugary mixers, avoiding beer if possible (at least the cheaper ones), never mixing different alcohols (even the same type, but of different brands).

The worse you feel the next day after alcohol means the more significant damage you did to your body. If you feel fresh, it says that the damage was almost non-existent (besides liver, which, if you drink a lot of alcohol you should take care separately). Then drinking a lot of water before going to bed will help your body to clean from alcohol.

It's all about alcohol-drinking culture. In some countries drinking alcohol 2-4 times a week is normal (as long as you don't drink to get wasted). But I have seen places (for example Ireland), where drinking to get wasted is an ultimate goal 2-4 times a week. That's the problem imo. Better education and public awareness would help a lot.

<comment><USER8> is there any evidence that mixing alcohols or drinking cheap booze is worse for you?

<comment><USER7> Try it, then try drinking only one type of better alcohol. Compare how you feel the next day. That should say a lot. It's rather common knowledge that is not proven scientifically.

There has been a lot of talk about it for years in many sport/gym related communities. Those people know how to observe their bodies and reaction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've never been a heavy drinker, but at one point 2 years ago I handled a project by myself to move 6 million dollars a month in charity transactions from one uncooperative payment processor to another.

I normally handled stress well, but this was a different level and it was physically taxing on me. I had a glass of wine one night about 3 weeks into this and immediately felt so much better that I ended up having 3-4 / night for 3 months just to cope with the stress.

As soon as the project ended (successfully I might add), I stopped...but I'll never forget how much I felt like I needed the alcohol during that time. I've never experienced that in my life but it gave me a new appreciation for what it must be like to really struggle with the addiction. If I felt like that every day I don't know what I'd do.

Sincerest condolences to his family.

<comment><USER10> I wish there was a way to reduce stress the way you describe alcohol does, but without the tolerance-related escalation and the addiction. I have been trying meditation and progressive relaxation - they do work, but only for a limited duration. 2 hours later, you're back to being jittery and edge-of-the-seat.

<comment><USER11> There is. It's called physical exercise.

<comment><USER12> People have a wide range of different responses to both exercise and alcohol (along with everything else). For me, exercise does feel like it helps but it also takes physical and mental resources. Also, I tend to exercise more when I have more time available, ie. when I'm less busy and under less pressure, so there's a pretty strong confounding factor involved.

Used for relaxation, alcohol is a quick-fix solution but sometimes that's what you need. A crutch is great for a few days when you've got a sprained ankle and still need to march. Just don't make it a permanent part of your life.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Part of what drove me to leave the SF tech industry was the normalized daily alcohol consumption.

At one startup in SOMA, on my first day the CEO introduced me to the team and pressured me to drink a shot of booze as was the company's tradition. My first group interaction with the entire company (~30 heads) was responding "water" to the CEO's question "so what's you're drink?" asked while standing next to a bar on wheels rolled over for the occasion, which I had to repeat two or three times, when he repeated the question expecting me to cave under pressure.

Utter stupidity, may as well be insisting I smoke a cigarette from my perspective.

<comment><USER14> I left one software company, in part because they developed apps for pubs and restaurants, and most of the other employees came from a hospitality background and wanted to get wasted each Friday night. That I wanted to a) spend time with my daughter (on alternating weeks) or b) just go home and chill out alone was not acceptable, and my disinterest in the partying culture lead to many cold shoulders at work also. Much younger me had not even considered asking about the 'after-work' culture when interviewing; lesson learned!

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If someone gets a cancer, we don't judge them for having weak DNA replication.

If someone gets an infectious disease, we don't judge them for having a weak immune system.

If someone becomes addicted to a substance, we shouldn't judge them for having a weak physical or psychiatric system.

Addiction is a disease and should be treated as such. All of the xA (Alcoholics/Narcotics/Gambling etc) Anonymous are fine communal assistance groups, but addiction is not about will power.

<comment><USER16> > If someone becomes addicted to a substance

Are you mad? Nobody suddenly becomes 'addicted'. Addiction is something you do willfully and deliberately to yourself. Addiction is not a disease, it is a form of self-harm.

<comment><USER17> In his examples addiction is a mental illness/disorder. I agree, it is really hard to understand why would anyone get addicted to something out of thin air, but it happens apparently and it is a very big problem. Most of the homeless people you see out there are not just mentally ill; they are addicted.

"Self-harm" you mentioned is a mental problem. Yes, none of these are like cancer and deadly at first, but they really can turn deadly if no one helps. It is hard for me to understand too, but I don't take anything for granted. We never know what would trigger all these. I am sure he didn't want to die at 35 and leave her 3 years old kid behind with his wife alone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> When I was diagnosed with kidney disease, I was one step into stage 5 kidney failure where dialysis is considered. However there were very few outward signs. Even my PCP was not expecting it when he ordered a standard lot of tests. Our bodies don't always have clear signs of things going wrong. Make sure to have regular checkups.

<comment><USER19> Same with me though my kidney failure was caused by Sarkoid and that was diagnosed early with chronic kidney failure as the sarcoid expressed its's self one of my eyes.

IT was only when I was having an untrasound that the problem in the kidney was found and I had a couple of decades of managed decline before I went on to the transplant list.

<comment><USER18> Mine is IgA Nephropathy. Its an autoimmune disease where your immune cells attack your kidneys. Might is the rapidly progressing one. More common is the slow progressing one people can manage.

<comment><USER19> OH sorry to hear that are you on Dialysis yet?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It is not impossible to stop using and drinking completely. I am a very high performing software engineer and 20 years ago I had an opioid problem. I experienced bad things and out of control things as part of my addiction. My thinking was nuts. Yes I could have killed myself. My productivity dropped so much I was told "all the managers are wondering about you," but no one could figure it out, because I didn't seem like the type. I quit my job. Then I did the whole rigamarole of getting clean and I followed the suggestions of people who had struggled with the same problem and gotten freedom around it. I still do that. I am saying this (under a brand new login) because if there are people out there who are feeling hopeless, there is hope for you. I don't think about using anymore and I have learned tools to deal with my (substantial) success. You can too. The best thing was I got clean when my son was very young, he never saw me loaded, I had a good and stable relationship with his mother, and my son has no attraction to drugs or alcohol at this point. I was raised in an alcoholic home so I can't tell you the sense of accomplishment and gratitude I have about that. You don't have to be a genius to do this. You need willingness and honesty and you need to get some help. Good luck, I am rooting for you.

</comment><comment><USER21> For those who have a problem with alcohol from being a bit of a drunk to an addict, there's a pill for that: Naltrexone, taken one hour before drinking, blocks positive reinforcement for drinking alcohol. This treatment is called the "Sinclair method."

Studies show Naltrexone and the Sinclair method prevents excessive consumption and over time can extinguish addiction. Over the course of a year alcoholics can basically totally lose interest in alcohol.

It's not a fringe treatment. It has been the standard of care in Finland for decades.

Here is a global listing of physicians familiar with the treatment: [https://cthreefoundation.org/find-a- physician](https://cthreefoundation.org/find-a-physician)

These board certified physicians prescribe it in many states in the US via telemedicine consultations: [https://www.mdproactive.com/what-we- treat/alcohol-use-disord...](https://www.mdproactive.com/what-we- treat/alcohol-use-disorder)

(I'm suggesting this online practice because I understand it may be hard to find a physician familiar with this treatment in some areas in the United States.)

I went from being a bit of a drunk even by American standards to having no interest in alcohol after a couple pills.

The first time I took it, I knew it could have saved by grandfather's life.

It's really heartbreaking that so few people know about this treatment.

Anyone who likes alcohol would be amazed how useless it is without the opioid response (that Naltrexone blocks).

You can find papers about this on Google scholar: [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=sin...](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C14&q=sinclair+method+alcohol&btnG=&oq=sinclair+method+alc)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naltrexone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naltrexone) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53JObexh0w0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53JObexh0w0) [https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Alcoholism-Medically- Eliminate-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Alcoholism-Medically-Eliminate- Addiction/dp/1937856135/) [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdeh0LP6kuSQ9GsorQpVnUw](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdeh0LP6kuSQ9GsorQpVnUw)

<comment><USER22> What an incredibly dangerous suggestion that people seek out a prescription for this kind of drug online at mdproactive or anywhere else.

You also did not mention that a number of studies have shown this drug to be only modestly effective at treating alcohol abuse, and that there are better treatments. It can also cause liver damage. It's not a magic pill.

<comment><USER23> Show your sources. The studies that indicate it's not effective are in comparison to a placebo when alcohol is NOT consumed with the drug. The Sinclair method is very specific about taking the drug with alcohol (and measuring its reduced usage over time).

To my knowledge liver damage has only been documented at doses far beyond what the Sinclair method directs.

Edit: source as requested below: [https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/36/1/2/137995](https://academic.oup.com/alcalc/article/36/1/2/137995)

<comment><USER24> Show your sources too, please

<comment><USER23> Added to the original comment, thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I am an alcoholic and I have been fighting for my life for 30 years. I also tried to disprove the AA program for 23 years. After I didn't drink for 6 years I tried it again and resumed how messed up my life was. Now after 1 year in AA and working "the program," my life is getting to be the best I have had as an adult...and a coder.

</comment><comment><USER26> Wow this is really sad. Everyone reading this, please take care of yourself. Physically and mentally.

<comment><USER27> I would add that if you feel like taking care of yourself is impossible, overwhelming, or not worth it, there is no reason on Earth to not seek help. There is no shame in getting the help you need!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Holy shit. Tristan. We argued about code quality. I learned a lot from you. I'm so sorry.

</comment><comment><USER29> Some of the photographs in his portfolio are amazing, I'd suggest a look:

[http://otierney.net/cities](http://otierney.net/cities)

<comment><USER30> If you like those, here's a bunch more:

[https://500px.com/tristan](https://500px.com/tristan)

[https://instagram.com/tristan](https://instagram.com/tristan)

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/tristanotierney/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/tristanotierney/)

I'm coordinating a memorial in San Francisco the end of this month. We intend to have it at an art gallery with his photography on display. If you want to be notified about it, reach out (contact info on my profile).

<comment><USER31> I trust there are separate plans to preserve his websites & photos on archive.org's wayback machine.

<comment><USER32> I managed to preserve the 500px one: [http://archive.is/RLc2g](http://archive.is/RLc2g)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Such a shame that these amazingly intelligent people can't find peace of mind

<comment><USER34> Happiness, for all I know is basically the ability to ignore sad and inconvenient truths about the world around you. The smarter you are, the harder it is to maintain this delusion.

<comment><USER35> I have learnt to find some joy in watching my young kids. They haven't been corrupted/encumbered by it all. Secondly, the hope is that as they grow the world will slowly improve with them as shown by some long term data. Third, meditating helps! it helps me get out of my own thinking framework and make some breathing room for myself.

Lastly, I feel there is a very important reality that we all are largely unaware of it is that (IMHO) we live our lives in log scale, meaning generally every new experience creates much lighter impression than the one by say a few years ago. if you accept that (barring physical discomfort) world is not such a bad place compare to even a few decades ago.

<comment><USER36> World isn't perfect for sure but it is indeed eye-opening to sometimes check how much worse things were as recently as 70s and 80s. Helps to put today's issues into perspective, and be a bit more content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Alcohol is such an incredibly shitty drug I don't understand why it's so popular and why people don't substitute it with another drug. What's most curious is why people don't do drug substitution for cost mitigation.

</comment><comment><USER38> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square,_Inc). has zero mention of his name (and only list Dorsey and McKelvey as founders). Is he really not a co-founder or Wikipedia is wrong?

</comment><comment><USER39> It was alcohol addiction.

<comment><USER40> Reading this on mobile, and there is a huge ad for Belvedere Vodka. Just like the "Fuck Cancer" movement, it's time we had a "Fuck Alcohol" movement. I'm hoping with cannabis gaining more and more support throughout the US that we see a drop-off in alcohol consumption. It may take a generation or two, but I think it's time to drop this poison as a society.

R.I.P. and so sorry to hear that his young daughter will not get to know her father.

<comment><USER41> I get high from cannabis about once a week, so I'm not a tee-totaler. But weed is no substitute for alcohol if you're concerned about addiction. The main reason that I used to drink to excess was to drown my anxiety / depression. I had a wake up call a few years ago and now only drink or get high on weekends... but what I've learned since then is it's much better to treat your mental health problems with mindfulness and meditation (or even a therapist).

<comment><USER40> I'm not saying it is a substitute for alcohol, but I will take someone addicted psychologically to weed over someone psychologically and physically addicted to alcohol any day of the week.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> It sounds like Tristan did alot of good for people and was very successful in his Career, He just had an addiction and couldn't overcome it. I feel especially bad for his Parents, Family, his girlfriend and his 3 year old Daughter most of all. When she gets older she will fairly barely even remember him or maybe she wont remember him at all. This is such a sad story and he was just so young.

</comment><comment><USER43> Very sad news. Most people I've met treat alcohol as a casual, mostly harmless substance. On the other hand, the world is filled with people dying quickly and slowly from alcohol addiction. This discrepancy can be very confusing, especially for young people, as it's often not clear which camp you'll fall into — until it's too late.

Personally, I think alcohol is worth giving up. Why find out how bad things can get? In my case, I quit 10 years ago. In that time, I've built a career as a software developer, grown a marriage, and become a father. I have a great social life, deeper friendships than I ever had while drinking, and have replaced the access to creativity I used to feel by drinking alcohol with running and meditation. Sobriety is an extremely viable path.

</comment><comment><USER44> RIP.

We need to support each other in times of need. Any addiction has as much a social component as psychological. Startups are hard and it has different effect on different people. Talk to your friends. Seek help, professional or personal.

</comment><comment><USER45> Take care of your health everyone. Health, Family, & Friends are all more important than work.

Note: I'm not saying work caused this, especially since he was set for life with his work at Square (according to the article).

</comment><comment><USER46> Stumbled upon his twitter bio while reading the comments and thought it was appropriate to post here:

"Square Co-Founder turned traveling photographer. Searching for the meaning of life and got lost along the way. Maybe it is hidden in these moments."

Condolences to all who knew him.

</comment><comment><USER47> Sometimes people feel shame about their substance use. Sometimes people feel badly and turn to substances, or use substances gradually and find that they can't stop. Every one deserves to be fully accepted, loved, and to feel better. And sometimes it seems impossible to feel that within one's self. I hope it becomes easier to talk about one's experience with another. A friend, counselor, family member, a kind stranger. The boxes on internet sites. Even when one feels only darkness, another person can light a match to illuminate a tad bit. Small steps, over time, add up to better. It's slow and hard. And recovery can be like that. But it can be better. Always.

</comment><comment><USER48> It's starting to seem common. Every time I read some form of 'successful tech founder dies young' it's almost always related to some form of addiction.

I wonder if that's just the only thing being reported on, or it's just the most likely way for these people to die.

<comment><USER49> At that age my doctor said the things that were likely to kill people like me were motorcycle accidents, extreme sports, and drug addiction. So if your hobbies are software and photography, that mostly leaves drug addiction.

<comment><USER50> Statistically, in the 30s, suicide and drugs (addiction or overdose) are the top 2. Car accidents is next.

Extreme sports and motorcycle accidents apply to such a smaller percentage of the population.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> If you or anyone you know has any issues, I recommend they see a psychiatrist or some sort of counselor and medical professional before handling their issues on their own. There is no shame in it. Mental health is as important if not more important than every other aspect of our physiology, yet it's still not taken seriously especially in Silicon Valley.

</comment><comment><USER52> You never know when you're going to die. Realizing that it could be today can change your perspective on life. Losing your fear of dying will make you dangerously honest.

</comment><comment><USER42> this is such a sad sad story. I lost my Aunt in 2014 to Alcoholism and a good friend of mine on October27th 2018, just last year a few months ago. he was only 48 and my Aunt was only 56 years young. this breaks my heart and his little girl doesn't have her Dad anymore. He must have had alcohol poisoning or maybe his heart just stopped. Praying for his family during this sudden unexpected death.

</comment><comment><USER53> side note: you can have addictive and obsessive behavior non related to alcohol too. You have peace and happiness inside of you [1]. The twenties seem like a transitional period full of intense, if not overwhelming, emotions that can shadow the calm and joy .. only to be replaced by substances or ~hobbies (gambling, sex, whatever).

best of luck and rip TOT

</comment><comment><USER54> My condolences to his daughter and his mom and those that knew him. This sucks!

</comment><comment><USER55> Addiction is a terrible thing.

Never take the first step. It's your best defense.

<comment><USER56> Sure, but I believe over 85% of adults will drink alcohol at some point in their lives so that is easier said than done.

<comment><USER57> Sadly once you are older it starts to make more sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> Tragic.

</comment><comment><USER59> *Resolves

</comment><comment><USER60> Thoughts and prayers to his family!

</comment><comment><USER61> Anyone know what the addiction was? given kidney involvement i'm leaning towards alcohol, but don't want to assume. I know it's cliche to say, but asking for a friend.

A loss for a lot of people, especially his young family.

<comment><USER30> I'm not sure why it matters, but it wasn't just one thing he struggled with. Out of respect for him, I'm not going to say more than that.

<comment><USER61> fwiw I'm literally asking for a friend. that's why it matters.

<comment><USER30> Every person's situation is different, so I'm not sure why one person's addiction matters for your friend. That was my point in saying that.

That said, ping me privately, my contact info is in my profile. I'll do what I can to help.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Dotcom Bubble Stories - <AUTHOR>

As we debate whether or not we are in a social media-driven tech bubble or not, it might be fun for those of us who lived through the one 15 years or so ago to post your favorite stories around the excess and lack of success in that era. <comment><USER2> Here's one from an interview with Chris Sacca ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6NpHbMFaQ8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6NpHbMFaQ8)):

In the late 1990s, Chris Sacca used his student loan to start a company within the lawsuit industry - not to pay tuition. But he realized the idea was bad, he didn't have the skills needed, and he didn't have any investors. So before he ran out of money, he began day-trading stocks with the remaining money. This was during the buildup of the tech bubble so he made a huge profit from the trading. When the bubble exploded, his wealth decreased from 12 million to -2.8 million. His surroundings had convinced him that he was a stock market genius - so he thought he knew something. When the stock market crashed, he thought he was just unlucky. He was now 25 years old, no network, and had to find a way to make 2.8 million.

</comment><comment><USER3> GovWorks? [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GovWorks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GovWorks)

They've made a movie too.

</comment><comment><USER4> One of my favourites is Boo.com [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boo.com)

<comment><USER4> A list of the top 10 from CNET [http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html](http://www.cnet.com/1990-11136_1-6278387-1.html)

<comment><USER5> An interesting item on that list is Flooz:

      Flooz was meant to be online currency that would serve as
      an alternative to credit cards. It boggles the mind why
      anyone would rather use an "online currency" than an actual
      credit card, but that didn't stop Flooz from raising a
      staggering $35 million from investors and signing up retail
      giants such as Tower Records, Barnes & Noble, and
      Restoration Hardware.

That sounds eerily familiar in the modern economy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The CueCat for me [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat)

</comment><comment><USER7> The US produced a lot of spectacular rise & fall billionaire stories, but none were greater than the two that Japan produced.

Masayoshi Son, of Softbank, hit a peak of $76 or so billion. Eventually dwindling down to $1.1 billion, a 'loss' of about $75 billion. Don't feel too bad for him though, perhaps fittingly given the discussion of a bubble again, he's back up to $16 billion in net worth and ascending (75% gain in wealth this past year).

Yasumitsu Shigeta was worth $42 billion at the peak of the bubble. Numerically he basically lost it all; what he had left was a rounding error. He was the founder of telecom company Hikari Tsushin. In 1999, he was Japan's youngest billionaire at 34. He's now back to being a billionaire again, 14 years later.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2013/04/03/fifteen- ye...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesasia/2013/04/03/fifteen-years-of-ups- and-downs-for-yasumitsu-shigeta/)

</comment><comment><USER8> My favorite bubble story is Airbnb building a conference room modelled after the War Room in Dr. Strangelove:

[http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/workspace- ar...](http://www.modernluxury.com/san-francisco/story/workspace-arms-race)</comment>


Show HN: Buku – A browser-independent bookmark manager - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/jarun/Buku <comment><USER2> I wish I knew this tool earlier. I've written something related myself [0], though the bookmarks are managed in plain yaml files and transformed into a shareable HTML file. I think I could have build this workflow upon Buku as well.

Maybe I'll contribute an adapter to connect Buku with my tool, so I get the best of both worlds (Buku for management and StaticMarks for the web front- end).

[0] [https://staticmarks.com](https://staticmarks.com)

<comment><AUTHOR> You are welcome!</comment></comment>


Reddit's crappy ultimatum to remote workers and offices - <AUTHOR> http://shortlogic.tumblr.com/post/99014759324/reddits-crappy-ultimatum <comment><USER2> This is a layoff in disguise. The high-quality employees have better options, and will leave. The clueless ones can be dealt a termination letter after they move, when they're not keeping up with their newer, Bay Area-er, trendier competitors^H^H^H coworkers.

<comment><USER3> Or maybe a way of clawing back shares of the company now that new money is coming in? Not sure what kind of deal early Redditors got, but getting them to quit in frustration with a move and give up whatever options/ownership/etc. could be a possibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "No more Salt Lake City office, responsible for Reddit Gifts. No more New York office, responsible for selling ads."

There's a lot of places asking people to move from would be difficult, but from my familiarity with both, those might be two of the harder sells.

SLC offers certain outdoor rec opportunities the Bay can't match, and unless the requirement to move to SF comes with a _big_ pay bump, they're effectively asking employees to uproot their lives and take a big pay cut.

Cost of living in New York is probably roughly on par, but I'm trying to imagine someone who likes the breadth/depth of cultural/rec opportunities in NYC being happy with SF and guessing it's not going to play well.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't know why they just can't focus new hires on being in SF and letting original staff remain where they are while dangling a juicy carrot for them to move. Forcing them to move or leave is really crappy. This is a good way to piss off everyone who has committed time at the same time as soiling their reputation.

</comment><comment><USER3> My conspiracy theory, it's all a move to make Reddit attractive as a major Yahoo acquisition. Yahoo is getting an injection of billions from Alibaba and has been on a tear with acquisitions. Moving everyone to SV makes for an easier acquisition (especially from a company that doesn't want remote workers anymore).

<comment><USER6> Yahoo's acquisition of Tumblr has been seen has a flop. [http://fortune.com/2014/10/02/yahoo-tumblr-acquisition- flop/](http://fortune.com/2014/10/02/yahoo-tumblr-acquisition-flop/)

Mayer may have already played her hip-internet-company-with-no-revenues- acquisition card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A lot of hyperbole and emotion in there, which I personally don't enjoy reading, it takes away from the writer's arguments unfortunately.

Also, seems like critics and talking mouths like this one are almost always more upset than the workers themselves.

If you want the power to work at home, start your own business or work exclusively on contract with specific remote provisions. Its unfortunate when something gets taken away from you, but who can you really blame unless its written and legally binding?

<comment><USER8> It's fairly outrageous because in most of the civilized world, a forced change in working conditions like this is equivalent to being fired and thus requires a certain amount of compensation.

From everything that's being shown here, the people being fired will likely be getting nothing. Considering that these people most likely have denied themselves much more lucrative positions for a chance at being in a cool company where there's growth opportunity, it is practically a betrayal of the principles being choosing this sort of place to work.

If this were to happen to me you'd be damn sure I'd be lawyering up.

<comment><USER9> Yishan mentions in his tweets that there is a 3 months severance package for the people who can't make the move.

[https://twitter.com/yishan/status/517364923320385536](https://twitter.com/yishan/status/517364923320385536)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> assuming the details are true, I cant find any good reason for doing something so heavy handed and corporate. It's the number of people involved (approx half the employees) that makes this an asshole move.

<comment><USER11> This is a clear sign reddit is so big that media/big money is taking it, too much focus to not and a source of news/media for the rest of the media world.

Beginning of the end for Reddit.

Remote workers being removed simply mean it has gone from an engineering/innovative company to a metrics/bean counted/make sure you are in your chair typing in an IDE all day type of place (they might not even allow reddit workers to be on reddit with that type of ultimatum).

Even if that is not the intention that is the end result.

It is so strange though that business has really concentrated technology so much in the Bay Area, it goes against what networked systems mean. Is it smart that everything has to be in SF? Is that the only way to get the best people?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just don't understand why people seem to be so worked up about this. It must just hit really close to home on sites like this.

Look, I love remote working and I almost always find myself on the side of workers in any management v workers debate. But I find it very difficult to get worked up about the plight of folks who are likely making 60k+/yr. And much more if they are in a tech-focused role.

Reddit loses money. Does everyone just expect them to continue on with no changes forever? And where's the HN outrage when a factory closes down?

<comment><USER13> I don't understand whenever there is a HN article about some injustice being done to Tech Workers somewhere there inevitably be this post

> "I can't find sympathy for people making $x/yr."

Why not? Where do you draw the line of people deserving sympathy vs. those deserving none? If they made $59,999/yr would you "get worked up about their plight"? Can you point out an article on HN (ostensibly a site related to the Tech Industry, hence the posts about Tech Workers) about a factory closing down where there was explicitly no sympathy?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The difficulty of remote collaboration is fundamentally a bandwidth problem. People are cramming into the bay area not because they love the congestion and high prices, but because the bandwidth between brains in close proximity is quite high. When you scatter them across the nation, the bandwidth is limited by ISPs who own the last-mile network. Once video conferencing becomes frictionless, maybe remote collab will pick up momentum, but the US has some political obstacles to overcome before that can happen.

</comment><comment><USER15> No sympathy on reddit:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2i5df4/til_th...](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2i5df4/til_that_reddit_is_forcing_all_employees_to_move/)

</comment><comment><USER16> [https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reddit#!/story/sort_by_date/0/redd...](https://hn.algolia.com/?q=reddit#!/story/sort_by_date/0/reddit%20relocate)

</comment><comment><USER17> And in the distance, a faint chuckle could be heard.

Jason Fried was amused.

</comment><comment><USER15> Uh... how did this thread get buried so quickly? Submitted an hour ago, 68 points and it's already fallen off the first page?

Anyways, here's a detailed response about the issue from the CEO:

[http://www.quora.com/Is-Reddit-closing-their-NYC-and-Salt- La...](http://www.quora.com/Is-Reddit-closing-their-NYC-and-Salt-Lake-City- offices?share=1)

<comment><USER16> I post comments like [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8404139](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8404139) to indicate that a story has already been discussed on HN. The rule for reposts is that we demote them as dupes if the item has had significant attention in about a year. Sometimes there are borderline calls, but this isn't one: 152 points and 156 comments is significant attention and 1 day ago is less than a year.

<comment><USER18> Doesn't "item" denote the actual article that's posted, not the subject of that article. This is a strange definition of duplicate if you can't post different stories about the same topic. Don't we encourage multiple points of view and if we find someones interpretation of the topic interesting doesn't it deserve to live or die on its own?

<comment><USER16> If an article adds significant new information, then sure. But riding on the coat-tails of the latest outrage doesn't count.

Don't forget that when any hot story hits the tech press, every outlet puts out one or more articles about it. That makes for dozens of posts. Throw in blogs and there are dozens more. If we didn't prune duplicates, copies, and me-toos, that's all the front page would consist of.

<comment><USER11> Also this policy forces a market reaction for faster stories. Rather than better, thought out, well written articles that come out later that may present the same information better. I hope those are taken into account.

<comment><USER16> That's a great point. Better thought-out and written articles are always going to be welcome here. Those are not coat-tail stories, and the algorithms need not to identify them as such.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Zombocam – Filters and effects for your webcam - <AUTHOR> https://www.zombocam.com/ <comment><USER2> I love the emoji state storage and sharing

Interesting to be able to play with a limitless stack of filters.</comment>


Are educational requirements for the patent bar out of date? - <AUTHOR>

I've been thinking about the problems the patent office is having with software patents lately, and it lead me to reconsider the educational requirements for sitting for the patent bar.
Right now, you typically need a degree in a physical science, biological science, or engineering to take the exam and become a patent agent.
Interestingly, Mathematics is specifically excluded as an acceptable background in the "non-acceptable coursework" section.
Now obviously I'm biased because I was a pure mathematics major, but it seems to me that this rule excludes a huge number of people who would be most capable of reviewing a massive new area of patents - namely, algorithms.
Technically, algorithms aren't patentable, which is probably why mathematics was excluded from the acceptable academic background list - Paul mentioned this when he wrote his "Are Software Patents Evil" essay...
"Unfortunately, patent law is inconsistent on this point. Patent law in most countries says that algorithms aren't patentable. This rule is left over from a time when "algorithm" meant something like the Sieve of Eratosthenes. In 1800, people could not see as readily as we can that a great many patents on mechanical objects were really patents on the algorithms they embodied..."
The patent bar has decided (for all practical purposes) that mathematics is patentable, but they continute to exclude people with a mathematics background.
I truly do not want to become a patent agent - but it does disturb me that the people who are licensed to "prosecute" (ie., file for) patents and/or "review" (ie., grant) patents on algorithms are specifically not supposed to have a math background.
Anyone care to comment or leave your thoughts on this?
(here's a link to the requirements doc: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/grb0403.pdf)

<comment><USER2> I researched a patent examiner who was examining the software (algorithm) patent I was managing and not to my surprise had a pure bio/life science background!!!

He dismissed all the claims quoting basic statutes that it was not novel and cannot be patented. So the patent attorneys had to rebut the office action and ultimately ended up costing more (almost twice).

I understand you cannot have experts for all the technology specialties. For Ex. Even if you masters in EE, there are so many different fields in EE. For instance, if I am a MSEE and I focussed on IC processing, I might know the intricacies ( and innovative elements) of MEMS processing or wireless communication algorithms.

Having said that, most (of late some) patents have elements of novelty in it. So I wish the examiners have the basic background in reviewing the patents. This would ultimately reduce patent cost IMHO.

End of my Thursday rant.

</comment><comment><USER3> Nobody is qualified to judge algorithm novelty. There is just too much public information. It's as if there were a machine shop in every home, and millions blogged daily about their mechanical inventions.

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, this raises another issue - whether algorithms should be patented in the first place.</comment></comment>


Codenvy.io Is Transitioning to Eclipse Che on RH OpenShift (che.openshift.io) - <AUTHOR> https://i.imgur.com/qHh9tEF.png <comment><AUTHOR> Received this email on Monday, November 25th. Codenvy.io shutting down on December 8th.</comment>


Curiosity rover takes snapshot of Earth from Mars - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/06/tech/innovation/mars-curiosity-earth-image/

<comment><AUTHOR> Wish Carl Sagan could see this...</comment>


Ask HN: How to argue coworker saying strong database encryption is unimportant? - <AUTHOR>

I am no security specialist, and my knowledge of it is generally weak, but I looked into the subject enough to know best practices and what makes them the most secure, such as bcrypt, scrypt, and PBKDF2.
When I discovered my company was encrypting passwords with SHA2, I tried explaining how this was wrong and got talked down by a coworker arguing that this was unimportant compared to the importance of making sure nobody gets to the database in the first place. She was basically saying that that's much more important and if that's done right then having strong encryption isn't that vital.
Unfortunately I didn't know enough to counterargue and had to say 'okay,' which bothers me to this day (several months later).
Can anyone explain why she was wrong, or conversely why she was right? <comment><USER2> Were you trying to persuade the coworker, or trying to persuade your boss with your coworker being against?

<comment><AUTHOR> I was just sort of noting this to a roomful of relevant engineers in the hopes of gathering some support for strengthening encryption and got talked down by one of them and nobody else cared enough to say anything.</comment></comment>