Why Are American Houses So Big? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/09/american-houses-big/597811/ <comment><USER2> American house are big because we are rich and lightly taxed. It's striking to me that the whole article goes without mentioning the wealth difference between Americans and most Europeans. The gap in household disposable income between the US and France is comparable to the gap between France and Latvia or Chile: [https://financialobserver.eu/wp- content/uploads/sites/2/2017...](https://financialobserver.eu/wp- content/uploads/sites/2/2017/01/Polands-good-year-in-OECD.jpg).

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't say, "lightly taxed". I pay over 50% of my annual income in federal, state, and sales tax. I also pay between 1% - 4% of the value of my real estate every year in property taxes, depending on the jurisdiction. Then there are the fees ($1,000 annual vehicle registration fees, for example).

<comment><USER4> 1\. How the hell is your tax rate so high.

2\. $1000 in (annual) vehicle registration fees means you're driving a sweet car, so I wouldn't complain. In some European countries you might pay 100% or more of the vehicles sales cost in taxes and fees.

<comment><AUTHOR> Not the poster but I'd assume that things add up between 37% top federal bracket, 13.3% top California bracket and 10%ish sales tax rate depending on where one lives in the state.

Those are top rates, unclear whether "over 50%" refers to effective tax rate once all deductions are taken care of.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Isn't the reasonable question more - why aren't all houses big?

I don't want a big house because I don't want to have to decorate a bunch of big rooms and don't have a family to house - but I would quite like a decent amount of land, both for the setback and for gardening, forestry, etc.

For the most part, the downsides to having a large home are primarily financial, secondary effects are environmental (we can probably fix the transport issues, but sprawl actually affects ecosystems).

I mean, if you can afford a big old mansion in Central London you buy it and live in it. It seems to me that all the article is saying is that America is a wealthy country.

<comment><USER6> Taking care of a large home is a lot of work. Unless someone is a stay at home person you're pretty much guaranteed to need a maid every once in a while.

<comment><USER7> Why a maid? I have a few relatives with very large homes. (one has a pool and tennis court) and none of them have maids.

But also, I've had relatives that were maids, and the places they cleaned weren't always large. More often the owners were just busy people.

<comment><USER8> That's me, I'll make my self busy doing anything if it justifies the maid. I just don't enjoy that type of work, I loath it quite a bit

<comment><USER9> What about your privacy and security? That maid is essentially a stranger, wandering around in your house, with a perfect excuse to be poking into everything.

<comment><USER8> Same lady for 10+ years. I wouldn't use a service that sends a different person every week. She's basically family. There is some small effort to keep jewels locked up, my paper work is in safety deposit box. But she does see what's in our nightstand and our dirty undies. It's not a big deal, she's a professional and has discretion. Sounds elitist af but she doesn't exactly run in the same social circles as her clients so it's not like she's out there gossiping about our home life details.

Edit; word of mouth is key. While we have a long term person now, we've had some ups and downs in the past. Get people's recommendations before you hire someone. Two reasons; you'll know they're good maids (a lot are not good), also most of their clients have come from word of mouth so if they really screw up/steal their business basically evaporates as word spreads. Likewise if you help them with referrals, they will treat you very well (eg our lady will come over after a dinner party, gathering, etc). You also have to "train" them. Even if they're good, you have some quirks and preferences they would never guess

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I joke, but it's not really a joke.

American dream is not about owning a house, going to school and being more successful.

American dream is about owning a bigger house than your neighbors, having nicer cars than your friends, being visual successful. Most people who will give you a threshold for their financial happiness will become unhappy if all their neighbors exceed them.

Social signaling by wealth is very strong out here. It's true that you can now see it in other parts of the world but it was exported by US to them

<comment><USER11> This is almost definitely related to the strong consumer propoganda which has been applied so consistently since WW2. If you think what I am saying is ridiculous look at the history of who invented advertising. Edward Bernays was the nephew of Freud and pioneered modern propoganda and advertising methods. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)

"In the 1930s, his Dixie Cup campaign was designed to convince consumers that only disposable cups were sanitary by linking the imagery of an overflowing cup with subliminal images of vaginas and venereal disease."

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I recall reading some recent stories on how Boomers are having trouble selling their McMansions because Millennial buyers aren't interested in big houses in the suburbs.

Given the resurgence in urban living, lower birth rates, and higher debt burden among millennials/Gen Z I would predict average home sizes will shrink...

<comment><USER8> My definition of McMansion is in the urban core. It's where they tore down the original bungalow or something old and small and erected a suburb sized house. If it's having trouble selling it's because of money. Price of the home with high land value or cost of the private schooling that many people with that budget would require.

<comment><USER12> I'm pretty sure the term McMansion is linked to sprawling suburbs that popped up starting in the late 80s/90s. Ive never heard it used to describe any urban home.

<comment><USER8> Looks like you're right. I've never heard it used that way. But where I am it's just understood suburbs are built that way. Nobody calls it a McMansion. We have largest houses in the nation though (I believe). The term came into local use in urban areas (burbs of 50+ years ago) began getting massive houses that consumed every bit of the lot.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There are advantages to room besides financial return and social standing. I like having room for bookshelves, and a big desk, and a workshop. I like being able to use power tools or blast music at any volume I want without disturbing the neighbors. I respect your lifestyle choice if "driving 15 minutes to get a gallon of milk" simply isn't convenient enough for you, but for me, bliss is not having to know my neighbors.

<comment><USER5> Spot on.

To me the "driving 15 minutes to get a gallon of milk" thing is absurd on the face of it because it's missing that urban and rural life are fundamentally different in a lot of ways.

If you live in the centre of a city, it's normal to live a sort of 'just-in- time' lifestyle whereby you just pop to the shops whenever to grab an ingredient, perhaps wander to a cafe for lunch, etc.

In the country it's far more DIY. You have a big freezer / fridge and food stocks and just sort it out. If you want to cut up some wood, build a cabinet, whatever, you don't go to the community space or whatever, you do it on the land.

And if you do go to the store - well you think about what you actually need to buy. The idea that people are burning a gallon of fuel solely to grab milk is absurd, more likely they just do without it until the next time they're in town, or prepare in advance.

<comment><USER14> I'd like to see stats confirming that rural folks are that efficient with their lifestyles and vehicle / fuel use. One thing to consider is that most rural folks still work regular jobs, and commute to those jobs every day. At my workplace at the edge of town, the main difference between the city and rural folks is how many hours are spent commuting every week.

<comment><USER5> Sure, so in that case you pick something up on the way to/from work.

I'm not arguing that rural lifestyles have lower transport requirements in their totality - they obviously don't - just that the '15 mins to get X' example is absurd, because it describes a strawman journey that very rarely actually occurs.

Even in my youth living in the suburbs of a small town in the UK you rarely went "in to town" to buy one thing because it's just not worth it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think this is a distinctive cultural affectation. In America, there is a strong historical context that a man's home is his castle, from the earliest history of the country, and in that sense every man can be lord of a small fiefdom. This isn't just theoretical, the rights attached to property ownership are extensive in America, and in some regions asymptotically approaches a practical approximation of sovereignty. In this context, bigger is generally better.

Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but my experience is that Americans view property as "personal sovereignty" to a much greater degree than people in other parts of the world, who view it more as an investment or generational asset. In the US, it comes with the implication of freedom to do your own thing without state interference. (In some parts of the US, this is _de facto_ literal.)

That said, I prefer to live in a relatively small place in the middle of a real city. I don't know how to fill a large house in a way that can be rationalized, though I have owned such houses.

</comment><comment><USER16> Because of regulations increasing the costs to being building in anti-growth areas, the only thing builders can profitably produce is luxury housing. Many astute observers will point out that cost per square foot hasn't changed much in the past few decades, though the number of square feet has. However, it doesn't seem to align with what many Americans actually want, which is affordable housing.

Those looking to unload their McMansions in the coming years should be forewarned they may not be demand for them: they're often located far from jobs, offer too much space versus the shrinking family size, and demand enormous upkeep. To an extent, remote work might make the first factor more palatable, but the latter two remain problematic.

</comment><comment><USER17> IMHO 15 minute for milk is a quite an exaggeration. I live in the burbs and there's shopping plazas within 5 minute drive of the entrance of any neighborhood. Plazas are anchored by a major grocery store and other supporting stores (restaurants, services, urgent care) surround it.

I'd agree with the long commute. I'd move closer to work, but I can all but guarantee in a few years I'd find a new job - and I'm not going to move every time I find a new job.

As far as big houses...land is cheap where I'm at (Atlanta suburbs)...so why not? Ranch style homes are expensive by the square foot. It's easy for a developer to add a 2nd story and double your square footage without charging much more for the house. Around here you can dig deeper and get yourself an unfinished daylight basement for ~$40k more. So you can go from essentially a 1 story style ranch home, triple your square footage (basement, main + 2nd floor) for not even double the price for a 1 story home.

Just to give some numbers for my neighborhood w/ the Zillow Estimated price. Neighborhood is 4 years old My neighbor's 1 story ranch: 2400 square feet $322k, My 2 story house: 3400 square feet, $404k House w/ Finished Basement: 4310 Square feet, $513k

My house and the house w/ basement have a 2 story foyers and living room. So basically, we have so much space that the 2nd floor doesn't need to be fully utilized because we like to stare into 30 feet high ceilings.

</comment><comment><USER18> The actual building materials used to build a house - the lumber, drywall, shingles, etc - are really cheap relative to the cost of upgrading the finishes within the house, as well as the cost of acquiring the land and permits necessary to build (at least in most high demand areas).

And of course with the advent of things like power tools and supply chains that can cheaply delivery (relatively) uniform building materials, the actual process of physically constructing the house is easier than ever.

So, if you're in the business of building homes, one of the most cost effective ways to make the house seem more luxurious is simply to make it bigger.

Also, big houses are not strictly a suburban phenomenon. If you've ever been to a gentrified urban neighborhood it's not that uncommon to see a block where they've torn down almost every 900 sq ft bungalow and replaced it with a 3500 sq ft 3 story box.

</comment><comment><USER19> I work remotely, which I greatly enjoy. One day a while back I was talking to a co-worker who resides in the UK. (I'm in the central US.)

We were talking about woodworking. I know my friend had just bought a new table saw, I was wondering how things were going.

My friend complained that it took him a long time to setup his saw every time he wanted to use it. It was contained in a small room with several other tools, he had to pick which one to plug in and put in the 'free space'.

I explained I kept my table saw in it's own place, set up in the extra garage. He was stunned that there could be such an extravagance.

I'm sure everybody would have a bigger house (and garage) if the situation allowed it. It's nice. It's only human nature to like such a thing.

</comment><comment><USER20> Before people get defensive, this is just a bunch of personal observations, not judgement.

I think Americans generally like everything bigger for some reason. When I came to the US from Germany I noticed that everything was much bigger here. Kitchen stoves, fridges, office chairs, food portion sizes, TV sets, beds, candy bars, cars and so on. Not efficient, just big.

I knew a lot of well off people in Germany whose houses were much smaller than what Americans of the same status would be living in.

Not sure why that is but it seems cultural to prefer big things. Maybe it got started in the 50s when American cars were huge just for the sake of it.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm from Italy, albeit not from a huge urban area... And I find the 1600sqft number for houses not exactly large, maybe just "normal", if it includes a cellar, an attic, and so on.

Hey, if you speak of standalone houses, that's probably the minimum size here! If you want to go for a smaller size, you'd probably get a flat, or possibly a semi-detached house.

And, personally, I think that a comfortable living with some private space for everyone is hard to achieve in less than 120 square meters for, let's say, a 4-people household. Too much noise, too much clutter.

</comment><comment><USER22> My parents house was big for one main reason - it was stupidly cheap to build it. 10,000 sq ft on 5 acres of land for under $100k (adjusted to 2019).

My dad worked as a lineman for Ma Bell, and could afford to build it with no mortgage. You can't do that today.

</comment><comment><USER23> Because of a lot more habitable land and cheaper locally sourced building materials. Not to mention no minimum wage for construction workers.

</comment><comment><USER24> Because America is a very wealthy country with a relatively low population density.

</comment><comment><USER25> Why do you need such a big house, citizen? You can live in a drainage pipe; why do you need more room than this?

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0VMT3t-Po](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0VMT3t-Po)

Someone should start a magazine for bugmen. It can feature apple products, human habitations barely above tent level and delicious meals made with fried crickets.

<comment><USER26> I remember seeing towers of tubular pods reported on television as being just around the corner in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Perhaps Beyond 2000? In retrospect it was a fascinating idea for the shock value, and clearly intended (by journalists) to elicit your type of response.

As an adult I now understand that America has always had pods--they're called hotel rooms, and countless families live in low-budget hotels across the country, both urban and rural. A single-wide trailer is just an elongated pod. (I lived in both as a kid.)

I think what Americans really object to isn't the pod, per se, but the fact that they're intended to be densely packed in urban environments. Put that same pod in an idyllic, rural setting and all of a sudden it evokes independence and frugality.

<comment><USER5> > I think what Americans really object to isn't the pod, per se, but the fact > that they're intended to be densely packed in urban environments. Put that > same pod in an idyllic, rural setting and all of a sudden it evoke > independence and frugality.

This is definitely in line with my thinking (though I'm not American).

I currently live in a small home, approx 40-50sqm. But it's detached, has a bit of land (slightly less than I'd like, but enough to do stuff outside and not feel like you're encroaching on the neighbours).

The problem with urban apartment living is that you're absolutely forced into a ton of negotiations. How loud is too loud - whose wall is whose - who pays for the structure - who owns the land - the list is almost endless. For me, the mental overhead that's just always present is really draining.</comment></comment></comment>


Apple Wins Like a Champ - Psystar is Toast -- What? You're Surprised? - <AUTHOR> http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091114101637997 "Psystar just got what's coming to them in the California case. Here's the order [PDF]. It's a total massacre. Psystar's first-sale defense went down in flames. Apple's motion for summary judgment on copyright infringement and DMCA violation is granted. Apple prevailed also on its motion to seal." <comment><USER2> Interesting judgment, but I could do with less attitude in the writeup. But I suppose that that without the opportunity to perform the summary would never have been written.

 _They'll say, but, but, but ... what if they hadn't used the master and just used each copy, then would it work? Sons, why do you think Psystar used the master copy? Because it's a business, and in a business, efficiency is money._

Psystar used a master copy because it was more efficient, and because they thought it would work. But this still leaves the question of whether their operation would have been be legal if they had paid someone $10 to rip open the box and install the DVD manually. Perhaps this fits within their efficiencies, or perhaps it doesn't, but for me it's a legal question that I'd like to know the answer to.

<comment><USER3> They still would have been creating a derivative work, and so they'd probably still be screwed.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure about that. I don't know much about their process, but if they treated each individual machine as a separate "walled off" machine and installed a retail copy of OSX, I don't think that they would be creating a derivative work. Even if their updates/hacks were scripted, I don't think that this would be a derivative work. In this case, first-sale doctrine might apply.

<comment><USER5> I'd like to point you to Section 2(C). Judge Alsup's words indicate that, under your conditions, he would have found Psystar still in violation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I never understood how they could think a business model that circumvents DMCA was going to succeed. Folks, every hackintosh uses a kext called dsmos.kext. It's purpose is to decrypt Apple encrypted system binaries. It wasn't written or authorized by Apple.

As an avid OSX86 tinkerer I was conflicted about the case. Part of me wanted Psystar to win while the other part wanted the entire thing to go away. If Psystar had prevailed it would only bring difficulties for the hackintosh community. Apple would have taken drastic measures to secure their business at the expense of hackintoshers.

<comment><USER7> False. The new fakesmc.kext replaces dsmos and doesn't perform any decryption. It simply fakes the SMC hardware device and provides the same encryption keys to the software that a real mac has in hardware, allowing Apple-provided code to do all the decryption just like what happens on a real mac.

This is still a violation of the DMCA. But it's no more of a DMCA violation than selling software that plays DVDs on Linux, something that, IMHO, should definitely be legal.

<comment><USER8> Unfortunately, "should be legal" and "is legal" are not the same thing. AFAIK there is, or was, a "legal" DVD player for Linux that pays the CSS patentholders' license fees.

The situation is ridiculous. I was hoping that Psystar's case would at least help expose some of the DMCA's problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> They should move their business to Europe. Here, overly restrictive EULAs are regularly ignored by the courts. Which is a good thing.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is bad, bad news! I wish that for once, the little guy could go up against the big monster and actually win.

<comment><USER11> Read Pamela's comments. I couldn't agree with her more. If you want complete freedom to duplicate and distribute, do so with software that guarantees you that freedom with an appropriate license.

As a Linux fan, I actually approve of anything that encourage people to enhance that platform with better graphics, fonts, and software.

Apple has made it very clear that they are going to actively oppose the commercial distribution of hackintosh system, so hopefully that will encourage the freedom loving hackers to develop for platforms more accommodating to their world view.

<comment><USER12> Psystar doesn't want complete freedom to duplicate and distribute OS X so that's a bit of a strawman. They're willing to pay for every copy that they distribute.

<comment><USER13> They're willing to pay ... all of $35 for the Leopard->Snow Leopard upgrade disks. Psystar wouldn't even shell out the full $150.

<comment><USER12> This lawsuit is only about Leopard, so Psystar was paying $130 per copy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> A profile of the Psytar brothers two days ago: <http://www.sfweekly.com/content/printVersion/1744650>

<comment><USER15> Excellent article. The author does a great job highlighting the parallels between the Psytar and the rebellious early stages of Apple.

I find this Shanzhai phenomenon fascinating. These are the true hackers of today.

<http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai>

<comment><USER3> The true hackers of today create pirated electronics?

<comment><USER15> I really wish you could take a look at the link I posted before calling it simply "pirated electronics"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Apple has always had good lawyers.</comment>


CSS3 Flip Clock Look - <AUTHOR> http://lukesbeard.com/scratch/flipclocklook/ <comment><USER2> Just to save everyone else 90±30 seconds…

It doesn't change. There is no slick transform of the flipping numbers, just a static display. But it is pretty.

(In a related, but not interesting enough to post, bit of geekery. On Apple's home page you will see a "billionth app" counter. They drive it from a triple of ( timestamp, basecount, rate) so it updates in real time, but once in a while (hourly?) they resync it to the actual number and rate. Nice compromise between accuracy and server resources.)

<comment><USER3> Interesting bit of geekery you found. I was mucking in there my self to see how they did it. Seems like they swing through a bunch of images to make that effect: [http://images.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-app- countdown/imag...](http://images.apple.com/itunes/10-billion-app- countdown/images/filmstrip.png)

<comment><USER2> Ah! That explains why I was seeing "top" values in the -1000 to -2000 range.

Animation by sliding a long narrow image in discrete steps. They have reinvented the motion picture projector.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice. 124 lines of code. Add 5 more to show the time and you've got something people will return to.

<comment><USER5> I was studying the code intently for the CSS animation... sad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Too bad it doesn't show local time :-)</comment>


Why Yahoo Buying Tumblr Is Not Great For NYC's Tech Scene - <AUTHOR> http://www.forbes.com/sites/ciocentral/2013/05/24/why-yahoo-buying-tumblr-is-not-great-for-the-nyc-tech-scene/

<comment><USER2> I think there's enough other tech companies going on in NYC that it frankly doesn't matter. (Modern journalism is often borderline link bait as is).

Tying an entire ecosystems vitality to one company that was making a blogging platform, wrong and boring. That is all.

There's so many interesting companies that are both in the black AND have neat tech challenges in NYC. You just have to take the time to look. Admittedly most of these businesses are boring or opaque to those who don't deeply know tech or aren't familiar with the specific vertical, but all the better for those businesses! They get to focus on their customers and product and evade a publicity circle jerk with folks who don't understand their business.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its an interesting thesis. I too have noticed that there are many fewer 'tech billionaires' in NYC than in the Bay Area. But the investment percentages of money are what really seem telling to me. People tend to invest in what they know, and if banking and trading are the things that made people wealthy, they are more likely to invest in new banking/tradiing schemes than tech schemes which they don't have a deep understanding of the mechanics for.

We hit this cognitive wall here in these discussions all the time, which basically is the difference between how difficult something _looks_ versus how difficult something _is._ And while I've done some Angel type investing in the past I only have done so with other tech startups because that is something I've done from the ground up so I really feel like I can understand it, but I would never feel comfortable funding a new trading scheme or HFT algorithm because I could not dive down to the bottom of the idea if I was uncomfortable and re-assure myself. It would feel way too much like the gambling it is and so I don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER4> "Another way to put it is that there are lots of billionaires, just no tech- billionaires." False.

From your hedge fund list, at least James Simons and David Shaw are tech billionaires and probably some more that I don't recognize. Also, one of the most successful NYC tech billionaires your forgetting: Michael Bloomberg. Although all of these guys are finance/tech it is still tech.

Comparison of the size of venture capital funds is probably accurate, but that is changing as well.

<comment><USER5> Relevant biographical info: "David Elliot Shaw (born March 29, 1951) is a Jewish-American computer scientist and computational biochemist who founded D. E. Shaw & Co... A former faculty member in the computer science department at Columbia University, Shaw made his fortune exploiting inefficiencies in financial markets with the help of state-of-the-art high speed computer networks."

D. E. Shaw & Co. also hires a ton of STEM folks. Also: "D. E. Shaw Research (DESRES) is a computational biochemistry research laboratory based in New York City. Under the scientific direction of David E. Shaw, the group's chief scientist, D. E. Shaw Research develops technologies for molecular dynamics simulations (including Anton,[1] [2] a massively parallel special-purpose supercomputer, and Desmond,[3] a software package for use on conventional computers and computer clusters) and applies such simulations to basic scientific research in structural biology and biochemistry, and to the process of computer-aided drug design."

<comment><USER6> I used to work for DESCO. Some seriously smart folks there and especially in the DESRES group.

That's the thing though. The top engineering talent goes to financial companies in New York because that's what's fashionable there. There's an actual cultural difference.

There's one other big cultural difference that has an affect on who wants to do tech startups. In SV people care about "What can you do?/What have you done?" where in NY it's more "Where did you go to school?/What's your pedigree?" and in my experience, Ivy Leaguers are generally funneled into Finance. There is a lot of money spent on recruiting them, so it's easier to just take the hedge fund job out of school than go work for or found a startup.

When Jeff Bezos, who used to work for DESCO, founded Amazon, he didn't do it in New York.

<comment><USER7> _The top engineering talent goes to financial companies in New York because that's what's fashionable there. There's an actual cultural difference._

I think that _was_ the case, but it certainly isn't now.

<comment><USER6> As much as the Occupy movement made a splash in the news, I haven't really seen an impact in the employment prospects of my circles in NY. I haven't seen a single person leave finance other than on the grounds of being overworked and burnt out.

<comment><USER7> Not sure what the Occupy movement has to do with it- I'm talking about engineers in the startup industry. NYC barely _had_ a startup industry a few years ago, now I know a great many talented engineers employed by it.

People might not be leaving finance, but I'm not sure how many engineers are going _to_ it. It's definitely not "cool" here any more.

<comment><USER8> It was never cool, unless you were going to be a Master of the Universe or BSD trader. It just paid really well. It still pays well.

<comment><USER6> Exactly. It's only ever been cool to people looking to get "Fuck You Money".

But it still goes back to the pedigree thing. NY is an extremely pedigree- sensitive city and it's way more impressive to talk at cocktail parties about what financial you work for than what no-name-startup/consultancy/generic- design-shop you're working for.

My social circle shrunk noticeably when I left my hedge fund gig in 2008 and worked as a bike messenger; New Yorkers only care about (potential) money.

<comment><USER8> Having lived there and worked both inside and outside of finance, I don't think it's so much pedigree-focused as paycheck-focused. New York is the only city where you can say you're a banker, and someone you just met will ask "what kind of banker." There are circles where your college / private school matter but I'd argue that's still less true in NY than in London or even Boston. I felt like I was rarely asked what schools I went to.

The funny thing is that the NYers in finance or law will often tell you how much they'd rather be working at a startup. (Or, well, anything else.)

<comment><USER6> > The funny thing is that the NYers in finance or law will often tell you how > much they'd rather be working at a startup. (Or, well, anything else.)

Yuuup.

I can't even count on two hands the number of people I know who left finance and went on to physical jobs they thought were more satisfying. Bike messengers (like I did) were common, but so were roughnecks, delivery drivers and all sorts of other odd jobs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The Tumblr acquisition was the best possible outcome for the NYC startup scene.

The author is right that for NYC to really try to claim competitiveness with the Bay Area they need some _big_ exits that establish anchor tenant companies. They need their own Google, or Sun, or Facebook.

But let's be honest, Tumblr was never that company. They didn't, don't, and probably will never have the kind of revenue required to be a Google or a Facebook. Tumblr took Yahoo's offer because a massive IPO and becoming a giant amongst NYC's tech companies was clearly not going to happen.

So they did the next best thing: they showed that large, successful exits are possible in NYC startups.

We're still waiting for a Google here, and it'll probably take years to _get_ one, but Tumblr was anything but bad for the local tech scene.

</comment><comment><USER10> Or Tumblr could have gone under. In which case it would have been moot.

At least this way there's now some focus on the NYC tech scene, which I think is pretty exciting.</comment>


A data-centric approach: 260k words from Trump - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/26/us/politics/trump-coronavirus-briefings-analyzed.html <comment><USER2> HN will likely bury this because criticism of Trump has somehow become politically incorrect. But put that aside, and this is a really neat visualization.

Doing any useful "data journalism" on large amounts of prose is surprisingly hard. If you need proof, consider the staying power of the most useless visualization outside of SAP dashboards, the word cloud.</comment>


A Magazine With a Puzzle Buried Inside - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/arts/television/21wire.html?_r=1

<comment><USER2> And I let my subscription expire since I would just read it online....

</comment><comment><USER3> This ties in nicely with J. J. Abrams "Mystery Box" Ted Talk.

[http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.ht...](http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/j_j_abrams_mystery_box.html)

In fact, the cover of wired uses the same design as his magic mystery box.

</comment><comment><USER4> This was such an awesome issue, they should really strive to make every issue this interactive and thought provoking. I spent 3 hours on a plane thumbing through it looking for connections and solving some of the puzzles. Really exciting stuff and look forward to more in the future.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your tips on becoming a better manager? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The most powerful feature of a team of creators is their idiosyncrasies. The best way I found to build something as a team is to adapt the work to the strengths of the individuals.

Job titles squash the peculiar strengths and differences into a label and make managers treat people as fungible units of work. Too many managers define the work first and then assign it to the individuals, rather than define the work _based_ on the individuals. It's very hard to make creators work on something they dislike.</comment>


Getting into YC as a single, non-technical founder - <AUTHOR> http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/29/getting-into-y-combinator-as-a-single-non-technical-founder/

<comment><USER2> How to get into YC as a single, non-technical founder, in 4 easy steps:

1\. Graduate from Harvard College (Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude are pluses)

2\. Work at JP Morgan as an investment banker

3\. Graduate from Harvard Law School

4\. Work at a major law firm

So easy, _anyone_ can do it!

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations. But I'd like to see a follow-up in 1-2 years for all those recent "how we got into YC" boasting posts, detailing how successful the products ended up being. ;-)

</comment><comment><USER4> Hamilton is a great guy and I think the thinking behind his acceptance to YC is pretty clear ... "Let's give him a chance. He's succeeded at everything else he's ever done in life."

<comment><USER5> so is have multiple Harvard degrees the answer to how to get into YC as a single non technical founder?

<comment><USER6> Nope, it is to have multiple Harvard degrees, worked at top law firm, run a company, been featured in a magazine article, and already built a product that has paying customers.

<comment><USER5> so how helpful is an article that says the real key is to just generally be awesome at everything?

True or false, the people who get into havard are the people who don't need to go to harvard?

the people who get into YC, are the people who don't need YC?

<comment><USER4> It helps to set expectations.

Getting into YC as two MIT undergrads who've been coding since kindergarten is very hard.

Getting in a solo business founder is much harder.

So, if you don't have a track record of doing _incredible_ stuff, you should a) calibrate your expectations, and b) start doing _incredible_ stuff (and apply later)

<comment><USER5> I think the better take is to not treat YC as the gatekeeper to your success,

1\. Its hard to get into

2\. tons of great companies have been started that didn't go through YC (in fact with a few exceptions almost all of them)

3\. its a great opportunity, but most of the companies that get into YC, don't amount to jack

just getting in doesn't mean you've made it, and there is no reason you can't make if you don't

calculus is similar to what I'd tell a high school kid about going to Harvard, if you happen to get to go cool, its a great opportunity, but you shouldn't treat that as the gatekeeper to your success

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 'In my opinion, the most important question on the Y Combinator application, is this one: "Please tell us about the time you most successfully hacked some (non-computer) system to your advantage."'

Not a criticism per se, but pg recently said that is actually one of their LEAST ("not in the top 10") important questions.

<comment><USER8> I don't think it's quite that simple. Here's some other things Paul Graham has said about that question:

"There's one question that acts like a wildcard, at least for me: [the question] ... We're looking for people who like to beat the system. So if the answer to this question is good enough, it will make me go back and take a second look at an application that otherwise seemed unpromising. In fact, I think there are people we've invited to interviews mainly on the strength of their answer to this question."

From <http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html> July '09

"Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications."

From <http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html> Oct 10

<comment><USER9> Actually not that hard of a question to answer if you know how to stretch the term 'hack' to mean various things..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great article! While I have some technical background, I'm not a coder and I'm also a single founder applicant. From his comments, it seems that YC wants what everyone who is passionate about their career wants in a teammate. Drive.

I work in a neuroscience lab and I've trained a lot of undergrads, lab techs and grad students. From a state school to IVY league schools I continue to see the same thing. Drive, ambition, and motivation are way more important than technical knowledge. This is a winning combination of traits that always works as the people who have those traits can typically pick up anything you throw at them. My best students have been those with OK GPAs but and a serious competitive nature to them.

<comment><USER11> So hackernews doesn't have PM's. If you don't mind letting me pick your brain a bit about startups/research/neuroscience, shoot me an email at email@example.com (or put your email in your profile).

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If Hamilton is reading this. Do you (or did you) actually work 130 hour weeks as said in the article? I'm trying to imagine this, and my mind boggles. I just read this article out to a friend and he's seriously depressed now :P

What do you think is the major contributory factor to your achievements? extreme IQ? work ethic? some unique insight about the world that you leverage?

Thanks in advance,

</comment><comment><USER13> Just remember: outsourcing your tech development is usually not a good idea except if you have the funds and need it to secure more funds to build the real thing.

</comment><comment><USER14> Really insightful article, thanks Hamilton!</comment>


Processing 40TB of code from 10M projects with a dedicated server and Go - <AUTHOR> https://boyter.org/posts/an-informal-survey-of-10-million-github-bitbucket-gitlab-projects/ <comment><USER3> > I actually wrote a Python solution at first, but having to install the pip > dependencies on my clean varnish box seemed like a bad idea and it keep > breaking in odd ways which I didn't feel like debugging.

Amen! This is why I am learning Go at the moment and considering using it instead of Python for admin and data processing tasks on a fleet of servers. The single binary deployment makes it a lot easier for users to adopt. Python misses out on a lot of use because of the inability to do this. And No! I do not want to pip install a lot of stuff on the servers just to be able to run this script once. Heck, some of these servers don't even have access to public internet to be able to pip install whatever.

Yes, I have looked into pyinstaller and Nuitka. They threw up some errors that were indicative of deeper issues that I didnt feel like a good use of my time to debug. I'd rather choose a language that has this as a priority/design goal instead.

<comment><USER4> I don't get it... Can't you just use a virtualenv? Then there's no worry about namespace pollution or conflicts between dependencies of different projects.

<comment><USER5> virtualenv still requires internet access. You'd have to create a venv on destination machine and pip install your packages in. You can't scp a local venv onto destination machine and have it work.

<comment><USER6> I am an utter noob at Python packaging, but i would like to learn more, so excuse the basic question, but: why doesn't it work? And is there anything in the ecosystem which is like that, but does work?

I had heard that the Python packaging and deployment story had got a lot better in recent years, but this sounds like it still falls far short of table stakes.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure why the Python community can't get it sorted out. We've been using Pipenv because it's one of a few tools that supports lockfiles/reproducible builds, and at the time we chose it, the Python packaging authority was advertising it as the official solution for Python packaging; however, after we were already invested in it, they backpedaled becaused the community realized it was very buggy and super slow (as in "it takes literally half an hour to add or remove or update any dependency").

We're finally getting around to migrating away, and we've settled on Twitter's github.com/pantsbuild/pants which is like Google's Bazel except that it's jankier in every way _except_ that Pants supports Python while Bazel doesn't (Bazel advertises Python support, but it doesn't work as the many Python 3 issues in their issue tracker can attest). The nicest thing about Pants is that it builds pex files (github.com/pantsbuild/pex) which are executable zip files that ship all of your dependencies except the Python interpreter and shared objects.

I'm still not very satisfied with this solution, and it's still far, far worse than Go's dependency management and packaging model, but it's a dramatic improvement over Pipenv, virtualenv, etc (gives us both reproducibility and performance).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First I've heard of "Taco Bell Programming"[1]. I _love_ it, this needs to become a normal part of my lexicon. Also heck yes, it completely mirrors my experience - a few dozen tools combine in fairly simple ways to make absurdly useful results. The problem is finding the useful N-dozen elemental tools you'll use.

[1]: [http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell- progra...](http://widgetsandshit.com/teddziuba/2010/10/taco-bell- programming.html)

<comment> john-radio > I could have done the whole thing Taco Bell style if I had only manned up > and broken out sed, but I pussied out and wrote some Python.

And with one dumb word choice, I suddenly can't share this otherwise good piece with most audiences.

<comment><USER9> Seriously? That's no harsher language than calling someone a dick. Do you have to keep an ultra-clinical PR image for some reason or are we really that puritanical?

<comment> john-radio The networks that I belong to and benefit from are that "puritanical," if you want to choose a really stupid word for avoiding insulting half the population for no reason, yeah.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > If someone wants to host the raw files to allow others to download it let me > know. It is a 83 GB tar.gz file which uncompressed is just over 1 TB in > size.

Some of the cloud providers have free hosting for public data sets (people who use the data incur cost to download/process the data). I'm not sure if this would qualify.

* [https://aws.amazon.com/opendata/public-datasets/](https://aws.amazon.com/opendata/public-datasets/) * [https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/open-datasets/](https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/open-datasets/)

<comment><USER11> I similarly have a 127GB tar.xz of about 2TB of code/files from the top GitHub repositories (filtered by highest starred repositories per primary language) as of around August 2017 if anyone wants it or wants to host it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> As much as I love the confirmation that .yml is the correct extension, I'm most amazed by the fact that there's over a TRILLION lines of code public on GitHub.

That's an astronomical number. And that's only what we can all see. Can't imagine how much more is private.

Also, it look's like 20% of code is comments. Which feels just about right.

<comment><USER13> People actually bike shed over .yaml vs .yml? If you thought tabs vs spaces was a useless debate...

<comment><USER14> Never been comfortable with extension names longer than 3 letters long for some reason..

<comment><USER15> MS-DOS. The reason is MS-DOS.

<comment><USER16> Thank you for the EXPLAN~1!

<comment><USER17> If anyone's curious this references the 8.3 filename shortening that windows was even still doing recently.

Amusingly, that tiny bit of backward compatibility can lead to vulnerabilities as outlined here: [https://www.acunetix.com/blog/articles/windows- short-8-3-fil...](https://www.acunetix.com/blog/articles/windows- short-8-3-filenames-web-security-problem/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I thought the most common file names had some peculiar results.

> the filename "15" & "s15" made the top 50 most popular filenames

Anyone know why?

[https://boyter.org/posts/an-informal-survey-of-10-million- gi...](https://boyter.org/posts/an-informal-survey-of-10-million-github- bitbucket-gitlab-projects/#what-are-the-most-common-filenames)

<comment><USER19> I would like to know to, any insights?

<comment><USER18> The only thing I've put together from light searching on GitHub might be to do with the fact that 15 and s15 can be used to describe school years (s for spring 15 semester) and a lot of people post assignments to GitHub.

15 is also a common number in coding problem sets that people post to GitHub. It's a stretch but it might be something to do with 2015 being a year that has a lot of coursework commits, and 15 is a pretty low number (i.e. higher probability a student posts solutions to #1-15 than #1-19).

The same goes for schoolwork. Many people do online MIT and Stanford courses that are from previous years ~2012-2016, but there has been less time elapsed for students to post answers from 2016,17,18,19)

This is mostly conjecture, so I hope someone has a better answer!

<comment><USER20> advent of code also came out in 2015... so, maybe?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> One query that always interested me is how much duplication is in the Open- Source community. Like how many boiler-plate files are copied into projects.

It seems generating a `react/angular` project produces many files, that almost never get changed, so it would be interesting to know the most duplicated files...

I think this could also give valuable insight into how to make the language/frameworks better or simpler...

</comment><comment><USER22> A little bit of promo here: Ben will be giving a talk at GopherconAU later this year. - tickets are on sale now at [https://gophercon.com.au](https://gophercon.com.au)

</comment><comment><USER23> This is great. Btw. seeing "jquery" most-common filename 20,015,171 times - <USER2> probably skews js LoC (artificial LoC of dependencies).

</comment><comment><USER24> This is a cool project and a great write-up. Some of the complexity numbers struck me as pretty off though. I know he caveats you can only compare files of the same language, but I took a quick look at the code[1] and at least as of now it looks like the complexity statements are just kind of copy/pasted, so keywords not seen in Java/C such as "match" are missing from Rust, OCaml, and Scala, "case" is missing from Haskell and Elixir etc, causing these languages to be much lower in complexity than they should be just based on standard control flow statements.

[1] [https://github.com/boyter/scc/blob/master/languages.json](https://github.com/boyter/scc/blob/master/languages.json)

<comment><AUTHOR> In all seriousness if you are a language expert for those languages please submit a PR or at least raise an issue saying what keywords should be in there. I am happy to include it into the next release should it produce more accurate numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> A couple of the large files are explainable:

\- The largest .c file is actually the CATH database, not sure why it has that extension

\- The large .cpp file is actually C++ but has a kind of 'data as code' approach defining bonds between atoms

</comment><comment><USER26> Can't you do all this same research in just a few seconds for like pennies, just by sending a few sql queries to Google's BigQuery? I'm pretty sure we've had stories about that here.

[https://medium.com/google-cloud/github-on-bigquery- analyze-a...](https://medium.com/google-cloud/github-on-bigquery-analyze-all- the-code-b3576fd2b150)

<comment><USER27> I partially agree with you; unless the goal was to "do this in Go", the choice of tools seems odd/inneficient.

Spark would have a been a simple option to do this kind of processing, with less lines of code, and could also run on "spare compute". Same goes for the "How does one process 10 million JSON files taking up just over 1 TB of disk space in an S3 bucket?": there are appropriate file formats for storing and querying big datasets, text/json is simply the least efficient option and likely the cause of the "$2.50 USD per query" number...

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Missing content for:

[https://boyter.org/posts/an-informal-survey-of-10-million- gi...](https://boyter.org/posts/an-informal-survey-of-10-million-github- bitbucket-gitlab-projects/#the-most-complex-code-is-written-in-what-language)

</comment><comment><USER29> when cpu utilization is high for a long period of time like this, dedicated servers always make more sense than cloud.

</comment><comment><USER30> > The front-end varnish box for instance is doing the square root of zero most > of the time.

Nicely written. :)

</comment><comment> 08-15 Why would anyone store 1TB of data in highly redundant JSON?

Stored as protobuf, I estimate it would be 8x smaller. A custom binary format would be smaller again. Not only is that smaller, which saves storage and transfer cost, it's also proportionally faster to process.

</comment><comment><USER31> Glad to see Go Template make the list of languages with the most curse words in them.

NOT Go, but Go Template!! A subset of Go is causing more anguish than all of Python and only a sliver less than all of Rust.

Says it all really ;)

</comment><comment><USER32> plug [https://www.softwareheritage.org/](https://www.softwareheritage.org/)

<comment><USER33> Is this available to download in bulk?

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Nice to see that Hypecript is far from engulfing JavaScript. Hopefully the marketing team will not start to delete old JavaScript repos because of this. :P

</comment><comment><USER35> Haha, is this a coincidence or did you take inspiration from my 2016 blog post?

"Parsing 10TB of Metadata, 26M Domain Names and 1.4M SSL Certs for $10 on AWS"

[http://blog.waleson.com/2016/01/parsing-10tb-of- metadata-26m...](http://blog.waleson.com/2016/01/parsing-10tb-of- metadata-26m-domains.html)

We used a lot of the same tech: python, golang, S3, 32 core machines. Anyway, nice read and good use of Hetzner.</comment>


SQL on Distributed GPUs now available on AWS Marketplace - <AUTHOR> https://blog.blazingdb.com/sql-on-distributed-gpus-now-available-on-aws-marketplace-c2b80fe012aa <comment><USER2> This just seems like something riding GPU hype. We run a medium sized Memsql cluster, and get better performance on larger tables with more complex joins than they do in their demo video...and we do this for much cheaper than the lowest g2 instance + AMI. Our data is quite narrow, so fits in RAM quite well, but I would bet that even Citus would fare quite well against this.

<comment><USER3> I suppose it depends on what operations you do on your table and what your query stream looks like. It's hard to imagine compute being the bottleneck for most SQL workloads . . .

<comment><USER4> On a Postgresql query before version 9.6 is limited to a single CPU core.

Depending on the amount of data it has to query it absolutely can take forever.

<comment><USER2> Even now, it's only multicore when doing full table scans (iirc...)

<comment><USER5> True (see here: [https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/parallel- plans.ht...](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/parallel-plans.html) ), but in PostgreSQL 10 there are Parallel Bitmap Heap Scans and Parallel Index Scans (see here: [http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2017/03/parallel- query-v2.html](http://rhaas.blogspot.com/2017/03/parallel-query-v2.html) ).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> For those puzzled, the use case for this is rapid, interactive data exploration via reporting tools.

</comment><comment><USER7> Go to their documentation website. Search for "ACID." 0 results found. I'm shocked to find that you can make massive performance gains in a relational database if you make no guarantees whatsoever that data will actually be stored.

<comment><USER8> From [https://docs.blazingdb.com/blog/welcome-to- blazingdb](https://docs.blazingdb.com/blog/welcome-to-blazingdb)

 _" BLAZINGDB IS NOT: Built for transactions. Try to run your webapp backend in BlazingDB and we'll scream STOP! At the very least, we'll find your audacity impressive."_

There's no support for INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE. There's a proprietary way to ingest data. No way at all to delete or update rows as far as I can see.

So, I'm not quite sure what the popular use cases are here. Fast queries of relatively static data?

<comment><USER7> > So, I'm not quite sure what the popular use cases are here. Fast queries of > relatively static data?

Yeah, and... their "impressive" benchmarks (which they don't publish near enough information about to be anything like impressive, and I'm sorry, but the idea that Postgres is something like seven times as fast as MySQL on a straight-up JOIN is not something I am going to believe without evidence) look a lot impressive if you add the time it takes to transfer your data out of an actually useful database to this read-only replica for querying. What is this intended to do? And what do GPUs have to do with it?

<comment><AUTHOR> Relatively static is correct. The data you bring into blazingdb is normally brought in ready to be operated on with the understanding that it will not change on a regular basis. So there are many datasets that already exist, do not change, and are absolutely enormous that people want to analyze. GPUs allow us to quicky compress and decompress data to reduce file i/o bottleknecks, perform massive transformations much more quickly than on cpu, give us the computational capacity to find the best ways to optimize the layout of the information to take the most advantage of data skipping. The intention here is to provide you access to arbitrary large amounts of data with a horizontally scalable database solution that has orders of magnitude more computational capacity than a cpu based solution.

<comment><USER8> Might be good to get that "read+append only" message more upfront. Redshift has update, delete, etc, and you're making direct comparisons.

You do push the "data warehouse" message, but it may not be clear that anything other than append would require reloading the entire database.

<comment><AUTHOR> Update / Delete is forthcoming. We have a version of it working but have not pushed it yet because it is part of a broader set of changes that have not been made availble yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > The main admin login credentials are simply "admin" with your AWS assigned > Instance-ID as the password.

There's got to be a better way to do this... right?

<comment><AUTHOR> This was suggested to me by AWS marketplace. They said it needed to be one click which meant I could receive user input from pepole loading the AMI through something like SSH. If you want to change this you can reach out to us on [https://docs.blazingdb.com/discuss](https://docs.blazingdb.com/discuss)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Why did you [author] add these tiny gifs into the blogpost? They change enough to distract from the text and aren't clickable / are too small to actually understand. (Apparently only the first gif is sorta-zoomable)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is my first time hearing about BlazingDB. Looks like it's a pretty new application. Anyone have any experience actually running it in production that can speak to its real-world performance, reliability, etc?

</comment><comment><USER12> See also: [https://www.mapd.com/](https://www.mapd.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> We love what MapD is doing. We operate in different spaces. We have no visualization platform nor intention of making one. Instead of trying to solve problems in GPU RAM we focus on solving problems that require disk based storage. So whereas MapD will be able to perform faster queries on problems that fit in GPU Ram we are focused on problems that require orders of magnitude more storage than what can fit into GPU RAM. Think dumping a datalake into a database to make it all queryable.

<comment><USER12> So more out-of-core stuff. Sweet, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> No benchmark? I don't really think this hold against Redshift.

<comment><AUTHOR> You can try out the community version and comapre it to a small redshift instance.

<comment><USER14> I was curious, what's different about the community edition? It didn't really tell on the pricing page.

<comment><AUTHOR> The community edition works with a single gpu and does not allow horizontal scaling.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The War on Sitting - <AUTHOR> http://time.com/sitting/

<comment><USER2> Searched for "varicose veins" \- 0 results. I guess they have no clue. Please check your genetic predispositions before standing for long periods of time.

Also: "my fiancé was the first to notice that my buns had gotten firmer" \- I think this requires an independent third-party check.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this an infomercial for standing desks?

<comment><USER4> It basically says people who sit more get more cancer. Everything else is just droning on and on. Must be a slow news day.</comment></comment>


That CIA exploit list in full: The good, the bad, and the very ugly - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/08/cia_exploit_list_in_full/ <comment><USER2> > you may have clocked that Tuesday's dump was engineered to help the > President pin the hacking of his political opponents' email server on the > CIA

Why does everything have to be about politics nowadays? I want an unbiased analysis. It is plausible, but not certain. There is a bunch of assumptions here that I'd rather keep as hypotheses.

<comment><USER3> This is a story about the government, do you think that shouldn't be political?

<comment><USER4> There is a difference between politics and policy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hacking appears to be net negative. I've yet to hear a leak of how hacking worked out well? Or are such leaks of success so uninteresting they don't get leaked?

If you're going to risk life in prison / execution, why not include a good story or two.</comment>


Wanted: App with hot key that can wipe a phone's contents - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18102793 <comment><USER2> Wanted: working shellcode for this device that will fit in a text message.

Also wanted: custom bootloaders for androids that will self-wipe if the phone is powered on without a certain button combo.

</comment><comment><USER3> s/wipe/encrypt/, or will they be able to force you to give up the key?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you don't give up the key they can jail you. Also, not sure I'd trust encryption in a widely used app to be strong enough and with a good enough implementation. Too many side-channel attacks.

<comment><USER3> There are two scenarios here. In the first instance, you're an innocent member of the public who has been arrested for {wearing a hoodie, being the wrong ethnicity, photographing something} and the police take you into custody briefly before letting you go. In this case, they're probably not hugely interested in the contents of your phone and are just fishing for data. If they can't get anything from your phone, they'll just let you have it back when they let you go. Minimal barriers to data extraction should be sufficient here, and the advantage of encryption is that your phone remains usable once you decrypt the data again. Bear in mind that you're an innocent person who doesn't want to wipe all the data off your computing devices at a moment's notice.

In the second scenario, you're a hardened terrorist who has just been caught red-handed selling child pornography in order to fund an international drug deal with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. In this case, the police will go to great lengths to extract data from your phone, and will force you to hand over encryption keys. Here you probably want your phone to self-destruct as completely as possible, at the very least wiping all data from it.

My point is that the self-destruct option is only a good fit for someone who expects to face a serious attempt at data extraction. Encryption should be sufficient to prevent casual snooping from any attackers, police included.

<comment><USER4> I agree with what you say.

> _the advantage of encryption is that your phone remains usable once you > decrypt the data again._

Assuming the police don't damage the phone or data in attempts to extract data. And assuming they keep it for a reasonable length of time, and not for months while they slowly grind through the process of finding forensic examiners who'll look at it.

You mention laws that force users to hand over encryption keys. These are worrying! In the UK that'd be RIPA.

([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Pow...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Powers_Act_2000#Prosecutions_under_the_RIPA))

Here's a quote from the wiki article:

> _The first person jailed under RIPA Part III, for not giving police access > to encrypted material, was a schizophrenic man who was later judged to be no > threat to national security. He said he was refusing to provide keys on > principle, on the basis that he should have a right to silence. He was > jailed for 9 months for refusing to hand over his decryption keys, or > otherwise decrypt the data, and was later moved to a secure mental hospital > part way through his sentence. Notably, the encrypted material in question > was not suspected of securing illegal material._

EDIT: The article says that the phone data is only taken when the phones are suspected of being used in crime, and that the data is kept, so the police will want to decrypt it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Can we eat to starve cancer. (TED Talk) - <AUTHOR> https://www.ted.com/talks/william_li/transcript?language=en

<comment><USER2> The way it is presented it sounds almost too good to be true.

<comment><USER3> I think that's a decent way to characterize many TED talks.</comment></comment>


It's official: Google+ will be connected to everything - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/09/30/its-official-google-will-be-connected-to-everything/ <comment><USER2> From a privacy point of view, Google was already perfectly able to connect the dots of what all its users did on its services long before Plus: single sign- on was perfectly sufficient to do that. Having plus doesn't make it any easier or more difficult. So, technically, Google could already have collected all those data and sold them to the advertisers before plus.

What I hope that Google will guarantee, related to G+, is a complete control over which of those dots can become public; if G+ is an identity service (whatever that might mean) I want to have control over what I show of my identity and to whom. Something where I'm willing to cut some more slack to Google than to Facebook, given their track records, but not so much more.

<comment><USER3> I was willing to cut Google slack than other companies. But they exhausted that slack supply when they cut-off their own ex-employees for using well- established pseudonyms.

The concept of an "identity server" is unacceptable for any idea of freedom. I might hate the US government but I do hypothetically have some democratic rights in exchange for the DMV being the current "identity server" in this region. For any private entity to say "you must give me your stuff and I hope to keep it secret" without me having any leverage over them is ... (excuse my repeating)... unacceptable.

<comment><USER4> The DMV database is not publicly searchable by the whole world. That's an important distinction.

Remember those dystopian visions of the future where microchips would be inserted under people's skin so they could be tracked? That future is here, no forced microchipping required. People are volunteering for it in droves as they buy smart phones (and use social networks).

I don't understand why people get so upset over things like National ID cards, and then turn right around and give all their private info to Google and Facebook.

You already have a national ID number. Several, actually. They are your cell phone number, your Facebook account number, and your Gmail address, among others.

<comment><USER5> _I don't understand why people get so upset over things like National ID cards, and then turn right around and give all their private info to Google and Facebook._

I don't think those are the same people. The internet is a big place, after all...

<comment><USER6> Given the population sizes on Google and Facebook, and the sheer number of people in the UK who have been objecting the National ID card schemes, then a very significant portion of the latter's population is on social media.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think it's just google+. I noticed my gmail account logging me into youtube yesterday. I've avoided opening a google+ account so as to avoid that kind of thing from happening, I have remained logged out of my gmail account since.

<comment><USER8> I was a but creeped out when they automatically logged me in to youtube. After I found out there was no way to log out of youtube without logging out of Google Reader and Gmail, I am checking my RSS feeds and email a lot less. There should be an option to opt out, it's ridiculous.

<comment><USER9> Last time I checked, there was a way to unlink your Youtube account from the Google one, so it may worth a check, but no guarantees here as Google changed a lot on this front lately.

<comment><USER10> <http://www.youtube.com/my_account_unlink> I unlinked mine a long time ago - so I'm not sure if this still works.

<comment><USER11> Just tried it, and you can indeed unlink the accounts. But you can't login with just a youtube account. You need a Google account.

Still useful to relink to a throwaway account instead of the main gmail account. But I'm not sure the multiple account will let you stay logged in correctly..

<comment><USER9> I'm logged in to 3 different Google accounts all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I signed up at <http://diasp.org> for a Diaspora account a couple of weeks ago. It's noticeably not quite finished but it seems to work well enough. It now has enough of my friends on it that it's worth going there now and again. Diaspora often seems to attract bad vibes on HN but I'm hoping it'll take off.

</comment><comment><USER13> I am certain the next step will be when they use Google+ "likes" (or whatever) to determine page rank. I, for one, find it troubling how much Google can dictate the success of a web based business.

</comment><comment><USER14> I think its time to de-couple ourselves from providers like Google, facebook, twitter. I for one am not very comfortable in getting into a 1984 situation!

</comment><comment><USER15> This is the next logical step. Most people are already performing social and stream worthy actions all over google properties, it makes sense for them to provide users with a public forum for their display.

Although I'm still not sure google has easy route to mass collection of the holy grail of social content: photos.

<comment><USER16> if you have an android phone and g+, all your photos are automatically uploaded into picasa and available for easy sharing g+

<comment><USER17> Only if you enable Instant Upload.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is creepy not because I think Google is malicious, but because they aren't smart enough to handle privacy well.

Also this:

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-internet- securi...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/30/us-internet-security- idUSTRE78T2GY20110930)

</comment><comment><USER19> I started keeping separate browsers for my gmail,FB accounts and the rest of the web.

I signed up on Gmail to use the email, not for my identity management/profile for other things (say ad targeting). Google should let us choose disconnect our gmail, google+, youtube accounts.

</comment><comment><USER20> >"and the things that I give a +1 to are affecting my search as well."

What did the author think that button was for?

</comment><comment><USER21> Except my Apps account.

</comment><comment><USER22> Well, I can imagine google linking +1 with _likes_ on Youtube, like/share/star On google reader, star on google groups and so on.

If so, it will also make google plus a lot more useful, as your interactions on Google+ already affect, in a positive way IMHO, your Google search results.

The privacy implications are enormous though.

</comment><comment><USER23> Google, from another view, is trying to standardize on one id(google+) across all it's systems. It makes their data mining results better hence better targeted ads. Wonder when they will announce that Buzz is dead

<comment><USER9> I wondered about the same thing, but seeing Buzz incorporated into G+, I jumped to the conclusion it won't be deprecated soon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I'm a fan of G+. However, I wrote a post about this about three months ago (<http://hubski.com/pub?id=2069>), and I still feel the same way.

IMHO, this is not only going to change the nature of Google, but in the end, it will change their definition of innovation. -When every product is wrapped in social, it changes what every product can be.

</comment><comment><USER25> My gmail account isn't under my real name. I imagine Google will kill it at some point despite me having signed up before G+.

It's funny, I thought G+ could be the social network to replace FB and now it looks like I'll probably leave Google to avoid it. Weird.

<comment><USER26> > I imagine Google will kill it at some point

This seems fantastically unlikely (one might say FUD-ish) given their numerous public statements to the contrary, e.g. in this article: [http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/google-revises- google-r...](http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/google-revises-google-real- name-management-policy/1278)

<comment><USER27> My uncle's Google account was just shut down after they asked his age (for "personalization") and he filled in 1-1-2000, which is under 18. He had to send them a copy of his passport to reopen the account.

<comment><USER28> it's more likely because it's under 13, which will get you kicked from a lot of services.

<comment><USER29> Then they should make a checkbox for that instead of requiring the exact birthdate.

<comment><USER30> Luckily Google has attorneys that they get legal advice from, not hackers:

<http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/coppafaqs.shtm>

"Ask age information in a neutral manner at the point where you invite visitors to provide personal information or to create their log-in user ID. In designing a neutral age-screening mechanism, you might consider:

\- Making sure the data entry point allows users to enter their age accurately. An example of a neutral age-screen would be a system that allows a user to freely enter month, day, and year of birth. A site that includes a drop-down menu that only permits users to enter birth years making them 13 or older, would not be considered a neutral age-screening mechanism since children cannot enter their correct age on that site.

\- Not encouraging children to falsify their age information, for example, by stating that visitors under 13 cannot participate on your website or should ask their parents before participating. In addition, a site that does not ask for neutral date of birth information but rather simply includes a check box stating "I am over 12 years old" would not be considered a neutral age- screening mechanism.

\- In addition, we recommend using a temporary or a permanent cookie to prevent children from back-buttoning to enter a different age."

<comment><USER25> How horrible. When asking an adult for proof of date-of-birth we clearly say "Because you can't come in and buy beer until you're 21". But kids don't get that respect.

There's no worse way to handle this. It teaches kids to lie and there's no reason a less-than-13yo shouldn't have access to email anyways. Yes, it is the law, but it's just wrong.

<comment><USER30> That's a terrible comparison. People have to show a government ID to buy alcohol, stating your age on a website is much less of a verification. Plus, there are few kids out there who haven't had the idea to lie about being 21-- it's just much more difficult than giving a different birth date to a website.

<comment><USER25> > People have to show a government ID to buy alcohol, stating your age on a > website is much less of a verification.

And yet it's worth enough that it's a law that you must attempt to trick the children.

> Plus, there are few kids out there who haven't had the idea to lie about > being 21

Of course not. Because it's not a secret restriction. So anyone any everyone can dream of bypassing it. And it's easy - you can get a drunk to buy booze for you anywhere.

But instead of tricking people we still say it outright. We know some will be driven to crime but it's worth it that the law-abiding get to choose their path.

Lying makes the law just an annoying obstacle to be bypassed instead of a healthy warning and in doing so starts to erode any trust its victims might have had in a just and reasonable government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _Google+ is Google itself._

Hey, Larry Page, read my lips:

        DO NOT WANT!

No one wants Big Brother watching their every move, forcing a single ID on mail, maps, search, videos, blogs, etc.

Asses may well just have signed the Google death warrant.

<comment><USER16> most normal people that use a google account already have a single account they use for gmail, google maps, google search, youtube, etc.

They have long had account integration across properties.

What they have never had was very much of a functional integration across properties.

<comment><USER7> I disagree, I'd wager most people that use a google account already use it only for gmail, as there's little interest in logging in to their other services.

<comment><USER16> my point is that most people dont create a different google account for each google service they use. They use one account, for however many google services they do use.

my sister uses her account for gmail and picasa and for uploading to youtube.

my dad uses his account for gmail, picasa, and android market.

my mom uses just gmail

as, or if, people add Google services, they use their one account. The only normal person use case for creating more accounts is for having two accounts with _one_ service, i.e. 2 gmails, 2 picasas, 2 youtubes, etc.

<comment><USER32> _my point is that most people dont create a different google account for each google service they use. They use one account, for however many google services they do use._

Not me. (Anecdata, selection bias and all that.)

I _used_ to be able to bounce between youtube and gmail with different accounts, in the same browser session. Then one day I was greeted with the Universal Google Session. Now I need to use different browsers.

However, given Google's direction, I'm looking to replace my Google services usage with non-Google alternatives, so this will be a short-lived problem for me.

<comment><USER33> No point using separate IDs for different services. Google will still tie them together. Here's a little story (that might scare you).

A few months ago, my brother bought an android phone. He synced contacts with his gmail account. And when I looked at my info on his contact list, I saw that gmail had associated my name with a couple of accounts I had made as a kid and haven't used in half a decade. How they did that, I don't know.

In any case, that aside, I really don't mind that they are profiling me as long as the intent remains good. I like it that the ads are tailored for me. I like that youtube suggests videos that I might be interested in. I like it that I don't have to sign in over and over again to login to different services. These are all features to me and a majority of the internet using public.

If you don't want to be profiled you should consider pooling money and creating your own email service with like-minded people, use diaspora/anonymous boards for networking etc. Avoiding google is do-able. It just requires more resources.

I find that most people who are complaining are neither willing to give up a bit of privacy nor are they willing to pay more or work harder to protect their privacy. You can't eat your cake and have it too!

<comment><USER32> _If you don't want to be profiled you should consider pooling money and creating your own email service with like-minded people, use diaspora/anonymous boards for networking etc. Avoiding google is do-able. It just requires more resources._

Absolutely. I may go back to running my own mail server, or keep sing Google for apps while dropping YouTube in favor of Vimeo, and moving to Diaspora and skipping g+.

 _I find that most people who are complaining are neither willing to give up a bit of privacy nor are they willing to pay more or work harder to protect their privacy. You can't eat your cake and have it too!_

Yes; for example I noticed that some Occupy<CityOrPlace> groups are on the one the hand complaining about companies violating privacy and using personal data for economic fodder while at the same time happily using Facebook to as their "homepage".

At some point principles have to trump convenience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Except Google Apps.</comment>


Ask HN: Voice api pricing - anything cheaper than Twilio? - <AUTHOR> I built a CRM in my spare time and want to add call functionality from the browser.  I've been looking around at companies like Twilio, Plivo, etc., and their prices are about .015 cents per minute outgoing. If the average salesperson uses it 4 hours a day, 20 days a month, that comes out to .015604*20 = $72.  That seems like a lot of money. Do you think my usage estimate is right? If so, I'd like to hear your ideas about how to accomplish this at a lower price.
Thanks all <comment><USER2> And how much do you pay that salesman for 80 hours of work?

</comment><comment><USER3> Use SIP trunking with unlimited minutes. Can be had from all sorts of providers. I'm using anveo.com.</comment>