Google's 18th Birthday - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/doodles/googles-18th-birthday <comment><USER3> Okay, for the most part, most of us alive today are older than Google and remember it began around 1998, but someday... everyone alive is going to be younger than Google, and there's going to be no one alive that even remembers when Google was founded, and everyone alive is going to use Google as like its Skynet.

<comment> martin-adams Yep, they're called the 'after Googlers': [https://youtu.be/ozYez0I0Xs8?t=1m25s](https://youtu.be/ozYez0I0Xs8?t=1m25s)

<comment><USER4> 15 years ago, we could spend a lot of times thinking about 'after microsofters", and today we can laugh a lot.

<comment><USER5> Why are we laughing?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Who else remembers the first time they visited google.com?

I was on a 56k dial up connection, but the page loaded so quickly.

This was during a period I was used to pages taking 20+ seconds to load, and the google homepage loaded almost instantly.

In fact, just for fun, I went to google.com on my new laptop with ssd and 16 gig of ram using the latest version of chrome, and maybe it is through rose tinted glasses, but it seems like the first time I visited google using my dial up connection it loaded a lot "snappier" than it does today.

<comment><USER7> Most if not all the ISP companies in my home country used to ask you to access google.com while troubleshooting connectivity issues. They would eventually assume your Internet was working as expected if at least Google loaded. Recently they changed the strategy and now use Internet speed tester which come with the requirement to have Flash installed _and_ enabled.

Many people in my country still believe that Google == Internet so I am pretty sure that if Google stops serving for whatever reason here the majority of people will get cut out of the Internet because they don't understand how to use the address bar. I have even seen people accessing google.com just to put facebook.com in the search form instead of simply typing that domain in the address bar, I cringe every time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I still recall switching from AltaVista :D

<comment><USER9> Fireball for me. I remember the icq chat with a friend who told me to try this cool new thing without ads!

<comment><USER10> And now Google push all possible ads to us :(

<comment><USER11> A couple of ads (clearly marked as such) at the top of the results page are "all possible ads"? Come on.

<comment><USER12> In a new Safari window (private browsing, 1920x1080 screen), for the search query "holiday cottages Wales", I don't get any organic results above the fold. The first one is at 1380px down the page.

<comment><USER13> Very OT, but if you're actually looking for one, I can recommend [https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/12448783](https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/12448783) . My partner and I stayed there a few months ago and it was wonderful!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'd never really considered it before, but Google is pretty old now in internet terms. It's been around twice along as some of its fellow giants like Facebook (2004), YouTube (2005), Twitter (2006) and the like - although not nearly as long as Yahoo! (1994) and AOL (1991).

<comment><USER15> What's impressive is not that that it's one of the oldest internet companies around, but that it's _still relevant_ today! The vast majority of large internet companies usually fade into obscurity in less than ten years as they fail to change and adapt and are replaced by whatever is new and shiny at the time; Google though, they knew they had to place bold bets beyond what's making money _today_ , and that paid off beautifully.

<comment><USER16> and their main website is old-style. Well they implemented new fonts etc and they didn't change over to use a bootstrap template. Simple and easy, is what their search engine is actually.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great to see Google splintering off into single duty compartments instead of spreading itself so thin that nothing gets done with the same amount of focus. Alphabet was a true design decision, and a mature one at that. One thing that crossed my mind recently was the notion of Google and its long relationship with hardware: we have this thing called the Blockchain now, and it could do with some of Google's hardware to run on, instead of independent factions of people spending their pocket money on their own hardware. It kind of makes me jealous and annoyed that so much could be spent for what effectively is sometimes just a data center for storing people's holiday snaps on Google Plus, when it could be used to host micro democracies and change the direction of finance. I suspect all that hardware will eventually be re-purposed many times throughout the course of the Google experiment and probably will eventually be given away at some point to the blockchainers who need it. I can picture the scene: dreadlocked decentralists rejoicing at their new hardware gift from Google, 25+ years from now. The ultimate redemption from their years of slavishly handing their personal information over to Google in exchange for a decent search experience. A true revenge for consumers of Google. Meanwhile Google would have entirely switched to SSDs and are probably using post- quantum chips, but at least we can host multiple different blockchains now without spending our pocket money on them. The blockchainers can start to get rich and blockchain can really flourish.

Also, Google needs to create services which are for a post Snowden world. Allo is cute, but entirely inferior to things like Signal which addresses the problem of encrypted private chat head on. Google needs to create things like its own VPN service, perhaps?

<comment><USER18> > _One thing that crossed my mind recently was the notion of Google and its > long relationship with hardware: we have this thing called the Blockchain > now, and it could do with some of Google 's hardware to run on, instead of > independent factions of people spending their pocket money on their own > hardware._

I was under the impression that most mining is now done by a few groups using special purpose hardware. Mining using hardware bought with "pocket money" seems like a losing game at this point.

> _It kind of makes me jealous and annoyed that so much could be spent for > what effectively is sometimes just a data center for storing people 's > holiday snaps on Google Plus, when it could be used to host micro > democracies and change the direction of finance._

It makes me sad that so much energy is wasted computing hashes for mining when it seems to add so little to society. In comparison, I think hosting holiday photos is a more valuable task.

> _I suspect all that hardware will eventually be re-purposed many times > throughout the course of the Google experiment and probably will eventually > be given away at some point to the blockchainers who need it._

I'm not sure why Google would give their hardware to a random group of miners. I'm not sure why the miners would want it either since x86 is not an efficient way to mine. Out of date x86 hardware especially.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Google makes great doodles : [https://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2016/googles-18th- birth...](https://www.google.com/logos/doodles/2016/googles-18th- birthday-5661535679545344-hp.gif)

<comment><USER20> "stolen" from a danish tv show [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDZR_8SoD20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDZR_8SoD20) :)

<comment><USER21> I'm in the US: This video contains content from DR, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds.

<comment><USER22> I was hoping it would say Google, Inc. as soon as I saw the removed video graphic loading. Would have been all too perfect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Almost everything I've ever learned started with a Google search. I'm 30 now - I started using it when I was 15 - and since I didn't have a lot of friends or stuff happening growing up, I spent hours browsing. A lot of porn, but also a lot of random stuff I was curious about. I kind of stopped believing the words of people around me and chose to believe everything I read instead. Over time I did develop a better sense of what's credible and what's not.

By the way I've always had the idea of a credibility plugin to a browser that rates the credibility level of everything you visit.

Sometimes I judge someone based on how they search. If they're typing out a whole question, perfect punctuation: not a good sign.

<comment><USER24> > Sometimes I judge someone based on how they search. If they're typing out a > whole question, perfect punctuation: not a good sign.

You read the Google instructions "How to use Google" about 15 years ago, and you started using Google when they had a 10 word limit, with no substitutions and no stemming.

Nowadays Google is mostly used by people who ask whole questions, complete with punctuation, and websites and Google optimise for those people.

Sometimes it's the best way to get to a good website.

<comment><USER23> I never knew that. I always just thought those words were parsed out as noise. You're saying that whole questions help?

Also sometimes when I search I don't know exactly what I'm looking for, so it takes a few queries to learn the basic vocabulary of the area I want to learn about. So putting a few keyword guesses into the box seems to work. In other words I never expect to land on a good website on my first try because I don't even know the right vocabulary.

Is there a better way to do it?

<comment><USER24> > Is there a better way to do it?

Who knows? Google used to tell people how to search. SEO arseholes ruined it for everyone, and now Google has an opaque mechanism.

If I don't kno much abotu something asking a full question seems to get useful introductory pages. If I know a bit about something keywords seems to work. I'm I know a lot about something I have to include "exact" words, and use the - to remove some not relevant terms.

Google went from being a precision tool to good enough most of the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I was a bit late to the Google party. I first heard about it when I was in my CS seminar in undergrad. Someone in class talked about a cool new search engine called "googol" (what I thought it was called). I am not sure when but slowly I ditched Yahoo!, AltaVista, and Ask Jeeves in favor of it and never looked back. Each time I try alt search engines like Bing or DDG I keep coming back.

The second big Google moment I remember was when Gmail first came out. I wanted an invite so bad and eventually got one. I thought how cool is this that you can have a usable email client in the web browser. Not that it was the first one; I remember using Hotmail before that. But it had threaded messages!

Of all the tech companies I've used in the past Google has treated me the best. They've done some unforgivable things like killing Google Reader but for the most part I'm happy with them.

<comment><USER26> the death of google reader was sad, but at the same time, RSS as a method of reading blogs and news has exited the building. Competing products have failed to provide the same kind of mindshare that reader apparently had. Social media has taken over, for better and worse.

The internet has changed, and reader is one of those things that is solidly in the past.

<comment><USER27> Heavily disagree. I still use RSS constantly. Sure, I don't think RSS will be here 100 years from now, it'll die someday, but I've yet to see an actual alternative to it.

<comment><USER26> Here's the issue, yes, you can disagree, and your workflow is different.

But in general, most people get their news from social media now - <USER2> Facebook as it turns out. That is hardly a disputable fact. RSS is a technical detail of how sites publish, and in the end, people seem to not care about it. They care about end user features, which apparently includes their friends commenting. And that is what Facebook does.

Yeah you could make an argument that Google Reader killed the promising RSS market, but I don't think that argument really holds a lot of water.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The first time I visited Google.com was at a startup called European Artisans in Rome, Italy, using a Flower Power iMac G3. I was reading a book called The Cluetrain Manifesto at the time and remember thinking that Google 'got' what the [internet][1] is and where it was was going. And despite some missteps, they still do!

Looking forward to the next 18 years! Happy birthday, Google!

[1]: [http://www.worldofends.com/](http://www.worldofends.com/)

</comment><comment><USER29> Interestingly the top result I get from that query is the following article from UK newspaper, The Independent:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and- tech/new...](http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and- tech/news/when-is-googles-birthday-18th-doodle-today-a7331271.html)

[Title: When is Google's birthday? The big thing wrong with the search engine's celebratory doodle]

<comment><USER30> I think there are always at least five news articles written on any topic that is mentioned in a Google Doodle because those are really the simplest clicks you can get with so much traffic coming from Google. (They often get shown under the "news" segment)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Then: Don't be evil.

Today: Google is the new MS. XMPP kicked out of Google Talk, RSS put on a hold. If there wasn't Firefox, Chromium would be burried. I'd even wish that Bing would be more successful, let alone DuckDuckGo.

<comment><USER32> I have some sympathy with this but I think people ignore a lot of the stuff which Google just gives away with some fairly light advertising. Think about navigating with Apple maps, or trying to organise your life with Hotmail or trying to do anything without Google search. Some of their product decisions wind people up but I think they do a lot more good than harm.

<comment><USER33> >a lot of the stuff which Google just gives away with some fairly light advertising. //

... which furthers their eco-system and cements "vendor lock-in". They kill off too many major projects seemingly for purely financial purposes for the point you make to carry well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I think tone of "congratulations" on this site should be really important sign for Google to reconsider their way.

<comment><USER35> The problem is that Googlers live and work and are friends with other Googlers, and have a massive echo chamber effect. Most of the people who Googlers interact with are either Google employees or Google enthusiasts, so it's easy for them to believe that something like the comments on this article are some sort of concentrated effort by a small group or something, as opposed to a very real, widespread concern.

<comment><USER36> Most googlers recognize the echo chamber of not just google but silicon valley. Many of the complaints issued here are also issued directly to the top executives as well. Sometimes the issues get resolved, other times its a complicated issue with no good answer (in regards to google itself).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I remember using Google for the first time in college. It was like a breath of fresh air after using Yahoo, Northern Light or any of the other search engines back in the day.

</comment><comment><USER38> Google has lost its innocence and is slowly turning into an old voyeur :)

<comment> nommm-nommm Anyone remember google-watch.org? Unfortunately it's something else now and it's excluded by the wayback machine. Would be interesting to read now.

<comment><USER39> Is that the guy that set up scroogle?

I suppose DuckDuckGo with !g is a better version of that now anyway but it was always an interesting concept...

<comment> nommm-nommm I have no idea, I don't know what scroogle is. Google-watch.org was a site that existed in the early 2000s (before Gmail) that was critical of Google and brought up some of the issues with things they were doing.

If I recall correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Then: An epic algorythm

Now: An interner super power

Happy birthday

</comment><comment><USER41> Should i be seeing anything special on that page, other than a list of "news" articles discussing when Google's birthday should be?

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm part of the Google economy now for 12 years, so well thank you Google, kinda.

My story for all who are interested:

In 2004 the director of the Austria Press Agency (APA) came to me and said "Hey, our PR customers wan't to find their press releases in Google, do that!" I was in web business development then, a fancy name for a one man team of developer, coder, hacker, sysadmin, product development, cooperations, conceptionist, designer, data analyst, external contributors coordinator for www.ots.at, the public relations branch of APA.

I did, and it worked. As a matter of fact it worked so good, that for some time the press releases of the companies showed up before the actual websites of the companies. (I used such advanced and then highly controversial strategies like internal interlinking and title-tags) Traffic and soon later revenue exploded.

As I was frustrated with web development at that time (IE6 had a market share of 90% plus, FF (firebird or phoenix at that time) wasn't ready yet, no competition anywhere near). Web 2.0. was just starting at that time, we saw what was possible, but we could not do it, as the IE6 bugs were crashing all innovation.

I could code since I was a child, then I made code my work, now I swore to myself that I will always ever code for fun (or projects that are 100% owned by me and therefore fun) again, but earn money in another way.

I followed the money and started my first company "Search Engine Optimized distribution of PR and Corporate Information via Blog and Web 2.0. Networks" in 2006 i think. Today we would call it a "Corporate Blog"!

I created a piece of software that was from the front end better than WordPress of that time, faster, bug free HTML, W3C valid, beautiful tag clouds, just awesome. The backend and the actual getting content in there was a complete mess, so what, I had a product!!!! Now I just needed to sell the product, cold calling companies and convince them that they need a corporate blog and that their content needs to get found by Google. Oh yeah, zero sales experience from my side. Lets just say it didn't work.

So I did what any young founder would do: went to a party, jumped over a wall to save entrance fee, broke my knee in a very complicated way and went into hospital for 3 months.

I took a job again: This time as a key account manager to sell websites in the real estate business. I learned a lot, most horrible job ever, too.

Went to the next job, now officially called myself SEO for the first time: becoming the SEO manager of the then world leader in sports-betting, poker and casino. Oh what fun! For the first time I realized what unbelievable esoteric bullshit people started to believe about Google and SEO. High-up management talked about "PageRank Black Holes" whereby I explained to them that "Google being able to crawl us" is kinda a good idea if you want to get found for anything. Also I had months long projects to convince the powers to be, that it just isn't a good idea to run internal links over 16 (internal & external ) redirects (whereby IE which was still around at that time only supported 10...). I had 70 people working on changing the footer links (as they were owned by different departments and country managers). Learned a lot in those years, especially about working with consultants and other third parties brought in by country managers, product heads, other consultants, bought companies, ...

And I learned that the state of SEO, which was a dev driven discipline for a long time became the ultimate bullshit industry. With people selling links that suck, selling tools that nobody needs, telling stuff that could neither verified nor falsified, hurting businesses until the point of bankruptcy. And whenever I though SEO has arrived at a new bottom, it became worse.

Then I did what any employee which was fed up with the status quo did, I joined a startup. Well not one, an incubator which owned the majority of all the startups it incubated. I.e.: I helped scale 123people form about 300 000 monthly to 60 000 000 monthly visits before it was sold. And some others which I'm more proud of. Then joined another startup.

In 2011 I started my second company, my goal is simple: To make all SEO agencies, including my own, redundant. I'm doing great, it's still lots of fun.

So anyway, thx Google. You gave me a career. I work in the world/economy you created.

<comment><USER38> > So anyway, thx Google. You gave me a career.

Interesting story. But in that last line you make it sound like without Google you didn't have a career :)

<comment><USER42> Well, you never know the paths not travelled.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I don't quite like Google, but happy birthday Google :)

20+ years of being online. Google was a welcome change when they launched, but they've been on a path of slow credibility erosion for much of the last decade. IMHO.

</comment><comment><USER44> Happy birthday!

</comment><comment><USER4> Making Internet a worse place day after day. Congratulations, Google!

</comment><comment><USER45> Barely legal Google.</comment>


Star Trek Continues - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3G-ziTBAkbQ

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks pretty good huh?

<comment><USER2> For a fan effort, it's solid but it's not without its flaws. I go into more detail here: [http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=8157223&postcount=...](http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=8157223&postcount=48)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Which font does Google use in their internal emails? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Going phishing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah, I want to change my email font and differentiate myself to all the other plebs at work.

<comment><USER3> Then use plain text and desktop client.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Helvetica (be careful how this looks if people don't have the font) Signature is Arial with the name bolded

</comment><comment><USER5> Somebig company develop their own font. I've seen myself when I got homework technical interview from bigcorp from europe that they used their own font.</comment>


The Ukrainian self-taught developer making the best-rated Apple translation app - Pete-Codes https://www.nocsdegree.com/alex-left-a-tough-life-in-ukraine-and-taught-himself-to-code-and-make-apps/ <comment> Pete-Codes I interviewed Alex who learned to code from books without the internet in Ukraine, having to call up his brother and ask him if code was correct. He now lives in Vienna and has made the best rated translation app in the App store.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the interview, Pete! Ready to answer questions :)

<comment> Pete-Codes Cheers mate!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Interesting interview. Keep up the good work, Pete!</comment>


Gartner Says Worldwide Smartphone Sales Recorded Slowest Growth Rate Since 2013 - <AUTHOR> http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/3115517

<comment><USER2> Apple continue to try and rule the world though. But unless we have radical developments in battery tech the industry will stagnate a lot. There is just so much you can squeeze out of the current tech.</comment>


The Future of Memory - <AUTHOR> http://semiengineering.com/the-future-of-memory/ <comment><USER2> Getting bigger caches closer to the CPUs seems to be the big issue mentioned. SRAM takes up more real estate than DRAM, so on-chip DRAM is being considered, but doesn't look likely. Further out from the CPU, there are technologies faster than flash but slower than DRAM coming along.

This article doesn't address the architectural issues of what to do with devices which look like huge, but slow, RAM. The history of multi-speed memory machines is disappointing. Devices faster than flash are too fast to handle via OS read and write, but memory-mapping the entire file system makes it too vulnerable to being clobbered. The Cell processor tried lots of memory-to- memory DMA, and was too hard to program.

Maybe hardware key/value stores, so you can put database indices in them and have instructions for accessing them.

<comment><USER3> "Devices faster than flash are too fast to handle via OS read and write", interesting could you elaborate on why?

<comment><USER2> Going through the kernel takes far longer than accessing memory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm betting on HBM + APUs replacing dedicated GPUs for a lot of people.

<comment><USER5> This is the case with me. Waiting for the new AMD Zen APU.

I'm actually betting that APU SOCs with on board memory (HBM) will end up replacing 90% of the motherboard in the next few years.

<comment><USER6> I'm waiting for Zen, but I'll hold my breath on the APU. Even if they integrate HBM that's going to be a rather large die with low yields to try to cram a GPU comparable to a modern mid-high to high-end GPU (that already has a die size bigger than most modern CPU's). Still, even a moderately powerful APU would work nicely in tandem with a future RX 490 or whatever AMD puts out for their Vega cards.

<comment><USER3> Why are you skeptical on the APU? Intel(Ivy Bridge/Sandy Bridge) were APUs even if they aren't marketed as such.

<comment><USER6> I'm just not expecting anything that will compare with my R9 390, that's all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone comment on this sentence :

"And further on, there are larger SRAMs for L3 caches, where they are possible."

I believe L3 is always SRAM so I'm confused about this. Also I thought that larger L3 caches were only an issue in terms of cost and perhaps power budgeting for the die. Are there other issues as well with moving to larger L3 caches?

<comment><USER7> Latency is also a problem. A bigger L3 means more access latency. (This is generally true of any memory)

<comment><USER3> Good point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm wondering if one day memory will be so cheap, we won't need garbage collection anymore.

<comment><USER9> > I'm wondering if one day memory will be so cheap, we won't need garbage > collection anymore.

I believe we would need infinite memory for that. Cheap extensive memory is still finite.

<comment><USER10> Only for long-running processes

<comment><USER11> So, just the most important ones, then. In a sense, processes are just a form of arena allocation. They don't eliminate the need for memory management; they _are_ memory management (among many other things).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I have always wonder if it is possible to do TSV / Stacked SRAM on top or under the CPU Die. So instead of have 8MB sitting on the same plane, the same die size of SRAM, more likely 16 - 32MB could sit under or on top of the CPU die.

<comment><USER13> The hurdle is heat - we can do something like this in mobile SoCs, which commonly place DRAM on top of the CPU (package-on-package). But for a TDP > 10 watts, the memory layer effectively insulates the main die from whatever thermal management is used, making it unworkable. Unfortunately, this problem stands to get worse as transistors shrink, since power density will keep going up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looking forward to part 2 of this series</comment>


What is this "crisis"? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tetrack.com/2009/02/what-is-this-crisis/

<comment><USER2> There once were a bunch of monkeys in the jungle. They were plenty of bananas to pick and eat. Each day they would pick some bananas, eat and be happy.

One day a monkey said to the others, "why are you going out to pick bananas, don't you know its a recession?" (Why he would say this was never quite clear, and is a matter of much debate, even to this day.) And so the monkeys stopped going out and picking bananas. What was the point? There was a recession on after all.

Eventually, many monkeys starved due to the great banana recession. The survivors eventually slowly started to pick again but told ever after of the great banana recession and the terrible toll it took.</comment>


Propellor – "Whups, I seem to have built a config management system" - <AUTHOR> http://joeyh.name/blog/entry/propellor/

<comment><USER2> As an admin (by preference) of Debian systems, I've been rather partial to a systems configuration management system which emphases same, and leverages the strengths of APT.

Joeyh seems like the guy to do just that.</comment>


Google PhotoScan Is a Handy Pocket Photo Scanner - <AUTHOR> https://tidbits.com/2018/07/06/google-photoscan-is-a-handy-pocket-photo-scanner/ <comment><USER2> I wish/hope Google would enable higher resolution images from this app.

I started using this... something over a year ago.

It was, and last I checked, still is limited to a resolution of 2000 pixels in the largest dimension.

At that time, news circulated that internal developer settings allowed for higher resolution. And one could unpackage the app, change a configuration setting to make the hidden menu/control for this visible, then repackage. Or trust someone who did this for one particular release and shared the altered package/app.

The explanation I saw for the app officially shipping with this setting hidden/inaccessible, is that it slowed processing and final image construction significantly.

Personally, I'd be willing to wait, especially for a setting I choose to turn on and can always turn off again. And also, in the meantime, phones have gotten significantly more powerful. So...?</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to generate recurring income - <AUTHOR> Looking to learn some new skills and make some money.<p>What do I have the best chance of making real money (say $50/day) with?<p>- Apps: iPhone/Android/WinMo/Ovi/Mac App Store/iPad<p>- Web apps: like most of the things that come up on HN. (Appt Reminder, for example)<p>- Digital content: ebooks on easy to learn and write about topics. Think long spammy testimonial pages <comment><USER2> If you are a developer start creating small things. Don't go jump into a large web app. Small bites will help motivate and create a momentum so you can start doing bigger things.

For example, last year I created a couple of jQuery premium plugins, I putted a price tag on them and offer user support. Some of people said "no way, your plugin will make it, there will be free version of it anytime soon".

Guess what ? Almost one year has passed, there aren't any full featured alternatives and I'm making a $xx bucks on a daily basis. I'm not making $50, but it's close tho. For the effort I've put into it I pretty happy with the outcome. Clients appreciate the fact that I offer support, and the best thing is, I haven't yet give any support because none of my clients have request it so far.

In a nutshell, my best advice for you is: \- Start by doing small quality things. \- Create a solid client base, keep them happy and show them what you are doing currently

Soon enough your will start see some profit.

<comment><USER3> How many plugins did you write? Also, how do you handle payment, licensing and such?

Making about $40/day extra would help a lot currently and I'm not bad with jQuery. I can probably hack together some simple yet usefull php scripts too. Wonder if those would sell?

<comment><USER2> I currently have two plugins. I use paypal to handle my payments, and I have a normal copyright license for users, nothing major really.

Like I said, keep it simple and launch it. Agile way ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't sell yourself short, all of these options could easily bring in more than $50 per day.

Think about your current skill set versus what you would like to learn that would help your career and future earning potential. Balance those two items to help you choose.

If you have an interest in all three develop all three ideas over time.

For the short term I would pick the area that you are most skilled in so you have the best chance for success.

Digital content probably has the best chance for success depending on your knowledge base and target audience. An e-book could be put together fairly quickly. Pick something you are passionate about and put one on the market and see how it goes.

Web Apps are great for reoccurring revenue, the software as a service model is one of the best business models out there. Find a problem and solve it with a web application.

Apps would be the most difficult to break into and have a money maker the first time. It's definitely a high demand skill and something you should develop for the future if you have an interest.

Recommended listening for inspiration:

<http://mixergy.com> <http://37signals.com/podcast#episode5>

<comment><USER5> You mention Mixergy and 37Signals, but <http://beyondthepedway.com/> seems to hardly ever be mentioned. Great stuff there as well in my opinion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Are you looking to learn new skills or to make money? Learning something new is not going to bring you $50 / day now, but on the long run yes it could turn down to $500 / day or more. With that said I would suggest looking into the mobile industry iPhone and Android for now (the other mobile OS are not worth the time and effort, the manufacturers will create a true OS pretty much soon - if they wake up from they're dream " We have a mobile OS").

A lot of the content on the web today is getting much attention from smartphones, so there is a ton of potential out there.

Hope this helps

</comment><comment><USER7> > ebooks on easy to learn and write about topics

This can provide some _very_ interesting options (and lucrative, affiliate) revenue streams; possibly generating passive income for years to come.

People (read super aff marketers) have written eBooks on this very topic i.e. how to build long-term, passive income streams with eBooks - if you scout around a bit, I'm sure you'll find a few.

HTH

</comment><comment><USER8> My advice to you is... try as many small ideas out as you can, see what does earn a bit. It's not that hard to get something earning a couple dollars/day, just doing it again and again is the hard part.

<comment><USER9> Aren't payment processors a pain?

From my experiences, they make you create terms of service for every web app no matter how tiny. Are there ways around this and what do you suggest?

<comment><USER8> Perhaps. But don't let that limit what you can do. Monthly cost is 1$ but you need to pay for a full year in advance.

For something with almost no delivery cost (digital content), as long as you're clearing transaction charges, you are still making money, right?

Maybe money isn't in charging for the apps at all? What about ads? Lead gen? Affiliate Programs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> There are tons of ebook money plans/schemes - go hunt around blackhatworld.com and read some of the threads there. Some are nonsense and some are legit.

</comment><comment><USER11> Why is your goal to make $50 a day?

<comment><USER12> Assuming he makes $50 every day for a calendar year, we're talking a little ways north of $18k/yr, before taxes. Not the biggest amount in the world, but certainly pretty substantial by any reasonable metric.

Alternatively: $50 seems to me like a pretty reachable number, while still being large enough that it's not immediately reachable.

Though I won't presume to know the OP's motivations.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, but his purpose behind wanting to make $50 a day can dictate how you want to get there. Do you want it to be a sustainable $50 or are you trying to reach that goal to then expand beyond that $50? Whitehat / blackhat $50 a day?

So, the why is important for me to suggest to you how :)</comment></comment></comment>


What's The Real Deal With AngelList? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/26/angelist/ <comment><USER2> My discomfort with AngelList stems from what I see as a disproportionate advantage on the buyer side (the investors), with less advantage going to the seller side (the startups).

For investors, AL is a firehose of Shiny. If you're a Shiny junkie, then connecting the IV tube of AL into your veins will keep you wired into dealflow like nothing before. Instant gratification, severe acceleration.

For startups, you hear the occasional startup praising AL with stories like "we posted our profile and 3 days later we have $600K woo-hoo!" but my question is, until I see AL post detailed stats and analytics, I assume that for every success story there are dozens, scores, or even hundreds of stories where basically nothing happened.

I would gladly be proven wrong: Nivi, Naval?

Lastly, I get the brilliance of AL, I get that it works because there are tons of investors signing up, but it's the scale that worries me. As it scales, the win rate for entrepreneurs will just get worse. Has to.

A similar thing exists in the publishing world with literary agents and editors. (Heck, there, writers (the entrepreneurs in this analogy) have to go through TWO hoops not just one, to get an advance (investment)). There are too many writers and not enough agents and even less publishers, it's a very very tight funnel and rejection is the norm.

AL will probably wind up this way too, unless AL thinks of ways to improve the service to better balance the features, acountability, and responsiveness of each party. I want to see investors being forced to respond to investors who've submitted their pitch to them specifically, within a set amount of time, or lose reputation points. AL should facilitate rapid communication between both parties, but it seems that all AL does now is email investors when entrepreneurs submit companies to specific investors, and at that point AL's job is done and the ball is in the investor's court. Not enough. AL should be all over the investor and help the entrepreneur get closure as soon as possible with each investor they submit to -- even if the answer is no. Any answer is better than silence.

</comment><comment><USER3> If the angels on AngelList are happy with 5-10% returns (per Jason Calacanis) and those are the types of companies they're funding and finding on AngelList, doesn't it make sense that VCs would "opt out" of this market given 5-10% is not what they/their LPs are after?

After all the drama and histrionics, it seems that the 2 investor groups may just have different returns expectations. Nothing wrong with that.

<comment><USER4> VC List pivot / new startup modeling Angel List?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "My biggest fear is that people confuse the "social proof" of other prominent investors on AngelList for real insight. Indeed, in a bubble people generally chase what other people are chasing leading to group think."

Indeed.

<comment><USER6> You'd think reading the piece that there had never been groupthink behind funding decisions before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a new found "tech geek" the "angelInvestor" world can be quite discouraging and complicated. I was never one for formal education and always taught myself, however there are certain areas where information is limited one being this. So I believe this site offers a great connectivity tool to at least allow you to introduce and connect with key people.

</comment><comment><USER8> Have to agree on this one. My startup is in the same space, we're taking a totally different approach. The focus is on creating a compelling presentation / pitch. When you use the product it feels like your interacting with the company.

We're pretty much iPad exclusive as we think the best way to approach the space is to put pitching tools in the hands of the entrepreneur. The idea is that investors and entrepreneurs will share the presentation physically by passing the iPad around. We also have tools to gather information on the spot, if the person wants to look it over later, take their email in the app and it emails them a link to the presentation. Which they can review later.

Use Cases:

In person amongst friends: Check out this startup, and then pass the iPad to the person. We see this use case more for someone who has been presented to in person and is sharing with others who may also be interested.

Elevator Pitch: If you get the opportunity for an elevator pitch and generate interest you can pass them a compelling presentation. The buttons are also oversized so that while you're presenting you can still guide the presentation while it's held in the other person's hand.

Multiple People: With your iPad in hand you'll always be prepared to present, if you find yourself in a board room, or anywhere with a TV simply plug the VGA/TV connector in and display the presentation on the big screen.

The exit / next round: It's easy for investors to take their portfolio companies presentation and add them to their home screen, that way when they are looking for prospective buyers for the next round / exit they have those great presentations on hand and can easily walk the buyer through.

We'll eventually support recording a presentation so that the app flips through the various parts of the presentation automatically while playing your recorded audio as the app transitions through the pitch.

We have no social media integration other than to login/share with friends, we don't think it's a good idea to encourage a herd mentality and that prospective investors should make up their own mind, rather than relying on the herd for signals. I think over the long term it will build a better understanding between investor and entrepreneur. Rather than investing based on what is in vogue.

We focus on creating a compelling story for the entrepreneur by being rich in imagery, video, and eventually audio. We're helping entrepreneurs create a connection and generate real interest in what sets their company apart from the herd.

Once we have the presentation down and have that working flawlessly we'll move to social media.

<comment><USER3> Interesting idea, but all use cases above suggest you have to be there in- person to "pass the iPad". Seems like that requirement creates extra friction in the process.

<comment><USER8> You can definitely send a presentation to someone else, there are email/linkedin share features.

Your home page will display all publicly available presentations, but we see an essential chicken-and-egg problem that is solved by positioning first as a presentation tool. Thats the immediate value, it helps an entrepreneur present to the people you already know, as well as collect information for prospective investors.

eg. hallway / booth conversations at a tradeshow, quickly walk through a hand held presentation that is tactile and interactive, if they're interested, take their email down, send them a copy of the presentation and have the email on hand for follow up. You can also use it to pitch your product, rather than providing information about the company.

Once the network of entrepreneurs is in place we can start attracting investors via internet means. Once both are in place we'll evaluate the next steps. What we don't want is prospective investors going to an empty site.</comment></comment></comment>


Loneliness will be the next great moneyspinner - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/20/loneliness-next-great-moneyspinner <comment><USER2> People already pay strippers just to talk to them</comment>


Rupert Murdoch: Facebook is Just a Directory - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/rupert_murdoch_facebook_is_just_a_directory.php <comment><USER2> Well, if he is still using myspace, at least he is not a racist :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't think he is the type of person that is going to go on record conceding that his massive investment is losing out to a competitor. He is right about sharing music (can you create artist pages on fb?), but he's wrong about sharing everything else, photos, videos, thoughts. Facebook is more then a directory.

</comment><comment><USER4> that may have been true a few years ago but I doubt anyone (except for Rupert, apparently) would argue that FB is nothing short of a full-fledged application platform with millions of built-in customers.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can't take this guy seriously. Has he ever used his own product? Abysmal.

</comment><comment><USER6> yup. and myspace has a more beautiful design, too ;)

<comment><USER7> MySpace does, or FB? MySpace looks like someone threw-up on my screen.

<comment><USER8> He was being sarcastic. I am being pedantic.</comment></comment></comment>


Long-Term Exposure to Flat Design:How the Trend Slowly Decreases User Efficiency - <AUTHOR> http://www.nngroup.com/articles/flat-design-long-exposure/ <comment><USER2> Love it. Well said.

This trend of design fashions negatively impacting usability has become so blatantly visible across the web (and apps, and desktop interfaces) during this century that I've become quite curious what psychological/organisational effects are at force.

Are there historical examples of the same tendency that can be examined? Tools, signage, forms or public spaces becoming a progressively more difficult and less usable mess under the aegis of "making things easier for users"?

<comment><USER3> _Are there historical examples of the same tendency that can be examined?_

Absolutely. Look at modern architecture. Try to figure out where the entrance of a modern building is:

Old De Young: [http://photovalet.com/data/comps/CSF/CSFV13P14_15.jpg](http://photovalet.com/data/comps/CSF/CSFV13P14_15.jpg)

New De Young: [http://www.thesfnews.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/07/deYoung-...](http://www.thesfnews.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/07/deYoung-Museum.-Photo-courtesy-cisl.edu_.jpg)

Immense damage has been done in the built, visual and design world for fear of looking bourgeoisie.

<comment><USER2> > for fear of looking bourgeoisie

Nice characterisation, I might re-use that.

Surely somebody has done a study of this effect. In web and software design it's particularly hilarious (in an I-want-to-cry way) since so much good sense has been written (Tufte etc) which is completely discarded by these trends. I expect the same is true in architecture, only I'm less familiar with the literature of that domain.

<comment><USER3> I don't know of any studies, but I found "From Bauhaus to Our House" a worthwhile read:

[http://www.amazon.com/From-Bauhaus-Our-House- Wolfe/dp/031242...](http://www.amazon.com/From-Bauhaus-Our-House- Wolfe/dp/0312429142)

It discusses how Gropius started off with more of a continental arts-and- crafts outlook, but that increasing competition for the intellectual and political purist high-ground lead to what we call, despairingly, the international style.

A similar dynamic has played out with software UX: people were producing garish (but usable) UX with drop shadows, etc. and along came the anti- bourgeoisie puritans. They had a point, of course (they always do) but their solution was worse than the original problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Users are forced to explore pages to determine what's clickable. They > frequently pause in their activities to hover over elements hoping for > dynamic clickability signifiers, or click experimentally to discover > potential links. This behavior is analogous to the behavior of laboratory > rats in operant-conditioning experiments.

</comment><comment><USER5> The worst thing about this trend is it also affects usability on websites that do provide sufficient (albeit subtle) cues.

It's like raising the general UX noise level from previous experiences which over time will train people not to trust their initial instincts.

<comment><USER6> It amazes me how much time people spend on their mobile phones. Tiny screen, half of which gets taken up by a crappy keyboard (on screen keyboards are technically quite amazing, but a normal keyboard is way more usable).

If I want to book something, or basically type more than a few lines, give me a desktop (or laptop) any day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The analysis of the 'mobile footer menu' case study seems a bit misguided.

Sure, everything on that image looks about as clickable as everything else. But the user didn't click on everything -- he clicked on 'Shop', repeatedly.

Why?

The article mentions 'language' as a 'contextual clickability clue'... but language is much more powerful than the cues whose absence the page laments. The non-exist visual (un)clickability signifier doesn't help... but language is the overriding issue in that experience.

It's widely held that If something is clickable, it should have a clear & reliable 'information scent' \-- it should tell you what clicking it will do. People don't click on things because they're clickable -- they click because they think it'll do what they want.

 _The converse is also true_ \-- If something has a clear 'information scent', it should be clickable, and should do what it implies it will. Information scent makes people _want_ to click on things -- and they'll be disappointed even if they immediately realise they can't click.

In the case study, the user clicks on 'SHOP' because 'SHOP' is where he wants to go. (there is a 'shop' page on the site, BTW). Clearer styling would make the experience less bad, but the only real solution is to _make SHOP clickable_.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is my understanding of how we ended up with today's flat UIs with _less affordances_ even though many (most?) users dislike them. HN can tell me if I was told incorrectly.

1) GUIs in 1980s like MS Windows 1.0/2.0 had flat design[1]. The buttons were flat. No drop shadows. The "flatness" was not a deliberate design intention but simply the first iteration of a graphical UI to supplant text mode DOS console.

2) In 1990s, MS Windows 3.0/3.1 introduced 3-dimensional sculpted buttons. An visible improvement in UI affordances. Windows 95 further extended the 3D look where whole window edges, etc had sculpted look.

3) This era includes the Apple Mac OS X GUI ("Aqua ) that had 3D look and buttons had depth. It includes the Steve Jobs quote, "one of the design goals was when you saw it you wanted to lick it."

4) The zenith of affordances is reached with Windows Vista/7 "Aeroglass" where windows could cast translucent drop shadows on the desktop. Effects like that required heavier computation such as "alpha channels". Hardware-assisted (premium graphics card) was required. Desktop computing power (both cpu and graphics chip) to deliver all this GUI effects was not a big deal. This was the time period before "skeumorphism" became persona non grata.

4) iPhone/Android mobile phones come on the market in 2007/2008 with low- powered CPUs and precious battery life. Now, things like painting 3D heavy UI and rendering translucent drop shadows are seen as a massive extravagance. A waste of cpu & battery power. In 2012 Windows 8 and 2013 iOS 7, everybody removes the last 20 years of 3D GUI affordances and makes everything flat again.

5) To make the GUI consistent between mobile phones and desktops, Microsoft makes the desktops flat as well even though there is abundance of computing power. Therefore Windows 8/8.1 looks like Windows 1.0 again[1]. The Apple Mac OS X is also flatter but at least they kept the windows casting drop shadows.

What's interesting is that the marketingspeak from Microsoft/Apple/Google about "flat design" talks about it being "modern", "clean", and "fresh". To me, it seems like it's really all about the current limitations of mobile phone cpus and forcing a UI consistency to the desktop users. Basically, it's punishing the desktop users by enforcing the lowest common denominator across device platforms.

Hopefully, we'll get a new trend where everybody will go back to styling GUI elements with some hints of "clickability" without gratuitous skeumorphism. We just need some balance.

[1] flat UI in 1985: [https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+1.0&source=lnms&tbm=...](https://www.google.com/search?q=windows+1.0&source=lnms&tbm=isch)

<comment><USER9> You're right up to about 4). The iPhone had more power than 95-era computers and definitely could render buttons with bezels.

It's just a design fad. iPhone removed a few decorations from the GUI to make it fit better on a small screen, then people just had to out-minimalise Apple and it all culminates in Windows 10's display settings dialog where resolution settings is hidden behind a clickable "advanced settings" label typeset with tiny font in grey on grey background.

<comment><USER8> _> You're right up to about 4). The iPhone had more power than 95-era computers _

Well, Win95 computers got never-ending electricity from a wall-outlet. Mobile phones expending cpu cycles on "unnecessary" GUI styling wastes _battery_ power.

You're right about the other justification: a mobile phone's "UI buttons" shouldn't waste pixels on boundaries (e.g. bounding rectangles). It just needs to be spaced far apart enough for fingertip width. Unfortunately, this design makes it impossible to distinguish between text that's just a "status" as opposed to a button that executes an "action".

<comment><USER9> Those pixels are always drawn anyway. And a phone's biggest battery killer is the screen which... is on if you're looking at it. So, either your biggest power draw is already on, or there's no reason for you to put any pixels on screen.

<comment><USER8> _> Those pixels are always drawn anyway. _

In terms of LCD being "on" vs "off", yes, they are always "on". However, the pixels for _extra_ GUI effects must still be "computed". For example, Apple recommends that the "parallax" feature can be turned off to help conserve battery power. Parallax requires cpu computation to "draw" even though those pixels are always "on".

It's the same concept of disabling screensavers on the thousands of servers in datacenters. Even those those pixels are always on, computing the drawings in screensavers consume cpu. Multiply the waste that by thousands of servers and the company is paying extra electricity bills for no reason.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Senate report: Microsoft used loopholes to avoid billions in taxes - <AUTHOR> http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Senate-report-concludes-Microsoft--170564536.html

<comment><USER2> _A new congressional investigation claims Microsoft has been able to avoid paying $6.5-billion in taxes since 2009 thanks to the complicated tax structure in the U.S._

The role of a CFO (and his office) is to do exactly what resulted above. Build a team of accountants, lawyers, and financial analysts that makes sure that the financial health of the company is strong. "Is this a tax credit we can take advantage of, do it." "Can we legally execute this transaction and conserve millions of dollars? do it."

If these items are legal based on federal law and pass Microsoft's board's scrutiny, then why is this even an issue?

<comment><USER3> > why is this even an issue?

Because the Democrats want to press home the message that corporations and wealth are inherently evil in this election cycle, and the chairman of the committee quoted in the article is a Democrat, as the article mentions, twice.

An unfortunately large percentage of the US population apparently isn't capable of formulating the good and simple question in the last sentence of your post -- a large enough percentage that the story can attract enough eyeballs to justify its publication.

<comment><USER4> >Because the Democrats want to press home the message that corporations and wealth are inherently evil

Excuse me while I go pick up my eyes that just rolled across the floor. This isn't even remotely true - there's nothing wrong with wealth or corporations _in general_ \- but when corporations begin doing evil things in the pursuit of wealth, big surprise, people are going to complain.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every once in a while, a publication will run something like this about major companies [1][2]. It seems to be standard practice among large corporations. As a company, if you are allowed to save large amounts of money by using existing loopholes (read: things that are within the scope of the law), wouldn't you be silly not to?

[1][http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b42010431...](http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_44/b4201043146825.htm)

[2][http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax- strate...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy- aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html)

[Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft]

<comment><USER6> If you work for a public firm and know that the 'loophole' exists, I wonder if share holders could take action against you if you did NOT utilize it.

<comment><USER7> On the flip-side, how is it that publicly elected officials are not indicted or held responsible for creating these loopholes after being lobbied and end up costing their shareholders - the public, some real coin. I think of the whole thing as a closed loop ecosystem and somebody has to be losing, if a group of shareholders is gaining.

<comment><USER8> This is actually a valid question. Surprisingly, in business you can argue your incompetence shields you. The "business judgement rule"[1] says basically you are allowed to make "mistakes". But you're not allowed to be "negligent", act bad faith or whatever.

[1] In the USA, viz: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_judgment_rule>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The problem is that loopholes are largely monotonic.

Every loophole that exists was originally a political favor to some important constituency. There are always important constituencies seeking political favors, or embattled politicians or parties seeking new allies; so there will always be pressure to create new loopholes.

If a loophole's in danger of going away, its constituency will scream bloody murder. Republicans who vote to eliminate it will be painted as "raising taxes;" ever since Bush I promised not to raise taxes, raised taxes anyway, and then lost the White House, a lot of Republicans have been very afraid of this political attack. So there will always be pressure to avoid closing existing loopholes.

So loopholes are monotonic -- they can only increase over time.

The only way we could conceivably get out of this situation is if our tax code becomes so complex, everyone -- even the beneficiaries of the loopholes -- is angry and upset at the complexity and costs of paying, and decides to support throwing the whole thing out and starting fresh. This scenario probably requires a united government (same party controlling Presidency and both houses) which is willing to make the issue a priority. It's probably not going to happen in this year's election, unless a major event occurs between now and Election Day.

<comment><USER9> _The only way we could conceivably get out of this situation is if our tax code becomes so complex, everyone -- even the beneficiaries of the loopholes -- is angry and upset at the complexity and costs of paying, and decides to support throwing the whole thing out and starting fresh. This scenario probably requires a united government_

The last time it happened in 1986, the House was Democratic and the Ways And Means Committee was run by famously corrupt but effective old-time Chicago pol Dan Rostenkowski. The Senate was Republican and liberal West Coast Oregon Republican Bob Packwood was running the Senate Finance Committee. President Ronald Reagan and his tax policy chief Donald Regan were more right wing than the Koch brothers and Michelle Bachmann combined.

Together they pushed through the biggest tax reform in the nation's history.[0]

There was nothing united about US government in 1986. It's hard to imagine a political spectrum as disunited and full of genuine differences today. Nevertheless, Reagan bet his second term policy agenda on tax reform and Rostenkowski arranged an unprecedented public media campaign and put himself on television selling the Reagan idea to the people and his own party. The reform was pushed through with bipartisan support and only oil companies and employee benefits escaped unscathed. All the other pressure groups had to give for the national good.

The difference is not a united government. We had united government in 2003-04 and 2009-10 and it didn't do any good. The difference is leadership. This year we don't have much leadership available in Washington from either party and the challengers in the coming election seem even less likely to offer any.

So don't get your hopes up.

[0] Showdown At Gucci Gulch by Murray and Birnbaum is the classic book about the 1986 reform

<comment><USER10> > President Ronald Reagan and his tax policy chief Donald Regan were more > right wing than the Koch brothers and Michelle Bachmann combined

I think this is where your memory skews.

By the standards of the time, that is true.

But today? Reagan supported AMNESTY. He supported a tax reform bill that RAISED some taxes. EITC??? That's a means-tested welfare program to try to lift working poor above the poverty line.

I grew up a liberal. I still am, but I'll be honest, my idealism is tested by our tax rate and fiscal ignorance. If you have no kids or mortgage, live in California and make over 100k -- in other words if you're like most software engineers in bay area startups -- you pay an _obscene_ tax rate. And I'd even be OK with that if Sacramento and D.C. were good stewards of our tax dollars. But, of course, they're not.

Still, I have no choice but vote Democratic. I could vote 3rd party and waste my vote. But today's breed of hyper-partisan, non-fact-base Republicans just are not a serious alternative.

<comment><USER11> "Yesteryear's Republicans were reasonable. It's just this crop that's a bunch of know-nothing radical fascist reactionaries" was said in the 1980's as much as it's said today. It was said in 1994 about Newt Gingrich and Co. just a few years before they worked with President Clinton to reform welfare and balance the budget. "This is not your father's Republican party" was a favorite line of House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt, if I recall correctly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The use of the word "loopholes" indicates that Microsoft is complying with the law. The word "loopholes" also implies that Microsoft's actions aren't within the intent of the law, but the article provides no explanation on the intent of the law. So this article is an unfounded and unbalanced attack on Microsoft, no more interesting than saying "Microsoft is evil!".

<comment><USER13> I am curious about the senate committee choosing to single our Microsoft and HP in their attach, when there is ample evidence to suggest that so many other well known companies are engaging in similar practices. In 5 minutes, I came up with articles from major papers documenting 3 of the biggest companies in the US using similar practices...

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax- strate...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/business/apples-tax-strategy- aims-at-low-tax-states-and-nations.html?pagewanted=all) [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate- sho...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows- how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html) [http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon- tax-...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/04/amazon-tax- loopholes-us)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can we get back to discussing topics of a more technical nature? There are a million websites for this sort of useless unresolvable back and forth debate, ranging from Daily Kos to RCP to Human Events, any of which are better suited to this than HN.

I love a good political debate as much as the next person, and enjoy HN for the specific reason that I can avoid this sort of bullshit. And yes, I've read the guidelines and have flagged this.

</comment><comment><USER15> Moving around intellectual property rather than than profits is very very old practice for tech companies. Why repatriate profits when you can use them for R&D spending outside the USA, where there may even also be an R&D tax credit!

Moving the intellectual property out of the USA, and then using that to make US sales from anther country is pretty ballsy though.

</comment><comment><USER16> If Microsoft paid taxes unnecessarily, they would be doing a disservice to their stockholders.

</comment><comment><USER17> If only there were a governing body that had some authority to do something about these loopholes.

</comment><comment><USER18> Microsoft should run for president. Isn't this one of the qualifications?

</comment><comment><USER19> Firstly there are some simple issues that most international companies are very tax "efficient" - paying their alloyed fair share would drive most of the Fortune 500 into the red this year

I am not saying that's a bad thing but it is a hard thing

Secondly allocation of resources is soluble. - one example would be an international agreement to pool all taxes and share out to countries in proportion to employees per country, but in the end companies pay how much we are willing to let them get away with.

<comment><USER20> What are you basing your assertion that most fortune 500 would be in the red on ? Corporate profit (post tax) are at a record high (e.g. <http://elidourado.com/blog/the-short-run-is-short/>).

<comment><USER19> Partly poetic license - my apologies.

The nearest I can find is [http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/representation- without-tax...](http://www.uspirg.org/reports/usp/representation-without- taxation) citing 18% paid on expected taxes of 35%. Which makes an extra 220 bn - almost double.

Given that the avg net margin is 6.3% (see below) doubling the effective tax rate would cause significant issues - but I need more data

Plus 1 for calling me out <http://seekingalpha.com/article/428181-debunking- s-p-500-p>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> How complicated can it really be? If you're making the profit in the country, then you should pay the taxes on that profit there, not send it to another branch to avoid paying the taxes. If there isn't a law against doing that, then there ought to be one.

<comment><USER22> Part of the issue, I think, is people finding new and creative ways of "send[ing] it to another branch" and we're playing whack-a-mole because we want to ban the behavior rather than the intent.

<comment><USER23> "ban the behavior rather than the intent"

I think this sums it up quite nicely. The intent, which is encouraged by all branches and is culturally engrained (I will retrieve citations if requested), is "reduce your taxes as low as possible".

With the right advisors, corporations can do this very effectively. This should not be a surprise to anyone. They will pay less, much less. After all, that's what you encouraged them to do.

If your aim is to collect more taxes, then why encourage those being taxed to seek to reduce their tax liability as low as possible?

Forgive me if I am missing the obvious. But this to me has never made sense.

<comment><USER3> > reduce your taxes as low as possible

It's not something that's "encouraged" or "culturally ingrained." It's simply a matter of lowering your costs.

<comment><USER23> If I track down a quote from a famous US Justice from the early 1900's where he says every American is expected to try to lower their taxes, would that cause you to reconsider your view?

<comment><USER24> The "expectation" is merely because that's what any rational, self-interested person would do. I can't see how it's logically possible to escape that.

<comment><USER23> That is exactly it. And though I do not have the quote in front of me, I can tell you this is how the justice who said it approached every issue.

Maybe "encouraged" and "engrained" were not the right words. How about "endorsed"? I think rational self-interest is a concept that might vary in the degree to which it is adopted into people's behavior as you move from country to country. That's only a theory. Certainly, in the US, reducing tax liability, and doing so vigorously, is believed to be the rational thing to do.

But if I'm the taxing entity, is it rational for me to endorse the idea of paying less? That would seem to lead to a reduction in the amount I will collect as those being taxed adopt and refine their tax reduction strategies.

<comment><USER24> > But if I'm the taxing entity, is it rational for me to endorse the idea of > paying less?

It's rational for you to accept the fact that people will work to minimize their tax liability and construct policy under that assumption.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Want brand loyalty and better leads? Go against the grain - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/want-brand-loyalty-better-leads-go-against-grain-kira-leigh/ <comment><USER2> This was so refreshing to read</comment>


Apollo on steroids - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/14/science/space/14future.html

<comment><USER2> Does this mean we have to kidnap some German rocket scientists again?</comment>


China's Energetic Enforcement of Antitrust Rules Alarms Foreign Firms - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/business/international/china8217s-energetic-enforcement-of-antitrust-rules-alarms-foreign-firms.html

<comment><USER2> > "It does seem that foreign firms are the subject of a disproportionate share > of China's new enthusiasm for competition policy."

Have there been recent antitrust enforcement actions against domestic companies?

> "If China is going to be the third leg in the global antitrust regime, along > with the U.S. and the E.U., and that's clearly coming, then the key question > is, What sort of approach is China going to take?"

Excellent question. It would be helpful if NYT reviewed the differences between US and EU policy, as well as normalization efforts like TTIP, [http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open- enterprise/2013/11/tti...](http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open- enterprise/2013/11/ttip-updates-the-glyn-moody-blogs/index.htm)

<comment><USER3> Try this:

[http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-08/11/content_182839...](http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2014-08/11/content_18283977.htm)

As with all Chinese press articles, you'll have to read this understanding that there isn't a lot of context being communicated (I call it "passive defensive"). Basically, you are a domestic company, complain to a regulator about a foreign company, and they'll go after them for you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Awesome. Microsoft is proven to be a monopoly that practices unfair business practices. If any nation was serious about antitrust, Microsoft would be dismantled. The price fixing China penalized other companies for was real. Of course, state-owned businesses in China must be unfair monopolies in many cases, right?

</comment><comment><USER5> hacker news is anti-china or something?

<comment><USER3> It is obvious the gov is going after foreigners with a different standard that isn't applied to Chinese companies. I can't read the article however, since nytimes is blocked in China.

<comment><USER5> If you know usa gov makes a lot of similar obstacles for foreigner companies, you will be more neutral on this issue.

<comment><USER3> I know the US government is 100x transparent than the Chinese government on these things, which still might not be good enough, but we are talking about different worlds here.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Using Microsoft Excel as a 3D Game Engine - <AUTHOR> http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3563/microsoft_excel_revolutionary_3d_.php?print=1

<comment><USER2> Did you know that there are companies that use VBA, Microsoft Excel's extension language, for floating point numerical computations, in real life, not as a joke?

Did you know there are companies that make tens of thousands of dollars a year off the results of these computations?

How do I know this? I WORK AT ONE, OH GOD _screams like Sam Kinison_

<comment><USER3> Yeah, there's even a product out there that compiles an Excel spreadsheet into optimized machine code, and apparently people do buy it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I find the idea of non linear programming to be pretty interesting. I sort of do this in Lisp, I program in terms of specific functions, but once I'm in the function programming becomes linear. I can do this less effectively in object oriented languages such as Java, since I have to write a whole class at a time. Some might call non linear programming top down or bottom up programming, but really it's about interest point based programming. Sometimes the interest points are at the top or at the bottom, but more often they are at some intermediary point in the complex tree or graph describing how your program works.

So, a 2D layout like Excel offers much more freedom, but I wonder if sometimes you'll want a 3rd dimension? And, if that's the case, is it possible to have a programming space that supports an arbitrary N dimensions, or N-N dimensions, ad infinitum?

<comment><USER5> Sure, it's probably possible, as certain types of cellular automata are turing complete. However, I've not seen anything more complex than a logic gate--no one thinks it's practical.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Back in the day, when I was working on handhelds, icons were always defined in some nasty bit-fiddly binary format. Masking was similar hard.

I ended up building (?) an Excel spreadsheet to do it for me. In some ways, it was almost the inverse of the technique in the link:

\- one set of cells was used to "draw" the icon by filling them with "X"s

\- another set of cells would glue together the values specified by each X into appropriate 32-bit integer values

\- a final set (the coup de grace!) would grab those ints and bit twiddle them directly into a short line of legitimate c code, ready to be copied into a header file

</comment><comment><USER7> Ha! But can it ray trace?

<comment><USER8> You can render fractals from a database ( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=130971> ) and stored procedure languages are powerful enough to generate .tga files.</comment></comment>


Anonymous releases 10,365 e-mails from the Iranian government - <AUTHOR> http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6422934/Anonymous_Operation_Iran_TOP_SECRET_FILES_

<comment><USER3> 1) The emails are mostly English

2) They're primarily Visa approval/rejection notices

99% of the emails are boring, auto-send text, examples:

EMAIL A </comment><comment>

Dear frederic norbert didier Your visa request has received successfully. You application ID is:99027 You will also be notified about your application process by e-mail. Thank you.

EMAIL B </comment><comment>--

With reference to your visa application No 1000116698-1000102795 , we are glad to inform you that your request is approved under No. 901841. . After 3 working days of receiving this approval , please approach in person the Iranian Embassy / General Consulate in LAHORE . and collect your required visa . Best regards,M.F.A / Passport and Visa Office .

\</comment><comment>---

Pretty boring stuff. There is some Persian writing above the text in EMAIL B variants, so maybe that is interesting. I do not see any interesting English- text content.

<comment><USER4> It is boring in one sense, but in another way that is what makes it exciting. you and I have little or no use for this information, but it's great from an intelligence standpoint.

I'm not entirely sure about the provenance. I've often wondered if western governments use anon as a deniable vector for track II diplomacy. Either way, interesting.

<comment><USER5> Hmm, that is a good point there. I'm not so sure this intel is that useful all around outside tracking people that applied for Iranian visas.

That said, I haven't perused these emails and I don't plan to. There could easily be other patterns here worth going over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> You know, I can see real utility in a simple site that lets you upload data garnered from hacking escapades online to be easily searchable and presentable to the general public. It'd have the pastebin feature of a general press statement/greetz file as well. On non-US/EU/whatever harbors to protect from bring being easily taken down. Easy to upload massive amounts of files and can take the load from DoS attacks. Easy way to pipe massive amounts of data via shell. Is spartan so things like SQLi aren't a problem, with competent security in the backend. Basically a CableGates search site for all dox from large scale hacking events like all the high profile recent ones in this year. To make things interesting, it'd use fancy things like schemaless document stores, bitcoin payment processing and fiat-->bitcoin conversion, and other shiny things that are popular nowadays.

Pays the bills via ads and subscription-based early access to members. Also has pretty features like alerts via SMS on new uploads, easy viewing of images with jquery, auto-submitter to big news sites, etc. Could function as the role of media relative/press kit for news orgs as well.

Makes the process of rolling your own torrent of the data (hostable by thepiratebay amongst other choices) easy and deadsimple. Basically the ultimate CMS for hacking.

Whaddya think?

<comment><USER7> This is what Wikileaks was supposed to be/ originally was. Since they've changed gears a site for en masse data collection of value would be interesting, sadly the "wikileaks rivals" have no interest in this... so it's probably a good plan.

<comment><USER8> They changed gears because it turned out that passive reporting of giant fact dumps did not garner attention nor have significant impact on the world. As soon as they began taking on the role of curation or reporting on top of their cache of data, that's when things really took off (according to Assange).

<comment><USER9> Well, they certainly went from 'obscure curiosity' to 'house-hold name and infamy.'

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> See also: <http://piratepad.net/30Dz8cCdv5> (Release Notes)

<http://opiran.iranserv.com/> (Their chatroom)

<http://www.mediafire.com/?6d8bh7w4c938m4j> (The files)

<http://piratepad.net/498yehfsdk> (Discussions about vulnerable .ir servers)

<http://piratepad.net/JAI223D1jp> (Discussions about vulnerable .ir servers)

[http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/03/anonymous- steals-1...](http://thenextweb.com/industry/2011/06/03/anonymous- steals-10000-iranian-government-emails-plans-ddos-attack/) (News Article)

<comment><USER11> The second pirate pad is the most interesting (to me).

"2a. Suggestions on how to proceed I know that there is an urge to "run and gun" this, perhaps go on a mad defacing spree, or start dropping anonymous based UI icons into the site's buttons, guy fakes banners, etc. We must resist this urge. I think there is a tremendous opportunity if we get even 3 moderately popular anti-green sites. Let's look at sites A,B, and C. What we should consider, is the ability to plant stories inside A, link to them from B, and then plant stories in B, and link to A and B's stories from C - <USER2> site with the most traffic. The stories should be posted, if possible, two days ago, or yesterday, assuming a blog-like ability to set times and dates when you post. Anyway, do what suits, thiswas just a thought. We may not have the luxury of time, in which case raw vandalization may do it - just put green party banners on the home page, and "anonymous" in text at the copyright on the bottom - that is just so they don't blame the green party for the exploit."

Interesting. It seems to indicate that perhaps some of Anonymous' actors have matured, or at least were able to use the petty vandalism phase of the group as a learning process.

I can't help but feel like with Anonymous talking about planting fake news, the whole government/HBGary thing about planting fake news, etc. that in the near future there may be some (albeit minor) crisis on the internet about finding news you can trust. Until the internet figures out how to route around the damage, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Looks like Iran is doing business with several Nigerian dignitaries, helping them shift millions of US Dollars out of the country through Western Union.

What a scandal.

</comment><comment><USER13> Password for rar is: opiranopiran

</comment><comment><USER14> One of the first email: "I decided to contact you for a business transaction to transfer funds for Investment purpose"

Apparently even scam emails are TOP SECRET.

</comment><comment><USER15> At first glance it looks like thousands of really boring visa requests. Anyone find anything interesting?

<comment><USER16> yeah, one request in german with an attached zipped "passport copy" which extracts to an .exe

I don't want to know how often embassy employees actually open such .exe files.

<comment><USER17> At least once. You seem to have found the attack vector. ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Piratebay is not accessible from Italy. If you want to open the website from there use a proxy like <http://hidemyass.com/>

<comment><USER19> Or [http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon- www.cgi/http://thepirateb...](http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon- www.cgi/http://thepiratebay.org).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The majority (or all of them, I can't tell) are directed to "firstname.lastname@example.com" which seems to be related to <http://evisa.mfa.gov.ir:7780/mfa/>. That's the "Ministry of Foreign Affairs Online Electronic Visa Service"

Also, the main website (<http://mfa.gov.ir/>) is dead.

</comment><comment><USER20> What language is the content in?

<comment><USER10> It's mixed English and Persian. Majority is English.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm currently trying to see if I can find anything to do with: <http://freethehikers.org/> Josh Fattal was a friend of mine in high school. Any help is appreciated.

</comment><comment><USER14> Persian or English?

<comment><USER22> Both English and Farsi.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Password for rar is: opiranopiran</comment>


Principles of Programming Languages – Graham Hutton [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.nott.ac.uk/~pszgmh/popl.pdf <comment><AUTHOR> This is a set of lecture notes compiled for a third-year computer science course at the University of Nottingham. At a quick glance they seem surprisingly crisp and readable despite being hand-written and rather succinct. Probably a more thorough text on the matter is "Semantics with Applications: A Formal Introduction" [1]. Does anyone have any other recommendations?

[1] [http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~degiacom/CogRobCourse01/NielsonN...](http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~degiacom/CogRobCourse01/NielsonNielson.ps)</comment>


DNS Classes, or why you have "IN" in your BIND zones - <AUTHOR> http://www.miek.nl/blog/archives/2009/07/31/dns_classes/index.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Relevant RFC: [http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2929.html](http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2929.html) § 3.2 RR CLASS IANA Considerations</comment>


Top Iranian General Qassim Suleimani Is Killed on Trump's Orders, Officials Say - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/world/middleeast/qassem-soleimani-iraq-iran-attack.html <comment><USER2> A few weeks ago 5 senior pentagon officials resigned [1], probably over this. This can easily be the start of war with Iran.

[1]: [https://thehill.com/policy/defense/475205-fifth-pentagon- off...](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/475205-fifth-pentagon-official- announces-resignation-in-seven-days)

<comment><USER3> These dates don't line up with the attacks on the US military base which killed an American and heavily damaged the base plus the embassy siege which NYT reported showed tacit support from local police. It's unique in the region where the US doesn't respond to protests with mass shooting of protestors like the hundreds killed in Iraq this past month.

Hands down this is the boldest thing Trump has done since taking office and will have serious implications.

But I don't think anyone is under any illusion that both men were responsible and helped finance/support countless terrorist operations. And the Quds leader had his hands in every dirty Shiite business in the region, most notably playing a big role in suppression the revolution in Syria, bombardments of Israel from Lebanon, and constantly stirring up shit in Iraq including openly attacking Americans.

Also some 60% of the Iran economy is owned by gov connected groups and agencies including the imperial guard and Quds who all pay zero taxes and live in luxury, while jacking up gas prices on the poor when things get tough.

Not many people in the west are gong to miss this guy at all. Still the methods are quite shocking and atypical.

<comment><USER4> > These dates don't line up with the attacks on the US military base which > killed an American and heavily damaged the base plus the embassy siege which > NYT reported showed tacit support from local police. It's unique in the > region where the US doesn't respond to protests with mass shooting of > protestors like the hundreds killed in Iraq this past month.

They don't have to. This attack had been in planning for a good long time before the attacks on the US military base. You say it's unique for the region; I say that it is, because it isn't in response to any action taken. They've wanted him dead for a long time, and the US base attack was a scapegoat casus belli.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> More of basically the same post today:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942965](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942965)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942853](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21942853)

Presumably people are concerned because this may be the beginning of war.

<comment><USER6> Indeed they may be. I definitely am.

<comment><USER7> From what I've heard, this airstrike took place about 5km from the nearest US base, which seems like a reason to be optimistic if it's accurate. An accurate airstrike is impressive, I'm sure, but if an airstrike is the pentagon's best option within walking distance of a base, then perhaps they're not in shape to start a real war... and they have enough analysts to say so.

<comment><USER8> It is the least dangerous for American lives. Soldiers on the field can die. A UAV pilot can die from PTSD or whatever (as can soldiers), but not directly from taking part in the strike.

<comment><USER7> Let me put it differently. If a military force thinks sending soldiers even as little as 5km out from the base is best avoided, that military force is not in shape to start a war. The Pentagon has analysts enough to say so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone know why this post is flagged? Or why similar stories have been removed, etc?

Is it that it's off-topic?

Edit: It seems every post remaining on this story has been flagged. I imagine it's 'off-topic' but curious why other off-topic stuff hasn't warranted such a strong reaction?

<comment><USER10> Some folk insist that HN not address mainstream news or politics, though having been here over a decade I can vouch for the fact that this didn't used to be the case.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> "The United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia have targeted Soleimani for assassination for over a decade. In 2019 alone, Iran reported over half a dozen alleged plots to kill the general, the most recent of which was in early October." [1]

[1] [https://intelnews.org/2020/01/03/01-2700/](https://intelnews.org/2020/01/03/01-2700/)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm an Iranian living in the states and I hate the Islamic Republic to the bone. Islamic Republic is the evil of my era.

With that being said, I truly don't understand what the U.S. plan is at this point. Do they want to make Iran another Syria? Or Iraq? Because _everything_ they've done in this administration is aligned with one of those examples.

Basically U.S. strategy is like holding a gun to someone's head and saying "kill yourself or I will kill you".

Of course that person is gonna fight back.

I am worried about a war and I'm worried the U.S. population doesn't slightly care about government's actions outside the country. And the U.S. has been acting quite hostile for many years now.

This is truly sad news. Not because I liked or cared about that genocidal motherfucker. Because Islamic Republic is (probably) gonna have to respond.

I think there are 2 important questions:

1\. Can Iran retaliate this?

2\. Are they willing to?

I think the answer to this question 1 is, yes, they can. Shadow of war has been on Iran for more than a decade now and Iran has strong influence in Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm pretty much sure they have plans ready to attack U.S. targets in case of war. Because of course Iran cannot defend itself against U.S. in a classic war.

But hopefully, the answer to question 2 is, No. Supreme leader Khamenei understand that if they try to "really" retaliate this, the war may be imminent. And over all these decades he has shown that he is afraid of war and he would step back if necessary.

But again, we've never been this close to a war. At this point any side can miscalculate the other one's reaction.

Another point I want to make: Islamic Republic is not a match for the U.S. obviously. But you have to remember: Their pain threshold is quite different.

Islamic Republic may lose a general or a thousand soldiers. They can take it. But if Islamic Republic responds back with a few bombings and killing of a few American diplomats, it's enough to make it a full-blown national disaster for both the administration and the country.

I'm sorry about the long post. I'm afraid for my home country, family and friends who are already crushed and destroyed by the sanctions and are now threatened by war and I'm not necessarily level-headed.

<comment><USER13> Thank you for sharing your perspective.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> The status quo in the region is that Iran is winning and the USA is not winning. Perhaps this is an attempt to provoke Iran into making errors, but I doubt that will happen.

I think not much will (visibly) happen. The USA will keep on not winning, because they don't have any Soleimanis. Have you heard American generals speak? It's all TED Talk level BS. Decadence is a powerful force.

</comment><comment><USER15> Is it a coincidence that Trump just happens to be in the middle of an impeachment right now and he's chosen to start a war?

<comment><USER16> Good point and IMO the answer is no. Its a game that many presidents (from both sides) running for a second term have played in the past.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> On HN I keep politics low, but since I found the story here first, I'll opine Trump may have just bought the farm.</comment>


Screen Credit Card Processors By Gateway - <AUTHOR> http://transfs.com/blog/transfs-lets-merchants-screen-credit-card-processors-by-payment-gateway/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really big deal - now you can evaluate gateways purely on their technical merits, _then_ go and find the best deal on the (commodity) merchant account. If you're using ActiveMerchant on Rails, then you _really_ can find great deals since you'll even be indifferent to the gateway (incidentially, AM is why I'm learning Ruby instead of Python).

<comment><USER2> You're picking a language based on a single library?

Look out, world.

<comment><USER3> This happens all the time.

If you need to do numerical analysis in a scripting language, you pick python because it has numpy.

I once had to make a QR Code reader and writer back when it was only seen in Japan and the only library available was for Java, so I picked that.

Recently I had some ruby code that parsed a file, but I needed to pump it into a proprietary database with only a JDBC connection... so I picked JRuby.

Often picking a new language is much easier than rewriting a particular library.</comment></comment></comment>