Mini-LED, Micro-LED and OLED displays: present status and future perspectives - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41377-020-0341-9 <comment><USER3> One elephant in the room that wasn't mentioned:

Samsung is years ahead of anybody with self emissive quantum dots, and new types of TFT matrices.

Samsung can commercialise cheap self emissive qdots within 2-3 years if they want, and then microleds will be automatically obsolete, probably with exception of displays for VR goggles.

Samsung has another ace in the sleeve they don't get public about: they know a trick how to grow GaN leds on amorphous substrates. Their papers from 2012 showed them being in a quite advanced stage already.

If they can get advanced with the later, they can not only bust the display market, but pretty much everything LED.

If LEDs can be grown on a much cheaper, and less finicky substrate than sapphire, we can talk about them getting n-times cheaper.

<comment><USER4> So if samsung is so ahead, why aren't we seeing it in present displays? Is it because it's too expensive? Or are they hoarding it for a rainy day?

<comment><USER5> If the technology is so much better it doesn't make sense to horde it. Put it out there and dominate the market. The longer you sit on it the longer you give your competitors to develop similar or better alternatives and waste your advantage.

The most likely answer is that they can't be manufactured at scale for reasonable price points currently.

<comment><USER3> You should probably tell that to Mr. Lee :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Very excited for the new display technologies on the horizon. Sure, current Tv's and Monitors are pretty good, but I can't wait to see the picture quality that we're going to get. Linus Tech Tips has a pretty easy to understand video (much higher level though) on this stuff. He goes into the manufacturer roadmap which I think is pretty good to know in terms of the time horizon for these technologies. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTTiQeXXrhI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTTiQeXXrhI)

<comment><USER7> Thanks, that was an excellent video.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This report doesn't seem to mention burn-in directly. This is IMHO the achilles heel of the current crop of OLED TVs. This is a very hidden fact. Everyone talks about how great they are and say they're the hands-down winner among popular TVs but after having owned one for 2 years it displayed horrible burn-in. They are fantastic while they last then they are awful. It would be nice to know how mLeds, uLeds, and the new tech sizes up for burn-in.

<comment><USER9> Seriously it is not. I have a LG C9 and bought it after recommendation from friends who game on theirs. If you are going to leave it on the same screen all day long there are better choices, like having it on a new station that has a permanent ticker or channels which insist on a permanent logo.

You have to go out of your way to force burn in, there has been some good 3rd party testing [0]

Oh, as for the TV, the colors are astounding and its thinness is just a bit on the silly side, seriously from one third on up from the base it is as thick as iPad

I expect micro LED to over take it one day but for now if you are a movie aficionado there is no subsistute, this is especially true when dealing with letter boxed movies as there is no bleed into the black borders

[0] [https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in- test](https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/real-life-oled-burn-in-test)

<comment><USER10> C9 is still pretty new, isn't it? My C6 burn in is awful.

<comment><USER11> I have a C7 and after running it maybe 4-5 hours / day average I haven't seen burn-in. If anything, not watching cable news is an improvement to our lives and when I eventually upgrade I can use it for gaming and not mind that the burn-in is happening for anything remotely serious. LG's input and panel latency with OLED is quite an exception and is one reason I paid for such a panel.

<comment><USER12> Another C7 user here checking in, had it for almost 3 years now - <USER2> 5hrs/day of mixed use TV/movies and it's still awesome.

No sign of burn-in and I check it with color slides every few months. I think the C6 panels were much more prone to burn in than C7.

Some people with C7 panels had problems with a bug where the automatic compensation program does not run which greatly accelerates burn in, but I believe LG is replacing TVs for people who get that.

My C7 looks absolutely stunning with good sources 4k/HDR.

I'm happy with my purchase every day and would never think about going back to crappy LCD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm somewhat disappointed in the lack of progress on OLEDs the last few years. For TVs, LG is the only company that actually produces panels, every single OLED TV uses their panels. And even though there are new models every year, all OLED TVs of the last few years use the same old panel.

<comment><USER14> That is not true at all. While LG is the only OLED TV panel manufacture on the market, they have been making progress every year in their WOLED panel. And many more technical innovations in the pipeline. And older panel drop in price as they improve yield, that is why you start seeing affordable OLED. They differ in colour accuracy, refresh rate, QA, max brightness etc. To say they are the same panel every year give very little credit to LG's WOLED engineering.

<comment><USER15> Max brightness progress is marginal at best for the past 4-5 years.

<comment><USER16> I've never looked at my C9 and thought "I wish it was brighter". Does seem to bother some people though so YMMV.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> One major question I have: how come we haven't seen any innovations to desktop monitors? Most of the innovations come first to TV's and smartphone displays. It seems like the pace of desktop monitor innovation is slower.

<comment><USER18> I'm more interested in why TVs and monitors are considered separate markets. The difference between a TV and a monitor is software, and maybe a display port input for the highest resolutions or refresh rates. This large TV I use as a monitor is great, apart from lack of suspend and an annoying banner that pops up every time the resolution or audio inputs change. And much cheaper, assuming I could find a 43" 4k computer display at all in my region.

<comment><USER16> Spot on. I switched to a 40" 4k Phillips VA panel (BDM4065) a few years back and can't imagine switching back to anything smaller. Quite cheap, too. Might not be suitable for colour-sensitive work but perfectly serviceable for VS Code and a browser.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very interesting. One thing I don't fully understand is the difference between mLED and uLED. As I understand, mLED have a an array of separately controllable backlights, but what exactly is uLED?

<comment><USER19> miniLED means that they place small LED's that are basically equivalent to the present level of LED technology behind an LCD array. So instead of the normal LCD backlight design where you shoot LED light sideways from the LCD module edge into a series of films that direct the light from the sideways direction to the normal viewing axis direction, the LED's are placed in a regular grid behind the LCD array itself, but you need a large number of these mini LED's to cover the entire surface of the display panel, as well as some diffusers to reduce hotspots. The main advantage is that the peak brightness you could get using this technique could be quite high. And in a sense you can get high contrast ratios by selectively dimming certain zones. So comparing two zones the contrast can be quite high, but comparing within a zone the contrast ratio is still the same as a normal LCD. uLED means that you are attempting to place one LED chip for every pixel. Equivalent to how they build those large LED signs at sports arenas. In the smart phone situation, the LED chips would need to be crazy small -- on the order of say 10-50 microns -- so the name uLED (microLED) makes sense.

<comment><USER20> FALD has been a thing long since before mled was spun up. As far as I can tell, mled is just a marketing term for slightly higher number of dimming zones.

<comment><USER21> If the number of dimming zones approaches the number of pixels, that could make a pretty big difference.

<comment><USER20> Approaches, but very slowly. Jumping from 1000 zones to 10000 zones might seem impressive, but it is still pretty far cry from 8+ million pixels of a typical 4k screen.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> One problem I see with microLED's taking off is that the primary parameter the microLED design helps with is power for a given brightness. If the uLED tech costs more than a normal smartphone display (seems to be likely to be true for some time) then getting improved power efficiency I'm not sure would cause a big wave of adoption similar to what has happened with OLED over the past 3-4 years. OLED compared to LCD tends to have both better color gamut and contrast ratio, and when using dark mode UI's the power savings can be pretty high. Hard to see how uLED would be able to differentiate itself from OLED except for showing HDR images in a power efficient way. I'm probably missing something else about why uLED is good though?

<comment><USER3> > I'm probably missing something else about why uLED is good though?

The fancy VR/AR goggles category. It's pretty much the one, and only way to make battery powered goggles usable outdoors.

The one who gets there first with patents wins the game.

<comment><USER22> Also the "doesn't degrade/burn-in/shift whitepoint after a year of ordinary use" category.

<comment><USER23> This is the main concern I think. It's what's always being brought up with OLEDs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Why not sandwich two LCDs together — one B&W lower resolution, and then the 4K color one? Align them so one B&W pixel switches for the three sub pixels of RGB.

<comment><USER25> People want HDR. hard to make a brighter display by removing _more_ light.

<comment><USER26> They also want better black levels that oled provides. Its relatively easy to get lcds bright, but then the black level suffers.

But yeah, ive read these dual layer lcds are horribly inefficient power wise.

<comment><USER27> how do you get blacker than 'no light emitted' when the oled pixel is off? in other words, how does a light bulb in your desk lamp produce less light than zero?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Please already replace the LED LCD of the last 20 years, whose backlight bleed is ridiculously bad.</comment>


Wells Fargo uncovers up to 1.4M more fake accounts - <AUTHOR> http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/31/investing/wells-fargo-fake-accounts/index.html <comment><USER2> So one of the things I did for my project was to scan headlines related to corporate ethics, so I could start listing overviews of a company's record in this area.

Needless to say, Wells Fargo has pretty much been filling its own page in ways that no other company has been able (with the exception of Uber): [https://suitocracy.com/company/wells- fargo](https://suitocracy.com/company/wells-fargo)

Seeing it all laid out like that really makes me wonder how it still gets by with so few consequences.

<comment><USER3> My mom worked for Wells, after it aquired Wachovia, which prior acquired the other bank she worked for...

She said they were the most corrupt orgs she had worked with. Specifically, the Wachovia Construction Loan dept - then later Wells...

All corrupt.

<comment><USER4> Just imagine if this were just "how things worked at TBTF banks"? I would not be surprised at all.

<comment><USER3> I assume that it is

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> No, they aren't fake accounts, they're real accounts, inflicted on customers against their will and without their knowledge, and they come with real damage.

<comment><USER6> I'm similarly fascinated by the use of the passive voice when they are describing Wells Fargo committing more crimes. Imagine if the crime was committed upon them instead: "Bank robber uncovers that he robbed bank for more money than originally admitted."

<comment><USER7> That's not passive voice.

<comment><USER8> Something like passive voice was used in that comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This CNN article has an autoplaying video. All of my attempts to find a way to block the offending content have failed; it starts blocked, but as soon as I scroll down the page, some javascript animation moves the non-existent video to the sidebar. The side-video is hidden, but still loads and plays audio.

Even worse, though I remember the original video being a mere 14 seconds, it is _still playing_ some nonsense. Does it just loop new video downloads until I close the tab? Is there no mercy for bandwidth? [/frustrated]

<comment><USER10> This abomination needs to stop. Bloomberg.com does this too and it's infuriating.

<comment><USER11> Mute every new domain with an unmuted whitelist addon would be nice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If this were a crime being committed by an individual on the same scale, what could that person expect to receive for a sentence? I really don't know the answer to that and I'm curious, but I strongly suspect that fines wouldn't be in it and it would be more of a custodial sentence.

<comment><USER13> Wells Fargo claims it isn't the leadership - it is just a few thousand bad apple low-level employees and they have been fired.

[http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo- create...](http://money.cnn.com/2016/09/08/investing/wells-fargo-created- phony-accounts-bank-fees/index.html)

<comment><USER14> I find it interesting when organizations use the 'few bad apples'analogy for this kind of thing.

The full statement is 'A few bad apples spoil the barrel' \- which comes from the concept that a rotting apple lets off ethylene gas which will cause the apples surrounding it to also turn.

This is probably a better analogy than intended for the companies that incorrectly use it since bad behavior spreads like a corrupting influence through an organization and fixing it would really require larger changes than just getting rid of a couple people.

<comment><USER15> There's also the delightful expression: "A fish rots from the head down."

I'm deeply skeptical of the claim that you can have a few _thousand_ instances of "rot" without there being somewhere higher in the company it's being spread from. If 1% of the company is "rotting", then something in leadership is "rotting".

<comment><USER16> When you have a _thousands_ of "rotten apples" it's clearly a systemic problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> At some point, the "disconnect" between shareholders (even and as, on a massive scale -- especially and specifically these "too big to fail" institutions) and their businesses needs to be breached. Businesses with chronic, systemic wrong-doing need to be put down. Wells Fargo is a prime, current candidate.

If this were a Democratic administration, or a rational Republican one, I'd say, it's time for the FDIC (too bad Sheila Bair's no longer its head) to come in, take over, and sell off Wells Fargo.

And that we have a Savings and Loan type investigation and prosecution, flipping the smaller fish until we get to the top and lock them up. (And strip them of their ill-gotten personal assets.)

At this point, shareholders should be well informed as to where their growth and profits are coming from. If they want to invest in such behavior, they should equally reap the results, in financial terms.

In other, if currently unrealistically ideal words, " _No one_ is above the law."

At _some_ point, you have to act to effectively put the brakes on such behavior. Otherwise, it takes over.

<comment><USER18> > If this were a Democratic administration, or a rational Republican one, I'd > say, it's time for the FDIC (too bad Sheila Bair's no longer its head) to > come in, take over, and sell off Wells Fargo.

#1) but you didn't when it was a democratic administration

#2) why does the party of the president determine what you would say?

The history of too big to fail is littered with discarded ethics and increasing moral hazard on both sides of the aisle (80s, 90s, 00s, and 10s).

<comment><USER17> I did say this. And I was increasingly disappointed in the Democrats' "weak tea" responses.

It's a good point about "administration", too. I used it as a poor and incorrect stand-in for "majority".

At this point in time, I see some sort of corrective action as more likely from the Democratic side or from those Republicans who do not equate "conservative" with an ideology of personal greed and self-interest. For one point, systemic criminal behavior that also abuses your customer base, does _not_ tend to conserve the institution -- unless it is or is granted quasi- monopoly status where those affected have no means of redress -- nor perhaps meaningful, better alternatives (e.g. an oligarchy of corruption, such as existed in the mortgage and mortgage-backed-securities market leading up to the 2008 crash).

Anyway, yeah, I fear even more our chances in the face of "the majority's" drive to neuter and dismantle existing law and regulation. But I don't believe either side has had too much interest in substantially, not to mention fully, addressing these problems. Not since..... Well, I guess since Carter. And the now seemingly anomalous prosecution of the Savings and Loan scandal in the latter '80's.

Mine's a rather limited perspective. But the string of incidents -- story after story about institutions getting off with fines that pale in comparison to their profits (those at the expense of often massive externalized costs) -- seems pretty apparent.

And actual jail time, as a result of the Savings and Loan malfeasance, did seem to at least produce a "tap on the brakes", for a short time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://newrepublic.com/article/144144/give-wells-fargo- corp...](https://newrepublic.com/article/144144/give-wells-fargo-corporate- death-penalty)

Our government granted Wells Fargo's corporate charter, and it can take it away.

<comment><USER20> I've been arguing the gov use that threat for a while now, nice to see I'm not the only one. I got the idea reading about the British and Dutch east India companies, as the charter was the sword of Damocles the gov had over the companies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> While we consider Wells Fargo's ethical failures, worth noting that one of the startup darlings, Stripe, relies on Wells Fargo:

[https://stripe.com/wells-fargo/legal](https://stripe.com/wells-fargo/legal)

<comment><USER22> That is an agreement with Wells Fargo's Canadian branch/subsidiary. Wells Fargo Canada appears to provide services solely to businesses (i.e. no retail banking) so I believe that this subsidiary has nothing to do with Wells Fargo retail branches behaving unethically.

<comment><USER23> This is the kind of comment that just blows my mind (in a good way) when I read it. How do you suddenly just discover facts like this? Do you research it or do you just happen to know it beforehand? If it were me I would have just assumed it's the same Wells Fargo; it wouldn't have occurred to me to check that it's the one in Canada.

<comment><USER22> I clicked through and read the first sentence of the second paragraph:

 _This Wells Fargo Addendum constitutes a legal agreement between you, Stripe, and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., Canadian Branch ("Wells Fargo")._

Then, I googled "Wells Fargo Canada" and found their website: [http://www.wellsfargo.ca/locations](http://www.wellsfargo.ca/locations)

The first sentence on their website is: _Our team in Canada is dedicated exclusively to mid-sized and larger companies._

<comment><USER23> Wait, what? That's not what I see:

> This Wells Fargo Addendum constitutes a legal agreement between you, Stripe, > and Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and Wells Fargo Merchant Services, L.L.C. > (collectively, "Wells Fargo").

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Seems like forensic analysts did not do such a good job the first time. I wonder how could 1.4M fake accounts be missed when you do an audit looking for ... fake accounts?

<comment><USER25> Were I a gambling man I'd wager either the analysis was incompetent by design from the very beginning, or the analysis was fine but the numbers were cherry picked to be technically accurate but utterly misleading to the public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> All these headlines are way overblown by the media. If you think this type of behavior is restricted to wells fargo (like the media is making it seem), you're wrong. They just got caught.

The total damages done to wells custormers are in the low millions, while wells fargo makes upwards of 20 billion a year. What I'm saying is it's a product of a bad incentive system--not criminal master planning by the managements to raise profits.

<comment><USER5> That's the beauty of a "bad incentive system" that is designed by management: plausible deniability.

This was the execution of evil master planning by management, which included indirect rather than direct instruction. They knew that what they rewarded would get done, no matter the law.

<comment><USER7> Seems like a lot of work to make a few million dollars. Not to mention downside risk.

<comment><USER5> And yet here we are, discussing a thing that I seriously doubt happened by random chance. Was there an internal forum where the thousands of bad apples came up with this? Or were they reacting to obvious and enforced management preferences?

<comment><USER7> It's pretty obviously bank tellers had perverse incentives. But I'm not sure it's so very different than a company that pays the QA a bonus for every bug found, then wonders why the bug tracker is filled with crap.

<comment><USER27> The difference is that filing fake bugs isn't theft.

<comment><USER18> Yes, it is, just as much as creating fake accounts is.

The difference is just that you're stealing from your employer, instead of your employer's customers.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The problem with Objective C - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4589698/cocoa-convert-string-playername-into-player-name/

<comment><USER2> I don't see what the problem is. Care to elaborate?

</comment><comment><USER3> Editorialized title, but the "problem" seems to be that the (HN) submitter expects to be able to use Obj-C without having even a basic understanding of C.

Yes, that won't work.

</comment><comment><USER4> CamelCase and code generation don't mix

</comment><comment><USER5> Added missing homework tag. You're welcome.</comment>


Ask YC: Review my webapp (crm/notebook/toy) - <AUTHOR>

This is a very lightweight CRM/Notebook.
http://www.mucrm.com
A couple of weekends ago I built this (~20 hrs).  It was at first for myself (just a notebook really) and it evolved into a bit more.
It now has some import features (gmail contacts via most recently updates, and plaxo contact widget, which will work with anything) twitter integration, and OpenID, which I think makes it very useful as a tool.
I plan on charging $1.50/mo, but I'm going to open it up to HN users this week to signup forever for free. (thanks for being beta users!)
I know some things that you're going to say, so I'm going to address them already:
-Yes, you can signup with openID.
-Yes, you have to signup before you can use it.
-Yes, it's going to get a complete makeover by a pro designer before anybody pays to use it.
-If you want to use OpenID, it will take you to the buy page, once you're there, e-mail me (email@example.com) and I'll activate your account manually.
If you want a regular un/pw account, just use the buy code 'hackernews' to by-pass the paypal stuff.
Thanks in advance <comment><USER2> the main page leads to "The page you are looking for cannot be found". So, not a good start, but these things happen.

Then i tried logging in with openid, and that failed too.

So, i can't try it. and I can't say your description of 'CRM/Notebook' really gives me a good idea of how you are differentiating.

A demo video would be great, and is pretty much a must have for anything that a user doesn't understand in two seconds.

I think you spend more on managing a $1.50/mo charge than it is worth. I think you need to take a closer look at your business model and pricing. You should be able to figure out a way to provide a service and a way to monetize it where it is either free, or the user finds enough value that they would pay more than $1.50 for it. To me, $1.50 says that you aren't really valuing the app much.

Don't think about how much time you put into the app, or how much you'll make if you got 50,000 users. Think about it as how much value you are adding to your users and charge accordingly.

Are you the next SalesForce.com? I did a quick google search on CRM licensing and it seems companies are charging $10-40/month. So why are you so cheap?

<comment><AUTHOR> RE: Main page... Whoops: fixed (my session was preventing me from seeing that..)

What issue were you having with openid? what provider? I've tried clickpass and myopenid.com, as well as a custom server built on the JanRain Library, and they all worked. (What should happen when you try to login with oid is to get the 'buy' page.. at that point, don't subscribe, e-mail me and I'll manually approve your account.)

The video idea is good, as a 15-30 sec video could explain just about everything, but I'll probably wait until the design is finished.

I don't plan on managing this much, other than possibly adding the most requested features, and upkeep. It's 100% a side project.

I feel like I could charge more, but I don't really have reason to. The differentiator is that it is cheap, simple, and light on features.

I don't need to make money on this, I just made an app for myself, and then decided to let others use it.

Thanks much.

<comment><USER2> SO i took a look at the video you posted, and because it says "screen replay demo" across the screen and you didn't do an voice over and even at full screen, the whole thing is so small, it is impossible to understand what you are offering and why I would use it.

My point about the price was that it is such a small amount that it is probably going to be more trouble for you to charge it than it is worth. If this is just a side project and you don't need/want to make money from it, then give it away. If you want to make a bit, I would charge more if you can justify it.

The openid issue was my error, sorry about that. I just tried logging in with openid and it takes me right to giving you my paypal details to charge. Nope, not gonna happen. I don't think you'll get any users like that without documentation, demos, trials, etc. Saying I can cancel at any time up to two weeks and not get charged just doesn't cut it.

No more for you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I second pedalpete 100%.

Additionally, I would like to be able to see what the app does for me before signing up. Maybe that's a live demo, at least a good intro video, but so many new apps roll by on HN and other sites that I usually won't make an account unless I'm already really interested. I suspect that last bit is true for a lot of people.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, I'll definitely do a video, and a live demo wouldn't be too hard.

If there is any real interest (i.e. other people would use this besides me) I'd consider a live demo.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> While I can't edit the main post anymore: I've re-worked OID so that for the time being, using your OID takes you directly to your account, no e-mailing me required.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I've now posted a _very_ provisional video without sound that shows baseline functionality.</comment>


Mentor organizations for Google Summer of Code 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://summerofcode.withgoogle.com/organizations/ <comment><USER2> I was a student in 2012 and this year I'm mentoring for the first time. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity of strong mentorship when I didn't have much Open Source experience.

<comment><USER3> Ditto - I did it for two years (2007, 2008) and the people I met working for the Mono Project are folks I've worked with or just became friends with. It was a great experience and has paid off in much bigger ways since.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Can old people get into this somehow if they are still learning?

<comment> 2-m3m3n70 I do not believe there are any age restrictions but you have to be a student (but any type of student is fine so you typically have older PHD students who participate).

<comment><USER5> Not any type of student- you have to be enrolled or accepted for the fall term into an accredited university.

Students learning other ways are not allowed to participate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is there an expected time commitment? I'm working through school while working full time, but would really like to start working on larger side projects. Although, I don't want to make a commitment I can't follow through on.

<comment><AUTHOR> From the FAQ [0]:

"You are expected to spend around 30+ hours a week working on your project during the 3 month coding period. If you already have an internship, another summer job, or plan to be gone on vacation for more than a week during that time, GSoC is not the right program for you this year."

However, it isn't exactly like an open ended job for the summer. There is a process by which students and organizations agree on a project for the summer so it is goal oriented.

[0]: [https://developers.google.com/open- source/gsoc/faq](https://developers.google.com/open-source/gsoc/faq)</comment></comment>


See all the web bugs tracking you - Ghostery - <AUTHOR> http://www.ghostery.com/ <comment><USER2> The term "bug" is too confusing. I thought for a while when reading your page that I point this service at my website and it somehow searches for errors in the programming. I only kept reading because I wanted to figure out what neat trick you had for that.

I get the spy novel reference now, but I think it's just too abstract and too close to a conflicting term to be of use. Especially when there are terms for that (spyware, cookies) that everyone knows already. Don't reinvent the wheel.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment, enjoy your blog.

Not looking to reinvent the wheel. Old dinosaurs like myself will remember that the term "web bugs" was in use long before "spyware" and "adware" became popular terms.

<comment><USER2> I do love the pac man theme.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Calling them bugs is just trying to spread FUD. I think a link to a slightly less biased discussion would be better. With clear reasons why they are used, what benefits they have for users, etc

The EFF link used is stupidly outdated and pretty much irrelevant these days - "there is no method of distinguishing Web Bugs from spacer GIFs which are used on Web pages for aligment purposes."

In any event, the use of them is simply because it's easier and less prone to error than the webserver doing the call itself (Also harder for webmasters to tamper etc).

For instance, you could easily setup your webserver to send over information about each visitor to quantcast, doubleclick, google etc etc, and the user would never know. The only issue with that approach would be that quantcast etc would need to trust that the IP etc you're providing is correct, and you're being truthful in terms of page views etc.

You know what the easiest thing for an advertising network to do would be though? Setup some innocent domains, and host prototype.js etc there. Then tell large websites that use the ad network (Under NDA or something) to innocently link to that version of prototype.js.

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually not trying to spread FUD at all. I'm the founder of one of the companies detected, Lookery.com, before that Compete.com, which relied on 3rd party clickstream sources.

It's not the data that is sent that is a reason for concern but the "cookies" attached to that data especially when unified across sites.

Anyway the reason to use the tool is to alert you to what the page your on might be doing. I.e. Visit any popular newspaper site and you'll that beyond web analytics trackers and ad networks your data is being sent to behavioral tracking companies like Tacoda and Revenue Science.

Thanks for the comment, ;dc

<comment><USER3> But considering the fact that you can view a users history with simple css link color hacks...

I'm skeptical though. I think the people who are worried about this sort of thing will likely be already using adblock or disabling javascript, 3rd party cookies, 3rd party scripts etc etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your totally right. If your worried about web bugs you can and probably already run tools like you mentioned.

Ghostery is for those of us, like me, who just want to know what ad networks, widgets and other web bugs the sites I visit are using.

Cheers, David

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now that's some clever concepting and branding: the allusion to Pac Man is very cute. Maybe take the idea further and tell people more specifically what they "really" are: Ghost Scripts something of the like instead of calling them web bugs.

<comment><USER5> The linked page to EFF is very informative actually. After reading ghostery.com, I had no idea what this was about. The EFF page made it clear to me. (I actually never really thought about that problem before)

I think ghostery.com should explain better what it is on their own page. The small text sounds as if web bugs are a good thing.

On a related note, it seems to me that advertising companies like DoubleClick aren't in the news as much as they could. I feel like I never hear anything about them, and in particular in terms of privacy issues, while they should be amongst the first to be suspected and talked about. No?

<comment><USER6> Then the "free" world on the net is more Orwellian, than you could imagine in your wildest dream. All the scare stories about China internet surveillance are a joke in comparison to what goes by in the name of advertising. And this is the trouble with GOOG, and zeitgeist:

"It's data that's practically a printout of what's going on in your brain: What you are thinking of buying, who you talk to, what you talk about." \--Kevin Bankston, staff attorney, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Add to this GOOG CEO's AAPL board membership and their 1984 Superbowl ad, and be scared to death with the alu macbook digital restriction management.

ps: DoubleClick is related to GOOG (layoffs); the latter also swept up urchin.js -- look for this program on your PC, and dig into what it does. Far more than a "stray" pixel.

As to understand why this fuss about advertising: it is an extremely latent and powerful means of exercising power. I would suggest Adam Curtis, Century of the Self in particular. (e.g. from Brewster Khale's archive.org)

<comment><USER6> For those who vote down: take your time to also put down what is factually wrong; or what is untrue nor real in the above.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The linked EFF page seemed to have "Doubleclick" bug! Then I realized that it is flagged for just having "ad.doubleclick.net" in the text.

Anyway, this is a good tool... Thank you.

</comment><comment><USER8> Their "No Spyware" image links to <http://www.siteadvisor.com/sites/ghostery.com> , which says only that the website is queued for testing.

Since it is a Firefox extension, you can just open up the package and look at the JavaScript (my quick perusal saw nothing out of the ordinary). Still, it would be nice if they said "Ghostery parses the web pages you visit to find web bugs" or something.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your right I'm waiting for them to review the site. I meant to link to our softpedia "clean" page, [http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/Ghostery- Clean-115003.htm...](http://www.softpedia.com/progClean/Ghostery- Clean-115003.html)

But your right, being an extension you can just peruse the source yourself.

I like your description better than mine, I'll change it to something a little easier to understand. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very nice. The logical extension would be to allow easy blocking of certain bugs and/or blocking all bugs on certain sites.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good idea. Thanks for checking it out.

David

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comments. I'll incorporate everyone's feedback in the next version.

I plan on adding the ability to click on any of the web bugs and find out more about that bug. The pages that you land on will be on a wiki so they'll be open to additions.

<comment><USER10> excellent idea for a feature add.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Great idea! Is there a Safari version planned?

<comment><AUTHOR> A bookmarklet version is on its way which will work on any browser, including Safari.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> holy ho ho ho xmas <http://www.listenarabic.com></comment>


Self Sabotage: The Swiss History of Rigging Vital Infrastructure to Explode - <AUTHOR> https://99percentinvisible.org/article/designed-for-demolition-why-the-swiss-rigged-critical-infrastructure-to-explode/ <comment><USER2> The Swiss system is soooo interesting in many respects.

Most citizens are army reserve and regularly go for training. Many own a war weapon at home (that is strictly forbidden to take out without orders)

They also have underground air bases that allow plane to take off from national roads and that are designed to resist nuclear bombings:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=296&v=vEOLonBfaD...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=296&v=vEOLonBfaD8&t=5m)

The main idea behind Switzerland's defense is that it is doable to conquer it, but it is very costly for very little gains. It is said that banks vaults of gold are mounted on trains that are designed, in case of alert, to run into underground tunnels that collapse behind them. Taking months to recover.

This is really an interesting system probably tied tightly with their democratic system.

<comment><USER3> > Many own a war weapon at home (that is strictly forbidden to take out > without orders)

That's not entirely true. You can take your own military weapon and use it in your free time on a shooting range or event.

You don't even need a special permission to do so.

<comment><USER4> And those weapons somewhat regularly feature in suicides and "family tragedies".

<comment><USER5> No they don't. We Swiss are a little more responsible with our guns than Americans.

<comment><USER3> They certainly did:

> In 83.1% (n = 1112) of the 1338 suicides by firearm between 2000 and 2010 in > Switzerland, the firearm could be categorised as an army weapon or a non- > army weapon. The army weapon was used in 39.1% of these suicides.

[https://smw.ch/article/doi/smw.2018.14646](https://smw.ch/article/doi/smw.2018.14646)

But that is not surprising. Suicides often happen out of an impulse and then people use the best available and easiest accessible means to kill themselves. And an army weapon fulfills those conditions much better than anything else people have at home.

I don't know if there are already newer studies that take into account that the ammunition isn't storaged at home anymore.

I also couldn't find any numbers on "family tragedies".

<comment><USER6> Can they simply buy ammo for it somewhere else?

<comment><USER3> Yes, you can easily buy ammo. But again, most suicides are not really planned. The studies about suicides are quite consistent that only about 10–15% of attempters eventually die by suicide.

That means if you don't have an effective way of ending your life at hand, it's likely that you will not try again successfully.

If you need ammunition, you are not likely to go out and get it. That's inconvenient and even if you go out and want to get it, that takes time in which you might reconsider.

<comment><USER7> It's worth noting that this is a trend, not a black and white rule. Some people _do_ plan it ahead of time, in some form or another.

E.g. my uncle specifically bought rope and carabiners prior to his suicide, and, apparently, had googled instructions on how to tie a noose several days ahead of the actual thing.

<comment><USER6> I imagine it comes in waves. And even if one wave just pushes someone to the point that buys ammo, the next has to push it only to load the gun, and the final one just has to push it to pull the trigger a little harder. :/

Though I have no data about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The article doesn't mention it, but the bunkers here in Switzerland are serious structures. From the WSJ: "A Swiss shelter must withstand an impact of a 12-megaton explosion at a distance of 700 meters (765 yards). ..." [1].

Also, a lot of town/cities have a fully redundant water distribution system. In Zurich, for instance, the water coming out of the 100s of fountains you see around town comes from either of these and they are swapped regularly [2].

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304231204576405...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304231204576405700994655570)

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGyHJ- xmcuc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGyHJ-xmcuc)

<comment><USER9> A quick check on Nukemap suggests that a 12MT explosion at ground level produces a crater 210m deep and with a radius of 0.88km at the outer edge so that requirement seems a bit optimistic....

[https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/](https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/)

<comment><USER10> Nuclear warheads are not designed to be detonated at ground level. The optimum burst height for maximum damage (presumably not to bunkers, but to other structures) goes up with the bomb yield. For megaton yields that altitude will be several km.

<comment><USER9> For soft targets (e.g. cities) an air burst would be used - but for hard targets a ground burst (or even penetration) would be used:

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

Some weapons even allowed for "laydown delivery" where weapons would be on the ground for a bit before detonating:

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

From what I recall, the really large weapons (10MT-25MT) were mainly intended, at least in the latter stages of the Cold War, to be used against hard targets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've heard rumors that Taiwan does something similar in preparation for an invasion by mainland China. Specifically that sensitive areas within TSMC facilities are lined with explosives. It makes for a great story, and I wouldn't be surprised if it were true, but I've never been able to find a reliable source for this.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's important to note that these are days gone by.

The majority of these bunkers and forts are dismantled, the size of the army has gone down to 100,000 people (from 600,000 in the 50s, while the population has almost doubled), tanks and artillery are outdated (infantry is kept quite modern, to be fair), the support of the army in the voting population has also decreased.

Is this good or bad? I don't know. Is the threat of a war in the middle of Europe really down to zero? I don't know.

</comment><comment><USER13> > vernacular architecture has also played a prominent role in Swiss defense. > Across the countryside, many structures that look like quaint barns or > traditional homes were designed to house everything from bunkers to anti- > aircraft guns

I'll now have to look suspiciously at every Swiss building I come across.

<comment><USER14> Hint: The cows that can't be tipped over, might be harboring weapons. Just give them a good push.

<comment><USER15> I mean, that's all cows. Cow tipping is a myth.

...

Oh god, you mean, the entire swiss dairy industry is a front?

<comment><USER16> If cows were given fair wages, tipping wouldn't be necessary in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> A few years ago they did a military exercise where France, in a state of civil war/secession following a government bankruptcy, used its military to try and loot Swiss wealth.

French authorities were not amused.

<comment> ur-whale > France, in a state of civil war/secession following a government bankruptcy, > used its military to try and loot Swiss wealth.

Not a particularly far-fetched scenario, if you ask me. Except for the last part, coz there ain't enough money left to run a military organization.

<comment><USER18> It's more or less what happened when we invaded Switzerland in 1798.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Bridges along the eastern border of West Germany were at least be built to be rigged with explosives too. What looked like drain covers were actually the lids of the explosive chambers. For pictures see [1] (article is in German).

[1] [http://www.sperranlagen.de/bruecken.htm](http://www.sperranlagen.de/bruecken.htm)

<comment><USER20> This was a general countermobility NATO policy, the field manual goes into great detail about it:

[https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us- archive/fm5-102%288...](https://www.bits.de/NRANEU/others/amd-us- archive/fm5-102%2885%29.pdf)

Regarding Switzerland, there is this absurdly high production value propaganda Triptych-Cinerama-short produced for the 64 swiss national expo. _Fortress of Peace_ ( _Wehrhafte Schweiz / La Suisse vigilante / La Svizzera vigilante_) with countermobility action all over the place and prominently in this section:

[https://youtu.be/mXWUCmeUF9o?t=1230](https://youtu.be/mXWUCmeUF9o?t=1230) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Peace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_of_Peace)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I served 25 years ago in a unit with civil engineers (I'm not one). At this time, it was already a project in one of the yearly training courses, which infrastructure should be disarmed because a destruction would have impact on other infrastructure (e.g. tape water supply).

</comment><comment><USER22> the author mentioned, john mcphee, is my favorite nonfiction author, and i couldn't recommend him more highly. i was disappointed to see that the now surely out of print _place de la concorde suisse_ was not easily available on the usual ebook resources, but he's an author worth paying for.

another excellent book of his that would likely line up well with hn-adjacent interests is _the curve of binding energy_ , written in the early 90s about a physicist's concern with the risk of nuclear proliferation among nonstate actors:

[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54968.The_Curve_of_Bindi...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54968.The_Curve_of_Binding_Energy)

<comment><USER23> agreed, mcphee is excellent. encounters with the archdruid left an indelible impression on me.

<comment><USER24> I enjoyed The Curve of Binding Energy

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The history of Switzerland the country is also very interesting. Basically a bunch of high-altitude towns that were rivals got together and decided to fend off their common enemy: low land despots.

Initially, it was just a few hundred merchants and peasants banding together and using home-made poles with sickles on the ends to fend off armored knights. But by the end of the rebellion thousands of people from dozens of hilltop villages had joined together.

That kernel formed an informal alliance that grew into Switzerland over time.

Even today, the various Cantons see themselves as kind of independent of each other. They copied the US constitution, but while the US became a more centralized and despotic state ... the Swiss kept the original federalist design of the US constitution.

Individual cantons have their own public or private health systems. They have their own education budgets. There is a huge amount of variation between the cantons. And basically Switzerland refuses to join most European efforts to disolve national boundaries.

<comment><USER26> > They copied the US constitution, ..

How would switzerland (1291) copy the US constitution (1789)? Do you have any references on this?

<comment><USER27> The swiss constitution has been revised a few times. The Switzerland from 1291 is different from the Switzerland now.

> The creation of a bicameral assembly was consciously inspired by the United > States Constitution, the National Council and Council of States > corresponding to the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively

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

Also, copy is probably a bit too strong of a wording. It's definitely not a 1:1 copy, but yeah, inspiration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Then there's the (deliberate?) railway incompatibility between germany and moscow.

</comment><comment><USER29> I've often wondered if we should follow the Swiss' example on a planetary scale.

It's not that an alien invasion is particularly likely, but, just in case, we might want to plant a few nukes here and there, in strategic locations. That is, locations selected to make it very clear to any potential invader from the stars that sending an interstellar invasion armada to Earth would be all cost and no benefit.

I mean, we already have all those nukes lying around, ready to blow the planet to smithereens. We might as well put them into use as actual "deterrents".

</comment><comment><USER30> And now I expect that Swiss schools have students learn secret underground base design in Minecraft.

</comment><comment><USER31> As a side note, this site has _very_ interesting podcast episodes. Just yesterday I listened to the one from last week [1] about stamps from the GBLA [2].

[1] [https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-bitter-lake- ass...](https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/great-bitter-lake-association/)

[2] [http://www.shipsonstamps.org/Topics/html/gbla.htm](http://www.shipsonstamps.org/Topics/html/gbla.htm)

</comment><comment><USER32> This is an old strategy, nowadays the army works differently. But still, these are interesting tidbits of history. Many old bunkers have been decomissioned and taken over by associations preserving them as museums. Others are opened for the public like the Great War's bunker just below the top of the Sigriswiler Rothorn (Schafloch). Instead of hiking over the top I just went through it with my son. It was very dark, labyrinthine and scary. My son loved it.

</comment><comment><USER33> I believe rigging bridges was widespread throughout europe

<comment><USER34> The plan for West Germany in case of a sudden Soviet invasion was to destroy bridges and railways, render tunnels unusable by dropping huge concrete blocks on the entrances or – my favourite – filling them with foam so Diesel motors would suffocate while driving through; and destroying many roads.

All just to buy a little time to be able to mount an actual defence against the invasion in France.

<comment><USER35> The plan for West Germany was to use nuclear land mines in the Fulda Gap to both destroy whole divisions en route and to create massive geological barriers.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> How do explosives and their associated equipment do as far as long term exposure to the elements?

<comment><USER37> Some types of explosives are effectively waterproof and element-proof.

The igniters and wiring are probably most vulnerable, but they can be constantly tested with minimum effort, and replaced as they fail.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> This subject has fascinated me for a long time. One of the best books about it is called "La Place De LA Concorde Suisse" it's actually in English and well worth a read.

</comment><comment><USER39> Where does this paranoia come from?

<comment> barry-cotter Here is a complete list of countries in mainland Europe that have not been invaded or suffered a civil war since 1900.

Switzerland

Here is a complete list of Switzerland's neighbours that have the same constitutional settlement as in 1940.

<comment><USER40> You might be able to argue that Sweden isn't part of mainland Europe, but it would be really hard to argue that Liechtenstein is not part of it.

<comment> barry-cotter You're correct. The UK also had a civil war after WWI so mainland Europe is unnecessary.

Complete list of European countries that haven't been invaded or had a revolution since 1900

Liechtenstein, Sweden, Switzerland

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > many military structures above ground and below have been declassified and > sold off for reuse as homes, data centers, even cheese factories

Or have they? 8-)</comment>


Ask HN: How to go about understanding modern manufacturing? - <AUTHOR> I have always thought of modern manufacturing as a wonderful miracle whose impact is so pervasive in our lives that most of us take it for granted. Just like electricity. But it's hard to find good books/videos/tutorials/blogs which explain manufacturing processes, industrial machines, products in a simple, step by step way. for eg. how are things like conveyor belts or cracking furnace coils made. It's almost like there's a parallel universe of highly complex, durable products that are built, shipped and last for years with hardly anyone noticing that these things exist. The immense complexity is hidden and all we see is discussion of stuff like the pixels of the "next generation phone" camera. <comment><USER2> A related area of manufacturing: I recently started learning more about supply chain, and one of the research analysts I interviewed recommended the following news sources/newsletters:

[https://www.supplychaindive.com/](https://www.supplychaindive.com/)

[https://www.freightwaves.com/](https://www.freightwaves.com/)

[https://www.joc.com/](https://www.joc.com/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This (by me, from 1999) remains mostly aspirational, sadly: [https://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/](https://www.kurtz- fernhout.com/oscomak/) "The OSCOMAK project will foster a community in which many interested individuals will contribute to the creation of a distributed global repository of manufacturing knowledge about past, present and future processes, materials, and products."

You may want to take a look at things related to "Open Manufacturing": [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_manufacturing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_manufacturing)

Or the maker movement: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture)

I can also wonder if there is more such information out there on the web in Chinese these days than English?

</comment><comment><USER4> I learned a fair bit about manufacturing by actually working at a factory. My second job was as a software engineer in the tooling department at a major hard disk manufacturer, basically programming machines that assembled hard disks. That job gave me an appreciation for how efficient - and how daunting - modern manufacturing processes really are.

</comment><comment><USER5> I suspect a lot of this info (how the machines which power industrial automation are designed and built) is proprietary and closely guarded knowledge.

Software is kind of special in that everyone can relatively easily replicate everybody else's software (mostly because the trial and error cycle is short, so whatever secret sauce there is can be just figured out in finite time), while processes involving physical things are often based on knowledge accumulated over decades or centuries that a noob could never replicate for free in their basement.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you have the Science Channel or Discovery Channel, there's a show called 'How It's Made'. I find it interesting and very informative.

</comment><comment><USER7> As a one-volume introductory book, I 'd suggest any of the last few editions of Groover's _Fundamentals of Modern Manufacturing: Materials, Processes, and Systems_. The coverage is fairly broad, not just metalworking, and it's written for advanced undergraduates—rigorous enough to be useful, but still accessible to non-specialists, with many figures and tables.

</comment><comment><USER8> Sparkfun has a nice collection of Engineering Essentials tutorials: [https://www.sparkfun.com/engineering_essentials](https://www.sparkfun.com/engineering_essentials)

They explain the fundamental topics of electrical engineering like electricity, circuits, components, communication protocols, signalling and so on in a fun and engagning way. They also sell all of these components with helpful hookup guides. So think of a system you want to make (e.g. conveyor belt), order the components and start building it :)

Once you're comforable these fundamentals you might want to look into the design of control/embedded systems. There are quite a few books on these which you could search online for.

Obviously, manufacturing lines today are built with more robust and established components but the above would probably be a good entry point to help you start understanding how these things work.

</comment><comment><USER9> This is the only good book I've found on the topic. A high school textbook from 2003: [https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590704843](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1590704843)

The show "How It's Made" is helpful. Also if you live close to any brand names that have a factory, they will usually do a tour.</comment>


How to disrupt Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2010/01/23/how-to-disrupt-wall-street/ <comment><USER3> Much of this post is written off the cuff, but my initial thought is that disrupting Wall Street is hard.

1\. Lots of regulations ensure high barriers to entry. 2\. Lots of money to ensure regulations stay in place.

Here is Dixon's list and my reasons why it is so hard to disrupt (usually due to the two reasons above):

1\. Retail Banks- I'm not very knowledgeable on the specific regulations that banks face, but various rules that have changed throughout time are the areas where banks can operate (part of Glass-Steagel, Gramm-Leach-Bliley repealed it, again not an expert on their specifics), branches vs no branches, capital requirements, etc. Pretty much any of these and the ones I've left out create difficulties for any newcomers. You see some successful online alternatives like ING Direct, and hopefully the future of banking goes in a similar direction.

2\. Credit Cards: To address one of Dixon's points, how do you have a payment company that DOESN'T rely on current financial infrastructure to some degree? He lists PayPal as an example, but PayPal is basically a payment processor/credit card alternative. They address the credit card problem but not the banking one, and there's still much room for improvement here (if Square was tied to banks instead of credit cards, they'd be one step closer).

3\. Proprietary Trading: Some ideas to improve the system would be lowering accredited investor rules to allow more people to invest as they please and decreased regulations on hedge and mutual fund requirements to allow more competitive behavior between the two. Also added transparency on the availability of financial information and especially the actions of the proprietary trading desks within non-investment firms, so that shareholders of banks know the trading behavior occurring.

4\. Trading: Similar to #3 except focused on the broker-dealers and not the investment banks. Most of the same points stand. Generally this industry has improved quite a bit over time, with commissions on trades dropping in 20 years from $100+ down to $7-$0. The latest concern Dixon points out is high- frequency trading. I'm not in favor regulating fair HFT, just the shadier dealings of front-running where they are using knowledge of other individual trades for their own game, essentially pumping up stocks before the public can buy them because they know what the public is buying before they buy it. Generally, as long as any citizen either directly by investing in an HFT firm (which is rarely, if never, allowed due to accredited investor rules) directly or through their hedge/mutual fund, then it's not really that unfair a playing ground.

5\. Investment Banking: I am more sympathetic to the plight of the i-banks than most. I spoke once with the owner of a boutique i-bank in Illinois that does M&A and bond issuing on a mid-level scale and he said the regulations here are fewer than those related to trading. This is anecdotal. My gripe here is the same as everyone else. Due to their size, investment banks are have been protected from their losses by the government, when there were other options to cushion the blow while still holding the firms liable for their malinvestments. One of the few, but best ways I've thought of disrupting this industry is to have boutique specialist firms really start competing on price and features. The obvious problem here is that i-banking is often an industry of "it's who you know" as opposed to actual competitiveness. I.E. A company looking to do a bond issuing or M&A will go to the firm where they're comfortable friends of the people on the other side of the negotiation table.

6\. Research: Dixon barely points out any problems here. The biggest problem is that similar to lots of consulting firms; they produce garbage for large fees. The simple solution is that well-meaning people and financial firms should only hire research firms that perform well. This industry should probably consolidate because theirs so much shitty finance research and modeling done.

7\. Mutual funds: Could start measuring their compensation on performance, rather than fixed fees they receive now. Make the industry more lean. They might be "finance" companies, but they're traders, not investment banks. Being based on performance would mean every year half the industry would go starving while the rest were feasting, so it's unlikely to see that happen much. But if it did, it'd allow the industry to consolidate a bit. Traders/investors at large funds who think they could outperform their companies could start a new firm to get even greater personal gains. To me, that's the price for wanting to be in the trading game. It's like a salesman who works only on commission. You're paid for doing your job well.

What we have in modern finance is a regulatory-protected cartel. I believe some of the ideas I've brought up and problems Dixon pointed out could lead to a healthier financial future for the world.

However, many of these regulations are in place for good reasons, and I understand that. Most people should NOT have to dedicate their lives to handling their finances when it can be outsourced to specialists. That's how we manage most industries. Like in other industries, competition is the check and balance to that freedom. No one firm can dominate forever without continually improving its service if it doesn't want another upstart to come eat its lunch.

In that regard, the financial system we have now is significantly better than it was 100 years ago when people could get conned out of money by characters such as Charles Ponzi or whole towns could become bankrupt because the local bank couldn't diversify risk.

Simply put, we have put faith in financiers and have allowed regulations to protect them when we were trying to protect their customers. Now I believe is the time to bring down some of the walls so they may face competition. This will result in a healthier financial landscape.

It is my hope that as we move forward through the economic challenges facing out country, the financial industry is allowed to innovate, whether in a regulated fashion or not, in order to return to being a "financial services" industry.

Financial firms should exist to support industries and people, not abuse them.

<comment><USER4> I think the point re: credit cards is that PayPal has actually been able to create an alternative payment system that lives outside the banking system - <USER2> think PayPal itself is a bank (am I wrong?) in that they take your deposits when you leave your money in your account.

I agree that there is no getting around the banking system completely (unless you rely in cash somehow), but theoretically you could enable another way to move money from one bank account to another without charging 20%+ interest rates and exorbitant late fees, no?

<comment><USER5> _...but theoretically you could enable another way to move money from one bank account to another without charging 20%+ interest rates and exorbitant late fees, no?_

Like a debit card, a wire transfer or a check? Or like setting up online bill pay to pay off your credit card in full every month?

<comment><USER4> Right, so all of those work now through the existing financial system, but they take a long time to clear (I believe ACH is several days).

I imagine a startup (would it have to be a bank? I'm not sure) could build something where the transfer is semi-instantaneous and disperse the risk among it's other customers somehow in a more equitable manner (perhaps charging a fee?). It might, of course, be difficult to compete against the credit card, which seems free to most consumers (but is subsidized by the merchants and those borrowers who don't pay in full)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Many of these ideas seem aimed only at harming "Wall St", not at providing benefits to consumers.

For example, 1. No one forces customers to deposit money in banks, they do it because a valuable service is provided (ATM's, direct deposit). How will using a check cashing place (thereby disrupting wall st) help me?

Or 4. If you don't want your money "skimmed" by high frequency folks (disclaimer: I'm one of them) and don't want to pay commissions, use ALO orders [1]. This has the problem that your order might never be filled. If I want to own 100 shares of Tesla now (and I believe it is worth $1.00, assuming a bid/ask of $0.01), how does harming wall st help me?

Or 8. The author seems unaware that mutual funds are already being disrupted...by the ETF's (issued by _Wall St_ ) he suggests we buy. Maybe we should stick are money under a mattress?

To borrow a phrase from other discussions, "the goal isn't to kill facebook, it's to help our customers." This applies here - focus on the consumer, not on the competitor.

[1] [http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/content/ProductsServices/Trading...](http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/content/ProductsServices/Trading/postonly_factsheet.pdf&pli=1) [http://www.nyse.com/equities/nysearcaequities/1157018931913....](http://www.nyse.com/equities/nysearcaequities/1157018931913.html)

<comment><USER6> I think there's a good correlation, though. High profit margins are a big flashing red light that consumers could be getting something better or cheaper or both, since in competitive markets, high profit margins don't persist. So they're a decent way of identifying where disruptive opportunities lie: figure out why these high profit margins are persisting, and how your startup can move in on that territory.

<comment><USER5> _...in competitive markets, high profit margins don't persist_

A couple of the markets Dixon identified are not competitive, namely credit cards and mutual fund management [1].

But quite a few are highly competitive and don't have high profit margins: retail banks, market making (HFT) and research, for example.

Prop trading is also highly competitive, but profits are high because the risk is high as well. Dixon explicitly advises individuals not to compete with the big players because they will probably lose. It's hard even for big players - remember AIG, Lehman and Bear? Thousands of hedge funds went under, so many that the big banks had to lay off most of their prime brokerage divisions.

[1] Mutual funds benefit from an agency problem - your employer selects which funds you can put your retirement into. I'd love to buy low cost ETF's, but then I wouldn't get the tax advantage.

<comment><USER7> Competitive doesn't necessarily mean productive.

The stock market functioned perfectly well (well, you know what I mean) for 100 years before HFT came about. Now that it's here, does the stock market work better? No, it works worse, if anything. It's just another way for insiders to win by rigging the game.

My problem with Wall St and seemingly Dixon's is that it's all about rigging things to your advantage rather than competing on quality. HFT doesn't create value, it just agglomerates wealth to those with servers in the right colos. Mutual funds and credit cards, as you say, are optimized towards leveraging an immovable market position to extract money from the rest of the economy.

If someone on Wall St is creating value commensurate with their salary, I'm all about that. But it seems like the vast majority are extracting their salary from the rest of the country as an effective tax on investment rather than actually creating wealth.

<comment><USER5> Why do you believe the market works worse than in the past? I'm genuinely curious why you think this, because based on what I can see, the market is vastly more efficient today.

In the past, you'd pay a market maker 1/8 or 1/4, and even then only in thickly traded securities. In thinly traded securities, your order might just go unfilled. The market makers were humans with a physical seat on the trading floor rather than a server in a colo and you'd pay your broker $100/trade (assuming you could get him on the phone).

Now you pay a $0.01-0.02 spread, maybe $0.10 on thinly traded securities. You pay your broker $0-$10/trade and you can trade from your N1 or iphone. A colo server is also much cheaper than access to the physical trading floor.

HFT provides value: liquidity and immediacy. If you don't believe that is worth $0.02, you can place ALO orders and you won't need to pay for it.

<comment><USER7> Because it penalizes people who want to buy a stock based on company quality and either hold it or swing trade.

Let's disambiguate 2 developments here : There's the computerization of market-making, which leads to efficiency gains and transparency gains, allowing trades to be fulfilled more cheaply and for more bids/asks to be visible at a given point in time, adding liquidity. None of that really constitutes "high frequency trading" in my mind, more just the inevitabilites of IT.

Then there's stuff like front-running, or micro-arbitrage where the first one to the post wins the money. Are these fulfilling a need that didn't exist before? Or is it just a large amount of money being invested by brokerages in order to extract a larger amount of money from people without servers in the right places? My instinct leans towards the latter. It's not like 1/4-second price inconsistencies were creating some huge problem before. I don't even notice 1/4 second, and the stock market shuts down at 4pm anyways. Prices don't have to be a continuous curve.

If I don't believe HFT provides value, I can go spit up a rope -- it'll still eat away at my margins if I try to invest based on value. God help me if I tried to day trade or swing trade.

As far as "works worse than in the past", I did qualify with "if anything", but to my mind it's become less reflective of the value of companies and more reflective of the current state of various algorithms, which may or may not have anything to do with company value. I see that as a recipe for bubbles and calamities.

<comment><USER5> You believe HFT is bad because it makes _swing trading_ and _day trading_ unprofitable?!? Fun fact: they aren't unprofitable, since the algorithmic traders you criticize are swing trading and day trading. It sounds like your complaint is simply that machines do a better job than you.

Concering micro-arbitrage, if you don't notice 1/4 second price inconsistencies, you also won't notice if computers resolve them in 1ms rather than a fast fingered human resolving them in 1/4 sec. The money is being extracted regardless, the only difference between now and the past is that a geek with a computer beats the fast fingered frat boy. That's bad if you were the human trader, but who else is harmed?

Front running is illegal and has been for a long time. I'm also not sure how you think HFT traders do it - do you think HFT firms have trojans which alert them when your mouse is hovering over the "place order" button at etrade?

I'm really curious how you believe HFT will "eat away at your margins" if you make long term value investments. If you believe apple will go up 20%, do you really care about the $0.01 spread? Even if you care, how can the HFT guys make money off you if you place an ALO order? Could you explain the mechanics?

<comment><USER7> I think HFT is bad because it substitutes "create value" for "game the system".

I won't miss the .01 that much, but if they do it a billion times.. they still didn't create anything. They just extracted money from the system while producing zero value.

EDIT: As far as who's being hurt? All of us. Smart people should be creating value, not playing silly parlor games against each other for money. We're all missing out by making a video game more profitable than creating things.

<comment><USER5> I actually agree with you on the component of HFT/speculation in general that is fighting over the _distribution_ of profits rather than creating profits (i.e., beating other traders to the punch); this creates no new gains. Of course, once we reach the point where most of HFT/trading is fighting over distribution of profits, we've reached the point where it is barely profitable. Presumably smart people will start exiting in droves at that time - I certainly plan to do so.

But I suspect that the transition to HFT over human market makers/daytraders is a net gain even with regards to smart people creating value; isn't it a good thing to have 3 geeks writing programs to replace 100 daytraders? (Based on your previous comment, I assume you agree with me that profitable day/swing trading does create value.) In general, isn't replacing lots of humans by a few smart people + machines a good thing?

<comment><USER7> Well, if we're down to the portion of HFT/speculation that's extracting gains rather than contributing to the economy, we've made it pretty far.

As far as robots running the stock market -- I don't know. Frankly, I'm inclined to be awfully conservative about the stock market at present. If you told me we were going backwards 5 years in technology and there'd be way less money made on the stock market, I'd probably be ok with it, for a few reasons.

1) Frankly, I'd rather be conservative on cutting edge approaches to stock pricing for a little bit.

2) To my mind, the stock market doesn't exist to enrich participants, it exists to efficiently distribute capital. Enriching participants is good motivation, but it shouldn't be legalized gambling and game playing. If an unreasonable share of that capital is going to the console cowboys rather than being distributed to companies and investors (not traders), then something's wrong there. I'm not sure if we're at that point but I don't like the trend.

3) As I said upthread, I don't understand the gains for the economy as a whole of smoothing out the price curve in the sub-second range. I really don't. Anybody who's going to spend a lot of money on something takes more than a second to make up their mind, right? They probably had to get it budgeted and everything. So the subsecond trading on, say, commodities seems to me to be at the expense of actual purchasers of commodities. The gains have to come from somewhere, right?

In general, I'd settle for slower, dumber and less profitable day traders if the upshot is less risk to the system, greater portions of investment gains going to grandma and a more deliberately moving stock market. I'd be fine with that state of affairs, despite my general drive towards futurism on anything else.

<comment><USER5> _I don't understand the gains for the economy as a whole of smoothing out the price curve in the sub-second range._

I'll make it simple for you. There are none.

HFT traders as a whole make no gains from trading in microseconds as opposed to milliseconds or even seconds. If an investor wants to buy 100 shares right now with a spread of $0.02/share, market makers will earn $2.00 over the next few seconds. The only question is _which_ market maker will earn the $2.00, and the answer is whoever is fastest.

Trading fast doesn't increase profits, all it does is redistribute them. Of course, one HFT firm could also outbid the rest, lowering the spread to $0.01/share and allowing the retail investor to pay only $1.00. That's why competition among HFT firms is good.

But you are correct that all the effort put into lowering latency (rather than improving trading strategies) is a deadweight loss to society.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> My guess is real estate will be disrupted long before Wall Street.

Having worked in both finance and real estate, the parallels between real estate transactions and I-banking deals are shockingly similar, only I-banking deals are much more complex and high stakes. If you think investment bankers will soon be out of work, you should also be betting the real estate broker as a profession will be eradicated the way eTrade destroyed the old school retail stock broker.

Sadly, right now I'd take the other side of the trade for the next 5 years (long Wall Street, short startups trying to disrupt M&A). When amateurs engage in very complex and high stakes deals, such as buying or selling a house priced more than their net worth, they tend to want professional hand holding, among many, many other things.

<comment><USER9> > eTrade destroyed the old school retail stock broker

Don't look now, but these guys are still very much alive[1].You may not use them, but plenty of people are still charging $150 for a stock trade under a theory their advice is of value.

[1] Assuming you're referring to the mid-80s school of brokers, not the standardized commissions school.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wall Street appears to be doing a lot of insider trading, front running and shell games. To disrupt them, somebody just has to come along and provide some truly useful and non-parasitic financial service, while not doing those other things. Keep the baby but not the bathwater. I'm not sure exactly how to do that in a reliable and consistent way, while not say keeping all your cash under a matress. Because if you just deposit cash into a local bank, it can then indirectly end up in their hands.

<comment><USER11> I have no idea how wall st and retail banking got mixed up in everybody's minds. Stegall only allowed the two to be run under the same roof...

Why keep money in a mattress when the FDIC and its insurance is backed by the full faith of the USGovt? If you buy a share of stock well, that is different.

When you buy a share of stock, what does that mean? How is the value derived (of the share)? How does the system that tells you that value work? Most people can't answer these questions and yet invest money anyways.

The banking/financial system provides plenty of valuable services. That it also participates in value-destroying activities is always partially the fault of the consumers who want these activities to exist in the first place.

<comment><USER12> _Stegall only allowed the two to be run under the same roof..._

I think "only" is dismissive of the whole point, which is that they have been intertwined from a regulatory standpoint, arguably undermining the regulation of each.

 _Why keep money in a mattress when the FDIC and its insurance is backed by the full faith of the USGovt?_

The mattress alternative is a patent strawman, but FDIC insurance hardly protects against all the damage a bank failure causes its depositors. What's the average amount of time between a bank failing to pay its depositors and the FDIC paying a claim?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think the author doesn't realize how much money prop trading firms make off you even if you "just invest in the S&P 500". Between changes in index makeup, differences between underlying and derived instruments, and the need for the ETF to keep the required balance of actuals, there's quite a bit of movement to make money off of.

And it's not exactly hidden knowledge when which large pension/mutual funds make their adjustments.

</comment><comment><USER14> We're hoping to be added to the mix at some point at <http://Newsley.com> . We're transitioning from social news to financial news search based on semantic analysis of news articles. We are still in very heavy development, but little by little, we're getting there.

By the way, if you're having problems doing financial research, I'd love to hear about them. Ping me. My email is in my sig.

</comment><comment><USER15> Most nimble startups will run away from the regulated aspects of Wall Street. Really none of the functions list escape regulation.

To disrupt Wall Street you would have to get legislation passed and regulators on board. The time scale for change is a different order of magnitude than most startups can handle.

These people generally come from or are connected to the industry and will fear change. Also, what type of disruption would actually benefit society? Not saying nothing is needed. It's just that the arguments would have to be strong to even get an audience in Congress, and they think they just fixed everything.</comment>


Eric Cantor Defeated by David Brat, Tea Party Challenger, in Primary Upset - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/11/us/politics/eric-cantor-loses-gop-primary.html

<comment><USER2> Apparently this is bad news for the NSA:

[http://www.vox.com/2014/6/10/5798554/eric-cantors-loss-is- ba...](http://www.vox.com/2014/6/10/5798554/eric-cantors-loss-is-bad-news-for- the-nsa)

Was mass surveillance even an issue during these elections? Not that I expect the corrupt mainstream media to even raise such questions on behalf of the population.

</comment><comment><USER3> I hate to be 'that guy', but does this really belong on hacker news?</comment>


GDBFront End – Hackable Debugger - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rohanrhu/gdb-frontend <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm working on an easy and very hackable GUI debugger.

Demonstration: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpuw0uCtInc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpuw0uCtInc)

I will develop it as long as i have time and you can contribute it or develop plugins: [https://github.com/rohanrhu/gdb-frontend/wiki/Plugin- Develop...](https://github.com/rohanrhu/gdb-frontend/wiki/Plugin-Development- Tutorial)

Currently it works on Linux (or WSL) but Windows support is not far :)</comment>


Ask HN: How to become a manager - <AUTHOR> Hi everyone. I am currently working as senior technical support engineer (L3) and have like 7 years of experience in various fields like Process development, Accessibility web developer, test engineer and support engineer. How do I take next step to become a manager ? is 7 years too short ? should I become team lead first <comment><USER2> Start showing ever greater levels of incompetence !

Seriously, I'm not trying to be a troll magnet. When you are very good technically your management will keep you down in the mines to keep doing great work and preferably without too many pay rises. Working in support is especially bad in the sense that it is not an area that attracts many good engineers, thus you are probably indispensable.

If you are seriously keen on moving up into management you could study one of the many DIY MBA courses around. If that still looks like where you want to be, then depending on the size of your organisation you could start applying for promotions into team leader roles and possibly low-level management roles.

</comment><comment><USER3> the usual progression is team lead then manager, although every organization is different. Generally you would need to express an interest to your manager that you are interested in management (many people are not interested and for good reason :) ) and then wait for someone up the chain to leave the company. Before that happens you may be able to serve as delegate while your manager is out of the office. If you want things to happen more quickly then you would need to get hired in as a manager at another company which might rquire first getting an MBA or MS degree.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the insight. Can you elaborate bit more why people are not interested for good reason ?

I have an MS degree but all jobs outside need like 20years of experience for manager

<comment><USER4> Managers spend a lot of time in meetings, and have to deal with personnel matters such as performance reviews, hiring, layoffs, pay issues and interpersonal conflicts. They bear the responsibility for the work of their entire team. They try to shield their teams from all the nonsense that's coming in from upper management so their teams can concentrate on their work. Some people thrive in this kind of job, but others don't. After being a manager for ten years, I got tired of the stress and went back to being a developer.

One more thing: new managers rarely get the training they need to do their jobs well. They have to learn by making mistakes (some of which can be very costly and painful).

I definitely think you should become a team lead before becoming a manager, since it gives you the opportunity to learn about leadership without having to deal with many of the other issues that a higher-up manager needs to deal with.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: A Kirby CMS theme for programmers - <AUTHOR> I made a Kirby CMS theme for programmers. Simple with nice typography. Check it out: http://orderlytype.com/programmatic-style <comment><USER2> [http://orderlytype.com/programmatic- style](http://orderlytype.com/programmatic-style)</comment>


Apple Watch Series 3 - <AUTHOR> https://www.apple.com/apple-watch-series-3/?m=1 <comment><USER2> Am I the only person more excited about the Watch 3 than the iPhone X?

<comment><USER3> I'm most excited about the built-in GPS and music streaming, which would mean I can track my runs and listen to music without my phone. GPS watches cost $300+ anyway so this isn't a stretch.

<comment><USER2> yes, that's also very cool

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was really hoping that the watch would be able to share a cellular plan with the phone. I'm not sure I'm willing to buy another cellular plan just for the the watch.

<comment><USER5> It needs to because having a different number on the watch would make no sense.

<comment><USER2> I think they mentioned that the number will be the same

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So, this is a small Smartphone with a limited-capabilites OS, for which you need a full-feature Smartphone of the same Brand to use advanced funtions.

</comment><comment><USER7> Still no round watch face? I feel my 2nd Gen Moto 360 and Samsung S8+ look considerably better than any of Apple's offerings. Disappointing.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm seriously considering ditching my smart phone altogether and just using this watch. Someone talk me down from the ledge.</comment>


Ask HN: How does Amazon make use of Mechanical Turk? - <AUTHOR>

I dont understand the value Amazon gets from using the Mechanical Turk. Can someone here explain? <comment><USER2> I don't know about Amazon, but I do know some people who use it to get mundane but necessary tasks done. For example, if you have a forum and you want to seed with questions...you can use mechanical turk to get people that.

Also, for a semantic search engine I was working on, we needed to add categories for various articles. We used Mechanical Turk for this.

<comment><USER3> Tell me more about that semantic search engine.

<comment><USER2> Problem: How do you identify what the keywords in a search term mean. A word like Shingles can mean shingles roof, or shingles disease or shingles concept in search engine. For this, you first start with a known set of documents (known means their type, whether business, science, sports, etc is known), and index them. For each word/phrase, you compute the proability that it belongs to a certain category. For example, when you see Shingles, you say 50% is disease, 40% is roofs and 10% is code. Depending on your understanding of the user, you will most probably present health related results at the top of SERP.

Btw, its not my idea...I was just an employee!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amazon gets a small cut from every batch of HITs. Requesters pay for a bunch of small tasks for the workers to complete (which typically earns them a couple cents each), and Amazon takes a small piece of that.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure they use it for the "search by picture" function in their mobile apps. Not sure if they directly use it for anything else.</comment>


Covid-19 is a Tragedy, but not the one that the news will have you believe - <AUTHOR> https://mantisfists.com/covid-19-is-a-tragedy-but-not-the-one-that-the-news-will-have-you-believe/ <comment><USER2> What? This is incomprehensible drivel. It reads like an AI wrote it, except that it's slightly more coherent than that.

I guess the author wanted us to come in on the same level of angst that they have, but couldn't rationally express it, so just wanted us to _feel_ it. Whatever, but that doesn't communicate very well...</comment>


Bailed-Out Banks Slip Toward Failure  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203568004576044014219791114.html

<comment><USER2> When the government hands out cash to the poor, it's a "handout" that creates a "culture of dependency." When the government hands out cash to the banks, it's a "bail-out" that creates a "sound financial system." Right.

</comment><comment><USER3> Who posts an article behind a pay wall? That's just obnoxious.

</comment><comment><USER4> 98 banks is somewhat less than 1/5 of the total TARP-bailed-out institutions.</comment>


Effective JavaScript Codemods - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@cpojer/effective-javascript-codemods-5a6686bb46fb

<comment><USER2> How do I Hacker News? I can't find the 👍 button. Yes, I am so hipster than I've never used Hacker News before. You're welcome Internet

EDIT: I found it!</comment>


The Fastest and Shortest Algorithm for All Well-Defined Problems (2002) - <AUTHOR> https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/cs/0206022/ <comment><USER2> See also:

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

[http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html](http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/goedelmachine.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_machine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del_machine)

</comment><comment><USER3> A selected excerpt from this paper:

"The same should hold for Theorem 1, as will be discussed. We avoid the O(1) notation as far as possible, as it can be severely misleading (e.g. 10^42 = O(1)^O(1)) = O(1)).

This work could be viewed as another O() warning showing, how important factors, and even subdominant additive terms, are."

<comment><USER4> O() is a notion of speed of growth, not measuring how large are constants.

<comment><USER5> Right, the critique is evaluating algorithms based solely on asymptotic time / space characteristics is insufficient. Constants can be significant if they are big enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Discussed in 2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1083567](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1083567)

</comment><comment><USER7> From the header of the website:

> arXiv Vanity renders academic papers from arXiv as responsive web pages so > you don't have to squint at a PDF.

Why aren't more PDFs displayed like this on the web? I thought the math stuff would be a problem but this site shows the math stuff alright.

Anyone knows how to reliably convert complex PDFs to beautiful web pages like this?

<comment><USER8> with arXiv the TeX source is available for download (under the "Other formats" link), which I think is what arXiv-vanity uses. I imagine it would be really tough to go reliably from arbitrary PDF to HTML without screwing up the math and figures.

<comment><USER9> I mean firefox' built in pdf-reader is javascript based. I imagine it renders to a canvas instead of to html, but it doesn't seem like an impossibility to render to html in any case.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Is a 'reverse' Flippa a good idea? - <AUTHOR>

People post appropriate bids for websites they'd like to buy.
This way, owners can see if there is interest in their website.
Would something like this be interesting? <comment><USER2> There's a part of that idea that works, but I think the execution is flawed. I work in this industry day in and day out. We have a serious inventory issue.

There are far more buyers than sellers of quality businesses between $50K and $2MM. The result is that prices (multiples at least) are steadily rising and have been for the last three years. Currently, the average (what defines average is another discussion in itself) is around 2.83 annual net for an Ecommerce business and slightly less, ironically, for a SaaS one.

I know that significantly more inventory could be created from a middleman being proactive about letting an owner know that there's interest. Many of the sellers I speak to are only selling now because of a cold call or email from broker. Until that point, they didn't realize how fluid the market was for selling internet businesses of their size.

The idea of a reverse auction possibly needs some work, but the problem you're deliberately or perhaps unwittingly trying to solve is certainly one with a lot of reward if you can solve it.

Best of luck.

</comment><comment><USER3> The reason most websites aren't for sale, is because they're not for sale.

But that aside...

How could you stop people "bidding" $100m for their own site?

Anyone with capital, why would they waste their time putting fake bids down? If they're genuinely interested in a site - they'd approach the owner privately.

What is the value of this, beyond "ooo look how much this site is worth"? Don't you just become another flawed website value calculator?

Just some ideas.

<comment><USER4> "If they're genuinely interested in a site - they'd approach the owner privately."

Bingo. Why even give my money to a middleman?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Filmstant beautifully displays movies out now. - <AUTHOR> http://www.filmstant.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I've always found these kind of websites to be too distracting so I made this. Hopefully someone else finds this useful. I'd love any feedback on bugs, improvements, etc.</comment>


Why you should not use Tcl (1994, "The Tcl War") - <AUTHOR> http://www.vanderburg.org/OldPages/Tcl/war/0000.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Since today seems to be Tcl Day, I thought I'd submit this: the beginning of the famous _Tcl War_.

Here is a direct link to John Ousterhout's reply: [http://www.vanderburg.org/OldPages/Tcl/war/0009.html](http://www.vanderburg.org/OldPages/Tcl/war/0009.html)</comment>