Close My Tax Loophole - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/27/opinion/close-my-tax-loophole.html <comment><USER2> I have read that the differential tax treatment of income and capital gains has given rise to various techniques for "transforming" ordinary income into capital gains via "pass-through" entities [1]. This transformation is apparently quite labor intensive while being wholly non-productive (save for the favorable tax treatment).

I don't understand what these pass-through entities do at all - can someone explain it?

Naively it seems like differential tax treatment creates distortionary incentives. Maybe I quit being the sole proprietor of my business in order to day trade, thereby escaping payroll and income taxes. This replaces productive work with non-productive speculation - a loss for the economy and a country. What's the argument against this?

[1] [https://tcf.org/content/commentary/10-reasons-to- eliminate-t...](https://tcf.org/content/commentary/10-reasons-to-eliminate- the-tax-break-for-capital-gains/)

<comment><USER3> > Maybe I quit being the sole proprietor of my business in order to day trade, > thereby escaping payroll and income taxes. [...] What's the argument against > this?

The argument is that, it doesn't work like you think.

If you're day trading chances are you're generating short term gains (or losses). Mist day traders don't hold positions 1yr+.

Second as a sole proprietor your still responsible for payroll taxes, or what becomes known as self employment tax. [http://www.marketwatch.com/story/do- you-owe-the-self-employm...](http://www.marketwatch.com/story/do-you-owe-the- self-employment-tax-2013-08-20)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/business/dealbook/the-c...](http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/business/dealbook/the- carried-interest-loophole-what-loophole.html) is a reasonable explanation of why this isn't really a loophole.

<comment><USER5> The Klinsky explanation you linked to is borderline disingenuous. Nah, it's just disingenuous.

It's exhausting and daunting to list all the ways that Klinsky's ELI5 example is meaningfully different from what really happens in PE-land.

What it comes down to is this: PE managers get a success fee for managing other people's money without putting up their own, which is very very normal, and usually counts as earned income (normal tax rate).

However, when certain very specific circumstances apply, a bit of the tax code lets you legally pretend that instead of a success fee, the amount you get paid is a return on invested capital.

Very plainly, the pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, HNWIs, etc. who put up the actual risk capital into the PE funds are putting dollars at risk and earning a return on invested capital.

If one simply does the exercise of asking, "where are the dollars that the PE manager put at risk?" the lie is exposed.

My personal pet peeve on this is that, back in the 1970s, it was actually the case that the general partners would have had unlimited liability and therefore really were, after a fashion, putting the entirety of their capital at risk to earn the carry. But since the 1990s at least and probably earlier, everyone in this game has used a pass-through LLC blocker entity to limit the personal liability of the managers. So they keep all the tax benefit but give up that pesky "risk" part.

(Partnership structures and carried interest actually do have other things to recommend them as ways of aligning interests and making deals work. But pretending that the contingent, earned, success-based portion of income accruing to the manager is a return on risk capital invested _for tax purposes_ is just a total fiction.)

<comment><USER6> > However, when certain very specific circumstances apply, a bit of the tax > code lets you legally pretend that instead of a success fee, the amount you > get paid is a return on invested capital.

I'd love to see an explanation of why it makes any sense to continue treating capital gains income (i.e. "return on invested capital") any differently than ordinary income. If we fixed _that_ , then the carried interest "loophole" would cease to be relevant because it wouldn't change the tax rates paid.

I don't see why the tax code should incentivize passive investment over actual work.

<comment><USER7> The economics of taxation are fairly well understood, and they make it clear that not all taxes are equal. In particular, some taxes have higher "deadweight losses" than others, which mean it is much less efficient and more damaging to the economy and to society to rely on them for revenue generation.

And listing commonly discusses taxes from lowest to highest deadweight losses, it goes: Land value tax, property taxes, consumption taxes, income taxes, capital taxes.

> I don't see why the tax code should incentivize passive investment over > actual work.

Because to do otherwise causes real harm to all of us, because while even a large tax on, eg, land doesn't notably change the supply of land, a small tax on investment income does reduce the supply of investment. And reduced investment lowers productivity across the industry, reducing worker compensation and making us all as a society poorer.

In short: You get less of what you tax. That makes taxing eg, CO2 production a great idea (we want less of that!), and taxing investment a pretty bad one.

(More generally: The tax code is the worst possible way to do income redistribution, and the American obsession with trying leads to really poor outcomes. If you want to help the poor, _try giving them actual money_. Regressive taxes funding a progressive welfare state works; the reverse does not.)

<comment> semi-extrinsic > The tax code is the worst possible way to do income redistribution, and the > American obsession with trying leads to really poor outcomes.

Northern Europe would like to disagree, and to point out that Americans are far from obsessed with this. Take Mitt Romney: in 2012 he disclosed paying 15% taxes on his around $15 mill./year income. In a reasonable country he'd be paying at least 35%!

Actual progressive taxation without loopholes, together with a properly implemented public health service, ending the health insurance industry, government-funded parental leave for the first year of a child's life, and otherwise socially responsible policies (ending the prison industry that disproportionally targets the poor and non-whites, ending the war on drugs etc) is a great way of doing income redistribution and society improvements.

<comment><USER7> > Northern Europe would like to disagree, and to point out that Americans are > far from obsessed with this. Take Mitt Romney: in 2012 he disclosed paying > 15% taxes on his around $15 mill./year income. In a reasonable country he'd > be paying at least 35%!

The overwhelming majority of Northern European countries have a lower top marginal tax rate than that that on dividends and capital gains. So apparently Sweden, France, Germany, Finland, Norway, etc. aren't "reasonable countries"?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Income from investment is taxed less than income from work in order to boost the economy by incentivizing investment, right? (Please tell me if there's another good reason.) Does our economy still need this? Interest rates are low, long term rates are low, and there's enough money sloshing around hedge and venture funds that people are worried about reckless "yield seeking" behavior.

So why do we still incentivize investment more than work? Perhaps we don't need transfer payments to offset wealth inequality, perhaps we just need to stop giving the wealthy so many advantages.

<comment><USER9> Yes there are other reasons. I'm not sure if they are good reasons, but a logical tax system would need considerable changes in lot's of areas.

Here are two of the reasons for a separate capital gains tax rate. First, when you say sell a house or piece of property or really anything, some of the difference in price is due to inflation or deflation. When I bought my first house in 1980 the rate of inflation was around 14%. If I had sold a $100,000 house one year later for $114,000 I would have more dollars but each would be worth less and I would in effect made nothing on the investment. It makes sense to normalize the gain with respect to inflation over the holding period. They don't do that and this has a large impact on investments of all types held for many years. The lower capital gains rate helps, but doesn't erase the fact that you are being taxed on nominal income not real, inflation adjusted income.

A second reason is that an investment in a company (by say buying it's stock) goes up and down in value. In theory (at least according to some people) the stocks value should represent the net present value of the future dividend stream from the company issued to the shareholder. Dividends are uncertain and it isn't always clear that a company will ever get around to issuing dividends, but that's the theory. Nevertheless, this is how shares of a stock are tied to the value of the company.

The company itself is trying to make revenue. This revenue is split into three parts: (1) salary and benefits to employees, (2) dividends issued to shareholders or (3) retained for future spending, improvements in the company's machines (etc.) and cost reductions (driven by competition) to its products. The profits are taxed at the corporate tax rate, the dividends are taxed, and the salaries to employees are taxed. Thus, there are already taxes holding back the "value" of the company to shareholders. Indirectly, before shareholders see a gain in a stock's price, taxes are already being taken out of company profits somewhere.

For these two reasons, it doesn't make sense to tax capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income.

I know that this explanation might engender all kinds of fairness arguments, but please, dear reader, understand that I'm not saying this this fair. I'm only trying to point out some of the convoluted reasons that are used to justify our current tax system. I would love to see the tax system completely overhauled.

<comment><USER8> Thanks, that's a great description. I'd forgotten about the second and never heard of the first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Obama, as a Democratic president, should be embarrassed and ashamed that he has not closed this loophole. Treasury has the power to unilaterally do so, but yet America's regressive tax policies with all there undesirable consequences to exists.

Misallocation of economic resources towards tax-effective financial activities over other more productive, but less tax-effective, activities.

Increasing wealth disparity in this country--so much so that the Fed is basically afraid to raise rates because it would lower asset prices.

</comment><comment><USER11> There's no such thing as a tax loophole. It's either legal or not. If it's legal and you don't like it then make it illegal.

You still get punished if you're a day less than legal drinking age and get caught. So you can't have it both ways.

If they're not following the law then punish them.

<comment><USER5> No, that's simply untrue when it comes to taxes. Once you get to the level of money sloshing around that you can afford to pay for legal and banking fees and new corporate entity filings, a whole world of shenanigans opens up, which are plainly not ok but would be impossible to exhaustively legislate.

For example, you can manufacture losses for yourself to offset profits. You can instead of realizing some income, loan money to yourself and spend it and enjoy it while never paying taxes on it. You can wrap up dubious transactions in layers of opacity such that you end up legally deducting your expenses on hookers and cocaine.

The set of primitives exposed by the tax code, quite legitimately in order to meaningfully address the real underlying economics of modern business and finance, are also by necessity sufficient to build arbitrary shenanigans.

In hacker terms, it's like trying to create a "safe sandbox" for executing arbitrary user-specified code. Once you allow a few things, like say recursion or system calls, there's just no way to keep it truly "safe."

Being able to set up notionally arms length entities which you effectively control is the tax code equivalent of shelling out to the OS.

So, no, the existence of a sufficiently complex tax code guarantees loopholes and unintended consequences.

See also, DAO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The income tax is a grotesque violation of Human Rights and should be abolished. Threatening to throw someone in prison for refusing to disclose their income or hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade is antithetical to a free society.

<comment><USER13> I can't tell if this is satire or not.

<comment><USER12> What part of it resembles satire? There's nothing funny about throwing someone in prison.

<comment><USER14> And there's nothing funny about underfunded critical community services.

<comment><USER12> Throwing people in prison for not funding something, even if it is critical, is wrong..

<comment><USER15> Failure to pay income tax is not a crime punishable with prison time. If you cannot pay, all the IRS will do is arrange for future payment through civil methods (e.g. garnishing future wages, putting a lien on your house, etc). If your poor, the IRS won't throw you in jail. However, if you have a reasonable source of income, you will be asked to pay your share of the services you're using[2].

Note that _tax evasion /fraud_[1] is illegal, which may be difficult to distinguish in some cases.

[1] not to be confused with tax avoidance

[2] services like national security, various types of infrastructure, verification and enforcement of safety regulations (e.g. no melamine in your food). You may not like all of these services - I certainly disagree strongly with some - but citizenship is not _à la carte_ [3]. If you don't like some things your tax money is going to, I encourage you to participate in the political process so your opinions are heard, or even run for office yourself.

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQCH1qyIDo#t=219](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSQCH1qyIDo#t=219)

<comment><USER12> Refusal to report your private income (surrender your financial privacy) is punishable by prison.

>If your poor, the IRS won't throw you in jail. However, if you have a reasonable source of income, you will be asked to pay your share of the services you're using.

This is false. The government does not ask. The government demands and punishes non-compliance with expropriation of private property and or prison.

<comment><USER15> > Refusal to report your private income (surrender your financial privacy) is > punishable by prison.

Of course. You still have to file tax forms, and if you have the money you have to pay it. The situation I'm referring to is how not having the money to pay taxes is only a civil offense. Failure to file or filing fraudulently are, of course, offenses that risk jail time.

> This is false.

I suspect you're conflating filing the tax paperwork (i.e. 1040 and related forms) with the actual payment. These are separate requirements with different potential punishments for non-compliance.

> The government does not ask.

Obviously.

<comment><USER12> >Failure to file or filing fraudulently are, of course, offenses that risk jail time.

So the income tax is a grotesque violation of Human Rights and should be abolished.

<comment><USER14> I fail to see how it's a violation of human rights to make fraud illegal.

<comment><USER12> It's a human rights violation to demand someone give up their privacy and disclose their income, and then to demand that they hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade.

To even categorise refusal to disclose one's personal income as "fraud" (which is an entirely different behavior) is political language to rationalise this human rights violation.

<comment><USER14> I was only asking about actual fraud, not failure to file. I thought you were calling both violations of human rights.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why do some people always want the federal government to solve their problems? It's simple. Donate the extra taxes you should be paying at [http://fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html](http://fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html).

(Edit: Also, there are plenty of problems with the Federal Government size already. Pick a local cause such as Education, Low Income Families, Veterans, etc. and you will find plenty of non-governmental state or county-level groups and organizations who can put your money to a great use. Simply do the math that would leave you with the income you should have if the tax rate applied to your carry, and donate the rest).

<comment><USER17> I think you missed the point of the article. At the risk of explaining the obvious: the "my" in "Close My Tax Loophole" doesn't refer to just the author; it refers to all venture capitalists and money managers. The _author_ may very well be donating the extra taxes, but he wants others in his profession to do the same.

<comment><USER16> That point was not made. The author wants the government to solve the problem. Not a single call to action to other VCs was made to solve the problem by themselves. The author should create the "VC Group for Local Change" and pick a few missions and hire a few people to address them, and stop asking the Federal Government to solve all problems that there are simply by throwing money over the fence to make themselves feel good. It's not like we have an effective Federal Government.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Snapmail - Self-destructing text emails for Gmail - <AUTHOR> https://snapmail.co

<comment><USER2> Love what you are doing. I wanted this to exist for so long, too bad did'nt have the time to take it on. I love the fact that you do not have any trace of sender information on the email screen so it is immune to screen capture. How about video screen capture? Have you thought of that?

</comment><comment><USER3> If you install this Chrome extension, it has the ability to "read and change your data on all google.com sites." Why is this necessary? Seems like quite an overreach.

<comment><AUTHOR> This permission is required in order to capture text from mail form. Gmail operates under mail.google.com domain. You can examine the extension source code to see that it is not doing anything other than this. It encryptes the content in your browser and sends the encyrpted data to Snapmail servers to get the link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is not (or shouldn't be) only for Gmail, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> We have plans to add other email/messaging services too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> what if i take a screenshot?

<comment><USER6> I believe the point is to destroy traces of the information, not to prevent retention. For example, I often work with a few associates in a seperate country and there's a MASSIVE language barrier even though they speak english. We use randomly generated passwords so telling them the password over the phone seems about impossible. Theoretically this allows me to securely send them a password that they can easily record for future use. Transmission or storage of passwords over cleartext is generally what you're trying to avoid.</comment></comment>


Computer Scientists Build Computer Using Swarms of Crabs - Technology Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27730/?ref=rss <comment><USER2> The title seems pretty misleading: it seems they only built an AND and an OR gate, I wouldn't really call a couple of logic gates a _Computer_.

Still, building logic gates using crabs, very good. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> It takes the author to the end of the piece to admit that no, in fact, they did not build a computer using swarms of crabs. Right after he admits it's false he, he asserts it is true again...really...link baity bad writing for an MIT blog.

 _"To be fair, the results were mixed. While Gunji and co found they could build a decent OR gate using soldier crabs, their AND-gate was much less reliable.

However, it's early days and they say it may be possible to produce better results by making conditions inside the computer more crab-friendly. (No crabs were harmed in the making of their computer, say Gunji and co.)

So there you have it--a computer in which the information carriers are swarming balls of soldier crabs."_

</comment><comment><USER4> I know what I'll be building next time I visit the sea side. No more sand castles...

</comment><comment><USER5> Somewhere Charlie Stross is smiling widely.

</comment><comment><USER6> "The first is theoretical--ordinary computers are hugely energy inefficient-- some eight orders of magnitude worse than is theoretically possible. "

Eh? Is this saying that ordinary computers are eight orders of magnitude more energy-inefficient than the maximum possble inefficiency?

Oh, wait, they mean the other possibility.

Also, as others mention, they only build two gates, and one of them doesn't work very well.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm waiting for the NAND or NOR gate...

<comment><USER8> The NOT gate might be difficult to build ;)

<comment><USER9> They claim to have built it already, and given that the AND gate is actually a tripartite output of a∧¬b, a∧b, ¬a∧b the NOT seems to be trivial.

Note: this is not level based logic, but billiard ball logic. If I understood that better I'd write a concise, illuminating explanation of why ¬a∧¬b is missing in the AND gate's outputs.

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

<comment><USER10> Uh, I think you're overthinking this. What is the output of a NOT crab-gate when there are no crabs in the input?

<comment><USER11> In a billiard-ball model one would construct a NOT/inverter with a crab source that normally flows straight to the output but can be misdirected into a drain by crabs coming in from the input. Of course you need a crab source for this, but this is little different from electronic transistor-based computers, where the inverse of Vss is Vdd and the Vdd comes from the power supply.

<comment><USER10> Right, yes, but the (semi-serious) point is that we don't have a crab grid in the same way we have a power grid, so actually implementing this (which is what the article is about, rather than just theory) might be hard. For the crab computer to "run" arbitrary computations it would need an arbitrarily large source of crabs.

<comment><USER9> A functional crab computer would probably have to be built from delay insensitive logic[1]. The outputs of the gates would be of the form X and !X, where the signal (crab cluster) would appear at the appropriate output.

With regards to crab supply, I think the sufficient study of reversible computing, and in particular their charge conservation properties, would address that.

You'll still have to have a mechanism to spray bits of dead fish around to feed the thing.

\--

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_insensitive_circuit>

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversible_computing></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Formidable Playbook: A practical guide to building modern applications - <AUTHOR> https://formidable.com/open-source/playbook/ <comment><USER2> Pales in comparison to Thoughtbot's [https://thoughtbot.com/playbook](https://thoughtbot.com/playbook)

<comment><USER3> I like how the include native apps. Not every application is a web application.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> They should probably rename this to "A practical guide to building applications with webpack" instead, mentions nothing else but webpack and plugins for webpack...

<comment><USER5> Well, this isn't the The Only Way to Build Apps Playbook. It only mentions webpack because that's what we use exclusively at Formidable... it's _our_ playbook. :)

And the TOC shows that many more non-webpack sections are coming, someone just posted this while it was a work in progress.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What I found funny about this guide is it will be outdated in 6 months given the rapid change in the javascript/web universe. I doubt they can write it up faster than it becomes obsolete.

</comment><comment><USER3> Should be called "A practical guide to building modern web applications".

I see nothing here related to building native applications.

</comment><comment><USER7> The "modern application" development situation make this novice's head spin. Rails/Django/Express so much easier.

</comment><comment><USER8> I hadn't heard of DedupePlugin for Webpack, but it strikes me as a potentially dangerous idea. If there's enough duplicate code that using this plugin actually makes a meaningful difference, then I think you have bigger problems.

<comment><USER5> It's primarily for deduping subdependencies in your dependency tree, the existence of which is not an indication of any problems – it's totally expected that your dependencies might themselves depend on the same libraries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Seems to be a very rudimentary work in progress.

</comment><comment><USER10> Should re-submit this when it's actually complete.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'm going to guess this ends up being completely contradictory to

[http://roca-style.org](http://roca-style.org)

ROCA: A collection of simple recommendations for decent Web application frontends

<comment><USER5> Why would you guess that? This ain't our first rodeo.

<comment><USER11> Because you started with a bunch of JavaScript recommendations that have nothing to do with the actual design or implementation of the application. It's leading off with the most trivial stuff imaginable.

Specifically, I'm guessing your architecture doesn't implement ROCA server recommendations #2, #5, #9, or client recommendations #1, #4, or #5. I'm happy to be proven wrong, though.

<comment><USER5> And I'm happy not to have to prove anything to a thirsty rando who assumes we need to repeat some common knowledge best practices in our nascent work-in- progress document (which, btw, we didn't post anywhere for feedback but is simply open source and was randomly shared).

We're a JavaScript consultancy. Clients specifically want us to help them with their tooling, and we need to reference this stuff a lot, that's why we happened to write the webpack stuff down first. This is not a blog post series and there is no implied significance to the ordering so we didn't really "lead off" with one thing or the other.

Anyway, good luck with your prescriptivism and billing your clients for adding "another authentication mechanism […] for non-browser access" (AUTH) – they will love that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you choose to start a new project with React and Webpack, I recommend to use Facebook's official boilerplate[1] and read their really informative user guide. I also find educational to look at the architecture, libraries and configuration of open source non-trivial web applications (e.g. Wordpress Calypso[2]).

[1] [https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react- app](https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app)

[2] [https://github.com/Automattic/wp- calypso](https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso)

</comment><comment><USER13> I'm sorry for anyone who has to read this or any other "playbook".</comment>


Small snippet to dump and restore all data from/to redis - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/MatthewJohn/redis-dump-restore <comment><USER2> No disrespect Matthew, but you're doing it very very wrong.

Very #1: do not use `KEYS`, use `SCAN` instead. Your script is not only blocking the server, it also consumes a lot of RAM just for holding them while iterating.

Very #2: do not use JSON to encode, and no need for the conditional-read-by- type - just use Redis' `DUMP`

P.S. there may be more wrongness ;)</comment>


Learn Vim by watching gifs - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/vimgifs <comment><USER2> I've been using vim as my primary editor for a few years now and I love how there's always something new that just blows my mind, like the :earlier and :later in that pinned tweet.

</comment><comment><USER3> Didn't know that you could just use 'A' to append to the end of a line instead of doing '$a'. Neat!

<comment><USER4> Similarly, 'I' will move the cursor to the start of the line and then enter insert mode.

<comment><USER5> Apropos my comment above, that command has lived in my vi/vim blind spot.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How do they show the keystrokes on the screen? Is it an app or they edit it in?</comment>


Google, Facebook, Microsoft And Apple Deny Participation In NSA PRISM - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/06/google-facebook-apple-deny-participation-in-nsa-prism-program/ <comment><USER2> These denials have been refuted by the Director of National Intelligence.

[http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press- releases/191-pre...](http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press- releases/191-press-releases-2013/869-dni-statement-on-activities-authorized- under-section-702-of-fisa)

[http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press- releases/191-pre...](http://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press- releases/191-press-releases-2013/868-dni-statement-on-recent-unauthorized- disclosures-of-classified-information)

The program exists. Each and every company lied. They may have been Bill Clinton-esque, "legally accurate" lies, but make no mistake: they intentionally lied.

<comment><USER3> Neither of these refutes the PRISM denials. One is about the Verizon court order story, which (while thematically related) is not directly relevant, the other seems intended to be refer to the PRISM stories in the Post and Guardian, but seems to be an attempt to characterize the program referred to in the story as being _radically different_ than either what the story describes or what the providers have denied, so it cannot be a refutation of the denials.

<comment><USER2> Wrong, read them. They refer broadly to both the Washington Post article (PRISM) and the Guardian article regarding "collection of communications".

<comment><USER3> I did; one refers explicity to the Guardian article on the Verizon wireless FISA order, the other refers to supposed Guardian and Washington Post articles referring to data collection under Section 702 of FISA, and accuses the articles of misrepresenting basically everything about that collection. Neither the Post nor the Guardian article abouut PRISM actually says anything about data collection under Section 702 of FISA, and, even if it did, the DNI press release claims everything substantive about the article is wrong, and doesn't in any way refute the denials by the providers (which deny peripheral elements of the story and aren't, actually -- as I address in other posts in the thread -- actually denials of the substance of the stories, anyway.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is pretty simple: if they got to AT&T and Verizon, it's crazy to think they wouldn't get Google / Microsoft / Facebook / Apple.

Apple has recently been the world's largest company, and has nearly half the US smart phone market.

Microsoft still has a practical monopoly in desktop operating systems (and combined with Apple they cover 98% or so of the market). Also, Microsoft was already leashed by the Feds via anti-trust. Once you're under their heel, there's no going back.

Google, well, comeon... they're a data wet dream. Ditto Facebook. One has a near monopoly in search, and develops the most popular mobile operating system (reaching almost a billion users), the other has a monopoly in social (particularly the kind of social where Joe Smith uses it every day).

For all intents and purposes, once a company gets as big as these guys, they become government/corporate entities, no longer strictly corporate in nature. Much like Boeing or Bank of America or GE or Exxon. The intermingling is impossible to avoid at their size. And in fact, the Feds would never allow you to remain very distant at such size, too many lobbyists and too much money and power is in play.

And while we're at it, let's remember the close ties to the Obama Administration that some of these companies enjoy. Hardly far-fetched to imagine them cooperating with continuously expanding espionage programs, particularly even more so when they like the administration in power (I would say it's plausible even that companies would be less likely to fight if they thought highly of an administration; personal political bias clouding judgment, how many have fallen for the Obama campaign charm?).

</comment><comment><USER3> These are all denials of things around the periphery of the PRISM issue like inferred details of the mechanisms by which the data is gathered, and none of them are denials of the core of what supposedly is happening under PRISM in terms of the scope of user data that has been collected by the NSA.

If you look at the "denials", they all only deny one or more of the following things: 1\. That the government has direct access to the providers systems, 2\. That customer information is provided to the government outside of what the provider believes is legally required, 3\. That customer information is turned over to the government without a court order.

Lets start with the "direct access" piece, because this appears to be a common inference as to how the broad scope of information at issue is provided to the government, but the "direct access" characterization seems to be at odds with the slide titled "PRISM Collection Details" in the presentation that is the source of the accusations. That slide strongly suggests that there is a distinct _collection_ of data that is available for NSA users, varying in content by provider.

The idea that it is a "voluntary program" or one outside of a process dependent on court orders isn't inconsistent with anything that has been made public from the source documents, but it doesn't seem to be demanded by them, either. What is clear from the documents (assuming their authenticity and accuracy) and the direct characterizations of them (rather than what are clearly inferences and not direct characterizations) provided in the coverage is that different providers were brought into the program at different times, and that the program involves some form of "cooperation" by the providers -- but none of that implies that it is voluntary or doesn't involve court orders of some kind (perhaps, specifically, FISA warrants)-- and that from each provider the collection of data is limited to a provider-specific list of particular kinds of data, and that the data is provided to the NSA directly from the companies servers (but the "direct access" rather than direct provision thing appears to be an inference from the direct provision, rather than itself a direct characterization.)

In fact, the recently revealed broad Verizon FISA warrant suggests exactly how this could have been achieved with FISA warrants -- instead of being dates on which a negotiated agreement was reached with each provider, the dates the providers are listed as being brought into the program could be the dates on which a broad FISA warrant (similar to the Verizon one, but specifying different data) was issued mandating collection of specified data from the specified provider. The providers could then _honestly_ deny participation in a voluntary program, or providing direct access to their servers, or providing customer information without a court order -- they could even honestly _not_ know that the FISA warrant they were served was part of a broader program directed at wide range of providers. Such a warrant could specify directly (or make timeliness requirements that make this the only way to comply) that the data be provided by being _fed_ to the NSA from the companies servers, without providing the NSA _access_ to the servers.

IOW, _every_ _word_ of the denials could be literally true, with the substance of the story -- that the NSA is being fed the vast array of customer data described in the stories about PRISM and can access data from that collection freely at will -- being true at the same time, the only things that are in conflict between the story and the denials are peripheral inferences and implications about the mechanism that appear in the story (such as "direct access" or the absence of court orders or other compulsory process.)

<comment><USER5> To me the presence or absence of court orders is absolutely a substantive distinction, as is the question of whether information is requested for only a limited subset of customers or for all (or a significant fraction of) customers.

<comment><USER3> > To me the presence or absence of court orders is absolutely a substantive > distinction

Its perhaps a substantive distinction in terms of the culpability of the providers, but its not (IMO) a substantive distinction in terms of the abuse of surveillance by the government if the scope of information collected is as broad as described in the story. PRISM is just as bad if it is done via broad FISA court orders of the type of the Verizon order as if it is done without a court order.

> as is the question of whether information is requested for only a limited > subset of customers or for all (or a significant fraction of) customers.

While the providers have denied providing information as part of a "voluntary program" or "without court orders", none have addressed the _scope_ or _breadth_ of information, so, while that may be an important distinction, its not one that is _addressed_ by the denials at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So the Washington Post "leak" was disinformation to distract everyone from the Verizon phone records story?

Karl Rove was alleged to have done something similar during one of Bush's campaigns: Leak a false version of a true story (I believe it was his draft avoidance, but I can't remember ...) and then provide documentation which discredits the inaccurate version, so no publication was willing to cover the story later, regardless of facts.

Is that what's going on here?

</comment><comment><USER7> Doesn't FISA order them to not disclose such practices?

<comment><USER8> A company cannot say with great accuracy how many NSLs they receive[1], but Google has this page, covering summaries of various types of requests:

<https://www.google.com/transparencyreport/userdatarequests/>

1\. "You'll notice that we're reporting numerical ranges rather than exact numbers. This is to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations." -- [http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/03/transparency-...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2013/03/transparency- report-shedding-more-light.html)

<comment><USER9> Wouldn't PRISM mean these data request reports are completely fabricated?

<comment><USER3> No, because the NSA directly collecting the information under PRISM doesn't mean that the FBI won't also be issuing NSLs, under more specific justification, for information that the NSA already happens to have.

Just because the NSA has it doesn't mean the FBI has access to it.

<comment><USER9> Still doesn't seem very transparent. It's kind of like saying that I didn't drink any alcohol today, but I might be doing an undisclosed amount of drinking with my friend Ned. Kind of defeats the purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The terseness of each of these all but confirms it.

<comment><USER5> So you'd be more likely to believe them if they were verbose? Most of them are fairly direct denials. That's not to say that they're necessarily true, but they don't seem like especially weasely statements.

<comment><USER3> I'd be more likely to believe that the substance of the story wasn't true if they denied the substance (the scope of information provided), rather than peripheral inferences made in the story about the procedure and mechanics by which the information gets to the NSA.

Given the actual denials, I will assume that, at a minimum, everything about the story that they _didn't_ deny -- that is, the scope of the customer data which has been provided by those providers to the NSA -- is implicitly confirmed, and that the (mostly irrelevant) details they have denied are in doubt.

<comment><USER11> What's wrong with the media in the U.S. is that they let these finely parsed denials stand, reporting them verbatim or worse summarizing as "the companies deny it".

We need press that is capable of communicating the grey areas as you did in your top comment here, ideally in a way the masses can grok.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Everybody is reading way too much into this. They were all issued "gag orders" which say "You will never disclose in any such way the existence of this operation". These orders also specify "If this operation is ever leaked into to public awareness you will outright deny knowledge and participation of said operation".

They are legally forced to do this.

</comment><comment><USER13> Well, I suppose that settles that.

</comment><comment><USER14> they are awfully specific about what they don't do.

"direct access"...

<comment><USER15> "Direct access" is the specific accusation that has been leveled at them. For example, the Guardian is using the headline "NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret files reveal" on their front page, and the phrase "direct access" is used three times in their story. [1]

I think that everybody assumes that they already comply with court orders for information from individual accounts. The direct access is what is new and shocking.

[1] [http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech- giants-n...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/us-tech-giants-nsa- data?guni=Network%20front:network- front%20main-2%20Special%20trail:Network%20front%20-%20special%20trail:Position1)

<comment><USER16> Yes but there are plausible ways to deny "direct access" that do not inconvenience the USG. They just need something they can point to to defend this statement, they don't actually have to have any meaningful obstruction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> No, there's really nothing suspicious about the almost instant complete mass denial.

It sometimes takes _months_ for these companies to come up with a full public statement on any privacy scandal. The process of getting hold of the people with enough clearance to be able to deny alone takes time. Let alone ensure that the statement is approved by senior management and legal.

Usually the best statement you can get within 24 hours is "we're taking these allegations very seriously and are looking into it".

This very much feels like a scripted response to an anticipated scenario.

<comment><USER3> > No, there's really nothing suspicious about the almost instant complete mass > denial.

True, because there was no "complete mass denial". There were very focussed, specific denials from different providers of certain procedural and mechanical claims (that they provided customer information as part of a "voluntary program" or without court orders or that they provided government officials direct access to the providers servers to access customer information), but no denials of the central allegation, that each of the providers has been providing the government with a collection of information for their entire customer base and that that information gets pushed into the government collection directly from the providers servers.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why do people hate PHP so much? - <AUTHOR> I am a web developer and can code in PHP, Javascript and Python. I still can't fathom why people hate people so much. <comment><USER3> Mostly because the legacy of PHP as a toy project carried forward forever. Here's a great tidbit about why all the original functions have ridiculous, inconsistent naming schemes:

> "Well, there were other factors in play there. htmlspecialchars was a very > early function. Back when PHP had less than 100 functions and the function > hashing mechanism was strlen(). In order to get a nice hash distribution of > function names across the various function name lengths names were picked > specifically to make them fit into a specific length bucket. This was circa > late 1994 when PHP was a tool just for my own personal use and I wasn't too > worried about not being able to remember the few function names."

That's right: Every one of the original function names has a different character length because length was used as a lookup. There are a lot of clowny things like this that have never been stamped out of the language.

Add to that its history of being a beginner language that most of its early adopters sprinkled into HTML and where many people who mayyybe have no business being professional programmers started making a career out of it. This severely undermined PHP's credibility as a language for professionals even though good software can be created in PHP in the right hands.

That all said, I spent about year coding in Hack, and while the parts that still feel like PHP are annoying, it is awesome in so many other ways. Hopefully it either starts to unseat PHP or PHP turns into Hack at some point.

<comment><USER4> The "Personal Homepage Program" certainly grew organically. Many experienced developers prefer a much more structured approach to defining a language and environment, one with more consistent naming schemes. PHP cannot escape its roots -- it was doomed from the start in this regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Inconsistency, _very_ prone to security mistakes, poor type system, and some people just find its syntax "ugly." For example lots of folks hate $strings and $_WTF['bbq'] type syntax. Perl is another language whose syntax draws a lot of haters.

I'd say the second problem is the most objectively bad. It is very easy to write PHP code that exposes you to all kinds of known exploit classes like SQL injection, command injection, cross-site scripting, etc. The language seems to encourage poor practices like building query strings directly from remote input without the use of a true query builder.

PHP also has a problem that it shares with JavaScript and to a lesser extent Java -- the quality of the user base and user-contributed code is often very poor. If you look for PHP code on StackOverflow or Reddit or similar sites, you are likely to get something that is horribly wrong, comically inefficient, or whose use will immediately introduce a dangerous remote security vulnerability. This comes from the simple fact that it's often a beginner language, so you have a lot of inexperienced people participating in forums and contributing sample code.

<comment><USER6> >The language seems to encourage poor practices like building query strings directly from remote input without the use of a true query builder.

I won't entirely disagree with you on this, because there is still a ton of that code out there, but PHP has had true 'query builders' for a while now, and the mysql_ functions are being deprecated anyway.

<comment><USER5> It has them, but so many people don't use them. It's partly an issue with the language and partly with the community.

One thing I learned from NodeJS is that the quality of the community around a language can matter more than the language. JavaScript is a crap language, but the NodeJS community and the base of available modules is just so good that it makes up for a lot of the language's faults. When I tried it out I thought "who says you can't polish a turd?" I mean... Joyent and Node's community have buffed that thing down to gleaming crystal.

In counterpoint -- Java's actually a pretty good language, but its community's addiction to criminal overengineering is a big reason it hasn't been "sexy" in some time.

<comment><USER6> That's true.

There are a ton of features in modern PHP which address a lot of the common criticisms brought against it. Doing a proper comparison with other languages (framework to framework, not framework to language) I think PHP measures up reasonably well.

But there is so much terrible, legacy code out there. The evolution, if it's happening is happening very slowly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm a web developer too, and I've worked with PHP professionally. It's not a great language in terms of features, but there are worse.

One of the good things about PHP is that it has a very low barrier to entry, making it easy for people to get up and running.

I think, though, that that sometimes leads to one reason why people dislike it: a company gets up and running (which is a good thing) on a hideous pile of crap codebase (not so good) and then decides to hire some more serious developers.

I've been in that position, and it is not fun.

</comment><comment> ts-jondin Inconsistency, would be my topmost argument, in general. Among many other things these include what PHP dodges under the term "language construct" which when searched produces a wikipedia stub article with the only examples in PHP.

Failed closures that lack proper scoping, while they have been improved the underlying problem remains.

Continuation on inconsistency is that functions are not first class even though the syntax is the same for closures:

function foo () { } <\--- This is a function

$foo = function () { } <\--- This is a closure

Inconsistency; Cannot access functions (closures) directly from arrays.

$list["something"] = function () { };

$list["something"]() <\- fatal error

What is "truthy" and what is "falsy", not unique to PHP but that doesn't mean PHP should do it.

Assumptions such as how it interprets numbers in octal

Functions do not follow any specific naming standard, i.e. some array functions are prefixed by array_*, some are not.

Include and require scoping is messed up as anything that is not a variable is mashed into the global scope.

Lastly in my post but far from all issues with PHP; A crap-load of legacy because "we can never break anything"

</comment><comment><USER8> PHP gets a lot of hate because of internal inconsistencies and sometimes bizarre pass-by-reference semantics, but I mostly get annoyed at how dog slow it can be.

When PHP is fast (and it often is!), it's because the functions you're using are written in hand-tuned C. The kind of "modern PHP" that I write professionally (think Java or C# without types or a compiler) is often disappointing performance-wise.

HHVM is slowly proving to the word that this is not due to PHP itself but to the Zend runtime, but it'll be a while before HHVM takes over.

<comment><USER9> I don't buy the whole "slow" thing. I work on a very popular SaaS web app, written in PHP, that is running on far fewer frontend web servers than I've seen running other sites with fewer users written in other languages.

With an Opcode cache (available shipped since 5.5) it's perfectly fine performance wise.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've asked the same question before, and the answers I've received are basically:

A) People like to compare frameworks (e.g. Rails) to the PHP programming language, rather than an apples-to-apples comparison, and therefore PHP always falls short in their eyes.

B) The abundance of poorly written, insecure legacy code has besmirched PHP's reputation beyond repair, even if its actual security isn't bad.

C) The fact that n00bs can pick it up quickly and get a dynamic website out of PHP with minimal effort leads elitists to look down on it from their glass enclaves.

D) Academic reasons that no one outside academia cares about.

Full disclosure: I read and write PHP every day regardless of what people say about it. :D

</comment><comment><USER11> [http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php](http://php.net/manual/en/language.types.array.php)

> An array in PHP is actually an ordered map.

</comment><comment><USER12> I am also a developer with experience in PHP(Cake, Codeigniter) Python(Django) Ruby(Rails) according to my experience PHP isn't a bad language and i don't hate PHP its just matter of fact i don't prefer to work in PHP( or any of its framework ) the reason is RAILS offered so much to me in context of Rapid Application Development that neither of PHP's framework offer

This is what i thought

<comment><USER3> I don't like PHP, and I do love Rails, but pretty much anything you compare to CakePHP is going to seem fantastic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'd suggest reading _PHP: a fractal of bad design_ [http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad- design/](http://eev.ee/blog/2012/04/09/php-a-fractal-of-bad-design/)

<comment><USER14> Probably one of the most sensible articles written about whats wrong with PHP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Take your pick (probably a combination of the below):

1) it is more popular then what they are using, developing or have skills for

1a) they use language x which does something different that they feel PHP sucks because the lack of it.

2) they got stuck using it and prefer language y instead.

3) They really aren't all that good programmers and rely on pre-implemented security features to save their butts, and PHP doesn't meet their dependencies

4) they are invested-in or represent language/platform x and PHP is a compelling contender.

5) they prefer to argue instead of fostering as accessible/usable alternatives for for one reason or another

Just as COBOL, FORTRAN, Visual BASIC, Perl, etc. are reviled by some, they still get jobs done. In some respects it may suck, others it's just fine partly based on intended application and/or coding skill.

If PHP was so bad in all the respects argued, there would be a much more compelling alternative, but it isn't all that bad, and actually quite useful... and popular.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting to read all these comments and more interesting for me to constantly be hearing "But hey, Facebook's built on PHP".

<comment><USER13> That's mostly because PHP made sense at the time that decision was made - <USER2> the time it didn't they had too much legacy to make a complete rewrite worth it. Instead, they chose solutions that wouldn't require a complete rewrite by creating HHVM[1] and Hack[2].

And remember PHP was only used for the user-facing stuff (they probably had more Java and C++ than PHP when they began moving to Hack) - if you look at what they open source[3] only about half a dozen (out of over a hundred!) projects are PHP.

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

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_(programming_language)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hack_\(programming_language\))

[3] [https://github.com/facebook](https://github.com/facebook)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a whole list of reasons: [http://phpsadness.com](http://phpsadness.com)

</comment><comment><USER18> Weak refs are a joke in PHP. All problems stem from that.

</comment><comment><USER19> Because people are stupid. And stuck in the 90's. That's the main reason. Other reasons include self-hatred for spending so much time on RoR's/Node's penis. That's definitely the second leading reason. Making less money then "stupid PHP programmers" cause they seriously thought they could develop real applications after learning JavaScript. That's pretty high on the list.

Look the bottom line is PHP has some weird issues (naming inconsistencies, parameter ordering, security issues with deprecated functionality, etc. etc.) but you can find issues on the same level with ANY language. Professional PHP dev's can consistently build large enterprise applications that are readable, scalable, maintainable and performant. Anyone who tells you otherwise is simply not familiar with the transformation that PHP and the community has gone through since version 5.3.</comment>


Tails: a live operating system that aims to preserve your privacy and anonymity - <AUTHOR> https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html

<comment><USER2> Interesting project, I'll give it a try. Can it be mounted and launched as a VM rather than external media and would there be any downsides to using it this way? Thanks for sharing!

<comment><USER3> You can, and that's a great way to try it out.

Tails recommends against using it in a VM for serious purposes though, since at that point it's only as secure as your host OS. If your host was comprised then Tails in a VM might not protect your communications.</comment></comment>


High Technology Innovation: Free Markets or Government Subsidies - <AUTHOR> https://web.archive.org/web/20171027055523/http://www.cypress.com:80/documentation/ceo-articles/dr-rodgers-testimony-high-technology-innovation-free-markets-or <comment><AUTHOR> "I am here to say that such subsidies will hurt my company and our industry. Why? Because they represent tax-and-spend economics--a brand of economics that is a known failure. I do not want handouts. The men and women of our company do not want handouts. And if Congress wants to help American high technology, handouts are the wrong way to go--especially if they are funded with huge tax increases on individuals and corporations."

I discovered this essay reading PG's essay on CEOs. I have to agree with him, that reading this was electrifying. Concise and clear about the consequences of taking money from investors, to ostensibly invest via the government (an investor with a much worse history).

Loved it</comment>


Why Docker? Why Not Chef? - <AUTHOR> http://blog.relateiq.com/why-docker-why-not-chef/

<comment><USER2> Have you ever changed the configuration of an NFS mount point in chef, puppet, or cfengine, after the NFS mount point got wedged?

They all fail in various ways (either fail to change the mountpoint, hang forever, or leave the state in some unspecified condition).</comment>


An Interview With Paul Graham... - <AUTHOR>

Hi Mr. Graham, I would like to ask some questions and possibly publish the results on my blog.  I thought that YC news would be the best way to answer the questions, that way we can all read the answers right here.
1) Has YC ever considered investing in a not-for-profit start-up?
2) To your recollection, are there any ideas that were rejected by YC that have made it big?  If so, can you name them.
3) You seem to be one of Silicon Valley's busiest/most influential/hard-working persons, why all the fuss?  Haven't you earned a respite?
4) Have you ever thought about franchising the YC brand?
5) In your spare time, what does Paul Graham like to do?
6) Rumor has it that you studied the Arts in University, at what point did you realize that you were more capable with the keyboard, if ever?
Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions.  They are as much a personal interest of mine as I'm sure they are for many others. <comment><USER2> 1) No. We'd do charitable donations individually, not through YC.

2) I don't know of any, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

3) I like the stuff I work on. You don't need a respite from work you like.

4) We wouldn't trust anyone else enough. We'd rather see if we can cook up some clever way of doing everything ourselves.

5) Write essays.

6) I haven't given up on painting. But the web has opened a window for writing essays that never existed before, so I decided I'd spend a couple years mostly writing.

<comment><USER3> This may well have been someone kissing up, some of the questions weren't well researched, and this site probably isn't a great place for a personal interview (as opposed to an Ask YCombinator-type open question). All that aside, I would have liked to have seen better answers for two questions.

For instance, it seems possible that a nonprofit startup might be better than a large, existing nonprofit at solving a problem YCombinator's founders care about. And funding a nonprofit startup is not necessarily the same as making a donation. It could be, but it doesn't have to be.

The spare time question might also deserve a more thoughtful answer. After all, the whole point of news.ycombinator.com is that people interested in startups also have other interests. Are there patterns? Are there things to do in one's spare time that seem to go along with creating successful startups, things one wouldn't necessarily expect?

<comment><USER2> We like startups that have a benevolent angle. But it would be weird to have actual nonprofits mixed in with the regular YC startups. The priorities would be so different; it would throw us all off to have to be switching gears when we talked to them.

As for the spare time question, that _was_ supposed to be a thoughtful answer. That's what I spend most of the time on that I don't spend on YC. From what I've seen of startup founders, there is no pattern to what they do in their spare time. Most have eclectic interests, if that counts as a pattern.

<comment><USER4> Leave it to an essayist to assume the audience knows long != thoughtful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dont forget #7...

7) Are my lips hurting your ass?

<comment><USER2> No, migpwr, I'm a hardass.

<comment><USER6> Do you suffer from brown tongue disease over there? We're currently suffering the first cases of it in the UK. Could be quite a problem. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk/7018205.stm>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 8) Would you consider applications where the "exit" strategy is just to make money from customers and pay out dividends to shareholders, all else looking good?

9) Did you get any of these? Few, many?

<comment><USER8> > Would you consider applications where the "exit" strategy is just to make > money from customers and pay out dividends to shareholders

Apparently Wufoo is already profitable by making money from customers...

[http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2007/07/yc-alums- visit-...](http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2007/07/yc-alums-visit- cambridge.html)

<comment><USER7> [When I click on that link it takes me to the weebly homepage. (?)]

Congratulations to the Wufoo team! Profitability is a great position to be in.

Now back to my question: being profitable doesn't rule out the option of being acquired. What was their investor exit/ROI plan when they applied to YC? What is it now? Are they paying out any dividends? Planning to?

Googling for "dividends site:news.ycombinator.com" reveals the following comment from PG:

( <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28399> )

 _Most startups don't pay dividends. Even Microsoft barely does. Owning 10% of a technology startup basically means you get 10% of the proceeds if the company gets bought, or hold 10% of the now tradeable shares if it goes public._

But this is a comment on the industry at large, not on YC's policies. Although we can make educated guesses based on this, it would be great to have an explicit reply on this matter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For PG: Outside of the internet, what would you say is another disruptive technology platform that is worthy of investigation?

<comment><USER10> Lasers baby, lasers.

Reference:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Powers:_International_Ma...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Powers:_International_Man_of_Mystery)

<comment><USER4> Don't shoot your eyes out. Seriously: <http://wickedlasers.com/>

<comment><USER10> Thanks for the pointer (ha ha). Cool site - they get extra points for playing Satriani in their intro video.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I like this thread. Never met Paul or Jessica. Hopefully some day.

In spite of all of the hero worship here, I imagine they're regular people just like us. (Well, almost like us.)

Having a forum with a little 2 way communication grounds things really well. Thanks.

(Aside: This summer, I had the good fortune to personally meet Joel Spolsky, whose writings put him in a class with Paul Graham, IMO. I couldn't stop thinking what a regular guy he was. This is good news for mere mortals like us. If they can do it, so can we...)</comment>


U.S. Flies Over a Chinese Project at Sea, and Beijing Objects - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/world/asia/us-flies-over-a-chinese-project-at-sea-and-beijing-objects.html <comment><USER2> _Hong Lei, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, warned that the American flights, which he called "very irresponsible and dangerous," were "likely to cause an accident."_

Oh really? What are the Chinese going to do in international waters to "cause an accident".

Maybe the U.S. should build their own island next door to the Chinese island.

<comment><USER3> Or better yet, build islands around it so they have no access. (Of course I am just joking here)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Hua pointed out that the South China Sea is a vital area for maritime shipping and fishing activities, but is located far from major land masses. China's new construction will allow ships to "take shelter" from typhoons and other inclement weather, as well as providing "navigation aid, search and rescue … [and] fishery service and administration" to ships from China and its neighbors alike, Hua said." [1]

This reminds me of that argument against super-intelligence.

"Humans do not want to actively kill a snail when we walk over them to get to our destination"

China is trying to improve the stability of its trade routes which are vital to their economy. I am sure if there existed the kind of infrastructure china wanted they wouldn't go out and do this by themselves as land reclamation is very expensive in the sea.

I however agree that China could have taken a less aggressive route towards doing this. Why they haven't is an interesting question. The Chinese govt seem to really value trade relations and wouldn't be stupid to enough to risk going to war with a multitude of countries + United States.

So there is some missing piece of information that we are not being told about by either the media or government.

Also these projects help explain Obama's push for TIP.

[1]:[http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/revealed-chinas-reasons- for-i...](http://thediplomat.com/2015/04/revealed-chinas-reasons-for-island- building-in-the-south-china-sea/)

<comment><USER5> The problem is that with all the growing media hype about China's economy over the past few years, no free government or media seems to want to criticize the Chinese regime, so the Chinese regime seems to be able to do whatever it wants - including constructing these mini-islands in disputed territory and threatening to shoot down any planes that cross it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I can't recall the source at the moment (it was linked to a military history site), but the U.S. apparently took similar actions when its geopolitical power was on the rise. It didn't create artificial islands but it showed up in areas far away from home and claimed them as U.S. territory. The British didn't ask if half the world wanted to be subservient to its empire.

It's not a simple matter of right or wrong, it's just what countries with power do. Although where the line is drawn is ever shifting. It's generally agreed Germany invading Poland in 1939 was wrong but European nations prior to the mid-20th century claimed large parts of Africa, Asia and, of course, the Americas, and felt perfectly justified doing so. Invading ones neighbor became more of a taboo after the creation of the nation state and whether an aggressive annexation or expansion is "right" or "wrong" depends entirely on who is writing the narrative. The U.S. is always in the right and justified according to...the United States. China is always right according to China. Which narrative prevails in the historical record depends upon which nation or group exerts the most influence over its competitors. Sometimes acts are universally condemned as atrocities if they go far beyond the unwritten rules... the Holocaust being the most obvious example. OTOH the decimation and subjugation of indigenous people in the Americas by the European colonialists and later the United States, Canada and the Latin American nations barely registers on the contemporary "atrocity radar" even though the effects are still present today.

It's a funny old world... or perhaps it's a nasty mess of a world or a combination of the two, depending on who is doing the assessing. It will be interesting to see how China's island building adventure pans out in the long- term.

</comment><comment><USER6> this is about oil & natural gas reserves. The US has a strong interest to back any country friendly to it's own interest (Vietnam, Japan). I urge you to look at google maps to see how far this place is actually away from China, Japan!

Who really is the rightful owner is hard to say. A total of 48 nations made full claims, and dozens more made preliminary submissions to extend their continental shelf claims in 2009.

Just to illustrate how messed up this is: Tomas Cloma claimed the islands his own [1] as "Freedomland". [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Cloma#Free_Territory...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom%C3%A1s_Cloma#Free_Territory_of_Freedomland) and was later forced to hand them back over to the Philippines for 1 peso.

IMO one of the most potentially explosive topics in politics. Can you imagine any of these countries (China, Japan/US), backing down? I don't! And the Chinese will continue to lock (military & economic) horns with anyone who dares.</comment>


Show HN: Ereb – Cron with web interface and Slack notifications - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kosyanmedia/ereb <comment><AUTHOR> I was always frustrated by system crond. If you have to run a lot of cron tasks on your server, you understand my problem. No web interface, no history, no _good_ notifications, nothing. I tried several projects like Minicron and Juicebox, but always have some troubles and bugs.

Then I decided to make my own, lightweight and easy installable. After almost a year of development I wanna show it someone else! It's still rather ugly, but it works. We use in production and make thousands of task runs. And it has Slack notification about failed tasks :)

Honestly I have absolutely no idea how to make proper open source products. But my company had a problem and I solved it with ereb. Hopefully someone have the same problem and ereb can help there, too.

Any kind of feedback is really welcome, even "hey, dude, it's bullshit, no one need it".

Thanks

</comment><comment><USER2> I don't know... Jenkins?

I mean, it is battle tested, has all the features you mention, plus pipeline of tasks, is extensible, can be clustered if needed, and, as a bonus, can serve as a CI as well.

The only downside I see could be the memory footprint, or the fact that you might despise Java.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mm, was always thinking that Jenkins is a perfect tool for build automation, deploy or CI. And it really looks like overkill for our problem. We don't need pipelines, only single tasks like data aggregation, sending notifications, transferring data. So I tried to make a really simple solution. But thanks for mentioning Jenkinks, never thought about it that way</comment></comment>


How Public Safety Agencies Responded to Major Vulns in Vehicle Surveillance Tech - <AUTHOR> https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/license-plate-readers-exposed-how-public-safety-agencies-responded-massive <comment><USER2> What did we learn today about security through obscurity, children? ;)</comment>


Spry: a programming language inspired by Smalltalk/Rebol and written in Nim - <AUTHOR> http://sprylang.org/ <comment><USER2> (author of Spry) Just a few notes:

I like the cleanliness of Lisp, but I have always found it hard to read. That's one reason for Spry to have a bit more syntactic elements than Lisp.

Spry supports both prefix and keyword style function calls, although as a Smalltalker by heart I favour keyword style.

Finally, Spry is still an evolving experiment. Next up is the OO model which I hope will be interesting.

<comment><USER3> 1 to: 5 do: [echo :x] in smalltalk translate to: 1 to: 5 do: [:x | Transcript show: x ]

1(smallInt object) receive message 'to' with parameter 5 (smallInt object) return numeric range, then you send 'do; message with parameter being a block that evaluate for each element in range.

Smalltalk is about objects and message passing. Spry only use Smalltalk syntax.

<comment><USER2> Well, Spry is much more Smalltalk than "only use Smalltalk syntax". But I have an entire article being written on that subject :)

And no, your description of how it works in Smalltalk is wrong - #to:do: is implemented in the receiver (1).

In Spry we are calling an infix function named to:do: and the only real difference to Smalltalk in this case is the fact that the dispatch of to:do: is not polymorphic. But as I described in other comments I am working on polymorphic functions as a way to reach similar abstraction levels.

<comment><USER3> The thing is that Smalltalk do not have language constructs like loops or conditionals ifs/switch. Smalltalk also do not have functions only methods. There are only objects and messages.

Your infix functions would need to live somewhere probably in global scope with makes then no different than language constructs.

I would love to see new Smalltalk implementation that is not a Walled Garden. Making a Smalltalk impure is not a way foward imo. You work is interesting but what we need is Smalltalk VM on modern back-end like LLVM and better concurrency.

<comment><USER2> Spry does not have these builtin either, they are all functions. In fact, even assignment is, which makes Spry even more minimal then Smalltalk in this sense.

I know Smalltalk VERY well, and Spry is trying to experiment. I think polymorphic functions can be just as powerful as a class based model, even more so, and still feel similar. But i need to write examples to show it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Goran, congrats for this release and the nice website! It is interesting to see where mixing ideas from Red/Rebol and Smalltalk can bring us to. What are the main pros/cons of using Nim as the underlying language?

<comment><USER2> Hey! Thanks. Not me who put it here on HN though :)

Regarding Nim - IMHO the main big pro is the fact that I can piggy back on the GC, use several of Nim's features (dynamic dispatch using methods for example), target all three of C/C++/js. And finally, I can use the very good C/C++ wrapping capabilities of Nim. As you may know wrapping C++ is ... very hard, but if you let Nim compile via C++ it works great.

I also find Nim very, very nice to work in.

And yeah, I hope Spry will show some interesting results of mixing Rebol/Red ideas with Smalltalk. And I do need to study Rebol/Red more. ;)

<comment><USER2> Also, Nim has very promising support for threads, threadpools, async stuff etc etc. And when I rewrite the Spry interpreter to be stackless I hope to be able to use a lot of those things too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> For a moment I thought dreamweaver was making a comeback! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spry_framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spry_framework)

</comment><comment><USER6> This looks super interesting to me :) something I really thought we do need. I will be looking into how Spry develops in the future.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think I'll stick with Red.

<comment><USER8> What are you using it for if I may ask? And how are you finding it?

<comment><USER7> It's not in a workhorse languages category yet, but in a hobby languages, alongside Perl 6. I'm interested in Parse dialect, seems very powerful. Wasn't a user of Rebol previously, but I like that Red mostly reimplements it, without straying to the sides.

<comment><USER2> And yeah, Parse is very interesting. I would like to do something similar in Spry but perhaps borrowing more from PetitParser (a very nice parser combinator library in Smalltalk from Lukas Renggli)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "funci", really?

<comment><USER2> funci for infix. func for prefix. May end up changing that.

<comment><USER9> It's a terrible choice!

<comment><USER2> But hardly important :) I may actually end up not needing the distinction, but if so, then I think a good convention on documenting funcs is needed. Well, needed anyway. :)

<comment><USER9> I want my programing language to be as close to natural English as possible. Just voicing an opinon. There's a niche market for as cryptic languages as possible, too!

<comment><USER10> Just curious, are you working in one? link?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I really, really like the concept, but I strongly dislike the syntax. Excessive punctuation is the enemy of code readability.

Someone need to make lisp without the parentheses, where scoping can also be managed by indentation like in python. Throw in some strong imperative programming so that it's a lisp masquerading as C (because purism sucks), and you'd have one very powerful language

<comment><USER12> I think the problem is more the example than the syntax, it basically has keyword arguments (foo: bar), square brackets for lambda ([echo :x]) and :foo for block arguments.

I.e. this

        1 to: 5 do: [echo :x]

is pseudopython's

        loop(from=1, to=5, do=lambda x: echo x)
        loop(1, 5, lambda x: echo x)

which have comparable punctuation, mostly trading "," for ":" .

Being smalltalkish, you also get extra characters when a block is used for control structures, but that saves on the need to have two different syntaxes for single and multi-line/expression lambdas or N syntaxes for blocks and control structures.

How do you see that handled in your ideal language?

<comment><USER13> Ruby, another language in the Smalltalk lineage, did without the [ ] at the cost of the "end" keyword to terminate blocks, but there is also the equivalent {} notation, recommended for one liners.

A Python indented Ruby would probably able to do without [ ] but I should think about whether there are some unresolvable ambiguities with that approach. I won't recommend that personally because syntactical spaces introduce bugs. I run into one a few days ago when I moved code around a file and forgot to fix the indentation of a few lines. Luckily this one cost me only five minutes. Many people like Python though.

Overall I like the terseness of

        1 to: 5 do: [echo :x]

instead of the more verbose

        loop(1, 5, lambda x: echo x)  # Python
        (1..5).each do { |x| echo x } # Ruby
        (1..5).each do |x|            # Ruby again
          echo x
        end

But all those : are annoying: they increase the noise/signal ratio. I'd even do without the | | in the multi line Ruby version. I wonder if the compiler could add the : automatically by matching what it sees with the signatures of the defined function.

        1 to 5 do [echo :x]

Then, why you need :x and couldn't use x without the : ? Furthermore, how do I know how the name of the block argument if I didn't write the function. Isn't that an unnecessary coupling between the name chosen by the developer of the library and my code? I probably didn't understand everything is going on here. Edit: it has been explained in another comment in the parent's thread.

And there are so many commonly used languages that use { } to define code blocks and [ ] for arrays. I'd stick with the majority for an easier onboarding of developers.

The possibility of defining pseudo keywords thanks to the infix/suffix arguments is great. That's probably anathema in the Python world (only one way of doing things) and also in Go's. It should be acceptable in Ruby's.

I'd prefer something like this

       func (n)to(m)do(blk) {
         x = n
         ...
         do blk x
         ...
       }

The order of arguments and function names is clear because you read them from left to right without going through two different lists.

Is anybody using Spry for real world programs?

<comment><USER14>
       func (n)to(m)do(blk) {
         x = n
         ...
         do blk x
         ...
       }

This looks ambiguous. Your function does not have a name, how do you do if another library wants to do something different with the same keywords? And how do you know when arguments should be evaluated? In your case, "blk" seems to be a set of statements to be executed when "do" is applied, is it right? shall we scan the body to detect if we use "do" on our arguments or does "do" in the signature have a special meaning?

<comment><USER13> I was describing a syntax I'd like starting from the idea that the compiler should bend to developers and not viceversa.

Let's see if we can make it work.

func (n)to(m)do(blk) could be syntactic sugar for to:do: funci (n, m, blk). I saw funci in the examples, I didn't investigate if there are other type of function definitions. However, if the definition starts with (arg) it should be easy to map it into a funci. This either solves the problem of name clashes with other libraries, or the problem is unsolved right now.

The block passing is more serious. Maybe we could mark blk in such a way we know it's a block. Ruby uses & as in

        func (n)to(m)do(&blk)

Maybe Spry uses & in an incompatible way and I don't like it much anyway. It's developers bending to the compiler, but let's be realistic: we don't want slow compilers.

What Ruby also does is having a yield keyword that calls an anonymous block passed at the invocation point of the function (a method in Ruby's world). The block is not declared as argument of the function/method. Maybe:

        func (n)to(m)do() { # an empty arg is a block
         x = n
         ...
         do x
         ...
        }

        1 to 5 do { echo x }

But I think this is getting far away from the way of Spry.

<comment><USER2> I should mention that Spry uses all of () []{}. The () are reified as Paren as in Rebol which makes it useful in templating etc. {} are used to create Maps, like {x = 1} creates a Map with one kv pair.

<comment><USER14> I tried to find an example of the macro-like approach of Spry and couldn't. How is it expressed?

<comment><USER2> It's not as evolved yet - but funcs pull in arguments via :x and can instead use :$x (I used ^ earlier, but switched to $) which will pull in that AST node (argument) _without evaluating it first_ at the call site.

So it's a kind of quoting. I haven't pushed these things further yet, and frankly I am not that heavily into macros unless they are really needed. But obviously AST manipulation is easy in Spry.

<comment><USER14> In case you want to work on that, be sure to define how quote and eval work with respect to the lexical environment.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Kickstarter etiquette on living expenses? - <AUTHOR>

To use an example: what if Sal Khan of Khan Academy wanted to raise money to make more videos (assuming they didn't raise money). It costs him basically nothing to make them. But to do it fulltime, he'd need enough money to pay the bills.
Would it be acceptable for him to use Kickstarter to raise X dollars to live while he's doing the project?
Ditto for any other project that basically costs nothing to make, other than time. <comment><USER2> Yeah, this has been done: [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelficarra/make-a- be...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelficarra/make-a-better- coffeescript-compiler) IMO this is fine as long as it's disclosed in the pitch.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it's semantics. If you call it "living expenses", I think that a lot of people will see that as "personal expenses" and thus would be turned off. If you call it "salary", then those same people would view that as "business expenses" and thus fund the project.</comment>


Now You Can Literally Get Fucked by the Price of Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/gywqem/now-you-can-literally-get-fucked-by-the-price-of-bitcoin <comment><USER2> Yawn. Wake me when you can actually mine cryptocurrency using this

(Although if anyone wants to build something similar, the lovense toys are actually a pretty good choice. Just serial commands over Bluetooth as far as I know, so it's super easy to hook them up to an Api or sensor)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure if this makes me sad or if it's just another nail in the coffin for humanity.

Either way, it's an overwhelming WTF people. Think I'll go with sad because many someones will have installed this and gone out into the past-the-front- door world :(

and, digging deeper, I found this [https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp- content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/12...](https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp- content/blogs.dir/1/files/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2017-12-20-at-16.20.08.png)</comment>


The Reality of Teaching in a Small School in the Bronx - <AUTHOR> http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2011/01/could-you-make-my-job-more-difficult.html <comment><USER2> I think the major thing here is to see that there are two types of problems.

The first type of problems are easy to fix. You can throw more money at broken printers and leaky roofs. However, that's the easy part. Generate enough political will and it will occur.

The other type of problem is systemic cultural issue. I grew up in a poor rural area and teachers could leave us alone and we wouldn't get into their desk drawers which always contained money and candy, let alone steal bathroom passes and laptops. It seems clear to me that this is where the real work needs to be done. I see what you might call a culture of urban poverty slipping into Americas suburbs and rural areas.

Has anyone seen anyone doing anything meaningful to address the harder issues found in the second type of problems?

<comment><USER3> _"The first type of problems are easy to fix. You can throw more money at broken printers and leaky roofs."_

Can you? Schools receive a lot of money, and have been receiving increasing amounts of funding per student over the last few decades. Some of the worst performing schools spend some of the most per student. I doubt the problem is truly a lack of funds, it's more likely to be a mismanagement of funds. In that case throwing more money at the problem may eventually "trickle down" results to individual class rooms and teachers as a side effect but ultimately is not a solution to the problem.

The second type of problem seems as much of a ready scape goat as anything else. If the school system is horribly mismanaged what would motivate them to enforce discipline in the classroom? Then they couldn't blame the students for the inevitable failure of education.

<comment><USER4> I heard this story about a Tsar in Russia, who was told that the province with the most doctors also had the most illness. He promptly ordered all doctors executed.

I'd say that bad schools get more money because they need it. In a school that's practically a war-zone, you need lots of money just to replace the essentials that students wreck.

Bad schools often have good inputs (students per teacher, facilities, etc), but they also have things like ex-students lurking outside the school gate (dealing drugs? signing up gang recruits? heckling the students? who cares); and many of the parents don't exactly help the kids get their homework done.

There are programs (cash transfers to poor parents, if they meet certain conditions) that have been proven to work (through randomised trials - something that Mexican politicians are better at then US ones), but it's more expedient to look for "root causes" (play the blame game) than look for empirical solutions that work (even if you don't understand why).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> TL;DR - Loads of organizational problems, disincentives, and cultural problems make this job hard, and nobody who can do anything about it listens. There's also not enough money.

<comment><USER6> These schools are awash in money. Per capita student spending has gone through the roof the last three decades, and NY spends as much as any place in America.

[http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/the- highest-p...](http://empirezone.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/the-highest-per- pupil-spending-in-the-us/)

The unions and bureaucracy suck the system dry. That's why less-funded private schools in NYC consistently outperform public schools.

Every single rotten thing is the result of either dysfunctional culture or dysfunctional management structure/incentives.

<comment><USER7> > _That's why less-funded private schools in NYC consistently outperform > public schools._

The "less-funded private schools" are also allowed to choose the cream-of-the- crop, are not required to enroll child with special needs and can jettison problem students at the drop of a hat. As I wrote earlier, if the problem was strictly "unions" you would expect states without collective bargaining agreements to outperform states with those agreements and they don't: <http://shankerblog.org/?p=895>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I couldn't find out exactly which school the writer works at (I'm sure he wishes to remain anonymous as much as possible), however I was able to dig up some other data.

Per student expenditures for public schools in The Bronx can be found here (input district values of 08,09,10, or 11 for Bronx schools): [https://www.nycenet.edu/offices/d_chanc_oper/budget/exp01/y2...](https://www.nycenet.edu/offices/d_chanc_oper/budget/exp01/y2008_2009/function.asp)

Per student spending in The Bronx appears to be around $17.5k. This is significantly higher than the national average (of about $11k). More notably it's the same as Stuyvesant High School (also in New York city, [http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/02/M475/AboutUs/Statist...](http://schools.nyc.gov/SchoolPortals/02/M475/AboutUs/Statistics/expenditures.htm)) which is regarded as one of the top schools in the country: [http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/listings/high...](http://education.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/listings/high- schools/new_york/stuyvesant_high_school)

Given this I find little evidence to support the contention that Bronx schools need more money. I think it's quite likely that important things (like supplies and building maintenance) aren't being paid for, but I don't see evidence that this is due to lack of funds rather than mismanagement.

<comment><USER7> > _Given this I find little evidence to support the contention that Bronx > schools need more money. I think it's quite likely that important things > (like supplies and building maintenance) aren't being paid for, but I don't > see evidence that this is due to lack of funds rather than mismanagement._

That's an incredibly unfair conclusion to come to based on almost no information. For example, you compare the average expenditure per studend in the Bronx with the average at Stuyvesant - enrollment at Stuyvesant is based on a competitive exam ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School#Enrollme...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School#Enrollment)) and I've be willing to bet that Stuyvesant doesn't have to put up with SpEd and disciplinary problems the author's school does which could easily chew up a whole chunk of money.

<comment><USER3> Stuyvesant has the same per student expenditures for regular (non-special ed) students as for many schools in The Bronx (check my links).

As for Stuyvesant's students, yes, it is a special school which takes gifted students. So is your contention that it costs less money to educate gifted students? That building maintenance is cheaper? That gifted students require fewer equipment, can make do with fewer classrooms, or can do without textbooks?

I can buy that it's easier to teach gifted students, but I can't quite buy that it's cheaper to provide them the basic necessities like books, classrooms, and laptops.

<comment><USER7> > _I can't quite buy that it's cheaper to provide them the basic necessities > like books, classrooms, and laptops._

If unmotivated/uncaring students are constantly destroying books, and laptops and require more supervision (extra paraprofessionals for example), yes, I can buy that it's cheaper to provide motivated/well-behaved students necessities that they actually care for.

My point is that you took a broad spending per pupil number and immediately jumped to the conclusion that the problem was "mismanagement." Show me that the per-pupil numbers are the same and that the rates of consumption (books, etc), disciplinary, poverty/hunger, ESL, etc data are the same, _then_ I might accept the problem is mismanagement. You haven't come close to doing that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Public schools could be improved if, instead of operating like prisons, they operated like recipients of public housing vouchers. Right now most public schools, especially the worst, are very similar to prisons. Students, like prisoners, have to attend. Studends have no choice to attend another institution or not to attend any institution. And, like prisons, public schools must accept everyone sent to them, no matter how bad. Predictably, schools, like prisons, end up being very depressing places.

In contrast, public housing vouchers are given to poor people who can then redeem them with any qualified landlord willing to take them. All parties, the poor person (tenant), the landlord, and the government, must agree before the rental transaction happens. The tenant can choose among among any privately- offered housing. The landlord can choose to reject any tenant that doesn't meet the landlord's standards. And the government only agrees to pay for housing that meets its own quality standards. The result is that good landlords have waiting lists of tenants who want to rent from them and bad landlords are shunned. Similarly, good tenants can find good housing while tenants with a history of bad and destructive behavior find fewer landlords who are willing to accept them.

Public schooling could be operated the same way. Poor people could receive vouchers redeemable with any qualifying school. And schools could set their own standards for the students they want to serve. Government would redeem vouchers only from schools that met its own quality standards. The result would be competition and waiting lists for the best schools, and pressure on students to be accepted into the best schools.

Public financing of college education works the same way. Students and colleges form voluntary agreements and government provides financing only for qualifying schools.

</comment><comment><USER9> Two interesting stories I've crossed paths with are Bill Strickland, author of Making the Impossible Possible, and Sugata Mitra and his "child-driven education" and another referred to me by a friend:

\+ [http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_543015...](http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_543015.html)

\+ <http://www.bill-strickland.org>

\+ [http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/bill- strickland/topics/Bill%...](http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/bill- strickland/topics/Bill%20Strickland)

\+ [http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_educa...](http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html)

\+ <http://www.hole-in-the-wall.com>

\+ <http://www.georgejuniorrepublic.org/programs.html>

</comment><comment><USER10> The solution is to bring more full time PARENTS into the school. Sounds like an issue where teachers are subbing for a complete failure in parental guidance.

Money won't fix the behavior, but money can provide a legion of full-time parents to do some butt-kicking parental loving discipline to the hell raisers.

<comment><USER11> If we're talking about the parents of gang-member children who need metal detectors and locked windows to stop them taking weapons into school, locked toilets to stop them beating each other in there, who can't be trusted not to steal school property, then I'm not at all convinced that they would have both the willingness and the parenting skills to provide the sort of help that you seem to think they would.</comment></comment>


Anger grows as 1,000 engineering and physical sciences PhDs slashed - <AUTHOR> http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=417022&c=1

<comment><USER2> When I'm not hearing about how PhDs are a racket or a ponzi scheme, I'm hearing about how if we don't have more of them the world will come to an end. I realize that this article is about the UK, but these actions would cause the same reaction in the US. I guess the lesson is: when a special interest loses funding, they are going to claim that it will destroy society.

<comment><USER3> I think that may be the first time I've heard Science and Engineering referred to as special interests. Given the key role they play in pretty much everything we take for granted in a modern technological society, I would describe funding Science and Engineering to be more in the general interest, no?

<comment><USER2> And everyone looking for money from the government makes the same argument about their own field being in the "general interest".

"Science and Engineering" isn't looking for funding, it's a specific group (universities) looking for funding from the government, so it's a special interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Wait, really? "Anger"?

I mean, "disappointment" maybe. Or "annoyance". Or "wistful regret" -- all reasonable reactions to the real loss you suffer when someone else decides not to pay for your education.

"Sadness", perhaps, if you believe society is worse off for not having more PhDs int he world, I'd buy, too.

But "anger"? How entitled do you have to feel to be "angry" at not getting a free ride?

Just askin'...</comment>