How Finland plans to implement the first nation-wide basic income in the EU - <AUTHOR> http://finlandpolitics.org/2015/11/05/710/ <comment><USER3> I'm glad someone is trying it out. Hope they offer insight into what works what doesn't and any caveats. It may also be a bit early, as automation isn't in its stride yet.

Also, this is Finland a small, rich and homogenous country. Whether their model can be adapted to say Indonesia or the US or Japan is to be seen.

The main source of ideas was from Milton and the Nixon administration who with the economy going south looked for alternative means for people to "make" a living.

"...Friedman believed that it should be accompanied by an end to any minimal wage system and any other system of social protection. Friedman also believed it should be as low as possible and financed by a flat income tax"

So it'd be accompanied by a loss of minimum wage floor as well as it should be as low as possible (approx USD 1000/mo after initial trial phase in Finland.)

It's not a comfy lifestyle by any means, but could get people off the streets who otherwise would not have the means.

Given those parameters, with a few exceptions, I don't see this implementation undermining people's will and want to work and at the same time it has great upside in simplicity and affecting their poorest citizens positively.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty left-wing (I consider myself a libertarian socialist), but I agree with Friedman. Once you have a livable basic income, you don't really need a minimum wage and progressive taxation anymore. Those things exist primarily to guarantee livable conditions for the very poorest, but Basic Income would guarantee those livable conditions in a far more simple and effective way.

Two important effects of this would be:

a) the labour market would become a lot more open and free. At the moment, employers wield all the power because employees _need_ a job. It's not a free market if you can't say no to a deal. With basic income, people can say no if the offer is too bad. But if your alternative is starvation, a terrible job for too little pay is still better than nothing. Minimum wage exists to limit the employers' power to exploit people who have no option to say no.

b) It fixes the unemployment trap. For people with unemployment or disability benefits, getting a low-pay part-time job often means they end up with less money (or the same money and more costs) despite them taking the effort to work, because they lose the benefits. This discourages people from working. With Basic Income, you keep that income if you get a job, so you always get ahead by working, even if it's only a little. There's nothing fraudulent anymore about doing little jobs while unemployed.

I'd probably prefer both the basic income and the tax to be a bit higher than Friedman would like them to be, but that's part of the standard political- economic give and take. As long as the Basic Income is at least enough for decent food and rent, I'm happy.

<comment><USER5> If you don't have progressive taxation any more, you're either going to be unable to pay for the BI or seriously hurt the middle classes. If the rich pay lower [net] taxes, someone else pays more (assuming you're not on the right hand side of a Laffer curve)

<comment><USER6> Don't know how it's at your end but where I'm from it's the middle class that pays for the taxes. I'm middle class and in the highest tax bracket.

Rich people have money. Making money using money is almost not taxed here. So they escape the taxes.

<comment><USER7> Part of the problem is that most middle class people don't have excellent accountants and tax attorneys. So they're an easy target. Whereas, if you're truly wealthy, you will optimise your taxes etc more. Most also don't mind going to court to challenge the government on certain bits of the law, if the risk/reward ratio makes sense.

If you are paying 40-50% in tax, they're probably only paying 15-20%

<comment><USER8> That's why I'm a big fan of VATs (with a displacing BI).

Yes, they are regressive. So are income taxes, the only difference is that people lie (even to themselves) about those.

<comment><USER7> I think VAT is great, if we can lower overall taxes. For example, I wouldn't mind seeing a high tax on luxury items. But a balance needs to be found within existing tax systems. In general, we shouldn't tax investments and labour as much. Those both create value. If I'm actively investing and getting great returns, I'm helping the economy.

Personally I'm quite a big fan of the Estonian tax system. You pay tax once you take money out of the company (i.e. when you want to spend it)

<comment><USER9> Woah, Estonia has a Land Value Tax! Baller! Reading about it briefly, I like the simplicity of it. I guess that's what you get when you can start relatively fresh like Estonia did (see also their e-citizenship and e-government efforts).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Basic income idea always resambles me a lot Lex Frumentaria introduced in ancient Rome by Gaius Gracchus. The idea was exactly the same - give people "basic income", that is alomost free grain. Was Gracchus successful? Not really, he died in a rather miserable way.

In addition Rome was weakened by that law. First of all even if budget could not afford free grain, there was no way to put end to that law (Rome was a democracy, croud wanted free grain). The other unwanted effect was migration of people from villages to the city (hey, there is free food there, so what's the point working hard).

I encourage every supporter of basic income to learn more about that Roman law and how it affected Rome.

When we start giving money we need to think about a number of issues:

1\. Someone needs to earn these money, someone will have to be taxed and that someone will not be happy. Rich people tend to know how to avoid taxes. So it may turn out that in a few years it will be hard to provide money for basic income, unless a given country has sufficient natural resources to finance basic income.

2\. How basic income will affect inflation (if it is going to increase it, it may happen that basic income becomes worthless shortly)

3\. How basic income will affect democracy - I can imagine a party which main program point will be "increase basic income" (Gaius Gracchus was outbid by his competitors) - a croud might vote for a random wacko without thinking about further consequences.

4\. And, at the and, as there is a question if basic income is ethical. We take money from X to give that to Y, this does not sound good when we think about things like ownership, justice - obviously that depends on ethical system one prefers.

If it turn out that basic income caused economical problems in a given country (higher inflation, high taxes, capital escape, budget deficit) then who will have to pay for that failed experiment?

It may happen that potential beneficiaries of free income (economically weaker, poorer people) will have to pay for it much more then they got.

<comment><USER11> Bravo. In the long run the people most harmed by the full implementation of these schemes will be the underclass they purport to aid.

The people that are supposed to pay for all of this are by definition the people who are clever enough and powerful enough to figure out how to avoid paying for it. Raise taxes enough on those juicy Silicon Valley salaries and you'll see large tech companies decreasing salaries while compensating with corporate housing, transportation, and stock that is taxed at a lower rate. The money simply won't be there, not in the amounts needed or anticipated.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Unfortunately I don't think this is going to work as long as there are any other benefits paid on an "individual basis", eg some cultures here get extra money for their traditional dresses paid for by social security! And if you have kids and have spent all your "basic income" then you will still get new strollers (top of the line) etc for your babies, or cellphones for yor self and your family, with paid plans. Or your electric and internet bills paid. The left will never agree to ditch these subsidies.

And the biggest issue is that housing is also paid for spearately under this plan (as per the article). Nowadays the situation living in helsinki center is that only rich and unemployed people can afford to live there. You know, "close to where the work is!".

They should pay you a lump sum and you would live where you wanted using only that money. Too bad if you can't afford the most expensive place to stay where "the work" (=pubs and bars) are.

In more remote places (but still cities) you can have a studio appartment for probably 200 euros per month.

<comment><USER3> They could tweak it so you get your basic income, if you forgo other forms of subsidies (as Milton orig. proposed). Also, Russians can't just cross the border and become eligible as it appears it's citizens only. And I wouldn't begrudge Laplanders, life up there is austere.

If they choose this, then "rational" unemployed would move to the outskirts and rent cheaper properties till they could afford more expensive apartments (via new jobs). Hope they can keep it free of interference so it can be gauged for success or failure.

<comment><USER13> >citizens only

No it's not. Currently all wellfare in Finland is based permanent residence. But if you don't have permanent residence, the social services will get you one if you just are in Finland "permanently". Which happens if you can claim that you have no other safe place to go. Or if you have family here. Or if you have no other citizenship.

Russians can't come over the border right now. But if there is ever a civil war in Russia, then we are fucked. If Russia starts to move Syrian refugees through russia just to fuck with us, we are in deep shit.

Some people are really worried about immigration. While it's not a problem right now. Some people are really worried that we are not perceived as fascist. Some people are really worried about refugees who are here. Nobody gives a fuck about Syrians in Syria.

Getting citizenship means you have to do military service, but you gain nothing from it. Currently it is punishment really.

<comment><USER14> That's a lot of assumptions and scaremongering that have nothing to do with the article.

<comment><USER15> > That's a lot of assumptions and scaremongering that have nothing to do with > the article.

I beg to differ. In Norway we are getting lots of "refugees" which has been safely in non-warring European countries[1], seeking asylum here, simply because its a known thing we have higher "wages" for asylum-seekers than other European countries.

It may be cold hearted, and it may not be a popular opinion, but my take on it is that these people stopped being genuine refugees 4000kilometers ago. They are now welfare-shoppers. I honestly don't see how anyone can argue anything else.

We're getting a flood of people right now, and the result is that our asylum institution can't scale to handle them all.

All historical data suggests that they will all be non-working, non-integrated people, living on government benefits for years to come, and for those who manage to become a productive part of society, they will still be less productive than regular citizens, for a multitude of reasons. Historical data also says most of them wont return, but still will have the same rights to government provided benefits, pensions, etc. Nothing personal, nothing racist, but they will be a net loss for the national economy.

All these things accounts to a massive increase in government welfare-related obligations, costs and spending. Now and in the future. Our "future budget" is already too big to handle, accounting just our regular citizens. With this flood we're facing future bankruptcy.

To avoid that means taking away future pensions. It means we stop maintaining infrastructure like roads _now_. It means cutting costs all over. The costs are very real.

And now Finnish people may fear that such an offer like this will land them in the same situation: That they too will become a "too sexy" target for welfare- shopping ex-refugees. It's not fearmongering. It's a very realistic scenario. I can't say I would blame them for thinking that way.

[1] [http://imgur.com/YDegTCn](http://imgur.com/YDegTCn)

<comment><USER13> Finland already has high rate of refugees compared to Estonia or France(?). I don't think UBI changes that picture at all, as the refugees already get any money citizens would.

At very least the perverce incentive of wellfare to non-citizens should be acknowledged. But that's not politically correct at the moment.

I don't think it's good for the refugees themselves either in the long run. Their children could have been doctors, lawyers and engineers in Syria, Egypt of Turkey in 2050. Now they are destined to be third class citizens in cold and dark north.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't see how this can possibly work.

I'm reasonably well paid, and pay a lot of tax. I can save quite a bit. I could afford to live for 5 years from my savings without working. But not forever, so I still work.

But if someone was to give me 800 euro a month then I could live of my saving for maybe 20 years instead. Certainly long enough to get to retirement....

So why would I work? I wouldn't. So not only would this cost 800 euro a month directly but also the 4000 euro a month in taxes I would have paid.

It doesn't take many people to do the obvious thing...

<comment><USER17> If that's what you actually want to do, why don't you negotiate with your employer to work 1 day a week for 1,600 euros a month? You'd have twice what this basic income pays and you'd have 80% of the free time you want. That has to be a good deal, right.

The fact is, there are very few people in your position, and fewer still who'd give up their considerable income in order to not work. Very few of us work _just_ to live; we all want more than that. The number of high earners who'd quit their jobs is minimal. However... The number of low earners who'd quit is _much_ bigger. That's the problem that society will need to deal with - <USER2> cost of things like retail and domestic services like cleaning will go up considerably because people won't do the work unless it pays relatively well.

<comment> saiya-jin not entirely, market will find its way around in long run, ie immigration (legal or illegal), illegal employment etc. all net loss for state.

people want to pay as little as possible to get as much as possible, that's natural to all of us.

<comment><USER17> _people want to pay as little as possible to get as much as possible, that 's natural to all of us._

I'm not sure about that. There are plenty of businesses that do very well selling less at a higher price - there is perceived value in buying an ethical, artisan or luxury good. Perhaps people wouldn't mind paying a bit more if it meant society was better off if they could actually afford to. The notion of doing things for the "maximum possible happiness", even if it means you're worse off yourself, isn't new. Jeremy Bentham was writing about "felicific calculus" more than 200 years ago - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felicific_calculus)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'm glad someone tries it but remain very skeptical.

If you take the proposed eventual 800 Euro and assume every single citizen will get it (roughly 5.5 million in Finland) that would be 52.8 billion Euro/year. For comparison the net domestic product of Finland is 216.9 billion (bad indicator but one i could find with a quick search)

I think if you do this, every citizen should get the base income and only income above it and corporate income should be taxed. Currently the average income in Finland is about 3.1k/month. So on average that's 2300 Euro taxable income (once again grossly simplifying). You'd need to tax that at roughly 35% to refinance the base income. Not sure if the corporate taxes and hiking the 35% to say 50% (+savings on all the stuff that is now covered by the 800 like unemployment, retirement) can make up for all the other costs (infrastructure, education, health care, police, military etc.)

There's also the standard questions of "why not ask for more" and "what will people do with the free time, why should they work". Which are the interesting questions that an experiment could help answer.

<comment><USER19> Remember that basic income displaces payouts from other social programs. How much do social welfare and unemployment programs pay out in Finland?

Also remember that, although everyone theoretically gets an equal slice of a basic-income pie, there's nothing stopping a government from making taxes more progressive to claw back the wealth transfer from anyone who was living comfortably on their own income and didn't really need the help.

<comment><USER20> I wonder about non-payout social programs, especially those aimed at children, like Head Start or SNAP (food stamps) in the USA. Will basic income enable recipients to make more efficient choices? Or will recipients squander it, diverting money away from nutrition and child development?

<comment><USER19> Now you've got me imagining children receiving their own basic incomes, with the government getting to decide how some proportion (30%? 100%?) of their monthly allocation gets spent, and the parents getting handed the rest.

Something interesting with basic income is that it erases the traditional "income flow" that makes it make sense for parents to have one bank account that they own, and pay for all family members out of it. Under basic income, I could see each family member defaulting to having their own bank account to receive deposits.

You could go _way_ more wild in the "enforcing spending on childen" with that setup than anything food stamps do. You could require that e.g. the government gets to audit the expenses on all "child" accounts to ensure they're _for_ the child; and additionally require that parents only buy things "for" their children by first transferring money from their own account to the child's, and only then spend what is now _the child 's_ money on the item.

<comment><USER21> Such an audit scheme would introduce huge bureaucracy and cost immense amounts of money. It also opens the door for all kinds of corruption. Who decides which things are ok to spend money on "for children"? Lobbyists?

<comment><USER22> Without audits you also get corruption. Some parents are quite willing to pick their children's pockets.

It's far from clear why you want to give our most vulnerable people absolutely no protection from the corrupt. We could also save money by abolishing the SEC, FINRA, and the EPA - do you also favor this?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> A few points that I thought would be worth making here. I read through all the comments a little while ago and was surprised no one was pointing these out. Maybe they're too obvious, but I think worth the space since many comments seem to contradict these:

1) I think you can't just consider the implications of how people will behave as employees once they're earning a Basic Income. How employers will simply take advantage of the system and force people to work for less. If anything I think it will put more pressure on businesses to make sure they're paying enough, otherwise they won't have the manpower to grow their business. Then there's the argument about automation. There will be only a few companies who can do automation to compete in this new economy. If anything I think it's worth mentioning that not only will it make it easier for large corporations to attempt to take advantage of people, but I think it will make it far easier for regular citizens to become employers. For example, I think people will be far more willing to accept terms that pay only equity in a company than they would be today.

2) With regard to "what will people do with all of their spare time". I think perhaps the dystopian future many people imagine will happen for a few weeks where people celebrate, get drunk and party all day because they don't have to work. Eventually I imagine that life will catch up to most people. They'll have hobbies, they'll start businesses, they'll contribute to non-profit efforts. And one of the most important I think, they'll have the time to engage with their government to ensure it remains loyal to its citizens and not to special interests.

NOTE: And to clarify I think these points are made with regard to a "Basic Income" and not a "Minimum Guaranteed Income". Basic Income IMO is the far superior choice. Minimum Guaranteed Income seems to give all the benefit to the large corporations and little to no benefit to the average citizen besides guarantee that they'll remain out of poverty for their entire life.

<comment><USER24> We can hope they find hobbies, instead idle minds tend to destructive habits. Let alone all those idle people are ripe for exploitation by political groups and the like.

The hard part with a BI is finding incentive for many to do more than the minimum required to survive. We might be creating that dystopian future simply by defining through law the minimum required to keep people from rising up. In other words, we create a permanent lower class whom we keep just happy enough they don't take out stuff.

I think BI is an interesting idea but the dangers are too high unless you find something for people to do. Don't wait for them to find it, most never will try. BI needs to come with some public service at the minimum if not employed

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Here's one thing I don't understand: isn't this just going to inflate prices?

If I have an apartment for rent, and now I know _everybody_ is getting, unconditionally, a $ 800 paycheck, what keeps me from raising the price by the same amount? The people who _do_ work will still be able to pay my price, and there'll be demand for it.

<comment><USER26> In most Western European countries rent is tightly controlled so it's not possible for landlords to make big increases overnight.

<comment><USER25> Ok: what keeps me from raising prices, period?

Also, rent was just one example. In the long run it seems inflation will just go up unless there's heavy regulation of the market, at least on basic goods and services (housing, food, clothing, etc).

<comment><USER27> Nothing keeps you from raising prices. However, just because people have more money does not mean competition will stop. In fact competition might increase and prices go down, as there is more money to be made and risks/costs go down.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> An aspect greatly overlooked in this discussion here is, that an UBI would rid us from a ton of bullshit jobs people are currently forced to do, just to get by. So in a way, an UBI can lead to degrowth eventually, which decreases pollution, traffic jams, energy consumption, waste a.s.o.

I'm looking forward to see what people are going to do with the spare time.

</comment><comment><USER29> As a Finn, my primary concern is whether or not basic income will just inflate rents.

<comment><USER30> Why would they? Would people in general be "earning" more money from basic income than current benefits? I mean you can't increase rent past the point people are able to pay.

<comment><USER31> > I mean you can't increase rent past the point people are able to pay.

You can increase them past the point that people on lower wages/basic income can pay, driving them out of desirable or semi desirable areas to cheaper areas. See London as an example.

<comment><USER30> But I don't see why you need to live in London? You might like it and want to live there, but then you need the money to be able to.

Like I could move to Helsinki if I wanted to on my current salary, but I see no reason to do so. I live in smaller city (or maybe it's even considered a town) and I have plenty of extra money left over after my rent.

<comment><USER31> I don't need to nor, personally, want to. However, the people already there have a right to be there, especially those born in London, who grew up there, who have families, jobs, community involvement etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I can't really take an article seriously when it refers to Milton Friedman as a Libertarian. He's most certainly not. He was a leading Chicago school adherent.

<comment><USER33> Words in English are frequently polysemic. There are well established philosophical, "left" and "right" meanings to "libertarian" which seem to have evolved in that order. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism#Etymology)

Friedman is clearly closest to the last camp and even self-identified with it. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Libertarianism...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman#Libertarianism_and_the_Republican_Party)

Obviously for an article pitched at a general audience, rather than an academic one, some people won't know Friedman so it's not unreasonable to expect them to clarify. I presume that's why they added the following lines immediately after calling him a "libertarian economist".

"Friedman believed that it should be accompanied by an end to any minimal wage system and any other system of social protection. Friedman also believed it should be as low as possible and financed by a flat income tax (which means that the tax would be universal and at the same rate for all). So in reality, what Friedman was pushing for was a system which would provide employers with people ready to work for lower salaries at no additional cost to employers."

I can't see how any reasonable person could read that and then claim the article was putting Friedman in the wrong camp or being misleading or inaccurate regarding that point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> A lot of people discuss UBI from two angels.

Either _" people will mostly work but it's a better way to secure those who do not or cannot"_ Or _" a lot of people become lazy and don't want to work, why would they when they get money for just sitting on their hands"_

However thats the wrong perspective for this.

UBI is a potential solution IF you believe that most jobs will be gone which also means that most taxation schemes like income tax will be gone to. If you are still thinking about this as a solution to getting jobs back or there aren't enough people to pay for it then it's already a dead discussion.

So the key premise for this discussion is not whether it will solve our job problems or whether people will be lazy and not pay income tax. The key premise is that the productivity gains and price decreases by automation is used as some of the leverage for society to build a self sustained ecosystem for humans to live in. Where technology is a kind of photosynthesis that allow for the distribution of goods and wealth even though everyone mostly ended up working with producing said good.

<comment><USER35> > _" a lot of people become lazy and don't want to work, why would they when > they get money for just sitting on their hands"_

Every person in Australia over 22 and under retirement age can get extremely generous welfare, forever. It doesn't matter if you've never had a job, etc. etc.

A single person gets $1046/mo

With children is $1200/mo

[http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink...](http://www.humanservices.gov.au/customer/services/centrelink/newstart- allowance)

Are Australians sitting around on their hands? Some are, sure, but the vast majority don't want to live the life that ~$1k/mo buys.

<comment><USER34> It's not my claims I was talking about what a lot of people say when it comes to this discussion.

<comment><USER35> Yep, I was backing you up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> I think the only way for basic income to work is a very clear definition of what is and is not luxury. I think a lot of the issues with minimum wage and welfare debates stem from different people having different definitions of what should be paid for by those services.

We see this with the minimum wage debate -- everyone's definition of a "living wage" is different. Does basic mean house, car etc in a nice area or does it mean that if you're not working you can afford to live only where the cost of living is low? I think this needs to be really clearly laid out so down the line the intention of the money is clear.

If it's clearly laid out ahead of time, then in the US situation for example, someone complaining that they cannot afford an apartment in an expensive area without working is not evidence for a need to raise the basic income, it's evidence they need to move or find a (better) job.

<comment><USER13> It may sound weird, but this is not that big problem in Finland. We don't have too much that sort of arguments. Our politics is lot more consensus/compromise based than U.S. politics. This means people disagreeing in quantity can be sorted out. But the big parties can veto this stuff for no apparent reason what so ever.

Our left is more communist than U.S. left. Some of them don't give a shit what is "living wage". They think government should give them all excess money possible. And if there is no excess, then take loan to support some arbitrary standard of living for everybody. "You don't have to pay debt" "tax the rich more".

But people don't really believe them. Most Finns still think that "average Finn is somewhat sensible person". The whole multiparty system can exist, because we mostly agree on stuff. It's just the details that are different. When I go to vote, I don't think "how to save the country from the evil Kokoomus". I think what party could nudge the system to better direction.

Being cohesive small nation state is cosy. But the hivemind can be scary at times. Currently police is trying to pass internet surveilance legistlation and it's not much protested. Because "average Finn is somewhat sensible, they would not do this if they didn't really have to".

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> What are the schools of thought regarding inflation? It seems to me that any mass handout would quickly raise the cost of living and nullify any benefit.

<comment><USER38> Why does it seem that way to you?

"Cost of living" in basics like rent and food is what people buy anyway. How is having a basic income going to change that, unless you had like a huge homeless/starving population that can suddenly now get homes/food?

<comment><USER37> I admit that I don't know that much about basic income but had assumed that everyone would be "better off" by the same amount. Others in the thread have kindly informed me that is not the case, and that taxation will take out the benefit for higher earners.

I must say that doesn't sound very "universal" to me.

<comment><USER38> Even if we give $30,000 to EVERYONE, the poor will be more better off than the rich because $15,000 to $30,000 is a much bigger jump than $400,000 to $415,000. But the price of basics is not going to change that much because everyone buys them already.

The "universal" part is that this is a universal floor on living standards that applies to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I would like to point out that several EU countries have minimal basic income. It translates as 'minimal liveable income' and is paid to people who have no other income. It is about 60 euro/month in Czech republic. In Germany it is about 300 euro/month, but can easily go up to 1000 euro/month with all extras.

Problem is that one has to prove he does not have any other income. That could be problem for some people, for example illegal foreigners. Or divorced fathers who have income on paper, but everything gets confiscated for alimony.

<comment><USER40> > ... and is paid to people who have no other income

So, are we talking about unemployment benefits? Because one of the things a guaranteed / universal basic income aims to do is eliminate the so called "welfare cliffs".

An example of a welfare cliff would be: let's say you can get 300 euro / month being unemployed, or 310 euro / month working 60 hours a week. Does it make sense to get the job? With a UBI scheme, you'd get the basic salary, and you'd go do the job as well, kind of a win-win. Of course the overall picture is much more complex than that, but that's the idea.

<comment><USER41> Wouldn't it just make the money worth less? Right now every one starts at $0, after the change everyone will start at e.g. $1000, so you just move the axis, at some point prices in stores will increase because people have more money and this will eventually lead to the point where $1000 is worth almost the same as $0 where we started.

<comment><USER40> To some degree, I'm sure - it may indeed have secondary effects like lowering of the average salary, or increasing of average prices, etc. But I don't think it can get to the point that you're specifying, simply because prices will always be determined in a way to maximise profits, as opposed to simple price fixing.

But other, potentially larger secondary effects is that overall productivity and efficiency of the economy should increase, driving prices lower. Essentially, what we're talking about is that people below a certain threshold are not free enough to pursue paths which would give them the most benefit in the long run. E.g. they cannot enroll in a university, or whatever, because they are living day to day. By giving financial independence to everyone, you are giving them the freedom to achieve these long term goals. It'd also give more people the freedom to get into the startup scene, and I think HN agrees that innovation is an overall net win.

Also, clearly the money has to come from somewhere in the short term, and this would likely be a form of taxation which would come from richer people and companies, and it'd redistribute this wealth to the poorer ones. It can be argued that the current (and seemingly near future) distribution of wealth is rather one sided, and things would be better if wealth was distributed more evenly. Of course, that wealth would be re-injected into the economy rather rapidly, so arguably little would be lost.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I'm all for a UBI but I'm very skeptical of the feasibility of implementing one based on the dollar or any paper based monetary system that is not an actual standard and scientific measure of resources, and none of them are to my knowledge.

An efficient UBI would be implemented using a computer based mathematical measurement system.

We've already got a surplus of food, water, and shelter to take care of all humanity, we just haven't figured out how to measure and distribute it properly.

Technologies such as machine vision and video/image recognition could keep a real time measurement of the global resource stockpile. Feed that into an open source distributed ledger for all to see, and then distribute it based on a demand algorithm using solar powered drones for maximum efficiency.

<comment><USER43> No problem Mr Asimov.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Also from today: [http://qz.com/548985/whats-wrong-with- finland/](http://qz.com/548985/whats-wrong-with-finland/)

>The Finnish economy is 11% smaller than its 2008 peak, making it look more like Italy or Spain than the stronger "core" countries of the euro zone. According to the latest monthly estimates, Finland's economic output shrank by a daunting 2.6% in September versus the year before, the worst result in more than two years

</comment><comment><USER45> Kudos to Finland! I think their BI may be a bit high (the trial amount seems about right), but inflation will adjust to the amount so it won't really matter much.

I think it is wrong to think of BI as an income one could actually live comfortably on, as this article seems to. That would provide too much disincentive to be unproductive. Rather a BI should be just enough to keep people from starving and freezing and enough to bootstrap a life with.

<comment> saiya-jin Not sure about Finnish example, but where I am right now (Switzerland), social security does exactly that, without major costly experiments with god know what results.

In fact, system is so effective that if you end up unemployed, for one year you'll be given 80% of your former salary (capped, but to 120,000 CHF!) so you are not burdened with looking for cheaper accommodation etc which is very hard here. If you cannot find anything in 1 year, then other services kick in, of course with much lower cash flow. It works remarkably well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> There are some propositions for calling 'basic income' a 'technological dividend'.

Changing the name changes the debate about it in a manner that is, maybe, more appropriate for the modern times.

At the end of the day, a basic income it's only possible in affluent societies, and it's technology what makes a society affluent.

</comment><comment><USER47> Here in Cyprus we have guaranteed minimum income benefit of 480 euros since 2014 [http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1105&langId=en&int...](http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1105&langId=en&intPageId=3249)

<comment><USER48> That's not the same though, I believe most countries have a guaranteed minimum income (520 euros in France) but unlike basic income, minimum income is not unconditional.

It disappears if you earn money from a job, which creates (some) disincentive to find a job, and requires elaborate rules to reduce this disincentive (like reducing the benefit progressively relative to the total income, etc).

Basic income on the other hand is unconditional, so whatever job you have you won't feel like you're losing on benefits (at least, that's the idea).

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The title is misleading, since all the Baltic countries have basic income for like 20 years. If anyone's interested - in Lithuania it's 305euros, in Latvia 350, in Estonia, if i'm not mistaken it's something about 400

<comment><USER50> We are all interested but some references would be handy. Are you sure that you have not confused this with a CONDITIONAL minimum income? That is one that is only available to people who don't have an income, a means tested payment.

Also even in the Baltic states EU400 is surely not much for a month.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I want to think basic income is a good idea.

But how the "bonus salary" will be calculated in the case of political jobs (to legislate) and above all army? Is there any texts on this subject?

<comment><USER52> I assume "current salary" \- "basic income" = "bonus salary" would be a good place to start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> This makes sense only if we are getting rid of all other welfare.

<comment><USER54> The article says it will replace some other benefits that Finns currently have. If the project works then I assume other welfare programs will be folded into the basic income over time.

<comment><USER53> Yes. That is a smart thing to do but generally there is a strong resistance from different branches of government responsible for delivering those welfare schemes. The arguments tend to be "but that person will spend it on drugs".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> This is going to be hilarious.

Finland, you so silly.</comment>


Skype's first employee starts TransferWise; raises $1.3 million - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/transferwise-13-million-2012-4 <comment><USER2> Putting the power of a liquid global currency (or equivalent) into end users hands, that cuts out all the headache from current offerings (ease of use, cost, time delays, reliability) is going to be huge. Where do I invest?</comment>


Payless fools influencers with a fake store - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/29/business/payless-fake-store/index.html <comment><AUTHOR> Here is why you should charge more (for your product, time, service, whatever). Payless is a low budget shoe chain and opened a fake high end boutique and put in their $20 shoes:

> One shopper spent $640 for a pair of boots, which represented an 1,800% > markup.</comment>


Improving Security in the Latest C Programming Language Standard - <AUTHOR> http://blog.sei.cmu.edu/post.cfm/improving-security-in-the-latest-c-programming-language-standard-1?wt.ac=hpBlog

<comment><USER2> The _s family of functions is what MSVC has been forcing upon people by claiming all other functions deprecated.

So now the standard is lending nomenclatura and possibly implementation from the company that stoically refuses to implement C99.

<comment><USER3> Yes, I can see how using more secure functions is a step backwards, because some company not involved in the standard has also used functions by that name...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Using _strncpy_ is not a remedy at all. The function was never designed for safe string copying, but for copying fixed-width inode names[1]. The fact that is protects against buffer overflows is pure coincidence.

[1]: <http://stackoverflow.com/a/1454071>

</comment><comment><USER5> The only difference between strcpy_s and strlcpy, other than taking arguments in a different order and being more annoying to type, is that if an overflow would occur, it sets destination[0] to 0 rather than truncating. This is probably an improvement, since truncation can cause security problems if you're building filenames and such (though, should you fail the test accidentally, I suspect it's much harder to track down why a string somewhere in your app became empty than why it was truncated)... but is it really worth switching to yet another string copy function?

(well, from a BSD perspective. Apparently strcpy_s has been around on Windows since Windows 95.)

<comment><USER6> Nope, it is a CRT function introduced in VC8.

<comment><USER5> edit: never mind, I get it. it's compatible with programs targeting Windows 95, since it's a crt function, but not Windows 95 headers. I was confused by [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/td1esda9(v=vs.80).as...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/td1esda9\(v=vs.80\).aspx)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For years, I have been saying "In C, an array is a pointer, an offset, and a prayer."

Looks like I might have to change this.

</comment><comment><USER8> The author/site mentions that in practice snprintf isn't portable on Unix platforms because a number of implementations of it are botched. I have to say that one of the best things we did was implement our own conforming printf/scanf family of functions. They act the same everywhere, which isn't possible even with the existing conforming C library implementations, as the Standard is not precise about the specification.

</comment><comment><USER9> Does anybody know when GCC will support which features of C11?

<comment><AUTHOR> From the GCC 4.6 Release notes‡,

4.6 already supports:

      Static assertions
      Typedef redefinition
      New macros in <float.h>
      Anonymous structures and unions

4.7 supports:

      Unicode strings
      the predefined macros __STDC_UTF_16__ and __STDC_UTF_32__
      Nonreturning functions
      Alignment support
      A built-in function __builtin_complex is provided to support C library implementation of the CMPLX family of macros.

I haven't found any good sources for what is to be included in 4.8

‡ <http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.6/changes.html#c> ‡ <http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-4.7/changes.html></comment></comment>


GroupMe acquired by Skype - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/21/skype-to-acquire-year-old-group-messaging-service-groupme/

<comment><USER2> This is really interesting and exciting from Microsoft's perspective. As I understand it, while a purchase like the Skype purchase waits for approval by the regulatory bodies, the purchasing company (Microsoft) and company pending purchase (Skype) have very limited communication.

My guess is that Microsoft had no involvement in this purchase and is basically winding up with GroupMe as a party favor. Pretty nifty party favor, if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER3> For a reported $85M: <http://dthin.gs/owvvqM>

<comment><USER4> It's like they told Skype just pay us 1% of whatever MSFT paid you ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find that interesting from Twilio's perspective: GroupMe was using Twilio to send SMSs (at least at first, but they didn't have much time to change the most important part of their service) and Twilio has recently added some VoIP components (Twilio Client) to their offer, which, even though doesn't compete directly with Skype, is covering much more bases than Skype is when it comes to integration in web or mobile apps.

And based on some announced usage numbers from GroupMe a few months ago I imagine Twilio was/is making good money from them alone…

<comment><USER2> I have to imagine that if Skype does anything with GroupMe at a technical level, they'll cut Twilio out of the picture. Skype writing checks to Twilio seems like a temporary situation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Price? If they got $10M in funding, I assume that they sold for more than 50M?

<comment><USER7> More like 100M

<comment><USER8> It's not a guessing game. $85M is the reported price.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Could Google Huddle have influenced Skype to make this move? Google is clearly trying to enter the group messaging space and has the infrastructure to support both text and voice group communication.

</comment><comment><USER10> I really hope Skype lets GroupMe continue to operate on it's own, and doesn't ruin it. It's an awesome service, and lets me keep in touch with my tech- adverse friends from back home. Some people use AIM, some use Facebook, some use email, some use MSN, some use BBM -- but everyone has texting.

The beauty is the simplicity. On vacation with some friends? Spin up a new groupme for the week. I can't see it remaining this easy if skype starts taking advantage of "integration points".

<comment><AUTHOR> With Skype itself being acquired by Microsoft, it's hard to imagine GroupMe remaining a standalone product--or even as elegantly simple as it is now.

<comment><USER2> Even if they do, I have the feeling that the loser in this purchase is Twilio. I have a hard time imagining Skype or eventually Microsoft paying Twilio to handle their telephony infrastructure.

<comment><USER11> Skype already has its own infrastructure to support Voice and SMS. Iam pretty sure twilio will be out of the picture the moment the deals is done.

<comment><USER12> Well they will have to transfer over the phone numbers so they don't break backward compatibility. I don't quite know how that works with VoIP providers, but I think it's doable. Might slow things down a bit though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm going to need an aggregator for my social aggregators between Huddle, GroupMe, Social Hub, Buzz, Foursquare, IM and SMS.

</comment><comment><USER14> Congrats to the GroupMe team. I had a chance to meet a couple of them a while ago and they were really nice guys. Well-deserved.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious what people generally prefer between group SMS and group data messaging?

</comment><comment><USER16> Wow. I was there. And I am still bootstrapping my company. Well we got seed money but a lot of it was still bootstrapped.

Yet I feel we have way bigger ambitions... I wonder sometimes if raising investment sooner was better</comment>


Ask HN: Teach Programming to My Kid - <AUTHOR> I want to teach HTML/CSS and may be something like Turtle (Python) to my almost 7 year old. What else do you recommend ? I know about Scratch from MIT. <comment><USER2> _What else do you recommend ?_

Patience and a long view. Computational understanding only has much value for your child at multiples >= 3x of their current age. Right now, the primary value will be spending time with you and you sharing your interests with them. Good luck.

<comment><USER3> What they found when they started teaching computational thought to young children in various school districts is that there was an unexpected benefit, in the ways the kids approached the rest of their work. They no longer would complain about not doing well in math... they would talk about debugging why they didn't get the answers right. It turned kids as young as 6 towards problem-solving, and their academic performance increased across all subjects, across entire classes.

That is the true value to your child - to give them an entire new perspective on problem solving, that help them to realize their own performance is not a thing to be judged, but a result to be improved.

<comment><USER4> I went through this transition in college. I was bad at math, historically, and after 2-3 years of obsessing over programming, math finally revealed itself as something mechanical and conquerable.

I'm NOT a math genius (or any kind of genius), but it went from being unapproachable to being totally learnable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I recently graduated from high school, and have some experience with programming in a middle school/high school setting. However, at the moment, I cannot recall much about when I was 7 years old, so I might have high expectations here :)

I believe it's probably most important not to force your kid to do anything and just guide them in a direction and let their interests shape what they spend their time on. Most peers my age grow up with a pure dread for math and science disciplines because it was forced on them throughout their whole life. For me, it's still painful to think about anything related to chemistry/world history because I just remember a sure dread while taking the course (although that probably had more to do with the course/how it was taught than the actual content).

I don't think Python's Turtle is the best way to go here because it is difficult to build on the skills learned while mastering Turtle. Plus, nothing that will be built ends up being that impressive (whereas HTML/CSS can make awesome things). Scratch is probably a pretty good way to start just to get them to think about how specific problems could be solved.

For beginners, and kids especially, it often works great when you can build something concrete and show it off to people. Here, HTML and CSS will work great, since they are super basic and will produce real-time feedback. HTML/CSS can get you pretty far when building a website, but then once they begin to question how to do more difficult things, it may be a good time to introduce JavaScript, just because it can talk directly to HTML/CSS and there will be an element of realtime feedback. With HTML/CSS/JS, I recommend checking out Electron (which is a framework to create desktop applications in HTML/CSS/JS) and looking at how to publish a site online (e.g., Github.io/heroku for free sites or buy a domain from Google for ~$12). Similarly, it may be beneficial to check out Swift and Xcode to develop iPhone applications. Swift produces a bunch of entry-level material and they have a nice drag-and-drop user interface, which helps visualize things.

If they're super into science and math, it may be beneficial to play with Mathematica.

If they're interested in games/VR/AR, check out Unity.

Beyond that, I follow the new-crowd here and would start with Python. The syntax is much better than other languages and it captures many of the most important features in programming languages. There is also phenomenal support for Python packages.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER6> I taught Python to my 8 years old son using this book [https://www.amazon.com/DK-Workbooks-Computer- Coding/dp/14654...](https://www.amazon.com/DK-Workbooks-Computer- Coding/dp/146542685X/ref=as_li_ss_tl?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1518142227&sr=1-19&keywords=coding+for+kids&pldnSite=1&linkCode=sl1&tag=indus053-20&linkId=50b7d7e38f1de60d9fd51dada45cc5e9)

</comment><comment><USER7> Do they play any PC games? Some basic modding might be a good idea.

I remember doing really basic 'mods' for Morrowind (like a chest that asked you questions - it was written in the flavour of C++ that the game engine used) based off a tutorial.

For me this was a really interesting and engaging way to get into coding, and I think that's often the biggest hurdle for kids - keeping them engaged.

</comment><comment><USER8> Take a look at the "for kids" books by No Starch Press. [1] I don't know how good they are, but No Starch has several options on different topics, including Python.

[1]: [https://nostarch.com/catalog/kids](https://nostarch.com/catalog/kids)

</comment><comment><USER9> I am working on a course to teach kids ages 5-12 programming using Scratch. I am behind schedule in releasing it, but I would highly recommend you try Scratch.

The visual blocks, sounds, and some plugins like musical notes make it a really fun approach creatively speaking.

</comment><comment><USER6> Create a Codepen account for your kid and show how to make simple web elements. Start explaining simple tags, like: <h1>, <img>, <iframe> (copying and pasting YouTube embeds), <a> tag etc...

</comment><comment><USER10> My kid's school uses CodeSpark

</comment><comment><USER11> kano store</comment>


Show HN: Record all your web browsing with fully searchable screenshots - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/idibidiart/AllSeeingEye <comment><USER2> This is neat, but I think it just nuked my browser history. That's bad.

<comment><USER2> BTW disabling or uninstalling the plugin restores access to the "normal" history. And I infer that it didn't stop recording history while active, so that's good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Slightly different, but I use a program called timesnapper [1] that takes a screen grab every second. It is so useful for figuring out exactly what I did a couple of weeks ago. The contents of your screen is a very useful data source.

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

</comment><comment><USER4> Great idea. I tried this addon now. One limitation I see is that it's only saving single screenshot for each URL, not full page. So on a long (vertically scrolling) page only a small part is saved.

<comment><USER5> That's an interesting problem I think will all the screenshotting tools out there. If you want the full page the extension has to scroll down the page and stitch the individual pictures together. You'd think there would be a way to capture the whole page easily but it's quite the tricky problem.

<comment><USER6> I'm pretty sure that a chrome extension can take a screenshot of the full page not just whats visible

EDIT: here it is: [https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/desktopCapture#metho...](https://developer.chrome.com/extensions/desktopCapture#method- chooseDesktopMedia)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting. Will experiment with it and will push changes if successful. I guess the API is relatively new (Chrome 34) and I hadn't come across it, till now. Thanks!

<comment><USER7> That or just record what I've actually scrolled. Why would I archive content I've never seen?

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, it's interesting. My main concern with capturing the entire tab as image is that the site being captured maybe one of those infinitely scrollable pages (i.e. same as the history.html page) in which case, depending on implementation, the tab may be very very long (tens of thousands of pixels in height) and 99% blank (if employing an infinite scroll mechanism that puts only the currently viewed items in the DOM)

Edit: so capturing on each scroll step (over say 3 seconds) > $('body').height()/3 and grouping the multiple screenshots under the given item is one possible way. Thanks for your thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is pretty cool. I've had the urge to build something similar ever since reading Gwern's article about archiving[1]. My approach was going to either be an extension that ships URLs or just ship the history db wholesale to a webapp which does the archiving, which would allow for multiple machines.

[1]: [http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs](http://www.gwern.net/Archiving%20URLs)

</comment><comment><USER9> Great job. I love useful chrome extensions. I wonder where all the extension security haters on HN went today :p

</comment><comment><USER10> I use to use greplin for something similar. Where did I hear about this band? Search for it, see it was a tweet from my friend a year ago. Cool project.

</comment><comment><USER11> I was working on the exact same tool. My links used to be spread all over the place and it was not searchable. Good work, this seems very useful.

</comment><comment><USER12> Nice.

There was similar extension with Firefox which integrated with Beagle desktop search on Linux. I would love to see something like this for Rekonq.

</comment><comment><USER13> Since this is HN, [https://github.com/idibidiart/AllSeeingEye](https://github.com/idibidiart/AllSeeingEye) might be a better link.

<comment><USER14> Thanks. We changed to that from [1] because it is more informative and includes a link to [1] anyway.

1\. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/all-seeing- eye/kio...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/all-seeing- eye/kiopjipnmfcpdambegpfmggaffjmhnkd)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'll take things I may consider putting on my girlfriend's computer for $400 Alex.

</comment><comment><USER16> I can't imagine a large amount of people would be interested in this addon. People who use addons are usually power users, who I don't imagine would have the need for something like this. Plus a lot of people would be sceptical of an addon which visually saves their browsing history. What about private records (ie viewing a PDF, bank balance, e-mail)?

<comment><USER17> I'd like something like this add-on to work flawlessly, maybe giving me the option to selectively save the page rather than doing it systematically.

I may not be useful when you are checking your email, and you may not want it when doing some type of transactions online, but it would be great when you are doing research on a subject: storing and organising images is simple, viewing them is simple, sharing them is simple, you get to keep the full look of the original page with all its content and being searchable, you can easily find what you are looking for.

It's a poor man's web archive but somehow, it's easier than saving pages through the Save As browser menu.

It's better than bookmarks since you can do visual and textual searches and you don't have to rely on the original content still being online.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree. I was planning on letting the user add a "Do Not Capture" list of URLs in the Options page, but didn't have time to do it on initial release. Sorry.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Linjat, a small puzzle game - <AUTHOR> https://linjat.snellman.net <comment><AUTHOR> This game was originally designed as a substrate for experimenting with procedural puzzle generation (for generating interesting puzzles given a rules set, not for generating new rules sets).

I thought I'd post it here, since it ended up being kind of fun to play in it's own right, not just an algorithmic experiment.

<comment><USER2> I̶ ̶m̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶m̶i̶s̶s̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶I̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶n̶k̶ ̶e̶a̶s̶y̶ ̶4̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶s̶o̶l̶v̶a̶b̶l̶e̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶b̶o̶t̶t̶o̶m̶ ̶6̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶e̶x̶t̶e̶n̶d̶ ̶u̶p̶w̶a̶r̶d̶ ̶o̶r̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶b̶l̶o̶c̶k̶s̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶4̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶f̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶e̶s̶ ̶h̶o̶r̶i̶z̶o̶n̶t̶a̶l̶,̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶6̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶r̶i̶g̶h̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶u̶n̶p̶l̶a̶y̶a̶b̶l̶e̶.̶

[https://linjat.snellman.net/#game.easy.4](https://linjat.snellman.net/#game.easy.4)

edit: My logic parts are weak

<comment><USER3> I beat it fine; both 6's are horizontal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This is a great game, I will add it to my home screen. It plays nicely in the browser on an old iPhone, mine. What did you use to make Linjat? Would you shatter the technologies? Any github?

<comment><AUTHOR> The UI is mostly raw Javascript, with a bit of jquery. It's all in one JS file and not minimized, so you can view the source in the browser if you want to see what it looks like. (Spoiler: it looks like a disgusting pile of hacks, just like all game UI code tends to).

The puzzle generator is in C++.

I'll put both on Github, but they require a bit of cleanup work first.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I love it. Was a bit confused at fist since the lines can be extended in both ways. Yeah, i see this as an little addictive game. Do you have it on IOS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Afraid not. But I think you can use "add to home screen" in Safari to get an icon to launch it as an app (i.e. no browser controls).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> One suggestion: There should be some positive feedback when you solve a puzzle. Like prints "Congrats" and play a little jingle.

Overall great game!

</comment><comment><USER7> Enjoying this! Other than the bug about instructions not showing right in landscape mode due to noted css issue.

</comment><comment><USER8> Linjat is a great game, and my GF got immediately hooked also :) I suggest that it would greatly benefit from adding features: 1\. Save/restore 2\. Undo/redo

</comment><comment><USER9> It's really, really good. I really like manipulating the number lines, which I think is important (the basic action in a game should feel inherently good)

</comment><comment><USER10> Navigation seems to be broken. Nothing happens when I use the browser's (Chrome) back button to return to the main page, even though the hash changes.

</comment><comment><USER11> Very enjoyable, fun simple game. Would like it to show your the highest level you have solved so far. eg. Highest score: easy level 4

</comment><comment><USER12> very elegant puzzle with super simple rules (which I consider a big plus over hard to explain puzzle games... which my games might suffer from a bit). Extending a line in both ways is a bit more cumbersome, maybe you should allow start drawing a line everywhere and just materialize it if it crosses a number.

</comment><comment><USER13> Cool thingie.

However... I would re-label the « Back » button as « Home » and add a « Back » button that undoes the last move...

</comment><comment><USER14> Great idea for a puzzle. It really needs a grid and an undo buffer.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really cool, seems similar to the trees and tents puzzle game.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a great puzzle game. I am absolutely hooked!

</comment><comment><USER17> Amazingly simple yet awesome. Well done.

</comment><comment><USER18> Oh my god I love this game! Well done!

</comment><comment><USER19> Why is there a Done button?

</comment><comment><USER20> Fantastic! Thank you so much!!!</comment>


Ammonia as a fuel for compression ignition engines - <AUTHOR> https://www.ammoniaenergy.org/articles/review-of-ammonia-as-a-ci-fuel-published/ <comment><USER2> Scariest shit I ever did was help pull a completely full anhydrous ammonia tank out of a 6 foot ditch. The trailer it was attached to had slid off the gravel road and twisted upside down in the ditch, some nearby farmer bringing it home from fillup. And it was not made to be picked up at all when full, but you know smaller farmer not wanting to lose his ass and farm with it by calling out some hazmat crew to drain it and transfer it. Used an excavator with a chains to very carefully pick it up and roll it out onto the road so they could pull it onto another trailer. If that fucker cracked open basically all of us down in that little valley would have died horribly. But doing dangerous as fuck shit on the cheap is the only way these small time farmers are holding on in the face of corporate monoculture farms, and hope they can survive long enough for those corporate farms to leave the area when the soil is depleted and worthless from their unsustainable practices.

</comment><comment><USER3> I came across this a few years ago. The largest problem is that Ammonia is very toxic. It is also very corrosive. If you look around, there a lots of articles about problems when delivery systems are used to transport ammonia, and then propane. Trace contamination causes failure in propane systems due to corrosion.

So in a crash situation, if the ammonia ruptures, you're probably dead, and everyone else in the vicinity. With gasoline, diesel, propane, or natural gas, if the tank ruptures, people in the vicinity are likely fine if it doesn't ignite. On heavy trucks, ruptured diesel tanks are quite common in crashes. Fires lighting from them, much less common (i.e. most ruptures don't result in fire).

The article is devoid of any comment on the safety aspects, which from what I see, is likely the more important point.

<comment><USER4> This is a very reasonable point, and even somewhat understated, since even when ignited hydrocarbon fuel burns more safely than ammonia. Nitrogenous compounds don't ignite and gradually burn off; they detonate.

<comment><USER5> Don't try this at home, but IIRC from my mis-spent youth you can light the ammonia gas in a half-empty bottle of household ammonia solution and it will burn off quietly.

According to Wikipedia (which suggests that my memory may be faulty in this case):

"The combustion of ammonia in air is very difficult in the absence of a catalyst (such as platinum gauze or warm chromium(III) oxide), due to the relatively low heat of combustion, a lower laminar burning velocity, high auto-ignition temperature, high heat of vaporization, and a narrow flammability range."

Unlike _nitrate_ compounds such as ammonium nitrate, ammonia contains no oxygen, and disassociates into hydrogen and nitrogen only.

<comment><USER6> I recall in middle or high school making ammonium tri-iodide with a friend whose dad was a navy seal and knew a thing or two about explosives but nevertheless for some reason thought it was ok for us to make a highly touch- sensitive explosive without supervision. We got the instructions from some variant of the Anarchist Cookbook, and they quite simply instruct you to dissolve iodine crystals in ammonia and filter it, leaving behind a residue of the product. We left it inside a plastic cooler outside for the ammonia to evaporate, which was fine until a gust of wind caused it to detonate and blow up the cooler. I don't recall us having a plan for how to get the filter out of the cooler without detonating it though, so I'm grateful that it blew up when we weren't nearby.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Soooo... It has to be mixed with a co-combustion fuel, is dirtier than diesel, and requires more space and weight to clean up it's exhaust.

The article really should have gone into some of the 'why' side of things - what are the advantages of ammonia?

<comment><USER8> The main "why" is a carbon-free fuel (when produced by solar) in a relatively dense form. Liquid ammonia has higher energy density than liquid hydrogen, is easier to store, and is already used a bulk chemical around the world. It also is more energy efficient than liquifying hydrogen.

If you imagined what oil would look like without carbon, ammonia is pretty close. The toxicity probably prevents cars and trucks from using ammonia, but for marine power or grid energy, it seems feasible.

Also, the co-combustion fuel can be supplied on-site by cracking the ammonia to hydrogen.

[https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2020/07/08/air-products- to-b...](https://www.kallanishenergy.com/2020/07/08/air-products-to- build-5b-ammonia-project-in-saudi-arabia/)

<comment><USER9> What is the energy return of energy invested on getting hydrogen from solar and then turning into ammonia?

<comment><USER10> Are you counting the energy cost of preventing or mitigating climate change?

It's not as good as plugging ibto the mains or using batteries, but it could well be the best option for industrial hydrogen, large boats and planes.

<comment><USER9> So we need to add into EROEI all the energy needed to deactivate/retrofit de old technology used in planes and large boats. If I don't do this exercise I will be as in denial as the ones that don't believe in climate change. We need to reduce air and maritime travel. We need to invest in trains and also avoid unnecessary travel. Fuel taxes in the previously mentioned sectors may be a good option because at the moment they don't have taxes on externalities. We have only a few years to prevent climate change getting out of hand and there are simple and effective solutions. We do not have a carbon budget for solutions that are not yet viable on paper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> MAN, the biggest producer of marine diesels, was supposedly working on this. But there's nothing about it on the MAN site. Just on the "ammoniaenergy.org" site.

The case for marine diesels is reasonable. The energy density is higher than bunker fuel, and the fuel only has to be available at major ports.

<comment><AUTHOR> MAN and Wartsila are both working on it

Paywalled, unfortunately: [https://m.shippingwatch.com/article/12359286](https://m.shippingwatch.com/article/12359286)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One use case for ammonia is in alkaline fuel cells.

Ammonia can be reformed to nitrogen + hydrogen by passing it over a hot catalyst. The gas coming out is free of CO2, so it can be used in alkaline fuel cells without carbonate formation (the CO2 in the air used by the cell must still be scrubbed, but that's an easier problem).

Alkaline fuel cells can use nickel instead of platinum electrodes.

</comment><comment><USER13> Ammonia production consumes about 2% of the world's energy and generates 1% of its CO2.</comment>


Ask HN: Bad experiences after sharing your idea? - <AUTHOR>

I read a lot about, how ideas are worth next to nothing. As many have pointed out in the past, ideas are worth a negative amount if anything (since you have to put in all the work and money). Also it was interesting to read about all the positive affects of sharing your startup idea (others will help you polish your idea).<p>Still, I'd like to ask... Did any of you have bad experiences because you shared your startup idea with someone you should not have? What happened? <comment><USER2> The only bad experiences I've had after sharing my idea are:

1) realizing that my original idea sucks and that it needed to evolve or completely change

2) realizing that even if my idea is good, most people are either indifferent to it or they hate it. Which makes me think of this quote, "Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."

Neither experience is pleasant. Both are morale killers.

Ideas are cheap.

<comment><USER3> Isn't item 1 a good thing, because after about 100 iterations your idea will probably improve?

<comment><USER2> Both are good things, that shouldn't be avoided. They're just not pleasant.

<comment><USER3> They should be. If you feel strongly, you're iterating, and you're getting feedback - you're probably onto something :)

<comment><USER2> Yes I know, but it's easier said than done. It's kind of like how running a marathon for the 1st time sounds really good in your head, but when you're actually doing it your legs and lungs ache? You're still going to finish the run, it's still good for you, but it just doesn't feel good the 1st time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The technology roadmap for the next five decades is predictable. For example [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Raymond_Kur...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predictions_made_by_Raymond_Kurzweil) are spot on so far. What ideas do you have that aren't there? No big ideas that's for sure.

Startups mainly work by using existing technology to make a working service in a few years. The main problems are economic, social, psychological, not technological.

Will people use some silly limited email service? Yes, because it alters the psychology of communication, enables them to talk to more people quicker. Will people use a search engine that indexes the web? Yes if content on the web is worth a damn. Will labeling the world through people's IDs instead of URLs and brands be more efficient? Yes if you pull it off.

Will people pay for Adobe's apps instead of buying templates? Yes if they're convinced by designers that templates are bad and they need to go through an exclusive branding ritual.

A lot of startups are so mesmerized by what's possible with current technology they can't see two steps ahead. They come up with pretty small ideas in most cases and it's often difficult to link those ideas to the big technological trends even when the startup gets as big as Mint or Twitter.

That's why VCs don't care about ideas. We already have the ideas. If you understand tech like Ray Kurzweil did, you can shit out ideas all day. VCs care about fitting into the unpredictable world of fickle humans, like Twitter's 140 characters did, and your motivation to slave away.

The tech economy will move forward one way or another. In the big scheme of things we will get to AI and understand our own brains until we can predict if Twitter should add the ability to subdivide long texts into 150 character chunks to limit the size of rants like this one.

<comment><USER5> Just because Kurzweil's predictions from 1990 were correct doesn't mean that we can predict the future, or even that _Kurzweil's_ predictions for the next 10 years.

Think of it this way: _lots_ of people made predictions in 1990 about what the next 10 years will be like. (Some of the ones I remember: that Japan would take over the world, that the American government would fall, that we'd all be watching WebTV, that cars would drive themselves). Simply by chance, _somebody_ is bound to be mostly right. That person will then get lots of media attention for having corrected predicted the last 10 years. But that doesn't mean he'll predict the next 10 years correctly.

In fact, if you look at Kurzweil's predictions from 2001 for 2009 ([http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art...](http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0275.html)):

He predicted the move to laptops from desktops. He missed the rise of smart cell phones, instead thinking that we'd be using ultrathin tablets and computers embedded in jewelry. He incorrectly predicted a move away from rotating media to solid-state memory (perhaps he was just early, solid state is likely to catch on significantly over the next 5 years - but in servers, which is the one place where he thought it _wouldn't_ catch on). He correctly predicted the rise of wireless. He was dead wrong about the usage of speech recognition technology, which is still too unreliable to recognize more than a few keywords.

He missed the rise of international terrorism as a new geopolitical power. He missed the emergence of the U.S. as an aggressor nation that actively declares war on other nations (in fact, he predicted that national wars likely wouldn't exist), but correctly predicted that the U.S. would remain the dominant military power.

He incorrectly predicted continued economic growth, particularly in the stock market, which is now below where it was in 2001. Economists still do not believe price deflation is a good thing. The U.S. remains an economic leader, but its leadership has declined somewhat. He correctly predicted the rise of China. He missed the emergence of the EBay/Paypal/Adwords economy, where perhaps a million or more people can now make their living off selling niche products online. He did predict the rise of online transactions, however. He completely missed the growth of social networking as an important cultural force. He incorrectly predicted the development of intelligent assistants, which never caught on. He correctly predicted the download economy, where you pay for an information product and then download it directly instead of accepting a physical copy.

If you were to meta-analyze these predictions, there's a pattern that emerges. Those predictions that took an emerging technology that had _already caught on with mainstream users_ and extrapolated it out to pervasiveness tended to come true (laptops, faster computers, wireless, China). Those predictions that took an emerging technology still in the R&D stage and assumed it would catch on usually failed (solid state storage, speech recognition, intelligent assistants). And then inflection points that came out of nowhere obviously were never predicted at all (social networking, AdWords, terrorism, U.S. aggression).

The thing is - there are always those black swan events that come out of nowhere. And they tend to be where fortunes are made. Everyone expected laptops to get cheaper, faster, and lighter in 2001, so that was already priced into their market value. Nobody expected that a good portion of our social lives would consist of broadcasting 140 character text messages.

<comment><USER6> That's interesting that Kurzweil predicted deflation would be recognized as a good thing.

I was an economics major and never understood the main stream view of economists on that (that it's bad).

<comment><USER5> It gives people an incentive to sit on their currency and hoard it away instead of investing it in productive ventures.

Think of it this way: the real interest rate is the nominal interest rate minus the inflation rate. That means that if the inflation rate is negative, people can effectively earn interest simply by sitting on their cash, since it'll be worth more in the future. If people earn interest by doing nothing, what incentive do they have to invest in a potentially risky venture that may make more in the long run, but may also cost them their principal?

Deflation biases people towards inaction, because they know that sitting and waiting means their money will be worth more in the future. Inflation biases people towards action - they know their money will be worth less in the future, so they may as well invest in _something_. The Austrian critiques of monetary inflation are basically right - it _does_ result in bubbles, as people seek higher returns from progressively more risky investments because they know their cash will be worth less.

Technically, the mainstream economist view shoots for price stability (0% inflation) and not inflation. But they recognize that they'll never achieve that, so they err on the side of inflation. Mostly, this is because inflation is easier to cure than deflation is. If everybody is biased toward inaction, then when the Fed pumps money into the system to stimulate action, it tends to collect within firms who won't spend it because they expect it'll be worth more in the future. (This is currently a very real problem, as much of the money the Fed injected in 2009 is collecting in banks that are trying to shore up their balance sheets and consumers that are trying to pay down debt.) Each firm always has the option of choosing not to spend the money it's received. All it takes is one firm that wants to hoard, and the money will never circulate within the economy.

If you have continuous low-level inflation, however, it can be brought under control simply by reducing the money supply. You can't spend money that you don't have. (Well, you can on a micro-level by borrowing from another firm, but you can't on a macro-level because there's nobody else to borrow from.) So when the Fed restricts the money supply, that reduction filters all the way through the economy, people have less money to spend, and prices drop.

<comment><USER7> > It gives people an incentive to sit on their currency and hoard it away > instead of investing it in productive ventures.

Kind of like the incentive people have when evaluating electronics, which are under consistent, massive deflation thanks to technological progress? Not such a problem there, is it? We're not fussing over Dell or Apple, or the car companies, for that matter, who see similar, though less pronounced, levels of technology-driven deflation.

Why would such a force, which is so innocuous in these areas, and which develops naturally due to the rise in productive capacity & efficiency over time, be so problematic macroscopically? Why would people stop investing, any more than stop buying computers and cars now? Before answering, see my following point.

> what incentive do they have to invest in a potentially risky venture that > may make more in the long run, but may also cost them their principal?

An incentive driven by seeking greater return. In your world, wouldn't everyone invest in the bond market, or buy annuities, rather than the riskier stock market? Doesn't exactly gel with reality, does it?

> If you have continuous low-level inflation, however, it can be brought under > control simply by reducing the money supply.

What does lowering the money supply do, pray tell? Wouldn't that increase the value of the dollars remaining in the system? That's deflation, by definition. How can it be both your solution and your problem?

> Deflation biases people towards inaction, Inflation biases people towards > action

We'll speak more clearly if we aren't so broadly. Natural deflation is not static, but a force dynamically determined by facts of the economy, such as the growth in productive output.

For natural deflation, little investment -> less growth in productive output -> little deflation -> more incentive to invest. Likewise for the converse: lots of investment -> more deflation -> less incentive to invest. This dynamic interplay is a self-regulating force which serves to naturally counteract the market propensity to go off the rails on some wasteful bubble or other.

Seems to me your arguments are specious, and the current bias against deflation is an orthodoxy.

<comment><USER5> > Kind of like the incentive people have when evaluating electronics, which > are under consistent, massive deflation thanks to technological progress? > Not such a problem there, is it?

People put off electronics purchases all the time because of price deflation. How many times have you heard people wait until the next Macworld before buying things from Apple, or wait and see what the next Android phone will be before buying anything?

It's not really a problem for the electronics industry because electronics is a robust and growing industry anyway. So people spend less than they otherwise would, but nobody cares because they're still spending more (on electronics) than they used to.

That growth is because electronics is a substitute for several other old economy goods. What's good for the iPad and the Kindle certainly isn't good for the publishing industry. It _is_ good for the consumer and the economy, because it encourages people to switch away from more resource/labor- intensive, less useful goods like books, and towards less resource/labor- intensive, more useful goods like tablet PCs.

You can't apply the same logic to the level of the whole economy, because (by definition) there's nothing for the consumer to switch to. Price deflation across the _whole_ economy means that the consumer is encouraged to switch away from goods and into cash. But cash itself is non-productive; it has no utility for anyone beyond a means of purchasing other, more productive goods.

Whenever you get confused about macro/micro effects, it's helpful to forget money entirely and look at what people actually _do_. When prices drop for computers, people switch away from other goods and buy more computers, which, assuming computers are more efficient to manufacture, is good for the economy. When prices drop across the economy, there's nothing for people to switch to, except cash, and cash is _not_ good for the economy or the consumer.

> An incentive driven by seeking greater return. In your world, wouldn't > everyone invest in the bond market, or buy annuities, rather than the > riskier stock market? Doesn't exactly gel with reality, does it?

"My world" doesn't actually care whether people purchase bonds or stocks or real estate. It abstracts those away and assumes the relative asset mix and risk preferences will be the same. The only difference is that the rate of return for holding _cash_ has gone up, and hence some percentage of the people who otherwise would've purchased stocks or bonds or real estate will instead hold cash. Because they now hold cash instead of stocks/bonds/real estate, they have no incentive to improve ("invest in") the businesses represented by those stocks or bonds.

> What does lowering the money supply do, pray tell? Wouldn't that increase > the value of the dollars remaining in the system? That's deflation, by > definition. How can it be both your solution and your problem?

No. That's a decrease in the money supply, by definition. (Some people define inflation as a change in the money supply, but such definitions are highly unorthodox, and can't describe phenomena like the 2008 deflation, where the money supply increased sharply yet prices fell.)

Over time, as people's expectations adjust, a rise in the money supply will tend to lead to inflation and a fall will lead to deflation. But before you get full-blown deflation, you're going to get _disinflation_ , where prices are still inflating but at a slower rate. That was the situation during Volcker's "shock therapy" in the 1981-82 recession: the money supply contracted, the contraction squeezed the inflation rate down to something manageable, but then the contraction was reversed before prices could actually start falling.

> We'll speak more clearly if we aren't so broadly. Natural deflation is not > static, but a force dynamically determined by facts of the economy, such as > the growth in productive output.

Agreed.

> For natural deflation, little investment -> less growth in productive output > -> little deflation -> more incentive to invest. Likewise for the converse: > lots of investment -> more deflation -> less incentive to invest. This > dynamic interplay is a self-regulating force which serves to naturally > counteract the market propensity to go off the rails on some wasteful bubble > or other.

Somewhat agreed. This, empirically, seems to be the case when deflation is minor and the economy is hovering near equilibrium.

It does not appear to be the case when there is a sudden shock to the system. For example, a financial panic increases the demand for hard currency, which pushes up the value of currency (deflation), which encourages people to hoard even more currency, which causes still more deflation. In theory, this should be self-limiting when entrepreneurs realize that assets are available for bargain-basement prices, then buy them (without credit, otherwise they're at the mercy of fickle creditors) to put to use in new industries. In practice, there's good evidence that it can last a decade or more. It only takes one bad 4-year term to unseat a modern democracy, so policymakers have a strong incentive to not let things get so bad for so long.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Some business ideas are innovative, in the sense that they are a new, bold, or risky approach to solving problems. I don't think you have anything to lose by sharing those ideas. These ideas are all about execution, and passion and domain knowledge will out. Share these with impunity, I think.

Some business ideas are just really fancy arbitrage. Execution matters, but the value is self-evident; the more people that know about the opportunity, the faster the market is going to get flooded. I'd keep these a little closer to the vest.

I suspect the start-ups that we talk about and focus upon here on hacker news fall more in the first category and less in the second.

<comment><USER9> Do you have any anecdotes?

It would be far more useful and in the spirit of the original question than advice/opinion (which I see no dearth of on this site).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes actually. When I quit my job to start my first company, I told a few employees at my old company what I was working on. One of them thought it was such a good idea, he also quit and started a similar company. I was successful, he wasn't, but in the early days, it was a major headache that I didn't need.

<comment><USER11> I had a similar experience and, in that time, it sure felt like a major headache. But right now, I think thanks to that I had way more motivation, someone to compete and a clear goal to beat. And yes, I eventually "won" like you say you did. Competition never hurts when you're in it to win.

It was a major push that really helped me.

<comment><USER12> People who rip off your idea in such a way can be shamelessly destroyed business-wise. If one enjoys doing that, then sharing has no downside, it's like dealing crack: once they take your idea and run with it, you own them.

<comment><USER13> more details please. how do you destroy them?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The one thing I have noticed is that it takes considerably longer to implement the idea if I reveal it to someone else first.

<comment><USER15> I didn't notice it until I read this: <http://sivers.org/zipit>

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The best thing that's ever happened to me with sharing ideas is that someone was inspired by them who could execute on them better than I could. They built it, saving me the trouble.

If you share your good ideas, you'll build a network that informs you and feeds your brain to synthesize more good ideas. Build the ones that really fit you and yours, the ones you can't stop yourself from building, and do it now. Then you don't have this problem, you have the sharing a demo problem, which is better.

</comment><comment><USER16> I sometimes share my ideas with the hope that someone _will_ do something with it.

I don't really care about making money and honestly, I have too many ideas to tell the good ones from the bad ones anymore.

<comment><USER17> > I have too many ideas to tell the good ones from the bad ones anymore.

It seems having good ideas is actually just a combination of two things: having lots of ideas (including bad ones), but then putting them through a really good filter to separate the good from the bad. I think both parts are skills that can be deliberately developed over time.

</comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Nobody has ever stolen an idea of mine.

At worst a friend has gotten his hopes up then frustrated we can't/didn't execute the idea.

</comment><comment><USER18> This made me think: what if a particular idea isn't a novel concept in itself, but rather manifests itself as market information?

For instance, the knowledge that the available software in sector X sucks might be worth something, simply because people outside the sector don't know that that opportunity exists.

Not all ideas are about revolutionizing news reporting or optimizing dating... sometimes they're about making decent software for veterinarians, or something like that.

</comment><comment><USER19> I realized after several iterations that it is sometimes just as hard to ram down a good idea down someone's throat and it's always worth a shot. But, of course there will always be exceptions.

I personally do a proxy pitch. If I know the person I am pitching to is a potential investor/entrepreneur who could actually implement my once in a "blue moon" (haha) idea, then, I pitch a proxy idea to see how smart their response is. If I like the relationship with them, I indulge them with my real one.

</comment><comment><USER12> Here's my advice: share your ideas, but generally refrain from releasing the seed of it to anyone but investors, most of the time. It's your passion that you should protect. This can can be difficult.

For example, here's a couple of mission statements that remind me of what would have been once the core of ideas: "we turn unstructured information into structured information" (Dapper) or "organize the world's information" (Google).

Sometimes one needs to talk about ideas to drill down into it and release a core value proposition like the ones just mentioned. But, once you have it, if you mention it, you dissipate its energy in yourself and risk transferring it to someone else who can manifest it better than yourself: basically rip you off. At the same time, by sharing the core energy, people may remember you, help you, or work for you. But they also might trash it or steal it.

So once you've refined the gold, just stick it in your pocket until you absolutely need to bring it out, like to customers and beneficiaries of the idea. And when someone talks to you about their ideas, you should likewise respect it.

Good to know someone's background to determine what and how much of your ideas you wish to discuss. Also, when your ideas become real physical energy, then start working.

</comment><comment><USER20> Yes, I did have this experience. Made a trip to Silicon Valley to talk over a licensing agreement with a tech giveback (by us). One of the ideas was shot down by a senior tech guy there as "unworkable". We (stupidly) dropped the idea after being ridiculed for it.

More than a year later, he and the head of their marketing took at exact idea, created a company around it, and later sold it for more than 230 million.

So, yes, it can happen.

</comment><comment><USER21> My experience with "sharing ideas" is that I end up spending so much time explaining, justifying and defending my ideas that I end up with no energy left to actually implement them. Consequently, I don't bother telling folks what I'm planning - except for disposible ideas that I spread just to keep folks from pissing on my leg and call it rain.

</comment><comment><USER22> I think if you have an idea whose execution is complex, its much harder for someone else to grasp, let alone copy. And that's a challenge for the entrepreneur, but you are more likely to build something defensible.

Now just explain in 5 words why I can't live without it and you got it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Nope, never had a bad experience sharing an idea. I do it on purpose to see if anyone will ever give me a run for my money... but no. Nobody I've met could execute with the dilligence I do, nor do they have the marketing savvy.

I talk about how I'm going to revolutionize email, with user interface enhancements, make it very step-by-step explaining the logic behind them, at conferences where I speak in front of several hundred people -- and so far as I can tell, nobody has lifted a finger.

My ideas aren't revolutionary, either, and they could make a lot of money.

Last week I met a person in my city (Vienna), who was excited to meet me cuz of my reputation, and was worried that it turned out we were going to compete. I told him, no problem. We talked about our different approaches to the same problem. I said maybe he should look at selling his technology to people like me, instead of the end users.

That's about the extent of it. :)

</comment><comment><USER24> One time, at Harvard, me and my buds thought up a website. It was gonna be like Myspace, but, uh, like better and stuff. You know, better features and just better. We were too tired from coming up with the idea to do anymore from there, so we went up to this guy and were like, "hey, we have this startup. It's like a Myspace, but better, and like for colleges maybe, I guess. You wanna like do the coding for it?" He agreed, but then he stole our idea, that we put so much thought into. We done the hard part. He just swooped in and made some code to glue our brilliant ideas together. Of course we sued him cause we got the monies, and we ended up with millions, just like patent trolls, but better.

Now I have a new idea. It's like a webapp, but better than webapps today. Anybody wanna come up with some code to help this idea come together? But if you read this, and you try to steal my idea, I'm gonna come after you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh man, I didn't wanna say it before, but like, I have the same freaking idea. I mean the webapp thing... I think we should totally team up.</comment></comment>


Software Engineering: The Next 50 Years - <AUTHOR> http://blog.ninlabs.com/2013/12/software-engineering-the-next-50-years/

<comment><USER2> I liked this joke: "But, we also may be reaching our limit given our current methods and capabilities. In the United States, the recent software behind the health care insurance marketplace is a reported 500 million lines of code."</comment>


Intelligence tests and psychiatric assessments of Nazis at Nuremberg Trials - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_trials#Intelligence_tests_and_psychiatric_assessments <comment><USER2> No surprise to Hjalmar Schacht topping the IQ chart; he had a big hand in introducing the Rentenmark and arresting hyperinflation in the early 20s. Ten years later he innovated again with mefo bills to finance New Deal style economic expansion and re-armament. But I am surprised to see Speer scoring so low on the IQ. After all he did offer the cleverest defence at the trials, thereby cheating the noose despite his documented presence for the Posen speeches.</comment>


Why Companies Should Insist that Employees Take Naps - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2010/09/why_companies_should_insist_em.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness%2Fcs+%28Conversation+Starter+on+HBR.org%29 <comment><USER2> <http://www.wikihow.com/Rest-with-Your-Eyes-Open></comment>