Startup CEOs who gave up fortunes to turn employees into millionaires - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/non-greedy-startup-ceos-who-turned-employees-into-millionaires-2014-9 <comment><USER2> Although Woz wasn't a CEO... for those that don't know about this, I thought you would find it interesting [1]:

 _" And when Jobs (in the movie, but really a board does this) denied stock to the early garage team (some not even shown) I'm surprised that they chose not to show me giving about $10M of my own stock to them because it was the right thing. And $10M was a lot in that time."_

[1] Woz's entire post is on this page:

[https://plus.google.com/+CarmsPerez/posts/GnVTvQNgvpf](https://plus.google.com/+CarmsPerez/posts/GnVTvQNgvpf)

<comment><USER3> I truly hope that Woz is remembered as the guy behind Apple's early greatness and Jobs as just a dickhead who set us all back. Not just developers with his no compete bullshit, but everyone with his stupid no ports aesthetic. How are people supposed to learn to tinker when everything is locked down??

<comment><USER4> I believe it was Steve Kent's _The Ultimate History of Video Games_ Atari portion that really fleshes out Steve Jobs. The two anecdotes I remember are:

1\. People in Atari generally considering him an oderous hairy hippie who once disappeared from work to go to India for self-enlightenment, but returned with Hepatitis.

2\. He (Steve) was once offered $100 per transistor he could eliminate below the 100-transistor mark for an arcade game (I believe it was mid 150 count at the time), so he went to Woz and paid him on the order of $100 to eliminate the transistors (Woz was woefully unaware of the deal between Steve and Atari). Woz got it down in the low 30's or high 20's, Steve got the large sum of money and Atari wound up adding transistors back because while it worked they couldn't figure out how.

<comment><USER5> Holy shit. ~30 transistors make a game? Woz was a genius.

<comment><USER6> I believe it was TTL chips and not transistors proper.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I joined a startup a couple years ago as a very early employee. The equity they offered was some tiny percentage, like 0.1%. I did the math and said, "you know, we would need to exit for a billion dollars for me to receive a million?" The founder seemed surprised at that. Nevertheless, I joined the startup.

What I don't understand is if the company does sell, and I only get my 0.1%, I should be upset or call the founder "greedy" if he doesn't give me more money than what was in my contract?

If I'm going to take less than what I believe to be the "market rate" for my services in lieu of some equity and my motivation is to make money, then I'm going to do the math and weigh the probabilities of my equity and the lower- than-market salary being more lucrative than taking a job with no equity and a market rate salary.

I just don't see how founders who honor contracts that employees sign as being greedy. Arguments that the founders take more risk or work harder or whatever seems to me to be beside the point. If the employee doesn't think the percentage of equity is good, then they shouldn't sign the contract. That's how I see it. And maybe if more of us took that stance we wouldn't have to hope that founders would just give us money out of the goodness of their hearts and instead have satisfactory agreements already in writing.

<comment><USER8> _" you know, we would need to exit for a billion dollars for me to receive a million?"_

It's worse than that. By the time you factor in preferred shares and other investment dilution, your 0.1% will be more like 0.00001%[+]. Few people think about that, and unless someone is actively looking out for your interests (e.g. someone giving retention grants -- or you demanding them), it's difficult to make a lot of money as an early startup employee. You can easily find yourself in a situation where you vest your grant, leave the company, and later find out that a new hire is making an order of magnitude more money than you in an exit. That's startup life.

The game here is predicting the expected value of an extremely improbable future event, and sacrificing _present day_ money in favor of that event. There's no "fair" way to do it, so if a founder is asking that kind of commitment of you, they should be looking out for your interests over the long term as well.

[+] edit: I overstated my case here. You can probably expect 1-2 orders of magnitude dilution, but it doesn't really change the argument.

<comment><USER9> That's a gross exaggeration. If you own 0.1% of the company, you're likely to be diluted to around 0.02% at the very worst, and most likely 0.04% or so assuming 3 rounds of funding.

That's assuming a positive outcome that clears preferences of course - if the company goes in a fire sale you're not going to make anything at all. But assuming a billion dollar exit means you're assuming not a fire sale.

<comment><USER10> So, if we take the above poster at their word that it would have to be a billion dollar exit to be worth their while (and net them a million dollars for X years at below market salary) and assume your dilution numbers are accurate, they'd only get 200 to 400k. There would have to be a 2.5 to 5 billion dollar exit for their diluted tenth of a percent to net them a million.

<comment><USER11> You're assuming all startups pay below market.

<comment><USER10> I'm taking the post we're responding to at face value: "If I'm going to take less than what I believe to be the "market rate" for my services in lieu of some equity and my motivation is to make money, then I'm going to do the math and weigh the probabilities of my equity and the lower-than-market salary being more lucrative than taking a job with no equity and a market rate salary."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I dont think startup CEOs have any requirement to do this type of thing. On the other hand I think there is a powerful reality distortion field around start ups. Its literally more work than at bigco, for about 70% of the salary, for a lotto ticket that has a 1 in 1000 chance of pay off, and the jackpot payoff is something like 50K-100K.

Really Really doesnt make sense unless you enjoy the atmosphere you are not going to get rich as an employee in a start up, even if the start up sells for 500 million. you are going to get back the 30% a year you lost by not going to bigco unless the founders just feel like making everyone rich.

<comment><USER13> Good points, but one thing to keep in mind - a lot of people just enjoy working at smaller companies.

I did some time at a large financial institution making great money, but absolutely hated how empty it all felt. Nothing got done, nothing changed, nobody listened to me.

I work at a much smaller company now, and almost everything I do on a daily basis has a measurable impact. I can literally watch the things me and my team do increase the bottom line. I derive value from this myself, as it allows me to grow my team, hire new employees, give people responsibility of their own, etc.

<comment><USER14> I can totally relate. I mean, I've only ever worked for small companies for that very reason.

Have you tried working for a big software company instead of a financial institution? I know that banks don't treat software devs all that well, but shops like Google, FB, Rackspace etc. have a pretty good reputation of having a great culture and work environment.

Personally, I've only worked for small shops. Nearly all the places I'm currently interviewing are BigCo's though, and I'm not sure how that is going to turn out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Beyond a certain amount of money (I'll throw out a number and say, $10M), the incremental gain is not much. The change in your lifestyle in going from $0M to $5M is huge; but from $10M to $15M? Not much. So these CEOs are doing the _smart_ thing (in addition to the _nice_ thing). They know that when they get the inevitable itch to do the next startup, they can count on a stellar reputation and recruit some great talent.

<comment><USER16> I think a game changer cash position for most people is 2.5MM liquid -- not tied up in real estate.

5MM means you're flying business/first with your family anytime/anywhere. You may have a pied a terre somewhere.

10MM means you're angel investing, vacationing, and not generally "working" anymore.

15M++ means you bank with The Private Bank of Wells Fargo, have a ridiculous line of credit // no checking account, multiple properties, trust, etc.

<comment><USER17> $5M doesn't go that far anymore. If you're young and you have $5M, you could take 4-5% per year and make it last 40-50 years.

That's only $250,000 per year, pre tax. Good money, but certainly not enough to not have to think about money anymore.

<comment><USER18> Your $5M liquid would be earning interest the entire time too. With that much money, it'd be 'easy' to make 4% - 5%/year, so you could live on $250k/year and never touch the principle.

<comment><USER17> That was my point. A good rule of thumb is that you can pull 3-4% out of a investment each year and you will never run out. Increase that to 4-5% and it should last your entire life.

Don't get me wrong, $250K per year pre-tax is a very comfortable lifestyle. However, it's not so much money that you can spend without thought.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Ask HN:

So, I'm the sole founder here with investor. The dude's awesome, but the contract we signed puts me in significant financial risk if the company doesn't turn up profitable.

I have more than several employees (some of them will probably read this) who I pay regular and competitive money though I'm not particulary pleased with their output (but hey, it's improving, and there's not much of a talent pool here). Most work on their hourlies, and if milestones/deadlines are not met, I try to find somebody else and handle all the consequences of that myself. Basically, I handle entire risk and stress.

Now, if what we work on turns profitable, or has a successful exit or whatnot, you know how much of that money do I think it's fair to give to them?

Nada. Zilch. Zero. Go through the shit I'm going through yourself if you want a big payout and then we'll talk.

What do you think?

<comment><USER20> If you really think your employees will read this and know that you wrote this, you should probably delete this or reword this. Its bad for morale to appear flippant about employees.

<comment><USER19> The more I push the line of "I don't care what others think about me" to its absolute, the happier I am as a person. That does not neccesarily mean me earning more money or having a better team morale.

<comment><USER21> Your attitude is probably pretty standard fare for business overall. That said, you're probably going to continue to have the same problems that business overall has these days; detached employees, mediocre performance, and a generally escalating bitterness that the world does not love you as much as you think you love yourself.

Have fun with that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> It's sad that this behavior is unusual enough to be noteworthy.

<comment><USER23> This comment reads as entitled to me. Startup founders have an insane number of things on their plate, and that list just keeps growing and growing. Startup employees work hard, but the founders still bear most of the risk and responsibility.

What really needs to happen is for new ways to organize startups to distribute the risks and responsibilities better, so that it's not up to the goodness of the founder's heart to ensure a good outcome for the employees.

Of course, this implies that the pie is being made bigger, the risks and responsibilities being spread out are actually building more value in the company so as to generate a bigger exit. So far though founder-level discipline and risk-taking is rare enough in one individual that this is the situation we have to deal with.

<comment><USER24> And great employees can always go to {google, fb, twitter, microsoft, salesforce, etc} and get paid $250-$300 / year in cash or cash equivalents, instead of $125-$150 plus lottery tickets.

In fact, I remember reading that round A is the worse time for an employee to join a startup: the large grants are gone, but the business isn't derisked, so your lottery tickets still have shit ev.

<comment><USER25> Is the going rate $250-$300k these days?

Honestly, though - beyond just larger equity grants, I'd like to see companies have people get rewarded when the company does well... Through some kind of bonus (in equity or cash).

It seems like most companies either have bonuses that are pretty much an expected part of salary, or they have no bonus in any situation. I've only really been part of the latter, though.

<comment><USER24> For a highly experienced senior engineers capable of largely independent delivery of projects with roughly 8-10 years of experience on a platform, very deep understanding of at least one language with a bunch of experience in one or two more, etc etc seem to be getting about that much including grants at the big companies, particularly after being there perhaps 3 years and getting grants annually.

<comment><USER26> What is a grant? Familiar with the term in an academic setting, but not that much in a work setting.

<comment><USER23> [http://fairmark.com/execcomp/grants.htm](http://fairmark.com/execcomp/grants.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The article says:

> There's a startup in New York everyone talks about, and the things they say > aren't very nice. The startup sold for ~ $80 million and the founders got > rich. But, as the rumors go, no other employee made more than $50,000.

Does anyone know which startup they are referring to? carrentals.com? something else?

<comment><USER28> Hunch fits the location and approximate acquisition price, but I can't speak to how screwed over the non-founders were (or weren't).

Not sure that "everyone talks about" it (though that applies even more so for carrentals.com, IMO). Maybe they meant "everyone in NYC talks about it".

<comment><USER29> With Chris Dixon being praised in the piece, I have trouble believing the writer had Hunch in mind.

<comment><USER28> Good point! You're probably right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> It'd be great if instead of founders generously giving to employees post- facto, startup contracts were more employee-friendly from the beginning. How much % should engineers 1-10 demand? _One percent_ is typical for eng #1. On day one, with no code written, where the founders depend entirely on the engineers, where it's just an idea and investor money, they're only a hundredth of the value of the company.

</comment><comment><USER31> Do employee stock options usually not vest automatically upon acquisition? The SinglePlatform story made it sound like employees get screwed if there's an early exit before their options had fully vested.

<comment><USER32> That very much depends on the contract. I have said this before and I'll repeat it on the off chance that it will save someone's bacon one day: insist on accelerated vesting clauses in change of control situations.

<comment><USER33> Is it easy to negotiate a change or add an acceleration clause in the options grant? Seems like those docs are set in stone and very hard to change without board approvals etc.

<comment><USER32> Then you go somewhere else. Nobody forces you to take a job with extra risks and a contractual situation that allows others to pull the rug out from under you when the pay-off materializes.

Really, the only potentially bad contracts are the ones that you've signed. So as long as you haven't signed you have negotiation room and if your choice is between being paid 'market rates' versus being paid 'half of market rate + options' and those options are subject to change without notice then you're just setting yourself up for being hurt if you chose the second.

Nothing is set in stone, that's more a matter of self-confidence and knowing when to walk away.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Steve Wozniak for one. Steve Jobs wouldnt share his Apple stock with anyone. He repeated this with Pixar.

In the 1980s a decent IPO would be about $100K for workers. It would go towards a home down payment.

</comment><comment><USER35> Misleading title IMO. None of these CEOs gave up their fortunes, they just shared a (small) part with their employees.

</comment><comment><USER36> I think (still looking for opportunity in a startup) if I had to choose, I choose a startup based on

(1) the missions

(2) the investors

(3) founder(s) history and attitudes

equity is always a nice thing honestly there are startups that will never go IPO and there are the ones that will fail in a year or two, and there are ones that will go on for a very long time and held privately by founders and there are ones that will be acquired within a few years. The chances are, before your company is sold, you might be looking for another job already.

Also, read the equity/stock agreement CAREFULLY before you sign one and understand what you are signing up for.

</comment><comment><USER37> Tivoli Systems, where I worked, went public in 1996. Not long after that it was acquired by IBM (which bought control of the company through a tender offer for the shares). 26 or 27 of the original employees of the company made over one million dollars. Even the administrative assistant, hired in the early years, was able to pay off her house.

<comment><USER38> Same buyer didn't work out as well for us

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I feel stupid. What is "signaling"?

<comment><USER40> Basic meaning: doing a thing to send a message about yourself to others. Like wearing expensive brands to signal that you're rich.

But _good_ signalling involves some additional factors. Signalling is usually used when you want to say something about yourself, but it's something that people would want to say about themselves whether it was true or not, so you have to say it in a way that is difficult or impossible to fake. A good signal is one that is highly visible (in the context where it matters; clothes are good for in-person signaling, profiles or photos are good for online signaling), and either cannot be sent without having the quality they're supposed to signify (you can't afford expensive things to show off if you don't have money), or are much easier to send if you have that quality than if you don't (it's easier to get a high StackOverflow score if you're good at programming and communicating than if you're not).

If you're giving employees extra stock to signal loyalty and trustworthiness, it's "cheaper" to do that if you actually value being loyal and trustworthy (rather than just wanting others to think that of you), because then you get value from being the sort of person you want to be _and_ being thought well of by others. At least, that's the theory; you could just want other people to think you're a loyal person really, really badly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Awesome, this is how it´s done. Finally some real founders start to be out there!

</comment><comment><USER42> It comes down to trust, really. What goes around comes around.

</comment><comment><USER43> Someone should mention Steve Wozniak here

</comment><comment><USER44> are there any such pre-exit companies out there?

</comment><comment><USER45> They gave up _some_ money to reward valuable employees. That's not, _per se_ , being magnanimous or generous, it's being smart businessmen. All of these founders made out just fine, financially. When they start their next big thing, they'll be remembered not only as the guys who had a successful exit, they'll be remembered as the guys took care of their people along the way. That's about the smartest way to recruit top talent you can come up with.

<comment><USER46> I don't think you are giving these founders enough credit. Startup acquisitions, not unlike fundraising, can be very emotional. Acquirers can go from hot to cold very quickly if they hear the wrong thing or get the wrong vibe. The founders went to great lengths to structure the deal in a way that compensated their employees like this. It's likely that they put the entire deal at risk to do so. That, in my mind, strongly shows generosity on the part of the founder.

<comment><USER45> _per se_ : by or in itself or themselves; intrinsically.

I understand that some (most) of these guys are, in fact, doing this because it's the right thing to do and they are, in fact, that invested. I merely wanted to point out, counter to the tone and implication of the article, that's not the only reason to do this and they were still handsomely rewarded for the risk they took.

Conversely, I want to point out to anyone who thinks _not_ doing the right thing wrt your team so you can pocket a few extra percentage points can have a negative consequence.

<comment><USER32> Sure they're smart businessmen (and women), they built awesome companies and successfully negotiated substantial exits. If they weren't smart then neither of those would have happened in the first place! But in the article there are some very good examples of situations where _most_ C level teams and founders would have happily made off with the loot without sharing any of it with their co-workers, as one CEO in the article put it 'the ones they went to war with'. And there would be nothing or nobody to stop that from happening, and because this is 'normal' nobody would have likely even said anything about it beyond some grumbling at the watercooler and a maybe slightly higher turnover directly post acquisition.

So I read their generosity as the first driver to do this, and that there _maybe_ is another reason is possible but I've yet to see a repeat successful team which would allow the conclusion to be that the second reason is also a motivator.

They're doing good, and good by their people, and that's about it. No need to search for an ulterior motive.

And there are very few if any negative consequences to not doing 'the right thing' with respect to your team, because that - unfortunately - is business as usual. These are the exceptions, definitely not the rule. I hope it becomes more common though.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: revenue sharing model digital publishing tool/platform a good idea? - <AUTHOR>

hi HN members,
We are currently building a digital publishing platform sort of in the vein of onswipe/adobe DPS, it's a set of tools that help publishers to create apps for their contents (books, magazine or newspaper, think "our choice" kind of publication) that run on iOS/Android tablets and phones.
Most vendors in this sector are charing monthly platform fees and per download fee (take DPS for example, it's $0.3 for each download of the issue).
We are considering a revenue-sharing model that publishers just need to pay a one-time setup fee, then we will split the revenue, be it by selling of each issue, or advertisement.
Do you think this is a good/viable idea ? thanks. <comment><USER2> You need to talk with publishers. Find out what their pain is (might be this - I don't know)</comment>


I Defaulted On My Student Loans (And It Was The Best Decision Of My Life) - <AUTHOR> http://thoughtcatalog.com/stephanie-shepard/2014/03/i-defaulted-on-my-student-loans-and-it-was-the-best-decision-of-my-life/ <comment><USER2> Stories like this make me very glad of the system we have in Australia. You can choose to have your Univertity fees just automatically paid by an interest free loan from the government (it's like a five minute online form to sign up for), and then you just pay back 4% of the loan on each tax return if your salary is over $51,000 (you can choose to make voluntary payments over the compulsory rate, or if you make less than $51,000 - you even get a 5% bonus if you pay over $500 - for example, make a $1000 voluntary contribution and they take off a bonus $50 off the loan).

Pretty good scheme to allow people to be educated (which is generally a net win for the economy) without being shackled by ever-growing debt from the start of their working life.

<comment><USER3> There's a plan here in Oregon to try and work up a viable system to do this. The idea is called "Pay it Forward" and you would essentially pay a 3% tax for 20 years after you graduate. I'm not entirely sure it will ever come to pass, but it's not a terrible idea IMO. It may not save money, but it does mean you get an automatic income based repayment plan, you can never be in default and you get an automatic deferral when unemployed.

That said, it doesn't really do anything to fix the problem of skyrocketing education costs which is less than idea...

<comment><USER4> I don't see how this can make financial sense. 3% for 20 years totals 60% of one year's salary (or the average salary over your first 20 years in career). Average salary is $48k, so that's paying back $29k.

... however it's actually even worse than this meager sum:

\- Salary increases over your lifetime, and the highest earning decades are 40s and 50s, so I the average salary over the first two decades is probably lower than $48k. Maybe this is mitigated by restricting to only people who at least attempt college?

\- Oregon has a slightly lower-than-average income.

\- People are more likely to sign up for this program the less they think they'll earn.

\- Once someone has graduated, they are not incentivized quite as strongly to pursue high salary positions.

\- Some loss due to deaths, defaults, emigration, black market off-the-books income, etc.

\- Depending on how it's set up, this may cut into the tax revenue to the state.

\- It doesn't take into account inflation or the time value of money.

I understand the point of the program is a social benefit to the state, but I think it's useful to examine the reasonableness of the proposition in a market context. If someone offered you a bond to take the other side of this deal, how much would you pay for 3% of the first 2 decades of income of a hypothetical freshman entering college this year? What about a 1/1000 share of a portfolio of a thousand freshman?

<comment><USER5> Average student debt load for college graduates with a BA/BS is approximately $25,000, so the math works out perfectly.

<comment><USER4> Debt load isn't the same as the cost of school.

<comment><USER5> No, but it's the same as the cost _to the student,_ which is the point of reforming the student loan system.

<comment><USER4> No it's not, because you're not counting familial help or jobs on the side or savings. Also, you didn't address any of my other points. This program sounds great because they're actually charging less. They'll need to increase the terms of repayment by at least 50%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I agree completely with her grandmother:

> Grandmother: "Why did you borrow money you could not repay?"

> Her: "I thought I could repay it until the bailouts happened."

> Grandmother: "That is no excuse. You need to repay them."

For some reason, a lot of people my age lack any sense of personal responsibility. It's not the _author 's_ fault she couldn't repay her loans. It's everyone else's. Lately I hear more and more people blame all of their problems on everyone but themselves and it's starting to get really annoying. My (recent) ex-girlfriend was (is?) failing her history class and blamed it on the professor for not making the attendance policy more prominent in the syllabus. It wasn't _her_ fault she was skipping class and getting points deducted.

You know what the author could have done? Not gone to college. Get a vocational position and save up until you have enough to go if that's really what you want. Apply for scholarships. There's plenty of options.

<comment><USER7> You missed her point completely.

She IS paying the debt. By defaulting she is stopping the interest from accruing, but she still pays the principal.

<comment><USER8> But having interest accrue was part of the original agreement she made. The fact that she has exploited a loophole in the system to avoid paying that interest does not make it right. If nobody paid interest on loans, there would be no loans, and she would not have been able to get one to pay for her education.

<comment><USER7> I think she feels that the agreement was two ways: She would pay interested, but in return she would get a job.

I'm not entirely convinced on the ethics, but there is something to the argument.

<comment><USER9> No one promised her a job (as in, no actual employer told her "I've got that job here, as soon as you show me your diploma you come and work for us"), but she did promise to pay the loans.

Ok, it's easy for me (or for any non-US) to look down on her because of the ridiculous loans that go with US education, but she still is in the wrong to me.

<comment><USER10> >No one promised her a job (as in, no actual employer told her "I've got that job here, as soon as you show me your diploma you come and work for us"),

Actually, high schools in the US often hold events where employers and college recruiters show up and give motivational talks where they do precisely that. No contracts are ever signed of course, but young minds somehow wind up with the impression that the way to achieve success in life is to get a college degree at practically any cost.

People in better circumstances can squeal all they want to about "responsibility" but, if you are a businessman whose profit is predicated upon convincing 18 yr-olds to mortgage their lives for a chance at the job-lottery don't expect a lot of sympathy from me when it all goes south. The failure of this student-loan scheme shouldn't surprise any one. It is dependent upon having a supply of well-paying jobs waiting for graduates. If the jobs aren't there, the students won't get (gainful) employment, and without gainful employment, what method do you propose that students repay their loans?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Eh, this article doesn't really make sense....

Basically the author defaulted on their student loan instead of deferring and makes an argument as to why it was a good decision for them.

The reason I say it doesn't make much sense is that, imo, it really glosses over just how big a deal defaulting on a loan is. While the author is talking about themself, a naive individual might get the idea that this is the right choice for them, when it almost certainly is not.

Trashing your credit and not being able to take out a house/car loan is a pretty huge deal for most people...

Just keep in mind defaulting on a loan isn't something that you just _do_ and then _undo_ with no consequences(other than saving on that interest lel)...

That shit stays with you for at least 7 years and if you're trying to get a loan for anything having defaulted on your only loan ever... Good luck.

<comment><USER12> 7 years when you're ~22, who cares?

The point, which was a bit buried, was that by defaulting and having her wages garnished, resulted in much better progress in paying the debt off ... because there is no interest, and probably because of inflation as well.

I'm not sure that's accurate, but it's what the piece implies.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, I grokked the point, and I strongly disagree with the conclusion.

For anyone with a graduate degree that's competent in their field the chances of going 4+years jobless is pretty low. And I would assert that if you get a (well-paying)job earlier than 4 years out of college its worth it to not default on your loans.

Why? By the end of the second year of a salaried job I would be highly surprised if that shitty credit score hasn't fucked up your life in at least one major way.

It's really about how much you think you're worth. If you don't think you'll need a loan in the next 7 years then save yourself some money I guess?? Don't forget if you get ANY job at all in the meantime, because they can just garnish your wages if they do.

It seems to be implied that life with bad credit isn't so bad(and it isn't), but we live in a material world. People want to buy shit, often-times shit that's more expensive then they can currently afford, it's why loans exist. I just think anyone acting on this advice without REALLY thinking about it, will regret it more often than not.

<comment><USER13> I'm not in favor of defaulting on loans. But having bad credit doesn't necessarily destroy your life. I've never taken out a loan in the past 17 years, yet I've bought several cars (including one new). The only thing I would need a loan for would be a house, but being single and with property tax in my area at 2%, I'd rather not.

> Why? By the end of the second year of a salaried job I would be highly > surprised if that shitty credit score hasn't fucked up your life in at least > one major way.

She was having trouble getting a job as a waitress, I think she did not see the scenario of the salaried job you speak of as being relevant to her.

> People want to buy shit, often-times shit that's more expensive then they > can currently afford, it's why loans exist.

I know it's not popular these days, but one can actually limit oneself to things you can afford. If you do that, you don't need a loan, and hence, bad credit is irrelevant. And if you have a habit of buying things you can't afford, bad credit is in your future...

<comment><USER11> Completely agree, for the proportion of the population that doesn't take loans ever this certainly seems to make some sense.

I'm just saying that, imo, for the vast majority of Americans the ability to get a loan is more important then she implies. Not to mention the fact that Phone-Carriers/Recruitment-Agencies/Utilities-Vendors check credit scores as well.

It's effectively coming to terms with the fact that you won't be getting a new car/home for 7 years unless you can afford to buy it with liquid assets... So, unless your income is so great that you can save up for a car/house on TOP of affording rent + food/clothes/etc + student loans, you won't be getting one until your credit recovers.

You last paragraph is basically my point, limiting oneself is _not_ popular these days, that's exactly why most American's would regret this decision because eventually they would find themselves limited. Perhaps they should be.

I feel like I should state down here that:

a.) I hope I never have to borrow money in my life, but I probably will. I don't think it's the "right" way to live or anything.

b.) I think this does make some sense for certain people.

c.)I don't think bad credit ruins your life, but I do think it has a bigger impact than was implied.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Stupid question, if everyone does this do we expect that these loans will still be available?

Maybe it was the "best Decision of (YOUR) Life" but every time this happens it hurts these programs even more.

Congratulations on a perfectly self-centered Millennial decision that was the best decision of your life that most likely made these programs one step closer to being discontinued.

I guess I'm old fashioned, I've never signed something I've not read and I always honor my commitments to the best of my ability and with honor and respect for everyone involved.

<comment><USER15> The student loan system in the United States has all kinds of negative effects, including being partly responsible for two decades of out of control cost growth in higher education. If a high default rates pushes the government to go back to the drawing board, that's a good thing.

<comment><USER14> Don't vote by defaulting, vote by voting. To default on a loan after you signed it because you have some sort of agenda is not voting, it's just defaulting on a commitment.

<comment><USER15> I'm not defaulting, nor am I even suggesting anyone else default. I'm countering your incorrect argument that undermining the US student loan programs is a negative consequenece of default.

In any event, I don't share your simplistic views about the morality of doing so. Anglo-American law actually favors breaching contracts when it is efficient to do so. Also these particular contracts are made in a predatory fashion, they are contracts of adhesion between the most powerful entity on the planet (the US government) and naive 18 year olds.

Try to worry a little less about your sacred honor and a little more about your fellow human beings. That's what's morality should be about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm Indian and sometimes pieces like this are a very strong reminder of how bad the student loan situation is in US. I went to a central university (i.e. funded by the central/federal government of India) and basically paid less than INR 1000 per year in tution fees and what not (I was a day scholar so no hostel expenses but they were low as well). For three years of full time university education, that is less than USD 50. I don't have a foreign university degree to compare quality of education with but I certainly got FAR better education than I paid for.

<comment><USER17> Public universities are funded by government, which in turn is funded by taxes. The choice here isn't between "university for a loan" versus "university for free"; the latter choice is actually "university in exchange for an extra 3-5% of taxes for the rest of your life" (I'm guessing that percentage, it might be higher or lower). You have to look at it as "do I want to pay a loan for the next 10 years" versus "do I want to pay 5% more of my salary for the rest of my life". There are up- and down-sides to both options.

<comment><USER18> >"do I want to pay 5% more of my salary for the rest of my life". There are up- and down-sides to both options.

The main difference is that, if I do not have a job for 3 years, I don't get drowned on interests.

<comment><USER17> Why would you get drowned in interest? You would have to make regular payments as usual, which is something you know from the beginning, and are supposed to plan for.

Also, if this is a problem, you could try to ask for a clause against this when you sign the loan contract (if you lose your job, you stop having to make payments until you get a job again). Not sure they'd go for it, but it's worth asking for (I think many student loans come from the government anyway, they might accept this clause).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I totally understand someone who can't pay back the student loans. But please --try to do it right. Right now student loans are not subject to discharge in bankruptcy court. Before you ruin your credit: obtain as many credit cards as possible. It might take a few years to obtain the amount of credit you need. Then pay off you student loans with their money. Wait awhile--then do your own bankruptcy. (I have no sympathy for credit card companies. They have a lot in common with Loan Sharks.) (One other thing--If you pull off this caper, remember just how terrible you felt when you were in trouble.)

<comment><USER20> Some googling suggests that this is fraud, and that the courts will recognize what you're doing and refuse to discharge such credit card debt.

E.g.: [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/will-bankruptcy- rid-c...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/will-bankruptcy-rid-cash- advance-used-pay-off-student-loan.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sounds like she is defaulting, but paying.

The idea of the default is to stop additional interest from being charged.

Then pay down the full debt, wait 7 years and done.

It's not a terrible strategy actually - although it has some serious drawbacks.

<comment><USER8> _The idea of the default is to stop additional interest from being charged._

But interest being charged was part of the original agreement she made. The fact that she was able to exploit a loophole in the system to avoid paying interest does not make it right.

<comment><USER21> Hey you can make the "fiscal obligation" argument here. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Choose :

1) defaulting as a strategy is not okay, but neither is giving out these loans without social responsability. In other words, she has zero obligation to respect the agreement she made, she only needs a socially acceptable option (let's call it the European strategy, the law as it applies to a sovereign government)

2) She has to follow the agreement, because it's an agreement, and so does the debtor. In other words, any loophole is perfectly ok, and if it benefits her, it's not just OK for her to use it, but it's morally good by virtue of being part of the agreement, and we should compliment her on being smart about her obligations.

This sort of discussion is the fundamental conflict between the people working in justice and congress. Laws often are written by morons in congress. They write stuff like "it is illegal to", or "you can't" or ... Without any guidance whatsoever about what happens in the alternate case

The problem with that is that that is not how the world works. A violation of the law is not resolved by God stopping the whole planet, smiting anyone who needs smiting, fixing any consequences and restarting the whole thing. So saying that something is illegal is almost completely beside the point, what you really should say is "if you do X, then Y happens". The world keeps turning after any and all crimes and we're left with attempting to puzzle together an incomplete mess and figuring out what would be a "fair" way to attempt to do what congress expects God to do.

In practice, you obviously can default on a loan, and the legal system does what the legal system does : "okaaaaayyyy, congress said A can't do X, who obviously just did do X, so now we do Y to her, because that worked well in this other case". In this case Y is nothing.

Thanks to the fact that congress can't be bothered to actually specify what happens if you do violate the law, there are huge holes in what they think the law is. As the author of the article illustrated, this makes violating the law a strategy. And please don't think only poor students use it as a strategy.

<comment><USER8> _giving out these loans without social responsability_

In other words, you think student loans should only be given out by entities who will guarantee a job to the student after graduation? Then there would be a lot fewer such loans. That might not necessarily be a bad thing; but I don't think you can say it's a _requirement_ for giving out such loans.

 _saying that something is illegal is almost completely beside the point_

I didn't say what she did was illegal. I just said it wasn't right.

 _In this case Y is nothing._

No, it isn't. She's suffering a number of consequences, as others in this thread have pointed out. But those consequences aren't being imposed by the legal system; they're being imposed by private entities.

 _this makes violating the law a strategy._

I would say it makes exploiting loopholes in the law a strategy. But again, I wasn't talking about legality; I was talking about whether what she did was right. You would appear to agree that those are not the same thing.

 _And please don 't think only poor students use it as a strategy._

Where did I say that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Would love to know the degree/school.

It really irritates me when someone says they have to get $200,000 in loans for a worthless degree from a 'big' school. Both the people who advised them that this was a good plan in the first place, and the people who loaned them the money.

<comment><USER23> Quick LinkedIn search turned her up.

Arkansas Tech University - 09, Judging by her skills on linked in, I would say Journalism or something in the English department.

The University is $8k-11k depending on in/out of state. So thats a top of 88k. But from her linked in profile it looks like she's in state so, worst case, we're looking at $65,000 for the 4 years. So her monthly payments at a whopping 10% apr (which is the highest I've ever seen student loans go) would be $860, had she not defaulted. But since she did shes looking at a monthly payment of $545. I don't know her details but I'm going to say that $860 would be more than she made after taxes.

So, no big name school here. No loan sharks. And a pretty reasonably priced university. And I'm sure that everyone expected her to graduate and make at least $12/hr which would allow her to split rent and still pay her loans (with some food money). Based off that I would say its pretty reasonable to say she got shafted by the economy. Finding work as a journalist after the collapse would be quite hard. But before that it seemed like a genuinely decent field. Sure, its not comp sci or petrol eng but it was a good way to go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> You default and they stop adding any money to your debt? That doesn't sound right. If I tried that I'm sure they'd be adding some 30% late fee every month.

<comment><USER25> "Deadbeat" American student loan debtor here. During the economic meltdown, I defaulted on my private student loans in 2009. The defaulted loans were picked up by two different debt collectors. One of them, Sunrise Credit Services, is charging me interest as I pay down the loans. The other debt collector, Williams and Fudge, charges me no interest.

<comment><USER26> I guess with the no interest company that they make enough given the discount they purchase them for and the no additional interest helps get more of them paid back.

<comment><USER27> Bingo!

These collection agencies purchased the loan for a fraction of their value (if paid according to the terms).

I'm guessing each collection agency has their own strategy for collecting on the loans. One of them says "we'll end up with more in the end if we don't charge interest" and the other said "we're owed interest, let's collect it".

I would imagine the first strategy (no interest) has the benefit that the person making payments can actually watch the debt decrease over time. It might make them more interested in actually paying the whole thing back.

If a collection agency says "you owe us $100K and next year it'll be $110K" you might just not bother paying anything since you'll never be able to get ahead of the interest.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


America's Smartest Cities—From First to Worst [The Daily Beast] - <AUTHOR> http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-10-04/americas-smartest-cities---from-first-to-worst/

<comment><USER2> This would be __way __better if it was available in a list of some kind. There is no way I'm going to click through 56 pages to read their list.</comment>


Google's Blockly Games - <AUTHOR> https://blockly-games.appspot.com

<comment><USER2>
      Over Quota
      This application is temporarily over its serving quota.
      Please try again later.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, fixed. We got an unexpected avalanche of interest overnight.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems inspired by [http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=getStarted](http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=getStarted) which is definitely worth a look.

<comment> michel-slm MIT Scratch is amazing. Much better as an educational tool than CMU Alice -- its 3D-without-gravity environment is unnecessarily complicated yet inaccurate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Hour of Code used Google Blockly to teach kids the very basics of programming: [http://learn.code.org/hoc/1](http://learn.code.org/hoc/1)

It would be interesting to create a full course to teach anyone all the fundamentals of programming without any syntax. They could switch to python or javascript when their ready. However, Google Blockly only seems to support the vary basic control structures of programming but not more advanced parts such as Classes.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're interested in using this yourself or just frustrated that you can't see it, check out the library that it's built with, Blockly. It's a really neat way to introduce people to programming, and you can also use it for "real" applications. At my previous job we talked about (but never implemented) a business workflow application using it.

[https://code.google.com/p/blockly/](https://code.google.com/p/blockly/)

</comment><comment><USER7> This reminds me of the OLPC games. They had the same mechanics and probably also using the scratch programming language.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'm surprised no one's been talking about Blockly's educational applications. My professor and I are using it in a course this fall for non-majors, to get them scaffolded through their first coding experience. After all, it lets you generate Python code directly.

</comment><comment><USER9> The interface seems unnecessarily confusing and unintuitive, though the ideas are worthwhile.

<comment><USER10> Personally I thought it was pretty good functionally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This application is temporarily over its serving quota. Please try again later. :)

</comment><comment><USER12> The maze game is awesome. Unfortunately it seems the game has gone over quota...

</comment><comment><USER10> Reminds me of playing with LOGO turtles in primary school, waaaay back in 1982.

<comment><USER13> Your comment made me find this [http://www.calormen.com/jslogo/](http://www.calormen.com/jslogo/) and I lost a bit of time there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> the turtle looks like logo language.

</comment><comment><USER15> Really nice.</comment>


Show HN: SMSforecast – text based weather forecasting service - <AUTHOR> https://www.smsforecast.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey everybody, I'm a senior in university who became really interested in web development the past year. I've put about 5 months into this project and am really happy to finally be able to show it off!

If anyone has any questions on my stack, i'd be happy to share.</comment>


Show HN: Pitch your startup to the top tech sites, free - <AUTHOR> http://pressnotify.com <comment><USER2> I see a 'Uncaught Error: Cannot find module "../send"' but no content on the page. (Google Chrome v59)

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks @mtmail! just fixed, should be good now! appreciate the report!</comment></comment>


Noble Advertising Concept Banned By Facebook  - <AUTHOR> http://wp.me/pVWOa-1

<comment><USER2> I'm launching something similar but for twitter.

Clickable Link: <http://twitspare.com>

Its a very crowded space. I think there's a reason why people haven't really tried doing it for facebook.</comment>


How to Tell an Android User from an iOS User  - <AUTHOR> http://blog.civicscience.com/blog/2013/11/12/how-to-tell-an-android-user-from-an-ios-user.html

<comment><USER2> 28,000 questions? Isn't that a bit of an overkill? Their claims would be much more credible if they had taken their questions from a smaller set.

<comment><AUTHOR> Various combinations of 28k questions. If the study was done properly, they could design similar questions to remove biases.</comment></comment>


Show HN: I'll e-mail you in the morning if it's going to be a beautiful day. - <AUTHOR> http://www.beautifuldaybrian.com/ <comment><USER2> I like this. What I really like is that you don't take it so seriously. Now we need a competing service, "God Dammit, Brian" that highlights when you're wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> Use a weather rock. It's the most accurate weather prediction device. If it's wet, it's raining. If it's white, it's snowing. If it's not there, there's been a tornado. here's a photo of one: [http://www.cookislands.org.uk/image/Tais%20weather%20rock.jp...](http://www.cookislands.org.uk/image/Tais%20weather%20rock.jpg)

<comment><USER4> We don't get tornados in Australia. If your rock is missing, some bastard stole it.

<comment><USER5> I thought there were no thieves in Australia either.

<comment><USER6> forgot that they were all thieves once upon a time did we? ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps I'm unusual but I think it would be more useful if it emailed early evening* before the beautiful day. By the time the beautiful day has come I'll be able to see it out the window.

Either way I do love the idea. Nice one!

* I'll expand on that to say that I'd ideally want it early enough that I'd be awake and could call a friend to plan something without worrying about waking them up. But for building excitement I think it would be best to send it after it got dark (the timing of which you could determine from the date and location). I think that would be the way to maximize utility and experience.

<comment><USER8> "But for building excitement I think it would be best to send it after it got dark (the timing of which you could determine from the date and location)."

On a somewhat related note, I recently went hunting for phone apps to help me better sync up with times as determined by the sun, rather than numbers on a clock. I like the feeling of getting enough sleep and of being up before the Sun, and I'd like to be relatively unaffected by jumps to and from daylight savings time.

I learned to think of a day in terms of...

Astronomical Twilight: The Sun is between 18 and 12 degrees below the horizon. Dark according to everybody except astronomers.

Nautical Twilight: The Sun is between 12 and 6 degrees below the horizon. You can easily distinguish the sky from the ground, so sailors can use the horizon to navigate.

Civil Twilight: The Sun is between 6 and 0 degrees below the horizon. Light enough to play outside without artificial lighting.

Sunrise/Sunset: The instant the upper edge of the sun appears or disappears on the horizon.

Golden Hour: The Sun is between 0 and 10-12 degrees above the horizon. No exact definition, but photographers consider this a time for great lighting conditions.

Solar Noon/Midnight: The Sun is at its highest/lowest point above/below the horizon.

I was interested in easily visualizing these times, and in setting alarms based on these times (possibly with fixed offsets).

I decided Nautical Dawn makes a good snooze alarm if you want to get a head start on the day, and Civil Dawn is a good backup if you didn't feel like getting up at Nautical Dawn. It helps psychologically that these times are attached to real events, and that the sky is starting to lighten at Civil Dawn.

I bought and tried a bunch of iPhone and Android apps. Below are my favorites.

iOS

Sol: Displays all the above times on a moving wheel, and can set alarms by them.

Android

Nothing I liked as much as Sol on iOS, but the widget capability allows an immediacy and combination possibilities that iPhone doesn't.

Sundroid: Widget shows pairs of times and can set alarms.

Daytime: Widget lists civl dawn/dusk, sunrise/sunset, and a prominent message such as "3:29 to sunset".

LunaSolCal: Lists all the times mentioned above (except golden hours) in a compact widget

AstroClock: Cool widget visualization with three concentric wheels: day/night, then lunar phases, then seasons

Sorry for the length of this, but I just dove into this a few days ago and I'm happy with what I ended up with, so I thought I'd share.

<comment><USER9> Perhaps a little offtopic, but I just went and bought Sol for my iPhone based on your post here, and I can't for the life of me figure out how to have it set alarms from within the app. It seems to only have two screens: the main screen that displays the wheel, and if you click the _i_ it takes you to the screen where you can add cities and change the type of dawn you want displayed.

Do you mean that you can use the displayed times to set your alarm yourself? Because it does not seem to be a feature of the app.

EDIT: Wow. I'm sorry. Apparently my search found the app called "Sol: Daylight Clock", that appeared on first glance to be the app you were talking about. I went googling after this post to see if I could find the dev's website for instructions or something and discovered there is another app called "Sol: Sun Clock" that appears to be the _actual_ app you were describing.

So that was a waste of $.99. Anyone who is interested in this app after reading the parent comment, make sure you get the right one. The first one I bought has minimal functionality in comparison.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I didn't know about the other one. Was going by the name displayed underneath the icon.

<comment><USER9> No worries. They both displayed only Sol under the icon. I just wish the app store search didn't suck so hard. Searching 'sol' mostly found solitaire games and I had to scroll a bit to even find the wrong clock app. Google found the correct one with minimal searching.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The idea is cute and it seems nicely executed, but I'm a bit turned off by the, err, narcissistic aspect. Me and Brian haven't met yet, I'm not sure I want to invite him into my daily life. Could just be me.

Edit: if the feedback isn't straightforward enough, I'll say it more plainly. I feel like the use of your image and name throughout adds a somewhat strange flavor to the tool that some people, like me, won't respond positively to.

I end up wondering why putting yourself everywhere improves the service, I fail to come up with an answer, and assume its vanity. Not saying that's necessarily true in this case. Rather that in passing that would be my thought process and that at best it distracts from the charm of the service.

<comment><USER11> I think Brian's better than a large impersonal nothing, and I assume that was Brian's reasoning as well. On that note though, I agree that it would be cuter if Brian was a personified animal like a groundhog, or something along those lines. Removes the possibility of vanity perception.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Okay. Or I can look out the window. By the morning of, it's already pretty clear whether it's going to be a nice day or not.

What is the advantage of this service over a regular weather forecast that I don't have to give my email address to?

<comment><USER13> Do you live in California or something? Where I live, the weather is as shifty as the politicians, and the temperature dances around what's comfortable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup ;)

Well, the service should be especially nice for you, since the beautiful days are more special? :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For people living in California, that's going to add up to a lot of email...

Edit: _southern_ California :)

<comment><USER14> Those living in the pacific northwest will balance it out.

<comment><USER15> beautiful day in seattle right now. One of the rare perfect spring days here. Normally we just skip this season.

<comment><USER16> I'm typing this on a porch in Fremont right now. Can't say I have this opportunity

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I had a somewhat 'similar' idea last year. Pick a place in the world and every morning (or once a week) receive a picture of the sunrise there. The time of day can be altered and the location within the city can be altered. Would be cool for people who miss home or who wonder what it'd be like to wake up elsewhere.

On a side note, not sure if this exists but what about a desktop picture app that changes your desktop daily based on your settings/preferences?

<comment><AUTHOR> Check out the "Magic Window" Mac App :)

<comment><USER17> Very interesting, I literally had the idea a year ago and Magic Window (looks awesome) was first revealed 355 days ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does it work with a UK postcode? Put one in and it seemed to accept it, but sometimes UK postcodes don't work with US sites. Maybe a little map showing where the site thinks you are will help increase confidence.

Also, nice idea!

<comment><USER19> You'd never hear from Brian anyway ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> _Note this is a real hole in the ToS AFAICT but I'm not claiming the operator is using it with prejudice._

>" _Beautiful Day Brian may revise these terms of use for its web site at any time without notice._ " //

So despite assurances that "we will not sell, trade, or give away your e-mail address to anyone for any reason" they can change those terms "at any time without notice".

In case you missed it that time could be when 'selling, trading, or giving away your email address [or any data they have on you] for any reason [within the law in the jurisdiction of their choice]' and they wouldn't even need to make a note of that instantaneous alteration on their website. Of course they can, if they please, change the ToS right back afterwards the following nano- second so as not to put off new punters.

Now, I'm not saying they will but just that the power of that one line in the ToS obviates any assurances that the ToS give - it's basically worthless. All you've got is your trust of the current owner and all their associates.

Also it's worth noting that they could offer a with notice and acceptance [eg via a link click] alteration as, of course, they have your contact details. "But it's just a simple little notification site" someone might say, "they're never going to alter those terms to your detriment". In which case why not just promise to have you opt in again for any new ToS.

Storm in a tea-cup? Most likely.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can point me to some other boilerplate TOS I can copy (freely, without stealing), I'd be happy to change it.

When building a site, I like to focus on features and usability. The TOS is usually just copied from another of my own projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Cool stuff! I've wanted to do something similar like this for a while that would email me what I should wear (I always pick the wrong jacket/sweater after simply checking temperature and not wind etc). Where are you getting your weather information from?

Just a small issue: My browser takes up most of my screen on 1920x1080 and the background image starts to repeat, making it look somewhat awkward.

</comment><comment><USER22> Awesome, I just signed up. Now all you have to do is figure out when I need to get my snow tires on and you have a business.

</comment><comment><USER23> Centigrade would be nice. Converting Fahrenheit is a faff.

<comment><AUTHOR> Will do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> If someone is developing a web site in this day and age, do we really need to have all that legalese, including Terms of Service such as the one on this website? I get the importances of the Privacy statement, but are the whole "Use License" and "Limitations", etc really necessary? It's fairly obvious that the web site is just for fun.

I'm not ragging on the OP, I'm wondering if we are deciding on creating our own web site or blog that offers some non-monetary service, are these legal disclosures something that is necessary these days?

I was thinking of starting a fun little web site that offered some mundane and trivial little services, but if it opens me up to legal issues because some jackass wants to sue me because of a bug, then that just might kill my motivation.

<comment><USER25> I'm not a lawyer, so take all this with a very very large grain of salt.

I did some reading about this because I had some mild concern about a couple side projects, and basically, if you're not charging money and there isn't anything intentionally malicious about your web site, people will have a hard time winning in court. If you're giving away an _opt-in_ service for _free_ , even if someone tries to sue you, it will be very difficult for them to win.

If they were paying you, and their business relies on your service, then they may have grounds for a lawsuit (assuming you didn't do anything to remedy the situation or didn't react appropriately). But if you're giving something away, it's viewed as _their_ fault for relying on your service when it didn't have any type of guarantee associated with it. Web sites have bugs and downtime -- that's an inherent problem with computers -- so unless you make a guarantee that you're providing a bug-free 100% uptime solution, you don't have any obligation to provide a service that exceeds the reliability of even the most advanced multi-billion dollar companies (does anyone have 100% uptime and no bugs?).

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is too narrow a need. ifttt does that and more.

<comment><AUTHOR> See previous comparison to ifttt in comments :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I don't know why but I was expecting a service emailing me some positive message to help me get out of bed and dismiss the cobwebs of depression and anxiety I usually feel every morning I wake up.

</comment><comment><USER28> The only feature missing from this site is a 'Like on Facebook' button.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the idea. I've now implemented this suggestion.

<comment><USER28> Great!

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa, and now it has 65 likes since adding the button 53 minutes ago. Heh, so I guess that was a good idea ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Curious how this compares to ifttt with its Weather channel?

<http://ifttt.com/weather>

<comment><AUTHOR> Great question. ifttt is far more powerful -- and complicated.

Also, it seems to only support ONE criteria, such as "Sunny" condition OR temperature above a certain range. Maybe I'm missing it, but I can't find a way to replicate BDB.

Another perspective: There is something special about the packaging of meeting this niche use case. The e-mail notifications are super upbeat, have inspirational quotes, etc.

Also, BDB is easy enough my Mom has figured out how to sign up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Nice idea. Can you tell us something more about technical details? How does it work, do you have to run a script every day? Does it use any API from weather forecast websites? Do you personally travel all around the world to check the weather ;-) ?

</comment><comment><USER31> Nice job on the advanced options.

</comment><comment><USER32> Had many beautiful days here since I signed up. Never got a single email. Sadness :(

</comment><comment><USER33> "Brian loves Canadians, and everyone else that uses °C.Give me a day or two to add that option!"

That kinda made me laugh a lot. Does he mean the entire world pretty much?

Also what does Frogs mean?

And his site is messed up in any browser larger then 1600.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for all the feedback, everyone! The site now has 400+ users.

I've implemented MANY of the suggestions and bugfixes posted to this HN thread, so I really appreciate the comments.

</comment><comment><USER34> Nice, I usually check the emails I got during the night on my phone before I look out, so if I see a message saying it is a nice day, I'm sure I'll be fast to get up!

</comment><comment><USER35> Great job. Can you add support for foreign cities with special characters? I tried "São Paulo, Brazil" and the encoding on the "success message" was wrong.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes! I have just fixed this bug. Give it another try?

<comment><USER35> Works fine. Thanks for the email notification too.

Does it send the notification based on my local time?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This is pretty cool.

I'm curious--what are you using as a weather source? I've been looking into them recently and haven't found a decent one that I liked.

</comment><comment><USER37> I thought it was up to each person to decide whether it would be a beautiful day or not, but maybe that's just me?

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup. You can set what parameters you consider beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> half glass full vs half glass empty: I'm curious to see how adoption of this product compares with adoption of umbrellatoday.com.

</comment><comment><USER39> Really cool idea. I look forward to using it.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is absolutely fantastic.

I want to do rainydayjoss.com !!

</comment><comment><USER41> This won't work in Seattle :)</comment>


How valuable is it to study something that is just temporary? - <AUTHOR> I was about to start a 4 years free course path into biology.
Suddenly this question crossed my mind. Let's say it's not because of career improvement, earning a degree, starting a business, making a big discovery in science for the rest of the humankind or similar but just to quench the thirst for knowledge.
Now imagine you are a 120 years old man or woman and you are about to die, would it really matter to know all about your biological body you are about to leave anyway? Or like instead of going out in a sunny day you spend your days learning about the sun with astronomy books.
It's like someone is giving you a video game console and instead of playing with your friends you decide to spend more time trying to reverse engineering the components of it just to learn how a console is done. And at some point someone is going to get that console away from you, so you will not be able to use it or study it anymore.
With this in mind it seems more important to just enjoy the physical world as it is until we are able to do it rather than learning how it works.
Also maybe when we die we are going to get all the knowledge of the universe in any case or we just forget about the previous world, or we join a completely different permanent dimension with completely different rules and the mortal world doesn't matter anymore.
What are your thoughts on this topic?
(I'll probably start the course anyway but I'm not as much convinced as when I decided to start it.) <comment><USER2> Learning is like walking through a jungle. The more you walk the more you see. You can always stop walking and sit down and just appreciate whats around you or decide you have seen enough, but after some time it gets very boring.

And when people are bored and can't come up with things to do by themselves, they just end up doing what others tell them to do. And then they complain about how annoying that is because its not what they want to do.

The key is to be "conscious", at all stages of your life, about the things that spark your interests. Most people don't know what their interests are because they have been walking through life, without noting down and then thinking about the different things that spark their interests.

Once you know your interests, you automatically start looking for book/tools/teachers/teammates to help you dig deeper. And then things snowball. That leads to new routes and new interests. But if you stop walking all that never happens.</comment>


Ask HN: What did Bash for Windows give you? - <AUTHOR> This is not a troll question :) I am honestly interested - what tools did you bring from your Linux toolbelt into your Windows world when Bash for Windows became available? (if any).
Any suggestions, tips and tricks are welcome.
Thanks in advance! <comment><USER2> I run a Cygwin Bash script as a Windows service. (Yes, startable and stoppable with the Services panel, running in the background, and starting automatically on boot.)

It contains a loop which contains an ssh tunnel open with some port forwards.

Just yesterday, I cleaned a Windows partition to free up some space, with the help of "du -a . | sort -n" to find the biggest files/directories, then selective "rm -rf".

Windows doesn't ship with anything to help with this task. There are only third-party add-ons like WinDirStat.

</comment><comment><USER3> I finally can compile and crosscompile x64 binaries on my old PC. WSL idea it's great because it's the only way you can use x64 linux binaries on a DualCore (CPU without VT-x instructions, which makes VM not an option) and that without leaving Windows.

I just crosscompiled my favorite video player (mpv) just following Linux howto steps. Had to compile and install the mingw-w64 toolchain in order to compile win32 binaries, but everything worked like it should. It's a pretty big project that downloads, patches and compiles more than 40 libraries like FFmpeg. 5Gb of source code that compiles in a single 30Mb mpv.exe file.

I wasn't expecting much from WSL but I'm impressed it worked so well.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nothing yet. Only available for WinX - and given the recent fiasco with _ahemahem_ "not automatic, nooosir" forced upgrade, we're frozen at Win7 for some time to come, by executive fiat. So, Cygwin for me it is: rsync, _scriptable_ ssh (yeah yeah plink.exe, meh), usable pipes, bash even. It would be highly convenient to have this natively - alas.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> n.b - I actually meant Ubuntu bash for Windows, not cygwin and friends</comment>


Could Google Glass be banned in the casinos? - <AUTHOR> http://milanvrekic.com/could-google-glass-be-banned-in-the-casinos <comment><USER2> Seeing as they can ban you for using your brain to count cards, I'm pretty sure they'll ask you to take off your nerd glasses.

Edit: Also, hackers were doing this stuff while Milan Vrekic was eating Cheerios. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eudaemonic_Pie>

<comment><AUTHOR> Very cool :) Thanks for the link

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Programming Google Glass to play blackjack (basic strategy or a card-counting system) seems like a much more tractable problem. Watch the table, count the cards and recommend the optimal play.

I believe these sorts of wearable computing devices are already banned in most casinos.

<comment><AUTHOR> I wonder what are the policies for cell phones?

<comment><USER4> You can have a cell phone in your pocket but they won't let you use it for anything. I suspect in the era of smartphones that they would completely ban them from the floor if not for the fact that enforcing that rule would be a nightmare.

Source: I've absent mindedly taken a call while sitting down at a table in Las Vegas and got an instant warning from the dealer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think that is pretty self-evident given that cell phones are banned at any casino table I've ever been at.

The real question is "Where else they will be banned?" Government buildings? Court rooms? What if I'm going to the bathroom? Walking down the street and you see some cops arresting someone? How do wiretapping laws come into play in public? in private?

And further, what happens when we no longer needs glasses? When this is all just part of our body?

<comment><USER6> > Government buildings?

Many facilities that handle classified data would not allow employees to bring in cell phones with cameras. So there is (was?) a good market for used brick Nokia phones in that niche.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Given that cell phones are banned in casinos (for table games, etc) I think it's self-evident that Google Glass will also be banned.

</comment><comment><USER8> As far as roulette goes, I believe that casinos changed the rules a long time ago to require that the bets be placed before the ball is released, after a group of UC Santa Cruz physics postgrads in the late '70s, early '80s built a wearable computer that would predict which octant the ball was going to end up in well enough to give a 44% advantage over the house. See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eudaemons>

What you could still do, though, is use the computer to look for biases in the wheel. Roulette wheels do not produce uniformly distributed results, and with enough data you can find bets that give you an advantage.

This was covered in an episode of the wonderful TV series Breaking Vegas ( <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Vegas> ). Each episode of that series focused on one person or group that found a way to beat the house. Some cheated (bribe the dealer, hack the slot machine software, sleight of hand to alter bets after the outcome is determined), some develop amazing physical skill ("dice dominators" can throw dice with such precise control over the initial conditions that they come up with the same outcome each time), one guy counterfeited casino tokens (and did such a good job that the chip manufacturer was not able to tell which tokens were his and which were theirs --they only knew counterfeit tokens existed because more tokens were coming back when they emptied the slot machines than they had issued), and some (such as the roulette bias people) exploit the math of the game.

In the episode that dealt with roulette biases, there was a family in Europe that would observe a wheel for a very large number of plays, taking notes on the outcomes. The casinos do not object to note taking--they encourage it, because people taking notes are people who think they have a system, and 99.99% of the time people who think they have a system are people who do not understand the laws of probability and are going to lose. Well, this family is not part of the 99.99%. They took their notes, found the favored numbers, and bet on those, and won big.

The casinos tried moving the wheels between tables, but the family members had spent so much time looking at the wheels gathering data, they could recognize the wheels from wear patterns, scratches, and so on, and so still place the right bets.

The casinos then simply banned them. If they had been playing in Las Vegas, that would have been the end of it, but they were in Europe. They went to court--and the court said casinos could not ban people for simply winning too much. The family had not violated any legitimate casino rules, so the casinos had to let them back in.

I don't remember how the casinos finally stopped these people--probably by replacing wheels with ones the family had not seen, or physically altering the wheels to change the distribution.

<comment><USER9> It's been a couple years since I played roulette in the US, but in the UK/Europe you can definitely still place bets for a few seconds (maybe 5?) after the ball is released.

<comment><USER10> I've played roulette for the past 2 years at several casinos in the US and you can still place bets after the ball is released. Once the wheel starts to slow down and before the ball drops onto the wheel, the dealer will signal no more bets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Holy crap. I was thinking about this very idea a few hours ago. You didnt happen to be listening to The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe when this idea came up, did you?

<comment><AUTHOR> Shit, better put my tinfoil hat back on :)

<comment><USER11> Creepy!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> They'd have to be. You can't have your cell phone out when you are sitting at the table, so Glass wont be any better

</comment><comment><USER13> What will be interesting is what casinos will do when this kind of tech is embedded in contacts or the eye itself.

<comment><USER14> Fall back to pure chance games. Google Glasses won't help you win slots. (And should that become untrue, the slots can and will be fixed until it is true again.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> They'll have to ban them or shut down, so it seems like a pretty obvious choice.</comment>


The scooter company that raised 400M in 4 months is what is wrong with SV - <AUTHOR> http://www.businessinsider.com/birds-400-million-in-4-months-is-the-poster-child-for-silicon-valley-2018-6 <comment><USER2> Sure, there's a lot wrong with Silicon Valley, but this article (I understand it's an opinion piece) is "an example of everything that's wrong" with Business Insider.

> And what about winter? Not much of a consideration in Santa Monica. But > riding scooters in Chicago in February? Seems like a hazard.

> How about using a scooter to get anywhere that is more than a short distance > away? An hour's commute? In the rain? Traveling with one or more friends? > Carrying groceries? Taking your kids to soccer practice?

> Those considerations make scooters more of a novelty and a niche than > something that every person will use regularly, like a car.

Aside from carrying groceries, all of these points are completely fruitless when talking about how these scooters could take of. All of the same can be said of bicycles yet bicycle commuting is growing year over year in metro hubs: [https://bikeleague.org/commutingdata](https://bikeleague.org/commutingdata)

<comment><USER3> Sure, I can imagine a world where scooters are as common as bikes. But is that enough to justify a $2B valuation for a scooter-sharing startup?

<comment><USER4> > _is that enough to justify a $2B valuation for a scooter-sharing startup?_

For a 5% earnings yield, they would eventually need $100 million in income. There are probably $100 million in profits in New York and San Francisco alone. So yes, if this works that valuation seems appropriate.

<comment><USER5> A 5% yield is only reasonable for low-risk blue-chip equities. No one will settle for 5% with that much risk to their capital.

<comment><USER4> > _A 5% yield is only reasonable for low-risk blue-chip equities_

Emphasis on "eventually". A basic test for valuation sanity is "are the earnings this company would need for a zero-growth valuation possible?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> There are two main points in the article: 1) incredulity that the company is attracting investment, 2) incredulity that anyone thinks it's a good idea.

I don't know anything about the former, but I would think the right way to analyze it would be to do napkin math on what revenue yield might be.

I do know something about the latter. Bird positions itself as a last mile type opportunity; you take a bird two miles to get the train or bus you were always going to get; you take Bird if you're a college student and you need to get around campus. This dismissal of Bird is a little bit like "I own a car and I'm not a big drinker and I don't travel, why would I ever call an Uber?" No one gives half a shit if you'd call an Uber. The question is whether you have the imagination to suppose there is someone else who might call one. Then it ends with the laughable idea that "Scooters are cheap so if there actually is any use for them, which there isn't, people should just buy some". The whole point with Bird is that you don't need to worry about the scooter being stolen or parked. Most of the controversy around Bird is cities complaining that what's convenient for Bird users is inconvenient for anyone else -- it's hard to observe that while simultaneously complaining that Bird offers no convenience.

Disclaimer: I've only ridden a Bird once and I crashed it badly and got cuts up and down my leg and arm and ripped my pants. Apparently I don't have very good balance. Either way, Bird isn't for me. But I'm not an idiot watching dozens of people go by me on Birds and yelling at clouds about how they're making the wrong decision.

<comment><USER7> > I've only ridden a Bird once and I crashed it badly

Hope you rode it on the road and not the sidewalk like over 80% of these scooter riders in San Francisco were....

I've been on the receiving end, walking on the side-walk in downtown San Francisco and getting crashed-into by Bird and Lime riders routinely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think large companies and industries outside of Silicon Valley waste money internally on projects that never see the light of day. I think one of the big differences with SV is it's all on show for the world to see exactly how the money is being bet.

<comment><USER9> This comment is spot on.

A scooter sharing startup? Yeah, I'm pretty sceptical. But I too have seen projects at least as ridiculous funded by various companies I've worked for - honestly, I think it happens all the time. There's one in particular that I really want to name but sadly _I just can 't_.

The difference, as you've said is that these things are not shown in the full light of day, and the amounts involved (particularly with respect to revenue and worth of companies) are often hard to determine at best for outsiders even for projects that are known about[1].

 _[1]There are, of course, exceptions. This, recently posted by LGR, is a particularly bizarre example in many ways:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv6UaHZxUys.*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv6UaHZxUys.*)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > The VCs have an answer to all of these obvious drawbacks. "Genius is the > only way I would describe it," Jordan Nof, an investment partner at Tusk > Ventures who flew to Santa Monica, California, to convince Bird to take his > money

Sounds like an over-the-top scene on a comedy show. Really

</comment><comment><USER11> > "It has the opportunity to fundamentally change the way people get from > point A to point B," Nof said.

Perhaps I'm showing my age, but wasn't the same said about Segway?

That aside, $2 B for a hardly new and hardly original idea / model?

Yeah. Something has gone sideways.

<comment><USER12> The difference is the entry point for a Segway is several thousand dollars, while the entry point for a Bird ride is $1.

Segway is a great product, and they're very popular for city tours and other niche markets that can afford such a high price point.

<comment><USER11> Right. A buck. How does that translate to $2 B?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Writing from Oakland, where I have a suspicion that many of the scooters taken off San Francisco streets for their permit monitoriom have ended up.

Point being that there's a LOT of these scooters around. I think they're great. I keep wondering where the people complaining about the carelessly left scooters are living, because the majority of the scooters in town are dropped off considerately, and don't take up more space than bikes.

I think the backlash against the scooters is driven by people who don't like tech, and by people who believe transit solutions should be driven (and owned) by the government. The scooters solve a problem, are dirt cheap to use, are available to anyone with a phone, and are environmentally friendly. The externalities are nonzero but not larger than bikes. There's a lot to like.

<comment><USER14> Lots of scooters in SJ also. They seem to attract a disparately minority crowd - which is great except for the normal distribution of assholes who decide it's cool to nearly run down your kids in a pedestrian only area or do stunts right in front of your face.

Given the lack of accountability in policing good behavior I can understand why people are against scooters.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> A company's value is still the present value of expected future cash flows to investors, right? For 2 billion and 15 yrs horizon, that's about 130 million in dividends a year. Profits still a bit higher to account for capital needs of the firm. That's quite the trajectory.

Another thought: are VCs and funds transparent about in what round they invest their own and the funds money? Can they sell their own series A investment in subsequent rounds with / without disclosure?

</comment><comment><USER16> I personally would love to see more such companies (more innovation) but unfortunately Bird scooters seem to be having legal trouble in my city Milwaukee:

[https://www.cbs58.com/news/bird-scooters-in-milwaukee-are- il...](https://www.cbs58.com/news/bird-scooters-in-milwaukee-are-illegal-to- use-says-city-attorney)

</comment><comment><USER17> Gotta say, it's been amazing not having these all over the place in SF.

Hope they don't come back. Or if they do, they're confined to the GoBike areas or a very limited number per company.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm not a "capitalism is always the best" guy, but in this case I think capitalism can handle it just fine.

If it's a stupid idea the VCs lose money. If a VC invests too often on stupid ideas they might go bust. Why should anyone else worry or care?

<comment><USER19> They should care if stupid VCs going bust is correlated with other leveraged positions in unrelated sectors.

<comment><USER20> Mind going further? I read "leveraged" as "debt-funded", but VCs get their funds from LPs (or from cash on company balance sheets). Where does leverage come into play?

<comment><USER21> One underlying reason for VCs making bad investments could be recent fiscal policies pushing interest rates way down. This causes large investors (e.g. pension funds) to look for returns in historically riskier investments, leading to much more money than usual being invested in VC funds. This leaves VCs with a huge pile of cash and looking for companies to fund which means they will make riskier investments than usual (including investing larger dollar amounts than normal). All of this, in turn, leads to a potential bubble with all the negative impacts we've experienced in past bubbles.

This may not be a huge deal if it's confined to the tech startup space. But these large investors are not putting all their eggs in one basket, they're spreading money out into many other industries like housing, financials, emerging markets, etc. If this large amount of money chasing returns has the same effect in these other industries, then we have the beginnings of systemic risk. This is now a very big deal for everyone.

<comment><USER20> The premise makes sense (per industry), but how are the bubbles potentially connected to make systemic risk?

I'm kinda looking at it like this: per-industry, there is a local-minimum solution which is being exploited

For transportation, let's call that "cars". Scooters are a bet that if we climb out of that hole we might be able to get to an even lower minimum (but investor dollars are the fuel that's burned on the search path).

So despite these walkabouts in the solution space (ie companies), there remains the local-minima solutions.

Now, for pension funds and what not other LPs that invest in VC firms, they have made commitments for returns to their share holders (eg retirees). I think it's disingenuous to guarantee returns for 30 years (effectively what these fin products are), which also kinda sucks, but I don't understand the problem outside of helping previous investors keep promises they weren't able to make in the first place. That feels like a pyramid scheme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> then they blame crypto</comment>


The Free-Speech Problem on Australian Campuses Is More CCP Than SJW - <AUTHOR> https://quillette.com/2019/11/08/the-free-speech-problem-on-australian-campuses-is-more-ccp-than-sjw/ <comment><USER2> Of the many examples of China's influence on Australian universities in the article, this one is most egregious:

 _Heng Tao Shen, who helped build the totalitarian surveillance architecture used by the Chinese government to monitor Uighur Muslims, also holds an honorary professorship at UQ. In fact, he developed this technology while working at UQ with government funding._</comment>