ASDF - a badly-drawn webcomic of trite, feelgood, preachy... (anti-xkcd) - <AUTHOR> http://plover.net/~bonds/asdf.html <comment><USER2> Heh. I saw this on Reddit today and thought, "for all its faults, at least news.yc would never have _that_ on the front page".

<comment><USER3> I don't get it. Don't XKCD and YC share a target audience? Or do you mean you didn't think you'd see a parody displayed as news?

<comment><USER4> I think he thought we had better taste.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is funny, but it really only applies to a single xkcd comic. And it's way more mean than it has to be. xkcd is hardly shit.

</comment><comment> daniel-cussen I think xkcd is really good, but this comic was still a pretty good parody. A little on the mean side though.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think the best part is the tool-tip... I actually snickered out loud.

</comment><comment><USER7> Blasphemy.

</comment><comment><USER8> This wasn't always true...the first xkcd comics were more the random thoughts of someone with too much time on his hands. This is true for the latest ones though. They're just all the...same.

</comment><comment><USER9> Leagues funnier than XKCD has been in months. And didn't even play the "Reddit readers never have sex" card.

<comment><USER10> never never never

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Most amazing thing I've seen today.</comment>


High Efficiency Real Estate Investing with PeerStreet - <AUTHOR> http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/05/02/peerstreet/ <comment><USER2> strange, this is also on front page [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11641267](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11641267)</comment>


Bitcoin sign rejected by the Unicode Consortium (2011) - <AUTHOR> http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11116.htm#127-A57

<comment><AUTHOR> Full citation:

Action item for Rick McGowan: Respond to the author of L2/11-129 that the use of the bitcoin symbol in (running) text has not been demonstrated. There may also be IP issues because bitcoin.org is using the symbol as a logo.

</comment><comment><USER2> The submission document (PDF): [http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11129-bitcoin.pdf](http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2011/11129-bitcoin.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> It was in 2011...</comment>


The List of N Things - <AUTHOR> http://www.paulgraham.com/nthings.html

<comment><USER2> Lists are just writing devices. There are lots of other writing devices, and they all serve the same purpose: as scaffolding for building up ideas and communicating effectively. Some of the popular ones:

* Socratic dialog (ie, the openings of G.E.B. chapters)

* Extended metaphor (ie, mechanical_fish's zoo comment)

* Anthopomorphism (ie, Gruber's adventures of the washed-up brushed metal theme)

* F.A.Q.

* Narrative (ie, Ivan Krstic's Porsche story --- which, again, who knew Ivan had that in him? Wow!)

And my point is just, all these devices can be abused, and all of them can serve a purpose. There's no profound reason Top-N is popular; the reason it's there is straightforward: every "how to have a popular blog" post lists it as a key technique for engaging A.D.D. Internet readers.

<comment><USER3> The 3 Reasons I agree with tptacek's statement:

1\. It puts everything in perspective. After all, essay is just another one of several devices to convey a point through writing.

2\. He clearly states that any one of these devices can be abused. Surely anyone can write a crappy and spam-filled essay with a catchy title just as they can do so with a list.

3\. Clearly many people surfing the Internet do have A.D.D. Perhaps the cause is the Internet itself but it doesn't matter, the end result is the same - namely, reading material for A.D.D. Internet users is in high demand.

EOL

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> > You think of n/2 of them in the first 5 minutes.

The word that leaps to mind here is "half". :)

<comment><USER5> Why use four characters when you can use three?

<comment><USER6> Every equation included in an essay will halve its readership? ;-)

<comment><USER7> Final readership = Original Readership / (2 * Equations)

<comment><USER8> No, 2^equations.

<comment><USER9> Yes, more power to equations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think PG is missing something in his comparison of "list of N things" to "beginner" 5-paragraph essays: Cohesion matters.

Even if they cover the same points, a good essay is far more informative than a "list of N things" article / powerpoint presenation: An essay has to tie the points together, pointing out the connections and drawing conclusions. When I was in school, my English teachers often returned essays (but not mine!) to students with "a list is not an essay" (or similar words) written in red ink.

Sure, poorly written essays, in the limiting case, end up being simply a list of disconnected statements -- but students are asked to write essays in order to develop their ability to write cohesive essays, not in order to demonstrate their knowledge of the underlying facts, so PG's suggestion to 'let them write lists of n things like the pros, with numbers and no transitions or "conclusion"' utterly misses the point.

<comment><USER11> Essays are planned; papers are stream-of-consciousness. Readers can't follow the internal machinations of a particular writer's psyche; while you can have a revelatory essay, you still need to plan it.

My best example: Woolf reads like stream of consciousness, but she was a meticulous planner: she obsessed over every word - her daily output was a mere 75-150 words.

<comment><USER2> I think it's the opposite, isn't it? Essays are "tentative"; they're a written document of the writer's grappling with their subject, which is why you get so many ideas while writing them.

<comment><USER11> I think that's only sometimes true. There are a number of well-written proscriptive essays where the author chooses to ignore paths that proved fruitless during her time drafting the essay. Furthermore, even personal essays can leave out sidebars that prove to be meaningless distractions. If I used Etherpad, I'm sure I'd write three times as many words as there are in the finished product; I remove more than I write, and I think that's the case for most people who take the craft seriously (regardless of skill, of which I have little beyond passion).

On the _process_ of writing, however, you're spot on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I remember Guy Kawasaki saying he tries to follow this list of N things tactic for all his speeches so that people don't have a problem of following him. They won't doze off.

Two other quick formats of writing essays:

1.

"The secrets of telling a story well are three:

i. How to end

ii. Where to begin

iii. What to leave out."

\- Roy H. Williams.

In that order. Determine the end first. And you can take your readers on to a journey. Surprise and delight them by connecting seemingly unrelated stories. Malcolm Gladwell uses this format very well.

2.

Another format is answering 3 questions:

i. What is the problem?

ii. Why is it the problem?

iii. How to solve it?

Makes writing easier, quicker and more comprehensive.

<comment><USER13> "I remember Guy Kawasaki saying he tries to follow this list of N things tactic for all his speeches"

It helps the audience judge about how long something will be going on for. With print, you don't need that, since you can see the length of the piece in advance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> My favorite is when N is a nice round number like 25, 50, 100 or 101. What is the likelyhood that the exhaustive list ends up being such a marketable number? Must be very low. So I always wonder what was omitted or, more likely, what pork was added to get to the round number.

<comment><USER7> I actually tend to trust non-round numbers. Like 9, or 17. It indicates to me that author didn't try to fit the ideas to a number, but actually thought things through and came up with the number after the essay was written

<comment><USER8> That's why, when I write an article like this, I pick a number like that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> You seem to be leaning towards the idea that these list type articles are inferior to the essay format. When reading an article I consider the clarity with which the author has expressed himself to be most important - if he can express ideas more clearly in a list than otherwise then I am all for it.

I do tend to think this format is abused when people wish to write quick and dirty articles online though. For me, an article titled 'N things...' tends to be reason enough to ignore it in most cases.

Also, I will admit to preferring the essay format overall. You cannot lose yourself in a list like you can in a good essay regardless of how good the content is. An essay is more like a story which sucks you in.

</comment><comment><USER15> The insight that readers like knowing that writers have agreed to be constrained is a great one. Witness Twitter.

</comment><comment><USER16> This is a charming little essay. But why?

\- The "exoskeleton" metaphor for an N-list having its skeletal structure on the outside made me smile.

\- I like the explanation of N-lists having a flat structure. Clean modules, with no dependencies. If your code can naturally fit this structure, it will be simpler. Alan Kay says that by inventing new _representations_ , we make their users more intelligent (e.g. multiplication with Roman v.s. Arabic numerals). If your new representation enables its user to think in flat terms about what previously required nested or recursive structures, then you have done something great.

\- These are playful and novel ways of looking at commonplace things. They evoke my conviction that gold is all around us; just a step or two off the path is something incredible. All you need do is look.

But underlying all this is the lack of any discernible ulterior motive: it's just for fun. :-)

</comment><comment><USER3> While PG makes some good points it sounds a little bit like why to read Shakespeare instead of Poe.

I happen to like both. Although I might add the list of N things does get abused more often.

I think using Cosmopolitan as an example and/or relegating the N-List format to newbie writers takes it a bit far.

</comment><comment><USER16> I just noticed that I have an implicit conviction that pg's essays are entirely written for us, that the comments here are their beginning and their end - their entire purpose.

I don't know if it's true; not that pg intends it, nor that that is how they are received. I have a strong sense that it is, without evidence.

</comment><comment><USER17> I don't know-- I've eaten some pretty bad cheeseburgers at good restaurants.

<comment><USER18> I live in London and these Brits cannot make an honest, decent hamburger. The good ones are ones in fancy dress. The simple ones are dry meatballs of a pale sickly color. They've got a nice sandwich chain called Pret a Manger that make consistently good food however. And a very strong café americano.

<comment><USER19> Timeline from live chicken to Pret a Manger Chicken Wrap? Live, dead, cooked, chopped, wrapped = 55 minutes

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> "...the 5 most interesting startup founders of the last 30 years."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/5founders.html>

<comment><USER8> The beginning of that sentence is: "Inc recently asked me who I thought were..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> "The list of n things similarly limits the damage that can be done by a bad writer."

I have more things I want to do than I have time to do them; why in the world would I waste time reading something if I expected it to be by a bad writer? I have quit reading writers before when I came across strong evidence of bias or incompetence in their writings.

<comment><USER22> A bad writer does not bad ideas make!

<comment><USER21> Not necessarily, but the converse IS true, bad ideas make a bad writer no matter how easy to read or entertaining he may be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Regarding making explicitly numbered lists of n things in school, I am pretty sure thy do that in the lower grades, although not in essay form. For example, children have to write "5 things I learned about x" or "5 things I like about y" and are graded on relevancy and sometimes persuasiveness...if I am remembering correctly anyway.

</comment><comment><USER24> Irrelevant, but too good to pass up with Paul's title: [http://webspace.webring.com/people/fc/churud_geo/cyberiadn.h...](http://webspace.webring.com/people/fc/churud_geo/cyberiadn.html) ...a short bit of sci-fi for your reading pleasure.

</comment><comment><USER25> A nice way of suggesting what I have felt, and that such articles are quite often hastily prepared. Most importantly, how do we as readers have any confidence that an article titled "The 7 ..." is really inclusive or even instructive?

</comment><comment><USER26> How to make a _list of n elements_?

      (defun list-of (n elt)
        (if (zerop n)
            nil
            (cons elt (list-of (- n 1) elt))))

ANSI Common Lisp, Paul Graham, page 38

1996 by Prentice Hall

</comment><comment><USER27> This article may have held my attention longer if it had been a list. It lost me after the 7th paragraph when I realized he was going to continue to ramble on about lists. So I skipped to the final paragraph just to be sure.

</comment><comment><USER28> I really find that to be true all the time. I would much rather click on a list of n things rather than an article about the same topic.

</comment><comment><USER29> Sorry for nitpicking, but first sentence should be _I'll bet you_ , not _I bet you_.

<comment><USER6> I think the "I'll bet you..." form is more standard in the US, but saying "I bet you..." is definitely acceptable, and in my experience is actually much more common in some other English-speaking countries (e.g. England itself).

<comment><USER29> That's strange. I can't find a single example online where "you" isn't the subject of the bet (for example, I bet you look good on the dance floor).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I wonder if this article will be a huge hit on digg?

</comment><comment><USER31> That protocol is cracked.com's livelihood.

</comment><comment><USER32> They're called listicles.</comment>


Goldman Sachs Dumps Numerical-Ranking System for Employees - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/goldman-sachs-dumps-employee-ranking-system-1464272443 <comment><USER2> Paywall :(

I haaate these numerical ranking systems. Bank of America had one when I worked there. Managers would have meetings with each other to match their workers with ranks. Really, really long meetings. So long that my boss apologized to me after the meeting to discuss my ranking.. because heleft before my name came up and there was no followup meeting. I ended up being ranked towards the bottom, I didn't get a raise, and the bonus was meh.

When I left, they told me that my performance was great and that they wanted to give me a substantial raise, since apparently, my pay was far below what it should be. They then had to replace my weekend shift with four others for a while. Most of the team was gone a bit later.

<comment><USER3> The sad thing is that the managers participating in these sorts of activities are unable to connect cause & effect. For example, if you rank individual employees then you destroy teamwork and incentivise all sorts of behavior that's bad for the company. It hurts morale, lowers productivity, increases employee turnover, increases hiring costs, lowers product quality, etc. It's a vicious cycle. And for someone who thinks it's a good idea to rank employees, these effects will simply confirm their beliefs that they need to rank employees.

Why does this happen? In the best case, it's a misguided attempt at career development. Or it's a way to figure out who to give more money and who to fire. Usually there is an element of fear: "I'm afraid my employees will not work hard unless there is the threat of a bad performance review".

To be fair, ranking employees does _sound_ like a good idea if you don't know anything about humans. Most management activities are really just things that _sound like a good idea_ (but fall apart under scrutiny). To be more fair, bad management is the norm, so no one has good mentors and role models. "If everyone else does this, then it can't be wrong." It's another vicious cycle.

<comment><USER4> Without ranking of some form, how do you identify the best people and reward them accordingly?

<comment><USER5> You can apply selection when you form a new team for a new project. Then you select the best people for that project. Ranking scores are unidimensional, absolute evaluations of people. They can be abused by adding penalties based on frivolous criteria.

In China, Ali Baba and others have created a ranking for regular population, called the "social credit". If you make friends with someone who has a low rank score, your own score will be penalized (they want to control who people make friends with and socially isolate people by descoring them). Also, if you watch too many American movies instead of Chinese. These scoring systems (and even Google's Page Rank) pervert the normal behavior of people.

<comment> UVB-76 On the latter point, I think this will become more prevalent in the future, and has really interesting applications in displacing trust as a dependency in interpersonal interactions.

Once we have more accurate profiles on individuals, and the profiles are shared more widely, you could make much more informed decisions about who you want to share public spaces, interact, work, live, or even enter into relationships with.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is good news. I used to work at Goldman IBD, and the rankings system was really dumb.

The problem was that you had to rate people on a 1-9 scale. As you might imagine, this rating was done via a web survey where you clicked a radio button under a corresponding integer, and under the numbers were verbal cues. The one under 9 was something like "One of the very best people I have ever worked with".

When you get your review, they give you your score for each assessed area, along with the mean score for your position/group (e.g., "associates in IBD").

I distinctly remember that most of the mean scores were between 8 and 9. One was as high as 8.7.

Clearly you had a lot of grade inflation that made the data points of dubious value. Whatever system they chose to replace it is probably better.

DISCLAIMER: I can't get over the paywall and some of the above points might be in the article.

<comment><USER7> The way the system would get described to me by the people I know who used to work at Goldman was that the tech guys would all treat the system seriously and attempt to rate people while the traders would all rate everyone at 9 for everything, unless they hated someone or someone had done disasterously in that area, in which case they would be ranked at 7. The programmers would always be looking for excuses to get a trader to rate them.

It was always told as a parable about how bad at real life game theory the academic, logical, game theoretic minded programmers were vs the traders.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't say how good anyone is at game theory. It might be a proxy for how social they are. The outcome is based on how "selfish" people are, or how much retribution they expect in future iterations. I don't see how this could possibly be used to make a deduction about the understanding of game theory (or practice).

<comment><USER9> but this is _exactly_ what game theory is about, the parent probably hinted at a failed unterstanding of the theory as shown by your comment ;)

what i mean is, people may think they understand the concept of game theory but are often unable to link that to its practical consequences, as in this case.

<comment><USER7> I really enjoyed "Jane Austen, Game Theorist" which argues that Jane Austen _systematically_ examined Game Theory years before it emerged.

The author also argues that Jane Austen has analysed in more depth game theoretic 'cluelessness' than has been done since, and interestingly, many of her 'clueless' characters show signs of being unusually interested in numbers, maths, card games, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The problem isn't rating scales, it's the assumption that employee ratings need to conform to a bell curve and that the bottom of the bell curve needs to go. If the outcome of your hiring and firing processes is not random, this should not be the case.

I once had a teammate get an apology from our manager because he had been required to give a poor rating to someone.

<comment><USER11> Even if your hiring system is perfect, you'd still have a bell shaped performance curve. But since people understand that their hiring isn't perfect, they look for ways to keep improving. I wonder how many of those here who get their panties in a bunch over rating on a curve have actually had to manage, and make a profit from, largish groups of people.

<comment><USER10> "The normal distribution is useful because of the central limit theorem. In its most general form, under some conditions (which include finite variance), it states that averages of random variables independently drawn from independent distributions converge in distribution to the normal, that is, become normally distributed when the number of random variables is sufficiently large."

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

This is why engineers get frustrated with managers that pretend to know math. Employees are not selected randomly and companies like to apply curves to even medium and small departments. A normal distribution does not apply.

Keep improving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> My own megacorp (which is mentioned in the article) when to a warm & fuzzy review system some months ago, I don't really like it. They used to do stack ranking behind closed doors (although they vehemently denied it) ... which only bothered me because they didn't tell us where we fell in the stack. Let me know where I stand compared to everyone else in my bracket, that's all I really want.

</comment><comment><USER13> Goldman and other investment banks are having a tough time recruiting top university graduates--the pull of tech companies is getting too great.

I'd imagine this is a way for Goldman to try and differentiate themselves from other banking firms in the fight for new hires.

<comment><USER14> FWIW: the Goldman recruiters at my school perked up when I said I was in computer science. They went over the "fun" stuff that their interns got to do (baseball games, travel, etc) rather than in any of the problems we would be working on. Seemed off-putting and made me question what kind of work environment it would be (who wants to develop in a suit?).

I ended cancelling the interview with Goldman and going with another company in the finance sector that has a long (decades) reputation of being genuinely great to employees.

<comment><USER15> Which company did you go to?

<comment><USER14> Jack Henry and Assoc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Because most ranking and evaluation methods (bar the sales commission) are complete BS anyway.

</comment><comment><USER17> Interesting to see GE mentioned - they are the root cause of all this stack ranking nonsense.

</comment><comment><USER18> marks != merit

<comment><USER19> Nice way to put it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, I can't read the article because I've chosen to focus my newspaper subscriptions on other, better, eh, 'peach-colored' newspapers.. but I worked in investment banking in IT for a number of years. Pretty much almost 10.

I've been thinking about stack ranking for a long time. In one place I worked, a large rival of Goldman, you would be ranked (secretly) on a curve, typically from 1-5. If you were the manager of a group of, say, 6 people, you couldn't just give everyone a 5 or a 1. You had to even it out, pepper in a few different numbers in that range. Maybe you had one 4 or one 5, say. This would go up to your manager, who would, in addition to rating you with your peers, would take a look at what you rates your employees and 'adjust', ensuring that the curve is adhered to, maybe moving numbers up or down depending on how they felt about your employees and also as compared to other groups (since it's a hierachy, a pyramid where each layer up managers more groupings of people).

This system was applied to the layoff selection (1's are out, some 2's are downgraded to 1's as the rankings made their way up the chain of command), and may have applied to bonus system as well (which is more complex). There were layoffs at least yearly, most years. Goldman is worse because the reputation was to always cull the bottom 5%, and I heard 10%, of staff yearly and (in good economic times) get a new fresh set of people not long after that.

Regardless, the takeaways of a system like this is that, regardless of your INDIVIDUAL performance, what matters is your performance relative to your peers. There are few issues with this.

The first issue with this is that the ranking system like above, or any ranking system, makes a lot more sense when you're in a role that has tangibly quantifiable measurements. For example, sales, or -- especially, in a place like GS -- bond or equity or other trading. In either one, if I make the company 1M, and you make it 1.2M, it's clear you added more value.

Well, what about IT staff? Is it lines of code? No, of course not. So there are these nebulous, subjective measurements pretending to be something more useful than they are. Performance reviews, the impact/importance of the projects you completed (which you didn't even get to CHOOSE, in most cases), and (at the place I worked) items like letters from senior managers about you that were positive, all counted.

The second issue is that competition doesn't necessarily make the work done better or more efficiently. The worst part for me was competing with people on my team. Instead of the team competing with other teams (if we want to ideologically just adopt the notion that competition makes everything more efficient and effective [which I think is overstated heavily], at least team competitions are a little better), we would compete with one another.

There are two ways to compete. I work harder, or better, or perform better than you. The second way is, we perform the same, or I perform the same, but I undercut you somehow. What's an example of undercutting? Well, let's say that on conference calls when it was your turn to speak I'd take knowledge about your project and use that to show that I know more publicly, or let's say that you undercut me by taking over my project and that of others, to show the boss how smart you are, etc. Most managers are so busy themselves that they don't have time to notice these things, which seem like petty infighting / childishness in their eyes. I saw the 'project takeover' scenario happen everywhere I've worked in these competitive environments. I saw one guy take over a bunch of people's projects, find himself overworked, complained, and got himself staff to work under him.

Hey, it's not easy to figure out what to do with regards to ranking, or whether to do it at all. When you're a full-time IT worker or professional in America, you get a salary, but it kind of doesn't say your hours in your contract; or if it does and is (rarely) enforced, at the end of the day in a competitive environment it's not fair if some people have to pull the weight of others. So there has to be some differentiator. On the other hand, what I've seen in IT is a downward spiral of misery. There's always someone on the team who puts in 60 hours a week so he can show how smart he/she is, trying to get that bonus or promotion above you.

And it's entirely possible that the above is more pronounced in the large, Northeastern American city (and industry) I live and work in.

</comment><comment><USER21> stack ranking works in certain situations, doesn't work in others. If you pay way above average and don't have that many employees (ie, your needs relative to the population are low) you can usually get away with it. So, it works for the netflixes of the world. Amazon has moved away from it somewhat as they realizzed that they were running out of engineers to spam to hire.</comment>


Unrideable bricycle - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvmJ_R4psdo

<comment><USER2> Abstract from paper:

A bicycle with compliant training wheels, half way between a bicycle and a tricycle, is uncontrollable

ANDY RUINA, Cornell University, Mechanical Engineering

We have built and tested a vehicle that can balance and steer like a bicycle, a tricycle, or anything in between. A bricycle is essentially a bicycle with springy training wheels. The stiffness of the training wheel suspension can be varied from infinite, when the bricycle is a tricycle, to zero, when it is a bicycle. One might expect a smooth transition from tricycle to bicycle as the stiffness is varied, in terms of handling, balance and feel. But the situation is more complicated. Rather, the controllability of a bicycle depends on gravity. Without gravity, lean and direction cannot be controlled independently. Springy training wheels effectively reduce or even negate gravity. Indeed, experiments with the bricycle show problems when the total effective gravity is about zero. People can then still balance easily but can no longer turn the brike. The theory and experiment show a qualitative difference between bicycles and tricycles. A difference that cannot be met halfway.

Related: [http://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/research/topics/bicycle_mechani...](http://ruina.tam.cornell.edu/research/topics/bicycle_mechanics/overview.php)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is probably one of those things where we have no idea what a practical application is until it pops up on something.

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking exactly the same thing! What kind of stuff would you want to keep on a straight trajectory and prevent from steering?

Many studies that seem unpractical or even stupid at first sight become genius when somebody finds a problem to which they are an elegant and obvious solution.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Okay, I'll burn my karma for it...

Chuck Norris could steer a bricycle!

</comment><comment><USER5> That was much better than I expected from the initial still.

<comment><USER3> Username is relevant</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What problem is Facebook solving? - <AUTHOR>

When we talk about startup ideas the first question that people ask is "What problem are you solving?". What problem is Facebook solving ? <comment><USER2> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanity)

</comment><comment><USER3> Keeping mothers occupied.</comment>


Apple Sells Fewer iPhones in Last Quarter, Shares Slide - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-02/apple-sells-fewer-iphones-in-latest-quarter-as-consumers-wait <comment><USER2> So it's a decline of about 1%. I suspect the number of people for whom the headphone jack is a deal-breaker is a lot higher than the tiny number of geeks who are even aware of the rumors about an anniversary iPhone, which is apparently Tim Cook's theory.

</comment><comment><USER3> Great time to buy those shares off of the suckers who sell...</comment>


Why Ideas are a Bad Place to Start a Startup - <AUTHOR> http://www.vijayanand.name/2013/01/why-ideas-are-a-bad-place-to-start-a-startup-or-why-ideas-are-evil/

<comment><USER2> People do not seek problems. People seek experiences. Experiences uncover problems. Problems do not instantly lead to ideas. Ideas are created when the mind takes quantum leaps in thought to create. The feeling of having a business idea is so profound, the ahha moment is so strong, and the quantum leap in thought feels so unique that we tend to speak about ideas not problems. In reality, they are 2 sides of the same piece of paper (think mobius strip).

Ideas are not a bad place to start a startup.

Bad ideas are a bad place to start a startup.

</comment><comment><USER3> Ideas are the only place to start a startup. Without the idea on how to solve your problem you have nothing.

Nothing to fail with, nothing to execute on, nothing to keep you going.

<comment><USER4> Without the problem to solve, there's nothing to build the idea on top of.

<comment><USER3> In other words. None is worth more than the other. They are both equally valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I totally agree, and the article is well-written... but haven't we heard this already? It feels like Amy Hoy's core ideas: 1- start with an audience, not an idea. 2 - observe customers in their natural habitat (the sales safari); do not ask them direct questions. 3- find pain points 4- Market to a group you are part of.

Maybe the author is taking Amy's class, 30x500? I'm not even taking it and I know all this :). It's been blogged for a while now.

<comment><USER6> Start with an audience, not an idea: Agree!

In fact, start with a Content-Audience Fit if you really want to get somewhere:

[http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/the-very-first- th...](http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2012/12/10/the-very-first-thing-a- founding-team-needs-to-do-achieve-content-audience-fit/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The article sounds a little like business studies 101, but I think it's a good read and a lot of people should think first before investing in a business.

</comment><comment><USER8> This article seems to have plummeted very quickly from the front page? Does anyone have a clue why that might be?

<comment><USER7> Maybe some "illegal" upvotes have been detected?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> You think that starting with an idea leads to fragility and that there is an off chance that you succeed. You are probably right. You state an alternative process which you say is leads to higher success rate. Great, but where is the proof? The part where you say this has increased success rate from X% to Y% with other variables kept constant is missing.

<comment><USER10> You say that this blog article would be improved if he had quantified the success rate of his observations, and you say claim this would constitute "proof" of the goodness of his post. Where's your proof that quantified metrics would make the post any better, or that indeed such quantified metrics would even constitute such "proof"?

Just giving you a hard time :)

<comment><USER9> A quantified proof might not be needed, but at least the slightest indication to if he has seen this process work in the real world would have made the post much more useful.</comment></comment></comment>


Idempotency at Work at Airbnb - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/airbnb-engineering/avoiding-double-payments-in-a-distributed-payments-system-2981f6b070bb <comment><USER2> Nice article about data consistency. While I don't believe its a hard problem, It can easily trip you up and cause developers to have to spend time figuring it out. Nice article.

About the picture of the office - every time I see developers use laptops I cringe a bit. They are always hunched over in the most uncomfortable looking poster because the keyboard is attached to the screen. I would recommend buying another keyboard and attaching it to the laptop so that you have more degrees freedom to adjust your viewing angle. You'll thank me in 20 years.</comment>


Mozilla FireFox 4 RC Now Released - Available to Download [Download] - <AUTHOR> http://itechvision.blogspot.com/2011/03/mozilla-firefox-4-rc-now-released.html

<comment><USER2> Already Posted: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2307090></comment>


The first time the ASA has acted against a Twitter-based campaign - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18517668

<comment><AUTHOR> I think this has set a precedent that paid-for tweets must now be marked as such with maybe a #ad to be legal in the UK.</comment>


Splunk Will No Longer Be Selling Services to Organizations in Russia - <AUTHOR> https://www.splunk.com/blog/2019/02/18/shifting-priorities-in-our-global-strategy.html# <comment><USER2> Does anyone know why?</comment>


Ask HN: Important questions to ask a company during a job interview? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> You can find a lot of interview advice on GitHub.

A good and large list of questions to ask is for example here:

[https://github.com/yangshun/tech-interview- handbook/blob/mas...](https://github.com/yangshun/tech-interview- handbook/blob/master/non-technical/questions-to-ask.md)

Also some previous discussions on HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15471061](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15471061)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15341566](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15341566)</comment>


A startup accelerator for the world's poorest - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/on-startups/ca9a1a6c9da0 <comment><USER2> People in poor countries already have an incredibly entrepreneurial spirit. They need to, hustling for themselves is what they need to do to get by, since there are very few jobs.

To properly support these people, you need 3 things: \- Security \- Infrastructure \- Capital

Generally, people in 3rd world countries are much more creative and resourceful than we are, they just need an environment in which they can flourish, and where they're not constantly worried about someone coming to take everything away from them (in my wife's country, having any sort of wealth guarantees you WILL be robbed - and the police are complicit, sometimes committing the robbery themselves).

</comment><comment><USER3> One thing that strikes me, and which I think is important is that we focus more on the fact that we could inspire a million x $10K a year companies rather than a 100 x $1Bn dollar a year companies.

Focus on the microdevelopment aspect of this rather than the dreams of avarice and VC ROI. I don't want to replicate a "Found it and Flip it" mentality.

I'd like to see a world where people start building businesses that they could feasibly pass on to their children. Solid local businesses, (both tech and traditional) using entrepreneurial tools to find and serve a need for the community.

It keeps you honest if you always put the needs of your customers ahead of your investors - who are usually looking for an exit. Continued customer revenue demonstrates that you are continuing to deliver value over time.

This is the message we should be trying to spread in the developing world, not get rich quick. Hasn't worked out so well for us, really.

That said - count me in.

<comment><USER4> I also see the potential for global companies -

Some of the stories I've heard around African Fintech point to a more grounded approach, with systems built around political redundancy and growth coming from old-fashioned cashflow.

I'm hoping to learn more about this, as there's potential for us to learn, not just teach, and potential for these companies to jump the chasm into Western markets, where the finance system is getting shakier.

Perhaps the first Antifragile Fintech startups will come from emerging markets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think the attention on the world's poor is great...and I'm not going to be one of those naysayers who argue, "Poor people don't need smartphones they need food"...but the OP is doing some serious forward-jumping here.

Let's assume that smartphones and tablets (and previously, cheap netbooks) are as vital to the poor as they are to everyone else. What does that have to do with enabling them to be the next "tech founders"?

In America, we have digital device wealth aplenty, and there's no clear correlation that such availability to the middle class enables a corresponding rise in valuable tech entrepreneurship. In fact, one might argue the opposite: that tablets and on-demand-high-speed entertainment has made people more into consumers (and snarky commenters) than producers.

Again, I think the attention toward the poor is great and much needed. I just think the "let them make startups!" vibe is cognitively awkward.

<comment><USER4> Good point - that's why I really want to go and see for myself, and talk to people who have. Also, I'll be watching the FirefoxOS marketplace for apps that aren't ported from other mobile platforms, but built around grassroots needs.

In the same way that the likes of M-PESA enabled a group of tech founders, like in the pan-African transaction networks for example, there are untapped needs in food distribution and other "last mile" inefficiencies where tech could help. My feeling atm is that we can borrow lessons from vertical accelerators like HealthBox, for example, and speed up the time to get to a rapid field trial.

<comment><USER6> One model you should consider is pairing up the poor (but with insight and vision on the issues at hand) with tech talent from around the world. Tech talent can be donated time either remotely or on-site as part of the founding teams. At least in the near term, you can definitely speed up your development cycle and time it takes for your accelerator to get results.

<comment><USER7> I'd do it. (Am already, to an extent).

<comment><USER4> Thanks! How can I learn more about what you're doing?

<comment><USER7> I have sent you an email to your "smile" address.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> When I visited Kenya two years ago I was amazed at M-PESA's spread, and the $99 Android phone had just launched there. If you're interested in disrupting tech in Africa, I'd recommend a visit to Nairobi's iHub, it's am amazingly energetic space: [http://www.ihub.co.ke/](http://www.ihub.co.ke/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Love the idea, would love to invest (not an accredited investor, so would have to wait for the JOBS act to go through, or to find another way to do so). SaintSal, I've just emailed you about this.

<comment><USER4> The timing might be fine. There's a lot of pre-investment groundwork I'll need to do, and ideally run an MVP, before there's an established investment opportunity. Things going a bit mental atm, but I'm looking forward to getting back to you on email! Thx!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I created an email list if anyone who wants to be updated: [http://eepurl.com/FeE2z](http://eepurl.com/FeE2z)

</comment><comment><USER10> On a related note, I'm looking for a good program to sponsor a child's education. Most of what I find are run by church-affiliated groups which is fine if the education is secular. Any suggestions would be welcome.

<comment><USER11> I've heard good thing about work done by AKDN and AKF ... they are so reputable that they leverages every dollar received through matching grants from leading donor agencies and partners, including the U.S. government, to create a multiplier effect that stretches resources and amplifies the impact of every donation....

[http://www.partnershipsinaction.org/content/donate](http://www.partnershipsinaction.org/content/donate)

[http://www.akdn.org/Content/928](http://www.akdn.org/Content/928)

<comment><USER4> "Our Academies programme is rooted in the conviction that effective indigenous leadership will be the key to progress in the developing world... "

I like this attitude. A lot of our accelerator clients ask us with a kind of cultural change, from bring protective of ideas, to being open and inclusive. This is easier when there's a local community of experience tech founders to connect - so we can include the new founders and they feel safe sharing.

I'm wondering how/if AKDN has a similar goal, or if they look for existing, indiginous attitudes that help others take on the right attitudes...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Off topic: it seems that posts from medium.com are less often on front page now. Sign of decline?

</comment><comment><USER13> EVERTHING changing in London sure looks similar to not very much changing. I was in Bangkok 2 years ago and I must have had blinders on since EVERYTHING changed. I think the only thing that hasn't changed is bullshit hyperbole.</comment>


How to get better at UI design - <AUTHOR> http://ui-patterns.com/blog/How-to-get-better-at-UI-design

<comment><USER2> The best way hands down is to do usability testing. No eye-tracking, one-way- mirror lab required. Just sit down with some outsiders and give them some tasks to perform on your UI. Even for experienced and talented UI designers, this is invaluable because it cuts right through all the learned knowledge you have of the interface, which is impossible to do for anyone who was involved in creating it.

Of course this advice doesn't apply to power user UIs, but those are easy because your users will constantly email you with improvements.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. If everybody in your immediate proximity is already intimately familiar with your site, <http://www.usertesting.com> is great for this. (I'm not affiliated with them other than being a happy customer.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I do hope that's not an up-and-coming web color scheme or site layout, as that web site dances the edge of Angry Fruit Salad.

<comment><USER5> And the banner logo has been prepared by somone who either needs glasses or doesn't understand how to use the export for web tool in photoshop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Don't make me think" by Steve Krug is a must-read if you're new to ui design.

<comment><USER7> I second that

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one who gets intimidated by good UI design? I think I should just focus on back end stuff and completely outsource anything on the front end.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mental block sometimes on UI design. OK, got a great idea, I can see how to implement the code, but the UI...

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The easiest way to get better is to keep asking the following question, over an over again:

"What can I remove from this interface to simplify it?"

</comment><comment><USER10> Anyone else using Windows 7 and have trouble reading the post because of the font? Here's what the site looks like on my machine: <http://awesomescreenshot.com/099470k29>

Could just be me though, since I have all of those fonts installed (I think).

<comment><USER11> Irony yet again, the problem is with the font-stack. I guess you have a version of Helvetica that's not that readable. Only of they followed their own advice and tested it.Though this articles is nothing great and sorta ironic on this site but if you still want to read it - use Readability: <http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

This is how it looks: <http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/8523/201012030938.png>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Ironic coming from a site with way too much unreadable helvetica nueue

<comment><USER13> What do you mean by unreadable? Compared to what? (Serious question. I am tone-deaf on this kind of thing. The font read easily enough to me.)

<comment><USER11> Use this on the article and then see.<http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

<comment><USER13> Definitely more readable with readability, but that seems to be mostly a matter of font size. If I reduce the font size of the output from readability with C-- in firefox, I don't see a big difference in readability.

<comment><USER11> IF you reduce. Not by default.And yes font-size is part of design and UI so that's the difference we are pointing out.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Petri Dish Gets a Makeover - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/38404/?p1=A2

<comment><USER2> This topic was posted yesterday, but didn't generate much interest (8 points, 22 hours ago, 0 comments):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2912642>

[http://medgadget.com/2011/08/nanologix-makes-live-cell- petri...](http://medgadget.com/2011/08/nanologix-makes-live-cell-petri- cultures-4x-12x-faster.html)

Both articles pointed towards articles on the technology from various tech blogs. Here's the official press release and company website:

[http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110808005626/en/Amer...](http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110808005626/en/American- Journal-Perinatology-Publishes-Results-Group-Streptococcus)

<http://nanologix.com/index.html>

Regrettably, the actual study is hidden behind a paywall (except for subscribers and students in Great Britain and Germany).

[https://www.thieme- connect.com/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-0031-128509...](https://www.thieme- connect.com/DOI/DOI?10.1055/s-0031-1285099)</comment>


Starcraft 2 Automated Player - <AUTHOR> http://graphics.stanford.edu/~mdfisher/GameAIs.html <comment><AUTHOR> I hope people notice this cool feature in the documentation: trash talking! Turing would be proud.

> The AI maintains a set of personas it adopts when fighting humans. These are > designed to intimidate the person with the AI's ability to type very > complicated and computationally intensive sentences in the middle of > battles. Currently this feature is not well developed since it does not > affect the win-loss ratio much and I've decided not to unleash the AI on > hapless Battle.net players, but I may revisit it eventually.

<comment><USER2> ^ My favorite strategy when I'm defeated and my teammate is still kicking. Try to get a rise out of the enemey just as my teammate executes a drop!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Every AI I've ever seen or written has always sidestepped inconveniences such as a limited number of actions per frame and a limited field of view. Getting this working in a game as complex as Starcraft 2 is _ridiculously_ impressive.

The thread-like programs is an interesting approach, too. I wonder if the author plans to treat stale state using Bayesian belief models instead of assuming it's still correct until a scheduled poll checks it.

<comment><USER4> For some reason snippyhollow's comment was `dead`ed:

> For the use of Bayesian models in StarCraft AI, see my last 3 papers > [http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/people/synnaeve/index.html#publi...](http://emotion.inrialpes.fr/people/synnaeve/index.html#publis) > :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Note that this is not just another AI for Starcraft: it actually plays the game like a human, by "looking at the screen", and issuing keyboard and mouse orders.

<comment><USER6> With 1k-2k APM, _with_ grouping commands by contrast to BWAPI (Broodwar API) which does not allows for group commands (20 units attack move = 20 actions with BWAPI, only 2 actions here). And low-level SC2 AI which is at least one order of magnitude less micro-intensive than Broodwar's.

<comment><USER7> True, but it's still interesting that it's essentially using the same "API" into the game as a player uses. While a computer can obvious do rote tasks much faster than a human, if you limited this AI's actions per minute to something semi-reasonable like 500, it could be a sort of proof of concept for the ridiculously high skill ceiling of Starcraft 2. This is especially true for battle micro.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For the record, this is how a lot of video game cheats work and it SUCKS. Aimbots in FPS games for example exist 100% out of the game executable so there is no way to stop it. The only option you have as a dev is to detect the behavior and ban with righteous fury.

It's both incredibly cool and wildly frustrating at the same time.

<comment><USER9> There's a lot of detection that can be done beyond just the behavior. The problem basically reduces to virus detection (and the ensuing arms race). You check all running programs for something that looks like this kind of bot. Right now it's probably easier to just detect the APM or jerky screen view, but in the long run that's the best way to shut these down.

Personally I'm really hoping Blizzard doesn't go after things like this too actively on SC2. It's unfortunate that there's no offline place for bots to play against each other, because the competitions that arise are really fun. There's definitely less money to be made here than in, say, WoW.

<comment><USER2> _Personally I'm really hoping Blizzard doesn't go after things like this too actively on SC2_

At a cerebral level, I love to see bots in development for RTS's. Beyond the cool factor, it could wind up developing all sorts of new strategies and spur more high-level discussion. That said, it would really destroy the battle.net experience if bots became prolific.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Hey Matt, if you're reading this - why not post replay files to show off it's abilities. Or send to HuskyStarcraft for him to cast, I think that would be awesome.

<comment><USER11> Matt has a reddit account. Also, from what I understand, this AI is a modification from work he has done making players for Warcraft 3 and Dota.

Regarding releasing replays:

>>"I'm also aware that Blizzard programmers might find the project interesting but Blizzard as a whole is obligated to not like the idea; this is also reason I've never released a replay, as this would be a clear indication I've played the bot on Battle.net (not to mention they might have a detector or two for things with 5000+ apm)."

<http://www.reddit.com/user/techmatt>

<comment><USER12> Wouldn't it be possible to limit the AI's APM to somewhere a human/pro-gamer could achieve to prevent it from being detected?

<comment><USER13> Won't that mean it'll lose the only advantage it has?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> It would be interesting to see how it would fare against a top level human, but I'd be more interested to see how it would fare against other AI implementations.

There could be a whole separate community for SC2 AI competitions - a bit like there exists with chess.

<comment><USER6> There are Broodwar's AI competitions with the use of BWAPI, they don't win against good-to-top humans yet. (Btw, Broodwar is way more balanced than SC2.)<http://code.google.com/p/bwapi/>

<comment><USER15> Yes, a game that's been out for 13 years is way more balanced than a game that's only been out for 1 year.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Suggestions: (1) emulate the time required to move the mouse, (2) reduce the number of times that objects are focused as a human player would do by keeping track of recent commands and not repeating them especially when there is no attacking/defense occurring, (3) emulate human reaction delay. The goal should be that it shouldn't cause convulsions when watching it due to the rapid changes in focus. This is incredibly awesome, though.

<comment><USER17> Actually if you see pro players play, they jump around in a very similar fashion. That pattern similarity was one of the most impressive things about this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Kudos to Matt Fisher on an heroic undertaking. Internal states of D3D devices can be substantial on modern hardware, e.g. 100+ renderer calls in that single frame alone. And there are many impressive components in this AI: translating texture glyphs into literal meaning, the scene 'tree' gamestate, rational action choice based on a combo of said extracted gamestate and what I can only assume is his secret play strategy honed over countless hours of battle...

Here is one who is unwilling to sit idly by while an official API arrives from the vendor. And for that he should be applauded. But it begs the question: when will Blizzard release an official SC2 API? Or is there a way to take Matt's work and create a 'sandbox' battle.net solely for bot enthusiasts?

</comment><comment><USER19> This is really cool. The closer-to-human aspect is great, and the graphics approach is definitely interesting. I love the idea of an AI whose difficulty could be largely tuned by implementing a max APS.

Added the code to my (long) list of things to read!

</comment><comment><USER20> Fantastic! I've played around with BWAPI for Starcraft (1) AIs, but I like this approach.

So, when's the first SC2 AI competition? The nice thing about SC1 though is that there's no problem running 4 instances in VMs all on the same laptop.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'd be very interested in using something like this to unlock ridiculous achievements on steam.

<comment><USER22> I still haven't gotten the "An engineer disarms a landmine after you spot it" achievement on Brink...

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wish it said what rank it played at... did I miss that bit?

<comment><USER24> I believe he says somewhere that he didn't have it play against real players on battle net so far, but that he can beat AI up to insane, exclusive. I was happy to find out that he's a Stanford PhD student though, and that his office is right above mine :) So I need to drop by tomorrow and convince him to... properly evaluate the algorithm... for science.

<comment><USER25> My gut says he already tested it on Battle.net, that'd be the first thing I'd do... It's probably not a good idea to make that public though, as the legality of this AI is still uncertain.

<comment><USER26> >as the legality of this AI is still uncertain.

I know it's just a StarCraft AI, but that sentence still sent a chill down my spine, and visions of Ghost in the Shell / similar SF.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Wow best research project ever!

</comment><comment><USER28> This could be used as a cheat :/</comment>


Anyone at Twitter? There's a scam I want to take down (40k and counting) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/eIonmmusk/status/966737850300534784 <comment><AUTHOR> Twitter's support bot doesn't even have an option for scam and they haven't responded to my support request. There's at least two eth addresses in the messaging chain that have received at least some 40k.

I worked with an embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, and we had an enquiry from a man who thought he owned a gold mine in Ghana. Turns out he didn't. A few days later he was in headlines for committing a suicide.

A bit after I worked with UN office on drugs and crime and it's unbelievable how much work it is to get these scammers to the court and prosecute.

Every time they are successful encourages them for more.

So I just can't sit and watch this. If you know someone who can take this down, please let them know.

<comment><USER2> The account has been suspended. There are a lot of cryptocurrency scams on twitter with accounts having similar names to famous figures, replying to a well known account and offering to give away eth or bitcoin if you send them a small amount. e.g.:

[https://twitter.com/Bitfinex___/status/964883934780841985](https://twitter.com/Bitfinex___/status/964883934780841985)

        Replying to @BTCNewsUpdates @Bitcoin @keyatoms
        Happy to announce 30 BITCOIN giveaway!

        To be able to receive 0.5 Bitcoin, you need to send 0.2 bitcoin to the address

        1AZogUQTyvgwizwxkC1Nxzubno3xw9D1dA

        IF you are in the first 10, you have a chance to receive 1 BITCOIN</comment></comment>


Bird raises Series D at $2.5b valuation - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/07/22/bird-raises-series-d-round-sequoia-2-5-billion-valuation/ <comment><USER2> When will this insanity end? It's basically a flat round, so they avoided a down round. But would anyone care to hazard a guess as to what liquidation pref Sequoia is getting on this?

</comment><comment><USER3> Seriously, $2.5b? This is absurd.

<comment><USER3> There's basically zero barrier to entry from both domestic and global competitors.

<comment><USER4> People had the same criticisms of Instagram.

I agree that Bird likely can't make its unit economics work with its current model, but if its goal is to be acquired by a company who wants the user base, then $2.5B isn't nearly as crazy.

Remember that Bird has two kinds of users, both of whom are monetizable by other companies: 1) riders, 2) chargers

<comment><USER2> But any potential buyer can build his or her own and get the same level network effect. Bird doesn't have a network effect. You know this because you don't go out looking for a Bird. You go out looking for a scooter. Or you buy your own scooter. That's why Bird won't be bought, and why it's probably worth $100M max.

<comment><USER5> It's not network effects that matter. It's economies of scale. Any company can go out and start putting scooters on the street. But if you want positive unit economics, which Bird now has for over 2/3 of its fleet, you need a huge infrastructure.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mobile Economics Will Trend Toward Web Economics - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/12/mobile-economics-will-trend-toward-web-economics.html

<comment><USER2> Reading this makes me think back and draw parallels to the Internet boom and compare that to our current mobile boom.

Is it possible that Apple (Mobile) = AOL (Internet)?

\--Walled gardens

\--Curated content

\--Centralized control

For a while there AOL looked unstoppable, much as Apple does now. Can Apple navigate the errors that AOL made? I'm not certain, but I'm also not certain enough they'll mess it up that I want to go short $AAPL with some 5 year out options either.

<comment><USER3> I don't know. I think that Apple has their 'shit together' a lot more than AOL ever did. I don't know if the parallel between them fully applies. Though it's very possible that the 'fall of Apple' is that their success has always been reliant on the leadership of Steve Jobs. Without him (death, retirement, etc), the ship might be sunk.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think this whole debate is curtailed by a misleading metaphor.

Yes, certain parts of the web are free...these are the ubiquitous and dominant pieces, like Google, Twitter, Facebook, and news sites, etc.

Then you have SaaS, which is smaller on an individual scale, but makes up a large portion of the overall web economy.

Most games aren't free.

Some of my favorite pieces of software cost me money every month.

Are we talking freemium here? I can't really tell because the argument, to me, seems generalized.

Just yesterday on HN, there was a post about a fun project called threewords.me - it blew up because it was free and built to go viral on Facebook. That type of thing will probably always be free, either as an ad- supported simple product, or a feature of a more expensive paid product.

I have a hard time believing that mobile will be free when much of the web is still not.

The reason magazine apps aren't doing well is because they're complicated, and I can pull up wired.com and read almost everything I need to, from the same device, so an app is useless in that context.

Other pieces of software, which might not exist outside of mobile, have much more value to me, and I'm willing to pay for that value.

</comment><comment><USER5> One day perhaps, when you can run games on a mobile browser.

Otherwise, what killer web apps will make that happen?

<comment><USER6> Games have a tradition of being paid for, so they don't really apply to this argument.

<comment><USER4> Actually, look through Fred's archives and you'll see that he's lumped in games as well.

I happen to disagree. As a consumer, I would rather pay $60 for an xbox game than get it free and get nickel and dimed my way to $60 over the long-term. Same with something like Angry Birds. I'll pay my 1.99 for the HD version and be done with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with Wilson's viewpoint except for one problem: inadvertent ad clicks are much more likely on mobile devices than they are on computer browsers.

This must inflate click-thru rates and deflate return on advertising, and I suspect that mobile advertising rates are inflated right now because of this.</comment>


Steve Wozniak interview in "Founders At Work" - <AUTHOR> http://foundersatwork.com/stevewozniak.html <comment><USER2> It's funny, when he describes how he wrote Apple BASIC, it's _exactly_ how a textbook compiler implementation works. His incremental symbol table is just a handwritten DFA. Then his noun stacks and verb stacks are basically how you'd write a parser, though they're usually just generalized into a single stack for a CFG.

<comment><USER3> Was that the textbook implementation _before_ he did it? I mean, it's been 30 years...

And even if that was the standard design, was there something uniquely impressive about his execution? i.e. different architecture, unusually limited hardware resources, etc. Remember, ideas are a dime a dozen, execution is everything.

And just the fact that he stumbled onto the textbook design without knowing what he was doing, that's somewhat impressive too.

I'm not totally trying to defend Woz -- he has tended to make some exaggerations lately -- I just figure we should be asking the right questions...

<comment><USER2> Oh, I'm commenting on how it's interesting that he stumbled onto the standard architecture independently, managing to reinvent 15 years or so of theory (at the time) on his own. Not trying to trivialize his accomplishment at all.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found Wozniak's interview, in Jessica's book, as one of the most entertaining [1]. Many of the lessons learned from his early days have a global appeal to other startups as well: starting out with a great team, being young, not having money, adaptability, etc.

 _"Entrepreneurs have to keep adjusting to... everything's changing, everything's dynamic, and you get this idea and you get another idea and this doesn't work out and you have to replace it with something else. Time is always critical because somebody might beat you to the punch.

It's better to be young because you can spend a lot more nights, very very late. Because you have to get things done, and there's almost no other way to get around that. When the times come, they are critical."_ \- Woz

[1] I haven't finished the book yet.

</comment><comment><USER4> Great interview. 10/10

I love how Woz described his relationship with Steve Jobs. What a great story of how Apple got started.</comment>


Ask HN: If you could start a start-up anywhere in the world - <AUTHOR>

With the one exception of the US, where would you pick and why? Are there any non-US cultures that really support entrepreneurship, embrace failure as a stepping stone to success, and don't also try to hammer down the nails that stick out? <comment><USER2> As bad as the US is becoming in many respects, the one thing its still got over the world is that its the one place that respects and rewards entrepreneurship to even the smallest degree.

The barriers to entry in the US are numerous and much more burdensome than they should be in a free society....and are still a flat out cakewalk compared to what the man with an idea faces in other countries.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hacker News, Quora, etc are supportive of entrepreneurship - that is your support and mentorship network.

Incorporate in a low-tax low-regulation business-friendly jurisdiction like Singapore, bank in stable country like Switzerland and live/work wherever you like.

Consider the 5 flags-theory for web-based business: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_traveler>

<comment><USER4> Nice in theory, hard in practice. Especially if you're doing a startup and not a lifestyle or small business.

Edit: Ridiculous how people downvote. I've researched this area more than most and the flags theory just doesn't fit most startups as the core concept is having your tax residence and company in different countries. The only case I know of where it did or could have worked is Skype.

<comment><USER5> Agreed, ideas like that sound great on paper but just don't translate to real life in most instances.

And I encourage anyone dreaming about working abroad to go and try it for at least a month before making a big commitment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Myanmar. This country just transitioned from a military government to a democratic one and is opening up the market. Right now, they only have 5 million cell phone penetration. The government plans to have 80% mobile penetration by 2015 which means more than 40 million people will be online. Lots of low hanging fruits here. I am actually from Myanmar (been in US for 7 years) and I am going back tomorrow to start a company.

</comment><comment><USER7> I run <https://openexchangerates.org> essentially "from the road", so this is hugely relevant and I'm bookmarking it to read over once everyone's had a chance to weigh in :)

At the moment, I'm based between the UK and Jersey (Channel Islands – I'm resident for tax, which is nice), around Europe (recently Amsterdam, Berlin, Lisbon, back to NL in a few weeks) and planning a move onto South America later in the year. Previously it was Hong Kong, where the project began life.

From these, I got the best vibes in Berlin, and would love to spend more time there soon.

London, where most of my business took shape and which I'd consider my practical home, is fantastic for diversity of ideas, people and places. As of now I plan to spend 3 months per year here (maximum allowed unless I want to pay UK tax!) in the warmer months to really get into the city.

Still looking for _the place_ , though, the one where I settle in for a year or two.

<comment><USER3> openexchangerates looks useful for something I'm planning - bookmarked.

Curious, what's your technical stack? I'm researching ways to build a Restful api to be consumed by web apps and mobile apps.

Quite nice to be a resident of Channel Islands! Seems that everyone likes Berlin. Maybe checkout New Zealand?

<comment><USER7> Thanks! I have heard NZ is a top place to work from – it's the countryside that appeals most to me, though it's a bit remote. How's the startup scene?

OXR is built out with PHP and (for a bunch of processes) nodeJS. PHP gets a bad rap, but it's fastest for me to work with and hasn't presented any problems so far.

<comment><USER3> Cool, thanks. Guess I need to break down and learn about server-side javascript...

I'm always impressed by the quality of the NZ govt. websites: [http://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/investing-in-nz/who-to- talk...](http://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/investing-in-nz/who-to-talk- to/business-networks)

<http://www.newzealandnow.govt.nz/living-in-nz> < I've packed my bags ; )

[http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-New-Zealand-technology- st...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-some-New-Zealand-technology-startups- that-are-doing-well-internationally)

\- Many good links here. It's not the valley, but impressive for a country of 4 mil.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How about Toronto, Canada?

[http://blog.hypejar.com/post/42478443633/tech-alley- torontos...](http://blog.hypejar.com/post/42478443633/tech-alley-torontos- vibrant-startup-scene-and-why)

</comment><comment><USER9> We need to start a new country and call it Ycombinator. Nowhere in the world supports entrepreneurship enough.

</comment><comment><USER10> Probably a developed country. Like UK. London sounds good, it not silicon valley but its not bad either. There is already some startup culture there. The operating cost would be a problem though. If i was short on money (ok every startup is, except maybe like color) I would do it where i am right now, in a small town in north of India. The city is not village, but it's not a metropolitan either. The operating cost will be a lot lower than say, London and I already know everyone here. The community, society and laws are all local and familiar. So I think only place compelling enough to leave the comfort of home turf is valley.

</comment><comment><USER11> The Netherlands is probably the easiest (only?) way for an entrepreneurial American to get a foothold into Europe. There's a Dutch-American friendship treaty which makes it easy to start a business there with a small amount of money.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm actually British! The EU is my visa-free playground!

<comment><USER11> Well then. You could go to Australia. It depends on what you're trying to do, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I m surprised since no one has mentioned about Tel Aviv, Israel.

Number of startups have arised recently, and also considering their entrepreneurship spirit. It does seem to be a great place for doing a startup.

</comment><comment><USER13> I can vouch for Montreal.. pretty sick entrepreneurship culture.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm betting on Canada now. Beats Russland hands down.

<comment><USER15> Vancouver is a great place for sushi and it has a handful of good coffee spots. But that's pretty much it as far as its relevance to the startups is concerned.

Beats Russland hands down, true, but that's an easy feat.

<comment><USER16> Vancouver sure, but you should check out the startup scene in Montreal. Lots of cool things going on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> For bootstrapping, I chose India! I've been living in the beautiful Himalayas and paying $500 a month to do so. That's a $3000 investment for 6 months development time to test out your idea. The internet here isn't so crash hot, but that is not a problem when you just need to do the odd Git check in. A Hyperjuice battery is a essential investment, powercuts are all too common.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm in the process to make one here in Spain. It is hard, yes it is. I like it because Barcelona is a great central point, full of foreigners who embrace english and all kind of european cultures as well latin america. What I am looking for? an american partner. It will be good for various reasons as I think startups should be done.

<comment><USER3> That's great. Have you seen where people in northern Spain are finding abandoned villages and renovating them to be somewhat self-sufficient? That would make a pretty cool startup hub. P.S. I see you are a UX/UI designer - any social links (dribbble/behance/twitter, etc)? I'm sure there's Americans on here (like me) or here on the lookout of that skill set.

<comment><USER18> @minid, <http://www.minid.net>. My portfolio is not on behance. There's no need to move northern spain, in Barcelona we have plenty places with cheap prices to setup an startup. I do preffer remote working and go relocation when the first round is setup :).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There're many threads about this on HN. Here's one around an _Economist_ feature:

<http://www.economist.com/node/21559618>

(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4589291>)

</comment><comment><USER20> UAE. Free market economy, law and order, easy air travel to anywhere in world via Emirates/Etihad/Qantas, majority of world's people live within +/- four hours of timezone, access to both low cost resources but also some highly skilled resources, etc

<comment><USER21> When people bring up places like this, it makes me wonder if they've considered the implications of inadvertently breaking the laws that are based on traditions/religion. Like being caught with a porn magazine in your bag or even crossing a province border with a bottle of booze (even that can be illegal there).

<comment><USER20> Neither pornography or booze are prerequisites for startup success. If someone has a predliction for either that they cannot surpress then I suppose this UAE the place for them.

<comment><USER21> Yeah, you just have to be extra careful, otherwise off with your head :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I think London's start up scene is becoming something interesting at the moment.

</comment><comment><USER23> Look into startup Chile. Sounded pretty interesting a few years back...

<comment><USER24> It is. And one of the interesting things is, every 3-4 months they bring in another 30 startups.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Orange County. There's a lot of talent out here that's trapped in horrible corporate jobs. Even a lot of the startups are horrible-corporate startups.

I will do this someday.

</comment><comment><USER26> India: If you are up for a challenge, where there might not be straight forward solutions, but if you crack the plethora of problems present there, its a dream come true.

<comment><USER21> > Its a dream come true.

What are the pros besides low cost of living? Can you elaborate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Sydney. Amazing quality of life, beautiful, great weather, and an amazing city.

Close to most of Asia, strong economy.

Definitely, Sydney.

</comment><comment><USER28> Singapore, Norway or Denmark.

<comment><AUTHOR> All three are interesting suggestions, but what makes them stand out to you?

<comment><USER28> Singapore has some of the world's strongest laws protecting investors, lenders and borrowers. Setting up a company there only takes 4 days. It has very low and easy to file taxes and pretty much everything they do they do it with a "high-tech" view point.

Norway is just generally all around awesome. The only draw back is their high taxes but they're ridiculously easy to file as well. They also protect their investors, lenders and borrowers very well.

Denmark's economy makes it so starting up a business costs pretty much nothing and registering it is almost as fast as Singapore. They also hire and fire laws similar to those in the US so that you can pretty much hire and fire people very easily with no hassle.

Also, I just love the Nordic culture and way of life which is a big factor for me in picking Norway and Denmark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> India,Africa,china,japan

<comment><AUTHOR> These are unusual suggestions! What makes you suggest them, and specifically what part of Africa?

<comment><USER30> In Africa, I would consider

Kenya: good internet speeds,

Ghana: booming local economy,

Nigeria: lots of entrepreneurial spirit,

Angola: 4G network

<comment><USER31> What about South Africa?

Well-developed legal system

4G network and high speed internet

Existing support structures, especially for funding

And one of the most beautiful cities with plenty of sun & sand in Cape Town.

<comment><USER32> I've never been to SA, but from what I've read, the high crime rate is a bit deterring.

<comment><USER30> Crime is an issue but shouldn't be a complete deterrent. The political environment is a bigger concern scares people off. The BEE/indiginization issues are very real and should be considered.

With that said, I would live in Cape Town in a heartbeat, great food, culture, people etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Singapore.

<comment><AUTHOR> Singapore's come up a few times. What makes it an ideal start up location in your view?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Five years ago I quit working for other people and started working for myself. At the same time, we decided to start traveling, to get a better idea of other cultures for our products (which are internationalized) and to see if we found a place we liked to stay.

First off, one thing you notice, once you get out of the USA, is how much of a bubble the USA is in. The perspective given by US news sources, for instance, is pretty narrow. Americans tend to think about the same things all the time and have those perceptions reinforced. Just getting out there will broaden your perspective, of the world, of the markets and of your customers.

There are other cultures that support entrepreneurship, and really, the idea that the US is sort of a pinnacle of this is at the least outdated.

The thing to remember, though, is that these other cultures are different and support it in different ways. Some better, some worse than the USA.

During our travels, we've "based our startup" in Venice Italy, Berlin Germany, Amsterdam, The UK, Mexico, and most recently Chile.

All of these are quite viable as a place to stay while working on your startup, though not all of them are good jurisdictions for your business to be domiciled. We travel on tourist visas, though in recent year's we've focused on getting year long visas.

Like others said about the PT / Five Flags strategy, jurisdictional arbitrage is a good idea. One thing to be aware of is that the IRS is getting more and more draconian every year and US government laws are making it harder and harder for financial institutions to do business with americans. It's not that the countries won't welcome you, it's that the US punishes them for it. (At least as it comes to bank accounts.) This makes a foreign bank account a bit of a prized possession for Americans.

Some notable places to consider: Amsterdam- There is a US-Dutch friendship treaty which means that Americans who found a company in the netherlands get residency so long as they keep a certain amount of assets in the company.

Panama- Recently the president of panama signed an executive order giving anyone from "favored" nations (eg: ones panama has good relations with, including the US and UK) the ability to get residency simply by setting up a company in Panama and putting some money in the bank. This isn't just a residency visa, this is permanent panamanian residency.

Chile- I'm sure you've heard of Startup Chile. Chile is a pro-business culture (though also a bit pro-paperwork and things take a bit more time than they should). The Chilean government will give you residency for living and working in Chile, you just have to earn money in the country and pay taxes on it (So you could go there as a freelancer and live.) After 2 years of doing this you can apply for permanent residency that allows you to live there indefinitely.

Singapore- Has two programs, the Entrepreneur Pass and the Entre Pass for employees of companies (it could be your own company) and people setting up singaporean companies, giving you residency.

All these situations give you a reasonably straightforward path to residency. All of them have more or less pro-business environments, though Amsterdam's taxes are kind of extreme.

As for embracing failure, etc, this is really kind of incumbent on yourself. IF you embrace your failure, great.

If you're looking to raise investor money, the bay area is the probably unparalleled for this. I'm speaking more towards someone who wants to bootstrap.

If you're a bootstrapper, you could do it almost anywhere.

<comment><USER21> _It's not that the countries won't welcome you, it's that the US punishes them for it. (At least as it comes to bank accounts.) This makes a foreign bank account a bit of a prized possession for Americans._

I know that some countries (particularly some of the post-Soviet ones) make it a criminal offense to have a foreign bank account, but I thought that for the US it's just a question of sending in an extra IRS form. Or is it not?

<comment><USER3> Yes, but the tax compliance is so complex now that many foreign financial organizations don't find it worth the cost to do business with Americans due to the paperwork. This is why the number of Americans relinquishing their citizenship has skyrocketed over the past three years.

<comment><USER21> You mean American tax regulations may have jurisdiction over foreign banks? I don't understand.

<comment><USER3> FAQ: [http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self- Em...](http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/FAQs- Regarding-Report-of-Foreign-Bank-and-Financial-Accounts-\(FBAR\))

No, just jurisdiction over it's citizens. The USA is one of the only countries that taxes and requires its oversees citizens to file a tax return. You can go to jail for not reporting a foreign bank account - pretty insane.

<comment><USER21> That's right, but why banks should worry about this? How does this regulation increase the cost of having an American client?

<comment><USER11> The potential penalties for noncompliance with the new tax laws can hugely affect the banks' bottom lines.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044459270457806...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444592704578062570295543436.html)

<comment><USER21> Wow. Forcing foreign jurisdictions to follow one's domestic regulations to help enforce compliance of one's citizens is bizarre.

I'd say it even trumps the regulations that are largely post-Soviet legacy in countries like Ukraine, for example.

<comment><USER3> Yep, this is what desperate empires do when they know it's the end of the line. The US has enacted a series of virtual Berlin walls. The only way to escape is to expatriate and relinquish citizenship at an American embassy. And to add insult to injury, the US Government takes 45% of all your assets over $2.5 million if you take this route (not that I have that problem). And this is already after-tax income, mind you. It's quite sad, really.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's as high as 45%, or at least I can't find something to corroborate that.

<comment><USER3> Pretty close.

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230387960457741...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303879604577410021186373802.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Justin.tv: Hundreds of channels, nothing on. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tippingpointlabs.com/2009/05/new-media-life-cycle-analysis-justintv/

<comment><USER2> If you're interested in our actual traffic, rather than poorly scaled charts with cherrypicked start and end dates, please examine the real data at:

<http://www.quantcast.com/justin.tv#traffic>

<comment><USER3> What happened in March that you saw such a traffic surge?

<comment><USER4> Probably March Madness.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> justin.tv is great for sports broadcasts. I don't get cable but I want to watch the Lakers in the playoffs. So I watch it on justin.tv (I find the link to the game on atdh.net). It's very useful for me.

<comment><USER6> And also clearly illegal, they don't have the rights for that type of broadcast. It can't be advertised against and is the only content that people actually watch, two bad omens for JTV.

<comment><USER5> It could monetize really well, actually. I'm sure that jtv has already thought of this, but they can be the hulu of live broadcasts. I've seem ad overlays as well on Justin.tv for what it's worth.

(Also, copyright violation is not the same thing as "illegal". It is a civil violation.)

<comment><USER7> One second there partner; I think you need to go back to law school on that one. It is certainly "illegal" to violate copyright law.

<comment><USER5> Illegal usually applies to criminal law, not civil law. I do know that there are some criminal copyright violations.

My point would be just that it's not proper to say that copyright violations are illegal because most copyright violations are in the realm of property law, not criminal law.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Personally I think for JustinTV to go the next level, they need to create their own webchannel. By this I mean 1 official channel promoted on the front page that runs the same concrete shows at the same times.

To start with you obviously wouldn't do 24/7. I'd probably just do it Saturday/Sunday from 12 to 5 pm. That gives you 10 hours of content to fill. And you'll be hitting your main audience when they are home and can tune in.

For content, the first couple of months just reuse the content posted by current users. And in the meanwhile hold tryouts to fill host slots. If you do 10, 1 hour shows, each host will have a whole week to produce their piece.

</comment><comment><USER9> I suppose the problem is that if you are browsing, you are stuck.

AngelConf was great.

Sports fans love it because they can rely on someone else in a broadcast umbrella to catch events they may not otherwise be able to see.

</comment><comment><USER10> Tried to watch the ferret nest channel and it just loaded forever!

<comment><USER11> It's loading fine for me right now. Any chance you're behind a firewall?

Feel free to email me some details of your setup (browser, OS, Flash version, anything else you can think of) and I'll take a look - firstname.lastname@example.com

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Justin.tv is great in it's original concept: livecasting and live events broacasted by the USERS.

Unfortunate / fortunate for Justin.tv, this is also a great platform for pointing your camera at your TV to steal the latest and greatest live events (like sports.)

Justin.tv is never going to be as big as it is now (the niche of people wanting to lifestream isn't that big), but it doesn't mean it can't be a good small business.

Staying on the current path (growing too big too fast in something you can't do) is a recipe for failure imo.</comment>


H-1B Fraud Claim at Dolby Leads to State Department, Homeland Security Complaint - <AUTHOR> https://www.santacruzsentinel.com/2018/10/31/h-1b-fraud-claim-at-dolby-leads-to-complaint-to-state-department-homeland-security-lawsuit/ <comment><USER2> I bet they still pay less to break the law than if they complied.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a paywall =(</comment>


Ask HN: Mandatory National Service, would it make politics less polarizing? - <AUTHOR> Today's politics in US is overwhelmingly polarized.  I'm not very familiar with pros/cons of mandatory national service, but am wondering if that wouldn't help people, as they enter adulthood, realize they're PART of the government and that it's not necessarily an adversary.<p>EDIT:  Just to clarify, by "national service" I don't necessarily mean military. <comment><USER2> I've thought about this, too (and I spent 20+ years in the U.S. Army Reserve). I think such a requirement would have a lot of benefits for the U.S. but I also think it would take a generation for it to be accepted and not seen as a political "stunt." It would really have to be "sold" to the country as a long- term positive, and considering out current divisions I don't know that we can agree on anything significant right now. Maybe it can be sold at the state level easier.

</comment><comment><USER3> And a webinar featuring top figures in the national service movement:

[https://www.brookings.edu/events/webinar-inspired-to- serve-t...](https://www.brookings.edu/events/webinar-inspired-to-serve-the- future-of-public-service/)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2019/10/Nationa...](https://www.brookings.edu/wp- content/uploads/2019/10/National-Service_TEXT-3.pdf)

Excellent research on the topic

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are personally considering national service, Peace Corps is an amazing experience and a shining example of what an excellent government program looks like. www.peacecorps.gov

</comment><comment><USER4> This might have some benefits but it would certainly not make politics less polarizing. See countries that have, or have had, a National Service.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there studies that have proven that a citizen's psychological profile / attitude toward government aren't impacted by mandatory national service?

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There is always a population of military veterans who pose a threat to order. When I mean always I mean Rome, I mean feudal Japan, or Hitler's first stormtroopers. Closer to home we have had black nationalists, Tim McVeigh, and other troops bring the war home with them. Now there are 'boogaloo boys' who seem to hate both blacks and cops.

Most veterans are not like that and return to private life and public service in ways adequate to admirable, but it does show that national service is not universally civilizing.

</comment><comment><USER6> The Libertarian Case for National Military Service

> [https://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/09/09/pascal-emmanuel- > gobr...](https://www.cato-unbound.org/2013/09/09/pascal-emmanuel- > gobry/libertarian-case-national-military-service)</comment>


Ask HN: What are your top 3 Comp Sci books? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Well there are currently four volumes of _TAoCP_ , so I guess I'll drop Volume 2. I can't see myself ever even contemplating implementing a number system or pseudo-random algorithm from first principles.

Not that I am likely to implement much of the other three volumes. They're top because they remind me of how many sigma I am away from the long tail of CS.

</comment><comment><USER3> "The C Programming Language" by the Dynamic Duo "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" "Design Patterns" by the Gang of Four

</comment><comment><USER4> kind of an old school selection:

Deitel & Deitel (all of them?)

Kernighan & Ritchie - The C Programming Language

Numerical Recipes in C</comment>


BitMEX leaks 20k customer emails - <AUTHOR> https://blog.bitmex.com/email-privacy-issue-what-is-happening-and-how-can-we-help/ <comment><USER2> In summary, the programmer building their batch email post tool didn't know about the implications of adding the addresses in the TO field instead of the BCC field. They should have known about this though, as almost anyone that uses email knows.

One shouldn't program something before learning how to do that thing probably manually.

BitMEX has many issue, I guess, that are downplayed here:

* They underestimated the importance of proper email usage.

* This functionality has been tasked to a programmer without enough knowledge on the subject.

* The code has not been tested / reviewed or reviewed competently

        * ... at the time of merge.

        * ... after it has been used in production.

</comment><comment><USER3> What kind of rinky-dink operation are they running?

\- A old tool not used since 2017 \- Had been many changes since then \- Not put through QA process

Who OK'd this?</comment>