Preparing For A First Meeting With Me - <AUTHOR> http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/05/preparing-for-a-first-meeting-with-me.html <comment><USER2> Like his stance or not, I have come to greatly appreciate people who don't sugar coat things...

</comment><comment><USER3> This is like the essay by EricRaymond and RickMoen:

<http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html>

Perhaps a better version is this:

<http://www.mikeash.com/getting_answers.html>

The point is: if you're meeting someone, if you want someone to help you, if you want _anything_ from someone - do your homework. If you don't make an effort, or aren't seen to have made an effort, why should they bother to help you?

This is especially true of people of whom many demands are made.

Make an effort - it's surprising how positively people will respond.

</comment><comment><USER4> A huge number of people are vague and unfocused. Especially in comparison to some of the successful people he's worked with.

So this is not surprising to me. Most cold meetings are very bad. I've largely stopped taking cold meetings because of it.

</comment><comment><USER5> "Look I'm a really important and busy person. I don't have time to be nice. Keep it short because I have a ton of meetings."

The only thing I don't see is why I should desire a meeting with this guy in the first place. And whether or not his blog is good place to post instructions on how to properly meet him. What about the proper protocol when meeting me? What if his protocol and my protocol clash?

<comment><USER6> From the article: "Regardless of the outcome of a meeting, I view it as a success if I learn one thing."

This is a phrase I've heard more than once from individuals who lack the humility to appreciate that the meeting is also a success if they teach just one thing.

<comment><USER7> It has nothing to do with humility, but rather the value of your time. Obviously, there's value to teaching, but when you're an investor doing random short meetings, you're doing it to further your own business. If you help someone out along the way (by investing in them or otherwise), that's a nice addition but by no means the goal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I found this interesting:

 _If our meeting isn't going anywhere after ten minutes, you'll notice a not so subtle shift as I move into "shit, I've got five more minutes left -- I better get something out of this meeting."_

So, if the meeting isn't succeeding, he gets antsy and tries to make something out of it. That seems reasonably admirable to me.

As for the advice, I wish it could be communicated and applied generally. How many meetings have I sat through where the participants spent the prior hour or several browsing or socializing (open space environment)? They get into the meeting, and the organizer spends 45 minutes of the hour lecturing to them about the topic. If people had prepped, the meeting could be 15 minutes and end with an informed decision, instead of being prelude to a subsequent meeting wherein a decision may or may not be reached. Meeting organizers play their part in this; all too often the agenda is mailed out 5 minutes before the meeting. Like that's going to do any good. It's CYA and does not serve any purpose of genuine communication.

I'm hesitating to post this, as my tone sounds somewhat negative. But it's what I've observed, all too often.

I think it should be taken as a warning sign. In the best groups I've worked in, people know what's going on and the meeting quickly moves on to what needs to be done, or to sharing genuinely novel information -- usually newly acquired and so not yet disseminated. If you encounter a lot of the scenario described in the prior paragraph, start hunting for a new position. Even if your current position is stable, it is likely to hold you back.

</comment><comment><USER9> Something that my high school chemistry teacher once said to me (and I hated him at the time, and did awful in his class, but learned TONS of life lessons from him) is that the best way to meet with a teacher is to do as much possible preparatory work ahead of time, in efforts not to waste his time. Preparatory work: _specific_ list of questions you don't know answers to, for example.

People are almost always willing to help if you do your prep work.

<comment><USER10> Weird. I had almost the exact same experience with my chemistry teacher too.

<comment><USER11> I think high school chemistry is the closest the Western, public, pre- university curriculum comes to actual, empirical _science_. It's the only course I had in high school where we took doing experiments (and writing them up) seriously. Geology and psychology were purely lecture-based, and physics and biology were rooted more in demonstrations (because of a lack of resources, I suppose) than student participation. Chemistry teachers, therefore, are the most likely people in a high school to think in a rational, investigatory mindset.</comment></comment></comment>


Gitlit: handle Git lfs file locks with ease - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/S2-/gitlit <comment><AUTHOR> I was looking for a desktop app that could show and handle git lfs file locks in a graphical gui for me and my coworkers, but found nothing.

So I made one. Maybe someone else finds this useful.</comment>


More than 50 nations, but not U.S., sign onto cybersecurity pact - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/cybersecurity-paris-call-for-trust-france-21e434df-8a59-48bc-8cde-cd1c1f43dfd0.html <comment><AUTHOR> Choice quotes:

The original signatories included more than 50 nations, 130 private sector groups and 90 charitable groups and universities, but not the United States, United Kingdom, Russia or China.

Key absentees from the agreement included the U.S., U.K. and Australia — three of the five nations in the powerful Five Eyes digital surveillance alliance. The others, Canada and New Zealand, both signed.

Many restrictive regimes also did not sign on, including China, North Korea, Russia and Iran, who all have active cyberwarfare programs, and Saudi Arabia, which does not.

Israel, which has a large domestic cybersecurity industry, also did not sign on.</comment>


Lego color themes as topic models - <AUTHOR> http://nateaff.com/2017/09/11/lego-topic-models/ <comment><USER2> Shopping a lego brick box - unfortunately I am under impressed by today's selection.

Only traditional shaped box I found - unfortunately littered with too many special parts, little traditional bricks:

[https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Bricks-10662-Creative- Bucket/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/LEGO-Bricks-10662-Creative- Bucket/dp/B00AWBLS80/)

Modern "classic" brick box - unfortunately very little traditional bricks, most parts are special parts - sad :(

[https://www.amazon.com/Original-Classic-Large-Creative- Brick...](https://www.amazon.com/Original-Classic-Large-Creative- Brick/dp/B074HRTJ3D/)

Back in the 1990s Lego had these big red Lego boxes, with many Lego pieces with many big and small traditional Lego bricks (4, 6 and 8-style bricks) in traditional colors. Such a Lego box used to be best to engage creativity.

How can one buy new traditional 4-, 6-, 8-style Lego bricks in large quantities nowadays?

<comment><USER3> You can't have a Lego thread without someone who hasn't touched Lego in 20 years declaring that Legos are morally bankrupt and no longer "creative," ignoring thousands of awe-inspiringly creative efforts made with a variety of brick types. Do an image search for "lego moc" (My Own Creation) for some lovely examples.

I think nostalgia is fooling you anyway. Even in the '80s, the big brick boxes had plenty of angle bricks, headlight bricks, wheels/axles, and so on. Use BrickLink to compare their parts inventories to the ones you linked to, and I think you'll find the ratio of basic rectangle bricks is similar.

<comment><USER2> "Constraints make us more creative"

See classic Lego and it's spiritual digital counterpart "Minecraft" for how constraints to only classic brick blocks inspires one. I had two red Lego brick buckets (and a handful of Lego City sets). Most useful to build almost anything were the Lego bricks from the big buckets. The Lego City sets supplied only special parts needed to build cars, and door mechanics, and figures.

And back in 1990s Lego sets contained many traditional parts too. Nowadays, there are too many special parts. Younger kids who only got Lego sets and no Lego buckets have never experienced the freedom to create anything. They often simply build the set once and play a little bit and put it aside. Unfortunately even the latest Lego brick buckets nowadays contain way too many special parts and not enough classic brick to build anything. How many buckets do one need to build three houses nowadays?

To you "lego moc". I saw several professional photos. These builds cost a lot, I guess. But I am talking about Lego for kids. Buying a Lego bucket isn't enough nowadays, a kid won't be able to build things like you with a handful of Lego sets + a bucket. A kid would need to wish dozends of Lego sets just to get "random" parts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very interesting idea. I also used the metaphor of Lego bricks as words in a topic model when doing a presentation on LDA in my undergrad class. It's cool to see that idea developed in a concrete way

</comment><comment><USER5> Did anyone else note the fascinating correlation between brick colors (second chart) and the U.S. stock market?</comment>


Top Must-Have Apps for the iPhone, and Some Runners-Up - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/technology/personaltech/11smart.html?src=me&ref=general

<comment><USER2> I hate the phrase 'must-have'. Of this list of 10, I could imagine getting moderate use of evernote and (maybe) redlaser. The others are of little-to-no use to me at all.

</comment><comment><USER3> Does anybody really edit their photos on their phone? I sometimes take snapshots straight for Twitter, but I never felt the need to enhance them. They are just snapshots. I have a real camera for other photos.

Just wondering, as photo apps seem to be immensely popular somehow.

<comment><USER4> I "really edit" photos on the iPhone 4. The 5 megapixel camera is good enough, and these two tools are good enough:

Photogene: <http://www.i-photogene.com/photogene/main.html>

Tiffen Photo fx: <http://www.tiffen.com/photofx_homepage.html>

The first is a quick crop, gamma, color balance editor. The second is an amazingly complete set of professional photo filters, based on their Photoshop filter suite. The Tiffen suite of filters support layering and masking.

Toy apps like Camera Bag, Hipstamatic, and Instagram are cute but don't allow a photographer any artistic latitude. All photos end up looking like the same half dozen built-in lomo-esque effects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> No Skype, TripIt, Echofon, the Amazon app (with Amazon Remembers), Kindle, Dropbox?

An Angry Birds is an obvious choice given its popularity. Lately, I've been addicated to Virus Strike.

</comment><comment><USER6> this list seems a little "safe" - none of these are anything that haven't been mentioned countless times in the past. i mean there's a lot else out there that i consider to be "must have". dropbox, teuxdeux, unfuddle, strip, last.fm, & skype immediately come to mind.

Teuxdeux - <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/teuxdeux/id384291782?mt=8>

Dropbox - <https://www.dropbox.com/iphoneapp>

Strip Password Manager - <http://www.getstrip.com/>

Unfuddle - <http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/unfuddle/id374901608>

Skype - <http://itunes.apple.com/app/skype/id304878510?mt=8>

Last.fm - <http://www.last.fm/group/Last.fm+for+iPhone+and+iPod+Touch></comment>


OpenEMR 2017 Year in Review - <AUTHOR> http://www.open-emr.org/year-in-review/ <comment><AUTHOR> What a year for OpenEMR! Look back at some of our biggest accomplishments and see just how many cups of coffee it takes to power the world's leading open- source EMR.

Hoping some folks on HN will appreciate this post :).

-Matthew

<comment><USER2> Great work! Looks like a vibrant community. Medical billing seems common and yet unduly expensive in the US. Hopefully this gains traction and can help reduce costs and increase efficiency.</comment></comment>


Bowtie for Knockout: Untangle your Spaghetti-Like KO Bindings - <AUTHOR> http://code.jonwagner.com/2012/08/16/bowtie-for-kno…ke-ko-bindings/

<comment><USER2> The URL you posted has an ellipsis in the middle of it. Found the real URL through the site: [http://code.jonwagner.com/2012/08/16/bowtie-for-knockout- unt...](http://code.jonwagner.com/2012/08/16/bowtie-for-knockout-untangle- your-spaghetti-like-ko-bindings/)

</comment><comment><USER3> This link was showing up as 404 so I found the correct one and re-posted it: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4389813>

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry gang! I'll be more careful when posting wordpress links. Thanks for correcting.</comment>


Ask HN: How would you make an on-site application highly available? - <AUTHOR> We have a well established product in the form of a standalone app that clients run in their environments. Technically it's a dropwizard app with H2 for persistence (our aim was to make it simple to manage). We now have clients asking to make it highly available. That will have to work in varied environments, with storage likely being in aws/gcc/azure. We have a fair amount of work cut out for us to move all the state we currently have on the filesystem to DB storage. But I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions or comments about things to pay attention to, or tools to use when moving to HA? <comment><USER2> I'm just a hobbyist but I think nginx might be something you could look into for making a load ballencing reverse proxy server.

[https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understandi...](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/understanding- nginx-http-proxying-load-balancing-buffering-and-caching)</comment>


#LessAmbitiousMovies Aims To Sort Of Take Over Part Of Your Twitter Stream - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/04/lessambitiousmovies/ <comment><USER2> Something about finding a link on my favorite aggregator pointing me to a techblog post about a rapidly trending twitter tag based on a typical imageboard thread premise makes me think we are approaching the Event Horizon of meme transmission methods, but I think that's probably a good thing.</comment>


Android Studio 2.0 – Beta - <AUTHOR> http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2016/02/android-studio-20-beta.html <comment><AUTHOR> I am literally sick of Google, they discontinued ADT when ADT was the only option for developing the native app for android, and then they introduce new ndk support in Android Studio, now after almost half year, nothing.No news about official final native support.

If it was not ready, why did they introduced it in Google IO? for messing with people's mind?

They make me angry because it is my job, And it make me really much more productive. When I tried Visual Studio native development for mobile, it was beyond anything google has been provided for developers.

I so missed Microsoft tools, And I am begging to our customer to switch to IPhone or Windows Phone.

It is interesting to see how google gets competitive. for _years_ people were begging to google to introduce new emulator, and here it is, _just_ after Microsoft released their android emulator which is super efficient. Coincidence? I don't think so.

<comment><USER2> Switch to iOS, at least the platform is consistent. And yes, Swift is amazing.

<comment><USER3> XCode though.</comment></comment></comment>


France, Germany, Italy, Spain seek to base taxes on digital giants' revenues - <AUTHOR> http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-tax-digital/france-germany-italy-spain-seek-tax-on-digital-giants-revenues-idUSKCN1BK0HX <comment><USER2> This is not about taxing revenues instead of profits.

This is about taxing EU-wide profits in EU countries proportional to the revenues generated in that country.

At the moment, many big tech companies use bookkeeping tricks to make it look like all their profit is generated in, for example, Ireland, while the revenue is generated in other EU counties.

Unfortunately, Ireland has special tax rates for these companies (the legality of which is contested), so their EU-wide effective tax rate is often ~1%.

<comment><USER3> If this system is enacted, will the benefits of staying in the EU out weigh just moving all the shell companies to the Caymans or wherever?

I wish countries would give up on corporate taxes. They are either easily circumvented, or you need a massive regulatory body to analyze all corporate transactions and determine if they are "fair."

All the same tax revenue can be gained through much better systems that are not trivially circumvented and do not create a perverse incentive for your country's companies to up and move to the nearest tax haven.

<comment><USER4> Much of the profit generated in the EU by these multinationals actually ends up largely untaxed in Bermuda/Cayman islands/... subsidiaries.

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

<comment><USER5> But that would not be able to happen if it wasn't for the EU. Then import taxes would compensate.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > A French court ruled in July French court ruled that Google, now part of > Alphabet Inc, was not liable to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion) in back > taxes because it had no "permanent establishment" in France and ran its > operations there from Ireland.

How strange. I didn't know Google were an Irish company. I see them when I connect to the internet from all over the world.

It looks like Airbnb also have their EMEA HQ there, as do Apple, eBay, Facebook, IBM, HP, ..., ...

I guess there must be a really big internet market in Ireland for all those guys to be focused on that location, right?

On another note, I tried to pay my taxes through an off-shore location, but I quickly realised I would get jail time for tax evasion.

<comment><USER7> That's illegal for a person to do, but legal for these big companies. Don't blame the companies for exploiting loopholes. Blame the law. Fix the law.

<comment><USER8> The problem with a person doing this style of tax avoidance is that the barrier to entrance is much higher than the gain.

Assuming general principals of US tax law, if you're already working as an independent contractor, you could legally set up a local company and an overseas company, have the local company bill the client, pay you a reasonable amount, and pay the overseas company the remainder for the use of its name (or whatever justification you like).

Your local company would have no net income, but may pay employer side taxes on your wages, and any minimum taxes on corporations in the local jurisdiction.

Your overseas company would have a net income, but you picked an overseas jurisdiction with low taxes, right?

You would have recognized income of the wages, and unrecognized capital gains in the overseas company. At such time as you take the money from the overseas company, that would be recognized as a capital gain.

At the end of the day, you have to run two companies, one in an unfamiliar jurisdiction, and you get to defer recognition of income and change the character of the income from normal income to capital gains. You may also have paid taxes to the overseas jurisdiction that I'm not sure qualifies for a foreign tax credit. It's a real gain, but it may not outweigh the costs.

If you're a direct employee of a company, it's also not an option, since you can't redirect your wages out of your recognized income.

<comment><USER9> Yes, if you're making $50k a year. But not if you're an entrepreneur pulling in $1m a year. Everything involving intellectual property rights is generally very fluid and easy to move around.

A smaller scale example would be living life as a perpetual traveller°: an internet based entrepreneur who makes $200k a year and bases him/herself in a jurisdiction that does not tax income. Or who travels around between countries to avoid tax.

Instead of paying 40% tax on $200k (= $80k gone, poof) you put that in your pocket and use that to pay for travel expenses. "Going into tax exile" essentially ends up paying for itself, and then some. That is why companies (and individuals) participate in tax avoidance.

°: exception; this doesn't apply to Americans. You get to pay US taxes wherever you reside, above a certain income threshold.

<comment><USER10> How does this apply to other countries? Aren't you supposed to get residence in some country before losing the residence connection of your original country?

That being said, there are countries with loose taxation like Thailand where you can establish residence and avoid taxes as long as you are not operating in the country itself.

<comment><USER9> Not really, but it's better to have official residency somewhere, though. Some countries are quite flexible on residency, however. Cyprus offers residency after spending 60 days per year in the country, and exempts foreign income from tax. In Malta you can get residency by paying €20k a year (no requirement to spend any time in the country), and foreign income is also exempt from tax, etc.

> That being said, there are countries with loose taxation like Thailand where > you can establish residence and avoid taxes as long as you are not operating > in the country itself.

I believe you can run foreign companies from Thailand without having to pay tax there, as they have no CFC laws. So the example the poster above gave basically applies, but you would book all your income in ForeignCo and take a small salary in the Thai company from fees you charge ForeignCo. That's essentially a zero tax country then.

<comment><USER11> No countries tax foreign income but the USA and Eritrea.

<comment><USER7> Not true at all. Canada, for example, taxes your worldwide income.

USA and Eritrea are unique in that they will tax your worldwide income even if you no longer live in those countries (are non-resident.) No other countries in the world have the brass balls to do that.

<comment><USER11> Only if you are resident in Canada. A lot of countries do that. The USA will tax you even if you aren't resident as long as you have at least a green card or other immigrant visa.

How many people are collecting income from a full time job while living in Canada anyways? Doesn't foreign income (vs. say capital gains) generally imply non residency?

<comment><USER9> Directors of Canadian companies who are living abroad is probably one example.

Also, people who, say, commute from CA to the US on a daily basis will generally be exempt from Canadian taxes because the work is performed in the US (just an example, I have no idea whether you can commute from CA -> US on a daily basis)

<comment><USER11> Well, I was "taxed" on my Chinese income, but never paid a dime. Foreign tax credits and foreign income exclusions mean most of us pay nothing (well, we pay Chinese taxes, just not US taxes).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Someone needs to start a company that offers transfer pricing as a service. Sign up and get a physical address, subsidiary corporations, bank accounts and even employees & board members in Ireland. Much of this can be shared infrastructure of course. If tax avoidance is going to be legal for the big guys, why not make it accessible to everyone?

<comment><USER13> As soon as you personally take advantage of the money on that account, it's treated as personal income to you. But IRS Does have a concept of foreign income [https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international- taxpayers/fore...](https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international- taxpayers/foreign-earned-income-exclusion)

<comment><USER12> That's why so many corporations keep their money offshore and figure out creative ways to spend it without repatriating it.

<comment><USER13> Only works with the foreign revenue, US-based revenues will be taxed regardless of where they end up eventually.

Europeans kinda shot themselves in the foot by not having a similar rule, and looks like they're wising up to that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find the whole system lame. I feel web giants of today are not making the web better, just different, more structured and massive. Instead of taxing them to grab a share of their earnings (whether it makes sense or not), I'd be happier if more people would write longer and denser web page as it was until the late 90s. Give incentives for people to produce.

<comment><USER15> > Give incentives for people to produce.

Even in US there is only one Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, etc. It seems like these global monopolies are a new phenomenon that requires to rethink past economic ideas.

<comment><USER14> Is this new ? USA split Rockefeller empire which was unbelievably huge too.

<comment><USER15> Yes, it is new because it is global, Rockefeller was a local phenomenon. Before you have monopolies per country and now these monopolies (or call them as you want) are centralized in US.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There is room for innovation in taxation. We need new smart taxation for information economy.

Taxing network externalizes and economic barriers for entry for example. Taxation could be used as natural pressure to correct market failures. Taxing revenue is not what EU countries propose, but it could be viable solution.

Thinking aloud: If company has market share of X% of the population it pays tax from the revenue related to X. If retail company that has 30% market share pays 0.3% extra from its revenue compared to tiny company with just 10,000 customers, it would probably be enough to even out the field and limit barriers to entry.

<comment><USER17> > Taxation could be used as natural pressure to correct market failures.

Taxation isn't natural.

By the way, I'd like to remind everyone: when the state taxes something, the state now depends on that thing for its budget.

> If retail company that has 30% market share pays 0.3% extra from its revenue > compared to tiny company with just 10,000 customers, it would probably be > enough to even out the field and limit barriers to entry.

If you are really interested in barriers to entry, you can do a thought- experiment (or a real experiment): try to start a business. See where the friction is. And then ask yourself what the barriers were.

Another thought-experiment: imagine if starting and running a business (which includes collecting revenue, paying employees, paying taxes, abiding by the law) were nearly zero-friction. If starting a business had very low artificial friction, then there would _actually_ be natural pressure against market incumbents.

<comment><USER16> I run business in Finland and pay high taxes. Friction is not the taxes. If it were, I would have moved my business to Estonia long time ago, it's just few hours away. I could do it over internet in few hours and start within days.

There are different ways for countries compete as "business platforms". I'm not saying that some way is better than another, what I'm saying is that there are different strategies that can work.

High taxes in Nordic countries work as form of evolutionary pressure. They harm low-tech low education requirement jobs and businesses. They drive them to China and to the third world. They help high-tech companies and skilled workers, because taxes pay for great education, safety nets general well- being.

Within US different states have different strategies. High-tech hubs seem to tax more and provide more just like Nordic countries. Some states choose to compete with low regulation low pay jobs against Mexico, China and India. Good luck with that. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_tax_levels_in_the_United_States)

<comment><USER18> I think you've vastly confused cause and effect. Rich economies can afford high tax rates because they are rich, and poor economies have to compete for what businesses they can get.

Another obvious confounder is that richer states tend to be more urban, and urban places tend to be more liberal. Which vote for higher tax rates and social programs. Rural states are more conservative which favor smaller governments. This is just an effect of political demographics, not a cause of superior tax policies.

<comment><USER16> Many rich economies started poor.

Systematic investment to education and infrastructure have provided the tools to become a rich economy. Becoming rich country with low level taxation is possible only for countries with lots of natural resources, like oil.

<comment><USER18> Governments in most rich countries today are vastly larger than a century ago. American in particular was basically an extreme libertarian system until relatively recent times. These countries were already rich, or well on their way to becoming so, when their governments bloated up. Rich societies cause big governments, not the other way around.

Additionally, things like education and infrastructure are a tiny fraction of government spending (although they tend to keep growing despite not getting any better.) Almost no one disagrees that the government should fund those things. That's not where the vast majority of your high taxes are going.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> They always talk about taxing giants, but in the end we get market entry barriers for the small startups.

<comment><USER20> There are tons of laws and regulations that only affect companies above a certain size. Are these not satisfying?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wonder what the impact will be on these companies' ability to compete against entrenched players in those EU countries. For example, will this make Amazon's prices non-competitive with European bricks-and-mortar retailers?

I also wonder what the impact will be on their stock prices, because taxes on _top-line revenues_ have a disproportionate impact on profit margins. For example, a 5% tax on revenues would render Amazon unprofitable in the EU and would cut Google's 20%+ net profit margin by about a quarter in the region.

Finally, if this goes through, will other jurisdictions around the world follow?

<comment><USER22> Currently these giants have to pay less than bricks-and-mortar retailers[1], which is why the system is unfair. Amazon pays less taxes on a book sold than a small 1-person shop across the street. Until very recently, they didn't pay taxes in some countries at all [2]

[1] [http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/steueroase- luxemburg-a...](http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/steueroase-luxemburg- amazon-soll-weniger-als-ein-prozent-steuern-zahlen-1.2162444)

[2] [http://www.sueddeutsche.de/news/politik/eu-amazon-zahlt- jetz...](http://www.sueddeutsche.de/news/politik/eu-amazon-zahlt-jetzt- deutsche-steuern-dpa.urn-newsml-dpa-com-20090101-150524-99-01771)

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> The idea of a revenue tax of course contradicts the stated justifications for existing taxes on business: the funding of ephemeral services which contribute indirectly to the business's revenue.

Google benefits from approximately no government infrastructure in France, Germany, Italy, or Spain, but they want to get their grubby hands on it nonetheless.

<comment><USER24> When Google or Apple declares losses in Spain having record revenues so they have fiscal benefits when that country has a very big crisis then we have a big problem.

But hey, those countries ajust want to get their grubby hand in those poor companies.

<comment><USER23> Google is not responsible for the corrupt and decadent governments in countries they don't operate out of; they're hardly responsible for it where they _do_ operate. When China manipulates the markets so much that they collapse, and when Sweden spends its way into poverty, it will not be Google's fault, nor their responsibility to pay for it.

<comment><USER25> Decadent? I take issue. Google, like virtually every large corporation in the world, spends a significant amount of time and resources finding the optimal way to pay the least amount of taxes, through loopholes, borderline or actually illegal schemes, lobbying etc. We're supposed to blame the _countries_ for being defrauded in this way, not the multinationals doing the defrauding? Come off it.

You want to do business in a country, you abide by the laws of that country. Governments serve their citizens and their interests. Whatever is convenient for corporations has (or should have) _zero_ bearing on any decisions. In true liberal style: if they don't like the rules they're welcome to go elsewhere.

<comment><USER26> I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day exploits — only difference is that the law is not above itself, so if the tax loophole is legal, then it's legal.

That said, just because something is legal doesn't make it moral, but even though I think we agree on that, I'd have to argue loopholes are totally in the domain of legislators to fix — if I understand correctly, UK law requires tax payers to report any minimisation schemes they are party to. Does that have teeth? I don't know, but it's a thought.

<comment><USER27> > I view tax codes like buggy software, lawful tax minimisation like zero day > exploits

I have it you view lobbying as having a hand in the code you subsequently exploit, and therefore a major ethics breach ?

<comment><USER26> Pretty much.

I view corporations as non-human intelligences, so while it's totally unethical for a human to manipulate the law to their own ends, it's also something I expect corporations to perceive as acceptable, in as much as that makes sense (they will not shun each other for it) and in much the way we humans generally agree it's wrong to kill but we don't shun people for amputations or appendectomies.

This is why I prefer democratic corporations, rare as they are, to pure capitalist ones — at least the metaphorical appendix has a vote.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> EU really needs to get into a fiscal and political union like India or the US instead of their current mish mash. That will take care of both tax gaming like this and stuff like refusal to take haircut on bad Greece debt to prop up the balance sheets of German and French banks.

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207190](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15207190)

</comment><comment><USER30> I am surprised no one mentioned the Dutch sandwich yet. Look it up: the EU is a taxation joke.</comment>


Ask HN: Interest in Discrete Optimization Course - <AUTHOR> Hello folks,
I am thinking of putting together an online course which goes over the fundamentals of discrete optimization in the context of the traveling salesman problem. While there is a lot of focus on machine learning nowadays, I feel optimization and the set of tools it provides is often ignored and is a wonderful teaching ground for both physics-inspired heuristics as well as techniques in parallel programming.
I was curious to see if there was general interest in such a course and if there are specific mathematical or technical topics that people would find interesting to learn.
Thanks! <comment><USER2> I would be very interested!

</comment><comment><USER3> Will be very interested.</comment>


This hackathon is more of a virtual accelerator - <AUTHOR> https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/500-blockchain-hackers-battle-50000-prize/ <comment><USER2> That's a great idea! Education Coin :)

"One team, for example, wants to free academic knowledge by implementing a token and blockchain-based publishing system to replace academic journals: A distributed publication platform build on Ethereum and IPFS could incentivize post-publication peer review, reduce the lag between work written and read, and save the taxpayer billions by reducing library subscription fees."

<comment><USER3> Agreed, but there also seems to be quite a few ideas that have already been expressed. Take this one for microfinance:

"let's build a microfinance platform that provides to poor people a micro investement to help them to make their own business. it help to creat a partenership between the financier (the investor) and the other partner (the requester or working partner) who manages the financier's investment.

The investors provide the money to the requester against an agreed portion of the profit that the second partner will make by investing the money. Both parties agree in advance to a profit sharing relationship and the timeline of the project. No guaranteed return, any losses would be borne by investors.

Profits generated by the enterprise are divided between the hub and the requester in accordance with the profit sharing ratios set out in the Agreement"</comment></comment>


Your Typing Style Might Not Be So Bad - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/your-stupid-ass-typing-style-might-not-actually-be-so-b-1758276263 <comment><USER2>
       > The researchers say our typing techniques are often a
       > reflection of the task being performed on the computer.
       > "The touch typing system was developed for typing
       > sentences on typewriters," said Feit. "It is not
       > advantageous for Photoshop shortcuts or gaming, often
       > done with one hand on the mouse."

       > Developers could use this research to create better user
       > interfaces both in software and in keyboards
       > themselves. The interfaces should be tailored to the
       > way we type today, not how we typed a long time ago.

So much this. Writing English sentences on a typewriter with touch typing works well. But many people don't write prose exclusively and computer keyboards are not typewriters so it's no surprise that touch typing doesn't often work so well.

As a programmer I find typing {, } and \ with the pinky the biggest problem. There are layouts especially for programmers. The ones that I'm aware of are Programmer Dvorak[1] and Neo[2].

[1] [http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/](http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Neo)

<comment><USER3> Neo is optimized for the German language, not for programming.

[http://www.neo-layout.org](http://www.neo-layout.org)

Other languages have a different letter distribution so different keys should be on the home row, for example.

Other popular layouts include:

Colemak: [http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/](http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/)

Norman: [https://normanlayout.info/](https://normanlayout.info/)

Workman: [http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/](http://www.workmanlayout.com/blog/)

<comment><USER2> > Neo is optimized for the German language, not for programming.

Optimization for programming is not the main goal of the Neo layout, but it is a feature, see [1]

Programmier- und Sonderzeichen wie / \ [ ] $ > = sind gut erreichbar.

My translation: Programming and special charactes, like / \ [ ] $ > = are easy to reach.

[1] [http://wiki.neo-layout.org/wiki/Einf%C3%BChrungskapitel](http://wiki.neo- layout.org/wiki/Einf%C3%BChrungskapitel)

Thanks for sharing the other layouts.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried to learn to touch type last year. Bought a blank keyboard to help. 8 months later I still type with two index fingers, at the same speed as I ever did (about 45 wpm) and with more or less zero errors. Only on a blank keyboard, so I never look down anymore. Kind of weird and still unnerving . I'll try touch typing again sometime. And yes, I'm afraid I'm a professional programmer.

<comment><USER5> When I got a Das Keyboard back in college, it was largely to break myself of the habit of looking down (also it looked cool). I wasn't slow, but looking as I typed always ended up tripping me up. Removing the letters was the only thing that broke me of the habit. Best money I spent on my machine, silly as it was.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> You might be just as fast and just as accurate but your fingers are definitely working harder, which could lead to RSI, for example. People have analyzed various layouts for efficiency, which may vary with type of work:

[http://xahlee.info/kbd/dvorak_and_all_keyboard_layouts.html](http://xahlee.info/kbd/dvorak_and_all_keyboard_layouts.html)

[http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout- analyzer/#/about](http://patorjk.com/keyboard-layout-analyzer/#/about)

[https://medium.com/@vojtajina/my-keyboard-layout-is- better-t...](https://medium.com/@vojtajina/my-keyboard-layout-is-better-than- yours-f23b19d1b046)

There are more links under "Alternate Keyboard Layouts" on this GitHub page: [https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/keyboa...](https://github.com/melling/ErgonomicNotes/blob/master/keyboards.org)

<comment><USER6> > which could lead to RSI

As a single data-point I find RSI isn't a problem for my typing style. I'm in my sixties and I've fought RSI on and off many times. To the contrary my typing style has changed to be more comfortable and less stressful. I've actually had to change it at times to lessen pains in specific fingers. Forcing myself to use touch-typing had caused pain in my pinkies before.

<comment><USER3> What is your "typing style"? Newer keyboard layouts trying to reduce the "pinky" usage. "Programmer Dvorak", for instance, places frequently use programming keys (e.g. [ }) more conveniently on the keyboard. What you're doing might work for you, but there are quite a few people with RSI issues so something that helps and is reproducible is needed.

<comment><USER6> I use only qwerty. I've never considered another. Studies say dvorak is no faster and I've never considered it for pain.

> What you're doing might work for you,

As I said, it's just one data point.

<comment><USER3> It's not about typing faster, it's about moving your fingers less by placing frequently used keys on the home row, or in an easier place to reach. I posted a lot of information about this. Read through some of it.

Think about it like mileage on a car. If your fingers move half the distance to type the same text, that will add up over the decades.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I was given a computer at an early age and my mother didn't know how it worked and had never used a computer, and my grandfather was blind, and so had never used a computer either. I picked up how different keys and combinations worked myself at around the age of seven, and developed an awful habit of turning caps-lock on, pressing the letter I wanted in uppercase, and then turned caps- lock off again.

I'm thirty now, and a professional programmer, and it's only within the last few months that I've gotten away from the habit by disabling the caps-lock key, I might remap it to something else in the future.

I type at a pretty speedy pace, probably around 80-90 words per minute, my fingers don't rest on the home row. The only thing that bothers me with my current typing is that my left pinky has a tendency stick up, as if I'm drinking tea. [0]

[0] Like so. [http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-crwYVpcU7z8/TfvDnx6v82I/AAAAAAAAB3...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-crwYVpcU7z8/TfvDnx6v82I/AAAAAAAAB3k/It_wUU46a3c/s1600/tea+with+pinky.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER8> Makes me wonder. Are we typists? It almost never happens to me to have to copy a text from paper - and never more than a few lines in any case. So I can freely stare at the keyboard while I type, I'm concentrated on what I'm typing anyway. Also, I don't think that my output is in any way limited by the amount of words I can type per minute - more by the amount of words or lines of code my brain is able to produce in a minute, which is not much.

Finally, if there is something that really makes me cringe, is when some colleague or friend proudly declares to type like real men do, without looking at the keyboard. They usually sit in the correct ergonomic position, back well straight, eyes on the monitor, and start typing. A word. Mistake. Backspace. Again. Mistake. Backspace. Space. Mistake. Backspace.

And they're typing code. With auto-completion, intellisense and everything.

<comment> T-hawk For programming, words-per-minute typing speed isn't so important. Just typing characters is a small fraction of your input. You're doing all sorts of other operations - moving and pasting expressions and lines, adjusting indentation, switching to another window with documentation. These operations go all over the function keys, navigation keys (home, page down, etc), arrow keys, modified by all sorts of chords (ctrl, alt, apple, etc). None of that is captured by the traditional words-per-minute typing metric.

For programming, a better characterization is actions-per-minute, like in Starcraft. I can navigate my IDE and OS noticeably faster than most other developers I've met. Especially non-technical folks are amazed by the speed that I can compile and tab over to the explorer window to copy the output to a staging server, faster than they even register what they're watching. Actions- per-minute and the accuracy of them does matter for the speed and productivity of a given programmer.

<comment><USER9> I'm not convinced apm makes a more productive programmer.

One of the juniors on my team actually asked me the other day how many lines of code he should ideally produce per day. I told him that as far as I was concerned, anthing below zero lines was pretty cool.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Like any South Korean worth their salt, I learned to type on qwerty from typing Starcraft cheat codes as a child.

</comment><comment><USER11> I learned to type with speed by playing Police Quest when quite young, and developed a quite quick, but interesting style where I never use my thumbs. I tend to cover roughly 2/3 of the keyboard (the left side) using my left hand, and the remaining 1/3 (and 10-key) with the right.

It's worked out well for me, and I can touch type both code and English wonderfully. The only time it falls apart is when I find myself in front of a split, so-called ergonomic keyboard, which expects each hand to do a 50% split.

</comment><comment><USER12> As a counter-anecdote: my stupid self-taught style involved my left pinky shifted left to hover/handle the shift/ctrl keys, and thus my right hand travelled a bit more to cover the remaining keys.

In graduate school I started to have increasingly frequent bouts of wrist pain and realized I needed to do something or risk major surgery. I took a weekend, relearned touch typing with the Colemak layout, and have been happy I did that ever sense.

</comment><comment><USER13> Beyond typing speed, it is worth mentioning that overuse of the index fingers (hunt and peck) can lead to increased risk of carpal tunnel: [http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/GeneralNeurology/4481](http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/GeneralNeurology/4481)

</comment><comment><USER14> I switched to Colemak to reduce strain and found it to be effective. The only issue I have with it, is I sometimes forget to press ctrl-space before I pass my Mac to a coworker. Then I have to explain out-loud that I use Colemak, which is hard to do without sounding like a total hipster.

<comment><USER15> s/hipster/autist/

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I learned how to touch-type in high school so I could type easily at college. After programming for years I've migrated to a custom scheme that seems a lot easier to type than touch. I have suspected I was no slower but I haven't tested myself. Even if slower it is easier.

</comment><comment><USER16> After reading that I don't feel so bad now that I don't know how to type. Hard to break the habit of using two fingers on a C64 in grade school. The qwerty keyboard seems very inefficient for technical use anyway.

</comment><comment><USER17> I am using dvorak. Learned it when found out about [http://www.typingstudy.com](http://www.typingstudy.com) :-) Love it since then!

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't this more a reflection of the limits of the qwerty layout? Both 'styles' have similar asymptotic limits because the layout simply doesn't enable faster speeds very well.</comment>


The Death of the Mom and Pop E-Store - <AUTHOR> https://penguindreams.org/blog/the-death-of-the-mom-and-pop-e-store/ <comment><USER2> Amazon basically uses third-party sellers to outsource product discovery risk. By pressuring / enticing sellers to use Amazon's fulfillment platform they know where those sellers get their products from, and if a given product becomes very popular they can just contact the manufacturer and sell the product themselves, cutting out the third-party seller. It's understandable that sellers love the high reach they can get on Amazon, but by selling on the platform they provide Amazon all the information they need to eventually kill their business (except if they're producing the good they sell, in which case Amazon might have more difficulty cutting them out). In my opinion this is a gross misalignment of incentives, as the platform operator has a direct incentive to put you out of business as soon as you become successful.

<comment><USER3> "Might have more difficulty cutting them out.."

Pretty sure this is why amazon created amazon basics. To go that last mile on cutting out the high margin products they can't source themself.

<comment><USER4> Walmart helped to innovate the space. They did it mostly as a form of leverage, so they could apply pressure to brands that constantly seek to raise prices. Walmart will add or pull various Great Value products depending on if they want to punch a brand downward on price. So if Kraft insists on $2.50 for a box of Velveeta Shells, Walmart introduces a generic version of the same product at $1.10 and puts it right next to the Kraft product. They do the same thing throughout their store, not primarily targeting high margin products (of which they have few in their entire store), rather using it as a lid on pricing power for brands. Walmart makes very little on the Great Value brand products, however it helps them counter the exclusivity leverage that huge brands like Coke, Pepsi, Kraft, Mondelez, et al. have over them.

Amazon does seem to be using their basics system in a very different manner, from observing what products they're pushing and the prices they're charging.

<comment><USER5> Walmart does exert massive price pressure on their suppliers, but it's mostly by virtue of the leverage they gain by being so huge that their suppliers need Walmart a lot more than Walmart needs them.

Walmart didn't create or innovate store brands (aka private label) for food; they didn't even start selling food until 1988 or launch Great Value until 1992. Private labels date back to the mid-1800s. [1]

[1] [https://plma.com/PRIVATELABELSSTOREBRANDSANDGENERICPRODUCTSC...](https://plma.com/PRIVATELABELSSTOREBRANDSANDGENERICPRODUCTSCHAP27.pdf)

<comment><USER4> I never said Walmart invented the space. They did innovate in the space however and have used it at a scale that had not remotely been seen before.

I entirely disagree with your premise that Walmart's primary leverage against the large brands is their scale. The reason I was so specific on pressure on brands, is because that's where Walmart has the weakest position versus the core brands in cases of segment dominance. Kraft for example is an extraordinarily large and powerful supplier at what they do. Without the very cheap, near zero margin version of their Great Value competing products, Walmart has few good options for applying pressure to a supplier the size of Kraft that dominates so many spaces. There are no replacement products that can blanket fill up their thousands of stores coast to coast and always meet demand as the sole supplier. You can't get that kind of supply & guarantee from small mom & pop labels that are heavily regional.

<comment><USER5> Kraft-Heinz scale ($18B sales) is impressive, but it's still not much compared to Wal-Mart scale ($514B). That scale is what underlies the negotiation, just as Kraft-Heinz's scale typically let's them attempt to dominate their other customers. "Weakest position" for Wal-Mart, even if true, is relative and the absolute value is still quite strong.

Every regional grocery store chain has private labels from which they get roughly the same stuff; store brands are a mid-1850s innovation for exactly the same leverage over suppliers as Walmart want to get. Walmart making a decision to vertically integrate an element of their supply chain as opposed to regionally contract also isn't an innovation: it's simply an obvious and logical step at scale. Finally, dismissing regional contracting as a possibility is silly: Florida and Washington state having their generic mac-n- cheese rolling out of different factories is not a deal breaker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> A legitimate mom-and-pop is never going to compete with larger retailers for commodity items like PC components. They don't have the buying power, they don't have the economies of scale and they can't offer meaningfully better support or curation. The "mom-and-pop" retailers who _can_ compete are generally doing something shady, from grey imports to outright counterfeiting.

That's far from the case in all verticals. I have bought tons of stuff from small specialised online retailers, because they can meaningfully compete in niche markets. If I want a woodworking tool, my first port of call is Workshop Heaven, because they sell a carefully curated selection of extremely high- quality products. Everything they ship has been QCed by someone who actually knows about tools, so I'll happily pay a premium in the knowledge that I'll never get a dud. I'll buy a tool from a brand that I've never heard of, because I trust their curation. I look forward to seeing their newsletter in my inbox, because it usually highlights cool new tools that I haven't heard of.

IMO, the future of mom-and-pop retailing doesn't look like mom-and-pop retail - it looks like a boutique. A small selection of carefully curated products, a fanatical commitment to quality and genuinely useful pre- and post-sales support. To survive in a post-Amazon world, small retailers need to evolve into niche brands in their own right.

<comment><USER7> Agreed, boutique online sellers can still compete. For example, I will always buy my stationary from JetPens if I can help it.

Someone should put together a list of such retailers across various specialties.

<comment><USER8> I'll add Goulet Pens to that list.

They maintain a Youtube channel where they break down pretty much anything you'd ever want to know about how to intelligently buy a fountain pen.

They've got a usable site where I don't have to worry about getting scammed or even creating an account -- last time I bought a pen from them, the package even came with a handwritten note; it was just a really nice experience.

Pretty much all of my ink/pen related needs go through Goulet, specifically because I trust them more than Amazon.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Its amazing how technology has failed at democratizing commerce , and everything really. In the early 2000s it was all about decentralizing, democratizing , empowering the small units. Nowadays, from tech stacks to marketing channels it 's as if there is a conspiracy to keep centralizing.

Consolidation happens in every economic wave, but this feels premature.

<comment><USER10> Maybe there are better references, but, in January 2000, I wrote up a bunch of notes on the experience of building a PC from parts, as the various resellers and shoppers were still in the early stages of figuring things out: [https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap- pc-2000/](https://www.neilvandyke.org/cheap-pc-2000/)

<comment><USER11> Wow, I remember the having the exact same deliberation and selecting the Abit BP6 at the time for much the same reasons.

The ability of that motherboard to run dual Intel Celeron CPUs was unique at the time as it was a feature Intel had disabled on these chips and required some magic from Abit to enable the dual CPU functionality. This was arguably really the board that made dual processor configs affordable for enthusiasts on a budget for the first time, I loved mine.

> > [http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html](http://archive.arstechnica.com/reviews/3q99/bp6/bp6-1.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I run a small online store, we focus on a particular niche tech, LoRaWAN. It's specific enough (at the moment) that there aren't many other folk in this area.

We started out with Shopify, but that's actually really limited in functionality unless you spend many $100s per month on apps to add basic stuff (like VAT handling). We switched to a self-hosted shop, which feels totally old skool but is working out pretty well. We're happily charging cards and shipping stuff all over the world.

Our thing is knowing the products and providing support, so I think that has some value. If you want a boxes shifted cheap then Amazon's your answer. Anything cleverer, then specialist retailers still have some real value.

<comment><USER13> Got a link? Having gone from zero to keen this afternoon as a result of the "Crazy LORA ranges" post, I'm interested in acquiring a "The Things Node" or if possible a cheaper device which will let me test if my nearest Things Network gateway is in range.

<comment><USER12> [https://connectedthings.store/gb/](https://connectedthings.store/gb/)

We don't have the Things Node yet, but we do have the Things Uno (EU) which is a really handy dev board for experiments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Anything related to electronics and photography and supplies I buy at BHPhoto.

Why - because BHPhoto:

\- Has excellent support, refund and matching policies.

\- Does not charge sales tax (imagine that!) if you use their Payboo card. Actually they officially charge sales tax but it gets immediately refunded so you don't pay it.

\- Does not carry counterfeit junk or faked-up crap with fake reviews from shady sellers like Amazon or ebay does.

\- Offer free shipping

Smaller e-tailer and retailers cannot compete with BHPhoto refund policies and cannot compete with sales tax compensation policies (thanks government for enforcing sales taxes all over).

Support and guarantee of quality products is more important to me that 2 days shipping.

<comment><USER15> I stopped shopping at B&H after this mess a few years ago: [https://petapixel.com/2017/08/16/bh-pay-3-22m-settle- lawsuit...](https://petapixel.com/2017/08/16/bh-pay-3-22m-settle-lawsuit- filed-dept-labor/)

I'm lucky to have some local stores I can still shop at though, and of course KEH for used equipment.

<comment><USER14> Understood.

Everyone has their own priorities to choose shopping locations.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I'm in this space. There are just so many ways to reach potential customers nowadays each with their own audiences. Although marketplaces still rule, I'm beginning to see the trend that savvy long-term businesses who want to protect their upside and own their customers are beginning to focus more of their efforts on their own properties (à la Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, etc) while treating the marketplaces they sell on as marketing channels. It's already becoming commonplace now for a retailer to be on a wholesale platform, a few marketplaces, have their own website, and also sell in a brick & mortar location.

Shameless plug: I work on Trunk [0] which helps businesses sync their inventory in real-time across everywhere they sell. The long-term vision is to make selling on multiple places just as easy as selling on one!

[0] [https://www.trunkinventory.com](https://www.trunkinventory.com)

<comment><USER17> That's a really cool idea! I've been wondering how to participate on Amazon ecosystem without having to engage in Adversarial Interoperability - and this is one neat way. Congrats on figuring it out!

<comment><USER16> Thanks so much! I wouldn't say I've figured it out just yet :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> An amazon business story from Germany. I've opened a brand new amazon business account for a brand new company (VAT number present, HRB number present). I wanted to link a bank account to this amazon account, as one would do in Germany. This did not work, for whatever reason.

However, amazon offered my company a €1500 credit line. I had to immediately buy a printer and a couple of 27" screens. I used the credit line. I also used a director's home address as a delivery address because, you know, why would you sit at an empty office and wait for shipment.

They have shipped the order, the invoices have been paid. One day after the invoices have been paid, I received the email that the business account has been suspended because of "reasons".

Obviously, they did not say what the reasons were. They asked me to FAX to them director's personal information (passport scan, proof of address), without giving any info on what are they going to do with info. I contacted them via their support website, because there is obviously no number to call or an actual person to contact. I have no idea how do they run their business in Germany without this kind of info, their business unit has an office in Germany, Regensburg, I believe.

In response to my contact, they sent me just blanket emails repeating their requests.

I just dropped it and stopped buying via Amazon. No more personal or business purchases anymore. Bye amazon.

The best was 6 weeks later, their business manager sent me a request for feedback on what my experience with amazon business is like. Well, they never came back to me after receiving a sour, detailed comment.

I avoid doing any kind of business with amazon AND aws since then. I give money to German businesses. I will never send them any official documents via scans. All the info they need is in commercial register but they are too lazy to figure things out.

Bye amazon, only when the hell freezes.

* Edit: I've been a loyal amazon and aws customer for 7 years. Burned thousands of Euro with amazon and aws over the years through different ventures. However, their attitude and behaviour regarding the info which only governmental organisations should be asking for, turned me completely away.

I understand they have a fraud department and what not, and maybe they have a good intent. However, this being amazon "business", I expected them to know how to do business. Companies have registered addresses, phone numbers, list of shareholders and names of directors are publicly available. There are more suitable channels than blanket emails, faxes and scans.

<comment><USER19> > I contacted them via their support website, because there is obviously no > number to call or an actual person to contact

That's weird, when I'm logged in I have the option to have Amazon call me. Perhaps only on consumer accounts not business accounts?

Did you try doing that, then asking to be transferred to the business team?

<comment><USER18> The only option for contact available on my account was a support ticket. I know they have numbers in the US. But this is EMEA, US does not deal with that. Edit: here's a Twitter thread: [https://twitter.com/rad_g/status/1117811252493996034?s=21](https://twitter.com/rad_g/status/1117811252493996034?s=21)

<comment><USER19> I'm in the UK...

I just went to amazon.de and while the interface isn't the same (they make it harder to find the contact us form it seems), I still had the option to pick "call me" and then pick a german number.

<comment><USER18> I don't know which amazon you are looking at. This is what I see in my business account:

[https://pasteboard.co/IqF4F4q.png](https://pasteboard.co/IqF4F4q.png)

There is no option to call anybody and have them call me back.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> At least in Europe (I mostly buy from Germany) there still seem to be a high number of these smaller E-Stores.

In fact everything thats more expensive than ~100€, I'll search for on my favorite price comparison website. Very rarely Amazon has the best offer and ordering from a small E-Store isn't any more effort than ordering from Amazon, when they offer payments via PayPal or Amazon Pay.

When ordered before 18:00, almost all vendors nowadays will ship the same day and the products will arrive on the next one, just as when ordering from Amazon.

</comment><comment><USER21> I recently purchased a product sold on Amazon, but deliberately purchased it from the manufacturer, via their Shopify site, to support them more.

Six days later, it arrived.

From an Amazon warehouse. In an Amazon box. Sporting a bright white ASIN sticker.

Hmmmmmmm.

<comment><USER22> So the manufacturer was just re-selling stuff from Amazon?

<comment><USER23> No, the manufacturer likely uses Amazon as their fulfillment network as you often get better storage/shipping rates this way.

These manufacturer fulfilled network (MFN) orders cost the manufacturer a premium in shipping fees over FBA orders (orders sold/fulfilled through Amazon), but don't carry the referral fee (8-40%).

Given this, it is almost always cheaper for the manufacturer to sell off Amazon and ship MFN... if you ignore customer acquisition cost.

<comment><USER24> Why is there such a large range for referral fees? And I wonder how the referral fee itself is calculated.

<comment><USER23> I apologize, the referral fee range I previously stated is a little misleading.

Referral fees for the vast majority of items is 8% to 15%, which in and of itself is a massive range. I believe this is mostly due to the typical margin on each item. Perhaps the typical cost of customer acquisition also plays a role.

The minimum is 6% for personal computers, which historically have super slim margins anyhow, and 45% for Amazon Device accessories, probably because Amazon wants to maintain a major advantage over third party accessories (and possibly because they dominate the market for Amazon device accessories, so they're able to charge a major premium)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Mom and pop are drop shipping these days, it's much cheaper but less fun (and less work) for them.

<comment><USER26> While I have not looked into drop shipping in any extensive way, the flaw in the premise to me is that there are seemingly huge lead times (at least with regard to when sourcing from AliExpress or similar). Any idea how people who actually do this professionally mitigate that?

<comment><USER27> 1 way is to work with US based manufacturers

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I find that a little sad too. I am also starting to wonder if big companies are actually creating wealth like it usually is said. Or maybe they just concentrate wealth that could have gone to a lot of smaller players towards themselves and in the end it's just a zero-sum game.

</comment><comment><USER29> Shopify enables new generation of Mom & Pop E-Store :)

<comment><USER30> It's hard to see Shopify resolving the issues at hand. The costs associated with mom n pop e-commerce are ultimately too high (eg investments in SEO). The same could be said for similar platforms like SquareSpace or Wix that offer e-commerce.

I have a side project that monitors mom n pop sites -- take for example vintage clothing store sites in New York City. The landscape has become a ghost town, with hundreds of previous sites now abandoned. They've largely moved to platforms like Etsy or Instagram.

<comment><USER23> I don't understand why Shopify doesn't create a search engine for Shopify products. Overnight they would become a powerhouse akin to Amazon and solve the #1 issue faced by sellers -- product discovery.

The #2 issue Shopify sellers face is fulfillment, but IIRC they are investing $1B+ in building out their own FCs across the US. (Which is peanuts, but a step in the right direction)

<comment><USER31> > I don't understand why Shopify doesn't create a search engine for Shopify > products. Overnight they would become a powerhouse akin to Amazon and solve > the #1 issue faced by sellers -- product discovery.

I don't see the appeal. I really, really like Shopify as a seller and would always recommend it to someone looking to sell online, regardless of volume. However as a customer I couldn't care less about a Shop's backend as long as I have a pleasant shopping and ordering experience. And Shopify alone doesn't guarantee that.

A general search engine and price comparison for online stores/products, regardless of platform, is more appealing, but I think we already have that, at least here in Germany with Idealo, Geizhals or Google Shopping.

Of course, when Shopify can provide fast, Prime-like shipping with their new fulfillment plans that's an actual appeal worth searching for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> It's some deja vu that Walmart was branded as the place that killed mom and pop stores some 10+ years ago, and now Amazon is the place killing online stores (and partly Walmart) since ecommerce has taken off in recent years.

Amazon's golden goose has been their logistics. It creates a company that is like ebay+ups together. Mom and pops may have the same wares as amazon, but the shipping and order efficiency is a tough gap to close against amazon. Getting an order packaged, to the courier, and in transport for delivery still takes time and people for most 'mom and pops'. It's like trying to build a faster locomotive to compete with the company that owns the railroad.

</comment><comment><USER33> Its big fish eating smaller fish. Most commerce goes like this: Person A buys from person B who buys from person C. Put yourself in between and take a cut, or run a service to make the chain more efficient/convenient. Or add a link to the chain.

</comment><comment><USER34> I love shopping at smaller retailers that sell great products. In fact, my main problem is finding them. Does anyone know of a website or something that promotes niche retailers in different categories?

<comment><USER35> This could be a fun project idea. How would you imagine yourself finding what you are looking for?

Would you see yourself going to a website like "momandpops.com" and choosing from categories like "Household" "Clothing" "Outdoors" and subcategories like "Clothing > Men's" "Clothing > Kid's"? When you select the categories, you'd be shown a listing page of smaller retailers that sell products in that category.

<comment><USER34> YES! I would love a site dedicated to quality products, with an emphasis on smaller shops or startups. I just want something curated by people with decent taste. Stuff that everyone already buys, but want a more quality/special offering. I love places that don't sell their stuff on amazon and are too small to get in department stores. I've seen a couple websites that do this, but it's mostly aimed at a niche(ex. Stuff for artsy moms, or toys for super single rich guys).

I'll post some links to give you an idea of the kind of stuff I'm into. Honestly I just want a website curating cool websites that sell physical products.

[https://ramaworks.store/](https://ramaworks.store/) [https://ghostly.com/](https://ghostly.com/) [https://www.muji.us/store/](https://www.muji.us/store/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The software side of it has not helped. I blame the state of frontend web development rather than databases, payment gateways and other backend aspects.

Not every mom and pop store has a six figure sum to throw to an agency for them to spend six months under delivering a website for them with the 'latest agile methods'.

We sort of have ourselves to blame, the hubris and pathetic development approaches that go with ecommerce have killed the market for mom and pop ecommerce stores.

This is really bad for web development, the customer and the independent retailer.

<comment><USER37> You can put together a Woocommerce with a paid template in 1 day and paying less than $1000 to a indian guy. And of course there's a lot of middle ground between mine and yours examples.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There are many edge cases on dimensions other than product.

I live on a small island that enjoys US Postal Service by boat. Amazon will ship to me. The high number of mom-and-pops that aren't set up to ship to me creates a situation where, if I need something Amazon doesn't have, I usually have to send it to someone in the US and once enough stuff builds up, they ship a package to me. This holds true even for international shippers (e.g. an Etsy seller in Europe is more likely to ship to the US than to me).

</comment><comment><USER39> I'm not sure this is true as presented. I agree less and less people run their own sites. But I don't know if this is because customers prefer platforms for cyber security reasons, or if it's also a value proposition for sellers (e.g. not having the headache of keeping a site running so you can focus on selling).

For hobbyist materials, eBay is still great. For bespoke goods, Etsy is unbeatable and you can even build relationships with the sellers.

</comment><comment><USER40> When was the last time we bemoaned the fact we don't have to call a travel agent to book a flight, or that we needn't pull out our yellow pages to find a cab company when we need to go to the airport?

The march towards efficiency is a never ending one, for better or worse. Mom and pop e-stores were a go-between that except for specific niches are likely casualties of that march.

<comment><USER41> Monopolies _are_ extremely efficient. That doesn't mean they're the best for the health of the economy.

<comment><USER42> Any quote or source for this? I think companies get efficient when they have to compete and some of that stays when they become monopolies

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> >Many sex toy and adult novelty manufacturers refuse to sell their products on Amazon, or even offer wholesale products to any vendors who have an Amazon or eBay presence3. Mostly this is due to the influx of potentially counterfeit products.

This is incorrect and shows the author does not understand the topic. The primary reason people don't want to sell to Amazon sellers is that it leads to price erosion. Amazon sellers compete on price, which has negative effects for other channels; retail stores will see products selling cheaply on Amazon and won't be willing to pay your regular wholesale price.

Obviously, selling wholesale to someone who sells on Amazon doesn't make the counterfeit issue any worse.

<comment><USER44> Due to commingling counterfeiters don't need to sell to customers as Amazon will simply substitute real products with fake ones. Effectively, any Amazon seller becomes a counterfeit channel and the counterfeiters get access to sell the real products to minimize returns and thus issues with credit cards etc.

This is obviously a horrible deal for the legit producer who also gets saddled with a terrible reputation.

<comment><USER43> This is easily addressed by requiring your Amazon sellers to not use commingling. I've even seen a handful of companies that require their sellers not to use FBA.

>counterfeiters get access to sell the real products to minimize returns and thus issues with credit cards etc.

Not following. Amazon knows which unit was sold by which seller, so they can attribute returns to the correct seller even if was actually sold by another.

<comment><USER44> Amazon may eventually catch on, but it's a ticking clock until they get paid and disappear.

Day A, they ship X fakes to Amazon. Day B, they sell at slightly below market rates to sell as quickly as possible. Importantly as they have the lowest price they should get the bulk of orders. Selling off a mix of real units from others and fake units from themselves.

If they are a fairly low percentage of the market it could take a while for any significant number of their fakes to be shipped. Now it's a race if they get paid by Amazon before Amazon catches on.

Obviously this works best if the fakes are close to the real product so it takes a while before a significant number of people notice. Think functional but substandard USB cables etc.

<comment><USER43> It's not randomly chosen which units get shipped. It has to do with location, ownership, risk, and other things.

If a brand new seller is selling they're likely not to commingle their high risk products until they've proven themselves.

It's not nearly as easy as you think.

Some categories have commingling turned off completely.

<comment><USER44> > It's not nearly as easy as you think.

Sure, but it does not have to be successful to harm the reputation of a manufacturer. The issue is it's a cat and mouse game with some actual winners which get others to try and do the same.

<comment><USER43> That's not a reason to avoid selling any units on Amazon. The only brands this may be relevant to is very high end luxury brands, some of which avoid Amazon sales for that reason.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> 55% of Amazon sales are from 3rd parties, which are largely small businesses.

</comment><comment><USER46> I like that this article actually takes a nuanced approach and describes the pros on both sides. Most writing on this I see doesn't.

I believe there is an inevitable tension between centralization and decentralization. The former gives you:

\- Usability. Look at fifty product pages on Amazon and you can easily scan each one since they all have the same layout and user experience. You don't have to hunt through fifty different web designs trying to find the price. You don't have to figure out if _this_ page includes the shipping in the price while _this_ one doesn't. Consistency is one of the keys to usability, and centralization gives you this.

\- Economies of scale. A mom and pop store likely can't afford to roll their own crypto, fraud prevention, 24/7 support, etc. But when a single organization moves enough product, these kinds of things enter the realm of affordability.

\- Predictability. Consumers can accurately predict how their experience is going to go. Fewer unpleasant surprises because they are likely dealing with the same branch of one giant organization every time. Walk into a McDonald's anywhere on Earth and you mostly know what you're going to get. That can be a real relief when you just want a safe experience.

But you lose:

\- Innovation. If changing the layout of a design affects a hundred million pages and a billion users, it takes a hell of a lot of work to get everyone on board to ship it. It's much harder to just throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks.

\- Resilience. A centralized organization is basically a monoculture, and suffers the same risks as biological monocultures. A single vulnerability or bug can take down the entire system because every part of the system is identical, including having the same weaknesses. When you have a lot of diversity and redundancy in the system, much like genetic diversity, the system is more able to respond to a surprising condition. There may be some winners and losers, but the whole system won't lose, and then can learn and adapt from the winners that remain.

\- Novelty. When it's all the same, the time you spend interacting with the system becomes less personally enriching. No one writes an entry in their diary about the 523th burger they had from McDonald's. The stories people remember about their lives -- especially when interacting with businesses -- are almost always unique experiences with small enterprises. The family-owned hole in the wall restaurant, the tiny labor-of-love tabletop game store, the three-partner law firm that helped them navigate a crisis.

The important part is that each of these pairs of points are diametrically opposed. Gaining one sacrifices the other, so there is no perfect solution. Just trade-offs. Which means what we probably need is a meta-diversity -- a range of businesses at all scales. Accept that some big businesses are good. Sometimes you just want to complete a transaction or eat a damn burger. But also support a thriving set of small and medium-sized businesses for when you want something more lively.

One thing I really worry about the US is that government and incentives today clearly push towards a mono-scale where almost all successful business are big. I see few forces to combat the economies of scale and the power that large corporations wield, so we're heading towards a world where there are _only_ giant mega-corps.

<comment><USER47> > Usability

> Predictability

Interestingly as Amazon becomes the front of so many sellers, there is a lot of edge cases they are supporting that end up breaking these two.

For instance some products are listed and have a price, but only come from third party, non integrated vendors so you won't know the shipping price or conditions until choosing a specific vendor.

Or they'll list an item and contact you for adjustments after a purchase attempt (I had that for a business printer, and there was options for maintenance plans etc.)

Or there will be items that can only be shipped for free above some total amount, when that limit don't exist for others.

Basically I think that by absorbing so much of the market, amazon also inherited the complexity to some point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> He, who has the biggest, fastest computer wins.

</comment><comment><USER49> And the birth of the Mom and Pop E-girls.</comment>


German parliament passes data retention bill - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelocal.de/20151016/parliament-to-vote-on-mass-data-collection-law <comment><USER2> Here's the individual votes: [https://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/plenum/abstimmung/grafik](https://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/plenum/abstimmung/grafik)

About what you'd expect sadly. And of course quite a few didn't bother to vote.</comment>


Show HN: Node.js visit values util - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/kessler/node-visit-values

<comment><USER2> I'll admit I'm having trouble imagining a use case for this but I must ask:

What happens with arrays?

What happens with deeply nested objects?

Also if you don't mind me asking what case might you want something like this where you don't seem to care about the context of the key and value (i.e. top level key and top level value version deeply nested key of, potentially, the same name.)?

<comment><AUTHOR> The use case is quite simple, I want to iterate over all values in an object (and possibly manipulate it, that is why the visitor function has access to the parent)

Array members will be visited individually.

The entire object tree will be visited in a depth first order

hope that answers your questions.</comment></comment>


When Banks Become the Lawmakers - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoinwarrior.net/2014/12/banks-become-lawmakers/

<comment><USER2> _If all of this is not enough to propel Americans into the streets in mass protests, perhaps the history of how the coddled Citigroup handles the money of its investors and shareholders will stir the pot._

The root of this problem is that banks -- especially large ones -- are rewarded for short-term gains made when "gambling with other people's money", while passing the fallout of risk and long-term losses on to the industry as a whole (and thus onto taxpayers). Entities that profit from turnover have an incentive to create hype, fear, and volatility -- anything that increases transaction volume. (Every time a bank writes a new loan, they get to tack on origination fees, and the associated broker gets a cut. Every time a house is bought or sold, realtors and their brokers get a cut)

Some economists should do a more in-depth study on the Principal-Agent problem in the broker-managed financial derivatives markets.

</comment><comment><USER3> > What Citigroup has now done with the willing participation of Congress and > the President is to set the country up for the next financial collapse in > which it appears destined to play another starring role, seeing that the Fed > gave it a failing grade on its stress test this year. The legislation that > was just passed by Congress allows Citigroup and other Wall Street banks to > keep their riskiest assets – interest rate swaps and other derivatives – in > the banking unit that is backstopped with FDIC deposit insurance, which is, > in turn, backstopped by the U.S. taxpayer, thus ensuring another bailout of > Citigroup if it blows itself up once again from soured derivative bets.

This is a good example of how to write something that contains no actual factual errors, but nevertheless is very misleading by the way it chooses to state facts.

It gives the impression that the goal of the legislation, the reason that the majority of Congress supported it as did the President (and the reason the President pushed to get it passed, as mentioned elsewhere in the article) was to free the banks of this restriction.

The actual goal of the legislation was to fund the government, in order to avoid another game of chicken like we had last year that led to a government shutdown. The thing with the banks was just a small add-on to a large bill, and was reluctantly accepted by the President and much of Congress because they felt that another long deadlock and shutdown was worse then accepting a few bad add-ons.

Yes, it is a bad change, but the way Congress is currently functioning due to (1) the difficulty of getting anything bipartisan through the House, and (2) the splits within the Republican Party between the mainstream and the Tea Party, getting a budget through with only a few pieces of shit attached is a major accomplishment.

</comment><comment><USER4> > How much might Citigroup need from the taxpayer if it blows up again? > According to the General Accountability Office, Citigroup received more > bailout assistance than any other bank in the last collapse. On October 28, > 2008, Citigroup received $25 billion in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) > funds. Less than a month later it was back with hat in hand and received > another $20 billion. But its finances were so shaky that it simultaneously > needed another $306 billion in government asset guarantees. And on top of > all that, the New York Fed was secretly funneling it over $2 trillion in > emergency loans at interest rates frequently below 1 percent.

It would be easier to digest content from a site called "bitcoin warrior" if it didn't mix incompatible numbers in a list and encourage you to add them up.

<comment><USER5> TARP was a loan program and I believe many of the participants paid back their loans. It's unclear from a Wikipedia if Citi did.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program)

<comment><USER6> Indeed, according to the official source [0], TARP has recovered 112% of the funds it distributed to banks. The Treasury only has $900 million outstanding within that category, of the original $245.1 _billion_ that was dispersed. Going by just the numbers, this article would find a much more sympathetic audience in discussing the auto bailouts, of which only 86.3% has been recovered and, with only $1.4 billion outstanding, has already pretty much been written off as a losing program.

Disclaimer: I'm not in any way saying that there aren't issues to be resolved. But time has shown that the TARP-related aspects of this scenario turned out positively.

[0] [http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial- stability/repo...](http://www.treasury.gov/initiatives/financial- stability/reports/Pages/TARP-Tracker.aspx#Bank)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Would you be interested in getting a personal robot - <AUTHOR> A personal robot, the size of a bird, a drone, charging is needed every 24 hours. Speaks , hears and can do small actions like pressing buttons, fetching some stuff in a basket net. Can stand on your shoulder or on a table and can be switched off. <comment><USER2> a remote control lego sweeper. two arms to sweep into a dust pan body.

<comment><USER2> although my kids would probably still complain about picking up their toys.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Chrome extension which searches FTP servers for direct download links - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/NIT-dgp/chrome-search-extension <comment><AUTHOR> This small project was made back in my 2nd year (weekend project stopped working on it), but now is maintained as a part of my college opensource organisation. So I thought it would be great to get it up and running. This is the chrome web store link for the project - [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fearch](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/fearch) Though the code base is very small, the extension is very useful.</comment>


Coding - <AUTHOR>

Hello,<p>I'm a 12 and I just made my 1st HTML website dedicated to kids who need help to study for their tests and quizes. At my site, they can look at detailed notes and paragraphs regarding a certain chapter. I wanted to ask you guys, what can I do to learn the most and best that I can? I just learned CSS3 and am learning HTML5. I also want to do iPhone and iPod app development. What techniques should use to learn the most. Spring break is coming soon and I am going to my uncle's company: flutter(he is one of the founders) as an intern and I am hoping to learn a lot of coding there. Please give me you guys' feedback and I would really appreciate it. Thanks!!!!! <comment><USER2> Practice, practice, practice. Come up with ideas - build them. Improve upon them. Build more projects. Build new things with different technologies, or in a different way.

Look back on your old code, and marvel at how _wrong_ it was. Rewrite it better.

Read through open source code. I learned things from reading the Linux kernel source that made me absolutely destroy my C classes. I've learned dirty hacks from Rails' source that I use all the time.

But seriously. Hack lots of code and write lots of experiments.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank yo so much for taking the time to post these tips. I will be sure to follow them. I won't be afraid to do experiments and hack. A lot. Thanks again very much!!!! I do look back at my old code and constantly improve it (to find out how crappy it was) and enhance it. I will also look or open sources. But please, could you recommend some specific open sources I could really use to learn? Thanks so much!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Remember there is no one single right way to do anything. Don't accept everything you read as gospel, read it as suggestion and find your own way. There are many sorts of programmers out there, philosophically as well as functionally. Try out a lot of styles. Try fixing a lot of different problems to find your own style, then use it to do things nobody has ever done.

There is a LOT more to programming than code, just as there is a lot more to painting than paint, a lot more to music than notes, and a lot more to writing than words. The better you get, the better you will learn to play computer. Someday, if you keep at it, you will be good enough to try teaching the computer how to play human :D.

HTML is a great way to interface with humans. Once you feel comfortable with it you should move into server-side programming next and see where it takes you :D.

The projects you should be most proud of are the ones where you do something nobody has ever done before; but to get to those you have to learn what others have done, and learn it with respect.

At the end of the day, it's you and your computer having fun together :). Your computer can do a lot of valuable work, but only with your help!

</comment><comment><USER4> That's really awesome that you already built something with your knowledge. I learned HTML/CSS when I was 13/14 but didn't really do anything useful with it for several years.

One really important thing I've learned since then is _don't read HN too much._

You'll get too caught up in "best practices" or the hottest new libraries that you won't ever finish a product. It's a habit I'm working on, but it can be summarized as doing "Enough for Now"

       1. Assume there will always be tools that are better than the ones you have now.

       2. Assume that events in the world will continue to happen or not happen
          regardless of whether you learn about them immediately.

       3. Assume that you understand and control an embarrassingly minute percentage of
          the universe.

       4. Assume that none of this matters if you're determined to make something you
          care about today.

        - Merlin Mann, sayer of smart things

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for these great tips!!!!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There's no speed limit: <http://sivers.org/kimo>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. Thats a great article: very inspiring.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> That's really awesome that you've started. Would you want to do mobile applications next or are you sticking to web applications for now?

This might be an outdated guide, but it gives you an idea of how to build a "native" looking application using CSS, HTML and JavaScript - [http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-native-iphone-ipad- app...](http://matt.might.net/articles/how-to-native-iphone-ipad-apps-in- javascript/).

You might want to try embedding some videos from Khan Academy, Youtube or the online universities. That will make your website more interesting.

Great start!

</comment><comment><USER7> This is really cool! Congrats on starting!

There are some really good resources now. Perhaps find out what technologies they'll have you use at your uncle's company. If you'll be using Ruby, it might be good to start with Code School (<http://tryruby.org/levels/1/challenges/0>). CodeAcademy.com is doing their instruction in Javascript. For Python, I've been using Udacity.com and Learn Python the Hard Way.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!! I will do that. I already finished most of the codecademy.com tutorials and my uncle's company will be using C++ and Java the most although they also might use a couple other languages. Thanks for your help!!!!

<comment><USER7> Ah, okay. Sounds like you could probably teach me a thing or two then!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> i think more important then learning a specific language is getting a understanding of the algorithmic stuff. try theese two books for example: [http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H- Corme...](http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Algorithms-Thomas-H- Cormen/dp/0262033844/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333909569&sr=8-1) [http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications- Ma...](http://www.amazon.com/Computational-Geometry-Applications-Mark- Berg/dp/3642096816/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1333909582&sr=8-1)

i wish i had these books 10 years earlier..

</comment><comment><USER9> For iPhone and iPod development, stackoverflow is a very good place to go for asking questions, you can also buy a couple of books about iPhone and iPod development, but then again these resources will teach you the steps but you will need to really focus and keep on building and correcting your apps if you want to get further. A very quick way to get you up and running with iPhone and iPod development (Objective C) is <http://cocoadevcentral.com/d/learn_objectivec/>.</comment>