The Fed Will Buy Bond ETFs Now - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-12/the-fed-will-buy-bond-etfs-now <comment><USER2> One can dream, but you can imagine if the Fed really wanted to implement UBI, it could probably do something like:

\- Give everyone in the U.S. a guaranteed loan for $2,001, 0% interest, payable at the end of the month

\- Before you "default", enter in a "negotiation" where the Fed can buy back the security from you for $1, writing off "the losses"

\- Do it all again the next month

Tada! Monetary policy as fiscal policy! If you don't want to write it off immediately, guarantee 0% interest and have the timeline for the loan be 200 years, then write off the debt as nonpayable after death.

But seriously, I'm not sure if there's a clear line between monetary policy and fiscal policy anymore.

<comment><USER3> If inflation rises, there needs to be a mechanism to have it paid back. All the Fed QE at least theoretically goes back into the bank once markets recover and the assets purchased can be sold to make that so.

Who is going to buy individual loans which are never repaid if inflation starts to rise?

<comment><USER4> You've got the causality backwards. It's the writing-off that causes inflation (because now you have all that extra cash out in the economy that never comes back to the Fed in the form of loan repayment), not the other way around.

<comment><USER5> Only if they continue to buy.

As shown in 2018, the fed has the power to massively deflate the currency simply by indicating that they might want to unwind or reduce stimulus.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The comments here confuse me. The Fed is buying bond ETFs so that it can provide support to the corporate debt market in a way that doesn't 1) require a ton of careful, time-consuming credit risk analysis and 2) doesn't favor individual issuers.

The goal is to improve credit conditions and provide financing that otherwise wouldn't be available to companies during this crisis. This isn't manipulation of the stock market, it's making sure credit markets don't dry up at the worst possible time and exacerbate the damage. The funding here is $75 Billion from the Treasury Department (authorized by Congress) and like other Fed facilities the money isn't disappearing into the void; the Fed will eventually unwind these positions or allow them to runoff its balance sheet.

As much as I love Matt Levine, maybe having an article with a higher information density would reduce the number of low-effort comments. Something like this article[0] maybe, dang?

[0] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/bond-etfs-climb-as-the-fed- kick...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/bond-etfs-climb-as-the-fed-kicks-off- historic-purchase-program-11589296012)

<comment><USER7> Well, stupid question then: why would this prop up the debt market? They're just buying tokens redeemable[1] for a basket of bonds. How does that prop up (the underlying) bond prices? Or their liquidity?

ETF prices are pretty firmly anchored to the underlying bond basket prices, due to arbitrage, so prices only flow from the bonds to the ETF shares, never the other way around. Is there a dynamic I'm missing whereby the purchase of ETFs make the bonds more valuable on the market?

For an analogy, let's say there are coupons you can redeem for a 20-lb turkey at Trader Joe's (analogous to bond ETFs, which are redeemable for baskets of the underlying).

Let's say they trade on a secondary market (like those coupon selling sites) at a stable discount to the market price of the turkeys at TJ's. Let's say I go out and start buying up the coupons with reckless abandon.

I accept that they would then trade at a smaller discount to TJ turkeys. But why would that raise the market price of the turkeys themselves? Nothing about that makes the turkeys themselves more in-demand, does it?

[1] which is how I understand ETFs to work and maintain value parity

<comment><USER8> There's a few faulty assumptions that might apply to more liquid and efficient markets but do not apply to corporate bonds. Corporate bond liquidity is minuscule and many create/redeems are done with incomplete baskets vs actual underlying. One of the reasons why the Fed decided to include ETFs in this facility is because the ETFs were trading at a steep discount to NAV at some points earlier this year. For example, SPY's largest discount to NAV this year was around 80bps. For LQD (the largest and most liquid IG ETF), the largest discount was close to 5.1%. Discounts to NAV of that size are not academically arbed away with illiquid underlying assets because there's no liquidity or price discovery happening in those assets either.

<comment><USER9> I want to preface my statements with this, I'm not trying to get into an internet argument or attack your positions or anything I'm just trying to learn some stuff here because I find it all interesting.

In the case of such poor liquidity why should we assume the ETF value should rise to meet the NAV rather than the NAV lower to meet the ETF value? I understand the bonds are the underlying here, but if the ETF is more liquid wouldn't its value be closer to gospel?

<comment><USER8> Your thought pattern makes sense but a lot of dislocations in these markets are once again due to liquidity. I think the easiest way to summarize this is because of the liquidity transformation ETFs provide, the tail wags the dog until it doesn't. This gets a bit rambling but I am too lazy to edit right now.

Liquid hedges are extremely valuable when trading corporate bonds. With almost every sell-off/rally, you will see more liquid instruments be first movers and usually overshoot in either direction. If I wanted to buy/sell 100mm MV of bonds right now, I would have to pay through the nose and there's no dealer on earth (due to post-GFC regulations) that is warehousing 100mm MV of a single bond issue so then I'm probably buying 10-20 different bonds and that doesn't really fit what I'm trying to do. Instead, I can buy/sell 100mm of a bond ETF, pay close to equity-like bid/ask spreads, and do so without picking up the phone or having someone decline to trade with me. I'm a little braindead right now and I know this is a bad example but this makes intuitive sense: if I really need cash immediately for something, I'll go to the pawn shop first before going to the bank. The pawn shop will give me immediate liquidity while the bank might not be open, want me to open an account, fill out some documents, blah blah.

The same thing happens with SPY, if I want to hedge my up/downside and need to do it quickly and efficiently, buying/selling single name equities in a lot of cases is not the best way to proceed. Dislocations vs NAV rarely happen with SPY or anything with large liquid underlying assets because the create/redeem process for these is very efficient; I can do it through an API. There have been advances in the corporate bond market but for the most part bonds are traded via chat or phone.

So, let's say bonds sell off for whatever reason, everyone immediately reaches for an ETF rather than selling any bonds. The underlying market takes some time to react and there's a further cascade of price discovery that usually happens in order of liquidity. When you have several thousand bonds underlying an ETF and no efficient way to trade them, price discovery takes a while. ETF overshoots, bonds try to catch up, oh but wait now this bond looks cheap/rich vs that other bond, then maybe everyone starts taking their hedges off, and then the process restarts in a miniature fashion.

This tug of war can take days to shake out but in the meantime, the create and redeem process still exists so if I feel the ETF is way too rich (simple unreaslitic example but "wow, ETF dividend yield is 5% but the underlying bonds yield 10%") I can buy some shares and redeem them for the underlying bonds and also do the reverse.

The create/redeem process was broken during the recent sell-off because there was no consensus on where NAV actually was. Sure, the ETF provider publishes a NAV level but you had several ETFs trading at several percentage point discounts. In normal cases, I can buy the ETF and redeem it for the underlying theoretically pocketing the difference. I'm not going to do that if the underlying price should be much lower or I'm just uncertain as to where it really should be.

Long story short, ETFs track NAV closer in more efficient markets. In less efficient markets, ETFs or any liquidity transformation vehicle usually lead the underlying because it's easier/cheaper to transact in them. From there it's price discovery on the underlying which happens at varying speeds and the process goes back and forth.

<comment><USER9> >This gets a bit rambling but I am too lazy to edit right now.

No worries, as I said I'm interested so I appreciate the write up.

>Long story short, ETFs track NAV closer in more efficient markets. In less efficient markets, ETFs or any liquidity transformation vehicle usually lead the underlying because it's easier/cheaper to transact in them. From there it's price discovery on the underlying which happens at varying speeds and the process goes back and forth.

Totally get this relationship, that's not entirely where my question lies though.

>One of the reasons why the Fed decided to include ETFs in this facility is because the ETFs were trading at a steep discount to NAV at some points earlier this year.

So is the Fed just buying these ETFs in order to shore up this discount regardless of whatever they believe to be "true" NAV? Why would the Fed consider it important enough for intervention? Or are they really just at a point where they're truly raising the tide and this boat is getting more publicity?

<comment><USER8> There's a few reasons. The Fed's mandate to "promote maximum employment" has taken the form of ensuring properly functioning capital markets. ETFs not getting too dislocated from NAV is an important part of that because otherwise they become a useless hedging instrument. Lack of effective hedges increases volatility in markets and forces investors to reduce positions. Further reducing positions during a sell-off causes an even steeper sell-off, etc blah blah.

Additionally and more importantly, primary market transactions are priced off secondary market levels. During the sell-off and before the Fed intervened, corporate bond issuance completely vanished. A large portion of US companies are debt-financed and would be unable to finance operations or be forced to pay way higher rates without functioning debt markets. Ensuring both the primary and secondary market functions properly fulfills (in their theory) their mandate of promoting maximum employment because without either, a lot more companies would have gone under or laid off way more people.

<comment><USER9> >ETFs not getting too dislocated from NAV is an important part of that because otherwise they become a useless hedging instrument.

Sure, but that's only if we consider NAV to be "true" worth. To your point with the lack of liquidity in the underlying wouldn't logic dictate that the underlying needs to "catch up" so to speak?

<comment><USER8> In normal functioning markets, maybe? When stuff like the events of the past few months happen, markets just stop trading altogether. If there's thin trading in an already illiquid market, there's no mechanism that forces things to reprice. What you see as NAV did not reflect executable levels. That's why you saw bond ETFs trading at such a discount because those were the only things people were able to sell. In a lot of cases most people decided they'd rather short 25mm of an ETF at -x% discount and have it retrace to NAV par than sell 10mm bonds down -1.5x% and then the next 15mm at an even steeper discount. Crude example, not how bonds are quoted, and you probably would have to sell those bonds in way more trades than that but hope it serves as an example.

<comment><USER9> So, due to the liquidity issues the proxy market is essentially being used in place of the primary market and the Fed, understanding this better than I, opts to bolster this proxy market precisely because it is being used as a temporary primary market?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No matter how much qe the fed does , there will be no inflation. The money goes to banks and financial institutions. They do not spend it on real goods and services. Rather they implement financial tools to get higher roi. Thus too many dollars chase too few financial tools resulting in equity inflation (a rising stock market) The real market of goods and services is unmoved and as a result wages and prices are stable (stagnant). The fed only helps banks because they use a system designed in the 1930s. Back then before credit cards, internet banking, before the repeal of Glass Steagall, banks drove the economy by lending to people. (See 'It's a Wonderful 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞') To move the economy, the fed has to put money into the hands of people who will spend it. Each taxpayer should get a fed account with a monthly stipend of fed-coin. Fed-coin will have a half-life to encourage people to spend it. Once spent its value will be fixed as it gets converted to regular dollars

<comment><USER11> Printing money is, by definition inflation. Printing money in to the hands of people who spend it is stealing from savers. Effectively discouraging responsible financial decisions in favour of lending.

<comment><USER10> there will be no inflation because the money is not being spent. It is being invested. As for savings, no sane person would put their money into a savings account. Why lend your money to the bank (if you even have any to spare)?!

<comment><USER12> I think it is better to say that there will be no broad based national inflation of the dollar. Cars, homes, stocks will definitely be inflated.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Hi, I know this is not a common point of view but here is what I propose to stop being angry against those magician apprentices (they make money disappear from pockets of others to appear in theirs).

Just ignore them. Just ignore this circus.

Build resilient local communities, reconnect with your family, build yourself a sustainable future.

As another one said: "The game is rigged", so just play another game.

It's not worth being angry against this noise. They know what they are doing.

<comment><USER14> And after you reconnect with your local community, form your own currency.

<comment><USER15> It's illegal as soon as you stop paying the tax man.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _US credit markets are not really working as "markets" anymore_, properly speaking, because a single special buyer, the Fed, is setting both risk-free rates _and_ credit spreads for all corporate borrowers. Just by _announcing_ it is willing to buy corporate bond ETFs, the Fed has become the very visible hand of the bond market.

 _The "price" of a corporate bond no longer means what you think it means._ It is now determined by the Fed's willingness to buy bond ETFs for reasons that may or may not have anything to do with the creditworthiness of individual companies.

This is both utterly shocking and completely predictable.

<comment><USER17> Smells like the Soviet 5 year plan. Except no plan. Is it Agile Planned Economy?

<comment><USER18> I like that a lot. The 'Agile' economy. Let's check the sprint board in the morning and... the schedule as slipped again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> tax payers -> fed govt -> "the fed" -> blackrock inc -> corporate ETFs -> american corporations which tax structure is in ireland.

<comment><USER20> The first link here is more aptly Japan and China. And, to make this really circular, Ireland also is one of the largest holders of US debt.

<comment><USER21> Note that most government debt is owned by taxpayers in one form or another though. China and Japan are very large foreign owners though.

<comment><USER20> Japan is actually the largest, fwiw. These Fed programs are being financed by debt spending, not tax increases. So even if some of this debt is held by US tax payers, it's not at their expense. They're getting paid interest.

<comment><USER22> Debt spending tends to turn into tax increases if you actually plan on paying the money back

<comment><USER23> Not necessarily. If the economy grows faster than recent history, a constant tax rate brings in more revenue.

Also worth looking at the last time the USA completely paid off its government debt.

> On January 8, 1835, president Andrew Jackson paid off the entire national > debt, the only time in U.S. history that has been accomplished. [1]

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

<comment><USER22> Yes, well actually if the economy grows at all, a constant tax rate brings in more revenue, while we tend to spend more too. But I agree it is theoretically possible.

In Andrew Jackson's case they also raised taxes:

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Few things:

\- No one knows how much or what exactly they're buying but they're limited by the size of the overall facility and are primarily going to stick to investment grade with a carve out for fallen angel and HY ETFs. Blackrock needs to provide the Fed with a list of ETFs they may buy and disclosure on that is uncertain.

\- They are not required to publish their holdings but will provide an aggregate number alongside the rest of the H.4.1 numbers published on Thursday.

\- The main and other part of this secondary market facility is secondary market corporate bonds. There is a certification process that issuers need to complete in order for the Fed to buy their bonds. Given the backlash on PPP, issuers are reluctant to register and especially reluctant given that secondary markets are more or less functioning.

\- Most of the impact of this and other facilities announced has been seen in the announcement; not through actual purchases. This is true for the Fed and has been true for the BoJ and ECB.

\- With the announce impact/implicit backstop, a (current) cap on ETF purchases, and a reluctance for issuers to certify, if markets function properly, you may not see very many purchases by the Fed under this facility at all.

</comment><comment><USER24> Nobody sees any issues with the Fed being saddled with private sector debt? The same Fed that decides how much money is printed? The same money that is the world reserve currency (functionally, the new gold)?

What the fuck is happening?

<comment><USER23> > is happening

What is different this time?

The Fed has participated in just about every financial bailout since it was founded in the 1910s. Even before the USA moved from gold-backed-bucks to fiat currency, there were rumors that there wasn't enough gold to back all of those promises.

> Nobody sees any issues

I'm sure lots of people are concerned, but that isn't the question. The question is what can be done and I think at this point everyone s paralyzed with indecision.

<comment><USER24> The difference is the riskiness of the things they are willing to buy...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This could be the reason stocks have been going up ..despite double-digit unemployment. Decoupling from reality?

<comment><USER26> [https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ghcfn5/dddd...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wallstreetbets/comments/ghcfn5/dddd_the_20102020_liquidityfueled_asset_bubble/) (ignore the subreddit, it's actually an excellent analysis about how liquidity operations are inflating asset values)

<comment><USER27> I wonder what the US going into a deflationary spiral would mean for real estate like rental houses? When economists say deflationary spiral do they mean prices of assets (like houses) would fall?

<comment><USER28> When economic priests invoke the deflationary spiral, they mean some ambiguous boogeyman that you're supposed to be scared of so they can keep printing money and handing it to the politically connected, as they're doing here. Deflation is the _natural state of things_ , as we are continually figuring out how to be more efficient. We've had extreme deflation in the technology industry going on _several decades_ , and the results have been fantastic. It is only a bad thing for the slavedrivers that want to keep everyone working full time doing fake jobs.

<comment><USER26> Underrated comment. Need a tech accelerator that is the inverse of the Fed, optimizing for minimum employment instead of maximum employment (one of the Fed's two mandates).

<comment><USER28> Every accelerator, VC firm, corporation, division, manager, line worker, and homemaker is _already_ optimizing for minimum employment. Human ingenuity at work - seeing patterns for where improvements can be made to ultimately achieve more. Even a guy laying on a couch watching football is trying to figure out how he can get another beer without having to get up.

Then the Federal Reserve comes along, declares all of our progress problematic, and manipulates the currency we transact in to make our progress invisible to each other.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Ahh.. the hypocrisy of the American government.

They continually accuse other countries of manipulating their currency, of creating fake stock markets, of all kinds of financial shenanigans.

And then, when crisis hits America, 3 times in the past 20 years! What does America do? The exact same thing that they accuse other countries of doing.

You should realize that by doing this, that America will never return to a normalized system, where homes are affordably priced for the average American.

What ever happened to the invisible hand of the free market? It was all just a lie. Welcome to the Ponzi scheme, called the American financial system.

<comment><USER30> The Federal Reserve is not a part of the government. It's a private entity.

<comment><USER31> Which is so ironic to leave the economy of a country up to the whims of a private entity, where the people running it indulge in parasitic and immoral practices (interest/usury) to always profit off of the backs of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> My instinct tells me we are headed towards massive inflation, and if your investments aren't parked in the right place (or if you don't really have investments), you're in for a rude awakening. I don't see how it's in anyone's best interest (besides the bankers collecting fees) for the Federal Reserve to get in bed with ETF management companies.

<comment><USER33> It's the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of modern monetary theory: Increasing tax lowers inflation. inflation via government spending is a negative tax.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> This will just inflate the everything bubble further than it has ever gone before. Terrible news.

</comment><comment><USER34> I am so angry, and we are so fucked.

<comment><USER26> I've been told by a professional it's unhealthy to tell someone else how to feel, so let me instead offer a suggestion: take a deep breath and think differently about the situation, and seek out opportunities to still profit from manipulations sanctioned by the economic system.

For example, those of us who knew this was coming bought certain ETFs to front run the Fed and BlackRock, knowing they were going to begin purchasing them. Continue to seek out such opportunities in the future. The game is "rigged", so play along.

"When you can't change the direction of the wind, adjust your sails."

<comment><USER4> > those of us who knew this was coming

How does one join that club?

<comment><USER26> Consume relevant data from reliable sources. The Fed was very clear they intended to provide "unlimited support" to "maintain liquidity" when they made their March statements.

> When asked if the Fed would run out of ammunition to support the economy, > Powell said no.

> "When it comes to this lending, we're not going to run out of ammunition. > That doesn't happen," he said.

TLDR "Okay, so you're going to buy everything you can without any discrimination about price to hack around fiscal policy failure, good to know."

[https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/mone...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/pressreleases/monetary20200323b.htm) (Federal Reserve announces extensive new measures to support the economy)

[https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2020-03-26/fed- chair...](https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2020-03-26/fed-chair-powell- says-will-provide-nearly-unlimited-lending) (Fed Chair Powell Says Will Provide Nearly Unlimited Lending)

<comment><USER27> The issue is that those "in the know" will just rig it in some other way as soon as the peasants start to try to mimic them. Its a cat and mouse game and we are not all that sophisticated to play it.

I do expect that at some point this pumping of economies (by increasing money supply) will fail miserably. I am not really that confident of how to position myself to profit or at least not loose my wealth when it happens.

My position is in mostly in real estate that I purchased during the last housing bust period. Hopefully that turns out.

<comment><USER35> Yeah so assets that are outside of the system altogether are a good hedge. This is why gold & Bitcoin are good hedges against the Great Monetary Experiment of 2020. Own the physical gold and hold your own keys.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> As far as I'm aware, the arbitrage mechanism works both ways. Continuing your analogy, authorized participants are able to trade the underlying turkeys for new tokens, or redeem the tokens for turkeys. When the price of a token is bidded up, its price becomes attractive relative to the turkeys. Authorized participants buy the underlying turkeys, create new tokens and then sell those tokens to take a risk free profit. This continues as long as there is a price mismatch, and ensures that ETF prices are in sync with the underlying assets.

</comment><comment><USER37> Anyone have a graph of the capital injections (or capital equivalent valuation at the time of actions) that the US and other countries have taken since 2020 started?

<comment><USER38> The Fed balance sheet is probably the most direct way to look at the aggregate liquidity injections: [https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttren...](https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/bst_recenttrends.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> Now that the "audit the Fed" members of Congress have been effectively neutered by "crying wolf" too often, the Fed is content to just wander around eating villagers, knowing that nobody has any interest in enforcing the Fed's charter or imposing any restraints on their behavior.

</comment><comment><USER40> As someone who have a very basic understanding of economy and the Fed's role in managing it, does this mean the federal government is owning more and more share of private companies (at least their debt portion)? Does that mean, the US, which is supposed to be a very capitalistic nation, is now trending toward the economy operated by quasi-government-owned companies?

Is it imaginable that eventually, the US government owns the majority stake in these quasi-government-backed companies, moving the US economy further away from market-based capitalism?

<comment><USER3> > does this mean the federal government is owning more and more share of > private companies (at least their debt portion)?

Of their debt portion, yes.

> is now trending toward the economy operated by quasi-government-owned > companies?

No, as debt is not usually ownership (there are structures that allow it to become that). Companies just increasingly owe the government money, but that would happen under any traditional bailout scheme anyway.

> Is it imaginable that eventually, the US government owns the majority stake > in these quasi-government-backed companies, moving the US economy further > away from market-based capitalism?

Majority? That is a long long ways away. Top shareholder? It is true in Japan, so it is plausible. The Fed is not buying stocks at the moment.

[https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Bank-of-Japan-to- be...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Markets/Bank-of-Japan-to-be-top- shareholder-of-Japan-stocks)

The more concerning issue is that ETFs change management fees. Why is the Fed supporting management fees instead of buying the debt directly?

<comment><USER40> Thanks for answering my questions!

I can't agree more with your last sentence. Why Blackrock? I really want to read their reasoning of using Blackrock as a broker other than it being the biggest fund manager. The Fed is big enough and why can't it buy the bonds directly. Maybe their weak excuse is that they can execute it via Blackrock ETFs quickly. But still...then why not spread it evenly over other institutions like Vanguard, Fidelity, etc.?

<comment> kube-system FWIW, the US Government also tapped Blackrock to help with the 2008 crisis. This article talks a little bit about that choice then:

[https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/fink-201004](https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/04/fink-201004)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> [https://archive.md/Uwedm](https://archive.md/Uwedm)

</comment><comment><USER42> For those who like to listen and not read. Here's an automated podcast of this newsletter.

[https://anchor.fm/talking-money-stuff](https://anchor.fm/talking-money-stuff)

</comment><comment><USER43> This is not news. It was priced in when the S&P500 rose from 2300 to 2900. Now the market is starting to (already has?) priced in the Fed straight up buying equities.

<comment><USER44> I'm not exactly a financial expert, but I feel like any stock market news is accompanied by a fleet of "This was already priced in" comments.

<comment><USER43> Legitimate shocks are not. For example, when Apple announces bad earnings or as a more extreme example, 9/11.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> So will smart investors now just follow the FED and invest in whomever they are propping up? If so they will pick the winners and the losers in every market.

<comment><USER45> No, because it's possible some assets are now overvalued because of this news. This news is possibly positive for the market in general, but if you go buy corporate bond ETFs right now it doesn't mean you'll make money, and it definitely does not mean you'll make money compared to buying a total market ETF or something similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Too Big To Survive = too big to fail

</comment><comment><USER46> Ignoring the awful attempt at conversational writing, this is bad news for Americans in the long term.

Short term we add liquidity, allow hedge funds to delever, and prop up a market everyone wants to crash. Longer term the taxpayers (individuals and American businesses) are going to be eating the cost.

This bailout makes 2008 a blip on the radar. It's going to take decades to play out.

<comment><USER47> Well, I'm sorry if you don't like Matt Levine's style, but he's been at his attempts for many years now and it's what distinguishes him from the rest of the regular columns. I think to the point where if anyone else at Bloomberg tried it, they'd be accused of a game stab at Money Stuff. So maybe he's doing you a service...</comment></comment>


Members of Congress bring phones inside secure clasified information facility - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/RepAndyBiggsAZ/status/1187041850286379009 <comment><AUTHOR> Additional context here. Given the highly partisan nature of this episode I opted to cite a tweet from one of the participants rather than a report thereon that would be perceived as biased.

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/23/politics/republicans-storm- im...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/23/politics/republicans-storm-impeachment- inquiry-deposition-laura-cooper/index.html)</comment>


Paul Irish is Goin' Goog - <AUTHOR> http://paulirish.com/2010/going-goog/ <comment><USER2> That mouse-tracking canvas stuff in the background of his blog is pretty cool. I didn't notice it until it tracked my mouse pointer from the text to the tab bar.

<comment><USER3> Also good for pegging one CPU, in the quad-core Linux machine I'm using (Firefox 3.5). At least it skips around the cores.

I think I'll miss Flash in the near future (especially the part of _not_ having a Flash plug-in). I'm afraid the 'blink' tag is back, and packing some heat ...

</comment></comment><comment> joe-mccann Paul Irish is a major contributor to a number of OS web projects and a leading evangelist for HTML5 and CSS3. Yeah, like you said, he's a nobody.

<comment><USER4> Also an evangelist on the jQuery Team and co-host of yayquery podcast.

<comment><USER5> "Evangelist" is the new "blogger".

<comment><USER6> I've met a few people with "Evangelist" titles and I got the sense it meant "nice guy we don't really want to fire but have no real job for"

<comment><USER7> Like Dave Morin on the Facebook platform?

How bout Twilio? I'm sure Twilio's trying to actively waste money

[http://twilio.jobscore.com/jobs/twilio/developerevangelist/a...](http://twilio.jobscore.com/jobs/twilio/developerevangelist/ajrtFwiPyr35jUeJe4aGWH)

<comment><USER7> Sorry for the bad form. Working on it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Who is Paul Irish, and why is it interesting that Google hired him?

<comment><USER9> Some guy. Just switched jobs. I should start a blog so I can get front-page time on HN too.

<comment><USER6> "I should start a blog ..."

But you haven't, and you won't, and that's the difference.

<comment><USER9> Now I did. <http://elblancohn.wordpress.com/2010/04/09/goin-to-work/>

Vote me to the front page.

<comment><USER10> Now if you just put that same energy from being a snarky jerk into something useful you could have contributed to the world today.

<comment><USER11> This is exactly why I stopped posting here. I've sent an email to YDN. I'm sure they don't want this kind of representation out on the open internet.

<comment><USER9> Oh don't get your panties all in a bunch. I take it as a personal statement not as a representative of YDN. I've sent a counter email to YDN that I wasn't really all that offended.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wish this young chap nothing but the best, but this is really not why I visit HN.

</comment><comment><USER7> To all the haters, paul_irish has been consistently one of the most helpful people in #jquery on freenode, and I'm so happy for him. If he's the one who's going to be writing HTML5 documentation for Chrome, then that's EXCELLENT news for developers, because I know from personal experience that he has a very friendly and intelligent way of communicating.</comment>


Zuckerberg demos Oculus ping pong - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10102424083204621/?pnref=story <comment><AUTHOR> "The craziest Oculus experience I've had recently is playing ping pong in virtual reality. You feel like you're right there with your friend even though they may be halfway around the world. And not only can you hit the ball back and forth, but you can turn gravity up and down to simulate completely different worlds -- outer space, under water and so on.

In our new Toybox experience, you can pick up objects, build things and play games. This video shows a few examples of what's possible. What's really amazing is sharing these experiences with your friends. We're getting closer."</comment>


Willis Ware, 93, Engineer at Dawn of Computer Age, Dies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/02/technology/willis-ware-who-helped-build-blueprint-for-computer-design-dies-at-93.html?ref=technology&_r=0

<comment><AUTHOR> I have read few historical predictions about computers effect on man as concise and prescient as this:

"Every man will communicate through a computer, whatever he does. It will change and reshape his life, modify his career and force him to accept a life of continuous change."

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go learn that latest js framework:)</comment>


Ask HN: Where is the discourse re: overseas manufacturing? - <AUTHOR>

Sorry, this question is specific to the US, but I didn't want to bloat the title any more...
It's clear to me that the American economy is not going to recover until we have widespread job creation. I think that there are some real opportunities to kill two birds with one stone re: job creation and energy independence, but I don't want to talk about that.
I want to talk about some toys from my childhood. My parents recently pulled down several Fisher Price trucks from the attic for my 2 year old son to play with. I examined every single toy and they were entirely made in the US. (Interestingly, at the time, Fisher Price was a division of Quaker Oats, apparently...) They were dated 1978. How much things have changed in just 30 years...
If you're a parent you know you'd be hard pressed to find any plastic truck toys that are made in the US today. Even if you're not a parent, I'm sure you've seen that almost NOTHING is made in the US. There are the occasional exceptions, like some light bulbs I bought at home depot recently, but for the most part, it seems clear that we're not in the business of manufacturing anymore.
My question to HN is -- why? And why is this not talked about at a political level? Why don't any candidates appear to be running on a platform of bringing jobs back to the US? It's an issue that's dripping in perfectly bow-tied patriotic emotions. Why does no one seem to care?
People seem to make some kind of hand-wavey argument about increased costs, but those costs seemed acceptable in 1978, at a time when there was certainly a stronger union presence and more worker's rights! I don't really buy it.
It's not just an issue of creating manufacturing jobs, it's an issue of sustaining all the second order small businesses that support a manufacturing base - I can't even think of them all - from the small restaurants that service workers, up to construction and maintenance of facilities, transportation, training, B2B sales, etc etc.
Is this an issue where no company wants to be the first to have to mark up due to US manufacturing costs? (But if a few did, they might all start doing it?)
It might be time for a little culture jamming to get his ball rolling. Get Miley Cyrus to stop shopping at WalMart. Start trying to shame companies into bringing jobs back to the US.
I'd love to hear HN's thoughts on this because I expect that I'm being a bit naive. <comment><USER2> " _But if a few did, they might all start doing it?_ "

But if a few don't do it, they slaughter the rest.

Note that toys are a _particularly_ bad example after [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Product_Safety_Improve...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Product_Safety_Improvement_Act)

WRT to 1978, that was while Deng Xiaoping was still engineering his rehabilitation and before "socialism with Chinese characteristics" got going (I think; the timing on the latter was not clear after a few minutes with Wikipedia).

One of the reasons it hadn't happened before is well described in this essential book, " _The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger_ " [http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container- Smaller-Economy...](http://www.amazon.com/Box-Shipping-Container-Smaller- Economy/dp/0691123241/)

Now the bottom line is that it would take major government intervention, e.g. tariffs and probably industrial policy, which is a "cure" that's almost certainly worse than the disease (e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_choice_theory>). It is argued by many that this and not slavery was the _primary_ cause of the US Civil War.

It would probably be better to work at chipping away at many of the things that made manufacturing _labor_ so expensive in the US (in terms of real value or products US manufacturing is doing OK and still exceeds the PRC although the latter might change soon). Some things are stark raving mad like the previously mentioned law that's trashing toys. Some things would appear to be luxuries we can ill afford, either now or in the long run.

E.g. just how strongly do you believe in the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_no-threshold_model> for all toxins? It's been the law of the land since 1958: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaney_clause> and this is why today's root beer in the US sucks. If this book doesn't gain any traction upon reading it: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skeptical_Environmentalist> you'd perhaps better find another cause.

Don't expect change any time soon, e.g. see the above link to public choice theory and note that "a recession is when your neighbor loses his job, a depression is when you lose yours". The country at large didn't care that much when manufacturing labor was squeezed into construction and now it's only so concerned that those men are not out of work due to the real estate bubble popping (especially notice the unemployment rates broken down by gender).

</comment><comment><USER3> People, not surprisingly, choose immediate over delayed gratification. Faced with lower prices today vs. eroded tax base at some point in the future... Pretty simple choice, which is why Wal-Mart is as big as it is. And if you ask people to pay for a nebulous benefits that might go to others, they won't pay.

It's also why medium-end stereo stores died, why most computers are plastic pieces of crap and I can't get a belt that doesn't delaminate in a few months.</comment>


Making a toy programming language in Lua, part 2 - <AUTHOR> http://www.playwithlua.com/?p=68 <comment><USER2> What's the point of implementing a language that is less powerful than the one you are using to implement it?

<comment><USER3> Granting the (problematic) idea that more powerful is always better—to learn the techniques that will be used to build more powerful languages?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought Lua was already a toy programming language?

<comment><USER5> You must not have looked beyond the Pascal-inspired syntax. There is a whole host of features that many popular languages do not have, while being many times smaller and amiable to embedding.

Ephemeron tables, generational GC, coroutines, tail call elimination, operator overloading, lexical scoping.</comment></comment>


Scaling in Lower Cost Locations - <AUTHOR> https://avc.com/2019/09/scaling-in-lower-cost-locations/ <comment><USER2> The easiest public data on this is now levels.fyi. For example, [https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/SE/L5/](https://www.levels.fyi/salary/Google/SE/L5/) shows the locations and pay for L5 engineers at Google, which is not new grads, but also not "only the most senior engineers". The data reproduces the "engineers don't get paid well in London" story.

Fwiw, I have always found that startup pay (particularly equity) is incredibly slanted against employees. I'm curious if the higher "risk-free rate" from the various FAANG companies will mean that startups instead learn to push back against the VC status quo of small equity grants. It sounds sort of bizarre to me to instead attempt to match on salary / nearly-guaranteed compensation, instead you must meet the "not having to deplete savings" bar and then the rest are lottery tickets. Historically, with "1% of equity" (or so) those lotto tickets don't sound so attractive.

<comment><USER3> I have not been in the software industry as long as other people on this site, but I think this is a pretty worrying trend, and eventually, founders are going to have to yield more equity to employees. If your startup involves technically challenging work that requires good engineers, how are you going to compete with companies that can compensate employees 2x what you can in fully liquid comp? The only way is through more equity. Of course cash-rich late stage startups can do that, and they can also convince people that there is a very good chance that equity will actually be worth something to employers. But early stage startups can't do that so easily.

Right now, it seems like working for an earlyish startup as an employee is just a bad value proposition across the board. Even if the startup will be successful, people are getting pitiful amounts of equity. I'm not sure that's very good for the industry, but maybe it's always been like this

<comment><USER2> > how are you going to compete with companies that can compensate employees 2x > what you can in fully liquid comp?

In addition to lottery tickets, I would argue that for some people the answer is easier: purpose, people, and autonomy.

At all of the bigger companies with the great, guaranteed pay, you are also one of many, quite likely a cog in a giant machine. By offering someone a real, visible impact on direction, outcomes, and even a purpose beyond steady (high) income, you can get _some_ folks to join. Others will join just to be part of a small, hopefully excellent team or having autonomy. In a company of 5000, only 500 are in the top 10%, and you might work with very few. It's much easier for everyone to be good when you're a small team (I like the pg rowing analogy here).

<comment><USER4> The idea of having more purpose at startups sounds nice but really doesn't add up to me.

If you're talking about the first employee at the company, even the first ~5 engineers, then yeah I buy it. The work is very different and there's a lot of purpose while you are still pre product/market fit.

But the problem is, if the startup is succeeding the work becomes similar to bigger tech companies pretty quickly - the PMs and designers are dictating exactly what to build, and as an engineer you show up and build that. If you were to leave, someone else could probably take over for you pretty easily. Even by like 5 or 10 engineers, the average engineer at a startup is already becoming a cog in the machine. But the startup is still a long way from being able to compete with FAANG on comp.

Is it really worth sacrificing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just to be a slightly different type of cog?

<comment><USER5> That's not accurate -- at least in startups that are on track to becoming successful. If you join a startup just to become a cog, do not join that startup. It does take about 6-9 months for an engineer to become impactful from a business sense. If you can wait out that time period, you should join and expect to have impact. If your ideas aren't valued and you're not getting the opportunity of ownership, then maybe you should leave to join another startup or go back to FAANG :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> When my father goes to Detroit for business trips is always astonished by the amount of money his collegues get paid. He works on engineering processes and tooling in a robotics company and makes about 30K €/year here in Italy, while his american collegues make 120K $/year. I think there is a great chance for businesses to save a lot of money by hiring personnel outside of the U.S.

<comment><USER7> And is he equally astonished by the cost of living / housing? Maybe not Detroit but certainly other major metro areas. The "profit" from employee perspective is probably similar

<comment><USER8> You are always better off (economically speaking) in a higher cost-of-living area with proportionally higher salary.

<comment><USER9> There are other externalities to this. Tax incentives are better if you can buy vs rent, which is harder in high COL. Also from personal experience, you get to live in more vibrant and diverse neighborhoods as opposed to more homogenous ones that price out others. If you have children that go into non- lucrative fields (ex: teaching), they will not be able to live by you without your financial support.

<comment><USER10> On the other hand, if your kids go into fields where the pay is unequal across the country, they are less likely to stay in your small town of 100k and move to somewhere else with more economic or artistic opportunity. And by being in small town, it's a lot more time and money for them to fly to see you, so they will see you less.

Ex: I can fly across the ocean for the same price it is to fly 2 hours direct equivalent / 4 hours connecting to see my family in their relatively small town.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py > the ability to spin up and then successfully operate remote engineering > locations is a skill that technology companies need to develop earlier

+1. As someone who puts (expensive) food on the table in a metro area, this is scary to me, because it makes me more replaceable.

But the old arguments (we need people on-site, we need people to understand the context, remote teams have lower quality) sound thin now, especially given that on-site has its own efficiency problems in the open-office era.

Commuting & telecommuting tech may get better, project management tools may get better, reputation management will transform marketplaces like fiverr, something better than slack may come onto the scene, but even without these improvements, the talent bubble will force managers to hire away from the center.

I've worked at small cos where the engineering budget is the main blocker to growth / the business model working.

<comment><USER11> It always kind of amazes me when I work for a company that has national customers and is getting into multinational and they still only know how to run one server room.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've often thought that on my next startup, I should just start it in Cabo San Lucas. Package on-site interviews with a weekend trip. Pay middle-America salaries. Work hard, beach often.

<comment><USER2> Not enough folks will join you.

People need other (personal) employment options when your company fails or they get bored.

Their partners need an employment option.

If they have, or want, children, they need schooling options.

All this said, maybe a bunch of 20-somethings who enjoy beaches would go for this! In many software things, the likelihood of success is much more on getting ten awesome people, than it is being able to hire 500 people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> We see this in the Denver metro area. Lots of growing Bay area companies moving in (Slack, Strava, Checkr), while the bigger companies (Microsoft, Google, Oracle) have long had a presence (often through acquisition).

Not that Denver is cheap compared to many places in the USA, but compared to NYC/SF, it certainly is.

I think it's great for everyone. I also think the future of work is totally remote, as I outlined here: [http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2919](http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/2919)

</comment><comment><USER14> In my experience.

The brain mostly follow the money and that inflates the salary for everyone in that area.

The very talented individuals who stay "home" get pretty much the same pay the individual Whould in an inflated area, but the individuals peers don't.

I think the inflation which happens in pretty much every large city with a thriving tech/startup environment, is largely due to the fact that lage groups of highly skilled and talented people gather and then that super salary becomes "normal" and then the rest wants an even salary. Lowering the tops pay is a no go as that salary they can get literally in any geographic location. Then the only thing left is base pay has to go up.

Just my guess.

<comment><USER3> >The very talented individuals who stay "home" get pretty much the same pay the individual Whould in an inflated area, but the individuals peers don't.

Depends on where the home is. Short of starting your own company in your hometown, in a lot of places there just aren't comparable jobs.

Also even if you are working somewhere with an inflated cost of living, the key thing is that you can save a lot more money in absolute terms, and then later in life you can move back to a lower COL area. Your crappy $1.2m house in the Peninsula can be traded for a mansion in other parts of the country, and if you are putting ~30% of your inflated salary in stocks vs. 30% of your non-inflated salary, you will have a lot more stocks when you leave the inflated area.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Has anyone made a GDPR graveyard? - <AUTHOR> You know, sites that are shuttering because of the risk/burden GDPR is placing on them. I've seen a few so I'm wondering if anyone is compiling a list. Such a list would be politically <i>really bad</i> for politics in the EU, I think. <comment><USER2> Why?

The GDPR is made to protect people from scrupleless companies and practices.

Not all companies are good citizen (Cambridge Analytics comes to mind), and as a european I say "Good riddance".

For normal companies doing normal things with their data, the effort is mostly documentation and good-willed "try to abide the rules".

If you followed the spirit of the pre-GDPR rules, you would almost certainly be compliant without much work even for the GDPR - at least here in Denmark.

But if you business is exploiting data, you collected with questionable methods - then yes, you are going to have a problem...

I would also like to see the graveyard site, mostly because I would then have something to point to when showing that the GDPR works as intented...

<comment><AUTHOR> > The GDPR is made to protect people from scrupleless companies and practices.

This ignores the vast amount of legislation that creates an enormous legal burden for small companies.

> Not all companies are good citizen (Cambridge Analytics comes to mind), and > as a european I say "Good riddance".

Not all companies in violation of GDPR are bad or negligent.

> For normal companies doing normal things with their data, the effort is > mostly documentation and good-willed "try to abide the rules".

> If you followed the spirit of the pre-GDPR rules, you would almost certainly > be compliant without much work even for the GDPR - at least here in Denmark.

Until someone sues you and you have to prove that.

> But if you business is exploiting data, you collected with questionable > methods - then yes, you are going to have a problem...

Quite often, data can be both in the "public interest" (not the definition legally defined by GDPR, just that there's no reasonable expectation of privacy by the data creator) and "expoiting" \-- such as data derived from pseudonymous sources but could be argued as PII, even though practically speaking, it isn't really.

> I would also like to see the graveyard site, mostly because I would then > have something to point to when showing that the GDPR works as intented...

Most of the sites I've seen that are dead-by-GDPR are small businesses that weren't doing anything any reasonable person would be against, but a single takedown request could be over-burdening for them to respond to as it may have merits by the letter of the law.

<comment><USER2> If you are an European company, most of this stuff has been the law for decades!

Running a project/company means taking on risk. Financially and otherwise. Why is data-care risk so much worse?

And sueing is only going to happen in the US. In Europe getting sued is extremely rare. I expect most DPA (gov bodies handling this) starts out with a kindly worded letter. You comply, nothing happened.. (Most other legislation works this way in Europe already). Fines are mostly for repeat-offenders or clearly black sheep.

In the US, who knows... Most europeans are baffled by the courts and cases in the US. But I think US companies have to be handled by an EU DPA anyways, so we are back to the letter again..

I run a small company (two employees) and I am not concerned. I know a lot of small companies, they are mostly not concerned. I know a few larger companies, they are not concerned (unless they have data handling as their main business).

My own work in this has been somewhere in the neighbourhood of a workweek. Not any worse than complying with tax-law...

There is also no "automatic 20M euro fine". Most matters are likely handled by a kindly- or sternly worded letter, or a small fine (in the 5-20k EUR range for small companies, which sucks but shouldn't kill you....

<comment><USER3> You're very naive about this situation. Just because the possibility legally exists already means that you're taking this into account when calculating risk.

Also, EU tax-law is one of the reasons that small digital businesses have suffered in recent years. The VAT fiasco was very poorly handled and it's still ongoing.

<comment><USER2> What?

(disclaimer: i don't sell services outside a few countries)

There is a solution called One Stop VAT where all comminication and reporting goes to your home-country (given you are an EU company).

All your taxes are then calculated at your local rate (as I understand it), execpt for companies with a valid VAT-number, where reverse tax is standard (i.e. zero-rated tax).

[https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/vat-customs/moss- schem...](https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/vat-customs/moss- scheme/index_en.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Such a list would be politically really bad for politics in the EU

Why so? I'd be happy to see such a list of shame. You know, companies already quoted here on HN as "clearly unable to get the consent" (of the people whose data they're processing). Let's see who they are and what they were doing.

<comment><USER5> Exactly this. Companies shutting down make it look like a bully GDPR made them do it but then HN commenters indicate that these companies primary business was selling customer data:

> Streetlend made its money by selling your privacy data to advertisers > through Amazon.

Source: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955709](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16955709)

<comment><USER6> The founder claims this wasn't true. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16956549](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16956549)

AFAIK, slander is still a problem in some parts of the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here are a few stories about sites/services being shutdown...I expect the real deuluge won't happen until after it takes effect.

StreetLend.com - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954306](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16954306)

Super Monday Night Combat - [https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/28/17295498/super- monday-nigh...](https://www.polygon.com/2018/4/28/17295498/super-monday-night- combat-shutting-down-gdpr)

Tunngle - [https://www.tunngle.net/en/](https://www.tunngle.net/en/)

Ragnarok Online - [http://massivelyop.com/2018/04/26/ragnarok-online-shuts- down...](http://massivelyop.com/2018/04/26/ragnarok-online-shuts-down-in- europe-due-to-new-regulations/)

Verve - [https://adexchanger.com/mobile/verve-closes-european- busines...](https://adexchanger.com/mobile/verve-closes-european-business- thanks-to-gdpr/)

SteamSpy - [https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/8bdkuz/steam_sale...](https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/8bdkuz/steam_sales_tracker_steamspy_will_no_longer_be/)

<comment><USER8> SteamSpy is disingenuous in that yes, they can't scrape people's Steam profiles anymore because they're now private by default. That change could have come at any time, and in fact you've always been able to make profiles private [0], but probably the default is a result of the GDPR.

This is more of a result of their shaky business model than the GDPR. And nothing in the GDPR is preventing Steam from publishing anonymized game stats via an official API, or for people to make their profiles public again, or SteamSpy collecting this data with consent some other way.

[0] [https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4113-YUD...](https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4113-YUDH-6401)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Beyond all the "why" questions, here's an actual company blocking the entirety of it's EU userbase: Warpportal/Ragnarok

source: [https://forums.warpportal.com/index.php?/topic/235548-import...](https://forums.warpportal.com/index.php?/topic/235548-important- notice-regarding-european-region-access/)

</comment><comment><USER10> A GDPR graveyard? Let's make it interesting and start a GDPR deadpool.

</comment><comment><USER11> I'd be interested in this, though I don't think it will have any political impact. Here is one person deleting their personal blog's comments & (already confirmed/double opted-in) MailChimp list as the easiest way to stay GDPR compliant:

[http://alastairjohnston.co.uk/oh-gdpr-what-have-you- done/](http://alastairjohnston.co.uk/oh-gdpr-what-have-you-done/)

<comment><USER8> That's cause his blog is full of Javascript shite, including something that prevents me selecting the text, or right-clicking.

> "what I can't be sure of is what happens to data that passes through the > various apps, WordPress plugins, cookies etc that are part of this blog, but > not controlled or run by me."

This is a dumb argument, it's his personal blog, it's controlled by him. That including how much JS and social media trackers to stuff into each page.

With comments, it's easy. Somebody wants you to post the comment, which is why they submitted it. No extra consent needed, although maybe they'll want it deleted in future. Of course, an email address is required to post, but "it will not be published". Why exactly is it required then?

<comment><USER11> > _With comments, it 's easy. Somebody wants you to post the comment, which is > why they submitted it. No extra consent needed..._

No, that's the point - consent is required for that. And for the consent to be explicit, some are advising it needs to be a Modal blocking dialog that prevents the user from using any other part of the website before dealing with it, and that demonstrates the user did actually scroll through all the privacy terms, not just ignored them and clicked the checkbox.

 _> This is a dumb argument, it's his personal blog, it's controlled by him. That including how much JS and social media trackers to stuff into each page._

That's fair. I know I've personally been deleting Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit and hosting my own webfonts instead as a result of this. I'm still figuring out how to best replace Google Analytics, and looking to remove any Twitter & YouTube embeds I had in old posts that could possibly track visitors. (I agree that is all a good outcome of GDPR.)

<comment><USER8> I'd say posting somebody's comment they want posted qualifies as legitimate interest, and therefore doesn't need consent. What other reasonable expectation could a person have that you'd do with that information? No need to overthink or overengineer this.

<comment><USER11> My understanding is that's not sufficient. Here's where I personally got very worried (sorry this is so long):

MailChimp recently sent out an email to their customers advising that all their current HTTPS Submit forms are not GDPR compliant. They're rolling out all new submit forms in May that have legalese that must be explicitly agreed to, in addition to the Email field & Submit button. It's a Modal blocking form so the visitor can't possibly do anything else.

Here is an example of their new modal submit form, it's a doozy:

[https://kb.mailchimp.com/binaries/content/gallery/mailchimpk...](https://kb.mailchimp.com/binaries/content/gallery/mailchimpkb/common/lists/signup- forms/gdpr/gdpr_mktgperm.png)

I don't do any "customized ads" or "direct mail", but apparently that boilerplate of legalese and "we use your email address to send you email, tick here to confirm you want email" is still required. It's a bit like the Cookie notifications all over again.

I realize I haven't directly responded to your blog comment submit button, but I hope this explains the motivation / understanding behind my comments here. I too would have thought an email field & submit form would be a reasonable expectation, but the form designed by MailChimp's lawyers is _way_ more legalese & boilerplate than I ever anticipated would be required by GDPR.

(Honestly, I do also get the comments here about "you're not going to be caught or made an example of so don't worry" too. In practice I will do what I can to be compliant, listen to what my visitors & customers want, and hope for the best.)

<comment><USER8> Of course it's fucking sufficient, that's literally the definition of "legitimate interest" [0]. I write comment. I want you to publish comment. You publish comment, and don't spam me - maybe even don't require my email.

If you say, "hey, provide your email, and I'll send you newsletters and you can unsubscribe at any time", and I say "sweet, sign me up", and then you only send me newsletters with no tracking or adtech, that's legitimate interest.

If you use a third party, if they store only the minimum necessary and don't use it for anything else, that'd be fine to. E.g. obviously they need my email address, but only for sending the emails.

And if Mailchip were decent, they'd just send out plain emails. The problem is probably their emails are full of tracking links and other adtech garbage, and who knows who they sell info on to?

Then again, they call themselves a marketing platform, not a newsletter service, or email sender. Kind of obvious.

Also, that's a shitty dialog. Mailchimp's private policy and terms are probably largely void under EU law anyway, just by being almost incomprehensible by the lay person. How am I supposed to give consent freely when it would take days to read? Probably best to avoid Mailchimp. Thanks GDPR!

Edit: ordering

[0] [https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general- da...](https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data- protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/legitimate-interests/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Honest question: can anybody predict if Google Analytics is going to be on the list?

Because as interpreted today, GDPR compliance for google analytics on any website would simply kill the UX for the first-time visitor of that website. Which is pretty much the most important UX for any website...

<comment><USER13> Then those websites should stop using Google Analytics, which DOES violate their users' privacy unless there is informed consent about what it's doing.

<comment><USER12> 1) You do realize those sites are pretty much 99% of the web, right?

2) Those sites used GA to statistically analyse and understand their user base, in order to better serve them. How do you propose to do it instead? How to find out what was a bad redesign? A bad landing page? How to understand a conversion ratio? The churn?

<comment><USER13> 1) 99% of websites are secretly sharing their users' identification and browsing habits with a single multinational advertising company. Yeah, let's shut that down as emphatically as possible.

2) You can write a book without tracking my every page-flip. You can write a desktop app without phoning-home and tracking my usage. You can operate a store without secretly selling my shopping habits and purchase information to other companies behind my back.

Do something honest, or don't do it at all.

<comment><USER12> Have YOU done it or are you talking from your imagination?

Analytics and statistics are in every modern developer's tool belt. Because they ultimately benefit users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am _absolutley speechless_ about the number of people who seem to consider data protection to be an unreasonable burden for a company. Complying with GDPR is pretty straightforward:

\- Don't keep data unless you have to

\- Get explicit consent for keeping data

\- Keep the data you have secure

\- Allow users to see their data and know how it's used

\- Allow users to delete their data

This is inline with regulation in other fields: worker rights, food hygiene, health and safety etc.

I look forward to seeing your list, because it will be a list of _companies you are lucky you will never transact with_.

<comment><USER15> Is visitor's IP address a "data"?

If yes, you can't have a web server log.

<comment><USER16> An IP address is only personal data if you can link it with other stuff to identify a natural person.

If your weblogs are used to prevent crime (fraud, for example), you're allowed to keep them.

People are making the mistake of thinking that "user permission" is the only reason you can keep data, but that's not true.

<comment><USER17> How far does this go, though?

For example, on my silly little blog, I've got logging for each http request that records the url hit, the ip address, and a browser user agent. I can trace that session through, and have a pretty good fingerprint of that user from that alone. If that person goes and sends me an email or leaves a comment with some tidbit of information that correlates (name, where they are from, email, what post they were reading, etc), have I now accidentally collected enough information that it violates GPDR?

<comment><USER18> What do you mean 'violates GDPR'?

GDPR doesn't necessarily make having such info illegal. It's more what you do with it and how you inform and allow the individual to control/delete it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is a brilliant idea, if it doesn't exist already I hope someone puts one online, a simple wordpress page using a twentysixteen or twentyfifteen would suffice.

Or even a github page with just a list.

[UPDATE] I took the liberty to get the ball rolling.

[https://github.com/killed-by-gdpr/killed-by- gdpr.github.io](https://github.com/killed-by-gdpr/killed-by-gdpr.github.io) and

[https://killed-by-gdpr.github.io/](https://killed-by-gdpr.github.io/)

Contributions welcome.

<comment><USER2> www.geocities.com ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> The biggest problem is figuring out what things won't even exist because of this overreaching and ultimately pointless law.</comment>


App developers guide to eBook DRM - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN, I have been googling around for a while, but it is proving notoriously difficult to get results.
I am working on designing an ebook reader, this reader will be cross platform including everything from computers to tablets (andriod and iOS).
A major concern here is DRM which limits which devices the user can use to read their ebook.
Does anybody know where I can find a developers guide to dealing with ebook DRM restrictions - particularly when designing an app that is aimed to be functional across multiple platforms.
Thanks for your help! <comment><USER2> What do you mean by 'dealing with'?

Legally opening the ebook for the user to read (probably requires a deal with each DRM vendor), or cracking/stripping off the DRM entirely?</comment>


Baby's First Garbage Collector - <AUTHOR> http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2013/12/08/babys-first-garbage-collector/ <comment><USER2> So every once in a while I come across old timey C optimizations in the spirit of Duff's device or bit twiddling to swap variables, 'etc 'etc...

While they have a certain kind of charm to them they seem to be almost universally bested by increasingly mature compilers and complex (or virtualized) hardware.

So I'm kind of coming to the conclusion that clever pointer arithmetic games and even manual malloc/free are _increasingly_ futile unless you're targeting embedded devices. If a young language like Go gets you at least in the same ballpark as C with a relatively immature GC and even toy implementations like the OP take you rather far these days... when is coding without a garbage collector even really defensible anymore?

I'm not trolling. I think pointer arithmetic is neat and the aforementioned "optimizations" are magical and possibly my generation has missed out on something wonderful. Seems it just isn't often practical to do that sort of thing anymore.

Edit: I'd like to stress that I wasn't talking in absolutes, and asking rather than telling. I'm not sure how to phrase my post better, made some edits nonetheless.

<comment><USER3> Let me link to a (very longwinded, sorry) post I made a while back explaining how a particular type of memory pool allocator works: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6176091](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6176091)

tl;dr if you think "manual memory management" means "malloc thing, use thing, free thing" you're kind of missing the point.

Also, tricks like Duff's device and XOR swap have long since become pessimizations, not optimizations, on desktop and mobile-class hardware. Duff's device, for instance, wastes instruction cache when any decent CPU's branch predictor can eliminate most of a simple loop's overhead anyway. With the exception of manually vectorizing tight loops to take advantage of SIMD hardware (which is more of assembly's domain anyway), I think the "optimized C" of today looks pretty straightforward and unobfuscated, just with more attention paid to the details that higher level languages mostly gloss over for you.

> ...and possibly my generation has missed out on something wonderful...

I'm pretty certain I'm younger than you, I just grew up really wanting to make games and know how computers work. Maybe _you_ don't need or even want to think about this kind of stuff, but it's not like the problems just magically disappeared one day. Or, more bluntly, "if C and C++ are so dumb then why isn't your browser written in Python?"

<comment><USER4> I think the HN crowd honestly believes that the only reason the next browser hasn't been written in a GC language is momentum and time. That the next one will very obviously be written in Ruby or Python. I've seen discussions here to that effect.

I find it hard to read HN discussions about C. One faction is totally amazed by the C equivalent of being able to tie their shoes. The other faction believes shoelaces are obsolete and everyone should wear velcro.

This "my generation has missed out" thing is really odd... If you are honestly interested in it, go learn how it works! The commenter you're replying to should quit making excuses.

<comment><USER2> Sorry for the poor phrasing, maybe you've misunderstood: I've mentioned that I'm interested, am fond of it, and have learned how it works. Not sure what excuses you're talking about.

OTOH, for when I'm not writing a browser, a HFTs, or the next-gen video game engine, the trade offs are increasingly not worth it. On top of that we don't have Amigas to have fun with anymore and stay close to the hardware on (I guess maybe Raspberry Pi qualifies as some sort of substitute) and so that particular brand of hacker, a small group to begin with, keeps on shrinking. That's what I meant by missing out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Not having studied the topic in depth, my first thought is whether true pointers and a garbage collector can coexist (without artificially removing parts of the language). The big condition for knowing if something is still in use is whether any references exist to it. But in a language like C , you could cast a pointer to something else (like a void pointer for some quasi generic linked list), store it somewhere, and then cast it back later after garbage collection has run. That seems like a problematic situation. So is completely giving up on pointers (or just never doing tricky things like casting or pointer arithmetic) a requirement to having a garbage collector?

<comment><USER6> I don't know of any language that has pointers and a GC. Are there any? C# lets you use pointers but only if you tell the GC to not move your object and promise to behave.

<comment><USER7> > "I don't know of any language that has pointers and a GC. Are there any?"

Objective-C used to have a garbage collector, though (at least with regards to iOS) Apple removed this capability with the introduction or ARC. On the following URL is some discussion on the Objective-C garbage collector: [http://cocoasamurai.blogspot.nl/2010/12/objective-c- memory-m...](http://cocoasamurai.blogspot.nl/2010/12/objective-c-memory- management-garbage.html)

<comment><USER8> iOS never got the GC, only the desktop version got it, and afaik it was deprecated rather than removed entirely.

<comment><USER9> It's been removed entirely in Xcode 5.1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Now THIS is the kind of articles I want to see in HN.

Saved for later reading, seems very interesting and well explained.

<comment><USER11> Did you see this a few weeks ago? [http://patshaughnessy.net/2013/10/24/visualizing-garbage- col...](http://patshaughnessy.net/2013/10/24/visualizing-garbage-collection- in-ruby-and-python/)

<comment><USER10> Nope, thanks for the link!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't understand. When sweep frees an object, it invalidates the "next" object of the previous object in the linked list, breaking the traversal next time a gc() is called. Doesn't the linked list have to be patched? (e.g., keep track of "prev_object" and set its next to unreached->next before freeing unreached)

<comment><USER13> I think `*object = unreached->next;` does that, since it's using a pointer to a pointer.

<comment><USER14> That's correct. It patches the "next" pointer of the previous object to point _past_ the freed object.

It's a pointer to a pointer to handle the case where you're freeing the first object in the list. In that case, it's "firstObject" that needs to be modified, not some Object's "next" pointer.

Using a pointer to a pointer (while admittedly harder to read at first) lets you handle both of those cases with the same code.

<comment><USER15> This technique is talked about in this Stack Overflow answer: [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12914917/using- pointers-t...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12914917/using-pointers-to- remove-item-from-singly-linked-list), which also references this Slashdot interview ([http://meta.slashdot.org/story/12/10/11/0030249/linus- torval...](http://meta.slashdot.org/story/12/10/11/0030249/linus-torvalds- answers-your-questions)) with Linus Torvalds where he gives this as his "favorite hack".

<comment><USER14> Yup, I got the idea for this from Linus. Before then, I've always done the uglier "if this is the first node then ..." special case branch instead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> That was actually very easy to understand!.

Thanks for that. I'm thinking in build a toy language and this make on magic thing die..

</comment><comment><USER17> storing the 'mark' bit with the objects themselves is not so good for COW semantics, but should be _just_ fine for this toy example i think...

</comment><comment><USER18> Nice post! It's very precise. I didn't have a hard time understanding it. Thanks for sharing!</comment>


Ask HN: What are you thinking about your personal goals in 2017? - <AUTHOR> I never believed in new year resolutions, but last year, I gave myself three major goals, out of which  I think I'll be crossing off all of them!
For the next year, I am planning to
1. Grow 100 plants in my house 2. Walk a total of 2000 Kms in the year 3. Create 12 big paintings 4. Journal everyday 5. Cook through a cookbook completely
I'm really interested to know what you would mark as personal goals. <comment><USER2> I find New Year's resolutions extremely useful, but only if I subsequently break them down into quarterly resolutions so I can evaluate them more often. A whole year is too long a time to check up on your goals.

I developed a pretty consistent habit of exercising in 2016, and I also started a project ([https://goo.gl/Qmbbgh](https://goo.gl/Qmbbgh)) that I think can feasibly generate enough recurring revenue to sustain my lifestyle.

In 2017 I'd like to continue exercising but add a little more cardio (it's been mostly weightlifting), get my project to at least $3-4k/mo in revenue, add to that a new habit of reading and learning new things at least one day a week.

<comment><USER3> > but only if I subsequently break them down into quarterly resolutions so I > can evaluate them more often. A whole year is too long a time to check up on > your goals.

I agree. I've had pretty good success in terms of building habits by sticking a calendar next to the door and marking off every day where I go for a run, or keeping daily/weekly records of expenses (again, with a physical chart stuck somewhere I have to look at it regularly) in order to stick to a budget.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Switch into software as a career. I've been learning Node.js for fun for the last 4 years, while I'm a full time chemical engineer with experience in oil & gas, metals & mining, and supply chain.

Ideally find something that lets me use my project management and industry experience, rather than just being a junior dev.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would like to do 80 exercises on project Euller. I will try to do that on my next summer vacation (souther hemisphere). I have other goals but I am still focusing on 2016...

</comment><comment><USER6> Learn vim.</comment>


How can I get covered on TechCrunch? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunchcover.me/about.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Thinking that is so damn difficult for young and not-US startup like us to end up on techblogs like TechCrunch. What about pull request on GitHub?</comment>


Am I wrong or are Adafruit, Makerbot, Sparkfun and others are? - <AUTHOR> Recently I have been asking some companies like Adafruit, Makerbot and Sparkfun if I could become a distributor of their products in my country. Amazingly (or not?) I have been sort of rejected from all of them. For example in a trending company such as Adafruit, I asked about the requirements to become a distributor and I told them that I had the intention to develop an online shop to resell their products - They told me to contact them again once I had the online shop up and running and taking orders from customers.
I replied that if all companies asked things like these, there would be no companies at all. Which company would be the first to let me sell their products without having already a prosper business?
Anyway, the stories are similar with the others. With Makerbot for example, they told me that I had to invest $250,000 USD to become an authorised reseller. Please correct me if I am wrong, but don't you think that a company that started like Makerbot should be the first to understand how businesses develop? Please! $250,000 USD? Of course they would let me buy "a few" printers if I wanted (well thanks a lot...) maybe with their permission I could do that!
The less frustrating experience was with Sparkfun, where they told me they "already feel very well represented" in my country. At least this could be understandable since there are probably deals in place with the current distributors, but even so, if somebody comes to me asking to sell my products, it wouldn't matter to me to have another sales representative, but again, maybe that's just me.
I don't pretend to have the truth, but I would be very happy to hear what other people think. <comment><USER2> The companies you mention have good international sales from their existing online stores. What are you offering that they cannot easily do?

Saying you want to be a distributor implies that you will have a network of resellers. For that to be attractive you would need to have substantial local inventory. As @noonespecial says, that requires making a substantial investment up front. You can't just say your are a distributor, take orders and then pass them on the the companies you mention. That is of no benefit to them.

As for Makerbot, do you have the resources to support what you plan to sell?

Take a look at Arrow, Farnell, etc and see how they operate. That's what it takes to be a distributor.

<comment><AUTHOR> In my case, I am hoping to develop an inexistent market in some cases (such as 3d printing). In my country we don't have so many hobbyists for example, but certainly I believe there could be many applications. The market is rather small and I doubt that these companies could develop the markets from abroad. Just a thought though....

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Don't ask to "be a distributor". Ask for a volume discount; and then be prepared to pay for this up front at first. I suspect you might be getting turned down because "being a distributor" often involves them sending you a bunch of product on faith or extended credit terms. They are small operations and may be operating one bad deal away from bankruptcy and be unable to take such a risk.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, volume discount is less risky for any business. Nice way to put it, thank you. But anyway, I sometimes believe that some new companies turn too fast into "small" large inaccessible corporations! It's a good thing to take this in consideration for all startups out there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Many people become resellers in order to buy product for themselves and friends at a discounted price. This trend is rampant in the car-modification and hotrod cultures of the United States.

Perhaps without a shop they are suspicious of your intentions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Surely this is a widespread problem, tough one to overcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm agreeing with "qq66". If you wanna make a real business out of this, you should follow qq66's advice and get yourself the producers on board. They however would wanna see prospected sales pipelines and some forecasts. In addition to that, you might need to agree on fixed sales per year in order to be recognized as a distributor. Alternatively, you could go with a luggage full of money to some small Asian trade fairs..

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree, good point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> These companies are already resellers for the most part. Why not just buy the products directly and compete with them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't considered this. Certainly a good idea, maybe I am trying to resell from a reseller which already has a tight margin.

<comment><USER6> Keep in mind that to achieve differentiation, Sparkfun/Adafruit etc. do build proprietary products themselves. Mostly breakout boards and other things that require low capital investment but make the components that they resell (Atmel and TI chips, etc) much easier to use for the through-hole hobbyist. If you don't do the same, you'll probably get stomped by them in the long term, but if you can build a market position in a specific country quickly enough, you can get bought by them instead.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great insights thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> the problem is, after they give you your margin, or cut, or discount, as 'distributor, you buy just 1 item. for yourself.

there are vendors that actually don't care, and anyone can sign up as a reseller. but apparently you asked a few who do.

<comment><AUTHOR> Same as above, this happens a lot too, you're right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Distributors (or, commonly, a "channel") are generally expected to bring something tangible to the table in the relationship. Sometimes, they have a large book of clients or have access to a market that the supplier can't tap. Often they also take on first tier support, installation, service and/or training. In many cases, they smooth out the suppliers cash flow by pre- booking and/or stocking product locally. A requirement to pre-purchase demo gear and/or have a certain number of employees trained/certified on the products is common.

So, based on what you've said, you don't have a sales pipeline, don't have a sales mechanism (and a web site isn't a particularly interesting one to companies who already sell primarily via the web), aren't willing/able to put in a significant cash investment in the relationship, and haven't mentioned support and training. They probably have a couple of dozen people a month come to them with "I have nothing to offer but why don't you trust your reputation to me, give me a big discount and let's do business together!". Their reaction really shouldn't be surprising.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe I am wrong in my concept of distributor, for me there can be large distributors and smaller ones. Retailers of all sizes (small hobby shops or large hardware depots)

<comment><USER8> There are all sizes of distributors. But that doesn't mean all suppliers make use of all sizes, and regardless of size, they're bringing something of value to the supplier. The small hobby shop, for example, provides hands on assistance that a distant supplier can't. Telling people who sell via web site you want to sell via website isn't particularly compelling in and of itself.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are right, differentiation with value is what would make my offer stand out.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Boxee's thoughts about the Apple TV - mike-cardwell http://blog.boxee.tv/2010/09/01/some-boxee-thoughts-about-the-apple-tv/

<comment><AUTHOR> I think that this comes down to pirating and p0rn. It is very easy for me to download a TV show automatically using TED, have them automatically identified and queued up in Boxee to watch on my TV. I have an old computer connected to my TV via HDMI and a Harmony 880 remote to control it.

Beyond television and movie downloads, what about mature content? Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure that the content they offer is free of adult content. I like that but I know that a TV and Internet connected device like this will do a lot better if it's easy to put p0rn on.

The problem with the existing Apple TV was the content - short of a price reduction, I didn't see Steve announce any real content changes.

In my mind, the biggest thing standing in Boxee's way is their relationship with DLink to price ($200 - $250) and provide the Boxee boxes. I get that they view the boxes as a way to get their primary product (software) in-front of more people, but I think that they'd be wise to diversify with a number of manufacturers making open hardware that comes with Boxee pre-installed.

</comment><comment><USER2> I believe that the new Apple TV won't be a runaway success (and possibly a failure by their standards) for Apple.

The reason the iPod was a huge success was because you could fill up that enormous hard drive with music _you didn't pay for._ What would be the point of owning a piece of hardware you paid hundreds for if you now had to pay hundreds or thousands more to fill it with music? Of course some do, but they are in the minority. People have no problem paying for an expensive-looking piece of hardware they can hold in their hand but balk at the thought of paying a lot for digital content they can only access temporarily (especially when said digital content could be downloaded free elsewhere). I think this is the elephant in the room that Apple have overlooked. If the Apple TV did everything the new model did but had a 1TB drive attached, it would be a different story.

<comment><USER3> You can still stream movies from your PC or iPod/Phone so the ability to have a hard drive with content you didn't pay for is still there.

<http://www.apple.com/appletv/#remote>

Not sure if it's limited to MP4 or not but I'm sure there will be a way around that.

<comment><USER4> I'm pretty sure it's limited to H.264 and MP4, at least that's what Apple is saying on the tech specs page under "video formats."

<http://www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html>

I still don't like the idea of having iTunes on a PC be necessary for me to play my video files. What if iTunes doesn't recognize certain file formats that I want to play? I'm SOL.

I really like the AppleTV and will buy one, but it's not a media player in the same sense that XBMC or any of its decedents are. It's a player for the userbase who doesn't want to deal with storage, file formats or torrents. That's not me, but it is certainly a large # of people.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> On a tangent, I'm glad Apple went with a matte black case for the Apple TV. Hopefully that will help kill the highly absurd Piano Black trend.

<comment><USER6> Dear god yes. Buying a new TV recently was a right pain since basically everybody insist on making them as ugly as possible with the most horrendous shiny plastic they can find.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of the mysteries with today's Apple TV announcement is why they didn't incorporate Apps Store (which is very obvious given that ATV2 nows runs on the A4 processor and IOS4). My guess is that Apple is saving its dry powder (to compete with Google TV). I am convinced that when Apps Store become available, Boxee would be a fantastic app (and as such, would benefit from Apple as opposed to competing with Apple). On the other hand, Boxee Box is a piece of hardware and would be a direct competitor and a strategic mistake (which explains why D-Link is dragging its feet).

<comment><USER8> One thing that's being overlooked:

What kind of apps can Apple tout (and we write) when the remote is the only input device?

People said they didn't want another computer, so forget wireless keyboards and mice. Maybe a touch interface with the iPad mirroring the TV? You touch the iPad and the results display on both the iPad and the TV, but that would require you to own another device just to use it to its fullest potential.

When these problems can be reasonably solved, we'll probably have an app store for the TV.

<comment><USER6> I don't think we'll see the iPad or iPhone simply mirroring the TV, but being used as dedicated input devices in their own right. I imagine that most AppleTV apps will come with a matching iPhone or iPad app for input. For example the iPhone can display buttons and icons which you use to control the app on the TV or use the tilt sensor like some sort of Wii like motion control.

I don't think making AppleTV owners also own an iPhone or iPad to get the full potential from the device is anything Apple would consider a negative.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "The Boxee Box is going to be $100 more expensive than the Apple TV, but will give you the freedom to watch what you want."

What if I want to watch movies from the major studios? Netflix?

<comment><USER9> I want to add that I really am not familiar with Boxee. I watched their introduction video and it appears that it does support Netflix. It is not clear where the movies from the major studios are obtained. Do people just rip DVDs and pirate them or is there some other source?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Sounds like an interesting product, but the oddly shaped case seems to reinforce the fact that this will be a niche product: <http://www.boxee.tv/box>

Might seem like a shallow/trivial thing, but I don't really want that thing atop my pile of a/v components.

</comment><comment><USER11> The amount of opportunity here is mind blowing. Someone needs to do something even more wild with XBMC than Boxee. If I had F __k you money or funding, you have no idea what I would build.

</comment><comment><USER12> It's great that there will be a serious competitor with Apple TV from the very start. Very much looking forward to the Boxee Box.

<comment><USER13> I really hope it will be a serious competitor. One is half the price of the other, and will be on sale on every other streetcorner. The other is twice as expensive, doesn't have Apple's sexiness (at least in mindshare), and will be on sale in way less places (or only online). And it won't integrate as seamless with your other iDevices. As much as I like boxee, this will be a tough battle for them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Aren't serious IPTV fanatics going to continue using HTPCs? I don't see the Boxee set top really being an adequate solution. It's very limited compared to a $300-$500 HTPC. That puts them into a bad spot of being too expensive and too limited. I think Roku and Apple have the right idea.

</comment><comment><USER15> What is Boxee and how does it improve upon the media streamers that are out there already?

My year old $100 Asus O!Play is awesome.. It handles all my dvd rips and anything I download. There is soo much that could be done with it, Asus just forgot about it or dropped the ball.

<comment> mike-cardwell <http://www.boxee.tv/faq>

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I agree-freedom is worth the $100.

</comment><comment><USER17> I hereby declare the new AppleTV the 'iPod TV.'

Another device in which Apple's anti-Flash stance keeps me from pressing the 'Buy now' button. These days, video = streaming and like it or not, a large portion of streaming video that streams through the web is one over Flash. This won't change anytime soon.

I hate having to fire up my desktop to watch streams for sports or recent TV episodes on the network's homepage. I think about it, and I would have gladly paid apple twice as much for such a device but doubt I'd shell out as much for a dedicated Boxee device.

<comment><USER18> By this argument, Netflix apps should also play Flash because Netflix "does streaming." How the hell do you expect them to deal with the controls on flash movies that explicitly expect a point/click device rather than a remote control?

There is no good reason to arbitrarily add Flash support to a set top box that _doesn't even have a web browser in the first place._ The Apple TV has nothing to do with Flash or any anti-Flash stance.</comment></comment>


Playing Capitals with OpenCV and Python - <AUTHOR> http://blog.iank.org/playing-capitals-with-opencv-and-python.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Note - I found this a few hours ago, it was too cool not to share. I'm not nearly intelligent enough to be the developer.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you share photos ? - <AUTHOR>

Storage/cloud is not a problem anymore. We can store tons of stuff at places like Dropbox etc. When it comes to photos, we can add them to dropbox etc.
How do you actually "share" the pictures with your friends/family ? Possible options are adding to facebook but then those ppl need to be on fb, sending a share link through dropbox (how is this btw), uploading on flickr etc
I feel there is too much work still to share photos especially when there are 10s-100s of them. How do you do this for yourself ? Specifically, I want to share with people how are not tech savvy at all. What are some of the easiest ways ? <comment><USER2> I use Flickr</comment>


Anonymous defaces BART site, leaks user data - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20092221-93/anonymous-defaces-bart-site-leaks-user-data/ <comment><USER2> Current discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2884395></comment>