To do in San Francisco this weekend: the first-ever roguelike celebration - <AUTHOR> https://roguelike.club/schedule.html <comment><USER3> Aw, thanks for posting this and being excited about it! This is a labor of love organized by my friend Noah with help from a few other friends and me, just for fun since we love playing roguelikes.

We did sell out of tickets; our very graciously donated venue (thanks to Eventbrite) has an attendee limit since it's basically an office rather than a large venue. I hope you all will watch the streams! The talks will also be recorded so you can watch them later.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for providing streams! This just happens to be the weekend I leave the Bay Area so otherwise I'd be pretty bummed about missing it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The speaker list on this thing is absolutely mindblowing.

I really wanted to go, but having just gone to a roguelike conference last month and this one being on the opposite coast, I just couldn't swing it. But it _will_ be streamed!

<comment><USER5> Holy hell, there's only a few people missing for it to literally be "all stars". Which makes it unfortunate that there are two tracks! How come IRDC never had this, and I haven't even heard it mentioned in rgrd?

<comment><AUTHOR> The scope of this thing seems to have surprised everyone.

It appears to be a combination of location (many of the famous attendees live on the west coast I guess) and Noah simply emailing people to come.

As far as rgrd, I usually only step in there around events to ask if anyone is participating and have never gotten any interest from anyone. There were a lot of announcements on reddit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Propose changing the link to the event page [0]. This "blog post" doesn't add anything.

[0] [https://roguelike.club/](https://roguelike.club/)

<comment><USER7> To be fair, I've had [http://roguelike.club](http://roguelike.club) on my to- revisit list for a while and it doesn't obviously mention the twitch stream in big bold letters on the front page so I had missed that option. I'm quite glad to see it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Streaming for track 1 and track 2:

[https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con](https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con)

[https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con2](https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con2)

</comment><comment><USER9> The only computer game I play is DCSS. Once got to the vaults as a troll beserker, but I can't get any farther than that. (I know, I know .... slow down, just don't get killed...)

<comment><USER10> I've found DCSS quite fun. It eliminates most of the busywork of most roguelikes: you don't need to take separate notes, you can search for items and landmarks, you can auto-travel to known areas/levels and auto-explore unseen areas of a level, and the developers have "eliminate tedium" as a specific design goal.

I've managed to win the full game twice, and each of the sprints a few times. Spriggan berserker with piles of stealth and dodging worked really well; a manual of Fighting helped get my HP to reasonable levels. I need to see if I can get a spellcaster through the full game, and I still need to do the extended endgame.

I like sprint mode lately for quick games that take <30 minutes.

<comment><USER11> _...the developers have "eliminate tedium" as a specific design goal._

I think lots of good has come from that. At some point, though, it started to feel like a lot of what the dev team considered tedium I considered fun, and vice versa. (I could of course download the old versions and play locally, but playing online was a lot of the fun.)

 _I need to see if I can get a spellcaster through the full game_

"Pure" spellcasting can be done, but it's unpleasant to play (just from a UI perspective) and usually a suboptimal use of XP (DCSS usually rewards moderate investment in several areas rather than extreme specialization in one.) If you're not imposing that on yourself, then book backgrounds are overrepresented among the better starts in the game.

<comment><USER10> > At some point, though, it started to feel like a lot of what the dev team > considered tedium I considered fun, and vice versa.

What kinds of things got dropped that you liked?

<comment><USER12> I don't like the hunger clock.

<comment><USER13> Seconded. It's nothing more than a nuisance, but one has to constantly carve up carcasses just in case, and constantly drop rotten meat. Not fun.

<comment><USER12> Just to be clear, there are two things going on:

1\. Your character gets hungry periodically and needs to be fed. I'll refer to this as the "hunger system"; I don't really have so much of a problem with it, although I wouldn't be sad to see it go either.

2\. The amount of food in the game is _finite_. This is the hunger clock. If you take too much time in any one area, you will starve because there is no more food available; the only way to get more food is to move into a dangerous, uncleared area, and you'll need to spend that food exploring the new area. I'd like to be able to play slowly and carefully if I want to.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> For those with knowledge of the genre: What are the better, traditional roguelikes that you can recommend? I've only played Elona so far and quite liked it.

<comment><USER15> Brogue is very traditional and very thoughtfully designed. It's the author's idea of what Rogue might look like today if development had continued.

[https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/](https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/)

It's my favourite Roguelike because it's the genre distilled to its essence. Also the short bits of flavour text are very well written.

<comment><USER16> Brogue is also one of the most visually beautiful roguelikes despite sticking to the old roguelike convention of using individual ascii characters to represent everything in the dungeon. It is really impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Josh Ge will be speaking at this event. I have been closely following the devlog of his modern RL game Cogmind since the start and I can highly recommend it, as well as the game itself:

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/](http://www.gridsagegames.com/cogmind/)

[http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/](http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/)

</comment><comment><USER18> If they want CA history, hand's down reach out to Joseph and his Emperor Norton tour -- [http://www.emperornortontour.com/index.html](http://www.emperornortontour.com/index.html)

Full of history and comedy.

</comment><comment><USER19> Nice, I wish I could go!

My username is inspired by my favorite rogue-like growing up, JauntTrooper:Mission Thunderbolt. It was released in 1992.

Here it is, if folks are interested in playing it: [http://www.old- games.com/download/3974/jaunttrooper-mission-...](http://www.old- games.com/download/3974/jaunttrooper-mission-thunderbolt)

<comment><USER20> Oh my, the hours we wasted inside of DEC playing that game as it was being developed, which was just called Doom at the time. It's a pity Dave hasn't given it the SDL treatment or updated it for OS X but the rights are probably all screwed up from publishing it for the original Mac back in the early 90's. It was fun because of its wonderful sense of humor and sci-fi storyline, ATMs, radioactive green slime, and all the wonderful warrens (where you could find wonderful things way beyond your current level). It really did have a story and a mystery to be solved. A true classic.

You'd need to post a picture of the Security Authorization Chart for any of us to play that however.

<comment><USER19> Wow, no kidding! You were there when he was building it too? That's so awesome. :) Did he ever make any other games?

The game fills me with such nostalgia. As a kid, I couldn't find a retailer who sold it, so I wrote a letter to Casady & Greene in order to buy a copy. I still remember how excited I was when it arrived.

The Security Authorization Chart should be in the ReadMe file, by the way. :)

<comment><USER20> No, I think that was his only game. I never completed the game on the Mac, I think it was a little beyond where Doom was on VMS when DEC fell apart. Yes, it was always a good week when a Dave released a new version. Working at DEC was really quite special looking back. More like being in grad school, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Direct link in stream to Dwarf Fortress talk

[https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con/v/89873769?t=278m](https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con/v/89873769?t=278m)

</comment><comment><USER22> Looks like they are sold out as ticket sales are ended. How much were the tickets originally?

<comment><AUTHOR> $20-$45. $20 was probably the early bird. [https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roguelike-celebration- tickets-2...](https://www.eventbrite.com/e/roguelike-celebration- tickets-26125753833)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Direct link in stream to ADOM talk

[https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con/v/89873769?t=351m](https://www.twitch.tv/roguelike_con/v/89873769?t=351m)

</comment><comment><USER23> Offtopic, but does anyone have experience with porting NetHack? Back when 3.6.0 was first released I tried updating the Mac tileset port, but only got about "halfway" :(

</comment><comment><USER24> Holy shit, the developers of Rogue, Thomas Biskup, Tarn Adams, and even the creator of Kingdom of Loathing (for some reason) all in the same place?

</comment><comment><USER25> So can I not go since tickets are already sold out?

<comment><USER26> Twitch streams

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is so cool that it almost (but not quite) makes me wish I lived on the west coast.

But coming from the east coast, the west coast is _weird_.

<comment><USER28> I'm on the east coast as well (Boston). Although I dislike San Francisco for taking away talent and attention from Boston I wouldn't consider them _weird_ compared to local Cambridgites. You want oddity come to Cambridge MA. To be honest though I love _weird_.

The major _weird_ thing I don't like about SF is the climate (like why is hot during the wrong times of year).

<comment><USER27> I didn't say the people were weird. But the climate is unpleasant, and you can drive for miles and still be in the same state. And even "northern" california (I believe SF qualifies) is pretty far south, so it hardly ever snows. And all the landscapes look pretty ordinary, and then you suddenly see a palm tree (although that's more LA than SF).

And I do love Cambridge. Why? Bookstores. Bookstores everywhere. If you're looking for a book, and you can't find it in Cambridge, than you're probably not looking hard enough. And there's the MIT Press bookstore as well: Their CS section houses SICP, EPL, TAPL, The Little Books, and countless other excellent books on one row of shelves. If that's not awesome, I don't know what is.

I know that as a Cambridgeite, you know many more reasons why Cambridge is cool, but frankly, having a lot of bookstores is pretty high on my list of ways that places can be awesome.

And yes, it totally sucks that so much talent is on the other side of the country. Living in the New Haven suburbs, I can say that it's hard to get a good pizza most places. And that's the least of the reasons it sucks.

<comment><USER28> Totally agree with the landscape (SF) and the bookstores (Cambridge).

I love hobyy/game stores as well (we have one in Waltham as well as many in Cambridge).

I hope they do this as on the east coast some time. I'm a long time ADOM and Crawl player. I really only play rogue like computer games. I would post links to my crawl profile but it is rather embarrassing how much time I have spent playing crawl. I'm sad to miss this event.

<comment><USER27> I'm embarassed by how much time I _haven 't_ spent playing nethack. I mean, I haven't even gotten below about L5. I need to up my game :-).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I can't help but wonder: What is roguelike?

<comment><USER30> Way too many headlines (and accompanying stores!) on HN that don't bother to explain themselves.

<comment><USER31> There's enough distinct sets of knowledge and experience that there will always it problems communicating succinctly (a title) and effectively to everyone. In this case, if you visit the link, one of the header menu items is "Roguelikes?" which explains it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I like how the page doesn't mention the date.

<comment><USER3> That's just the schedule page - sorry this is confusing! The intro page ([https://roguelike.club/](https://roguelike.club/)) has the date - <USER2> (Saturday), September 17.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> angband zandband sangband I died in them all.

</comment><comment><USER34> Url changed from [http://boingboing.net/2016/09/16/to-do-in-san-francisco- this...](http://boingboing.net/2016/09/16/to-do-in-san-francisco-this- we.html), which points to this.</comment>


Still evil: Microsoft gives customers who bought DRM'd music on MSN servers the shaft - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080422-drm-sucks-redux-microsoft-to-nuke-msn-music-drm-keys.html

<comment><USER2> Sucks for those who are duped, but great for making DRM impopular with the general public.</comment>


Ask HN: Where did all the Symbolics hardware end up? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> If you hang out on the lisp subreddit you'll see some stories every now and then. There was a former symbolics engineer or owner or something like that who was still selling them relatively recently (iirc). I guess mainly to hobbyists.

I've read that some people (the guy that wrote the Clojure sucks article) view them as talent amplifiers and others (Ex: Paul Graham) weren't as impressed.

Maybe we can summon Reddit and HN user /lispm who owns one and seems to be part of that community?

</comment><comment><USER3> Private collections based on what I've seen. Occasionally things come up for sale, this page dates to within the last few months for example: [http://watrophy.com/files/lispm/lisp- sale.html](http://watrophy.com/files/lispm/lisp-sale.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yup, that's the only one I can remember.

</comment></comment><comment> non-entity I think I've seen a few on Ebay, never for a price I could snag though.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think there is one on Tetazoo...but maybe it got moved to tEp?</comment>


CopCards: Cheatsheets for dealing with the police - <AUTHOR> http://s.ai/copcards/

<comment><USER2> I love this bit at the end:

"I am not a lawyer and I am sure as hell not your lawyer."</comment>


Has example.com/test (et al) been hacked on http? - <AUTHOR> Has example.com been hacked on some http URLs? I get 404 for example.com URL of https /test but I receive some claimed 606 byte webp file if instead I use http /test which seems irregular to me. Similarly odd junk returned on http (not https) for /robots.txt and /favicon.ico ... I checked using google DNS 188.8.131.52 by Frontier Fios with iPad Air 2 on iOS 11.3 Safari and separately using vanila T-Mobile access (their DNS) on an iPhone iOS 11.3 Safari. Caveat Emptor: I've not direct linked to any of the oddly behaving URLs for reader's browsing safety, just in case. If this is <i>normal</i>, is there documentation somewhere spec'ing variant behavior of example.com URLs? <comment><AUTHOR> It's a bizarre random ios Safari 11.3 bug, so nevermind</comment>


Toshiba Touts Algorithm That's Faster Than a Supercomputer - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-01-16/toshiba-says-it-built-an-algo-that-s-faster-than-a-supercomputer <comment><USER2> What if you run the algorithm on a supercomputer...

<comment><USER3> It's more a QUBO solver (ala D-Wave) that can be efficiently parallelized on GPUs, they were able to "solve" a QUBO with 100K variables on 8 GPUs [1], where before people had solved at most problems with 10K variables.

[1] [https://phys.org/news/2019-04-toshiba-breakthrough- algorithm...](https://phys.org/news/2019-04-toshiba-breakthrough-algorithm- world-fastest.html)

<comment><USER4> Also [https://www.toshiba-sol.co.jp/en/pro/sbm/sbm.htm](https://www.toshiba- sol.co.jp/en/pro/sbm/sbm.htm) seems to give a link where you can play with it via AWS as far as I can tell.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Companies manufacturing these type of machines get away with these insane claims by benchmarking probabilistic algorithms against exact solvers.

<comment><USER6> Technically you could say that about the entire field of machine-learning. That doesn't mean it isn't hugely useful.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> For a gentler title and more information: Combinatorial optimization by simulating adiabatic bifurcations in nonlinear Hamiltonian systems

[https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav2372.full](https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/4/eaav2372.full)

</comment><comment><USER7> Toyota Touts Chemical that's Faster than Automobile

</comment><comment><USER8> What's that rule that states that the media never knows what its talking about, but you only notice when they're reporting on a field you're very familiar with?

</comment><comment> kyle-rb >a desktop PC algorithm that crunches market data faster than today's most advanced supercomputers

It sounds like by "desktop PC algorithm" they mean a classical algorithm that can run on classical computers, and by "advanced supercomputers" they mean a quantum algorithm running on quantum computers.

<comment><USER9> I think you're imputing more meaning to their article than it possesses.

Just let the nice word-noise wash over you, and acknowledge that Bloomberg publishes lightly-edited press releases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Another Goto.

Would be funny if he'd be related to:

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

But probably not. Is a common surename there.

</comment><comment><USER11> The algorithm is physical now?

</comment><comment><USER12> SpaceX just announced a new rocket engine that is more powerful than Boeing!

</comment><comment><USER6> Interesting subject matter, but I have to say, "Algorithm That's Faster Than a Supercomputer" is one of the dumbest headlines I've seen in a while

<comment><USER13> "Category error" is the term for this, I believe.</comment></comment>


This is what happened when I drove my Mercedes to pick up food stamps - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/07/08/this-is-what-happened-when-i-drove-my-mercedes-to-pick-up-food-stamps <comment><USER2> The shame and judgement placed on the woman for being both poor _and_ in possession of a Mercedes really demonstrates a disconnect that people have between the signals of wealth and actual wealth...

The "2003 Mercedes Kompressor" talked about in the article could be one of two models:

      Model               $(2003)  $(2014 CPI)  2014 Value
      C230 Coupe/Sedan      ~$28k        ~$36k        ~$5k
      SLK230 Convertible    ~$40k        ~$52k        ~$7k

On their combined income (~$120k), my suspicion is that it was the C230 and not the SLK...

Note that both are worth very little today. They're just old, crappy cars like any other. Your old Honda may in fact have fewer mechanical issues at this point. People revere the badge even on older vehicles where it no longer means much.

If the middle-aged Mercedes they had was running and reliable, they were prudent to keep it. The cost of trading down to an unknown car with potential unknown mechanical issues would likely not save them any money. It's possible it could end up costing more.

When you are cash flow poor, reducing out-of-pocket expenses is the first priority. Liquidating assets to raise cash is a quick one-time fix, it's being done at a time when you have no leverage with which to get maximum value out of those asset sales, and does nothing to resolve the larger problem of _income < expenses_.

It is unfortunate, I think, that however prudent and reasonable their choices, the cognitive dissonance created by the sight of the "luxury" car at the food stamp offices is going put them at odds with public opinion.

<comment><USER3> Wealth signals matter. By wealth signals I mean a person's standard of living. If you are driving a Mercedes you will be perceived as rich. I don't know much about the culture in US, but in my country(India) there is no way you will be considered poor or even middle class if you own a car. Let alone own a Mercedes. Why? That's not very difficult to understand. If you own a car, which falls between the big money and small money its generally an indication that you are doing this on top of your existing savings.

Any reasonable person when they first start working should aim to do the following things in order. Try and eliminate any outstanding debt, Save enough money for the rainy days, and then comes the next most essential commodity- a house and if you are done with that- a car.

They way I see, a lot of poverty issues in the US seem to arise from mismanagement of one's money. If you don't have a home, and don't have a large cache of savings and have debt on top of all this, buying a luxury car _on debt_ again comes out straight as mismanagement of money.

<comment><USER2> You have to appreciate the context of the situation the author came from... The procedure you describe is conservative but sound for someone who is starting with nothing and building wealth. The shocks to lifestyle when you already _have_ some wealth and lose your income look very different and require a somewhat different approach.

The author began 2008 with dual-source, six-figure income, a modest house, and a couple of cars, and no kids. Within the year, the couple had twins, had lost the greater of their two income sources, and had the audacity to hope that they could recover from their sudden and not-at-all-expected fall from grace.

This is not poverty born of mismanagement of funds, irresponsible spending, or negligence. It is _temporary_ poverty born of bad luck. It's also the sort that the assistance programs in the U.S. are designed to help, and the fact that the author's family was able to recover with that assistance makes this a success story.

<comment><USER4> [There are, of course, quite a few different assistance programs (and variations) in the U.S. - I'm sure the following generalization fails in various specific cases]

Your comments about assistance for temporary bad luck nicely describe how many assistance programs _should_ work. Unfortunately...

> It's also the sort that the assistance programs in the U.S. are designed to > help

...this is not even remotely true for almost all of the assistance programs in the U.S. Unless you have literally _no other choice_ , you will be rejected. This what we get after decades of rhetoric about "welfare queens" and related fears that someone could be scamming the system.

Do you still have at least ~$30 in your wallet? A lot of programs will reject you for too much cash. Own anything?[1] Sell it first. Have a pittance in a retirement package that you're not allowed to touch for 30 years? Take the 90+% penalty to cash it in first.

Unfortunately, we have effectively optimized most of our welfare/assistance programs in exactly the wrong way. I suspect we could save quite a bit of money if we dropped the suspicion and helped people _early_ , while they still had a job.

[1] A single "used-econobox" tier car (YES, they check models and current market price) is often excluded, in the theory that you can't actually get most jobs without it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _President Obama's programs — from the extended unemployment benefits to the tax-free allowance for short-selling a home we couldn't afford..._

In what way are these programs "President Obama's"? Shouldn't these be considered "The Congress's programs"?

I really worry about the degree to which my fellow citizens seem to believe that the President does/should act like a monarch.

<comment><USER6> If I'm not mistaken (and correct me if I am), the President pushed for these things to be passed, that's why people often say "President Obama's programs" or something similar.

<comment><USER7> Wic, foodstamps, and many many other government programs have been around for far longer than Obama.

<comment><USER6> Agreed, I was merely commenting on how media often says "Obama's this" or "Obama's bill", because he's often the one that pushes (in this case) Democratic congressmen to introduce a bill.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> >Were we supposed to trade it in for a crappier car we'd have to make payments on?

No, you should have sold the Mercedes because you already had one other car, and two cars and their insurance and upkeep seems like an unnecessary luxury for two unemployed people on food stamps.

<comment><USER9> Two people who want jobs need two cars in America, if the stories on HN about the state of public transport are remotely true.

It's bad enough in Germany where nearly every employer expects "mobility" (i.e. driver's license+car), and that with our quite generous mass transit. US is definitely worse.

<comment><USER8> From the byline:

>Darlena Cunha is a former television producer turned stay-at-home mom to twin girls.

...maybe someone from the Boston area can chime in on the state of public transportation.

<comment><USER10> You must be confused. Stay-at-home mom doesn't mean can't leave the home. In many parts of America, you cannot go or get anywhere without a car. That includes basic things, like grocery shopping.

<comment><USER8> I guess I don't want to belabor this too much, and maybe this tags me as an old geezer, but I have personally known families with children, who only owned one automobile. One person can drive the other person to work, and then drive the car around for the rest of the day, and then pick them up after work. Of course we don't know their particular details, like maybe they've got a 50 mile one way commute (which in itself would be crazy for a $25k/yr job).

<comment><USER11> 2 children, just born, underweight. So really, let's just disturb them twice a day so Dad can take Mom to work and home again. Oh, and this is 2008/2009 when lots of people were truly happy to have any job, especially after one of their two incomes just disappeared unexpectedly (layoff, not firing). Mom can't take the car to work herself because Dad might need it for errands or medical issues with the kids. They owned the Mercedes (and no debt was mentioned for the unreliable Honda). Why sell assets that are paying for themselves in terms of actual money (getting her to work), and relieving emotional/financial stress (confidence that they aren't totally fucked if one car fails).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "That's the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share."

Wow, these comments are really proving her point.

<comment><USER13> Everyone should be entitled to share their opinion.

If we're going to choose to address this as a society via public funds it ought to be a matter of public discourse. That doesn't mean people should be tolerated for inflammatory views... but certainly warrants some healthy debate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> "Food stamps" are so obnoxious. Just cut them a check or better yet hand out cash.

<comment><USER15> Would it work better in the end? Possibly. Are you going to have legions of people up in arms about welfare queens using their hard-earned tax dollars to buy crack? Absolutely.

<comment><USER16> Economists regularly ask which one gets better results. These days they are trending towards direct payment (rather than "in kind"). It sure seems to be the right answer in third-world countries.

I'm of the opinion that there should be a small amount of no-questions-asked assistance available, so people don't have to prove to themselves that they are poor in order to receive stuff, but of a limited quality/quantity that people of means will voluntarily not bother. That's an entirely separate discussion, though.

<comment><USER15> I'm not doubting the efficacy or attempting to discredit it. Rather, I am commenting on the political feasibility or the lack thereof. I grew up with a well-off mother and a poor father. I've rubbed shoulders in country clubs and seen people trade EBT for anything and everything illicit.

My feelings and expectations of the poor are still extremely negative despite all of this. Those of the folks who have never had to experience it even more so. You would have a hard time of switching EBT to cash in a "moderate" political climate, say nothing of the current "Fly this plane into the ground" era.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> mrmoneymustache.com

If you own two cars, one being a mercedes (don't care it's old) and are on foodstamps then you may want to read that site.

It's not a knock. But you can live a lot cheaper than you think... and still save money... and be happy.

REVISE:

No problem with public assistance. But I did want to emphasize that there are people who are very happy living on wages far below what these two were capable of.

<comment><USER17> That site might have helped them more _before_ they were faced with sudden financial difficulties. Since they'd already paid for it in full, I don't really know how much it would have helped to sell off the Mercedes. They could have traded it in for a cheaper car and got a few grand, but that would have probably taken a fair amount of time and effort -- would it have really been worth it? It's also worth noting that the low-tier Mercedes models are not much more expensive than a Honda Accord.

To be fair, though, regarding their lifestyle before the crisis, a $250k home on a $120k income is very conservative by most modern standards. They were leveraging their income far less than is typical in the Bay Area in fact.

<comment><USER18> "We're struggling to feed ourselves and our children!"

"but that would have probably taken a fair amount of time and effort -- would it have really been worth it?"

After the first statement? Yes. Heaven forbid it takes time and effort to try to improve your situation.

<comment><USER17> This is effectively a non-response. Focusing on regaining employment would be a FAR better way to improve the situation, and it's not even clear if the car was worth enough to pay for a decent replacement. Just because it's a Mercedes does not mean that it magically retains its value or even that it was that expensive to begin with.

If they are in such a bad situation that they have to sell off their car in order to pay for some meals, then clearly they needed the support they got. Giving up personal transportation in exchange for food is not even remotely a solution to the problem. It actually makes it far more difficult to regain employment (their Honda broke down, remember?), and the cash from the car sale is only a temporary bandaid--it does nothing at all to solve the fundamental problem of "income < expenses."

It's beyond me how you could think that someone who is in such trouble that they have to sell off all means of personal transportation so their children don't die of starvation would not deserve some sort of aid. In any case, the couple in this story, having regained a comfortable income, is now paying taxes every month so that if _you_ face severe financial trouble you too can receive some aid without having to immediately liquidate every asset you own so your family doesn't die, even those assets that are critical to finding a real resolution of your difficulties.

<comment><USER13> "It's beyond me how you could think that someone who is in such trouble that they have to sell off all means of personal transportation so their children don't die of starvation would not deserve some sort of aid...."

We can kill that straw man together if you'd like...

Who's saying they didn't deserve assistance? I am simply saying that reducing one's liabilities and conveniences can do as much for your bottom line as going and getting a high paying job. In fact, if you reduce your outgoing costs significantly enough (two cars, two insurances) you may be able to find employment that at a lower wage that will allow you to feed your kids comfortably.

<comment><USER17> The post you're quoting was in response to FireBeyond, not you. My post was reduced to one snarky line of disagreement. If FireBeyond had a more nuanced point than outright disagreeing with everything I wrote, the onus was on him or her to clarify that.

> if you reduce your outgoing costs significantly enough (two cars, two > insurances) you may be able to find employment that at a lower wage that > will allow you to feed your kids comfortably.

Now they have one car (which broke down) and an income which is just enough to feed their kids comfortably. While the threat of starvation has been eliminated, the difficulty of regaining their original income has been increased, as they're now time-poor as well and even potentially lack personal transportation.

MMM is not about how to deal with a financial emergency that you weren't prepared for. It's about how to prepare for emergencies in the first place.

<comment><USER13> Partially true. It's just as much about realizing your finances are in crisis and confronting it as much as it is preventing it. In fact there's large sections of the forum dedicated to just that.

Or see here: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/12/03/reader-case- study-...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2013/12/03/reader-case-study-hair- on-fire/)

or here: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/18/news-flash-your- de...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/04/18/news-flash-your-debt-is-an- emergency/)

or here: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/09/15/reader-case- study-...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/09/15/reader-case-study-the- long-road-to-mustachianism/)

Hate to sounds like a MMM fanboy... but they do offer as much helpful advice for those in crisis as they do for those striving to improve. It's just more painful measures when speaking of the former.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> >That's the funny thing about being poor. Everyone has an opinion on it, and everyone feels entitled to share.

I guess "being poor" is a relative thing that depends on background and upbringing. When someone says they're poor this image is what comes to my mind, not couple of people with a Honda and Mercedes or ones buying root beer on a deal.

[http://imgur.com/xzfNmNZ](http://imgur.com/xzfNmNZ)

<comment><USER20> This is the same BS that comes up every time this issue emerges. I remember public outrage when a news station reported that (shocker) welfare recipients had refrigerators and microwaves. Just because you have a car, or a fridge, or even a TV, doesn't mean that you're not struggling to get by. Do we really think people need to lose literally everything they have before they're worthy of sympathy?

<comment><USER9> > Do we really think people need to lose literally everything they have before > they're worthy of sympathy?

This is the essence of pure capitalism. Only when you're truly fucked up, you can expect help from others.

It's disgusting.

<comment><USER21> I don't believe capitalism has a stance on helping people in need. Please point me to any information you have that may state otherwise as I would be very curious to see their reasoning.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> wtf subreddit is this again?</comment>


Let's Encrypt Launch Schedule - <AUTHOR> https://letsencrypt.org/2015/06/16/lets-encrypt-launch-schedule.html <comment><USER2> I'm suuuper excited for this to launch! However, it's worrisome that the ACME protocol (what Let's Encrypt uses) still has a ton of bugs open[1] and they are still changing the protocol often. Just search for "TODO" on the spec markdown[2].

I want this project to proceed, but they should really focus on getting a much more mature and stable spec before launch. This isn't WebRTC, where you can just continuously tack on additional stuff or change the API constantly. It's TLS certs. The certs issued using this API end up telling people it's safe to input their passwords or credit card numbers.

I really hope the ACME spec gets stable before the launch in July.

[1]: [https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme- spec/issues](https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme-spec/issues)

[2]: [https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme- spec/blob/master/draft-b...](https://github.com/letsencrypt/acme- spec/blob/master/draft-barnes-acme.md)

<comment><USER3> > _The certs issued using this API end up telling people it 's safe to input > their passwords or credit card numbers._

I'm pretty sure they _shouldn 't_ tell users it's safe to type in credit card numbers -- these certs are "domain validation" (DV).

The certs that generate a green chip in the address bar are "extended validation" (EV) certs that typically cost hundreds and require a human to manually verify things.

<comment><USER4> Validation has nothing to do with the security of the certificate. There is nothing preventing you from using a DV, OV, or EV certificate to transmit any type of data you want.

<comment><USER5> > Validation has nothing to do with the security of the certificate.

It has to do with the security and accountability of the end-to-end process in which the certificate is used, which is a security concern even if you define "security of the certificate" so narrowly that it isn't relevant to the security of the certificate as such. (Though _what_ you have a trusted third- party vouching for _in_ the certificate -- which is the key distinction in EV -- is, I would think, by any reasonable standard, a factor in the security provided by the certificate.)

<comment><USER4> Yes, it is true that validation does add accountability and security. However, suggesting that DV certificates are less suitable than EV certificates for handling a certain kind of data is nothing more than misinformation.

The cipher being used and the SSL configuration dictate MUCH more about the security of a site than its level of validation. EV certificates do not guarantee the site isnt using a insecure cipher. EV certificates do not guarantee that the private key was not sent via plain text in an email while a network admin was installing it. So from an encryption standpoint, there is no advantage.

From a authentication standpoint, an EV MAY provide more security but remember: An EV primarily validates the name and location of the relying party. It does not check to see if they are operating ethically or if you are getting ripped off.

I dont think EV is bad, but clamping down on what type of certificates can be used gets tricky. There are very few uses where EV (or OV) certificates should be required.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I gather they're not launching with ECDSA certificates (and obviously not with EdDSA or whatever comes out of CFRG, because that's still being discussed by the IETF/IRTF), but they're going to add it later. Any idea when?

What's the hold up; HSMs that'll do secp256r1?

Because of the huge performance improvement ECDSA brings over RSA, I know I'm not going to be deploying Let's Encrypt certs until I can get ECDSA ones (as well as RSA ones, presumably).

</comment><comment><USER7> I am really excited about this whole initiative. Mostly because encryption should really be standard at this point if not for the hurdles one has to face in deploying it.

What type of help is the Let's Encrypt team still needing?

<comment><AUTHOR> Glad you like the project!

Contributing to our software is one way to help:

[https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder](https://github.com/letsencrypt/boulder)

[https://github.com/letsencrypt/lets-encrypt- preview](https://github.com/letsencrypt/lets-encrypt-preview)

Also, if you work for a company that might be interested in sponsoring us, starting that conversation is another great way to help out.

<comment><USER2> What are the tiers for corporate sponsors?

<comment><USER8> The tiers are Platinum, Gold, and Silver. Check out the current sponsors [0] and info on becoming a sponsor [1].

[0]: [https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/](https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/) [1]: [https://letsencrypt.org/become-a- sponsor/](https://letsencrypt.org/become-a-sponsor/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Very glad to hear there is a launch schedule, have been curious about how this project has been progressing. It's a fantastic intiative and I almost can't wait until September 14.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can someone summarize why this is better than, say, StartSSL or AlphaSSL?

<comment><USER11> No predatory pricing (StartSSL has $25 revocations), free (AlphaSSL) and user- friendly (StartSSL is a UX nightmare). PositiveSSL is probably the cheapest, well supported cert (certs can be had for $3-4/y).

<comment><USER12> Are you sure about that $3-4 price point? The cheapest I'm seeing on their site is $49/yr.

<comment><USER13> Namecheap sells PositiveSSL certs for $9, I'm sure others are in that price range as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Very nice initiative.

But for me the biggest problem with adoption of SSL is still that every domain name needs it's unique IPv4 address, and all problems that come with that, not registering or paying for the SSL certificate.

At work, I usually use virtual hosting for about 100 domains on one IP address. I don't see us buying an IPv4 address per domain and adding them to my NIC configuration one by one. Once we can safely ignore IPv4 and use IPv6 only it will probably become easier and cheaper.

<comment><USER15> SNI has been a thing for a long while now.. Do you seriously need to support older browsers than this? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Web_bro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_Name_Indication#Web_browsers.5B6.5D)

<comment><USER16> SNI is fine for web browsing, but for end-points that need to be reachable by older versions of python, tomcat, ruby and many proprietary apps, this will not suffice. This becomes a problem on business to business communications, automation, API's, etc. For the general purpose websites, blogs, etc, SNI would be fine.

<comment><USER17> You're probably talking about _really_ old versions of applications. I've been using SNI for half a decade without any issues.

Anything so old that does not support SNI probably still uses SSLv3, or maybe even SSLv2, so you really should be upgrading that ASAP, rather than keep supporting it.

<comment><USER16> If you take a look at the wiki article, there are some versions listed. Those are still in use. If our company forced people to use SNI, we would be out of business. There are TLS 1.0+ enabled apps that can't do SNI. Perhaps you and I are just in very different business models.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> can someone clarify if revokation is free with letsencrypt?

Also, who pays for all this infrastructure? Mozilla?

<comment><USER19> All the services provided by Let's Encrypt will be completely free, including revocation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Do Chrome and Mozilla have Let's Encrypt in their Root stores? I don't see them.

<comment><USER4> No. The Let's Encrypt root was recently created and will be submitted to root inclusion programs. It will probably be quite a while until its suitable to issue certs solely from the Let's Encrypt Root.

For now, the certs are cross signed by "DST Root CA X3" operated by Identrust. This root has very strong inclusion.

For specifics, please see: [https://groups.google.com/a/letsencrypt.org/forum/#!msg/clie...](https://groups.google.com/a/letsencrypt.org/forum/#!msg/client- dev/I-iFKihZ4Vo/5g9Xb5SroOsJ)

<comment><USER20> Dangit, I didn't read the second paragraph. For GA, they will have the cross- sign. It's just for the EA that they don't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Damnit, my existing cert expires September 12. Any free alternatives to that?

<comment><USER22> [https://www.startssl.com/](https://www.startssl.com/) provides free domain- validated certificates.

<comment><USER23> Please don't use startssl. Revocation costs money, and the company's behavior surrounding heartbleed was at the very least _very unethical_.

<comment><USER22> Fair enough, but bear in mind that StartSSL's revocation fee is lower than what most certificate providers charge as a _starting_ price. Personally, I'm fine with taking the risk and eating the $25 cost if something unexpected happens.

<comment><USER24> No company should be incentivising companies to not revoke compromised certificates. Even if the cost is modest. It's more about not patronizing a company with such a bad business model than it is about the dollar cost.

<comment><USER25> StartSSL's business model: making things free that don't cost them measurable money, and charging for transactions that cost them money.

An exception from that rule in the wake of Heartbleed would arguably have been appropriate, but the business model as such is in no way _bad_. If the whole SSL industry worked in a way that put price and cost in proportion, there would be no need for Let's Encrypt.

<comment><USER23> How does an automated revocation cost them money?

<comment><USER25> [https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-hard-costs-of- heartbleed/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/the-hard-costs-of-heartbleed/)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


G20 agrees to push ahead with digital tax - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-g20-japan-tax/g20-agrees-to-push-ahead-with-digital-tax-communique-idUSKCN1T903D <comment><USER2> "Britain and France have been among the most vocal proponents of proposals to tax big"

This is kind of surprising in case of Britain. As long as I remember both Cayman islands and City of London, two of the best known tax havens, are British territories so Britain could prevent tax evasion easily.

When it comes to "taxing" those pesky Facebooks and Netflix globally, I am not sure I understand justification for this.

Companies pay taxes because they use resources and services provided in a given country (roads and other infrastructure, police protection, courts, etc.). Facebook does not use any resources in, say, Belgium, so why it should be taxed there?

If a company located in US, like Facebook, avoids paying taxes there (strange that someone who pretends to be rather left leaning person like FB owner escapes taxes, but that's a different story) it is the US problem, not a global problem and they should sort this out somehow - for instance make FB to pay directly for services/resources provided by the state, maybe in the global economy corporate tax does not make much sense any more? I can imagine that Facebook has some fake office on Caymans, but I hardly believe they would relocate there data centers and employees to avoid taxes, so making tax proportional to number of employees in the given jurisdiction, size of the office, used electricity, etc. might make sense.

<comment><USER3> > Companies pay taxes because they use resources and services provided in a > given country (roads and other infrastructure, police protection, courts, > etc.).

That's one view. Another is that they pay taxes simply because they have resources that society needs. If Facebook is trading in the UK (benefitting from access to the UK market, then I think it is reasonable that they pay tax in the UK).

<comment><USER4> What about David Cameron, Beckham ...

Every rich person in the UK is incorporated in British overseas territory. Shouldn't they be the first to be taxed ?

<comment><USER5> David and Victoria Beckham paid £12.7m tax in the last year. Facebook, which collected £1.3bn in UK sales, paid £15m...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "The U.S. government has voiced concern in the past that the European campaign for a "digital tax" unfairly targets U.S. tech giants."

How about admitting that the U.S. tech giants unfairly use their monopolistic powers because the Internet has become a winner-takes-it-all economy.

<comment> shaki-dora The issue isn't so much any anti-competitive misbehavior. Even though there are some specific practices that have landed FAANG in hot waters, those aren't really different from any other companies' of similar size.

Monopolization just happens to be the natural state of any system that has network effects and where all costs are front-loaded (I. e. write the code once, scale to billions of users at, if you squint, zero marginal costs).

But neither of these issues are the motivation for calls for a "digital tax". Nor is economic nationalism. There have always been industries that were dominated by one or just a few countries: the US has media/entertainment, consumer goods manufacturing has almost entirely moved to Asia, etc.

What's different about "digital" is that requires essentially zero presence or taxable activity at the consumers' location. Nobody felt the need to tax Hollywood's movies because a ticket to 'Titanic' in Austria may have meant 2€ leaving the country, but the bulk of it actually stayed in the local economy, as (taxed) revenue of the theatre, local distributors, corn growers, and breweries.

For physical products, this is even more obvious. French champagne served in a Billings, Montana restaurant is about 50% margin for the venue, 30% for the US-based distribution chain, and only 20% goes to funny mustaches people in striped shirts.

<comment><USER7> A digital tax is basically an equivalent to custom tax. Goods like German cars have to pay custom taxes during importing them to the US. A Netflix stream from the US to Germany not. And that is getting fixed.

But it is fair to say: this is not only about taxes. This is also about countries gain control over global economy.

<comment><USER8> Just because it happens for historical reasons doesn't mean it was a good idea. Not to mention those are physical things that require tangible resources to reproduce.

There's so many things I have to pay 20-30% more for in Canada (for ex: $150 for shoes that are $100 in the US) for ridiculous protective import policies for old non-core industries that do little to help the economy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The best traditional HN bad car analogy I can provide is Illinois State DOR is angry the new car factories are relocated in the rural south where the property taxes are low and what tax they do pay goes to the locals and not Illinois DOR, and they're selling those "foreign" cars in Illinois, so Illinois is going to add a special registration tax for cars registered but not manufactured in Illinois.

This is kinda a bad example because Illinois still has a handful of plants left, although they're doing everything they can to push them out of the state as fast as possible, I selected them more as an example of a very high tax state than as a non-mfgr state.

<comment><USER10> Nah, I would use the ZEV system. Where if you don't produce it how we like it you pay a penalty; a tax. (Zero Emissions Vehicle) credits.

The no physical existence loop hole is one worth closing, if you sell goods or services it should be taxed within the authority the sale occurs. That is common sense. However the second issue, what is digital and what isn't and how it can be taxed outside of the same point is a bit worrying, it basically sounds like, if we don't think you pay enough even following the rules you will pay this too.

just watch for the exceptions to pile on because you can guarantee members of the G20 will put them in there, similar to how states and cities whack large chains by looking at their full sales corporate wide instead of local sales.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I for one, am grateful. The world has changed massively the last 30 years and it's time for international legislation to catch up :) Curious to see what the final implementation will look like.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how this is going to affect small businesses selling digital services to different countries within the EU while only having one office/country of incorporation.

"The first pillar is dividing up the rights to tax a company where its goods or services are sold even if it does not have a physical presence in that country."

<comment><USER12> That's an unehlpful principle, imho. It might be more practical to "tax up", which is the traditional approach we have followed throughout the ages. We could build a g20 organism that accumulates revenue from all global companies and redistributes it on projects that make a difference on an equivalent scale, in things like energy, transportation, health, environment preservation, space exploration and so on. Obviously there would be issues of governance to sort out, as it's always the case, but we'd be inching forward towards global cooperation on "humanity scale" - something that we will need, eventually, if we really want global peace under democratic rule.

<comment> shaki-dora Even the EU does not have the power to tax. It's practically impossible that a rather informal forum like the G20 would be granted such authority.

<comment><USER12> The EU can't tax directly... yet. It's inching closer, though, with each subsequent "sovereign crisis" and the looming inevitability of easier mechanisms for fiscal transfers.

I agree that it's unlikely the g20 could or would do this tomorrow; I just think it's what we should eventually aim for, and establishing principles against this so early-on is, imho, a mistake. But I guess I shouldn't complain about what is, overall, positive news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I still don't get global taxes. In real life, how can digital startups keep track of global taxes? They simply ignore it, comply with them partially (hoping that Tuvalu doesn't sue them) or what? I understand that Google or Amazon can hire lawyers all around the world, but for a tiny self funded startup? it seems like a minefield.

<comment><USER14> You outsource the service to a payments provider that does that for you.

The _same_ way global corporations have accounting offices in every country they operate in, or the same way you buy standardized industrial components that comply with existing regulations.

It is not ideal, but getting paid overseas is far from the largest barrier startups have to face.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Related to a comment I made on another thread about identity, FANG companies have two leverage points in this discussion. One is they can adjust their features to the countries in question, as few democratically elected governments could win an election if their population couldn't have iphones, amazon delivery, or netflix.

The second is that without the US, sanctions against these companies are unenforceable, these companies own the digital identities of those populations, so those countries can only enforce data laws at the discretion of US authorities. They are increasingly an arm of US policy.

The bargaining chips now are between the US wanting to regulate them domestically, and foreign countries wanting control and taxation. IMO, the deal proposed by US legislators will be, "deal with us, or them," where the US can offer protection and moderate taxation in exchange for more direct surveillance and policy levers.

The real danger is new foreign tax obligations will likely be leveraged to break up the founder dictatorship equity model and create a scramble for their data assets.

<comment><USER16> tongue firmly in cheek: people may actually be motivated to elect officials that cause them to scale back operations in their countries</comment></comment>


Some Thoughts on Founder Liquidity - <AUTHOR> http://avc.com/2014/12/some-thoughts-on-founder-liquidity/ <comment><USER2> Not to be overly emotive, but honestly, fuck Sam Altman on this one.

If a person founds or cofounds a company worth >5million, they should become a millionaire and have lifetime financial security. The VC already in all likelihood already has lifetime financial security.

VC's bank on an 80-95% failure rate, so they are basically sacrificing lifetime financial security for 9/10 of their founders in order to increase the likelihood that 1/10 will be a bit more miserable and therefore work harder to increase the chance of a big exit.

fuck them, take financial security.

<comment><USER2> Just out of interest, is there a company which provides covert early exits for founders? For example I meet with a founder, they sign a contract saying secretly that they will give me a share of their equity in 2 year's time or whenever a major liquidity event occurs, and in return I pay them an amount based on current valuation?

<comment><USER3> Founder stock agreement boilerplates restrict founders from encumbering or pledging their shares without the approval of the board.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This has always been a curiosity of mine as someone far removed from SV and outside of any major metropolitan area.

If you found or cofound a startup, at what point do you get any money from that? When do you draw a salary? When do disbursements to equity partners become a common (or at least not unheard of) occurrence?

<comment><USER3> In bootstrapped startups, it's not unusual for distributions to start happening immediately. One of the good features of bootstrapping is that it forces you to rig the business sustainably from day one.

<comment><USER5> Sometimes you need those to kick in immediately, as the founders have maxed out (or spent significantly on) their credit cards, and you want the startup to have a clean bill of health, not this major liability revolving at 20% APR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Founder liquidity seems like such a minor issue in comparison to employee liquidity that I fail to see why it is taking up any brain cycles at all.

<comment><USER3> It's the agency problem. Illiquid founders are motivated to act against the interests of shareholders. I saw this happen bigtime at a company I once worked for.

<comment><USER7> Mind elaborating on that?

<comment><USER3> Illiquid founders push for early exits.

<comment><USER8> Illiquid founders are, generally speaking, majority shareholders. Hard to argue they are not looking out for shareholder interests.

<comment><USER3> That doesn't change the fact that pushes for early exits can screw over both the investors --- who put real money into the company based on a promise that the founders would work for their interests --- and employees, who will receive a pittance compared to founders in most early exits.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Health insurance plans for startups? - <AUTHOR>

What subsidies do startups provide typically, and what do the employees usually use? <comment><USER2> I used to use gradmed.com for cheap major accident coverage</comment>


San Francisco's guerrilla protest at Google buses swells into revolt - <AUTHOR> http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/25/google-bus-protest-swells-to-revolt-san-francisco

<comment><USER2> I'm extremely biased because I think any effort to "normalize" a 40-mile commute is poison to any environment, but I still don't get why, if everyone working at places like Google want to live in SF, why can't Google and co. just have offices in the city?

I get that they wouldn't be able to build their own little disneyworlds that way, but instead of having Google build an entire ecosystem, they could just have offices and people could just _go downtown to eat_ , or not need laundry services because they don't lose 2 hours a day in a bus.

If offices were built closer to the city, they could be smaller but I'm fairly convinced most people would consider it an upgrade to quality of life in general.

When I did some work in Tokyo, going outside at lunch and just breathing some fresh air during the 10 minutes spent transiting really helped to refresh the mind.

I've never worked in Google-like environment, but the whole closed-off , prison-like state of the campus seems very off-putting. It's basically the business equivalent of gated communities with their own services, to the detriment of services shared with everyone. I can get why people can get mad.

<comment><USER3> >If offices were built closer to the city, they could be smaller but I'm fairly convinced most people would consider it an upgrade to quality of life in general.

What is this 'solution' solving exactly? These protests are targeting tech workers and tech companies because tech workers want to live in San Fran and thereby drive up the price of housing. How would that change if Google had offices in San Fran?!

<comment><USER2> Because then things like restaurants downtown would have more foot traffic during lunch time to help make sure local businesses don't shut down. Also, it could help make downtown "bigger", so even if the end result is the same (higher rent), there'd be more apartments available (instead of the suburbs that take a lot of space for not many families).

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure the San Fran downtown is already in-demand, and as I said before, you can't have everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Anthony Levandowski is building an unconscionable world of surveillance, control and automation," they wrote on flyers left near his house. "He is also your neighbour."

What were those people thinking? They're subtly but very clearly trying to intimidate that guy. This is like saying "We don't want the likes of you around here."

If those protesters really wanted to do something against surveillance and control they should hold those accountable who are responsible for the NSA disaster and things like Guantanamo. Instead, they chose to pick on an individual who isn't any more responsible for those issues than a factory worker producing weapons is for the war crimes committed with these weapons.

If they want to start a revolution they should be heading to Washington, D.C. instead of starting a petty revolt by bullying some guy who's neither responsible for the issues at hand nor for their own failures in life.

If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious behaviour then we can't have enough of it.

<comment><USER5> "If gentrification helps driving people out of town who display such obnoxious behaviour then we can't have enough of it."

Yes, let's remove every current resident of SF by charging outrageous rent rates and only have rich Google engineers there. Because, that's why. There's no other place they can live, of course, right?

But don't complain then when they don't have anywhere to go for laundry, or the only coffee place is an overpriced Starbucks, or groceries are double what you pay somewhere else.

<comment><USER6> Its supposed to be a free country. Sad when your rent goes up, but a free market allows that. I'm a little offended each time the self-styled old-guard want to 'protect the neighborhood' by which they mean 'keep my cheap rent'. How about you live where you can afford, like everybody else?

<comment><USER5> " want to 'protect the neighborhood' by which they mean 'keep my cheap rent'. How about you live where you can afford, like everybody else?"

So, there are no rent-controlled places in the USA? How about NYC?

Sure, let's raise your rent disproportionately and drive you to a bigger commute, how about that. What if everything near - let's say a 1h30 commute - is expensive?

Of course there are two sides to raising rents, but usually what happens is that it drives away the people that made the place in high demand in the first place.

There's no lack of space in the USA, or even in SF, but apparently people decide to go for the already dense areas.

Google could build their Google Dorm in a cheaper area and have buses come and go from there, how about it?

Not everybody is a high-payed SW engineer, so sure, their rent can be raised and people that can't afford it move away, causing more traffic (either the Google people moving there - MV is far from SF) and the people that moves out and now have to commute), more social issues, etc

<comment><USER7> You're a free economic actor and you get to decide for what price you want to offer your goods and services. So are the people who own the particular good in question - property. And so are the people who are also free to desire this good. So far so good. So you have no right, though you might question the wisdom, to demand that the rights of any of these free actors be curtailed just because, for instance, a seller might wish to ask for a price higher than you can afford, or that many other buyers in the market might be willing to pay it.

Well, you can ask for their rights to be restricted, but then they'll ask for yours to be as well - maybe they don't think it's fair that you sell a great software service, with no real competitors, so you can sell it for a $100 a month, and people will buy it - even though they wish they could pay you $5, or nothing.

There's a whole literature of the toxic effects of imposing price restrictions in any of these instances. If you want to educate yourself, just pick up any basic economics textbook and follow the breadcrumbs.

In the meantime, if you're really so angry about this, why not turn your focus to the real roots of the issue? Why not work for better virtualisation technologies to help erode the tyranny of distance? Why not push for more optimal land-use policy to help ease supply restrictions in the property market? (though please try not to complain when your neighbours turn their bungalow into a high-yielding apartment block)

There are many good, valuable ways to approach the putative "issues" generated by an uneven topography of housing demand. Arguing for price restrictions is easily the worst.

<comment><USER5> Thanks for your post, it's informative

What I find it funny is how people complain a lot about Net Neutrality but then on the housing issue it's "free market for all and let's bulldoze SF and build high rise buildings everywhere".

They are similar issues. There's no "perfect competition" (though it can be argued that there's no perfect competition anywhere, they're examples of restrictive competitions)

<comment><USER6> Confused: free market and net neutrality are coherent ideas. Both are a free market for the participants (not the government/lobbyists hoping to profit by price-fixing or supply-fixing).

Or should we conflate those with govt-supported monopoly (local cable companies) wanting to skim money for no work, with private citizens wanting to trade their personal property WITHOUT govt interference?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There is one thing that I've really come to love and respect about the city of San Francisco. They fight for what they want. I've seen protests for everything ranging from wars, to working conditions, to America's Cup worker wages. Most other places would just get rolled over by whomever has the money. Underneath this issue, there are some serious socioeconomic issues at hand that need to be addressed.

One thing I've done to try and give back is during the holiday season, create some care packages and hand them out to the homeless. Put together basic stuff like dental floss, razors, deodorant, hard candy, socks, pop-corn, etc in a zip-lock bag. As I walked around the city and saw homeless people, I would give them a bag. It was about $400 bucks and about 4 hours of time between two people to make 20 bags. All you have to do is hand them out as you're doing your daily things around the city. You would be surprised at how eloquent, smart, and appreciative some of the people on the street actually are. If you live in San Francisco, you _know_ you're going to run into someone homeless on any given day.

That being said, I realize that I'm not the regular San Francisco transplant and most Engineers can't logically rationalize giving something away for free to someone who has done "nothing" for them.

<comment><USER9> I love how you told everyone what a wonderful and caring person you are. And then slammed engineers. Well played.

Next time I'd advise telling your story and avoid the temptation to smear an entire profession.

<comment><USER8> I'm also an Engineer and I'm not smearing the profession. Most of us don't want to work on something that doesn't make logical sense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That is what you get _if you 're going to San Francisco_. The city has been a left/liberal activist stronghold since long before Google even existed. And yeah, things like gentrification and private luxury buses do tend to provoke that crowd.

Maybe Google should consider relocating to a military town in Texas. It seems there is a great convergence between Google's massive (and permanently growing) data collection and the total surveillance efforts of the government.

<comment><USER11> I'm sure Texas would be more than happy to have Google offices in any of the major cities, and there's plenty of space.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is a quintessential embarrassment of riches. San Fran is powered by a real 21st century economy, which many other cities and countries are trying to recreate, and you still find something to complain about? What's the solution here? Not have tech companies that employ thousands of people (for upper- middle class wages) in the area?! Not have thousands of young educated people from all over the country and the world, want to move to, work and live in the city? Not have those employees wanting to live in the city, but instead go down the route of the 1950-1980s generations and settle suburbia, and leave the downtown-core decrepit and crime-ridden?

Even in this specific case, what's wrong with a corporation providing a mass transit option to their workers so they don't have to drive in and needlessly congest the roads and pollute the environment.

<comment><USER2> >leave the downtown-core decrepit and crime-ridden

The companies aren't in downtown, they're out 40 miles away instead, so not paying local taxes or helping the local economy. Instead you just have the workers who basically just sleep in SF, paying property taxes but not even opting to using the public transportation to make it better.

> San Fran is powered by a real 21st century economy, which many other cities > and countries are trying to recreate, and you still find something to > complain about?

Based off of complaints from the tech community, it also seems to be a city with a lot of homelessness, really shitty public transportation, and dysfunctional regulations that end up causing rent to be even higher.

If you told anybody of a city where most of the world's innovation happen, you'd at least imagine a city with a functional system of mass transportation, but we can't seem to even get that right. San Fran should be the best city in the world.

The problem isn't that workers are living in the city, it's that they're not working there. People spend a lot of money where they end up working.

<comment><USER3> >The companies aren't in downtown

The employees live in the city.

>Based off of complaints from the tech community, it also seems to be a city with a lot of homelessness

None of that is caused by having Google in the area. This is a cultural and a government regulatory problem (municipal, and state and federal to lesser extent).

>The problem isn't that workers are living in the city, it's that they're not working there.

If you're an employee you spend money where you live, not where you work. It would be nice for San Fran if all engineers worked in San Fran as well, but you can't have everything. Plus it wouldn't be so nice for Mountain View, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, etc. In fact, those municipalities have more to complain about since they can argue they are nothing more than commuter cities.

San Fran should count their blessings.

<comment><USER12> >If you're an employee you spend money where you live, not where you work

During the work day most of these people are 40 miles outside SF on self- sufficient campuses, often with free food. That means that during the week they're not in downtown SF supporting local cafes, coffee shops etc. But the same argument can be used for any commuter community, in this case it's reverse of many cities where people commute into a city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The underlying problem, as with all property bubbles including the UK's, is planning restrictions.

In the past, people would move to areas of high employment from areas of low employment, and new housing was built for the economic migrants - this is how cities expanded. Now, restrictions on building new accommodation entrench expensive neighbourhoods, and mean economic migrants _can 't_ move nearer to the employment. This leads to both a property bubble market and lower employment overall in the nation.

This was all proposed/explained in this article a few months ago:

"Stay Put, Young Man", [http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_...](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/november_december_2013/features/stay_put_young_man047332.php?page=all)

(discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563854](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6563854) )

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Is this really happening? If it is, it brings up an interesting issue.

Private public transport can out compete public transport. But then school buses already do this as well (compared to Europe). Though I did commute using SF buses, and I fully understand why one would not prefer ones kids to travel on them, and even why one would prefer company buses.

As for rents, true, but can that not mostly be blamed on restrictive building regulations? Not so much with regards to standards as well with regards to limits to flats and highrise buildings. As there is an undisputed market demand for more housing in the bay-area.

Imho protesters are a tad misguided in who they are targeting.

<comment><USER14> Let's get terms straight. Google is providing private _mass transport._ It's no more public transport than a charter liquor and gambling bus to Atlantic City. If it was public transport non-Googlers would ride for similar tariffs - ok that's probably inaccurate since poor riders would have their transport subsidized rather than Google's subsidy to those more affluent.

Google's buses are solving more traffic problems in MountainView than San Francisco and relieving the congestion that most impacts commuters from San Francisco to their campus. If the service had to meet the requirements for public transportation i.e. meeting public needs, Google would shut it down.

<comment><USER3> >If it was public transport non-Googlers would ride for similar tariffs

...and be subsidized by tax-payers (because public transit systems in big cities don't break-even on fares - and forget about capital projects, those always need government funds). So this is still a net-win for the city. Googlers subsidize a system they don't use to get to work.

<comment><USER14> A company in Mountain View is using San Francisco's public infrastructure for private purposes and not paying for the costs associated with that infrastructure. Furthermore a plausible case has been made that Google's use of San Francisco's public infrastructure is having a negative impact on some of San Francisco's citizens. The impacted citizens are paying for the public infrastructure in their city.

In essence the citizens of San Francisco are subsidizing the tax payers of Mountain View because of their unwillingness to create affordable housing and provide public transit that serves the needs of its workforce. Google's buses are the means by which that subsidy occurs.

There is nothing preventing Google from routes that pickup and deliver exclusively upon private property. Nor is there anything preventing Google from opening access to its bus service to the public.

There is not even anything to prevent them from operating their bus service at a profit...except the impossibility of doing so.

<comment><USER3> Are you for real?

>A company in Mountain View is using San Francisco's public infrastructure for private purposes and not paying for the costs associated with that infrastructure.

You mean roads? Public roads, built to serve San Francisco citizens? Those roads?

And that theft that the despicable Mountain View company is committing involves providing a service for San Fran employees who would otherwise drive into work and congest the roads and pollute the air, or worse, not live in San Fran? It seems like the implication is that it's better that these engineering yuppies not live in San Fran. That's the subtext here.

>In essence the citizens of San Francisco are subsidizing the tax payers of Mountain View because of their unwillingness to create affordable housing and provide public transit that serves the needs of its workforce.

I really don't understand your mental gymnastics. How, under any reasonable interpretation, is it a negative for an upper-middle class young engineer- types, to choose to live in San Fran - pay San Fran property taxes, support local business by living and spending money in the area, as opposed to not. Your interpretation is insanity. Furthermore, you've got it all backwards as I've said. Those commuting San Fran engineers are paying municipal taxes. They are contributing to that city. They aren't contributing to Mountain View. They are a drag on that city. Every San Fran engineer is a drag on Mountain View, if anything. But that's why cities exist. To provide services like that because you're all part of the same fuckin country and the same fuckin state and the same fuckin region, and you're treating it like some sort of fuckin theft is happening from those foreigners 40 minutes away. Insanity.

San Franciscans really doesn't know how good they've got it.

//

I know there's an ideological reason why you're focusing on big evil Google. But it's actually San Francisco citizens that want to live in San Fran, and work at Google. Google doesn't care where they live. They would probably prefer their employees to live in Mountain View. It's San Francisco citizens that are choosing this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Why people think California is awesome (other than the weather) is a mystery.

<comment><USER16> Having just gotten back to the UK after my first trip to SF I can see why people like it - it's got a great buzz, and the culture is varied and attractive.

My biggest concern - though it might just be because I was downtown, or that I've not spent much time in US cities - was the large number of homeless. Maybe the Googles and SalesForces in the area could help those guys out?

<comment><USER17> I just got back to the UK after my first trip to SF and was disconcerted at the lack of culture shock. Evidently I moved into a J. G. Ballard short story some time ago.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Guardian, what about a link to the study? Or to the protestors' pages? It's called hypertext for a reason.

The study is here: [http://www.danielledai.com/academic/dai-weinzimmer- shuttles....](http://www.danielledai.com/academic/dai-weinzimmer-shuttles.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER6> It smacks of 'protest chic'. Cool to wave signs somebody else made and get in the new for being all liberal.

If those guys were going to a factory job, they'd be ok neighbors. But because they're going to a better job, it's cool to make trouble for them.

</comment><comment><USER19> "Well organised protesters have blocked buses[...]"

Bet they've been using Google Drive to organise.

</comment><comment><USER7> Christ, it's painful to read about these people with such stupid, lazy attitudes and opinions - yet somehow still able to muster the energy to go out and throw a huge tantrum and make a huge mess for other people. Instead of thinking constructively about how to make themselves genuinely more valuable to other humans, they just bitch and moan about what they believe themselves entitled to - conditions which were never contractually promised to them. Yeesh. Admirable in a way, I suppose, but still.

Still, this is a really interesting clash of interests - between the infrastructural needs of potentially _the_ great city of the 21st century, and its cultural roots. You need a mix of both - you can't just turn SF into a grid of mega-skyscrapers, although that'd open the gates for great companies, and real progress - you need something of the old sense of city and style - but you can't just pretend the city can still function and thrive as a museum of genteel Victorians and arts and craft co-ops, while the future brews down in San Jose... You need capacity _and_ character to build the launchpad of the future.</comment>


Still Think The Mouse Isn't Dead? - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/03/windows-ate-the-mouse/

<comment><USER2> This MG Sieger story is 32 minutes old, and it was posted here 25 minutes ago.

Same thing with every John Gruber post.

Laptops have already been sold without mice for over a decade - they have trackpads (or the buttonless clickpads).

But of course many are going to still use the mouse for things such as playing games on a Windows PC, touch screen or not.

And the mouse is more efficient if you are using it all day (like for work), as you don't have to reach up to the screen all the time (which is why the Minority Report stuff doesn't work well in real life). This is also why for example the Asus Slate comes with a bluetooth keyboard, because using an onscreen keyboard all day long for example would be horrible and slow.

A more interesting question is whether the stylus will come back or not. The HTC Flyer with stylus had over 3 million pre-orders, and the Tablet PCs like the HP tm2t or Lenovo tablets are starting to come down in price.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm sitting in front of a laptop with a bit ol' touchpad that does all the cool things the author is all excited about.

And I clicked the link to this article with my mouse.

QED, the mouse is doing just fine. It's simply a better input device for most purposes.

</comment><comment><USER4> I generally think MG Siegler is one of the better TechCrunch writers but this article is exactly why the site has developed the reputation it has. Pure sensationalism based on a weak understanding of both the facts and the history of the computing industry.

The truth is there is not a Magic Trackpad for the PC. Trackpads on the PC tend to suck. Microsoft is pushing touchscreens and touchscreens on PCs do create ergonomic problems (In tests people's shoulders literally ache after a day of use)

Beyond that while the iPad is fantastic it works because the interface is designed around touch. Meaning everything has to be a lot bigger (since a mouse can click on a single pixel while a finger is far less precise). That leaves less screen space (which is why you have to pinch and zoom a lot when you use the iPad on the web). That's fine for the limited scenarios but not practical if you're doing serious computing work like a balance sheet in Excel.

Finally anyone who has watched the technology industry for any length of time knows inferior solutions win out if all parties don't agree on the way forward. Or in other words if Apple backs the Magic Trackpad and Microsoft backs the touchscreen then the Mouse will likely stick around because it's the common denominator. At least based on how history has unfolded in the past.

</comment><comment><USER5> I think a lot more has to happen for the mouse to die. It might get less popular in the computing mainstream, if the new-fangled devices really take over (i.e. no more PC as a "hub"), but that just means we're back to the "workstation" days, and the expert users will still use that (+ keyboard shortcuts etc.).

The infamous "gorilla arm" has been mentioned here already. For a 8+ hours computing device, a bit more has to change than just tablets and Windows 8. We'd need some kind of super-ergonomic version of the Tron CEO desk.

NB: For those professionals who aren't using their mouse due to super- keyboard-efficiency (or possible pseudo-efficiency), it might as well replace it for the few times they'll use it. Whether the occasional moment of direct manipulation is handled by a mouse, trackball, trackpad, IBM nipple or touchscreen isn't that important.

</comment><comment><USER6> I don't want to be stuck with a touchscreen. Screens should be ~30cm in front of you, at your eye height. I don't want to have to reach up there constantly.

<comment><USER7> I agree. However this doesn't exclude operation with a touch-pad, like for example Apple's stand-alone Bluetooth touch-pad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Am I alone in my hatred of touch-pads? I'm 10x more productive on a desktop with a mouse compared to a touch-pad on a laptop.

<comment><USER9> Have you used a recent Apple touchpad and gestures? For certain things (Photoshop mostly) I'd go with a mouse, but for coding and browsing I'm happier with a touchpad.

<comment><USER8> Nope I haven't, I'm going on standard PC and Macbook (not pro) touch-pads that I've used. I'd like to try one of the new Apple trackpads out, but don't know anyone that has one.

<comment><USER9> Next time you're near an Apple store pop in and have a play. It's much better than any non-Apple trackpad I've used (though I haven't used many recent PC trackpads to be fair).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Two words: gorilla arm. Big fat finger touch systems aren't good for everything.

A Kinect sort of interface could do it, though...

<comment><USER11> Doesn't Kinect require you to wave your arms around? That seems tiring. To say nothing of the space requirements.

<comment><USER10> How about when it can reliably do finger tracking?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I assume that the author does not play games. I don't see a touchpad, or something touchable input devices can be better than a mouse, say, when you are playing SC or WarIII. how can you select single unit then move it quickly use finger or stick?

<comment><USER11> The mouse might become an exclusive gaming device – like today's gamepads.

It actually is for me. I rarely play games but from time to time I do and on those rare occasions I dust of my mouse. (Sometimes I'm too lazy to get the mouse and play a few minutes of Minecraft with the trackpad.)

I can't imagine using that Windows UI with a mouse. It seems clumsy. You need a touchscreen or a large trackpad with gestures. I was just fooling around with Lion which is a lot less radical than Windows 8 but it was still obvious that you need a trackpad with gestures. (I have a 2007 MacBook Pro which doesn't support any gestures except for two-finger scrolling. It's working ok but it's obvious that gestures would make the experience so much nicer.)

Calling the mouse "dead" might be hyperbole but if the mouse indeed becomes this decade's gamepad or trackball I would argue that the hyperbole is justified.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> _Watch what they're doing in those videos. How are you going to do some of those gestures with a mouse?_

How are you going to do those gestures if you're sitting at your desk with two or three >20" monitors?

<comment><USER11> Trackpad (mentioned in the article).

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Have not been using a mouse for over 2 years. The trackpad on my MacBook Pro replaces it. But I can see mouse is needed for WW type games or intensive graphics work.</comment>


Ask HN: What has changed since reading HackerNews? - <AUTHOR> Have you noticed changes in your life since visiting HackerNews? I, for one, visit reddit (and other less-productive sites) less often, and in general better select learning resources. <comment><USER2> No doubt. HN naturally selects for smart people and relevant stuff. And no ads!</comment>