Golden Rules for Making Money by P. T. Barnum (1880) - <AUTHOR> http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting.html <comment><USER2> Here's a pdf version of the book:

<http://www.freewebs.com/maestro_mr/barnum1.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER3> Spectacular article! Here's a bit that could use updating for our modern age:

Encouragement to advertise when you've got something good:

"In a country like this, where nearly everybody reads, and where newspapers are issued and circulated in editions of five thousand to two hundred thousand, it would be very unwise if this channel was not taken advantage of to reach the public in advertising. A newspaper goes into the family, and is read by wife and children, as well as the head of the home; hence hundreds and thousands of people may read your advertisement, while you are attending to your routine business. Many, perhaps, read it while you are asleep."

Is there a modern equivalent? Television? Still? Is there any one thing that truly touches entire families today?

<comment><USER4> With the rise of marketing it's uncommon for a company to try to reach an entire family. Promotion is more effective when its highly targeted.

Although, TV is probably the best medium for reaching a broad audience.

<comment><USER5> I'm guessing that depending on what you're trying to sell you might still want to reach the entire family (first thing that comes to mind is cars)

<comment><USER3> Yes. For some reason I thought of "cars", too. Not sure why, but it seems like the only consumer good that still gets passed around.

Bumper stickers?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Give a boy twenty thousand dollars and put him in business, and the chances are that he will lose every dollar of it before he is a year older."

<comment><USER7> Overheard at a VC meeting last week...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This reminds me of the book "The Richest Man in Babylon", it has similar parables and written in context of ancient times. Some advice is timeless.

In this book, I love how he talks about financial security as achieving independence.

"It is this go-aheaditiveness, this determination not to let the "horrors" or the "blues" take possession of you, so as to make you relax your energies in the struggle for independence, which you must cultivate. "

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, this is surprisingly good.

<comment><USER9> Henry Ford's book is pretty good, too. (My Life and Work. 1922.)

<http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/hnfrd10.txt>

 _"Business" in the sense of trading with the people is largely a matter of filling the wants of the people. If you make what they need, and sell it at a price which makes possession a help and not a hardship, then you will do business as long as there is business to do. People buy what helps them just as naturally as they drink water._

<comment><USER10> Thanks, great book, just finished reading it at your link. Made me wonder if it's still applicable today. Design the perfect product, then optimize the manufacturing process till it's dirt cheap? Definitely won't work with coding.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I love the language - so many words we don't use anymore, or use differently. Like economy for example - I quite forgot it's earlier meaning (saving). Or lay up.

<comment><USER12> Also I had never seen "industry" as an adjective.

From wikipedia: "Generally industry is diligence, assiduity, hard work."

<comment> a-priori One variation of this usage that has survived is "industrious".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> An extraordinary document. I think I have never seen such a model of brevity.

</comment><comment><USER11> I thought they didn't know tobacco was harmful until semi-recently, but this was written in 1880!

<comment><USER14> It seems that for a long time, people possessed an intuitive notion that smoking was bad (it makes you cough, gives you shortness of breath, etc.) but mostly ignored that intuition.

<comment><USER15> If you read any old literature, even as far back as the 1800's, you get this feeling. No one ever outright says "this will kill you," but it was certainly regarded as a poor health choice.

The one thing that bugs me about this was, as a kid in a health class, I was shown a video of a little girl and her grandma. The girl asked the grandma "Why do you smoke grandma?" The old lady responded "Because when I was your age, nobody knew that smoking was bad for you."

The bullcrap we were fed as kids is incredible.

<comment><USER16> Going back as far as 1604, King James I of England had the following to say about smoking:

 _A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse._

<http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/james1.html>

<comment><USER17> James was also an evil fascist. Hitler hated smoking. See the pattern?

<comment><AUTHOR> "Scholars agree that, in addition to being a teetotaler and a non-smoker, Adolf Hitler practiced some form of vegetarianism." (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_of_Adolf_Hitler>)

Just for historical curiousity. I do not want to start a debate about the Nazis.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not much has changed since 1880 =]

<comment><USER19> Like this nugget:

 _A man may go on "change" and make fifty or one hundred thousand dollars in speculating in stocks, at a single operation. But if he has simple boldness without caution, it is mere chance, and what he gains to-day he will lose to- morrow._

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> "There is no greater mistake than when a young man believes he will succeed with borrowed money."

Isn't VC money essentially borrowed money?

<comment><USER21> No. If VC money is for ownership of the startup, then no. If I lend somebody money and they promise to pay it back over N years with X interest, that is a loan. If I give somebody money in exchange for a certain number shares, that is a purchase. I am purchasing ownership in the startup. One does not "pay back" one's investors. Rather one generates a profit for one's investors.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Rules #10 and #11 seems especially applicable to my own situation, when jumping from startup idea to startup idea.

130 year old advice seems more powerful for some reason. Hopefully reading it here is the first step to resolving it.

</comment><comment><USER23> Some time ago, I got into a discussion with my parents and sibling about role models of past generations. My sister and I were surprised by them offering up P. T. Barnum as a positive role model, and we got into an argument with them, since we believed (like many our age) that he was a well known charlatan and hoaxer. This article of his (as well as an article that Wired magazine did some time back) kind of makes me wonder what happened to his reputation over the years to make our misconceptions about him possible.

</comment><comment><USER24> _Money is in some respects like fire; it is a very excellent servant but a terrible master. When you have it mastering you; when interest is constantly piling up against you, it will keep you down in the worst kind of slavery. But let money work for you, and you have the most devoted servant in the world. It is no "eye-servant." There is nothing animate or inanimate that will work so faithfully as money when placed at interest, well secured. It works night and day, and in wet or dry weather._

<comment><USER25> Tell that to the people whose money markets just returned a loss :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> > If you are losing money, be specially cautious and not tell of it, or you > will lose your reputation.

Hasn't that caused a lot of problems?

<comment><USER11> > you will lose your reputation.

He's talking from personal experience, he did loose a lot of reputation when a company he invested in went bankrupt. So he's not wrong.

> Hasn't that caused a lot of problems?

It depends - if you are holding assets that belong to the customer, or have a contract to do something for a customer then yes.

But if you have a business like his, museum, then there is no reason to say anything - if you go under, at worst someone will be disappointed they can't get in, but they will not loose anything.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> If the bank applied the advice "don't endorse without security" the economic disaster we see today wouldn't have occured.

</comment><comment><USER28> Wow, this is a good article. I thought all of the raving was about nothing, but it is definitely worth the read.

</comment><comment><USER29> Isn't this Oxymoron?

[http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/money...](http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/barnum/moneygetting/moneygetting_chap20.html)

Because, Transparency Begets Trust.

</comment><comment><USER12> That's the best submission ever posted here as far as I'm concerned!

<comment><USER3> I might have to agree with you there. I'm going to hold on to this link.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I published the same link a while ago: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=88544>

Anyway it's a great link so I guess it doesn't matter much.

<comment><AUTHOR> I looked into my old bookmarks and found the link. So perhaps I even got it from you back in the day. Thanks!

<comment><USER30> I had time to read it again now because of your posting, so thank you!</comment></comment></comment>


Is It Wrong To Use A Svbtle Theme? - <AUTHOR> http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2013/01/is-it-wrong-to-use-a-svbtle-theme/ <comment><USER2> TL;DR - It's confusing, but not a big deal. Change it or don't.

I, like you, at one point didn't know about SVBTLE. I clicked through links on HN and found some pages that looked strikingly similar and at a quick glance thought, "wow, this person is posting a lot." (Note: singular)

Then I looked deeper and found out they were different authors; I went even further and discovered some were a part of SVBTLE and others were simply using the Wordpress theme.

It was slightly disorienting, but then I got over it. I learned to recognize the real SVBTLE posts from the "fake" ones. Either way, I'm becoming a bit tired of the design.

<comment><USER3> There are a few stylistic differences between the real and fake ones. (font, for instance)

Also, the comments section breaks horribly with the formatting, as demonstrated in the original post. Although real Svbtle blogs don't have a comments section, which is disappointing...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People actually _like_ the Svbtle theme, and they think that dcurtis is a positive brand?

Huh.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I didn't even know who he was before the Svbtle debacle. Now I know that he's some elitist who got pissy when his (not all that special) blog theme got copied.

<comment><USER4> He also got a designer at American Airlines fired when he ranted about their design on his blog. (The designer sent him a polite reply about what he was doing to improve the state of the design, but then AA fired him for no apparent reason.)

<comment><USER5> Wow, what a douchebag. There is no excuse for getting someone fired over something as petty as this. When he got that guy fired, he could have also been affecting that guy's wife and children, who are completely innocent and depend on the guy's salary to live.

<comment><USER6> He didn't set out to get the guy fired. There's no way you can justify calling him a douchebag for criticising a website's design.

<comment><USER7> He did say:

      Fire your entire design team, if you have one.
      Hire an outside design firm ... as quickly as possible.
      Your in-house team is obviously incapable of building a good experience.
      Get outside help. [1]

Then backpedaled [2] after he got a response outlining that he has no idea how large companies operate.

[1] <http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html>

[2] <http://www.dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> We're now having drama over stupid blog themes? Who cares what theme you use, the only important thing is the content. Write it in a .txt and post it to dropbox for all I care - I'll be just as intrigued to read it regardless of style if the content is good.

<comment><USER9> To be fair, he is not the one who manufactured the drama:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4373743>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4920905>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4373565>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4403236>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4881610>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3770722>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4881055>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3744237>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4610042>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4713517>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3744950>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks :-) As it happens, I was unaware of all the drama until I started researching the blog post today. I'm not interested in being part of someone else's drama. Hence the post.

<comment><USER10> Actually, if you're switching themes anyway, could you choose one in which the archive is more prominent? I couldn't find one, and usually the archive is where I go to find out whether the blog is relevant to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a good point. There are more than a few deficiencies of Svbtle - especially for a long established blog.

Any themes you're particularly fond of?

<comment><USER10> Particularly fond of, no. Actually, unless your topic is web design, I appreciate it if you're being unoriginal about your blog's appearance.

Trying to remember a few blogs where the content has distracted me from the appearance to the point where I couldn't remember what it looked like at all, I came up with blog.regehr.org and www.bunniestudios.com. The former uses the Barthelme theme, the latter looks like a default theme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> No-one should be able to claim ownership of minimalism. This pissed me off with the apple rounded rectangle patent; it's pissing me off more here. If Svbtle really wanted to establish a brand identity it would be easy - pick a logo, place it prominently on their blogs - and displaying that logo while not part of the group really would be wrong. But they don't own minimalism; no-one does. Keep using the theme.

<comment><USER12> There are a lot of minimalist themes that aren't confusingly similar to Svbtle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I think there could be problems if we allow too simple of designs to be design copyrighted. Imagine if the first newspaper column layouts were copyrighted and enforced. There really are only so many grid structures that exist and make sense. Our eyes and how we perceive things are relatively the same, and so good design looks like good design.

And is there a difference between physical products and digital products? I don't really know, though if you download content that usually isn't freely available, then you might want to think twice to not accidentally be a hypocrite.

</comment><comment><USER14> No, it's not wrong. The whole idea that it might be reeks of elitism. Use whatever theme you want, and let the "members only" Svbtle clique be judged based on the quality of their content, rather than their association with some self-professed blogging luminary.

</comment><comment><USER3> I originally intended to develop my own variation on WP-Svbtle for my own blog, then I saw TwentyTwelve released with Wordpress 3.5. With a white background and a few other tweaks (such as moving the navigation bar below the header image), it can look _very_ minimalistic and clean.

Here's my own blog customized with TwentyTwelve: <http://minimaxir.com/>

<comment><USER15> My personal opinion:

I'm really sorry, but your blog just doesn't look minimal and clean, and the type you're using for max woolf's blog thingy (I assume it's courier) just does not work at all (the apostrophe looks terrible, way too thick somehow). Also the blue is much too strong IMO.

It's the small things most dev's don't see, that svbtle really really gets right.

While I also dislike their elitism, I still appreciate the design work.

PS: The "Read More" button on the right is broken (if you click it, some margin or padding is lost ... It's the small things that matter...)

<comment><USER3> The font was Source Code Pro (monospace). That header image was somewhat old, so I just changed it now. :)

The high-contrast style of minimalism is what I prefer: I hate the low- contrast style that many blogs seem to love. Although I might tweak with it more.

The Read More bug appears to be from the original theme. urg.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> At the time that the Svbtle "copycats" emerged my thoughts [1] were that it identified the differences between designers/brand people and programmers. Nate (who coded Obtvse) seems very much a programmer, whereas Dustin is a hands down designer.

In this case, WP-svbtle is, to most people, just a decent design. Dustin was hacked off by Nate's project because he was building a brand; and what seems a simple design probably took him some time to think about (like when I produce a 10-lines-of-code solution to a complex problem and a paper pushers says "so why did that take so long to make??").

Some of the comments directed at Terence seem unfair - assuming the worst, that he was aware of Svbtle and is cocking a finger at Dustin... Or passive aggressiveness about how common the design is now.

1\. [http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2012/03/copy-my-idea-not-my- des...](http://www.errant.me.uk/blog/2012/03/copy-my-idea-not-my-design/)

</comment><comment><USER17> Totally wrong.

Svbtle is a brand. It's a minimalist layout, but copying it intrinsically suggests misleading your readers. You wouldn't make your new tech blog have the same theme as TNW or TechCrunch, and you wouldn't theme your Telescope install to look identical to HackerNews.

</comment><comment><USER18> Isn't Svbtle itself heavily inspired by another theme?

</comment><comment><USER19> After reading "I searched Alta Vista" I believe that his intent wasn't to rip off Svbtle.

</comment><comment><USER20> I don't think it's "wrong". I would say it's "suboptimal" for what you might be trying to do. It's subliminally advancing another brand in service of yours.

</comment><comment><USER21> Use whatever theme you want. Content should be judged on its merits, not on some blog "brand".

Most readers won't know svbtle, and of those that do, most won't think it adds any gravitas to the post. If I find a link rated highly on HN, that rating is the gravitas, not the blog's theme.

</comment><comment><USER22> I don't think this post really answers the question. It tackles it more from the angle of "If you come across the theme without knowing about Svbtle, is it okay to use the theme?"

That's fine of course. You can't be blamed for not knowing about what is still a relatively small network.

The more important thing is what you do now. You now know that the theme was made to copy exactly the design of a network which is attempting to create a curated community, but it's very obviously a good design by itself.

It's your own choice whether or not you're happy with that. People will agree and disagree with you either way, but isn't that the point of a personal blog?

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't think it's wrong. You can consider it just a "theme", but why don't you make something more personal for your blog?

Even few changes would make it look different: move the left bar to the right. Get rid of the rounded buttons, change the font.

Make something unique, you just need a day to fiddle with your css and make it look yours.

</comment><comment><USER24> Borrow from the design, but don't copy it. I guess it's tough to draw the line somewhere, but copying front-end code crosses it. It's very easy to make something clean and simple without looking like Svbtle.

Just my $.02

</comment><comment><USER25> I've come across a lot of posts in their network that are great, but I, like you, and many commenters here are confused as to how it works and how to get involved or follow what they are all up to.

</comment><comment><USER26> Off-topic, but you searched AltaVista? Did you choose to use it specifically or is it your daily driver?

<comment><USER27> AltaVista is just a re-skinned version of Yahoo Search (which itself is driven by MSFT, but has some modifications vs Bing). So this isn't as odd a choice as it might first seem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> no, just uncreative

</comment><comment><USER29> design is intellectual property and thus it's not ok to use it (or better "pirate" it) without permission.</comment>


Death by Regulation: Startup health insurer shutting - <AUTHOR> http://www.richmondbizsense.com/2010/06/04/startup-health-insurer-shutting/

<comment><USER2> "Founded in 2008, nHealth was built around a high deductible insurance plan model that utilized health savings accounts and kept costs down making consumers more involved in their healthcare decisions."

Demand-side reforms don't work particularly well, because health care is the only market system where supply drives demand (people don't buy health care services like they buy cell phones; doctors prescribe it because the information asymmetry is too great for it to be a consumer-based decision). Just ask Singapore.

<http://www.healthbeatblog.org/2008/07/health-care-in.html>

So while nHealth's model might work amongst the young and healthy -- a very desirable demographic -- it doesn't scale very well, and they'd be powerless against the inexorable health care inflation (13%/yr last I checked), even as core CPI is at 1% or less. Right now, the only thing that even comes close to the health care inflation is education inflation.

<comment><AUTHOR> Healthcare inflation is not something I strongly considered and you're right to emphasize it, but I submit to you that:

A) This high deductible + HSA model can't affect the market unless it's widespread (probably very widespread), something we're not going to see in the USA (well, not any time soon), and:

B) The experience of Singapore's first 5 or so years of the model cannot be considered very useful (I'm assuming that between the writing and publishing time and the lag in available statistics the referenced paper at best covers the period 1984 to '89 or 90): the period is _way_ too short to see a change in behavior _and_ their per-capita GDP increased by 43% (!!!) for '84-90 inclusive (from the IMF, as suggested by Wikipedia: [http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/dbcselm...](http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2006/01/data/dbcselm.cfm?G=2001)).

But your points about inelastic demand and information asymmetry are well taken; I in particular don't tend to think of the latter, having an RN for a mother, my pediatrician as my father's hunting primary partner when I started hunting, having seriously studied biology and chemistry, always reading the prescribing info of any drug before taking it, etc. etc. etc.

That said, how widespread is the information asymmetry problem in the US? I don't have any direct or family experience here, we've all stayed pretty much in the confines of GP type physicians with specialists consulted mostly to rule out things. These GP types have never encouraged "unnecessary" stuff ... but they wouldn't economically benefit from it. The specialists are where you'd expect problems, especially from surgeons who have a bias towards fixing problems by cutting anyway.

EDITED: corrected fencepost error.

ADDED: this high deductible + HSA model is intended to address one area of health care demand elasticity: avoiding your GP's office for minor ailments. There are simple sets of rules available for treatment of stuff like upper respiratory infections and gastro-intestinal illness including guidelines on when you should seek medical care.

Canada is often described as a place where everyone goes to the doctor for a sniffle because it's free. US style 3rd party payment is often close to this. If you have to pay the entire amount out of pocket out of your HSA the theory is you'll apply the above, perhaps through a nurse hotline, and only go in (and get exposed to other bugs) when you really need to.

Hmmm, that brings us to American exceptionalism: are we perhaps more likely than many other cultures to first take care of ourselves and family and only go to the doctor when it's really needed?

<comment><USER2> Warning: meandering, incomplete response follows...

Yeah, the HSA + high-deductible combination definitely has an effect on low- hanging fruit like primary care stuff. I don't know if it's been measured, but it intuitively makes sense. In terms of health care inflation, however, this is small potatoes. When a heart attack runs ~$80K for a course of treatment... well, primary care is pretty small. A normal course of cancer treatment (chemo + radiation) can run $200K and up. In this respect, controlling costs at the PCP's office has very little effect on overall health spending trends.

Information asymmetry is significant, but it's most significant at the specialist level. How is a patient to know that long-run (5 yr) outcomes between surgery (we're doing something!) and physical therapy (hard, time- consuming, no sense of immediate satisfaction) are identical for something like herniated discs? And perhaps even better if you factor in potential surgical complications? So there's definitely that aspect to consider. Also, an orthopod is incentivized to do the surgery because we exist in a fee-for- service cottage industry. This doesn't mean they'll always recommend surgery, but there's always the financial incentives to consider. We reward more care in the US, not better care. But this isn't exactly news.

To go back to the primary care type information problem... this is solvable to some extent. The Internet has certainly brought a huge volume of distilled knowledge to the masses. WebMD and the Mayo Clinic site are excellent examples of this. Unfortunately, they aren't very good at providing physiological context when explaining mechanisms of action (whether we're talking disease processes or their treatments), and this results in poor consumer understanding of what's going on in the big picture. When I was in pharmacy school, this was a common problem when counseling patients. It was quite common for an engineer to understand how this one drug worked on this one problem, but they didn't know how it fit into the big picture that is their body and how it might affect their body's homeostatic balance, especially if they did X or Y while taking the med. It didn't even occur to them to find out. This is where these information sources aren't enough, and where expert knowledge from someone who thinks about this stuff all the time comes into play. People have a frighteningly cavalier approach to taking pills... even smart, educated people. I suspect it's a cultural thing.

Anyway, this lack of context problem is particularly exacerbated in psychiatry, neurology, and any other specialty where what is unknown is greater than what is known, _especially_ when you start taking into account non-physiologic factors like cultural context.

WRT guidelines: they're always changing as new information becomes available. The definition of obesity is broader today than it was 20 years ago. (And accounts for some of the increase in incidence.) Even guidelines for "simple" stuff like ear infections (otitis media) change with some regularity, if you follow organizations like the AAFP.

The fundamental difference with health care in the US is that we ration based on ability to pay, rather than need. I know more about health care from both the ground-floor clinical side and big picture economic side than I know about probably anything else. If I were an investor, I wouldn't invest in health insurance startups or pharmaceutical startups. There's simply too much risk relative to the potential upside. I think this is to be expected in an industry where the low-hanging fruit has largely been plucked, though. What's left are niche diseases which aren't huge profit centers, as a rule.

I'd actually love to know if there's any meaningful data on health care startups vs pure technology startups WRT return on investment, broken down by type of health industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> A few comments, not even necessarily quibbles:

Don't most people who get a heart attack die from their first one, with I assume little cost to the system? Of course the general improvements with so many problems means that more people are living long enough to get cancer....

The cost of cancer treatment is high enough that it probably swamps primary care, but one should still run the numbers. Large populations can have results that are non-intuitive to most, e.g. the increased costs of much preventive medicine due to the large numbers that need to be constantly screened to find a few true positives. If I didn't have a family history of aggressive prostate cancer (great-grandfather, 1 out of 6 uncles) I'd listen to my doctor's discouragement on getting yearly PSA testing (now that I'm 49, and yes, I know the test is rather iffy, how iffy I'll learn about after a baseline is established and/or before someone wants to do a biopsy (ouch)). Then again, I'll be paying the full cost of most of those tests.

WRT specialists and outcomes, raw full population outcomes aren't as useful for the individual considering options. In theory/in general the specialist will be able to go beyond the raw numbers and have a better idea of which option is the best bet.

I myself just can't understand the compliance problem ... although I do see the lack of appreciation of complex/the full system issues; even though I ended up going in the directions of chemistry and computers, my early medicine and biology learning was _really_ beneficial.

I myself find the online guides to be useful (well, the _Merck Manual_ is lots cheaper on-line for free :-), for me the biggest limitation in using them is not knowing what's normal. E.g. that tongue coating under these circumstances is no problem, maybe stop taking your antibiotic a couple of days early sort of thing. I know most people aren't in a position to get enough useful out of them to seriously "bend the cost curve", to draw this back to the main topic.

I'd never consider otitis media to be simple, it just obviously isn't, too much hidden, too much guesswork, especially since outcomes are so often ... not optimal (e.g. I lost some hearing in one ear due to one infection in the '70s, a girlfriend as well in the '80s).

Anyway, thanks for the intelligent discussion.

<comment><USER3> To just respond to one point: even in the 1990s, mortality from acute MI was down to ~12%: (e.g., <http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/short/356/11/1099> ). There are many sequelae of acute MI that are likely to be expensive in the long term (esp dilated cardiomyopathy). Then, there are the lifelong visits to cardiologists; cardiac imaging; and pharmacologic interventions.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's not the statistic I was referring to, which is is (or includes) the people who don't make it long enough to get admitted, i.e. those who are DOA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Changing regulations create opportunities as well as destroy them. My startup, Bloom Health (<http://gobloomhealth.com/>) is getting a big boost from the latest changes. We make it easy for small/mid size companies to provide health insurance to their employees with an predictable costs for the employer, and more choice for the employee. The mandate that all employers need to provide coverage for their employees is a huge market opportunity.

</comment><comment><USER5> Perhaps a better health care business model is found in Qliance (<http://qliance.com/>). They advertise as "Like a health club membership, but for health care." Essentially flat monthly membership fees (from $44-84 based on age), providing primary and urgent care, including telephone and email contact. They recently opened a third clinic, and closed a $6 million round of financing from Bezos, Dell, and Drew Carey.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> First part of title from this essay: [http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/death- by...](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/06/death-by- regulation/57701/)

I'll also note that the high deductible insurance plan model has up to now been one of the best ones available for startups, although it doesn't address the not so healthy who need a bigger pool of one sort or another (private or public) to spread out the risk and/or costs.

<comment><USER6> spreading out the (unknown, but actuarially estimable) risk is insurance ... 'spreading out' (known) costs is something other than insurance</comment></comment>


Amazon Web Services terms of use: run far away, run fast - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazon-web-services-terms-use-run-far-away-fast-sean-hogle?trk=prof-post <comment><AUTHOR> A few commenters dispute whether the IP non-assertion covenant applies to "Your Content", defined in the Amazon terms as "Content [that is, "software (including machine images), data, text, audio, video, or images"], that you or any End User transfers to us for processing, storage or hosting by the Services in connection with your AWS account and any computational results that you or any End User derive from the foregoing through their use of the Services". If Amazon intended to capture "Your Content" in the non-assertion covenant, it would have done so expressly, the argument goes, and so therefore "Your Content" is excluded from the non-assertion.

My response: section 8.1 of the terms states "EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN THIS SECTION 8 [where the non-assert clause resides], we obtain no rights under this Agreement from you or your licensors to Your Content, including any related intellectual property rights" (all caps added). The implication clearly is that Amazon obtains no IP rights to "Your Content" EXCEPT as section 8 provides. Seems fairly clear to me.

I would never allow my client to knowingly sign up to this.</comment>


Anti-Tax Fervor Closed Their Libraries. Now Residents Are Trying to Go It Alone - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/17/us/oregon-library-taxes.html <comment><USER2> > until voters turned down a tax increase that would have kept the library > system open

Is anyone else wondering why a tax increase is needed to keep the library open? Does that mean it wasn't sustainable? Could it be due to rising minimum wage? Is it reasonable to blame the voters?

I grew up on generational property in rural southern Oregon, and it's true that there's plenty of anti-tax sentiment, including from Myself.

A small town near where I grew up ceased it's police force, and is instead patrolled by county sheriffs stationed in nearby towns. The truth is there are many people out here who just want to live their private country lives, many of who have small income, and spend their year fishing and hunting for food.

<comment><USER3> City dwellers dramatically subsidize American suburbs and rural areas. Roads, water, the electric grid, communication networks, hospitals, fire suppression, law enforcement, courts, schools, mail delivery, .... public infrastructure and services get more expensive per capita when people are more spread out. On top of that, the federal government intentionally spends large amounts of money in poorer areas of the country (e.g. on military bases and weapons contractors) as an explicit geographical wealth redistribution scheme. 80 years ago the rural poverty in many parts of America was a story of shocking destitution.

If people want to reduce the tax burden on folks with low incomes just scraping by, the way to accomplish that is by increasing taxes on corporate profits, very large incomes, large inheritances, etc., expand enforcement against tax evasion, and eliminate legal or quasi-legal tax-avoidance loopholes. However, the wealthy in this country have largely succeeded in a 50-year campaign to redistribute wealth upward.

<comment><USER4> > If people want to reduce the tax burden on folks with low incomes just > scraping by, the way to accomplish that is by increasing taxes on corporate > profits, very large incomes, large inheritances, etc. However, the wealthy > in this country have largely succeeded in a 50-year campaign to redistribute > wealth upward.

It's an unpopular opinion (because of the propaganda campaigns waged by the wealthy), but a wealth tax is very much needed in this country. The income tax is fundamentally designed to _prevent_ the accumulation of wealth. So us worker bees bear the costs of financing government, while the wealthy, who owing to their accumulated wealth, do not need or have an income, get to reap the benefits.

<comment><USER5> The wealthy pay the vast majority of all the income tax already.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-14/top-3-of- u-s-taxpayers-paid-majority-of-income-taxes-in-2016)

<comment><USER6> I don't get why this is always trotted out? If you have the lion's share of wealth (and the continuous compounding passive income that comes with) then this should be expected. And then its just a matter of negotiating the amount, with the society you participate in.

<comment><USER7> >>> a wealth tax is very much needed

>> The wealthy pay the vast majority [...] already

> I don't get why this is always trotted out?

Surely the context of the conversation explains why.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Governments in general do a terrible job at PR. I remember a "controversy" during the Obama administration which was caused by the phrase "you didn't build that" which was basically him trying to promote the stability and infrastructure that the government provides for innovation and entrepreneurship.

For a rich nation like the US there's a lot we need to be thankful to our government for. The fact that I can hop on a cross country flight and have no worries at all about clashing with another plane is a testament to the FAA. Organizations like the NIH provide valuable research for drug development. DARPA help to fund the internet!

The government deserves loads of criticism but at the same time our views of it are so cynical it leads to situations like this.

<comment><USER9> Your example is dangerous territory for political discussion here. The Obama example cited was _intentionally_ misquoted (by providing a snippet without the full context) to make him bad.

Government PR to a certain degree is a good thing to promote support and appreciation for programs, but it can get into dangerous territory when wielded with the intent to deceive (as we're now seeing).

<comment><USER10> I've wondered if this is part of why politicians are so long winded and won't directly answer questions. Not just so they can appear neutral and avoid answering hard questions, but if they actually say something meaningful in a few words it will probably be taken out of context and used against them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> There is a wonderful documentary "Flint Town" (currently on NetFlix) that follows the police department of Flint, MI, a town that is struggling. At one point, officers end up campaigning for a local ballot issue to renew a tax that supposedly supports them, but in reality doesn't. There is a vague promise that they will see the money if the measure is renewed.

After passage, the scene where the Flint city council ultimately screws over the chief of police is appalling. Municipal politics can be brutal too.

<comment><USER12> > Municipal politics can be brutal too.

Municipal politics are the _most_ brutal. I've seen fistfights at school board meetings! National politics get a lot of attention, but local is where citizens are directly affected.

<comment><USER13> See K. C. Constantine's Rocksburg series of murder mysteries. They're set in a small city in the western Rust Belt of Pennsylvania, featuring a police chief who has many runins with the rest of the municapal government.

Then again, my kid brother, a liberal Democrat, spent 20 years in his local government in the most Republican congressional district in New Jersey, serving on the planning commission(20 years), the school board(13 years), and a regional board of education. So cats and dogs can occasionally co-exist peacefully.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know that my suggestion sounds like a knee-jerk reaction, but I wish that each and every public service had one or more prominently-displayed large signs on their premises saying how much their expenses were and where the money came from to pay for it. My reasoning? It's easy to tunnel-vision on your own financial situation when you are sufficiently ignorant of what services your taxes are paying for.

<comment><USER15> It surprised the hell out of me as it will you but ignorance of how much it cost and where the money goes wasn't an issue here. These Douglas county voters mailed in their rejection of a dedicated library tax.

Most everywhere else in the country your suggestion makes sense. In my county library funds are bundled in the county general ad valorem property tax.

<comment><USER16> How it works:

Government officials want more money for random nonsense and corruption. Voters disapprove. Government officials pick something to hold hostage, such as the library. They propose a special library tax. Meanwhile, the random nonsense and corruption is getting funded.

The voters aren't that dumb. They know the library could be funded, and they don't wish to fund random nonsense and corruption.

It's a threat, "Give more money or we'll cut something you like!", when the voters can plainly see that funds are going to things that are improper.

Suppose the voters fund the library. Next year, when that funding gets diverted, the government will come asking for more. Maybe it will be a different thing needlessly on the chopping block.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is a great lesson in how we tend not to notice the effect of these services paid for with our tax dollars... until they're missing.

<comment><USER18> Libraries served a very important purpose, but nowadays with the proliferation of computers/smartphones and all literary classics, scientific information, etc. being freely available online, physical libraries feel like less of a necessity. They can serve as hubs for other community activities, but those can just as easily be held elsewhere. Only real use I've had for one in the past years is the odd time I had to print or fax something. Maybe libraries should eventually be downsized to simple community cybercafes with links on the desktop to some of these resources and a printer/fax machine.

<comment><USER19> Ah, the old "I've don't need the service therefore no one does" argument.

It's obvious you don't use libraries, because you left out a couple dozen other services they provide that are not easily replaced. I'm also not sure how a community center is supposed to be easily replaced without tax revenue.

While the "libraries are outdated" line is oft-repeated, it's still inaccurate. Libraries provide large economic impacts, on top of less easy to measure things like being community centers. Here's one article about a study that shows for every $1 in tax put towards a library, it generates anywhere from $2.50-$5.00+ in economic benefit, depending on how you measure it: [https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2016/04/28/Toledo-Lucas- Co...](https://www.toledoblade.com/local/2016/04/28/Toledo-Lucas-County- Public-Library-gives-2-74-value-per-tax-dollar.html?abnpageversion=evoke)

If you google for more, you'll find a dozen other examples.

<comment><USER20> All of those things could perhaps done even better if they weren't pretending books was still their main service.

Perhaps an office in city hall could have computer 24/7 or other things.

I like libraries - but they shouldn't be welfare/job centers -- we should build institutions that specialize in that and can be evaluated on their effectiveness.

<comment><USER21> This is an example of perfect being the enemy of good.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> These things are never so cut and dry. Politicians know to cut funding from the most visible places first -- parks, police, roads, fire, schools, etc. It allows them to justify raising taxes. Then they turn and put the new revenue towards something else entirely. Finally the whole cycle repeats decade after decade, until [sales tax + property tax + fed income tax + social security (12% counting employer contribution) + state income tax + vehicle registration] is over 50%. Without trust earned through good action over time, good citizens are trapped with nothing left but to pull the plug.

<comment><USER23> Perhaps there exist socially and economically positive things which taxes can fund more beneficially than individual spending for equivalent services.

<comment><USER22> Perhaps you misunderstand. I am not opposed to taxes that support the common good. Simply pointing out why it is hard to distinguish between reasonable taxation and excessive taxation made necessary by irresponsible use of revenue.

<comment><USER23> In your story cycle, there is this sort of promotion of learned helplessness of the citizen which can only end in pulling the plug. Perhaps I mistook that focus on the tax aspect instead of the benefit aspect of governing as being generically anti-governement.

In general if you want more efficient use of money, I think it's better payoff to focus on the actual uses and how to get to the benefits more efficiently instead of concentrating on reducing costs. I feel that's true for businesses as well as governments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Used to live in Oregon... it's hard to really pin the blame on anyone, here. Politicians are voted in and out of office and ballot measures are passed mostly based on issues with short-term visibility. In the heyday of the timber industry it was hard to justify more cautious and measured approaches to growth, and easier to fund projects with bonds based on projections of property tax growth that turned out to be optimistic.

There _is_ a bit of an anti-tax fervor in Oregon, I wouldn't claim that it's unique or special compared to other parts of the country but it exists. Oregon passed a "kicker" which makes it so any state revenue surplus gets refunded to the taxpayers. This makes it basically impossible for the state to save any tax revenue surplus, so budget shortfalls can mean immediate reductions in service and infrastructure projects are paid for with future obligations. This is really nothing more than leverage (and extra risk exposure) on a state scale... when the economy does well you get money back from the state, when the economy does poorly you get service cuts. It's easy to see both sides of this issue... it's easy to see why it got passed (I overpaid taxes, so give me the money back!) and it's easy to see why it's a bad idea.

This is an unintended side effect of the way the political process works in Oregon. The ballot initiatives in Oregon (called the "Oregon system" even though South Dakota did it first) were a big force for progress in the early 20th century (e.g. women's suffrage in 1912) but ballot initiatives seem to really suck at making any kind of coherent or sensible fiscal policy. And that leads to today, with rural Oregon paying the price for decades of mediocre fiscal policy, once propped up on timber profits but not anymore.

I'm really glad we have the initiative system but I'm also glad it's limited in scope and power. I can vote on whether marijuana should be legal but I can't vote to change the Fed's target rate.

<comment><USER25> You see the same in most governments though. A surplus is rarely banked. Instead a budget surplus is immediately spent on structural spending like increased wages. A ballot measure to force the government to give back budget surplus is a smart move - the borrowing and service cuts give people a direct linkage to how their economy is doing.

Look at Germany. Huge budget surplus last year which is now predicted to be spent entirely on helping migrants who turned up after Merkel invited them in. Would the Germans have liked the money back? Most likely! Were they ever going to be given that option when politicians had the option of feeling good about themselves through additional spending? No way!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Most governments and municipalities do a horrible job of articulating what their constituents taxes go towards. People see giant buckets and have a very hard time converting that into what they see and use day to day.

<comment><USER27> It might be deliberate. Taxpayers would see how things like badly managed and/or lavish pensions eat up large parts of the budget.

<comment><USER28> There's certainly a popular belief that government is mismanaged, but I'm not entirely sure it is, or at least is to the extent and in the areas that anti- tax advocates believe.

Of course make government more effective and efficient. Very few would argue against that. But at some point, there's just nothing to trim. However if one's underlying assumption is all public spending is bad, then of course there's more to cut, it's just that the argument to justify the cut is disingenuous.

<comment><USER27> The higher-level point was just that more detail will invite more scrutiny. I can certainly, though, cite examples of large cities with multibillion-dollar pensions that are close to being insolvent. Dallas is one of them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As the song goes "You don't know what you've got till it's gone".

The town tested out life without libraries and saw it was bad for kids. This got the votes to reopen them. I think sometimes it's healthy to see if we "really need it". Especially when physical books are becoming obsolete.

<comment><USER30> I don't know about these libraries specifically but all of the libraries by where I live serve many more purposes than just a warehouse for physical books. Free internet access, community gardens, 3d printers, audio books, some even run classes for kids on various topics like personal finance and how to put together a resume.

<comment><USER31> To be totally fair, I might get upset over a "library tax" that turned out to be actually funding community gardens. Those aren't even related ideas.

<comment><USER30> I haven't used it personally but I'm pretty sure the library with the garden that's near me actually uses the garden for classes to teach children about things like how insects pollinate plants and how to grow stuff. I think it's mostly an educational tool as opposed to a way to feed the neighborhood on the tax payers' dime.

Maybe community garden is the wrong term for it. I would also be a bit unhappy if my taxes were paying for a library to feed the neighborhood. There's other/better ways for the government to give food to people from collected taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> In my small, rural community, it was evident several years ago that the city wanted to shut down the library. They had obviously cut back on staff and had cut back hours.

Likewise, we went through the same with recycling and trash, where there was a proposal to add $3/mo to the recycling bill to keep weekly service. The city instead cut back to every-other-week, with the option of paying $30/mo if you wanted a second bin (because families produce more recycling over a two-week period than one bin will allow). Once recycling costs increased and it was no longer a revenue-generator for the city to sell their waste to Chinese recyclers... guess what, the rates increased anyway.

In short, I've found that small-town services boil down a lot to: 1) Who is willing to speak up for them.

2) Fervent anti-tax retirees who moved to those small towns thinking their costs and taxes would be less.

3) Poor, often corrupt governance.

4) A limited tax base to begin with. In many of these rural areas, there might be at most tens of thousands of residents.

<comment><USER2> > tens of thousands of residents

I'm thinking tens to thousands of residents.

<comment><USER32> True - I was being generous, realizing there are counties throughout the west with a few hundred, and there are others up to say 30,000 (roughly mine). There are differences, yet similarities across these that stand apart from say, Multnomah or King county.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's called firemen first. There's usually plenty of waste, especially in the more opaque and unaccountable areas of government, such as the school system administrative staff.

So, they get rid of something people will really notice and guess what? Next time people will say they must have really needed that money.

</comment><comment><USER34> > In recent months, some communities voted to pay to reopen or support a town > library, while others insisted that volunteers alone would suffice.

In other news, voters in a democracy use their franchise to decide priorities for their community. Elitist Northeastern newspaper writes judgmental article about it because its editors have different priorities.

</comment><comment><USER35> The central rural parts of Oregon are killing their communities out of ignorance.

In 2014 Josephine county voted down a tax to keep their jail open.

Another counties entire sheriff's department resigned recently, due to lack of funding to properly staff the office; they were all burning the candle at both ends.

There are other examples of this behavior over the last decade that are easily Googled, so I'll avoid posting it all.

If you talk to these people, or see their commentaries online, many of them are thinking they'll just make taxes low, and of course someone will build a factory, in the middle of nowhere, with a poorly informed workforce, and no social services.

The locals don't want to shoulder the cost of education and security, but of course some private business owner will.

<comment><USER36> I don't see the problem here, though I am questioning who's providing police services in that county now.

If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice. Of course, that could have some pretty nasty consequences, but again, they voted for it, and it's their choice. I do hope, however, that the state and federal authorities will keep an eye on things, and if anything bad happens which results in a huge lawsuit, that the people of that county will be literally forced (even if it means forcibly seizing all their property) to pay the judgments.

As a very wise Frenchman once wrote, "every nation gets the government it deserves". The people in these rural counties are getting the government they deserve.

<comment><USER37> > If people want to vote to refuse to fund having a police service, how is > that wrong? If they want to go without, that's their choice.

You can't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to vote against funding the fire department as well.

If the whole town goes up in a blaze, then will you expect the federal government to step in and help them? If yes, that means everyone foots the bill for their stupidity; If not, can we still call ourselves humans?

Some basic services should be funded, and if you don't want that, you should be able to go live in the woods, or at least that's how I see it.

<comment><USER38> > _You can 't really let people have a say with regards to everything they pay > for, because a lot of people have an "I got mine" attitude, so as long as no > house has burned down in their neighborhood lately, they might be tempted to > vote against funding the fire department as well._

While I despise your position, I admire your honesty about the fact that these policies are paternalistic and violate consent.

What makes you the person who gets to decide for them what they should or shouldn't spend their money on?

<comment><USER37> > these policies are paternalistic and violate consent.

Like I said, if you don't like living in a society where the rules aren't to your liking, you can go live by yourself in the woods where there's no one to violate your consent.

<comment><USER36> What if the majority of voters in that society vote for "I got mine" policies? That's what we're arguing here; this isn't a situation about a handful of malcontents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Anti-tax fervor seems like a scapegoat. The library wasn't producing enough value for the residents to care about continuing it and I don't blame them. This is how a democratic government is supposed to work - eventually things will converge to the median view.

I've been voting against my libraries for as long as I've been able to vote. They're just not super valuable to me - they're not keeping kids out of trouble, in fact, it seems like kids go to the library to get into trouble - junkies routinely overdose in them.

In the past 3 years, I've purchased at least 70 books. Each time I purchased a book, I checked to see whether I could get it from the library and they didn't have it. My county library system has 2,038 books of and about feminism and ~300 books of and about LGBT issues, but it has scarcely anything about conservative / right wing political philosophy or Abrahamic theology. It doesn't have a single book by Machiavelli, Hobbes, Evola, or Carl Schmitt. The library doesn't seem like a service that's open to everyone, it seems like a subsidiary for a specific viewpoint and agenda.

<comment><USER40> Sigh. I'm not quite sure how to respond to this, it comes across as selfish and staying in your ideological bubble. Libraries exist to serve a community. Young children aren't junkies and your assertion seems specious. Libraries aren't crack houses or heroin dens and using that as a reason to not support them is, well, far fetched.

You can ask libraries to get books you are interested in. Further you can request the books you want via the ILL (Inter Library Loan) System from around the country or the world. You get the value out of the library that you put into it.

<comment><USER41> People should be voting selfishly, who else is going to look out for your self interest? If most people do NOT think like him, then the library will stay. If most people do not want it , why keep it?

<comment><USER42> You can't run a government like this. Most people don't use most government services, yet the smaller number who do use them really benefit greatly from them. If we voted down all government services that <50% of people use then society ends up suffering greatly. Hell, most people don't even use firefighters; should we vote them down too?

<comment><USER39> No one is saying that we should vote down all services that aren't used by <50% of the population. My only point is that decisions are democratically valid if they're ratified by the majority.

The majority of people deciding to have libraries is just as democratically legitimate as the majority deciding not the have libraries.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Classic diversionary administrative state clickbait headline: "More taxes, because libraries!"

How about why are our taxes not spent on libraries? What are they being spent on? The people who talk to the people who fill out the forms for the people who are supposed to be managing our libraries? Or was it that our libraries were actually sold by the people elected to supposedly make sure our libraries stayed open? Oops that was the US post office...

Total government revenue was $6,300,000,000,000 last year[1]

[1] [https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_2018USrt_20rs1n](https://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/total_2018USrt_20rs1n)</comment>


Curried JavaScript functions - <AUTHOR> http://www.svendtofte.com/code/curried_javascript/ <comment><USER2> Here is a great functional JavaScript library if you don't want to build it up yourself:

<http://osteele.com/sources/javascript/functional/>

</comment><comment><USER3> Suggestion:

instead of this:

<code> function add (a,b,c){ if (arguments.length < this.add.length) { return curry(this.add,arguments,this); } return a+b+c; } </code>

we could have something like:

<code> function add (a,b,c) { return curry(arguments, 3, function (x,y,z) { return a+b+c; }; } </code>

which is arguably simpler and cleaner. However, one extra closure is used.. maybe it makes it more complicated for some?

But, overall, pretty clear and interesting article :o

<comment><USER3> <\-- Fail with <code> !

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I have a question about "it" in ML. How is it useful?

</comment><comment><USER5> I thought this was a partial.</comment>


Mozilla's Response to the Indian Govt's Committee Report on Net Neutrality - <AUTHOR> http://blog.mozillaindia.org/1418

<comment><AUTHOR> <quote> As the Committee's report discusses, a central pillar of net neutrality and a major contributing force to the Internet's success has been the concept of "innovation without permission." This concept, allowing anyone to develop a new technology, to write code and test in the public, and to control the code running on their machines is the lifeblood of the open Internet and the ethos of open source. As Mitchell wrote in regards to a similar proposal by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, any mandatory licensing scheme would prove onerous and "increase the costs of creating on the Web, thereby discouraging Indian entrepreneurs from building the next Internet giant. What's more, establishing an enabling environment for development on the Web creates a virtuous cycle that provides more value to existing users and incentivizes new users to come online." To this end, we respectfully caution you from proposing any licensing regimes on Internet services or Over-The-Top (OTT) applications, as doing so would only serve to create legal uncertainty, chill innovation, and hurt the promise of Digital India</quote></comment>


Ask HN: anyone stood up by start-up chile at stanford today? - <AUTHOR>

So, apparently Nicolas Shea didn't show up at Stanford as expected[1]. Anyone else just hanging around the Y2E2 building?<p>[1] http://www.startupchile.org/start-up-chile-founder-to-host-event-stanford/ <comment><AUTHOR> Btw, the Yang building is really awesome.</comment>


Microsoft declares victory over Linux, names Apple and Google main rivals - <AUTHOR> http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/microsoft-declares-victory-over-linux-names-apple-and-google-main-rivals/3756?tag=content;siu-container

<comment><USER2> Basically the author makes a diff on a paragraph from the SEC filings, in which Linux is removed from being a threat. The author could have concluded any of the following:

         - it is bad marketing to attack Linux
         - Linux is an indispensable piece of infrastructure
           and Microsoft learns to cooperate with it
         - Linux cannot be attacked as a whole, focusing on
           Linux is spending valuable resources; it pays to
           attack tangible players that are pushing Linux
           instead
         - Linux is really not that important anymore, the
           problem for Microsoft being escalated to something
           much, much bigger

Really, the author could have picked any of the above and more. But no, the author picked "victory over Linux".

I don't usually complain about the lack of quality on HN, but some articles are borderline stupid, including this one. Remarkably, these days I find better content at Proggit.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's important to note that it's only in reference to desktop Linux. We still have flavors of *nix beating the pants off of Microsoft in mobile and server space.

<comment><USER4> I think that is understood. The war between MS and Linux is always about personal computing. Otherwise, the comparison points are endless. QNX beats pants off of Linux in Embedded systems. Microsoft beats the pants of off any *nix system in quite a few sectors of Robotics space. Microsoft beats pants off Linux in Gaming systems. Microsoft beats pants off of Linux in Enterprise server systems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe the author should check that Android is Linux.

</comment><comment><USER6> By applying the same logic of removing mention of Linux as a competitor, Microsoft could be admitting defeat to Linux in the server OS space. If their server product was their priority, I would believe they would mention Linux. I am not promoting this idea. I am just playing devil's advocate to this article.</comment>


Is OAuth Really Secure? - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/bpedro/is-oauth-really-secure

<comment> do-do About Google: OAuth 1.0 has been officially deprecated as of April 20, 2012. It will continue to work as per our deprecation policy, but we encourage you to migrate to OAuth 2.0 as soon as possible. [https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2?hl=it](https://developers.google.com/accounts/docs/OAuth2?hl=it)</comment>


Dark UI patterns on the verizonfios website - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/mixonic/status/736575632226852865 <comment><USER2> Whoa. Getting pretty well shared around the web.

I want to be clear that it seems there is an _attempt_ at accurate data: [https://twitter.com/rikschennink/status/736618354098737152?s...](https://twitter.com/rikschennink/status/736618354098737152?s=09) but the implementation is a completely failure.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Dark UI patterns" seems a little over the top to me, I think it might be attributable to Hanlon's Razor. Probably some lazy programmer at Verizon stubbed in some code then forgot about it or moved on and no one remembered to go back and put in the actual code to find the actual wait time, or they couldn't figure out how to do it so just put bs in.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, usually with Dark UI Patterns I associate a bit more hostility to users=like tricking someone into buying or downloading something. This seems more like someone had a good idea, but found out it was too hard to implement so fudged it.

<comment><USER5> This is tricking you into staying on the page, pursuing a route that may or may not be in your best interest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Saw that. Makes you wonder about other BS we see or hear when we call for support. "Our agents are busy with other customers. You are in #5 with a 25 min wait" hoping you'll hang up and drop the support request.

<comment><USER7> That I would trust in so far as you're in wait. Management probably wants your call answered. The technician's the one hoping you drop.

<comment><USER8> Management wants you to wait and give them a chance to solve your problem before you e.g. cancel. This kind of thing tricks you into waiting longer than you otherwise would, it doesn't trick you into going away.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I won't take their part in this but, having owned a software company since 2009 already, I know there are certain "lazy" individuals who prefer to submit such code just to close those issues faster. I know we are supposed to check the code commits more carefully but code like this one sometimes gets into production...It could also be a mock that made it into production.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't see how this is necessarily a dark pattern.

<comment><USER11> It's an anti-pattern, not a dark pattern.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The code fetches some sort of number serverside, and then randomly updates it.

It's pointless anyways, my guess is the marketing company that made that page has no actual integration with the IVR system.

<comment><USER13> Except there's more on that page: [https://twitter.com/vcsjones/status/736715020793417729](https://twitter.com/vcsjones/status/736715020793417729)

      Their "detecting problems" progress bar is a timer...

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> You assume too much malice from people, and too little problems with enterprise integrations.

My guess is that the spec said to use the real number, and when the team couldn't deliver that, after six failed months of repeated attempts to integrate, they had to put something in because it was too late to change the ui wireframe that had already been signed off by executives.

</comment><comment><USER15> In my personal experience 99% of everything today is fake.

<comment><USER16> ...including statistics?

<comment><USER15> Everything. I was and still occasionally work in media and you wouldn't believe what is going on. The whole world is fake. It makes me sick. From people pretending to fake stories to fake statistics, yes.

Don't get me wrong. It was always this way. Maybe today it's a little better than in other periods in history but we still didn't evolve much. We're all talk mostly.</comment></comment></comment>


Trying to make experimental UI for group photo/chat. Help with app test-feedback? - <AUTHOR>

My friend and I threw together Pic Thread, an iOS app, so friends can stitch images together and message each other. We call it a photo chat/stitching app. We're looking for people to give us feedback in Beta. So far we have a couple people who are "addicted," So it might be more interesting experience than typical messaging... What's your opinion? You can add your email at http://www.picthreadapp.com/ to get an invite from the iTunes store. <comment><USER2> The UI has a new feel to it...simple and easy to pick up...I think the veteran Social media users would adapt quickly.

This app seems very broad in it's application of how it will be used...as the public tries the app I think it could find it's niche in mainstream use.

Excellent Idea...keep up the development!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm thinking it might be nice for posting new content to Instagram too.

<comment><USER2> It has a fun quick twist to it...easily can be considered a "social media aggregate app" OR potential as a standalone.

As far as the UI, my comments...the swipe up, take pic, add to thread...clean and quick!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Picthread is awesome!! It makes me crack up constantly. It also produces images of beauty and of originality not typically found on apps like Instagram. Fun and silly and beautiful. What more could you want.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting project. Seems different approach that gives users improved canvas of self expression than flat photo sharing apps.

<comment><AUTHOR> The stitching part is pretty fun, it adds another dimension to the experience. You can add on to other peoples pictures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Clickable link: [http://picthreadapp.com](http://picthreadapp.com)

</comment><comment><USER6> You may want to post this as Show HN.

Also, please don't hijack scrolling.

</comment><comment><USER7> Love it. A brilliant idea.

</comment><comment><USER8> Not sure where to go now

<comment><AUTHOR> Goto the website? Let me know what you think

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Hello

</comment><comment><USER10> Great idea

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Danielarepas</comment></comment>


If property rights are real, climate-destroying companies should be sued - <AUTHOR> https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/02/if-property-rights-were-real-climate-destroying-companies-would-be-sued-out-of-existence <comment><USER2> > existing U.S. law... contains endless procedural barriers to the achievement > of basic justice

This is one of unfortunate problems with the law in the US, but not the only one.

</comment><comment><USER3> As milton friedman said about this exact case that this a very hard thing to achieve both privately and via government.

Not having private property rights is more disaster than climate change at leads to authoratarian governments, widespread poverty and more harm to nature.

Sueing companies is fine but every single of those companies is eventually making profit by volunteerly offering some service to the individual.

Are we going to sue a blogger making money via adsense because google is using a data center powered by fossile fuel energy.

<comment><USER4> I'll buy that the private sector can't solve the tragedy of commons, but if governments can't, we're all lost. The fact that the system we currently exist in uses fossil fuels doesn't equal the right of those who extract it to reap unlimited profit, or to pollute others' environment no matter how gradually or secretly.

<comment><USER5> > I'll buy that the private sector can't solve the tragedy of commons, but if > governments can't, we're all lost. The fact that the system we currently > exist in uses fossil fuels doesn't equal the right of those who extract it > to reap unlimited profit, or to pollute others' environment no matter how > gradually or secretly.

This is a slippery slope to abuse and little more than lining the pockets of lawyers and the government.

Consider the next obvious lawsuit: Suing birth control manufacturers over estrogen pollution, which is in fact a giant problem.

First, entities should not be sued over things of which they had no knowledge at the time.

Second, such suits should be based on actual knowledge. The knowledge of the estrogen problem greatly exceeds that of the characteristics of anthropogenic global warming.

One of the major arguments against this particular attack on oil and coal companies is that those products have vastly benefited society and the average person. That is a very difficult position with which to argue.

<comment><USER2> > One of the major arguments against this particular attack on oil and coal > companies is that those products have vastly benefited society and the > average person. That is a very difficult position with which to argue.

This is well explained in the article. As soon as Oil Co. understood the cost of externalities in the business, it had a choice - to add the cost of neutralizing to the product (and possibly close the business) or to get sued.

Don't see any problem here.

What I do see is the problem with the judge - and maybe many judges.

<comment><USER6> "As soon as Oil Co. understood the cost of externalities in the business, it had a choice - to add the cost of neutralizing to the product (and possibly close the business) or to get sued."

Since fuel is taxed, how do you know that isn't enough to compensate for the externalities? I once looked up the estimated costs of global warming according to the National Resources Defense Council and it seemed that using their figures the full cost of gasoline is probably on the order of the price it goes for in Europe. So I think that while Americans aren't paying enough, the true cost is not very high in the overall scheme of things. Certainly not enough to drastically change society and put energy companies out of business.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Opendoor, a startup worth emulating - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2016/opendoor-a-startup-worth-emulating/ <comment><USER2> Have you given thought to opening up your pricing model/algorithm to the public for every home in a market (a la Zestimate/Redfin estimate) as a means of eventually driving seller inventory even if someone is not ready to sell today?

If someone could look up what their place is worth and, unlike Zillow and Redfin, actually be told explicitly why it's worth that as opposed to being told a "black box" value, you'll open the top of the funnel by driving folks who aren't yet ready to sell (today's owner is tomorrow's seller). And since those values change frequently the not-ready-to-sell owner could track the changes to value and the underlying data driving that value, which would keep you on the tops of their minds when they're ready to sell down the road.

If you think the pricing model/algorithm is too proprietary to share beyond the "I'm ready to sell today" market, I'll stop by for a coffee to try and convince you otherwise.

Good luck. I'm stoked to see someone trying to fundamentally change the residential market.

Edit: oh, btw, not advocating sharing the actual algorithm, but the results of it (e.g. your house is worth 5 psf less than the comp from 3 blocks over bc your place is directly under the airport's flight path).

<comment><USER3> I am personally a big fan of this and want to ship it but resource constrained right now on engineering. So yes, let's do that coffee?

<comment><USER4> I've never heard that saying before. What does "let's do that coffee" mean?

<comment><USER5> He's referring to harmmonica's "I'll stop by for a coffee".

People commonly say "let's do lunch/coffee."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Co-founder here, I'll do my best to answer questions. The number one question we get is likely "what happens in a downturn/recession?", but that's more of a blog post than a HN answer. Anything more detailed/technical though, shoot!

<comment><USER6> Have you considered offering a "chain breaker" service?

What is a chain? (provided in case this is a UK specific term) A common problem with buying & selling property. In order to buy a new house you first want to know that your current one will be successfully sold. As such, you may have a queue of buyers all waiting for someone down the line to get a buyer for their property; as if they fail to get a buyer they drop out causing the next person in the chain to have to find a new buyer before they can buy. Equally sometimes people waiting in a chain are "gazumped" (another buyer makes a better offer to the current buyer), thus pushing out the current buyer and impacting the buyer's chain from the other end).

You could provide a service whereby buyer and seller have already met, but are stuck in a chain. You'd be able to buy the seller's property and hold it for the buyer until they're ready. \- If they're able to sell their property they can then pay you the price of the new property plus the "holding fee" before moving in. \- If they're unable to sell their property they have the option to sell their current property to you and take the new property as described in the previous step; or to remain where they are simply paying you the holding fee for having held the original property for them, with the new property then entering your portfolio of properties to do up and sell on to the highest bidder. \- These holding fees could be charged monthly up front should that prove simpler than lump sum amounts at the point of decision.

Your service already avoids the need for a chain; but this alternate offering allows you to capture a part of the market of those people not interested in your full service, by having the potential buyers ask that the property be purchased by you instead of the sellers coming to you.

<comment><USER7> My favorite chain breaker service has to do with kidney transplants:

Some economists noticed a few cases where would-be kidney donors who weren't compatible with their family member who needed a kidney were able to find another incompatible donor-recipient pair, and were able to swap so that each donor was able to gave to the other donor's loved one.

Of course, this only works if the medical compatibility works out between the pairs. To facilitate more transplants, economists created a donor-matching network that could handle cases where three incompatible donor-recipient pairs (or even thirty!) could work out an exchange allowing all of the recipients to get a suitable kidney. Naturally, laws prevent money from changing hands for kidneys, everywhere on earth except in Iran.

Heard about this here: [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/07/alvin_roth_on_m.htm...](http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/07/alvin_roth_on_m.html)

<comment><USER6> That's an awesome idea; thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One thing not mentioned: Opendoor absolutely does not have to carry the balance sheet risk of owning the homes forever. They can chop up those assets and sell them to anyone (hedge funds, banks, individual investors, etc) at any point. At scale, they'd be able to do this and still maintain most of the upside.

At some point, Opendoor will be able to let businesses that simply manage financial risk for a living (i.e. banks) spread the downside risk out over the entire financial system, while Opendoor takes advantage of its customer acquisition and data advantages to capture the bulk upside. It's not a perpetually risk model if they don't want it to be.

<comment><USER9> Also, their position in the market gives them a very good insight into the likelihood of a crash. As demand for their services will increase whenever sellers are desperate to sell their houses.

If they track those indicators, they will be able to dynamically decrease their purchase price based on the likelihood of a crash and (in the worst case) limit their exposure to only the housing stock they had at the start.

In the best case, desperate sellers might accept the much lower price and Opendoor will make a profit off the crash.

<comment><USER10> > their position in the market gives them a very good insight into the > likelihood of a crash

LOL what? What insight into the market will opendoor have that is not publicly available? Sorry but this is magical thinking

<comment><USER9> There are two reasons why someone might sell their house to Opendoor...

A) They are willing to sacrifice some of the money for a much easier sales experience. B) They really, really need to finish the sale now.

The size of the first group will follow a constant trend, but the second group will fluctuate based on various factors. So Opendoor can infer the desperation of the sellers in the market based on their numbers of sales.

Most other factors are publically available, but the desperation of sellers isn't publicly tracked. Regular real-estate agents will be exposed to the same desperation, but it's in their best interest to hide any desperation, to maximise the sale price.

Lenders will also know when some homeowners are falling behind on payments, but again they don't publish those numbers until a foreclosure actually happens.

It's not like Opendoor is going to predict the crash before it happens, but as long as they can spot the crash early, before it really picks up steam, they can minimise their exposure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> The issue a lot of people have with OpenDoor is their business model. Only some people in silicon valley can raise $320mm to wholesale homes using algorithms. The skepticism I have is that OpenDoor isn't disrupting anything because they're not Airbnb or Uber. They're not going after unused inventory and taking huge amounts of business from incumbents, they're simply amassing massive amounts of debt like no wholesaler could and when the economy crashes, and it will as nothing goes up forever, they're going to have this backfire on them. And then what?

When the economy goes down, Airbnb will do just fine. More people will want to do short term hospitality to earn cash and more people will want to drive for Uber. OpenDoor will have to liquidate their debt which will prove difficult. Also if I remember correctly, Keith Rabois said he was talking with Peter Thiel and Peter mentioned how real estate has rarely changed. Later Keith helped create, more like fund, OpenDoor. What I wonder is, why hasn't Peter invested in Keith's new company? It's not because he's too busy with Trump's transition team.

OpenDoor isn't a startup you should emulate. I wholly disagree with this article.

<comment><USER3> Hey, definitely appreciate the criticism.

Without going into too much detail, investors aren't generally in the business of losing money and at the scale of investment we've taken we're far beyond "bet on the team" kind of diligence.

Managing inventory and pricing risk is a key piece of this business and has been since day 1.

We really owe the world some blog posts, but until then hackers, data scientists, and predictive modelers are always welcome to come by the office for lunch!

<comment><USER12> >>investors aren't generally in the business of losing money...we're far beyond "bet on the team" kind of diligence

Sure, in principle large investments should mean good DD. But Magic Leap fans were pretty surprised this week. Theranos also raised more than Opendoor.

It's not fair to put other company's problems on Opendoor, but the point it's hard to accept the large cap/DD argument with so many counter examples.

In any case, it would be great to see you succeed - good luck.

<comment><USER3> That's fair and those are embarrassing tales in Silicon Valley. One difference is they were/are bets on a technology that wasn't in the market yet.

We buy and sell thousands o homes, hopefully at the appropriate price for the market's current level of risk. Hard, deeply appreciated by customers, but not much handwaving on how it will go to market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The article talked about Opendoor being able to increase liquidity. However a lot of real estate illiquidity is due to people who refuse to sell at market value for irrational reasons.

For example, "I paid X so I won't sell below that", "I added a pool plus 100k in renovation so I should get that much of a premium", "I'll just wait a few months and see if prices get better".

A big function of realtors is to console and convince people to sell at a realistic price.

This behavior makes it harder for OD to improve liquidity, and in fact liquidity could take a hit with no realtor therapy for sellers.

I predict a major issue for Opendoor will be seller sticker shock. Many will balk at paying 8-12% in fees _even if it 's in their best interest_.

Willingness to paying more for convenience or speed is not a constant. See mental accounting from University of Chicago, or ask any realtor about seller psychology.

<comment><USER10> >Willingness to paying more for convenience or speed is not a constant

Especially regarding the largest financial transaction of one's life, in many cases.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wish a startup would decrease the transaction costs of buying real estate rather than increasing them.

<comment><USER3> Give it some time. Useful to look into why Redfin never really took off.

There's so much fat in real estate outside of the agent fee, too. Mortgage closing costs, title insurance, escrow fees... it's ripe for improvement full- stack.

<comment><USER14> The fact that real estate agents haven't suffered from the same negative publicity as banks for their part in the housing bubble tells you everything you need to know about their political power.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> It's amusing that the article labels this as "flipping" instead of being framed as a market maker function in an illiquid asset class.

<comment><USER3> Market making is much closer to how we at Opendoor think of it internally. Flippers buy distressed assets at a huge discount and plow money into renovations and repairs. Not really our business.

<comment><USER16> It strikes me that maybe the best analogy for your financial model is old- school 19th-century shipping (as in; the reason London is London, more or less)? You're taking a trading risk on illiquid goods but your holding times are reasonably short (certainly under a year, presumably much less than that in hot markets).

What a cool business. Congratulations.

<comment><USER3> Thanks, if you're ever in the Bay Area you're welcome to come by for lunch and learn more! I'm email@example.com

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> > Or, in the next downturn, the entire company might go bust.

> To that end I hope Opendoor succeeds simply so it can be a role model for > tech: taking on big risks for big rewards that create real value by solving > real problems is the best possible way our industry can create benefits that > extend beyond investors and shareholders;

The only reason (ok one of the big reasons, not the only) Opendoor exists is that the massive amount of capital deployed has the potential to make investors and shareholders a ton of money. It's an all or nothing proposition. Furthermore, I don't think the author has rightly assessed (or assessed at all) the negative externalities associated with Opendoor's model to the economy. Part of the whole reason the housing market revelation of "too big to fail" of banks was exposed was because too much of the real estate market was tied up in too few organizations (Fannie/Freddie, Wells, etc), which means when it crumbles down, our economy cannot sustain the burden. If OpenDoor's risk mitigation model is to basically "own more of the market" it means that if/when the market does go for a downturn and OpenDoor goes bust, then it's not just VC's who lose, but a whole lot of homeowners, or even worse, homeowners and taxpayers.

That's hardly a model I'd admire or try emulate, unless of course, I want to make a buttload of cash (or fail very hard trying).

> Opendoor is creating value as opposed to taxing a few bucks off the top of > an existing market or simply trying to be cheap.

Opendoor's arbitrage is no different then an ad network, they're both exploiting inefficiencies. I'm really having a hard time understand why it's so much more "benevolent" as it's suggested here.

<comment><USER13> > it's not just VC's who lose, but a whole lot of homeowners, or even worse, > homeowners and taxpayers.

Unless I'm misunderstanding their model, it is only OpenDoor and their investors that will lose.

The house sellers already got their cash. And it seems very unlikely the taxpayer will end up bailing out a risky startup.

<comment><USER18> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13164392) According to `jdross, purchases are funded with a small amount of equity and the rest with "debt-like instruments" so the taxpayer is still potentially on the hook. But, yes, homeowners don't seem to be at risk.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > To succeed, it has to price the homes it buys accurately, without seeing > them,

Which is why this will fail. No way you can get that right. Even in a block of identical flats there will be a range of prices: what floor, proximity to lift, aspect and a hundred other little things, not to mention the condition and style of internal fixtures and fittings. Having recently seen a lot of houses, every house is unique.

I once viewed two identical flats in a new block on the same floor right next door to each other, both facing the same way. One ended up selling for 30k more than the other. Why? because the view across town was partially blocked for one of the flats by a building across the street.

<comment><USER20> I don't think it matters that much. They will offer the lowest their algorithm thinks is correct. And then they send an inspector who where dictates which repairs the seller has to make out of pocket.

And if the home is worth more than what they paid and listed the home for, the market tends to adjust.

Trying to buy a home in NYC, everything I like is generally bid 10-40% above asking. And since open door already paid the seller, they likely pocket the difference, still collecting their 6-12% on top.

With the potential to make 30% on many million dollar homes, they will likely be fine.

<comment><USER10> Problem is no one in NYC or any other profitable market will use them, because no seller is going to accept 10-40% lower price AND a higher fee in a market where it's already easy to sell.

<comment><USER20> They already do. People paying all cash saves the seller at least three months. Sometimes the bank won't close for 8 months because of reason and then denies the application forcing the seller to start from the beginning.

People do accept all cash bids for less than asking. People know this, and there are tons of places that will pay all cash for your home right now for less. If you live in a place condo or a house, you will get letters asking to buy the house all cash.

<comment><USER10> K. So why use opendoor and pay an 8% fee when people are sending me cash offers in the mail?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I could see OpenDoor working with large companies on relocation outsourcing. An employee needs to move, maybe on condition of hiring, and the guaranteed sale provides the removal of an obstacle to say no I can't move and sell my house... or the discussion really devolves not into schedule but money. If it's not the market rate, the company could pay the difference, or part of it.

For bigger companies, Starbuck, HP(E), IBM, I could see Opendoor simplifying the HR conversations. Especially when companies reorganize and want to move people around.

</comment><comment><USER10> >Opendoor is betting that there are hundreds of thousands of Americans who value the certainty of a sale over getting the highest price

How does that work in hot markets where sales are quick and certain? (a home in Seattle usually gets 6-10 offers). As a seller you're asking me to accept a lower price and pay a higher fee for little benefit.

Also, how does your model work if the housing market has a downturn? Suddenly all those arbitrage opportunities are underwater. Seems like what you are doing is basically real estate speculation.

</comment><comment><USER22> Any concerns about adverse selection?

I'd want to use OpenDoor if their pricing model came in above what I could reasonably get in the market, and would be more likely to wait it out if they came in low.

<comment><USER3> Across thousands of homes, we have a pretty good sense of the costs here. Since we do the full home inspection before close, it's not as bad as you might think. We've learned to ask about and look for the obvious things (airplane noise, busy streets, recent crime, terrible new neighbors)

<comment><USER23> How can you know a seller is telling the truth RE: matters that are hard to validate in an inspection, e.g. terrible neighbors?

<comment><USER14> Is there a set of public domain resources for police calls by neighborhood and type?

<comment><USER7> Trulia seems to be using such info to create color-coded crime maps.

<comment><USER3> So ironically that's a feature my cofounder/CEO at Opendoor Eric Wu launched while he was at Trulia after they acquired his last company.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Presumably whilst any properties are in stasis (i.e. awaiting buyers) OpenDoor could partner with AirBnB and rent out those properties to keep a cash flow from any properties. They'd presumably not do this when they're expecting buyers to look round, but could do it whilst minor maintenance is going on immediately after sale, or if there's a quite time when views are deemed unlikely.

<comment><USER3> Having the homes be vacant makes it hard, and we optimize heavily for turnaround time, but maybe there's a non-linear innovation we're missing! Open to ideas.

Maybe we could do "sleepover trials" for potential buyers!

<comment><USER6> Agreed that generally fast turnaround's a good idea were possible. Would you guys hold on to property in some circumstances though; e.g. if prices are rapidly escalating (e.g. as occurred in the UK around 2000: [http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwide- national...](http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-nationwide-national- inflation.php\);) where the expected benefit of holding out outweighs the fluidity and lower risk of the quick scale; or would that be too close to gambling?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wonder how this can be viable. The closing and transaction fees (agent/title/escrow/closing/excise) make it tough for many home-flippers to overcome and make a profit if no major renovations are done. 2-5% for closing costs on the purchase and sale, as well as agent fees when selling mean they have to gross at least 7-13% on every house just to break even.

</comment><comment><USER25> The Opendoor model doesn't seem much different than how relocation companies work apart from more directly marketing to homeowners rather than corporate HR departments.

</comment><comment><USER26> This startup sounds like HomeVestors. The company with "We Buy Ugly Houses" billboards.

<comment><USER3> They're a franchise with a network of flippers offering 65 cents on the dollar to people with major issues who are desperate.

We offer 98 cents on the dollar to people with normal homes to sell on their timeline so they can move once when they're ready. (Most people can't afford two mortgages and need to sell before they buy, usually renting in the middle). We're more like a trade-in for cars, or a market maker.

The only similarity is we make it easy to sell.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Can you IPO so I can invest?

<comment><USER3> The best way to invest is to join and exercise your stock options :)

We're working hard to earn the right to operate as a public company.

<comment><USER28> What if I apply to Opendoor, the #1 company I'd like to build software for, but Opendoor turns me down for not being interested, so I end up going with my second or third choice instead?</comment></comment></comment>


Entrepreneur? Stay in School. - <AUTHOR> http://branliu.com/the-education-for-a-successful-entrepreneur

<comment><USER2> this sounds like Steve Jobs' oft-quoted quip on how calligraphy class is the reason we have different fonts. not sure how much I buy that...should we spend 4 years taking random classes just to maybe get some fringe benefits?</comment>


On General Purpose Super Computing and the History and Future of Parallelism - <AUTHOR> http://channel9.msdn.com/Shows/Going+Deep/Burton-Smith-On-General-Purpose-Super-Computing-and-the-History-and-Future-of-Parallelism

<comment><USER2> With all due respect to HN and "High-End Crusader" Burton Smith, who spoke at SIAM PP10 (PP12 is just over a week away in Savannah), this is so old news...

Microsoft lost its HPC compass last year when it fired STB president Bob Muglia for not embracing "the cloud" enough, and then it reorganized Technical Computing to push aside Kyril Faenov. Frank Chism (profiled on "Port 25") promptly left for Dell. Just last month Ryan Waite left for Amazon. The MS HPC ship is sinking, and former HPC experts at MS are stuck writing SQL queries.</comment>