China builds world's largest EV charging network with 167,000 stations - <AUTHOR> http://en.people.cn/n3/2017/0906/c90000-9265487.html <comment><USER2> I didn't know the China gov't new agency had such an online presence (and in English).

Their "recommended reading" includes an article titles "The miracle called Communist Party of China"[1] written by the Chief Minister of Punjab Province, Pakistan.

 _The CPC defies conventional wisdom and logic pertaining to political outfits. This dizzying pace of transformation defies logic, for this was done in barely a few decades and only could have happened because a robust body like the Chinese Communist Party stood behind the strategy._

[1][http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0711/c90000-9084277.html](http://en.people.cn/n3/2016/0711/c90000-9084277.html)

<comment><USER3> Their progress is probably owed to authoritarianism more than anything else. South Korea. Taiwan were also basically dictatorships for much of their growth.

Whether or not communism is good or bad is basically defined by whether or not the country is US-friendly.

<comment><USER4> Probably had to do with a smart dictator. There are lots of examples of bad authoritarians.

<comment><USER5> Thing is, China does not have __one __dictator. The prime minister changes regularly and his ability to cling to power is limited by opaque (but apparently efficient) check and balances at the top level of the PCC.

I tried to read more about it two years ago and was surprised to see academics complaining about the lack of a political science model of the Chinese government (apart from the one provided by the PCC propaganda). In one word: we don't know how it works.

<comment><USER6> It's been a stable system since Deng stepped down but the word is that Xi Jinping is trying to mess with that. He's purging the Party of people not personally loyal to him so he might be considering staying on for a third term.

<comment><USER5> Do you have sources on that? I'd like to read more about it.

<comment><USER6> Since the 1980s only 2 Politburo members have been purged. The first was Bo Xilai in 2002, Xi Jinping's main rival for the top job. The second was Sun Zhengcai, in July. He was being groomed as a successor to Xi Jinping. This purge prompted speculation that Xi would prefer no successor at all.

Source - [https://www.economist.com/news/china/21725338-would-he- prefe...](https://www.economist.com/news/china/21725338-would-he-prefer-have- no-heirs-apparent-potential-successor-xi-jinping-purged)

<comment><USER5> Was there really suspicion that Bo Xilai trial was political? I got the impression that he could be judged _despite_ his political influence. For murdering a British journalist nonetheless, which proved him to be at the head of a crime organization. Are there elements that indicate this is a total set- up?

Sun is Bo's successor in the same province. When you remove the leader of a crime ring, the ring still exists. I think that these accusations are pretty credible. 2 members in 15 years, in a country that's supposed to be struggling with corruption, that's nor something that looks that unusual.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> _A total of 167,000 charging piles have now been connected to the telematics platform of the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), making it the world's largest electric vehicle (EV) charging network._

This is about the billing system. That's what they mean by "the telematics platform of the SGCC". The key point here is that China's electric car charging infrastructure is being standardized.[1] Unlike in the US, the standardization includes the billing system and the system by which cars and customers identify to the charging station.[1]

[1] [https://www2.unece.org/wiki/download/attachments/12058681/EV...](https://www2.unece.org/wiki/download/attachments/12058681/EVE-07-14e.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately much (> 60%) of China's electricity comes from dirty sources (largely coal). Until this is fixed, the environmental benefits of EVs there will be limited.

<comment><USER9> >Unfortunately much (> 60%) of China's electricity comes from dirty sources (largely coal). Until this is fixed, the environmental benefits of EVs there will be limited.

True, but with China it never helps much to look at where they are instantaneously. It's all about the rate of change. They are _extremely_ aggressive with their renewables goals. Far beyond the US or EU.

<comment><USER10> It makes a lot of economic sense for them, even more so than other countries because they don't have that much oil resources. Same with India. Not to negate the fact that China is in general very aggressive in working towards their goals.

<comment><USER11> China has 20 nuclear plants under construction:

[http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2107354/china...](http://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/2107354/china- pips-us-race-start-worlds-most-advanced-nuclear-power-plant)

The new AP1000s are almost done. Hopefully they get the costs under control so they can build 100 of them.

Bill Gates' Terrapower is developing the next gen plants in China:

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/10/02/bill- gate...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2015/10/02/bill-gates-forges- nuclear-deal-with-china/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having just purchased an EV, I can see the biggest need is at the office and at home. Even at home there are barriers: an evse is expensive to purchase and install, electricity costs are high ($0.29kwh non-peak in San Jose), so it's actually more expensive to take our Leaf than our gasoline car on most days.

Saving grace is being able to charge for free or discounted at work.

<comment><USER13> You must have an efficient gas car! This [1] suggest the leaf uses 34 kwh per 100 miles, or about $10 at your cost per kwh. To cost less than this, with gas at, what $3/gallon? Your gas car needs better than 30 mpg.

[1] [http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1082737_electric-car- eff...](http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1082737_electric-car-efficiency- forget-mpge-it-should-be-miles-kwh)

<comment><USER14> If you have a plug-in hybrid, you often have the choice between gas and electric, without even using a different car. Hybrids easily beat 30mpg.

For example, the Volt is capable of 48 mpg with no charging on gas only. On electric only with no gas, it does 31 kWh/100miles.

<comment><USER15> > On electric only with no gas, it does 31 kWh/100miles.

Of course, that depends upon the weather. I get 30% better range in the Summer than the Winter in mine.

<comment><USER12> Wow interesting. Is that because of using the heater?

<comment><USER15> Partly that, partly the headlights but also the performance of batteries changes with temperature. In fact, the heater is used to condition the environment for the battery pack, so if I didn't use the heating in winter the range might be even less.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> For current UK driving, I estimated that we'd need 10 times more rapid chargers than we have at present, that we'd need about 1 slow charger per 8 cars, as they'd need charging for 1 hour on average per day, and that the current solar and wind power generated in UK would be enough to charge all the cars in UK if they were all electric.

<comment><USER17> Wouldn't demand bunch up during certain parts of the day instead of it being evenly distributed?

<comment><USER16> Well, if we assume current usage patterns, you could plug your car in at work and at home, so most would be able to charge at almost any time of the day.

It's likely that owning a car will be a silly thing to do in the future though, so it won't really matter

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So, whats the incentive to keep these maintained?

If it's anything like the USA they'll all be vandalized or worn out in a few years, and no one will spend any money to fix 'em because they don't make anyone any money.

<comment><USER19> Profit? My city already has e-bike charging stations on just about every street of every block. They still work, no doubt because they're profitable. Also, China doesn't have the vandalism problem of America. Kids don't go out of their way to destroy things for fun.

<comment><USER20> ? Yes they do. It's a real problem. There are a lot of people working to make things better, but there is a lot of work to be done.

I find this fellow's assessment accurate, if you want a brief overview.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g#t=3m9s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdsb2wwn-7g#t=3m9s)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is an official mouthpiece of the CCP.

That said, if any government could make a widespread EV grid, it would be china. In prosperous times, an authoritarian outlook can be a real boon for widespread adoption.

</comment><comment><USER22> "1 million kilowatt hours of power per day" cringe, *energy. Or 1 million kilowatt hours per day of power, but that's a mess. Just state the power in watts jesus

<comment><USER23> 41.66 megawatts. Sounds much less impressive when you put it that way, because that's about 13 wind turbines' worth of power, 8% of the continuous output of the smallest nuclear plant in the US, or about one hundredth the continuous output of a large nuclear plant.

I'm not saying that 167,000 stations isn't impressive, because it is, but it's not the power output of these stations that makes it impressive really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> Are they compatible with Teslas?

<comment><USER25> They're probably the standardized SAE or CCS connectors so if the Tesla supports those, then yes.

<comment><USER26> When you buy a Tesla (Model S and X, not sure about the 3) you get adapters for the SAE J1772 connector and other plugs.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: I shipped my first product - <AUTHOR> http://chriseidhof.tumblr.com/post/8728970225/i-shipped-my-first-product <comment><USER2> Congrats. Good luck w/ the app and future apps. I think that writing, launching, (and making a few bucks off of) a simple app might be the best way to get started down the right path. If you can get even the slightest bit of success, I'm sure it will lead to more.

It's amazing how hard it is just to ship something for yourself. I've been doing website development for 15 years and have launched 100's of sites, apps, major features, etc. for clients and companies. My history of developing my own projects has not been so stellar.

To date I've launched maybe 4 projects in the past say 10 years. 2 were very simple content sites not meant to generate revenue. 2 were fun sites which I hoped might generate a few dollars in ad revenue. I never _really_ got any of them where I wanted them and have since folded all but one (I'm still hoping to make that last 10% of improvements to the 4th).

Launching is tough. You did it. Fair play to ya.

<comment><USER3> I always include in large capital letters at the bottom of my to-do list the following words:

JUST FUCKING LAUNCH

It's there to always remind me (when I am thinking about adding ever more new features to the to-do list) about the importance of getting the product out there.

FYI, I have managed to launch three reasonably big projects in the past two and a bit years (during breaks from contact work); <http://gambolio.com> (create your own library of online games - pretty much dead now), <http://www.casualgirlgamer.com> (a blog about online games which peaked at about 250,000 uniques a month) and <http://tiki-toki.com> (create online timelines, which is just starting to make a bit of money)

<comment><USER4> I initially read that as JUST FUCKING LAUGH, which arguably has a place on most to-do lists as well.

<comment><USER5> I read it this way too, and immediately added it to my TODO list. It's important to get reminded occasionally to keep a healthy distance to yourself. Thanks for accidentally sharing a good idea :).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congratz on the launch!

If you make the data useful beyond geeks (srsly, Mom and Pop aren't going to import CSV in a spreadsheet and start data mining), this could be really cool.

For example, you can get the locations from 4sq or gmaps, or allow the user to check in (but locally, without sending the data anywhere). Then, measure how much time is spent on each location and in transit between them (might want to make more samples for that to work), and give me a daily/weekly/mothly overview. Eg: "30 hours spent in office, 8 in transit, 20 in coffee shops, 5 in shopping". Something like RescueTime for location.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be interesting, thanks! I'll consider your suggestion, but for this product, my target is geeks / quantified self people, not the average user.

<comment><USER7> Also, do you plan on adding something like a "confidence radius" for the output? Are there cases where the GPS was not able to return an accurate lock and was only able to give a vague estimate?

By the way, very cool app. Looking forward to messing with it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Just found it in the App Store - congrats on launching.

It took some effort though - even searching for "TrackMe" put you below another TrackMe (by kimptoc), Track Me (TM), TrackMe FindMe, Track-Me, and Track Me.

Did you find it tough choosing a name? Or (general questions) are names less important in the App store, perhaps because most people find Apps through 'most popular' type lists and people searching for specifics know specifically what they're looking for?

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I spent half a day thinking of a better name, but I couldn't come up with one, so I just launched. I might change it later, but I'm confident (naive?) that people will find me anyway. And the icon is very recognizable.

However, I still would have liked to have a better name, so thanks.

<comment><USER8> Another name: MapMe

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice work!

One small point - the export format is listed as CSV but has semicolon delimiters. I know this is common in countries with comma decimal notation, but if targeting US customers you might want to make the separator configurable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! I'll consider changing it!

<comment><USER10> you can also add this

        sep=;

as the first line of the .csv file. This way it will inform the opening application of the separator in use (tested with Excel.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Wow, I didn't know that! I think all of the .csv parsing code I wrote in the last years will break on this... thanks!

<comment><USER11> Don't write CSV parsing code. You'll never get it right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> That's a really clever idea. I'd have loved this when I was travelling this summer. Something I would be interested in, though, is some sort of battery test comparison. I know that you say it uses minimal battery, but I'm very conscious about that (and I know many others are, too).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, that's a very good suggestion. I'll think of a way to do that comparison. However, I'm going on a holiday first, so it'll have to wait a bit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Well done!

It's funny, I was just looking at some sample code that Apple provides, and I came across this little nugget:

[http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/LocateMe/...](http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#samplecode/LocateMe/Introduction/Intro.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40007801)

It's sample code that sends your coordinates to your iPhone. You may find it useful for your app :) There's some great sample code at developer.apple.com that is certainly helping me as I learn the ropes of iOS development. Congrats again!

</comment><comment><USER14> This is very cool. I thought that having your position continuously logged was kind of neat. Incidentally, I also launched my first app about a week ago, and it's also kind of geek-friendly: save notes and photos with location, and back them up to Picasaweb and Google's Fusion Tables (private repository of info accessible with SQL-like syntax over http and exportable to many formats, including CSV). Kind of frustrating so far, got around 950 downloads when it was in the first 100 of France for a day, then back to about 2 to 10 a day.

If you want to check it out, <http://alandair.com/geopostr/> (there's a free and a paid version).

Contrats!

</comment><comment><USER15> Nice work! I think I could use this when I forget my GPS logger for photo time/location correlation. However, 1km would be too course-grained for that. Would it be possible to make this a user-defined setting?

Edit: GPX export would also be useful.

</comment><comment><USER16> Open sourcing wouldn't help that much with trust on iOS, I think, because you can not install the app by compiling it yourself. You still have to trust that the version in the app store is the same as the open source version.

<comment><USER17> Not to nitpick, but anyone in the iOS developer program can do just that - compile and run their own binaries.

Alternately, jailbreak.

It's not like it's impossible (or even expensive).

<comment><USER16> I think it costs 100$ (per year?), a lot more than the average app.

But point taken - maybe for iOS developers, an OSS version would increase trust.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Neat idea. The app runs in the background and tracks when you move to a new location.

You say it uses very little extra battery - and also that it may affect battery life.

Do you have any test data for how it affects the device battery lifespan?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah, the last sentence was suggested by the App Store Review team. I can't really notice the difference, but as I said above, I'll do a proper comparison soon!

<comment><USER18> Cool - I wish you well with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Congratulations! I've been independent for about a month now, and the most important lesson I've learned so far is that NOTHING feels good except shipping.

I'm in a similar boat. I quit my day job and I'm living off of the (moderately) passive income that I receive from Routesy, my public transit iPhone app. I've got a few more things in the pipeline and I too am doing some freelancing in the meantime.

It's really nice to see a post from someone who's on the same path as me. I look forward to keeping up with your progress. :)

</comment><comment><USER20> Thanks for the share and congratulations on your release! Like you, I also tried to create something simple for the iPhone and released it not too long ago. It definitely feels really satisfying to get it out there. I guess the challenge is to continue the cycle. I find myself getting excited in too many things and never really focusing on one idea. Let me know how it goes with you! Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER21> It's so difficult to launch your OWN product and I enjoyed reading about your experience and goals on your blog. I'm reading (again, this time to completion) "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" and a phrase in it really applies to this situation: "Begin with the end in mind" - and it looks like you've done just this. Congrats and I wish you the best in your goals!

</comment><comment><USER22> Nice work. But how does constant background location track works for iPod touch? Don't we need constant wifi connection to make it work?

</comment><comment><USER23> Congrats. As someone who is currently mid way through developing my first iOS app (although I've done plenty for clients) I've definitely found how hard it is to launch your own product. The beginning idea and excitement phase is great, but seeing it through to the end is hard. Right now I'm in the trenches, looking forward to coming out the other side!

</comment><comment><USER24> Your text isn't resizeable (in Chrome, on Linux), which means I can't read the page, which means I can't care.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'm going to look into this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Cool! :) I want this when being on holiday in various bigger cities. In the evening then I can check where I had actually random-walked around that day.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very cool, well done! I'd love to use this to track analytics about myself over time. Unfortunately I'm on an iPhone 3G still so I don't get to play :(

</comment><comment><USER27> Congrats. I would say charge $0.99 (or whatever you want), and see how the sales go.

You can always open-source it later, if the sales don't pan out the way you wanted.

</comment><comment><USER28> Dude, I'm working on exactly the same kind of app (although more complex) for a startup, so I know what you've been through. Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER29> Congrats on the launch! I was just recently thinking about making something like this for my own use. Great to see that I don't have to!

</comment><comment><USER30> Congratulations on shipping your first. You're in exactly the same boat as me. Keep it up till you've got a dozen apps, you can do it!

</comment><comment><USER31> Congratulations! I wish you the best reviews. I will download the app myself shortly!

</comment><comment><USER32> Absolutely, open source it!

</comment><comment><USER33> Congratulations. Looks like a useful product too.

</comment><comment><USER34> This is exactly what I am looking for =)

</comment><comment><USER35> congratz.you should provide an option to save compass direction as well.

</comment><comment><USER36> nice indeed. Waiting for Android to download and try.

</comment><comment><USER37> Congratulations!

</comment><comment><USER38> First-

Congratulations!

Second-

How does it work? I get that you can be periodically woken up by iOS to run in the background for short periods of time. But how do you know if you've moved 1.0km or more before before being woken up? It makes sense that you wouldn't want to fire up the GPS equipment if you haven't moved... but there's a chicken-egg problem.

Or do you just _record_ only if you've moved 1.0km or more? How often does the app check your location?

<comment><USER39> iPhone has an API that gives you a notification when a _significant_ location change happens.

<comment><USER40> You hope ;) Significant location change is based on cell phone towers. The update only seems to happen when you switch towers or are switching between towers. Less towers = less accurate, more towers = more accurate.

Also, a kilometer is optimistic, good test and article here describes what was discovered when iOS4 came out. [http://longweekendmobile.com/2010/07/22/iphone-background- gp...](http://longweekendmobile.com/2010/07/22/iphone-background-gps-accurate- to-500-meters-not-enough-for-foot-traffic/) iOS 5 is now in beta, there may have been improvements, can't say for sure.

<comment><USER41> You are totally correct. With iOS 4 the significant location changes API can be trusted with distances around 1 mile / 1.5 kilometers. Anything below that and you don't have any guarantee.

I speak from my own experience developing GPS Notifier for iOS (<http://jetap.com> and AppStore: <http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jetap/id400203653>).

My first version was only using significant location changes and after a lot of users feedback, the second release was improved dramatically by switching the way I was using the significant location changes API and some other GPS API: the app now has a better accuracy and the feedback from my users has almost disappear.

Anyway congrats for the OP to ship his app! Enjoy the ride in the AppStore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Nice. Is it possible to create an Android version?</comment>


Show HN: Customer Research – $12 ask 100 people a question then interview them - <AUTHOR> https://scoops.io <comment><USER2> I'm one of the co-founders of Scoops. Been shipping products for awhile, and the problem is, most of the time nobody wants them. That's time & money down the drain. Scoops was built to be an affordable way to validate some key assumptions about your market early and fast.

You can use this research to see if people actually have the problem you're trying to solve, or if your value proposition resonates with anyone at all.

1\. For $12, ask 100 people a question 2\. Then, once they answer, find out whether there are demographic trends in how people answered. 3\. Armed with that data, follow up with additional questions & even interview them to really get to the bottom of your market assumptions.

To address the most commonly asked question: Right now when you ask a question it goes to people of various genders, occupations, ages, and countries (predominantly US) - we're working on audience targeting but aren't there yet. However, most of the time people who want to target are biasing their data - it's better to cast your net wide and see what fish swim in. You can read more here. [https://blog.scoops.io/broad-is- good-d701b485cdd8](https://blog.scoops.io/broad-is-good-d701b485cdd8)

Thanks in advance for any feedback/thoughts!</comment>


GitHub plans to replace racially insensitive terms like 'master' and 'whitelist' - <AUTHOR> https://thenextweb.com/dd/2020/06/15/github-plans-to-replace-racially-insensitive-terms-like-master-and-whitelist/ <comment><USER2> 'master' and 'whitelist' have nothing to do with race or racism.

It seems that some people are projecting their own prejudice onto unrelated words and perhaps they should reflect on why they relate everything to race.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're going to replace the terms "whitelist" and "blacklist", why not consider making use of the actual definitions and use something like "include- list" and "exclude-list"?

I'm not even necessarily a fan of that nomenclature, but I'm surprised that's not one of the replacements that are considered (in the Twitter poll in the article for example).

</comment><comment><USER4> Getting out of hand.... It's not derogatory. This does nothing. _sigh_

<comment><USER3> To be fair, I don't think the intent or the etymology of the words needs to be derogatory or racial insensitive to justify changing the terms.

I think the argument is that "this word makes some people uncomfortable by reminding them of something that may be emotionally charged for them", and therefore basic decency says maybe we should avoid those terms. Especially for groups that are under-represented in the field, which may well be validation of the "makes people uncomfortable" bit.

<comment><USER5> Master means too many different things to remove it from English. For example: _Master of Arts Degree in African-American Studies_

Its usage in git is inrelated to the master/slave metaphor. There are systems that use that metaphor and they should chane. Git isn't one of them.

<comment><USER3> I'll take it one step farther: I'm guessing the original etymology wasn't even master/slave but master/ _copy_. For that matter it's not obvious to me that whilelist/blacklist was racially inspired. I assume it's more like "black mark" -> "blacklist" -> "whitelist".

But you're missing the point. You can't rationalize your way out of an emotional response. You can't talk people out of being disturbed or distracted by the terms master/slave.

Rational or not, if we _know_ that this metaphor or phrasing makes a sizable group of people uncomfortable, why would we continue to use it in technical writing or source code? It's such a small "accommodation" to ask for.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


TimeSeries Databases (Why Need It, What Makes One, Existing Solutions) - <AUTHOR> http://abhishekkr.github.io/slides/2015.ggn.geeknight.timeseriesdb.htm#/ <comment><USER2> That's an extensive list of databases, most of them I hadn't heard of, even though I am pretty interested in this topic.

I would add Datomic to that list. A few months ago I was also hacking on an immutable, time series database of sorts [https://github.com/raspasov/neversleep](https://github.com/raspasov/neversleep) .

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually when I started looking into a solution before creating my mine, Datomic was the one I settled on. But it's licensing kin'of put me of. I'm more into FOSS solutions.

But I agree, Datomic shall make the list... I'll update it.

I'll checkout neversleep, is it stable for Dev spikes.

<comment><USER2> I tested it a lot via generative tests but it hasn't been tested for a long time in production at all. I am not working actively on it at the moment though, so cannot guarantee a smooth out of the box experience. The instructions on github should work though if you follow them exactly.</comment></comment></comment>


AmigaOS inspired website - <AUTHOR> http://thedecibelkid.com/

<comment><USER2> Definitely inspired, considering this looks very little like the original AmigaOS.

<comment><USER3> Make sure you're on the desktop site (link in the footer). That looks much more WB 3.9/4.0-ish.</comment></comment>


What OpenID Needs (Answer: Marketing) - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_troubles_with_openid_20.php <comment><USER2> Incredibly, I could not find a concise description of how it works which was very frustrating:

1\. You want to log to site X.

2\. Instead of signing up, you enter <http://myuri> which has a a text entry that points to site Y as your open id provider.

3\. Site X asks you to log into site Y and lets you log in once site X gets an OK from site Y that you've logged in.

</comment><comment><USER3> What OpenID needs is:

1> a fix for phishing, probably involving browser support for OpenID, so it reads the request for OpenID off the page, like browsers now pick up the option of having an RSS feed, and processes it specially

2> Time.

</comment><comment><USER4> Marketing? Hmmm... what about these problems? <http://www.idcorner.org/?p=161></comment>


T-Mobile: "We Probably Lost All Your Sidekick Data" (Cloud computing fail?) - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably-lost-all-your-sidekick-data/

<comment><AUTHOR> Interesting comment here from a purported inside source: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably- lost...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/10/t-mobile-we-probably-lost-all- your-sidekick-data/comments/22246699/)

> I've been getting the straight dope from the inside on this. Let me assure

> you, your data IS gone. Currently MS is trying to get the devices to sync > the

> data they have back to the service as a form of recovery.

> It's not a server failure. They were upgrading their SAN, and they > outsourced

> it to a Hitachi consulting firm. There was room for a backup of the data on

> the SAN, but they didn't do it (some say they started it but didn't wait for

> it to complete). They upgraded the SAN, screwed it up and lost all the data.

> All the apps in the developer store are gone too.

> This is surely the end of Danger. I only hope it's the end of those involved

> who screwed this up and the MS folks who laid off and drove out anyone at

> Danger who knew what they were doing.</comment>


Is Connectivity A Human Right? - <AUTHOR> https://www.facebook.com/isconnectivityahumanright <comment><USER2> No. People need food, clothing, shelter, a job to survive. On the other hand, humanity has done just fine without the Internet or computers for most of its history.

Now, if Facebook is willing to pay the cost of providing every single human being with an Internet connection, they should be allowed to. But if they are implicitly suggesting every state in the world should make it easier for them to increase their user base by making it a top priority to provide everyone with Internet access (because "connectivity is a human right", right?), then someone ought to wake them up from their daydreaming.

<comment><USER3> The thing is, food and shelter are the only two beginning rights humans had - if you can call them rights. Clothing wasn't around the entire time humans were, in fact some tribes and pockets of humanity don't wear clothing or at least not much of it to be on the same playing field as the Western world. A job - now that's practically modern if we're talking about the entirety of homo sapiens walking the Earth.

Those are meta-rights that have been appended on; those are privileges that make sense in contemporary, first-world culture. The access to knowledge is the prime candidate for being added to that list, if anything else should be added at all. I don't see why this isn't an important discussion.

<comment><USER2> Sure. Human rights are not universal laws in the same sense the laws of physics are. And, as our ability to provide well-being and comfort for ourselves increases, we can expand the notion of what the bare minimum is that everyone ought to be able to afford. [edit] But in a world where there are still people who die of starvation, it is immoral to talk about making connectivity a human right. [/edit]

===

By "a job", I did not mean "working for some company". Rather, I meant the opportunity to do something society considers valuable, and be rewarded in return.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I think it's better to ask the opposite question:

Does anyone have the right to deny a person connectivity?

Or more generally:

Does anyone have the right to deny a person access to knowledge?

And I continue by thinking about the question:

Does a government have the right to limit anyone's freedom without a fair and open judicial process?

<comment><USER5> Some good background if people aren't aware of it: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_rights)

<comment><USER6> I would also recommend Isaiah Berlin's _Two Concepts of Liberty_ [http://www.wiso.uni- hamburg.de/fileadmin/wiso_vwl/johannes/A...](http://www.wiso.uni- hamburg.de/fileadmin/wiso_vwl/johannes/Ankuendigungen/Berlin_twoconceptsofliberty.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If connectivity is a human right, then IT workers must be slaves.

<comment><USER8> By that argument, if you believe in any human rights, if a worker is needed to enable it they also are slaves.

Right to religious freedom/political beliefs etc then the police who defend you if attacked because of you're beliefs are then also slaves.

<comment><USER9> My interpretation of the rights granted by the Constitutions of various countries is that you have those rights primarily against the government, and only secondarily against other people or institutions. In other words, the government cannot force you to have certain beliefs, or silence you, or throw you in jail arbitrarily. I say this thinking of the US Constitution, which was written in a time when kings actually did many of these things.

Applied to modern times, the police first have an obligation to not attack you for your beliefs. That doesn't make them your slaves. After that, they'll defend your beliefs if there's a law forcing them to (which is a positive law).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In light of PRISM I would argue that the opposite is true: "the ability / freedom to not be connected is a human right".

<comment> jack-r-abbit We get that the NSA and PRISM is a big deal. But not every single thread that has anything to do with technology or the internet needs to include a reference to it. See... the Nazis were a big deal back then but we don't want every thread to bring that up. ;)

(see what I just did there?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> > ...we can make internet access more affordable by making it more efficient > to deliver data...

They are planning to work on data compression. Then, internet would be more affordable for people who already have internet connectivity. So, their work will essentially depend on the current and existing way internet connectivity is spreading to the 2/3rds that don't have internet connectivity now. But, are spinning it off as a moral / humanitarian ambition.

Besides, even if they come up with the next revolutionary data compression technique, I would be very surprised if it would be made available as an open standard to the internet to help make internet cheaper/affordable to everyone. I am sure their IP lawyers will have a part to play then.

<comment><USER5> I wonder how many of those 2/3 have access to Internet connectivity (i.e. they are within range of a tower) but haven't signed up due to costs. Facebook's initiative could help such people.

Considering the fat in typical systems, I think their goal of 10x compression can be met with only public-domain techniques.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I'm kind of surprised at the amount of hostility in this thread. Sure, Internet access isn't on the same level of need as food or water or shelter or medical care, but it's still one of the most empowering things in our society. There are many different levels of and aspects to aid; it's not a negative if an organization decides to focus its efforts in an area it knows best.

<comment><USER2> Providing aid is good and should indeed be welcome. Enshrining connectivity as a "human right" is what I take issue with. It is an insult to those people who die of starvation or lack of shelter in places with extreme weather.

<comment><USER4> That's a silly thing to say.

The fight is simply about freedom. I don't think it's logical or moral for anyone to be able to restrict another human being in anyway. Justice would of course be the only exception -- and justice is the grayest shade I know, so enter debate. I think we live in a completely backwards world thinking anything needs to be granted as a right first, rather than things starting as innate parts of freedom.

We've overcome the fight for physical survival. Now we are faced with fighting off the chains of our peers. That is in no way insulting to those still fighting for survival.

<comment><USER2> I do not disagree about the importance of freedom and blablabla, but, have you ever met anyone whose primary concern is whether they will be able to survive _today_ , tomorrow be damned? I have.

<comment><USER4> I have as well, and it is a very powerful thing to see. It actually hurts me to know what people around the world have to struggle for.

That being said, I think you are only hurting your own reputation by getting mad that other people are fighting for a different, less primitive or dire, cause. We want people to be fighting for all of the great causes in the world, don't criticize them for not fighting the one most important to you, commend them for their effort to bring more good into the world.

<comment><USER2> I am going to give you the benefit of doubt and assume your reading comprehension is poor. Quoting oneself is usually in bad taste, but I think this situation warrants it:

> Providing aid is good and should indeed be welcome. Enshrining connectivity > as a "human right" is what I take issue with.

In other words, I am not getting mad at anyone for trying to make the word a better place. What I do find annoying (to say the least) is the conflation of something that is _good_ (Internet access) with something that is _essential for human life_ (food, shelter and anything worthy of being called a "human right"). Fast transportation makes the world a better place, yet no reasonable person would argue cars or airplane tickets are a human right.

<comment><USER13> is the freedom of speech _essential for human life_? Because usually that's considered to be a right.

<comment><USER2> Personally, I do not think freedom of speech is a human right. It is a cornerstone of modern civilization, and, where we have it, we ought to protect it, but restricting freedom of speech is not at the same level of "wrong" as systematically allowing people to die.

<comment><USER13> then you have a different definition of "right" than most of the rest of us.

If systematically allowing people to die is a wrong, then everyone is guilty of an original sin, given that to date no one has found a way to prevent death.

<comment><USER2> I admit I expressed myself terribly. What I meant is "systematically allowing people to die of non-natural causes". This excludes dying of illness or old age.

<comment><USER13> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Rights do not exist. "Human Right" is a modern synonym for power. In absence of power, a right is meaningless. In the presence of power, a right is superfluous.

<comment><USER15> Power is often needed to protect rights, but they are not the same concepts.

<comment><USER16> Legal rights and human (natural) rights are different things. Legal rights are provided by the use of force. Human rights are ideals, there is no guarantee about them.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I didn't see an author listed. The pronoun 'I' is used. Anyone know who?

</comment><comment><USER18> Personally, I prefer Jefferson's formulation - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

<comment><USER19> I prefer Locke's: Life, liberty, and property.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Pretty simple no. You're pretty sick if you think it is.

Can connectivity give people things that should be human rights?

I'd say probably not a efficient use of resources, but perhaps.

If this is the best Facebook has to offer I'll take it.</comment>


NPM event-stream hack – can we be smarter next time? - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@caffeinum/maintaining-security-while-juggling-burning-dependencies-a401759c840e <comment><AUTHOR> Looking for a way we should build crypto wallets if we want to make them really secure.

</comment><comment><USER2> Why I can't use wallets like Trust wallet?

<comment><AUTHOR> The app's always connected to the network. There are many attack vectors which cannot be predicted. Vulnerable dependencies are only one of them, we should try to see the bigger picture.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should cofounders next able to code? - <AUTHOR> Hey guys,
Been a member for a while, however I don't code. I've started a small successful marketing agency today position myself to make being a cofounder easier.
Do you think learning to code will help me start a tech startup or would be a waste if time? <comment><USER2> If you're going to co-found a tech startup, don't learn to code if you think you're going to be able to "help" or "understand" your programmers better. They will be far more appreciative if you trust and empower them, and aim to reduce their administrative overheads that are keeping their fingers off the keyboard.

Learn how to code for fun by all means, but you'll frustrate yourself if your aim is to obtain some level of expertise in a short time!

<comment><USER3> I disagree. I think a minimal idea of coding is useful to be able to understand them better. (But if the OP use the minimal idea of coding to try to micromanage them, it can be bad.)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best Stock Options Guide - <AUTHOR>

What's the best guide for an entrepreneur looking to set up an options program you've come across? <comment><USER2> "In 2008, Y Combinator open-sourced a simplified set of Series AA Preferred Stock financing documents designed to streamline the early stage equity financing process."

[http://www.ycombinator.com/documents/](http://www.ycombinator.com/documents/)

Have a look at the stock purchase agreement.

<comment><USER3> Start with articles from feld.com and askthevc.com for basic principles. The main points:

1) Set aside an option pool (e.g. 10% of issued equity) so you don't need to go back to investors to approve each new grant.

2) Think about how employees value equity. If someone values equity at zero, or much lower than how you value it, then maybe pay them x more cash instead of equity (where x>0).

3) For senior hires or others who you expect to contribute materially to the success of the business, make sure the equity is meaningful.

4) Everyone's equity (even some of yours) should vest over time (e.g. 4 years). Exception: equity which is paid for with cash money, like external funds.

5) Think about what you will do if someone underperforms, but isn't terrible. If an employee is doing their job well enough that you don't want to fire them, but much less well than when you decided how much equity to grant them, what will you do? (Distinguish this from the case when the equity rises in value significantly, so everyone's vesting looks generous. That's great, and fair compensation they took on as early employees.)

6) Get proper advice about the tax stuff in your country/state. Google stuff like 'qualifying options', '409a valuation', and the different tax implications of granting options vs. restricted stock vs. stock with a repurchase agreement.

Those are the general things to consider. Contact details are in my profile if there's additional info you can share, which you can't post here.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I mean employee stock options.

</comment><comment><USER4> You have a better chance at betting on black in a casino than getting ahead trading options.

<comment><USER5> Not trading options, setting up stock options for employees.</comment></comment>


How the U.S. Surrendered to China on Scientific Research - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-the-u-s-surrendered-to-china-on-scientific-research-11555666200 <comment><USER2> "surrendered" \-- can't we talk about anything without using a war metaphor?

The US has ceded leadership in a number of errors but humanity (which includes Americans) should be glad that they are not the only people doing research!

<comment><USER3> Seems to be a lot of china-related articles lately from heavy hitters like wsj, nytimes and bloomberg. And in a negative tone tinged with war metaphors as you noted. I'm guessing it has to do with the "trade war" ( another war metaphor ) between Trump and Xi. I wonder what the chinese media's take on it is? Would be great if there was a site with chinese articles translated into english. My guess is they are using the same war metaphors.

<comment><USER4> Actually not. I check Chinese news sites twice a month. Most of the international news is about the success of OBOR and multilateralism blah blah. News about trade war is relatively rare. War metaphors are often used for domestic issues though, such as poverty and corruption.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I personally rather see China find cures to illness than any companies in the Western world as the cost of those cures will be probably 10x less if discovered in China.

<comment><USER6> > I personally rather see China find cures to illness

Trusting the Chinese government is a folly. Lots of cures work until they kill you. The standards are so low (or nonexistent) that results are not always the results you want. Yes it's FUD. Well earned FUD.

<comment><USER7> Any chance we can just keep the FDA to monitor imports?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe this is a chance for us to steal technology from China rather than the other way around.

<comment><USER9> The only advantage China has atm is lack of ethics and their enforcement, which will probably turn into advantage in biological sciences.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This article is behind a paywall

<comment><USER11> WSJ has been paywalled since 1996 - these "reminders" are growing extremely tiresome. Their articles are posted here because they are usually high quality and interesting - something they are able to do because they have adequate funding.

<comment><USER12> I eventually decided to subscribe. But luckily my work has a discounted subscription rate.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> tldr: this worked for me to bypass the paywall on desktop: open the WSJ.com article in Chrome, open the dev tools (ctrl-shift-j), toggle device toolbar (ctrl-shift-m), select the "pixel 2" device, reload (ctrl-r), close dev tools (ctrl-shift-j).

Ah, a WSJ.com article behind a paywall... Usually it can be bypassed by browsing in Chrome's incognito mode. But this time it wasn't working for me.

A little research and I found that WSJ.com secretly scores users who browse their site, and present them with either a "hard" or "soft" paywall depending on the likelihood of them buying a subscription: [https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/02/after-years-of-testing- the...](https://www.niemanlab.org/2018/02/after-years-of-testing-the-wall- street-journal-has-built-a-paywall-that-bends-to-the-individual-reader/)

So based on a hunch, I simply enabled mobile device view (selecting the "Pixel 2" device type), which modifies the user-agent string so that the web server thinks you are browsing from mobile, and it worked! It bypassed the paywall for this article. My hunch was that the scoring system probably assumes mobile users are less likely to buy a subscription because it's a PITA to enter credit card info on a mobile, and is more likely to give them a soft paywall, eg. free browsing of article for 24-hours.</comment>


MI5 staff who lack computer skills made redundant - <AUTHOR> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8615162.stm

<comment><USER2> "I know a lot of people who are over 60 who are quite capable of using Facebook and Twitter," [the computer expert asked about the move] said.

I would hope MI5 would have higher requirements on their cyberterrorism- fighting employees.

"A six-year-old can use them, so I'm sure a 60-year-old can."

That's hardly a relevant assumption. A six-year-old of today most likely grew up with computers and knows nothing of a world without them. A 60-year-old might very well have not seen the point of computers and resisted using them for their entire adult life. Just because an average 60-year-old person has the cognitive abilities to learn to use computers, doesn't mean that they want to.

Granted, if they were kicking people out based on the assumption that if you're over a certain age, you can't use a computer, that would be one thing, but it seems to me that they're checking employee skillsets and then letting people who don't have the skills needed go. Isn't that basically a good thing?

<comment><USER3> A six year old (or twenty two year old) doesn't have sixty years of accumulated observation of human nature and the intuition that comes from that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sacked from a civil service job for not being able to do something? That must be a first.

</comment><comment><USER5> I know of a bank who did something similar several years ago. They layed-off all their computer challenged employees saying that that was very unfortunate but that the environment changed and computer knowledge was now needed for the job. They just couldn't employ unskilled personnel.

You had people who worked there their entire life. The bank made them work monday to friday, 9 to 5 and they didn't give them any training. not a single day whatsoever during their entire career. And then they came and said thanks for working hard all your life for us but we just can't have untrained people like you with us.

I remember a 5th grade teacher telling us that working is like being a lemon. They squeeze all the juice in you and throw you away when empty. He was a bitter old man near retirement :).

</comment><comment><USER6> This is exactly the problem the CIA had under Clinton. Forced to rely on electronic intelligence as it's "the future" and not human intelligence, years of accumulated experience, they were taken completely by surprise by the Taliban and Al Queda, who it turns out weren't using the latest Soviet tech, they were simply riding their motorbikes into the desert and chatting face to face.

<comment><USER7> You are remembering something I must have forgotten. I recall Clinton taking a shot at Bin Laden with a missile and being derided as blowing up an aspirin factory (Bush made fun of him for this too, long before letting Bin Laden escape from a being surrounded in a hole in the ground), and I recall their policy position was that terrorism was the most significant threat to the US national defense and trying to get airport security money (among other things) into the budget.

The country at that time, however, was really mad at him for getting hummers at work, so the Republicans took advantage of his political weakness to take money out of the antiterrorism budget and put it into "Star Wars" defense. They claimed that the biggest threat to Us national security were nukes.

They were wrong.

And, of course, nobody missed the Taliban because they were all over the news for smashing Buddhas and the throats of unveiled females.

They were singly responsible for the influx of gaggles of beautiful Afghani women into US cosmopolitan cities, something that I didn't mind a bit.

Perhaps you are referring to something pre-1998 or so, but I honestly don't recall them missing either Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

<comment><USER6> I am remembering _See No Evil_ by Robert Baer, a CIA veteran.

<comment><USER7> I like Robert Baer's take on things. He seems quite level-headed (and I believe I worked with his brother, who was a helluva good fellow himself).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> By this weird twitter analogy logic, then a twitter using plant (<http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/add2/>) can replace their jobs as well?</comment>


Ask HN: What is the next big leap forward in tech? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Plastics.</comment>


Animals that self-medicate - <AUTHOR> http://www.pnas.org/content/111/49/17339.full <comment><USER2> Genetic adaptation seems unlikely except for very species specific adaptations since humans don't seem to share any of these instincts, nor do they seem to be shared by genetic cousins in a way comparable to other traits.</comment>


Gogh, un-goghed - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.twitter.com/kcimc/status/638498964606726144/photo/1 <comment><USER2> The post seems to have been removed, but the image is still available: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CNxnbLVUkAQcEoJ.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CNxnbLVUkAQcEoJ.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER3> The image is a composite of a photo by Tadao Cern. It was a joke, meant to look "too good to be true", but accepted without question: [https://medium.com/@kcimc/finding- gogh-76ff90cbd408](https://medium.com/@kcimc/finding-gogh-76ff90cbd408)</comment>


AltJS: Alternative JavaScript languages and compilers - <AUTHOR> http://altjs.org/

<comment><USER2> Mostly derived from @jashkenas wiki page: [https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of- lang...](https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/wiki/List-of-languages- that-compile-to-JS)

BTW, mobl isn't tierless, it targets client-side development.

</comment><comment><USER2> Hmm, for some reason I hadn't noticed JS11 before. More succinct version of JavaScript that's not as radical as CoffeeScript in terms of changing the syntax: <http://js11.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> (missing Cycript) :( (I really need to make a better website or something)</comment>


Julian Assange quoting blockchain hash does not prove he's alive - <AUTHOR> https://www.constellationr.com/blog-news/julian-assange-quoting-blockchain-hash-does-not-prove-hes-alive <comment><USER2> It would be relatively easy to force someone to print a certain headline or lotto numbers. The point is that no one controls the blockchain so no one can force a particular hash to appear. That's the advantage it has over "simpler systems".</comment>


Hiring Fail – Hard lessons learned hiring & firing over 30 Search Professionals - <AUTHOR> http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/hiring-fail-the-hard-lessons-learned-hiring-firing-over-30-search-professionals/2010/01/21/ <comment><USER2> Silly me, I read "search professionals" and thought he was hiring people to make collections of information easier to search, but no, he's trying to make search engines less useful for everyone.</comment>


What can the Myo armband actually do? - <AUTHOR> https://www.thalmic.com/blog/can-myo-armband-actually/

<comment><USER2> This was a very thoughtful and interesting post.

It's funny, because despite the potential, it seems people these days don't care about the "what will it do for me tomorrow" as much as "what can it do for me right now."

Companies like Apple have the luxury of war chests that allow them to take on substantial risk for iterating on a hardware product in an unproven and new direction where the true potential is not able to be realized yet because of how ground breaking the device is.

I have high hopes for the Myo and anything else that can translate my movements into signals for various things. Ever since I read Rainbow's End and how people's slight twitches and movements were used as input devices for their wearable computers, I realized this is where things are going.

Someone needs to take the risk to bring this technology to market, and with Myo's vision, my hope is that they survive long enough to see their vision become reality vs. just serve as a stepping stone for another larger tech giant to make it mainstream.

</comment><comment><USER3> Unfortunately thalmic labs is very developer unfriendly, so while the Myo still might have potential, working with the closed source code makes it very difficult to expand the functionality, especially in linux. I suspect it's just another expensive paper weight.

<comment><USER4> Scott from Developer Relations at Thalmic here. I'm sorry to hear that you're running into problems. We'll be opening up a lot of the resources needed to port to Linux and other platforms soon, but it is more of a time issue than anything else.

In the interim, feel free to reach out to me on twitter (@smngreenberg) if you have any questions. I'll mostly be able to help with our supported platforms (Win, Mac, Android, iOS), but I'll do my best if it's something other than those four.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The short answer - it's not accurate or reliable enough to do anything useful. It is just an expensive toy and worse, artificially difficult to hack. (the raw data is restricted, even to developers)

</comment><comment><USER5> I am curious to know the current limitations to classifying other hand gestures, such as a thumb-to-middle-finger gesture. Is the limitation due to processing of (possibly alias) signals?</comment>


Facebook's head of AI says Elon Musk 'has no idea what he is talking about' - <AUTHOR> https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/facebooks-head-of-ai-says-elon-musk-has-no-idea-what-he-is-talking-about/articleshow/75724767.cms <comment><AUTHOR> [https://twitter.com/an_open_mind/status/1260528928617369601?...](https://twitter.com/an_open_mind/status/1260528928617369601?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1260528928617369601&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Ffacebook- ai-head-slams-elon-musk-2020-5)

</comment><comment><USER2> Musk's idea of AI is some combination of the Terminator, ship minds from the Culture saga, and a bit from Zones of Thought. Not grounded in modern AI research or even reasonable extrapolations of such.</comment>


Ask HN: Survey for a music sharing app/service - <AUTHOR> https://form.jotform.com/91756083786976 <comment><AUTHOR> I am planning to build a service in which users can share music between streaming services without boundaries. Do you think this will worth it? You can fill out a short survey for me to have an idea!</comment>


IPhone hackers face new hurdles - <AUTHOR> http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/06/11/1212863694795.html <comment><USER2> Let's hope they overcome those hurdles post-haste.</comment>


Verifiable Credentials on the Blockchain - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog/blockchain-credentials-b4cf5d02bbb7#.6wrigzdjr <comment><USER2> > Our goal is to help create an entirely new environment where individuals are > the custodians of their official records and can easily share those records > with others.

It doesn't look like they actually need a blockchain for this. They just need an archive of signed documents. They could use a website, or IPFS.

Blockchains are hot right now, but they solve a very specific problem: finding consensus on a history of transactions. If you need to prove that a document was signed at a certain point in history, then a blockchain can help. But you don't need one for any of the examples given in this proposal, such as hosting student transcripts.

<comment><USER3> Without a history all it takes is one leaked key to invalidate all credentials from a given source.

There are no guarantees against credentials being tampered with whenever a new version of that source is established.

<comment> grey-area They could sign with multiple keys, some offline.

Bitcoin also offers no strong identity verification.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An open source blockchain technology project...

Digital Certificates Project [http://certificates.media.mit.edu](http://certificates.media.mit.edu)

What we learned from designing an academic certificates system on the blockchain [https://medium.com/mit-media-lab/what-we-learned-from- design...](https://medium.com/mit-media-lab/what-we-learned-from-designing-an- academic-certificates-system-on-the-blockchain-34ba5874f196#.kr7ptdyka)

A DSM for Achievement [https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog/a-dsm-for- achieveme...](https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog/a-dsm-for- achievement-9e52fd881428#.4rv2z0cx1)

The Learning Machine blog [https://medium.com/learning-machine- blog](https://medium.com/learning-machine-blog)

</comment><comment><USER4> The Hyperledger Identity Working Group is using these [0] principles of self sovereign identity for guidance. ChrisJ also presented some of his thoughts on a block chain passport [1] from a while ago. Interesting space.

[0] [https://github.com/ChristopherA/self-sovereign- identity/blob...](https://github.com/ChristopherA/self-sovereign- identity/blob/master/ThePathToSelf-SovereignIdentity.md) [1] [https://github.com/MrChrisJ/World- Citizenship](https://github.com/MrChrisJ/World-Citizenship)

</comment><comment><USER5> Excellent project. I think identity and trust are pending issues that need to be explored, perhaps with self-sovereign identity[1]. Curious to see how this project evolves.

Fwiw, I've been working on a digital credentialing system for education/training and have testing blockchain notarization. I was aware of this project and very happy to see it release.

[1] [http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2016/04/the-path-to-self- sov...](http://www.lifewithalacrity.com/2016/04/the-path-to-self-soverereign- identity.html)

</comment><comment><USER6> Ha! I was working on this very concept for a hackathon at work (edX) as a way to think about the future of credentials / authenticity for students taking ad-hoc courses.

It's really cool to see others working on this sort of thing. One of the questions I saw, about identity, reminded me of an idea I had to solve this very problem.

The hardest part about putting this stuff on the blockchain is that you need to be able to prove that a transaction (containing your credential metadata) that went to address A is an address you own, that you can sign for. Like the credential proof itself, an easy way to associate ownership is to put some hashed metadata in a transaction, sent from the address you intend to prove you own.

This was the hardest part to do, IMO, in a way that is both high-assurance and low complexity. Since academic credentials are most often checked for employment, I thought that maybe using metadata that you wouldn't normally share with anyone except for an employer (like social security #) would be reasonable. Define a list of secret-ish values, define a specification for what values are valid, how to order and format that, and how to generate a hash from it. This way, third-parties are able to independently verify things so long as they can get the values from you.

If you wanted to prove to a third-party that you, in fact, are the person (bitcoin address) you say you are, you'd give them the shared bits of information, they would hash it, and then check all the bitcoin transactions and stitch together the web of trust that establishes your credentials. The intention being that you wouldn't normally be compelled to fake credentials for someone else -- take classes and then let them subsume the credit -- because it would involve more than just letting them assume your name, you'd have to give them sensitive values like SSN, etc.

Other ideas included something like a standardized format for fingerprint data, or something biometric -- very hard to easily replicate or steal -- as a way to more closer tie the person to their address.. but I couldn't seem to find anything that provided such a standard, and since giving blood or fingerprints is kind of an uneven exchange.. never went down that avenue.

I'd really love to see some sort of solution to this.

<comment><USER7> I must be missing something here, but why not just go with a challenge-proof type scheme? Something like

1\. You want to prove to $PotentialEmployer that you own address A which has necessary credentials.

2\. $PotentialEmployer sends you a random string.

3\. You sign it with the private key of address A and send them the proof.

4\. $PotentialEmployer verifies the signed string.

If the employer has this proof and can see in the metadata that it's your name and date of birth (or whatever), wouldn't that be enough?

<comment><USER6> The idea was that, for the lowest common denominator of "hmm, what was your GPA/degree/whatever?", it's easier to give bits of more-or-less secret information than to do a challenge response on the spot.

Everything was about leaving the institutions granting credentials / third parties who consume the blockchain data to handle the technical bits, while an employer or potential employee only had to know where to go and what secret values to use.

I suppose this could be wrapped up in a simple app or something, but I was going for bulletproof-ish. It's easy to remember a social security number, full name, etc. It persists through broken laptops and smartphones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is exciting to me. About 3 years ago, I won 250k at the Texas Bitcoin Conference hackathon for this basic concept. I built the platform but then the angel investor that was funding the award changed his mind and backed out because he said there wasn't a market already existing for it and that it was a hard elevator pitch.

I sat on the code for years. Oddly enough, in the last month I've been approached by 4 companies asking if I could build them pretty much the same thing so I've brushed off the code and I'm making it so the certified facts about people can be available to DAO's on Ethereum through oracles.

This doesn't need to be on a blockchain. As toomim notes, it would be better as just a signed document. I stored all my data in a big json document for every user, sometimes multiple times with different levels of encryption.

Most people found that the best way to access the data was with an OAUTH2 gateway. It would allow any kind of website to ask the user to connect their credential gateway to determine if the user could use the site. For instance, an adult site could require a user login with OAUTH2 in order to know that the user is over 18. The user could see in the login dialog what information was being requested. There were tons of potential markets [1]

The biggest market I found in all my research was with veterans. Whenever they go to non-profits or social service agencies for help, their military records are requested from the DOD and its a process that takes 4 to 6 weeks. The non- profits were more than happy to receive the records and then digitally sign the results so future service agencies could just query the system. When one agency who provides rental assistance says "Trust me, I verified that John Doe is a veteran with service between 1995 and 2005 who was honorably discharged," a future foodbank he might visit believes it.

Data brokers are scum and this kind of system is the best way to put them out of business and remove false data associated with individuals.

[1] potential markets I discovered:

* Dating sites who want to make sure that users are really in a region, a certain gender, have a certain income, don't have criminal records, etc

* job search sites who wanted to be able to let users pre-vet their employment history for possible employers

* digital currency services who had to do KYC or verify someone wasn't in a certain area

* adult or gambling sites that need to verify ages and/or jurisdictions

* newspaper sites who wanted to cut down on comment spam

* investing sites that needed to make sure that individuals met the accredited investor criteria

* fundraising sites that wanted to make sure people raising funds were who they said they were and that they didn't have a history of fraud

A few dozen more.

<comment><USER9> I'm glad I found this comment

I work for a legal nonprofit and one of our trade associations is helping me with my plan to run a veterans hackathon and your idea definitely rings true

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Code can be found here [https://github.com/digital- certificates](https://github.com/digital-certificates)

</comment><comment><USER11> This is actually very cool; nice work. MIT has a long history of identity security work, so it's fun and appropriate to see this published.</comment>


Amazon Dating: The Future of Dating - <AUTHOR> https://amazondating.co/ <comment><USER2> From a technical perspective, this is a lot of effort for a parody. I'm impressed.

Where did they source the fake reviews from? (you can click the review title to get a review, although it doesn't always match)

<comment><USER3> The reviews aren't fake, they link straight to real items on Amazon.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Yes, it's about time Amazon enter the one market where there's even more counterfeiting than what they now have.

</comment><comment><USER5> What happens if someone steals my date off my doorstep if I'm at work at time of delivery?

Who am I kidding I work from home and barely leave the house as it is, I aint missing that delivery :-p

</comment><comment><USER6> The male:female average price ratio is way off. A fortune could be made in arbitrage or even derivatives.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Teddy, 87

> Only 1 left in stock - order soon.

<comment><USER8> Always leaves a voice mail. :3

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apparently this parody site is using real people as I know one of the people listed on here. Very strange to see that.

<comment><USER10> At least two of the featured people are creators of the site.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I guess this falls under the "Dumb Starbucks" defense?

<comment><USER12> Yea I'm a bit frightened for the creators. I guess if they just comply with the inevitable C&D they won't get sued into oblivion?

<comment><USER8> I'd donate to the legal defense fund just to yet again demonstrate that parody is a form of fair use.

<comment><USER13> > parody is a form of fair use.

Does that apply to trademark infringement?

<comment><USER5> Not a lawyer, but play one on TV, I mean have one on speed dial (cause he is a buddy, the reason he is on speed dial is cause I wanna know if he wants to go to the bar not cause I need label advice all the time. He half jokingly answers his phone from his friends "this conversation ain't legal advice, what you want?").

Tl;dr: Yes and no.

Under some recent cases it's been determined that fair use is actually a right under copy right law (and thus should be considered before filing suit, but there is no harm if the filing party honestly believes there wasn't fair use).

Under trademark it's more a defensive against infringement. If it's an obvious parody you should be fine (Mad engine "recently" lost a case against using the word "DAD" instead of "S" in the superman symbol as it was deemed not obv that it was a parody of the trademark [0]) but it's a defense so if I was in such shoes I would be expecting some sort of "trouble" to be coming my way, even ifs it's just a C&D, followed up with a conversation about it's just a parody of Amazon.com so see if that would chill amazon's lawyers down. But I would would be prepared to take it down unless I was prepared to drop the cash needed to defend such a case.

But I ain't a lawyer, I ain't your lawyer. Call a real trademark lawyer if you want more advice than what a 2 min IM conversation with one relayed via a third party can provide.

[0] 5 sec google search on the mad dad superman trade mark points to this opinion piece on the matter [https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cc841a65-f328...](https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cc841a65-f328-49df-a460-71a3b958c25b) (open the link in a private tab if you hit the paywall)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Those prices seem extremely low, I'd think.

<comment><USER15> They probably source the items from various sources with different prices. So it's possible that you may get a counterfeit. I'm not sure whether they refund or exchange the counterfeit items though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> PSA: some photos may not be SFW

<comment><USER17> Aissa FTW followed closely by Cora

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Black mirror idea! I sadly can see this becoming a reality.

</comment><comment><USER19> I think my favorite part is Help just being a link to the wikiHow page for unhooking a bra

</comment><comment><USER20> Well, Amazon's name would be surprisingly appropriate for such a service.

</comment><comment><USER21> Legal links to a pdf of a NGA - Non-ghosting agreement

</comment><comment><USER10> What am I going to do with a 2' tall woman?

</comment><comment><USER22> omg who made this?!?!

<comment><USER10> [https://amazondating.co/about](https://amazondating.co/about)

> Made by Ani Acopian, Suzy Shinn, Morgan Gruer & Thinko.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Take my money now ...lol

</comment><comment><USER24> Oh this is funny. Very, very funny :P Thank you kind sir, you made my day!</comment>


Atheists Unite:  Atheists unite and come together for our own community. - <AUTHOR> http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atheists-unite

<comment><USER2> Oh look another group of Atheists are taking the piss out of Christianity again in order to prove some kind of point. Wooo...

You're an Atheist, you're not a special snowflake, you're not part of a religious community, nor an anti-community. Live your life as you want others to live theirs, be an example, don't make petty crowdfunded projects that undermine the beliefs of others. That's one hell of a bad example to be setting.</comment>


Beatbox: A Drum Machine Obsession - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2013/12/beat_box_review_drum_machine_gets_its_due_in_joe_mansfield_book.html <comment><USER2> I taught myself to do serious programming writing a drum sequencer for windows, back in 1994'ish. I was living and consorting with a bunch of techno producers, as well as being pretty deep in the underground rave scene. I'd spend hours in their studios and wanted to make my own music but couldn't afford the much coveted 808/909, so I spent countless nights replicating it.

I put out a couple of records using it. It also, inadvertently, lead to me getting a call from Richie Hawtin asking me to write audio DJ software for him. I told him it couldn't be done with current hardware, and I think I was probably right (this was 286/386 era). You couldn't put two sound cards in a system, so the output would have been mono. Maybe I was wrong. I'm not so sure.

[http://www.sonicspot.com/tekknobox/tekknobox.html](http://www.sonicspot.com/tekknobox/tekknobox.html)

Yes, the UI is hideous, but Windows 3.11 baby!

Edit: The follow up was called Alien Disko Systems 3000.

[http://www.sonicspot.com/aliendiskosystems/aliendiskosystems...](http://www.sonicspot.com/aliendiskosystems/aliendiskosystems.html)

<comment><USER3> > _You couldn 't put two sound cards in a system, so the output would have > been mono. Maybe I was wrong. I'm not so sure._

Huh? Nothing says you have to have two soundcards to get stereo (or multi channel for that matter) output.

And already in the 386 era were apps and soundcards offering more than mono.

<comment><USER4> For DJing electronic music you typically want to have two stereo output pairs so that you can hear what you are cross-fading into. I don't know of any soundcards from the mid-90s that did that

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The TR-808 is a fascinating example of triumphant failure. The machine was supposed to emulate real drum sounds, but the limitations of the hardware meant that it was absolutely _terrible_ at that task. The 808 kick is little more than a sine wave, the snare little more than a burst of white noise. The sound generators were designed to be the cheapest, simplest possible circuits that bore any sort of resemblance to a drum sound.

I think it is this electronic purity that has made these sounds so iconic - the sounds are the most natural, elegant ways of generating percussive sounds with analog hardware. Later digital drum machines did a much better job of sounding like real drums, but in doing so often merely sounded ersatz. The 808 is a joy because in failing so catastrophically to be an imitation of something else, it is authentically electronic.

<comment><USER6> Fascinating explanation. Thank you for introducing me to the concept of a "triumphant failure"\--I wonder whether there's a wiki somewhere listing other famous examples?

However, I think you may be slightly mythologizing this machine. After all, the 808 wasn't designed with emulating real drum sounds as its primary goal-- the Linn LM-1 drum machine, which was released a few months _before_ the 808, literally emulated drums via digital samples of recorded drums. The 808 was designed to give musicians a cheap, flexible means of creating demos via the standard analog synthesis that was popular at the time.

With that being said, I think a more probable reason for its lasting popularity has less to do with the machine's ability to capture the essence of percussion and more to do with circumstance: the 808 was affordable ($1,195 versus $5,000 for the Linn LM-1) to the historically impoverished youth who birthed the global cultural/musical phenomenon we know as hip-hop.

sources: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TR-808](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_TR-808), [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > (a mint-condition 808, for $250)

This is the thing often missed by various clones. The Roland machines were _cheap_ , often thought of as limited. An 808 clone selling at $1,000 is a weird idea.

I was hoping that the RPi or Arduino would open up cheap great interfaces to good software, but it hasn't really happened yet.

<comment><USER8> Personally I can't stand software.

I'd rather have real kit simply because there is a maintenance overhead for supporting software based solutions. Embedded systems i.e workstations are probably a good midpoint. You can just sit down and play shit then.

However, $1000 for 808 clones is batshit.

I paid less than half that for my Triton Studio which emulates an 808 pretty much spot on with about 20 mins work.

<comment><USER9> I'm curious if you make that statement having played 808s in real life (and my assumption is the answer's no).

I've got analog synths, digital synths, and soft synths. My $40 Korg Monotron is more expressive than my $700 1997 Access Virus. But the Animoog iPad app trumps them both ($40, and I think I got it for $5 because I bought on the first day or something).

There's a reason nobody has ever cheapened the Stradivarius by creating new technology. The selling point is craftsmanship and good design. The 808's a work of art and it's always better to have the real thing, if you're serious about music. (I mean absolutely no offense, but it sounds like it's just a hobby to you.)

Speaking of iPads, there's a great simulation of a later-model Korg ER-1 drum machine availabe for iPad. It's called iElectribe. I love it, but I used to own an early version of the real thing, and it was just better. Context: I've owned many drum machines, even built a toy one for fun (the Bleep Drum, from Bleep Labs), and I'm learning to play the drums.

<comment><USER8> Not professionally, but I owned one for about a year in the mid 1990's. It was sold simply because it didn't fit into the workflow easily. No MIDI, refused to sync to anything properly, weighs a flipton, the step keys were iffy and the worst bit is that the analogue side was crap i.e. it used to drift terribly after it got warm. Programming was pretty good though so i'll give it that.

Access Virus is a rip off. I had a KC and it was no better than a Novation KS6 at a fraction of the cost. Fortunately the scene I was in grew out of the Virus eventually. Not sure about a monotron - horrible sounding feepers. Seem to be trendy but not particularly musical.

I very much doubt many Stradivarius' are actually played. They are like art. The value is subjective. Personally I hate the whining things and would rather use them to smoke some cheese with (this is sarcasm) :)

For me, it's a matter of pragmatism. My Triton sounds pretty good (not too digital) and saves lugging a crap ton of kit around. If it doesn't do something, I'll sample something that does do it and I'm sorted.

NB I was a session keyboardist in the goth/industrial scene for a number of years (also known as unemployed student) so I have some professional experience.

<comment><USER10> A fair number (unsure of the proportion) of Stradivarius instruments actually are played. John Bell famously played his in a DC Metro station[0].

Many more are played by the likes of Yo-Yo Ma, and principle instrumentalists of various symphonies.

Browsing this list[1] it would seem that many more instruments are in the hands of musicians than are in museums.

[0] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/04...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp- dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)

[1] [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stradivarius_instrume...](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Stradivarius_instruments)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Peter Kirn at CDM recently wrote an overview[0] of an 808 clone kit called Yocto[1], though it seems there aren't any available at the moment.

[0] [http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/11/tr-808-diy-379e-lets-b...](http://createdigitalmusic.com/2013/11/tr-808-diy-379e-lets- built-part-part-analog-clone-plus-sequencer/)

[1] [http://www.e-licktronic.com/en/27-yocto-complet-kit- tr-808-c...](http://www.e-licktronic.com/en/27-yocto-complet-kit-tr-808-clone- tr808.html)

</comment><comment><USER12> i spent most of my college days producing electronic music in my living room (my roommate was cool with taking up half of it with wires and big clunky hardware)... but to me the biggest killer app of that time was Rebirth. [http://www.propellerheads.se/products/rebirth/](http://www.propellerheads.se/products/rebirth/) it was cheap (or free depending how poor you were) and replaced $1000's worth of hardware.. really it's the highest value app i can think of that time (at the retail price).. of course the analog sound was emulated but it still sounded pretty badass. i later got a 303 clone (futureretro 777) but still kept using Rebirth. one day when the rat race slows down i'll remove the dust from the 777 :)</comment>


Ask HN: What art to you guys enjoy? - <AUTHOR>

I am looking for some inspiration for my apartment's drab soviet-chic walls. I just printed out about 40 different John William Waterhouse paintings (http://www.jwwaterhouse.com/). What does everyone else like? <comment><USER2> This was asked recently. You might find some inspiration in this thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=913911>

<comment><AUTHOR> Yikes. I completely missed that one and did not think to search the history for a non-topical post. Sorry about that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In that previous thread no one mentioned my favorite, Jasper Johns. Though if you like Waterhouse, Johns may not be your cup of tea.

</comment><comment><USER4> I like surrealism, particularly Salvador Dali.

</comment><comment><USER5> +1 on Dali</comment>


How much should I think of saving every month as a 29 year old? - <AUTHOR> https://enzo.fund/how-much-should-i-think-of-saving-as-a-29-year-old-every-month <comment><USER2> Please dont ruin your present to become financially independent. I know people who cut their own hairs and do a whole lot of stuff to micro optimize their savings. That kind of lifestyle is just not worth it.

As long as you're being mindful of being cash flow +ve and save some $ for rainy day, you're good.

I Started with

1\. Emergency fund (6months+ expenses or whatever you're comfortable with), 2\. 401(k) / IRA (if you're employer provides it), 3\. indexing (simple plain old vanguard low fee fund).

thats about it, nothing more.

I am a chase private client, own a house and could probably retire within next 3 yrs or sooner if I really wanted to... I dint think of FI all the time, it just happened.

<comment><USER3> >cut their own hair

Actually many of us think is worth it. Take the price of that haircut, pay 10% compound interest on it for 60 years, then ask yourself if you really care what your hair looks like.

I used to spend money on these things when I was younger, but with a few decades of adulthood under my belt, I care less about nice haircuts and fancy cloths.

Now, time is more valuable that anything else in life, and financial independence buys me that time.

The notion that we should all sell ourselves as wage slaves so that we can afford a new iPhone every year is bonkers.

Reject it all. Live Free.

<comment><USER4> You can have a job and still be free. The two are not mutually exclusive. OP's point is that you shouldn't slave away the prime years of your life saving for the dream of FIRE on some beach, island, or etc.

I think the idea that you'll be so much happier once you're on that beach than you are now is equally as insane as conspicuous consumption.

<comment><USER5> Having a job is not relevant. It's about _requiring_ a salary. If every single person _had_ to work but you removed the financial incentive almost nobody would do their exact current duties or work their exact current hours. They would switch things to be happier. The more of a financial incentive there is the harder it is to make that switch. And the entire point is that you can lessen the financial incentive by lowering your ongoing costs and you can completely eliminate it sooner by saving and investing. Imagining a straw-man that slaves away and saves too much is not helpful to anybody except as a 'gotcha, your rule-of-thumb life advice is wrong in one case' pedantry. It seems ridiculous in a context where seemingly nobody saves money or plans for retirement. Nobody over-saves. This is made-up smug-bait peddled to those who are far from saving too much and want to feel good about it. "Can you believe this guy cuts his own hair? Scoff!"

Your last sentence is also a straw-man. You are attempting to debunk what constitutes a click-bait headline. Nobody will defend that ridiculous, oversimplified, universally-extended argument. What is even your point? The full statement requires so many variables to fully qualify, what truth are you attempting to convey?

<comment><USER6> I think hindsight's and the OP's point is to not over index one way or the other. You can optimize for happiness now and very likely suffer later or optimize for probably happiness later and suffer now or pick somewhere in between. I agree that a lot of the discussion from the FIRE cohort sounds like you should suffer now for rewards later with an almost religious zeal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> ;not advise

Don't focus on a number but focus on giving yourself some room to breathe. Slowly build a habit of saving money by snowballing money into a savings account to start. Don't measure your worth by money.

I didn't consider saving until I bought the engagement ring (which left me at a bank balance close to 0 and it wasn't the first time). I was 27 years old.

I started setting aside some money as a cash reserve (bucket #1) and I made sure there was enough money to:

        - get me through two months on rent (3,000 GBP)
        - feed myself for two months (400 GBP)
        - buy one flight ticket home (to parents basement)(700 GBP)

Once bucket #1 was full, I started tossing money into bucket #2 which was disposable income stashed in a decent interest paying savings account. This was for rainy days and the future.

By the time I was 29, I had about 10,000 GBP in savings between the two buckets. A good portion of it was spent on our wedding and honeymoon (from #2). By 30 I had 15,000 GBP in savings. Most of that was spent when I moved to Tokyo (damn moving costs). I had $1,000 USD left; it was a fresh start.

I'm 32 now and I have about one year worth of living expenses in savings and then some. I make monthly contributions towards a pension, life-insurance, and a retirement fund (bonds).

</comment><comment><USER8> Something I have not seen mentioned yet, it might be obvious?

Pay off your debt first! It has a guaranteed return on "investment".

The following scheme has worked well for me.

First take any employer matched retirement scheme (401(k) / IRA, etc.) and keep some money to build up a rainy day fund if you don't have one (a few weeks income is a good starting point) as theres no point defaulting on a loan because you made extra payments the week or month before.

But there is no point saving or investing money that could be going towards paying down a 22% credit card debt or 16% car loan, or even a 5% House loan. The only exceptions would be low interest loans (i.e. <1-2%) with a fixed payoff date.

On Mortgages, there are many schemes but I'd advise, 40% 1 year fixed, 40% 2 year fixed, 20% revolving credit, dump any rainy day funds, and any other spare funds, on the revolving loan == interest you don't pay. Keep the fixed term loans expiring every other year so any interest rate spikes only hit half your capital.

Disclaimer: I am not a financial adviser and this is not intended as "investment" or "financial advice".

</comment><comment><USER9> I am not a financial advisor, but... start with 10%. Use high-interest savings accounts if you need to dip into the money unpredictably. Use term deposits if you'll need to access the money in a year (shares might dip in that time). Use index funds if you won't need the money for a decade (index funds aren't very risky at that time horizon). And start putting away money for your kids the moment they're born, find something that tax-effectively allows you to transfer the money into their name when they turn 20ish without some form of capital gains on their behalf. Consider spreading it around to some different accounts so that if one investment goes under you don't lose the lot.

<comment><USER10> [https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly- si...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-simple-math- behind-early-retirement/)

Savings rate is basically the _only_ number that matters in determining how long until you can comfortably retire. A 10% savings rate puts you on track to retire in ~50 years, starting from zero and given some conservative assumptions.

<comment><USER9> Wow, 10% really doesn't get you very far, does it! Well, maybe people should aim higher. In my case, i'm less worried about retiring early, and more interested in saving so my kids can more easily buy their first house.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> At least 10% annually and give another 10% at least to charity.

I liked to put some in stocks I already had decided on, but also a bit in cash, then when there was a panic and prices dropped, I grabbed a bunch of things I already had and knew were solid. Not a gambler, just an observer that likes a bargain and is patient.

<comment><USER12> 10% to charity? I don't think that is realistic at all.

<comment><USER11> That's great! It really should be more as you point out, I typically give around 30% each year. But I know that is a bit higher than most. 10%'s kind of traditional "tithing" which is why I mentioned that, but that should be the lowest probably. Of course people can also choose not to give back at all. One of the great things about being in the tech field and making an enormous salary is it gives us the _power_ to influence the direction of society through targeted donations. One charity I've supported for years keeps trying to have a "gala" in my honor. I tell them forget it, and for goodness sake keep me anonymous. Sheesh. Trouble like a gala I don't need.

<comment><USER13> This sounds a lot like a humble-brag :)

<comment><USER14> > One charity I've supported for years keeps trying to have a "gala" in my > honor. I tell them forget it, and for goodness sake keep me anonymous.

More than sounds like IMO...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I never thought it made sense that people should expect to do nothing for 30+ years of their life.

For most the anxiety of boxing yourself into that belief that after a certain day of your life that you can't earn another dime makes no sense. If you look at the current stats there's a huge % of people nearing "retirement age" who have nothing saved.

Personally I have had a surprising number of Uber drivers who are retired and bored and drive to socialize with others. Although they may be lucky to have saved enough I don't necessarily think it would be "depressing" for someone who was otherwise of retired age to take on a job that they felt they were capable of doing instead of sitting at home doing nothing all day

</comment><comment><USER16> Very glad to see this article, packed with good advice.

Financial education is so important, yet so seldom presented. It literally can make a HUGE difference in quality of life. Everyone should at least understand the basic blueprint of how to care for your own financial future.

For those who haven't seen it yet, a great next step is to visit Bogleheads.org. A great community of knowledgeable savers, including many who never earned a great salary but still have managed to assure their own future. If you haven't seen it, check it out!

</comment><comment><USER17> I am the same age - we save/invest around 30-40% of our post-tax income.

</comment><comment><USER18> The big problem I have with saving lots is expensive hobbies! My current dilemma is whether or not to embark on a campervan conversion project.

</comment><comment><USER19> $800k for retirement seems very low...

<comment> 52-6F-62 You must come from a very different world than some of us.

<comment><USER20> That also seems low to me. in the u.s. you can't count on social security, you're going to be paying for health insurance, and the government safety net in general in non-existant.

I'm personally targeting $2 million to retire comfortably by 50, and I think that's only slightly pessimistic.

For context, I'm 35 and in good health, but I plan on having to pay several thousand a month in health care and housing, and need to be able to endure market swongs.

Retiring now is certainly possible but strikes me as foolish.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Funny enough I meant in the other direction— where I come from you'd be considered rich if you were retiring on $800k CAD, never mind USD.

I can assure you my father retired on much less and largely relies on national and union pensions.

Not to say it's good to retire on less. He'd happily have more money put away but that wasn't how life happened. It's not how life happens for a lot of people.

Hence the "different world" remark.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> You only have, at most, 12 months to worry about... I don't think it will make much a difference.

<comment><USER22> What's supposed to happen in 12 months?

<comment><USER23> Turn 30, I presume.</comment></comment></comment>


Company Uses An Array of Twitter Accounts as Its Website - <AUTHOR> http://twitter.com/#!/kchtk_e <comment><USER2> It's an interesting use of Twitter, made more effective by the new Twitter. But it's no substitute for a real website. Frankly it feels rather gimmicky to me.

<comment><USER3> The eye hurting background doesn't help

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's some kind of spam link that disables the back button---steer clear.

</comment><comment><USER5> eye sore plus gimmick .. nyah .. i got out of there in a second</comment>