How I learned to live with multiple personalities - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170613-how-i-learned-to-live-with-multiple-personalities <comment><USER2> This is an interesting article, but the paragraph about religion was kind of weird:

> _One psychological benefit of religious belief may be that, in theory, a > relationship with God, with all its associated memories, can extend from > early childhood through to death, and no matter where you are on the planet, > it is there. As Aquarone says, "You can't take it away – and it transcends > where you are."_

Besides not even attempting to provide evidence that religious people were less likely to develop DID, it also just doesn't make sense. People talk about having a "relationship" with God, but it's not a _real_ relationship. The article says having a relationship with a parent helps avoid DID because the parent helps you learn how to manage yourself, but God certainly isn't doing this. Similarly it talks about how being with people with whom you have plenty of shared memories can enhance the sense of an ongoing self persisting through the years, but you don't have any shared memories with God. This paragraph would make just as much (or rather, little) sense if you claimed to have a "relationship" with Mister Rogers, because you watched Mister Rogers' Neighborhood for decades.

<comment><USER3> I mean, given their logic I think the Mister Rogers example would work too. The idea is having a consistent presence, I believe.

<comment><USER2> If you suffer abuse as a child from your parent, you still have a consistent presence in that parent. The idea the article was suggesting was that you need to have an actual relationship with someone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is a really fun fictional novel called _Put This House in Order_ by M. Ruff, it's sort of a road trip story featuring two people with DID. The science of the story is a bit iffy (one of the characters has mastered a sort of internal visualization where his personalities can interact), but from the sound of this article he pretty much nailed the what-it's-like factor (particularly w/r/t the broken development chains of the various personalities).

</comment><comment><USER5> I thought this sort of thing had been debunked?

<comment><USER3> How can it be debunked? It's all internal to a person. I'm not comfortable telling people what they feel/who they are is wrong.

I know multiple "collectives", as I've heard them called, on some online chatrooms. They seem perfectly functional and logically consistent.

<comment><USER6> By "debunked", the parent meant, "there is little clinical evidence for existence."

The burden of proof for the diagnosis is on the assertion; people can act as though they have multiple personalities, and that's why there is controversy on the disease itself.

<comment><USER3> I mean, at least in a social (not clinical) setting, i'd say the burden of proof is on society to prove that it doesn't exist.

I understand not wanting to clinically treat it if there isn't much evidence.

<comment><USER7> Not really. You don't prove non-existence -- you prove existence.

Else we'd also have some burden to prove that fairies don't exist.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Fascinating piece.</comment>


Ask HN: Do You Ever Sign 'Exclusive Representation' Agreements with Recruiters? - <AUTHOR> I got the following today from a recruiter. Full agreement posted in comment as HN won't let me post it in text. The same job was sent by several different recruiters (all east indians). Race is important because I've only come across such situations with Indian recruiters trying to act as middle-men for Indian devs (like me).
Also noticed that 3 different guys gave me 3 different W2 rates and wouldn't budge.
I haven't seen anything like this before.
1) Is it normal to solicit such agreements? and
2) Have you even signed or declined to sign one? and
3) why did you or didn't you sign it?
[ I'm US Citizen and have no problem finding jobs, but the employer is very interesting and so I am considering it. ] <comment><USER2> Personally, I've never needed to sign something restrictive with a recruiter before actually getting an offer. I've signed things far more restrictive after accepting an offer (non-competes, etc).

If you think working through a recruiter who requires that you sign something like this is your best option, and it's a lot better than any secondary options you have, then you may want to sign it.

If you do think you want to sign it, you could amend it before you sign (to dilute some of the constraints) and see what they do.

E.g. IANAL but you could try rewording:

replace

> __JOB_TITLE_HERE__ , San Francisco, CA

with

> __JOB_TITLE_HERE__ , __POTENTIAL_EMPLOYER_HERE__ , San Francisco, CA

You might also want to amend that and make the "exclusive right to present and represent me" clause expire after a short period (3 months?).

You might also want to amend the non-disclosure agreement to make it expire after some time period after you sign it (3 months? 6 months? 1 year).

Again, if you have no alternative to selling your labour through these recruiters, they might just say "no" to any amendments. If you would be a good fit for the employer and your skills/experience are in demand, you probably have a much better bargaining position.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your inputs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > the employer is very interesting...

Then go apply direct to the employer firm or better still find a way to network and get referred in.

Frankly, a US company using an off-shore, low-cost resource for recruiting is a red flag.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is that what this is? The employer is Gap.

[Edit: Didn't think of the referral. I already have a couple of former collegues who work there as Sr. Software Engineers. I guess I could contact them. Thanks!]

<comment><USER3> Paul Chapman is their CIO, give him a ping > [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljchapman/](https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauljchapman/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've NEVER seen something like this. If you have any skill, don't sign it.

</comment><comment><USER5> First, always ask a recruiter if they are a direct vendor to the end client. Anyone else is a middleman and mostly a waste of time unless you are desperate for a job.

Second, laugh at those people who want you to sign such garbage. Most of these "recruiters" are unemployed low skilled slimy sales type people who actually subcontract to the main vendor/recruiter. So yea, say no and move on.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Here's the full agreement text.

To Whom It May Concern:

By my signature below, I assert Supplier __RECRUITER_COMPANY_NAME_HERE__ located at ____ADDRESS_HERE_____ has the exclusive right to present and represent me "__MY_NAME_HERE__" at "__POTENTIAL_EMPLOYER_HERE__" for the following position(s).

__JOB_TITLE_HERE__ , San Francisco, CA

CONFIDENTIALITY AND NON-DISCLOSURE:

Our firm has furnished certain confidential information to a potential Candidate solely for the purpose of exploring a business relationship. This information includes, but is not limited to: pay rates, pay schedules, screening & interviewing processes, content of risk mitigating documents, details of assignments under consideration, strategic information of clients, and this information is all being furnished on a confidential basis.

The Customer information furnished to Candidate in connection with the business relationship is confidential and will not be used for any purpose other than as set forth above; Candidate agrees that terms of the potential opportunity are confidential and are not to be shared with the client hiring manager, other candidates under consideration or any other parties. Details of the information shared may not be utilized to directly or indirectly engage for compensation.

This Agreement will not prevent __RECRUITER_COMPANY_NAME_HERE__ from releasing the information to any party pursuant to a subpoena, search warrant, or other legal process, or if otherwise compelled to by law or regulatory authority.

If you have any questions, please contact us and we will be able to provide further clarification.

Please print, sign and fax to (866-___-____).

Candidate Signature:

Printed Name:

Date:

</comment><comment><USER6> In the US, this would be non-standard in the sense that the specific practice is not common. On the other hand, recruiters positioning themselves between a candidate and a job are rather common.

To make a hand waving generalization there are three types of recruiter. A retained recruiter gets paid to search and gets paid whether or not anyone gets hired (in-house recruiters more or less are equivalent). Retained recruiters are great to work with because they have no incentive to waste your time. Next down the pecking order are recruiters who have a contract in place that pays when a candidate they bring is hired. This means they have an established working relationship with the employer backed up by a contract. They have some incentive to throw candidates "at the wall and see what sticks" but it is balanced by the need not to waste too much of the _employer 's_ time.

The last category of recruiters have no established relationship with the employer. They typically find jobs by searching the internet/job sites/etc. They find candidates the same way. Their entire model is based on throwing candidates at jobs and hoping that the company likes the candidate so much that the company will pay them a recruitment fee. If the company won't pay, the candidate won't get the job no matter how well suited. All it takes is an internet connection and a phone. Volume matters, quality doesn't. There is zero incentive to avoid wasting a candidate's time. There is a high incentive toward putting as little effort behind each candidate as possible.

That seems like the category of recruiter here. The only reason that a recruiter would want an exclusive agreement with the candidate is because the candidate has a non-trivial chance of finding, applying, and getting the job without the recruiter.

Personally, I would never sign such an agreement. It simply is not in your interests and it smells like a scam. [1] Once signed the recruiter can sue you and irrespective of merit, your best option will probably be paying to make it go away. But if you have any inclination to sign it, pay an attorney to look it over.

Good luck.

[1] Particularly since it appears to be culturally targeted.

</comment><comment><USER7> in employment negotations, the only time you should start signing anything is when you have a job offer letter in hand with the salary you want, and the name of your manager, both in writing on that letter.

(rare exception: sometimes you might get asked to sign an NDA prior to being brought in for an onsite interview. even then, I would think very very carefully about signing it.)

My two cents: don't put companies on a pedestal -- we are certainly nothing special to them, after all. don't do anything you're not 100% comfortable about.</comment>


Hair Extension | Hair Replacement | HAIR & COMPOUNDS, INC - <AUTHOR> http://www.haircompounds.com/ Hair & Compounds, Inc, is a wholesale Hair Extension and Hair Replacement manufacturer carries high quality Human hair and poly hair extensions, wigs, hair pieces, hair care products at fast delivery world wide. <comment><USER2> Spam!</comment>


Database version control, made easy - <AUTHOR> http://dbv.vizuina.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> I was looking for a tool to have our database under version control, and this looks interesting. Anybody else has any experience with this, or any such tool?

<comment><USER2> Thanks for sharing, we've been looking for solutions to do this for a while. This looks like a good tool. Let me know how it goes if you try it out.</comment></comment>


Visual Studio 2017 Version 15.6 Preview - <AUTHOR> https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/visualstudio/2017/12/07/visual-studio-2017-version-15-6-preview/ <comment><USER2> Real Time Test Discovery is a very welcome feature. The Python improvements sound interesting too, does anyone that uses Visual Studio for Python development care to comment what the experience is like? How does VS compare to other popular Python IDEs (e.g. PyCharm)?

<comment><USER3> Having used both at past employers, I'd say they are equivalent.

If you could change the theme and coloring to look the same, I'm not sure you could be able to tell which is which.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> At this point I'm very happy with VS Code, but would love to see more UI integration points for plugins and rendering. I'm not sure what this would take, IFrames, etc... as right now plugin UX points seem to be very limited.

If the VS Code guys can get that improved, I don't see why most of the features in VS proper couldn't be commercial extensions to VS Code. VS for Mac is such a fragile install that I only finished it once and never used it much.

While this comment isn't specific to VS proper, I just frankly don't miss it, and the VS Mac is so much of an also ran at this point. VS Code may not have all the features, but it's very good and beyond pretty much any other code editor at this point. It just needs better UI integrations imho for plugin/extension authors.</comment>


Clay Bavor, Google's VP of VR, on His Plan to Make Virtual Reality Amazing - T-A http://www.wired.com/2016/04/google-vr-clay-bavor/ <comment><AUTHOR> The technology works; the Oculus Rift is reasonably good, and the dev kit has been available since 2014. Where's the killer app?

Watching full-sphere non-interactive movies? Why? FPS games, fine, but that's not Google's business. Social interaction with or without remote-presence robots? Young people barely make voice calls; mostly they send texts, perhaps with pictures attached. Virtual worlds? Second Life supports the Oculus dev kit, but not the production product. There are some good VR roller coaster simulators, but that gets old pretty fast. Just not seeing a mass market here.

Google being into this seems like the fear of Facebook that led Google into "social" and stuck us with Google Plus.

<comment><USER2> It's probably not here yet since most of the apps focus on gaming, but TiltBrush hints at it: [http://www.tiltbrush.com/](http://www.tiltbrush.com/) I would be surprised if either AutoDesk or Adobe don't already have something in the pipeline.

Of course, most things that you can do in VR, you can most likely do in AR as well minus some immersion.

<comment><USER3> Media Molecule's Dreams is far far more impressive than TiltBrush in my opinion.

The two big things are ability to make stuff fast, far faster than TiltBrush. And, 6d input controllers (which TiltBrush also has) but Dreams has shown no need for VR for the big change in productivity.

Of course Dream's tech in VR and with a VR interface might be even more amazing but at the moment the current Dreams really runs rings around TiltBrush

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Clay is one of the best Product Managers I've ever worked with. Diligent, kind, keen product insight, and with technical depth comparable to many of the best software engineers--this article doesn't even mention the research on AdaBoost he did while at Princeton. Kudos to Google for identifying a star early and promoting him to run something big!

<comment><USER5> [http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullse...](http://foodnetwork.sndimg.com/content/dam/images/food/fullset/2011/10/25/1/CC_Alton- Brown-Cocoa-Brownies_s4x3.jpg)

:)

Mostly joking. :) Most of us should be so lucky to have a manager like that, and I hope that I'm at least partially like that myself. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Having backed the DK1 and now having my consumer version sitting here for over a week, with a high-end desktop attached I have to say Oculus made a big damn mistake by releasing it without proper controllers and room tracking like the Vive.

I've tried practically anything by now but the only "Killer"-Apps that I've seen so far work better on the GearVR: Porn and other filmed experiences, but mostly Porn.

Elite Dangerous still makes me nauseous and the other games that are available are just not much more fun because of VR, it just gets in the way.

The contending killer apps seem to be on the Vive, f.e. Job Simulator and Tilt Brush to name a few, but they also still are miles away from Platform Sellers.

If i had to bet, my money would be on the GearVR and Porn.

</comment><comment><USER7> TLDR: the VP is awesome and loves VR and is working on integrating it throughout Google properties, expect some release at I/O.

Unfortunately the revolution seems slow to arrive. Since the official release of Rift --the grand moment we were all waiting for-- VR buzz seems to be going in the wrong direction. Yes it's early, but where's the flood of devs rushing to exploit this new tech? It's miniscule compared to mobile, e.g. when iOS and iPad were released.

I was hoping this article would hit on that main point, but it was only glossed over.

<comment><USER8> It's tough for me to see the substance behind the hype with VR in general.

If we're supposed to see VR as a revolution similar to mobile, can someone make that argument for me? All I see are some cool video games.

<comment><USER9> VR is the first step to AR, which is generally thought of as what will mature into what will replace mobile.

In the meantime VR is still pretty nascent - we'll see Oculus Touch launched in a couple months, broad PSVR adoption. It is still early days.

<comment><USER10> I don't think that VR is the first step to AR. AR (virtual content graphically overlaid on the real world) is a fundamentally different concept and the applications are different. VR puts you in a different world, AR tells you more about (or modifies) the real world.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> VR, as it is currently, is puzzling in terms of the reality of it compared to the hype.

<comment><USER12> Not just currently...

The USAF experimented with synthetic-reality environments for piloting in the 1980s with projects such as VCASS. But eventually they settled upon augmented reality, as did the Army.

30 years on the 'how' of synthetic / virtual reality has advanced hugely but have we answered the 'why'?

<comment> T-A One success story: [http://www.techrepublic.com/article/nasa-shows-the-world- its...](http://www.techrepublic.com/article/nasa-shows-the-world-its-20-year- vr-experiment-to-train-astronauts/)

<comment><USER11> Article is about mainstream commercial use of VR, not non-commercial use that would cost way more than an average consumer would ever be able to afford.

<comment> T-A Reply was to parent's comment about Air Force and Army VR projects.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> On his plan to make virtual reality great again.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have a suggestion for Wired. Instead of a splash screen that says, "We get it: Ads aren't what you're here for...." How about "Hi, as you can see, our business model is old and busted, and even though we're a publication about optimism and the future, this lame anti-blocker screen is sadly the best we can do right now. Please help us limp along until we can figure out something better by either enabling ads or paying for a subscription."

<comment><USER15> Do you want to see 80% of existing content creators online to die and the other 20% to keep the lights on through paygates?

Because that's what we're going to get if advertising dies.

Do you have a better business model? People have been seeking a better business model for content for the last two decades. It's not quite so easy as just saying "evolve! innovate damn you!"

<comment><USER16> Advertising is an immoral business model in the age of constant connectivity and pervasive data collection. The winners are those who do the best job of getting you to come back over and over, and the best way to do that is to addict you. Once you're hooked, they make money by selling changes in your behavior to the highest bidder.

Today's advertising industry is all about addiction and coercion. Celebrate its death.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'll accept nothing less than the holodeck on Startrek. I'm not too eager to slap a monitor on my face at this time.

<comment><USER18> If you haven't tried VR you should. It's nothing like what you'd imagine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Speaking as an avid gamer, every VR headset looks like pure garbage next to my 4K monitor and to add insult to injury you need to beef up your machine for the privilege of a worse experience.

Screw it. They're expensive, you look incredibly stupid wearing one, you'll beat the crap out of your machine to make it work all for the joy of watching the same thing you would've been watching from a comfortable chair in 1/4 the resolution and detail on a screen rubber banded to your face.

You guys have fun, I'm sticking to the couch.

Edit: My plan is to save all the money Oculus and company want to make me spend on their rubber band screens and save it for the day the legit holodeck comes out. Everything less is just a sad imitation.

<comment><USER20> Ignoring whatever the hell Oculus is trying to do until their motion controllers come out, roomscale VR experiences are fundamentally different from anything that can be done on a 2D (or 3D) monitor. VR isn't at the stage where it can replace monitors for standard computer usage, but it isn't trying to do so.

<comment><USER19> I never said it was, it's routinely billed as the next generation of gaming (so much so that Steam won't shut up about it) and I think it's hooey. It's meh at it's best.</comment></comment></comment>


The Psychedelic Inspiration for Hypercard - <AUTHOR> https://www.mondo2000.com/2018/06/18/the-inspiration-for-hypercard/ <comment><AUTHOR> "I thought if we could encourage sharing of ideas between different areas of knowledge, perhaps more of the bigger picture would emerge, and eventually more wisdom might develop. Sort of a trickle-up theory of information leading to knowledge leading to wisdom.

This was the underlying inspiration for HyperCard..."</comment>


Show HN: Startup themed mugs for the HN crowd - <AUTHOR> http://startup-mugs.com <comment><AUTHOR> Hi, this is my project.

Background: I bought my mum one of those customisable calendars for christmas where you can upload your own photos for each month. Since then I've been wondering how the on-demand printing industry works. My calendar was cheap, good quality, & delivered next day which I thought was very impressive.

I decided to do an experiment to see what I could learn. As a first step I've made some mug designs and I'm using zazzle.com for the manufacturing/purchase handling etc. This lets me see how their funnel works for product designers. I picked mugs because I wanted some for myself.

I needed a niche audience for my experiment and I chose HN readers. Mostly that was just because I am already familiar with the audience but using HN also gives me the benefit of being able to reach customers quickly and free of charge via a Show HN post.

Happy to try and answer any questions etc...</comment>


Building a language translator from scratch with deep learning - <AUTHOR> https://blog.floydhub.com/language-translator/ <comment><USER2> This is very cool. One thing I wonder about though is whether small companies will be able to compete with large ones like Google in ML in the future. One reason Google's translator is better is because they have way more data. In the past they digitized tons of books so they have an excellent dataset that has been translated by professional, human translators. This data collection is effectively cross-subsidized by Google's primary business: advertising.

Since most competitors to Google offerings aren't going to have a hugely profitable core business with which to fund all the data collection and normalization that goes into building a high quality ML system, the future for poorly capitalized competitors to compete seems bleak to me. This seems to support some of the growing rumblings about enforcing antitrust laws against the large tech companies.

Edit: better, not bigger.

<comment><USER3> DeepL had a lot of good press when it came out last year. Some saying it was better than Google.

[https://www.deepl.com/en/translator](https://www.deepl.com/en/translator)

<comment><USER4> Wow, thank you for mentioning that. I cannot believe how good the translations are! My native tongue is Dutch and I threw in some (long!) English, French and German texts and honestly, they read like they were written by a native speaker. Hugely impressive.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The transformer paper was quite influential in machine translation space. This resource [0] posted here a while back is a good place to learn and get a better idea how it works.

[0]: [http://nlp.seas.harvard.edu/2018/04/03/attention.html](http://nlp.seas.harvard.edu/2018/04/03/attention.html)

<comment><USER6> one of the best visual tutorials on the transformer I came across [http://jalammar.github.io/illustrated- transformer/](http://jalammar.github.io/illustrated-transformer/)

<comment><USER5> Wow, that does look really good! Thanks!

<comment><USER6> you're welcome! :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Machine translation has made some pretty impressive progress over the last decade. Unfortunately no methods will ever cover the very last mile as languages don't have perfect 1 to 1 mappings. Though it is amusing watching the machines try.

<comment><USER8> If we ever do solve the last mile, it would probably be one of the less interesting consequences, as it would probably imply we've built an algorithm capable of learning and thinking to a similar degree of a human.

To that, though, I'm definitely not holding my breath :)

<comment><USER7> The last mile isn't solvable. Some languages contain concepts, set phrases, vocabulary and pop-culture references entirely unique to that language. There isn't a translation in every single case. Machines however will always try to come up with one and the results are amusing.

Also people make the assumption that as soon as we make strong AI comparable to a human we will be to translate anything and everything (let's say we are excluding the last mile for arguments sake). That assumption ignores an important fact that sometimes translation is a team effort where certain words, phrases or concepts are debated among multiple translators to reach a consensus. It's not always done by a single intelligence.

Some people might argue that's because people have far more limited capacity to consider all the examples in the corpus whereas a machine can consider all of lightning fast and thus can arrive at the right answer.

A perfect edge case that illustrates why that doesn't matter and where multiple human intelligences will often grapple with how something should be translated would be what name to give to a movie you are translating to an international audience. The same movie often has quite different names depending on which language it gets translated into. There isn't actually a correct answer there is just answers that are deemed 'good enough'.

<comment><USER8> You know, though, machine translators have long been able to make subjective choices in translations. We deem them correct because a human can verify that the translation carries roughly the same intent, meaning, tone, etc. Not because it matches exactly what a human says.

Secondly, you are conflating concepts in my opinion. Localizing a movie may involve translators translating lines, but it also involves the creative work of localizing the title and other things, as you mentioned. A machine translator by today's definition translates a string of text in one language to a string of text in another. We needn't consider every type of work a human translator might do; it would be quite enough of a difference to close the gap on translating strings straightforwardly.

<comment><USER7> This presumes you can translate all strings straightforwardly. You can't. There are times where I've been given a string and had to have an in-depth 30 minute discussion to understand enough of the surrounding context to be able to spit out a result. In certain cases no mapping exists.

Also, anyone who is able to verify that a translation conveys a meaning in enough of the same direction as the original utterance by definition doesn't need a translation as they know both the source and target language.

It's everybody else who is not able to verify for whom the accuracy matters for they have no recourse but to trust it.They are frequently led astray.

A couple of examples to illustrate.

掘り炬燵 (horigotatsu) is a noun referring to "low, covered table placed over a hole in the floor of a Japanese-style room"

Now, given this is something that doesn't exist in any Western, English speaking country it simply doesn't have a mapping in English. The best that can be done is to give an explanation of what it is.

Google translate "translates" it as "digging". Welcome to the last mile. In this case Google should just spit out an explanation of what it is. Digging is entirely incorrect and unhelpful.

But it gets worse. Imagine if it's used in a sentence. Here is a good example of a last mile issue in translation. It's impossible for you to translate it directly, so you have to fall back to a best effort attempt and either simplify and lose some information or stop mid-sentence and give an explanation of what the thing actually is.

掘り炬燵に座ってご飯を食べてた。

This sentence is all kinds of problematic from a translation point of view.

Google translates it as: "I sat on a digging stone and ate rice."

That borders on D+/C- in terms of quality for me. But there are a few good reasons as to why.

The original Japanese doesn't give the context of who is performing the action because that's simply not necessary to say in Japanese it's almost always just inferred from context in the moment and that gets lost when you only have a string. Thus it's possible this could be a "he, she, it, we, I, they". If the machine is forced to pick one option then it will pick one option.

Then there is the horigotatsu part which gets "translated" as "digging stone". What the hell is a digging stone? It ought to just say horigotatsu* and have a footnote. Machine translation today doesn't do footnotes. I wish it did.

Again there is a lack of context as to the meaning of ご飯 (gohan) which technically can mean cooked white rice but in this case most likely refers to a "meal". Though which meal is not specified and it could be breakfast, lunch or dinner but I'm going to guess it's dinner.

But what should the translation actually be? Is it even fundamentally "translateable"?

One valid translation would be "we sat in the horigotatsu and had dinner". That still requires an explanation.

Anyway, I hope it's a little clearer what I mean that it's not actually always possible to translate things.

I think we can hit parity with humans one day, but it requires fundamentally rethinking certain things at a UX level. For instance if instead of just an input form Google translate was more like a chatbot that could probe for more context when needed that's more my idea of where things need to ultimately wind up. Perhaps a model like rap genius where annotations contain extra details around possible alternatives and why the current word was chosen.... This is my 2 cents on the issue.

<comment><USER8> No, I am not presuming every sentence has a straightforward translation, just suggesting that a meaningful measure for the "last mile" of machine translation would be reaching human parity at that specifically.

Being able to provide additional context would be great, but I don't see why it would have to be done in a "human" way to satisfy the constraints.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The grammar correction in Google Translate is a little too good. I was trying to create some broken Russian phrases to send a Russian friend, but I'd put in weird or bad English as an input and get very good Russian as an output!

</comment><comment><USER10> I find that google translator does very well when the text to be translated has no spelling errors and is grammatically correct. Add any errors, and it falls to pieces, even though a human reader doesn't have any issues with it.</comment>


When Will Netflix Finally End Its Cash Burn? - <AUTHOR> https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/will-netflix-finally-end-cash-burn-1250782 <comment><USER2> The deluge of original content from Netflix is definitely inline with Netflix reducing licensing fees and freeing up more cash. Plus with 100m+ subscribers, it should be fairly straightforward.</comment>


Elements of Dance Etiquette (2005) - <AUTHOR> http://www.utdallas.edu/~aria/dance/etiquette.html <comment><USER2> I dance most nights of the week, and one thing that I wish this mentioned (that a lot of dances will tell you in advance now) is "don't wear scented deodorants or perfumes". When you get an entire room full of people with different colognes and perfumes, it makes a lot of people gag. Scentless deodorant or antiperspirant is fine, but beyond that avoid the sprays and lotions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Tango has a very different etiquette, especially the Argentinian tango danced in saloons in South America and Europe. The invitation, accept and decline is very different being completely non-verbal and it is as easy to accept as to decline; it makes it easy to decline without causing tensions. It took a while to learn to do it well, but it is well worth.

I know that US has different, non-traditional and relaxed rules, but in no way better.

</comment><comment><USER4> > A cute trend, especially in Lindy Hop circles, is to wear vintage outfits > from the 1930's and 40's.

Some scenes in the US apparently went too far with that. When too many new people started coming in in their best vintage outfits, there were a few (current teachers) who made a point of going to competitions as casual as possible.

> In the past it has been the tradition that men asked women to dance. But > this custom has gradually changed. Today, women should feel equally > comfortable asking a partner for a dance, even in a formal setting.

Also fortunately these days many scenes are closer to "smash the patriarchy" idea and people are happy to dance with whoever. There's no role assignment, which also helps when there's no balance in genders in the room.

<comment><USER5> It's not as clear to me that this development is fortunate. The customs of social dance have evolved over centuries, and I'm leery of doing away with things simply because we no longer understand them.

I learned to contra dance in a groovy, gender-free group, and I found it frustrating for several reasons.

Contra dance is designed for bodies that fit together, statistically, as men's and women's bodies do, and it was far more often the case that a figure designed for a man and a woman would become physically awkward when attempted with two men.

Many of the figures involved four or eight partners, and it's honestly confusing for beginners when you lack a visual reference point for whom you're supposed to dance with next.

Dance is a pretty mystical thing, and I don't find the question "why should the sex of your dance partner matter?" to be that compelling. It matters because I want to dance with women who want to dance with men. I don't begrudge anyone for setting whatever ground rules suit them, but I wish the STRICTLY GENDERFUL, PROBLEMATIC AND PATRIARCHAL dance groups would advertise themselves a little more loudly.

<comment><USER4> I'm not familiar with contra, so can't comment on the fitting part. Where I danced in social scenes, if you need a man's/woman's body specifically, (whatever that means...) that would mean you're either doing it wrong or in a really inappropriate way.

> The customs of social dance have evolved over centuries

The fun part is that in many cases they had to evolve first to gendered dancing, and now we're coming back. Which is what people are often not aware of and think it's somehow weird.

> It matters because I want to dance with women who want to dance with men.

And nobody can force you to do otherwise. I think it's a fortunate development that you can do that, or you can dance with everybody. You get more possibilities, not fewer. (And because it reduces the number of people without partners)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was curious if this was some generalized guideline, but it is in fact only for social dancing. Hip hop has extremely different modes of engagement, for example.

<comment><USER7> I'm curious. Could you elaborate?

<comment><USER8> Every dance style has its own culture, though of course many people enjoy dancing more than one style and there is a lot of common ground.

The advice given here would be appropriate for many partner-dancing social styles, such as tango, salsa, ballroom or lindy hop.

Many street dance styles are also social but with a very different dynamic. For example, in some styles you tend to gather around in a circle and everyone is doing simple moves to mark time, then one person or maybe a small group goes into the middle to do something more impressive, then they step out and let someone else take a turn.

Stage dance styles are more about performance than social dancing, so again you have a different kind of etiquette. You might still be dancing with others but usually in predetermined movements rather than improvising, and in this environment you're also working with people like choreographers and the production team for the show.

<comment><USER4> > For example, in some styles you tend to gather around in a circle and > everyone is doing simple moves to mark time, then one person or maybe a > small group goes into the middle to do something more impressive, then they > step out and let someone else take a turn.

That's also popular in swing/blues scenes. I guess they're all rooted in the same environment in the end so that makes sense.

<comment><USER6> I'd venture to guess that the specific culture of call-outs and battles in hip hop are different, however.

<comment><USER4> Yup, similar but not the same :-) Have a look at [https://youtu.be/zpeUnWrteQM](https://youtu.be/zpeUnWrteQM) for solo jazz - the elements are definitely shared.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man I'm happy Cuban Salsa is not about all of these rules; just be nice, move freely and have fun together! A nice update might also be to just talk about leaders and followers instead of ladies and gentlemen.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you're interested at all in Swing (or like fun and interesting documentaries), the movie "Alive and Kicking" is a lot of fun. Looking forward to learning some day.

<comment><USER11> Thanks. Looks like fun. Ordered it.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Are there no irrational/incorrect valuations? [Re: WhatsApp and others] - <AUTHOR>

Whenever a big acquisition is made, e.g. Instagram for $1B or WhatsApp for $19B, there are lots of posts here on HN about "why is it worth so much? this is insane! we are in a bubble"
And those posts are invariably met with responses that mostly agree with the valuation, and make several rational-seeming arguments why the valuation makes sense.
It seems there is no valuation for which one cannot come up with rational arguments supporting that valuation as the correct one (at least correct for the company making the acquisition).
So, I have a question for people who defend these valuations: Are there no incorrect/irrational valuations?
Off the top of my head, some reasons for valuations that can turn out to be wrong are:
1) The due-diligence on the acquired company was not thorough enough, or missed an important point
2) Expectations/predictions of where the market will be in a few years are wrong
3) Collusion between investors/stakeholders at the acquired and acquiring company, which increases the value of the acquisition so that investors in the acquired company get handsomely rewarded [how often does this happen?]
I would assume there are several more possible reasons for a bad valuation, but what I read on HN and related news sources are back-and-forths between people who are flabbergasted by the high price and people who claim that it is a perfectly good price.
Are there more nuanced positions between the above two? If yes, what are they, and why don't we see them more often on HN? <comment> alok-g Another one is just outbidding the competition, but that probably falls within #2 (via estimation what the acquisition of the company by the competition would do to your company in the long run).

</comment><comment><USER2> I honestly think that we are in a bubble right now. Somebody today posted a 1998 AOL article highlighting the purchase of a chat company and the languages are very similar to what we read today about these type of mega buyouts. Having said that, I think that the financial forecast of Facebook is questionable at this point, if they need to keep buying billion dollar price tag items without making money from it's core product, it's a no brainer math that at somepoint in the future they will lose investors confidence and ultimately disappear. I have similar views regarding Twitter.

If Google bought this I wouldn't be worried but it seems that Facebook is more concerned about portraying the image that they are powerful and too big to fail without making enough revenue like their rivals.

Google and Microsoft have enough cash to fail many many more times than Facebook has relatively fewer chances to fail.</comment>


5 Insanely Important Jobs (We're Running Out of People For) - <AUTHOR> http://www.cracked.com/article_25132_5-insanely-important-jobs-were-running-out-people-for.html <comment><USER2> My retired sister is doing some odd-job consulting for whatever reason. She headed a group in the 1990's that wrote a major tire manufacturers MIS code on IBM computers.

Recently she texted me - she'd had to change a module written in 1987. Written 30 years ago, and still in production. Not a person left at that mega- corporation who would have any idea how to do it.

Of course her group's old code, still in production, has been hardly touched since she left. And the code IT depended upon still has to run; thus the 20-year-old code requiring 30-year-old code to function.

The kicker: she's going to stop consulting in a few months (they don't know it yet). It will cost them millions to retool/retrain with some modern system.</comment>


Use Unix Pipes to Improve Chromecast Playback - <AUTHOR> https://alexdelorenzo.dev/linux/2020/03/14/pipes <comment><USER2> My friends often tease me because I read the manual from everything I buy. Even if it is a tiny pamphlet.

I really like this informative blog post on unix pipes, but reading the readme would have saved some time.

It contains the answer in a simple form:

         `youtube-dl -o - https://youtu.be/BaW_jenozKc | castnow --quiet -`

<comment><USER3> As someone who's never read a manual for anything I owned in my entire life I find this fascinating.

Is there anything I'm missing out on, and if I wouldn't read manuals cover-to- cover, what parts would you recommend reading?

Also, assuming many are like me, do you find a lot of quality issues or inconsistencies in documentation just because it's a "tick-in-the-box" exercise to provide a documentation and maybe an overlooked part of the product development?

Thank you!

<comment><USER4> not the original comment author but I also read most manuals when I buy something. If you buy electronics/products from decent companies, you will be surprise how well the documentation is done.

Numerous times I found warnings of how to use or not a certain product, that further expanded by understanding of how certain things works. Even the most boring product can have instructions that you might don't know and could use to learn them.

Example, my local shop sells tomatoes in a box, written with bold letters, _don 't store in fridge_. I bought from that shop for 2 years, and always store them in the fridge until I took notice of the warning and it pushed me to read why.

<comment><USER5> Well, why shouldn't you store tomatoes in the fridge?

<comment><USER6> Serious Eats has an in-depth article about how to store tomatoes. Short answer is that you should store them at room temperature until they ripen, then refrigerate only if necessary: [https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/why-you- should-refrigera...](https://www.seriouseats.com/2014/09/why-you-should- refrigerate-tomatoes.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So this (and I assume every other solution people have mentioned) are using youtube-dl -- which means the chromecast is playing a stream from the device initiating the cast.

When I cast from my Android phone to a cast receiver, my understanding is it's basically sending the URL to the receiver and my phone is no longer involved, other than as a remote to control position. (And frustratingly, I find my phone will often get disconnected even though the video is still playing, so I have to spend several seconds waiting or forcing it to reconnect to be able to pause/stop).

What's the difference between these two modes? Is there something preventing the URL method from working, or is there a reason it's preferable to download + stream?

</comment><comment><USER8> Maybe this isn't a great place to ask, but:

I'm so sick of my chromecast. The audio and video issues are absurd. I have a fibre connection but I can't manage to keep a 1080p cast working from my machine, and Youtube frequently stutters and lags.

Sometimes I go to Apple's website and almost buy an Apple TV, other times I think about something more DIY like a raspberry pi media centre.

But what I wonder is... is all of this stuff shit? Do I just stick with my chromecast? Maybe I'm just fooling myself that spending money and switching would be any better.

Reading this just reminded me of how obnoxious my chromecast is.

<comment><USER9> You can use an adapter to get ethernet to your chromecast. I've never run into issues on mine with YouTube at 1080p

<comment><USER10> I think this adapter is also bundled with the Ultra. Upgrading to that might do the trick.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> maybe I've missed something, but `catt` supports youtube natively.

        $ catt cast https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx
        $ catt add https://youtube.com/watch?v=xxx

the latter will even add to your existing youtube chromecast queue

(it's using youtube-dl in the backgroud, but no need to mess about with pipes)

<comment><USER12> Presumably this just tells the Chromecast to stream that video from YouTube directly. But OP's problem is that this doesn't work well for some specific videos.

So OP is using catt not just to send a video URL to the Chromecast, but also to actually serve the content.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I've never figured out if it's possible to stream to anything that's not a chromecast, e.g pc -> phone, or phone -> pc. Are these possible using 'cast' technologies available in iOS and Android?

<comment><USER14> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cast) device list at the bottom.

When they went to the CASTV2 protocol it became very difficult to do anything unofficial as a server side implementation since official Cast SDK clients try to authenticate the server as an authentic device.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Re seeking: instead of pipes one could probably use youtube-dl to dump the url and use a fuse filesystem to mount the url as a seekable file (it is typically implemented as range requests). I found httpfs2 [1] in the Debian repositories [2].

[1] [https://sourceforge.net/projects/httpfs/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/httpfs/) [2] [https://packages.debian.org/sid/httpfs2](https://packages.debian.org/sid/httpfs2)

</comment><comment><USER16> Uhm, the castnow readme has an example of how to cast from stdin. Are you saying that doesn't work for you?

</comment><comment><USER17> What does the author mean about the "final update"? Is the original Chromecast really not getting any new software?

<comment><USER18> Perhaps they are just using final to mean latest?

Most often, final means not only that something is currently the last item in a sequence but also that there will not be any more items in the sequence in the future. However, sometimes people use (misuse?) it to mean merely the last time in the sequence for now.

<comment><USER17> It's confusing because it says "latest and final".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Is there anything particularly wrong with running:

      youtube-dl -q -o - 'url' | castnow /dev/stdin

<comment><USER20> If it didn't work with process substitution, that's not likely to work either.

I'm guessing it is trying to seek, or running a stat first to check filesize or similar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I wrote something similar 9 months ago (just relying on VLC functionalities + youtube-dl + avahi) and I have been using it since then (but less elegant): [https://gist.github.com/frafra/9f5770c6af6e4dcdf91ba815225e5...](https://gist.github.com/frafra/9f5770c6af6e4dcdf91ba815225e5e65)

The main problem I have is that it is not possible to easily resume the stream when youtube-dl stops working and you use a pipe or mkfifo. It would be cool to be able to rerun the program again and continue from where it left, but some streams are not seekable, so you would need to restart the software automatically, consume or skip the first part and start adding the new content at the end of the FIFO device.

</comment><comment><USER22> > ip=$(dig +short chromecast.lan | tail -n 1)

This line requires some mdns server setup I believe. I didn't like running avahi and thought there should be some super simple client for this, but after searching I didn't find anything.

I wrote up 10 lines of go which spits out chromecast devices as json and use jq to get the appropriate IP. Works quit well and now I have a fairly seemless way to play videos to my chromecast from qutebrowser.

[https://github.com/Foxboron/mdns](https://github.com/Foxboron/mdns)

</comment><comment><USER23> It's a nice solution to a problem that the author found. I am afraid that knowing Google's walled garden around Chromecast, the `castnow` and `catt` utilities might have trouble staying afloat.

<comment><USER24> Here's the API docs for the "walled garden":

[https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/reference](https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/reference)

<comment><USER25> This lets you create programs that run on the Chromecast, and programs that can send data to the Chromecast. Programs that run on the Chromecast must be "registered" on Google's cloud platform, and "published" on Google's Chromecast platform. [https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/registration](https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/registration)

The only way to run code on the device is to either serve your code through Google's platform, or root the device and own it like the Linux box it is.

None of Google's documentation speaks about the Cast protocol itself. It's against the Chromecast TOS to create a custom receiver device. You must buy the Chromecast hardware. There have been several attempts to reverse-engineer the receiver protocol and create custom receiver devices, but none of them work with the current protocol.

I'd call this a "walled garden."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> What are the advantages of using a named rather than an anonymous pipe?

<comment><USER27> Here? I guess that VLC displays whatever name you give the named pipe instead of just a file descriptor.

In general, another advantage is that in scripts giving a pipe a name can sometimes aid in clarity, supposedly.</comment></comment>


Things we have done right so far - <AUTHOR> http://neiljoglekar.com/3-things-we-have-done-right

<comment><USER2> The article is quite nice, but I have to say that there's nothing surprising. I found it a bit shallow. Also, it would have been nice to change the title into "3 things we have done right so far AT OUR STARTUP". Cheers,</comment>


Why Task Manager appears slower when you start it from the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2012/01/30/10261611.aspx <comment><USER2> I love how this guy always pretends that nonintuitive things are completely obvious, even when they are actually the furthest thing from it. Definitely edifying to read his blog but I don't get the sense that he has much respect for his users, or to put it another way, a that he has an accurate perspective on how reality differs from people's expectations.

 _Clearly_ that's going to be slower, you doofus. It's almost as dumb as asking why an international package takes longer to arrive than a domestic one. What are you, some kind of moron?

<comment><USER3> This is the characteristic style of Raymond Chen. He is, in fact, a super clever genius and these things are actually completely obvious for him. I think his blog is a good reflection of the internal culture at Microsoft, and I mean a bunch of really clever people living in a bubble. And this post is nothing compared to some of his really technical posts. They're all very interesting reads however.

<comment><USER4> The answer he gave is only apparent due to his knowledge of Windows internals. He may or may not be a super clever genius... there's no way intuition or logic would have suggested the answer supplied.

<comment><USER5> As someone who knows Raymond personally and his body of work at Microsoft, I can attest to the genius part. His exploits in the Win95 days ( as one example), is part of MSFT mythology.

<comment><USER4> Surely, I've read his blog and agree he's as sharp a cookie as cookies get. I'm trying to refer only to conclusions that could be drawn from this circumstance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What's interesting here is that I don't think most people think of the Winlogon screen as being in a separate user space than the main desktop.

I mean, it has to be, because it can switch users, but I don't think it's intuitively obvious.

<comment><USER7> They did a good job of hiding it all from the user if you ask me.

Windows' security model is actually extremely robust and handles this sort of stuff really well. Take a look at this for a description of how it all works underneath the hood:

[http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/win...](http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/windows- nt-session.html)

I think people forget to give Windows a lot of credit that it is due.

<comment><USER6> Oh, absolutely. They don't know, and they don't need to know, unless they're wondering why it's slightly slower to go via winlogon to launch the process viewer.

And thanks for the link - that was fascinating. What a shame they bodged it the first time around and had to hack things to make it work!

<comment><USER8> And then when they work from (nearly) the ground up to fix it all, they catch all kinds of hell from Internet folk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >> _Clearly, in order to get Task Manager running on your desktop with your credentials, winlogon needs to change its security context, change desktops, and then launch taskmgr.exe._

My question then would be why is that option even present on the _"wrong security context"_? I don't really see how it fits the other options present in that context. It's probably there just because they felt bad alienating the users that were used to the shortcut.

So they creep in functionality into a well known keyboard shortcut, then make the well known original functionality worst because of the new functionality. Then enters this guy and blames you for doing it wrong.

<comment><USER10> If winlogon runs in the same security context and the same desktop as explorer.exe then a key logger will be able to intercept all logins, and a screenshotter will be able to take screenshots of your login screen. Clearly you don't want that to be possible.

Or are you saying that they never should have made Ctrl-Alt-Del do anything else but starting the task manager?

<comment><USER9> >> _Or are you saying that they never should have made Ctrl-Alt-Del do anything else but starting the task manager?_

That's what I'm saying. Not that they shouldn't have made it do _anything_ else per se. But that by doing so, the other features caused a negative effect on the main feature.

Ctrl-Alt-Del didn't have anything to do with logon or accounts or security, just task manager. Winlogon stuff should have had a different shortcut altogether, maybe Win-Alt-Del.

<comment><USER11> Wikipedia has more details, but essentially, in the Windows NT line bringing up all the security options has _always_ been what Ctrl-Alt-Del does, with the task manager sometimes being presented as an option. Since about 1993.

Jumping straight to the task manager was something that happened under limited circumstances (fast user switching enabled, computer unattached to a domain) in Windows XP only.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Why not just using Ctrl+Shift+Esc?

<comment><USER13> People are used to Ctrl+Alt+Delete, that brought up the task manager in Windows XP when using the welcome screen (the classic login gives the same behaviour as Vista and 7, although it is a window, and not a screen).

Then, considering keyboard shortcuts aren't discoverable, a lot of people probably don't know about Ctrl+Shift+Esc.

<comment><USER14> I own up that I didn't know about Ctrl+Alt+Esc. Although I'm very happy that I do now...

<comment><USER15> You learn it when you need the task manager of a remote server in Terminal Server.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > ..it's like sending a package internationally...

If it's a local package, why put it in the international mail box in the first place?

<comment><USER17> Because winlogon is foreign ground and your desktop is domestic, ctrl+alt+del takes you to foreign ground.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> When on Windows, I just leave an instance of Process Explorer running. My own machines I have set to fire it up upon boot. (These are not servers.)

<http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653></comment>


Twitter goes titsup - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/01/19/twitter_is_down/ <comment><USER2> Head was wrecked this morning...</comment>


Did Google manipulate search results for Hillary Clinton? - <AUTHOR> https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=PFxFRqNmXKg <comment><USER2> Lets think about this analytically for a minute. Why do you use Google? Because it gives you the answers you wanted to find. If Google didn't give us what we wanted to find, we wouldn't use Google.

Google isn't optimized to give you true answers. Or false answers. Google is optimized to give you the answers you wanted to find.

So this joker goes on Google, what does he want to find? He wants to find evidence which coheres with his pre-existing beliefs that Hillary Clinton is only winning because of some giant conspiracy.

So that's exactly what he finds--what he wanted to find--i.e. a whole bunch of results which support what he already believed.

Same thing goes for Creationists, Birthers, UFO nuts, etc. Google will give you what you want to find.

</comment><comment><USER3> Hard to believe that "Crooked Hillary" wouldn't come up when you type the word "crooked" into the autocomplete search bar, the term was coined some time ago, and it has been persistently used in both written media, and social media. Some other searches also seem rather suspicious, and I'm leaning towards the fact that there is in fact a "bug" at play here.</comment>


Netflix Posted Biggest-Ever Profit in 2018 and Paid $0 in Income Taxes - <AUTHOR> https://itep.org/netflix-posted-biggest-ever-profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income-taxes/ <comment><USER2> Rather than being outraged at the headline, what are the actual details? Why were they able to pay no taxes? Was it due to carried losses or something like that?

Anyone mad at a company for not pay taxes is misdirecting their anger. Companies follow the law. If you don't like the law elect different politicians. Don't get mad at companies that follow the law.

<comment><USER3> It's not that simple. Companies lobby to keep, even coerce, laws that benefit them and allow these sorts of things to happen. What is the common person, or collection of persons, supposed to do when they are against that kind of force? I believe one way is to actually be involved in politics and get into the seats that govern and make the laws. But it's easier said than done.

<comment><USER4> The answer is to outlaw lobbyists, it would fix a lot of problems. That, and enact term limits for Congress. _That_ will fix even more.

<comment><USER5> Not siding one way or the other, that will definitely limit the amount of _expertise_ that comes with a Congressman/Congresswoman.

Think about it, it takes at least six months for us to learn our jobs, they have to learn about hundreds of things ongoing in the government before they can make informed decisions. You then even rely more on lobbyists (or "experts") who at least generally know what they are talking about.

Point being, I think this issue is a hell of a lot more complex than it seems.

<comment><USER6> Lobbyist being experts is something I've never heard before. They are salesmen, do you want to get your nutrient information from a McDonald's commercial? It may save you time but isn't really helpful.

<comment><USER7> The EFF is at least partially a lobbying group, do you think they're salesmen? Lobbying is just people talking to the government.

<comment><USER8> Though there is a distinction between corporate lobbying and e.g. the EFF: corporations lobby for their own interests, the EFF does it for everyone. Besides that, if company lobbying did not exist, the EFF wouldnt exist because there would be no one to work against. The EFF was specificly founded to defend the peoples interests against corporations.

<comment><USER7> You need to be more pedantic. The EFF is a 501(c)(3) organization, and that's a type of corporation.

If you want to outlaw lobbying by _for-profit_ corporations, then they'll just create subsidiary lobbying organizations. The NRA is a 501(c)(4), which is also a tax exempt non-profit designation, and realistically it serves primarily as a lobbying group for gun manufacturers.

<comment><USER9> I'd say that's selling the NRA short. I have a few friends that are NRA members, they're as focused on gun rights as the corporations are.

<comment><USER7> That's a fair point. Though while they may not be _exclusively_ a lobbying front for gun manufacturers, I think it's still fair to say they serve that purpose.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Populist clickbait headline is clickbait.

I'm sure Netflix paid tons in employer contributions to employee income taxes, social security taxes, etc. They probably paid a bunch in sales taxes where they made purchases. Property taxes for data centers, office buildings, etc. So there are many more taxes that everyone pays beyond the income tax.

As others have pointed out, the tax code is immensely complex, but you probably don't need a deep explanation for a $0 income tax bill: previous years' financial performance can carry over into the current year.

As someone once told me: with complexity comes opportunity. Simplifying the tax code, regulations, and laws removes the opportunity for well-funded operations to exploit the existing complexity.

<comment><USER11> _I 'm sure Netflix paid tons in employer contributions to employee income taxes, social security taxes, etc._

This situation should not be viewed as Netflix paying tax. An employee's benefits, pay, time off, etc. are all part of the compensation of an employee. If Netflix did not pay this on behalf of the employee then the employee would have to pay it. For instance, for contractors they (the contractor) pay the full FICA and not half. This is partly why contractors generally get paid more in terms of hourly rate.

The FICA that Netflix pays on behalf of employees is an expense. Corporations don't pay tax on expenses. They pay tax on profits. It is a bit unseemly for some corporations to have large profits but pay no income tax.

<comment><USER12> You and companies do pay tax on expenses typically as some type of indirect tax (global defn, not the US defn) such as VAT, GST , excise , import/export duties etc.

<comment><USER11> A company takes in money from products and services it sells. From this amount of money the company pays employees and equipment, services, etc. for the running of the company. These are called expenses in business accounting. The company does not pay tax on the money it took in that it then spent buying/paying for things. This is what is meant by the phrase, "companies don't pay tax on expenses".

<comment><USER12> You pay the tax on your expenses even if you have zero income .

I am not talking about the tax you charge on your product and collect on behalf of the government. I am talking about the tax you pay for stuff you consume as a company.

While you may be able to offset some of the taxes you have paid already against what you collect from the customer like in Value Added Tax, you still pay those taxes on your consumption even if there are no customers.

<comment><USER11> I defined the meaning of the phrase "businesses don't pay tax on expenses". My posts have only to do with the meaning I defined. My posts have nothing to do with what you are talking about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> There can be a huge difference between "income tax expense", which will be the numerator for any headline income tax rate and "income taxes paid".

For Netflix this is true for 2018. In fact they paid $131 million for income taxes, which, as a percent of their income is way higher than "$0" which the original article claims in its.

Also, the article makes no mention of R&D tax credits, which saved NFLX $141 million in state and federal income tax credits (the second biggest component).

It would not have been difficult to find this in NFLX's 10-K.

Netflix says the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 _cost_ them an additional $79 million

[0] "In accordance with the Act, we recorded $79 million as additional income tax expense in the fourth quarter of 2017"; [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019000043/form10k_q418.htm#s207D2AE00AD558F2B1F131B519593779)

<comment><USER14> From the article

> "In fact, the company reported a $22 million federal income tax rebate."

So if they paid 131 in income taxes, and received 141 in tax credits, then that accounts for $10 million of the $22 million the article mentions.

That's pretty cool, I was assuming their earnings were just debt fueled. Therefore spending more money than they made, which is always a fun way of not sending that money to the government but on something you feel is more productive.

<comment><USER15> It is more productive. Taxes always result in some amount of deadweight loss. $10 million spent in the private sector is mathematically more productive than $10 million paid to the government.

[https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadweight-loss-of- taxa...](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/deadweight-loss-of-taxation.asp)

<comment><USER16> in theory (mathematically) it's more productive (in operating businesses that can put the capital to good use quickly), but in practice, that's not necessarily true. markets are not perfectly efficient, and have hidden losses as well (e.g., productive asssets being sidelined due to competition). governments are capable of putting capital to good use (hoover dam --> california expansion, at the expense of the environment, a hidden cost).

neither markets nor governments are perfect, and such superficial arguments are at best misleading. you can't just compare idealized markets to practicing governments to reach substantive understanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Cached [1]

Edit: For those unaware, in Chrome, you can type "cache:" before the URL in the address bar (not with the quotes of course) to get a cached version from Google.

[1] [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix- posted-biggest-ever-profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income- taxes%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix-posted-biggest-ever- profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income- taxes%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6018j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

<comment><USER18> Nitpick: You can do this in Firefox or any other browser, as well. It's the Google search engine that provides this functionality, not the browser.

<comment><USER17> Wasn't aware, thanks friend!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I assume this has something to do with the massive amount of debt that fuels Netflix original programming. That being said, our entire tax system is regressive, for both businesses and individuals, when it comes to dealing with it's complexity.

A small or medium size business does not have the legal or accounting capability to navigate the tax code as successfully as a company like Netflix can. Similarly, even a high income individual can't stretch the tax code like billionaires can. On net it seems like the lower and middle income players subsidize the high income players both in business and personal taxes.

<comment><USER20> Regressive? The top 1% of earners paid the highest tax rate of 27.1%. The bottom 50% had an average tax rate of 3.5%.[1]

[1][https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax- data-20...](https://taxfoundation.org/summary-federal-income-tax-data-2017/)

<comment><USER21> It is absolutely regressive when the top earners, presumably earning millions more than I do, end up paying less tax than I do.

<comment><USER20> What if they are applying a carry loss forward that year? To account for all the money lost in an investment last year? Should we stop doing that?

<comment><USER22> Say we do take this option away from rich people. What are they going to do with their money? They aren't going to shove it under the mattress. Instead, they will consume more and invest less. Consumption is good, right? More dollars chasing goods and services will drive profits and wages up. That will encourage investment, not just from rich people who are subject to USA tax but from all over the globe. What's not to like?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's because they're still carrying forward the massive amounts of debt they're spending in upping the count of their original programming.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't access the article or the cache but here is Netflix's latest annual filing at the SEC [https://www.sec.gov/cgi- bin/viewer?action=view&cik=1065280&a...](https://www.sec.gov/cgi- bin/viewer?action=view&cik=1065280&accession_number=0001065280-19-000043&xbrl_type=v#)

They made 1.2 billion in 2018 income before taxes compared to 485 million last year.

The corporate tax rate was brought down from 35% to 21% in 2018. So they should have paid 257 million in Federal, 33.6 in State and 63 million in foreign taxes

With the Federal and California R&D tax credits (140.7 million) and tax benefits on stock based compensation (191 million) and other odds and ends they brought it down to 15 million for an effective 1% tax rate. "In 2018, the difference between our 1% effective tax rate and the Federal statutory rate of 21% was primarily due to the recognition of excess tax benefits of stock-based compensation, Federal and California research and development credits ("R&D"), and updated adjustments related to U.S. tax reform as a result of the U.S. federal tax return filing, partially offset by state taxes, foreign taxes, non-deductible expenses and the international provisions from the U.S. tax reform enacted in December 2017."

Netflix has also deferred tax assets - easiest to think of as tax prepaid but could also include taxes paid to foreign countries, losses from previous years, etc.) of 689 million. So they counted the taxes against it.

In the cash flow stateemnt the supplemental disclosure is 131,069 for Income taxes paid. So there was actual cash tax payments made.

</comment><comment><USER25> Netflix has, in fact, paid $100 million in income taxes in 4 of the last 5 years and $80 million in the 5th. They just paid most of last year's outside the US, to the tune of $130 million. For more details, see annual report.

</comment><comment><USER26> This seems to be a good place for my own take on taxes...

1\. Abolish corporate income tax.

2\. Tax capital gains (and dividends) as ordinary income.

The corporate income tax is absurd. It doesn't generate a lot of revenue, but it has a bazillion highly specific loopholes, supporting a whole cottage industry of lobbyists and accountants. It's an unfair advantage to large corporations that can afford the tax-cutting power (like Netflix).

The capital gains rate is the source of our most gruesome wealth inequality. It's absurd that Mitt Romney pays half my effective tax rate on 200 times my income. The justification for low capital gains rates is "double taxation" due to corporate income tax. Abolishing corporate income tax eliminates that.

If the rich don't want to pay taxes, then they need to not liquify their investments. If corporations don't want to pay taxes, they need to reinvest their profits in growth.

<comment><USER27> I agree with you on #2, but not on #1.

I think the correct reform of the corporate income tax is to abolish the "bazillion highly specific loopholes." If it was abolished entirely, I think you'd very quickly see corporations being set up and used purely to evade individual income tax, especially among the extremely wealthy.

That said, I do think it makes sense to not tax money at the corporate level that's remitted as dividends that would be taxed individually.

<comment><USER26> No one pays dividends these days anyway. It's all shifted to capital gains, to pumping the stock price rather than delivering profits.

<comment><USER27> If the tax treatment of dividends and capital gains changed, corporate practices would change to follow suit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> (read the cached version) I'd like to see figures on how much of that $22 million was re-invested in the workforce and economies which surrounded Netflix's productions. Those figures would be key in any personal judgement call I'd make on the report.

</comment><comment><USER29> Googling that domain name there are a bunch of headlines like "Acme corportation paid 0 tax". It seems to be part of their usual shtick.

The site loads, but really slowly. I feel like it has been slashdotted maybe.

</comment><comment><USER30> Site appears to be down.

Here's a similar article: [https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/05/whatever-you- pa...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/02/05/whatever-you-paid-watch- netflix-last-month-was-more-it-paid-income-taxes-all-last)

</comment><comment><USER31> The article also is not true. Netflix paid 15 million in taxes in 2018. It says so right in the 10K: [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1065280/000106528019000043/form10k_q418.htm#s6B83C108310859E180A5F42564D76A74)

</comment><comment><USER32> Can someone explain to me why businesses pay any tax at all. It makes no sense to me that we want to restrict the flow of money through a business. Maybe we could tax cash holdings of a company, but why would you tax any income that ultimately goes to expansion, shareholders, employees?

People see these "tax evading" corporations as so evil, but why? Do they really even remotely understand what is going on? I suspect they don't. Or maybe I don't get it.

Edit: Maybe what I fail to realize is that income for a company is essentially what I'm thinking of as cash holdings, anything else would be an expense that would be deductible?

<comment><USER33> Income that goes towards expansion (read op-ex like salaries, or cap-ex like infrastructure) is not taxed, it is "tax deductible".

Income that doesn't go towards economic activity (salaries, expansion) but goes back to profit does get taxed - mostly because dividends and capital gains are so much harder to tax for the ultra-rich due to loopholes on offshore tax residence, inheritance tax uplifts, trusts/foundations. The alternative would be to tax dividends and capital gains worldwide at income tax rates -- a great idea but impossible to implement against the resistance of every US millionaire and billionaire (also operationally quite difficult).

Tax evasion is evil morally because every dollar they don't pay, others have to pay so they are stealing money from millions of other people. The legal kind of tax evasion is called "tax avoidance" instead, it is still morally wrong if loopholes are created and exploited in a very obvious fashion for the sole reason of avoiding to give back to the society that enabled the profit. For some reason the US and many other countries don't have General Anti- Avoidance Rules where bad-faith tax avoidance structures can be outlawed.

<comment><USER34> >Tax evasion is evil morally because every dollar they don't pay, others have to pay

You mean the government makes others pay (unless the government just wants to go into debt, as it usually does).

>give back to the society that enabled the profit

Most government expenditure (see: military spending unnecessary for national defense) does jack shit for your economic productivity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I wish the post went into detail about how it is Netflix paid no taxes in 2018. It's not like a company that size just decides to not pay any tax--they are following a specific strategy to accomplish that, and not discussing that strategy in favor of the "big bad corporation" trope makes for an insubstantial blog post.

</comment><comment><USER36> Just because a corporation doesnt pay any corporate tax, that doesnt mean the Government doesnt get paid their fair share when their employees pay an income tax on the salary thats paid to them by the corporation.

Having a 35% corporate tax AND a 35% income tax on all earners who make more than 120k/year, means the Government would essentially recieve %70 of all of Netflix's revenues, assuming inbound revenue and outbound expenditures are maintained at a 1:1 rate of growth.

Netflix doesn't pay (nor should they be paying any) taxes right now because they invest heavily in producing original content using borrowed money. When that original content flops they still have to pay back all that money they lost plus interest.

Netflix might have made a ton of profit this year but im pretty sure they are still heavily in debted (in the billions last i checked). To tax netflix at 35% now that they are finally starting to see a return on their investment would only cripple the corporation from maintaining their upwards momentum of growth.

You only want to start taxing a corporation when they are completely self reliant on their own revenue when funding their day to day operations and investments towards R&D.

<comment><USER37> And the customers pay for Netflix with post-tax currency.

I wonder where all this falls on the laffer curve:

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> There is a lot of talk about increasing taxes on wealthy companies & individuals in the US as of late again. Whether that's a good or bad strategy I'm unsure.

Either way it seems that well paid accountants are easily winning the arms race on how to avoid taxes. I'm curious if a government can actually win that race.

<comment><USER39> There's no race. The tools and methods used to avoid taxes are apart of the well understood rules that were written for these companies. It's not a secret, there's no cleverness to what they're doing (except to the lay person). Everyone who needs to be, was and is well aware about how the tax code is written and how it works and why it's setup that way.

The effects of the current tax laws were well known before they could even be observed.

The government can easily put a stop to this. It's just about electing the right people, in the right party that aren't going to invoke visions of political and economic astrology. I think it goes without saying which party to NOT choose.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> The "profit" Netflix is reporting on the one hand is an entirely different number than the taxable net income that Netflix reports to the IRS.

Take a look at Netflix's free cash flow for a better understanding of what a SaaS-type business experiencing hyper-growth looks like.

Their customer acquisition cost in this case is spending on _content_. That content will be consumed (and hence "paid for") by subscribers primarily over the next 1-3 years.

So as they ramp up their subscriber count, and likewise ramp up their production spending, they are constantly outspending "Year 0" (today) to create content which will earn back that money, and then some, over the next 1-3 years.

Netflix is able to report financial metrics which show "Net Income" I think (and I haven't dug into their statements to confirm this) because they spread/amortize the cost of licensing the content over the timeframes they expect it to be used.

Whereas for tax purposes, the money they are spending on content can be deducted fully in the year it is spent against income for that year.

As long as Netflix grows the amount they spend on content each year, they will have negative free cash flow and pay little to no taxes.

If they grow their subscribe base at 20-30% YoY it means they can spend 20-30% more on content this year than they would typically be able to spend based on their current subscription revenue. E.g. if they spend 60% of revenue on content, and content is consumed over 3 years, they can spend closer to 80% of this year's subscription revenue on content, and in theory over the next 3 years they earn it back. By doing this, as far as the IRS is concerned their cash flow and net income is truly negative.

Eventually a company will flatten out its growth curve and the weight of servicing all that debt will require spending on content to fall below the subscriber revenue, and in the long run cash flow must be positive for a company to survive.

Keep in mind income taxes are just one for of tax revenue that is generated by a company like Netflix. There is a tremendous amount of tax revenue generated overall by Netflix, everything from taxes on the internet connectivity people are buying to use Netflix, to sales taxes and employment taxes.

</comment><comment><USER41> So they found/caught/exploited an opportunity to pay no taxes this year. Is it a permanent thing thanks to new tax laws? It's pretty easy to see that they have paid millions in income tax in previous years: [https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/nflx/financials](https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/nflx/financials)

</comment><comment><USER42> Paid $0 in taxes always seems a bit disingenuous to me, since they pay labor and equipment costs that are all indirectly taxed. These companies may not pay taxes in the ways we would like them to, or naively expect them to, but the government still ends up with a lot of money in their coffers on account of them.

<comment><USER43> Companies are not people: they never pay taxes. Either shareholders, employees or consumers pay taxes.

<comment><USER42> Exactly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Why is it desirable to transfer money from job-producing companies and investors to the government?

In any case, Netflix is still cash flow negative and probably carrying forward previous losses. If that's undesirable, change the tax code, but still would rather Netflix have the money than Uncle Sam.

</comment><comment><USER45> When Corporations pay zero in tax there is no schools being built, no healthcare being paid, no roads being paved. Yet these companies reap the benefit of other tax payers through educated labor and paying subscribers. They do not pay for the fire department, the police department and hospitals.

One word to describe it is Leeching.

Just because you could do something does not mean you have the right to do so.

Here is the Golden rule [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Rule) "One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself (positive or directive form)."

</comment><comment><USER46> Putting aside the accounting/tax rules, why should a corporation be taxed heavily? So the government can decide to squander the tax money? I'd rather have the money go in the pocket of shareholders (pension funds, individuals, index fund holders, etc.) and give people a choice on how to spend those corporate tax savings. Wait, these individuals get taxed at a reasonable rate when they sell the stock or when they pay sales tax on purchases made from the stock winnings.. Hmmm, maybe government is not losing on taxes after all?

</comment><comment><USER47> If everyone who is an employee of the company must pay taxes on their income anyways, then what's the point of taxing companies themselves - so they can be taxed for the company income on top of the taxes already paid on operating costs on top of more taxes for employee salary? What rationale is there besides wanting to give the government more revenue? Shareholders might have gained a lot, but whatever they make on their investment gets taxed anyway, so what's the big deal?

<comment><USER48> The point is to get as much money as possible duh.

The fact is, a company is a fiction and the idea that you can tax a fiction is just...fiction. But if the state didn't do it, then one or all of the following might notice that in reality they are paying quite more taxes than is actually leaving their account: employees, investors/owners/shareholders, suppliers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Contrary to the reflex; this is more reason to eliminate corporate income tax; and at the same time, eliminate the extreme dividend and capital gains tax discounts.

</comment><comment><USER50> The headline is flat out false. You can see Netflix financials here:

[https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarter...](https://s22.q4cdn.com/959853165/files/doc_financials/quarterly_reports/2018/q4/Q418-Website- Financials.xlsx)

They paid 15 million in tax for 2018.

</comment><comment><USER51> Is this due to loss carry over ? The original link is timing out. Can someone explain the rational behind carrying over your loss ? I understand you had a loss in one year and you didn't pay taxes. But why is the business allowed to spread that loss across multiple years and lower their taxes ? That seems a little questionable to me.

</comment><comment><USER52> The $10k cap on SALT (state and local tax) deductions starting with the 2018 tax year will be shocking to many people on here living in high tax blue states like CA or NY/NJ. If you have a very average wage and modest property in these states you'll almost definitely pay more this year than in previous years.

</comment><comment><USER53> It's called historical net operating loss, they can avoid taxes until all their past losses are accounted for.

</comment><comment><USER54> Meh, corporations don't pay income taxes anyways even when they do; their consumers pay the tax (it's just another expense). A national sales tax is a better way to collect.

<comment><USER55> A consumption tax would all of a suddenly increase prices by a large margin for the poorest among us.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> Even if you do a good job closing the 'loopholes' they can just operate with bitcoin. Stop charging taxes on profit/income and the problem will be solved.

</comment><comment><USER57> Just to be clear, Netflix has been profitable every year since 2008, so it is not using deferred losses. I also would like to know how it did it.

</comment><comment><USER58> Why not just increase sales tax? Or make sales tax sector by sector. Since they are almost a monopoly, it will come out of their own pocket mostly.

<comment><USER59> Sales tax is a tax to the consumer. I fail to see how that would affect Netflix at all.

<comment><USER60> Is there any difference?

They would have to lower their prices in order to keep the same price to the end user (to keep the same number of users) and therefore get less profit.

Is it because in the states you show the same price and local (state) sales taxes are added on top that makes it a tax to the consumer?

<comment><USER59> Companies here won't lower prices, they'll just hide the fact that there's a tax until checkout. At least with income tax it directly comes from their books and forces them to either take the hit or be the 'bad guys' and raise prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> The outrage at Netflix is misplaced. If you don't throw in an extra $20K with your taxes yourself (which you can do, btw), then you'd be a hypocrite if you're mad at Netflix for not doing the same.

Rather, you should be mad at your elected representatives at the federal level and in the state of California in particular that they passed the laws that make this possible. Stop electing the same idiots for decades, force them to pass term limits, and _maybe_ something will change. Until then, enjoy Netflix's free ride.

</comment><comment> d--b Now here's a problem whose fixing would truly make the world a better place!

Why is there no YC/SV initiative to help make tech companies freaking pay their goddamn taxes?

Sounds easier than basic income experiments, robocars and going to Mars.

<comment><USER62> They do pay their taxes. This is a problem with the tax code, not the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> > is precisely the sort of company that should be paying its fair share of > income taxes

This greatly annoys me. We have a massive federal budget already. Personally 30 cents of every 100 cents I own is taken from me forcibly.

</comment><comment><USER64> How much taxes did Netflix employees and executives pay?

</comment><comment><USER65> This disingenuous rage bait doesn't belong here.

Carryover is a pretty basic aspect of corporate taxes, and it makes sense. Previous years' financial performance (losses, debt) can carry over into the current year.

</comment><comment><USER66> People I know pay their taxes how is NFLX people?

</comment><comment><USER67> Drastically simplify the tax code. Boom. Done.

</comment><comment><USER68> Right, I'm going to unsubscribe at end of this years sub, I'm not subsidising this business through tax.

<comment><USER69> Right, I'd follow suit except how do you watch your favorite Netflix original content though? :(

<comment><USER70> Torrents? I mean, by them not paying taxes, you're already "paying" for content indirectly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Since this post has 37 points i presume the link is loading for some people? Any hints on how i get it to work?

<comment><USER72> [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix- posted-biggest-ever-profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income- taxes%2F&oq=cache%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fitep.org%2Fnetflix-posted-biggest-ever- profit-in-2018-and-paid-0-in-income- taxes%2F&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6018j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

<comment><USER73> Getting a 404 for that too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> tl;dr we are upset GAAP net income does not equal taxable income.

</comment><comment><USER75> we use to have an amt alternative minimum tax in the United States...sounds like we need to bring it back asap

</comment><comment><USER76> [https://imgur.com/gallery/tMpZo](https://imgur.com/gallery/tMpZo) <\- this comment section</comment>


No new international students at Harvard due to restrictive immigration rules - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2020/07/22/no-new-international-students-at-harvard-due-to-immigration-rules/ <comment><USER2> Harvard will be ok. Most students will defer until things normalize.

But for a lot of local/state schools, this is a death knell. There is only one thing they can do anymore to survive.

Lower standards of admission to enroll more domestic students and then raise tuition costs.

Well, there is another alternative. Default on debts, lay off admin and faculty and reduce number of programs.

Either way, the ripple effect of this on college towns, downstream services and average quality of education will be so high that there will be a lot of damage going around. And this is not even counting the long-term impact of lack of skilled American educated labor force or the permanent damage due to competing countries seizing the market for good.</comment>


Fire and Motion - <AUTHOR> https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ <comment><USER2> Well, doesn't this seem like a lot of words to get across the idea that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step?</comment>


What wasn't said about the Linux graphics stack - <AUTHOR> http://www.carbon-project.org/What_wasn_t_said_about_the_Linux_graphics_stack.html

<comment><USER2> The Gallium/Mesa "split" has nothing to do with GL 3.x and 4.x functionality missing; it's all about a lack of manpower. Classic Mesa doesn't cover _any_ chipsets which can do GL 3.x or fancier, so it's kinda moot. (Pretend r600c is already dead.) There's just not a lot of people hacking Mesa.</comment>


If Xerox PARC Invented the PC, Google Invented the Internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/google-as-xerox-parc/all/

<comment><USER2> Don't be fooled by the title. This is quite a good article about some of Google's early key engineers.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I learn making iOS/mac apps with Swift without storyboards? - <AUTHOR> I prefer to do the UI programmatically but almost all the tutorials and examples I found so far use storyboards. And those who don't, are just small examples... <comment><USER2> [https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.md](https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/blob/master/README.md)

I usually use the first ViewController in Main.storyboard.

Here's a no Nib example:

[https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/tree/master/NoNibAllCo...](https://github.com/melling/ios_topics/tree/master/NoNibAllCodeSwift/NoNibAllCodeSwift)

Usually, you'll just have lines like this:

        let vc = ViewController()
        self.navigationController?.pushViewController(vc, animated: true)

Make sure your first controller is embedded in a NavigationController or that push won't work.

</comment><comment><USER3> Check out Let's Build That App youtube channel by Brian Voong</comment>


Ask HN: What's a good cheap/free receipt scanner/ocr for home budgeting? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The time and effort you would spend in scanning the receipts would be better served by simply entering the data manually into a spreadsheet - that's what I do. it also allows me to pull in data for the electronic transactions and make a custom budget :)</comment>