SoftBank to take control of WeWork: Sources - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/softbank-to-take-control-of-wework-sources.html <comment><USER2> It's very difficult to see how SoftBank breaks even on this new deal. They're investing $5bn now, with the hope that it's worth more than that when they IPO, but several things have killed that idea. Firstly, their brand is tarnished. Secondly, the growth play will be gone by the time they IPO. Thirdly, the charismatic leader is gone, so the message of "Disrupting" and "We're a tech play' is gone. They've put $5bn into a company that's roughly the same size as a public company that's got a $4Bn market cap, but only got 70% equity as a result.

I think I'm at the point where I think that Softbank is throwing billions into wework to save face. That is a very bad move.

<comment><USER3> I took a look to see if Softbank was hiring any vetting-watchdogs to prevent this in the future.

They had one open position. It required all applications to have an extensive history at a prestigous VC firm, i.e. they are looking for people from the in- group.

I think a less-incestuous vetting strategy would give more honest results. Too bad, I think there's a lot of people on HN who would excel at this position despite not having worked at a big VC.

<comment><USER4> Considering their current vetting is quite lacking, shouldn't they be looking to hire someone experienced? You don't hire a junior engineer to build you're new enterprise system.

<comment><USER5> Perhaps shouldn't would be more accurate

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Better article in [1]. From the unconfirmed report:

\- SoftBank to invest $4-5 billion

\- Pre-money valuation at $7.5-8 billion

\- SoftBank will end the deal with ~70% control of WeWork

\- SoftBank's Marcelo Claure to take over as chairman of We

\- No confirmed word on additional job cuts, asset sales, or clawbacks from Neumann

[1] [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/softbank-to-take-control- of-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/softbank-to-take-control-of-wework- sources.html)

<comment><USER7> 4 to 5 billion investment in a company with an 8 billion dollar valuation.

At some point you have to wonder when its better to cut your losses and scrap the entire thing.

<comment><USER8> I mean, if you liked 20% ownership at 50bn, you prob love 70% ownership at $8bn.

This is where the value of all that liquidation preference kicks in. At some point it becomes _in SoftBanks interest_ to push for lower valuation, as it means they get to wipe out all the people that came before.

<comment><USER9> But the reason they liked 20% ownership at $50bn is presumably because they thought they can cash-out at $80bn+. This cash-out valuation was not value- based but growth/hype-based. It seems that weworks will no longer be valued on growth/hype, which means that the value of weworks is much lower.

Liking 20% ownership at 50bn doesnt mean you like 70% ownership at $8bn. The value of the company had significant future growth/hype component which required other investors to pour additional money in to keep up the growth, that is now gone.

<comment><USER10> They basically bought control of the company for ~$15B. Any valuation north of $20B ought to put them in the black.

<comment><USER9> Big Edit: multiplying is hard, forgot to multiply by the PE ratio! Actually, potential valuation is 660B.. so 20% would mean 3% of US office real estate business. At a less generous pe of ~10 (perhaps more appropriate given they don't own the buildings), it would be about 10% of real estate market.

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>

Sure, but $20B valuation seems hard to achieve.

US commercial real estate market by revenue is ~$1.1T [0]

Office space by value is about 1/8th [1]

Regus gross margin is ~16% [2]

Real estate generally has good PE ratio but partly because they usually own the property [3], so let's be generous at 30x.

So if we value WeWorks as a normal real estate company AND weworks has %100 of US office real estate business we have a valuation of 1100 / 8 x 0.16 x 30 = $660B.

Now, weworks exists outside of the US, but the valuation you propose means they must have ~equivalent of all US office real estate.

[0]- [https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market- size/co...](https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market- size/commercial-real-estate-united-states)

[1] - [https://www.reit.com/sites/default/files/chartjuly92019.png](https://www.reit.com/sites/default/files/chartjuly92019.png)

[2] - [http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/LS...](http://www.annualreports.com/HostedData/AnnualReports/PDF/LSE_RGU_2017.pdf)

[3] - [https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/what- priceto...](https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/052815/what- pricetoearnings-ratio-average-real-estate-sector.asp)

<comment><USER11> Don't you need to multiply that 22B by 30, or did you get all of those references but you don't understand the difference between profit and valuation...

<comment><USER9> you're right, apparently multiplying is hard! I first decided to make my back of napkin calculation (forgot to include the PE ratio) then wrote the post. I've amended it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I can actually see this working out. Comparing the first half of 2018 to the first half of 2019, WeWork roughly doubled revenue while keeping losses constant. Their losses went from ~2x revenue to ~1x revenue, which is still nuts, but improving quickly. They also had $1.5 billion in revenue through 2 quarters, and are growing at roughly 100% year over year.

If SoftBank can really reign in spending, in 2 years we could be looking at a company that's cashflow neutral, growing very quickly, with annual revenue in the range of $5-10 billion. From the outside looking in, this seems possible to me, and would result in a company with a valuation much higher than $8 billion.

</comment><comment><USER13> This has to be tough for all of the WeWork employees who were paper millionaires and now have stock options that likely won't survive all of SoftBank's preferences when and if WeWork finally IPOs.

<comment><USER14> I'll be honest here, cry me a river. Everyone who joins a pre IPO company should value their stock at 0.

<comment><USER15> That seems uncharitable given the CEO looks to be walking away with ~$900M total from the endeavor while everyone else gets... nothing? Probably?

<comment><USER16> Evidence why people should value their stock at zero.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Actually SoftBank is getting a good deal, using $5B to get a controlling interest of WeWork at 70%, wiping out all the commons and other LP's. If they can cut out the slacks and focus on the core value proposition, WeWork can work after 4 to 5 years. The WeWork brand is unique and valuable.

They did that to Priceline in the past. Priceline was almost dead at one point. Got sold at a fire sales. They hunkered down and executed, and look where they are now.

<comment><USER18> Could you say when this Priceline thing happened?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Other news sources are reporting that Adam Neuman will be paid $200m to resign from the board of directors... just, wow.

<comment><USER20> after a few years in silicon valley I learned that's essentially the right way to make it here. Building successful companies is for suckers, you just make a big ball of excrements, package it real well and then hand it to someone else before it falls apart. The VC system rewards that more than any other skillset.

<comment><USER21> WeWork is not a Silicon Valley company.

<comment><USER20> It is in all the ways that matter.

<comment><USER21> Incorrect. It is _not_ in all the ways that matter. Have you been to SV recently?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Serious question: given the monstrous scale of softbank, the not so great quality of many of its holdings, and it's ties into multiple world economies, could softbank be a systemic risk to the entire world economy?

If Uber took a big write off at this point, not only would American and Japanese companies and Saudi Arabia take major losses but I would imagine big tech stocks in general would start to see a loss in confidence and a reversion to more normal P/E ratios.

I would imagine at that point softbank would be such a dirty word that it would have to firesale as well. And certainly no second vision fund.

And then you could go on and on about what would happen to pensions in the states and the rest of our systemically daisy chained over leveraged economy or whatever else if that happened.

Do I have an overly active imagination? Does anyone else worry about this kind of stuff?

<comment><USER23> > I would imagine big tech stocks in general would start to see a loss in > confidence and a reversion to more normal P/E ratios.

Most of the big tech companies have not particularly strange P/E ratios.

> I would imagine at that point softbank would be such a dirty word that it > would have to firesale as well.

What's the mechanism here? Uber takes a large writedown leads to Softbank declaring bankruptcy? I don't follow the reasoning.

> Do I have an overly active imagination? Does anyone else worry about this > kind of stuff?

Yes and no.

<comment><USER22> If two of softbanks biggest assets get marked down significantly, and the rest of their bets are similarly, super leveraged high risk plays, It's not hard for me to imagine trying to liquidate some assets so they could leave with their shirts and give (some) money back to investors.

They've probably missed their window for huge VC style growth at that point anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is your annual reminder that Masa Son once lost $70B

<comment><USER25> And is now worth $23B.

So I would assume he knows a little about business.

<comment><USER26> I'd argue that assumption, [correlation of: current net worth -> knowledge about business], is flawed logically.

<comment><USER25> You do understand how he made that money right ?

Knowledge about business -> Current net worth

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Lots of voices ignoring how Son holds onto stakes. He has yet to liquidate his Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Holdings, and those were massive wins. An embarrassing mistake like WeWork is sure to stay on the books for decades. Selling would force him to mark down the private loss, so more so than winner he will hold I expect.

Maybe WeWork can turn cash flow positive, in which case Don can easily justify holding it. So long as he is not forced to mark down then we can continue doubling down. Son is not a guy with an exit plan, he doubles down until bust then waits for the next cycle.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't really get the ongoing obsession with We/Softbank. I kind of got the whole schadenfreude side of it when it all came tumbling down but now it's just turned into a story of a big company trying to dig itself out of a hole created by some dumb decisions it made.

Is there some larger relevance that I'm missing?

<comment><USER29> For one thing, I'd argue it's important for startups to understand how Softbank behaves as an investor, since they are a fund many companies might consider taking money from. They have an outsize quantity of capital to invest, so this is more worth watching than other funds' behaviors might be.

<comment><USER28> Do you think that Neumann feels like he got a raw deal?

<comment><USER29> I bet that he regrets doing business with Softbank, yes.

An anecdote I heard (unsure if true) was that Softbank had strongly encouraged Adam to focus on growth at the expense of profitability to a much higher degree, shooting for the stars much more than he otherwise would have done.

If I was Icharus and someone else had given me wings and told me fly much higher, I'd have myself to blame but I'd still be upset and filled with regret.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The thing that's ironic is that the IPO market likely would have valued WeWork at $10B, maybe even $15B, but since that was so much lower than the $47B valuation it had during SoftBank's earlier investment, they balked and walked.

SoftBank likely would have made out better in the near term had they just let the (disappointing, to them) IPO play out. WeWork would have launched with at least a $10B market cap (though of course that could have dropped on day one), would have raised a couple billion, and maybe would have even raised enough to meet the requirements for the loans they were planning on taking out. But now they've more or less gutted the company, killing anything that was even slightly interesting, turning it more or less into a bog-standard office real estate company. Which presumably will be able to turn a profit after a bit of retooling, but it hardly qualifies as "Vision Fund" material.

This is definitely just Son and SoftBank trying to save face.

</comment><comment><USER31> So Softbank will have invested nearly $16Bn (10.5 already + 5 now) in something that even they think is only worth $8Bn? Am I reading this correctly because that makes no sense whatsoever. Except for Neumann who walks away with his $700Mn regardless!

<comment><USER32> Well, maybe you could think about it like this:

If they don't intervene, they lose all their previous investment guaranteed. So just consider all of that previous investment gone (sunk cost).

If they invest $5b they may make an $8b valuation. And they may still think there is upside beyond that.

Not sure if that's what they really think, but a lot of posters here seem to accuse softbank of sunk cost fallacies without considering that they are surely aware of investing 101.

<comment><USER31> The sunk cost fallacy has a name because people keep doing it, even knowing what it is

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> In the last 4-5 years, Softbank basically caused hyperinflation in the startup world.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does this mean then all the common are wiped out due to the liq preference that existed before?

<comment><USER35> Essentially yes. Not wiped out per se, but underwater. If they can grow the business beyond the high water mark, then there's a shot at getting paid. But I'd say in a best case that's unlikely.

<comment><USER36> No it doesn't. Read the deal. SoftBank will buy up to $3B in stock from existing shareholders, including employees.

They are bailing out employees and investors. People will at least get something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Wow, that might be a record, IPO to cramdown in 3 weeks. I wonder if Softbank sees some way to convert some of the real estate into assets that it can sell off before the next recession hits to get its money back. I could not find a single thing in that article that suggested anything other than a liquidation that might favor the investors over creditors.

</comment><comment><USER38> There doesn't seem to be any original reporting in this article. The link should probably be: [https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/softbank-to-take-control- of-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/21/softbank-to-take-control-of-wework- sources.html)

</comment><comment><USER39> Let's be honest.

Wework is good business if they can become cash positive. They have a brand, more and more people are going remote, there is a bug market for pricey and google-like coworking spaces.

It doesn't matter if they had a bad CEO, or if they can't IPO anymore, there's no reason this wouldn't become massively profitable in the next 10 years.

</comment><comment><USER40> I guess Adam will get those margin calls on his $700m in loans on WeWork shares after all. Hope he can cover. [https://www.ft.com/content/a9254a70-f1a8-11e9-bfa4-b25f11f42...](https://www.ft.com/content/a9254a70-f1a8-11e9-bfa4-b25f11f42901)

<comment><USER41> This saga will be a great read in a year or three. Hope someone writes a long article on this. Joining the great American predecessors of corporate failure like Enron or Lehman Brothers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Does softback have strong financiers that can wrestle control over the companies expenditure and balance sheet? Given some of its recent investments at lofty valuations I don't think so. If they can close this gap then I think a turnaround is possible over time. The brand will recover.

</comment><comment><USER43> Wow, what a fall from grace. Weren't they valued at 72 billion earlier?

<comment><USER44> If you sell a pig to yourself for $72Bn, does that make it worth $72Bn?

It was valued at $20Bn in 2017 based on a $4.4Bn investment from SoftBank (where they were the sole investor). It was then valued at $45Bn in 2018 based on another $3Bn investment from SoftBank (when SoftBank was already the largest investor -- by far). Then, SoftBank made ANOTHER $1Bn investment later in 2018 "valuing" WeWork at $47Bn.

WeWork was ever valued at $72Bn. Maybe you're thinking of Uber.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> So is this effectively a triggering of the partial ratchet noted in the S-1 (i.e. SoftBank gets shares if valuation falls)? Or a whole new deal?

</comment><comment><USER46> Lol at the title. Imagine citing "Sources" in a paper. If you can't state your sources, just leave out the citation.

</comment><comment><USER47> how on earth does a company go from getting ready to IPO to being cash- strapped and needing an infusion in such a short space of time?

Never saw the numbers in the prospectus, but surely there was some indication?

<comment><USER48> It's crazy that it's not basically fraud to do what they did. They put out a 100-200 page document saying "Our business is great" so that retail investors could make an informed investment decision and then 2 months later are like "actually it's relatively worthless and we have no money left and if we can't raise money right now, we will die". Did the people involved really believe that glowing 100+ page report? The difference between this and a pump and dump is simply intent, and I think it's most likely that the intent was there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I wonder what is going to happen to the wavepool company.

</comment><comment><USER50> So who exactly came to the conclusion that they were worth >40B just a few weeks before? How does that math even hold up?

<comment><USER22> Simple, someone gave them money at that valuation (softbank). It doesn't mean the underlying value exists but it does give them that "valuation"

<comment><USER50> Obviously - but why did Softbank think it was worth so much more? They were an investor - they knew that the company was a financial black hole.

<comment><USER51> Probably to inflate the valuation, do a quick IPO of WeWork for 10x the actual value it should have, get their shares sold on high price, and wave to the fools that took the bait and bought an almost worthless stock.

This whole ordeal was the best that could happen for the normal people, basically fell into the hole they themselves dug, because the economists etc. called their bullshit out loud.

If you have not already, these are good reads from one of the critics of the whole scheme:

1\. WeWTF - [https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf](https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf)

2\. WeWTF, Part Deux - [https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part- deux](https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf-part-deux)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> I keep reading about that real estate company - make up your minds is it a tech company or not?

<comment><USER53> That's a false dichotomy. Is Amazon a retail company?

<comment><USER52> amazon is in the tech of retail - and more. what tech does wework make?

<comment><USER54> Amazon didn't _start out_ with AWS. That's a side effect at becoming a world- conqueror in terms of logistics.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: Something I made to see where something was posted first. - <AUTHOR>

I've heard that it's pointless and the name is horrible. Although I don't want to give up quite yet. Ideas for a better name / to make it more worthwhile would be great. Thanks.<p>http://dexjra.com/where_first <comment><USER2> Clickable: <http://dexjra.com/where_first>

Honestly, I'm not sure what the point is either, but it sure is interesting. Definitely something that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

</comment><comment><USER3> A bit strange but promising.

What can I say about a site where every couple of minutes spent on it I find something very interesting? Granted, some of those were tests of stuff I knew should be in the database, but it's still quite encouraging and the serendipitous discoveries were great.

Don't give it up yet unless you have to!

</comment><comment><USER4> How about upstreamist?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds good. I bought the domain. You made my day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you have any data, I'd be curious how Slashdot fits in. Anecdotally, I notice a lot of borrowing in both directions between HN and Slashdot.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have the Slashdot data...but it's certainly a good idea. Not sure how I didn't take to get data from them too. Thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just some domain ideas: firstp0st.com, subunderground.com, subspring.com.

</comment><comment><USER7> When I read the title I thought you made something that found the original source of a syndicated/re-posted article.

Anyway, since you have a database of submissions to HN, Reddit and Digg, there's alot of interesting things to do.

Off the top of my head, how about a side-by-side view of parallel discussions?

EDIT, some more suggestions:

Make a downloadable dump of your data at the end of each day. Would be useful for all the people scraping HN for their own purposes/websites.

Twitter would be more useful than Digg, although all the short-urls do pose a problem.

Your top15 page (<http://dexjra.com/row_view>) is strange. Why isn't HN there except the "First at Hacker News view" part?

<comment><AUTHOR> I used to have all three sources in the top15 and then some non-programmers said I should remove it...it would be trivial to add that back in. It's really about who I am trying to reach. Ideally I would have different types/sections for mainstream (reddit.com front page, digg.com,etc) and then computer people (proggit, HN, etc). I just wasn't sure which direction to take it. Thanks for your feedback.

I'll make a dump of the data...what format do you think would be best?

Thanks for your feedback.

<comment><USER7> I'd rather have tracking deeper than the first page of each site, than themed sections, not that it's a bad idea.

I wouldn't mind CSV or JSON data and I'm sure some people would prefer XML. Should be trivial to make dumps in each of those formats.</comment></comment></comment>


Novell: Another App Store - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/255313/novell-ponders-opensource-apps-store.html

<comment><USER2> How is this different from any Linux distro? RedHat, Ubuntu, Debian, etc. have all offered repositories for years. Ubuntu now looks very nice with their software chooser - nice titles and descriptions rather than the apt-get interface for those that prefer the GUI experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> >> "It's a new way of marketing open source," he admits.

To answer your question, essentially nothing. They're just trying to cash-in on the popularity of the "app-store".</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Should I put my GitHub profile on my resume? - <AUTHOR> I'm hesitant to post my profile here, but I'll try to describe it the best I can.  I really only have one open-source project that I've collaborated on, roughly 140 lines of code altogether.  It was a scraper for a local non-profit.<p>The rest is just class projects, or repos I forked but have not added to. (I intend on getting to them)  I also have some freelance work I've done but I can't make it public.  I recently graduated this Winter and have not been getting many bites on my applications, and honestly now looking for a little insight. <comment><USER2> Only if you want to talk about something on there, otherwise it's just noise.</comment>


When is a backslash not a backslash? - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2005/09/17/469941.aspx

<comment><USER2> I've actually run into this problem. Before I knew to use IO.Path.Combine I would manually append paths together using "\", and one of the bug reports was that paths should use the yen sign.

</comment><comment><USER3> _It is the path separator for Windows_

To be precise, it is _one_ of the path separators for Windows. The regular slash '/' also works when creating or looking up files with the low-level primitives in C programs.

But they are almost always displayed as backslashes, so the major point the article is making is correct.

</comment><comment><USER4> comic sans. Comic sans. Why? WHY?

<comment><USER5> Windows, Windows!? Why? WHY?

Though the super smushy JPEGified Cerebus is amusing.</comment></comment>


Why ReadyForZero (YC S10) Started A Company to Eliminate Credit Card Debt - <AUTHOR> http://blog.readyforzero.com/2010/10/28/why-we-started-a-company-to-help-people-payoff-credit-card-debt/ <comment><USER2> Good luck and godspeed. I spent a couple years on the Motley Fool forums giving out advice to people for credit card issues. (I have quirky hobbies, what can I say.) Many of them would have benefited from something which automatically addressed their poor organizational skills. (And, sadly, many of them are far beyond the point where any amount of technology will solve their problem. If you're committed to living a $5,000 a month lifestyle on a $4,000 a month income... no, the evil credit card company charging you $500 minimum payments is _not_ your problem.)

<comment><USER3> I was asking myself a similar question - do people want out of debt bad enough to cut spending?

Even if the answer is no, you can still make money from people's desires. Gyms are the best example - they sell access, but it's up to you to use it. For most people the sad truth is that the gyms end up taking money for nothing, and customers keep paying because of their own idealism. ReadyForZero, whether or not they like this idea, could profit in a similar way.

<comment><USER4> Hm, targeting customers with a history of uncontrolled spending might be the real genius behind this?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Brilliant: "Y Combinator is about 3 months long (June through August). 18 hours a day * 3 months = 1620 hours. Incidentally, that means my weight increased about 4.5 grams per non-sleep hour of YC. This is roughly equivalent to 1 paul gram."

<comment><USER6> I spent a while trying to figure out how 4.5 sleep-hours^-1 was equivalent to 1 paul, and why this is funny, until realizing that wasn't the intended joke.

<comment><USER7> I still don't get it :/ Where did the 'paul' part come from? (Yes, I'm aware of the play-on-words with the name.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It seems a little ironic that, in an attempt to encourage financial responsibility in the area of debt management, they are effectively asking people to hand their financial information to an unknown party. I got a letter the other day claiming that I'd won the Spanish lottery that (if it were not a classic scam, if it were not postmarked from Texas, and if not for the YC stamp on ReadyForZero) would have been only a little less credible. I mean, they're even hosting the McAfee, TRUSTe, and VeriSign stamps on their server.

Let me be clear: I do not think this is a scam. I just think there are some mixed signals here. You should be very up front about exactly what's done with the user's information and how it's secured, and give them a reason to think you're for real. An endorsement from someone well-known would do wonders.

Some of your potential customers are likely in debt because they've fallen for scams in the past. Don't let them be scared off.

<comment><USER9> Well, we're working on becoming a "known" party, which is why we're starting to engage people early. We appreciate open dialog.

Great pickup on the stamps. We've paid for and been approved by the services. For A/B testing the signup page, some users are directed to a service where we cannot link them. Our site hosts them properly.

<comment><USER8> Nice to hear that you're giving the matter some serious attention. I suspect you'll need a very good PR guy if you're going to try to build a reputation organically. Best of luck to you, absolutely.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The photo is a good illustration of an interesting phenomenon we've observed many times: cofounders start to look alike.

<comment><USER11> Collary: You should find a cofounder who's more attractive than you.

<comment><USER12> I hope the convergence goes into the right direction, then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> A noble goal. I wish you guys well; this is an issue that's pretty close to me.

For a data point, I am roughly $72k in debt from undergrad. This is due to a few factors, but largely because I saw a huge raise in price for the duration that I was in school. I also paid for 5 years, and room and board for my first two. Who knows when I'll ever end up paying it all back...

I've seen a few other situations where debt has really crippled people close to me. The emotional issues you talk about are certainly real, and can cause lots of problems paying stuff back...

This is one YC company where I'm _really_ interested to see how they make money. :)

<comment><USER14> Regarding making money, I'm assuming that it'll essentially act as a lead gen company, like Mint. If one of the ways to get out of debt faster is to transfer your balance to a card with a lower interest rate, and ... hey! look at this! we have three cards right here that will save you money each month ... it seems like it'd be an easy sell. In fact, I think the leadgen opportunity is even greater than Mint's, as these are people actively looking to change their debt situation, rather than people passively interested in what their money is doing.

<comment><USER13> Yeah, it's possible, but since they've taken the extreme moral high ground here (and in the rest of their branding), they'll have to be careful about which offers they... offer.

<comment><USER15> Indeed. I know of someone quite poor that paid $500 to have his credit repaired. They got around the laws by calling it education. Most of it amounting to having him send out form letters that looked like fraud to me. The letters would say debt wasn't his. He didn't seem to read or understand any of it, but happily sent out the letters. I wonder what the court that had a judgement against him for child support thought on getting a letter saying it wasn't his debt? When someone says the little things don't matter, tell them that those who'd bought Apple stock in the early 2000's instead of a pack of cigarettes or 6-pack of beer could have ended up with a couple of hundred dollars for each one instead.

It's a major adjustment, but people should live within (below actually) their means. Unheard of to do without cable tv, cook your own meals from basic ingredients, or give up alcohol or smoking? Some people need a serious reality check.

I'm extremely suspicious of a for-profit venture to "help" consumers. Just what is there that a consumer can't get or do for free? It seems many consumers have fallen victims to so-called help. The article mentions plenty of easy to relate to grief situations, but is very short on solutions.

Remove social stigma for debt? I'd say that depends on the circumstances. Some would have made better choices if they'd seen MORE social stigma attached.

Talk to people about paying rent, and few are very happy about it, but let them rent money.....

<comment><USER11> >Unheard of to do without cable tv, cook your own meals from basic ingredients, or give up alcohol or smoking? Some people need a serious reality check.

I think you underestimate how difficult some of these things are.

Cooking meals is a non-trivial skill, many people don't have the time or money to learn, they can't afford to "experiment" with cooking, because if their children don't want to eat what they make when experimenting then the children are going to go hungry.

Cable TV is often the primary form of entertainment, and is much cheaper than going out or the most popular form of "free" entertainment, unprotected sex.

Cigarettes are addictive, telling a smoker to stop smoking is no more effective than telling an obese person to stop eating.

<comment><USER16> I think you overestimate how difficult following a recipe is. It pretty much just tells you _exactly_ what to do. A machine could do it.

...

...anybody want to start an auto-recipe-cooking-machine startup with me?

<comment><USER17> One of my startup ideas is a robotic kitchen, similar to <http://www.gizmag.com/go/1865/picture/2207/> except with a robotic arm in the middle.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Not sure exactly what you guys are building, but I hope it makes a fat dent in how credit bureaus work. I went through my first credit report from the 3 credit bureaus. Not only was the process archaic, but along the way I was bombarded by all kinds of predatory offers to sign up for paid credit monitoring services. After I retrieved my reports, I find inaccurate information, along with an account that I've never seen before labeled as an "adverse account". On top of that, I see misreported addresses and dates as well. From there, I had to do 3 separate dispute claims (all of them slightly different in process, but equally filled with spam). While on the phone with an Indian call center with Equifax, I was cut short every time I asked a question or tried to clarify, and at the end of the call I get yet another pitch to sign up for their paid credit monitoring service.

Please tear down and rebuild these sloppy and fat credit bureaus. At the very least, I hope you guys provide some solid competition for them to shape themselves up.

<comment><USER19> Even the basic reporting is pretty terrible. For example, I have a pretty low credit limit given my income (mostly because I stupidly canceled cards I wasn't using). For months I tried to get it raised without any success. Finally, I paid for one of those credit reports that has suggestions and found out my problems are because I've been "carrying" too much debt... except I don't carry any debt. It's just that my limit is so low when the month rolls around I often am using close to the limit (which I then promptly pay off). Basically, your credit utilization can be extremely high even if you pay in full every month.

Solution: pay in full right before the month rolls over. I've already had two credit limit raises after doing this... but why should I have to? Why should I have to arbitrarily change habits that have nothing to do with good finance just to appease credit bureaus that aren't doing a good job to begin with?

<comment><USER20> What about just going cash and debit for everything?

Are you afraid of not getting a good rate when it's time to get a mortgage? I've often heard the anecdotes about without debt but no credit card history getting turned down for loans, but I've also wondered if it's actually true.

<comment><USER19> Actually, my card gives decent cash back and it's definitely worth it if you try to put as much as possible on the card. I haven't heard of a debit cash back card.

<comment><USER21> US Bank used to offer cash back on debit cards; don't know if they still do. ING Direct occasionally has cash-back promotions on the debit card for their Electric Orange checking account, but only for new accounts.

You're right in that credit cards _are_ still useful if you use them right, though. There are certain protections (chargebacks) plus the benefits you note. Credit card companies are like casinos--they give you tons of benefits if you use them hoping you'll go on tilt and waste tons of money. If you're smart, sometimes you can beat them at their game.

<comment><USER20> "If you're smart, sometimes you can beat them at their game."

Following your analogy, the majority of people are probably better off financially by not going to Vegas at all.

<comment><USER22> Forget the analogy, this ain't Vegas. All you gotta do is remember to pay one bill on time every month and you're a (small-time) winner.

Oh, and you should make sure you never spend more on your credit card than you have in cash to pay it off; but you should have at least several months' expenses sitting around in cash anyway, so this shouldn't be an issue as long as you have good financial habits.

For an average-income person with good financial habits a 1% cashback credit card is a net win of maybe two hundred dollars a year. Not a huge deal, but the best financial habit you can have is not saying no to small savings.

<comment><USER21> But this is what the Vegas analogy means: if you follow the optimal strategy while gambling and stop when you've gambled enough to be comped a room, you'll be +EV compared to the normal cost of the room. It's just as easy as paying off your credit card bill every month, assuming similar levels of financial discipline.

<comment><USER22> Hmm, I didn't know that the comps worked out that way; I always assumed that the value of the comp wound up less than your expected losses even with optimal strategy. Nice to know.

Still, it's a lot easier to remember to pay a bill on time every month than it is to play optimal-strategy blackjack for hours with no mistakes.

The analogy holds, but it's not all that _good_ an analogy since there's a severe difference in the difficulty and the risk/reward ratio. Some things are better explained in their own terms than via an analogy.

<comment><USER21> The kind of person who vacations in Vegas isn't likely to be someone who makes rational economic decisions about +EV comps, so Vegas isn't worried about offering +EV comps. If you're a rational +EV economic decision-maker, you either don't go to Vegas, or you live in Vegas and make your living beating tourists at poker. Either way, you're not the one being comped a room--more often, it'll be someone who goes on tilt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Not sure you are aware, but the FTC recently wiped out the whole debt settlement industry by making it such that you can't charge upfront fees for debt settlement programs. Before that, debt settlement was one of the most lucrative verticals on the Internet.

<comment><USER24> The debt settlement/counseling/management space has been around for over 60 years (since the 1950s), and like other billion $ industries it has gone through a variety of "regulatory" reforms and legal shake-ups. Every industry goes through that.

The debt counseling industry and, in some cases debt settlement, benefit creditors by providing an alternative way to recover funds as compared with bankruptcy or collections. In fact, under what is called "fair share" creditors give these companies direct kickbacks. The % has been reduced significantly because companies were making too much.

If you dig deeper, you will find many creditor and bureau executives working at these non-profit counseling organizations. The business model is a critical aspect in understanding how this industry works.

With all that said, we do not plan to do any debt settlement.

For additional details on the history, take a look at the Uniform Debt- Management Services Act paper (<http://blog.readyforzero.com/industry- research/>).

Thanks for the comment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> This blows me away: [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/27/...](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/10/27/investopedia47863.DTL) "The average American ... carries $5,100 in credit card debt". No math education? Don't care? Peer pressure to buy crap? Or is that money really going to groceries and rent? I guess I live in an entitled bubble, but I really can't wrap my head around how people get in that state.

Is it relatively easy to get access to a user's credit card statements, or do you need to negotiate with each provider? Or do you just get their passwords and scrape?

<comment><USER26> Sometimes people get in this state because they have no savings to speak of and some unexpected large expense comes up. Your car breaks down. The fridge quits. The house needs a new roof. Your job downsized it's medical coverage to a larger deductible and your wife got in a car wreck.

Not everyone with massive credit debt was out there buying iPods and flatscreen TVs. The root cause (no savings) is a different story.

<comment><USER22> I can easily imagine how someone can wind up carrying a balance on their credit card via some sort of minor disaster.

What I don't understand is how a full third of the US population has managed to get themselves into that situation and not out, and are effectively borrowing money at some crazy (16%+ rate).

<comment><USER26> Some of those crazy rates come from credit card companies that have discovered that people's procrastination and forgetfulness can lead to great profits.

Miss your payment deadline by an hour? $39.99 late fee. Miss by a week? We'll crank your rate up to 29.99%. Oh, and we'll report it to the credit bureaus so they will find out and _other_ cards you have will crank up to the default rate.

Now you've got multiple cards at the max rate. The minimum payments skyrocket. Most of that is just interest, so your principal never goes down. In fact, if you keep making minimum payments only, the balance rises until you hit the limit. It goes on and on.

There have been new laws to limit this kind of behavior from the banks, but banks are pretty clever animals. They'll find new ways to make their profit.

<comment><USER27> _Most of that is just interest, so your principal never goes down. In fact, if you keep making minimum payments only, the balance rises until you hit the limit._

This is known as negative amortization, and it's not the way credit cards work. Or any loan where "most" of the payment is interest, for that matter. If you're paying any principal, you're paying down the loan. To my knowledge, credit card companies are required by law to set the minimum payment high enough that _some_ principal is paid. Of course, it's only enough that you won't finish paying them off for twenty years, but it _is_ amortization.

<comment><USER28> Are you sure? I've got a card with a very, very high balance and with minimum payments the balance due goes up every month by about $100.

<comment><USER27> Are you using it? :)

Seriously, I'm sure it depends on what country you're in, whether you're racking up late fees, etc., but I'm pretty sure that it's required in the US:

<http://creditshout.com/credit-card-minimum-payments/> [http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2003/FIL0302a.html#h...](http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2003/FIL0302a.html#h6)

<comment><USER28> Not using the card, its gone in the shredder after I maxed it out to pay for back surgery. But without a doubt the balance goes up every month. I'm not a computer with a PDF reader at the moment but my credit card statement shows that if I continue to pay the minimum every month it'll take over 2600 years to pay off and I would have paid over 2 million dollars in interest by the time its paid off. This is for a US card as well.

<comment><USER27> You should think about reporting them (maybe FTC and/or FDIC?) and also transferring your balance to another card.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'm usually the last to 'get' some of these things, but in my experience, people are usually not in debt because they don't know how to get out.

I would not have thought you could make billions of dollars from selling coffee either, so all i can do is wish you guys luck.

</comment><comment><USER30> As much as I admire these guys.. The same reasons that people got themselves into unmanageable credit card debt are the same reasons why using a service like this wouldn't work. The main way people get out of debt is to declare bankruptcy and work out better deals. Its easy and fast, and they never cared about their credit in the first place. Best of luck.

<comment><USER24> We do not agree and have people using the site today that claim the visibility (interest rates, payment history, credit score, etc.) and automatic planning gave them exactly the edge they needed to start making significant progress. These products (credit cards) were designed to be opaque and difficult to manage.

<comment><USER30> Being responsible and watching your balance, and paying a scheduled monthly fee is not difficult to manage. Banks allow for scheduled payments as well, its a one time setup. I think the being responsible and holding people accountable to being responsible, is something that maybe you are working on , and hope that it works. Best of luck.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> _ReadyForZero connects with people and empowers them with the right information_...

"Empowers them"?? When Obama said to Jon Stewart that Larry Summers had done "a heck of a job" fixing the economy, Jon laughed and responded: "dude, you don't want to use that phrase". (Obama then said "pun intended", but still).

Same here. If you're going after credit card companies and big corporations, please don't try to "empower" anyone, because by now people have learned what it's like to be "empowered" (hint: it hurts).

Also:

\- most of their data seems to be from 2006 -- that was a long time ago

\- many problems listed, not many solutions

\- it seems highly improbable that people are drowning in debt because they don't know better; people have debts because they can, because they enjoy it -- they enjoy the goods the debts help buy, and the debt, they forget about it.

<comment><USER32> On 'empowers' - what has caused people to learn that empowerment hurts?

On the data - I see that the last NIST was 2006, they cite one 2006 source, a 2008, and a 2009. That seems pretty good to me, considering that the oldest one is a paper, and not an annual report.

On problems:solutions - their product is the solution, and they haven't launched it yet. They can't really describe something that hasn't launched yet.

On not knowing any better - two things.

(1) you underestimate how important timely feedback is. I can't find the link easily, but when people have a light installed in their home that goes red when they're using a lot of energy, and green otherwise, people conserve more energy. When you don't find out until the end of the month how much you used, you can't adjust (this is also covered in any controls class. Introducing a delay will usually cause instability)

(2) I have <$2k on my credit card (and pay it every month), and I hate how opaque things are. I have to log into my credit card site (already annoying) and ignore the big 'balance' number and hunt for the number that is what I have to pay. I can't imagine how hard it is for people that don't/can't pay their balance in full every month, automatically.

<comment><USER31> Empowerment is a word used by big companies (and found many times in Microsoft marketese) to tell people they are going to be more powerful if they use their tools, when in fact they are going to get screwed, and pay every penny for it.

When you think about it, power is not given, and esp. not given from the powerful to the powerless. Power is something you take.

The fact is that the "empowerer" is looking down on the "empoweree"; if we're talking about parents and children, then maybe that's fine; but if we're talking about companies and customers, or bosses and employees, then beware (better still: run).

That's the issue that I have with this article: it sounds like ordinary marketing PR, and plays on two very different levels. "OMG! Debt is a big problem! And look! we've found a (secret and unique) way to solve it!"

Debt is a little bit like smoking: on a national scale, it's a huge problem, very difficult to solve; but on a personal scale it's not really a "problem". You want to quit smoking? QUIT SMOKING.

Those guys seem to be talking about debt at a high level (where solutions would be needed, but are hard to find) to sell their individual-level solutions (which are easy to find, and therefore not really needed, since if people really wanted to be out of debt, they wouldn't get into it in the first place).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I tried looking for more details about how exactly the company helps eliminate debt. Certainly even more cautious at the idea of linking up my CC to a website.

If there were more details explaining the process, I think more cautious people (like me) would be willing to try it.

<comment><USER24> This is absolutely spot on, you will need to trust us like a good friend. We plan to lay out all the details in a transparent way and clearly explain everything as much as possible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Good luck guys! We need this kind of tools to stop this debt mess. Shameless plug: We have recently developed a simple app that calculates your affordability based on your financial data. You can use it as a quick check to make sure all your bases are covered before making any purchases. We appreciate any feedback, including from Rod and Ignacio. Thanks. <http://caniafforditnow.com>

<comment><USER24> Highlighting the "real" cost is critical. If something like this existed, say at the point of sale, I imagine lots of people would think twice about charging it. Thanks for the comment.

<comment><USER35> It might be little late to check for affordability at the point of sale. Once your in a store your heart takes over your mind.

<comment><USER12> Yes, but the real cost might affect your choice. E.g. two fridges in the store, one costs more initially, but uses less power. Knowing the real cost can be a win-win situation for you and the store here. They get more revenue and you get a smaller total cost of ownership.

The incentives for stuff apart from energy efficencies may be different, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Great cause. Looking forward to learning how they attack the problem.

From a personal stand point, I can't tell you now much relief/satisfaction I get since eliminating debt (outside of a mortgage) or how much stress I get when the occasional short term debt comes about (which motivates me to eliminate it).

They mention debt as a 'hair on fire' problem. What are some others?

</comment><comment><USER37> I love it when new companies put up a "Why we started our company" posts/story.

I look for it often when thinking of using a company/service/product.

It's also wonderful for new employees to read when they join your company.

<comment><USER9> Everytime one of these posts is born, a node.js article falls off the front page.

<comment><USER38> And vice versa.

I believe there is space for both.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Let's make getting out of debt cool and fun to do ;)

I think personally that the biggest part is education. Here in Brazil a lot of people would benefit from such a service as well. If you need help at some point internationalizing it, please get in touch :).

</comment><comment><USER40> It's pretty straightforward, actually:

[http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont- buy-...](http://www.hulu.com/watch/1389/saturday-night-live-dont-buy-stuff)

Seriously though (on second thought, that was pretty serious), about 5 or 6 years ago this offline app helped us become completely debt-free (and saved us a bundle on interest fees in the process):

<http://www.zilchworks.com/zilchstandard.html>

If ReadyForZero offers users similar functionality and the pricing is fair, it will more than pay for itself.

</comment><comment><USER41> Wonderful cause. I'd love to read about the tensions between your goal and the various business models that suggest themselves. You will succeed at your mission precisely to the extent that your users reduce their spending relative to their income. How will you create a mechanism that flows money to you and your users at the same time? Who pays (net) and why?

</comment><comment><USER42> Either you'll do a great job getting people out of debt, or you'll be profitable. You can't do both.

</comment><comment><USER43> I signed up; looking forward to getting an invite when you launch. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER35> I am in US only for few years (4) and it is hard for me to believe that someone can have such a huge debt. How can you have such huge credit card debt.

</comment><comment><USER44> what a great idea! Good luck my friends, will definitely try it out. Glad to see your local too!

</comment><comment><USER45> The lending industry is so predatory these days it would make Jaws swim away in fear.

</comment><comment><USER46> Right idea at the right time.

</comment><comment><USER47> Great idea. Good luck guys.

</comment><comment><USER48> Great idea for a company; you'll have a lot of fans, including me.</comment>


Ask HN: Contact info in profiles - <AUTHOR>

There have been plenty of instances where I wanted to contact a reader after reading his/her comment on HN. But there are an incredible number of user profiles that have no contact info whatsoever.
I can understand if this was digg, but on a strong community site like HN, I was surprised to see this.
Is there a particular reason why many people don't have any contact info listed in their profile pages? If not, maybe now would be a good time to update with a simple email address perhaps? <comment><USER2> Your profile doesn't have any contact info either :).

The email address field is not public. Only PG/YC can see it.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh wow, I had no idea. I thought it was visible to everyone.

Fixed it.

Thanks :)

<comment><USER3> That probably answers your question :)

<comment><AUTHOR> So maybe they should make that field visible to everyone?

<comment><USER4> I don't think many people would like that as a default option. Spam is something that people tend to get aggravated about.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand. I thought people were leaving them under the impression that everyone could see them.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


China Mobile to Build Mobile Payments System On .Tel - <AUTHOR> http://domainnamewire.com/2011/04/18/telchina-and-china-mobile-to-build-mobile-payments-system-on-tel/

<comment><AUTHOR> Intriguing news for the DNS crowd :)</comment>


How I used Stack Overflow and GitHub to get dream job before 19 without degree - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@danielkmak/how-i-used-stack-overflow-github-to-get-dream-job-before-19-without-degree-8cb5184e2bec <comment><USER2> Congrats, really well done. TBH, most graduates would also need to do that to get a job.

> I have no degree in IT

Regarding this; only a very small minority of the people I've worked with had a degree. IT isn't really so degree-dominated around the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congratulations. I know people (including myself) who got very cool tech jobs when they were 15.

</comment><comment><USER4> MORE MONEY AT A YOUNGER AGE</comment>


Scientists handle the increased data of the Large Hadron Collider - <AUTHOR> http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/july-2015/more-data-no-problem

<comment><USER2> I was disappointed the article was so vague about the technical details/hardware involved; anybody have a link to something more specific?

<comment><USER3> You should have a look at the CERN open lab project in which they use open stack to analyze the vast amount of data that they collect. Here are some YouTube videos about it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxOS3hY_BA4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxOS3hY_BA4) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOfRvZq5T6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOfRvZq5T6c)</comment></comment>


Dancing vs. Dancing - <AUTHOR> https://knowingless.com/2018/09/07/dancing-vs-dancing/ <comment><USER2> TIL, "EDM" = "Electronic dance music"

This is not in accord with my understanding of dancing.

I have nearly only done "type 2" dancing - mostly pair dancing, and some Scottish country dancing, but also a bit of rueda, modern dance, flamenco, etc.

In type 1 music, if each person "invents moves to decorate that framework" then how does that result in "a crowd all jumping together"?

My experience with type 2 dancing is that we dancers also '[invent] moves to decorate that framework'. I can easily think of the times where I invented new things in both salsa and tango. (Note: I mean 'invented' in the personal sense - doing things that I didn't learn from others. I believe this is what the author meant.)

There is a strong bias error in the use of images to make the argument. Most of the dancing I do involves large groups of dancing pairs. For examples, [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22salsa+club%22&t=ffsb&iar=images...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=%22salsa+club%22&t=ffsb&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images) and [https://www.google.com/search?q=crowded+tango+floor&source=l...](https://www.google.com/search?q=crowded+tango+floor&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo3M2N4KrdAhXKKiwKHc6GBTYQ_AUICigB&biw=1296&bih=781) and [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=latin+club+dancing&t=ffsb&iar=imag...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=latin+club+dancing&t=ffsb&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images) .

While crowded dance floors are my experience, most of the pictures for salsa and tango are of only small number of people dancing, because those shots are more photogenic.

BTW, dancing does not require music. A YouTube search for "dance without music" found [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbpRwgd4Hqc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbpRwgd4Hqc) with almost that exact title, for example. Making this type 3?</comment>


Staffing Agency vs. Direct Hires: The Opportunity Cost for Startup Founders - vasya-gh https://perceptionbox.io/business/staffing-agency-vs-direct-hires-the-opportunity-cost-for-startup-founders/ <comment> vasya-gh As a tech startup founder, should you hire directly or work with an IT staffing agency? As we're about to show, hiring people takes a significant amount of time and effort. Moreover, beyond simply hiring, many tech startups report turnover rates of 25% or higher. Should the hiring effort be on you as your startup's visionary and strategic driving force? One thing to consider is the opportunity cost of managing your hiring process or vetting an IT staffing agency.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thinly veiled advertising</comment>


Ask HN: Any outstanding business plan samples available? - <AUTHOR>

Does anyone know where I could find a few samples of well-written, high-quality business plans?  I already have a lot of resources/info about what to put in a plan, but I'm hoping to see a few examples of what investors would consider an outstanding plan.  Also, what is the best form-- is it mainly just a short slide deck and a one-page overview, or is a more formal document preferred?
A bit of context... our enterprise software startup is in the late early-stage phase, looking to switch gears and enter the growth stage.  We have a nice, growing group of corporate clients, decent revenue, and a product that's gone through several iterations.  The time has come to recruit a professional management team, and so we're in the process of preparing to raise a Series A round.  Given our enterprise focus, a key quality for doing well is presenting ourselves in a professional manner (think Siebel Systems).  And so, we're a bit nervous about submitting a plan to investors that looks/reads amateurish.  If possible, it would really be helpful to have a few examples of well-regarded business plans we could use to measure our own efforts.
Does anyone have any excellent examples they could share?  (Although we expect they would be non-confidential, we would keep them private).  Thanks! <comment><USER2> Hi , if you give me your email address i will send you a sample of the professional Business Plan, which is required ny venture capital companies ..thanks.. firstname.lastname@example.com. bye, Tünde Kallai</comment>


Why Specialists are Grumpy and Generalists are Happy - <AUTHOR> http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/02/why_specialists.html <comment><USER2> Initially, the title bugged me because I generally associate specialists as people who are actually good as something (anything), and generalists with people who aren't, and therefore defend their lack of goodness by calling themselves generalists. This is probably the more mainstream use of the term. For instance, a computer science generalist might be very happy, because he's good at many different kinds of software and computing, and can use many different techniques to achieve a goal, but a journalist would call him a computer science specialist. A computer science specialist, by contrast, is somebody like a professor of PL research who has poured his entire career, and especially his journey to tenure, into a useless pedantic language that no one will ever use. To a journalist, both are specialists, but to a CS guy, the first is a generalist, and the second is a specialist. So, if you were a journalist, or more generally not invested in a particular field (let alone subfield), the essay wouldn't make sense.

</comment><comment><USER3> What if you specialize in generality? I guess that explains those mood swings.

<comment><USER4> I had to mod you up for the recursion effect.

Of course, the guy in this article specializes in generalizing about specialists, so that must make him very unhappy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Willie Nelson might sing it thus,

"Mothers, don't let your boys grow up to be a Mycologist studying the genetic basis of host response to invasive pulmonary aspergillosis"

</comment><comment><USER6> Why Experts are Grumpy and Amateurs are Happy.

<comment><USER7> How is this modded down at all? I've found this is exactly the case.

<comment><USER8> Probably because "Amateurs" is an F word?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> mathematics comes to mind as an area with many obscure specialties. i think the problem is that its abstractedness makes it very easy to place stakes in horrible places. unfortunately there's no sign of whether or not even the most obscure construct will have a practical application later on, and there have been countless surprises

i guess we have to let the kooky math guys play with whatever they want :-\

</comment><comment><USER10> And we have universities full of specialists.</comment>


Stealing Data Via Electrical Outlet - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/070909-electrical-data-theft.html

<comment><USER2> Demonstration of remote keyboard sniffing using an antenna: [http://www.vimeo.com/2007855?pg=embed&sec=2007855](http://www.vimeo.com/2007855?pg=embed&sec=2007855)

</comment><comment><USER3> I've heard that passwords can be compromised by the sound (probably over multiple entries) of the keystrokes, since the attacker can figure out how far apart the keys are and listen for patterns, though I haven't seen any demonstration of this yet.

<comment><USER4> Each key also sounds different. One of their attacks uses this, in a slightly extended sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Amazing! Now all we need to do is convince potential victims to use PS2 keyboards and we're golden.</comment>


Humans Did Not Wipe Out the Neanderthals, New Research Suggests - <AUTHOR> http://www.livescience.com/47460-neanderthal-extinction-revealed.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Key quote: The new findings suggest that Neanderthals disappeared from Europe between about 41,000 and 39,000 years ago.

"I think that, for the first time, we have a reliable extinction date for Neanderthals," said study author Tom Higham, a radiocarbon scientist at the University of Oxford in England. "This has eluded us for decades."</comment>


Google XRay: A Function Call Tracing System [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/45287.pdf <comment><USER2> NOT ANOTHER TRACER!!

I'm sure it's impressive engineering work, but why oh why...

How does it compare to Linux uprobes, which are built into Linux mainline? Bear in mind there are different front ends for uprobes (ftrace, perf_events, bcc, ...), and these are also still in development, so if one lacked certain features they needed, such features could be added. There's been a LOT of work in this area in the past 6 months, as well (see lkml).

If the goal was lowest performance, then why compile with no-op sleds ("negligible overhead") instead of using dynamic tracing (literally "zero overhead")? Or, if the existing kernel-based dynamic tracers benchmarked poorly, then why not something like LTTng?

How does it compare to DTrace, as well? (Doesn't Google have some FreeBSD?).

All the tracers I mentioned can not only do dynamic tracing, but also instrument all user and kernel code, without special recompilation.

<comment><USER3> Most of XRay was written before uprobes was merged into the Linux kernel (and well before such kernels were widely available).

I don't think any of the alternatives you mentioned are Pareto superior to XRay when considering all of "speed while tracing", "speed while not tracing", and "flexibility".

E.g.:

\- In "speed while tracing", anything that takes a context switch per traced function will probably be dramatically slower. Even if there's some fast dispatch mechanism you have in mind that I'm not familiar with when you say dynamic tracing, if it doesn't insert the moral equivalent of a nop-sled, it will have to either choose between logging the whole PC (spending data, which means spending RAM and disk time) or figuring out how to map it to a function- specific unique int (spending cycles).

\- In "speed while not tracing", anything much more expensive than nop-sleds will be too slow to run in production.

\- Anything that doesn't have a compile time component probably won't be able to completely hook functions that get inlined, or whose source you aren't able to change, won't be able to pick out information the runtime wants to summarize from function arguments, etc.

To me, the neat thing about XRay isn't so much the "function patching" aspect, except insofar as it serves as a mechanism to execute arbitrary code at function entry or exit in a way that's runtime-customizable and very low overhead when you want it to be.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the reply; some replies:

> "anything that takes a context switch per traced function will probably be > dramatically slower."

Good thing uprobes don't context switch:

      # perf stat -e context-switches -e probe_libc:re_search_internal sed '/./d' /mnt/data.txt

       Performance counter stats for 'sed /./d /mnt/data.txt':

                     6      context-switches
            15,122,432      probe_libc:re_search_internal

          19.744738204 seconds time elapsed

You mean mode switch? Cheaper, but yes, still costly. Here's runtime without the probe:

      # time sed '/./d' /mnt/data.txt

      real	0m3.349s
      user	0m3.345s
      sys	0m0.004s

Which means we can calculate the cost to be ~1.1 us per probe (on my system). Anyone know what XRay is clocking in at?

AFAIK, LTTng has done work for user<->user instrumentation. I think uBPF will be doing this ([https://github.com/iovisor/ubpf](https://github.com/iovisor/ubpf)) - although that project is very new. Could use some help from some more good engineers (please do!).

> "In "speed while not tracing", anything much more expensive than nop-sleds > will be too slow to run in production."

I'm not sure anyone is suggesting anything more than nop-sleds. Dynamic tracing is zero, and static tracing is nop-sleds.

> "probably won't be able to completely hook functions that get inlined"

Sure. Sometimes there's static tracing probes (nop-sled based), sometimes there isn't and it's dynamic probes, sometimes those dynamic probes are inlined and you walk up the stack to find one that isn't. If it is inlined, maybe you need to trace the address rather than the function entry.

In my experience it's pretty rare that something is just untracable because inlining is so insane. But yes, it does happen sometimes. Usually I figure out a workaround before giving up.

> "a mechanism to execute arbitrary code at function entry or exit in a way > that's runtime-customizable and very low overhead when you want it to be"

BPF! In-kernel virtual machine that runs JIT'd code on events, and is part of mainline Linux. Lots of enhancements in the Linux 4.x series.

<comment><USER3> > You mean mode switch? Cheaper, but yes, still costly.

Hah, yes.

> Which means we can calculate the cost to be ~1.1 us per probe (on my > system). Anyone know what XRay is clocking in at?

I'm not at Google any more to check (and haven't touched the code since 2012), but IIRC XRay overhead while tracing was something like 100 cycles per function (which includes an entry/exit pair). Hard to compare across different machines made years apart of course, but I think that a little over an order of magnitude difference sounds about right.

<comment><USER2> Ok, if the requirements are 100 cycles per function, then you'll (for current kernels) need user<->user. So, AFAIK, an LTTng-like thing or uBPF. And LTTng does have such an order of magnitude difference: slide 25+ of [http://www.efficios.com/pub/endusersummit2012/presentation-e...](http://www.efficios.com/pub/endusersummit2012/presentation- enduser2012.pdf)

I'd also look at what problems need solving, in case they can be solved without function tracing. If 100 cycles per function was needed, it sounds like a high rate of functions, and a lot could be done with just timer-based stack trace sampling.

<comment><USER4> Brendan, did you read this awesome blog post (which mentions your work btw) about Google's tracing framework which _may_ explain the kind of problems they want to solve? [http://danluu.com/perf-tracing/](http://danluu.com/perf- tracing/)

" _Sampling profilers, the most common performance debugging tool, are notoriously bad at debugging problems caused by tail latency because they aggregate events into averages. But tail latency is, by definition, not average._ "

<comment><USER2> I don't quite get it -- to me, that's like saying a hammer is notoriously bad at screwing in screws. And then going ahead and proving it. Um. Good content, but I don't get the premise. I wasn't using sampling profilers to study tail latency in the first place. Who would? (Maybe it's a different usage of "sampling profilers" than I'm familiar with.)

As for tail latency: one way is to dump every function event ; a lower cost way is to summarize latency in-kernel as a histogram. For both you're still tracing every function, and care about overhead down to 100 cycles etc.

But think about what causes the tails in the first place. Lock contention? Trace that. Resource I/O? Trace that. If it costs 1 us to trace disk I/O, it's usually not a problem. I like to time scheduler switch events with stack traces -- a catch all (but a bit more expensive). Of course, these approaches require kernel instrumentation. :)

<comment><USER5> Hi Brendan,

(Full disclosure: I'm Mathieu Desnoyers, part of the LTTng maintainer team.)

I would like to introduce a slightly less extreme point of view when considering "on-the-fly" aggregation of traces vs tracing to buffer followed by post-processing. I see from the current discussion thread that it's very much either one or the other, but I think that combining the two approach helps creating much more powerful tools. On-the-fly aggregation based on trace instrumentation helps pinpointing latency outliers. Tracing to buffers, on the other hand, provides very detailed information about the system behavior that leads to those outliers. By using on-the-fly aggregation as "triggers" to collect tracer in-memory ring-buffers, one can achieve investigation of latency outliers with very small I/O overhead.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I would love to see a tracer that works across processes and machines.

For example, a request hits the web server, the web server tickles an application server, the application server makes a number of database queries, and the results propagate back the way they came.

I'd love to see something that could follow this request through all of the layers and across all of the machines, without the luxury of having the source code for most of the components.

I don't see why this wouldn't be possible, but I certainly see why it wouldn't be EASY!

<comment><USER7> Seeing that people have already mentioned Dapper, I'd add that there are already a few open source implementations of Dapper available. Appdash[1] is a very lightweight tracer that isn't too fancy, but gets the job done. There's also the much bigger, more popular tracer Zipkin[2], which was built by Twitter.

[1] [https://github.com/sourcegraph/appdash](https://github.com/sourcegraph/appdash)

[2] [https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin](https://github.com/openzipkin/zipkin)

<comment><USER6> It looks like both of these require changes to the application. Dapper appears to have the same issue.

My use case is for understanding a closed source application which has a number of separate pieces. Since I don't have the source code, these don't look like viable options.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I am never tired of this shameless plug: our state of the art open source instrumentation engines for Microsoft Windows where you can hook applications without even knowing about the complexities of hooking. The most programmer friendly is [https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2](https://github.com/nektra/Deviare2) while the Microsoft Detours competitor is: [https://github.com/nektra/Deviare- InProc](https://github.com/nektra/Deviare-InProc)

It has an embedded disassembler to smartly hook functions even if they have a jmp in the prologue.

<comment><USER9> Yeah but what if they have a branch target in the prologue?

<comment><USER10> When the stub for calling the original function is created, most hooking engines assumes the prologue contains the standard "mov edi,edi/push ebp/mov ebp,esp" and it is wrong.

If the prologue contains, for e.g., a relative jmp, copying opcodes is not enough. You must convert it to an absolute jump in the generated stub. The same applies to several instructions doing relative/indirect addressing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Url changed from [https://research.google.com/pubs/pub45287.html](https://research.google.com/pubs/pub45287.html), which points to this.

This project was discussed recently at [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11595287](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11595287), but perhaps the current post adds more information.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't see any mention of Intel's errata on cross-modifying code on SMP in the paper. I wonder how the authors handle this ? See "Unsynchronized Cross- Modifying Code Operations Can Cause Unexpected Instruction Execution Results" Ref. [http://www.intel.com.tr/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documen...](http://www.intel.com.tr/content/dam/www/public/us/en/documents/specification- updates/xeon-5400-spec-update.pdf) AX72. This is one of the main challenges to cross-modifying code, and one key reason why LTTng-UST does not use a nop- slide today. One possible approach to this is to SIGSTOP the entire process while doing the code modification, which is unwanted in real-time systems. Another approach would be to integrate with uprobes and do a temporary breakpoint bypass, similarly to what is done in the Linux kernel today for jump labels.

</comment><comment><USER12> More and more I think call tracing is a core process of programming, and am re-architecting the code I write to be easily traceable.

I feel like this approach of using layer-cake architectures where you function call has to plumb through a dozen layers that you didn't write and then trying to make sense of that with data analytics is the wrong approach.

Instead, I have been ditching layer-cake libraries for vertically integrated libraries that do one thing and take full responsibility for it. This requires architecting your application in a different way... it generally means more boilerplate. Libraries do the heavy lifting, but no sexy DSLs that turn your boilerplate into terse method chains and such.

But the ability to simply put a breakpoint anywhere in the system and have the stack be a good representation of which pieces of code are _doing something right now_ vs just hanging around because this-kind-of-thing might need that- kind-of-interface later on.

</comment><comment><USER13> Seems _much_ more restricted than perf or DTrace, or all the other tracing tools. I don't understand the point of this at all. NIH?

I'd love to heard brendangregg's or bcantrill's thoughts on this. (Does HN give users some kind of alert when they are mentioned?).

<comment><USER14> (Tedious disclaimer: my opinion only, not speaking for anybody else. I'm an SRE at Google)

I recommend reading page 2 of the paper, which discusses the specific set of features that XRay offers. How do I get perf or DTrace to give me the six things listed there? I can only think of ways to get a couple of them.

<comment><USER15> > The cost is acceptable when tracing and barely measurable when not tracing.

"Acceptable" is obviously relative, but with DTrace's pid provider, the cost is zero when not tracing, and about the cost of a fastcall per probe point when enabled.

> Instrumentation is automatic and directed towards functions that are > important for understanding the binary's execution time.

I'm not sure what this means, but with DTrace, you enumerate the functions or binary objects (with wildcards and such) that you want to instrument, and the framework takes care of reliably instrumenting them, no matter the state of the process. Is that "automatic" and "directed"? I need to read the rest of the paper more closely.

> Tracing is efficient in both space and time -- only recording what is > required and what matters.

DTrace records exactly what you ask it to. It supports in-situ aggregation for cases where it's not tenable to record a complete log of all interesting events. This is an important part of the design.

> Tracing is configurable with thresholds for storage (how much memory to use) > and accuracy (whether to log everything or only function calls taking at > least some amount of time).

With DTrace, it's pretty easy to filter on function execution time. The buffer size is configurable. There are also multiple buffer policies for different use-cases (e.g., ringbuffer of the last N events leading up to some other event).

> Tracing does not require changes to the operating system nor super-user > privileges.

If they're running Linux, as I imagine they are, DTrace isn't necessarily an option. Several other platforms have just ported it. Using it to record user- level state on your own processes does not require superuser privileges.

> Tracing can be turned on and off dynamically without having to restart the > server.

Absolutely -- that's what the "D" is for.

I'd strongly recommended checking out the DTrace paper: [https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix04/tech/general/fu...](https://www.usenix.org/legacy/event/usenix04/tech/general/full_papers/cantrill/cantrill_html/)

There may be good reasons not to use DTrace for this, but I'm not sure which of those six goals would be the sticking point other than OS availability. (edit: I also haven't read beyond that yet!)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Same idea, different use? [https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110921-00/?p=...](https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110921-00/?p=9583)

</comment><comment><USER17> The fact that it relies on compiler instrumentation makes it less interesting for people outside Google. Given that there are other instrumentation systems that do not require changes to compiler

</comment><comment><USER18> Seems unnecessary to do anything to registers in the call edge glue. We did this (oh, decades ago...) on the 68000, on the Macintosh, and really all we needed was a distilled link map and some return addresses. Maybe there are some complications we didn't have, though.

<comment><USER13> I agree. This technique is as old as programming itself.</comment></comment>


Britney Spear's Guide to Semiconductor Physics (2000) - <AUTHOR> http://britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm <comment><USER2> Ha, I am surprised to see that page on HN.

I remember finding this way back in 2002, after making my own "Quick and Dirty Preview of Solid State Physics". I had to make this site for a seminar class. Basically each student had to present on some general physics topic and then make a webpage for it. [http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~jeffwass/2ndYrSem/slide1.html](http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~jeffwass/2ndYrSem/slide1.html)

Made me realise after coming across the Britney Spears page, the brilliance of basing a potentially dry academic presentation around a pop culture celebrity.

Eg, another pop cultural site/meme around that time was MC Hawking (E=MC). Some guy made gangsta rap tunes using a voice synthesiser similar to Stephen Hawking's, with loose physics references.

Btw - in my seminar class, the best presentation (maybe the only one I remember) was by one dude (now a professional astronomer) who interspersed graphs of cosmic inflation with pictures of an inflatable sheep sex doll. The prof wasn't too pleased. Not sure where that webpage is nowadays...

<comment><USER3> The style of music you're referring to is called Nerd Core. I had a friend who was really into it and he took me to a show about ten years ago. Lyrics ranged from video games to math and physics with clever word play and a lot of "in" jokes targeted at the intended audience. I had fun and could see why my buddy enjoyed it so much.

<comment><USER4> A few sent some of those to me. Here's one that's not so bad that describes many [criminal] hackers' lives from start to rough parts to reform.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9Ctf20nS0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Am9Ctf20nS0)

It was different and enjoyable hearing someone rap with terms nerds would recognize. Now, we just need someone with the talent of a big-name, pop singer doing it. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I feel sad that the CV of this obviously talented physicist shows that he has spent the last 8 years working in search engine optimization for e-commerce websites. I wonder if society would not have benefited more if someone without a physics PhD took his job and he took one involving physics.

<comment><USER6> First we would have to find a research job which paid as well as SEO jobs do.

<comment><USER7> Academic jobs have a lot more going against them than just the pay tho.

<comment><USER8> Like what? From what I'm told by friends who are actually _in_ academia, it's a pretty horrible environment because it's nearly impossible to get tenure any more and the competition is ridiculous, and then there's the whole "publish or perish" thing. The rewards just aren't worth it any more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You mean, Swift on Security wasn't an original idea?

<comment><USER10> It was all borrowed from [http://www.routergod.com](http://www.routergod.com). They had Britney doing OSPF, Christina Aguilera on BGP, Mulder and Scully on IOS basics. All in Character. Whoever writes Securitay is probably an old BSD nerd.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Oh sure, you can find explanations of good conductors and semiconductors all over the web.

But what I have never found is an explanation of poor conductors: _How_ does electric current through a (non-super-) conductor convert energy to heat?

<comment><USER11> These are two great responses, but they seem to be saying opposite things.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877128](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877128) [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10877121)

One says electrons bump into electrons, the other says electrons bump into non-charge-carriers. Someone on Twitter said it was phonons.

I guess I can kind of imagine a pachinko machine, but this is all very unsatisfying. :-)

Edit: From the Wikipedia link: "Charged particles in an electric circuit are accelerated by an electric field but give up some of their kinetic energy each time they collide with an ion"

I mean, electrons are very very lightweight and tend to move quite slowly for typical currents. How much kinetic energy can they give?

<comment><USER12> > "I mean, electrons are very very lightweight and tend to move quite slowly > for typical currents. How much kinetic energy can they give?"

I only have a layman's understanding of this whole process, so I could be missing some important details, but I believe it's necessary to look at the atoms as a whole rather than just the electrons...

Consider, the electrons (from the outermost orbit of the nucleus) are travelling from atom to atom (the ease by which they can come and go determines how conductive the material is).

During this process, when an atom has more electrons than its stable state it is negatively charged, and when it has less electrons than its stable state it is positively charged. The greater the polarisation between the positively- charged atoms and the negatively-charged atoms, the more electrons can move through the material. I believe the potential difference between the poles is voltage, and the volume of electrons flowing at a given time is current, but I could be wrong on that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Then there is Danica McKellar from The Wonder Years, who really did get a degree in mathematics, and has written several books on the subject for young girls.

</comment><comment><USER14> I was wondering "who the heck is the Britney Spear person", but submitter just put the apostrophe in the wrong place.

</comment><comment><USER15> This was one of the more helpful resources I found in 2001/2002 when I was taking semiconductor physics.

<comment><USER16> Same here. Same years even. I remember having a laugh and then realising it actually isn't made up gibberish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For a second I thought I was going to hear auto-tuned voice-overs of Britney songs replaced with Semiconductor Physics lyrics.

I was disappointed. You have room to grow, britneyspears.ac.

</comment><comment><USER18> lol this is an old one. I remember my advisor who was then a postdoc recommending it to me five years ago.

</comment><comment><USER19> *Spears'

<comment><USER20> > *Spears'

No. Spears's</comment></comment>


Why did Microsoft Silverlight fail? What were the problems with it? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Microsoft-Silverlight-fail-What-were-the-problems-with-it/answer/Rocky-Lhotka?share=4c4f041a <comment><USER2> This may be a controversial answer but my opinion, in a nutshell, is because of business decisions that prevented or discouraged it from being supported by platforms beyond Microsoft's.

As a developer I had no interest in tying myself down to a technology that didn't work on all the devices my users loved. There was some effort to port it to Linux, but it was too little, too late. We really needed Microsoft to not only release the whole shebang into the wild, but make it attractive for Mozilla, Apple, eventually Google, and the whole ecosystem to adopt.

Flash was dying and there was a great opportunity give the world a platform to enable more rich web applications than were possible on the standards-based frameworks of the time.

Thankfully WebAssembly does not repeat this mistake.

<comment><USER3> > Thankfully WebAssembly does not repeat this mistake.

Really, I don't think that WebAssembly brings any real benefit to the user. It just lets bad devs, stuff more crap down the users throat faster. Whatever gains are made by a technology will be eaten away by adtech.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I loved developing in Silverlight, it was a dream having VisualStudio to dev in compared to Flash. And it had some neat features like smooth streaming with IIS etc.

But it was terribly timed to the market. Most mobiles didn't support it, people didn't want to install yet another plugin. And it had to compete with a native web which was becoming more multimedia friendly. E.g. how many video players online require flash these days?</comment>


How to convert a Facebook page into a mobile chat app using Ionic and Socket.io? - <AUTHOR> http://jsapp.me/#jspager

<comment><USER2> Great idea. I am interested in more info on your services too for an app I may develop...we should talk.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. We can talk at any time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Great approach.

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice code !

</comment><comment><USER5> Great

</comment><comment><USER6> :)

</comment><comment><USER7> nice !!

</comment><comment><USER8> slick</comment>


Perception, creativity and paint color - <AUTHOR> http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/942-perception-creativity-and-paint-color <comment><USER2> What's wrong with white?</comment>


Juggling Applications on Intel Knights Landing Xeon Phi Chips - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2017/02/14/juggling-applications-intel-knights-landing-xeon-phi-chips/ <comment><USER2> This article isn't really about anything.

Furthermore, "The CG kernel figures out the approximation to the smallest eigenvalue of a large sparse matrix"\-- that is not really correct. CG is a common iterative method that tickles some of the right buttons in terms of sparse matrix structure, non-coalesed memory access, etc. While it can be used to estimate the eigenvalues of a matrix, that really is not why it is included in the NAS benchmark suite.

As with every single MIC paper I have seen, this one completely avoided making any direct comparisons to GPUs. Likely because the Phi co-processors, despite being targeted as a competitor to GPUs, are not really competitive with them yet. I'm not criticizing the paper, which really was about efficient schedulers, but the article for trying to make an article about something it is not.

I like nextplatform but this article was not up to the typical quality standards.

<comment><USER3> You're going to see fewer and fewer comparisons to GPUs, since Intel has finally figured out that users don't want to cram all their data into a PCIe lane. The current generation of KNL is not really a coprocessor -- it's self- hosted, so instead of a crapload of dual-socket Xeon processors with MIC cards hanging off them, you have a crapload of single-socket KNL processors, on which users can run x86 code directly. nVIDIA is still superior, in my eyes, but they're going to need to get nvlink figured out and deployed, because Intel has basically started deploying accelerator cards with no CPU layer needed -- and no recompile, either.</comment></comment>