Tech C.E.O.s Are in Love with Their Principal Doomsayer - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/09/business/yuval-noah-harari-silicon-valley.html <comment><USER2> Occam's Razor tells me it's because they are being painted as capable of subverting seemingly larger-than-life systems and institutions. I imagine it's an ego boost to a lot of these tech CEOs.

<comment><USER3> And it's arrogant to boot. Seriously believing machine learning is going to make everyone worthless/unemployed and end government is even crazy for Malthusian standards. This is the same age old debate over technology has been going on for centuries. There's nearly infinite things to work on out there, even if the latest steam engine makes a particular thing more efficient or require less workers. Those workers re-train and move on to other things. The key to minimizing the issues is to provide the education, tools, health care, etc. to help displaced workers with that.

<comment><USER4> I think his argument has always been more along the lines of machine learning will give the people in charge the knowledge of what it is that the citizen wants to hear and what they will believe, which means that the owner of the data then has power not by way of voting or military might, but by way of manipulation of the masses - which is a sentiment that I find much easier to believe.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They see themselves as members of the ruling class that will outlive the useless class and subvert existing democratic institutions.

Of course they love his message, in it they win.

</comment><comment><USER6> Why is this puzzling to people? Isn't this behavior exactly what we'd want out of intelligent, thoughtful people in high places? The ability to countenance and enjoy interesting and thought-provoking ideas that are contrary to their own immediate interests?

<comment><USER7> > It made him sad, he told me, to see people build things that destroy their > own societies

> "If you make people start thinking far more deeply and seriously about these > issues," he told me, sounding weary, "some of the things they will think > about might not be what you want them to think about."

It's not puzzling, it's troubling. To see these people who are actively destroying society be so fascinated by their own powers of destruction.

<comment><USER6> You think that all tech is doing is destroying society?

<comment><USER8> Ad tech and it's supporting industries? Yes

<comment><USER6> How, exactly? Explain the physics of that to me. How is ad tech destroying the world?

<comment><USER8> Oh you're being a literalist. I can go into Bitcoin for global warming if you want that, but when people say "destroying the world" in the thread they are talking about destroying the set of values and institutions that make up our current culture/society.

To that definition, I think ad tech is helping destroy the world will of it's psychological manipulation of people at a scale that's never been done before

<comment><USER6> > Oh you're being a literalist.

Merely responding to the tone of the comment I was, well, responding to.

> To that definition, I think ad tech is helping destroy the world will of > it's psychological manipulation of people at a scale that's never been done > before

I see very little evidence that ad tech is doing any of that. I think you could make a much better case that social media is doing that. But it's not the ads that are toxic - it's the primary content. The ads are really no worse than they've ever been on television or otherwise.

There's certainly a case to be made that social media, a small corner of the tech universe, is harming certain social institutions and values. But it's a far cry from destroying the world, especially in light of how much tech has given the world that has been good.

<comment><USER8> Social media and ad tech are currently intertwined. Facebook and Twitter are both two large players who are both ad tech and social media based. Google was until recently, and that was after years of failure, which they committed to because social media is such a force multiplier for adtech. Can you name another large social media company who doesn't make money off of ad tech? Snap Chat is the only other major social media company I can think of at the moment, and they also make their revenue off of ads.

As for

>Merely responding to the tone of the comment I was, well, responding to.

You were responding to the well known phrase "destroying the world" as if it was physically tearing the earth apart, when it's been a phrase for destroying the currently accepted social norms since at least the 90s when I first heard it in popular media.

If you want to have a discussion stop being disengenous about your arguments

Edit: I went and reviewed the thread. You asked "You think that all tech is doing is destroying society?". When I said "Yes", you asked for the physics of how it was destroying the world. Please stop moving the goal posts

<comment><USER6> > Social media and ad tech are currently intertwined. Facebook and Twitter are > both two large players who are both ad tech and social media based. Google > was until recently, and that was after years of failure

Social media was never an important part of Google's business.

> Can you name another large social media company who doesn't make money off > of ad tech?

Wrong set containment. Yes, social media functions on ad tech. Bullets function on momentum. So what? Ad tech does a lot of things, social media is just one of many, many things it is used for. You are decrying ad tech as 'destroying the world', by pointing at a sliver of its use cases. You're not upset with ad tech, you're upset with social media.

> You were responding to the well known phrase "destroying the world" as if it > was physically tearing the earth apart, when it's been a phrase for > destroying the currently accepted social norms since at least the 90s when I > first heard it in popular media.

Erm, no. I was using the phrase exactly how you are. My question, as you went back and reviewed, is whether or not the _ONLY_ thing that ad tech is doing is destroying the world? I didn't even object to the silly insinuation that it was in fact, doing so.

> If you want to have a discussion stop being disengenous about your arguments

I'm not being disingenuous, you just need to work on your reading comprehension.

> Edit: I went and reviewed the thread. You asked "You think that all tech is > doing is destroying society?". When I said "Yes", you asked for the physics > of how it was destroying the world. Please stop moving the goal posts

I didn't ask if it was destroying the world. I asked if _all_ it was doing was destroying the world. You still haven't answered the physics question, either. Ad tech is a business model for social media.

If you want to tar 'ad tech' with the sins of social media, then you need to assert that social media _can only exist_ because of ad tech, and that the other things enabled by ad tech (e.g. google search) would be worth giving up in exchange for eliminating social media. Otherwise you're just saying "Bullets rely on momentum and bullets kill people! Therefore momentum is bad!".

<comment><USER8> Dude, your exact post is

>How, exactly? Explain the physics of that to me. How is ad tech destroying the world?

And now your telling me

>I didn't ask if it was destroying the world

Was some critical word here deleted by autocorrect? Because those you explicitly asked how it was destroying the world in the text that is in this thread

<comment><USER6> Read the original post. I pretty clearly articulated what I was asking. You're being disingenuous, now.

<comment><USER8> You asked how it was destroying the world, and then said you didn't ask that. I am actually trying to understand you, but cannot see what you mean when these statements can't both be true

<comment><USER6> I asked if all it was doing was destroying the world. Then, in a follow-up, I asked you to explain the physics of how it was destroying the world. The emphasis being on the word 'how' in that question. I didn't mean the literal physics in the sense of tearing the earth apart - I meant the process by which it was eroding culture, community, values, etc.

I think that there is a decently strong case to be made that social media, especially certain forms of social media, are in fact doing those things. I think there is a case to be made that advertising generally has helped that along, by allowing social media services to be free for users. I don't really see the case that 'ad tech' has had much to do with that, other than by optimizing the ads seen to make the companies marginally more profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I actually think that well before the useless class becomes useless for economic productivity, they will be put to use for another purpose — mass violence.

The elites will simply put guns and bombs in the hands of the unemployable masses and use them to take what they can't win in the market place.

You can already see sustained and successful efforts to radicalize people online and it's only going to get worse.

Asymmetric warfare is always going to work and no matter how many drones and missions you have, enough armed radicals will eventually bring anyone to their knees.

It's been a long time since we've had a global spasm of violence but I think we've been inching closer and closer towards it, year by year since 9/11.

</comment><comment><USER10> It reminds me of The Boondocks. Huey Freeman dreams of inciting white people to riot by shattering their most cherished beliefs, but he discovers that the wealthy, white people of his neighbourhood aren't bothered by his revelations in the slightest.

 _Huey_ : And all I'm saying is, Ronald Reagan was the devil.

 _Rich Man_ : You are such an articulate young man.

 _Huey_ : I'm trying to explain to you that Ronald Reagan was the devil! Ronald Wilson Reagan? Each of his names have six letters? 666? Man, doesn't that offend you?

 _Rich Man_ : I love this kid!

....

 _Huey_ : (to Granddad) These people aren't worried about us. They're not worried about anything. They're rich. No matter what happens, these people will just keep applaudin'.

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't recommend his books highly enough. It's human nature explained in a single book! And although I've read hundreds of other books on various aspects of human nature, Harari's non-judgemental synthesis from a consistent point of view clarified my thinking significantly.

<comment><USER12> Any books in particular you'd recommend over the others?

<comment><USER11> Start with either Sapiens, or 21 Lessons for the 21st century.

<comment><USER13> IMHO, starting with Sapiens is better—as that is the really core expertise of Harari, and it's a masterful distillation of human history into a single book.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I'm not a Silicon Valley CEO, but I like hearing this sort of thing because I don't think my work is going away even if the social impact of the industry is known and controlled.

As a kid, I was in love with software because of the possibilities for it to make the world a better / more interesting place. I grew up and saw a darker side. I still want the tech industry to be an industry that makes the world a better place. I don't think that's out of the question for CEOs either.

<comment><USER15> > _As a kid, I was in love with software because of the possibilities for it > to make the world a better / more interesting place. I grew up and saw a > darker side. I still want the tech industry to be an industry that makes the > world a better place. I don't think that's out of the question for CEOs > either._

Yeah, a lot of folks both at C-level and in the trenches may feel, even if they run an individual company, that they're a bit caught in mutual escalation and wouldn't actually mind some level of imposed disarmament. Ie., it wouldn't be bad if there were in fact some more consideration forced so long as that applied to everyone all at once, but that it's harder to do unilaterally on their own, particularly taking into account VC/investor/customer pressures. Having someone challenging the entire industry intelligently could actually help take things in a direction many wouldn't mind moving anyway.

One example I think where this already happened was sales taxes. Yes there were some people ideologically opposed to all taxes even after the industry matured, or were seeking out some individual advantage, but I also know plenty of people who had no specific problem with taxes per se but just didn't want to be put at an active _disadvantage_ vs competitors. Compared to other tech companies they didn't want them to have zero while they didn't, and compared to local retailers they didn't want any gotchas of getting screwed by hard to parse local composite tax numbers and figuring out where to send the money nationwide and all that with many states/counties have terrible scaling archaic systems. If there was just a database to consult and an orderly system to send to then no problem. So there was a win-win potential there as far as they were concerned and people challenging "nothing" weren't unwelcome, but it was still hard to do alone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> His predictions don't sound that far off from something Ray Kurzweil would predict. They're both predicting a utopia and the beginning of a new form of intelligence. The difference is that Yuval Hariri is a little more explicit about the fact that not everyone might make it to the rapture.

Quick reminder: doesn't matter how exclusive you make heaven. People have a tendency to believe that they'll be one of the lucky ones.

More importantly, they don't really leave a lot of room for avoiding something that feels inevitable to a lot of people. Well, a lot of people in the audience anyway. The people you encounter at lunch would probably find the notion of God-like humans to be kind of crazy.

</comment><comment><USER17> Mr. Harari worries and is anxious, but by the end of the article, his superpower is detachment?

</comment><comment><USER15> An interesting read, and I don't see why he'd be confused. In my experience and personally a lot of intelligent people, particular ambitious startup types, _like_ to be challenged (in an intelligent way). They like "intellectual combat", vigorous debate. They may defend themselves vociferously (they're also the type to have extensively thought about and researched their positions already, so they're not lightly held) but it's _exciting_ to encounter opposed views argued beautifully, where there is strong disagreement but damn if they don't have a point. I think some people confuse people dismissing what they consider mediocre arguments with no interest in any challenge at all. As always implementation matters a lot. I mean, that's why a lot of us are right here on HN right? To gain information from those smarter then we are.

I think his interpretation of UBI is an oversimplification however that does not fully encompass many practical or positive moral considerations in support of it:

> _' This, Mr. Harari told me later, is why Silicon Valley is so excited about > the concept of universal basic income, or stipends paid to people regardless > of whether they work. The message is: "We don't need you. But we are nice, > so we'll take care of you."'_

There are at least a few parts to this. To get the most simple and pragmatic out of the way first, some people are interested in UBI and base level resource/shelter/information access purely (or at least heavily) from a coldly rational efficiency point of view. They see it as a better system all around vs an unorganized hodgepodge of defined bespoke benefits, and simply figure "well if something needs to be kept around let's make it better" and go no farther then that. This also does in fact have at least some real world support as well as theoretical. Simply giving money directly to people in the developing world has yielded promising results in some initial trials I read vs trying to distribute goods. It can be made more resistant to corruption, more decentralized, and many of the efficiencies of a market economy work just as well if the economic input is external.

Practical considerations also encompass an expression of _humility_ : even if someone cared only about the "valuable" humans, we don't actually have any clear idea how that comes about beyond the roughest figures. But we do know that bad nutrition and lack of even basic opportunity can destroy potential for good. I'm _positive_ , just on a pure statistical level, that we have had world changing genius level intellects in the dozens to hundreds that have been born in slums, into starvation and threats and lack of any sort of serious upward potential and have thus been utterly wasted. Enormous amounts of valuable human potential has been actively pissed away for no good end at all, in fact for negative value since that directly correlates to crime/prison. The poor are not some lesser race, but that's how policy has effectively treated them.

Both those lead into and inform a moral angle, which is that I think direct income (and in turn UBI) can also come from a much more fundamental position of _respect for individual humans_ , not merely "but we are nice". This may be easiest to come at by looking at the charity example: if you dig down, a lot of current schemes fundamentally come from a view of poverty being a moral failing. The view is that the poor and desperate are that way because they're stupid, inferior beings, and in turn they must be given the goods they need (decided by their betters) directly because otherwise "of course" they'd fritter the money all away on booze/drugs/junk/[thing giver considers a bad idea].

It turns out though that while sure there are hard cases there are also plenty of smart, decent people who are nonetheless very badly off due to essentially bad luck and an inability to muster the capital to bootstrap. If given a stipend they will not just spend it frivolously, but rather intelligently use it for their needs, save, invest and all the other things anyone else would do. They can be taught some basic financial literacy and offered education/metaeducation as well with basic needs satisfied, just as others would get naturally growing up, and do even better. Offering someone badly off money rather then food/goods of the exact same monetary "value" is in many ways an expression of trust and respect: that they are capable of figuring out their needs more intelligently then the giver is, and the giver is just trying to achieve the goal of supporting another human at some level and not just to indulge in some righteousness

Mr. Harari seems to take the negative spin of "we don't need you", but that itself seems to implicitly take as given "a human's worth is wholly defined by their capacity to work and the need for them." But UBI also makes sense if someone as an ideological stance wishes to make a world where any human has a base level of worth at birth by definition that doesn't need to be justified. Other worth beyond that may then be found in other ways, but it should never be zero. Work has often been a proxy for that and necessary in and of itself, but if that changes down the road then a new value system will have to be created. It doesn't have to just be about "nice".

</comment><comment><USER18> > An Alphabet media relations manager later reached out to Mr. Harari's team > to tell him to tell me that the visit to X was not allowed to be part of > this story.

Did Alphabet have him sign an agreement before presenting?

</comment><comment><USER19> "And it's much worse to be irrelevant than to be exploited."

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm going to be unpleasant and venture a guess.

A lot of Silicon Valley, and its global sphere of influence, loves _consuming_ pseudo-contrarian content because they are themselves incapable of _producing_ the tiniest bit of contrarian thought. Either because it's an intellectually too consuming task or simply because they are too scared to break rank with what is socially acceptable, even in the intimacy of their own minds. It is very hard to find anything subversive outside of anonymous clubs living on the fringe of the internet, a _few_ domain specific publications, and "crank" hot- spots.

The _cheap_ worship of contrarian thinking has taken off when Thiel popularized the idea of "secrets" in _From Zero To One_ as well as with F8 and their analogous notion of "unfair advantage". Of course that is a much older idea, but they are the ones who synthesized it clearly in addition to consciously leverage it aggressively in business contexts.

It's odd, as usual, and an old phenomenon. There is a a bit of mimesis (craving for the the object of high-status Peter Thiel's desire: contrarian insights), a bit of laziness (taking the path of least resistance: consuming content instead of producing original thought), and a bit of messianism and vanity. I am not casting a moral judgment on the latter. The issue is that it comes at no cost: you never deploy efforts to challenge the tenets of your world and you never have to feel uncomfortable contemplating forbidden ideas. So you allow yourself to feel vain for a most obedient opinion.

If I were to draw an "ecology of contrarian ideas", I would say that there are about two types: the ones that will spark outrage and the ones that will spark indifference. The former are more abundant, easier to come up with, and probably more destructive too. The latter consists of all the positions that you can take in public without them having repercussions on your career, network, and status - since no one cares or understand. So, when you hear someone lauded for their "contrarian takes", chances are that they are either high-status, not taking any risks, or off-the-mark.

That's not exclusive to the tech world at all and maybe it will improve.

<comment><USER21> Dr. Pepper ran a TV ad in the 70's where the pitch was essentially "join us, the non-conformists!"

I've often wondered if they were aware of the irony in that.

<comment><USER22> [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVygqjyS4CA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVygqjyS4CA)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Standard human behavior.

</comment><comment><USER24> This guy is a hack

<comment><USER25> Maybe so, but can you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?</comment></comment>


Free games for Playstation Network downtime revealed - <AUTHOR> http://blog.us.playstation.com/2011/05/16/details-for-playstation-network-and-qriocity-customer-appreciation-program-in-north-america/

<comment><AUTHOR> For EU customers, the list has one change: [http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/16/details-of-the- wel...](http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2011/05/16/details-of-the-welcome-back- programme-for-scee-users-2/)</comment>


Why Do Such Ancient People Run America? - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/why-are-these-people-so-freaking-old/607492/ <comment><USER2> Every young person believes that they themselves will increase in wisdom as they age.

...yet they judge older people with disdain simply because of their age.

It's a hypocritical and hubris ridden perspective.

<comment><USER3> Some things simply won't matter as you age. Climate change will have zero impact if you are going to die in a decade, which wouldn't be an unreasonable estimate among the current presidential candidates. If you aren't personally impacted, no matter how wise you may be, you can't have the same level of empathy for the problem.

<comment><USER4> That's implying none of those older people care about the lives of their children and grandchildren which is not the case in my experience

<comment><USER5> Obviously you haven't been hanging around many career politicians or corporate executives.

The problem isn't that older people don't care, it's that _the older people in charge_ don't care.

<comment> blaser-waffle They're not dictators or petty royalty -- they didn't get into that role without having people elect them. They don't care because their electorate doesn't care; old white people in the US vote in large numbers.

<comment><USER6> > They're not dictators or petty royalty

Some of them would like to be and want to be treated as dictators and royalty.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I think this is the key sentence, and everyone seems to be glossing over it:

> Americans 55 and older account for less than one-third of the population, > but they own two-thirds of the nation's wealth—the highest level of wealth > concentration on record.

Running a national political campaign is a more than full time job for a period of several months. The median American worker can't just take a few months off work to run for office.

<comment><USER8> There are millions of Americans below age 55 with means to support themselves for several months running the campaign. Suggesting that younger people do not run for office because they risk starvation and eviction is just absurd.

<comment><USER7> The median net worth of people 45-54 is $124k. For ages 35-44, it's $59k. [0] Keep in mind that includes things like home equity. It gets worse when you look at younger age brackets. Not so absurd now, is it?

\---

[0]: [https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth- and-h...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/whats-your-net-worth-and-how-do- you-compare-to-others-2018-09-24)

<comment><USER9> You wrote that the _median_ American worker can't take time off to campaign. That's correct, they can't.

The point is that lots of people, of all ages, both young and old, who's net worth is significantly _above_ the median, _can_ afford to take time off to campaign.

So, yes, people with a higher net worth are at an advantage when running for president, but this doesn't really explain a bias against younger presidents, since there are plenty of wealthy younger people, in terms of sheer numbers, just not in terms of percentage of the population.

Also, you wrote that people over 55 represent 1/3 of the American population but own 2/3 of the wealth. This can at least partly be explained by the fact that most people's net worth increases with age and not just linearly. Plus older people often inherit some wealth from parents who die, increasing again their net worth.

If the same pattern stays in place for future generations, if they also get wealthier with age, I don't personally see that as a big problem. Do you?

If on the other hand the pattern doesn't continue, and younger people don't get wealthier with age, then, yes, I agree that's a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Because generally, older people have more experience than the young, which translates into knowledge about the things that really matter.

When your life is falling apart or you have to make a life-altering decision, you ask your parents or your grandparents, not some teenager. If have something that absolutely, positively must be done, you give it to a senior, not a green newbie.

That's reality. Ignore it at your peril.

<comment><USER11> Age often (but not always) translates into knowledge, and _sometimes_ translates into wisdom.

Look at those running for president this year. Biden, Sanders, Warren, and Trump are all old. I'm pretty sure that almost everyone will say that at least one of those candidates does not display wisdom. (Which one may vary, but nobody thinks that they all are wise.)

<comment><USER10> I think any of those would do a good-enough job as President.

Wisdom is something different, and arguably no wise person would run for office.

<comment> blaser-waffle To paraphrase Bill Clinton: "the best candidates never run" with the implied [for good reason because it's a shitty way to live]

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The president has his emails printed out to read them. Like the CEO of the fortune 500 that we laughed at back in the late 90s.

<comment><USER13> So does Don Knuth. So does Don Hopkins, the former director of health programs for the Carter Center and spent years leading the effort to eradicate Guinea worm. So devoted to his task, he didn't even give his kids his cell phone number when he traveled to Africa.

I can't speak for the current US President, but there are a lot of people who are perfectly capable of reading email, but for whom the task would distract them from more important uses of their time.

<comment><USER14> Don Knuth is 82 years old.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Because they've had 50 years to network and build wealth, compared to 5 years of the average 20-something?

<comment><USER8> You don't need wealth to run for the office. Bernie Sanders, while certainly wealthier than average American, doesn't have any more liquid wealth than typical 30-something software engineer, and doesn't seem to be spending any of it on his campaign.

What you need to run is people who will vote for you, and that's a real problem for young candidates.

<comment><USER7> Bernie Sanders has a job he's not going to get fired from if he doesn't show up for months at a time because he's on the campaign trail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > But old age runs deep in modern presidential politics.

Does it really though? Not according to Wikipedia, which puts the median age of a president at 55 years and 3 months, and which describes the distribution of ages as conforming to a bell curve: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_Unit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States_by_age)

<comment><USER7> Considering how the median age of the country at large is 38.2, you just proved the opposite of your intended point. [0]

—-

[0]: [https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/median-age- do...](https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2019/06/median-age-does-not- tell-the-whole-story.html)

<comment><USER9> No, there's no doubt in my mind that the median age of a president is greater than the median age of the general population, but that in no way implies that old age "runs deep" among presidents, which I take to mean that it's a common thing.

About half are less than 55 and half are more than 55. Most are somewhere near 55 (since the distribution conforms to a bell curve). 55, in my opinion, is not "old age", but your mileage may vary.

<comment><USER16> Extra context: a 55-year-old who gets elected for president twice would finish at 63, about 3-4 years short of retirement age (66-67 depending on birth year).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I don't have any real problem with older people, even 75+, being in positions of power and responsibility, especially in elected government. However, there is decent evidence that the degree to which late silent generation and early baby boomers have dominated positions of power starting in the late 1980s is a historical quirk. I didn't use to think so, but there was great article a month back on HN ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22204966)) that compiled some good data on how power seemed to consistently land on individuals in the late silent generation or early baby boom.

I don't think there is any conspiracy, although there may be some degree of self reinforcing bias toward people born around 1947 in society now. There are other precedents though- in the small scale, the US Military Academy (West Point) class of 1915 was known as the "class the stars fell on" because so many members became generals (due to WWII), and post WWII those that were able to serve in the military retained some advantages over those that weren't, either by age or other status.

</comment><comment><USER18> Because young people are silly most of the time. They are clueless of their ignorance and how fast and radically their own beliefs will change over time.

Every 10 years, you look at your own self and you realize how little you knew, how silly and naive you were, and it keeps going.

Wisdom is when that cycle stops, either because you settled on a set of beliefs or because you understand that it's all fleeting anyway, either way, nobody should lead before reaching that stage imo.

</comment><comment><USER19> If you are 18-25, there is a HORRIBLE principal-agent problem here. Total misalignment of interests.

Owing to the fact that, on average, young people will have more years of exposure to a set of policies, they should have voting power to shape them. One person, one vote leads to this misalignment.

Democracy with an inter-generational focus should allocate votes based on duration of policy exposure. I.e. max(1, (Avg US Life Expectancy - age)) votes.

<comment><USER11> I admit the principle-agent problem. But let's give those with the least experience and knowledge the most voting power? That seems like a very unwise solution.

<comment><USER19> Then raise the voting age to 25 or something. It's just an illustration.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I was skeptical of the article until the very end:

> It's unlikely that young people will notch many policy wins in a government > whose median age is over 70.

Older people have different concerns, expenses, spend their time differently, and have different problems than younger people. To ignore that younger people are under-represented in the federal government is just as bad as ignoring the under-representation of other groups.

</comment><comment><USER21> Dementia incidence doubles every five years from 65 to 90. Having candidates that will be older than 65 at inauguration just isn't worth the risk.

</comment><comment><USER22> Fascinating topic, but in terms of real meat the explanation offered for the phenomenon described is distressingly shallow. Common sense tells us as much and more about why this is happening.

</comment><comment><USER23> Go to DC and tell me that old people run America. What will surprise you is how young everyone is on Capitol Hill.

</comment><comment><USER24> Not often age, buy it's the experience and circle that comes with it

</comment><comment><USER25> I think across the board, Boomers generally haven't handled the passing of the reins well. This will be a big problem when there are emergency appointments to leadership who haven't been groomed. At a time when they should be retiring making room for GenXers and Millennials taking up leadership positions, they're still working. It could be partly due to improved healthcare over the generations. It could also be the work hard, "greed is good" mentality still driving them forward. Either way, there is a disruption to the traditional course of making way for the following generations by taking on roles of mentoring rather than leading, ie emeritus positions.

</comment><comment><USER26> Coincidence... Nothing to see here folks.

</comment><comment><USER27> you cant ask that question without looking at the amount of money they're spending.

the answer is : Money.

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm not convinced about the underlying premise that age is an important factor here. If people think Biden or Trump or McConnell or Pelosi are effective leaders, why should it matter what age they are? I suspect that only the most politically engaged people even consider the question.

<comment><USER29> Because when you are 70 years or older your cognitive abilities are not what they used to be.

Would you want a 70 year old person to be trained as a fighter pilot? Would you want him or her as a fireman, trying to carry people out of a fire?

A lot of great people are sharp and intelligent far into their old age, and a lot more people are not. But their brain doesnt learn as fast, doesnt adapt as well.

I want the person sitting on the nuclear button, who decides our climate policy, that decides about health care, about using our military, to be in their prime.

There are reasons for mandatory limits in certain professions, having one for becoming president is a good idea.

<comment><USER3> A lot of decision making is made by staffers. They rely on staffers to due the heavy lifting, and then the elected public official goes through the motion of reading statements written by staffers, introducing legislation, etc. Parliamentarians are quite important to Congress' day-to-day functioning. Also, as a public official, your party's platform already outlines what sides of issues you are on.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I don't know. Why does the Atlantic hire the vapidly callow to write for them?

</comment><comment><USER31> So many things factually wrong in this article....

> In January 2021, the three people most likely to be the next > president—Biden, Sanders, and the incumbent, Donald Trump—would each be the > oldest president to ever give an inaugural address in American history.

And until recently, we also had a serious candidate under the age of 40.

> If you extrapolate this trend, it might sound like America's next > breakthrough presidential candidate will be some 35-year-old YouTube > influencer who just recently learned about the filibuster.

I thought the entire point of this article was that if you extrapolate the trend, the candidates would all be in their 90's? Also, some of what goes on in the private industry is transferrable to politics, and many of the names mentioned had substantial careers (some will argue effective careers, some won't) before they entered politics.

> In the past 40 years, the average age of Nobel Prize laureates has increased > in almost every discipline,

My understanding is that the average age for starting a tenure track position has also increased as a result of increased specialization and competition. Wouldn't an increase in age for major career awards follow a similar trajectory?

> Power concentrated in the hands of old people who are also rich will > predictably lead to policies that benefit the old and the rich, at the > expense of the less privileged.

How does this follow? Does the author mean to imply that government officials are incapable of separating their own station from that of their constituents? Why would these old rich people favor the "rich" (usually defined as those with a high income) instead of the "old"?

> The federal government already guarantees universal health insurance and a > universal basic income to seniors, even as Republicans cry socialism when > young people request versions of the same policies

Maybe this is a useful fiction, but at least on paper we give these benefits to seniors because they paid into social security and medicare during their working years. Young people have not. Whether or not each one is wise, these are two clearly different things. The author just shows his own lack of understanding.

> At the end of the Cold War, a common criticism of the U.S.S.R. was that the > country was crumbling in part because the Soviet politburo was too old and > out of touch to keep up with a changing world.

Also, because it was a communist country that centrally planned everything, so couldn't reallocate resources efficiently.

> Without encouraging voters or employers to be ageist...

Even though this is pretty much entirely what this article is doing

</comment><comment><USER32> Personally I believe there should be an age cap for important positions. 70 years old and you are out. Alzheimer's is becoming an issue with elected officials and will only worsen. We have age minimums. Why not a maximum?

<comment><USER33> There are 40yrs old people who are not fit to run their own lives and there are 80+yrs old people who are razor sharp.

How do you propose we filter out people unfit for office?

<comment><USER34> Here's an idea - you let people decide - we could call it 'voting'.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: A List of HN-esque TV Programs - <AUTHOR>

I'd like to get a list all in one place. I'll edit this post with your suggestions as they come, then migrate to a google doc. I'll add my ideas shortly. <comment><AUTHOR> The complete lack of response I got from fellow hackers today was surprising, if not disheartening. Does timing play a much larger role on HN than I realized?

<comment><USER3> Have you watched TV lately? There's no such thing as an HN-esque TV program.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Dragon's Den (Canada & UK) & SharkTank for the pitch/investment side of business, though not exclusively tech focused.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The Big Idea (Donny Deutsch - CNBC) How'd you get so Rich? (Joan Rivers - <USER2> Land)

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://www.makezine.tv/></comment>


Ryanair vs. EasyJet price comparison - <AUTHOR> http://www.airhint.com/articles/ryanair-vs-easyjet <comment><USER2> It would be awesome to have this kind of analysis made dynamically, by some service. It's always a major hassle figuring out which airline site is more convenient to buy from. Saas idea maybe? :)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Indeed, some of these factors are already part of airhint algorithm. Side-by- side dynamic airline comparison would be a great extra feature.</comment>


Genomic analyses for age at menarche identify 389 GWAS hits - <AUTHOR> http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/09/23/076794 <comment><USER2> Wow, these p-values are tiny! Fig 1 has heaps of SNPs at -log10 > 50, that's crazy. Could be an effect of their relatively strange decision to use a simple model for GWAS - they used a straightforward linear regression with a more stringent p-value cutoff (P<5*10^-8), which I guess explains these ridiculously tiny p-values. I wonder how the results would have looked like with a more complex model (like an mixed linear model as implemented in GAPIT) or with a different strategy to adjust for multiple testing (all of those methods in PLINK)

</comment><comment><USER3> I read the abstract but couldn't understand the conclusion other than that the results for male and female were opposite. Can anyone explain?

</comment><comment><USER4> Gwern, was there anything unusually interesting about age of menarche for GWAS?

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh yes. Age of menarche is boring on its own, but the BMI and cancer correlations are interesting from an r/k selection perspective, and the tissue enrichment is especially interesting - what's with that massive overrepresentation of nervous system...? Well, it makes more sense when you read this in conjunction with "Physical and neurobehavioral determinants of reproductive onset and success" [https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2016-day.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/genetics/correlation/2016-day.pdf) , Day et al 2016a and "Shared genetic aetiology of puberty timing between sexes and with health-related outcomes" [http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9842](http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms9842) , Day et al 2015. These variants, directly or indirectly, seem to cause a whole slew of risky behavioral changes.</comment></comment>


Vast solar power plant at the Moroccan desert - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161129-the-colossal-african-solar-farm-that-could-power-europe <comment><USER2> 160MW peak. 42MW average over a year. That ranks about 25th in the world for solar power installations. Typical nuke or coal plant is about 1000MW per unit peak, and average is slightly less. Three Gorges Dam, 22,000MW peak. This thing is not going to "power Europe".

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

<comment><USER3> Hyperbole aside, the Sahara does have such humongous solar potential that supplying Europe is a possibility... But I never hear anyone mention the mightily expensive necessary upgrades to the electricity grid - and more specifically the extremely long HVDC power transmission lines to the consumer regions...

<comment><USER4> There is no need, Europe is getting on average the same amount of daylight hours as the Sahara.

Temperature isn't a factor, even overcast isn't that much of a factor, especially for residential installations.

Thermal is more affected by overcast due to the light being more diffused but still doable, southern Europe will be good for thermal solar, all of Europe will be good for PV, and central and northern Europe is very good for hydro and wind (anything on the golf stream is excellent for wind)

There is very little need to import electricity from across the med, the loss in transmission alone not to mention the instability in the region makes this entire deal pretty silly.

If nothing else there is no reason to replace one type of mono-economy that keeps oppressive regimes in power and forces the west to balance the region on the head of a pin more often than not through coercion with another one.

<comment><USER5> There are a few things that aren't quite right here.. Primarily that Europe and the Sahara have equal sunlight availability.

The Moroccan plant is in Ouarzazate, which has an average annual irradiance of ~2,200 kWh/sq. meter.[1] Southern Spain is the sunniest part of Europe and the best locations there are closer to 1,800 kWh/sq. meter.[2] That's over 20% more solar energy in Morocco.

The other bit that's not really accurate is about Transmission losses. It's about 400 miles from Ouarzazate to Gilbatrar. Modern HVDC lines have losses of ~3.5% over 1,000km, so call it 3% for this project.[3] That's extremely reasonable for an energy project.

[1] - [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/SolarGIS...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/SolarGIS- Solar-map-Morocco-en.png)

[2] - [http://www.mappery.com/maps/Solar-Radiation-Map-of- Spain.png](http://www.mappery.com/maps/Solar-Radiation-Map-of-Spain.png)

[3] - [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- voltage_direct_current#Ad...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- voltage_direct_current#Advantages_of_HVDC_over_AC_transmission)

<comment><USER4> You are off by about a factor of 1000 unless you are on mercury and even there I'm not sure it gets to 2 megawatt per square meter.

20% isn't really an issue especially for thermal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Of course, on the day I visit the sky is covered in clouds. "No electricity will be produced today," says Rachid Bayed at the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy (Masen), which is responsible for implementing the flagship project._

This is a big problem with concentrating thermal solar power: it requires intense direct normal irradiance to work and performance falls off catastrophically when skies aren't clear. A conventional non-concentrating PV module can deliver about 10% of its rated output if it is illuminated at 10% of standard test conditions, e.g. sun through light cloud cover. Performance falls off almost linearly with decreasing illumination until very low levels. Concentrating solar thermal performance falls off a cliff with insufficient and/or diffused light.

You can see this effect in the EIA's data about US solar farms here: [https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cf...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.cfm?t=epmt_6_07_b)

In the summer months, PV and concentrating solar thermal plants have comparable capacity factors. In the winter months, PV plant capacity factor falls off by less than half while thermal plant performance tumbles by ~80% (June 2016: 33.6% and 33.5%, January 2016: 17.9% and 6.8%).

A decade or so ago, solar thermal was justifiable because PV was so much more expensive. Even after PV matched and then beat solar thermal costs for instantaneous generation, thermal still had a value proposition for after- sunset operation via thermal storage (like this Moroccan plant has with molten salts). But as costs of PV and alternate forms of storage continue to fall, while solar thermal costs barely budge, I expect that solar thermal electricity is going to become obsolete even for the very sunniest regions.

</comment><comment><USER7> Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) is a pretty interesting, but I chuckled at this phrasing, _" The hot oil is used to produce high-pressure water vapour that drives a turbine-powered generator."_ Seriously? Why not just call them steam turbines?

Because I was going to college in LA and my parents lived in Las Vegas, I drove that route a lot and got to watch them build Solar One[1], and toured it after it was operational.

These days with better thermoelectric generation capability[2] you can extract even more of the energy out of the heat difference than just steam turbines (which have a Carnot efficiency of about 50%) mostly because they can work down to lower differentials in heat.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Moja...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojave_Desert#Solar_One_and_Solar_Two)

[2] [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531526/an-industrial- size...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/531526/an-industrial-size- generator-that-runs-on-waste-heat-using-no-fuel/)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> "Hundreds of curved mirrors, each as big as a bus, are ranked in rows covering 1,400,000 sq m (15m sq ft) of desert, an area the size of 200 football fields."

"The plant keeps generating energy after sunset, when electricity demands peak. Some of the day's energy is stored in reservoirs of superhot molten salts made of sodium and potassium nitrates, which keeps production going for up to three hours. In the next phase of the plant, production will continue for up to eight hours after sunset."

<comment><USER8> They could modulate the use of the molten salts according to the weather forecast or electricity grid prices/demand. I'm assuming Morocco doesn't have grid-level dynamic pricing but if they're forecasting clouds the day after sunlight they could maybe hang on to the hot salts over night and push the heat to the steam-generator the next day when demand spikes again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Tangentially related side note, as a plasma physicist, every time I see advances like this, I worry a little bit for my future career[0]. It turns out there's a fusion reactor at the center of this solar system that's been dumping energy on us for billions of years. Of course, eventually all energy sources on earth were solar originally.

Not that doing fusion won't be interesting from a scientific point of view, but if we develop solar and batteries further, we could really require no other energy revolution than this.

[0] tongue-in-cheek, there's always stuff to research.

<comment><USER10> We would still need fusion for interstellar travel.

<comment><USER11> Or even for ships and planes. Whats more likely in the long term, that cargo ships will be powered by batteries or that they could be powered by a compact fusion reactor?

<comment><USER12> With the right batteries, why not? You can pack them in 40ft containers and swap them at the port to charge them on land when energy is cheapest. That way it could probably be even possible to retrofit old container ships.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It looks pretty impressive in satellite imagery [1]. Does anyone know what the black and green rectangles at the southern end are? Heat storage?

Also, there is what appears to be more land immediately to the north that has been leveled - presumably for more arrays.

[1] [https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Centrale+solaire+Noor+1+...](https://firstname.lastname@example.com,-6.8681505,2811m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x6df7ea01fb587594!8m2!3d31.0092101!4d-6.8623352)

<comment><USER14> It looks like they're water storage ponds. Cut from the Wiki[1] article "Water consumption for the Ouarzazate Noor complex is estimated at 2.5 to 3 million m3 per year for one wet- cooling project (Noor I) and two dry – cooling projects (Noor II and III) and due to the need to regularly clean the reflectors."

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The following NREL page provides information on Ouarzazate (Phase I), a concentrating solar power (CSP) project, with data organized by background, participants, and power plant configuration:

[http://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/project_detail.cfm/projec...](http://www.nrel.gov/csp/solarpaces/project_detail.cfm/projectID=270)

      Solar Resource:	2,635 kWh/m2/yr
      Break Ground:	        May 10, 2013
      Start Production:	December 1, 2015
      Cost (approx):	1,042 € million
      PPA/Tariff Date:	November 19, 2012
      PPA/Tariff Rate:	1.62 Dirhams per kWh
      PPA/Tariff Period:	25 years
      PPA/Tariff Information: US$ cents 18.9 per kWh
      Project Type:	        Commercial

</comment><comment><USER16> nice to see a solar thermal plant that doesn't set fire to birds. Unfortunately they are considering the eye of sauron design for the third phase of the project. Maybe there are no birds there.

While it may only average 42 MW year round, 35 days of the year it produces nothing and it probably takes some time in the morning for things to heat up before any energy can be produced, so say 12 hours of darkness a day it produces nothing and the three hours of heat storage and three hours of morning start up time cancel out. Then it averages 92 MW when it is actually generating.

I wonder what types of adjustments have to be made to the design of the plant to endure being thermally cycled every day.</comment>


Materialize alternatives? - <AUTHOR> I am looking for a list of alternative light weight libraries to materialize css which contain css and JavaScript to help with common UI and UX jobs such as custom form objects (sliders, checkboxes, etc...) and modals. <comment><USER2> Material Design Lite

Although note there's a good discussion on Quora[1] regarding having no JS for the CSS framework.

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-material-design-CSS- framewo...](https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-material-design-CSS-framework- with-no-JavaScript)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://tutorialzine.com/2016/03/the-15-best-material- design...](https://tutorialzine.com/2016/03/the-15-best-material-design- frameworks-and-libraries)

</comment><comment><USER4> Some Material Design css alternatives to Materializecss: \- [https://fezvrasta.github.io/bootstrap-material- design/](https://fezvrasta.github.io/bootstrap-material-design/) \- [https://getmdl.io/](https://getmdl.io/) \- [https://www.muicss.com/](https://www.muicss.com/) \- [http://www.material- ui.com/](http://www.material-ui.com/)</comment>


Show HN: FriendSavvy – Be a better friend, reminders - <AUTHOR> https://www.friendsavvy.com <comment><AUTHOR> Author here - as an adult I've found it increasingly more difficult to stay connected with friends I don't see frequently. I wanted to build a tool which reminds me when its been too long since I've contacted a particular friend.

The past couple months I've gotten some good feedback from friends/family using FriendSavvy so I decided to share it on HN.

[https://www.friendsavvy.com](https://www.friendsavvy.com)

I'd be curious to hear your feedback too.

Thanks, Chris</comment>


Using JSON Web Tokens to Authenticate JavaScript Front-Ends on Rails - <AUTHOR> http://zacstewart.com/2015/05/14/using-json-web-tokens-to-authenticate-javascript-front-ends-on-rails.html

<comment><USER2> JSON web tokens are indeed pretty dope.

The main vulnerability I worry about when I see it being used is in the implementation by the end user or library, in that you must validate the algorithm used to sign the key [0]; but, many libraries assume that users will read the spec before plopping in a new auth scheme into their app, and don't do this by default.

Secondly, it's important to remember that JWTs can be decoded anywhere, but verified as signed by you.

I've been using JWT-go [1] in my most recent app, and it's been great.

[0]: [https://auth0.com/blog/2015/03/31/critical- vulnerabilities-i...](https://auth0.com/blog/2015/03/31/critical- vulnerabilities-in-json-web-token-libraries/)

[1]: [https://github.com/dgrijalva/jwt-go](https://github.com/dgrijalva/jwt- go)

<comment><USER3> JWT actually has two options, you can encrypt the payload, or you can sign it with public/private key. I believe that the path the article uses actually uses the encryption option.

I was going to point this out in my own post, but wanted to finish reading the article first. Of course if you go the signed route, you accept the payload is fully readable, and you must confirm the signature for every request.

<comment><USER4> Are you implying that the "encrypted route" doesn't need to be verified on every request?

<comment><USER3> You have to decrypt it to read it... you need the key to do that. If you are referring to revoking tokens before expiration, that's a separate issue, and yes it would require a check... but this would be true of any session based system.

<comment><USER5> I think the point is regardless of whether you need to decrypt it to read it or not, you should be verifying the content against a signature. Otherwise the content could be forged.

<comment><USER3> Seeing a recently posted vulnerability article, I now see your point... which is funny, in practice, I found JWT so easy to implement a naive solution, I only implemented the pieces I needed as my own authority... One time was JWE (encrypted) with a private key, and the other was asymetricly encrypted, not HS256 ... so there wasn't a means to bypass the intended method used by the system.

Yes, if you are going to implement/support a number of mixed methods for generating tokens (or a use a client library that does), you absolutely need to confirm that the expected header/signature matches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> emin-gun-sirer This sounds like a use case for Macaroons [1]. A primer and a public implementation can be found here [2]. There's also a JavaScript implementation [3].

[1] [http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41892.html](http://research.google.com/pubs/pub41892.html)

[2] [http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/05/16/macaroons-are- bette...](http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/05/16/macaroons-are-better-than- cookies/)

[3] [https://github.com/nitram509/macaroons.js/tree/master](https://github.com/nitram509/macaroons.js/tree/master)

</comment><comment><USER6> I like this approach. Question about the "workflow automation service" you're making. Are you separating each step of the workflow into distinct API's and separate rails apps? If that's the case, how do you manage users across them all? I'm thinking of how this could scale.

<comment><USER7> Hi! Author here. I wasn't expecting this post to get so much readership when I mentioned my workflow automation service. I don't think it's ready to get Hacker Newsed at this point, but insofar as technical detail is concerned, it's a single Rails app right now. It's a service for integrating different web services without having to write all the OAuth and synchronization code.

When it's demo-able I'll definitely post a Show HN. In the meantime, if you'd like more details I'd love talk one-on-one. Feel free to contact me via my email (at the bottom of OP), or @zacstewart anywhere else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did you consider Hawk? [https://github.com/hueniverse/hawk](https://github.com/hueniverse/hawk)

<comment><USER7> Can't say I did. This is the first I've ever heard of it. Thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Genuine question: If you are using HTTP over SSL + an auth token as your API transport, do you need JSON web tokens? What do they provide on top of that?

<comment><USER10> JWTs give you a really lightweight auth token. You don't need to store any state on the server, you don't need to do any encryption/decryption to verify them, you just verify them by hashing. Plus there are all sorts of extensions to the JWT spec for things like timeouts, etc. Plus, the payload is usable by the client, so for example, you're authentication might consist of just sending the user a signed version of the user id or other information that they can use with the API

<comment><USER11> The lack of server-side auth state only worsens security, and negligible from a performance perspective for common webapps when you're often touching the database anyway (it seems to me you'd really need all your static caches to classify requests and inspect tokens to make this worthwhile).

<comment><USER10> Performance may be negligible but how is it unsafe?

<comment><USER11> You can't revoke a token if you have no server-side state to purge. Relying on timeouts is a fairly crude way of going about it.

<comment><USER10> You can't revoke a singular token but you can change your secret key to revoke every token.

<comment><USER7> Or, instead of putting the user id in the claims hash, you could have a separate lookup field on the user model explicitly for finding users by JWT. That way, you can have a "log me out everywhere" button on your site. Not quite as smooth as revoking a single authentication, but better than nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What is the threat model here?

<comment><USER7> As one commenter noted, employing XSS to steal the token out of localStorage is a risk.

<comment><USER12> Thats a risk against using any session based authentication token, right?</comment></comment></comment>


How Bitcoin shows us that 2014 will be the year of payments  - <AUTHOR> http://istommydrunk.svbtle.com/2014-the-year-of-payments

<comment><USER2> prediction 6: the development of protocols like mastercoin (timestamped tokens for property ownership) and namecoin (secure decentralized DNS replacement) will add lots of value to the underlying bitcoin protocol.

<comment><AUTHOR> I like that a lot - it kind of bothers when people talk about what Bitcoin IS, like a recent TechCrunch article explaining how the writer lost faith in it as a money transfer protocol. Just because BTC is really valuable right now, doesn't mean it will always act the way it acts now. It's just getting started.</comment></comment>


Vero – An ad-free social network - <AUTHOR> https://www.vero.co/ <comment><USER2> Might be worth a quick look at this before you sign up: [https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/03/how-vero-went-from- mos...](https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2018/03/how-vero-went-from-most-loved- to-most-hated-social-media-app-in-a-matter-of-days/)

<comment> shaki-dora Money quote: "a construction company run by his family withheld pay from thousands of immigrant workers, and then abandoned them without food, water or electricity in labour camps."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Will they allow me to pay for my account?

The devil in the details on all of these systems is that "free" doesn't actually exist. It's part of what killed Twitter (which is now a shell of its former self), and part of why Ello lost a lot of support (when Ello took VC funding).

That said, given how toxic the landscape has become, I'm not really inclined to use _any_ social network unless they can reasonable resolve the abuse problems.

<comment><USER4> Yeah, you have to pay for your account. However, the first million users are free forever. Due to the demand they've extended the free user period for an indeterminate amount of time.

<comment><USER5> I hear echoes of WhatsApp's "first year is free, then $1/year, but we'll keep extending free as long as we can"

<comment><USER6> ...and then a buyout by Facebook?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been on it for a few days. A surprising amount (that is, around 5) of friends have joined so far, and most of them are not part of the tech crowd. Couldn't do much testing though, no matter what I tried doing it failed with a server error

</comment><comment><USER8> I downloaded and looked around the app a few days ago, it seems really consumer media focused. Where Twitter allows you to post just text and later added photos, links and videos Vero seems to be taking the opposite and forces you to pick a category for the post.

It also encourages sharing movies and music but that's not what I go to social networks for.

</comment><comment><USER9> >Like many social apps including WhatsApp, Vero requires an active phone number to create an account.

>(generally speaking, phone numbers are harder to falsify than email addresses).

Well, that's unfortunate. Generally speaking, spam to your mobile phone is harder to filter and block than spam to your email, too. I never give my phone number to websites, my phone is for people.

<comment><USER10> Check out [https://sudoapp.com](https://sudoapp.com)

<comment><USER9> Interesting, shame it's iOS only. I'd pay $30USD per year for their free offering if it had a linux client.

edit: I see they have a web client coming soon. I'll keep it bookmarked, thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://www.kuketz-blog.de/vero-die-naechste-social- network-...](https://www.kuketz-blog.de/vero-die-naechste-social-network-sau- wird-durchs-dorf-getrieben/)

<comment><USER12> rough english summary: the vero privacy policy explicitly permits passing your data with 3rd parties. Also: analysis of what data the app transmits to other sites is shown and somewhat revealing

worth reading the translated version: [https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev...](https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.kuketz- blog.de%2Fvero-die-naechste-social-network-sau-wird-durchs-dorf- getrieben%2F&edit-text=)

<comment><USER13> To be fair, isn't that required though to operate a website? If you want to use a CDN, you will need to 'pass user data' to a 3rd party. You'll need to state that down in your terms and conditions.

The worst they can be accused of is not being explicit enough about what 3rd parties and why they need to do that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here is a thread about why Vero is bad: [https://twitter.com/_heyheytyler/status/968301107536523265](https://twitter.com/_heyheytyler/status/968301107536523265)

<comment><USER15> The irony of someone on Twitter complaining about signing over the rights to your content...

<comment><USER16> I agree, that particular tweet was not very bright. The same "worldwide, non- exclusive, royalty-free license" to "use, display and reproduce" your content is also in the Twitter terms and conditions, and is standard for any website that allows user generated content. (Including the one you're reading right now.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If I switch, it will be to an open, decentralized network.

<comment><USER18> [https://mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social)

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the link. I found some interesting criticism here:

[https://hackernoon.com/mastodon-is-dead-in-the- water-888c10e...](https://hackernoon.com/mastodon-is-dead-in-the- water-888c10e8abb1)

<comment><USER19> Still going strong almost a year later.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> And the site is down. >>> Due to the large wave of new users joining over the past several days, we have encountered technical issues which have left many experiencing service interruptions. We thank you for your patience and encouragement as we work to make Vero available to everyone.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was going to suggest ello ([https://ello.co](https://ello.co)), but it looks like they've pivoted from a general social network to something for artists (which probably makes sense for them).

For those who feel like they might fit with Ello, maybe check it out

<comment><USER22> In fairness, that was the original plan.

What's sad is that a modest number of features would make Ello a great text/writing platform. Those have not been forthcoming, and there's little sign they ever will be.

I've dialled back activity accordingly.

<comment><USER21> I get the feeling making something like that a reality would entail getting lots of poets/writers to get on Ello, then basically campaigning to get "awareness" of text based art.

Ello is pretty beautifully designed and the stuff I saw some great art on there, so I'm happy that they're doing what they do best.

<comment><USER22> Ell had (and still has) a bunch of writers. We've just never had the basics and most have wandered.

Ksenia Anske, a Russian-American fiction author, was on of the last holdouts. Trenton Lee Tiemeyer des great poetry.

Good luck actually finding their work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I hope their Network effect plan (to get paying users) works - because a non- spying social network (even if it's not end to end encrypted) is really needed.

Are there even any other ways for them to make money? Any viable business models other than ads or subscriptions?

<comment><USER24> Donations to a foundation, similar to Signal's $50 million donation they received [1]. Run the service more like Wikipedia or OpenStreetMap (as a utility), and less like Facebook or Instagram. Requires corporate structuring to prevent acquisition.

[1] [https://www.wired.com/story/signal-foundation-whatsapp- brian...](https://www.wired.com/story/signal-foundation-whatsapp-brian-acton/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm rather more inclined to use Akasha to supplant my current social network tools:

[https://akasha.world/](https://akasha.world/)

The only challenge, really, is convincing my friends to use it.

<comment><USER26> "powered by Ethereum" -well I aint joining a site whose scalability relies on Ethereum who couldnt even handle few million cryptokitties.

<comment><USER25> Haven't had any problems with it personally, but I only have about 100 people in my network.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm over anything that claims to be "social". I think time has shown that these networks are almost unsocial and encourage people to post only the best, most boastworthy things. The portal into their perfect life when we all know that no one's life is like that.

Real socialness isn't like that.

Me being the product of the existing Social Networks isn't what's failed as far as I'm concerned.

</comment><comment><USER28> True social? Fuck that shit.</comment>


The Day I Lost a Sh*t-ton of Money, Part II (trading/stock Market) - <AUTHOR> http://ptotrading.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-day-i-lost-sht-ton-of-money-part-ii.html

<comment><USER2> Is it just me, or does this seem to be glorified gambling? It doesn't seem like these people are contributing anything to the world - Or am I not understanding how it works.

<comment><USER3> Without going into the specifics... when traders "buy low" and "sell high", they reduce volatility in the marketplace. Prices become more consistent. Lets look at one particular place: the Bid / Ask spread.

When you go to much less traded stuff like Bonds, or in the more extreme case... Real Estate... its harder to put an accurate price on these items.

A house might have an asking price of $300,000 but the only buyer might be offering only $250,000. If both sides refuse to budge, then the market stops moving.

A trader can move the market very simply in this case. He can buy the house at $265,000, and then sell it at $285,000. Everyone benefits from their perspective.

The Seller got to sell the house at higher than $250,000. The Buyer got to buy the house lower than $300,000. The trader gets away with $20,000 made.

This is in essence, the trader's low-risk function and his job is to move markets.

Now lets say a 2nd trader enters the market, and instead is willing to get away with only $10,000. He buys the house at $270,000, and sells it to the buyer at $280,000. Because this 2nd trader has better offers, he will get the cash.

So this leads to point #2: the more traders compete with each other, the tighter Bid/Ask spreads get, and the "fairer" the market price becomes.

When we get to the tens of thousands of traders who deal with high-volume stocks, these stocks end up having bid/ask spreads smaller than pennies. In fact, bid/ask spreads are so low during the trading day, that most people forget about them during trading!

But at the end of the day, stocks are like any other good. There is a bidding price, and there is an asking price. And the bid is _always_ lower than the asking price. They only become closer because traders are willing to become market movers and take up the risk themselves.

<comment><USER4> The problem with your depiction is that it is self contradictory: you claim buyers and sellers are unwilling to budge from their 250K/300K position, then have a trader magically buy the house at 265K and sell at 285K. Somehow, the seller sold for 35K less and the buyer for 35K more. And instead of the actual actors of the market splitting the spread in some manner amongs themselves, a service provider gets a disproportionate slice of profit.

When people express their dislike for day trader or HFT, it's exactly for this: people with additional market knowledge extract money from market without creating value.

I've yet to read a coherent description of how the manufacturing and service world is better thanks to new trading techniques. It always seems to come down to having different people pocketing money instead of banks or more traditional wall street firms.

<comment><USER3> >>> The problem with your depiction is that it is self contradictory: you claim buyers and sellers are unwilling to budge from their 250K/300K position, then have a trader magically buy the house at 265K and sell at 285K. Somehow, the seller sold for 35K less and the buyer for 35K more. And instead of the actual actors of the market splitting the spread in some manner amongs themselves, a service provider gets a disproportionate slice of profit.

Yeah, but "actual actors of the market" don't talk with each other. You inherently rely on traders to set the price whenever you buy / sell stocks.

If you don't trust traders, then don't go into the Stock Market. However, I trust the market and take advantage of the liquidity that it offers me. Its so much easier to buy / sell stocks because of the mass of traders granting liquidity at every corner.

Traders capitalize upon emotion and correct the market. When people are panic- selling, traders look for market bottom and try to buy (sending the price back up). When people are stampeding towards the "buy" button, traders look for a market high and sell (or short sell), correcting the price back down.

Traders inherently watch the crowds, find problems with crowds, and then move the market into the more theoretically sane position.

Note that the "issue" in this blog post occurs when the trader ignores _news_ , and misinterprets a massive drop in price as a false-panic. It wasn't a "false" panic, people were liquidating their position because news came in that devalued the stock. The trader somehow ignored the news and was caught buying stock on a downward spiral. Furthermore, when the crowds were telling him that it was a true market movement, he lost his discipline (with the company's money... but kept discipline with his personal bank account) and failed to liquidate his position.

>>>I've yet to read a coherent description of how the manufacturing and service world is better thanks to new trading techniques. It always seems to come down to having different people pocketing money instead of banks or more traditional wall street firms.

The entire commodity / futures market. The manufacturing benefits off of traders setting the price of oil / wheat / orange juice 6-months or 12-months into the future.

If you want to buy a contract that allows you to buy 1000 barrels of oil in March 2015 (say, you know your factory is going to be open by then), you can go to the futures market.

Or if you're an oil producer and you want to sell 1000 barrels of oil in March 2015 (maybe... you don't have the oil yet. But you _expect_ to have oil by then).

But consumers don't know what the price should be, they'll throw down a call action on the oil. The Oil producer doesn't know the price either, so maybe he'd put down a put action on the oil.

But call actions and put actions don't line up. Someone has to step up to the risk that the producer doesn't sell oil (aka: his refinery blows up and can't make the oil by then), or that the consumer doesn't buy the oil (aka: the factory opening is delayed so you cancel the order). Traders calculate the risk, move the market and satisfies both parties.

Heck, the futures market is the only place where you can buy contracts like that. But without traders taking on the risk for everyone, futures market would be a lot less busy and much less useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You are a muppet. Stop trading before you lose everything. Seriously.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nah. I've made made multiples in net profits against this loss and I'm net positive 80% of the time. It's still my personal best year despite the loss. It's a nice living. I think I'll stick around.

<comment><USER5> What is your sharpe ratio?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't have a number for my personal account trading but I suspect it would be pretty solid... my equity curve is basically a 45 degree slope from bottom left to upper right with no sharp dips.

My sharpe ratio at my firm (calculated automatically in our database) was well over 3 until that loss. I don't remember it exactly but it was such a crazy number to believe (relative to other sharpe ratios) that I stopped thinking it was a risk metric that mattered for my style of trading.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The author did something super-unethical/illegal. He sold in his personal account before selling in his firm account.

In effect, he transferred $48.5k from his employer's account to his personal account.

</comment><comment><USER7> Where/how do you even "learn" this trading skill. I mean, how did you learn doing this ?

Like most geeks I suck at negotiation. And trading seems to me a very fast- paced very high-stakes game of negotiation where you don't even get to talk to the other guy. How do you get better at that ?

I have to admit that I'm skeptical that it's possible at all to do this. In the longer term I mean. Nobody gives the other side of the argument though : there would be no banks, nor a wall street, if it really didn't work at all.

</comment><comment><USER8> awwww yiiissssss</comment>


Kickstart, Young entrepreneurs can get up to 2.6 million in grants - <AUTHOR> http://www.startupafrica.com/2008/06/kickstart-young-entrepreneurs-can-get-up-to-26-million-in-grants/

<comment><USER2> Please note that this is 2.6M Rand, which is a little over ~300K USD.</comment>


Ask YC: Do you agree that TechCrunch is getting too heavy to load? - <AUTHOR>

TC pages loads for ever.
Now with the top link on HN being a TC link I got reminded again that offlate TC is loaded with tons of images and display ads which are all too heavy.
PS: Only benefit of being in India with poor bandwidths at home.
Is Arrington ignoring some basics in the rush for money. <comment><USER2> use an rss feed.

</comment><comment><USER3> use adblock</comment>


Show HN: Datamo – upload data, create graphs, share - <AUTHOR> https://datamo.io <comment><AUTHOR> Creator here. We're trying to simplify and speed up the process of creating graphs, whilst also providing a place to store data (public or private) in the cloud. Our user datasets are modelled on GitHub/GitLab repos, so you can add descriptions and update them over time.

This is still quite new and any feedback would be fantastic. If you have any questions just ask. :)

edit: Here's an example dataset that I've created: [https://datamo.io/james/premier- league-16-17-arsenal](https://datamo.io/james/premier-league-16-17-arsenal)</comment>


The inside story of Aaron Swartz's campaign to liberate court filings - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/02/the-inside-story-of-aaron-swartzs-campaign-to-liberate-court-filings/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arstechnica%2Findex+%28Ars+Technica+-+All+content%29 <comment><USER2> It is hard to tel if the Court's refusal to open up PACER is due to fear of oversight or bureaucratic greed.

<comment><USER3> It's because Congress hasn't appropriated any other funds to pay for it. Does your DMV give you a free driver's license every time you visit the office? If so, great, but that's because your state funded it (I've never lived in a state that did so).

Now, can you argue that the documents from PACER _should_ be available to all citizens without cost on their part? Sure, but that's not what has happened up to this point, so until then _someone_ has to pay for PACER.

TL;DR: Show them the money. You'll get what you want.</comment></comment>


Fine Line Seen in U.S. Spying on Companies - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/business/us-snooping-on-companies-cited-by-china.html <comment><USER2> "The N.S.A. says it observes American law around the globe, but admits that local laws are no obstacle to its operations."

As an non American this annoys me immensely. US law basically states that non citizens have no right to privacy nor fair trials whatsoever (A foreiginer is not a person as defined in the constitution, this was the justification for why those in Guantanamo did not get a fair trial). So N.S.A basically admits that it's basically treating everyone else as fair game.

What can we, those not from the US, do to fight this? Naturally we cannot affect this by voting so how can we get Americans to change things? Add "Only for non US use" to any OpenSource projects we release?

But on a more serious note. Would you think it would be totally ok if other countries take similar stance towards US companies and persons? Perhaps most importantly for Americans all of this can potentially weaken the US negotiation position in copyright enforcement, and for a country that depends extremely heavily on IP it could be disastrous.

<comment><USER3> As a non-American you are fundamentally unimportant to America, and are fair game for whatever they see fit. If they want your communications, your wealth, your life, they will have it. Wiretaps, asset freezes, drone-strikes.

The only thing that non-Americans can try to do is not engage with American businesses, but this doesn't really work either, as from the jingoistic perspective taken by US leadership and media this would be the "unfree world" "ganging up" because "they hate our freedom", and would only lead to yet more of the same, deeper isolation, and the vicious cycle continues.

It's very much worth noting that this is _not_ a uniquely American phenomenon. The Chinese are at it, the Brits are at it in league with the Americans and the rest of their gang, and you can be sure anyone else with a capability _is using it_.

The same pattern applies elsewhere, and any external effort to apply pressure is propagandised into an attack, justifying the further reduction of liberties and increase of surveillance activities.

So what to do? The only thing I can perceive is the amputation of the power wielded by our senile and demented states by simply rendering them irrelevant through citizen-led governance. This is already happening, slowly, and the collapse of less entrenched governments which is ongoing all over the planet is reflective of exactly what happens when the populace just stop believing in the elite's power, and instead their own. The wheel turns, and gathers momentum.

<comment><USER4> Curious: what are some examples of citizen-led governance beginning to render states irrelevant? Likewise, where are you seeing a collapse of less entrenched governments all over the planet?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wonder if there's an analog to "parallel construction" that uses intelligence contractors and competitive intelligence firms to move NSA data to the private sector.

<comment><USER6> It is not hard to imagine a company like Microsoft wanting something in exchange for all the zero day exploits they report to the NSA in advance.

<comment><USER7> Microsoft reports these zero days to every company with a MAPP subscription.

<comment><USER8> "NSA gets early access to zero-day data from Microsoft"

[http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early- acces...](http://arstechnica.com/security/2013/06/nsa-gets-early-access-to- zero-day-data-from-microsoft-others/)

<comment><USER7> Yes, this is called MAPP. Every large security company gets them, as well.

[http://technet.microsoft.com/en- US/security/dn467918](http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/security/dn467918)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You can see how NSA is affecting our jobs, as in they reduce exports due to 'add ons'.

That is so patriotic of them. /s

<comment><USER10> And I fail to see how that damage can ever be undone. This sort of trust is lost only once.

<comment><USER11> Time fixes everything. We have a short term memory. But what I feel the problem here is that there is no government will to stop what is being done. Which means that such acts will keep repeating. They are being sold as securing national interests which is a bit vague term in itself.

<comment><USER12> This is a political-level problem, not an NSA-level one.

They're spies. Of course they're going to want to spy on everything.

What we're missing is adult supervision that knows enough that some barriers should not be crossed. Congress (the Senate especially) is responsible for this mess. They created it, and they're allowing it to continue.)

<comment><USER13> good point Daniel B.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Body Suit Gives You Real-Life 'Spidey Sense' - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/body-suit-spidey-sense-130222.htm <comment><USER2> _He his colleagues also want to test SpiderSense on visually impaired people and add more sensors for future trials._

This sounds like it would be a major breakthrough for the visually impaired community. Can anyone here speak on this subject? I'm curious to know if it's truly as amazing as I think it is.

</comment><comment><USER3> Better pictures, use cases (e.g. slippers for the elderly) and paper here: <http://www.evl.uic.edu/files/pdf/SpiderSenseCameraReady.pdf>

</comment><comment><USER4> This is one of those inventions that immediately inspires lust. I want one. Even better, with electroactive polymers or similar can easily see it being incorporated into an unobtrusive undergarment... Or an ostentatious super- suit, for that matter.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can definitely see some military/security-related applications for this suit; for better or worse... Anyway this is an exciting invention ! But the downside of the suit is that it does not filter surroundings based on a aggression/negative intent. Now I don't know how we could easily detect that an individual wants us harm : maybe faster heart rate, he/she is the only one following us and is either walking/running fast to catch up or tails us at a defined pace. Actually is an individual's walking pattern unique? If yes that could also distinguish everyone around you. Anyway that is the most exciting article I have read today. Time to get some work done now:D

</comment><comment><USER6> In related news for the visually impaired: [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/health/fda-approves- techno...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/health/fda-approves-technology- to-give-limited-vision-to-blind-people.html?_r=0) Putting the two together would be incredible.

</comment><comment><USER7> This would solve a real problem in New York City... pedestrians so wrapped up in their smartphones that they walk right into traffic signs, other people and even into moving traffic!

</comment><comment><USER8> Did they plug the ears/control for hearing of the test subjects too?

By hearing alone I can sense almost any human or sufficiently strong electrical presence, especially indoors.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems as though this would only work if you were not moving. Is there a way to determine the relative position of people even if you were moving?

<comment><USER10> Is there a difference between you approaching someone, and someone approaching you?

<comment><USER2> I don't know if OP meant this but you approaching someone means that you are walking or otherwise moving your own body, which creates special challenges.

Things like your own arms waving around your body as you move would need to be accounted for and not detected as foreign objects.

<comment><USER11> > Things like your own arms waving around your body as you move would need to > be accounted for and not detected as foreign objects.

I don't think you need to account for it; your brain will quickly correlate your movements with suit's reaction and filter them out on subconscious level. Brains are very good at that (and that's the reason this suit works well in the first place).

<comment><USER12> yes, exactly, that why the people who tested it, weren't confused by own arms, and were able to achieve a accuracy of 95%. That's amazing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If it worked effectively there would be a military use as well.

</comment><comment><USER12> yeah, its totally going to be a great boon for visually impaired community, specially when these sensors can be made a bit smaller, and one problem is worked out, that is, in a crowd, it may go crazy, so this a lot of field tests away. 7 sensors only, is a great achievement. Also, they would have to work out how to make them waterproof, increase the range to avoid potholes on the road, and vibration setting adjustment.

<comment><USER2> Sounds like everything Googles automatic cars are working on. I bet a lot of that technology can be used for a system like this.</comment></comment>