Welcome to the neighbourhood, have you read the terms of service? - <AUTHOR> http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/smart-cities-privacy-data-personal-information-sidewalk-1.4488145 <comment><USER2> It seems almost a given that whenever the term "smart" is applied to anything, it's something that tries to monitor, monetise, or otherwise resist your attempts at controlling it --- instead, it attempts to control _you_.

There's enough dystopian science fiction out there that the only thing I think when I hear "smart" is "No thanks."

<comment><USER3> Regarding "smart devices" and IoT, honestly, I don't qualify it as _dystopian_. To me, it's just _pathetic_.

A "smart", unnecessarily Internet-connected kettle or lightbulb or juicer isn't going to usher the second coming of fascism to the Western world. Even data breaches connected to those devices aren't going to have any meaningful impact on an average person's life. But it's sad, because it's wasteful. It's ugly. It's _bad engineering_. And all of this is motivated by greed and sociopathy of people putting it on the market. With each everyday item that gets attached to my butt, I lose faith in people a little more.

<comment><USER4> yup, I just want a thermostat that I can remotely access -directly- and _not_ through someone else's server. Just keep track of my IP addr myself, and yes if the ISP swaps it out for another I'll have to update it when I get there again... blah, blah, blah, yes' it'd be fine with me.

Yet I cannot fine one. Every single 'smart' thermostat has some corporate service I have to negotiate through for access, and of course if that is down, well, I'm outta luck. and, they're surely accumulating all of my data.

Anybody know of one?

<comment><USER5> The problem is there isn't really much of a market for something like that. Sure, you can have detailed documentation on such a product that explains how it's functioning, why it might drop out when your ip changes, etc., but who is going to understand that? People like you and me, yes, but we're a pretty small market.

In order for there to be a reasonable audience for a product, you have to target the least knowledgeable person - or at least someone pretty far south of the median. Those people aren't going to understand what's happening, and they're going to get upset each time their ip resets and they can't connect to their thermostat anymore. They're going to take the frustration to the thermostat company, they're not going to understand what the service rep tells them, and they're going to return the product, leave a bad review, and buy a nest.

No one wants to be in the position of making and selling such a product. That's why you pretty much need to make your own with an esp8266. And that's why so many of these IoT devices end up being far too bloated.

<comment><USER6> > The problem is there isn't really much of a market for something like that. > Sure, you can have detailed documentation on such a product that explains > how it's functioning, why it might drop out when your ip changes, etc., but > who is going to understand that? People like you and me, yes, but we're a > pretty small market.

I understand why this is not available as a standalone product. The window is probably too small to warrant it. I don't understand why no company appears to offer it as an option to a product that otherwise "just works."

Sure, it would require additional investment on the part of the manufacturer to include an "expert-mode" toggle that lets the user make their own decisions, but a market exists for people who want that. Money is being left on the table.

<comment><USER4> >> Money is being left on the table.

It sure is -- I'd buy that immediately.

The nice part about it is, if their "cloud" services actually added value, I'd be happy to sign up for that too.

I just want a direct access and a fall-back if their cloud goes offline (and I read about that happening in the reviews of every single one).

And sure, we're a subset of the market, but I'd expect a sufficiently large subset to make it worthwhile.

If it was a really good unit with high-quality sensors, WiFi connectors and other components, I'd pay more than for a Nest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> NYCLU and Columbia University have a 2016 video (starts at 2:50) about the corporate origins and privacy policy of Google's LinkNYC surveillance kiosks in Manhattan: [https://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/13081...](https://livestream.com/internetsociety/hopeconf/videos/130816888)

Village Voice covered the topic, [https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/07/06/google-is- transformi...](https://www.villagevoice.com/2016/07/06/google-is-transforming- nycs-payphones-into-a-personalized-propaganda-engine/)

 _This freedom to opt out entirely is also the last argument that spokespeople for LinkNYC and the city itself fall back upon when challenged with privacy concerns: If you don't like it, you're welcome not to use it. It's a disheartening place to land, especially when discussing infrastructure that's supposed to be serving people who aren't served otherwise. To Moglen, it's simply an unacceptable conclusion. "That's what they want us to believe, that we have a choice between isolation and monitored connecting," he says. "Those are not adequate choices in a 21st-century world: We are designing the net to track you — if you don't like it, don't use it. The human race is shifting to a fully surveilled and monitored superorganism — if you don't like that, stop being human. That's a poor outcome. The United States is a society that was based around the idea that human beings can have liberty. So give us liberty! And don't tell us that otherwise we can have the death of the net._

</comment><comment><USER8> You can have a smart city without assigning a unique identifier to each individual between collections of data (ie by relying on aggregate data instead), or using the equivalent of a session identifier.

For instance, a trashcan filling up can correlate to the number of people who use public transport, but you don't have to say person X took the bus then used the trash can.

<comment><USER9> But you can correlate the timeseries of crosswalk events that leave from one city block, follow a regular pattern, then a bus boarding, then a bus departure, then a regular trash-can event.

Do a thing regularly, or have enough "anonymized" sensors with sufficient resolution, and one can mine a lot from apparently very little.

<comment><USER10> Even if the system doesn't do this directly, it's easy for a contractor with the data to do as much if the data is highly accurate.

I hope that some mitigations are being put in place by limiting data accuracy to relatively wide windows (and the wideness of those windows will need to vary depending on how busy a thing is).

<comment><USER11> This is the kind of thing that the field of "differential privacy" excels at and should be used for!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> When I read the title I thought the piece was on neighborhoods controlled by NIMBY associations.

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder what Apple would do if you leased some rooftop space in the mall across the street from the entrance to their new HQ and aimed cameras at the entrance, recording every license plate going in and out? Then buy the CA DMV records, which you can do for marketing purposes, and use that to build an employee list to be sold to recruiters.

<comment><USER14> How would you correlate an Apple employee's job title with a recruiter's requirements using just a license plate number?

<comment><USER15> Year, make, and model of the car would be a good proxy. If not for job title, then for propensity to spend on luxury items.

<comment><USER13> Once you have license numbers, you can get names. Once you have names, you can look at LinkedIn, Facebook, and CiteSeeer to see what they're into.

You can also gather intelligence on what Apple is working on. More AI people? More voice recognition people? More chip designers? More phone sales people?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Kind of hoping Charles Stross finds some time to comment on this. I know he's written a blog post on what happens to cities as microprocessors get tiny and cheap, but I can't find it right now. (Doesn't help that his blog seems to be taking about 15 seconds to load each page.)

<comment><USER17> His latest book, Dark State, has quite a bit of scary speculation on this as well. There's a depiction of a SWAT raid in it that's a fun read until you realize it's only a few years off from potential reality.

<comment><USER18> Looks like you meant Dark State: [https://amzn.com/B072TZC99F](https://amzn.com/B072TZC99F)

<comment><USER17> Ack, yes! Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> a bit like "Oath of Fealty" where everything is watched with it implied "not all the time". Where you have a hint of privacy but none really at all with those who hold the keys. The real threat isn't the promises made today, its what the next guy in charge does with it.

in the US there have been concerns already raised over surveillance from license plate scanners to body cameras. The idea they won't have identifiable data flies in the face of the language used to protect law enforcement scanning license plates and its not far behind before body camera recordings are the same.

</comment><comment><USER20> > Generally speaking, the idea is that all of this data — and the newfound > insights its analysis could yield — will help cities run more efficiently > and innovate at a faster pace than they do today.

Is there a source for that claim?

Or, do these newfound insights merely help Alphabet provided more specialized services to communities (a net _gain_ , I guess), and provide a substantially larger operating budget for lobbying?

</comment><comment><USER21> If you read a headline that the national government of a large asian economy was deploying a million cameras you would go to statist surveillence. If you read a more nuanced headline that in a large asian economy, a million privately owned cameras have been deployed, as locals chose to arm up against bad behaviour, perceived threats or nosiness, you might feel different.

I am told the latter is actually as common as the former, in the aforesaid large asian economy. The state cameras are on poles and buildings, and are at similar densities to the UK in that regard (within order of magnitude) Whereas the cheap, hackable (crackably hackable, risably simply crackably hackable) IoT IP enabled cameras are being bought and sold for $50 or less, and installed freehand by concerned locals who wonder why their pet cat keeps disappearing.

It is now routine for police to ask citizens for dashcam and other static camera footage when investigating crime. The locals with cameras are often very happy to comply.

Is this boil the frog slowly?

</comment><comment><USER22> When it comes to "Smart Cities" in the US at least, Chicago is leading the pack:

[http://arrayofthings.github.io/](http://arrayofthings.github.io/)

<comment><USER23> Chicago keeps trying to be super-technology-world, but it doesn't always work.

More than a decade ago, Google promised to bring free wi-fi to the entire city. The idea was to put an AP on every light pole. Lots of press. Lots of TV interviews. No internet.

It never occurred to Google that when the light on a light pole goes off, the power to the entire pole is turned off. And not just that pole, but every other pole it's connected to. Big G was counting on powering the AP's off of the light circuit, which is actually turned off miles away. Simple, reliable, century-old "dumb" technology.

But Chicago keeps plugging along. There are victories, too. But the failures are more fun.

<comment><USER22> Great example of failing, but this one isn't. I was worried tbh when I saw the detector go up in my neighborhood (the pole detectors used to only be gunshot mics in high crime neighborhoods, which mine is not!). I did some inquiring and realized it is a university project to make the city better via anonymous data. The idea is absolutely fantastic. What they ultimately do with said data is how we see if this experiment fails or not. So far, it seems to be pretty useful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> When I saw the title and saw it was cbc.ca I thought the article would be about the maddening state of city by-laws. That was personally a more pressing issue for me when I lived in Canada than potential issues around smart city privacy.

</comment><comment><USER25> The public should provide a fair exchange here.

Allow Sidewalk Labs to build any infrastructure they like irrespective of laws.

Once done, hire whitehats/blackhats, and if they are able to access any information, shutdown the project.

<comment><USER26> I don't see how that is a fair exchange.

There's every chance that Sidewalk Labs would get to build infrastructure that would otherwise be illegal, and collects data that people don't want collected, just because nobody outside Sidewalk Labs managed to get access to the data.

Even people _inside_ Sidewalk Labs shouldn't have the data. The data shouldn't be collected in the first place.

<comment><USER25> If they can build a stable, private, secure system which can increase the quality of life, then I am all for it.

The data seems to be needed to be able to adapt to the ever changing conditions.

Two big issues they can help alleviate, homelessness and addiction.

<comment><USER27> Ok I'll bite. How can collecting this data, in any way, help alleviate homelessness or addiction?

<comment><USER25> If you don't try to enact these projects how are you going to know the value they derive. The data collection is a necessary part of optimizing the solution.

Edit: The Sidewalks Lab project is building a city. Toronto can move any people who need assistance into the society. It almost sounds like a thought experiment, but with the resources they have access to, they would be better able to assist than the city.

For example, Toronto doesn't have enough safe injection sites. The data would help to highlight that if it is collected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> All our efforts on industrialization are targeted to cover our primary needs, one by one. The main objective on industrialized farms and productive chains from rural areas have been to mantain us supplied to keep working on centrilized and populated urban centers. Now, all needs will be covered by automated tasks, we cannot became artificial agents on a flesh and bone network, fulfilling standard protocols and alienating our minds Why not just turn off the machines in farms, keep the city empty and retake our natural environment. Let's Make the robots deal with all required tech tasks, teach them an Anti AI (for avoiding skynet) and then we could have again a real life living in the country side</comment>


Open Letter to Shareholders from Michael Dell - <AUTHOR> http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/uscorp1/secure/shareholder-letter?c=us&l=en&s=corp&cs=uscorp1 <comment><USER2> "After one of the most thorough processes in history..."

What? Is there a qualifier missing there? Or maybe it really was among the most thorough processes in history by any measure. How is process thoroughness even measured?</comment>


Michigan has banned the banning of plastic bags - <AUTHOR> https://www.fastcoexist.com/3066924/michigan-has-banned-plastic-bag-bans <comment><USER2> Are there any grocery stores that give you discounts for bringing your own bag, as opposed to banning certain types of bags? AFAIK Aldi's doesn't even offer bags of any kind. Is there actually an argument against just putting the crates directly in the store?

Benefits: 1\. Faster to stock items. 2\. Cheaper to stock items (because there is no traditional stocking). 3\. More environmental efficiency, given the time and energy required to stock items (though its debatable if this is actually more efficient than a few stockers -- humans use pretty little energy).

Downsides: 1\. It doesn't look pretty. 2\. It may be harder to find things? 3\. Difficult to do with many brands (traditional supermarkets probably don't receive enough of a given brand and category of specific item to just dump an entire crate).

<comment><USER3> Target and Whole Foods both give you a credit for each bag you bring. I didn't realize Target did this until googling; it's 5 cents at Target and 10 at Whole Foods.

Incidentally, neither store gives you the discount for not using a bag at all -- just if you substitute a reusable bag for the disposable one they otherwise give you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> When I worked at a supermarket we were trained to use as few bags as possible because each bag costs us 1-5 cents and our margin is tight. This was before any legislation or regulation to do anything about bags.

<comment><USER5> I've seen a lot more people bringing in their own bags since the 5p charge was brought in, in the UK.

I try to myself, but often don't remember often.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Pre-emption at work. Remind me of that time when these legislators supposedly believed in local self-government?

<comment><USER7> Bags are pervasive. Limiting them city by city, county by county could make trouble for a lot of people. Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or mail-order.

<comment><USER8> > Heck, having local sales tax is already an enormous pain for online sales or > mail-order.

Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business.

Second of all, that "enormous pain" can be outsourced to a service that knows the various tax regimes. You have to get it right, but you don't need to know the details any more than you need to know how to design the computer your e-commerce platform is running on.

<comment><USER9> >Oh boo hoo. First of all, your customers need infrastructure and if they choose to fund it from taxes that they pay that's their business.

It's their business how they tax entities that are actually located within their borders. It's not their business to tax entities that are located outside those borders, even in other states, and merely ship into the locality. If the locality doesn't like that, they're free to ban shipping and the USPS, but I don't think the Federal government will take too kindly to that.

<comment><USER8> > It's their business how they tax entities that are actually located within > their borders. It's not their business to tax entities that are located > outside those borders, even in other states, and merely ship into the > locality.

They are taxing entities located within their borders: the customers pay the tax, not the company. Sure, in theory you could require all the purchasers to keep track of all their purchases and remit the tax at tax time. Right.

It's hardly unreasonable that the person handling the cash and who already has to keep track of all the transactions should aggregate and manage these taxes.

I'm surprised that a CC provider hasn't offered to take care of all this for small providers.

<comment><USER9> It's completely unreasonable to expect a small business located in one locality in one state to figure out the applicable sales taxes in 10,000 different tax jurisdictions across the nation, and then send out checks to every single different jurisdiction that his customers hail from.

Placing this burden on the merchant absolutely DOES amount to a "tax" on the merchant. Time isn't free. And using the legal system against merchants who refuse or who make mistakes with taxes supposedly due to some little town that the merchant has never ever visited amounts to a violation of interstate commerce.

If the locality can't get their citizens to remit their own taxes properly, that's their own problem and they need to more strongly enforce their laws on their own citizens.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> So how much plastic pollution do bags actually cause?

<comment><USER11> depends on who u ask

some will say that a drop of oil can polute acres of sea

or a drop of semen can fertilize a country.

but those don't actually happen in real life.

so the answer to your question can be little to very polluting (a bag requires more than a drop of oil), depend on what you believe.

<comment><USER10> I was hoping for a more quantifiable answer like X tons of plastic compared to total plastic pollution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, such small/local government.</comment>


Scottish Independence and the Imperfection of the Nation-State - <AUTHOR> http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/origins-and-implications-scottish-referendum

<comment><USER2> Insufficient time to post a length comment, but:

While the Stratfor analyst has a point, I think they're failing to see the wood for the trees: speaking as a resident in Scotland, the force driving the pro-independence side in the referendum is more to do with the total loss of credibility of the UK-wide political establishment based in Westminster than an actual upswing in nationalism.

None of the parties in Westminster are seen as having Scotland's interests at heart: the course they are setting for the UK is increasingly diverging from the course Scottish voters seem to prefer (as expressed in, for example, the 2011 Scottish election), and the existing system has no mechanism for correcting this divergence. So from this perspective, the "yes" campaign is as much a vote of no confidence in the current British constitutional settlement as it is a statement of nationalist identity.

<comment><USER3> As a few English have posted in various newspaper article comments, Westminster doesn't seem to have anyone's interests at heart except the bankers and the super rich.</comment></comment>


Apple Hammered with Class Action #5 for Slowing iPhone Battery Issue - <AUTHOR> http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2017/12/apple-hammered-with-class-action-5-for-slowing-iphone-battery-issue.html <comment><USER2>
      Defendant's unlawful failure to inform consumers that updating
      their iPhone 6, 6S, SE or 7 (the "Legacy Devices") to iOS 10.2.1
      (and/or later to iOS 11.2) would dramatically and artificially
      reduce the performance of the Legacy Devices.

      Apple also failed to inform consumers that phone performance
      would be restored – by as much as 70 percent – if affected
      individuals simply replaced the phone's lithium-ion battery.
      Replacing the battery at an Apple store costs less than $100.
      The cost of the new iPhone X is over $1,000.

I would think that for that kind of money there would be some disclosure.</comment>


After El Paso, tech leaders say platforms must stop amplifying hate speech - <AUTHOR> https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/8/13/20804193/build-tech-we-trust-el-paso-gilroy-mass-shootings-tech-leaders-platforms-amplifying-hate-speech <comment><USER2> We really setup our own trap and fell in it with social media.

I can see only 2 options: accept the consequences and live in social media- created chaos and inquisition, or control them Chinese-style.</comment>


Ask HN: Where can I learn how to build a recommender system? - <AUTHOR> I'm trying to build a recommender system for news articles. I've read about basic collaborative systems but I'm looking for something more.
Do you know of any good intros to building recommender systems?
Thanks HN! <comment><USER2> Why don't you try and read some research papers on this topic and then decide how you would want to build your algorithm? Some links -

[http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.co...](http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/research.google.com/en//pubs/archive/35599.pdf)

[http://insight- centre.org/sites/default/files/publications/1...](http://insight- centre.org/sites/default/files/publications/14.095_analysis-recommender- algorithms_15.pdf)

[http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~taoli/pub/p125-li- sigir2011.pdf](http://users.cis.fiu.edu/~taoli/pub/p125-li-sigir2011.pdf)

[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.0665v2.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.0665v2.pdf)

[http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=129...](http://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1297&context=etd_projects)

[https://www.ntnu.no/wiki/download/attachments/71733389/WEBIS...](https://www.ntnu.no/wiki/download/attachments/71733389/WEBIST_2014_Ozgobek%20Final.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1400066559000&api=v2)

A chapter dedicated to the subject -

[http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/ch9.pdf](http://infolab.stanford.edu/~ullman/mmds/ch9.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Here are a few more applied papers/articles:

\+ Hulu: [http://tech.hulu.com/blog/2011/09/19/recommendation- system/](http://tech.hulu.com/blog/2011/09/19/recommendation-system/)

\+ Amazon: [http://www.cs.umd.edu/~samir/498/Amazon- Recommendations.pdf](http://www.cs.umd.edu/~samir/498/Amazon- Recommendations.pdf)

\+ Spotify: [http://www.slideshare.net/erikbern/collaborative- filtering-a...](http://www.slideshare.net/erikbern/collaborative-filtering-at- spotify-16182818)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The book Programming Collective Intelligence has a step-by-step example of how to build a recommendation system. Highly recommended.

<comment><USER5> I can second this. It gives plenty of working examples and lays enough groundwork so you can dig deeper where you need to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Heres an outstanding answer on Stack Overflow on how to implement Collaborative Filtering in MySQL

edit: link included

[http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2440826/collaborative- fil...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2440826/collaborative-filtering-in- mysql)

<comment><USER7> Where? :o It seems like you forget the url

<comment><USER6> added!

<comment><USER7> Thanks for sharing!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the Spark-focused EdX courses[0] has a very good module on Alternating Least Squares, that will help you understand how to build recommender systems in a scalable way with Spark.

[0] [https://www.edx.org/course/big-data-analysis-spark-uc- berkel...](https://www.edx.org/course/big-data-analysis-spark-uc-berkeleyx- cs110x)

<comment><AUTHOR> This looks good but it's starting late 2016. Are there any old courses you could recommend?

<comment><USER8> [1] [http://bugra.github.io/work/notes/2014-04-19/alternating- lea...](http://bugra.github.io/work/notes/2014-04-19/alternating-least- squares-method-for-collaborative-filtering/)

This looks like a good introduction to ALS, albeit Python/Pandas centric.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence- Bu...](http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Collective-Intelligence-Building- Applications/dp/0596529325/) has a chapter on recommendation systems

</comment><comment><USER10> I found myself in a similar situation about year and a half ago wanting to learn recommender systems. What worked best for me was the already mentioned coursera recommender system course. Then if you can, go to RecSys conference (this year happening in fall in Boston). Then the absolute go to book for recommender systems is "Recommender systems handbook" \- it has second edition that came out last year and this book covers everything from math, practical issues/architecture, to industry use cases etc.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the encouragement :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> What you are wanting to do is very hard.

Netflix offered a million prize for a movies recommender and then proceed to not use the winning solution.

Don't underestimate it. It's a large investment, don't think of it as a side part of a project. It's the project.

I did the coursea course mentioned in the other comments and it was ok.

If I was you I'd look at some sort of hack. Using mods or something. If it was possible with software on something common like news it'd be open sourced already.

<comment><USER12> The Pareto principle applies to a lot of Machine Learning projects. You can get surprisingly far with very simple heuristics. OP can probably tune something that works well for him. Making it work at scale for a massively different demographic is harder.

SOURCE: I work in Spotify doing music recs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> There is a good course on coursera just for recommendation systems. Evaluation of different models is something many algorithm oriented posts don't talk about but is covered well in this course.

<comment><AUTHOR> This it? [https://www.coursera.org/learn/recommender- systems](https://www.coursera.org/learn/recommender-systems)

<comment><USER13> Yes. I have used its material and found it helpful.

Machine learning: recommender systems and dimensionality reduction also looks good but it starts in July. If you are already familiar with dimensionality reduction techniques the first one should be enough to get you going. There are other self paced courses on dimensionality reduction on coursera too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> HN delivers. Thanks for the recommendations. I decided to start with Coursera to get a lay of the land then dig deeper from there.

</comment><comment><USER14> Pretty trivial really. If you can't deduce the principles, building one from scratch may be inadvisable.</comment>


The importance of momentum - <AUTHOR> http://andyswan.com/blog/2010/01/06/momentum/

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the post. I just had a phone call that hurt my momentum a little (at least in my head). Time to regroup :)</comment>


How I built a small Twitter following quickly - <AUTHOR> http://stumbleintobusiness.tumblr.com/post/64647854867/how-i-built-a-small-twitter-following-quickly

<comment><USER2> I appreciate the post and I think it's insightful, but I think the real question is how did you get it on the front page of hacker news!

I think that would be a very good next post to write about :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Add your blog's Twitter handle and URL to the post! That's an easy way to get more exposure. That said, good work in building a following quickly

</comment><comment><USER4> Interactions + Mentions. Finding/creating hash tags that are relevant to your interests or you think will help you generate hype or momentum. (common sayings, trendings.) Getting retweets from credible blogs or other people (with similar interests and large followings) helps a lot. After you have a following, it's about what you do to shape them that's important in order to get the feedback you need and build more followers.

</comment><comment><USER5> Interesting 'study'. I wonder if it's particularly repeatable though. Football fans are incredibly tribal - they actively want to be part of a group, and following someone on Twitter is a very lost cost way of participating. As far as engagement goes, sports fans are low-hanging fruit.

Doing the same thing for a new coffee shop for example, would probably be a great deal harder.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hashtags are a very powerful way to find online communities with a given interest. As the OP found out, you also need to find the "right" hashtag for you, among the many alternatives there are for most subjects.

In case you need that, try out my free tool: [http://hashtagify.me/#gators](http://hashtagify.me/#gators)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great tool. Just curious, where do you get the data from? Do you crawl tweets or use some outside data source?

<comment><USER6> Thanks.

We currently get our data from Twitter API. We're going to use third party data sources to allow our pro product Hashtag Intelligence to get past data - those sources are pretty expensive ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> *built</comment>


Ivy – A stress-free way to get things done - <AUTHOR> https://getivy.co/ <comment><USER2> For me, there is too little information to put in my email address - there's not enough to set this apart from Things, Notion, etc. What makes this "stress-free"? I'm promised top-notch software, but you haven't shown me what makes it top-notch.

The design looks clean and appealing to me, though.

<comment><USER3> the terms at the bottom link to notion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sign-up pages can't be Show HNs. Please read the rules: [https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html).

</comment><comment><USER5> This seems like it's offering some technique but the website tells me nothing about what that technique is; it just looks like a todolist.

</comment><comment><USER6> What is the 100-year old strategy? All of the screenshots look like a pretty standard ToDo List app. I'm not trying to be overly critical, but I guess I don't see what makes this ToDo list better than all the others.

<comment><USER7> Stress free production sounds like GTD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Must be a nice life to only have six things to do everyday.

<comment><USER9> I only tend to track tasks that take at least a couple hours (sometimes days), so I was thinking that 6 sounds like a lot to me! It really depends on the length of tasks you're tracking though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like a version of Todoist that has less features. Not sure what the point is, it looks like a standard to-do app.

(Also, a beta for a simple to-do app? I can't wait until this strange "beta- culture" dies)

Edit: I see in the Play store there is already an unrelated app called 'ivy.co'\- so this website, 'getivy.co' is pretty misleading then...

</comment><comment><USER11> I like your interface. But as you have heard, you need to differentiate strongly. Even if it's just one thing that's unique, you got a shot. Here are some ideas:

1\. Automatic Reminders based on task priority so one never forgets

2\. Easy Todo review to highlight and re-prioritize stale TODOs to clear them. Everyone is familiar with the agony that comes with old tasks cluttering up a todo list.

</comment><comment><USER12> Ehhh, i like helm's org-mode integration better than ivy's.

</comment><comment><USER13> Oh great ! Another company who will gather my private data.

No thanks.

</comment><comment><USER14> All of these paradigms assume no one is trying to urgently contact you right now. It's fiction.

</comment><comment><USER15> "The last to-do list app you'll ever need" \- nice try

</comment><comment><USER16> Looks interesting, has anyone used it and has an opinion to share?</comment>


Ask HN: What is your financial "setup"? - <AUTHOR> I've gotten a lot of good recommendations for software from this community - most recently AVRFuses and pyenv. These both focus on being simple and "doing one thing really well". They're tools and don't require much active thinking to use them regularly, which I really like.
I'm trying to get my finances set up better, and I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a "setup" of bank account, credit card(s), investment platform, budgeting tools, etc along these lines. Ally Bank and SoFi seem good, as does Wealthfront, but I'm just not sure if I'm using them right. I have Mint but it spams me with notifications and I'm not sure what exactly it does for me. Credit cards feel stressful to think about with keeping track of what to use for what purchase or making sure they're all paid off - I recently got a Citi card and the app alone makes me want to get rid of it.
Does anyone have a "setup" for how you manage your money that you really like? Anything that follows the "don't make me think" philosophy? <comment><USER2> The thing that _really_ worked for me was I only ever buy in person with cash. I almost _never_ use my debit card in person. This simple thing changed my relationship with what I buy. Obviously my mortgage and other monthly payments are direct debit but unless the purchase is several hundred Euros or more I will pay in cash.

I always have €200 in cash on me which is enough to cover me at least a week. Then whatever I have left over at the end of the week I roll over. So if I have €60 left I take out 140 and transfer the difference into a savings account. I have saved a shocking amount doing this. It may seem strange but budgeting myself 800 for the month and only using cash has really helped me appreciate how much the money is worth to me. The short of it is on pay day each month I transfer 800 to my "cash account", I transfer the exact amount I need to cover my bills into my "bills" account (I also have a "buffer" of 100 in this account as a 'just in case its more than I calculated'). Everything else goes into savings. Everything.

Obviously some things fall outside the 800 cash allocation for example I bought a new coat a few weeks ago which was €230. I tried it on in store but bought it online as there was a discount I couldn't use in store annoyingly. However I have a separate budget allocation for key clothing items like coats and boots which I generally replace every other year. However I don't bother with multiple savings accounts anymore. I never found I benefited from the added complexity. If in a month or two I ruin my coat and have to buy a new one unexpectedly I will just take 230 from my savings rather than juggle things around.

I should say though that all of our expenses come from a single salary. Every month my wifes automatically goes into savings. Generally we never need to touch it. This is great for many obvious reasons but it also helps us (well me!) feel less guilty when I suggest we buy something we don't really need such as an OLED TV we got a few months ago.

<comment><USER3> How do you feel paying in cash helps compared to cards? I honestly don't get it. For me, withdrawing and paying cash simply adds unnecessary complexity, and on top of that, it destroys any paper trail you may need for tracking your individual budgets. How come people (mostly in Germany, from my experience) are so obsessed with cash?

<comment><USER4> This could easily be rephrased as "How come people are so obsessed with using payment systems with real-time warrantless government surveillance for all purchases?"

I honestly don't get it. Why would you pay a percent or two to be surveilled? It creates a time stamped track log, too, which can be easily cross-referenced with (also surveilled) cellphone position.

[https://www.wired.com/2010/12/realtime/](https://www.wired.com/2010/12/realtime/)

<comment><USER5> Pay a percent or two? Well, _there 's_ your problem. I'm _paid_ 2 percent "to be surveilled". Plus, it just seems nice to have over a month to pay for stuff I buy.

<comment><USER6> A small pot of savings will give you over a month to pay for stuff you buy, plus interest on the money you haven't saved yet.

<comment><USER5> 2% cash back on a credit card is worth _twenty five times_ more than 2% interest on checking (assuming you can even _get_ that).

If you spend $2000 every month, and you get 2% back, then that is $40/month or $480 per year. You also get from $0 to $40 interest per year on the money you haven't used to pay your balance yet, depending on the timing of your income and payment date.

If you don't have a credit card but only a checking account paying 2%, and you spend $2000 perfectly uniformly over the course of each month, then you are getting $20 _per year_ interest on an average balance of $1000.

You have a choice of either $500 with a credit card or $20 without. So 2% <> 2%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Consolidate all spending on a credit card that gives cash back. Autopay all bills that don't levy fees with it.

Pros: no need to worry about points or blackout dates; maximize cash back; facilitates budget tracking with annual summaries and integration with budgeting sites (otherwise you'll have to do it manually).

Examples: Double Cash 2% cash back, Apple Card 1-3% depending on payment method

2\. Direct deposit your paycheck into one bank account that your credit card from 1 and investment account from 4 are connected to (set it up so only investment account can debit from the bank, not vice versa). Autopay remaining bills from 1.

Pros: only worry about paying one bill (credit card); only the hub bank account is exposed, bulk of savings is isolated in investment account.

3\. Max out 401k and IRA every year using automatic deductions from your paycheck/bank account.

Pros: saving/investing on autopilot; lower taxable income

4\. Consolidate and invest all savings (and roll over old 401k accounts) into an index fund at Vanguard or Fidelity. Auto-deduct from your paycheck in increasing amounts until you hit the pain threshold.

Pros: automatic diversification; one place to monitor your investments; maximum investing on auto-pilot.

<comment><USER8> > 3\. Max out 401k and IRA every year using automatic deductions from your > paycheck/bank account.

> Pros: saving/investing on autopilot; lower taxable income

Does it ever make sense to do Roth 401k instead of traditional 401k?

<comment><USER9> If you are expecting to be in a higher tax bracket in retirement (counting traditional IRA/401K income) then Roth IRA/401K may be a better choice, since it is after tax when invested but tax-free when withdrawn. Most workers will have substantially higher income subject to income tax during working years than in retirement even with IRA/401K withdrawals as taxable income, but that's not always the case.

<comment><USER10> I disagree with your analysis. Taxes due are going to be less a function of your income and more a function of tax law. At least in the United States, we have enjoyed many years of low and lowering taxes, at the expense of ever- increasing debt, and are likely reaching the limits of what we can expect the magic of monetary theory to insulate us from. Upshot: tax rates will have to increase substantially in the medium term.

<comment><USER11> fun fact, tax revenues in the US are projected to not even cover interest on the debt in the near future.

The concept of raising taxes enough to affect the budget would cause a revolt.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Speaking as someone who works/consults in the financial sector, I'm afraid you really...should convince yourself...that you have to think about it.

First, the penalty for the strategy of "not-thinking" just on a tactical level isn't 1-2%, more like a minimum of 10%, and a maximum of 100% or more when you take into consideration accumulation over time.

Second, from a "strategic" perspective, "not-thinking" leads to "not- understanding" the myriad "choices" presented/available to you- where often what's presented is very different from what's available, and often serves someone else's interest much more than some other available-not-presented option may serve yours.

Third, the state of "not-understanding" leads to the use of seemingly helpful services like Mint. In doing so you are making an enormous sacrifice in terms of privacy. There are rules that prevent the state of your deposit/savings data from being shared by the custodian (many more than the state of your credit data, for hopefully obvious reasons). To use those services you have to provide them with your deposit/savings credentials, and once they have them, that data gets out in the wild, which can have unexpected deleterious effects, particularly if you are a person of color, or a woman, or wind up in a weak financial position, which may happen for unexpected, surprising reasons.

The financial industry is predatory. Full stop. The industry harvests from people who choose to not think about it. There is so much- too much- money in the world, but to everyone individually/organizationally it is a scarce resource. Every day I see grim occasion to think about apex predator Danny DeVito in a David Mamet movie called "Heist"-

"Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money."

Good luck!

<comment><USER13> Do you have any pointers on how to start thinking about all this? How should one get started?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> YNAB ([https://www.youneedabudget.com](https://www.youneedabudget.com)) for budgeting and tracking spending. It forces you to pre-allocate your funds which ensures that you don't overspend unconsciously via credit cards. I've been very successful with it.

> Anything that follows the "don't make me think" philosophy?

I don't think that exists. YNAB requires pretty diligent tracking, but the payout (heh) is huge.

<comment><USER15> I second YNAB, but as you said, it requires diligent tracking especially for those of us living outside the US and can't hook their bank account into it.

I happen to love the diligent tracking, though, and it's just part of my daily routine. Every time my wife or I charge a card or the money from the ATM, we log it in YNAB. Then every day I open my banking app and reconcile the charges with what we've input into YNAB. Sometimes we forget to log something, or mis- log something, or there are surprise charges to be dealt with.

Now that I'm in the habit, it takes a total of 10 minutes a day.

<comment><USER16> I'm hoping the arrival of PSD2 in Europe early this year will finally mean we get apps that will be able to auto report as opposed to manual accounting like it has to be done today

<comment><USER17> There are some fintechs already paving the way and abstracting psd2 away. I just tried to log into my bank using tink (no affiliation) and it worked great.

<comment><USER16> I'll have a look! Being a French guy in the Netherlands and with money spread over 4 different banks in several countries, bookkeeping really is a pain. I looked a few times in the past but support is notoriously lacking in NL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> My radically simple approach to finances is a result of simple living. I spend maybe 1-2 hours a month thinking about money and finances.

\- I don't budget.

\- I don't use spreadsheets or finance apps.

\- I don't have any credit cards, loans, or debt. I don't care about my credit score because I'm not ever going to get a car loan, electronics lease, or mortgage.

\- I don't own a car. If I did I would buy it with cash and purchase only what was necessary to get from point A to point B safely, with the best gas mileage.

\- I have reduced expenses as much as possible, and only buy essentials: Rent, utilities, health insurance, and groceries. I don't spend money on new gadgets, entertainment, or other things. I read books from the library, I go to the park instead of the movies, etc. I don't go "shopping" whether online or offline. I don't buy a new laptop or phone unless my old one breaks and cannot be easily and cheaply repaired (still using MacBook from 2014).

\- At the beginning of the week I go to my bank and withdraw cash, and only buy things with this cash. I don't buy much online except toiletries and cooking oil.

\- Instead of budgeting food, I have a simple rule that if I've eaten out already in that week, I avoid eating out until the next week. I avoid buying groceries until I've eaten most of what's in the kitchen.

\- At the end of every month I log into my bank, check how much money came in, and subtract how much went out. I then invest whatever I feel like out of that month's profit into a mutual fund. I choose mutual funds as my method of saving because they are liquid, free of management, and simply taxed (capital gains). I have them setup to automatically reinvest earnings. I don't use IRAs.

\- I'm happy with my income now, but in the past when I felt like I didn't have enough money, I simply focused on the easiest way to earn more money (changing jobs, learning a new skill to change jobs, taking another job, etc.).

<comment><USER19> I was with you until you mentioned you don't use IRAs. Tax advantage is important!

<comment><USER18> I don't use IRAs mainly because they aren't liquid. I can't withdraw without a penalty.

An IRA is not necessarily tax advantageous because gains are taxed as income when withdrawn, which is higher than capital gains. The choice to use IRAs is not straightforward. It's also hard to plan for any of this because tax rates can and do change. Capital gains and income tax rates may change, so I generally prefer to pay taxes earlier than later where possible.

I have generally found it more financially rewarding to focus my time on increasing income rather than on finagling my finances to save money. Same reason I don't own a credit card just to get the cash back or other incentives.

<comment><USER20> > I have generally found it more financially rewarding to focus my time on > increasing income rather than on finagling my finances to save money. Same > reason I don't own a credit card just to get the cash back or other > incentives.

Diverting some of your income into a tax-deferred investment account will not significantly affect your ability to focus on increasing income.

They're not mutually exclusive.

My approach largely resembles yours, but there's no effective difference between increasing income and reducing how much of it is taken from you in the form of taxes. If your priority is to increase your income, deciding to throw some of it into a tax-deferred investment account can be seen as a very efficient use of your time spent increasing your income.

<comment><USER18> Tax deferring doesn't necessarily equate to reduced taxes. IRAs just mean paying taxes later, at an unknown rate.

All income from IRAs are taxed, principle and gains. A traditional IRA has gains taxed as income, which is higher then long-term capital gains on ETFs. Assuming tax rates don't change, a traditional IRA will cost more taxes if the withdrawal and contribution taxable income is over roughly 40k, correct me if I'm wrong. That's assuming income tax isn't higher in the future, which is quite a gamble as historically income tax has been going up, and historically there's just been more and more taxes.

Don't forget that deductions for contributions don't matter, because you will pay income tax on that principle when you withdraw. If tax rates increase, the tax cost of deferring could be even worse. It really depends on if you're going to be earning income when you withdraw and how much is going to be withdrawn. It's complicated and practically impossible to estimate total final tax obligations at retirement. IRAs are not a cut and dry "just put money in an IRA" decision.

Another problem with IRAs is the lockup. If you withdraw before retirement there's a hefty 10% penalty unless it's for a mortgage or health insurance.

<comment><USER20> Aren't you ignoring the advantage of being able to invest the money you would have paid in taxes for the entire time you've left it all in the tax-deferred account?

I don't get why you're assuming you'll have to withdraw the money prematurely and incur the penalty. That's a rather pessimistic attitude, and it's not like you'd be putting all of your investment funds down this path.

<comment><USER18> You have to withdraw at some point (after age 59-1/2 unless the law changes), and you'll pay income taxes on principle _and_ gains then. Taxes on principle will be paid either way. If you give to your children, they will pay taxes on the principle + inheritance tax.

The idea with tax deferral was that when you retire, your fixed withdrawal income will have a lower income tax rate than when you contributed, but as capital gains and income tax are now, that isn't necessarily true depending on your contribution and withdrawal income.

Roth IRA was then created as a response to the well founded concern that income taxes will rise negating any tax advantage to deferral, but Roth wasn't able to pass the legislation without severe compromises like contribution limits, and gains taxes as income on withdrawal.

<comment><USER20> You pay tax on it _eventually_ , like you said with the lower tax rate when your income will be presumably lower.

But in the mean time, which can be a very long time, you're free to invest those deferred tax dollars. That can add up to a significant amount, over a large number of years.

It's not something to trivially dismiss.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> My "system" works on gut feeling. I live in the Netherlands. Everything is paid automatically, I only buy things I need, I only use my bank card which is accepted everywhere, I don't really pay attention to what shopping cost. Online purchases I make using Ideal. Every 6 months or so I log in to check my bank balance to see if I'm spending to much or not enough money. I could make luxury purchases but I prefer ignoring finances. I never happened but if things get "out of hand" I would negotiate unpaid leave. 1 day per week is perfect. (I also spend my vacation days like that.) I only work 3:7 days, if I take a day off it leaves only a 2 day work week. It's a pretty hilarious formula. I might need software to avoid getting lazy.

<comment><USER22> Are you self-employed? If not, how did you negotiate 3:7 work week? Any tips to someone who values work-life balance and want to try negotiate 4:7 instead of the current 5:7 standard?

<comment><USER21> There is a legal limit to the number of night shifts. Employers may chose either to have employees work a maximum of 140 night shifts per year or a maximum of 38 hours of labor between 0:00 and 6:00 every 2 weeks. (the mandatory 30 min lunch break is not labor)

But I do have an idea for your negotiations. I notice that people who also work day shifts and work 5:7 are tired all the time. If they push themselves either at work or in their private lives the weekend is to short to recover. They just gradually burn up over the year, go on vacation and look 10 years younger when they return.

I can push myself to [measurably] be more than twice as productive during my shifts for 2 reasons: 1) I don't have to worry about wearing myself out, on the contrary, I make an effort to wear myself out completely for the sports of it. If I don't recover in this weeks 4 day weekend I certainly will in the next.

And 2) Because I'm pushing myself and I take time to recover I'm building up endurance rather than slowly decaying. Working as hard as I can is actually beneficial.

Consider what it means: I do 6 days of work and they do 5.

During my 4 day vacation I'm available for messages and phone calls and they call me to fill holes in the schedule. If they call the full time employee he is very unhappy with the request (to put it mildly) and he is only "available" for 2 days.

It doesn't happen very often but if they have to work 2 weekends in a row their productivity gradually drops to something like 40%.

At that point I'm doing 5 times as much work as my coworker. That difference is so ridiculous I think it makes for a fine argument.

<comment><USER22> Thanks for the awesome explanation and time put into it :)

It seems that you do not work in the software industry, correct me if I am wrong.

Do the night shifts affect your sleep schedule or you have adapted it to better fit your working needs?

<comment><USER21> I failed to mention I do physical work because writing software wears me out much faster. I see no reason why it wouldn't work the same way. Brain/Desk work (at least in my experience) is not limited by Newtonian mechanics.

It would depend on the kind of job but I imagine it is worth testing if you are more productive working 4 days, or 3. Perhaps one can just be there for meetings? Maybe you can do some stuff to build up the goodwill, from what I've seen there are companies that actually care about the end result and praise employees willing to run the extra mile to make it all work. An overworked managers should be able to understand that you suspect to be more productive working fewer hours? Could ask him on Friday and point out some examples on the work floor.

I can sleep when I want and as long as I want. 14 hours is not a problem. It's required for recovery. The day before a shift I stay awake till 3:00 am-ish and sleep at least 7 hours. Its great for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I have;

1\. One account for salary and bills

2\. One credit card for large purchases and spending online which I pay off each month

3\. One pre-paid card which I top up weekly to use for daily spending and when travelling (as it has multiple currency accounts)

4\. One savings account

(All of the above accounts are available to me on one App, due to the Open Banking regulations in Europe)

(Would be a good idea to set up auto sweeps to move funds between accounts, so that it's automated. I don't do this as I like to view the accounts regularly to stay on top of things)

Rules I try to follow are;

\- Maximize income \- Minimize expenditure \- Save or invest the remainder \- Don't use credit/debt but save up to buy what you want

I don't have a go to investment platform, but my preference would be to use a broker and value invest for medium to long term. I can't compete with pro traders and algorithms.

<comment> herrvogel- How is the app called, that you use for your accounts?

<comment><USER23> Herrvogel I bank with a large bank and their app connects to other account via APIs

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Important features of any good setup:

\- you consolidate your finances in the minimum number of accounts & cards

\- you have a couple of months of expenses as cash in a current or savings account

\- you pay off your credit card in full every month

\- you invest some amount every month

\- all of this is automated - paying bills, credit card repayments, investing, putting money in savings, all of it.

Once you have these things down, you can then adjust percentages, providers and all other details according to your personal situation and preferences.

<comment><USER25> I've automated everything except paying bills and credit card payement: I like feeling that money going away.

<comment><USER26> I automated specifically after getting a few stupid late fees in my 20s. At this point, if it's not automated, I'm at least 25% likely to be late.

Fortunately, there are only a handful of small bills that I have that aren't automated. They're annoying.

<comment><USER27> I noticed a 15 euro charge to "Jet Multimedia" on my internet bill one month, and made a point to not direct-debit anything due to the simple fact that a leachy parasite game co. (I've never played a game in my life) was able to latch onto my internet bill somehow.

Allegedly I signed up for this, but they could neither produce my signature, nor could they explain the mechanism by which they are allowed to agglommerate onto my internet bill, and a quick call to the ISP removed this surcharge, but wisened me up to how utterly cheap and tawdry an ISP could be.

Direct Debit had best be reserved for actually trusted actors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I know I'm late to the party, but I can highly recommend the Bogleheads philosophy [1] and community/forum. They have a wonderful set of videos that explain how to build an emergency fund, and how to invest in a tax efficient manner.

I've been following their philosophy for a while and it's been nothing but positive and very hands off:

\- Emergency fund in a BofA account

\- Schwab account with a lazy 4 fund portfolio [2]

\- 401k with company match

\- I am also working towards financial independence (FIRE), see [3]

[1] [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Getting_started)

[2] [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Lazy_portfolios)

[3] [https://reddit.com/r/financialindependence](https://reddit.com/r/financialindependence)

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't know anything about financial engine but I do have a cautionary tale.

I pay poor people, teach them coding and help them move into middle class. I spent Most of my money doing that. 10 years of Bay Area swe pay, I only have $2k in my bank account. (Currently negative because of cc debts and holiday shopping).

Don't be like me. I originally thought if I helped others become as wealthy as me (relatively) they'll be able to lend me money whenever I end up in hard times. Turns out, most people don't save up and instead just end up spending more. Their relatives suddenly appear with "investment opportunities" etc.

So now I'm just as broke as the other guy. The only bright side is I got to meet and marry another swe through doing this and our combined TC is over 600k. We plan to put everything we earned into a savings account, by a house next year and retire a few years after that.

<comment><USER11> You invested in other people's future. That doesn't seem like a bad thing, and it seems like you could afford to do it.

Don't beat yourself up over not having a lot of money in the bank, it seems like you've still got your financial life mostly in order.

I often have to remind myself of this, as I send a significant amount of money to another country to help my spouse's family -- It's a significant amount for me, but it's generationally life changing for them to be able to get advanced education. Doesn't really make me feel happier when I look at my bank balance, but there are other things that are more important than a bank balance.

<comment><USER30> > it seems like you could afford to do it

They have a negative net worth. They could not afford to do it.

<comment><USER11> While perhaps pedantically true, he just said he's got RSUs and certainly he's got a 401k and probably other savings if he's making 300k a year.

You could look at my bank balance and make the claim that I'm "negative net worth" too, but it wouldn't be accurate because that bank balance doesn't tell the whole story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Pay yourself first.

Setup an auto transaction to move a set amount into a savings account on payday - that way at the end of the pay period when you run out of money, you've already saved how much you wanted to. If you wait till the end of the pay period to save, there will never be any left.

My trick is to increase the amount going into savings every time - just a little. Eventually you'll find the point where you're saving the most you possibly can, and you might need to back it off just a touch.

This maximizes my savings to the point where I work for a couple of years, then I can take years off and drive around the world.

Rinse, repeat.

<comment><USER32> >Setup an auto transaction to move a set amount into a savings account on payday

Better yet, go to payroll and have them split your check, $x or x% in savings and the rest in checking. If you do it by percentage then your savings will grow in proportion to your income.

<comment><USER33> As good as this idea is, I suspect that relatively few payroll departments are set up to provide this option, and most of them would resist going to the extra effort to provide it.

<comment><USER32> What? All the major payroll processors/front ends (ADP, Paychex, PeopleSoft) support this "out of the box," no problem whatsoever.

Even when my employers was on paper forms for direct deposit there was always an option for multiple bank accounts.

I've never NOT had my paycheck deposited into a multiple accounts except for when I was a teenager at my first job.

<comment><USER34> My employer's payroll charges a fee for each additional bank account that they are to pay into.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> My setup wouldn't work for the majority of people, but I freelance and have set up a corporation. I pay myself a salary that's about 2x my rent. The rest of my funds stay locked in my business account.

This forces me to limit spending. After paying rent, I only have about the same amount left over for personal expenses.

Any money left over in my personal account at the end of the month is transferred into a mutual fund.

<comment><USER36> What are the advantages and disadvantages of this setup?

<comment><USER35> I can't really speak to the financial or tax advantages of this setup - I've never been particularly good at these things.

But the big advantage to me is behavioral. If I have just a limited amount of money to spend in my account, I spend, well, a limited amount.

It's simpler and thus, easier to stick to than complicated rules that require more fiscal discipline

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> I highly recommend the book "I Will Teach You To Be Rich" by Ramit Sethi. It's an easy read and is a pretty fool-proof way to set up your finances. Any moderately successful person would probably give you the same advice, but the book lays it out in easy-to-read terms.

The gist of it is to automate everything as much as you can! Auto-pay, auto- deposit, etc.

</comment><comment><USER38> We have a checking/savings account, and then various investment accounts at vanguard.

All income goes to vanguard. Each year, we move our total budget for the year to checking. Then, we pay for all spending from checking. We can easily track whether our budget is on Pace at any given time. If we run out of money, we went over. (Technically, we subtract out year end expenses like property taxes to avoid a year End surprise.)

We also have a 30 year budget spreadsheet that estimates our savings, expenses, and income Up too retirement. If we exceed or income goal for the year, we put half towards retirement and half towards a virtual 'bonus discretionary' account. If we exceed our annual budget (have to do an extra transfer from. Vanguard), we deduct that from the virtual bonus discretionary account.

Note that I wouldn't recommend exactly this approach unless 1 years spending is a relatively small amount of your net worth. We only started this technique in our 30's.

<comment><USER39> You should consider keeping the unused/not yet needed annual funds in a high yield savings and do monthly transfers, excess cash in a checking account adds up. Sounds like you have a good system regardless though!

<comment><USER32> Maybe.

Some checking accounts give high interest rates (rewards checking, Sofi, etc.). Plus there's fidelity cash management that acts exactly like a checking account but you can invest the funds in money market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I really like Beancount with Fava for analyzing my spendings: [https://github.com/beancount/fava/blob/master/README.rst](https://github.com/beancount/fava/blob/master/README.rst)

<comment><USER41> I have been starting on the road to putting all of my transactions into beancount, pulled ofx data for chase and scraped pdfs for another bank account.

The idea of keeping records of everything is satisfying, but still need to do it.

Could you give me some details about how you started? I've glossed over the docs once, but hopefully I can just import everything, name it properly, and view it on Fava.

Is it possible to automatically generate tax documents?

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> I don't have a simple setup, I optimize everything. Everything, and I mean everything, is paid for by credit card. You get rewards, and more importantly, protections that aren't afforded to you by paying other means. Some even offer extended warranties, and price drop protections. Do your own research. I typically use cards to average around 3 percent back, between Amex, Discover, and Capital One.

I keep my emergency fund in Varo. It gets 2.8 percent interest. I use SoFi as my main "bank", but also have a couple local accounts. Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER43> Striving for low complexity and high flexibility:

\- low fix cost per month

\- should be possible to cancel subscriptions within a month

\- rather rent than buy (flat, car sharing etc.)

\- no loans

\- money to save goes on a saving account

\- define low limits for max. amount of money to withdraw on accounts

\- get proper insurance coverage

\- avoid Paypal and other 3rdparty banking services

No need for any fancy tools and I have more money available to put away than ever. I only use a tool for my tax declaration, but since I simplified my financial setup so much I could even do it without a tool nowadays...

</comment><comment><USER44> I'm in Australia so have fewer options than many others here.

We use a mutual bank for most of our transactional banking. We have several companies, trusts and superannuation (think IRA) accounts there.

My wife and I also have a joint account at a commercial bank. This is solely used for personal purchases on a debit card. The account has no international fees, which is unusual for Australia.

We use Ledger CLI to automatically ingest all transactions each day. I wrote a scraper for the mutual bank and commercial bank (needed to OCR the PIN pads they like to jumble around). This gives us great visibility into all expenditure and origins of funds. My wife and I get a daily email with PDF attachments for our various entities.

We use Interactive Brokers for most investments, along with IG Markets to mitigate some counterparty risk. We've mostly retired (thanks to a startup) so most of our wealth is held in there. I use IB's FTP delivery service to receive detailed daily account statements (with GPG encryption). I also use IB API to do some algo trading.

We also have some crypto with 5 different exchanges given we don't trust any of them so it's straight-forward counterparty risk management. These are also algo traded.

We avoid cash use because it doesn't auto-categorise into Ledger CLI. I wish we had more privacy but by spreading things around between the banks, brokers and exchanges no single institution has any real clue about us. Sure the government does, but they get that all the important info freely anyway via tax returns or simply asking nicely.

It's all reasonably automated, but I have to shuffle money around each quarter or so.

</comment><comment><USER45> I mostly just have two accounts: a private and a shared account.

The shared account is very simple: Every month me and my boyfriend tops it up to 5000 USD, we have a debit card to it each, and all shared expenses including rent come out of this account. By topping it off to a high number like this, we ensure we wont run out within a month, and we just use the debit card for things we need.

For my private stuff I have a credit card that I pay everything with, and I've set it up to be automatically paid off at the end of each month.

Every so often I write the expenses we've had into gnucash so I can see how much we're spending, but I don't budget in advance.

I also have a savings account with some emergency money, but I'm a poor student so I don't really have money to invest or for long term savings.

<comment><USER46> > but I'm a poor student

with savings, a personal and a additional 5k usd checking account... sry to burst your bubble but thats called wealthy for most ppl on earth.

<comment><USER47> 5000 USD seems high to me as well for a student and you don't know what his girlfiend does. It does not really matter how high that amount as long it can cover unexpected expenses.

When I was a student, I made sure I always had at least 1000 EUR on my account, basically treating the 1000 as 0. I cannot remember ever running into debt this way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I struggled with this before but then I found Banktivity. I have dozens of accounts/cards/debit/credit/savings/investments etc... and Banktivity helps in keeping track of my overall "wealth".

The way I do it is to budget a yearly (or half year) expenses beforehand and then channel it through whatever account for expenses. I'm lucky enough to live in a very cheap place and make enough so I don't have to live pay-check to pay-check.

If I make more than I think enough to cover my next period, I usually spend that on a new Tech gadget, Travel or into savings. But I rarely save these days as I'm trying to maximize my lifestyle before I'm 70 year-old with too much money and little to do.

</comment><comment><USER49> Several here have mentioned Charles Schwab. I personally use them for brokerage + IRA + checking + savings. It gives me a single view into my finances.

Why Schwab? They have outstanding customer service. One time I was traveling on Christmas Eve and forgot to place a travel notice on my cards. I called and got a human on the line immediately. This is the norm with their customer service whom I rarely call because 99% of what I want to do can be done via their web site from download tax docs to ordering new checks. Also, when traveling abroad they (1) still fulfill their promise of reimbursing all ATM fees and (2) give an excellent exchange rate. I could not be happier with them as my bank.

<comment><USER50> I'll note that they now have a calling tree and it's harder to get a person on the phone. This is fairly recent, in the last year or so I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> I have 6 accounts:

A for income, ex. when I get a check I put 80% here

B taxes, when I get a check I put 20% here (taxes in Poland are 18%)

then:

C for business expenses, I know how much I spend each month, and I wire that amount each month from A

D personal account - whatever is left in A after business expenses, I wire here

Finally:

E, joint account with my partner, I know how much we spend each month and I wire that from D -> E

F, saving account for myself. Whatever is left in D at the end of the month, I put here

ING lets me manage all these accounts from their app, and wire money instantly from one to the other. All these accounts cost about $2/mo. each, but if there's enough action (ex., if you spend at least $500/mo.) the price drops to 0.

This setup is useful to not go splurge every time you get paid.

</comment><comment><USER52> I know it is a difficult ask for commenters to tell where they are from, but most answers wouldn't make sense unless that information is given. I would have completely different money management principles if I lived in SF bay area or in a developing country. Also, the state of the economy __matters a lot __. If you lived in a country with 6+% rates of inflation, you would have completely different future planning than say in SF bay. Also important is taxation and rebates in your region. But I am pretty sure you are in SF bay area, as are most other commenters here, so I will excuse myself as I have nothing useful to advise.

</comment><comment><USER53> I don't think there is a "the setup" that universally works for everyone. As much as product makers would like to believe there solution works for everyone, it depends on their circumstances. I have to be brief to make the train but here are some tools (US Focus):

1) Are you trying to get in control? This is where you are constantly living paycheck to paycheck, and bouncing checks. Than I would do the following a) Get in the habit of saving where it is painful to spend. So start putting any percentage of money into a 401k if your company offers it. Ideally target to get the maximum match. But whatever you do start. b) Start documenting all, let me re-iterate, ALL your spending big and small. I recommend Quicken, but an Excel spreadsheet, google sheet works as well. The act of becoming conscious of your spending makes you reflective.

2) You are in control and saving a little bit and bonus you pay your credit card balance in full each month. Here the goal is becoming more optimized (I didn't say optimized). a) Choose a bank that tracks your spending and look at it and automatically pays bills. b) Start putting away money in something like wealthfront or betterment (I prefer the latter). Put it in a 401k or tax deferred vehicle to start since it will reduce your taxes. c) work on eliminating leakage (services you don't use, unnecessary fees etc).

2) You are in control, think more in terms of building wealth. a) Start thinking in terms of applying savings to appreciating assets (homes and eventually second properties for cash flow). Zillow and Redfin allow you to understand the market. b) Look at becoming more aggressive with investments. Look at a percentage to go to growth or dividend funds. But look for a goal of secondary sources of income. Both Schwab and TDA have good platforms to see this.

jonahbenton is right, there is no set it and forget it, but there is get the max out of the time you do when you have to look at it. You have to reconcile, with so much digital theft it is easy to have funds leak because of fraud.

If you are truly looking for a set and forget, get adopted by a wealthy person who will set up a trust fund for you, but full all others, internalize good money habits.

</comment><comment><USER54> I have built myself a expense tracking tool, where I track my expenses. I have one "account" for my expenses and another shared one that I use together with my girlfriend.

I input expenses manually and each expense has a "category". For each category I can set a monthly "Bucket" (the maximum I wanna spent) and then I can track my progress during month.

Every month I get email with spending stats and I sit down together with my girlfriend to consider our finacial situation. We can change the buckets, etc...

I think the most inportant part is manually writing expenses and then talking about it after we get the email.

</comment><comment><USER55> A financial setup is very hard. You do not get the capital easily and you have to go through a long legal procedure for the setup and incorporation of the company. There are many laws which you must know before investing and which is necessary to know for further working. If you are establishing a Pvt Ltd company, then you can visit the link [https://www.taxolawgy.com/pvt-ltd- company-registration/](https://www.taxolawgy.com/pvt-ltd-company- registration/) for the best possible information and capital gains.

</comment><comment><USER56> This is my non-business (personal) finance setup.

I have a checking account, vanguard account, and fidelity account. The checking account is used for business to pay me. The vanguard account is 100% VTSAX as is the fidelity has account. I've just been keeping a couple thousand I the checking and rolling into VTSAX. Should be enough, if VTSAX tanks we need to be buying ammo if anything.

I also churn credit cards. Chase sapphire/capitol one savor/Amex platinum should all get you $500 or more. But if you are making >100k like it seems most people in here are then this is not such a large concern.

</comment><comment><USER57> Does anyone have a method for setting a rule, when random-amount deposits into account, take 30% and move to other account? The amount changes every week, so it needs to be percentage not a static number.

Seeing some interesting things in this thread, may be that some of them are normal for Europe or what have you.

Other things talk about automatic this and auto that - but not specific about what makes it automatic? You bank web site?

Interesting just thinking about how some of these things are working, and if there are business account type solutions that are similar.

</comment><comment><USER58> Since I got in a lot of debt with credit in the past. I don't have much credit now and majority is being paid off. So my financial setup is rather simple, always slide the debit instead of the credit.

Charles Schwab is my main bank <3, broker and 401k investment holder (employer forced).

Local credit union finances my car loan (almost paid off), my secondary checking/savings and my only credit card.

CashApp for any type of sharing/transfer of funds.

YNAB does all the budgeting. (I've become better at spending money that I have!)

</comment><comment><USER59> I use personalcapital.com to track accounts, investments and cards. they try to get you to use their expensive investment management, ignore that but besides this its pretty good.

</comment><comment><USER10> I use USAA for everything. I have a spending account, a billing account, a savings account, and a mutual fund. I also have TSP (like a 401K).

Every month, I put $600 into my TSP, $1000 into savings, and my total bill amounts into my billing account. The rest goes into my spending account.

Whenever I get tempted to buy nonsense, I ask whether I'd rather buy that or put that money in my savings. If I don't really need it, it goes in savings.

When savings gets over a certain amount, I transfer a chunk into my mutual fund.

</comment><comment><USER60> I put fixed sum to loan account to pay off the bank debt each month (amount may vary on some months, it's flexible so I can put 0 - 9999€ per month for example), then move majority that is left to "pseudo-savings" account which is only used to pay maintenance fees etc. and also 1-2 times a month to move spending money to everyday account (in case of theft i only keep small amount in account linked to debit card).

</comment><comment><USER61> After I get paid I split my money into two accounts - the first account is a discretionary account that I will use to live off for two weeks. I can spend this money on whatever and it is meant to be exhausted. The second account I keep a buffer (for me that means $2000) and I pay any bills I have. Any excess over $2000 goes into index funds.

</comment><comment><USER62> If you want to budget things your own way in a spreadsheet, check out BudgetSheet: [https://www.budgetsheet.net/](https://www.budgetsheet.net/)

It imports all your transactions into a Google Sheet via Plaid, and it's free to try out with a single account linked.

Disclaimer: I made BudgetSheet.

</comment><comment><USER63> Spreadsheet with one sheet per year and one row per day and one column per account or category. Use bank bill pay and schedule payment when I receive a bill or auto-schedule for fixed items. I only worry about the daily balance when it goes below $1000.

</comment><comment><USER64> I don't manage money - I just try to live with as little as possible. I have a nice salary at the moment, but it's gonna go down significantly next year as I am relocating, so I want to have loads of savings.

</comment><comment><USER65> Good salary and modest needs basically.

So whenever I look at the balances on my cellphone and there is "too much" I flush it out to an investment a/c

And when I get a bonus same

So very little active managing tbh.

</comment><comment><USER66> building on submitters question: if y'all don't want to give services like Personal Capital access to pull transactions in through apis, which often involves giving them your password (!) rather than properly giving them access through something like OAuth since many smaller (and even large) banks don't offer it, what do you do? I still want the benefits of pulling down all transactions into a centralized location

<comment><USER67> I forget the article but someone had the genius idea of turning on email notifications for all their accounts and scraping the emails instead of dealing with aggregators.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> what has worked for me is in all the different businesses I do, all that comes out of it, the profit, gets invested into real estate. banks and mutual funds offer 8% returns, however at least the way I invest I get about 100% return on my money every year for every dollar invested. I look for houses that are not for sale and negotiate with the owners and I usually buy houses for 1/5th to 1/3rd of what they are worth. Then I split them up and rent the rooms similar to like house hacking, but on a larger scale. I have managers collect the money and put it into the bank every week and so Im not that involved in it, its a long term investment. Then i refinance the house for what its worth and use the cash to buy more similar properties. I look at property as a good way to invest money that you have aquired, similar to a savings account, but the investment grows and you eventually can use the profit from your real estate rentals to buy more property, i.e. it runs by itself. For example, last year I paid $50k for a 6000sqft commercial building that was going to be torn down, I negotiated the price with the owner based on the vacant land value, and then after a construction permit was opened on it the building is no longer going to be torn down, then i refinanced it a year later for 400k which is what it was worth, and the rental income on this property alone is 15 bedrooms times 160/week or $9600/month, which paid back my initial investment in less than a year but i also got the refinance money...

</comment><comment><USER69> I'm currently demoing Tiller. It aggregates all your financial data in a spreadsheet.

The jury is still out, but so far it is good.

<comment><USER70> I've been using tiller for a year now and it's so nice

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> I'm a big fan of Prism [https://get.prismapp.com/2Y0S3GK4C2](https://get.prismapp.com/2Y0S3GK4C2)

</comment><comment><USER72> _Banking setup_

I use a credit union for checking. I'm currently planning to open up a second checking account with the same credit union to split my income stream into fixed and variable expenses as some have mentioned here.

General idea is as follows:

1) Deposit income check each month into checking account #1. Draw from this account for monthly and yearly expenses. Add some buffer so as not to over draw.

2) Initiate an auto-transfer from checking account #1 to checking account #2 after check is deposited each month. Work within the budget set by checking account #2 for variable expenses.

Why use a credit union? A for-profit bank does not share the same incentives as their clientele. If they can separate you from your money, they will. I'm generally wary of any industry that is rewarded financially for stealthily screwing their customers, e.g. insurance industry. Credit unions are also known for having very reasonable loan terms.

Why two checking accounts? It's nice to know what I'm spending each month on stuff like gym membership, streaming music, cellphone bill etc, versus things like coffee and dining out.

 _Investing setup_

I'm young. I'm willing to incur risk for better long term returns (on average). I also recognize that I am not Rentec. If I were to outperform the S&P500 picking stocks, it would be almost entirely due to random chance.

I keep enough money in checking to survive an emergency that requires immediate access to funds. Everything else that I earn above what I need for the month goes straight into an S&P500 index fund. Both Vanguard and Fidelity are essentially fungible.

I'm open to others convincing me that this is a stupid strategy. It is entirely possible the S&P500 tanks, and I lose a large fraction of my money. Few counter points though. First, it is by definition a diversified portfolio of stocks. Second, it has performed very well historically. Third, it has enough people invested in it that it couldn't just "go away" without serious repercussions for the US and the world.

Perhaps the largest concern, is that there is way more wealth in the S&P than there are people actually trading it on a day by day basis. If there was a flash crash, there simply wouldn't be enough people on the buy side of the equation to drink from the firehose of people selling. This is really beyond my depth though so I'll stop here.

 _Other principles_

I'm trying to avoid debt like the plague. Mostly for my mental health; I know it can be important to your credit score to carry some continual debt. Be wary what you sign up for (college, grad school, etc).

Keep in mind though, you always want to maximize your net effective interest rate. If your student loan rate is 4%, consider paying the minimum on your student loans and put the difference (what you would have paid) into the stock market. Only do this if you can automate the process as you will be inclined to spend the money and not save it.</comment>


How to Promote Your Startup's Blog on Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://blog.shareaholic.com/2012/01/promote-your-blog-on-hacker-news/ Hint: Participate first and share relevant content! <comment><USER2> This article is really "How to promote your blog." There isn't anything that's HN-specific, aside from literally just mentioning the HN demographic.

Not that the article is _bad_ , but its really just a plug for their product (shareaholic) with HN seemingly surgically inserted into the article so it could be posted here.</comment>


Tasting the Highs and Lows of Ethiopian Honey Wine (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/3djpaj/tasting-the-highs-and-lows-of-ethiopian-honey-wine <comment><USER2> Ethiopian finger food with a bottle of honey wine is one of the best meals I have ever had. A little bit of variety for everyone and a unique drink you don't find in bars etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> after a long night with the products of enthusiastic but only moderately talented brewers, mead and i are officially no longer friends.

hopped cider, oddly, is substantially better to my palate than normal ciders, so perhaps the same is true for mead.

<comment><USER4> I've had a hopped mead called "Dansk Mjød" from my local grocery store, and while still on the sweet side, it was quite good - this coming from someone who prefers unhopped cider and low-hop beer by a long mile.</comment></comment>


KILLALL considered harmful - <AUTHOR> http://tcoppi.net/blog/articles/killallevil/index.html

<comment><USER2> There's killall but no pkill on Mac OS X by default.</comment>


Show HN: Savory – Bookmark manager for people with 1000s of bookmarks - <AUTHOR> https://getsavory.co/ <comment><USER2> Just a heads up. This looks broken for me on iOS Safari on an iPhone x.</comment>


Distraction, seeking and thinking on the internet - <AUTHOR> http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog/1486/distraction_seeking_and_thinking_on_the_internet

<comment><USER2> _I don't accept either the heavy-handed liberalism that says progress is inevitable or the reflexive conservatism that says we're losing something precious by casting off tradition-for-tradition's-sake. However, I do believe the following:_

Sigh. As long as you view this conversation in some kind of cookie-cutter, political-box mentality I doubt you are going to make much progress.

Think of it like this: We now have immediate multi-sensory input into people's brains in a way that the species has never had before. The big evolutionary question is: what are we going to do with it? Are we going to join together into some kind of hive mind? Are we going to become permanent couch potatoes? Is each person going to have some super-cognitive ability they never had before?

Look for drivers and patterns, not ideology.

The driver I see dominating right now is the push to control brain-time. Every business that is half-way technology-related is striving to get some time on your brain. They'll do that with Farmville, they'll do that with wikipedia, they'll do that with YouTube, and they'll do that with Google.

From an evolutionary standpoint, the optimization is not around survival of the fittest -- at least from the individual's standpoint. At least so far, some new piece of trivia you picked up last night on the net is extremely unlikely to allow you to pass along your genes and/or prevent another human from doing so. But looked at from the _application's_ and startup's standpoint, there is an intense evolutionary process going on where apps that take up more brain time get funded (and have spin-offs, er, children) whereas apps that don't find that brain time do not. Eyeballs always win out. This is why your argument of better information quicker fails -- the information is not a selection criteria. It's just information.

The interesting question is whether or not this evolutionary process of applications being easier and easier to find and harder and harder to put down ends up having some effect on reproduction. What the Atlantic and other articles talk about is the immediate effects -- much more interesting are the multi-generational ones.

I'd much rather talk about patterns of behavior in a system than the motivations of those criticizing (or praising) it.</comment>