Founder Dilution - How Much Is "Normal?" - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/02/founder-dilution-how-much-is-normal.html

<comment><USER2> This is like an equation where the earlier you go outside for capital the bigger the chance that you will end up with a very small slice of your company and a possible lack of control.

If you're halfway smart - and you'd better be if you plan to play the game well - then you should stretch your own means as far as you can. If you're dirt broke and you want to start a new company it better be something that is profitable within 30 days.

If that is not in your future then consider doing two things, one with a short ttm to fund the other. That way you can develop your 'big idea' to the point where you've proven its merits by having your first batch of users on board or whatever metric you use to measure your success.

The worst way to start a new company is to just have an idea and to start looking for funding. By the time it is a running business you'll have nothing left.

No point in blaming the VC's for that, an idea is just that, an idea. I have a notebook here that contains a bunch of ideas. Each and every one of those is potentially a company worth some money _if_ you put in a couple of years of sweat and brain power. Without that they're just ideas and I personally value them at exactly $0.

edit:

Another really good reason to go the 'spend your own $ first' route is that you show with your own money that you really believe in your idea, that will go a long way towards convincing people that you are serious.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. I wrote some of my thoughts down recently here: [http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2009/02/does-capital- efficien...](http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2009/02/does-capital-efficiency- matter.html)

Essentially, while running a grossly underfunded company is definitely bad, that's not to be confused with a "raise insane amounts of money and spend it indiscriminately" attitude.

Doing the most with the least amount of money is still the best way to maintain maximum ownership, but it should definitely be balanced against the risks of not being properly capitalized, where "properly" is certainly open to interpretation.

<comment><USER2> I read your post, and a similarity struck me between your situation and the one I was in with a competitor funded to the tune of 30M US by two very large companies. We were approached with the intent to acquire, but the management team there was - to put it mildly - a little strange, so we declined. After 3 years they had burned through the whole wad and the plug was pulled.

It was the weirdest experience, to out-compete a company that has such enormous backing with a team of very few but very dedicated people in two small offices (one in Toronto, another near Amsterdam).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As a counterpoint, my son and two of his buddies started a company to create a specialized chip. After 6 months they hired a CEO who had founded his own company and sold it for 9 figures (I believe). The CEO got no salary and got stock only if he raised the necessary funding. Six months later he raised mid 7 figures from angels and the founders still had control. They have since raised another similar round from angels.

Interestingly, they used VC's to recruit the CEO, but not for the money.

</comment><comment><USER5> For companies that need significant teams and years to get traction this is a reasonable model that has worked for years. The VC's are optimized for plays that have 10's of millions in and 100's out.

There is a new breed of companies that are far more nimble and don't need 10's of millions in. The main issue for these companies is how do they extend the team and get the (limited) capital they need to execute the business beyond the product.

At Tandem Entrepreneurs we have a model that works for such companies (there are probably others models out there as well).

We serve as the extended team for founders. The result is that the founders get to keep a much larger chunk of the company as the extended team doesn't add burn. We also serve as the investors so there is no time wasted raising money or hiring.

</comment><comment> old-gregg _20-25% for the management team?_ Perhaps MBA's aren't as "useless" as some folks preach they are. Just being qualified to be one part of this team puts you on an equal footing with founders in a startup after 4 rounds. Damn...

Who are these people? I am assuming that CEO/CTO are the founders, then you recruit COO, a VP of marketing, perhaps VP of business development... who else? Do these 3 new folks grab 20% of the company _in addition_ to being paid salaries?

<comment><USER6> He probably means management team + other employees. Isn't the total _employee_ option pool about 20%?

<comment><USER7> Yes - in the comments he states the 20-25% includes all employees.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One interesting answer was to "Let's say the 2 co-founders (1 engineer 1 business-type) have just gotten $100k angel and are hiring an engineer. What sort of equity range for that engineer would you expect."

The answer was "1-2%". It's unclear if that's 1-2% at exit, after the first VC round, after the angel round, before the angel round, or what.

Even if it's 1-2% at exit ....

<comment><USER8> > Even if it's 1-2% at exit ....

It's not - it's <0.5% at exit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> And remember, there are usually 2-4 founders.

<comment><USER10> I have a couple of enterpreneur friends that say that you should always aim for an even number of founders (3 in the best scenario, never 1, hardly ever 5). Having an even number helps when 'voting' things, so the tendency is to keep things moving... having been an enterpreneur myself (with 3 other people), I must agree with them

<comment><USER11> An odd number you mean?

<comment><USER10> yes... sorry!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Percentages are irrelevant, once you've lost controlling share it doesn't matter if you have 49% or 4.9% - as 4.9% of something > 49% of nothing.

<comment><USER13> Since the percentage you own is also the percentage you can sell later, it certainly isn't irrelevant.

<comment><USER12> So you'd rather have 49% of a dangerously under funded company than 4.9% of a well funded company?

If you sell equity for investment in to the business the total value of your shareholding has not reduced, but the company is more able to proceed.

Too many shareholders blindly cling to equity for the sake of keeping a high percentage - when the business would benefit from further investment.

<comment><USER14> Meh. Most companies are "dangerously underfunded" until they're cash flow positive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I typed-up a long comment, but just decided to submit it instead to YC as a blog post:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=490145>

</comment><comment><USER16> completely unrelated but still frustrating.

i get this message whenever i try and submit something to HN, what is that mean besides the obvious i'm not even submitting fast.

"You're submitting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." link: <http://news.ycombinator.com/x?fnid=EQ89mTm1oN>

</comment><comment><USER17> Two thoughts come to mind:

1) the VC system needs to be reformed. If founders are being screwed like this (and I think it's reasonable to say this is a screw), they're going to find other ways to raise capital. (And they are!) VCs should be in the business of cultivating founders, of encouraging and then rewarding them.

2) This is all the more reason to sell your company; it's more realistic (post-dot-com-bust) anyway, and obviously, it's the way to profit the most. Plenty of companies are buying these days. You just have to find a way to make something worth buying (and that's the rub, isn't it?).

<comment><USER18> I'm not sure how founders are being screwed here. They are asking for (in most cases) millions of dollars to develop a likely unproven idea. Also, VC's are not in the business of coddling founders. They are making an investment that they hope will return a profit and that is what is expected by their investors. Places like YC try to cultivate and encourage the founders, but they only give you ~$10000. If you want a couple million then you have to be willing to play the game.

You are right in the fact that new startups should be looking at new and innovative ways to fund themselves and I hope that people take that point away from reading articles like this.

<comment><USER17> They're being screwed: after developing a workable idea and putting years of work into it, they come away with practically nothing. If that's "the game" then no wonder founders are turning away from VCs. That's why I'm suggesting VCs change. Stop short-changing the founders. VCs with no founders are not VCs.

<comment><USER19> 10% of a million dollar company isn't practically nothing.

<comment><USER17> It's not much when you a) have to split it 2 or 3 ways, and b) have to watch the VCs take home several times as much, when you did all the work.

My point is that there is a value judgement here. VCs are being overvalued, and founders are being undervalued. This serves to demoralize and demotivate the founders, ultimately hurting the value of the company. It doesn't need to be that way.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


How to Choose Your First AI Project - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2019/02/how-to-choose-your-first-ai-project <comment><AUTHOR> Outline:

[https://outline.com/7hEgUu](https://outline.com/7hEgUu)</comment>


Death Rates Rising for Middle-Aged White Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/03/health/death-rates-rising-for-middle-aged-white-americans-study-finds.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> "Visit some formerly middle class suburbs of cities in the Midwest and you can see exactly why this is happening. No decent jobs, no social clubs, no children playing outside, sports tickets out of the budget of anyone but the 1%, no decent restaurants and obesity everywhere. Add decayed infrastructure and empty malls. You should see it. Horrific. "

"These sad statistics should come as no surprise given the pummeling the middle class has taken since 1980. As middle-aged, white males have been fired wholesale by the tens of thousands, battling years of constant unemployment with few or no resources, they have literally reached the end of their means. Broken men are unable to escape from hearing everyday how the executives of their ex-employers are reaping massive profits and personal gains. Their lives are overlaid with exhausted savings and unemployment benefits; all the negatives in their lives beat down on their heads like a ceaseless hailstorm. Finally, swallowing their pride, they turn to the caring myth of family and friends only to find them replaced with the harsh reality of indifferent relatives and unhelpful acquaintances. Too young for Social Security and too old for today's employment prejudices, the unloved and unemployed white males have few options. "

[nytimes comments]

<comment><USER3> It's a sad state of affairs made worse by undereducated, lazy people who blame the government and simultaneously elect politicians who promise to solve the problem for them by handing out a gift-wrapped "american dream" that everyone feels they deserve. I see this kind of self-destructive philosophy/behavior every day, and I'm getting tired of it. It's always someone else's fault, yet it seems the "progressives" in our country keep shouting that the solution lies in more government involvement, forgetting that the only way we get decent jobs and favorable social and family conditions is by letting people fulfill their own dreams through hard work and less government intervention. The american dream isn't a gift - it's the idea that through blood, sweat, and tears, we can shape our own lives.

From my perspective, the problem is a manifestation of a shift in popular ideals and a growing sense of entitlement.

<comment><USER4> > the only way we get decent jobs and favorable social and family conditions > is by letting people fulfill their own dreams through hard work and less > government intervention

We tried that during the industrial revolution. Didn't _quite_ work out that way…

<comment><USER3> There's a role for government to play in ensuring public safety and transparency, in addition to providing national defense and perhaps a few fundamental infrastructure services. To function effectively in those areas, we don't need them trying to manage the finances of everyone, nor picking and choosing who should or shouldn't be deserving of tax breaks, subsidies, or any of the other countless benefit programs.

When people are out of work or large classes of people are struggling to get by, it's because we haven't provided a suitable environment in which people can thrive (and yes, most people can and will thrive through their own action in a healthy environment), _not_ because the government has somehow failed to give people enough prosperity.

If it were a traditional business (without the ability to print money or use military force), the U.S. government would frankly be one of the most disastrous companies ever imagined - not just bankrupt (many times over), but mismanaged, fraudulent, and corrupt. A huge portion of our paychecks go to support this company today. And we want more of it?

<comment><USER4> Are you listening, or are you posting copypasta?

<comment><USER3> A constructive argument might be more appropriate than simply trying to deliver an insult in your comment.

<comment><USER4> I'm just confused, because you didn't address anything in my comment, you're just spewing right-wing propaganda. We tried "small government", it failed horribly and lead to widespread misery and avoidable deaths. How do you plan to make a "small government" _without_ repeating past mistakes?

<comment><USER3> I did address your reference to the industrial revolution indirectly, but perhaps I didn't make myself clear. The industrial revolution had numerous positive outcomes including more jobs, increased productivity, and a strong economy. Yes, it also uncovered some serious problems, many of which were addressed by the government (e.g., child labor laws, better working conditions, etc). In my opinion, those are valid areas of government involvement (hence my point about government ensuring public safety), but that's a far cry from the kind of government intervention we're seeing today.

If we failed anything with small government as you say, those things were growing pains that we would have experienced with a government of any scale. I guess what I'm saying is that it's unfair to blame "small government" for the problems exposed during the industrial revolution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm in my 30s, male and ostensibly white by American standards and I've been watching these sorts of trends for a while. Distrust in our certain brand of capitalism has led me to regard America with a wary eye. It has influenced a lot of my life decisions, i.e. stack cash, stay mobile/agile, no spouse, no children, etc. so that I can continually pursue the best jobs no matter when/where they appear. I luckily was able to obtain an EU passport recently via my mother, giving me a few extra countries as potential markets for work but mostly as a hedge against a (probably) meaningless 401k or just the general depressive idea of eventually being an older person in the US. Basically I'll spend my good years putting money away, and as soon as I'm sick (read, need healthcare) or ready to retire, I'll bounce back to the mother country where retirement actually looks like living rather than dying.

<comment><USER6> I guess you haven't looked to carefully into how the EU economies are doing.

<comment><USER7> Don't worry about that, we might not have amazing growth, but the actual living standards are still amazing in the EU (specifically, Slovenia). If it changes soon (hopefully not), it's more likely to be because of the influx of immigrants/refugees, not because pf the economy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Ageism still seems to be very much in play in technology, and a trap to avoid for middle-aged, skilled white men:

[http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/02/google- agei...](http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/06/02/google-ageism-and- the-business-of-plastic-surgery.aspx)

This guy had eyelid surgery, shaved his head, and got a pair of Converse "Chucks" to look younger because he was worried about jobs (previous HN submission):

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley- ageism-i...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/27/us-valley-ageism- idUSBRE8AQ0JK20121127)

"Don't hire anyone over 30":

[http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire- anyone-30-ageism-...](http://anewdomain.net/2014/12/11/dont-hire- anyone-30-ageism-silicon-valley/)

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the links. This from the last link:

       "To walk the streets of Austin during tech's biggest annual confab, South by Southwest Interactive, is to experience a society where Boomers and Gen Xers have vanished into a black hole. Photos of those open-space offices favored by start-ups document workplaces where people over 35 are as scarce as women on the streets of Kandahar."

At least made me chuckle against the backdrop of an otherwise serious topic. Well-written piece.

<comment><USER10> This is funny.

Also funny -- I worked in Austin in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Looked the same then. When I was stressed out one evening, I joked with my wife that I was tempted to run over a few of the yuppies. With so many, who would miss a few?

So wonder where all those guys went?

On a related note, this weekend might be a good time to re-watch Logan's Run.

<comment><USER8> Sorry, I won't be at Carousel tonight. It's my Love-Shop turn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe my math is wrong, but the raising rate is .134 percent?

I'm in that group of guys now. I sometimes wonder if white males are getting enough vitamin D. I never really gave it much thought, until I saw a friend's blood work-up. His doctor is routinely checking his level of vitamin D. I just chalked it up to his good insurance plan.

I know I don't get the amount of sunshine my father got. My father always had a tan, and made sure to get outside as much as possible. I, on the other hand, spend too much time looking into a screen. Maybe I'll get a few more years in because I have exercised, but it's been at night for years.

Depressing. Sometimes the Internet is really depressing.

<comment><USER12> The death rate "increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014". Without the starting point (the death rate in 1999) we can't know the raising rate. If there were 268 deaths per 100,000 people in 1999 that would be a 50% increase for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I did an analysis a couple years ago and found that drug misuse kills about a third of Americans. Possibly even more if you include the new study that found that the surgeon general's report is undercounting tobacco deaths by 80k per year or whatever, which I didn't because that wasn't out at the time.

[http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2014/05/the-one- sta...](http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2014/05/the-one-statistic- you-never-hear-about-drugs.html)

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1407211#abstract](http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1407211#abstract)

<comment><USER14> Alex interesting post, but I would not put too much value in the ADR numbers. Getting accurate information on the cause of death due to ADR is not easy given death in hospital rarely has a single cause.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> It would be interesting to see this broken down by gender. My hunch is it's hitting men harder, but I'm curious if that's reflected in the data.

</comment><comment><USER16> I may be projecting, but I feel like this is a symptom of our deteriorating middle class. White, now middle aged, men have been hit over and over by free trade, out sourcing and cheap immigrant labor suppressing labor value. Now they're beaten and broken.

I've worked with these people and seen it first hand. In my anecdotal experience, depression and drug use isn't just a common case with working class whites, it's nearly the majority. These people know they've been abandoned by society, and a lot of them are just giving up. They're people who have put in 60 hour weeks of hard labor, with little to no health care, for decades and have next to nothing to show for it, and no hope of things improving.

</comment><comment><USER17> Naked capitalism has found a way to thin the herd more efficiently than the Jonathan Swift ever imagined. A modest proposal indeed.

Unrelated: the top NYT comments are better than HN. Sad day.

<comment><USER18> What is naked capitalism as against, for instance, naked socialism? And how germane is all to this to the topic? Or is it just hand waving according to predilection?

<comment><USER17> Would you like it better if it said "pure capitalism"? Or "capitalism and only capitalism"?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I must be missing this. I read the article carefully and scanned the comments here. Looks like FUD-bait to me.

This is how I would write the article (and this is probably all there is to the article)

Over the past 15 years, death rates for whites per 100,000 people aged 45–54 remained basically the same, with the natural increase lifespan being offset by increases in both suicide and alcohol/drug issues. This difference is statistically significant, but it is on the order of 1 or 2 extra deaths per thousand people for their lives from 45-54. It is highly unusual for death rates to change like that. The last great change in the west of this magnitude was with the introduction of HIV/AIDS. For context, the average middle class white american would experience the same increase in risk if they took up canoeing over the same period.

But maybe I missed it. I got a graph where one line stays the same where others decline, and I got a graph where risk increases for a couple causes of death by a very small amount (out of dozens not listed)

Also I have approximately 50 comments lamenting the rise of third world conditions in places like Peoria and the death of all things good and decent in the USA. I believe if a little more context was provided by the news outlet in this case, perhaps our comments would be more aligned with the actual impact of the news being reported.

</comment><comment><USER19> Is this a case of Simpson's paradox?

<comment><USER20> Don't think so. Simpson's paradox applies when you have two groups and _independently_ rates of your variable are increasing within both, but the population of the lesser group is increasing faster. For example, if death rates for both whites and blacks were decreasing but blacks had a higher death rate, and the population of blacks was increasing, you would see overall death rates increasing. If death rates for both uneducated & college-educated white Americans were increasing but there were an increasing number of college- educated white Americans, you would see death rates decrease.

Neither of those seem to be the case here: it's just one group who, tragically, is killing themselves or self-medicating to death disturbingly frequently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> You'll never see a black activist or feminist show solidarity with these poor middle-aged white people.

The greatest success of capitalism has been dividing people along gender and race lines - not letting them show any class solidarity. If people did, they'd realize that the difference between a poor white and a poor black is a rounding error compared to the difference between a poor guy and a rich guy.

<comment><USER22> > You'll never see a black activist or feminist show solidarity with these > poor middle-aged white people.

Speaking of "dividing people along gender and race lines".

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Happiness is reality minus expectations. Guess who had the highest expectations? White guys.

</comment><comment><USER24> _The mortality rate for whites 45 to 54 years old with no more than a high school education increased by 134 deaths per 100,000 people from 1999 to 2014._

This should surprise no one. These are the people who work marginal jobs and they have been the most affected by so much manufacturing moving offshore, the resultant shift to service sector employment, and the downward push on service wages created by massive immigration of unskilled South American workers. (Not to mention the political and social demonization of this cohort.)

<comment><USER25> I don't think you can tie this to economics alone. After all, blacks and hispanics have been feeling the economic pressures as well.

Suicide, drug use, and alcoholism have deeper cultural ties. I have no idea what those ties are, but it likely won't be fixed by a 4% annual increase in wages.

I can't help but wonder if perhaps this increase in self destructive behavior is due to an increase in secularism. Blacks and Hispanics are more religious than whites, and with that religiosity comes greater church attendance which likely brings greater community support (a generalization, I know, but I'm guessing that this is probably more true than not).

<comment><USER26> Good theory but the same cohort in Europe has not seen the same Effect despite even higher secularization

<comment><USER25> I don't know, I don't believe Europe is really doing a bang up job of preventing suicide either, but I will admit that I don't know much about the situation, I'm just hypothesizing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Side note: looking at the color choice in figure 3 ([http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/10/29/1518393112.full.pdf)):

 _" Census regions are Northeast (blue), Midwest (red), South (black), and West (green)."_

I think they were picked manually. On the one hand, I think picking that makes them more memorable, on the other hand, it surprises me that people in the politically hypercorrect USA would pick those colors this way.

</comment><comment><USER28> Speaking from experience Im 43 years old but been rejected by women my entire life in LA for being a "white guy" its certainly depressing that no matter how well you do you have to spend your entire life alone have to be ignorant of sexuality because its cut off from you , theres never any reward for my efforts no matter how well i do only puniahment for being born the wrong ethnicity.

<comment><USER29> > _for being a "white guy"_

I am 100% certain that you have not _only_ been rejected for being a white guy. White people are the most sought-after race in the United States[1], partially because most people seek partners of the same race.

Furthermore, the language you're using is deeply concerning. Women aren't a "reward" for your efforts. Failing to find a sexual partner is not a "punishment". No one owes you sex, and there isn't a grand design that's keeping you from finding someone to have sex with.

I think it's very important for you to seek counseling or the support of a therapist. They'll be able to help you learn how to start and maintain a romantic relationship. There's always hope.

1\. [http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race- attraction-2009-2014/](http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/race- attraction-2009-2014/)

<comment><USER30> [http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the- romanc...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/08/31/radicalizing-the-romanceless/)

<comment><USER29> I skimmed this and have no idea what it has to do with the comment I was responding to.

The argument in the article seems to be that, if you're a good guy on paper (you don't abuse women, you're financially stable, etc.) that you should get attention from women instead of men who aren't good guys on paper.

My response is similar: the world is not a vending machine where you insert "hard work" or "not beating women" and a sex partner drops out at the bottom. No one just "deserves" sex. It should never be a bargaining chip or a debt that someone is paying you.

What's particularly disturbing about this line of thinking is that these people seem to think women owe them _in general_. It's like they don't even know who they want to have sex with them, and they feel that _some_ woman now needs to step up.

Do you not see how bizarre that is? It echoes the comments of the mass shooter who went to a Lulu Lemon to kill women because they "owed him".

Nice guys are nice guys because they don't want to harm anyone and because it's good for the people around them. They don't secretly (or publicly!) expect to be rewarded for it with sex.

<comment><USER30> If you skimmed it, then you should read it again, in full. Because it didn't say what you think it said.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google App Engine to support SQL - <AUTHOR> http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine/browse_thread/thread/9740dd2a8bdf4206

<comment><USER2> Reading between the lines, this shows that App Engine is a growing & responsive project, and makes me less nervous about building on it.

<comment><USER3> I'm trying to feel that way too... but the fact is there are people on the app engine team who could write SQL support for app engine in a few days in their spare time.

The problems with app engine and the datastore have shown that there was a high level misunderstanding underlying the core design of the datastore... and how it would function in the context of lots of simultaneous users.

So I'd feel a lot more confident if Google addressed this concern other than with the high availability datastore...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Look at this from the perspective of Google Apps corporate users. Imagine that the IT intern has just completed the corporate cafeteria's lunch menu system, and it's time to deploy it. While it's then least significant application the IT department manages, there's still a high fixed labor cost for infrastructure roll-out and management. The DBA must provision instances across dev, QA, and production environments. Onto which servers will the application be deployed? Must they be procured? Even if the lunch menu app is deployed on a VM instance, that OS image still requires security patches and other upgrades. The cost of deploying the intern's work likely exceeds his/her salary for the summer.

With SQL on AppEngine, corporate developers can build apps like this without learning how to use NoSQL for persistence. Even if GAE's SQL doesn't allow scale-out sufficient for SaaS vendors and such, it will fill an important niche in Google's apparent goal of moving corps onto their cloud. As another commenter here suggested, the bar for perf/scale in many cases may be no higher than that provided by a MSAccess DB hosted on a Windows fileshare.

</comment><comment><USER5> We are living weird times. Multitasking, copy/paste, SQL support, these things are old, but still newsworthy when added to new platforms/services.

<comment><AUTHOR> There is a difference between humans speaking and monkeys speaking. For hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people that use the datastore API, this is a big thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This could help out those who are building projects using Django &/or Django- nonrel.

<comment><USER7> Kind of kills one of the main reasons for the nonrel branch to exist, no? Wasn't django-nonrel an outgrowth of efforts to put django on appengine?

I think that the nonrel project has utility on other places (redis, mongo, etc...) but ABP (all buttons pressed, creators of nonrel) was pushing django on GAE alot, IIRC.

<comment><USER6> I agree. Don't forget that work has begun for a Cassandra driver as well.

Truth be told however, Django and a SQL based system aren't all that bad.

No matter what, it will be a long time before Django gets full 1.0 support for NoSql in any shape or form. That means, 100% Django coverage.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So long as the performance is reasonable, this will go a long way towards removing lock-in barriers with AppEngine.

<comment><USER9> "The datastore is high-latency and extremely unreliable" \- <http://www-cs- students.stanford.edu/~silver/gae.html>

<comment><USER10> I've found that, if you want to make responsive apps on GAE, you must use memcache. At any scale. Personally, I gave up and left for better options. The generous free quotas aren't worth the trouble.

I hear they've improved latency since I left, so take this with a grain of salt. I'm still not going back any time in the next few years, though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Hopefully this is the real deal and not an abstraction on the current datastore. When using the datastore in a relational way, you get some pretty horrid performance.

<comment><USER12> It is the real deal and it will scale, and I quote, "as well as SQL scales".

<comment><AUTHOR> The "free scaling" using appengine datastore is nothing more than theoretical at this point. The service has severe datastore latency problems and non trivial downtime. Looks like using RDBMS, solves both these issues for now, while Google can ponder around long term solution for the bigtable access.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I rather got the feeling that the datastore was much better for certain kinds of things than SQL. However, unless you are an expert in both SQL and the use of BigTable, how would you know when to use the one over the other? Okay, so obviously SQL is 'designed' to be good at transactions (whether it is or not is an exercise for the readers), and BigTable is really good for fuzzy search.

I'm guessing that SQL is actually going to be more useful for anyone doing e-commerce (hence transactions) or anyone with familiarity with traditional SQL based persistence (even - shock horror - JDBC).

SQL is bland, BigTable is sexy. But another word for bland is mature...

</comment><comment><USER14> Nice feature, but not super important for new projects. I suppose it will make porting some existing projects over.

I didn't remember seeing SQL on the roadmap however so I had another look ( <http://code.google.com/appengine/docs/roadmap.html> ) and I'm very excited to see it as been revised with a few awesome enhancements. I've had several projects I wanted to try on app engine which were impractical because of GAE limitations like no full text search, no programmatic access to blobstore, no bulk export/backup, no mapreduce. The future is looking a lot brighter for GAE.

<comment><USER15> Why isn't it important for new projects? I have a ton of projects that I can't do on GAE precisely because of this. GQL is _extremely_ limited.

<comment><USER16> At the risk of re-hashing a number of previous discussions, GQL appears limited when compared to SQL because Google's database is designed to scale to extremely large datasets and massive numbers of concurrent users. The features that are missing were removed intentionally because they don't scale. If you can re-think your database use to be consistent with this new paradigm, then you'll have a much more scaleable app when you're done.

<comment><USER17> The end goal for every app doesn't have to be scaling on the order that GAE's original design provides. People have lived for years creating apps that use Excel or Access as a datastore.

Being able to use SQL on GAE will allow more widespread use of GAE for things besides "the next twitter".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google should buy a SQL engine like Postgres now that mySQL is in oracle's hands. People will need SQL databases till the end of times, and coupled with BigTable that can be a killer in the database space.</comment>


Can tilapia skin be used to bandage burns? - <AUTHOR> https://www.statnews.com/2017/03/02/brazil-tilapia-skin-burns/ <comment><USER2> Does the amount of tilapia consumed these days mean that this is basically free (modulo transportation & sterilisation costs, of course)? That'd be pretty cool. It'd be a real shame if it's effective, without negative side effects and our FDA prevents its use.</comment>


Deepfake porn and the ethics of being able to watch whatever you desire - <AUTHOR> https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/31/deepfake-porn-ethics-able-watch-whatever-imagination-desires-9526079/ <comment><USER2> I think deepfakes is absolutely AWESOME!

You know what I want to do, I want to actually create sci-fi films with my favourite actors. But sadly, I don't have the money, time or network of highly paid actors to do so.

Sucks doesn't it?

But what if I could get the time, a little bit of money and actors who are just starting out and relatively cheap?

Can you hear that? Just maybe the democratization of film, may just be happening?

Take a look at this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXHsgucZuJk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXHsgucZuJk)

Now imagine, building out very cheap scenes, overlaying them with something like Unreal3d engine and using deepfakes instead of having someone sit in a chair for 5 hours because they need makeup, as they are acting as some alien?

Or how about having permission from "Schwarzenegger as a service" (TM pending) to use his likeness as a deepfake in the film?

I know, I know. People will use this for porn first and if you look at technology like VHS, internet streaming, VR it's all being used for porn. But as the tech gets better, gets cheaper. It'll be put into the hands of the creatives and we'll be a lot better for it.

I'm really bullish about this tech.

<comment><USER3> > You know what I want to do, I want to actually create sci-fi films with my > favourite actors. But sadly, I don't have the money, time or network of > highly paid actors to do so.

But the reason these people are your favourite actors is that they're...good at acting, right? The deepfake won't improve the performance of your budget actor (actually it'll probably make it much worse). So your movie will be like seeing your favourite actors putting in absurdly terrible performances. Are you sure you want this?

<comment><USER4> This applies to porn, too. If, for example, I was a widower who missed my wife dearly (to give a relatively benign example), deepfake porn of my late wife would be someone else pretending to be her, and it'd likely be obvious to me.

<comment><USER5> Maybe this tech is just naturally polarizing but this sounds really awful to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Personally I think the whole reaction to deepfakes is overblown, and makes luddites out of otherwise reasonable people.

If it were to become common, society would quickly learn to take all video with a grain of salt. We already question suspicious images. If the exact line of how a photo got to you from the camera is unknown people quickly exclaim things to be Photoshopped.

I don't think expanding our questioning to video is that far of a societal jump.

<comment><USER7> Wasn't there an issue recently of the POTUS tweeting an obviously fake and doctored photo to his followers? I don't think that group responded with skepticism. Making a more convincing fake would be even more psychologically satisfying for people. As it gets better it's harder and harder to disprove it as being fake and people will be more willing to take the easy path and accept it. After all, people still accept incriminating photos as evidence.

<comment><USER8> It doesn't really matter at this point since the underlying problem is absolute loyalty to a particular cause or person.

<comment><USER9> That loyalty is built on the back of misinformation, and is strengthened by presenting your opponents in compromising positions. Deepfakes would reinforce this, so they are not an orthogonal issue.

<comment><USER8> There's a two way feedback at hand. Disinformation does affect people greatly but those it affects were already receptive to its message and looking for more. The neo-liberal, "humanist", The Economist-style view assumes it's just temporary/fixable insanity and that they would come back to the "rational" view of the world if they were better educated.

In reality, the people who follow populist movements are both firmly in the grasp of illusory ideas and hold a very lucid understanding of their place in the world. They are riled up by fiery rhetoric but they are also well aware, whether consciously or not, that they have little to gain from a return to the neo-liberal order in which they have no useful economic role, no community (whether real or imaginary) to come back to, no access to the wonders of a globalization, and no real cause or culture to believe in other than competing against their neighbors for a slightly better place in the rat race.

In San Francisco you can see the end logic of this trajectory. An elite with highly paid and satisfying jobs served by a pauperized underclass of Uber drivers and mini-job holders who only have a crumbling public infrastructure to support them and no prospect of being a socially engaged citizenry.

<comment><USER9> >Disinformation does affect people greatly but those it affects were already receptive to its message and looking for more.

My point is that its effects are more pronounced, more reliable, and significantly harder to correct in the presence deepfake style media. People who are trying harder to make honest evaluations of the world will be making more committed arguments for dishonest points if they fail to identify the inauthenticity of a deepfake message, a problem which is purposefully more likely due to the inherent design of a deepfake message.

We don't need to talk about people who are intending to be manipulated, we need to talk about the people who are not intending to be manipulated who will nevertheless be disarmed by new technology.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Once I overheard a guy ranting about how iPods were bad because if you carried your music with you everywhere, you could feel whatever you wanted at any time, which was unnatural and bad for your psyche.

I think he was crazy. But it gave me pause

<comment><USER8> It's a good point. One of the problems with media is that it can shield you from realizing that your life is not going so well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Really you can already look at basically any illustrated porn you want, just pay a bit of money to an artist. This is a huge portion of the furry community. $50 will easily get you some impressive furry smut.

Deepfakes can only put different faces on people, it can't create some of the more niche fetishes the illustrated porn market does. Call me back when it can generate a 800 foot tall bird-man stomping on a pixie.

<comment><USER12> Hmm, I don't see why it couldn't do that? That's a good idea.

*it being some similar type of GANN

<comment><USER11> Someone made a "fursona generator" GAN that kinda worked (but still had lots of artifacts), generating scenes is a massive leap from that, let alone parameterized scenes, fringe or custom species, narrow kinks etc.

But yeah I would be super fascinated if anyone was working toward that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The real danger I see is if/when deepfake-like tech becomes so ubiquitous that we no longer believe anything we see on video.

What will that mean for surveillance evidence? What will that mean for police brutality videos? What will it mean for rape/harassment/assault/stalking/etc videos?

By spreading this tech, which seems inevitable now, we roll back the protective aspects of video/film by decades, if not more.

<comment><USER14> Presumably there will be a legal requirement that video used as evidence is digitally signed by the camera, using tamper-proof hardware and a certificate chain back to a certified manufacturer. Anything less will just be contested in court, and thrown out.

<comment><USER13> I like the digital signature aspect.

But would a phone camera be considered "tamper proof"? What camera would, that a civilian could readily buy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> On which subject, 'Face Swap', an entertaining (but somewhat NSFW!) short science fiction film i saw recently:

[https://vimeo.com/306304445](https://vimeo.com/306304445)

<comment><USER16> Thank you for sharing! This was great :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've been using this other unethical tech called Imagination. It's much cheaper and faster to render and has better privacy protection.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, but the resolution is shit

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Whenever people hear about these issues (and now pretty much any issue sadly) they always jump to the worst conclusions and stop considering balance, which is ultimately what we need to preserve. This is a complex issue, oversimplifying it only serves to make things worse. Like any entity in this entire universe, deep-fakes can be used for good and bad. I am willing to bet there is a middle ground that makes sense and allows us to ultimately mostly benefit from whatever good this technology brings. Its about thinking within reason. Saying things like "This will be the best thing every" or the opposite extreme, "This will collapse society!" only speaks to the radical mindset it seems everyone has been poisoned with.

It is becoming difficult to discuss these kinds of issues at all with the way everyone seems to so easily move to the extremities..

</comment><comment><USER20> Beyond ethics, I'm worried more about societal collapse. Going further we might have entirely generated ultra-realistic and ultra-specific pornography that will ultimately lead to people just not having sex... This concern has already been raised with sexbots, but machine pornography (for the lack of a better term) seems that it'll arrive first.

<comment> IX-103 I'm not concerned about that. Humans are social creatures and can get sick if they don't have sufficient social contact to get their needs met. One of those needs is intimacy (and with intimacy, sex often follows). We are very far away from building a machine that can satisfy that better than a human (since it is harder problem to solve than the Turing test). And if we do develop such a machine and people stop having sex, that's not the end of children. Children can be produced without sex (and eventually may not need a human uterus), so society would likely continue.

I'd be a bit more concerned about people just deciding not to have children (because raising children is a pain), but right now there's too many people, so I'll worry when there are less than 100 million.

<comment><USER21> What makes you think simulating intimacy is harder than impersonating a human during conversation?

I remember reading about researchers constructing a fake monkey mother out of blankets, a heat lamp, and a milk bottle. The babies seemed to get what they needed in terms of intimacy.

Likewise Paro the Seal seems able to help elders cope with loneliness.

<comment><USER22> Because intimacy for adults (as opposed to your example, which is a much simpler problem) includes conversation along with a host of other behaviors. Impersonating a human during conversation is therefore a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I think these deepfakes should require a disclaimer to indicate what it is. (It should not be prohibited to produce or view them, however.)

</comment><comment><USER24> It is perfectly ethical to be able to watch what you want.

If the supposed problem is that what you watch may be unethical to some other person, that also does not compute. Why should I care what some religious zealot thinks about the ethics of me watching self-created deep fake porn in the privacy of my home?</comment>


Microsoft previews its Fluid framework - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/4/20942031/microsoft-fluid-framework-office-web-preview <comment><USER2> From the (thin) copy here, it appears this is very much what Google Wave wanted to be, including an API for stateful robots that collaborate alongside you. Hopefully the API layer will allow for custom presentational components, allowing developers to go beyond simple "office-like" use cases, into multimedia creative applications.

<comment><USER3> Maybe the world is now more ready for a Google wave style of service.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Reminds me a lot of Notion.so ([https://www.notion.so](https://www.notion.so)) which got me to move away from OneNote for the first time for about a year, but the lack of pen support forced me to switch back.

Having all the data in the "document" stored in a database of sorts and then being able to pivot the display and reference and pull in across different surfaces was a very useful in practice. From the copy and mockups also might be fair to view this as a mashup of AirTable + Access + OneNote.

</comment><comment><USER5> Kind of what OLE was supposed to be back in the day? Just web based this time? It seemed like Microsoft's pushing of the document component object model never really stuck back then as people gravitated back to monolithic text documents and spreadsheets for the most part. I wonder if it will work this time.

<comment><USER6> OLE became COM and ActiveX - but the terms are too broad to mean anything. Disregarding the low-level COM infrastructure (the ABI, component-oriented libraries, IUnknown and IDispatch, etc), a reboot of OLE's concept of human- editable "objects" contained in other applications' documents simply won't work for various reasons mostly related to the currently very sad state of GUI programming on Windows: it's a mess.

OLE worked fine back in the 1990s because there was only really one way to make a GUI: Using a Win32 User32/GDI Device Context to render something while it received window messages representing mouse and keyboard input.

Now in Windows 10, User32/GDI is deprecated and obsolete for high-performance applications (and it's really slow too after they axed GDI hardware acceleration in Vista), but there isn't a single replacement, instead there's like 5 of 6 - all incompatible with each other. While it's true that it shouldn't matter because OLE objects were rendered to their own separate hWnd, consider that the new UWP system doesn't use hWnds, and frameworks like WPF have "air gap" issues with rendering their content overlaying another hWnd and often resort to hacks using window content blitting which drastically hurts performance (as you need to blit to/from RAM, instead of keeping it all in VRAM).

So if this approach is not allowing components to render themselves to a surface then it must be using an some other representation like HTML+CSS or something like WPF's XAML such as Silverlight - and that has its own set of problems (e.g. any HTML+CSS will be outdated in 5 years, and we all saw what happened to Silverlight.

If this is web-only, then that means this is the beginning of the end for the rich desktop experience for Office - but it's also irrelevant because we've had <iframe> for over 20 years - and the new Web Component system is gaining popularity.

<comment><USER7> AFAIK, GDI acceleration came back in Windows 7 (with WDDM 1.1 and later GPU drivers).

<comment><USER6> Only for a small subset of operations, like Blitting - everything else (like 2D accelerated line and shape drawing) was made slower.

I understand the business and technical reasons for doing this - but Microsoft never replaced GDI with an _approachable_ replacement. Direct2D is nice, but it's very difficult to use from the .NET world, whereas GDI is a first-class library feature in `System.Drawing`.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Now even Microsoft is releasing the next generation of document creation tools as cloud only. Does anyone still think that we will do the thin clients to powerful personal computers transition for mobile too? I really wanted it to happen but I'm losing faith.

<comment><USER9> Instead of personal computers you will have personalized clouds with an AI that know too much and yet be more useless than a real AI we envision and mostly used to serve you ads cause its all "free" but at a cost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> So Microsoft office can finally do what Google docs did more than 10 years ago?

<comment><USER11> " _Please don 't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something._"

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment></comment>


Programmatically Generate Random Celtic Knots (C++) - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/codeplea/celtic_knots <comment><USER2> I downloaded and ran the binary. It's a pretty neat screensaver! Seems to work fine on Windows 8. It even looks good on multiple monitors, which is impressive for something from 2008.

I wish the author had documentation on the algorithm somewhere. The code has comments, but I didn't see anything that talked about the high level approach. The neat thing is that it makes a giant, random knot, but if you follow each thread it alternatives between going over and under each thread it crosses.

<comment><USER2> Does anyone know what algorithm this uses?</comment></comment>


A Quick Introduction to the Cassandra Data Model - <AUTHOR> http://maxgrinev.com/2010/07/09/a-quick-introduction-to-the-cassandra-data-model/

<comment><USER2> Man, the Cassandra API is a pain to work with.</comment>


Google diversity annual report 2019 - <AUTHOR> https://diversity.google/annual-report <comment><USER2> Key takeaway: Over the last five years, hiring of white males for tech roles has declined from 47.5% to 33.3% (of total tech hires). Somewhat surprisingly, hiring of white females and all non-Asian minorities has barely budged. The major increases were in hiring of Asians, with women increasing somewhat faster proportionally.

No data on age at all. I'm guessing it would look pretty bad for those over forty.

Kudos to Google for publishing this in greater detail than ever.</comment>


Ask HN: What product/service do you want to stay independent? - <AUTHOR> First off, to avoid semantic distinctions that would detract from the possible answers, I've tried to word this question to allow for a lot of subjectivity. I hope this "pseudo-coded" question works out. Without further ado:
Inspired by this comment [0], I'm interested in your answers to this question: Is there an [independently|privately] owned [product|service|app] that you [use|depend on|really love], and would [prefer|desire|demand] stay [independent|private]?
And the extra credit follow up: Is there some corporation you would trust to take it over? What's your "Plan B" if it gets snapped up?
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12206192 <comment><USER2> I will answer in a similarly meta way.

If I really like a product, I want it to stay independent, or rather, I want it to stay available so I can keep using it, until a superior alternative emerges that piques my interest. While this does not necessarily preclude the product being acquired, in recent times most product teams have been acqui- hired by larger companies and used as a piece of their respective business strategies.

Those strategies don't always align with mine, as a user of the product. Often, the product is discontinued; sometimes it's turned into a piece of a larger SaaS offering of the parent; sometimes it's released as open source but effectively abandoned. Occasionally, the product improves in an objective way under the new parent. Therefore any potential acquisition is a risk until proven otherwise.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Linked version: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12206192](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12206192)</comment>


20-line python Valentine's day gift from TotalFinder - <AUTHOR> http://paste.ha.ckers.in/plain/1112001

<comment><USER2> Is this legit? It doesn't look like it -- it just hammers (20 parallel connections) BinaryAge's ecommerce provider's site searching for all permutations of coupon codes.

<comment><USER3> The script makes 175760 permutations. For me the script takes around around 1.5 seconds to query the page each time. 175760 * 1.5 / 60 = 4394 minutes / 60 = 73.23 hours of constantly hitting the site. I'm not sure how the parallel connections it uses will impact the speed, but 3 days seems feasible. Not to say that this should ever be tried.

<comment><USER4> And yet it generated 200+ Valid License within 15 minutes. What about running it on EC2 instances ?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, it looks like it goes through each possible permutation of coupon codes for the BinaryAge Total Finder online store [1]. These codes seem to be in the format THANKSXXXX, where X is a random number/letter.

It generates a set of possible codes and then queries the website for each one of those codes. When it finds a correct coupon code permutation it outputs the code to the screen and writes it to a file. (Presumably so that the coupon can be reedemed for a free, illicit, copy of the program)

[1] [http://sites.fastspring.com/binaryage/product/totalfinderfre...](http://sites.fastspring.com/binaryage/product/totalfinderfree?coupon=THANKS)

</comment><comment><USER5> It created coupon codes for free licenses to TotalFinder e.g.

[http://sites.fastspring.com/binaryage/product/totalfinderfre...](http://sites.fastspring.com/binaryage/product/totalfinderfree?coupon=THANKS6PEK)

This does not look legit. There are 175,760 possible permutations of coupon codes, which looks to me they are trying to brute-force which coupon codes work. I'm not downloading a copy.

</comment><comment><USER6> Hi guys, TotalFinder creator here :-) And yes, I did not create that script.

First, big thanks to some HN guys to ping me so early. I had to shut down my coupon-based links for the time being.

Anyways I should thank those hackers, it looks someone did a promo action to my software here on HN ;-)

<comment><USER4> Love your Software. It is _Awesome_ :D

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like this python code is generating "working free licenses" for TotalFinder.

</comment><comment><USER7> anyone figured out what does it do? i ran it for 1 minute, no results.

<comment><USER8> Did you look in totality.txt?

<comment><USER7> Ran it for sometime & went for coffee, got this 4RFZ [http://sites.fastspring.com/binaryage/product/totalfinderfre...](http://sites.fastspring.com/binaryage/product/totalfinderfree?coupon=THANKS4RFZ) ... omg free!</comment></comment></comment>


Visualization of tweets during the first 2014 World Cup match - chestnut-tree http://cartodb.com/v/worldcup/brazil-croatia/#/5/44.292/6.240/0

<comment> chestnut-tree It's worth zooming in to see the detail. For example, zoomed out, the whole of Europe looks like it's a buzz of tweeting activity during the Brazil vs Croatia match. However, once you zoom in, the picture is quite different. The UK seems to be the busiest. Germany is relatively quiet and France has a concentrated cluster of tweets emanating from Paris.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you immerse yourself in learning project? - <AUTHOR> I am learning Python. I cannot focus. I find myself browsing tutorials, or videos, not moving ahead. How to force myself to just learning? <comment><USER2> Why Python? (Why code?)

-What do you want to make with it? Who will that effect? How?

Why browse?

-How many LOC have you written in the past week on something you want to make? (...or that would get you close to something you want to make?)

Why force yourself?

Why just learn?

...

What do you do instead?

If you continued, what would your life be like in 5 years?

Would the people previously mentioned be missing out?

Would that be a bad thing?</comment>


Silicon Valley's Shameful Purging of Peter Thiel - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/articles/655825/silicon-valleys-shameful-purging-peter-thiel <comment><USER2> This article is fun

>Great innovators, great thinkers, great inventors — they are almost always weirdos

Yeah, oh boy, racism! Those crazy thinkers, up to their own sillyness!

Now onto a real point the article tries to make:

> And the thing that is unmistakable about the rise of the National Front — > now the most popular party in France — is that what is now referred to in > the press as "the demonization strategy" has not only failed but contributed > to the National Front's rise.

This is categorically and provably false. When the National Front actually made it to the second round of elections, their score went from 17% of votes to.. 18% of votes. of the 60-odd percent of people who had to change their vote between two rounds, only 1% decided to go full-fascist. This was entirely due to a massive media campaign pointing this out. The demonization campaign was a massive success!

The only reason the National Front is ahead today is because of a massive, 10 year "de-demonization" process, that went up to full exclusion of the former parter leader.

You see the same trope with Trump. "Oh, pointing out he's awful does nothing!".

But polls show that going over Trump's scandals over and over actually cause his numbers to fall! Demonization campaigns have worked for a long time, and won't stop working for a while.

<comment><USER3> How can anyone possibly show causality between demonization and votes? Where's the control group? Have you got any scientific evidence for your claims or are they really just rationalization?

Increasing from 17% to 18% sounds like an increase to me, not a decrease. Or am I misunderstanding how the French election works? Some people _have_ to change their vote?

<comment> vertex-four [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two- round_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-round_system)

Basically... 17% of people voted for the National Front as their first vote, and when the first vote failed due to no party having a majority, and all parties but those two with the highest number of votes were excluded, there was a second vote.

In the second vote between two parties, 18% of people voted for the National Front - only a 1% increase - despite 60% of people having voted for minority parties in the first round and thus having to switch their vote (or abstain). That is, the vast majority of people who had voted for minority parties decided to vote against the National Front in the second vote.

(For exact numbers - the National Front got 4,804,713 votes in the first round, and 5,525,032 in the second - a jump of 720,319 votes - and Rally for the Republic got 5,665,855 votes in the first round, and 25,537,956 in the second - a jump of 19,872,101 votes.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I wrote in defence on Sam Altman and YC regarding this topic.

[https://medium.com/@suar4sure/please-let-ycombinator-sam- alt...](https://medium.com/@suar4sure/please-let-ycombinator-sam-altman-and- paul-graham-be-b1b78c5c12c0#.lz9vsqmac)

</comment><comment><USER5> I guess it needs to be said a billion times more: Thiel isn't just any Trump supporter, he's a powerful billionaire who has donated millions as a Trump surrogate. Thiel deserves all the criticism he is getting precisely because there a huge asymmetry at play here, one that he is taking advantage of to campaign for a con man, racist, chauvinistic sexual predator.

I fear this is just the beginning of Thiel's radicalization, that we can expect several decades of his alt/far right advocacy and I find the harm he can cause to be very troubling and disheartening.

<comment><USER6> Since when people cannot chose their favorite candidate without being ostracised?

<comment><USER7> They're free to choose whoever they like. Others are free to criticize that choice. Especially when that choice is The Donald.

<comment><USER8> Criticize != Ostracize

It's possible to criticize someone without wanting him to be bared from participating in society.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SQL Server 2019 for Linux, Docker for Windows and Azure Data Studio - <AUTHOR> http://www.nielsberglund.com/2018/09/29/sql-server-2019-for-linux-in-docker-on-windows/ <comment><USER2> This is huge. Distributed transactions (DTC) and replication it all types. Licensing costs be damned.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> We look at how to run SQL Server 2019 for Linux in a Docker container on a Windows machine.</comment>


My story: from lawyer to ruby hacker - <AUTHOR> http://coffeespoonsofcode.wordpress.com/2012/03/25/my-story-from-lawyer-to-ruby-hacker/

<comment><USER3> Awesome story. I graduated with a JD/MPA in 2010, but already started working in a startup the summer prior to graduation. I've been in startups ever since and have recently started to (slowly) teach myself to code. I haven't had the time or guts to volunteer to actually build something for someone, but I've been thinking that I'd like to get involved in an open source project in a couple of months when I'm more comfortable in the code.

When/how did you know that you would actually be able to build something useful?

Edit: P.S. Good move getting out of law! ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> > When/how did you know that you would actually be able to build something > useful?

When I got the CRUD interface working on the non-profit database. So I didn't know I'd be able to do it until I actually did it ;). The system I built replaced their old system, which was literally pieces of paper in filing cabinets.

> Edit: P.S. Good move getting out of law! ;-)

I wanted to get into tech anyway. My friend (dm8 on HN) introduced me to Hacker News in 2009 and it was a life-changing experience. It was my first peek into the whole scene.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Top story.

I'm a Chartered Accountant down-under working (read: going insane) for a large public utility Co.

Australia is supposedly having a great time on the back of Chinese demand but accountants are being shed left right and centre and I can never recall such a time with so many 'For Lease'/'For Sale' signs around town.

I'm busy getting my hustle, trying to get re-skilled asap with Udacity and the like before China turns it down a notch or two and this story just gets me a bit more amped!

</comment><comment><USER5> Congratulations. Out of curiosity, did you ever contemplate working with legal technology?

I'm not advocating eDiscovery work in any way. It sounds like you are currently headed in a (IMO) more interesting direction.

However, legal tech would be more in line with your education if you actually have an interest in pursuing / maintaining a legal career.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I did. Even though I'm a big Linux guy, I bought a computer with Windows installed, learned C#, and was starting a legal software company when I got the paid internship. I decided to take the internship, because spending three months programming Ruby/Padrino/MongoDB with good programmers and learning from them would be very educational. I can always start my own startup later. eDiscovery is going to make someone tons of money.

<comment><USER5> You made the right call. Having that experience under your belt will serve you very well.

It's an interesting field in its own right, and is becoming increasingly competitive and sophisticated (full disclosure : I work in it).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for sharing your story. I liked the part where you say "In fact, when my boss came into my office to fire me, I was installing python onto my work computer." That was funny, and yet at the same time reflects the difference between those who use idle time to learn something, or just drink coffee and chat. Good luck going forward!

</comment><comment><USER7> At betahouse (Cambridge coworking loft from 2007-2010) there were at least 3-4 people who were lawyers turned technologists/hackers/programmers/etc. Everyone said they were significantly happier working in software than they were in law. These days, they are probably making more money in software too :)

<comment><USER8> >These days, they are probably making more money in software too :)

Really? Doesn't biglaw pay 170k starting salaries?

<comment><USER9> No, only for those with proper creds - top school, top of the class, etc.

<comment><USER7> Yea, that's like saying Google pays $1M/yr. I'm sure they do to some people, but that's only after a key player has been headhunted by Facebook or something.

At least one of the betahouse guys did a JD/Phd at Harvard and passed the bar in NY and MA, but still by all accounts seems to indicate that he's significantly happier programming than lawyering.

I don't think its about the money, but rather the environment, lifestyle, and culture. Being a freelance software dev in Cambridge isn't a bad gig as long as you've got stable incoming projects.

<comment><USER8> I agree happier, but you said more money. So that's false. Still, I appreciate you chiming in.

BTW - many law firms pay $170k+ to t14 grads - not just top of the class - <USER2> comparing it to Google $1mm/yr salaries is a false analogy.

:) Precise thinking leads to precise writing. Reading wrong information leads to imprecise thinking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Great story! I actually went in the other direction but as a career changer it's always nice to hear about people uprooted themselves to do something that made them happier.

<comment><AUTHOR> If I could go back in time, I wouldn't change a thing. It makes life more interesting to be able to read law.com and the Volokh Conspiracy and know what they're talking about, even if I don't practice anymore.</comment></comment>


Why do MOOCS have low completion rates? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER3> Two reasons similar/in addition to the ones already mentioned:

The obvious one: MOOCs usually involve small or no payment and are not typically part of a degree program. Everyone who has attended a traditional college has taken one or several classes where they disliked the material, the format, or the faculty but kept taking it anyway because it was a required course, they needed the credit hours to stay in good standing, or they had already paid nontrivial tuition and/or fees for it. For most MOOCs, if you are even mildly disappointed, you can just drop out with little remorse.

The second, less obvious one: on Coursera, I bookmark courses (including ones I have only tenuous interest in) months ahead by enrolling in them. Then when the course starts, I judge whether I still have the time or interest (I usually don't), and if not, drop out. I don't know if this is common, but if it is, then it would have an impact.

I'd also be curious to know how pacing impacts completion rates. Personally, while some platforms treat it as a selling point, I find it very difficult to complete self-paced courses. On the other hand, some people may miss one or two deadlines in a non-self-paced MOOC and simply give up.

<comment><USER4> Another factor from my experience: I don't feel much incentive to "complete" a MOOC. I take a MOOC to learn something to a certain degree, and once I feel I've acquired the knowledge I was looking for I move on. Perhaps this is to my detriment long-term, but it seems like a more economical use of my time given so many competing interests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> They're too long. Once in a while I enjoy spending 5 to 8 hours on a Saturday learning about something new, but MOOCs often ask for an entire semesters worth of my time. I don't have that much time, I have an occasional Saturday. Divide the courses up into free-standing bite sized chunks, something I can go through in a day, and let me complete them on my own time. I'd complete more of them if that happened. That should also force brevity, which was lacking in a lot of courses I tried.

</comment><comment><USER6> It's relative. They've got low completion rates relative to university courses. They have completion rates right where you'd expect given a more reasonable reference class.

A MOOC is essentially an extended web interaction, not a college course. _Very short_ web interactions which require _minimal_ levels of work often have conversion rates in the 5~20% region. Think like "Fill out a survey" or "Make free bingo cards."

MOOCs require many hours of work, stretched over months.

Physical college courses carry a heavy precommitment to attend with _gigantic_ costs associated with them. They also have a low completion rate in many circumstances, for example when the college hasn't already done an absolutely brutal filter based on a combination of socioeconomic status, IQ, and ability to take complex tasks to completion. MOOCs don't typically pre-filter based on those criteria, which means their completion numbers are affected in the predictable fashions.

<comment><USER7> Just asking for a few pennies to take part would up the completion rate and reduce the frivolous sign ups.

<comment><USER8> I feel that would be really unnecessary and possibly harmful to the MOOCs themselves.

1 - Sign ups alone require nearly no resources from the provider.

2 - Attendance and therefore popularity could be much lower. While that could be a good thing (less people and more money -> more support to each student), it would probably never be enough to cover a course's cost.

In the end, people are learning. I haven't completed any course yet (attended about 4, attending one now), but I'm thankful for them and I don't think the resources I used harmed the MOOCs.

<comment><USER7> The pennies are obviously not to cover the cost of the MOOC. It the sunk-cost effect, people are more likely to use or complete something they pay for.

<comment><USER9> Not for pennies. People whoe aren't willing to exercise regularly to make use of hundred pound gym subscriptions are unlikely to finish a MOOC because of a few pennies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> In many cases, people don't have an intent to complete it even at the point when they're signing up.

I have signed up for updated versions of courses I had finished earlier simply because I wanted to show three minutes of lesson 4.2 to someone, and I've told my students to "sign up" for course X because its materials at week 4 explain a particular concept very well, and I'd recommend them to watch that - but the materials aren't available if you don't sign up.

In real life, if someone takes a brochure of a course because they're interested but never show up afterwards, you don't count those people against your completion rate (you might count them when evaluating your marketing funnel, though). Similarly, for a MOOC it makes no sense to treat the number of "signups" as anything more than that.

If you want a reasonable completion rate, you divide the number of graduates against the number of participants that (a) showed up to the course - <USER2> listened to more than 20 minutes of lectures and (b) actually wanted to complete the whole course, as opposed to wanting only a single topic/part of the course.

<comment><USER3> > I have signed up for updated versions of courses I had finished earlier > simply because I wanted to show three minutes of lesson 4.2 to someone, and > I've told my students to "sign up" for course X because its materials at > week 4 explain a particular concept very well, and I'd recommend them to > watch that - but the materials aren't available if you don't sign up.

Yes, I really wish Coursera et al would have "lecture archives" which didn't require login or, if they did, didn't require joining a class. This would help boost their completion rates, so it would be mutually beneficial. I suppose a few of the partner universities might like having restrictions on their content, though.

<comment><USER7> I've been creating my own offline lecture archive. There are a number of downloaders which are tacitly accepted and even promoted on Coursera.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why do gyms have low attendance rates?

I think it's all just human psychology. We overestimate the amount of effort we'll give to a achieve a certain goal. And sometimes just having the gym membership/MOOC purchase is enough to satisfy our feelings of progress.

<comment><USER12> I totally agree! Just would like to add onto that, why do side-projects have such low completion rates?

I struggle with side-projects as much as I do MOOC's, for the same reasons I think.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> From my personal experience: It's the first thing off the island when my schedule gets pinched. I can't cut back on work, don't want to cut out family or rec time. The MOOC suffers first, particularly the deliverables. I've started with the intention of turning in all assignments only to end up only watching the lectures.

</comment><comment><USER14> My personal experience is that I've taken MOOC courses with an end goal of _actual learning_ the topic thoroughly, or at least getting the most out of the subject. This was related, but different than my objectives in college, where I was mostly concerned about my _grades_ and completing a degree to show employers. Although, not mutually exclusive, I find that when I'm focused on learning the subject completely, I'll eventually go off the normal course guidelines and spend extra time on supplemental materials (blogs, additional explanations, etc..). I'll also spend extra time completing all the assignments as perfect as possible (doing the extra sections, etc..). This is different than when I was in college, where I would often trade off a few extra grade percentage in order to make a deadline to achieve that A- or whatever. Couple this with the fact that I defer the MOOC assignments if work/life gets in the way and eventually I miss the projects and test due dates.

IMO (speaking personally here) - I find this approach to be Much more beneficial than the traditional college system. I learn the material better and have a deeper understanding of the entire subject. I've officially "failed" every MOOC course I've taken, because of missed due-dates. But when I look through the actual submissions, I usually receive near 100% on every assignment. This probably wouldn't apply to every topic, but the MOOC courses give me a structured way to learn that I wouldn't be able to come up with on my own, but also provide enough flexibility for family life, work, etc..

</comment><comment><USER15> Low barrier to entry. I've signed up for MOOCs in the past that sounded really cool, because why not?, only later to find that I didn't have the time, or maybe the MOOC wasn't as cool as I thought it was. In cases where there's actually some tangible investment required to sign up--Georgia Tech's OMSCS program[0] is a prime example of this--completion rate is much higher.

[0] [http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/](http://www.omscs.gatech.edu/)

<comment><USER16> My exact experience too. Signing is easy as bookmarking any webpage. Afterwards nature will just prune you out of the classes with bad difficulty/desire ratios.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For much the same reasons that people don't finish books.

In the end the completion rate of a MOOC is a fairly meaningless statistic. It's completely reasonable to buy a technical book and only read a few chapters that cover what you want to know. If someone gains more from participating in 3 MOOCS vs finishing 1 then a low completion rate might be a sign that MOOCS are more useful than traditional classes not less.

</comment><comment><USER18> The commitment level is low. People put their name on a list as opposed to shelling out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a traditional class.

The reward level is also low. You might get a certificate but nothing like credits that can transfer. You mainly just get knowledge.

I think it is a lot like going to the library. I've got three books checked out right now. I've browsed one of them and decided it is pretty useless and not quite what I expected. One looks really good but I haven't started it. It is by one of my favorite authors but it wasn't on my radar, I just picked it up because it was on the shelf. One I am halfway through and I intend on finishing it but it is taking about three times longer to finish because Hofstadter's Law applies to my reading list, too.

But my completion rate is the wrong metric. Over the past year I've probably read a dozen or more books that I wouldn't have otherwise if it weren't for my local library. And one lead me to buying the other six in the series, and a couple I've bought as reference.

I feel like MOOCs should be judged in the same way. There are a lot of people gaining education through MOOCs that they would not have otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER19> The behavioural economic concept of 'hyperbolic discounting' serves as a pretty good explanation. We radically discount delayed consequences (e.g.: learning), while simultaneously overestimating our willingness to invest effort into the future.

</comment><comment><USER20> Dan Grossman at University of Washington gave a presentation of the data from his Coursera MOOC's:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T4IQrOJr5U](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T4IQrOJr5U)

The punchlines are that completion rates correlate with course duration and that the absolute numbers of people who complete a course are a quantum change.

The point of comparison in Grossman's view is that MOOC's are like textbooks more than traditional courses.

</comment><comment><USER21> I would say that is a feature and not a bug.

</comment><comment><USER22> I often use the vids as information fodder for listening while i work. If something strikes me as more salient, or potentially useful for my future needs then I'll make a note to set aside time outside of work to really pay attention to the course.

</comment><comment><USER23> [http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~padamopo/What%20makes%20a%20grea...](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~padamopo/What%20makes%20a%20great%20MOOC.pdf) This paper discusses some of the reasons for low completion rates.

</comment><comment><USER24> Basically people do not finish the courses because they are not really interested or are not disciplined enough.

</comment><comment><USER25> It seems that outside the context of the coercion of earning a degree most of the professors are boring as hell.

</comment><comment><USER26> Low in whose opinion? I always thought MOOCs had fantastically high completion rates for what they are.

</comment><comment><USER27> Why would they have high ones? That's the better question to ask.

</comment><comment><USER28> Why? Drawing from my experience learning some technical material, I will give some candidate answers:

(1) Content. From what I've seen of MOOCs in some areas where I know some things, usually the content looks poor just on the subject itself and/or its presentation, i.e., too many of the lectures are just poorly done in any common sense of good lectures. E.g., start in the upper, left corner of the board and write clearly, clearly enough so that a student can take essentially perfect notes.

(2) Purpose. Commonly the courses do not have a sufficiently clear and meaningful _purpose_ for enough candidate students.

E.g., why study calculus? What MOOCs provide a really clear answer meaningful even to most of the people who consider a course in calculus?

E.g., why'd I study calculus? In., in grades 1-8 I got dumped on by the teachers; those teachers wanted to teach to the girls with their better handwriting, better verbal talent and skills, better clerical talent, better insight into fictional literature, and much better classroom _decorum_. I wanted, strongly beyond belief, to know how _things_ worked, and the girls were little masters at knowing how the teachers _worked_!

In grade 9 I discovered I could do math, i.e., _algebra_ and fairly easily could lead the class. Essentially all the girls in the class, all of whom had effortlessly blown me away in grades 1-8 now were struggling while I was having a great time, easily.

I got sent to a math tournament. That success continued in grades 10-12. In the 11th grade, I saw the same for physics -- could usually have my head down in class, resting, and still be one of the best students in the class -- of mostly 12th graders, three of whom went to Princeton and ran against each other and some fourth sucker for President of the freshman class. I got sent to an NSF math and physics summer program.

So, in college, I was _hot to go_ in math and quickly went through the course catalog and planned all the math courses I would have for all four years. I really liked math!

But to save money, I did my freshman college year at a state school, inexpensive, I could walk to. They forced me into a course in _college algebra_ beneath what I'd already done in high school (by far the best in the city, e.g., the three guys who went to Princeton; MIT came recruiting; a guy I beat in a shootout at the board in trig class went to MIT). A girl told me when the tests were, and I showed up only for those.

But, I knew that as a freshman I was supposed to be learning calculus and was _torqued_ that I was not. So I got the recommended calculus book and dug in. In grades 9-12 I'd learned mostly just from the book so also was able to do well working through the calculus book, totally independently.

I did well: E.g., I had quite nice college board scores, especially in math and physics, so, the next year (we had a little more money) I got into a good four year college.

So, where to start there in math? Okay, I asked to start with just their sophomore calculus. They said that they couldn't give me credit for first year calculus, but that was totally fine with me. The text they used was the same as Harvard used; it was good. I did fine -- made As, loved the material, had fun, didn't work at it very hard. Right: I was a math major but never really took a course in freshman calculus!

Also blew away everyone in their freshman physics course -- first test had four questions; I got all four; no other student got more than two; tree counted as 100; so I got 133; and I never missed anything for the rest of the semester so ended up with 33 points over a perfect score. The second semester, missed only one test question.

Went on and got honors in math, got a Ph.D. in applied math (stochastic optimal control), have had math much of my career, and now have some original math I derived as the crucial core technology for my search engine start up. Lesson: I've had a _purpose_ in mind learning math.

So, I did learn calculus, just on my own for freshman calculus. So, why? Sure: (a) Motivation. I really, really, really wanted to know the material, not just a little bit but a lot. (b) Resources. I had plenty of time to do the work. (c) Preparation. The four years of math I took in high school gave me about everything one could want in prerequisites for calculus. (d) While I didn't know much about just what I would do with calculus or math after college, I did believe that they should help my career, and I knew that, for math, calculus was one of the biggies.

Okay, for the MOOCs, if have (a)-(d) and some good materials, then lots of students should do well. If are not having many students are doing well, then look first at (a)-(d) and the materials. From what I've seen, too commonly the course materials are not very good.

E.g., for calculus, from what I've seen, it appears that the courses want to imply the a person can learn calculus easily as a _spectator_ (sport) watching videos instead of doing the work studying good materials, say, a good text. I doubt that many students could learn calculus as a spectator sport.

There really can be opportunities for people to learn outside a classroom, and online materials can help. But need good materials, likely including a good, traditional text book, and also need, say, (a)-(d) above.

By the way, as a math grad student, I taught calculus successfully. As an MBA prof, I taught more in applied math successfully. In my career, I continued to learn on my own: E.g., for some weeks I carried Blackman and Tukey, _The Measurement of Power Spectra_ to dinner at a seafood bar in Silver Spring, MD, and then one week, mostly on my own without my company knowing about it, wrote some corresponding software which was a big help in our company winning a competitive software development contract -- my work on power spectra estimation had in effect given our company _sole source_.

Lesson 1: Math can make money.

Lesson 2: It is possible to do the work of math making money mostly via independent study.

Lesson 3: I doubt that any of the MOOCs will cover how to measure power spectra, say, with the fast Fourier transform (FFT)!

How about a continuous time, discrete state space Markov process subordinated to a Poisson process? Make money with that? Did that once. Covered well in a MOOC? I doubt it!

I used to look at MOOCs, wanted to learn more about, say, stochastic processes in continuous time, say, like in Gihman and Skorohod or Lipster and Shiryayev or Karatzas and Shreve. Gee, I didn't find much!

There is high irony here: This is Hacker News, and my view is that nearly all the learning crucial for the current US _information technology_ industry, especially the software part of it, has been from essentially just independent study. So, the irony is that the readers of Hacker News should be about the best audience for MOOCs.

E.g., for a while in my career, when I was fairly deep into computing but before I'd ever had a course in computing or computer science, I taught several sections of _computer science_ at Georgetown University. Later in grad school, I was pushed to take a course in _computer science_ \-- not much past what I'd taught at Georgetown! At one point, sure, the course tried to cover quicksort. Okay, worthwhile for such a course! But I'd long since learned quicksort, heap sort, Shell sort, bubble sort, merge sort, etc. from some original papers and Knuth's _The Art of Computer Programming_ , programmed all those that were _in-place_ sort algorithms, compared their performance, programmed some special purpose versions, etc. So, during the course, I just watched and smiled. Gee, they neglected to mention that in the _bit reversed_ permutation from some of the versions of the fast Fourier transform, Shell sort does nothing at all until the last pass at which time it runs in O(N^2)! Gee, why didn't they mention that one!

Lesson: It's possible to do well in computing and computer science with independent study.

Surprise: One of the profs in that course didn't like me and gave me a grade of C. I appealed to the department, pointed to some code I'd submitted in my application to the department, the code I'd written to schedule the fleet at FedEx, the code I'd written for power spectral estimation, etc., and the next year that prof was gone!

Lesson: If the Hacker News audience is not doing well with MOOCs, then blame the MOOCs, not the students!</comment>


Ask HN: Best way to do user authentication for web application? - <AUTHOR>

A team of developers and myself are designing a web application and I am in charge of user authentication. I want to provide options such as Facebook Connect and OpenID via Google, Yahoo, etc., but we also need our own authentication method if no one wants to use either of those options. I really really want to avoid password authentication, but if I have to I will do it. Do you think SRP would be a better option, or is there something I am overlooking that would be easier for the user? Thanks <comment><USER2> Maybe let someone else worry about it?

[http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/](http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/persona/) [http://janrain.com/](http://janrain.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Both of these is just signing in with an account from some different site. We want to provide that option, but we want our own option as well for users who don't want to use social media to login

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Take a look at Windows Azure Mobile Services [http://www.windowsazure.com/en- us/develop/mobile/tutorials/g...](http://www.windowsazure.com/en- us/develop/mobile/tutorials/get-started-with-users-html/)

</comment><comment><USER4> You didn't mention a platform, but if you're using Python or Django, Python- Social-Auth[1] is quite good. It supports a bevy of third-party providers while still allowing for easy local (username/password or email/password) login types as well.

[1] - [https://github.com/omab/python-social- auth](https://github.com/omab/python-social-auth)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome thanks. I might use that in my own applications in the future, but our app uses Angular and Node. Unfortunately I couldn't convince the group to use Django

<comment><USER4> Then you might also check out passportjs[1]. Thanks to Node, it's not as drop- in-ready a solution as Python-Social-Auth, but it covers quite a bit, and third party providers are pretty easy to add.

I had troubles with crypt on an older version of Node, but it's almost certainly been resolved by now.

[1] - [http://passportjs.org/](http://passportjs.org/)</comment></comment></comment>


Square Said to File Confidentially for Initial Public Offering - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-24/square-said-to-file-confidentially-for-initial-public-offering <comment><USER2> Would be interesting to see what the filing has to say about Dorsey between his two gigs.</comment>


Dept. of Justice shutters Sharebeast, the largest US-based filesharing service - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/09/sharebeast-the-largest-us-based-filesharing-service-has-its-domain-seized/ <comment><USER2> Has anyone ever heard of this site? I count myself pretty well informed on such things but I'd never heard of this place before. Just seems odd considering it's being called the "the largest US-based filesharing service".</comment>


Pragmatic Bookshelf Royalty Rates - <AUTHOR> http://pragdave.blogs.pragprog.com/pragdave/2009/10/pragmatic-bookshelf-royalty-rates.html <comment><USER2> Interesting post, but they could provide a simple comparison that would help enormously. They should calculate how much they would have paid on a traditional 10% royalty based on the gross amount the publisher receives and compare that with their 40-50% royalty based on their net (I'm calling it net here because they are deducting a bunch of fees from the money they receive).

</comment><comment><USER3> Making the author pay editing costs out of their royalties and setting up the royalties as percentage of actual receipts rather than per copy sold makes them look more like a vanity press than professional. It may be worthwhile, but they need to provide more detail, a short article like this makes them look worse, not better.</comment>