Leaky Clojure Macros - <AUTHOR> http://theatticlight.net/posts/Leaky-Clojure-Macros/

<comment><USER2>
        to read or debug code with them in it one
        has to understand them

Perhaps I'm missing some subtlety to the post, but when was that last time that you were able to take a pass on understanding while debugging?

I think what the author is looking for is better compile-time checking and error reporting in the the with-* macros. I'm not sure how to respond to the "understanding" points. Is the need to understand your language constructs considered a sign of leakiness? I would say no.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here.

It would seem "understanding" might be the wrong word. If I were to write something like:

        (+ 'foo 1)

I wouldn't have to know how "+" is _implemented_ to find the bug in my code. I would if I were to write:

        (with-open [foo some-object-that-isnt-a-stream]
          ...do stuff...)

however, I would have to know the expansion.

If I have to know the details of the expansion of a macro in order to use it correctly, then it is almost by definition leaky.

In the case of "with-open," a simple type check at the beginning of the macro expansion would solve the problem.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to know how it's implemented, you just need to know that you have to pass an object that can be closed. You can get that simply by reading the docs.

The exception that's thrown in your first example above certainly makes it blatantly obvious what you did wrong, which is nice. but you still have to know that the addition operator doesn't let you concatenate numbers and symbols in order to use it effectively, or your program will crash once you run it. That's on you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hm I do not agree with you re: `->` and `->>`, and have had no problems with Clojure's context-managing fns (though my experience is limited). Not sure how they're "leaky" at all. They do require a little getting used to but once you understand what's happening they're great.

I say that mostly as someone who is very picky about how his code looks, especially with regard to whitespace, keeping line length under 80 columns, and so forth. The threading macros are great for presenting code in a very readable way.

<comment><USER5> Yes, and I also think that this discussion needs to mention the facilities Clojure provides to help you with macros.

For example, with simpler macros like -> and ->>, I recommend that curious people macroexpand them, to get a feel for what they mean. Your GUI can make this even easier, like if I put the cursor at the beginning of the following and hit _M-x slime-macroexpand-all_ :

      (-> my_table
          (database db/*stage-db*)
          select*
          exec)

I see:

      (exec (select* (database my_table *stage-db*)))

Or if I do _M-._ , I get to see the sourcecode. This of course is daunting to beginners, but they can easily mess with the sourcecode, tear it apart, and get to the level where they can just kind of scan smaller macros and get a rough idea of how it's doing its job.

(I realize the author probably knows these things. But I definitely consider -> and ->> to be such a readability win, and hope that people like them.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something missing from the article:

        user> (doc with-open)
        </comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>-
        clojure.core/with-open
        ([bindings & body])
        Macro
          bindings => [name init ...]

          Evaluates body in a try expression with names bound to the values
          of the inits, and a finally clause that calls (.close name) on each
          name in reverse order.

</comment><comment><USER3> The documentation for with-open explicitly states that the expanded form calls .close on the provided names in reverse order. I'm not sure I get how this is a leaky abstraction. Would the author simply prefer to not have to read the docs before using a macro?

</comment><comment><USER7> Just to state the obvious. With-open respects the close pattern, not the Closeable interface. Plenty of java resources observe the former but not the latter e.g. jdbc Connection interfaces.

I was hoping the article would be about legitimate problems with macros. They do exist...

</comment><comment><USER8> Plus also, did you guys hear that until just recently, Rails used PUT instead of PATCH?!</comment>


Andy Tanenbaum hasn't learned anything  - <AUTHOR> http://harmful.cat-v.org/software/andy_tanenbaum

<comment><USER2> 17 years later:

Plan9 is going nowhere. That commercial spin off Vita Nuovo (<http://www.vitanuova.com/>) is quiet. The Linux and Solaris monolithic kernels are still strong.

Minix3 doesn't really progress (<http://groups.google.com/group/minix3>). The L4 microkernel is commercially successful (<http://www.ok-labs.com/>).

<comment><AUTHOR> Does commercial success or popularity imply technically sound and superior ?

<comment><USER3> In the case of UNIX, it's not _merely_ commercial success and popularity. It is the choice of a large portion of the smartest people working in technology. If we were talking about success amongst the hoi palloi (like, say, Windows), then your point would stand...but we're not. UNIX has seen its fortunes flounder and flourish multiple times over the span of 30+ years, and yet, today, UNIX runs the most important technologies on earth (Google, Amazon, the majority of all other web applications, the best smart phones, most smart devices with anything more powerful than a simple microcontroller, and a whole lot more), because the people building them chose UNIX.

So, is UNIX technically sound and superior? In the general case, I would say, unequivocally, yes.

<comment><USER4> It seems like almost all of this can be attributed to path dependence rather than technological superiority.

<comment><USER5> Path dependence in case of Google, Amazon, smartphones, websites? What kind of 'path' did they have behind them that would make them unix-dependent?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate hardware.

Hardware is the thing that prevents microkernels with carefully distributed functions.

But hardware is still land where dragons are, therefore you have to do everything with it in kernel-space (it's unsafe and isn't delegatable mostly).

If hardware would soon die and we'd be programming on the turing machine, we'd get microkernel OSes in no time!

<comment><USER7> > If hardware would soon die and we'd be programming on the turing machine, > we'd get microkernel OSes in no time!

That'd be da bomb.

<comment><USER8> > "in no time"

> That'd be da bomb.

Actually, it would be a singularity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "Name a product that succeeds by running UNIX as an application." Hmhm, Xen? I think I'd name quite a few.

<comment><USER9> That existed in 1992?

<comment><USER10> VMWare did...</comment></comment></comment>


DEA tracked every opioid pill sold in the US. The data is out–and it's horrific - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/07/76-billion-opioid-pills-in-7-years-how-pharma-companies-drowned-us-in-drugs/ <comment><USER2> Is there bulk data that the public can download?</comment>


Show HN: Instant Customizable RDBMS Vue UI in 20kb Gist Desktop App - <AUTHOR> https://sharpscript.net/sharp-apps/sharpdata <comment><USER2> It's cool but looking at the use case and the app video, I can't help thinking that what one actually wants is a real native app.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's plenty of native DB Admin UI's around, JetBrains Data Grip is my personal favorite.

Some advantages of this is that it's highly customizable where you could quickly create a customizable queryable UI around multiple existing RDBMS's that's transparently upgradable, i.e. the latest version is downloaded/run each time it's launched.</comment></comment>


Apple releases iOS 7.0.6 and 6.1.6 to patch an SSL problem - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/02/apple-releases-ios-7-0-6-and-6-1-6-to-patch-an-ssl-problem/

<comment><USER2> [http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6147](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6147)

This sounds like a NSA backdoor to me.</comment>


Developer accidentally deletes 3 months of work with Visual Studio Code - <AUTHOR> http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=1462716999241&mkt=de-DE&setlang=en-US&w=xEsMxqoa0KJSwMsTh3p_8w2qryykfDvB <comment><USER3> The original Github issue seems to have been deleted, but here's a fresher cache that includes a response from a VS Code Microsoft employee, including a pic of what the warning dialog looks like: [http://archive.is/EZX1O](http://archive.is/EZX1O)

<comment><USER4> Thanks, that answer actually adds some very important context!

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I actually got this dialog once and immediately clicked on 'cancel' to make sure I understood what the command did.

Personally I think this little detail changes the whole situation. And that's not even taking into account the idiocy of not having a backup and not incrementally adding the project to some form of version control.

Hell, even for all but the simplest TOY project I create a git repository and push it to gitlab!

<comment><USER6> This didn't happen to me and I'd like to think I'm being objective here - <USER2> dialog says:

> Are you sure you wish to discard ALL changes? This is IRREVERSIBLE!

Yes, very scary, like many warnings that some systems teach us to ignore.

It doesn't say what "changes" will be discarded. Are those the changes it made since the IDE was installed? Did the IDE make changes? Some kind of project files or directories? Some kind of setup? __Is a novice supposed to know this? __

Even on the home-grown IDE I use at work, it saves backups in a trash area when you delete files in case you accidentally delete something you don 't intend to. (Actually, I got very concerned once thinking I had deleted something I hadn't committed yet... as I recall it was a false alarm, but I was pleased that my concern was misplaced.)

And given that a lot of other people have experienced this, I'd say there is evidence that this is a UX (User eXperience) problem, not necessarily a PEBCAK (Problem Exists Between Chair and Keyboard):

[https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/expression/en- US/b3...](https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/expression/en- US/b32e47a9-d86c-473a-9449-a7f5c202463c/visual-studio-code-just-deleted-all- my-files?forum=visualstudiogeneral)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The sad part is that he didn't learn his lesson. The problem obviously isn't with Visual Studio Code, but with Git (or whatever version control software he tried out). It seems that he didn't know anything about using git and accidentally checked out a bare repo instead of adding his files to stage. From his post, he says he's using windows and he's used to things going into the recycle bin, something a Linux tool like Git obviously isn't going to do. So this is a mismatch between a beginner software developer on windows never having used Git before, and the mental model of Linux tools like Git.

I agree with him that Visual Studio Code could probably have designed their warning message a bit better, for people like him who have no experience with Git.

And now to the sad part, having accidentally deleted all his files while trying out Git; he will probably never touch Git again! So instead of learning the lesson he should have learned; always use version control on everything, what he did learn was; Git is harmful, don't use it.

Of course it also kinda seems like he blames VS Code and doesn't understand that it was the fault of Git, but that won't make him start using Git anytime soon.

Learning about version control, especially Git, is the most important thing a software developer can learn as early as possible in his career.

<comment><USER8> You're blaming the victim. Yes, it's better to know git than not knowing it, but the developer was merely tossing around with the various options of the IDE. It shouldn't be that easy to make an operation with such disastrous results. It is the responsibility of the product designers to prevent this.

<comment> yoz-y I think the question is more likely: should an operation like this be possible at all? VSCode already gives you a big warning (as shown in the issue) that "discarding changes" is irreversible but it does not explain what "discarding changes" means.

When people empty their recycle bin they kind of understand what is going to happen. Discarding changes speaks to me but evidently not to this person. Personally I tend to put my code in Dropbox in early stages as git commits do not make much sense (of course one can squash everything and do a rebase but that is advanced git already).

<comment><USER9> There's a bug out for not deleting files that haven't been added to the repository when discarding changes:

[https://archive.is/GisMJ](https://archive.is/GisMJ)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I know nothing about Visual Studio Code and very little about anything VS in fact, so I have no idea how much is VS's fault and how much is the user's, but seriously, how on Earth is it possible to have 3 months of work not backed up or source controlled in any way?

I once had a nasty file system corruption due to disconnecting the power cord that corrupted my (local) git repo and almost made me lose a day of work. Even with source control there are risks.

If there is anything positive to take away from this,it should be to learn to consider risk management.

If you write code even, say, once every week and haven't yet bothered to learn how to use source control, you owe it to your mental sanity to do it now.

EDIT: archived [http://web.archive.org/web/20170818080940/http://cc.bingj.co...](http://web.archive.org/web/20170818080940/http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?d=1462716999241&mkt=de- DE&setlang=en-US&w=xEsMxqoa0KJSwMsTh3p_8w2qryykfDvB)

</comment><comment><USER11> I never trust anything but the commandline when it comes to git. Then I know full and well what I'm doing regardless of the editor. When there are too many icons and buttons to click I don't like to have to remember what they all mean, or how well they map to the underlying core git concepts.

<comment><USER12> The commandline offers just as much opportunity to screw up your repository as a GUI does, if not more.

<comment><USER6> Here's the description for the man-page for git-clean:

> git-clean - Remove untracked files from the working tree

[https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clean](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-clean)

Now I would call that description very precise and readable.

Here's the GUI's warning:

> Are you sure you wish to discard ALL changes? This is IRREVERSIBLE!

What changes? He didn't change anything. Did the GUI change something? Maybe it did. Maybe nothing will happen.

Foolish not to back-up before experimenting? Sure. But GUI's imply friendliness to the inexperienced. This seems like bad UX.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is a valid complaint. You simply don't design UI that allows to delete a large number of files with a press of a single button. That he didn't have backups is irrelevant. Even accidentally deleting fresh changes is quite damaging. VS Code doesn't say anything about Git, or what Git is. You can't expect anyone who downloads MS software to be a Git expert.

<comment><USER14> But it wasn't a single button, there was a warning message: [https://archive.fo/EZX1O](https://archive.fo/EZX1O)

See joaomoreno's comment on that page.

</comment></comment><comment> nikki-9696 It may be victim blaming, but having 3 months of work and it only exists on one hard drive on one computer isn't very bright. He learned the hard way. I mean honestly, disk drives fail. PCs break. The code should never be in only one place regardless. Also, coming from VSS to Git has been, and still is, one of the hardest things I do as a windows dev. I hate git. It is non-intuitive and I have accidentally deleted my work before also, the difference being that I have it stored else where to get it too.

</comment><comment><USER15> So, his hard drive could die. He could have a virus or a crypto infection. All would delete his work.

A developer uses source control, it's as easy as that.

<comment><USER16> Quite apart from the problem of total code loss there's the lack of a safe way to prototype changes - how the hell does he revert in a situation where he inadvertantly breaks his previously working code?!

If this guy did any kind of decent IT or programming course you would think they would have covered at least backing up at some point. If he has done a course and still ended up in this situation I'm tempted to say it's time for him to find a new career.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> No source control, no backups and you "play" with a new software to see how it handles 5000 files? Well... not sure what to say here..

</comment><comment><USER18> As a product developer, when a user of my software "makes a mistake" my first response is to ask myself "What could _I_ have done to avoid the user making this mistake?"

As Jeff Attwood says:

"a well-designed system makes it easy to do the right things and annoying (but not impossible) to do the wrong things."

[https://blog.codinghorror.com/falling-into-the-pit-of- succes...](https://blog.codinghorror.com/falling-into-the-pit-of-success/)

</comment><comment><USER19> He says that it wasn't in a repo, so it's a bit weird that it would delete all his files, it looks more like he had an initialised repo and hadn't committed the files yet.

I don't even know how you could work 3 months without committing, even working on a throwaway thing for more than a few hours I make a new local repo, it doesn't cost much.

Also the files are not gone, they are still on the hard-drive/SSD it's not that hard to look up file recovery software.

<comment><USER20> This post shows the likely sequence of actions that makes it happen: [https://stackoverflow.com/a/33235641](https://stackoverflow.com/a/33235641)

It seems to have happened to rather a lot of people [https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/expression/en- US/b3...](https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/expression/en- US/b32e47a9-d86c-473a-9449-a7f5c202463c/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> He deleted his profile, rightly so - thats no way to act on github, open forum for pretty much every web developer out there. Not making a good name for yourself

</comment><comment><USER22> I predict one day we will look back and be horrified that there was ever a time where you can't just roll back an entire system to an arbitrary timestamp to undo accidental changes.

In some sense this is already achievable if you just always work inside a Dropbox folder (which keeps a 30 day history of any synced changes). But resources aren't yet cheap enough for all changes to be immutable.

<comment><USER23> I don't use it, but isn't that what Time Machine on MacOS does?

<comment><USER24> It has been trivially easy to restore files and folders in situations like this with TimeMachine for a very long time.

Thinking of what it would be like to go back to a world without similar functionality makes me shudder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> His story is a little funny and a little sad. I had a similar experience but I was much more cautious. I had actually backed up my project through GitHub desktop and committed it before formatting my computer. After cleaning and setting the system back up, I lost a days worth of work. I was 100% sure I had committed it. When I started back where I was and committed my changes, I checked the web Github to ensure that the changes were still submitted and they weren't. There was a bug with Windows 10 and Github that caused it. After that I decided to use Google Drive to backup my Github upon changes. Don't try to use Github folders and Google Drive folders as the same directories. Something weird happens and only one will work. Now I make submissions to Github and have a duplicate folder (using relative paths in my project) in my Google drive. Alternatively, you can submit your changes through the Github website, but it takes forever.

</comment><comment><USER26> I learned about "git checkout ." the hard way once, too. Only lost three hours then, though.

</comment><comment><USER27> But, for real, 3 months of work and not a single backup?

</comment><comment><USER28> Really feel for the guy. Hasn't happened to me, but I would hope a developer friendly editor would give warnings about when something like this could happen. Does VS Code have a tutorial? Haven't used it before, can't say I am inclined to right now...

<comment><USER29> My response to this person would be:

well you're going to have to restore from backup.

Oh you don't have a backup? Why not? (Some excuse) LOLZ

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> "This is Git. It tracks collaborative work on projects through a beautiful distributed graph theory tree model.

Cool. How do we use it?

No idea. Just memorize these shell commands and type them to sync up. _If you get errors, save your work elsewhere_ , delete the project, and download a fresh copy."

\- [https://xkcd.com/1597/](https://xkcd.com/1597/)

I think MS would do well to just buy this comic from Randall Munroe and display it on git init. In 10 seconds you get a more useful and realistic appraisal of the tool than you will from reading the docs for an hour. You heard me right: Docs by Meme.

</comment><comment><USER31> I have seen people learn to source control the hard way multiple times, but usually they were saved (at least partially) by the local history feature in IDEs. This guy was hit very hard, I feel sorry for him.

</comment><comment><USER32> This got "fixed" in #32459

[https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/32459](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/32459)

</comment><comment><USER33> Pro-tip : you can keep your little projects in a Dropbox folder. Will keep track of your file changes automatically and can help restore deleted files / or restore them to earlier versions.

</comment><comment><USER34> Haha, SourceTree can also do that! Fun times!

Source control responsibly people! :)

<comment> yoz-y Windows explorer too, just shift+delete the stuff. Microsoft should probably just make a snapshot-capable filesystem and do complete snapshots every hour or so.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Streisand effect is taking off: [https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/32795](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/32795)

</comment><comment><USER36> This is like someone is trying to learn how to cook the first time and burned the house down. Instead of blaming himself, he blame the stove and fire.

</comment><comment><USER37> Well, that's not very positive... but I can relate. VS Code lost some work of mine on the first day I tried it, so I decided not to continue using it. It wasn't super important so I wasn't angry, but it was a good chunk of code I had just spent probably 45 minutes writing and debugging.

You could argue it was my fault because I didn't stage and commit the new file, but there's no reason to close a buffer just because the backing file is gone. Close it if I say so, otherwise keep it open with the last-seen contents of the file. This has always worked fine in Sublime.

Please always err on the side of not losing data, even if it means keeping around "annoying" extra tabs.

<comment><USER35> Excessive automation considered harmful: even if you want something to happen 99% of the time, it should still be a manual operation. Otherwise, it will bite 100 of your 10,000 users at least once.

<comment><USER37> If it's a destructive operation, yeah. I was really, genuinely surprised that their editor works like that. As you say, it's not something that will bite you often, but when it bites, it could be pretty painful.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> its always sad to see people learn the lesson of source control the hard way.

<comment><USER29> This is more of a backup lesson.

<comment><USER35> I would call it a UX design lesson, primarily, although all undesirable changes are also backup lessons.</comment></comment></comment>


Jessica Livingston - Authors @Google - Founders at Work (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6hoPw5hItY

<comment><USER2> So far (11 mins in) this feels like a 50 minute podcast recapping the book. I'm definitely enjoying Jessica's presentation and I imagine this will be very useful for anyone who's on the fence about buying the book itself. [1]

I'm actually reading it right now and it's kinda neat reading the ca. 2006 viewpoints of serial entrepreneurs who have been hugely successful (again) since these interviews were recorded.

Imagine what Evan Williams (Blogger/Twitter) and Paul Buchheit (GMail/Friendfeed) would have wanted to talk about three or four years ago. You can see the seeds of their soon to be successful new businesses in every line of these two interviews. Really a great bit of history.

EDIT: 21 minutes in the topic shifts to "What can big companies learn from startups?"

[1] <http://www.foundersatwork.com/>

<comment><USER3> I bought the book and read it (a year and a half ago) immediately after watching that podcast.

It's the best book a young entrepreneur can read ... there's isn't a universal recipe for success (it's actually funny that in Founders@Work the interviewees often have contradictory view-points), but you can learn a lot from it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Amazing talk. if you didn't read the book - get it. What's funny is that she is doing the "ahhh" sigh every few moments VERY SIMILAR to PG :D

</comment><comment><USER5> great talk. We have the book in the hackerspace that I am the part of. I am much more eager to read it now.</comment>


Great new website for automating everything - <AUTHOR> https://ifttt.com/

<comment><USER2> not new and not everything

<comment><AUTHOR> True, new to me though. Thought I would share it with the HN community.

<comment><USER2> didn't mean to put you down or anything, sharing is caring, just that the site was all over the front page yesterday anyway (because of Twitter's updated ToS). I just don't get how these things get on the homepage, maybe there's not enough "meaty" content to go around

<comment><AUTHOR> Okay, true it's not front page worthy. I guess I got a little over excited when I saw my daily workload disappearing :).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ideas Wish List - <AUTHOR> http://www.ideafinder.com/showcase/wishlist.htm

<comment><AUTHOR> I especially like the one that adds a slot to a smartphone case to hold a credit card, or a few dollars!</comment>


QuadrigaCX CEO allegedly traded millions in fake funds to fund luxury lifestyle - <AUTHOR> https://decrypt.co/7533/quadrigacx-ceo-traded-millions-in-fake-funds-to-fund-luxury-lifestyle-alleges-trustee <comment><USER2> "Margin trading is akin to gambling"

It is no more akin to gambling than simple trading is akin to gambling. The only difference is that funds are also borrowed, which in this case means it was borrowed plus fraudulently obtained funds. And he was likely extra desperate, as most pyramid schemes usually are, taking extra risks because he really needed to make it whole again.

<comment><USER3> (high) Margin trading isn't just gambling, it's _borrowing_ to gamble, which is a crazy idea.

Gambling debt wasn't even enforcable in this country until recently because lending people money to gamble with is fundamentally wrong.

<comment><USER4> There is no debt on good exchanges that offer crypto derivatives. Exchanges automatically close your positions when your margin balance nears zero. The best one - bitmex.com - has a 250 million insurance fund to cover the potential losses in case the price action becomes too volatile and there is not enough liquidity to close out everyone's positions in time.

Everything is seamless for the user, they don't even need know how leverage works, it's no different from trading on any other exchange.

<comment><USER3> You're right, in that situation you're not borrowing from others, you're borrowing from your own capital.

That said, it is a little different, because without margin you can ride out any position, but with margin you get margin called (liq'd) at increasingly smaller deviations.

Or in another view of it, it does the equivalent of turning low-return 1:1 odds into high return 100:1 odds which further attract problem gamblers.

Watch the rekt bot for a while and tell me that there aren't a lot of problem gamblers on mex.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Crypto is filled with scammers and until these vultures are removed from the ecosystem, the field will remain a joke

<comment><USER6> The deeper problem is that most people want to amass crypto and get rich from it, and only a minority want to actually use it as a currency or for some heartfelt ideological reason.

As a corollary to that, you also have an army of people who are driven to madness because they didn't get to cash in, and seek to undermine crypto in the hopes of healing those gaping mental wounds. But it doesn't change the fact that the masses who drove the prices up wanted it to be a pyramid scheme in which they were the winners.

<comment><USER5> These crypto hoarders and traders are also the people keeping crypto from being used as a currency. You can't buy/sell things in a currency that fluctuates several percentage points in a week.

<comment><USER7> This is simply the consequence of a thinly traded asset whose value does not have any real world dividends to anchor it.

If the hoarders and traders disappeared, the volatility would be due to other more inexplicable market mechanics.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This whole QuadrigaCX saga has certainly soured a lot of people on crypto here in Canada.

<comment><USER9> It was an awful exchange. I waited a month for Canadian funds to be transferred out and it never happened, eventually covered back to Bitcoin and now it sits in a wallet somewhere.</comment></comment>


ViaSat 3 Satellites Will Have More Capacity Than the Rest of the World Combined - <AUTHOR> http://www.satellitetoday.com/telecom/2016/02/10/dankberg-viasat-3-satellites-will-have-more-capacity-than-the-rest-of-the-world-combined/ <comment><USER2> The article provides additional clarification to ameliorate the click-bait title:

 _"Each ViaSat 3 satellite is anticipated to have as much bandwidth as all the rest of the satellites in the world combined. And that includes all of the High Throughput Satellites (HTS) that are now under construction,"_</comment>


Qualcomm Names Steve Mollenkopf CEO and President - <AUTHOR> http://www.qualcomm.com/media/releases/2013/12/13/qualcomm-names-steve-mollenkopf-ceo-and-president

<comment><AUTHOR> Context: Molenkopf's name was outed yesterday as one of the possible candidates for Microsoft CEO -[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-12/microsoft-said- to-c...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-12/microsoft-said-to-consider- qualcomm-s-mollenkopf-for-ceo-job.html)</comment>


Fascinating History of Today's Google Doodle: Biochemist Har Gobind Khorana - <AUTHOR> http://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(11)01509-1 <comment><USER2> "Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like [...] or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important." [https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)</comment>


Show HN: LambdaCms, a high-performance CMS in Haskell - <AUTHOR>

We have released a high-performance CMS (2-10ms in our tests) CMS, that needs to be set-up by a programmer.
Enjoy!
EDIT: Since links in a text post do not become clickable, I've moved them to the comments. <comment> ar-jan I wonder if it would make sense to package a kind of "standard" version of the app, with the most-used / most important extensions, content types and whatever configured, as a Sandstorm [0] app. That way you could even make the "needs to by set up by a programmer" part optional, and target a larger user base. And you'd have a demo instance right away! [1]

[0] [https://sandstorm.io/](https://sandstorm.io/)

[1] [https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app- demo.html](https://blog.sandstorm.io/news/2015-02-06-app-demo.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> Nice idea.. Will be considered!

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> Some thoughts :

It wasn't absolutely clear to me what this is. The front page (project page) doesn't have a simple, clear description of the application. Or is it a "platform"?

Documentation page has a list of features - but they are all quite technical, not end-user helpful in general. The "getting started" page says :

"rapid development of robust and highly performant websites with content management functionality."

Wordpress is mentioned a lot so I assume it is a "blogging" platform to a major degree. A demo site might help but first, a better description I think.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Really useful feedback, the kind of "obvious" things I did not see any more after being trying to get this ready for release.

EDIT:

Tried to incorporate some of your feedback.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> LINKS

The project page:

[http://lambdacms.org](http://lambdacms.org)

The main repository:

[https://github.com/lambdacms/lambdacms- core](https://github.com/lambdacms/lambdacms-core)

</comment><comment><USER3> I know this is not directly related but I've been looking at cms design lately and I was wondering what different approaches people have come across to store documents and content in a structured, hierarchical way? And if there is an accepted 'best' way of doing it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hope I understand your question correctly.

From what I find documents are mostly in a table, and hierarchy is provided by another one, like a `categories` table, in which a `parent_id` column is used to refer to itself and form a tree. It helps a lot to cache that tree, as it usually is often used, not too big, rarely changes, and needs more then one query (mostly).

In Postgress there is the `ltree` extension, but then the solution is Pg specific.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Looks like an interesting project. I'm not entirely sure that you're prioritising the right information though - almost all of the text on your site is about Haskell / the technology stack you're using; but for a CMS, most people care about the admin UI / features and how they simplify the process of managing a website's content.

I think it'd be useful to show some screenshots / examples of how it works, in order to immediately engage potential users, and then lead on to the benefits of using Haskell etc.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback. Screenies are in the process of being added. For this CMS we to target programmers, as it needs to be setup by a programmer. Once setup an enduser can manage content on the site; but not change themes, install extensions, or add fields to content types... a programmer is needed for that.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> There's a discussion on Reddit (/r/haskell):

[http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2v0bjf/ann_lambdacm...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2v0bjf/ann_lambdacms_a_modular_cms_op_top_of_yesod/)

</comment><comment><USER5> To be able to install it for 5 minutes would be nice to have Dockerfile.

> Fast: we measured 2-10ms responses

Sounds quite unclear, especcially if you doesn't know Yesod, because it usually depends on many things

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points! Docker file will be considered.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> > EDIT: Since links in a text post do not become clickable, I've moved them to > the comments.

I would suggest leaving them at the top too, otherwise they'll get lost.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok I put them back. Tnx.

EDIT: Too late, editing already got disabled.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, CMS in Haskell :P BTW where could I see some screenshots of your editor interface?

</comment><comment><USER8> _> Developer friendly_

 _> While this CMS has a very end-user friendly administrator interface (think WordPress), a programmer is required set it up (unlike WordPress which could be set up by non-programmers)._

So creating boring and unnecessary jobs for programmers is a good thing, while letting each user install the software by itself is a bad thing?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've answered more/less this question over here:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2v0bjf/ann_lambdacm...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/2v0bjf/ann_lambdacms_a_modular_cms_op_top_of_yesod/coeasj1)

Let me know if it manages to explain how LambdaCms aims to make a programmer's job (on a website project) simpler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This could be really interesting. Any chance you can get a demo running somewhere?

<comment><AUTHOR> We're planning for that... Please have a look at it in a week or so.

<comment><USER10> Some screenshots of the admin interface would probably be valuable too.</comment></comment></comment>


Survey: Think you're cut out for mobile apps? - <AUTHOR> http://www.sunverasoftware.com/blog/think-youre-cut-out-for-doing-mobile-apps/ <comment><USER2> Last question asks for your email address.</comment>


Close to the Vest - The search giant's young millionaires are cashing in and checking out - <AUTHOR> http://members.forbes.com/global/2007/0702/028.html <comment><USER2> "Our mission is not to make Google as big as possible; it is to organize the world's information," says Laszlo Bock, vice president of people operations at Google. "If we seed the next 200 great startups, that's no bad thing."

I never looked at it this way. If Google is the catalyst of many successful startups in the future, that's also a way to leave an overall positive impact on the world. A surprisingly grown-up way of looking at things.

<comment><USER3> Seems like it would make more sense to do it directly, though, than funnel millions out the door with no return.

A Google investment fund.

<comment><USER4> Who do you think will end up buying all the successful run-off companies? Its much easier just to pick the winners than mess around with a ton of investments.

<comment><USER3> Because it costs a billion dollars to buy a YouTube. For that kind of dough you can try out 50,000 Y Combinator companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess now's a good time if you are looking to join a startup. Just hang outside the googleplex handing out resumes to the guys driving the nicest cars who are leaving the earliest.</comment>


Steve Ballmer serves up a data trove about government spending in the US - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/17/business/dealbook/steve-ballmer-serves-up-a-fascinating-data-trove.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> I have found this website very helpful in the past few years when researching government financial info: [http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart](http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/total_spending_chart)

I reached out to the website developer/maintainer/creator, Chris Chantrill, telling him I appreciated his work on the site and asking if he needed help (seems like a 1 man operation?) - here's how he responded:

 _Thanks! I started the site in 2007 when "I couldn't take it any more." Since then it has just growed.

Here's how you can help. Suggest a feature.

Best wishes,

\--Chris_

Chris' site provides unbiased commentary on the importance/relevance of certain measurements, and gives access to download data. It could use a bit of a UX/UI overhaul but it's an amazing feat for a one-man operation to track and present all these different sources of gov data.

I'll be interested to see how Balmer's site compares in functionality (and neutrality) especially given his vast resources and team of experts.

<comment><USER3> Can't believe I'm posting something positive about the Irish government but they recently launched this site which is actually pretty decent. Pity other governments don't do the same. [http://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie](http://whereyourmoneygoes.gov.ie)

<comment><USER4> The optics are good but it's effectively useless in determining whether money is being spent wisely or not.

It only gives a very high level picture. It would need to allow one to go a whole lot deeper for people to be able to work out what is value and what isn't.

How does the office of taoiseach spend €182 million per annum, for example?

It should be possible to see exactly where the money was spent all the way down to an invoice.

The data needed to be aggregated originally, presumably, to deliver what they do publish so what we want is access to the raw stuff.

<comment><USER5> > It should be possible to see exactly where the money was spent all the way > down to an invoice

With that level of visibility ("down to an invoice"), it's easy for people to take up pitch forks and begin lambasting teachers, for example, for their spending on computer software, materials for class, and so on. Perhaps a doctor's medical decisions would start being questioned left, right, and centre, yet the people doing the questioning have no medical experience or understanding of the patient's needs.

Let me put this another way: do you like being micro managed at your job? Would you like every decision you make regarding public spending, as an individual teacher, to be disputed, criticised and thrown up on Twitter by someone who, for example, doesn't agree with your purchasing of materials to teach a religious class, or a class on evolution, or perhaps a subject you don't think should be taught, like film & television?

I think having the data that's "down to an invoice" available to the state is valuable, but accessible to the public? No. I couldn't get behind that.

EDIT: "if" -> "is"; "ZERO" -> "no"

<comment><USER4> I disagree. Let me give you an example. Some years ago,the irish police had a grievance, they were paid less pay for holidays than normal working days. This was because when on holiday they were just receiving their normal salary and weren't getting certain other expenses. In other words, these expenses weren't real expenses but a form of tax-free pay. They had been introduced as an under the table pay increase during some negotiation or other, probably as a way of hoodwinking the taxpayer/other workers or circumventing some pay-cap or other. As I understand it this type of thing is/was common in the public service. There have been moves towards openness. Already lists of government payments to private contracters are published in Irish newspapers. Also lists of tax defaulters and details of their settlements are published regularly. Public servants having their salaries and expenses published is just another step further down this road. The same should apply to welfare recipients.

Being able to see who spent what, where and how is probably the greatest way to ensure tax money isn't wasted.

<comment><USER6> What's special about individuals who happen to be employed in the public sector or in receipt of welfare payments that makes it OK to intrude on their privacy in this way?

<comment><USER4> Like jumpcrisscross said. Ideally, where every euro of taxpayers' money goes should be a matter of public record.

<comment><USER6> I doubt that that's what you actually think. For example, I doubt you want me to be able to ask the government how much money was spent on impotence medication for you. There's a trade-off to be made regarding personal privacy. Why do you think that trade-off should be made against certain groups of people?

<comment><USER7> You can have transparency and privacy, they are not mutually exclusive in this case. Government spent X amount of money on Y number of prescriptions for medication Z. You can determine if there needs to be further auditing if Y exceeds the projected number of prescriptions based on prevalence of conditions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Today I filed my tax return showing all the money that came in and every minute expense required to make that money. Why can't we hold the government to the same standard? There should be one (huge) annual spreadsheet published showing how much money came in (federal, state, and local levels), with a detailed accounting of where every penny went, just like I am required to do for my business to claim deductions.

<comment><USER9> > federal, state, and local levels

(don't forget the counties!)

The reason that cannot work is that when you get below the state level, you're dealing with governments that might or might not have enough money and motivation to do proper accounting, staffed by people who might or might not have actually gone to college.

Mandating they contribute to the "national spreadsheet" would represent an unprecedented imposition on local governments. Not that it's necessarily a bad idea, but I'm guessing it's unconstitutional if it comes from the federal government.

<comment><USER10> > The reason that cannot work is that when you get below the state level, > you're dealing with governments that might or might not have enough money > and motivation to do proper accounting, staffed by people who might or might > not have actually gone to college.

Because of state and federal funding rules, local governments are generally not only already providing detailed public accountings in documents that nobody bothers to read, but also providing detailed reports of their spending and revenue to state and federal authorities (who periodically audit parts of them) as a condition of basic funding. They absolutely can and do track income and expenses at very fine levels, and report them with very fine breakdowns (often _different_ breakdowns of the same spending representing different control agencies demands.)

<comment><USER11> Yep. In addition, the reverse is actually true: at the federal level, many agencies are not required to use GAAP. In layman's terms, they aren't required to account for things in the way most businesses are. Common sense does not hold. If the Pentagon says 1+1=3? It equals 3. It's an odd world where money is appropriated to be spent. That's it. The rest of it is smoke and mirrors.

The smaller you are, the more "downhill" you are from the folks making the important regulations, and the more you're required to adhere to strict and closely monitored books. (Corruption still happens, of course, but at least there are numbers that add together and some form of reasonable audit trail for financial events. And don't get me started about whether or not good accounting principles have anything at all to do with good governance)

ADD: Here's a link for reference: [http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us- army-audit-account...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/politics/us-army-audit- accounting-errors/)

(I could also tell personal stories from my time with the federal government, and there are plenty more links to find for those interested. The point is that more political power and money movement, at least in the states, usually is associated with fewer and less reliable financial controls, which is counter-intuitive)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> And in related news, Trump killed open.gov today.

[https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170414/13382037153/trump...](https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170414/13382037153/trump- administration-kills-opengov-will-not-release-white-house-visitor-logs.shtml)

<comment><USER13> Jeez, nobody tell him about data.gov ...

<comment><USER14> Http/1.1 Service Unavailable

<comment><USER15> www.data.gov works for me

<comment><USER16> Quite a few links, including the "Contact" page for every topic, are just showing an error message "Data.gov encountered an unexpected error. We apologize for this inconvenience and assure you that work is underway to correct this problem. Please check back in 15 minutes and thank you for using Data.gov." (which appears to be the same text they show as their generic 404 message.) For example [https://www.data.gov/contact](https://www.data.gov/contact) and [https://www.data.gov/climate/faq](https://www.data.gov/climate/faq)

<comment><USER16> huh, never mind. They're back. I guess for once that "check back in 15 mins" turned out to be true...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _Disclaimer: I work for Open Knowledge International and have worked on OpenSpending in the past_

If you're interested in public spending data, take a look at OpenSpending ([https://openspending.org/](https://openspending.org/)). It's a project that aims to make exploring, visualizing, and searching spending data easier. It's all free software ([https://github.com/openspending](https://github.com/openspending)) and you can upload your own datasets or explore others. It also provides you with an API, so you can use it to build finance-related projects (e.g. [http://orcamento.inesc.org.br](http://orcamento.inesc.org.br))

</comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to see the same thing done with the health care industry. I have a pet hypothesis that the financial complexity of the industry is one of the barriers to reducing costs: Nobody knows what's being spent on what, and to whom. Everybody can claim that somebody else is gouging us.

<comment><USER19> They're probably all gouging each other where in the end the retail patient with no insurance suffers bankruptcy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Oh this is fascinating. I can't wait for people to slice and dice this up and show all kinds of data and analysis. This reminds me of how the NBA opened up the data stores from Sport Vu analytics and other advanced statistics and how much we learned from it by all the people on the web looking at it and thinking about it, sorting it and analyzing it in many different ways to see things no one had seen before. That has to be good for our country.

<comment><USER21> The NBA stopped posting the Sport Vu data early last year - I don't think it is coming back.

<comment><USER20> Do you have an article describing why they did that? I can't find one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I really never liked Ballmer, but I did love him for the Developers dance, and now, well, this is awesome. I hope he does it in a long-term sustainable way.

<comment><USER23> Funny and satirical as it is, [1] completely changed my opinion of Steve Ballmer for the positive.

> Steve Ballmer. You open the door to his enormous grinning face, and before > you know it he's in the hall handing over a bottle of something cheap (but > with such confidence you don't notice) and he's giving you the handshake of > your life. Then he's in. Loving it. Loving the music. Loving the food and > drink. He's going up to everyone, saying hello. And after a while you > realize he's started balling "thanks for coming, great to see you man!" to > your guests. By the end of the evening it's his party and everybody had a > great time. That's Steve Ballmer.

[https://medium.com/packt-publishing/how-to-be-like-steve- bal...](https://medium.com/packt-publishing/how-to-be-like-steve-ballmer- cf4c9803d74c)

<comment><USER24> One thing that gets wrong is calling Gates the genius. Ballmer is the smarter of the two.

<comment><USER25> Then why did Microsoft stagnate under his leadership, once Gates left?

<comment><USER26> Because intelligence by itself does not assure success. I'm not a Balmer/Microsoft fan, but 'stagnated' isn't the word I'd use to describe Microsoft in Balmer's era: they missed mobile and got into search late, but they did extremely well in other areas.

<comment><USER25> He stepped in in 2000, with microsoft being the top dog of the tech world, and left in 2014 with them not even being one of the "big four".

Right now Apple, Amazon, Google & HP are all bigger (in terms of revenue) than Microsoft:

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

<comment><USER26> > He stepped in in 2000, with microsoft being the top dog of the tech world, > and left in 2014 with them not even being one of the "big four".

It seems we are in agreement - being overtaken =/= stagnation. A more convincing argument would have been if their revenues had plateued under Ballmer (they didn't - revenue _grew_ by 280% from $25B to $70B in 2014).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Dear competitor, we welcome you! :)

Our startup is trying open the information on government spending to the masses:

[https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states- budget-2016](https://us.wikibudgets.org/w/united-states-budget-2016).

</comment><comment><USER28> One of the hardest views of government budget to come by is per-category over time or per budget proposal. So you could see, for example, how much police funding has gone up or down over time. Or for different budget proposals the increase/decrease of each category compared to the current baseline. That data is never available when proposals are debated in Congress every year. The best you get in the news is when some interest group digs deep to find the most click baity possible shocking line item. I think even the politicians just vote based on party and don't really have any idea about the budget big picture. Hopefully this Ballmer will provide that kind of view.

</comment><comment><USER29> I am very eager to see what's in store here when it goes live. If indeed it contains accurate, unbiased and factual data then it is a great project. And it is about time someone did it. I wish it was citizen funded instead of rich individuals (even if the intentions are good). But I will take what I can get for now.

<comment><USER30> I'll get excited when it comes out. What is in it for ballmer?

<comment><USER22> It makes his wife happy? That is what is discussed in the article. Frankly, it's a reasonable motivation.

<comment><USER31> I think it was more about him wanting to win an argument with his wife about his tax dollars being enough for charity but once he started getting the data like all engineers he kept going deeper down the rabbit hole.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> ""But come on, doesn't the government take care of the poor, the sick, the old?" Mr. Ballmer recalled telling her."

Too bad he never had a mentor who was an expert in philanthropy...

<comment><USER33> It seems his wife is.

<comment><USER34> He was sarcastically alluding to Bill Gates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> >With an unlimited budget, he went about hiring a team of researchers in Seattle and made a grant to the University of Pennsylvania to help his staff put the information together. Altogether, he has spent more than $10 million between direct funding and grants.

$10 million spent so far just trying to figure out what the collective governments in the US is spending money on. Is this an argument for privatization or a failure of government to provide this information succinctly itself?

<comment><USER36> Why do you believe an equivalent effort to figure out what the private sector is spending money on would be cheaper?

<comment><USER37> When it comes to publicly-traded companies, it probably would be because they're required to make specific, comprehensive disclosures about their income and spending on a regular basis. Governments, especially local governments are much less consistent about such disclosures.

It's also reasonable to expect that a government that is elected by the public and funded by taxation provide an accounting to voters and taxpayers.

<comment><USER38> He's only using government provided data for this site, so it's not like the data isn't available.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> > His first instinct, naturally, was to go to a search engine. "My favorite > one, of course: I go to Bing," he said. "And by the way, I check it with > Google, just to make sure there's nothing I'm missing."

It appears that Mr. Ballmer could cut his search time in half by just skipping the first step here. I believe this is the optimization everyone else applies.

</comment><comment><USER40> I am definitely very excited about this. Blanket statements like "government is too inefficient and such a waste" or "we need to raise more taxes to fix this problem" are statements that are irrefutable due to the convoluted nature of government. Now we can have a little more insight into what is efficient and what isn't. Also the opaqueness and division of data makes it difficult to make meaningful and economical decisions in a macro sense. I feel like there are lots of untapped opportunities to create services that involve gathering specific data that may also be sold anonymously to government in order to make better decisions along with helping customers.

<comment><USER41> Sadly, many people who make those blanket statements (such as myself) also believe governments, especially big-centralized ones cannot be fixed. These kind of data is good, it may be an eye opener for some. But governments will find loop holes to make those spendings look like justified. Most people will be fine with it anyway. Look at the authors response: "Oh there are 10 million public school teachers, those are nice people!"

<comment><USER42> At the same time, more specific data is always better.

Soon he'll realize the slim margins that go to actual teachers, and see that most of it goes to boards, etc.

<comment><USER43> Nope. 80% of per school expenditures goes to salary and benefits, with the overwhelming majority for instruction rather than administration: [https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmb.asp](https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmb.asp).

<comment><USER42> I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The UK gov supplies a very simple chart that shows where your taxes have gone, it looks like this:

[https://imgur.com/a/pr6LQ](https://imgur.com/a/pr6LQ)

Although the real thing shows how much money you personally contributed to each sector - I removed for the screenshot.

<comment><USER45> The US already has numerous breakdowns on where the money goes in segments. For example, I can tell you how much of the budget & tax revenue goes to the military, Social Security, medicare, veterans housing, interest on the public debt, and on and on. We have vast, freely available public data on spending. That's not what Ballmer is doing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Direct link to Ballmer's site -

[https://www.usafacts.org](https://www.usafacts.org)

</comment><comment><USER47> Granted, I don't yet know the scope of the project precisely (ie. how detailed and how much information was collected), but if it's as big as I think it is, Steve Ballmer has instantly become one of my favorite people currently inhabiting this planet.

<comment><USER48> It was created by someone who was at Microsoft. If the past is any indicator, you will see a splashy introduction, the follow-up and follow-through will be horrendous, and in the end everyone will hold their noses and still use it anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> I think this is an interesting point:

>One rule Mr. Ballmer said his team made early on was to use only government data — no outside providers — to avoid accusations of bias. But this created its own challenges.

Its going to be interesting to see the site. I wonder if it will be free?

<comment><USER50> Hopefully free for non-profit uses at least.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> > "How many people work for government in the United States?" he asked, with > the excitement of a child showing off a new toy, before displaying the > answer. "Almost 24 million."

Directly, sure. Indirectly, a lot more. By indirectly, I mean companies that do government contract work.

<comment><USER52> If you go by that approach then everyone in the society indirectly works for the govt in some way or the other.

<comment><USER53> Sure. But I was more thinking about people who directly work indirectly for the government, such as cleaners who work for a company that has them clean (the same) government offices (all the time). There are a lot of similar supporting services that have been privatized and "out-sourced" to external companies but which employees are practically working for the government.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> The problem with "radical transparency"is that the worst money-wasters get to hide behind confidentiality in the name of security:

1\. Counter-terrorism spending, which wastes money protecting backwaters no terrorist has even heard of

2\. The Drug War and it's army of informants

3\. Seizures of property and cash, dimensions currently unknown

4\. A Cold War-sized military in a post-Cold War world

5\. The prison-industrial complex

Those are all discretionary spending. And those are all conservatives' favorites. And they all get wrapped in "we can't be transparent, because drug lords and terrorists!"

<comment><USER55> At a minimum, transparency lets you say "hey, we do all that stuff with this $, why is there all that extra $$$$ spent there where we can't see?"

<comment><USER54> Sure. But if you look at other comments on this thread, there are arguments for fine-grained transparency for, for example, school spending, or social program spending. The objection to that is that it's grist for the outrage mill: "How DARE they spend money on LGBT issues!" Radical transparency would be better supportable if it did not exclude the secret policeman's budget.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> The UK's National Audit Office has this page: [https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/whole-of-government- accoun...](https://www.nao.org.uk/highlights/whole-of-government-accounts/)

It shows a breakdown, for the year 2014-2015, of "consolidated financial statements for the whole of the UK public sector".

The pie chart and "Breakdown of WGA Balances" can be hard to understand when you first load the page, but if you hover over a column in the column chart (under '2011-2015 Balance Information'), you can click to see a breakdown for one of the sections of the column chart.

It's kind of nice to see the information categorised by type, rather than by which body spent the money.

</comment><comment><USER57> I've always kind of had a crush on Steve Ballmer, he just seems like a real jolly fellow. After reading the excerpts, that crush only grew.

</comment><comment><USER58> > Well, let's look at that. People who work in schools, higher ed, public > institutions of education — they are government employees." And they > represent almost half of the 24 million, his data shows.

> "And you say, O.K., what are the other big blocks?" Mr. Ballmer continued. > "Well, active-duty military, war fighters. Government hospitals. Really? I > didn't know that."

I'm really surprised if this really surprised him. I mean, the ex-CEO of one of the most powerful and influential corporates on Earth didn't know that soldiers, public teachers, medical personnel etc. are employed by government?? If that's true, I don't even know what to say. I would find it ridiculous, laughable, if it wasn't so sad.

<comment><USER59> I think he was surprised at the scale, not that those groups counted as gov't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> He talks about his motivation in this speech: [https://youtu.be/ChxeCKyafVU](https://youtu.be/ChxeCKyafVU) "How to Tell a Story", I recommend watch it.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm enjoying how his enthusiasm is being channelled in a productive way!

</comment><comment><USER62> This is half the battle. The other half is figuring out the value created by the spending.

Hopefully having the data in one place can help us calculate that fuzzier side of the equation.

</comment><comment><USER63> This is fantastic - this type of transparency will also put positive pressure on agencies and departments to demonstrate their outcomes for citizens.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm not sure how comparable it is, but for what it's worth, the Census Bureau disseminates data on State and Local Government Finances: [https://www.census.gov/govs/local/](https://www.census.gov/govs/local/). Not particularly timely however, as the most recent data available is for 2014.

</comment><comment><USER65> Talk about your fluff pieces!

Sorkin's article ignores Ballmer's billion-dollar tax dodge... er, break... for buying a basketball team.* Ballmer should revise his boast from "paid for with pre-tax dollars" to "paid for with "shamefully un-taxed dollars."

Interesting terms that don't show up when Googling Ballmer's site (at least as of today...)

tax expenditure tax shelter estate tax good will sports team basketball

                 site:usafacts.org

And so much for the "already taxed" argument by Trump's billionaire class (and their gullible working-class sycophants) against the estate tax. How much supposedly already-income-taxed dollars of wealth will soon escape estate taxes? And how much will all of these tax expenditures __add to working and middle class taxes and the national debt?

Now that, Mr. Sorkin, would be an interesting article.

* Check out "Steve Ballmer Gets Billion-Dollar Tax Write-Off For Being Basketball Baron" at [https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/27/0237200/steve-ballme...](https://yro.slashdot.org/story/14/10/27/0237200/steve-ballmer-gets-billion-dollar-tax-write-off-for-being-basketball-baron)

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

</comment><comment><USER66> It sounds pretty great, but I'm very worried about what actually comes out of it given the media landscape. People will use the data in ways that benefit them - even the CBO's reports are highly politicized.

If we can't start taking "real, true" data at face value and using it to drive actual policy again, this is just another drop in the bucket.

<comment><USER67> > even the CBO's reports are highly politicized

Can you source that?

<comment><USER68> I took it to mean "third parties politicize CBO reports" rather than "CBO reports are created with ideological slants," because, well, that's the truth of the matter. You can't criticize a CBO forecast for being slightly inaccurate when politicians decide to change the parameters after the fact.

<comment><USER69> I think you're correct, but it was poorly worded

<comment><USER66> Sorry about that, GP is correct with regard to my intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I hope he focus on collecting and funneling the data vs. spending a ton on analyzing the current easily available data.

</comment><comment><USER71> It's funny how well this dovetails with the stereotype of the tech industry.

WIFE: You should help with these philanthropic efforts.

BALLMER: I pay lots of taxes, the government takes care of helping people.

WIFE: That's not true.

BALLMER: Yes it is, and rather than contribute philanthropically, I'll start a start-up to settle this.

</comment><comment><USER72> Since the project itself is now at #1 ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14139186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14139186)), I suppose we can treat this earlier discussion as the duplicate.

</comment><comment><USER73> I love how this article portrays Mr. Ballmer as a wide eyed innocent.

"I mean it's funny, but I didn't realize all these not-for-profits were in a sense almost like government contractors."

Well, yeah. Antipoverty nonprofit agencies run programs like Head Start and handle all sorts of charity operations. Adoption agencies, training programs, and on and on. A key skill for nonprofit comptrollers is knowing how to get governments to cough up the money they're contracted to pay these agencies.

"You know it's not legal to know how many firearms that are in this country? The government is not allowed to collect the number."

Mr. Ballmer, are you the LAST person to know that? People interested in stemming urban violence have known that for decades.

Maybe somebody with his clout can make a difference. It's good to have this information gathered up in a useful form. But, enough with the "innocents abroad" narrative!

<comment><USER74> I'm going to have to disagree with you here. I think its much more constructive to encourage potentially ignorant individuals to be inquisitive, rather than to reprimand them for not knowing something sooner.

To belittle those individuals who did not have access or exposure to this information seems cynical or high-horsed. Exposing verifiable data is the first step, encouraging people to challenge their belief systems through curiosity and with the assurance that changing their mind (based on that data) is not stupid or reprehensible is the second.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Just incase there isn't already enough other links. This one is for the US / UK / Czech Republic

I liked the style.

[https://www.wikibudgets.org/](https://www.wikibudgets.org/)

</comment><comment><USER76> He talked about it in his recent TEDx talk

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRgmKiE0Js](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VRgmKiE0Js)

Quite interesting (and low-key for Ballmer) talk

</comment><comment><USER77> Steve Ballmer gives mainly to Republicans and gave money to oppose income tax in Washington state specifically for high earners. I doubt he can be totally nonpartisan on this subject.

<comment><USER78> So? Literally everyone is partisan. Everyone has a world view. That doesn't mean you can't legitimately aim to have a non-biased open and accurate dataset. Different folks can interpret that data set in different ways. Balmer's view of how the data suggests we should drive policy can be different from your own.

<comment><USER79> There's more to it, though. Washington has a long history of opposition to state income taxes, for various reasons: [http://kuow.org/post/strange-short- story-washington-state-s-...](http://kuow.org/post/strange-short-story- washington-state-s-income-tax)

In a way, he was just supporting state tradition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER80> A step in the right direction, to say the least.

</comment><comment><USER51> This will be a much needed site. Thanks, Steve!

</comment><comment><USER81> It's quite possible for someone to be a mediocre CEO and still do good, smart things. This is a good thing, and smart.

<comment><USER82> i'm not sure why the dig at him was a necessary foreword

<comment><USER83> To give pause that only revered CEOs can bring meaningful change in this world. This view is especially prevalent in the Tech world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> can we translate this data into performance measures for our politicians? After all, we are paying freshmen congressmen >150K annually with an additional stipend of several million to run their office. EVERY YEAR. How does what they do make a measurable impact on our lives?

</comment><comment><USER85> There's something comically evil looking about Ballmer, almost the Emperor from Star Wars.

A former Microsoft exec wondering what the government does with money? A lot landed in his pockets I suspect, but it's good he's philanthropic now.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs).

</comment><comment><USER86> Bravo Mr. Ballmer. Now lets get all government financial transactions on the block chain...

</comment><comment><USER87> This makes me wonder, has the data been public all this time?

</comment><comment><USER88> The article mentions that the data shows a huge allocation of resources to education. Why is education publicly funded in the USA, and not left to market forces? Can't that be considered a "socialist" policy?

<comment><USER89> A public company generally cares about quarterly performance. A private company might have its sights as far as a few years out. However, with education it takes about 20 years to start seeing a return on investment. It just doesn't make sense to approach education from a business standpoint, both because the ROI is very low, and you need to have stability in education, you can't have someone like ITT Tech all of a sudden deciding to close their door to tens of thousands of students and leave with a bunch of useless credits that won't transfer.

<comment><USER24> If you really believe this why don't you short-sell a bunch of companies and make a killing?

<comment><USER90> Because the belief has nothing to do with your arbitrary test. And even if it did, the market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

<comment><USER91> one of my favorite John Maynard Keynes quotes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> I just bought a domain for something similar. Oops

<comment><USER93> Team up, there is more than enough data!

<comment><USER92> I actually don't like the way they present or treat the data so I guess I still have time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> Wow! I'd never imagine Steve would eventually grow up into a responsible citizen... After everything he did at the helm of Microsoft, I'm genuinely, positively surprised.

</comment><comment><USER70> It's fascinating how great leaders do PR by making it seem they run the whole show, therefore making them look even greater.

</comment><comment><USER95> Steve Ballmer will be running for president ... wait and see

</comment><comment><USER96> and they're using mail chimp to manage their email database

</comment><comment><USER41> I strongly disagree with the author here:

"Suddenly, he explained, the faceless bureaucrats who are often pilloried as symbols of government waste suddenly start to look like the people in our neighborhood whom we're very glad to have."</comment>


"LoseThos" 64-bit Open Source OS: For Programming as Entertainment - <AUTHOR> http://www.losethos.com/ <comment><USER2> It's a fascinating project, but if you made a game in LoseThos, who would actually install the OS / boot via LiveCD to play it?

Still, it's nice to see someone trying to preserve the experience of early home computing; barebones systems with painfully easy access to graphics hardware.

Hopefully he or someone else can improve upon this and make an OS which includes some modern amenities (ahem, network support for multiplayer!) and we'd have what is sort of like an open source console OS, a non-moving software target which could be paired with a non-moving hardware target and bring some of the advantages of console development to the PC. This pairing could even be in the form of a through-and-through open source video game console.

<comment><USER3> In a VM scenario, it could be an interesting environment to do some development in. The limitations and OS install aren't a big deal if it lived in a VM window, and the thing is small.

I've been wondering in general if we will get to the "each app in a VM window" paradigm as a common way to do business on the desktop. Really if there was a cross-vm cut and paste and filesystem driver, the os itself would be a smaller part of the picture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Best Part: "The LoseThos operating system will be free, but I might sell applications or support, or possibly do adware" :)

</comment><comment><USER5> _Ask not why it boots in 2 seconds, ask what the heck other operating systems are doing._

I think I found a new friend. :)

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds entertaining. I'll give the developer credit: he/she knows what he wants from that project, and that's half the battle. No feature creep in his mind.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is a fascinating project.

</comment><comment><USER7> it better not have any internet/lan support ever... "runs everything in kernel mode and all applications have access to everything".. If I was a virus- programmer, my fingers would itch...

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I crazy or is this a great way to figure out if your bug is in the hardware or the OS?

Tell me I'm crazy and no one else is thinking of doing actual work with this.

</comment><comment><USER9> Gloriously impractical.

</comment><comment><USER10> this is totally crazy!</comment>


Immigration Debate Won't End Without the Fall of Mercantilism - <AUTHOR> https://refer.ly/immigration-debate-won-t-end-without-the-fall-of-mercantilism/c/e99c459073ce11e2bfbf22000a1db8fa

<comment><USER2> The fact that everyone would be broadly better off in the long run doesn't change the fact trade and immigration barriers do indeed benefit the local incumbents (At least on career (ie, decades) timescales). It's similar to the idea that a monopoly is bad for the economy as a whole, but _great_ for the monopoly.

Though I strongly support relaxing immigration constraints for principled reasons, from a personal financial standpoint, it's almost certainly better for me if no foreign programmer was ever allowed to work in the USA.

And that is why the debate will continue: Rational Self Interest (admittedly, at the expense of the "greater good"), not economic misconceptions.

<comment><USER3> You're not even doing a good job being selfish, since you'd actually benefit a lot more from more people having the opportunity to create value.

The "it is better personally for me" argument could also have been made against women working in your role, or black people. Do you realize how screwed up that line of thinking is?

<comment><USER2> > You're not even doing a good job being selfish, since you'd actually benefit > a lot more from more people having the opportunity to create value.

Well, that's sort of the question, isn't it? Will the benefit I receive from other people's production of value outweigh the devaluation of my own productivity? I don't think there's an easy way to answer that, though my suspicion is that there is a large number of people for whom the answer is no.

Note, I don't advocate this line of thought; I'm just saying that it's not _irrational_ for someone to advocate it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Exactly!

Ideally, human rights should include ...

1\. The free movement of ideas

2\. The free movement of capital

3\. The free movement of goods & services

4\. The free movement of labor

Right?

</comment><comment><USER5> I have two questions for the people commenting who think immigration barriers actually benefit the local incumbents.

1) Since the economic argument for free trade applies to the labor market as well, one cannot logically be an advocate of free trade and anti-immigration at the same time. Do you maintain that free trade is actually bad for the United States?

2) If free immigration between countries is bad, then it follows that it is also bad between states, between cities, and between neighborhoods. Do you believe that your state, your city, and your neighborhood would be better off if there was a legal barrier to immigration at the state, city, and neighborhood level?

<comment><USER6> 2\. Not if there were reciprocity. Btwn states there is reciprocity. I can move to RI and an RIer could move to CA without limit. Someone from the US can't easily get a job in BR, for example, unless business could prove no BRlian could do the job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Free market immigration is neither open borders (forced integration) nor closed ones (forced segregation). Social security impact of immigration falls under forced integration.

I can't say it better than Hans Herman Hoppe: "First, with the establishment of a state and territorially defined state borders, "immigration" takes on an entirely new meaning. In a natural order, immigration is a person's migration from one neighborhood-community into a different one (micro-migration). In contrast, under statist conditions immigration is immigration by "foreigners" from across state borders, and the decision whom to exclude or include, and under what conditions, rests not with a multitude of independent private property owners or neighborhoods of owners but with a single central (and centralizing) state-government as the ultimate sovereign of all domestic residents and their properties (macro-migration). If a domestic resident-owner invites a person and arranges for his access onto the resident-owner's property but the government excludes this person from the state territory, it is a case of forced exclusion (a phenomenon that does not exist in a natural order). On the other hand, if the government admits a person while there is no domestic resident-owner who has invited this person onto his property, it is a case of forced integration (also non-existent in a natural order, where all movement is invited)."

</comment><comment><USER8> Many people -- including a lot of economists -- inhabit an echo chamber where "globalization=good, protectionism=bad" is a sacred dogma.

But the investor's investor, Warren Buffett, has said that tariffs would be good for the US [1] [2].

Protectionism/mercantilism works, but what we have is a half-and-half system: Goods, services, and capital can move relatively freely through US borders, but labor cannot.

Throwing open our borders to trade -- Nixon's visit to China, NAFTA -- resulted in real US wages that have been stagnant for decades.

I.e., in many jobs, our workers are still competing against overseas workers, without those workers physically moving to the US. Those third-world workers don't have to worry about all the silly laws we have regarding minimum wages, limited workweeks, child labor, environmental protection, workplace safety, etc. If we want to keep those policies, and still have good jobs available to our citizens, we have to ditch free trade.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_Certificates>

[2] [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/...](http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/11/10/352872/index.htm)

<comment><USER3> Buffett is a mercantilist, not a capitalist

<comment><USER8> He invests his money in companies. I always thought that "capitalist" was simply another word for "investor".

Edited grandparent to say "investor" instead. Happy?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This author has obviously never been to Latin America nor understands that America is situated next door to a third world county. We limit immigration for a reason, and it is not mercantilism. We limit immigration because hypergrowth from third world immigrants hinders our infrastructure, which gives us things like traffic, crowded emergency rooms, and high unemployment.

<comment><USER5> I'm from Latin America, and I think you have the causality wrong. We don't limit immigration because immigrants hinder our infrastructure, rather, our infrastructure is hindered because we limit immigration. Smart people leave to more immigration friendly countries and build infrastructure there, and the people who would have come to our countries to build our infrastructure are not allowed to come in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The west (particularly the US, Germany isn't quite as stupid) has been playing innocent globalist at the ongoing mercantilist game table for 30 years. Western multinationals got labor and environmental arbitrage, Asia got the middle class jobs. And here we are.

But, yeah, sure, _western_ mercantilism is the problem...

</comment><comment><USER11> _both the Republican and Democratic parties support the "protectionist" policies_

...and I stopped reading. In fact, both parties are deadly committed to mass, even endless, immigration. It's the people who oppose it.</comment>


Los Angeles Hacker News Meetup this Saturday - <AUTHOR> http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Hacker-News/calendar/14745776/

<comment><AUTHOR> We're currently looking for food/drink sponsors. If you're interested give me a shout out at email@example.com.

Also, if you'd like to give a 5-10 min lightning talk about something at the meetup email me as well.</comment>