Wealth isn't created at the top, it is merely devoured there - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/30/wealth-banks-google-facebook-society-economy-parasites?CMP=share_btn_tw <comment><USER2> Corporate dividends are taxed, while interest paid is not. This encourages debt financing. It's a subsidy program for lenders. It fuels leveraged buyouts; "private equity" usually means converting equity to debt. It also fuels stock buybacks as opposed to dividends. This causes a huge distortion in business financing, and it accrues to the benefit of banks. It would be straightforward to fix this as part of tax reform, but the banks would scream. We're not going to fix this in the US until we have a Goldman Sachs free administration.

The other big subsidy program for lenders is borrowing money from the Fed at low rates which can then be lent at much higher commercial rates. That's the welfare state for banks.

It doesn't have to be that way. Japan and China inject money into the economy by building, and sometimes overbuilding, publicly funded infrastructure. The banking system plays a lesser role in economic stimulation. This has its advantages; usually the infrastructure is good for something.

<comment><USER3> > Japan and China inject money into the economy by building, and sometimes > overbuilding, publicly funded infrastructure

I wouldn't point to these as a panacea for economic policy. China has ghost cities which they won't populate: the people for whom they were built can't afford to live there.

Japan is overworked, sleeping in the office and drinks with the boss are mandatory. Is that the society towards which we ought to advance?

Not excusing the short term interests of America's big banks, however, you need to be ready for other disadvantages if you change the way the game is played in America.

<comment><USER4> China has ghost cities, yes, but it also has some incredibly impressive new high speed rail networks [0]. This scale of infrastructure building looks like it would be impossible to do in the US, given the difficulty of building just a single line between SF and LA [1].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High- speed_rail_in_China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China)

[1] [http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-cost- ov...](http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-cost- overruns-20170106-story.html)

<comment><USER5> An immediate relative of mine worked at the Hillside Workshops in Dunedin, at the time the Chinese were given a contract to build the passenger carriages. I remember very clearly the stories he told me, when the carriages arrived:

every single one of them had to be rebuilt. Welds that should have run the length of plates were often just enough to get it to hold together, and not the full length. Pipe were substituted for solid metal bars. Low quality steel was used, stuff that would disintegrate when struck with a hammer by one of the engineers. The "cheap" contracts that the National Government sought ended up costing much more than what it would have cost them to build locally.

I wouldn't be very keen to ride on the high speed Chinese rail networks.

<comment><USER2> Li Keqiang admits China has a quality problem, and it's becoming a state priority to address that.

It's getting better. Jet brand machine tools used to have huge quality problems around 2002, and now they mostly work out of the box. It was clear at one time that Jet was shipping their rejects, but that seems to have stopped. They're still below Hardinge, but up there with Delta now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Lately I've been thinking about how funny it is that we make heroes out of the heads of tech companies.

Especially in technology, does anyone really believe that if these particular individuals hadn't contributed their talents, the world would have turned out much different?

Would there be no operating systems without Gates? No social networks without Zuckerberg? No search engines without Page? No e-commerce without Bezos? (Granted, Bezos is pretty exceptional.)

Why should particular individuals capture such massive rewards when their success had more to do with circumstance than anything else?

(There's a connection here to the "great man theory" of history and its critiques.)

<comment><USER7> But then, why should particular individuals capture such massive capital when their success has more to with circumstance than anything else ?

It's also funny how we make heroes out of corporations themselves, not only their heads : technological advance is often attributed to some specific companies, and we don't see that as appropriation of the results of particular circumstances, but as a sign of the performance of this company.

However; Would there be no XXXXX if we didn't live in an environment that attributes the results of circumstances to specific individuals ? I really don't know.

<comment><USER8> I don't find your point coherent. Why should anyone be paid well for anything if their revenue generation is due more to circumstance than anything else?

How far down the rabbit hole would we be going to go with this? Who gets to decide what the capital cutoff point is for "too massive" and the contribution cutoff point is for "due to circumstance"?

If I don't believe in free will, and thereby claim you make too much money because you technically weren't responsible for any of your actions and never chose the outcome that happened, can I incite a communist revolution and seize your assets? If I feel someone won the lottery because they were lucky, do I get to take all their money because they didn't contribute value or "earn" it in a way that I find agreeable?

Can you give me an example of someone who is wealthy who earned their money in a manner that isn't arguably due to circumstance? As it stands, I can't think of an example that is materially different from a tech CEO who happened to be in the right place and right time. Go far enough back and every idea and execution on that idea is due to chance. But that applies to everyone, not just tech CEOs, or whoever the robber baron of the week is.

<comment><USER9> Who gets to decide? How about all of us voters, taxpayers, and citizens, collectively, in a democratic fashion?

I'd be fine having a discussion about what's "too massive" for a company and trying to figure out how to balance the interests of society and any given company (and its constituent individuals). But I'd like to start from a position of, what do we want society to look like? rather than a position of, how do we preserve the status quo?

<comment><USER10> You do get to decide. You either reward them by being a consumer of their products/services or you don't.

Sorry, looks like you got outvoted.

Now you want to sit on some panel of judgement to overrule the public.

I love it when people say stuff like this. Society has spoken. You simply don't like their decision so your answer to is to create some super-powerful organization that can veto the public and instill its own version of what society should look like.

<comment><USER9> What? Those companies exist because society has granted them permission. That "super-powerful organization" is the government. Always has been, always will be.

Fortunately, now, for the most part, in the west, we all get a say in that super-powerful organization.

It, and everything it spawns, like mega-corporations, exists to serve us, not the other way around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> One of the comments has an interesting remark:

"We're invited to believe that a CEO can somehow 'earn' £10m per year, whereas a teacher 'earns' £25k per year. That's only possible if you divorce the word 'earn' from any of its actual meaning. No one can actually work enough hours, or create enough value, to equate to £10m."

I think this is the essence of the recent debate about inequality. I think most people would not have a problem with those who are genuinely producing more getting more as well. Think back to school, did you ever complain about your grades if you knew some other kid had worked harder? Me neither. Of course there were times when it seemed arbitrary as well, seemingly having no relevance to quality.

It's a big problem creating a notion of fairness when you move on from school, where everyone is the same age, in the same class, doing the same homework. To create software, for instance, what do you typically find? There's people of various ages, some managing, some selling, some writing code, some doing testing. You need all of them to get the job done, and the job has some sort of value, however vaguely defined, that is greater than the sum of its parts. Nobody on the team could do all of the team's work as effectively as the team.

So then we have the problem of attribution. There's no real way to say what fraction of the value someone created. The only thing we really have is negotiating positions. If you're able to say "Give me half or I'm taking my ball" convincingly, your teammates will give you half. They'll be thinking about a few things mainly: whether you'll really leave if turned down, whether they think they can replace you, and what deal they can put forth to other potential teams if you turn out to be irreplaceable.

This will have some interesting effects. If you're already making a lot, you'll probably need a lot to want to participate. You have more savings in order to hold out for a better offer. CEO guy "genuinely" needs more pay because why wouldn't he just retire now? Janitor guy will take any offer, because he needs to be running to stand still. Actually a lot of people will be in that position, even though their labour is generally seen as useful, like teachers.

Which is all just a long way of saying that the negotiating process does not in itself take merit as an input.

<comment><USER12> > _No one can actually work enough hours, or create enough value, to equate to > £10m_

It's a tiresome discussion. Why do we always bring up CEO compensations, but never Hollywood actors', professional athletes' or even painters' (or art traders' \- [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._5,_1948](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No._5,_1948))?

Salaries don't need outside validation by people why have no idea what the job involves, but try to assign some "value" to it anyway. It's a free market and CEOs don't get hired if they have outrageous demands and there are better candidates available.

<comment><USER5> > Why do we always bring up CEO compensations...

I certainly bring up professional athlete salaries. Given that they produce absolutely nothing of value beyond a marketing opportunity, they're all overpaid for very little real work. It's not like they're curing cancer. Actors? Memorize some lines, and have lesser-paid minions tell you how they should be repeated.

All that's really happened is that a class of people have managed to market themselves to a section of the population - sports stars, actors, CEOs and politicians. They've made themselves superstars, and unfortunately, sufficient numbers of people believe in the legends that they can ask for whatever excess they like and get it.

<comment><USER10> If having Jack Nicholson in your movie guarantees at least $20 million more in box office revenue than someone nobody has ever heard of, they're creating value.

Likewise, a professional athlete plays on a sports team. That sports team generates millions of dollars a year in television contracts. Hundreds of people are employed both at the stadiums at which they play as well as at the television stations that air the games. Millions more are made from merchandising, jerseys, hats, etc from the sports team. Hundreds more are employed making and selling those products.

And yes, they also become marketing machines. Yet that marketing machine sells products and people are employed at those companies that make and sell those products.

The ripple-on effect of a super-star professional athlete like Michael Jordon or LeBron James generates wealth for tens of thousands of people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Another way to think about it is to see all these platforms as markets.

Facebook is a people market. Spotify is a music market. Airbnb a hotel market. Uber a taxi market Amazon and eBay... Well, literally markets, right? And so on.

Markets obviously _do_ create wealth, as a lubricant for trade. It's a meta- level of the economy, just like money is a meta-good that makes bartering actual goods and services more efficient.

So saying that's it's all "rentier" without creating any wealth might be selling them short a bit.

Where I'm troubled is that they're not _free_ markets, in any sense of the word. They are privately owned, and the owners try to control their markets for the sake of their own profit. That's where things get problematic, I'd say, especially when there is a monopoly.

<comment><USER14> Renting out the market one could say. And therein lies the problem.

<comment><USER13> Funny that ComputerPhile just talked about using blockchains to potentially solve this with smart contracts:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csS1mZFuNSY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csS1mZFuNSY)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Nor is it created at the bottom, where it is spent or destroyed. It is created in the middle, by the middle class.

The middle class is the class that feeds the unproductive classes at both the top and the bottom. And the unproductive have formed a political alliance where the bottom votes for the top in exchange for handouts, all paid for by the middle.

<comment> crooked-v > Nor is it created at the bottom, where it is spent or destroyed.

You're ignoring the economic effects of money being immediately spent on consumer goods and services.

[https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition- assistance/su...](https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition- assistance/supplemental-nutrition-assistance-program-snap/economic-linkages/)

> An increase of $1 billion in SNAP expenditures is estimated to increase > economic activity (GDP) by $1.79 billion. In other words, every $5 in new > SNAP benefits generates as much as $9 of economic activity.

<comment> aaron-lebo That doesn't discount the argument though.

1) SNAP is cyclical - so it's gonna naturally boost a struggling economy, as would most other expenditures

2) there's a natural limit - there's only so much food a family needs

<comment><USER16> "2) there's a natural limit - there's only so much food a family needs"

There's also a point where a family may demand more food but providing them with it actually harms society. The obesity epidemic is the biggest health crisis this country has ever faced and when _40% of SNAP recipients are obese (compared to ~32% of nonrecipients), we 're basically paying to sentence these people to a litany of expensive, chronic medical issues. Of course, merely reducing benefits does nothing to solve this and harms the 60% of recipients who are at a healthy weight, I'm just pointing out that the natural limit of demand is far beyond the optimal level of supply for a program meant to provide a net benefit to society.

_Source: [https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ops/NHANES- SNAP...](https://www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/ops/NHANES- SNAP07-10.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think it sad that there is only one word for wealth. It does not distinguish how a person attained that wealth. Was it inherited? Was the wealth created? Or was it taken at the expense of others? How society treats and taxes the wealthy should depend on how the wealth is attained.

<comment><USER18> The problem is in the definition of "created". A CEO of a company may say he "created" the wealth of the company through his decision to create a new gizmo. The engineers may say they created the wealth because they designed the gizmo. The workers who built the gizmo can also say the created the wealth in the most literal sense. Capitalism, technocracy, and socialism disagree on the importance of the three types of creation.

<comment><USER19> I believe in classical economics the terms are Production and Distribution, the latter being in reference of profit, or value-add.

I totally agree that the ambiguity you described is an issue. It's unfortunate that common political parlance isn't in a habit of defining its terms as a step 1a before proceeding in a discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> > Every sliver of fundamental technology in the iPhone, from the internet to > batteries and from touchscreens to voice recognition, was invented by > researchers on the government payroll.

This is bullshit, but it's very pernicious bullshit because while it only takes one person to pull this out of their ass, no one person can refute it. No one person can articulate where all the stuff in an iPhone came from; abstraction is one of the true marvels of technology today

<comment><USER21> Indeed this would be very interesting if it was true. Because many new technologies coming out of universities are patented, if Apple is using them as it's research arm, Apple is hopefully paying market price for the tech and hopefully that's a fair amount.

<comment><USER22> Somewhat related to this discussion - it's really worth the one hour:

Secret History of Silicon Valley

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

TL;DW The foundation for SV was laid during WWII by unrestrained spending (based on a huge amount of debt of course) by the US government on R&D. Private enterprise only came in once the foundation existed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm generally libertarian leaning and expected to completely disagree with this. But he's got a point. Does anyone here really believe Facebook deserves to be a multi-billion dollar company? All of their success comes from the luck of being first (ish) and establishing a monopoly because of network effects. Someone might make a vastly better social network. But are you going to use that, or the one your friends and family use?

<comment><USER12> > _Does anyone here really believe Facebook deserves to be a multi-billion > dollar company?_

Multi-billion what? Revenue? Yes, because they managed to monetize their traffic and keep it up despite fierce competition (attempts... by Google, for example). Market-cap? Yes because enough people who aren't typically extremely careless with their money invested in FB.

> _All of their success comes from the luck of being first_

First at what?

<comment><USER23> >Yes, because they managed to monetize their traffic and keep it up despite fierce competition (attempts... by Google, for example).

They didn't have to do anything, that's the point. They have such strong network effects. They would have to completely fuck up to lose even a tiny fraction of their userbase.

<comment><USER24> But they do have to do something. In fact, they're constantly doing a whole bunch of somethings to keep people in their ecosystem.

Apps. Messenger. Instagram.

They didn't get that network by just being first(ish). They got it by continuously being the best of the imperfect options, and they can lose it just as easily.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "But such a revolution will require a wholly different narrative about the origins of our wealth. It will require ditching the old-fashioned faith in "solidarity" with a miserable underclass that deserves to be borne aloft on the market-level salaried shoulders of society's strongest."

This has never happened in the past, but similar things have happened, always driven by violence. Can this happen without violence, I wonder?

<comment><USER26> Sure, if the wealthy voluntarily decide to do this, or if they can be convinced to do so in civil conversation.

Given the heat of pushback on small tax increases, I wouldn't bet on this happening without chaos. I wouldn't bet on it happening with chaos either.

<comment><USER27> "Given the heat of pushback on small tax increases, I wouldn't bet on this happening without chaos."

There's a big difference between pushback on increasing taxes from zero to five percent, or ten to fifteen percent ... and pushback on increases from 40 -> 42% or 45 -> 48%.

In the US, it is the latter that we are most frequently discussing and it is the latter that gets all of the pushback that you find so familiar.

If you think your chlorine level is too high in your pool, shouldn't you oppose _all increases, no matter how minute_ ?

If your blood pressure is too high, shouldn't you be opposed to _all increases, regardless of how small or how much "you can afford it"_ ?

Some people (like me) think that effective tax rates of roughly 50% (US, California, Marin County) are too high. I would then, ipso facto, be opposed to further increases _and I am troubled by the fact that this is considered a definite political marker_. It's not.

<comment><USER9> Sure, except the wealthy were doing just fine when taxes were significantly higher for them. They weren't suffering--they were still extremely wealthy, far more than everyone else.

For them to complain that their chlorine level is too high, when in the past it was twice as high or higher, and they were still living high on the hog? Sorry, don't care how they feel, tax the heck out of them.

<comment><USER27> "Sure, except the wealthy were doing just fine when taxes were significantly higher for them. They weren't suffering--they were still extremely wealthy, far more than everyone else."

Income taxes were never significantly higher than they are now in the United States.

You are thinking of the anti war profiteering tax brackets that were put into place after the entry into WW2. This was not a tax increase in the way you think of it and it was not designed to generate revenue or redistribute wealth - it was a patriotic act to ensure that nobody benefited financially from the prosecution of the war.

If you compare tax rates and use those as an anchor, you don't know what you're talking about.

<comment><USER28> > Income taxes were never significantly higher than they are now in the United > States.

Uh...you might want to check on that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> > but across the spectrum virtually all agree that wealth is created primarily > at the top.

Good lord, is this really true? I don't know about you people, but the basic pre-reqs for my undergrad had a single overview economics class where we covered among many other things the definitions of capitalism and profit and the idea that profit equals the difference between the sale price of a commodity and the cost of goods & labor used to produce it -- literally the definition of profit disagrees with the idea that wealth is created at the top, whatever that is even supposed to mean.

> When you think about it, it's insane. We are forking over billions in taxes > to help our brightest minds on and up the corporate ladder so they can learn > how to score ever more outrageous handouts.

There's a lot about the world that gets completely insane if you think too much about it. Cars are insane. Jobs are insane. Politics and money are insane.

We have to have better options for smart people than highly compensated and interesting work at Facebook and Google. How do we create better options? I don't think pointing it out will cause better options to materialize.

> Yet it doesn't have to be this way. Tollgates can be torn down, financial > products can be banned, tax havens dismantled, lobbies tamed, and patents > rejected. Higher taxes on the ultra-rich can make rentierism less > attractive, precisely because society's biggest freeloaders are at the very > top of the pyramid. And we can more fairly distribute our earnings on land, > oil, and innovation through a system of, say, employee shares, or a > universal basic income.

> But such a revolution will require a wholly different narrative about the > origins of our wealth. It will require ditching the old-fashioned faith in > "solidarity" with a miserable underclass that deserves to be borne aloft on > the market-level salaried shoulders of society's strongest. All we need to > do is to give real hard-working people what they deserve.

OH! That's all we need to do, eh? It's so easy! :)

It's not the first time this has been suggested. There are even names for this. And it sounds great. But the forces keeping our system the way it is are stronger than this. The narratives we need about the origins of wealth already exist, and they're not strong enough to turn the tide. I don't know what is strong enough to turn the tide.

</comment><comment><USER30> This article seems like a classic case of theoretical discussion with little to no practical significance.

"In reality, it is precisely the other way around. In reality, it is the waste collectors, the nurses, and the cleaners whose shoulders are supporting the apex of the pyramid. They are the true mechanism of social solidarity."

Jobs such as waste collection will be completely automated away in the next decade. I suppose machines then will be the true mechanism of "social solidarity"?

"But there is also a second way to make money. That's the rentier way: by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his power to claim economic benefit."

It seems like the author believes that any gain to one group can only happen at the expense of another. Yet we know this to be false - the pie can and does get bigger.

"revealed that much of the financial sector has become downright parasitic. How instead of creating wealth, they gobble it up whole."

Agree, but curious to understand which industry the author doesn't define as parasitic? All companies want to expand and grow relentlessly, that's just the nature of capitalism. Cable/Telecom? Oil and gas? High Tech? All of them have become "parasitic" if that's how the author wants to define it.

"Higher taxes on the ultra-rich can make rentierism less attractive, precisely because society's biggest freeloaders are at the very top of the pyramid. And we can more fairly distribute our earnings on land, oil, and innovation through a system of, say, employee shares, or a universal basic income."

Wrong. Higher taxes, though welcome, will not be the solution. Nor will universal basic income. How does one not understand that with the rise of automation, the rich are about to get so much richer, no matter how much you plan on taxing them. And basic income, though beneficial, won't fix class inequality either, in fact it might just exacerbate it.

Let's talk about something the author fails to even mention: Education. Class inequality is fixed by education equality. Period. End of story. The rich in the USA have access to far better education, and THAT is the true source of the rising inequality.

</comment><comment><USER31> The shocking level of economic ignorance of the author shows how utterly irresponsible and demagogic the Guardian is. This is rank sensationalism at the expense of public's correct perception of the world.

To call earning passive income on assets one owns "rentier" earning of income is to show unquestioned acceptance of socialist assumptions about the right to property, to ignore the value the person's assets contribute, and to totally neglect the role that delayed consumption (aka saving) and investment analysis, both components of investing and acquiring assets, have in wealth generation.

This is the quack economics the article is promoting:

>To understand why, we need to recognise that there are two ways of making money. The first is what most of us do: work. That means tapping into our knowledge and know-how (our "human capital" in economic terms) to create something new, whether that's a takeout app, a wedding cake, a stylish updo, or a perfectly poured pint. To work is to create. Ergo, to work is to create new wealth.

>But there is also a second way to make money. That's the rentier way: by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others' expense, using his power to claim economic benefit.

</comment><comment><USER32> I think this situation perfectly describes the problem: [http://business.financialpost.com/executive/cogeco-inc- ceo-l...](http://business.financialpost.com/executive/cogeco-inc-ceo-louis- audet-says-family-ownership-is-good-for-businesses-and-canada)

"Family ownership" and transferring wealth to heirs tax free.

</comment><comment><USER33> wealth is create by workers, derived from the sun, love, care and the ecosystem!

</comment><comment><USER34> I think energy flows where there's energy, so money makers will keep being money makers and thus "wealth" will loop (devoured).

</comment><comment><USER35> Nothing like a little oversimplified, half baked Marxism, when you want a one- idea panacea for society's problems. Ugh!

<comment><USER36> I'm not going to bother dissecting the logical fallacies and projection oozing from your post. Instead I'll point out the factual inaccuracy: The author does not provide a "one-idea panacea". He uses a single over-arching idea (rent) and shows the subtle ways in which it pervades our society and economy. He then concludes with a laundry list of possible solutions (the "panacea") and alludes to even more. The author is under no illusion that this is a simple problem to solve. The illusion appears to be your own.

<comment><USER28> > he author does not provide a "one-idea panacea"

> He uses a single over-arching idea (rent)

 _literal eyeroll_ Yay for semantic arguments.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Hilarious!!! To learn more about how socialism is perfect, please buy Rutger B.. (the author) book off Amazon, a "rentier" by the author's own admission. And like good mind washed sheep, buy the book in huge droves to propel the author into "rentier-ship" accelerating a vicious cycle of the author curbing out books demonizing the very thing the he relies on to mind wash you into rentier slavery and socialism.

<comment><USER38> Thought the same. I'd recommend checking out "Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer" by Dean Baker instead.

[http://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm](http://deanbaker.net/books/rigged.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The first sentence of that article is a little overwrought.

</comment><comment><USER40> Anyone else tired of seeing this communist bullshit? Starting to get worried at the frequency these types of articles keep popping up here.</comment>


40% of NYC Taxi Trips Are Uniquely Identified by Census Tracts and Hour - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/toddwschneider/c79ea3272a631ee2fddf <comment><USER2> Very smart inquiry...I had been somewhat of skeptic initially that the potential danger to privacy outweighed the value of making the data as transparent as possible, but that's just a guess out of my preconceived notions of taxi use, which were already inadequate as it still blows my mind how many taxi trips there are on an average day.

I think an argument can still be made that even if the OP is right about the quantity that can be uniquely identified -- keeping the coordinate data still outweighs the real-life privacy risk, that is, the small number of people who want to hire a private investigator/specialist to analyze this data to catch a specific person would find it much faster to track the person the way that PI's normally do so. But the rebuttal can't simply be, "uniquely identifiable trips are probably so rare as to be inconsequential"

</comment><comment><USER3> "it turns out that if you know the census tracts for pickups and drop offs, plus pickup times truncated to the nearest hour, then you can uniquely identify 40% of NYC taxi trips"

Hmmm... but if you already have those pieces of information (start tract, end tract, start hour) what would you want to get from the data? How much someone paid? How much they tipped? Whether they paid with cash or card?

Can anyone see an obvious nefarious use for this data?

<comment><USER4> So, you think your partner is cheating on you with their ex. You know they got a taxi from your apartment last Sunday at 6pm, you look up the data, and sure enough, the taxi went to the ex's address, and not home as your partner claimed.

Or, you arrive at work late, claiming that you stopped off at a client's before heading in to work, but your employer can now verify that you actually got the taxi from your home address.

I'm assuming in these examples that you just need to know pick-up OR drop-off - if you need both, then I agree with you that it's not much of a concern.

<comment><USER3> "if you need both, then I agree with you that it's not much of a concern"

You need both pick-up and drop-off to get a unique row.

Now, I think about your examples, though, perhaps the _absence_ of a particular row could show you _didn 't_ do something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I find this kind of analysis to be really awesome and I'd love to learn how to do even a more basic version of it. Does anyone have some resources they can point me to?

I'm actually working on a small project that has a much, much smaller dataset than the NYC Taxi data but some similar attributes (geographic coordinates mainly). I'd love to produce something like this with what I find (assuming I can find anything interesting).

</comment><comment><USER6> I wonder how much one loses if the first and the last couple of miles are fuzzed over. Such data would still be quite useful.

</comment><comment><USER7> > uniquely identified by birthday, gender, and ZIP code

This is not correct; you need to say "full birthday" which includes the year, otherwise the statement is nonsense.

<comment><USER8> I'd still bet that month/day, gender, and zip code are enough to uniquely identify a very large number of people.

<comment><USER9> I don't see how that would work unless you're talking about ZIP+4 and not just a regular ZIP code. It would work for very sparsely-populated areas and extremely small towns, but most residents will share a ZIP code with thousands of others.</comment></comment></comment>


The Rise of the "Liberaltarian" - <AUTHOR> https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/rise-liberaltarian <comment><USER3> > So their overall approach is unique: Let the markets operate how they should > and redistribute income after the fact. Some people have called this new > type of political animal the "liberaltarian."

That is, of course, the model that Nordic social democracies have followed for many years now. Denmark is by many measures significantly _more_ free-market than the US; note their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services, enviable ranking on most indexes of economic freedom (eg, [https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?version=638](https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking?version=638)), and so forth, and so on.

Letting the markets be relatively free to generate money, capturing it via efficient flat taxes (first and foremost, a consumption tax), and using it to fund an effective social safety net targeted at the poor is not a unique idea, it's what some parts of Northern Europe has been doing for the past 40 years.

Maybe they meant "unique in the US political debate".

<comment><USER4> > Denmark is by many measures significantly more free-market than the US; note > their absence of minimum wage, mostly privatised fire and ambulance services

I've heard many US Libertarians say that they want the US Fire services completely privatized. We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for. The competition would drive down prices as there would be a free market of many such providers.

This is not what Denmark is doing. Denmark has traditional fire departments paid by the government. It's almost entirely a single company and that company is almost entirely owned by a non-profit organization.

<comment><USER5> > We would stop paying taxes for this services and instead private services > would spring up that we could chose to pay monthly for

I don't think this would work very well, because I do want my _neighbors_ to pay for fire-fighting services in case their house is set on fire. Moreover, to a proportionally lesser extent, I want _their_ neighbors to pay for the same thing, and so on. There are a whole lot of cross-externalities that can't be dealt with easily via private contracting, so we need the government to step in and provide a sensible "default" that's not simply "no one gets any fire-fighting protection unless they pay for a private service".

<comment><USER6> It does sound horribly risky. I suppose in theory you could mandate basic levels of insurance, a bit like mandatory car insurance, but you'd probably end up with a costly, patchy mess like the US health system.

<comment><USER5> Mandatory car insurance is usually liability insurance, that is comparatively easy to regulate while leaving other things like pricing to the market. Liability for a car accident also sounds somewhat more manageable than liability for a fire on your house spreading to your neighbors' \- I think you're right that requiring insurance for that would be overly messy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The low-regulation approach seem great until you find out how far businesses will go to cut their costs and increase profits: you end up with situations like flammable cladding installed on high-rise towers, horse meat sold as beef, or bleach sold as a cure for Covid-19 (one of these may be fictional). The line between legitimate business and scam becomes impossible to define.

<comment><USER8> This is not a problem of regulation, but a problem of law enforcement; there is no need or regulation "don't sell horse meat as beef", but to remove the US legal system plague of settlements where companies pay money to get rid of investigations and claim "they have no fault".

I know a real case of horse meat sold as beef in UK and they have lots of regulations (including the EU on top of local). You can put all the rules and laws in the book, but don't just relax and hope all will be obeyed. As some SCOTUS decision stated a while ago, some laws and regulations are made so dense and confusing it is almost impossible to comply to the letter - <USER2> were talking about something as simple as driving a car on a public road.

<comment><USER9> Um, you can't have law enforcement without laws to enforce...

<comment><USER10> The law that applies/ought to apply is the one against fraud in the beef example.

<comment><USER7> By the time the fraud has been discovered and the company has been successfully sued, the owners will have long moved on, leaving behind nothing but a shell with ownership registered in the Cayman Islands. (Lax regulation of companies is also part of deregulation).

In any case there are other areas of regulation, such as environmental protection. What will happen when those are relaxed?

<comment><USER11> I have the feeling that the survey discussed in the original article is overgeneralizing from narrow questions of regulation eg. surge pricing, labor markets, etc., and that the so-called liberaltarians probably would be far less skeptical of financial, environmental, & safety regulations, & would generally like to see more vigorous enforcement even when they don't want want more regulations.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's been odd to see my own reaction and that of my friends to the move of the left towards solely social justice issues in the last few weeks. I've been talking to friends and we all dislike the inane focus on "white fragility", wokeness and performative activism in the form of posting your reading on Instagram. The democratic party's lack of interest in doing anything meaningful is pushing people away - Hopefully liberaltarians form a new party of some sort and break the logjam of the two party system. It's what we sorely need right now.

<comment><USER13> >the inane focus on "white fragility"

The author of this book is a white lady who uses the book as a marketing tool to sell her diversity training and consulting services to corporations. I'm not making a value judgement on that, but I think it's important information to have. There's a reason why big companies across the country latched onto that particular book, it was tailor made for them.

<comment><USER12> Yeah exactly, the whole thing is a charade. Want to see white fragility? Ask CEOs to release compensation numbers for all their employees or provide health/dental/vision insurance for retail workers or any number of things that actually improve people's lives.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> _As founders and CEOs, couldn't their antipathy to government regulation simply be explained by self-interest?

Broockman: I'm sure that at least some of their political views have to do with self-interest._

I'm pro-Left everything, except when it effects my huge revenue stream.

Go figure.

</comment><comment><USER15> Isn't it kind of ridiculous when you have to make up such words 'cause you insist describing people's complex preference and belief system on a single damn dimension?!

I am both left and right, depending what issue we are talking about. And sometime I am center as well. Yet when it's time to vote... I have exactly 2 real choices.

<comment><USER16> I wrote about that here:

[https://austingwalters.com/on-committing- suicide/](https://austingwalters.com/on-committing-suicide/)

I think in part that's why we have polarization. We have two extremes pulling each party apart, social media (as this article suggests) is pushing the left. The right is largely getting disenfranchised so they are getting more fanatical.

It's a recipe for an eventual civil war or at the very least the road to dictatorship. To be honest, both sides are leaning towards some sort of fascism. I explain in my post above, I don't see a way out of it unless some republicans and democrats decide to team up and get this country back together.

<comment><USER17> I think that's mostly accurate, but I think it's the social media _companies_ who are pushing the left.

There are, or until recently were, plenty of moderate and right-wing people on social media, but the companies have so many ways of tilting the scale in favor of their preferred political views, they've intentionally created echo chambers where only far-left political opinions are acceptable.

And that leaves people feeling disenfranchised because a few companies now own the means of communication, and there are no good alternatives for people who are silenced by these companies.

<comment><USER5> I think what we're seeing is that political _activism_ on social media skews to the left. Left-wing politics has always been more activism-minded and right-wing activism has always tended to the extreme, so this is not exactly news. What's news is that social media platforms like Twitter (and even Facebook, due to "real names" and a focus on close social relationships) are more favorable to mindless activism than to careful deliberation, which benefits more from traditional blogs and BBS-like forums.

<comment><USER17> That doesn't explain events like Apple, Google, Visa, and Mastercard all banning Gab. Reportedly, Visa and Mastercard even refuse to do business with Gab's founder's family.

Things like that aren't being driven by grassroots activism. These are decisions made by billionaires.

<comment><USER5> Gab literally went out of their way to market their service and platform towards the most disreputable. I'm not saying that what happened to them was acceptable, but there's a reason why it's hard to make people care about this stuff. And if nobody cares, it doesn't take much of a "movement" for activists to get their way.

<comment><USER18> >Gab literally went out of their way to market their service and platform towards the most disreputable

That may have been incidental. It makes financial sense to market to those whom you expect to be most inclined to employ your services. In this case those who feel that they cannot freely express themselves on the competing products. That group is necessarily centered on those who's honest expressions receive the most attention from deplatforming activists.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This raises an interesting follow up question. Do those surveyed consider themselves to be the wealthy? Or do they expect someone else to be making do with less to make the redistributive policies work?

<comment><USER20> perhaps they _are_ wealthy but they expect the much-more-taxable middle class to pick up the tab.

Which is in fact the most likely outcome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> In most of the world, the political compass is described in 2 dimensions. So, "liberaltarian" would just be lib left

<comment><USER22> Libertarianism itself originated in the left (with French anarchists and early socialists) - it's the right-wing or ancap version that's effectively stolen the name, at least in the US.

<comment><USER18> Yes, but only after they got the term "liberal" stolen away from _them_. Herbert Spencer complained about that as early as 1884.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Aka "bleeding-heart libertarianism"

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

</comment><comment><USER24> Maybe it's that I have very weird friends, but pretty much no libertarian I've met has defended zero redistribution.

They all hate _the way_ it's done now, and favor other arrangements like a negative income tax or UBI (as a substitute for government-run services).

I haven't seen all the questionnaire, but the questions shown in the article could be read both ways.

<comment><USER8> Libertarian and redistribution have an obvious logic conflict, so you may be right about very weird friends.

Libertarian base idea is freedom, as much as possible; redistribution is the opposite of freedom because you work, earn money and someone comes and takes it from you. Makes sense?

<comment><USER5> Redistribution is about giving everyone a stake in upholding a free society for everyone else. That's what actually makes for "freedom, as much as possible". The point is that we're doing it in almost the worst possible way; putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing all that much for those whom we might want to benefit. UBI or NIT would be a vast improvement on what most developed countries (including the U.S.) are doing now.

<comment><USER25> > putting a lot of undue and costly burden on those who work, while not doing > all that much for those whom we might want to benefit

I suppose "all that much" is the key term. Is European style redistribution (aka a nice flat, utilities, TV and smartphone, clothing, health insurance, food and cash money to spend on whatever you please) not all that much?

It's not like we're wasting 90% of taxes on administrative overhead, so I'm not sure what could be improved there, without adding more "undue and costly burden" on those who work, unless you're suggesting taxing e.g. capital gains rather than income.

<comment><USER26> The thing is...we nearly have that dream already in many lcol areas. Take Cleveland, Detroit, or Pittsburgh for example. Wages at the low end are rising to the point where if you're making less than $13-14/hour, you're actively doing something wrong. $800/month for a 2 bed apartment in an ok location (or a 1 bed in a good location), cheap groceries, a not great but passable public transportation system. If you ignore healthcare(!), you can actually live on that pretty well and put some cash away for emergencies. The problems only come in when you have health problems or have a family (childcare).

To your point on wasting tax money, have you seen the defense budget lately? Can fix those two issues and them some with some moderate cuts. Capital gains taxed the same as earned income would help too, but won't make enough to solve the big issues.

<comment><USER25> > If you ignore healthcare(!), you can actually live on that pretty well and > put some cash away for emergencies.

For sure. I didn't understand the comment I replied to to mean those who work though. That (including healthcare) is what you have in Europe if you don't work at all.

I wasn't saying that tax money is wasted, quite the opposite, I was saying that most of the money is not in overhead, that is, it's reaching its intended recipients. As for cutting the defense budget in the US, I'm torn. On the one hand: easy savings. On the other hand: a lot of the US' economic position in the world depends on being a/the super power. I don't know how much and how large the military edge has to be, so it may be possible to cut the spending by half and not lose a lot in economic advantages, but it may also be much closer coupled.

<comment><USER5> > That (including healthcare) is what you have in Europe if you don't work at > all.

I assume that this refers to unemployment insurance, which is often provided for a limited time, and/or requires you to be actively looking for work. One of the issues with the European model of social insurance is precisely that those who _are_ working at the low-end of the labor market are not included in this kind of redistribution. Enforced unionization and strict labor regulations are then used to make up for this, but that means losing flexibility precisely where it's most needed. You can witness the outcome in places like France, where the poorest and most vulnerable are locked out of the labor market altogether leading to huge society-wide issues.

> As for cutting the defense budget in the US, I'm torn.

You could cut a lot of the defense budget in the US if the US's allies started paying their fair share. Of course, paying for US allies' defense comes with foreign policy advantages for the US so perhaps this arrangement is also "fair" in a way.

<comment><USER25> > I assume that this refers to unemployment insurance, which is often provided > for a limited time, and/or requires you to be actively looking for work.

I'm in Germany, unemployment insurance has a time limit, and does require you to look for work, but the benefits are based on your previous salaries, what I was referring to is general welfare. It does have a provision that requires you to look for work as well, but it's rather theoretical, and unless you're basically taking a dump on their desk and tell them to go shove it, you're not going to have your benefits cut. The largest constraint is that you need permission to go extended holidays.

I'm not suggesting it's a great long-term idea to incentivize not contributing to society, or that it's not costly for those paying for the party, I was originally just pointing out that we do a lot to redistribute "the fruits of labor", and that it does reach the intended recipients, as I wasn't sure how to understand your statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is by no means a new political stance: liberaltarians used to be known as "left-wing libertarians" or, somewhat jocularly, "bleeding-heart libertarians" but the gist was pretty much the same.

<comment><USER27> Yep, there is indeed such a thing as left-libertarianism. Last time I checked, its proponents were trying pretty hard to argue that it's not an outright contradiction.

<comment><USER28> > Yep, there is indeed such a thing as left-libertarianism. Last time I > checked, its proponents were trying pretty hard to argue that it's not an > outright contradiction.

How is it a contradiction?

<comment><USER29> Libertarianism is essentially built on a single ethic, the non-aggression principle, which is simply that interfering with someone's property by force is wrong. And that property is what one mixes their labor with. In other words people own the fruits of their labor, and consequently voluntary exchange or gift is the only ethical way to acquire property. In simpler words, libertarians believe stealing is wrong and seek to apply that ethic consistently. Thus the popular libertarian maxim "tax is theft".

According to libertarians government as it's currently practiced steals (takes by force) the fruits of individual's labor called taxation, along with compelling the use of property through force, called regulation. The argument is more complicated than this but that's the essence. So "left libertarians" supporting taxation for the purposes of welfare programs contradicts the ethical foundation of libertarianism.

It's a contradiction to advocate for the lack of government regulation on the basis of violating libertarian ethics while simultaneously advocating for welfare programs which violate that same ethic.

<comment><USER28> It is only natural that the right and left contradict each other. Since NAP is totally dependent on how you define property and the first people called libertarians were anarchists and socialist it would be more apt to say that right libertarians are still trying to argue that it isn't an outright contradiction. I tough that there was something more to this "contradiction".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> My relationship with politics and economics is complicated like it should be.

I "stay in the center of the circle" as Tao Te Ching advises, but I also cannot deny the superiority of the Free Market. (Not to be confused with whatever the United States does for healthcare).

We have countless examples of competitive markets performing best, and a handful of government controlled markets that are horrible (healthcare, education, real estate, banking)

Some people call this inevitable in capitalism, that government will be used to create inequality. But at least this is not intended, whereas other economic policies make this a feature.

Anyway, can't vote for Republicans, they like big government which seems like an obvious bad idea.

<comment><USER11> Free markets are one of the most powerful tools we have available, but that very same power makes them very dangerous to wield. I don't want competive markets in human organs for transplants no matter HOW much better they would perform.</comment></comment>


Mozilla Does Not Have Enough Firefox Aurora Users - <AUTHOR> http://www.conceivablytech.com/7007/products/mozilla-does-not-have-enough-firefox-aurora-users

<comment><USER2> Aurora would have more beta testers if it supported Firefox 4 extensions. Sure they might not work 100% correctly, but that's why it's called a _beta_. I don't mind dogfooding beta software, but you will have pry my beloved browser extensions from my cold, dead hands first.

I've heard that the Firefox beta channel plans to support Firefox 4 extensions. But until then, Aurora will continue to have not enough users.</comment>


Drone Self Destructs in Florida - <AUTHOR> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD7G5aAceYY

<comment><AUTHOR> Eerie, the prescience of the Cameron & the film Terminator.

The mind is a vessel of time travel.</comment>


Google Chrome Labs (Featuring Tabs on the Left) - <AUTHOR> http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/08/google-chrome-labs.html

<comment><USER2> Opera supported this for a long time now: [http://www.diovo.com/2008/01/better-way-to-manage-tabs-in- yo...](http://www.diovo.com/2008/01/better-way-to-manage-tabs-in-your- browser/)

I wish all the major browsers support tabs on the Left feature. This would be really helpful to people who open a lot of tabs or use wide-screen monitors.

<comment><USER3> Actually, there are addons for firefox for that - tab kit (<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5447/>) and tree style tabs (<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5890/>)

Personally I use tab kit. However, for some reason I find it more convenient to have tabs on right.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Now the real killer feature would be for Chrome's extension API to allow this sort of thing, but it doesn't. Unfotunately, Chrome really limits what you can do in this regard, which is why I'm still a Firefox fan.

</comment><comment><USER5> About friggin time. That has been the major obstacle for me to start using chrome. Horizontal tabs just don't scale.

</comment><comment><USER6> I recently moved my tabs to the bottom of Opera by accident, and I highly recommend it. The tabs (if you have half as many as I do) are distracting as hell; moving them to the bottom only grants them attention when necessary.

<comment><USER7> I was tuning my Opera to have tabs at the bottom for quites some time since. They had tabs at the bottom by default originally, then switched them to being at the top.

I guess it was one of those changes where they chose to move along with the crowd, since their market share is minor. Other example is key combinations.

<comment><USER8> What's old is new again. Tabs at bottom reminds me of how interesting it is that the tab abstraction is successful in spite of the presence of a fully capable window manager.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The OS X build does not have the side/vertical tabs feature :(

I am really looking forward to switching to Chrome, but I cannot give up vertical tabs on Firefox (using TreeStyleTabs extension)

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, vertical tabs in Chrome are not enough. You still cannot group tabs by task, then collapse some branches - which, IMHO, is the killer feature of TreeStyleTabs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Is this available on Linux? I tried the flag on my chromium-dev build, but it didn't do anything. Updating the source now... (turns out yaourt is nice).

<comment><USER12> try clyde

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I prefer how vertical tabs look in the current stable builds: <http://i.imgur.com/cjdFY.png>

<comment><USER14> You use the mobile version of the site on the desktop browser too? High five!

<comment><USER13> No, I use an extension I made ([https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/hnadelehgiejkljb...](https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/hnadelehgiejkljbmlpljojelebcjjfn/)) so that you can use the mobile site's better toolbar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Can you change the width of the tab sidebar?

Seems a glaring omission if you can't, especially for widescreen monitors.

</comment><comment><USER16> hmm two things come to mind:

1) finally something that would make me switch for a 'wide-screen' lcd. 2) if you can resize the bar then all of the webdesigners' estimates about "this much should always fit the screen without scrolling" are off (if they still make them).

<comment><USER17> Regarding #2: Mac users already have different sizes of browser windows due to the lack of "maximize" (e.g. fill screen) option, and it has never been a problem for web designers, AFAIK.

</comment></comment><comment> mkr-hn I had to stop using Chrome. Being fast and efficient means little if the semi- frequent safe browsing cache updates grind the system to a halt for several seconds.

They say it's "fixed," and I know it's hard to reproduce a random bug, but there's only so much I can do to help. It does the same on Linux, so I know it's not the usual causes (AVs and stuff).</comment>


The Sketchbook of Susan Kare, the Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.plos.org/neurotribes/2011/11/22/the-sketchbook-of-susan-kare-the-artist-who-gave-computing-a-human-face/

<comment><USER2> Actually, before the Mac there was the Lisa. Before the Lisa, there was the Star. I'd mention the Alto, but the idea of a desktop with icons wasn't there. The Star had them, but was even more expensive than the Lisa (and had a very clunky mouse/keyboard manipulation flow).

It's also not a steady progression from the command-line to the GUI – command- lines have been present throughout computing history and even made a comeback to Apple when NeXT's OS became the base of OSX. Command lines, as cryptic as they may appear to the uninitiated (and, quite frankly, MS-DOS didn't make them look good – or expressive, only cryptic), are immensely powerful. They have been since the 70′s and continue progressing to this day (albeit, far from the eyes of the more casual computer users).

Also, the original Mac was largely a market failure – and had little impact on user interactions for a long time. It took years for it to dethrone Apple's original hit, the Apple II line, as Apple's cash-cow.</comment>


I created a minimalist library to replace Redux - <AUTHOR> When I say "replace Redux", I by no means intend to imply that I want to oust it. Redux is awesome, and it's the king of the hill right now.
I just found myself a bit fed up with the amount of boilerplate involved in wiring Redux to React, and so I set out to create something that was easier to use and understand.
I'm interested in any suggestions, advice, and opinions people have for it. This is my first time creating a project with the intention to maintain it - so I'm eager to see what becomes of it!
https://www.npmjs.com/package/minimux <comment><USER2> It is good thing to have options. Let the community decide the adoption.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think it is a good thing that the React community has come together around one flux library, and it's bad to promote an alternative unless it solves a problem that would be hard to solve with Redux. Saving a few lines of boilerplate just isn't enough of a win. Starting an open source project is a great thing to do, but why not try to solve a problem that isn't already solved?

<comment><USER4> Not everyone can build stellar libraries that solve critical problems in their first go. Waiting for the ideal problem to solve, results in just another form of doing nothing, inspite of good intentions. When you reinvent the wheel and make it a little better, the library might or might not survive but the developer will learn essential skills that he/she can apply when she encounters an unsolved problem. We need to be immersed in tech for sometine to be able to identify critical problems.

One thing a developer could do instead of reinventing the wheel is to contribute to open source projects that need help.

Yet, creating a library from the ground up by oneself has its own merits in terms of identifying holes in your process and learning new skills

<comment><USER5> Maybe the parent is scared of another JS library fragmentation. Let's all use the same thing even if it ain't perfect has it's merits.</comment></comment></comment>


Emoji on the command line - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mrowa44/emojify

<comment><USER2> Nice work. I think the git log example is contrived though, because you would probably include the real emoji characters in the actual commit title, right?

<comment><USER3> Emoji is just Unicode, so putting "I :heart: you" instead of "I ❤ you" in a Unicode text file is rather, shall we say, _na:LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH DIAERESIS:ve_ \-- this shit belongs in the editor. As implemented by, for example and in no particular order: [https://github.com/junegunn/vim- emoji](https://github.com/junegunn/vim-emoji), [https://github.com/kyuhi/vim- emoji-complete](https://github.com/kyuhi/vim-emoji-complete), [https://github.com/mattn/emoji-vim](https://github.com/mattn/emoji-vim), [https://github.com/rhysd/github- complete.vim](https://github.com/rhysd/github-complete.vim).

On the command line, the command line _is_ the editor, so this program makes a lot of sense!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I used to think the "mediaglyphs" in Neal Stephenson's _The Diamond Age_ were far-fetched.

</comment><comment><USER5> Am I the only one who does not understand why emoji are included in unicode? Wasn't unicode supposed to be about encoding glyphs used to write human languages, not cliparts designed by entertainment corporations?

<comment><USER6> The Unicode Consortium need to keep themselves in a job.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> An awk implementation: [https://github.com/ecmendenhall/fmj](https://github.com/ecmendenhall/fmj)

</comment><comment><USER8> 👍

</comment><comment><USER9>
       $ echo "I built a :snowman:." | sed -e 's/:snowman:/☃/g'
       I built a ☃.

The wonders of unicode.

</comment><comment><USER10> I've seen applications using this sort of thing but it typically slows down rendering log prints horribly.

Use ANSII colour or something if you want things to look pretty, not Unicode.</comment>


Startup Success 2006 [video] - Panel moderated by Guy Kawasaki featuring Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn), Joe Kraus (Excite, Jotspot), and others - <AUTHOR> http://www.veotag.com/player/?u=gwbrgolswx <comment><USER2> I see a castle!! haha (Check out 37:00-38:00)</comment>


Agile vs. Waterfall in the Space Industry - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/1878725/boeings-software-troubles-show-an-engineering-culture-clash/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the counter-argument I've heard:

Software testing may be helped by agile but software assurance can be hampered. In the example in the article, agile wouldn't necessarily provide the quality artifacts necessary (eg test reports, simulator fidelity reviews) necessary for NASA to assure the build for their use</comment>


Ask HN: Should a software free trial be behind an email sign-up wall? - <AUTHOR> Hey, I'm looking for people who have provided a free trial of digital download software before. Did you put your free trial download behind an email sign-up wall?
I currently have an application I'm working on that requires people to provide their email address into a form before they're allowed to download the free trial software.
I do this because it allows me to directly reach out to users, provide them with on-boarding emails/updates, and build a mailing list of people interested in keystroke automation (my domain of software).
However, I recently posted my software to Reddit and it got a very angry response from prospective users who didn't want to enter their email addresses. They said it put up a barrier and turned them away from downloading.
So in your experience, is the added barrier to entry of an email signup worth it, given the richness of interaction you can have with customers over email? Real world experience and examples would be excellent (if you have them).
Let me know your thoughts, experience and wisdom!
Cheers, Robin <comment><AUTHOR> Update after 7 days:

I have removed the email signup and allowed a direct download. So far, the rate of downloads has gone up by a factor of between 5 - 10 times. Hard to know precise numbers at this time but it's looking good!

I don't have large enough numbers of users to know how this will impact on conversion, but it follows logically that if the product is the main selling point, getting users to engage with it in the easiest way possible can only be a good thing.

I'm now looking at replacing the on-boarding emails I was using with an in-app on-boarding process.

Thanks for your help with this one again!

</comment><comment><USER2> The people who won't put in an email address probably wouldn't pay. It is a barrier, but it's pretty low, and you're better off spending time making the site more convincing the product is awesome than playing with collecting emails or not. Most times I've seen experiments run on this, more often on create an account, you increase the install rate and decrease conversion proportionally. So it's a question of whether a bunch more nonpaying users provides value to you or not. Though every product is different so ymmv.

<comment><USER3> > The people who won't put in an email address probably wouldn't pay.

Do you have any sources or stats for this?

I don't understand the logic here, how is "not wanting to receive spam" related with "willing to pay for software"? If anything I'd say it would be the opposite - someone who doesn't want to deal with spam is often busy and/or values their time and would be more willing to pay for software that saves them time.

<comment><USER2> Not that I can share, just have had this conversation with product and run experiments at a couple places. And the conversation was me saying won't increasing the top of the funnel increase the bottom since that seems most logical, and being wrong. The ymmv at the end was a weak way of saying this is anecdata so you're right to question it.

I don't think not wanting to receive spam is the right comparison. It's more didn't see value in the program by the website, therefore won't see the value running it. They'll try it for five minutes then forget about it. Assuming the emails are causing more engagement, whatever is getting them to use the program from emails should be in the website. To me this is the problem that is worth solving.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I completely agree with the negative feedback on your r/software post. [1] You should not require an email address in order to download free desktop software, especially when there is no accompanying web service.

 _> I do this because it allows me to directly reach out to users, provide them with on-boarding emails/updates, and build a mailing list of people interested in keystroke automation (my domain of software)._

What if I don't want to be contacted? Am I expected to provide an email address, wait for the first marketing email (which I never asked for, BTW), and then unsubscribe?

 _> the richness of interaction you can have with customers over email_

There's certainly some survivorship bias here. [2] You also need to consider all of the prospective customers that are turned away by this requirement. (Those who elect to sign up for the free trial are, by definition, willing to provide an email address and probably more likely to interact with the developer.)

Perhaps you should run an A/B test to investigate the effects of your email requirement. The data will speak for itself!

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/b86fsa/](https://www.reddit.com/r/software/comments/b86fsa/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)

</comment><comment><USER3> Let's break down your reasons one by one.

* it allows me to directly reach out to users

What if I don't want to be contacted? You can add a "news" category to your website (or a subtle "what's new" link in your app's GUI) for people who do want news.

* provide them with on-boarding emails/updates

What if I don't want that, again? If I need help on-boarding I'll read the documentation or email you myself.

* build a mailing list of people interested in keystroke automation

How does that benefit me, as a user?

Bottom line is, you should be converting people by producing great software, not filling up their mailbox with crap. If your software doesn't convert, then email spam won't either.

Also, your current download form includes a "I am happy to be contacted by email" checkbox. If you're happy with people to opt-out, why are you asking for their email at all?

Finally you are using a third-party provider for emails and I'm not really comfortable with that and I do not agree to their privacy policy (I hate emails full of nasty stalking links and 1x1 pixels), so even if I wanted to receive news about your software, this would put me off.

</comment><comment> xkcd-sucks It's a good way to get a collection of throwaway email addresses

</comment><comment><USER5> From my experience, Reddit is not a good platform to promote stuff if it is not entirely free (requiring email address input doesn't cut it either).

As u/idunno246 said, the people who won't put in an email address probably wouldn't pay either.

I would advise making another webpage without email opt-in for Reddit, and use the one with email opt-in form as default.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and insight into this. You make some good points on why an email sign up may not be effective. Therefore, I am currently running a test to see how the website performs when the email signup is removed - it's a direct download.

Thanks for your time an constructive criticism!

Cheers, Robin

<comment><USER4> Good luck! Let us know if there's a change in your conversion rate!

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> P.S. For reference, the software product is here: [https://numpadsuperpowers.com](https://numpadsuperpowers.com) and currently still has an email signup requirement before downloading the free trial.

</comment><comment><USER6> As a sociological experiment can you add 'How did you hear about x?', 'Type of User' (Student, Organisation, Other, etc) and 'Country' dropdowns to the email form and see what effect that has?

</comment><comment><USER7> No.</comment>


Don't Take Life Advice from People Who Hate Life - <AUTHOR> http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2018/06/dont-take-life-advice-people-hate-life <comment><USER2> I think it's ironic that so many of these "frugal living" gurus advocate cutting your expenses to the bone to avoid taking part in America's rampant consumer culture.

Then they advocate plowing those savings into home ownership, as if that itself isn't a consumerist decision. As if there isn't a multi-billion dollar real estate industry pushing the idea of home ownership as "the American dream".

Certainly, it's possible to err too much on the side of irresponsibility, but the author of this blog post has a point. Of all the joys we have in this short existence, "buying a house with cash" seems like a pretty lame one to build your whole life around.

<comment><USER3> >Then they advocate plowing those savings into home ownership, as if that itself isn't a consumerist decision.

I can't say I've seen that very often, usually the advice is to stick every bit of spare cash into Vanguard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> In the end, you (or your heirs) will spend the money. The only questions are when and on what.

It's my belief that saving _some_ money is good because it gives you options when times get tough.

But, I fear that having a large pile of cash will just be hoovered up by the MDs after a major illness. They know your financial position and will bill accordingly.

<comment><USER5> Yep. You can't control your capital after death so chances are anything you leave for your heirs, a very small portion of it will actually make it to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's almost like... some people don't have enough money to live irresponsibility or luxuriously.</comment>


Three years of practical software engineering at Lifelock (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://camriley.com/lifelock/

<comment><AUTHOR> the _" signs of a bad programmer"_ post [0] was a response of the experiences of this post.

[0] [http://www.yacoset.com/Home/signs-that-you-re-a-bad- programm...](http://www.yacoset.com/Home/signs-that-you-re-a-bad-programmer)</comment>


Show HN: Vue.js docs performance improvements - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/18AL3CGZD9Bp6Yv0TsBoxLbvmYsoKohBsAVDexePMKMs/mobilebasic# <comment><USER2> Who would find themselves referencing the Vue.js docs on a phone and mobile network?

<comment><AUTHOR> Why not? Reading docs in public transport on the way home/work is normal, isn't it?</comment></comment>


Advice for dealing with "tab Hell" in your browser.  - <AUTHOR>

So, I've got like 50 tabs open in 4 windows in Chrome. It's become a standard thing for me. How do I manage this better? I'm going down the path to the dark side here. Kinda sucks. First world problems at their pinnacle! <comment><USER2> Get OneTab [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbo...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall)

You click a button and it saves a list of your open tabs. You can sort and organize your tab list(s) and even prevent it from storing dupes.

It is basically a glorified bookmarking solution.

Just try it for a few days. When things get out of hand, click the button. Boom, no more tabs. You will be surprised how often you go back to read those tabs you _needed_ (for me, almost never). You can go and search when you remember a month later about that one site about that thing (via ctrl-f broswer search on the onetab tab).

Some have complained that no "tab history" is stored, but for me, I don't need any of that. I just need to know that my tabs are saved so I can feel safe closing them. I have a problem...

OneTab gives me one button to click that gives me peace of mind, and more memory. I even use it for most of my bookmarking needs, since it is so flexible.

<comment><USER3> Any alternative for Firefox?

<comment><USER4> Tree style tabs us different, but it's what I use to manage my tabs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A co-worker of mine has the same issue, I pointed them towards this article: [http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2013/08/13/7-handy-chrome- ex...](http://thenextweb.com/lifehacks/2013/08/13/7-handy-chrome-extensions- to-save-you-when-you-have-too-many-tabs-open/)

There are plenty of extension options for dealing with tabs, and consolidating them to a meta-list like that is a lot better than having them open as running processes the whole time if you're not using them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, will check this out. But it's kinda like taking the antidote from the poisoner :-D

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> If you're not doing it get in the habit of using kbd shortcuts for tab navigation. Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-Shift-Tab. Makes navigating a window with a lot of tabs much easier. Close tabs with Ctrl-W. I never really touch the tab bar with my mouse, so it's not a huge issue. Chrome also has Ctrl-1,2,3,4,5,6 etc for quick jumps. And just press Ctrl-Shift-W once in a while (-;

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, definitely using keyboard shortcuts almost exclusively. My problem is simply having too many open tabs that "I need".

<comment><USER7> Focus a bit more on the underlying problem of "I need" than on methods of tab organization. I've occasionally described browser crashes where I completely lose tab-state as something akin to a forest fire. Immediately devastating, but ultimately beneficial for the forest.

Go through your tabs one-by-one and spend a moment with it. Look at it. Try to remember why you got there in the first place. What rabbit hole were you exploring? Why are you reluctant to set this tool down?

What is your brain associating this tab to? Consider making a bookmark folder for that topic. Append your own personal keywords to the page title. Chrome has a search for bookmarks, use it.

I find this process to be insanely beneficial. I'm generally reluctant to let anything go and need to spends few conscious moments 'saying goodbye' to things like these to free me from worry. I now practice zero-tolerance new browser session at work each morning. At home I have one Chrome instance with ~5 tabs on average.

<comment><USER8> This is brilliant—and resonates with a few posts I found from over a year ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714864](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4714864)

I'm part of a team looking to build a browser extension that provides you with much of this contextual history. A mindfulness tool in a way, which records the steps taken as you traverse a rabbit hole.

Are you pretty diligent with returning to your bookmarks when you're looking for things—rather than conducting fresh Google searches?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I use tab groups for arranging my tabs in groups, the shortcut Ctrl+` can be used for cycling through tab groups. This along with the other shortcuts mentioned make dealing with lots of tabs a lot less painful.

</comment><comment><USER10> Firefox user here : I use the in-built (as in no add-on needed) Tab Groups, and cut down on tabs by revisiting groups and using an approximate LRU algorithm : if you don't use it, lose it.

</comment><comment><USER11> You're in luck; this is the emerging age of ultra wide screen monitors. Today there's 21:9, with two or three of those you should be fine for the next few weeks.

</comment><comment><USER12> Unsure about chrome, but in Firefox having a single click button to close all tabs without closing the browser, helps dramatically.

</comment><comment><USER13> Close some tabs.</comment>


Nearly a third of Indian startup founders surveyed are considering moving abroad - <AUTHOR> https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/11-startups-seriously-considering-moving-their-business-abroad-survey/73782760 <comment><USER2> India is becoming a popular destination for foreigners to chase their startup dreams[1]. Same source.

[1] [https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/indi...](https://tech.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/startups/india- is-becoming-a-popular-destination-for-foreigners-to-chase-their-startup- dreams/73394080)

<comment><AUTHOR> Most of those startups (like Saavn for example) are also registered and owned abroad (not only in India).

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What would be their primary destination of choice, and what are the major factors preventing them from moving?

<comment><USER4> For us, its Singapore, low taxation rates, what we understand is low compliance and supports online operations. Proximity to India (5 hours by flight) makes it an ideal destination.

Factors Preventing \- Nobody in my circle has this setup, making me worried about unknown challenges \- Double Taxation issue. I am not clear what will be taxation liability, I have talked to multiple CAs and they all say multiple things \- Transfer of IP - We are a product company and one of the CAs warned us that if we move IP of the product to the Singapore entity, it gets tricky to explain as IP was built with an Indian entity. Very gray area about this

<comment><USER5> What about finding workers and payroll costs?

<comment><AUTHOR> A lot of India based SaaS companies register in Singapore or USA while keeping their entire dev team (and sometimes even the rest of it: sales, marketing, support, etc) in India.

The incentives being ease of international transactions, capital / debt availability, simpler tax policies.

<comment><USER6> You'd still need to file taxes in India right?

<comment><AUTHOR> The company in India only has a fraction of the total revenues and barely any profits, reducing the tax liabilities significantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What exactly "startup-friendly tax regime" does Singapore have and India doesn't?

<comment><USER8> [https://inc42.com/features/the-curse-of-angel-tax- travelkhan...](https://inc42.com/features/the-curse-of-angel-tax-travelkhana- left-with-zero-money-after-cbdt-seizes-inr-33-lakh-freezes-accounts/)

In addition to incidents like these, corruption is widespread in India. Exports qualify for GST exemption or refund, but in practice refunds are hard to get (at least without a 5% or more bribe).

<comment><USER9> 5% of how much, though? how much more than 5%?

<comment><USER8> 5% (up to 15%) of the amount to be refunded, which for exporters is all of their GST, which can be up to 28% of the gross value of goods sold.

Just a twitter search for "GST refund bribe" will show a lot of examples.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> That's unfortunate.

India should become an economic superpower in the next 25 to 50 years.

<comment><USER11> That would require broad adoption of Indian products and services outside of India.

<comment><USER12> They already have the second one.

<comment><USER13> Unfortunately that's only because they are cheap

<comment><USER14> Thats exactly what people said of China 15 years ago. Just a bunch of factories good for cheap knockoffs, not a place for high quality stuff. Now they have Tencent, Baidu, Huawei etc and a #2 spot in the global economy.

<comment><USER15> As someone put it: manufacturing is a ladder.

They also said the same of South Korea (LG, Samsung) and before that, Japan (Sharp, Sony) and Taiwan.

<comment><USER16> Can you explain further? What does it mean for it to be a ladder?

<comment><USER15> This is all my own interpretation, but it's a bootstrapping problem. Feynman complained about a consulting gig he took to try to bootstrap STEM programs in South America. You need mentors to make more mentors. If you can't send people off to train or coax people in, you're left with whoever can intuit things on their own and explain them to others. That pair of skills is exceptionally rare.

If you are the first factory in an area, nobody knows what to do. So you make simple stuff with high tolerances as you build a base of skilled labor. and a customer base.

Then you ratchet up, and ratchet up, and get nicer customers and more cash and contacts and make products that require more and more sophisticated processes.

If you're lucky, you make middle to high end stuff that few other people can before the exchange rate completely fucks you vs the next up and comer.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Silicon Valley paradox: one in four people are at risk of hunger - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/12/the-silicon-valley-paradox-one-in-four-people-are-at-risk-of-hunger <comment><USER2> There are so many smart minds concentrated in one area, why is not possible for them to solve this?

<comment><USER3> It's a difficult problem, to be sure.

How'll the smart minds build a product or mechanism to solve for this problem and what'll be the business model that sustains them to pay office rent & salaries?

There are soup kitchens and food drives and all manners of donations to feed the poor and hungry. Religious communities play a big role in this.

How can hunger be properly defined? Is it the same between any two people, a population, all of humanity? How do you measure? Does consuming a bag of chips satisfy hunger? Am I being too pedantic?

Perhaps the money and food isn't getting to the right people properly ... perhaps very inefficiently with significant added cost?

The other side of this is to look at how much food a typical American wastes. Portions are too big, food is becoming more and more "affordable," and large amounts of it get thrown away. Is food waste all that bad in the context that it decomposes and returns into the earth, returning its nutrients, despite not feeding someone?

<aside> The other day I was making a salad and wanted to experiment with flavors by adding some apple to my creation. I used a peeler to remove and discard the skin and then shaved some of the fruit directly into the salad. I eventually decided there was plenty of apple in my salad and any more would make it too sour. So, I tossed the fruit, noticing that probably 2/3 of it remained. I stopped to think about this. I also got to thinking about how the top-rated, "gastronomic" restaurants must be throwing out plenty of fruits and veggies without using them entirely. Perhaps it's seen to be an insignificant cost to them due to item menu price and overall expected margin, but rather a far greater perceived benefit of using _fresher_ ingredients with every meal that's prepared?

Society has started eating for taste, not for just energy / calories, and this probably contributes to even more food waste.

<comment><USER2> >What'll be the business model? Instead of being a business, why not eradicate the problem completely? Unfortunately we as a society are obsessed with "treating" problems rather than "curing." Why are there not rewards or payouts to solve social problems like these?

>What'll be the business model?

Great question. I think the government could easily reward people/corporations for helping out since they primarily make most of their money off people wanting to live in an area.(Another discussion could be had on that)

I think there has to be an incentive.

> ..food is becoming more and more "affordable," Is it though? What type of > food has become more affordable? Last I checked, healthier food is still > more expensive.

All of your points are valid.</comment></comment></comment>


Megaupload Raid 'Destroyed' (Way) More Than 10,000,000 Legal Files - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-raid-destroyed-more-than-10000000-legal-files-131018/

<comment><AUTHOR> TL:DR - A Northeastern University study shows that with the shutdown of Megaupload, the U.S. Government took down at least 10.75 million legitimate files</comment>


PINE64: It's time to start giving back - <AUTHOR> https://www.pine64.org/2019/08/19/its-time-to-start-giving-back/ <comment><USER2> They're donating all the profit of the pine phone to projects that help make the phone and build upon it

</comment><comment><USER3> The price of the pinephone is amazingly low when compared to similar efforts. I'm getting one for sure!

</comment><comment><USER4> Nice gesture.</comment>