Debugging memory leaks in Ruby - <AUTHOR> http://samsaffron.com/archive/2015/03/31/debugging-memory-leaks-in-ruby <comment><USER2> Well, in Python world we did just like what OP described: use uWSGI to respawn a new worker after certain number of requests.

Edit: alright, I got downvoted for speaking a fact. Don't get me wrong, OP's article is great, but not everyone has control over the underlying code, nor has enough time to tinker into runtime nuances.

To confess I have maintained >100K LoC Python/Ruby projects, yet the respawn way is the most effective and easiest mitigation method available and I think it's likely to continue to be in a very long time.

<comment><USER3> Lipstick on a pig. Exactly what the author calls out:

"Sadly, most Ruby devs out there simply employ monit , inspeqtor or unicorn worker killers. This allows you to move along and do more important work, tidily sweeping the problem snugly under the carpet."

The author describes a mindset to solve the underlying problem. Endemic to any language.

<comment><USER4> "I'm not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works then I move on. The real programmers will say "Yeah it works but you're leaking memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that." I'll just restart Apache every 10 requests."

 _Rasmus Lerdorf_

More endemic in some languages than others.

<comment><USER5> I sourced that because I was curious... these quotes are terrifying:

[http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rasmus_Lerdorf](http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rasmus_Lerdorf)

I mean, I'd be first person to tell you that I am a scripter at heart, but I would never, ever say "I don't care about this [computer science] crap at all." I feel like my job is to defer to the many programmers that are smarter than I am. Including the parser and compiler and linker etc

<comment><USER6> "We have things like protected properties. We have abstract methods. We have all this stuff that your computer science teacher told you you should be using. I don't care about this crap at all."

I kinda agree with that sentiment. There's a lot of unnecessary stuff going on in CS. We had extreme OOP and I fear extreme FP will spread into the mainstream. The mission of programming language designers should be to help programmers do their jobs better, not design something elegant/interesting/powerful/expressive/[buzzword]. Those things are all good, but only in the service of programs with fewer bugs and shorter time-to- market.

<comment><USER7> > _The mission of programming language designers should be to help programmers > do their jobs better, not design something elegant > /interesting/powerful/expressive/[buzzword]. Those things are all good, but > only in the service of programs with fewer bugs and shorter time-to-market._

That may be true for programming language designers, but I'm afraid you misunderstand what CS is all about. Hint: it's not about time-to-market. The job of CS is to explore the theory -- precisely how to do something in interesting/elegant/expressive ways. Its job is to explore the theoretical _and_ practical underpinnings of computing; to provide proofs; to explore the abstract and formal systems behind software. CS is _not_ necessarily directly applicable to enterprise software (though of course CS research does have practical applications; and of course there is overlap between theoretical and practical computing).

A lot of cognitive dissonance comes from people who look at CS thinking it's what they need in order to write software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sadly many ruby, python, and php devs will just use process supervisors as a bandaid to the problem. I understand that some people who aren't really programmers need to run a few scripts sometimes. For them supervisors make sense. Your average shared hosting environment running wordpress with some random custom plugins will probably benefit from a max of 10 or 100 requests per child.

For anyone who's job description involves writing software and owning it's performance and reliability, process supervisors are a crutch. A crutch to be used only until the memory leak is found and a patch submitted to the relevant project.

A former colleague used to refer to the concept of software entropy. Like physical entropy, it tends to increase. It's both natural and inevitable. But as engineers we sometimes, for brief windows of time, have the ability to impose order on chaos. To locally decrease entropy.

I've seen the end result of relying on process supervisors to work around frequent crashes and memory leaks. The result is that you end up with ruby processes with multigigabyte heaps, resulting in a stack that can only run a few dozen requests/s even on the beefiest of hardware.

To be clear, I'm not saying don't ever use process supervisors. It's just that if they are saving your bacon multiple times a day something's wrong.

I'm also not claiming that inefficient software will cause your company to fail. It's perfectly possible that your buffaloak architecture will keep running until your company dies of natural causes, but I believe that we should have enough professional pride to fight entropy, even if we're the only ones who know what we did.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here's a Rack middleware I just wrote based on this article to use with Datadog (and dogstatsd): [https://gist.github.com/johnhamelink/cbef04581da5c3dd90be](https://gist.github.com/johnhamelink/cbef04581da5c3dd90be)

</comment><comment><USER10> That's one of the things I like about the Java ecosystem. The tooling is very mature. Heap dump analysis is easy and being able to connect to a live JVM, either using JMX/remoting, Thermostat or Oracle's Java Mission Control, makes it almost painless and easy, almost, to look at your JVM internals and see what bottlenecks you might be hitting.

I don't know how to get the same kind of information on Ruby, Python or node.js but I'm pretty sure it might involve some gdb and debug symbols. No idea.

</comment><comment><USER11> Excuse my pedantry but these aren't technically memory leaks, great article nonetheless :)

<comment><USER12> I'm curious what you mean by this!

<comment><USER13> Memory leaks are technically when you allocate memory, then lose the reference to it without freeing it, thus leaving the memory permanently allocated without a way to free it. Outside of a serious VM bug, you won't leak memory in a GC'd language; instead, you can leak references (leaving objects alive and uncollectable even after you've finished using them, because you've left a reference to the object laying around somewhere without intending to). The memory is still reclaimable, if you can eliminate the references keeping the object from being GC'd.

This really is just pedantry though, because the net effect is "the memory usage chart keeps going up and to the right" in both cases. "Memory leak" is a fine enough term for what's happening in this case.

<comment><USER14> They are both memory leaks. Unneeded memory is not being reclaimed. It's not even pedantry. It's just incorrectly applying one type of problem to the whole range of problems captured by the term.

<comment><USER15> Relax. It's not pedantry. If I click on a link titled "Memory leak in Ruby" I'm concerned the GC has a problem and I should avoid some particular method call or something else because the GC is currently having trouble collecting something in particular. That would be a memory leak.

The Full Article is talking about handing over data with references to live objects to some library that doesn't let go of those references, it seems. That is a space leak and can and will happen anywhere in any language regardless of whether you're using a perfect GC or not.

So the difference is this:

Ruby has a memory leak -> not my fault, I'll just stop using the offending method that leaks memory, thanks article!

Someone caused ruby to space leak -> duh, it's your fault, no need to write an article about it, you should be letting your references be GC'ed if you don't need them anymore, learn that memory is a scarce resource, etc.

Totally different problems. I was very confused reading the comments here because people are afraid of being called a pedant. Folks, our trade comes with a jargon. If you don't learn it you won't know what you don't know.

Saying simply "unneeded memory is not being reclaimed" is not constructive. Why is it not being reclaimed? Because the reason matters to programmers, we invented different names for those occurrences.

<comment><USER14> >Saying simply "unneeded memory is not being reclaimed" is not constructive.

Yes it is. It's a description of a problem your monitoring tool has reported that needs investigation.

> Why is it not being reclaimed?

That's the first step of the investigation of the memory leak.

<comment><USER15> You can have space leaks without memory leaks (if you build up big enough thunks/delayed computations/promises or otherwise run out of heap space) and you can have memory leaks without space leaks (malloc 1 byte and lose its pointer).

It's OK if you don't understand the difference yet - you'll get it eventually - but there is a big difference.

<comment><USER14> >It's OK if you don't understand the difference yet

Oh I understand the difference. But losing track of memory and accidentally keeping memory in play are both called memory leaks. I would still call it a memory leak if it's due to cyclic references or stale entries in a hash table or other container.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> > Considering that each entry could involve a large number of AR objects > memory leakage was very high.

Ah. I thought I was going crazy. Memory leaks in a managed language (i.e. one with a GC) are solely the fault of the GC implementer and cannot be fixed by the language user.

What is being talked about here is space leak.</comment>


When Accounts Are "Hacked" Due to Poor Passwords, Victims Must Share the Blame - <AUTHOR> https://www.troyhunt.com/when-accounts-are-hacked-victims-must-share-the-blame/ <comment><USER2> It's truly frustrating that this lengthy article defending the principle of individual responsibilty even had to be written. The fact that some people want to treat adults the same way as society treats children (=mostly freed from responsibility for their actions and potential high risk behaviour) just doesn't represent a healthy, sustainable development.</comment>


Video of Making- Scale Model Solar System in Desert - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/139455885?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000618 <comment><AUTHOR> Probably the truest and best answer for a lot of questions. When asked why they did it, "Because its never been done before"</comment>


Too much theory leads economists to bad predictions - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/ideas/too-much-theory-leads-economists-to-bad-predictions <comment><USER2> The problem isn't economic theory. The problem is bad incentives. Economists like Krugman make predictions for political reasons, because there's incentive to do so (in this case, to try 'help' the left-wing establishment).

Want to find economists who actually make accurate predictions? They'll be working for banks and corporations, getting paid millions. Because knowing which way the economy is going makes money. And money doesn't have political beliefs.</comment>


How I'm planning to make 1M people smile - <AUTHOR> https://autenti.ca/smile <comment><USER2> Do you really expect people to just give you access to their webcameras? Looks shady.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks interesting. In my naive way of thinking about this I think people will just open the webpage, allow access to the camera and smile for at least 4 seconds.

I just did a test with a person that was around and she also was reluctant about smiling in front of the camera.

Do you have any recommendations to overcome this?

<comment><USER2> I get (and, in fact, like it quick much) the idea behind your project, but people are really afraid about their privacy - especially these days. First thing would be adding some information, e.g. that the recording won't be stored anywhere and that it will not be shared. This definitely won't make all of the people trust you, but some will surely feel more comfortable seeing this kind of statement.

<comment><AUTHOR> I totally understand I didn't foresee it. I added a 'About privacy' section based on your recommendations where I say that not picture is saved or shared, and that the camera is not used without your permission.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Making dough or spam? The perplexing case of designing lead generation pages - <AUTHOR> http://carsonified.com/blog/design/making-dough-or-spam-the-perplexing-case-of-designing-lead-generation-pages/ <comment><USER2> What was with the elbow obsession?

My guess is that the "need to have arms with pointed elbows" (which seems to have been noted via A/B testing) may be for two reasons. Firstly, showing elbows means showing the subject from a greater distance than a face-shot. This is perhaps less confronting, and also makes it easier to incorporate other elements (eg, blackboard, apple) that add context.

The pointed part is perhaps related to actions. Non-pointed elbows happen when we hold a fairly inactive pose (eg, arms by our side). Pointed elbows are for holding things, pointing at things, and interacting with objects and people - all of which are much more engaging.

Any other thoughts?

<comment><USER3> I think that its easier to relate yourself to the situation when you feel the body dynamics of the pictured people, and elbows probably the least we need to be able to do that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The variations weren't dramatically different. Seems like it would be good to start off with a few very different approaches and then tweak to "climb the hill".

<comment><USER5> He said the client constrained him to stay close to original.

<comment><USER6> The article was written by a woman (Chrissie Brodigan).</comment></comment></comment>


PowerOutage.us – nifty aggregate of US power outage stats - <AUTHOR> https://poweroutage.us/FAQ <comment><AUTHOR> I found this while Harvey was rolling around my hometown in Houston. After someone asked how many people in Florida are without power, I went looking for this site through Google. I have no idea how I _originally_ stumbled upon it, but the only results I found on Google all point to electricity business websites. No government website and not this one.

I really wish this were at the top though. It's super handy to have the aggregate data all available right there.</comment>


Judge calls Uber algorithm "genius," green-lights surge-pricing lawsuit - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/04/judge-calls-uber-algorithm-genius-green-lights-surge-pricing-lawsuit/ <comment><USER2> _The six-year-old company faces a June federal court trial in San Francisco in which drivers are seeking employment status that could provide them a host of benefits, including vacation and overtime._

This sounds like a stereotypical "be careful what you wish for, you might get it" situation. If Uber drivers were classified as employees, it seems likely that Uber would then start dictating their hours, locations, etc. And the vast majority of Uber drivers I've met (and that's quite a few) say the main appeal of Uber is the flexibility to set their own hours, take a break when they want, etc.</comment>


Show HN: Requestbin.com – A modern take on the old RequestBin - <AUTHOR> https://requestbin.com <comment><USER2> I used the old RequestBin - it was a great tool. But always returning 200 OK, was making it difficult for me to use. Some integrations/webhook need a specific response body otherwise they fail.

I ended up creating [https://putsreq.com](https://putsreq.com), so I could programmatically configure my responses.

Are you planning to allow custom responses in this new version of RequestBin?

Something that I learned with PutsReq: throttling is a must. PutsReq is very often "bombarded" with Salesforce webhook calls (probably because of some non- sense retry logic).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment and we agree with the need for custom responses. We are working on a more advanced tool than RequestBin to solve this use case and hope to share it more broadly soon. We have been bombarded with webhook calls and intelligently handle throttling if necessary today.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Tod, one of the founders here. We are building a lot of integrations and are constantly testing webhooks / APIs.

RequestBin.com gives you a URL that collects requests you send it so you can inspect them in a human-friendly way. See what your HTTP client is sending or inspect and debug webhook requests.

We loved the old RequestBin written by Jeff Lindsay but it was subsequently acquired by Runscope, often unsupported and then shut down ([https://github.com/Runscope/requestbin](https://github.com/Runscope/requestbin)). So, we built a modern version of it, wanted to share it with the community and would love feedback.

Our new version has added functionality: \- optional authentication for private bins \- the ability to pause/filter the real-time event stream \- cleanly presents HTTP payloads (pretty-printing the JSON, XML, etc.) and query string parameters \- HTTPS endpoints that don't expire \- the ability to delete a single event or clear them all \- and, most importantly, a reliable infrastructure that should be up when you need it

In the last few months, RequestBin.com has been used by thousands of developers and is now in the docs for amazing apps such as Segment, Zapier, Coinbase, Intercom, Optimizely, Branch, Clearbit, Pipedrive and dozens more.

We think there's a lot we can improve and are eager for feedback so please send us your ideas and opinions.

</comment><comment><USER3> You should look at and rebuild a chrome extension that I wrote for requestb.in/ that allows you to open new bins faster. It shouldn't be too difficult to add in your login system.

[https://github.com/groteworld/request- tab](https://github.com/groteworld/request-tab)

<comment><AUTHOR> Great idea. We will look into it!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> We've been using the Requestbin alpha for a few weeks and have found it valuable for us. Interested in other people's thoughts on this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Maybe a silly question, but how is this different from using Dev Tools network requests inspector?

I see these features:

\- Pause and filter the real-time event stream

\- Delete a single event or clear them all

feels unclear to me though, what they mean. E.g. "delete" = ... like deleting a request from Dev Tools? why would I want to do that? :- )

(Hello from SUS2019 b.t.w. :- ))

</comment><comment> rast-a Also try [https://hookbin.com](https://hookbin.com) Dead-simple UI and gets the job done very good.

</comment><comment><USER6> Awesome! Love from YC Startup School 2019!

</comment><comment><USER7> SO EXCITED FOR THIS!!!!</comment>


Conspectio scales live streaming WebRTC broadcasts without additional servers - <AUTHOR> https://conspect.io <comment><AUTHOR> Conspectio is an open-source library for grouping multiple live stream broadcasts, and scaling viewers without the need for additional servers. Built on top of WebRTC -- used for realtime peer-to-peer video and audio communication in the browser -- Conspectio exceeds the number of concurrent viewers constrained by WebRTC.

</comment><comment><USER2> unless I'm mistaken, this looks more like a open-source-as-a-resume project based on rehash of existing open source WebRTC projects like Muaz-Khan's WebRTC-Scalable-Broadcast [1] than a breakthrough. I seriously doubt they overcame scaling problems inherent with those projects.

Proving me wrong would be simple: just demonstrate live streaming to thousands or even hundreds of viewers without adding servers.

[1]: [https://github.com/muaz-khan/WebRTC-Scalable- Broadcast](https://github.com/muaz-khan/WebRTC-Scalable-Broadcast)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can this can handle coverage at high volume events? I want to see a demo of this!

</comment><comment><USER4> Awesome product! A new style of peer connection relay was necessary

</comment><comment><USER5> How does this differ from Jitsi? Easier to install?

Very interesting.</comment>


The Fallacy of Customer Development - <AUTHOR> http://www.ashmaurya.com/2011/01/the-fallacy-of-customer-development/ <comment><USER2> Holy moley this blog has some good reading material. I'll be printing it out to finish reading it tonight before I go to sleep, along with the articles linked at the bottom (related posts).

This is especially interesting to me because I was recently pointed in the direction of this PDF: [http://www.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi- bin/winter/drupal/upl...](http://www.stanford.edu/group/e145/cgi- bin/winter/drupal/upload/handouts/Four_Steps.pdf)

The PDF is a good read so far. I'm about a 1/3 of the way through it. My mentality has always been of a "build it and they will come" type, and reading about customer development has made me take pause and try to really think about my approach to developing a product and reaching customers.

<comment><USER3> Here is the link to the book:

[http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven- Blank/dp/09...](http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven- Blank/dp/0976470705)

<comment><USER4> If you want an even quicker read, as 4 Steps can be quite redundant (or not relating to your business), check out The Entrepreneur's Guide to Customer Development:

<http://www.custdev.com/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're interested in customer development / lean startups as applied to web products, also checkout the book roughcut: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1977124>

<comment><USER6> Very good! I've linked to both of those on swombat.com and added you to my RSS reader. Keep the good stuff coming :-)</comment></comment>


Free Market Research Methods Part 1 - Analyzing Public Filings - <AUTHOR> http://www.tonyamoyal.com/2009/11/23/free-market-research-methods-part-1-analyzing-public-filings/

<comment><USER2> Brilliant. I need to do market research for a product, and as I'm an engineer, I did not know much what marketing is about. This and Steve Blank's writings are great.</comment>


The Service Recovery Paradox - <AUTHOR> http://blog.krit.com/post/28124453588/the-service-recovery-paradox

<comment><AUTHOR> I first experienced this when doing customer support for an online music store I built. A technically illiterate customer would email me with a simple question like, "How do I download my music?" even though the download links are _right there_. When I answered them with detailed instructions within 5 minutes, they would become evangelists for the store by recommending us to all their friends because of the "amazing service".

If those customers had spent just a minute figuring out how to find something they downloaded, I could not have helped them and they would not have become as loyal.

<comment><USER2> This is very interesting. I will have to keep that in mind because I would have the temptation (not sure that I'd act on it) to say "Click the download link?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This result doesn't seem contradictory in the least.

* All services have outages. Customers know this, even if they express otherwise.

* Prior to an outage with a new service, responsiveness to outages is an unknown to customers. Uncertainty is a common source of anxiety, resulting in dissatisfaction.

* After a provider has responded positively to an outage, the uncertainty is alleviated, leaving the consumer with a greater sense of confidence. Remember, the consumer knows that regardless of provider, they run the risk of experiencing an outage, so this confidence becomes an anchor.

The tipping point is when frequent outages outweight the benefit of certainty. There comes a point at which your customer deems you to be incompetent, despite the hustle you exhibit in the face of a failure.

<comment><AUTHOR> "Uncertainty is a common source of anxiety, resulting in dissatisfaction," is an assumption. When I sign up for a new service, I'm not thinking about outages. Conventional wisdom says that reliable services that are always online would be perceived as being more trustworthy than those which go down. It is a paradox because an occasional outage correctly handled results in greater customer loyalty than if _no outage occurs, ever_. Yes, there will be tipping point where the inconvenience of too many outages, even if handled well, will outweigh any loyalty gained from recovery.

<comment><USER3> It's not an assumption at all. Anxiety is well understood to have negative emotional effects. I wholely disagree with the "I'm not thinking about outages" point.

It's natural -- responsible, even -- to consider the "what if" any time you're introducing a new dependency on a service. You may not consider it consciously, but even the most reliable services we use fail us sometimes. It would seem impossible not to develop this sense at some level.

> Conventional wisdom says that reliable services that are always online would > be perceived as being more trustworthy than those which go down.

That's not conventional wisdom, it's naivety. 100% reliability doesn't exist over any significant time scale, thus the assertion of this particular "conventional wisdom" is a wisdom that no one has developed. If it is anything, it is a conventional misconception. We might tell ourselves this with our consious minds, but we are all weary of the risk of failure at some level.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Does anybody else find it funny that you can't contact Krit using Krit or phone or SMS? But you can contact them via email, facebook, twitter or tumblr ask?

And doesn't this miss the whole engaged consumer phenomenon - I don't want you to fix the problem, my day has already been ruined, I want to express my anger about your business on all my social networks (earning me kudos) and decide not to do business with others in the same way!

<comment><AUTHOR> Maxious, you make good points about reachability. We should be as open to criticism on every channel as we are in encouraging it. Right now we are focusing on our web app (krit.com/m) where customers can leave feedback for nearby venues when they see our signage. "Krit.com" is listed as a business on there, and we do respond to feedback. That being said, we should have a phone contact on there.

However, I disagree on the engaged customer phenomenon. Customers would rather have their problem resolved with amazing service than just vent about it on social networks with no resolution. This is bad for the customer and bad business. Managers would rather save face by comping your meal and resolving a problem that would otherwise go unnoticed (to them). If an amicable solution cannot be reached over Krit, then you can always go to Twitter or Facebook, but at least now there's a chance the issue will be resolved harmoniously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Okay, everyone invent some service failures!

<comment><AUTHOR> Zappos actually wants little things to go wrong so they can go over-the-top in fixing them. I would not be surprised if they intentionally engineered service failures.</comment></comment>


Like Humans, Apes Make Irrational Economic Decisions - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/humans-inherited-loss-aversion-from-apes/386588/?single_page=true

<comment><USER2> Yawn... I'm amazed that people are amazed that naive rational choice theory predicts anything.

</comment><comment><USER3> Heh. Aren't we apes?</comment>


Manyverse for iOS - <AUTHOR> https://www.manyver.se/blog/2020-01-update <comment><USER2> "Manyverse is a decentralized social network... The developers of Manyverse can control the source code to build the app and ship new features, but they have no access to user data... The primary goal of this project is to make social networking independent of internet connectivity."

</comment><comment><USER3> It's nice to see how Manyverse (and the Scuttlebutt protocol in general) are progressing. I was happily surprised at the ease of use when I first tried Manyverse, and it's easy to introduce friends to it with a polished app like this. Fantastic work!

</comment><comment><USER4> This is fantastic news, awesome work André!</comment>


Is Ringo Starr a Good Drummer? - <AUTHOR> https://www.quora.com/Is-Ringo-Starr-considered-a-good-drummer?share=1 <comment><USER2> I use Materialistic app to browse HN. And I today I realized I can't downvote on this app as I tried to downvote this story.

These aren't the stories I browse HN for.</comment>


Does an explanation of higher brain function require reference to quantum mechanics? - <AUTHOR> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2116682770285651082

<comment><USER2> I've enjoyed Penrose's books, but "The Emperor's New Mind" (where all this started) wasn't as good as some of his other work.

I just came away with the impression that the train of thought was:

      (Brain == Mysterious & Complex) and (Quantum Physics == Mysterious & Complex)

      =>

      (Brain == Quantum Physics)

And with no explanation of how QP would actually solve the problems that regular computation couldn't.

<comment><USER3> My impression was a bit different. It seems to me his thought process was: I deduce consciousness is not a computable process. Consciousness is a real physical process. Quantum Mechanics may include processes that are not computable. It is possible to have scientifically understandable processes that are not computable. My deduction is not disproved by our current understanding of physics.

I think your reaction is reasonable. It seems to be a (well justified) conditioned response to "God of the gaps" arguments. I don't understand A therefore I need God to explain A. It is common now to see people replace God with Quantum Mechanics. I don't think that is the case with Penrose.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that basically the same argument, except with the words "mysterious and complex" replaced with the words "probably not computable"?

<comment><USER3> Not quite. As I understand Penrose he only claims quantum mechanics is a reasonable place to look for an explanation of consciousness. He doesn't propose that QM is the explanation. In other words, he believes consciousness is not computable and uses QM to fight against the argument that "the universe is computable, consciousness is a part of the universe, therefore consciousness is computable".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Summary: Psychedelic drugs increase the processing of the quantum annealing box because some biological plants like green tea have been shown to produce quantum effects. Further evidence can be found by analyzing lots of reports from people tripping and dismissing other explanations. Also this stuff must be in some way responsible for creativity and consciousness.

The video really ain't that bad and I even like that some people study if this might lead up to something. But lets just say once you start researching quantum effects in the brain you should maybe try to find arguments which are not based on yet another topic which sounds like typical 70's esoterica.

The basic building blocks for quantum computing could be there... yeah, sure, but unless he can present some stronger evidence this ain't worth the hour needed to watch the video. Though I liked the first half hour which was a nice overview on the topic.

</comment><comment><USER6> No.

From my background in Physics:

Qubits decohere at anything like room temperature.

From my background in Neuroscience:

100 trillion connections is sufficient for all cognition.

Unfortunately, understanding why this claim is absurd takes a fairly strong background in both sciences. Rather than ask you to take my word for it however, I suggest you pick up a copy of they Feynman lectures and Principles of Neural Science. Read them both and we can then all have a good laugh at quantum-as-thought.

-Ian

</comment><comment><USER7> Most research into brain function and AI employs models that are at the lowest level atomic (i.e., basic chemistry). In ignoring quantum mechanical effects, we are like physicists who approximate a function with a Taylor's series and then truncate the series' higher-order terms. They shouldn't be significant but there's that nagging thought that sometimes they are.

In the book "Tending Adam's Garden : Evolving the Cognitive Immune Self" Irun Cohen discusses (among other things) how evolutionary processes may set up shop in any available ecological niche, regardless of how inefficient or convoluted the process may be. More nagging thoughts.

Degrees of freedom involving quantum mechanical operations are available; there's no reason they wouldn't be used. And as others have stated here, evidence is accumulating that they are used in biological systems. Hard evidence that the brain uses such processes would be revolutionary.

Many models of atomic and electromagnetic theory lie strewn by the roadside as science moves forward: ">Maxwell's molecular-vortex model of electromagnetism ( [http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/victorianweb/science/ma...](http://victorian.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/victorianweb/science/maxwell1.html) ) and William Thomson's (Lord Kelvin) vortex model of the atom come to mind. I hope we're not as far off the correct path with current theories of intelligence and the mind.

</comment><comment><USER8> If you want to know more of Penrose's arguments for Orchestrated Reduction: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR>

I've always been a fan of his books and I'm sure others here have read his works too.

</comment><comment><USER9> No.

<comment><USER10> The problem is that the basic assumption of neurons working as binary units is likely wrong. The next best guess is qubits, but that will take another generation, at least, to even begin to understand the implications let alone test. With two possible states for every neuron the exponential capacity to explain is ridiculous. The problem is that the basic assumption of neurons working as binary units is likely wrong. The next best guess is qubits, but that will take another generation, at least, to even begin to test let alone understand. With two states the exponential capacity to explain is ridiculous. The range of possibilities to decode gets absurd, if not infinite, with an additional supposition of the two. Godspeed to those trying!

<comment><USER11> qubits are not the next best guess. making quantum computers is really hard and delicate. a hot, wet, mushy place like the brain is no good.</comment></comment></comment>


What podcasts can people recommend? - <AUTHOR>

Apologies if this has been discussed before but what podcasts can people highly recommend?
I've listened to nearly all Tedtalks available and all the good stuff I can find on itconversations.com. Have gone through all episodes of Venture Voice and regularly listen to a number of well known tech news ones. I'm starting to struggle to satisfy my audio addiction now though as filtering through the noise of bad podcasts is getting harder.
I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff somewhere. What are all the smart people of news.yc listening to? <comment><USER2> Jason Calacanis' "CalacanisCast Beta" is generally decent and the most recent one with Ron Conway is amazing. Charlie Rose's "Technology" interviews are good. iInnovate, VentureVoice, IT Conversations, TalkCrunch, Scoble, TWiT, Diggnation.

VentureVoice is by far my favorite, but it's slowed to a trickle. There is just not much good content for people who like this stuff. I've listened to everything -- twice. I've had to resort to (gasp) reading on my commute most days, for lack of audio content.

Lots of great stuff in here: <http://wiki.ycombinator.com/presentations/> if you haven't listened to it yet.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm subscribed to ~25 podcasts but wouldn't recommend most of them... which I guess means it's time for me to clean up my list. Here are some that I would recommend:

Non-tech (in order of awesomeness): 30 Seconds with Phone Guy; WNYC's Radio Lab; This American Life; On Point with Tom Ashbrook; CBC Radio 3 Podcast; A Prairie Home Companion's News from Lake Wobegon;

Tech (NOT in any order): MacBreak Weekly; This Week in Tech (TWiT); Freelancing on Rails; Ruby on Rails Podcast; Hivelogic Radio

</comment><comment><USER4> FutureTense: <http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/>. It is only a few minutes long, daily, and always interesting.

</comment><comment><USER5> <http://railscasts.com/> \- Good quick ruby on rails screencasts

<http://venturevoice.com/> \- entrepreneur related interviews

<http://talkcrunch.com/> \- entrepreneur related interviews

</comment><comment><USER6> { 'Buzz Out Loud', 'Cranky Geeks', 'NPR: Technology', 'Ruby on Rails', 'Science Friday', 'TWiT' }

<comment><USER7> 1\. Stanford educator's corner 2\. Venture Voice 3\. ACM queue 4\. Steve Pavlina

<comment><USER2> Stanford Educator's Corner has some good stuff. A high percentage of the speakers don't really belong on stage talking about entrepreneurship though. Reid Hoffman's talk was good.

<http://edcorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Newscientist.com has some eclectic stuff.

</comment><comment><USER9> iinnovate.blogspot.com is pretty decent. I really like the one w/ Eric Schmidt.</comment>


Ask HN: Would you use this app? - <AUTHOR>

I regularly email actionable links to use on my Mac from my phone.
These emails clutter up my inbox.
I'm building a very simple Mac app which gives you an email address to send content to.
When you email to the address, it sits in a top toolbar app.
Another use case is when I'm at work and find a link I'd like to view at home - I'll email to my personal email. Vise versa when I'm at home.
The second feature would be the ability to email photos from my phone to the app. If I quickly want to get a photo off my phone, I'll just email it. I'd rather not clutter my inbox.
Is this something you would use? Pay $.99 on the mac app store? <comment><USER2> I wouldn't, I don't email myself URLs that I want to read, if anything, I would just save them Evernote, although I don't do that either. Also, Instapaper is doing that. iClooud takes care of uploading my iphone photos to all my devices, so the other use case is not too appealing either.

But hey, that's just me, maybe others would find that interesting! And it does sound like something you could do so quickly that would justify implementing even if you end up being the only user!

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking of it as a scratch pad for temp content rather than archiving content in Instapaper.

Yeah, if I'm the only person who uses it I'd be happy :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I would use it; I prefer to archive things after I read/use them to save for later, and wouldn't want small snippets of text to sit around. If it was something like Captio (<http://www.boonbits.com/captio/>) where it opens directly to the input window, it could come in quite handy!

If you don't make it, I might make it myself (for my own personal use) :-)

</comment><comment><USER4> I would use it, provided the privacy protections are there. I use a shared iPad and its not convenient to log in and out of the other programs mentioned.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a really good point. I like using email because almost every app has the ability to send to email.

My Mac is my home and work computer, so sending content there from multiple location would be handy.

I didn't think of privacy.. or other people spamming content to other peoples app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I use instapaper. Or Spool, though that already feels too feature-heavy for this simple use case.

</comment><comment><USER6> Checkout pastebot <http://tapbots.com/software/pastebot/>

</comment><comment><USER7> Yes, but I could use this for Windblows.</comment>


GitHub has changed UI elements color to more contrast blue - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/example <comment><USER2> It looks like the default link color in most (all? spec?) browsers, and is too bright (not to be confused with light) for my taste.

I'm finding it more straining than even the HN orange.</comment>


Everything you know about 5G is wrong - <AUTHOR> https://www.idginsiderpro.com/article/3513377/why-everything-you-know-about-5g-is-wrong.html <comment><USER2> [https://archive.is/cdT8I](https://archive.is/cdT8I)</comment>


A First Look at the Parallella Board - <AUTHOR> http://www.parallella.org/2013/02/10/a-first-look-at-the-parallella-board/

<comment><USER2> It is smart of them and the FPGA vendor to release the demo board with superior hardware as a loss leader that helps get people hooked on the architecture!</comment>


Ask HN: F1 student stuck in a CS-PhD program. How do I get a job? - <AUTHOR> First the question: I am in a PhD program with F1 visa. If I leave the program - I will not have a valid visa to work in the USA. What are my options if I start failing my PhD program because I just can't take it anymore? Do I have to simply suck it up and deal with failure (or worse - do the PhD program!)
I am asking HN hoping somebody might have gone through a similar situation or has some idea on how to deal with such situations.
Some background: I have a Masters in Software Engineering with a background in NLP and skill sets of a novice DevOps. I don't suppose the tag of university would matter that much except for getting an interview.
However, I have a huge student loan debt from an Indian student loan company because of my Masters. I need to keep sending money back home (~1.3k) to pay the EMIs or my family house will go through foreclosure. There's no one else earning any money in my family.
Here's the best plan I came up with so far: Use the summer to develop my github profile to showcase what I can do: using libraries like Torch or some RNN, small apps (pizza ordering, anyone?), tools and techniques used in DevOps (pseudo-HOWTOs), contribute to open source code etc. Apply for any and all companies and pray to get a job offer.
But what do I say to the company about my visa status? Or what do I do for a living in the US? Tell them that I can't do my PhD so please give me a job and sponsor my H1B?
On the gloomy side of things: am I screwed? like, I leave the program => F1 expires => go back to India => no money => family house is gone => I am screwed by the debt.
Thoughts/suggestions? <comment><USER3> > But what do I say to the company about my visa status?

Start reaching out to and networking with senior executives from your country of origin. Linkedin advanced search is an excellent resource for this. Also, Google search for Indian entrepreneurs> [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/11/powerful-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/11/powerful- indians-silicon-valley)

It's enough to say at this juncture you believe it's best to suspend your academic track and start working professionally. Those individuals will likely be more understanding and sympathetic to your situation. And more inclined to deal H1-B sponsorship requirements.

</comment><comment><USER4> In another comment you mentioned that you've already used your post completion opt.

Can you apply for a STEM extension now? That will keep you in the country and let you work for another 24 months. Try to get the highest paying job you can and then Aggressively save to pay off your student loan?

After that to continue staying in the country you'll have to get an H1-B. Having graduated from a US masters program you have slightly better chance in the MS cap but the odds may not be in your favour.

The safest option would be to plow through your PhD program. But you probably already knew that.

Quitting the program and getting a job might be a gamble, but weighing the risks is something you'll obviously have to figure out.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Can you apply for a STEM extension now?

Unfortunately, I can not. I spoke with our international student advisor and it appears that I cannot get STEM extension. I need to be in post-OPT phase to get a STEM extension which I forfeited when I joined the PhD program. I can only get another post-completion OPT after I complete the PhD program.

I can get a pre-completion OPT, but as I quoted in another comment that is a limited option.

As each day passes by I am trying to digest the reality that I have to complete the PhD program. I am trying, but TBH I don't know how much I can force myself to do it. I am scared of my future, and I can't find a way out of this mess :'(

<comment><USER4> You can do it mate! Best of luck!

Try switching advisors or maybe even fields within your CS department. You might start something you like

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks!

I am currently thinking of taking a break and come back to the program with a fresh perspective. I have faith in future me, I just need to find him ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> [https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/f-1-opt-optional- practi...](https://www.uscis.gov/eir/visa-guide/f-1-opt-optional-practical- training/f-1-optional-practical-training-opt)

<comment><AUTHOR> I have used up my previous F1-OPT (post completion) to do be a research assistant with my current advisor. I could do a pre-completion OPT but as per the website you linked me to:

"If the student chooses to engage in pre-completion OPT, he or she may not work more than 20 hours per week while school is in session, but may work full-time during his or her annual vacation and other times when the school is not in session."

So I can't go on doing a job on pre-completion OPT forever.

<comment><USER5> IANAL, but I don't understand why you would have had to use your F1-OPT for an RA position.

I am not recommending F1-OPT forever obviously. But, it would buy you time until you find someone willing to sponsor and H1B. Things are much easier these days.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So you're making it sound like continuing in the PhD program isn't an option?

> start failing my PhD program because I just can't take it anymore?

I don't know how serious of issues you're having when you say "just can't take it anymore." If it's anything like what I experienced, it's not unusual. I wanted to quit really often (once per month?) for several years. And I actually did informally quit for a few months.

Sorry that I don't really have any advice. Just relaying my thoughts on "just can't take it anymore": every PhD student feels like that at some point.

<comment><AUTHOR> I am aware of the "imposter syndrome" and other vagaries of academic life. I seek advice from colleagues, speak freely to my advisor and I am honest about how I feel about my current situation.

This is going on for about a year now, and I am afraid that one day I will just break down and give it all up. I understand what you're saying and to an extent it helps to know others have gone through similar situations. I am just looking for options and possibilities in case I give up the PhD program.

<comment><USER6> > I am just looking for options and possibilities in case I give up the PhD > program.

Not so sure about CS PhDs specifically, but I know a few researchers (employed by the feds) that have "all but dissertation" on their CVs next to their PhD listing. Meaning they didn't finish but clearly they're employable.

So, from your question:

>Tell them that I can't do my PhD so please give me a job and sponsor my H1B?

You've likely accumulated a lot of accomplishments, are just as valuable as someone who has completed their PhD, and you're employable. Right?

<comment><AUTHOR> I am confident that my profile is employable. However, in terms of current status in the PhD program, I am about to finish my first year in the PhD program. I think as compared to other PhD students, I am a bit hesitant to put myself in the top bracket. On the other hand, I would put myself at par with other professional/graduate Masters student.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is applying in a country where you're eligible to work an option?

<comment><AUTHOR> I asked to a few friends in India and I am under the impression that it will be very much difficult if not impossible to earn required money. From whatever little understanding I have of Indian companies - it seems like startups tend to give you more equity while big companies give you long-term shares. None of them are useful for me as I need to make loan payments every month over $1.2k (=~ INR 70k).

Moreover, if I include living expenses, taxes, etc. it becomes nearly impossible to get this much high paying job in India (I might be wrong - <USER2> over 3 years since I was in India). Student loans really make you think twice before taking any risks in life.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I guess this is it then... the end :'(

<comment><USER8> Your PhD program doesn't define you. Sometimes being around the same kind of people all the time makes you forget there is a lot more to life than computer science.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was more of a _I give up_ kind of comment. The 5 years of the program will certainly define me to a large extent, if not completely.</comment></comment></comment>


Y Combinator CEO Faces the Crisis and His Critics – The Information - <AUTHOR> https://www.theinformation.com/articles/y-combinator-ceo-faces-the-crisis-and-his-critics <comment><AUTHOR> "Seibel, in an interview with The Information Monday, deflected those complaints, suggesting some came from people who prefer "superelite groups." He shed light on how the accelerator adjusted to the year's upheaval, including encouraging founders to focus on breaking even rather than growth at all costs, and showed how the recent graduates resembled earlier founders who had set up companies in a crisis."</comment>


How much money do meetings cost? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.weekdone.com/how-big-is-the-economic-impact-of-unproductive-meetings/

<comment><USER2> Seems like an adverticle for their own product.

That withstanding, it is a culture problem before it is a cost problem. Very large companies have a culture of meetings for everything, down to pre-meeting meetings and "talking about that offline" meetings. Dilbert cartoons bring tears of sadness since they are so true.

Some people will meeting you to death just because they believe that nobody will do any work unless there is a due date and status meeting. They don't care that the weekly status meeting would've been done via email and save 10 people an hour of time.

How do you sell a product to middle-management or executives where the sales pitch states that they are wasting 20-40% of their time? If they swallow that, doesn't that imply that 20-40% of them could be cut?

The culture of meetings in large organizations isn't going away, it keeps a lot of people employed. I'd write a longer comment about this since I hate meetings myself, but ya know, gotta head off to a meeting.</comment>


Interstellar puzzle based on Graph Theory - <AUTHOR> http://treksit.com/?gratheory <comment><USER2> This puzzle is among the very nice offline set of Simon Tatham's "portable puzzles", with the name of "Untangle" [1]

[1] [https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/)

</comment><comment><USER3> It annoys me that there is an invisible rectangular border to the play area. The flowing background colors suggest the play area is the browser window but not so. I could do with more stretch room.

Also (Chrome on MacOS) if you drag a node to the border and it stops, the node is now stuck to the mouse and you have to click to drop it.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cool puzzle, and really slick interface.

My one bit of feedback would be that you should make it get more difficult more quickly. I lost interest and stopped playing it because it didn't seem to be getting substantially harder, it was just basically the same thing over and over again, but the design of the puzzle is good and means it should be easy to make more difficult levels.

Perhaps you could have a difficulty selector so that the player can advance at his own pace.

You could also introduce a little twist after a while where some of the points are fixed in space, and you must rearrange the others around the fixed ones, instead of being able to move all of them.

You could potentially also make different types of edge (e.g. red edges in addition to the green edges), and for example a red may cross a green, but not another red.

<comment><USER5> I read a while ago a researcher's website specialized in puzzles. He claimed (informally) the only really "deep" puzzles that can keep you hooked are based on NP-hard (or harder) problems. Polynomial-time puzzles according to him just depend on finding a "trick" after which you can solve most puzzles relatively quick. Specially O(n) puzzles. Which is the case for this planarity puzzle! I did enjoy the few ones I did, perhaps I didn't "get" the linear-time algorithm right away.

NP-hard puzzles otoh, are hopeless for hard instances and general algorithms. Both the designer has to give it more thought on making instances that are not worst-case, and you have to rely not on general-case algorithms but an increasing set of heuristics and intuition to solve. Brute force is completely hopeless.

The same goes for two-player games. If the game can be solved in polynomial time, one of the players will find a trick (the polynomial time algorithm essentially) to always win (or depending on the game always draw).

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> A bit disappointed there was no reward for finishing all 20 puzzles, but that was neat :). I wish the sandbox were big enough though as I kept hitting the invisible edges multiple times per round.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, the final one in particular I wanted a larger box to give myself more space to move the nodes in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Really missed a chance there to make the final boss the complete graph on 5 vertices.

Pic: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Complete_graph_K5.svg](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Complete_graph_K5.svg)

Why: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuratowski%27s_theorem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuratowski%27s_theorem)

</comment><comment><USER9> I thought this was going to be about astrophysics.

</comment><comment><USER10> The size of the graphs is just right to untangle them on a 5" smartphone. More edges an it would be difficult to do it without a zoom

</comment><comment><USER11> Reminds me of World of Warcraft The Shortest Distance minigame [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpsoFp2BcSA&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpsoFp2BcSA&feature=youtu.be&t=0m00s)

</comment><comment><USER12> And I thought that it would be some kind puzzle for testing how intelligent a life form is. But to be honest i am not disappointed. Nice game.

</comment><comment><USER13> It'd be nice to feel that you had some kind of score. Maybe take percentile ranking?</comment>


Edge web platform status - <AUTHOR> https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/platform/status/ <comment><USER3> This seems inaccurate. For example, Box Alignment lists Firefox as having no support at all when it actually has full support as far as I'm aware.

Edit: the detailed information page disagrees with the summary (indeed listing full support) [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft- edge/platfor...](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft- edge/platform/catalog/?q=specName%3Acss-align-3) so I suppose it's just a mistake.

</comment><comment><USER4> Interesting [https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft- edge/platfor...](https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft- edge/platform/status/ambientlightevents/)

<comment><USER5> The cynic in me says this is just going to be used as another way to track and ID users (let's say a Dell sensor behaves differently from a Lenovo sensor)

That aside, it's listed as Windows Insider Preview Build 10586+ only. Does anyone know if there's any other releases of Windows planned before the "Creators Update" (aka Redstone 2)? That's a while to wait to fix some of the problems with Anniversary.

<comment><USER6> 10586 is older than the Anniversary Update (14393); this should definitely be available now.

<comment><USER5> Oops, got my build numbers mixed up. Thanks. Now to find a device that has that sensor!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm wondering if the data are outdated. Running through some ES2015 features like classes or arrow functions I noticed Safari was still "in development" while Safari 10 has shipped for over a month now with almost full ES2015 support.

</comment><comment><USER8> The list is out-of-date for the other browsers.

There are key things that are missing such as 'object.observe': 'not planned' or 'RTC data channels': 'under consideration'.

Microsoft has massive engineering capabilities. Do you really think its a coincidence that Mozilla and Chrome have these types of key features but Microsoft's browser doesn't?

The reason Microsoft has always lagged behind on web platform capabilities and continues to do so today, despite all of the success their giant marketing machine has had in concealing it, is because the web platform is in fact the greatest potential threat to Microsoft's office and PC gaming monopolies. So they drag their feet on key capabilities and under-fund web platform engineering.

<comment><USER9> This may have been true in 2005. It is emphatically not true today.

The biggest story in computing today is mobile and Microsoft has nothing there. Zilch. Nada. They've officially ended development of Windows Phone, they have no OS, and no first-party handsets.

The case for Microsoft making a great browser is as strong today as it's ever been; it's one of the few app platforms with massive global distribution they still have a shot at participating in. Look at Asia and many other ex-US locations, people don't even think of buying PCs, Windows is utterly irrelevant to these people.

<comment><USER10> Microsoft may have almost completely bowed out of mobile for now doesn't mean they are not doing anything in the space. They've been constantly pushing updates to Windows Mobile (see [https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/tag/windows- insi...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/tag/windows-insider- program/#7z0Ag8LmyH5jbxPi.97)) and they still sell first party Windows Mobile devices (Lumia 950, 950 XL). Basically nobody cares at this point but they're still slowly moving along in mobile. Probably for future plans.

<comment><USER11> The thing I hate about both my iPhone and Android devices is checking 12 apps for update messages. If I could have a mobile OS with a universal inbox - <USER2> read new email, messaging, Tinder/Feeld/Bumble, AirBnB, twitter, and everything else I'd use it. Like what Blackberry had 10 years ago but with most of the messages coming from apps. If I were Microsoft I'd implement it as part of the Windows SDK.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > VP9 Video Playback

> Opus Audio Playback

> WebM Container

All supported

I didn't know this yet. Good on you Microsoft, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER11> Looks great for the most part, but still no HTML5 clipboard support, and every browser (even Safari) has it.

</comment><comment><USER13> It crashes constantly. When will they fix that?</comment>


Zenify meditation and mindfulness app is on Product Hunt - <AUTHOR> http://www.producthunt.com/tech/zenify

<comment><AUTHOR> Zenify mobile app has been launched on Product Hunt. Zenify is aimed to take meditation and mindfulness globally to everyone with a smartphone. It's available in 10 languages and trains mindfulness through very simple meditation assignments delivered to the phone. It takes only several minutes to complete those assignments which can be done anywhere anytime. No need to remember about the meditation practice - Zenify will remind you several times per day to take a few minutes for yourself and become aware of the present moment. There are numerous benefits of meditation but in general it changes the lives and the world to the better. So why not make this happen together? Tune in to your senses, and help us spread the word :) Check out web-site and find us on top of Product Hunt today. Much love, Zenify.</comment>


The Remarkable Decline of the WSJ's Long-Form Journalism - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/the-remarkable-decline-in-the-wall-street-journals-long-form-journalism/275075/

<comment><USER2> Interesting data. Surely the WSJ should open up their pages to some long stories written by the Church of Scientology.</comment>


Ask HN: Effective Methods for Predicting Technology? - <AUTHOR> A recent interview with the CTO of OpenAI, Greg Bockman, made a fascinating point: new technology is hard to predict ("imagine predicting Uber and smartphones in the 50s").
And yet good science fiction writers routinely do just that. I think in particular of Forster's "The Machine Stops."
What are effective methods for predicting future technology? <comment><USER2> _And yet good science fiction writers routinely do just that. I think in particular of Forster's "The Machine Stops."_

This is survivorship bias. Between them all scifi authors predict _everything_ they can imagine, and a few of them happen to get close enough to what happens that they look accurate, and people conveniently forget all the ones who were wildly off the mark.

</comment><comment><USER3> > yet good science fiction writers routinely do just that.

I see two things going on here.

\- Science fiction influencing engineers / scientists.

\- Selection bias, how many sci-fo books/movies are completely wrong ? If you produce 100 000 scenarios surely some of them will be more or less comparable to reality.

Did back to the future predict self lacing shoes ? Or did Nike invent self lacing shoes because of back to the future ? &c.</comment>


Millennial women have seriously narrowed the wage gap with men - <AUTHOR> http://theweek.com/article/index/253953/millennial-women-have-seriously-narrowed-the-wage-gap-with-men

<comment><USER2> One obvious reason is that Millennial women (especially professionals) have not had babies yet.

The effect of taking time of work for children is not immediate, it creates a pay gap for the rest of somebody's career.

If we imagine somebody's pay over their career as an upward sloping line eg.

year 1 40k

year 2 42k

year 3 44k

etc...

When a woman takes 6-24 months of work to have a kid or two then that pauses their pay increases for that time and they are 1-4k worse off than somebody who didn't take time off at all when they get back. Add to that that women do more of the school runs and other caring when they DO return to work...

<comment><USER3> Who really sticks to a linear pay schedule like that their entire career though? Honestly you would have be rather unmotivated.

<comment><USER4> > Who really sticks to a linear pay schedule like that their entire career > though?

People with passions that don't pay well (or at all), so they keep a steady job and pursue said passion outside of work.

<comment><USER5> If your passions don't pay well, you're probably not making something people want.

<comment><USER6> This is possibly the most misguided comment I've read on HN.

<comment><USER3> What are some passions that people have, which other people greatly desire, that are not paid well? I am genuinely curious.

<comment><USER7> Academia/research. I was making more than some of my world class professors a few years into my career, where I was using research they developed and improved upon.

<comment><USER8> A thousand times this. Markets automatically value knowledge and discoveries at nothing because you typically have to possess knowledge (sometimes for 100 years) before you can estimate its value. If the development of a new industry goes through stages "A B C D ... X Y Z," where A-M are academic discoveries, the market awards 100% of the profit to N-Z and maybe a percent or two to M if they got lucky with patents, even though A-M required significant capital expenditure to carry out.

Everything we care about has been touched by uncompensated academics in some way (uncompensated = rewarded with <1% of the produced value for the purposes of argument). Much of the Nitrogen in your body comes from the Haber process. The air you breathe has benefited from emission reduction chemistry figured out by academics. The basis for the chemistry that produced the plastics around you was all figured out by academics (albeit tested, refined, and implemented by better paid engineers). Academic physicists made semiconductor models that formed the basis of simulations that made the industry practical. If you're not on Windows, academics wrote a healthy chunk of the OS on your computer. Physicists figured out the details of nuclear energy (in the US, 20% of the energy you are using right now) and built models that are used to a significant degree in the engineering of all of the others. Scientists are going to be responsible for pulling our collective asses out of the fire wrt global warming. The more I write the more I realize (and hopefully you realize) just how silly this train of thought is. As for mathematics, where would engineers be without linear algebra or calculus? How much less efficient would industry be without linear programming (programming = schedule making in this context)? It's impossible to even formulate these thoughts correctly because everything is interrelated.

I challenge _you_ (great?-grandparent libertarian) to find an industry that does not inextricably depend upon some kind of model or fact produced by uncompensated academics (as defined above -- use any threshold for value capture you deem appropriate).

Whatever the market rewards people for, it is not value creation. It is value creation multiplied by a long list of factors which often go to 0 for arbitrary reasons (your customers are too poor, your product is not excludable, etc.)

\</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment>---

Fortunately, people are not rational actors wrt accumulating money. Here's what future career paths very roughly look like for new grads (based on my own perceptions, not glassdoor):

Helping the poor: $0 (maybe $12k if you count a fellowship)

Trying to Cure Cancer: $25k/yr, bump to $40k after 6 years

Engineering Medical Devices, Airplanes, etc: $60k/yr

Trying to Build the Next Twitter: $100k/yr-$150k/yr

Helping Rich People Game the System to Get Richer: $150k/yr, $300k/yr after a few years if successful

What disturbs me is that if I were to prioritize this list based on benefit to humanity, it would take the exact opposite ordering. There was <1% chance of that happening randomly.

</comment><comment><USER9> Remember this next time you hear the "77 cents to the dollar" lament by young feminists in college with a degree in "women's studies". _They_ are not likely to be disadvantaged, just more likely than men to want to have babies and/or a more flexible job when they turn 30+.

Also, interestingly enough, white women have been typically been better off than black or Hispanic men as regards wage gap with respect to white men ([http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882775.html](http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0882775.html)) -- something that is often conveniently swept under the carpet by white feminists.

<comment><USER10> Most feminists I know don't hesitate to mention the wage gap between white people and black / hispanic people.

<comment><USER9> Guess it's a matter of personal experience then (Note that I intended to refer to young feminists in college in the second paragraph as well).

Most of the ones I know tend to be from a pretty decent-earning group themselves (white, upper middle class, college-educated) and almost never mention the race-based earning gap, but constantly mention the gender-based one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Check out the absolute pay numbers in the Pew Research article: [http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/12/11/on-pay-gap- millenn...](http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/12/11/on-pay-gap-millennial- women-near-parity-for-now/)

While women's wages have dropped slightly in recent years, men's wages have dropped much more. The OP article is misleading, or uninteresting at best -- both men and women are worse off in terms of wages.

<comment><USER12> I think the OP relies on the notion that the overall drop affected people equally independent of gender.

The question remains: are men uniquely worse off?

<comment><USER13> I don't think there's any question about that, actually. Women tend to cluster in government, academia, and health care, which have been the most resilient sectors in this recession.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The employment picture for millennials is supposedly bleak, from what I've heard. If a lot of men in this age bracket are now taking sub-optimal jobs as an alternative to being completely unemployed, that could also explain a narrowing in the gap. There's a lot more wage parity in hourly service-sector jobs.

</comment><comment><USER15> Other than the note that has already been made about the difference in the age women first have children, I don't think this is a huge surprise to most "millennials." In most circles, as well as in most pop culture, an ideal expectation of equality is the well-accepted default.

Now an expectation of equality and the practice thereof are two very different things, but it seems like we're making progress, and I can only hope we continue to do so.

</comment><comment><USER16> How much of this is that most millennial women have not yet had children (and have not temporarily or permanently exited the workforce)?

<comment><USER17> not sure how you would compute a pay gap between those who are working and those who have exited the work force. Isn't it like dividing by NULL?

<comment><USER18> Woman A works January 1 to March 31, has baby, quits work. On her $100,000 salary, she only makes 3 months' worth, meaning she _earned_ ~$25k, while her male counterpart makes $100k.

Woman B works January 1 to March 31, has baby, takes 6 weeks off paid, and another 8 weeks off unpaid, makes only $84k while her male counterpart makes $100k.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This article has some possible explanations: [http://theweek.com/article/index/249955/why-is-the-gender- wa...](http://theweek.com/article/index/249955/why-is-the-gender-wage-gap- stuck-3-theories)

</comment><comment><USER13> Great, so it's time to get rid of affirmative action, right?

</comment><comment><USER20> Does not compute. Millennial "women" are 12 or 13.

<comment><USER19> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials)

"There are no precise dates when the generation starts and ends. Commentators use beginning birth years from the early 1980s to the early 2000s"

Millenials are basically those 30 years old and under at the moment.

<comment><USER20> That makes no sense at all. Generation X/Y/Z, sure (except does it roll over after Z and would that be AA or just A?). But millennial? The name implies turn-of-the-millennium, not before as that would be a premillennial. Back in the day, there were reports of people trying to plan a "millennium baby" to be born in the first week of the year 2000 so it would make sense to call them millennials as they're not exactly babies any more.</comment></comment></comment>


Goodyear exits Venezuela, paying severance in tires - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-10/goodyear-offers-10-tires-a-worker-as-it-shuts-down-in-venezuela <comment><AUTHOR> Is this precedented? If so, why they do that?</comment>


Shirky at TED: "How Twitter Can Make History" - <AUTHOR> http://ideas.theatlantic.com/2009/06/video_of_the_day_how_twitter_can_make_history.php

<comment><USER2> Shirky is a ridiculously good speaker. Thanks for posting this.</comment>


Overvalued in Silicon Valley, but Don't Say 'Tech Bubble' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/23/technology/overvalued-in-silicon-valley-but-not-the-word-that-must-not-be-uttered.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news <comment><USER2> >The problem with the bubble question is nobody seems to agree on what exactly a bubble is.

A bubble is when a sequence of stupid people pay more for something than it is worth, get lucky by managing to find someone stupider than them and hand it off to the bigger idiot for a profit. If this runs long enough, the original idiots tend to lose all perspective and get sucked into a loop of idiocy and hubris, which establishes crazy new value norms.

The bubble bursts when it is no longer possible to find someone stupid enough to buy the overpriced object, due to it's value being so high that it is worth more money than stupid people can put their hands on. That's often a depressingly high figure.

I know that silicon valley investors don't like that description but please, let's not pretend we don't know how it works.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Even today, with the technology industry on fire, venture capital investment > remains below its 2000 peak.

I don't know whether things are in a "bubble" or not, but reasoning like this does not instill confidence. "At least things are not as bad as the worst they've ever been", no need to worry about a thing.

<comment><USER4> Look at this S&P chart and realize that the first hump was entirely caused by startup mania. [http://654advisors.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/...](http://654advisors.com/wordpress/wp- content/uploads/2011/07/20110730_SPX_max_linear.jpg)

That level of investment is huge. The second hump was caused by the real estate mania but at least the country ended up with a bunch of houses out of it.

<comment><USER5> Worth remembering that that chart is from 2011. The S&P 500 is now over 2100, so over 50% above the end of that chart

<comment><USER4> The recent stock market runnup isn't entirely caused by startups. There's been some IPOs but they mostly seem reasonable.

<comment><USER3> Its possible that in the last 2 and this one, over-speculation using leverage as a result of loose monetary policy was a significant factor.

[http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/NYSE- Margi...](http://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/NYSE-Margin-Debt- and-the-SPX.php)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How would we not be in a bubble? Uber is valued at $50 billion, but the legality of what they do is tenuous at best. Big cities all over the country could smack them down at a moment's notice, or at the very least drag them into expensive litigation that could take years. Airbnb faces the same problem. You can say this is what "disruption" is all about, but all I see are fields of tulips

<comment><USER7> Money solves most of Uber's problems in the legal realm. In fact, the pacification of the taxi industry in the US has already occurred, they've rolled over. It's almost always easy to vanquish fractured, poorly organized competition when it comes to politics. There will be no major challenge to Uber's overall business in the US. Within another three years, the US taxi industry will be so decimated as to no longer pose any threat. Uber will suffer a few slaps on the wrist, and they'll say they're sorry and fork over some fines, and that is all that is going to happen.

<comment><USER8> Uber has already been banned in several major metros, and continues to have restrictions placed on it. You can't out-innovate they who control the roads.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My thoughts on this right now are, "so what"? How much money is actually on the line? Yes, yes, there are a lot of crazy valuations going on right now into the billions of dollars, but that's off of equity purchases that rarely clock above $200 million, and are usually lower than that.

We may be in a bit of tech bubble right now, and it would suck if a lot of people lost their jobs (although firms are a lot smaller than they were in the last one), but there is barely any public money on the line these days.

Yes VC backed firms supposedly generate 21% of US GDP right now (although I find that number to be a tad suspicious), but we have to allow that a huge chunk of that number is for new-tech companies (someone at MIT invented a new type of concrete, or a robot), biotech (someone at Johns Hopkins invented an artificial heart), and other niche businesses where the goal is definitely not to be a unicorn, but to hit a definable market.

Certainly it would be sad to see some of these unicorns die, but as an overall percentage of where a lot of VC money goes (and I mean the whole world of VC, not just the SV VCs that are interested in the next billion dollar companies), they don't make up a huge percentage of the employment or income in this country.

We might be in a bubble and it might pop, but the assumption that it will hurt the economy like it did in 2000 needs to be backed up by a stricter line of thought than, "the last bubble did".

<comment><USER3> "The Citigroup chief executive told the Financial Times that the party would end at some point but there was so much liquidity it would not be disrupted by the turmoil in the US subprime mortgage market.

 _He denied that Citigroup, one of the biggest providers of finance to private equity deals, was pulling back._

'When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing,' he said in an interview with the FT in Japan."

[http://business.time.com/2007/07/10/citigroups_chuck_prince_...](http://business.time.com/2007/07/10/citigroups_chuck_prince_wants/)

(emphasis mine)

<comment><USER9> I'm not being facetious, but are you backing me up? This bolsters my point. Equating the US subprime crisis and the vast entanglements that existed therein to the current situation in SV is exactly the kind of monomaniacal thinking that that SV engages in all the time.

My point was that there aren't any entanglements, there isn't any exposure. Prince was making the point that _there was_ complicated entanglements that existed at Citigroup so it would be hard to predict what would happen, but hopefully their lack of exposure would help (which, by the way, it did).

There simply isn't enough public exposure to SV to make a bubble popping important to the overall economy.

<comment><USER3> You could be right, and frankly I hope you are.

If the current mini-mania slows down at all or a couple of big names hit some bumps in the road... the financiers' portfolios also are also affected, and if there a GSIFI's that can't afford to take that hit and can't find the liquidity to paper over the losses... yikes

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > "If the question is, Are these valuations divorced from fundamentals? I > think they are," he said.

> "There's definitely some craziness and people overpaying"

> "I think we're in a period of overvaluation and frothiness"

> "A bunch of bad decisions don't necessarily mean we are in a bubble."

So its just unrealistic valuations and a frothy investment market leading to bad investing decisions. Right. Totally not a bubble.

</comment><comment><USER11> Knowing that a lot of people here are from silicon valley, is it really a BIEEN (Bubble in everything except name) situation there?

What are your thoughts on the massive valuations of companies that might struggle to manage a profit 3-4 years down the road?

<comment><USER12> Given that "home runs" for VCs pay out 1,000x to 10,000x, and that IPOs have much tighter restrictions than in the 90's, it seems fine. Even if it's a bubble, who is harmed by it? The VCs are shouldering the risk. Those who put their money into a VC fund know that it's high risk. Everybody is aiming for the 1,000x return, and it may not be possible to get one without making a lot of risky bets.

<comment><USER13> I'd worry about less sophisticated "end investors" getting burned. Mutual fund managers know that private equity funds are high risk, but they're getting into them anyway. Do the individuals whose pensions are being invested in Uber know where the money is?

<comment><USER14> The information should be available to them. If the fund does not have a sizable exposure to the particular company, it might only be as a statement in the prospectus that the fund can invest up to a certain amount in a certain type of company.

A flip side of this is that one of the many things that contributed to the housing bubble was the requirement that many pensions have to invest in bonds of a given rating. This helped fuel the market for rubber stamped mortgage derivatives.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I was watching an interview with Mike Judge, the creator of the show "Silicon Valley" last night. He said that he asked many real-world VC's about realistic reasons that Pied Piper would have trouble finding financing so that he could integrate those into the storyline. Regardless of the complications he suggested, every VC told him "that really wouldn't be an issue...we'd still invest".

I think that says alot about the Valley today. "I might miss out" seems to be a mantra on Sand Hill Road these days. If you or one of your cofounders has dropped out of Stanford or Harvard, you can and will get funded. Despite Peter Thiel's protestations to the contrary, Stanford in particular is worth the money for a year or two if only for this reason. Any education you receive is just a bonus.

</comment><comment><USER16> It's interesting to me that Sam Altman, who was ~15 (same age as I was) during the 2000 dot-com boom/bust is $100k certain that his companies will be worth $200bn in 5 years. I'm curious whether that's confidence in the companies, confidence in the market or confidence coming from not having been involved in dot-com 1.0.

To me, the writing on the wall for VC companies was when Paul Graham stepped aside. Based entirely just on my own conjecture, I suspect he realized that the glory days were coming to a close and chose to look for something else to do. Curious to see if that's how it'll pan out.

<comment><USER17> $100k to Altman is like $100 for you.

<comment><USER16> Fair, but ultimately it's not so much about the money as it is about the publicity. The money is just to catch people's eyes and to keep things interesting-isn.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think there is an overestimation of the value added from the great data-grab we have seen in the last 5-10 years. Customizing adverts based on a recent conversation in [some-app] or similar means, probably doesn't increase the "click-count" by a significant value enough to justify itself. In short, the business trend "Big-Data" is likely based on false pretenses.

We see large corporations like Facebook grabbing up applications solely for their user base to defend its current flawed business model instead of adapting. Perhaps Facebook should extend its idea of connection to include a method of discovery rather than sharing. Essentially, let me pay a dollar to find all the single girls in the bay area who like Starbucks and C++ that have a primary or secondary connection[friend of a friend]. Really stick it to okcupid.

<comment><USER3> > let me pay a dollar to find all the single girls in the bay area who like > Starbucks and C++ that have a primary or secondary connection[friend of a > friend]

That is a really creepy idea.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> >and Airbnb, the home rental service, will be worth more than $200 billion by 2020.

How is this influenced by city regulation? There are several cities that are now taking measures to ensure that homes cannot be used in an Airbnb fashion and it hurts Airbnb business.

<comment><USER7> Here's how that works.

You're Airbnb, you jump out to a fast lead, and dominate your segment across the whole of the US market. You move so fast that regulations and politics trail years behind you.

You operate in every major city in the US, 300-400 of them. Out of hundreds of cities, two dozen cause you serious problems, such as bans or hard restrictions.

Now, even if six of the 24 that cause you serious problems are major cities (NY, SF etc), you've got 90-95% of the market (along with the rest of the world to go after) that isn't causing you problems.

With your new vast scale, and large pile of cash, you triple down and go to work on the politics in SF or NY or wherever else you're having problems. There is no scenario under which, assuming you keep your 90-95% rest of the market, that you can lose. With enough time, you wear down SF and buy enough politicians to squeak back into the market. Your network effect instantly brings you back up to dominating in SF upon being allowed back into that market.

It's a form of the little bighorn market attack. The only variable is time, and that will give way eventually, so long as you don't lose a massive portion of the US market (which is extremely unlikely in Airbnb's case).

Meanwhile, they can attack the rest of the planet, and pull off the same jump- out-in-front move, and then lean on their vast scale to go to work on the problems.

In total, you end up with no terminal risks to the whole system, merely a few broken bones.

<comment><USER19> I'm loving the response, but can you provide a company that did this in the past?

<comment><USER20> The way Microsoft handled being a monopoly is admittedly different but feels relevant. The consequences years later of their actions didn't slow them down much.

Perhaps cigarette companies too?

<comment><USER19> Yeah, cigarette companies would work. Like how they were really popular, but then they got a smack on the wrist by health specialists who found out that cigarettes causes cancer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> High valuations don't make a bubble. A bubble is when people invest believing there will be a "greater fool" down the road who will pay a higher price. Startups aren't going public at the same pace they did in the last bubble, where the public was the chump. Prices might be high but there's also more value being created now, and more rigor in evaluating startups.

<comment><USER21> I do not agree that the Greater Fool theory is a necessary condition for there being a bubble. That would be closer to a pyramid or a Ponzi scheme. Not 100% sure of what the difference is.

Rather, the problem is when unsophisticated investors buy in because they don't want to miss out of the gravy train. It does not matter if the mantra of the day is "Computing/BigData/DaCloud is eating the world" or "Real state prices will keep going up in the foreseeable future" or whatever they said during the years of the Tulip mania; it is always magical thinking.

In theory, everybody knows that VC are high-risk/high-rewards. In practice, once the dumb money starts flowing, it's only a matter of time before short term greed triumphs over common sense and sound business practices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> IPO is a fictional line. Is there really reason that there should be 100B+ post-IPO companies, but that there shouldn't be 100B+ pre-IPO companies?

Laws regarding IPOs create decent incentive to avoid an official IPO. Money follows the incentives.

<comment><USER16> "Laws regarding IPOs create decent incentive to avoid an official IPO. Money follows the incentives."

That's just the thing. If companies truly were profitable, in general wouldn't investors want to keep the company private? No overhead of having to manage SEC reporting, no oversight, nobody to answer to except themselves. The problem is, investors need the public markets to make money, because their money is not in the company actually turning a profit, it's in convincing the public that the company is worth whatever they say it is.

Think Zynga/King. They were very profitable for awhile, but for their investors to make money, they didn't want to sit on $50m/mo profit, because their investments assumed that the company was worth billions. They knew the company was doomed in the long run (meaning they couldn't sustain the profits), so they ditched the company onto the public, cashed in their chips and walked away. Now the company is bleeding money. If the investors thought for a second that they'd continue to make money indefinitely, they never would have pushed for an IPO.

It's not a fictional line, it's a very distinct line. Investors have convinced the public that their company is worth however many billions, usually without ever having turned a profit. They want their money back.

<comment><USER23> > If the investors thought for a second that they'd continue to make money > indefinitely, they never would have pushed for an IPO.

Not really true, most venture funds have a fixed timeline where limited partners want to get their money back around 10 years. And they don't necessarily want just a steady stream coming back, they want their actual money, to invest in things that have just as much growth potential.

Also, employees want a way to cash out, which is very difficult when a company is private. Not necessarily because the company is bad, but because you would much rather diversify your holdings.

Even if an asset is making money, it isn't natural to want to keep that asset.

<comment><USER16> The problem is that all of these things assume an IPO as an exit. Funds aren't interested in building long-term profitable companies, they want to pump up the stock price as high as they can and get the exit, profitability be damned.

Same with employees. If an employee has a 0.05% stake in a company that pulls in $100m/year in profits, that's an extra $50k if you do straight-up profit sharing. Problem is, these employees want no ownership whatsoever; they also don't want a long-term stake in the company, they want to cash out and move on.

It feels like the whole startup economy is operating on the "bigger sucker" plan these days. It's not about building sustainable businesses with solid profits, its about sprinting to an IPO and dumping the stock onto the public to let them deal with the consequences. Maybe I just have an overly bleak outlook on the current layout of startups (and I work for one).

<comment><USER24> > Same with employees. If an employee has a 0.05% stake in a company that > pulls in $100m/year in profits, that's an extra $50k if you do straight-up > profit sharing. Problem is, these employees want no ownership whatsoever; > they also don't want a long-term stake in the company, they want to cash out > and move on.

This is the rational choice for the employee. Nobody wants more than 10% of their net worth wrapped up in a small nascent (read: very risky) asset. I'm sort of in the situation you describe, and I'd be very happy to sell my share at a steep discount to avoid the risk.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>