Using Python helped YouTube ship features faster than Google Video - <AUTHOR> https://books.google.com/books?id=eulODwAAQBAJ&lpg=PA136&dq=google%20video%20vs%20youtube%20python%20story&pg=PA136#v=onepage&q=google%20video%20vs%20youtube%20python%20story&f=false <comment><USER2> As much as I want to credit python, I doubt that was the cause. It's typically far easier to ship a new feature at a small company, because there's no bureaucracy, no wait for QA, no need to translate text into 20 languages, etc.

<comment><USER3> Yes. Perhaps also brilliant engineers don't want to hack together something half-assed that barely works, but does provide the feature.

I've always liked that youtube uses PHP - much derided, but its declarative "templating" is the easiest, simplest, most direct way to generate html. Maybe that was a factor too.

But I think the youtube engineers might have a more accurate opinion on why they were quicker, than the google video engineers.

<comment><USER4> > _but its declarative "templating"_

Do you have any insight onto how much of the templating aspect of PHP is used at Youtube? I know of some large PHP installations where PHP is used as a general programming language that does produce web pages, but the templating aspect of PHP is pretty much minimal, and other engines actually produce the final output.

<comment><USER5> For a so-called templating language, PHP sure falls short, and thus has a plethora of ad-hoc, informally-specified, bug-ridden, slow implementations of half of many other templating languages implemented in it.

[https://www.smarty.net/](https://www.smarty.net/)

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

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspun%27s_tenth_rule)

<comment><USER6> Smarty is something from 15 years ago. Nowadays people use Twig which is inspired by Python's Jinja template engine and has similar syntax.

<comment><USER5> Yet Python has never claimed to be a templating language itself, let alone "the easiest, simplest, most direct way to generate html".

My point is that PHP pretends to be a templating language, then falls flat on its face, so people end up implementing much worse (Smarty, MediaWiki) or sometimes even better (Twig) templating languages on top of it.

In other words, it's simply not true that PHP's "declarative "templating" is the easiest, simplest, most direct way to generate html", or there wouldn't be a need for Smarty, the MediaWiki abomination (which is 17 years old but still widely used on 29 million pages), or Twig.

I'd say "to hack together something half-assed that barely works, but does provide the feature" perfectly describes the PHP development process itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As someone who was creating a reasonably popular 'video podcast' back then, I have a different perspective...

Uploading to Google video was incredibly slow relative to Youtube. During the period of the 'battle' between the two services, Youtube allowed only very short videos - excluding most useful content, but discouraging piracy (except for very laborious multi part uploads). G'Video on the other hand allowed uploading of essentially any length, although at much lower resolution

But it was incredibly laborious, as uploads took hours - and were liable to fail without warning (at least uploading from Europe). I recall there was also an emphasis on adding lots of metadata etc, another barrier to uploading.

The social elements of youtube - perhaps in hindsight addicting rather than useful, are rightfully acknowledged. Whats less well remembered is the sheer clunkiness of using Google Video. The service looked and responded much more like a corporate intranet than a website. Still, I - and lots of other 'vidcasters' at the time were sad to see it go.

Here's a perspective from the time - from a blogpost I wrote about different video services in 2006 ([https://garethstack.com/2006/07/24/the-unavoidable- future-of...](https://garethstack.com/2006/07/24/the-unavoidable-future-of- entertainment/))...

"While sites like Youtube and Guba, may or may not have a future primarily as redistributors of broadcast content, they've done little to foster the creation of original work. In fact, by restricting the length and size of files which can be uploaded (ostensibly to reduce copyright infringement), YouTube have diminished their chances of becoming a hotbed of original content. Google video, although bravely eschewing any restrictions on the length of uploaded content (whilst foolishly restricting video quality to an extremely low bit rate), does little to foster the community creation or pooling of talent needed to inspire the development of original shows and films. Note, it's far from clear that it was ever Google's intention to become a generator of new IP, so Google Video shouldn't necessarily be seen as a failure"

<comment><USER8> Yeah, absolutely. I remember that being a big thing as to what Google Video said when they bought youtube. The immediacy of the upload was a huge factor in YouTube's success. It's not hard to imagine that YouTube won via better PM. That often happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> YouTube was also burning money for bandwidth like nobody's business. I suspect that Google Video tracked and limited bandwidth.

If Google hadn't bought them, YouTube were headed straight for bankruptcy. People forget that the YouTube deal was a big time boardroom back scratch between Google and the VC's.

The worst part is that Google subsidizing YouTube has set back a real monetization of video on the web.

<comment><USER10> I disagree with that. I think the web is monetizing video at an appropriate rate, considering most video itself is essentially worthless.

That video content is costly to produce, and kills bandwidth indiscriminately, does not mean video is valuable. Just because there's a high bar for video to exist, doesn't mean that cost should get passed on to consumers.

Most video is non-essential, and consumers get to be picky about where their disposable income goes. Video needs to be redeeming to the viewer, whatever their tastes may be, and whose fault is it that the surplus of junk content exists?

<comment><USER9> > I think the web is monetizing video at an appropriate rate, considering most > video itself is essentially worthless.

Um, I think you are confusing cause and effect.

Isn't worthless video exactly the problem that subsidizing video delivery _caused_?

If you have to pay even a _penny_ to put your video on the web, most video disappears and suddenly the quality skyrockets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> That's the power of scripting languages. You don't focus on the language but on solving the problem.

unrelated: the ui is impossible to navigate on mobile.

<comment><USER12> And UI has been unusable on Google Books forever!

<comment><USER13> Must be coded in C++.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I remember when Google announced video.google.com was closing, and then they backtracked and said it wasn't. And then they closed it. I have video.google.com posts that I would like to migrate, but it's gone.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H542nLTTbu0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H542nLTTbu0)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> No affiliation at all to the author but if you want to read more he's @driscollis on twitter and the book is at [https://www.packtpub.com/web- development/python-interviews](https://www.packtpub.com/web- development/python-interviews)

also I first heard this story on the Talk Python podcast [https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/156/python-history- and-p...](https://talkpython.fm/episodes/show/156/python-history-and- perspectives)

Of course its not the full story but it is an interesting comment and from a firsthand source. That's all I know, I dont have a dog in this fight :)

</comment><comment><USER15> Yeah, no. That is obviously not why, and it is quite telling that the guy being interviewed still, after the purchase, hasn't got the slightest clue as to why (or doesn't want to admit it).

It is disheartening to see this on the front page with so little substance.

</comment><comment><USER16> Interviewee closely involved with the YouTube acquisition: "competitive advantage was python."

Commenters I'm this thread: "nah it wasn't python."

</comment><comment><USER17> I worked at Google during that period. It's not quite as simple as "Python > C++" although yes, for sure, you're going to produce new UI features at a far faster rate working in a high level language like Python than working with C++. Absolutely that was a factor. I don't think Google Video had hundreds of developers vs 20 though. That doesn't sound right to me.

The real reasons YouTube won were strategic, not purely a function of developer speed.

In particular YouTube focused a lot on social / discovery features and prioritised them, at a time when the importance of social wasn't so obvious and Google in particular was very bad at anything with a social dimension. So Google Video had super scalable backends, great search etc, but it wasn't very good at user profiles, commenting, channels, subscribers, discovery, content surfacing and so on. Whereas YouTube excelled at these things and was good at encouraging people to upload whatever random vids they created even if apparently worthless.

Google in contrast was less certain that free user generated content would ever be a big deal, and right from day one saw Google Video primarily as a marketplace. It focused much more on acquiring content rights from professional producers as a result. Even YouTube wasn't really sure UGC+ads was going to turn into a real business which is why they had a lax approach to video piracy for so long. Early YouTube traffic was to some extent driven by piracy of professional content, a problem that only got wiped out once Google acquired them and build content id. Even when comments were eventually added, it was a tiny box to the side of the video which took up the bulk of the web page, and there was an admonition "Please make sure your comments are useful and informative" \- very Google. YouTube on the other hand made the video less prominent and what users were saying about it much more so.

Social features are a great use case for Python because you need to churn them out and iterate very fast, the cost of correctness bugs is very low, and their performance complexity is not very high, so that's the sweet spot for a scripting language. On the other hand around the time YouTube were acquired they struggling tremendously with the scaling aspects of their operation and large chunks of the site had to be quickly switched to C++. YouTube when I left was still a mix of Python and C++, with the C++ code handling things like search, transcoding, thumbnail serving, anti-spam, content id, video serving and so on. All the heavy lifting. Python was left handling the main site UI, admin tooling and not much else.

There were also some technical mis-steps by the Google Video team. YouTube relied entirely on Flash from day one. For whatever reason the GV team were far more reluctant to hitch themselves to the Flash plugin and for example they only enabled video upload via a web form about a year after YouTube entered beta, before that you had to use a desktop app to do it. They also wrote their own video playing plugin but it wasn't as good as Flash and they eventually scrapped it. Their paid for pro content also required a dedicated video player app. YouTube being a small startup couldn't get content deals as it was too tiny for the producers to deal with, so they just focused 100% on UGC and features like embedding, which acted as a giant advert for their service.

More insights here:

[https://googlesystem.blogspot.ch/2006/08/why-is-youtube- more...](https://googlesystem.blogspot.ch/2006/08/why-is-youtube-more-popular- than.html#gsc.tab=0)

<comment><USER18> You say:

> Social features are a great use case for Python

And then say:

> On the other hand around the time YouTube were acquired they struggling > tremendously with the scaling aspects of their operation and large chunks of > the site had to be quickly switched to C++.

I fail to see how python failed youtube here.

You use the right tools for the job. And the tools that got you 10e1 views per day may not be the tools that get you to 10e10 views per day.

I once worked at a place that supposedly "engineered" their backend to handle 1,000,000 connections at once. Only everything fell over at 10,000 connections in production, and they struggled for two years to get to 100,000 connections.

The point is, you don't know what you don't know, and you won't know the pain points are until you hit them. And the more groundbreaking your service (in this case internet video distribution), the chance of your architecture being 100% correct from the start is zero.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I heard an anecdote where the actual first movers on a new video feature was porn sites. They were smaller still, and probably had a more tolerant audience.

<comment><AUTHOR> I feel like entertainment (gaming, porn, even say tourism for spaceflight) has always punched above its weight in leading technology. Really makes you think about whether we are more motivated to use our intelligence/resources to solve hard problems or to please ourselves.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> And Google still writes backends in C++ in 2018.

<comment><USER21> I'd imagine that any company building its own hardware will continue to develop at least _some_ code in C++ for another 25 years.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why don't more open-source projects charge for support/features/bugs? - <AUTHOR>

I see a lot of open source hackers getting jaded by the vampire-like community using their libraries for free and then complaining like a customer. I know that some libraries have a donation button, but most people won't donate. I feel like if these open-source developers would charge for priority support, or put "bounties" on feature requests and bugs, it would become more financially viable for them to work on their open-source projects. <comment><USER2> Brent Simmons (makes NetNewsWire for Mac and iPhone) made a very good post on this topic (well, charging for features, not related to open source specifically) awhile back: [http://inessential.com/2009/07/16/dont_offer_50_for_your_fav...](http://inessential.com/2009/07/16/dont_offer_50_for_your_favorite_feat). Its well worth reading (as are Daniel Jalkut's thoughts on the conversation, linked to from the blog post).

Basically, the points they make are that the motivator for most developers (on all projects, not just open source ones) is to make something good, with money being a side result of your efforts, but not the goal. Or, to paraphrase Daniel a bit, you want _freaking awesome_ and not to simply be going through motions to pay off bills.

</comment><comment><USER3> So open source devs should offer premium support and paid options for better features...I think thats called running a business, right?

<comment><AUTHOR> If you want to think of it like that sure, they are running a small biz around their software. I don't see it like a regular business where you are developing your software based solely on the customers needs, the devs needs will come first. I see it more like structured donations around user requests.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> many of the projects with less-technical users do just that. The guy who wrote the billing system i use, <http://freeside.biz> is a good example. He charges for features and if you want it installation and other support.</comment>


Ask HN: How do you test for a market for your idea? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> Depends on the idea and how you plan to market it. Some you really can't test. If you plan on advertising, easy. Just run a very small ad campaign and check conversions.

Create a landing page that garners interest and asks for the users email and lets them know when the product is finished.

<http://www.mailboxapp.com> was a recent example that started testing the market with no product.</comment>


Michael Crichton: "Why Speculate?" & The Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://geer.tinho.net/crichton.why.speculate.txt <comment><USER2> One of my favorite talks ever, up there with Munger's "psychology of human misjudgment"

Disagree with the conclusion (that climate change isn't worth worrying about)

But models aren't science</comment>


Ask HN: Open source machine learning for genomics applications - <AUTHOR> I've been collecting a list of open source machine learning projects for genomics and more general biology applications, and I'd like to grow it.  Does anyone here know of some good projects? <comment><AUTHOR> Here's the current list:

[https://github.com/dhbradshaw/ml-for- genomics/blob/master/RE...](https://github.com/dhbradshaw/ml-for- genomics/blob/master/README.md)</comment>


Programmar Beta - <AUTHOR> http://programmar.io/

<comment><USER2> Whats the idea on doing quality control and if its for programmers, I would imagine it also allows executing the code or running various simulations in the post itself. (Unless I am missing obvious difference from other writing platforms). Design looks clean and simple.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! We'll keep the idea of executing code in an article in mind.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really? No info at all without logging in? Or am I missing something?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey,

That's odd. Do you mind letting us know if you had the following text load in:

"Welcome to Programmar,

A place where you can read and write about development."

Thanks, Bobby

<comment><USER4> I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't consider that info. It's definitely not enough for most people to sign up on. 99% of people would just close the tab and move on.

That said, there's no information once you log in, either. You're just taken to a feed, and left to your own devices. Not what I'd call a great experience. I like the idea, but you definitely need to develop this more.

<comment><AUTHOR> Definitely agree with you on this, thank you for the input.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How to find a hardware platform or partner? - <AUTHOR>

Is it crazy to suggest writing software which requires actually shipping your customer a piece of hardware?
Call it the 'Chromecast' effect, but writing an app for someone else's platform is just too risky. But trying to go it alone, probably it's just more risky.
What if you can find a good partner or existing platform out there for which you can jump on as a reseller? That's a big part of operations, not to mention IP, which you would be leaving off the table.
In the end, it makes me think it would be best just find a way to make the whole thing P2P and forget shipping hardware. <comment><USER2> It depends on the HW, if you're actually writing SW that requires HW acceleration, you better be doing it right. If you're just being lazy or you want it for licensing, GLWT.

P2P topologies have huge drawbacks, so you need to be really careful as well.

</comment><comment><USER3> We are looking at hardware as well. P2p isn't always an option but if you can start there, prove the concept, then you may have more resources and hardware may be less risky.</comment>


The Royalty Scam: "...we need to establish the principle of artists' rights throughout the Internet" - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/22/opinion/22bragg.html?ex=1363924800&en=ba1c8624f73c894c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

<comment><USER2> This is so wrong on every level.

He clearly doesn't understand what really happens on radio. New musicians essentially pay to be on it, indirectly of course (to circumvent anti-payola laws).

On Bebo/Myspace they get to promote themselves for free. It's a symbiotic relationship between artist and social networks.

<comment><USER3> "this is so wrong on every level"

It is not really as simple as you make it seem.

he gave his argument point by point -- if you're going to make a counter argument to his whole piece, why not do a full counter-point?

"On Bebo/Myspace they get to promote themselves for free. It's a symbiotic relationship between artist and social networks."

And the big-name artists who are on the billboard 100 (and have millions of plays on their myspace pages) aren't getting royalties while myspace is making money on advertising -- that's the point he's making.

The value of Myspace is largely staked on the big-ticket musicians it has, while other sites like amiestreet do more to promote indie artists.

It's no different than Youtube making a deal with the major record labels to bankroll on all the unsigned musicians doing covers.

There's a balance to be sought here, and this guy seems to be an established musician, and for them, they are often getting the short side of the stick (even when the labels are suing web companies)

<comment><USER2> Done. <http://mattmaroon.com/?p=342>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The market seems to have already agreed that artist exposure is a fair return for online postings.

I don't think the author appreciates how valuable that world-wide, democratic exposure is. The artists may not receive any direct revenue from it, but it can greatly enhance real sources of revenue, like concerts and merchandising.</comment>


Chris Hadfield ejected from movie theatre for loudly heckling Gravity - <AUTHOR> http://www.thebeaverton.com/chris-hadfield-ejected-from-movie-theatre-for-loudly-heckling-gravity.htm

<comment><USER2> That's a satire site, in case you didn't know.</comment>


Ask HN: Could decentralized organizations reduce poverty? - <AUTHOR> Governments are responsible for providing the legal infrastructure to protect assets and property.
Without this safety net, people are less willing form organizations to seek new opportunities.
My hypothesis is that by offering a lower risk collaboration environment, people will take risks and potentially pull themselves and their communities out of poverty.
I'm exploring this idea as a startup, https://govchain.global
Do you think this is a viable hypothesis? <comment><USER2> Your description is way too vague to even begin to evaluate and respond to.

</comment><comment><USER3> Please read the rules for Show HN and try posting it there.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/show](https://news.ycombinator.com/show)

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> decentralization, what i understands, can involve more man power to the system. which will lower the rate of unemployment.</comment>


Ask HN: Why is there no strict HTML 5 DTD? - <AUTHOR> Ran into an issue earlier today that, in a round about way, turned out to be due to Chrome automatically closing some unclosed tags.  I admittedly should have caught it much earlier, but it did get me thinking - why is there no strict DTD for HTML 5?  Couldn't find any discussions around this so was just curious if anyone here has some direct knowledge.  Thanks! <comment><USER2> It might be in part to the differing goals of the W3C and WHATWG. To simplify, W3C wanted to stick with versioned specifications like they have always done and to finalise the HTML5 standard at some point and work on HTML6 or whatever came next. WHATWG saw HTML as transformative and wanted to create a standard that both established a future direction and took implementation specifics from vendors into a single "living" specification.

DTD's seem to concern XHTML more than HTML, and WHATWG seems to have mostly dismissed the issue of parity between XHTML and HTML. WHATWG wants to treat the DOCTYPE as optional anyway, and is only including it for legacy reasons.

This Stackoverflow answer goes into some good detail: [http://stackoverflow.com/a/15245834/132164](http://stackoverflow.com/a/15245834/132164)

</comment><comment><USER3> In earlier HTML versions "strict" did not force you to put in optional end tags. It simply disallowed some deprecated stuff.</comment>


High resolution global climate mapping - <AUTHOR> http://www.nasa.gov/content/nasa-supercomputer-generates-closer-look-at-future-climate-conditions-in-us/#.UkfVKWSG1F_ <comment><USER2> Did the models predicting this one get the past 20 years right? With how many free parameters? Tuned after the data collection or before?

As a scientist, the recent failure of nearly all "predictive" climate change models puts into question the methods used to generate these models.

</comment><comment><USER3> 2090s?

How reliable it is to predict with extrapolations on such a scale for nearly a century?

<comment><USER4> Skipping over the fact that they've ignored the last 8 years of cooling and only taken up to 2005, this data is: A "bias-corrected" data set based data simulated from some models, where the bias-correction algorithm is the result of a study which uses a model-derived data set as it's input, where this model-derived data set is itself derived from another model-derived data set, which is calibrated against "psuedo-observations", and I haven't even bothered to look what model they based that on.

I'd say it's about as reliable as a Microsoft operating system.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This does not make any sense. They compare real data with made up data 80 years in the future.

Why they did not show 1950<->2012 comparison?

</comment><comment><USER6> Not as global as I had expected.

</comment><comment><USER7> Title: NASA Supercomputer Generates Closer Look at Future Climate Conditions in U.S.

</comment><comment><USER8> Is it just me, or could the people in a majority of these places (except very south) actually prefer the global warming situation to the current one? The projected map seems rather acceptable.

<comment><USER9> Except that the US is not the world </snark>

<comment><USER8> The particular map is about USA only, but in any case I can imagine many other places where agriculture and population would only benefit from such amounts of warming.

It's not so likely that USA+Canada+EU+Russia will make huge investments to fight a process that won't hurt them but will hurt, say, Africa and southeast Asia. If you want to convince people to take action, then it's important to focus not on global damage but on local effects, since those are far more important to both decision-makers and voters.</comment></comment></comment>


Faked Moon Landing and Kubrick's 'The Shining'  - <AUTHOR> http://news.discovery.com/space/faked-moon-landings-and-kubricks-the-shining.html

<comment><USER2> This particular theory is insane drivel; however, there are _many_ people who believe that the Moon landing was faked. During lunch a couple of months ago, I was surprised that my Chinese colleagues had this belief, too; they told me that this was common "knowledge" in China.

People build interesting belief networks, with sometimes ludicrous conclusions, e.g. the allegation a couple of years ago that Mossad was behind the shark attacks in Egypt ([http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336777/Egypt- shark-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336777/Egypt-shark-attack- Come-waters-lovely-says-Sharm-el-Sheikh-tourism-chief.html))

<comment><USER3> Often the Chinese state would fail to correct, or even tacitly endorse, falsehoods that made the western world look bad.

One other example: pre-Obama, the fact that the US had not had a black president was frequently brought up to prove that our society still embraced racism.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There are many interesting claims about the fake landing. Some of them would be worth actually looking at, just from the "how did that actually happen" perspective... But things like 237 being "close enough" to 238,857 miles is just silly.

How did it ever get on a site like discovery.com?

<comment><USER5> have you seen the discovery channel lately? <http://imgur.com/gallery/At0E0>

<comment><USER4> No, I haven't in about 3-4 years. This is... very disappointing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is ludicrous. Everyone knows "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension" was written to provide cover for Pete Wellers research into oscillating over thrusters and their applications in time travel and rock music.

</comment><comment><USER7> What a piece of drivel. This is anomaly hunting and goalpost moving at its finest.</comment>


Continuations: One Control Flow Construct to Rule Them All - <AUTHOR> http://blog.bytefreeze.com/past/2010/4/29/one_control_flow_construct_to/

<comment><USER2> Sigh. I'm 43 years old and only really grasped _closures_ this January. It's going to take another ten years for my continuation epiphany.

This is what happens when you start with BASIC.

<comment><USER3> Continuations sound confusing because they give you an explicit handle for something that most languages don't let you reference directly: who gets the result of the current computation.

Are you familiar with setjmp/longjmp in C? Continuations are similar, but allow longjmp-ing to the same point multiple times. As you might expect, this gives you a lot of flexibility in defining control constructs.

You can implement exceptions easily via continuations - pass along an alternative continuation to receive errors. Continuations are more _general_ than exceptions, backtracking, co-routining, etc., but this generality can make them seem overly abstract - it can be hard to see what those constructs have in common.

Hey, and don't worry - I started with BASIC too. (I was five or six.) You gotta start somewhere. After you feel comfortable with continuations, try learning about unification. :)

<comment><USER4> > Continuations sound confusing because they give you an explicit handle for > something that most languages don't let you reference directly: who gets the > result of the current computation.

Yes, unfortunately continuations don't play nice with lazy evaluation.

<comment><USER5> How about this? <http://www.haskell.org/all_about_monads/html/contmonad.html>

<comment><USER4> Yes, I know about the continuation monad. But that continuations have to be encapsulated in monads is telling.

I have found a discussion about this <http://lambda-the- ultimate.org/classic/message10560.html>

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Conditional Jump: _Another_ Control Flow Construct to Rule Them All

<comment><USER7> Not another, pretty much the same. If you add to "goto" the required stuff to play nice with closures, you get a continuation.

<comment><USER6> Was that Functional Completeness not obvious in my joke?

Except that in this case, they're not quite as equivalent as NAND / NOR are — continuations assume a lot more "required stuff" (as you put it) than just a basic memory space, a means to test values, and the ability to set the program counter.

<comment><USER4> That is if you approach the requirements from the implementation point of view. In theory continuations aren't really that much more complex than Gotos.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Trader Who Donates Half His Pay - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/05/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-the-trader-who-donates-half-his-pay.html <comment><USER2> I talked about this on HN a few years ago, but my friends and I planned to be this guy. In college we talked about all the money we'd make and how much we'd be able to donate. We all had a job offers for $32 - 42k/year. That was amazing! We were living on less than $1k/month in college. We had plans to give away 20%, 30%, or 50% of our income. We would barely even notice. Some of us even managed to do it for a few years. The world got to us, though. You start to notice that the coworkers that dress nicer and go to happy hour get promotions. One guy married a social worker and had four kids. One guy got tired of living in a studio apartment in New Jersey. One guy became a junior high science teacher. Twenty years later, I suspect that our average charitable contribution is down to around 5% of our income.

It is really hard to be counter-cultural like Mr. Wage. Especially when your plan requires you to remain completely immersed in the culture. It feels like there's a constant friction to overcome--like every choice takes a bit more willpower than it should. I think this is part of the reason that truly counter-cultural people and movements tend to segregate themselves from the rest of the world.

I don't mean to degrade Mr. Wage and his project. I hope this works out for him, but it's a very difficult road.

<comment><USER3> The muscles you use for giving are the same muscles you use to save or pay down debt.

Know what your expenses are and how much you are spending. Know which of the things you spend money for are really important to you, and what you wouldn't actually miss that much. Know how to keep your spending in check as your income grows, not just increasing spending because the money is there.

People tend to react emotionally to the teachers of these principles, like Dave Ramsey or Mr. Money Mustache. But it's not personal. It's just math. You can choose to cut way back on your spending if you want to retire really early, if that's what's most important to you. Or you can choose to spend more extravagantly and retire later (or not at all).

Or instead or retiring early, maybe you want to live really frugally but keep earning as much as possible, so you can give as much as possible. The underlying principles are the same.

<comment><USER4> You are saying it's just as easy to save/donate as it is to spend because the muscles and underlying principles are the same? I wish I'd heard about this sooner.

<comment><USER3> I was comparing saving to donating, and contrasting with spending. So the exact opposite.

Was I really that unclear?

<comment><USER4> To me you were. They are nothing alike to me. Different states of mind, different objectives, different strategies.

Donating and saving are two entirely different activities in my life, and the only similarity are the numbers on the ledger. (one has an immediate payoff (donating feels good) while the other is not satisfying at all (just helps me sleep)).

You're advice sounded a lot like the financial version of, "stop eating less and you won't be fat." ... but I guess that does work for some people ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Matt is a friend of mine, and someone who got career advice from what ultimately became 80,000 Hours, a startup non-profit I cofounded. I'm really happy to see the positive response on here; we've advised a lot of people to 'earn to give' and some people... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career.

Anyone, if anyone feels inspired by the story and thinks they might want to do something similar, I'm always happy to provide advice (you can get my contact details on my website). Not just through finance; there are a ton of software engineers and entrepreneurs in the effective altruism community, and it's really a place where everyone's trying to help each other be more successful - because we'll all do more good that way. If you think you might want to get involved, or find out more, there's a pretty active facebook group where you can introduce yourself. [https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/?ref=br_...](https://www.facebook.com/groups/effective.altruists/?ref=br_tf)

Happy also to take any questions on here.

<comment><USER3> "... let's say they aren't that happy about the idea that working in trading can be an ethical career."

Well, it's at least worth having a discussion about.

If you are in a career where you honestly think damage is being done by your activities, you need to weigh that against whatever good is being done with the money you earn and give away.

What about the traders involved in the near-collapse of the global economy in 2007-2008? It would take a lot of very effective giving to make up for the damage caused.

<comment><USER6> From [http://effective-altruism.com/ea/54/show_me_the_harm/](http://effective- altruism.com/ea/54/show_me_the_harm/):

"Finance is often taken to be the legal high earning career that's most harmful to society. The average Goldman Sachs employee earns around $500,000 per year. If someone joined Goldman and donated half of his earnings to Against Malaria Foundation, that would be about enough to save 100 lives per year (or more accurately, saving 4000 QALYs), plus likely have substantial positive flow-through effects. For Earning to Give at Goldman to be net harmful, the marginal employee would need to be causing the death of a hundred people each year. This would mean that Goldman Sachs employees are several orders of magnitude more deadly than American service people in Iraq.

Goldman has 32,000 employees. An upper bound for the harm caused by the marginal employee is thus the total harm caused divided by 32,000. For the harm to outweigh the good, Goldman would therefore have to be killing at least 3.2 million young people each year, or doing something else that is similarly harmful. That would mean that Goldman Sachs would need to be responsible for around 5% of all deaths in the world. Bear in mind that Goldman Sachs only makes up 22% of American investment banking, and 3% of the American financial industry - if the rest of finance is similarly bad, then it would imply that finance is doing something as bad as causing all the deaths in the world."

<comment><USER7> This is a false equivalence. Even assuming Goldman Sachs causes ongoing significant financial damage (something I'm not convinced of), you can't compare that directly to saving lives with an equivalent amount of money. Apples and oranges.

<comment><USER8> Actually, that is the entire purpose of the Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY). Keep in mind, no one is really intrinsically concerned with the economy as an abstract concept. The things that we really care about are how this complex system affects real humans, and once we're talking about a change in quality of life for humans, we can compare them to saving lives via the QALY. It's the sort of process that's more statistical in nature, but you can get an idea whether you're doing more harm than good. The point above is that a back of the napkin calculation indicates that it is rather unlikely that someone working at Goldman Sachs is causing more harm than good if they donate half their income.

<comment><USER9> So if you killed the Goldman Sachs employee, stole $2 million of their savings, and donated half of that to Against Malaria Foundation, then you'd have saved a net 399 lives, and you'd be $1 million richer. Everyone's a winner!

I get the feeling that this particular accounting methodology is not used to justify actions _against_ wealthy people.

<comment><USER8> There are a number of thought experiments along these lines that philosophers go back and forth on. The general consensus as far as what should be applied to society is that defensive rights trump utilitarian calculus, even when the calculus seems to come out in favor of violating those rights (in this case the employees right to life and property). Different people justify this in different ways.

> I get the feeling that this particular accounting methodology is not used to > justify actions _against_ wealthy people.

Keeping in mind that I would not use this methodology to justify violence or theft against anyone, I'm interested in knowing what actions you think I'm justifying against not-wealthy people that I should be applying to wealthy people as well.

<comment><USER9> The post above said, "to be net harmful, the marginal employee would need to be causing the death of a hundred people each year" and you accepted this as a "back of the napkin calculation". So it certainly appeared as though you were justifying violence, as long as you could pay the wergild (outsourced to Africa, as it's cheaper).

If violence isn't justified by this, and neither is theft, then I've no idea what actions it does justify. Why don't you tell me?

<comment><USER8> That is a very good point, and it made me realize that I was automatically translating the original statement to something other than what the literal words say. My internal translation of the statement that you quote would be "to be net harmful, the marginal employee would need to be causing [an equivalent level of harm expressed in QALYs as killing 100 people] per year", which is different in a subtle way. Specifically, it is possible to cause negative quality without committing a crime. So, someone could argue that the financial industry as a whole (and Goldman Sachs specifically) redistribute assets in such a way as to cause a net lowering in quality of life across all affected without committing any specific crimes in the process. I don't know enough to say whether this is the case, but it doesn't seem obviously wrong to me (that they cause some harm, not that they cause 100 deaths per year per employee level of harm. That seems _way_ too high).

If someone were to use the original statement to say that it would be ok for the employee to kill 50 people and then save 100 in Africa, I would be against that, even if it were necessary to kill the 50 in order to raise the money to save the 100.

Does that help clarify?

<comment><USER9> It does. Though I'm not convinced that it's particularly useful to have such a concept as "an equivalent level of harm expressed in QALYs as killing 100 people" when it's not really that at all.

It still suggests that, something like a 70% retroactive tax on bonuses over $10,000 going back 5 years, would be a net good if the money was spent improving people's lives. Yet I think most people would find such a proposal objectionable, despite its legality.

<comment><USER10> Retroactive taxes are not legal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> From the article:

> First, where do we draw the line? If we're prepared to donate one-third of > our incomes to maximize happiness, then why not two-thirds? Why not live in > a tent in a park so as to be able to donate 99 percent and prevent even more > cases of blindness?

This is an area where the writings of Scott Alexander (Slate Star Codex) have been really helpful for me. He refers to this as "Infinite Debt" ([http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/10/infinite- debt/](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/10/infinite-debt/)):

"For years, I felt like I was probably ethically obligated to give all my income to charity, minus whatever I needed to survive. And the fact that I obviously wasn't going to do that made me not give anything at all.

Once someone told me that my obligation wasn't infinite, but just some finite amount like ten percent per year, every year, I was thrilled to be able to comply.

And of course there are people who make fun of this. "Oh, you really think you can just give an amount you find "convenient", then feel like your conscience is clear and you can stop caring and be smug and self-satisfied?"

The proper response to this person is to ask whether they give so much as ten percent.

("What? No, why should I?! I do my part by yelling at you!")"

<comment><USER11> The problem with that is that it only works if you believe that 10% makes sense. For me it doesn't - it is either 0% or whatever several 100% of my current income it would take to do my part (I don't see how not currently earning enough to repay would be enough to get me of the hook, certainly car payments are not payed in percentage of income).

Thus, for me, the only answer that makes sense is that we have no obligation to save the world, but we are allowed to donate whatever we want. Besides who says all lives have equal value?

<comment><USER8> Actually, the 10% isn't intended to be the Objectively Correct Amount To Donate. If someone accepts any obligation to help their fellow humans, then the conclusion is that they have an (effectively) infinite obligation. However, people operating as if they have an infinite obligation tend to find a way to reject that, or simply shut down and ignore the problem. Thus, picking a lower percentage than 100 that can be endorsed can result in better outcomes than the alternative, and 10% is a nice round Schelling point. It sounds as if you reject the notion that you have an obligation to help other people, which I find interesting. Would you be willing to explain your thoughts on this?

<comment><USER11> I reject any obligation to help any random person. I tried to explain my thinking earlier, basically if you have an infinite debt then you don't have any right over your own life. I firmly reject that notion. The only other objectively correct notion is that you have zero debt, as you said 10% is merely a Schelling point. 1% would do as well, so would 5% or 15%.

Does that make sense?

I am willing to help friends, family, etc because I actually care about them, ie making them happy will make me happy.

I am also willing to save the child in this case, because it is a) close b) not especially burdensome and c) will provide me with some measure of happiness. It is a choice I freely make, not a moral obligation (if it was an adult I really hated I might not have rescued him).

<comment><USER8> It does make sense, thank you for explaining again. I am curious about what meta-ethical system you find to be most compelling. I myself am somewhere within the Consequentialist camp.

The others numbers are also potential Schelling points, but I would argue that 10 is a better one, largely because it matches the Christian Tithe, which western culture is largely familiar with.

In practice, I do find myself with a tiered system of "obligations" (I would also be interested in breaking down this word with you to see if we are using it in the same way, but you may not have either the interest or time, which would be fine). So, loved ones will receive a higher level of help than I give to strangers, which is probably true of most people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> For those interested, one way to build this charitable muscle and lifestyle is to start a charitable trust (at least in the US). It's not just for the ultra wealthy. You can start any old investment account and commit to funding it regularly say $20/month or 1% of your salary to start. Then when you hit $5k or more you can transfer those funds to a trust you create with say Fidelity or Vanguard ($25k minimum). You can then disburse these funds from the trust to the charitable org of your choice.

The nice thing about this option is you can save now without having to decide where to give. You can take time to research and make an educated informed decision on where to give. You also get the dual tax benefit of not getting taxed on these capital gains and the deduction of a donation if you itemize.

It's very cool to see people giving critical thought on how they give. But sometimes it can be intimidating to start. Just starting with anything is better than nothing and you can build from there. You don't have to give 50% like this guy. Building it into your lifestyle and budgeting is a slow and gradual process.

<comment><USER13> I'm interested in this approach - is there any charge to create the trust? Also, I wish the minimum for Vanguard was lower - I already have an investment account with them, and this seems like a great way to get started.

<comment><USER14> The fee is a percentage of your assets: [https://www.vanguardcharitable.org/individuals/fees_and_expe...](https://www.vanguardcharitable.org/individuals/fees_and_expenses/)

It starts at .6% per year, and decreases when the account size is huge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This may be an unpopular opinion, but I've always felt it selfish when people of means partake in 'aid trips' over sending money to an appropriate organization. If you care to help, leverage your abilities efficiently; make the money doing what you're best at, and let others administer the aid.

<comment><USER16> Empirically speaking, aid is almost completely useless[0], no matter who administers it. So whether he gives it all to the "appropriate organization" or "wastes" some of it on an aid trip is ultimately irrelevant.

[0] Easterly's book is great if you're interested in the stats: [http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth- Misadventures...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Elusive-Quest-Growth- Misadventures/dp/0262550423)

<comment><USER17> Function of aid is not to cause economic growth. Function of aid is to have a child not die of malaria.

<comment><USER18> The ciriticism is that malaria is just a symptom of the larger problem of a lack of economic growth and development. Aid can save a child from malaria, but it will never solve the underlying problem.

<comment><USER19> Reducing or eradicating these diseases removes a huge burden from those in extreme poverty, it definitely is among the underlying problems that contribute to a lack of growth. It's also the most tractable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here's the view of the trader's professor (Peter Singer) on being ethical with one's money (in the first few minutes he gives his famous example of a child drowning). [https://youtube.com/watch?v=dBvsZVlcXR4](https://youtube.com/watch?v=dBvsZVlcXR4) (7 min)

This 14 min lecture goes through Singer's example, and it explores his view further. [https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pyzv2UWzaos](https://youtube.com/watch?v=Pyzv2UWzaos)

<comment><USER21> thats an interesting video. Gave me a lot of food for thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe)

10% of income is doable.

I treat it like a form of tax in which I have a say. It's going to be taken (that's the way in which I think of it as a tax), but now I get to say who receives it.

Last year I favoured Medicine San Frontiers due to the Ebola outbreak, but in general I favour Liberty, Open Rights Group and small charities that provide computers to Africa, or bicycles for the disabled in the UK (Wheels for Wellbeing).

10% really isn't too much, and so long as you do it early you'll likely never notice it.

Then again... perhaps this is why I don't have a deposit for a mortgage. Or perhaps that was poor budgeting for the bit of salary I did take home and keep.

</comment><comment><USER23> The money he earns has to come from somewhere - what benefits a hedge fund is not likely to benefit the 'disposable populations' [for lack of a better term] that one of the fund's traders is supporting. In other words, if your hedge fund makes money by betting against the 3rd World, then half of your salary is only going to go so far for karmic rebalancing.

<comment><USER7> > if your hedge fund makes money by betting against the 3rd World

What makes you think that's how they make their money?

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> > Singer himself donates about one-third of his income to charity, he says, > and I admire his commitment. Still, I wonder... where do we draw the line?

Peter Singer himself wrote, in the New York Times Magazine, nearly a decade ago, an article titled "What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?"

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?...](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/magazine/17charity.t.html?pagewanted=all)

</comment><comment><USER25> I am not sure if this is really "effective altruism". When I decided to leave a high paying job to start an education startup in order to pursue my passion to make a change through education, I got similar advice. I was told it would be more "effective" to keep my job and donate the money to education related charities instead. But I realized that as an software engineer, my skills could prove much more impactful, and directly so than the relatively meagre money I could donate. As they say money is cheap. I felt, and I still feel I could amplify my impact by using my skills rather than just throwing money at the problem.

Second, I wanted to be more aware and involved in the issues I wanted to contribute to, which I couldn't do unless I dove in. There are a lot of good organization out there that are making great impact, but there are equal number of "bad" ones that are perhaps having a negative impact or are not aligned to ones values. GiveWell and CharityNavigator can only go so far.

<comment><USER26> I think both you and the article are in-line with effective altruism (the movement). The crux of EA is objectively and dispassionately deciding what causes do the most good with your scarce resources (time & money) and deciding how to best support them. Reasonable people will disagree on whether working in the industry or donating profits from a higher-paying industry will work better for you. Education isn't a popular EA cause but whether it is or isn't optimal depends on the change you think your start-up will have contrasted against what impact you could have elsewhere.

Check out [https://80000hours.org](https://80000hours.org) for a way more in- depth exploration of the different career-related EA strategies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> This article has a few links but REALLY is lacking this one:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giving_What_We_Can](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giving_What_We_Can) [https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/](https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/)

And interesting bunch of people where you pledge to donate X% of your pre-tax income to charity for life. The founder, Toby Ord capped his income to 18,000 British Pounds:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Ord](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Ord)

</comment><comment><USER28> "Mr. Wage" is a lovely example of an aptronym: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptronym)

<comment><USER29> Not to be a downer, but it's pronounced "wah-GEE", with a hard G.

source: used to work a few desks down from Matt.

<comment><USER30> Wow, now _there 's_ a guy guaranteed to have his name mispronounced 99% of the time (well, at least by people who have never heard it spoken). [ edited for typo ]

<comment><USER5> I know; his brother actually just gave up and started introducing himself as "Wage" (pronounced as you'd think) rather than "WAG-ee"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Right now I don't give a large amount to charity past Kiva loans (I try to average $25 every month or two) and a handful of causes online (sub $500/yr) on an as-needed basis. I'm trying to be as aggressive as possible paying off my debt (my debt payoff is a little over 30% of what I take home monthly and I plan on using the "snowball method" so that number will not change as I pay off debt to accelerate the payoff) because it doesn't seem smart to give away money when that puts me on the hook for more money (interest). If there is an error in this logic I would greatly appreciate it being pointed out to me.

I'd be interested in increasing my charitable contributions but I'm not sure where would be best to send more money to. I am personally a fan of direct charity instead of going through an organization as I feel it reduces overhead. I like Kiva loans because once I get paid back I just re-loan the money so that slowly I am increasing the amount I loan monthly while keeping my monthly contribution the exact same (or slowly increasing it, I want to get to $50/mo within a few months). I also like Kiva because I know exactly how much is going to Kiva vs the person asking for money (something that is hidden or hard to find out for most charities IMHO).

My approach is not based on anything specific it's more of just what has happened naturally since I started working full time.

</comment><comment><USER26> How many here are pursuing a similar goal? Donating 5%, 10%, even 50% of their pre-tax income? I love the effective altruist movement - it's pretty much what I spend most of my time thinking and reading about - but this is a very touchy subject to discuss casually so I've never met people in real life (or in my industry) who are also into this.

My own goal is to give about 50% of lifetime earnings, though with the flexibility to scale that back to a floor of 20% in the event my income drops a lot (I'm at the mercy of tech salaries, and just not willing to jump to a career that destroys my work-life balance).

The tech industry is known for having a disproportionate amount of effective altruists, given how pragmatic and numerical the conclusion to donate to the most effective charities is.

<comment><USER5> That's great! (I'm guessing I probably know you, but can't tell who you are). I'm hoping to donate >50% too; I've been donating about 10% but I've been on a low salary; next year I'll be able to do 50% I think.

<comment><USER32> Not sure if you'll see this, but this thread inspired me to send an email to 80K, which I've known about for a while. I'm planning to become a 50+% donator in the next couple of years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Sure enough, he says that in 2013 he donated more than $100,000, roughly > half his pretax income.

This is pretty impressive to me. Many will say "well, if half of it is 100k, he still has at least 100k", except this is pretax, meaning he keeps less than 100k; besides, before saying it's not a big deal, how much are you contributing?

I personally donate 40% of my post tax income anonymously to various initiatives/organizations, which means even less pretax, but that's what I can afford without jeopardizing my family's well being.

It doesn't have to be monetary, but a little bit of help goes a long way. I'm glad there are people who do whatever they can to help out with the less fortunate.

</comment><comment><USER34> If only our government taxed people appropriately and had a system for foreign aid that was well studied and effective. Is whats proposed in this article as effective or better than the alternative? I have no idea but it certainly seems less organized.

<comment><USER19> It probably does lose out on some coordination efficiency that a hypothetical world government could achieve, but in today's world governments have a mandate to care for their own citizens before others, which means that first world governments miss out on the incredibly cheap interventions in the developing world. For example, the NHS in Britain will spend as much as £30,000 to provide a QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Year), when a similar year of life in the developing world can be provided for £50 at a conservative estimate.

</comment></comment><comment> _-__--- I think that this is great!

Here's an idea, and one that may already be implemented (please tell me if you know that it is and who is doing it): One could set up a charitable nonprofit that uses HFT systems to maximize the growth of donated assets before sending them off to other charitable organizations. Investors would be able to influence where the money is donated at the end of the day. In a sense, use the "easy money" from wall street to back altruistic endeavors.

The problem that I see with this is the easy chance for corruption and graft; however, given a clear altruistic management philosophy, a truly dedicated group of people could run a tight ship and make a difference for people in need.

Maybe.

<comment><USER35> Those HFT traders profit from the clumsier pension funds and other similar funds. e.g. algorithm detecting a broker, on behalf of a fund, is buying some stock with one batch per hour, so front run them. They are profiting from teachers and the elderly. I suppose at the end of the day half of the resources lost to those two groups are given to the even more worse off, albeit giving charity administrators a cut.

<comment><USER36> Fund managers also employ dealers who very much do not buy stock one batch an hour so as to allow HFTs to profit from them. They have a fiduciary duty to their clients to aim for best execution, so if they were being disadvantaged they would be crying out to regulators - who like to look after pension funds.

The head of Vanguard is on the record saying that his firm benefits from HFTs actions on the market. Narrower margins are a good thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> There was a story of a university researcher doing this a few years ago, on a for more modest wage.

[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11950843](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11950843)

On the one hand I think its far more generous, though as pointed out, the trader will end up donating a lot more cash.

Either way, good on them.

I have too much uncertainly about my future to make such a commitment at this moment (and to be fair I really think that politics should arrange a fairer society so that individuals don't need to do such things). It's in the back of my head that if I get rich I could do so much more for society.

</comment><comment><USER38> I know about one well known tech executive who donates about half his income every year, and increases that percentage by 1% each year (he's been doing this for a few decades, since before he "made it.") Granted, not everyone is in the position to do this, but the point is that there are people who have managed to keep a serious long term commitment to philanthropy, but whose efforts are (probably intentionally), not so well known.

</comment><comment><USER39> There was a similar story with Jason Trigg, an MIT graduate who went to work for a hedge fund just so he could give money away, also influenced by Peter Singer. See these discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5800345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5800345)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5819762](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5819762)

Here's the top comment from the second link:

 _Quote from quanticle:

            If you choose a profession that doesn't arouse your everyday passion for
    	the sake of serving instead some abstract faraway good, you might end up as a
    	person who values the far over the near. You might become one of those people
    	who loves humanity in general but not the particular humans immediately
    	around. You might end up enlarging the faculties we use to perceive the far
    	-- rationality -- and eclipsing the faculties we use to interact with
    	those closest around -- affection, the capacity for vulnerability and
    	dependence. Instead of seeing yourself as one person deeply embedded in a
    	particular community, you may end up coolly looking across humanity as a
    	detached god.

Brooks sees this as a disdvantage, but I do not. Frankly, given the levels of irrational thought and behavior we see in the world today, we should be doing everything we can to increase the amount of rationality and far-oriented thinking in the world. I would posit that a world in which people were more like Jason Trigg would be a far better world, on every measurable metric, than the present that David Brooks endeavors to defend. I mean, Trigg, at least, has a goal and a plan to achieve it. The goal is the old utilitarian one of achieving the greatest good for the greatest number. The means is to earn lots of money and spend it on that goal.

            Third, and most important, I would worry about turning yourself into a means
    	rather than an end. If you go to Wall Street mostly to make money for charity,
    	you may turn yourself into a machine for the redistribution of wealth. You may
    	turn yourself into a fiscal policy.

And what's wrong with that? The problem with fiscal policy is not the goal of fiscal policy. It is the coercive means used to achieve it. There is no coercion here. No one is forcing Jason Trigg to give away his wealth. He is doing it of his own volition. Were he older and richer, he'd be lauded as another Carnegie, or another Gates.

            Making yourself is different than producing a product or an external outcome,
    	requiring different logic and different means. I'd think you would be more
    	likely to cultivate a deep soul if you put yourself in the middle of the
    	things that engaged you most seriously. If your profoundest interest is dying
    	children in Africa or Bangladesh, it's probably best to go to Africa or
    	Bangladesh, not to Wall Street.

That's not true at all. Sure, if you have skills that are needed in Africa or Bangladesh, it's best to go there. But not everyone has such skills. If we all pitched in like Jason Trigg and managed to get a cheap malaria vaccine crafted, say, 3 years from now, we'll have done far more good than if we'd all gone to Bangladesh or Africa volunteering to hand out bed nets. It comes down to the old question: are you worried about doing good or feeling good? If you're worried about doing good, you coldly analyze all the alternatives, and pick the one with the highest impact, even if it has zero visibility whatsoever. If you're worried about feeling good, you do what David Brooks advocates. You go down to Africa, Asia, or where-ever and get warm fuzzies by hoisting the white man's burden.

Rationality is not a sin. Calculation is not a sin. Money is not inherently sinful. All of these things are means, and have the capability to do both great good or great harm, depending on the end to which they're applied. Jason Trigg understands this. David Brooks does not. And that's why I, personally, respect Jason Trigg a lot more than David Brooks._

</comment><comment><USER40> "What is the moral code of altruism? The basic principle of altruism is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value.

Do not confuse altruism with kindness, good will or respect for the rights of others. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, altruism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of altruism, the basic absolute, is self-sacrifice—which means; self-immolation, self-abnegation, self-denial, self-destruction—which means: the self as a standard of evil, the selfless as a standard of the good.

Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should not give a dime to a beggar. That is not the issue. The issue is whether you do or do not have the right to exist without giving him that dime. The issue is whether you must keep buying your life, dime by dime, from any beggar who might choose to approach you. The issue is whether the need of others is the first mortgage on your life and the moral purpose of your existence. The issue is whether man is to be regarded as a sacrificial animal. Any man of self- esteem will answer: "No." Altruism says: "Yes.""

-Ayn Rand

<comment><USER41> Gotta love Ayn Rand and her incredible ability to make bare, simplified, polarising dichotomies out of rich, complex topics, then paint the extreme opposite to her as evil, without examining whether her own chosen extreme may be equally evil. I mean, she really has taken the "build a straw man and set it on fire" approach to an art form (quite literally... and I'd add that the Fountainhead is a great book, if thoroughly misguided from a philosophical point of view).

Altruism as she defines it is obviously crap. What she fails to do is to clarify the extreme egocentrism that she proposes in an equally critical way. Here's an amusing attempt to do so using her own format:

> _" What is the moral code of egocentrism? The basic principle of egocentrism > is that other people have no right to exist other than for your sake, that > service to you is the only justification of their existence, and that their > sacrifice for your good is their highest moral duty, virtue and value._

> _Do not confuse egocentrism with self-respect, self-awareness or respect for > your rights. These are not primaries, but consequences, which, in fact, > egocentrism makes impossible. The irreducible primary of egocentrism, the > basic absolute, is the total unimportance of the other—which means; not > caring one whit about others, using them for your own means, sacrificing > their feelings and even their lives if necessary—which means: the other as a > standard of evil, the self as a standard of the good._

> _Do not hide behind such superficialities as whether you should or should > not use people. That is not the issue. The issue is whether those people > have the right to exist without being of use to you. The issue is whether > you are really compelled to notionally support the existence, day by day, of > people who are of no apparent use to you. The issue is whether your needs > are the first mortgage on their life and the moral purpose of their > existence. The issue is whether other people are to be regarded as > sacrificial animals. Any man worth calling that will answer: "No." > Egocentrism says: "Yes." "_

As usual, the better place to sit is somewhere in the middle. No, you do not exist just to serve others, and total self-abnegation and sacrifice is certainly not a productive way to live. Neither, however, is total self- adoration and worship of your ego. Both are mistaken paths. The far better path is to realise that you need a balance of both respect for your own self, and connection to others, to live a good, fulfilled life.

For your own sake, fobcat, and not for mine, I hope you can read and understand the above...

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> Could anyone explain to me how donating money to charities is better than giving money to your family, service providers and businesses that give you food and goods?

</comment><comment><USER43> $200K in pretax income ... nice.

<comment><USER44> Keep in mind, he does live in NY and works on Wall St so he likely needs $100k to live a decent middle class life tbh.

\----

Since it doesn't want me to reply again [I'm submitting too fast]

If you can support a family of 4 in NY with less than $100k while qualifying as middle class, I'm curious how you manage it. :)

[http://council.nyc.gov/html/action/acpdfs/middle_Class_squee...](http://council.nyc.gov/html/action/acpdfs/middle_Class_squeeze.pdf)

Fyi:

Real median household income for all working age residents adjusted for a family of four peaked in 2001 at slightly over $72,000, and for middle class households at just over $111,000. During the 2001-2008 cycle, however, median middle income actually fell despite the strong growth of the City's economy, and has continued to fall during the recovery – for reasons that will be discussed further on – declining 7.8 percent in inflation-adjusted terms.

For NYC, $100,000 is a very average middle class income. Cost of living by area does matter.

<comment><USER45> That and he's in a field that has volatile pay and employment so extra nest egg is essential. Not sure how he builds up savings (probably lives very frugal) but props to him for donating half his pay.

<comment><USER46> Living on $75k or so after-tax in NYC as a young single man isn't 'very frugal'. A nice room in a roommate situation can be had for $1000/mo, a very nice one for $2000, which totals $12k-$24k per year. Likewise a modest reasonably-located 1bedroom/studio can be had for $2000/mo. After that, the only mandatory expenses are $1000 or so a year for transportation and reasonable expenses for food, though much of that cost is likely paid by his employer.

<comment><USER45> I'd argue that it's extremely frugal given the city's high cost of living and like I mentioned above, an industry where pay and employment is volatile. He could easily get laid off or paid down year over year through no fault of his own. Your living expenses do not leave much leftover in the way of savings, travel (kinda good to vacation in a high stress job), or even just experiencing what one of the greatest cities in the world has to offer.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> I'm ashamed to say I donate $0. It's the right thing to do, it's altruistic and I respect the people that do it; but I can't bring myself to care more about the rest of the world then I care about myself/my family. Am i the norm or the minority?

<comment><USER48> You and your family live in the rest of the world. It's not _just_ altruistic, it's also rational for your own self interests. It's not mutually exclusive: That's a false dichotomy.

If you can't care about your community enough to donate _something_ , then I think your values may need reexamining. Even if that _something_ is donation of old clothes and used items instead of throwing everything away.

And finally, it's not about how many people donate and how many don't. It's the right thing to do, and asking if you're "the norm" is just looking for a justification. Do the right thing. Don't just be narrowly selfish.

<comment><USER47> Logic doesn't apply in this case. If I donate money I am acting against logic.

My self interest benefits more if I use the money for myself rather then giving it away and getting the benefits in a form that is heavily diluted. It is the aggregate donations of people that can, in the end mutually benefit my self interest. However my individual donation is just a drop in the bucket; I stand to benefit the most by not donating and letting others donate. Thus, the logical move is to not donate. It is actually counter intuitively detrimental to my self interest if everyone acted this way. Garrett Hardin described the paradox in his famous paper:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)

This does not mean I think it's ok not to donate. A large part of our lives as humans are not dictated by logic. What I meant in the original post is that from an emotional standpoint I just don't feel a heavy burden that I need to donate. $20000 that could be a donation I'd rather spend on a worthless luxury (i.e. new car) for me... and that's not logic talking either, it's just my gut, emotional desire.

<comment><USER49> You said it yourself, "worthless luxury" is worthless. Your emotional desire once met will be only be temporary before you desire the next thing. It's an endless consumption cycle which will leave you feeling empty inside but with a garage full of junk. Donating to noble causes would have you the reverse of that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Should you also donate money to save hypothetical aliens in a far away galaxy, if we find out they exist? What about a fund to help people relocate from flooded cities from global warming 200 years in the future? What about donating to keep A.I. simulations from being shut off? Why donate to help people and not animals or bacteria? What about the fact that the universe is going to die from entropy, and all people die anyways from old age? What's the point?

Note: I try to not donate any of my money to any cause ever

<comment><USER51> Because some people are not as lucky. Some people don't have the basics such as water which we take for granted and it is all because of LUCK.

What's the point of life if not to help each other survive and enjoy life?

Sure, you need to keep yourself and your family comfortable but to actively distance yourself away from ANY kind of donation is just sub-human imo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> We all almost do through taxes. He goes further and donates 50% more from the remaining money.

<comment><USER2> > We all almost do through taxes. He goes further and donates 50% more from > the remaining money.

This is an odd argument. Are you saying that paying taxes is some form of altruism? The story is about a guy who donates money with no tangible benefit to himself. We all get benefits and services from the government. It debatable whether the value we receive is equal to the amount we pay in taxes, but the value is certainly not zero.

<comment><USER7> US entitlement spending is about 66% of the federal budget. Unless you're on disability, medicare, social security, or some other entitlement program that's money you're receiving no direct benefits from.

<comment><USER53> I dunno, I think the government employees (federal and, because much of the federal entitlement spending is joint state/federal programs like Medicaid) and contractors paid to work directly in the administration of those programs (or, in the case of companies running Medicare Advantage plans, working in for-profit businesses directly subsidized by the entitlement spending) are receiving at least as direct a benefit from those programs as the program recipients are, and often, per person, a much _larger_ benefit, as well.

<comment><USER7> Government employees and administration are overhead.

<comment><USER53> > Government employees and administration are overhead.

The only way you get close to the claimed 66% number is if you are including all spending, including overhead, of the programs identified.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> This is the same Peter Singer who told parents not to send their kids to college and instead send their tuition money to Africa. But apparently, if you send your kid to college anyway, he could make enough to send half his salary to Africa every year, far outweighing his parents' initial college fund. So who is right?

I like that Singer holds this guy up as an example, for doing the exact opposite of what Singer actually claimed was morally right.

<comment><USER7> Source?</comment></comment>


Kiwi Browser is now 100% open-source (including Chrome Extensions support) - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kiwibrowser/status/1251450250289651712 <comment><USER2> Between this and the new Firefox fenix, soon to replace the old Firefox for Android, lots of good news !

Kiwi is still way ahead for its support of desktop Android.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wish there was a way to keep track of the new forks/browsers stemming from this. Would like to try different chromium browsers that supports extensions, hacks and modifications.</comment>


The Mystery of the Phantom App Updates - <AUTHOR> http://www.lapcatsoftware.com/articles/mystery-phantom-app-updates.html <comment><USER2> >Mystery unsolved. Mission unaccomplished. I'm still quite puzzled why Apple shipped all of these phantom app updates.

So , somebody knows the reason of the phantom updates?

<comment><USER3> I wonder if Apple somehow lost the original key.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Speculation: they found an issue in the previous compiler, identified apps that maybe were affected by the issue, and so recompiled them?

I can't figure out another reason myself… I know it is __never __a compiler bug, but it could be something less serious.

</comment><comment><USER5> So, does anyone with a jailbroken iOS device want to decrypt the .text sections and bindiff them? I'd be very curious to see what the actual changes are.

</comment><comment><USER6> > So there you have it, folks, definitive proof that expired signing certs do > not prevent an app from launching on iOS

Hmm. What is the point of notBefore/notAfter constraints if they don't do anything?

<comment><USER7> In Windows software signing, the notBefore/notAfter specifies when the app has to be signed. If the certificate (or issuing certificate?) has a certain magic flag, which most do, the signature will be valid forever as long as it was made within the validity window.

To know whether the signature is made within the validity window (or at least, not backdated), a countersignature from a timestamping service is added. If the countersignature or the flag in the cert is missing, an expiring cert will prevent the application from starting (Mumble had that problem), but if both are present, the signature is valid forever.

No idea if OSX handles it the same way, but it would make sense if they did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This happened with my app trail camera on my phone as well... Didnt realize others experienced the same thing.

Its curious that both of us worked on the apps receiving the phantom update

<comment><USER9> Same here for my app, but I'm not sure it's so curious. It's unlikely I would have realized it was a phantom update vs a regular update if I weren't the developer of the app.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Can Rogue Amoeba Software use one of their two technical support requests to get an answer from Apple?

<comment><USER11> Apple Kremlinology suggests they'd be hesitant to provide that information with a paper trail. There would be a lot less mysteries in the Apple world if they did.

That said, you could probably get an answer at WWDC, if you find one of the code signing guys at the lab and corner them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Compromised key at Apple?

<comment><USER13> The article addresses this:

> It turns out that AirPort Utility is code signed with the exact same > certificate chain as the old version of Airfoil Satellite. So if there is a > problem with the old signing certs, whether expiration or something else, > the problem still exists with AirPort Utility. Presumably this fact would > also rule out the (highly unlikely) possibility of private key compromise.

If an Apple key was compromised, why would they go through the effort of resigning old third party apps but not one of their own?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What has recently pissed you off that ideally a product could solve? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I mentioned this in another topic, but grocery shopping. The entire process seems inefficient. New idea...

You place an order online or on your mobile phone while you're at work, or on the bus. After you decide on your order, the app generates a unique code. The grocery store is now replaced with an automated warehouse, with pickup or drive-through windows. You walk up to a window, scan your unique code that was generated earlier, swipe your credit card to confirm, and the warehouse automatically picks your items and out they come in bags. You toss them in your trunk if it's a drive-through, or just carry them away if these are city center stores.

Optionally, the store could have a little room to pick your own fruit and veggies, in case you prefer to see them.

This makes the whole process a lot more flexible. You could even remove the concept of placing orders and generating codes, and instead have a grocery store account for your household. For example, you ask your son to pick the groceries down the street. After he leaves, you realize you want some curry powder. You just click a button on your phone to add curry powder to the online list, and that's it. Your son doesn't even need to know, he just shows up at the window, scans your family card or enters a password, and out comes your groceries, including the newly added curry powder. After he gets the groceries, the online list clears.

<comment> workhere-io Or even better, you could order your food in a mobile app (or on a website), and the supermarket would deliver to your home later at a time you choose, e.g. between 4 and 5 PM. Several supermarkets such as [http://www.nemlig.com/](http://www.nemlig.com/) do this in Denmark for a delivery price of just $3.5.

<comment><USER3> I agree, we actually sketched a very similar process (and a business model canvas) with some friends during a brainstorming idea :) .

One particularly promising idea was combining internet orders, with a pick-up place like BufferBox.

We also added some ideas to our canvas that were more specific to my country, but it's definitely viable and among my favourite things I'd do if I was able to do a startup. I hope someone is able to do it.

[https://www.bufferbox.com/](https://www.bufferbox.com/)

Edit: swapbox too, it seems bufferbox is winding down which is sad.

[https://www.swapbox.com/](https://www.swapbox.com/)

I don't see if those offer refrigerated holding. I think a similar service, specializing in foodstuffs, has a niche.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Sending money internationally.

Comparing products across brands (they all have specs but the way they sort the specs is different and it's a pain to flip through tons of tabs).

Finding a chair to fit my kitchen table (given the dimensions of both).

Diagramming my bedroom to try to figure out if I can build a better bed.

Finding furniture that fits in a given volume (in my case, I want to find a trolley or counter that's Y cm high, at least X cm long, and between Z1 and Z2 cm deep).

<comment><USER5> Regarding your first point I recently used www.transferwise.com recently to transfer money from my UK bank account (GBP) to a US bank account (USD). It was pretty quick (took 3 days) and I got a very good rate (taking into account the fees involved). I'd definitely recommend them.

<comment><USER4> Apparently they don't support JPY yet, but thanks for the heads-up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I want a content marketing platform that let's you easily turn blog posts into other units of content (videos, infographics, slideshows, whitepapers) without going to 9 different systems.

<comment><USER7> Not sure how a blog post can turn into a video... or an infographic if it's not visual. A slideshow - that's doable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I've been wanting an easy way to gauge opinions and ideas on a topic between a small group of friends/co-workers without creating accounts on a service.

For example, I want to ask "what are your thoughts on the new logo?" and have my co-workers leave comments and upvote/downvote each other's opinions.

Ideally, like a HN/Reddit-style upvote/downvote comment system where they could just type their name in and comment/vote.

<comment><USER9> Hmm, just out of curiosity, what do you find not sufficient enough to support this with existing systems like facebook?

<comment><USER8> One of my main use cases are company email chains of 50 or so employees where I think it'd be annoying to send a link asking for everyone's opinion but requiring them to sign-up for a quick, one-time voting.

For Facebook, not all of us are friends, and a few of them don't have Facebook, so it might seem a little rude to request that.

<comment><USER9> Interesting.. I've ran into similar situation before although it was not at a work environment, more like an email thread that contains ~30 friends to ask for opinions on some activity, and not everyone is facebook friends with each others. I do find email threads create "spams" for people who do not have as strong of an opinion on the topic, but it didn't seem annoying enough to piss anyone off. Are there something else that you really dislike about using the email chain itself to ask for opinion/suggestions?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Moving my single-player game progress between computers.

A few months ago I completed a game on an old Windows PC. Recently, I acquired a new PC, and had to unlock all the levels of the game again by playing through the game from beginning to end.

It's just a minor inconvenience, so it doesn't really "piss me off"; it is just something that would be nice to have.

<comment><USER11> Use a Virtual machine? I hope your old PC is not so old that VM is very slow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A system for better communication during different crises. People always complain when things go wrong and the authorities in charge don't give away information, or give it away in such a way that all people involved don't receive it.

I.e. my girlfriend was on a train recently, which stopped for one hour outside of the station. No information was given until nearer the end of that. Why?

A system that everyone could use: the first responders could provide information on the situtation. Editors could then format this for customers / people affected. Some other system could deliver it (something like iBeacons?).

<comment><USER13> Trains in the UK are a nightmare when they're delayed.

I spent seven years working from home, making a trip from my home to company- HQ every few weeks. The train information board would also say "Train Late: ETA $(current time + 1 minute)".

Even if they knew in advance it had to be 30+ minutes behind schedule it would always say something like "Time: 13:30, ETA: 13:32" or so. Then keep updating. It meant you never had any idea if the train would genuinely turn up in a minute, or if it would still be lying to you an hour later.

I did seem to suffer from bad luck on the days I travelled, due to land- slides, rain, wind, or power-failures on various parts of the line. I usually kept waiting, but some days you could tell there would be no useful service. (i.e. They'd offer buses instead of trains, and that meant a 2 hour trip down, a working day, and a 2 hour trip back was just written off because a bus might take 4-5 hours to make one leg of the journey.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well here's my idea:

A shopping list, but the trick is it knows where the food is in store, and arranges the list so that items on list are located close in store. For example, this is original list: apples, milk, hotdogs, chips. Lets say store has milk and meat on one side, and apples and chips on the other side. The app will rearrange to: apples, chips, milk, hotdogs. And perhaps give you a little map of store to show you were things are.

<comment><USER15> This is a great idea (had it myself at one point); the problem is you would have to have buyin from the grocery store itself, and like a casino...the more time you spend in it the more money they make.

<comment><USER14> That's a good point. Still, it's probably manageable to accomplish for major stores by manually mapping some out (or letting your app users map it out). I usually go to bigger stores, because you can find everything in one store. People who shop often wouldn't need the app, since they remember where everything is.

The same idea expanded a bit, could be to optimize for money. For example, if your list is going to be $200, you might save 20 dollars by shopping in two/few separate stores (accounting for gas), and app could divide the list into multiple lists per store. This is way harder, because prices change all the time (store layout doesn't change as often), and usually you can't look up prices online. The app could take into account any store coupons (assuming manufacturer coupons could be used in any store). The target audience for this are people who are willing to trade in time to save few dollars. I'm not sure they will have smartphones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Lottery Pools.

The lottery pool manager where we work keeps a physical list of who has paid up. Email invites were being sent through our company emails, but the higher- ups put the squash on that. She then scans the tickets, makes copies, and hands them out.

I decided to build something that would automate all of this except the buying of tickets.

</comment><comment><USER17> A cheaper CRM that I can extend with plugins. Really, right now these things are super expensive for a small company in, say, east Europe. Also, there are tons of them for developers, none very good for businesses. I want the "standard" goodies (teams, tasks, admin panel, etc.), but then I want to be able to easily build on top of those.

</comment><comment><USER18> The damn hold music on freeconferencecall.com! Why can't there be a product to let you choose your own music!

<comment><USER19> Perhaps if you pay?

<comment><USER18> Let me clarify -- let the user choose what music they would want to hear. I.e. let them listen to the music on their iPhone and then have the conference call interrupt their music playback when ready. Not sure if technically feasible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I get pissed when reading an article on CNN and end up clicking a few click- bait type articles or videos in the right column. It takes ALL of my self control to avoid some of these. Maybe a browser plug-in that removes all these annoying recommended things which have NOTHING to do with the article.

<comment><USER20> [https://www.readability.com/](https://www.readability.com/)

Have you ever heard of readability? It's a plugin that removes link-bait crap and reformats articles into a standard format.

<comment><USER18> I've heard of them, let me try them out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Notarizing and having to physically mail said notarization.

</comment><comment><USER22> Saran Wrap. I hate the stuff. This is not a software problem though haha.

<comment><USER23> I hate it too! I've started using reusable wraps, like Bee's Wrap ([http://www.beeswrap.com/](http://www.beeswrap.com/)) or Abeego ([http://abeego.com/](http://abeego.com/)).

<comment><USER22> Those both look pretty awesome - great suggestion! I might just purchase some because of your suggestion. I absolutely loathe using plastic wrap haha.

<comment><USER23> They're so so great. Unlike plastic wrap which inevitably gets wrapped in itself and you have to cut it and mess with it, this is really substantial, you just pull it out of the drawer and you're done. And I have no problems washing it. I was using foil before I found this and that's even more of a waste...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is great thread for ideas!

</comment><comment><USER25> DMV</comment>