Ask HN: What do you want from an online travel guide? - <AUTHOR>

We've been thinking about creating a new kind of travel guide website
We have analyzed a lot of websites but now we are just going around and asking people what they think is missing.
Please share your views. Thank you <comment><USER2> A way to say where I 'need' to be for various times during a trip (pre-planned events, arrival/departure times + places, any business meetings), and then to have suggestions for things to do in the between-times and spaces.

In other words, it's a routing problem - I have these fixed points in space + time - what interesting things/events exist in-between those and are routable?

(also needs to allow sensible amounts of time for food breaks, lots of buffer time to enjoy the surroundings, etc)

<comment><USER3> This! It would be nice if the places recommended were aggregated from the typical go-tos for travel (Yelp, TripAdvisor) - rather than starting yet- another place for reviews/opinion content. Also potential integration or partnership with Rome2Rio and/or Uber transport suggestions.

Currently I am doing all this manually in various apps, and entering the data into TripIt (which is also sort of ugly).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've noticed that people travel very very differently. So I would enjoy a guide that segregates users into the different reasons/ways they travel. For example some people will go to a foreign city specifically to see any ancient sites, historical museums and to people watch. Someone else might go to the exact same city but would be more interested in the food and learning the language. Same thing with safety vs adventure. Most travel sites try to fit all of this into a single "guide" which means that the typical reader probably doesn't care about half of it. So an app that allows me to select a city and then filter it's suggestions on the type of things I want to do would be much more useful than just a single long article. Then once you have this data you could rank cities as the best for historical sites, romances, nightlife, food, etc.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm satisfied with the current quantity and quality of online travel guides.

</comment><comment><USER6> I want something with printable "zines" with recommendations for places to eat, sleep, and visit.

Like this, but printable and free : [http://www.telescopecards.com/](http://www.telescopecards.com/)

I like to travel without my "devices" \- I DO NOT want something that relies on my cell phone or cell service to work.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's difficult to find a tour guide (professional) when you are an independant traveler. You are just acces to buy some activity but not to find a proper tour guide for a city or a monument.

</comment><comment><USER8> For me personally, safe places to go and clean places to go and eat. You could say that I am more about the comfort rather than the adventure. Tips and tricks on how to use public transit without getting me into trouble would be good. I am also big on food and would love to hit the finest restaurants (budget and cleanliness in check).

<comment><AUTHOR> so points of interest plus nearby attractions and places to eat all in one page?

<comment><USER8> I believe most guides/sites already the general points of interest and nearby attractions. The issue for me with those is that it's not entirely personalized to my needs and taste (comfort, luxury and convenience).

I know friends who are into street food, living in hostels and being fully immersed in the culture. For myself, I prefer living in more comfortable hotels and eating at restaurants. Seems like the guides out there are either very generic or catered to my friends who are more adventurous. But nothing for the slightly conservative, affordable luxury traveller.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would like to be able to build schedules. Not necessarily for a specific day (though that as well), but just "day plans". These should then of course have a corresponding map, as well as estimated distance between places with various forms of transit.

</comment><comment><USER10> Videos of just walking the streets of various cities. It's nice to have pictures and descriptions of the usual go-to places, but show me what the place is actually like.

<comment><AUTHOR> do you mean sort of like google map but professionally done?

How long do you think the video should be? and from what vantage point? maybe filmed by a drone? or on a bike?

Also do you want videos from the insides as well?

<comment><USER10> Just walking videos going down the street, maybe showing the architecture, the stores, the people. You get to hear the sounds, see the sights, and get a sense for what the pace is. It could have narrative or not. It could be indoors or not. I think this is something that can be crowdsourced.

I am currently watching a series on Netflix called "The Layover" by Anthony Bourdain. It's a great travel show, but I wish it would show more of the street life of the places he visits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Updated cost estimation of the attractions, restaurants and transportation.

</comment><comment><USER12> Have you used tripwolf? It covers everything that I'm aware of wanting

<comment><AUTHOR> I think tripwolf has a lot of great info and features but the presentation is not really great.</comment></comment>


Using Rust for 'Scripting' - <AUTHOR> http://www.chriskrycho.com/2016/using-rust-for-scripting.html <comment><USER2> This reads less as "Python style scripting in Rust" and more as "I like Rust, also it's cross-platform."

Not that this is a bad thing, but it feels like a bit of a far cry from my hacked together workflow of throw code in iPython and write out when I'm happy. I don't see anything here that makes Rust any more attractive than whatever your multiplatform language of choice is for this use case scenario.

That being said, the code is concise and readable, and the article was a short, pleasant read.

<comment><USER3> I've been using Rust to build a relatively large cross-platform command-line tool, and I've been genuinely impressed at how easy it is to get things to work on Windows. The Rust standard libraries Just Work on Windows, and they provide pathname handling, threads, environment variables, and a wealth of other tools. Many third party libraries will build for Windows without any problems as well.

I actually do think that Rust's type system helps a bit, because it forces me to consider weird portability issues (such as the way Windows permits slightly invalid Unicode, which Rust represents as OSString instead of String).

And of course, cross-compilation with MinGW is a real help. Sadly, OpenSSL still poses a fair number of portability issues, since it's notoriously difficult to link statically.

<comment><USER4> Yup, as someone who's done x-platform C++(Windows/OSX/X360/PS3/etc) for a large part of my career the cross platform support is incredibly well done.

Not having to deal with differences between MSVC, LLVM, GCC and other obscure toolchains is a blessing.

<comment><USER5> This is one reason why I enjoyed using Java so much in the early days, even without JIT.

The differences between MSVC, LLVM, GCC are nothing to worry about, compared with the early days of C89 or C++ARM in the process of being standardized, coupled with different levels of POSIX support.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Writing it in Rust means I can compile it and hand it to him, and he can run it. And that's it. As wonderful as they are, the fact that languages like Python, Perl, Ruby, JavaScript, etc. require having the runtime bundled up with them makes just shipping a tool a lot harder—especially on systems which aren't a Unix derivative and don't have them installed by default.

I'm wondering what part of the _twelve step_ compilation process was found to be easier than simply installing Python on the target machine?

Does the friend have any ability to audit the compiled binary before he runs it? Can he make a small change when he wants to re-use part of the solution?

<comment><USER7> Python scripts can also be compiled to an exe file, although I think that the following batch one-liner is the best for this job:

      for /r startdir %%i in (*.cha) do ECHO ren "%%i" "%%~ni.txt"

<comment><USER8> Yep, one liner crushes the problem because a shell script is the perfect tool for the job!

<comment><USER9> EDIT: nvm, I can't read properly...

<comment><USER10> He doesn't need to package bash, as that one liner is for the windows shell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This topic is dear to me, I often deal with people without any software stacks on their machines and strict IT limits on installing new things. If I were on the same OS as the target user, I'd use pyinstaller. I've used it with very few issues over the past year on many projects. Most of them included Flask/Bottle and parts of numpy, it all worked like a charm. Cross compilation in Python is a bit of an issue, I for one have not resolved it in a satisfactory fashion (not saying it can't be done).

If one wants to be closer to the metal, Go's cross compilation works out of the box, without all the LLVM/MSVC work that Rust requires (for now, that is). As long as you use the standard library (and packages dependent on the standard library), it will work right away. I've cross compiled Go from my Mac for Windows users when I couldn't get my Python setup to do so, worked perfectly.

(Sure, you can script easy things as shown in other comments, this is a bit more general.)

<comment><USER12> > If one wants to be closer to the metal, Go's cross compilation works out of > the box, without all the LLVM/MSVC work that Rust requires (for now, that > is).

That's not "closer to the metal"; it's reinventing parts of the native toolchain.

<comment><USER11> Sorry, I meant closer to the metal relative to Python, not relative to Rust, poor wording.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I love this idea. There's an implicit assumption that the reason scripting languages are suitable for scripts is that they play fast and loose with type systems, which allow enough shortcuts and escape hatches to be productive.

But that's only part of the story. Along with typing, scripting languages also had the major advantage of being fast to bootstrap and run (`ruby script.rb`) and were fully "batteries included" with good standard libraries.

These assumptions are certainly true, but they're much _more_ true when you're comparing them against "old world" languages like C, C++, or even Java. All of these require significant project scaffolding just to get running, and have varying levels of useful built-in utilities (C has almost nothing, C++ has the STL and maybe Boost if you're generous, and Java tried to have a useful core, but missed the mark in a number of places like HTTP). In the case of C and C++, complex build logic may also be required in the form of autoconf/automake/make.

Newer compiled languages like Rust just don't have these issues anymore (I'd also include Go, Crystal, and some others in the list). Project scaffolding is built right into the language (Cargo) and the standard library is about as complete as you can get (and probably better than the classical scripting languages — all of Ruby/Python/Perl missed a good API for some things like HTTP, which led to the rise of separate packages like Faraday/Requests/etc). Anything that's not in the standard library is easily retrievable through great package managers that are bundled in with the core language.

After you're over the initial learning curve of the language and standard library, it's possible to be nearly as productive in something like Rust as you can be in Python. As a bonus, you can also get reasonable reassurance that your program is correct before you run it — and even without writing an exhaustive test suite that exercises every line of code.

<comment><USER14> >[...] the standard library is about as complete as you can get (and probably better than the classical scripting languages — all of Ruby/Python/Perl missed a good API for some things like HTTP, which led to the rise of separate packages like Faraday/Requests/etc)

What? Rust basically has no standard library. At least Python doesn't require pulling in third-party libraries to do globbing, create a zip/tar, create a tempfile or send/serve http. Hell, it doesn't even do command-line arguments outside of manually parsing and iterating over the args vector.

<comment><USER15> it sort of does, though. Trying to use urllib2 is like pulling teeth

<comment><USER14> Which is why you use httplib[1] for sending HTTP requests.

        >>> import httplib, json
        >>> conn = httplib.HTTPConnection("httpbin.org")
        >>> conn.request("GET", "/get")
        >>> res = conn.getresponse()
        >>> print res.status, res.reason
        200 OK
        >>> data = json.load(res)
        >>> print data
        {u'origin': '0.0.0.0', ...}
        >>> conn.close()

[1] [https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/httplib.html#examples](https://docs.python.org/2.7/library/httplib.html#examples)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is over engineering if I've ever seen it. For one this is a single line bash script that would allow you to even handle drag and drop. Best user experience.

Second, if you're going to over engineering just look for someone who has already done that for you: [http://www.den4b.com/products/renamer](http://www.den4b.com/products/renamer)

It's no use to engineer something that has been solved (unless you're learning) if there are already better solutions. Even if it is an example a better one should be used.

The moral of the story should he use the best tool for the job, don't shoe horn a bad language for a into a solution, and also Google is usually the best tool for every job.

<comment><USER17> I don't think the author is really expecting people to go out and start uninstalling Python to do all their scripting in Rust. Seems to me like he saw this as an opportunity to show off the clap and glob crates, as well as write a little documentation for how to cross-compile Rust from Mac to Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's a shame the author didn't frame this article differently by strictly focusing on how to cross compile a simple rust app on macOS and Windows. The focus on "scripting" seems to have really brought out the negativity in people here. I definitely learned something, I had no idea I could compile a Windows binary from my Mac.

<comment><USER19> The author here: I agree with your assessment. Apparently the scare quotes didn't convey my intent: it's easy to do something (including cross-platform) where I normally would have used a traditional scripting language, and the portability is nice. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER20> I agree that it was very useful, despite the issue with the topic of choice. Thanks for writing it!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> As someone who only _very_ recently caught the Rust bug; seeing a reasonably small, familiar example like this is really helpful. Thanks for sharing. Maybe I can learn something by seeing if I can introduce threads/channels to the renaming part of the script as an exercise.

For anyone else curious about Rust, my own learning spree was triggered after reading the "A very brief intro to Rust" Slide Deck [1] by Ashley Williams [2].

[1] [https://ashleygwilliams.github.io/a-very-brief-intro-to- rust...](https://ashleygwilliams.github.io/a-very-brief-intro-to-rust/#1)

[2] [https://twitter.com/ag_dubs](https://twitter.com/ag_dubs)

</comment><comment><USER22> One could also use Haskell [0] for scripting [1] using the turtle [2] library.

      turtle is a reimplementation of the Unix command line
      environment in Haskell so that you can use Haskell as both a
      shell and a scripting language.

[0] [https://www.haskell.org/](https://www.haskell.org/)

[1] [http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/01/use-haskell-for- shell-s...](http://www.haskellforall.com/2015/01/use-haskell-for-shell- scripting.html)

[2] [http://hackage.haskell.org/package/turtle](http://hackage.haskell.org/package/turtle)

<comment><USER23> If we're talking about alternatives, xonsh is also an excellent alternative (Python + subprocess mode) [http://xon.sh/](http://xon.sh/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> For folks who want to do Bash-style shellouts and pipelines from Rust code, I'm working on a library to make it easier: [https://github.com/oconnor663/duct.rs](https://github.com/oconnor663/duct.rs)

</comment><comment><USER25> I think the author wanted to write "Using Rust instead of 'Scripting'". Perfectly makes sense. Nicer features, static types, compiled code, no runtime on the host system, etc. I prefer OCaml over Python,Bash etc for CLI apps, for the same reasons.

</comment><comment><USER17> I admit, as a longtime Rust user I don't often get around to using Rust for scripting, probably because Python is available on all my personal machines and I'm so accustomed to it. But after reading this article I'm immensely impressed at how far Rust has come in the past few years WRT suitability for scripting, I really need to take a look at the glob and clap crates.

Also, I'm _very_ excited to hear that LLD is apparently usable for linking on Windows! It seems like we've been waiting for LLD since time immemorial. :)

</comment><comment><USER26> I found myself doing the same just a few days ago when my local server suddenly had a new ip address. I made a simple script to scan IP addresses in the range: [https://gist.github.com/johshoff/bed463ce8a122123e60bbc84bd1...](https://gist.github.com/johshoff/bed463ce8a122123e60bbc84bd1b1129)

There are probably faster ways, but none that I could think of a the time.

<comment><USER27> > There are probably faster ways, but none that I could think of a the time

For future reference, `nmap -p22 --open 192.168.1.*` does everything your rust script currently does.

Nmap is THE tool for the job of network scans. IMO, it should be in the toolbelt of every techie that deals with any sort of computer network.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I know this isn't the point.. but I can't help myself... PowerShell:

gci c:\somedir -r -filter "*.ext1" | %{Move-Item $_.FullName -Dest ($_.DirectoryName + "\" \+ $_.BaseName + ".ext2")}

</comment><comment><USER29> Nice to see how good Rust is for 'scripting'. I think Go would have been a better choice from a purely technical point of view - it's easier to write, and has even easier setup and cross-compilation than Rust. But I guess part of the point of this was to practice Rust so fair enough!

</comment><comment><USER30> > As wonderful as they are, the fact that languages like Python, Perl, Ruby, > JavaScript, etc. require having the runtime bundled up with them makes just > shipping a tool a lot harder

Not true for js on Windows, though. Windows runs JScript natively (same language as JavaScript, only a different name).

</comment><comment><USER31> There's also this handy cargo plugin that helps for using Rust for "scripting": [https://github.com/DanielKeep/cargo- script](https://github.com/DanielKeep/cargo-script)

It's especially handy for a one-file solution.

</comment><comment><USER32> While this can be seen as an interesting exercise, I can't help but feel that rust isn't the best tool here.

First, there are a handful of existing tools, as other have pointed out (I would personally go for AntRenamer).

Then, there are a few scripting languages already installed (admittedly maybe not the best or most well-known). A quick Google search would probably have given a result right away, since this is a pretty common scenario.

Lastly, I am a bit curious, why go with msvc and not mingw/clang ?

<comment><USER19> For the "right tool for the problem", you're right; really, see up-thread where someone posted the one-liner.

For MSVC over MinGW/Clang: part of my point here was to first learn and then document for the community how you do cross-compilation for MSVC. There are lots of projects out there where being able to link against MSVC is important, and it's also _harder_ than linking against MinGW (which would have just been `rustup target add x86_64-pc-windows-gnu` and `cargo build --release --target=x86_64-pc-windows-gnu`, I believe; no extra linker stuff needed), so there's more value in documenting it and putting it out there for MSVC.

<comment><USER32> Thanks, I didn't realise that it was meant to be this way. To me, it sounded a bit like MSVC was the only option, and you had to install if for cross compiling.

Since this is actually harder to do (from your own post), I worry a bit that a beginner might try to do it right away, to the risk of failing at it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This guy has likely not prototyped in environment such as Jupyter notebooks or ptipython. It is not just language - there is whole ecosystem build around Python scripting: pandas, matplotlib, numpy, etc. And don't forget about debuggers and IDEs once your projects grow out of scripting environment. Did I mention hooking up to GUI or web app?

<comment><USER19> I've done a lot in those kinds of things, actually; they're _awesome_. I don't feel obliged to mention every possible alternative in every blog post; that would be absurdly tiring to do, and probably wouldn't add much value. (Edited so it didn't read as hostile as the original version of the comment did.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Its all about using the right tools / language for the job. And most of the solutions mentioned here are not the right tool for the job. Install python?? install this, install that. All the guy needs is a simple .exe file for windows that doesn't come with a manual howto install it.

</comment><comment><USER35> Was it too difficult to ask his friend to do right click -> create text document-> open it and write 'ren STAR.cha STAR.txt' -> save it as rename.bat and double click on it? Seriously, I'm not sure if this whole thing is a joke...

edit: not sure why I cannot write the jolly character here

<comment><USER19> It was an excuse to figure out the cross-compilation story with a tiny tool; he got his tool, I got my experience with a part of the Rust ecosystem I hadn't interacted with before. It was a win all around. (Note as well that I said explicitly that I asked if this was a "just give me a tool" or a "teach me something about scripting" kind of day!) :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Doesn't Windows have a built-in JavaScript runtime, the Windows Script Host? Sure, it may not be a very pretty language either, but it's still relatively sane compared to batch scripts. (I can't speak of PowerShell.)

<comment><USER37> I do like activex/js and wsh, but Wsh might require permissions to modify the filesystem, so installation/setup step can be harder than just copying and running a statically compiled executable.

<comment><USER36> Last time I checked, doing new ActiveXObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") did not require any extra 'permissions'.

<comment><USER37> I remembered the problem, it was the execution of unsigned/remotely signed _powershell_ scripts where you have to open powershell and give a permission[1] by typing something like:

      Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

[1] [https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/bb613481.aspx](https://technet.microsoft.com/en- us/library/bb613481.aspx)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I personally like rust as a systems language. But the syntax really hurts my eyes as apposed to Python. A well crafted python code is soo easy to read. Rust can soo become very messy.

</comment><comment><USER37> You could have done the same and given him a nice GUI in the process using lazarus.

To install a cross-compiler on mac:

      $ fink install fpc-cross-i386-win32

</comment><comment><USER39> I considered rust for daily scripts for the performance and statically compiled binary. But had to give up when the complexities from borrower checker came up and not to mention the limitation of libraries.

</comment><comment><USER40> [http://www.pyinstaller.org/](http://www.pyinstaller.org/)

Single file executable. Job done.

Of course, if you want to write something in Rust, it's not much use.

<comment><USER19> Oh, nice! PyInstaller didn't have Python 3 support the last time I looked at using it (mid-2015; I think it was in-work at that point), so I'm glad it's landed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> > Add the dependencies...

Nope. The beauty of a decent systems scripting language is that it includes everything you need (and ideally is already installed everywhere).

<comment><USER17> The author explains that the intended target is Windows, which has neither Perl nor Python (nor even Bash) installed by default, so "already installed everywhere" is already off the table. At that point, since Rust can produce static binaries, it doesn't matter what deps you pull in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> By the way, to solve the specific problem mentioned in the article, see "man 1 rename".

<comment><USER43> Is this available on Windows? The author made it pretty clear the target user was on a Windows machine

<comment><USER44> The Windows rename command doesn't support recursively processing subfolders, but it can be achieved using one line of powershell:

      Get-ChildItem . -Recurse -Include *.cha | Rename-Item -NewName { $_.name -Replace '\.cha','.txt' }

<comment><USER45> From what I remember Include will only match items from the base directory and powershell gets stupidly complicated very quickly:

[http://flukus.github.io/2015/03/13/2015_03_13_Powershell- is-...](http://flukus.github.io/2015/03/13/2015_03_13_Powershell-is-a-Joke/)

<comment><USER46> That compares Powershell to Nant. Nant tasks (inspired by Ant tasks) are more powerful than regular commands. Not even shell commands match those. He's comparing apples with an apple pie there.

<comment><USER45> I started the article as a nant vs psake (PowerShell based build tool). Psake relies on PowerShell tools for things like copying files, which makes sense.

I'm working on a similar one using make instead, which uses shell commands and it's a lot better than both.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This...felt misleading.

</comment><comment><USER48> Does Rust really support macOS, or did he mean to say OSX?

<comment><USER49> OS X was renamed to macOS, so they are the same thing as far as I know.

<comment><USER50> I remember macOS as the one before OS X. They changed it back again?

<comment><USER51> System → Mac OS → Mac OS X → OS X → macOS

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> One could probably get this done with one line of powershell code.

<comment><USER53> I would have, but I have a Windows box. Our OP has a Mac, so testing the script would be hard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The amount of contortions the author has had to go through is ridiculous, and all because the target operating system is Windows, and doesn't yet ship a production ripe UNIX userland (hence no AWK, sed, or zsh/tcsh/ksh out of the box). As a colleague of mine always says: _give Wintendo no chance!_

<comment><USER54> Despite that, Windows is still the most popular desktop OS in the world by an enormous margin. You don't help a friend who needs to rename a load of files by saying "well, it'd be much easier if you first installed Linux". Or cygwin, or even the Windows Subsystem for Linux if they're running Windows 10 Anniversary Update.

<comment><USER8> You help a friend by giving him a one liner COMMAND.COM shell script, instead of turning it into a cross-compiling hackfest just because you're a Rust fanboy (in author's own words).

<comment><USER55> How is the one-liner shell script more helpful to the friend than the resulting binary? Yes it was convoluted but the point was the code author had to jump through hoops, not the end user.

<comment><USER8> Then the code author should have jumped through the hoops to learn Windows shell scripting, instead of purposely overcomplicating.

When I see things like these, it honestly makes me hate computers and IT.

<comment><USER19> No real hoops to jump; I'm sure I could have googled the batch script invocation for him easily.

Again: the point was simply to use an interesting "hook" and then segue into providing resources on cross-compiling with a super-simple example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> There's lots of room for improvement here and I'm not sure Rust is the right tool for the job.

First of all, why doesn't this have a UI? It would be much easier for the friend to select the folder with the .cha files and they could see a nice progress bar while they are renamed.

However, if there are few files the renaming process would be too fast and the progress bar would flicker. An easy solution is to add sleep calls in the worker thread to ensure that the progress is visible.

Of course the user could have lots of .cha files, and the friend might get bored. A popular pattern is to display an overview of the program features in picture + text format while a long procedure is running. There could be one about .cha file renaming for instance.

It might make sense to also show ads, depending on the monetization strategy. Maybe the friend wants to buy something and they don't realise it yet.

Finally, when the whole thing is done, the friend should be offered the option to post it on twitter and/or facebook. Something along the lines "I have just renamed 100 .cha files using rename-it. Try it yourself at <address>". The address needs to be different from the blog, probably an SPA, but I'm not an expert at that. And one more tip: don't ask for the facebook login before the renaming, this makes users suspicious. It's much better to ask before posting and explain why you need it. This builds trust.

I said that Rust is not the right tool. I would maybe try Electron, it's also cross-platform, but the code can be reused on the back-end. For instance one can upload a zip of all their .cha files and they get a zip of txt files back.

Ultimately desktop apps such as these are a thing of the past. But I guess it's a nice exercise.</comment>


Amazon vs. Netflix: Streaming Battle Heats Up - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323701904578278130361293460.html

<comment><USER2> I've been confused by Netflix's business strategy for a while. I'm not much of a business guy, so maybe I'm just missing something.

I've made do for movies with the channels that came along for the ride when I subscribed to the minimal cable TV package that got me the nerd channels (Science, Discovery, Nat Geo, History, and so on). I've got quite a backlog of movies I'm waiting for.

Recently, I caught a movie (How to Train Your Dragon) on TV that I liked so much that I simply had to go buy a copy on Blu Ray. This also necessitated buying a Blu Ray player. I picked a Blu Ray player that also plays streaming content from the internet and supports pretty much everything other than iTunes.

I then started researching the streaming services (both subscription and rental), seeing how well they covered the movies I'd seen in the last couple of months on TV (HTTYD, Star Trek, Kung Fu Panda, District 9, Watchmen, Shrek Forever After, Happy Feet, Tangled, Bolt, Despicable Me, Monsters vs. Aliens, Fargo, Fantastic Mr. Fox), as well as how well they covered movies still on my backlog, plus assorted movies I'd like to rewatch.

Here's what I found. Neither Amazon nor Netflix subscription streaming provided good coverage of the movies I'd recently seen, the movies on my backlog, or the movies I want to rewatch.

The streaming rental services were a bit better, but still missing a lot.

Netflix's disc subscription service, on the other hand, covered pretty much everything.

So here is where I get confused. Netflix seems to think their future is in their streaming subscription service. This seems to me to be a pretty risky basket to put all their eggs into, because it seems to me that Amazon will have an easier time fixing their weaknesses compared to Netflix than Netflix will have fixing their weaknesses compared to Amazon.

Amazon's weakness compared to Netflix is that Netflix apparently has more content (that's what people tell me, although for the movies I'm interested in they seem about the same). To fix that, Amazon just needs to make some licensing deals. They don't have to build out a lot of new infrastructure or enter a new line of business or anything like that. It's a "write a check" problem for them.

Netflix's weakness compared to Amazon is that Amazon subscription streaming is part of Amazon Prime--and there are good reasons to have Prime besides the streaming. I got it for the shipping savings, and I'm also enjoying the Kindle lending library. (Brick and mortar retailers, like Barnes and Noble, and Best Buy, seem to be doing their best to drive people to Amazon, and so I see Amazon Prime becoming more and more common--but this is best left for another rant).

This makes the question for a lot of people "Netflix in addition to Prime?" rather than "Netflix or Prime?". That's a much harder case for Netflix to make. As I said, for the movies I've checked there are very few on Netflix that are not on Prime--it would cost me less to simply rent those movies. As Amazon closes the gap on content, "Prime plus rental" will become a better choice than "Prime plus Netflix" for more and more people.

It seems to me that Netflix's best weapon against Amazon is their disc subscription service. It provides the most content (both recent and older). It provides the highest quality content. It provides extras (commentary, deleted scenes, and all the other nifty things that come on disc besides just the movie).

Yet Netflix treats their disc service almost as if it is an embarassment. There's no link on their main page for it. It only seems to be mentioned in their FAQ, where they imply that it is an add-on service to the streaming service, and give no link to details.

<comment><USER3> Businesses built on conveying physical media for digital content are dead. First music, now a race between games and movies. In 10 years, disks will be an anachronism. What's Netflix to do? Its disk delivery isn't a moat against competition; the market sees the 60pt writing on the wall. Delivery was even held against Netflix early on during streaming negotiations.

Amazon and Netflix are different models. Prime has a free streaming service, but Prime free streaming is very limited compared to Netflix and seems more likely a loss-leader for Amazon's large PPV streaming catalog. Netflix seems to be to Amazon what Spotify is to iTMS. iTMS has the objectively more attractive offering, but I use Spotify (well, Rdio) far more often. Similarly, I use Amazon when I want to pay money for a specific movie, but when I'm just looking for something to watch, I'm on Netflix.

No question, though, Netflix is in an exposed position. Spotify has the advantage of being a nimble early entrant with mostly undefined expectations. Netflix has a giant target painted on its head.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This conflict is interesting given Netflix is a large customer of AWS.

</comment><comment><USER5> I hit a pay wall by clicking that link.

<comment><USER6> Me too... why is it that Forbes and Wall Street are such awful websites.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Would it illegal for Amazon to refuse Netflix as a customer? (Assuming there are many players in the streaming space and anti-trust is not a concern)</comment>


Let There Be Light: The Year in Silicon Photonics - <AUTHOR> https://www.nextplatform.com/2016/12/14/let-light-year-silicon-photonics/ <comment><USER2> Unmentioned is the comparable larger wavelength of light. This requires structures that are 500nm rather than 20nm. Silicon photonic for on-chip communication will need to show a 25x performance advantage to reach parity.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure how would photonic memory connection obsolete NUMA. The non- uniform latency problem would still persist possibly at a different magnitude of connected memory.

</comment><comment><USER4> The article only talks about bandwidth. What's latency like?

Latency is often the performance bottleneck, and I would guess HPC applications to be even more sensitive.</comment>


PG: Thinking of adding a search facility to news.yc? - <AUTHOR>

It doesn't have to be something like pagerank, just a simple text match would work? <comment><USER2> I'm getting one of the startups in this batch to write it for us, using their product.

<comment><USER3> Then there's little reason to hold back, I think. It's a good opportunity for them to test on a moderately-sized environment with real users, right?

<comment><USER2> They're not holding back. Their product just isn't done yet. The startups in the current batch are only 7 weeks old.

<comment><USER3> Oh, OK. I thought the demand of the search feature was obvious, so the reason you asked here was to see if there were enough demand to spend your time on the feature.

To answer the original question, yes, even simple word search would be great.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> It has been requested a few times: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=363>

I agree with you, I think it's something news.yc really needs.

<comment><USER5> And workarounds have been suggested a few times:

<http://nycs.bigheadlabs.com/> <http://ycsearch.com/>

<comment><USER6> My problem was that I knew I wanted to search, and I knew that workarounds had been posted...but I couldn't figure out how to search through YCnews to find the searchers!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> this is why having your marginal language of choice target a mainstream platform like the JVM or the CLR is nice - you can always use all the great existing libraries (Lucene, for example) while only slightly dirtying your code.

</comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, thats will be really a nice thing to have for ycnews. Looking for a piece in the archive is not convenient always.

</comment><comment><USER9> There's also <http://www.ycsearch.com> which does a decent job.

<comment><USER10> is that just "search terms" site:<http://news.ycombinator.com> ?

<comment><USER11> Actually it uses Google coop, but the basic idea is the same.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> daniel-cussen Any kind of search would be great.</comment>


Does your Macbook adapter plug wire break? - <AUTHOR>

I so hate it when my macbook adapter plug breaks.  Does this happen to you when the wire at either end may fray or lossen and expose the internal wires.  Then I need to shell out 40-50 bucks to get an official new macbook adapter, because I've been burned buying the cheaper knockoffs.  Does this happen to you.  I've bought 3 macbook plugs over the course of 2 years and it sucks. <comment><USER3> Yes, this seems to happen to all of my chargers. So far I've had to fix 4 (all on the magsafe end).

I used self amalgamating tape[0] on two of them and it's worked really well (albeit a slightly ugly fix). On the other two I used Sugru[1] which is prettier but not as flexible.

[0] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self- amalgamating_tape](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-amalgamating_tape)

[1] [https://sugru.com/](https://sugru.com/)

</comment><comment><USER4> Yes, both ends...

If your talking about the side by the power brick then its time to bust out some tools and fix it yourself!

See this: [http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-open-and-replace- the-...](http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-open-and-replace-the-MagSafe- cord-on-an-App/)

and this

[https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repairing+Apple+AC+Adapter+Brok...](https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Repairing+Apple+AC+Adapter+Broken+Cable/20434)

Note that the pliers method is the safer way of opening it up, I haven't gashed open my hand with that method yet! Glue is your best bet for strain relief after the fix but don't skimp on the heat shrink, and the cable ties are extra piece of mind.

I tend to tape them closed, as your probably going to want to get back in there later!

</comment><comment><USER5> After fixing a couple of adapters I started protecting them with Sugru: [https://sugru.com](https://sugru.com) Works like a charm.

<comment><USER6> Wow, that looks pretty interesting. Is there any downside (ignoring cost)?

<comment><USER5> The only downside I've found is visual: Sugru includes some tips to give it a good-looking aspect, but of course it won't look as cool as if it wasn't there. Still, I'm very happy with it.

I've read some comments about Sugru not being flexible: in my experience it's been very flexible and durable and will keep using it for every new Apple adapter I buy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've only had it happen to one of the maybe 7 or 8 adapters I've had over the years because I'm super careful to keep them from fraying.

But I screwed up an ruined the one I keep in my work bag. I threw some money at these guys that offer a neat solution: [http://www.getjuiceboxx.com/](http://www.getjuiceboxx.com/) when they launched a kickstarter. It'll finally be delivered this week. Really looking forward to it.

</comment><comment><USER8> Have had one fray over 4 years of usage. I generally find that they are more prone to fray if:

\- You bend the cable at an angle when sitting it down like against the wall putting more pressure at the bend point.

\- You treat magsafe as "safe for me to pull out using the wire" which is not correct. Magsafe is more of a safety in case you accidentally trip over the wire, you should otherwise pull at the plug piece and not the cable.

</comment><comment><USER9> Happened to me too once. Since i put a spring on the cable. I've seen people doing it for the iphone charger ([http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker- media/image/upload/s--WoIhYjfz...](http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker- media/image/upload/s-- WoIhYjfz--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/17z0g00e38fqjjpg.jpg)) so i tried on my power adapter cable and it works like a charm!

<comment><AUTHOR> The problem can also happen on the other end of the wire, on the adapter end.

Do you know what the tension for the spring? Would think it requires a good amount of tension to avoid too much angle movement. And what's a good place to get the spring?

<comment><USER9> Well i just used a spring from a ballpoint pen. It did the trick for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> My wife went through 3 for her Macbook Pro with the l shaped plug - <USER2> attribute it to her not caring / being careful enough to ensure she doesn't crimp the cable when she puts it down on the table.

I've been a Macbook Pro user with the mag safe adaptor for a decade now? Never broke a single one.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems like one of those situations where it can happen often to some people and never for others. I wonder how really prevalent this problem is?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The Fray Fix[0] is also cool.

[0] [http://thefrayfix.bigcartel.com/product/the-fray-fix- combo-p...](http://thefrayfix.bigcartel.com/product/the-fray-fix-combo-pack- for-45-and-60-watt-magsafe-power-cords)

</comment><comment><USER12> I go through about one a year. It sucks. We have school-issued MacBooks at my school, and my charger caught on fire. Tech guy would't replace it until it did, even though I was holding it together with tape. Didn't hurt the computer, surprisingly.

</comment><comment><USER13> Yeah, sugru is the way to go: [http://blog.higg.im/2015/01/06/sugru- lifehacks/](http://blog.higg.im/2015/01/06/sugru-lifehacks/)

</comment><comment><USER14> Yes, all the time. I lost the count but I'm probably in my Apple 5th power adapter. During the same period, I'm still using the same Dell power adapter with my Dell laptop.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> If my wire is holding by a thread and is nearly about to sever I need something more solid than Sugru rubber, something that's very inflexible.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> How long does sugru fix last? Does the Subaru rubber break a crack at some point?

<comment><USER15> If you make sure it adheres well to the surface (ideally a little roughened with sandpaper and clean) and taper it nicely it will last quite a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I called Apple out of warranty and they replaced mine for free (UK).

</comment><comment><USER17> I've gone through three, had one of them actually burn and melt through.

</comment><comment><USER18> Yes! This has happened to every charger I've ever owned.

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes, and also to a few family members' adapters.</comment>


WeWork Isn't a Tech Company - <AUTHOR> https://hbr.org/2019/08/no-wework-isnt-a-tech-company-heres-why-that-matters <comment><USER2> It's a 1920s (pre-FDIC) bank, or a 2008-style risky financial instrument, like an Auction-Rate Preferred.

WeWork's business model is "borrow short, lend long." That is, they accept very short term promises to pay (month to month leases from customers), and aggregate them to make very long term promises to pay (mutli year leases from suppliers). Keep the spread.

This works as long as there are lots of customers who will pay a premium for short term flexibility. We can presume that will be somewhat cyclical, although in fairness they also probably have caught a secular trend toward remote / coworking / flexibility.

When the cycle turns down, those short termers are done but the long term promises to suppliers keep going ...

That also leaves aside the question of leases with escalators. I have heard a rumor that some WeWork locations have substantial out-year escalator clauses (meaning the rates they owe to suppliers sharply increase in future), meaning that even if customers stay on board, WeWork will face a need to raise prices substantially to meet its obligations.

<comment><USER3> Their business is structured in such a way that the leases they signed on their locations aren't really enforceable against WeWork itself, but rather against "special purpose vehicles", I'm guessing one per lease?[1] It costs a bit in insurance but substantially limits their liability. So, in a downturn, even if "short termers are done", they can shed properties too, basically with impunity.

[1] [https://stratechery.com/2019/the-wework- ipo/](https://stratechery.com/2019/the-wework-ipo/)

<comment><USER4> Each WeWork office has an SPE that's just for that lease. Every landload wants WeWork on the lease, but won't get it, as WeWork tends to have significant leverage with either the space that they're going after or the desire to have WeWork on the rent roll.

When things are booming, WeWork is advantageous for landlords, and appraisers/the market/potential buyers will underwrite that space positively.

However, there's minimal guarantees that WeWork will actually pay long term, or that you'll have any legal recourse. On top of that there are significant capital costs to a WeWork lease that landlords have to shell out up front. Their leases are typically structured with a lot of free rent up front, so the break even point for a landlord may be many months or years farther out than a typical tenant leasing comparable space.

The losers in the WeWork deal are the landlords, as they're bearing a lot of the risk, and get minimal upside. I'd expect to see a high degree of correlation between WeWork's IPO/stock price and REIT valuations. Underwriting will push the value of a WeWork lease if they can, which will only give more momentum to the bubble.

Source: Worked at a nationally invested REIT that had several WeWork leases in our portfolio

<comment><USER5> > The losers in the WeWork deal are the landlords, as they're bearing a lot of > the risk, and get minimal upside.

Couldn't this be interpreted differently? That is, landlords are having less and less choice. Something from WW is better than an empty building. Is WW a canary of sorts? It tells us about changes in the economy (less growing small to mid-size companies in major metro area?), as well as the health and strength there of?

And if building owners are own details space their choices are less robust. WW might not pay out well, but it's better than nothing.

<comment><USER6> Yes and No. Part of the No answer is that as an real estate investment company your building's worth is effectively present value of future rent, so sometimes it's better to preserve the valuation of your building rather than set a new market rent which will negatively affect your building valuation which in turn affects the cost of financing your building etc etc etc

So you get an extra $1m in rent but it now costs you an additional $2m in interest costs financing your building and your share price (or the building capital valuation) has now dropped 15%.

Sorry totally simplified example...

<comment><USER5> "so sometimes it's better to preserve the valuation of your building rather than set a new market rent which will negatively affect your building valuation "

I understand that, and thus the question about WW being a canary in the economic coal mine. If there are more and more building owners who literally can't afford to "preserve the valuation" \- and WW's success seems to hint at that - then doesn't that say something about the economy that aggregate numbers aren't seeing?

I understand the theory of "preserve the valuation", what I suggesting is that in reality less and less building owners are able to preserve that theory. And some of that is direct result of demand (read: the lack there of) not being in parity with demand.

<comment><USER6> Yes precisely, if things become systematic then there is no avoiding the new reality.

I am no expert on real estate I used to be a property accountant at an international commercial property company and so used to compute out growth rates on rent and valuations for owners.

I do find WW's business model difficult to follow, there maybe something I fail to appreciate, I guess time will tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like that WeWork is finally forcing us to have the conversation about WTF a "tech company" even is. A company that sells software? Or one that employs a lot of engineers? Or companies that use a lot of tech in their operations? Companies with a presence in San Francisco and Kombucha on tap? Are big banks tech companies? Insurance providers? Hospitals, auto manufacturers, oil and gas... What _isn 't_ a tech company?

<comment><USER8> Is it really that important to define the term precisely? It doesn't seem like the term is _used_ precisely, so what's the point in _defining_ it precisely?

<comment><USER9> It makes a big difference in the aggregated analysis of the IPO market. Tech is one of the few IPO areas that actually come close to matching the S&P500 returns (tech did better than any other IPO category). So, most companies going public want to be considered and valued as "tech".

<comment><USER10> For them wouldn't a tech company and a software company be synonymous? It seems like software is by far the easiest way to create the growth they're after.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Might as well be a REIT, and as its books stand, its a crappy one. I wouldn't touch wework unless it had a dividend. What their CEO has done with inside dealing should be considered fraud to investors.

</comment><comment><USER12> ... and yet it will be valued as one. At this point it doesn't matter if anything really is tech or not. Rich people just want to park their money away from banks.

(As an aside, i think WeWork's S1 has turned to a remarkable feat of marketing, making buzz around the company in cycles who are likely to be their customers)

<comment><USER13> Bingo. Although I don't know about rich people wanting to park their money away from banks. It's more like we have a massive capital glut, there's so much capital sloshing around we don't know what do with it.

So some wealthy people will buy bonds with negative yields, others will buy equity at inflated valuations like WeWork.

Strange times.

<comment><USER14> Large and continued slowdown in global productivity combined with huge amounts of liquidity/easing from the world's largest central banks.

Pretty good time to have a lot of money (it's always a good time to have a lot of money), to own a business in a developing economy, to start a "tech" company to be acquired in a developed economy, to be in private equity, or to fraud/bluff your way into a lot of money in a developed economy (true productivity-increasing products/technologies are currently few and far between but globalization of technology and outsourcing is still going strong).

Not a great time to be poor, a saver, a licensed professional, or worker of any sort in a developed economy (aside from working at a "tech" company).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm starting to think that WeWork may be an interesting experiment on the current state of the stock market. It's not just HBR; Bloomberg and virtually every other mainstream financial news analysis outlet has had an article explaining why WeWork is overvalued at its current IPO price.

If it, nonetheless, sells at this price, it seems that it will more or less prove that IPOs don't have much to do with the fundamentals.

<comment><USER16> Yup, definitely. An IPO is a liquidity event (money goes to owners) paid for by some group of individuals who believe they will make more money down the road by purchasing this stock.

The way that those individuals arrived at that decision can either be through really technical analysis, or "I heard about it from my dog", or anywhere in between.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really don't understand the negativity on HN towards WeWork.

In principle, how it is different than AirBnB or Uber in regard of being a tech company? It's not like Uber or AirBnB's core compentancies are tech, I'm sure WeWork can also build a dev team making frameworks and research that some day might be used in their core business.

The article argues that the difference is that Uber, AirBnB, Yelp, Twitter is a tech company because they have "scalable virtual models that can be exponentially magnified overnight with little additional costs" but this seems to bu untrue since they did not took over the world. Maybe they are just humble but I think it's simply that their business model is "low touch high scale" and this is being mistaken with Microsoft's ability to develop technology and sell it infinite times with at no addditional cost per copy.

What stops WeWork from embracing the Uber model? Maybe you have an empty flat, you can turn it into WeWork location by furnishing the place according to the WeWork standarts and install some kind of kiosk and smart lock system. Uber makes the driver to use cars that obey certain standarts, why wouldn't WeWork do the same and "scale overnight"?

<comment><USER18> > In principle, how it is different than AirBnB or Uber in regard of being a > tech company? It's not like Uber or AirBnB's core compentancies are tech, > I'm sure WeWork can also build a dev team making frameworks and research > that some day might be used in their core business.

Some day, maybe they could?! But their current business is selling short term office space leases. They have _massive_ liabilities in their long-term leases. If Uber (an absurd business in its own right) bought all the cars and paid their drivers salaries, that'd be a closer approximation to what WeWork is doing. It would be just another taxi company, and worth at least an order of magnitude less than it is today.

<comment><USER17> Most technology IPO were of companies that were losing money, people bought what they might become one day. Nothing new here, maybe they will change the way they operate when they establish the brand and optimize the operations.

<comment><USER19> The depth of the hole they're in at IPO time has some bearing as to whether or not they'll climb out of it.

<comment><USER17> But this doesn't say if they are a tech company or not. If you think that it's a bad investment simply don't invest? Why is the "WeWork ain't tech company" uproar?

<comment><USER18> It seems like you're just not listening. They're not a tech company because they, while they may _use_ software for some things, it's _not_ their differentiator.

Tech companies are valued at higher multiples because software doesn't deal with scarcity. It costs Microsoft virtually nothing to sell an extra copy of Windows. So each extra sale is pure profit. WeWork sells OFFICE SPACE—something with real world scarcity, and each additional sale / customer they get has very real costs and overhead associated with it.

<comment><USER17> i'm not convinced that this is true because they can embrace the Uber or AirBnB business models to do just that. If They can be Tech companies, WeWork can too.

I suspect that the value is in the brand, just like with the Uber or AirBnB. Making a booking software or mobile app is not such a big deal but they are called tech companies for some reason.

<comment><USER20> Your argument is the company can pivot post-IPO to something it's never done and it's magically a successful tech company?

I feel like you didn't read the article or being purposefully dense.

<comment><USER17> But the thing that "never done" is not some technology. How this will change the status of WeWork as a tech company or not?

Also I wouldn't call it pivot, their users even don't have to notice a thing. They can do it concurrently. Pretty much like McDonalds owning some of the restaurants and providing franchises to the rest.

<comment><USER20> It would be closer in alignment with what was defined as a tech company. The article is pretty explicit defining the features of a tech company. WeWork isn't. Saying they could do something that would fit some of those characteristics and it's easy doesn't magically make it true.

If McDonalds is so easy, how come everyone else isn't as globally prevalent? It's not easy. It's competitive as hell. It's a completely different model.

But you're not making arguments in good faith, you're just being intentionally dense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> A lot of "tech" companies aren't.

One reason, to avoid the scrutiny describing their actual business would expose them to more scrutiny, e.g., Uber is transportation company, not a software company.

Once the BBC described Google as an "American advertising company", now that's cold.

<comment><USER22> I think, from the article, that the reason that Uber would be considered a tech company and not a transportation company is a matter of assets and how it can scale.

Uber is not a bus company. It does not own a gigantic fleet of cars or large depots to store them in, nor does it employ mechanics and cleaners to tend to them, or have long-term contracts for gates at stations around the country.

Uber is a tech company because it really only owns software and lawyers. The cost of bringing 10,000 new vehicles on the road is minimal -- they simply increase the incentives to drivers in that area.

Likewise, Air BnB is a tech company, for the same reason.

WeWork, however, is simply an office real estate company. Its business model is closer to a hotel chain.

<comment><USER23> > Uber is not a bus company. It does not own a gigantic fleet of cars or large > depots to store them in, nor does it employ mechanics and cleaners to tend > to them, or have long-term contracts for gates at stations around the > country.

Ironically, if Uber achieves its self-driving dreams it will have acquire all of these things.

<comment><USER24> And in doing so giving up their only "innovation" \- externalizing the capital costs and risk.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Of course its not a tech company. They might want to paint themselves that way, but they operate in the real estate space. Which is why I think they have a severe downside if a recession comes.

</comment><comment><USER26> Very Interesting that the company that Supports Wework is in YC Summer batch [1]

> Narrator: Narrator is a full-service data team for startups of any size. The > team behind Narrator built WeWork's data infrastructure, and wants to target > more startups as early customers. The company says they're generating > $91,000 per month with this business model, but they aren't stopping there. > Narrator wants to build as a cross-company universal standard for data and > grow out this library of shared analyses. This strategy allows the company > to repurpose the analyses they produce and offer it to new customers.

[1][https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/20/here-are- the-82-startups-t...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/20/here-are- the-82-startups-that-launched-on-day-2-of-ycs-s19-demo-days/)

<comment><USER27> So We is a real estate company, that doesn't own its own real estate, that wants to be seen as a technology company, that doesn't develop its own technology.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Related: while reading this thread I got an email with a job advertisement for COBOL programmers. It starts with "SIXT is an IT company with a very large car pool". Big words for a car rental firm, but I do hope they will be a tech company.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm not sure the founder sees it as a tech or real estate company but something more:

>In 2017, Neumann declared that WeWork's "valuation and size today are much more based on our energy and spirituality than it is on a multiple of revenue." He has long maintained that categorizing WeWork as a real-estate concern is too limiting; it is a "community company" with huge ambitions. "We are here in order to change the world," Neumann said that same year. "Nothing less than that interests me."

<comment><USER30> >our energy and spirituality

>it is a "community company"

>"We are here in order to change the world,"

Can some explain to me what renting out shared workspaces has to do with any of this?

<comment><USER31> Simple - it is marketing bullshit to lionize renting out shared workspaces. It has precedence like the use of "blast processing".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I would like to understand this better because WeWork has a lot of open positions right now. Is it all a front? Much of this article seems to focus on it not having the margins and network effects of Apple, Facebook, etc.

Devil's advocate: Amazon has dinky margins and was unprofitable for many of its early years. Physical servers have "wear and tear". But they are a winner because they have developed competencies and efficiencies that let them rent out infrastructure that fast growing companies would rather not own and manage. Could WeWork be like AWS for office space?

Looking at their open positions they have teams around evaluating, visualizing and instrumenting spaces. In addition to the flexibility to scale up and down. There's a lot that's sketch about their company structure but if companies are going to outsource say payments to 3rd parties like Stripe, why wouldn't they do it for office space which is a huge PITA?

<comment><USER33> You don't want to look at margins by subtracting expenses from revenue. For a growing company, this can be zero or even negative. The key thing is this: Are customers paying top dollars for the space they sell then elsewhere? That answer seems to be yes which means they have better margin than competitors given their brand and amnesties. However, they might decide to reinvest all that money to build assets in other markets which will put their balancesheet in red.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Why would anybody claim it's a tech company? What kind of tech do they leverage to differentiate?

<comment><USER35> > Why would anybody claim it's a tech company?

Because a company calling itself "tech" and "sophisticated" automatically gets higher stock market valuation by unscrupulous investment analysts.

Thus, a company is priced higher the more techy and sophisticated is its image.

Have you heard of Chinese companies' price jumping just from them adding word "blockchain" or "o2o" to their name? This is what it is.

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and- fea...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/is- the-chinese-stock-market-bubble-about-to-burst-10346773.html)

Though everybody runs to point fingers on "oriental mindset" of some fund managers, few notice that this happens in the West in a form that is even more extreme.

A perfect example of that is a company called Netflix. They sell videos over the internet, but they are priced a whole ∞ more than companies selling videos on physical tapes

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> "Tech" is now a requirement of so many different businesses that the concept of a "tech" company needs to change. There is now a spectrum of "techness" where your companies like Spanx are on the left (still needing marketing automation, logistics, and a bunch of other tech), AMD is on the right, and Facebook etc are somewhere in the middle as a blend of tech and marketing. It hardly matters where you draw an imaginary vertical line and call everything to the right "tech" as the tech is now an input to the business the way that electricity is.

</comment><comment><USER37> Video of our team's analysis on this subject: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2RwG7U_GEU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2RwG7U_GEU)

</comment><comment><USER38> It isn't right now, but if you buy at this valuation you're betting that they can diversify away from memberships as their main source of revenue to something more "techy."

Personally I am bearish because I don't think they can hire the engineering talent to pull that off. They should've gone on a tech hiring spree long ago if that was their intention but I know of no prominent tech leaders who work there.

<comment><USER39> >They should've gone on a tech hiring spree long ago

They've been hiring (and acquihiring) like mad in NYC for the entire year. They just took over the old Spotify office near Union Square as their new "tech HQ," and all of engineering sits there now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> They don't have an R&D budget which a tech company of this size should have. They are similar to Regis which is actually profitable.

</comment><comment><USER41> If WeWork could figure out how to do what it's doing without actually owning real estate or holding long term leases, it might be closer to a tech company. That isn't the case, though. Their network are their own buildings and their financial structure looks much more like that of an asset heavy real estate holding company.

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting article, but putting aside abstract definitions of a "tech company" based on variable costs and scaling, exactly what "tech" does WeWork even have that companies like Regus don't?

</comment><comment><USER42> It's fun and all to dump on WeWork, but at the end of the day they are going to get what they want. Why? Because no one on planet earth pays more fees to the banks than Softbank.

</comment><comment><USER43> After having read the title: Whoever thought WeWork was a tech company? It's a real-estate company (assuming it's not a stockholder-targeting scam...)

</comment><comment><USER44> It's a startup though. The same way that GAP (the sweatshirts) wasn't a tech company but was a startup that raised Venture Capital before going public.

</comment><comment><USER45> Correct. I thought it was in the real estate business.

</comment><comment><USER46> Amazing that we need an article to say something we all already know because the company is so deceitful.

</comment><comment><USER47> They do own meetup.com, so unless they divested it they have a web services division..

</comment><comment><USER48> So WeWork is more like McDonald?

I wonder how close they are to McDonald in business model.

<comment><USER49> I thought McDonalds owns a lot of real estate? WeWork just had leases. WeWork is more like hotel chains that have long term leases or licenses for the buildings.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Anyone know what percentage of their employees are programmers?

<comment><USER51> The percent of open positions in Technology according to [https://careers.wework.com](https://careers.wework.com) is 25.8%. Glancing at Technology it appears to be mostly engineering or engineering management. Of course the number of open positions isn't the same because they're looking to staff up or staff down, but to me it seems about typical for a tech company with 20+ employees (a software-heavy 5 person startup might have 3 or 4 coders).

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> It is a real estate company to the very least.</comment>


Efforts to Rein in Arbitration Come Under Attack - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/11/16/business/dealbook/efforts-to-rein-in-arbitration-come-under-well-financed-attack.html?action=keypress&contentCollection=DealBook&emc=edit_dlbkam_20151116&module=ArrowsNav&nl=dealbook&nlid=65508833&pgtype=article&ref=dealbook&region=FixedLeft&referer= <comment><USER2> When 0.05% of the electorate does the nominating of elected officials, and you only get to vote for who was nominated, you have corruption plain and simple. Go view Lawrence Lessig's TEDx talk on this issue. [https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim?language=en)</comment>


Hy: The Logical choice - <AUTHOR> http://asylum.madhouse-project.org/blog/2014/01/26/hy-the-logical-choice/

<comment><USER2> I've been following Hy for a while and it's sad that macros are still part of on-going discussions with no definite plan. It's one of the reason I prefer Scheme-inspired Lisps to Common Lisp. Hy just _looks_ Lispy but it's no where near Lisp without all the macro system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hy has macros, and they work fairly well. I'm using plenty of macros in Adderall, would not be possible without them. There are a few rough edges with Hy macros, mostly due to the underlying Python, but I at least, can live with that, and they don't hinder my work.

<comment><USER2> My bad, you're right. I didn't know the documentation section for macro was added recently. It looks pretty Common Lispy. Reader macro looks nice, still at its beginning stage though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It is more common lispish, therefore, it is awesome!

</comment><comment><USER4> Hy looks like fun. On more scheme/lisp derivative on the block. It would be great to see it on IPython.

</comment><comment><USER5> Would really like to see some clojure->python dialect. Hy seems more "experimental" which is also great.

<comment><USER6> There is an older clojurepy that exists. The author mentioned abandoning it and it needing to target the python AST (like Hy) instead of .pyc to be more portable/less brittle. If you're interested in this, drop me a line (email@example.com) as I've been toying with using modern clojurescript as a starting point rather than the old codebase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Python is great, Hy is even better \m/

</comment><comment><USER8> Have they implemented multiline lambdas?

<comment><USER9> Hey dude, language author here - yeah, a (lambda) will become a Python lambda if it's a single expression, otherwise it'll turn into an anonymous function (with a name like `_hy_anon_fn_00011`) and replace the lambda with a ref to the function.

Allll taken care of :)

<comment><USER5> I just want to say how much I enjoy seeing hy popping up now. I have come to really like ClojureScript for my webdev stuff, Scheme from SICP and Python, well, has also been on my toolstack for long

Sometimes Hy seems a little undecided on language issues as simple as (defn vs defun) usage of ! for mutating objects or alphabetic chars, etc. I value freedom of choice, but are there any plans to unify this in the direction of "there is one way to do it"?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, totally. Not sure where we're going yet, but right now those stupid warts are just harmless tumors. Hopefully we can clean it up soon.

I, of course, prefer (defn) and (first) / (rest), but I know killing (defun) (car) and (cdr) will make a few people go nuts.

We'll have to make it sane before 1.0 :)

Thanks for hacking with Hy :3</comment></comment></comment></comment>