Madoff whistleblower Harry Markopolos calls GE a 'bigger fraud than Enron' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2019/08/15/ge-shares-drop-after-madoff-whistleblower-harry-markopolos-raises-red-flags-on-its-accounting.html <comment><USER2> An alternative viewpoint:

[https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-flat-out- sill...](https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-flat-out-silly- markopolos-ge-report.html?spref=tw)

As Charlie Munger says, always look at the incentives to understand people's behavior. Markopolos' sponsoring hedge funds are shorting GE:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/ge- drops-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/ge-drops-as- madoff-whistle-blower-levels-accounting-accusations?srnd=premium)

"Markopolos is working with a hedge fund he didn't identify and stands to benefit from bets that GE's stock will decline, according to the Wall Street Journal, which reported earlier on the accounting report. Markopolos and his colleagues also hope to collect a whistle-blower reward by reporting their findings to regulators, the Journal said."

<comment><USER3> The fact that he's shorting GE should probably give you more confidence that he's right. That demonstrates skin in the game. He's not just speculating idly - he's putting his own assets at risk in the bet.

<comment><USER2> It seems to me he is being paid by hedge funds to come up with research that supports their short positions. I see no evidence anywhere that he's shorting them using his own personal funds and even that would not necessarily give me any additional confidence he's right.

With your logic one might also claim that promoters of pump-and-dump schemes should be commended for having skin in the game.

<comment><USER4> > It seems to me he is being paid by hedge funds to come up with research that > supports their short positions.

Regardless of whether this is true, should they successfully collect a reward, it would validate the research on merits.

<comment><USER5> Not if this research is what causes the stock to drop and is what allows them to collect a reward. Then the merits of the accusations doesn't actually matter and they don't have to true for the people shorting the stock to profit from releasing them.

I have no idea if these accusations are true, but the accuser's short position on the stock has zero positive bearing on the validity of the accusations.

<comment><USER4> > Not if this research is what causes the stock to drop and is what allows > them to collect a reward.

I don't understand the causative relationship you're asserting between a drop in value and a whistleblower award that's only granted after an enforcement action. How would a drop in stock value result in a whistleblower award?

<comment><USER6> What are you talking about? There is zero whistleblowing going on here. This is an outside investigative report funded by a hedge fund. The only link to whistleblowing is the investigators biography.

<comment><USER7> From the disclosures section of the report:

> Prior to the initial distribution of this Report on August 15, 2019, the > Company also submitted this Report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange > Commission's Whistleblower Program and the U.S. Department of Justice's > FIRREA Whistleblower Program. Both or either of those submissions may > generate profits for the Company independent of the financial performance of > GE and/or the securities, derivatives, and other financial instruments of, > and/or relating to, GE.

I don't know how the DOJ program works but SEC Whistleblowers can be awarded 10-30% of the money recovered as a result of their information.

SEC FAQ here: [https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower/frequently-asked- questions](https://www.sec.gov/whistleblower/frequently-asked-questions)

<comment><USER8> I think he came out with the report as SEC had already started investigating GE. If he had not come out with his report he might not have been able to trade in GE stock as he would have had insider information and could be dinged for insider trading. After putting the information out in the public he can short all he wants.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I distinctly recall a USA top-ten business school with an ad for "Financial Engineering MBA" (yes, real math) showing a small, smiling brown-skinned woman in Fortune 500 business attire. At the same time, top management at GE mentioned "financial engineering" as a strength in the business press.

Perhaps it is an obvious evolution of their complex asset leasing models from forty years ago to "financial engineering", but the implications of a USA engineering firm, outsourcing all the work and focusing on money tricks instead.. it just shouts everything that went wrong with American Business, to me.

<comment><USER10> > it just shouts everything that went wrong with American Business, to me.

Quite the opposite. Sound financial management implies financial engineering. I recommend you study and understand the field before criticising it; it's not "tricks" at all.

<comment><USER11> As an uninformed outside observer, I have seen a large number of companies that used to pride themselves on product quality, customer support, and treating workers well get bought by private equity or other finance guys (or maybe sometimes just taken over from inside), shed everyone competent, focus on cost cutting and nickel-and-diming customers, and start producing garbage products with no support, transforming the relationship with customers into a largely adversarial one.

In many cases the finance guys have (legally?) embezzled large amounts of money while loading the companies with debt and then dumped them, leaving customers, employees, suppliers, and other investors holding the bag.

I'm sure this process is considered to be "sound financial management" by some.

<comment><USER12> What are your two favorite examples that illustrate this pattern?

<comment><USER13> GE would be one.

The other... EAK Ramen in NYC (small chain that landed here a couple of years ago out of LA so I'm sure it is financial engineering at work, not just an owner experimenting). They removed what used to be a standard part of the ramen that came with it ( egg, some toppings ) and started offering removed parts as "customize your own ramen! Add an egg for a $1! Add corn for a $1! Add X for a $1 ) as a way to raise prices by wrapping that into "customization". As if their customers are stupid and don't notice that the same ramen now costs not $14 but $18.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Here's a quick blog post that points out a few problems with the report.

[https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-flat-out- sill...](https://brontecapital.blogspot.com/2019/08/the-flat-out-silly- markopolos-ge-report.html?m=1)

It looks like Markopolis claimed GE's margins were too good to be true, even though they're below the industry average.

Also he compares this section of the business with another company that GE spun off, seemingly not knowing that they were originally linked.

Doesn't seem like a very credible report if these 2 things are true.

<comment><USER7> I'm torn because I've definitely heard plenty of rumblings about GE Capital over the past decade so the accusations certainly seem plausible. I feel like I even opened the report expecting to confirm the rumors I had heard. But I've only made it to page 5 and so far it's a lot of hot air without any substance. And the tone of the writing is needlessly flippant. It's difficult for me to take the report seriously.

For example, this sentence raises red flags to me:

> I won't reveal every technique we used because every wannabe accounting > fraudster out there is going to be reading this section closely looking at > it as a "how not to get caught" primer. There's no point in making them > harder to catch than they already are.

We're just supposed to take him at his word in order to protect ourselves from "wannabe accounting fraudsters" who might try to repeat what GE has done? That doesn't make sense to me. Revealing GE's supposed tricks would allow everyone else in the industry to better monitor for them.

<comment><USER15> > I'm torn because I've definitely heard plenty of rumblings about GE Capital > over the past decade so the accusations certainly seem plausible.

Back in the 1990s and maybe early 2000s, GE would 'beat' analyst profit estimates _every quarter_ by 'a penny' per share (occasionally by a few pennies). This went on for _many_ years.

I don't have any special insight, but this always struck me as _fishy_. You have a stable of presumably competent analysts prognosticating on your next quarter's revenue and profit and you consistently beat their average estimate _by a tiny bit._ You would think that you would come in _under_ the estimate every-so-often, but that was incredibly rare and the consistency always had a whiff of impropriety.

It wasn't just GE that did this. Many Fortune-500 companies had similar behavior, so perhaps it has an innocuous explanation, but I always wondered how it was possible to consistently beat estimates like this.

<comment><USER16> There's more degrees of freedom in accounting and accounting-related matters that non-accountants tend to realize. An easy trick to explain is a big deal of some kind that is closing near the end of the quarter. If your customer doesn't care, you may be able to choose whether you close that deal this quarter, because you need the revenue this quarter, or if you want to close it next quarter because you've got this quarter's "beat" covered, and there's no great advantage to beating by just that bit more.

Obviously in this specific case, it's only a quarter's worth of flexibility; I mean this as an example, not a manual on the practice.

There's a lot of ways of borrowing against the future to show revenue now. It is suspicious, but it may not necessarily be suspicious in the "fraud" sense of they aren't making the money they claim to be making, but rather, are they eating their seed corn to get this quarter's beat? Did they pull revenue forward they "shouldn't" have? (Sometimes it seems like it's better to beat expectations by a little for several quarters, then have one big disaster quarter, than to miss by a little for several quarters.) Did they profit this quarter by failing to invest in growth that they're going to need later?

So, I wouldn't say it's an innocuous explanation exactly, but perhaps rather, there's a range of explanation that range from mostly innocuous gimmicks to the outright fraud, and it's hard to tell from the summary sheets which one you're looking at.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> GE decided that playing financial tango is more profitable than manufacturing. Too many US companies become shell-game manipulators rather than shell makers. Maybe that's somehow fine and normal, but it's hard to sleep sound at night knowing the US economy's main product is financial tiddlywinks.

<comment><USER18> This has been the end-goal since the 1980s when everyone realized there was way more money to be made in running companies into the ground to sell them off for scrap, raiding pension funds, and securitizing everything.

Why make things when you can just make money?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> GE has been a mess for a while now. I know many vendors that won't ink a deal with them because they always try and pay at the end of next quarter. Ironically, because everyone knows their tactics, they either end up paying more for reputable vendors that need an insurance buffer, or they end up with a worse product from fringe companies that are willing to roll the dice on getting paid.

<comment><USER20> _I know many vendors that won 't ink a deal with them because they always try and pay at the end of next quarter._

That soon? I've known companies with cash flow issues try to turn contractors' Net 30 or Net 90 into Net 180 and beyond.

<comment><USER21> We recently did work for a very large corporation that switched from net 60 to net 180. I'm not sure if they did it for cash flow reasons, but I doubt it. We're a small company, so it was tough for us considering we'd be paying developers 6-months of salary before we'd see a dime. They did conveniently offer financing so that we could get paid sooner, albeit with interest.

It seemed to me like large corporations feel that they can strong-arm their vendors into unsavory terms because of their clout.

<comment><USER22> > They did conveniently offer financing so that we could get paid sooner, > albeit with interest.

That's blown my mind a little, charging interest on a loan of money which you owe to someone. Genius.

<comment> 52-6F-62 Sounds more like a low effort scam to me...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Direct Link:

[http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorial...](http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2019/8/15/2019_08_15_GE_Whistleblower_Report.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER23> I like they put their money where their mouth is and shorted GE. Actually puts their skin in the game before making accusations.

<comment><USER24> I wonder if that could be considered securities fraud. They had insider knowledge that their report would damage the stock price of GE.

<comment><USER25> Is it insider knowledge? Or merely non-public knowledge that they legally generated from their own research efforts?

<comment><USER26> If the information was synthesized from public knowledge, then it is fair game. Non-public is not determined by "how many people know this information".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Before becoming too concerned with the fact that the author of this report is compensated based on the performance of the sponsoring fund's short position, one should note that it has been argued that allowing Enron insiders who knew of the irregularities to short Enron stock would have supplied a downward pressure that may have saved Enron employees millions of dollars. Many of those employees were investing 100% of their 401k into the stock at its peak.

<comment><USER28> The FinTech company I work at offers ESPP and an option to invest in company stock for your 401k. I take full advantage of ESPP but sell it quickly. My coworkers have saved it and been through 3 splits and made a ton of money. The same coworker lost 10s of thousands when he worked for WorldCom/MCI in the late 90s. He's probably even right now.

I would never invest 100% of my 401k into my employers stock. Even 10% seems risky.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> GE should be a warning for all management gurus. I still remember when Jack Welch was the idol of all managers and I read a lot about how GE was grooming the next generation of super managers. Turns out that Welch didn't really create a company that could perform with excellence in the long run. Seems he was more of a one hit wonder.

<comment><USER30> Actually, I'd say he was more of a fraud. It's been well known that under his administration GE earnings growth was basically linear and returned to typical volatility after he left, suggesting he was manipulating the figures to make it work. Meanwhile the company had sold off most of the businesses it was known for with the exception of light bulbs and aircraft engines.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> I have friends working as senior developers for GE in Poland. Basically US branch outsource project to Polish brand because they are paid peanuts in comparison, then part of the work is outsourced to India branch which is paid even less. I have ZERO respect for American mega-corps.

<comment><USER28> At my last job I worked exclusively with our Europe branch and European customers. 75% of the developers I worked with were contractors or consultant companies they outsourced to. More than half also had offshore India teams.

You'd recognize all the customers names and likely own their products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Will the long term care insurance policyholders don't get screwed out of their policies if GE goes bankrupt?

<comment><USER33> Each state has a Guaranty Association that provides up to several hundred thousand dollars per policy for failed insurance companies. We've seen this story before with Penn Treaty which was liquidated in 2017. In California it's $560k. [https://www.califega.org/](https://www.califega.org/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> I can't download the report, I get a server error when submitting the form. Does anyone have a direct link?

<comment><AUTHOR> Direct Link from CNBC:

[http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorial...](http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/editorialfiles/2019/8/15/2019_08_15_GE_Whistleblower_Report.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Marlopolos point where he says the Baker Hughes investment should take a goodwill impairment charge is incorrect. GE is right when they point out that they own more 50% of the company so it needs to be consolidated.

</comment><comment><USER36> Wow. Given CNBC is owned by GE.

<comment><USER37> It was, it has been sold by GE a long time ago (at least 5 years). Maybe some of the staff still feels some sort of loyalty (or relief) I don't know but there is no reason now that CNBC should be more harsh or gentle on GE news.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I recently did an analysis of GE as well. Largely speaking found their numbers to be too good to be true.

<comment> _-___________-_ The Affinity is built around the CFM56 core. Not a brand new turbofan, just a further development of a massively successful product.

Edited to add: there was originally a lot of vague insinuations about the GE Affinity turbofan in the parent comment, but it was edited down from five paragraphs to one after I replied.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> if this is based on public record, how come it is only exposed now

<comment><USER40> Libor manipulation was on the public record years before the scandal blew up. Exposing anything but dirt-simple financial fraud is hard, even to people who know all the facts.

<comment><USER41> Amusingly(?..) LIBOR-style manipulation still exists in other markets! [https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-01/was- ch...](https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-01/was-chicken- libor-manipulated-too)

Strange to think that incentives like this are/were considered the best solution and can last so long.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Is this the tipping point that will start the recession?

<comment> nappy-doo Doubt it. GE is small potatoes nowadays.

<comment><USER42> I'm not agreeing with the previous poster but GE is anything but small potatoes nowadays. They have over 100bn in debt and there's a very real case where they get downgraded to high yield which is a near death sentence for an industrial company of their size.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Also GE has been putting executives in jail with the help of the American government in order to put pressure and takeover foreign companies.

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/-the- amer...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-15/-the-american- trap-an-executive-s-view-from-a-u-s-prison-cell)

[https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/behind-ges- takeover-...](https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/02/behind-ges-takeover-of- alstom-energy/)

[https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the- americ...](https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/17/how-the-american- takeover-of-a-french-national-champion-became-intertwined-in-a-corruption- investigation)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What's hilarious is that if you look at the website gefraud.com and attempt to download the report take a look at the fine print. These guys SHORTED GE before they made this report public....

Edit: Guys, I understand the logic behind shorting GE, what I found funny was that they made it public that they had short positions in their disclaimer. IF I were in their position I would've shorted GE just like any other individual with this information.

<comment><USER44> If they have information that GE is overvalued, what _should_ they do? If they don't short, people like you go Taleb and accuse them of throwing out accusations with no skin in the game; if they do short, they get accused of making things up for profit. They can't win.

<comment><AUTHOR> But you see, I didn't say that they were wrong or right. I merely was pointing out the fact that they put in their disclaimer that they did in fact have short positions on GE prior to publication.

<comment><USER45> You didn't "merely point it out", you described it as "hilarious". This implies that you view the disclosure as some sort of evidence of impropriety, as if you discovered what game they were truly playing or something.

As others have told you, this is standard practice for short sellers, and the financial industry as a whole.

What would you rather them do? Simply claim that GE is a fraud without having any stake in GE, long or short? Don't you lend their claim more weight given that they've taken a financial position based on their belief? I would think that would be a more rational view.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Santa Tracker - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/santatracker

<comment><USER2> Google was the map provider for NORAD's Santa Tracker (<http://www.noradsanta.org/en/track.html>) for the past five years.

This year, NORAD went with Bing. ([http://searchengineland.com/this-year- norad-tracks-santa-wit...](http://searchengineland.com/this-year-norad-tracks- santa-with-microsoft-bing-not-google-142313))

The official word? "This year, NTS and Google mutually agreed to go in new directions, and we are excited to welcome a number of new contributors, to include Microsoft, Windows Azure, Bing, and iLink-systems, among others, to help us in our mission of tracking Santa. The ability to work with a diverse team of contributors is fundamental to the NTS mission, and we appreciate all of the continued support of all contributors."

</comment><comment><USER3> A tech question: I'm a Opera user and notice that a lot of websites just don't work in Opera lately. Now I wonder what special Javascript is required for a page like the Santa Tracker that Opera doesn't support. Because I don't get why a simple animation used in the clock for example doesn't work. Is this a developers problem for using unsupported Javascript or is Opera having big issues keeping there browser up to date?

Edit: I noticed that Opera is altering the Javascript by inserting a "browser.js" file.

<comment><AUTHOR> Damn, that's a shame. (I'm one of the engineers who worked on this site)

We've been working really hard to get this out there - but unfortunately I haven't had a chance to test on Opera. What version of Opera, and what OS are you running? I'd like to make sure this works for as many people as possible.

edit: Looks like our SCSS mixin didn't generate the Opera specific prefixes. We'll try to get that updated in the next couple days :-)

<comment><USER4> How many people actually worked on this project ? (just curious)

<comment><AUTHOR> Including or excluding Santa and his elves?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Theres a Kaggle competition going on where you are supposed to optimize the route: "Traveling Santa Problem" <http://www.kaggle.com/c/traveling-santa- problem>

</comment><comment><USER6> I went through the entire Santa Call portion of the application and at the very end it wouldn't place the call because it's too late. OK--I get that. However, it offered me no way to schedule the call for later or to save my progress! Be warned!

<comment><USER7> I suppose it's kid-themed, but having the words appear one by one (like Santa is actually typing) is incredibly irritating. The lack of a save function would be bearable if the words appeared all at once.

<comment><USER8> They actually say it's not for kids!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Nice work Googlers - Now for the Nexus 7 I so deserve for being a good boy this year, can I please have it in black and in its original box so it doesn't get damaged when Santa comes down my chimney. Thx.

</comment><comment><USER10> That's pretty awesome. There are games and everything. I wonder if this was built by google employees with their "20 percent time".

</comment><comment><USER11> absolutely wonderful stuff! how the heck do you get a job doing this stuff :-)

does it use parallax scrolling ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Join Google Developer Relations: <https://developers.google.com/jobs/>

Yes, the parallax effect is really cool! There are some really interesting aspects to it (performance), which we will talk about early next year, once we've had a break.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Interesting how google chrome can't 'find' noradsanta.org (but if you type in the full www.noradsanta.org it works).

<comment><USER13> It has nothing to do with Google Chrome - same issue happens with IE. This is a faulty DNS configuration of the site.

<comment><USER12> chrome does a good job of finding other sites that are mis-typed- it switches to search mode. Not for this one, though.</comment></comment></comment>


What not to do in your pitch deck - <AUTHOR> http://odiseev.com/2015/10/24/what-not-to-do-in-your-pitch-deck/ <comment><AUTHOR> Here are some of the hints. I will appreciate if you post some more topics in the comments of my blog.

* DO NOT clutter your slides with tons of text and information. Sorry, I just get overwhelmed with different fonts and pics and all the things YOU consider important. You will spot if your slides are too informative if people start asking questions to which you have stated the answers earlier.

* DO NOT identify huge market and reserve a cut of it while not establishing a link to why this market might belong to you one day.

* DO NOT miss out what you will do with investors money and how much you need.

and more.</comment>


Against software development - <AUTHOR> http://www.rntz.net/post/against-software-development.html <comment><USER2> There's something mildly "ranty" about this, to its own detriment. I believe what it is is that it seems to try to connect ideas that have no logical connection, but simply an emotional association.

For example, what is the connection between "Beautiful code gets rewritten" and "Refuse to work on systems that profit from digital addictions." ?

It comes across as though the author is just vaguely angry at the loose concept of software.

It's true that the software ecosystem is incredibly disorganized and inefficient (100s of similar distros, dozens of similar package managers, thousands of redundant tools). But I don't think one should get bent out-of- shape about it. If you think about it objectively, if it were efficient then most of us likely wouldn't have jobs.

<comment><USER3> "If you think about it objectively, if it were efficient then most of us likely wouldn't have jobs."

So programmers should write bad software to keep their jobs? And civil engineers should build bad bridges to build them again a bit later? And doctors?

<comment><USER4> Drug companies look to discover/invent drugs that can treat a symptom forever, rather than curing people. Probably the main reason people hate drug companies. That and charging 100k for a treatment when they do find a cure (Hep C).

<comment><USER5> Can you cite actual instances of this happening?

<comment><USER4> It is what is not happening that is the problem. A bit harder to prove but not researching antibiotics is one case that is widely discussed. A google search on "why aren't drug companies researching antibiotic drugs" brings up lots of articles spanning decades. This Business Insider [1] article is quite recent.

Here is a quote from that article:

"The costs to develop a new antibiotic drug are no less expensive compared to development of drugs for other therapeutic areas, yet the commercial potential and return on investment for companies developing new antibiotics are significantly lower than drugs to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease," said Gary Disbrow, deputy director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which sits within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

[1][https://www.businessinsider.com/major-pharmaceutical- compani...](https://www.businessinsider.com/major-pharmaceutical-companies- dropping-antibiotic-projects-superbugs-2018-7)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been meaning to give a lightning talk about a related subject someday, called "Why Software Sucks".

Basically, software hovers along the fuzzy line between "barely works" and "doesn't work". When we start a project, it doesn't work. We add code until it barely works. Then we break it, so it doesn't work. So we add enough scaffold that it barely works and can support the new features, until we break it again, and the cycle begins anew. This is actually embedded as principle in TSTTCPW (the simplest thing that could possibly work), but attempts to waterfall our way out by careful planning are generally doomed, due to unintended consequences and such.

Eventually, the software becomes broken and no longer worth fixing (and thus gets abandoned), or it hits feature complete while (barely) working. And what happens when it's "complete"? Do we say "Thank goodness, finally I can go fix all those bugs and design flaws!"? No, never.

Instead, we drop that blecherous losing piece of crap as fast as we can and go start on the shiny new project that's been cooking in our minds, the one we couldn't work on because we were hacking our way through the wretched ball of mud that is our old code, wasting time in frustration and shame, just to get it off our plate. So we start working on the shiny new thing. And _this_ time, the code will be good. _This time_ , it won't suck.

Yeah, right.

<comment><USER7> This really depends on the kind of industry. If we follow the money trail, software exists to achieve a business goal, either directly or indirectly. As with most things in business, what matters is "good enough".

Some software exists outside of this environment, usually because it is beholden to an impeccable level of quality (defined as never caught in a non- deterministic state, resillient, etc). This can be:

— software used by millions of people, all poking at obscure edge cases;

— software used by lots of other software, for the same reasons;

— software commissioned by high stakes businesses (space, life-support systems...), where the amount of life or money lost, should the software fail, is simply unacceptable.

This in turn guides what I decide to work on. If your employer/client views your software purely as a cost center, you can guarantee the quality you are allowed to deliver will always remain mediocre. Good enough to support the business but no more. I learned to stay away from those industries.

<comment><USER6> I used to work on a system that moved a hundred billion dollars a day. Yes, billion. Downtime costed thousands of dollars a minute simply in floating interest from money not moving, and a serious outage could damage the entire economy. That's some serious high availability requirements.

 _For purposes of its extreme performance and availability requirements_ , it barely worked. That doesn't mean it was bad code! It was great code. But it could have been better. It could have been much better. And it wasn't, because once it met those requirements, work got applied to expanding its feature set instead. Which was, in a way, also a requirement.

Pick _any_ "impeccable level of quality" system, and you'll find the same thing. Heart monitors. Mars launches. Whatever. The software barely works, given the difficulty of the requirements. I'd argue that it's actually irresponsible for businesses to try to do any better than that! The cost of bouncing the rubble with code quality is a resource that could be much better spent on other things.

Think of it in terms of the 80/20 rule. Dig into that last 20%, and you'll spend 80% of your effort on it. It's not a good tradeoff. The Pareto Principle isn't a measure of how bad we are, it's a measure of how good we are. When we attend to its wisdom, we get the most work done.

edit: Scope is not the only requirement. Schedule is also a requirement! Pareto Principle again! Taking four times as long to get 20% better code is failure. We don't just have to create features. We create features with the resources we have, the technology we have, the people we have, within the schedule we have. A blown schedule is a failed requirement. Software not delivered on time is, in fact, broken.

<comment><USER8> By definition wouldn't all bridges "barely work"? Yes it's spec'd to handle X load, now putting X+1 might cause some damage because it was never tested or designed for X+1.

<comment><USER9> All bridges follow similar designs, even if their implementations are original. Digital systems tend to fail in original ways all the time, because the design is something intentionally new. If it weren't, you'd just copy the existing software.

Which doesn't mean that we have no reusable or generalizable quality metrics - we do. But they tend to express things that correlate to an abstract of quality, and not a failure threshold.

The most honest systems in software are the ones that do not scale, because they have built in their hard failure point - and from that, tolerance metrics similar to bridges can be predicted and planned for. It's software that has to do everything in a multitude of configurations at great speed that runs into deep architectural issues, because it hypothesizes a bridge that will someday tolerate an infinite load.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The author makes some good points about the ethical dubiousness of a lot of software jobs. But I think the author misses the biggest point.

Software replaces people with machines and increases capital's share of income. I have heard technology is the biggest driver of growing inequality, and at this point in history technological change is driven by software.

I think the old nostrums about creative destruction and labor saving technologies freeing up labor to pursue higher roles are true in the aggregate, but the aggregate obscures a lot of human wreckage left behind by people who were laid off and never rehired at a comparable level.

I consider this process inevitable which is why I am trying to get ahead of it. But that's a fundamentally selfish motivation no matter how much you gussy it up. Being honest about this is one thing that keeps my aspirations modest - I simply want to carve out a place for myself where I feel comfortable. I think buying into the creative destruction rhetoric makes it easier to harden your heart.

</comment><comment><USER11> The only time I haven't seen shabby code with caked on layers of features has been when I had the fortune of working on a development team that was trained to write software.

I've seen new languages and new development methodologies introduced to try to combat code complexity and the only thing I have seen so far that prevents it are people who take a step back and think about what they're creating before implementing it. These people are rare and go unrewarded for their efforts.

<comment><USER12> This is so true. There is a lost art of software architecture and design.

<comment><USER13> Shit software architecture/design is nothing new. There always was shit code, and always will be. The sky is blue.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> >Software grows until it exceeds our capacity to understand it.

This point is well taken, and I think that many organization would benefit from having a CGR role ("chief grim reaper"), who's job would be not to enhance the codebase or its functionality, but to do the opposite: to kill/simplify code and prevent the codebase from exceeding a certain net complexity over time. Simplicity itself need to be treated as a core feature, and the success of the CGR need to be defined by whether that core feature is maintained.

<comment><USER15> Wow that is a really good idea. Unless a specific individual is in charge of something it will never get done. I am going to propose this to my team.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _Beautiful code gets rewritten; ugly code survives._

Ever stop to think that maybe this is a _good_ thing?

That code doesn't exist to be beautiful -- code exists to get the job done. Beautiful doesn't mean it's not also useless or arbitrary or over-architected, while ugly can be a healthy balance of competing priorities -- maybe not clean, but a good series of necessary real-world compromises.

This isn't to defend all (or even most) ugly code as good... but that equating beauty with good comes across as terribly naive.

<comment><USER17> They didn't say it was a bad thing. Just that it's what happens.

I've noticed lately that people seem to assume that if you say something negative, you're trying to make a big existential claim about its place in the universe.

Like when people criticize masculinity and then we are all aghast as if they said masculinity needs to be systematically extracted from all aspects of culture.

I'm not sure which side of the equation needs to be more careful though. Maybe, in the internet age with the globe as your audience, if people are criticizing things they need to add a bunch of caveats to make it clear what they're not saying.

<comment><USER16> The first sentence literally calls it the "tragedy of software engineering". I don't think I'm making an unwarranted assumption that the author means it's a bad thing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> _Just so, generic code is replaced by its concrete instances, which are faster and (at first) easier to comprehend.

Just so, extensible code gets extended and shimmed and customized until under its own sheer weight it collapses, then replaced by a monolith that Just Works.

aesthetics alone keep us from the hell_

Beware of comparing "beautiful" code to subsequent code that deals with 10x the complexity in requirements. Either it's beautiful because it's perfectly suited to the scale and complexity it was written for, in which case it's impossible to preserve that beauty in the later, more complex code, or it's "beautiful" because it has a bunch of premature abstractions built in that somebody fantasized would handle all future complexity, in which case the "beauty" was useless work that later programmers had to undo. When the supposed genericity and extensibility of a system doesn't survive the evolution of the system to meet subsequent requirements, my first suspicion is premature abstraction, not insufficiently tasteful programmers.

Even worse, the effort to dismantle this "beauty" is often considerable. Architecture, defined as the set of decisions that are costly to change, needs to anticipate the drastically different needs of the future. You rarely find architecture within the code of a single system early in its development, because code at that stage should be easy to rewrite. Code seen as "beautiful" by its author often violates this rule, creating architecture where architecture shouldn't exist.

</comment><comment><USER19> Whiplash. The first two sections are about generic software development truisms; from there, for the last section, the author pivots to arguing for his specific political positions, as if universal truths of software development justify these ideas. Is the author expect to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with him?

<comment><USER20> > Is the author expect to convince anyone who doesn't already agree with him?

Not really. If I wanted to convince skeptics, I would have to make it much longer and more precise, and then it be a very different kind of thing. Maybe I'll do that some other day.

The connections between the sections are fairly obscure, I admit. But I think many "universal truths of software development" are instances of more general problems to do with collective decision-making and local optimisation processes, which also produce the problems the last section mentions. I don't have a solution, but in the meantime I'd like to avoid making things worse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> > To those who have a choice:

If I think this doesn't apply to me because I don't have a choice, I'm disempowering myself. My choices may be hard to make, but abducted women still try to flee. We know because of the ones who escape.

If I think others don't have a choice, I'm disempowering them. I choose to believe we everyone can learn to become more empowered and stand up to those they've been giving power to.

<comment><USER22> That line of thinking can end at victim blaming - the abducted women stayed abducted because she didn't try to run hard enough. That's putting the blame on the wrong person.

That being said, many devs CAN make the choice, but I don't think it's fair to blame those who can't. Not everywhere is booming to the same amount, and not everyone's life experience is the same to allow them freedom to move to an area that is.

<comment><USER21> I'm not assigning blame. I'm choosing who I want as a role model.

Blame is nonsense black-and-white thinking. There is shared responsibility in everything. I share in the responsibility of all things that occur after I take my next breath.

Abandon blame and it's possible to read what I wrote without finding anything wrong with it.

<comment><USER22> Without framing it in blame then, if one fails even though they are empowered, what is the implications?

<comment><USER23> There are two classes of implications that come to me easily.

1) There is a possibility that the empowered person did not make the decision(s) that would have resulted in success. Maybe there was no decision chain leading to success. Good luck deciding.

2) The environment that caused failure, could be poorly optimized to minimize failure over a set of empowered persons. Maybe it is optimized and the individuals paths to success couldn't be increased. Good luck determining this, optimization of complex functions is not easy.

The classes are not mutually exclusive. Ignoring the individual's actions (the first class) seems like a poor approach to reducing net failures.

These lines of reasoning always remind me of a quote (from an admittedly cheesy source) that I think holds a useful sentiment.

"There's always someone who'll try to convince you that they know the answer no matter the question. Be wary of those who believe in a neat little world because it's just fucking crazy, you know that it is." \--DMB

(I am not accusing the parent of being a person of which to be wary, their comments seem very reasonable).

<comment><USER22> So empowerment doesn't mean they have the ability to change anything, it's just a state of being where they are under the belief they can possibly change something? What exactly is empowerment?

<comment><USER23> Predetermination is not a theological rabbit hole that is necessary to go down for this conversation. Reducing things to the point where the original ideas have little tangible meaning ineffective way to discuss ideas. See why mathematicians reduce complex ideas into a concise syntax.

\---

Empower:

* To invest with power, especially legal power or official authority.

* To equip or supply with an ability.

Give to individuals:

Legal power over their persons (liberty), as much as is possible without infringing on the legal power of other persons.

The ability and knowledge to wield this power to maximize their individual outcomes.

\---

These concepts are well defined by the founders of the USA in a really beautiful and rigorous fashion. Read them thoroughly and you will learn more than I can convey.

I'm not sure why you would trust me, a stranger on the internet to define these concepts to you. Would you write off the foundational ideas of liberty if I were not able to convey these concepts with the fluency they deserve?

I'm picking up a really ineffective and/or deceptive argument strategy from you. The guidelines of this cite states:

> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone > says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

If your plan is to ask de-constructive questions until I slip up, know that you are abusing the Socratic method. [1] It is a cooperative argument exercise used to promote critical thinking. I did not consent, nor have the time for a critical thinking exercise. Refuting a sub-hypothesis says little about the school of thought that may have spawned it.

I am only writing this reply because I have seen similar threads spread throughout internet boards since I started browsing. The strategy (not you) is an evil cancer that degrades effective discussions, brow beats posters into submission, and kill communities. If I were to host a discussion platform I would do my best to cull this practice (without consent). I believe that is the spirit of that point in Paul's guideline. Please do better.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The purpose of software is to teach a machine perform tasks, even when many of those tasks are to show an interface so that a human can perform a task. Design is nontrivial, but computers are powerful, so we can layer on abstractions to ease the understandability and modularity of the code.

This is a creative process that's part engineering, part art: some people choose to take proven components and techniques and apply them in predictable ways, while some choose to experiment with new techniques, and some up with novel solutions. But any tradeoff has a cost, and future maintainers may not appreciate a solution whose meaty details aren't obvious.

While the creation of software may be a part-creative process, its maintenance is purely pragmatic: fixes to unforeseen problems need to be delivered quickly above all else, and enhancements along all extension points need to be possible, not just along axes the original authors intended. It's not hard to see that elegant code might be under immense pressure from more pragmatic modifications, any one of which can endanger its status in the eye of a beholder. This is likely why this article's author sees 'ugly' code survive: presumably, small changes are sufficient to make beautiful code ugly, while already-ugly code faces no such aesthetic pressure.

</comment><comment><USER25> Can someone point out to projets or initiatives that are attempting to solve the problems mentioned by the writer of this article?

I can't stand the unnecessary complexity, fragmentation and duplication in software. The entire industry is a mess. Very few people seem to care.

</comment><comment><USER26> > generic code is replaced by its concrete instances, which are faster

If you're using a shitty compiler, yes.

<comment><USER27> [http://wiki.c2.com/?SufficientlySmartCompiler](http://wiki.c2.com/?SufficientlySmartCompiler)

<comment><USER28> They're referring to monomorphization. Rust, for example:

> You might be wondering whether there is a runtime cost when you're using > generic type parameters. The good news is that Rust implements generics in > such a way that your code doesn't run any slower using generic types than it > would with concrete types.

> Rust accomplishes this by performing monomorphization of the code that is > using generics at compile time. Monomorphization is the process of turning > generic code into specific code by filling in the concrete types that are > used when compiled.

<comment><USER29> Where do you get that monomorphization reference from?

Let's assume for example you have a generic hash map where you just plug the type in, which must be hashable. Now if you plug in an integer type, monomorphization or whatever fancy compilation techniques will make that faster. But the best way to map an integer range is still a plain array.

To put it in simple terms, compilers can make shit run faster, but they can't make it not shit.

<comment><USER30> > But the best way to map an integer range is still a plain array.

Eh, only if you know in advance that:

1\. Your integer keys can only ever come from a contiguous range of values

2\. Once populated, your map will have values for at least 25-50% of the integers in that range.

If either of these assumptions are false, using an array will force you to allocate way more memory than you need to hold the elements in your map, and the resulting map will be sparse, and therefore cache-unfriendly.

Arrays are not better than hash maps that use integer keys in the general case.

<comment><USER29> Which is my point. Compilers can't help here.

<comment><USER26> Yes, that is correct, you missed the point. You don't understand what generics are.

<comment><USER29> I think you are confusing "generic code" (which is a pretty generic term) with "Generics", which has a somewhat more defined meaning in programming languages.

We could agree that the latter can be implemented relatively efficiently (given a few concrete examples to clarify what that means). But that does not mean that their use, or more generally, the use of generic code, is always the best and most efficient to do. It is not, by far.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I only wish it was longer.

</comment><comment><USER31> Given how hot the market is for software developers right now, there's really no excuse to be working on ethically questionable products.

<comment><USER32> I would be cautious about generalisations like that.

Sometimes the good jobs are where you aren't. Sometimes the good jobs won't return your calls. Sometimes you have to choose between your morals and your wife, deportation, debt, or all together.

<comment><USER33> Can you really say you have morals if you sacrifice nothing for them? Are they not merely preferences at that point?

<comment><USER32> It's a tricky question. I agree that often morals involve making though choices. At the same time, those choices have to balance the magnitude of the evil, the consequences of sticking to your morals, and the consequences of just going with it.

To give a concrete example: let's say I have to choose between unemployment and working in a casino (assuming I believe casinos to be evil). I can work there and do nothing. I can work there and donate an X amount of my salary to addiction-recovery ONGs. I can refuse to work there and compromise my (hypothetical) children's well-being.

Which one of this is the "moral" choice? I can't say. And I'm willing to bet that you can make a moral argument for each one of those.

I'm with you in that sticking to your morals often involve sacrifice. But I wouldn't assume that the weights I add to each aspect of my morals are the same as everybody else's.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> > Refuse to work on systems that profit from digital addictions.

> Refuse to work on systems that centralize control of media.

> Refuse to work on systems that prop up an unjust status quo.

> Refuse to work on systems that require unsustainable tradeoffs.

> Refuse to work on systems that weaponize the fabric of society.

Rich people can afford to turn their nose up at any kind of work apparently. Also noteworthy that the internet was invented as a result of "weaponizing"...so put that phone down.

Oddly enough all of this also invalidates working on most open source code, since the OSI says a license should not discriminate against intended use

<comment><USER24> The OSI model of licensing has its philosophical roots in a very classical notion of universal rights and freedoms. As with all absolutist points-of- view, this frustrates some pragmatic people, and/or irks those developers who want to benefit from the publication of their work without large corporations then profiting monetarily from the same work.

That's fair, but there's an entire, centuries-old legal apparatus designed to protect the rights of that kind of developer: they should engage a lawyer, craft a license with the correct balance they seek, and pursue to reap the concrete or abstract rewards from their work.

But instead, it's en vogue to complain about open source licenses and wonder why the cake can't also be eaten, because developers have a marketshare- scaling problem: they want their software distributed to a wide audience such that it gains usage and mindshare, but not wide enough where AWS is selling their work as a managed service at prices they couldn't by themselves. Attempts by rightholders of software that suffered this fate always try to split the offering into a libre core and a proprietary set of enhancements with various levels of success, while some go down a nonsensical and legally- dubious path of trying to force libre licensing onto proprietary companion software within a larger offering. These demonstrate that giving away libre software may not be a sound business model on its own.

Unfortunate for this article's author, the ethical stands he wants other developers to make are quite often _good_ business models. That's to the detriment of all of us. Some amount of people will make a stand, but there will be others who won't, and they'll reap the rewards, and we'll suffer the consequences of their work nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> It's very easy to derive a good business model from bad ethics. All business models derive from friction, right? We make money doing things for others that they find difficult or unpleasant to do for themselves. The more difficult/unpleasant it is, the greater the potential value.

Something that can make a task difficult or unpleasant is that task being unethical. Take for example an investment scheme that bilks the elderly out of their retirement savings. Technically, it's not difficult to do. Ethically, it's awful. So it's profitable because it's unethical. If robbing the elderly was ethical, a lot more people would do it, and there'd be a lot less money in it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Beautiful code gets rewritten; ugly code survives.

Also: GPL code gets rewritten, BSD/MIT code survives.

<comment><USER36> Huh? Where's the BSD rewrite of Emacs? Is Linux not surviving? Are Hg and Git? GPL programs are category-killers.

<comment><USER37> It only matters if you're redistributing it. So, libraries not tools.

Given the choice between two otherwise similar frameworks/libraries, I would expect most to gravitate towards the non-GPL'd one since there is less friction. i.e. you don't even have to consider things like the GPL linking rules.

<comment><USER38> But that's exactly the point, isn't it?

[a bit oversimplified] You want to use this GPL library? Great! Just release your own software as GPL!

It's not complicated, per se, it's just that some people/business are not ok with that condition (which is their prerogative).

<comment><USER37> > it's just that some people/business are not ok with that condition

The point is that if people/businesses are not okay with using it, then that hurts the survival of that thing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Cleaning Up Air Pollution May Strengthen Global Warming - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cleaning-up-air-pollution-may-strengthen-global-warming/ <comment><USER2> Wow, what bullshit. Scientific American has achieved a new low in irresponsible science writing.</comment>


Maine Penny - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_Penny

<comment><USER2> Genuinely curious as to why this was submitted:

"There is no reliable confirmation on the documentation of the Goddard coin, and much circumstantial evidence suggests that someone was deliberately trying to manipulate or obfuscate the situation. The Norse coin from Maine should probably be considered a hoax."

<comment><AUTHOR> This was submitted because it is interesting :)

The quote you quote (sic) is from the American Numismatic Society, which is one informed opinion but can hardly be taken as the unequivocal truth. The hypothesis from the Maine State Museum historians (which requires reading the entire article since it is at the end :-) is more constructive than mere dismissal as a "hoax".</comment></comment>


Desperately need an investor .. any ideas? - <AUTHOR> http://alpha.beepl.com/user/rsvaskova I've tried and tried and tried and it's leading nowhere....  Btw, you might want to check out profiles - that's where the technology goes. I have about a month of work to get ready to launch this. And when I do, it's going to kick ass! Any advice / feedback is highly appreciated. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Here's my honest opinion of Beepl: \- The design of the site is fantastic. I can safely say I've never seen a site that looks as well, both in terms of artwork, appearance, navigation etc. I did spot one or two usability glitches and spelling mistakes... I am a bit anal when it comes to that, but I'm sure you know that already! \- The concept and ideas are also excellent: the semantic engine; a Q&A market; seamless integration with other sites. This kind of research tool/experts network should be in very high demand, if it catches on. From what I can see, the biggest challenge will be attracting enough of a user-base to get the ball rolling. I think you need to explain to users exactly what differentiates beepl from your competitors, like Yahoo answers... for example on the "About Beepl" page, or maybe by putting an article up on Wikipedia about beepl before the launch. \- I can't comment on how viable it is in terms of revenue, but I'm sure you have the business model worked out already!

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Hope it's useful. I'd better go to bed now.. early start tomorrow!

</comment><comment><USER3> Everything needs to be fleshed out more. Reading this and your other post leaves me with the feeling that you might have a good idea but are very early in formulating it into a business (as opposed to a hobby).

It is a pain in the butt and extremely time consuming - not to mention there are no guarantees at the end. Chances are that it won't all even help with the idea/business.

None of that matters because it's what you have to do to even have a chance for investment. In the end you'll be better for it.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> RIP <http://alpha.beepl.com>

</comment><comment><USER4> That's like saying "I desperately need a wife". Not likely, sorry.

<comment><AUTHOR> I figured. I'd delete this post if I could. But it is kind of like that - critical.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> OK, I take it it's a lack of the about section.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> The end.

Dead pool.

</comment><comment><USER5> it'd be great if the "About Beepl" link worked...

<comment><AUTHOR> Working on it. Wednesday maybe? For now: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1625622></comment></comment>