Ask HN: Do you think technology progress will flatten out 100 years from now - <AUTHOR> Other than few areas like interplanetary travel, will there be enough frontiers for humans to explore once we hit the limits of physics Edit: I really mean 100 years from now - that's a long period of time - to get a perspective - think about the progress we made just in the last 10 years in technology - and fact that we are doing this at an exponential rate <comment><USER2> No. I think what we consider technology now will be very different in 100 years. Where previously, the discovery of fire or the invention of wheels were technology and no one at the time could conceive of the idea of the Internet let alone ML. I believe in 100 years, there will be so much progress in technology that the idea that technology is limited by physics will be absurd. We're living in an incredible time of free education to the masses via MOOCs and even YouTube tutorials. We have expanded knowledge sharing and learning at a rate that has never been seen in history.

That being said, all this is if we manage to advance our technology fast enough so we can survive climate change and wars at massively destructive scale.

<comment><USER3> > the idea that technology is limited by physics will be absurd

What I find absurd is that one could think that physical limits on technology are absurd. Physical limits are _exactly_ the limits on technology, no more no less. The question is what those limits really are and in some cases we do not yet know them but for the most part we have a pretty good idea of what is and is not possible technology wise. It is simply up to us to try to maximize our potential _within those limits_.

<comment><USER2> > The question is what those limits really are and in some cases we do not yet > know them but for the most part we have a pretty good idea of what is and is > not possible technology wise.

I don't think so. We have no idea what those limits really are. What you're saying now would be like someone from the 1850s, before the invention of electricity, claims that there's no way that we can communicate instantaneously with people on the other side of the planet, actually scratch that, make that people from the next town over, because PHYSICS! I mean, it just isn't possible because we're limited by the physical distance, right?

I think it's silly to think that we can even predict what the new physical limits will look like in 100 years. At least I hope that is the case. Still pissed off that we don't have flying cars yet though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "In my opinion, all previous advances in the various lines of invention will appear totally insignificant when compared with those which the present century will witness. I almost wish that I might live my life over again to see the wonders which are at the threshold." Charles Holland Duell, 1902

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

<comment><USER5> I'm also optimistic about technological progress, but if you look at this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Engineerin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Academy_of_Engineering#Greatest_Engineering_Achievements_of_the_20th_Century)

The 21st century might look a bit lackluster so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> People tend to think that around 200 years ago humans suddenly became much more enlightened and we just randomly started to see rapid technological progress, which will forever be the solution to any and all problems humans face.

But technology is not the product of sheer human brilliance, but rather something that was purchased with highly available cheap energy. Imagine your timeline of our exponential progress and you'll find it maps pretty well to this timeline of terawatts-hours of fossil fuels [1].

But in the next 100 years we face two related problems that stem directly from this abundance of cheap energy. One problem is the one caused by climate change and the other is the inevitable depletion of natural resource (including those very fossil fuels). The common HN response is that we'll magically fix both of these with "technology!" but once you realize that our technological brilliance is fueled by hydrocarbons you realize that solving the problem of hydrocarbons is pretty much trickier than all the other problems we've solved.

And the truth is, despite what people will tell you, we don't have any solutions to the real problems we're facing. We don't have any known viable pathway to large scale energy storage required for a fully renewable grid, we don't have any idea how to produce the liquid fuels at scale essential to a global economy (you need high energy density fuels to efficiently transport goods), we don't know how to engineer global scale carbon capture and storage.

And I know people will likely link to a bunch of research projects that "look promising!" But to go from promising research to global scale production takes... tons of energy.

Technological progress is just a proxy for high energy density fuel consumption. Given unlimited high energy density fuels and a planet with infinite resources, yes we would also produce exponentially more marvelous things. But the next challenge is how to deal with the consequence of burning far too many high energy density fuels on a limited planet and running into the limitations of energy.

[1] [https://ourworldindata.org/fossil- fuels](https://ourworldindata.org/fossil-fuels)

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't think it's clear that the options are either that we continue to progress exponentially or stagnate. Both of those seem like possibilities in the medium-term, but I wouldn't rule out the possibilities of decline (in the worst case) or cyclical re-development of the same ideas.

Technological discovery doesn't just happen in a vacuum. There needs to be a societal production of potential new inventors and scientists. Where their interests lie is to some extent influenced by the culture they grow up in, and which research interests will receive funding (or societal status) is also dependent on culture, etc. Worse, if a problem has been widely solved using a _bad_ solution, there is no real desire for a good one.

Take electrical engineering and circuit design as an example. I would make the case that despite the immense and obvious success of computers, our society is in some significant way worse off than it was 50 years ago if you were to measure our collective ability to solve _new_ problems using electrical engineering. Fewer and fewer electrical engineers are being educated, while the competency threshold of the field is rising. As that threshold rises, our education system shifts from teaching people to invent things to teaching them about practical skills like how to work all the menus in [some modeling tool], and how to generate report templates for MS Word.

Software is so new that we've barely exceeded a single human lifespan (hardly enough time for information to get lost is it?), but how many times have you seen companies with a code base that was written by some greybeard in the 80's, which is critical to the success of the company but nobody understands? When the company realised that, did they try to address the root of the problem, or did they decide to keep piling shit on top of what they already had?

It may be that software itself is the problem. Software allows you to snapshot your current problem solving capacity and continue delivering it long after the problem solvers themselves are gone. Maybe if we're lucky, the current generation of AI researchers will get us to something that approaches human level intelligence before these problems become intractable.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunately, I believe ecological collapse and resources depletion in the next few decades will hinder technological progress.

<comment><USER9> I think the ecological collapse will be avoided, I take as example South Africa and the water crisis [1]. They predict the day 0 (out of water). As the day get closer, everyone started to ratiocinate the water, everybody realized that the problem was just ahead of them that the entire community helped and "the day 0" was moved several times.

It seems to me, but I might be wrong that we are procrastinating with global warming till the issue is really close, then the hair of everyone will stand and the entire population will help.

[1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/04/back-from- the-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/04/back-from-the-brink- how-cape-town-cracked-its-water-crisis)

<comment><USER10> The trouble is if we reach a tipping point where warming causes big releases of methane then there is nothing we can do. We will be carried along for the ride at that point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Absolutely.

Either Horizontally if we all die or Vertically, given enough time if you zoom-out enough.

</comment><comment> d--b There is no limit to complexity.

There are still many many mysteries to solve about life, intelligence, and more generally about complex chemical processes.

Energy efficiency has a limit that we are very far from reaching (how to harvest all of the sun energy productively? without ruining life?)

Human systems: how to reduce waste, make transit faster, make people happier, avoid violence, etc.

I can't think of it all, but no we will not run out of things to discover/invent.

<comment><USER12> We are humans, as soon as we understand how something works, we think we can modify to make it better. So we will always be busy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not at all. I believe (although have nothing but "feelings" to back up my opinion) that the age of grand discoveries made by a single individual which uncovers some fundamental law of nature is over.

Transformative technologies of the kind that can impact all of humankind will most likely be done by a team of very high IQ individuals backed by a mega- corp or a state, most likely coming out of China or the US.

In the next 100 years ML algorithms and the underlying hardware will improve to a point where it'll maintain context across a longer timeframe than humans are able to and will not only process large data volumes at random to stumble on something that works but it'll use previously available knowledge across 50 years+ in order not to waste time in useless research directions.

Much like every other major technology I don't believe these algorithms will exist in isolation and the tech will surface a multiple geographical places on earth.

These ML algorithms will work hand in hand with humanity to create the next transformative technologies and uncover the next set of fundamental laws of nature.

<comment><USER14> Just as much backed only by feelings:

I think progress will be brought by teams, but not necessarily made up of "very high IQ individuals". I think incremental progress and community-driven improvements to technology will gradually take us to a new level of integration with the world and with each other.

At the same time I think we can't imagine too well how this will look like, much like how the sci-fi predictions about the world today were only tangentially correct.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Imagine the quality of simulated worlds a hundred years from now. Even if we _do_ hit the limits of physics in physical reality I think _virtual_ reality could be limited only by our imaginations.

<comment><USER3> By that standard science fiction should qualify as science. It doesn't. Simulated worlds physical reality is about as relevant as what your average 70's sci-fi writer could cook up. As long as those ideas are feasible (say: communications satellites) we may end up with some progress but only where it connects to the real world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Why limit technology to physics, or the _limits of physics_? There are so many other areas, and perhaps undiscovered areas, of study. If history is any indication, technology can be lost. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse) Difficult to predict the future, but I am optimistic.

</comment><comment><USER17> There is strong case that innovation peaked 50s and has been slowing down since [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601199/tech-slowdown- thre...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601199/tech-slowdown-threatens- the-american-dream/) .

</comment><comment><USER18> I wouldn't really see it like that. The limits of physics are with us every day. That is why cars are impractical at speed and why there is latency to other continents. For all the development in technology, it is mostly the same since the 80s. "Just" more of it.

</comment><comment><USER5> There's always a frontier: the frontier between what we have and what we want. Until humans run out of desires, or satisfy them fully, there will be technological progress. The pace of that progress, however, is very hard to measure or predict.

</comment><comment> em-bee there are a few holy grails that we have yet to achieve:

unlimited energy, and a pollution free environment. the latter means not only renewable energy but the elimination of most forms of plastic and other pollutants. given how much plastic we use now, that is a major undertaking.

i also believe that with more and more automation, humanity will be able to free up resources to put into education, and there is no end to imagine what a society full of highly educated people can possibly achieve.

</comment><comment><USER19> Not at all. Read a biology book, or a book on fundamental physics. We really don't understand much about the world yet.

</comment><comment><USER20> Eventually, though if things go well more than 100 years. You mention physics, which is one important limitation, but there are others.

The global human population is limited and will likely peak and begin to decline within 100 years. [1] Many technologies are limited by the size of the supply chain required to produce them and the scale of factory required to make the technology cost-effective.

For an economy the size of a village, you are never going to have a self- sustaining technology level much higher than a blacksmith shop. Why? Because higher technology requires higher level inputs -- precision parts, refined materials, components that are produced in high tech factories.

The economy is like a pyramid, with the highest technology outputs being the few top layers at the top. Each higher tech layer depends on larger layers below -- the different components and feedstocks and tools required in production of that technology. The overall size of the economy limits the sustainable height of the pyramid.

Currently the economic/technology pyramid size is growing, driven by growth of human population and globalization of the economy. There are also efficieny effects where higher technology decreases the labor required for the lower layers of the pyramid.

When human population peaks and the economy is fully globalized, continued growth of the economic/technology pyramid will be limited to efficiency gains.

My feeling is population will have peaked but globalization will still be ongoing 100 years from now.

It is harder to forecast the limit of efficiency gains -- when robots are smart enough to generally do any work that humans can, what will be the efficiency limits on such robots? I don't expect that to be all played out in 100 years.

The big wildcard is if we extinct ourselves or otherwise cause a huge setback. Biotech is close to the level where engineering an extinction virus is a possible by a lone individual with access to the right lab. Can we survive the technological ability of genocide viruses becoming widespread?

[1] [https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/lutz_et_al_2018_d...](https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/sites/jrcsh/files/lutz_et_al_2018_demographic_and_human_capital.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER21> If Thanos is real, then we're all f __*ed anyway.</comment>


Hotmail One-Ups Gmail, Takes Facebook Chat Global - <AUTHOR> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/hotmail_one-ups_gmail_takes_facebook_chat_global.php

<comment><USER2> Is it a Microsoft win? .or. A nail in Live Messenger coffin,

Not sure how this is one up on gmail. GTalk has been on for ages (though i don't use it, or fb chat)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not sure I consider the addition of Facebook chat to hotmail to be "one upping" gmail.</comment>


Has C++ jumped the shark? - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2009/08/18/has-cpp-jumped-the-shark/ <comment><USER2> I've written in C++ professionally almost 12 years (17 years counting College), and in my opinion it is a shame how the language has not evolved properly.

Unsolved things:

\- Unified C++ ABI call for making shared libraries without worrying about compiler manufacturer or version.

\- Massive bloat. Take a look to the Boost libraries and cry.

\- Poor debugging tools for templates (debugging templates it is crazy, and the promise of easy template debugging is almost a decade old).

Ridiculous things (in my opinion):

\- Obsession for doing everything in "user-land" (e.g. source code templates) instead of built-in abstractions at object code-generation time instead of compile-time.

\- Willing to introduce functional programing in the language, when, in my opinion, it makes more sense just to interface with true functional code (e.g. via SBCL).

C++ hour will come, with a non-bloated, system-software capable, "better than C", which could be labeled "simple C++", as in "simple English".

<comment><USER3> _"Massive bloat. Take a look to the Boost libraries and cry."_

Aside from your tears, what is the evidence that boost is bloated? Too slow? Too much source code? Too many files?

I've been using Boost for nearly a decade. It does a ton of useful stuff (from template metaprogramming to fast matrix algebra), it's loosely coupled, and it's insanely fast. Given it's scope, it's the least bloated library of which I know.

C++ _has_ been evolving, but for the last decade, all of the evolutionary changes have come in the world of templates and template metaprogramming. I think this is hard on the people who have restricted themselves to the C-with- classes mentality. They're missing every modern development in the language since ~1998.

<comment><USER4> > _ton of useful stuff (from template metaprogramming to fast matrix algebra), > it's loosely coupled, and it's insanely fast_

It's actually not all that fast in a lot of cases. Boost's matrix manipulation support is particularly slow:

[http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Benchmark- August2...](http://eigen.tuxfamily.org/index.php?title=Benchmark-August2008)

Also a lot of the template aerobatics generate a ginormous number of symbols which massively increase the binary size and cache pressure. In a former life I ripped out a pile of heavily templated code using Boost and replaced it with a well placed virtual function or three and dramatically reduced the cache misses in the application.

I've always seen Boost (and to a large extent the STL) as a demo library to show off what's possible with templates rather than something to be used in everyday code and have worked on a number of projects which forbade both.

There's a large rift in the C++ world between what I generally label Qt and Boost camps. The Boost people see the Qt folks as Java-esque dimwits that can't be bothered to learn the full extent of C++'s power and the Qt folks see the Boost following as unpragmatic architecture astronauts.

<comment><USER3> _"It's actually not all that fast in a lot of cases. Boost's matrix manipulation support is particularly slow"_

You've picked a benchmark of the most highly optimized matrix algebra libraries, and found that uBLAS is mid-pack, even though a) it isn't particularly optimized for any platform, and b) its goal is to result in the clearest possible syntax without sacrificing adequate performance. Talk about picking nits.

 _"Also a lot of the template aerobatics generate a ginormous number of symbols which massively increase the binary size and cache pressure."_

When it really matters (which it rarely ever does): man strip

 _"I've always seen Boost (and to a large extent the STL) as a demo library to show off what's possible with templates rather than something to be used in everyday code"_

I worked on shipping commercial products that used boost and the STL, and I did nearly all of my speed-sensitive code with it in grad school. It's far more than a demo library. Like I said before, you don't have to use all of it to use some of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> C++ is the only language I'm aware of where every extension made to the language is careful to only affect _compilation_ time/complexity, while preserving the speed and operational semantics of the code at runtime. This makes it perfect for some domains, e.g. console game development, where the speeds required are only attainable by dicking around with pointers in C, but people want to use better abstractions than C is capable of. So no, continuing to add those extensions is not wasted effort; we'll still be learning and using them long into the future.

<comment><USER6> This is thing that annoys me about C++'s illusion of control: unless you have / take full responsibility over the compiler and standard library, the "control" that C++ gives you is actually an abnegation of choice which leaves you to reinvent the world if you want specific features. What if you want something like Smalltalk / Lisp images? Runtime code generation and optimization of virtual method calls? Precise garbage collection? C++ leaves you on your own if you want these things in your final executable, and you have to work very hard - to the point of implementing a DSL, or writing / modifying your own C++ compiler - if you do want them.

<comment><USER7> "What if you want something like Smalltalk / Lisp images? Runtime code generation and optimization of virtual method calls? Precise garbage collection?"

What is the point of controlling all of those things? The GP was talking about speed - how are GC, JIT and images related to this?

<comment><USER6> Precise GC, JIT and images all give you more speed.

Precise GC is asymptotically more efficient than manual allocation; you need to use other approaches, like arenas, to get back that lost time, but they are not always applicable or easy to introduce.

Optimizing virtual method calls at runtime (e.g. monomorphic or polymorphic inline caches) is rather awkward without JIT. Similarly, C++ templates cannot be instantiated at runtime, meaning less efficient, more general and indirected code needs to be used instead.

Images optimize startup hugely: they completely remove the need for any initialization not directly related to acquiring external resources. For example, this is one of the biggest reasons Chrome is so quick to start up - it uses freeze-dried heaps in V8 (its Javascript engine).

<comment><USER7> Ok, but:

1\. GC is fast at the cost of using more memory, which it turn slows the entire app down. 2\. JIT can do all those optimizations, but how many of them are done in practice? How fast is the software compared to a binary compiled in C or C++? 3\. Can be useful, but the only software that I've seen having trouble with startup times in the first place is written in .NET and Java :)

I guess that what I'm getting at is that C++ code is still faster than e.g .NET code even if C# has GC and JIT. In the end that's all that matter, not whether you can do optimization X.

<comment><USER6> .NET code _is_ C++ code. The CLR is written in C++. In many ways this kind of argument is pointless, because it's really about a way of creating a piece of software, than particular to any one language. But some languages make life really hard here - in C++, you need to build a runtime.

I'll assert that memory is not normally a constraint in most situations that need to scale (i.e. not constrained clients), these days. (Though I will say I have noticed that Firefox 4 is significantly slower than FF 3 when switching tabs, and I believe it's because of memory reduction optimizations they've put in because of everybody moaning about bloat. I'd prefer it use more memory and less CPU.)

JIT optimizations like PICs? For over 20 years. The benefits are magnified in languages that make many operations virtual, so you see it in things like Smalltalk (very long time), Javascript (Chrome's V8) and Java JVMs (methods virtual by default so it's a win).

Re slow startup - you're deluding yourself if you think there isn't much software that doesn't have startup time issues. I need only restart any machine I have to know how slow initialization is; with HDD transfer rates in excess of 100MB/sec, there's no good reason for it to take more than 10 seconds or so when no hardware has changed. You're simply not aware of how much faster things could be if startup were faster because you're used to how slow everything is. You just know you can't e.g. fork utility X more than 200 times a second in a script, but don't realize it might be 10 or 100 times faster with a different approach.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> C++ has a fundamental problem: that of being a real language that added OO features and static polymorphism in great haste; unwise decisions during the early stages of C++ cannot be unmade after their negative consequences are apparent.

There's some "good stuff" in C++1x, but of necessity, it's all additive, not subtractive. So the language gets bigger and more complicated.

I've never met an adept C++ programmer who didn't aggressively cut the language down to a subset. The sad thing is that I've met good C++ programmers - and seen good C++ libraries and frameworks - whose subsets are quite distinct; they are 'divided by a common language', like the old cliche goes.

</comment><comment><USER9> The author says he is content with C++ the way it is, yet he bemoans the good deal of time between major changes in the standard.

This is a little inconsistent. As a language that takes a long time to master, changing fundamental features of the language every 3rd year, for instance, would be a bit difficult to keep up with. Furthermore, the niche C++ lives in isn't one that needs to change every year. For some users, language stability and backwards compatibility are key, and with things like Boost, additions to C++ can be tried out in the wild for many years before being standardized (as many features slated for the newest standard were).

<comment><USER10> I see how that could sound inconsistent. But I'm not bemoaning the time it takes between changes to the standard as much as pointing out that these long intervals show that the language is done. I'd rather see the standards committee give up than hurry up.

<comment><USER11> It's fine for a language to be "done" or "over." It's still important until it has been replaced for practical purposes by another language. Until then, why not keep making improvements? I wouldn't put C++ on my list of favorite languages, but I expect my C++ skills to be an asset for a long time to come.

As always when talking about the continued relevance of C++, I will celebrate when I'm proved wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Languages are tools. Da Vinci with a mop and a bucket of mud would be a better painter than me. In fact I recently saw a video where Kelly Slater surfed a door and a coffee table as impressively as most weekend warriors surf on $700 custom shaped boards.

Focus on your skill not the tools. Surfing is more about timing, fitness and knowledge of waves than it is about the board. Likewise coding is more about RAM, CPUs, HDs, GPUs, busses, networks and ultimately users than it is about what tools you use to manipulate them.

<comment><USER13> _a video where Kelly Slater surfed a door and a coffee table as impressively as most weekend warriors surf on $700 custom shaped boards._

I saw a table tennis player all excited about his new carbon fiber paddle. Then one of the club champs picked up the box the new paddle had come in and, using the box as a paddle, proceeded to defeat the player with the carbon paddle.

<comment><USER14> I had a professor in University that beat some kid who thought he was all that at Table Tennis with a shoe, a baseball bat, a piece of cardboard, an empty plastic bottle, and then his bare hands.

It was absolutely hilarious how pissed this guy was getting with his fancy paddle and his attempts at tricking my professor with trick shots.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Since the browser most people are reading this in is written using C++, I'd say the answer is no.

</comment><comment><USER16> "Update: The ISO committee approved the final draft of the C++ 2011 standard 25 March 2011."

</comment><comment><USER17> "Collectively, the committee is responsible for billions of lines of code."

think about that a minute.

</comment><comment><USER18> I use C++ often, and what I'd like to see are good datastructures, built right into the language syntax, like Python does that with dicts, lists, tuples, sets etc... I know that STL has these, but using them still feels like some grafted-on afterthought.

<comment><USER19> TR1 added unordered maps/sets (hash tables) and tuples. Maybe it's because I use STL every day but the interface works fine for me. It takes some getting used to but it's pretty consistent. With the operator overloading it feels just like any built-in language syntax (that's even more true with C++0x's initializer lists).

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It's still C++0x though. The x is now officially B.

</comment><comment><USER21> 2009? news?

</comment><comment><USER22> Don't make C++ into some fly by night whore language like Perl.

<comment><USER23> Too late? :(</comment></comment>


From Anxieties to Actionable and Measurable 2014 Resolutions - <AUTHOR> http://randomdrake.com/2014/01/02/destroying-personal-anxiety-from-anxieties-to-actionable-and-measurable-2014-resolutions/

<comment><USER2> nice, well-organized and thought-out post :)</comment>


Reach for the Stars: Flight Altitude Records Through History - <AUTHOR> http://www.asb.tv/blog/2010/11/flight-altitude-records-through-history/ <comment><USER2> Sadly no mention of the Montgolfier brothers, who really opened up the sky to a lot of people's imagination back in the 18th century. Manned flight at 900m in 1784!

</comment><comment><USER3> They forgot Apollo 13. (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13#Mission_notes>)</comment>


California sales taxes collection drop 50.9%, income taxes 43.6% - <AUTHOR> http://sco.ca.gov/Press-Releases/2009/05-09summary.pdf

<comment><USER2> Unlike a prudent household or business, when times are good governments spend every penny, and commit themselves to future spending as if growth will continue without interruption forever. Invariably then, when the downturn hits, rather than cutting the spending and entitlements that caused the problem in the first place, the politicians ask everyone to 'share' in the sacrifice by higher and more ubiquitous taxes. Hence, the effect is like a ratchet, always turning towards bigger government.

<comment><USER3> Eh, yes, but no. You seem to take the fall in revenues as prima facie evidence that CA is overspending. First, I'm not even sure there is a proper level of spending, but in any case, CA has a peculiar funding structure where we are overly reliant on highly cyclical taxes for revenue. This is by design/evolution, since we enacted Proposition 13 ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_(1978...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_\(1978\)) ), severely limiting revenue from property taxes, which would be a more stable / less cyclical funding source.

To be fair, however, fundamentally, CA continues to vote for a government which creates more goods and services than we want to pay for. Schwarzenegger papered this over with a bunch of loans, but eventually we will run up against a wall and be forced to align our desires with our willingness to pay.

Also, worst financial crisis since the Great Depression accompanied by a drop in real industrial output that, IIRC, actually exceeds the Great Depression in speed, and so forth and so on. Plus a state that has been particularly devastated by the housing bubble.

<comment><USER4> > has a peculiar funding structure where we are overly reliant on highly > cyclical taxes for revenue.

Taxable incomes haven't dropped by 50% in CA. What has dropped is the taxable incomes of the small fraction of CA folks who pay the bulk of CA's income taxes.

CA's income taxes are very progressive. That makes them very volatile.

Prop 13 has nothing to do with the volatility of CA's income tax revenues.

<comment><USER5> > Prop 13 has nothing to do with the volatility of CA's income tax revenues.

It has nothing to do with the volatility of income tax revenues, but it has everything to do with volatility in the budgeting process. By gutting the ability of local governments to fund themselves it pushed all of the taxation up to the state level (and the state turns around and hands most of the money back to the local jurisdictions.) Since the primary revenue generators at the statewide level are income and sales taxes this introduces volatility that is directly tied to the general economic condition, unfortunately the new burdens placed on the state budget as a result of Prop 13 are mostly independent of the general economic condition. This lethal combination leads to a never- ending cycle of boom and bust in the state budget.

<comment><USER4> > [Prop 13] has nothing to do with the volatility of income tax revenues, but > it has everything to do with volatility in the budgeting process. By gutting > the ability of local governments to fund themselves it pushed all of the > taxation up to the state level

Prop 13 doesn't make state-level taxation volatile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> They seem to be living in fantasy land when they say:

"These numbers appear fairly grim, but there are encouraging signs that the State's situation is reaching bottom. Although sales tax revenues were down by more than 50% as compared to last April, consumer spending increased by 2.2% nationwide in the first quarter of 2009. Additionally, retail sales have stabilized in the first three months of this year on a seasonally adjusted basis."

Maybe so, but your state sales tax revenues are down 50% YoY! So what if the Feds want to say that consumer spending was up 2.2% in April (a number that is suspect precisely because of state sales tax numbers).

</comment><comment><USER7> under a redistribution of wealth system you're relying on the top producers to pay for all the shiny social programs. If all those top producers have a bad year at once you're screwed (especially if you have commitments lasting decades).

</comment><comment><USER3> To be clear, those are y/y per-month changes. Otherwise, this would be even more terrifying than it is.

That being said, the majority of general fund revenue comes from (in order), personal income tax (55%), retail/sales/use tax (27%), and corporation tax (11.1%), and other (6.1%). So a drop in income taxes of 43.6% is _far_ more important than the change in sales tax of -50.9% -- if those rates are sustained, that implies we need to look for something to replace the (0.55*.436 = 23%) of our general fund revenue. Suck.</comment>


What I Did When I Couldn't Find a Technical Co-Founder - <AUTHOR> http://www.groovehq.com/blog/technical-co-founder

<comment><USER2> " _If I had found the right technical co-founder with the right chops at the right price_ and for the right piece of equity, _I'd be telling a different story now._ "

" _Of course, if I hired an agency....

Then there was the issue of ownership. By outsourcing development, I'd keep 100% of the company. This was good._"

While other things, including one of his comments, suggests he just plain couldn't find anyone, I have to wonder if the above hints at one of the reasons why.

On the other hand, he seem clueful, he chose an agency that could get the job done, and worked closely with them every day (can't believe all the people who try to do this in a "fire and forget" approach). Is sensitive to e.g. the problem that none of the developers he's hired now have the sense of ownership of the code they'd have if they'd been there from the start. Etc.

A bottom line is that from what I've read in this blog post and his replies to comments, he sounds like a non-technical "product manager" I could very possibly work for, a rare thing in my experience.</comment>


Snowmobiler finds family of five stuck in frozen wilderness - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/family-rescued-snowmobile-manitoba-1.5439399 <comment><USER2> Leaving the car was probably not a good idea. The ones who left the car were lucky to be found alive.

I still remember this story where the husband left the car to find help.

[https://www.oregonlive.com/oregonianextra/2007/11/kimfamily....](https://www.oregonlive.com/oregonianextra/2007/11/kimfamily.html)

It is possible to survive a pretty long time in a car as it provides the shelter you need.

From the article: The Kim family -- parents James and Kati and children Penelope, 4, and Sabine, 7 months -- disappeared Nov. 25, 2006 as they drove to Gold Beach from Merlin, just north of Grants Pass off Interstate 5. Kati Kim, 30, and her daughters were found Dec. 4 with the car after being stuck in the snow for nine days with few supplies. James Kim, 35, was found dead two days later in a creek. He had walked more than 16 miles in the cold and snow in a futile effort to get help.

<comment><USER3> On the other hand, there was Jerry William McDonald who got stranded a few years after the Kim family, also in Oregon [1]. He did stay with the car, and died of starvation and/or hypothermia after 70 days in the car.

At some point trying to walk out, as bad as that is, gives you a better overall chance of surviving than waiting for rescue. The trick is figuring out when that is.

I've heard of only one incident where the stranded people had no trouble with making that decision. They were stranded in a well stocked RV, in a place they knew they were very likely to be found except by a search party specifically looking for them. They had satellite radio and TV, and so were able to watch the news reports about the search, and see when the search was called off, and so it was now either walk out or try to survive the entire winter there. They successfully had someone walk out.

[1] [https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest- news/2011/05/ma...](https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest- news/2011/05/man_found_dead_in_truck_after_getting_stuck_in_snow_spending_nearly_70_days_in_remote_linn_county.html)

<comment><USER4> I used to do Search and Rescue and I can absolutely tell you in all cases the best thing to do when lost is to stay put. Unless you are in immediate danger, or can move to a high point to get a cell signal but remain within visual range of your car/tent/etc. don't leave.

SAR teams only have the resources to search a relatively small area (dozens of square miles at most), so if you start wandering off from your point last known (which we determine based on interviews with people with knowledge of your plans, tire tracks, open gates, cell phone pings, and other clues) you are removing yourself from the area where professional searchers and first responders are looking for you.

Your time should be spent trying to create a signal. Make a small fire that you can keep under control and burn rubber/plastic to create dark smoke. Lay out reflective materials. Whistle, clap, or yell every 15 minutes. Keep listening for rescuers calling out.

<comment><USER5> Your justification assumes you're being searched for. If you learn that the search has been called off, is it still always better to stay put?

<comment><USER6> A generic signal like smoke could work even when explicit search is called off.

In this specific case, broken down car has gasoline and battery and even good fuel source (foams will a lot of smoke and thanks to fire retardant will burn long), making a fire is quite trivial with such means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> When I broke my talus (ankle bone) in the middle of the snowy forest I couldn't walk. I hadn't seen anyone all day and thought I was screwed. Then a few minutes later a guy shows up on a snowmobile.

I guess angels ride snowmobiles.

<comment><USER8> I think you mean angels.

<comment><USER9> We've fixed the typo in the GP.

<comment><USER10> You edited a user's comment to fix a minor typo? Is that something you do often?

<comment><USER11> I think they have an AI that detects puns and sets off a bat signal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Never leave the car unless you put it in the river or lake. Buy some emergency blankets like the Coghlans 8235[1]. These things are small, cheap, and work. Buy a bunch, they are little bigger than a pack of cards. Have an actual emergency kit in your car. If you are in the north a lot, then make sure to have some kind of food in the car. Also, the modern rechargeable electric lantern is a great thing. Do not run the car unless the exhaust is clear.

When the wind dies down, put one of those blankets on the roof[2] (use you favorite method to attach (e.g. bungee cords)). Also, a grain shovel works a whole lot better than most snow shovels.

1) [https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coghlans-8235-Emergency- Blanket/2...](https://www.walmart.com/ip/Coghlans-8235-Emergency- Blanket/23543585)

2) those blankets are super reflective and will get noticed

<comment><USER13> On top of that advice, when I travel in winter, I just throw boots (with good socks) and extra winter stuff in a bin (gloves, scarfs etc).

Basically it is "what would I put on if I were to go outside and dig my car out and it was ultra cold"...and what would I put on the kids ... everyone's stuff just gets thrown in.

Just throwing it all in a bin is handy for quick packing, and if I don't need it quick unpacking.

That's on top of the usual emergency kit, blankets, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me of one of the best reads on the internet:

The Hunt for the Death Valley Germans

[https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the- hu...](https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the- death-valley-germans/)

The OP story however, has a much happier ending.

<comment><USER15> Reminds me of a family that got lost while crossing the Sahara: [https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/bookauth/sahar...](https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/unbound/bookauth/sahara/tamanras.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Generally speaking the route to a major city is usually pretty much to head to a big main road and follow that.

I know these things happen but I have to wonder when they noticed a lack of other traffic, smaller roads, strange roads, on their way to a big city.

<comment><USER16> Especially in Canada. The directions are basically to get on the highway, and stay on it for 1000km

<comment><USER17> In this case, it's actually 3000km on Highway 1, that's it, the main highway in Canada and pretty much the only real highway to get anywhere across Saskatchewan to South Western Ontario.

They would have no reason to leave this highway unless maybe they wanted to take the shorter route through the states, but I have no clue how they could have ended up where they were in the middle of nowhere not even on a road. Glad they were ok, but jeez, common sense or look at a map at least once.

<comment><USER18> Having driven through northern BC quite a bit, there's been dozens of times where a rockslide / logging truck rollover / construction has caused a detour off the highway and down some remote roads. Not saying that's what happened to them, but rather that it's best to be prepared because you never know what will happen.

<comment><USER17> Haha yeah, makes sense over there, but they were in the prairies, the flatest area in Canada! I guess the highway could have got blocked somehow and you have to take a backroad detour, but you'd probably be following a stream of traffic as well in that case.

Always agree it's best to look at a map to get a feel for the route or at least have one ready.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I didn't get a chance to read the article because there is a malicious ad being served from the CBC website that re-directed me to a fake SHAW Cable web site.

<comment><USER20> Serious question: Why on earth would you not use an ad blocker?

<comment><USER21> Cause I'm on my phone

<comment><USER22> Depending on the phone (works on Android):

Firefox and ublock

<comment> james-skemp There's also Brave. I've taken to using it for my news browsing on my Android device.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Stories like this make me think that the money I am spending on my Garmin Inreach is maybe not a waste.

<comment><USER24> Or just take the multiple choice test, get a ham radio license, and buy a $30 radio and a $10 antenna.

<comment><USER25> I'm an extra and a VE. I take a radio with me on all of my back country camping trips and have a solar+battery repeater set up in my 4x4. I've ended up many places where neither radio could get out to anyone simplex and no repeaters were in range. Amateur radio works great when you have a communications plan and know you'll be in range (like when you're working with a group) but for small groups/solo back country and new areas I'll be picking up either a PLB or an inreach for this season. Others mentioned HF, I don't think you can expect to be able to string a wire dipole up and transit if you break your ankle or something ~ assuming the solar conditions allow you to get out anyway.

Also I meet lots of people who have taken the test and bought the $30 radio but don't know how to use it. Practice, practice, practice. I look at group camping trips as an opportunity to practice wilderness protocol and usually come back with a bunch of notes on what worked/didn't.

<comment><USER26> There's a fairly recent story about a ham using satellite communications when he and his son got their vehicle stuck in mud out in the wilderness. I can't find the link at the moment, but they were practiced at it beforehand and I'm guessing very happy that they were.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How did they not have warm clothing? It was -30 degrees in Calgary last week. Like all week.

And how do you wind up so far off the Trans Canada? Then again, drivers in Calgary are the worst..

</comment><comment><USER28> Could have ended badly like this grim incident that was linked here before [https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the- hu...](https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hunt-for-the- death-valley-germans/)

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm willing to bet these people were following automated directions.

My family and I were once driving from Chicago to my home town 6 hours to the southwest.

A blizzard kicked up, and we were driving according to Google directions. It took us off of the main roads, and we found ourselves on unpopulated gravel roads in the middle of nowhere Illinois totally FUCKED of we had crashed.

I've seen it over and over again. You trying to get somewhere. There are clear normal routes to that place. And then Google directions start to direct you to these fucking country roads to try and finesse some kind of "faster route" for you without even prompting you for a route change. It just directs you into some dumb fuck route that no one would ever take in the right mind.

I've learned to watch Google directions like a hawk. I was once driving up from downstate, and it started to take us off the main road. I told my friend to stop and turn around, get back on the main highway. If we had taken the route Google recommended, we would have gone hours out of our way on gravel country roads to get around a bit of minor traffic on the main road.

<comment><USER30> Seems like Google (etc.) could add a "avoid roads that aren't well-traveled" feature with the data they already have.

The data they use to figure out whether traffic is light or heavy (GPS location, speed, heading, path, etc.) could also be used to figure out whether roads are well-traveled.

And they could even throw in month or season (or weather) as a variable. If the road is well-traveled in the summer but not in the winter, maybe there's a reason.

This could be useful not only for winter but also for other issues like people who are driving an unreliable car or are low on gas (or not good about filling it up).

<comment><USER31> During the last major fire season in California the traffic was incredibly slow on the main interstate I was on. Maps suggested a detour on a side highway because nobody was taking it. But it turned out that nobody was taking it because it was literally on fire, so I had to find my way back to the interstate.

<comment><USER30> That one is going to be a little trickier to detect!

I guess you could do some real time analysis and note that the number of people passing through this or that segment has dropped suspiciously below what it averages for that day of the week, time of day, etc.

Which actually might be useful for other types of road closures like construction, so maybe not an unreasonable goal to aim for.

<comment><USER31> It seems like it would be worth including data from weather and emergency services. Another gripe I have is that it seems like pedestrian data is inadvertently used to determine road speeds in dense urban areas, so a block that is literally gridlocked for an hour will still be recommended by maps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> this is why I am happy I got to do some bush craft holidays. The family had shelter and by the looks of it, lots of trees to start a fire for warmth.

</comment><comment><USER33> Don't drive in the snow without a winch.

<comment><USER34> I'd probably start with good snow tires, 12V compressor so you can air down, traction boards a shovel. Winches are expensive and need to be mounted to your truck or to a hitch receiver. Better advice in this case was to drive on the highway.

<comment><USER35> This is the type of winch that came to mind for me. [1] Basically something you can attach to your tow hook and then around a tree or pole or whatever else to inch your way out of a jam.

Which isn't to say that the things you listed aren't also worth having along.

[1] [https://www.harborfreight.com/1200-lb-capacity-cable- puller-...](https://www.harborfreight.com/1200-lb-capacity-cable- puller-30131.html)

<comment><USER34> Oh, a come along, makes sense. I thought you meant a dedicated 12V winch, ex. Warn.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Maybe trying to take a detour like these guys ([https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1993-01-07-mn-949-st...](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la- xpm-1993-01-07-mn-949-story.html)) Ended up making a movie about that family. I think back in that situation the highway was closed due to snow.

</comment><comment><USER36> Calgary to Toronto is a no brainer. Every Canadian learns about the TransCanada highway. I seriously wonder about their claims.

<comment><USER37> Exactly what I was thinking. How can you get lost on a such an easy road?

They were 60km off the main road. That didn't give them any clues? Like worsening road condition. A road between two major cities of mud and ice? That's just kinda common sense.

<comment> crooked-v I'm reminded of the woman who kept driving for 810 miles, complete with sleeping overnight in her car, for what was supposed to be a 90-mile trip to a neighboring city. [https://www.cnet.com/news/gps-sends-belgian-woman-to- croatia...](https://www.cnet.com/news/gps-sends-belgian-woman-to- croatia-810-miles-out-of-her-way/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Check out the 2010 movie frozen about skiers getting stuck on a lift.

Not the best movie, but I love this idea of just how close we live to total disaster... And all it takes is a few small missteps. We think we have a lot more control over our lives than we really do.</comment>


Ask HN: What are you doing about the impending "big" earthquake in the bay area? - <AUTHOR> Is anyone else worried about the "big one"? Real estate seems to be doing great and the economy, in general, is doing great, and people seem to be either completely ignorant or unperturbed by the earthquake situation. Has anyone thought of leaving the bay area? If yes, where are you planning to go? If not, what are you doing to prevent/control damage? We are thinking of moving out of the bay area and wondering if there are others in the same boat and looking for other places in the country/elsewhere with good tech jobs and less probability of natural calamities. <comment><USER2> I moved out of the bay in '06\. Been working remote for bay companies ever since. Live in a huge house less than 1000ft from the ocean that is cheaper than a studio anywhere in the bay.

From a corporate survival standpoint it's retarded to put all of your servers in redundant data centers spread all over the world but put all of you employees in one city that is likely to be uninhabitable soon.</comment>


The Night Before Launch-Mas - <AUTHOR> http://blog.rowfeeder.com/2010/12/the-night-before-launch-mas/

<comment><USER2> I created a Gist for this here - <https://gist.github.com/745726> \- would love to see some forks. :)</comment>


Show HN: Rails Model Visualizer - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/ajgrover/model-visualizer.git

<comment><USER2> useful, one question, my schema is rather large and not all the models are on the screen, is there a way to scroll to the sides?</comment>


Ballmer Departure From Microsoft Was More Sudden Than Portrayed - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20130825/ballmer-departure-from-microsoft-was-more-sudden-than-portrayed-by-the-company/ <comment><USER2> A lot of the criticism of Ballmer seems to miss the point.

Did Microsoft miss key trends? Maybe a few but who doesn't.

Microsoft saw and got involved in most of those trends they "missed" and even often got there well ahead of the parties that own the markets today.

In 2000 I was hired by Microsoft. One of the big initiatives was to make tablet PCs a reality. Microsoft spent years working on marketing consumer smartphones before the iPhone. That Microsoft lost a leading position in the market for computing devices is surprising given how much effort they put into devices eventually popularized by other companies, particularly Google and Apple.

Why doesn't Microsoft own the tablet and consumer smart phone market right now? The answer must be in execution rather than understanding of where the market was headed. Why couldn't they develop (and why can't they still develop) products folks like in these areas?

When I was there the mentality was that Microsoft would be first to market, would fail for a few major releases but still beat everyone else with a quality product. Yet they spent time producing products nobody wanted while first Apple and later Google ended up walking away with the tablet and consumer smartphone markets.

What went wrong? That's the real question.

<comment><USER3> As it apparently needs to be explained: Microsoft's predatory behavior in 1990s resulted in an incalculable and unrecoverable loss of trust among technologists -- which was bound to ultimately catch up to the company. You can get away with predatory behavior when you're dominant, but when you miss new markets -- as Microsoft did repeatedly in the lost decade of the 2000s -- you can be damned sure no one is going to be foolish enough to open those markets to a known monopolist. Microsoft is left with two choices: invent new markets or try to earn back the public's trust. They have no track record in either department; as the Magic 8-ball says, "outlook not so good"...

<comment><USER4> What about Apple and Google? They have repeatedly violated the trust of hackers, yet only a small minority have fully divorced themselves from these companies' products. As much as I'd love to believe in the morality of our market, I don't really think that's the case. Not that I believe MS's predatory behavior helped their cause at all, but I still think the primary reason why people don't use, or don't want to use, Microsoft products anymore is because they are inferior to others' products.

There was _definitely_ a time where, for most people, that was not the case.

Edit: Just a little example...I don't remember continuously hearing about Microsoft employees going to fucked-up countries and running clandestine rescue missions [http://pastebin.com/CuUcHM6m](http://pastebin.com/CuUcHM6m)

<comment><USER5> From where I sit, Google and Apple have been steadily hemorrhaging enthusiasts with their creepiness and arrogance, respectively. They're still the least worst options in their fields, but they no longer seem like the golden saviors they did in the early 2000s.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I hate articles like this.

"According to sources close to the situation..."

"_dozens of people_ inside and outside the company..."

"_many_ close to the situation"

"sources said..."

"_the persistent rumor_ that Gates had dropped the bomb..."

"Other sources cautioned that it was not..."

"....said one source with knowledge of the situation"

Garbage like this shouldn't be on any forum, forget HN.

<comment><USER7> In my first journalism class, one of the very first things drilled into our heads is to always be explicit in who or what your sources are. Even if they're confidential, how many there are and rough details about them should always be given.

Weasel words are the bane of decent journalism. It's a shame so many major news agencies don't seem to realize this, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> > our transformation to a devices and services company

This is what I find the most worrying. Are there no more "software companies" anymore? That you know, sell software as a _product_ and only as a side- business they sell related services? Like the kind of companies that can "shaft their customers from time to time" because they know they make enough money from their great software not to care? Will they stop making great developer tools and will they start to not give a fuck about developers just like everybody else? Will they stop funding the cool research they currently do, like in the programming languages field?

This is the saddest news imho, because it will fuel up the current trend in industry. An in "services" or "devices" companies programmers are seen more and more as just "code monkeys". And developing tools for developers or "power users" becomes less of a priority. Catering to "the needs of many" is nice and fluffy and all but we still need techno-elites somewhere, and they're not gonna truly exist outside of companies that make enough money and have the privilege of occasionally showing the finger to both the customers and the minority shareholders because they know that in the end they have _real products_ they can leverage to milk enough money from the customers and poor into the shareholders' pockets... "service" companies can't really do this because they always need to be perceived as "good" and "devices" companies will have a hell of a time competing in the new "so-cheap-they-are-almost- disposable devices" economy.

Winter is coming here. But there is hope for more summery weather for companies in the fields of AI/ML/BigData.

<comment><USER9> Well, I think a lot of open source business models involves selling services relating to the software instead.

<comment><USER8> ...because this is like the only viable business model in open source. And this model does here the same thing it does anywhere else: it makes it so that developers are undervalued and underpaid or paid nothing at all.

Don't get me wrong, I support open source and I believe most "infrastructure software", like OSs, compilers etc. should be open source. But I'm kind of split since the best viable option when it comes to OSs is still some flavor or *nix/BSD (after 40 freakin years and tons of cool ideas, nothing else turned into a "usable product"!) and nothing better and usable seems to come from the open source community. Microsoft had some very cool ideas in their research department (see Singularity OS for example: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_(operating_system)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_\(operating_system\))), and I'm afraid lots of them will go to the trashcan if Microsoft stops seeing software as a "product". If I weren't talking about Microsoft, we could at least hope they would open source the cool new research projects they loose interest in but I don't have high hopes for this, or for the open source community's ability to innovate and do really new and cool stuff.

<comment><USER10> But Microsoft Research has always been largely experimental and ships few products. It would ship more if Windows was open source of course as much is Windows based...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> "recent pressure from activist investor ValueAct — which has a large stake in the company — had a good chance of succeeding in its efforts to obtain a seat on the board of Microsoft, especially if Ballmer stayed in place. ... In talks, said sources, it has asked for an aggressive stock buyback and also a dividend increase, which might assuage its efforts to garner a board seat."

I agree that Microsoft has too much money, but would much rather see them investing much more heavily into bolstering their devices strategy. But then again, Microsoft was never good at acquisitions.

edit- Appears that ValueAct is against the entire devices strategy, but I see no way for Microsoft to compete on the level it needs to without a strong devices play-

From: [http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/net-us- microsoft-v...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/19/net-us-microsoft- valueact-idUSBRE96I14920130719) "ValueAct is thought to oppose Microsoft's recent foray into making its own devices."

<comment><USER12> A while back, someone in response to my critique of Windows 8, said something like "Microsoft can never be destroyed!Their monopoly give them _free money_ ". Funny how little people understand capitalism.

No, that's not free money to play your BS "Metro interface" games with. It's the stock holder's money and they'll be wanting it back if it looks like you're flushing it down the toilet.

Microsoft's "device strategy" (Window 8) was the most crassly opportunistic and generally despicable hi-tech corporate maneuver we've seen in a while (and that's saying something). It's infinitely satisfying to see it go down in flames. If we could toss more careers and people on this pyre, it would be even coolers.

While I'm sorry for people for pursue poor strategies as dictated by the market, this was like the final spraying of Microsoft's true evil poison. Yes, we are intended to destroy the whole platform we created just for a chance to steal someone else's platform. Yeah, but that chance came and went. The organizers of Windows 8 are just left with the poison.

<comment><USER9> I agree, not an excuse. But note that restoring the start menu is not that easy: [http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1081755-do-you-like-or- hat...](http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/1081755-do-you-like-or-hate- windows-8/?view=findpost&p=595048551)

IMO restoring the start button is not bad for a minor release, and it helps things like RDP (particularly important for server versions).

<comment><USER13> I use Win 8 (because suddenly noone wanted to sell Linux machines anymore... And I don't figured yet how to install a Linux using USB here, I just cannot disable the godamn secure boot) with Classic Shell Start Menu.

The Start Menu from Classic Shell is awesome, and I only look at Metro interface when really forced into...

Too bad the "desktop" app of Win 8 is still hell buggy (ie: sometimes it even crash and don't relaunch, leaving you with no desktop, just desktop mode windows, but no icons, no taskbar, no clock...)

<comment><USER9> >I just cannot disable the godamn secure boot

To enter the firmware setup, use the charms bar to go to Settings, then click Change PC Settings, go to General, then scroll down and find Advanced Startup.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I thought this was common knowledge. Ballmer said a few years ago that he would be retiring in 2018. To announce that he's quitting, even "within a year", is _very_ out of the ordinary, and it's obvious something went down, and the board got very frustrated with Ballmer.

</comment><comment><USER15> The really interesting thing is not really Ballmers demise and who will replace him.

The really interesting thing to watch is what will happen when the new CEO has taken the helms and present the restructuring that will inevitably follow.

The board obviously want to see some pretty dramatic changes and Ballmer is deemed not fit for handling it.

</comment><comment><USER16> I think every member of the board with kids don't need to think too much to search for a new CEO. It must be difficult for Bill Gates to see iPads and Macs on his house and I can't imagine dinner discussions around using Google Spreadsheet instead of Excel!

I remember this article "No iPhone, iPad, iPod for Bill Gates Kids, Says Melinda Gates" but don't know how real it was. See [http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/419359/20121231/iphone- ipad-i...](http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/419359/20121231/iphone-ipad-ipod- bill-gates-kids-melinda.htm)

<comment><USER13> I clicked that link, and the webpage started with a woman voice speaking too much like a whiny entitled gal wanting something when you arrive home, and I don't figured how to shut it down, and closed the tab :/

Why people leave these whatever with automatic sound that cannot be shut off?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> With the recent PRISM info leak, I can't help but think Ballmer is instituting damage control for himself, as well as distancing himself from the negativity. Most likely the smartest move he could make.

</comment><comment><USER18> the big question, then, is what happens to bing? I remember it still not being profitable; if the next ceo cuts it, then who competes with google or does G just get handed the US and European search engine markets?

<comment><USER19> If Bing closes, Google will find it much harder to fight anti-trust suits.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> >As AllThingsD's John Paczkowski wrote on Friday: "Here's one metric by which Ballmer will be judged harshly. On the last day of 1999, the day before he took over as CEO, Microsoft's market capitalization was $600 billion

That fails to take into account, the crazy dotcom valuation days and the subsequent big crash in 2000. Not to say that Ballmer did great as a CEO but that's just poor reporting. Microsoft did have its great growth days, like Apple recently did before petering out, but it was back in the 80s.

<comment><USER21> Even when you compare post-bubble market cap, say from 2002 to now, it's shockingly bad performance for Microsoft:

AAPL: $5 billion -> $465 billion

GOOG: $16 billion -> $288 billion

MSFT: $217 billion -> $291 billion

I know now you might nitpick that AAPL and GOOG were very small in 2002 and not comparable to saturated markets Microsoft operates in. In that case, take example of even non-tech well established companies:

AT&T: $72 billion -> $203 billion

StarBucks: $7 billion -> $53 billion

However you can still argue that Microsoft increased its revenue 3 folds and profit 2 folds under Ballmer. That might be good metric to measure Ballmer's performance but this does not discount for inflation (36%) and auto- accumulating multi-year enterprise contracts that have been pilling up since Gates era (unknown value).

<comment><USER22> This is largely an artifact of survivorship bias.

If you compare MS to it's peers:

GE: $372B -> $239B

MS: $326B -> $239B

Exxon: $299B -> $403B

Wal-Mart: $273B -> $247B

Citigroup: $255B -> $134B

Pfizer: $249B -> $207B

Intel: $203B -> $108B

BP: $200B -> $130B

Source: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_corporations_by_market_capitalization#2002) [http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/ft500](http://www.ft.com/intl/indepth/ft500)</comment></comment></comment>


Germs Are Us (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/22/germs-are-us

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting article, and I read most of it. But it was too long. It says the author is a "staff writer" but it's like he was getting paid by the word.

E.g. do I really need a reminder that "Since 1953, when James Watson and Francis Crick described the structure of DNA ...". If I know about DNA I probably remember the basics of the backstory. But there's a long paragraph leading up to what I assume was the point: "while our health is certainly influenced by genes, it may be affected even more powerfully by bacteria".

That style of writing made sense 50 years ago. But my remaining life expectancy isn't long enough for me to enjoy reading it any more.

Today's generation wants the opposite. E.g. here's the current @SavedYouAClick on twitter:

       Denver Broncos. RT @nfl: The NEXT team
       to hoist the Lombardi Trophy?

That tweet was short and sweet and to the point. And it saved me a click! :)</comment>


"Work for Hire" Contract Submitted as Evidence in Ceglia v. Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.docstoc.com/docs/47683098/Work-for-Hire-Contract-Submitted-as-Evidence-in-Ceglia-v-Facebook <comment><USER2> I thought this was just a boilerplate work for hire contract, but on pg 11 it surely says:

 _Second is the conditioned development of the software, program and for the purchase and design of a suitable website for the project Seller has already initiated that is designed to offer the students of Harvard University access to a website similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of "The Face Book".

It is agreed that the purchaser will own a half interest (50%) in the software programming language and business interest derived from the expansion of the service to a larger audience._

And goes on to say he gets 1% more of the business every day its not completed after Jan 1 '04.

Thats a pretty valuable piece of paper this guy has held onto for the last six years, their lawyers will make a lot of money on this if its not a forgery.

<comment><USER3> Page 11? I only see two pages. What am I missing?

<comment><USER2> Sorry, its the 1st page under "2. Entire Agreement" (I was looking at the whole lawsuit - [http://www.scribd.com/doc/34239119/Ceglia-v-Zuckerberg- compl...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/34239119/Ceglia-v-Zuckerberg-complaint) ).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A few years ago, I signed a contract with an awful web startup. At the time, I was laughing on the inside because I thought it was funny how much they (two brothers) wanted to pretend they were a legitimate company. One brother was the "CEO," and the other brother was "Vice President." So like a CEO, a VP, and then no employees..

Looking at the Ceglia/Zuckerberg contract, I got chills, and began digging into my old documents, looking for that contract. The last thing I want is to find out I signed 50% of earnings away.

I discovered that I did sign 50% of my earnings away! Fortunately, the agreement was between their company and my now deceased startup. I'm glad my startup failed..

<comment><USER5> How typical.

50% of something is more than 100% of zero, you know.

Not surprising it failed if you ask me, given the attitude.

Not to say 50% is not brutal or anything for a contract.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This whole thing is just... bizarre.

With Facebook now taking the "we don't know if he signed it, but if he did it's invalid anyway!" argument it looks like Zuckerberg may indeed have put pen to this paper.

My guess would be either he assumed it was contracting boilerplate and didn't read it properly (based on the memories of my behavior in my early 20's, fairly likely), or just skipped over the single paragraph with criminally bad English that referred to the purchase and design of "The Face Book".

This will be interesting.

<comment><USER7> It is a lawyer's job to put forth every argument that can make their client win. Even if the lawyer believes that the client didn't sign, they can't stand on the truth because the judge may not believe them. So they have to argue both sides of every disputed fact. So they say that they don't think our client signed. But even if he did, it is too late to bring this case so our client still wins. That way no matter which version of the facts the judge accepts, they can win.

<comment><USER8> I don't agree with that. If the lawyer knows for certain that Zuck did not sign they should just say he did not sign. That will not prevent them from making arguments in the alternative, such as "even if he signed, the contract is invalid on other grounds." While these kind of arguments may seem a little disingenuous to the ordinary person, they are accepted and made in the courthouses all the time.

I think the best argument you can make for the possibility that Zuck did not sign this contract is that he did not sign it, but does not want to be brought to the witness stand for some reason, so he has told his lawyer not to make the validity of his signature an issue of contention but to try to attack the contract on other grounds.

<comment><USER9> I'm not a lawyer but from the last time I had to deal with contracts, I recall that contracts with irregular or completely unjustified terms actually can be thrown out by the courts.

<comment><USER10> Happens regularly in Germany for tenancy agreements, even for quite reasonable stipulations.

<comment><USER9> As I remember, US residential agreements are quite restricted because the average renter isn't expected to have any legal sophistication. Commercial lease are much less restricted because a commercial leaser is expected to more sophistication.

In any case, Rumpelstiltskin's contract probably wouldn't be honored in a court of law.

<comment><USER11> Unconscionably is still ground for invalidation here too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Who here thinks that Zuck has always known about this contract? And has been praying every day that Ceglia had forgotten about it / died / etc. And the stress and stakes rose day after day, Zuck dying on the inside like w/ the tell-tale heart, stress coming through the cracks at his AllThingsD meltdown, etc...?

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder if they are doing some last-minute editing on the ending of the Facebook movie.

<comment><USER14> And the first 10 minutes, where a tired student with a hangover signs a piece of paper without reading it too well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If this contract is real, this is bad news for Zuckerberg.

Considering that his lawyers are "unsure" he signed the contract, this is basically an admission that the contract looks valid at first glance, and that the lawyers are probably spending day and night trying to get it dismissed on a technicality, or hoping it is a forgery.

It will also be interesting to know if people here think Ceglia deserves those Facebook shares. Many people here are investors and would probably side with him, but others have expressed the sentiment that he provided a negligible amount of money and therefore contributed very little to the success of Facebook.

<comment><USER16> _Many people here are investors and would probably side with him..._

Interesting, I always thought most HN were starving poor hackers :)

<comment><USER17> Many and most are not the same thing. Many people here could be investors, while most could be poor hackers.

<comment><USER16> True, but if that's what he meant, then his sentence doesn't really have a point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting. Clause 9:

> "It is acknowledged that this is a work made for hire agreement and that all > Intellectual property rights or patent rights are that of Streetfax Inc. > [...] In the event that StreetFax defaults on its payment terms rights would > be granted to seller."

Did StreetFax pay to get "The Face Book" running? Because if they did, why wouldn't they own it and have it running? If they didn't pay, they've got no case whatsoever.

</comment><comment><USER19> Okay, on the one hand, this guy will surely be seeing some money, unless it's a forged signature, in which case, he will surely be going to jail.

On the other hand, it is extremely unlikely he will get anything near the order of magnitude of what he's asking for, unless the judge well and truly hates, and I mean hates Zuckerberg and facebook. And the appeals judge, and so on, up the chain.

One reason for this is that the judge is going to be weighing on the one hand this guy's thousand dollar investment, and on the other hand, everybody else's millions of dollars of investment, and asking if harming the millions of dollars of investment is proper on behalf of the guy who put in $1k.

If Zuckerberg is determined to have signed this all away, then the incorporation and all the shareholder agreements, and statements, etc. are void and fraudulent. This impacts not just Zuckerberg, but the other parties he is in business with.

It is nearly inconceivable that a judge would trash the entire corporate structure of Facebook based on this suit. Now, that said, he may sit Z down and say "I'm dumping this problem on your lap, fix it, buddy" by leaving the door open for personal fraud claims and damages to the corporation.

Regardless, in the end a judge is going to be asked if a $1,000 passive investment really should be worth billions of dollars in 6 years. The answer to that question in our country is 'no.'

Also, no way in a cold and frozen hell will DST and MS allow this guy to sit on the board and vote shares. The legal forces arrayed against him are going to be seriously, seriously formidable.

Look for a multimillion dollar settlement. Less than $100mm.

<comment><USER20> "Regardless, in the end a judge is going to be asked if a $1,000 passive investment really should be worth billions of dollars in 6 years. The answer to that question in our country is 'no.'"

I would hope that in this country, if the investment is backed by the proper legal documents, that the answer would be yes. that whole rule of law thing.

Otherwise, are you saying that if one makes an angel investment of $1K for 10% of a company, that a judge should back other larger deeper-pocketed investors against the angel primarily because the judge would ask "if harming the millions of dollars of investment is proper on behalf of the guy who put in $1k."?

<comment><USER19> Depending on the incorporation structure that Facebook has, and the stated shareholder disclosures and shareholder agreements signed, this could cause serious difficulty for other investors, and possibly employees of Facebook. Those are real damages, and judges can and will consider them along with the $1k.

In general, American judges have tended to care about this sort of thing -- they are very corporation friendly, especially to reasonably good corporate citizens.

This judgment if done quickly and at the rate asked for is largfer than most tobacco company rulings; and they have knowingly been addicting and killing hundreds of thousands of children around the country! (And have in some cases taken many, many years to wind through the courts.)

In short, if you put in $1k into a startup, and then those guys abandon it, go start a new company with your technology and raise a million dollars, you damn well better be in touch with those founders and investors early if you want to protect your investment.

Think about that for a second: you're a passive investor, hence don't add value to the company outside your money. You put in enough money for one month's rent in Harvard Square. Now, you get outside investors who have put in, say a million dollars. No matter what your agreement with the founders, who invented all this stuff, what do you think the million dollar funding group will offer you when you start rattling their cage around the time of closing the round?

The point is, if he has a real claim, and if he had pursued it as he should have, he still would, right now, own much less than Zuck does if he'd had any sort of quality angel or Series A investors. A guy that takes 50% for $1,000 is NOT an angel. He's either total smallfry or a predator or both; he wouldn't be welcome around the table with legit investors, and he almost certainly would have been bought out for either a small amount of nonvoting stock, or cash, like say $50k.

This would be different if he and Zuck had sat side by side for a year, working on features and split equity based on that, very different, but that's not the situation, no matter how much of a tool Zuckerberg was at that point in his life.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Shouldn't he have to prove he paid $1,000 to Zuckerberg? We may not be getting all of the facts in the case, so it's questionable whether this is valid on the terms themselves.

Also, oddly one instance says "The Page Book" while another two say "The Face Book."

<comment><USER22> The full filing includes an alleged check carbon regarding the $1000; you can view it at Scribd (p. 14):

[http://www.scribd.com/doc/34239119/Ceglia-v-Zuckerberg- compl...](http://www.scribd.com/doc/34239119/Ceglia-v-Zuckerberg- complaint#page=14)

But, the alleged contract is harder to read in that copy.

 _updated to point to page, thanks qhoxie!_

<comment><USER21> Not to sound dense, but shouldn't there be two checks if this is how he hopes to prove he paid? One for the StreetFax and one for The Face Book project? Or does it say something about The Face Book in the memo (cannot read)?

It could turn out that he paid $1,000 for the StreetFax project but they both abandoned the original "The Face Book."

<comment><USER22> Yes, I'd agree there's a chance that this contract (if real) was canceled by mutual agreement (or de facto non-performance by both sides) before the real Facebook work began. That's why it'd be interesting if Zuckerberg's email archives of the era include any exchanges with Ceglia. Just a couple of words between them indicating any different understanding could make all the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why would someone sit on something like this for 7 years? I can't think of any reasonable explanation. Facebook's lawyers also seem completely unprepared. How could Mark not have seen this coming? There's got to be an interesting story here.

<comment><USER15> _Why would someone sit on something like this for 7 years?_

This is obvious.

Why would you sue over a company that might not even turn a profit or could go bankrupt the next day while the founders are poached by Google, leaving you with an empty shell of a company?

The answer: you only sue when a company starts making money. And for Facebook, that has happened only very recently.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, for the plaintiff though, he may run into some very real statute of limitation issues. Had he waited just 6 months less, he'd be in a much better position.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Is there a link to an actual PDF instead of a Flash viewer?

<comment><USER25> If you change your user agent to an iPhone's (and maybe other mobile devices) you get to download a PDF directly.

Here's the link I got:

[http://docs.docstoc.com/pdf/7291/39b8d9a6-aa9b-4faf-92c6-baf...](http://docs.docstoc.com/pdf/7291/39b8d9a6-aa9b-4faf-92c6-bafae4080973.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Other lawsuits have already plumbed Zuckerberg's email and other personal documents from this era... including a personal journal. Did Ceglia and his 'StreetFax' project appear in any of that? Is there any independent evidence Ceglia and Zuckerberg met?

</comment><comment><USER26> I just can't conceive of Ceglia's claim holding. It seems that, regardless of the authenticity, systems are in place to prevent Facebook from undergoing such a drastic shift. Can anyone relate this to similar circumstance?

</comment><comment><USER27> Obligatory IANAL, but I don't see why this is such a big deal: the corporation that currently owns Facebook almost certainly didn't exist when this was signed (let's assume it was!). So Ceglia's claim is against Zuckerberg, not Facebook. At most he would have claim to a certain amount of IP that became what Facebook currently is. So he may have partial ownership of a small amount of Facebook.

If so, this whole thing just degenerates into two sets of lawyers figuring out how much it takes to make him shut up and go away.

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't read that, I just get a gray box (and trying on Windows gives me a little red 'x' where the corner of the box was).

But, I thought there was a list of things that are normally works for hire (without that being explicitly specified), and a list of things that are allowed to be specified as works for hire, and that software isn't on either list?

</comment><comment><USER29> Mark was born in May 14, 1984, contract was signed in April xx, 2003.

So unless my coffee did not kick in yet; that would make him under or around the age of 18 which is below the age of majority in NY state:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_majority>

<comment><USER30> Well, he'd have been over 18 at that point (18 years, 11 months, since the contract signature date is 23 Apr 2003), but you're right, he was under the age of majority in the State of New York.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Assuming it's as valid contract, can the fact that it was apparently unknown until now count against it? It seems fairly obvious that subsequent investors would have bought out this guy at a much earlier stage if they'd known that there was someone with such a significant share.

<comment><USER11> Yes, there is something called a statute of limitations which may limit this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm no lawyer, but the contract says "The agreed upon completion for the expanded project with working title "The Face Book" shall be _Janruary_ 1, 2004..."

I would imagine typos could affect a contract - would that be the case here?

<comment><USER22> Not so long as intent is clear. It's not computer code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> If this is legit it's quite damning for Zuckerberg's equity position.

<comment><USER34> Zuckerbergs? If he gets 80%, it is going to trash the other investors too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> The majority sentiment in this discussion seems to be favoring Zuckerberg. I am not sure why hackers, with the usually higher integrity and honor than most, will defend this scumbag who seems to defraud not one, two, but three different parties, and laughs with his buddy on IM about his ability to steal people's information.

Is it because Zuckerberg is now rich/powerful? Are we being more lenient to those folks now? Because these are the folks, the ones without integrity but with money/power in our society, that are ruining US. These are the folks that are crashing people's 401k, devaluing the dollar, giving bailout money to their buddies, shipping jobs overseas, cheating, lying, and stealing their way to the top. These are the folks that are bankrupting our world. Pretty soon, one day you wake up, you'll have the social security/medicare benefit disappear. your house will be worthless, and so will your 401k. After you've worked hard for 30 years. Maybe then you'll hate the Mark Zuckerbergs of the world.

<comment><USER36> It's probably because they think his [as personally told] story could/will happen to them. A hacker in a dorm room turns out to ignite the planet and become a [paper] billionaire nearly overnight. It's a great story and would be inspiring if true, but like many great stories it's full of shit. He apparently screwed over nearly everyone he came in contact with to get on top.

<comment><USER9> The justice question here is interesting.

Whatever bad Zuckerberg has done, it doesn't seem especially plausible that Ceglia made a contribution significant enough to merit a percentage of Facebook.

At the same time, if the contract is authentic, it seems like there's a big back-story here you'd have to learn before making any judgments here.

And, hey, I'll admit I'm really curious what that story is.

<comment><USER36> As far as justice goes, I don't have any sympathy for someone who continually stole other people's efforts and took all the money/glory/power. I doubt he'll lose it all, but I wouldn't consider that unfair.

Regardless of what happens, it should prove interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Consequences...will never be the same.

</comment><comment><USER38> Other than the spot where someone has written in something about a "web designer" this looks like the most general contract I've ever seen. This could be from anything. I would find it hard to believe that some judge is going to give a guy billions of dollars over this.

<comment><USER39> It says "The Face Book" and describes the website. What more specificity do you want?

<comment><USER38> Apparently I'm blind.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best route from developer to pentester - <AUTHOR> I have a lot of experience with web (rails, angular, ember, react), android and backend (nodejs, go), but got laid off a while back and am thinking of branching off a bit and look in to pentesting. It's an area I have always had an interest in, so now that I have time I wanted to delve a little deeper. There are some costly courses available, but seeing as I am getting short on money it is quite the risk without having some solid testimonials backing it up.<p>If anyone can offer me some advice on a good starting point I would greatly appreciate it. <comment><USER2> I think [https://www.cybrary.it/](https://www.cybrary.it/) is pretty good for free lessons. You can combine it with VMs like [https://www.offensive- security.com/metasploit-unleashed/requ...](https://www.offensive- security.com/metasploit-unleashed/requirements/) and those from [https://www.vulnhub.com/](https://www.vulnhub.com/) for a bit of hands-on. Also, you can get a lot of information specific to your language, like [http://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html](http://guides.rubyonrails.org/security.html) and [https://github.com/presidentbeef/brakeman](https://github.com/presidentbeef/brakeman) to look at real apps, to see what can go wrong.

<comment><USER2> Oh, and there are some good podcasts, too. Like Risky Business, 7 minute security, Liquidmatrix, Security now... 7 minute security just had a decent series on how to set up a DIY $500 pentesting lab, for example ([https://vimeo.com/179271256](https://vimeo.com/179271256)).

Finding some famous pentesters to follow on Twitter can't hurt, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really interested in this as well. Currently working as a web dev but really get excited when it comes to web app security.

Can we also discuss paid courses that might be of value as well?

<comment><USER2> I think [https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security- trai...](https://www.offensive-security.com/information-security- training/penetration-testing-training-kali-linux/) is probably currently the best bang for the training buck...</comment></comment>