I feel like I'm living the first line of my obituary. - <AUTHOR> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=L11_1123_combo10B_PFP/en/US <comment><USER2> Brilliant headline.

But man, I would love to help Wikipedia optimize their campaign.

I know they work on CRO internally but on this page, for instance, I see 30%+ sitting on the table with:

a) Fix the headline - Wikimedia's headline is "From Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris". The OP in this thread fixed by taking the very compelling first line "I feel like I'm living the first line of my obituary." Still needs an action for scanners (80% of your readers).

b) Call to Action Needs to be More Obvious - The call to action doesn't appear as a link in the copy, users will miss the box on top right. Eye @ end of article flows to the "give monthly" link. The box at the top right falls into the deadzone of visual attention. An arrow would be cheesy, but effective, as would hyperlinks in the text w/strong call to action text.

c) Edit the Copy & Formatting - The copy concept is outstanding. The formatting and paragraph structure needs to be edited down. The old "If I'd had more time i would have written you a shorter letter" - eg word economy. Could be as powerful or more-so with moderate editing. Needs sub-headlines, just something like "How can you help?" lets scanners quickly read the headline, first paragraph and jump right into donate mode.

d) Humanize Brandon - Get a picture of Brandon on there for goodness sakes. Humanizing the page with an actual image almost always works.

e) Fix Your CC Page - The click through to the donate page is bizarrely formatted with the form on the far right. Why introduce more ad-copy when somebody has indicated they want to donate? Reduce friction, don't introduce more. Better yet partner w/Amazon or somebody to process donations that's trusted and makes payments absurdly easy (PayPal doesn't count)

f) Leverage the Exit Action - I get that Wikipedia is a foundation but hit some of the basic fun commerce drivers like a little javascript exit pop like "Want to help but don't have the cash? Donate 60 seconds instead." and drive to a simple FB / Twitter screen to have people push to social on the drive.

g) Tweak your Buttons - These buttons feel like government issue desks. You might argue that this helps give them credibility as a charity to look a little off-the-shelf, but that is one of the most basic things to tweak. Build a button people can't resist rolling over, and they'll click it more and take more actions. Period.

I love Wikipedia, I want to help. Who do I go bother?

If anybody from Wikipedia is out there I am raising my hand, I want to donate time and expertise. Contact me via profile.

<comment><USER3> h) I entered my credit card details and submitted, but couldn't proceed because zip code and state are mandatory. I do not stay in the US, so those fields don't make sense to me. You are alienating non US citizens.

<comment><USER4> Try this link [1]. It appears to be slightly different from the one in the original submission.

This link allows donations in various currencies, although some are only available via credit card, while others require the use of PayPal.

The credit card details form that displays after clicking "Donate by Credit Card" offers "Outside the U.S." as an option for the "State". Also, there is a "Postal code" field, which is hopefully more friendly for those without a Zip Code. Finally, there is a drop-down list for selecting "Country/Region".

There are also alternative donation methods, described here [2].

[1] <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Now/en>

[2] <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Ways_to_Give/en>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Given that it costs less than $20 million to run Wikipedia (cite: [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/a/ac/FINAL_10_11From_KPMG.pdf)), that seems completely attainable without needing to change the nature of Wikipedia by introducing advertising.

A lone rich donor could cover the budget for an entire year, and many people who could afford that wouldn't even be mentioned in Wikipedia, so there would be little opportunity for any conflict of interest. Even if someone high profile donated a large sum that would only be one profile to monitor for any potential bias.

Here's why I think ads would be a terrible idea:

_________

ADVERTISING

Pros:

More Money

Cons:

Integrity possibly compromised

Contributors might leave

Readers might trust Wikipedia less

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

DONORS

Pros:

Maintains editorial independence

Maintains trust of readers and contributors

Cons:

Harder to raise money

__________

Ads are a lazy solution. I can't think of a single benefit to Wikipedia or its users other than "it would be so easy to meet the budget."

<comment><USER6> Back when I was a young lad, there used to be these things that had sort of the same issues. They were a stack of 'paper' (pressed wood pulp) sheets that content was 'printed' on (a black substance called 'ink' was sprayed on them). People used to write for them during the day, they were produced ('printed') at night and teenagers would deliver them in the morning so that people back then could still read news reasonably fast after it had happened.

Anyway, they had the same issues about ads and editorial independence, yet somehow they seemed to be able to continue to be trusted despite having ads. And get this, even though they had ads, you still had to pay for them, too! Those were some strange days...

<comment><USER7> Today's news is almost entirely ad-funded, with a lot of the story work done ahead of time by PR agencies. It's not a shining example of editorial independence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Not sure which would be less annoying - a few Adsense links clearly marked and off on the side, or the ginormous banner and somewhat overwrought copy.

<comment><USER9> I don't think "annoying" is one of the reasons why they don't do ads.

<comment><USER8> hopefully 'helpful to users' enters into the optimization function somewhere. if not, why are users expected to donate?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Every industrialised nation in the world has benefited from the educational value Wikipedia brings. If at their next meeting the G20 countries were to donate a dollar for every schoolchild in their country then Wikipedia would have an endowment that could cover their costs for the long term.

</comment><comment><USER11> I don't understand people moaning about "why don't they show us ads already". I am using wikipedia a lot and I think I got a lot of value from it. Admittedly I was using it more as a student, but now I can afford to give something back for that. I have no problem with donating.

We have ads everywhere, some are scammy some are annoying, advertising companies track us with them. Why would you want to put them on wikipedia when you can prevent that by just sending a couple of bucks?

<comment><USER12> I think those who actively engage in these kinds of discussions already have an ad blocker

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> What make me sad about wikipedia is that year after year, they will have to make this 'begging'. And jokes about Jim Wales will appear all over the web, and some more begging, and people complaining about some rich dude who 'only' donate 500 larges.

Well, Wikipedia has to find a sustainable model, they do not want ads or propaganda, but some new model has to be found, books, classes, especial encyclopedias, I don't know. But they need to stop doing this every year.

<comment><USER14> It's not really that big a deal for them to this every year. It's just something you have to live with like NPR's fundraising drives, except much less grating. I don't hear people irl complain about it. I know it really irritates many of the entrepreneur types on here that one of the biggest sites on the web is asking for money, but it's perfectly fine for them to have fundraising drives every year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The idea behind Wikipedia is to be made by users. With our time, and our money. It's good to know that it doesn't just run with content from other users like me (and mine), but also their money (and mine).

</comment><comment><USER16> Fortunately, they don't accept advertisements from corporations, and are thus uncorrupted by the donations from said corporations.

<comment><USER17> In fact, there was a dodgy moment a few years ago when Wikipedia pages would display an advert for Virgin Unite. The argument was that since it's a charity, it doesn't count as advertising, but for me there's a big difference between the charitable arm of a corporation and a "true" charity. The main one being that Unite is obviously at least partly an attempt to improve the Virgin brand. He didn't call it The Branson Foundation or just Unite.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Interesting dilemma I suppose, I think what they are worried about is the slippery slope, Wikipedia is used to this frugal operation where theoretically they have minimal pressure and influence as far as what is published on their site. As others have pointed out, they could easily run ads on just a small number of pages and start raking in cash. They could even limit themselves to "good" or "neutral" ads, those that meet certain guidelines (no ads from questionable companies / for questionable products, etc) but then what happens? They get used to having this cash flow, they hire more people, get nicer offices and then there could be pressure to start bringing in more money, lowering the standard of ads. I think its more a testament to the beliefs of the people who run Wikipedia as to the power of human greed and corruption as they seem to feel that an infusion of excess cash could put Wikipedia on a negative path.

</comment><comment><USER19> I don't understand how advertisers would in any way influence the content of Wikipedia.

I would argue that donors wield more control over an organization than advertisers.

Advertisers pay money to an organization and receive ad placement in return.

Donors (especially large ones) pay money to an organization and are more likely to ask for some sort of favor in return.

</comment><comment><USER20> There are several great organizations that have no way to make money, so they rely on donations. Wikipedia isn't in that situation. They could sell ads that were clearly marked as such. A simple small text ad on each page would give them more money than they would ever need.

They're costs seem to be low enough and the value of ad space is high enough that they wouldn't have to put up with anyone trying to extort them or take away there independence.

If they are worried that the surplus of money would corrupt their organization, then they can give the surplus away or just limit the number of ads they sell (but maybe hire a couple more devs first).

That is why I will not donate.

<comment><USER21> Wikipedia has enough problems with spam etc. now. I can't imagine how the dynamic would be altered if ad sales folks figured out some angle to game things.

Are you suggesting that they should do inside sales (with some sort of chinese wall); or use an ad sale agency? Would I be able to bid on specific wikipedia pages and keywords, or would it be random pages? What if I put a deceptive add on a page that was sensitive politically, in an attempt to bait people with an interest in a certain topic into some sort of targeted phising or malware attack?

I'm not familiar with web ad sales at all, is there a general rule of thumb for commoditization of traffic? Function(Unique visitors, page views, ??? ) = $x

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> "We don't run ads because doing so would sacrifice our independence. The site is not and should never be a propaganda tool."

I really don't understand wikipedia's continued hesitation to accept advertising--nor the argument that it would sacrifice their independence-- anyone can edit it already, so I question whether sponsorship needs to have any impact on article content whatsoever.

What's the problem with having a banner at the top saying "Wikipedia is brought to you today by McDonalds..." just something small, as a way of saying that they care about free access to knowledge too.

<comment><USER18> so, this is just hypothetical, but lets say McDonald's ends up having some major scandal (say, like Enron, but not so bad that they go out of business), this scandal ends up being well known and there's a Wikipedia article written about it, as there is for the Enron scandal (Google "Enron Scandal wiki" to check for yourself). So, don't you think maybe McDonald's would put a little pressure on Wikipedia to censor or remove this page? I think its naive to think not, and the result would be censorship and suppression of information that would be available if Wikipedia was standing on its own and not propped up by this specific company in question.

<comment><USER23> I don't think the presence of advertising makes Wikipedia any more subject to the influence of commercial institutions.

How exactly do you 'put a little pressure on Wikipedia' as an advertiser? It's a hive of independent contributors who, overwhelmingly, draw no money from the Foundation. Very few care at all about advertiser-friendliness.

Any communication to any particular editor suggesting warmer-treatment-for- money risks a big backlash, and provides little assurance of warmer coverage.

On the other hand, even without advertising, big interests can and do try to massage their Wikipedia entries indirectly. If they have a legal case against content, they can and do threaten legal action – again, no advertising link required.

There may be good reasons for excluding advertising. Since an important core of contributors hate the idea advertising, simply keeping them happy may be a good enough reason, and as long as annual donation drives generate plenty of money, why not?

But I don't see where advertising would add new motivations or mechanisms for commercial entities to meddle in article content, especially if proper care were taken to separate and automate ad functions.

<comment><USER18> I've worked for companies where one client has an inordinate amount of influence over the company, why... because they are the biggest client, they represent a significant percentage of the company's revenue. Market forces inevitably can create situations where a particular client is "really good" for a company, they may pay more than other companies would, etc and, if this client is lost (or even just reduces the business they give the company) serious consequences can result including laying people off, etc. Of course Wikipedia can avoid this, at least initially, by not relying on one company, going through an ad-broker, etc but its possible that at some point a situation can arise where they are faced with a dilemma (and this would probably be years into the future after an infusion of money has inevitably re-shaped the organization to some degree) where a decision has to be made to either lose a client (advertising customer) or bend to pressure from them to censor or delete something... I'm just speculating here but past experiences of mine lead me to believe something like this could occur as companies bend to pressure from their clients all the time.

<comment><USER23> Except: editing is done by an unruly hive. There is no organizational nexus on which to place "comply or we'll withdraw our advertising" pressure. And, any attempt to apply such pressure would quickly trigger its own self- nullification via editor outrage (as with the 'Streisand Effect').

In order for an advertiser to have sinister influence, you'd need to assume a bunch of other changes which weaken Wikipedia's resilience. Advertising _could_ be implemented in a way that helps prevent such weakening-changes from happening. And if any org could pull that off, Wikipedia could.

That said, I still understand why, given their community's biases and their success with donation-drives so far, they have not seriously considered ads in many years. Don't mess with what works is usually a good principle.

<comment><USER24> Your posts on the subject seem far and away too utopian when we're talking about wikipedia. They've already had a lot of scandals about censorship/bias/etc. _now_. That would only get worse when money was on the line.

<comment><USER23> How does advertising make it worse? Can't companies already hire PR firms and other editors to slyly improve their coverage? Isn't that cheaper and less subject to backlash than trying to communicate conditional advertising budgets?

<comment><USER18> they have no direct influence unless they are a customer (paying money to Wikipedia), sure they can try to game the system, but Wikipedia isn't going to do some action at their request. If a company pays a lot of money to Wikipedia its possible someone within the Wiki organization would be willing to bend the rules a bit to cave to their request because it may keep the money flowing whereas otherwise tough decisions would have to be made (laying people off, etc)

<comment><USER23> If Wikipedians are so trivially corruptible by money, ads are still irrelevant to the process. Just offer a donation for warmer treatment. (The Foundation does not reject corporate donations.) Or an outright bribe.

Also, the organization that handles funds – the Foundation – has very little special editorial power, and their actions are especially transparent. (For example, their real names are necessarily known, whiich is not the case for other editors.) Attempting to influence content by being an advertiser, then making ad spends conditional on favorable bias, would be about the worst possible way to try to influence Wikipedia content. You'd be spending a lot, via a path that's under the most scrutiny. You'd probably prompt staff to be extra harsh on you to avoid any appearance of infuence.

Anyone who really wanted to spend to influence Wikipedia would just hire editors _outside_ the funds/ads-handling organization. That threat is larger, and unaffected by the presence or absence of advertising.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't get the reluctance to use advertising. Wikipedia could place one small, unobtrusive text ad on each page and they would have more than enough money to operate their business and pay their employees what they deserve. If there's money left over, they could offer scholarships or make charitable donations. I don't think that placing small ads on a page in an effort to keep information free and prosperous amounts to propaganda or a loss of independence.

<comment><USER20> As if you need to buy ad space to put propaganda on Wikipedia.

<comment><USER26> Those who know, they don't need to be told. Those who don't, they will probably fight / downvote you because they think that if something has so much positive, then how it could contain any negative? That's ok, our brains are hardwired to simplify things. There have been numerous studies, and numerous discussions e.g. on Slashdot, on this topic, and the truth about the bad about Wikipedia is truly horrific. But I'm an optimist, I believe they/we will deal with that at some point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> think these pro-ads comments have scared me into donating to wikipedia

</comment><comment><USER28> I'm more worried that Wikipedia would feel compelled to ensure their content is not too critical to their big donors, than that wikipedia would become corrupted by advertisers.

I can understand how advertising could be a corrupting force, but Wikipedia needs to explain why attracting donors doesn't have the same problem if not bigger.

</comment><comment><USER29> There are also people who refuse to give them anything since they believe that the CC-BY-SA license is not really "free" (the Share-Alike part prevents you from doing anything without licensing your work with the same license).

</comment><comment><USER30> Wikipedia needs to stop begging and find a viable business model. It may not be easy, but it should be possible.

irony: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_begging>

<comment><USER21> They have the same viable business model as public television and other charities. That reminds me, I need to donate all the charitable contributions that I've budgeted for the year soon, public television is the only one of contributions I've remembered to make this year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Well, a little bit of self-glorification is okay...

But seriously, is it wikipedia that's giving people access to knowledge or is it google (and other search engines)?

Without google, I'd guess wikipedia would get a fraction of the traffic it gets now. There is no use building a massive repository of knowledge if no one can navigate it easily.

<comment><USER32> I think you have it backwards--Wikipedia actually faces (in a sense) _competition_ from Google. With Google, I can get my information from millions of disparate sites, each specializing in some niche--if I'm looking to buy a car, I might visit ten or twenty car club websites, for example.

Without Google, there would be no good way to find all of the little, disparate sites. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is an organized, uniform collection of information; finding the right article there is much easier than finding an appropriate fan site or the like.

Google's mission is to "organize the world's information". Wikipedia's mission could just as easily be phrased as "organize the world's _notable_ information"--there is a gigantic overlap between the two.</comment></comment>


Find the Google+ profile of people you follow on Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://migrat.us

<comment><USER2> Do all my twitter peeps have to connect to migratus as well for this to work? That's what it seems like.

I was expecting a service that would scrape all the G+ profiles for the twitter names listed there and compare it with my list of twitter followers.

<comment><AUTHOR> By scraping all Google+ profiles, it would not solve the problem of fake profiles. Anyone could use your Twitter username and let your followers think they are you. With migratus, you are sure that the Google+ profile it gives you is the one provided by the Twitter user.

<comment><USER2> How large of a problem do you think this is?

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think it's a problem at the moment, but it could easily become one when such tools become available to the public.

Though, I still think that an non-perfect tool as described above would bring much more value than what migrat.us brings with its 500~ users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is not very useful. It's essentially a directory that maps twitter ids to G+ profiles. If you're the first of your friends to sign up, you'll find no results.

Hard to categorize a tool as useful if it has social network effects (needs critical mass).

Note that by signing up you're giving up the profile association willingly into their database.

</comment><comment><USER4> As much as I'd prefer to consolidate to using Google+, Google+ is not a replacement for Twitter for me. I would like to be able to post publicly based on broad topics like #programming so that all of my friends and family that have no clue what technobabble I am rambling about would not have to see it in their feed. I created a programming circle, but that does not make my posts public if I post to that circle. As far as I know, any time you post to public, everyone who has put you in a circle sees your post. I get the impression that this is what Sparks is for, but I have not yet made the connection. Possibly I do not understand how to use Google+ yet. If someone knows how to accomplish this, please tell.

<comment><USER5> With G+ it's possible to filter your output (into circles) but there's no way to filter the input. I've put all my hacker friends into a hacker circle, but when I browse that stream I get all their public/extended posts plus the posts for whatever circle they've put me in. Basically, they know I'm following, but they can't know why I'm following. I can't signal to them that I want them to put me in circle for all their hacking posts and not their pictures-of-cats posts.

I've actually started making posts that say, "If you can see this post, I'm following you because [X]."

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Not so great - Seems to require your Twitter followers to associate their Google account on Migrat.us before it's of any use.

<comment><USER7> Yeah, and people can already link to their twitter from their profile page. So this shouldn't be needed, a simple crawler should be sufficient.

<comment><USER8> Scraping might not even be needed given that Google has an API for that <http://code.google.com/apis/socialgraph/>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Whats the "Google+ ID" you need to associate?

\- firstname.lastname@example.com \- <https://plus.google.com/100033678853935069816> \- 100033678853935069816

??

<comment><AUTHOR> It's the numeric id only.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I created an app that uses a different approach.

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

It relies on people you follow having used <http://gplus.to> to create a Google+ name that matches their Twitter name.

Currently it finds about 20% of the people you follow.

<comment><AUTHOR> Even if the results are not all accurate and that relying on gplus.to may not be the best solution, I get more results with it than with migratus, which is why I added a link to your app on migratus.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Google already has automated system to link up members to other profiles across the web. They could help with this fairly easily. Would people find that intrusive or creepy?

</comment><comment><USER12> Oh error there <http://min.us/mymp6U>

<comment><USER11> Yes, and also an inadequately configured server.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The new design is up.</comment>


Consensys emerges from stealth; www.consensys.net is live! dApps for Ethereum - <AUTHOR> http://www.consensys.net

<comment><AUTHOR> Zug, Switzerland and Brooklyn, NY August 18th, 2015 – ConsenSys emerges from stealth with a network of members worldwide, on a mission of creating decentralized applications (dApps) and various other tools for the emerging decentralized economy that leverages Ethereum and other Blockchain eco- systems.

The ConsenSys web site goes live today. www.consensys.net aims to extend the reach of the ConsenSys' team to further explain the new and ongoing projects in the decentralization/blockchain space.

ConsenSys spawns, coordinates, incubates and accelerates Spoke Ventures (SV's) via: internal development, merger & acquisition, investment and joint venture. Founded by Joseph Lubin, a Co-Founder of The Ethereum Foundation, ConsenSys is comprised of personnel around the world.

</comment><comment><USER2> so are you guys like an incubator for decentralized apps?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Nullz, We have multiple mutually beneficial relationships. Accelerator/Incubator, Merger & Acquisition, Joint Venture are a few of the type of our relationships.</comment></comment>


Happy Cog redesigns Zappos.com - <AUTHOR> http://happycog.com/create/zappos/

<comment><USER2> No mention of the MetaLab redesign?

For those who are interested: <http://www.metalabdesign.com/zappos/></comment>


The B-29's Battle of Kansas (2012) - <AUTHOR> http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2012/February%202012/0212b29.aspx <comment><USER2> One crazy fact is that the development of the B-29 (which dropped the atom bomb) was actually more expensive than the Manhattan Project itself

<comment><USER3> Truth. I mean, I had never heard of it. Sure, I knew that they used B-29s. But not that it was such a huge project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> And today there are only 2 flying B-29's left. (Until recently, there was only one.)

[https://youtu.be/ncUdqT8AxY0?t=261](https://youtu.be/ncUdqT8AxY0?t=261)</comment>


IBM's infamous "Black Team" (2002) - <AUTHOR> http://www.t3.org/tangledwebs/07/tw0706.html <comment><USER2> This story made me think. Until now I had the impression that mediocrity at large corporations is inevitable no matter how many smart people they employ, simply due to the size of the corporation. For every talented, competent employee they have 10 average or below-average employees. Even at Google, even (and especially) at Microsoft. Competent people cannot choose who to work with so whatever extra they do is lost in the mediocrity that surrounds them.

After reading this article I have realized that even at large corporations if you make isolated and largely idependent small teams of highly competent people that can select their members themselves, you can create "startup" bubbles inside the organization that can deliver outstanding results. Maybe this is the way to go when growing large, from a medium-sized enterprise to a large corporation?

<comment><USER3> It's not a new concept. Look up Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works.

<comment><USER4> And, IMHO even more importantly, Semco.

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

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Whatever happened to that team?

<comment><USER6> They talk about them in (I think) Peopleware. It's part of a segment talking about how fostering a unique culture for your team can increase motivation. They mention that this culture persisted in the Black Team after all its original members had moved on. I'm not sure how long it continued on after that.

<comment><USER7> If you haven't read Peopleware you really should. It's one of the best books on managing people working in IT around, still. If you like Spolsky, DeMarco and Lister were talking about this stuff years ago.

<comment><USER8> It seems to be out of print: <http://www.amazon.com/dp/0932633439/> . $95 second hand... Is it worth it?

<comment><USER9> You can get it from the publisher ~$46 ($39.95 + $6SH): <http://www.dorsethouse.com/books/pw.html>

You might also try a local brick and mortar bookstore.

<comment><USER9> The 39.95 price includes shipping (UPS ground). Read it wrong the first time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Pictures or it didn't happen!"

Edit: I tried searching for anything related to IBM and their Black Team. It seems Google saturates my search request with everything linking back to this article.

Perhaps someone could help?

<comment><USER11> As mentioned already, the book Peopleware has a section the Black Team, which predates this article by quite a few years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Having worked in similar environments in the early 90's on desktop software, there are some serious downsides to this approach.

Basically, it can lead to having a rift between developers and QA, and in a big corporation, it can become a bureaucratic mess and a 'us' vs. 'them' attitude between groups. I've been in long heated meetings between QA and Dev arguing over individual bugs, not so much on behalf of the customer as opposed to face-saving exercise.

From the article: "And the things they did to software went beyond all bounds of rational use testing and were more akin to software torture." In a perfect world with unlimited time, it's great to find bugs through contortions but usually there is some costs associated with it either with QA not focused on other areas that matter, or having a developer focused on confirming that bug as opposed to working on something else.

Sometimes it's great in a bigger organization to have a unique culture so I agree with the jist of the article and to other HN comments. For instance, I worked at a company on a smaller Macintosh team that fostered a healthy competition with the much bigger Windows team which worked well. I'm just not so sure it works well when people are essentially working on the same project where interfacing with each other is a requirement.

</comment><comment><USER13> I think a crucial reason this worked is that there was a measurable objective, the value of which was universally understandable. Find software bugs. This is how they measured and selected the initial team, and this is how the team itself could prove its effectiveness in a management-compatible, objective manner and therefore defend its existence. Finding other areas where this could work is an interesting excercise.

<comment><USER14> I agree that measurability is important, but there are plenty of measurable objectives that don't inspire this sort of espirit de corp exhibitted here. I would love to know more about the leadership of this group, and if the leadership of the group fostered this sort of group identification. Is there a leadership lesson here, or did this emerge organically?

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Timeless. Not just that this happened in the 60's, but I didn't notice the publish date (2002) of the post itself until _after_ reading it.

</comment><comment><USER16> Its pitiful that building bug-free software is considered legendary. Speaks volumes about our industry.

<comment><USER17> Systems got orders of magnitude more complicated, time to release got orders of magniture shorter, and everything got a whole hell of a lot better.

<comment><USER16> You could make the same arguments in every industry that exists, somehow software is the only one that gets away with it. Even our counterparts in hardware are held to a higher standard.

Djikstra and Hoare are the only ones who tried to advance a higher standard and yet beyond naming an award for one and singing praises of the other, the field has continued to accept lesser standards.

<comment><USER18> Desktop computers have tens of millions of lines of active software, and for most users they only exhibit a bug every week or so. By any measure, that level of reliability far exceeds any other industry. Chipmakers achieve 0.999999 reliability, which is impressive, but if software had only that level of reliability it would crash every millisecond.

<comment><USER16> Setting aside all other factors (complexity, progress made, resources available, etc), I would argue that the culture of bug acceptance has lead to more bugs in software than would have existed had it been less tolerant.

<comment><USER19> It has also lead to more software than would exist otherwise.

<comment><USER20> And software that's orders of magnitude cheaper than it would be if error free.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "Some individuals even grew long mustaches which they would twirl with melodramatic flair as they savaged a programmer's code."

Love it!

</comment><comment><USER22> maybe I'm just feeling negative today, but this sounds like some bullshit to me. it sounds like the kind of thing that would be appealing to managers: having "not exceptionally intelligent or talented" employees who become completely obsessed with doing their jobs. great, you can pay them average salaries and they will be so loyal to your giant company. the story and the events themselves are fine, but I feel like the reason this story (and some of these details seem pretty apocryphal to me, like programmers crying because of bug reports) is so popular is that management types are taking the wrong lesson from it: that it would be desirable if employees were unhealthily obsessed with doing their jobs. then they try and manipulate their own people into doing the same thing.

<comment><USER23> "great, you can pay them average salaries and they will be so loyal to your giant company"

The point is that they become loyal to each other, the company reaping a reward is just a side benefit of people working towards a common goal.

I was on a similar 'elite' skunkworks dev team in a company of ~ 35,000 that had executive support, and the results were insanely good. You can't manipulate people to do this; You can however give them the freedom to make it happen.

<comment><USER24> I've had the opportunity to work on much smaller 'elite' teams before (7-10 people), and if I didn't have to eat and pay rent I'd do it for free.

The amount of productivity, support, and "you grok me"-ness is so extreme that it's really a wonder to behold. As a regular dev now I really do look back on those days and wish I can do it all over again.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I really, really hope that the team that's in charge of Apple's app review process doesn't start emulating these guys, with legal things instead of technical things. Though it seems like they kind of already have.</comment>


John McAfee AMA - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/netsec/comments/3hr9f0/i_am_john_mcafee_ama/ <comment><USER2> I thought this was good:

> OT, but do anyone know exactly what went wrong with McAfee after the founder > left the company?

> It grew, it got big, like every company. When I started, there were 4 of us. > Generating $10M/yr, we could have lived happily for our lives on that. VCs > came and offered to make it bigger, we had to grow, we didn't have sales, > marketing, etc. I gave it away, unless you were a government, corporation, > etc. Once I went public, I had 1000 bosses, investors, FTC, SEC, all my time > in meetings and interviews. I hired a programmer/day for over a year! I used > to spend time taking apart viruses, not I was an accountant. Once a company > gets big, it becomes slow, and cannot survive in its current form.

Nice cautionary tail there about ruining something good by trying to go too big

<comment><USER3> Going public is often the turning point where a 'Good Company' starts to become a 'Bad Company'. It becomes no longer good enough to make a good product.

<comment><USER4> I didn't think it was that simple in case of McAfee or for that matter in most cases however.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> When asked what someone can do to be successful in software:

> That;s a tough one. get out of the box no1. REALLY out of the box. Abandon > every social norm, esp those closest to you. Then look at the world with > objective eyes. Look what is the thing to do? Every entrepreneur I know (I > know Steve Jobs, and he was out of the box) went out of the box. If you > can't go work for someone else.

Yeah the older I get the more it becomes clear that there's inherent conflict between following social norms (developing a cushy social life) and achieving something big. Like with being a startup founder I think almost all have to go through intense anti-social periods, admittedly I judge founders as being average or worse if they don't seem to have some anti social or obsessive streak to them.

Kobe is a cool example too, a guy who had a relatively bizarre social life for an NBA player, with a manic obsession about work and improvement. I think he even said "Friends come and go, but banners stay forever." Extreme, but hits on a deeper truth about what all it takes to make it big.

<comment><USER6> I mean this in the nicest possible way, but that kinda sounds like a justification for being a workaholic.

<comment><USER7> Often, work pays off. The Lakers used to try and lock Kobe out of the gym to stop him getting shots up at all hours before dawn. But he persisted and found other ways in.

<comment><USER8> Why would his team not want him to practice?

<comment><USER7> He would go in at 2am, 4am, etc and put up hundreds of shots. They changed the locks. He would wedge open service doors, etc. Risk was burnout or injury from sheer repetition.

They might've underestimated the sort of character he is. There are some great stories out there about his training habits, the Lakers scouting him as a rookie pre-draft, etc. Contentious character, but hard to deny his focus.

There is one great story of him calling in a trainer to work with him after midnight. They take a break, the trainer understanding they were done for now and going home. Trainer came back in the morning for team training and made smalltalk with Kobe about hopefully he had had a good rest after their workout. Kobe was confused. He'd been there all night training and hadn't gone home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is a gem of wisdom:

 _pair-programming between devs and hackers will allow for instant security feed-back [...] It will be the only possible way to develop ironclad software. Starting with the system architects, there need to be arcdhitectural hackers - all the way through the coding process._

...and reading the other stuff too, he seems to still be knowing what he's talking about!

<comment><USER10> Yes he is very good at explaining good practice, such as precise instructions on removing software: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg)

<comment><USER11> The dude is very likeable and I don't care about him doing illegal drugs (I'm no moralist).

That being said, the accusations that he killed his next door neighbor in Belize and then fled the country are disconcerting...

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McAfee#Legal_issues)

<comment><USER12> As someone that lives in a third world country, I think that everything John said about the case (that it was about people wanting bribes) is true.

Also he said people hit him with a baseball bat after putting a helmet on his head, I know even other techniques (a cop friend told me one of the things his corrupt colleagues do is hit people with soap bars inside towels, it also hurts a lot without leaving bruises if you know what you are doing).

<comment><USER13> I don't think he said this had been done to him. He merely said that's a common 'questioning' technique used in Belize.

<comment><USER14> In another reply he claims they did it to his post-arrest.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What I liked the most is that they took the time to reply more than the top- level question -- many AMAs I've seen* just answer the top level question and move on to something else.

* disclaimer: I don't read so many AMAs, just the ones I find interesting.

<comment><USER16> Several AMAs lately have been a PR exercise (like showing up on a talk show)

<comment><USER17> I don't think there's a clean line between for-fun celebrity AMAs and PR exercises. They blend smoothly into each other, and the real division is just whether it trips your personal "authenticity" alarm.

<comment><USER18> There's an easy well to tell, just look in the OP and see if they're plugging something. John McAfee is not. Woody Harrelson was.

<comment><USER17> Everyone is plugging something all the time. Just because they're plugging their general popularity rather than a particular movie does not make something unassailably authentic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> It was wild to follow John McAfee a few years back when he was on the run in Beliz. His podcast with Joe Rogan at the time was pretty entertaining and so I'm not surprised to see they are looking to make a movie (not sure if this was mentioned in the AMA, still making my way through it)

Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski To Script John McAfee Film For Warner Bros [http://deadline.com/2013/07/scott-alexander-larry- karaszewsk...](http://deadline.com/2013/07/scott-alexander-larry-karaszewski- to-script-john-mcafee-film-for-warner-bros-551655/)

</comment><comment><USER20> Wow really enjoying the level of effort put into these responses

<comment><USER21> Possibly drug fuelled..

<comment><USER8> Regardless if that's true or not, how is that relevant?

<comment><USER22> Relax, it was funny.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> this is the best AMA ever from the most fascinating crazy man in the IT world.</comment>


Turing as a Runner (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Extras/Turing_running.html <comment><USER2> > His time was 2 hours 46.03 minutes which by modern marathon times does not > look so great but was good at that time.

This made me laugh a little. I guess at the _Olympic level_ it "does not look so great", but that's a fantastic time: in the last SF marathon he would have gotten 20th place out of 5000. I had no idea he was such a good runner.

<comment><USER3> Runners are both much faster and much slower today. That time would get you into wave 1 corral 1 at Boston this year along with 999 other runners (just barely). And obviously the world record marathon time has dropped dramatically.

At the same time, there are a lot more runners today and most of them are a lot slower than in the 1980s running boom. You can look at winning times in almost any local race between the 80s and today and those 80s runners would easily trounce today's winners.

So Turing could probably win strategically picked small local marathons here and there, but at Boston he would've done better in his time than today.

<comment><USER4> There were only 193 entrants at Boston in 1948, with a winning time of 2:31, and the entrants count did not break 1000 until 1968 with 1014.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Related history; a great many mathematicians who intended to sit the Tripos at Cambridge (as Turing did) took up athleticism as part of their preparation. The exams were intended to be a grueling test of endurance as well as pure mathematical ability; the high scorers made physical fitness part of their preparations.

Back in the 1820s, eight days of examinations, five and a half hours a day, roughly 25% "pass rate" (i.e. 25% achieved wrangler status).

</comment><comment> z-tech Can anyone comment on the credibility of this article?

<comment><USER6> [https://www.turing.org.uk/book/update/part6.html](https://www.turing.org.uk/book/update/part6.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if he took up walking after the injury? A lot of people I know who used to run walk now instead.</comment>


See coercion in JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://www.yolpo.com/embed.html?gist=344311f27fd88a9c2be8

<comment><USER2> All Done - 550 statements, 666 lines, 0 errors.

Are there any JS implementations where this test fails!?</comment>


Corporate America Chases the Mythical Millennial - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/26/technology/corporate-america-chases-the-mythical-millennial.html <comment><USER2> this article made no sense. It tells 'us' not to pigeonhole or stereotype millennials, and then goes on to pigeonhole and stereotype millennials.

They aren't A, B, or C, because they're X, Y, and Z. they don't fit into _this_ mold, because they fit into _that_ mold. I think they forgot how to newspaper.</comment>


Nix v. Hedden: in which the Supreme Court decided whether a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nix_v._Hedden

<comment><AUTHOR> The title is slightly deceptive, as it was for the purposes of applying a tariff act, but the premise of the case is still whimsical IMO.

</comment><comment><USER2> I KNEW it!</comment>


What is a Design Attitude and Why Would a Manager Care?  - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/fred-collopy/manage-designing/what-design-attitude-and-why-would-manager-care

<comment><USER2> Haven't read the author's book, but the ideas sound very much like Christopher Alexander's work in systemizing collaborative design. If you're not familiar, i highly recommend these:

[http://www.google.com/books?id=Kh3T3XFUfPQC&printsec=fro...](http://www.google.com/books?id=Kh3T3XFUfPQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Notes+on+the+Synthesis+of+Form&ei=NINDSLj8Cp2yjAHgtLT9DQ&sig=sB9x2Q6GU0i01mDROwdRIn5ht9U)

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

and finally: [http://web.archive.org/web/20070528030431/http://www.rainmag...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070528030431/http://www.rainmagazine.com/architecture/oregonexperiment.html)

basically, alexander pointed out back in the 60s/70s that the simplest design problems, when approached from a conscious design perspective & properly considered, spiral out to millions of small relationships that are well beyond any one human's grasp. and so he formulates a system for organizing the people involved with the project & defining a hierarchy that enables the big problems to be settled before the small problems & for individual domain specific/'problem owners' to be established at the right place within overall the process.

that said, for all the beauty in his theories, in practice (in architecture at least) political issues often affect the design process far more significantly than he anticipated - which is why this article is interesting, as it addresses the political value of this approach first.

+1 for social hacking.

</comment><comment><USER3> "...humans have a limited cognitive capacity for reasoning when searching for a solution within a problem space. Given the relatively small size of our brain's working memory, we can only consider a few aspects of any situation and can only analyze them in a few ways... The first step in any problem- solving episode is representing the problem, and to a large extent, that representation has the solution hidden within it (pp. 8-9)."

Always love a good economics quote -- behavioral economics, cognitive costs and etc are, generally speaking, awesome topics. See recent edge posting: <http://edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler_sendhil08/class4.html>

Not a designer so the rest of the article doesn't apply to me as much...</comment>


App Casting (LeanBack) vs. Tab Casting (Chromecast) - <AUTHOR> http://getleanback.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> In a nutshell, "app casting" is being able to cast any running application to the Chromecast (ex: VLC, Excel, ...)</comment>


How to Build a Fast News Feed in Redis (and Rails) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.waxman.me/how-to-build-a-fast-news-feed-in-redis

<comment><USER2> This is from my experience of trying to build a news feed (we are about to launch one for our site which gets about a million unique visitors a month).

The approach you suggested is the first approach that i tried. And frankly it worked great when i am testing the feature on my dev macbook with just a couple of 1000's of users. But when i started testing it on our server loading entire legacy data redis ended up taking more than 6GB of RAM for abt half a million users.

i told myself to just plan for 2 times our current traffic and then later on think of a better solution(best thing wud be to plan for 5-10 times your current traffic) and told my CEO that we might have to bump up RAM on the redis machine to 32 or 64 GB in the future(the easiest way but not an elegant way to solve the problem is throw more resources). Also mind that you need atleast 2 such machines to provide failover. i just hoped salvatore(a great guy BTW) would release a cluster solution for redis and will save me.

While testing the feed we came to know we needed to add more such actions from the user and every time you add a new type of action for every user you are looking at increasing the memory of Redis process by substancial amount. you will run out of memory faster than you have planned. i thought VM is the solution to all of this as user feeds typically use only latest data and the entire feed doesn't need to be in the memory. But quite frankly VM has it's own set of problems -- [http://groups.google.com/group/redis- db/browse_thread/thread...](http://groups.google.com/group/redis- db/browse_thread/thread/6534a6fb5c3ee804).

Not telling that your solution isn't good. Just wanted to warn you about some potential problems from experience of trying out your solution. Finally i am using cassandra for news feed. Working great as of now. At least much better than my experience with implementing the same with redis. The major problem with cassandra as of now is implementing pagination and counting. distributed counters are coming in 0.8 . pagination is still a major problem though. But for news feed you might not need pagination. providing a load more button as facebook and twitter does should be good enough.

Hope it helps.

<comment><USER3> I'm not sure what version of Redis you were using, but depending on the data you're storing, 2.2 uses significantly less space than previous versions.

Some data from GitHub: <http://technoweenie-ruby-onales.heroku.com/#34>

<comment><USER4> It looks like our approaches are very different. Stratocaster stores lists of integer IDs, which Redis optimizes for pretty heavily. We're taking the list of IDs and doing a multi-get from either memcache or mysql.

It looks like this lib uses Sets of the actual event data. It won't be able to take advantage of the same optimizations.

<comment><USER5> On the plus side, switching from storing zsets of actual event data to storing integer ids should be a pretty minor code change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I've been thinking about how to make better news feeds lately - here are some other interesting talks/papers:

<http://blog.basho.com/2011/03/28/Riak-and-Scala-at-Yammer/>

<http://research.yahoo.com/node/3203>

<http://technoweenie-ruby-onales.heroku.com/#1>

[https://github.com/technoweenie/allofthestars/tree/master/ve...](https://github.com/technoweenie/allofthestars/tree/master/vendor/stratocaster)

<comment><USER6> great links, thanks. [http://www.quora.com/What-are-best-practices-for- building-so...](http://www.quora.com/What-are-best-practices-for-building- something-like-a-News-Feed) has some more ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> A news feed becomes a very interesting problem once you release it to the live server. I'm dealing with one for the last year, and enjoy reading about them whenever I can. Thanks for the article.

One problem for your approach would be handling of deletions. You should visit all the recipient feeds to delete the item, and it's not that uncommon.

Another one is handling comments, which is the real thing creating the buzz if you're providing the feed for the network effect. The article assumes a twitter like publishing if I got it right. In a Facebook like feed, you may want to include a couple of comments with the original item to display the action (first two is always displayed with the feed item, for examle)and async. load the rest. You may want to keep the exact number of comments to display something like "6 more comments", and this means updating all the copies with every comment.

There's also the problem of changing permissions, if you have one. In my case, a parenting social network, user can set feed permission to "family only" or "friends" or "my partner" etc. anytime, hence adding and deleting again to other user's feed in your case.

</comment><comment><USER8> Implemented something similar for a project I was working on a few months ago using PHP. Just wrote up a blog post about my implementation:

[http://nleach.com/post/4315166514/activity-feed-in-redis- usi...](http://nleach.com/post/4315166514/activity-feed-in-redis-using-php)

It's pretty similar to the Ruby example, but I figured I'd share it anyway. Feedback very much welcome!

</comment><comment><USER9> The example in this post is the way I built a news feed for zazazu.tv except I used PHP instead of Rails. We stored each unique feed in MongoDB and then insert a reference to the unique feed to each user's stream (using Gearmand). Fast and pretty much as scalable as the site would need it to be.</comment>


Introducing Cramp - <AUTHOR> http://m.onkey.org/2010/1/7/introducing-cramp <comment><USER2> Looks handy, does it play nicely in a normal rails deploy? I can see it being really handy as a long polling endpoint in an otherwise synchronous webapp.

Before trying it though, I don't know how eventmachine can play nice inside a passenger launched rails app. Guess I've gotta go try and see.

<comment><USER3> You can't really deploy a cramp app with Passenger. You'll have to use nginx/apache + thin cluster. <http://code.macournoyer.com/thin/usage/> should have more details. I haven't really tried it with Apache, but nginx has worked great for me.

<comment><USER2> That's what I figured. I was hoping (wishing?) that it would be a nice drop- in, in-process async endpoint for when I needed it. But it looks like the sysadmin side is a bit more complex than that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's by far the nicest tooling for async I've seen in ruby yet. I've written a lot of async code in ruby and have tried to make it more accessible in the past and didn't end up with anything nearly as nice.</comment>


Proper date support in JavaScript  - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/moment/moment

<comment><USER2> Yes, moment.js is great. We use it at work all the time. If only Javascript had something like this built in...</comment>


Yield curve is blaring loudest recession warning since 2007 - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-05/yield-curve-blares-loudest-u-s-recession-warning-since-2007 <comment><USER2> My favorite investment advice, courtesy of Mr. Money Mustache:

"Suppose you're just starting out as an egg farmer, and your goal is to build up a nice, profitable business. You want to build up a flock of hens so big that they are eventually producing thousands of eggs per month. Enough to live off for life and retire.

You buy your first 100 hens, and they get right to work. You allow those eggs to hatch so more hens can be born, and you also continue to buy hens from the farm supply store. Suddenly your phone rings and it's Farmer Joe down the road. "The price of hens has just dropped by 50%! You've just lost five grand on those hundred hens you bought last summer!"

Is this a sensible way to think about it?

No, of course not. You're happy that hens are cheaper, because now you can build your egg business even faster.

Stocks are just like hens. They lay eggs called "dividends", which are real money that can either flow automatically into your checking account, or automatically reinvest itself to buy still more stocks...There's only one time you care if one of your shares is down: on the day you sell it."

[https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/02/29/what-to-do- about-...](https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2016/02/29/what-to-do-about-this- scary-stock-market/)

<comment><USER3> That is an awful way to think about it.

At any given instant, you are about to start investing in something. You may have to stop investing in something else to do it. Your goal at any instant is to maximize the profit of your next few moments of investing. An effective strategy for you MAY to go long, as you describe, holding on to an investment for a long time. But that doesn't mean it's the most effective strategy for everyone.

The farmer may do better to unload his hens, live off of cattle for a few years, and then move back to hens.

<comment><USER4> No, it really isn't. You're trying to time the market, which is about as reliable as gambling unless you intend to dedicate your entire life to it. The parent post is correct, recessions are opportunities to buy what you were going to buy anyway at a cheaper price and get more for your money, provided of course you don't need the money for other purposes in the near future.

<comment><USER5> Recessions are opportunities to buy... if you have cash. If you were long in the market at the peak, then you don't have any cash. If it's something you were going to "buy anyway", then you'd have already bought it... unless you were holding cash and trying to time the market. You can sell something, and buy at a discount, but only by selling something at the same discount.

I believe that's what the parent meant. At any given moment your money is somewhere: stocks, cash, bonds. You transfer from one to the other when you feel the time is right for it. In that sense every move is market timing.

That does imply that most people shouldn't move their money very often. Do some research, buy and hold, and don't worry overmuch about whether you bought near the top or the bottom. Put new money (e.g. salary) into something with low overhead, like an index fund, unless you've got good reason to think you can do better with a specific choice of stock.

If you find a bargain, buy it. But buying bargains is a matter of timing: it's only a bargain if it goes up eventually.

<comment><USER6> > You can sell something, and buy at a discount, but only by selling something > at the same discount.

Most people sell labor or knowledge for 20-50 years during their lives. Pretty much continuously. So during a recession you can spend some of the money you get from your labor on stocks that are "on sale".

<comment><USER7> Except that - as we (hopefully) learned with the _last_ recession - you're significantly more likely to be outside the "most people" category in this case, because layoffs tend to happen when companies have less money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Let's assume you believe a recession is coming. What's your investment strategy to protect yourself?

Two recessions ago (2001-2002) i invested in REITs through the stock market. It worked really well and I doubled, but it turned out I just got lucky with exit timing because they were pump and dump schemes and I got out coincidentally just before the "dump". I even got a payment from the class action lawsuit against them a few years later.

So, what's an actual sound strategy if you think a recession is coming?

<comment><USER9> I'm in this boat. I've had too much cash sitting in a money market account for a couple of years in anticipation of a recession. I feel like the corporate tax cuts might have kicked the can down the road a little.

It's a weird spot to be in and I'm still not sure what to do. I've lost a decent amount of money to inflation and opportunity cost. The feeling is as strong as ever but I know that macro trends aren't things anyone can accurately predict.

I know there are better things I could do with the cash in the meantime, but I haven't done the research. I didn't really expect to be sitting on cash for such a long time. Would love to hear anyone's advice.

<comment><USER10> FWIW people have been calling the top since as early as 2013. There is every reason to believe that there will be a recession tomorrow, but I also would not be surprised if this expansion extends into the early to mid 2020s.

If you have this feeling now, and have had it for most of the current expansion, you might want to consider the possibility that your gut sense of whether there will be a recession is just broken, and whether you should stop listening to it. Because I guarantee you it's going to be telling you to get out of the market two or three years after the next expansion starts, and who knows how much money you're going to have left on the table by the time you're done with that one.

<comment><USER9> I've only been holding out since ~2017, but I definitely see your point. I know I'm probably being irrational by continuing to hold out, and I'm suffering a bit from the sunk cost fallacy. I guess I'm irrationally avoiding the situation where I held out for two years, only to buy in at the top, and look like a total doofus.

<comment><USER11> Do not listen to these people who constantly tell you to "just invest now, it'll average out, etc". Go with your gut. Cash is a position. Know when and how to use it to your advantage.

<comment><USER12> If you know how to do this you should be making bundles of money trading other people's money. If it's your own money and you don't have any particular reason you think you have a deep insight don't fall into the trap of thinking you see patterns where they don't exist. Our brains pattern match way too much. Retail investors with actual insight into markets have to be one in a million or less.

<comment><USER11> You can make great money with this method. It's called buying low and selling high. It's how the majority of non-leveraged investors make their fortunes. Just need to wait for the next down cycle. Everything is cyclical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Here's the funny thing about recessions - they're usually predicated by some exuberance somewhere, and when it bursts it then ripples to the rest of the economy.

1930 was the stock market, 2000 was the dot com, 2007 was real estate (there's a bunch of recessions in between I'm skipping because I'm less familiar w/ them).

This time around...there's actually NOT a lot of exuberance. People are still scared and not getting ahead. Unemployment is at record lows but wage growth is stagnant, meanwhile people's basic expenses have exploded through the roof. Who has money to spare on stupid fads & bets? People are just trying to afford housing, healthcare, and education.

I feel like a lot of the talk around recession is simply people EXPECTING a recession and reacting accordingly, which will cause some downturn but won't impact the fundamentals of people buying shit in the economy.

I'm not saying we won't ever have a huge recession again, of course we will, but I don't see a current _real_ indicator of it.

<comment><USER14> >I'm not saying we won't ever have a huge recession again, of course we will, but I don't see a current real indicator of it.

What? Are you just ignoring to ignore real estate bubble 2.0 (empty properties kept by speculators but at the end of the tunnel the price will implode when nobody has money to buy), the average length of car loans exceeding 5 years as people push out for lower and lower monthly minimums because they otherwise can't afford those $50k trucks, and other elephants such as medical and student loan debt?

<comment><USER15> The funny thing is people are doing all that with resignation rather than exuberance this time around, at least that's the zeitgeist I perceive.

I'm guessing the fact that they're doing it is the significant part, but it does feel different to earlier times.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> The newfound obsession with the yield curve could have interesting effects on the economy.

1\. The Fed now pays attention to it, so its indicator value could be dramatically weakened, or erased. (Previous Feds continued to raise rates after an inversion before previous recessions, while this Fed has done the opposite lowered them.)

or...

2\. Inversions become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Despite low inflation, low unemployment, and healthy profit growth, markets decline due to the assumption that the yield curve inversion is a perfect forward indicator of recession.

<comment><USER17> Low unemployment is not a useful metric for 2 reasons. First is it does not account for people who have dropped out of participating in the labour market. Second is the race to the bottom in many industries. The uberisation of everything is driving income inequality. Eventually if you stop watering the plants they stop bearing fruit. Our economy is all fruit (ie complex financial instruments generating even more dollars for rich people by moving money around) no water (livable income for the masses) these days.

<comment><USER18> > First is it does not account for people who have dropped out of > participating in the labour market

There are alternative measures to U3 (the official unemployment rate). The U5 and U6 measures of unemployment are designed to capture discouraged workers.

<comment><USER19> Plus, all of the published rates are extremely highly correlated. It can be hard to agree on what number is "right", but when one rate is relatively low, so are all the other rates.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Slightly older poster here. This is exactly how it felt when the bad times started in 1999-2000 and 2007-2008.

People will tell you not to panic and justify why it's different. For the most part, nobody has a clue. Make sure you can meet about a year of expenses including health insurance. This is always a good idea.

Also, these always last longer than you expect. This is almost self- fulfilling, because unless most market participants capitulate a bottom can never be reached.

<comment><USER21> I think you're wrong and I do have a clue.

Having lived through the 2000 mess, I don't think corporations are that over- valued and that capital isn't chasing complete and utter pipe dreams this time around. This is nothing like 2000, where Raleigh, NC had nearly full occupancy of all office space due to stupid little startups everywhere. Today's startups are VC-funded, but that VC requires a lot more demonstrated value and due diligence. Sure, there's lots of losers, but none of them are systemic risks.

2008 was caused by serious fraud in mortgage bonds coupled with no-doc, low- doc, neg-am mortgages being rated "AAA" inside of a massive housing bubble blown by Bill Clinton and abetted by GWB. Many banks and big investments firms were over-leveraged with risky bonds they didn't understand. There was also CDS all over the place. We don't have that this time around, either.

What are the Black Swans? Student loan debts, maybe. Otherwise, I can't think of much other than the total US Debt if that ever actually becomes a problem. No clue when that will be. Today's market action is just counter moves reacting to China's devaluation. Yawn.

<comment><USER22> Is the Raleigh thing your personal experience, or was that just an anecdote with Raleigh as stand-in for "place that's not SV or NYC and thus has no business operating startups"?

Because I live in Raleigh, and there are still a ton of stupid little startups occupying the office space (except now they're all at one of 10 different co- working spots). To be kind to my fellow Raleighites, there are one or two with potential too. Still almost no legit VC funding in the area, but people didn't stop trying. Too many college kids around who don't know any better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm relatively young, so I wasn't responsible for expenses when the last crash happened. I had the great fortune of having only 1-2 months of savings early in my career when the startup I was working for went under. I was a software engineer with less than 6 months of experience, and had a hard time finding a job (essentially a first job with that experience level), and learned really early on that I want zero debts and a year of savings.

Right now I am down to only ~$150/month in 2% interest school loans (down from $450/month a couple years ago), $500 rent (when I initially lost my job this was up to $1,700!), and I'm about to lose my parents insurance. In all, I pay out roughly $1,000/month, and I make sure to have at least $10,000 on hand at any time. Everyone I know tells me this is probably too much emergency fund and I could get away with 3-6 months expenses and get more earning potential from that extra half a year, but I refuse to ever be caught off guard. The immense stress of trying to figure out how you will pay for rent this month is unlike anything I've experienced.

Even if a depression never comes again, I'll always aim to have nearly a year of runway in case I lose my source of income. But I say all of this to say that having a savings is more than just potential future security. I feel confident voicing my opinion at work, I am willing to stand by my principles and leave if I want to, and I'm willing to walk away from an environment that makes me unhappy. In my opinion, having this type of savings gives you a similar feeling as financial independence will feel---I'm working right now because I want to, not because I have no other options. That makes life a lot more pleasant.

<comment><USER24> You're doing great.

Are you on a path to FIRE?

<comment><USER23> Thanks! That's loosely the plan. I'm hoping to get there one day, but knowing myself I would always be working on something, so the retire early part doesn't really apply to me. After work I tend to pick up other stuff, like contract work or learning something new (currently working through fastai).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> The Economist

Yield curves help predict economic growth across the rich world.

[https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/07/27/yield- cu...](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/07/27/yield-curves-help- predict-economic-growth-across-the-rich-world)

</comment><comment><USER26> _He says the signal from the curve suggests money markets should be pricing in a higher probability of the Fed's policy rate going to zero in the coming year._

Anyone with finance knowledge here? What's the take away, recession, no recession?

<comment><USER27> I'm worried about a self fulfilling prophecy. Keep in mind the yield curve represents how the market prices US treasury bonds at differing maturities. When the LT bond yields drop, it's because everyone is buying them. That could happen for a multitude of exogenous reasons. Then though, everyone sees that the yield curve is flattening, panics because it's a recession predictor, and buys LT bonds, thus lowering LT yields further and creating a cycle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> It's interesting to consider how much we all now simply assume that there will be no financial stimulus. 50 years ago, in similar circumstances, we could simply assume that a spending bill could be passed to offset any risk of recession. Nowadays we assume there is no hope of that. President Kennedy, and President Nixon, and President Carter and President Reagan, all of them pushed for more military spending at certain key moments, not always because they saw the need for more military spending, but because it was an easy way to get some extra stimulus to offset the risk of recession. But there is no way, nowadays, to put together a coalition that will vote for any kind of stimulus, even if that stimulus were given some non-obvious name such as "Modernize the Navy".

<comment><USER29> Where will you get money for a "stimulus" without reducing people's ability to spend elsewhere, or reducing spending elsewhere as a government?

<comment><USER25> The point of a recession is that the economy is underutilized (unemployment for example). Therefore more overall spending is needed.

If you overdo it you get inflation, that's why it's the typical central bank target.

<comment><USER29> I don't think that's the point of recession, necessarily.

Previous recession happened for other systemic reasons, like subprime mortages bubble bursting bringing down with it a lot of other things. Unemployment was more like a temporary consequence of that and necessary changes/realignment of expectations/allocation of money in the economy.

<comment><USER25> It is. There's only goods and services in the real world, and at some point people slow down on exchanging them. That's a recession.

"How the Economic Machine Works" [https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0](https://youtu.be/PHe0bXAIuk0)

<comment><USER29> There is also demand, and capital, and it's allocated somehow (inflexibly, because people tend to like ownership), and there are governments (agents with systemic effects, almost by definition), and there are various currencies and boundaries in the world, and million other things,... and slowdown in economic activity in any geographic area can come for all kinds of reasons, and it's generally a symptom and not a cause.

Increased (or trying to artificially increase) economic activity (as measured by GDP) is also not good by itself, but only in relation to meaningful demand.

Otherwise, digging and filling holes (like in a war, basically) would be an overally good thing, which it is not.

There's no need to increase spending via a central bank currency manipulation, just because it's lower than before, nor is it the only way to achieve that.

<comment><USER25> I'm merely stating that a recession is, by definition, less stuff and services being exchanged between people and institutions. Money is just an abstract concept by which people do such exchanges.

And money printing (lowering interest rates, QE, helicopter money, fiscal stimulus like New Deals or the likes of building the Hoover's Dam) is a generally acknowledged consensus on how to at least try to fix it. That is how to at least try to make people transact more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Can someone provide an ELI5 on what are yield curves and why is it an indicator of a recession?

<comment><USER31> Nothing in economics is super easy to ELI5, but the short answer is since the market always trends upward, longer term investments should always return more in interest. If longer term investments are giving lower interest rates than short term investments, that is an indicator that investors believe the market will decline.

Longer answer:

The yield curve shows the interest rate you can expect for a certain timeframe of investment. For example, if you buy a 1 year bond, you can expect a 2% return. If you buy a 5 year bond, you can expect a 5% return. If you buy a 10 year bond, you can expect a 7% return. Since you won't be getting your money back for 10 years, you get more interest.

Longer term investments are generally considered more stable, since the markets always trend upwards over time. But if investors do not feel comfortable in the stability of the market long term, the yield rates go down.

So if I have a 1 year bond at 1% interest, a 2 year bond at 0.7% interest, a 5 year bond at 0.5% interest, and a 10 year bond at 5% interest, that indicates investors are expecting the market to decline in the next two years. The market will recover within 10 years, but it will go down in the short run. Remember the market always trends upward, so if longer term investments are worth less than short term investments, it's a predictor that the market is expected to decline.

<comment><USER32> Just wanted to say that I think you did a pretty good job with the explanation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Al-Hussainy expects investors to turn to even more aggressive positioning > for rate cuts. He says the signal from the curve suggests money markets > should be pricing in a higher probability of the Fed's policy rate going to > zero in the coming year.

Not just zero, but beyond.

The yield out to 30 years on German bonds recently fell below zero. Several other advanced industrial countries are in a similar negative-yielding boat. These are economies that are technically not even in recession.

The amount of negative yielding debt now exceeds $13 trillion:

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/value-of-debt-with- negativ...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/value-of-debt-with-negative- yields-nears-12-trillion-2019-06-18)

That's not a negative real rate (rate - inflation) which is not uncommon, it's an absolute (nominal) interest rate.

No country wants to be left with the currency that appreciates. All countries will pull out the stops to find a way to devalue.

The only thing industrialized countries fear more than an appreciating currency is deflation. The first whiff of that monster and the big guns come out and never stop firing.

At this point it's not unreasonable to expect the following possibilities (in order of first appearance):

0\. zero short term rates to follow much quicker than consensus

1\. shock-and-awe QE (first implemented, but in a way that will look quaint by comparison, in 2008-2009 crisis)

2\. direct purchase of stocks by the Fed and the ECB (Bank of Japan has been doing this for a long time)

3\. debt forgiveness for college loans (regardless of the party in power)

4\. debt forgiveness for mortgages (discussed in 2008-2009 but never tried)

5\. credit card debt forgiveness (because why not, every other debt is being forgiven)

Oddly enough, the later phases start to look like the systemic debt repudiation brought about through the "jubilee year":

> Ancient Near Eastern societies regularly declared noncommercial debts void, > typically at the coronation of a new king or at the king's order.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_\(biblical\))

<comment><USER34> Has debt forgiveness ever been used in a modern industrialized economy? The only instance I am aware of was of the Allies doing it in occupied Germany post-WWII

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is why I don't dare to be a starting entrepreneur right now. I'm afraid I'll definitely fail and cannot afford living expenses and have nothing to show for it in the end.

Or do people consider 2 years coding at your own startup as 2 years of programming experience? I know some people who say that they don't.

<comment><USER22> Depends on the person. A lot of people would definitely count that as experience.

Also, if you save up now, there's a chance that a recession could bring housing prices back down... so at least you have that going for you?

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Any stock that will never return money back to shareholders in a future dividend, share buyback, liquidation, or buyout, won't have a future value.

</comment><comment><USER37> For long term investors, does this even matter? If your time horizon is 10+ years, it seems like this is just water under the bridge.

<comment><USER38> The S&P 500 didn't exceed 1929 highs until 1954. Not saying it's a perfect parallel, but there are definitely precedents of stocks not working well for decades.

<comment><USER25> No, you're not including dividends. It had positive returns way before 1954. But yeah the 30's was called a depression for a reason.

<comment><USER39> Just to put a date to this: including dividends, it matched its 1929 high again around 1943/1944.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Article is paywalled so I didn't read it, but I went and looked at the federal reserve's yield curve page[1] and indeed it does look quite inverted.

3 month has been performing better than 10 year for awhile now, but now the 10 year yield has dropped to where it's below the 1 month, 2 month, and 6 month as well and is only slightly better than the 1 year. That's interesting.

[https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/i...](https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart- center/interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yieldYear&year=2019)

<comment><USER41> Data is also available from the Federal Reserve

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y)

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What advise do you've for someone holding large amount of liquid USD cash?

<comment><USER43> buy bitcoin, gold, and long term bonds

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> This next few years of bitcoin bull run is going to be incredible.</comment>


This tools tells you if it snowed more when you were a kid - <AUTHOR> http://braid.io/tile/MoreSnow <comment> xkcd-sucks It would be nice to set a birth date-- This only works if you weren't a kid during a period of unusually high/low snowfall</comment>