Bill Gates Letter to Hobbyists (1976) - <AUTHOR> https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Bill_Gates_Letter_to_Hobbyists.jpg <comment><AUTHOR> A previous conversation: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013874](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7013874)

Found this interesting in light of Microsoft buying GitHub that Bill Gates wrote a letter against sharing software.

<comment><USER2> Bill Gates is no longer active in Microsoft acquisitions, also dont forget this was 42 years ago, when the market was tiny and Microsoft was a scrappy little startup dependent on software licensing to survive. Interesting, but not relevant to GH acqusition or MS hate.</comment></comment>


The Social Graph, and why rel="me" is doomed to failure - <AUTHOR> http://thecodetrain.co.uk/2008/11/the-social-graph-and-why-relme-is-doomed-to-failure/ <comment><USER2> rel="me" isn't going to vanish. They would just get better with better services.

 _So why is requiring reciprocation a problem?_

This isn't a problem either. Why take a pessimistic peep into everything? What if Simon Wilson likes to show off his other profiles? When X is on twitter and has a blog too, then X would like to show off his blog on Twitter and hence link to that too(or maybe not). Once a good number of frequently used services add XFN or FOAF support(a lot do), it would be easier for other smaller services to connect the users and their friends thru this link relationship. This might not be useful for the 'common' or 'average' users the author mentions but would be a gold mine for developers to make use of.</comment>


What went wrong at Target Canada - <AUTHOR> http://www.canadianbusiness.com/the-last-days-of-target-canada/ <comment><USER2> Pretty typical when decision makers have low understanding of (and possibly low respect for) operations, technology and logistics.</comment>


What happens if/when my engineer leaves? - <AUTHOR> I have a fear and it may be irrational.
I have a solid business idea. High value market, boring industry, very very conservative with loads of compliance issues.
The business requires an experienced AWS (or similar) systems admin. Up-time and security is very important and the main selling point.
They are a key hire to keep everything running smoothly.
BUT, there is not enough work there for 2 system admins and I cannot imagine a bored sys admin would get a lot of job satisfaction and stick around long.
If the 1 sys admin leaves, gets sick or gets hit by a bus that puts a lot at risk.
What do companies do in this situation? If they did leave I would imagine there would be a lot of time to get a new one up to speed. Do companies just bite the bullet and hire two? Do they contract an outside company who can swop in and out staff as needed?
I am trying to figure out all the options so I can budget accordingly. <comment><USER2> So, you don't seem to know the difference between sysadmins (people that keep servers running) and developers (people who write the software that run on servers). This is forgivable, since we kinda conflate the skillsets these days (lol devops).

Anyways, there are kinda two situations:

1\. Engineer getting bored and leaving. 2\. Engineer getting hit by bus.

The first case can be mitigated by giving significant equity and by including them in important business decisions, and also by letting them try new things (within reason, away from the core of the business).

The second case can be mitigated by encouraging them to document everything really well and to teach you how the system works, and also by giving them a junior developer or intern to train. Additionally, have procedures in place for continuity of passwords, credentials, etc. in case of disaster.

Honestly, you're going to have enough trouble getting the business off the ground that being worried about this particular thing isn't really warranted until you know the market cares about you.

Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you. I do mean sysadmins.

<comment><USER2> Ah, cool. Usually people needs devs _and_ admins. :)</comment></comment></comment>


Facebook and Cambridge Analytica - <AUTHOR> https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/03/facebook_and_ca.html <comment><USER2> Why isn't this higher?

<comment><USER3> This is actually a duplicate of the same article published on CNN a few days ago, which got a lot of attention:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16684579](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16684579)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Trump is winning. Is US media to blame? - <AUTHOR> Trump is winning. Is US media to blame ? Has this media become shallow and corrupt which has led to this ? People who are marginalised have no voice and media does not care about them. Homeless people sleeping on streets who are not cared for by the powerful state, the people who feel threatened by illegal immigrants in their own country, people who hate to see violent crimes on street by criminals...have they spoken ? <comment><USER2> The failure of neoliberalism to widely distribute the gains from increased productivity/globalisation is to blame.

<comment><USER3> Hasn't it though?

I mean the decline of the US manufacturing sector has led to an emerging middle class in many other countries. Clearly most of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few but there has definitely been a reversion to the mean globally where the average worker on earth is doing better and the average worker in the US is doing the same or worse...

<comment><USER4> Nobody is denying that. It's just completely irrelevant to the discussion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The media _think_ they influence the election results, but in this case it didn't really happen. Both parties' nominees won their nominations by significant margins. Trump won the general election despite the media being united against him. The media are now asking themselves "What could we have done to prevent this?" (See for example Chuck Todd's article at NBCnews.com yesterday, appointing partial "blame" for the outcome to the media.) This misses the point. The media shouldn't be _trying_ to influence the outcome, except in a couple of ways: they should make it their mission that people be as _informed_ as possible, and that that information be _true_. Their loyalty to a left-wing political ideology has come before both of those things, which is why their credibility is in the dumps.

</comment><comment><USER6> They're to blame for misrepresenting the will of the populace, it seems

</comment><comment><USER7> Smug liberalism lost. Finally.

</comment><comment><USER8> Your shilling leaks. I am low key relieved Trump won, hopefully our relations with russia will imptove and we can prevent the next nuclear winter

</comment><comment><USER9> The media is making money by manipulating the masses. Blaming the media for mass manipulation is like blaming a dog for behaving like a dog.

</comment><comment><USER10> No. Media is always left leaning liberal. And they always picks favourites and bend data to show that their side will win. In most pre-polls, the average white American, which I believe is the majority backed Trump. But yet the media favoured Hillary. It's not their fault, but they couldn't just sense the ground reality..

</comment><comment><USER11> Partially the media is to blame and partially the DNC. They thought they will fare better Clinton than Sanders, even if the voters had other ideas.

</comment><comment><USER12> The media gets it's orders from the viewing public. It feeds us whatever we're hungry for.

<comment><USER13> I think this is overly simplistic; the media both follows the most base desires of the populace to seek advertising dollars and also shapes the narrative. There's a lot of back and forth there. We don't know what we want, the media tells us what we should want, and then we want it.

The media certainly propped up Trump quite a bit starting from the primaries (preferring to show empty Trump podiums instead of other candidates, for example), it's the wholesale merge of news and entertainment that's the reason why, because he's both at the same time.

<comment><USER12> Viewers stop changing the channel when Trump is on screen. That's all there is to that.

When the media spins something up into a narrative, they're just grabbing those narrative devices out of a hat full of tricks that have worked in the past to engage viewers.

I've got 15 years working in media. There's no conspiracy, it's just run of the mill shameless opportunism. 'Look at that, they're eating this shit up, feed them more!'</comment></comment></comment>


Google's Chrome on Android Support Library only for Samsung Devices - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/+ArtemRussakovskii/posts/6tSXAePWz6N

<comment><AUTHOR> This was released almost 2 months ago, but still not exactly sure what this is for from either comments on G+ or in the play store.</comment>


Show HN: Lyte buys your unused concert/event tickets - <AUTHOR> http://www.uselyte.com/

<comment><USER2> How do they prevent you from making a copy of your E-Ticket and simply showing up to the event earlier than the buyer, or even selling it somewhere else?

<comment><AUTHOR> The most fail-safe way we protect against that kind of blatant fraud is by incentivizing our users to transfer us their ticket electronically. When they do that, they get paid immediately (versus 1 biz day after the event) and they eliminate all previous instances of the bar code.

But even in instances where a user does not elect to transfer us a ticket, when they accept our offer we scan the web for all potential listings of the ticket. In every case to-date, if a ticket remains listed it is because the user forgot to pull it down. When we remind them, they do.

We have processed $100s of thousands of dollars in tickets so far and we have encountered two cases of potential fraud to-date. In both instances, the users exhibited shady behavior, operating from various email accounts & IPs (among other things), not responding to our additional requests for information, etc. We were able to catch them BEFORE the event and immediately cancel their accounts & transactions. Unfortunately we saw those same users operating on a couple of the large marketplaces.

Hope that answers your question.

Ant</comment></comment>


Technocrat.net - <AUTHOR> http://technocrat.net/ <comment><USER2> What was this?

<comment><USER3> Even I'm confused!

The linux.com article <http://www.linux.com/articles/6484> is dated _January 04, 2001 (8:00:00 AM) - 7 years, 11 months ago_

And in contrast the slashdot article [http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F26%2F11262...](http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08%2F12%2F26%2F1126256&from=rss) is dated on Dec 26th 2008 (???)</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Best practices for small web app in the cloud - <AUTHOR>

I am looking to release a small side-project web app hosted on EC2, initially using the new micro instances.  This will be a mono based web app with a MySQL backend.  I know this won't handle much load, but I'd like to encounter that problem before throwing more resources at it!
I am looking at running two instances to separate the db and the web server.  Is it critical to set up some kind of VPN/tunnel for them to talk, or just set the security settings based on IP address?
In general, any recommendations or best practices for backups and security in this configuration.  Daily snapshots are great for the regular backups, but how should I achieve more timely backups for the database? <comment><USER2> > I am looking at running two instances to separate the db and the web server. > Is it critical to set up some kind of VPN/tunnel for them to talk, or just > set the security settings based on IP address?

From my experience, you don't need a VPN. Something like what this article mentions should work just fine: [http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i- enable-remote-access-...](http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/how-do-i-enable- remote-access-to-mysql-database-server.html)

For backups, you should set up your database on an EBS volume and you can then run a cron script to take snapshots on a regular basis. Could be hourly even, because it freezes the database instantly and allows it to continue operating with minimal delay. I have a 2 GB database that I snapshot in under a second. This is the ultimate article on using MySQL on EC2: [http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?ex...](http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=1663)

I did a two server setup on Amazon, and it was nice because you can scale up the web and db servers separately, depending on where the load is. It's also a lot easier to debug system related issues because you've already narrowed down half the possible search space. Make sure CloudWatch is enabled, because that's invaluable. I scaled up to an extra large web server and extra large high-cpu database server, and that handled up to roughly 600 req/sec for my PHP app.

For security, I'm not an expert so I can't give much advice here, but EC2 at least does a good job of restricting access on all ports by default. When you set up your servers, make sure to punch a hole in your security group for port 3306 so that MySQL can connect between the two.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd recommend you don't start with EC2, it's too expensive for what you get. Go to Linode or even a VPS provider. Look for the least expensive thing you can use while still operating.

Second, use something like Chef to define your operational environments so that later if you do need to move to something else you've already got the automation to do it with as little effort as possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> I can see EC2 gets expensive for larger instances, but the micro instances make the economics more favourable. FWIW this is a low bandwidth app as well.

For testing I can spin the server up and down as I need and literally pay per- hour (+ the storage cost). As far as I can tell providers like Linode don't provide that level of flexibility.

Thanks for the suggestions about Chef (<http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Home>) I hadn't come across it before.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you are using EC2, expect your instances to randomly disappear and possibly not come back. I'd have a warm standby for your database and definitely have backups using either s3 or EBS. As someone else mentioned, you may be better off starting with linode or <insert favorite VPS company> and as you grow start planning on moving to ec2 if needed

</comment><comment><USER5> I run a similar setup on the Rackspace Cloud (1 DB + 1 Web) for multiple sites. I use iptables to lock down all non-essential ports, I setup MySQL to accept connections over the _private_ IP and, frankly, that's it. (FWIW, I use Moonshine on my Rails app to keep the config easy/repeatable.)</comment>


Recruiting Advice No One Tells You - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/better-humans/5ae6fb285d1

<comment><USER2> In a not-so-sketchy way, this is what a resume and cover letter should be able to say through your past accomplishments, whether professional or academic. "Look what I did for X company/project/professor - now let me do that for you!"

</comment><comment><USER3> So you should _impersonate a company_ to get them to hire you? Not good advice.</comment>


Employee Equity (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://blog.samaltman.com/employee-equity <comment><USER3> I work for a top-5 YC investment (by current valuation) and none of the things Sam discusses are true of our company:

-Employee equity is much lower than his recommendations.

-We have 90 days to exercise options.

-They refused to tell me what percentage my equity represented when I applied.

-They refused to tell me information about burn rate/money in the bank when I applied.

I still took the job, because money was not a primary motivating factor, but it is disappointing to see one of the most successful YC investments fit none of his criteria. He goes so far as to warn readers to "be very suspect of any startup" that doesn't provide this information. I understand that Sam does not personally control what decisions YC portfolio companies make on these topics, but I certainly hope that he guides them strongly towards the recommendations he has made here.

<comment><USER4> If it's a top-5 YC company, I assume it's relatively older. This post is probably based on thinking and lessons learned over the last few years - <USER2> would he have needed to write it if older YC companies _didn 't_ have the bad structures?

<comment><USER5> It is crazy that this stuff that was well down and discussed on HN itself over the years was somehow unknown to YC. When I was a startup employee noob five years ago I learned all the advice of this article, from reading HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> So I've been looking at startup jobs on AngelList lately and came across many postings claiming to give "significant" equity. And then I scroll up and usually see something along the lines of 0.1%-0.2%.

Now I'm not exactly an expert on the intricacies of employee stock options, but simple math indicates that 0.1%-0.2% translates into 1-2 million for a _billion_ dollar company.

Sure, 1-2 million is a decent amount of money, but that's before taking into account factors like dilution and opportunity costs of the associated golden handcuffs. The chances for a given startup to grow to a billion dollars is minuscule to begin with, and working at an established tech company could easily net you that same 1-2 million within a few years with none of the risks. And considering that the founders' equity will be worth hundreds of millions for that same billion dollar company, calling 1-2 million significant just feels downright condescending.

<comment><USER7> You have to look at the 0.2% in relation to the salary that they offer. And, many companies do allow you to negotiate the salary vs options trade-off.

<comment><USER8> > You have to look at the 0.2% in relation to the salary that they offer

I disagree. Salary is a real thing that you can use today. Options at a start- up? Some studies indicate that start-up failure is at 90% within the first 3 years. This means those options, 90% of the time, don't mean anything. They're literally useless.

The other 10% of the time? Depending on percentage, dilution and exit (IPO? Sale? Neither?) it's still difficult to get a return on those options in any reasonable timeframe.

In my opinion you should NEVER sacrifice salary for options UNLESS it's an established company where you can see how to get your money out of those options. There is a TON of competition out there for talent, if a company wants a quality candidate they will pay for one.

<comment><USER7> I agree, but unfortunately that's not how it works. All founders believe that they can succeed. Every VC believes that their investment is going to become the next billion dollar company, etc. Ideally, options are the icing on cake, but the reality is that most companies use options as a way to reduce their immediate expenses - for start-ups, cash is like oxygen. Most start-ups die not because of their competition, but they run out of money.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As for more equity: founders have a qualitatively different risk profile than employees. I've been running my startup for over two years, and I am the lowest paid person on our team. I have to defer having a family and can't enjoy the things that my employees enjoy. I also can't ask my employees to work harder than me, which means I have to work harder than everyone else. A couple of times I had to cover payroll with my credit card and would have been bankrupt if we didn't pull through. If things get tough an employee can jump ship at anytime, while I will be going down with the ship. And at the end, if I'm lucky I end up with 5-15% of the company. I'm not complaining, this is what I signed up for, but employees can be very well compensated in today's market prior to equity upside.

<comment><USER10> Allow me to disagree slightly with this, in the cast of early (number less than, say, 10) employees. My (hard-earned) experience here is as the first engineering hire, functioning as engineering lead.

We have the same (maybe even worse!) risk profile: we are being paid below market rates (because small startup), we probably don't have healthcare or benefits (because small startup), we have the majority of the burden in terms of actual leadership (because we probably have been hired with the explicit intent of having us grow the team, tech, or sales). We don't get the glory or good press that the founders do (because we're just employees, lol). We don't get the same access or transparency to the business decisions (because we're not founders).

If the business folds for the founders, they shut it down, walk away, and maybe have to file some bankruptcy. In exchange, they get to join The Magical Founders Club, wherein they can parlay their experience into speaking engagements, recruiting for new gigs, senior-level business and tech positions (regardless of skill), and funding from investors.

When the startup folds for early employees (or exits in such a way only the founders are taken care of), the result is whatever personal harm comes of stress and health issues (if not taken care of b/c of bad benefits), the net loss of however much time spent working at below market prices, potentially no portfolio work (because a lot of companies are shitty about NDAs and proprietary software), and so on.

For third or forth wave employees, sure, it's just another round of job hunting. For the first folks who actually had to _build_ the business, well, _it can really suck_.

EDIT:

A minor elaboration...Micheal O'Church in an essay made an interesting claim that the founders and employees are no longer considered in the same class, compared with the 90s.

My observation has been that founders will merrily maintain three orders of magnitude of equity while doing very little more than their first few hires. In fact, they may be doing _less_ work, because they are inexperienced and spend time doing the wrong things because they don't know any better and are senior enough they feel they can ignore advice.

<comment><USER5> If you are the eng or sales lead at a startup, you can blog and tweet and sprinkle the magic founder dust on yourself. There is no Office of Dust Control .

<comment><USER11> Nope. But the level of interest you'll draw is substantially lower. You can also declare yourself a celebrity of some other kind -- there is no Office of Celebrity Control. But similarly, it doesn't work as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is an old post. It's worth noting that 10/20/30/40 grants did not work (duh!!) and companies (at least the smart ones) have moved away from them. It's also worth noting 83b / early exercise is very common now (hurray!) and can essentially double the value of the equity to the employee (only if they can take advantage of it). ISOs are very toxic.

One last piece of advice if you're trying to value the equity in an offer: keep in mind IPOs usually require share prices >= $10 and reverse splits are a favored tool to make that happen.

<comment><USER13> What was the problem with 10/20/30/40 grants and what kind of vesting schedule is used instead?

<comment><USER14> 10/20/30/40 is insane without double trigger. There's already enough stories of people being pushed out of their stock.

The value a super-early employee provides is disproportionately in the first couple years, so backweighting it is quite unfair. Even if the employee is in for the long haul, the company may find it economical to terminate before the compensation increases.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> "As an aside, some companies now write in a repurchase right on vested shares at the current common price when an employee leaves. It's fine if the company wants to offer to repurchase the shares, but it's horrible for the company to be able to demand this."

Which companies are those (and who are their advisors/investors/etc.) so I can never work there, or with them? Seriously, fuck everything about that.

</comment><comment><USER16> The only problematic aspect of this proposal is not pushing for faster vesting. Slow vesting creates an adverse incentive for managers and founders; and in the absence of any right to suspend them, removes the only leverage that employees have today: departure.

</comment><comment><USER17> Why _options_ at all? At startup valuations is the cost that great?

According to the Buffett worldview (I think) Actual shares align shareholders interests, unlike option grants, in later stage companies.

To my mind options are a free and usually worthless offer. But actual shares have a value and significance, not for their monetary worth, but the actual ownership.

I must admit I am hazy on the details of options - but then as I am a profile of typical early employee perhaps that's also the point

<comment><USER18> Taxes.

At least in the US, if a company with a non-zero valuation grants actual stock to an employee, income tax is due at the time of grant on the difference between what the employee paid and what the stock is "worth" (I'm assuming the employee files an "83(b) election" \-- if not then it's even worse).

There are only two ways out: either charge the employee the current "fair market value" of the stock (which can be very expensive on day 1) or the employee has to pay taxes on grant (which can also be very expensive on day 1).

By contrast, if you grant ISO options, $0 is due in taxes at grant. $0 is due when it vests. Taxes only become relevant when an employee decides whether or not to exercise. As Altman discusses, there's an argument to be made that it should be 10 years after quitting rather than 90 days after quitting, but either way it gives the employee a lot more information about whether this is a good company or not.

<comment><USER17> So the big issue is determining worth of the stock. Which suggests that while the investment points are interesting, a genuine market in startup shares would be a better way to value them. What are the legal hurdles to either direct trading in shares in next-Facebook or in trading instruments that represent the options an employee receives?

I am a fan of open markets and exchanges so this seems a good idea at solving price discovery (is squares recent IPO should not have been such a surprise if there was a market pricing its employees options)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I think it's unfortunate that he doesn't go into greater detail on the "considerable problems" posed by employees selling their options (or similar transactions). From the simple perspective of fair dealing with employees, it seems obvious that employees should be able to do with what they've earned as they will, so there must be some legal reason that this is inconvenient. If he actually thinks that the incentive argument is strong enough to override the moral argument I would be skeptical, but would love to hear a fully fleshed out argument, given that employers could instead change vesting schedules if they think employees don't actually deserve to own those shares at those times.

<comment><USER20> Shareholders have rights to information, increases paperwork and such. Also, can be forced to release financials to the public once you have 500: [http://www.businessinsider.com/rule-12g5-1b3-or-how- facebook...](http://www.businessinsider.com/rule-12g5-1b3-or-how-facebook- just-announced-plans-to-go-public-2011-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> While convertible notes and SAFE documents have made seed stage financing much more streamlined and straightforward, employee equity is still a hot mess in terms of the legal, financial and tax difficulties that only present themselves after it's too late.

The biggest issue IMO are those scenarios when private, completely illiquid stock gets taxed as ordinary income. There should be a way to pay the tax with the same shares, though counting on the IRS becoming "flexible" is probably a longshot.

While I agree with the other points mentioned, that is one the largest and most painful when it presents itself. I do think there's also an opportunity for companies to be creative about exercising mechanics as well.

</comment><comment><USER22> >Option pools are complete fiction; boards can increase them whenever they want. It should never be used as a reason for not making a grant.

Is this true? I had one startup say they couldn't increase the equity portion of an offer because they'd have to go to the board and the amount of equity they had available was already set. Didn't heard a word about dilution there. Haven't heard what the other stories were/are yet.

<comment><USER23> Both are true. (Generally) The percentage of equity dedicated to ESOP is fixed unless the board has a good reason to change it. Since increasing the ESOP causes dilution, it would be hard to argue for an increase just to hire a single employee.

However, some dilution can be good for everyone. Wealthfront and others have described such a plan:

[https://blog.wealthfront.com/the-right-way-to-grant- equity-t...](https://blog.wealthfront.com/the-right-way-to-grant-equity-to- your-employees/)

<comment><USER24> """it would be hard to argue for an increase just to hire a single employee."""

For a lot of tech startups hiring a single employee is actually a big enough deal in most cases to try and argue for it (imo)

<comment><USER23> Sorry, most boards and most companies don't value employees that highly, which is why this post and discussion are still happening. YC companies are outliers and boards at YC companies are more likely to be better informed and closer to the employees of the business.

For most boards and investors, they will focus on the numbers on the spreadsheet unless the potential hire is quite exceptional.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The period (typically just 30-90 days) for exercising the options is the most unfair of the lot. Most of my friends who left, say, after 3-years, simply were not in a place to exercise their options because of the financial implications. People leave for various reasons, and it's extremely unfair for someone to be in this position after 2-3 years. I wish more companies would adopt the 10-year exercising period.

</comment><comment><USER25> Has anyone been thinking about or seen analyses on the potential changes to tax treatment of stock options for start-ups in Canada under the new government?

[http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=86190d96-b169-...](http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=86190d96-b169-4774-885e-db04486ad63d)

<comment><USER6> This is why I have mixed feelings about the Liberal party.

I voted for them because I agree with their platform in principle (i.e. invest in infrastructure, take global warming seriously, help the middle class prosper), but between this and reverting of the TFSA contribution limits, their actual policies makes me a bit nervous about their definition of middle class. What definition of middle class consists of people who can't benefit from being able to save and invest 4.5k more _per year_ or from working at a startup with low pay in hopes for a better quality of life down the line from equities?

<comment><USER26> The thing is, basically by definition, no one who is middle class (aside from perhaps upper, upper middle class) maxes out both their TFSA and RRSP. Even with the reduced TFSA limit, that's 18% of income plus $5500 per year. So really all a lower TFSA means is that more RRSP needs to be used to get the same sheltered space.

The TFSA certainly has advantages: flexibility being the biggest one. No bookkeeping, put money in whenever, and take it out with minimal restriction (aside from waiting until Jan. 1 to re-contribute). That said, as long as you invest the tax refund you get from contributing to the RRSP (or even better, file a T1213 so you don't pay those taxes in the first place), the RRSP is arguably a better retirement savings vehicle for most people (ie anyone who expects to be in a lower tax bracket in retirement than while they are contributing). Also, the lack of flexibility makes it more likely that the money will still be there in retirement.

The TFSA is great, and selfishly I'd love to keep the extra space. I have to agree though that it (the larger size, not necessarily the TFSA in general) disproportionately benefits the wealthy, and that government revenue would be better spent elsewhere.

<comment><USER6> This post got me interested in the actual statistics of what income range the middle class represents in Canada, and I found an early 2015 Macleans article [1] listing the following statistics:

\- Lowest 20% individual income is 18717 and below

\- Highest 20% individual income is 55498 and above

That definitely brought some perspective to my view on this issue. I guess my views on what qualified as a middle class income was pretty heavily skewed towards my own salary range. Now I definitely agree with the conclusions made by you and the Liberal party regarding the TFSA contribution limits.

[1] [http://www.macleans.ca/economy/money-economy/are-you-in- the-...](http://www.macleans.ca/economy/money-economy/are-you-in-the-middle- class/)

<comment><USER26> That's why politicians love to cater to the middle class, right? Almost everyone self-identifies that way.

Edit: Ha, wrote that before clicking through to your link, which leads off with the same point in almost identical wording.

Interesting numbers in general too. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> The last startup I worked at had a small flock of employees that hit the 4 year mark this year. Unfortunately, most of them didn't do any sort of early exercise so they paid taxes on the difference after they exercised.

The only thing that saved a few of them is that the company offered a buyback program so they were able to flip some (all, in some cases) of their shares to cover the exercise and the taxes.

</comment><comment><USER28> Great idea Sam. I assume going forward you will be asking for less equity for your LPs.

</comment><comment><USER29> Quite frankly there is a need for a third party (an honest broker) that come handle all this on behalf of employees, along with salary, benefits, 401k, and other related financial matters.

When people cannot balance their checkbooks, and cannot make simple financial planning for the next 6 months, how are they to understand these seemingly complex structures.

UNLESS SOFTWARE.

<comment><USER30> What you are describing sounds like a trade union and collective agreements.

<comment><USER31> Not a "trade union"; a "professional association," like the AMA or ADA.

<comment><USER32> A guild.

<comment><USER31> Don't call it that. The idea is to avoid words like "union" or "guild" that arouse suspicion. Professional associations like the AMA and ADA fly under the anti-union radar.

<comment><USER32> Whatever we call it, it will have to be a new thing. What exists right now in the UK is the BCS who are a laughing stock among any practitioner. Even the respected professional associations such as the IMechE barely look out for the interests of their members, not compared to the BMA at any rate.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What do you think of the "Don't get scroogled" ad by Bing - <AUTHOR>

I just saw an ad on TV by bing. I was surprised how blatantly they attacked googled and used the word "scroogled" for "screwed by google". What are your reactions ? <comment><USER2> The verdict on the popular podcast Tech News Today was that "Scroogled" is very petty and childish.

I personally think that it is hilarious, but not in a good way for Microsoft. I lost a little bit of respect for them.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think Windows marketing is entirely misguided. It keeps insulting its users rather than showing users why they should switch. Not just with Scroogled, but also with campaigns like their commercials showing other smart phone users being rude.

</comment><comment><USER4> Even the most devoted Windows fan I know merely shook his head at it.

</comment><comment><USER5> I don't have any particular problem with it.

I do think that with Microsoft's deep pockets, they could afford better writers and actors.</comment>


Do older people have a different smell? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/well/live/do-older-people-have-a-different-smell.html <comment><USER2> Babies smell.

My friend, undergoing radiation therapy for cancer, had a distinct smell. As have those treated with specific chemotherapies.

Athletes smell. Indoor and outdoor athletes differently. Pool swimmers of chlorine, open-water swimmers of the sea.

Parkinsons and Alzheimers appear to have distinctive smells.

Diabetes is characterised for its distinct smell (and taste).

We are chemically-regulated, processing, producing, and (to an extent) signalling systems. The notion that there are associated perceptible scents is exceedingly probable.

Another aspect of older people (and again: Parkinsons and Alzheimers in particular) is a loss of the _sense_ of smell. Which may mean that odors otherwise noticeable and addressed aren't.

<comment><USER3> Swimming seems a special case because that's a clearly foreign substance attached to the body.

More interesting are cases where the lifestyle causes smellable long-term changes to body chemistry that can't be cleaned off.

<comment><USER4> Immersing yourself in chlorine for large stretches of time probably messes with your skin's biome, though I agree probably not to the extent that the change alone would produce a discernible smell.

<comment><USER5> > _though I agree probably not to the extent that the change alone would > produce a discernible smell._

If you do it often (e.g. swim professionally), why not?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I wonder if part of the answer is different habits with respect to perfumes, soaps, and also in how homes are furnished, decorated, maintained and what products are used (cleaning, detergent). And smoking, too.

I could tell a friend had just left their home from the odor when they lived at a particular place¹, and sometimes, I can tell if some item of clothing has been left at some place (not that I'm special at that).

The odor the author of the article could smell at her place after renting it for a month could have been a (mix of) perfume(s) their guests used.

Obviously, people have their own odor on top of (or under, more accurately?) that.

¹ in a forest -- no, I'm joking.

</comment><comment> r0ze-at-hn As someone that sees smells (synesthesia), the answer is yes. The reason I presume is simple, hormone levels change as you age and thus you smell different.

<comment><USER6> How did you notice you were seeing smells (and not everybody is)?

<comment><USER7> Synesthesia is very hard to explain. It's like explaining color to the blind.

I have mild synesthesia myself - I hear flavors. I can say "I hear flavors", but that doesn't help to tell you what different flavors sound like, because sounds themselves are very hard to describe in words.

The best way to experience something like synesthesia is under the influence of LSD or similar drugs. Not that I recommend it, but it does work. "When colors taste like music" is my favorite description ever.

<comment><USER6> Do noises prevent you from fully tasting food? (sorry if these questions are boring to you)

I asked this question in my previous comment because I've read about people having synesthesia discovering quite late that no, to most people, smells or figures don't have any specific color or character (depending on the involved senses), during a conversation in which they take for granted that their interlocutor experiences it too.

My father himself kind of realized that contrary to many people, he sees months of the year as a ring, when I spoke about synesthesia, and said that some people having synesthesia may see numbers or years in a specific shape, that does not change across their whole life (and, indeed, he confirmed this point about him).

<comment><USER8> My wife has fairly classic synesthesia, with letters and numbers having colours and "character" etc. I don't have that, but I do have exactly what you described with numbers, months of the year, and years having an unchanging position in a mental 3-d model. The model for each of these is a bit different, but each could be described as a kind of winding road.

So I wouldn't say I'm synesthetic, but at the same time I can't really point to a clear difference between how my mind associates numbers with locations in a spatial structure, and how my wife's mind associates them with colours.

I also can't really say how those associations are different from the kinds of associations that the mind seems to make to anchor new experiences and information into memory. I'm not explaining that very well, but overall I half think synesthesia seems more like just an atypical manifestation of a probably universal human trait, and less like a rare oddity.

<comment><USER6> I also have some representation for numbers and for the days of the week, but it would not be 3D, more like 2D, and kind of dynamic, too: the view is relative to the "focused" number / day. Same thing as you, the representations are different for numbers, days of the week and months. The days are horizontal, and months too. Numbers, not so much. Kind of horizontal up to ten, and then vertical up to twenty, and then I would not know how to describe it. There is a kind of break for each tens up to one hundred, with numbers being mostly horizontal but not quiet, and each teen somewhat higher than the previous one. Negatives have the exact same place as there opposite. Days of the months are the same as numbers. Anyway, describing this is kind of pointless. This representation does not feel very precise.

These representations are the same since as far as I can remember. I know that some people I discussed with don't think they have such a representation for numbers or dates. It seems to correspond to the description given in [1].

I think it may have an impact on my memory, at least for dates (but nothing extraordinary). It's usually easy to remember meetings and events in the year, because they somewhat appear in the representation, I don't really need a calendar if there are not too much things scheduled (but I note in a log, just in case, and it's not completely reliable too).

You might have calendar synesthesia [2,3], and maybe me too, but maybe weaker than yours or my father's.

And yeah, it's not something we really see, its a representation that automatically comes into the mind without us trying to at all. Right?

Maybe many people actually have some form of synesthesia.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Number_form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia#Number_form)

[2] [https://www.thecut.com/2016/11/the-form-of-synesthesia- where...](https://www.thecut.com/2016/11/the-form-of-synesthesia-where-people- literally-see-time.html)

[3] [https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesth%C3%A9sie#Synesth%C3%A9...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesth%C3%A9sie#Synesth%C3%A9sie_spatio- temporelle)

Translation of [3]:

> Like "numerical synesthesia", spatio-temporal synesthesia is a mental map of > the days of the week and/or months of the year. People having this kind of > synesthesia state that they can "see the time" as a ribbon, a ring or a > circle for instance. According to some studies, these people would have > particular synaptic connections in their brain, allowing them to live time > like a spatial construction.

> Like all the forms of synesthesia, "spatio-temporal" also shows a permanent > feature: tested months later, someone having synesthesia will report the > same experiences they had previously reported.

<comment><USER8> Calendar synesthesia sounds like a good match with mine, although for me it's very much a "mind's eye" thing, not like an image projected into my visual field. In article 2, the researchers are said to have asked their subject to recite every third month going backwards, apparently to test that it's not just a mind's eye visualization. I get similar speeds as their test subject, and do go through the months in my mental image to help with the task. However, since for me it _is_ a mind's eye visualization, I'm not sure the test as described is very useful.

The Wikipedia article points out that in theory, all logical synesthetic combinations are possible. I suspect that if you tested broadly for any kind of synesthetic experiences, you'd find a significant portion of the population had them, maybe even the majority.

<comment><USER6> > for me it's very much a "mind's eye" thing, not like an image projected into > my visual field

Same for me.

> In article 2, the researchers are said to have asked their subject to recite > every third month going backwards, apparently to test that it's not just a > mind's eye visualization

I would be terrible at this task. I don't see the whole year (week) at once. This representation would not be of any help for that. It's here when I am scheduling / planning, or when someone is saying / I'm reading a date.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> If scent is of interest to you, I suggest you read _Perfume_ by Patrick Suskind. I couldn't help but notice the distinct smell of everything and everyone after reading this book.

<comment><USER10> One of those books[1] that are really hard to translate to another medium. The movie tried, but somehow the book can give you a better approximation about the sense of smell.

[1] Another one is the upcoming adaptation of The Colour Out of Space

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Penn & Teller: Bullshit Season 8 Episode 8 did an experiment to try to verify this. They couldn't find that people could predict who is old and who isn't via a sniff test.

<comment><USER12> Unfortunately, that experiment could just as well have been testing people's ability to smell the difference.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> One thing I remember very distinctly from when I was much, much younger is how my grandfather smelled. A very distinct smell that I always attributed to his heavy tobacco smoking and sweaty manual labor as a master cabinet maker. He died when he was in his sixties, from a heart attack. I was in sixth or seventh grade.

A few years ago, I was astonished when I realized that I could smell that exact same smell again. Only this time, to my horror, I discovered that I was now the source of that exact same precise smell. Only I don't smoke, and my labor is mostly mental.

It's not a knock-you-over-with-body-odor smell. You can cover it with deodorant or other perfumery type of application. But it is the baseline smell, minus all additional covering odors.

I finally decided that it must be a combination of genes and aging, since I am now close to the age when I recall that my grandfather smelled like this.

</comment><comment><USER14> My dog was chased around as a puppy by an old lady with oven mitts.

Now he gets anxious when he smells old people. So from my anecdotal evidence, I think they probably have a distinct smell.

My theory is that the smell is distinct because of pharmaceuticals. A lot of older people are on all sorts of medications. I think a lot of medicines cause the body to give off differing odors. From personal experience, I've noticed my body odor change when on different medicines. And have actually noticed that other elderly people I've been around have a faint chemical odor to them.

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't know if I'm old, but my wife and I are in our mid-40s and we agree that we smell differently than we used to smell, for instance when we were in our early 20s.

</comment><comment><USER16> I used to be the 1st person mosquitoes went after, fair-skinned as I am. I had a surgery recently and for several months a few of my blood metrics have lower than normal levels (hemocrit, red cell count, platelet count, etc). Now I watch others slapping at mosquitoes which seem no longer attracted to me. My theory is I don't "smell" as good to the little bloodsuckers.

</comment><comment><USER17> A lot of older people don't shower or bathe as often as young people because they're worried about slips and falls. I'm surprised that the article didn't consider that.

<comment><USER18> Two of the three studies defined "old" as people 40 or 41 and older, so frailty might not be a large factor.

(Those two studies had different conclusions. The third study defined "old" as 75 and older, but found the most intense and unpleasant orders in middle-ages males, 45-55, so again, frailty doesn't seem likely to be a significant factor in terms of a strong or bad old smell.)

Edit: also, I kinda doubt your assertion about the bathing habits of older people. I wonder what you base that on?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Never smell anything differently on my grandparents, parents, elderly around me. Maybe it's not a widespread myth?

</comment><comment><USER20> I started taking probiotics about three months ago and I definitely have a different stink than I used to.

</comment><comment><USER21> What do old people smell like?

Depends.

<comment><USER22> I'm not sure people understood your innocuous joke...I did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> My gran has no nose.

How does she smell?

Terrible.

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

</comment><comment><USER25> Well, they certainly smell awful to me. Especially old women. That's a very distinctive smell. I could recognize an old woman without the use of any of my other senses.

<comment><USER26> Sucks to be you

<comment><USER25> TBH it does. It seems like I generally have a more sensitive sense of smell than most people. It's annoying, because the result is: a lot more things have a bad smell for me.</comment></comment></comment>


How much free time do you have? - <AUTHOR> https://erikrood.com/Posts/free_time_calc.html <comment><USER2> When put together it seems like a lot. Getting to the point of focus in one hour for one hour of productivity translates in 4 hours a week of actual free time. This is depressing but the true reality. What Noam Chomsky says about wage labor is true.</comment>


Catastrophe drives evolution but life resides in the pauses - <AUTHOR> https://aeon.co/essays/catastrophe-drives-evolution-but-life-resides-in-the-pauses <comment><USER2> May we all live in the most boring times.</comment>


Disney is safeguarding its future by buying childhood, piece by piece - <AUTHOR> http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21684138-disney-making-fortune-and-safeguarding-its-future-buying-childhood-piece-piece <comment><USER3> FYI, the first part of the article spoils some minor things about the new star wars film, for those who haven't seen it. I bailed out of reading it after that.

<comment><USER4> At some point, you have to stop considering any discussion of a movie as spoiler.

The term "spoiler" should be reserved for a reveal that actually spoils the movie; where some crucial element of the movies emotional impact can be taken away by knowing some fact in advance that is held secret through the movie.

The discussion in the first paragraph here pretty much just covers the exposition in the credits, and the material you learn very early on about one of the main characters.

I feel like treating this kind of information as a spoiler will just lead you to endless anxiety until you have seen every possible movie that could be "spoiled" for you this way. Why not just relax, accept that people are going to do some light discussion of movies, and reserve your outrage for actual spoilers of surprising plot points, mysteries solved, puzzles spoiled, and the like?

<comment><USER5> OP didn't seem outraged to me, just a bit disappointed. Which I understand, because "at some point" is still far away for the new Star Wars movie. I do think that any discussion of a movie is a spoiler. It depends, but from friends I don't even want to know if they liked a movie or not as I know them and their taste so well that I will deduce things which will influence my experience. I want my experience as pristine as possible, which is hard enough without articles mentioning tiny details about plots that they just don't need to mention for the point they are making.

<comment><USER4> When I say "at some point", I don't mean that that's the timeline for a particular movie. I mean at some point in your life, it is better to let go of the idea of walking into a movie in a completely pristine state with no expectation about what will happen in it.

Otherwise, either you have to cut yourself off from all media and conversation that might possibly reference the movie, or try and convince everyone you might interact with, and everyone who might write anything online, not to discuss the movie. Neither option seems particularly pleasant nor realistic to achieve. I suppose you could also just see every movie you intend to see on the first showing of the opening day.

What you are doing by asking for absolutely no information at all, even the basic exposition and setup of characters at the beginning of the movie, is imposing a large burden on everyone else around you to prevent a very minor inconvenience to yourself. I understand not wanting major spoilers, and that there should be a reasonable time before discussing those points openly without a spoiler warning. But it just seems that the trade-off is fairly poor for not even allowing the most basic discussion.

<comment><USER5> In that case I guess my trouble with your point of view lies not with the "at some point" phrase but rather with the generalization implied by "any discussion". That argument is almost always used against people who complain about spoilers, and sadly it's often insultingly non-understanding. I'm not saying that all discussion are spoilers. While my personal wish is to not know anything about a movie before seeing it (which I have never regretted afterwards, by the way – the opposite, having advance knowledge, has not hurt the experience always, but it has never ever improved it), I realize that this is hard to achieve and requires _me_ to take care of that, not everyone else. As you mention, that would impose too much of a burden on everyone else.

But that does not mean there is not still a lot of stuff that really should be considered spoilers, and the complaints about these should not be brushed off just because you think I expect you to not mention anything about a movie. I think it's a very valid criticism when the article in question reveals something that even the trailers kept unknown by never showing that person, without any need for it in the context of the article. It's like saying "The Sixth Sense, where he was dead all along, was quite good, I loved the cinematography." a week after that movie was released. While I personally would not have wanted to know about the cinematographical quality either, I realize I can't complain about hearing something like that when reading a review or when I'm not fleeing a discussion of the movie quickly enough. I never would complain about that. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who would be pretty annoyed to read said plot detail in an article about e.g. "The decline of quality in M. Night Shyamalan movies" a week after that movies release.

To sum it up: I agree with your basic point, but I think too often people that are fine with spoilers don't care about the fact that other people have a different level of acceptance and when confronted with that simply resort to saying "Well, it's silly to have this level of acceptance."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Reading this gives me a chill down my spine. There's something about a corporation controlling, optimizing, monetizing, and branding dominant components of a childhood that just doesn't seem right.

<comment><USER7> If we weren't raising our kids to be such consumers--turning stupid shit like Star Wars into "cultural experiences"\-- Disney wouldn't have any power. They can't own sticks and dirt.

<comment><USER8> You know the worst part? You can't even prevent it if you are raising your kids otherwise.

My 5 year old has never seen a Disney movie, yet she told me today that for her 6th birthday she wants a Cinderella shirt and an Elsa costume - <USER2> characters she has never actually seen on screen. Her friends at school all talk about it though and recount fantastic stories.

I hear from people saying that we will raise a kid who is out of the loop, so she won't be able to relate and will be an outcast if we don't keep her up to date with all the trends like her peers.

At a certain point as a parent, it's kind of like, it doesn't really matter what we do.

<comment><USER9> You could think of it like, once Disney has permeated our culture to such a degree, people would collectively decide they don't deserve to own them and their kids and erode copyright.

 _The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers._

<comment><USER7> The problem is not that Disney can own entertainment products they create. The problem is our society elevating base entertainment to the level of cultural artifact. Disney has no power if people don't treat their disposable trinkets like sacred totems.

The post near the top about spoilers is a good example. We're all supposed go out of our way go protect the sanctified experience of the movie for true believers. How messed up is that?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> When Disney acquires Barbie, their domination will be complete.

(Check out "Hello Barbie", in stores now.[1] Now your kids can talk to Barbie and she'll talk back. Barbie has a WiFi connection to servers back at Mattel HQ running AI software. "ToyTalk, the tech company that partnered with Mattel to bring Hello Barbie to life, stores by default everything the doll records for at least two years to help it better analyze children's speech." Coming up next, Cognitoys, plush animals powered by IBM's Watson system and able to answer hard questions.)

[1] [http://shop.mattel.com/product/index.jsp?productId=65561726](http://shop.mattel.com/product/index.jsp?productId=65561726) [2] [https://cognitoys.com](https://cognitoys.com)

<comment><USER11> I'm somewhat reminded of Harrison's "I Always Do What Teddy Says" ([https://opalcp12.wikispaces.com/file/view/I+Always+Do+What+T...](https://opalcp12.wikispaces.com/file/view/I+Always+Do+What+Teddy+Says.pdf)).

<comment><USER12> SPOILER ALERT! The story was a bit hard to believe, as it claims that everyone who wasn't conditioned against it (like none of us are) would just grow up to be a sociopath and kill their parents without second thought.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Not going to read it due to the spoilers, but I give Disney a lot of credit. They've done pretty well by Pixar, and exceedingly well by Marvel.

Disney is certainly a corporate behemoth out to make a buck, but I really believe that it's accompany that understands these properties, and wants people to love them.

Disney knows fans will not continue to flock to prequel-quality Star Wars films. Even the die-hard fans have a limit. These movies need to be excellent if they're going to continue to draw audiences. George Lucas himself doesn't understand what makes the original trilogy so special to fans, which is why Disney is putting fans like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson at the helm of these new movies. It seems like they're off to a great start. I have faith they'll continue to be great.

Edit: First sentence: _I_ , not _u_. Yikes, what a typo.

<comment><USER14> If you're worried about the spoiler that some people seem to think is in the article, skip the first paragraph. It merely starts the narrative, it doesn't contain any content pertinent to the discussion of the article beyond that it may or may not contain a spoiler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> There was some magic to the 80s childhood movies -- Star Wars, ET, Last Starfighter, Goonies -- that I don't think can be bottled. Whatever stories hold that place for our kids, I don't think they will be the same movies that did it for us. There's just something about seeing Star Wars in the context of that time, and it's not the same as seeing it now.

<comment><USER8> It's because you were (presumably) a kid back then - and everything was much more magical then because it was your whole world and imagination. Just like old people now state how much better the 50s were, because that's when they were children.

I pretty much discount anytime someone says "It was better when I was a kid."

<comment><USER16> There is actually something different with these 80s movies for kids _and_ adults. Part of it was some true courage in the story-telling, for what movie studio of today would allow a character like "Sloth" from the Goonies to end up in a movie? Darkness along with the light. And sincerity in both rather than vapid "sarcasm." These movies have soul and heart.

Not saying that similar movie magic is impossible now or in the future, but in the current world of profit-driven decisions on creative direction it seems unlikely for the foreseeable future.

<comment><USER8> Seriously? ANY pixar film puts those to shame in terms of depth. The entire back story of UP was about a widower; Finding Nemo, same story - talk about darkness and light. How about The Incredibles, Wall-E, Monsters Inc, all fantastic story telling and incredible depth. It even goes further back than 80s, to movies like The Sound of Music with the Nazis.

Again, your biases are only fuzzy nostalgia and it seemed bigger to you then cause your brain couldn't contextualize it as well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> It is down right perverse that you have a discussion of how Disney is buying childhood without a discussion of copyright laws they're also buying...

</comment><comment><USER18> Basically nothing about Disney's strategy would be wrong, or even harmful, provided copyright terms were something reasonable rather than infinite as a practical matter. By now _anyone_ should have been allowed to make "The Force Awakens" and without paying $4.1 billion for the privilege, either.

<comment><USER19> I'm not so sure I agree. First of all, it's not like anyone could have made this movie without significant financial resources -- reportedly it cost $200 million to make, and it looks it (not to mention, Harrison Ford isn't coming back for cheap). Nobody without a large commercial stake in it was going to be able to make a movie like this.

That doesn't justify current copyright laws (trademarks alone might be sufficient to keep someone from making Star Wars VIII even if copyright was allowed to lapse on ordinary time rather than being constantly extended to keep Steamboat Willy out of the public domain), but collaborative works of fiction require big financial commitments sometimes to get made.

<comment><USER18> You're assuming that the monopoly on IP is necessary to get a good return on a film like this. It's also arguable that copyright law made this film more expensive than it otherwise would have been - I don't think your $200 million figure includes the cost of buying the franchise in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> It seemed like new star wars was a remake of the old star wars. I think people people know what they like and they just want it repackaged in a slightly different form. Surprised they haven't gone out and brought out hasbro and mattel.

<comment><USER21> I know a lot of people are probably going to want to yell at me but I think it needed to be remade. And I say this as a fan. I don't think a non-fan would pour over Star Wars vehicle cross sections. What they did was remake it in the best way possible given their constraints (old diehard fans) and I think it was done smartly and tastefully. Done this way you get new fans without losing a lot of them to appeasing old fans and old fans without losing a lot of them to appeasing new fans.

<comment><USER22> Except for that it wasn't supposed to be a remake, rather this was just a case of everyone involved phoning it in. I think Andrew O'Hehir said it best, "it's the Citibank of movies, literally too big to fail." Right now everyone has been brainwashed into loving it because of Disney's billion-dollar marketing spend. But much like Bush's popularity after 9/11, sooner or later reality is going to catch up.

As a kid part of the magic of Star Wars was that you could sort of imagine there was an entire universe of interesting stories and characters beyond what was pictured in the movies. But J.J. Abrams has made it abundantly clear that no, actually, there was never anything else there.

<comment><USER23> [STAR WARS: TFA SPOILERS AHEAD] I don't understand how you got to this conclusion. There were more interesting characters and missing backstory in this single movie than in the OT. Characters like Phasma, Maz, the old man that give Poe the map, Poe, Snoke, and the rest of the Knights of Ren. And while there were many parallels between the new movie and the OT, it also introduced and developed a ton of extremely strong new characters, namely Finn, Kylo, Poe, and Rey. My biggest gripes with the new film was Death Star 3.0 and the helo pan at the end, neither of which were really intricate to the story. Also the acting was head and shoulders above any of the previous films and the most impressive thing was how real everything felt, from the Stormtroopers humanization to the land battling and dog fighting.

<comment><USER24> There's also the fact that entire antagonist team seems desperate to be bigger and badder than what came before (with the possible exception of Snoke who is somewhat mysterious). I took the new super-weapon to be a symptom of this. A healthy number of tropes were both subverted and upheld by the film, a pattern I hope continues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I don't know. I loved some Disney movies and appreciated their art growing up but never bought the action figures or anything. I also went to disneyland once and disneyworld once to check them out, but I went to six flags twice. Oh, and I visited disneyland while in Paris, to show the girl I was with from Moldova, who had never been.

I guess maybe it's because I'm a child of immigrants. I don't see what the big deal is. Everyone commercializes and ties stuff in. Many if you are probably users of the whole Apple ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's fascinating how strongly we feel about things we were exposed to as children. Exploiting that seems inevitable.

<comment><USER27> Which is why the US original law put a 14-28 year limit on it

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is why I bet they buy Nintendo at some point.

<comment><USER29> It's why I hope they're broken up under antitrust law at some point.

<comment><USER30> I have been thinking that over the past couple of days too. In Japan, Disney everything is literally _everywhere_. How do you think that work out? Split into parks and movies?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > Marvel turned the story of a second-tier character, Iron Man, into a > blockbuster.

Iron Man was popular enough to have a 90s cartoon made for him. I'm not sure how he is second-tier...

<comment><USER32> Definitely second tier in mainstream culture compared to Batman and Superman ---which are universally known.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Whats the point in putting a complex image up if I can't zoom in to read it.

</comment><comment><USER34> Is the only way to beat Disney to build another Pixar?

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> What if Disney bought Netflix and/or Valve?

<comment><USER35> They can't afford Netflix, at least not any time soon. Netflix's market cap is almost a third of Disney's right now.

<comment><USER36> That's nothing financiers (banks) can't solve. There are historical examples of smaller companies buying larger one (especially interesting as a counter- maneuver to a hostile take over bid: though it doesn't usually end well)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Isn't this what all profit driven companies targeting children would do? Should do?

</comment><comment><USER38> "Inside Out" made me fucking furious. No child should have such an calcified perspective of mind or language shoved down their throat at such an early age by a global corporation.

<comment><USER39> I watched it and I thought it was cute. I would like to hear more about what made you so furious - it's a perspective I didn't get while watching or with other people I spoke with after. Maybe I'm already disney brain washed.

<comment><USER38> Emotions are so much more complex than our terrible labels for them, and much of your emotional sense of self comes from the language your parents branded you with for the most cultural convenience: '"Anger" is bad! It's your fault in not handling "it", not ours or the systems', but "Anger" in-of-itself doesn't exist outside of language, just the nebulous array of feelings and reactions we've been to coniditoned to label as "Anger", what this film effectively did was create an false emotional framework for children to rely on in the future, which should fucking terrify you because so much of modern society and capitalism is built on neurological manipulation to get you to buy things and not disrupt systems of power. The movie was nothing less than brainwashing.

<comment><USER40> Actually psychologists have identified seven basic emotions: fear, anger, joy, sadness, surprise, contempt, and disgust. "Surprise" was considered similar enough to "fear" that Pixar made one character out of them; the same goes for "contempt" and "disgust". Complexity in emotions arises from their interactions, much like how we perceive a spectrum of colors as a mixture of three primaries.

Most of the professionals in the field who saw _Inside Out_ have praised it for getting the basics of emotion and memory right, even if it isn't super accurate. It is after all a cartoon.

<comment><USER38> Is there any evidence those labels aren't a product of linguistics and culture? Two things developed during childhood that Disney is working to profit from? Did those professionals grow up watching Disney movies?

<comment><USER41> The labels are based on experiments and are cross-cultural.

<comment><USER38> Are you insinuating those cross-cultural experiments predate the institutions of culture and language that produced them? Sounds a bit like time travel.

<comment><USER41> They looked at people's facial expressions, it wasn't based on self-reporting of emotion. The subjects were treated as animals in a biology experiment. You can look it up easily enough, the guy's name is Silvan Tomkins and the work is known as "affect theory".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Many of you will downvote me for sharing this, but parents will appreciate: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwUwchCeeI4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwUwchCeeI4)

DO NOT let your kids watch Disney!

<comment><USER43> Saving you a click, the title of the video is "Illuminati Hypersexualization of Children Exposed! Disney Pedophilia and Satanic Rolemodels".

<comment><USER42> Did you watch it?

Since when is youtube about reading titles?? This title is misleading; it's all about Disney as empire.

<comment><USER43> The abstract is "Exposing subliminal sexualizing content aimed at young children from Hollywood, TV shows, Movies, and the pedophile fashion industry. Disney channel and Disney movies exposed. Young girls being turned into miniature sex kittens. Illuminati brainwashing and destruction of Morality", and the preview image shows a young girl drinking out of a penis-shaped bottle.

Furthermore, there are comments (never read the comments) like " This truly shows we live in a sick ass perverted world even looking at the scene from a reality show at the 28:00 mark that the fat bitch is telling little girls they should make the audenice think they are naked to that i say sick ass world there would be no way in hell that this type of shit would've been on tv 30 years ago & if it ever did make it on tv back then every tv watchdog group across the country would have called for the networks to take shows like this off the air....."

Even furthermore, the suggested video page has videos like "Dead babied in Your Food", "Martin Lawrence EXPOSES Illuminati", "Lil Wayne says the Illuminati is changing the world for the Mark of the Beast".

EDIT: One of the suggested videos is of clear importance to the Hacker News community: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbldNqL6LOI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbldNqL6LOI)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Twitter profile picture game - <AUTHOR> http://sitweet.com/game A grand, ancient quest lies before you. The eternal question of life: is it a boy or is it a girl? Embark on an epic journey and discover the sex (male or female) of Twitter users. <comment><AUTHOR> hint: left (male), right (female), down (corpo aka. corporate / company), "s" for skip.

</comment><comment><USER2> data sorting game?

<comment><AUTHOR> yep :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> osome!</comment>


Microsoft To Give Students Dev Software For Free - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/02/18/microsoft-to-give-students-dev-software-for-free/ <comment><USER2> The first one's always free...</comment>


I, Who Vowed to Never-Ever Short Stocks Again, Just Shorted the Entire Market - <AUTHOR> https://wolfstreet.com/2019/12/30/i-who-vowed-to-never-ever-short-stocks-again-just-shorted-the-entire-market/ <comment><USER2> When the rich get richer, and the poor don't, one can expect that prices rise for things that rich people buy (stocks), but not for things that poor people buy (food, gasoline, rent).

Yet the latter are the kind of items used to measure inflation.

Maybe stocks aren't really getting over-valued, maybe it's the dollar that's getting de-valued.

Quantitative Easing.

What I am trying to say is that I'm not confident that a correction is imminent.

<comment><USER3> I think we can be confident that the current administration will do everything in its power to detach the measuring instruments from the actual economy in order to present a rosy picture. The effect will be a much more resounding crash when the facts cannot be papered over anymore.

So the only question is, how long can they be papered over? How long were they successfully papered over before the last blowup?

<comment><USER4> > how long can they be papered over?

until the administration changes.

Or, until china becomes so potent a force that their purchasing power cannot be checked and no amount of papering over in the US works - thus leading to WW3

<comment><USER5> _until china becomes so potent a force that their purchasing power cannot be checked_

That's assuming China isn't also papering over the cracks. I see no reason to believe that, given all the ghost towns full of crumbling high rises and the enormous amount of effort the CPC puts into their nationalistic propaganda.

<comment><USER3> Yes, no one expects China to exercise any scruples. But US and European administrations, and certain smaller countries, have been known to observe them, at times.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Mega-weight in the indices, Apple, is a good example: shares soared 84% in the year, though its revenues ticked up only 2%. This is not a growth story. This is an exuberance story where nothing that happens in reality – such as lacking revenue growth – matters, as we're now told by enthusiastic crowds everywhere.

I nearly stopped reading after this. In hindsight I should have done exactly just that.

Despite that ridiculous 83% _growth_ , Apple's P/E is only just inline with S&P average at 24. With high amount of Net Cash. It is basically the market buying into Services and Finally admit Apple is not _dead_ , and wont be any time soon. ( But the stock is now used to manipulate the wider indices )

And in the Tesla and GM example, it is simply Tesla was one of the stock trading at very high vs GM trading low.

At the current growth rate and tension between China, may be a P/E of 24 is a little optimistic, but they are by no means a bubble. The first sentence in the article:

 _In my decades of looking at the stock market_

Bubbles happen when everyone in the market is stupid. Stupidly believe nothing could go wrong. Housing wont fall, Stock will go up. I dont see any of these at all. It seems to me investors are still very cautious, and talk about the 2008 crisis as something happened a few years before, when it has been 12 years now.

The only risk I see right now is China. Simply because the market is so opaque we have no idea what is really going on.

<comment><USER7> > Bubbles happen when everyone in the market is stupid.

No. Bubbles happen when interest rates are low or via other mechanisms ( QE, etc ) excess capital is created.

> Stupidly believe nothing could go wrong.

No. This is just standard nonsense we teach entry level financial analysts who know nothing or something the business news parrots. The "stupid" masses don't create bubbles. The highly "intelligent" financial masters do - FED/banks with the help of politicians and media.

> The only risk I see right now is China. Simply because the market is so > opaque we have no idea what is really going on.

Another one of these. Once again, somebody has to link china with something that really has nothing to do with china. Also, the chinese markets aren't any more "opaque" than any other markets. Really, you have no idea what's going on there? I thought china was collapsing because of all the "ghost cities"?

The anti-china crowd is so hilarious. On the one hand, china is a risk because we know exactly what's happening there. On the the other hand, china is a risk because they are "opaque" and we have no idea what's happening there. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether these comments are from propagandists or those mindlessly parroting the propaganda.

But in the meantime, people who know nothing will argue about silly nonsense PE, EPS, Beta, etc. There is a bubble because the big boys want there to be a bubble. APPL rose 84% because the big boys wanted it to. The bubble will pop and there will be a recession when the big boys decide.

"I nearly stopped reading after this. In hindsight I should have done exactly just that.". Amen to that. Should be the HN motto.

<comment><USER8> "Bubbles happen when everyone in the market is stupid.

No. Bubbles happen when interest rates are low or via other mechanisms ( QE, etc ) excess capital is created."

\---

Nobody has or can define a bubble.

Nobody can see 30+ years into the future.

Right now, 30 year treasury bonds are paying about 2.3%.

If the capital markets are efficient, then there is no free lunch, so you can expect returns of stocks in the next 30 years to be essentially the same or about zero if inflation stays low and all nominal income will be from dividends.

Is that a bubble in stocks or bonds? Well, I think what will determine if people call it a bubble in hindsight is if inflation goes up and interest rates as well. But that is not expected by most.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like his approach.

He sold short SPY and QQQ. Those are very liquid and he will have no problem being able to cover if the market moves against him. He's not shorting individual stocks.

I just did something similar. I bought puts on both SPY and QQQ. As the author notes, I had to pay a put premium. I will exit quickly if the market continues to go up at the beginning of the new year.

There is one advantage to buying puts instead of shorting. If the price of puts (the implied volatility) goes up, the put becomes a leveraged bet. A put can go up in value even if the market goes sideways. Of course that is just short term, longer term there are many other factors such as time decay involved.

<comment><USER10> As much as I would like to buy a put, the timing is hard to get right. The decay of the option will make your derivative expire worthless. And then, the next month, the market will fall as you predicted, but you lost your money on that option.

Or if you're a true believer, then you'd roll over your options, and keep throwing money down.

But as they say, the market will stay irrational, longer than you can stay solvent.

<comment><USER9> _the timing is hard to get right_

Yes the timing is tricky and decay is a bitch.

My thesis is that the market will begin to drop in January. Perhaps as soon as January 2. The puts are to protect my portfolio from that scenario. If the market doesn't drop I will quickly blow out of my put options.

The time decay over a few days or even weeks on a 90 day option isn't that significant. Of more concern is that the price of a put will decline if the market continues to move up away from the strike price. It's a double whammy because, as a market moves up, the inherent cost of options (the implied volatility) usually goes down as well.

 _Or if you 're a true believer, then you'd roll over your options, and keep throwing money down._

Yes it's foolish to keep rolling put options in a rising market. You must use them tactically for when you expect an inflection point might soon be at hand.

You can also use put options for more practical reasons. E.g. in my case I need to periodically sell stocks because I have tuition to pay for my daughter currently in college. Two scenarios:

1) stay in the market, buy puts, lose some of the upside because of cost of puts.

2) sell stock now against future tuition needs, lose all of the upside.

<comment><USER10> Good luck! The market tends to crash right after everyone is exuberant and claiming that it'll go up forever. Then, the adults come into the room, and pull the rug from under them. Then these same people start seeing red and cry that the world is going to fall apart. They completely forget that their previous stance was that the market would go up forever.

On a side note, some people think that they could've timed the Big Short of 2008. If only they had bought a Put. Or go naked, and short the SPY stock directly.

But from my analysis, this was an impossibility. At least to a normal trader. There were just too many fake-outs, too many dead-cat bounces, that the likelihood of you fulfilling your original trading thesis, is nil. The whole thing took place over a 12 month span, which is far too long to execute a derivative trade. So, you would have to short the stock naked, and hold it for 12 months, and hope and pray that your thesis was correct. But, you can only borrow so much money, thus the benefit of such a trade, was not worth the risk. If you made any money, then it would be a rounding error.

Now, if you had insider information (especially on when critical actions were being taken by the government and key players), and if you have significant financial resources, then that might be a different game. And you would've benefited significantly from that once-in-a-lifetime trade. But for the rest of us normal folks, shorting the market in 2008 was impossible.

Anyways, good luck! This market needs to correct. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.

This QE insanity has impoverished us all. Except for the rich elites. They're like vampires that suck on the souls of the poor unwashed masses, and the middle class that hopes to be rich like them but never will, and laugh at us all, as they lounge around on their 3rd yacht.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Maybe as a retail trader, shorting has a bad risk premium. But in general, people short for only one reason: to gain leverage and reduce volatility. A hedge fund might go %100 long and 30% short for a gross exposure of 130%, gaining both leverage and reducing volatility (which they use to net risk premium through leverage). Or if you're a quant, you use shorts to make your portfolio market neutral. While a fund might short SPY or QQQ in order to hedge a long position, I don't think an acute investor would take on a short position of the entire market in order to make a directional play on beta. There are a couple reasons for this:

1\. If you're positive the market is going to crash in a specified point in time, you would want to be more aggressive and buy some puts or vix futures.

2\. Beta almost always has positive returns and betting on entire market crashing is almost impossible. You would need to be very confident for it to mathematically make sense, and if you were that confident, you might as well go big or go home (using vix futures, etc).

3\. Negative beta exposure historically has been a very bad investment philosophy. While it can make sense to hedge market crashes (though not as often as you would think, puts as portfolio insurance are almost always a bad deal), I don't think it makes sense to actually try and make money off of it. Either you hedge out all market risk or you take on some market risk. It's a suckers game to try and profit from negative beta.

Some other stuff he says is suspect too. Saying that Tesla can't crash because the short-sellers will always take profits is a strange thing to say. It's like saying a stock with a lot of long-interest can't go up because investors will always take profits: historically untrue.

</comment><comment><USER12> The US stock market appears to be directly correlated to the amount of money the FED prints.

With the current QE, there will be more dollars printed. I'm not holding my breath. However, day-to-day workers and young people will be destroyed by this asset inflation.

<comment><USER13> How will they be destroyed?

<comment><USER14> I think the idea is that their cash flow is constricting relative to assets they would need/want buy to establish their place in the world.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This type of speculation is irresponsible. Does he expect us to sell and short the market, too?

<comment><USER3> He specifically stated, in so many words, that he doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> you really think it's time?</comment>


The Wealthy Patient Dilemma - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/6addvo/the_wealthy_patient_dilemma/ <comment><USER2> Not sure if this is dilemma or abuse.

Also

[https://medium.com/incerto/only-the-rich-are-poisoned-the- pr...](https://medium.com/incerto/only-the-rich-are-poisoned-the-preference- of-others-c35ddf65cf68)</comment>


Ask HN: 1 book,1 article and 1 research paper you suggest? - <AUTHOR> I have been running this experiment with a close group of friends where I send an email every other week with a list of 1 book, 1 news/opinion/blog article and 1 research paper on any subject which I have read in the past and have found it profoundly useful.
This was in response to all the quick dim-witted stuff that gets shared around on social networks frequently and how much one has to comb through to find something actually useful.
So throwing this question out to the HN crowd to see what are your suggestions (would be great if you could throw some comments on the choices too!) <comment><AUTHOR> Let me kick off by giving my choices:

BOOK - Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson ([http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal- Stephenson/dp/05533809...](http://www.amazon.com/Snow-Crash-Neal- Stephenson/dp/0553380958/))

ARTICLE - The Resolution of the Bitcoin Experiment ([https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the- bitcoin...](https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin- experiment-dabb30201f7#.cfxan7xm2))

PAPER - Are we living in a simulation? ([http://www.simulation- argument.com/simulation.pdf](http://www.simulation- argument.com/simulation.pdf))</comment>


Social Media Has Become the Bread and Circuses of Our Generation - <AUTHOR> https://artplusmarketing.com/the-inaction-generation-how-the-internet-has-become-the-bread-and-circuses-of-our-generation-7f90515a13f7 <comment><AUTHOR> I apologise if the article isn't right for Hacker News, but it's one I posted a while ago that's become a lot more relevant nowadays, especially since mocking Trump's comments on Twitter seems to have become the new popular thing to do.

As for the title... well the original was too long for Hacker News. So I shortened it a bit.</comment>


Linux Desktop is now at 2% marketshare - <AUTHOR> https://www.netmarketshare.com/report.aspx?qprid=11&qpaf=&qpcustom=Linux&qpcustomb=0 <comment><USER2> I just switched over to Solus as my main OS. It's great. So glad to be rid over Windows, except for games. :( I guess (slightly) more people are feeling the same way.</comment>


17 year old Africans build a platform to connect your website to the world - <AUTHOR> https://www.nexxr.com/ <comment><USER2> A problem with these sort of sites is that you're associating your business with another business that could easily be competing with your own, or worse be something that affects the image of your business (for example race hate, pornography).

The other problem is that why would a website use this service? Because they have low traffic; how many low traffic websites are there? Millions. So you're going to be competing with millions of other (potentially crappy) websites to get your advert on... a potentially crappy low traffic website, one that will probably not be related to yours in any way. The traffic will be of no real value, someone making a blog about fashion reviews isn't going to want traffic from a website that sells potatoes.

I assume the basic idea is they sell it for such a small price ($2.95/m) that most people will sign up and then not really care if it doesn't work all that great, if they have a million customers they're going to make a substantial amount of revenue even if their value to customers is non-existent.

<comment><USER3> This is pretty spot on. It seems comparable to cross promotion for mobile apps. I found those to have the same issues you described. Lots of apps with very little users/value promoting each other.

</comment></comment><comment> angry-hacker I don't understand is it some kind of link exchange that you have to add some html markup to your website? And also pay a monthly fee? I didn't understand that from the video.

Also, what are the estimates of traffic you're going to get? Is it connected how many times you show other people's ads on your site etc?

And what does the 17 year old Africans have to do with the link? It's not a news article about their success story but their product. (I assume)

</comment><comment><USER4> I think you could have made the effort of introducing the gentlemen as _South_ Africans.

The title seems contemptuous, to me.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is a great example of using marketing to reach the front page of HN, not an example of a great service. The service is little more than fresh paint (and a monthly fee) on an old business model that's been proven time and again not to convert well.

</comment><comment><USER6> So is this just a link exchange scheme? I fail to see the value they add. Their platform doesn't provide a a like-for-like hit rate, so wouldn't this just attract a bunch of low-traffic sites?

<comment><USER7> And the ones that do have a like-for-like hit rate typically attract people that try to dump trash traffic in the system in the hopes of getting gold back out, or they outright try to scam the system by faking engagement through embeds and other tricks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is a great concept. The problem isn't that they didn't implement the concept in the most effective way but they didn't actually implement it in any way. Traffic is just traffic that wastes your bandwidth. Targeted traffic is whats not just important but fundamental.

</comment><comment><USER9> Thought this would be a way to SMSify your web-based service to reach developing markets. I was disappointed when I found out what it actually was.

</comment><comment><USER10> congrats fellow south africans, but would be a much better story had you guys done the development yourselves instead of oursourcing to india.

more detail here: [http://www.techcentral.co.za/pretoria-schoolboys-in-ad- shari...](http://www.techcentral.co.za/pretoria-schoolboys-in-ad-sharing- start-up/34787/)</comment>


23-year-old donates US$1M to support Waterloo student entrepreneurs - <AUTHOR> http://velocity.uwaterloo.ca/news/23-year-old-donates-us1-million-to-support-university-of-waterloo-student-entrepreneurs <comment><USER2> Are any other young tech nerds (I'm the same age as the person in the article) a bit annoyed when people mention age?

I mean...half of the news I hear about greplin is about the founder being 19 years old. Who cares? Greplin is a cool service, it's not relevant that the founder is 19 and, honestly, if it were me I would be a little offended.

Same thing with this. Who cares that the person who donated money is 23? Why not just: "Kik founder donates $1 Million to support Waterloo student entrepreneurs"?

/pet peeve

This does sound like an awesome project though :). A bit like the "hacker hostel" I think ever geek dreams about at some point.

Good on Ted Livingston for supporting it.

<comment><USER3> It is annoying, only because it is obvious tabloid-level gossip and has nothing to do with the events involved. We should be talking about the Canadian start up scene, Waterloo in particular, not this guy's age. But something tells me something about his age is the reason this got upvoted so much.

Age is no different then skin color, marital status, or any other attribute you could assign to a person. I always (try to) by default ignore it from headlines and articles.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not a fan of trying to put spin on anything - when I submitted the story, the only edits I made to the original title were to satisfy HN's 80 character limit.

<comment><USER3> I understand, the spin came directly from Velocity.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Serious kudos to Ted on stepping up to the plate big time and acknowledging the huge potential Canada has in developing the next generation of top tier tech startups. It's both humbling and inspiring to see this level of commitment from a 23 year old.

<comment><USER5> Nice try Ted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I talked with Jesse Rodgers, the guy who runs the Velocity program for U Waterloo a few weeks ago. He's a very cool guy, and the program sounds kick ass. Every session they put around 40 CS students into a dedicated dorm, and they work on building startups.

<comment><USER7> The program is not limited to CS students.

<comment><USER8> Yup, it's open to all students. My (engineering) friends, love the art/business students who pop up there. Turns out that they are smart. And really useful. Especially since the faculties time their crunch time differently, so a mixed group/team will likely always have at least one person who isn't totally crushed at any given time.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> How is a free text messaging app making the founder rich enough to donate $1M?

<comment><USER10> VC monies from Fred Wilson and co. <http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/kik.html>

<comment><USER11> This is not a company donation but a personal one.

<comment><USER9> I see, so is there any revenue?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> how much did he take off the table from kik in their fundraising?

<comment><USER13> It sounds like he sold part of his personal founders shares in order to prevent further dilution in the round. From the article he only took the 1M? If that's true that's a pretty benevolent gift.

 _The shares, valued at $1 million, were sold to one of three VC investors to prevent further dilution of other Kik employees' shares._

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was at the VeloCity demo today - there are some really smart kids with some cool concepts. And, thanks to Ted, they'll be able to continue building their companies over the summer without worrying about working a side job painting houses.

</comment><comment><USER15> I keep seeing that he donated US$1M, but he is "donating" it to a seed fund. Does this mean he will be taking a piece from each of the funded projects, or is he actually donating 100% of the money and expecting no returns?

<comment><USER16> My reading of the Velocity article suggests that Ted donated his million to the University "to expand support for student entrepreneurs".

The University, in turn, has established a million dollar seed fund to support student ventures. So while it is probably basically the same million dollars, the University is acting as an intermediary and has control over the fund in some fashion or another.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is great! I'd really like to see RIM step up and do the same considering half their talent comes from Waterloo.

</comment><comment><USER18> What's the most hacker-friendly major at Waterloo? Where are the most creative and/or entrepreneurial students to be found? Specifically, can anyone comment on CS vs. software eng in these respects?

<comment><USER19> Soft engs are generally better. Velocity is full of them. The one problem with Soft Engs is that their work load is generally higher than CS students, so less time to work on startups.

Full disclosure: I'm in Soft Eng :)

<comment><USER20> Agreed with SoftEng being the better program, at least when I was there (class of '06). From my one class of 85 grads there have been at least 3 companies started, including PagerDuty which is in the current YC cohort.

The benefits of SoftEng vs CS may be mitigated by being in Velocity. But if you're not, then the fact that you're with the same group of people for 5 years on the same schedule is great for forging bonds and thus cofounders.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm thinking of applying in the fall term!

</comment><comment><USER22> This should be happening more.

</comment><comment><USER23> Sweet! I'm living there next semester.

</comment><comment><USER24> Whenever I see "$ donated to University of Waterloo" I always think of 2002 when Microsoft donated $2mil to Waterloo under the condition that they switch their existing curriculum from teaching C++ to C#.

<http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2002/08/1699.ars>

( _Disclaimer: I ended up going to University of Toronto, an arguably rival school for Computer Science._ )

Update: Excuse the indirect relevance. Thought it was an interesting factoid for school culture context.</comment>