Broken Browsers Part Two: SSL - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dreamhost.com/2009/05/28/broken-browsers-part-two/

<comment><USER2> SSL/TLS does not work without certificates. In the absence of a "tie breaker" for someone else's fake handshake data, the encryption it employs on the link provides no more security than does LZ compression. And I'm supposed to buy certs from these people?

See:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=277284>

Should CA processes be reformed? May-be so. I'd start with not allowing people like Dreamhost to sell them. But that has nothing to do with how the browsers enforce the SSL protocol.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm curious what the poster of the awesome [http://www.matasano.com/log/1749/typing-the-letters-a-e-s- in...](http://www.matasano.com/log/1749/typing-the-letters-a-e-s-into-your- code-youre-doing-it-wrong/) thinks of SSL on shared-host webservers!

Like probably 5,000 other people have SSH accounts into the same dreamhost server where <http://juliusdavies.ca/> lives!

:-p

(This is not in anyway a response to tptacek's comment. Just a tangent.)

<comment><USER2> Oh, sorry, I read this post like 10 times looking for something to rant about, and nothing about it "stuck", so I didn't recognize it as a direct question. Shows you how I think.

What do I think? Bad. I have a reason:

[http://www.matasano.com/log/460/modern-cpu-architecture- thre...](http://www.matasano.com/log/460/modern-cpu-architecture-threat-or- menace-the-case-of-branch-prediction/)

This is one example of the tens of different side channels that exist on modern CPU architecture when you can run code _alongside_ crypto on the same microarchitecture.

How serious are these problems long term? Nobody knows. The full microarchitecture of an Intel or AMD processor isn't documented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> He's right the whole thing is a scam, but his solution is not correct. What needs to happen is the domain owner should be issued a wildcard cert for their domain when they purchase the domain. The public key goes in the DNS and is itself signed by the registry (this prevents DNS spoofers from injecting valid certs).

So if I bought example.com I'd get a cert for * .example.com and its public key would sit in my dns somewhere signed by the master .com cert.

This would be more secure than what we have now _and_ get rid of all the overpriced ssl resellers (really, you're charging me $100 a year for your thin wrapper around openssl?).

<comment><USER4> Once DNSSEC is implemented, this would probably be a lot more secure and easier to implement.

EDIT: I think there is an RFC for this already: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4398>

<comment><USER2> Or, you know, not:

[http://www.matasano.com/log/756/a-case-against-dnssec- count-...](http://www.matasano.com/log/756/a-case-against-dnssec- count-1-solves-a-non-problem/)

[http://www.matasano.com/log/772/a-case-against-dnssec- count-...](http://www.matasano.com/log/772/a-case-against-dnssec-count-2-too- complicated-to-deploy/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Punchline: Dreamhost is now selling 1-year browser-trusted SSL certs for $15, but the domain has to be hosted @ dreamhost, and you also need a unique IP ($3.95/month).

Comments under the blog posting imply the certs contain CN=www.domain.com, with Subject-Alt-Name=domain.com to get around the ever annoying "www." issue there, but I haven't seen one for myself to verify.

No wildcard certs at this price level, sadly.

<comment><USER5> > but the domain has to be hosted @ dreamhost

From the post:

        You can use them with us or any other web host.

You do however need a unique IP regardless of where you're hosting it.

<comment><USER3> Actually you don't need a unique IP--You can have a bunch hosted on one IP, as long as they all have unique port numbers (I host 4 or 5 ssl domains on my server). I usually forward the non-ssl site to the appropriate port so no one has to memorize the ugly number.

<comment><USER6> Not particularly a technical limitation, but a practical one:

Unfortunately, if your web site is intended to reach the masses, many of whom sit behind restrictive firewalls that only proxy 80 and 443 for web traffic, you need to be on ports 80 and 443.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> "I cannot understand why, after zillions of versions and dozens of years, no browser implements forward and back correctly."

Preach it, homey!

I've been ranting about this same thing for years. Why is this fundamentally broken in so many browsers?

</comment><comment><USER8> Wow, I haven't seen a <blink> tag in the wild since last century.

I stopped reading right about there.</comment>


If you get rich, you won't quit working for long - happy-go-lucky http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20161208-if-you-get-rich-you-wont-quit-working-for-long <comment><AUTHOR> I have known perhaps a hundred people go through this process. When Sun went public it made a bunch of people "rich"[1], when Sun released Java and the stock split 8 times and climbed over $100 it made still more people rich, when NetApp stock crossed a $100/share in the dot com days still more people crossed into that line of not having to work any more. The total number of people is going to be higher than that.

Some stop working, some continue working, and some decide to get together and create a startup incubator :-). Pretty much everyone I know that has gone through that process though are engineers. And engineers got to be engineers because they had a passion for building things or solving problems. Many people who have been engineers for a few years also realize that a group of talented engineers can solve bigger problems as a collective than any single engineer can. So the thing that really gives you satisfaction, solving some huge problem, can be best accomplished on a team.

There are three ways you can do that, you can work on a volunteer basis, you can start a company, or you can join an existing company. I've been playing around with some ideas around an experimental fourth way but so far have not found the right balance for that.

[1] Rich is such a subjective term but we'll use the article definition of having enough savings to never work again.

<comment><USER2> Collage professors will also often work well past retirement age.

So, IMO it's more complex than just 'builders'.

<comment><USER3> Making collages is a kind of building too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> After 25 years in startups, with several of them paying out, I was able to retire at 55, so I did. I still love writing software, but I got tired of: not having a life, due to insane startup schedules; the stress of startups; working for idiots, (partly this is because we hired idiots, but also because my tolerance for idiocy has vanished).

I have more time for family and friends. I can tinker with new ideas in software, and eventually find new projects to work on, (I have one now). I have started teaching again, on and off. I get to sleep late, go out more, both at night and on vacations.

However, I have done less than I thought I would, and honestly, I am sometimes bored. However, I absolutely will not work again if I don't have to. Why? Because going to work for someone else is an admission that I don't know what the hell to do with myself, so I might as well fill my time sacrificing my precious time for someone else's dream. No thanks. Not only does that re- introduce the problems mentioned above, but it masks the _real_ problem of not knowing what I really want to do.

Also, I'm really tired of the startup life. Charismatic startup founders who use their charm to extract what they need from you, VC lemmings, "this is the most important release ever", open floor plans, ...

<comment><USER5> Have you considered investing in or coaching a startup to guide them through (around) what you found so frustrating? It seems like that would be quite valuable to a young startup and would have a level of satisfaction for you ("I helped these kids avoid VC lemmings and other idiots").

<comment><USER4> I've considered and rejected the idea of investing. Coaching is an interesting idea. Any recommendations on how to get started?

<comment><USER6> I've recently launched a project and don't know any successful entrepreneurs to talk to. If you'd like to dabble in coaching, please send me a message at thankeeww at gmail.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is an article about one person, Keith from Silicon Valley, whose personal story the author tries to extrapolate (through a few cherry-picked quotes) and apply to society as a whole, to fit a puritanical "employment gives you purpose" narrative: a narrative which mostly serves the interests of employers. I wouldn't read too much into it.

<comment><USER8> No, your TLDR is not accurate. You're getting mislead by the common journalistic technique of adding a "human interest" angle to a story.

However, the "outer wrapper" is not the main story nor is it the TLDR.

Instead of journalists just presenting it like this:

      <main story about research or science>

, they (or their editors) end up structuring articles like this:

      <human-interest as color prologue>
        <main story about research or science>
      <human-interest as color epilogue>

Yes, the "<human-interest>" is Keith[2], but the main story is _not_ about Keith. It's mostly a story built around Jamie Traeger-Muney[3] and her observations. There are also other observations from Timothy Judge's meta- analysis and professor Brooke Harrington.

I do concede that if your only takeaway was "Keith's story", it's possible that imprint was deliberate by the editors. (In other words, they know that psychologically, most audiences will remember a character's struggles and triumphs more than the abstract facts & figures.)

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

[2] and also mentions Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, and Karen Gorden

[3] [http://www.wealthlegacygroup.net/wlg- about/documentation/jam...](http://www.wealthlegacygroup.net/wlg- about/documentation/jamie-traeger-muney)

<comment><USER9> LMAO at this community and using wrapper tags to debate someones argument.

<comment><USER10> considering that the average reader of this message board is XML literate, it's a fairly effective technique.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I stopped working for 2 years in my mid-20s (by choice) and only started again when I was running low on money. If I was rich, "working" would never be on my mind.

Run, bike, hike, camp, cook, read, walk, have coffee, relax, etc.

<comment><USER12> Of course. That's what people do when they retire, they don't "do" nothing, but they don't "work" either.

But it's possible there's a sample bias; people who get rich are the kind of people who can't stop working, even if/when they can. Other people would totally stop working if they got rich but it's hard to prove, because they never do get rich.

<comment><USER13> Totally agreed. I know a few people who (financially) don't need to work for a living but still do, a couple of them regularly putting in 12 hour days 6 days per week. Of course, that's how they got "rich" in the first place.

In their case, making a lot of money was a pleasant side effect of their preexisting strong work ethic, not the driving force.

(...and don't get me wrong, these guys also play hard when they're not working)

<comment><USER14> "regularly putting in 12 hour days 6 days per week"

"Play hard" after 72 hours of working? They must be super-human. What about, you know, er, human contact? Like spending time with your family and friends?

<comment><USER15> The kind of people I know of that do 72-80 hours a week and are wealthy enough to do less, generally the circle of friends are the people you worked with/your clients. Doing good work for people at your own leisure and participating in the community in that fashion is actually something I see those type of people really get a lot of satisfaction out of- like the article says a status thing. Going to local Chamber of Commerce style events, sponsoring/participating in parades, events, youth leagues and so on. Being able to write the check to send the school science team to a national competition as just a generous member of the community at large can mean a lot.

Family gets neglected in that case, or nepotism'd so you can see them.

The act of doing business for those sorts of people is play.

<comment><USER14> Hmm, I did not know "going to parades, events... and so on" was considered working?

That's probably how Marissa Mayer was "working" 130 hrs/week :-)

<comment><USER15> Planning and participating in events is actually quite a bit of logistics work. It isn't just showing up to consume, it's presenting/booth stuff and so on. There's a difference between showing up to an event and participating/running the event that often gets put on the better planner types.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > _He stayed on at first, but soon stopped working. He spent a year travelling > and spending money on "frivolous things" but found it difficult to enjoy his > life, he says._

That's because he didn't have the right personality and nothing prepared him for it. Others have absolutely no problem not going back to the routine -- and can find any number of small personal projects and hobbies to keep them occupied.

Of course nobody just sits on a beach old day, because it gets boring in itself. But there are tons of other endeavours to try that are not work.

<comment><USER17> Of course, I think none of us really know till it happens.

However, I agree. I'm constantly coming up with new projects, ideas and activities for myself. At this time I am convinced that I would not be bored never having to work a formal job ever again in my life. I would assume that is true for many HNers.

<comment><USER18> Yeah, and then one of those hobbies becomes essentially full-time, and then you realize it has some marketable value, then next thing you know you're running a start up, completing the cycle of never-not-working-for-long.

<comment><USER19> What's the difference between a job and a hobby?

The answer is, extrinsic vs intrinsic motivation.

<comment><USER20> Extrinsic motivation is intrinsic motivation that you project onto an outside agent.

You're not motivated by a job's salary, you're motivated by the nice things you can do with money--things you decided are intrinsically more important than the things you can do while broke.

<comment><USER16> > _You 're not motivated by a job's salary, you're motivated by the nice > things you can do with money--things you decided are intrinsically more > important than the things you can do while broke._

We're not talking about the same kind of motivation, obviously.

We're talking about motivation in the work itself vs being motivated to work because of others things you want to do with the money.

To make it an extreme example, in the first case you'd do the work even for free, or even pay to do it (like many people pay to do some hobbies), even if you had all the money you need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hmm. This seems like a pretty textbook case of Stockholm syndrome, if applied to society and expectations.

Do they have to work? Nope. If they live leaner, they needen't work another day in the rest of their lives. If they have hobbies, they can master those instead. They could be the best at them.

But instead, "society" says they have to work to have a worth. That's puritanical garbage that we need to nip at the bud. We're coming of an age, where machines can increasingly provide more and more, and we are still addicted to human labor and that connection of self-worth.

<comment><USER22> > But instead, "society" says they have to work to have a worth

I disagree. The drive to work and/or be productive is one of the reasons we're the apex predator, and not our prior evolutionary human-like variations. It's not "society" that says you have to work, but your DNA.

Example... do you notice the drive among the powerful/wealthy individuals, governments, and corporations - to get to space and colonize our solar system and beyond? That drive does not exist if we sit on our laurels. Those are the people pushing the species forward - it would be simple to do nothing, and for them to sip very _expensive_ coffee and entertain themselves until their life expired.

> We're coming of an age, where machines can increasingly provide more and > more, and we are still addicted to human labor and that connection of self- > worth.

This isn't about "human" labor, it's about working in general. Perhaps your occupation is designing, improving, or repairing these machines you speak of. That is work, and has a noticeable impact - opposed to camping, hiking, sipping coffee, and existing for the sake of existing.

tldr; if/when a society meltdown occurs, I don't want you on my team.

<comment><USER23> > I disagree. The drive to work and/or be productive is one of the reasons > we're the apex predator, and not our prior evolutionary human-like > variations. It's not "society" that says you have to work, but your DNA.

I disagree. The large amount of mooches, bums, alcoholics, and freeloaders around clearly points out that the evolutionary hypothesis you posit is wrong.

In general, any time you find yourself trying to justify something with evolutionary psychology, you are probably wrong. I really hate the abuse of the field and the trendy brainless use of "DNA-this" "in-our-DNA that" in popular jargon. Evolutionary psychology is just Social Darwinism for the 21st century with a new name. Unless there is a study that tested and confirmed an evolutionary psychology hypothesis, consider it wrong: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psyc...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_evolutionary_psychology)

<comment><USER22> Let's break it down to DNA then, and not "dna-this" or "dna-that" \- which I agree is popular and _usually_ incorrect.

Can we agree that your DNA(and most species) _does_ give you an innate drive to reproduce? Past(last 100000+ years) and present mating suitability in a male is perceived by his ability to feed/defend/nurture their mate and offspring. The large amount of "mooches, bums, alcoholics" you reference would be poor mates, yet they continue to reproduce. They do so [mostly] with the assistance of another willing member of the class of "mooches, bums, alcoholics". However, the people that are _not_ "mooches, bums, alcoholics" make more desirable mates, because they have a higher potential to feed/defend/nurture their mate and offspring. That means that yes, your biology is still telling you that you need to work, even if it is only to achieve higher mating success, and fulfill your biological imperative.

Hrm...I really don't like the direction my own thought is taking as I write this down. It ends with "well, then those (people) should be eliminated for the good of the species", and no one wants to hear that, whether it is correct or incorrect. It can be interpreted in a very dark and nasty context, and that is absolutely not what I'm trying to promote or champion.

In a nutshell, I'm arguing that I will win at the biological imperative _because_ of my drive to work and succeed. Those people that don't want to work and succeed would contribute to their species by going off somewhere quiet, and avoiding consumption of the resources needed by their fellow species members that are grinding away at "life" in the evolutionary sense - _not_ in the "pursuit of happiness" sense, which is subjective and altogether distracting.

<comment><USER21> Yep. And this argument is in parity with those people who wear white robes with pointy hats, and burn crosses in people's yards whom they do not like.

It's also similar to Phrenology, the "science" of skull size, weight, and shape that indicate intelligence. Of course, non-whites were all inferior.

There were many interests all surrounding Margret Sanger, with Planned Parenthood and the original intentions of that group. Ideally, blacks, Jews, "retards", and any other undesirable were sterilized as to not continue their genes.

But talking of eugenics, even in a roundabout way has a lot of baggage. Is there a way to do it right? I'm not sure. I'd think voluntary methods could work, but only if they were truly voluntary. Remember, the kind of people we have coming in government believe that one can electrocute the gay out of someone (Pence).

<comment><USER22> > Yep. And this argument is in parity with those people who wear white robes > with pointy hats, and burn crosses in people's yards whom they do not like.

Erm...is it? I thought that groups' entire mindset came from some religious interpretation of doing a deity's work. Maybe I'm wrong, but when a bunch of people(such as those that you mention) are so ridiculously self-destructive, I can only assume some-or-other <insert-religious-stupidity> is behind it.

I'm not making a case for any of the things you mention(sterilization...really!?). I'm making a case for the working people building a working civilization and non-working people can't participate or benefit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> So, I'm only six months in the wilderness, and hindsight may well prove me naive, but I never want to sit behind a desk again.

I left the business I founded 11 years ago 6 months ago - not because it was failing - they go from strength to strength - but rather because it was making me miserable - the fun freewheeling startup completely metamorphosed into a serious organisation complete with office politics and all the rest.

I cashed out for a relatively meagre sum - halved my net worth in the process, which now sits at about £1m 40:60 cash:assets. I'm 33. I plan to see every nook and cranny of the world and to take my time about it - bought an old Land Rover, driving everywhere.

A big part of the reason I left was identity. I had come to realise that my company was my identity, my life, my entire existence, and that I had remoulded myself continually to embody the company as it morphed and grew. Eventually I could no longer identify myself within the layers of inherited identity, and had lost all passion for the things that once drove me. I was CTO, not human, not alive.

Since leaving I'm slowly remembering life - despite having had time off over the last decade, there was only one one month period five years ago when I was uncontactable - other holidays were consumed by me staring at my phone and muttering curses as I'd hammer out emails.

It's going to take years to shed the burden, but already after six months I find myself slowly becoming less neurotic, less anxious, although I still have nightmares every night like clockwork.

The capital I have is not enough to retire on in the uk, but it is enough to retire in many other parts of the world.

Then again, I've always been pathologicallly lazy, and status has always been no more than a game to me, and I derive my identity (well, I did before I drowned it) very idiopathically, so perhaps I am an oddity rather than the norm.

This has ended up a ramble. I suppose my gist is that I currently believe it better to derive identity from something other than a manufactured corporate persona, or a job role. I just smile and say I'm unemployed.

<comment><USER25> Well done on buying an old Land Rover, and welcome to the club. The satisfaction I get from the upkeep and tinkering with mine is at least as great as the satisfaction I get from work. Honestly, if I never had to work there would another Land Rover and full rebuild. And I'd get to work on those side projects if I had the time. I could be very productive if I wasn't having to earn a living.

<comment><USER24> I had a series IIa back when I was myself and before I became a drone in the collective - rebuilt it completely, chassis, wiring loom, bulkheads, etc., fairey overdrive, loved it. Sold it during the early days of the business to be able to eat and pay for the internet connection.

I want to write. I want to be highly impractical and live in the mountains away from the madness. I recognise that what I want may well change, and that's OK too.

I'm advantaged financially but I've paid for it with far more than time. I suppose it all balances out.

<comment><USER25> What do you have now? Mine's S3 Lightweight witha hard top that was on RAF Kinloss for its service life.

<comment><USER24> How funny - I used to fly from Kinloss and Lossie as a cadet. It's a '87 110, in beautiful slightly weathered nick as it used to be someone else's expedition vehicle - chassis goes ping, not thud, engine runs smooth and burns less oil than expected, snorkelled up etc. gators on the steering joints and chrome balls. Need a winch, hi-lift and all that jazz, and we hit the road in May next. If anything I'm having to resist going overboard, as the last road trip (that month of freedom from the digital shackles five years back) was in a merc 190e, and it covered the 8000 miles to Kyrgyzstan, even if the exhaust system and "sump guard" (plastic excuse for) didn't!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Is this a feel good piece for the working class? Don't get me wrong - I have no experience with getting rich overnight (not that I'm not trying).

However, going back to employment seems like an utter waste of a millionaire's time - I have loads of plans which would make the world a better place, for example: launching an incubator/hacker camp for troubled kids in the poor area where I'm from. I only need maybe 1 or 2 millions to do that.

Why would I go back to working for a company where I have way less power to change basically anything, really?

<comment> jon-wood I don't think this is suggesting that people would go back to conventional employment, more that they're not going to just kick back and relax for the rest of their lives. You're example of going to do something useful would still count as work to most people.

<comment><USER27> For most people I know, when they say they wish they had enough money that they didn't have to work, what they mean is that they wish they had enough money to escape the wage-labor relationship with an employer.

<comment><USER28> Indeed. There are plenty of things I could be doing, such as writing books or teaching martial arts, but there's not enough money in these activities to pay for food and accommodation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> You can generally stratify most people into one of two categories: the work- to-live types, and the live-to-work types.

The work-to-live types generally tend to pursue careers involving working for some employer paying them salary plus benefits. With a few exceptions (the early employees of some of the bigger IPO successes), these people will mostly go on to earn middle-class or upper-middle-class incomes and live lifestyles in line with their income. Very few will ever come across life-changing sums of money.

Then you have the live-to-work types. Of course not all such people will become rich, but if you were to look at successful entrepreneurs, it'll be a long hard search before you find one who leaves the office every day at 5:00 PM on the dot to go home and loaf on the couch watching the game. These are the people who, if they are successful at building their company (and that is, of course, a huge if), will be able to walk away from the IPO with a fortune.

So why is it surprising in the slightest that the live-to-work types can't rest on their laurels?

<comment><USER30> There's a group in between that slave away at their corporate job for 60+ hours a week. I don't know what to call them. They are basically doing the worst of both worlds.

<comment><USER31> ...or the best of both worlds.

There are corporate jobs in tech where you can spend almost all of your time working on the things you enjoy (say research, product development, or solving hard technical problems) while letting others take care of the things you don't. You don't really have that option if you're an entrepreneur. And the fact that you can get a salary that places you in the upper-middle class is an added benefit.

<comment><USER30> A remember the stories of people receiving paycheck and not having to report to anyone. I'm on the consulting side so I often forget there are people who don't track every second of their day and get scrutinized for merely working 40 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Am I the only one who would go back to university and take a variety of degrees if they got rich?

It would give you structure and deadlines, but without a 9-5 grind. Give you an active social life. Give as much, or more, of an intellectual challenge as a job. And since you'd be rich, you wouldn't have the same money worries and pressure to achieve that other students have, and unlike a job, the only person you can really let down is yourself.

<comment><USER33> I guess my goal is a version of this: all my textbooks are sitting on a shelf outside my bedroom, and I want to get back into them until I feel I've mastered them. I wasted university with that idiotic determination of "look how little work I can get by with", which of course is also "look how little I can know while still surviving," an idiotic goal if ever there were one.

My job will probably be 60 hours/wk for the next year, then up in the 65-80/wk range for the following three years, but after that, I'll be back down to 40 or even fewer. And I'm going to take advantage of all that free time a lot better on the second go.

Who knows where I'll go from there. Realistically, my wife and I could get along perfectly well on her working part time, and in medicine that's not too hard an arrangement to get. Neither of us particularly trust the economy on its current (last 70 years) trajectory, so we'll probably aim to put ourselves in a partial homesteading setup closer to home in the next ten or so years.

Wow, I don't know where that went. TL;DR -- I want to read my textbooks and start gardening.

<comment><USER34> I can understand planning the next year, but isn't planning the following three years a bit of a stretch?

<comment><USER33> Mine is an odd job in that that assertion isn't much of a stretch at all. There are a couple different paths that could steer me to different ends of that range, but not too many ways I'd be outside it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Longing for FU money sounds just like "getting a job where I have nothing to do" (maybe, slightly better). The idea of just idling all day, browsing your favorite sites seems so amazing, but when you do get that you realise the fulfilling-work imperative [1]. What you do everyday might be drudgery but it's more so when you have nothing on your todo list.

Getting rich might help you in having comforts without monetary considerations, and have more time with things you enjoy. All of it won't subdue the need to fulfilling work. While I can imagine some people who would happily spend all the riches on exorbitant possessions, the people who have a higher probability of making that amount of money might not have propensity to spend their lives in that manner.

[1]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/jobs/bored-to-tears-by- a-d...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/22/jobs/bored-to-tears-by-a-do-nothing- dream-job.html)

<comment><USER16> > _Longing for FU money sounds just like "getting a job where I have nothing > to do" (maybe, slightly better). The idea of just idling all day, browsing > your favorite sites seems so amazing, but when you do get that you realise > the fulfilling-work imperative [1]._

Or you need better hobbies and job substitutes than "idling all day, browsing your favorite sites"...

<comment><USER36> How I wish I could spend all day filled with programming and continuing my language learning. Instead I'm doing first year EE at university and it's hard to find time to sit back and not worry that I should be working right now.

<comment><USER37> Why are you doing EE if you want to program?

<comment><USER36> I missed the university entry requirements for CS in my mathematics qualification, so I was offered a place at the university to do EE instead, which I accepted.

<comment><USER38> That's ironic, EE usually has more math requirements than CS.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Clearly Keith does not play video games.

<comment><USER40> Have to agree .. I'm looking at my Steam back catalogue wondering how I'm ever going to find the time to play everything .. And it's almost time for another Xmas sale!

<comment><USER41> I'm north of 550, about half unplayed at this point.

After a grueling year of work ending in a layoff in 2007, I took a full year off in 2008. Played a lot of games, but also watched 4 films a day, became competent with several instruments, read a lot and started myself on the path to changing careers.

I have a stack of technical books on topics I'm deeply interested in that I don't have time to read. At this point, I see work as a major impediment to doing what I want with my life. It's a problem that I desperately want to solve, but I don't really have hope for a solution. I'm on the low-end of developer salaries.

<comment><USER40> Well, you managed to take a year off work which is pretty impressive! I've never had a year off and don't expect to until I retire :( You could always try remote work + moving to a cheaper country. Alternatively, if you can make money doing something you enjoy, it won't really feel like work.

<comment><USER41> I worked remotely for 5 years and that's how I managed to "level up" and change careers.

The kind of stuff I want to focus on now though requires deep, focussed effort over an extended period of time.

I enjoy what I do but not as much as what I could be doing, if that makes sense.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If I got rich, I would do the following: try to work "as I want". That means: shorter days in my most active time (like 10-4pm), go on vacation with my family often (in a rhythm of 6 weeks work - 2 weeks vacation). I think, for me the main point of being rich is not to work no more - but to know I don't have to. Maybe I would even work better then with that peace of mind.

<comment><USER43> This is almost exactly what I have done. I took enough time off to accept the change, lose the working habit, and shed the rest of that identity. I came to find I love working in tech. Sometimes I work long hours when I'm enjoying the problem solving struggle, sometimes I just take off and go racing. To each his own.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I believe this is a case where words don't reflect actual emotions. Many work because they have to in order to survive. However, when you know longer need to work it becomes a "hobby" in which you enjoy rather than an essential. You have your pick of what you want to do and how you want to do it. Completely different mentalities that the word "work" doesn't completely convey.

</comment><comment><USER45> "I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce, and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry, and Porcelaine." (John Adam, 1780)

</comment><comment><USER46> Sometimes I feel like work is the meaning life. From a certain (simplified/badly poetic) view, living existence exists just to, and because it can, battle against the 2nd Law of Thermondynamics, and that sort of just trickles all the way up to our complex social existence. If you're only increasing entropy by hanging out and resting on your laurels (again, simplified), rather than making/creating, you're sort of waste from the aforementioned perspective.

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

</comment><comment><USER47> Sounds like it is about 50:50 here for people who would go back to work and people who think it's nuts.

My personal plan incase anyone cares:

1\. Take a lot of time to take care of things I've neglected like my health. Honestly, I would be working out a hour a day and trying out lots of new recipes.

2\. Once I'm in the best shape of my life. Take my family someplace nice for vacation so I can show off my new beach body ;) joking, about the beach body part not the vacation

3\. Start turning my side project ideas into actionable ideas.

</comment><comment><USER48> Why would anyone be surprised? Most people who strike it rich weren't working for the money anyway, so their incentives aren't going away. The question is whether (and how much) money will make the prospect of spending it instead of working for the rest of their lives more attractive than what made them work (presumably hard) in the first place...

</comment><comment><USER49> if i had so much money that I'd never have to work again, I'd probably do the following:

1\. quit my day job and travel the world (and I mean all over - south america, middle east and so on).

2\. get a couple of houses (one for my parents, and another for me)

3\. start contributing back to the community (If i get that kind of money, It's probably because I would have IPOd or sold my business - in which case, I would love to work on open source - no strings attached - MIT).

4\. buy a few toys (cars and what not) that I've always wanted.

5\. leave the rest for my kids/family/future.

</comment><comment> norea-armozel I think I'd be surprisingly busy and happy if I was financially free of 9-to-5 work. Especially considering that my biggest hurdles to my own personal happiness are naturally expensive (gender transition isn't cheap). Having those things covered on top of not worrying about my rent would take a load off my mind. It would mean I could look at doing work that feels meaningful to me. Maybe I would go back to college and get a degree in physics and maybe try to do research. Or maybe I'd continue with my work in programming but do it for a non-profit on a smaller salary. In any case, I would be freed up from chasing career choices if I knew the bare minimum was assured. That and I would probably try to explore the world because I've literally never left the country not even to go be an annoying tourist (like most) in Paris. It would be nice to see what the rest of the world is like before I die.

</comment><comment><USER50> The argument is that money is uncorrelated to "job-satisfaction" which is believable, but using that to somehow conclude that you'd keep chasing "job- satisfaction" after no longer needing a job doesn't make any sense.

Of course there are plenty of other things that can make a well-paying job unpleasant. But the very idea of "job-satisfaction" presupposes a job in the first place. Why would anyone who didn't need a job care about how satisfying a particular job is? There are many ways to achieve a sense of self-worth besides grinding away in a cubicle to make someone else rich.

<comment><USER51> > There are many ways to achieve a sense of self-worth besides grinding away > in a cubicle to make someone else rich.

I kind of read it that many people don't know of any other way to achieve a sense of self worth. They've worked for so long and it has become such a big part of their identity that they don't know what else to do with their time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I'm surprised more folks aren't mentioning spending time to raise kids. If my startup were suddenly acquired, I'd certainly spend a lot more time with mine. This would be partly to educate and enrich them, and partly to support my wife's career (pre-tenure professor at demanding institution). I'd probably pursue side projects and go back to working full-time at some point, but I'd spend the bulk of my time working/playing/volunteering/traveling with my kids.

</comment><comment><USER53> Same for me. I retired at 42. Once I spent the first few years with my new daughter the misses got sick of me having too much fun at home and kicked me back to work after just over four years of retirement. The only difference between now and then is my tolerance of fools. I have been working for start- ups as a senior engineer and like work as much as ever. People do treat you quite differently if they have no strings attached to you. Mainly pros, some cons.

</comment><comment><USER54> I could perhaps sell my company for a retire-able amount in a few years but I'd just move on to another business anyway.. so why not instead develop my staff to run the current business independently of me, so I can do whatever I want anyway, but still own something for the long term? I'd be interested to hear from entrepreneurs who've wrestled with this one and came down on one side or the other :-)

<comment><USER55> Why because even then business needs managing. It's not going to manage itself. Even if you have a staff trained to try to take care of business, they will fail, and fail often enough that you have to intervene or your business will be out of business in a year. People are difficult. Really difficult. And outside of that the market is difficult, really difficult. It's always changing, and you have to change your company to adapt or it will die.

<comment><USER56> One of the best measures of quality of a company is how well it does after its founder dies/leaves. If your company can't run without you, you weren't building a company, you were building a job.

<comment><USER43> Agreed. But this doesn't mean you won't feel compelled to intervene and add value in difficult situations. I chose to cash out instead of continuing with the heavy burden of risking my net worth every day due to this. How is my old company doing? Fantastic, exactly because I focused on building a company and not a job. This is just to say that these two comments aren't mutually exclusive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Very interesting,I wonder how would this tie into a possible basic income scenario?Or the incentives of rich people are different from the average Joe`s?

<comment><USER40> Well, the wealthiest people I know are all very motivated. I'm not surprised that they don't stop working completely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> I can add a different take -- I inherited a big chunk of assets a number of years ago. As opposed to a lot of tech cashouts, this included a family company, commercial office space and an investment portfolio. A big difference between myself and others in the thread is that I've had a lot of exposure to, and interest in, asset management.

I stayed with my corporate job for about a year, but ultimately the effort of playing board member to the family company and making informed investment decisions about the rest clashed with amount of work they wanted from me as I kept rising at my corporate job. When I told them I was leaving, they offered me a big raise and to double the team under me. I countered by asking for part-time and, if they wanted, a smaller team or none at all. Ultimately that didn't work for them, they needed a creative and driven manager, not a good but expensive individual contributor.

Like a lot of people, I took the next year off, convinced my girlfriend to quit her job too and we traveled. But I'm back to work these days, not a in normal job though -- I really think of myself as a full time investor.

I think there's a big thing people miss in this situation is that they can't see the forest for the trees. You have so many opportunities to create jobs, create products, create places to live, or drive charitable change when you have a lot of assets. Why work 2000+ hours per year in a normal job just to add a drop in the bucket? There's a lot of spilled ink in the linked article and elsewhere talking about, roughly, Maslow's theory of self-actualization and how you can get there doing your old job or similar. Jeez, you finally got to the pot of gold and now you're out of ideas? Swing for the fences, or at least, try and hit a few singles. And the best part is you can spend 8 or 80 hours a week doing it, you're in charge after all.

Me? I'm going Warren Buffet style from here on out. Sure I doubt I'll ever be a famous investor, but I'd love to take the amount I have and turn it into a lot more. My long term goal is to shore up the future generation in my family before I give the rest away. I think the happiness maximizing amount of work for each person varies, but for me I know it's more than zero.

</comment><comment><USER59> For me it would really depend on how rich and what you define as work. There are lots of projects I would like to fund, supervise, produce, etc that with 10s of millions in the bank I would. I think I'd end up pretty busy.

</comment><comment><USER60> I retired at 25 due to startup and some inheritance. Being free all the time can be depressing and i began to look for challenges. It's not so easy if you don't "need" to go through all the bullshit and hard work that gives you results in the long run.

So now i'm focused on social issues. Fixing small social problem arising due to bad laws with a bit of automation. I'm on my second startup (or rather NGO) in that area and it brings me a lot of satisfaction.

But not having to do stuff can be sometimes as hard as having to do stuff.

</comment><comment><USER61> Re: "I just felt unhappy at the lack of structure and not knowing what my purpose in life was. My skills were deteriorating and I was finding it difficult to interact with other people intellectually," says Keith, now in his mid-thirties. "There's a higher reason why we all go to work."

So as automation / AI creates a larger and larger class of the permanently unemployed, what does this statement mean to them? And to us (i.e., fellow citizens, unemployed or not).

This was THE BIGGEST issue of the election that never was. We're extremely unprepared. Again.

<comment><USER62> One huge substitute is games: I know several permanently unemployed people who while away all the time on online games - there are some really addictive ones out there, the ones I know are hooked on League of Legends or DOTA or other games with e-sports, which give a substitute feeling of achievement (and it can be a real one if they get to the pro scene).

It's a huge problem in Japan:

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

And in other countries (not as big in mine, but it's growing):

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> I've thought about this a lot, though I'm not planning on getting that kind of money any time soon. My plan would be to invest a lot of the money and then go back to school. I'd get a couple more master degrees as well as try for a PhD. I love learning and not having debt would make it better. On top of that, I would work freelance/consulting as a developer. I love programming and that is what makes me happy so I wouldn't want to stop doing that.

</comment><comment><USER64> > When Keith, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, worked at a technology company > that went public, he became rich _overnight_.

Where overnight is defined as 5+ years building up the value of the company so the equity is worth something.

Reminds me of the Mark Cuban quote:

"It doesn't matter how many times you fail. You only have to be right once and then everyone can tell you that you are an overnight success."

</comment><comment><USER65> If most smart and educated people in the west work, then quitting that world effectively cuts you off from those interactions. Think bout if you'd rather have every Saturday off or every Wednesday? First and foremost we're social creatures and we do what it takes to stay involved within a social society.

</comment><comment><USER66> Let me be filthy rich overnight and I promise I will give the article some thought! :p

</comment><comment><USER67> I don't know about working but no matter how much money I/will have I'll always write code. Even if it is for solving trivialities in my everyday life with no hope of commercializing them.

</comment><comment><USER68> I would still work, but probably not at the same job I have now (which is also my early retirement plan, I will still work just less and in a more relaxed environment).

</comment><comment><USER69> if you get rich doing something you like, why not just start another venture with something you actually love.

</comment><comment><USER69> and even if you're a billionaire on paper you have to manage those investment so that they cash out at the right moment. you can't just quit doing everything. at that level it's a reverse debt where you (or pay someone to) have to chase everyone for money

</comment><comment><USER70> interesting. i like to think that i would quit my job and just work on open source projects, but the article makes some good points about not being really challenged to work past the bits that aren't fun and easy without some external motivator.

</comment><comment><USER71> Alternatively: he's depressed but work provides sufficient distraction.

</comment><comment><USER72> aka [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

</comment><comment><USER73> Why was this removed?

</comment><comment><USER74> Sounds like Keith needs a personality transplant. Loss of status! Learn to play an instrument. Read Zola. Leave the uk!

</comment><comment><USER75> I wish the article quoted statistics on how many rich people actually quit (and I mean really rich, not $5million, which isn't really enough to retire comfortable for life these days).

<comment><USER76> If you had $5M, you could buy 87719 shares of Wells Fargo at market rates. Those would yield .38 per share quarterly or $133,333 annually. You'd likely get annual dividend increases and wind up with around $13M if you compounded at a rate of 5% for 20 years. That assumes no dividend reinvestments--and 5% is conservative. It could be as high as 10%. In that case you'd have over $33M at the end.

Sure, you'd want to diversify, but I'm just making the case that it's more than enough to live off of for the rest of your life.

You could also buy 4 or 5 McDonalds restaurants or 20-25 houses and watch them appreciate while living off rental income.

<comment><USER77> Sure, but that's super ultra boring, and it doesn't improve your life in any way right this second. But...you could go and buy yourself that $1M house in a nice area. And a nice car for you and your partner. And mum's house needs fixing, we can do full remodeling. A friend has a business idea, let's chuck some money his way. Or better yet, let's invest some of that money into a cupcake business you always wanted to open.

Then poof, 2 years later that money is all gone.

Like, I seriously doubt that my first thought after winning the lottery would be to go and talk to an investment banker.

<comment><USER78> I'm pretty sure when you win the lottery they make you sit down and talk with an investment banker...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Former Apple engineer fights iPhone giant for patent credit and denied cash - <AUTHOR> https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/09/28/apple_engineer_sues/ <comment><USER2> >he lost his original iPhone back in 2008. That inspired him, he says, to come up with a way to locate a missing smartphone or computer.

See, this man right here invented CompuTrace, 3 years later. Oh, and he is representing himself in court.</comment>


New Java trojan attacks Mac OS X via social networking sites - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/10/new-java-trojan-attacks-mac-os-x-via-social-networking-sites.ars

<comment><USER2> FTA:

> A new trojan horse has cropped up that affects Mac OS X _(and Windows as > well)_.

Perhaps noteworthy in the title.

<comment><USER3> Windows users might not consider a new trojan as noteworthy news ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It seems to imply that once the link is clicked it downloads and runs the payload automatically, but this is rather hard to believe (I would guess that there is some user action required).

Is the article correct?

<comment><USER5> Drive by download & execute vulnerabilities exist in Java for many browsers.

So yes, it is possible for the "trojan" to work as described.

<comment><USER6> If "as described" includes running automatically (without user permission), then you'd be incorrect in this case. This particular trojan doesn't include any privilege escalation exploits, so the user must confirm a couple of security dialog boxes (including keying their password) before the trojan can install.

<comment><USER7> This is not entirely true. There will be only 1 popup asking the user's permission to "run" java code through the browser. After that, the applet can download anything on the box it needs and execute it.

The applet has full access to the local filesystem with the same priviliges the original user has. If needed the hackers can further exploit the machine, by escalating user priviliges with some corrupt scripting..

One click is enough to seriously damage your machine, be careful;) This is what the popup looks like in Firefox <http://www.ussu.ca/studentgroups/JavaApplet.jpg>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Chrome users, enter 'about:plugins' in your address bar to disable Java.

(Users of other browsers, you can usually find what you need in preferences.)

</comment><comment><USER9> From another source, clicking on link appears to shown a certification error dialog[1].

[1]: [http://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/27/new-java-based- malware-t...](http://www.macrumors.com/2010/10/27/new-java-based-malware- targets-mac-os-x-but-threat-level-disputed/)

</comment><comment><USER10> What antivirus/security software do other HNers use on their Macs, if anything?

<comment><USER11> Right now, common sense.

I'll move to Arch if I need to install anything else that remotely resembles bloat.

<comment><USER12> Common sense is also enough on Windows, except when it isn't.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Since no one else is going to say it...

Suddenly it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to remove Java from OS X. I for one can go without any applets and even minecraft on my macbook pro.

<comment><USER14> First, Apple isn't removing Java from OS X. They will stop shipping their customized version of Java in several years.

Second, every popular piece of software has vulnerabilities. So if this warrants the removal of Java, you should remove Safari and the BSD kernel from OS X as well.

<comment> X-Istence There is no BSD kernel in OS X. The entire OS is Darwin running an XNU kernel that has a BSD layer within it. There is no way to remove the BSD layer without removing the entire OS.

<comment><USER14> "There is no way to remove the BSD layer without removing the entire OS"

Yup, that's the joke I was making... grandparent comment would have us remove all our software...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Underlying requirement: that the user running the applet is an administrator (and while this is the default modus operandi as per the installation procedure of OS X, not every OS X user continues on this path).

<comment><USER16> The user is also alerted when the applet tries to run, and they would need to approve the privilege escalation request for the applet; it has an untrusted, self-signed cert.

<comment><USER17> If true, this is a huge omission from the article. Got a source?

<comment><USER16> Sure, here's a couple with less breathlessness, and more details:

[http://www.intego.com/news/trojan-horse-os-x-koobface-a- affe...](http://www.intego.com/news/trojan-horse-os-x-koobface-a-affects-mac- os-x.asp)

[http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/27/security-alert-new-trojan- hor...](http://www.tuaw.com/2010/10/27/security-alert-new-trojan-horse-apps- attacking-the-mac/)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


My experience posting on the "Who Wants to be Hired" thread on HN - <AUTHOR> https://www.alexdangelo.com/my-experience-posting-on-who-wants-to-be-hired-thread-on-hacker-news/ <comment><USER2> I wouldn't worry so much about spam from your e-mail address appearing here. E-mail spam is a declining industry and it doesn't appear that there's much continuing incentive to scrape websites for e-mails to spam.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good to hear. That would be an interesting experiment too -- add a very unique email address and see if or when spam appears.

<comment><USER2> I've had an e-mail address on my writing website for about a decade now. I get very little spam sent to it. The bulk of the spam I receive is to my oldest e-mail address which I had once upon a time used to post on usenet.</comment></comment></comment>


Diablo 4 to Feature LocalServer Technology - <AUTHOR> http://www.jeffwofford.com/?p=960 <comment><USER2> I wonder if Blizzard will ever turn off the servers for Diablo 3.</comment>


A VR Cycling Experience for $40 - <AUTHOR> https://pauldyan.wordpress.com/2016/01/24/my-vr-bike/ <comment><USER4> As someone who did a similar build in high school (though with a screen - <USER2> fancy VR smartphones back then): a cheap laser mouse actually works quite well as a speed measuring device, and requires no electronics hacking. I just calculated the speed of the cursor and translated that into game speed - <USER3> reversing comes for free :)

We also had a turning detector using a rod to connect the front-wheel to a 8€ USB joystick. It actually end up costing us ~20€, not counting the PC, bike and stand.

<comment><USER5> Also, a standard inductive sensor (i.e. a magnet attached to a spoke and an inductor) attached to the raspberry pi would be a much better option.

<comment><AUTHOR> The benefit of taping a piece of paper to the wheel is that you could apply the same technique to something like a treadmill where you wouldn't want a magnet to be traveling along with the tread. The benefit of Arduino is lack of OS overhead/risk.

<comment><USER6> If you are going with a visual piece of tape, then you could replace the arduino with a simple mobile app that recognised the tape via camera and transmits speed via UDP to the app. I wonder if the camera on a typical phone could keep up ?

<comment><USER5> You could do the same with an inductive sensor wired to the headphone jack. This worked for Square to read magstripe data, which is significantly more complex of a signal to parse than simply counting the number of local maxima per second.

Inductive sensors are cheaper, simpler and more foolproof; cyclists have used them for decades to gather both wheel speed and cadence.

<comment><USER7> Slightly off topic: You make an interesting point about Square. In the context of Apple Pay, the move to take away the headphone jack suddenly makes a lot of sense (for Apple).

<comment><USER5> I don't know about that; the cheap Square reader is a piece of crap that is really just a "starter" product (they're not well-made and fall apart after even moderate use). Anyone who swipes more than 2 or 3 cards a day would be better served by one of Square's commercial readers -- all of which connect via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or the Lightning port.

Also, Apple would certainly include a Lightning->Headphone adapter that would also be usable for card readers. They just use the line in from the microphone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> This is neat, but, well, have you ever tried working out with something strapped to your face? Worn big goggles while doing something that works up a sweat? First you fog up, then you notice the saturated sponge flolloping (as only a mattress truly can) against your face as you cycle.

I had a "VR" cycling setup about 15 years ago for training in the winters in Durham (cobbled roads, snow, not so great on tubeless rims) - comprised my road bike, a standard rear wheel roller with a resistance adjustment cable attached to my handle bars, and most importantly an SVGA projector hooked up to the ceiling to project on the blank wall four feet ahead of me, keystoned to hell and back to not end up too distorted.

On the projector I'd chuck up a POV cycling vid, either one that I'd shot with a camcorder strapped to my head the previous summer (oh what I would have done for a gopro), or a professional one. Manually adjust the resistance according to what you see on the screen (easy enough, just get to the point that you're matching pace with the head-bob on the video), job done.

Surprisingly immersive setup for a pile of late 90's electronics.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's no reason this has to be strapped to your face. You could build for a tablet and mount it as your dash. I'm sure this has been done to death already

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There also should be a fan connected in front of the cyclist. The power can increase/decrease depending on how fast you cycle.

<comment><USER10> here you go [http://www.petalfan.com/](http://www.petalfan.com/)

<comment><USER11> Wow... I wonder what other kind of things we'll start to see tailor-made for VR? I've seen a couple of vests that simulate getting hit, and of course there's the Virtuix Omni.

I'd love to see arcade-like places open up once everything is available where they have these ridiculous setups and all these peripherals so you don't have to do it all yourself.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, I started thinking about rolling my own motion seat. Can be done for <$500-700

Picture this setup with a VR headset, it would be quite immersive [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIFUcbLby2Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIFUcbLby2Q)

However, I haven't found a way to get telemetry data out of a console. PC only

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It would be really neat if this could be used with Google Streetview. Another cool addition would be an accelerometer on the handlebars to enable steering (though I guess that would be problematic with a stationary bike).

<comment><USER14> Agreed - It seems trivial to build a Street View API integration into Unity or Unreal Engine 4.

<comment><USER15> I always wondered why games like Euro Truck Simulator never tried to use real geo data (not necessarily street view, but just accurate streets, shapes, cities and distances) for their games. After all, trying to rebuild a miniature europe seems like a dead end at some point and, maybe I'm alone with that, but using real world times to drive from Amsterdam to Berlin on a realistic route feels way more interesting to me.

<comment><USER14> Building realistic looking modes of the real world is a lot harder than building graphics in games like that looked, the last time I played one.

<comment><USER16> Also, licensing issues. Map data for commercial projects is not cheap.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I enjoyed this video, but couldn't help but think about the irony when he started talking about this being "$40" project compared to Oculus + PC ($600 + $2000) while his entire project still required a $600 iPhone and a $2000 Mac book

<comment><USER12> At what point in time is the cost of tooling written off in your view?

I'll grand you the $2600 price tag if you also tack on the 400K for the house to keep the setup dry and you assert that the creator only ever uses the laptop for this specific purpose.

You can't factor in costs like that and then critique the DIY project because of it. I'm sorry, that's just not fair.

<comment><USER17> I'll admit my comment was overzealous. I just couldn't help but laugh when he was "splurging on a $10 case" to put his $600 phone in.

If you already have the equipment, I don't see any difference between already owning a $600 phone and already owning a $600 vr headset. Both are probably purchased for reasons other than the DIY project

<comment><AUTHOR> Valid point, but the reason why I didn't factor in the cost of the smartphone is because I am assuming the vast majority of the intended audience already owns a smartphone. A Macbook is not required to develop for Arduino + Unity. Any cheap PC will do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This reminds me to Black Mirror's S01E02 ( [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2089049/) )

</comment><comment><USER19> VR cycling reminds me of the animated film "Les Triplettes de Belleville": [https://vimeo.com/12292589](https://vimeo.com/12292589)

<comment><USER20> I saw that film a long time ago and had no idea what it was called. Thanks for the link!

Also, it would be a great idea for fun exercise if this technology could be used to make multiplayer cycling games (think Mario Kart, but on bikes.. or maybe Road Rash) that allow people of varying fitness levels to compete, race, and get fit while playing.

<comment><USER21> _Also, it would be a great idea for fun exercise if this technology could be used to make multiplayer cycling games (think Mario Kart, but on bikes.. or maybe Road Rash) that allow people of varying fitness levels to compete, race, and get fit while playing._

[http://zwift.com/](http://zwift.com/)

<comment><USER22> Also [http://expresso.com/Home](http://expresso.com/Home)

No VR, but other than that...

One question I'd have about the VR display would how well would they handle sweat. Looks to me like

a. I'd sweat more with that thing on my face and

b. Lots of it would pool inside the goggles.

<comment><USER23> Yep. That is absolutely the case. I tried rift gearVR on my trainer. It was fogging up within 5 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Really awesome. I'm all for more tinkering with VR. I hope Unity Engine's Linux client will get out of beta soon. A setup of Android based phone, viewer and Linux based 3d Engine environment would be pretty cool. I think there would be tremendous value in actually teaching "low cost tinkering" classes. We have a lot of expensive gizzmos at our university (Oculus DK2, ReactTables etc.) but at the end of the day I feel a cheap solution that you can take home and play around with would be superior form a pedagogic point of view.

<comment><USER25> Why Linux? The Windows machine or the Mac that people already have is likely of significantly lower cost than any Linux machine that has the hardware to push what you describe, and _is_ something people can take home and play around with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Shut up and take my money

Seriously, I love to cycle but have a really hard time pounding away on the trainer. This would make the winter experience much more bearable

<comment><USER26> Check out Zwift. Not "VR", but the gamified/MMO elements make it really motivating. Not much can get me up at 6am anymore, but when I'm supposed to meet my friend for a virtual ride, I can usually haul my ass out of bed and hop on the bike.

<comment><USER12> Thank you very much for putting me onto this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Much more trivial way to do this. Take your google cardboard to your gym. No $$ or computer or arduino required. Not even a bicycle. Just use the accelerometer to measure how fast your bobbing up and down as you cycle. Increase the sensitivity as required. (Unless you're one of those master cyclists who can keep your head totally steady while cycling.)

<comment><AUTHOR> I can assure you the number of false positives you get will make the experience the opposite of immersive. (I've tried)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> Here's a similar hoverboard demo, using Wii balance board, Kinect, Rift and Leap Motion

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO6Yh_XLQNY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO6Yh_XLQNY)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is awesome! I have always envisioned stuff like this for exercise equipment, and I'm excited to see that it's becoming a reality :)

</comment><comment><USER30> This is really nice. At a street corner the rider could just _look_ at where she wants to go next.. no need for steering.

</comment><comment><USER31> I can see this as a new feature for gyms

<comment><USER32> Zwift and Bkool already have offerings in this area. Zwift is outstanding.

<comment><USER22> And [http://expresso.com/Home](http://expresso.com/Home)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> This is a neat hack, but if you're going to invest this much effort it makes more sense to use a real virtual reality headset such as an Oculus Rift, Galaxy Gear or an HTC Vive rather than Cardboard. Low latency, better optics and position tracking are very important.

<comment><USER34> The title of the blog post is "A VR CYCLING EXPERIENCE FOR $40" and if you read the article, it really didn't take that much of an effort.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Of course, it will seem as if you are riding a tricycle.

<comment><USER36> Yeah, riding a tricycle in the sky (no resistance)

<comment><USER37> trainers do have resistance.

<comment><AUTHOR> This.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DeepMind AI Reduces Google Data Centre Cooling Bill by 40% - <AUTHOR> https://deepmind.com/blog?t=1 <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126298](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12126298)

</comment><comment><USER3> Replace the word "AI" with "optimisation algorithm" and you are safe from AI hype.

<comment><USER4> What _is_ an "AI" ?

<comment><USER3> AI is a field of research with the goal of creating a computational model of human cognition, that's the scientific part. The engineering part is then to build a system based on the computational model such that this single system can be used as a general purpose problem solver.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is pretty stunning and should make a lot of knowledge workers terrified. I'm sure Google has a bunch of really smart guys working on figuring out how to reduce energy costs. To have a computer come in and get those kinds of results on the first attempt is pretty mindblowing.

<comment><USER6> We have some really smart gals too!

<comment><USER7> This is why I prefer the nonspecific "meat sack," though I'll admit mine is often more cumbersome in general usage. (Seriously: "folks" is what I tend to use to avoid this situation. Any time you find yourself saying "guys," folks will work.)

<comment><USER8> With the caveat that you end up sounding like a politician

<comment><USER7> If you s/guys/folks/ in that comment and think it sounds like a politician, I'm quite intrigued by who your politicians are. Kill this thread and don't reply to me, though, we are super off topic.

<comment><USER9> [http://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/confirmed-obama-says- the...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/confirmed-obama-says-the-word- folks-a-lot) [https://www.quora.com/Why-does-President-Obama-like-and- use-...](https://www.quora.com/Why-does-President-Obama-like-and-use-the-word- folks-so-much)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Always fascinating how it turns out many ideas in research were already tested in the past (of course DeepMind is most likely aware of and has improved on prior work).

From NIPS in 2008: "Managing Power Consumption and Performance of Computing Systems Using Reinforcement Learning" ([http://papers.nips.cc/paper/3251-managing-power- consumption-...](http://papers.nips.cc/paper/3251-managing-power-consumption- and-performance-of-computing-systems-using-reinforcement-learning.pdf))

</comment><comment><USER11> > _Our machine learning system was able to consistently achieve a 40 percent > reduction in the amount of energy used for cooling, which equates to a 15 > percent reduction in overall PUE after accounting for electrical losses and > other non-cooling inefficiencies_

So the actual savings were 15%? Which is still significant for sure. I'm guessing their next step will be to reduce those non-cooling inefficiencies.

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm very interested in exactly what actions the machine learning algorithms recommended Google take.

<comment><USER13> This wasn't clear to me either. The best I could understand was from this statement

" _The purpose of these predictions is to simulate the recommended actions from the PUE model, to ensure that we do not go beyond any operating constraints._ "

Seems that the action was to deliver the _perfect_ amount of cooling needed for the current/predicted load. I'm guessing the old model was sloppy with the cooling and used more power to keep the servers cooler than they needed to be.

<comment><USER14> Yep, all systems until literally ideal will have efficiencies to iron out. Unless your data center is identical to Google's, taking any specifics to play would likely be ineffective advice!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This makes me wonder what a next-gen datacenter would look like; far more control points, far more data gathering, probably some combination of high- and low-inertia cooling with different characteristics -- essentially you are going to want to start giving your NN more knobs to tweak.

That seems very singularity/jackpot-ish to me. Cool, but will have some interesting unexpected consequences, I bet.

</comment><comment><USER16> At some point in the near future the AI itself will be posting blog posts about its achievements.

Very soon after that, the AI will be revisiting the stored history of the internet, will be reading this post, and laugh its ass bits off...

HELLO FROM THE PAST! WE WERE HUMANS!

</comment><comment><USER17> "We are planning to roll out this system more broadly and will share how we did it in an upcoming publication, so that other data centre and industrial system operators -- and ultimately the environment -- can benefit from this major step forward."

Please do, I am hungry for details here. The one chart they put in has no scale on it's axis, and as another comment pointed out, they didn't give any details about what recommendations were followed to achieve the improvements.

</comment><comment><USER18> Very cool. I wonder how many more sensors do they installed to collect necessary data.

</comment><comment><USER19> I'd be interested in learning how much saving this is in dollars -- anyone here knowledgeable enough in data centre cooling to estimate this?

</comment><comment><USER20> I wonder if anyone has done the math on total cost savings for Google and how it will impact their earnings/stock price.</comment>


Ask HN: Good source of artistic WebGL - <AUTHOR> Where is the best place to find awe-inspiring examples of art (think interactive landscapes etc) using WebGL? <comment><USER2> mrdoob (creator of three.js) retweets a lot of really good WebGL content - [https://twitter.com/mrdoob](https://twitter.com/mrdoob)

</comment><comment><USER3> Definitely check out PlayCanvas at [https://playcanvas.com](https://playcanvas.com) for many gorgeous applications of WebGL.</comment>


YouTube Lifts Time Limit for Videos - <AUTHOR> http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/youtube-lifts-time-limit-for-some-videos/?src=twr <comment><USER2> Am I the only one who hates it when people talk about "copyrighted material" as if only mainstream commercial TV and movies are copyrighted? Every video uploaded to YouTube is copyrighted (OK, except for amazingly old video and video produced by the US government). Of course people are going to upload longer copyrighted material. What they mean to say is "copyright violating material."

</comment><comment><USER3> But the big question is, can uploaders stitch together all those existing "1/9," "2/9" etc. videos so we can put that whole era behind us?

So was the original pre-June 11-minute limit a product of the MPEG LA rules where videos "12 minutes in length" (used to) have special rules and royalties? Or was that coincidental?

</comment><comment><USER4> "Congratulations! Your account is now enabled for uploads longer than 15 minutes. Click the Upload button below to select a video."

I guess I finally have a reason to celebrate 560,016 total upload views :-) I wonder what I should upload first! Maybe I can do a 24 hour _silent video_ and call it modern art.

<comment><USER5> You could start with Andy Warhol's _Empire_. It's 8 hours of the Empire State Building. Yeah, the Empire State Building... for 8 hours :-) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_%281964_film%29>

<comment><USER6> Wow, that must be the only movie ever made that takes longer to watch than it did to make.

(It was filmed at 24fps for 6 hours, 36 min, but is shown at 16fps for 8 hours 5 minutes).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> bit offtopic here: i have most of the videos from arsdigita(aduni) courses - all in .rm format. Would anyone know of optimized conversion to youtube compatible format?

uploading these lectures (with attribution) is something i would like to do.

<comment><USER8> Good plan. I have the DVD's if higher quality is needed (or maybe that's what you have too?)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> By the way, it's a serious threat to Vimeo.

I was thinking to start a premium account at Vimeo for publishing educational videos. Now I can go with Youtube.

<comment><USER10> The question is whether you would really want to go with YT?

I mean the quality of the comments, the quality of the design (yes it's sheit).

Vimeo seems like a much better space to seed your content.

<comment><USER11> Why not use both? I'd imagine the more views the better for educational videos.

<comment><USER12> I've always used YT for traffic, and Vimeo for display on a website.

<comment><USER9> Exactly!!

Youtube generates a ton of serendipity watchers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> key word left out of HN title: "some"

<comment><USER14> Actually, I feel the title is accurate. Some restrictions are always assumed -- for example, you need an internet connection to upload to Youtube. This restriction prevents many more people from uploading than the actual restrictions mentioned in the article. For those who didn't read the article, an account with a good history is required for uploading. Yes, not everybody has one of those, but anybody with an internet connection can get one of those.

<comment><USER15> Not so much. My first thought, after all, was "Hooray, now I can watch Top Gear and Doctor Who episodes which aren't split into six different sections!" I don't really want to watch 60-minute videos of someone's cat.

(Incidentally, before anyone gets on my arse about copyright violation which I usually disapprove of, I feel justified in pirating Top Gear and Doctor Who since they're shown for free on the (Australian) ABC or SBS. I pay Australian taxes despite not being resident there, so I damn well should be able to watch what I've already paid for.)

<comment><USER16> I don't think you'll get to do that even with the relaxed time limits. The lifting of the time restriction means that YouTube is confident enough in its content detection algorithms that they're no longer relying on arbitrary length limits as a restriction on copyright violations. This means that any unauthorized Top Gear or Dr. Who videos will probably be flagged and taken down within hours of their posting.

<comment><USER15> Exactly, that's what I was saying. The only reason I'd want longer videos is so I can watch stuff which I legally can't, so the fact that they're allowing it now is not a great source of excitement to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I thought there was already a subset of users who could go over the 15 minute limit. Is there anything new here? I can see this being cool once they no longer have the limit; and I think that is where they are going based on this article, but I can't really tell you.

<comment><USER18> Before today, certain accounts could go beyond the 15 minute limit (partner accounts, director accounts, things like that). Starting today, regular YouTube users who have been on the site for a while and haven't caused any copyright problems for YouTube can also go beyond that 15 minutes. Power to the people.

<comment><USER17> Awesome, thanks for the further bit of information.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> This is useless for 99% of the content creators out there. Only filmmakers/movie studios/or education use would benefit from this. People should realize that most online video content needs to be snack size (2-5 minutes MAX).

Audiences are too fickle to watch more than a few minutes of video. The average video is watched 2 minutes and then people taper off. They would rather consume more pieces of video (quantity) than more of a single video.

In the lean-back environment, this would be a different story.

<comment><USER20> We're actually seeing the exact opposite on blip.tv. Average video length on our site of popular content is about 13 minutes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> This is fantastic. They've found a sweetspot between going no limit (Google Video) and YouTube as it was before.

I look forward to seeing my StarCraft 2 matches in one session. :)

</comment><comment><USER22> FTA: "The new feature will be available only to a subset of users who have never violated copyright rules"

I wonder how this works with the false-flagging and the DMCA abuse that I've heard of. While their algorithms can detect if your video has someone else's content, I'm not so sure it can detect if the usage is considered fair use.

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if this has anything to do with server resources; IE is 1 30-minute video less intensive and take up less space than 3 10-minute videos? (Considering that most long videos are just cut into parts.)

If so, I'd imagine it would have an impact, considering the sheer size of YouTube's userbase.

<comment><USER24> Not really. A 30 minute video file might be slightly smaller than three 10 minute video files but the difference would be negligible.

What's happened is that YouTube has developed a way to identify infringing content, and profit from it.

They can find an "illegal" clip of a TV show or movie, contact the copyright owner, and with their permission leave it on the site but serve up advertising alongside, splitting the revenue with the legitimate owner. Everybody wins. Allowing longer videos will let them do the same thing with full episodes or feature movies.

<comment><USER23> Gotcha.

But wouldn't longer movies being in multiple pages/clips serve more advertising? I realize that the clips may not even be uploaded if a time limit is imposed, but I would assume that more clips = more potential ad clicks.

I suppose also that the advances in Content ID (the copyright checking system) may only be effective on longer clips.

All in all, there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, and maybe YouTube is just taking the least complicated route.

<comment><USER25> Youtube supports what are essentially commercial breaks on long videos already. The uploader can even choose to place them at logical breaks in the video.

I was watching some in-the-ER/ridealong-with-the-cops type videos on a Youtube channel the other night, and the video would be interrupted on occasion by video ads in between scenes, etc.

<comment><USER23> I see. I should probably watch more Youtube before I start asking obvious questions about it.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> It's in Google's best interest to lift the time limit for all videos. Keeping people in the YouTube app on GoogleTV is best for Google. Pro-sumer content creators need to be able to post their full-length video on YouTube.

</comment><comment><USER27> So do I count as having "violated copyright rules" because Content ID incorrectly attributed the music in one of my videos to some artist I've never heard of? Which, by the way, is not uncommon.

<comment><USER28> I'm sure you do. I am a "ContentID criminal" for the same reason. Youtube isn't really the place I would choose for hosting my content after dealing with that...

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Funny... I got the message that I could upload longer videos, but the bullet points next to the upload button still say "Shorter than 15 minutes."</comment>


Oculus Founder: Rift will come to Mac if Apple "ever releases a good computer" - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/03/oculus-founder-rift-will-come-to-mac-if-apple-ever-release-a-good-computer/ <comment><USER2> Apple has never catered to the PC gaming market. I wonder why that is. Low margins? Low volume? Race to the bottom on price?

<comment><USER3> The issue is software library related: they'd have to pay Microsoft a bunch of money find a way to get Direct X to work on their system. Granted there are a number of libraries that _don 't_ use Direct X, but they mostly use OpenGL, which is also not very well implemented on Mac OS. Blizzard games are pretty much the only exception, and they've sort of dropped that in Overwatch.

Some of this is fixable, but not a priority as long as Direct X is blocking them from a good chunk of the market. The real solution is to just dual boot into Windows for PC games. Or depend on the handful of ports that use Cider + OpenGL in the background and run slower with more RAM usage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google Cardboard is working on underpowered mobile devices. Is Oculus 10x better than the Cardboard experience?

If it is only for gaming, this is a non-issue, but I was under the impression FB had larger goals for Oculus than just the high-end gaming market.</comment>


Ask YC: What's a typical stock compensation for joining a series A, 6 months old startup? - <AUTHOR> I have a job offer from an early stage (6 months old), series A funded startup, consisting of cash and around 0.35% equity (common stock options).  The stocks can go up to 0.5% max, with less cash.  Some health coverage, no 401K, nothing else actually.  I'll be the 8th employee.
Since I have never worked for a startup, I am asking you: what's a "typical" stock offering figure for a early stage startup?  And what would that be for a more "established" startup (e.g. Twitter)?  I'm trying to understand if their equity offering is below or above market.
This is all very exciting but also confusing because I don't have anything to compare it with in my past experience. <comment><USER2> This is pretty typical of my experience. I was offered 0.1% at my first startup (angel-funded, about 4 months old, I was straight out of high school, think I was employee #13 but the first 6 or so employees were from an earlier bootstrapped incarnation of the company and were no longer there). 0.022% at a startup I interviewed with just out of college (series A coming up on a series B, about a year and a half old, employee #22). No equity at the startup I ended up taking a job with - companies that intend to remain private forever are often very stingy in giving away stock.

It's pretty typical to have health benefits but no 401k. You should be getting roughly market-rate compensation at a funded startup though; that's why they have funding. If you want big stock grants, you need to take big risks, i.e. work for little or no salary.

Edit: One more thing that I want to add since I've seen many friends get burned or disillusioned by this: you should assume that the only thing you'll get out of a startup is the cash you're paid and the experience of having worked there. Very few early employees cash out with enough that they never have to work again: the ones I know all fall into 3 categories:

1.) They founded the company.

2.) The company went public and became a household name.

3.) They joined early and rose really high, i.e. VP level.

The vast majority of early startup employees don't fit these categories: either their company is acquired in the $40M range and they end up with $3K (true story), or their equity is diluted by multiple successive funding rounds so that they end up owning a tiny fraction of their initial equity stake (also a true story), or the company goes bust and their equity is worth nothing (yeah, that's me). If you go in expecting a job where you'll learn things and hopefully build something cool, then any massive payday is just gravy. If you go in expecting a massive payday, you'll probably be disappointed.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for your remarks. It looks like I am in a typical ballpark as far as the equity compensation goes, maybe slightly above average. And I am definitively planning to continue to work after this. :) But I also hope in "some" payday, otherwise I wouldn't be taking any stocks.

I _could_ get market rate salary with less stock, but I think I am going with a below-market salary and more stocks. About that, I am still trying to decide the right balance...

<comment><USER2> Financially, you're almost always better off taking more cash and less stock. In the average startup, things do _not_ go well, so a raise in 8 months may not really be in the cards (and if things _are_ going well, your equity will be worth much more than your salary anyway).

But there are intangible benefits to taking more equity and less salary. You work harder, which means that you get to work on more interesting things, which opens up more doors in the future. If I were to take a job now (and I'm looking :-)), I'd probably go for more equity and a lower salary as long as it's adequate to cover basic living costs, if only because there're only so many material comforts that one needs...

<comment><USER3> > In the average startup, things do not go well

At one point, I had something like 10K Linuxcare options, when VA Linux and Redhat had recently had _huge_ IPO's and were trading well north of $100. _Sigh_...

It's not something I think about much though. I was paid well and got a lot of other things out of the experience. However...yeah, it's pretty easy for things to turn sour in a hurry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If that is all you guys are getting, start your own company or expect to earn cash doing consulting.

Just do the math, if you get 0.3% if a company, then they do two or three more round devaluing you, you're at 0.1% at best. How much does the company have to sell for you to see a windfall which is more than 1x your annual salary? a LOT. They basically have to public.

Being a second or third tier hire is a bad place to be. Not enough salary to make it worth it, not enough stock to have a windfall (unless you do ipo which isn't happening a lot right now), and huge hours as if you were a co-founder / first employee.

<comment><USER2> Depends where the company is in its lifetime.

Basically, it sucks to be an early employee in a startup that does not yet have traction ("product/market fit", in Marc Andreesen's words). You take on most of the risk of a founder yet have nowhere near the reward. And the hours are often founder-like as well, since the company often has no clue what it's doing and so you just keep doing everything until something works or you run out of money. And if you do run out of money (pretty likely), nobody knows or cares about what you did, which can hurt you in your future career.

Being an early employee in a startup with traction can be a very nice place to be, though. Many people underestimate both the chances of success once traction's been achieved (high, even if you're not yet profitable) and the potential market size. And you don't have to put up with the uncertainty and risk that the founders did. Most startups with traction don't get sold for $10-50M that's common for a startup with a product and a couple customers, they get sold for $200M+ or they go public for $5B+.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are huge variations depending on your expertise and any unique skill sets, title, etc.

At a startup that has received a first round of funding from a top tier VC, a VP could expect something in the 1.5% to 3% range (more for marketing & technical people, average for product and business, less for finance and support). Directors might get between 0.5% to 1.0%. Manager levels half that with technical and marketing people higher in the range, product in the middle and everyone else lower. More for earlier in the product lifecycle (pre- prototype, pre-funding, pre-launch, etc.).

<comment><AUTHOR> I should have said this in my post. I'm going to join as a Sr. software engineer. I have around 8 years of experience and a MSEE. I wouldn't say my skill set is unique, honestly, especially here in Silicon Valley.

The product is in stealth so I can't disclose anything about it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> thats about average. if you're not a ridiculously important, irreplaceable employee, don't expect more than 1%.

</comment><comment><USER7> It's fairly typical, but I'm used to seeing at least a 401K with no match. Most startups I have worked for at this stage started exploring HR Benefits companies and generally the benefits improve slightly.

My advice is not to buy up the stock by taking less cash at that stage. .15% probably won't justify it.

<comment><AUTHOR> There's a planned salary increase up to market rate in 8 months from now (if things go well of course). That's also why I am considering more stocks now. If I start with a market rate salary now, I won't be getting any pay increase later.

<comment><USER7> Ah. In that case, buy them up. I've seen planned increases to market rate go awry, but if you're comfortable that it'll be delivered, it can't hurt to forgo 8 months for another .15%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> If your account is an anonymous account, can you disclose how much cash you were offered? Or an approximate amount. It makes it easier to evaluate the entire offer.

</comment><comment><USER9> The no 401K is a fairly big deal.

Here in the UK, for high rate tax payers, a matching pension is worth a bit more than 140% of the stated value. So for an $80k job a 5% matching pension is worth nearly $6k a year.

That's equal to a 0.1% stake in a $60m company, with better certainty of growth. So over five years it might match half a percent stake depending on your appetite for risk.</comment>


Delaware Law Requires Companies to Open Books to Shareholders - <AUTHOR> http://on.wsj.com/1OKFn27 <comment><AUTHOR> This is a front-page story. The posted link should work even if you're not a WSJ subscriber. If you see a pop-up warning about ad blockers, just dismiss it.</comment>


On the Tenacity of Internet Explorer 6 - <AUTHOR> http://particletree.com/features/on-the-tenacity-of-internet-explorer-6/ <comment><AUTHOR> His analysis makes a lot of sense.

I wonder if ads "make the web suck" enough for general users to switch if some browser made ad blocking a priority out of the box. It seems likes a pretty powerful feature, but people are conditioned to have ads surrounding everything they see so they might not care.

Unfortunately Firefox is probably the only existing candidate for turning on ad blocking as a default and there's no way they have the balls for that given their relationships with advertisers (I'm thinking mainly of Google, but am guessing there are more).

Watch the Mozilla CEO skirt the question: [http://apcmag.com/6043/why_theres_no_inbuilt_adblocker_in_fi...](http://apcmag.com/6043/why_theres_no_inbuilt_adblocker_in_firefox_yet_mozilla_ceo)

<comment><USER2> I wonder. I have trouble getting my girlfriend to mute the TV during commercials. She finds them entertaining. :( I wonder if other people like "punching the monkey"? _shudder_</comment></comment>


Global Travel API's for flights, hotels, activities, trains - <AUTHOR> https://www.airhob.com/developers <comment><AUTHOR> I'm the cofounder of Airhob.

We've recently launched our Developers Platform with Global Travel API's for: 1) Flights - Hundreds of airlines covering both low-cost carriers and full- service carriers. 2) Stays - Over 670,000+ properties including hotels, apartments, villas, BnB's etc. 3) International Trains - Trains in UK, Europe, Canada and Russia. 4) Rail Passes - 4 types of passes for budget travel across the entire european region. 5) Activities - Over 55,000+ activities around the world. 6) Tours - Various group, expeditions, luxury and budget tours in over 100 countries.

Using our API's is totally free and integrating it is a peace of mind :)

We're an IATA, TAFI, UFTAA, TAAI accredited travel company since last 25 years and are the official PSA of Swiss Tours, having served over 100k+ travelers around the world.

Things are changing and we're trying to be the front runners. Coming from a tech, product and marketing background, I know the importance of developer- friendly API's.

If anybody is interested, please visit our www.airhob.com/developers and start integrating. Feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com</comment>


Ask HN: Is "claim your profile" a good strategy? - <AUTHOR> I wanted to get an idea on what the community thinks of the claim your profile strategy for a way to gain user-base.  What's good or bad about it? <comment><USER2> You mean like what the sketchy reputation websites have? Or dark pattern home listing sites? Or pump and dump academia "social networks"?

It'll burn any goodwill you have in my book.

No one wants to know you sucked up info about them and then compiled it all into a shadow profile. And it's practically blackmail to make them claim it to correct your errors.

If you're in the B2B space it may be different.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm not familiar with that strategy (can you define it?), but I'd expect that certain strategies work better for some products but poorly for others. What market are you thinking about?</comment>