Court rules universities may have duty to block websites that harass students - <AUTHOR> https://reason.com/volokh/2018/12/19/universities-may-have-duty-to-block-stud <comment><USER2> Somewhere we went wrong when coming up with this idea of online harassment.

People are going to say mean things to other people. This is never going to change.

The solution is simple. If somebody is saying something you don't like then don't visit their site. If it is in a platform then block them and or set your profile to only interact with a white list. If they say something as fact about you that is not true, sue them, we already have the laws for this stuff. But most importantly stop worrying about what somebody else says to you online.

People have a duty to police their own online content. Nobody should be telling me what I can and can't look at on the internet (please don't take that out of context of laws)

Universities are not our parents.

<comment><USER3> > Somewhere we went wrong

Yes. The moment we brought up the chant of "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me". The brain can break the same way your legs or arms can and the "just tough it out" answer is not an answer at all.

No one would suggest you should just not visit a neighborhood if people there attacked you. The proof that the web should be a special case because "muh, free speech above all" is very flimsy.

<comment><USER4> >No one would suggest you should just not visit a neighborhood if people there attacked you.

I would absolutely suggest that. I'd advise you right now not to e.g. take a trip to the south side of Chicago. What are you suggesting? That the government has an obligation to proactively prevent crime? How is that to be done? Martial law?

You can't have the freedoms you enjoy and complete safety. It's the price we pay, and it's worth it.

<comment><USER5> >I would absolutely suggest that.

For the sake of the person's safety that should be suggested, but where does one draw the line at such suggestions? College aged women are safer if they don't drink alcohol, so should that be the official statement of a university? What about saying that if they stay with a male guardian, they will be safer than if they don't? If that statement is true, should it be an official policy statement made to increase safety?

<comment><USER4> >College aged women are safer if they don't drink alcohol, so should that be the official statement of a university?

If they're under 21 probably, yeah. At 21 and above, like always, you have to be careful of what situations you put yourself in. That's not victim blaming, it's reality. Malicious people will always exist and women will always be at a physical disadvantage.

>What about saying that if they stay with a male guardian, they will be safer than if they don't? If that statement is true, should it be an official policy statement made to increase safety?

No, it should not be a rule because the government should not limit a woman's right to travel as they see fit. Don't you see the problem with this line of thinking? Safety at the cost of freedom is a mistake.

<comment><USER5> >No, it should not be a rule

Sorry for the confusion, I didn't mean for it to exist as an actual rule, just as an recommendation by the institution in question. Such as a campus police department giving out safety tips.

<comment><USER4> In that case I suppose I don't really care. I care about the limitation of freedom, not suggestions. If this were simply a suggestion then sure, why not? Who cares, people may do as they like. It may be something that catches our attention for a news cycle or two, but it's not a big deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> MWU was successful in having the complaint dismissed in US Circuit Court. The ruling in the article is a remand from Fourth Circuit Appeals vacating the US Circuit Court's dismissal of two claims and upholding its dismissal of the third claim. As required, the ruling is based on a favorable reading of the plaintiff's argument (since the case was not heard at trial).

The title of the article is misleading in so far as there is a difference between websites and mobile apps. And perhaps in so far as the specific app involved, Yik-Yak, used geolocation tied directly to specific universities and using MWU's network was a first order means of accessing Yik-Yak in the context of the MWU oriented Yik-Yak community.

Neither party denies that threats of rape and murder were made via Yik-Yak against specific students.

The plaintiffs allege that MWU could have blacklisted Yik-Yak's IP address on it's network. The plaintiffs cited the failure of MWU to block Yik-Yak as evidence of deliberate indifference to Title IX and Equal Protection claims.

The keystone of MWU's defense against the deliberate indifference claims was that blocking Yik-Yak would be a violation of the First Amendment.

4th Appeals determined that threats of rape and murder made via Yik-Yak were threatening speech and ruled on established precedent that threatening speech is not protected. As a matter of legal precedent the court noted the long standing practice of blocking music and video download IP addresses and sanctioning students for copyright infringing downloads as evidence of technical and practical feasibility.

The court vacated the dismissal of the Title IX and Equal Protection Clause claims and remanded back to the Circuit Court.

<comment><USER7> So, what would have happened if they UMW had blocked Yik Yak on their network and students continued to use it (since its a smartphone app) on their phones using cellular data?

<comment><USER8> The actual Court Opinion misrepresented the actual block option. When YikYak was actually running, a proper block request could be sent to the company to blackout the GPS coordinates of a University from the app, effectively killing the local YikYak community.

The app worked based on GPS proximity -- you had to be within 1.5 miles of a given university in order to participate in the "herd" as they called it. This added a lot of character to each individual herd, even if all the groups essentially just reposted the same memes from 4chan/reddit non-stop, but with their own local flavor attached.

YikYak had for some time been cooperating with schools and universities to perform the blackouts and even advertised it as a means of compliance and battling harassment through the app.

Had a blackout request been made, it would have been effective and the above question would not have been relevant.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Dear lord. Are you an adult when you turn 18? Why all the babysitting at uni? It's school, not a daycare.

<comment><USER10> Uni is essentially extended High-School for students nowadays, unfortunately.

<comment><USER11> Yep, and school shootings are way too common for university admins to ignore. They almost _have_ to do something.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could a mod please change the link to the actual Court Opinion [1]? Both the linked article and the source that is cited omit a considerable amount of detail as to what actions are actually being proposed, the context of the threats (surrounding events and the platform YikYak, which requires proximity to participate in), and also completely ignores the actual suggestions made by the Court.

[1] [http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/172220.P.pdf](http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/172220.P.pdf)

<comment><USER12> Reason.com omitting context and detail? Say it ain't so.

<comment><USER13> This isn't so much Reason as the Volokh Conspiracy (who used to be independent, then were hosted at the Washington Post for a few years, and now are at Reason). Specifically this is Eugene Volokh, who is usually very careful and said this in TFA: "I'm traveling, and thus won't have time to post a detailed analysis myself, but here's part of the analysis from Samantha Harris at FIRE:".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does this mean that Universities have to block Facebook since a lot of harassment is done over it?

(yes wishful thinking)

</comment><comment><USER15> The important distinction here is not whether the speech is good or bad; it's whether we are punishing bad speech that happened in the past or actually preventing speech from happening in the future (which may be good or bad).

The first amendmemt rightly allows punishing many kinds of bad speech after the fact, but places a _much_ higher bar for restraining speech in the future.

Blocking websites or communication apps over harassment is simply unconstitutional unless there is some kind of extreme example (like the domain name itself being invalid speech).

</comment><comment><USER16> Looking at the opinion there's more than the university could have done in order to remedy the situation aside from block YikYak. That's where their failure lies. It doesn't seem like blocking YikYak would have been a must or required. I hope schools don't use this as a reason to make that kind of thing the first response taken.

</comment><comment><USER17> We need Bill and Ted now more than ever.

</comment><comment><USER18> No more Facebook or twitter... or social media...

</comment><comment><USER19> If the speech in question was determined to be a true threat, blocking exposure to the speech could have serious unintended consequences. It could people unaware of specific threats and expose them to harm. Ignorance is bliss...until it gets you hurt.

If someone posted a credible threat of violence against people fitting my demographic profile, I'd want to be aware of it. I don't need to be protected from the words. I don't say that to diminish the negative effects of hate speech at all. I may be hurt and angry after reading them. It could trigger me in ways that I try to avoid. That being said, I think our courts need a reminder that the negative effects of exposure to hate-violence can be much more severe than exposure to hate speech. I'd rather fight myself, in my own head, than someone who wants to do me physical harm.

<comment><USER8> This is a misunderstanding of the actual complaint from the plaintiff, and it likely comes from the very misleading article title from Reason.com:

I posted this below, but:

The complaint is not that YikYak wasn't blocked -- it's that no action was taken by the University to investigate the threats properly and readily, even so much as just creating a strong stance on "hey, don't tell people you're going to kill them". Blocking YikYak was simply __an option__ which the University could have taken, but that wasn't the thrust of the plaintiffs' argument at all, nor the Court's Opinion. The point of blocking YikYak was more of a point that "well, you absolutely could have done something", rather than a prescribed course of action.

You're arguing a point that was not made by the plaintiffs and also is not related to the actual court Opinion either. The crux of the complaint is that in light of real, credible threats, the University took no action whatsoever. The Opinion is more about how the defenses of anonymity made it "impossible" for the University to act and that 1st Amendment protections prohibited [the university] from doing so were considered invalid in light of other case law.

<comment><USER19> About 10-15% of the opinion addresses the issues of whether or not the university had "substantial control" over the vehicle for harassment and if it displayed "deliberate indifference" in not taking appropriate steps to end the harassment. It rejects the idea that the University can't control activity on its own network. It also notes that the University allowed the harassment to continue for months when it could have stopped it.

It seems like we're reading pages 14 - 24(ish) of the opinion - plus some later sections - differently. That's the nature of this sort of ruling. This does not constitute a misunderstanding of the complaint on my part, nor was I misled by the title on reason.com.

Personally, I agree with the vast majority of the opinion. The University could have - and should have - done more to pinpoint the harassers and punish them in accordance with university policy. It does not explicitly state that the University should have blocked the app, but it does spend considerable time demonstrating that not blocking the app constituted deliberate indifference to the harassment.

I also agree with the other poster who mentioned there are other ways for communicating threats. With hindsight being 20-20, though, we don't know if a threat is a serious threat until it is acted upon. By the time those systems are activated, there has generally already been violence and/or loss of life, unfortunately.

[http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/172220.P.pdf](http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/172220.P.pdf)</comment></comment></comment>


Issues in AWS us-east-1 launching instances - <AUTHOR> From a chat with a support agent:<p>"it seems at the moment there is an internal issue affecting instance launches in the us-east-1 region. I'm trying to get updates right now" <comment><AUTHOR> It never showed up in my PHD (personal health dashboard) so it may have been a brief anomaly. Shared here in case others were seeing issues.

<comment><USER2> we are still seeing issues here

<comment><AUTHOR> It did finally show up in our PHD, but it showed up as having been resolved:

"[08:52 AM PDT] Between 7:49AM PDT and 8:27AM PDT EC2 experienced elevated API errors for instance related APIs in a single Availability Zone in the US- EAST-1 region. Existing instances were not affected. The issue has been resolved and the service is operating normally."

It was in US-EAST-1C.

<comment><USER2> we got 503s in multiple AZs in us-east-1 and are still unable to start a specific instance in us-east-1b :(</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google is down - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com

<comment><USER2> Not from where I'm typing

<comment><USER3> Unless he meant the stock - it did go down a bit in the afternoon today. =p

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google was down for me for about 4 minutes today. I'm in San Diego. I don't recall what time it was exactly but it was approximately 6:15ish pm Pacific Time.

It wasn't just the search engine either, the first thing that I noticed down was my work email (Google Apps based). Not only could I not reach google or any of my Google Apps email accounts, but I couldn't reach any app engine sites including (irony?) downforeveryoneorjustme.com.

Not sure what the outage was or how local it was, but I did actually see what the submitter here saw as well -- he isn't crazy. My internet connection was working fine other than the inability to reach seemingly any google powered site, traceroute to www.google.com failed though the ip resolved correctly.</comment>


Free Pascal 2.6.2 is released - <AUTHOR> http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/index.php/topic,20046.html <comment><USER3> Pascal (and then Delphi) was the first non-interpreted programming language I learned and I used it for a few years for pretty much everything - <USER2> because it provided a sane wrapper to the Win32 API, but mainly because it was a lot of fun to program with.

Compared to pretty much any GUI/code-behind editor the Delphi concept is an absolute joy to use. Sadly it's been a long time since the components have been updated (it's still pretty much a Win32 clone from what I can tell and today the Lazarus component palette feels extremely outdated). I just wish the Xcode folks would have taken a few more pages from Delphi's playbook.

It's nice to see this environment lives on in Free Pascal/Lazarus.

I sometimes think the Pascal idea could be rediscovered some day, maybe with a syntax addition or two.

<comment><USER4> > I just wish the Xcode folks would have taken a few more pages from Delphi's > playbook.

Indeed. Delphi was clearly influenced by NeXT/Interface Builder, but even back in 1995 it was miles ahead of today's Xcode.

For those not familiar with it, Delphi's UI editor was always live. You could create a data source object, enter the database connection info, then create a table view and point it at the data source, and the table would be filled with real data -- all within the editor. Like Interface Builder, the editor was running the real visual components (the equivalent of Cocoa's NSView), but unlike Interface Builder, Delphi focused on providing a true WYSIWYG experience, making it very easy to build new visual components that would be rendered live in the editor. Apple has moved away from this, in fact, with the latest Xcode no longer supporting plugins, and so custom views can no longer be rendered inside Interface Builder.

It's incredibly weird and sad that 18 (!) years later, current GUI tools are worse than Delphi was in 1995.

<comment><USER5> Delphi was the first "real" platform I used (version 1.0 on Windows 3.11) and it wasn't until much later that I realized how good I'd had it. In addition to the rather obvious idea that the GUI should be designed graphically, it also had a fast compiler and a good integrated debugger. If I remember correctly the entire Delphi IDE was itself developed in Delphi.

<comment><USER6> At some point of time there was an open source delphi IDE, and it was developed in Delphi, but I think the official one wasn't (at least at the beginning).

<comment><USER5> I'm pretty sure at least most versions of the official IDE were written in Delphi (the IDE--not the compiler, of course). I remember trying to hack plugins into it and it was clearly Delphi code.

Random person on SO seems to agree [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766753/what-ide-is- the-d...](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766753/what-ide-is-the-delphi- ide-developed-in)

<comment><USER7> indeed. The strangest thing is you can debug the delphi ide in the delphi ide. I do this from time to time to debug components that have start up problems

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Its great to see this. Pascal was the language they taught us in highschool. Everyone in the class was given a license to Borland Turbo Pascal v5. While I haven't really used it since, Pascal will always hold a special place in my heart. I wrote my first game in it, and spent many long nights trying to figure out how to accept mouse interrupts, how to use pointers to efficiently redraw graphics, and lots of other fundamental things I now take for granted.

<comment><USER9> Pascal (and specifically Borland's Turbo Pascal) is what started my transition from spaghetti code BASIC to something at least vaguely structured. All (mostly) self-taught -- my high school didn't have any kind of programming classes -- but Pascal encouraged a structure much more than BASIC did, and helped me to realize the importance.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I write code in a number of languages, and I have to say Object-Pascal (which is the language the IDE known as Delphi uses) is a joy.

Check out Lazarus too, the Delphi like IDE for Free Pascal: <http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/>

<snarky comment> Too bad most programs weren't written in Delphi instead of C/C++, or we could've avoided all those pesky string based buffer overflow exploits since Object-Pascal doesn't allocate strings on the stack! </snarky comment>

But more seriously, that means no "smashing the stack for fun and profit" in Object-Pascal, and that's a good thing.

I picked up learning Delphi about 8 years ago when it was supposed to be "dead" then, and since then it has been my secret weapon. I still use C once in a while, but I am so much more productive in Delphi and the Free Pascal.

</comment><comment><USER11> I wonder how compatible the Photoshop 1.0 code is with this and how much effort it would take to get it vaguely working. I recall there being a shedload of assembly which would obviously need ported/rewritten and presumably there'd be old MacOS API calls which would need to be handled so I'd suspect a fair amount of work there. However does anyone know if the rest of the code would be fine?

<comment><AUTHOR> The FreePascal complier supports MacPas dialect , here is howto start compiling with it

<http://wiki.freepascal.org/Mode_MacPas>

<http://wiki.freepascal.org/Porting_from_Mac_Pascal>

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> One language I regret the demise of.

</comment><comment><USER13> Turbo pascal 6 circa 1992 was my first introduction to object orientation. I'd only coded basic and assembly before that. I walked around with my mind blown for a week.

Long live pascal.

</comment><comment><USER14> Delphi 7 was the _last_ good release of the product. The IDE was written in Delphi. The compiler for the language was BCC, the borland C/C++ compiler. Then Borland started to chase .NET and MS led them on into thinking they could catch up to C#.

Any good modern Pascal product should fork from where D7 left off.

IMHO.

<comment><USER10> Wrong.

Delphi has offloaded .NET support to a partner (RemObjects' Delphi Prism/Oxygene). Since Delphi 2007, they have doubled down on native development. Even releasing native console and GUI compilation support for OSX, and iOS in late beta.

Since Delphi 7 (released in 2002), Delphi (and FPC) have added:

* Generics * Anonymous methods * Enhanced RTTI * Attributes * Records with methods * for in loop * final methods * Inlining * Operator overloading * sealed methods * strict private * strict protected * Nested classes * Class helpers * Class constructors and destructors * Static class methods

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Any example of real and recent use of it?

I wondered not that long ago if FreePascal could be a cross platform solution to develop GUI apps with Lazarus. Anyone having experience with that?

<comment><USER16> My university uses C or Pascal to teach Maths students basic programming (hello world, sorting, trees, stacks, graphs, etc).

Friends who landed at the Pascal version of this course appear to ask much less questions about parsing the syntax.

<comment><USER17> Here's a challenge: try to find a piece of pascal code that looks "impressive".

Even the most complex object pascal code using pointers and closures and generics all together looks boring and easy to parse for anyone who has done some code.

This might sound awesome (and it is), but this is also a huge turn off for new comers, lots of people think delphi/object pascal is like visual basic ...

<comment><USER18> isn't "easy to parse for anyone who has done some code" an advantage?

<comment><USER19> One would think, but many times I've tried to love Ada and Eiffel and I always find myself falling asleep at the terminal. "Boring" can also mean "too much repetition" or "spread too thin."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> How is the COM support (if any) in Free Pascal? That is one area Delphi really shined.

<comment><USER10> It's very good. In fact, the open-source WMI Delphi Code Creator can generate the native WMI calls (and programs) for you in FreePascal, Delphi, C#, and Microsoft C++:

<https://code.google.com/p/wmi-delphi-code-creator/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's still alive..

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes and growing slowly [http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index....](http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html)

<comment><USER22> TIOBE's methodology is pretty controversial[0], I wouldn't read anything into changes as small as this.

[0] [http://blog.timbunce.org/2009/05/17/tiobe-index-is-being- gam...](http://blog.timbunce.org/2009/05/17/tiobe-index-is-being-gamed/)

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree that is controversial the method of tiobe measuring

Another option is to consult the download page for free pascal compiler (this is one of the mirrors)

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/stats/time...](https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/stats/timeline?dates=2002-02-21+to+2013-02-27)

Also lazarus ide download stats [https://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/stats/timelin...](https://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/stats/timeline?dates=2002-02-21+to+2013-02-27)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Great! Congratulations!</comment>


A plant that seems to remember (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/phenomena/2015/12/15/can-a-plant-remember-this-one-seems-to-heres-the-evidence/ <comment><USER2> I can't help thinking about the late, great Douglas Adams when reading this (and just about any scientific article).

In the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, upon firing the Infinite Improbability Drive while trying to escape two missiles (with nuclear warheads attached), the missiles turned into a very surprised sperm whale and a bowl of petunias.

He goes on to describe "what went through the head of the whale", with a long dialog about coming to terms with its life (while shortly having to come to terms with no longer having one).

"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was 'Oh no, not again'. Many people have speculated that if we knew exactly why the bowl of petunias had thought that we would know a lot more about the nature of the Universe than we do now."

Silliness aside, it's fascinating seeing unexpected discoveries like this -- and something like this really does underscore how large the body of knowledge is that "we don't know" about biology, in general.

<comment><USER3> Funnily enough, the pot of petunias is part of a "brick joke" in one of the later books, where it is revealed to have been part of a reincarnation-line of a single being, which was killed by Arthur Dent every time it lived, either directly or indirectly. (Hence the 'Oh no, not again')

Douglas Adams had a way of thinking which made him right about quite a lot of future discoveries/technologies, even though most of his predictions were meant as hyperbole...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Far more interesting than the mimosa plant is the fact that Gagliano went on to perform Pavlov's experiment with pea plants - successfully.

She trained Pea Plants to associate airflow with light, causing them to grow towards a breeze expecting it to soon be followed with light.

That shows far more than just desensitization memory.

[https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study- shows-p...](https://theconversation.com/pavlovs-plants-new-study-shows-plants- can-learn-from-experience-69794)

<comment><USER5> I wonder if the breeze was warm, that could be a good hint for the plant.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I remember reading : The presence of the past by Rupert Sheldrake and thinking it was a little bit too much pseudo science personally, but it did raise some interesting questions that I don't think have been resolved.

It's an interesting thought experiment for me though to imagine.

Another interesting one is the box jellyfish with eyes yet appear to not have any brains for processing the images : [https://www.livescience.com/13929-box- jellyfish-eyes-navigat...](https://www.livescience.com/13929-box-jellyfish- eyes-navigation-brain.html)

</comment><comment><USER7> There are some studies that show that Bacteria also have memories. This shows that the memory can also be stored in other places than neurons.

Some examples:

Bacteria can pass on memory to descendants, researchers discover [https://phys.org/news/2018-04-bacteria-memory- descendants.ht...](https://phys.org/news/2018-04-bacteria-memory- descendants.html)

Collective memory discovered in bacteria [https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160307153047.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160307153047.htm)

Bacteria become "genomic tape recorders" [https://news.mit.edu/2014/bacteria- storage-device-memory-111...](https://news.mit.edu/2014/bacteria-storage- device-memory-1113)

And slime mold (TED talk) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UxGrde1NDA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UxGrde1NDA)

<comment><USER8> Two things are interesting about this to me:

First, the fact that bacteria can have memory!!

Second, the fact that this surprises me. Trivially, even for a single cell animal, it is not shocking that it might gain some survival advantage from having a memory of sorts, and that is really not a high bar to jump over in terms of required infrastructure. Almost any sort of very simple memory could be used advantageously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Plants, they_ [mainstream botanists] _insist, are mainly genetic robots_

Interestingly, that's what many people thought about animals too; Descartes famously described animals (all animals, including usual pets like dogs, etc.) as machines, mindless robots.

It's already common knowledge that plants communicate with one another about danger; why shouldn't they remember? Just because we don't know _how_ doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

</comment><comment><USER10> The capacity to respond at all implies "memory", so this is a beat-up title. However, do the plants obtain sensory input regarding the artificial motion in a similar fashion to that in which they become aware of wind? If so, even given that vicious winds could be damaging (1) different places will inevitably have different wind levels and these could changes seasonally or with microclimatic variation (eg. fallen trees) (2) plants can't exactly get up and move. Therefore, some adaptability with respect to local conditions should be expected. I would be surprised if there isn't more advanced research in this area.

<comment><USER11> How does the capacity to respond imply memory rather than reflex?

<comment><USER10> False dichotomy. Ongoing actuation requires memory of the past, period. Even if that memory is created in an instant, dispelled after the fact, and otherwise inaccessible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm super curious how this reflex to curl the leaves in response to touch is adaptive for this plant in the first place.

<comment><USER12> I'd guess to avoid damage from heavy rain/hail/wind. The responses seem to lower surface area, especially when looking down on the plant. That would reduce the number of strikes from rain drops and probably lower their impact.</comment></comment>


Explore Salaries and Equity at AngelList - <AUTHOR> https://angel.co/salaries

<comment><USER2> NYC, mobile developers, most jobs are in the 70-80k range with 1-3% equity. That is a low salary at a small amount of equity for someone with a relatively in-demand skillset.

Please check my maths: in the best case scenario, if you get 3% equity and assume 33% dilution on that equity after an A-round and the company has a 10% chance of a medium 25MM exit, the EV is around $50k. If you assume the same developer could have made a $120k salary with no equity elsewhere that company would have to exit within 1.25yrs for it to be +EV which is probably not feasible.

Someone please check my maths as I am looking at exit values from a 2006 study: [http://qph.cf.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-77bb58e10c69517534aaac1...](http://qph.cf.quoracdn.net/main- qimg-77bb58e10c69517534aaac13b36e00dd)

</comment><comment><USER3> According to Glassdoor:

Sr. Software Engineer at Google, on average (sample size of 189) make $145K on average with $63K bonus for $200K per annum.

So for an average equity of 1.125% for developer (according to angel.co) and average salary of $93K, a startup has to make a non-diluted exit of 8.56 mil on the first year, 17.1 mil on the second year and 25.6 mil in the third year to justify the opportunity cost.

Of course, not every developer can make $200K per year but just food for thought of working for startup vs. BigCo.

<comment><USER4> That's not taking into account other important factors:

        * Work on a new potentially game-changing product as part of the founding team
        * Join a small team where you'lll have more say in the production direction and company growth
        * Opportunity to grow responsibilities as the company grows
        * Gain startup experience and expand your network
        * Potential huge upside you'll never get at $150K/year + $50K bonus balanced by high risk of failure

<comment><USER5> I've worked at both the "BigCo's" (including Google) and "cool new" startups. In summary, it is almost pointless to compare working at big companies and startups.

The variance within both groups is much larger than the differences between the groups. There are pretty good, and very boring big companies. There are amazing, and _hugely terrible_ startups. To find something that you will enjoy you have to evaluate each opportunity separately based on your preferences, not choose a company size first.

All these "important factors" are as much of a marketing tagline as they are an actual benefit. In some startups they might be the case. Probably yes if you are employee number 1-2 but not 10-20, let alone 100-200. But in comparison to some other startups a big company may deliver more value for _all_ of them.

<comment><USER6> Company size is still meaningfully correlated with certain facts and so the distinction ahead of time is meaningful despite the large variance within each group.

In other words, for various reasons (like learning, wearing multiple hats, building up a network, the desire to start a startup) it makes sense to decide ahead of time to work at a startup versus a big company. As long as you work with great people on a mission you are passionate about.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would take job postings on AngelList with a grain of salt. We're keeping an eye there quite a bit recently, and it seems there are strategic reasons (as in make it look like you are doing well to investors) to be posting jobs on a site like AngelList more than the practical ones. I'd say the equity numbers are probably closer to reality than the salaries (I'd be _shocked_ if you as a developer got more than 3% at any company that is beyond seed round). Of course early-mid stage startups aren't going to just flat out _offer_ lots of money, they are trying to make their runway last as long as possible.

</comment><comment><USER8> Hey, this is Nivi from AngelList. Please let me know if you have any questions. And please keep the comments coming. We are iterating on it right now.

<comment><USER9> are you going to internationalize the salary for non US locations.

£ for the Uk and Eros for the Eurozone countrys (BTW for some eu countrys you need to mention if you get the 13th Month or not)

<comment><USER10> We don't track of what currency job postings are in, so the stats for non-USD job listings would be confusing. Some people are posting in USD, others in Euros, etc.

It's something we should do.

For now, you can see what jobs we have in any location at angel.co/jobs (filter by location).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> 1-3% equity for an employee of an early stage startup sounds ridiculously low. Are employees taking less risk than founders ? I think unless you pay salaries at standard market price they should be considered founders.

<comment><USER12> Wrong. There's a big difference between taking $20-50K less per year in salary and chugging away for years with little or no pay. Whether you're full-time as an entrepreneur trying to make a startup or slaving away in your free time, when you could be out partying, there's an inherent risk in time and money that is not the same as a simple pay cut.

<comment><USER11> In my opinion founders chug away for years with little or no pay because they love it. If someone think of it as a sacrifice towards achieving billions then they should be doing something else. You have to enjoy the process. Quantifying your sacrifices in "Fun" is harder than calculating your financial risks and I think equity should be based on that. Partying all the time is not a bad idea if you love it.

<comment><USER13> I think you can't use subjective measures like 'enjoyment' when doing this sort of calculation.

I feel the best way to split equity is to make the standard salary "swappable" with equity. let me give an example:

say 1 founder, 1 early employee. At the start, there is $100k in the bank that the founder put in (or otherwise managed to get). Founder has 100% equity, so each 1% equity is "worth" $1000;

first year, lets say the employee worked and produced $100k worth of value. Lets further say the normal rate is $100k for that employee. So the company has $200k worth of value, even tho there is only $100k in the bank. The employee could take 0% equity, and $100k in money. Or, 50% equity, and $0 money (and all scale variation in between).

<comment><USER11> If you look from investment perspective, Programs like Y Combinator and other incubators take 6-10% of the equity for $20000 seed money and mentoring. Why can an early developer/designer can't ask for 6-10% for working for $20k-$50k less than their market value. They are literally investing $20k+ in your company and adding value by doing work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The graphs bother me. Okay, so 61 Python developer positions offer 0.5-1% and 59 offer 0.25-0.5%; presumably 0.5% is more common than 0.49 or 0.51, so where is 0.5 categorized? Which value is inclusive in the range and which is exclusive?

Since the graphs tend to be split on relatively common values they don't add much insight to the job postings.

<comment><USER10> Good point. This is fixed. Ranges are now .25-.4%, .5-.9%, etc. Thanks for the feedback. - mischa @ angellist

<comment><USER14> Now what about 0.401%?

Kidding :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> A mobile developer with iOS skills makes 65k in San Jose but 90k+ in all the little cities around it. Something must really suck about San Jose. ;)

Practically though, this exposes their underlying data source. Averaging across limite data sources can suck sometimes.

<comment><USER10> Thanks, good feedback. We cleaned up the locations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Perhaps my perception of the cost of living multiple for the bay area is distorted, but I can't believe that anyone is working as a developer there for the lower side of that curve.

Those offerings seem comparable to what I see here in Atlanta.

<comment><USER17> What's the startup scene in Atlanta like? I visited MailChimp there and attended a conference a few months ago. I live in Greenville, SC and we have an interesting little hub here.

<comment><USER16> Honestly, I'm kind of one off from the startup scene. I have quite a fews friends and acquaintances involved in it, but I've always worked for small to lower mid size stable companies or firms designed to stay small.

But that said, my somewhat outside opinion is that things are going well and getting better. There are some good hotspots of startup activity with hypepotamous (<http://www.hypepotamus.com>), Atlanta Tech Village (<http://atlantatechvillage.com/>), Flashpoint and a couple other accelerators.

Combined with the human and other resources from Georgia Tech, other colleges, and I think its a good place to be.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Ah, I feel like I have been scooped. I have been working on the same thing. Except mine is a scatter plot with all 4,500 jobs at once, so use Chrome. No fancy searching yet. Check it out at

<http://labs.radiantmachines.com/al/>

<comment><USER19> Interesting, but not sure how useful the chart is. It might have more utility with some aggregation in there.

<comment><USER18> It isn't really fully baked yet. I have been using it for myself to see the clusters of salary vs equity for certain keywords and roles. I need to move the backend to the web.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> These seem to be job listings. It would be great to see the fill rate. Of job boards out there, Angellist is the best about showing salary/equity. The companies that they attract are very early stage though, so salaries are fairly low.

</comment><comment><USER21> a lot lower than i expected - also would love to see the package (so $150k + .5-1%) distribution.

<comment><USER22> I question why equity is on a bar chart as it's not a directly comparable attribute. 1% of a 100,000 units is incrementally different from 1% of 10,000 units.

It does at least "set a bar", so I could potentially say "well on average 1% of the company for a developer is average."

<comment><USER23> I don't understand your statement about how 1% of 100,000 shares is different from 1% of 10,000. How is it different?

<comment><USER24> You reminded me of the startup I did where we would offer people 1% of the company, and the candidates would say "that's only 2000 shares. This other company is offering me 50,000 shares."

It can get depressing trying to hire people sometimes.

<comment><USER25> Sounds like you may need to revise your screening process... these people should not get this far.

<comment><USER24> We were hiring developers, not finance people.

<comment><USER26> I'm not an employer, but a developer not understanding how percentages work would be a red flag to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> No seattle/portland?

<comment><USER10> Just added these. We don't have enough listings in Portland to show data, but Seattle is now there.

<comment><USER28> Mind adding Washington DC as well?

<comment><USER10> Added - thanks for the suggestion!

<comment><USER29> How about some european cities? London/Berlin?

<comment><USER10> Re: Non-US cities - we aren't keeping track of what currency job postings are in, so the data for non-USD job listings would be confusing. Some people are posting in USD, others in euros, etc.

For now, you can see what jobs we have in London, or anywhere else by going to angel.co/jobs and then filtering by location.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> What explains certain patterns in number of available positions in each salary range for different cities? Look for example on difference in ratios between east and west coasts (compare New York and San Francisco for example). Note: I'm looking at developers' data.

</comment><comment><USER31> need to work on the site speed for those lookups.

</comment><comment><USER32> Quite surprising that not a single job opening has listed Perl as a skill requirement.

Is there really zero demand for Perl programmers from new start-ups?

<comment><USER33> I miss the 90s too. especially the music.</comment></comment>


Analyse Asia Podcast 23: Hardware 101 with Bunnie Huang - <AUTHOR> http://analyse.asia/2015/03/22/episode-23-hardware-101-with-bunnie-huang/ <comment><AUTHOR> Episode Synopsis: Bunnie Huang (@bunniestudios), founder of Bunnie Studios and Kosagi, joined us to chat about building hardware companies in Asia. From his early experience in hacking the XBox and Chumby to his recent open hardware projects: Safecast Geiger Counter Reference Design, Novena Laptop, Chibitronics: peel and stick electronics, he shared great advice and thoughts on trends to hardware entrepreneurs out there who are looking to bring their products to market globally. In this episode, he has offered us a guide on how hardware entrepreneurs need to think about from prototyping a hardware product to scaling it in the factories, navigating the factories in China, figuring out the certifications required and running a crowdfunding campaign that don't end in disaster.</comment>


A VC: The Declining Power Of The Firm - <AUTHOR> http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/04/the-declining-p.html <comment><USER2> While it's interesting to advocate companies like Yahoo, instead of being sucked up into the Microsoft fold, break themselves up into smaller, more agile firms, it seems to me that perhaps the better action for Yahoo to take would simply be to emulate the practices internally that afford these smaller groups their agility instead of breaking up. There's a certain resilience that a larger company has due to the pooling of funds and resources which each of these groups within the company can harness. Then again, one area's leeching of resources can hinder the others beyond a certain point too...

This is a similar argument to what PG makes here about how ideal group sizes (for members' happiness) ought to be kept small:

<http://paulgraham.com/boss.html>

From an outsider's perspective, it looks like this is exactly what Google tries to do internally, and what may be their biggest advantage over Yahoo et al. Maintaining an agile (aka fragmented) internal structure (or lack of structure) over a time though may prove to be quite the challenge...

</comment><comment><USER3> Here's the original post this is based on, which is much better: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=156547></comment>


Sloc Cloc and Code Revisited – Optimizing an Already Fast Go Application - <AUTHOR> https://boyter.org/posts/sloc-cloc-code-performance/ <comment><USER2> I think the stuff about nested loops performing poorly is a misunderstanding. There's nothing inherently bad about nested loops. The motivation given in the previous post[0] is:

> The big breakthrough I had was after looking at the hot function I realised > that storing the game events in a List of Arrays meant that we had a loop in > a loop. It was however possible to flatten this into a single array of > integers and reset the game every 11 turns with a simple if check.

The issue here wasn't nested loops, it was data structure overhead and poor data locality from having a lot of tiny lists (11 items each, as I understand it).

0: [https://boyter.org/2017/03/golang-solution-faster- equivalent...](https://boyter.org/2017/03/golang-solution-faster-equivalent- java-solution/)

<comment><USER3> The author recognizes this for certain cases:

> Turns out that at this small level of nested looping there is no performance > to be gained here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Unsurprisingly, the biggest performance gains came from algorithmical changes, not micro optimisations (like if instead of switch.)

The lesson is always the same: leave micro optimisations for later and spend more time learning about data structures that can improve your code locality.

<comment><USER5> Correct. However I did find that just working on the codebase getting small wins was enough to put my mind into thinking about it and hence able to make that leap to the larger gains.

For the super tight loops scc uses the micro optimisations still add up though so it wasn't wasted effort and in the end it all came together nicely.

<comment><USER6> The caveat working that way is that you can end up working towards a local optimum, and lose sight of the forest for the trees when it comes to making the bigger algorithmic changes.

<comment><USER5> Nobody is perfect :) I still think just getting into the mindset of a problem is a good way to even begin to think about these larger changes though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is there some Go specific overhead on loops? If not, why does the author seems so obsessed with removing loops within loops?

<comment><USER8> No, Go has about the fastest loops you could want, implemented in the obvious way at the asm level. (That is, not that Go's loops are any more extra magical fast than any other compiled language, but they are not slow as in some dynamic languages.) The focus is there because that's where you get wins, in any language.

<comment><USER9> Depending on the type of loop there might be runtime boundary checks, but they can be avoided in many cases IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I only skimmed this, but why isn't ripgrep mentioned? (While other Rust-based tools are.)

By the way, ripgrep author has a good writeup on performance comprison. [https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/](https://blog.burntsushi.net/ripgrep/)

<comment><USER11> Ripgrep is a similar but different kind of tool.

<comment><USER10> Of course, silly me, I take loc and ripgrep to be so essential I conflated them. Too much Christmas merriment, not enough proper thinking. Sorry.

<comment><USER11> It's all good! Have a great Christmas :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Groups threaten to sue U. of California over SAT, ACT use - <AUTHOR> https://apnews.com/1416201207314f35a24a7e8dcbc7d00c <comment><USER2> Are they stating that SAT, ACT are discriminatory because some schools took bribes? Isn't that a different problem all together; in that, a school accepted a bribe? If the SAT/ACT are removed, won't the bribery problem just move to bypass something else?</comment>


The Polarization of Extremes - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=w218t7yc6kv2lhqvrq4450bllm36hgjc

<comment><USER2> Cass Sunstein argues here, as he has since he first published his book Republic.com, that technology will allow us to filter information to bolster our own beliefs, causing people to form less informed, more polarized opinions. My issue with his argument has been that information technology actually has the exact opposite effect. With so many ideas circulating about the Internet, it is much harder to avoid hearing diverse opinions on any matter. No matter how hard I try to add only tech blogs to my RSS reader, I still end up getting some real-world news. ;)

Indeed, in the second edition of Republic.com, Sunstein acknowledges this and more or less retracted the "Daily Me" prophecy that he apparently is reissuing in this article (and, I suppose, the most recent version of his book). In response to a flurry of criticism from his legal peers, he added a postscript acknowledging the above argument and rephrasing his prediction as a hypothetical possibility that wasn't actually occurring. I have to wonder if that cycle is about to repeat itself.

<comment><USER3> You may get real-world news, but it's most-likely news of a certain political nature. It's obvious to me (if not others) that places like Slashdot are completely different _political_ sites than they were say five years ago. The topic matter may be close, but the nature of the way articles are presented, commented on, and ranked is completely different. It used to be you got great intellectual comments from all sides of the spectrum. Now that sort of disucssion is down-modded and in its place you get basically political sloganeering masquerading as comments.

In terms of general subject matter, sure, the Daily Me is probably not happening. What's happening in its place is a sort of Daily Political Me, where whatever is "hot" is filtered one way or another based on general political views of the site. This is a natural consequence of user-ranking.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This is really good. Thanks.</comment>


Microsoft "R2" product updates break backwards compatibility - <AUTHOR> https://www.blurpr.com/blog/index.php/2010/10/26/beware-hyper-v-sql-server-2008-compatibility-with-r2/

<comment><USER2> Is that really called "backwards compatibility"? R2 can run R1 stuff, which is what I would call b.c., but R1 can't run R2 stuff.

<comment><USER3> Really? Same Major version numbers. Same product family name (SQL/Hyper-V 2008). If your databases and virtual machines don't use any new features you might expect that they could be moved between servers. Or at least have the option to save a backup in a "compatible" format.

I think it's mostly my thing getting stuck on the naming of it, for me just slapping an "R2" on the 2008 line of server products (Windows, Hyper-V, SQL) instead of being consistent with their other year-based product names makes it seem like they are minor updates instead of different products.</comment></comment>


Always find the best candidates - the 7 minute candidate matching system - <AUTHOR> http://www.sean-johnson.com/2011/08/09/always-hire-the-best-candidate-part-one/ How I built a simple, effective candidate filtering system in 7 minutes for less than $100. <comment><USER2> > Step Five: Hire someone cheap to look at the resumes

Fail. You'll miss someone who lacks some minor criteria but is stellar in other areas.

"No college degree." Toss. You'll miss a bunch of the really good people I know who didn't finish.

"No LinkedIn profile." Toss. You'll miss good people who honestly don't care about LI.

"Expert in JS, not so much in CSS." Toss. You just lost a JS guru who's smart enough to pick up the other things you need, as you need them.

Unless you filter carefully, this step will filter out the quirks, probably the creative, driven people you really want.

<comment><USER3> I agree with you that the author had some really crazy preferences in his example. Penalizing a front end webdev who aren't on LinkedIn as harshly as you penalize those who don't know HTML is absolutely bonkers!

In his defense, I think it was just meant to be an arbitrary example. You could avoid this problem by dramatically lowering the point values assigned to college degrees and LinkedIn profiles and upping the credit assigned to having Javascript skills.

The real problem is that there's no distinction made between someone such as myself who knows a bit of Javascript and someone who is an _expert_ in it. Some criteria are binary, others are not.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is binary, mainly because it has to be. You couldn't reliably job out a screening like this if it required the person to understand the nuances of JS, or any other skill requiring domain expertise.

But as long as you weight it properly, any candidate that makes the short list has javascript as competency. Their level of expertise can be teased out as you go. This is meant to be a first step to go from 300 down to 20, not to take you all the way there.

There are other ways to make it more nuanced - identifying keywords that would make it more likely to identify a JS expert in a resume or cover letter (not a replacement for looking at someone's code, but again something a non programmer could do). Or looking at someone's github account and seeing if they have JS repos (maybe factoring in the # of people following those repos). The formula would need some tweaking, but those are objective measurements that could get you closer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> This site may already exist. Identified (www.identified.com) assigns a score on each candidate's profile based on their network, previous experience, and education. Recruiters search for a set of criteria and are presented with list of relevant candidates sorted by score.

</comment><comment><USER5> But what happens when someone comes up with a 6 minute candidate matching system?

<comment><AUTHOR> impossible :)

<comment><USER6> For the ones wondering, quote: <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0129387/quotes?qt=qt0410938>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is a recipe for mediocrity.

This is really no different from the HR filters many large companies have that result in people asking questions like "I see you have 6 years of Java experience. Do you have any J2SE experience?". The only possible difference is weighting of criteria and I'm not convinced HR departments don't do that already.

So, fail.

<comment><AUTHOR> What a screening system like this does in practice is save you from having to look at hundreds of resumes from people who aren't even remotely qualified - the folks who carpet bomb their resume out to anyone.

You're the one creating the criteria and determining the weighting, so if the system excludes people because they don't have J2SE experience it's only because you put it on the list and made it extremely important.

<comment><USER3> What it does in practice is encourage keyword-stuffing.

I've been going through dozens of iOS and webdev resumes a week and about two in three have the right keywords. Their skills don't correlate strongly with those keywords. What has gotten dramatically better results for me has been this: put programmers through some automated programming tests (kind of like an in house version of interviewstreet.com), and filter any graphic artists / designer entirely based off of their portfolios.

That has quickly weeded out those who can't code (or design).

<comment><AUTHOR> Interview street looks fantastic. You probably don't need a system like this for dev hires with a tool like that.

And you're right about designers - I look at portfolios more than anything else. This system does save me having to look at resumes to figure out whether they have a portfolio or not. It at least weeds out that third :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Awesome - can save a ton of time and result in better hires!</comment>


L4 Microkernel Family - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family <comment><AUTHOR> >"L4, like its predecessor L3 microkernel, was created by German computer scientist Jochen Liedtke as a response to the poor performance of earlier microkernel-based operating systems. Liedtke felt that a system designed from the start for high performance, rather than other goals, could produce a microkernel of practical use. His original implementation in hand-coded Intel i386-specific assembly language code in 1993 sparked intense interest in the computer industry."

[...]

>"Specifying the general idea of a microkernel, Liedtke states:

A concept is tolerated inside the microkernel only if moving it outside the kernel, i.e., permitting competing implementations, would prevent the implementation of the system's required functionality.[3]

In this spirit, the L4 microkernel provides few basic mechanisms: address spaces (abstracting page tables and providing memory protection), threads and scheduling (abstracting execution and providing temporal protection), and inter-process communication (for controlled communication across isolation boundaries)."</comment>


Box and Parse: Create Your First Mobile App in Seconds - <AUTHOR> http://developers.blog.box.com/2012/06/13/box-and-parse-create-your-first-mobile-app-in-seconds/

<comment><USER2> It will be interesting to see if this partnership will help to get more traction on Android. So far the market share of both SDKs is marginal: <http://www.appbrain.com/stats/libraries/dev>

</comment><comment><USER3> So how do you make money on that several seconds app ? Is there a need for apps made in seconds :)</comment>


Santa Clara County: High-tech police spying rules take shape - <AUTHOR> http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_29778546/santa-clara-county-high-tech-police-spying-rules <comment><USER2> > "Our concern involves the tediousness of trying to log and capture daily > uses among several hundred deputies in the streets," said Assistant Sheriff > Ken Binder, referring to proposed body-worn cameras for deputies falling > under the auspices of the ordinance. "How do we chart that and report it at > the end of the year? It makes the job more onerous in terms of doing the job > and investigative work."

As long as the county provides funding for this, I don't see the problem. Accountability isn't free, but it's worth the cost.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, as someone who used to be a Santa Clara county tax payer (now San Mateo county), my gut response to law enforcement is "you dug your own grave and this is what it takes to retain whatever shred of trust the tax payers may have had in you." Then I'd cue the world's smallest violin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The top comment on that article sums up just why we're doomed to ever increasing levels of surveillance:

"Are people begging for increased crime? If this technology helps solve crime, who cares?"

<comment><USER5> And nearly every comment following it has a tone of "I/we/you shouldn't blindly trust the police, because they break laws too. This is a problem."

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> So what's to stop deeper "collaboration" with surrounding counties (San Jose, San Mateo) from doing the work that Santa Clara doesn't want on film? TFA sounds like it would explicitly allow that kind of thing unless I misread it.

<comment><USER6> > So what's to stop deeper "collaboration" with surrounding counties (San > Jose, San Mateo) ...

San Jose is not a "surrounding county", since City of San Jose is the county seat of Santa Clara County.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The forethought that this technology needed was FOIA requests and their impact on average people. It would be so much better if they farmed this kind of a thing out to private industry and bought only the information they needed.</comment>


Ask YC: How can I increase revenue from $1500 to...? - <AUTHOR>

Hey all, I have this site that I've been running for a while (it's a travel forum) that brings in about 1500$ dollar a month with adsense. If I could double that, that'd be pretty great. Any thoughts on the possibilities? Of course, I'm expecting to get a lot less ad $ with the crisis and all... But then again, the site isn't really monetized much.. logged-in users don't see any ads for example. Of course, I don't <i>want</i> to put lots of ads on it either, which is why I'm asking the questions.. <comment><USER3> You must be doing pretty well to get $1500 from AdSense. You might try direct sale of advertising - they pay much more than AdSense so you could boost revenue without showing a ton of ads. (I haven't done this, just heard. No idea how hard it would be to sign advertisers).

<comment><USER4> Or if that's not your thing, even optimizing your Google Ads would go a long way. I'm certainly not an expert in this, but here are some tools & tips from people who are:

[http://adsense.blogspot.com/2006/04/meet-ivan-optimiser- but-...](http://adsense.blogspot.com/2006/04/meet-ivan-optimiser-but-please- no.html)

[http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/22/google-adsense- fa...](http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/03/22/google-adsense-facts-faqs- and-tools/)

[http://uphook.blogspot.com/2006/04/getting-most-out-of- adsen...](http://uphook.blogspot.com/2006/04/getting-most-out-of-adsense- top-10.html)

Google Ad Manager is also awesome: <https://www.google.com/admanager/>

Please report back to HN about what you did and how things worked out!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First off - remember that free consultancy may only be worth just what you pay for it.

FWIW. I found the site landing page failed to tell me clearly what I could expect if I followed the links. I suspect that you may be losing a good part of your potential audience at this point.

Then, it has to be said, I did not see a lot of ads on the pages I sampled (none at all in most instances). I would have thought that a bit of work on the page keywords would enhance the attraction of your site for adsense dollars and then some work locating the ads at the right points to attract visitors when they are ready to buy something could pay dividends.

A specialised Amazon book store could add to the monthly take. Plus - <USER2> are the ads for travel insurance, cheap airline ticket shops etc. etc. There is a lot in this area you could do without overwhelming your site visitors with the commercial aspects - good well targeted ads are a useful resource after all.

Good luck with it - it's hard work running something like this but a little more application might just make it something special.

</comment><comment><USER6> With affiliate links to relevant products. For example, software products where you get 30% of the sale price or so. Travel guides on Amazon, Language courses and so on. You'll get 1-2% conversion rate, so just calculate how many of such links you need to place, and on what pages. It will be pretty easy to do so in a week or so.

<comment><USER7> The affiliate program I use has several travel programs - ranging from travel newsletter signups to airline pay per sale. I would really recommend trying one of those and messing around with placement to increase your conversion rate.

With my referral id, the site is: <https://secure.neverblue.com/signup?ref=aff_66639>

Email me any questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> First, take a good look at usage patterns on your site. What % is from repeat users? How often do repeat users return, on average? What % is from search referrals? What % is from referrals from other sites? What search terms are popular? Just looking at that data and thinking about the implications could be instructive.

I admire your stance on ads, but you might reconsider your decision not to show them to logged in users at all. You are providing a service by hosting the forum, and its not unreasonable to have a small amount of advertising to your regular users to help defray your costs.

This is important, because I'm guessing a significant amount of your page views are for regular users, and because they are regular users, they represent a targeted audience for advertising. Because they are a targeted audience in what sounds like a commercially viable niche, you should be able to get pretty good CPMs, and therefore, be able to realize a big boost in revenue without having to show them a lot of ads.

I'd start by putting a decent sized google ad (preferably one of the formats that supports image and video ads) "above the fold," but only show it intermittently, and not more than a few times per visit. Leave it there for a while and see if Google starts to identify your regular visitors and targets them differently than it targets passers-by (set up an ad channel to help with tracking).

You could then try moving beyond that by joining an appropriate display ad network, and doing a little work to sell ads yourself. These would probably be useful for monetizing your other users as well, but you'd probably command a higher CPM for your registered, regular users.

Your eCPM for AdSense doesn't sound bad, but you cant really be sure based just on the info people are giving you here. You need to try and benchmark your eCPM against sites that are similar to yours. You might be able to sign up for an AdWords account and see what it would cost you to buy ads for the keywords of the ads that tend to show up on your site.

Unless you've put a lot of effort into optimizing your ads, chances are that a little bit of work could get you a 50-100% boost in your revenue. Experiment with different ad formats, placements, and color schemes. As someone mentioned, just introducing some variation in color scheme (which Google makes easy to do) can make a difference.

Another thing you can do is have a prominent "landing site" that is displayed when you detect that a user has arrived via a search engine referral. The site can feature a larger ad than you'd usually show, you might also include a link-unit, and links to other content on your site that might be relevant to the search terms they used on their way to your site.

The last thing to consider is how you can make the best posts on your forum site easier for casual readers to consume, for search engines to find, and for Google to target. One approach, you could spend a little time maintaining a blog of the best posts on your site. Make sure they are tagged and categorized appropriately (pay attention to the popular search terms for people arriving at your site when choosing tags and categories). A little editing to provide the appropriate context, and make them easier for someone to read without reading the whole thread they were pulled from is valuable too. You'll end up with pages that aggregate a bunch of content on the same subject. This will be easier for search engines to index, easier for people to read when they arrive from a search engine or another site, provide a nice target for people to link to (which can help with your search engine rank), and also provide a crisper context for Google's ad targeting.

You could try and recruit a few of your most devoted (and best suited) users to help with this, and you could pay them a share of revenue from the blog pages.

You could also go a different direction, and start a wiki with similar content drawn from the forums, and then encourage your users to expand it and keep it up to date.

<comment><USER8> I should have looked at your site before writing :)

The travel guides look like they fill the niche of the blog wiki idea I suggested, and they'd be perfect spots for a little advertising & affiliate stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> think about ways you could market products to your customer base... affiliate sales is an easy way to begin as it doesn't require much time.

however you could probably get bigger margins if you handled more of the sales process, but this is a bigger time commitment. paypal and google checkout have made it easy to minimize the hassle and risk of merchant accounts. find a distributor that does drop shipping so you don't have to manage the inventory.

Here's a free idea: what if you packaged your own "travel" kits for each region that offered small products tailored to the region's experience? this include general things like quick-reference languages book, but also more region-specific stuff for snake bites, malaria, etc... for less of a time commitment, you could put these together in an organized manner on the site and just link them to amazon and affiliates so people can a la carte shop. would also give you an excuse to stir conversation to get community's feedback on what they commonly bring to the area.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've thought about packaging the travel info, like here: <http://poorbuthappy.com/colombia/travel/print/> into a book, and sell it on Amazon, make perhaps 5$ per copy... I'm gonna try that next year. We'll see...

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> ps: traffic is like 800,000 pageviews a month, if that helps. I guess my question is also: am I doing good with the ads, or could it be much better?

<comment><USER10> I think you're doing pretty well:) I push over double the page views, but am not making as much from AdSense as you are.

<comment><AUTHOR> Perhaps I'll just shut up and count my blessings then?

<comment><USER11> Maybe-- I have sites with the same pageviews and not too far from an order of magnitude less in ad revenue. Keep up the good work!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> the site is at <http://poorbuthappy.com>

<comment><USER12> I don't see any ads at all, where are they? Example page please.

<comment><USER4> [http://poorbuthappy.com/colombia/post/uk-drug-users- damaging...](http://poorbuthappy.com/colombia/post/uk-drug-users-damaging- colombia/)

<comment><USER12> Play with the position and style of that ad (if you don't want to ad more..)

So put it in the middle of the article, under the article, etc.. Measure what works best.

Even better would be to have it randomly change color (you can set this when you create the adsense ad) though that could be annoying..

Or simply randomly change the format of the ad: small rectangle, big rectangle, banner, etc.. you will need to code this yourself, but it should help with banner blindness.

<comment><USER13> I've had a lot of luck with Adsense in the left column, with similar font and color to the primary content. Click-throughs were twice what they were with the same ad in the right column.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This article is lengthy but excellent on the topic of monetising a blog. Some of the techniques should apply to your site too:

[http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make- money-f...](http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/how-to-make-money-from- your-blog/)

</comment><comment><USER15> A few things aren't feeling right here.

1\. Other than that link you include in this thread, I can't find ads anywhere on the site. That's generally wise, but you could probably get away with running some more.

2\. The homepage footer says you've had 32,000+ discussions today? I can't seem to find more than 10 or so. Do you mean"so far"?

Otherwise this is a neat idea and a clean, hipster-ish layout. Impressed!

<comment><AUTHOR> What it means on the homepage is 32000 discussions so far, 'today;. Sorry, English isn't my first language, will improve that :) Thanks for the compliments!

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Also consider AB testing different placements, types of ads, etc. Will give you hard data on what works better.

</comment><comment><USER17> you're doing fairly well with adsense given the information you provide in the comments.

to improve, hunt down affiliate opportunities and consider looking for or soliciting for paid weekly/monthly sponsors to get banner ad face time for all visitors over that time period.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks.. good tips so far. The income has been steady for about 2 years now.. so I'm thinking maybe the best thing to do is just to do some seo, focus on that and increase traffic.. that way I don't have to add more ads either.

<comment><USER12> If you hate ads, you should just show more of them to non-logged in users.. It can even be an incentive to get them to sign up if you mention it on the site :) Do you know the % of pageviews between logged in users and guests?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, I already show ads only to users that are not logged-in. Don't know the percentage of the top of my head...

<comment><USER12> Oops, excuse me for not reading the full description :)

Still, I think you should show minimal ads to logged in users too. Maybe the adsense ad link format (plain links).

When something is free, users should expect to see some ads.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Direct ad sales, affiliates (within the travel niche), and look into other AdSense like programs that pay better.

Also I visited the site and didn't see any ads ...either your hiding them well or there aren't enough of them.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> So I guess that the general consensus is: I'm doing ok with adsense, I could add some affiliate sales, or perhaps do my own travel products somehow?

</comment><comment><USER19> Forums are notoriously bad for PPC advertising. Have you tried CPM? Affiliate stuff? Lots to choose from in the travel space beyond adsense.

</comment><comment><USER20> Check out johnchow.com He's got a ton of ideas and practical examples, plus he makes a ton of cash rambling about making a ton of cash.

<comment><AUTHOR> I hate those sites, they all try to sell you loads of stuff about how to make money, it's like 1 huge pyramid scheme or something. Not to say there's nothing to it, but still. "Buy my guide on how to make money on the internet", thanks but no thanks.

<comment><USER20> His guide is free... I've read it.

He explores all sorts of different ways of making money, some good, some not so good. He shares all this information on his blog.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What about allowing advertorials for a fee?

</comment><comment><USER22> cool, the site seems pretty neat. btw, how long has it been around?

<comment><AUTHOR> Has been around since 1998!</comment></comment>


They Will Steal Your Idea. They Cannot Steal What Really Matters. - <AUTHOR> http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/they-will-steal-your-idea-they-cannot-steal-what-really-matters/ <comment><USER2> Here's an idea: try creating the compound Ba-La-Cu-O. It's a pretty simple idea. It can be explained in seconds. Any competent chemist can do it, and probably a lot of incompetent ones as well. But in 1986 that idea was the key step in a Nobel Prize. And it may yet turn out to be the foundation for a massive industry. Sometimes, the idea is nearly all that matters.

<comment><USER3> The fact that the idea is 24 years old and has yet to properly establish itself kinda refutes the fact that it's all that matters, doesn't it?

<comment><USER2> I guess if you view winning a Nobel Prize as a failure, then yes, you've refuted my example. I doubt more than a tiny fraction of people would consider that a failure, however.

Ideas can, in fact, have value, and that is a function of scarcity. A lot of entrepreneurs apparently misjudge this, thinking that, for example, their idea to create a social network for X (insert verb of choice) is somehow valuable in its own right. But in most cases X is so generic that it's not. The superconductor example I gave is an example where there really is a scarcity, and so there is value.

<comment><USER3> I'm not saying that ideas have no value whatsoever, because clearly a bad idea properly executed can still be a bad idea.

What I am saying though is that there are few ideas that can be not executed and/or executed poorly and still render a success.

Of course success is variable, as you point out with regards to the Nobel Prize here. Assume somebody does execute a strategy to effectively monetize the superconductor described. As you point out that's a game changer on levels that will make the Nobel Prize seem rather small.

<comment><USER2> I agree, on all fronts.

"Ideas don't matter, only execution does" is just a pet peeve. It's as obviously false as the notion some people have that their (totally obvious) idea is really valuable.

I like Derek Sivers formulation: ideas are a multiplier on execution. With a really amazing idea (like the formula for the first high-Tc superconductors) even run-of-the-mill execution yields big returns.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> And this is the reason the abolishment of Intellectual Property won't make the world any more chaotic or unfair.

Ideas are meant to be shared, and the market competitiveness will reward the ones that best execute them.

<comment><USER5> Copyright doesn't cover ideas. It covers the execution of ideas. So if you're going to abolish stuff that merely protects ideas, leave copyright alone.

<comment><USER6> That was the intention of copyright, anyways. It's gotten a bit beyond that, to the point that an idea can be copyrighted if phrased correctly. Requiring a working model to be submitted with every application would go a good way towards fixing that issue.

<comment><USER7> You seem to be confusing copyright and patents.

Neither of which can protect an idea.

Law concerning Trade Secrets comes closest to protecting an idea. But that doesn't preclude parallel development whatsoever, only theft.

<comment><USER6> ... yes, it seems that I did. Too late for me to edit it, too, so I can't retract the statement and remove any potential confusion (and my own embarrassment). My apologies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hear lots of people talk about how their idea is some competitive advantage. Ideas are cheap. Ideas can be stolen. It's how you _execute_ that counts, and that's what Jason's post drives home. Nicely done.

<comment><USER9> There are some fashionable memes running through entrepreneurship circles these days that are routinely mentioned in blogs, etc. (fail quick/often, ideas are cheap, etc). They certainly have merit, but are usually generalizations that can break-down when applied to specific situations. This concept of ideas being cheap/worthless is one of them.

Certainly, business ideas on their own usually have little value without execution. But it really depends. If your differentiator is the idea, you are at greater risk of direct competition, and so spreading the idea around without first gaining a foothold is risky, especially if you discuss it with people who are entrepreneurial minded. Sometimes a startup needs breathing room to find a true differentiator beyond the idea. I bet there is a long, long list of people being "wronged" after discussing their plans with others. Feedback is certainly hugely valuable, but people need to be judicious with what, and to whom, they reveal.

<comment><USER10> "Certainly, business ideas on their own usually have little value without execution. But it really depends. If your differentiator is the idea, you are at greater risk of direct competition, and so spreading the idea around without first gaining a foothold is risky, especially if you discuss it with people who are entrepreneurial minded. Sometimes a startup needs breathing room to find a true differentiator beyond the idea. I bet there is a long, long list of people being "wronged" after discussing their plans with others. Feedback is certainly hugely valuable, but people need to be judicious with what, and to whom, they reveal."

The reason a lot of people say "ideas are cheap" isn't _just_ because there is no problem in spreading them around. I don't know about other people, but I've never had an idea that, once I started to execute on it, didn't change a _lot_. Since (as far as I can tell) this is almost always the case, spreading the initial idea truly _doesn't_ cost me anything.

Of course, there are fields this isn't true, but this generalization gets thrown around a lot in these circles because, for most people reading these blogs, it's true.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would not be concerned if I would write a web based product. But I am writing a desktop application in Java. Someone with more resources than me can copy my stuff very fast and beat me before I can get real traction. My most important competitive advantage is in the applied algorithms which I was refactoring so much; it is inside the source code. If they steal that, they not only steal my idea, they steal my execution. Of course they can also do it otherwise, but in that case it last more time. The key is in my opinion being ahead 1-2 years, especially in the beginning. So it might be a good idea to obfuscate the code. On the other hand it is better to be open, so it would be cool if I could ship the complete source code so that customers or consultants could customize my product, (or write plugins) which is quite important in the case of this product.

It is a really hard decision whether to:

\- ship only the obfuscated class files

\- ship the non-obfuscated class files

\- or ship the whole source code with the product.

Being too open too early can be dangerous. Even big companies had problem from being too open (see IBM PC), not to say about a small company which has no traction.

</comment><comment><USER12> Just because you can't steal what really matters doesn't mean you don't already have it. You could possibly take someone else's idea and execute it better than they would have. What are the odds that the person who came up with the great idea doesn't have the best motivation or resources to make it successful?

</comment><comment><USER13> A single idea from the human mind can build cities. An idea can transform the world and rewrite all the rules. Which is why they have to steal it.

<comment><USER14> Not if the idea sits in someone's head. The execution is extremely important. I've had ideas that pre-dated devices like the ipad and iphone by 15 years, but because I didn't do anything with those ideas, they were essentially useless.

<comment> saint-loup Now the question is, where is the limit beetween an idea and his execution. If the idea is a vague thing like "a computer that fits in my pocket", then it's just a dream. The most details you have about your idea, the most you're move close its execution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Sorry Jason, but you have no idea what you're talking about here. Having been in the real-life version of that movie for the past six years I have a pretty good notion of what can and cannot be taken away by another, and it's a lot more than what your post would lead people to believe.

<comment><AUTHOR> I understand where you're coming from since it's strikes a very personal chord with you+facebook (it might only do that for a few other people in the world.) The facebook examples in the post are meant to be small examples within the context there. There's certainly more than meets the eye and I certainly don't have any idea about the details/final arrangements between you and Mark. You could replace the facebook example with other similar examples in business. If you want to refute the arguments with your own personal first hand experiences in the Facebook situation that would be useful.

<comment><USER15> Jason,

Here's why I have an issue with your post. Intellectual property theft has a number of effects that directly follow, all of which are serious. You lose:

\- Credibility and trust. There's always that hint of distrust when people meet you because they have heard that you have made a claim on person X who "stole" Y from you. They may not know anything about the details, but (they worry) maybe you'll make that same claim again...on them! Worse, if they don't know anything about it but only find out later through rumors, you will probably never hear anything from that person again. Whether or not you are right and whether or not you have evidence, you will always be referred to in the media as the person "who claims that he" _____, not the person "who" _____.

\- Credit. If something really was taken from you that you created, chances are you aren't going to be recognized for it.

\- Money. If you decide to stand up for yourself it costs a lot of money, typically in the six figures, but certainly no less than five. For the Winklevosses in the movie of course it cost low eight figures (though I'm not making a statement about their claims).

\- Health. Anyone who has fought any major legal proceeding knows that it's pretty much guaranteed to have an effect on your health.

\- Legal rights. If the person who took the intellectual property later uses a catalyst (like venture capital) to get ahead, you can be left not only minus your work, but also minus legal protections associated with it that are now attributed to the person who took it.

\- Social relationships. There are three separate ways social relationships are impaired. If a large number of people become associated with the person who took the intellectual property (likely once again with venture capital), then you will automatically be isolated from those people no matter how decent they themselves may be. Dating is harder (see credibility and trust). Hiring, getting hired, or finding co-founders is harder, too (also see credibility and trust).

\- Rebound potential. The only way to negate all of the above, which apply whether you are right or wrong, and whether the facts are available or not, is to become richer than the other person. Otherwise you are basically stuck.

As for the points in your article:

\- Long term vision. Irrelevant, it can be supplanted with a different one, for better or for worse.

\- Analytical insights. Irrelevant.

\- Domain expertise. No, they can't steal it, but it can usually be replicated to some degree.

\- Talent. No, they can't steal it, but it can definitely be replicated through other hires.

\- Passion for great service? Sorry, but give me a break. What American consumer expects great service these days and will immediately turn away from a company due to a lack of it? Irrelevant.

\- Luck. As I've described above, luck is a lot harder to come by in this position.

Anyway, that's my two cents. Sorry, but I just couldn't let this one go.

Aaron

<comment><USER16> Aaron! Hello again. We seem to cross paths on Hacker News once every six months, with you writing about Zuckerberg sucking and me writing that I'd like for you to forgo those feelings a tiny bit so you can be more successful in life. We usually both make good points and nothing changes.

But - since last time I have learned a new term:

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

"Locus of control in social psychology refers to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an important aspect of personality studies.

Individuals with a high internal locus of control believe that events result primarily from their own behavior and actions. Those with a high external locus of control believe that powerful others, fate, or chance primarily determine events."

Now, a theme of your postings is that your credit, money, health, social relationships, and rebound potential have been hosed.

 _This may be true_ \- however, it might also be disempowering and not serving your goals. How often do you think about this? I'm guessing - rather a lot more than is optimal for you to thrive in life on your terms.

Anyone would be pissed in your situation. Anyone. But everyone successful gets a significant betrayal or two along the way. I'd recommend you assert more control over your life and shrug off the Facebook thing as much as possible. Reliving it, commenting on it, writing about it in newspapers, writing a book about it - does that really serve your goals? Really? Your most important goals?

I said it before and I'll say it again - you're a talented dude. That talent could almost certainly be deployed in better ways than anti-Facebooking, you could be making yourself more wealthy, successful, happy, prosperous - and you could be doing that for your family, friends, and loved ones. Something to consider.

Best wishes as always. Rooting for you.

<comment><USER15> Hi. Since you always seem to give me unsolicited advice, allow me to give you some:

I've never met you and you clearly don't know me. Strongly consider the limits of your actual knowledge concerning my actual position, versus what I choose to share in a public forum in generic terms, before telling me what I should do to change my actual life. Also consider that your rather personal criticisms, however well-intentioned, may be construed by others to imply that you actually do know me, when you don't.

I'm using my talent to build my company (<http://www.thinkcomputer.com>) if that's not already clear. As I've also made clear before, I can do that and comment on things about which I'm uniquely knowledgeable at the same time. And if you don't like it, tough.

<comment><USER17> The thing about idea theft is all too often the person it was stolen from wouldn't have been able to make it work in the first place. And here, it seems, is a shining case in point.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


China to launch lunar lighting in outer space - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2018-10-moon-china-lunar-outer-space.html <comment><USER2> How is it powered?</comment>


Amazon Search Hack: Eliminate products that have 4/5 stars but only few reviews - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@ceyhunkazel/amazon-search-hack-eliminate-amazon-products-that-have-4-or-5-starts-but-only-few-reviews-f485d35d5969#.7lyyald0d <comment><USER2> Amazon's "sort by rating" functionality is fundamentally broken. See [http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average- rating....](http://www.evanmiller.org/how-not-to-sort-by-average-rating.html) for an explanation on how to sort items by ratings in an intuitively good manner. What it does is balance the uncertainty that a low number of ratings implies and the proportion of good ratings.

See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9855784](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9855784) for an older comment thread on that article.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, for a company so big it really bothers me that there are flaws like this still around. Fixing this would be a win for everybody.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The article doesn't spell it out. Here's what you do:

\- Search on amazon

\- Filter by 4 stars and up (or whatever)

\- Choose a sort from the dropdown

\- Change the sort=XXXXX param to sort=review-count-rank

<comment><USER5> That doesn't seem to work for me. [http://imgur.com/1iVDjnJ](http://imgur.com/1iVDjnJ)

<comment><AUTHOR> Because you did not choose a department, which is Electronics in your case. Advanced features only available if you choose a department. Most of the sort options do not work when you choose "All"(department) . if you go to jeviz.com you will see that there is no "most reviews" sort option for all departments, so you can see what is availbale sort options from jeviz.com by selecting a department.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's sad how many big websites get confidence adjustment wrong. A big downside to the workaround proposed here is that it doesn't re-include those things that have a small number of low scores. If a product on Amazon starts off with a few 1-star scores for bad reasons, that could put it at the bottom of a very long list before it gets a statistically significant number of scores.

</comment><comment><USER7> One of the links in the article points to jevi.com instead of jeviz.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for pointing! I fixed it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I don't see the "Most Reviews" Sort By option.

<comment><AUTHOR> In All departments it does not work you need to choose a department. I updated the article according to this.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why doesn't somebody buy every combination of the Powerball? - <AUTHOR> With how big the powerball is, it now seems feasible for somebody to buy every combination and still come out in the green. <comment><USER2> Here's the math for those wondering:

Odds to win = 1/292,201,338

Cost of Ticket = $2

Buying All Combinations = $584,402,676

Current Prize ~ $1,300,000,000

Takehome Annuity(1) ~ $900,000,000

Lump Sum Takehome ~ $550,000,000

You'll likely end up splitting the prize at this point with at least one other ticket which will put you in the red by over a hundred million. This is the primary deterrent.

1: After 30 years of payments. 900m is lower end after state taxes. [https://www.usamega.com/powerball- jackpot.asp](https://www.usamega.com/powerball-jackpot.asp)

<comment><USER3> You would also need to buy about 900 tickets per second from the moment the first drawing is over until the second one begins, hoping all the time for a rollover.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This strategy makes sense when the odds of winning are known, and the jackpot is not shared.

The powerball jackpot is shared so you would need to factor in the likely number of people you would share with which would be complicated to figure out.

There are cases in gambling where the jackpot is not shared, for example poker machines.

The odds of winning remain fixed, yet the jackpot slowly increases, moreso when there are many machines linked to build the same prize.

At a certain level of jackpot the math works out and it's a sound strategy to pour money into the machines.

See: break even point [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_jackpot](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_jackpot)

Here's a person who's written about dedicating their life to this approach: [http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Slots-Peter- Liston/dp/0...](http://www.amazon.com/Million-Dollar-Slots-Peter- Liston/dp/0987272969)

If you were going to invest in lotto with shared jackpots I've heard anecdotes that choosing numbers 32 and higher is a better way to go because people tend to pick birthdays. I think looking at past drawing results and whether there was a winner or not you could analyse if numbers are picked disproprotionately, but I'm not sure what sample size would be needed to generate meaningful results.

All that said, I can think of many things I'd rather develop expertise in than reverse engineering the payout odds of poker / progressive jackpot machines.

</comment><comment><USER5> Asked and answered a couple times, but here are the highlights.

1\. Possible splits: should you win and have to split the pot you would probably lose a large amount of money.

2\. Timing: You can't purchase the tickets fast enough. Say, for example, you wanted to purchase all of the tickets. Even if you purchased a new ticket each second, with only 86,400 seconds in a day and 292.2M outcomes, it would take you something like 5.5 years to fill out all of the tickets.

</comment><comment><USER6> A group attempted this in a state lottery which I saw in a documentary about it a long time ago. There weren't even close to the numbers or potential gain involved in the Powerball and needed a fair bit of luck rather than all the numbers, but still they profited big. Back then I think the problem was that they couldn't print and submit the paper lottery tickets quick enough to get all the numbers, so ended up just chancing it. I guess using the internet these days should make it quicker, but still, in the UK last weekend the online demand for a £50m prize lottery managed to shut down the online site.

Some discussion of the state lottery win on reddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1t8ool/til_i...](https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/1t8ool/til_in_1992_an_australian_gambling_syndicate/)

</comment><comment><USER7> What if another random person wins it so the jackpot is shared?

</comment><comment><USER8> As a historical aside, the French mathematician Charles Marie de La Condamine (with the help of some guy named Voltaire) did almost exactly that in the 1720s:

[http://www.damninteresting.com/the-enlightenment-guide-to- wi...](http://www.damninteresting.com/the-enlightenment-guide-to-winning-the- lottery/)

</comment><comment><USER9> First and foremost, it would take more money to buy all the combinations than the payout. Also, while $1.3 Billion sounds like a great big number, when you consider the taxes (even with a good tax attorney you are going to pay a substantial tax on that number), and whether you would take that as a lump sum or annuity, other factors come into play.

<comment><USER10> How much in losses can you write off from the losing tickets against your winnings?

<comment><USER11> At that level, probably none:

[http://www.fitz-cpa.com/gambling.aspx#GM7](http://www.fitz- cpa.com/gambling.aspx#GM7)

Once you are in AMT territory, you lose the deduction.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Because there's a limit to how much most people can spend.

It's why the martingale strategy sounds ok in theory but fails in practice. You don't have infinite money (plus most tables have max bids too)

</comment><comment><USER13> you would have better chances starting your own startup

</comment><comment><USER14> And break even if no one else wins?</comment>


Bejeweled skeletons of Catholic martyrs - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meet-the-fantastically-bejeweled-skeletons-of-catholicisms-forgotten-martyrs-284882/?no-ist <comment><USER2> People are weird. We pretend that people just recently got weird, that weird came out of the 60s/70s. No, people were always weird, and they have done weird things for a long time.

Skeletons covered in jewellery, and well maintained? Weird. Incorruptibles are in the same vein [1]. Also weird. I love this weird as much as recent weird. Cthulhu mythos, Warhammer 40k space demons, Dhali's long legged animals, all weird.

But people get hyped about this stuff like it means something. No, its just another time's weird art.

[1] [http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/08/14/photogra...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/08/14/photographing_the_real_bodies_of_incorrupt_saints.html)</comment>