Golden Rules of Financial Safety (1999) - <AUTHOR> http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/InvestmentRules.htm <comment><USER2> Just for context, this is from Harry Browne, who was famously (and perhaps not entirely fairly) labeled as a "gold bug" throughout his career. He was something of a hero figure among those who subscribe to Austrian economic theory, and actually the candidate for the US Libertarian party for president several cycles back.

Off-topic (?) from that article, I'd be interested to hear what he would have made of the current cryptocurrency craze, given his views on gold, inflation, and portfolio stability.

<comment><USER3> Regarding Bitcoin, Rule #3 might apply:

"There's nothing wrong with speculating — provided you do it with money you can afford to lose. But the money that's precious to you shouldn't be risked on a bet that you can outperform other investors."

Edit: Rule #12 addresses it more directly: "Speculate only with money you can afford to lose."

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Might be risk averse but great advice.

Rule #2: Don't assume you can replace your wealth.

The fact that you earned what you have doesn't mean that you could earn it again if you lost it. Markets and opportunities change, technology changes, laws change. Conditions today may be considerably different from what they were when you built the estate you have now. And as time passes, increasing regulation makes it harder and harder to amass a fortune.

</comment><comment><USER5> #13 - Keep some money overseas

How exactly is this possible? I am a german citizen and resident, and after hours of reaearch a few months ago i couldn't find ONE bank in the world I could open a bank account with. I always have to be at least a resident. Did anybody figure this out?

My partner is from Canada and I would love to park some money there, but I couldn't figure out a way to do so.

<comment><USER6> Why not store the money in Bitcoin instead? It's outside of government control and you should get a nice return on your investment.

<comment><USER7> ...or it might go to 0? Bitcoin is many things, but it certainly is not a savings account.

<comment><USER6> True it could, but theoretically the price should always go up. Plus there's risk in anything. I'd have thought that placing money in a foreign country is also pretty risky if you're not a citizen

<comment><USER8> No. No, no, no, no, no.

The price you can sell an asset for is whatever someone is willing to pay, on that day. If sentiment turns and everyone is selling bitcoin, the price will most definitely not be going up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> > _Rule #11: Create a bulletproof portfolio for protection._

> _The portfolio should assure that your wealth will survive any event — > including an event that would be devastating to any individual element > within the portfolio. In other words, this portfolio should protect you no > matter what the future brings._

> _It isn 't difficult or complicated to have such a portfolio this safe. You > can achieve a great deal of diversification with a surprisingly simple > portfolio._

What could such a portfolio be? Cash in a savings account? (Genuine question from an investment novice -- I always thought any investment was risky to some extent).

<comment><USER10> HB's Permanent Portfolio consists of 25% each cash/gold/stocks/long term bonds

25% stocks (index fund) Stocks – for profit during periods of general prosperity and/or declining inflation.

25% Gold – for profit during periods of bad inflation; during inflationary episodes gold bullion provides protection against a falling currency and other potential problems.

25% Long Term Bonds (30 year) – for profit during periods of declining interest rates; and especially during a deflation. Bonds also do reasonably well during prosperity.

25% Cash – During a recession, no particular asset class is going to do well. The cash in a Treasury Money Market Fund offers stability when portfolio asset classes fall in price. It also protects purchasing power during a deflation.

<comment><USER11> I would add that gold is an asset that does well when people lose faith in the dollar. It's insurance against the unthinkable.

<comment><USER12> yeah but there, other currencies make more sense.

<comment><USER13> well is this advice of 25% applicable in this day and age, have we moved past precious metals occupying such a large percentage?

<comment><USER14> That percentage has been and will be debated forever, even by proponents of the Browne PP model, but 4x25 has done well as recently as the past two decades.

Also the exact number is not all that critical. Earlier versions of Browne's portfolio were more complicated and he simplified it to 4x25 later on, still allowing that people could tweak it if they must. But 4x25 is simple and works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> 25% cash is ludicrous and irresponsible. Cash has historically been a terrible 'investment', especially since most central banks have maintained a policy of creating annual inflation.

Warren Buffett has some interesting things to say about this: [https://20somethingfinance.com/warren-buffett-is- moving-100-...](https://20somethingfinance.com/warren-buffett-is- moving-100-into-us-stocks-should-you/) and [http://www.barrons.com/articles/buffett-bonds-terrible-in- co...](http://www.barrons.com/articles/buffett-bonds-terrible-in-comparison- to-stocks-1494258737) for example.

<comment><USER16> Possibly holding cash is useful for when you need to quickly capitalize on a drop in the market?

<comment><USER17> One can do that with treasuries or T-bills which historically have earned a real return. In a crisis one often finds that treasuries are negatively correlated with equities which can be a boon.

<comment><USER18> T-bills are what Harry Browne means by "cash".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> He missed rule #0:

Wealth is what you save, not what you earn or what you spend.

There are many people with very high income but spending as high (or even higher!), so they have little or no wealth.

<comment><USER20> Actually from a financial perspective, wealth is assets you own (equivalent to equity + liability). People with high net income should be investing as much as possible to let the money flow in the market. If everyone saves with no intention to invest/spend, it would potentially result in a stagnant economy.

<comment><USER19> Savings rate is the amount remaining after deducting expenses for consumption. It includes long-term investment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Also checkout Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio if you want a passive investment strategy that yields similar results to a buy-and-hold index fund with much less volatility.

<comment><USER22> To any index fund, or a specific one?

<comment><USER21> Vanguard (VTI) or S&P500

<comment><USER22> As I understand it, 25% of his portfolio would approximate one of those... by being one of them, or a similar all-market fund.

The other 75% has no relationship to them at all.

<comment><USER21> That's right. It's designed that way on purpose. A 30% decline in VTI will likely have no bearing on the other asset classes. Best case: the other asset classes overcompensate in value (see volatility harvesting) offsetting the crash. Worst case: you re-balance with a portion of the 25% cash you have on hand. As a concrete example, look at what this portfolio did in 2008.

<comment><USER22> You miss my point. You can't claim to replicate an index fund by investing 25% in that index fund and then not even attempting to do so with the other 75%. It's a simple false claim.

<comment><USER21> Oh the similar yield comes from back testing a 30 year period for this portfolio compared to S&P500. Both have roughly the same CAGR yet the permanent portfolio has an amazing Sharpe ratio (risk adjusted return).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I'm a complete financial idiot. As in, I only have money on a government- guaranteed fund in my bank.

Where do I start to know more about this? I dont want it to stress me out though, Im not so risk adverse when it comes to my finance. I spend very little, but I want to learn more about investing.

Any advice? More specifically for people living in EU?

<comment><USER15> Here's the best place to start: [https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page)

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> I dunno if I agree with the rest of this guy's blog or his off-hand remarks, but the investment advice in this page looks pretty solid overall.

</comment><comment><USER25> Most of these look great. I am somewhat skeptical of Rule #8 about not giving anyone signature authority. Maybe he means this in a narrow sense that I don't understand, but when you have your money being managed for you, trades are being made on your behalf, you aren't doing them yourself. This is true from robo-advising all the way up to private banking and family funds.

<comment><USER11> He would argue against having your money managed for you. He wouldn't be against working with an advisor, but he'd want the advisor to explain things to you so that you can execute on your own behalf.

<comment><USER25> That'd be fine if I could do the trades my banker does for me, but I can't. I know this isn't a problem most people have, but this advice is unimplementable without costing me real money (I'm sure he would advocate lowering the cost basis, although strangely he doesn't say much about that).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Harry had a radio show about investing where people would call in and ask him questions:

[https://web.archive.org/web/20160402162234/http://crawlingro...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160402162234/http://crawlingroad.com/finance/harrybrowne/radio/)

</comment><comment><USER26> > Your investment plan should be aimed, first and foremost, at preserving what > you have—preserving it from investment loss, government intervention, or > mismanagement.

The advice is decent and normal, but I really love how regular advice is "colored" with libertarian perspectives.

<comment><USER11> It's just being practical. Governments mismanage their economies, seize the assets of innocent people, etc. If you're serious about preserving your wealth, government intervention should factor into your decisions.

<comment><USER27> Governments also manage their economiies, but he doesn't say "be sure to expose your fund to the benefits of government intervention", so he's clearly biased. He advocates putting 25% in T-bills while also insinuating that the government is only a source of trouble.

<comment><USER11> That should tell you something about his approach. A staunch libertarian advocates investing half your portfolio in government securities. My conclusion: his investing approach is divorced from his politics (as it should be).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Advice: Just do dollar cost averaging in an index ETF. Question: Why? Answer: This article.

<comment><USER29> What advantages do index ETFs have over a comparable index mutual fund against the same benchmark?

Or, to ask another way, is there any reason to prefer anything other than Vanguard's Index500 vs anything else attempting to replicate the SP 500? (I call out the Vanguard fund because the fees are very low, .14% iirc.)

<comment><USER19> Vanguard also provides equivalent ETFs - VOO has expense ratio .04%, vs VFINX .14% - basically the ETF is like the admiral class shares ($10k+ investment). [https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/investm...](https://advisors.vanguard.com/VGApp/iip/site/advisor/investments/productoverview?fundId=0968)

Mutual funds: recurring investment of any dollar amount (fractional shares). Minimum initial investment required. Trade once per day, beware loads, fees, and expense ratios

ETFs: buy or sell one or more whole shares, trade throughout the day, beware trading commissions and expense ratios.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> The first rule is to inherent the money. The second is to be born into a network that benefits you and doesn't punish you arbitrarily. The third rule is to profit from a strong public infrastructure, and then once you've achieved enough wealth, work tirelessly to defund it through tax cuts.

This guy's a mug. And anyone who thinks financial security for one is something that can be done independent of a community is full of it, or a hustler protecting previously accrued assets.

<comment><USER31> >And anyone who thinks financial security for one is something that can be done independent of a community is full of it, or a hustler protecting previously accrued assets.

???

So you are saying the people who make money, and are frugal, would not be able to get to "financial security"? I'm a sample size of 1, but I seem to be doing just that "on my own".

You seem extra jaded here. What am I missing?

<comment><USER30> I don't think financial security is as tied to your independent actions as you seem to think. No matter how frugal you are, the best option for financial security is investing in the infrastructure and community you live in.

I don't know how much money you have, but if you or your family had a life- long expensive disease, can you say that given the current medical coverage offered at the current prices, you would be financially secure?

It's not a criticism to your ability to save or manage your money. Please dont' take it that way :)

<comment><USER32> You're trying to make this article more of a social policy commentary than it is.

Having a "life-long expensive disease" is like the inverse of Rule #12, where you've already lost the lottery. Now, this wouldn't even be a problem in Canada, but it'd be pretty moot to put in a rule about that.

The point is, this article isn't "these are the ingredients for being rich", it's "What reasonable guidelines can you follow to maintain any wealth that you manage to accrue?"

The context was "rich people went bankrupt, whaaaaat?" and the article is "well, they must have violated one or more of the following rules in a _big_ way!"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Manafort indicted for keeping money overseas that he did not report, among other reasons. Just a fact to bear in mind, as one of the points suggests keeping cash overseas

<comment><USER34> He never said try to hide it. Pay your taxes on it, do what you have to do so that it is legal. Just have it somewhere where "the man" cant seize it.

He specifically went out of his way to say NOT to try elaborate overseas schemes to avoid paying taxes.

<comment><USER33> Foreign assets can't be seized?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > Rule #1: Your career provides your wealth.

I mainly disagree with the first rule. Your career should not provide your wealth. Your career should keep your bills paid, provide security for the future, and allow you to live a comfortable life. Investments in financial endeavors like real estate, businesses, stocks, etc, education, and family is what provides wealth.

Update: Not sure why this post is getting downvoted? A career provides MONEY not WEALTH. There is a big difference. It is up to you to convert that money into wealth

<comment><USER32> And how, exactly, does one embark upon an endeavour such as owning real estate, starting a business, buying stocks, acquiring education, or starting a family?

For almost every single person, the main source of their wealth _will_ be their career.

Unless you are planning on inheriting more money than you expect to make from your career from your extremely wealthy parents, you're going to have to accept Rule #1.

And if you borrow money to accomplish these things, you are in violation of Rule #7, don't use leverage.

<comment><USER35> > And how, exactly, does one embark upon an endeavor

By using the money earned from your career to fund ventures. A stable career should provide you with money to build wealth. However, simply working a 9-5 everyday will not provide wealth as the rules implies. It provides money, not wealth. There is a difference

<comment><USER32> It will take you _decades_ of saving to have the kind of capital that can show a return that's even remotely comparable with your salary.

<comment><USER36> But you don't need to replace your salary, just cover your expenses :-).

For example, if you can save ~96% of your gross income and safely draw 4% from your investments, you can cover your expenses after only a single year. (Of course, you will never save 96% of your gross income, due to taxes.)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


I'm a web designer - <AUTHOR> http://www.theprojectspot.com/post/im-a-web-designer/10

<comment><USER2> When I read things like that, it remember me the times I had a job i disliked. There is sometimes lot of pain when working with customers, some of them really want their music playing on that webpage. You have to remember who you work for and who are your customers. If these people are your customers, maybe you can change the message your giving to be more constructive. If they aren't, well i'm wondering why you hate those people so much.

</comment><comment><USER3> If there's something I definitely want in a designer, it's an overinflated sense of superiority.

<http://startupquote.com/post/10767300677>

</comment><comment><USER4> "Designed and coded by: cwpStudios.com" - Can't say that helps your cause :S

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry? What do you mean?

<comment><USER5> It gives the impression that your website was not designed by you, but instead designed by another company. Is cwpStudios you? Or a company you work for?

<comment><USER6> He also gives the impression of being a bit of an arse when reading that post.

Not very professional, if I had to have someone other than me design my website, it would not be him.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> You should look at www.alittlebitofdsomething.co.uk

</comment><comment><USER8> regarding cwpStudios: a company that links to w3schools.com in its "resouces"(sic) section is not really credible.</comment>


Ask HN: What are some interesting, less known APIs? - <AUTHOR> What are some interesting, less known (i.e. not mainstream, so no FB, twitter, google, etc.) APIs out there? <comment><USER2> Not sure what you mean by not mainstream :P, but here are some artisanal APIs that I like and have found on the Mashape market place ([https://market.mashape.com/explore?query=](https://market.mashape.com/explore?query=)).

\- mSend, send SMS, [https://market.mashape.com/webaroo/msend](https://market.mashape.com/webaroo/msend)

\- Have I been pwned?, [https://market.mashape.com/troyhunt/have-i-been- pwned](https://market.mashape.com/troyhunt/have-i-been-pwned)

\- (inofficial) Whatsapp API, [https://market.mashape.com/datayuge/whatsapp](https://market.mashape.com/datayuge/whatsapp)

</comment><comment><USER3> We run one here:

[https://legalentityidentifier.info/lei/doc/page/api](https://legalentityidentifier.info/lei/doc/page/api)</comment>


Hello, my name is Reginald and I am a Socialist - <AUTHOR> http://raganwald.posterous.com/hello-my-name-is-reginald-and-i-am-a-socialis <comment><USER2> You can turn blue in the face sifting through all the wonderful labels people have constructed over the years. Let's keep things simple.

Either you're for a direct command and control structure, you want a mix, or you want free markets. It doesn't matter why you want that, in the end, it boils down to those 3 options.

Self-organizing cooperatives are not anathema to free markets. As long as some jackass somewhere isn't making them mandatory, I think they're fantastic and I'm a Capitalist with a big C. Open source software is a perfect example.

<comment><USER3> The issue with free markets is that they tend not to stay free for very long. Efficiencies of scale cause monopolies and before you know it self-organizing cooperatives, open source software and anything else you can think of that doesn't directly benefit what few winners have resulted from unfettered capitalism cease to exist.

Like you, I'm a Capitalist with a big C. However, I do see it takes some rigorous government intervention to keep free (ish) markets free (ish). If you want to call that government intervention "socialism" then, sure, go ahead, but I'm pretty damn sure evidence points to big C capitalism never having worked as well as it did between 1950 and 1980 in the "western world" where every government, including the US, did its damnedest to keep the capitalists in check to make sure the market would stay as free as possible.

Marx was right. The free market is inherently self-destructive. But it the 100 years since the communist manifesto smart people have figured out ways around that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Previous discussions:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1653063>

</comment><comment><USER5> The whole idea of capitalism is to make it possible for people like you to experiment with different ways to organize and sell your work. If one method works really well for you - thats great. So I would say you are a capitalist enjoying the freedom in the free market. That includes the freedom to play small "s" socialist.

<comment><USER4> This is why I think of myself as a "local" socialist. Of course, the whole idea of capitalism is also for other people to experiment with different ways to accumulate capital, and one of those ways is to hinder and restrict my ability to be a libertarian socialist on a small scale, e.g. patent trolling.

I'm not saying capitalism doesn't work, just that as practiced today it's a mixed bag.

<comment><USER6> > I'm not saying capitalism doesn't work, just that as practiced today it's a > mixed bag.

Like democracy. It kind of sucks, and produces people like Silvio Berlusconi. But it still beats the alternatives.

<comment><USER3> Or it only works in societies that are egalitarian enough to prevent an oligarch like Berlusconi or Thaksin Shinawatra ( _) from using his wealth to incite the poor to become his foot soldiers.

(_) or Julius Caesar

<comment><USER6> Much as Berlusconi sucks, he'll be gone some day, and people will pick up the pieces, and things will still be an awful lot better than in places run by real dictators. I'm still free to call Berlusconi an asshole without secret police swooping down and taking me away in the night.

<comment><USER3> Julius Caesar gave way to Augustus (who in turn gave way to Tiberius, Nero, Claudius and Caligula).

I wouldn't get your hopes up.

<comment><USER6> > Julius Caesar gave way to Augustus (who in turn gave way to Tiberius, Nero, > Claudius and Caligula).

> I wouldn't get your hopes up.

What do Roman emperors have to do with Berlusconi, besides being short, and the geographic location they have in common?

Are you seriously suggesting a parallel between the events of 2000 years ago and now, based on the fact that they happen to be based in Rome? Do you suppose Berlusconi is going to march over the Alps and invade France? Perhaps Sarkozy and a band of stalwart Gauls will resist Berlusconi's onslaught in a small village?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hello Reginald, my name is Martin. I believe that society should promote a meritocracy where a person's success is highly correlated with their work ethic and abilities and that people should reap the rewards/losses of their risks. I used to think that made me some kind of right-wing type, but according to the current political climate, I'm actually a socialist too. Go figure...

<comment><USER3> Hello Martin, my name is mtts. I'm pretty sure that having a work ethic and abilities to succeed is strongly correlated to what family you're born into.

I'm not sure what exactly the consequences of that knowledge should be, but I'm pretty sure it should at least involve not allowing those who have been born in fortuitous (and work ethic and abilities enhancing) circumstances to get so far ahead the less fortunate no longer have a chance to catch up.

<comment><USER2> > the less fortunate no longer have a chance to catch up.

You just spit in the face of every "less fortunate" individual who worked harder than everybody else and did catch up. It makes his accomplishment seem rather worthless. After all, he could have simply accepted the charity of someone like you or supported a system where that charity was systematically dispensed. Why bust your ass and work hard?

Oh, that brings me to the next point. Incentives. You just killed any incentive to work hard and bust your ass if you're in the "less fortunate" group. Why bother? You can just wait until someone helps you up.

<comment><USER8> For every less fortunate that works hard and succeeds, there are thousands that work hard and do not succeed; their efforts simply go to increase the wealth of the wealthy who hold the capital. My heart goes out to them, and I wish their exploitation would stop.

Reducing the wealth gap, or more to the point, not allowing it to expand exponentially is not the same as removing it. There will always be a gap, there will always be incentives.

<comment><USER2> What people like you don't understand is that there is real value in failure. A system that removes failure from the equation reduces the quality of life for everyone. You are hurting the very people you claim you are helping.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Heh, collectively ownership and decision making would be great, only it's impossible in our world. There will always be a person who has more influence over others, therefore making him the leader.

Capitalism is kind of like advanced socialism, since everyone IS compensated based on merit or amount of work, only most people aren't ambitious or want to put in the amount of work that others will (i.e. not everyone wants to "maximize their potential"), therefore creating the inequality.

The exact same happened in the USSR, actually, and what did they do? They just put those uninterested people to work on the same jobs, for the same pay, as those who actually liked working there, and that brought the overall productivity down, because why would anyone work better and faster if the slacker next to him gets paid the same for half the work?

But hey, everybody had jobs, right? Problem solved! :-)

Capitalism would work amazingly well at advancing society/humanity and making individuals wealthy and happy IF every single one of them would want to always maximize their potential and do their best at everything, but sadly that will not happen very soon (or at all)...

</comment><comment><USER10> > They generally share the view that capitalism unfairly concentrates power > andwealth within a small segment of society that controls capital and > derives its wealth through a system ofexploitation.

Capitalism, socialism, communism, fascism, etc, all end up like this, where power and control remain with the few.

You can't force or educate out human nature. Self-interest always ramains.

But people keep playing their games. Always looking outside, trying to change the world, rather than within. And they fail, fail, fail, over and over again. Same shit, different flies.

<comment><USER11> This claims too much. Differentials in power may always exist, but that doesn't mean power has the same distribution in all systems.

Social democratic systems coupled with vibrant civil societies lead to societies where power, though still distributed unevenly, forms a more interconnected and open network, instead of one centralized institution or small set of institutions that dominates society.

It's a bit unclear, though, which one leads to the other. Or if they're simply the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> If I had cancer and science showed chicken soup could cure it, I'd take the chicken soup over chemotherapy. When I have the flu I'm not thinking chemotherapy. Marx talked about those with nothing to lose but their chains. People in the U.S., Europe, the West, are not in that situation. Chemotherapy has saved lives and people have won revolutions with Communist leadership.

</comment><comment><USER13> Socialist? As Inigo Montoya would say, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

</comment><comment><USER14> I think this got buried

</comment><comment><USER15> The world's most economically successful and secure states today (China and Russia) would best be described as fascist or nationalist. The socialist states of Western Europe and the mixed economy of the US are in debt up to their eyeballs and careening through a series of financial crises.

So it will be interesting if in a few years, people start calling themselves unrepentant fascists. Probably the word itself won't be rehabilitated, but you may see more and more people declaring that the Chinese and Russian states provide a better business model than the failed American and European models.

<comment><USER3> China economically successful? Ok, I can see that. Elevating 300 million people out of poverty into the middle class is nothing to sneeze at, even if it still leaves 800 million (or so) in desperation.

But Russia? Sure, its GDP is impressive, but the vast majority of that is "produced" by oligarchs that are peddling out the country's natural resources without anyone else benefitting. It's a thief-ocracry that makes fascist Italy, Franco Spain and Samoza Portugal look like paradise.</comment></comment>


Real Courses Have Instructors - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jeffreymcmanus.com/1804/real-courses-have-instructors/

<comment><USER2> I strongly agree with your main point and a number of premises, but quite a bit of this seems to built on false delineations and it looks like trying to create differences where there is not. I see no reason that the structure as you define it or the set agenda as you define it be necessary components in a course, for example. The method of reinforcing what you are learning is by far the most important bit, and the instructor may or may not be at the same level depending on the person. I can envision the existence of a legitimate course without an instructor, however, though I'm not really sure how it would really work.

But, as I said, I do agree that the instructor is a necessary component in the current state of things, which is one of the reasons the false points made me so sad.

<comment><AUTHOR> I mentioned in the post that video by itself has value. A big part of my point is that it's borderline deceptive to refer to videos as "a course" when we know that "a course" is more than that (just as a live course is more than just listening to somebody lecture).

<comment><USER2> Oh, like I said, in the current state of things I can't think of anything instructor-less I'd refer to as "a course". My point is that I believe that to be the state now, not an inherent, always-will-be state as your post seems to imply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> It is indeed very interesting the article you wrote differentiating real courses from whatever else. It is sad that anything from a blog post to a youtube video is considered an actual course. I too learned a few things by watching videos or reading a tutorial, but it is far from a real class...and it is insulting to associate those attempts with the word "university". A class is a 2 way street -unlike videos and documents that are unilateral-, where students and teachers can interact..otherwise a lot can be left pending on the student's side..and without a teacher no one can certify that the students were indeed able to grasp the new concepts taught and that they are ready to put them into practice.</comment>


When Should Founders Be Allowed to Take Money off the Table? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/09/02/should-founders-be-allowed-to-take-money-off-the-table/

<comment><USER2> I like how he calls it "feed the family" money and mentions an upper bound of 1.5 million USD ... he must have a large family that only eats caviar pasted lobster or something??

<comment><USER3> His point was that the money could be used for things like buying a home. After taxes that 1.5 million turns into a bit more than 1 million (assuming long term equity gains). And if you live in the bay area or Palo Alto, a million doesn't buy you much.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Cheap but decent quality Android smartphone? - <AUTHOR> Looking to purchase phones that are being used by customers on a rental basis. <comment><USER2> Moto G4 or G5 (when the 5 comes out). The Moto G pretty much invented the category of inexpensive, solid performing phones with a non-tampered-with Android experience.

<comment><USER3> Please note that Moto G4 doesn't have the compass. That means Google Maps is not as accurate. I've had problems with inaccurate location(or current location jumps around) on Maps when I'm in situations where there is a mix of stop and go, and freeway traffic. I didn't have this issue with Nexus 5 which has a compass. (It could be an issue with Moto's GPS receiver too)

<comment><AUTHOR> Urgh. Looked at the price and thought I could make it work until I read this.

How bad is the accuracy of Google Maps?

<comment><USER3> It is accurate most of the time. Sometimes, it puts your location at a place that is impossible to get into. Assume you are traveling on a freeway. If you suddenly get into a stop and go traffic, it assumes you have got onto a surface street near the freeway - either redirecting you back onto the freeway, or reroutes you to a completely different route. It confuses you if you aren't paying attention to your location.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks. It's difficult to judge unless I actually test it out - I'm in the market for handsets to be able to rent/give it out as part of a broader business solution but I'd hate if the end users end up having a terrible experience.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I use a LG Optimus Zone 3 - black - 4G LTE - 8 GB - CDMA - smartphone. It's a good basic phone. I bought it for about $10.00. It's hard to beat.

Overall it's a good basic phone, apps run at an acceptable speed. I can run the major apps. The screen is large enough but not too large to get in the way. The camera is very basic but it does the job.

I don't play games so I can't speak to that. The biggest draw back is the amount of memory available for apps. It's very low. I only keep a 2 or 3 of the major apps at one time. You can't beat it for the price. Specially since I could probably buy 30 of these phones and still be below the price of some of the expensive popular android models.

<comment><USER5> Where do you get it for $10? Amazon sells it for $40, verizon for $70

<comment><USER4> I looked at my invoice from Best Buy and it was $9.99. I guess it was on sale but even at $40.00 it's not a bad deal.

<comment><USER6> Are phones sold at such cheap prices carrier-locked?

<comment><USER4> Yes, but in my case I am a Verizon customer so it does not matter. I've read that they will unlock it after a year of service.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lenovo P2 a damn fine device all round that packs one real killer feature, the best battery life you will see on a smartphone. its combination of the snapdragon 625 chip and gargantuan 5100mah battery have seen me through 4 days of my normal usage (around 11-12 hours SOT)

not only does it pack solid battery life but its a generally nice device, 4gb ram, an AMOLED screen, dual sims (or a sim and microsd) running a pretty close to stock android (recently updated to android N)

im from the UK so prices will be in GBP here, im not sure how they translate to the US but the phone can be had on contract for £20 a month or £199.99 on pay as you go from Three (Unlocked)

</comment><comment><USER8> Wiko, has pretty solid products in the range 80-200€.

[http://world.wikomobile.com/p-wiko-new- products](http://world.wikomobile.com/p-wiko-new-products)

</comment><comment><USER9> If you are in the uk I've had a good experience with wiley fox phones. Have a look on their website and on amazon.

</comment><comment><USER10> I have a Elephone P9000 it is decent but has flaws and for one it is not half as smooth as a half-powered iPhone 5S but does the job and I enjoy the extra disk space and the clear, huge screen, playing HD videos.

I bought it online at 200 bucks, not sure if its cheap or not. Was cheap compared to my previous mobile, the iPhone 6S

<comment><USER7> i had a p9000 and was reasonably impressed too, while maybe not the best battery life and its fingerprint reader was somewhat inaccurate for the price it was a generally good phone (not a patch on the lenovo p2 that replaced it for the same amount of cash though)

Mine started having issues though, very random ones too and no matter what i did software wise i couldnt seem to fix it, eventually i noticed why, although it had seemed to survive my motorcycle crash it was in fact bent like a banana!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Anandtech has got you covered: [http://www.anandtech.com/show/9770/best- android-phones](http://www.anandtech.com/show/9770/best-android-phones)

<comment><USER12> $600, "High end", $450, followed by "We have no suggestions for a budget category in the US right now"

OP specifically asked for "cheap" phones. This article doesn't seem to give him any good options.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I tend to use this site when making recommendations.

[https://www.stockdroids.com/](https://www.stockdroids.com/)

I believe this was posted to hackernews a few months back.

<comment><USER12> > Limit size to 4.7" screen (size of my iPhone 6s)

> Most recent releases that aren't made by CAT are in 2015

Seriously, why can I not find a good REASONABLY sized phone?!

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Define "cheap".

<comment><AUTHOR> Was looking at about $100 max.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Xiaomi redmi, all the models, according to your budget.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Has anyone heard of InFocus phones? We were able to rent these in Hong Kong but I've never heard of them before.

</comment><comment><USER16> Get at least 16 GB, people will complain a lot when 8 isn't enough.

<comment><USER17> I agree

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Samsung Galaxy J7

</comment><comment><USER19> xaiomi has a lot of low cost amazing phones

<comment><USER19> note 4, redmi 3s , I have a redmi 2 prime for almost over a year now its amazing</comment></comment>


Show HN: Syncable - Stop searching old email threads on iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://trysyncable.com

<comment><USER2> What exactly are you showing HN? It's a splash screen with a stock iphone picture.

</comment><comment><USER3> is this going to use the native iOS email client? are you going to be sending the content of the emails to your own servers, or is everything going to be done on the device?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, just to address, there are two options I'm working on at this point:

1) App-less (just changed your contact settings); and 2) I am tinkering with some local app stuff for the folks who want it.

The focus right now is 1), but the point of getting out so early is to validate these assumptions.

Thanks for the feedback / questions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I always struggle with this when running between meetings. Looking forward to trying it out!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks Yoseph</comment></comment>


She founded SiriusXM, a religion and a biotech for starters - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/martine-rothblatt-she-founded-siriusxm-a-religion-and-a-biotech-for-starters/2014/12/11/5a8a4866-71ab-11e4-ad12-3734c461eab6_story.html <comment><USER2> I lived across the street from United Thera. a few years ago and met Rothblatt at a company party I walked into on the street. I googled her and read all the things in the article and was amazed at her life story . This happened before the party, as I was curious about the company right in front of my window. Was great to talk with her about the insane amount of hard work she had to do to save her daughter, etc. Everyone I met at UT said she was the best boss they ever had. They have a very startup type vibe at United Thera, and the buildings they constructed are amazing too ! Everytime I saw Rothblatt, there would be a circle of people waiting to talk to her, and fawning over her.

Its great to see this years later on yCombinator

</comment><comment><USER3> A very interesting article, I just wish whatever ad plugins they have going didn't constantly crash Chrome.

Those disembodied lungs are amazing. And incredibly creepy. The business plan -- patching up donor lungs not approved for transplant (which is most of them) and keeping them alive long enough to find a patient they can save... to the tune of perhaps 2,000 lungs and lives per year. That's pretty amazing. Approved in Canada and awaiting FDA approval as well? That's incredible. I couldn't find a news reports of their first rejuvenated lung, the article doesn't really give much detail on how the procedure went.

Martine, I'm sure YC would want her at their Female Founder's Conference! ;-)

Some other interesting posts I found;

Martine Rothblatt - The Trans-Everything CEO [http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt- transgender...](http://nymag.com/news/features/martine-rothblatt-transgender- ceo/)

Book Review: Virtually Human by Martine Rothblatt [http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/09/book-review-virtually- hu...](http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/09/09/book-review-virtually-human- martine-rothblatt/)

United Therapeutics Website [http://www.unither.com/](http://www.unither.com/)

<comment><USER4> I just finished Virtually Human and would definitely recommend it. It makes a very in depth analysis for why "conscious" computers of the future will eventually want human rights - the same way that certain minority groups fought for equal rights throughout history.

The book seems to argue that the likely future scenario is for humans to replicate themselves in a separate computer entity. So people would have a duplicate robot twin. Very little mention is left to addressing the case of people actually merging with computers (so one entity and not two). I think this case is far more likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> _" The 60-year-old grandmother and CEO of United Therapeutics, the Silver Spring-based biotech she founded to help save her younger daughter's life, banked $38 million last year. It made her the nation's highest-paid female executive."_

I find it hard to believe that $38 million made her the highest paid female executive in the US. I would be stunned if this outpaced Sheryl Sandberg. Interesting story nonetheless.

<comment><USER6> As a side-note, she's also a male->female transgender. I'm not personally making any judgments here, but some people might consider her still a male, and thus not the highest paid female exec.

It's more of an interesting factoid than anything, though.

<comment><USER7> Anyone who considers her male is wrong.

Period.

If she is the highest paid female exec, then she is the highest paid female exec.

<comment><USER8> If Rothblatt sent a DNA sample off to a DNA testing lab, would they detect the sample as being from a male or a female?

(not that I really care all that much)

<comment><USER9> Male, because that's her genetic sex. Note that gender and sex are two different, not necessarily correlated things. Sex is the sum of your physical characteristics; gender is what you feel and/or identify as. She identifies as a woman, and has in fact had sexual reassignment surgery (giving her most female physical characteristics). She's a woman, and female.

<comment><USER8> One is something related to science ; the other is related to political or social beliefs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yikes. The creep factor is very high in this article. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the fawning over what is arguably a potentially dangerous new cult.

<comment><USER11> Interesting, I've heard people talk about transhumanism and singularitarianism as similar to religions/cults, but those philosophies aren't usually presented with an explicitly spiritual/religious component. It sounds from the article like the Terasim Movement does try to add a religious component (the profile suggests elements of Judaism). A light skim over the Terasim Movement website ([http://www.terasemmovementfoundation.com](http://www.terasemmovementfoundation.com)) doesn't seem to reveal much about that religious component, although this video ([http://vimeo.com/100518959](http://vimeo.com/100518959)) has a nebulously "spiritual" feel to it.

Do you think this cult is dangerous because you believe all cults/religions are, or do you see something particularly worrisome here?

<comment><USER10> I think the desire to form an organization which has the purpose of interfering with life at a fundamental level is quite dangerous, particularly since it seems focused around the desires - and thoughts - of a single individual. The creation of alternate-to-nature/-robot life is, arguably, another way to build yourself a slave colony.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> United Therapeutics are a strange company. In 2010, they released a supplement to their annual report in comic book form - [http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/UTHR/1290392365x0x466...](http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/UTHR/1290392365x0x466310/3ac92701-7658-49b1-a31e-67693969f01f/UTAR_2010_lo- res.pdf)

And the following year, released it as a musical.

<comment><USER13> i would be extremely worried if a company im investing did this. as much as it is not, it does at least seems like diversion tactics.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Without the Oxford comma I read that as SiriusXM being "a religion and a biotech for starters", I was pretty confused until I red the article and realized my mistake.

<comment><USER15> But even with the comma there's still the intepretation of SiriusXM being a religion, right? (ESL speaker here; that's how I might interpret it.)

<comment><USER16> Yes, that is true. Short statements inside pairs of commas are sometimes parenthetical asides, descriptions of the previous term/expression.

All hail the ambiguity of the spoken word....

<comment><USER17> > All hail the ambiguity of the spoken word....

But this is actually about the (lesser, but still present) ambiguity of the written word.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Oh wow, I saw the United Therapeutics HQ in Silver Spring being built, walked around it a bunch when it was done, thought it was a cool building, etc. and had _no_ idea it was Rothblatt's company. Neat!</comment>


Top fantasy sports player uses software, analytics to reap millions - <AUTHOR> http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2015/12/23/from-boston-penthouse-world-best-fantasy-player-plunges-into-startup-world/QHNpLh0O3QMyUDqTd4t27N/story.html <comment><USER3> It's a selling shovels during the gold rush move.

There are tons of people popping up that sell lineups on Twitter (similar to stock picking 'schemes', split your audience and keep selling to the ones that you gave good picks). There are paid analytics tools like the one in the article (and others endorsed nearly every other top 10 player). You can buy projections built on someone's machine learning model, or the aggregate of 50 top fantasy analysts. For a few bucks, you can get an Excel addon to optimize your lineups and script enter them for you. There are "group pools" that stake players to enter high-limit contests.

Take every business idea or angle from stock trading and online poker and they either exist already or will be released before next NFL season for DFS.

<comment><USER4> Funny I came across this line recently, in an article about trading terminals like the ones manufactured by Bloomberg etc. Maybe this guy's company is offering something to that effect - A glorified Data visualization software? (edit: Bloomberg's offering probably has much more value) It's a pretty smart move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The fact he's investing his time in building tools for others rather than putting all his time into winning on his own, raises doubts about his actual winnings.

One explanation might be that he's maxed out how much he can win.

<comment><USER6> Another, perhaps more cynical explanation, is that he's actually being paid by one or more Fantasy Sports companies to help promote the notion that playing is a skill based activity rather than a gambling activity. Since the latter gets you banned in NYC :-)

<comment><USER7> But both skill and luck are at play in DFS.

<comment><USER8> Sure, but that's also true of, for example, poker. However, many states consider poker to be gambling.

<comment><USER9> Gambling does not mean that poker is not a game of skill.

<comment><USER10> As a key issue with DFS is state laws in which "gambling" is _legally distinguished_ from "games of skill", yes, in context, it does.

<comment><USER9> I'm not from the US, so didn't know that, but it is stupid. Gambling and game of skill are not mutually exclusive. Gambling means that there is some variance, some risk involved. You gamble on the outcome. That doesn't mean you cannot develop a skillset which will make taking the risk profitable, over the long term. Any law that says otherwise is ill-written.

<comment><USER11> By that definition, every action you undertake is gambling. Driving to the grocery store is gambling. But since regulating driving your car to the shop under "gambling" laws doesn't make sense, "gambling" as a legal concept involves wagering money on games of chance, and "games of chance" is a distinct concept which is separated from "games of skill". This is the line that DFS is trying to walk, because the skill side of the line is the side that lets them operate in places where gambling is more strictly regulated.

<comment><USER9> Like I said, any law that insists on making a mutual distinction between games of skill and gambling (risking money on a probability of an outcome) is ill- written.

Poker is a game of skill just like backgammon. You can wager money and there is risk (chance) involved, but you can develop skills which will ensure that you are a winner over a less skilled opponent. Just like golf. There is always the chance that you will not make the necessary strikes and a less skilled opponent takes a game from you, but over the long run, you can sufficiently influence the outcome and achieve a positive win rate. This is what makes it a skill-based game. You influence it by your skills. You can place wagers and gamble on the outcome, but that doesn't suddenly make it any less not a game of skill.

I'm not very familiar with fantasy sports, but to the best of my knowledge, the same holds true there too.

A game of chance cannot be distinguished from games of skill. All games involve chance. This problem probably arises from the poor understanding of "chance" and probabilities by the people who wrote the law (presuming Hanlon's razor here). They wanted to ban games where the operator bleeds the players dry, like slots, lottery, etc., and called them "game of chance", but there is more to the story of "chance", like i outlined above.

<comment><USER10> Actually, I think your argument rests on a poor understanding of the laws you are criticizing, as you presume incorrectly that they rely on definitions of "game of chance" and "game of skill" such that the former must have no element of skill and the latter no element of chance.

The definitions are different in each case, but none of them work that way. In New York, for instance, the outcome depending materially on chance, whether or not skill is also involved, makes it a game of chance.

<comment><USER9> The outcome of which game, exactly, is not dependent on chance, in some form, or another?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If you've never heard of "fantasy sports", John Oliver to the rescue: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq785nJ0FXQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq785nJ0FXQ)

<comment><USER13> (video not available outside of america)

<comment><USER14> plays in India

<comment><USER15> plays in EU

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I built a system that scraped projections off [http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/projections](http://apps.fantasyfootballanalytics.net/projections) and joined them with weekly salary information from DraftKings. I then ran that data through a genetic algorithm that maximized projected fantasy points while keeping the team salary under the limit.

I entered about 10 matches ... and I lost every single match.

I don't know if my projection data was bad, my sample size too small, or if I was just unlucky. I gave up after a few weeks.

<comment><USER17> I scraped from about 6 different sites - went through millions of combinations and only did so-so. I think it's simple - the people that win play A LOT of rosters to cover their bases. That seems to be what the person in the story is doing and what I've read other big players are doing.

<comment><USER18> I'm curious if there is a way to scrape the historical roster data, so one could figure out how much variance the other players are getting. On FanDuel you can browse through the other rosters by hand, but the API doesn't appear to let you scrape the entire contest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The juice in DFS is ridiculous but the player pool is full of really bad players. As soon as the player pool gets a bit better the edges get too small in my opinion. I have no access to DFS as I'm in Europe once I do I'll probably adapt my dynasty FF points predictor to it for fun :)

Good time to switch to selling the software if you anticipate the edges to get smaller. Quite similar to the poker world where people that used to win big sell coaching at high rates and quite often people figure out that those coaches don't beat the games anymore etc.

<comment><USER20> I'm in Europe and have played DFS with Mondogoal.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Wouldn't commercializing these tools reduce his own potential earnings?

<comment><USER22> As the top ranked player, selling his "methods" could be more lucrative than his competition earnings. If the he considers the barrier to be sufficiently low, then he would expect his earnings to drop with time. There are ways of looking at it that make his decision rational.

<comment><USER23> Wouldn't sales drop with time as the market is saturated with identical players?

<comment><USER22> If you have high earnings in a market that you think has a low barrier of entry, you can expect worthy competitors to show up. If you are the worthy competitor (No. 2) but maybe just cannot dethrone the number one, then you could decide to sell methods that make you a worthy competitor.

When more worthy competitors join because the No. 2 guy decided sell his secrets, top guy makes even less as the each participant's winnings are drawn from the pool. In this case profit margin is proportional to the _difference_ in skill.

If you are the top guy, you could look on as the No. 2 guy establishes a solutions market (as your profits drop) or you could start the solutions market.

It seems like if you are the top guy, the main consideration is How special/unique is my secret sauce? The answer to that and guides the second, When is the right time to become a solutions provider?

There will be market saturation with either your product or that of another entity. With time the game approaches to pure gambling and the money paid for the solutions becomes a Vig of sorts! Along the way sales would drop according.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I think this is less an argument for how much skill is involved in DFS - <USER2> is, but how slim the chances are for recreation players to win against the pros. This seems like a scam for recs who stand no chance.

<comment><USER9> How slim are the chances to win a chess match against Magnus Carlsen?

<comment><USER25> Probably the better comparison would be how likely an amateur is to win against the world backgammon champion. Backgammon has some luck in it with dice rolls, but if the skill difference is big enough luck has a much tougher time making any difference.</comment></comment></comment>


Hacking Infix Operators into Python with Decorators - <AUTHOR> http://tomerfiliba.com/blog/Infix-Operators/ <comment><USER2> I've used this recipe in my IPython launch script to define SQL-like infix operators for working with pandas DataFrames. You can see that source here: < [https://github.com/spearsem/configs/blob/master/ipython_conf...](https://github.com/spearsem/configs/blob/master/ipython_configs/profile_default/launch.py#L397) >.

You can scroll up a little for some of the other definitions.

This is just toy code of course, but it's fun sometimes to be able to say something like

SELECT * FROM>> dfrm <<WHERE>> COL('A') < 0.5

for a DataFrame "dfrm" with a column "A"

I like the "<< _ >>" syntax better myself, even though the "|_|" syntax uses fewer characters.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Ain't that cool?

Oh it is! Now never use this.

<comment><USER4> Yup. I think it is the alternative definition of a "hack". :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wrote something similar a while ago as an experiment. It's a bit amateur-ish but I had fun doing it. [https://github.com/sleibrock/Unit.py](https://github.com/sleibrock/Unit.py)

</comment><comment><USER6> Woudn't it be more interesting to do it the other way around? Make the infix operator a prefix operator. For instance, in R you can do x+y or "+"(x,y). Sadly, you can't do "+"(x,y,z) and so on, but you can use it in this way:

        args = list(x,y)
        do.call("+",args)

<comment><USER7> Python has builtin alternate forms of all infix operators in the "operator" module:

        from operator import add
        add(x, y)

Like in your example, you can't simply give it more args (since infix operators are binary operators and may not be associative). But you could combine it with some other builtins like so:

        from operator import add
        reduce(add, [x, y, z])

Of course, for the specific case of addition, you can simply use the builtin "sum()" function, which is almost equivalent to above (sum() assumes an initial value of 0 by default, so sum(list) === reduce(add, list, 0))

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> And here I thought that this kind of stuff was the reason people didn't like perl or haskell.

<comment><USER9> The difference being that this would never fly in a python codebase.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> 2005: [http://code.activestate.com/recipes/384122-infix- operators/](http://code.activestate.com/recipes/384122-infix-operators/)

</comment><comment><USER11> Funny, forced infix in Perl uses the same syntax and mechanics:

[https://metacpan.org/pod/Sub::Infix](https://metacpan.org/pod/Sub::Infix)

</comment><comment><USER12> [2012]

</comment><comment> michel-slm First paragraph is factually incorrect already, lumping Lisp (prefix) with Forth (postfix) ...</comment>


Brazil Startup Report, a 15-min guide by World Startup Report - <AUTHOR> http://www.slideshare.net/WorldStartupReport/brazil-startup-report-36443505

<comment><USER3> As a friend likes to say: starting up in Brazil is entrepreneurship "Level: Hard".

This means huge challenges, but the market is huge, there's REAL problems to be solved and there's the opportunity of building significant entry barriers.

Plus, even if rules are absurd, all players in the market are subject to the same constraints. Meaning that they're a problem if you're debating between tackling Brazil or another market, but they're a given if you're set on setting foot there.

</comment><comment><USER4> As I understand it, the business tax structure in Brazil is one of the most complex in the world [1], resulting in iPhones for example costing as much as $1,200 [2]. A good friend in Rio is working on a solar startup and said on some products they face 88% tax on revenue. Correct me if I'm off-base, but what impact is that having on attracting and fostering startups?

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/joeharpaz/2013/12/17/brazil- rank...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/joeharpaz/2013/12/17/brazil-ranked-most- time-consuming-tax-regime-in-the-world/)

[http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most- exp...](http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most-expensive- iphones-in-the-world-countries)

<comment><USER5> The maximum tax quota is 60% by the Correios, which is simple Taxing, the other quotas are from 1% - 50% depending on the product type.

What happens a lot of times is that the business guys want to say that it's "too hard" to do business here where it actually is pretty easy, not too much taxes and a great market. There's the employee taxes which are the most expensive but some of the taxes you can get back if you're smart enough with your accounting.

It's a great place to live and to have a business, the best part is that Brazilians like new things, when you open your business everyone is coming in to see what's it about.

Best,

<comment><USER6> Nope, I'm brazilian and have worked with company taxes while launching a startup. You're talking mostly about natural persons import taxes based on Correios importation.

What you are not seeing is: we have a pretty complex tax structure based on the kind of product/service you are providing. Also, we have a pretty bureaucratic import process, have you ever tried to deal with Port Customs over here? You have a 7 step process, each one involving some tax or payment to be made to one or other agency.

It's very hard too when the rules are always changing, when I opened the juridical person for my startup I had to contact a lawyer and an accountant to get the best deal on taxes for the service that I was providing, some months later the rules had changed and I'd to pay around 8% more on taxes than if I went as another type of company.

So yes, it's pretty hard to do business over here, you need to have a competent lawyer and accountant just to get your company out of the ground, like, reaaally in the beginning.

<comment><USER7> And this complexity doesn't end there because, in order to deal with these heavy employee taxes, it's not uncommon for IT companies to ask employees to open their own one-man companies to avoid these taxes. Now having a B2B relation, the company is free from these taxes and mandatory benefits, and the employee now deals with it declaring himself as the only employee and paying himself minimum wage on paper, receiving the rest of his salary as company's profit. Or the scheme they call flex, which is to pay a great deal of the salary as extras (even up to 80%) because these do not get taxed. The employee, in turn, needs to declare expenditures to his contractor in order to receive this extra share.

The real meaning of "being smart enough with your accounting" seems to me mostly finding these loopholes in the tax structure to avoid leaking money to the government.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Good paper, thanks Bowei. It is a great place to be an entrepreneur - <USER2> some of the problems you point out it is also a world of opportunity where you can help solve real problems if you have the right attitude. Also, its a great place to live!

<comment><USER9> Absolutely agree. I especially enjoyed my short stay at Belo Horizonte, go check it out if you have a chance!

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> "Foreign entrepreneurs should expect to spend about 70 days and around $3,000 in legal fees to incorporate."

That's absolutely shocking! How in the world can incorporation take more than two months?!

<comment><USER9> Incorporation is the easy part. Paying taxes is the much tougher thing to do in Brazil.

But! Brazil it's the land of opportunity in Latam, so that's why foreigners like to go to Brazil.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've worked at one of the first B2B SaaS to launch here in Brazil, back in 2008. Get in touch and I'll be glad to answer questions regarding the challenges you're expected to face here.

</comment><comment><USER9> Bowei from the World Startup Report team here. Thanks for reading the report.

If anyone has any question regarding Brazil startup ecosystem, I'd be happy to help answer it!

<comment><USER12> 2 years ago I was looking into the VC culture here in Brazil but all I kept hearing was that investors were looking for "Local Innovation" which is a pretty way of saying "Just clone sucessful US startups" and that the only risk they would take would be that making sure something like Groupon worked in our local market.

Did that change at all? If I'm looking to create the next crazy idea my only option is to either rellocate or bootstrap.

<comment><USER13> Not that much, but the landscape looks a little better now in that sense, since a lot of local copycats failed.</comment></comment></comment>


StickyBits: Add a bar code based history to any physical object - <AUTHOR> http://www.stickybits.com/

<comment><USER2> The examples are a bit laughable..

"Attach your resume to your business card" - You could just add a web link instead and everyone would understand instead of limiting yourself to a very specific subset of users that know what to do with the barcode. (Same with "attach photos of what you're selling to a flyer")

Plus, is there any type of control on these barcodes? Can I claim a barcode and not allow anyone to add anything else? That would be quite important if you're going to put it on a business card..

<comment><USER3> Yes, you can create websites and link to them, but it's cumbersome.

With stickybits, you can just upload and you're done. And people see your resume immediately when scanned.

Also, the first person to scan a barcode is the "moderator" and can delete any content that gets posted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's some nice web design. Lots of attention to detail. Cool product idea, too. Reminds me of Barcode Battler:

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

<comment><AUTHOR> yeah, gorgeous design, really awesome name, and the product seems cool, though not sure how useful at this point? The number of things you would want to put big vinyl stickers on seems kind of small, but if this is the first step it is very exciting. Being able to track the provenance of an object unobtrusively (via RFID?) would be really neat.

<comment><USER5> Well, from a business perspective, if you're a company with equipment (medical, electronics, tools, etc) you could have employee "check out" equipment with their phones. If you're a company that works with documents (engineering, legal, what have you) you could attach barcodes to physical copies (shoot, you could overlay them on the digital ones to so they print off with the doc itself) and use them to easily pull up a record of the document. These are just a few uses that come to mind, but basically anywhere that you need to identify something or someone, you could use this as a starting point and build out from there.

<comment><USER6> To target this use-case they would need to limit the number of wide-eyed, open mouthed monkeys they use on their sales page.

<comment><USER7> No problem: take the same technology, rebrand it have a "business-oriented" name, make a different landing page, then sell both versions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First 'web 2.0' website I am seeing that is so well designed AND uses extensively tables for HTML markup. The site is basically one large image without any real text, so far for SEO.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, the first thing I did was 'view source'. Sheesh, what a mess.

Check out this: <http://static.stickybits.com/web/images/fp_08.jpg>. Zero SEO value by putting text in images.

For such a great design, it totally fails at implementation.

<comment><USER3> To ensure the same type of experience across browsers, we decided to make much of the top images. Most people still use IE, and we didn't want gross rendered text.

Also, I like tables :) They just work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> i think the concept is kinda weak. i'd use a QR code with a link to a wiki page, if that's what this is.

so they're proposing a wiki page for each unique bar code... that smells like wikipedia, but i don't see "business value" in it.

that site looks like they're trying to market something, which means that they're trying to make money with this. i can't imagine how that's supposed to work.

<comment><USER3> QR codes are just an embedded block of text. They can also redirect you to a URL, so in that case, it's just a shortcut to typing.

Stickybits allows you to actually write to barcodes (effectively using the barcode as just a pointer to lots of media)

No easy way to do this with QR and be social. Unless you set up a website.

No marketing, just want to use codes and attach digital content to real world objects.

<comment><USER11> Unless I'm misunderstanding things, Stickbits _is_ that website. You just chose to use your own barcodes instead of QR codes for some reason.

<comment><USER12> The app can use any bar code as the identifier. You can scan a stickybit- generated bar code, a QR code, or a random UPC code from the back of a product in a store.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> The main use-case I see for this is physical objects which already have a barcode. If you were going to go to the trouble of barcoding something yourself (e.g., business card), you'd be better off using a URL, where you'd be able to control what gets associated with the barcode, to say nothing of avoiding the chicken-egg issues with something like this.

</comment><comment><USER14> Seems interesting, it reminds me of delicious but for products. That to me is the best use case, like their example "Scan a cereal box barcode and attach your best treats recipe".

The other ones, like putting a barcode on a birthday card, I'm not so sure about.

</comment><comment><USER15> This reminds me of the CueCat (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat>).

From what I recall, the CueCat was born of the same idea, but was quite before its time (for example, it connected via PS/2).

<comment><USER16> Agreed, CueCat was well before its time. Dave Mathews (not the singer) was one of the creators of the CueCat and generally everything he does is well before its time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Just as a heads up, www.stickybits.com is blocked by default in the NETGEAR UTM25. It is classified as a "pornograph/sexually explicit" web site.

If any Stickybits people read this, you may want to bug them (Netgear) about clearing your name.

<comment><USER17> An update to this. I was able to get Netgear to reclassify the site, it should be accessible through all Netgear filters now. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> What a greap app! Fantastic design of the homepage as well.

Interesting that they got that through the appstore. Didn't think they allowed barcode scanning apps, but maybe that was just amazon that didn't allow such apps. I think it's a good idea to build this app around fun, and then add the business aspects later.

I would not be surprised though if this app is pulled from the appstore because of some bogus claim and that apple launches a similar feature with a selected partner, but more shopping oriented.

<comment><USER15> There are plenty of barcode scanning apps, the best probably being RedLaser (<http://redlaser.com/>).

<comment><USER19> They use Redlaser's SDK.

<comment><USER20> True. In fact we're working more closely with Stickybits to do more than just license them the RedLaser SDK. Stay tuned for more on that.

<comment><USER19> My cofounder and I are working on a product that, in part, replaces a piece of enterprise hardware with a QR code sticker so shaky reading isn't an option. We've been looking at the Red Laser sdk so hopefully we'll be in touch soon.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is actually the first major application that has aspects of it powered by SimpleGeo (as pointed out by Joe Stump here <http://twitter.com/joestump/status/10224268993>). I think it's as big of an accomplish for SimpleGeo as it is for StickyBits. Both companies are doing some amazing things...

</comment><comment><USER21> Shame the Android app is Android 2.0+ only, which means I'm unable to try it with my Hero, at least for the moment.

<comment><USER22> Well that explains why I couldn't download it on my Hero either. Indeed, a shame.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> _Patent pending_

Seriously? A somewhat interesting use of bar codes, but not worthy of a patent.

</comment><comment><USER24> The CueCat rides again, except now with spam potential. o_O</comment>


What did people do before toilet paper? - <AUTHOR> https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/what-people-do-before-toilet-paper/ <comment><USER2> My boredom-induced curiousity doesn't overcome my resistance to provide NatGeo with my email address. Sigh.</comment>


Ask HN: Where do you look for a partner for your side project/startup/sm. biz? - <AUTHOR> Are there special well-known websites? <comment><USER2> [https://www.founder2be.com](https://www.founder2be.com)

[https://cofounderslab.com](https://cofounderslab.com)</comment>


Comma.ai open sources driving data used to seed its company - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/03/comma-ai-open-sources-the-data-it-used-for-its-first-successful-driverless-trips/ <comment><USER2> Best of luck to George. Have always been a fan of his work. Favorite line from article:

"Ultimately, Hotz says, the comma.ai philosophy is simple – tell people exactly what they're doing, but remain confident in the startup's ability to do it faster, smarter and cheaper."

The confidence of hotz is astonishing but I'll be the first to admit I'm still cheering him on. This is such an incredibly hard trying to get right, but he is either going to knock this out of the park or die trying.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is amazing!!!</comment>


Playing Tetris video game 'fixes lazy eye', doctors say - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22245620

<comment><USER2> It is not just playing Tetris; it is playing with special goggles that block part of the screen from one eye and block the rest from the other eye.</comment>


The "Default Interface Methods" (DIM) is now the most controversial C# proposal - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dotnet/csharplang/issues/52 <comment><USER2> Can somebody here explain how interfaces with method bodies are different from abstract classes?</comment>


Is Square an unpleasant place to work? - <AUTHOR> http://quora.com/Square-company/Is-Square-an-unpleasant-place-to-work

<comment><USER2> When I was working at startups in Cambridge, there was a company there that had a similar reputation called "JumpTap". They were in the same building as us and their people complained a lot a the nearby bar. Long hours, long weeks, no recognition, even guys on the same team sabotaging each other's projects to chase promotions. When I saw that comment "getting a lot of advice from JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon," I remembered that JumpTap was founded by a former Morgan banker.

At the time I knew some people at investment banks and they basically report the exact same environment. Right around then my friend went to JumpTap and lasted about 5 weeks before he walked out, reporting the exact same thing. So when they called to recruit me I knew it would be wasting my time to even explain to them I thought that they should fix their rep as an employer first - rapacious and exploitative is the only environment they know how to run. It works for Morgan's and Goldman and the rest of Wall Street so they bring it with them into tech. It seems to me that only about 5% of engineers are suited for it, that suitability doesn't correlate with actual technical talent, they don't really gain anything in the long run for the extra time they put in (JumpTap's never gonna have a big stock pop, and Square employees will never see a Google kind of IPO payout), so for pretty much everyone it's best to steer clear.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is [rapidly growing and successful startup x] a pleasant place to work?

FUCK NO

You're growing fast. Everyone's overwhelmed and strained to their limits. People get bitchy and burn out. Systems fail. Corners are cut. Employees do the math on options and come up short.

Not pleasant. Pleasant and fast growth don't have a lot of overlap. Is it worth the ride? Everyone has to figure that out for themselves.

<comment><USER4> I disagree -- plenty of fast growing teams and companies treat employees well, even during hyper-growth. Sure, it's a lot less stable than an established company, but what people are talking about in this Quora question doesn't seem to be related to growth.

I know a fair number of people at Facebook during the 2006-2010 period (and some from 2005+), and they paid people well, didn't measure productivity by butt-in-seat hours, etc. Facebook was growing at least as fast as Square.

<comment><USER3> In 2006 facebook was already more than 150 people from what i can tell... square pushed through that boundary much more recently -- that's the really painful bit

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I have not spent much time thinking about this, but do you think, possibly, that the reason why a minor screw-up from an engineer is looked at as a huge mistake (and ultimately the engineers feel like crap day-in-day-out), is because of the industry in which Square operates?

A minor error could practically take a company alike this down.

<comment><USER4> None of the behaviors ascribed to Square seem like the kind of things which contribute to Quality (in the measurable/repeatable process sense). In fact, most of the issues raised on Quora (whimsical firing, excessively long hours, incompetent HR and management, etc.) are directly counter to any decent Quality program.

Yes, a financial company needs more focus on test, quality, etc. than a social network or game, but you don't really get those things by terrorizing employees.

If you look at the organizations producing the best, most bug-free code, they're generally 9-5 shops with very experienced people, probably way more qualified than a startup employee for the same role, and for roles where the requirements and performance metrics are pretty well established.

Trying to avoid all defects is kind of the opposite end of a spectrum from rapid innovation. You can have low defects in production through great test and rapidly catching/fixing bugs, but at a certain point, you do need to accept higher overhead and slower development speed to deliver very low defect products.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm not sure if anything has changed, but in 2010 and early 2011, Square had one of the most effective recruiting efforts in Silicon Valley -- they were able to recruit away from startups, Facebook, etc. (Palantir was the other one, with Facebook being the "big company" who had no problems recruiting otherwise).</comment>


GitMonitor on Elixir - <AUTHOR> https://blog.gitmonitor.com/gitmonitor-on-elixir-92a87c7eb382#.hyboj7wc8 <comment><USER2> > Immediate wins [...] We were able to get rid of some servers, and downsize > the remaining servers [...] Response times are down as well [...] > Development and deployment are also faster.

A case for new technology should be made more than just on pure technical features but also in terms of reduced ops load, say because of fault tolerance or saving in recurring infrastructure costs. Or it could be community friendliness and acceptance of new members. I feel Elixir does a great job there, as well.

Other thing I found using Erlang: It is simply more fun and easier to discover problems. Can launch observer. Setup traces with recon_trace (I started to do that more lately even instead of adding print statement to code, attaching traces to functions is just too easy). Even things like hot-patching have saved the day many time in terms of fixing an issue for some customers with 0-downtime. These seems like nice extras but they all add up and make a huge difference when taken together.

<comment><USER3> Ops wins should just be assumed, though. Not to be flip, but you'll gain performance wins picking just about any other language/stack than Ruby on Rails. Even Python blows it out of the water. Move to something like Erlang/Elixir with a ridiculously nice/tuned runtime, or compiled languages like Go, or a combination of the two like Java/.NET and you should see huge performance wins without much work.

Rails wins in some cases for development productivity, and is "good enough" for many things. But when it's time for scaling, the language/solution/stack choice almost doesn't matter if you're moving from RoR. That said, if free ops performance wins aren't part of the decision, you've done it wrong.

<comment><USER2> > Ops wins should just be assumed, though

They should be, but often they are not I. It is mostly about "Look how fast it runs on my laptop, it means we can have millions of requests on a large server". I've heard people quote Techempower benchmarks as their reason to picking a language / library vs another.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I started using Phoenix for my most recent side project. So far, am really liking Elixir and everything that comes with it. Obviously, I am still learning, but the inclusion of the entire Erlang ecosystem is a big plus.

Will have to say that working with Elixir and Phoenix (so far) has been much more enjoyable than working with Rails.

I will say the only thing I really miss is extra tooling for debugging and so on, but I'm primarily a java developer, so I'm used to having all sorts of options at my fingertips for debugging.

<comment><USER5> The REPL is really powerful in elixir. You can get a command line into your running app, effectively.

Elixir projects tend to go thru three phases- early its' green code and everything's working, then there's a phase where you find a whole lot of errors and it looks like you're in trouble, but once you get past that you end up with code that you can put in production and literally forget about.

In that second phase, being able to connect to servers and inject data into them and see the results etc can be very useful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great news, more people discover how good Erlang(and obviously Elixir) is, especially comparing to Ruby/Rails. I hope more people are going to consider it.

</comment><comment><USER7> A few weeks ago I wrote a very basic IRC server in Elixir to learn the language and was very impressed how fast I was able to get it running. Despite it being my first contact with a functional language the coding felt very intuitive to me.

The only thing I miss is good tooling support but I'm coming from Java and a bit spoiled in that regard.

<comment><USER8> FWIW I find `mix` miles ahead of what I've used in other languages (never used Java).

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Elixir is blazing fast" it says, so I follow the link and notice that "blazing fast" apparently means 10x the speed of Ruby. I don't think that phrase means what they think it means.

<comment><USER10> I'm beginning to wonder how many developers have no clue how much performance a modern computer can achieve. I certainly didn't until recently.

<comment><USER8> Personally I've seen hundreds of projects in many languages called "blazing fast". To me they're meaningless words.

Elixir and Erlang are bad at number crunching, they aren't "fast" at computations like C is. However, because of the amazing piece of tech that is the BEAM, problems that are best solved through multiple processes/actors, concurrency, and distribution appear to be "blazing" fast because the two languages are very good at that type of stuff. Hence the Phoenix web framework being called "blazing fast"—the BEAM is great for servers.

<comment><USER11> Also since the VM is optimised for functional programming with no shared memory - it can do tricks you normally cant that help with speed. Like avoid GC in some cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Just a note for blog authors - please add link to your product on your blog, in visible. I almost didn't check what you do, because I'm almost too lazy to click on address bar and remove "blog" prefix.

<comment><USER13> The bottom of the article has multiple links. Curious what you would recommend instead while not spamming the article?

<comment><USER12> I wanted to know, before reading article, what is their product, so I didn't notice links at the bottom. Honesty I was expecting that logo, that says "GitMonitor" not "GitMonitor blog", will take me to their page, or something similar next to it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We've being playing with Elixir and are planing to ship first production app in the Fall. Very productive and unique environment. Coming from node it's so much nicer for concurrency not to mention all the other cool features of BEAM VM.

</comment><comment><USER15> Can someone explain this? "Umbrella projects ... [are] a really great concept that allows us to have multiple microservices living in the same codebase, while giving us the flexibility to scale each service separately". How is this any different from just storing the code for multiple services in the same repository?</comment>