Don't just scratch an itch - <AUTHOR> http://builtfromsource.com/blog/2012/10/13/dont-just-scratch-an-itch/

<comment><USER2> So to sum up: "It's not just inspiration, it's followthrough which makes all the difference." And it's not just a little followthrough, but you have to continually renew your enthusiasm and continue to improve even beyond your original vision.

That's if you want success, but for some of us sometimes, I think that scratching the itch is enough. If someone wants something better, they can do better.

<comment><USER3> The metaphor is inapt. Inspiration is not scratching an itch, it's _having_ an itch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As was intrigued by that uncommon advice "don't follow your passion, follow your effort" but after I read Mark Cuban's post I'd say he's right. What do you guys think?

Link to blog post: [http://blogmaverick.com/2012/03/18/dont-follow-your- passion-...](http://blogmaverick.com/2012/03/18/dont-follow-your-passion- follow-your-effort/)

<comment><USER5> I definitely appreciate Cuban's words.

I think the truth is that one must question the sincerity of their passion if they're unwilling to put forth effort for it. For many, I think a passion is something they'd like people to _think_ they do. If they're really passionate about it, they'll do something about it; at that point, there'd be no question.

<comment><USER4> I am guilty of that as well. When I am passionate it usually mean that I want to scratch an itch. But now I think that passion is something that comes after you put a lot of effort on the subject matter. BTW, I submitted Cuban's post to HN to challenge the notion of passion <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4680098>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Scratching an itch is fine. Not everything in life has to be commercial.

</comment><comment><USER7> > After you scratch the itch, you have a choice. You can move on or you can > keep at it. And I bet that if you keep working at it, you'll find a new or > interesting wrinkle that will reinvigorate you.

But I have other things to work on that I already know are more interesting and rewarding.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been working on Errbit for a while now, and that started as 'scratching an itch'. It's great to be part of an open source community, where everyone scratches their own itches, and their contributions improve the software for everyone else.

As @tisme said, 'Not everything in life has to be commercial'.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Nathan!

Errbit is great, but I think there's room for diversity. After all, Redmine, Lighthouse, and JIRA all exist but address different use cases.

Coalmine has features that Errbit doesn't (and vice versa), but ultimately we want to take it in a slightly different direction from Errbit and other Airbrake-like tools.

As we get closer to 2.0 in the coming months I hope to make that distinction even more clear.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Launch app with/without incorporating a company? - <AUTHOR>

I'll be launching an app in a few weeks.  Most likely it'll sink without trace.
Is it safe to launch an app without incorporating as a company?  (In the UK it's ~£20/$30 to provide a firewall between law suits and personal assets).
Y Combinator suggests that you don't incorporate before applying.  Have any HN applicants lost their house through this advice?
I understand that HN readers are not lawyers.  I'm not expecting advice, just a discussion of relevant topics. <comment><USER2> IANAL and I am in the US, but I'll play devil's advocate and present the worse case scenario. Your app launches, Big Bad Company comes along and says you infringed on their patent or trademark and sues you. Without the legal structure in place there is a chance you will be held personally liable.

I think YC makes that statement for people who have no live product and are just a team either with an idea or idea in development. What they are trying to avoid is having to make costly changes to your filings once you join YC.

Personally, I would say that if you are that far along, preparing to launch, and plan to make a business out of your app, then file. Spending money now can potentially save hundreds down the road. But again, IANAL.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your comment, I hadn't really grasped that Y Combinator was for groups that hadn't really started work yet.</comment></comment>


One in four young women struggling with emotional problems - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46295719 <comment><USER2> What if we stopped to think that culture where women are free to show off their beauty, and where culture celebrates top 5%, is perhaps determeintal to 95%. I'd be stressed too if I was part of contest where I was losing and whole life depended on it.

</comment><comment><USER3> lol, I knew social media was going to be mentioned as a factor.

I will say that it's hard to even discuss issues like this because it brings up a lot of... complicated territory that takes nuance and care to navigate.

<comment><USER4> >lol, I knew social media was going to be mentioned as a factor.

Wait, are you surprised? It's been proven times over social media has a very negative impact on your mental health. I experienced it myself and only been on the way out since the spring.

<comment><USER5> >It's been proven times over social media has a very negative impact on your mental health.

Can you provide any citations for this because I'm not aware of any proof of this?

There are certainly studies which report a correlation between mental health and the time spent on social media but none that I'm aware of which prove that social media negatively pacts mental health vs poor mental health causes people to spend more time on social media.</comment></comment></comment>


Can Crowd Testing replace an Internal Quality Team? - <AUTHOR> http://99tests.com/blog/can-crowd-testing-replace-an-internal-quality-team/

<comment><USER2> nice article</comment>


Politics vs. The_Donald Subreddit Domain Linkage - <AUTHOR> http://matt.mn/2017/04/politics-vs-the_donald-subreddit-domain-linkage/ <comment><USER2> I'm not sure what the point of this is?

The_Donald has always been about "dank memes" not providing political commentary written by major media outlets.</comment>


Court Says Privacy Case Can Proceed vs. Google - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/11/technology/court-says-privacy-case-can-proceed-vs-google.html

<comment><USER2> discussed earlier today as well: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6362221](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6362221)

As I said there, what's worrying here is that the decision hinges on "readily accessible to the general public". While this was just a refusal to dismiss and there may be more to come, the problem is that this is just a small step away from being able to criminalize any access of an open wifi hotspot. No slope required, slippery or otherwise. All you need is a DA that feels justified in prosecuting someone but without an obvious tool to do so, and here one is.

Better to criminalize what you _do_ with that access, but that wouldn't fall under the Wiretap Act as written, so wouldn't come up from this motion to dismiss.

<comment><AUTHOR> _what 's worrying here is that the decision hinges on "readily accessible to the general public"_

This is a bizzare comment. The reporting here articulates the court's thinking in slightly more detail than the earlier piece:

 _the court didn 't think much of Google's argument that unencrypted data sent over a Wi-Fi network is "readily accessible to the general public" because both the hardware and software needed to intercept and decode the data are widely available.

People can easily buy technology to log every keystroke on someone's computer, the court noted, but that did not make those keystrokes "readily accessible to the general public."_

Using technology to snoop on people behind closed doors in their own homes, is using technology to pierce the veil of "what is readily available to the general public". Basically, if you have to use a fancy gizmo to make it accessible, even if the gizmo is available to the public, it does not make all information retreivable with that gizmo public by default. Which seems like fairly common sense.

[NB: That doesn't make google guilty of anything. It just means that their arguments to date have missed the mark in getting the suit thrown out without further hearing]

<comment><USER2> > _This is a bizzare comment. The reporting here articulates the court 's > thinking in slightly more detail than the earlier piece_

I was not basing my statements on the nytimes piece, I was basing them on the opinion itself, which is embedded in the wired story:

[http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/09/10/11...](http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2013/09/10/11-17483.pdf)

Much of the opinion does focus on if wifi should be considered "radio communication"

The problem is that in accessing any open wireless access point you are "piercing the veil" whether you intend to or not. That's how IEEE 802 networks work: you get all the packets, you just drop the ones not meant for you.

I would argue that switching the hardware you're already using in every computer that talks to a LAN or WLAN to promiscuous mode is not at all analogous to installing a keylogger. But even if you don't switch modes, it still will only take an ambitious DA to argue that whether you intended to or not, you were capturing all packets when you connected to that business's wifi hotspot, which is another broken law to add to your list of charges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You know, of all the things to be worried about regarding Google and privacy, capturing publicly-broadcast wireless-network packets is not really high on my list.

</comment><comment> o0-0o Good. They need to be stopped dead in their tracks.

<comment><USER4> They were, 3 years ago, when they outed this issue themselves and submitted their code to a third party for review.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> _The court made clear that federal privacy law applies to residential Wi-Fi networks," he said. "Users should be protected when a company tries to capture private data that travels between their laptops and their printer in their home."

The ruling, written by Judge Jay Bybee, took sharp issue with Google's contention that data transmitted over a Wi-Fi network was not protected by federal wiretapping laws because it was an electronic "radio communication."

"In common parlance, watching a television show does not entail 'radio communication,' " Judge Bybee wrote. "Nor does sending an e-mail or viewing a bank statement while connected to a Wi-Fi network."_

<comment><USER5> But.. but.. it _is_ radio communication! Using radio waves! If scientific facts not define what is legally considered 'radio communication', by what arbitrary rules is this defined?

So when a google engineering team stores unwanted, unencrypted radio communication by accident (and is entirely open about it) the courts seem so eager to throw the book? But when the U.S Government coerces telecom companies to aid in massive unconstitutional wiretapping on a global scale, congress is willing to step in and grant retroactive legal immunity to all parties?

Am I taking crazy pills??

<comment><AUTHOR> _If scientific facts not define what is legally considered 'radio communication', by what arbitrary rules is this defined?_

Not to point out the obvious, but laws are written using legal definintions. And those are made by the legislature and the Judiciary. The NSA (and I'm not here to defend them) at least has a prima-facie need to see certain types of protected speech under limited (court ordered, direct national threat) circumstances. Google is a merely a business, with no public policy need to creep around the neighborhood. That being said, this decisino is merely putting the issue to a trial/jury. Nobody has said google is guilty. But they are not so innocent, or so in the right, with repsect to how the law is apparently written/interpreted, than they can dismiss the claims of impropriety as "baseless, without merit" &tc.

 _...The unanimous, 35-page decision by a three-judge panel found little merit in Google's legal maneuverings, stating at one critical point that the company was basically inventing meanings in an effort to declare its actions legal_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The real story: There's a chance that each and every one of us might get $10k from Google!

Don't bury the lead.

<comment><USER7> I believe that it's the lawyers that get $10k, and we get a gift certificate for a free ice cream cone. At least that's how every other class action lawsuit I've seen has gone.

<comment><USER8> nonono

the lawyers get $10k _for each of us_

we get an expiring in one year coupon for a free ice cream cone with purchase of $20

<comment><USER7> Yes. That's why they automatically put you in the class if you don't reply to that postcard they sent to your address three moves ago.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The Life of a Stripe Charge - <AUTHOR> https://www.petekeen.net/life-of-a-stripe-charge <comment><USER2> "Because your server-side process never knows the real card information, it doesn't fall into PCI compliance scope."

WRONG! The payment code is delivered by a response from the server-side & as such it is in scope for at least PCI section six. As an example, if the JavaScript code or reference comes via an HTTP & not HTTPS request it can be tampered with on the wire & the code replaced with code from the attacker, thus getting in the middle of the transaction. If there's an SQLi or persistent type-2 XSS flaw on the server side an attacker could similarly modify the code there. People need to stop believing that tokenization does anything more than remove the need to protect credit-cards in memory on the server side & pay attention to their security. Since the concept of tokenization hit the scene I'm seeing worse security around card transactions than I ever have before in my reviews. Worse, people convinced that tokenization entirely clears them from PCI responsibility tend to be argumentative & resistant to what I believe to be common sense guidance. Luckily the PCI council has been made aware of these issues and provided some clarification about tokenization:

[https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/Tokenization_...](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/Tokenization_Guidelines_Info_Supplement.pdf)

<comment><USER3> Thank you for the link. That sentence is wrong, I'll fix it to say something along the lines of "your PCI compliance scope is reduced to the things Stripe requires you to do on their security guidelines[1]"

(edit: For what it's worth my book does not make the same mistake, and in fact has a whole chapter dedicated to PCI and HTTPS implementation.)

[1]: [https://support.stripe.com/questions/do-i-need-to-be-pci- com...](https://support.stripe.com/questions/do-i-need-to-be-pci-compliant- what-do-i-have-to-do)

<comment><USER4> So do Stripe merchants have to fill out and/or file any PCI DSS compliance materials?

<comment><USER3> According to Stripe themselves, no. Honestly most of PCI is common-sense stuff that you should be doing anyway (firewalls, restricting access, etc) but the compliance audits are strictly optional with Stripe as long as you're serving over HTTPS and are using their tokenizing javascript.

<comment><USER2> Then Stripe might want to reconsider their guidance in light of the PCI guidance on tokenization. Reference:

"2.4.2 Merchant Responsibilities"

[https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/Tokenization_...](https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/documents/Tokenization_Guidelines_Info_Supplement.pdf)

The only way out of being responsible for PCI compliance would be to offload the entire transaction to the payment provider. This means sending the customer entirely off domain of the merchant (iFrames don't get you there) so that the entire same origin of the transaction is within the complete control of the payment provider. The second the merchant loads an iFrame or any JavaScript within their same origin, they are accountable, period.

<comment><USER4> After reading the doc and paying close attention to that section, it's not clear to me what the Stripe problem is. I didn't see anywhere that the Stripe approach would not comply.

<comment><USER2> Because the merchant is still responsible for delivering the payment form within their same origin in a secure manner which means that the merchant must secure their hosts so that the delivery of that payment form cannot be tampered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Is it really a good idea to be making HTTP requests with the card number and CVC in the URL?

I get that it's over HTTPS, so the whole thing is encrypted, but won't the URL still be saved in my browser history, which will end up on disk and be available to anyone who gets on to my computer?

If the request was a POST method instead, you'd avoid these possible weaknesses. Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER6> From the article:

> Stripe POSTs at a /tokens API endpoint over https, which means everything is > encrypted including the query params

<comment><USER5> It's still a little unclear: It says that it is a POST, but the URL in the box above contains the card details. Further, the bit of text you quote goes on to say:

> ...including the query params. These params include the card number, > expiration date, and CVC

The URL they give as an example is:

[https://api.stripe.com/v1/tokens?email=foo%40example.com&pay...](https://api.stripe.com/v1/tokens?email=foo%40example.com&payment_user_agent=Stripe+Checkout&amount=0&iovation_blackbox=a_very_large_string>&card\[number\]=4242+4242+4242+4242&card\[cvc\]=123) &card[exp_month]=4&card[exp_year]=2014&card[name]=foo%40example.com&key=pk_test_6pRNASCoBOKtIshFeQd4XMUh&callback=sjsonp1390180955159&_method=POST

So are these params in the URL, or not?

<comment><USER6> No, the output in the box is from the web console, which uses the GET-style URL as a concise way of showing POST requests.

<comment><USER5> Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> We're an ecommerce company who have been dealing with the baggage of "1-click buy" that we implemented a year back. To persist the cards we had to build our own infrastructure thereby increasing our PCI exposure. The yearly audits, honestly, are costing us a fortune. I need to make a business case around getting rid of the card related infrastructure and using some third party that provides tokenization-as-a-service. Are there any vendors out there who do that?

After doing this,will my PCI exposure reduce significantly? As long as my customers are entering their CC details over the vendor's secure page and I'm making encrypted API calls to their service on HTTPS pages (like Stripe) do I still need to get PCI Certified?

</comment><comment><USER8> I never used Stripe before, but seeing the tokenization method without revealing information to third-party backend to stay compliant just makes me cry. Smart solution.

EDIT: Agree with the top commenter. 3rd party website can always be compromised. Tokenization only takes care one side of the story.

</comment><comment><USER9> I don't understand why Stripe needs to know my customer's credit card number.

Wouldn't it improve security if my web page encrypted the credit card number using Mastercard's public key before sending it to Stripe?

<comment><USER10> If services like Stripe accepted already-encrypted credit card numbers, couldn't someone just steal the already-encrypted credit card numbers and run them through Stripe?

Also, resting the security of the payment infrastructure on a single keypair (per network) seems a bit risky. You'd probably want a more sophisticated infrastructure which individually identifies players and allows for revocation, ala chip & pin.

<comment><USER9> > If services like Stripe accepted already-encrypted credit card numbers, > couldn't someone just steal the already-encrypted credit card numbers and > run them through Stripe?

OK then encrypt the credit card number + merchant ID

> Also, resting the security of the payment infrastructure on a single keypair > (per network) seems a bit risky. You'd probably want a more sophisticated > infrastructure which individually identifies players and allows for > revocation, ala chip & pin.

Then perhaps Mastercard could have a separate public/private key pair for each merchant. Although even a single key pair for each card network would still be better than the status quo, wouldn't it?

<comment><USER10> >OK then encrypt the credit card number + merchant ID

That would be significantly better.

>Although even a single key pair for each card network would still be better than the status quo, wouldn't it?

If it gives people the impression that they no longer need to even try to protect their infrastructure because the card numbers are already encrypted, then yes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


People Ate Pork in the Middle East Until 1,000 B.C.–What Changed? - <AUTHOR> https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/people-ate-pork-middle-east-until-1000-bcwhat-changed-180954614/ <comment><USER2> TL; DR

"Sometime in the late second or first millennium BC, the chicken was introduced into the Middle East.

...

In arid and semiarid areas of the Middle East, the pig and the chicken compete for food and labor in the human subsistence system. I hypothesize that in arid and semiarid areas of the Middle East, the chicken largely replaced the pig because the chicken is a more efficient source of protein, it produces a secondary product, the egg, and it is a smaller package; hence, a family can consume one in a day or two. This made the pig redundant and available for use in other human systems."

[https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-015-9083-2](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10814-015-9083-2)</comment>


How to Protect Yourself from Doxxing - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@hoottech/how-to-protect-yourself-from-doxxing-74dc3d096e6a <comment><AUTHOR> At EFF-Austin, Fay Archip and A. J. Butt provided a great introduction to the concept of doxxing and the steps you could take to minimize your risk. This is a write-up of their presentation and a personal reflection on living in an age where mass shaming is re-emerging.</comment>


Build a Business, Don't Focus on Valuation or VC Money - <AUTHOR> http://www.trendslate.com/2011/07/20/startups-in-business-to-raise-money/

<comment><USER2> You can't call bubble by citing companies with billion dollar valuations - there aren't nearly enough of those to signify any sort of trend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry John you are wrong. Zynga, Twitter, Groupon do you need more? Twitter is a feature masquerading as a business. Groupon is insolvent and Zynga is so reliant on Facebook that it is detrimental to their business.

<comment><USER3> Three data points isn't much of a trend.

<comment><AUTHOR> Add in color, MySpace short sale, Zillow IPO, Linkedin IPO, Pandora IPO, Zipcar IPO

Want more?

<comment><USER4> Almost all these IPOs are backed by solid revenues. And almost in all cases, the companies have been around for 5-10 years - very much unlike the IPOs of the last bubble.

That fact alone makes this very different from late 90s.

So while there may be a bubble "technically", that's not saying much. A better question would be: how bad of a bubble is it? In my opinion, not terribly bad and almost nothing like the last one.

MySpace short sale is evidence of how this is NOT a huge bubble. In a bubble, it would go for billions. Also to date, I don't believe any party has sold myspace for a net loss. News Corp may have sold it in a short sale, but they did so _after_ making hundreds of millions in ad rev from it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ycombinator made a mistake to not fund my startup there was another startup that raised 10 million dollars.</comment>


Ask HN: Just got a C&D letter claiming trademark infringement..need advice - <AUTHOR>

Hi everybody,
I'm looking for advice on a subject that I have no knowledge about and I'm hoping someone in the community can shed some light on the best way to proceed with this.
Myself and a partner registered a Canadian corporation last month called "Picket Fence Games Inc." We did a NUANS report (Company name and trade-mark search reports from Industry Canada) and it returned a blank report meaning there was nothing remotely close to it in Canada.
Last week we released our first game for the iPad titled "Animal Scratch for Kids" in the Apple App Store.
Two days ago we received a Cease and Desist letter from a US game studio that our company name is infringing on their US registered trademark (for International Class 9) of "Picket Fences" for goods or services in the computer games industry. They have proceeded to contact Apple that our company infringes upon their registered trademark.
The case they make is that their "Picket Fences" trademark is very similar to our "Picket Fence" company name and that the word GAMES in our company's name and website must be disclaimed from a trademark perspective because it's the generic term for our company's underlying products.
We never intentionally meant to dilute the brand name of one of their games by naming our company as such nor did we know that we were infringing on a trademark. I know that in legal terms the above statement means nothing but I just wanted to say this wasn't done on purpose in order for us to benefit from their success in any way.
Our money as a small startup can be spent in better ways than dealing with the legalities of this issue so my questions to you guys are:
Do we realistically stand a chance of wining this case against this company? DO we even have a case? How do we make sure this doesn't happen again?
If this is the case for any trademark in the world and we are dealing with an App Store that sells to the entire world this would mean that any person in the entire world with a trademark could potentially shut down any company. How can we protect ourselves in such a case? Is there a world trademark search, and is it feasible to run?
Any help, advice or comments are appreciated. I left corporate Canada as a developer to do something fun and creative and get away from all the red-tape and legal crap and this just brings me right back...
Thanks,
Nik <comment><USER2> IANAL. You have to deal with trademarks in every country where you sell your product. If I register a trademark in my country, and you come to our market, I expect you to choose a different name. It would probably be easier for you to rename your company. Another solution is to disable sales to US, but it's not a viable option.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think you are right, we are leaning towards changing the name. It is the least expensive route to take right now. Thanks for your input.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> In my experience, it is better to just change the name of your company to avoid any legal issues that will consume productive time and resources.

</comment><comment><USER4> Cease and Desist letters are basically free to send. I'd try contacting and IP lawyer and see if its even worth bothering changing your name.

<comment><AUTHOR> We figure because we are a month old company it's quicker and cheaper to change it now than to go through lawyers. We don't really have any brand awareness and don't really want to take a chance with dealing with this down the road. It's just a pain in the arse</comment></comment>


We Are Now at Peak TED - <AUTHOR> https://backchannel.com/we-are-now-at-peak-ted-c4fc4926bf20 <comment><USER2> TED, or the perfect display of what public speaking is today: that is, getting some kind of Tony Robbins on stage, who wont be shy of using the same tricks they learnt at some toaster club, to inspire and wow a crowd that's actually more here to enjoy their charisma rather than their ideas. TED is the absolute evidence that the powerpointization of ideas is in its terminal stage.

<comment><USER3> so, i have a speaking engagement at a local TEDx event next weekend. I think my topic is both interesting and educational, and the way its presented will (hopefully) get people thinking about the subject in a new way. what do i do? cancel?

<comment><USER4> Troll them with a great talk like "How to Deconstruct Almost Anything". [1]

"Academics get paid for being clever, not for being right." \-- Donald Norman

[http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html](http://www.fudco.com/chip/deconstr.html)

<comment><USER3> I am a troll at heart, but over the last few months i've become friends with the event organizers. As much as trolling would be fun, I feel it would be a betrayal of their trust.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Some of their speakers are just talking out of their ass. There was a woman on TED Radio Hour a few weeks back who was going on and on about how it's so bad that we bury the bodies when people die, and we should instead dress our dead in some mushroom spore infused garbs she's trying to sell. Having a brain of my own, I was like "Lady, do you realize that each of these bodies has produced an enormous mountain of waste in their lifetime? Several tons of shit alone, not to mention garbage, CO2, etc etc". Add to that the fact that those "pollution eating mushrooms" can't really do anything ordinary soil can't do. They can't convert heavy metals to unicorn tears, sorry folks. The stuff dead bodies will release when they decompose matters not one iota. And yet someone in TED approved her participation, and people paid $8K to see this inane drivel. WTF?

Update: here's the talk [https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee?language=en](https://www.ted.com/talks/jae_rhim_lee?language=en)

<comment><USER6> I was going to respectfully disagree, assuming this speaker was instead referring to larger things about changing the culture of death. But then I actually skimmed the video, and she really is just saying that we shouldn't bury because our bodies house natural toxins. It's pretty silly. I would say that the organizers recognize her getting the stage was a mistake... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> TED is now a full-blown lifestyle company like GoPro or Whole Foods, except instead of one or two celebrity endorsements, they gain a new implicit endorsement every time they book a new speaker. franchising TEDx was a brilliant move; first, for the casual consumer, TED content (by people like Bill Gates) is confounded with TEDx content from some local idiot. from a valuation point of view this increases your average ad rates. line/brand extension, this is marketing 101. TED jumped the shark a long time ago when they started having poetry readings and shit.

<comment><USER8> > TED is now a full-blown lifestyle company

Hasn't it always been?

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> [http://theamericanreader.com/the-sound-of-ted-a-case-for- dis...](http://theamericanreader.com/the-sound-of-ted-a-case-for-distaste/)

> What I ask myself when confronted with any TED talk is this: why do they all > sound the same?

...

> TED's is the language and tone of the pitch. It's a style that comes from > corporate conference rooms, where product ideas are pitched to potential > investors. It's the fundraiser's speech. You cannot sound needy—you should > sound like there is a world out there waiting to buy your work, that you are > here only out of a belief in the importance of spreading your idea.

...

> For various reasons, I find myself forced to sit through a TED-talk now and > then. I squirm in my seat—feeling humiliated for myself and the speaker. > This is a distinctly un-adult feeling.

</comment><comment><USER10> TED trivia: Chris Anderson, the founder, got his break in business by starting an 8-bit computer magazine called Amstrad Action. The magazine grew to become a computer publishing empire, Future plc, giving Anderson the funds and freedom to try TED.

(Amstrad Action was a great magazine. I was its freelance tech ed in its last years - gave me my start in journalism.)

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

<comment><USER11> Chris Anderson was not TED's founder. That was Richard Saul Wurman. He sold it to Anderson in 2002: [https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/history-of- ted](https://www.ted.com/about/our-organization/history-of-ted)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> A ticket to TED costs $8500. I didn't realize that.....I look at the audience at TED talks a whole different way now.

<comment><USER13> There's two things non-technology people don't seem to know about TED when they mention it to me.

First that TEDx events have little to do with TED. Second the prices for proper events are in the elitist levels of society. It's no surprise when you start to notice the audience members are more famous than the speakers.

<comment><USER14> >First that TEDx events have little to do with TED.

hah. Yes, the continued existence of TEDx indicates that the organizers of TED are not aware of just how severely TEDx damages their brand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The Onion Talks series parodying TED talks has some real gems. My favorite: What is the Biggest Rock?

[http://youtu.be/aO0TUI9r-So](http://youtu.be/aO0TUI9r-So)

<comment><USER16> My favorite has to be [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGJQD0WXkk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOGJQD0WXkk) , "Your Brain-Gun: Turn Off the Safety". Much darker.

<comment><USER17> Quit Whining And Put On A Goddamn Coat is great too [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqwDLsZJn8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeqwDLsZJn8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Is there any actual content in this article? Other than how awesome TED is?

Did they address a single concern or critique of TED in this article?

No... Just that it's 'awesome'.

Well ok then TED organizers... Thanks for reminding us that you think you're so great, you feel no need to listen to anyone.

<comment><USER19> I'm not sure it really is as pandering as you make it out to be. In some places I wasn't sure what the author thought of TED at all. For example, this sentence is particularly pointed: "Where an audience that gave a standing ovation to Ed Snowden a couple of years ago happily wears tracking devices on their badges that allows fellow attendees to know where in the facility they are within a few meters."

<comment><USER20> Amusing on the surface, but of course that feature is for the benefit of the audience (and quite useful--the breaks are a bit of a zoo with 1000 people milling about), and they explained from the stage how to turn it off when desired, so he is reaching a little bit with that one.

<comment><USER21> The implication wasn't meant to be that the organizers nefariously distributed these badges insisting that if participants had nothing to hide they had nothing to fear. It was that the participants will clap for whoever is onstage without thinking deeply about what they are saying or believing in what they are advocating. They'll cheer on Edward Snowden but they won't consider the implications of the technology they're using.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> I would like to see TED scale down and return to its simpler roots (pre 2007), possibly even go dark and spend a few years finding itself. The brilliance of the older TED formula was that it was chaotic and amusingly unpolished: The audio was bad. The lighting was crap. The emcee was awkward. But that TED limelight could bring out unexpected genius moments from humble unknowns, and elicit real humility from the odd celebrity who might give a talk. "Put interesting people together," the rule was, "let a few of them talk, and see what happens."

Today TED is all polish and perfectionism and production value. The Academy Awards stage design and videography is planned months in advance. Speakers are carefully vetted, recalibrated, tweaked, and tuned among an upper tier committee. Corporate sponsors are courted by a large international sales team, and these accounts pay enormous sums for the chance to create branded "experiences" for the ticket holders. Speakers (those whose egos allow it) are coached relentlessly about storytelling, sincerity, posture...

These efforts may have increased the average-overall quality of the talks, and made the talks more palatable to a wide audience. But that came at an expense of a certain kind of magic.

<comment><USER20> There has been a great deal of exactly that feedback from attendees (including me) and Chris Anderson is definitely hearing it -- he addressed it at length from the stage twice this year. However, he seems to think that is a necessary side effect of producing talks that will be viewed millions of times (I think he said ted.com has hit a billion views now). I'm not sure I agree, but in any case I enjoyed it more back in the day when you never knew if the next talk would be an epiphany or a train wreck!

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> I was watching TED talks about two years ago. My (then) 7 year-old paused in the midst of wandering by and watched for about 30 seconds then asked, "Is that like cartoons for big people?".

Yes. Yes it is.

</comment><comment><USER24> TED just seems so neat, thought leaders talking about things no one else did.

Except the depth is necessarily shallow. So I listened to a TED talk about how social media needs to change and it exacerbates problems. Except he's light on analysis and ideas.

Which is fine I guess, but to me, hearing about how the problem exists without the follow up of ideas on how to fix, just seems incomplete.

And yes, I know, I'm giving him a hard time, etc. But the problem is very real, and needs a very real fix. More videos about how the problem came about just isnt gonna fix it.

<comment><USER25> Some problems need to be acknowledged long before you close in on a solution. Sometimes stating a problem in clearer terms will bring new thoughts on a solution. That can have value in and of itself.

<comment><USER24> Sure, but what happens if that is all you end up with?

<comment><USER25> Then stakeholders need to redefine the problem until the solution presents itself. You can't solve a hard problem without understanding it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Sam Hyde pulled off a brilliant troll of TEDx a few years ago [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJn_DBTnrY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTJn_DBTnrY)

</comment><comment><USER27> > We have reached Peak TED. > That's TED. But we may not have hit the peak > yet.

We can have it both ways, it seems. Peak means there is a decline coming. The article closes on a note that suggests otherwise.

<comment><USER28> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines)

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Ok, whats with all the hate? I like TED - the talks are awesome. I don't care if I never get invited. Some of the talks opened my mind to some of the coolest things that people are working on.

</comment><comment><USER30> This banned TED talk is all you need to know about TED and where their motivations are: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g)

Peak TED is actually this video on how to use one paper towel when washing your hands: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FMBSblpcrc). You mean if you shake your hands and fling water all over the bathroom then you don't need as much paper to absorb the remaining water? How revolutionary.

<comment><USER31> Scoff all you want, but in the years since I watched that I have dried my hands with one paper towel every time. One anecdote, sure, and I don't watch TED anymore. But this is hardly the worst TED talk. At least it provided some practical advice rather than vaguely asserting some breakthrough.

<comment><USER32> It is hands down the most influential Ted talk I've ever watched. It is very trivial, but I think it about it several times a day wherever I wash my hands in a public bathroom.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I took the opportunity to visit a local group simulcast of Thursday's TED presentations -- apparently much the same program Steven Levy viewed -- and took from it many of the same impressions. The "Inside TED" segment was actually fairly revealing and I thought useful. Chris Anderson gave some inside baseball insights, and voiced TED's goals of spreading knowledge (something I've written and mused on at length). The "chopped liver" comment, by the way, came from Stewart Brand.

But the presentations -- the ones I managed to catch -- dragged. Boston prosecutor Adam Foss had a compelling story. Lidia Yuknavitch's talk wandered ... a lot ... though perhaps that was part of its point. Cerfs was ... interesting.

And then because I live in the future, I left to video-chat for an hour and a half with someone an ocean away.

That done, I decided it was more worth my time to tap into another set of experts -- curated books, at the library, where I could tap into 4 million years of collected wisdom (though granted, only about 8,000 of that is preserved in literary tradition).

One of the most obvious characteristics of the TED livestream was an inability to bump up playback speed through slow bits, or to skip to a more interesting talk. TED also has a relevance problem -- really hitting on challenging problems. Part of which is an inherent conflict with exposure: some ideas really need to be developed and discussed within a safe space.

The livestream/remote program was an interesting experiment, but I'd rather have had the option to catch several days at one location, and perhaps _somebody_ in a role as a moderator / facilitator. There was at least one local TEDster, but no clear organisation on top of physical support (video, seating). That, though, was good.

</comment><comment><USER34> Adam Savage (of Mythbusters) did a hilarious fake TED Talk at the Amanda Palmer ninjaTED show the other day: [https://huzza.io/amandapalmer/live- stream/amanda-palmer-ninj...](https://huzza.io/amandapalmer/live- stream/amanda-palmer-ninjated/live/replay?seek=172:40)

"What if we could use data, to build the perfect snowboard?"

"In the average Silicon Valley tech company, 95% of time is wasted building tech products"

</comment><comment><USER35> Was thinking only yesterday we must be at peak "peak". Has become a pretty commonplace descriptor these days for anything experiencing maximum popularity in its life cycle, which I think applies to its current status as a buzz-term.

</comment><comment><USER36> As a victim of its own success, the quality of presentations has to go down. TED reminds me of Inside the Actors Studio. Stick around long enough and eventually you're talking to Tim Allen about his "process."

</comment><comment><USER37> We were at peak TED before TED even came into existence, with the amount of "progressive" blabber in the world.

</comment><comment><USER38> To me, TED always felt like a stage for egomaniacs to talk about how great they are and how they are changing the world.</comment>


Apple announces HomeKit, an SDK for controlling your home from your iOS device - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apple/2014/06/02/apple-announces-homekit-sdk-controlling-home-ios-device/

<comment><AUTHOR> There is not much information yet available, but what I like about this is the shared security and authentication layer that sits above every device underneath it. Until now this has been a major headache for everyone. What I don't like about this is that it favours the announced large hardware companies that have been working with these specs for quite some time and are ready to give up parts of their S/W layers, but threatens many smaller H/W startups that have limited resources and have focused on the S/W experience.</comment>


Bitcoin Will Probably Never Be Embraced by the U.S. Government - <AUTHOR> https://www.forbes.com/sites/omribarzilay/2017/12/21/bitcoin-will-probably-never-be-embraced-by-the-us-government-says-tenx-cofounder-dr-julian-hosp/ <comment><USER2> The title is so misleading. It's just a interview, and there's nothing in the interview that gives room for what the title is saying.

> Barzilay: Do you believe Bitcoin will ever be embraced by the U.S. > government?

> Dr. Hosp: I think that the concept of virtual currencies will definitely be > embraced, because they have a very transparent transaction ledger. So, we > know exactly what's been happening. With bank transfers, it's quite hard, > but with fiat money it's impossible, so I think virtual currencies will see > a huge uprise by governments. Whether governments will embrace Bitcoin - > let's see, but there is definitely value for people. Bitcoin is very > difficult to hack, it's almost impossible to steal if you use for example > multi-signature bolt. And with TenX you can spend Bitcoin pretty much > anywhere. So, this is the future to go. I don't think that Bitcoin is going > to be a currency, but it's going to have status like gold.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Probably Never" is wishful thinking. They will _never_. Full stop.

Why would the U.S. government tolerate universal currency when it has something far more advantageous? A currency it controls every other currency is pegged to (including Bitcoin).

More practically speaking, the government needs the ability to expand the money supply during financial crises. Bitcoin doesn't lend itself to any of those Keynesian tricks.

And, government is not "afraid" of Bitcoin. Letting the experiment continue is more about laissez-faire capitalism than an inability to regulate crypto.

<comment><USER2> Government does not need this ability, it just wants it.

<comment><USER4> "Government does not need this ability,"

Extremely debatable, given the fact that every nation on planet earth basically uses monetary policy.

A rational policy whereby currency is exchanged for other assets at a rate using benchmarks is preferable to a strict currency.

A better economic policy might even allow almost anyone to exchange assets for currency. Then the market can decide how much is in circulation (though arguably that is already happening, just the levers are in the hands of a body, not a distributed group).

<comment><USER5> >every nation on planet earth basically uses monetary policy

Not really true, if you consider all the countries that use the currency of an other. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_substitution))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> IMO cryptocurrency is perfectly poised to be the global currency, transcending nation state central banks and leveraging fiat currency foundations via the bank for international settlements. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_for_International_Settlem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_for_International_Settlements)

The interview with the ex kite surfer and trauma surgeon is his opinions based on his ICO

<comment><USER7> "Cryptocurrency" can't be "The" global currency since it's not one thing. It's a collection of currencies, and bitcoin itself won't be the global currency because there aren't enough bitcoin to be viable for that purpose in the long run.

<comment><USER6> Agreed right now it is a collection of currencies, just like all the different denominations of fiat currency (USD, Euro etc). It's not hard to see how a future universal cryptocurrency could emerge though...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Different people in the U.S. government will embrace bitcoin, because they are the people trading bitcoin now. The wealth will bring the influence and the influence will bring the power.

Some people were flabbergasted when the Fed was buying Mortgage-Backed Securities off the open market, practically giving one group of people money, under the guise of stimulating AN economy.

Different people are going to be flabbergasted when the Fed, under a different group's leadership, starts buying cryptocurrencies by the $ billions every month, practically giving another group of people money, under the guise of stimulating AN economy.

And it will still be unaccountable to anyone that cares.

The European Central Bank buys junk corporate bonds simply because a Goldman Sachs alumni wanted to. The Swiss National Bank buys equity, straight off the New York Stock Exchange, at valuations it can never make a profit from dividends from. The Central Bank of Japan buys equity and bonds.

These institutions are funded by the future productivity of tax payers and can be exposed to heavy losses.

It isn't out of the question that they will buy the spot market in crypto commodities in the future just because someone familiar with that market is heading the bank.

<comment><USER4> "practically giving one group of people money, under the guise of stimulating AN economy."

It wasn't under the guise of anything but saving the US economy from a wicked meltdown of epic proportions.

The dominos were set to all go down, the Fed kept a few of them up by rebalancing wealth.

As you point out - viciously unfair - but better in the long run.

FYI - a 'strict currency' is perhaps worse; crisis _will happen_. Strict currencies ties our boat to the dock, too much or too little water and we're all smoked. Moreover - outside of crises, the economy is dynamic - growing and shrinking, monetary policy helps manage that.

A strict currency is better than a poorly managed currency, but a well managed currency is better than a strict currency.

<comment> etr-strike > As you point out - viciously unfair - but better in the long run.

That's your opinion, not fact. Banks are larger than ever. Inequality higher than ever. Housing more expensive than ever. The world is more unstable now than it was in 2008. Your definition of "better in the long run" is quite odd.

<comment><USER4> No, it's a fact, and a very simple one.

The economy is very intertwined, with the banks at the centre.

If they start to go down - everything starts to do down.

It's as factual as saying if you choke and engine of oxygen, that it will stop burning.

It's simple cause and effect.

Yes - we understand very well the long-long term moral dilemma of 'too big to fail' \- this is a well known issue.

And as I mentioned it was 'viciously unfair' \- by the way - when the Fed absorbed those mortgages, they were saving millions of American homeowners as well.

A 'market correction' would have implied massive foreclosure across the US.

The 'winners' of the bailout were Banks _AND_ those who owned homes. ALL American home values were propped up.

the 'losers' of the action were non-property owners.

'The more debt' people were carrying, specifically, 'mortgage debt' \- the 'more free money' got from the Feds actions.

<comment> etr-strike Still your opinion. In order to accomplish the above, monetary experiments at a level never before seen were needed. The QE experiment is, at best, half over (they still need to get rid of all the assets they purchased). Driving interest rates below the rate of inflation has caused debt to accumulate in all areas of the economy.

The fact that you think the impacts of the financial crisis are behind us is hilarious. Just wait till the municipal debt starts to crumble. Places like Chicago and Puerto Rico have only been able to sustain themselves because of the low interest rates on debt. The actions of the Fed didn't fix anything, they just kicked the can down the road.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I need to block Forbes. The number of ads they put up is comparable, and quality of their content is comparable to buzzfeed nowadays

<comment><USER10> You actually want to block forbes.com/sites/, which contains content from their "contributors " (aka bloggers they lent their name to )

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I just can't imagine the world governments okaying the transfer of billions or trillions of dollars of wealth to people who largely just sat on a technology from the beginning. Wouldn't the US or some world body, if they were going to come around to blockchain tech, start their own with a more equitable distribution(or at least, distribution more in line with what currently exists).

</comment><comment><USER12> My thinking is that bitcoin/cryptocurrencies dont have to be 'fully' embraced by govt, it just needs to be recognized as a valid asset class and the markets will do the rest. so long as its not too much of a pain to use/keep it will do just fine. what people dont grasp is that the reason govt or central banks dont like any other fiat is that it takes power to inflate away from them. so long as we have fixed references in form of btc/etc markets will ensure they work as inflation hedge (after an unspecified initial period of price discovery ;). In fact I do foresee BTC becoming a legit currency after few unstable currencies fail.

You could argue this was essentially the role of gold but the main problem with gold is that its the central banks that started with biggest ownership of gold so its very susceptible to price manipulation and really un-auditable without some form of trust setup. both of those are not as much of concern with cryptocurrencies.

TLDR: it will be an asset until it becomes a global currency.

</comment><comment><USER13> Bitcoin has achieved so much already that people considered impossible. If the government is not able to build their own competitor they'll certainly embrace it at some point.

</comment><comment><USER14> What does this even mean? BTC is a commodity, the government wins via taxes when people make gains. That's like saying the government will never embrace stocks or real estate.

<comment><USER15> The limited number of BTC compared with the demand makes it less a commodity but more a collectible.

<comment><USER14> Sure

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Like, duh. Of course the government won't embrace Bitcoin. It's an absolute threat to national sovereignty.

Virtual currencies that are not anonymized - no problem. But not Bitcoin.

<comment><USER4> "It's an absolute threat to national sovereignty"

It's not a threat to anything but speculators bank accounts.

Nobody is using BTC as a currency.

<comment><USER17> I feel like this is akin to saying amazon wasn't a threat to retailers when it first launched because no one was doing all of their shopping on Amazon at the time. There is certainly a ton of speculation going on in this space at the moment, but it seems foolish to write off the entire concept simply because some people are speculating

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The government will embrace Bitcoin, but not as a currency (unless we end the Federal Reserve and/or shift back to the gold standard).

</comment><comment><USER19> as much as i want bitcoin i think it would be premature for the us govt to embrace bitcoin at this point.. the tech around all this stuff needs to seriously bake and be refined before seriously considering it

</comment><comment><USER20> Why should the US government fear bitcoin??

\- bitcoin isn't usable as a transactional currency. it costs $30-40 per transaction. Plus other currencies are gaining steam, and offering other choices for people to transact

\- bitcoin isn't rare to be a store of value.....everyday there's a new viable cryptocurrency springing up

\- bitcoin isn't safer than dollar.....it can drop 90% in any day; no official entity is going to prop it up and make sure it doesn't crash. it can be banned by countries (and has been by a few)

\- bitcoin isn't easy than square cash or wires.....it can take several weeks to send money. plus the transaction fees are high</comment>


Grad School Tuition Wavers to Be Taxed as Income in Congress's Tax Plan - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/7/16619246/tax-bill-trump-gop-cuts-and-jobs-act-graduate-students-tuition-waiver-reductions <comment><USER2> Just for fun, my real take-home pay is 21k.

With this tax increase, I'll lose a paycheck and a half.

I live in the Southeast, so my cost of living is pretty low- but salaries are mostly the same no matter what. I won't be destitute with this cut, but I will have very little wiggle room. I don't know what students in more expensive cities will do.

My partner and I are the pride of our families for getting PhDs. We both come from poor families, so we don't have anybody to turn to for help aside from one another. She sends home a few hundred bucks a month to support her parents, and I feed her so she can afford to.

Grad school is hard for a whole lot of reasons. It's hard to get American students interested in doing it. For a party that claims America First, they're doing a lot of things to ensure that our citizens have very few incentives to choose it as a career. It takes half a decade to get a degree. You get no raises, almost no vacation, constant work, few free weekends, ambiguous goals, and (for academics) a post-grad career path that seems like 2-4 years of the same thing.

I don't know if I have a point. I'm just 5 years in and kind of tired of departmental politics (and now with national politics). I love my work and have pretty good prospects, but I know I got lucky with the group I joined. I'd advise most students to make grad school their 2nd or 3rd option, if med/osteopath schools don't take them or they can't find an entry-level industry opening. Even a master's in something middling might be useful and much shorter.

</comment><comment><USER3> Having seen the system work as a grad student, this would absolutely gut higher education research in the US. No chance would I have attended grad school if I were being taxed on tuition as income. Wired has another thorough write up here:

[https://www.wired.com/story/grad-students-are-freaking- out-a...](https://www.wired.com/story/grad-students-are-freaking-out-about- the-gops-tax-plan-they-should-be/)

Likely far fewer people would pursue a PhD, harming every part of the innovation food chain. There are major problems with the higher-ed and grad school system to be sure, but massively increasing taxes on grad students is not a solution. Much better would be to find a way to make non-professor academic positions and other science positions more stable, among other options.

This proposal taxes the front lines of science to finance a corporate tax cut, it's just shameful.

<comment><USER4> There is no shortage of PhDs. Encouraging people to skip the Phd and enter the private sector would be better for the innovation food chain.

<comment><USER3> I think that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what the private sector does and what PhD programs do.

PhD programs train scientists. I have often compared going to grad school in the sciences to years of getting punched in the face by nature telling you, "sorry try again!" Your mentor (in the best of circumstances) teaches you how to navigate that and sharpens your mind. In the process you learn how to ask the right questions. Doesn't sound like much, but the right question and how to ask it is the core of discovery and so the core of innovation.

You can certainly learn those things in industry, but you'll be working at a different place in the innovation cycle. Almost always you'll be working quite a bit further along than the initial discovery. There will be many challenges, but core, fundamental discoveries remain disproportionately generated by blue sky/harebrained schemes hatched in academia.

This is because the number of failures tolerated in academia is vastly larger than in industry. If you spend 7 years repeatedly failing at everything until one thing works, we just call that a PhD. If you do that in industry, we call that 7 jobs in 7 years (a little reductive, but you get my point). If you injure that part of the innovation ecosystem, there will be fewer wild ideas to build companies off of, and we will all be poorer for it.

You also miss the knock on effect of making it so that only the better-off can afford grad school. Already grad school suffers from that bias, and this would only make it worse. We want the best minds regardless of wealth to get as highly trained as possible to discover nature's secrets.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but the waivers in question are aimed at students who receive tuition discounts due to working in a full-time capacity. Like a professor gets a tuition discount for their daughter who attends the school, or the admissions accountant gets a discount to attend the MBA program. [1] This means most students unaffiliated with the school would be protected from any tax on graduate school tuition aid.

Regardless, this is an interesting scenario (I say this as a tax accountant), since the university is a non-profit entity, and therefore doesn't receive any tax benefit for incurring this cost (whereas a for-profit company would deduct this as some sort of employee expense).

But instead of passing a tax onto the employee, it seems like the IRS waived the tax entirely since it could be interpreted as a contribution made by the university, to the university: the Uni pays the employee tuition, and the employee pays tuition back to the university. Since the tuition benefits can't be applied to other schools, it seems like a reasonable waiver.

On the other hand, we have a hefty amount of debt on our hands, and in order to dig ourselves out of it, the funds will have to come from _somewhere_. In an effort to "see randomness", this is what I'm hoping is the reason for the change.[2]

[1] the "145,000" student hyperlink in the article: acenet.edu/Pages/Higher- Education-and-Tax-Reform.aspx#tabContent-6 [2] [http://www.paulgraham.com/randomness.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/randomness.html)

<comment><USER6> Most Ph.D. students receive a tuition waiver that's considered part of their compensation.

Example, my Ph.D. was paid for primarily through an NSF grant that my advisor was awarded. An engineering Ph.D. student at my university costs the P.I. a bit more than $100k per year -- $25k stipend for living expenses, $40k for tuition, and the rest goes to travel and university overhead.

I paid federal and state income tax on the $25k (not FICA), and the $40k for tuition was reported as tax-exempt income on my W2. Remove the tax exempt status on that tuition money, and my taxable income more than doubles without any increase in my ability to pay. It looks like the effective tax rate would be ~45% of the stipend, and that's not counting FICA or state tax burden [1].

Who is going to do a Ph.D. in the US if this change is enacted? This would seriously damage the workforce development pipeline.

Edit: I didn't realize the difference in the standard deduction, which isn't accounted for in the ADP estimate. It still works out to about 32% effective tax rate, which is still a significant addition to the opportunity cost of a 5-year Ph.D.

[0]: [https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/07/grad- students...](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/07/grad-students-and- policy-experts-say-taxing-graduate-students-tuition-waivers-would)

[1]: [https://www.adp.com/tools-and-resources/calculators-and- tool...](https://www.adp.com/tools-and-resources/calculators-and- tools/payroll-calculators/salary-paycheck-calculator.aspx)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This seemed so bizarre, I had to research it. Best I can tell, it originates on Page 97 of the proposed bill: [https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bill_text....](https://waysandmeansforms.house.gov/uploadedfiles/bill_text.pdf).

 _(2) Section 132(j)(8) is amended by striking "which are not excludable from gross income under section 127"._

I looked up the mentioned sections:

Section 132: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/132](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/132)

Section 127: [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/127](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/26/127)

This does seem to be true.

But to be fair to the intent, these sections of the tax code are aimed at educational benefits provided by corporations, and there is not a specific clause in the proposed bill that is targeting graduate education. It seems like an oversight that PhD students are affected by this, or possibly there's a deeper nuance in the tax code that makes this irrelevant to educational institutions. Hopefully all of the attention this has received will result in clarification and amendment before approval.

<comment><USER7> On second look, I think I am incorrect. Altering Section 132(j)(8) doesn't yield a substantial change.

Before:

 _Amounts paid or expenses incurred by the employer for education or training provided to the employee which are not excludable from gross income under section 127 shall be excluded from gross income under this section if (and only if) such amounts or expenses are a working condition fringe._

After:

 _Amounts paid or expenses incurred by the employer for education or training provided to the employee shall be excluded from gross income under this section if (and only if) such amounts or expenses are a working condition fringe._

I'm not sure where this is in the tax bill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I have no experience in this area but I assume these waivers come with "job like" research, teaching, and/or administrative support obligations attached, in which case the tax seems appropriate (and, as the author suggests, Universities would likely adapt to a new system, net-neutral to grad students).

If there are no such obligations attached, then how is a tuition waiver different from a merit- or need-based scholarship?

<comment><USER3> The disconnect here is that while the "job" of a grad student is to do things like research and teaching, it's not the tuition part that is paying for that "job", it's the stipend. The stipend is already taxed.

Put another way, one could reasonably say that an entry level trainee in science is worth about $30K a year pre-tax (roughly the grad stipend at Stanford while I was there). Maybe they're even worth $50K, which is roughly what can be gotten in industry as an undergrad fresh out of college in the biosciences. They are definitely not worth $70-$80K a year (stipend + tuition at a place like Stanford), and even so we would be taxing them on a salary they're not actually seeing.

It's much better to see these waivers as scholarships, which generally aren't taxable. I don't know how the tax plan treats scholarships or financial aid, but I hope they haven't decided that those are taxable too.

If they have decided scholarships still aren't taxable then I suppose universities could call everything a scholarship and use that as a loophole. In which case this part of the tax bill is pointless, incurring a massive administrative change for zero benefit of any sort. Also some universities, particularly public universities may have regulatory issues around limits to number of scholarships they can issue or how they can decide to issue scholarships.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> What makes this the most retarded is that the plan is to tax something that doesn't exactly exist. It'd be like trying to apply sales tax in the MSRP, and not on the actual money changing hands. Which might be ok, except the MSRP is a myth, and is actually used as a price anchor more and more.

My suspicion is that this will cause universities to start charging different amounts for different degrees, or, when that may be illegal (state schools?), they'll lower tuitions across the board and find ways to tack on fees for students who wouldn't otherwise recieve waivers.

Either way it's a really bad precedent, it's bad enough that I can claim someone owes me money, then send the IRS a form saying I've forgiven said loan. Now you've got to convince the IRS that the loan never took place.

</comment><comment><USER10> Previous discussions:

GOP tax bill would tax tuition waivers for grad students (chronicle.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15622544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15622544) (122 comments)

The GOP Tax Plan Will Destroy Graduate Education (forbes.com)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15646571](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15646571) (97 comments)

</comment><comment><USER11> So, $5K tax on $25K income? With the new standard deduction of $12K for individual or $24K for married? Would like to see the math.

</comment><comment><USER12> How tf can you not live on 20k a year...

<comment><USER2> As a grad student, I currently do. Losing two paychecks, though, would make my life really unbearable.

Why am I deferring the ability to save money for retirement?

I'm not taking lecture classes, but my research still requires tuition. I work in lab at least 6 days a week. I teach labs for 150 students a semester for my department, and stay up until midnight writing/reviewing papers or grading. I get two weeks of vacation year, which I take over Christmas, but never the whole period because I need to get work done before teaching starts up again.

Nobody would take out students loans to do this. Our take-home is typically enough to escape financial worry, but not much beyond it. If the bill passes, you'll see a lot of students drop out with masters, and schools will be left unable to offer science courses to most students.</comment></comment>


Critics and practitioners - Chris Dixon - <AUTHOR> http://cdixon.org/2012/06/16/critics-and-practitioners/ <comment><USER2> _"When art critics get together they talk about Form and Structure and Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine." – Picasso_

Dixon goes on to point out that the tension also exists within artists (and practitioners/entrepreneurs) themselves. I too find this to be true. I often like to resolve conceptual impasses by dropping down to more mundane levels, making the parts I understand work for real, and then returning to the conceptual impasse to see if the new perspective doesn't help resolve the problem.

Jumbling "Form and Structure and Meaning" and "cheap turpentine" together in one mind (of a practitioner or a critic) can be surprisingly productive.</comment>


Ask HN: Remote Recruiters? - <AUTHOR>

I'm currently looking for work and I've never tried using a recruiter before.  I thought I might try this time.  However, I'm only seeking remote/telecommute work.  Is anyone aware of a good recruiter that specializes in remote work?  It seems many recruiters focus on a geographical area. <comment><USER2> I wish I could help you but the best I can come up with is finding some that work with larger companies that support telecommuting. Most of the smaller companies that support remote work generally use networking, ads or independent recruiters. Telecommuter jobs collects the Craigslist ads that mention telecommuting but the results are spotty. Dice.com might have a better search but I cannot recall if they have a telecommuting filter; if they do you could look for recruiters that post there.</comment>


What's Better Self-Promotion: Speaking or Blogging? - <AUTHOR> http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2008/05/30/better-self-promotion-speaking-or-blogging/ <comment><USER2> Speaking. I'm shocked how much credibility you get when you speak. A year ago I was the least known (CrowdVine hadn't even launched) speaker on an 8:00am Web 2.0 Expo panel and for six months I had people contacting me about my company. This year, I organized and ran the unconference track at the same conference and didn't have a single bit of interest.

I'm probably not the best self-promotional blogger out there, but I do find that it is a good value in terms of a reference check.</comment>


Sleep on it, but only if it is difficult: Effects of sleep on problem solving - <AUTHOR> http://www.springerlink.com/content/7802xn5815616nwl/

<comment><USER2> I was immediately reminded of Rich Hickey's talk, hammock driven development: <http://blip.tv/clojure/hammock-driven-development-4475586>.

It sounds like he was onto something with the waking mind being being prone to finding local maxima, but the background/sleeping mind being good for branching out and finding other solutions.

edit: Actually it looks like he cited scientific american talking about the sleeping brain finding relations between problems, I only remembered the bits about strengthening memory.

</comment><comment><USER3> The item is behind a paywall.

</comment><comment><USER4> Is there any chance we can get access to this article without having to pay?

<comment><USER5> The PDF is available for free? [http://www.springerlink.com/content/7802xn5815616nwl/fulltex...](http://www.springerlink.com/content/7802xn5815616nwl/fulltext.pdf)

<comment><USER6> I just get a paywall when I click on this link.

<comment><USER5> I got the full text. Here is a Dropbox link to it: <http://bit.ly/PumkzJ>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> thanks to hvass (the link is to a paywalled site), the basic idea is:

\- some tasks require "lateral thinking". the example given is: what joins the words "lick", "sprinkle", "mine"? maybe lateral thinking is the wrong expression, but the idea is that the solution requires making connections from unrelated "semantic areas"

\- people guess that the brain has a network-like approach where "activation" starts at nodes associated with the different concepts ("sprinkle", etc) and slowly spreads outwards, until, presumably, all three growing (glowing? ;o) areas meet at "salt".

\- sleep helps for these tasks, but not for easier ones.

</comment><comment><USER8> A related, long yet interesting, article is this one <http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm></comment>


Sophia Antipolis (France) Startup Weekend - <AUTHOR> http://nice.startupweekend.org/

<comment><USER2> Studied abroad at EAI Tech in Sophia Antipolis. Too bad I can't take a trip back for this! Beautiful part of the country.</comment>


Tah: Open Source BLE Arduino-compatible Board - <AUTHOR> https://www.crowdsupply.com/revealing-hour/tah-open-ble-arduino-board

<comment><USER2> I saw this on Instructables' FB page this morning and was reminded of some similar open source BLE efforts. Some of the notable ones are:

Tah: BLE central role AND periperal role AND iBeacon; USB HID via male USB and programmable over USB, 12 analog inputs, 7 PWM outputs, 20 digital I/O; [https://www.crowdsupply.com/revealing-hour/tah-open-ble- ardu...](https://www.crowdsupply.com/revealing-hour/tah-open-ble-arduino- board)

BLEduino: BLE peripheral role only; USB HID via micro-USB; 9 analog inputs, 6 PWM outputs, 20 digital I/O; [http://bleduino.cc/](http://bleduino.cc/)

Blend: BLE peripheral role only; USB HID via micro-USB; 10 analog inputs, 6 PWM outputs, 17 digital I/O; [http://redbearlab.com/blend/](http://redbearlab.com/blend/)

Bean: BLE peripheral role only; no USB; 2 analog inputs, 4 PWM outputs, 8 digital I/O; [http://punchthrough.com/bean](http://punchthrough.com/bean)

As for pricing, they all seemed about the same, $30-$50, but it was hard to tell because some of them included free shipping (e.g. Tah) and some didn't.

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems like they have quite a few apps on GitHub [https://github.com/tah- io/iOS](https://github.com/tah-io/iOS) Interesting. Most others (spark, bleduino, light blue bean) have just one app to control the pins and that's about it

<comment><USER2> Nice. Providing actual app code is really helpful. Android coming soon, apparently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Also worth investigating for BLE: BLEduino, McThing. I keep a list, but haven't been checking back on those campaigns. Oh and Intel Edison too.</comment>


Human Space Flight Needn't Rely on NASA - <AUTHOR> http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4344512.html

<comment><USER2> There are a lot of challenges in creating a moon base or Mars base beyond getting stuff into orbit, which is quite routine in the commercial sector.

NASA should have no shortage of interesting challenges even if they outsource launch services to get more bang for the buck. NASA does some great things with planetary probes, etc., but their manned launch systems have always consumed prodigious amounts of money.

By contrast, the money SpaceX has spent to almost complete the development of their new NASA-funded launch system is approximately 1/20 of the projected _cost_ _overrun_ of the internal manned launch system NASA has been working on (the Aries I).

</comment><comment><USER3> We can rely on China instead.</comment>


Ask HN: ECommerce sales tax - <AUTHOR> I am an online store. When customers order from me, i go to another online store, purchase it, and send the product to my customer. (I am a drop shipper)
When i purchase the product from another online store, i have to pay the sales tax that is charged. Do i also need to remit sales tax based on my revenue? This will mean the government has double taxed the product.
Side facts:
- I do not have reseller cert
- I have physical presence in California
Simple example: (Assuming 10% sales tax and i charge $1 per transaction)
- Customer purchases $10 item
- I charge Customer $12 due to $10 * 1.1 + $1
- I purchase the product from another store for $11
- My revenue is $12, profit is $1
- I have to pay corporate tax on $1, do i have to remit another $1.2 (10% of revenue) on sales tax?
Thanks in advance!! <comment><USER2> If you are buying products for resale, get a resale permit; then, your inventory purchases are exempt from CA sales tax.

[http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/faqseller.htm](http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/faqseller.htm)</comment>


Sketch vs. Adobe XD for Prototyping – A Designers' Conundrum - <AUTHOR> https://spin.atomicobject.com/2019/10/10/sketch-adobe-xd-prototyping/#.XZ8vs9dpL6M.hackernews <comment><USER2> Sketch can't do text around a circle, does XD? I've never tried Adobe XD as I hate how Adobe installs all sorts of crap with their applications.</comment>


Embedded Programming with the GNU Toolchain - <AUTHOR> http://www.bravegnu.org/gnu-eprog/ <comment><USER2> Check out platformio. E.g. to download and install an arm toolchain with the cmsis libraries, to be developed with eclipse for an F3 discovery board:

        platformio init --ide eclipse --board disco_f303vc --framework cmsis my-project-dir/

This will download and install the compiler toolchain and the cmsis libraries. It will then setup some convenience scripts, e.g. to compile, link and upload:

        platformio run --target upload

Although since we said ide, there will be run configurations in the ide project for this already. There are many ide choices like sublime text or my favourite, clion (although the clion product does not support remote debugging yet).

Qemu is installed for simulation if you don't have hardware (it does this for other boards too, e.g. if working with some atmel processors then simulavr will be installed). Gdb is installed too.

It comes with a library manager, continuous integration env setup and a few other bits and bobs.

[http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/demo.html#wiring- blink](http://docs.platformio.org/en/latest/demo.html#wiring-blink)

<comment><USER3> Second this as I tried platformio for STM32 recently. I was expecting hiccups due to arch usually having newer versions of libraries but everything worked out nicely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Using gcc for ARM with my own makefiles and in some cases, even linker script has been one of the best sources of hard earned knowledge about embedded development I posess.

gcc/openocd/gdb for ARM Cortex'es and avr-gcc/avrdude/avr-gdb is basically one of the most consistent toolchains available for a wide range of microcontrollers. It's not terribly hard to learn (hard to master though) and you're not locked into particular IDE.

I only wish I had read a guide like this before :)

</comment><comment><USER4> Jackpot!

I was (still am, though not active) interested in embedded programming. Though for complete newbie entering into arm gnu embedded programming toolchain was very steep learning curve and I was not willing to put huge amount of cash into some proprietary IDE.

So my hobby was limited to atmel's micro-controllers, which were more than I needed for my interest, though it was always interesting to try ARM micro- controllers.

Maybe I need to resurrect plans for programming ARM. Though probably bare metal programming is getting less and less attention, due to great and user- friendly platforms like arduino, raspberry pi (and all ecosystem of super powerful credit card computers), micropython, etc. But it's always a great pleasure to run a bare metal system with greatest performance and power efficiency.

<comment><USER5> indeed, the AVR tools are nice for starters - I wrote some thoughts about those a while back on my blog: [http://thinkingonthinking.com/an-arduino- sketch-from-scratch...](http://thinkingonthinking.com/an-arduino-sketch-from- scratch/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'd like to mention two projects that have helped me with my embedded toolchain adventures.

crosstool-ng [0]: I've used this to cross compile the Linux kernel for my PPC PlayStation 3. Believe me, it was easily 20x faster to cross-compile than to wait on the PS3's slow PPU. It has lots of options though and I was never quite sure which ones would lead to a "broken" toolchain.

ellcc [1]: My go-to resource if I want to get a LLVM/Clang toolchain that supports most any target (every host build supports every target) from most any host. My favorite compiler (LLVM/Clang), libc (musl), and STL (libc++), what is there not to like? :)

[0]: [http://crosstool-ng.org](http://crosstool-ng.org)

[1]: [http://ellcc.org](http://ellcc.org)

</comment><comment><USER7> I did the transition from arduino ide to command line compilation using a makefile and avrdude. But the hardware is super easy (and cheap) with arduino like boards. What hardware does ARM development need? Which prototyping boards are easier for beginners?

<comment><USER3> I'm fond of STM32 Discovery/Nucleo devboards. They have all the required debugger/programmer hardware on board, can be used as debuggers/programmers for standalone STM32 MCUs and are very well priced (you can get one for < 15EUR).

I'd probably suggest NUCLEO-F401RE [1], as that series is newer and has out- of-the box mbed support (including it's mass-storage based firmware uploading).

1: [http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/CL1620/SC959/SS153...](http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM116/CL1620/SC959/SS1532/LN1847/PF260000)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> that is a nice initiative! My main resources for open-source ARM programming were [https://github.com/muccc/arm- workshop/tree/master/mvp](https://github.com/muccc/arm- workshop/tree/master/mvp) and [https://github.com/LimiFrog/LimiFrog- SW](https://github.com/LimiFrog/LimiFrog-SW)

</comment><comment><USER8> Was considering an embedded project in the near future, so this may be helpful. In my initial search it was looking like Guix ([http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/](http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/)) would be very useful.</comment>


High-Resolution Mandelbrot in Obfuscated Python - <AUTHOR> http://preshing.com/20110926/high-resolution-mandelbrot-in-obfuscated-python/ <comment><USER2> One thing that's nice about the Mandelbrot set is that you can calculate each pixel independently of all the other pixels. This means if you have 8 CPUs, you can split the image into 8 parts and render it that way.

I apparently decided to try this out about 4 years ago. Here's the result: [https://gist.github.com/jrockway/291074](https://gist.github.com/jrockway/291074)

Still slow. Need to run this on some machines at work :)

<comment><USER3> Or convert it to Accelerate and kick it out on a GPU... :)

<comment><USER4> That was my first OpenCL project. I managed to make it render just slightly slower than on the CPU, which for a first time I consider a success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A bit of topic, but the blog conclusion made me wondered if anyone would one day expose code in a museum.

Any people who've seen real top level code know there is a kind of beauty or at least aesthetic in very correct code, so why not put them on a frame and expose them. Same could be said of some really important mathematic or physic formulas, but they're sometimes short and their meaning really is obscure. Whereas code is at least partially written in human language, which would make such an exhibit still understandable by everyone.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure about "code as art" but Bernar Venet uses a lot of mathematics in his works. [http://nicolaanthony.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/a-perfect- synt...](http://nicolaanthony.wordpress.com/2012/11/18/a-perfect-synthesis-of- art-and-mathematics-bernar-venet-in-singapore/)

He even framed an astrophysics paper once in the Centre Pompidou, [http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/06/08/euroupdate...](http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2007/06/08/euroupdate-2-is- science-art/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've been looking for more geeky art to put up in my home office (like their version on CafePress with the code in the image - [http://www.cafepress.com/preshing.571735472](http://www.cafepress.com/preshing.571735472)).

Does anyone know others like that?

<comment><USER8> The Utah Tea Pot is a classic image [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot)

Here is a good example [http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Utah_teap...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Utah_teapot_simple_2.png) or

[http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/computer- graphics-...](http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/computer-graphics- music-and-art/15/intro/554)

<comment><USER9> It's also available in porcelain :)

[http://www.unfold.be/pages/5/items/85](http://www.unfold.be/pages/5/items/85)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> > If you're willing to leave the script running for a few hours, you can > increase the image resolution on line 8. (Just make sure the width is > divisible by 4.)

You can make a _lower_ resolution version too. I used:

        )  ;v,      x=1024, 800;C=range(v*x

which fakes the 4-width with a space before 800, and it worked fine: [http://i.imgur.com/c9ossnw.png](http://i.imgur.com/c9ossnw.png)

I like this use of obfuscation a lot. Kudos to the author. (EDIT: Code format)

</comment><comment><USER11> Neato, reminded me of the RSA dolphin ([http://e-privacy.winstonsmith.info/2007/2005/2002/munitions/...](http://e-privacy.winstonsmith.info/2007/2005/2002/munitions/documents/rsafin))

</comment><comment><USER12> I humbly tip my hat to the author. And hope to create a hack, half as inspired in my lifetime.</comment>