Why moving to Scala - Part I - Writing less code - <AUTHOR> http://blog.furiousbob.com/2011/06/21/why-moving-to-scala-part-1/ <comment><USER2> I can't wait to see some case studies about experiences with Scala over the term of a long-lived, large project.

I like the language, but sometimes it feels like it promotes a lot of "creative" coding. My concern is that the idioms for dealing with things like collections seem to change with some frequency as more and more features get added to the language.

It's possible that my concerns are misplaced, I've written < 10,000 lines of Scala so I'm certainly a neophyte. It's just been troubling to find so many suggestions for doing things like folding/reducing.

<comment><USER3> FWIW we've got about 150k lines of scala code in the foursquare codebase and are thusfar very happy with it. There are certainly ways of writing bad code in scala (as with any language) but you learn pretty quickly how to avoid them.

<comment><USER2> Do you feel that you would have had as much success with less strong developers? (Edit: probably better phrased as "Do you think success would have been possible with less strong developers")

I don't mean "bad" developers as much as I mean ordinary "enterprise" developers.

The real concern I have is with hiring - what is the likelihood that you can take a competent Java developer (or any competent developer, I suppose) and expect them to make good decisions with Scala in a relatively short window of time (say 1-2 months)?

<comment><USER3> It's hard for me to say definitively because the eng team at foursquare is AWESOME (I know I"m biased here, but I really do think it's exceptional).

I do think it would have been possible though. In a lot of ways scala is a combination of the benefits of a compiled/type checked language (which should make things easier for developers of any skill level) + the concision of an interpreted language like python or ruby.

<comment><USER2> Thanks a lot for taking the time to answer, Harry. I really enjoyed the recording of your talk about Lift from the New York Scala meetup, by the way.

<comment><USER4> For those of us who'd like to add this to our Squrl queues to watch later, the video is here:

<http://www.vimeo.com/8057986>

and the slide deck is here:

[https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcbpz3ck_24f3v83ggz&...](https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dcbpz3ck_24f3v83ggz&pli=1)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think it is fair to say that one of the biggest reasons that people like Scala more than Java is that while it certainly improves A LOT of things that Java needed to fix, it also allows a clean break from some legacy Java baggage in terms of platforms.

For example, if you are doing a Java web project, most teams go with the Java EE platform simply because that is what is standard and so most of the things around Java in terms of the web are usually somehow in the vein of Java EE in terms of being big, kludgy, slow moving web frameworks.

So, even though nicer MVC frameworks like Play exist in Javaland, simply switching to Scala opens your eyes to the opportunities that exist in other frameworks like Lift and Play and scalatra.

In the end Scala is a nice mix of improving the language and revealing potentially better platforms at the same time.

<comment><USER6> If you really want to break with traditional Java web dev then Lift is probably a good fit. It's really different from every other framework I've worked with... In kind of a good but strange way. They have MVC and restful use patterns now but the original functional approach of the framework is very powerful, though it takes some getting used to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a current .NET developer that used to do Java, it seems like Scala includes a lot of things that C# developers have taken for granted for several years. I can see where it goes a bit further though, and I'm excited to see the community around it grow.

<comment><USER2> I'm a .NET guy looking to move away from C#, and feel much the same way you do. I'd love to have some additional niceties like LINQ, but right now Scala is probably the most natural language to transition to from C#.

<comment><USER8> Have you seen squeryl? Its not quite as nice as LINQ, but its definitely a useful DSL

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> The biggest problem with Scala for me are very cryptic compilation errors with several line long type informations that do not match each other.

The second problem is DDL hell. Too many changes to APIs, binary compatibility, dropped classes from 2.7.x -> 2.8.x -> 2.9.x.

That said I'm very happy with Scala as a language, but they should fix those problems.

</comment><comment><USER10> 1) There is a literal syntax for Java:

entries = new ArrayList<Integer>() {{ add(3); add(4); }}

But yes, certainly not as elegant as Scala. Having said that, you don't encounter literal collections very often (except maybe in tests).

6) Named parameters are pretty easy to emulate:

new Window().width(100).height(50)

although the builder pattern is safer:

Window w = new Window.Builder().width(100).height(50).build();

7) No more checked exceptions: celebrating this is like saying that your code is shorter because you no longer bother checking for errors.

8) You can only omit parenthese in Scala when there is exactly one parameter:

x.foo a <\-- legal

x.foo a b <\-- illegal

x.foo(a, b) <\-- legal

One of the many syntactic quirks that Scala suffers from

9) Comprehensions are neat but they suffer from a crippled performance limitation that forces you to revert to imperative loops, even in optimized mode. This technical problem is serious and there is no solution in sight at the moment.

There are genuine reasons to be excited about Scala but this article makes me think that the author just discovered Scala and they haven't really dug very deep yet. When you do, you start realizing that Scala's nice features are offset by quite a few annoying limitations that will probably doom this language to a niche.

<comment><USER11> > entries = new ArrayList<Integer>() {{ add(3); add(4); }}

Nah, entries = Arrays.asList(3, 4);

Scala is pretty sweet with a lot of syntactic sugars, but it still it doesn't fundamentally make writing correct code any faster, especially for Java developers who are competent with their IDEs. Until Scala's compile time and IDE support improves 10x, I see no point of using Scala for production code.

Slightly more verbose Java syntax is more than made up by the instant/incremental compilation/autocompletion/refactor that works. Even as a Java noob (I'm more experienced in C++), I can bang out correct code the first time without going through any edit/compile cycles, most of the time. IDE is the new REPL and language snobs always forget that.

<comment><USER12> I feel that the boilerplate code IDEs spit out on demand is far more of a liability than not. Once it's created it's your responsibility to maintain.

By focusing on the creation of the simplistic code we ignore the burden of maintaining ten lines of critical fluff for every intentional line of code.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I suspect that Scala is good, but I find the article a little disingenuous. In one example, the author counts curly braces on a line as part of the line count (when it happens in Java code), but doesn't do the same when it happens for Scala code. The constraint example leaves out the public method declaration, or at least doesn't illustrate how it directly maps to the Java code. Maybe it directly replaces everything there, but both snippets don't provide enough context to decide - at least not without already understanding a fair bit of Scala and Java code. That said, I did enjoy seeing some examples of more-or-less equivalent Java and Scala code.

</comment><comment><USER14> I liked this; "One could argue on the max example being possible using ternary operator (which I use a lot, and now I understand why, I had a deep need for Functional Programming)." I don't know anything about functional programming, but I have used the ternary operator an awful lot over the years in C and C++. So maybe the fact that I can never understand why people complain that the ternary operator is hard to read means that I am a natural born functional programmer without even knowing it.

</comment><comment><USER15> If writing less code is the objective, use Clojure.

</comment><comment><USER16> For me, Scala has a couple killer projects going for it that should greatly help adoption: ensime and simple-build-tool. An IDE and a build environment that doesn't suck. When you're just starting out with a language, being able to get going on a project quickly is key to not losing interest. And these two projects fit that need perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER17> when you are moving from Java, everything looks better :) which is probably how you could tlds this post

<comment><USER17> tltd

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've decided after 12 years of writing PHP to move to Scala. My (very limited) experience with it so far is that it is rock solid awesome.

</comment><comment><USER19> it almost looks like PHP there :)

<comment><USER20> Care to explain, because I can't see it.

<comment><USER21> I believe that the impression is there because of the fact that Scala really reminds of a dynamically typed language, with type inference and lots of syntax sugar. And if PHP is the only dynamic language one has been exposed to, then well, PHP it looks like. :)

<comment><USER22> It certainly seems very fair to say that most dynamic languages have most of the features he's bragging about. That seems to be the a repeating pattern of the last several Scala articles I've seen here: The author is all excited about how terse it is (compared to Java, I guess), but it actually looks kind of bloated to me. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I meant anything</comment>


Dnsdist: DNS, abuse- and DoS-aware query distribution for optimal performance - <AUTHOR> http://blog.powerdns.com/2015/03/11/introducing-dnsdist-dns-abuse-and-dos-aware-query-distribution-for-optimal-performance/

<comment><USER2> My view is that you're better off adding this logic into your DNS server and using ECMP before adding yet another application into the stream of DNS packets.

If you want your individual servers to coordinate their attack profile, you can do that either in-band, or out-of-band.

We've never seen any benefit to anything besides affinity-based (src/dst/etc.) ECMP.</comment>


Don't Overnegotiate: Here's a Good Starting Salary Strategy - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140722140006-44558-don-t-overnegotiate-here-s-a-good-starting-salary-strategy?trk=tod-home-art-list-small_3

<comment><AUTHOR> She obviously has everything to win to tell people to start with a lower wage. But she mentioned this:

>To emphasize how eager the young woman was to work, she even offered my colleague to waive her wages. Since that didn't feel right, they decided on a basic salary to start with and agreed to have an evaluation after 6 months and after 1 year.

But I doubt that not paying somebody is legal here in Belgium, and an evaluation after 6 months and 1 year is pretty standard.</comment>


Insiders with Activision, EA Profit by Selling Stock During Buyback Programs - <AUTHOR> https://games.mxdwn.com/news/insiders-with-activision-ea-profit-by-selling-stock-during-buyback-programs/ <comment><AUTHOR> > At no point during the buyback program did Activision repurchase its shares. > Previously in February 2015, Activision Blizzard announced a buyback program > at $750 million, also without repurchased shares.

Bruh...</comment>


The Patterns Behind the "Most Shared" NYTimes Articles - <AUTHOR> http://blog.percolate.com/2014/03/email-twitter-most-shared-nytimes/

<comment><USER2> I see something totally different. The email sharers are older and conservative, the Twitter users are younger and liberal. Older people are finally comfortable with email but not new forms of information sharing. Also, conservative groups prefer to use email to spread hate propaganda because it is less public and hard to trace the source.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think we are on the same page here actually. I talk about how email sharing is around health and aging - topics that address older folks and Twitter sharing is around breaking news w/ an international bent + business and tech. Not sure if I've seen a lot of evidence for liberal vs conservative but could be.

<comment><USER2> Maybe I read too much into it. Sure there are mentions of Paul Ryan and Utah on the email side and things like "Budding Liberal Protest Movements Begin to Take Root in South" on Twitter but that is not enough to draw a conclusion. Especially because the Ryan and Utah articles are not pro-conservative.

I guess what struck me is the fear on the email side - the headlines are of the sensational news style of "What you don't know could kill you" plus the common topics of safety and security. The Twitter headlines have a more optimistic feel (and some are clearly fluff.) Compare the headlines abut recent news in Russia: "Is Crimea the Next Yugoslavia?" vs. "If Not a Cold War, a Return to a Chilly Rivalry"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> This analysis is superficial and overcomplicated. Here's the answer: the article's that you find in the most-emailed list are what older less tech- savvy folks would share. The twitter-only list is the reverse.

I'd like to see an analysis that mines the articles and shows word frequencies for twitter-only vs email-only articles. Hmmm maybe I'll do this ;)</comment>


Amazon is a master of tax avoidance - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/04/09/trump-is-right-amazon-is-a-master-of-tax-avoidance/33653439/ <comment><USER2> ...as is any multibillion dollar public corporation. They're literally chartered to avoid taxes, and are willing to pay accounting firms millions of dollars to find new and innovative loopholes.

The tax code could be simpler and eliminate the holes, but these companies _love_ the complication because it allows them to invent these things, so they actually lobby for even more complicated, convoluted rules at any given chance.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can swap Amazon for any company or individual large enough to hire an accountant. A good one is worth their weight in gold.

<comment><USER4> Exactly. Since this article is meant to repeat Trump's rhetoric, how about we look at his companies and their history of avoiding taxes, or his (presumable) avoidance of paying taxes?

<comment><USER5> If only there were some sort of well-established norm requiring presidential candidates to publicly disclose their tax returns...

<comment><USER6> If only we had a president who cares about well-established norms of integrity and truthfulness.

<comment><USER7> If only we had a democracy and campaign process that valued informed voters more than monied interests

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Any business that doesn't do everything it (legally) can to minimize its tax burden is doing a disservice to its shareholders.

Follow the incentives - no individual or business knowingly pays _more_ taxes than it is obligated to.

<comment><USER9> I mostly agree with you, but some point, say for instance if 75% of the population hokds your shares through 401ks, is the company doing more harm to shareholders by hurting society for short term gain?

Everyone joining in on funds like vanguard is making this question become less of an academic one

<comment><USER10> This is in itself is very short in analysis. What do you think people do when they get more money? They spend it.

If they don't directly spend it either by cashing out, borrowing against it, etc. The fund manager controlling that savings fund will deploy some of that capital and put it to work.

If the money is saved and then put to work like just established, then it becomes a multiplier. If the money is taken as a tax and spent by the government it doesn't become a multiplier.

Take $10 sitting in savings. It can be spent/invested buying a good and that circulates to all the intermediaries and suppliers around the economy. That is not what happens when you tax Peter to pay Paul.

<comment><USER9> Have you ever heard of junkies breaking into empty houses and stripping all the copper wiring out to sell at scrappers? It destroys 10s to 100s of thousands of dollars of value in the form of a completed home to get the scrapper a few hundred at most.

If you dont think that companies are capable of doing the same sort of thing to society but at a larger scaled I don't think we can have a discussion on it.

Not every transaction is zero sum at worst and growing the pie at best

Also, you're saying what do people do with the money "they spend it", but when the government takes the money and uses jt, that just dissapears? I actually believe that can happen because I think individuals/corporations/governments can engage in destructive actions but the way you are arguing it is talking out of both sides of your mouth. When the government spends money it goes to people too

<comment><USER10> I don't know anything about junkies. But you're missing the point, taxed money doesn't come from creation rather than from someone else directly.

Assume an economy valued at $100. If you taxed it and passed that money to another party, it's not going to grow the $100 at all. Because all you're doing is shifting that ownership of that money around and in between steps losing some to intermediaries.

So taxing $10 and passing it around is really some value less than $100. Meanwhile that $100 could be used to grow to $300 and everyone is vastly better off.

Now these are extremes, if you took some extreme tax like 90% then the whole thing falls apart and you have the state running things and we know how that goes.

Same for the opposite side, at 0% tax then things like national defense and the like wouldn't be supported and we'd have things like other nations/parties trying to invade etc.

Clearly there's a middle ground but I'd say it's definitely not at the current ratio of tax burden which is what 30% roughly of GDP? Might be more with future liabilities

<comment><USER9> You are still valuing all government actions at zero dollars. When the government takes ten dollars of tax money and then spends it on a plane, how is that purchase different than if Delta spent 10 dollars on a plane? It's still a transaction and it goes into the economy to create something.

On the flip side youre also valuing all private transactions as being a multiplier. How is it a multiplier when a monopoly just charges higher prices one day with no improvement to their product? That's just extracting money out with no equivalent increase in value, which does not make it a multiplier

<comment><USER11> whb07 is not valuing all government actions at zero dollars.

They are valuing all government actions at substantially less than the original value in private hands.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Austin, Denver and Detroit: Good Places for a Software Engineer Looking for a Job - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/austin-denver-and-detroit-are-good-places-to-be-a-software-engineer-looking-for-a-job <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16433312](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16433312)

100+ points and comments</comment>


Ruling Expected on Twittering Anarchist Raided Under 'Rioting' Laws - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/10/twitter-anarchist/ <comment><USER2> _If Madison were an Iranian using Twitter to coordinate government protests, he'd likely be considered a hero in the West._

While I don't agree with this guy's ideology, it is interesting to see how our government reacts when "disruptive" technologies such as twitter are turned against it. It certainly looks like the police overstepped their bounds, but regardless of whether this guy gets convicted, the police have already won. They succeeded in taking this guy out of play for most of the G20.

<comment><USER3> There were many others doing what he did. Yeah, he was the best, but I was still getting plenty of updates from other people.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I guess using twitter for political organizing falls in the same category as DDT: fine for other nations, illegal in the US.

</comment><comment><USER5> Is the US really the land of the free still?

<comment><USER6> Until the 1964 Civil Rights Act, women and racial minorities had their rights curtailed by law. The Family Laws of the earlier Progressive period had established that women should be paid less than men, the nominal goal being to raise men's wages so they could support a family. Women didn't get a nation- wide right to open a mutual fund till the 1970s ("nation-wide" meaning some states allowed it, and some states didn't).

It would be tough to pick out a year when America was ever really free. The best it can claim is that, for a long time, it was doing better than other countries. But it seems to me that Europe caught up a long time ago.</comment></comment>


Google avoids paying US taxes using a "Double Irish, Dutch Sandwich" - <AUTHOR> http://www.npr.org/2011/09/10/138867588/corporate-taxes-how-low-can-you-go

<comment><USER2> Original headline: Corporate Taxes: How Low Can You Go?

I understand wanting to re-headline to bash Google. They deserve it. Even so, original headlines are almost always better.

</comment><comment><USER3> Is the argument for lower taxes for corporations a red harring or is it usually to get it to a point where we actually get the money rather than it being sent offshore?

<comment><USER4> The way I see it it's diversionary to the real issue: tax loopholes. Companies will always work to maximize profits / shareholder value, and a part of that is minimizing taxes paid on income. What the tax rate here in the states doesn't make one lick of difference if these loop holes continue to exist. If Exxon-Mobile can make tens of billions without paying a single cent of tax on any of it, they will.

No the real thing that needs to happen is to first close these loopholes, THEN look at the tax rate and see if it's too high (it probably is, 35%? really? Is it this high in an attempt to offset the billions lost from tax loopholes?) and drop it appropriately.

<comment><USER5> Corporations in the US are legally persons. Persons earning greater than $350,000 per year have an income tax rate of 35%.

The problem is probably that they're legally defined as persons.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> If the President is so eager to make the rich pay their "fair share", he should start with his friends at Google, GE, Berskshire Hathaway, etc.

</comment><comment><USER7> good. Why do liberals support taxes then turn around complaining that half of tax dollars go to war? Starve the beast.</comment>


Ireland same-sex referendum set to approve gay marriage - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-32856232 <comment><USER2> As a straight Irishman with a family and kids I am very happy that for once there was such a large voter turnout for a referendum,especially among the newly registered voters.

Of course I am also happy for the LGBT community since there is absolutely no reason why people in a modern and progressive 21st century state should be discriminated against based on their sexual preference. It just feels wrong.

Which brings me to the NO campaign that was run by the crazy religious fringe that was downright disgusting, what sort of god preaches hate, inequality and discrimination?

<comment><USER3> > what sort of god preaches hate, inequality and discrimination?

Gods, not many (I really don't believe they exist). People claiming to represent god: many.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very great day for the Irish people, not straight and gay. Some numbers I have heard so far: Dublin is around 70% yes. Heard 95% turnouts in some places in the city. Think I have only heard of one constitution as a no. Most are at least 51% yes, and mostly over 60. Very happy days!

</comment><comment><USER5> Very glad to see this result, was worried I'd have to burn my passport if the result was "No".

</comment><comment><USER6> Good for Ireland. I'm proud of you!

</comment><comment><USER7> So no abortions but gay marriage are ok?

</comment><comment><USER8> Yes assess, and now like here in Spain, adoption

<comment><USER9> Gay couples could already adopt. There was something weird like only one of them having legal rights, or that might have been in the case of surrogacy, but now they count as a legally married couple that should be resolved.

<comment><USER8> Then it is different that the situation in Spain, even when gay marriage was legalised, the adoption was done only by one of them as a single.

The law had to be changed to have into account there was a couple and give the child the protection if the legal progenitor died.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think, should not approve gay marriage.

<comment><USER11> Agreed. I pray they do not.

<comment><USER12> Well pray harder so!

I'm usually sceptical about patriotism but am very proud of Irish people today.

Tiocfaidh ar grá!</comment></comment></comment>


Apple stock down 10% after hours - <AUTHOR> http://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AAAPL&e

<comment><USER2> An interesting quote of Tim Cook today:

"We aren't interested in revenue for revenue's sake, we could put the Apple brand on a lot of things and sell a lot more stuff. The most important thing to us is that our customers love our products, not just buy them but love them."

I hope that their current market capitalization won't make them modify their pace and be disturbed by this noise. I hope they won't rush out new products just for the sake of making Wall Street happy. Keep iterating, keep hard working on non-public stuffs, there is no hurry.

</comment><comment><USER3> Biggest reason for this is that Wall Street has noticed the huge cash pile that Apple is just sitting on. A good chunk of their market cap is made up of this cash pile that they are reinvesting through their hedge fund.

There's a reason why Amazon keeps going up even though they are barely profitable. Amazon keeps reinvesting their profits into the company's R&D rather than throwing it in the bank.

<comment><USER4> Interesting chance for a HN gut check:

If you were offered $100k of Apple or $100k of Amazon right now, which would you choose? You would have to receive and hold for 10 years.

To me, the answer to that is obvious (AMZN), but I'm curious if my intuition matches up with the general opinion.

I'm not sure which would be a better sign.

ETA: Original intent was to talk about 100k in dollars, not in shares.

<comment> X-Istence I would pick Apple. I have a feeling that in 10 years they will have re- invented themselves and be making huge profits, and paying dividends on those shares.

For example, 100k of Apple shares today will net me 265,000 USD. Assume that I decide to just pocket that money ... I could live off that for a full year, easy. They pay that every quarter (or at least that's the case at the moment). I'll make money now, be able to stick it into a savings account or re-invest it into other stocks.

If you gave me 100k in Amazon i'd be grateful, but keeping it for 10 years means that in the mean time it is useless to me. No dividends, trading at an excess that is absolutely insane, it will come crashing down eventually. Apple at least at that point has cash to continue operations, Amazon doesn't.

<comment><USER5> I think the parent's intent was $100k worth of each, not 100k shares.

<comment> X-Istence I'd still pick AAPL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> It's crazy they they sell a very conventional, understandable thing, a globally recognizable product of unlimited magic, that nearly every person of means in the world has or wants—and yet the market hammers them hard on a 0.7% miss on expected revenue in a quarter with 8% fewer days than 2012Q1.

Here's what I think they should do: Tim Cook needs to become a narcissistic billionaire who parrots about polyamory and militant libertarianism. _Now that's what Silicon Valley is all about._ $$$.

<comment><USER7> What's more crazy is that _profits_ (what truly matters) actually beat expectations.

I could start a business selling $100 bills for $99.99 and report back enormous revenue numbers. Hell, I could probably match Amazon's losses and revenues to a T - maybe Wall Street will reward me with a 2000 P/E ratio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I always had the sense that after-hours trading was volatile, often manipulated, and not indicative of near-term future performance -- are my assumptions incorrect?

<comment><USER9> Yeah, aftermarket is pretty good indicator of next day opening price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Apple is in the category "growth company" and needs a growth story to justify its value. When the roof comes in sight, as it does currently, the party is over.

<comment><USER11> They've essentially refreshed their entire line of products, leaving a wide open field for 2013.

Makes me wonder what they've got in their pipeline. If it's just spec bumps and incremental improvements to existing products, they may not have what it takes to excite. If they have a product or products that enter into new markets, they could return to the $700 levels we saw before.

What I expect in 2013? What markets are untapped?

1\. Apple TV will be opened up to app developers.

2\. Apple will release a wearable device (wristband, watch, something).

3\. Something with home-automation or smart-home technology.

<comment><USER12> I found the following comment from Tim Cook during the earnings call today interesting:

> We're working on some incredible stuff. The pipeline is chock full. We feel > great about what we've got in store.

<comment><USER13> You weren't expecting him to say "yeah, we're just going to do an iPhone refresh and a retina iPad mini, and maybe refresh the Macbooks, if it's ready we'll do One More Thing _wink wink_ ", were you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just to recap: this afternoon two Apple-Fact stories ("Apple releases earnings") get flagged the hell off the front page.

At the same time, two anti-Apple posts float right to the top.

People sure do resent success.

<comment><USER13> Not to worry, counter-flag brigade has checked in and this item is now not on first five pages of top stories.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Be much more interesting if when an analyst guesses wrong, they get punished instead.

<comment><USER16> Every time something like this happens, I always ask myself: who the hell are these analysts and why are they picking such crazy unrealistic numbers? A company can have record revenues and profit and still get punished by the market because some analysts say they should've made more. If everyone ran their company for shareholders and analysts, there'd be a lot more Dells and HPs and less Apples and Googles.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Apple should follow Google, give everyone a 10% raise. The stock will then go up.</comment>


When I write no code, that's when I do my fastest programming - <AUTHOR> http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com/2014/12/when-i-write-no-code-thats-when-i-do-my.html

<comment><USER2> That seems to be the opposite of my case.

When I know exactly what I want the result to be, I start coding, and I'd say I'm pretty efficient at it.

In most cases, even coding something something and then realizing this is not a good architecture and rewriting it from the scratch, works better than carefully thinking it out to make sure I'm writing properly from the start.

But of course, it's not easy to just start with more complicated project, so yes thinking takes time and usually much more (in my case) than coding when I already have some idea to start with.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess its a balance really. Sometimes I think to the point that I realise the thinking is getting me nowhere.....I then need to embark on coding the current best solution to find out more about what I am trying to achieve.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Good post. I think it depends on the problem. For some problems it is faster to just sit down and code. For more difficult stuff like writing a framework you have to think through things alot more.

And of course, the trick is to know when you should hit the keyboard and when you should think something through</comment>


12-million-digit prime number sets record, nets $100,000 prize - <AUTHOR> http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/46184

<comment><USER2> Well, i learned something new. I didn't know about "congruent numbers" before.

I wonder what their practical use is for though. Anybody knows?</comment>


Converting Circuit Boards to 3D CAD - <AUTHOR> http://blog.saikoled.com/post/63105697548/converting-circuit-boards-to-3d-cad

<comment><AUTHOR> Hoping that others will find this useful. This represents about a week of work to figure out for an expert user of EagleCAD, a moderately experienced user of SolidWorks, and a Linux user of 12 years. If you have any other suggestions definitely comment either on the post or here! I'm willing to pay some money for software, but not $7k/year per head for Altium...

<comment><USER2> Excellent write up, appreciate it!

In your experience, what is the "best" open source alternative to SolidWorks? I'm kind of interested in contributing to a project, but haven't played with them in a while.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm afraid I haven't found any of them to be good in terms of actually offering similar functionality, but I haven't looked all that seriously.

To me, the key features that make SolidWorks (and Autodesk Inventor) stand out is the use of constraint driven assembly creation. Everything else seems to me to mostly be possible to work around. SolidWorks and Inventor have many, many added nice features like integration with CAM software, ability to assign materials from a database, ability to add things like fasteners and so on. It's a big list, and why people pay so much for it.

But if all you had was the ability to make sketches (using constraints and dimensions) combined with simple feature creation (linear and rotated extrusions, sweeps, and linear/circular/mirror patterns) to make individual parts, along with the ability to assemble parts using constraint driven logic it would be good enough for 90% of what I do as a non-professional mechanical designer.

If anyone knows of such a thing I'd also be interested in trying it... but I have not encountered such a thing yet.

<comment><USER3> I'm curious:

Why does Solidworks justify the price tag but Altium doesn't? They are in the same pricing ballpark. Your description of Solidworks sounds very much like why I would choose Altium over Eagle.

<comment><AUTHOR> First, all of my design experience is in EagleCAD, so there is some vendor lock-in. If Altium had been available at a price I could afford when I was first starting work on electronics, it could have gone differently for sure. Additionally, when I was first getting into circuit board design (2004 or so) the people I knew using Altium constantly complained about how poorly it worked.

Mostly, I haven't run into a problem I _couldn 't_ solve with EagleCAD other than this MCAD/ECAD interoperability stuff. And I can live without that additional feature which makes it a luxury upgrade. On the other hand, without SolidWorks, I seriously doubt I could produce mechanical designs to send to machine shops for manufacturing.

That all said, I already have Solidworks available because my roomate is a professional mechanical designer. It's also readily available at the local hackerspace computer lab. I'd actually love to try Altium, and if my company ever makes enough money to justify it I would not hesitate to consider it. I'd be very excited to see what I'm missing actually!

<comment><USER3> > That all said, I already have Solidworks available because my roomate is a > professional mechanical designer. It's also readily available at the local > hackerspace computer lab.

Is that...legal? I mean, sounds like you're happy to use solidworks for your commercial endeavors as long as you don't actually have to pay for it?

<comment><AUTHOR> To the best of my knowledge. It's not an educational version, and only one license is in use at any time. If I didn't have access to a commercially licensed version, I wouldn't use it anymore.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Certainly an interest approach for hobbyist work. But, for commercial work Altium is well worth the price in my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER4> You are smart guys and will certainly go places.

In the context of a severely cash strapped startup it is fine --and almost necessary-- to get clever, jump through hoops and get things done any way you can.

However, at one point you will have to face the reality that your time is incredibly valuable and should be devoted to pushing the cart forward rather than stopping it to reinvent the wheel.

If I read this correctly three people spent a week coming up with a solution to a problem. If each one of you is worth $100 per hour, you just devoted somewhere in the order of $12,000 or more to reinvent something that is available in professional tools. My guess is that if you honestly evaluate the process you probably devoted much more time to this than a week.

There are multiple hidden costs to these solutions. There could be a recurring cost in the form of productivity loss each and every time you have to do this task due to the limitations of the solution. There's also the fact that, by choosing this tool path, you have constrained your ability to offload this work or expand your team by simply hiring professionals well-versed in "industrial grade" solutions.

Beyond that, there are all the non-ideal cases as well as the lack of flexibility you may have introduced into your process. Every time you need to do something you have to go back to reinventing the wheel and lose focus.

I am not critical of your approach. I've been there. I've done exactly what you are doing. I know the drill. I am simply pointing out that sometimes it is a far better idea to spend money and get on with the work you are really supposed to be doing.

I have two examples of this from my own professional experience: CNC machining and SMT assembly.

For the longest time I wanted to have the ability to machine parts in-house. I hated the nature of the process of working with machine shops. All the documentations. The low-tech nature of most shops. The piles of specifications you have to produce. Tolerances. Fucking tolerances! Lead times. And, in general, how the process seriously interferes with your ability to get creative.

For years I worked hard to bring CNC machining in-house. First I bought a used Bridgeport CNC knee mill (not a conversion, a real original CNC). I thought I was set. Well, I wasn't. The machine was old. I had to replace the computer with a PC, install new motor amplifiers and, in general terms, rewire the entire machine. But, hey, I was smart! I only paid $1,800 for this massive machine. Until the transmission started to have problems. And I discovered backlash, because it was well used. And I realized I really needed a larger work envelope. And the damn thing made coolant and chips fly everywhere.

I sold it at a loss and moved on. I decided to build my own. I was smart. I could do it. I wanted to save money. I wasn't about to buy an overpriced $100K+ machine just to cut metal. No way. So, I set out on this path to build a beefy CNC gantry machine that could do what I needed. When I got about $20K into it the tooling supplier I had been working with sat me down and pointed out just how stupid I had been. He was a much older guy who had seen many small companies come and go. A business father figure, if you will. He was right.

I sold my pile of parts on eBay and put in an order for a Haas VF3-SS Vertical Machining Center. Not cheap. I took a one week class and was making parts right off Solidworks in no time at all. All of a sudden I went from knocking my head against the walls to try to reinvent the wheel to actually pushing the cart forward every day. My every effort was devoted in the direction of making MY PRODUCT rather than trying to make a cheaper version of someone else's product that I simply needed to use.

I learned a similar lesson with surface mount manufacturing. I wanted to build circuit boards in house. I bought a small used SMT pick-and-place machine as well as a small multi-zone conveyorized reflow oven and all the bits and pieces to go with them. I actually thought about building my own (with the CNC machine) but quickly decided that was a dumb idea.

This setup sort of worked OK for a while. It was a pain to use. We didn't do this every day and you always had to tweak here and there and relearn how to run the system. I took notes and created a go-to manual that was quick and easy to follow every time we had to run a board. In the end, the thing was eating-up more human clock cycles than it was actually worth. The proverbial straw that broke this idea was when we had to do mid to large pin count BGA's and QFN parts. Now the thing needed optical alignment and more capabilities than we had with this machine. The oven had to be better. And, we also really needed to have optical and x-ray inspection capabilities.

This time it didn't take me long to understand that I was in the "I want to build my own CNC machine" scenario all over again. However, rather than go out and spend half a million dollars putting together in-house SMT manufacturing I found a really good contract manufacturer and got rid of all my SMT equipment.

Software tools are tools just as much as a CNC machine or an SMT Pick and Place machine. For some reason people don't have a problem placing a value of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on a big heavy and complicated machine tool. In sharp contrast to that, they recoil at the idea of paying a few thousand dollars for a software tool. It is actually very likely that the software tool had far more R&D, effort and investment put into developing and supporting it than the CNC machine, yet we reject paying for it. I think that's a false reality.

I've been using mechanical and electronic CAD/Design tools for a long time. I have to say that the combination of Altium Designer and Solidworks is, well, as close to an engineer's dream as you can get. The minute you start working with more advanced flows, such as large and complex FPGA designs it all becomes very clear. It's like driving a high power sports car. The power is there for you to use. Someone has already done the work to put it there. You might not use it every day. However, you know that when you need it is there. All you have to do is press on the pedal.

As for the integration of 3D rendered models and mechanical CAD. In general terms I've always found it is a waste of time to try to go to that extreme. It is a very easy matter to reserve a volume of space for the board and for protrusions above and below the board for most designs. With very tight designs that require close mechanical and electrical integration (I am thinking about something like an elaborate industrial control panel) one can easily start by modeling it with MCAD and iteratively verifying that it will be realizable in the ECAD domain. I have yet to find a project where one really needs full interactive bidirectional MCAD to ECAD integration with full 3D rendering of every single component. I've done very complex boards with thousands of components, including optics and thermal elements without the need to ever reach such extremes of integration. Also, integration at that level does not necessarily lend itself to a distributed design paradigm. You, all of a sudden, end-up with an "army of one" engineering paradigm because it is nearly impossible to split-up the design process when things are connected at such an interactive level.</comment>


Don't trust Daily Mail website, Microsoft browser warns users - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/23/dont-trust-daily-mail-website-microsoft-browser-warns-users <comment><USER2> Who decides which sites have "real" news and which sites have "fake" news? A big thing missing from these discussions is the history of propaganda. I think a lot of people who are worried about "fake news" need to research that term.

Propaganda is still very prevalent especially as far as war goes. Do people really think that CNN tells them the real reasons for going to war? They will say whatever the Pentagon tells them. Why? Because no one is going to risk their lives and kill other people for some technical, strategic reason or just as part of a larger military campaign. People risk their lives to fight the "bad guys" who are "evil". They need to believe its a moral cause.

Don't let some giant company (or a small one) dictate what source your information comes from. If I used a Microsoft browser I would uninstall that plugin. Assuming that's an option.

</comment><comment><USER3> Not cool. I can see that browsers want to warn people of (technically) dangerous websites. But websites that are 'wrong'? Slippiest of slopes.

<comment><USER4> This is an interesting case where the website is wrong by its own admissions. The number of redactions released for Daily Mail after publication is the highest in the UK (compared to other tabloids).

It's a kind of slippery slope, but it would be much worse if they made that judgement against some vaguely reasonable paper.

<comment><USER5> either way, browser vendors should not be the arbiters of truth. I can't think of a news source that hasn't had at least some falsities published - it's the nature of the industry. Sure, the Daily Mail is notably worse than others. But to single them out for "fake news" labelling is worryingly arbitrary.

<comment><USER6> > But to single them out for "fake news" labelling is worryingly arbitrary.

Wikipedia did it in 2017 - [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/08/wikipedia- bans-daily-mail-as-unreliable-source-for-website)

It's not like this is a random bolt from the blue.

<comment><USER7> But Wikipedia isn't my browser. I don't think anyone is arguing that Daily Mail isn't garbage, just that it isn't the browser's job to decide what is and isn't garbage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Apparently the third party "NewsGuard" service requires browsing history to be uploaded to them: [https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1085980638405148676](https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1085980638405148676)

</comment><comment><USER9> I suppose it might serve as a useful warning for readers from other countries, especially if their country doesn't have tabloids of their own. I would say most people in the UK know to take news from certain publications with a grain of salt, but it can be far from obvious for others.

<comment><USER10> There are no countries where there are media, but no "tabloids" (also the term can be different). The UK is not that unique as you seem to believe.

<comment><USER9> I beg to differ. An example is Australia. Plenty of national and regional broadsheets, but no purposefully trashy tabloids that I can think of.

<comment><USER11> But do you know about Bat boy?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> So its Snopes for the Web? There would need to be some transparency issues sorted out (i.e, we need to know who's grading the sites and that the service is open to scrutiny) but the concept is good at least.

<comment><USER13> I suggest reading an actual NewsGuard "nutrition label" before commenting on what's missing from them.

* [https://www.newsguardtech.com/ratings/sample-nutrition-label...](https://www.newsguardtech.com/ratings/sample-nutrition-labels/)

Here's someone who has:

* [http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/08/newsguard-considers-fox-new...](http://www.niemanlab.org/2018/08/newsguard-considers-fox-news-a-healthy-part-of-your-news-diet/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> My immediate reaction to a browser giving unsolicited advices about quality of the contents is to download another browser. I'm not a kid, thank you.

<comment><USER14> _I 'm not a kid, thank you._

Yet your response is very child like.

<comment><USER15> On the contrary, GP is resisting the continual infantilising of Western countries by their corporates, media and governments.

"to treat someone as if that person were a child, with the result that they start behaving like one" [1] [https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/infantil...](https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/infantilize)

<comment><USER16> The doctrine of legal paternalism is much less commonly seen now than it was in the past, with a few exceptions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> >...which has received investment from advertising group Publicis...

Any bets on NewsGuard eventually showing ads?

</comment><comment><USER18> Shit. This is disgraceful. One can disagree with how the DailyMail paints stories but this is simply censorship by the left.

<comment><USER19> I was 100% in agreement with you up until "the left" part. Do you have any evidence that this is some sort of coordinated effort by this mysterious political group?

<comment><USER20> It's literally the number one thing that those of my associates who identify as right wing universally agree on: there's some kind of free speech apocalypse unfolding. They view this as censorship.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask YC: reusable automated web tasklet system - <AUTHOR>

I'm thinking about starting an open source Ruby project and website for sharing and using automated, repeatable web tasklets, for lack of a better word.  This is sort of like Yahoo Pipes + Google Alerts for people who can express their desires in code.  Examples would include:
* Scan YC nightly and filter out stories with fewer than 20 points, or that match a list of exclusion keywords (for me: scheme, lisp, django, zed shaw, etc. - nothing personal), and email it to me or save a feed.
* Tell me when a new VPS offer shows up on lowendbox.com that matches my price, location, and size preferences.
* Ask 10 people on mechanical turk to check my website's UGC front page  each day for inappropriate comments.
* Buy a $1 item with free shipping on ebay each day and send it to me (yay xkcd!)
* Call me using Twilio every weekday at 8:10 if I should carry an umbrella.
These are almost mini-startup ideas, but I think it makes sense to have a mechanism to share and use them in a Ruby gems-esque way.
I'm very interested in your thoughts about this, and especially what sorts of tasks you might want to write and share. <comment><USER2> I think this is an excellent idea, if done correctly. I think it's all too easy for developers to make sharing sites for other developers. I can't quite tell if you had this in mind, but I'd recommend actually providing a working environment that allows for end-user lay-person single-signup and use.

Right now there are a number of different sites that have a single automated tasklet each (one to search craigslist, one for amazon, etc). But you have to sign up for each one individually to use them. If you can centralize that for the noob AND allow for code-monkeys to post new tasklets, it would be awesome! Make me a form of online "app store", and I'd definitely sign up. =)

Plus, if it becomes successful, ads would bring in $ and incentivize desired high quality tasklets.

</comment><comment><USER3> Sounds like fun, and the "mini-startups" idea is intriguing, but I'm confused on how it's different from something like Github, a central location where people already write scripts and upload them for others to use or modify. Would your server run the snippets of code that people upload? If so, I'm sure you can anticipate the security concerns, plus, I don't want someone being able to set up a tasklet to call _my_ phone every weekday at 8:10 ;)

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm picturing something like the Rubygem system. You might do:

      gem install tasklets
      sudo tasklets setup
      tasklets install weather-alert
      tasklets --task weather-alert --configure zipcode=12345

Or something. With a central repo for the tasklets.

<comment><USER3> Ah, ok, I'm not sure why I didn't realize it would be more repository-style, haha.

In that case, how would it differ from Rubygem? Seems like many languages already have package managers, but I'm not sure what the requirements are for getting your code included, so maybe there's an opportunity there?</comment></comment></comment>


Malware Infected All Eddie Bauer Stores in U.S., Canada - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2016/08/malware-infected-all-eddie-bauer-stores-in-u-s-canada/ <comment><USER2> Krebbs contacted Eddie Bauer last month on the 5th, for a breach which they are now reporting continued through the 17th. So their threat monitoring system consists of waiting to be questioned by the press about an ongoing attack?!

Krebbs plea for better reporting of the IOCs is a bit amusing, because with 100% of stores compromised for half a year, the _missed_ IOCs were probably highly embarrassing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Stores need to stop offering "credit monitoring" as if it was some kind of solution. There should be liability with regards to personal information and credit cards.</comment>


A Yale Graduate Leaves a Trail of Ventures and Debts - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/business/dealbook/a-yale-graduate-leaves-a-trail-of-ventures-and-debts.html <comment><USER2> Received March 16, 2015 \---

D-

Thought this was worth shooting your way:

CrossFit NYC, which I started as a side project ten years back, has since grown into the largest CrossFit gym in the world (by a factor of three).

It's a big enough opportunity that I'm making CrossFit my main focus for the next 18-24 months, taking a leave from Outlier to essentially build up the Equinox of CrossFit.

We're raising a $5m growth round, and are pursuing both an equity roll-up strategy (we just acquired our smartest two competitors in NYC), and aggressively opening new spaces (we've locked deals for awesome 18,000sqft foot locations at 42nd & Lex, Broadway & Fulton, and Spring & 6th Ave, to open throughout 2015).

Given our traction / track record / unique position, this is coming together fast; we already have the first $2.5m locked down, and we should close out the rest within a couple weeks. Deck attached. Would love to have you in,

j

\-- joshua bryce newman northstar crossfit www.northstar.nyc

<comment><USER3> IANAL, but if someone sends you that, you decided to invest and it's untrue, it could be considered fraud, right?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The question here is, did this guy do anything wrong or is he just a shitty businessman who failed to capitalize on the opportunities for which the loans were given to him?

Moreover, why are investors expecting loans to be paid back when given to such high risk endeavors? They were investing in startups, not real estate. Structuring those investments as a loan is an asinine decision on both sides. The borrower is personally liable in the event of default, and the lender gets no equity to capitalize on success. It's stupid.

There is probably much more to this story, specifically if you note the reference to "bridge loans." Josh Adler, the plaintiff, is head of a fund called b2rfinance, funded by bridgewater. B2r invests in "hard money lending," also called "landlord loans" or "bridge loans." I just learned about this investment yesterday, but I encourage everyone to read about it. Basically it's a high interest loan tied to the "after repair value" of any hard asset (houses, atm machines, vending machines, etc.), where the borrower puts the asset itself as collateral. The terms are generally extremely predatory and often result in ownership transferring mid loan to the lender, or high "prepayment" penalties. These are basically payday loans backed by assets instead of paychecks.

Some real estate guys I talked to described these loans as "subprime 2.0." The same mid level investors from subprime 1.0 are taking the loans, investing in flipping houses or renting them. Frequently the equity of one house bought via a hard money loan is leveraged into another loan for another house. You can see how this creates a house of cards. Now bridgewater and other PE firms are putting billions into this vehicle, presumably prepping to securitize into bonds and sell to IB's. Distance between borrower and source of funds is increasing rapidly and risk assessment quality is decreasing just as with subprime 1.0.

Again, I just learned about this type of loan yesterday and researched it for a couple of hours. I could be grossly misinformed but I think I get the gist. It sounds like an extremely dangerous investment vehicle that could spiral out of control the same way mortgage securities did in 2007. If I had the money and knowledge I would be investigating how to bet against this a la _The Big Short_.

Anyway, all the references to these bridge loans in the article makes me fairly suspicious of the whole thing. Reader beware.

<comment><USER5> Hmm. First, I thought that most real-estate-backed bridge loans were supposed to _reduce_ the risk, by the very nature of backing it up with property (or home equity). This is in stark contrast with a zero-documentation no-money- down subprime loan -- only people who have spent a lot of time building equity will get this sort of a deal.

My understanding suggests that the main time you, an individual, would do a bridge loan, is if you wanted to buy a house and use the home equity in the house you haven't sold yet as your down payment. If that's the case, you put the cash in the down payment, and aren't expected to pay it back if the house you've vacated is seized. Nothing about this process seems intrinsically unfair to anyone (yet) though the process is probably an expensive way to get that money.

I'm not sure why you'd put them into bonds. Besides being freakishly irregular loans, they're generally designed to be very short-term, which it seems would be an impediment to securitization -- doubly so when you're talking about a business bridge-loan instead of a real-estate one. Are you sure your presumption is accurate?

And, just for what it's worth, even payday loans can be very attractive if the alternative is worse (e.g. please give me a $500 payday loan so I can go pay my fine and retrieve my car from the impound lot so the city of SF stops charging me $65.75/day in fees. thanks.)

<comment><USER4> Again, I am uninformed and this entire system is very complicated, and not documented in any authoritative legislation that I can find. In fact the Wikipedia page on "hard money loan" has one citation, a 404'ed Fannie Mae page. It's possible the entire idea of "hard money lending" is a bullshit concept executed differently by every investor. This may contribute to its apparently shady reputation. Because of its undocumented nature, it's difficult to discuss these loans and I am having trouble understanding the system. Despite that, let me try to respond to you:

Your examples make sense when the loans are targeted at individuals who live in the home the loan is paying for. In that case the incentives can frequently align to decrease overall risk.

However what I am hearing from mid level investors on the "ground level" is that most of these loans are _not_ going to people living in the houses. They go to people renting or flipping the houses. This is creating misaligned incentives.

Because flippers/landlords work at scale (more than one house) they naturally treat the loan as an investment vehicle and therefore need to create positive ROI. A single homeowner doesn't care about high interest rates because presumably they were the best, or the only, option to buy a house. However flippers/landlords need to "cash out" of the loan for the high interest rates to be viable. They can also use the equity in one house financed with a loan as the collateral for a second loan.

A single default can have cascading consequences on multiple parties as it can lead to the foreclosure of multiple properties and a liquidity crunch for the lender who needs to then dump the properties. If suddenly twenty 3br houses within the same area foreclose and go up for sale, then the surplus of housing supply drives down the price.

The increased risk of lending to landlords creates an incentive to consolidate funds to cover a larger risk pool. That is why blackstone and other PE firms are investing in large funds. The problem is that by investing in many landlords, black stone cannot properly assess the risk of every loan. If this sounds familiar it's because the exact same thing happened in subprime mortgage.

Ultimately the problem is large funds are consolidating risk while decreasing the accuracy of risk measurement. This combines with the sudden influx of funding to create incentives for reckless lending.

Put another way, multiple parties are making money without providing any service other than consolidating funds and passing risk tolerance onto the next lender. The system of banks > PE funds > brokers > landlords has too much exposure. Too many people lend the money without knowing the risk.

As for why black stone would securitize into bonds, it is the economically rational thing to do. Unfortunately in this system the loser is the one left holding the check when real estate plummets and interest rates rise.

There are many parallels to subprime 1.0, most notably the middle class lenders authorizing the loans with "someone else's money." Landlords are not funding the investment but they are assessing the risk.

(Sorry for long reply. I have been thinking about this a lot.Also p.s. My original comment was wrong about Josh Adler head of b2r. I mixed up two people with names josh and Adler.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The hook to this piece is "Yale". To see why, try reading it without the word Yale. Then it's just "Some Guy Has Business Trouble, Gets Sued, Some People Don't Like Him". No story.

I met him once at a party, we talked for a while, seemed like a pretty typical entrepreneur/hustler dude. Did not pick my pocket.

<comment><USER7> I disagree. There _is_ a story there, namely that the Yale credential is one of the magic signifiers that let this guy waltz his investors past doing any due diligence before trusting him with their money. It didn't occur to them that such a thing was necessary, because he had all the right boxes checked off on his CV -- young, white, male, Silicon Valley, Yale. He was The Right Sort, and that was all the investors needed to know.

The story is the way that connections and credentials count for more in the world of American capital than a track record of success, or even honesty.

<comment><USER8> In Manhattan it's Yale. In Palo Alto the cred comes from Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like this guy pissed off someone who knew a NYTimes reporter.

<comment><USER10> Yep, there goes his chance of raising any more money for foreseeable future.

<comment><USER11> This.

I'm wondering how this warranted a writeup like this. Someone starts a few ventures, a few people lost some money, its ambiguous as to whether or not there are valid claims to the lost money. Total amount "a few million dollars".

What makes this different?

And the examples given are of ventures that Josh worked for 8+ years in. Hardly the mark of a conman.

Many HN participants have left behind more failed ventures or lost more money than this Josh.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, this is a hit piece against a low level schlub. By west coast standards, in fact, by _New York standards_ this is light-years away from damning levels of failure. I mean, it's in total less than a healthy series a round, and probably less than a hedge fund trader can lose in a bad month without risking his job.

Goldstein (author) writes investigative pieces on the Clintona' hedge fund dealing among other big issues. What on earth possessed him to try and tar this guy?

That's the real story I'd love to read: how to buy or beg the favor of turning a nyt reporter into one's own hatchet man for nickel and dime vendettas. Sheesh.

Full disclosure: I probably have lots of 2nd degree connections to the subject of the article since we were in related schools at the same time, but I don't know him and have no dog in his fight(s).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _The company, which Mr. Newman started a year after graduating from Yale, bet much of its success on "Keeper of the Pinstripes," a low-budget baseball movie based on a novel about the Yankees. [...] It is not clear if Mr. Newman ever raised the $9 million that he had said would be needed to begin making the film._

Anyone who thinks $9m is 'low budget' is a sucker who didn't do their due diligence. Real film productions use an escrow account that releases when the film is fully funded or returns the investors' stake within a set period. Also raising $9m for a first film just smells to high heaven. 5% of that amount would be a _lot_ of money for a first-time producer.

The guy must be a really smooth talker if the company still holds the rights for the original store. Usually options on literary properties run for only 3-5 years.

</comment><comment> SG- I've run into someone that basically did the same thing and has been going around to different cities and countries and pulling the same stuff.

He almost uses the exact same words and tries to twist things around like "well I could have gone bankrupt but I decided to do the right thing and pay back people". Meanwhile all he's doing is paying back fractions away using new investor money while living his comfortable lifestyle.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have to wonder how many of these people are running around the industry right now. I'm sure it's more than one.

<comment><USER8> In good markets, it's harder to see the fraud because the rising tide helps the criminals too. As Warren Buffett says, it's only when the tide rolls out that you see who is not wearing pants.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> What does Yale have anything to do with this guy's actions?

<comment><USER16> Because being a Yale alum is how he had the rolodex to get these loans.

<comment><USER17> bingo

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Does anyone know how common it is to finance high-risk startup companies with the kinds of debt described above?

Risky ventures and investors losing money aren't news, but I'm trying to understand if this story is unique because of the type of financing.

EDIT: ...other than, of course, the dishonesty.

<comment><USER4> The only reason I can see is predatory. They know if he signs his name he is personally liable so even if the venture blows up they can sue for his own money. And if the venture fails to pay the loan, but still builds value, the lender can take all his equity.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Wow. I know this guy!

<comment><USER20> So... as someone who knows him what's your take on this?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> ...Newman.</comment>


Outnumbered by Bikes, the Dutch Face Cycling Overload - <AUTHOR> http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/pedal-loving-dutch-face-bicycle-overload.html <comment><USER2> Demand for travel correlates strongly with economic vitality. Lots of travel is not a bad thing per se. The externalities of travel (pollution, congestion, etc.) are where things get bad.

In many places, congestion is an equilibrium state. In other words, demand for travel will continue to increase until bounded by congestion. Here we're seeing where a bicycle-based system starts to encounter a scarcity of capacity. And, as it turns out, that's a lot of bikes doing a lot of travel, with primarily positive (e.g. improved public health) externalities.

This is a good problem to have.

</comment><comment><USER3> I own 4 bikes and one car. The car takes up more space than the bikes.</comment>


AT&T will unlock your iPhone for free starting tomorrow - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/04/att-confirms-plans-to-begin-unlocking-some-iphones-on-april-8.ars

<comment><USER2> > According to AT&T, the iPhone you want to unlock can't be associated with a > current active term commitment, and you must already be out of your contract > terms (usually two years from purchase) or you must have paid an early > termination fee. Your account must be in good standing, too—no $700 overdue > phone bills for you.

I don't see anything that seems overly strict here. You finish the contract you signed up for, or pay the early termination fee and also make sure your bill is paid.

What is overly strict about this? This seems to be more common sense than anything.

<comment><USER3> It's strict in comparison to other carriers. T-Mobile, for example, has long had a policy of unlocking phones after the first 90 days of the two year contract.

It's not exactly common sense either. If you unlock your phone, you could theoretically use it with another carrier, but you're still on the hook with AT&T for the full two year contract. Since they get there money from the contract regardless, why should the contract and unlocking have anything to do with one another?

Both the old policy and the new policy are bad for customers with (slightly) unusual use cases, like travelers.

When I had T-Mobile, I could buy cheap SIM cards in any country I went to, and put them in my Blackberry. I had all my contacts. I had one charger and one device. Now when I travel I have to buy a cheap feature phone for calls, but I also need to keep the iPhone around as a very expensive and conspicuous Rolodex. It's definitely a step backward in convenience.

<comment> X-Istence This is not true at all. I was a loyal T-Mobile customer for almost 8 years, I upgraded my contract, signed another two year contract (at year 6 of being a customer) and 6 months in I asked if they could unlock my phone because I was traveling to Europe and they told me that they don't do that until your contract that is up, and even then it was limited to a small subset of phones.

I ended up selling my phone on eBay and purchasing an iPhone 3G from a friend which I unlocked by jail breaking it!

<comment><USER3> I don't dispute your experience; I can only speak from mine.

I had T-Mobile from around 2003 or 2004 to August 2010. Every time I got a new phone (always subsidized with a new contract) I called immediately to ask them to unlock it so I could travel more easily. Each time they told me I had to wait 90 days. So I'd wait 90 days, call back, and then they'd send me the unlock code. Never had a problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That seems like a fair move on AT&T's part and a nice PR opportunity. The article characterizes AT&Ts requirements as "strict" but I disagree. I think it is completely reasonable that they expect you to finish the contract you signed with them and have no outstanding balance.

<comment><USER5>
      > I think it is completely reasonable that they expect
      > you to finish the contract you signed with them

1\. What if I want to go abroad and just buy a cheap local SIM instead of paying a small fortune to AT&T for international roaming during my contract period?

2\. Unlocking the phone doesn't have the effect of terminating the contract. Once the phone is unlocked, you just have an unlocked phone under a contract. If you decide to terminate your contract at any time, then you still have to pay the early termination fee. It's not like unlocking your phone gets you out of your contractual obligations.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm going to go and demand they unlock the first generation iPhone I bought the fist day they were released (for the full $600 price) just on principle. Still a bit annoyed that it was locked since it wasn't subsidized at all, although I knew what I was getting in to.

<comment><USER7> > Still a bit annoyed that it was locked since it wasn't subsidized at all

Wasn't the original iPhone (at release) $600 with contract?

<comment><USER8> Why yes, yes it was. Mine still works, and is currently playing BBC Radio 4 in the other room. I think I will go get it unlocked.

This is great news from AT&T, but kind of exasperating, since I splashed out $702 for an unlocked iPhone 4S _exactly_ so I could didn't have to pay vastly more money to end up with an iPod Touch / paperweight at the end of a 2-year contract.

I imagine that this scenario, plus the fact that other carriers will do an unlock 'for overseas' (nudge-nudge wink-wink) has driven AT&T into recognizing that they will lose many many customers, unless they start unlocking.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Verizon will "unlock" the SIM unit in their iPhone 4S units if you've been a customer in good standing for 60 days and the iPhone is on an active plan.

However, it's not a real unlock -- it just allows you to use any GSM SIM _EXCEPT_ from US carriers.

I went back and forth between Apple and Verizon about it back in December, trying to get a true unlock but each blames the other. It seems clear at this point that it's the carriers being the jerks.

I hope Verizon will get similarly bad press about this and follow suit.

<comment><USER10> I am on Verizon and will not switch away (grandfathered into unlimited data, and AT&T coverage at my house is the pits).

Back in November I wanted to get an iPhone 4S. I was not upgrade eligible, so I'd have to pay full retail price.

If you pay full retail for an AT&T iPhone, the phone is automatically fully unlocked (this practice seemed to have quietly began around when the 4S was launched). You're basically buying the unlocked model even if you didn't ask for it. However, there was nothing indicating that this was the case if you bought it for Verizon and paid full retail.

I only keep my phones for a year or so and then sell them on. Not having the phone fully unlocked hurts the resale value. A phone that will only do EVDO a year from now just isn't worth as much as a phone that could do HSPA+.

<comment><USER11> I don't think the Verizon iPhone 4 has support for GSM at all.

<comment><USER9> The 4 doesn't, but we're talking about the 4S, which does.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I just called AT&T and they gave me a rundown. The phone must:

1\. Have been purchased through AT&T 2\. Not be stolen 3\. Have its 2 year contract fulfilled 4\. BE ACTIVE ON YOUR ACCOUNT

The last one is the kicker and something NO news service has reported on up until now. It has to have its own line on your current bill and 'be active'. I asked 3 times what 'be active' meant, and the best they could explain was that it must have service and 'have been used' (i.e. phone calls made/accepted on it).

I asked if I could add it as a line, and she said yes: $36 activation fee, plus $9.99 per month, and then you have to use it. Then they can unlock it. There's no contract minimum time limit that you have to fulfill to do this (I was told...I was transferred to their activation department which was closed today, so I don't have more details), so as best as I can assume - set it up, use it for a couple of days, make sure your bill is paid, then ask for an unlock, and cancel the line.

There's definitely more than AT&T has told all the news outlets, and you have to call to get the details. Surprise, surprise - AT&T not totally forthcoming? Who knew...

<comment><USER13> Can you just put your sim card into it and use it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Well there goes the ~$100 premium I was able to fetch on Craigslist for my last generation iPhones. Good news for AT&T consumers, though.

I wonder if this means they'll also unlock iPads since they were never under contract?

<comment><USER15> Just a quick point: AT&T (GSM) iPads were always unlocked.

</comment></comment><comment> g-garron This is going to lower the price of unlocked phones in ebay and the like. (used ones) Good news.

<comment><USER16> I heard there was a difference between factory unlocked phones and phones unlocked some time later (let's call them store unlocked phones). Such that the factory unlocked would retain the unlock if you wiped/reset the phone (for instance, to sell it to someone else), but the store unlocked phone would need to be re-unlocked (because its factory settings are of being locked).

If someone could back me up or refute this, go ahead. For me, I just buy the factory-unlocked phone straight from apple.com and don't have to deal with it. (I go out of the country enough that it's worth it to me).

<comment><USER17> AFAIK the lock( or unlock ) status is stored in a special area of the baseband and should survive updates/restores.

The best people to answer this is probably someone from the Dev-Team.

<comment><USER8> I believe the phone phones home to Apple to verify its unlock status, and this is only known for the store unlocked ones.

Hence the 'Successfully unlocked' message when you restore an unlocked phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Locked hardware really has nothing to do with enforcing a fixed-term contract. I think the day will come when Apple refuses to produce locked iPhones and sells only unlocked devices to the carriers.

In many markets the carriers already do next to nothing to promote or sell the iPhone, so there isn't much they can threaten to take away. And a carrier isn't going to drop the iPhone as long as there's a competing carrier that's willing to sell the iPhone.

<comment><USER19> Do carriers really need to advertise the iPhone considering the amount of attention it already receives?

<comment><USER18> That's the point.

The carriers don't have to promote any specific phone. The devices they invariably do push are the ones that make them the most money per subscriber per month, and contain features not found on competing carriers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Does this apply to iPhones that were bought off contract? (From the Apple Store.)

<comment><USER9> No. Those are already unlocked and will forever remain unlocked.

<comment><USER21> Not in the US. iPhones bought for full price from the Apple store in the US were still locked to AT&T.</comment></comment></comment>


LeftPad and Go: can tooling help? - <AUTHOR> https://divan.github.io/posts/leftpad_and_go/ <comment><USER2> > A little copying is better than a little dependency.

I actually disagree with this. Given that we're already working with projects that can have several hundred dependencies - I think the goal ought to be in removing the weight of including the dependency.

sindresorhus says it better than me though [https://github.com/sindresorhus/ama/issues/10#issuecomment-1...](https://github.com/sindresorhus/ama/issues/10#issuecomment-117766328)

I imagine it also depends on whether your place of employment is writing one giant single-repository codebase vs. several modular applications, as the latter clearly affords a package manager while the former eschews the complexity of composing systems.

<comment><USER3> It's the third time I see that link already, he's wrong, so please stop posting it :)

The way to reuse N lines of code is to refactor them in a function. The way to reuse functions is to pack them into libraries. This is something that probably everyone agrees with.

Many have issues with the idea that one should create libraries containing one function only! You've touched yourself upon the why: having hundreds of dependencies adds both technical and cognitive overhead. It's very hard to design things to be extended, so in practice one ends up with a fragile module, not one that can be improved by improving a dependency (I wonder how a function that checks if a number is negative can be improved...).

As far as I know there is no other toolchain on this planet where it's done this way, which together with the clarification above should be telling you and sindresorhus something!

<comment><USER4> > As far as I know there is no other toolchain on this planet where it's done > this way [...]

If by "this way" you mean microdependencies in JavaScript, you should also look at Ruby, which goes in a similar direction. And at Python, which apparently tries to follow the lead.

<comment><USER5> Somehow I see a common theme there...

<comment><USER6> Yes, let's dig into it.

<comment><USER5> From my point of view, all dynamic languages usually used by people without CS background.

<comment><USER7> My first five years after getting my CS degree, all of my paid work was in languages with dynamic typing.

<comment><USER5> Some people apparently took my comment personally, but it doesn't change the fact that many in those communities aren't from a CS background.

Which is why some decisions, like the whole npm modules, or the ruby gems before bundles (if I get it right), get to be taken without consideration how it works in large scale.

Of course people with CS background also use dynamic languages. I have Python, Smalltalk, Lisp, Perl, JavaScript on my CV.

<comment><USER7> There are lots of people from both kinds of backgrounds in all kinds of communities; how much of classic hacker lore is about high school dropouts, let alone college dropouts?

A CS degree doesn't mean you'll be a good programmer in industry.

<comment><USER5> No, but it helps.

I have a technical school specialization in computing and a CS degree.

Many of the things we learned at technical school only made sense afterwards when I got into CS.

Also some of the design problems we had, which were solved by the usual"try something until it works", became basic programming exercises with the right CS information.

Yeah, it isn't a magic solution, but it helps in what concerns designing software in the large.

Most other backgrounds aren't exposed to such issues.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> One of the weird problems here is performance, though. A naive approach to left-pad, might involve (new Array(n+1)).join(padChar), for example, since javascript doesn't actually have a consistent language-native way to create an arbitrary-length string. That technique ends up, in some javascript runtimes, taking orders of magnitude longer to run compared to a for loop with string concatenation. The array.join method is one line though.

So, imagine the scenario where you've got a commonly-used function that gets vendored and from there copypasta'd into a lib/common or some other location in your project. You've basically just cut yourself off from any updates that the module author might make when new javascript optimization hacks come around (or obscure corner-case bugs need protecting against). It's a small problem, but it is at least worth considering.

There's also this whole thing with licenses - there's a fundamental difference between using a library and copying its source into your build tree. The MIT license doesn't care, but the LGPL certainly does.

I do like the idea in general. You should extend it by doing tree-shaking or dead-code analysis. "This library is big, but you're just using one function call, let's just copypasta that one in here".

<comment><USER9> The code needs to pass threshold of originality to be copyrightable, otherwise you don't need to care about the license. For example `(new Array(n+1)).join(padChar)` is definitely not copyrightable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> In case anyone wonders : yes. Left-pad left-pads a string. That's all it does.

Not to worry though : it's now going to be implemented as a linux kernel syscall: [https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/3/31/1108](https://lkml.org/lkml/2016/3/31/1108)

</comment><comment><USER11> The author seems to make the assumption that the problem with left-pad is how small the library is. But that's just the symptom. The real problem with left- pad is how little functionality is actually provides. A 200-LOC C library that only left-pads strings should be subject to just as much scorn as the original 11-LOC JavaScript one. Unfortunately, it's difficult to assess how much functionality a library provides just from its LOC count.

<comment><USER12> Maybe a complexity metric would be a better measure?

<comment><USER11> I don't think any algorithmic analysis of the code can determine how much value it provides to the user. Some things simply require human judgment.

<comment><USER12> but we're trying to infer that things _dont_ have value to the user based on complexity.... the lower threshold is an easier target.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I don't know if the Node.js project has the resources for this, but if they did, it would be much better if all these 10-line dependencies everybody loves to use could be included in some sort of standard library. That way they could all benefit from centralized services (e.g. security vulnerability handling process) and offer a smoother developer experience.

</comment><comment><USER14> @divan, any reason why you haven't submitted this for inclusion into gometalinter yet?

I'm sure Alec would be more than happy to include it =)

<comment><AUTHOR> After some polishing and testing on large projects, it will probably will be submitted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> IMO the best way to move to the next generation of dependencies is through tooling.

Instead of ignoring node_modules in source control, why don't we commit it and allow the tooling to handle upgrades?

Disclaimer: I haven't thought about the implications of committing external packages to your own source control at all. I'm guessing I'm missing something.

<comment><USER16> > I haven't thought about the implications of committing external packages to > your own source control at all. I'm guessing I'm missing something.

Committing external dependencies to source control means tons of bloat to the repos themselves. Want to clone huge_framework just to change a tiny thing? Well too bad, you'll need to clone the hundred megabytes of external dependencies too. Multiple libraries/frameworks/modules containing same versions of same modules? Too bad, everyone needs to commit their dependencies. Frameworks shouldn't commit their dependencies then? Or just libraries? Or just modules? Where is the line and what are the rules?

Why not just handle dependencies manually? Because that's a pain in the ass and exact reason why package managers exist in first place.

<comment><USER17> >Committing external dependencies to source control means tons of bloat to the repos themselves. Want to clone huge_framework just to change a tiny thing?

Oh, geez, the first thing that makes code _legacy_ code is people checking in "slightly modified" library/framework code.

Not to mention different lib versions. Things like java's Spring libs where it seems like the jar layout, names and hosting changes every couple minor versions. Different dependencies that need different versions of things. Different apps in the same ecosystem that rely on newer versions than the legacy in-house libs they are compatible with.

I've put up with a _lot_ of dependency nonsense on many different stacks over the years, and am trying to adapt to devs bringing in NPM modules for dev use, but for sure I've learned that letting devs check in random libs into source control just because its convenient ends up with a lot of problems. That includes java, php, ruby, perl, and python.

That its yet another generation of landgrabbing devs re-inventing a broken wheel, or people just permanently checking in libs for convenience seems like a devils choice.

...until you see the dev that tries to write it all from scratch themselves.

<comment><USER18> "Oh, geez, the first thing that makes code _legacy_ code is people checking in "slightly modified" library/framework code."

For myself, I consider the ability to have a dependency and cleanly put a patch on top of it, such that the tooling can help me when I'm upgrading the dependency, is a basic requirement.

Few, if any, tools seem to consider this a first-class need. Based on what I've seen, I imagine this is because most people tend to prefer putting in a thousand lines in their own code to contort things around to hack the underlying library to mostly do what they need most of the time even if it shreds every abstraction their code is nominally creating rather than making a three line change in the framework itself, even before we're discussing tooling making it harder to patch. Most of the remainder tend to, as you say, hack the library in such a way that it can not be usefully tracked; for this I would suggest the tooling should be considered at fault.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> In Go tooling does help. Vendor everything, commit it to source control, filter vendor/ when looking at diffs.</comment>


Encrypted Email Service Once Used by Edward Snowden Relaunches - <AUTHOR> https://theintercept.com/2017/01/20/encrypted-email-service-once-used-by-edward-snowden-to-relaunch/ <comment><USER2> I'm sure this will end well, again.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do Young People want to work at FAANFG - <AUTHOR> Getting a job at FAANG is everyone's dream. Why are Young People are obsessed with getting a Job at FAANG. Like I know it pays better and there are great benefits. But there are other companies too that are doing great work. <comment><USER2> Money and respect.

And, those places hire a lot of people. If you want a job, and Billy's Web Front Ends has an opening, and the FAANGs have 1000 each, it may be more efficient to try the FAANGs.

</comment><comment><USER3> Platform.

Someone want to hire the one who come from FAANG.So it will more likely to find one job when you leave the current company in some day.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your recommendations for password managements for startups? - <AUTHOR>

First recommendation I'm looking for is a password manager for an individual.  Preference towards Mac/iOS.<p>Second recommendation I'm looking for is a password manager for an organization.  Is there anything out there that would allow you to extend your credentials to another team member? <comment><USER2> For individual, I use 1password. Extending credentials, I don't have a solution.</comment>


What If You Bought All 292M of the Possible Powerball Combinations? - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/01/powerball-ticket-all-combinations/423930/?single_page=true <comment><USER2> I think logistically it's not possible, but let's say you do that

quick calculation $2*292M=$584M cost, revenue being $1B+ you might get a profit if the tax is not greater than $500M

<comment><USER3> It is 1.4B. So the profit would be clear. Doing this would also paint a massive target on the winner's back if their identity was made public.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would you be able to deduct the cost of the tickets from your tax burden?</comment>


Vomit serves up virus at buffet (and other stories)... - <AUTHOR> http://www.speakhuman.com/ch15_Be_Nice_to_People

<comment><AUTHOR> This is the most recent installment of my book Speak Human, which I'm releasing online (for free) one chapter at a time.

Although it contains a number of stories, the one relating to that headline (above) is particularly notable. It originally resulted in a great deal of press and legal action.</comment>