At Glassdoor, Find Out How Much People Really Make At Google, Microsoft, Yahoo - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/10/at-glassdoor-find-out-how-much-people-really-make-at-google-microsoft-yahoo-and-everywhere-else/ <comment><USER2> I'm not seeing a place for location when it comes to the salary reported. Location (cost of living) is a big deal when it comes to market rate salaries. I'm sure a Software Engineer at Google makes more money working in CA or NY compared to the market rate for the same job here in Boston.

Am I just not seeing these details since I haven't signed up?

<comment><USER3> If you look at the screenshot on the techcrunch article it says they'll be able to show salary by location and years of experience when they have more data.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for pointing that out.

I wonder what their collection threshold is before they begin publishing this data. I imagine it could be a static number or a percentage based on the population and industry in the locale.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Simple idea and an apparently nice implementation. It's interesting that they plan to sell to HR folks when their site will undoubtedly make some HR folks lives much harder. This feels like a total "why did this take so long?" site. Nice job.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is just awfully depressing. I'm Belgian working for a British company, so my wage is about half, and with much higher taxes so my real wage is more like a third.

<comment><AUTHOR> The cost of living here eats up a lot of the difference.

<comment><USER6> Not if he lives in London.

<comment><AUTHOR> True. But the point isn't that he's well off; it's that a valley employee pulling down $90k/year isn't particularly wealthy.

<comment><USER7> Yeah I was surprised it was so low. 150K a year in the valley isn't much.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> A somewhat better Overhear.us, except Glassdoor clearly targets recruitment agencies and HR, while Overhear.us was mostly for fun, as I understand it.

Which means, there is a niche for leaking "confidential" information. Internet just ideally suits this kind of anonymous social networks.

Just tried Overhear - why is the site down? (Assuming it's a YC startup, someone can answer maybe)

</comment><comment><USER9> I think it comes into play "Stop comparing yourselves" .. You are you, not me or the other guy. If you want more go ask for it. Everyone is capable of making whatever someone is willing to pay them.

*Also if you enjoy your job, what does money matter as long as the basics are met

<comment><USER10> It's prudent to gather pricing information before any large financial transaction, whether buying or selling stocks, an automobile, or a home.

Why should searching for a job or asking for a raise be any different?

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I always enter a higher salary than my actual on sites like this. It is irrational to be honest here.

<comment><USER12> Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Given the number of reviews (max 142 Microsoft) I just curious why is this big news for Techcrunch given that the idea is not new I also think they should have a threshold to reach before publishing rating on CEO approvals and other metrics.

</comment><comment><USER14> Pretty eye opening. Underpaid :(

<comment><USER10> Hard to say. A lot depends on where you live and the cost of living there. If you're not in the Valley, NYC, or other high cost market you might be closer to your peers wherever it is that you live.

On the other hand, if you are in the Valley, etc., maybe it's time to update your resume. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> If you really want to know salaries, take a look at the H1-b job databases (they are required to report salaries for particular titles). I don't look because I don't want to know (plausible deniability)

<comment><USER16> Here we go: <http://career.clemson.edu/graduate_students/H1B/2007/>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Matches up quite nicely with what I've heard actually.

Nice site too - great UI and, of course, interesting content.

</comment><comment><USER18> tbh Vault who's the elephant in this game has an ugly website with a terrible interface which charges it's userbase. It's only value is in it's content. Whoever can offer the same content with either a good interface or for free is probably going to do well for themselves. I'm not sure Glassdoor is the one though.

</comment><comment><USER19> Vault.com has a similar service, but you have to pay to access the salary reviews.

</comment><comment><USER20> 3 mil?! For a shitty site like this? My little cousin could build and maintain this during after-school hours!

Bubbly bubbly bubbly....

Can't wait for this bubble of big-nothings to burst and things to get back to (more or less) normal...

<comment><USER21> I was wondering about this too... Can't see where those 3 millions go except maybe for marketing (and even then, it seems to be a bit high.... )

<comment><USER22> I'm sure some of it is still in the bank, but of the part that's been spent, a big share is people's salaries. They've been around over a year, and have 12 salaries to pay, including a management team full of former Microsoft and Expedia execs.

<comment><USER20> Having 12 people working on this full time is just as ridiculous as sitting on 3 mil...</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The symmetry and simplicity of the laws of physics and the Higgs boson (2015) - <AUTHOR> https://arxiv.org/abs/1410.6753 <comment> semi-extrinsic Since his name is not as widely known outside the physics community, I'll just point out that Juan Maldacena (the author of this) is the guy who discovered the gauge/gravity duality (aka AdS/CFT correspondence), which is what people are on about when you hear the phrase "holographic universe". His original 1997 paper on it has been cited 17,000+ times, more than any other paper in the history of high energy physics.

<comment><USER2> sorry isn't the holographic principle related to Hawkins thing about information content in a black hole being proportional to the surface area of the event horizon (or something like that)

<comment><USER3> (Just a layman, but here's my understanding)

That's another instance where the holographic principle applies. To hand-wave, the holographic principle applies to any theory describing a system, where you can make an equivalent description of the system using only information on its boundary. For example, in the black hole case, if you know the state of the system inside the event horizon, every particles' position and momentum in 3D, then you could describe how the state will evolve based on the usual laws of physics.

But by definition, that information is unavailable to an observer outside the event horizon. This presents a thermodynamic conundrum. We take as an axiom that in a closed system, total entropy can never decrease. Think of entropy as the compressibility of information. A string of a thousand 0 bits followed by a thousand 1 bits is highly compressible (low entropy/high order), while a perfectly random sequence of bits cannot be compressed at all (high entropy/low order). Equivalently in the physical world, an egg has somewhat low entropy, yolk encased in egg white encased in shell, a complete description is succinct. But if you scramble the egg, suddenly full knowledge of its state requires lots of information, you have to know the specific positions of every particle of yolk and white to have the whole picture.

We consider this an axiom because we want physical law to obey time-symmetry. In a deterministic universe, you should be able to take a full physical state and "run it in reverse" to get previous states. If you could decrease entropy, go from a globally random state to a globally ordered one, then you would _lose information_ about the starting conditions. Just like matter and energy, information can never be destroyed (we suppose).

Okay so the universe taken as a whole is a closed system, with ever increasing entropy, i.e. over time more bits are required to understand its full state. Now toss your scrambled egg into a black hole. It crosses the event horizon and poof it's gone. Is information lost? Can we, in principle, run the universe in reverse and see an egg come back out? Where did those bits go?

The interesting thing about black holes is that all the information required to understand their behavior right there on the boundary of the event horizon. Specifically, the number of distinct physical states that a black hole can take on is proportional to its _surface area_ , not its volume as you'd expect for an spherical region of ordinary space.

How exactly does that work? At this point my understanding sadly falls off. But I can point to this as a good starting point for the so inclined: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_parad...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole_information_paradox)

The Ads/CFT correspondence is also a bit above my head, but it relates string theory to quantum field theory. It introces the anti-de Sitter space, which is a space in which geometry is non-euclidian, very similar to a hyperbolic space, where the boundaries are like asymptotes, you can get as close as you want but never reach it. The interesting thing is the geometry of that boundary space. For an appropriate Ads, its boundary has the same geometry as our 4D spacetime (it's a Minkowsy space, to be precise). The idea is that low- dimensional string-theory stuff happens in the interior (bulk) of the Ads space, and the boundary is the spacetime we know and love. The correspondence is that a complete theory of the boundary (QFT describing spacetime) can also completely describe the action in the bulk, and vice-versa. The mind bending thing about an Ads is that it's boundary is actually higher dimensional than the space as a whole. Analogous to how in linear algebra, you can project a space into a higher dimensional space without losing information.

Wow didn't mean for that to be so long. If anyone knows better than me and I've made a mistake please do point it out, I'm just a casual observer who loves getting in deep with this stuff.

EDIT: Oops, just now went back read your question and realized you probably knew all of that and I didn't even answer your actual question. Hopefully someone else finds this interesting! Specifically about the surface area thing, when something falls into a black hole from an outside view you never actually see it cross, as gravity increases on the object from your point of view it undergoes time dialation, redshifting the light it emits, and length contraction, flatting it along an axis normal to the black hole's surface. In the limit the object falls slower and slower, getting flatter and flatter, and dimmer and dimmer and ultimately "smeared out" across the surface, Hawking radiation emitted from some kind of virtual particle interaction I don't understand interacts with the object on the boundary, making the information recoverable from those interactions. Or something like that

<comment><USER2> > The idea is that low-dimensional string-theory stuff happens in the interior > (bulk) of the Ads space, and the boundary is the spacetime we know and love. > The correspondence is that a complete theory of the boundary (QFT describing > spacetime) can also completely describe the action in the bulk, and vice- > versa. The mind bending thing about an Ads is that it's boundary is actually > higher dimensional than the space as a whole. Analogous to how in linear > algebra, you can project a space into a higher dimensional space without > losing information.

this was useful. thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you're on a phone, here's an HTML version: [https://www.arxiv- vanity.com/papers/1410.6753/](https://www.arxiv-vanity.com/papers/1410.6753/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Delightful presentation. I love how they used approachable analogies with things like currency exchange, and pushed the math off to an appendix.

</comment><comment><USER6> higgs landed almost exactly in the middle of the range between supersymmetry and multiverse - first, the higgs is in the metastable range - a middling result. second - Higgs above the max of 115 GEV needed for supersymmetry to work and less than the 140-145 that make the multiverse theories work out.

Its exactly where none of the theoretical physicists wanted it to be.

back to the drawing board.

</comment><comment><USER7> > Beauty represents the forces of nature: electromagnetism, the weak force, > the strong force and gravity.

The point of General Relativity is that gravity is not a force. I'm familar with standard argument that Newtonian force is a suitable approximation. But he is being careless with a very fundamental concept. Gravity is either a force or it is not. In physics it looks like it is a force when the author needs a force and it is not a force when the author feels like it.

<comment><USER8> There are possibly two misconceptions here.

Firstly, there is a possible misconception that gravitational effects can be transformed away under GR, since GR permits non-inertial reference frames as valid frames to view gravitational phenomena. The usual consideration is that a mass in a gravitational field is at rest in a free-falling frame (e.g. a ball in an elevator in free-fall). This is a misconception! For example, two such masses in free-fall around a spherically symmetric field will actually converge as they approach the centre of the field. This aspect of gravity is known as "tidal gravity". And the formulas of GR relate stress-energy with curvature precisely to explain tidal gravity. This aspect of gravity is the real physical aspect; if all gravity could be transformed away, there'd be nothing to say about gravity at all!

Secondly, there is a possible misconception about what a force is. It is not as simple as F = ma (or even F = dp/dt). We say there is a field that influences the motion of objects which couple to the field. For gravitation, there is indeed such a field (the spacetime metric) and it couples to anything that has mass, just as for electromagnetism, there is a field that couples to anything that has electromagnetic charge. Why then, would gravity not be a force?

<comment><USER9> I would clarify on this.

1) Gauge theory only includes Special Relativity, a quantum theory of gravity is simply an unsolved problem so far.

2) In GR gravity is a 'fictitious force', which would cause less problems if they had use the term 'apparent' or 'inertial' force. It is a force observed which is an artifact of your reference frame.

3) In natural units 1 unit of "time" is a huge dimension compared to the spacial dimensions and the Earth is following the geodesic or the "straightest" path around the sun due to curvature in that dimension.

4) While 'radially inward' does happen with inward falling, that is more of an issue about trying to extend euclidean space past it's useful domain, you are going non-local at that point. That radial inward path convergence is length contraction in the spacial domain, which is smaller than the more observable time effects but it is still an artifact of one's reference frame.

Most proposed quantum theories of gravity view it as a force field that is like the other force fields in QFT. Time will tell if they can accurately create a model that works in a way that can stay in a euclidean space.

Everyone has their favorite. To be honest I like geometry more than algebra so I prefer GR, but really I just someone comes up with a model that works. Noting my bias, I think eventually QM is going to have to give up on the quantum mechanical hope for gravitation and resort to a non-euclidean solution. As I can't imagine 4D I would be happy for someone to prove me wrong.

<comment><USER7> > It is a force observed which is an artifact of your reference frame.

So it is not a force then! A force is an action at a distance between two masses. This is what I'm trying to say. Maldacena is using the word force in the context of GR but we do not know what he means by that word.

<comment><USER9> Correct, in GR gravity is not a force between masses but an effect of the warping of space and time in the presence of mass. That said, Using the concept of "Gravity" as a "force" is very useful in the special or limited cases. In fact it may be the only way to model some problems where one can't find an exact solution to the EFEs. The concept is invaluable as a tool for visualization. Most of us cannot visualize the non-euclidean impacts of the Ricci tensor or the Weyl terms.

I should warn than in QM the notion of "force" is based on operators and not variables and the stricter Newtonian definition is going to run into problems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Since he described symmetry in terms of rotations, I would expect that the object labeled (g) in the first figure would be symmetric under 360 degrees rotation. He says it's not symmetric.

<comment><USER10> I suppose it's a shorthand for "no symmetries other than the trivial identity symmetry"?

<comment><USER11> Yes, that's indeed the case.

A bit of background: Every object has a "group of symmetries". The smallest and easiest groups are those groups which contain only a single element, in case of symmetry groups the trivial identity symmetry. All those one-element groups are also referred to as "the trivial group". By abuse of language, we sometimes say that a object has "no" symmetries if it only has the trivial one.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If the number of citations is a measurement for achievement then perhaps we should put more value to the Like buttons we so frequently use. But, I'm sure he's good in what he does since so many people agree on his thoughts.

<comment><USER13> Just to be clear here, you're drawing a comparison between citations in peer reviewed papers - written and refereed by experts in a field - and Like buttons clicked by non-experts on social media? I feel compelled to ask if you're arguing in good faith, because if you have a valid point I can't immediately think of a worse comparison to use.

Yes, _obviously_ citations are a heuristic for achievement and Likes are not. Citations signal that one piece of research has had impact on another. It doesn't immediately declare the research is true and valid, but it does signify the research has held up to the scrutiny of _n_ other researchers who felt it worthwhile enough to include in their own work.

Likes do not involve any of that reputation staking mechanism, nor do they involve experts in a review process that can reject papers by design. It would be incoherent to claim 17,000 upvotes on reddit give a paper anything resembling the weight of 17,000 citations.

<comment><USER14> I wonder if there is a good way to study biases in academia, which is maybe what the poster was getting at? Feynman criticized aspects of academia as being "rotten" for the record...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "The Beauty and The Beast" Seriously? Also, they initially make the bold statement that all four fundamental forces follow the gauge symmetry only to say later that it's just another way to look at electromagnetism, through the lens of Gauge Theory. What is it then? Why not just say that the forces follow an underlying symmetry which is described best by the Gauge Theory? Then I have to read _several_ pages of analogy without any explanation and correspondence to the real thing. No, sorry, didn't help. Next, please!

</comment><comment><USER15> "Symmetry" is reflective not rotational. Currency exchange is a map not a graph.

"we" is "i".

if physics is simpler than economics than using economics as a metaphor for physics is the exact fucking opposite of useful.

There is no cited proof that "An extra dimension is not a necessary assumption, only the symmetry is."

The Maxwell equations bare no resemblance to exchange rates.

 _It turns out that the mass of the particle is related to the energy cost to excite a very long wavelength wave. This is related to the famous formula E = mc 2 . Unfortunately I have not found a short way to explain this, so you will have to trust me on this. In our economic analogy we have not talked about energy. Let us simply say that the energy increases as the gain available to speculators increases. This makes intuitive sense, the more the speculators can earn, the harder it is for the banks!_

Okay I admit this analogy makes no sense but lets keep going...?

      3.1 Apologizing for one oversimplification

ONE?!

<comment><USER16> Why do you object to rotational symmetry?

<comment><USER17> Maybe the commenter is unfamiliar with what constitutes a symmetry in physics.

 _In physics, a symmetry of a physical system is a physical or mathematical feature of the system (observed or intrinsic) that is preserved or remains unchanged under some transformation_ , from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_(physics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_\(physics\))

<comment><USER18> There's even a specific page for rotational symmetry [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_symmetry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotational_symmetry)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Congestion Pricing in Manhattan Close to Approval - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/nyregion/congestion-pricing-nyc.html <comment><USER2> They need to make the toll dynamic.

Eg. "New York's streets can optimally handle 1 million journeys per day. If the number of journeys is above/below that for 3 straight months, we increase/decrease the toll by 10%.

That way the roads stay near peak efficiency without needing the politicians to get involved every time the streets get too busy or too empty.

<comment><USER3> Something like Bitcoin mining difficulty?

</comment></comment><comment><USER2> London made the mistake of excluding Taxis from their congestion toll scheme.

Now nearly all roads are jam packed with Taxis and Ubers, and no regular people drive at all anymore.

<comment><USER4> >London made the mistake of excluding Taxis from their congestion toll scheme.

It is a very simplistic view to call it a mistake, as the the issues and policies related to the Congestion Charge have changed and evolved over the last 16 years. For example, the PHV (Private Hire Vehicle) will _not_ be exempt from the charge from 8th April 2019. However, licensed Taxi's (Black cabs) were still deemed to be exempt from the charge, following a public consultation last year[1].

Amongst various other considerations, some of these decisions were made on the basis that the number of PHV's entering the zone has nearly doubled in the last decade, whilst some traffic has been constant.[2]

Manhattan will have to deal with similar issues, which will generally coalesce around the central tenets of easing traffic flow, improving air quality and reducing accidents.

[1][https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/phvs- and-...](https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/phvs-and-the- congestion-charge)

[2][http://content.tfl.gov.uk/report-to-mayor-on-congestion- char...](http://content.tfl.gov.uk/report-to-mayor-on-congestion-charge- changes.pdf)

<comment><USER5> In NYC we have a huge problem of placard abuse, and placarded people would presumably be excluded from the congestion charges, a huge mistake. A pointer to more information: [https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/02/21/why-mayor-de- blasios-...](https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/02/21/why-mayor-de-blasios- placard-abuse-plan-will-likely-fall-short/)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for the link. The only parallel I can draw with London proper in this case would be the 'Blue Badge' abuse. Although, it seems trivial in comparison to the Placard abuse.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- england-46715503](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-46715503)

<comment><USER5> Yeah it's bad. Having a placard is basically like getting a $6k+ tax-free transportation subsidy from the government (the cost of the monthly garage parking you'd otherwise need near your office), and over 100,000 valid placards are out there, plus all the fakes that people make up. It's a joke. All the time you see vehicles with placards parked on sidewalks, in bike lanes, in front of fire hydrants, in crosswalks, blocking curb cuts, or blocking daylight spaces necessary for safe lines of sight in intersections. And nothing is done about them because of the stupid placard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I literally don't understand what this is and how it will work. It's like ez pass for certain zones of nyc? Will it only be for certain hours? Will they bill from traffic cameras? "Congestion pricing" is a brand new term to me and I don't see a clean definition.. Sorry if I missed it in the article

<comment><USER7> You put cashless toll points above the roads. Cameras capture the license plates for those without toll passes. They can go online and pay within a few days or get fined. Not a new concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm glad to see NYC catch up to its European counterparts. This could do wonders for the air pollution inequities that exist in the city.

<comment><USER9> Seriously. This is long overdue. The city should also charge market pricing for street parking and eliminate large swaths of street parking: [https://www.city-journal.org/html/high-cost-free- parking-146...](https://www.city-journal.org/html/high-cost-free- parking-14665.html), but this is a good, if tardy, start.

<comment><USER10> As a vehical owner who parks on the street in NYC, hell yes! Charge me money for parking!

It's insane that it's free in this city. Get cars out from parking on the streets and do something useful with that space like wider sidewalks or bike lanes!

<comment><USER11> Street Parking is Theft! :) [https://www.etsy.com/listing/646896312/street- parking-is-the...](https://www.etsy.com/listing/646896312/street-parking-is- theft-shirt-for-the)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Again the poor MTA needs funds to fix the subway? What an easy excuse as always..

</comment><comment><USER13> Unintended consequence: driving in Manhattan will be _de facto_ off-limits to the poor.

<comment><USER14> Poor people don't own cars, but subsidize the cars of those who do. Congestion pricing helps to fix that.

The book Deschooling Society has a good explanation about how the design of public roads is used as a means of social control. Ctrl-F for the section on mechanical donkeys. [https://monoskop.org/images/1/17/Illich_Ivan_Deschooling_Soc...](https://monoskop.org/images/1/17/Illich_Ivan_Deschooling_Society.pdf)

<comment><USER15> Poor people do own cars, it's the rich that think that they don't.

<comment><USER16> Not in Manhattan, they don't.

<comment><USER15> They probably would have if the regressive taxes (direct or indirect) related to owning a car in New York wouldn't have been so high. But when you buy a $200 million penthouse you don't want to breath in the engine fumes of a $1,000 daily driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Ambient temperature in the Herald Square station (one of the biggest) in the summer is often well over 100 degrees, humid, and stagnant, while the platforms and tracks are filthy and smell like mold and pee everywhere. During rush times, there are half the number of necessary cars so you're crammed up against strangers. There's no way to tell when the trains are coming. 5 will get you 10 this tax does nothing to improve the subway.

<comment><USER18> Huh?

"Though state leaders have not ironed out details, they had reached consensus on Monday that the plan was necessary to help pay for much-needed repairs to the city's beleaguered subway system."

<comment><USER19> That's the sales pitch. The reality is that much of the money will disappear down the bureaucratic black hole with nothing to show for in the end. Byford isn't going to fix the entrenched corruption.

<comment> frosted-flakes Andy Byford did a lot of good in Toronto before was grabbed by the MTA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why not charge tourists a special subway rate (++) and finance the repairs that way, instead of creating 'exclu$ive zones' of movement.

<comment><USER21> Tourists don't use the subway much. It's rather confusing and even scary.

<comment><USER22> Scary? It's not 1978 anymore.

<comment><USER23> I don't get it. What happened in 1978?

<comment><USER24> See this excellent documentary:

[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/?ref_=nv_sr_5](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080120/?ref_=nv_sr_5)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> i've lived in manhattan since 1993.

never underestimate the stupidity of people in large groups with guaranteed income , i.e. bureaucracy.

having been a cyclist my wholelife, since childhood. i have no faith in the government to implement sensible policy. i have faith in them to tax more. and more , and more. uber and lyft have been DISASTERS for new york, but they were inevitable because of the disaster that was the method by which the tlc was creating artificial scarcity in the yellow tax licensing system.

and congestion pricing? no. it won't work. it wont' make the city more liveable or better. it's just a cash grab plain and simple.

<comment><USER26> It works in literally every other large city I. The world so there's no reason to think NY is special in some way such that it won't.

This ridiculous cynism is counterproductive and defeatist. We know a fair bit about effective urban policy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> I'm indifferent and glad I don't live there but why not just charge what it should cost to use Public Transportation/Subways? Why look for ways to subsidize it by taxing everything else but the people who use it?

<comment><USER28> Isn't congestion pricing taxing people who use the roads? An Uber driver uses the roads a lot more than your average New Yorker, what taxes exist to cover that imbalance? (asking in earnest)

Earmarking tax dollars for projects is kind of meaningless.

Subsidizing public transportation is a good idea anyway. High costs of transportation disproportionately hurt poorer people. If you're not for public transportation then I'm not sure we'd see eye to eye on much of anything.

<comment><USER29> Paying for using something isn't usually considered a tax.

Do you think of buying a subway ticket as a tax on travel?

<comment><USER30> It's considered a use tax, like the existing gasoline taxes used to fund roads and highway tolls.

<comment><USER29> The difference is that the subway ticket directly finances your subway ride. It's just like how a private subway company would have financed it, so calling it a "tax" just because the train is run by a government entity is a bit weird.

<comment><USER28> Your subway fare goes into the city budget. The cost of the subway system comes out of the city budget. Your subway fare only "directly finances" the subway system as long as it's convenient to think of it that way. If there was ever a huge surplus of subway money, it would go to other projects. If there was ever a huge deficit elsewhere, money would come out of the subway system.

<comment><USER29> Perhaps, depending on the city. I believe the NYC subway is state run.

So to be clear, you do consider subway and bus tickets to be taxes? How about US postage stamps? Public utility bills?

<comment><USER28> All that really matters is the effect on the bottom line, not the what you call each line item. Some debits map very logically to services like public utility bills, you pay for what you use, so it's convenieng to think of it in terms of usage fees instead of taxes. Some things don't map that clearly, like real estate taxes or sales tax, so it's convenient to think of them ad taxes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Rails Hosting Survey 2016 results - <AUTHOR> http://rails-hosting.com/2016/ <comment><USER2> Quite interesting to see a lot of Rails dev have been trying Elixir/Phoenix (question 33). This is the future.</comment>


British households download about 17 GB of data on average every month - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15542558

<comment><USER2> Cultural Note: The UK has one cable provider - Virgin Media, which also provides TV. The other major company is Sky, which is a tv company providing broadband Internet. Many UK tv channels are now available as Video on Demand; some of the "catch up" features (eg, BBC iPlayer, 4OD) are free.

This 17 GB average includes TV.

It would have been more interesting to see that number split out into different types of data.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is the full Ofcom report (pdf): [http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms-...](http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/telecoms- research/bbspeeds2011/infrastructure-report.pdf)

Another interesting nugget from the summary: "Mobile broadband data volumes are now significant, at an average of 240MB/month for each 3G connection." (p. 2)

</comment><comment><USER3> The "average" is a totally inappropriate statistic for reporting this kind of data. The Ofcom report should have used the median.</comment>


Twitter Is Going to Limit the Visibility of Tweets from People Behaving Badly - <AUTHOR> https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexkantrowitz/twitter-behavior-tools <comment><USER2> It seems bad that huge centralized social networks like Twitter have such societal influence and can unilaterally decide to do stuff like this, and all users can do is trust them not to fuck it up.

There's an obvious way around this: use a decentralized, open source social network like Mastodon or Pleroma instead. You don't have to trust any one group not to screw things up, because you can just switch instances or forks if they do. But unfortunately, because of network effects, alternative social networks are not very good for people who care about reaching a very wide audience.

<comment><USER3> I understand the desire for uncensorable communities like that, but how do you suggest decentralized systems combat the "un-moderated communities tend towards hate filled dumpster fires" problem? Even light touch moderated communities tend to be more cesspool than not.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't they already do this? Heard comments about being 'shadowbanned' on Twitter for years, and it seems like something similar is being used on the platform right now.

That said, given their current practices for shadow banning range from politically biased (note how more often it is that a right wing troll gets banned compared to the left wing one) or broken (seen both innocent accounts banned and people banned for using the word 'thanks' in a Tweet), this seems like a bad idea all round.</comment>


A front-end encryption system explained - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/passpill-project/creating-a-client-side-encryption-system-aaa601b4ad35 <comment><AUTHOR> I have just written this article about how I am implementing the encryption of user data in my front end. I am not a security expert and I tried to explain it in a way that any developer could understand. Any feedback or improvement it's much appreciated!</comment>


Ask HN: What tools do you use for a cloud service? - <AUTHOR> Hi People,
I'm checking out what tools people use to maintain up and running cloud based services. Those are some that I know, it would be great to know what you use.
Cloud:  AWS/GCP/Azure/Other
Here I need something for Docker, probably GCP with kubernets suits better. Price wise GCP is better. AWS has more tools. Still, I can't figure out what I really need. Any suggestion for a system that helps in filling in the complex AWS pricing system or that has a comparison among the services?
Log: Graylog/ELK/ I want to collect log for inspections, plus having the possibility to search for users and IP. Both can be deployed on our servers.
Error: Sentry/OpBeat I need a system that reports expecptions and error when they happens, if they have insights on the performance is a big plus. Not sure if sentry or opbeat can work as logger aggregator. Sentry seems to allow self deployment, which is good.
Monitoring: DataDog/statsd+graphite+grafana Need to check if machines are up or down, load etc.
Datadog seems to be very good altought it cannot be selfhosted.
Stats: Prometheus/Graphite Right now I've statsd sending to graphite etc a pain. I need to monitor VMs and containers. Plus exposing my own stats such as how many calls a user do. <comment><USER2> You could also use Digital Ocean or Linode with or without Docker Cloud tools. Of course, then you don't get the option for some of the hosted DB and other resources. Depends on your needs, expertise and time to setup and configure really.

I prefer GCP and Azure's tooling to AWS (which just feels like there are too many options). Azure in particular is really easy to get started with some of their hosted services compared to the others, but compute nodes seem a bit overpriced and slower than the others. GCP seems to be best in terms of raw compute/memory and reduced latency (within the dc). Amazon is somewhere in the middle, with the biggest list of service options (should you want them).

Unfortunately there's no clear winner, and likely never will be. What tooling are you wanting to use, that may guide your answer a bit.

At work now, we're using VisualStudio.com for source hosting as well as some CI pipelines in there, combined with GoCD for production deployments. Our dev services are in Azure, we have a combination of in-house (3 phx/nyc/lon colocations) and Amazon. While I prefer Azure and GCE to AWS, it looks like AWS has entropy, so heading in that general direction moving forward.

Splunk for general logging (daily log shipping from various servers), and a combination of MS-SQL, Cassandra and Dynamo for different work loads and DCs.

We are heading towards containers for newer projects, which will at least make things more portable moving forward.</comment>


Why I Gave Up My Front-Row Seat in Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> http://founderdating.com/why-i-gave-up-silicon-valley-for-tel-aviv/ <comment><USER3> Silicon Valley is a beautiful area as is Tel Aviv and Singapore, but none of these places is going to change who you are or the decisions you make.

Working long hours is not a function of where you live. It's a choice.

I checked out the website for the company OP mentioned selling. The about page is not filled in with content, leading me to a conclusion that it's not really a fully thought through idea, let alone a company.

There's a moment in everyone's life when they either decide to start telling themselves the truth, i.e., I am not a hockey player (Guy Kawasaki reference from the linked article), or they continue to live a life of lies.

Perhaps moving to a new place will convince someone they need to be honest and make the right choices for themselves, but I suspect a dramatic move is not necessary to begin telling oneself the truth.

<comment><USER4> The company I sold was indeed fully thought out - it was ranked one of the 5,000 fastest growing private companies in America by INC Magazine in 2011 ;)

It was sold by the buyer who bought it from me (acquired by a supplier), and I have no control over the content anymore, but as far as I can tell the site has been completely replaced at least twice since I sold it.

As far as "living a life of lies," I take offense, and I'm not sure where you come to this conclusion.

For me, living a life of lies meant telling myself I was meant to go to Stanford and run a Silicon Valley Startup.

Since I'm not sure there's any basis to the rest of your critique, I don't know how to respond to it.

<comment><USER5> So... you're the same guy as OP?

<comment><USER4> I'm actually not sure who the OP is... I'm the author of the article. Came here to post it myself and saw that it was already here. (You can see that my username matches the username the article links to on twitter, @entreprenewer)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Israel has potential but the state will do everything it can to keep non-jews from coming or working there. Yes, if you are highly skilled you can get up to 5 years of working visas but after that you will get kicked out, with no exceptions. I know this because it happened to me.

You will never have the option to get any sort of permanent residency in Israel (unless you are jewish). The game is rigged so that to get permanent residency you have to have lived for at least 10 years on any non-tourist visa. So in theory you could study there for 5 years, then work there and max out your 5 years working visa options... but they will make certain to kick you out just before. I have had friends that could not complete their phd's because if they were to be given another years student visa they could then apply for permanent residency.

Also, btw, unlike many other countries your work visa in Israel will be tied to one company. To work at any other company you will have to apply for another visa. This does not sound like much but it makes it difficult to move between companies.

<comment><USER7> > unlike many other countries your work visa in Israel will be tied to one > company.

To be fair, this is true of the US too - in fact it's even tied to a particular location. To work at a different location within the same company requires a visa amendment (basically reapplication): [http://www.murthy.com/2012/09/07/h1b-amendment- requirement-f...](http://www.murthy.com/2012/09/07/h1b-amendment-requirement- for-change-in-job-location/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not sure Singapore and Israel are the best choices when it comes to escape the bubble and focus on what's really important.

<comment><USER9> I love Israel, have spent a lot of time there (not working), but my understanding is that it's tough for a gentile and WASP like me to get a resident visa.

<comment><USER6> It's 99% impossible for you to get a resident visa.

Actually, everyone should know this... what you can get in Israel is a highly skilled work visa but this is limited to max 5 years, in any size of blocks for the course of your entire life. Meaning you can work for 5 years and then they will just kick you out. (I know from first hand experience).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I feel like this post opens more questions than it tries to answer:

* Ultimately, why he didn't like SV?

* Was there a specific reason for choosing Tel Aviv, over say Berlin or Sydney? (Girlfriend? Is he an Israeli citizen?)

Some quotes are correct only if you frame them, for example: _if you' re passionate enough about your project, you can make it happen anywhere_ \- Care to try in Greece, Nigeria, Syria?

Also, I didn't understand too much about his profile: In the beginning seems like he was a very successful entrepreneur who turned into a VC, insinuating that he made lots of money (== success). Then it gives me the impression that he didn't had a _great run_.

Anyway, wish him all the best.

<comment><USER11> _Some quotes are correct only if you frame them, for example: if you' re passionate enough about your project, you can make it happen anywhere - <USER2> to try in Greece, Nigeria, Syria?_

I know there's a war in Syria at the moment. But what's going on in Greece and Nigeria?

<comment><USER12> Greece is ok for startups. Connection is fast, living expenses cheap an always sunny. Strikes and protests are well policed and easy to avoid. Biggest problem here are taxes.

<comment><USER10> > Greece is ok for startups

Sure... what about investors?

<comment><USER12> Bootstrap...

<comment><USER10> ...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Singapore and Israel are indeed interesting and good places to place your startup. Lots of talent, money, great atmosphere. Israel has the highest amount of PhDs per capita within the relevant areas. Singapore have very beneficial tax regulation and a highly educated population.

My heart belongs to NY though :)

</comment><comment><USER14> A counterpoint: [http://www.quora.com/What-advantages-do-startups-get-from- be...](http://www.quora.com/What-advantages-do-startups-get-from-being-in- Silicon-Valley)

</comment><comment><USER15> I don't normally do this but...the SR-71 was not a fighter jet. It was a strategic reconnaissance aircraft.

<comment><USER16> Lockheed actually developed a fighter version of it, the YF-12:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_YF-12)

It never got beyond the prototype stage, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Great post. I always felt that in SV and SF startups promote an unhealthy lifestyle, and I don't want to go there because of that. I want to be a successful entrepreneur, but I don't want to sacrifice everything in order to make millions or billions of dollars and magazine covers.

Life is not just money and fame.

</comment><comment><USER18> How did you like the INSEAD Singapore experience? What did you intend to gain from it (coming from an entrepreneurial background and returning to it once you completed) and did you succeed in doing so?

<comment><USER4> INSEAD Singapore was a total blast. Really really fun. But in retrospect, I think I enjoyed the French campus more. Maybe it was because I went towards the end, when there wasn't as much school work and I already had built up relationships, but I felt that my quality of life was better in France (ironically). My friends and I lived in a tiny 250 year old town and drove through the forrest to class every day, our class parties were in huge Chateaus in rural France... it was just brilliant.

If you're considering going to INSEAD, I say GO FOR IT - best year of my life thus far - but make sure you spend at least 4 months on each campus, that's the best way to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> Do you want to be a big fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond?

<comment><USER4> The whole point of the article was really to illustrate that I just wanted to be a happy fish, whether or not I'm big or small.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why do people still design pages unreadable on mobile? This sounded interesting but it's unreadable.

<comment><USER21> Well mentioned. I gave up reading. I am already -4 plus!

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Is Israel generally considered (Silicon Valley)--? I always thought it was NYC.

<comment><USER4> According to the Startup Genome reports, it's considered #2 startup scene (NYC is #3)

<comment><USER23> But at the end of the day it's still Silicon Valley #1 by a long shot... and then everyone else duking it out for #2. I don't see a reason to believe the status quo is going to change overnight. Culture tends to shift slowly, and culture is one of the best things SV has going for it.

<comment><USER24> Culture won't pay for rent. Silicon valley is no longer affordable for actual early stage startups. Even if you can somehow figure out rent, you have to compete with the existing tech giants in the area that can easily pay $150k+ for your engineers.

I suspect that this is not sustainable.

<comment><USER25> It's not the large tech companies that poach employees from small startups, it's other startups. Small startups pose more of a threat to the large, established companies. Some tech giants successfully obtain people by dumping several money trucks on certain sorts of tech talent, precisely because it is so hard to keep them from starting or joining some small venture, which will provide them with autonomy, large impact, and a chance to become fabulously wealthy. The rather cartoonish notions of startup glory also appeal to many.

There's a reason that every company in tech is trying to b.s. people that they either are _really_ a startup (when they are not), or that they are _like_ a startup (yeah, right).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Bravo!</comment>


SF Weekly: Girl Game - <AUTHOR> http://www.sfweekly.com/2010-03-03/news/girl-game/

<comment><USER2> _"We don't even know what it is," Valencia said of some men she has encountered around the city. "Is it gay? Is it straight? Is it a friend? Is it a foe? Is it looking for a job? Is it looking for a place to crash?"_

Maybe stop referring to guys as "its"? I'd certainly find that disturbing in a man talking about women.

Personally, I'm amused at the assumptions. Men who can't find a partner are somewhat pathetic, but if women can't find a partner of sufficient quality, something's just wrong with the _city_.

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it interesting that the women never discuss the high concentration of single men nearby -- yet outside of -- San Francisco, on the Peninsula and South Bay. Why is that?

Back in the early 00's when I lived on the Peninsula and went up to S.F. to try to meet women, I had no luck. They lost all interest after I would admit to living in Mountain View. Many of my friends from the south bay found the same attitude. So, I don't think it was just me.

<comment><USER4> I think that's a typical urban dweller looking down at the suburbs sort of thing, not necessarily specific to dating. You'd find the same thing from Manhattanites who find out you live in Queens or (god forbid) Long Island.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > _"There's no pressure to grow up here," she says. "The way I act now is > pretty much the same way I acted when I was 24. It's culturally reinforced > here. Nobody cares that you're in your late 30s and have roommates."_

Isn't the idea that being 'grown up' means "owning a house in the suburbs" part of what fueled the recent real estate bubble? Shouldn't we disenfranchise ourselves of the notion that you're not a 'grown up' until you have the responsibility of paying a mortgage?

<comment><USER4> You can have your own place without roommates without moving to the suburbs, can't you? Say, by getting your own apartment?

<comment><USER6> San Francisco has insane prices. IIRC, when I was in the bay area, for $1000/mo, you could only get a room at an SRO in SF.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> >One possible explanation is that in San Francisco, men who aren't gay, married, or damaged by a previous _owner_ are decidedly cagey when it comes to dating and relationships.

Wow...that's over the top. "Owner"? It's not even a quote from an interviewee -- it's directly in the article.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've been in SF for 3 years. Dating (for a straight, successful, 30 year old normal single male) is nearly impossible. I've done the online thing, striking up conversations at bars, walking my friend's dog through Dolores park, etc. Even did Date & Dash once. I ended up meeting a cute Chinese girl, and we dated for about 2 months. However, it was _really_ obvious that she was looking for a green card ("I want a baby!" in bed one night, and a very uncomfortable dinner with her uncle another night.) I definitely want to get married sooner rather than later and have a family, but 2 months is a _little_ quick.

Its basically worse than hit or miss. I've had more "success" giving a cute girl a cigarette at the bus stop. At least that has led to an ongoing friendship, and in another instance having a good accountant. The last woman that I met of any reasonable quality was when I was having a couple of drinks with my gay roommate at a bar in the Castro. She was out with some of her friends, we got to talking, exchanged numbers etc. Went out on a few dates, then she flaked on me with no explanation.

Yeah, SF is a f*cked up place to try and meet anyone.

<comment><USER4> Reminds me of <http://whytherearenogirls.blogspot.com/>

(Which, it seems, also noticed this same SF Weekly story.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> this isn't intended to sound snarky ... but this article seems pretty long, and just by reading the first few paragraphs, i don't see the relevance to HN. could somebody who's read more of it post a summary for why it's HN relevant? i think that might encourage others to actually read it.

<comment><USER10> I agree. There is questionable relavance in this article(I say this even though I am good friends with one of the coaches in the article).

If it helps, when I first ran into my friend couple years ago, he was very average with women. It took couple years and 1000s of hours and lots of ego hits to get to where he is at now.

The subject in itself can be super hackerish but I wouldn't say this article is the best for geeking out on the nuances of dating!

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> If anything, it's worth reading for the cute ending.

<comment><USER12> I think the ending is kind of insightful, and somewhat vindicating for me (or just wishful thinking on my part). All of my dating experience has been within my friends pool (this includes random people I meet through friends, at parties, etc)... and I can't imagine doing it any other way. I can't imagine _selecting_ someone simply based on their looks and asking them out knowing little to nothing about them, and I find that meeting people via common interests and networks is pretty awesome.

It's kind of vindicating that the only woman in the story who was successful at her task was the one who actually shared something in common with the guy, took the time to connect on that commonality, instead of merely picking out the hottest people in a crowd and trying to woo them.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Linear algebra textbooks - <AUTHOR> What are the best linear algebra textbooks / learning resources for autodidactic programmers? <comment><USER2> 3blue1brown on Linear Algebra:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNk_zzaMoSs&list=PLZHQObOWTQ...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNk_zzaMoSs&list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab)

Gilbert Strang - Linear Algebra:

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7DDD91010BC51F8](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE7DDD91010BC51F8)

Coding The Matrix:

[https://cs.brown.edu/video/channels/coding-matrix- fall-2014/](https://cs.brown.edu/video/channels/coding-matrix-fall-2014/)

Other:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22linear%20algebra%22&sort=by...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22linear%20algebra%22&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

</comment><comment><USER3> I found this one by Terence Tao, though I haven't checked it yet: [http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/resource/general/115a.3.02f/](http://www.math.ucla.edu/~tao/resource/general/115a.3.02f/)

Tao is a top mathematician who is well known for his ability to make complex topics seem simple (see his blog [https://terrytao.wordpress.com](https://terrytao.wordpress.com)) so his class is probably worth checking if you are interested in linear algebra.

</comment><comment><USER4> Gilbert Strang's Linear Algebra course from MIT, available on youtube (3 million views!), and his textbook of the same name are awesome. What a great teacher.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK3O402wf1c&list=PLE7DDD9101...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK3O402wf1c&list=PLE7DDD91010BC51F8)

</comment><comment><USER5> Linear Algebra Done Right would be my recommendation.

</comment><comment><USER6> Poole - Linear Algebra: A Modern Introduction (any edition) A very well organised standard textbook.

Gilbert Strang / MIT OCW video lectures [https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear- algebra...](https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra- spring-2010/video-lectures/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Trefor Bazett, an Assistant Professor, Educator teaching mathematics at the University of Cincinnati

[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHXZ9OQGMqxfUl0tcqPNT...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHXZ9OQGMqxfUl0tcqPNTJsb7R6BqSLo6)

</comment><comment><USER8> The subject is pretty easy. Just get an old edition textbook for $4 on amazon, and do the practice problems after reading the sections in each chapter. Did that for my college class and got an A.

</comment><comment><USER9> If you have basic knowledge of linear algebra I recommend "Numerical Linear Algebra" by Lloyd N. Trefethen. Much more concise than other textbooks and more focused on computing.

</comment><comment><USER10> Don't overlook the Russians: Shilov – Linear Algebra

A Dover book and very cheap.</comment>


Things I Learned About Being a Software Engineer - <AUTHOR> http://mattrobenolt.com/things-i-learned-about-being-a-software-engineer/

<comment><AUTHOR> The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.</comment>


It's time to bring more realistic models of human behaviour into economic policy - <AUTHOR> https://bankunderground.co.uk/2016/08/23/its-time-to-bring-more-realistic-models-of-human-behaviour-into-economic-policy-and-regulation/ <comment><USER2> Rational choice theory, the current model of human behavior used in most mainstream economism, is undoubtedly the best first order approximation. It works surprisingly well even when everybody knows it's incredibly crude and inaccurate model.

Next step to improve upon state of the art should be something only slightly more complex. The best candidate seems to be Regret theory. "Regret theory: An alternative theory of rational choice under uncertainty", Economic Journal, 92(4), 805–824, Loomes, G. and Sugden, R.

Rational choice theory assumes that people don't have internal time dependent state in their choices. Regret theory adds the anticipation of regret. It adds just one term into utility function but it covers many aspects of human behavior. There is also empirical support backing it up.

[http://people.few.eur.nl/wakker/pdfspubld/15.2regret_history...](http://people.few.eur.nl/wakker/pdfspubld/15.2regret_history.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER3> Tversky and Kahneman, who are seminal in the field of "biases" in psychology (for lack of a better term), were explicit in their hope of informing the utility functions that economists use to model decision making and well being.

Kahneman famously won the Nobel in economics as a sort of belated acknowledgement. (Belated because Tversky passed away before they got it).

<comment><USER4> recommend s/belated/posthumous/

<comment><USER5> That would be incorrect. The Nobel prize is not awarded posthumously.

<comment> bjelkeman-again And it isn't a Nobel price. It is the "Swedish National Bank's Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel".

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econ...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences#Controversies_and_criticisms)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> How about economics just influencing policy?

Blah blah dismal science and all that, but microeconomics is considerably less hand wavy than macroeconomics and at least in the US there are all sorts of policies that pretend that people don't respond to incentives (never mind if they respond as homo economicus or not).

<comment><USER7> The trouble is not that they don't respond. It is that they tend optimise for the incentive rather than for what the incentive is intended to achieve - which are not always the same thing.

<comment><USER6> Part of my meaning was that there are programs created without much attention to the real incentives they create. The programs have abstract goals.

If you buy the microeconomics hype, you'd at least examine what sort of incentives you are creating in that context.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's true. The standard economic assumptions (people have rational preferences, are purely selfish, and have perfect information) don't reflect real-world humans. But that's what makes them robust. Human behavior and culture can change drastically, but standard econ tools still work. They can predict and explain outcomes in ancient Rome just as effectively as present- day San Francisco.

Behavioral economics is very useful, and there are still tons of unexplored questions in the field. But importantly: behavioral econ is more speculative than standard econ. Behavioral econ models depend on getting both econ _and_ human psychology right. Even if such models are fleshed-out, human behavior is quite plastic. So behavioral models are less likely to be correct when applied outside of present-day western culture.

<comment><USER9> "Human behavior and culture can change drastically, but standard econ tools still work."

But they don't work, econ is not much better then throwing bones.

<comment><USER10> Do you honestly believe that? Would you say "psychology is not much better than throwing bones" or "epidemiology is not much better than throwing bones?" Because the demands for statistical rigor in economics are far greater than in those fields. [http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/by/year](http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/content/by/year)

<comment><USER11> Well, economists like Deirdre McCloskey have argued that many empirical economic studies have been poorly reported, statistically-speaking.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20080625054144/http://www.econjo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080625054144/http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/ZiliakMcCloskeyAugust2004.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Two really interesting things in the article:

> Raj Chetty has estimated that every $1 of tax subsidy only leads to around 1 > cent of additional saving (making it a pretty good place to start if you > have a large budget deficit to sort out).

Wow. That's horrific. I suspected it was inefficient, but this is much worse than I thought.

> Think about 'social trust'. It's a better predictor of national economic > growth rates than human capital, and varies greatly between countries.

Viewed alternately: Mistrust is a drag on economic growth. The people I spend to keep you from ripping me off are people that make no net contribution to the economy as a whole.

And here's my take on what needs to happen to macroeconomics: People want different things. Some want savings. Some want status. Some want to improve their human capital. Some want to have fun. (And, there may be other major categories as well.) In fact, _most_ people want several of those things. At any given time, they seek several different goals. The economy is made up of people who have different amounts of emphasis they place on the different categories, but the economy as a whole might be characterizable by the sum of peoples' emphasis on each of the categories.

A change in circumstances can make them change the emphasis that a person gives to different category. A large, economy-wide change can change a the emphasis of a whole lot of people, _and therefore change the behavior of the economy as a whole_. Macroeconomics might be able to figure out from, say, the shock of 2008, that many people are going to be in fear, and place much more emphasis on preserving their savings, and from that figure out what the effect on the economy will be going forward (at least until peoples' perception of their circumstances changes).

<comment><USER13> > The people I spend to keep you from ripping me off are people that make no > net contribution to the economy as a whole.

Saw one estimate that high inequality countries spend about 25% of their economic output on 'security' Think six able bodied men 'working' AKA sitting all day outside a bank with machine guns. One problem with economists are they refuse to see that as a problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> One of the barriers to integrating more realistic psychological ideas into economics is that the ideas about human nature in political ideologies such as conservatism and liberalism include mistaken assumptions.

</comment><comment><USER15> If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.

</comment><comment><USER16> As someone with a PhD in economics, and a believer in the what the mainstream econ departments teach, I still found this article very reasonable. I hope no one will take this article to be saying that orthodox economics is _fundamentally_ flawed because at no point is that argued. Instead they argue that behavioral biases exist and are well enough understood that we can in some cases craft policy based on them, instead of the standard economic assumptions.

My favorite points were

\- Unpack 'animal spirits'. These arise in the minds of economic actors. We can unpack the biases behind them and do something about them – an indeed BIT is currently working on such a project.

The debate on "animal spirits"[0] is ongoing, but the potential payoff from understanding them is huge. They deserve more research using more modern ideas and methods.

\- Promote rainy-day saving. Recent work suggests that the behavioural and economic effects of having even small amounts of saving are even larger than previously thought.

There are two contradictory arguments often made in regard to poverty and rational behavior: (A) poor people are completely constrained by their poverty and unable to make the "right" decision to save and (B) poor people are unable to make rational decisions because poverty affects their decision making ability. I am mostly in the (B) camp and as such, I think that helping poor people to behave more rationally is a great idea. However it does require honestly stating that poor people do make bad decisions, even if anyone else in that situation would have done the same.

The weakest point IMO was

\- Trial light-touch ways to improve estimates by key economic actors. Encourage the use of estimation frames.

This is based on a claim that is much more general, and therefore requires more evidence. I would like to see a lot more studies on improving estimation accuracy in general, before I accepted that there is some general formula to make people's estimates more accurate.

[0] A term of trade for Keynes' original, but discarded by the mainstream, idea that markets were moved by irrational exuberance/pessimism by society as a whole. The main advocate of this theory today is Robert Schiller.

</comment><comment><USER17> Yes please and lets start with finding ways to include technology and technological progress not as an externality but as an integral part of the equation.

<comment><USER18> You mean like the Solow model?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solow%E2%80%93Swan_model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solow%E2%80%93Swan_model)

<comment><USER10> The Solow model is a model of capital accumulation, not endogenous technological change per se. Romer (1986) is a better example.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I've thought China's Sesame Credit system could be interesting in this direction. I know there are some dystopian perspectives on the program. At the same time, consider how much they can learn about consumer behaviors from the aggregated data. And, they can even control this behavior to some degree through gaming mechanics (compulsion loops / social impact).

I don't know much about economics, but it seems this kind of environment (a national-scale, economic video game) could provide a mass of data to inform the 10 suggestions from the author. "practice based on plausible myths" \- the opposite of this is practice based on meaningful, real-time data about economic actors, right? Would be very curious of an economists opinion of the role of such a system..

</comment><comment><USER20> Economic policy needs to understand human behavior more so the author suggests QR codes on dollar bills so people can track their spending.... Ummm what ?

<comment> m-i-l When the author says "add QR codes on bills so that consumers can easily extract their consumption data and make better choices", I think they mean "bill" as in a printed or written statement of the money owed for goods or services, rather than "bill" as in US banknote.

<comment><USER21> Yes, bill means receipt in British English.

<comment><USER22> It doesn't so much mean receipt as "invoice" (e.g. for taxes or utilities) or "check" (e.g. in a restaurant)

In most restaurants you would ask for the bill, then when you pay, you will receive a separate receipt.

The receipt is proof of payment.

<comment><USER21> Yes, that's better put.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The problem with rational choice is a paradox: Not only can the individual respond to incentives, the individual can also prioritize incentives based entirely on subjective rationality.

You can know the decision an actor makes, but not the motivation. You can know the motivation an actor has, but not any future decision.

</comment><comment><USER24> >> Shift focus from products to 'choice engines'. Get Price Comparison sites to do the work – but make sure they stay clean.

HAHAHA! That is honestly one of the most laughable statements I've seen in years. Yes, "get the internet to fix it". The idea of useful price comparison sites free of bias and toxic reviews magically arising from the chum is lunacy. We all know how useful Amazon reviews are, or how travelocity has produced a generation of purely rational travel consumers.

<comment><USER25> In my experience amazon and TripAdvisor reviews are pretty decent.

<comment><USER26> I've been seeing more and more 'compensated' reviews on Amazon, or even worse, lots of suspiciously short 5 star reviews. Some product groups are worse than others but it only seems to be getting worse.

<comment><USER27> FWIW, the majority of compensated (free product) reviews I've seen on Amazon have been surprisingly critical.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Actually the time was 150 years ago, but you do you, economics.

</comment><comment><USER29> I think human systems are complex enough that the butterfly effect leads to inherit unpredictability that cannot be foretold by any model.

<comment><USER30> The climate system on Earth is subject to the butterfly effect, but we frequently have good-enough predictions, e.g. the stuff airline pilots rely on.

When confronted with complexity, throwing up hands is not the correct response.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Grokbit, a better way to search and browse code - <AUTHOR> http://grokbit.com/ <comment><USER2> What I like: lightning fast interface, deeply satisfying ability to search instantaneously

What's confusing: unclear to me what the platform for this is -- is it an IDE? A github-compatible tool? Where does my code have to live?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi brw,

Your code remains living in its original repo. To keep things easy, it'll support only GitHub repos at first, then any Git repo, then potentially other source control software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I really like the multi-pane functionality and integration of shortcuts. A lot of interfaces use overly complex shortcuts for tasks that should be immediately accessible--being able to press 'r' and 'c' for a new row or column is great. Looks like you have a good selection of languages being parsed as well. I can definitely see myself using this as a tool in future projects or when diving into a new codebase. Can't wait to see integration with online repositories.</comment>


Show HN: LemmeRead - Read Interesting and Popular Tech News - <AUTHOR> http://www.lemmeread.com/

<comment><USER2> Needs JS (-1). Maybe pop "tech" news is really a category not served by other aggregators, but I doubt it. I'm not all convinced why I should use your site over say HN or reddit.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Still working on it. Thought of getting some feedback from you guys. Thanks.</comment>


The Internet is freest in US hands - <AUTHOR> http://acorn.nationalinterest.in/2013/09/24/the-internet-is-freest-in-us-hands/

<comment><USER2> It seems that the internet would be freest if it was _decentralized_ \--in nobody's hands. I think this would certainly be true of things like DNS, although I'm not sure how to accomplish this.

Of course, in many ways, decentralized systems are rather counter-intuitive. They're possible technically, and the math is often elegant, but very few non- technical people encounter enough systems like this to be comfortable with the idea. Of course, a market is a perfect example of a decentralized system, but most people don't think of a market as a _system_ per se.

So perhaps this argument comes because the author does not realize or intuitively grasp the possibility that _nobody_ need control the internet. And sure, when given the choice of whom to trust, the US is much better than _many_ countries! Certainly better than Russia or China. And these countries have serious sway in the UN. Moreover, his point that the UN is not accountable to anyone is actually very important: while a democratic country like the US[1] is accountable to the people, the UN is only accountable to _governments_. Even in the US, we don't vote for our UN representative! (Do we?) So it's very indirect.

But what if _nobody_ really controls the internet--what if we manage some decentralized, consensus based system? Or something. (As I said before, I haven't thought of the details, so let's keep it hypothetical.) Well, that's a different ball game. Yet people may not even realize this is an option.

[1]: Yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of pedantic argument to be made here, but I think it's besides the point: the US government _is_ , to some finite extent, accountable to the people in a way that even China's isn't.

<comment><USER3> No, you are absolutely correct. It was designed to be decentralized.

Hopefully when we look back in history, from a place where the internet works that way. We'll wonder how it was ever a single government / set of corporations that was 'in charge of it.'

<comment><USER4> I can't see how the internet _can_ be entirely decentralized, and still operate at the scale that it does. There are laws that must be applicable to the transfer of money and to business done online (at least for any business that wants to operate legally - obviously this excludes the Silk Roads of the world), to say nothing of the physical server, routing and power infrastructure involved. This is not to suggest that the internet must be centralized but I believe that the bigger it gets the more pressure there will be for corporations and governments to assert some kind of order onto it. And I think that for the most part, people want that. Most people want the internet they believe they have, in which they can check their facebook and pay their bills online and sneak their porn in peace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The alternative to US control that we want of course isn't UN control. I would even go as far as to say that this article is attacking a strawman. What we object to is the "control" part of "the US controls the internet", not the "US" part.

If China, or Russia, or Australia, or France, or whatever other country was doing what the US is doing now, we'd object just as much. Or if the UN was in control. That's not the point. What we want when we object to US control isn't foreign control, it's no control.

<comment><AUTHOR> You are mistaken. No one gives a sh __to US spying on Indians, Brazilians or Iranians. Most of the outrage you see on internet, on HN and everywhere else is only because US is spying on American citizens. (Control is not same as spying but I would assume spying to be a subset of it)

That is why as a non-american I don't sign any of those petitions condemning NSA for spying on Americans.

<comment><USER3> No, people REALLY do care that the US is spying on everyone. A lot of people (I assume) also dislike the entire situation we're living in at the moment (tiresome police state crap).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> >Why so? Because there is no better political system—the constitution, separation of powers, civil society and citizens—than the United States today that can protect liberty and free speech.

We may pass the low bar set by China and Russia, but each of these claims needs a citation.

<comment><USER7> Which country large enough to do the job does a better job than the United States? Leave aside China and Russia. How about the U.K., which put the whole country under video surveillance years ago? How about France, which is currently waging a war on head scarves? Read this and tell me which country does a better job protecting speech than the U.S. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech).

<comment><USER8> How about _all_ of them?

<comment><USER9> Are you joking?

<comment><USER10> All != each

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > The United States has strong and vocal free speech and privacy advocates who > can hold their government accountable without fear of harm

Then why did Snowden have to run away to a foreign country? Why is Manning in jail for 35 years?

<comment><USER12> Because, right, wrong, or otherwise, he did actually break the law and not in some twisted way that's meant to punish people the government doesn't like. But you are right, it's not a good example.

On the other hand, the fact that the Washington Post can still publish what he "stole"(from the gov's view) is telling about US respect for free speech.

<comment><USER13> Chen Guangcheng also "broke the law". So in your logic does that excuses China?

<comment><USER12> In that case, it appears that the Chinese went looking for a law he broke to get rid of a pesky dissident. I.e. he pissed them off for other reasons and then they found something.

What Snowden did, in terms of the actual act of disclosing massive amounts of classified data, was in and of it self very illegal. And it's that actual act that the government takes issue with, so the situation is completely different.

Of course, a major question is do Snowden's motivations grant him an exception to that law or at least grounds of a pardon or such. I'd say yes, though it also depends on what he leaks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This pretty terrible piece of rhetoric using a false dilemma involving the strawman that "non-US control" = "foreign government control" which is not a true statement. This strawman sets up the false dilemma whereby a dichotomy is framed to us so as to make the US control appear to be the lesser of two evils.

There are many other possible options for internet governance (or non- governance and de-governance), some of which we haven't yet devised. I suspect this forum may come up with some decent new ideas.

<comment><USER9> It's a false dichotomy from a strictly abstract point of view where other logical possibilities exist, but that's irrelevant. The people who are proposing to move control of the internet away from the US actually _are_ foreign governments, and in particular Russia and the Chinese. In the real world it is not a false dichotomy.

If we want other alternatives, we actually have to devise and validate them before they become real.

<comment><USER3> "where other logical possibilities exist, but that's irrelevant" \- That's not irrelevant.

He writes "Indians are much better off putting their faith in their freedom- loving American counterparts than participating in grandiose international internet governance schemes." -> that's pretty powerful rhetoric, suggesting a black/white scenario. This probably isn't accidental.

<comment><USER14> Quite! Another comment has suggested a distributed model, but I haven't seen a social or technical mechanism for this yet. I hope we are inspired to come up with some options and protocols. I'm now putting brain backcycles on this for sure, and others may be work on this as a priority. I'm wondering if there's already an .org dedicated to this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> No -- it's freeest when NOBODY controls it.

Support darknets.

<comment><USER16> The problem is that most people do not _really_ want an Internet controlled by its users, because what most people want is a ton of somewhat-reliable throughput. An Internet run by volunteers out of their homes, cooperatively, could work -- Fidonet works -- but would likely have much lower throughput than today's Internet. Overlay networks (darknets included) cannot work if the ISPs that run the Internet do not allow people to run them or connect to them.

<comment><USER17> _The problem is that most people do not really want an Internet controlled by its users, because what most people want is a ton of somewhat-reliable throughput._

A complete non-sequitur.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I can't say that I agree with the author's view on this. The American organizations that 'control' the Internet (ICANN, W3C, WHATWG, and even the IEEE, who were involved in the 802.11 standard design) would all more likely create better, more free standards and specifications if they worked as committees from countries which

1\. Have no bad blood (so there's no reason to sabotage specs), and

2\. Aren't too closely related, either; collaboration can result in a return to the current state of the web.

<comment><USER19> Name the country that fits those two points.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> The internet should continue to be decentralised, as intended, and not be under the control of any one government or people.

Certainly not the U.S, Russia or China.

That article just wasted 2 mins of my life.

<comment><USER3> Also, you can't comment on that article - it's moderated, so far the only 5 comments allowed through are either a) neutral b) pro US.

Silly this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> In this thread China and Russia have been mentioned several times. What hasn't been brought up is the origin of the software they use to surf the internet.

</comment><comment><USER21> It's hard to claim the US system "works" because of whistleblowers, when the whistleblowers themselves claim the system is broken.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I can understand the hacker community disagreeing with the author but to do him justice, the article needs to be read in the following light

1\. Other countries like China, Iran, Russia etc. will use Snowden's revelations (and likes) to lobby for a system where these countries get an "equal" say in how internet is being run.

2\. If at all any government wants to "control" internet it better be US alone than some other nation of mixture of others nations.

<comment><USER17> What do the scare quotes around "equal" mean? And what trait(s) connects the countries you list?

 _2\. If at all any government wants to "control" internet it better be US alone than some other nation of mixture of others nations._

Of course this is what light the article is being read in, isn't it the title?

<comment><AUTHOR> The trait that connects these countries: Sufficiently large countries whose opinion is reported in newspapers.

The scare quote around "equal" :

It means country X's opinion about how internet is to evolve and run would matter as much as country Y. Which is to say some countries such as United States who have contributed to growth of internet would be under represented and some countries like Sri Lanka will be over represented. This often happens in UN and eventually the large countries like US or China have to use different tactics to gain favorable opinion.

<comment><USER17> So, in what way are China and Iran to be considered equal here?

<comment><AUTHOR> The place where I live China and Iran make lot of news.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > Where is Brazil's Snowden?

Is the author aware that Glenn Greenwald (the reporter who first reported about Snowden) ACTUALLY LIVES IN BRAZIL???

This article is just a nationalistic piece written with a very specific agenda.

</comment><comment><USER22> I've been among the biggest screamers about the NSA and other atrocities against privacy, but the author is exactly right. Those who call for putting the internet under some kind of control by the UN or other world organizations are either purposely misleading people or direly uninformed.

We have a technology problem. The technology we built was made (on purpose) by us to track people like lab rats in an elaborate zoo. This capability exists completely outside of where your server is, where your data resides, or any of that. It's a feature of modern life.

It's this feature of modern life that is the problem. All Snowden did was show that some Americans aren't going to sit idly by while their government screws over the world. Defunding the NSA or moving your stuff to an offshore cloud, or making it illegal for the U.S. government to track you? That's going to do exactly nothing in the way of protecting your privacy and anonymity.

So yes, let's rise up and take action. But by all means, we should know what the hell we're talking about. If you want to really see draconian state surveillance, let each individual country have it's way with the citizens. What we've seen so far is a cakewalk compared to that possible future.

</comment><comment><USER23> I'm not so sure that will continue to be true. Maybe if Americans convince me that they can elect a Congress and a new president that is very against these mass surveillance practices, _campaigns_ on that, and has a proven track record regarding that, maybe I'll change my mind.

But as long as US keeps giving itself "freebies" with every foreigner's data, I'm not trusting it. I want some well established rules for how US can access my data, and only with the agreement my government.

<comment><USER12> I think it's important to draw the distinction between freedom in terms of the freedom of speech on the internet and freedom from surveillance on the internet.

The US is the largest monitor of the internet because most of the traffic passes through points it can monitor. Changing this would restrict US spying, but it would make it easier for other countries to do it (consider, given the announced Olympic surveillance plans) if all the traffic went through Russia). So you'd have to simply hope traffic doesn't get routed through countries who want to spy on each-other(remember, few if any countries have legal restrictions on foreign surveillance). It seems the only real solution to prevent surveillance is end to end cryptography.

The part where it gets dicier is that many of the countries trying to get control of the internet have much poorer legal protections for freedom of speech or social acceptance of it than the US (e.g. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil).

<comment><USER24> This is one reason I think it would be helpful to have a clearer articulation of which functions people are referring to when they talk about "Internet governance", so that other people can understand whether we want those functions to exist at all, and (if so) what kinds of institutions we would like to try to empower to do them. Many things that can be called "Internet governance" have little bearing on Internet users' free speech or privacy -- but others do.

This might be akin to the way that RMS suggests that saying "intellectual property" (instead of "copyright", "patent", "trademark", "trade secret", and several sui generis regimes) leads to conceptual muddles. "Internet governance" may have the same problem; maybe it's a term in need of some disaggregation!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Because there is no better political system—the constitution, separation of > powers, civil society and citizens—than the United States today that can > protect liberty and free speech.

Spoken as only a sheltered American could believe.

<comment><USER26> This is written by an Indian so I don't think he is sheltered. America is the only superpower and gets a lot of flack because they have no credible peer. Some people can't stand it and will be disappointed for a long time.

<comment><USER27> _America is the only superpower and gets a lot of flack because they have no credible peer._

That and all the terrible stuff they do.</comment></comment></comment>


New – AWS Resource Tagging API - <AUTHOR> https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-aws-resource-tagging-api/ <comment><USER2> Still no API for fetching S3 objects filtered by tag?</comment>