I Paid a Bribe - <AUTHOR> http://www.ipaidabribe.com/ <comment><USER2> Darn, this seems like a site meant to uncover and curb corruption.

I was hoping it was a site where everyday folks share their stories about when it helps to give a nice tip or innocently grease a few palms.

Well known cases would be the "$20 trick" you give to the hotel clerk to get a free room upgrade. Once during an airport emergency, I gave two $10 bills to the bellhop to cut the long line at my hotel taxi stand (the bellhop keeps one $10 bill and gives the other to the taxi stand valet guy, who waved us into the next cab).

I remember seeing on Friends that you can shorten your restaurant wait times by giving money to the hostess, and the book Doormen claims you can get lots of perks by over-tipping your doormen. What I need is a menu of all such extra services that can be achieved and the average cost / success rate, so I minimize the chances of looking like an idiot.

<comment><USER3> Sorry, instead of it being a site where your wealthy greedy self could gain a meaningless personal advantage over others it is a site that is trying to make the world a better place for everybody. I know it is useless for "everyday folks" from your class, we'll try harder next time.

<comment><USER4> Tipping low-wage customer service workers for unadvertised services and favours is now some sort of evil "class" issue that indicates greed and corruption?

Do you get mad when other diners at your favourite restaurant tip better than you and get friendlier service for their trouble?

Give me a break.

<comment><USER5> I have to agree with guelo. The services you describe are unadvertised for a reason. You're effectively asking someone from a lower class to possibly break the law (by getting paid under the table, and presumably not reporting the additional income) and possibly get into trouble with their employer because they want your extra money. If that's not a class issue, what is?

<comment><USER6> Every scenario he described involves people who already make money from tips. If they underreport their tips, that's their own issue. I've read experimental reports from people attempting to bypass social conventions by means of $20 bills, and it only works when the bribee's job and legal status are not on the line.

I'm guessing that bypassing social conventions is where most of the outrage comes from. Queueing etiquette is something sacred; defectors face strong social punishment. Seems wrong to have someone taking something that's yours-- your place in line--simply by having more money.

But queueing is just a non-monetary rationing system for a slightly scarce resource that most people don't care enough to pay for. It'd be fairer if everyone waiting participated in an auction for places in line, and the proceeds were distributed evenly, but unless you care enough to set that system up I think the moral outrage against people who buy the front position directly from the coordinator(s) of the queue is misplaced.

<comment><USER7> To cite one example, the Alton Towers theme park in the UK has a ticketing system that allows you to pay more for "fast track" tickets.

Fast track tickets allow you to join a separate queue. The number of fast track tickets available are limited so the queues remain very short, and actual boarding of each ride is controlled so it is never dominated by fast track ticket holders.

The fast track ticket prices vary depending on which rides they are usable on, and how many times you can re-use them.

The system seems to work very well. Those who assign a high value to getting on every ride can opt to pay the extra for a more intense day. Those who are happy with the slow pace of a day out with some queueing can still afford the regular priced tickets.

There doesn't seem to be any moral or social stigma attached to those using the fast track system, but I think part of the reason is that it is perceived as fair, and everyone has the option to participate if they choose.

<comment><USER8> _"it is perceived as fair, and everyone has the option to participate if they choose."_

But why doesn't everyone choose to do so? After all, it would mean a shorter wait, and who wouldn't want that?

Could it be that not everyone can afford to use the system? Is this really fair? And how do you know that it's "perceived as fair"? By whom? How many people who are waiting in the slow line have you surveyed?

<comment><USER7> _"But why doesn't everyone choose to do so? After all, it would mean a shorter wait, and who wouldn't want that?"_

I see it as a trade off.

Lets say you are in a queue that is 2 hours long. You are offered the opportunity to half your queue time for £5, and you can pay multiple times to repeatedly half your queuing time as many times as you want. How many times will you pay the £5 for an ever decreasing return?

There is a trade off here between queueing time and cost. Regardless of your available wealth you won't repeat the payment indefinitely. Internally you assign a value to your lost time, and you trade that against the value of the payment you are willing to make.

The balancing point of the trade off depends on your personal circumstances, availability of monetary wealth and your desired goals.

The fast track system builds the same trade off. The more you are willing to pay the more reduction in wait times you can get, but the higher up the scale you go, the smaller the gain becomes, and there are a range of available ticket types that target different goals (Multiple use, certain rides only, single use, booked time slots, etc). Each user can trade off money against queue time to maximise their goals.

It's fair because all of the available options are clearly documented and made available to everyone indiscriminately. The choice is yours to trade money for time.

It's also fair because those who don't assign high value to the trade off are protected in some way. Fast track tickets are limited in quantity, so most people have to queue, there is not a situation where 10% get stuck waiting exponentially longer. 90% have the same queue, and only the 10% who assign the highest value to the trade off can receive the benefits.

Just because some people can't afford something doesn't make it unfair. I can't afford a Ferrari, but that isn't unfair.

 _"By whom?"_

By me. ;-)

Seriously though, while I have witnessed people cutting into lines unfairly and arguments starting in many other situations I have never seen a confrontation due to the fast track ticket system.

(Perhaps this is because it is sanctioned by the organisation so maybe people just grumble silently in this case, who knows)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I still really like the idea of the zero-Rupee notes circulating in India, created specifically to present to government officials asking for bribes. Apparently, in many cases the official is so shamed on being handed the nil bill that the bribe is effectively paid.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1353796>

<comment><USER10> Are they really shamed? I would like to believe this is true but I have trouble coming to terms with the idea that people taking bribes have any shame at all.

Unrelated, The 5th Pillar (the organization that came up with the zero-rupee note) seems to have an office building very close to mine. I've seen the bill pasted on the back of cars and can see their wifi network from where I am.

<comment><USER11> It's easy to think that everyone accepting (or even demanding) bribes just decided one day that they wanted to be evil. In reality, they may very well have been pressured into it by their environment, or from fears that their peers will rat them out if they aren't participating.

I'm not saying they'd be right or should be pitied, but it'd certainly be possible for them to be shamed.

<comment><USER12> It is a systemic problem. Let me give an example where reasonable number of people will laugh at you if you don't bribe your way out of a harmless situation.

Road infrastructure is sorely lacking in India which results in crowded streets. A huge percentage of drivers violate traffic laws everyday to gain even the slightest advantage over fellow roadsters. If the person gets pulled over, what is the best thing to do in that situation: go to the nearby police station, wait for a few hours, pay the fine legally or bribe the cop and get on with your travel? Which would you choose? In this case the person who violated traffic is almost begging for the traffic cop to take a bribe so that he can be on his way.

Same situation permeates every public office. Do not underestimate the problem caused by people who are willing to pay a bribe to get preferential service. As long as such people exist, people who accept bribes cannot be shamed into not accepting it.

<comment><USER13> Well said. Corruption in India is indeed a systemic problem. While there is no denying that the system of governance is corrupt, it is also true that citizens are ready to bribe as long as their work gets done.

It is in this context that IPAB believes in a systemic approach to tackling corruption. We do not target individuals as they are dispensable and replaceable. It is the system and processes which need to be changed. Alongside focusing on procedural change in the government we also focus on greater knowledge and understanding on the part of the citizen. We work on the belief that citizens who are well-informed of their rights wrt govt services are less likely to indulge in paying a bribe.

To this end, on our site we provide Citizen Charters which are documents of service timelines published by the government. Armed with this document, citizens are better enabled to stand up against corruption. On the govt-facing end of our campaign, we have come out with Janamahiti report for the Transport Department of Bangalore which analyses bribe reports received on our site, pinpoints the most corrupt processes and puts forward suggestions to tackle corruption rampant in this department. We are also briefing the Transport department this week on the Janamahiti and the recommendations it provides.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This is an interesting idea, but it needs some cachet to catch on. Don't get me wrong: India _needs_ this site, and needs it badly. Corruption and graft have become so bad that everyone from the top-most office down to the lowest level refuses to even lift a finger without getting his palm greased. Things have become so bad that officials are willing to cause a loss of billions of dollars to the taxpayer just to make some money (ref. the "2G scam").

What India needs is a WikiLeaks. And a "wikileaks" for corruption, where you can list the name, position, etc. of the officials who are corrupt. It would be a pretty long list, I can imagine.

<comment><USER15> I live in Mexiko. The corruption here is enourmous, from top to bottom. Wikileaks has showed this corruption.

The problem IMHO with corruption is that nobody can/want to do something about it. It doesn't matter (at least here) if you collect all the proofs necessary, because the people that can do something about it are corrupt as well.

And I don't think it's that easy to denounce bribes and send to jail the guilty ones.

There was a case against ABB (<http://www.sec.gov/news/press/2010/2010-175.htm>), ABB was charged of paying bribes to Mexican government. There are two ways to make bussiness here, pay a bribe or to leave. ¿Who is more guilty, who pays the bribe (and get no income at all) or the one who receives it? I don't think companies have any moral. So the option is to follow a corruption scheme.

And I'm not saying I agree with that or that I'm happy with it. I'm only saying that it doesn't serve a purpose to denounce bribes, if there's no one to punish them.

<comment><USER16> I believe if there is a public uprising against the government and the authorities, they will be forced to answer these issues. Wikileaks faclites this by publishing the documents through all types of medium which cannot be censored by the government. As a citizen you can also contribute by spreading it more and more.. My best bet would be to spread it in schools and colleges as they seem to be fearless lot. An uprising is what we need.

<comment><USER17> I'm Romanian. We're not as bad as Mexic, in the sense we don't have drug lords and piles of bodies, but we definitely don't lose in corruption.

I've spent not a little time thinking about what can be done. I know the problem (pretty much everybody knows the problem) - politicians suck. They're either corrupt and incompetent, or just corrupt. Problem is, we really really don't have any alternatives. There is absolutely no party, not even a small youth one that's not the same. We can barely trust non-political watchdog organizations - hell, after the last elections we don't really trust them either.

The media is... ok. Private for the most part, and so heavily politicized (yes, it makes sense here), but they don't pull punches when it comes to criticizing the government. They're pretty open with both obvious mistakes and obvious cases of corruption - but the problem is, nothing ever comes out of it.

In a working democracy this would be a case for the justice system. Well, we have two problems. First, the whole system is also corrupt as hell. Second, it's also (probably on purpose) extremely inefficient. All the reforms in the past years, including a ridiculously publicized new constitution a few years back only made things worse.

So yes, I know what we need. We need:

       * to respect the now largely ignored law saying that public institutions, education and health are non-politic;
       * justice system reform
       * new and fresh options for the next elections
       * untainted public organizations

It's no mystery, really. The only problem is... how do we do it? It it my personal conviction that solving this chicken and egg problem is the next greatest challenge. A generic solution would be extremely useful for most developing countries, i.e. half the world right now.

<comment><USER18> In India for example, I think everyone pays a bribe to get a passport. If we don't, then passport will be stuck somewhere for months and months without coming out. Even for knowing why it is not getting processed, you have to pay bribe. So finally, everyone has stopped questioning and started giving money to agents to get the things done.

The problem is no one is responsible if the citizen is not getting the promised services. We cannot see the status about why it is pending online, we don't know whom to contact online, no helpdesks. You just have to go to the office and wait and wait for turn only to be turned away without even getting a chance to speak.

If one person is made responsible for citizen satisfaction for services and he is like the manager in the office whose compensation is dependent on the rating the citizen gives for the services, then I think this will change.

How to make government officials answerable to the people? This is difficult, because a government is voted for a period of 5 yrs into power and they have 5 yrs to loot without doing anything and then bribe their way into power again. If this vicious cycle can be broken by clear communication about the government performance, so clear that people can't ignore, then they may vote for another government which is not much better than this. But by consistently projecting these metrics about corruption and government performance, we might give a chance for some party to fight on the plank of eliminating corruption.

Long answer.. hopefully there is some juice in it.

<comment><USER17> Entering the European Union did some good for us. A lot of public services have to adhere to European standards, and it works. For example there is a set period in which you must get your passport/identity card/driver's licence and they respect it.

The corruption mostly moved higher. I had a coffee with a friend who works in a public institution a couple of weeks ago, and we talked about EU funds absorption. I'm a software guy, and I'd _love_ to do projects for his institution (or any other). There's a huge need for software projects at every level - national and local. And there are lots of money available for this, provided by the EU. So why am I not working with the government (nor is anybody I know)?

Because things go like this. Say my friend wants to put something online in his institution. He has to get about 3 signatures, the last of which is pretty high in the ministry. And the guy in the ministry will invariably think something like: "if it's am idea worth doing, then we'll file it for when we can do it on a bigger scale with our boys".

So yeah. Like I said, main problems are 1. politicians up high and 2. the fact that institutions are now completely political, to the level where I can bet there's a doorman somewhere who's been hired just because his brother in law is in the right party.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Took me far too long to find the "view stories" link:

<http://www.ipaidabribe.com/sforms/view_reports_paid>

It'd be great to have these on a map. I want to see _where_ bribes are most common(ly reported)

Though, I suppose this site is so focused on Bangalore, it may not be much use.

<comment><USER13> Your feedback on navigation is appreciated. We will definitely include it in our next website redesign.

Not sure what you mean by map but there is a section called Corruption Commons which does give a map wrt bribes: <http://ipaidabribe.com/sforms/corruption_commons> We also have a graphical representation of bribes called Bribe Patterns on the homepage. Do take a look and feel free to get back to us with feedback. It's much appreciated.

Though it is true that IPAB is based out of Bangalore, we are a pan-India initiative. Our data being crowdsourced, it is just a matter of coincidence that we receive a large portion of our reports from Bangalore. Having said that our graphical Bribe Patterns will show you that Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad and Delhi also figure prominently in our data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Is there some sort of context missing to go along with this? It's an interesting enough site, but I don't get it completely.

<comment><USER21> <http://www.ipaidabribe.com/node/77>

_IpaidABribe.com is Janaagraha's unique initiative to tackle corruption by harnessing the collective energy of citizens. You can report on the nature, number, pattern, types, location, frequency and values of actual corrupt acts on this website. Your reports will, perhaps for the first time, provide a snapshot of bribes occurring across your city. We will use them to argue for improving governance systems and procedures, tightening law enforcement and regulation and thereby reduce the scope for corruption in obtaining services from the government._

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Though it is a good initiative, it is not effective yet. In the site the stories are not associated with the name and also there are no proofs. So in a way all the reports are toned down to just say that I had to pay a bribe but not who is taking the bribe. If it has that detail, then that official will be shamed and there is a possibility that corruption can be reduced faster.

But the site's aim is to gauge the amount of corruption and try for systemic changes to eliminate it - I would take even that compared to nothing. So all the best ipaidabribe

<comment><USER13> We have got a lot of similar feedback. However, after a great deal of thought we have decided not to give names of people, for the following reasons:

(a) We are not a prosecuting agency on behalf of citizens. They can also directly go to regulatory and vigilance authorities such as the Lokayukta and Central Vigilance Commission. (b) It distracts us from the main task of putting pressure on the government for systemic improvement (c) We do not want to open the floodgates of claims and counterclaims. We want the website to retain its focus on being a positive mover in the larger endeavour of eliminating corruption. (d) Elimination of corruption is better achieved by simplification of systems, transparency and other similar reforms. By targeting corrupt people without tackling such changes, we cannot achieve much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Do not fight corruption in India unless you carry a licensed pistol.

<comment><USER14> ... and the system is setup so that getting a licensed firearm is close to impossible (and you have to pay a lot of bribes to get one).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Without caste/corruption India will disintegrate like USSR in no time.

</comment><comment><USER23>
        This was never the way I planned
        Not my intention
        I got so brave, pedal on the floor
        Lost my discretion
        It's not what, I'm used to
        Just wanna try this bimmer
        I'm curious how you
        Caught me speedin'

        I paid a bribe and I liked it
        The price of a new macbook
        I paid a bribe just to try it
        I hope my lawyer don't mind it
        It felt so wrong
        It felt so right
        Don't mean I'm in jail tonight
        I paid a bribe and I liked it
        I liked it

        No, I don't even know your rank
        It doesn't matter
        You're a corrupt cop
        Just human nature,
        It's not what,
        Good cops do
        Not how they should behave
        My head gets so confused
        Hard to obey

        Us yuppies we are so loaded
        Soft money, red bimmer, so predictable
        Hard to resist, so profitable
        Too good to deny it
        Ain't no big deal, it's innocent

</comment><comment><USER24> I'll say it a thousand times, corruption is the cancer of all societies and we really need to find the cure as priority number one. Before going to mars, before sea-steading, before feeding africa.

<comment><USER25> You might want to stop saying that, since it doesn't make any sense. There's no more a global cure for corruption than there is a global cure for people not being nice. Not everyone is going to behave how you want them to, and there's no reasonable alternative.

<comment><USER24> No I won't, it makes a lot of sense, and there is a simple cure not everybody willing to accept: the law.</comment></comment></comment>


Single page apps in depth - <AUTHOR> http://singlepageappbook.com/single-page.html <comment><USER2> If you find the book helpful - great! I'm glad. I can definitely see a lot of faults in my own work but I don't have infinite time to fix them, which is why the book is on Github ( <https://github.com/mixu/singlepageappbook> ).

There are things that I would definitely discuss differently if I wrote the book today - since things have developed a quite bit in the past year and half. I'll probably start working on a second edition late this year to rewrite the parts that I find most annoying in my book. I need to finish and ship a bunch of open source stuff before that though.

<comment><USER3> Any chance you could at least outline what you think the biggest changes in the past year and a half have been, for those of us who read the book? What are the things you would have written about differently?

<comment><USER2> I haven't yet fully formulated what I want to say so this is still just speculation on what the 2nd edition might contain. I can see a lot of room for improvement, especially in the latter chapters. Overall, the way I would frame the problem is much crisper now, and I think I have figured out how to better explain and implement my controller-averse approach, as well as server/client hybrid rendering and routing.

The community is more sophisticated about packaging these days so I would spend more time going beyond the basics and it's obvious what the most popular frameworks are (from ~8 contenders to ~3) so I should bring those in concretely to illustrate points. When I wrote the book, many of the frameworks were pre-1.0 and hadn't figured things out.

I also wrote another (to be released) book just on distributed systems which has helped with my thinking re: backend integration/caching/offline though I'm not sure how that will be directly reflected in this book.

Finally, I'd like to audit my use of indefinite articles, particularly within chapter headings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nice book, but seems to be very focused on 'this is the one true way'. There is very rarely ever 'one true way' for all problems, and the reasoning given for each choice isn't solid enough to consider it a closed problem.

It would have been great if there was a small part of each section given to a short discussion of other alternative options that could be taken if the first approach isn't working out for the team. eg, the book's requirement to use specific libs like CommonJS

<comment><USER5> > seems to be very focused on 'this is the one true way'.

Good. I hate when the goal (of building something, of answering the question) is obscured by the author's need to show how knowledgeable or insecure they are and share 15 different ways to do something. Not every piece of writing is a philosophical treatise.

Though sure, a short list of alternatives wouldn't hurt. The justifications for our choices OTOH expand quickly because humans seem to be really good at those[1].

EDIT: fixed, thanks.

[1] [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/04/talkative-sell- silent-...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/04/talkative-sell-silent- buy.html)

<comment><USER6> Simply allowing more than one way to do something does not mean that you have a "need to show how knowledgeable or insecure [you] are".

<comment><USER7> If it's a beginners book, one way is always the best.

<comment><USER8> Provided that one way is both achievable for beginners, and a healthy practice to continue in the absence of further development. You don't want beginners thinking some terrible practice is how they are supposed to build things, just because it was the only workable thing you could use to introduce them to the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> >1\. Modern web applications: a overview

 _An_ overview, please. Sorry to nitpick grammar, but seeing that in an early header leaves a bad impression.

<comment><USER10> Can't believe something like that creates bad impression in tech materials, but I have always been surprised with myself about how my impression changed due to grammatical mistakes.

<comment><USER11> It has to do with attention to detail, and for me it raises the possibility that I can't trust the technical aspects of the writing. For sure that's a grammar-bigotry on my part, I'm not proud, but I simply look askance a bit after seeing that kind of thing.

<comment><USER12> Don't be ashamed for being right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 1\. Are there _any_ popular apps that consist of a single page?

2\. What is the most lucrative single page app out there?

<comment><USER14> Gmail, Facebook, Google+, Twitter

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mixu, I have recently read your book front to back. I am new to javascript development and javascript MVC frameworks. I found your book to be both informative and concise. It shed a lot of light on the major aspects of single page JS and what the frameworks are trying to address. Thank you for your time

</comment><comment><USER16> Hmm.. I remember this discussion from before...

Yup. Here's the previous discussion(s).

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4172837>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4677497>

</comment><comment><USER17> [https://www.dropbox.com/s/z4872dg21mvuizs/single_page_apps.p...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/z4872dg21mvuizs/single_page_apps.pdf)

PDF for tree-killers

</comment><comment><USER18> Does someone know of _any_ sites that implement this pattern, or even better, _well known_ sites that implement this pattern?

<comment><USER19> It's not well known, but <https://circleci.com> is a one-page JS app that seems to be very similar to the book. The datasource is slightly different (we use Knockout, and so follow their pattern, with simple jquery for "saving" and loading), but otherwise it's surprisingly similar.

<comment><USER20> I use knockout.js too and I had a look at your code: although you seem to follow a lot of best practices, I noticed your code is not minified. Any reason why?

<comment><USER19> Ah, yes. We use a dieter [1] for our asset pipeline, and it supports minification using Google closure compiler. Unfortunately, this breaks Twitter Bootstrap.

I did some measurement and I think we can save 19% through minification using uglify (once you included gzipping). That means its not currently worth the few hours of making it work and verifying that it doesn't break anything (versus other ways we can spend our time). Probably.

[1] <https://github.com/edgecase/dieter>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Really enjoyed the material, thanks for writing it. Hopefully the community can keep it fresh and relevant as the tech evolves, since it's on Github. It seems to have worked really well for Addy Osmani's Backbone Fundamentals, I'm sure we can do the same for your book as well.

</comment><comment><USER21> I love that it's all on a single page.

</comment><comment><USER22> I hate to judge a book by its cover, but shouldn't this ebook have been a single page app itself?

<comment><USER23> Should a book on art be a sculpture. On programming, a program.

<comment><USER24> Well the former is an interesting thought experiment, but very much yes to the latter (at minimum, there would be value in a "book viewer" program that embeds a code runner).

<comment><USER25> But to the point, OP's book on single page apps should not be a single page app itself.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I highly recommend mixu's talk from HTML Developer Conference last year covering similar content to his book: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqDJqKGfIiE>

</comment><comment><USER27> This has been the single most important book I've read in my JavaScript career. It's priceless, and really pushed me towards daily best-practices that I would have otherwise been unaware of coming from a different language.

Thank you!

</comment><comment><USER28> Thank you so much for this book. Your writing is clear an concise. I am starting out with angular and this is just what I need, not another piece of angular documentation.

</comment><comment> brian-frichette Very opinionated, but very good opinions. Thanks for sharing.

</comment><comment><USER29> Coincidentally, I just made a single page app today! <http://liveconsciously.me/>

</comment><comment><USER30> One thing always bothers me with single page application is SEO implications. Is there a real way to use SPA without killing your SEO?

<comment><USER31> Aside from Airbnb's Rendr (and I've heard DirbyJS does something similar), you could also build your SPA _on top_ of your server-rendered pages. After pageload, hijack the click events from your navigation controls and have it fetch and render content via ajax. It's certainly not "DRY", but it's easier to implement for existing content-focused sites.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I haven't gone through much of the content, but I was expecting a site about single page apps...to be a single page app. I mean, I understand that there is probably a wealth of information on the site, but it not being a single page app is kind of a bummer. It feels a little less credible, but more importantly, it feels like a missed opportunity to show "What You Could Build If You Read This Site".

<comment><USER25> MVC is not a good architecture choice for reference material like a book or a blog. So it wouldn't be that useful, IMO.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> Thanks for sharing.</comment>


What Every Entrepreneur Could Learn from Justin Bieber - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/01/what-every-entrepreneur-could-learn-from-justin-bieber/

<comment><USER2> I don't know what was worse:

1) An article with "Justin Bieber" in the title hits HN, or

2) I click on it, or

3) I read the whole thing, or

4) It was actually worth reading.

Not bad Mark Suster... not bad at all.

<comment><USER3> This is actually an old link baiting title formula. What x can learn from y where x usually is outlandish or unusual in relation to y.

<comment><USER4> First 2 sentences: "I know what you're thinking – link bait title, right? Wrong."

Refuge in audacity.

It's still a good article - be talented, work hard, get mentors, build an audience and engage with them.

Like all business articles, it's not really hard facts. It's sloppy stories, that helps you learn through osmosis.

You learn from stories, because you feel emotion, and they trigger the part of your brain that says "I can do that too!" (not totally scientific explanation). They aren't about hard facts though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I really dislike the idea of "talent". "You have to be talented." "It all starts from talent."

I've seen people with seemingly NO talent for music or coding or whatever turn themselves into virtuosos because they WANTED it. It seems like saying "You need talent" is a way to tell people that "it's okay that you're not trying, because you might not be talented in this area". And that's bullshit.

<comment><USER6> I have artist friends who get really annoyed when they hear people say "I wanted to draw but I just don't have any talent for it, not like you". They feel like it's totally dismissing the years of obsessive practice they've put into it to make it /seem/ effortless.

Natural talent counts for something, but it's not going to make you a success. I saw "result = talent * effort" mentioned on the last HN post about this, and I thought it was pretty accurate.

<comment><USER7> I had an ex with natural talent for art. She never went anywhere with it (took the safe route and became a nurse instead), but she was just plain better at art than other people, with considerably less effort.

<comment><USER6> Some people certainly do have a natural talent for something. However, this rarely means that they're good enough to succeed at that thing without working on it. I.e. if your ex wanted to make a living as an artist she'd still likely have had to go to school / practice extensively before being good enough that people would have bought her stuff.

Also, and I don't know whether this is the case with your ex, it's entirely possible that she was better at art because she'd been idly drawing over the years. I've certainly known people who wouldn't call themselves artists whose default idle activity is to sketch away on a piece of paper. They're vastly better than me, because they've been practicing in a low-key way for years.

Natural talent just gives you a head start on others. Someone willing to put in more effort than you can still be better than you.

I suppose this may break down around the limits of a field, especially one rooted in physical activity. E.g. Michael Phelps seems to be nearly perfectly physically adapted for swimming. If he never practiced then he'd be easily outswum by anyone half-decent... but by putting in massive effort training he reaches a point where he's practically unbeatable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I would have loved to see Bieber succeed without any help. With phenomenons like him I'm never sure if it's really them or if it's the puppeteers being smart (in this case Usher and his record label).

The internet seems to have the power to bring anyone to superstardom, but most of the time that happens accidentally or is done clumsily. What if a talented programmer with a knack for marketing took a few years off to learn how to act, sing and dance (and to get few plastic surgeries ;)) and then promoted themselves on the internet? Next time I find myself without anything to do for a few years I'll make sure to try that :) And I'm only half-kidding.

Please excuse me now, we're going on a company excursion to see this movie.

<comment><USER9> Masi Oka (Hiro on Heroes and Max on Hawaii Five-O, formerly a visual effects programmer at ILM) is an example of a programmer who taught himself how to act and became a successful actor, but he didn't self-promote on the Internet. He did it the hard way (commercials, guest roles, pilots, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think the most interesting part of the Bieber story is that he gives away all his music for free. He started on YouTube, so all his music is on YouTube. Sure, if you want it in a different format you'll have to buy a CD or go to the iTunes store, but if you just want to listen to it, it's free.

...and then he makes up for it by selling concerts and merchandise and now this movie, and he seems to be doing just fine.

But this business model is extremely disruptive, this is the exact opposite of what the recording industry wants and preaches. They want people to keep paying for the music again and again, and stop people from sharing.

I hope that the 1.3 billion views on YouTube can make more artists reconsider, and start giving away their music for free, and move to a business model that doesn't rely on copyright.

<http://www.youtube.com/user/JustinBieberVEVO>

</comment><comment><USER11> This has to be the best article I have read on TechCrunch in a while. There is no way I would have ever considered watching a Justin Bieber movie, but I feel like doing so after reading this.

</comment><comment><USER12> Once again the famous selection bias... For one Justin Bieber -- whose story so perfectly fit the good ol' American dream it isn't even funny, we've all seen 4564398 movies with this plot already, but I digress --, for one Bieber how many talented, hard working people who didn't success?

What about giving some friggin' facts for a change, instead of same old tired, rehashed, syrupy story not even good enough for Cosmopolitan magazine?

</comment><comment><USER13> At first, it looks like twitter, youtube etc are disrupting incumbent publishers, but then you see they are being co-opted as just another talent- scouting venue.

It's sad for social media, but impressive of publishers. Looks like they still have something to offer.

<comment><USER14> Why is it sad for social media?

Seems like a social media success story to me.

Also, there's a big difference between a publisher and a coach or agent or manager or assistant or tutor.

<comment><USER13> He's signed to Island Records (I have to admit I just assumed his was signed to a major label, because of how he is presented, and I looked it up just now: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber>).

It would be cool if social media replaced published. "Co-opted" is a technical term in disruption, meaning that the incumbents absorb the new approach instead of being replaced (i.e. disrupted) by them. At one time, there was a lot of talk about "disintermediation", where publishers and other middlemen between producer and consumer would disappear. That hasn't happened. The closest is iTunes and amazon, which disrupted retailers.

Although there is a long-tail, where it presumably is happening, it seems that we still need filters. Even more so, people often want whatever everybody else wants, just because they want it. They want to fit in, conform, be part of something greater than themselves, rather than _be_ themselves. This is possibly (I have no idea) most true of Mr. Biebers' primary demographic, tween girls. This popularity for its own sake is where centralized music publishers are strongest, and disintermediated serving of the long-tail is weakest.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> We can have some fun taking the Justin Bieber-is-a-startup metaphor a little too far. Like... he better hope that Microsoft doesn't acquire him for his intellectual property and then kill him off...

</comment><comment><USER16> Interestingly Bieber's movie has a rottentomatoes.com rating of 65% and an imdb rating of 1.1.

</comment><comment><USER17> It seems like Mark Suster is trying to get a tax deduction on his Justin Bieber fan gear!

The message is: be super talented, be lucky, work your butt off, and then you're set. Pretty superficial article -- I am disappointed by the lack of irony...

</comment><comment><USER18> I tried hard to resist commenting on this subject but obviously not hard enough. It's kind of a funny thing to read but nevertheless I stick to my opinion that Justing Bieber is the product of someone else. But this one succeeded in creating a new product for a new market. Still I hope that with enough effort I can succeed without having a 70s hairstyle, a choirboy's voice, or a busy childhood.</comment>


Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53830533 <comment> blaser-waffle > Oracle's chairman Larry Ellison is a supporter of Mr Trump and held a > fundraising event for him in February.

The article in a nutshell. MS isn't as friendly to Trump I guess?</comment>


ARC: A new feature in iPhone App Development - <AUTHOR> http://innoppl.com/arc-a-new-feature-in-iphone-development/

<comment><USER2> I had to double check the date on the post. Nope, it was written now. I am sorry, I don't see how this is news.</comment>


Salk scientists find genetic signatures of biological aging - <AUTHOR> https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/biotech/sd-me-salk-genetic-signs-aging-detected-20181224-story.html <comment><USER2> For those geowalled: [https://outline.com/dp7dyU](https://outline.com/dp7dyU)

This is the actual study: [https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13...](https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13059-018-1599-6)

<comment><USER3> It's not just the geowalling that is annoying, but the fact that they would rather not comply for everyone's good.

It's like they decided that not knowing what data they process and where it's going and what is being done with it is good for everyone.

<comment><USER4> Or maybe the majority of their advertising is local, so it makes sense to block non-local people if supporting them is an added expense and produces no additional revenue.

<comment><USER3> Then why only start geoblocking after gdpr came into effect?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The illogical thinking implied in the article upsets me.

They are taking a model, confirming that it performs as expected on some examples, and then assuming that discrepancies on other examples will mean something. But once you obtain those measurements, maybe they just mean the model never worked. It's machine learning magic - you don't have a theory for why the model should be correct, so how can you learn anything from using it?

</comment><comment><USER6> Out of some little experience doing some machine learning genetic research that's a lot similar to this study, I feel like the effect of such studies is merely directing us towards finding out the functionality of some parts of DNA that we don't know about.

But the study is having a low number of samples for a machine learning algorithm to yield perfectly accurate results, so I'd say any study with machine learning algorithms without a big enough sample, the results should be always taken with a bit of skepticism. There's no real substitute for good old biology research to know the exact functionality of genes, proteins ... etc

</comment><comment><USER7> Perhaps skin samples from different parts of the body would yield different age predictions. The actual study makes no mention which seems like a significant omission if someone were to try to reproduce this experiment.

<comment><USER8> Unless they're dense they used the inside of the upper arm to avoid sun damage.

The bigger issue is that Steve Horvath calibrated and has successfully marketed a DNA methylation based "epigenetic clock" accurate to within a couple of years, from blood, with hundreds of not thousands of citations and successful replications since 2013. DNA is more stable than RNA, and blood is easier to come by than fibroblasts (skin punches), so this seems like a nonstarter to me.

Horvath's clock works in arbitrary other tissues; we've applied it to pediatric and adult tumors, adjacent normal, and blood samples at diagnosis, remission, and relapse, and it works quite well (unlike the knockoffs that followed). I don't see the point of a less reliable, less proven clock on less stable molecules (RNA), when I can use a handful of targeted amplicons to run Horvath's for $30/sample on blood DNA (even dried blood) or other tissues.

Ref: [https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-...](https://genomebiology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/gb-2013-14-10-r115)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is a mystery to me how these press releases end up on HN. Why this press release about a mildly interesting paper, with no methodological novelty, of likely no significance? There are any number of more important, more interesting abd more novel papers coming out every week.

The RNASeq analysis they did isn't even that up to scratch, they use an outdated unit (FPKM) which isn't consistent across different samples, and don't seem to check for batch effects or carry out any normalisation.</comment>


Wilhelm von Hackensplat: 'First Past the Post' isn't. - <AUTHOR> http://blog.hackensplat.com/2011/01/first-past-post-isnt.html <comment><USER2> If I understand rightly, the AV system being discussed in the UK allows the voter to choose to vote for either one or a limited number of candidates.

All votes won't be carried to the final round so this means the winner isn't guaranteed a 50+% share of the vote.

<comment><USER3> People don't have to fill in all candidates, so some votes may be lost along the way. The winner is guaranteed a 50% vote share of all votes that make it to the final round - and nobody is denied a chance of getting their vote there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you want to be pernickety, 'alternative vote' is also a misnomer: the word 'alternative' comes from the Latin 'alter', which means 'the other of two [options]'. There are more than two voting systems, so AV is incorrect as a name, at least to traditionalists.

But this really doesn't have any bearing on which, if any, someone in Britain ought to vote for. That the name doesn't really fit doesn't say much at all about the merits of the system itself.</comment>


Ask HN: Manufacturing small electronic devices? - <AUTHOR>

The hacker community has been a great help getting me from components to prototype, but I haven't really found much about the mass production process. Has anyone gotten a small electronic device mass produced?  Is there anything I should be aware of?  Who should I talk to?  Is it going to be as expensive and difficult as I think it is going to be?  Are there any books or blogs on the subject I should check out? <comment><USER2> My specialty is creating consumer electronics and web/mobile applications that seamlessly integrate. Have quite a lot of experience with this. Check out my blog, it's in my profile, wrote a popular article here on HN (it's also on my blog) on how to and the tools to use when designing, prototyping, and manufacturing consumer electronics. If you have further questions feel free to email me, done it enough I can usually figure out what you'll need to do pretty fast.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on your margins. Companies like Enigma (used them, happy, not affiliated in any way) can do turnkey manufacturing and take away the supply chain/procurement headaches. OTOH, if you can handle procurement and manufacturing internally, or co-ordinate multiple vendors and do final assembly in house, you can save cash (if everything goes perfectly).

Enigma: <http://www.enigmacorp.com/> was good to me, YMMV.

I have tried to go the in-house route as well, and got KILLED on procurement. Without existing relationships, I had multi-month leadtimes on a lot of parts. Again, YMMV.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ideally I think in house would be the approach I'd take. The device in question isn't particularly complicated and the components don't exactly have to be top of the line. I have no experience working with vendors though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> What kind of device do you need? You'll have to give more details to get a useful answer.

Get in touch with some people whose electronics products got funded on Kickstarter. Also have a look on <http://www.quirky.com>.

<comment><AUTHOR> Small sensor that can record some measurements than plug into a computer USB port to upload those measurements. Doesn't really need to be super precise or anything, price is the major constraint here.

I will contact some kickstarted folks, good idea there.

thanks.</comment></comment>


Hashgraph: Fair, Fast, Secure Distributed Concensus - <AUTHOR> https://hashgraph.com/ <comment><USER2> This looks amazing. I was really hoping to read some intelligent commentary about it here.

<comment><USER3> see my other message below

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> How is consensus achieved without proof-of-work?

<comment><USER3> You don't need proof-of-work to achieve a consensus. Provided that no more than 1/3 of the actors are dishonest and colluding :

Let's say that by some clever way at time t, you have 2/3+epsilon peers which signs the same database hash to certify that this is their immutable view of database at time t. As a client, you can trust a database view for which you are presented with the 2/3+ signature have been gathered.

Regarding the way to reach consensus. Seeing it from a game theory point of view : You play a game where the goal is to reach a common viewpoint by exchanging some signed messages. Whereas Bitcoin is a competitive game, this is a collaborative game.

As a protocol designer you just have to make sure that the game has a winning strategy for supermajority quorum of honest actors.

If you want to make it simple use a synchronous mechanism. The bar is really low if what you are trying to beat is Bitcoin 10 min per block transaction time (you have thousands of communications trips).

The principle is easy : Everyone exchange their info and the info they have received from others, then accept the largest union of info for which they had a supermajority telling them that they have received this union (i.e. the fixed point of function "I have received [set of received blocks]" which communications helped converging to).

If the honest actors win the round (they successfully agreed on the same thing (they can only sign one [set of received blocks] per round) ) the database grow, otherwise they leave the database unchanged and move to the next round.

There are plenty of winning strategies for a two third quorum provided bounded delay in communications ((by finite recurrence) the union of received must grow or converge during a communication trip)

Hashgraph is an asynchronous version of this collaborative game (they call it Gossiping about Gossiping) which makes it faster, needing less messages, but also harder to debug and prove correctness.

Regarding the broadcast cost, if every peer broadcast to every peer it leads to n^^2 messages but you can get around by introducing p dispatchers relaying the messages resulting to 2 _p_ n messages if you accept some additional hypothesis on the trustworthiness of these dispatchers.

The problem which still remains is how to guarantee the strong mathematical hypothesis of no more than a 1/3 non-colluding. As a workaround you can add as many verifiers as you like, so you can know when not to trust anymore, so all clients know to switch (i.e. fork) but knowing to which other set of peers but this then require a consensus :)</comment></comment>


Are Todo Applications a Waste of Time? - <AUTHOR> https://www.paritybit.ca/blog/are-todo-applications-a-waste-of-time <comment><USER2> Yes, and no.

Yes, in the sense of you need a list of everything you need to do, then you need to delegate because that's too many things for one person.

No, I think that keeping your list written down/stored somewhere offloads your brain to focus more on your task at hand then remembering all you need to do.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd say no. For me, finding the right app has helped me stay organized. I think the key is that _everything_ goes in it...it is my single source of truth for what I need to do.</comment>