CoffeeTable: A Browser Console for CoffeeScript - <AUTHOR> http://code.alecperkins.net/coffeetable/

<comment><USER2> Author of the CoffeeScript book here. This is really, really cool! I especially like that there's annotated source ([http://code.alecperkins.net/coffeetable/docs/coffeetable.htm...](http://code.alecperkins.net/coffeetable/docs/coffeetable.html)).

A couple of things:

1\. I can't seem to add linebreaks in multiline mode; both `Return` and `Shift+Return` submits the command. Looking at the source, I think the problem is that `settings.multi_line` isn't modified when you click the checkbox; only `settings.showing_multi_line` is.

2\. It'd be great to have detailed object output instead of just "[object Object]". A simple way to do this would be to run everything through JSON.stringify; or you could go prettier with nested indentation levels and such (there are several existing libs for this).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback. First time really using Docco, and now I feel crazy for not using it before.

1\. Good catch! I recently did a complete refactor as part of the docco- ification. Thought I caught everything but apparently not. I'll fix that ASAP.

2\. Totally agree, and it's already on the todo list: <https://github.com/alecperkins/coffeetable/issues/4> Until then, `log` and `dir` are shortcuts for the ordinary console commands.

<comment><USER4> A temporary workaround for newlines is to copy/paste them in the box. Adding the bookmarklet and then going to <http://arcturo.github.com/library/coffeescript/> gives a good way of experimenting with CoffeeScript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is a good idea but the UX needs to be tightened up. I'm excited as this is a nice intro to Coffescript. I'm using the bookmarklet.

1\. I submit a command, and then the auto suggest pops up after suggesting a giant list of commands that obscures the page i'm on and I can't pick any of them or clear it.

2\. How do I pick from the autosuggest? can't click anything.

3\. Multi-line mode. How do I submit? no hints? oh, shift-enter? I should have know, i'm a stupid user.

Hope this helps refine it.

<comment><USER3> Actual auto- _complete_ turned out to be a lot more difficult than I expected, so for now it's just basic _suggest_. FWIW, backspace when the textarea is empty will toggle the auto-suggest panel. I'm going to add escape as a toggle as well.

There are instructions for submitting, but only when there are no previous commands. (Shame on me.)

Sounds like there are some good things for v0.2 to take care of. I've updated the issues list with these and others: <https://github.com/alecperkins/coffeetable/issues/>

Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Author here. I'm more a designer than a coder, so pardon any bugs or other issues. Criticism and suggestions for improvement are more than welcome.

<comment><USER6> This is just great!

 _Edit:_ Just saw you made it a bookmarlet. Now I just have to hope that Google Chrome will also understand coffescript on its console.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> FYI Click the fixed button in the top right of the window for the demo. Took me a while to catch that one.

<comment><USER3> Good point. I've been trying to avoid being obnoxious about it, but for this it's probably better to err on the side of that than too subtle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Great!

Is there anyway to make this work in the web inspector?

<comment><USER3> There's another project adding CoffeeScript to the console: <https://github.com/orangemug/coffeescript_console>

Requires more than just a bookmarklet or script tag, but looks really promising.</comment></comment>


The Bed of Procrustes – Aphorisms from Nassim Taleb - <AUTHOR> http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2013/09/the-bed-of-procrustes

<comment><USER2> Taleb is full of great ones. Here's one I read on the plane a couple of hours ago:

"Heroes are heroes because they are heroic in behavior, not because they won or lost." \- Nassim Taleb, Fooled by Randomness

Second time through that one!

</comment><comment><USER3> Great quotes. Much as I hate to buy books of tweets I did get this one.</comment>


How the Father of Claymation Lost His Company - <AUTHOR> http://priceonomics.com/how-the-father-of-claymation-lost-his-company/

<comment><USER2> I expected the story to end with, "And then the billionaire's son ran the company into the ground," but it didn't.

Still, I'm skeptical to credit Travis Knight with "saving" the studio. The money and nepotism definitely rescued the studio as a profit-making enterprise.

But if the same artists had worked on the same Coraline with someone else's capital, would the outcome have been any different? Probably not. Did it matter if the money was branded Knight or someone else's?

The wrongest takeaway would be to credit Laika's new management with being anything more than turnaround artists (as opposed to film artists). Vinton was a creative visionary and always will be, money in the bank or not.

Vinton should have known what he was getting into when he took Knight's money. Of course the objective was to acquire (or in this case, inherit) Vinton's creative vision and make it Travis Knight's.

It is remarkable that Travis, through nothing more than the luck of being born who he is, manages to obtain these intangibles: Vinton's identity as an artist composed of his studio and his work.

<comment><USER3> _> The wrongest takeaway would be to credit Laika's new management with being anything more than turnaround artists (as opposed to film artists). Vinton was a creative visionary and always will be, money in the bank or not._

To be fair, from the article it reads like the studio was basically gutted to the core and rebuilt from scratch. They took a struggling but quirky visionary company, razed it (after it had already shrunk to less than 20% of what it had been at its peak), and turned it into what is basically a traditional Disney- style Hollywood-oriented animation studio (big movies, big budgets, big merchandise). They even dropped the original name. One has to wonder: what did Travis Knight actually keep from Vinton's old enterprise?

For the record, a huge factor in _Coraline_ 's success was its origin as a celebrated, prize-winning book from a celebrated, prize-winning literary and pop-culture demigod (Neil Gaiman) arguably at the peak of his career. Sure, adaptation and animation were good, but it wasn't exactly the hardest assignment to begin with.

 _> It is remarkable that Travis, through nothing more than the luck of being born who he is, manages to obtain these intangibles_

Yeah, but social classes don't exist in America, right? Eh.

<comment><USER4> Which brings up the question: what's the point of keeping the original company? You're unlikely to have as much equity in a company with so much history as opposed to if you were to found a new company.

This reminds me somewhat of Warren Buffet's biggest mistake, which was that he had made a lousy investment into a Textile-manufacturing company called Berkshire Hathaway. Having a disagreement with its CEO; he acquired a majority stake of the company, and fired its CEO out of spite. But he couldn't get all the stock; and when he completely reshaped the company into what it is today, half of the value he created ended up going to the company's original stockholders, instead of himself as it would have, had he started from scratch with his own company.

<comment><USER5> The original company has a known brand (Vinton), and that opens doors.

<comment><USER4> Nike, arguably, is a bigger and more door-opening brand than Vinton.

<comment><USER6> In the world of Claymation, what does an athletic shoe company know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Travis Knight is interesting. He's been spoiled all his life, yet he became a highly-competent animator relatively quickly – and this can be verified from other articles. He's likely highly-intelligent but not extraordinarily so. Some species of smart people pretend to be stupid, though not often this stupid: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9jq990b-w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WU9jq990b-w) / I've been watching videos of him for that last few minutes, I wonder if he's something of a Zelig-like figure. Strange specimen, I'd be interested in meeting him.

<comment><USER8> He doesn't sound so stupid to me, especially relative to his age. How smart and wise were you as a teenager? (Not sure how old he is in that video, but he looks something like 18)?

<comment><USER7> I don't think he's stupid, but he was subconsciously pretending to be. I think maybe wealth can interfere with identity formation. When you can purchase an identity as a kid, you become something of a cypher for awhile. Maybe he was a nerd that tried to purchase cool. I don't know, but it's interesting how someone so smart can lack self awareness (even as a teenager) to the degree displayed in the video.

I've got a lot of respect for the guy. He was the director of animation on two excellent, Pixar-level films. He's obviously super talented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Everything happens for a raisin.

</comment><comment><USER10> Excellent read. I usually don't have the patience to read longer pieces, but this was a great story.</comment>


AirDropper lets people put files into your Dropbox without signing up - <AUTHOR> http://www.downloadsquad.com/2010/09/04/airdropper-lets-people-put-files-into-your-dropbox-without-s/ <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1608851> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1614834> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1656422></comment>


Torvalds' Comments on Linux Scheduler Woes: "Pure Garbage" - <AUTHOR> https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Torvalds-On-Scheduler-Woes <comment><USER2> Active discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21959692](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21959692)

</comment><comment><USER3> Well, this should promote a calm, reasonable discussion.

</comment><comment><USER4> No matter how elegant and correct something is, if people can't generally use it correctly, and doing things in a way that will allow them to shoot themselves in the foot is easier, that's what they will do, and then they will complain about it.

<comment><USER5> Converse, before going public with criticism, it's better to:

\- be mild, and

\- throw in "unless I missed something"

. . . because the likelihood of being at least partially wrong is non-zero, and the crow tastes better with less flame broiling.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I can see why he is a bit pissed. Having google try and blame your lifes work on their product failure.

</comment><comment><USER7> Blog doesn't provide any new info on the matter.

</comment><comment><USER8> You're holding it wrong.</comment>


Breached Data Indexer 'Data Viper' Hacked - <AUTHOR> https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/07/breached-data-indexer-data-viper-hacked/ <comment><USER2> I had a look at some of the data posted about this leak between reporters and researchers. A few highlights:

1\. The FBI does appear to have been a subscriber to Mr. Troia's services. Two FBI emails to agents appear among the list of subscribers that is not very big. Also Europol, Amazon, and the Dubai Police also appear...

2\. The MGM Grand appears to have grossly understated the amount of users who were hacked in the 2019 breach. This hacker is claiming well over 100 million, instead of the 10 million or so MGM claims.

3\. The most relevant paragraph I think is the below:

> DataViper contained several undisclosed breaches . MGM Grand Hotels is > included in the dataset with 142 million entries and was imported by Vinny > on November 30th 2019 . This number is very different to the 10.7 million > number that they stated were affected [1] . This indicates that MGM > knowingly misreported information regarding this data breach and that Vinny > is aware of this misrepresentation . FiveStars is another data breach that > is in DataViper but not publicly disclosed . It was imported in November > 2019 . It is unclear where it was reported to them and they failed to notify > their users or if Vinny did not notify FiveStars . The same is true of > Zumiez.com (160 million), Avito.ru (30 million), Mamba.ru (13 million), > MyVestige.com (11 million), LocateFamily.com (11 million), and others .

4\. I forked the entire list of domains hacked, provided by the original reporter I believe at ZDNet, to here: [https://gist.github.com/danvau7/337b0ac71db8c7298e712ed5ba3a...](https://gist.github.com/danvau7/337b0ac71db8c7298e712ed5ba3a76b4)

5\. Vinny Troia claims a PhD, but it comes from the not very well respected / for-profit "Capella University" in the United States.

<comment><USER3> That list has some big names on it.

> Troia said the people responsible for compromising his site are the same > people who hacked the databases they are now selling on the dark web and > claiming to have obtained exclusively from his service.

So he's saying that these guys successfully compromised all these domains while he watched, but never did anything with the stolen info, waiting to blame it all on an intrusion into his company... in retaliation for him watching them steal it all in the first place?

That's some real Xanatos Gambit stuff right there. Maybe Troia lives in a David Mamet film.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The main thing I wanted to know is how they got hacked:

 _Troia said the intrusion into his service [was] because his developer accidentally left his credentials exposed in documents explaining how customers can use Data Viper's application programming interface. "I will say the irony of how they got in is absolutely amazing," Troia said._

<comment><USER5> > Smoke and mirrors, indeed. It's entirely possible this incident is an > elaborate and cynical PR stunt by Troia to somehow spring a trap on the bad > guys.

That's the juicy bit of the story. Has this all been staged?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _The apparent breach at St. Louis, Mo. based Data Viper offers a cautionary and twisted tale of what can happen when security researchers seeking to gather intelligence about illegal activity online get too close to their prey or lose sight of their purported mission._

Yeah, the discussion of the data the company kept gives the impression that the only difference between Data Viper and a black hat data broker is that Data Viper sold to "vetted" law enforcement and security researchers.

Now, what potential for lawlessness does that give law enforcement?

</comment><comment><USER7> I pay taxes

Taxes go to FBI/Europol etc

Security services pay these shady data brokers with my taxes to access data

Shady data broker buys hacked data from criminals with my taxes

Cybercriminals live off my taxes.

Cybercriminals hack more sites, selling/leaking my data.

I don't know whether the ends justifies the means here, but it seems really off that our security apparatus pays money to maintain a criminal ecosystem. On the other hand once the data is available it would also be wrong not to use it to catch pedophiles, mafia members, tax evaders, ...

</comment><comment><USER8> [https://intelx.io/?did=25626760-7371-4872-be87-68c350f7baac](https://intelx.io/?did=25626760-7371-4872-be87-68c350f7baac)

</comment><comment><USER9> I'm sure my data was in his data breach. I will join the suit

</comment><comment><USER10> Who has the magnet link

</comment><comment><USER9> where is the class action against Data Viper</comment>


Ask HN: How do you manage phone(s), email(s), IM, TWT, FB, etc. together? - <AUTHOR>

... <comment><USER2> Have a look at Flock - The Social Web Browser [<http://www.flock.com/>]

</comment><comment><USER3> Google Wave to the rescue?</comment>


Best Data Science Interview Resources - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rbhatia46/Data-Science-Interview-Resources <comment><AUTHOR> Be Guaranteed to pass that next Data Science/ML Interview if you can complete these!</comment>


OpenMW 0.40.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://openmw.org/en/ <comment><USER2> The legal status of this is fascinating. Essentially, it's blessed in a series of email by Bethesda, as long as the OpenMW team doesn't explicitly promote its use on mobile platforms - with the understanding, of course, that as a cross-platform open-source engine, it could certainly be used for that purpose. Bethesda had every reason to find legal ways to shut down the project (it's quite the opposite of a clean-room implementation), but they worked to find a happy medium that allowed the project to coexist with its own mobile ambitions.

[https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails](https://wiki.openmw.org/index.php?title=Bethesda_Emails)

But it's certainly unclear in the general case whether engines that require the user to provide their own (presumably legally purchased) data files are derivative works of the original engine. It's even more iffy when, as is the case for [https://pokemmo.eu/](https://pokemmo.eu/) , it might be illegal in certain jurisdictions to obtain a ROM even if you have purchased the physical product. Of course the creators protect themselves legally, but is it ethical for a software product to effectively encourage users to break a law that is itself unethical?

(IANAL)

<comment><USER3> So what's the difference between this and the whole Mojang 'scrolls' debacle? Seems pretty strange Bethesda would let this fly compared to simply naming your name Scrolls.

<comment><USER4> Trademark versus copyright.

Also, my guess is that a court would reject the idea that you could trademark as common a word as "scrolls," and Mojang simply conceded to avoid a costly legal battle.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge what I feel is the greatest FOSS reimplementation of a game engine: OpenTTD[1].

I'm sure many here fondly remember Transport Tycoon Deluxe, but for those who don't know it, imagine Sim City but only the transportation side of things (sea, air, road and rail.) The cities grow organically and you need to connect them with each other and industries dotted around the map.

It also has multiplayer which is really fun if you want to work either with or against others.

It seems the game is really enjoyable for analytical / engineering types, and I still love to play it after over a decade since I found it.

Nowadays, OpenTTD is available via most popular distros' package managers, along with free graphic and sound assets so you can jump right in[2].

[1]: [https://www.openttd.org/en/](https://www.openttd.org/en/)

[2]:

      pacman -S openttd openttd-opengfx openttd-opensfx
      apt install openttd openttd-opengfx openttd-opensfx
      yum install openttd openttd-opengfx

<comment><USER6> Sounds like a more detailed version of Mini Metro: [http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/](http://dinopoloclub.com/minimetro/)

<comment><USER5> Apples and oranges, I'm not sure people who enjoy Mini Metro would automatically take to TTD. Mini Metro is a fun little abstract puzzler, wheras TTD is a fairly complex simulation.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It's very good, runs the original game and both expansions very well. Mod compatibility isn't complete yet, but they're working on it. It's great to be back in that world, and to be able to play natively on a Mac or Linux machine.

Edit:The most important mod,Tamriel Rebuilt works flawlessly. [http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org](http://www.tamriel-rebuilt.org)

</comment><comment><USER8> Another group of developers are remaking Morrowind using Skyrim's engine. They call it "The Elders Scroll Renewal Project".

Their latest dev video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ldn6JQ0o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KB_ldn6JQ0o)

<comment><USER9> On balance I wish I hadn't clicked that link. It's impressive. :)

I adored Morrowind and spent a ridiculous amount of time in it. I liked Skyrim, but regretted the lack of depth of quests and in the world which is built around you being a special snowflake.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I loved that Morrowind, especially the music, and the fact that you could see the stars at night. A very immersive game.

However today it might look a bit dated, I hope for this project that can bring some cool upgrades to the Morrowind experience as well as that it can thrive from a legal standpoint.

Now, I never really enjoyed the fact you could enter a shop and steal from it, and then sell it to the vendor. In Oblivion they fixed that.

<comment><USER11> From memory you couldn't. The owner would say something like hey that's mine and you would gain a bounty instantly and guards would chase you.

<comment><USER10> You could if you sold items from one vendor to another vendor, e.g: from another town.

<comment><USER12> Yes but in the long-term this screwed you hard. If you ever stole e.g. a diamond from one trader you could no longer sell that trader diamonds. Even after years and dozens of looted diamonds you still couldn't sell diamonds there.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It's awesome to see free software games being made, and it's pretty cool that someone decided to reimplement one of the best open world games made. Finally I might be able to play it on my GNU/Linux machine.

<comment><USER14> This is only a free software game engine, not a free software game.

<comment><USER13> However, they plan to expand the free software editor to the point where you could create fully free game assets. So while it doesn't have that _yet_, it's on the pre-1.0 roadmap.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Awesome to see this project here! It also comes with an open source creation kit that allows for standalone (non mod) games to be built with no Morrowind associations. The whole thing runs on top of Open Scene Graph, and is multi- platform out of the box. Their GitHub has some useful information as well: [https://github.com/OpenMW/openmw](https://github.com/OpenMW/openmw)

</comment><comment><USER16> This is something that makes me extremely happy. I can't wait until someone tries something like this for FO3/NV as these are my favorite games.

Hopefully then I can jurry rig some kind of coop system into the game.

I can also be sure that my favorite game will be supported on all future hardware I run, fix any bugs myself, and keep it going until I die. Without VMs of course.

This is very important to me as these sorts of things aren't like books or movies. People who don't game might not understand this. It's more like a really really long game of chess that gets you purposefully emotionally invested in certain characters. I think I'd feel emotionally sick if I lost the ability to be able to start Fallout 3/NV and I don't even play it that often due to college and work.

<comment><USER7> There have been fleeting little explorations into co-op with openmw: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq6bAEQ0fyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq6bAEQ0fyg). It's lower priority for now than complete mod compatibility, but an obvious and awesome goal.

<comment><USER16> Yes it is an awesome goal. Great to see it.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you develop sites targeting IE in 2019? - <AUTHOR> For various reasons, I have to support IE (11) in my work on a large React/Redux/Bootstrap app, using fairly standard Babel transpiration and polyfills.
I'm interested to hear how others in similar situations manage this problem - questions like:
Do you develop IE-first or have it as part of a testing checklist?
What have you learned about performance optimization for the IE VM?
Are there alternatives to the very slow F12 devtools?
And any other tips you've collected while supporting the browser. <comment><USER2> IE11? You lucky stiff. I'm still supporting IE6 (and getting hazard pay for it). I do it with lots of progressive enhancement, handwritten JS, profanity, and monthly pub crawls. By default the apps I build don't even do AJAX; the baseline is HTTP GET and POST to a REST API with full-page refreshes.</comment>


A wander through a weird landscape to the heart of compilation [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://venge.net/graydon/talks/CompilerTalk-2019.pdf <comment> no-such-address The information and know-how in this talk is amazing.

It would be interesting to know the author's thoughts about other early influential software in the early PC era, such as the UCSD P-system (was UCSD Pascal an early version of Turbo Pascal?) and Microsoft Basic (fitting the whole interpreter, including floating point arithmetic emulation into 6.5K of RAM on an Intel 8080 seems like a minor miracle today.)

<comment><USER2> For those that want to know more about how Turbo Pascal came to be, there are a very interesting interviews with Anders.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JckLuXcovl8&feature=youtu.be...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JckLuXcovl8&feature=youtu.be&t=10m)

[https://behindthetech.libsynpro.com/001-anders-hejlsberg- a-c...](https://behindthetech.libsynpro.com/001-anders-hejlsberg-a-craftsman- of-computer-language)

[https://www.welcometothejungle.co/fr/articles/anders- hejlsbe...](https://www.welcometothejungle.co/fr/articles/anders-hejlsberg- microsoft-career)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> This excludes the world of high-power JITing like JSC and HotSpot server. It's possible to have an "all the optimizations" compiler outside the ahead of time space.

<comment><USER4> Specimen #5 V8

JavaScript compiler in Chrome, Node.

Multi-target (7), multi-tier JIT. Optimizations mix of classical stuff and dynamic language stuff from Smalltalk.

Multiple generations of optimization and IRs. Always adjusting for sweet spot of runtime perf vs. compile time, memory, maintenance cost, etc

Recently added slower (non-JIT) interpreter tier, removed others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Trying to figure out who the author is, but it's not very clear. Probably Graydon Hoare? Can someone confirm?

<comment><USER6> The URL is [http://venge.net/](http://venge.net/) _graydon_ /talks/CompilerTalk-2019.pdf

Edit in case it wasn't obvious: it seems unlikely that Graydon Hoare would upload someone else's talk on his homepage together with his other talks.

<comment><USER5> That's the clue I used, but I didn't find it very obvious which "Graydon" the URL referred to. I've never heard of Graydon Hoare before but he seemed to match up with the content of the slides. For some reason he seems to be intentionally obscure about who he is on the website, but I see now that there is a link to a named Github profile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> That was awesome!

(Though it doesn't mention Prolog compilation research.)</comment>


Searching for Type-Error Messages - <AUTHOR> http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/blerner/papers/seminal_pldi2007.html#

<comment><AUTHOR> For a quick overview, check out the slides:

[http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/blerner/papers/seminal_pl...](http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/blerner/papers/seminal_pldi2007.ppt)</comment>


The "Feedization" Of The Web - <AUTHOR> http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/09/the-feedization.html

<comment><USER2> And yet most of our feed readers are still pretty dumb. There is a lot of opportunity for improving the feed experience.

I love Google Reader; it is my primary feed reader. However, there are a few things about and every other reader that I have tried which really really bothers me:

It doesn't filter my feeds for me. I have to click through every story on every feed. Otherwise the feed counts go sky high and things get buried. There has got to be a better way.

First of all, I want clustering. If two articles with similar words from two sites about the same topic have a link to the same target, then there is a pretty good chance I don't need to read that story twice. Sort that out for me Google News style :-)

Second, I want to be able to differentiate between "I want to read everything" vs "I like to read these when I have time". Right now, I read EVERYTHING that comes in through Google Reader. When that "inbox" is empty, I hit sites like reddit and HN. I just skim the front page and find some stuff to entertain me. Then, I move on. I do something similar with Facebook feeds, although I sometimes miss feed items from my best friends when I want to see EVERYTHING (or at least all their shares and comments; stuff they want replies to). We need a way for casual-reading style feeds to be integrated with our "must read" feeds.

<comment><USER3> I think it's important to consider Fred's clarification in the comments section: "when i say "feeds" I don't really mean RSS/google reader/blogines/netvibes they are part of what i am talking about, but just a part of it the facebook news feed is the biggest thing out there today in terms of aggregating info you'll likely care about and that's a very mainstream service. twitter and the smart aggregators like techmeme and hacker news are also a big part of what i am talking about and they are also easier to consume than RSS for the mainstream user. i am sorry i wasn't more clear about that in my post."

So I think Fred's point is simply that there is a trend towards using feeds for finding relevant stuff on the web over search. And that there might be monetization opportunities latching onto that trend.</comment></comment>


Can porn be copyrighted? One file-sharing defendant says no - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/02/can-porn-be-copyrighted-one-file-sharing-defendant-says-no.ars <comment><USER2> Five days ago, there was a lengthy discussion about this on the torrentfreak version of the story:

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3559185>

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you</comment></comment>


Escher's "Ascending and Descending" in LEGO - <AUTHOR> http://www.andrewlipson.com/escher/ascending.html#

<comment><AUTHOR> With the real-life example of "Waterfall" being discussed ...

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2233584>

I thought this deserved another outing.

SPOILER ALERT - the page does show how it's done.</comment>


In Greece, Property Is Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/opinion/in-greece-property-is-debt.html?em_pos=small&emc=edit_dk_20161102&nl=dealbook&nl_art=17&nlid=65508833&ref=headline&te=1&referer= <comment><USER4> Let's get facts straight:

The state property tax in Greece is 0% for property up to €200K. Then 0.2 to 1% from €200K to €5M. Then 2% above €2M.

Property taxes are hardly killing the Greek economy and especially not for the poor or the middle class. On the contrary, Greeks are paying very little. The problem is that Greeks used to have much more property than for example Northern Europeans.

For comparison, in Denmark the property tax is 1% up to €406,961. Then 3% for values above that. In addition to this there is a local tax on land value, which is generally 1.6-3.4%.

<comment><USER5> Numbers don't really say anything if you don't explain who decides them.

Here are two scenarios for you

1)I live in Greece and get 400 Euros a month and barely break even. I live in a house (inherited by my parents) that would fetch probably 90.000 in the market. Government says that it really costs 300.000 euros. I get taxed for it even though I cannot really afford it.

2)I am unemployed and live with my parents. They have a pension of 600 euros a month. My parents die. I inherit their house. The house was built in the 60's and is on an expensive island. Government says that the house values 500.000 and I get taxed even though I have no money at all on my own.

Basically the Greek government is unable to tax you directly (i.e. on the money you really make) and instead tries to guess your income by looking at the house. There are several cases however where your current house says nothing about how much money you actually make.

<comment><USER6> Wouldn't the solution in either case be to sell the house and move somewhere you can find a job?

<comment><USER5> Nobody would buy the house (apart from foreigners) because it is now linked to the tax that everybody wants to avoid. Also cash flow is a big problem for everybody so it is hard to find somebody that has 90.000 in cash and also willing to buy it.

Move to where? Another city? Another country? Unemployment is everywhere in Greece.

I am not even mentioning the sentimental factor of being forced to sell your parents house for no particular reason.

Also if it was that easy to move somewhere else and find a job, you would have done it already (you would not wait for the government to create this tax and then think about it)

Here is a third scenario for you reading pleasure

3) I am 75 years old living with my wife who is 70 years old in the house that we bought in 1950. We are both retired farmers. Our pension is 500 euros in total. In 1950 the area we selected for our house turned out to be a popular one (in 1950 it was just an empty field).

Government passes the law and our house has a value of 500.000 (because of the area around it). Now out of the blue we have to pay property tax. What do we do?

<comment><USER6> > Nobody would buy the house

If you put this hypothetical 90k euro house up for sale at a public auction tomorrow, what would it sell for? 50k? 70k? Real assets are usually sale-able, albeit perhaps for less than the owner thinks the asset is worth.

> Move to where? Another city? Another country? Unemployment is everywhere in > Greece.

Since Greece is still in the EU, you can move to any member country right? UK, Germany, France? Certainly there must be places in the EU where the economy is better and there are more opportunities. People have been migrating around the world chasing economic opportunities for thousands of years. A million Syrians just traveled through Greece on their way north in search of this.

> Government passes the law and our house has a value of 500.000 (because of > the area around it). Now out of the blue we have to pay property tax. What > do we do?

It seems that what has effectively happened is that the Greek Government has decided to confiscate a large part of the country's wealth through extremely high property tax rates. As other posters on this thread have mentioned, if the tax rate is 1% but the appraised value is 3x the actual market value, then the real tax rate is 3% and your Government is just playing games to try and hide the confiscation.

Personally I would vote for revolution - national default, totally new political leadership - and start to rebuild the country from scratch. Anything is better than decades of externally enforced austerity crippling a country's spirit as reflected in everything I read these days about Greece.

<comment><USER7> _Personally I would vote for revolution - national default, totally new political leadership - and start to rebuild the country from scratch. Anything is better than decades of externally enforced austerity crippling a country 's spirit as reflected in everything I read these days about Greece._

Looking at the democratically elected politicians/governments in Greece in the last decades I don't know where a _totally new political leadership [edit: which would be interested and capable of 'rebuilding the country']_ should come from. It's not that the electorate didn't consistently vote for the political leaderships which are/were, at least partially, responsible for the situation Greece finds itself in right now.

<comment><USER8> >It's not that the electorate didn't consistently vote for the political leaderships which are/were, at least partially, responsible for the situation Greece finds itself in right now.

That isn't really true. In both of the previous elections they voted for parties promising to end austerity.

In both cases it wasn't even as if the parties didn't want to end austerity but when they tried they were basically threatened with economic catastrophe (shutting payment systems in the entire country, indefinitely).

Last year they fired a kind of warning shot. Greek banks had to shut down for six days, cash machines only let you remove a small amount each day, capital controls were imposed. That could have been continued indefinitely.

Eventually Syriza wilted. Their mistake was assuming in the negotiations that the Troika's primary concern was getting their debts repaid. It wasn't. They just wanted greece to knuckle under and do as it was told.

The problem isn't than an elected government couldn't extricate the country from the Euro and return the country to growth, it's that kind of project would take 9 months minimum and during that entire time the country is vulnerable to the ECB flipping the switch on their economy and "turning off" Greek savings and "turning off" international trade and effecting instant 3rd world status (and not even 'good' third world status).

In effect, Greece has been converted into a puppet state that rubber stamps European Commission and ECB legislation. They issue diktats to Greece who rubber stamps them, and they're not even really pretending it's about getting paid back any more.

<comment><USER9> >shutting off all forms of payment in the entire country indefinitely

Technically the ECB threatens to stop providing emergency credit. That Greece has made itself completely dependent on emergency liquidity from the ECB is the country's _own silly fault_. Are ordinary Greeks to blame? Yes, they're responsible for the people they elect.

That said I don't think the current situation makes much sense. The odds are high that the debt will never be paid back and that Greece will never have a developed-country government. There have been some promising developments recently, but I'm sure we can all agree that Greece should never have been admitted to the Eurozone and maybe not even the EU.

<comment><USER10> As a Greek I'm aghast by fellow know-it-all Greeks who bought in in this _we deserver what we 're going through_. And it's not just random commentators on HN, it is an entire political class.

> Are ordinary Greeks to blame? Yes, they're responsible for the people they > elect.

G.Papandreou who campaigned with the MOTO "there are enough money for everyone", went around Europe calling Greeks crooked by default. As if every Greek is a crooked and tax-evading[1] citizen. Then came along Pagkalos of course, but the same MOTO is rhetoric is re-played time and again by politicians, just to name a few: A. Georgiadis at "Enikos", A. Loverdos before him, E. Venizelos and many others have replayed this recurring theme.

I don't believe that there is another country's population, who has received so much systemic brainwash into believing that it is it's own fault.

You want to tell me that when the Minister of Finance tells me that _our banks are safe_ (2008), you would expect from the 60-year old public worker to understand that he is lying and believe otherwise? I don't.

So again to answer your question:

> Are ordinary Greeks to blame? Yes, they're responsible for the people they > elect.

Fuck no! It's easy to be pissed with the prior generation but it is a simplistic and stupid approach.

> Technically the ECB threatens to stop providing emergency credit.

I won't enter into details because I'm bored. I've have written thousands of word regarding Greece, the EU and ECB here on HN and honestly I'm tired. The ECB was created as an _apolitical_ instrument and it's been since then used time and again (Ireland, Greece, Portugal) as a political tool by French and German politician to save their bankrupt banks.

Do you have any idea what is really happenning here[2] ? It's not about Greece, so hatred should not cloud your judgement. If you don't know what is happening in this instance, please gets your fact STRAIGHT please.

ADDENDUM: The only politician who got it right about the ECB was M. Thatcher in her last speech in the house of commons: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZf7cLhPG8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZZf7cLhPG8) \- it's outstanding how a right-wing, libertarian politician understood, what French, Greek, Italian, etc. Socialists failed to see...

[1] The problematic relationship between Greek citizens and the Greek goes back to 1821 and it's almost exclusively the state's fault. There are cultural and historical reasons why this is, however, the state still today sees the average as tax-evader a priori.

[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7FTH_ZIsU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2x7FTH_ZIsU)

<comment><USER11> > I don't believe that there is another country's population, who has received > so much systemic brainwash into believing that it is it's own fault.

The German people have had a significant amount of education about their culpability in the events of the second World War.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I live in Greece and things are bad but as a matter of fact, the real problem is that we ,the Millennials, feel that we're screwed because we compare ourself with our parents. Our parents and our politicians really scammed the whole europe into believing that we have a strong economy but the truth is that everyone avoided paying taxes, they got huge loans that could never pay of and our politicians where really corrupted ,as well. The result was that our parents made a fair amount of wealth without having the skills and the education of the rest of europeans. They worked hard, but they lived in a bubble. I believe that the biggest problem in Greece is that right now we are in a declining economy and probably wont succeed economically as our parents did. We are going from high to low and we cant see whats following.

<comment><USER13> Went to Crete a few years ago and was surprised by the number of (what seemed residential) buildings with unfinished roof/terrace, but otherwise being used and perfectly normal. You could see the concrete pillars with the steel bars coming out on top.

Imagine it is some kind of way to dodge taxation since it is still considered unfinished?

Have also read Michael Lewis' "Boomerang", which also has a lot of similar anecdotes about Greece (and Iceland, Ireland, etc).

<comment><USER14> How many years ago? You might be experiencing the property boom - <USER2> under construction with cheap loans from a careless ECB. It's not a way to dodge taxes. Many of those constructions were finished, others stayed halfway. What many of them have in common is they are looking for buyers.

<comment><USER13> This was fairly recent, 2013. The houses were otherwise perfectly good. Painted, with normal windows, normal doors, etc. Didn't seem like a they had been "completed" on a best effort basis (non-matching cheap windows, dodgy doors, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> saiya-jin > "And yet, the leftist government recently proposed adding further documents > and costs to selling or renting property — a compulsory "energy performance" > certificate and a civil engineer's assurance that there are no illegal > constructions."

Not an expert, nor a citizen/resident, but these seem like a basic things to do. Parents back home had to provide same things recently just for renovation, and much more.

There are laws to address this, albeit considered kind of a joke in southern Europe for a long time. People would build whatever they wanted, hack together unsafe constructions to cut costs, then bribe an official to validate all of that. Then earthquake comes and people die. Standards for buildings are reactions to disasters, I don't see anything wrong with it.

Or am I missing something?

<comment><USER15> Energy performance certificate, non-toxicity certificate, surface certificate, non-pledge certificate... The basics of a real estate sale in France - <USER3> make the transaction more transparent and I'm glad they are mandatory, both as a former buyer and a former seller... They remove a lot of the friction that distrust creates. Framing it as "red tape" that "threaten to turn the country into an endless 'property graveyard' where nothing will be sold, nothing will be bought and nothing will be rented" is laughable !

<comment><USER16> That statement is a little dramatic, but these sorts of things have severe impact.

Upstate NY is a great example -- property taxes are oppressive, and while property does sell, the value is kneecapped because the tax costs are so high. In my city, a house in a nice area valued at $200k (which is a 3-4 BR, 1-2 BA house) is taxed around $6000-6500. So a typical homebuyer who needs a mortgage automatically loses around $550/mo in buying power. In a suburban area, those taxes are $4500-5000, which boosts the value.

At the macro level, it's more insidious. With multifamily property, there's little incentive to maintain property, so the business model in urban areas is to suck as much value out of the property as possible, stop paying the taxes and let the county sell it at auction. The lower tier of scum landlord buys these properties, restores them to minimum code compliance and rents them to subsidized tenants.

<comment><USER17> The first part at least sounds like things are working like they are supposed to work. The same thing happens with interest rates. But we wouldn't say interest rates "kneecap" property value, would we? They're just a fact of the market, and mostly just alter where the money flows to. The buyer commits to $1,000/mo in payments- with high interest, the bank gets more and the seller gets less. With low interest, the bank gets less and the seller gets more.

Why is there little incentive to maintain property? Just because it's worth "only" $200k?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The system is fucked beyond repair.

There is no 'Greek' system or 'English' system - it's all the same, it's all interconnected - so someone in Europe must _live_ the consequences of political decisions in China or the United States or any other country, really.

And that's to be expected, because the system was not 'engineered', but hacked together in time - sometimes in response to crises, sometimes influenced by insane political promises or compromises, sometimes by greed or fear.

Yet we try to fix the problems in each individual 'state' \- this might work for some problems, but for others - the ones faced by countries such as Greece - it's hopeless - the solution (if any) might not be in Greece at all.

This is the rare case when refactoring just doesn't cut it, we need a complete rewrite of the whole thing.

<comment><USER19> I think faults in each country have one thing in common - socialism and excessive bureaucracy that comes with it.

<comment><USER20> Socialism is a spectrum. Are you talking about full-on soviet communism? The Scandinavian model? Venezuela? The national health service in the UK?

I'm don't really think that socialism == bureaucracy == failure is a cogent argument.

<comment><USER19> You can compare socialism to cancer. Some forms of it are terminal some are not, but it is not sustainable thing to have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I found the OECD's executive summary for Greece (2016) for context:

#The economy is gradually recovering from a deep recession but high social costs persist

Following a deep and prolonged depression, during which real GDP fell by 26%, the economy is projected to grow again in the course of 2016 and 2017, but a full recovery will take time. Competitiveness has improved markedly, but exports and investment remain weak. The unemployment rate, at 25%, is still high despite a moderate decline since 2013. The depression has pushed many people into poverty and income inequality has increased. Tax and benefit reforms have materially improved the budget position, but the burden of adjustment has been uneven and public debt is still very high. The banking sector has recently been recapitalised, but credit creation remains weak due to the high burden of non-performing loans on banks' balance sheets, and reduced demand for loans.

#Significant structural reforms have been legislated, but their mix and implementation were uneven

Greece has implemented significant labour market reforms, but progress has been less on reducing oligopoly power, the regulatory burden and weaknesses in the public administration, due to administrative capacity constraints, little ownership of past reform programmes and vested interests. The depressed economy, lack of bank finance and remaining structural impediments are holding back the modernisation of the Greek economy.

#Stronger exports and investment are a key to sustained recovery

Remaining structural barriers and administrative burdens raise costs of exporting. Greece's integration in global value chains is low due to insufficient investment in human and knowledge-based capital, low inward FDI, the small size of enterprises and the manufacturing sector and weak infrastructure. Network industries have been liberalised but the still restrictive regulation of the energy and transport sectors reduces trade in both goods and services.

</comment><comment><USER21> Some examples of inheritance would be either old houses at the village or small olive groves.

Many old houses at the village are derelict and the small olive groves have little financial value. The olive groves are generally small because they have been divided among the children through the generations. If an olive grove is not tended for 5-10 years, it becomes unusable and costly to fix.

<comment><USER22> > Many old houses at the village are derelict

Ooh, damn, that might require some time investment and manual labour! What is this, the 20th century? Dump this rotten crap!

> If an olive grove is not tended for 5-10 years, it becomes unusable and > costly to fix.

Ooh, damn, that might require some time investment and manual labour! What is this, the 20th century? Get outta town.. ;D

<comment><USER23> It also requires capital, which is hard to get in Greece. Who is going to lend them money for the repairs?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Gee, in the US, all property is debt as well. (Property tax.) So you don't really own your property--if you fail to pay, you will ultimately lose possession.

[http://taxation.lawyers.com/property-tax/when-you-cant- pay-y...](http://taxation.lawyers.com/property-tax/when-you-cant-pay-your- property-taxes.html)

<comment><USER25> There are tax exempt properties like farm land and of course property owned by non profits.

Not sure why countries like india leave property tax on the table.

<comment><USER26> India does have property tax.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax#India](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax#India)

<comment><USER25> You are right that it exists. But collections are about 5x less than oecd countries. [http://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2015/03/ispwp1321.pdf](http://icepp.gsu.edu/files/2015/03/ispwp1321.pdf)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> This is what happens when you allow uncontrolled and unregulated asset transfers. There's a reason that pretty much any index/stock in the world freezes when the daily drop exceeds a certain threshold (i.e. Japan, JPX, has a limit of usually ~7% [1]).

This prevents panic selling and even though seems like a "delaying-the- inevitable-drop" cop-out, it really does work.

Greece Government are stupid as hell for letting everybody sell their homes all at once. Mass selling off in a region will just cause the housing market to death spiral, just like it does with stocks.

[1][http://www.jpx.co.jp/english/equities/trading/domestic/06.ht...](http://www.jpx.co.jp/english/equities/trading/domestic/06.html))

<comment><USER28> You cannot reasonably charge high property taxes and then stop people from sell property they do not want.

<comment><USER29> By imposing high property taxes you make selling harder.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Apart from inheritance, the parents can also set up a form of "parental donation" of their property to their children, but continue to make full use of the property (live on the property or keep all the rent) as long as they are alive.

And the difference between "inheritance" and "parental donation", is that the latter was set up decades ago when it was cheap to do so.

What you are reading in this article is cases where they did not plan for the future.

In addition, the article does not provide information about the condition of the property. In many cases, the property would be an old house at a village that may not habitable or small olive groves that have little value.

<comment><USER30> > What you are reading in this article is cases where they did not plan for > the future.

Weird how that sentence became what it is with the benefit of hindsight. If things had gone the other way, and inheritance was cheaper than parental donation, you'd be saying "those chumps donated when it was more expensive and did not plan for the future".

It's easy to plan for the future when you already know what it will be. In other cases, I wouldn't be so absolute.

<comment><USER21> The wording could have been better.

My stronger point in the reply should be my hunch that many of the inheritances may not be profitable enough to pay the inheritance tax. There should be an article that dives into those rejected inheritances and figure out what exactly was not accepted.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The article mentions the word "tax" 14 times, but it never says what it actually is.

How bad is it?

<comment> drunken-serval [http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Greece/Taxes- and-C...](http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Europe/Greece/Taxes-and-Costs)

It looks like property tax tops out at 2% annually of assessed value. This is similar to tax rates in Wisconsin, but if they play the same games in Greece that some local governments do, the properties are assessed well above anything you could sell the property for.

<comment><USER32> They probably do. My apartment was made in 1963, 63sqm (670sqft). "Zone price" (i.e. what the government considers the price of 1 sqm of development in a certain region) is 1100 euros, building age multiplier for that is 0.60 so we end with a 660 euro/sqm pric, for a total assessment of 41580 euros.

I'd be lucky if I got half of that If I actually tried to sell it at the moment.

<comment><USER33> What area are you in? Compared to Seattle/Portland/San Diego prices, 40k euros seems cheap for a 1963 670sqft apt. A similar house in Tacoma would run 110k euros right now, and it is a terrible location.

<comment><USER32> It's in Kallithea, a generic south-European concrete-jungle urban center. Also, I'm not sure it's fair to compare property values between the US and Greece. The average person working on the private sector would be lucky if he made $10000/year at this point in time.

<comment><USER33> Perhaps property value is in line then if 40k euros is an inflated price, I think 110k euros in Tacoma is a price too high for that area myself, the average income down there is around 22k euros a year for a working person [1].

[1] - [http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/washington/tacoma](http://www.bestplaces.net/economy/city/washington/tacoma)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> On the subject of "law courts", I wanted to ask: Are Greeks able to even (practically) read the codified laws and regulations of their country online?

I ask because this is still pretty difficult in America, as most state and local law publishers do not publish them as (free) ebooks and make it hard to use their websites for anything but a reference. (I.e., it is difficult to read the law through and through online, as versus looking up individual sections.)

<comment><USER5> No they are not able.

Lawyers are the ones who have all the power on this aspect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Half of Europe has dreamworld house prices which are unsustainable. As the boomers die out, the demographic changes are going to annihilate the fools today, taking out 450k for a bedsit. I have to say, I am looking forward to the peasants-turned-property-magnates getting a rude awakening :)

</comment><comment><USER36> If you have no money even to pay the property taxes, what money do you have to even improve the economy with that property? Should we praise that the lands just stay there with no output?

Property taxes have this interesting economic plus side: It stops being profitable to just _amass wealth_ , instead, you have to use it to create wealth in order to keep it.

Also, unlike what people in the comments are trying to make of it, countries high property taxes in EU are in good economic condition, like Luxembourg and the UK where they are respectively 1.5x and 2x what they are in Greece. In fact all the countries with high property taxes from OECD are amongst the top economic performers of OECD.

[https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax-on-property.htm](https://data.oecd.org/tax/tax- on-property.htm)

It should be clear just from that, that there is absolutely no correlation between high property taxes and a bad economy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Funny to see so many commenters here making suggestions (e.g. "just sell the property") that assume Greece has a well-functioning economy, when the problem is that Greece doesn't have a well-functioning economy.

</comment><comment><USER38> If the tax is more than the sale price, clearly the tax system. Tax should be limited to a fraction of the sale price, say no more than a third. That seems like a common-sense reform to do.

</comment><comment><USER39> Why have taxes been rising? To pay off all that debt?

<comment><USER40> Austerity (deep cuts to government services) and tax rises were the conditions imposed on Greece as part of a series of financial bailouts from various national banks around the EU. The Greek people had riots over them, and a change of government in September 2015, before there was a consensus that there was absolutely no other option but to go along with the steps required in order to get the bailout money.

<comment><USER41> Yet Greece is still overspending in regards to propping up its social security compared to other EU nations. Courts have regularly blocked reform attempts.

So now they have both high unemployment and high taxes, the latter discourages if not out right prevents new businesses from starting. You cannot recover any economy by taxing your way out of your malaise

<comment><USER42> > Courts have regularly blocked reform attempts.

That is quite simply a lie. Recent GR governments have not pushed for pension or social security reform, only cuts in spending, all of which the Parliament approved and set into effect _immediately_. As far as I know they're all still in effect.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> So as a foreigner, now would be a good time to buy some Greek real estate?

<comment><USER5> In my opinion yes. In fact I would tell you to wait because prices may become even lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> NYT == Paywall == they don't want me to read the story.

I'll gladly enjoy the comments, but this is my protest at allowing sources that are paywalls (except, perhaps, if a given story is in a fully public section).

</comment><comment><USER45> Greek economy was a scam. There is really no way to help them now. They fooled the entire world to get the unearned prosperity of the 00s.

<comment><USER21> This is a superficial comment. How does downvoting work here?

edit: (requires karma level > 500)

<comment><USER46> Downvoted it for you.

Greeks didn't scam anybody, on the contrary, they were scammed by EU leaders and bankers. After signing the EU pacts, there was little their politicians could do to avert the catastrophe (and what little they could, they still didn't.)

<comment><USER45> Well, their politicians rigged the books to get into the treaties in the first place. Things won't be so catastrophic for them (as they weren't for anyone else in 2008-2009) if they didn't report lies on their financial well-being to get accepted.

Why doesn't thing go bad for Poland? Or Czech Republic? Because their finances are solid, not based on vaporware, and they don't lie to the world and themselves to get short-term benefits. And they actually work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> This is not only about Greece, a house is a basic necessity of live, wether you can find a job or not. Governments should cap the price per square meter so a house will always be available for everyone.

As it is now you cannot really buy a house, you need a mortgage for live and work your entire life to pay interest. If this continues every house in the entire world will become unending debt and ever more unattainable, except for the rich of course.

This is also why basic income could never work in practice, as the house prices keep increasing you'd also need to increase the basic income. And where goes the money? Indeed, to the rich property owners..

<comment><USER48> Price controls are a terrible solution except in special and temporally limited circumstances, e.g. total war. Much better to make construction as easy and cheap as possible, i.e. no quantitative limits on it.

> This is also why basic income could never work in practice, as the house > prices keep increasing you'd also need to increase the basic income. And > where goes the money? Indeed, to the rich property owners..

If that actually happens, then it's pretty simple to fund basic income entirely from property taxes.

<comment><USER47> > Price controls are a terrible solution

I never mentioned price controls in general.

In Auckland, New Zealand, investors are buying property and houses en masse. They blow up the market price for profit. In the news you can read that most people born now in New Zealand will likely never be able to buy a house in their lives, and this is a very hot issue there right now. It has never been this bad and it only gets worse every day.

If the price per square meter never exceeds for example 0.25% of the average minimum income, most people should be able to own a house. Property owners could than make profit on the quality of a house, which is fair enough for now, but not anymore on the square meter property price.

How can it be that you are born on this planet and not being able to ever have your own place? Because it is all owned and inherited by a handful of people that took profit of a flawed system?

<comment><USER48> > In Auckland, New Zealand, investors are buying property and houses en masse.

That isn't exactly a bad problem to have--if free construction is allowed and property taxes (or better yet, land value taxes) aren't constrained, it would be fairly straightforward to fund a significant portion of the governments' budgets, plus a basic income or rent subsidy, by a taxing foreign investors.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How I get my employees to work 80 hours a week - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/sb-growth/how-i-get-my-employees-to-work-80-hours-a-week/article27047497/ <comment><USER3> I find it really hard to believe that anyone can actually "work" for 80 hours a week. Especially in mentally taxing work like designing and implementing software. That is something close to 9am-9pm 7 days a week. You pretty much have to be heavily medicated to even make it out to the other side if that. Maybe it's possible if you simply spend several hours a day in meetings or wasting time, but that is another issue altogether.

I have a sneaking suspicion that these 80 hour work weeks people brag about actually boil down to an anecdote about a terrible week they once had when they needed to get the job done quickly or lose their company. People that don't really understand what this kind of work entails just perpetuate these ideas because of some perverse idea of work ethic they get from reading about irrational people like Elon Musk.

I've got some breaking news for this "CEO" if he is for real and actually thinks an 80 hour work week is in any way a decent idea; the thing you are creating is not that important. You might think it is, but you are wrong. That is the hard but certain truth, and I truly hope you learn that in the least painful way possible.

If the Earth was suddenly going to be destroyed by an asteroid in just a few weeks, you'd be right to sacrifice the physical and mental well being of your brilliant team in ways like this to stop it. Even at that point you'd be better off with rotating fresh minds to figure it out.

Long story short, you are lying or just kidding yourself. Either way, you are doing a bad thing for the world.

</comment><comment><USER4> As Dr. Phil might say, how's that working out for you? I'm sure Mr. Sandhu believes he's the most benevolent high-tech-sweatshop manager ever, but what are the _results_? How productive are those 80-hour weeks? What's the attrition rate? Health outcomes? Divorce rate? How about diversity, especially when it comes to hiring and retaining older workers? How do alumni feel once they've gained some distance?

It's easy to get a few kids to drink some Kool Aid. Whether they keep drinking it, get any benefit out of it, or remember the experience fondly, are all very different questions.

</comment><comment><USER5> I've worked at startups doing 80 hours a week, and currently keep myself strictly under 50 and I really haven't seen much of a difference in the amount of code I am able to ship.

Something about the feeling of having all the time in the world made me less focused I guess. When I have a deadline, and know that I won't be working through the weekend, I tend to still get it done on time.

Also, in my experience. The teams that work 40-50 hours/week seem to be more stable and of a higher caliber than the 70-80 hours per week crowd, but that's just from the 3-4 teams I've been a part of. I wouldn't say it's anything conclusive.

<comment><USER6> I've never seen a 60+ programmer workweek schedule that didn't start generating negative productivity through reduced quality, technical debt and poor design choices. In part, this is because high workloads are symptomatic of poor project planning, but it's also because overworked programmers make poor choices. Conversely, I've worked with companies that produced amazing, very high profile work under ridiculous deadlines and still got everyone out of the office by six. Obviously, limited crunch periods are unavoidable, but if your project plan assumes more than six to seven hours of productivity a day you're probably creating an unsustainable workload.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Am I correct in understanding that all this startup does is personal loans?

That's it?

That's going to "change the face of an entire industry"? I'm quite certain the bankers at your local Wells Fargo/Citi/Chase branch work 9-5 and underwrite personal loans all day long without working 80 hours a week. What on earth could these guys be working on that requires such an absurd work schedule?

I've done the 12 hour days as an early employee of a startup (and one significantly more interesting than this). I will never do it again. The math just doesn't make sense—I make substantially more money working at a big tech company and going home at 5 every day than I likely ever would at a startup. Why should I give up my personal life _and_ make less money?

<comment><USER8> The entire concept of 12 hour days working in front of a computer screen is a joke - the vast majority of people are going to spend 40-50% of that not working, and the remainder are going to be so unproductive from fatigue that they may as well have only worked 6 hours

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> From my perspective the startup world turned a corner on this a few years ago. Bragging or signalling about hours worked is no longer fashionable. That's why an article like this one produces an instant rage-thread with literally zero favorable comments: we're looking at light from a star that actually left several years ago, though the current article would probably have sounded tone-deaf even then.

It would be interesting to see accurate data on whether startup employees work fewer hours than they used to. I'd be surprised if they were by much; self- reported numbers were chronically inflated in the first place because it was fashionable to do so. What's new is the cultural consensus that maximizing raw hours is wrong and that raw hours don't equate to productivity. Those were always truisms, but they're truisms that the culture has now settled on, which seems good.

Edit: one trend that doesn't get commented on as much is the fragmentation of the workday: i.e. working hours are less likely to be in a single contiguous block and more likely to be scattered through the day, evenings, and weekends, even if total hours worked are no higher. The problem in this case isn't raw quantity, it's not getting away from work for a long-enough stretch and so not getting any regenerative context switch. Hopefully this will get discussed more and studied.

</comment><comment><USER10> I'd love to know how much he pays his employees.

Doing something you believe in is really fantastic but it's higher on the hierarchy of needs than "put food on my table" and "keep my spouse from resenting me for never being around". If you're working 80 hours a week, then you should be compensated for that. Financially.

A few months ago, a USAF Colonel came and gave an address to the employees at my job site. "I know you all do this for patriotism and love of your country," he said. Sure, those are reasons...#9 or #10 on my list, maybe, for dealing with the insanity of flight test. #1, as the great Randy Moss would have said, is "Straight cash, homie."

I wonder how highly Mr. Sandhu's employees would rate the mission to "truly reinvent banking" on their list of reasons for coming to work?

<comment><USER8> It's idiotic how companies always want people who are "insanely passionatiate" about their mission. It makes (slightly) more sense when you have 1-2 employees, but good luck finding 20+ people who have the skills you need AND are insanely passionate about empowering X to do Y through [buzzwords].

Actually it's not idiotic, it's dishonest. The reason they do it is so they can later frame everything in moral terms around the mission. Only working 60 hours? Not happy making 50% of market with .35% equity? You must not really believe in the mission!

<comment><USER11> "Only working 60 hours? Not happy making 50% of market with .35% equity? You must not really believe in the mission!"

Exactly. Now, there might be more money to make the goal happen and better if only the founders and VC's were similarly passionate rather than profit- motivated. ;)

<comment><USER8> That's the hippocracy of it. You can't have the "money is so unimportant to us, we're changing the world!" attitude while simultaneously screwing over your employees and taking the vast majority of the rewards

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I entertained a business minor while I was in school by taking a few intro courses. I ultimately chose against it because of a general ethos I felt that was also present in this article:

Given a large lecture hall of ~500 students, how many would agree that working your employees 80/hrs a week in an underpaid fashion is a stroke of genius that proves you to be a successful businessman/businesswomen?

I don't think their is a difference in character or morality between majors, passions, or what have you. I believe we teach a brand of capitalism in regards to business that is highly detrimental to society.

Furthermore I think this methodology is inferior to that of other models, models where workers are fairly compensated, maintain work balance, and ultimately are significantly more productive per/yr.

<comment><USER13> FWIW, I have one of those business minors, and I never got that feeling in them. But I went to a school that's fairly left-wing in general, even in the business department.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Wow this guy is fucking delusional. I can't believe he seriously thinks his employees are smiling every day, and that they aren't burnt out because they "believe in the mission"

</comment><comment><USER15> And again for all the people who seriously think this is a good idea:

[http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons](http://www.igda.org/?page=crunchsixlessons)

> There's a bottom-line reason most industries gave up crunch mode over 75 > years ago: > It's the single most expensive way there is to get the work > done.

<comment><USER16> (from the article)

 _working over 21 hours continuously is equivalent to being legally drunk_

Specific to the realm of programming, I wonder if the conclusion factors in Ballmer peak performance gains ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Here's a challenge to the entrepreneurs. Make your employees work 4h/6h per day.

Reduce distractions, reduce meetings, make communication asynchronous, optimise tasks.

Some people would be happier to work from 1pm to 6pm. Some others from 6am to Noon. Emails (or preferably something smarter) can be dealt with at other times

Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible.

<comment><USER13> _> Make decisions depend on the least amount of people possible._

I would suggest an alternative: make decisions depend on the right people, regardless of their number, and make the necessary information easily available and communication channels not require being face-to-face in all cases, but only the ones where it makes sense. (Which is not to embrace the techno-fetishistic idea that asynchronous communication is the be-all and end- all, but to use it appropriately. Meetings are not an inherent negative.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Wow, just wow.

Please someone do some journalism and go ask the employees what they think of this policy...

</comment><comment><USER19> As much as this headline is kind-of horrible, there are a couple of worthwhile points in there. It is true that believing in the company mission makes more hours tolerable. This is the main reason its easier to work long hours for yourself or your own startup than it is to work long hours for a company you don't own, and why the larger a company gets, the more demoralizing severe overtime can be.

But - people throw around numbers like 80 and 100+ easily, I'm not always convinced real-world numbers are as high as people claim they are. Having done some extended 80 hour crunches, I know first-hand that all life outside of work stops above 65-70 hours/week. At 80, you can still get 8 hours of sleep per day and have one meal away from work, maybe watch a single 30 or 45 minute TV show to relax, but almost nothing else. While it happens, it is not particularly sustainable. 100+ hours means you're eating into your sleep schedule.

I know first-hand that many people exaggerate their long hours in crunch times, and most crunches where people claimed 80, they were pulling more like 65-70. And I don't believe they are lying intentionally, its just that extra hours can be harder than you think, and the perception is you work more than you think you do. A studio I worked at measured work hours during crunch time and found most people work 10-20 hours less than they thought they did. I discovered that I wasn't working as many hours as I thought I was.

</comment><comment><USER20> 0.2 + 4.5n + 0.3n^2

Percentage loss of productivity where n is the number of hours over 8 per day, for a 5 day week.

e.g. for prolonged use of an 11 hour day :

0.2 + 4.5 x 3 + 0.3 x 9 = 16% loss of productivity over the whole week.

According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics - Bulletin No. 917 [1]

for more info see this research : [http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf](http://www.weblem.org/upload/OT1.pdf)

[1] [https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath...](https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/scribd/?title_id=4359&filepath=/docs/publications/bls/bls_0917_1948.pdf#scribd- open)

<comment><USER21> I'm going to cite this the next time I'm asked to work weekends.

<comment><USER20> Try it but it is only for prolonged overtime (I have just edited to link to the actual report)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Wow. That is insane. Hopefully his employees find a better place and he is never given a position of power again. How the hell does someone get away with not only doing this but advertising it?

</comment><comment><USER13> _> While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless._

The rewards are entirely endful for the people actually doing the work. What a _tool_.

</comment><comment><USER23> Keeping everyone on mission is incredibly valuable, but there is a finite amount of work you can and should extract from your employees.

Employers have a disproportionate amount of influence over the lives of the people under their employ. This should carry with it a sense of duty, or responsibility, to the well-being of their fellow human.

</comment><comment><USER24> I won't work at a company with an 80 hour work week; nor can I support a company that asks that of their employees.

</comment><comment><USER25> How do you get your employees to work 80 hours a week? Obviously you pay them now. Wait, you are paying then less? Then the title should be "how to take advantage of people."

</comment><comment><USER26> Eighty hours a week == "Burn 'em and turn 'em"

<comment> FLUX-YOU Eventually startups are going to screw the wrong guy and someone's going to walk back inside with a gun and nothing to lose.

At first I laughed, then I went back to look for a punch line, then I felt sorry for everyone at this company.

<comment><USER27> It's a Canadian company. Gun laws make that much less likely.

<comment><USER28> In Canada, employers can't fire as easily as the US, (just-cause vs. at-will employment) they actually have to document a nonperforming employee's performance to a much higher standard than necessary in the US.

So even though they don't have ready access to guns, the employment system is much fairer in Canada than the US, and therefore this also contributes to less workplace violence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I am truly sorry for anyone that is working 80 hours (with admittedly low pay) and has been convinced it's worth it because of how they're changing some industry. The industry will wait, your family won't.

</comment><comment><USER30> In Germany he would be committing a crime.

<comment><USER31> Actually, in most of European countries, AFAIK.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Employees: Don't sign a non-disparagement or release agreement when your employer burns you out.

It takes time to realize the true cost of a past employer's abuse on your career and your mental health. I've heard it can take multiple years to recover in some cases.

</comment><comment><USER33> > In the early days, the first task every new Grouplend employee had to > complete upon joining the team was assembling their own desks.

Really? Gropeland could have hired someone to assemble Ikea desks for $5-10 apiece, but instead they chose to haze new employees and waste their time. The previous tech boom did things better: when I showed up for a job, the desk was already there, the sysadmins slotted in a drive with the stuff I needed, and I was ready to do what I was hired to do in 5 minutes. People did what they did best, and we all went home for dinner.

</comment><comment><USER16> People criticize 80 hours and then I wonder about all the financial analysts in investment banking... aren't they putting in 100+ hour work weeks, at least for the first year or two?

<comment><USER4> Yes, they often are, but it's for a promise of money that would make even a Googler feel like a pauper. There's also less chance of the company disappearing out from under you, and there's a mostly-known end point. It's a very different risk/reward scenario, in which "paying dues" for a few years might make a lot more sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Let's see how the employees feel about sacrificing all that time when the founder has a rich exit, and the employees get crap while he retires in luxury.

</comment><comment><USER35> No jokes, but at first I was thinking it was a sarcastic blog post. I can't believe this is happening.

I won't really delve to talk about the employer, the company, the mentality and that other stuff. I'll keep it simple:

If you are working hard (like 80hours+) and doing anything to succeed (like assembling Ikea furniture), then maybe you should start your own business or a one-man consulting.

It pays off much better on the long run.

</comment><comment><USER36> If you have anyone working 80 hours a week, let alone people with families, you're a disgusting human being and I hope your startup fails.

</comment><comment><USER37> I worked on Capitol Hill and routinely worked 75-80 hour weeks. I did it because I was expected to, and I was expected to because it's Capitol Hill. The pay was laughable and I couldn't do it today, but looking back, sometimes working 80 hours is worth. In my humble opinion, most cases, it's not.

<comment><USER18> Ditto, I worked in Westminster Parliament for a bit and I can say, it was one of the few jobs where I actually relished going it at 6am and coming out at 10pm.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> For me it is not about the number of hours. You can be burnt working 10am to 5pm at a corporation and you can be extremely happy working on your own thing and doubling the hours. Ben Horowitz says that the difference between working for a good company and the rest relies on how you feel when you wake up in the morning. In a good company, you know that if you put good work, it is going to make a difference for you, for the company and hopefully for society in general. As long as there is a shared destiny (equity is split reasonably) and people believe in the mission, the work should be fulfilling.

<comment><USER21> And in a bad company, you wake up and wonder if anyone would notice if you took the day off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> I wonder if his employees read hacker news.

</comment><comment><USER40> Any answer to this is question besides "if they don't, they're fired" is being fundamentally dishonest about the nature of employment.

</comment><comment><USER41> As an entrepreneur, it took me a long time to realise that employees just don't care about the mission. They want to begrudgingly do their day's job, finish-up at 4:59PM, and then go home and do what they really want to do. They want the company to continue only so it will continue to pay their wage.

</comment><comment><USER42> Hmmm. It's almost as though they tailored the headline, pic, and article to piss off the working class Joe.

</comment><comment><USER43> Answer: Make sure your employees are of such low quality that their lack of experience and self-esteem ensures that they have few other choices.

</comment><comment><USER44> I hope this isn't a ridiculous question, but why not hire more people instead?

</comment><comment><USER45> New startup idea: Personal security for sociopathic CEOs like this when they inevitably cash out and burn all of their employees on their equity. They will be rich, but will have a huge list of people who they conned into destroying their lives that want them dead.

</comment><comment><USER46> Does he work 80 hours a week?!

<comment><USER28> Most likely. He probably sits at his desk and watches a bunch of CCTV monitors or the time clock management server making sure no one leaves early

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> Hey, it's your funeral!

</comment><comment><USER48> Translation for those who aren't used to the distorted language of arrogant assholes:

> "...it's not about work-life balance. Rather, it's about optimizing work- > life imbalance"

Translation: If I use the word "optimizing" in this sentence, the crushing work load I'm about to give you will seem like a rational choice rather than bare exploitation.

> "Long nights and weekends spent away from families are the norm in the > startup world. We often chuckle at glamorized notions of the startup > lifestyle: table tennis games, fully stocked kitchens and generous stock > options."

Translation: We know what it's _really_ like to work in a startup - <USER2> families and fair pay are luxuries we know don't really exist. Anyone who expects otherwise is lazy and doesn't fit with our "culture".

> "We work long hours, we are not paid much, and even after raising over > $10-million within our first year of operations, we still have a mountain to > climb in our efforts to expand this company."

Translation: While _you_ might not be paid much, _I_ hold a majority stake in the company and will be handsomely rewarded for your hard work when the company gets bought. And just because we raised $10 million doesn't mean any of you are getting a raise.

> "We have also ensured that each employee has an unyielding belief in the > company's mission. If anyone in the office doesn't believe they're a part of > something incredibly meaningful that will truly reinvent banking, they'll > likely struggle to relate to their co-workers and eventually "burn out."

Translation: I mean... they're going to burn out anyway after working 80 hours every week, but forced belief in the "mission" of the company allows us to squeeze a couple more months of hard work out of them before they finally quit, feeling guilty and ashamed of their perceived failure.

> "Our husbands and wives help pick up the slack on our long days, and our > kids put a smile on our faces after stressful meetings. Many of our team > members have young families, and we do our best to respect their needs > through flexible hours and by encouraging the ability to work from home when > needed."

Translation: I mean, I'm not a _monster_ \- if someone wants to spend a portion of their 14 hour work day at home, using their own computer and resources, of course we'll accommodate them. Far be it from me to prevent my employees from bringing all the stress of their work lives into their homes.

> "While the work can be challenging, the rewards are endless."

Translation: The rewards for me, that is. For you, the rewards are very much finite.

> "Having said that, it takes a special kind of personality to seek out (and > succeed in) such an uncertain and risky environment. At the end of the day, > I guess you still need to be a little nuts to succeed in a startup."

Translation: Young, well-off techies without families or hobbies who can afford to live on breadcrumbs and are healthy enough to keep our insurance costs minimal to the front of the line.

</comment><comment><USER49> The answer is by being a complete and utter asshole. Any employer who expects that much is not someone who should be managing the night shift at a Denny's, let alone a whole company.

</comment><comment><USER50> The answer is "cocaine", isn't it?</comment>


Show HN: League Warrior - <AUTHOR> http://leaguewarrior.com/index.html

<comment><USER2> Cool concept. I would change the phrase "Don't Play With Yourself" to "Don't Play _By_ Yourself".

It's semantics, but to me they have totally different meanings!

<comment><USER3> I suspect the entendre was intended.

I like it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great job! I have been waiting for this app for a while!

Here is some of the things I think you should improve upon:

1\. The sliding UI on register page is a bit confusing. Perhaps add some UI guide tutorials? You probably know this, but I want a easy way to invite my Facebook friends!

2\. Since you know the available field locations, you should show it on the map to encourage the user to make the "Create Game" UI smoother.

3\. There is a lag after completing the "Create Game" form.

4\. Instead of just games, where can I find out about leagues around where I live?

5\. Are you thinking about having people check-in during the games?

6\. This might be complicated, but I wonder if it would be worthwhile to add score keeping and gamification feature with this app, to build reputation and game records. With this record, people could challenge each other.

7\. Is e-sports going to be added in the future?

<comment><USER5> I haven't checked out the app yet but I love the concept. And I'll echo wmaiouiru here that if you don't have FB integration, it should be priority #1. Personally I'd like #7 to be in the development plan as well :)

<comment><USER6> Thanks for the interest. Let us know if we missed anything in the above reply.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I definitely do think you've identified a problem that needs solving, and your app is looking nice so far.

One thing that I've noticed for pick up soccer in the Bay Area is that there are a lot of games listed on meetup.com, but probably way less than 10% of them, since I personally know of a bunch that aren't on meetup. There are also several other websites that I've found on Google over the years that list some pickup games, but still, nothing that is anywhere near exhaustive.

The problem that you guys might have is that your app ends up as just another small subset of the games around. If you could figure out how to become _the_ definitive and nearly exhaustive list, there could potentially be a lot of value in it. Think about how Yelp is useful because it has all the restaurants, and how useless it would be if only 10% of the restaurants were listed.

Reviews of ongoing games might be useful, as would ratings of skill level and information about the playing surface or number of fields/courts that people could search on. Another thing is that some ongoing games are already pretty full, so some sort of status that somebody could set for the game in terms of "need more people" or "near capacity" could be useful.

Lastly, it's been my experience that an ongoing pick up game might have 20-30 people in attendance, but only 1 or 2 actually check in, so you don't want to necessarily count on everyone checking in.

<comment><USER6> This is all very helpful. Definitely some good points to look out for and some worth while features to a/b test.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Everything looks great. I could definitely see myself using this.

Your biggest obstacle is probably going to be reaching critical mass. There are a lot of ways to help you achieve that - in this instance I'd suggest going the OKCupid route. What they did was offer a supplementary service (quizzes) that was fun and relevant for the users even before they reached critical mass.

You just need to make the app as useful as possible for existing pickup games. With the push notification reminders it's already useful but perhaps you could add score keeping (I'd love to know what % of the time I'm on the winning team) and easy group communication (without excluding non iphone users).

</comment><comment><USER9> This is brilliant mate, will test it out now for a few weeks in Sydney. I thought of the same idea after I noticed not so much of a gap in the pickup- game space, but just no real implementations that had been executed as good as they should be. From the screenshots, this looks like the one to do it!

One small thing, had some issues with the register screen returning me to login screen after I pressed the register button (I know it's in beta, just pointing it out :) )

</comment><comment><USER10> The concept seems great. What's your strategy for overcoming the chicken/egg problem and getting critical mass?

<comment><USER6> We have a lot of micro strategies that fit into a broad campaign. Basically the goal is to find those individuals who will be our first adopters and get them playing games regularly through the app. If the app really is solving the problem we believe it is, then it will become a tool for athletes to use and not just an occasional supplement. Ensuring quality games are posted and played are truly what we are after.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can you add some kind of gamified penalization for people who are always no- shows? :P

Those people drive me crazy.

</comment><comment><USER12> Great concept, I hope it can get the user base to take off. What sports do you support?

<comment><USER6> At the moment: -Baseball -Basketball -Cycling -Disc Golf -Football -Golf -Hockey -Lacrosse -Running -Soccer -Swimming -Table Tennis -Tennis

But we are open to suggestions for adding in other support.

<comment><USER10> You should get Ultimate Frisbee in there. Huge pickup culture.

<comment><USER6> agreed, thats a great one!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> extremely cool idea, hope people in my area actually use it though.

</comment><comment><USER14> Awesome design.</comment>


Ex-Google engineer Levandowski asks judge not to send him to prison - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/07/feds-seek-two-years-in-prison-for-ex-google-engineer-levandowski/ <comment><AUTHOR> "Levandowski also argues that he can perform community service by speaking out about the harms that come from unethical business practices."</comment>


MeeBlip – Open-source synthesizer hardware - <AUTHOR> http://meeblip.com/ <comment><USER2> Pay attention to this. This is how you do marketing. Product is bog-standard, but fires all on cylinders to become a successful product:

It's targeted and priced smartly between the overly-simplified and the enthusiast. It tries to do nothing new, just to cover its own existing market.

Its page uses bright, clear photographs and confident assertions mixed with a bit of intrigue ("hidden" features) and scarcity (a "limited" edition). It includes values alignment ("independent" and "open-source"), technical specifications, very few links to lead you away from the home page and the opportunity to buy as many as you want from the home page.

It also has incredible rock star recommendations from music magazines.

This is why people staying up all night to design a better mouse trap need to study marketing instead.

</comment><comment><USER3> Wow what a great entry level synth. Checks all the boxes... price, simple but standard features, open source... I am getting this for everyone I know with a keyboard. Great if you are scared of "all those knobs" but still want to have a few important ones to twist.

</comment><comment><USER4> They write beautiful assembly code.

</comment><comment><USER5> Url changed from [https://github.com/MeeBlip](https://github.com/MeeBlip), which points to this, which gives more context.</comment>


Fooling deep neural networks for object detection with adversarial 3-D logos - <AUTHOR> https://techxplore.com/news/2020-07-deep-neural-networks-adversarial-d.html <comment><USER2> I won't be suprised too see people carry on using either only face masks or masks with exotic patterns to fool facial-recognition cameras on the streets.</comment>


The Emoji Keyboard – Hardware+software Solution Brings Emoji to the Mac - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diskcactus/the-emoji-keyboard-type-emoji-on-your-mac

<comment><AUTHOR> We just launched this as a Kickstarter. It's a simple silicone keyboard cover plus Apple keyboard layout installer. Thanks for any feedback or help getting the word out there. It's a wacky video, but we have been using the prototypes for a while, and for emoji lovers, it's a useful tool!</comment>


"Let's go caroling" - Latest Google Easter Egg for Android Users - <AUTHOR> http://eyuva.com/2013/12/lets-go-caroling.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Did any of HN readers tried this on their Android Phone ?

<comment><USER2> Yup, works as advertised. My phone is playing Jingle Bells right now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha ! Enjoy ! Happy Christmas in Advance :)</comment></comment></comment>


HC: How many unique Michael Jordan cards are there in this set? - <AUTHOR> https://www.sendspace.com/file/5k0534

<comment><AUTHOR> Hacker Challenge</comment>


Ask HN: How would you grow a musician from scratch with $0? - <AUTHOR> Friends and I have been thinking of tough scenarios that require heavy bootstrapping and trying to come up with solutions (our favorite is how to impact an election most with $0). Figured HN might have some creative ideas. <comment><USER2> My college classmate at UCLA was a classical guitar major. His parents got him started on guitar when he was 5 by buying a classical guitar and putting it on display in the living room. They of course told him it was priceless and never to touch it. It turned out that it was an inexpensive student model they got specifically for him.

<comment><USER3> That's brilliant.

When I was around 20, my mother was visiting and I was listening to some Deep Purple. She sang along with one of the verses and then looked at me quizzically and said, "Funny... you hated that song when you were a baby." She was floored when I told her it heavily influenced my guitar playing.

To this day we wonder if being exposed to it as a baby, liked or otherwise, triggered a subconscious recognition that resulted in me liking, and actually being influenced by the music afterall.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> A very useful skill for any musician is perfect pitch, the ability to identify notes without reference. Adults aren't able to learn the skill but if you start as a child you are able to learn it in the same way kids can learn a new language without an accent and can identify small differences in sounds that adults can't learn. I suggest you look into teaching that ability.

Also, loving music is the best motivator towards being a great musician. You can help by exposing someone to different types of good music and helping to identify a favorite.

</comment><comment><USER5> Grow a musician? Immerse my child in all kinds of different music genres whilst a baby, and then implore them to learn as an instrument when they're old enough to do so. Encourage going to concerts and other events.

If you mean to help an existing musician to grow their fan base: \- jump on some sh __y tik tok bandwagon, \- Instagram stories, \- live Q &A's</comment>