Ask HN: you're rich, now what? - <AUTHOR> This question is just for fun:
Let's say you sold your startup yesterday for enough cash that you never have to work or worry about money again.
What would you do now? <comment><USER3> I sold my startup a few months ago for enough cash that I never have to work or worry about money again. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=341565>

I went to the most peaceful spot I could find, and relaxed. I did nothing. <http://www.vimeo.com/1292105>

After only a couple days, it was never more clear that I was never doing anything for the money anyway, and the reason I'm always working, driving, pushing, learning, growing, and building companies is NOT about the future- goal but increasing the quality of my present moment. It's exciting! It's fun!

So, I started working again. Not because I have to, but beacuse I want to. It makes my brain spark in a way that not-working doesn't.

So here I am again, programming, excited about some new thing I'm working on, exactly the same as before I sold the company. I didn't buy anything because there's nothing I want. My debts were already paid off.

Philip Greenspun's article really does describe it best. <http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/>

So does Felix Dennis' book How to Get Rich. <http://www.amazon.com/dp/1591842050>

Feel free to contact me directly if you have any specific questions you don't feel comfortable posting on the board here. <http://sivers.org>

\- Derek

<comment><USER4> What I would really like to know is how much money it takes to get to that point.

$5 million isn't enough according to a very interesting New York Times article: <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/technology/05rich.html>

So how much does it typically take for someone in Silicon Valley to "solve the money problem"?

<comment><AUTHOR> $5m invested invested fairly conservatively can throw off 8%, or $400k / year. I'm sorry, but if you can't live on $33k / month, even in the Bay Area, you've got problems.

A couple of those people in the article have homes worth over $1m that they own free and clear while they work 70 hours a week to make ends meet. Not smart. Mortgage the house to 70-80% (rates are dirt cheap right now) and invest the cash at the aforementioned 8%, which adds $100k / year to your bottom line, plus the tax benefits.

<comment><USER5> Please link to a single "conservative" investment with an 8% yield.

<comment><USER6> Right now you can get 6% in the UK on a no-frills deposit account at Tesco (hmm, thought they were a supermarket) but that'll be taxed so it's more like 4% real. Which is barely keeping pace with (real, not official) inflation.

<comment><USER7> The base interest rate in the UK is at a 57 year low at the moment, so UK banks might not be the best place to store $5 million ;)

<comment><USER6> True, but banks lend to each other at LIBOR which has remained stubbornly high. Only a few weeks ago some were offering 8% 1-year deposit accounts to get any cash they could get their hands on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know this isn't the sense of "now" the question intended, but what I'd recommend is taking a long vacation, to clear your head. You can't usually do this immediately after selling, because you have to work for the acquirer for a while. But when you finally leave the acquirer the best thing you can do is go somewhere far away for at least a month.

</comment><comment><USER9> Improve the world: start a charitable foundation; support amazing candidates for public office; invest in social services for developing nations.

Improve yourself: go back to school and get a degree in history, or music, or art; travel to another continent and live somewhere new long enough to learn the language; write a book, and read a lot of other peoples'.

Improve others: get your teaching certificate (usually <1 year of school) and teach math to middle-school students; tutor kids at a local library or after- school program in computers; adopt.

<comment><USER10> Admirable goals...none of which require we be rich...and many with which riches will interfere.

<comment><USER11> For traveling around the world or working for a non-profit without a salary you need financial independence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Get a house in the Santa Cruz mountains large enough to hold a decent sized library and a miniature lab/computer history museum, invest the money to get a speedy Internet connection there. For the next few years spend the rest of the time reading, writing code (especially code that can't immediately be "something people want": design and write programming languages and OSes "just for fun") doing photography (build out a proper studio and dark room) and collect historical/esoteric hardware (e.g. PDP-10s, VAXen).

Then in few years, attempt another start-up (but without risking my entire wealth on it - won't put more $100k into it) and if that fails, take a job (without regards to pay or seniority of position) at a research lab / university / technology company I believe in.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd go back to school and study bioinformatics. I've seen too many friends and family suffer slow deaths from cancer, Parkinson's, and soforth and I think the solutions to those problems are only a matter of time. To be even a small part of that solution would be the most satisfying thing I can imagine.

<comment><USER14> If it's so important to you personally, what is stopping you from going after it now?

<comment><USER15> Doing the legwork to get back to school and lining your life up with the admissions schedule can take a year or more of planning before it's safe to quit your day job. It helps if other people you know are doing the same thing at the same time. But one thing it doesn't require is getting rich beforehand.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Honestly, keep it a secret. Live like I've been living and worry _much_ less.

I've found (by other people I know actually getting rich) that there's really nothing you can say or do with your money where you won't come off as a condescending prick to _someone_ who knew you and imagines that they are in some small (or not so small) part responsible for your current success.

Failing the "keep it a secret" part, Warren Buffet's life suggests that just implementing the second part will go a long way in itself.

<comment><USER17> Sounds like this is the approach the funeral director with $250MM in IBM stock took.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> 1\. I'll spend time learning well. My current disjointed knowledge frustrates me. [math, physics and computer science]

2\. I'll work on creating beautiful, useful, innovative products.

3\. Backpacking, flying paper planes, watching cartoons, video games, reading fiction by the fireplace, writing, etc

4\. I'll fund cool projects using the YC model.

[I do these things now on a smaller scale. If I'm rich, I'll be able to do much more of these, which would be awesome.]

</comment><comment><USER19> Grow my hair long (again) and get someone good to make it look stylish and neat. Buy some nice clothes, such that I don't have to worry about not having any sense of clothes.

No office dress code, woohoo.

Do some startup funding on useful wearable keyboards, better software for small helpdesks/teams (I have plenty of ideas), better software/user interfaces for virtual desktops, but with grouped applications by user task.

Inject self replicating nanobots under all of Africa, acting as a synthetic water table, pumping, purifying, filtering seawater from the coast and bringing it inland, then piping it up to the surface.

Secretly hire a contracting company to rip out the traffic lights at a nearby road island and replace them with my new design. Keep stats and, when convincing enough, announce the change to all and pressure to get all traffic lights in the country moved over.

Bring some ultra-fantastic business internet access to this area for a reasonable cost, spam the town with wifi and build a couple of good datacenters around, buy various shop facilities around the town and surreptitiously start selling the right kinds of interesting things, buy a couple of central indoor spaces and run barcamp/unconvention/XYZcons regularly. Try to seed and cultivate a high tech, hacker friendly yet quirky and personal friendly cafe style environment around here. Or maybe in another country with better weather. Or maybe both.

Daydream, in other words, while feeling awkward, guilty and undeserving.

<comment><USER20> You're in Dallas, too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> It's true about those who are endlessly fueled by creating something - <USER2> doesn't change. You might not do it for money, but I'm not sure that really matters.

I sold my first company in 1997 and am launching my 10th in January. It never gets old.

<comment><USER22> Wow! Where do you get ideas from?

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Finding myself in a similar situation, my answer is... "I don't know, I've spent all my attention getting this done, I'll work on what comes next now."

Most people give me the eye like "Ah ha! He has some plan that he isn't ready to divulge.", but really. I don't know. I'm working on it now.

</comment><comment><USER24> Do it again.

Once is luck. Twice is skill.

<comment><USER25> brilliant. reminds me of the missive: if you are the type of person who would stop working once you obtained a fortune, then you are never going to get a fortune...

<comment><USER26> Define work?

Hopefully I'll get to the point where I can live comfortably off the wealth generated by work I've already completed. If I do, at that point, I won't stop using the computer. I won't stop writing software. I will stop setting the alarm clock though, and I'll stop saying "I have to work" to my wife when I'd rather be spending time with her, and I'll stop working with hard deadlines.

I won't sit on a beach all day, but a few hours a day would be very nice!

<comment><USER25> I work in finance (trading) so from my perspective, I have seen many people come into this field wanting to "get rich." They soon find that the most successful investors/traders are not those who want to get rich, but rather love financial markets. So I am in complete agreement with you. The equivalent, I think, would be me joining a web app startup to "get rich" because I want to be "rich", rather than I am passionate about exploring the problem space that I will solve with the web app.

As a side note, the reason this is always the first site I visit when I am on the internet -- because everybody is exploring their chosen problem space passionately for the fun/excitement of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Goof off for a while. Then do it again. Because goofing off is only fun for a while.

</comment><comment><USER28> I don't work for a startup, and I don't own one - But to answer your question -

To me being rich is not about money, its about being able to do what I want to do, when I want to do it. Money only buys me freedom, and thats it.

Having said that, I would sit back, kick of my shoes for a couple of months, and spend time introspecting. What's my purpose, what do I want out of life. Then go out the pursue that.

Spending time on a quiet beach sounds great, but gets old quickly.

And yes, 2 chicks :D

</comment><comment><USER29> 2 chicks

<comment><USER30> That's it? If you had a million dollars, you'd do two chicks at the same time?

<comment><USER29> Damn straight, man. I've always wanted to do that. I figure if I were a millionaire, I could hook that up. Chicks dig guys with money.

<http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Office-Space.html>

<comment><USER12> Well not all chicks...

<comment><USER31> Well, the type that double up on a guy like me do.

<comment><USER12> Good point.

<comment><USER32> _[insert comment about how Hacker News is becoming Reddit]_

<comment><USER29> _[delete comment about inserting comments]_

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Not that we need another Office Space reference, but I would do nothing. For a while, I would drift and do nothing in beautiful and interesting places.

When I'd done enough of nothing, I'd create and record some music. Rock, techno, maybe a hybid of both.

Then I'd try and rediscover the joy of programming, now that I didn't have to do it for money.

I don't think I have to be rich to do all of this (though that might get me nicer accommodations, better guitars, and more impressive equipment), but haven't yet figured out the details of how to do it from my own economic situation. Getting out of debt is probably a good starting point.

</comment><comment><USER34> I'd be like the paypal guys and fund a lot of crazy/awesome/futuristic projects (The Seasteading Institute, Space X, Tesla Motors).

Then I'd fly to the moon in a craft that costs less than $100 million and paint a big fat logo up there.

<comment><USER35> "Then I'd fly to the moon ... and paint a big fat logo up there."

Or you could get Hancock to do it for you ... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> spend time with my wife. walk the dog. go for hikes / ski / see the outdoors. read books on philosophy. generally, lead a life of quiet contemplation

<comment><USER37> > spend time with my wife

Trying to off-load your wife on other people? tsk, tsk

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Depending on HOW wealthy I am:

\- Clean up all friends/family student loans and credit \- Build a new house, buy anything I want \- Start a college fund for my nephew \- Do it again

<comment><USER39> In your place, I'd make college funds for nephews (or anyone for that matter) obsolete, by making education really inexpensive if not free.

<comment><USER38> Depending on the amount of $ I have, I agree with this. If I was only filthy rich, family education would come first. If I was stupidly/insanely/infinitely rich, everyone would benefit from free education.

<comment><USER39> I spent ~1.5 years working on an app that would do just that. I've since put the project on hold: the problem is just so huge that it's very hard to whittle it down to "just" an app that can be made within a reasonable amount of time, and have it be useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> 1) Kick myself for not selling six months ago when valuations would have been stupidly higher (relatively speaking). :) I think this is the grown up version of "I'd wish for a million wishes!"

2) If the money is larger than just being comfortably set, I'd split it into two pieces -- one being a charitable giving platform modelled after the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation ( [http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grantseeker/Pages/foundation-...](http://www.gatesfoundation.org/grantseeker/Pages/foundation- grant-making-priorities.aspx) ).

3) The other half into a fund for playing / investing / geeking. I think once you get to the point that you have enough money that you don't need to go into work any more the next horizon is to make other people successful like you (looking at YC, here)

On the other hand, if it was enough less that this wasn't really doable, I'd at least structure the money in such a way that I couldn't blow it immediately. I understand that it's too common for lottery winners to become depressed and possibly even suicidal after mismanaging their money. It would be important to cover this before I started spending money on things that I would think I wanted (Porsche 911 turbo comes to mind immediately).

<comment><USER41> Wouldn't it be easier to just donate it to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation? ;)

<comment><USER40> It would, and it would arguably be more efficient, too. I'd consider it, depending on the overlap of projects they undertake and the projects I'd prefer to support.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> If you have kids and a wife, hang out with them. You owe them, as likely as not.

</comment><comment><USER43> Maybe I'd found a zoo.

<comment><USER18> May I ask why? I suppose the answer is "why not?", isn't it? :-)

<comment><USER43> Because I care a great deal about conservation but am unwilling to put in the many years of education required to become a zoologist. I think that I could run a zoo effectively and compassionately, showing the public these majestic, exotic animals that are at such great risk while doing my best to return their species to viability. Isn't that what zoos are all about?

<comment><USER18> Cool! My best wishes to you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Duty: * Make sure that if I do nothing else, and barring a collapse of society, I don't have to work for anyone else again. * Make sure my wife can stop working for others, too. * Make sure my daughter can afford to go anywhere for higher-education. If she doesn't want to go to school, provide her the ability to try startup ideas. * Make sure my parents and parents-in- law are looked after. * Keep my relatives provisioned with computers, and buy my Dad copies of Mathematica and Matlab. * If I have sufficient funds, make sure my relatives can study anything/anywhere they want, as long as their marks are sufficient. * Prepare to leave some money to various causes.

Fun: * Actually spend the summer playing tennis, instead of in crunch mode. * Take my parents to Wimbledon, the French Open, the US Open, and the Australian Open. * Re-activate my Scuba licence, and spend some time diving. * Go sky- diving * Go on a "shooting range tour" where I fire all those guns you only see in games and movies, and to some kind of CQB training. * Learn to fly a plane * Learn to fly a helicopter * Re-learn how to ski and spend more time doing that. * Spend more time playing piano. Maybe learn the cello, the violin, or guitar. * Spend some time in extremely remote locations, like the high-seas, in mountains, or underground.

Non-Commercial Research: * Read even more. Make sure I've read the classics. * Spend a few years really learning Physics, at least up to EM with relativistic effects, QM, and GR. * Learn cell and molecular biology fundamentals. * Research Superconductivity. * Research computer vision, motion control, learning, and memory. * Research and implement a lifestyle that maximizes my own cognitive abilities, even if it's eccentric. * Re-learn French and German. Learn Mandarin and Japanese. * Research and implement programming languages. * Research meta-programming.

Make: * Build a legged tele-operated or autonomous robot. * Build a submarine * Start or contribute to open-source projects in games, simulation, and education. * Start a game studio. * Become a competent illustrator * Make an animated short. * Make a smart sci-fi film * Build a virtual CAVE.

... you get the idea ...

<comment><USER44> ... learn how to format HN posts ...

<comment><USER45> lol at least you can do that one for free...

Having said that, I saved some money and took two years off to pursue all of my life-interests (mine, in fact, are quite similar to yours) but when it came down to it, I surfed the web, played games, did a small amount of programming and just doddled around all day for the majority of my time off. Then I went back to work.

To me it comes down to one thing: purpose. If you have no specific purpose, you just get caught-up in day-to-day living. The main thing I learned in my two years off is that I can accomplish 99% of what I want to do with my life whether I have a job or not.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> "never have to work"?

That doesn't mean anything to me. I want to build things. And some things I want to build cost lots of money.

Robots, micronations, space elevators...

I'd probably buy a good home theatre system, with giantrobotlasers

</comment><comment><USER47> To be rich means a lot of things. You can be named rich if you have either $10M or $10bn in the bank.

Let's say, realistically, that I have $10M.

First of all I'd cut all unnecessary costs, rent a smaller flat and spend a year thinking about my life, studying something just to clean my mind, collecting startup ideas. It is important not to freak out.

Then, I can either go back to the university or start another company. I think it depends on my thoughts during this gap year.

</comment><comment><USER48> Live between Mexico, LA and NYC. Spend my days dallying.

Share the wealth with my family.

</comment><comment><USER49> 1\. Pay off everything for me and my closest family. 2\. Buy house on Hawaii and in Whistler. 3\. Batmobile. 4\. Try to solve a big, hard problem that I didn't have the means to before. Perhaps not one as "pie in the sky" as "make solar power work" or "cure cancer" but something along those lines.

</comment><comment><USER50> Philip Greenspun has some thoughts:

<http://philip.greenspun.com/non-profit/>

<http://philip.greenspun.com/materialism/early-retirement/>

<comment><USER51> "Most of Europe is simply too crowded and expensive to be attractive to the average North American."

Who is this Greenspun fella?!

<comment><USER52> It's true. On my last trip to Romania, Austria and France I didn't run into any average Americans.

<comment><USER50> Makes those places sound a lot more attractive!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I run to keep in shape. I would spend some of my extra time making sure I was training to my potential rather than just enough.

I would build a small workshop and/or apprentice with someone to learn how to do some modest woodworking. It appeals to me as a nice hobby, but one which time and resources do not allow me to pursue at this point.

I would practice guitar more often/seriously.

I would read more often, and spend more time in quiet reflection.

I would continue to develop applications, as I love many aspects of it.

I would take a vacation per quarter rather than a vacation per year.

Basically, commit more time to improving myself and my skills rather than committing more time towards improving my financial condition.

</comment><comment><USER54> Join Esther Dyson in funding Fluidinfo.

<comment><USER55> Your comment caught my attention (I studied logic with Esther's mother years ago) so I looked up Fluidinfo. This is impressive stuff, and Terry Jones is a singularly impressive, engaging, understated guy. After browsing his blog for a while and watching part of some videos, I'm sure I want to see more.

I'm curious how you found out about this, and what you think of it?

<comment><USER54> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=386811>

See my comment there: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=388401>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Expand the basement laboratory and revolutionize the world. Again.

</comment><comment><USER57> Become a professional musician, and hack on things on the side.

</comment><comment><USER58> Aside from the usual self enrichment activities. I would set up a foundation that does many small unique services to a community. Examples: Go around to different communities to offer free construction to link up sidewalks to make it more pedestrian friendly. Consulting and financing to small shoppes so they can stay unique and viable against large competitors. Setup free clinics that solely cater to helping people sleep more restfully.

</comment><comment><USER59> Move to the US. I wouldn't need to be super rich to do this - just have $300k or so in liquid "doesn't matter if I lose it" funds. Yes, the US's immigration rules are tricky ;-)

But then? Pursue all of my crazy number of hobbies to excess. Attend Stanford or a similar institution (for the love of learning, not for a specific goal). Be able to let my wife find the job she wants rather than the one she needs. And so forth.

</comment><comment><USER60> Examine my life with more attention.

(see <http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/24198.html> )

</comment><comment><USER61> Let's quantify this, what number makes you rich?

<comment><USER62> Definitely one. If your bank account is full of zeroes, then you're not rich, but with a lot of ones, you are (as long as none of them is a sign bit....)

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Find the hardest problem that intrigued me personally and start working to solve it. Hire some top-drawer help to have some great minds to bounce ideas around. Keep it simple and focus on bang-for-buck.

Heck. I guess I'd do the same thing as now, except I'd have more resources to do it with.

</comment><comment><USER64> Mega mega rich: I would create an electromagnetic cannon to help us escape earth more cheaply and rapidly, and invest in technologies to help us colonize other planets.

Leisure rich: I would study martial arts, get personal training every day, and work on projects with my friends.

<comment><USER65> You'll never get mega mega rich if you go ahead with your leisure rich plan (assuming you make it there). Which is more important?

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> invest your money in social causes, if possible your time into it as well. OR spend more time on working what you did to be rich on the first place, so you can spend even more on social causes BUT do take out time to relax and enjoy with loved ones as well.

</comment><comment><USER67>
        • Move to the SF area
        • Attend loads of cool conferences
        • Splash out on some new gear — a new Mac for starters
        • Be able to spend a lot more time on personal projects
        • Start a new startup; its not work if you enjoy doing it. ;)

<comment><USER68>
        • Buy more fonts

<comment><USER69> Wow, never seen that before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I would keep enough cash so I wouldn't have to work for someone again (including investors).

Then I would continue doing things similar to now, but with no business model in mind. I would also travel more.

Sadly(?) I think thats all that would change.

</comment><comment><USER71> 6-12 months of adventure traveling, lots of reading, and spending time with people I don't get to see often enough. Buy a fast car and move to a little nicer place (with a bigger garage). Then start another company.

</comment><comment><USER72> Do: snowboard and hike on awesome mountains, kiteboard on the nicest beaches, learn both sports really well, spend more time with family & friends Not do: spend time indoors staring at a computer screen

</comment><comment><USER73> Become an angel investor. Help startups grow. Share knowledge. Provide relief from those who don't know or understand how to really make a startup work. And, ideally, make more money.

</comment><comment><USER74> Time to change the world.

<comment><USER75> Isn't that what the startup is for?

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> I would do 30 by 30 :)

<http://www.paraschopra.com/blog/personal/30-by-30.htm>

</comment><comment><USER77> Write the world's most secure cryptographic library.

<comment><USER78> As a personal achievement or as a product?

<comment><USER77> It would be free and open source -- whether that counts as a product depends on your perspective, I guess.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=79057> for reference.

</comment><comment><USER79> Keep it a secret, and try to make a difference: <http://is.gd/bPVr>

</comment><comment><USER80> Non-profit work, my two main ideas are an mturk for charity work and a decent career guidance website.

</comment><comment><USER52> Travel, travel some more then plan my next vacation. Try and qualify for an Olympic archery team.

</comment><comment><USER81> I'm chiming in a bit late here, but I would probably go to medical school.

</comment><comment><USER82> spend _more_ time with my kids: hiking, skiing, building robots, volunteering with school. Then do it again, except this time I want to control the money AND the math.

</comment><comment><USER83> Besides 2 chicks? Start my own capital management firm

</comment><comment><USER84> Do another startup.

<comment><USER85> I will continue working on it for the acquirer until the acquirer can actually work it out without me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER86> No more need of VC to do the things I want to do.

</comment><comment><USER87> hoard my money and not share a red cent

</comment><comment><USER88> Share the wealth! (cough)

</comment><comment><USER89> Crank out a novel. Then try another startup.

</comment><comment><USER90> You've got to be kidding me. What _not_ to do? But at least be sure to keep some cushion of money somewhere, perhaps properly, securely invested.</comment>


Hack into an Instagram account - <AUTHOR> Is there a way I can view the pictures of an Instagram account that blocked me? Because I think it's posting my pictures without my permission and I wanna make sure that It doesn't. Also, the account is private so even if a make another account I can't view it. <comment><USER2> I think if someone knew that, they would tell Instagram and get paid for it. :P

</comment><comment><USER2> Or the russians.</comment>


Bringing the print statement back - <AUTHOR> https://firstname.lastname@example.com/ <comment><USER2> OK, so I sort of get it. I love ML style syntax. I love the way that it supports great things like partial application.

What I do not like is TMTOWTDI. And I do not like Python violating its own principles (namely, "explicit is better than implicit"). As far as I am concerned, in Python, which does _not_ have partial application, function application is handled by a special `(...)` operator that explicitly applies whatever function comes before the parens to whatever is inside the parens. Making the parens optional gives you two different ways to apply a function - and, by extension, one more place for people to argue about style - one of which is just an implicit version of the other.

You've got to have a _way_ better reason to do that to a language than just, "Hey, isn't this cool? And also, I miss the Python 2 vs Python 3 wars, so wouldn't it be fun to give that pot another stir for old time's sake?"

I get it, the change from a print statement to a print function caused some pain. But it did bring some practical benefits, and the transition is in the past now, and, to quote the Zen of Python again, "special cases aren't special enough to break the rules."

<comment><USER2> Another thought: This would create ambiguities in the language that would harm its readability. Maybe not as far as the computer is concerned, but certainly as far as the humans are concerned. Is

      print(1, 2, 3)

supposed to print

      1 2 3

or

      (1, 2, 3)

?

What about

      print (1, 2, 3)

?

Are they the same? Should they be different? I know what the answer is in Python 3.8. A few weeks or months of programming in a Python where parens are optional, though, and I wouldn't be so sure anymore.

<comment><USER3> This is explicitely explained in the linked article.

To solve the conflict the first parameter cannot start with a paren.

<comment><USER2> By, "Maybe not as far as the computer is concerned, but certainly as far as the humans are concerned.", I meant to invoke the principle that there's more to a good grammar than the computer being able to parse it reliably. It's also got to not be confusing for its wet, squishy readers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Don't worry, its not coming back. Just goes to prove the old rule - no one reads beyond the headline :)

\----

> Why is this being proposed? > > I think we would need a very strong reason > to consider this, > and so far I haven't seen any justification other than > "because > we can". >

(Guidos response below):

There was definitely something of that... I was looking at the new PEG parser and realized that _if people wanted it_ this would be easy to do. So I spent a pleasant hour or two coding it up to my satisfaction.

But I was also trying to satisfy some demand. When Python 3 was young, print becoming a function was one of the most frequent complaints, and it's still occasionally seen on Twitter. I found at least two StackOverflow issues about it, but the combined upvote count was less than 100.

An early post in this thread reminded me that IPython has a feature called "autocall" that allows exactly this syntax. I don't know how popular it is. However, apparently there the form `f x+1` ends up calling `f("x+1")` (i.e. stringifying the argument), so introducing similar syntax in Python with different semantics would hardly be helpful. (If someone wants to start a debate on argument quoting, please start a new thread, so we can lay this one to rest.)

All in all, it's clear that there's no future for this idea, and I will happily withdraw it.

\----

<comment><USER5> I remember him being present in the github issue tracker before they moved to bugs.python.org. His presence was next to useless when people were reporting problems about the async library. What went on was like; he made comments on his suspicions, someone who actually knows what's going on made a pull request without even commenting on his ramblings. Again and again for years. Now he's looking for validation hacking the parser.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This sounds like a bad idea. It creates more ambiguities in the language, and will require people to remember a lot more. It works in ruby because in ruby you can't assign a function to a variable like

A = len

But you can in python.

It seems python is adding more and more implicit stuff in every new release.

I think the day we can import braces from __future__ might not be far away.

<comment><USER7> > I think the day we can import braces from __future__ might not be far away.

Behold, bython: [https://github.com/mathialo/bython](https://github.com/mathialo/bython)

<comment><USER8> I love that the example uses the exact same indentation format that Python already requires.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I seriously do not see any worthwhile benefit in this, and significant cost.

Benefits: You can use spaces instead of parenthesis. It's the same number of characters and function arguments won't work with spaces.

Costs: Python has to support this forever. Increased complexity. More difficult to read code, because you could be doing the same thing in multiple ways. More style guidelines to enforce. Confusion among new programmers about why they can't use function arguments without parenthesis. Confusion among new programmers about why they would use spaces instead of parenthesis (or the reverse).

Seriously, I do not see any reason why they would ever want to add this in light of the seemingly obvious costs.

</comment><comment><USER10> Seems to violate "There should be one-- and preferably only one --obvious way to do it."

<comment><USER11> Sorry, but I think this is a poisonous, thought-terminating cliche.

Python has had multiple ways of doing many things for a very long time, and the longer you program in any language, the more you realize there are often many solutions to a problem and the "best" approach either depends on context or you realize there is no one "best" approach and go on preference.

I think the idea should be judged on its own merits without having to consult the Zen. That said, I seriously don't see the point of it. Python 3 already forced everybody to convert all their print statements to look like function calls, and now GVR wants to bring the old style back as an option? It's just parenthesis, what's the point?

If he wants to put that new parser to work, how about taking another look at multi-line lambdas?

<comment><USER12> The key words are 'preferably' and 'obvious' (although that way may not be obvious at first unless you're Dutch). It's fine if there are merely multiple ways to do something, as long as you're not actually giving people tough choices.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you want to see some nice examples of PEP 617's (The new PEG Parser) potential, see the draft of [https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0622/](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0622/)

But `print 'hi world'` This would really spoil one of the nice consistency things python 3 brought.

Callables without parenthesis to distinguish the arguments. Can you imagine what this is going to do to readability on open source projects?

This was back in June, and probably for the sake of conversation. It got my (and a lot of others) attention, though. If that was the case, mission accomplished.

I'm all for the new parser enabled in Python 3.9 (and switched on by default in 3.10): [https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0617/](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0617/)

</comment><comment><USER14> I loathe function calls without parentheses; it always looks vaguely ambiguous to me.

<comment><USER15> i took me a while to get used to `print()` but now that i'm used to it, when i see py2 code i get... confused? it doesn't look right.

same with `class Foo(object):`

<comment><USER16> _> same with `class Foo(object):`_

That's still legal, and actually I prefer it even though it's not required in Python 3, because explicit is better than implicit.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I really hope they do not do this. In and of itself it is not a problem, Ruby code is perfectly readable when the style is consistent.

Software developers are often stubborn. The main result of this change will be a mess of code which follows a mix of _all_ the styles. That removes one of the greatest beauties of the Python ecosystem, that there is a "right way" to do things.

<comment><USER2> Agreed. I deeply love the concept of Pythonic.

The Pythonic way to do it is (very) often not my favorite way to do it. But, if I'm working in Python, I'm going to do it that way, anyway. Because social factors matter, and choosing your own convention rarely yields enough benefit to justify choosing not to follow _the_ convention.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> See also the article ([https://lwn.net/Articles/823292/](https://lwn.net/Articles/823292/)) written about this idea.

</comment><comment><USER19> What is the point? Why is this a desirable thing at all? TFA goes directly into implementation and has not a word about why this is desirable for readability, aesthetics, or any other criterion.

Seems like the sort of faddish syntactic sugar that they love in Swift. Please, not in Python.

<comment><USER20> I think "the point", given the wording of the email, is to showcase the power of the new parser; not implement it.

(I fucking hope)

<comment><USER21> This is the exact language Guide stopped being BDFL. STOP IT!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The ambiguity of

foo (boo, hiss)

should immediately close the issue. What the heck is happening?

</comment><comment><USER23> Nim does this, and the whitespace is significant[0][1]:

        echo $foo
        # is parsed as
        echo($foo)

[..]

        echo(1, 2) # pass 1 and 2 to echo
        echo (1, 2) # pass the tuple (1, 2) to echo

[..]

        proc optarg(x: int, y: int = 0): int = x + y
        proc singlearg(x: int): int = 20*x

        echo optarg 1, " ", singlearg 2 # prints "1 40"

        let fail = optarg 1, optarg 8 # Wrong. Too many arguments for a command call
        let x = optarg(1, optarg 8) # traditional procedure call with 2 arguments
        let y = 1.optarg optarg 8 # same thing as above, w/o the parenthesis
        assert x == y

[0]: [https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html#syntax-precedence](https://nim- lang.org/docs/manual.html#syntax-precedence)

[1]: [https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html#procedures-command- inv...](https://nim-lang.org/docs/manual.html#procedures-command-invocation- syntax)

<comment><USER24> Is there a justification for this behavior?

This makes it quite hard to "sight-read" code with reasonably-sized function names and arg lists:

        do_some_thing_descriptive (some_arg_2, some_longer_arg)

[ ... other code ]

        do_some_very_descriptive_thing(some_arg_2, some_longer_arg)

I imagine that each file would try to remain internally-consistent with preferring one syntax over the other.

IMO, in scenarios where a module must remain internally-consistent on its one- of-many-ways to do it, for the sake of legibility, there should be only one way to do it. Although, I'm open to hearing any good-faith arguments to the contrary!

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print(1, 2, 3)?

Yes, Python, I meant _exactly_ that! I've never seen this error message in error. Now you know what I mean, please fix it automatically, I know you can do that. Heck, throw a single warning if you really want to enforce this. I can ignore warnings that I don't care about.

<comment><USER26> Yeah, generally please second-guess me Python, like my old pal Clippy did, what could possibly go wrong?

<comment><USER25> > You're flying! How?

> Python! I learned it last night! Everything is so simple! Hello world is > just: print "Hello, world!"

> SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean > print("Hello, world!")?

> I dunno... dynamic typing? _Whitespace?_

> Come join us! Programming is fun again! It's a whole new world up here!

> But how are you flying?

> I just typed: imports antigravity as ag

> TypeError: imports() takes 2 positional arguments but 3 were given

<comment><USER27> From [https://xkcd.com/353/](https://xkcd.com/353/)

I'm not sure whether to take this as an in-joke (knowing the reference is part of the fun) or poor attribution (credits should be given where they're due).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I remember this kind of thing from days gone by with coffeescript, and the absolute hell it caused. It may have been made worse by js being callback- heavy, but assuming I had a function:

      def bob(cb, *args):
        do some stuff...

Then the call:

      bob somefn, 2, 3

Works. But I remember having hellish times tracking down issues when you missed a single comma.

      bob somefn 2, 3

Now you have bob being passed the result of evaluating the callback (early) with 2, 3 - and this is discovered at runtime. Ugh!

</comment><comment><USER29> > but I'll withdraw it if the response is a resounding "boo, hiss"

Boo, hiss.

The parentheses-less function call is the second biggest obstacle to ruby readability.

</comment><comment><USER30> I would more like to support some kind of pipes, eg.:

123 | add10 | str | print

UPD: Some of my workarounds (dont try this at home lol): [twitter thread] [https://twitter.com/tandavaya/status/1155925017848242176](https://twitter.com/tandavaya/status/1155925017848242176)

<comment><USER31> I've used this in production:

      def thread_first(current_value, args):
        for funcargs in args:
            if isinstance(funcargs, list):
                func, *restargs = funcargs
            else:
                func = funcargs
                restargs = []
            current_value = func(current_value, *restargs)

            if current_value is None:
                break
        return current_value

It's modelled after clojure's '->'. Your example would be

      thread_first(123, [add10, str, print])

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> This is something I hated about Ruby (which is generally a pretty nice language) - Use parenthesis in your function calls ... or not! It's confusing, especially when used with other optional things in Ruby - different ways to pass in named values, for instance. It just confuses for no gain.

</comment><comment><USER33> If they'd done this right at the PY3K transition and _only_ allowed the function-call-without-parenthesis syntax for `print` calls it could have been a good idea. But now that the community paid the decade-long price to get print as a normal function why backtrack?

</comment><comment><USER34> Please not.

Sincerely,

a programmer from a language that allows this.

(To elaborate: Perl and Raku allow this. It's not a bad idea on its own, but it comes with lots of tradeoffs that, IMHO, don't fit with the design of Python).

</comment><comment><USER35> >>> print (1, 2, 3)

Is that supposed to be a function call with a tuple or function call with 3 integers?

<comment><USER27> Well that's the point they're making: it's a downside that you can't call a function with a tuple as first argument. So it's supposed to be an argument, hence the space, but the interpreter is blind for that and takes it as 3 arguments. And frankly, I'd say the interpreter is right: anything else would leak to really freaky bugs that I don't with upon any beginning programmer. This also kind of makes me conclude that the whole idea is folly, it just causes ambiguity and doesn't really server any purpose whatsoever.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> The only place I've ever liked function calls without parentheses is Lua. But it only supports it with a single literal string or table argument.

So, boo. Hiss.

</comment><comment><USER37> One really nice feature from Wolfram Mathematica that few other languages seem to have is a special prefix-only syntax for single-argument function application. In Mathematica, it's f@x ==> f(x), and it's really convenient because it prevents needing to move your cursor to the end to put in a closing paren. Since it only works for single-argument functions, there's no ambiguity.

<comment><USER38> In any case, this can be done now with a helper class used as a decorator.

      >>> class At:
        __slots__= 'fun',
        def __init__(self, fun):
          self.fun = fun
        def __matmul__(self, arg):
          return self.fun(arg)
        def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
          return self.fun(*args, **kwargs)

      >>> @At
      def square(x):
        return x*x

      >>> square(2)
      4
      >>> square@2
      4

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> So, is this just a syntax change or is this adding a new statement?

If it's the latter, does that mean that the execution environment is part of the language itself, instead of, for example, C where environmental stuff is only accesible through the standard library and the language per se is little more than a context-free grammar?

<comment><USER16> _> is this just a syntax change or is this adding a new statement?_

It's just a syntax change; "print 1 2 3" is still an expression just like "print(1, 2, 3)".

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> This proposal seems _very_ non-composable, by which I mean that the syntax does not integrate with a number of other features. He says that currently you can't nest it in other expressions for example, and you can't use it with arguments starting with a parenthesis.

I personally like the aesthetic of it, but the non-composability makes it a UX mess in my opinion. Languages are a toolset for combining things, and when those tools just arbitrarily refuse to be combined (or combine irregularly), you end up bending over backwards to make the language get out of your way rather than getting a job done.

</comment><comment><USER41> Too ambiguous.

One thing I love about Python is that it's clear when I'm passing a function/method as argument, or aliasing a class, or just generally knowing when I'm calling something vs referencing it.

This is a no-go from the start.

</comment><comment><USER42> Python becoming Tcl

<comment><USER43> Yup, this looks a lot like Tcl! But Tcl lets you compose code at runtime using its string lists. I doubt Python will. So why introduce another redundant syntax?

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Check out xonsh which is an application of python + that sort of idea to the problem space of shell scripting.

[https://xon.sh/](https://xon.sh/)

</comment><comment><USER45> Allowing this syntax for all functions and methods seems ridiculous, especially with the problems Guido mentions (like how the first argument can't begin with a paren or bracket, wtf). But a limited version of this feature that's specific only to the print statement seems fine. If the parser already has the complexity to issue a warning like:

SyntaxError: Missing parentheses in call to 'print'. Did you mean print(1, 2, 3)?

Then why not just have it DWIM?

</comment><comment><USER46> This is insane, I love it.

How long until this is a library on pypi?

</comment><comment><USER47> return (boo, hiss)

There is something mature and responsible about a language that tends to refuse a command if the meaning isn't obvious, forcing you to make it obvious. If instead, you assign meanings to every ambiguous statement, and to the inevitable exceptions and exceptions to exceptions, you end up with JavaScript: "Oh, well, too late now"-oriented design.

</comment><comment><USER48> "I believe there are some other languages that support a similar grammar (Ruby? R? Raku?) but I haven't investigated."

Poor effort tbh but I've been excited about new possibilities before too.

Can anyone say which style of parser python used before and why The bee PEG parser is more powerful. It's my understanding that PEG parser are equivalent to RDPs.

</comment><comment><USER49> I felt that the old print statement sometimes was handy when I wanted to quickly throw some debugging lines into the code -- just less hassle with parentheses. But I wouldn't want any of the ambiguity GvR's suggestion would bring.

For debugging comfort the print statement is half measures anyway: Give us Julia's @show macro!

</comment><comment><USER50> > I believe there are some other languages that support a similar grammar > (Ruby? R? Raku?) but I haven't investigated.

I'm amazed that Guido is not aware of Nim which does precisely this. It works brilliantly too. It would be incredible if Python becomes more like Nim (Nim itself having been inspired a fair bit by Python).

</comment><comment><USER51> Elixir has this. And now the linter puts parentheses back IIRC because of syntax ambiguity _to the human_.

</comment><comment><USER52> This is more Ruby than Python. I specifically prefer Python more because of its explicitness.

</comment><comment><USER53> I'd be all for bringing back the print statement since it's the main breaking change I run into when flipping back and forth between python 2 and 3.

The idea of making parens optional for all function calls seems like just way too much though

</comment><comment><USER54> I don't see any benefits to this, Guido does a good job mentioning many of the negatives .. and, aware of them all, I am surprised he would push on. It seems an unreasonable increase in complexity for no tangible gain.

</comment><comment><USER55> Groovy has this and it's only really meant to be used for DSLs. Think of something like build.gradle. You can try to use it everywhere but I feel there are way too many reasons to not do so.

</comment><comment><USER56> I wish all languages just adopted ML syntax for function application.

</comment><comment><USER57> Just add partial application and haskell lambda syntax.

Many think think that python already lost almost everything that it was loved for initially. So why not change it more drastically

</comment><comment><USER58> Ruby does this and I hate it. It makes it very hard to quickly parse code: you have to ponder every line to identify what is what.

Parenthesis makes very clear what context you are in.

<comment><USER27> Can't say that I hate it, exactly, but it does make it significantly harder to get into Ruby code when you're not exposed to it daily. Can an amateur woodworker complain their tools are too hard to use if others have no trouble with it and are more productive than with the alternative? _Maybe?_

So rather than saying that I don't like it, I think what I'd like is some (semi-)objective way of figuring out whether the advantages are worth it. I'm inclined to say it's not worth it, but I don't know.

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> I do not like this idea. I think it is better to stick to one standard of syntax and do not create several ways of doing same thing without added significant benefit.

</comment><comment><USER60> The optional parentheses for any function Guido proposes is similar to how Nim works. It's pleasant within Nim but seems too TMTOWTDI for Python.

</comment><comment><USER61> Hate the idea to be honest. In my opinion this will just bloat the language, no need. Rather avoid the hundreds of different standards like PHP.

</comment><comment><USER62> When I program in Standard ML or F# I always use parentheses to make it clearer that a function call is happening.

<comment><USER63> You shouldn't. It add complexity for the reader. It's always clear what is the function and what are the arguments.

<comment><USER62> I disagree.

The funny thing is that in Standard ML and F# it's less common to pass arguments solely through currying anyway. The standard libraries in both use tuples.

I have always felt as a reader that this and camel-case makes code easier to read.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > I believe there are some other languages that support a similar grammar > (Ruby? R? Raku?) but I haven't investigated.

Yes you did. And you want to take the good things from ruby. You want no parentheses calls, block syntax instead of lambdas, chainable map/filter/sort/reduce, accessor syntax, you want to extend basic types so you can call methods on literals. You want ruby all over you. Just admit it.

<comment><USER64> Or Raku :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Fun, put please don't.

It makes python less consistent as you can not use this in a chain and a view other positions.

</comment><comment><USER66> What's next? Make quotes around strings optional? Or commas between array elements?

</comment><comment><USER67> Is this what Python really needs?

</comment><comment><USER68> LOL, I totally love this!

</comment><comment><USER69> Seems a bit early/late for April Fools.</comment>


Ask HN: Best Ad Netowrks? - <AUTHOR>

Hi HN,
I'm currently in the process of evaluating Ad Networks to provide revenue for my site.  There are so many out there some free, some pay, some new, some old.  I'm not even sure where to start!
Any fellow HN readers have any suggestions?
My Ideal network would have:
1. Base level of add track / performance metrics.
2. Geo Specific Ad targeting abilities.
3. Ability to sign up my own Advertisers.
4. Sales Force help. (Sales people to help sell space)
5. Flex banner size (Ability to post different sizes of ads)
Is there a service out there like this?
Thanks <comment><AUTHOR> Found this link for anyone interested. It gives a pretty good summary of some of the networks:

[http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/21-great-advertising- networ...](http://howtosplitanatom.com/news/21-great-advertising-networks-for- publishers/)</comment>


It takes 3170 hours to hide condoms in a porn movie - <AUTHOR> https://ripple.co/watch/san-francisco/it-takes-3170-hours-to-hide-condoms-in-a-porno-15412bcn <comment> vertex-four ... In practice, we'll get a whole lot more porn with condoms being used, which might very well translate to more condom usage in the general populace.

<comment><USER2> I seriously doubt it. If I were running a production company, I'd just move filming to another location.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> All that's going to do is move production out of California into another nearby state. Plane tickets are cheap and you don't need accomodation for same day filmings.

<comment><USER4> Obscenity laws make filming pornography illegal in most states. It's legal in California due to California v. Freeman, back in the late 1980's. (Basically, hiring adult actors for a film was not considered pimping.) It's legal in New Hampshire, as well, where a case cited distinction the California case and said prostitution and producing porn were not the same.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems bizarre. Why are they wasting all that time and money? Just move to another place where there is no condom law. What is it about California that can't be reproduced in Miami or Little Rock Arkansas???

</comment><comment><USER6> How much overrated is that people dislike condoms in porn movies?

Maybe one could beat the entire industry by using those >3K hours to produce more videos (with condoms).

</comment><comment><USER7> Arrrg autoplay video with sound and narrator taking loud.

What could go wrong? I had the volume at max.

</comment><comment><USER8> Why would anyone complain about such a law?

Shouldn't the same law forbid removing condoms digitally as it would then lose the second positive effect of encouraging use (the first being protection of actors)? (But then, why is it a thing in the first place? Mind blown by dumbness).

</comment><comment><USER9> Sounds like a good application for AI</comment>


Marc Andreessen, Pat Gelsinger in verbal VMworld brawl - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/27/marc_andreessen_pat_gelsinger_in_verbal_vmworld_brawl/ <comment><USER2> As someone working in a highly regulated industry, we will _never_ , _ever_ be allowed to put our production data into "the cloud", no matter who's cloud it is or what it looks like.

Ignoring issues of latency, connectivity, and cloud provider outages, there's simply no way any cloud provider would ever be secure enough for us to be allowed to put our customer data on it.

Even if he pushes a company that "encrypts everything going to the cloud" there's not a level of encryption today that's more secure than "never putting your private data on a public wire in any form in the first place."

Sorry, Mr. Andreessen, the tech world is not comprised solely of cloud-happy, cowboy, internet connected startup companies. Those are the companies you know, because those are the companies that want/need/deserve your investment. The companies that have heavy regulation and serious data protection concerns typically don't need your attention, so it's understandable that you may not think they're out there.</comment>


Ebpf.io - <AUTHOR> https://ebpf.io <comment><USER2> It is funny how many people think you have to code your ebpflets in C. It turns out you can use C++, or even Rust or D, just as easily.

I like that some peripheral manufacturers (e.g. Netronome) will compile your ebpflet, in their driver, to the native code of a processor on their hardware, so it doesn't even need to wait to get scheduled onto a kernel thread to start running.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have no gripe with Cilium being marketed in this way, it's good and I think eBPF deserves more recognition, it's an amazing piece of tehcnology and opens up even more possibilities for people building things using Linux systems as blocks (and for regurlar sysadmins too).

But in the projects section it says:

> * In order to be listed as a major project as opposed to an emerging > project, the project must have more than 50 contributors

Come on! Is, say, 40 a bad number? eBPF is still very much developing, and setting such arbitrary limits makes little sense.

</comment><comment><USER4> This site is kind of an ad/content marketing for Cilium[0], a container networking solution for container orchestrators (most notably Kubernetes).

But then again Cilium's main differentiator _is_ utilizing the advanced support for eBPF[1] in the kernel and it was launched by a Thomas Graf (a kernel developer)[2], so it feels appropriate. From the QCon description:

> Thomas Graf is Co-Founder & CTO at Covalent and creator of the Cilium > project. Before this, Thomas has been a Linux kernel developer at Red Hat > for many years. Over the more than 15 years working on the Linux kernel, > Thomas was involved in a variety of networking and security subsystems. For > the past couple of years, Thomas has been involved in the development of BPF > and XDP.

Nice to see kernel developers getting something for their thankless hard work. I haven't given Cilium a try on my own k8s cluster, but I hope to give it a spin soon. I don't think I need the majority of the features but the inter-pod communication speedup and cluster-mesh features are attractive to me.

[0]: [https://docs.cilium.io](https://docs.cilium.io)

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

[2]: [https://qconsf.com/speakers/thomas- graf](https://qconsf.com/speakers/thomas-graf)

</comment><comment><USER5> The submitted title is useless. So I have no idea what I'm clicking through to and therefore I am not clicking through.

<comment><USER6> The HN fetish for using the webpage title as the submission title is so so so bad. It needs to die.

<comment><USER7> If the title is bad, you can use the subtitle. and if that fails, a sentence of the article without cherry picking too much (it's a fuzzy rule). (And sometimes the mods revert the changes anyway.) I like:

> _eBPF is a revolutionary technology that can run sandboxed programs in the > Linux kernel without changing kernel source code or loading kernel modules._

but it is too long, a shortened version to 80 characters is

 _eBPF: run sandboxed programs in the Linux kernel without changing kernel source_

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Strange how this appeared on the Top 10 from hckrnews.com.</comment>


Ask HN: How to build a small survey system in a React based product - <AUTHOR> Hi All, I need to build a survey system in my current React based product. Basically, survey is not the core functionality of the product. It may or may not be used.
Survey would have approx 50 questions and should be able to take boolean, string or multiple-choice values. Any suggestions to have something light weight developed within the product?
I was looking at http://surveyjs.org/ - How good is this? <comment><USER2> You should be able to develop that just using basic React components, inputs, and form management approaches. Here's my standard advice for learning how to use forms in React:

Gosha Arinich has written an excellent series of articles on how to use forms in React, at [https://goshakkk.name/on-forms-react/](https://goshakkk.name/on- forms-react/) . I highly recommend you read those. In particular, he describes the concepts of "controlled inputs" and "uncontrolled inputs", which are important to understand when writing forms in React, as well as managing a list of inputs.

He's also recently published a book called "The Missing Forms Handbook of React", which is very much worth it: [https://goshakkk.name/the-missing-forms- handbook-of-react/](https://goshakkk.name/the-missing-forms-handbook-of- react/) . Beyond that, I have links to a number of other articles that deal with forms, at [https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links/blob/master...](https://github.com/markerikson/react-redux- links/blob/master/react-forms.md) .

If you've got more questions, I'd encourage you to drop by the Reactiflux chat channels on Discord. It's a great place to learn, ask for help, and discuss React and related topics. The invite link is at [https://www.reactiflux.com](https://www.reactiflux.com) .</comment>


Ask HN: My startup hasn't raised any funding in 3 years, is it normal? - <AUTHOR> Disclaimer: I'm an early employee there, not founder. The product didn't gain much tractions and we're underpaid to help the startup survive. Should I quit and pursue other opportunities? <comment><USER2> 3 years is a long time to be in the 'valley of despair', if there is still no traction that is most likely the reason why there is no funding either. Growing costs money so in a growth phase investors are usually ok with expenses being substantially larger than income (that's why you need investors in the first place) but once a business has lost momentum or has shown that it can't achieve momentum they will not put their money in.

Maybe your founders simply never sought investment to begin with, but being underpaid for 3 years tells me it may be time to cut your losses and to start looking at this in terms of opportunity cost.

</comment><comment><USER3> imagine you have a boat, and this boat has a really nice statue on it. It's beautiful, omg. one of a kind. and its worth a bunch of money, too. Like, 500k.

But oh no! the boat sunk! the statue is well protected, but its at the bottom of the ocean! You can see the statue, glimmering at the bottom of the ocean, but you can't reach it.

So you do what anyone would do, you try to retrieve it. You think to yourself "this statue is beautiful, and its worth so much money! If only i spend less than the statue is worth, then I've made money!"

You send little robots and divers and all manner of things to try and retrieve the statue. Months turn into years, but you try to get this statue. You can see it, its right there just out of reach!

And suddenly, you've spent OVER 500k to try and get this statue back. You've lost money trying to retrieve it. And its still there, at the bottom of the ocean. Glimmering and shiny, taunting you.

Basically, this is the position you're in. You've essentially been donating your potential earnings towards trying to retrieve this statue. It might be time to give up on the statue, and go find some other shiny thing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Why are you even asking this question? Based on the information provided the answer is obvious. Is there something you didn't mention that is the reason you haven't left already? Do you have a few enthusiastic customers? Do you believe in the company's products or services? Do you use them yourself? Have you spoken with customers that love your company's products? Are you building valuable (i.e. specialized) skills or knowledge that will be highly marketable and want to keep ramping up before jumping ship? I could go on but the dark chocolate I just ate is wearing off...

</comment><comment><USER5> It's not normal; 18-24 months is typical between rounds.

If you are gaining significant non-monetary benefits (eg learning a lot from much smarter people, really interesting problems), there might be a reason to stay, but if you are being underpaid and there is no reason to expect it to change, I would get the hell out.

</comment><comment><USER6> Sounds like the product's best hope is that it doesn't rely on any VC funding to be a success. There must be some revenue coming in if you're still going after 3 years. As for whether it's going to start paying you what you're worth soon, I guess that depends whether lack of traction after 3 years is because it's taken a long time to get the product ready and marketed with a small unfunded team, or simply because the product market fit isn't really there or the market just isn't that big

</comment><comment><USER7> By all accounts VCs are becoming more selective. So if your startup couldn't get funded in the past, then with greater selectivity the chances are not looking any better.

Unless you can expect something to change fast, you might be better off looking for new opportunities.

</comment><comment><USER8> OP just what is your position? are you an engineer? a designer? is this your first job or you have some previous experience?

I would say leave if you can get a better job elsewhere

</comment><comment><USER9> It depends on several factors. Without more info, it's hard to answer this question.</comment>


Tech Boom Hits San Francisco Rental Prices  - <AUTHOR> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303296604577450760765114108.html?google_editors_picks=true <comment><USER3> The basic problem is simple: lots of demand chasing little supply, as discussed extensively here: [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html) (HN discussion: [http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/face...](http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2012/05/facebook_george_lucas_and_nimbyism_the_idiotic_rules_preventing_silicon_valley_from_building_the_houses_and_offices_we_need_to_power_american_innovation_.html) ). See also this: [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale-o...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/a-tale- of-two-town-houses/6334/) .

This is one of these problems that has a simple, obvious solution—raise or remove height limits, mandatory building setbacks, and parking space requirements—that will probably be ignored in favor of grandstanding and lots of small, fiddly solutions that don't deal with the overall problem.

<comment><USER4> Well, ultimately the problem is that San Francisco is a small area where a lot of people want to live, and they're willing to pay a premium to live there. You can fiddle around with the supply side of this "problem" if you like (which will by your prescription also lower the demand by making the city a less nice place to live), but there's only so much you can do.

As far as I'm concerned the lack of cheap housing in San Francisco is no more of a problem than the lack of cheap housing in Beverley Hills.

<comment><USER3> _there's only so much you can do._ That's not really true, per the linked article above.

 _As far as I'm concerned the lack of cheap housing in San Francisco is no more of a problem than the lack of cheap housing in Beverley Hills._

See Edward Glaeser's _Triumph of the City_ for more about why this is a problem. For example, he cites an array of research that comes to this conclusion:

"Cities enable collaboration, especially the joint production of knowledge that is mankind's most important creation. Ideas flow readily from person to person in the dense corridors of Bangalore and London, and people are willing to put up with high urban prices just to be around talented people, some of whose knowledge will rub off.

Rousseau famously wrote, 'Cities are the abyss of the human species,' but he had things completely backward. Cities enable the collaboration that makes humanity shine most brightly. Because humans learn so much from other humans, we learn more when there are more people around us. Urban density creates a constant flow of new information that comes from observing others' successes and failures" {Glaeser "Triumph"@247}.

In other words, having a large concentration of smart people leads to new ideas and "the joint production of knowledge." Preventing people from moving to cities through price restrictions means less knowledge and has an array of negative environmental consequences.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Calculated Risk (<http://www.calculatedriskblog.com>) did a series on the upcoming SF rent/real estate bubble, as well as the return of housing back in early 2012. I highly recommend this awesome blog for my fellow HNers - <USER2> plays host to great discussions/links/facts on the economy, housing, finance and the global/domestic (US) recovery.

The direct links for those who want more detail:

[http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/san-francisco- rent...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/san-francisco-rents-on- tear.html)

[http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/bottom-for- house-p...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/bottom-for-house- prices.html)

[http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/wsj-on-housing- bid...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/wsj-on-housing-bidding-wars- are-back.html)

[http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/private-money- comi...](http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/04/private-money-coming-back- into-housing.html)

And a summary about all of the above that I found on Quora can be found here (scroll to the bottom - ignore the editorializing): [http://www.quora.com/the_edge/Intriguing-answer-on- Silicon-V...](http://www.quora.com/the_edge/Intriguing-answer-on-Silicon- Valley-bubbles-manias-booms-busts-crashes-and-winning-the-startup-lottery)

</comment><comment><USER6> I used to live in a building near a Google shuttle stop on the border of the TL. They wanted to raise my rent almost 20% y/y for a lease renewal, and the place was a _trainwreck_ quality-wise (as was the neighborhood.)

When I went to move out, the leasing agent just shrugged and said "Some Googler will happily pay even more than that."

The real problem is SF prohibiting any dense housing from being built anywhere in the city and also the failure of running reliable/usable public transit to any region outside of the area bounded by BART and Market Street. Rent control certainly doesn't help (though I think there should absolutely be a rent stabilization law -- everywhere.)

<comment><USER7> I don't think they're prohibiting dense housing per se, just not approving/building enough of it. There have been several 50-story condos opened in the past few years, and several more currently under construction, but they're not enough to keep pace with growth in demand. It didn't help that there was a ~2-year lull in construction when a bunch of developers got into financial trouble during the financial crisis and had to put projects on hold. It's not as if SF _isn't_ dense; it's the 2nd-densest city in the country, and way-way-way ahead of local peers San Diego and Los Angeles.

I agree on public transit, but it's not clear what to do about it. An east- west Geary subway line has been proposed since the 1930s, but it's _really expensive_ to build in an earthquake zone, and the city / taxpayers just haven't been willing to pay what it'd cost. A cheaper alternative that leverages the already-built infrastructure might be to convince people to live in under-developed areas that _do_ have good transit already, such as Oakland, which is actually closer to downtown SF by transit-minutes than much of SF proper is.

One thing that would help on the latter issue is if more of the suburban cities on transit lines _also_ dropped their anti-development attitudes. For example, there is enough demand that there should be condos/apartments near the Palo Alto Caltrain station. But Palo Alto won't allow it, because they have some idea of an upper-class suburb full of single-family homes that they'd like to protect.

<comment><USER4> Instead of a subway line, would it be possible to close off one of San Francisco's many east-west streets (Geary if you like, probably a couple north-south of there would be better) and run a light rail line (using Muni Metro or similar cars) on an east-west route?

You could adjust the timing of the traffic lights to ensure that the rail line always (or usually) has priority and cross the whole city in ten minutes.

<comment><USER7> There's a plan currently under discussion for bus rapid transit on the Geary corridor, which is sort of the el-cheapo version of that idea (<http://www.sfcta.org/content/view/37/70/>). Give the bus a dedicated, physically separated lane to reduce traffic problems, and build light-rail- esque, less frequent stations in the median with level boarding. Not a full solution, but the hope is that it'll raise the average bus speed significantly.

<comment><USER4> I hope they plan to raise the average bus _quality_ too; riding Muni is less like public transport and more like a homeless shelter. I couldn't imagine doing it every day.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Did anybody see the other article in WSJ about SF real-estate? The title is "China in Talks With U.S. Home Builder / State Bank in Talks to Provide Lennar $1.7 Billion for Two Long-Stalled Projects [for 20,000 units in SF]"

[http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230445860457748...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304458604577489062449154168.html?mod=WSJ_hp_editorsPicks_3)

Pwn'd is the word that comes to mind.

</comment><comment><USER9> I experienced this first-hand as I just signed a place a little over a month ago. Compared to what was listed the apartment we ended up with was several hundred dollars cheaper, and we competed with at least 10 other applicants for the place.

However, as I talk to more people they think we are overpaying several hundred dollars based on what they are paying for comparable units, most of which were signed around a year ago.

</comment><comment><USER10> What should someone do if they're moving to SF and want to live in SOMA or nearby neighborhoods? Does anyone have any recommendations? It seems like there aren't that many choices for buildings, and a lot of them aren't that new. All of the reviews I have read (for almost all of the buildings) sound mediocre or negative.

<comment><USER11> Get roommates, get ready to pay, and don't expect much.

There are some great old houses in South of Market, but turnover is rare, and they're all expensive. There are some great/awful new live/work buildings there too, but most of them are condos and all of them are expensive.

Affordability comes in Outer Mission, Excelsior, Outer Richmond, Outer Sunset. Occasionally Potrero Hill toward Cesar Chavez. "Affordability" is relative of course, but if you're finding yourself priced out of the places that everyone talks about and look nice on the map, check prices in the places I listed.

Also, remember that East Bay near BART is closer to South of Market than most of San Francisco city is, time-wise.

<comment><USER12> Any figures? I live in Dublin, Ireland, and pay €500 ($624) per month for a room in a two bed apartment in the centre of the city. That's cheap for the area -- I live within walking distance of all the bars.

<comment><USER13> You can't get a room share in most of SF for under $700, for SOMA and the Mission you'll be lucky at $850. A studio you might be able to get for $1200-$1500, 1BR $1400-1800, 2BR $2000-$$$$$.

This is assuming you don't want to live in Bayview.

<comment><USER14> I think you need to add about 50% to all those prices.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> For those who are finding it hard to rent a place, I have a suggestion for you: move to Berkeley. Amazing food. Great weather most of the time. And if you live near BART station its not that far if you work in SF.</comment>


Do-It-Yourself OpenJDK Garbage Collector - <AUTHOR> https://shipilev.net/jvm/diy-gc/ <comment><USER2> Sorry for my ignorance but G1GC is just perfectly tunable for all of my workloads (including low latency http request handling and high latency data crunching). What is the point of other GCs algos? Is there a specific workload that would benefit from it and it is not possible to use G1GC?

<comment><USER3> From the no-op garbage collector linked in the article they list a few reasons why you would want to use this garbage collector. See [https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/318](https://openjdk.java.net/jeps/318) under section motivation.

<comment><USER4> A no-op GC does indeed seem like an excellent idea for performance testing and memory pressure testing. Thanks for that link!</comment></comment></comment>


Cquence: a very tiny JavaScript animation library - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/RamonGebben/Cquence

<comment><USER2> Just commenting to point this out:

          if( IE8 ){ // gemene browsers
              /*
               ...
                  */
          } else { // lieve browsers
              /*
               ...
                  */
          }

No, it's not about browser vs. feature detection, it's just that you made me learn two _new_ words. :) Gotta love developers' comments expressivity!

</comment><comment><USER3> Impressive.

All this impressive animation frameworks will end up bringing flash animations back to the mainstream web.

<comment><USER4> Truth be told Flash is a great, I mean GREAT, platform and HTML is making strides to be more like it. It does/did everything that HTML5+ wants to do in a contained executable -- any new HTML/JS/CSS feature is already doable with Flash. Flash isn't without its warts, but that's not the point, but if you were to take a step back and evaluate it without bias, you'd be impressed with what Macromedia/Adobe did with that runtime.

Anyway, I like the idea behind this library. I like that you can compose the animation keyframes the way it does. Any suggestions that I'd make to "improve" it would probably bloat it up -- classname selectors, css-based animations/transitions. What I like most about this lib is how it does what it does in such a small package.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I guess in the Basic example, you need to put comma after the easIn and easOut function.

sequence( easIn( :id, :time, { :from }, { :to }) <\-- Here easOut( :id, :time, { :from }, { :to }) <\-- and Here sleep( :time ) // Wait utill time is passed )

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct I will update the readme thanks

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not utilize CSS more? For example how animation is done in AngularJS? I know it's supposed to be more light weight than that but at least conceptually...

<comment><USER7> CSS animations are not faster perse, but they are compatible with less browsers and any programmatic animation (where the actual animation is configured based on dynamic inputs) would only get more complicated than just keeping everything in the javascript world.

As for the CSS properties you can animate -- the code seems neutral enough to not really pick a baseline. So you have the freedom to pick your own level of browser support.

Just a nice organised starting point, and keeping the stuff that should be your code, your code.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Nice work but I'd recommend name spacing this library - you are throwing a lot of functions and variables in the global namespace.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the tip. Its is mostly used within an iframe, since it was developed for banners and such so it wasn't an issue but will work on that thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Cool project. I like how minimalist it is.

Could you provide some templates as well, just for the lib to be ready to use in a glance?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sure, I will include some example code for you. Check back tomorrow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Nice!</comment>


Definitive Proof That App Store Search Is the Absolute Worst - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/definitive-proof-that-app-store-search-is-the-absolute-1515028608 <comment><USER2> it is really a shame that they won't let other search engines index this. I can understand them not wanting to let Google get access to this data (although I think it's a shame) but what about Bing? it's not my first engine of choice but I'm sure it can help and make apps more easily searchable and accessible.</comment>


Mathematical humor - <AUTHOR> http://www.komplexify.com/math/humor.html

<comment><USER2> My favourite:

An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are staying overnight in a hotel having attended a conference.

The engineer wakes up in the middle of the night and sees there is a fire in his room, so he goes out to the corridor, finds a fire extinguisher and sprays water everywhere. The result is a bit of a mess, but the fire is out so he goes back to bed.

An hour later the physicist wakes up, and sees a fire in his room, so he gets his laptop, codes a quick simulation and then aims the fire extinguisher at the correct angle and for the right amount of time so as to put out the fire using the minimal amount of water and causing the minimal amount of damage to the room. Pleased with his work he goes back to sleep.

Finally, the mathematician wakes up and sees a fire in his room, so he heads out into the corridor, notices the fire extinguisher and then goes back to bed, having made no attempt to put out the fire but happy to have shown that a solution to the problem exists.</comment>


Ask HN: What skills do you think are necessary to succeed in life? - <AUTHOR>

Assume success = happiness, fun, excitement.
Skills like not being afraid of doing small things, working without distractions when needed, knowing what you want and what you don't want, etc.
What would you want to go back and teach yourself? <comment><USER2> The most important skills I can think of:

Curiosity - Never be afraid to learn how something works, whether it's some new programming language or a specific law or why Pop-Rocks fizz - be curious as it will make learning new things a lot more entertaining.

Speak Up - Learn how to speak up when necessary, whether it requires being assertive to put people in to place, or showing someone what you are capable of and something you have knowledge in - don't be afraid to speak your mind.

Patience - this is a very important trait - you will need it when trying to learn something new, or if you are in a position of mentoring someone. You need to understand it takes time to get things right.

Greed - yep, I'll say it - you need a certain level greed (not just with money but also in accomplishments) - not because it's a good thing in the grand scheme of things, but it can also act as a motivator to your success in life; at the same time don't let greed get the best of you and be humble about everything - even if it's a facade at times.

<comment><USER3> I think the 4 most important skills are:

Curiosity - I agree with yours

Time Alone - You learn best alone, you work best alone, and you are most creative alone. Being with friends and family for me is a release from this pressure to avoid burnout.

Perfectionism - Just look at what Steve Jobs has done with a certain level of this. Your work will always absolutely be the best possible.

Competetiveness - You should WANT to be the best at everything you do. This will be what motivates you to spend that time alone pouring over new material, working through a hard problem. This will make you become a perfectionist if you aren't one because the perfect creations will be the best. I feel this is the most important skill to have because it enforces many other traits all at once.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Be confident. There are plenty of people ready to tell you why you're wrong/crazy/stupid/naive and that will eat away at your confidence. At the end of the day you have to make your own decisions. Don't give up because someone else doesn't have the balls to start.

Surround yourself with people you admire and drop those who hold you back. This is tough because many of the friends we make over the years can be toxic for our growth. Many people hate change. They'll see you start to improve and things will get weird between you. Don't let them pull you back down. If they don't want to grow with you, say goodbye.

Identify what makes you uncomfortable and do more of it. Not much of a talker? Start going to every meetup you can. Afraid of crowds? Start giving talks and presentations.

There is a great blog by Mixergy guest Todd Smith called Little Things Matter. Google it, it's great.

</comment><comment><USER5> An effective theory of change. <http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/theoryofchange>

I'd say IQ, but that isn't a skill, now is it?

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Set goals but stay flexible and open to the unexpected opportunity or barrier. 2\. Find ways to slow down, be in the moment and enjoy life's pleasures 3\. Do some hard things - don't always take the easy road 4\. Take some risks - failure doesn't have to crush you 5\. Actively and deeply love a few people 6\. Be generous 7\. Be curious and keep learning 8\. Commit to something bigger than yourself 9\. Recognize the contributions of others and express thanks 10\. Find or create good teams.

</comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Luck 2\. Intelligence 3\. Persistence

Like they say in match point:

The man who said "I'd rather be lucky than good" saw deeply into life. People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control. There are moments in a match when the ball hits the top of the net, and for a split second, it can either go forward or fall back. With a little luck, it goes forward, and you win. Or maybe it doesn't, and you lose.

</comment><comment><USER8> 1\. Enemy crushing.

2\. Forward-before driving of enemies.

3\. Ability to hear and enjoy the lamentations of enemy women.

<comment><USER9> elementary, really, for anyone raised in the Mongolian steppes who has a raid or two under his belt.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Don't kill yourself.

</comment><comment><USER11> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2106553>

</comment><comment><USER12> The ability to follow rules, unless of course you're the one making the rules. Picking up what I'm putting down?

</comment><comment><USER13> Being thankful for what you already have.

</comment><comment><USER14> A soft voice and a steady hand.

</comment><comment><USER15> Learn how to lose your baggage and debug yourself.

</comment><comment><USER16> passion, tenacity, and irreverence

</comment><comment><USER17> persistence, persistence, persistence

<comment><USER18> Couldn't agree more. Falling down is a given, getting back up and trying again to improve is what matters.

(Yes qualifications abound and various other qualities are needed as well)</comment></comment>


Best comments in source code - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/184618/what-is-the-best-comment-in-source-code-you-have-ever-encountered <comment><USER2> An old friend. There are a few comments on most of the previous submissions.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=555201>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=604463>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=620595>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1626686>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1699760>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1805021></comment>


Show HN: Gizmote – Your Personal Device Cloud - <AUTHOR> Hi All,
We just launched the Gizmote app on playstore last week (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.gizmote.client). The app allows you to remotely control and manage Android devices in the cloud while enabling the devices into monitoring and location tracking tools. Some of the use cases are a video monitoring system for your home/business, a vehicle tracking system and a remotely controlled baby monitor. The app basically harnesses the hardware capabilities of an Android device to enable these monitoring tools. You can change settings of these tools on the fly with the changes taking effect in real-time. You can share events generated (video, audio, location events) with your friends and family.
Please do let us know what you think and any feedback is greatly appreciated. To realize the true power of this app, you will need more than one Android device to play with.
Thanks. <comment><USER2> Good idea but I do not understand the necessity for the variety of permissions the app needs. Can you please explain?

<comment><USER3> There is a page detailing the rationale for the permissions located here: [https://gizmote.ca/permissions.html](https://gizmote.ca/permissions.html)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the response. I do not see anything on why you need access to "Contacts find accounts on the device, read your contacts", "create accounts and set passwords".

P.S. Also as a personal preference, I don't like other apps having access to my google account where so much of my personal information is stored.

<comment><AUTHOR> The contact information access is so that you can easily browse your local contact list to pick email addresses from your contacts for the purpose of sharing device access.

The passwords set are not set by us - they are set during the account ceation process as per the GooglePlusClient API. There are no passwords captured or access by the app during this process or any other time of the app. We receive a token from Google that indicates authentication success or failure.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Microsoft to take 30% cut of Metro apps under Windows 8 (Will itunes be affected - <AUTHOR> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/09/16/microsoft_to_take_30_cut_of_metro_apps_under_windows_8.html

<comment><USER2> Right now, there is no reason to abandon profitable platforms and invest in Microsoft's tiny store. At the very least Microsoft needs to drop this to 25%, if not 5% or 10%, so that they offer some obvious advantage to a developer. Heck, Microsoft should even have a short-term deal where their cut is _much_ lower, e.g. 1% for the first year, just to make sure they acquire some volume.

</comment><comment><USER3> What a shitty ecosystem Windows users will be shovelled into.

The year of the Linux desktop will soon be here after all.

We are all doomed.</comment>


Windows 7 set to break retail records - <AUTHOR> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/21/windows-7-launch

<comment><USER2> "Windows 7 has become the biggest-grossing pre-order in Amazon's history worth even more than the most recent JK Rowling book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."

That's cute and everything, but Win7 Pro costs 12.5 times as much as the Harry Potter hardcover. That means Win7 could have an order of magnitude fewer pre- orders than Harry Potter and the statement would still be true.

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Professional- Full-...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Windows-Professional-Full- Version/dp/B002DUCMTC)

[http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows- Adult/d...](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows- Adult/dp/0747591067)

<comment><USER3> Logic and rational comparisons are not welcome in the PR world.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm a Mac guy but Windows 7 has impressed me. They've made the speed on par with XP and made the interface much less cluttered and non-sensical.

<comment><USER5> >> "They've made the speed on par with XP"

That's impressive? :) being comparable to an 8 year old OS?

<comment><USER4> Being able to keep speed the same after adding tons of features is very impressive for any software, let alone an OS.

<comment><USER5> I'm interested. Can you name some OS features (Not UI effects) that take a lot of CPU that have been added? :/

What are some of the 'tons of features'?

<comment><USER4> Walt Mossberg from the Wall Street Journal explains it pretty well: [http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091007/a-windows-to-help- you-f...](http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091007/a-windows-to-help-you-forget/)

<comment><USER6> I admit that I've only skimmed the article you cite, but while there are a few GUI features mentioned there, and I'm sure they're pretty and help to manage windows, etc, none of them seem to be particularly CPU hungry.

It's still a question of where 7 spends its CPU money compared with XP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Microsoft's contribution to economic stimulus for PC makers:

From [http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade- advis...](http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/get/upgrade-advisor.aspx) :

 _On the other hand, if you're running Windows XP, or any other operating system for that matter, we recommend that you experience Windows 7 on a new PC. The Laptop Scout can help you find a great PC fit for you, or you can browse through these featured PCs that can run Windows 7._

And further stimulus for local computer services shops:

 _...And while we don't recommend it, should you choose to upgrade your current PC from Windows XP or another operating system to Windows 7, we recommend that you get help with this process from your local computer service provider. You'll need to back up your current files and settings, perform a custom (clean) installation, and then reinstall your files, settings, and programs._

But just think how that last quote can be spun with a little excerpting- without-context. Microsoft says, "[W]e don't recommend... upgrad[ing] your current PC from Windows XP or another operating system to Windows 7".

</comment><comment><USER8> Am I the only one wondering how much Microsoft paid for this article?

<comment><USER9> Why, because it's favorable towards MS? I'm a devout Mac user, Windows 7 really feels polished.

<comment><USER10> Yes, but XP is also polished ... unless by polish you mean eye-candy.

The problems with XP are more under-the-hood. They tried fixing some of those in Vista, like the UAC, but it was a complete failure.

I also have a 5-year-old LCD that's pretty good, but it doesn't work well with their clear-type technology. I don't understand why they haven't added a classic anti-aliasing option like I have in Linux. So to make Vista bearable, I have to deactivate all the flashy stuff, because that's the only way to have sane fonts.

So it really doesn't matter if Windows 7 feels polished. Normal people will have to have real reasons to switch.</comment></comment></comment>


Trying .NET Core on Linux with just a tarball (without apt-get) - <AUTHOR> https://www.hanselman.com/blog/TryingNETCoreOnLinuxWithJustATarballWithoutAptget.aspx <comment><USER2> Holy wow that was quick. Read that HN comment yesterday and now Hanselman himself is at it. Good stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd like to try this method with a nix package.</comment>


How do you manage the browser bookmarks? - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/fyodorio/how-do-you-manage-your-browser-bookmarks-1hcb <comment><AUTHOR> Nice discussion about storing bookmarks.</comment>


Updated Cyber Crime Statistics for 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://utopia.fans/security/updated-cyber-crime-statistics/ <comment><AUTHOR> For everyone interested in cyber security</comment>


Meetup.com sucks big time - <AUTHOR>

I don't understand meetup.com admins.
You try to set up account, spend time frikin
signing with groups, and they just constantly delete accounts?!
One posted comment on one of the groups that some tosser doesn't like, and some turd flags your comment and these meetup.com admins just delete accounts left right and centre?! They're just total losers.
I mean they are just a pack of total $#@!, no wonder they had a DOS attack 12 months ago.
About time their site went down again, decent action to these pussies is needed, because there is no freedom of speech anymore, the way it's going we will no longer be able to talk in the future, apart from a recorded robot voice "Good morning dear friendly citizen". Anyone experienced meetup.com like this? They shit me. <comment><USER2> Well, if the language you used above is any indication of the comments you left on their site I am not surprised that someone was offended. I imagine this will offend you but you might want to soften you language. Given the language you are using you are an enemy of your own message.

</comment><comment><USER3> I see a user (you) who registered on one forum (HN) just to complain about another forum and calling people: turds, losers, tosser, pack of total $#@! and pussies. Sorry, it's freedom of speech etc, but looks childish.

</comment><comment><USER4> Tip: Nobody wants to hang out with jerks. Don't be a jerk.

</comment><comment><USER5> > freedom of speech

I do not think that word means what you think it means.</comment>