Pentagon to Retire USS Truman Early, Shrinking Carrier Fleet to 10 - <AUTHOR> https://breakingdefense.com/2019/02/pentagon-to-retire-uss-truman-early-shrinking-carrier-fleet-to-10/ <comment><USER2> This seems like a good case for why congress needs less influence on military line items (distinct from the budget as a whole). They'll complain that it makes the US less safe but in reality they just want the jobs at the expense of defense capabilities. They know x carrier part _will_ be built in their district as opposed to the billions used on other more relevant priorities as determined by people who are trained and paid to develop strategies. I don't think the people complaining are experts in military strategy and defense technology.

Now, all this said, to spite what most news outlets are babbling about, the carriers are very much still relevant and important and will remain so for at least a few decades. They just need to be balanced with developing future systems and demanding that we always have 11 carriers doesn't really provide the flexibility to handle emerging threats.

<comment><USER3> Are they? It seems like a billion dollar asset that can be destroyed with a few million dollar missile is a little outdated?

<comment><USER4> How many of our carriers have actually been destroyed? Until we have some real-world data, your assumption doesn't hold water. Missiles and missile defense are incredibly complex beasts that almost never work quite as well operationally as expected.

<comment><USER2> In fairness, waiting for carriers to get sunk to generate some empirical data might not be the best route. Everything kind of has to be sorted out in simulation to get the best chance of success

<comment><USER4> The point is that we _do that_ , and the problem space is just too complex to produce clear answers. We don't know what would happen if someone launched a missile at one of our aircraft carriers. With that in mind, nick is clearly begging the question.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Naval Gazing blog has a four-part series called "Why the Carriers Are Not Doomed" in which he makes the case: "Claims that US carriers are very vulnerable to missile attack, and will be sunk immediately in any upcoming war, are quite common. They're also wrong. The carriers are surprisingly survivable, and the prowess of missiles is usually grossly exaggerated."

I don't have the expertise to fully evaluate the arguments, but it's worth a read before you fully swallow the "carriers are pointless because of anti-ship missiles" line.

[https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom- Part-1](https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-1)

[https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom- Part-2](https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-2)

[https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom- Part-3](https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-3)

[https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom- Part-4](https://navalgazing.obormot.net/Carrier-Doom-Part-4)

<comment><USER6> These claims also completely ignore the fact that carriers and other high value assets aren't going to be thrown into the fray, they aren't stationary and aren't unprotected.

In a case of a war with say China the US isn't going to park it's carrier fleet in the littoral waters and yell come at me bro the risks to the carrier are well known and understood and there are plenty of things the US can do to mitigate against those and very much effectively so.

The US has a very long history of naval warfare and the longest effective history in carrier operations a US carrier in the south china sea is still likely the most safe airwing you can have in the area since the US bases in the area are a much easier target for potential Chinese strikes.

I don't think people understand how hard it is to find a carrier battle group in the middle of the seas even within it's combat effective range not to mention guide and hit a moving target with very capable air defenses.

This holds true especially for the so called carrier killer "hypersonic" weapons which while might be able to pass through the missile defense shield of the strike group and the carrier itself have very poor terminal maneuvering and while a carrier is slow hitting a target evading your at 30 without very excellent terminal guidance isn't likely.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Is the idea of a hot, but non nuclear war with China realistic? I have a hard time picturing scenarios where China is sinking carriers which don't quickly escalate to full blown nuclear war.

As a practical matter, perhaps carriers are just not going to be as important in the future? Drones can be launched from a much wider variety of places / ship decks.

The future of war may be a giant swarm of small ships and drones rather than one large flagship ringed by layers of destroyers etc to protect it.

<comment><USER8> > Is the idea of a hot, but non nuclear war with China realistic? I have a > hard time picturing scenarios where China is sinking carriers which don't > quickly escalate to full blown nuclear war.

It could be if there isn't a meaningful conventional deterrent.

Thought experiment--if the US _only_ had strategic nuclear weapons, what would they do if China attempted to, for example, blockade Taiwan or the Philippines? It would be insane and homicidal to immediately escalate to nuking Beijing. What if the US had conventional forces, but not ones strong enough to hold off Chinese forces? They might take the risk that we wouldn't attempt a first strike.

Conversely, if it happened today, it would be proportional and reasonable to deploy conventional naval forces to escort merchant ships across the blockade. Maybe one of the Chinese ships would fire on one of the American ships, or one of the merchant ships under American protection, and maybe there might be a naval skirmish. But it wouldn't immediately escalate into a nuclear exchange. There would be an "incident", the Chinese would realize that they would have to escalate to a nuclear first strike because their naval capacity is hopelessly outclassed by ours, and thus they would probably stand down. Furthermore, China already knows this is exactly what would happen in this situation and that's one of many reasons they don't try anything.

Despite an infamous 1995 quote from a Chinese general that "in the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei", Chinese posturing in the Taiwan Straits in 1996 led to a large US naval deployment to the seas around Taiwan, at which point China stood down. A full-on war could still escalate to a nuclear exchange, but that is all the more deterrent against starting even a conventional war with US forces. (For similar reasons, note how Russia's bullying tends to be targeted towards countries that haven't joined NATO.)

<comment><USER9> _There would be an "incident", the Chinese would realize that they would have to escalate to a nuclear first strike because their naval capacity is hopelessly outclassed by ours, and thus they would probably stand down._

Or, they might plan a secret saturation anti-ship missile strike that would take out a big chunk of the US fleet, calculating that we wouldn't escalate to full war or nuclear over Taiwan.

 _Despite an infamous 1995 quote from a Chinese general that "in the end, you care more about Los Angeles than you do about Taipei", Chinese posturing in the Taiwan Straits in 1996 led to a large US naval deployment to the seas around Taiwan, at which point China stood down._

Basically it comes down to this: At what point is maintaining the Taiwan "cork in the bottle" no longer worth the cost for the US to maintain global dominance of the oceans? Keep your eye out for a naval arms race between the US and China.

<comment><USER8> > Or, they might plan a secret saturation anti-ship missile strike that would > take out a big chunk of the US fleet, calculating that we wouldn't escalate > to full war or nuclear over Taiwan.

This is similar to the strategy behind Pearl Harbor. Which isn't to say that it's the exact same, or that the Chinese wouldn't attempt it--likewise, we should expect and prepare for such a threat.

> Keep your eye out for a naval arms race between the US and China.

Agreed.

I think the anti-ship missile threat in particular is something the Navy is planning for, judging by the strong investment in directed-energy weapons.

<comment><USER9> _This is similar to the strategy behind Pearl Harbor. Which isn 't to say that it's the exact same, or that the Chinese wouldn't attempt it--likewise, we should expect and prepare for such a threat._

All of the ways it's unlike Pearl Harbor favor the Chinese over what the Japanese had to work with in WWII. For one thing, they already control China. For another thing, they wouldn't have to reach all the way to Hawaii. They could mount pressure requiring a US response, then take out our carrier groups relatively close to their shores.

 _I think the anti-ship missile threat in particular is something the Navy is planning for, judging by the strong investment in directed-energy weapons._

Things that make you go "hmmmm." Even directed energy weapons have a saturation point. Such weapons are also dependent on detection and targeting, which can also be jammed and saturated. Submarines would already mitigate a lot of that threat. The US has a strong submarine force with considerable experience in such "cold war" activities. They have a strong track record of winning a war of stealth and signals intelligence far from their home shores.

<comment><USER8> > All of the ways it's unlike Pearl Harbor favor the Chinese over what the > Japanese had to work with in WWII. For one thing, they already control > China. For another thing, they wouldn't have to reach all the way to Hawaii. > They could mount pressure requiring a US response, then take out our carrier > groups relatively close to their shores.

While true, I was referring more to the idea that immediately destroying a significant amount of American naval power would cause the United States to immediately fold. In that respect, China's possession of nuclear weapons is the most relevant difference.

On the other hand, China would get one shot at 2, _maybe_ 3 carrier groups. If their attack fails, it would be a massive strategic backfire. If their attack succeeds, they gain only the immediate operational advantage of not having to worry about US carrier groups. They would also gain the strategic advantage of tying the hands of the US in terms of deploying ballistic missile defenses against a potential Chinese nuclear strike. But, as you point out, we could adapt and deploy submarines to blockade China while exerting diplomatic and economic pressure.

In other words, even if China manages to prove themselves invulnerable to the projected power of American carriers, they would still not gain a sustainable advantage and would remain in a protracted state of hostilities. The best case outcome of a Chinese first strike against American carriers would still be pretty awful for them.

> Even directed energy weapons have a saturation point. Such weapons are also > dependent on detection and targeting, which can also be jammed and > saturated.

It's hard to say at this point. If you're discussing the claim that cruise missiles are cheaper than carriers, a fair response is that megawatts are cheaper than cruise missiles. Maybe it won't work out, but it's worth a try and that's the stage we're at.

<comment><USER9> _The best case outcome of a Chinese first strike against American carriers would still be pretty awful for them._

If the Chinese are going to take the risks and roll the dice on a first strike, then they're going to be playing for some pretty enticing stakes, like Taiwan. That's the point of such a move. It would come at the end of a series of escalations. For such a move to pay off, they'd have to be confident that they could control the seas around Taiwan long enough to mount a successful invasion. Prior to that, there would need to be a buildup of China's submarine forces. Perhaps they would have built a SOSUS style listening array, along with a surface fleet buildup which would only hit a level that the US Navy brass would still scoff at. If I were China, I would consider building a great many attack subs with ultra quiet but cheap surface independent propulsion and anti-ship capability. Many of these might come in the form of even quieter, smaller, and somewhat expendable autonomous drone subs. To make such a plan work, they will also have to solve the logistical problem of landing an enormous number of troops and their supplies. That last factor will likely be detected by US intelligence long beforehand, but might be camouflaged to throw off the time estimate.

If I were the Chinese top brass, I would be conducting a highly secretive program of drone sub building. As an alternative or an adjunct, perhaps do a huge air force buildup with very potent anti-submarine capability. The idea would be to neutralize the US Surface advantage with saturation missile strike, then make it very dangerous and miserable for the US submarines, but achieve those advantages while still having the US Navy brass scoff at your capabilities.

 _If you 're discussing the claim that cruise missiles are cheaper than carriers, a fair response is that megawatts are cheaper than cruise missiles. Maybe it won't work out, but it's worth a try and that's the stage we're at._

The question is not if cruise missiles are cheaper than megawatts. The question is not even if cruise missiles are cheaper than the high-tech ship that deploys those megawatts. (Which is a less favorable question for the US.) The question is if the price of those cruise missiles and Chinese lives is worth getting Taiwan. Given that Taiwan is a stepping stone for China's ascendance to the level of global superpower, I suspect the price they're willing to pay is rather high.

<comment><USER8> The problem with Taiwan is that to take Taiwan, they have to actually take Taiwan. That means transporting troops across the straits in sufficient force to establish a beachhead and transporting supplies and reinforcements to that beachhead. That requires a lot of Chinese surface shipping that would be even more vulnerable to cruise missiles and air attack. And that's assuming an RoE where the US doesn't just immediately (conventionally) bomb all of China's coastal ports preemptively. Even if they solve that problem, it would be logistically very difficult to cross even the Taiwan Straits in sufficient force, and would require destroying and alienating Taiwan and causing a possibly bigger problem in the long run.

This is why the South China Sea is so important—it provides a potential outlet to the open sea while keeping open the possibility of gradual, peaceful reintegration with Taiwan.

The only caveat—and it's a big one—is that China is in a demographic situation where it wouldn't hurt them to lose even ten million men due to the heavy gender imbalance of the military-age generation created by the one-child policy.

As for DEWs, cruise missiles and saturation attacks work because you can launch so many cruise missiles that no system can track all of them in enough detail to acquire a firing solution and launch SAMs. DEWs simplify this a lot. The firing solution is just line-of-sight to a contact, you can fire the DEW as quickly as you can generate power rather than having a set amount of ammunition you need to conserve, and if it's a choice between firing at an unconfirmed target and losing the ship and you can fire the laser, you fire the laser. The question is simply generating enough power to fire the DEW at the necessary rate to handle a saturation attack. Hypersonic cruise missiles make this harder, but at the cost of the cruise missiles themselves being more expensive. It's not obvious where the balance is going to end up.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Does the delivery of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales have any bearing on this - they aren't super carriers, but they are pretty close.

Does the pentagon calculate that there's some flex as a result?

<comment><USER2> Almost certainly. Friendly nations' capabilities are in many ways just as important as your own. While the obvious reason for pushing the F-35 on everyone is because we get to make money for LM, it also means there are more F-35s out there that can be used in the event something happens.

<comment><USER11> For the UK, the F-35 procurement deal has utterly crippled their force projection ability. For some inexplicable reason, the decision was made in 2011 to "sell" all 72 of the UK's (newly refurbished at great expense) Harrier jump jets to the US Marine Corps, for the tiny sum of 180 million dollars. This left them completely without carrier-capable aircraft for many years, despite investing billions in a new aircraft carrier. As of this moment, the UK has a grand total of... 9 ops ready F-35 lightnings.

So forgive me if I doubt that allied readiness is in any way a priority for the F-35 program.

<comment><USER2> Maybe the F-35 wasn't the best example. There was intent, and then there was execution and I guess we can both agree that the execution was...lacking?

<comment><USER11> As I understand it, a major reason for the F-35's existence in the first place was that the F-22 was considered too good to export; the F-35 is deliberately inferior. So I'm still not convinced about the intent.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I wonder how that law would be interpreted if China sunk one of our carriers in a cruise missile fight.

On that one hand, the loss of life would be ridiculous but would we need to immediately start building a new one to be 'compliant'

<comment><USER13> If the US got into a hot war with China, we are all screwed.

Recall that the US succeeded in WW1 and WW2 by out-producing their opponents. They simply built more guns and tanks and munitions than everyone else. US munitions were lower quality than what was produced in Europe, but they were cheaper and available in large numbers. That's what mattered.

However, that's a strategy that won't work against China. The Chinese are the undisputed kings of building things fast and cheap. They would out-produce the US easily AND they have a much larger population to conscript into their armies.

US military chiefs must know that a land-war against China has almost no chance of success. China is too big and their army too numerous.

So if the war were to go badly (which it almost certainly would) they would be likely to consider the nuclear option... and once we go there, there's no going back. China would retaliate; Russia would likely get involved; article 5 would be invoked.... game over.

<comment><USER14> How well could China sustain that production with zero imports via sea? They have relied on imported coal for power production since 2007, and are now the world's largest importer of oil, 43% of it coming from the gulf in big slow tankers. US Carrier groups thousands of miles away from China could cripple it's imports with a few radio messages.

<comment><USER15> "the world's largest importer of oil, 43% of it coming from the gulf in big slow tankers."

The Middle-East's oil and the factories in China are all on the same land- mass. They don't _need_ sea transport, that's just more convenient/cheaper for China at present.

<comment><USER14> China has only a single land fueled pipeline that doesn't lead to Russia, and it comes from Kazakhstan. It can carry 120 thousand barrels per day. China used over 13 million barrels per day in 2017, and I can only imagine it has increased since then.

There is a pipeline that leads from Myanmar to China, but it is supplied by tankers docking in Myanmar. I assume the US Navy would put a stop to that pretty quickly.

After pipelines the next best way to move oil over land is by train. Huge trains of tanker cars are extremely visible to surveillance. Since they have to follow the train tracks and are slow moving, they make perfect targets as well, and you only need one missile to get through.

<comment><USER16> Also, in any kind of hot war, all kinds of overland transportation infrastructure are going to be high-priority targets. The are probably more than a few bridges between the Middle East and China.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I wonder why the US is so determined to have a large carrier fleet?

With the advent of anti-ship cruise missiles, carriers have lost the decisive edge that they had during WW2. It seems like few nations are willing to bear the development and maintenance costs of modern carriers. Yet the US continues to build carriers as if they were at war! Furthermore, there is a huge uproar (along with legal challenges!) whenever anyone dares to suggest even slowing down the rate of carrier deployment. Why is the US so set on a policy that every other developed nation has eschewed? It makes no sense to me.

<comment><USER17> Did Afghanistan, Iraq, Isis, Syria, or even Serbia have the capability to launch cruise missles at aircraft carriers? What about Vietnam or Korea?

I think your underestimating what aircraft carriers are actually used for. The Navy has been dropping bombs off aircraft carriers since WW2. I doubt we will ever see another world war in our lifetime. They may sell it to Congress one way and use it another way.

<comment><USER13> I agree with you; guns are great when you're fighting enemies armed only with sharp sticks...

The first time the US has to deal with Anti-Ship cruise-missiles might be a bad day for them.

<comment><USER17> It would be a bad day for everyone!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We should give it to Taiwan. That would piss China off nicely. /sarcasm</comment>


Db.addUser() appears in shell history, with cleartext passwords - MongoDB - <AUTHOR> https://jira.mongodb.org/browse/SERVER-3768 <comment><USER2> This was reported on Sep 06 2011... a suggested fix in the ticket was "should strip from history like .auth()".

Has it been fixed? What is the implications of having it in the console history?

<comment><USER3> I tested some stuff with MongoDB about a month ago and I did notice the shell- history-thing with addUser at that time.

Edit: It is not fixed in 2.0.2 at least. (Tested now)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> MySQL has had this same problem forever. This isn't something "new". Its stored in the local users .mysql_history

</comment><comment><USER5> Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It has just been fixed in master.</comment>


A Note on the Use of Dictionaries (2012) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://www.greenbag.org/v16n4/v16n4_articles_scalia_and_garner.pdf <comment><USER2> Some interesting/applicable results I read about dictionaries lately:

\- dictionary can sometimes cause rather than prevent lexical errors. (Ard, J. (1982). The use of bilingual dictionaries by EFL students while writing. ITL Review of Applied Linguistics 58, 1–27.)

\- user tends to select the first meaning they encounter (Nesi, H. & R. Haill (2002). A study of dictionary use by international students at a British university. International Journal of Lexicography 15.4, 277–306.)

\- bilingual dictionaries are more useful to lower-proficiency users, monolingual is better to advanced users (Lew, R. (2004). Which dictionary for whom? Receptive use of bilingual, monolingual and semi-bilingual dictionaries by Polish learners of English. Poznan: Motivex.)

\- different people have different lookup preferences and that the use of multiple dictionary information seems to reinforce retention (Laufer, B., & Hill, M. (2000). What Lexical Information Do L2 Learners Select in a CALL Dictionary and How Does It Affect Word Retention? Research Report.)

Interesting meta-study: Nesi, H. (2014). Dictionary use by English language learners. Language Teaching, 47(1), 38-55.

</comment><comment><USER3> I accept that judges sometimes need to refer to dictionaries, but wonder whether this particular essay is someehow related to Scalia's positions on orginalism?

Also, why are the "fowls raised for meat" definitions that they use as an example more explanatory than the "domesticated fowls" definitions?

Is it possible that the authors are confusing greater specificity for being fuller or more explanatory or superior? Given the prevailing dogma that English language dictionaries merely describe popular use rather than prescribe it, it is unclear that the more specific definitions more accurately describe its use by fluent language users.

<comment><USER4> > wonder whether this particular essay is someehow related to Scalia's > positions on orginalism

Indeed. IANAL, but i suspect that in the poultry case, a British judge would start with the plain meaning rule, decide that it wasn't absolutely clear whether a fighting cock was poultry, and then fall back to the mischief rule, asking what the original intent of the law was. They wouldn't sit around poring over dictionaries trying to find a definition that fits their desired meaning. Whereas that's an originalist's favourite thing to do!

<comment><USER5> You may agree or disagree with Justice Scalia, but he was not one to sit around trying to figure out legislative intent when reading a statute ([http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?art...](http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1486&context=mulr)). His take was that the legislature spoke through the statutes text, and after that it was up to the judges.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> The look and feel of the book do not impress the user as being scholarly. By scholarly we mean weighty. Not superficial. Chock-full of erudition._

This seems like a bizarrely out-of-place jab in an essay with an otherwise scholarly tone. Why should the "look and feel" of the texts used matter to the facts of a case? If the publisher had used thicker paper or a nicer font would Scalia have been less inclined to criticize the appellate judge?

</comment><comment><USER7> The 'Influence' section of Scalia's wikipedia bio is interesting and relevant: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia#Influence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Scalia#Influence)

> "Since his death in February of 2016, Scalia's influence of course continues > through his three decades of judicial opinions. But he still exerts great > influence in another, less-discussed way. In 2012, he co-authored the book > Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts with Bryan A. Garner. This > work describes numerous "canons," or rules regarding how to interpret legal > documents ... A mere seven years since its publication, Reading Law has been > cited in over 1,000 state and federal cases. Just this spring, for instance, > Supreme Court justices referenced the work in 10 cases."

Note that Garner is the same co-author as for the linked PDF.</comment>


We Can't Get Over Ourselves: Reasons we fail to understand others - <AUTHOR> http://nautil.us/issue/27/dark-matter/why-we-cant-get-over-ourselves <comment><USER2> The biggest objection I have to self-reported studies and the conclusions drawn from them in articles like this is that, according to research in books like Thinking, Fast and Slow, a lot of self-reported facts (including beliefs) are often wrong. Revealed preferences will often show that people believe something different from what they report. And people will fervently believe they told you the right thing. Also, a lot of the findings of these studies end up not being repeatable or have very small effects. I've gotten to the point where I unconsciously put little value in opinion polls and other self- reported data, unless I have a good reason to think otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm curious as to the rhetorical implications of all this research, particularly regarding modern media. A TON of dialog takes place on message boards and comment sections like this one, certainly more than on any traditional media. It would be interesting to see whether such discussions significantly affect popular opinion of if they're largely just outlets for what people already believe. Even a simple poll of "have you ever changed your mind based on information gathered from discussions on message board X?" would be enlightening. You'd need to conduct such surveys on specific boards/sites to get a clear picture though, as each has a unique community with different priorities. At the very least it would be nice to get a database of which forums have intelligent discussion and which are just full of windbags lol.

Obviously on a lot of boards the posters are just running their mouths, but it would be interesting to poll the impacts on the lurkers as well.

<comment><USER4> Which part of the article addressed that? It does talk about beliefs, but not about discussions. On one study they mentioned persuasive arguments on some topics affected reportes beliefs the way they measured it as part of that study, but that's not the same situation as a discussion response.

What I realized years ago is that everyone has beliefs, regardless of how religious they are, and most discussions DO involve people trying to 'help the other person to understand' their existing beliefs.

Its not just 'windbags'. Its almost everyone in most discussions.

And it absolutely is not something that is limited to online or any particular media versus a face-to-face discussion. People may be more free in expressing their beliefs online, but that doesn't mean they don't hold them in spoken conversation -- they might keep things to themselves.

There are no forums 'full of intelligent conversation'. People _are_ able to discuss things and sometimes gain new information or even change their minds, but the ratio of new information going in versus explaining why your belief is more correct than the other guy's is very small.

People _think_ that they are rational or 'scientific'. Generally though, people are good at rationalizing what they already believed, and only change their minds when all else fails. Including you and I.

<comment><USER3> None of it. I was commenting on the implications of the information that the article presented.

However, particularly with that line about twitter, it seems to imply that modern methods of communication are more about confirmation than discussion. In particular the article's point about how much is lost in text-based communication. If I state an unpopular opinion, someone reading it might very well fill in the "blanks" with the picture and voice of a pimply 14 year old, which would allow them to more easily dismiss said opinion. I think it would be interesting to more closely examine how prevalent such projective behavior is on message boards.

My personal experience has (unfortunately) been people will almost always stick to their guns online, even after their perspectives have been thoroughly and undeniably refuted, even after their own allies tell them they've lost. Best case scenario they'll lose composure completely and look like a fool rather than admit defeat. In person, however, people will often admit that an opponent may have a point and other such courtesies. While there is an argument to be made that this is all superficial courtesy, it would also stand to reason that in person an opponent has less room to rationalize, and can detect things like passion, enthusiasm, or level-headedness that are impossible to deny. These traits could lend subconscious credence to an opponent's argument.

Basically I just want to take the researchers' findings on text-based communication and examine the issue in greater detail.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> They save the best for last: people's own beliefs cannot (with statistical certainty) be distinguished from people's beliefs about what God believes.

 _EDIT_ Just to specify the distinction cannot be made based on fMRI data during verbal responses to such questions. This isn't the best or only measure of brain activity but it's still scary result.

<comment><USER6> This is probably just because people who a believe a god exists have beforehand adopted beliefs that they were told are the god's. If one maintains, "I am a believer of religion X," it's tantamount to, "my opinions are those of X-god." Easier than doing some sort of modeling of the mind of god and filling in the details with one's own mind, is to start with the premise, "as a (e.g.) Christian, my beliefs are God's beliefs" and just say what you believe.

<comment><USER5> This is the benign interpretation, i.e. causality flows from God to me, but the opposite direction, or both, is I think equally likely interpretation.

<comment><USER7> That's why the most ironic passage in the bible is the bit about how "God created man in his own image."

<comment><USER8> "... and man returned the favor."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Twitter does not allow others to understand your deep thoughts and broad perspective. It only allows others to confirm how stupid they already think you are."

</comment><comment><USER10> > Logically, this sum cannot exceed 100 percent.

The chance of the sum being exactly 100% is pretty low considering that they are subjective opinions on what percentage one thinks she or he is personally responsible for certain activity, and the spouses are separated from each other. As humans, we have cognitive biases and we don't access memories the way a server does. Simply inferring that "people often overestimate their importance in this world" from the experimental data that the couples' estimates often added up to a number a lot bigger than 100% is an oversimplification of the matter. But since this is general psychology it is fine to have things this way perhaps.

<comment><USER11> Plus, it doesn't really mean that people overestimate _more_ in big groups. If everyone overestimates by 5% they might just be bad at rounding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> "By the time you get to groups of eight, these MBAs were claiming nearly 140 percent productivity! "

OK but the 80/20 rule suggests a couple of the MBAs are doing most of the work, and the rest are overestimating their useful contribution. It's even possible that the 20%ers are underestimating their contribution, which fits the pattern of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

<comment><USER13> I've done some workshops on performance improvement. One of the exercises I do is to ask people to rate, on an absolute scale of 1 to 10, how well they are currently doing their job. 10 means "There is no possible room for improvement". 1 means "Just barely acceptable". I don't ask people to rate themselves as incompetent ;-). If you really think you are incompetent, then you can write 0, though.

After they write down the number, I ask them to consider another question. When you retire (as I usually had a young audience, this would be in about 30 years time), at what level will you be doing your job -- again on an absolute scale from 1 to 10?

Most people score themselves as a 7 or 8 in the first question. Then in the second question they have nowhere to go. I cruelly ask people if they intend not to improve very much over the next 30 years :-)

The problem is that most people do not follow directions. They don't judge themselves on an absolute scale. Their first thought is, "I'm doing well. In fact, I'm good at my job." So they think, "5 is average. A bit over that is 7. Obviously I've got to leave some room for improvement. I'm not perfect, so I'll leave 9 or 10 alone".

It's the same lens effect. I am actually asking a different question than they are answering. The interesting bit is that people skim over the internal logic and can often conflate my actual question with the question they answered.

Here is an example. Let's say you have 10 years of experience and you have 30 years left before retirement. How much more effective will you be in 30 years from now (as a percentage). By effective, I mean your ability to do your job and influence people so that projects are more successful and your company makes more money. Does it not seem reasonable that with 4 times as much experience you might be twice as effective? Or even more?

If you answered "yes", does that mean that you should make half as much money now (or even less!) than someone with 40 rather than 10 years of experience? What about your title? Compared to your 30 year more senior self, how do you rate? If you have "senior" in your title now, what should you have 30 years from now? (maybe "god", I suppose)

People conflate the questions, "How well are you performing" , "What is your worth", and "How much do you want to be valued". They answer the last question and assign it to the first two questions. Because people want to be valued, they over estimate their worth and (more critically) become blind to the fact that they can improve. This limits their ability to increase performance.

<comment><USER14> >Most people score themselves as a 7 or 8 in the first question. Then in the second question they have nowhere to go. I cruelly ask people if they intend not to improve very much over the next 30 years :-)

The first question is worded so they assume you mean their current job, and the second one assumes they'll be doing the exact same job in 30 years.

The problem is you, not them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I prefer [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases)

</comment><comment><USER16> > _One of the biggest barriers to understanding others is excessive > egocentrism._

A 'Silicon Valley' problem!

<comment><USER17> A problem _anywhere_ people spend most of their time being themselves instead of each other, i.e. all the places.</comment></comment>


You, thieves, are solely responsible for SOPA/PIPA. - <AUTHOR> http://itsquitefrustrating.pen.io/

<comment><USER2> Feeding a troll: Copyright infringement is not stealing. Sellers of movies etc are not entitled to profits. My download of something I would not buy, does not cost you anything - you don't lose the ability to sell copies, you don't lose any $, because I would never have spent any $ on it. When actual losses are $0, no theft occurred. Learn to use grown up words and thoughts if you want to make an argument that doesn't sound like a spoiled child ranting.

</comment><comment><USER3> > Sure, the web an awesome medium to sell music/movies on, but there's no > reason why you can't use iTunes.

I don't know about music/movies, but there are many reasons why it's difficult to sell apps on iTunes.

</comment><comment><USER4> What makes you think you have to be a pirate to be against SOPA? I spend $60+/mo. downloading movies from the iTunes store, to keep on the right side of the law. I'm still 100% against censorship, and especially censorship that serves no legitimate purpose.

And on a personal note, I think your response is even more generalizing and patronizing than the pirate's post. I'd sooner have a beer with him and try to convince him why he's wrong, than have to sit at a table with you for an hour.</comment>


WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla in the ultimate CMS Smackdown - <AUTHOR> http://wpshowdown.wordpress.com/background/

<comment><USER2> Wordpress is hosed. There's only so much square peg-round hole hammering you can do when what you're working with isn't actually a fully fledged CMS. Joomla shows some promise but with the head start and community (and now government) support Drupal is enjoying, I don't think this is going to be much of a contest.</comment>


How to write a Linux virus in 5 easy steps - <AUTHOR> http://www.geekzone.co.nz/blog.asp?postid=6229#compact

<comment><USER2> Even though I've read it twice, I still don't understand exactly _how_ you get anything to run and start writing arbitrary files.

The way to do it is to send a tar file that happens to extract exe files to ~/bin.

Besides, if you run a fancy wm, that's your problem :)</comment>


Abolish Bottled Water - <AUTHOR> https://motherboard.vice.com/read/abolish-bottled-water-nestle-great-lakes-canada <comment><USER2> Small comment for people that don't like the taste of chlorine in water, a tiny pinch of ascorbic acid per liter neutralizes both chlorine and chloramine.</comment>


Progressive Lenses and Large Monitors Do Not Play Well Together - <AUTHOR> https://www.exratione.com/2014/12/progressive-lenses-and-large-monitors-do-not-play-well-together/

<comment><USER2> "Instead use two separate pairs of glasses, one for computing work and one for everything else, as that is the only way to maintain good close vision that allows you to continue rapidly move your focus around a large screen without having to change the way in which you presently move your head."

Yes, I have a pair of intermediate distance eyeglasses that I use for computer work. And I use progressive lenses for everything else.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a good idea. By why just 2 pairs? Presbyopia makes it difficult to change focus. So we need a different pair of glasses for each distance. There seems to be resistance to the idea of getting multiple pairs of glasses. I don't understand it.

I don't "wear glasses" in the usual sense of the word, but I've been hit pretty hard with presbyopia in the last few years. I have 4 pairs of glasses: one for using my desktop at work, one for reading & using my laptop at home, one for watching TV at home, and one for general-purpose use when I go out. I don't need to carry all of these around with me; I keep them where I use them. I didn't go to an optician for any of them; I just picked up some cheap pairs at the grocery store.

Even the grocery-store display seems to be aimed at getting the _one_ pair of reading glasses that is right for you. I don't see why.</comment>


Colorful javascript object diffs with difflet - <AUTHOR> http://substack.net/posts/8e4802

<comment><USER2> Genius like always!</comment>


Musical.ly shutting down after $1B acquisition - <AUTHOR> https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/musically-shutdown-tiktok-bytedance-1202893205/ <comment><USER2> bye bye musical.ly users. Bytedance is your new censhorship encforcing overlords. The Chinese government has forced Bytedance to censor user content for "publishing a product that collided with core Socialist values".

[https://variety.com/2018/digital/asia/china-shuts-down- byted...](https://variety.com/2018/digital/asia/china-shuts-down-bytedance- parody-site-1202751287/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Musical.ly now turned into TikTok

</comment><comment><USER4> oh freak!</comment>


Programming Sucks - <AUTHOR> http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks <comment><USER4> The page source has a nice gem:

      <!--
      So this guy we just interviewed at my
      current job wrote this little script
      to see if a product update for some
      company had come out. Every 10 seconds
      the script urllib'ed the page, checked
      the length of the html - <USER2>
      len(html) - against the length it was
      last time it checked. He wrote a blog
      post about this script. A freaking
      blog post. He also described himself
      as "something of a child prodigy"
      despite, in another post, saying he
      couldn't calculate the area of a slice
      of pizza because "area of a triangle
      with a curved edge is beyond my
      Google-less math skills." Seriously
      dude? I haven't taken geomtry in 20
      years, and pi*r^2/8 seems pretty
      freaking obvious.

      The script also called a ruby script
      to send him a tweet which another
      script was probably monitoring to text
      his phone so he could screenshot the
      text and post to facebook via
      instagram.

      I think the "millenials" - who should
      be referred to as generation byte - <USER3>
      undeserved flak, as all generations do,
      for being younger and prettier and
      living in a different world.

      But this kid calling himself a prodigy
      is a clear indication of way too many
      gold stars handed out for adequacy, so
      to ensure that no such abominable
      script ever does anything besides
      bomb somebody's twitter account, this
      comment shows up exactly 50% of the
      time, and I encourage others to do
      the same.
      -->

<comment><USER5> Are you sure that's in the source for the blog post? Because I don't actually see it in there, I searched for "so this guy" and "interviewed" too.

<comment><USER5> Why did I get a downvote? Seriously, when I searched "So this guy we just interviewed" in the page source, I didn't get any results. Did I miss something?

<comment><USER6> Yes, you missed the last sentence of the comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This is one of the most brilliant pieces I've ever read about programming. It's funny and really manages to capture the frustrations a programmer faces through the days, months, and years with his relationship with code.

I guess what we miss in programming is a standardized way to do things and if you did it that way your accountability ends there. There's a lot of uncertainty being dealt with all the time because there's no de-facto "THIS IS THE WAY IT'S DONE BRUH!" for pretty much anything. Maybe that's what makes it interesting ? It's definitely what makes it stressful.

<comment><USER8> > I guess what we miss in programming is a standardized way to do things and > if you did it that way your accountability ends there.

Isn't that what Java is for? But seriously, I would rather have the opportunity to do it right, even with the concomitant risk of being responsible for having done it wrong, than to find myself in a field where what matters is not whether my work is right or wrong, but only that it's done according to the rules.

If you're a web developer, and if "THIS IS THE WAY IT'S DONE BRUH!" is what you're looking for, you should really try Ruby on Rails, because that's their entire philosophy, and they're really very good at it -- so good, indeed, that in every major version they do it all over again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> "Is that called arrayReverse?"

"s/camel/_/"

"Cool thanks."

> Wasn't that guy helpful? With the camel? Doesn't that seem like an > appropriate response? No? Good. You can still find Jesus.

That made perfect sense. Aw crap.

<comment><USER10> Stuff like this bleeds over into my "normal" life all the time, and it's starting to get really embarrassing. Correcting my mother's inaccurate typing on Facebook by replying with a sed substitute pattern only serves to make me look like a douche.

<comment><USER8> > ...only serves to make me look like a douche.

Forgive me for telling you what you no doubt already know, but there's a reason for that. Actually, correcting people's inaccurate typing _at all_ on Facebook makes you look like a douche, and there's a reason for that, too. I understand how you feel when you see it; I used to feel the same way. But there truly is a lot to be said for the idea that what matters is how well it gets the point across. Besides, having to explain what a sed replacement is and how it works, in Facebook comments, is like having to explain the joke, and only realizing partway through the explanation that the joke was not funny in the first place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I'm struggling to find any sort of counter argument that isn't, "But we get to make something cool!" Which is wrong, because most of our time, we're coding up something that shits CSVs so someone can go into a meeting and highlight some menial point to other managers.

<comment><USER12> > I'm struggling to find any sort of counter argument that isn't, "But we get > to make something cool!" Which is wrong, because most of our time, we're > coding up something that shits CSVs so someone can go into a meeting and > highlight some menial point to other managers.

"We get to make something cool!" is not the same as "Everything we make is cool!" I'm not a professional programmer, but it seems to me that, if you're not _also_ (in addition to your job) programming in your spare time for the sheer joy of creating, then you're probably not the best programmer you could be.

<comment><USER11> I also meant to say that even if we do eventually make something cool, the crushing realities of working as a software developer still sucks.

Granted, if you're a Googler or Amazonite, or otherwise working for a decent company, this isn't true. But most software developers aren't Googlers or what have you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is why I only work for engineering-driven organizations. If I'm going to be slogging through things, then I want the work to be interesting, challenging, and I need to know my opinion will be heard and respected. I know my peers are reasonably high caliber, and will not compromise quality.

These qualities are extremely counter to a lot of corporate jobs, where development is a cost that should be cut, there's never enough time for _anything_ (because, business!), and the work is CRUD-driven.

<comment><USER14> Any job or work can eventually become frustrating. That's why its called a "job" or something your "work" for. Even if you work for the greatest company in the work with the best engineering driven "culture", there will be something that will hinder you due to business.

The only place I knew which didn't have any business pressure was the old Bell Labs. That's because of the AT&T was a monopoly and was allow a profit of 7%. That meant any expense can instantly be justified because no matter what AT&T would earn 7%.

End of the day, engineering is about compromises and tradeoffs. It's applied science. It's about being practical and sometimes that means we need to compromise on "quality". That's what makes good engineering culture. A product that ships and makes money is infinitely better than a product that doesn't ship. So, I don't think it's right to assume that the corporate approach is incorrect. In fact, it is better simply because once you get business involved, a lot of the decisions become impersonal.

<comment><USER15> You probably know this already but for the youngins ... such places (such as the old Bell Labs) don't exist anymore. Research labs have gotten a lot more stressful over the years. Simple problem of having to justify their existence, and aligning with the products of their sponsor company.

When I try to explain to loved ones that research is a dying career path (which I sadly invested in by getting a PhD), I get pep talks saying that I should be more optimistic :-p

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "Every programmer starts out writing some perfect little snowflake like this. Then they're told on Friday they need to have six hundred snowflakes written by Tuesday..."

I too once dreamed of perfect programs. Then I got a real job.

</comment><comment><USER17> ->The only reason coders' computers work better than non-coders' computers is coders know computers are schizophrenic little children with auto-immune diseases and we don't beat them when they're bad. HAHAHA so true

</comment><comment><USER18> Absolutely brilliant article. From someone who has, in times of stress, had nightmares in code, and spent minutes in normal conversation formulating replies to illogical questions, before realising they were illogical.

Programming doesn't suck, but you _really_ need to take a break sometimes!

</comment><comment><USER19> A friend sent me this article on IM, and I read it when I needed a break. I needed a break because the method I want to call is private, and deprecated, and the suggested substitute in the deprecation comment doesn't exist. If I go ahead and call it via reflection, the implementation is commented out with a TODO comment.

Sigh.

</comment><comment><USER20> Programming is beautiful and interesting and filled with creative folks who want to express themselves. That's what I see in programming.

Should every creative and expressive person be on a team writing code, hell no - we've seen what they produce and it's not something you ship to people.

The individual themselves though, their ideas and their input and their drive and passion. I enjoy that company and when we gel as a team.

Programming is beautiful.

<comment><USER21> > Programming is beautiful.

It can be. But _corporate_ programming too often is... well, it's often not as bad as the article said, but it's somewhat less than beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Oh my god, this guy should go on tour, or at least get to give an intro speech / keynote introduction at some big conference... something

</comment><comment><USER23> For a field that has a number of classic formulations of this essay (look up "The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer"), this is a new and excellent addition to the genre.

 _It 's not just about programming_. In writing up my own bit on this piece ([http://redd.it/24cxgc](http://redd.it/24cxgc)), I happened to look for the origins of the phrase "complexity is the enemy", figuring it would turn up in some late 1980s / early 1990s Usenet post.

Nope.

 _The Economist Newspaper_ , Jan 18, 1958, volume 186: "It is easy to see that complexity is the enemy of reliability".

(Thanks again to the Google ngram viewer).

Bruce Schneier takes this one step further and notes that "Complexity is the enemy of security"

[https://www.schneier.com/news-038.html](https://www.schneier.com/news-038.html)

This also applies _far_ beyond just programming, the Internet, or IT. _All_ technology faces this problem, and it's going to bite us by and by.

</comment><comment><USER24> I cannot possibly recommend this post enough. Is this the top of the front page yet? Or is it some random drool about Bitcoin or gossip about funding another zero-revenue startup or the other nonsense that dominates here?

Everyone should read this.

</comment><comment><USER25> Incredibly accurate rant that _gets it_

</comment><comment><USER5> For the curious, these are the languages of the example Hello World programs:

* Brainfuck[0]:

        >+++++++++[<++++++++>-]<.>+++++++[<++++>-]<+.+++++++..+++.[-]
        >++++++++[<++++>-] <.>+++++++++++[<++++++++>-]<-.</comment><comment>--.+++
        .</comment><comment>.</comment><comment>--.[-]>++++++++[<++++>- ]<+.[-]++++++++++.

[0]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brainfuck)

* This one I googled, it's called Ook![1][2]:

        Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook.
        Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook?
        Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook.
        Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook.
        Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook.
        Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook! Ook!
        Ook! Ook. Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook? Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook. Ook! Ook? Ook! Ook! Ook? Ook!
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook.
        Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook. Ook! Ook.

[1]: [http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/ook.html](http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/ook.html) [2]: [http://esolangs.org/wiki/ook](http://esolangs.org/wiki/ook)!

* This one is in Perl[3]:

        #:: ::-| ::-| .-. :||-:: 0-| .-| ::||-| .:|-. :||
        open(Q,$0);while(<Q>){if(/^#(.*)$/){for(split('-',$1)){$q=0;for(split){s/\|
        /:.:/xg;s/:/../g;$Q=$_?length:$_;$q+=$q?$Q:$Q*20;}print chr($q);}}}print"\n";
        #.: ::||-| .||-| :|||-| ::||-| ||-:: :|||-| .:|

[3]: [http://mysite.verizon.net/les.peters/id2.html](http://mysite.verizon.net/les.peters/id2.html)

</comment><comment> good-citizen Stephen Ramsay how did you find this article and be the first to post it on hacker news? This is _the_ most appropriate hacker news story there ever was.</comment>


Create the Filter - <AUTHOR> http://dustincurtis.com/the_filter.html

<comment><USER2> "CEO, or the design director, or someone with a huge amount of power at Heinz should personally use every one of its products for some arbitrary amount of time before it is approved to be sold."

Do you really think the CEO doesn't use Heinz Ketchup in the new bottle? I love the new bottle! It has never "jammed" up for me and its a huge improvement over the glass bottle. I guess you should use those tiny ketchup packets if you're having a problem with getting ketchup out of the bottles. Did you know that Heinz is in the process or might have already released a bottle that doesn't let that "watery ketchup" come out when you first use it. It was their number one complaint from ketchup users. That's customer focused innovation!

I know that your an Apple fan boy but believe it or not - not "everything Apple" is god-like in fact I find the iPod Nano lacking and it was the first product I ever bought from Apple.

Getting back to the Heinz ketchup bottle - I eagerly await your better re- design...

<comment><USER3> I was referring to the bottle that has liquid-reduction technology you are talking about. There appears to be some mechanism that only lets the viscous liquid through, but it keeps jamming and preventing anything from coming through. Not a big deal, but still annoying.

I respect Apple as a company. Making the assumption that I would blindly follow every move Apple makes just because I mention Steve Jobs is a good CEO is a low attack and also incorrect. Why are you attacking me personally?

<comment><USER2> Sorry if my comment came across as attacking you. I was trying to state that your "attack" on Heinz and it's CEO.. is unwarranted. I'd don't work for the company but I am a fan.

You are absolutely correct about bureaucratic crap getting in the way of innovation. I even agree with your point.

But I must say I am tired of hearing about how great Steve Job's is... He is great but Apple can't be the only company that has a focus on design and innovation.

Once again - sorry if I came across as attacking you - I didn't mean to...

<comment><USER4> _He is great but Apple can't be the only company that has a focus on design and innovation._

I'm quite tired of this as well. Lost in the mix are companies like Braun, BMW, Philips, and P&G. Their products are often just as well designed, if not more for the fact that they create things outside of consumer electronics.

Apple has some of the best advertising and branding in the world, and subsequently has a cult-like following. But I doubt many of its "fanboys" recognize the letters TBWA.

<comment><USER5> Of the companies you list, Braun seems to me the only one that reaches Apple's standard.

There are lots of companies that produce great design. Artemide, Knoll, Bang & Olufsen, and so on. But these are a lot smaller than Apple. It's not easy to find a company with revenues as big as Apple's that does design so well.

<comment><USER4> _It's not easy to find a company with revenues as big as Apple's that does design so well._

I've noticed that too. There seems to be an inverse correlation between company size and the quality of design. I think Apple is almost pseudo- exception to this though, since their ID team has less than a dozen people. Or maybe it's just because their CEO has taste.

But a lot of the best design still goes completely unnoticed. An object as simple as a Band-Aid might not evoke the same emotional response as a sleek aluminum MacBook or a Porsche 911, but I'd argue that its design is just as revolutionary and even more influential to the world.

Braun to me seems like Apple's older brother. Or at least just Dieter Rams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _The only thing that matters to a company of any size is its product and customer experience._

That's a load of crap. What is true for a small start-up is not necessarily true for a huge behemoth.

There are many other components to the mechanisms for making money (which is what businesses are - human machines to make money), and although product development and customer services are very important in the early stages of a company, the focus shifts, later, to other areas (like sales or value chain optimisation). Those can make a much larger difference to the company's profits, once it is at scale, and so they deservedly get more attention at those scales.

This article represents a very narrow-minded, naive view of business. Perhaps you should work in a wider variety of companies before making such grand statements. Maybe read a book or two about corporations. I recommend "Management" by Peter Drucker as a (heavy, but excellent) starter.

<comment><USER3> Of course those things matter, and they're part of the customer experience. Your marketing and sales strategy should be of the same quality as your product. Don't think of them separately. You're providing value with the product and convincing people to buy it with the sales and marketing strategy. Sure, the budget allocations shift back and forth, but both should always be above some minimum threshold of quality.

If you think of your entire company as providing a "customer experience," then you only have one threshold, and everything is held to that standard.

The companies I am angry at are the ones sacrificing product quality and value for sales and marketing. (And also companies that just ignorantly release crappy products and ignore their customers/employees.)

<comment><USER7> But if crappy products _sell_ and don't sell any worse than better (and more expensive) products, then it is a mistake to invest effort into making them better.

customer experience != maximizing value to shareholders

I wish it were. I really do. But it isn't.

<comment><USER3> Can you provide a real world example of where this is the case in a healthy market? I do not think this is true except in very poor market conditions like with monopolies or odd social situations.

<comment><USER8> My brother was the brand manager for a dying food brand (well known national brand). The first thing he did when he was hired to improve the brand was to improve the quality of the food (better cuts of meat, fresher veggies, lower sodium, etc.). You know what happened? The customer complaint line was jammed with pissed people. He did a complete 180 and removed the higher quality items (the healthy stuff like vegetables), increased the quantity and sales started to climb.

That is a clear case of people wanting crap... in fact demanding it instead of the better quality product.

Note: Sorry for being vague about the brand but he is still there and might not want the full story public.

<comment><USER9> The key point of your story is that your brother's definition of "higher quality" didn't mesh with the customer's. That's a problem.

If people were satisfied with the product, changing the ingredients is definitely going to add risk. I worked for a food manufacturer, once upon a time, and we did extensive triangle testing even when sourcing ingredients from a new vendor.

People want quality. That doesn't mean their taste is the same as yours...

<comment><USER8> The point I was trying to make is that the customer didn't want "better," they wanted the "same" even though it was crappy. The post I responded to seemed to want an example of that.

On your points, I agree mostly but in this case people didn't want better quality. They liked the taste of the lower quality product.

<comment><USER9> In that case, it's not "lower quality product" now, is it?

It may use ingredients that score better on certain metrics (low sodium, etc.) but these don't mean"better quality" in the sense that these consumers are interested in (the taste that they've come to like.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is why startups exist. Those large companies that cite politics as the reason for a crappy product _do_ have a valid excuse. People and politics are _real forces_ and they have _real power_ in the organization. Overcoming them for the sake of good design is a lot harder, and probably not worth it, compared to just creating a startup to build great things.

Also, what is this "you should follow me on Twitter" stuff? I _should_? Really?

</comment><comment><USER11> the glass bottle isn't concerned with usability. it's a branding thing.

<comment><USER12> I disagree. I don't find either bottle hard to get ketchup out of. But the big difference is what happens when you're done getting the ketchup out. With a glass bottle, I'm left with a plain glass bottle (and metal screw cap) that I can recycle anywhere, or use for just about anything. With the plastic bottle, I'm left with a weird plastic bottle that's really only designed for dispensing one thing.

 _Re_ usability is a big part of usability. Generic glass bottles excel at this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I like the new ketchup bottles. They've never clogged for me, and they rest upside down so you're never trying to get ketchup from the bottom of the bottle.

The rest of the article is right on, though.

</comment><comment><USER14> The problem with the airline industry in general is that the old axiom "Fast, Cheep, Good - pick any 2" doesn't hold up. Tickets are so cheep the airlines bleed money. The whole point of flying is the speed. As far as "good" goes they can't compromise on safety so it's an industry that sort of has to pick "all three". That is a challenging business model to say the least.

<comment><USER15> This is a crazy thought but bear with me here.

What if the _expenses_ could be cut by, oh, reducing layers of crufty bureaucracy in, say, web site interaction design? And hiring designers and developers who will make it happen, and then... trusting them?

If there are 15 committees that must be appeased, that's Very Very Bad.

And this is just the web site. The web site cannot cause planes to fall from the sky.

But it can cause customers to have heart attacks... Look at this stinking pile, I mean, testament to the power and usefulness of multiple stakeholders:

<http://aa.com/women>

<comment><USER16> Probably correct, but I bet you a nickel that the expenses of useless bureaucrats are a miniscule fraction of capex and opex.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> "The only thing that matters to a company of any size is its product and customer experience."

Many things matter. Although every company is different, the 3 most important are almost always:

\- Profitability

\- Cash flow

\- Owners wealth

Of course, product & customer experience are important. As means to get to higher objectives. But certaintly not the only thing.

</comment><comment><USER18> The same would be true of startups that become big companies. For example I'm sure it would be a nightmare at somewhere like Google to make UI changes to the core search listings.

I think someone who has worked on both sides would provide a better insight into the problems faced at large corporate companies compared to the startup environment.

</comment><comment><USER19> Sturgeon's Law (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law>) seems worth invoking here. The thing is, if big companies didn't get weighed down by their own bulk and bureaucracy, how would small companies ever compete with them?

</comment><comment><USER17> "...this kind of email really angers me..."

Chill.

One of the most important things in business is knowing when and where to expend your energy and passion which, believe it or not, is a limited resource. If this motivates you to change something, great. If it angers you, get a grip and find a better outlet. Anger is a waste. Don't allow them to let you do that to yourself.</comment>


Ask HN: Inexpensive Laptop for kids? - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking to purchase an inexpensive laptop, setup linux on it, and teach my kids to code.  Any recommends on how to do this for less than $100? <comment><USER2> I'd just look for something used that has good Linux support already.</comment>


Elon Musk drawn into farting unicorn dispute with potter - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/27/elon-musk-farting-unicorn-mug-cartoon-tom-edwards <comment><USER2> "Billionaire uses art without permission or compensation in the luxury cars he sells; tells artist to be grateful for the 'attention'."

What a jerk.</comment>


Berkeley moves toward removing police from traffic stops - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Berkeley-moves-toward-removing-police-from-15409946.php <comment><USER2> "proposal to replace police with unarmed civilians during traffic stops"

I can't imagine there are many people who want to sign up for this duty. I've known former police officers and they tell me traffic stops are some of the most stressful encounters they have on a regular basis. Who, without training and a firearm, would want to take this job?

Would reckless drivers even care to stop for non-law enforcement?</comment>


AVG can sell your browsing and search history to advertisers - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-09/17/avg-privacy-policy-browser-search-data <comment><USER2> Isn't that nice? First claim you want to "protect" my web browsing, but then collect all of that data and sell it to others. For an antivirus company, I imagine user "trust" is quite important. If they're not only not "protective" but actually being _malicious_ with my data, I hope that ends up hurting them quite badly.

<comment><USER3> Agreed. Telling all my friends why they should stop using AVG. I wonder if any other antivirus companies are doing this too?</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Good online service to ask for donations for my open source project? - <AUTHOR> I know about Patreon and Buy Me a Coffee. Have you used one of these or both of these? What has been your experience?
I am trying to decide which of these two services I should use to add "Sponsor" link for my open source project.
Are there any gotchas about each service that I need to be aware of? Does one have any advantages over the other? <comment><USER2> I haven't used these but since you haven't mentioned it, I just wanted to add that if your project is on Github, Github has Github Sponsors which currently seems to be waitlisted: [https://github.com/sponsors](https://github.com/sponsors)</comment>


Terraform Module Registry - <AUTHOR> https://registry.terraform.io/ <comment><USER2> Very excited to see this (if it is what I think it is...). Still reading about it.

I really like Terraform but haven't been a fan of the existing way of bringing external code into my terraform scripts, via some strange go-like "refer to this github" repo mechanism.

Hopefully this makes them package able artifacts. Looking forward to watching the keynote and other videos from Hashiconf.

<comment><USER3> I'd really love to be able to build modules in some other language like python, ruby or even javascript just because I am not very fluent yet in Go and its tooling.

<comment><USER4> The modules are written in HashiCorp configuration language.

<comment><USER5> You can use json as well, but it is pretty unfriendly for the human users and you lose some of the interpolation.

<comment><USER6> However, very useful if you're code generating Terraform config because there are not a lot of HCL serializer/deserializer libs in existence.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting, they are adopting the same pattern that I had discovered for AWS modules:

* all modules take in a var.name and var.tags variables.

* if the resource has a unique identifier, use var.name as a prefix (eg: "${var.name}-elb")

* all resources are tagged with the Name merged into var.tags

This allows to (1) avoid name clashes with the name prefix and (2) make sure everything is tagged and easier to filter by on AWS, while deferring most of the tagging decision to the user.

See [https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws- vpc/b...](https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws- vpc/blob/master/main.tf#L10)

EDIT: there is still an issue with autoscaling groups who take a list of tags instead of a map. [https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws- autos...](https://github.com/terraform-aws-modules/terraform-aws- autoscaling/blob/master/modules/autoscaling_group/main.tf#L30-L33)

</comment><comment><USER8> This looks like a pretty frontend for the terraform-community-modules github org - [https://github.com/terraform-community- modules](https://github.com/terraform-community-modules)

The main problem with these off the shelf modules is the lack of standards around state management and reuse.

</comment><comment><USER9> hashicorp-people: do you have any plans to open-source sentinel?

It seems like something that could have broader use, outside the hashicorp- suite.

For example, many SaaS-applications (say, a system used by some bank) usually end up writing their home-grown DSL for auth or use a language library. IAM also has something similar, with JSON payloads (but that's not code).

Would be interesting to know more about how sentinel is implemented under the hood.

</comment><comment><USER10> This is absolutely useful. I keep a bunch of half-assed modules in a repo that I find common across projects. Love the idea of being able to find modules to kickstart common infrastructure.

Also Terraform is a great tool and the maintainers and contributors have done a fantastic job putting in useful features in the last few versions.

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER11> What is terraform? Read the page, but didn't get exactly what it does.

<comment><USER12> Imagine you want to create some new machines. Maybe you need four servers: 2 running Ubuntu operating systems and 2 running Centos.

Traditinally, you would get four physical servers together and then manually load an operating system onto each one.

With the advent of cloud technology, you can simply go to Amazon or DigitalOcean or whoever and just "create" these resources by paying for space in their data centers. You get four "virtual servers" instead of physical boxes you have to configure yourself.

Terraform essentially lets you "code" and automate the cloud provisioning. Instead of going to a dashboard and ordering four servers, you run a script that describes all of the servers you need as well as their operating system / networking / etc. needs. This scales very well (once you have a config you can replicate it to whatever quantity you require) and also provides consistency and reliability, as well as documentation, of your infrastructure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I find this pretty exciting. I imagine the most compelling use case for most orgs will be hosting their own private registry using Terraform Enterprise.

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm getting an error stating `error reading user information` upon authentication with Github.

</comment><comment><USER15> We already see with other "use this as a building block" public registries like Docker's where people blithely pull this stuff in and don't pay attention to whether or not it actually works according to even some semblance of best practices. So what's the handler for the "hey, this is broken/insecure, this needs to be fixed or taken down" case? How does this alert users whose infrastructure pulls this in?

HashiCorp, as some of the leaders of the Make Decisions On Five Minute Demos #squad, usually doesn't answer even half the questions for their Bright Ideas before people adopt them and find all the rakes on the lawn. This feels even worse than usual.

Building strong foundations matters. This doesn't help somebody who knows what they're doing do it better/faster--because of the inevitable impedance mismatches, in part because folks do this stuff differently and in part because Terraform is not particularly expressive and workarounds will involve destructive manipulation of modules--and it harms people who don't.

<comment><USER16> How is this any different from the various packaging mechanisms that exist for all the different programming languages out there? You make it sound like this is a new kind of problem that started with Docker.

When I add some dependency to the Maven pom of my legacy Java EE app, I'm exposed to exactly the same kind of risk.

In short: research any dependency you pull in, whether it is a library for your favorite language or a module for your infrastructure automation tool of choice.

<comment><USER17> Whether it's true or not, I think there's a perception of a more cavalier attitude around Docker that things will "just work" if I make my whole build system and production deployment depend on a random lady's docker file.

Also, a lot of developers don't spend the time they ought to learning (or hire the people who already know) how a proper tech stack works to be resilient.

Tools like Docker and Terraform make it seem magic, which it's not. PyPI, Gems and NPM don't make Python, Ruby and Javascript seem like magic, as most devs are deep enough in the code to see a terrible library before building their app around it.

<comment><USER15> Agreed, and the perception here matters. The cult of the five minute demo is _real_ and people pick tools outside of their areas of expertise based on "well, it looked okay and there are blogs about it". The likelihood of bad stuff (whether bad through ignorance, malice, or lack of maintenance) is much, much higher when using these artifacts that are opaque not (just) in terms of source--because, yeah, most people won't audit it--but in terms of functionality (because the adoptee _doesn 't know the topic well enough to know what's going on_).

You solve infrastructure problems _with_ code, but infrastructure is not code and infrastructure requires a depth of understanding nobody's going to make disappear based on "magic." As you go downstack, the damage you can do increases. Depending on J. Random Dockerfile is problematic, as you're exposing your compute surface to the predations of a malicious update. Depending on J. Random Terraform Module opens you up to way deeper issues. These issues can only be solved by really understanding your stack, and five- minute-demo culture does not value understanding.

<comment><USER18> > _The cult of the five minute demo is real_

This is unfortunately necessary as code eats the world, and the number of programmers, tools and ecosystems proliferates. Popularity is necessary for infrastructure tools to get enough eyeballs and resources to achieve stability. It's not enough for experts with decades of experience to design really solid but arcane tools, because the flood of new startups with young engineers coming in saying "do we really need that?" will overwhelm than faster than all the failures can be pointed out.

Ultimately, the quality of the tools is orthogonal to the presentation. My perception is Hashicorp has done much better in this regard than Docker, so there's that at least. Only time will tell how it really shapes up over time, but I believe Hashicorp tools are seeing massive uptake for more reasons than just good marketing.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. Job Losses Signal Recession Will Be Long, Deep  - <AUTHOR> http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aniNd2kN.vdI&refer=worldwide <comment><USER2> I love it how they tell us that this recession is unlike any other in history and then go ahead and tell us exactly how long it will last and just how bad it will be.

Personally I think we've past the inflection point of predictability. Its anybody's guess now.

</comment><comment><USER3> "We don't get the job losses stopping until 2010,"

That is the scary part. The way out of a recession is to get people working and spending. So does that mean it is going to last until 2011?

<comment><USER4> The "mood" after a recession tends to last until about 4-5 years after the recession begins, assuming it's not a total bear market like the 30s or 70s were (in which case, it tends to last at least a decade). People didn't really feel like we were out of the 1979 oil shock and 81/82 recession until 1984. (Some of my earliest memories are from about 1984, and I recall my parents being _very_ careful with money.) They didn't feel like we were out of the 1991 recession until Netscape's IPO in 1995. They didn't feel like we were out of the 2000 tech recession until FaceBook and YouTube hit it big in 2005.

So yeah, if you date this recession from late 2007, we've got until 2011 or 2012 before people really think we're out of it. And that's assuming there's not a further shock, like an oil price spike, another recession (the 1937 recession hit right as people were starting to recover from 1929-1932, the 1979 oil shock hit just as people were recovering from the 73-74 recession), or a war.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think we all need another top ten list about how to survive a recession when your a startup. Anyone?

</comment><comment><USER6> At least the dotcom bubble produced world class companies like Amazon and eBay and Google. The housing bubble leaves us with only foreign debt and unproductive granite countertops.

<comment><USER4> And lots of houses.

I'm guessing some lucky entrepreneur will come up with a good use for all those empty houses, once they've all been foreclosed upon and prices have adjusted to reality.

I had an idea last year that I'd act upon if I had a spare $50M or so lying around: mixed-use coworking/residential spaces for young professionals. The increasing mobility of the professional class means that more and more people aren't tied down to a central office. Why not create intentional communities out of abandoned subdivisions, where young professionals could live and work with other young people? I'd pay a premium for being able to roll out of bed and walk to work, yet I don't like the brick & concrete of dense city neighborhoods. Park a couple ZipCars in the development, and you solve their transportation/shopping needs as well.

<comment><USER7> I live in an apartment building built in 2006 or so.

The heating system is undersized and uses the same hot water as the shower -- if you want a non-frigid shower, you have to remember to turn the heat off first and turn it back on afterwards.

The doors don't fit quite right. Every single screen in every window is undersized by 2 inches in one dimension. It's also really drafty, which may explain why the original builder is replacing _every single window_ in the 300+-unit complex. (One wonders if a lawsuit happened somewhere in there. Unfortunately, they did not get around to replacing _our_ windows before winter set in, and did I mention that it was drafty? I need to get over to the hardware store to buy plastic wrap for the windows. To think that I dreamed of never having to do that again when we moved out of the 1920s-era house...)

My favorite feature is the built-in wine rack, which adds class to the establishment until you try to fit a wine bottle in it. Which is physically impossible, because it was misinstalled.

But I still feel lucky compared to my sister, who moved into a similar complex in the Midwest where the builder had failed to build the exterior porches with the proper slope, leading rainwater to collect against the walls at the inner edge of the porches, leading to failure of the siding, water leakage, and the exciting possibility of... total porch structural failure. Fortunately, my sister moved out in less than a year.

These little incidents make me worry that a _lot_ of those leftover houses will be slums. They were built terribly, in terribly planned neighborhoods, by people with little past experience and even less future in the construction field. What profit was there in building the houses to last? Nobody was planning to live in them for very long. They're just tokens, built with less care than a poker chip. They were built to flip.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm not worried... for every home owner who bought an overpriced home, is another home owner who sold them that home.

</comment><comment><USER9> Long, Deep Recession? Isn't the proper name for this a Recession?</comment>


How to Jumpstart the Economy - Tax Free Small Businesses - <AUTHOR> http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/07/28/how-to-jumpstart-the-economy-tax-free-small-businesses/

<comment><USER3> This will positively not work.

I live in Romania. Starting 1999 (IIRC) and ending 2006, there has been some very similar legislation in effect. The only result was a tremendous drop in income tax (which, admittedly, had been very high) since everybody and their grandma opened a small business, quit their job, and immediately came back to the same position as a consultant paid by their own company. Many employers applied gentle pressure in that direction since it got them cost cuts as well.

The clinch is that all these new small businesses contributed absolutely nothing new to the overall economy - the result was a net loss in taxes without economic growth to offset it - which is why the corresponding legislation was abolished in favor of a flat tax on income, profit, and so on (which, in turn, was quite successful at jumpstarting the economy.)

<comment><USER4> I don't think that there would be any additional advantage to doing that under the model Cuban is proposing. Business owners would still pay tax on their personal income. The actual dollar amount of tax paid by a one person company that pays all profits to its owner/employee would be the same with or without small business taxes, since the business always has a profit of 0.

Business owners may prefer contractors for various reasons still, but this wouldn't add to it. Did business owners in Romania also get a break on the money paid out from the small business as personal income?

<comment><USER3> Indirectly, yes, since they didn't have to pay the social security contributions affixed to salaried positions - and since those contributions are considerable (depending on the job function, to the order of 30% up to 80% of the pre-tax wage) it was easier to do this than to avoid paying them at all (also a common practice since tax collection, alas, moves incredibly slow...)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's a little cute hearing multi-billionaires talk about how tax cuts must be the answer to, you know, everything.

I don't think new business are worried about paying taxes, they're worried about dealing with them period. Making taxes trivial to deal with up to a certain point would be much more of a jump-starter.

<comment><USER6> True, but the simplest way to do that is to get rid of the damn things altogether.

I think 25 is a bit high of a cut-off point, but at least 5-people businesses should escape somehow...

<comment><USER7> How many employees does Berkshire Hathaway have again? Something like 12 at HQ, I think. That would be a lot of tax revenue to disappear.

<comment><USER8> > How many employees does Berkshire Hathaway have again? Something like 12 at > HQ, I think. That would be a lot of tax revenue to disappear.

How much does BH currently pay in taxes?

I note that Buffet's estate will go largely untaxed, so it's no skin off his back to argue that for estate taxes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> You'll still have to do all the paperwork to report your employees income etc. + small businesses make up like 99% of gov't revenue from business, so I doubt they'll want to cut you a break.

What they need to do is come up with a better web based solution. Right now the state websites are crap, they don't even tell you which forms you need to do. They need to come up with 1 government website, where you select what your business does, input how many employees you have, input your revenue and expenses, and then based on that info you get a generated list of all the forms you need to submit, already pre-typed with your relevant info. Then add email notifications for when its time to submit a new form.

Seriously why the hell do all government websites look like they were made in the 90s?

<comment><USER10> _Seriously why the hell do all government websites look like they were made in the 90s?_

Because they were.

<comment><USER9> I know that, but wtf really, The whole tax system is retarded...ooh I know lets make it hard for people to give us money.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I totally agree with him - all the paperwork and bs involved with getting a company started is an artificial barrier to entry because it has nothing to do with the company making money. It's just a test to see if the founder can push paper through a broken system and I'm sure it has stifled a lot of innovation in the US.

</comment><comment><USER6> Damn straight. Now all we need is for the government to actually implement this.

Shouldn't take any time at all, I'm sure they'll be done by tomorrow evening.

<comment><USER10> Motion to table!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The loopholes would be too big. The solution is actually quite simple: cut government spending and lower taxes. Jobs and companies would insource instead of outsource. Anyone who thinks the government is effectively spending tax dollars is out of their mind.

<comment><USER13> Thanks, Dr. Paul.

No, but really, I agree with you. However, this might still be a step in that direction, as less tax money for the government to spend means less spending.

<comment><USER12> I know you were half kidding, but I'm _not_ saying eliminate 90% of the government or put an end to all government programs or anything like that. Cutting spending by 20% would work wonders. And while I admire the awareness Ron Paul has raised about government waste, he's crazy and has yet to accept evolution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Better than tax-free big businesses.

<comment><USER10> The loopholes this would create would lead to some very well paid accountants. I'm all for the idea of letting small businesses get tax breaks, but I think that Exxon could find a way to break themselves up into 25,000 smaller companies.

<comment><USER15> Cuban included in his "proposal" the restriction that this should be allowed only for individuals and only for one business. If you do it right, there won't be any Exxons taking advantage of it.

<comment><USER10> If I worked for Exxon and something like that passed, I would probably become the sole proprietor of Exxon[205.5] with an offshore company as my main shareholder, to whom I pay dividends.

Accountants are sneaky, that was my main point, anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> IRS issues + health care have been the two greatest areas of stress when running my own business. I was a bit naive about both the first time around, I'm not sure I'll do it a second time.

<comment><USER17> Same here. Incredibly stressful. The only positive side is that after screwing taxes up for a few years and even being audited, the IRS has treated me with the utmost respect. They have waived penalties and interest and given me ridiculously forgiving extensions. A little humility mixed with a touch of patronization can go along way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> I don't get it. The author starts by explicitly saying that the tax rate has not been a big factor in his decision to start a business, and ends by suggesting that if taxes on small businesses were eliminated, it would stimulate the economy.

In between, he mentions the paperwork and regulatory hoops that you have to jump through to start a business, but lowering the tax rate isn't going to make the paperwork less annoying, and many of the regulations only apply to businesses with a certain number of employees.

<comment><USER19> I think he just changed his mind halfway through the post - he started out talking about taxes but realized that he really meant regulations.

<comment><USER20> Too bad he was writing in pen the whole time, eh?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yeah, this sounds like a great idea:

 _No taxes of any kind on small businesses with 25 or fewer employees. No employer payroll tax. No state or local taxes. No taxes on earnings. Nada. The business owners will pay income taxes on their personal income they pay themselves, but not corporate earnings_

I guess I will start a business that contracts my time out. This company will pay for my insurance, and I'll live in my office. (What can I say, sometimes I work too late to commute home. Which I don't actually have.) One of the perquisites for working for "jrock.us consulting" is that all meals are paid for by the company. The company has a super-fast DSL connection, an HDTV, an extensive array of XBox games, oh... and a Netflix subscription. It will also pay for my trips to conferences (and "conferences"), and if I recall correctly, the contract said the company would buy my girlfriend a diamond once a year!

And oh look, I didn't make any personal income this year! Damn unprofitable company...

My point is, if this is implemented, nobody will pay taxes anymore. That's why it's not been implemented.

</comment><comment><USER22> In spite of the measures he names, you'll still end up with big businesses made up of a whole lot of small business structured "cost centres" owned by themselves, their wives and their children. This will then have an impact on the tax take, with only a proportion of it being recovered in resulting growth.

I agree with the sentiment - I'm genuinely of the opinion that the only difference between the majority of the tax take and stealing is that the former is done in open. But with huge government industries and debts to maintain there's no room for tax cuts. And if you cut that, you could eventually just issue even tax cuts.

</comment><comment><USER23> Thought experiment: Why not just go all the way and eliminate taxes altogether?

Let the government send you an itemised bill each year with a suggested amount based on your income. Then you choose whether to pay for each part or not.

Don't like the war in Iraq - don't pay for it. Like public schools - <USER2> double.

</comment><comment><USER24> I love the concept, but I don't know that it motivates folks that don't have a business to get out there and start one.

It takes a special kind of mindset to want to strike it out on your own without that safety net.

</comment><comment><USER25> This is a good idea. If you are fully vested at and risk in your business and it's a small one, you shouldn't be hounded by every little government agency that can come by for a piece of you.

We want hundreds of thousands of little experiments, not just thousands.</comment>


Elon Musk says next year's Tesla cars will be able to self-drive 90% of the time - <AUTHOR> http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/2/6894875/elon-musk-says-next-years-tesla-cars-will-be-able-to-self-drive-90-percent-of-the-time

<comment><USER2> That's going to be a _bo-nanza_ for trial lawyers.

<comment><USER3> How so? I think that fewer accidents and much better data about exactly what happened in a given accident would mean less work for trial lawyers.</comment></comment>