Hacker News Reader

BrandonMon Lab-grown diamonds threaten viability of the real gems

REAMDE was his first book that I read. I was totally captivated by the book, but I hated the ending. That's one of his good endings?

BrandonMon History of the browser user-agent string (2008)

Do you still plan to write that article?

BrandonMon European Union plans to tax tech giants on local revenue

That's sensible, but I think accountants defeat it pretty easily. For example, suppose Acme EU, Inc. has $50MM in revenue from the EU, and $25MM in on-the-ground costs to deliver that revenue. Lo and behold, they also have a bill from The Real Acme, Inc. for $25MM for "intellectual property and technology services".

So using your equation, Acme EU would get taxed on $0 × $50MM / $50MM.

Of course, we want to have a way to say, "But wait, both Acmes are actually the same company!" I think that's the hard problem to solve.

BrandonMon Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

How would you translate this?

> Why can a man never starve in the Great Desert? Because he can eat the sand which is there. But what brought the sandwiches there? Why, Noah sent Ham, and his descendants mustered and bred.

BrandonMon Icelandic language battles threat of 'digital extinction'

That's just not how language works. Gödel, Escher, Bach really hammered this home for me. Many ideas are easier to express in one language or another, to the point that they are practically inexpressible in another language.

This is even true in math. Based on the set of axioms you allow, you can prove certain facts. A math with different axioms may have completely different theorems, and some observable real world behavior can be better modeled under one set of axioms than another.

Language could be described as a math for personal expression and everyday life, and each language has its own axioms and theorems.

BrandonMon Show HN: Six Degrees of Wikipedia

I think that's the point.

BrandonMon Google Maps' Moat

I first used Google Maps for cycling over 7 years ago.

BrandonMon Uber is officially a cab firm, says European court

Cab driving is one of the most dangerous jobs in the US.

BrandonMon Officials Don't Get to Choose Who Gets to Receive, Comment, and Reply to Tweets

The brief/article seems to argue that @realdonaldtrump represents a public forum only because he uses it as such, and they’ve explicitly stated that his posts represent official views of POTUS. To me, that implies that public officials can still have private accounts provided that they don’t use them for official communications.

BrandonMon Officials Don't Get to Choose Who Gets to Receive, Comment, and Reply to Tweets

Both of these points were covered in the article. It’s not about public/private fora. They argue (with case law) that when the government uses a private venue in a public way, it becomes public.

Additionally they only argue that @realDonaldTrump is a government account because the government itself has stated that the posts from that account represent official statements by the President. More generally, they mention cases where the FOIA applies to emails sent through a private account when the communications are discussing government matters.

BrandonMon Warren Buffett says health care costs are a bigger problem than corporate taxes

I know plenty of family members in the US who have waited months for health care procedures. Being poor or rural brings rationing, waiting lists, supply shortages and all the kinds of things you don't want when dealing with people's lives.

BrandonMon H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

> You have a strange definition of "not that hard".

That's fair, but by-far the hardest thing about filing taxes for us has been prorating our income based on how long we lived in each part-year municipality. Adding to that, some cities/states give you a credit on the taxes, some deduct from the income, and yet others multiply by the number of business days you were a resident. If it was just a matter of filing a 1040, itemizing deductions, and transferring that same info to state/city taxes, it would probably take me 3-4 hours.

I agree that your situation sounds difficult, but I doubt that TurboTax is really making that easier. You likely need to seek out a true tax preparer/accountant. My comment was specifically targeted at those who are using DIY online software... It's just honestly not that much harder to use forms. (I could have been clearer about who my comment applied to.)

BrandonMon H&R Block and Intuit Are Lobbying Against Making Tax Filling Free and Easy

For anyone who can program (including spreadsheets!), it's not all that hard to file your own taxes the old-fashioned way. To do it digitally, just use https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/ and start with a 1040. Read each line carefully and go from there.

The IRS has tons of great resources, and you can even call them up. Each form has a companion instruction booklet (online PDF), and sometimes those instructions refer to an IRS publication with additional clarification. If you can read a technical blog post and follow a clear procedure, you can file your own taxes.

I've been filing taxes the (new) old-fashioned way for my wife and I for the last 3 years. That includes 330+ days abroad (Federal Earned Income Exclusion), a sole proprietorship, an LLC, an ISO exercise (AMT), 3 separate states, and 5 separate cities.

Each time, it has taken me a full 12-16 hours (a solid day or two on a weekend) for federal, multiple states, and multiple cities. It's not the most fun, but by the end of it, I understand our taxes and finances a lot better. We can arrange our situation better going forward. We can keep more appropriate records to make the next year's filings easier. And most of all, I have the satisfaction of not funding an industry that lobbies against my interests.

BrandonMon Remind HN: Chrome 57 Doesn't Trust StartCom or WoSign

Clickable:

Best Chrome 57 resource I found: https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2605051

https://wiki.mozilla.org/CA:WoSign_Issues enumerates the issues

https://security.googleblog.com/2016/10/distrusting-wosign-a...

Past discussions:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12389573

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12444590

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12617659

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12787029

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12841860

BrandonMon Ask HN: Is S3 down?

Additionally, Zendesk is apparently failing to process new tickets, so our users can't report the errors they're encountering.

BrandonMon What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn

Section 4.03 of IRS bulletin 2012-28 (https://www.irs.gov/irb/2012-28_IRB/ar12.html) states, "If property for which a § 83(b) election was filed is forfeited while substantially nonvested, § 83(b)(1) provides that no deduction shall be allowed with respect to such forfeiture. Section 1.83-2(a) further provides that such forfeiture shall be treated as a sale or exchange upon which there is realized a loss equal to the excess (if any) of (1) the amount paid (if any) for such property, over (2) the amount realized (if any) upon such forfeiture. If such property is a capital asset in the hands of the taxpayer, such loss shall be a capital loss."

I'm not an accountant nor a tax expert. My layman's understanding of that clause is that (1) the amount paid was $375, and (2) the amount realized was $375, so the buyback nets $0.

Could the nonvested shares somehow be defined as "a capital asset in the hands of the taxpayer" with a cost basis of the FMV at exercise time, even though they're not technically property of the taxpayer yet? Perhaps it depends on the specific terms of the early exercise and the buyback?

BrandonMon What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn

But wait, there's more... Let's say that you decide it's too risky to early exercise in year 1, but by year 3 things are looking pretty good and you early exercise all your options.

Let's say your strike price is $0.20, and now the FMV is $0.75, and you're exercising all 10,000 of your shares, including 2,500 that haven't vested yet. When you exercise, you file an 83(b) so that you get taxed (AMT) on the full $5,500 spread in year 3, even though you don't technically own those year 4 shares yet.

Then, you leave or get fired 3 months later. Pursuant to the early exercise agreement, the company can repurchase 1,875 shares at your $0.20 strike price, giving you $375 back. Unfortunately, AFAICT, there's no way for you to reclaim the tax you paid on the $1,031.25 spread for those 1,875 shares; you just eat it.

Yeah, this stuff is complicated, and sadly it seems to fall to each startup employee to educate themselves.

BrandonMon What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn

I understand how AMT works; these numbers are from actually calculating my 2016 taxes. With the exercise, I'm paying over $7,000 more than I otherwise would have.

BrandonMon What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn

This is correct. To put some concrete numbers on it, I'm in my 6th year at a startup. In 2016, I spent $6,400 to exercise ~50,000 options that had a total FMV of ~$60,000. This is going to add over $7,000 to my 2016 taxes due to AMT.

If you're single and your income is over $115K, or if you're married and your total income is over $150K, there will be tax implications for exercising your options, unless you exercise them when the spread is $0.

BrandonMon What I Wish I'd Known About Equity Before Joining a Unicorn

Some companies allow you to "early exercise" your options before they vest. If you do that, you'll certainly want to file an 83(b) election for that exercise, when the spread between strike price and fair market value (FMV) is $0. If you don't file the 83(b) and the FMV goes up, each future vesting period will be subject to taxation.

BrandonMon The Problem with AMP

Apparently, 6 people (including you) agree with me.

BrandonMon The Problem with AMP

On my iPhone, I use DuckDuckGo mainly to avoid AMP. I use Google on my laptop.

BrandonMon A Prettier JavaScript Formatter

If I personally prefer the second Promise chain:

    myPromise.then(() => {
      // ...
    }).then(() => {
      // ...
    }).catch(() => {
      // ..
    });

and if I also prefer the Lisp-like approach and hate putting:

);

on its own line, am I part of the problem? What if my whole team uses that style? For example, we would write:

    foo(
      reallyLongArg(),
      omgSoManyParameters(),
      IShouldRefactorThis(),
      isThereSeriouslyAnotherOne()
    );

as:

    foo(reallyLongArg(), omgSoManyParameters(), IShouldRefactorThis(),
            isThereSeriouslyAnotherOne());

(100 characters wide, double indent on the continuation line. This is pretty standard for Java formatting.)

Stated differently, is this meant to be very opinionated in hopes that all JS would follow a uniform style? I think that can work for Go since it was like that from Day 1. For JS, though, it has been out for so long that many teams have developed their own preferred style. I suspect that most of them would avoid an opinionated formatter that differs in a few small ways from their in-house format, if only because it seems silly to break diffs and git blame for a sweeping formatting change.

BrandonMon Go to the Wrong Hospital and You’re 3 Times More Likely to Die

I got 6 stitches in Cambodia for a major cut on my arm. No wait, seen by 3 medical professionals (including a doctor), in and out in 15 minutes. Total cost: $15.

For me, that was a far better outcome than I would have received in the US for a similar condition. Of course, stitches are pretty well understood; I can't advocate for any other medical procedures in Cambodia.

BrandonMon The smug style in American liberalism

FYI: This reply is exactly one of the "smug styles" that the original article highlights:

> Christianity, as many hastened to point out, is about love. Christ commands us to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. If the Bible took any position on the issue at all, it was that divorce, beloved by Davis, was a sin, and that she was a hypocrite masquerading among the faithful.

> How many of these critiques were issued by atheists?

> This, more than anything I can recall in recent American life, is an example of the smug style.

BrandonMon The smug style in American liberalism

Are you suggesting that there were no reasons to dislike Hillary? Or that misogyny and racism live on a plane above all other issues? Because in the end, the people only had two choices in this election.

BrandonMon The smug style in American liberalism

...and you can't vote for Hillary without being OK with obstructing democracy, corporate bailouts, and welfare handouts. At least that's how a lot of people felt who didn't want to vote for Hillary. (I preferred her to Trump, personally.)

People have different priorities. It can be really hard to care about various isms when your life has been borderline misery for a half decade or more.

BrandonMon Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

> The ACA is working great for people that make so little they get subsidies.

Not everyone. In NC alone, there are 377,000 people who make too little to qualify for ACA subsidies yet are not covered by Medicaid. That's a lot of people, and that's just one state. There are 19 other states that also don't have expanded Medicaid.

http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/state-by-st...

Even with subsidized ACA, the Bronze plans are pretty shit. Average family deductibles in 2017 will be $12,393, with the average monthly premium for a 40-year-old costing $350. Other than 1 checkup per year and female care, these families get to pay $1,000+ per month in premiums (assuming 2 adults and 2 kids) and another $12,000+ on top of that before their plan does much of anything for them.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/26/obamacare-deductibles-are-on-...

Even with a subsidy I don't think it makes sense for a lower middle class family to pay $5,000-10,000 for 3-5 checkups, and $20,000+ if they actually need to use that coverage. Yet they'll be hit with a tax penalty if they don't do that.

How is this good?

BrandonMon Donald Trump’s Contract with the American Voter [pdf]

My parents in NC are in that exact situation. My dad is on disability and Medicaid, and insurance for my stepmom would be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of their income. She doesn't qualify for any assistance. Apparently, 377,000 other North Carolinians don't either. And there are 19 other states in a similar position.

http://www.hhs.gov/healthcare/facts-and-features/state-by-st...

BrandonMon Epic Games chief pays $15M to protect 7,000 acres of North Carolina wilderness

I'm hoping that Maine's Ranked Choice Voting[0] (instant runoff) is an answer to some of the problems inherent in our current winner-take-all system. It passed in Maine; hopefully it achieves its aims and spreads.

[0] http://www.rcvmaine.com/