mcmullen

I use ledger [0] for all my personal finances. It's probably a little too nerdy for some folks but works perfectly for me: the combination of plain text [1] and the command line keeps me interested.

I highly recommend ledger for any (easily bored) programmer who wants to track their finances (and learn some basic accounting). Note other flavours exist too [2].

[0] https://www.ledger-cli.org [1] https://plaintextaccounting.org [2] https://hledger.org

I doubt it's underrated by anybody reading it but worth mentioning nonetheless: Money Stuff by Matt Levine. Brilliant, hilarious coverage of all things money by a former lawyer and banker.

This shouldn't surprise anybody. Anecdotally speaking, most old folks I know (of) watch television, read physical newspapers, and call/write/see people. What do they need the internet for? I'm -- if anything -- surprised the number isn't higher.

11 million free trials pushed through the first page of the App Store and Apple website. Time will tell.

Funny as I have the same problems with Apple music - it randomly deletes my songs and portions of playlists.

Apple really need to focus their apps (and they should start with iTunes first).

Spotify need to work on an easier way to create and edit playlists - better search within the playlist and an easier UI would be a massive improvement.

Interesting that you mention the Music app in point (1). I understand the argument that having it all in one place and integrated throughout the OS is a benefit. But, I actually think the Music app is way too complicated for the average user. It took me a while to work out what was going on. I also disagree with your point (2) as I think Spotify is pretty simple to understand and use.

Spotify is bundled with mobile phone contracts in the UK - my wife won't even try the Apple Music free trial because it's another UI she has to learn and Spotify is free with her contract. I think that sentence summarises my view of Apple's chances in the market: so long as they (Spotify and others) are slightly cheaper than Apple Music and are friendly with people like the big telcos, I don't see Apple Music adding much more than better branding and higher prices.

Nice list! Bookmarked.

Revelation. Thanks.

Thanks for the link. Interesting company! Nice summary here: https://medium.com/on-blendle/one-website-all-newspapers-and....

I like the idea of micro-payments for interesting, long-form content because there are various journalists I like who work for newspapers I don't subscribe to. I would happily pay for in-depth analysis pieces. I remain hopeful about non-click-bait journalism.

I disagree with your assertion that "paywalls don't work", which is fundamentally not true. Content produces need to raise revenue to pay for their costs and make a profit. One excellent way to raise this revenue is by raising pay walls. It works for companies like The Times (London), The FT and The Economist. Will you retract this false statement?

What I think you're saying is that "worthless ramblings on the internet aren't (inherently) worth anything and thus no one wants to give them their money willingly", which of course isn't the fault of the paywall but the content.

It comes down to content creation and paying for it. If nobody wants to pay for it then it doesn't get created (unless you're a blogger, or meet your costs in some other way). We shouldn't have any time for people who want to get content for free.

I'm in the unusual position of actually paying for content and use AdBlockers, however I use it because I disagree with tracking on the grounds of consent and privacy. (That said, I will happily disable adblocking for websites who only want to show me banners and not track me.)

That may be the case in the City (I have images of interns jumping from City skyscrapers in the back of my mind...) but not in the general labour market in my experience. Generally speaking, unless you've committed to something, screwed up, or contracting (£$£$), then you generally leave at the end of your shift or working day. However, I am genuinely intrigued why you think this - could you elaborate? Maybe I'm overworking without even knowing it.

Especially ones that probably won't leave me feeling like I know anything more about the world after finishing. I look forward to the brief HN user summaries over the coming hours.

Really interesting post; the Mac Mini rack looks insanely cool.

This has myself and a colleague wondering what Apple run in their data centres. Can anybody hazard a guess? Is it Apple hardware with OSX? Is it custom/third-party hardware running *nix? I seem to remember somebody mentioning Azure not too long ago.

In summary: (1) I dislike the UI, (2) I dislike Google apps on iOS devices, (3) it's Google, so it could be shut down at any moment and (4) my general dislike for moving all of my tech habits to Google services.

Also, I agree with czottmann that it isn't Google's core business or competency and thus I would rather go elsewhere.

I read "Dropbox Notes" and instantly thought "awesome! I can finally ditch Evernote". Then I open the link and they talk about "a new way for teams to write together". Firstly, can we please focus on the consumer? Secondly, can we please focus on the UI? Thirdly, I'd just like a github-style UI for personal note taking that is consistent across my browser, phone, tablet and computers. That would be great; introduce language highlighting and it'd be awesome. I'd pay more than my Dropbox fee for that.

I believe Safari solves this on iOS/Mac by treating the address bar as the "search option" - whether that's your memorised URL, stored bookmarks, google, history or (and my favourite...) the page.

Like the chap above your comment, I absolutely despise having the Firefox differentiation because my habit is to click the address bar and then depending on whether I have realised the mistake before/after hitting enter it's: (1) "S&%^ I have clicked the wrong one, <tab>" (2) "FFS I didn't want http://byron burger locations"

You're absolutely right that "trickle down" occurs. Basic logic suggests that if lots of businesses have lots of funding, and that funding dries up, there will inevitably be job losses because they have to be funded from somewhere.

However, I wouldn't worry too much because technology is clearly the future and the need for technology professionals will continue to grow. These stupidly high valuations are for, I hope, decent businesses. By that virtue, they will get the funding they need - just not the scale that we have seen. Hence, I used "just lots of rich people will less money" because the people set to lose out are the huge investment vehicles who seem to be huddled around the Valley at present. The highly skilled engineers needn't worry because the likes of Mr. Wilson and Mr. Andreessen aren't going anywhere, and the average Joe Bloggs needn't worry because their pensions aren't at risk. The people who should worry are those who watched the Facebook float and said, "Shit, I need some of that action!"

As always, it's the stupid that lose out. Fortunately, the stupid ones aren't providing our mortgages or issuing our credit cards this time. (Namely, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of America, et al.)

But, hey - I'm just a 24 year old CS grad come IT consultant, what do I know?

One of the later episodes of the a16z podcast featured Marc Andreessen and Benedict Evans. They were discussing technology valuations and made some good points. Though I disagreed with their "no bubble" consensus, they were right in mentioning the classic "Russian oil money" and "new players" argument. Previously, most tech investing was done by U.S. venture capitalists. (One of the reasons why non-U.S. start-ups find it hard to fund themselves.)

However with multi-billion dollar technology floats like Facebook taking place - many, many people are taking notice and bringing lots of money with them. This, obviously, increases demand which in-turn increases prices. That's all. If, or indeed when, the bubble pops and people realise that these businesses aren't worth the price paid, I suspect it won't lead to the type of crisis that occurred in 00/08 - just lots of rich people with less money.

Thanks for the clarification!

Great post; I agree with everything here.

Cheap money (or, low rates with "safe" bond markets) + high growth tech = sky high valuations - got it, Fred.

Just, one more thing... how did he go from the 10% yield ($100M / 10M = 10% yield) to "if interest rates are 5% instead of 10%, then you would pay $200mm for the business ($10mm/$200mm = 5%)." Is he simply interchanging the word "yield" with "interest rates" or actually talking about the central bank?

Well... TIL! (Though, rather obvious thinking about it...) It definitely screws up my generalisation. I thought "North American" would be nice given the U.S. and Canada generally share the same language and culture. Mexico messes with that, slightly. Though, I suppose states like Florida (from my Dexter knowledge) would have similar issues given the high-proportion of Spanish speakers.

Speaking as a Brit, we do (rather ignorantly) generally refer to citizens of the U.S. as "American."

I believe "North American" would be suitable. (Sorry, Canada.)

I also agree with this suggestion. I know that battle grounds are drawn on the dog vs cat debate, but either/or would do well for most lonely people. My wife's grandfather died when we first started seeing each other; 5/6 or so (oops - I hope she isn't reading) years ago. Bizarrely, this was within a few months of his dog dying. He took that thing everywhere - snook him into hotel rooms, family houses, the golf club, trips abroad.

Why didn't you just sell the non-essential things and make room for the rest? I only ask because I have lived in 7 different properties since starting University and now (almost three years into career) and I literally take what I need and chuck the rest; one could probably describe me as the 'anti-hoarder'.