skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
It's happening now. Today is "black monday".

I've got broad market puts (SPY) as well as puts on Square which are literally printing me money right now. If puts are consistently making money, than you're likely to be laid off in the next few months. I consider market shorts to be a form of insurance for this reason. If I lose my investment, than it means I keep my job. If my investment moons, than I'm about to lose my job.
12 Days on the Most Storied Highway of Them All: The Silk Road
> he certainly seemed to understand how to get people to vote for him a lot better than his political competitors did

This is false. The fact that he won the election is completely irrelevant to this point. The election isn't won by the candidate who understands how to get people to vote for him. If it was, he'd have lost.
Your statement is true if you just blindly invest in an index, times like this you need to invest in a trend but is more difficult.
> having broad testing availability (thanks to free markets).

Well, aside from the government shouldering the costs of the tests approved by the FDA.[0] But, since getting tested would involve going to the doctor (not free), and potentially being forbidden from working for two weeks, there are a lot of people in the margins who will simply not voluntarily get tested, even if they have the symptoms. [1]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22493046
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22519125
This is a similar indicator but potentially a better one than just GDP: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPROFIT

If you overlap it with the stock market, the only other time in US history where stock continued to go up for multiple years where corporate profit stagnated is 1999. Normally the stock market and corp profits line up somewhat strongly.
Sure, but wouldn't it have made more financial sense for them to maintain some kind of position? Even if they gave up their board seat for the conflict of interest reasons, I would imagine that Sequoia has some kind of obligation to their investors to get some kind of return on that $21m.
It was just as bad only with industrial accidents and diseases on top.
What do you envision is the best way to do this? Our approach is to present employees with a few options upfront that, behind the scenes, have been recommended by a broker for them. They can speak with their broker if want help understanding and selecting one of the recommended plans, or look at the wider market if nothing suits them.

We try to streamline the experience as much as possible, and put in a lot of work building an interface that explains the plan details in-app.

And you always have the option to tell one of our brokers "None of these work for me, I want to make sure Dr. Smith is in my network, show me more options".
The market already was showing signs of problems, the CV was just what broke the camel's back.
Nobody ever romanticized "cookie cutter suburban neighborhoods", they were just a refuge from crime, vagrancy, and the high cost of living in urban areas. All of which are factors that led me to no longer romanticize cities the way you do. The Bay Area might be an exception because not even the suburbs there are affordable, but at least in the Seattle area there's a definite lifestyle split between families and single young men.
I've used F# for real non toy code (admittedly years ago so my memory is very hazy, and being a beginner my code likely relied on too many c#isms), and I unfortunately found this article impenetrable, so I agree. Part of it is that Im not familiar with what an Initial Algebra is, and writing a calculator seems very abstract compared to actual code Im likely to write.

Looking up the definition on wikipedia definitely didn't help: "In mathematics, an initial algebra is an initial object in the category of F-algebras for a given endofunctor
F". Oof, I think I would need semesters worth of higher level university math to even begin to understand that.

I'm probably just not the target audience for this, but I frequently think people avoid functional languages because they (appear to) require an understanding of math that the vast majority of coders have never been exposed to.
This reminds me of the Aberhart quote recommending airports be built with spoons and forks, not modern machines, if a jobs program is what's required. Perhaps we could add more jobs by having people hand total receipts and the computers could just check them for accuracy :)

My own perspective is that it is basic reality that a large number of low-skill jobs will be automated over the next 10 to 20 years. Rather than complain, I prefer to think about what society can and should do about it.

In my case, I don't believe that we should create makework low skills jobs to 'solve' this 'problem' of humans no longer being needed to run cash registers though; I have a hard time imagining most people preferring to run a cash register as their ideal day job.
As bryanrasmussen pointed out physical contact is also more common on meeting, especially kiss on the cheek. Like that's how you greet everyone and the best way to spread viruses

I've never been to the US but I don't think kiss on the cheek is that common there.
Couldn't they have tried to sell their stake instead? Perhaps the same reason?
Wouldn't it be nice if you could have certs signed by multiple CAs, so detrusting bad CAs would be easier without wrecking as much stuff?
Rats Are Us
Yep. And the poor in the US will not be tested because they cannot afford the test ($2000 if negative or false negative, and ? if positive or false positive) and told by their bosses that they still have to work. In the past, say 40+ years ago, anyone who was suspected of having a pandemic disease would be tested for free. This is vulture, gotcha capitalism profiteering off a disaster and assisted by the executive branch. When the POTUS gets sick from a pile of McDonald's cheeseburgers, that's karma.
Same revolt happened with users, including executives.

There was tons of pressure to stay with Blackberry (it WAS the monopoly incumbent - almost every major IT department had invested in it - telcos loved it for the $$$).

Seriously - someone like Obama or Trump would be told they could only use a blackberry because it was more "secure" supposedly. Users told the same thing.

From top to bottom after folks got to try out the iphone from apple (no telco lock in at start at all - I bought the iphone 1 full price in cash when sold) just would not go back to blackberry.

It actually worked out for a while. people carried two phones. The blackberry required by their work and an iphone.

The crazy thing is blackberry just kept on falling behind in huge leaps backwards. It was nuts.

Apple's execution was really pretty good given the ramp they had.
If you need a recession-proof skill, I believe you should be learning Python or Java.
I just have absolutely atrocious financial habits, so losing job atm would probably be game over for me. I'm not overly worried about it, as I dont really see that happening, and if it does, there isnt much I can do but roll with it
With a backdoor for governments... So meh!
I am pursuing certifications in Configuration Management. Completing 8 days of training with CMPIC and taking a certification exam through NDIA.

I build CM tools, so maybe I'll sound a bit more confident. So far, the training courses have reinforced my intuitions about how CM is performed in the enterprise. I'm feeling more able to tackle our engineering inefficiencies.
Stability is good. Think twice about joining the next hot startup.
If VC freezes up startups will run out of money quickly. Don’t take on debt.

I haven’t experienced it myself but from what I have observed it’s a bad time to graduate from school once a recession hits. You won’t find a decent job and when things get better companies will hire shiny new grads and the grads from the years before will be left behind.
Individual Contributor - in tech, usually an engineer, data scientist, etc. type job that doesn't involve management responsibilities.
Inverse or leveraged ETFs are terrible for anyone except for day traders. You can't buy and hold them, because they degrade over time, especially the leveraged ETFs. If you really want to short, then short the stock directly with proper stop losses or buy puts, but options are very complicated with various types of premium, most importantly time premium which also causes prices to degrade.
Where it gets tricky is one particular breed of religious refugee that settled the US in the European colonial period (and who's philosophical thinking is deeply encoded into American culture) was particularly interested in predestination. For some Americans (perhaps a critical mass), God's will and success based on your own efforts are one and the same---they succeed because God chose them for success.

The flip-side of the "your success is due to your own efforts" coin is a kind of collective defeatism: if you get sick, it's not because you drew a short statistical straw, it's because you made bad choices. And coupled with that predestination meme, the thought extends to "And you deserve what you're getting because God wills you make bad choices."

It's a meme cocktail that can make it hard to get people moving on collective action that could benefit the average person.
We bought a ridiculously cheap place in the countryside with over 2 hectares (5 US non-SI units) of land in my significant other's native country. Holiday house, place to meet friends _and_ dirt cheap insurance against many pitch black swans.
A few weeks ago, I spent $730 to buy 73 SPY put option contracts expiring this Friday with a strike of $270, so about 10 cents per share. Unbelievable. I've been selling them over the last week and just finished getting out today with a realized gain of about $30k.

Wish I had put $50k in instead of $1k, but I suppose that's always the lament when an ultra-risky trade goes your way :)
This could benefit from a discussion of when it is and when it isn't useful or practical to apply the technique described.

It helps with serialization, and optimization in cases like deep learning frameworks. In other cases I think it smacks of overengineering. If you need a representation of a function along with its arguments to pass to other systems, then do it as needed. Otherwise, YAGNI.
Here's a simple thought exercise.

If your company produced the same product, but for less money. Would the company be worth more?

If your ownership increased via buy back, would your holdings increase in value?

If your debts were financed at a lower average rate would the value of your company go up ? (sort of a sub case of expenses)

These are some of the myriad of ways that a portfolio can move in disconnect from GDP.
> But no one willfully gives up power.

And they don't want to work hard to pay for others that don't work, either. If feeding the people is the goal, we can already do that. Trivially in first world countries, but also world wide. It's getting everybody a high living standard that's expensive and hard.
Gold goes down during a recession.
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It seems like all you have to say here is that there exist ACA-noncompliant plans. Yes, that was always the case. Why would you buy one of them? The major reason people end up in exempt plans is that they somehow miss enrollment (or have a payment snafu that gets them bounced from their compliant plan --- ask me how I know that). But this product appears to generate a new enrollment window; you can just buy ACA-compliant marketplace plans with it.
As I recall WalMart spent millions on it, and only gave up because if you buy a cart of razor blades the rfid would miss one. (razor blades because of the metal at weird angles is apparently the worse case)
It's likely that you do not have family members with chronic conditions.
The case fatality ratio is dependent on slowing the spread of the disease such that the healthcare system isn’t overwhelmed and so that we have time to develop treatments (possibly a vaccine).

The US is not only doing effectively nothing to slow the spread, but isn’t even testing at the level necessary to assess relative regional threats and take necessary mitigation/containment actions.

Arriving at a result anything like South Korea entirely depends on us responding like South Korea, something for which the window of opportunity may have already closed on in the US. We’ll certainly find out in the coming weeks and months.
Nothing new or different. Keep a 6-month cash reserve, save for retirement, live within our means, and hope for the best. We have plenty of monthly expenses we can cut if needed, but won't until forced to do so. Beyond that, anything else feels like panicking.
Ask HN: I signed a 12-month contract. Can I quit?
I signed a 12-month contract to develop software for a startup. While there is a termination clause that allows the client to terminate, the contract says nothing about me being able to terminate. I am 2 months into the contract, and while I am not pleased with the work environment for multiple reasons that I won't get into, I feel confident that the client is not breaching any part of the contract.

Can I quit without being liable for damages, like I would if this were a full-time job, or am I obligated to finish out the contract? I will talk to a lawyer, but first I'd like to understand my options a little bit more.

Note: this is all within the US. CA specifically.
Bad luck. Ski season? All it takes is one person coming home from 6 weeks trying to ramp manufacturing in China taking a week's break to ski and unwind. Boom.

Total speculation on my part, but you can imagine a dozen similar scenarios that are just bad luck. Heck, in Germany, there was a cross-training event at an auto manufacturer, with Chinese workers visiting plant in Germany. Imagine: "Ok, let's all take turns at the controls of this metal press..." Boom.

The same thing has no doubt happened in the USA, we just don't know about it yet. I just looked at an annual event that I go to most Aprils, and.... not cancelled yet. I sure am not going this year -- I can't believe the organizers are not cancelling out -- knowing them, I suspect greed.

Edit: Typo's and grammo's.
People who use the concept of races, by using the concept of races.

But it's cultural differences I guess, races and racism is bad in my culture, see the movie quote that is making fun of that, and it seems like in yours races and racism do not seem obviously related. I will not try to convince you, you got my point of view. If you write an international scientific paper, please don't use races, thank you very much.
yeah that's real likely
No $529BN fine would ever actually happen.

That would be considered economic warfare and the US wouldn't allow it.
From the FAQ:

What data does Just Walk Out technology collect from my shoppers?

We only collect the data needed to provide shoppers with an accurate receipt. Shoppers can think of this as similar to typical security camera footage.

A rather (wide) open door for Amazon to collect valuable data on customers. And is this really comparable to "a typical security camera footage"?

edit: formatting
US fertility rate is approx. 1.8, well below population sustainability. If it weren't for immigration (a political policy question), the US would have negative population growth too.
Normally I lean heavily libertarian and I agree with your concerns, but all of the literature out of China on lancet, pubmed, etc are demonstrating that this is far worse than SARS or anything else that's hit. At the very least the rate of spread is .25-4 times higher than the Spanish flu and lethality is comparable.

China shut down it's entire industry for two months. Knowing full well the risk of losing global business permanently. Perhaps it is time for drastic measures.
We have been preparing my professional services company for recession for the last year or two. Key steps

1) carry no "real" debt, build cash reserves.

2) focus on profitability over growth. Typically driving growth means hiring sales/marketing in advance of the growth and spending profit to do it. Adding new services staff requires carrying about 90 days of the employee costs due to non billing the first month, and the 60-90 days until we receive cash from their first billings. Focusing on profit means raising prices, shedding overhead, getting long term contracts, driving efficiencies.

3) Focus on recession resistant industries.

4) Focus on acquiring more local businesses to reduce travel overhead required to clients.

5) no long term purchasing contracts

6) maximize credit line. Renew in advance of recession. During recessions banks kill lines of credit. As we start to get into a recession we will max out our line and then move the cash to another bank.

Personally

1) Shed leveraged real estate assets, they are very hard to liquidate during a recession

2) Reduce debt usage

3) increase lines of credit

4) build 2 years of cash reserves (min of 6 months during normal times). Lots of money is made during recessions, you need ready cash to take advantage.

5) reduce spending now
America has all three of those except immigration is allowing for population growth; immigration that the Trump admin is busy reducing to zero it seems. And when you look at replacement births you have to think about all the economic conditions that cause people to decide not to have children.
> the a typical

Thanks for fixing.
I would guess your typing also gets significantly slower. Mine does; I’ve gone through periods where I had trouble typing the word in because my muscle memory turned it into int.
I'm glad I stockpiled food before I got sick. Otherwise I would have had a much harder time quarantining myself.
And when the actual fine is just $10bn, the markets will reward FB by increasing their stock price.
> Then why are countries like Germany, which were exposed earlier, not experiencing similar problems and lockdowns?

Just wait a week or so.
I've been preparing for it since 2008 when my business was effectively killed. Anyone that felt 2008 has been expecting this. I saved, I split my eggs into many baskets, I made a spreadsheet.
Two private parties, an exchange and individual trading firms, have freely agreed to a set of rules in order to transact on that exchange. What about that is not consistent with the free market?
Spoiler: they’ll get away with a couple of mil
You cannot time it, just ask yourself last weekend who could have guessed Russia would back out of the opec deal of limiting supplies?
Funny things is, Warby looks a lot like Fielmann, a German "low cost" chain for glasses. Ehich used to be a startup like 20 years ago. Eho said copy cating can't go the other way!
Yes, and having winning lottery tickets matters, a lot. You might as well advise people to just avoid all of the days where the market goes down since that will make a massive difference to their returns.

Timing the market is just throwing the dice. Go down that path and you’ll be entering the world of gambling with all of the bad psychology that ensues.
Because the markets are funded by people and people are irrational.
He's building a community, so it makes total sense for him to solicit feedback from that community, via that community. The value of Twitter _is_ the community, not the "product roadmap".

He's not turning to random people on Twitter because he's out of ideas... he's trying to understand more, and build a community of people who feel invested in the future of Twitter.
Very good indeed.

Its a fine fit for a multi-billion dollar company. Unless they get it significantly reduced somehow...
0.5% is still well over 5x as bad as typical flu. SK is closer to 0.7%.

SK also has a far lower recovery percentage (SK total cases: 7478, total recoveries: 118; 1.5% of cases have recovered, 0.5% of cases have died).

Compare to the worldwide CFR and recovery rate, which has a much higher CFR (3.5%). total cases 113,432, total recovered 62,494, 55% of world-wide cases have recovered.

That means SK is catching their cases through testing much earlier (which is great! This leads to both better containment and better clinical outcomes!), but it means currently they have a much higher percentage of "unresolved" cases than many other countries. We need to wait until we start seeing more recoveries in SK before we start celebrating too much.

I'm optimistic that there's a good example of a strong outcome when there's a robust response in South Korea.

(Data pulled from the John Hopkins global case tracker here: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594...
Not trying to be cold-hearted about it, but if the virus ultimately kills off a lot of sick/edlerly people, wouldn't the aftermath of that be a boon for the economy?
No, because the conflict of interest wasn't the board position, it was that there is perceived to be a single pie that Finix and Stripe are trying to eat from. They have an obligation to help Finix get a bigger piece of that pie and an obligation to Stripe to do the same.

For their investors, their more important obligation is to protect their existing gains in Stripe instead of the $21m they put into a newcomer "by mistake."
But "you're missing out on higher returns" is true. Unless you stashed all your savings in stocks for the first time two weeks ago, you'd probably still be better off having your money invested. We've lost a lot of the gains over the past ten years, but we've still kept most of them.
But buy buy. All long term investors should be buying here imo. I’m not a big player but I’m picking up some shares at these lows.
Well, you can choose not to follow laws (but you'll face the consequences if caught!).
All of the apologist replies are based on the problem of overoptimizing. Yes, if you pay 100x as much, you can always get something 10% better. Is it worth it? Well, it is 10% better. Depends.

For our military since the 70s, we have not fought a major power, and the main incentives are to keep the contractor money flowing and the body bag count down. So, the system is working to deliver what it is optimized to deliver.

Were we to get into a war with Russia or China though, it's pretty clear we'd get our asses handed to us because we can only make N weapons for Y dollars while they make 10N weapons for the same price, and theirs are only 10% less effective than ours. As it is, ISIS and the Taliban can keep us spinning our wheels for a decade with nothing to show for it. Imagine a foe with an actual military budget…
Are there any viable alternatives to DANE, or is this a dead end in general and we're stuck with CA forever?
Ok, here they come imho: 1- smart working aimed at increasing productivity, because a lot of time is spent at office but the output is too low and / or mediocre quality to stand up at global level in the 2020s; 2- cultural business as artistic heritage, creative industries and beautiful landscapes, which really need better overall standards to compete against Spain, France and the Balkans, especially in Southern Italy.
Other indexes, like the German DAX [1] have a hard cap at 10% per company.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAX
Successful startups outside of Silicon Valley have critical lessons to teach us