hal9000xp's comments

You can read why I strongly believe in cryptocurrencies based on my life experience (which has nothing do to with crypto):

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16197475

I think HN went pretty much to the left, if not far-left. HN readers are pretty much on the side of Paul Krugman, Thomas Piketty's world view.

I'm on the side Milton Friedman, Paul Graham's world view.

The left consider what I believe as total shit and at the same time call me intolerant. And this irritates me a lot. There is no way of being in peace with left without being submissive or self-censoring. And I don't want to be either.

> I believe that this cryptocurrency you mentioned is probably fraudulous

So do you believe YCombinator promotes fraud? Because cryptocurrency I mentioned was on blog.ycombinator.com.

I don’t live in US. While I understand what’s real offense (including disrespectful jokes), I have concern about “guilty till proven innocent”.

If I’m attracted to someone and I want to date. How you can ask to go out without risk of being accused of sexual harassment?

This is not sarcastic question. This is especially important if you as a male is not very good at reading subtle social cues.

P.S. I really don't see why it got downvoted. There is no hidden message here.

Thanks for mentioning DAI.

I mentioned DAI today in comment and essentially got banned for doing it.

In comment I provided link to interview with Olaf on blog.ycombinator.com where MakerDAO was mentioned.

So I got banned as spammer in HN for providing link to blog on YC.

It tells a lot about the level of average HN reader.

As tensions with USDT rise, my prediction is that MakerDAO decentralized stablecoin will take over the market in 2019. You can see how issued DAI market cap pumping up steadily all year long almost with no break:

https://mkr.tools/

So I'm accumulating position in MKR.

Here is YC interview with backer of MakerDAO:

https://blog.ycombinator.com/blockchain-investing-with-olaf-...

Andressen Horrowitz also increasing their position in MKR:

https://medium.com/makerdao/a16z-crypto-purchases-6-of-mkr-b...

https://medium.com/makerdao/maker-sells-12m-of-mkr-to-partne...

Although there are some concerns that it's economically impossible to create fully decentralized stablecoin. Historical example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

Failed stablecoin example:

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/nubits/

We will see as time goes on. Anyway, it's very interesting economic experiment.

P.S. So YC HN readers keep downvoting me even if I give links to interview on YC. Okay...

Usually, people who trade smarter than those who vote. So stock market is constant voting machine for expected future earnings, it's fair to say that indexes provide pretty accurate overview of economy.

With that in mind, if you look at SPY (US) and compare it with EWI (Italy) and EWP (Spain), you will see that Italy and Spain are not going anywhere since 2008 and US at that time made huge progress.

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/spy

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/ewi

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/fund/ewp

Now, take a look at GDP of US:

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

And compare it with sad picture of Italy and Spain and Greece:

https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...

US has populists but their debt denominated in their own currency and on top of that US economy is very diverse and strong. US is much more business friendly than Italy, Spain and Greece. And their debt denominated in currency they can't print.

If you are anti-business and pro-welfare, then your business won't flourish and at the same time you will accumulate huge debt.

I watched EU debt crisis since 2012. In 2015, I watched this animation about EU debt crisis on Bloomberg:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4_tyEl84IQ

Since 2016, I spoke with many greeks, spanish and it looks to me that vast majority of them believe in wrong things. Therefore they will continue to vote for left or right populists no matter what. Their left and right are anti free market, anti fiscal conservatism, pro spending, pro welfare, against businesses.

In very long term, EU is unsustainable. Too many countries with different interests and huge moral hazard.

I acknowledge that Sweden has number of advantages and benevolent government with no corruption. It's certainly one of the top countries in the world in terms of development.

My guess is that Sweden might be popular choice among people who want to pursue PhD or something like that.

I fell in love with Hong Kong first time I visited it as a tourist in 2013.

"as to enforce equality of income". This is what puts me off of Europe!

I don't mind if group of people voluntarily decide to live in communism and share with each other everything they earn. Like hippies who lived in сommunes.

If high taxes (>33%) are not voluntary then it just means that social democrats are not confident that most successful people in the country will share their ideals.

If European social democracy is so cool, then it should work on purely voluntary basis.

Let's re-frame conversation from arguing to selling. I mean there are lots of top technical talents in India and China. How are you going to convince them to go to Sweden instead of US? It should be pretty damn good reason to decline $300k offer from Silicon Valley and go to Stockholm instead!

P.S. I think selling/pitching society ideals is much more positive and productive than arguing.

I think educational microcomputers should be reintroduced in modern schools, so kids would have easier time to imagine all path from programming language to hardware.

By the way, your username reminds me of great game on ZX Spectrum called Dizzy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dizzy_(series)

I sometimes have urge of nostalgia and play such games on ZX Spectrum emulator :)

Are you asking about what I mean by "It was tough decision for me"?

You can read my post dated 2014:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692961

In short, I was very upset by political situation in Russia and I felt that I must settle in any relatively free country even at great opportunity cost.

But now, I became more confident of my skills and as a result I became more risk tolerant and more ambitious. I decided that in order to be truly happy I should take more risks and completely abandon the idea of stable and predictable life in Europe.

When I leave the Netherlands, all my legal time till citizenship will reset. And I can't truly settle in Hong Kong because housing prices are insanely high and I can't get citizenship there but my bet is that I will become so successful that I will be able to settle anywhere I want as high net worth individual.

I was born in Uzbekistan. I lived 22 years in Uzbekistan. My parents had no money but in 1994, my father bought me russian clone of ZX Spectrum:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX_Spectrum

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%B0...

Basically, in 1990s many of us, used what was popular in 1980s in UK.

My father wasn't technical person but I fell in love with ZX Spectrum from day one! So I just learned it all myself.

Schools were terrible, I mostly skip all classes. But ZX Spectrum is very simple machine, so it's possible for 10 year old kid to learn it without external guidance.

Funny fact, I started working in Internet club in Uzbekistan in 2003 for 10 USD per month. In 2004, I discovered wonderland called Knoppix and FreeBSD. Then I learned programming in Bash. After that I learned programming in C because Kernighan and Ritchie books was so thin and at the same time all Unix/Linux was written in C.

More details on how I learned programming:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16508460

Europe will not win race for ambitious people.

I lived in Sweden for almost one year as an expat (I'm a software engineer). Now, I live in the Netherlands for more than two years.

I can say for sure that Europe is nowhere near Silicon Valley in terms of compensation for ambitious software engineers. Sweden went total nuts with taxes, anything above $6500 per month would be taxed at 55-60% tax rate. It's effectively cap to enforce equality of outcome.

60% tax doesn't mean that ultra-high salaries will be taxed at this rate. It means that ultra-high salaries will not exist in job market in the first place.

The best Swedish startup threatens to leave Sweden because of regulatory and tax burden [1].

The Netherlands recognized importance of highly-skilled expats by introducing tax discounts called "30% ruling". I do respect their efforts to attract talent. That's why I moved from Sweden to the Netherlands in 2016.

However, as non-EU citizen you can work only for publicly registered sponsors [2]. Usually, it's boring well-established companies. So I missed some cool opportunities due to this limitation.

As I learned dutch local job market, I found that almost nobody will pay you 10'000 EUR per month.

Aside from tax and regulatory burden in Europe, there are cultural things like Law of Jante [3]. I can't imagine how society with such mentality can attract highly ambitious people.

Also, talking about money in Europe is kinda taboo. And dutch automatically repeat "money is not everything". It wouldb't annoy me if someone committed to work for open source software. Or being great painter. But when recruiter respond me "money is not everything" when I'm asking "too much", it annoys me a lot.

With that in mind, I decided to abandon idea of living in Europe, getting citizenship, learning dutch language etc. It was tough decision for me but it's time to move on. It's not kind of a society where I want to spend rest of my life. Sorry dutch and swedes, I don't fit here.

So I decided to move to Hong Kong. I've just got very lucrative job offer in Hong Kong (in HFT). The size of compensation is far beyond of what Europe can offer me. Now, I'm almost on par with US (I couldn't get into US because I don't have any degree). Now, I'm just waiting for my HK visa getting approved.

You might troll me saying that, I'm whining. OK, I have answer to that. Just look at my net salary increases:

Russia -> Sweden (2015) +28%

Sweden -> Sweden (2015) +15%

Sweden -> the Netherlands (2016) +63%

the Netherlands -> Hong Kong (2018) +83% (and possible bonus up to 300% of yearly salaries!)

I will work like crazy fanatic and in next six years I will be well over $1M of liquid net worth.

So Europe lost me. Europe is perfect place for people who just want to work from 9 to 5 and put family as their top priority. It's not suited for risk takers.

Links:

https://www.thelocal.se/20160412/spotify-founders-sweden-is-...

https://ind.nl/en/work/Pages/Highly-skilled-migrant.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante

A year ago, I watched YC lecture for raising capital where Sam Altman or somebody else recommended startup founders NOT raise any capital from unaccredited investors because it may create problems with raising next rounds. In other words, current regulatory environment also promotes discrimination of unaccredited investors.

Employee compensation is different.

P.S. It's amazing how much Hacker News readers are against cryptocurrency, in favor of very big government, very high taxes up to 70% as their Piketty, Krugman suggest to enforce equality of outcome. This community became total opposition of what Paul Graham might thought back in 2007. The only thing is left is to change Hacker News icon to Che Guevara emblem.

> only scammers did ICOs

This is absolutely incorrect. One of many examples - Tezos.

In the eyes of SEC, ICOs are nothing more than equity crowdfunding. It means that SEC doesn't like any sale of unlisted assets to unaccredited investors.

By SEC definition accredited investor is an investor who has either $1M of liquid net worth or stable income not less than $200k per year.

Original intent of the government was to bar unsophisticated investors from high risk investments.

While I understand logic of the law - many people are completely financially irresponsible and are not capable of critical thinking (that's what politically correct term "unsophisticated investor" actually means), I find this law extremely frustrating.

For example, I had no chance to buy Spotify when it was well under $1B valuation because the government baby-sitting me by excluding me from opportunity to invest into early-stage startups.

If you want to downvote me on "not capable of critical thinking" and at the same time support barring people from making their own financial decisions, please think twice because it's clear contradiction.

There is a compromise: Why not lower entry level of becoming accredited investor? For example, you could be semi-accredited investor with lower capital but with limits on investments. Or making some government exams on risk taking and investing? Or having special government-approved platform for early-stage investments for unaccredited investors. There are lots of combinations.

Right now, there is a huge hunger among people for early-stage investments. And if you are not making it legal, it just go underground and as a result with more dangers for unsophisticated investors.

The scary thing is that while living in Russia, I've encountered many people with similar views (face to face).

I know it's hard to believe for western people but there are lots of people in Russia who completely obsessed with ideas of "unique Russian identity", "God chosen nation", "Russian world", "saint Russia vs. soulless American imperialism" etc.

Putin understands feelings of this part of society and successfully exploits this in order to push his own agenda. For example:

http://time.com/75484/putin-the-internet-is-a-cia-project/

In 2014-2015, I've spent great amount of energy to get out of Russia. Since I left Russia in 2015, the situation with internet freedom became much worse. Especially this year when Russia blocked millions and millions of IP-addresses in unsuccessful attempts to block Telegram.

My prediction for near future is that Russia become as restrictive as China or even worse.

I don't think VPN is viable long-term solution. Look, where are VPN servers might be hosted? Amazon or Digital Ocean? Well, this year Russia just showed that they can block 20 million IP-addresses on a whim.

And I see no signs of massive public demand for free internet. Why? Because if it's popular site in Russia, then it might be unblocked in the case of accidental blocking. If it's just random site in English, it will never be unblocked. And vast majority of Russians don't speak or read English at all.

In other words, Russia has absolutely no future as a country with free internet. RIP.

My advice to fellow Russians with brains: get out of Russia, run away as fast as possible from this goddamn place.

For someone who is into old games, I would also recommend book "It's behind you" which covers a story of porting R-Type to ZX-Spectrum:

http://www.bizzley.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-Type

I was always puzzled by human's experience of "seeing". When you "see redness" for example. It was very hard for me to explain it to other people before I found that there is special term called "qualia":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qualia

And I have absolutely no idea how to make machines experience "qualia". Any sophisticated image/motion recognition is rather trivial stuff compared to achieving mysterious "qualia".

I'm surprised nobody mentioned LeetCode. You can start solving 100 most popular interview questions (sort them by difficulty first):

https://leetcode.com/problemset/top-100-liked-questions/

If you've never took any algorithm course and have only a week for preparation, it would be very difficult to prepare for coding interview. But I think you can at least finish all easy problems from this list. In this case, you may at least pass screening coding interview.

Right now, I'm very actively interviewing with pretty selective high-frequency trading companies. I can say that LeetCode has pretty relevant set of interview problems.

One more thing. Even if you solved a problem, always look at description of solution, if there is no description of solution, you should look at discussion.

From there, you can find references to common algorithms/themes like binary search etc.