151–160 of 165 posts
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If you're sure about that, I hope you're investing accordingly...
Not exactly. If you are not sure the glut will last for a while and then disappear you don't invest. There is a ton of money to make but only if you get the details right, if any is wrong there is a ton of money to lose.
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Which is a good reason to add a reply-notification system, not a good reason to block replies
I think HN lacks a notification system intentionally. HN is very much geared towards reducing flame wars, and I think that is part of it. If they wanted a notification system I'm sure they could have implemented it.
On the other hand, it can be hard to discover replies, and certainly new/interesting comments in large threads, when you want them. I'm currently working on a new-comment-highlighter (draws a colored bar to the left of comments since you last viewed the page) as one step toward helping with this. If anyone wants to help test this, email hn@ycombinator.com and I'll switch it on for you.
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If you auto merged the comments from the last time, in theory they would quickly fall to the bottom because their time based value would be so much lower than the new stuff. Maybe also disable replies to old comments and make them a different color? To be fair, we could never figure out how to get this right on reddit either, but HN has a better comment sorting algorithm than reddit so it might actually work here.
Why do you want to discourage replies to old comments?
HN threads are closed to new comments after 2 weeks, mostly as a way of preserving history. A forum discussion is most meaningful as a snapshot in time.
It would be weird if people could go back later to ancient threads and add comments based on information that wasn't available at the time. Actually, you can go back and look at very early threads, before this restriction was put in place, and it was already weird. Imagine what the original Dropbox Show HN would look like by now if we didn't restrict this.
All that said, I think you guys are on to something interesting with thoughts about how the software could provide better access to the history, beyond just posting links to past discussions.
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Not exactly. If you are not sure the glut will last for a while and then disappear you don't invest. There is a ton of money to make but only if you get the details right, if any is wrong there is a ton of money to lose.
If you're sure the glut will disappear within two months there are lots of safe investments.
NPR's Planet Money also bought some oil: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/08/26/491342091/plan...
I think Planet Money also bought a mortgage backed security a while back when things had already gone south. They tracked the houses involved and their history. It was interesting to see the investment tied to specific homes, and etc.
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If you're sure the glut will disappear within two months there are lots of safe investments.
What if you don't know if it is 2 months or 2 years? There are great investments either way, but some investments only work with one and lose badly in the other. Thus if you are not sure you can't invest.
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Yes but it's not clear how to get it right.
If you auto merged the comments from the last time, in theory they would quickly fall to the bottom because their time based value would be so much lower than the new stuff. Maybe also disable replies to old comments and make them a different color? To be fair, we could never figure out how to get this right on reddit either, but HN has a better comment sorting algorithm than reddit so it might actually work here.
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I think Planet Money also bought a mortgage backed security a while back when things had already gone south. They tracked the houses involved and their history. It was interesting to see the investment tied to specific homes, and etc.
I've always wondered If I could just go out and buy like 10 mortgages or car loans in my area, and try to recover some of the money. I've heard that debt goes for pennies on the dollar, so I would think it would be possible to make a decent amount if you have the time.
But in a case where you're collecting a debt you did not originate, you'll need a debt collector's license in the state where you plan to operate. The license isn't hard to get, but typically there is a very large bond that needs to be posted.
And you're right: if you have the stomach for consumer debt collection and are good at being nice to people (being nice has a much higher success ratio than being a dick when trying to collect), and you're incredibly patient (the really cheap debt is almost uncollectable) it's basically printing money.
source: wife used to be a commercial debt/receivables collector and a long time ago I considered writing debt collection software.
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Backhoes are cheap. Maybe environmental issues? I imagine someone would have a problem if I just dug a hole and filled it.
I mean for a "personal" amount of oil, I suppose a backhoe would do. But, to change the front month price, you have to actually store a significant fraction of world oil production (1-2%?). I don't think a backhoe is going to cut it. Then you have to somehow make sure it doesn't plume into the ground water, which is impossible absent very specific geological features or somehow lining the world's largest open pit min…
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I've always wondered If I could just go out and buy like 10 mortgages or car loans in my area, and try to recover some of the money. I've heard that debt goes for pennies on the dollar, so I would think it would be possible to make a decent amount if you have the time.
I think in most states, if you are the original owner of the debt (i.e. you or your business lent the money), you can just go collect it. But in a case where you're collecting a debt you did not originate, you'll need a debt collector's license in the state where you plan to operate. The license isn't hard to get, but typically there is a very large bond that needs to be posted. And you're right: if you have the stom…