ashray

No digital version ? I think that's absolutely ridiculous!

I read their reasons for not having one but lets be honest, this is a book for programmers ? And it doesn't have a digital version ? Someone's clearly lost the plot here!

I supported the previous edition of the book since the beta version. I'm a digital nomad, I work all over the world, I'm not about to lug a 446 page django book with me wherever I go.

There are several developers who like to search for and bookmark stuff in their ebooks. Now it's impossible to Ctrl+F.

Some of us like to read on the train or like to read on different platforms (kindle/ipad/iphone/android/etc).

I recommended the first version of this book to several fellow django programmers. Unfortunately I am really disappointed by this print-only decision. The fact that piracy was a reason for it disheartens me even more.

I guess these guys have never heard of anyone scanning in a physical book and sharing PDFs over the internet. Providing a print only version will just hurt legitimate customers, the pirates are still gonna pirate :( I can count down the days that this shows up on the pirate bay.

As for the fact that "The print version sold the most". Well, were the print people supporting your book while you were in beta releasing new versions every week ? Did they give you feedback on how good/bad the content was ?

Seriously guys, your next book should be about "How not to do programming books".

How do you handle compliance for your business (the bitcoin->giftcard one). From this discussion it seems like a total minefield. Do you ask your customers for their ID Proof/Address Proof ? (KYC/AML style) I know fraud isn't an issue for you at all because the bitcoin payments would be irreversible.

I took a look through your site and there are some really great deals (7% cheaper! wow!), great work btw!

Well, I live in India and it's quite similar to Indonesia (have traveled to Indonesia before..) in the ways that you mention.

Many people in India operate under the same principles, small privately owned and financed businesses. However, the big banks do indeed deal with the major corporations. At this point of time, the reserve bank of India has published a report stating that the failure of ONE major corporation will prove catastrophic for our economy. [1] Sounds absolutely crazy but it seems to be true.

This is because banks have over extended credit (once more ?) and maintain very low liquidity. If one of their debtors defaults, the bank will be finished, thereby unleashing a domino effect on their creditors and debtors.. crash and burn. Add to this, the fact that the country runs on a major current account deficit (export/import imbalance) means that the government will not be able to do any massive bailouts. The foreign exchange reserves in the country are still small. Which means, we can't print more currency to hack our way out of the problem either because we'll see hyperinflation in a very bad way.

Of course, the regular joe here will be able to find a way to continue running his business because he may not have a big relationship with a big bank. But macroscopic factors like big banks failing and the economy collapsing will hit him and everyone else hard as well. There will be massive layoffs for folks who work in big corporations and while in absolute percentages of population this may not look like much, it'll still impact a few hundred million people easily in a country like India.

TLDR; Banks in India need to be reigned in, otherwise things are going to get very ugly sometime soon.

[1] - http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/economy/rbis-financial-stab...

Okay, I see why you were not able to follow the problem.

>> stupid mistake like Rap Genius did your site might be off Google for a month or two, possibly destroying your business.

Sometimes businesses get wrongly blacklisted. Yes, it happens. They do get destroyed because of this, people do lose homes and jobs over this.

But this isn't because Google takes a month or two to sort this kind of thing out (a month or two is also not really acceptable - too long - given the impact Google has on a business). It's because experience shows that once you are on the wrong side of the big G, there's pretty much nothing you can do to get on the right side. It's no longer a question of a month or two, it's about registering a new domain, and starting from scratch. Sometimes you have to do this even when you didn't do anything wrong. This applies to almost every Google service whether it's Search, Adsense, Gmail, or anything else.

But Rap Genius definitely did something wrong. It was obvious for everyone to see. Yet, they managed to follow the 'recommendations' and get back in the game pretty quick. We know that this is probably because of connections because every business out there that gets blacklisted by Google will make sure that they are 'regulation-compliant' ASAP. Yet, many of them never manage to make it back and those that do take years at times.

Yes, knowing the US President helps, but that's provided you can get your work done without knowing him as well, in a reasonable time frame. Especially when it may make the difference between running a thriving business and being homeless.

QED: Monopolies are bad.

The fact that you can request a google employee in a position to help you out to do so displays enormous leverage.

Imagine a business in Germany, Vietnam, or even.. Texas having to do the same? It's pretty much impossible. This is what happens to everyone else out there.

Which is what the parent is referring to when he says that google results aren't as neutral as they claim to be. They clearly favored someone with leverage in this instance.

But this is the only instance that we know of. So far.

As someone who knows folks who got wrongly blacklisted.. Well, you pretty much never get back. No matter what you do.

You're lucky if you get a decent reply from customer support to begin with..

Your best bet is to change domains, fill in a redirect and try to build up backlinks again. It'll take a year or two and hopefully no competitor pops up in your space.

Or, you can try and get Andreesen-Horowitz interested in your business.

I just want to add that this attitude doesn't even reflect poorly solely on Google Search. Adsense is another product that if you get kicked out of, you have zero recourse.

What about that gmail fiasco a few months ago? Users got blocked out of G services for not providing their real names and had no recourse to get their data for several weeks/months.

Just goes to show that in several cases it's not what you know but who you know.

There may be differences in some cases, but usually western versions of print books tend to be better (color illustrations/pictures, etc.) to justify a higher price. That distinction doesn't really apply to digital books so for the most part, they're the same. (unless there are censorship/localization issues)

You can switch between them as and when you like. Every book I wanted so far was available on the Indian store. But if the book you want isn't there, you can switch your Kindle region and buy that. Then, later, when you want to get one that is available on the Indian store, you can switch back and get that at a cheaper price!

I like your idea and also the parallels that you're pointing out. I just can't see it making it through legislation through the pharma lobbies.

It's always tougher to implement these things after there are big players out there.

And your last point is something that touches me personally:

bring the focus of research back to drugs that work rather than drugs that are easy to profit from.

This is a massive problem worth discussing. I had a family member die of a disease which was incurable. One of the big pharma companies had prototypes of the next drug they wanted to bring to the market but their current drug (which didn't work..) hadn't 'run its course'. So they delayed the release of the new one for a few years.

In retrospect, it didn't matter because the new one didn't work either but this kind of practice is heinous on so many levels and must be stopped.

It's not because of national prestige (except the space program). The UK doesn't have any of those things because they have big daddy USA protecting them if the need arises.

India does not have anyone to protect her against China or Pakistan. In fact, China has been phenomenally increasing it's naval concentration in the Indian ocean. India has failed to grow an indigenous military industry (except for nukes and some other stuff..) and this has resulted in India becoming the largest purchaser of weapons worldwide. Definitely not a title I am proud of.

Geopolitics is complex. It could be argued that had the US/UK not 'enabled' Pakistan back in the day we wouldn't have this problem today. It was good for western nations to have an ally in this region against Russia and thus Afghanistan during the cold war era.

But I'd like to add. On the subject of our space program. Our president a few terms ago was a fisherman's son (and he was from a very poor family..) who eventually went on to become a rocket scientist and then later the president of the country.

We are working on poverty, a one sided perspective on such a complex issue doesn't do it justice. We need the space program as much as we need to improve food distribution. And we have enough people to work on many problems simultaneously.

I can understand that as someone from the UK you are upset because your government insists on giving aid to India. But the aid issue is politicized greatly. India has said several times that we do not want the aid but political forces in both countries have resulted in the continuation of aid. I can see how the UK media might spin that into 'Oh, we give them aid and they make missiles'. All I can say to that is, it's not true. I'd encourage anyone to research this more to arrive at the real facts. We don't make nukes with aid money.

50-70% on average, here's an article I wrote about it a few months ago, you can buy them from Amazon India regardless of where you live and your billing details: http://bkpk.me/tip-save-big-on-your-kindle-books/

I personally think that medicine IP should have some sort of limitation where discoveries in the pharma world cannot be profited from in perpetuity. Even generic drugs in the western world are VERY expensive. Most of them are simple compounds and the major justification of price is R&D.

Maybe a better solution would be to have differential pricing for different regions ? Like, Kindle Books are cheaper in India. Well, of course, there is the question of the radically poor who live on less than $1 a day. They wouldn't be able to buy a Kindle Book any more than they can buy a strip of aspirin.

However, there are so many levels of ethical implications involved in this kind of situation because we're talking about people's lives.

Maybe another idea could be to have a 5 year IP advantage and then make the medicines 'public domain' ? IP laws are based on profit incentives but when dealing with something with such huge humanitarian ramifications we should definitely take the time to re-evaluate our position on it.

Even people in the western world should have access to cheap medicines. What needs to be balanced is the innovation/profit incentive with the humanitarian aspect of it.

It's not really that straightforward. Believe it or not, developing nukes, aircraft carriers, and a space programme is actually easier than lifting 600 million people and all their future generations out of poverty.

Take the above into perspective. High tech research, industry, etc. also need huge investment. What happens if we educate tons of our population and then they end up without jobs ? (this actually happened in Soviet states not so long ago..) Reduction of poverty and advances in technology have to happen in tandem. Besides, most of the amazing strides the US made in technology have origins in military/space exploration applications.

Reduction of poverty in India is definitely a priority. It's just one of the priorities. We have a $20 Billion educational plan coming into force soon (targets higher education as well as lower levels).

Every problem in India is a problem of scale and penetration. I hope people on HN will appreciate that.

Bill Gates certainly recently understood that when he decided to join the fight against polio.

Right, I've edited the post. Thanks for pointing that out.

I think the core problem with bitcoin acceptance is that understanding the way it functions spans many domains of expertise. There are cryptography, cryptocurrency, decentralized networks, economic concepts (inflation/deflation), centralized banking, government controlled currencies, computing ability, mathematics, human psychology, and ... so much more! It's really something that has a little bit of everything in there.

As such, to an expert in any one of those fields, it's very hard to digest because looking at it from the perspective of one field might suggest it is doomed for failure. But experts tend to look at things from the perspective of their own expertise.

For laymen who might know a little bit about each of those domains, it feels like "Yeah.. this could work..". A simple analogy might be about how hardcore web developers always feel about PHP. They always say it's a pile of garbage and it's bound to self destruct and swallow the earth in the process. However, PHP trudges on with some very large projects and sites under it's belt.. and novice developers will almost never notice a problem with it. Experts can be wrong.

So yes, bitcoin has it's issues if you analyze each aspect of it. But maybe if you zoom out and take an overview it might start to make sense how all the parts get together and even with flaws with each sub-aspect it just might work.

This title of this post does a disservice to its contents. "Bitcoin is evil' makes it sound like it's a propaganda piece. I went in expecting some of the usual poorly researched allegations that we've been seeing over the past few weeks. But surprisingly, the post does make a few good points.

> Placing a ceiling on the value of bitcoins is computer technology and the form of the hash function… until the limit of 21 million bitcoins is reached. Placing a floor on the value of bitcoins is… what, exactly?

However, the analysis fails again because he wants to decouple bitcoin's role as a store of value from it being a medium of exchange. To which I would like to ask: What's the point of a store of value if ultimately it cannot be exchanged for something else ?

That's like saying that the energy inside an atom's nucleus has no value. (prior to the discovery of controlled nuclear fission) Of course it had value but we couldn't use it without accessing it and tapping into it somehow.

Bitcoin's value is closely coupled with its utility as a medium of exchange, which is based solely off some pretty excellent technology and principles.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't think its current value in terms of USD/Euros/etc. is necessarily linked well to it's current utility. However, there is value in being able to transfer something (a bitcoin or parts of it..) that no one else can transfer to someone across the world securely and almost instantly with little to no centralized control.

This ability is what places a floor on its value, whatever that hypothetical floor may be.

This is what excites the 'technical people' he mentions in his article. I don't expect non-technical people to 'get it' immediately, but people will get it, eventually. No one understood why email was important in the beginning either.

    the statement issues by RBI earlier, said that anyone who would be found to be dealing in bitcoin, would be considered violating FEMA

Where is this statement ? I only have: http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?pr...

Was there another statement from the RBI ?

This is interesting. So your brother thinks that in the near future the RBI will say that Buying bitcoin is a crime.

Bitcoins will be the same as cocaine or .. well in India sex toys also share similar status.

I personally find it quite unlikely that a democratic country will prohibit it's citizens from transacting in something like bitcoin. But hey, crazier things have been known to happen.

However, I'd like to ask. Why preemptively assume that bitcoin will be declared illegal ?

I can understand that the RBI is conservative and they forced Paypal to create automatic bank account withdrawals, etc. Basically move everything into their system so that people cannot store huge sums of money in their Paypal accounts.

But how would they go about outlawing bitcoin ? I'm curious about the technical as well as political aspects of such an event.

I think countries like Germany and Singapore may have been the first to realize that there isn't really much you can do to 'ban' bitcoin. You just have to play ball and then come up with solutions as problems come up. A move like China wouldn't be possible in Germany (maybe in Singapore though.. yes..).

But isn't that the same as selling something through OLX ?

I suppose the issue with buysellbitco.in was that it was missing some paperwork that it should have had because they were accepting people's money (INR) and selling bitcoins on a commercial scale.

I'm not sure why they said it violated foreign exchange acts though..

You are right that the entire blame for INR depreciation does not squarely sit on the shoulders of the RBI. It is a problem with reasons that go far beyond the control of the RBI.

Yes, there is a huge current account deficit (export/import imbalance) and that is a big part of it.

However, as the agency that manages the circulation and control of the currency, ultimately I look at the RBI as the 'face' of the Indian Rupee.

That said, the government doesn't have to trust bitcoin. However, regulatory burden in India is extremely high regardless of the kind of business you want to start. India ranks poorly on several 'Ease of doing Business' indexes. [1] I'm bringing this up since you mentioned the start up industry. It's just not that easy to start something in India.

Yes, tax evasion is a huge problem in India. But that's a cultural thing. The government has made it very hard to evade taxes (as long as you rely on existing banking channels) for now, but it doesn't really stop anyone. I can imagine that they are afraid that people will launder money by exchanging cash directly into bitcoin. However, why doesn't the government then go after the real estate business in India that normally takes 30%+ of the money in cash ? It is extremely hard to buy properties in resale unless you agree to pay a large percentage in cash. Oh wait, the government likes to put their black money into real estate.

For the same reason as Real Estate, I highly doubt that the Indian government will ban bitcoin or make it illegal. They have plenty of money they would like to sink into this new genius asset class. They might however make it harder for regular people to get into it.

Besides, you can always wire money to bitstamp and buy bitcoins as much as foreign exchange controls would let you.

[1] - http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

Oh man, here we go again. The amount of FUD in this article is absolutely shocking! The Reserve Bank of India has not declared bitcoin as illegal [1]. The article certainly does insinuate that it is:

A couple of days after the Reserve Bank of India issued an advisory to public not to indulge in buying-selling of Bitcoins, the first raid in India was undertaken in Ahmedabad by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on an entity that provide platform to trade in this illegal but virtual currency.

I'm 100% certain that the website in question however was in violation of several KYC and AML norms as well as money exchange regulations, so the fact that they shut it down does make sense.

It is sad more-so because the regulatory framework is extremely opaque and if I were to start a bitcoin business in India, I wouldn't know where to begin...

The RBI has done a shitty job so far of regulating the Indian Rupee. I'm an Indian and my personal savings are now worth 30% less since 2009 on a global level (USD->INR went from Rs. 43 to a dollar to Rs. 62 now..). Internal inflation is at 10% YOY and there's no practical way to protect your money. Of course, I'm not implying that bitcoin is the solution to all these issues, just saying that on a personal level I do have issues with the way the RBI has managed (mismanaged?) our currency.

[1] - http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?pr...

Is the standard of living really growing for everyone? Or are there more people now (%wise) in poverty ?

This is an honest question as several people have mentioned the standard of living argument before on HN. I've read however that the rich-poor divide is growing and thus am just wondering about this..

I think the takeaway is that life would be best spent finding out what it is that truly makes you happy and then pursuing that. A lot of people think 'more money' is the answer to that.

More money is just a way to be able to pursue whatever you think will truly make you happy. Whether that's kayaking, kung-fu, dancing, golfing, getting laid, going out for dinner, going on vacation, etc.

A means, not the end.

Some people just lose the plot on the way and continue down the more money path forever. Those are the people who end up living to work and not working to live.

Thanks for your response, the Quora thread is very interesting.

Another question, and this is a little more personal. Also, I don't mean to be accusatory at all or anything of that sort so please don't take it that way.

Do you feel any new found desire to help those less fortunate than you ? I don't mean by providing employment, etc. I'm sure you do plenty of that through your business.

I just know plenty of fairly rich people who feel like they're not 'rich enough' to help those that are less fortunate (even people whose net worth is in the tens of millions!)

Great post Paras. However, I wish you would have addressed what you do with your new found financial freedom. I suppose running your business takes up most of your time. That's fine as long as it's enjoyable I guess.

The question here is, if something, what would you have done differently ? Or, going forward, what are you going to do differently ?

Also, the modern economy is poised against us in terms of preserving the value of our wealth. Because of this, I disagree with your final conclusion (the sweating over investments bit..). The hard part about money is making it, but it's also hard to keep it. Inflation eats away at what you have, furthermore, depending on your country (India in this case..) you don't have 250 years of documented economic history to make your investment decisions.

If you've reached your financial goal, mine is 25x of annual expenses then yes, maybe you are truly financially independent and now free. You have literally bought freedom. You're right, materialistic pursuits will probably never lead to happiness. However, for some the road to financial independence is longer than others. And yes, many people lose the plot along the way ;)

Maybe a more apt title for your post would be: "Having a successful business and a good amount of money buys you freedom" ? :)

This sounds terrible. I just jailbroke my phone. What's the best path backwards ?

Well, I don't know the dev perspective on this but most things do not readily have .ipas available. For example f.lux is an application I use all the time on my Mac. But I haven't been able to get it into my phone for a while. Couldn't find a .ipa.

Maybe developers want to be able to charge for their apps at some point in the future through the Cydia store ? Just 'cause you can't get your app into the app store doesn't mean you shouldn't make money off it if people love it :) (just speculating, maybe that's not the reason..)

Finally! I've been waiting for an iOS jailbreak to finally be able to use bitcoin related stuff on my iPhone and iPad. It's been a pain so far.

This is the first time that the iOS walled garden approach REALLY started to bother me. The other was to do with emulation but that was filed under 'minor nit-pick'.

How I WISH I had access to this kind of material when I was studying high school/pre-engineering physics. These lectures are brilliant just so very easy to understand.