The Titanic Compared With a Modern Cruiseship (2014) - <AUTHOR> https://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/titanic-compared-modern-cruiseship.html <comment><USER2> One thing that terrible link fails to note is that they're comparing a supersized cruise ship to a transoceanic liner.

For a modern transoceanic liner, look at the RMS Queen Mary 2: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Queen_Mary_2)

Cruise ships are just mobile enough to scoot around whatever close-shore locales they serve.

Ocean liners are built for fast transoceanic voyages.

<comment> dan-robertson The article suggests that the cruise ship is faster than the titanic, so maybe you want to make a point about being designed to always be close to port or something, but I'm not sure that's really the case either as these ships must go from the place they are built to wherever they are operating the cruise and that place may move about the world from time to time.

I don't think you really can get an apple's to apple's comparison because people don't really travel on fast ocean-liners anymore. They travel on aeroplanes. So the category that the titanic fits in doesn't really exist anymore.

<comment><USER2> Titanic: 24 kts (1912)

Allure: 23 kts (2010)

Queen Mary 2: 30 kts (2003)

If your benchmark is 100 year old technology, then you've probably got an agenda in your comparison...

* All numbers from Wikipedia

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The _Titanic_ was (just barely) the largest ship of its era.

I'm fascinated by the _Great Eastern_ launched in 1858, and not surpassed in size and capacity until _Titanic_ 's period. In length she held the record until 1899, in tonnage, 1901, and in passengers, 1913, the year _after_ the _Titanic_ sank.

 _Great Eastern_ experienced numerous technical challenges and was a mixed commercial success. She ended her service largely as a telegraph cable-laying ship, pressaging today's undersea Internet cables.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Great_Eastern)

<comment><USER4> Titanic was never the largest ship - her sister Olympic had identical measurements. Titanic was the _heaviest_ ship however.

<comment><USER3> Fair point, though as my noting of _Great Eastern_ 's dimensions there are numerous metrics of ship size, including multiple variants of several of these: linear dimensions, length overall, length at waterline, beam, height overall, draft, height above waterline, and the various measures of tonnage. Disputes can generally be raised and justified on some basis.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > "175 ft (including the long thing)"

What on earth? Do they mean the smokestack (as the singular is used) or the two masts each of which is higher?

I know this is a joke article but still...

</comment><comment><USER6> I just got back from my first cruise, a 6-day on the Disney Dream. I couldn't help but keep thinking about how astounding the Titanic was at the time, and how tiny it is in comparison to the ship I was on. It was a genuinely incredible experience, but I can only imagine what it would be like to take a ship like that to the new world, to start a new life.

</comment><comment><USER7> The Titanic looks so much better.

<comment><USER8> From the outside, the modern cruise ship looks like a block of cheap apartment dwellings attached to a hull.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Big fan of cruises, but only on ships with 200 or fewer passengers (Wind Star, Viking River Cruises and their ilk).

I think it's kinda sad that we don't have many cruises along our wonderful American rivers and coasts. You have to go to Mexico or the Caribbean or Hawaii or Alaska. My understanding is that they are cost-prohibitive because of a federal law requiring that any ship making a second stop in another US port is required to pay basically union pay scale to all workers.

<comment><USER10> It's sad if paying union wages makes some service "cost-prohibitive". Every cruise I ever took was 100% union (in Europe).

<comment><USER11> GP is probably talking about the Jones Act, which was intended to affect transport of goods. If it applies to cruise ships that's surely an unintended effect. Only ships owned and crewed 100% by Americans could (and can) go from one American port to another, IIRC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Slightly off-topic, but given the brevity of the linked blog post and the lack of conversation here, why not.

Can anyone explain to me the appeal of cruises? You're stuck on a boat with thousands of other people as you are taken to predefined locations and undergo what I like to call "organised fun". While on board, you're their captive audience as they sell you overpriced food and drink and generally try to sponge as much extra money from you as possible. Meanwhile, you're surrounded by people from the same place as you, who, at least for me, you might be trying to be get away from. Then, at each port, typically in a place with a tourism-driven economy, the locals identify and surround you everywhere you go, trying to sell you yet more stuff because they know you're probably rich and suggestible. I have friends who went on holiday to Curaçao and were told by the locals not to shop on [insert day here] because that's the day of the week the cruises come in, when they increase their prices 50%.

While this is somewhat of a rant, I've never been on a cruise and I'm genuinely interested to hear from someone who has been on one and enjoyed it - what their reasons were, whether they thought it was good value, relaxing, etc.

<comment><USER13> My wife and I went on cruises every year for more than 10 years starting mid-90's. At the time, it was more relaxing (with less to do) and gave the opportunity to disconnect. We liked to dress up for dinner and sit with the same (random) people for the entire time of the cruise. Internet was as outrageous of a cost as a phone call at the time so where I worked doing software engineering, I told them to call me anytime! Perfect, the never did... and as a plus we got to visit many ports of call to see what we would like to go back to for longer (taste of different places to decide if we would mesh for a whole week there). Shopping was fine if you take the time to bargain and know your market prices before you go. Tourist traps are still traps at land or at sea... keep your guard up on vacation either way.

Our last cruise was not the same. Lots of fun stuff to do (which we can't complain about trying a few with super long waits). Wifi everywhere (who needs phone calls) to keep in touch with work ALL the time. Random people every meal time at dinner who never dress up (unless you include polo shirts and shorts as dressed up). Basically, for us it did lose appeal to try it. So, for some this is exactly what they want, but lost its luster and special experience.

Advice - pick a cruse line that matches your preferences (kids, no-kids, party, no-party, luxury, casual, etc) and you probably would have a good time.

<comment><USER8> > Random people every meal time at dinner who never dress up (..)

Things changed. According to this article[^1]; fun onboard P&O's Britannia is... special.

[^1]: [https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/27/passenger- in...](https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jul/27/passenger-in-clown- suit-prompts-mass-brawl-on-po-cruise-ship?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other)

<comment><USER14> From the article: "...things kicked off when another passenger appeared dressed as a clown. This upset one of their party because they'd specifically booked a cruise with no fancy dress."

For some reason classifying a clown costume as "fancy dress" tickles me.

<comment><USER15> It's a British turn of phrase meaning any kind of party costume, not even necessarily anything "fancy".</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


School grades are hopelessly broken - <AUTHOR> http://www.marco.org/55382197 <comment><USER2> The temptation for smart people is to reject the system and secretly congratulate themselves for being enlightened enough to do so. This is the approach the author advocates. I will admit, I had similar thinking when I first started college. However doing down that road can really limit (although not remove) opportunities later in life that you deserve. I've seen many extraordinarily intelligent friends get rejected from graduate schools because they took the scorched earth approach towards busywork.

Being completely subservient to the system and rejecting it outright are not the only two options you have a student. Personally I found the most effective method was to maintain a GPA over 3.25 with minimal effort and make my real focus undergraduate research. This has worked out incredibly well so far. I have a blast doing research because I get to work on intellectually stimulating problems and I only spend the minimum amount of time necessary on busywork for courses.

The concrete results in terms of awards and internships has been excellent. I've never once had an interviewer ask about GPA; it's high enough to be acceptable and is overshadowed by research experience. One recommendation from your research supervisor eliminates any doubt concerning intellectual ability and/or work ethic. If you want to optimize for both understanding and marketability at the same time, I believe in and strongly recommend this approach.

</comment><comment><USER3> On the topic of grade inflation:

 _In 1966, 22% of Harvard undergraduate students earned A's. By 1996, that figure rose to 46%. That same year, 82% of Harvard seniors graduated with honors._

 _In 1973, 31% of all grades at Princeton were A's. By 1997 that rose to 43%. In 1997, only 12% of all grades given at Princeton were below the B range._

(source: Source: American Academy of Arts & Sciences)

One of the best things about MIT is that they have not succumbed to the this trend. There is no such thing as "honors"— An MIT degree is an honor by itself. That attitude is a fundamental basis of the student culture.

<comment><USER4> The data from <http://gradeinflation.com/> (posted in another response) suggests that MIT is worse than average for grade inflation.

<comment><USER5> A thought: In the period from 1980 or earlier to the dot.com crash, ~ 400 students in each MIT class were majors in the EECS department ("Course 6"). With a class size of ~ 1050, that's 38% of the students.

In the early '80s EECS drastically changed it's core curriculum (or at least the CS part of it, SICP/6.001 was the start), and it definitely got better at teaching it.

If that also gave the students a better foundation for higher level courses, then we'd expect significant grade inflation based on MIT's policy of grading on mastery instead of the curve.

Also during that period the EE to CS ratio was 3:1 and flipped to a mirror 1:3. If CS is better or markedly better taught ... and be sure to factor in higher availability of computers, before MIT and at MIT ... that probably also is a factor.

Assume also during this period that only half the majors had a "calling" to EECS; therefore the quality of teaching would make the most difference to the other half to whom it doesn't come so naturally.

<comment><USER4> The source doesn't break out EECS from the rest of MIT. To be fair, though, this looks to be really long term data. If you dig into the numbers (<http://gradeinflation.com/MIT.html>) things look a lot more steady over the last 30 years. It looks like there was significant inflation through the 1960s but it flattened out since then.

<comment><USER5> It's very important to look at the time series, for the '60s were a special case of giving (male) students high enough grades so that they wouldn't flunk out and become eligible for the draft and service in Vietnam. I don't know about MIT's history of grading in that period, but I wouldn't be surprised if that happened.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Between my junior and senior years of high school, I did a paid internship along with a few dozen other high schoolers working on CanDo, a module for SchoolTool (an OSS school management platform built on Zope). It was all paid for by a combination of state funds, local school district money, and $10,000 from Mark Shuttleworth.

CanDo is grading software that tracks competency instead of percentages. Each student has a rating on various skills that the class is supposed to teach, something like "Familiar with basics." The top level is being able to teach the skill to others.

Though that project is now stagnating, there's still a mandate to explore that type of grading software from the state of Virginia.

(Incidentally, paying high schoolers to work on something practical is a great way to get them to learn.)

</comment><comment><USER7> Get this: Most people are not hypersmart creative individuals. They are normal people who need to learn some basic material about the world that they likely will never use because they don't care.

The grading system caters to them, and it's a pretty good indicator of which of those people is going to be able to successfully do a standard job placed in front of him.

School was made for average people, if you are so much above the average, then you can surely figure out a way to be the best in a system that is so much below you. If you failed a test designed for average people, then by that criteria, you are below average.

People that are very much above average do not need the grades, because they will have a lot to show for themselves anyways. People who are average need the grades, because they need a way of showing their ability to do work in comparison to their peers.

So the logic of the writer is fundamentally flawed, because assuming he is indeed above average, he cannot use the failure of the system on him to mean that the system fails for the average person.

<comment><USER8> _If you failed a test designed for average people, then by that criteria, you are below average._

There are numerous counterexamples to this in the gifted education literature. If a teacher writes a test without fact-checking the approved answers, it is possible for a child who has a better grasp of the facts than the teacher to get a bad score on the test, while a child who parrots the teacher's mistaken view of the facts gets a good score.

The system actually lets down all learners, above-average, average, and below- average, but that's not only in the form of lousy grading standards. For detailed references to this, see the books

[http://books.google.com/books?id=EjkKBotJcyIC&dq=Knowing...](http://books.google.com/books?id=EjkKBotJcyIC&dq=Knowing+and+Teaching+Elementary+Mathematics&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=ZDx8S837BY7MMqKWsNMH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CC8Q6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

and

[http://books.google.com/books?id=7ncMKDdCd84C&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=7ncMKDdCd84C&printsec=frontcover&dq=The+Teaching+Gap&ei=lDx8S6ONNoKOMtvC3KgH&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false)

and the articles

[http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99...](http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/fall99/wu.pdf)

and

<http://www.ams.org/notices/200502/fea-kenschaft.pdf>

and

[http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/issues...](http://archive.aft.org/pubs- reports/american_educator/issues/fall2009/wu.pdf)

There are more articles on similar subjects showing that much school improvement is necessary.

P.S. It may be you are not a native speaker of English, or you are a native speaker of English like me who types rapidly under conditions of distraction. I just wanted to point out, in a way that I hope will be friendly, that "criteria" is the plural of "criterion," so one can write of "that criterion" (singular) or "those criteria" (plural) as occasion demands.

<comment><USER7> Criteria as a singular is in common usage, and common usage is good enough for me, a commoner.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> For any intelligent youth, a typical high school education is not unlike a dull corporate job, but with a blessed excess of Google-style 20% time. The effort required to achieve the goals expected of you is minimal, and meanwhile, you have a level of free time to explore your passions that most people will never have again. Some teens recognize this and exploit it.

On a personal note, being able to blow off high school and still go to college requires a level of financial privilege that neither I nor anybody else in my family enjoyed. There are plenty of reasons to play the high school game.

</comment><comment><USER10> Great, I wouldn't hire you. I don't care how smart you are. Just on the basis of effort you're willing to put forward on tasks you deem unimportant to you means that I can't trust you to perform tasks that I deem important to me. I need someone willing to work through "bullshit" tasks just as much as I need someone to work on "gee-whiz-wow" tasks.

<comment><USER11> This type is not the get-hired type. It's the do-things-different-and-change- the-world type.

<comment><USER12> Yeah, that's a nice thought, but not really reflective of reality.

First, the guy already has a job, which he clearly states in the essay.

Second, the majority of people who change the world have jobs at different points in their career. People like Gates, Jobs, and Dell who never really had jobs and just did their own thing from day 1 are so far an exception that they're probably worthless as role models in that sense.

Finally, the majority of people who bullshit their way through school and deliberately slack off because they're cynical about the system do not change the world. Some do, but so do some people who work hard, apply themselves, and get as much as they can out of the broken system. In fact, I'm betting that more of the latter do, but that's just my opinion.

<comment><USER13> My school once told me that bill gates wouldn't be hirable for the IT department because he doesn't have a degree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I agree with the title of the post and little else. Marco seems to be extolling the virtues of doing nothing in high school instead of explaining why grades are broken or even why not doing schoolwork may be a good decision.

Why do people treat not doing schoolwork as being inherently virtuous? The view that the activities required to do well in school are a waste of time(though I believe that it wastes very little time) is valid, and I agree, for the most part. There are also some who believe that the potential benefits of doing well in high school(for example, going to a good university) are not worth the cost. I disagree with them, but if they make a considered decision that attending MIT or Stanford or the like is not worth the opportunity cost of doing well in high school and that their time would be better spent doing something else, then I'd respect their decision and them for giving more thought than most people to the consequences of their actions.

However, even in this community that I consider to have noticeably above- average intelligence, I sometimes see people almost boasting of how they did nothing in high school. This is somewhat understandable when they are explaining what they did instead of their schoolwork that was a more useful use of their time, but I simply cannot understand why people will brag solely of their inaction during high school without describing what they did instead. If you don't have something else you did in the time that was a better use of your time, doesn't that mean that you wasted the time even more than if you had done all of the work?

</comment><comment><USER15> Is this a nugget of wisdom or a naive frustration / hate piece? I can't help but relate to the author (in this post, too: <http://www.marco.org/43768310>) and feel annoyed by the "average" person's lack of passion and inattention to detail. It seems that his main concern is that school as we know it is geared towards creating this type of individual – and that people need to be more like us and _care_ about stuff.

Judging from the year he graduated college, the author is in his late twenties – pretty young. Since he's still several years older than me, I'm inclined to let him validate my feelings. And that worries me.

Would someone older (and wiser) like to chime in and tell us why we're wrong and why the "average" person doesn't suck as much as we think?

<comment><USER16> I don't know if I'm younger or older than you, but: chances are that you _are_ the average person and don't know it.

<http://www.damninteresting.com/unskilled-and-unaware-of-it>

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Among the people I knew in school, grades certainly were correlated with intelligence. There were some counter examples, me among them, but I don't blame anyone for weighting grades heavily when it filters out a big section of people who lack either the discipline or the intelligence to do well in school.

</comment><comment><USER18> Reminds me of Samuel Bowles' Does education help? . "Being willing to sit in a boring classroom for 12 years, and then sign up for four more years and then sign up for three or more years after that—well, that's a pretty good measure of your willingness to essentially do what you're told."

Now, broken or not which is easier meeting the very low standards of most schools or fighting it tooth and nail? Sure fighting worked for you, but you still have to expended large amounts of energy defending your position. To me this is politics 101, pick your battles. Why attack one of the largest social institutions with a frontal assault?

</comment><comment><USER19>
       Grades don't reflect your aptitude, intelligence, or
     understanding of the subject matter.

I understand the criticism of the current grading system: cheating, focus on memorization, constrained learning system, ...

However this type of complaint requires some suggestion of a viable alternative.

</comment><comment><USER20> I acknowledge there's a problem with the current grading system, yet I am still convinced that grades are correlated with one's aptitude/intelligence.

In my personal experience though, I only noticed the inflated grades problem in the US. While I was an undergrad engineering student in Spain there were some classes where not even 50% of the students passed, and overall, only 5% of them graduated with the minimum amount of time (5 years).

On the other hand, when pursuing graduate studies in the US, not only were the classes easier, but in many of them most people got A's. In my opinion, that defeats the purpose of grading.

<comment><USER21> In my experience, grades in grad school were a pure formality. You were there to do research not classwork, but the college required grades and you needed a B average to stay enrolled, so half the class got As and half got Bs. As long as you passed your quals and kept your advisor happy with your research, no one really cared about anything else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Scholars have been criticizing school grades for a long time:

[http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD...](http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED136436&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED136436)

And grade inflation is rife at the college level, as well as at the high school level:

<http://gradeinflation.com/>

</comment><comment><USER22> Another person who believes that intelligence overrides hard work.

Sorry but I'm calling BS on this one. Intelligence might allow you to score well on tests while not finishing your homework, but it's hard work and dedication that truly makes someone successful at what they do.

<comment><USER23> > _Intelligence might allow you to score well on tests while not finishing > your homework, but it's hard work and dedication that truly makes someone > successful at what they do._

I disagree. Hard work cannot compensate for lack of intelligence, just as intelligence cannot compensate for lack of hard work. (More fully: you can substitute the one for the other a little bit, but not a lot).

For example, a stupid person couldn't understand quantum theory no matter how hard they tried. Nor could a clever person if they put zero effort into it.

Fo a startup to succeed, its founders need a combination of intelligence, hard work, and luck. And I expect the same is true of most difficult and competitive human endeavours.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> In my experience, bright kids who underperform (grade wise) do so because they are spectacularly lazy, not because they are refusing to memorize.

</comment><comment><USER25> So.. you did nothing in school to approach the paltry standards you were given in school.. but yet this is the secret to your success?

Really?</comment>


Show HN: Oath - create and manage private discussion boards - <AUTHOR> https://www.oath.is/

<comment><AUTHOR> This was created out of frustration with all the PHP based forum software. I created something much simpler for my own group of friends. Then, two years later, I decided to clean up the code and release it as a paid service. I'm hoping the one-time fee will be a no-brainer decision for some groups.

FYI: I'm using Paymill for credit card processing. They were easy enough to get verified with. Really happy to have a service like that in Europe :)

</comment><comment><USER2> Looks interesting.</comment>


HackBJ Looking for Mentors - <AUTHOR> HackBJ is a 24-hour AI hackathon happening in Beijing at Peking University on May 11th - 12th, 2019. There will be over 250 selected candidates coming from different countries using artificial intelligence technologies such as big data and machine learning to solve social problems. There are 4 topics this year: IoT, Smart City, New Media, and Game Design. Selected candidates will get compensation for their traveling costs. <comment><AUTHOR> [https://hackhub.typeform.com/to/SEmkJ9](https://hackhub.typeform.com/to/SEmkJ9)</comment>


Imagine a world where every app has its own data plan - <AUTHOR> http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/12/net-neutrality-nightmare-a-world-where-every-app-has-its-own-data-plan.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

<comment><USER2> Remember this prank image from a few years ago? <http://craphound.com/images/netneutralpricing.jpg>

Yesterday's jokes are tomorrow's PowerPoint briefings. <http://static.arstechnica.com/12-15-2010/allot3.jpg>

<comment><USER3> SSH and VPNs: Business class access, $120/month.

<comment><USER4> ISPs to 3rd party developers: we hate you and wish you would stop trying to create useful applications that use bandwidth.

<comment><USER5> No, no, no. ISPs to 3rd party developers: "We want a cut. Probably a very big cut." Very, very different. Different problem, different solutions.

<comment><USER4> I was thinking more of small, 3rd party developers. Right now, if I'm deploying a client-server app, I ssh into my machine, send lots of debug json at it via curl, and do a lot with "arbitrary data" that would end up costing me a lot of money under their proposed scheme.

The last thing I want is for my ISP to have a developer program where I get certified to send the packets I want to across their network. I just want to write a server to back my app!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "One obvious potential problem with switching from an "open Internet" approach to this "charge by app" approach to data is just how much power it gives the established players. Say some new video on demand service comes along; it needs plenty of bandwidth, but it can't afford to strike a deal with carriers so that its app bandwidth is free to users. How many users will even try it out when an app from Hulu or Netflix is free (to them) to use, while accessing the startup will cost them money?"

This is exactly why such a plan would be short-sighted on the part of the carriers. "Hey, people love the internet. How about we sell them access, and simultaneously start choking the life out of it?"

Carriers already proved they can't compete with the marketplace to make operating systems and apps; now they're considering a plan that effectively picks winners from that marketplace? Guess what - it will suck compared to true competition.

Sell us access and stay the heck out of the way. That's what your customers want, and it will be more profitable for you in the end.

<comment><USER7> How will it be more profitable in the end? If verizon can't differentiate themselves, they will find themselves in a more and more competitive market, driving prices down.

I hate this idea, and I think it's wrong for us to allow it to happen, but it's the right move for the carriers.

<comment><USER8> Wouldn't an idea like pricing per-site only work if all the carriers did it? I know that ISPs are not the most...competitive of markets, but it seems like this would be a risky leap to make unless it was guaranteed that their competitors would make the same move.

<comment><USER9> _Wouldn't an idea like pricing per-site only work if all the carriers did it?_

Yes, and that doesn't seem to be a problem. Look at the near-simultaneous doubling of text messaging charges from all carriers a few years ago.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Imagine the following conversation:

Carrier: "You're making money by having access to our customers. You should pay us."

Facebook/Youtube/whoever: "You're making money by selling access to our service. You should pay us."

[awkward slap-fighting ensues]

Seriously, is either of these more true than the other? And if so, is it the other party's fault?

I can't see how it's productive to argue about it, tangle it up in financial bargaining, and complicate everything for the users. Carriers and services should focus on doing what they do best and charging a fair price for it, not trying to cast a symbiotic relationship as a parasitic one.

<comment><USER10> I really think the only solution to this is to classify the internet as a utility, a big dumb pipe.

Users need to buy their access and bandwidth, services need to buy access and bandwidth. Simple. The regulation of utilities is to prevent the type of profiteering American ISPs are heading to.

<comment><USER11> Who buys the access and bandwidth between service providers?

Can you clearly differentiate between a service provider, a content provider, and a user?

Steadfastly insisting a nuanced problem is "simple" is a quick way to get poorly-informed legislation.

<comment><USER10> Why would you use old types for a complete reorganization?

Steadfastly insisting complexity is a quick way to obscure the issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Don't count this technology out. There is a lot of pressure to take the money loser services like Public IP transport and turn it into a real money maker. Charging by the bit has been on the radar for a long time and there is a significant effort to make it happen.

At least one company (Procera) has demonstrated the ability to identify INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS within a WoW-type game (I think it actually was WoW) and filter/rate-limit traffic BASED ON THE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER TYPE. (e.g. Orcs respond slower then elves accomplished at the NETWORK level)

<comment><USER13> Layer 7 network prioritization isn't new, its just slow.

<comment><USER12> That's not entirely true.

3D graphics on PCs was slow until cheap GPUs became commonplace.

The new ATCA-based systems are a big step forward in making what was traditionally a function run on NEBS-compliant PCs using hacked up Squid proxies into something that would be more suitable in the edge network of a CableCo headend.

<comment><USER13> Oh, sweet. Order-of-Magnitude increases in speed opening new opportunities: very cool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> And as people find new and interesting ways to encapsulate and tunnel traffic through their mobile carriers, I'd bet "uncategorized" traffic will get billed at an obscene rate that makes it less desirable than just horking over 5 EUR per month for some random service.

</comment><comment><USER15> > "The potential upside to users is a smaller data bill."

Ideas that are terrible for end users almost always include a line like this: one small potential benefit for the group getting screwed. The possibility that any users will see that benefit approaches zero the closer the plan comes to fruition.

</comment><comment><USER16> How about no? I want a single bill for data across all of my devices.

I pay a flat rate for my cable internet connection. It doesn't matter how many devices I use on my wifi network. The bill remains the same. I want the same thing for my mobile devices.

<comment><USER17> Exactly. I'm all about making money, but people need to realize the difference between fleecing their customers and being compensated for the services they provide.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> In Canada, both Rogers and Bell have been doing this for a while already. Many of their data plans include "unlimited social networking" which is unmetered data to Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, and a few IM services.

[http://www.rogers.com/web/Rogers.portal?_nfpb=true&_page...](http://www.rogers.com/web/Rogers.portal?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=WLRS_Plans)

<http://www.bell.ca/shopping/PrsShpWls_SmartphoneCombo.page>

</comment><comment><USER19> I'm pretty sure that AT&T can't ask IBM for a cut of consulting revenue for delivered over the phone, so how does AT&T get a cut of netflix revenue for bits delivered over the intertubes?

</comment><comment><USER20> The promises of additional revenue always seem ignorant of the basic reality that users are only willing to pay so much per month for mobile service.

If you assume that is true, the result is that people end up paying the same amount for less service. Getting into the business of selling less service for the same money seems suicidal in an established commodity market.

It is too bad the cable tv model hasn't played out to its conclusion yet. It is pretty obvious that it would serve as another corpse on this trail as a warning.

The Telecom / wireless industry is absolutely littered with expensive, legacy, high margin solutions to previous problems. Key among them are military / 911 grade service level equipment. Frankly, people don't have the same expectations of IP applications, and those apps don't rely on service at the same level.

I contend that the road to profitability is through reduced cost, not increased revenue or reduced service.

</comment><comment><USER21> This is basically what Amazon is planning to launch with the KDK. Amazon's model is fixed price per app, not bandwidth based.

Since 3G is free with the device, apps that need bandwidth need to have a subscription price to use the network. Amazon takes some, you get some. Presumably, Amazon uses this to offset 3G costs or pays it to the carrier.

</comment><comment><USER22> Would this be eventually gamed, spoof all data to come from facebook and get free bandwidth at facebook's expense?

<comment><USER23> Just because the measure can be gamed doesn't mean it's not worth fighting against.</comment></comment>


Please review my side project - Fonoso, the universal phone call recorder - <AUTHOR> http://www.fonoso.com

<comment><AUTHOR> For the first 100 sign-ups, I'll top their accounts up to 1€ in order to place test calls :)</comment>


Fortnite for Android Will Ditch Google Play Store for Epic's Website - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/3/17645982/epic-games-fortnite-android-version-bypass-google-play-store <comment><USER2> This is a huge move to make - I imagine Google is going to come down very hard against them in order to make sure that they aren't encouraging this. Potentially has big implications if the walled gardens start losing their cash cows whenever something gets popular enough.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are there any other hugely popular games or apps that do this?</comment>


A host with insecure FTP and alphanumeric usernames - <AUTHOR>

I know this is a very odd question, but a particular service I'm working with requires an FTP account to push data to me via FTP through port 21 using an alphanumeric username. The only host I've been able to find which supports insecure FTP (lunarpages) uses FTP usernames of the format 'firstname.lastname@example.com'. Does anyone know of a service which offers this? It's not exactly information they print in the pitch.
Since it's just a test, I'd prefer shared hosting, but honestly I'd settle for anything short of a dedicated server by now.
Cheers, Wyatt <comment><USER2> A cheap VPS with any FTP daemon will do the trick. The usernames of email@example.com are a 'feature' of basically every shared hosting environment.

Alternatively, just about any CPanel based webhost will let you do this. Just log into the FTP with your 'main' username (your host should give you this), and everything should work okay.</comment>


A Tuna's Worth - <AUTHOR> https://www.hakaimagazine.com/features/a-tunas-worth/ <comment><USER2> Such beautiful animals. It's a shame we haven't found a way to fish them responsibly.

<comment><USER3> I wonder. Have humans managed as a collective to do anything responsibly in their entire history?

<comment><USER4> Australian aborigines managed a whole continent the size of the USA sustainably for 60,000 years.

[http://www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/His...](http://www.workingwithindigenousaustralians.info/content/History_2_60,000_years.html)

<comment><USER5> They still ate all the megafauna within a couple thousand years of their arrival, and, arguably, significantly contributed to deforestation of the continent.

So, not that different from the Homo Sapiens anywhere else.

<comment><USER4> Regarding deforestation, prebrov, that didn't happen in the way that, for example, the Amazon was deforested in 20th century South America by clear felling old growth forests to produce coffee and soy mono-cultures.

Australian aborigines used fire to cultivate the land in mosaic patterns of cleared grasslands forested conserves. The result was an altered landscape which retained natural ecosystems whilst supporting human and animal populations sustainably.

[https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/indigenous-burning- be...](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-18/indigenous-burning-before-and- after-tathra-bushfire/10258140)

<comment><USER6> One big difference, I imagine, is the population that forest is being extracted for. The Amazon isn't only being extracted while sustaining 100s of millions of South Americans (prior to colonization AUS had fewer than a million inhabitants), but also serving the world's demands. So I think it's different although in balance both unsustainably.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it's a vastly bigger population now, mc32, and that's what is unsustainable. The vastly bigger population is still increasing at a rapid clip, but the forests and the oceans are not.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Hmm, the article was somewhat interesting, but after spending 15 minutes with it, I felt it just ended up rambling without a clear point.

Not that that's a bad thing -- there's something to be said for long narrative. Or reading something for atmosphere.

But especially for a coastal eco-website/magazine, I would think the writer would try to emphasize more of a focused point or question / issue for the reader to ponder. Like the need for fisheries management, or the cost of shipping fish around the globe, or the struggle of a quota'd fishing boat, or something like that.

This one wandered among several different topics, touching each one briefly but never really sticking to a theme and driving the point home. Even the last paragraph, which usually ends up with a question or big point, read just like any other paragraph or sentence. Ah well.

</comment><comment><USER8> One day I hope to spear one myself. I have a few friends that have been hard working and lucky enough to spear one and the food that they share from that is incredible. Sushi for days. Then again, these are the smaller bluefin about the size of a man, no one is spearing the giants.

<comment><USER9> You would need some serious clips and line... and maybe a boat as your float.

Even other species of tuna that get relatively large look like an absolute life event to spear. There are albacore in the blue waters where I live, and some day I'd absolutely love to drop on a school of those. They get over four feet long!</comment></comment>


Start Developing iOS Apps Today - <AUTHOR> https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/#referencelibrary/GettingStarted/RoadMapiOS/Introduction/Introduction.html <comment><USER2> This looks like a great resource for new developers. I'm planning to walk through it in the coming weeks.</comment>


I am Lawrence Lessig - AMA - <AUTHOR> http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/loetb/i_am_lawrence_lessig_harvard_law_professor/

<comment><USER2> submitted by "deleted"?

<comment><USER3> Probably a fake. [http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/loetb/i_am_lawrence_le...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/loetb/i_am_lawrence_lessig_harvard_law_professor/c2ub4lq)</comment></comment>


Technology: A dip in the valley - <AUTHOR> http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/33902778-2405-11e0-bef0-00144feab49a.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Your referer may need to be from Google - try the first link in

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Technology%3A%20A%2...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Technology%3A%20A%20dip%20in%20the%20Valley)

Last paragraph sums up fairly well:

If it is not to become left behind in businesses such as these, the industry's leaders say, it is time for a policy rethink. "Simply put, the US needs to decide it is 'open for business' and willing to compete in the global marketplace for factories and jobs," says Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel. "Costs are higher here, not driven by labour rates but rather by lack of incentives or tax credits that are available to US corporations in most other countries." Without education reform, there will be a "critical engineering skills gap [that] will ultimately translate into fewer jobs and inventions in this country".</comment>


How to start a Go project in 2018 - <AUTHOR> https://boyter.org/posts/how-to-start-go-project-2018/ <comment><USER2> It's distasteful of Go to impose a filesystem layout.

Any other language that I work with understands that dependencies should be self-contained within the project folder. Each project has it's own set of dependencies that have been tested to work together. The user can select where to checkout the project, or even have multiple copies of the same project lying around.

To achieve the same thing with Go, one has to set a different GOPATH per project, and then checkout the project deep into that root. This is not convenient as a developer and as a software packager. Or give in and having to resolve dependencies that work with all the current projects. Given that Go doesn't really do package versioning, finding the right set of commits that all work together is a exponential nightmare.

Now that since Go 1.6 each project can have its own vendor/ folder, GOPATH shouldn't be required. I should be able to checkout the project where I want and then have the tools look into the vendor/ folder to resolve any dependencies. Please change it that way. The reason govendor and all these tools are complicated is because of this GOPATH madness. Synching dependencies between GOPATH and vendor/ should only be a problem for Google, not the rest of us.

<comment><USER3> I made[1] a zsh hook some time ago that allowed you to have per-project GOPATH.

At the root of the project I just have to do `echo 'github.com/username/package' > .gopkg` and after that, for everything I do under that directory tree, GOPATH will be automatically set to something like `export GOPATH="$(dirname .gopkg)/.gopath"`.

I don't use zsh anymore though.

[1]: [https://gist.github.com/strkek/294c2f5e6fe94b8303b5121266b27...](https://gist.github.com/strkek/294c2f5e6fe94b8303b5121266b27a22)

<comment><USER2> nice, you could do something similar using direnv[1]

[1]: [https://direnv.net/](https://direnv.net/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> > Go dependencies are a little odd the first time you run into them. I suspect > this is because Google runs a mono-repo and as such the decisions around it > were made with that in mind.

I think the oddness is around the directory structure. It may also be because Go was developed by UNIX old hands. When UNIX was designed, it was not just for ordinary users, but also developers. When developing in UNIX, you can use all of UNIX as an IDE ( grep, find etc ). Most Unices have a folder called /usr/src [1] where sources are stored. When you want to build a package, you cd into it ( say 'cd /usr/src/make') and then say 'make && make install' and it builds and installs the packages to your /usr/bin.

I am assuming, Google's internal monorepo, which is derived from Perforce [2] encourages you to keep the /usr/src under source control. Since Piper is not released to the public and most people now use git, GOPATH was probably conceived as a way to relocate '/usr/src/' to another location. This is probably why 'go install' ( which probably mimics 'make install' ) installs everything at 'GOPATH/bin'. If this is true, I think we have a mental model on Go's directory structure.

Hopefully someone can tell me if I am off base.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy_Standard)

[2] [https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google- stor...](https://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2016/7/204032-why-google-stores- billions-of-lines-of-code-in-a-single-repository/fulltext)

<comment><USER5> To be fair, go code at Google doesn't use the standard directory structure. I had all my go code in one directory and which files were part of which package was all defined in a build file.

What exists in the public world of go was simply what the go team wanted for go and not a compromise to fit in with other systems at Google. I think the fact that you end up with what looks like a monolithic repository is just a coincidence.

In the end ~/go doesn't look a lot different than the @INC path that points to something in your home directory, or /usr/include, /usr/lib, and /usr/bin in a pure C system. It's just the fact that you also put your own code in the same directory as third-party packages that confuses people... but in the end, someone else will consider your package a third-party package someday... so I don't think there's much value in treating it any other way.

<comment><USER3> > In the end ~/go doesn't look a lot different than the @INC path that points > to something in your home directory, or /usr/include, /usr/lib, and /usr/bin > in a pure C system.

Well, yes and no, and that's the only thing I don't like about GOPATH: that your source code is not in GOPATH, but in `$GOPATH/src`.

I'm not against GOPATH per-se because I'm already used to other PATHs; I'm just against it not behaving like those other common PATH variables, like PATH, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, PYTHONPATH[1], etc. GOPATH introduces intermediary directories (src, pkg, bin), instead of going straight to the point and being only for source code.

I mean, there's `GOPATH` and also `GOBIN` which is just `$GOPATH/bin`. IMO it would make much more sense for GOPATH to be _only_ source code, GOBIN to be only executables, and something like GOPKG for the current `$GOPATH/pkg`.

[1]: Yes I know venv is a thing, I'm just mentioning PYTHONPATH to illustrate my point.

<comment><USER6> Fully agree. Having the option to split these three domains would make it a lot easier to have basically any directory structure for your projects and how it can be distibuted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If you're using Go with Docker 17.05 or higher, I recommend a multi-stage Docker build. Official documentation here: [https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/multistage- bu...](https://docs.docker.com/develop/develop-images/multistage-build/#use- multi-stage-builds)

The default Go Docker images include everything needed to compile Go. But once you have a binary, you really only need an image capable of running your binary. I've seen images sizes reduced by over 95%.

Revising the example in the article:

        FROM golang:1.10
        COPY . /go/src/bitbucket.code.company-name.com.au/scm/code
        WORKDIR /go/src/bitbucket.code.company-name.com.au/scm/code/
        RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 go build main.go

        FROM alpine:3.7
        RUN apk add --no-cache ca-certificates
        COPY --from=0 /go/src/bitbucket.code.company-name.com.au/scm/code/main .
        CMD ["./main"]

The `CGO_ENABLED=0` and `apk` are oddities of Alpine Linux specifically. The image you choose to run your binary may not need these.

<comment><USER8> I've been using `scratch` final builds .-

        FROM golang:1.10
        WORKDIR /go/src/bitbucket.code.company-name.com.au/scm/code
        COPY ./ ./
        RUN CGO_ENABLED=0 go build -a -installsuffix cgo -o /dist/main .

        FROM scratch
        COPY --from=0 /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt /etc/ssl/certs/
        COPY --from=0 /go/src/bitbucket.code.company-name.com.au/scm/code/dist/main /
        ENTRYPOINT ["/main"]

It requires a bit more "magic", but is a smaller build at the end.

<comment><USER9> Serious question: Why do you need Docker for a Go project? Cant you build it, and copy the binaries over to the host you want to run it on?

<comment><USER10> There's definitely use cases for Docker with Go that mostly revolve around running untrusted code or wanting to be able to set tight restrictions on CPU usage, memory etc. Though you could also just do the latter via cgroups. Another use case might be if you have extra files that need to be deployed with the binary as well.

I wrote up some documentation about this for my use case just in case I ever have to go back and change it.

You can see it here: [https://fn.lc/post/docker- scratch/](https://fn.lc/post/docker-scratch/)

<comment><USER11> >There's definitely use cases for Docker with Go that mostly revolve around running untrusted code.

Please don't run untrusted code in Docker, it's not designed for security.

[https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/107850/docker-a...](https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/107850/docker- as-a-sandbox-for-untrusted-code/108013)

<comment><USER12> Docker containers can run in other places where they are secure, IIRC then Joyent has way to do this in their cloud

<comment><USER11> You havent refuted my point. People take a stance that docker can run untrusted code without actually looking at what they have to do for that to be true.

<comment><USER10> I haven't taken the stance that all docker containers can run untrusted code, but I've certainly done my best to harden my docker containers as much as possible. If you took a look at that write up I cover it.

I run with the flags: --net=none --cap-drop=all --cpus=1 --read-only --tmpfs=/tmp:rw,size=1g,mode=1777,noexec

This gives it no way to communicate with the outside world and drops all capabilities so it's not allowed to interact with the kernel at all. Setting CPU limit to be 1 also prevents DOS attacks internally.

I also run the process under the nobody user which entirely avoids the "container root is system root" issue.

I'm also only sort of running "untrusted" code. I'm running tensorflow models which can do arbitrary computation but are more secure than just running raw code.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> It feels like a slight failure that things like this are necessary, especially for a new language.

As a Python developer, I am no stranger to slightly ridiculous packaging / environment woes. However Go has 19 years on Python. I understand that they are different languages and ostensibly serve different purposes, but it feels like a shortcoming to me - based on the little Go experience I've had.

<comment><USER14> > As a Python developer, I am no stranger to slightly ridiculous packaging / > environment woes.

Speaking of which, what is the best way to start a python project in 2018, now? Python's version and dependency management is my least favorite aspect of the language.

<comment><USER15> It's still a bit new, but I think pipenv [1] is the new standard now. No need to directly work with pip or virtualenv anymore, and the equivalent requirements file works more like npm/yarn.

[1] [https://github.com/pypa/pipenv](https://github.com/pypa/pipenv)

<comment><USER16> With all due respect to the Python community, and without intending this as an insult per se, if this really is the "current recommendation", the Python community is in no position to be criticizing the Go community on this point. This is about the fourth answer I've heard in the past 10 years. I've been programming off and on in Python for at least 15 years and I've never heard of this tool.

Out of morbid curiosity, what's the current answer for "how to pack up a Python program into a single executable/directory for Windows" now?

<comment><USER13> Am I meant to justify all Python-related decisions because I choose to work with it? Does my using Python (or even my membership in 'The Python Community') disqualify me from critiquing on other languages and development environments?

What does your comment add to the discussion other than snark and aggression?

<comment><USER16> A correction to people claiming that Python's obviously got a better solution to dependency management than Go, a solution so "obvious" that a Python programmer of 15+ years hasn't heard of it yet. (No, I'm not actively programming in Python right now, but if it's so obvious and concrete I should still have known about it. I was up-to-date on best practices as of a couple of years ago!)

You aren't obligated to do anything; the question is open to anybody.

<comment><USER17> The original post says golang should be a bit better starting twenty years later.

Pipenv has only existed a year or two, qed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Fair summary. I would like to add a couple of quick points that we are working on.

* GOPATH is going to go away soon. Once vgo gets fully baked in to the language. Probably by 1.12 - [https://github.com/golang/go/issues/4719](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/4719).

* There is a one-line installer called "getgo" which installs Go. However, it needs further polish which is being worked on - [https://github.com/golang/go/issues/23381](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/23381), [https://github.com/golang/go/issues/21277](https://github.com/golang/go/issues/21277).

</comment><comment><USER19> Couple of quick notes from my phone, as a googler gopher:

\- IIRC package management was historically left to the community to solve for, rather than the go maintainers mandating how package mgmt should be done. Many languages have followed this model. I've never heard of it having to do anything with our mono repo model. The community never ended up standardizing on a model; since then, the go team has endorsed godep as the official experimental package manager, whose learnings were used to design vgo. Vgo is very new, and still being iterated on; check it out though!

\- vgo removes the need for GOPATH

\- There is a one-line installer to set up your env. It's very useful and simplifies a lot of what this blog talks about.

Sorry I don't have links - on phone at airport! All the above should be easily googleable though! :)

<comment><USER20> If I may ask, how do you handle the use of other languages within a project that uses Go? I am new to Go, so it might be a silly question.

I currently have a project that uses Node and React for the front-end and Go for streaming and scraping large .xml + .json data due to its great standard library.

With Node I can start a project wherever I would like — e.g. D:/work/node_project. Go seems to be much more opinionated on that? I opted to follow Go's preferred directory structure and include npm related packages there, but feel I am not following best practices. Ideally, I would like to have one directory for my projects.

I will take a good look at vgo this afternoon. It removing the need for GOPATH sounds interesting. Thank you.

<comment><USER21> I make the go server/package the repo and add a web/ subdirectory for my static and dynamic JavaScript code, plus a little bit of Makefile glue.

Here is a boilerplate Go Lambda app with a Node Lambda function and a static Vue app:

[https://github.com/nzoschke/gofaas](https://github.com/nzoschke/gofaas)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> > For Windows it allows you to share the directory between the WSL and Windows

I've avoided changing the GOPATH by using the following set up:

C:/Users/<user>/go (Standard windows GOPATH)

Then symlink in WSL:

ln -s /mnt/c/Users/<user>/go ~/go

Works pretty well. Then you can install Go on Windows if you need it, otherwise your dev environment is isolated and your Go code remains on Windows if you remove/refresh WSL. Also if you use file history, the code will be backed up this way in your Windows home as well.

</comment><comment><USER23> The biggest blocker in getting me to give Go a shot is it forcing a certain directory structure on me, and the lack of Gemfile or package.json equivalent.

Has this been solved? I really want to use Go because of everything I've heard, but I can't stand how $GOPATH forces a directory structure on me.

<comment><USER24> After using Go for a while, I use the GOPATH style layout for all my projects. It just makes sense.

<comment><USER25> Yeah I started doing this too. My own code folder is basically my github user folder.

Keeps everything organized.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Nice summary.

The biggest pain with Go is the dependency management. I initially started to commit the whole vendor folder for each project, but lately I only commit the Gopkg.lock and Gopkg.toml

Both those approaches bothered me over time and I'm still undecided about what's the best way to do this. I know some projects only commit their Gopkg.toml (and not lock) with some explicit dependencies.

<comment><USER27> > I initially started to commit the whole vendor folder for each project, but > lately I only commit the Gopkg.lock and Gopkg.toml

This really bothers me too; I appreciate Go's liberal application of convention over configuration, but I feel like this part of dep is a break from the simplicity afforded by the aforementioned principle. I often appreciate this in other Go tooling (e.g. gofmt), and I would love if they just made everyone do dep one way (I don't care which.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I'd add:

One you set it up, document exactly that setup in readme. If you use something specific for dep management, document it. If not, document it. Document how to run tests. Document everything...

At work I often run into issues with "random project X on GitHub" and do a bit of drive-by fixes. But many times when I find some Go project, I have no idea how to get from a fresh repo to running tests. And if that requires a lot of time to figure out, you're getting a vague issue that I may not want to spend time on, rather than a ready PR. Unfortunately this happens for go projects much more than other languages in my experience.

<comment><USER29> I'd say this is true for all projects tbf; set up a readme, type what you need to know and how to run the project in dev mode. Shouldn't take more than five minutes to type out, or copy / pasted from another project.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> It's a good thing that Go is such a good language, because getting started with it is downright PAINFUL compared to Ruby or Python.

<comment><USER31> It's so painful to get started that I'm not at all convinced the okay-ish language experience is worth it. I feel like Go was on the verge of something brilliant but managed to miss it by a couple of significant areas.

<comment><USER32> Painful to get started in which way?

Is this about being used to dynamic programming and not groking types and "pointers" in Go?

About the tooling?

About the lack of certain features like generics?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> `dep` is actually a good tool and suppose to be the official tool. But out of no reason, `vgo` came out and said to be deprecating `dep`. I don't really understand how the Go team make decisions.

<comment><USER34> Go in general seems to be powered by a general principle of "Was it invented here?", which undoubtedly stems from its plan9 roots as an upstart reinvention of Unix. The software community tends to treat the "not invented here" phenomenon as detrimental but I think in the case of Go, the willingness of the team to reject the status quo has been a significant contributor to its success and utility.

But for all the good this attitude brings (and I would definitely regard it as a net benefit) there have been some pretty huge missteps too, and the Go team's prioritisation of things like type aliases or the half-finished plugin architecture over those missteps leads many to ask reasonable questions about how those priorities are decided.

GOPATH is a long-acknowledged mistake and a lot of community effort and consensus-building work has gone into finding a solution. vgo was a bit of an ambush and has left a lot of people confused and bewildered, especially after a huge amount of community goodwill and momentum was built up around dep. That was a price Russ Cox decided to pay with vgo, which was his prerogative. Now we just need to wait and see whether it was worth it, which will take some time.

<comment><USER34> And in an astonishing piece of timing, the author of dep has posted an analysis of vgo: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17063724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17063724)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I think this article is a little bit shortsighted. You should probably be studying vgo in 2018 instead of using the old and soon-to-be deprecated way. Of course, this being golang, I'm about to get a bunch of replies from people who think they know better suggesting that vgo is terrible and describe their stockholm-syndrome-like relationship with GOPATH.

vgo is the only reason I am willing to give Go the time of day in 2018.

</comment><comment><USER36> > To search for anything about Go in your search engine of choice use the word > golang rather than go when searching. For example to search for how to open > a file I would search for golang open file.

This seems to be a recurring chestnut, but I would have expected the author to actually test it. If I search for [go open file], 8 of the first 10 results on Google show useful information.

</comment><comment><USER37> I was expecting a way to organise a golang folder structure for web apis (2018), as there are some old tutorials out there

<comment><USER38> The overall approach to folder structure can be a personal thing, and doesn't matter too much what you settle on. My own preference is for something like:

      github.com/<user>/<repo>
      |- main.go
      |  |- config/
      |  |- db/
      |  |- server/
      |  |- router/
      |  |- handler/
      |  |  |- get/
      |  |  |- put/
      etc.

In this setup, the router sub-package might import handler/get, handler/put, and so on, returning a router, which can typically be passed as an http.ServeMux to a Start or Run func in the server sub-package. main() winds up doing the bulk of any initialization sub-packages need, but not much else.

At various points you'll probably find that sub-packages become general enough that they can be easily broken out into their own repos and maintained separately. This can wind up being a good goal to shoot for when designing the APIs for each sub-package.

<comment><USER37> But wouldn't be better to organize it in domains, together with clean architecture? Because if the application have too many domains, it can get a bit messy, doesn't it? (Although if a micro-service strategy is used this shouldn't be a problem)

<comment><USER38> If your application requires multiple servers running multiple domains, you're _probably_ better off with a microservice architecture.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I have to say, I love his minimal blog page. Loads fast and looks great :)

</comment><comment><USER40> also it is possible to load SDK and tune all environment through maven (of course maven and java should be installed) [https://github.com/raydac/mvn- golang-example](https://github.com/raydac/mvn-golang-example)

</comment><comment><USER41> Is import "www.geocities.com/lib" still a thing in Go?

</comment><comment><USER42> I think a single sensible makefile should be provided.

</comment><comment><USER43> I tried to get into rustlang and golang but both of the languages are so _opinionated_ about how I should structure my workspace, how I should manage dependencies that I gave up. I'm used to cmake and C/C++ where I can do whatever I lik, however I like. I have to give go a try again after reading TFA.

<comment><USER44> They're opinionated because they're designed to be used by large teams building large software for a corporation.

In these environments, you usually end up with an opinion anyway, so they built it right in, so people could skip the debate stage.</comment></comment>


Swift: The iOS Developers Cheat Sheet - <AUTHOR> http://swift-cheatsheet.co.uk/newsheet

<comment><USER2> Not Found

The requested URL /newsheet was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

Apache Server at swift-cheatsheet.co.uk Port 80

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems to have 404'd</comment>


Keen Listings: Craigslist made easy. - <AUTHOR> http://keenlistings.com

<comment><USER2> From a UX perspective your site doesn't appear to "work," I tried clicking on the two images and the "Buyer"/"Seller" text. Haven't gotten anywhere yet...

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback, I've added a bit more to the homepage and a call to action to Get Started.</comment></comment>


Project Shield: DDoS Protection by Google for news and human rights orgs - <AUTHOR> https://www.google.com/ideas/products/project-shield/ <comment><USER2> """ So far we've protected hundreds of news organizations and human rights websites that have faced attacks aimed at censoring free expression. By protecting these sites, we've helped to keep vital information online during elections, major crises and conflicts. """

The "major crisis" part of that sentence might be overlooked by some people but it's actually pretty important. It's a well known problem that accidental DDoS happens during crisis situations (if you read a lot of crisis related academic papers you'll see Twitter infrastructure mentioned as very valuable for news updates). The Germanwings crash was a recent example, the official sites were accidentally DDosed and Twitter served as an emergency news propagation platform.

The nasty thing about a crisis is that you usually have your hands full with all sorts of other stuff and keeping up web infrastructure slides down on the todo list and/or it comes unexpected and IT isn't prepared. It's often not part of regular planning (this is changing a bit).

So yeah I hope they open it up for other organizations and "switching it on" will become a reasonably fast process.

<comment><USER3> How do you accidentally DDoS something?

<comment><USER4> This happens in my country every New Years Eve with the telephone/cell networks. Communication networks are in general designed for a certain base capacity and foreseen spikes withing certain limits.

Imagine all the people in your near proximity wanting to use their phones at the same time...

Another example is the 'hug of death' small (unprepared) web sites suffer when exposed to legit traffic due to being mentioned in HN, Reddit, etc.

<comment><USER5> It also happens within the electrical grid here in the UK when popular TV shows and major sporting events finish and everyone flicks their kettle on. Sometimes the demand can be so huge we have to borrow power from France to cover it

"Grid employees must also be familiar with popular soap-opera storylines as one might cause a sudden rise in demand"

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_pickup)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This seems to only be for human rights orgs, news and election -related sites.

[https://projectshield.withgoogle.com/public/#application- for...](https://projectshield.withgoogle.com/public/#application-form)

<comment><USER7> Thanks, we updated the title to say that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> 2013 -> [http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/21/googles...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2013/10/21/googles- project-shield-will-offer-free-cyberattack-protection-to-hundreds-of-at-risk- sites/)

</comment><comment><USER9> CloudFlare has extensive anti DDoS measures as well.

<comment><USER10> And a harder (in the good way) line on freedom of speech. They've been criticized for hosting sites from Anonymous to ISIS/Al-Qaeda. Media organizations should find a pretty good partner in them.

<comment><USER11> Google acting for this sort of thing is right in line with their association with the Council for Foreign Relations which basically runs foreign policy in the United States.

[http://www.cfr.org/staff/b13037](http://www.cfr.org/staff/b13037)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Devils advocate here. Would wikileaks qualify?

</comment><comment><USER13> Isn't Google creating an indirect security risk for the reader here by funneling all sensitive HTTP accesses through one service? Google logs will now have information on who is reading human rights material that is in need of protection from censorship. If someone sets out to index the readership, it's now sufficient to get the whole list of readers from Google by legal or illegal means.

<comment><USER14> Same thing applies to cloudflare. Even HN is proxied through them and connections are decrypted at their servers. Looks like nobody cares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Seems like this is going to be a huge blow for cloudflare if they open this up past the initial scope.

<comment><USER8> This was originally announced in October 2013 by the way. CloudFlare is still doing OK so far.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Please also see the reams of discussion in this thread from earlier today: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679674](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9679674)

</comment><comment><USER17> Page is completely blank for me with some darkblue background. Any idea what's going on? (Using the Tor browser, if that helps.)

</comment><comment><USER18> The front lines are online.

</comment><comment><USER19> I wonder if they will support news sites that don't align with their political views.

<comment><USER19> What I said is the truth. Google has been known to sensor pages based on political view points and not sensor in the same situation when it is in their favor.

I forgot. Too many google employees here on HN.

<comment><USER20> [citation needed]

<comment><USER19> [http://thesop.org/story/politics/2009/11/25/outrage- google-c...](http://thesop.org/story/politics/2009/11/25/outrage-google- censors-michelle-obama-monkey-pic.php)

Google censored Michelle Obama monkey pictures. While this is in poor taste, all of the Bush monkey pics were never censored. Even worse were the results for Santorum, which I'm sure the employees of Google thought was hilarious.

More recently:

[http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/20408-goog...](http://www.thenewamerican.com/tech/computers/item/20408-google- s-new-algorithm-modern-version-of-old-fashioned-censorship)

"The truth algorithm that Google researchers are developing will compare websites to a vast store of information the corporation has been compiling over the years"

Almost nothing in this world is black and white. When one organization decides that they have the the best version of the "truth", it's pretty scary.

Facebook also censors with political motivation:

[http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/20/facebook-marks-yahoo- story...](http://dailycaller.com/2014/10/20/facebook-marks-yahoo-story-on- crowd-walking-out-of-obama-speech-as-spam/)

The Obama campaign even used spam techniques during the campaign:

[http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/10/03/obama- to-...](http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2012/10/03/obama-to- supporters-spam-facebook-twitter/)

Facebook allowed it during his campaign, but have since changed the rules. If anyone else did this, the campaign would have been shut down immediately.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, since Zuckerberg even tried to get his employees to read the propaganda filled book by the Chinese president:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08/why- does-mark-zuckerberg-want-facebook-employees-to-read-the-chinese-presidents- book/)

It's just more examples of political leaders being in bed with our media companies. Everybody talks about corruption and the 1%, but nobody seems to care about this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> "for people who wants to censor" AAARRRRGH. Grammar.

</comment><comment><USER22> Can't open :) looks like it is under DDOS :)

</comment><comment><USER23> Did Google just closed similar service that was intended to speed up sites and secure them against attacks? How anyone can trust Google if they just keep closing useful services without blinking an eye.</comment>


First sign that humanity is slowing its carbon surge - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029422.800-first-sign-that-humanity-is-slowing-its-carbon-surge.html#.Unsk7fkqHnF

<comment><USER3> "We see a decoupling of CO2 emissions from global economic growth"

"The three biggest emitters – China, the US and the European Union – which account for more than half of global emissions, all show this decoupling effect."

China's GDP numbers are pretty famously shaky, and a number of alternate indices have been proposed. For the US, a prolonged depression with some recovery, but largely in FIRE industries, would tend to create the appearance of growth. The EU is another mixed bag, though I haven't looked as closely at it. In all I find the premise highly suspect.

On the positive side: fuel switching (essentially anything but coal), and efficiency improvements (China's $GDP/bbl is less than half the US's, though Europe's overall economic output per unit energy is very high), might actually be starting to show an impact. Though you've got to be very careful for how you account for both the GDP and emissions sides of the equation here.

The coupling of energy utilization to GDP is so strong, and persists over such a long period of time (Gail Tverberg has used the Angus Maddison historical economic dataset to trace it back 2000 years, and I find she's also looked at the decoupling story), and recent research has shown that the "decoupling" touted in many "advanced" economies can be shown to actually be a _shifting_ of fundamental inputs to exporting nations.

I've shown that the the growth in the economies of China and India are _very_ strongly linked to growth in energy use from 1980 - 2010: [https://plus.google.com/u/0/104092656004159577193/posts/LyQx...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/104092656004159577193/posts/LyQx8fcvYBG)

You can see the plots yourself using Wolfram Alpha:

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china++GDP+%2F+%28total...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=china++GDP+%2F+%28total+primary+energy+consumption%29)

[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=india++GDP+%2F+%28total...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=india++GDP+%2F+%28total+primary+energy+consumption%29)

Additional references:

The Long-Term Tie Between Energy Supply, Population, and the Economy

Gail Tverberg, August 29, 2012

[http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie- betwe...](http://ourfiniteworld.com/2012/08/29/the-long-term-tie-between- energy-supply-population-and-the-economy/)

 _When a person looks back over history, the impression one gets is that the economy is a system that transforms resources, especially energy, into food and other goods that people need. As these goods become available, population grows. The more energy is consumed, the more the economy grows, and the faster world population grows. When little energy is added, economic growth proceeds slowly, and population growth is low._

Is It Really Possible to Decouple GDP Growth from Energy Growth?

Gail Tverberg, November 21, 2011

[http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8615](http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8615)

 _Prior to 2000, world real GDP (based on USDA Economic Research Institute data) was indeed growing faster than energy use, as measured by BP Statistical Data. Between 1980 and 2000, world real GDP growth averaged a little under 3% per year, and world energy growth averaged a little under 2% per year, so GDP growth increased about 1% more per year than energy use. Since 2000, energy use has grown approximately as fast as world real GDP–increases for both have averaged about 2.5% per year growth. This is not what we have been told to expect._

Study reveals 'true' material cost of development say researchers

Matt McGrath, 2 September 2013

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science- environment-23931590](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23931590)

 _Current methods of measuring the full material cost of imported goods are highly inaccurate say researchers. In a new study, they found that three times as many raw materials are used to process and export traded goods than are used in their manufacture. Richer countries who believe they have succeeded in developing sustainably are mistaken say the authors._

On China's GDP data, two views:

How Reliable Are China's Economic Statistics?

Thomas Orlik, Jul 20, 2011

[http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1732874&seqNu...](http://www.ftpress.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1732874&seqNum=2)

 _With so much attention on developments in the Chinese economy, the reliability of China 's economic indicators has been the subject of some controversy. In the popular imagination, the production of China's economic data is regarded as a crude political farce: the controlling hand of the Communist Party intervening arbitrarily to direct the level of key indicators before they are published. In the past, that image was not too far from the reality._

Orlik concludes "The system is not perfect. Some data points are more reliable than others. But neither is it a farce."

FRB research suggests that Chinese data are at least "systematically related" to alternative indicators, though the norming is based on Chinese government statistics themselves:

On the Reliability of Chinese Output Figures

[http://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/publications/economic...](http://www.frbsf.org/economic- research/publications/economic-letter/2013/march/reliability-chinese-output- figures/)

 _Conclusion: We found that reported Chinese output data are systematically related to alternative indicators of Chinese economic activity. These include alternative indicator indexes of Chinese activity composed of variables that are less susceptible to official manipulation, as well as externally reported trade volume measures. Importantly, these models suggest that Chinese growth has been in the ballpark of what official data have reported. We find no evidence that recently reported Chinese GDP figures are less reliable than usual._

</comment><comment><USER4> This is good - but remember that "emissions" is already the first derivative of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. So what this article is saying is that the _second_ derivative was ~35% lower than the average through the last decade.

What we _need_ is to eventually have net zero _emissions_ , after a period of having emissions low enough to be taken in by oceanic uptake and reforestation. So obviously we are far, far away from that goal. And there is very broad scientific consensus that we need to get there.

Negative second derivative is good, since it implies we won't have exponential runaway in CO2 concentration. But it is just the first step on the way there.

<comment><USER5> If we are talking about changing something I the way people in the whole world acts, it takes a lot of time, the talks started long long ago, finally we see some result of this. There is a lot of "greener" technologies developed now and in past 2-3 years that soon will become mainstream, thus making us all closer to the goal

<comment><USER6> Are we seeing some results or is that just because fossil fuels are harder to get (read - more expensive) nowadays?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So instead of sprinting off the cliff, we are now merely going to run off it.

There's lot of wishful thinking in the idea that emissions can be decoupled from GDP - in the same way that we can all return to ever-increasing house prices to boost personal wealth, without creating bubbles. There has to be a huge increase in efficiency and a huge decrease in demand for just about everything to bring this under some degree of control. The latter is probably unthinkable for most politicians, economists and pundits. It is just possible we can innovate a way out of this but that's going to need a whole lot of change in the next 30 years - not impossible but not easy either.

<comment><USER8> While an increase in efficiency would definitely be nice, it's not a requirement for reducing emissions. If we manage to switch to emission-free energy (solar, nuclear, fusion, whatever), then the problem is basically solved. We could be as wasteful as we wanted without increasing CO2 emissions (though it may still have other costs of course).

And we have the technology required for this. We just lack the political will.

Of course going completely emission-free will still be hard, but if we could just get rid of all the big coal and oil burning plants, that would already make a huge difference.

(Disclaimer: I'm no fan of Uranium fission, but it's still much better than coal. While I'd prefer to switch to something better than Uranium, a switch from coal to Uranium is still a vast improvement. If that switch is easier, faster and cheaper to make than a switch to something more durable, I'm all for it.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The first question I'd like to ask: are we sure _we_ actually did this?

The modelling is so variable, incomplete and inconclusive from what I can see, it's almost down to whoever manages the most statistically significant mistake to come up with these numbers.

<comment><USER3> That's pretty much exactly where I headed on this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Finally!

It is good news, I suppose, but we really should have been at this stage a long time ago. And emissions are still growing, just not as fast. We need to reduce emissions.

Decoupling emissions from economic growth sounds great, but it's only slightly decoupled. We still need to get rid of coal as soon as possible.

And the big economies need to have better energy solutions ready so the up- and-coming economies can use those, instead of their rapid growth sending coal use through the roof.

</comment><comment><USER10> Can someone explain to me why Reuters is reporting a completely different result from the WMO?

[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/greenhouse-gas- emis...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/06/greenhouse-gas-emissions- highs_n_4223800.html)

<comment><USER11> They're not. It's the same result. The rate of emissions is growing, but the rate of increase of the rate of emissions is falling.

It's like you've reduced your acceleration from 10ms^-2 to 5ms^-2 - <USER2> distance you're travelling is still on an upward curve, and you'll still be hitting higher and higher speeds, but you'll be taking longer to reach them than you were previously.

<comment><USER12> basically like global population.</comment></comment></comment>


Roguelike Celebration - <AUTHOR> https://roguelike.club/ <comment><USER2> What an awesome lineup of speakers! Can't wait to watch the talks.</comment>


Will Linux end up being the primary OS for desktops and servers? - <AUTHOR> http://badcheese.com/2012/06/27/linux-next-desktop-leader.html

<comment><USER2> Servers yes, but Windows Server will still be a strong player. Server Core has improved this and features like AD, Exchange, branch cache and SQL Server will make sure most companies still run Windows Infrastructure.

Desktops no.

In the medium term I see desktop will split again in to 2 separate areas. The corporate workstation will continue running 20 year old LOB applications, becoming cheaper and more specialized. They will be more and more single replaceable units, and as IT centralizes it will be deployed and managed centrally. They will predominately run Windows, because those LOB applications were originally written for 16bit windows and at this point porting to a 64bit linux would be a nightmare. They are still largely going to be keyboard + mouse driven. A few business may end up going to linux, but this is likely under 10%

The consumer desktop will become more and more a "fixed" tablet or laptop. Touchscreen, novel and different concepts. Again largely as a single replaceable unit. These will run whatever the vendor is pushing and may be linux, but in the form of android or such.

</comment><comment><USER3> Most consumers want whatever they're told to want.

More than anything, they're told what to want by marketing muscle, and they listen because they don't know any better.

Linux has no consumer marketing, or even consumer presence.</comment>


The simple function call - <AUTHOR> http://qblog.aaronsw.com/post/30628091215/the-simple-function-call

<comment><USER2> It bears mentioning that the comments at the end of the article are worth the read.</comment>


Facebook Says Bug Opened Access to Private Photos - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/technology/facebook-bug-private-photos.html <comment><USER2> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18681772](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18681772)

350+ points</comment>


Go Ahead, Feed The Trolls - <AUTHOR> http://distributionhacks.com/go-ahead-feed-the-trolls

<comment><USER2> Is the first distribution hack to make sockpuppet accounts to drum up controversy about your website? And then make a post responding to the faux- controversy? Sounds like a Karma Conspiracy to me!

For those playing along at home, this post was submitted to HN by the cofounder of the author of the blog post. How deep does the rabbit hole go?

<comment><USER3> I can't take credit for that degree of inception, we did not create any fake accounts.

However, I am not against that tactic in the case where someone's company launch story goes onto HN, doesn't get the needed votes, and then they desperately need to get it to the front page. It really should be a last ditch effort though, and there are better ways to ensure getting those first few crucial votes.

<comment><USER4> I don't get this. I'm not here for launch stories.

Showing launch stories down to HNers throats is not the purpose of HN. Startup scene is so hot now that we could do nothing but read those "yay, I'm a CEO!".

I'm here if you do something interesting, like a product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I don't think it would work on Reddit or Digg, HN is different because it's more difficult to downvote posts (not everyone can do it).

</comment><comment><USER3> related to <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4246008></comment>


Ask HN: Daily stand-ups – how do you make them work? - <AUTHOR> We're a team of about 10 people, doing daily stand-ups, where we provide updates on what we are doing, blockers, problems, etc. basically in line with the Scrum concept of stand-ups. However, at the end of the day I don't see so much value coming out of the meetings for us. If you find them valuable, how do you guys make it work? <comment><USER2> Ten people is a lot for a Scrum team, so I think it's only natural that if you have ten people in a meeting it's going to take a long time, regardless of what people have to share.

What worked for me the last time I had a large team was pairing people up based on their role in the project (i.e. if you've got three frontend devs, have one attend and give an update for all three), so only one person needs to attend the standup. Suddenly, you've halved the number of people there each day, and assuming that everything else is streamlined (only necessary people in standup, questions left to after, only talking about project progress) you'll find it goes much quicker.

The sole reason I've found that makes a daily standup work is in letting everyone know what everyone else is up to. Nothing more, and nothing less, so optimise away until you've reached an average standup time that doesn't bother your team and makes everyone aware of what everyone else is doing.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are you now aware of blockers? Resolving them? Doing this at the stand up or after as a breakaway means you are working collaboratively. If it means stories close or tasks move to done, there's the value.

Other value is everyone knows what everyone else is doing, in case it may block you or them. Huge value.

Stand ups are huge if not seen as being 'just in line'

</comment><comment><USER4> When there isn't much to coordinate, it's difficult to see the value day by day. And yes, you could probably miss one or two without much impact. But go a week straight without any standups and coordination will fall apart. The left hand won't know what the right hand is doing. You'll lose time duplicating work or explaining the same thing over and over to different teammates.

Standups are prophylactic - a way to get ahead of instead of behind a problem. In fact, the analogy to a condom is probably apt. Nobody loves them, and the chance of consequences to skipping them on any single given day is reasonably low; but better to use them regularly than to contract herpes or HIV or need an abortion.

</comment><comment><USER5> We are a bit smaller team with currently 6 people, but we're going to be 10 by December.

The daily stand-up is useful for us to identify pain-points and then interested people can checkout issues / interesting problems later on during the day.

We also started to have our trello run in the background of our standups so when we state what we're going to do, we're not trailing too far from the road map.

</comment><comment><USER6> Standups should be strongly limited in time. If you've got a big team, then each person has less time to summarize what they're working on today and what blockers they may have.

For smaller teams, each person could have more time to talk in more depth about what they've done and what they've got planned, but that doesn't scale well.

Ultimately, they are something you don't appreciate until you don't have them. Then all hell breaks loose, and people much further up the food chain start wondering why you and your team are still working there.

</comment><comment><USER7> This article (and HN discussion, if you can find the post) may have some food for thought:

[https://medium.com/@jsonpify/you-dont-need- standup-9a7478251...](https://medium.com/@jsonpify/you-dont-need- standup-9a74782517c1)

</comment><comment><USER8> We do them on Tue & Thu, mostly for blockers. Maybe you can reduce the frequency.</comment>