Sales comes out of who you genuinely are - <AUTHOR> http://swombat.com/2012/11/30/genuine-sales <comment><USER3> That is a fairy tale kind of story.

In reality, by being who you genuinely are you can earn living, if you're lucky, but to earn wealth you need to press and push and cheat.

Look, at the differences between CL and Java, Redis and MongoDB, Postgres and MySQL to name the few very popular examples. "Commercially successful" products invest heavily in creating, creating a misleading hype and other manipulations.

Being who you means to become a marginal, a hobbyist, with, perhaps, much above average abilities, in the best case.

But to make money you _must_ pressure and bullshit people, because it is only by cheating you could get above-average returns. It is much easier and cheaper than to make something which is above average.

Look at that Java, ERP, or artificially inflated open source crap? This is how to sell. SAP has the best sales people it could hire. But once you're convinced to buy - you are locked for life.

It is all about tricks like SEO or MVPs, faked reviews or whatever, when you put words and hype ahead of the real things. And, of course, there are people, who are ready to do tricks instead of doing real things.

I'm not trying to say that it is illegal - trying to exploit fools is a legal practice, the problem is that it become a dominant one.

Writing a pleasant stories for fools instead of real product specifications and reference documentation is so common, that nobody even reads it anymore.)

<comment><USER4> You know, I used to be really cynical and agree with much of this. But over the last few years, I've come back to the middle. I think the story is more complex than this.

Yes, to build wealth you need to press and push--no one is going to give you anything for free and pre-buyers remorse can be a bitch. But cheat? I don't know about that--it depends on your definition.

If cheating is maintaining borderline outrageous profit margins, then yes, it helps to do that. But if cheating is something more along the lines of getting 50% up front for a project you underbid, then holding that money hostage while you proceed to milk the project with change orders every step of the way--then yes, that's cheating (and probably illegal-ish). Plenty of people operate this way but I think it's a pretty bad way to do business--both from an economic standpoint and a how-did-you-get-to-be-such-a-terrible-person? standpoint. And then of course there's the run-of-the-mill cheating that is enterprise software marketing departments, but if that's your worst sin in life, I think you're probably doing ok.

And while there are plenty of cases of crooks making out like bandits, there are just as many about pretty honest people making out like bandits as well. Compare Mike Milken and Warren Buffet for example. Or from tech, the guy that started color vs pg. As far as what I've read about both of them, they seem like rather different personality types, but both of them seem to be doing ok financially.

So yes, nothing is cut and dry, and anyone that says you can't make a lot of money via semi-legal stealing is dead wrong, but I really don't think this is the only--or even the most expedient--way to get rich. Speaking personally, I prefer sitting around coming up with ways to build value for customers instead of coming up with more clever ways of fucking them.

<comment><USER3> I'm from the whole country of thieves, looters and cheaters, (in common folk's popular culture these considered virtues) or, at least, from what it became to be in last few decades.)

<comment><USER5> Those thieves, looters, and cheaters are no different from you or me. We're all _H. sapiens sapiens_ here. The only difference is culture.

My guess is that a culture that teaches that we are all thieves, looters, and cheaters will indeed find itself full of those characters. Meanwhile, a culture where profit and value are seen as compatible with human dignity and progress will find your view utterly alien.

The cool thing about culture is that it's opt-in by nature. You can adopt any culture that you find advantageous, or create your own. Most people don't take advantage of that fact, but it's still an option, and it's one that you should perhaps consider.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> While I agree with the sentiment, the basis for the argument is clearly factually inaccurate. There are plenty of successful salesmen who sell products that cannot possibly benefit the buyer - c.f. boiler room operations, etc. When you ignore or distort obvious facts to make a much less obvious (but possibly true) point like "sustainable sales practices are more accretive over a long enough period" you make people who read your article wonder what else you say has been fabricated to support your position.

Let's flip it around: to give out good advice, you need offer it based on actual experience and not just suppositions. (not necessarily true either, but it sure seems like it would strengthen your argument)

</comment><comment><USER7> _a great salesperson will never be selling something that they don't believe actually helps the customer_

This seems very much like a No True Scotsman fallacy.

<comment><USER8> Based on the sales people I have known, most would pretty much say anything to close a deal. Though the really good ones seem to be able to convince themselves that the product they are selling really is awesome. As soon as they stop selling that product they go back to their old opinions on it being a POS.

<comment><USER9> I guess some people might manage to bullshit themselves into thinking the product is awesome when it's not... then again, even in those cases, there is presumably some element of the product that is awesome, otherwise they couldn't believe such a thing?

Self-delusion is a powerful force, but smart people need more than that to achieve any kind of lasting result.

<comment><USER8> From what I understand they often start with some sort of brainwashing, they are also taught weird beliefs like "every time a customer says no the odds of the next customer saying yes will increase".

I guess it will depend on what the product being sold is, enterprise software is probably somewhat different to timeshares or double glazing.

It is worth bearing in mind though that some of the best salesmen throughout history have probably been people who were knowingly selling scams.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> tl;dr: Believe in your product and don't be afraid to charge appropriately.

All solid advice and adding more to the 'believe in your product' concept, the reasoning for this is incredibly simplistic. If you are attempting to sell something you don't believe adds any value or benefit, it will be instantly obvious in your pitch unless you happen to be a fantastic liar and that's what led to the stereotype of the used-car salesman.

Minor nitpick: Mamet was never attempting to present Roma as a fantastic salesman. He knows the audience can see the deceitfulness. He's actually showing a 'behind-the-scenes' view of how liars have gained the edge in the sales world.

<comment><USER9> Re: Mamet, interesting, I didn't know that. Any reference to that? If so I'll put an update in!

<comment><USER11> I mostly agree with your take over Mamet's, but that's how Mamet views capitalism.

Here's Mamet on the themes in the play: [http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/ma...](http://www.upstartfilmcollective.com/portfolios/jcharnick/mamet- museum/old-interview.html)

 _The play concerns how business corrupts, how the hierarchical business system tends to corrupt. It becomes legitimate for those in power in the business world to act unethically. The effect on the little guy is that he turns to crime. And petty crime goes punished; major crimes go unpunished. If someone wants to destroy Manhattan for personal gain, they call him a great man. Look at Delorean. He completely raped everybody in Northern Ireland with that scheme_ ... _a lot of business in this country is founded on the idea that if you don't exploit the possible opportunity, not only are you being silly, but in many cases you're being negligent, even legally negligent._

He seems to be of the opinion that it's a corrupt system, and that people in the system are inevitably corrupted: <http://www.hanknuwer.com/writing/hankanddavid.html>

_This play is very much about work and about how one is altered by one's job._ ... _I felt he was doing his job--doing the job of a sales manager. The job of a sales manager is not to empathize. Irrespective of whether or not it's a "good" job or whether he likes his job is not the point; his job is to inspire, frighten, tempt, cajole, and do any other thing he can do to increase sales. When things fall apart he indulges in the very human propensity to play catch-up ball; because people have been abusing him throughout the play._

I like Mamet's work, but, in general, I try to avoid listening when authors and artists talk about politics, because they're usually not better informed than the average freshman in a poli-sci or econ class, and that colors my view of their work. I was pleasantly surprised to find that Mamet's view is nuanced. He specifically says "a lot of business", and I can't disagree there, though we would probably disagree on the precise meaning of "a lot".

I suspect a lot of that is a generational gap. When I look around and I see swombat-style salesmen competing with Mamet-style salesmen, I see Mamet-style businesses getting wiped out. CarMax is cleaning up by getting rid of high pressure sales tactics. It's so bad that around here, multiple car dealerships that used to employ armies of annoying sales people (which I know from firsthand experience) have taken out billboards saying they'll match CarMax's prices and that their sales people no longer work on commission. Barnes & Noble and Borders wiped out traditional booksellers by providing a better experience, and they're getting wiped out by amazon providing an even more convenient experience. I could go on for pages with examples off the top of my head, but I have to really think to come up with examples where a business with a 'traditional' sales model of conning people into something they don't want is eating the lunch of a business that's really trying to give people what they want.

<comment><USER10> That's _exactly_ what I was looking for.

Mamet's point holds true to this day. Take any high-pressure sales role. Your employer doesn't care how much benefit you've added to peoples lives, they care about the numbers. Customer satisfaction isn't indicative of a job well done in sales, quantity is. Whilst this concept seems blatantly immoral, it's reality.

Swombats post was aimed at start-ups and his point that someone selling on behalf of a start-up should truly believe in their product is spot on however, in the big, bad corporate world it becomes irrelevant.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> >David Mamet must not have known a lot of salespeople, to have this view of what a good salesperson is, because that is definitely not how great salespeople work.

If I wrote a story about a politician who committed suicide, would you say "You must not know a lot of politicians, to have this view of what a good politician is, because suicide is definitely not what makes a great politician"?

<comment><USER9> Mamet wrote a story about salespeople where all of them have highly dubious ethics ranging from being outright thieves to being conmen, and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac.

From some of the other comments, it sounds like I misinterpreted Mamet's intent - he apparently wasn't looking to generalise to all salespeople - <USER2> still, it seems to me the comment is fair based on this particular piece of evidence.

<comment><USER12> >and the most successful of the lot is willing to destroy someone's life to earn himself a cadillac.

...and keep his job. You can hardly watch that film without feeling _soaked_ in the desperation of the characters.

>but still, it seems to me the comment is fair based on this particular piece of evidence.

How? The story is about a particular _subset_ of the sales world, which is where you work for an employer who gives you an undesirable product to sell and then puts you under immense pressure to close. These situations do exist, and the people who succeed in them _are_ the ones who are willing to act unethically. The only way that Mamet could have realistically included an ethical salesperson as a character would have been to depict them getting fired.

How do you reckon that the characters depicted in an author's work are likely to comprise the entirety of that author's experience?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13>
      Successful salespeople don't pressure or bullshit the
      prospect into a sale. They are persistent, but they are
      always focused on achieving a deal where it will benefit
      all parties.

I couldn't agree more. I ranked first in sales at my company for a quarter, before they promoted me. While some of my peers used scare tactics, intimidation and downright lying to close the deal, I was always prepared to walk away from deals. I never suggested anything that wasn't in their best interest because I was thinking long-term. Funny how customers see this genuinity and come back after shopping around. Referrals were often the result, while my peers had customers with buyers regret. They hit their quota by the end of the day, but lost in the long-term. On a side note, your title may be a little misleading. It should say "Sales come out of genuinity" as the current title implies that knowing how to sell is something inherent, whereas it's something I taught myself.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for your comment! Fair suggestion about the title, though I think even though your title is more accurate it somehow seems even worse than the current title (I'm not happy with the current title either).

If anyone has suggestions for a better title, let's have them...

<comment><USER14> Have you had any experience in sales? If so, you could title it "What Sales taught me" as my response to your post here: <http://startupframework.tumblr.com/post/36886657978/sales>

+1 for giving sales people some overdue respect. I too feel that there are few that just ruin the bunch, much like HR.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very good article. For all of you who are now just starting to jump on the bandwagon of enterprise tech, this is an extremely valuable lesson. Sales is really hard, it's very emotionally painful (and jubilent), and requires a lot of humility. But just like building products, it's all about getting in your customer's face. Do it early and do it often.

</comment><comment><USER16> I have yet to see the film but I'm guessing this is the part that's being referred to.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa9dttNx1S8>

</comment><comment><USER17> Great post. Especially useful for a lot of us "engineering" types on HN who may not think of themselves as sales people. Turns out that if you're a problem-solver, you can be successful in sales. You just have to think of the customer's problem holistically, and from their point of view.

</comment><comment><USER18> ABC: Always be _contributing._</comment>


A great product isn't enough. Why your startup needs to have a Story to tell - <AUTHOR> http://www.tawheedkader.com/2010/03/a-great-product-isnt-enough-why-your-startup-needs-a-story/

<comment><USER2> I wouldn't have believed this guy until I recently stumbled across it myself. I started MailFinch as a bit of a joke a few months ago (actually, it was partly inspired by Dustin Curtis' snail project as well).

Turns out, people actually liked that story and we're now sending almost 20K pieces a month.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's really about getting people to remember you. People remember a good story.</comment>


What modern technology would be most revolutionary to ancient Greeks? - <AUTHOR> http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/47694/what-modern-technology-would-be-most-revolutionary-to-ancient-greeks <comment><USER2> Becomes scary if you think about it: Can we reproduce fraction of the stuff that we take for granted today?</comment>


Some of the API calls for Fifa World Cup 2014 - <AUTHOR> https://gist.github.com/paganre/83b3470c79476510f47a

<comment><USER2> Watch out for the terms. I believe this is technically illegal access of information, considering the terms state it should only be used by Fifa website and app.</comment>


If you're going to search the web, make an intelligent guess first - <AUTHOR> http://blog.jgc.org/2010/05/if-youre-going-to-search-web-make.html

<comment><USER2> I don't think this is advice that really needs to be given to most people on HN. However, it is important advice.

I've often been told by my wife that the reason she has to ask me for help with computer issues is because I know what to google and she doesn't. She will often end up blinding picking part of an error message to google, but I am able to understand the error and the systems involved enough to make a good search that narrows in on the specific problem.

It's amazing how much more productive a little GoogleFu can make you.

<comment><USER3> I don't know, if that was true then the person who originally posted it might have found it themselves, or the people who responded to the original post might not have been so perplexed as to how he figured that out. It seems like a no brainer when you think about it but I'm not sure everyone would think about it right off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Another fun approach would be using google code search which allows for regexp searching. Looking for stuff of similar format to {D1531,1000,1501|}, I find these two results. The results indicate that this might be related to printers.

[http://www.google.com/codesearch?q=\\{D[0-9]{4},[0-9]{4},[0-9...](http://www.google.com/codesearch?q=\\{D\[0-9\]{4},\[0-9\]{4},\[0-9\]{4}\\|\\}&hl=en)

<comment><AUTHOR> Interestingly, that points to TEC Printers made by Toshiba for a similar purpose (barcoding). So perhaps this is a common barcoding language used by compatible printers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Ref: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346961>

</comment><comment><USER6> Another "good Google searching practices" anecdote.

When I was in high school (I live in Mexico) we were supposed to watch a human rights video for English class and transcribe the audio. But since I am somewhat lazy I thought tha maybe there could be a transcription somewhere on the internet. After googleing a while (only some very thoughtful searches which I don't remember) I came across a pdf with a full transcription from some Korean government site. I copied and printed the english text and that's what I handed in.

I failed the assignment and the teacher asked me to lend her the transcription so that everyone could have a copy.

P.S. When I found the transcription I passed it to some classmates and they copied the transcription by hand to their notebooks (they didn't fail the assignment).</comment>


Ask HN: Is it a good time to switch to Ubuntu 18.04 desktop? - <AUTHOR> I've been doing my dev work on Ubuntu 16.04 for years now and I love it. How are people who have updated to the latest version liking it? Would you recommend upgrading? <comment><USER2> If you are considering a switch, do give Fedora a shot. I moved after a decade of Ubuntu.

All the technologies that won out (systemd, gnome, Wayland,etc) were created at Fedora. So the level of integration is unparalleled.

Ubuntu still seems to be fighting it's choices.

<comment><USER3> You should inform the developers of i3, KDE Plasma, etc. that they can retire now that GNOME has "won out".

<comment><USER2> I don't think I said that Gnome has won out (and neither should it).

I was making a comparison between two Gnome based distros. In case you were not aware, Ubuntu is now Gnome.

<comment><USER4> Actually, that's _exactly_ what you said.

<comment><USER2> i can see why you would think that based on the language, but it was very contextual.

it was fedora vs ubuntu - gnome, wayland and systemd had their equivalents in ubuntu (unity, mir and upstart) which lost the battle. Ubuntu then adopted the winners. I meant that specifically - not a general comment across Linux

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here's what I do, I shrink a partition on my HDD (or have it already partitioned so theres space for several OS partitions,

Then I install the latest and greatest on the free space or a much older distro partition, leaving my current work distro safe on its own partition,

Next I copy over as much of the contents my current home folder as I can. Now, I can truly "taste" the new distro and if it isn't a good transition I just go back to my current favorite. I've found I probably install a new favorite distro twice, first time is to check it out, mess with stuff decide if its an improvement or not, and ensure everything still works. Then re-install the second time, now knowing what I like from the new one and just install with the packages/settings that work.

Any time I get stuck or have some unexpected difficulty I still have the previous favorite distro to boot back to in an emergency.

<comment><USER6> I do this too. Actually I have a web page about various caveats when doing it ( [http://vartmp.com/tech/multibooting.html](http://vartmp.com/tech/multibooting.html) ).

And of course, you can always use KVM's to take a look at distros as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> For what it's worth, I had moved to 18.04 from 16.04 and regret it. Booting takes longer, and I have an NVidia 1070 but NVidia XServer Settings has stopped working and if I try to run it it hangs the systems where the only option is to hard boot.

<comment><USER8> The issue is the new linux kernel used by 18.04. Nvidia drivers break. In fact if you install debian, that waits before upgrading the last kernel, you do not have any problems.

</comment></comment><comment> git-pull 18.04 is stable. Feel free to go ahead and grab a copy. PPA's are also up to speed.

If you want to hop on board a rolling release, firmware-buster-DI- alpha3-amd64-DVD-1.iso will give you a fully working debian testing install with closed source drivers.

(Weekly builds are known to fail from time to time)

Then, pair that with a sources.list generator: [https://debgen.simplylinux.ch/](https://debgen.simplylinux.ch/)

And one more ingredient: if you use gnome 3, you may have to copy a file to get gnome extension installation via chrome working. Copy the contents of /etc/chromium/native-messaging-hosts/ to /etc/opt/chrome/native-messaging- hosts/.

A bit off topic: for gnome 3 extensions, this has been indispensable: [https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel- saver/](https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/723/pixel-saver/)

For tiling window managers, I recommend i3: [https://i3wm.org/](https://i3wm.org/)

</comment><comment><USER9> Would not recommend upgrading. I tried it out in a VM, and it's not that it's bad. It's just how solid 16.04 is. It's a joy to work in that environment, and if I'm going to upgrade my OS when things are so smooth, it better be to have a better experience.

</comment><comment><USER10> Tried 18.04 for an afternoon, it effected a wide variety of system freezes on my ancient i7 920 + GTX570, so, back to rock-solid Debian 9.

</comment><comment><USER6> I bought a Dell Inspiron laptop in early 2017. After upgrading from 17.10 to 18.04, the ACPI became all messed up. Manually running "pm-suspend" (suspend to RAM) puts the machine into an unusable state. Of course the problem isn't when this happens manually but when it happens automatically, and the problems are the same. Running "pm-hibernate" fails as well.

I'm sure if I spent more time looking at it I could fix it, or at least work around it. I won't go into all the details of what I've looked at so far in this post. But how many hours do I want to devote to this?

There are also other unpleasant things like this in 18.04, like - [https://askubuntu.com/a/1028857](https://askubuntu.com/a/1028857) . Starting in 18.04, right clicking on a touchpad is turned off by default, in order to be more "Mac-like" (if Ubuntu wants to be more Mac-like, they should get power management working, not shifting me from three Unix mouse buttons to two and now to one).

I should also add I have been burned in the past by upgrading to Ubuntu on the week the new release comes out ( [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1674838](https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1674838) ), so now I usually wait about six weeks for the major bugs to get squashed before upgrading to the new release (in the past, when I had more time, I would do the opposite - I would put Ubuntu beta into a KVM virtual instance, or even a partition on my machine, ferret out bugs, and report them, maybe send patches etc.)

</comment><comment><USER11> Personally I like to keep it simple, stupid and light which is xfce for me.

If I need a desktop, I always configure the system to use xfce which means 16.04 and 18.04's desktop GUI are the same.

It also means that the vm with GUI under Mac/Windows has the same GUI and also very light. I can configure 512M -2G RAM per VM and they works just fine.

<comment><USER12> I'm in the same boat, and settled on LXDE after trying XFCE. Either one seems to work great even on cheap or old hardware, and there are way fewer surprises that more featureful desktop environments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm a 16.04 user, too, and I've been running 18.04 in a VM for a few weeks. Basically seems ok to me, but, I do have some gripes. Not deal-breakers, just dislikes:

* When copying a file in the gui, a progress window doesn't pop-up for the operation. Took me a little while to realize there is now a little icon on the window's titlebar that shows a pie-chart style of progress. Until I look for that icon, it feels like I don't know if the copy even started. * The "start menu?"/launcher thing blows up into a big, full-screen, icon menu. Seems mentally jarring to have all of my current work overlaid by the launcher. * And, my biggest gripe is the least consequential, but, I want my wobbly windows and 3D desktop cube back! There, I admitted it. I used them and liked it :)

<comment><USER14> FYI: That's not formatted like you planned. You'll need to put blank lines between your list items.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Works wonderfully, especially with the updated packages and performance enhancements. If you need something from 16.04 or 14.04 there is always VMWare with the Virtualization Extensions enabled which allowed me to still use KVM and older packages when testing backwards compatibility.

<comment><USER16> If you just need an older Linux distro on Linux, use Docker or LXC. Containers allow you to easily share files and there's no performance overhead or messing around with virtual hard drives.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Using it, I mostly like. The new kernel supports my newer laptop hardware better. It "feels" like it runs smoother, fwiw.

Upgrading was bad. For my local machine, when it first came out trying to run the upgrade script would lock my system, and force me to hard reboot. I tried several fixes, but ended up just doing an install from CD over the old system.

For my web server, not copying 1 file to a new location before running the upgrade script caused me to destroy the whole system. I restored from backup. After researching about that file, I was able to do the upgrade with only a few broken packages needing my attention.

<comment><USER18> And that file was... ?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I managed to revive a 2010 Macbook Pro that had an issue with the logic- board/GPU. Ubuntu 18.04 works flawlessly on it. Although Gnome is a little heavy, so my i3 setup with some XFCE settings works very well.

<comment><USER20> I also have a 2010 MBP with a logic board problem. How did you manage to revive it?

<comment><USER19> I just installed Xubuntu on it. I suppose it uses the integrated GPU by default? As far as I can tell, it was the switching between GPUs that was causing the machine to crash on macOS. I recall having installed gfxCardStatus on it to stop the switching, but it wasn't super-reliable.

Anyway, it works pretty well now for some dev work and light browsing. Hope you manage to fix yours!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> For a work machine my advice is to make sure the tools you depend on work well on 18.04. Docker for example didn't have a stable version in their repos until June 22nd. Other tools like MySQL Workbench and the Redis equivalent (who's name escapes me) do not have 18.04 compatible versions.

Otherwise, Kubuntu 18.04 has been very stable for me for several months.

</comment><comment><USER22> I would recommend it. I've used it at home for a bit, I only recently switched away from it on my workstation to Antergos.

I still feel that 16.04 was a bit more traditional, and I liked that a lot. If you're happy with 16.04, I'd reccomend sticking. I won't be upgrading my machine at work for a long while, which is still 16.04.

</comment><comment><USER23> It's always the time for an Ubuntu user to switch to Debian. You won't even notice the difference.

</comment><comment><USER24> I had moved to Ubuntu 18.04 from Xubuntu 16.04 and I like it. Everything is stable. Also I installed it on my parents' laptop, which had Windows before, and they got used to it quickly. Still, I never used Ubuntu 16.04 so I cannot compare with it, but I didn't like Unity UI.

</comment><comment><USER25> I'm still a unity fan for various personal reasons, so my machine still runs 16.04 for now. But my wife's newest laptop got a fresh 18.04 install and I can report that amd proprietary drivers seem to be a lot easier to install without devastating hiccups in 18.04.

</comment><comment><USER26> I would suggest Fedora if your going to use gnome it has far better consistency in my opinion. Ubuntu have switched to installing default apps like system monitor and some others using snap. There's some inconsistencies if you use other GTK themes besides the default.

</comment><comment><USER27> I wish I didn't. My experience was so bad I'm actually back on Windows for the first time since 12.04 and might stay here.

It was an X/driver issue and it took me a few hours to fix to just get X to load. Meanwhile, Windows worked fine as I furiously Googled the issue.

<comment><USER28> Windows and Linux are not apples to apples. One you pay for and one you don't.

<comment><USER27> Could you expand on this? Of course they're different. 18.04 isn't worth the upgrade yet in my opinion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I'd recommend doing a fresh install on another partition if you can and see how it goes. 95% of Ubuntu installs work like butter but there's always a bit of risk getting all the video drivers and suspend and resume working right.

Use it for a few weeks and decide.

</comment><comment><USER30> If you are reasonable comfortable in Linux and a developer, I'd strongly recommend Arch with i3 window manager. Pacman is fantastic. The initial setup is a bit of a pain, but it's so much smoother and more stable from that point forward.

<comment><USER3> How is Arch "more stable" than Ubuntu LTS?

How is maintaining an Arch installation "so much smoother"? The user must carefully review a PKGBUILD every time any installed AUR package needs to be updated[1], which will happen frequently because the user will need many AUR packages to make up for the fact that there are only 10,200 Arch packages[2], much less than Ubuntu's 81,563 packages[3].

[1] [https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/3yiq4s/is_the_au...](https://www.reddit.com/r/archlinux/comments/3yiq4s/is_the_aur_safe_to_use/cydr9ss/)

[2] [https://www.archlinux.org/packages/](https://www.archlinux.org/packages/)

[3] [https://packages.ubuntu.com/cosmic/allpackages?format=txt.gz](https://packages.ubuntu.com/cosmic/allpackages?format=txt.gz)

<comment><USER31> I ran Arch for a couple years and agree with OP that it "feels" smoother and more stable. The documentation is fantastic, like FreeBSD, and you end up with a streamlined system you understand well if you go through the manual process.

I moved back to Ubuntu only so I could use the same ansible scripts locally as prod.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I prefer Debian testing + KDE for desktop needs including gaming. Rolling distros are in general more up to date especially with Mesa and kernel updates. Unless you configure extra repositories, stable or LTS distros will fall behind a lot.

</comment><comment><USER33> I have a laptop and two external monitors on 18.04. I had to ditch gnome for unity to return workspaces to a good place.

You can chose unity at login over the new default gnome which I thought was a nice touch by the Ubuntu developers.

</comment><comment><USER34> I've tested Linux Mint 19 (based on Ubuntu 18.04) on a spare laptop and it seems to be working well for my use case. I'll be upgrading my main machine soon. I prefer Mint Cinnamon's UI to Ubuntu's.

</comment><comment><USER35> My husband had Windows installed on our only desktop at home and recently I installed Ubuntu 18.04 to do development. I hated it on Windows 10.

It's not as great as developing on my 2015 Macbook Pro but its acceptable.

</comment><comment><USER36> I recommend waiting a good while before upgrading (like 6 to 12 months).

Or at least do some extensive testing with your hardware on a separate disk.

I did some testing and faced hard freezes and bugs (looked like Nvidia PCIE issues).

</comment><comment><USER37> I think running a long term support distro is silly for non critical devices.

I personally use Debian Testing, maybe take this chance to try it? I've never had a stability issue across the 4 different devices I use.

<comment><USER3> How is it silly? I've used Debian Stable and Ubuntu LTS on desktops for many years. I've always had the latest versions of all the apps I use thanks to backports, repos managed by upstream developers (e.g., PPAs) and occasionally installing software from source. (Disclosure: I don't use GNOME, KDE or any other DE, which can be problematic to keep updated.)

Also, many upstream developers who provide packages for Debian and Ubuntu (e.g., PostgreSQL[1][2] and Spotify[3]) only test their software on Debian Stable and Ubuntu LTS.

Lastly, Debian Testing has the worst security update speed and should not be preferred if security is a concern.[4]

[1] [https://www.postgresql.org/download/linux/debian/](https://www.postgresql.org/download/linux/debian/)

[2] [https://www.postgresql.org/download/linux/ubuntu/](https://www.postgresql.org/download/linux/ubuntu/)

[3] [https://www.spotify.com/us/download/linux/](https://www.spotify.com/us/download/linux/)

[4] [https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting](https://wiki.debian.org/DebianTesting)

<comment><USER37> I'm under the impression OP is asking about a distro for their laptop or desktop.

My question to you is, why use an old kernel + packages when you could have newish ones with a reasonable degree of trust? Is avoiding the extremely rare bug worth it?

re:PPAs I prefer my machines packages to be downloaded from trusted sources. The distro developer package vetting and accountability adds value.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I think so, since a few packages I use recently turned out to be too old (vs the current mainstream) in the stock repos. E.g. Go, Docker.

</comment><comment><USER39> Ubuntu Budgie has been a rock for me. Utterly stable. Very useable.

</comment><comment><USER40> Upgraded my laptop two weeks ago. Smooth sailing so far.

</comment><comment><USER41> I've been using 16.04 since release and loved it. It was my first Linux daily driver after dumping Windows due to dislike of the way MS has handled Windows 10.

I just bought a new drive, so took the opportunity to install 18.04 to see how it goes. I'm using a Latitude E7450 with a 1920x1080 touchscreen. I'm not a developer, I'm primarily a network engineer, so I spent a lot of time in terminal windows configuring routers/switches,etc... YMMV.

I hate it. Most of my hates are around the gui, likely due to the switch from Wayland/Unity. I can no longer alt-tab between open windows with one hand when you have multiple windows of the same program open. Selecting which window you want requires either using the mouse, or using the arrow keys(with right hand).

The "launcher" \-- not sure what it's actually called, the equivalent of the Windows Start menu, reminds me of the jarring experience that the original Windows 8 was. It goes into full-screen task selection mode, instead of a partial window overlay like 16.04 did.

Somehow I keep grabbing the icons on the left side('favorited' programs), and then the cursor won't let them go. I wind up spamming enough buttons and keys that eventually it drops it, but a simple click doesn't do it.

Sometimes the mouse quits registering clicks. As if the OS thinks there something on top of what I'm clicking on. I click on a tab in Chrome, and nothing happens. Usually a few alt-tabs to switch active programs will clear it up.

If you touch the screen, most of the time an onscreen keyboard will pop up, and you have to move the mouse to make it go away. I understand why, but I don't use the touchscreen that way and it just gets in my way.

1920x1080 on a 14" screen it just a little too small for me to comfortably read the text at a normal distance. I used the DPI scaling in 16.04 to compensate. But the scaling in 18.04 doesn't work the same way. I changed the fonts around and sort-of got something workable, but it's not as graceful as it was in 16.04.

The alt-space window that drops down the minimize/maximize options doesn't accept keyboard commands. A common key sequence for me is alt-space, x (for maximize window) -- this doesn't work in 18.04

That's my annoyances so far that I can think of after using it for 2-3 weeks.

Things that I like? Multiple tabs in the terminal window. But I could probably get that in 16.04 too.

The network manager is better and more intuitive. I've actually caught myself using it a couple of times. 16.04's manager does nothing but fight with me constantly.

There was an annoying issue with Chrome on 16.04 that occasionally in full- screen video mode, the UI would lock up and I would have to kill -9 chrome to get it back. This hasn't happened yet in 18.04. Not sure if a chrome or Wayland issue.

The relocation of the gui window close/min/max elements doesn't bother me, either layout works for me.

I can't think of any other things that jumped out at me about 18.04, good or bad.

<comment><USER42> Wow. Some of the bug reports here sound pretty obvious. I wonder if your touch screen is the reason why so many issues are occuring... That or Wayland/Ubuntu isn't right at all.

<comment><USER41> I don't know if I would call all of them bugs.

The non-registering clicks thing, yes.

The rest...are likely just preference issues, difference in features, and intended behavior. Such as the lack of keyboard shortcuts in the alt-space menu.

Most can probably be dealt with in one way or another. It's just going to be time consuming to go dig and find out how to make the OS stay out of my way. I'll likely be going back to 16.04 soon until 18.04 gets a little more baked.

It looks like I can get Wayland with 18.04[1], so I may try that first.

[1] [https://askubuntu.com/questions/1029436/enable-fractional- sc...](https://askubuntu.com/questions/1029436/enable-fractional-scaling-for- ubuntu-18-04)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> I would avoid Ubuntu. They take carry a LOT of patches that are not upstreamed (for whatever reason) and they have a long history of ignoring community trends and being extremely divisive for no good reason.

<comment><USER44> Have any recommendations?

<comment><USER20> Googler's workstations use Debian Testing (customized). It might be a good start.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon Kindle dual-screen e-reader patent granted, Nook potentially in trouble - <AUTHOR> http://engadget.com/2010/07/06/amazon-kindle-dual-screen-e-reader-patent-granted-barnes-and-nobl/

<comment><USER2> Who cares about the Nook? There's only one competing product on Amazon's mind at this point (I'm guessing).

<comment><USER3> I care about the nook, it's a great eReader, and I use it daily. I suppose you're referring to the iPad, which isn't an eReader.

<comment><USER4> It's not an e-reader but you sure can read on it. And when you're done reading you can watch something. Or listen to music. Or play a game.

If you only want to read then the Kindle and Nook are great devices. As always it's entirely subjective and depends on what you personally want from the device (and how much you want to spend).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> How does this effect the kno? <http://www.kno.com/>

<comment><USER4> Not at all I imagine. Doesn't seem to use e-ink / electronic paper, just dual LCDs. Not available yet either, looks like they just have prototypes so far.

Cool device though. If/when it ships it looks like it would satisfy most who were interested in Microsoft Courier.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The portion seen as potentially threatening to the Nook:

> _A handheld electronic device comprising: a housing; an electronic paper > display disposed in the housing and having a first surface area; and a > liquid crystal display (LCD) disposed in the housing proximate the > electronic paper display, the LCD having a second surface area that is > smaller than the first surface area of the electronic paper display._

Except that, if that quote _accurately_ describes the patent, the Nook has prior art given that this patent was granted June 6, 2010. If anything, this is potential trouble for Amazon, as they could stand to be sued.

That said, it's a single quote from a _patent_. Things are never what they seem; patent trolling wouldn't be profitable if they were.

<comment><USER7> IANAL, but in the US the relavant date is the invention of the patented item and not the date the patent was granted, so B&N would have to show prior art from many years ago.

<comment><USER6> But... the Nook existed prior to this patent by >6 months, implying at least a couple years of development prior to the patent. Amazon hasn't made anything with an Eink+LCD. Effectively, Amazon is trying to patent something currently selling. It'd be like my getting a patent, right now, for some major feature of the iPhone 4.

<comment><USER8> As msg points out, the patent was _submitted_ in 2006. That's the date that matters for determining "who was first?".

Also, you don't have to actually create the product to receive the patent for it. The idea is that the patent protects your right to build said product, without worrying about a faster competitor beating you to the punch.

I'm not saying I agree with how the patent system works, but how I understand it, Amazon's patent isn't affected by any product released after they _submitted_ the patent request.

<comment><USER9> Actually, in the US, the "who was first?" date is the date of invention, not the date of patent application submission. Of course, it's not always easy to prove that you invented something on a particular date, say, a date before your competitor submitted their patent application. It's especially difficult if you've been developing an idea in secret for some time before applying for the patent (though I believe there's an 18 month grace period before the USPTO will publish your patent application filing).

Or so a patent lawyer told me, anyway. It's possible I misunderstood something.

<comment><USER10> The accepted method is to log it into a patent notebook (bound book with numbered pages), and get it co-signed by someone knowledgeable enough to testify in court about the content. Signature should say 'read and understood'. This book makes good reading: Laser: The Inventor, the Nobel Laureate, and the Thirty-Year Patent War

A much better way to establish priority is to file a provisional patent, good for a year.

The book "Patent it yourself" makes good reading - not as good as working with a patent attorney, but a lot cheaper.

<comment><USER6> I suspect that'd be vulnerable to a smear attack from rich, interested opponents. It's your (two) word(s) against their patent. Better, certainly, but not iron-clad.

Sans getting it _notarized_ , of course. But that costs time and money too.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What is being creative? - <AUTHOR> http://vimeo.com/18079655

<comment><USER2> That is an incredible concept. If only something similar came out soon I would be one of the first in line.</comment>


The Real Role Of Anonymous In Occupy Wall Street - <AUTHOR> http://www.fastcompany.com/1788397/the-real-role-of-anonymous-at-occupy-wall-street

<comment><USER2> They deserve credit for jumpstarting this. The first thing I remember about OWS is that Anonymous was promoting it on Twitter. So I don't know if they are the absolute initiators of this movement, but there might not be protests today or they might've lasted only a couple of days if it wasn't for Anonymous supporting and promoting it, and trying to get as many people there as possible every day.

<comment><USER3> And they deserve credit for building alliances with existing activist networks while they were organizing Operation BART protests. Without these, Anon's impact on OWS wouldn't have been much noticed. It's a wonder to watch a the movement suddenly manifest itself in real space, after half a decade of chaos and lulz.

<comment><AUTHOR> "V for Vendetta" is becoming real!?

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta_(film)>

<comment><USER3> Not sure what you're trying to say here. Anonymous was active years before V came out, and they adopted the mask quite a while after the comic and movie popularized the image. Would you prefer they were big black guys in suits and afros? That was their symbol prior to V.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, I got shocked. I happened to watch the movie only a week ago. With the masks, the Occupy movement would look like the movie.

I hadn't noticed any clues of agitation. Now the movement looks like a terror, rather than a protest...

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Think of them in terms of what they threaten, and they seem like a failure. But measure them in attention they've brought to this cause, and they're a pretty significant success. Planned or unintentional?

</comment><comment><USER5> In addition to the accounting if Anonymous' role in things, this dabbles in a good accounting of the movement that was bubbling from many different places. Good article.

</comment><comment><USER6> What evidence is there that "anonymous" is an actual group, rather than a label that a bunch of folks self-apply when they want to do things?

I'm annoyed at Anonymous because I strongly supported their first action (picketing the Church of Scientology) but every action since then has just been stupid and destructive.

<comment><USER7> It seems to be both, it's intended to be the label that folks can self-apply, but in practice it seems there's a core group that are behind a lot of the activist stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Identifying or targeting individual police officers or bankers or protesters, for that matter, misses the entire point of the OWS concept. The banking, investment, "I got mine" culture is the common target of those occupying Wall St

</comment><comment><USER9> Publishing the names of police officers and bankers seems to me to be a remarkably stupid idea. If people start getting beaten or attacked as a result of the events in NYC whatever support that protestors currently have will quickly dry up as the news changes from peaceful protest to violent riot.

<comment><USER7> One police officer, who walked up and pepper sprayed the crap out of 2 20-yo girls who were just standing there, then walked away satisfied he'd done his job. Did you see the video? Real tough guy.

That's not to justify vigilante action against him (which hasn't happened), but I'm sure likeminded individuals are a little more aware of what could happen if you do something like that on camera in the 21st century.

I consider a chilling effect on "assaulting 20yo girls because they're hippies" to be a good thing.

<comment><USER9> "but I'm sure likeminded individuals are a little more aware of what could happen if you do something like that on camera in the 21st century."

It doesn't have to happen on camera. All it takes is one person to take it on himself administer justice, which is kind of the MO of anonymous...

<comment><USER7> I must have been careless with my pronouns. I meant likeminded as in "think it's a good idea to assault 20yo girls who are peacefully protesting".

Noone's gone after this particular asshole at his house, or even advocated that others should do so, and that's a good thing, but he should lose his job at the least. And, yes, I'm happy that there's a precedent that doing this kind of thing will get you exposed publicly for it.

<comment><USER9> "I must have been careless with my pronouns. I meant likeminded as in "think it's a good idea to assault 20yo girls who are peacefully protesting"."

If that's what you mean, I'd scrap that whole sentence.

As to advocating retribution; that's what it looks like anonymous is doing if you watch the 'doxing' video. If all they needed to do was identify the man so that he could be more effectively brought to court, there would be no reason to list his address or relatives' names. The video reads like a threat to me and I'm surprised more people aren't put off by it.

What's more, this man isn't the only one who has been threatened in this manner. I'm more concerned about the 'targeted' bankers, while they are probably unethical people and may have had a role in the financial collapse, they should not be treated to mob justice any more than anyone else.

Hopefully mob violence won't happen, but the longer the protests persist, the greater the likelihood that shit's going to go down.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Bitcoin Mixing: economic analysis and design guidelines - <AUTHOR> https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=423596.msg4610089#msg4610089 <comment><USER2> > This means any anonymity service requires a large population of > participating users, ideally with different adversaries, so that one can't > simply assume all coins passing out of the mixing service are "tainted"

This is why something like DarkWallet [1] is so important. We need a wallet that automatically and trustlessly mixes your coins in the background (via CoinJoin [2]), when you're not using them.

The wallet needs a very user friendly UI and solid integration to reach a wide and disparate audience. With mass adoption of wallets like these, it will add anonymity for everyone. With very little work on the users end.

[http://www.indiegogo.com/at/darkwallet](http://www.indiegogo.com/at/darkwallet)

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=279249.0)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone explain on a conceptual level how mixing can possibly work? I'm not thinking about implementation details, but more like boot prints in the snow. You can stamp a big mess in the snow, but no matter how much you stamp about, there is still one set of your tracks entering and one set leaving. When all the transactions are clear to see in the blockchain, all the boot prints are right there.

<comment><USER4> Imagine a bunch of people traveling in different directions in the snow. Rather than going directly towards their intended destination, everybody goes first to one particular spot, where there is one pair of boot imprints.

You walk toward the bootprint, step into it, step out of it, and then continue on your merry way.

When lots of people do the same, you see a bunch of tracks going into one bootprint, and a bunch of tracks going out. But because everybody was careful to place their feet into the one bootprint indentation, the person following your tracks won't know which of the many forward paths you took after you stepped out.

<comment><USER3> But what about the part where every boot has a distinct print? Or is that where the metaphor breaks down.

<comment><USER5> they trade/change boots at that convergent stomping point (i.e., use a new wallet address)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I don't understand the practical need for Bitcoin mixers vs. simply mixing via existing exchanges. If Bitcoin goes into an exchange and Litecoin leaves a week later, nothing in either the Bitcoin or Litecoin blockchain would link the transactions together, especially if the funds are chopped up and sent to multiple wallets so the totals are never comparable. If the worry is that the exchange itself might be subpoenaed, one can just hop through many exchanges in many different countries. It's only necessary that one exchange be opaque for the mix to be secure.

<comment><USER7> If you're moving a unique sum of money, then it's not too hard to see X BTC in, Y LTC out, L YTC in X BTC out.

Additionally, you must trust the exchanges. Leaving your coins in a 3rd party for a week means at any point during that weak, a hack or other problem might mean you lose all your money. Needing to fully trust a third party is a failure.

On top of that, as you note, you'd need to use multiple exchanges, with significant time delays. This is not user-friendly, and will lead to people making mistakes. Not to mention, it's hard to verify if a given exchange is _really_ operating under certain law, and not compromised. I'd be surprised if various LEAs haven't or aren't considering opening exchanges pretending to be safe havens.

<comment><USER6> "If you're moving a unique sum of money, then it's not too hard to see X BTC in, Y LTC out, L YTC in X BTC out."

Really? If I were to deposit BTC into BTC-e, send you the blockchain.info link for the deposit, and then in the next hour withdraw it to 5 separate wallets in any of the half-dozen altcoins they trade, how would you identify even one of those altcoin transactions as mine?

<comment><USER7> It'd depend on the volumes involved. I don't think it's out of the question to look for any grouping of outbound transfers around the amount in question and follow them as possibilities. This assumes you eventually want to do something with the mass of money. If you've got 10000 BTC and only want to cash out 100, yeah I suppose that's nearly untraceable.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Gum Expanding Dental Floss - <AUTHOR> https://www.gumbrand.com/gumr-expanding-dental-floss.html <comment><AUTHOR> Another thread ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21920556#21920754](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21920556#21920754)) made me realize that other HN readers care about dental care (duh!). Expanding floss is widely considered the most effective floss on the market.</comment>


Show HN: Owlorbit – Know where your coworkers are and keep your business running - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.timnuwin.owlorbit <comment><AUTHOR> Think of this as Slack with maps integration.

Users can create chat-rooms and see where everyone is on the map. You can get routes, create meet-up points, hide your visibility on a per-channel basis, have quick access to call or email the users. Search for common-points of interests and create a meet-up point there. From the consumer POV, it'd be really interesting if users started using the software for geo-caching. You can search for people too, which would also be interesting if certain communities joined the platform e.g. Food Trucks, Jogging Groups, or if celebrities who were doing book-signings.

In terms of security, I am storing only the very last longitude/latitude that the user sends to me and clearing previous locations. That means I am not building up a history-log of locations.

This will be free for consumers, but I will eventually charge businesses as this potentially could help bosses keep tabs on their employees or help organize companies in the event of a disaster.

So definitely sign-up as soon as possible! I'll be locking up open-beta in a few days and registration will switch to invite-only (where only registered users can invite other users).</comment>


EU to recommend that member states abolish daylight saving time - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/31/eu-recommend-member-states-abolish-daylight-saving-time <comment><USER2> As an Australian who lives in Berlin, I find this hilarious, remembering the (cretinous) debates about daylight saving back in Australia, particularly Queensland where I was born.

For 30 years, Queensland has been in a different time zone to NSW and Victoria during summer, because it has never adopted daylight savings. For this, such wonderful arguments were advanced such as "It will fade the curtains" (Wait, wat) and it will upset the cows to be milked at a different time.

And across the other side of Australia, Western Australia (always a, er, special place) has had FOUR referendums in the last 50 years on whether to adopt daylight savings. All were rejected.

So watching Europe deal with this pragmatically and quickly is quite pleasing to watch.

<comment><USER3> Growing up in Indiana, we never had daylight savings time. Standard time year- round. It was finally adopted after tireless arguing about how it was difficult for business to be an hour different from the rest of the country for half the year. Those against adopting it did use the "milking the cows" argument also.

I don't think at the time people could foresee the impact of online business, when it really doesn't matter where you are or what time it is.

<comment><USER4> Indiana was the worst. The western part (Purdue) were on central time. The rest on Eastern. For people in neighboring states it was painful.

<comment><USER5> When was the Lafayette (The purdue area) on central time? At least 23 years ago it was on eastern, though I think a couple counties to the west was central time, which was pretty common with cities dependent more on cities in Illinois than greater Indiana or Ohio. (Gary, for example, or Terre Haute might have been as well, though that memory is fuzzy).

Source: Graduated high school about an hour from there, then lived in different small towns outside of the area. Was pretty popular for folks to go party at purdue on the weekends if you knew someone there and had willing enough parents. This was both before the adopted DST and after.

<comment><USER4> Hmm... I may have been wrong. I guess the confusion is that some counties followed DST, and some didn't. And then some were on Central and some on Eastern.

<comment><USER6> > And then some were on Central and some on Eastern.

Currently are

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> About time! If people want to get up earlier or later, then they should do like the Iranians and go to work one hour earlier in the summer. Don't change the clocks.

<comment><USER8> I agree, and you could even extrapolate that thought to getting rid of timezones altogether and adopting UTC everywhere.

Also, I'm not sure if it was intentional, but I appreciate your pun. It is indeed about time.

<comment><USER9> Time zone are very useful for news, travelling, business, etc. Because if you know it's 3pm somewhere or 3am, you can make assumptions. If you know it's 3am everywhere, what does that mean that your plane land at 8 am in this countey or that the strike will start at 10 on that one ?

<comment><USER10> How often do you travel to another country compared to how often you phone someone in another country? Local timezones do indeed make a lot of sense for travelling in person, but global time is much better for scheduling conference calls etc., and these days that's the more common case.

<comment><USER11> It's terrible for scheduling conference calls. Instead of just converting timezones, you have to remember what a reasonable time of day is in each locality.

Or do you just expect Australia to adopt a nocturnal working pattern so they can use UTC?

<comment><USER12> Remembering what's a reasonable time of day in each locality is the same amount of information as remembering what their timezones are. Instead of asking what timezone, you'd just ask when are work hours, or when is noon.

<comment><USER13> > ask when are work hours

"Nine to five, what a way to make a living... "

> or when is noon.

12 PM. Noon means 12 PM. Changing this isn't really an option.

More to the point:

> Remembering what's a reasonable time of day in each locality is the same > amount of information as remembering what their timezones are.

Hey, admitting your proposed change is a Bavarian Fire Drill is the first step towards recovery.

<comment><USER12> Noon also means when the sun is highest in the sky. If everyone uses the same timezone, one of these two meanings must be broken. It makes more sense to keep the definition that doesn't have an alternative name (you can always call 12:00 12:00).

> Nine to five

No? If everyone's on the same time zone, the answer to this is different everywhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The reality is the time the sun rises changes throughout the year. To fix reality, we adjust the definition of time.

If an activity depends on the sunrise, and not the position of the hands on the clock, then maybe they should, I dunno, schedule around the sun instead of the clock. I know, seems like crazy talk. Farmers should have farming clocks, not break everybody else's clock to align with the sun.

<comment><USER15> There's no need to change time itself.

All you need to do is change your schedule.

<comment><USER16> > All you need to do is change your schedule.

Easy for you to say. Not so easy when you work in an industry with shifts (nursing, doctors, retail, manufacturing, etc). Not everybody gets the luxury of a flex schedule.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If it means people stop telling me I'm in UTC in the summer, this would be fantastic.

"we'll meet at four your time"

"great!"

"why weren't you there?? I googled 'current time utc!!'"

"because we're on BST, aka IST, aka UTC+1 in the summer"

But this rando website says UK/Ireland is UTC!!

Someday, somehow, we'll teach people that if you're using PST in the summer, there's a 99% chance you're wrong.

<comment><USER18> yeah, I've had Americans say 6AM EST during the summer when it's EDT

<comment><USER19> This error can be sidestepped by stating "Eastern".

<comment><USER20> Problem is that there aren't any widely-accepted acronyms for time zones in the United States that don't include the current daylight savings time status. Eastern is way longer than EDT.

<comment><USER19> 7 PM ET [1]

6 PM CT

5 PM MT

4 PM PT

? :)

[1] [https://www.google.com/search?q=%227+pm+ET%22](https://www.google.com/search?q=%227+pm+ET%22)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> The most surprising here isn't the landslide 80% in favor. It's the 4.6 million responses [0] for this type of citizen consultation. That's huge.

Hopefully t's will get crossed and i's will get dotted before winter time kicks in this year.

[0]: [https://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2018/08/31/la- commissi...](https://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2018/08/31/la-commission- europeenne-prone-la-fin-de-l-heure-d-hiver_5348420_3214.html)

<comment><USER22> I answered the poll. I'm happy with the current system but I answered that if we have to change it I'd take permanent daylight savings, which is what they are proposing now. The rationale is that I like to have light late in summer. Early morning will be colder in winter but it's always too cold anyway so who cares.

As a reference, Spain has been in the wrong time zone for decades (GMT+1 instead of GMT) but they have no problems with that.

<comment><USER23> >As a reference, Spain has been in the wrong time zone for decades (GMT+1 instead of GMT) but they have no problems with that.

Only that their lifestyle is approximateley 1 hour shifted. Stuff like eating at 21:00 or 22:00.

<comment><USER24> Portugal eats at that same time and aren't shifted one hour. Dinner is just later than most for us southerners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I see that most people here (and people I know) would like to keep the "summer time" all year, because they like to get out early from work. But why not start working at 7am instead of 8am, while keeping the "true" solar horary, instead of our clocks be almost 1,5h away from the reality? Time is relative, I guess.. :)

<comment><USER26> If your job requires no interaction with the rest of society, that would work. As it is, people's lives ironically revolve around the clock and not the sun, so you're expected to be available from a certain hour of the day to a certain hour of the day regardless of the position of the sun.

<comment><USER27> In general I suppose I'd prefer to get off work around 10 am or so (if we're adjusting work to fit daylight to our free time). But I suppose there's indeed a cultural bias towards dragging everyone (in offices anyway) to 8-16 rather than 7-15 or 9-17.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> They are also saying that each country then can choose if they want to keep winter or summer time... That's going to be chaotic!

Imho the summertime should be abolished for all member states..

<comment><USER29> Nah...summertime is actually the better one. You get more light in the evening, rather than at 4 in the morning.

<comment><USER30> In the end does it matter though?

I mean, if it had a proven benefit for kids, schools could start at different hours depending on the seasons.

Companies can decide to start at 10 or 8 instead of 9, etc.

More light in the evening doesn't seem to make sense to me as we are the ones deciding when is "evening"

<comment><USER31> Serious question: In other parts of the country or world, do "companies" all open at the same time? They certainly do not, anywhere I've ever lived. If that is the case, that must be an interesting lifestyle. How does anyone get anything done if there's never a non-overlapping interval of "the bank is open but my employer is closed" type of problem?

I've also lived almost all my life in a "recreational paradise" state far from the coasts where its totally normal for there to be at least one, often many, "in-season" work hours vs "out-season" work hour thru the year. Much like agonizing over average temperatures is heard but isn't an issue, its not a problem for the millions who live around here.

<comment><USER32> > How does anyone get anything done if there's never a non-overlapping > interval of "the bank is open but my employer is closed" type of problem?

This is a fairly big problem in modern life, as far as I can see.

Traditionally, I assume what happened was that you worked at your employer, and your wife went to the bank.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Can we just stick to the Daylight time year round?

I am 100% for getting rid of this dumb system.

<comment><USER34> Russia tried switching to summer time permanently, it didn't work. If you need to pick, you need to go for winter time all year round. Otherwise you get really dark winters in Northern Europe, but people forget that, because they want sunlit evenings in the summer time.

<comment><USER35> This doesn't make any sense. I'm in semi-northern Europe and we get like 6-hours of light at the lowest point. How does it make the winter darker if that light is from 10-16 rather than 9-15 ?

Better to have the light even later in winter, instead of while inside during work, like 14-20.

<comment><USER34> It may seem like it would be better, but the russians actually tried it, and it turns out that's it's not. The argument in Russia was that permanent summer time cause stress and health issues ([https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/russia-abandons- perman...](https://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/russia-abandons-permanent- summer-time.html)).

The part that's weird is that everyone have arguments as to why DST would be better, but the country that actually tried it switch to permanent winter time after few years.

Between 1948 and 1981 Denmark didn't even have summer time and Germany managed just fine without DST from 1949 to 1980, so why can't we go back to not having it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Thrilled they're considering this, but my first thought was "I wonder how many time and date libraries will fail to adjust correctly?"

I'm sure that for the well designed ones it's just a matter of configuration somewhere ... But there will definitely be some fun and weird time bugs in the near future

<comment><USER37> DST rules and timezones in general already change all the time. This is why having automatic updates for packages like tzdata or pytz is important.

<comment><USER38> Another example: unlike leap days, leap seconds don't get added at predictable intervals.

<comment><USER39> The vast majority of systems can ignore leap seconds, though.

<comment><USER38> Can you elaborate? Most of the date time libraries I've encountered support them, and it seems like knowing when something happened would be pretty important generally.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> On top of that DST is one of the nastiest things when dealing with time / date in CS.

I'm scared as well that there will be another edge case when the DST is being demolished from EU as the time calculation in the past and the future will have another "if" clause.

<comment><USER41> tzdata is a database about time and it has all this builtin. Even dates when countries switched from one system to another. So if your code uses the tzdata database through a library, you probably don't have to do anything.

<comment><USER42> Yeah, and as a database of time changes over the last 50 years, it's not going to go away, as you'll need it for historical dates, and for other time zone changes that occur anyways.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Fantastic! Though I'm getting a vision of the future ~50 years from now where the US is one of the two countries in the world still practicing daylight savings.

<comment><USER44> Some states in the US already don't switch.

<comment><USER45> From what I can find, only two at the moment: Arizona and Hawaii (and most of the overseas territories).

Florida is on its way to abolish switching, but it's not there yet.

<comment><USER46> Indiana just fully switched over to _using_ DST in 2006[1]

[1][https://www.timeanddate.com/time/us/indiana- time.html](https://www.timeanddate.com/time/us/indiana-time.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> It's worth noting that Greece, Cyprus, Malta and in a lesser extent Italy were the only ones supporting the existing system. All the other countries are clearly in favor of abolishing the change. Strange that Spain and Portugal didn't vote like the remaining southern EU countries.

Here is the official link to the preliminary results: [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-5302_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-5302_en.htm)

Not a lot of people participated, less than 1%, so the results should be taken with a grain of salt.

<comment><USER48> 4.6 million people is "not a lot"?

<comment><USER49> Not as much as the 512.6 million it might affect.

<comment><USER48> Well, it's representative enough for an _opinion poll_ , which this was.

<comment><USER49> If it were truly random it would be more than enough even, the real problem here is bias which is hard to rule out.

Frankly if you could guarantee a truly random sample you wouldn't need much more than a few thousand people to give their vote on pretty much anything, but the reason we still have elections is because it's nigh impossible to rule out any kind of bias.

<comment><USER48> Sure. Which is, again, why this was not an election - the resulting _proposal,_ if any, will need to be ratified by each of the member states. (Which is where elections, referenda etc. come in)

<comment><USER48> _Et voila_ :

"How and when would these changes become effective?

The European Commission's proposal will now go to the European Parliament and the Council for their agreement.

To allow for a smooth transition, under the Commission's proposal each Member State would notify by April 2019 whether it intends to apply permanent summer- or wintertime. The last mandatory change to summertime would take place on Sunday 31 March 2019. After this, the Member States wishing to permanently switch back to wintertime would still be able to make one last seasonal clock change on Sunday 27 October 2019. Following that date, seasonal clock changes would no longer be possible.

This timeline is conditional on the European Parliament and the Council adopting the Commission's proposal by March 2019 at the latest." [http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-5709_en.htm](http://europa.eu/rapid/press- release_IP-18-5709_en.htm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Dammit. If they made daylight savings time permanent, I'd be thrilled.

The switch is only a brief adjustment. But having an extra hour of daylight in the early evening for half a year makes a huge difference.

<comment><USER51> If you read the article, you will find that they _do_ propose to make daylight saving time (they call it "summer time") permanent.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Fantastic! Changing the clocks wrecks people's sleep cycles and indirectly causes accidents. Pick a time and stick to it!

<comment><USER53> > Fantastic! Changing the clocks wrecks people's sleep cycles

By this logic, let's suppress week-ends, and holidays. And evenings out as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> Daylight time or standard time -- I don't care. Just pick one and stop changing it twice a year. There's plenty of evidence that messing with the clock doesn't do any good.

</comment><comment><USER55> I wonder if anyone has looked at the complexity¹ of maintaining timezones in software before raising as a solution for every member state decide for themselves whether to abolish or not. It will be an absolute nightmare. It's going to be hours of code audit and consulting gigs like it's 1999 (I mean Y2K).

__

¹ The Problem with Time & Timezones [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm- gesOY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5wpm-gesOY)

<comment><USER26> TBH, if you've rolled your own time handling logic you were already in a special kind of hell. But time zone changes aren't that irregular, so it should be pretty straightforward for library maintainers to fix the timezones up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> As someone who deals with date/time on computers I can only say "about damn time". Time is a goddamn mess already, no need to complicate it even further.

<comment><USER57> You shouldn't be too happy until the entire world gets on board. Now you just have another conditional branch to follow for a certain region. Complexity increase :(

Even with the entire world on board there's probably a conditional branch per region where you do things differently based on whether the date is before or after the change went into effect. Maybe this is just a problem for the authors of Date/Time libraries though :)

<comment><USER56> That complexity is already there. Different regions have different rules already, even in the US there are states/municipalities that don't do DST so their relative offset from their neighbors changes twice a year.

The day I am made God Emperor of Earth I will institute a single time standard for the entire planet. No timezones, no AM/PM nonsense, no daylight savings time, nothing. If it means you're getting up at 14:00 and going to bed when the sun sets at 06:00 then that's just how it is. I would also not worry about leap seconds until you get 60 of them and need to do a full minute change. This would be about a once a century thing. Leap years sadly still need to be a thing to prevent the calendar from wandering off.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I'm going to go against the grain and advocate in favor of daylight saving time, mostly because the alternatives are worse. Dr. Drang lays out the reasons nicely:

[http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/03/why-i-like- dst/](http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/03/why-i-like-dst/)

>If we stayed on Standard Time throughout the year, sunrise here in the Chicago area would be between 4:15 and 4:30 am from the middle of May through the middle of July. And if you check the times for civil twilight, which is when it's bright enough to see without artificial light, you'll find that that starts half an hour earlier. This is insane and a complete waste of sunlight.

>If, by the way, you think the solution is to stay on DST throughout the year, I can only tell you that we tried that back in the 70s and it didn't turn out well. Sunrise here in Chicago was after 8:00 am, which put school children out on the street at bus stops before dawn in the dead of winter. And if you're wondering why I'm not accounting for predawn light in this case, it's because winter skies tend to be more overcast and don't provide as much twilight as summer skies do.

<comment><USER59> I wasn't aware Chicago is in Europe.

Jokes aside, as a kid growing up in Germany I already went to school in the dark in winter even with DST. Having permanent summer time won't change that. It's also a total non-issue because Europe isn't as dangerous to pedestrians as the US and fears of "stranger danger" aren't nearly as widespread.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Their recommendation is not to "abolish" Daylight Saving Time, but to _commit_ to it and make it the year-round standard.

</comment><comment><USER61> As a parent with young kids will tell you it takes a couple weeks for our family to recover from the twice yearly switch. It is also depression for me when I lose that hour of daylight in the fall. My body doesn't get the benefit of a gradual change in daylight from season to season.

I hope that it can be abolished in the US too.

<comment><USER62> this was exactly my reasoning when participating in this survey, you could provide additional comments for them and small children was my reasoning

it's annoying but bearable for adults, but it's torture for children who need routine

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Everybody should abolish DST. That 1 hour loss in sleep time spikes the rate of heart attacks by 24%. Reversing DST decreases the rate of heart attacks by 21%.

[https://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000019](https://openheart.bmj.com/content/1/1/e000019)

</comment><comment><USER64> California will also vote in November on whether to stop daylight savings time changes, either by getting rid of daylight savings time or making it permanent:

* [San Francisco Chronicle] California voters will get a say on year-round daylight-saving time: [https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/amp/California-voters-will-...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/amp/California-voters-will-get-a-say-on-year-round-13035491.php)

* [Ballotpedia] California Proposition 7, Permanent Daylight Saving Time Measure (2018): [https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_7,_Permanent_...](https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_7,_Permanent_Daylight_Saving_Time_Measure_\(2018\))

<comment><USER65> Just to clarify for anyone that hasn't clicked through.

Even if this passes, two conditions must apply first:

1\. The US Federal Government has to change the law to allow States to make DST permanent. You can choose to not have DST at all, or you can apply DST on an annual basis, but presently Federal law makes no provisions for making DST permanent.

2\. A Bill would have to be drafted and passed through the California legislature with a two-thirds majority after the Federal law changes.

All this does is give the legislature the option, to maybe change to permanent DST, if Federal law ever changes to make it legally possible.

Personally I will still vote for it, I enjoy long Summer evenings with sunsets at 9pm and walks along Ocean Beach, but if you are planning to vote for or against it, just want everyone reading this to know what you are really voting on. By itself, this ballot measure does nothing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Good, the switch fucks with my internal day/night clock every time. Takes several days to adjust.

</comment><comment><USER67> I'm in the minority here but I like DST. I like it when it's 11 and still sunlight outside when I'm coming out of dinner.

The advantage of DST is that all the times of other shops changes in a way that makes the summer time ideal for me in Spain and France

<comment><USER68> Do you like DST or do you like evening light? Because those don't have to be the same thing. When I was in France, it was still bright out after 9pm. You'd have to add another hour on top of DST to get that in the States.

<comment><USER67> I like the evening light which means that DST is great in France and losing it would reduce evening light by one hour.

To be fair, if I had a choice, I would prefer DST to also apply in winter so to switch the timezone of France by one hour.

<comment><USER68> The first sentence of the article:

"The European commission will recommend that EU member states abandon the practice of changing the clocks in spring and autumn, with many people in favour of staying on summer time throughout the year."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> Russia has done this already in 2014: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Russia#Daylight_saving...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Russia#Daylight_saving_time)

</comment><comment><USER70> Many people in northern countries or parts of countries farther north like using DST. It was noted some parts of Scotland wouldn't otherwise see daylight until 10am.

I'm in Canada at about 46 degrees latitude and it's quite dark here in the morning in winter once DST ends in November (it used to end in October). London and Glasgow are 51 and 55 respectively so their much worse than my region.

</comment><comment><USER71> I think it's interesting how there are two common threads in the comments:

1) People don't like switching twice a year.

2) People have a preference for summer time or winter time based on the perceived benefits of the existing system in the summer or winter.

I wonder if there is a certain wisdom to time shifting that people are ignoring. For those of you who would prefer permanent summer time would you rather get permanent winter time or the existing system?

</comment><comment><USER72> Finally! It was about time to end this annoying practice.

</comment><comment><USER73> My order of preference:

Summer time only: great, less dark winter evenings!

Daylight saving: meh... why do they make the already dark winters even darker?

Winter time only: nooooooooooo!

<comment><USER74> Well, this change will piss off half the population, because my preferences are exactly the other way around. Astronomical time is the best, because it syncs with the sun. Summer time means having to get up too early and doesn't play well with my biological clock. Heck, it will be even worse on teens going to school who need their sleep the most and whose biological clocks absolutely do not respect our silly numbers. I always loved when summer ended and I didn't have to wake up so early to go to school. Those few months on summer time were torture. I wouldn't want to inflict it on everyone year-round for any reason.

<comment><USER73> In winter it gets dark at 16h to 17h. Nobody (except those with night shifts, ...), not even the earliest bird, goes to sleep that early, so you don't lose that light.

In the morning, half the population loses that lightness, so they should shift it to where most people can benefit from it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> Everyone wants to abolish DST; fine. But they want to "abolish" it by making it _permanent_. They want that evening light in the summer far too much to give it up. Now, in the winter, the already short day will start an hour later; you will wake up at night. Sunrise is 8:13am, for example, in Boston, at its extreme, under such a scheme.

And as an engineer, it is just so arbitrarily decoupled from anything natural, like the sun. Sure, standard time was already based on mean time which was based on solar time … it's already quite removed. But the reasons for those steps were much more sound, IMO.

I look forward to the day in the far future when the malcontents, dissatisfied with waking up at night, create a system to shift an hour from the evening to the morning in the winter, and establish Winter Saving Time, or WST…

</comment><comment><USER76> Here in Finland, sunrise and sunset shift quite a bit. During year sunrise shifts from 4AM in summer to 9AM in winter and sunset from 11PM to 3PM. Shifting one hour for DST doesn't really fix it.

</comment><comment><USER77> Title is wrong. They want to go on permanent daylight saving time.

</comment><comment><USER78> Hopefully all the countries will agree on this together. It would be quite inconvenient if ever country would have a different time.

<comment><USER79> Not all EU members are on the same timezone already.

<comment><USER80> But most _are_ and breaking up that big CET block would be inconvenient.

<comment><USER81> The CET should be smaller. Spain should be on the western time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> > The European commission will recommend that EU member states abandon the > practice of changing the clocks in spring and autumn, with many people in > favour of staying on summer time throughout the year.

Eliminating the annual time change makes huge amounts of sense, but _why_ stay on incorrect time all year? Why not just be on the real time year-round?

<comment><USER83> Define "real".

Time is arbitrary anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Thank goodness, this is the most annoying thing that I've had to face.

</comment><comment><USER85> What percentage of software development work will this eliminate?

<comment><USER86> It will increase it, as now any local time calculations will need to take into account which country the user is currently in, whether the country has passed a law terminating daylight savings time, and whether the law has now taken effect (which may or may not be as simple as checking the year).

So basically, it creates a bunch of additional time zones that will activate depending on the current year.

<comment><USER87> > Any local time calculations will need to take into account which country the > user is currently in, whether the country has passed a law terminating > daylight savings time, and whether the law has now taken effect.

I mean, isn't this why stuff such as tzdata exist? Countries already do this. Not every country in the world is already following DST, so you must know which country the time calculation being performed on, because the result may vary. In fact, it's interesting to navigate through the public tz mailing list [1] because it turns out that countries or regions along the world still like to change whether DST is being enforced or not, and if they enforce it, at which point of the year the clock shifts forward or backward.

Any local time calculation that doesn't already take into account the region and the current year could be wrong, that's why getting timezones right in software is difficult.

[1]: [https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/](https://mm.icann.org/pipermail/tz/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER88> 3 minutes till a comment suggesting we all be on GMT

<comment><USER89> Already happened lol. Come visit our shop, open from 01:47 UTC to 16:23 UTC!

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> OK, time (no pun intended) for something new, which address most of the concerns both with keeping DST and getting rid of DST, with the added advantage of providing a reasonable path to making eventually shifting our clocks to UTC acceptable. I'll call it "TZS Time".

If we want to change the starting time of schools, the opening time of businesses, etc., twice a year to accommodate the changing daylight patterns of the seasons--and apparently we do want to because most proposals to get rid of DST seem to include proposals to seasonally change the clock time when those events occur--there are two obvious ways to do it.

1\. Change the clock time at which things start twice a year.

2\. Change the clocks twice a year.

Start times are printed on signs and in documents, which are a pain to update. They are also on web sites with are not as hard to update, but still often require manual intervention.

Clocks, on the other hand, are designed to be easy to update. For an already large and ever growing subset of the population who get all their time from their computers, mobile devices, and other internet-connect devices that sync with time servers, updates are automatic.

Changing clocks twice a year, therefore, is probably a lot easier than changing start times twice a year, unless something is done about the difficulty of updating signs and the rest.

At the cost of one annoying update year, we could address the sign problem by replacing them with signs that print both the summer hours and winter hours. That would probably cause problems around the transition dates as many people do get confused for a few days then over whether or not things have switched.

That brings us to TZS Time.

1\. We define a new time of day called "DAY START" (D).

2\. In places that do not want to do seasonal changes of starting times, D is 6:00 clock time. In places that do want to do seasonal changes, D changes between 6:00 and 5:00.

3\. Clocks would be enhanced to display both regular time, which does not change seasonally, and to show the difference between the current time and D [1]. E.g., if you are in PST on the day before the seasonal change and it is 11:34, your clock would tell you it is 11:34 and it is D+5:34. 24 hours later, after the seasonal change, your clock would again say the time is 11:34, but now it would say that is D+6:34.

4\. Signs would have to be updated once to include D times. E.g., a sign that under the present system where the clocks change says:

      Open:  9:00 AM
      Close: 8:00 PM

would need a one time change to:

             Winter    Summer
      Open:  9:00 AM   8:00 AM   D+ 3:00
      Close: 8:00 PM   7:00 PM   D+14:00

(For signs that you don't want to expand, I'd omit the Winter and Summer columns and just show the D times).

5\. D times would be more convenient than clock time when talking about local events. E.g., instead of asking for a lunch with someone at 12:00 PM or 11:00 AM, depending on the time of year, you'd say D+6 all year.

6\. Over time, people would end up using D times for most of their daily time keeping. Direct clock times would be mostly used when dealing with things outside your time zone or things that should NOT change seasonally. At that point it might become easier to have your clock show UTC instead of your time zone's clock time. For example, if you are in UTC-8, your clock would show UTC, and D+0 would be at 14:00 in the winter and 13:00 in the summer.

7\. (Optional) None of the above addresses the DST problem of the one hour sudden change in start times twice a year messing up sleep schedules and other biological rhythms. At some point almost everyone will be getting their times (clock and D) from devices that have decent computing power and internet connections to time servers. At that point, we might want to consider changing from a one hour jump twice a year to smaller jumps more often.

If it is handled automatically by all the clocks, I don't see any reason that the offset between D and UTC in a given time zone should not change frequently, even daily. This should eliminate all disruption of sleep schedules and other biological rhythms.

[1] For 7 segment displays, or other displays that don't have room for an extra symbol, we could reserve 3 special 7 segment patterns, such as 1, 2, or 3 horizontal bars, to indicate that the display is showing D time. The display could be Hx:MM where x is one of the special patterns. x = 1 bar could mean it is D+0H:MM, 2 bars could mean D+1H:MM, and 3 bars could mean D+2H:MM.

</comment><comment><USER91> Obligatory XKCD reference:

[https://xkcd.com/673/](https://xkcd.com/673/)

</comment><comment><USER92> oh thank god

</comment><comment><USER93> Yay!

</comment><comment><USER94> So long as here in the UK (you know, as if we were part of the EU anyway...) we could stick with BST all year round, then definitely!

<comment><USER95> Nah, we will hang on to GMT on some sort of half-arsed "principle" and hang the inconvenience. Anything else would be admitting that the EU is right about something.

<comment><USER96> GMT is the time from which all other times are derived. It's not going anywhere.

<comment><USER97> But BST (British Summer Time) is GMT + 1 hour.

So e.g. London and Berlin always has a constant 1 hour difference (they both switch to summer time and back at the same moment). I used to live at GMT+7, I just realize now that this doesn't mean I was always 7 hours away from London, in summer I would've been 6 hours away.

Edit: I just realized you're replying to a comment about GMT, not about BST.

GMT is theoretically the old name anyway, it's UTC nowadays.

<comment><USER98> But do hey switch at the same moment... or one hour apart?

<comment><USER99> They switch at the same moment, they're both defined to switch at 0100 UTC. So in London it will go from 0059 to 0200 in the Spring, and from 0159 to 0100 in the Autumn

In Berlin it goes from 0159 to 0300 in Spring and from 0259 to 0200 in the Autumn.

Making the change at 0100 UTC is pretty convenient if your timezone is close to the zero line, because most people will be asleep or at least in bed and won't care. It's not so practical near the dateline where 0100 UTC is the middle of the day.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Color-changing ink turns clothes into giant chemical sensors - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/color-changing-ink-turns-clothes-into-giant-chemical-sensors/ <comment><USER2> If you want to see state of the art 40 years ago there's Army M9 detector paper which is this concept applied to tape instead of fabric, and detecting multiple chemical agents instead of lactate.

Using pH to determine intensity is ingenious.

My experience in the Army was

1) Supply is enough of a hassle under normal circumstances such that having to replace after it detects is a pain.

2) It was always unclear if a faint color change meant a minor exposure or some kind of contaminant laundry malfunction type thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> In the early 90s hypercolor shirts would change color depending on the temperature.

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

<comment><USER4> Non-mobile link: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercolor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercolor)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> And with the slightest, tiniest scroll movement accidentally made with my thumb on my mobile, the cookie popup disappeared. Since I'm scrolling that must mean I consent to being tracked, right?

<comment><USER6> Not to disagree with your premise, but if you scrolled back to the top, the cookie consent box reappears. It just hides so you can read the article when you scroll which by itself isn't bad. It's not clear it assumes consent but it's also not clear it doesn't.

IMHO the cookie consent box is a flawed premise from the start, it's annoying to the user (especially on mobile where it takes half the screen) and there is no way to verify it is actually implemented correctly and doesn't just track you anyway regardless of what you do - hence your comment above.

If one really decides a first party cookie is a privilege rather than a simple data storage primitive on the web because it's been abused by google analytics etc, this is something you can set your browser to ask for permission each time or a content blocker to avoid from sources like Google. Keep in mind, that does affect the site's ability to understand which of it's content is most popular which is not bad on its own - but yes there are workarounds to this too like server logs which are probably more reliable anyway.

This cookie box is the most annoying side effect of GDPR with almost no benefit as it's riddled with dark patterns and "compliant" sites that don't respect the spirit of the law, just the letter.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> My mom told me a few times that, as a little girl, she wished she could see peoples' farts. Their color would depend on what they ate. I hope they hurry so my mother's childhood dream comes true.</comment>