Stand With Greece - <AUTHOR> http://standwithgreece.com/ <comment><USER3> Can someone explain to me if and why I'm wrong to think of Greece as a deadbeat? I understand the point that they were forced to make cuts in exchange for loans, and this only further depressed their economy, but where did that money go and shouldn't the government and people be accountable for it?

Also, even if they were wrong to do so, something must have caused creditors to demand austerity, have those issues been solved? If Greece was given a clean slate, would it be a healthy, productive and growing economy?

There are a lot of places in the world where people have horrible social support. I don't wish it for anyone, but that's the reality for a lot of places. Maybe that ought to be the reality for Greece? Work until you die, third rate health care and infrastructure. I'm not happy to see it, but if you can afford more, energy is something that must be produced.

<comment><USER4> I'm sorry, I realize that you're asking for clarification, but it is really frustrating to keep hearing this kind of crap. Greece the country didn't borrow all (or even most) of that money, private borrowers borrowed it from German banks (or Greek banks that borrowed it from German banks). The money ended up as public debt because the banks got bailed out.

The reasons for this were complex, but had a lot of do with German fiscal and labor policy. Once the loans turned out to be bad (because why on Earth did the banks expect that all of these funds could possibly to put to good, productive use, especially once credit standards were lowered), Greece was expected to deal with the situation. They did, and they bankrupted the country doing so (same with Portugal, Spain, and Ireland).

There is, of course, plenty of blame to go around, but this _is not_ a situation where the Greek government borrowed a ton of money and wasted it. They borrowed a ton of money to bail out their banking system _including_ a bunch of German banks (which is where a lot of the money originated). This is exactly what the global economic elites were telling everyone to do in 2008. Then, once things got ugly, those same elites decided that the Greek people should collectively pay the price for two bad economic policies that were only partially the fault of their government.

Suggested reading:

[http://www.amazon.com/Austerity-The-History-Dangerous- Idea/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Austerity-The-History-Dangerous- Idea/dp/019982830X) \- this book goes into great depth about what exactly happened in Europe.

[http://blog.mpettis.com/2015/02/syriza-and-the-french- indemn...](http://blog.mpettis.com/2015/02/syriza-and-the-french-indemnity- of-1871-73/) \- blog post that describes how what has happened in Greece, Spain, and Portugal was effectively inevitable and not the fault of the respective governments so much as it was a result of a series of pan-European financial blunders.

<comment><USER5> "Greece the country didn't borrow all (or even most) of that money, private borrowers borrowed it from German banks (or Greek banks that borrowed it from German banks). The money ended up as public debt because the banks got bailed out."

In the US there was quite a series of legal moves requiring banks to lend mortgages to people who didn't previously meet the banks criteria. Were German banks similarly compelled or was it just bad judgement of the banks?

<comment><USER6> Could you be specific about these legal moves? Are you referring to the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)[1]? Most of the subprime lending was done by banks that weren't held to those standards [2]. And CRA conformant loans have had better repayment records than the bulk of the pre-crisis securitized subprime lending.

I believe it was bad judgement^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H a business decision on the part of the bank(s).

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_Reinvestment_Act) [2] [http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/most-subprime- lenders-w...](http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/most-subprime-lenders- werent-covered-by-cra/)

<comment><USER5> Yes, the CRA as modified by follow-up legislation. Your [2] actually gets its data from an article in the Orange County Register [3] which claims to do an analysis of a database that they do not provide or reference.

A article of history [4] and the numerous WSJ articles provide a pretty clear picture. CRA had some very foolish amendments including some that affected the deployment of ATMs of all things.

It wasn't the single cause, but it was a major player.

Which brings me back to my original question "Were German banks compelled to make bad loans or was it their failed risk judgement?"

3) [http://www.ocregister.com/articles/loans-20542-subprime- bank...](http://www.ocregister.com/articles/loans-20542-subprime-banks.html)

4) [http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users- guide-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-cra-debate-a-users-guide-2009-6)

<comment><USER7> >It wasn't the single cause, but it was a major player.

It wasn't a cause at all, as I pointed out above (with citations to the relevant studies).

The line you keep spinning is the same line used by the banks as they tried to dodge responsibility for the subprime crisis: blaming it on Congress "forcing" them to lend to black people.

<comment><USER5> Wow, bringing race into this? really? Nope, not going to discuss anything with someone who substitutes race to win an argument when we are talking about economics. Unable to pay has nothing to do with race. This is a shameful tactic.

<comment><USER7> >Wow, bringing race into this? really?

The Community Reinvestment Act was at its heart about ending redlining of poor, black neighborhoods.

This is not at all a controversial part of the story.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Comparing the Greek economy now to where it was in 2008 is disingenuous. The Greek economy was thriving last decade due to a program of systematic fraud by the government; complaining about the decline since then is like bemoaning the fact that you have to take the bus after the police seized the car which you stole.

<comment><USER9> > complaining about the decline since then is like bemoaning the fact that you > have to take the bus after the police seized the car which you stole.

More like, complaining that you have to take the bus after the police seized the car which _other people_ stole and sold to you at full price.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Most of the slides show the effect of devastation of the Greek economy and social net.

Slides 5 and 6 can be a bit misleading since it only shows that in Greece the monthly minimum wage is 586 Euros. This number is still higher than some countries of the Euro Zone, and people may think that it is pretty fine.

In order to understand the crisis you have to consider that the minimum wage in 2008 was 794.02. In addition to that some people settle with salaries as low as 300-400 out of fear to lose the jobs they have in struggling small businesses. 25% unemployment is really an underestimate since people who have lost their short-temp jobs or never had any job or are in some kind of educational program are not counted as unemployed.

Now take into consideration that salaries were pretty predictable for decades and people made their plans, mortgages etc, and you get a taste of what is happening...

</comment><comment><USER11> The problem with allowing Greece to not pay the debt or part of the debt is what happens with the rest of the countries that are not only contributing with Greece (Spain alone I believe has given 26bn € to Greece) but are also enduring harsh economic measures to put their economies in order?

<comment><USER12> > what happens with the rest of the countries that are not only contributing > with Greece (Spain alone I believe has given 26bn € to Greece) but are also > enduring harsh economic measures to put their economies in order

They should exit the Euro. Better to default, deal with the temporary pain, and re-emerge vs being shackled to austerity-induced slavery. Like Iceland did.

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/financial- recover...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/financial-recovery-of- iceland-a-case-worth-studying-a-942387.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This was a great way to see the human cost of economic stagnation and austerity in Greece, but it doesn't talk about the causes of these issues or the best way forward. Like others have said, there are many countries worldwide with poor quality of life and poor economic growth , but what caused it in Greece and what can be done to fix it? Playing into a game of picking sides in Greece versus the big bad EU powers doesn't seem credible or productive to me.

</comment><comment><USER7> They missed perhaps the most awful kick in the teeth by austerity - <USER2> can't get lifesaving drugs:

[http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240531119044917045765747...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111904491704576574791877220786)

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/03/us-greece-drugs- id...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/03/us-greece-drugs- idUSBRE8A205Z20121103)

</comment><comment><USER14> Not sure I get the call to action here. What does it mean to "stand with Greece"?

</comment><comment><USER15>
        if(getCookie("blah") == 0){
               $.post("../count2.php",

etc.

If you _really_ want to show your support for Greece, you certainly can.

</comment><comment><USER16> Austerity for the sake of austerity must end.

</comment><comment><USER17> Pure capitalism does not care about people.

<comment><USER18> Who do you sell to?

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> <sarcasm>Great. Programmers talking as if we were economists. Here we go.</sarcasm></comment>


Modes, Medians and Means: A Unifying Perspective (2013) - <AUTHOR> http://www.johnmyleswhite.com/notebook/2013/03/22/modes-medians-and-means-an-unifying-perspective/ <comment><USER2> One can generalize this approach further to take any given loss function, not just a p-norm, and ask what statistic is achieved by minimizing loss.

A field that studies this is called property elicitation, from the idea that the loss function elicits a certain kind of prediction be it mean, mode, etc.

This field actually originated with human experts like weather forecasters - what is a loss function (or "scoring rule") that incents them to predict accurately? Squared loss is good if by accurately we imply we want the mean.

One fact people find surprising is that squared loss is not the only one that elicits the mean. There is an entire family of losses that do, including KL divergence.

<comment><USER3> This approach is also used to extend concepts like the median into higher dimensions and non-euclidian spaces.

What is the "median" or "mean" of a set of points located on the surface of a sphere, or a torus, or some more complicated manifold (which may only be defined implicitly by a distance function)? If you try to start from the one- dimensional definition it's not really clear. You can define such concepts, however, by minimizing the corresponding norms. If you minimize the sum of L1 norms then you get something like a median. If you minimize the sum of L2 norms then you get something like a mean. Once you have something like a mean you can also define something like a variance.

Wikipedia has a short article about the concept [1]. It really deserves more treatment, as it's a central (no pun in intended) idea in topological data analysis [2].

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9chet_mean](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9chet_mean)

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I've come back to this very page a number of times over the years and I've always been dissatisfied with how it glosses over _why_ E_1 implies we should take the median, and E_2 implies we should take the mean.

Assume that we have some value of s_1, with elements x_lt \in {x_1, x_2, ... x_k}, x_lt < s_1 and x_gt \in {x_k+1, x_k+2, ... x_n}, x_gt > s_1 (ignoring the case where any element is equal to x_1 to make the reasoning easier). If we move s_1 + epsilon increases E_1 by epsilon * |X_lt| and decreases E_1 by epsilon * |X_gt|, this implies that E_1 is minimized when the number of elements of X on either side of s_1 is equal (now that I've written this out I think that's what 'ogogmad is getting at).

I'm still trying to develop the intuition for why minimizing E_2 implies taking the mean.

<comment><USER5> The intuition isn't clear to me either, but the calculus is fairly simple. At the minimum, the derivative of the aggregate discrepancy is zero:

0 = d/ds sum (x_i - s)^2 = -2 sum(x_i - s) = -2 [(sum x_i) - n * s]

Thus

n*s = sum x_i

so

s = sum x_i / n

<comment><USER6> I find turning the math into working code sometimes helps me. The for-loop in my code only approximates the mean within +- 0.5 intervals. This is because it relies on the definition for finding the mean provided in OP's article, rather than your derivation of the arithmetic mean.

import numpy as np

X = [0,1,2,3,3,3,4,5,6,6,6]

mean_dict = {}

for i in [x/10 for x in range(0,100)]:

        mean_dict[sum([abs(x-i)**2 for x in X])] = i

print(mean_dict[min(mean_dict)], "score:", min(mean_dict))

#add actual mean to series

mean_dict[sum([abs(x-np.mean(X)) __2 for x in X])] = np.mean(X)

print("real mean:", mean_dict[min(mean_dict)], "score:", min(mean_dict))

<comment><USER7> You can get proper code formatting by indenting two spaces.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Interestingly, since the L^1 discrepancy is convex, it's possible to analytically minimize it by using the _subdifferential_ , and thereby prove that its minimum is attained at the median. The subdifferential is a set- valued generalisation of the derivative to all convex functions, including non-differentiable ones. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subderivative](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subderivative) and [https://towardsdatascience.com/beyond-the-derivative- subderi...](https://towardsdatascience.com/beyond-the-derivative- subderivatives-1c4e5bf20679)

Whenever the subdifferential of a convex function at a point includes 0, that point is a global minimum of the function.

<comment><USER9> "Whenever the subderivative of a convex function at a point includes 0, that point is a global minimum of the function"

* you mean a _strictly_ convex function

<comment><USER8> In the non-strictly convex case, the minimum is still a global minimum; it's just not unique.

<comment><USER9> [edit] right, you're correct sorry

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> the wikipedia version for anyone interested: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_tendency#Solutions_to_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_tendency#Solutions_to_variational_problems)

missing from the article is that using L_inf will give you the midrange

<comment><USER6> Thanks this is a great way to extend and generalise OP's post. Thanks for sharing. I don't think I would have been able to understand the wikipedia argument without the more intuitive explanation in the original post.

As an aside, I wonder if math is sometimes difficult to understand/explain because the language is so constrained. Obviously, careful use of words is important for translating mathematical definitions verbatim, but I think a more relaxed approach to word translations of math equations would be beneficial to everyone below second year math/statistics at university. Even if they are left with a technically incomplete/incorrect definition or intuition for a given concept.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I like Mr. White's writing. I interacted with him a bit several years ago with Julia's dataframe packages. He is a brilliant guy.

I think this insight (measures of centrality) and an article posted 4-5 years back to HN tying quantum theory as a separate branch of statistics (statistics under a different Lp norm) really helped tie together a lot of quantitative thread for me.

<comment><USER11> Do you hace a link to the article? It sound very interesting

<comment><USER12> Not the person to whom you were speaking but their description reminds me of Scott Aaronson's work e.g. [https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html](https://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html)

which has been discussed on HN [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161028](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161028)

<comment><USER11> Thanks! Looks really interesting

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> For anyone interested in seeing this in the context of statistical decision theory, see the final page of this lecture notes pdf:

[http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~siva/705/lec16.pdf](http://www.stat.cmu.edu/~siva/705/lec16.pdf)

In particular, for the parametric estimation setting, it can be shown that the Bayes Estimator under L_0 loss corresponds to simply finding the posterior distribution of a parameter given data, and then finding the mode of this distribution. Similarly, for L_1 loss, all we need do is find the median of the posterior distribution. And under L_2 loss, it's just the expectation of the posterior. CMU's 705 course is a great intro to statistical decision theory and stats more broadly for anyone interested!

(Disclaimer: I am a CMU PhD student in the machine learning department so I am somewhat biased to thinking these notes are good having taken this course myself)

</comment><comment><USER14> And minimizing E_∞ means taking the midpoint between the max and min values!

</comment><comment><USER15> I like the elevator bank analogy. You are waiting for an elevator. There are four equidistant elevator doors, all arranged in one line. Elevator #3 is out of order. Where do you stand?

Turns out the answer depends on what you want to optimize - maximum walking distance, average walking distance, or average square walking distance.

</comment><comment><USER16> Does this mean we can calculate when to use mean, mode, or median and don't need to have an intuition for it?

Caculate every value, check which has the lowest discrepancy and be done.

<comment><USER17> Part of the point is any of those metrics are the correct one if they model the discrepancy you want.

You pick the one that treats discrepancy the way that's appropriate.

E.g., using the mode is like saying "if you're not the right answer, you're all equally bad".

Using the median is like saying "if you're not the right answer, you're as wrong as however far off you are".

Using the mean is like saying "if you're not the right answer, you're more and more wrong the further away you are, and the amount you're penalized itself gets more and more, so you're really incentivized to be closer"

Which of these is appropriate depends on the real thing you care about in whatever your numbers actually signify.

<comment><USER16> Could you elaborate the difference between mean and median a bit more?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This is true, but isn't "it".

If ten boxes fall at random from an Amazon Prime truck and you estimate a mean value of the parcels per m^3, you can extrapolate that the total value of the loot in the truck.

</comment><comment><USER19> There's further discussion of these ideas here: [https://ram.rachum.com/median/](https://ram.rachum.com/median/)

</comment><comment><USER20> If curious see also

2017 [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15946239](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15946239)</comment>


Wary of Google Street View? Move, CEO Schmidt says - <AUTHOR> http://www.marketwatch.com/story/wary-of-google-street-view-move-ceo-says-2010-10-22

<comment><USER2> a) Google's CEO is a bit of a douche. We already knew that.

b) How is taking a picture from a public road even a privacy issue that people care about?

<comment><USER3> people over estimate the risks of having their privacy invaded.

Google already knows more about you (from your searches) than you think, and the picture they take off the street of you don't even matter. You're better off using some sort of ip mask, and not be logged into a google service when you perform a search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Schmidt's strategy _seems_ to be to make himself and Google look bad, but since Schmidt is a smart guy and I'm an idiot, I'm trying to figure out what's really going on... Will Google be entering the housing construction market and offer protection from Street View? Does he want people to immigrate to third world countries without a Google presence? Does he want people to stop using roads? The mind boggles!</comment>


GitHub tool to help keep Semantic Versioning by analyzing code changes in PRs - <AUTHOR> https://www.semver-sentry.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi all,

I'm helping to prototype a beta for a service that will integrate with GitHub to analyze Pull Requests for backwards compatibility. This whole thing came from a lot of pain with internal projects when we mistakenly introduced backwards-incompatible changes into libraries only to have everything explode mysteriously when dependencies on the projects using the libraries were updated, something that should go smoothly if Semantic Versioning is used correctly by all dependencies.

I'd love your feedback, is this a problem for you? Which programming languages would benefit from this most? (I come from a PHP background but I get the impression that JS folk get a lot of heartache because of this too, is that true?).

Thanks!</comment>


Eckod - Kinda like a reverse Twitter - <AUTHOR>

Eckod.com is simple, powerful service to expand your reach. As the name Eckod implies, its a tool that allows people to repeat what you're saying.
Think of it as the opposite of Twitter. On Twitter, when you say something, a million people could listen to you.
On Eckod.com when you say something, a million people could say it with you.
How does Eckod work?
Step 1. Create a feed on Eckod.com
Step2.
Get friends, family and fans to Ecko your feed.
Step 3.
Whenever you post something on your feed, they'll ecko it on their social networks. <comment><USER2> It's a bit like retweet were automatic from your followers, right ?

While I get the motives behind it I'm not sure it's more effective because of the overflow of information you must have on your feed. I'm a bit concerned about the signal/noise ratio in this type of configuration.

<comment><AUTHOR> An automatic retweet is an excellent way of describing it :)

To answer with regard to effectiveness: A friend making an Indie-film used it to promote his film's trailer. He got 31 people to Ecko the trailer and in literally a few hours he crossed 700 views.

The added benefit was also that he got to see which friends generated the most amount of traffic to this trailer.

Thanks to FB's newsfeed algorithm the signal/noise ration greatly varies from person to person.

<comment><AUTHOR> Also, we limit the ability for a feed owner to post once a day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Clickable : [https://eckod.com](https://eckod.com)</comment>


Graphical User Interface Timeline - <AUTHOR> http://toastytech.com/guis/guitimeline.html

<comment><USER2> Kind of interesting, but a bizzare amount of bias and hostility towards Microsoft ruins the article.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very light coverage of *nix GUIs. A lot happened between Windows 2000 and Vista.</comment>


Luck Doesn't Exist - <AUTHOR> http://www.sebastianmarshall.com/?p=95

<comment><USER2> i agree that you definitely have to work hard to put yourself in a position to "get lucky" but there is an element of chance to life that you simply can't ignore. a lot of times i attribute good things that happen to me as "luck" because there's a dozen people i could point to who would deserve it more than myself. attributing my good fortune to luck gives me an explanation for why i got something when other people were smarter, faster & harder working than myself.

<comment><USER3> I think the term "luck" is too overloaded. Tons of people do actually use the term "luck" as a clutch, as in it's bad luck that a pot of gold did not fall onto their lap. In that sense, I agree with the article. However, it probably swings too far in the other direction.

For me, it's understanding the probabilities, persist, and "luck" is everything that is out of your control. Even something as "simple" or at least fundamentally human as finding someone you happen to love is subjected to these outside forces that I call "luck", but who's to judge?

Dismissing this concept of "luck" makes it too hard for empathy -- it's almost saying that people are poor because they don't work hard.

I'm a relatively lucky guy myself, and I'm constantly surrounded by people who are smarter and harder working, but sometimes things just don't swing their way, just a little bit. Maybe I'm selling myself short, and while I put in my share of hard work, I can't honestly say I attribute everything to luck. I took advantage of my luck, but it's too easy to attribute everything to skill.

It might be easier to motivate yourself to work hard with the assumption that luck doesn't exist, and to persist, and to give all you got, but I feel you don't need to discard the concept to do it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> His blog post acknowledges probability. Probability is the measure of likelihood, i.e. the chance of something happening. Luck is defined as a chance occurrence.

If luck doesn't exist, there are no chance occurrences. If there are no chance occurrances, then probability is meaningless. If probability is meaningless, his blog post is ... crap?</comment>


25 Best Startup Failure Post-Mortems of All Time - <AUTHOR> http://www.chubbybrain.com/blog/startup-failure-post-mortem/ <comment><USER2> At least for Xmarks, the post-mortem seems to have spurred a turnaround. The pledge drive mentioned in the article has been set aside pending a 100% purchase:

> _I'm pleased to announce that we're in the final stages of completing a sale > of Xmarks to a new owner who is 100% committed to keep our great browser > sync service running smoothly._

<http://blog.xmarks.com/?p=2007>

(A truly fantastic and indispensable service, allowing you to use any browser at any time and have all the native bookmarks synced across browsers and OSes. I am one of many who wouldn't mind paying a fee somewhere between Pinboard.in and Evernote.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ouch... I don't know what to do. I've been going so long it seems normal to me that my startup is ugly and crappy. I'm a single founder, I procrastinate a bunch, and I had to get an outside job to pay my patent lawyers. I regularly go weeks without doing anything at all on my business because of all the other pressures on me. I started in 2004 and I still haven't launched. I keep thinking about how much better my stuff will be than anything that has existed so far, but man I get discouraged.

I have quit multiple times, but somehow I don't think I could go on without the hope that one of my businesses will someday thrive. I try working on other things, but I always come back to this one business idea that I believe with all my being to be a good idea if I can just get it going.</comment>


How to find part time programming work - <AUTHOR>

How do software developers find part-time work? I currently work 7-3 and would love to pick up some part-time work in the evenings, but it's impossible to find any. Suggestions? <comment><USER2> You say impossible, where have you tried?

Find some larger firms in your area doing what you want and approach them for overflow work - follow up a few times and they'll contact you when things get crazy.

Let old employers, friends & family know that you're available for freelance.

Go to local meetups and make contacts (either peer groups who can refer work, or groups with potential clients). Don't hard-sell your services, just become known as a friendly person who knows your stuff and is available, and referrals will come.

oDesk, Guru, eLance etc have lots of work but it mostly pays peanuts if you're US based. May be OK to build relationships but I personally haven't had much success here.

Craigslist can be a good source (posting and replying to posts), lots of "idea guys" with no money and other garbage but I've found great clients there too.

Talk to local recruiters, they occasionally get freelance/part-time/remote gigs.

Agency overflow & word of mouth were the best sources for me. Can take a while to get started, but once you get a good reputation and ask for referrals then the work will pour in - especially after a few years when people from your first clients move jobs and contact you from their new gigs.

Keep at it, and remember that your reputation is the most important thing in this industry. Treat people well, ask for reasonable compensation, do good work and you can't go wrong.

</comment><comment><USER3> I too am curious about this as I've been thinking about it as a option for the future when I evolve my career. The best two options I have thought about so far are:

1) Early stage startups - Especially in big cities there are new startups every day and I bet most would like the option of paying someone part time to help them get up and running.

2) Start freelancing and take on the amount of work you feel comfortable with.

There are probably a few other options so I'm curious what others have to say.

</comment><comment><USER4> Freelance.

Usually firms will want full time employees and won't hire part timers (too much hassle when they can just go for a contractor, hence my suggestion). They don't care about where or when you work if you're a freelancer though, just that you keep the communication up and meet deadlines.

Don't compete with the bottomfeeders when you're freelancing -- you can avoid this by looking for bigger budget projects where the employer seems interested in quality. I suggest Guru as a network.

<comment><USER5> What do you like about Guru?

<comment><USER4> Escrow, reasonable terms once you're a member, they only take 5% (and only out of money you actually are paid), and they have assisted me in obtaining payment in the past from a deadbeat employer. There's also the general feeling that not everything is slanted toward the employer, which is not the case on some other networks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Depending on the shop, working for a software shop can do this for you. If the work is not all urgent, it's perfectly reasonable to contract with them and do some extra work in the evenings.

I've done this before with good results.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I live out in TN and not many firms/companies will even allow part-time. I've tried the usual job sites (monster, career builders, dice, and careeriverflow) with little luck.</comment>


Why credit deflation is more likely than mass inflation - <AUTHOR> http://libertarianpapers.org/2010/43-boyapati-why-credit-deflation-is-more-likely-than-mass-inflation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LibertarianPapers+%28Libertarian+Papers%29

<comment><USER3> The banks are momentarily paralyzed because their solvency is uncertain and their underlying capital is frozen. The liquidation of bad debt will happen eventually, but the Fed just wants to inflate at all costs. When liquidation starts to happen, all this money will flood into the real economy, with the multiplier at full throttle.

Instead, the US Government and Fed should have allowed the liquidation to happen, preferably sooner than later. In our timeline, we get both frozen credit (and collapse) and inflation. In a better scenario, we would have gotten just a sudden collapse, with faster recovery.

</comment><comment><USER4> Some of the key points of the paper:

Money multiplier theory, as implemented through fractional reserve banking, has been broken in the U.S. through alternative instruments(e.g. money market accounts), and has not controlled bank lending policy in the last 20 years.

The Fed persists in trying to make banks lend more, and has settled on taking on mortgage debt as the best means of doing so. Avoidance of the complete collapse causes homeowners to stay put, reducing labor mobility and increasing unemployment.

Fed policy and bank policy are determined by their "class" in society - <USER2> Fed is politically motivated and will pursue inflation even if it ruins the economy. Bankers will accept deflation so as not to cause a collapse. Japan is alluded to; it has a strong banker class that fought against pressure to inflate. The Fed is a stronger entity than the equivalents in Japan, but bankers are still largely unresponsive to its actions.

The paper concludes that a slow, deflationary economy will persist until the Fed releases the mortgage debt.

(I don't really agree, but don't have specific thoughts yet.)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> My take-away:

1\. Fractional reserve banking always leads to mal-investments which must either be liquidated or papered over with money (inflation). If the malinvestments are large, inflating the currency can cause the currency to collapse in hyperinflation.

2\. Liquidation (bankruptcies and transfer of wealth from debtors to creditors) is unpopular so politicians tend to avoid it. Politicians will naturally pursue an inflationary policy to avoid the wrath of the voters.

3\. Bankers who profit enormously from fractional banking want to avoid currency collapse at all costs.

4\. The bankers who control the federal reserve will seek to slowly liquidate to avoid becoming politically unpopular. Their biggest danger is that Congress will seize control of the Fed and force it to overinflate and thus destroy the currency and the Fed with it.</comment>


Boris Wertz announces GrowLab a new accelerator in Vancouver & SF - <AUTHOR> http://www.wmediaventures.com/news/announcing-growlab-a-new-start-up-accelerator-for-vancouver/

<comment><AUTHOR> link to actual accelerator: <http://www.growlab.ca/></comment>


VirtualBox 3.0 Released - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads <comment><USER2> I've just finished comparing virtualbox and vmware, and not of my own volition. I needed to compare a bunch of different file system solutions for clustering (see post elsewhere) and after working with vmware for several days finally gave up (vmware server 2.0), and tried the same under virtualbox. Virtualbox did the job quietly without fuss or license keys, where vmware was nothing but a pita and eventually refused to work.

The host os on the test machine is Ubuntu, the guest of was CentOs 4.7.

<comment><USER3> Have you (or anyone) compared VirtualBox to a desktop virtualization package, such as VMware Fusion? How does it stack up?

<comment><USER4> I have used VMWare Fusion for a couple of years now and have no complaints whatsoever. It's stable and not noticeably slower than using Boot Camp. USB pass-through and networking just work. You can even launch a Windows program directly from Finder. My one gripe--slow access times for the host-client file sharing interface--was fixed with 2.0.

I have never used any other VMWare product, or Virtual Box, but I thought I would add my $.02 since my experience seems to differ from most others here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's important if you install windows in a VM to install the "guest tools" with Virtual box.. it makes it 100x more responsive. Don't forget this step.

<comment><USER6> This is true even if the guest OS is something other than Windows. Automatic mouse capture is a very convenient.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> New features include guest SMP support, OpenGL 2.0, and experimental Direct3D 8/9 support (for windows guests, obviously...)

<comment><USER7> Warning: Guest SMP only works if you have a cpu with Intel VT-x or AMD-V.

Damn, why did I buy a Pentium Dual-Core instead of a regular Core 2 Duo? :/

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love VirtualBox so much. Thanks to Innotek for the free and open-source distribution. I do use the closed source version though.

If only they would support branching snapshopts. For example a main VM and then you could have one work tree and one webbrowsing tree. This would make using it for daily work even more appealing. Well, some day, I am sure.

<comment><USER9> I'd like to echo your wish. I also would like to have that feature.

I'd like to use when I am debugging a configuration issue on the OS with a certain application. Not a show-stopper by any means, but a would like to have.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> At the moment, the page's "MD5 sum" link is not resolving.

<http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/3.0.0/MD5SUMS>

</comment><comment><USER11> hope it means this bug is fixed now....

<http://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/2978>

<comment><USER11> i tested it on my computer, it didn't seem to occur, yay!

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> 3.0 Already? Wasn't just sometime ago 2.3 the newest?

While VirtualBox is really great I like OSE (OpenSourceEdition) better. Unfortunately if one needs e.g. usbhotplug then you have to use the commercial branch :/

Does anyone know when OSE will have that feature?

<comment><USER13> Probably when the developers are so rich they don't need money for food or rent.

<comment><USER14> Wont they be working at Oracle soon?

<comment><USER13> Maybe. Or maybe Oracle will stick with its own Xen-derived OracleVM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Did anyone get this to work on OSX? I installed it on my MBP, put Ubuntu 9.04 and it always locks up within a few minutes after booting, usually while its running the updater. Just wondered if others see this or its just me.

</comment><comment><USER16> I didn't know other HNers were such VirtualBox fans! I use it daily and love it. This release looks great.

</comment><comment><USER17> but how is it for mac uses? it seems not as nice compared to parallels?

<comment><USER13> It's fine. I use it to run Solaris 10 and Windows XP on my MBP.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Excuse a newbie... is it worth trying Ubuntu on Mac with VirtualBox? What should I know?

(-: Please don't flame me. I might like ports as much as apt, if I knew it better. :-)

<comment><USER19> VirtualBox on the Mac is very nice. A respectably small download, an easy install, a pleasant GUI, it feels very polished and in my light use, both featureful and stable.

Yes, try it.

<comment><USER20> Does anyone have any experience with how VirtualBox performance compares with VMWare?

<comment><USER21> There is a review here [http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/virtualization- sho...](http://www.infoworld.com/d/virtualization/virtualization-showdown- vmware-workstation-vs-sun-xvm-virtualbox-735)

Basically they are all pretty similar, if you use it in a serious environment there are probably more tools and consultants that will tune Vmware server for you, but for ordinary use it's probably a wash.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Schedule of a solo founder? - <AUTHOR> If you are a solo founder would you share what your week looks like e.g. spend an afternoon on x?<p>I have productive days and days when I feel like I am scratching around for scraps of leads and SEO. I am currently doing 1k ARR so money is tight and I want to make the best use of my time. <comment><USER3> The most important thing I've learned is that you need to find a balance between discipline and spontaneity.

For example, it's good to maintain a few "anchor points" each day to break up your time and help you break out of negative cycles or unproductive moods. Things like going to the gym, maintaining a fixed wake up time or lunch time. This is the discipline side, which helps you to train yourself to stay focused on your goals.

But it's also important to listen to your own body and mind, and do things that make sense to you in the moment. E.g. if you're feeling too tired to work, accept it, go home and try again tomorrow. Avoid burnout. If you scheduled a certain task for 11am but when the time comes you're in the zone on something else, stay in the zone! This is the spontaneity part.

Discipline allows you to be spontaneous without guilt, because you know you'll eventually return to the basic system of moving towards your goal that you've established. Spontaneity allows you to adapt as you go to avoid unforeseen problems or take advantage of unexpected benefits.

That said, on a work day (M-F) my schedule looks roughly like this:

6.30am - wake up 7.30-8.30am - gym 9-9.30am - write down what i did yesterday, what i want to do today 9.30-11.45am - on task 11.45am-12.15pm - <USER2> 12.15-3pm - on task 3.30-4pm - take a break, make a snack, or go for a walk 4-5.30pm - on task. but if i'm tired go home early. 6-7pm - dinner 7-9pm - relax, read, play music, hang out with my spouse 9pm - wind down, start getting ready for bed

<comment><USER4> Your first sentence is spot on

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Somewhat solo founder for many years: I don't have a schedule, on purpose. The more schedule you maintain, the more you potentially lead yourself to burnout.

Each day I feel it out. I definitely load mornings more towards errands, communication, planning. Depending on contractors or employees I shift schedules to match them.

Motivation will come and go. If it goes, I'd advise to avoid resisting and just let it go. Focus instead on "everything else" for a while, relax, and think over why it may have left.

Just a few insights.

<comment><USER6> >"Motivation will come and go. If it goes, I'd advise to avoid resisting and just let it go. Focus instead on "everything else" for a while, relax, and think over why it may have left."

I don't know if your advice is correct or not but I do want to add to the discussion the fact that it is 180° opposed to advice I received to the contrary: don't wait for motivation (which comes and goes); discipline is more important, and that means just doing it, regardless of whether you're emotionally motivated at the time.

Again just putting this out there because your advice and this advice are opposites. No comment on which (or both) are correct.

<comment><USER7> I'm not sure if this advice applies to founders.

As a founder, I was always extremely motivated, to the point it was painful to take a break. I required heavy discipline to _slow down_. At the point many founders lose motivation, they have likely been working too hard.

<comment><USER6> Interesting. So as a founder there was nothing tedious that you weren't motivated for?

<comment><USER7> There were always tedious things, like refactoring, audits, dealing with investors (the ones who are tire kicking). But as a founder, the tedious stuff becomes a kind of high, something to look forward to. Think of it like grinding in a game or hobby, vs the kind of repetitive grinding you do at a job.

I think maybe one of the differences is that, as a founder, the more work you get in, the less work you have to do later. If you were too efficient at a job, you end up having to do more work at the same pay. Same goes for say, homework, if you're getting straight A's, you have to maintain that work rate.

But as a founder, if you get this thing done, that saves you work for the future and also means more money and less trouble in the long run.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Solo since 2005. I don't really have much of a schedule. That is one of the attractions.

Usually I work 8:30ish to 5:30ish Monday to Friday, taking time off for errands and exercize. I also do customer support at the weekends. Sometime I do a couple of hours work late in the evening. Sometimes I take the day off. Depends on how motivated I am feeling.

You have to keep a balance between the many little tasks that need doing (e.g. renew the office insurance, check adwords is running ok) and the fewer big tasks that make the difference log term (e.g. program a major new feature). I have a visual to do list that tracks tasks in my own software ( [https://www.hyperplan.com](https://www.hyperplan.com) ) so I don't forget anything.

That feeling of not knowing what is the most important thing t0 work on next (new feature, improve website, create an explainer video, improve the documentation, tweak your PPC)? Get used to it. It isn't going to go away.

</comment><comment><USER9> Sure, I've been a solo founder for about 3 years now and found myself most productive with this schedule:

8:00: wake up without an alarm

8:00-8:30: easy customer support emails

8:30-9:30: go for a run

9:00-10:00: get changed, coffee, difficult support emails, planning what to work on

10:00-11:30: work on project X

11:30-12:30: lunch

12:30-14:00: work on project X

14:00-14:30: circadian rhythm is at lowest point - break, snack, HN, read the news

14:30-17:00: work on project X

Project X alternates pretty evenly every few months/weeks between product development, updating websites, marketing (email updates/brainstorming about lead generation, etc). I try to focus on one project at a time. The key to wearing multiple hats at once is to wear one at a time for a while.

<comment><USER10> I am not sure what business or field you are in but your schedule seems very very laid back. Too laid back if you ask me. You are a solo founder and you work less hours than a person who works a regular job. Is your venture profitable?

<comment><USER11> I counted ~5.5 hours per day working on Project X. That's about the amount of time someone would spend on a 9-5 when you take away lunch and any downtime at work.

I think people decide how much time they want to spend on work. Work will expand to occupy the available space. And with appropriately timed breaks, even when you're not working, your mind continues to work on solving the problem you're currently tackling.

I've woken up with some killer solutions to road blocks after taking a power nap. Breaks could serve the same function.

<comment><USER10> You are assuming they do not do the same stuff other humans do in the 5.5 hours.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Honestly quite surprised how much work it turns out to be. Would not wish this on my worst enemy territory. You have to like that it is 24/7/366\. You need to enjoy wearing different hats on an hourly basis.

Action trumps thought. Let that be your mantra. What you feel needs to be done in the moment. Let that be the thing you intensely focus on 110%.

Because trying to maintain the Ben Franklin schedule of discipline. Isn't going to happen in the mobile connected world. And 5pm video chats with Silicon Valley.

Here it is 10am. 16 degrees outside. Configuring a "hybrid cloud" in my bedroom. Not exactly 99% of people's idea of a blissful heavenly morning ;)

<comment><USER13> If you are working 24/7/"366" either you are creating something so valuable we will know about you sooner than later, or you are doing some things terribly wrong, or you are lying. Which one is it?

<comment><USER7> I think parent commenter really means that it's a kind of responsibility. You can't just stop and take a break; breaks become stressful. There are no paid or sick days.

You can delegate all this stuff to employees, but there's a lot nobody can delegate. That's also why a lot of founders don't just hire CEOs and live off the passive income.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> In any sort of solo-founder situation that I'd like to eventually scale and delegate, I've used a quadrant-based time management worksheet to make sure the balance of sales,marketing,development,ops are all getting attention.

Not necessarily daily or equal attention, but the "key organs to the body" are getting their minimum viable attention.

A simple spreadsheet works for starters. Put "must do" activities in each quadrant and review progress periodically.

</comment><comment><USER15> Solo since 2017. Working from home has a negative impact on my productivity. Family members and friends assume you're available for smalltalk and other stuff just because you're at home and not at work. I like working from home. It's warm and comfy. Food and drinks are a minute away. I consider myself very productive nonetheless, because I adjusted my daily routine to my environment and don't try to force it the other way around.

So about a year ago I started waking up at 5 o'clock. It's awesome after getting used to it. It's quiet, sometimes still dark outside and nobody can distract you. I can put on my headphones and just hack away. I usually start by taking a piece of paper and write down a couple of things/features/bugs I want to take care of that day. The items on the list were usually spread out across Github issues and projects Kanban boards, but I bring them together one more time. The goal is to realistically summarise the ideal day on a single sheet. I then prioritise and guess the time effort of each task. I start with the most important + least time. I want to look at the list at the end of the day with 8/10 items ticked off. Helps stay motivated and not get burned out. It's very likely I'll get distracted or just throw the towel after 5-6 hours of work. It's much easier to do that if you've already finished a good amount of work. I mostly optimize towards self-happiness. It's not a war you win on a single day. I know a lot of people that are unhappy with themselves and their progress on side projects because they often start with tasks that are too large and they have nothing to push to prod at the end of the day. In between of work I eat with my dad and girlfriend, sometimes have smalltalk for half an hour, but that's about it. I stop working at 8pm and play a round of monopoly against my girlfriend or watch a movie with her. Good time to talk about how your day was like and so on. I sometimes struggle with it, but it's important to dedicate time to your loved ones, even if you think that every minute you don't work on your project is lost money. They're usually the ones that support you the most.

I consider solo founding a 24/7/365 job. It's hard and a lot of pressure, but its one of the few things I enjoy most in life, because each day and every single item you tick off your todo list fully benefits you and not your employer.

(Sorry, the comment turned out a bit chaotic.)

</comment><comment><USER16> Solo since 2010, 35K EUR MRR.

Mornings are for focused work on things I look forward to doing, so that usually means development work and really moving the needle. If I force myself to start my day answering support emails or writing a blog post, I usually procrastinate and end up with less done in total for that day.

Directly after lunch is when I answer support emails, so that I still have plenty of time for it and not end the day totally stressed out with a non- empty inbox. Depending on how I feel after that, I finish my day doing low- effort obligational work or I go back to fun work again.

</comment><comment><USER17> I have enough MRR to cover about 50% of living costs. But I had once put enough of a financial buffer and I thought I could just work full-time on my projects for a few months and make it grow fast enough, so I can fully live off of them. It didn't work out as I planned, the growth wasn't fast enough. Some things just take time. Branding takes time. SEO takes time.

So now I work as a freelancer 3-4 days a week and I work on my own projects the other 1-2 days (and sometimes in the evenings).

I have 2 students who handle 95% of customer support and research and data entry, so I can focus on developing features.

My freelance projects give me financial stability and also a daily routine, plus I often get to learn new stuff and also just some time distance from my own project, so sometimes that gives you a clearer perspective. If I'm constantly working on my project, I lose focus and sometimes build unnecessary features.

</comment><comment><USER7> I think founder is straightforward. I target 5%-10% higher income next week, or roughly 30% more next month if sales cycles are not weekly (mine was highly dependent on government paydays). Most people might want to target revenue instead, or even active users.

What's keeping you from hitting that target? Just focus on that. Would marketing/sales give you more income? Flying to that conference and making a talk? Do you need to handle customers better? Should the tech team ease the burden from the rest of the team? Add another feature? Improve existing ones? Do you need to spend more time hiring? Do you need to raise money to hire those people?

Being a founder in tech is incredible - you get to work on only the most important problems, unlike a job where you do the same thing over and over and force yourself through plateaus. It's like you have an extra dimension to maneuver around in.

I'd have weeks where I drive around the city pitching to investors. I'd have weeks where I'm driving off to another state to meet suppliers. I'd have weeks where I'm on the floor dealing with excess customers, writing up customer service scripts for someone else to do later. Weeks where I'm promoting the company at a career fair, and interview people on the spot or within a day. One week, I got sick of the app color scheme, looked up designers, got a logo budget approved, worked close with the designer and got a perfect new logo in 2 days, and then redesigned the whole app scheme around the logo. One campaign, we had an overwhelming amount of orders (3000 people signed up in a day), so I hacked in an order/delivery management system overnight.

If you need motivation, I recommend the rock star approach of hanging out with your fans. Or rather, just look at who is giving you their hard earned money. We get lots of feedback, reviews, in app, chat, customer messages. Take some time to write a personal thank you to some customers. Handle some existing customers yourself, not just the new ones. Thank your suppliers/partners or have a chat with them. Handle complaints personally; don't expect staff to do most of them... it's not fun for them as they're powerless, and they don't pass the valuable data.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm also in college, so its pretty rough. In any given day I work anywhere from 10 to 14 hours, about 8 to 12 of which is for my startup. I'm sinking a lot of my time into the backend right now (integration testing, stress testing, decreasing latency, etc). I haven't launched anything yet, but I should be at some point before the end of the month. Recently I've been doing more work on marketing and getting some initial users, which I should have done a lot sooner.

<comment><USER17> Unless performance is a key component to your service, I would focus on launching and marketing. Being an engineer, I've often fallen into the trap that a product has to be technically perfect before launching. Being a freelancer and indie developer, I've gotten to meet other freelancers and founders, and got to work for agencies and startups.

There's so many products that are technically crap, but they provide value to some people. Thus people are willing to pay for it.

There was one startup guy, who outsourced development to this one guy in Asia. I thought "this product will not last long, if that's the way development is done". He went on to get funding from an investment arm of a big company within the sector. I thought, "ok, this will be as big as it gets". A year later he's got a deal with a major national retailer.

This is one of the reasons I focus on providing value, not a technically perfect product.

<comment><USER18> I'm not concerned about performance nearly as much as regressions and breakages post-release. Not sure if this is for better or worse, but I'm the only one actively working on this, so I'm trying to streamline the develop- test-publish so I focus more of my time on delivering value when this company properly starts.

<comment><USER17> It will often be about a balance of speed of development vs stability. And it will be impossible to create something bug free.

I focus more on backups and monitoring. So I might not prevent all bugs from happening, but in case they do - a) I find out very early (error monitoring + uptime monitoring) and/or b) I can roll back very quickly to a very recent version.

I'd rather deliver 6 imperfect features quickly and getting feedback from users early (feedback can mean tracking which features are being used most) and iterating early, than investing a lot of time into 3 technically great features, then finding out 2 of them people aren't really using.

I know it's scary, because it's sort of like going out onto the field without enough training. But focus on the added value you can deliver and listen to your customers, and it will be fine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Although this is a great question and the answers will be broadly useful for lots of folks reading, I'd like to suggest a reframe for yourself:

It's impossible to know what the right schedule is without knowing where you time needs to be spent, and there's not really enough context in the post for us to help with that.

At $1k ARR you've passed the hurdle of getting someone to pay something, which is great, but you still have a ways to go to sustain yourself which means you should take a hard look at your runway and product.

Is the product adequate to grow or is it still somehow short of MVP? Is the biggest problem lead gen, conversion or retention? Who is the target audience and what's the thin end of the wedge?

Overall at this stage I'd be spending a ton of time talking directly to customers (or prospective customers) and trying to uncover the flaws or opportunities for your product that will validate whether it can be successful. Good luck!

<comment><AUTHOR> You make a good point. My main challenge at the moment is lead gen. Part of my frustration is spending time on things like marketing that have no quick feeback loop.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I do what I want and where I get progress done. It won't help me to focus on writing some code if my mind decides to be in an optimize something else mode. I tryed force, but it is a waste of time and reducing fun.

Money was always tight in the beginning, but after a while it grew to something that does not affect me or my decision anymore.</comment>


CDC Admits 98 Million Americans Received Contaminated Polio Vaccine - <AUTHOR> http://www.realfarmacy.com/cdc-admits-98-million-americans-received-polio-vaccine-contaminated-with-cancer-virus/

<comment><USER2> That headline is horribly wrong. You can't catch cancer, since your immune system will recognize the cells as foreign and kill them.

What the article really says is, that the vaccine was contaminated with a cancer-causing virus.</comment>


How to Understand Developing Native, Hybrid and Progressive Web Apps - <AUTHOR> https://creatorsneverdie.com/blog/item?q=the-cost-of-developing-native-hyrbid-progressive-web-apps <comment><USER2> "It can take up to 2x-3x times longer to make an Android app" . Is this still true? Was it ever really true? I've seen android features tend to take a bit longer, but we're talking like 20% longer, 7 years ago. Now, in the age of kotlin/swift, better android tooling, numerous iPhone sizes/DPIs, the Notch™, etc, etc I think I think the playing field is pretty level.

<comment><USER3> Matching UI to designs was horrible on Android, at least as of ~1.5yrs ago. Even if designers were shooting for "Material". Plenty of rough edges. I wouldn't say 2x-3x longer for a typical project, though.

I could see there being issues with relatively new-to-Android developers not appreciating the degree to which advice from the official docs, especially relating to structuring applications, should be taken with a largish dose of salt, leading to slow-and-getting-slower development as an Android project went along.

<comment><USER4> To get to the level of world class competitiveness i'd say it's true. if you want to compete with say instagram then android is such a PITA to design for.

As for your second point, i've always followed the official docs,are you saying there's another way?

<comment><USER3> Square's guides and libraries in particular were a great place to start when last I worked on Android (2017). They filled in a lot of dumb gaps in basic, common functionality, and their guides and blog posts on Android topics generally left me feeling more confident in them than in Google's Android team. They were among the ones calling "the Emperor has no clothes!" over fragments, for instance, and they described and built alternatives.

It does look like they've abandoned a couple of their big view-related Java libs, which makes me wonder what they're using now. Seems they've switched to Kotlin for a lot of stuff.

Don't remember their blog being on Medium (ick) but it is now, looks like:

[https://medium.com/square-corner-blog](https://medium.com/square-corner-blog)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Good content but that eye-searing blue and custom cursor really bother me.

</comment><comment><USER6> I only want to develop PWAs for now on. [https://appsco.pe/](https://appsco.pe/)</comment>


Chernobyl comes back to life in Ukrainian computer game - <AUTHOR> https://in.reuters.com/article/ukraine-chernobyl-game/chernobyl-comes-back-to-life-in-ukrainian-computer-game-idINKCN1S304J <comment><USER2> Interesting concept. Would be cool to have something like it for moon rovers.</comment>


'They Are Slaughtering Us Like Animals' - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/07/world/asia/rodrigo-duterte-philippines-drugs-killings.html <comment><USER2> Can I quickly jump in and defend this as being acceptable, even though it's "politics"?

\- This isn't going to start a US culture wars flamewar.

\- It's terribly cynical to bury it, considering it amounts to saying "We'd really care about you being shot for being (allegedly) the victim of a disease, but you've chosen to die in ouy consciousness' off-week".

\- It's a technically brilliant, marveling piece of storytelling.

<comment><USER3> For this week only, it counts as off topic. Under HN's normal standard (which we're going to revert to, with a few tweaks to the guidelines, after this week) it might be ok, I'm not sure.

> _a US culture wars flamewar._

The culture wars thing is a red herring. It's the flamewar bit (i.e. the destruction of thoughtful conversation) that we're worried about.

<comment><AUTHOR> "For this week only, it counts as off topic. Under HN's normal standard (which we're going to revert to, with a few tweaks to the guidelines, after this week) it might be ok, I'm not sure."

I disagree with this. I'm puzzled how you can view the post and reduce it to politics.

<comment><USER4> It is about a president and the actions of a government, which seems somewhat politicized to me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This isn't politics at all.

"Politics (from Greek: πολιτικός politikos, definition "of, for, or relating to citizens") is the process of making decisions applying to all members of each group. More narrowly, it refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance — organized control over a human community, particularly a state. Furthermore, politics is the study or practice of the distribution of power and resources within a given community (a usually hierarchically organized population) as well as the interrelationship(s) between communities.[0]"

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

This documents the slaughter of humans and the collateral suffering.

It's disappointing that this would be flagged, and at best, it's completely misguided.

The only thing I can guess is that it was flagged because Trump's name is mentioned. Lame.

<comment><USER5> Exactly. The only thing political about this is that we're having this discussion. It's frightening to me that we would censor this brilliant piece out of the nonsense politicization of or thoughts now that facts (people dying in this case) are apparently no longer relevant. Glad Orwell didn't live to see this day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Alas, politics:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404)

</comment><comment><USER7> Avoiding the politics angle, can we discuss how unusable this site is on mobile?

<comment><USER8> You'll probably want to open an Ask HN, as it's off-topic for this thread.</comment></comment>


SecureDrop – An open-source whistleblower submission system - <AUTHOR> https://securedrop.org/ <comment><USER2> For those who don't know Garrett Robinson (who heads SecureDrop's development), he's been extremely dedicated to user privacy issues and first amendment concerns. I may occasionally differ from his views, but I admire the passion he's poured into both his work at Mozilla and into SecureDrop.

[https://freedom.press/people/garrett- robinson/](https://freedom.press/people/garrett-robinson/)

</comment><comment><USER3> SecureDrop uses Tor Browser, as do many other public interest security solutions. However, a respected security expert here on HN recently said of Tor Browser:

 _the Tor Browser might be the least safe browser to use of all available browsers that can be installed on modern computers. It is a perfect storm of "inferior security design" and "maximized adversarial value per exploit dollar spent". / Don't use Tor Browser._

He recommends Chrome (presumably over the Tor network). I tend to believe the expert, because IME real security expertise (as opposed to technically sophisticated people reading about security and trying to DIY) is rarely utilized and applied even by prominent organizations and projects. But I wish someone would reconcile all of this.

EDIT: Some clarifying edits

<comment><USER4> I disagree. Tor/Firefox do indeed have significantly worse security (right now), but that can be mostly mitigated by using easy-to-use third-party sandboxing tools (Sandboxie, Firejail, a VM).

For Linux, there's now a "hardened" version of the Tor browser as well (still alpha, I believe), and if you really care about this, you can also use TAILS, Qubes/Whonix, etc. It would probably be best not to use Windows if you want to be anonymous anyway (certainly not Windows 10, which looks like it was designed after a law enforcement wishlist - there are probably _dozens_ of ways in which law enforcement can identify you by using Windows 10's tracking "features").

I don't think there's a way to "easily" make "Chrome over Tor" anonymous and private...

<comment><USER5> > I disagree. Tor/Firefox do indeed have significantly worse security (right > now), but that can be mostly mitigated by using easy-to-use third-party > sandboxing tools (Sandboxie, Firejail, a VM).

Now that they have moved to multi-process Firefox, they can finally start sandboxing everything. There are already plans in place to start reusing Chrome's sandboxes profiles.

> I don't think there's a way to "easily" make "Chrome over Tor" anonymous and > private...

You literally have to fork the browser, they won't maintain the internal APIs required by the Tor team. Hell, they refuse to respect basic SOCKS5 proxy settings [0].

[0]: [https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ImportantG...](https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/ImportantGoogleChromeBugs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is a trivial Flask file uploading application, with a "code name"-based feedback system, wrapping GnuPG's Python bindings, intended to be run on Tor.

The security it provides is marginal, but it's so simple that it's not the part of anyone's stack that's most likely to be compromised.

I think a significantly better version of this could be built. What makes doing that tricky is that you want to retain the almost hello-world simplicity of this app, because the big reason _not_ to run something like this is the likelihood that the server itself will have flaws.

On the other hand, it's 2017, and you can also accept files over secure messengers.

 _Later_

Amusingly, people seem to think that these are bad things to say about an application like SecureDrop.

<comment><USER7> We currently offer SecureDrop as one of the ways folks are offered to send in tips to The New York Times.

[https://www.nytimes.com/tips](https://www.nytimes.com/tips)

        > I think a significantly better version of this could be built. What makes doing that tricky [...]

Would you mind describing, in a few broad strokes, what a better SecureDrop would look like? What would be the main potential changes and improvements?

<comment><USER6> Yeah, I'll do that. Let me run thoughts past some other people first.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> SecureDrop is also in use by CBC, a publicly-funded National broadcaster in Canada, and is actually implemented and managed properly -- regardless of the quality of SecureDrop itself.

[https://securedrop.cbc.ca/](https://securedrop.cbc.ca/)

The gateway site is only accessible over HTTPS, then it's to an .onion via a link to Torbrowser, and mentions of TAILS, all caveats with using the stated software applies though.

<comment><USER9> CBC should not host that site on such a distinctive subdomain, as the hostname "securedrop.cbc.ca" will leak in the clear during the TLS negotiation. It would be far better to host the same content at, say, [https://cbc.ca/securedrop](https://cbc.ca/securedrop).

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> RIP Aaron Swartz, who originally built this. He'd be 30 now.

<comment><USER11> Highly suggest anyone that has not watched "The Internet's Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swartz" take the time to watch it:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM)

RIP Aaron

<comment><USER12> non-mobile link: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvcc9C8SbM)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Also worth shouting out to Global Leaks, a similar sort of system with some interesting other features.

[https://www.globaleaks.org](https://www.globaleaks.org)

<comment><USER3> What is the basis for thinking it's secure?

<comment><USER13> Excellent team of people. Widely used. Code audits etc etc

[https://github.com/globaleaks/globaleaks/wiki](https://github.com/globaleaks/globaleaks/wiki)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Do not forget [https://onionshare.org/](https://onionshare.org/)

An excellent alternative to SecureDrop. At least so it seems...

<comment><USER3> What is the basis for thinking it's secure? Anyone can write an app and then type the characters "s-e-c-u-r-i-t-y" in the description.

<comment><USER15> Coded by Micah F. Lee of the free press foundation. Pretty well respected member of the community and all around great guy.

<comment><USER3> Thanks. For my and others' reference, is Mr. Lee an IT security professional? I don't mean to disparage those who aren't (I'm not), but in the end security comes down to trusting the expertise, execution, and intentions of the developers - and he sounds good for the latter two, based on what you say.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Recently review the SecureDrop and was suprised how many main stream media companies to not provide a way for leakers to safely leak information to them.

<comment><USER16> No kidding. Seems like only a few of the largest media outlets provide SecureDrop or a similiar alternative, and that number quickly drops to zero when you move from general mainstream media to more specialised stuff (tech, sports, gaming, music, etc).

Most don't even provide more than a simple contact form or email address...

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Tangential and more applicable to a different style of leak, but I'd be interested in seeing the development of some protocol ideas for authenticating leaks to gain confidence the leaker is actually within a given organization. Otherwise we're left not knowing if a casual leaker is for real or just entertainment twitting.

One rough idea is that large organizations make specific press releases or announcements, that a precommitment could demonstrate privileged access to.

Another idea would be inclusion of some internal communication, which other members of the organization could confirm. This would require those other members to be sympathetic to the leaking, and also not worried about reprisals for speaking publicly like so. This probably isn't useful on its own, but the basic mechanism could be combined with other means to derive utility without public attestation.

The biggest issue is (of course) an adversarial organization subtly changing to-be-published information, to sniff out the actual leaker. Which is why I'm envisioning the need for some formality that could quantify and mitigate such leakage.

</comment><comment><USER18> Is this based on Tor? Or are whistleblowers expected to use Tor on top of this?

<comment><USER19> > Each Source Interface is only available as a Tor Hidden Service, which is a > special type of website with an address ending in ".onion" that is only > accessible through Tor. Tor is an anonymizing network that makes it > difficult for anybody observing the network to associate a user's identity > (e.g. their computer's IP address) with their activity (e.g. uploading > information to SecureDrop).

From [https://docs.securedrop.org/en/latest/source.html](https://docs.securedrop.org/en/latest/source.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm not sure the problem is a lack of leaking solutions that we can trust, especially as long as WikiLeaks is around.

The problem I see is that there will be no more important leaks:

a) Given how around 50% the US population was brainwashed by government and media into believing Snowden is a traitor,

b) Given the fact that America has elected a president who wants Snowden executed,

c) Given that the NSA has locked down their systems completely since Snowden's revelations.

Who would want to take these risks to leak anything just to be put on "the list" by their own country and People?

If Snowden's leaks were not enough to get people thinking then the only thing that will is serious pain and suffering. And that is what I personally expect to come (for the lower and middle class, at least).

<comment><USER21> > I'm not sure the problem is a lack of leaking solutions that we can trust, > especially as long as WikiLeaks is around.

You still trust WikiLeaks?

<comment><USER20> As long as Assange is in control, absolutely. Currently, nobody beats the level of commitment that people like Assange and Snowden have proven.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> If a site like this doesn't yell at you for accessing over just https and not tor, you can only expect it to be run by three or four letter agencies.

</comment><comment><USER23> One could use Bitmessage for leaks - just create a channel and let people publish data to it.

[https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page](https://bitmessage.org/wiki/Main_Page)

<comment><USER24> Came here to say this. You could just publish to the general chan. However, bitmessage is no good for distributing data. It would be good for distributing how to get that data (torrent magnet, mega.nz link, encryption key, etc).</comment></comment>


Are we the first document aggregation site? - <AUTHOR>

We have just launched the document aggregation site.  Are we the first and the only one that does this?  Please let us know.  The address is:
www.buzzup.com/docs
Thanks for your input. <comment><USER2> this is great but all the document preview pictures seem very small (much smaller than the frame -- possible to make bigger?)</comment>


Airbnb Tech Talk: Zach Holman - Git and GitHub Secrets - <AUTHOR> http://www.airbnb.com/meetups/5asy8pxxs-tech-talk-zach-holman

<comment><USER2> I am not sure why google (chrome) thinks this page is in Indonesian.

<http://i.imgur.com/XWoja.png>

Anyone else got that?

<comment><USER3> Yeh, I get that for all their talks. Not sure why either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Seems like it's going to be a similar to this talk which he's given previously: <http://zachholman.com/talk/git-github-secrets>

</comment><comment><USER5> I was there when he gave that talk in Singapore Reddot Ruby conference and love it. Highly recommended if you use GitHub at all.

pro tip: be sure to go up to Zach and ask for rare octocat stickers after the talk!

</comment><comment><USER6> Why do I find the about section ridiculous.

</comment><comment><USER7> Gray text on gray background isn't very readable.

</comment><comment><USER8> see you all at the talk on Wed!

</comment><comment><USER9> is it now "cool" to evade your taxes?

<comment><USER10> I'm not sure what you're talking about, there doesn't seem to be anything about taxes in the OP. You sure you have the right thread? Can you explain more?

<comment><USER11> <http://cl.ly/1r0y0o2a1D3s2j3y1j03>

<comment><USER12> I think the "serious" part of his description stops at "He works at GitHub". Everything after that sounds pretty jokey.

<comment><USER13> I'm pretty sure the only serious part of the description is "Zach Holman", "Ruby developer" and "He works at GitHub". The sentence before that says those phrases ("sound fundamentals, firm grasp on the industry, and innovative development approaches") don't apply to Zach.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


More than 20 aircraft struck by lasers last night - <AUTHOR> http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/12/us/laser-strikes/index.html <comment><USER2> Is this CNN trying to drum up a terror in the air story?

"Strikes were reported in 10 states as well as in Puerto Rico and Ontario, Canada, said the FAA. Aircraft flying over major cities such as New York, Los Angeles and Dallas were among those affected."

So like a lot of other nights? I flew for the regional airlines and got nailed by them every week or two. No big news here.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think it's still news (at least to me) if 20+ aircraft are getting laser- struck nightly!</comment></comment>