Running I3 Window Manager on Ubuntu for Windows - <AUTHOR> https://brianketelsen.com/i3-windows/ <comment><USER2> At first I was excited by bash for Windows but I am still not switching. You know why? Malware. Ransomware. I have many layers of defense from various harm (OpenWRT router, uBlock being the two most important ones) but the biggest defense I have is that Windows programs simply do not run on Linux and the Linux market is not big enough to bother with.

And I know many of you will say, oh that's not a problem, it never happened to me -- I will say good for you. But I need my work computer to, well, work, constantly. Yes, fighting a broken Arch Linux after an update is bad but not as bad as fighting a downright malicious program.

<comment><USER3> Somewhat unrelated, but you should check out pi hole [https://pi- hole.net](https://pi-hole.net) . Ads / spyware traffic won't even enter your network. I still run uBlock, but it goes largely unused.

<comment><USER2> Pretty good idea -- since I am running OpenWRT already I could just use [https://gist.github.com/teffalump/7227752](https://gist.github.com/teffalump/7227752)

<comment><USER4> Actually, good call. I'll just make a cron job to get uBlock's lists and stick them in dnsmasq.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> A lot of comments about Thunderbird here, despite the article saying "Save your apologist comments and what about Open Office/Geary/Thunderbird comments.". That means don't comment about it.

The interesting part of the article is not the part about why this guy uses Windows!

<comment><USER6> You missed the rest of the paragraph though: "If you've used them, you know that they're not as nice as the applications available in macOS and Windows."

I used Thunderbird for about 10 years on my Mac laptop and every time I tried to switch to Apple Mail (or anything else) I quickly switched back. But the truth is, I have used Linux on my primary desktop PC for about 15 years now and can honestly say that it is a very pleasant experience.

I would agree that for a long time OpenOffice had compatibility issues (often no worse than trying to open an Office document on a Mac) but those days are long gone.

As a software developer and general techie, I believe that Free Software is important for my profession and for the public at large. For me, even if Linux was less convenient (which it is not - today anyway...it was more challenging, say, a decade ago) I would use it because I have serious concerns some of how Apple and Microsoft treat developers and the Free Software movement.

<comment><USER7> Haven't Mozilla gave up on Thunderbird though?

<comment><USER8> There's always Icedove, which gets updates from Debian.

<comment><USER9> Debian isn't doing any independent development on icedove, are they? I think if thunderbird development stops so will icedove's.

[https://wiki.debian.org/Icedove#The_future_of_Icedove](https://wiki.debian.org/Icedove#The_future_of_Icedove)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Turn the indexing off in Thunderbird and it is still quite a usable email client for me and I have recently done a bit of a tour of the alternatives. It hits the sweet spot for me. Mutt is awesome but I have to deal with too much html email.

I pretty much run the same stack for email/editor/docs on every platform. For the most part Windows, OSX and Linux are interchangeable for me which is a nice place to be. I just find Linux gets in the way a lot less for my purposes.

Every platform has advantages and a slightly different mix of applications that make it suit some users more than others. I can certainly understand swapping between a Mac and Windows for iOS and Windows development or games and back to Linux for web/server stuff. But being stuck on a particular platform because of an email client would bother me.

I think it is great that this stuff is running on Windows but it bothers me that people feel they are trapped on Windows because of their email client. That seems so dated.

</comment><comment><USER11> Well it's finally the year of the Linux Desktop.

<comment><USER12> Actually, I feel like this is the one instance where saying "GNU" instead of Linux is completely accurate, since WSL is not even running the Linux kernel but GNU userland tools...

I wonder what Stallman would have to say about that? We've come around full circle to GNU/NT.

<comment><USER13> Richard calls it "GNU/kWindows" (like GNU/kFreeBSD); I wrote an article with his input a while back:

[https://mikegerwitz.com/2016/04/GNU- kWindows](https://mikegerwitz.com/2016/04/GNU-kWindows)

<comment><USER11> I think Gnudows is a pretty catchy portmanteau.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Initially I read this as "Running _13_ Window Manager _s_ on Ubuntu for Windows", which piqued my interest as possibly the most Linux thing I can imagine doing.

Still, exciting times.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm one of those weird people that uses free software even if it isn't better. The quality of the software is beside the point.

<comment><USER16> If you're not using the best functional tool for the job, the only person you are hurting is you.

<comment><USER15> Sometimes I use software when people aren't paying me. I even write software sometimes when people aren't paying me. So there isn't always a "Job" involved.

In any case, while free software might hurt me short term, proprietary software is guaranteed to hurt me long term.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Another thought: when people complain about the state of Linux email clients, what is so good about the Windows alternatives? Office productivity suites, I get it. But email clients all suck. Mutt's mantra is so true, at least they're honest about sucking less.

I believe Linux is a 100% of the time platform because the choice (again, user choice) to run minimal terminal apps means like less than average 50% memory utilization for Thunderbird, which I love, with a web browser GUI and background full text indexing all damn day.

Outlook is just as crappy.

<comment><USER18> Don't write off Outlook without a second thought. It's big with loads of features, yes - but that's what's good about it.

If all you need to do is plain text email, sure, Mutt is fine. If you deal with a large amount of email, calendar appointments, tasks, contacts, etc, in a professional role, nothing beats Outlook.

There's a reason it's so popular.

<comment><USER14> I've never had an installation of Outlook that stayed stable and usable for more than about six months. It doesn't help that you have other parts of Office that stick their grubby fingers in your address books, calendars, and mail files and do their best to scramble things up.

<comment><USER19> I don't know what you're doing with it, but I've used Outlook for 2 multinational companies for 4+ years each, had several GB of mails for each (probably hundreds of thousands of email per account, most of them automated), and the worst parts of it were a bug with password resets (it keps asking for my password for about a week after quarterly resets) and the slowness of filter sync with Exchange.

As you can see, those were nuisances. Otherwise, it was pretty much rock solid.

Several versions, ran them under XP and Windows 7.

<comment><USER14> Lync/Skype for Business tends to play havoc with Outlook data files, I've found.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Serious question, what's wrong with Thunderbird? I've used Eudora, Netscape Messenger, Thunderbird, Outlook Express, Outlook up to 2016, Mail, Gmail, Squirrel etc etc. I use Outlook where I _have_ to, but TB is a constant across all my systems. IMAP support is great, search is fast, I rely on Google to filter spam. Thunderbird is one of those apps that doesn't need extra work or new features, it just works.

<comment><USER4> It's slow, it takes a crapload of resources and it has a bunch of bugs I've never been able to fix. If I click the unified inbox on my laptop, I get a blank view, even though there are emails in the sub-mailboxes. This has been going on for years, and I haven't been able to fix it (short of deleting my profile).

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> For me, modern virtualization has gotten so good that it's my preferred solution. kvm, libvirt, virtio, and PCI passthrough et al have opened up a whole new world of possibilities. Currently still requires fairly specific hardware and kind of a pain to figure out how to make it work, but it's already very impressive.

This is still really cool though.

<comment><USER22> Thing is you can't run Windows natively that way, it has to be a guest operating system. Then you need multiple videocards to pass through, and the guest operating systems require custom drivers at that.

My preferred setup would be Windows native, with macOS (ha) and Linux guests running with GPU acceleration—preferably in a manner that doesn't necessitate multiple videocards.

Too bad Apple is hellbent on locking macOS to Apple hardware. I'd totally license it otherwise.

<comment><USER23> >you can't run Windows natively that way, it has to be a guest operating system. Then you need multiple videocards to pass through, and the guest operating systems require custom drivers at that.

I, for one, think that sounds excellent. For a workstation, I would _much_ rather host everything on a simple Linux distro with focus on security and privacy, and keep Windows in VMs where I can manage it a little better. And the Windows Subsystem for Linux will run in there perfectly if I need it.

Also, multiple video cards are only necessary if your guest needs that GPU power. Considering that having 2 video cards these days is surprisingly common (Intel on-board + separate video card), I'm wondering about the feasibility of easily switching between shared video (eg. when your laptop is on battery) and separate GPU passthru (eg. when you're plugged into your epic 16-monitor setup).

<comment><USER22> I'd prefer Windows as a guest OS too, but not at the expense of losing native performance.

Granted, Windows makes for a fairly terrible host operating system when you have to reboot it frequently on account of updates.

<comment><USER23> Yeah, I'm writing this without having first-hand experience regarding the current performance of Windows 10 as a guest. Apparently VMWare has good support for it, but searching for reviews on the actual performance only turns up a bunch of confusing, outdated rants. I'll just have to try it myself when I get the chance.

<comment><USER21> For gaming performance on kvm most people say about 95% of native performance when passing the GPU.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I haven't had any problems with macOS stability lately. Has anyone else experienced what the author describes?

Around me Windows 10 has crashed more than macOS. but Windows 10 is really stable too.

<comment><USER25> From the post:

 _but I do daily development on an Arch linux desktop sitting next to my MacBook Pro_

I have a similar set up, both at home and at work, where I use a MacBook for Office, Omni{Focus,Graffle}, etc., but SSH into a Linux machine for serious development word. My reasons are two-fold. First of all, many OS X's command- line tools are behind the times and buggy. For instance, grep segfaults on trivial usages such as[1]:

        % echo i860  | grep --color -e i860 -e i86

Or returns incorrect results for even trivial expressions:

        % echo "1234 1234 1234" | egrep -o "^...."
        1234
         123
        4 12

Since I use UNIX command-line tools such as grep daily, I cannot have them fail (yes, I know, get GNU grep from Homebrew). Secondly, Mac hardware is very weak these days, even the Mac Pro is years behind. At the same time, you can get a similarly spec'ed machine on eBay for a couple of hundred of Euros. Plug a card to use CUDA, etc.

[1] [http://blog.loadzero.com/blog/tracking-down-a-segfault-in- gr...](http://blog.loadzero.com/blog/tracking-down-a-segfault-in-grep/)

I don't have many real stability problems (kernel panics), but there are oddball bugs everywhere. E.g. Mail.app likes to redownload all my e-mail when I quit and open it.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> author here - would love advice or tips on how to get dbus running so settings work well and other WMs work like Gnome.

<comment><USER26> Nice work. A few days ago I tried xfce4 with little luck, although xfce4-terminal + Xming get me pretty much everything I need. Windows ConHost.exe is a pretty poor terminal (specifically in terms of fonts and colors) but hopefully things will get better in time.

Regarding Dbus, I haven't had time to try this out yet: [https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4ea4w4/fyi_you_c...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/4ea4w4/fyi_you_can_run_gui_linux_apps_from_bash/d4o0k01)

<comment><AUTHOR> hey thanks! I'll give this a shot, might make GNOME start up now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> As someone who has only briefly worked on Windows since the early 2000s, when I moved to Debian and then Ubuntu (and, then, using Cygwin to make things comfy), what is the compelling reason to adopt it?

Both Mac ans Linux offer very good developer experiences, with hosts of cross- platform tooling and environments that are closer to the server that will most likely run your application. I understand that Windows is essential when you write code that runs on Windows, but, apart from that, what are the advantages over macOS and a more traditional Unix-like environment?

<comment><USER4> Having used Windows extensively up until Vista (at which point I switched to Ubuntu), none. It's a more solid OS than Ubuntu (in that the UI doesn't sometimes have weird corruption bugs and is more responsive), but development is a nightmare.

Development is split into two camps, Windows-centric and UNIX-centric. Trying to develop one on the other is a disaster, so let that inform your choice. As a consumer OS, I have a much easier time installing Ubuntu on my parents'/friends' computers, as it's easier to get used to and doesn't have as many viruses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I work on Windows. I can say that Thunderbird is far better that Outlook.

<comment><USER29> I have the opposite experience.

<comment><USER30> I agree, I've tried both and whilst neither are the fastest programs in the universe, Outlook 2016 has been better than Thunderbird from a performance standpoint. Thunderbird was so slow, I went back to Outlook.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> There's something about "translating system calls" that just makes me wary. It's the kind of thing that could be proven to work for some common cases while failing in mysterious ways for others (not to mention being hard to debug).

Generally, there is a gap between what's documented, what was thought to be true, and what is. At some point they will produce behavior that just doesn't match what compiled code expects. For how many libraries, applications and combinations thereof will they deal with this?

And then there's maintenance. This is a scary kind of layer to be responsible for; future Microsoft employees will have a hard time doing _anything_ to this layer without risking new misbehavior so we have to trust that they either know what they're doing or that they won't touch anything.

I'm not saying that they weren't clever to try this, or that there isn't a way to pull this off successfully. I do think the odds are against them though. Or maybe, I just missed something about their implementation that makes this a lot less risky than it seems to be.

<comment><USER32> Bryan Cantrill has a wonderful talk about exactly this in Illumos that I recommend at every opportunity [https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hgN8pCMLI2U)

<comment><USER32> Err, I meant [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfD3pC0VSs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrfD3pC0VSs)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> How did the author miss out on using Cmder? It's better the ConEmu and probably the best terminal for Windows today.

<comment><USER34> Well, actually, Cmder is just a distribution around ConEmu. But I agree that it is quite acceptable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> > far too many things don't work in macOS that are required for modern > Internet software development

It's been a few years since I've actively used Mac OS, but is this really true? Ancedotally it seems like a lot of Web developers still use Mac OS as their OS of choice.

<comment><USER36> Nope, it's not true, at least for what I do.

You can look around [1] to see what kinds of things are just a "brew install" away on macOS... an awful lot of unix-y goodness.

I have 61 things installed -- ansible, git, nvm, postgresql, the_silver_searcher, tmux...

Since I develop on Linux for work, I don't know offhand of _anything_ that Linux has that I can't get for macOS (not saying there are no such things, but I can't think of any).

[1] [http://braumeister.org](http://braumeister.org)

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> This is tangential but my primary interest is being able to natively ssh into a Windows machine.

I know options exist today but I would love to see native support and it's oh- so-close.

Would be great to be able to finally script things to copy stuff over to the Windows box such as LE certs.

<comment><USER38> It's getting there: [https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH](https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH)

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> The gnu binaries used in this article are the ones included in maboXterm and compiled for windows, nothing related to an abstraction layer between nt kernel and Ubuntu gnu bin builds as mentioned I suppose. Working great anyway.

</comment><comment><USER3> At this point why not just have a Linux system on your local network and connect with VNC from Windows...? You can have a Linux environment to hack around in while getting to use all the "nice" Windows GUI apps.

<comment><USER40> VNC has never been near as fast as even Remote Desktop, and even that is pretty slow for anything more than basic administration. Maybe in a local lan it would work better, but I doubt considering it's slow even in a VM on a powerful workstation.

It's getting to the point where I'm thinking about using a Windows laptop and Linux desktop with a KVM switch, but then I'm not portable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> It's disappointing that i3 is constrained to one window. The ability to replace Microsoft's window manager with i3 and allow linux and windows apps to be nicely tiled together would be amazing.

<comment><USER17> Now, it ain't tiling, but I once worked (not as the first guy, but took it over as a major project and the hell out of it) was one of the ports of Opebox-ish Windows managers (to be more accurate, really an Explorer replacement shell, not a Windows manager traditionally) to Windows XP to build very stripped down Windows kiosk machines with minimal UI and a lot of control, custom UI, and cool fun features.

[http://www.lsdev.org/doku.php](http://www.lsdev.org/doku.php)

God I miss this. It was way ahead of the time and I guess Microsoft got their UI act together, then lost it, and are trying to find it again.

As for tiling, the best you can do are these:

[https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n](https://github.com/fuhsjr00/bug.n)

[https://github.com/ZaneA/HackWM](https://github.com/ZaneA/HackWM)

The latter is by a budding Chicken Lisp; I found him and love a lot of what he does; not sure he is ready for prime-time.

<comment><USER42> Hey, HackWM author here, this might be a better link [https://github.com/ZaneA/HashTWM](https://github.com/ZaneA/HashTWM) :) Unfortunately it has been largely unmaintained by myself since the initial release, I occasionally pick it up for a day or two but I'm not using it actively anymore. Just happy that some people find a use for it!

<comment><USER17> Yeah I clearly saw it a long time ago.

As I said, stumbled upon your blog because of Chicken Lisp musings (dare I say chicken scratch)? Thanks for that, all very interesting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> When it comes to finding a decent terminal emulator for Windows: mintty is the terminal you get when you use Git Bash, right? Because in my experience it's better than ConEmu.

ConEmu makes a staggering number of off-by-one errors in putting characters on the screen when I ssh into a Linux machine and use tmux. Vertical separators end up jagged, things that are supposed to fit the width of the screen end up wrapping, my Vim status line says "IISUAL", and so on. But mintty gets tmux right.

<comment><AUTHOR> i've noticed a lot of these same off-by-one errors in MobaXTerm, too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I think the real trouble with Windows for many folks is not that we can't figure out how to convert linux kernel calls into NT kernel calls, but that we don't want to convert our linux kernel calls into NT kernel calls PLUS "telemetry" data sent to Redmond. Windows is explicitly non-free (in so many ways), and that's cool and all, but no thanks.

</comment><comment><USER45> This is awesome stuff. If you fullscreened MobaXTerm and autohide the Windows taskbar then what are the problematic points vs running a linux/i3wm natively? Do certain keystrokes get intercepts by Windows regardless? You mention Firefox have you tried Chrome/Chromium in i3wm? Can you play a HTML5 youtube video?

Thanks for writing it up, interesting stuff! - An i3 user

<comment><AUTHOR> I hadn't found any keystrokes that were masked by windows, but most of what I do is ALT+something, I use ALT as my meta key in i3.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Am ... am I falling in love with Windows?

Well, time to see if I can get StumpWM running on it, for more hipster cred. (Partly joking, partly serious.)

<comment><USER46> > Am ... am I falling in love with Windows?

Spend some time with it again. You'll learn to hate it just as much as you did the first time around. For me, it's because of a single factor: BSOD caused by shitty geforce drivers. I used to think the linux geforce drivers were shit because it was a neglected platform. Now I know the truth: windows geforce drivers are full of pain and tears as well. I don't see any of the same issues on OS X.

<comment><USER47> The specific case of terrible video drivers might have been slightly better these days (because part of it has been moved to user mode, so crashing it just means your screen flashes and weird for a second).

Spending more time with it can let you find _different_ things to hate, of course. In general, all software suck.

<comment><USER46> > because part of it has been moved to user mode, so crashing it just means > your screen flashes and weird for a second

You mean on Linux, right? Because in Windows 10, going full screen in a youtube video on an external screen routinely causes my entire system to crash (BSOD, error dump, restart).

<comment><USER48> I'm on windows 10 with a shitty "optimus" enabled laptop. The NVidia drivers routinely crash (typically when viewing a heavy webGL enabled page) and windows 10 just flashes at me and throws up a notification saying my graphics drivers have crashed but it helpfully restarted the drivers for me.

Perhaps you have a different issue? Maybe a hardware failure? Windows 10 should not be BSODing for a graphics driver failure

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> _dyed_ in the wool...

<comment><AUTHOR> fixed, thanks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I wonder if someone will get xmonad working?

</comment><comment><USER51> A lot of alarms ringing in my mind, as a long time Linux and i3 user and developer.

1\. You ran i3 as a proof of concept now but going long term you ll face dozens of issues when you want to make it useful. The same is true for everything you ll install through Ubuntu for Windows..

2\. Windows mail clients are totally wrong, slow and they are not only hazardous to people using but also to receivers of emails. Outlook users don't know how to put subjects, respond and distort the format and conversation all the time. (Long time outlook user here)

3\. Desktop productivity tools are long history. No reason why someone would use ms office anymore.

4\. Windows for Ubuntu is doomed to be a second class citizen, and if it by chance becomes a first class citizen then why would someone need the Windows overhead and complexity? (How can I apt-get remove windows)

I congratulate MS devs taking HN seriously recently but windows in 2016 is obsolete..

<comment><USER30> oh dear. I'd have to suggest here that you're projecting your own use cases and assuming that they have a universality that they really don't.

Desktop productivity tools are history... no, no they're not, MS office sells millions of copies for a reason.

Windows mail clients are wrong. They're not the same as unix mail clients for sure, but who gets to dictate whether that's right or wrong? Personally I think all mail clients that allow HTML are wrong, but I understand that I'm in a minority there.

I'd suggest that Windows has many advantages over linux on the desktop. The hardware support is better, there's a better range of desktop apps available for people who like desktop apps (including games of course).

Personally I'm looking forward to ubuntu on windows. there's a load of areas where I prefer working in a linux/unix like environment (e.g. anything command-line based where linux is far superior to Windows (although Windows is getting better in that regard)), and I hope that this will let me get the best of both worlds, whilst avoiding the overhead of running a VM.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> Do you still need to be in the windows fast lane preview for access to bash on windows? I want to try this but im a bit hesitant to run the earliest of beta software on my only productivity machine...

<comment><USER53> I'm on the slow ring and recently received it. They have a blog here which details each of their releases on each of the release "rings": [https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/tag/windows- insi...](https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/tag/windows-insider- program/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> There is a tiling window manager for windows using auto hot key, so entirely native and works on previous versions of Windows too. I seem to have forgotten the name but it worked well when I tried it.

<comment> T-A There seems to be a whole bunch: [https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/2rn775/best_tiled_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/2rn775/best_tiled_window_manager_for_windows/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Gentoo called it eleven years ago. [http://www.gentooexperimental.org/nt/](http://www.gentooexperimental.org/nt/)

</comment><comment><USER56> Incredible. My fancy new Lenovo has gotten no use because they've made it impossible to install another operating system in it. I look forward to giving this a go.

<comment><USER57> Who have, Lenovo?

<comment><USER58> I have an Lenovo Thinkpad x220 running Ubuntu that I needed to set the BIOS to Legacy.

<comment><USER59> I had a x220 and it worked fine with Ubuntu in EFI-only mode. Same for my current x230. Probably boots 1 or 2 seconds faster because of that. But I never managed to get it working by doing the partitioning work myself (which I prefer because I don't like having everything in a huge partition), you have to format the whole drive and let Ubuntu do its thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> It is rather trivial for Microsoft to implement support for Linux.

Also, if Windows source code was freely available there would be support for Windows applications on Linux.

<comment><USER61> There is support for Windows applications on Linux, no source code needed: [https://www.winehq.org/](https://www.winehq.org/)

<comment><USER60> Yes.

My point was that it is trivial for Microsoft to implement support for an open system, compared to implementing support for a closed system such as Windows.

There would be better support for running Windows applications under Linux if Windows was an open system.

<comment><USER14> Still, even if everything Windows-based was open-source, you'd still have to build out the shim layers in front like Wine does, unless you wanted to deal with the extreme tedium of converting all the Win32, DirectX, etc, etc, calls over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm on Windows and I use Thunderbird. What's the alternative?

</comment><comment><USER63> Anyone knows when WSL is expected to arrive on non-insider versons?

<comment><USER64> 2nd august with windows 10 anniversary update

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> Embrace, extend, extinguish.

</comment><comment><USER66> Did anyone try to use xmonad?

</comment><comment><USER67> Can WLS run Wine?

<comment><USER68> Can Wine run WSL's bash.exe?

<comment><USER69> Is it turtles all the way down?

<comment><USER70> More like an operating system tower of babel!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Save your FUD, I've been using computers for 16 years and I've never had this problem. Malware/Ransomware hit only if you go around the dark corners in search of porn/free stuff without knowing what you're downloading. Even then the built in Windows defender catches it.

I love Arch too but people like you are so die hard in their toxicity that any collaboration asking about Windows related stuff is impossible.

<comment><USER72> Many people who get ransomwared are naive victims of phishing emails, some of which are fairly convincing. There are usually some red flags if you're paying attention, but it only takes one mistake.</comment></comment>


Snowden: Tech Workers Are Complicit in How Their Companies Hurt Society - <AUTHOR> https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/wxqx8q/snowden-tech-workers-are-complicit-in-how-their-companies-hurt-society <comment><USER2> Previosuly discussed here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23643777](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23643777)

</comment><comment><USER3> > and a letter signed by at least 1,666 Google employees demanding the company > stop selling technology to police departments.

I had to read this link to see what it was talking about. Maybe some ridiculous AI crime prediction algorithm?

> Google employees also expressed frustration with Google's praise of police > departments like Clarkston PD that used _G Suite software_

Err, what the hell? Is someone supposed to be ashamed of selling email and docs/spreadsheet software to police departments? Of all the things Google does, selling G Suite is probably one of the most "moral". It's a simple exchange of money for basic useful services, with few/no strings attached.

What am I missing?

<comment><USER4> complicit: "choosing to be involved in an illegal or questionable act."

If you feel that the act is questionable, you know that you are involved, and you choose to remain involved, you are complicit.

Trying to morally distance yourself by coming up with justifications is self- hypnosis. Which is fine, but it's deceiving yourself.

<comment><USER5> Should Google and everyone else also stop paying taxes, because they fund the police?

<comment><USER4> If you are assuming that this would be absurd, that assumption and the belief system it rests on may be preventing you from seeing and understanding what is happening.

There is a long history of people doing personally uncomfortable things after checking their internal moral compass.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Unless your work involves helping people, treating or educating them, that's basically most industries, no?

Automotive, aerospace, consumer electronics, travel, advertising, mining, shipping, food, meat, chem, pretty much anything related to consumerism, all hurt society or the environment to some degree in order to benefit their customers and shareholders.

SW engineers are an easy target for the mainstream media since _" they're paid huge sums for just sitting in front of a screen all day so they can't be adding much value to society as a physical laborer for example"_.

Edit: Of course, the main thing is if the damage done to society or the environment is outweighed by the benefits provided in return such as the food, energy and pharma industry.

<comment><USER7> I work in home automation (Home Assistant) and we can improve our customer lives with privacy and local control without hurting society. And I bet a lot of other industries too.

<comment><USER8> How would you add privacy compared to a non-automated house? I developed a few devices with voice interfaces.

In normal cases you exchange privacy for convenience.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Of course we are, we get paid to sell out those beneath us for a dollar.

I liked to think I was helping people in my younger years but as I got more and more involved in ad tech, we just optimize for maximum profit no matter what else.

<comment><USER10> > Of course we are ... more involved in ad tech

Not all tech is ad tech. Please don't lump all tech into your statement of "get paid to sell out those beneath us for a dollar".

<comment><USER11> The cynical response is probably that all tech is either ad tech, uses ad tech or builds things used by ad tech.

You don't really need ad tech to make that statement about selling out those beneath you applicable for most tech though. Work on self-driving cars? Good bye to people earning money driving cars. Yes, you can rationalize that by saying "no, we're just automating what can be automated to free human productivity and make sure their capacity isn't wasted on these trivial tasks", but this isn't Star Trek and they won't be freed from driving cars, they'll be out of a job.

Yes, there are exceptions, but yes, they are exceptions.

<comment><USER12> While also saving thousands of lives a year. Morally, the calculus works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> As engineers in tech have way more power than we realize. Its not a coincidence that the biggest most successful tech companies also have some of the best engineers working there. It's the engineers who made those companies successful not the other way around.

Wherever you work you have a responsibility to make sure your skills are being used for something you support. If you can't convince the leadership at your company to do the right thing then you need to leave and stop helping them. Go work for their competitors who are doing the right thing. There's tons of companies who pay just as well and aren't bad for society or the planet.

<comment><USER14> > It's the engineers who made those companies successful not the other way > around.

looks reasonable at first, but not as clear-cut as one might think.

> Wherever you work you have a responsibility to make sure your skills are > being used for something you support.

i love it how rosy the world looks when i read this.

i've got acquaintances that fully support the arms trade, spyware, gambling etc they love it, they moved house for these kinds of jobs.

moral of the story is don't assume too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Some things are objectively bad and should be regulated by society. Subverting the web for tracking and hoarding personal data are two big ones.

Regulation means laws proposed by a government, and it also means either an impact on the profits of entrepreneurs (n. fr. _middle man_ ) or at least a lot of press from entrepreneurs about how this will stifle innovation and stop the next generation reaching the American Dream: _you know what's cool? A billion dollars_

It's easy to hop skip and jump through all sorts of stages to end up at crazy conclusions, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to point to materialism, wealth inequality, and love of money as being serious corruptions. A little modesty and humility goes a long way. Maybe don't [faux] celebrate the next massive tech exit as the top news item on HN?

<comment><USER16> It seems like a tautology to say subverting is objectively bad. When does tracking become subverting though?

Also it's a bit ironic to decry both materialism and wealth inequality at the same time. I guess if you're concerned about the wealthy's souls or something.

<comment><USER15> I don't want to overcome wealth inequality so we can all own Porsche SUVs.

I'm not interested in facilitating mass materialism. Materialism is the problem, and wealth inequality a symptom, in my experience.

<comment><USER16> > I don't want to overcome wealth inequality so we can all own Porsche SUVs.

Indeed quite the opposite. But if some do care to own them, that doesn't have to bother you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I still think this is primarily a result of the financial regulations that effectively make it impossible to have an efficient anonymous digital payment system for small transactions.

The result is that adtech is the only other means to fill that need (you pay with data instead of money), so it does, so it's everywhere when it ought not to be.

You can make the case that people should refuse to work on it, but that's a lot easier to achieve in practice when the alternative isn't prohibited by law.

We need something equivalent to cash that works on the internet.

</comment><comment><USER17> The article seemed incoherent to me. It went from "people who write spreadsheet apps are being subverted" (how?) to "the police is flying drones" to "tech workers need to stand up".

I haven't watched article interview, I'm hope it's more coherent and it's just VICE's summary.

</comment><comment><USER18> Every time I read this kind of message i feel like it's propaganda that is trying to make the west weaker by convincing people to not work on military technology. What you make can hurt people, yes, some people deserve to be hurt.

<comment><USER19> Just throwing this out there since we're talking about morals: who deserves to be hurt and how do we decide that?

One of the big issues with tech involvement in security and defence is the shift in onus of responsibility from person to algorithm. Just this week we've seen a story top HN about a black man who was falsely identified as a terrorist by a facial recognition algorithm [1]. Closer scrutiny showed that the terrorist score was 52%, barely more than a coin flip. Even closer scrutiny showed that the image was grainy. Not once was a human called into the loop to assess the algorithm.

Maybe the intention was good (let's use facial recognition technology to catch terrorists), but the tech itself was flawed and there was a failure to imagine scenarios where an innocent person is denied their liberty because the tech didn't work. Add to this the racial inequality, and the lack of empathy becomes deeper. Would anyone feel comfortable deploying facial recognition technology if there was a 50% chance (a coin flip) that they themselves would be hit? Finally, this goes beyond race. Who (in the West) decides who (not the west) should get hurt (be killed really) because they are collateral? Again the empathy gap decides that life is cheap on the other side.

The problem with tech culture is that we don't like to imagine scenarios where it just simply isn't up to the task. This can become a matter of life and death (or liberty) when security and defence are involved. At no point am I saying that countries should not invest in technology for security and defence, but that rather such systems are weak if they're merely brute force (even a conv net can be trained to brute force it's test accuracy) and not highly accurate. And right now the technology isn't ready for deployment.

[1]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23628394](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23628394)

<comment><USER16> The application of AI in security is primarily needed to due to the enormity of the problem, not due to its ability to replace people. There simply isn't enough manpower or time to train experts and have them examine all the data. You can argue some of the data should not be examined at all for privacy reasons. But there are plenty of scenarios where privacy concerns won't hold. Such as comparing the security camera photo of a bank robber to mugshots.

The question of when it is reliable is an big one people have been working on a long time. For example in medicine the stakes are even higher. The problem is simply that recent technologies (deep learning) have taken a huge leap forward in performance, but a huge leap backwards when it comes to being able to assess confidence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Citizens are complicit in how their governments hurt society. I'm not sure what he's getting at.

</comment><comment><USER21> Leans back in rocking chair, tamps pipe.

When I was younger I used to code in C and C++. Borland compiler and IDE tools were my favourite. From what I recall Microsoft stomped all over them. It was my first introduction Big Tech. I loved DOS (yes DOS!) and I was getting to learn Windows but I felt that Microsoft was stifling its competition by abusing its dominance of the PC OS market. I was young and naive and had never heard of Free (as in freedom) Software and Open Source was a term that was yet to be coined.

(I'm going somewhere relevant with this.)

When Linux came along it made a few small ripples, I jumped on board when it was maybe six or seven years old – a beat up PC running Slackware was being used as a router connected to an ISDN line in a business park I interned at. Some dude explained roughly how it worked and gave me a burnt CD. I had to figure out how to load CD drivers manually, compile the kernel manually, I learned so much. And in time I learned about FOSS and GNU and Stallman and the GPL. I thought, wow – that's a neat hack – using the legal system to guarantee freedoms. Giving people control over their devices, and way less of an opportunity for a big company to stifle it. I was a convert.

We're been at the Ad/Data Lock-in/Surveillance Tech equivalent of Stallman and the mythical printer for over a decade now. I personally think our modern Borland moment was when Facebook was allowed to buy Instagram (2012). That should _never_ have been allowed by regulators. Not to mention WhatsApp (2014). Same for Google buying Android (2005), DoubleClick (2007), or Nest (2014). Not to mention Amazon aquistions. Nor Apple. I'm sure there are many more such examples. Someone mentioned this article ([https://promarket.org/2019/12/09/the-lack-of-competition- has...](https://promarket.org/2019/12/09/the-lack-of-competition-has-deprived- american-workers-of-1-25-trillion-of-income/)) recently about the concentration of corporations in the US, I made a point of bookmarking the link. And that's before we even get on to the topics that Snowden brought to light.

It's hard not to become totally cynical. We need the contemporary equivalent of Stallman and Torvalds to do to Big Tech what GNU/Linux has done to Microsoft – and it was for Microsoft's own good, they're a much better company now! Linux could not have succeeded without the GPL. Do we need another legal hack to spread from the USA to the rest of the world? I'd say probably. Back in the day there were calls to break Microsoft up into a PC OS and Office tools divisions. There appears to be a complete unwillingness in the US to break up or prevent the formation of abusive monopolies in tech. Until antitrust regulators get their you know what together I think we need to legally mandate that key tech standards are federated. I cannot think of any other solution. We need to force Facebook and Twitter to plug into an ITU ([https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx](https://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx)) like standard for a start. (I think we can fix Amazon (and a whole lot more) by forcing them to pay their lowest paid workers and sub-contractors a whole lot more – but that's a whole other topic.) Google I don't know what to do about – possibly get them to divest Android? Force Android to be more open? It's already quite open though. And so is Chrome. They do have a complete monopoly on video streaming and censor and demonetise content in unpredictable, illiberal, anti-democratic and un-free ways – Facebook and Twitter are both unacceptable in this regard also in my eyes.

And it'll only get worse. Microsoft didn't change until they were forced to change. The lack of uptake of Mastadon and Diaspora prove that the FOSS model is not enough. We need FOSS++.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:List_of_mergers_and_a...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:List_of_mergers_and_acquisitions_by)

</comment><comment><USER22> how can a 25 year old say no to 400k a year :(

i can fire with that in a few years of complicity

<comment><USER16> Well if it's for the military or police many will refuse apparently. But they don't have as big a problem with tech companies having the power.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Motivation for personal projects when burnt out from work? - <AUTHOR> I'm about 5 years into  "professional" development work. I used to constantly work on personal projects whether they went anywhere or not. I just loved using them as an excuse to learn something new!<p>But over the last year I've felt so burnt out from work that when I start thinking about personal project I doubt whether it's worth my time if it goes nowhere. This has steered me on a path where any time I try to be productive in my own time, I end up doing more work. Is this a theme for anyone else? <comment><USER2> I think that you are just exhausted, and you need a major break from work. Two weeks is not enough. I recommend you find am all inclusive vacation spot or tour and spend three weeks there. The all inclusive aspect is critical because you need to free yourself from making stressful (e.g. monetary) decisions. Just relax at some place like Club Med.

If that's not possible, even a few nights away from home will be helpful.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yes. Ive found meditation or simple home yoga clears the mind which is of considerable benefit to focus, including noting when it is self defeating to do more work.</comment>


Ask HN: What are your New Year's resolutions? - <AUTHOR> I'm thinking about making some physical ones (getting more flexible, improving fitness) as well as some social ones (focus on building a better relationship / dating life). What are some others? <comment><USER2> About 30+ years ago, I made a resolution to never again make a new years resolution. I have successfully stuck with it.

Poor philosophical humor aside, I instead chose to alter things on any given day that I believe needs to be changed instead of waiting for the end of the year, giving me too much time to forget what needs to be changed.

</comment><comment><USER3> At the end of next year I want my average daily number of steps to be no less than 8 thousand.</comment>


Ubuntu ported to the Nexus 7 - <AUTHOR> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIxMTA <comment><USER2> This is my problem with Ubuntu and Unity, and why I much prefer Linux Mint as a "Windows replacement" OS. They say they made that side bar to "work well with touchscreen devices, too", but as we can see Unity on a touchscreen devices offers a pretty poor experience, and the sidebar is just about the only thing that is meant for touchscreens in Ubuntu. The global menu and everything else is clearly meant for a PC and a mouse.

So why annoy the PC users with the sidebar, when it's not even that good of a UI for tablets? They're much better off designing a tablet-first UI for tablets, if they want to get into that, and stick with designing a well optimized PC UI for PC's.

I've never been a believer of one UI for all form factors and sizes, because you usually end up with the UI being optimized just for one form factor and size, and mediocre or downright terrible for others. You need to optimize the UI for its own form factor and size. It's the only way to make it work well.

<comment><USER3> Unity is a long way from perfect on tablet or PC. Having said that the sidebar has grown on me. Since almost every monitor out there is 16:9; vertical space is precious and another 50 pixels gives me another 2-3 lines of code on the screen.

The best way to use the sidebar is to put your most commonly used program at the top and then launch them with Logo+<Number>.

If you spend some time setting up your shortcut keys you can actually use much of your system mouse free.

So I'm not really sure that it is targeted towards tablets. It could however be adapted to be tablet friendly a lot more easily than the MS Windows interface or older Window managers could be.

So rather than having this jarring difference between Metro and Desktop like you do in Windows 8 they could have a much more subtle transition of the same interface depending on whether a mouse/keyboard was plugged in or not.

<comment><USER4> I just wish that Logo+<Number> didn't require you to hold the Logo key for a second or so before you press the number. I want quicker switching between apps than that.

<comment><USER3> You need to wait if you want the numbers to pop up on the icons, if you just want to switch programs you can do it instantly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The people making comments about Unity on this device have some valid points, but are missing the forest for the trees. One of the major themes of 13.04 and the entire point of this demo is to fix the _core_ of Ubuntu, as was referenced in Mark's blog:

"I think it's time to look at the core of Ubuntu and review it through a mobile lens: let's measure our core platform by mobile metrics, things like battery life, number of running processes, memory footprint, and polish the rough edges that we find when we do that."

Don't expect the Unity UI experience to be optimized for this device in the 13.04 time frame. That's not the goal.

Not speaking officially here, just trying to help people connect the dots of what Canonical have publicly revealed thus far.

<comment><USER6> If the core includes sound drivers and a sensible _structure_ to sound then bring it on...

...I know this is a niche area but the application of cheap touch tablets to sound synthesis software could open up a huge realm of activity.

Then there is the use of a stylus for accurate work...

<comment><USER5> I wouldn't expect any huge departure from the existing sound architecture (PulseAudio, ALSA).

<comment><USER7> achiang,

Unfortunately (and, conversely, fortunately for Ubuntu) Android audio on tablets sucks. Especially when we talk low latency audio. It is bad, in the 100s of milliseconds of latency, which is laughable really for anyone who tries to do audio synthesis or any realtime audio features. So frankly, just bringing ALSA or PulseAudio to the table will hugely improve the situation.

Google is aware of the issue (<http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/detail?id=3434>) it was starred about 2000 times with 400+ comments. Again, this is a niche area for some and most don't care, but those who do would love have an alternative to iPad for example, when it comes to audio latency performance.

<comment><USER6> So Ubuntu could deliver a useful gain in audio performance over Android on a tablet such as the Nexus?

As _input_ appears to be limited to on board microphone in the particular tablet we are discussing, it is unlikely that real time processing will be a major use unless the micro-usb socket can be used with an audio interface.

I certainly would drop £160 or so to try _synthesis_ if pd/jack/effects-loops are available. Just a single cable out, not too restrictive, perhaps even streamed audio over wifi.

puredata allows you to set up your own controls for a sound synthesis program - and you can have chunky buttons and big sliders for touch I'm hoping.

<comment><USER7> > So Ubuntu could deliver a useful gain in audio performance over Android on a > tablet such as the Nexus?

It could if using USB audio input and output. The DAC in the Nexus 7 is not very good. Also, as you pointed out, Nexus 7 doesn't have headset jack, just a headphone jack. So that's lacking. However, there are some compiled kernels that added USB audio out support (but then simultaneously charging the device doesn't work, sigh...).

> puredata allows you to set up your own controls for a sound synthesis > program - and you can have chunky buttons and big sliders for touch I'm > hoping.

Have you heard of <http://libpd.cc/> ?

<comment><USER6> _"Have you heard of<http://libpd.cc/> ?"_

I was aware of android and iPad builds of pd, but this looks more comprehensive although it would mean rather more 'proper' coding than I'm used to. I'd rather see how Ubuntu on tablets goes over the next cycle or so.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Hopefully this means Ubuntu for Android[0] is getting ready for primetime. I'm stoked about the future with this. A phone which boots into Ubuntu when docked, and allows me to get rid of all other devices is the stuff of dreams for me.

[0]<http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/android>

<comment><USER5> Ubuntu for Android is a separate, but related effort.

Again, quoting Mark: "We have two short cycles before we're into the LTS, and by then we want to have the phone, tablet and TV all lined up."

[speaking individually, not representing Canonical]

<comment><USER8> So there will be Ubuntu for Android and a separate Ubuntu Mobile? You probably can't answer that, but doesn't hurt to try :).

Are you able to say anything about Ubuntu for Android? It's been pretty quiet ever since it got announced, though there was a video in August showing it off.

<comment><USER5> I will simply say that we've got a broad portfolio of current and future products, spanning the entire range from the data center down to your personal devices, and we are working hard at commercializing all of them.

Sorry for the platitudes; I'm not authorized to speak on behalf of anyone other than myself.

<comment><USER8> Completely understandable. Good luck in bringing those products to market, hopefully it's not too long before you'll be able to discuss them openly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> james-skemp For what it is, I personally think the Nexus 7's OS is perfect for the device. It's been years since I've played with Ubuntu, and this potential announcement probably isn't going to change that.

And is Ubuntu now going into touch devices? Honest question: How is this different than throwing Windows onto something like this?

<comment><USER9> I love how you say "the Nexus 7's OS" when clearly, Android is used on a wide variety of devices (who calls the software on their phone the Droid Razr's OS or the Galaxy SII's OS? just saying...).

Oh, and honest answer: It's a full-suited desktop OS, so you're right - it's not different than throwing Windows on it (aside from the obvious differences in the Windows/Linux software architecture and distribution models). You still get all the benefits of a full desktop OS :)

<comment><USER10> I bet he meant the "Nexus 7's OS" as opposed to TouchWiz or Sense or whatever UI has been bolted on top of the Android innards.

> You still get all the benefits of a full desktop OS

like hunt-and-pecking in the smallish menus on a 7" screen? this is just ridiculous, and (given their UI plans) way too early to be useful.

<comment><USER9> "... as opposed to TouchWiz or Sense or whatever UI has been bolted on top of the Android innards."

Uh, what? This is a Google/ASUS device, you won't find any of that stuff here. I'm pretty sure the Nexus 7 is as close to AOSP as you can get...

<comment><USER11> That's exactly what he said... I think you misunderstood and thought he said the exact opposite.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've got no interest in Ubuntu on a Nexus 7 but this gives me some hope they might do a semi-official port to those new $250 Chromebooks (assuming they are as open to hacking as the old chromebooks).

ARM based Linux ultrabook-alike on a high powered chip for $250? Now _that_ would get me using Ubuntu again.

<comment><USER13> They probably won't _officially_ support it because it is a consumer device. If you want Ubuntu on it, it will be community supported, or ask Samsung to do the work/pay them to port and support it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> OK...but why ? It's not like Unity is a good fit for a 7" tablet.

<comment><USER15> Very simple use case: connect keyboard and mouse and you'll get portable linux workstation. It's a pity that there is no hdmi out but you shouldn't expect a lot from $200 tablet. As a bonus you'll have lots of open source packages (including various development tools) that will run just fine on this relatively powerful hardware. Most of the user-friendly ubuntu apps won't be usable without a mouse. There are also lots of keyboard-oriented applications that might be fine with just a keyboard.

<comment><USER16> You mention HDMI out. $100 chinese tablets have it [1]. Arguably they don't have the same screen and quality battery as the Nexus 7.

1\. [http://www.ainolstore.com/ainol-novo-7-mars- cortex-a9-androi...](http://www.ainolstore.com/ainol-novo-7-mars- cortex-a9-android-hd-display-tablets.html)

<comment><USER17> That's single core (not quad) and 1GHz (not 1.3GHz). But $87.99 is a great price if that's fast enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> when I access that page I can't help but being distracted by animated ads to cut down my belly.

<comment><USER6> <http://www.readability.com/articles/hlfovpcf>

using the readability bookmarklet or simply add noscript to your Firefox instance.

PS: I know what you mean.</comment></comment>


Subways of the world, to scale - <AUTHOR> http://fakeisthenewreal.org/subway/ <comment><USER2> As for the effects of these differences in layouts, here's an interesting analysis of SF Bart vs. DC Metro, which finds the DC network-style system far more effective - 2.5x the ridership for the same track length ([http://www.ctchouston.org/intermodality/2006/05/06/tale- of-t...](http://www.ctchouston.org/intermodality/2006/05/06/tale-of-two- subways/))

I'm not sure what institutional reason leads Bart to continue expanding outward, rather than running new tunnels in SF proper, but it doesn't seem to be cost-effectiveness driving them to do it.

Interestingly, Seattle made a special institutional provision to ensure this doesn't occur there - they have a system of "sub-area equity", whereby the tax revenues for each of several regions must be spent within that region. So, for example, political power in the suburbs or a desire to expand the agency's tax base doesn't drive them to unfairly allocate transit where it's relatively unneeded, and they can get their second central tunnel whenever the tax revenues for the core call for it.

<comment><USER3> Don't trust a Houstonian to interpret SF transit!

MUNI light rail, subways, and buses handle most shorter trips within SF -- so Metrorail is more comparable to a mix of MUNI plus BART. (It's possible for visitors to the bay area, or even residents of outlying suburbs, to almost completely overlook MUNI trains. I know when I lived in Berkeley, and took BART into SF, I had no appreciation of all the places MUNI went, even though the downtown MUNI stations are stacked above the BART tubes so you see them while riding the escalator up.)

BART was always a longer-trip system, by design.

<comment><USER2> Alright, so if I'm evaluating the benefits of adding an additional 20 miles of track length to the system, should I added at the low-density edges or the high-density core? How would you evaluate the benefits of the two options? He's said that the core option would get several times more ridership.

And I'm sorry you bring up his city of residence. As a Texas-born New Yorker, I'm particularly sensitive to this fallacious ad hominem. Or should I discounting your arguments because you're presumably Californian and your government isn't particularly high-functioning?

<comment><USER4> San Francisco faces a lot of problems which DC doesn't when designing a subway system. Apart from the fact that there's a honking great bay in the middle of the metropolitan area, I'm not sure it's possible for BART to serve much more of San Francisco proper than it already does.

Why? Well, if you go north of the BART line you're rapidly into the hills, so either you have to take the trains up the grade (bad idea) or you have to build your stations thirty storeys underground (also a bad idea). If you go past the hills and up to the Marina, you're into reclaimed land so I don't think it's possible to build a tunnel (civil engineers out there to comment?)

You could probably extend it out into the Richmond and Sunset districts, but that part of town is served reasonably by buses anyway.

While I hate to defend BART almost as much as I hate to ride on BART, its main purpose is really all about linking the cities of the East Bay with San Francisco, and San Francisco with the airport. Comparing it to a proper metro system in a city not subject to the weird geographical limitations imposed by the hills and the Bay isn't really fair.

<comment><USER5> I'm not an engineer, but I live in the Netherlands, so I am qualified to tell you that it is possible to build tunnels under reclaimed land. Just like with tunnels under a waterway, you just have to take some precautions to prevent the tunnel from flooding or floating.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Including the S-Bahn of Berlin but not the RER of Paris or the S-Bahn of Munich looks like an arbitrary decision. Yes, I know the shapes of the pantographs differ, but that's not relevant to me at that scale.

<comment><USER7> Agreed that the decision about what above-ground rail to include seems very arbitrary. The Tokyo map seems to only include the "subway" lines, for example, while the JR rail lines serve the same function + even share stations within the city limits.

<comment><USER8> 55% of the London Underground is above ground: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> a design issue: as I scrolled down the page, at half way I was confused if the city name was associated with the map on top of it or below it. of course I could have scrolled back to find out which was which, but it seemed a poor design if I had to do that.

</comment><comment><USER10> [2004]

Some are seriously dated. For example Valencia <http://www.metrovalencia.es/planos.php?page=103>

<comment><USER11> Oddly enough, the Vienna map seems to include the new part of the U2 line to the football stadium, which was opened shortly before the Euro 2008.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_U- Bahn#3rd_expansion_pha...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_U- Bahn#3rd_expansion_phase_.282001.E2.80.932010.29:_The_first_extensions_of_U1_and_U2)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> It's not quite obvious what the point here is. Many of the cities listed (at least Amsterdam, Munich and Paris) have lightrail lines which can be used seamlessly from the subway. In the case of Amsterdam, the lightrail lines are what you'd actually use to move within the city.

On the larger scale, you get Paris' RER lines or Hamburg's S-Bahn and, for most European cities also a comprehensive train network that makes it possible to commute from larger cities that are as far away as 100km (e.g., from Maastricht, Den Haag or other Dutch cities to Amsterdam) - probably also for the (relatively large) Cologne/Düsseldorf area, which comprises as many people as Berlin, but has many local governments instead of one.

Not sure how to visualize this, though. (Ideally, you'd provide maps based on (i) actual scale, (ii) commute time, and (iii) commute cost.

</comment><comment><USER13> Interesting, I always thought London had the biggest underground network. As far as I know Glasgow is missing.

Which city, do you think, has the best one? I've only been on the underground in London, Glasgow and Munich. And to me, London seems the best, you really don't need a car there (well at least in the centre).

<comment><USER14> Actually, i was quite unimpressed by the London metro last time i visited. London is quite famous for its underground but due to it's age it seems to be extremely overcrowded. My experience on a weekend trip has been that the train did only stop every two stations because of so many people and it was just overcrowded.

On the other hand this made me realize how good the Berlin system actually is.

<comment><USER15> London Underground trains always stop at every stop[1].

[1] actually not always, but with very rare exception.

{EDIT:

I'm getting downvoted so I think I misunderstood what you were saying.

On rereading again I now think you were saying "unusually due to overcrowding the trains were missing out every other station". Previously, I thought you meant "unusually due to overcrowding the trains stopped as frequently as every other station [whereas usually they visit fewer stations than that]".

I was trying to point out that stopping often is usual Underground behavior, thinking that you were assuming it wasn't.

}

<comment><USER14> Well, out of two days i've visited London i had the pleasure to walk one station (and because of the elevator being overrun by people, i took the stairs.. the thing i've learned was that the London underground can be quite deep in the ground, it felt like kilometers :P ).

<comment><USER16> Taking the stairs is a mistake you only make once :)

There's a very strongly worded sign at Covent Garden station, telling people that it really is faster to wait for a lift. But I often see tourists making their way up the stairs.

<comment><USER14> Haha, yes. I've seen such a sign ("Emergency stairs, don't use!") but well.. it was soo crowded and so many people took the stairs i thought it may be a good idea (at first) :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The Vancouver Translink map is missing the new Canada Line.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised the pathetic Toronto TTC subway made its way to the list. For a city of its size it could really enjoy a more intricate subway system. There are buses and trams here indeed but they get stuck the traffic just like every other vehicle during the rush hour.

<comment><USER19> We get health care instead of transit.

That is in no means an opinion of what is better, just simply a statement as to how underfunded our transit systems are and how much we spend on health care overall, from a federal and provincial point of view.

<comment><USER18> Not sure what you mean. A simple look at Vancouver reveals a modern, plastic accepting, completely automated and growing network of under and above-ground trains. Oh, and that isn't owned by the government. Could that be the issue?

<comment><USER19> Point is that there are 3 extensions to that system I can name right now that should be put in place though prior to it being considered adequate to the region, never mind going beyond.

1\. Extension to UBC 2\. Evergreen Extension 3\. Surrey Extension

If you look a Toronto, they're desperate for a complete conversion - New York style - to a subway/mass transit only system. There is so much they should be doing, but aren't.

I don't need the transit to be owned by government, but both Federal and Provincial levels should be regular contributors, like they are in every other nation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Well, technically, not all of these are strictly subways: there's plenty of above-ground lines represented here.

Still, it's very interesting to see these to scale. I did not realize Parisian subway system was so compact.

</comment><comment><USER21> The most bizarre thing is that they don't all appear to be normalized to point North at the top.

</comment><comment><USER22> How come there's a "thank you" for a Los Angeles map, but I don't see it on the site?

</comment><comment><USER23> They forgot Glasgow. I'll add it here: o

;)

<comment><USER24> I'll add Warsaw: ____________

<comment><USER25> What would be super awesome would be a globally complete _and_ up-to-date _and_ animated from inception. I dunno why that would make me so happy but it would.</comment></comment></comment>


Anatomy of a Penetration Test - <AUTHOR> https://visuallyexplainedpentest.barricade.io <comment> noir-york "Barricade is designed so anyone regardless of technical or security experience can understand and manage their security easily."

And then in the previous paragraph "someone has been running Cross Site Scripting attacks..."

Either XSS is such common knowledge that everyone knows what it means, or else...

Security is hard. SIEMs, behavioural IDSs, packet analysers etc, have all been done before - and you need someone full time to babysit the rules and all the false positives that they throw up for any moderately complex network with new apps/devices/use cases being added all the time.

There is a lot of detail on the architecture of Barricade, but nothing on how it differs from existing SIEMS, incident response, managing rulesets, tuning false positives, etc.

I suggest you put up more detailed information besides "machine learning" to show concretely how your tech is better than the stuff that has come before.

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

I work for a web hoster. My job is spread equally across Linux and Windows as both a sysadmin and developer so I have no axe to grind either way, each has features and capabilities I love, each has its own annoyances that make my roll my eyes.

Now, if there's anything that's going to put me off a company and its services then it's language and claims such as:

> "Windows is not as secure"

> "Windows is often regarded as a scrip kiddie OS"

If you want to be taken seriously by pro's that's the sort of thing I wouldn't be sticking on my web pages. It's tiresome tedious stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Visually Explained? The only purpose served by the visualisations on that site is using my CPU, spinning up my fans and provide visual clutter.

PS: It's just an advertisement.

<comment><USER4> In this case, "visual" is just a wall of text presented with some extra styling.

"While you may be able to avoid & slip under the radar of a local Intrusion Detection System, it is unlikely you'll be able to avoid being caught by a cloud hosted IDS like Barricade."

Ugh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The website does not work for me. I've tried Firefox and Chrome but the only thing that loads is the purple-ish background.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi There Jswny, It appears we were experiencing bandwidth issues - we were not expecting the infographic to get so much attention, The issue has now been fixed. Thank you for your comment!

<comment><USER5> Great. The info-graphic looks fantastic and it's quite accurate according to my own personal knowledge, I've experimented quite a bit with a lot of the tools that you mention. Great work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the kind words - Glad you like it :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The animations are interesting. The drone is somewhat glitchy. But they look good. How were they done?

</comment><comment><USER7> Very interesting simple breakdown

</comment><comment><USER8> works fine for me using Chrome</comment>


APIs: The Building Blocks of the App Economy - <AUTHOR> http://paidpost.nytimes.com/ca-technologies/apis-the-building-blocks-of-the-app-economy.html?emc=eta1&_r=0 <comment><USER2> "paidpost.nytimes.com" AKA native advertising

<comment><USER3> In fairness, on site the itself it is pretty clearly highlighted as sponsored content.

Must admit that I was disappointed on clicking to find that it wasn't actual reporting.

<comment><USER4> same, i was hoping it would be something interesting :(

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The infinite scrolling fad needs to die.</comment>