Ask HN: What backpack are you using? - <AUTHOR> I'm looking for a new one and since HN is supercritical towards everything I'd love to have some tips! Thanks <comment><USER3> Goruck GR-1. Benefits: \- Padded laptop compartment helps keep laptop safe and easy access \- Built like a tank, will last forever (made in USA!) \- Outer and Inner organization pockets \- Panel loading, can be fully opened by a side zip and easy to pack/unpack \- Big enough for multi-day travel. I have used it as a carry on pack for upto 7 days (did laundry on the road). \- Discreet enough (black) and fits into a corporate env without looking too tactical

Have no affiliation with GoRuck, am a happy customer

<comment><USER4> This is what I have. I've been using mine every single day over the past 5 years and it's still in excellent condition. I love it.

I used to go through a bag every 2-3 years so it speaks to the build quality of the the GR-1 that it still looks this good.

<comment><USER5> For $400, it would have to last me (2 years * (400/60) between 10 and 15 years.

<comment><USER6> Haha exactly what I thought. I might be overly frugal, but I'm currently using a $50 backpack that I bought at REI in 2009 (!!) and it still works perfectly, just barely showing signs of wear. I use it every single day for my daily commute to carry food/books/laptop/etc, and on weekends for trips and hikes, to carry water and food.

Maybe I also have a habit of treating my belongings too nicely: most of my acquaintances break a phone on average every year, and they also replace screens so many times.

My iPhone 6S, bought in 2015, it's basically brand new cosmetically, and I literally live on my phone, averaging probably at least a couple hours a day of usage while on public transportation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> In case, you need recommendation from previous discussions. Here are the list:

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13369197](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13369197) (Jan 10, 2017 - 135 comments)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14721746](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14721746) (July 7, 2017 - 42 comments)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250044](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15250044) (Sept 24, 2017 - 48 comments)

</comment><comment><USER8> Whoa, so I do like the Wirecutter link just because first you have to identify your needs. Then you have to identify your budget and what else is important to you. I have a lovely Swiss Guard laptop (and more) backpack I use every day, but I also have a $10 Best Buy thin and light backpack that is perfect for my ultrabook when I'm heading to Dungeons and Dragons. I see these $400 recommendations, and I think - OK if money is no object and you have some sort of really high end needs that fit the bill, that might make sense. But is that you?

</comment><comment><USER9> The $10 Amazon Basics backpack. Laptop sleeve, big hole that has straps for my back for everything else. Small pocket in front with zipper. So far lasted 4 years in the rain and weather with its thin cordura. Why complicate things?

</comment><comment><USER10> I made my own. [https://voidnill.gitlab.io/cosmic_voidspace/hackpack.html](https://voidnill.gitlab.io/cosmic_voidspace/hackpack.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> I have Osprey Quasar for over a year. ([https://www.backpacks.com/osprey- quasar-backpack](https://www.backpacks.com/osprey-quasar-backpack)) I use it everyday, has dedicated laptop sleeve, and it can expand to quit large size if needed. It is a good choice for good money, the only thing I dearly dislike is a plastic keys clip. I have actually found my keys self-unclipped a few times.

</comment><comment><USER12> REI Ruckpack 28 ([https://www.rei.com/product/118790/rei-co-op- ruckpack-28-pac...](https://www.rei.com/product/118790/rei-co-op- ruckpack-28-pack))

I bike commute with it every time, sometimes with a laptop, and it is wonderful. I really enjoy that it sits on my back comfortably while pedaling and has enough venting to not leave me crazy sweaty.

<comment><USER13> How far do you commute?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I've been happy with a Dakine Duel 26L. I know that's going to seem too pedestrian to some because it's pretty inexpensive, but it fit my requirements.

First, it had to be relatively compact. Specifically, it had to fit under a standard economy-class airplane seat with room for my big feet.

Second, I wanted something more vertically oriented than usual. Most backpacks have multiple pockets in a "sandwich" configuration, so everything slumps into the bottom of each one and the top remains completely slack. I hate that. Having two decently sized outer pockets in an over/under configuration really helps. The straps (it's meant to be a skateboard pack) are occasionally handy to hold a jacket or hoodie instead of stuffing it inside.

It's not as weatherproof as some, certainly not as stylish, but it has survived a dozen week-long coast-to-coast trips and still seems barely worn. I looked at a _lot_ of camera and other packs that might satisfy my preference for verticality even better, but for one third the price this one has done just fine.

<comment><USER15> I like Dakine's Mission. Similar size, but the one large front organizer pocket is great. Side pockets for a small charger and mouse. Main compartment can handle my 15" gaming laptop fine. Jacket can easily be strapped to the back using the skateboard straps. Has waist straps for when your kit is really heavy (15" mac + Surface Pro + Chargers + notebooks?) I own two, one for work, one for the gym. They handle washing extremely well too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I have been using a Thule Crossover backpack for almost 8 years now, and it's still as good as new! The laptop compartment is well padded and it's got a hard-shell compartment for smaller electronics. It is incredibly well built. I have the older version which is not produced any more but in the meantime Thule have introduced an almost identical model (the main difference is the tablet compartment in addition to the laptop compartment), link here: [https://www.thule.com/en-gb/au/backpacks/laptop- backpacks/th...](https://www.thule.com/en-gb/au/backpacks/laptop- backpacks/thule-crossover-backpack-25l-_-tl_85854231350)

PS there is also an even newer model, the Crossover 2. But it's different and I don't know if it's as good as the one I have.

<comment><USER17> +1 on this. Picked mine up around about the same time as you. Built tough. It's a little too big for my daily though these days as I live close enough to walk to work. I bust it out for anything beyond that though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> If you need to carry a laptop I highly recommend this one: [https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTQT1NB/ref=oh_aui_se...](https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MTQT1NB/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

</comment><comment><USER19> Filson Journeyman Backpack. [https://www.filson.com/journeyman- backpack.html#sku=11070307...](https://www.filson.com/journeyman- backpack.html#sku=11070307-fco-000971913)

I think it looks great. It's well built, and should last me my lifetime (if looked after)

</comment><comment><USER20> 5.11 Rush 24

I love it. It's spacious enough that I can pack everything I need for a week away from home, yet compact enough that it fits under the seat in an airplane. Kind of pricey but sturdily built, I've had it for six or seven years now and it isn't showing any signs of wear or tear.

</comment><comment><USER21> Mission Workshop The Rambler, [https://missionworkshop.com/products/the- rambler](https://missionworkshop.com/products/the-rambler) Amazing bag, not cheap though, have had it for 5 years. Perfect for biking or travel.

</comment><comment><USER22> For many years I had a Chrome Bravo but all the Velcro stopped working and it was pretty beat up so I looked for a new bag.

With some recommendations from friends, I ended up with the Timbuk2 Especial Tres. I love it because:

\- it carries a _ton_ of stuff (rolltop bags are great for this. I use it to carry a week's worth of groceries home with me on my bike)

\- waterproof (for biking in the rain/winter)

\- sits much more comfortably on my back than the Chrome bag

\- buckles for securing the top instead of Velcro that will wear out or breakable zippers

\- good laptop compartment and organization pockets

Here's a link (no affiliation): [https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E1O36AC?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E1O36AC?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_pd_title)

</comment><comment><USER23> For travel, I'm happy with the Peak Design 45L Travel Backpack. It's optimized for photographers, with separate packing cubes that clip into the bag. [https://www.peakdesign.com/products/travel- backpack](https://www.peakdesign.com/products/travel-backpack)

Their Tech Pouch in particular is an amazing design, and has organized all of my random cables and adapters. [https://www.peakdesign.com/products/tech- pouch/](https://www.peakdesign.com/products/tech-pouch/)

For just around town, I like Timbuk2 messenger bags. Sadly, they stopped making the Especial messenger bag, which was the best product they've ever made.

</comment><comment><USER24> MUJI Paraglider Cloth Foldable Rucksack (packs in my suitcase for travel).

[https://www.muji.eu/pages/online.asp?Sec=18&Sub=75&PID=8446](https://www.muji.eu/pages/online.asp?Sec=18&Sub=75&PID=8446)

</comment><comment><USER25> I use an Osprey Aether 70 for search and rescue. I used to use a Kelty Tioga 5500, but the external frame snagged branches in awkward situations. I've also done the Bataan Memorial Death March, civilian heavy, 10 times, with all but one or two of them using the Kelty. When I tried the Osprey for that, it was too hot.

One of my two upright tubes on my (third) Tioga broke during BMDM this year after a punishing training schedule, so I'm going to use something different for 2020. However, I was doing three training runs a week with bulky dried food (beans and lentils) taking my pack weight to 40 pounds and that's not what the Tioga is designed for, so it's my own fault, not Kelty's.

</comment><comment><USER26> Might help to state some of your requirements. I need a laptop compartment, a separate document compartment, a large storage area, external water sleeve, and one or more external easy access pockets. Bonus for a electronics or sunglasses hard case. I didn't need to worry about rain.

I got an Ogio (I think at Target). Tried to find the same model on Amazon just now and don't see it, but lots of similar options. I like that it fits my reqs and has a hard top strap (aluminum) for hanging from hooks in stalls. The two large compartments help keep thing accessable for travel. Commuted several years (trains and flights) and still going strong. I wouldn't use it for extreme weather or terrain.

</comment><comment><USER27> Tom Bihn Synapse 25.

Prior to that, Peak Design Everyday Backpack 20L.

</comment><comment><USER28> Dakine factor bag. I have the older version and its amazing

My version: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S87MSKW/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00S87MSKW/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

New version: [https://www.amazon.com/DAKINE-Factor-22L-Laptop- Backpack/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/DAKINE-Factor-22L-Laptop- Backpack/dp/B01BO1HAAG/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_2?keywords=Dakine+Factor+Laptop+Backpack&qid=1553961280&s=sporting- goods&sr=1-2-fkmrnull)

</comment><comment><USER29> I always recommend Deuter. Lovely back systems and true life-time service. My 20year old cross-air cycling pack looks like new, despite its abuse. All the fittings are super tough and they well replace under warranty I'm told.

</comment><comment><USER30> I have this backpack:

[https://www.amazon.com/North-Face-Laptop-Backpack- Colors/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/North-Face-Laptop-Backpack- Colors/dp/B076HYGDH8)

I use it mostly when going on a weekend trip or a week trip for work. Is big enough, has a lot of compartments, space for a laptop/gadgets.

Sturdy enough, laptop is safe there, but don't expect it to keep your DSLR camera safe ;) As the biggest compartment is meant for clothes, not for electronics

I see they discontinued it, I couldn't find it on official website (they changed the design, can't tell you if it's still the same quality)

</comment><comment><USER31> I think I'm going against the flow here, but I have an IKEA Family backpack [1]. It is composed of two parts: a travel part with wheels, some large storage for clothes and other things you need on a trip and a retractable handle, and the backpack part uses for everyday commuting.

The backpack part consists of a part where you can store a 15½ inch laptop, and a part for small stuff like cell phones, head phones, cables, adapters, etc.

[1]: [https://atrancetotravel.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/mochila-...](https://atrancetotravel.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/mochila- ikea.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER32> Pretty open-ended question! I bought an Osprey Flapjack Pack [0] in a rare impulse buy while I was at an event that happened to be selling them. I didn't know anything about them, except it seemed pretty sturdy, comfortable and I was in the market for a new backpack. That was in 2015, and it still looks new. I like that it has an orange lining inside, which makes it really easy to find things.

[0] [https://www.osprey.com/us/en/product/flapjack-pack- FLPJKPACK...](https://www.osprey.com/us/en/product/flapjack-pack- FLPJKPACK_550.html)

</comment><comment><USER33> Thule Covert \- Laptop Sleeve \- Remove-able DSLR Camera Insert \- Ability to separate top and bottom components \- Water resistant

The bag is a bit on the heavy side (5lb), and a bit on the pricy side ($180), but I absolutely love it. Use if every day for almost 2 years. Laptop, Work, Photo Gigs, Groceries, Bike Commuting, etc.

[https://www.amazon.com/Thule-Covert-DSLR-Rolltop- Daypack/dp/...](https://www.amazon.com/Thule-Covert-DSLR-Rolltop- Daypack/dp/B00JXECZSE/ref=sr_1_10?keywords=thule+backpack&qid=1553865877&s=gateway&sr=8-10)

</comment><comment><USER34> I really like my Patagonia Black Hole (25L) [1]. It's pretty robust, looks nice, and fits everything I need quite easily. I have used it for sport but it's really poorly suites for it as the back is not very aerated and it doesn't have a waist strap. Great for city life though.

[1]: [https://www.patagonia.com/product/black-hole- backpack-25-lit...](https://www.patagonia.com/product/black-hole- backpack-25-liters/49296.html?dwvar_49296_color=BLK&cgid=luggage-black-hole- bags#tile-8=&start=1&sz=24)

</comment><comment><USER35> Lululemon Para Backpack 23L: [https://www.lulufanatics.com/item/36691/lululemon-para- backp...](https://www.lulufanatics.com/item/36691/lululemon-para- backpack-23l-military-green)

Fits 15 inch MBP. A lot of pockets. Very stylish, I get a lot of compliments on this.

When I was going to gym during lunch, this was perfect, cause could hold shoes and gym clothes in separate pockets each. Though no place for towel.

What I wish it had was another pocket for personal iPad. Well it kind of does but it is too tight when both laptop and iPad is in.

</comment><comment><USER36> Goruck GR1. I've used it daily for over 5 years, including as my only bag for multiple business trips to India and all across the US. I bought Gorucks for my kids as they were wearing out backpacks every year.

</comment><comment><USER37> A venerable Berghaus Dart 40 pack. it's a 40 litre bushwalking day pack -- largely just one big compartment with adjustable waist and shoulder straps and a U shaped aluminium bar in it to give some structure.

I cycle commute or walk with it 5-7 days a week and it is large enough for single person grocery trips.

It is not particularly trendy but has already lasted 20 years, probably with use at least once per week for the last 15 years.

I have been thinking about replacing it with another locally made high quality bushwalking pack, if I can find pack with a simple design made with durable components.

</comment><comment><USER38> I currently have a "Daypack", from QWSTION and I'm very happy with it.

[https://www.qwstion.com/en//daypack-washed- black.html](https://www.qwstion.com/en//daypack-washed-black.html)

Disclaimer: a family member works for QWSTION

It has a compact (rectangle) shape, one large space compartment, you can convert it from a backpack to something you carry by hand like a suitcase. And it looks really good :)

The company makes high quality products, a bit expensive though (190+€), but I would recommend if you don't care too much about the price.

</comment><comment><USER39> The North Face - Surge II

[https://www.thenorthface.com/shop/surge-ii- backpack#hero=0](https://www.thenorthface.com/shop/surge-ii-backpack#hero=0)

Reasons: After 5 years of everyday use, it's still in perfect shape, it's definitely build to last. I cycle to work every day with it, it's very comfortable for short (~40 min) rides. It's also good for travelling since it's capable of expanding quite a lot if needed, fits most 15" laptops (probably also some 17").

</comment><comment><USER40> I use an Osprey Farpoint 40 for international travel. Packing cubes are absolutely essential for fitting in all my clothing, and there's no denying that I have to sacrifice plenty of things that I would otherwise be able to fit in a suitcase. But at the same time, I'm blind, so I always have a white cane in my right hand. Once I'm dragging a suitcase, I have no hands left and everything becomes difficult (to potentially unsafe levels). I'll never travel with a suitcase again if I can avoid it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Lots of in depth write-ups here: [https://thewirecutter.com/search/?s=backpack](https://thewirecutter.com/search/?s=backpack)

</comment><comment><USER42> I use the first version of the Direct Action "Dust" - [https://us.directactiongear.com/dust- backpack#BLK](https://us.directactiongear.com/dust-backpack#BLK)

My brother liked it so much he bought the mkII.

It is on the small side, but fits a Dell XPS 13 or even a 15" MBP (but definitely not any bigger). Helps me keep the amount of crap I carry way down, and is super tough. Straps are wide and comfy, and the back has padding that helps the back breathe a little.

</comment><comment><USER43> 5.11 Rush24. I bought it for travel, it doesn't even have a laptop compartment. But all my laptop backbacks, some fancier than others, fell apart and I've just defaulted to using this instead as it will not die. The compartment design also turns out to be perfect, even though I've owned a lot of other bags that are more "clever". I've used the accessory loops to add a drink holder for a 1 liter bottle which otherwise is a rare option on a bag.

</comment><comment><USER44> REI trail 40: [https://www.rei.com/product/136586/rei-co-op- trail-40-pack-m...](https://www.rei.com/product/136586/rei-co-op- trail-40-pack-mens)

It's great for commuting: fits large laptops in sleeve, has space for 2 mugs on each side (coffee and water), and has 2 support straps (chest and waist). It's also good for hiking and travelling. I've had mine for 4.5 years and it still going strong.

</comment><comment><USER45> Been using Incase Halo Courier Backpack every day for about a year. Super handy and always seems to fit what I need. However I ended up buying a couple of small bags to keep things organized as it's just one large compartment.

[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VJA0RWQ/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VJA0RWQ/ref=oh_aui_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

</comment><comment><USER46> For backpacking/climbing trips I use a Black Diamond Element 60L ([https://www.backcountry.com/black-diamond- element-60-backpac...](https://www.backcountry.com/black-diamond- element-60-backpack-3661-3783cu-in))

For everyday use I have a SwissGear bag that I got at Target outside Siggraph a few years ago. Decent bag at ~$60 that's held up well for 3 years of abuse.

</comment><comment><USER47> GoRuck GR-2. I got it used on eBay for 1/2 price (used in this case isn't a big deal because these things are bulletproof and last forever). It's great because:

* It has a laptop sleeve

* It's big enough to pack for I'd say 3-5 days

* For the day-to-day I can also pack all of my gym gear (shoes, belt, wraps, clothes)

* It's so heavy duty that you'll never have to worry about it breaking down (and if it does they have a guarantee for repairs)

</comment><comment><USER48> For regular laptops my Togo Designs daypack works really well. It's been my daily backpack as well as through rainy bus stops and out hiking with no show of wear.

[https://topodesigns.com/collections/backpacks/products/daypa...](https://topodesigns.com/collections/backpacks/products/daypack?variant=13779730235445)

</comment><comment><USER49> North Face Big Shot II. It's very nice, and has perfect pockets, zipper strength, and all the other things you'd expect. It's also matte black and looks great. My wife got it for me as a gift 4 years ago and it's still in great condition. Will probably last another 4 years. Not sure what she paid for it but it's definitely been worth it I'm sure!

</comment><comment><USER50> I've used the same leather want les essentiels kastrup backpack for 7 years. It's fantastic and stood the test of 2 years of devrel. :) [https://www.barneys.com/product/want-les-essentiels- kastrup-...](https://www.barneys.com/product/want-les-essentiels-kastrup- backpack-504649094.html)

<comment><USER51> $995? Nope.

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> The Timbuk2 Spire... [https://smile.amazon.com/Timbuk2-306-3-2007-Spire- Backpack/d...](https://smile.amazon.com/Timbuk2-306-3-2007-Spire- Backpack/dp/B00M480ON4/)

Waterproof, well made, roll-top (you can cram things in if you need to without worrying about stretching zippers), holds a laptop well, etc.

</comment><comment><USER53> Everiki Suite fits two 14" laptops, a TKL keyboard, a palm support, a trackpad and a headset. And it looks like an office backpack.

[https://www.everki.com/us_en/suite-premium-compact-travel- fr...](https://www.everki.com/us_en/suite-premium-compact-travel-friendly- laptop-backpack-up-to-14-inch.html)

</comment><comment><USER54> Osprey Tropos 32

[https://www.ospreyeurope.com/shop/gb_en/tropos-32-2017](https://www.ospreyeurope.com/shop/gb_en/tropos-32-2017)

Big enough for travel but compresses down pretty flat if all you're carrying is a laptop and a few bits.

Kickstand feature is actually quite useful to stop it falling over.

</comment><comment><USER55> I've been using this backpack for 5 years now and it's been great. [https://www.amazon.com/SwissGear-Gear-Scansmart-Backpack- Bus...](https://www.amazon.com/SwissGear-Gear-Scansmart-Backpack- Business/dp/B01HNAC4BC?ref_=bl_dp_s_web_2530560011)

</comment><comment><USER56> > Swiss Gear Carbon II

It's sturdy, it can host a multitude of stuff (for me, it has hosted laptops going from as light as the ThinkPad T440s to as heavy as the ThinkPad W530 -- with its 170W power supply).

The back padding is nice on my back, and so far it hasn't shown any sign of destruction (I've owned it for two years now).

</comment><comment><USER57> I got the Tom Bihn Smart Alec after reading this:

[http://randsinrepose.com/archives/a-bag-of- holding/](http://randsinrepose.com/archives/a-bag-of-holding/)

Would always recommend diving into Wirecutter articles to figure out what's best for your specific needs.

</comment><comment><USER58> I used a Booq backpack (not the one they currently sell) for the better part of a decade before the internal wood pieces broke. I used it for days in a wide variety of environments and it was excellent. Internal space was a bit limited at times, but it was professional looking and fairly water resistant.

</comment><comment><USER59> Millican Smith The Roll Pack 25L. I'm very happy with it, has everything I want and looks great.

[https://www.homeofmillican.com/products/the-mavericks- smith-...](https://www.homeofmillican.com/products/the-mavericks-smith-the- roll-pack-25l-slate)

</comment><comment><USER60> you should probably start with your needs..

Personally, I have the Wandrd Prvke 31 but who knows if that fits your requirements

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm using this bag from Decathlon: [https://www.decathlon.co.uk/intensive-25l-black- id_8496248.h...](https://www.decathlon.co.uk/intensive-25l-black- id_8496248.html)

If you want some backpack recommendations you should go to /r/onebag

</comment><comment><USER62> Crumpler Dry Red N5. Expandable, easy to clean, robust, with small features that I like a lot. It has been serving me for 6 years and the only sign of its age is slight wear-off of the top handle. This particular model is discontinued, but they have Mantra which looks similar to N5.

</comment><comment><USER63> Nomatic Travel Pack. Really solid every day bag with plenty of storage options, with the added benefit of being expandable so I can rely on just it for a 2-3 day trip. I find it looks good but is neutral enough that you can bring it to the gym airport or work and not look silly.

</comment><comment><USER64> I'm a big fan of Waterfield Designs. Just replaced the ancient JanSport with one of these Sutter Slims: [https://www.sfbags.com/products/sutter-slim- backpack](https://www.sfbags.com/products/sutter-slim-backpack)

</comment><comment><USER65> Incase EO Travel Backpack - [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000023VPY/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000023VPY/)

Tons of room, comfy, and has zipped expansion section for packing for overnight trips.

</comment><comment><USER66> I'm using a Daypack from booq, for a couple years now and I'm happy with it.

[https://www.booqbags.com/products/daypack-black- tan-15-inch-...](https://www.booqbags.com/products/daypack-black-tan-15-inch- laptop-backpack)

</comment><comment><USER67> Tom Binh synapse 25

<comment><USER68> Synapse 19 here and love it 3 years in

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> Timbuk2 - Division Laptop Backpack

[https://www.timbuk2.com/products/1849-division-laptop- backpa...](https://www.timbuk2.com/products/1849-division-laptop- backpack?variant=13571008790570)

</comment><comment><USER70> 5.11 All Hazards Nitro.

Pretty heavy, but I like it a lot, holds my laptop and other gadgets, clothing, etc. And if I need to get out, this one won't let me down - <USER2> volunteer for a local SAR team sometimes (or, more lately, a lot).

</comment><comment><USER71> I am using the Piquadro CA3214BR-BLU. It is a stylish backpack and it fits the my Macbook Pro 15" 2018, my iPad Pro 10.5 and everything ai need for them, even though it is described to be for 14" laptops. I love it :D

</comment><comment><USER72> DSPTCH Daypack

[https://www.dsptch.com/collections/packs/products/daypack](https://www.dsptch.com/collections/packs/products/daypack)

</comment><comment><USER73> [https://www.hazard4.com/sale/20-percent/sidewinder.html](https://www.hazard4.com/sale/20-percent/sidewinder.html)

</comment><comment><USER74> Monte Campo

[https://www.montecampo.pt/categoria- produto/mochilas/](https://www.montecampo.pt/categoria-produto/mochilas/)

</comment><comment><USER75> Deuter Speedlite 20. Fantastically made, light, holds my stuff.

<comment><USER76> Not the same model, but I gotta back Deuter on this one. My Deuter Giga Office has seen some heavy use over the last 12 years and it's still going strong.

The fabric below the notebook compartment ripped open a few years ago (probably because I used to carry two heavy notebooks, a private one and a work-issued Thinkpad), but my mother sewed a patch over it and the backpack is still going strong.

While we're at it, I strongly advise against Wenger. I got one of their backpacks from my employer. Although they're supposedly just as high-quality as Deuter, that particular backpack came apart at all seams within just a year. Total disappointment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER77> im using a ogio mach5 [1] due to riding motorbikes and it has a laptop compartment

i would fully recommend it, i got knocked off and the only damage done to me/bag was a small scratch, bike needed 7k(gbp) work, but me and all my stuff was fine

[1][https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ogio-No-Drag-Mach- Backpack/dp/B0158...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ogio-No-Drag-Mach- Backpack/dp/B0158H2GJM)

</comment><comment><USER78> Eastpak Floid. The materials are as good as good as new after 5 years of daily use. I think this pack is going to outlive me!

</comment><comment><USER79> I personally love the elleven ones. Multiple laptop compartments and small pockets for random crap and they last.

</comment><comment><USER80> I just bought an Osprey Pixel to have a minimal size for a laptop and not much else. Dirt cheap at $60 shipped!

</comment><comment><USER81> Hand sewn leather bag custom made by some folks in a market in Morroco. It will outlast the sun.

</comment><comment><USER82> Made a shoulder-strap laptop bag out of leather. 8-9oz, shoulder. Very basic, but works well.

</comment><comment><USER83> Tom Bihn Brain Bag. 7 years old, going strong. Love it, daughter loves hers.

<comment><USER84> I had one of those, and I ended up selling it because it was too big, and one of my personal failings is that I will fill bags. So with a big bag, it's always full and heavy.

I went to a smaller Osprey model, I got on sale, but holy hell I have nothing but nice things to say about the TB build quality.

Plus, unlike GoRuck, no troublesome tactical aesthetic.

<comment><USER83> It is big, but I am the family sherpa. Agree on the esthetic.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER85> Does this already have a name? If not can we call it bike-trolling?

</comment><comment><USER86> Goruck GR-2 34L for packing a lot. SOG TOC 20 for packing little.

</comment><comment><USER87> A 5 years old eastpak

</comment><comment><USER88> Samsonite something

</comment><comment><USER89> Mainly surplus Swedish army packs with external frames, I have both the smaller ~25l as well as the bigger ~35l aircrew versions. They're made of heavy canvas, have a strong external but integrated (the top of the frame is held in a leather sleeve on the bag) frame and are comfortable to carry even with heavier loads. They can be found at military surplus stores for around €15.</comment>


Study breaks down divorce rates by occupation: Engineers one of lowest  - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/16/AR2010091607509.html <comment><USER2> Well you can't get divorced if you can't find a wife! I kid. I kid.

But engineers strike a good balance of time at home and financial compensation. If you're making much more than a decent engineer, you're probably a senior exec, lawyer, or business owner with not enough time for the wife. Don't have any data to back this up, but just my suspicion.

If you're making much less than an engineer, you may run into money problems which is a leading cause of divorce.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd say there's a pretty obvious reason why bartenders have a higher divorce rate than engineers - access to alternatives.

A bartender spends a good chunk of their time socializing with alternatives to their spouse. They're bound to meet someone else eventually.

An engineer is typically cooped up in an office with a bunch of other engineers. Not much in the way of alternate lovers...

</comment><comment><USER4> I dislike articles that are expansions of lists, when lists will do, so in handy list form:

HIGH:

\- Dancers and choreographers (43.1 percent)

\- bartenders (38.4 percent)

\- massage therapists (38.2 percent)

\- Also in the top 10 were casino workers, telephone operators, nurses and home health aides.

LOW:

\- optometrists (4 percent)

\- clergy (5.6 percent)

\- podiatrists (6.8 percent)

\- Three types of engineers -- agricultural, sales and nuclear engineers -- were represented among the 10 occupations with the lowest divorce rates

<comment><USER5> _Also in the top 10 were casino workers, telephone operators, nurses and home health aides._

And Mathematicians (#9).

Complete list is here: <http://hanson.gmu.edu/temp/DivorcebyJob.xls>

<comment><USER6> Alas, neither Numbers nor Google Spreadsheet seems happy with this file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 1\. Sweet, I went to Radford :)

2\. "Why are bartenders this way and engineers that way? Unfortunately we just don't know," - eh, if you are a bartender your probably are meeting good looking people daily. The temptation might be just too great to resist. As an engineer, you are much more less likely to meet good look people during your work, or even just people of the other sex, period.

<comment><USER8> Or maybe you can't support a family with tips and minimum wage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> The easy jokes are all there. Engineering school gender ratios can really do some funny things to your head. It really does make you value whatever relationships you build with the other gender a lot more.

And I'm saying that from the perspective of an engineering student just waiting to finish. Partly cause school is insane, and partly so I can rejoin the real world where women actually out number men.

<comment><USER10> _...so I can rejoin the real world where women actually out number men._

With regards to the real world, it depends on where you live. From: [http://www.siliconvalleybachelor.com/2009/02/man-jose-its- of...](http://www.siliconvalleybachelor.com/2009/02/man-jose-its- official.html)

 _The Census Bureau recently released it's numbers showing that there are 117 men for every 100 women in San Jose amongst the ages of 20 to 44 years old._

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Unless my interpretation is wrong, I'd say that almost all the comments in this thread are based on a misinterpretation of the article (or based on assumptions that are not supported by any data in the article)

Notice these key sentences in the article. " _If a person had divorced and remarried by the time of the Census, they would be counted as married. So it could be the case that people in some occupations are just quicker to jump into the next marriage than others._ "

The numbers don't suggest that engineers divorce at a lower rate than others. They suggest that engineers are less likely to be in a divorced state (but this could either be due to less engineers divorcing or more engineers remarrying quickly).

</comment><comment><USER12> I like how our eye doctors (4%) adhere to the sanctity of marriage better than our religious leaders (5.6%).

</comment><comment><USER13> I think they were politically correct in calling Strippers as Dancers. That would explain the highest divorce rate....

<comment><USER14> The study was derived from census data where occupation is self reported which makes me think you may have a point.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Could it also have something to do with problem solving? Engineers can be stubborn, but also stubborn in the sense that they don't like throwing the towel in.

Or that engineers are logical? As my father-in-law once said (when he was a guest family lawyer on a reality TV show.) "If you are wondering how much it costs to get divorced, just ask me if I'm still married." (Note: that was in jest, but his wife still gave him a hard time about it.) Divorce sucks all around. Figuring out the problem and trying to fix it is a much better solution that divorce.

</comment><comment><USER16> It seems to me that the occupational study results correlate well to income and income stability. It's well known that financial problems are a major cause of divorce.

<comment><USER17> Indeed, I'd like to see the study adjusted for income.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> What I find odd about this is the ranking of mathematician. I would have thought they'd be on par with engineers. Anyone have an explanation why they'd rank so high?

<comment><USER8> Where in the article did it say anything about mathematicians?

<comment><USER5> I looked at the complete list (linked to from Robin Hanson's blog: <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/09/low-divorce-jobs.html>).

Mathematicians are #9.

<comment><USER8> That's a much more interesting article. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I'd love to see the whole table....

<comment><USER19> msluyter linked it below: <http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/09/low-divorce- jobs.html>

There's an Excel file halfway into the article. I'd copy the exact figures on here but it's getting Websense'd :(

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Why massage therapists?

<comment><USER6> I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that daily access to physical contact with clients might give rise to both temptation and jealousy.

<comment><USER20> consistent with nurses and home health aides, but not podiatrists</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What's Java used for? - <AUTHOR>

I just start learning it in school. We're making a game.<p>What can it be used for on the web, though? What big companies use it primarily? <comment><USER2> Google got Java libraries for most of their APIs, and for developing over App Engine.

Blackberry and Android got mini Java sdk for developing movile apps.

Or if you want to develop over Cloud Computer systems you might want to give it a try to Hadoop, that is also written in Java.

So, yes, there are tons of real implementations in Java, even though is not a language I could say I love...

</comment><comment><USER3> In corporate-land, enterprise web applications are generally .net or Java.

Enterprise Java is referred to as Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE). In this case, the web output a user sees in a browser is generated on an application server using a mix of Java code and templated HTML/CSS/Javascript/etc.

<comment><USER4> Yes, but the interesting question is why? Many large corporations indeed use Java, and the often-touted reason is safety and/or speed. Is that still a valid answer in today's web dev world? What would you recommend that AT&T for example uses if they could start all over again today?

<comment><USER5> IMO, Java is appreciated for the following reasons:

      - there are plenty of reliable open source libraries (see Apache)
      - it is easy to learn and to maintain
      - the IDEs are good (IntelliJ IDEA !)

So, yes, this is still a valid answer, IMO.

<comment><USER6> also, the performances are quite good, and you are able to buy support from ibm/sun/oracle.

Neither it's true for python/ruby/perl etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> It _can_ be used for just about anything except maybe low-level operating system stuff.

"What _should_ it be used for?" is a different question and depends at least somewhat on your preferences.

I go to Java when I want a desktop application that should be portable, doesn't need to be lightning fast, doesn't depend on any low level operating system stuff and that I don't mind losing pointers and memory management for. In other words, most of the time I'm writing a non-web application, I go to Java.

I personally don't like using it for web stuff except where small applets are concerned. I've had issues with it (it including Java, JSP, etc) and generally find it to be too heavy and not practical for web development. But that's just my opinion.

</comment><comment><USER8> _What big companies use it primarily?_

Banks - their back-end processing is often in Java.

</comment><comment><USER9> Almost all the big online gambling platforms (sportsbooks and casinos) are written in java.

</comment><comment><USER10> Remember that the runtime, the JVM, is separate to Java the language. Lots of interesting languages run on the JVM, like JRuby, Clojure, Jython, and they get access to a scalable optimised runtime and lots of useful libraries.

</comment><comment><USER11> A buddy of mine is a programmer at AT&T, and they (mostly he) have developed a pretty incredible push notification and messaging system using Java on the back-end. He claims that they're getting some pretty astounding message processing rates. I keep having trouble thinking of Java as "fast", but that might just be due to really crappy desktop app experiences.

But anyway: one of the biggest companies in the U.S. uses Java to do some really cool stuff.

<comment><USER12> _I keep having trouble thinking of Java as "fast"_

When it first came out it was an absolute dog. Then Sun kept promising "faster than C" performance because of VM optimisation. The reality was that desktop apps were barely usable and the HotJava web browser was scrapped.

However, after over 15 years of VM optimisation and heavy use, Java is nice and fast. Its not quite up to C++ levels of performance but it is very respectable.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> More on banking software: works from backoffice intranets / middleware (J2EE) to low latency trading (core J2SE).

The plus I see, is not having to worry too much about errors (wrt C++). Makes working with large codebases / multiple collaborators easier. Great IDEs too.

Still, coding in Java is quite boring (overdeclaration, lack of pointers/unchecked sections, ...).

</comment><comment><USER14> We make industrial automation software using Java. This includes a lot of front-end GUI code as well as back-end high performance server (and other pieces) code.

<http://www.inductiveautomation.com/>

</comment><comment><USER15> In the social web area, LinkedIn uses a lot of Java. Hi5, too -- at least before the recent games focus, and maybe since.

Lucene and SOLR for search are behind lots of websites -- public and intranet.

Hadoop and related tools -- MapReduce, HDFS, HBase, etc. -- are big in large- data, big-calculation systems, even when front ends are implemented in other dynamic languages.

Looking over all the open source Java projects at the Apache foundation may give a sense of range of uses on the net. And with the growth in alternate JVM languages -- like Groovy, Clojure, and Scala -- a bit of Java, or some Java libraries, may be part of projects in those languages as well.

</comment><comment><USER16> Palantir software is almost completely Java.

</comment><comment><USER17> building java app servers such as with websphere and weblogic

</comment><comment><USER18> lawsuits.

</comment><comment><USER19> Minecraft and Tribal Trouble are two rather good games written in Java</comment>


Google Alternatives - <AUTHOR> http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-google-search-alternatives-that-you-could-experiment-with/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Makeuseof+(MakeUseOf.com)&utm_content=Google+Reader

<comment><USER2> This one is much better than those on that list for my purposes at least:

<http://duckduckgo.com/>

<comment><USER3> In reply to the [dead] sibling comment by aw3c2: you were hell-banned for some (probably capricious) reason two weeks ago, make a new account if you want to contribute.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Anyone else find it a little ironic that the URL contains tracking information about both Feedburner (a Google property) and Google Reader?

</comment><comment><USER5> It feels a bit strange to see Cuil mentioned.

</comment><comment><USER6> I like goduckgo.com</comment>


Query2vec: Search query expansion with query embeddings - <AUTHOR> https://bytes.grubhub.com/search-query-embeddings-using-query2vec-f5931df27d79 <comment><USER2> As a frequent user in Albuquerque, my personal experience with GrubHub search is that it returns very strange results, and categorizations are unreliable. For example a restaurant whose name contains my query (for a query like "Chinese" or "Thai") may not even appear in the results for that query, and relevant results will be buried beneath completely irrelevant results (like a taco place and an ice cream joint might appear above a Thai restaurant in the above example).

Further restaurants will be miscategorized or eg have the word "sushi" in the name, and yet not appear in the sushi category (not sure if there's actually a sushi category in the app, just using that as an example).

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here: We hope to fix this w/ the techniques described in the post! The search engine will first collect a high-recall set of candidates which is then passed to a high-precision ranker. This should help you w/ your cuisine and dish queries misclassifications. It will also introduce semantic understanding into the query engine meaning if you type "French" it will not give you "French fries" but French cuisine.

<comment><USER3> This seems like a pretty good write up, but I do wonder if it's necessary? I use grub hub and Uber eats fairly often. If I want to search for a restaurant I would hope it's just doing a match on exactly what I search with minor spelling checks.

If I'm looking for a dish or cuisine, why not display it in a visual fashion like Uber eats? There's usually not that many options to actually sift through.

For example the first graphic of the embedding space has a very clear mixture of restaurant names and food items. Feels a bit messy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The difference between this and word2vec is that the primitive atomic unit we are embedding isn't a word, but a search query. Therefore this isn't a language model, but a query model."

If a primitive embedding unit is a search query instead of a word, then I assume that a query vector model is trained on a limited dictionary of queries. I wonder if that implies that the trained vector model can encode only search queries that are already present in its dictionary? If not, I think it would be interesting to know more about how the closed dictionary problem was solved.

<comment><AUTHOR> Correct, the model has a fixed vocabulary set at train-time. However, we can benefit from the fact that the distribution of queries in most search systems follows the Zipfian distribution. That means we can capture the vast majority of queries that are ever issued in a fixed vocabulary. Daily retraining helps us pick up new queries outside of the vocabulary.

<comment><USER5> How is your model fundamentally different from doc2vec though? The idea of swapping a vocab of words for a vocab of tokens, sentences, paragraphs, queries, articles, pages, etc., has been around and used in research and production virtually since the same time as word2vec itself.

One of the most common "off the shelf" search solutions is to train an embedding for X (where X is whatever you want to search) using some implicit similarity or triplet loss for examples that have natural positive labels (like due to proximity in the word2vec case) plus random negative sampling, and use the embedding in an exact or approximate nearest neighbor index.

In fact, it's even very "off the shelf" to use Siamese networks for multi- modal embeddings, for example simultaneously learning embeddings that put semantically similar queries and food images into the same ANN vector space.

I think the blog post is very cool don't get me wrong, but no part of this is novel (if that's what you were going for, I can't tell). This exact end to end pipeline has been used for image search, collaborative filtering (customer & product embeddings), various recommender systems where the unit of embedding is something like "pages" or "products" or "blog posts" or other product primitives for whatever type of business, in production across several different companies I've worked for.

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree:

In the IR community you will see image2image search implemented by passing an image through a headless CNN and then do ANN search on the embedding space. Then that can lead to discussion about cross-model hashing which you suggested. I think also you touched on LTR techniques w/ siamese networks. For example we can use a siamese network to learn the diff between two embeddings.

In the Recys community for collaborative filtering you can take interaction data between users and items and decompose that matrix into two parts using SVD which is called the user and item embeddings. Also in the recsys community you see people doing item2vec (what I did) for the item embeddings and then aggregating those for the user representation (embeddings).

Maybe you will grant me the novelty of this method in making the connection between queries and converted restaurants as a similarity metric and then applying it to the IR use case of search query expansion? Should the post be more clear that I am not claiming to have invented item2vec or ANN (approximate nearest neighboors)?

<comment><USER5> Your final paragraph is reasonable, and I do think the post would benefit from more clearly talking about this.

The "trick" is to find some naturally occurring property that indicates a pair of examples has the positive label, such as two users selecting a given product, two text queries leading to clicking on the same image, two different blog posts with the same keyword, etc. This combined with an efficient way to sample acceptable negative pairs that do not express the trait that indicates positive label.

That + deciding how to approach the loss function (e.g. cosine similarity, euclidean distance, distance in a hash space, triplet loss, should it have a margin) is the whole trick of the problem.

The black box that produces embeddings (DNN, doc2vec, sparse vector from tfidf-like features, whatever) and the nearest neighbor piece are standard plug and play.

<comment><AUTHOR> thanks, I think we are in agreeance.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Excellent post. Is this a candidate for [https://sigir.org/sigir2020/](https://sigir.org/sigir2020/) industry track ?

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Thanks, for the recommendation. I actually got inspiration for this idea from chatting w/ industry colleagues at SIGIR. Last SigIR in Paris, I spoke to some people from Apple, where they are using a technique like this for the app store search.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Neat! eggie5 and friends, I did something related for Caviar that you might be interested in: [https://developer.squareup.com/blog/caviars-word2vec- tagging...](https://developer.squareup.com/blog/caviars-word2vec-tagging-for- menu-item-recommendations/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Although your post is orthogonal to what we present in this work, I think it still merits discussion.

The high-level concept of a product is important for any commerce company w/ an unbounded and unstructured product catalog. In this case, the concept of a Dish is a very valuable primitive for Caviar and GH to understand.

You propose an interesting technique for dish tagging:

1\. train word2vec on menu item text 2\. Generate menu item embeddings by aggregating respective word vectors 3\. Curate dish (label) set 4\. Generate embeddings for dish labels by aggregating word vectors 5\. Tag menu items w/ their dish label by NN search.

Then once you have this high-level concept of dish you can drive all kinds of interesting product innovations:

* trending asian noodle dishes * tacos in san Diego * It also helps w/ the item sparsity problem in matrix factorization

Do I understand?

I'm going to try this on our next learning Friday.

We have taken a different route for dish tagging. First we have a graphical model tag some items w/ low coverage but high precision and then we feed that into a classifier to generalize and provider full coverage. It's like a generative model fed into a discriminative model.

<comment><USER8> >> items w/ low coverage but high precision

Newbie NLP dev here. What's this concept of coverage vs precision that you speak of? It sounds intriguing.

<comment><USER9> It's the ratio of false positives and false negatives to their true equivalents.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is a fantastic post. Would love to see an even more detailed walk through some code examples, and discussion of development to production of these models. Do you have any other resources you would suggest?

<comment><USER10> For example, what ANN do you use in production, what are the reasons for using it. Another question is how much data does it take to make these models work, can they be primed effectively with little data if doing transfer learning from a more general model?

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi, I'm the author of the post. We actually just presented this work and more at PyData NYC. We share more implementation details. Here are the slides: [https://www.slideshare.net/AlexEgg1/discover- yourlatentfoodg...](https://www.slideshare.net/AlexEgg1/discover- yourlatentfoodgraphwiththis1weirdtrick-pydata-nyc-2019)

But to answer you question here: For production ANN we have Annoy integrated into our backend as a service. Annoy was an easy choice bc it checked out box for JVM support.

For training the models we have endless amounts of behavioral data, so we didn't even need to look at transfer learning. For this query2vec example, it was trained on 1 year of queries which takes 15min/epoch on an AWS p2 GPU. We do all our preprocessing (heavy normalization) in pyspark.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Neat tech write up but ironically Grubhub has just lost 50% of its market cap due to poor earnings where the company has basically admitted its business model is indefensible and borderline unsustainable.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. Thanks for the comment. This is a tough business to be in, but very exciting a the same time.

I'm trying to effect change by making meaningful contributions to our search pipeline by applying novel techniques from information retrieval literature.

For example, with this query expansion technique, we can service search queries in small markets (not a lot of restaurants) more completely by showing something instead of nothing. Or in big markets, we can service obscure, tail queries by fining something similar. This helps increase the overall recall of the search system, making it better!

Don't loose faith in GH yet!

<comment><USER11> I'm happy to read about the tech. Not so much about the business but as long as you're working on what you like then who am I to say anything. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Curious, what's the underlying persistence. Are you actually using a graph database?

<comment><AUTHOR> The latent graph structure is encoded into the embeddings. Each node in the graph is a vector and you traverse the graph by preforming NN search in the embedding space.</comment></comment>


Three things you should never put in your database - <AUTHOR> http://www.revsys.com/blog/2012/may/01/three-things-you-should-never-put-your-database/ <comment><USER5> While generally good advice, sometimes it does make sense to put binary images in the database:

At Loopt, long before maps were included on mobile platforms, we served our own map tiles. These 64x64 pixel PNGs were often less than 100 bytes. Even though we only covered the US at the time, there were upwards of 20 million of these tiny files.

They caused file system destruction. We tried ext3, reiserfs, ufs, ntfs - <USER2> all choked. In the best of cases each file took as little as 512 bytes on disk, 5x larger than the data within. Performance was awful, no matter how we bucketed the files in directories or tuned the file systems. Reiser 4 trunk was looking promising, but then Hans was arrested[1].

The solution was to store the images in a database. They fit in-row without needing blob storage, and the DB indexes were much faster than any of the file systems we tried. Backups took less space and less time.

[1] He was eventually convicted of killing his wife: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser>

<comment><USER6> XFS rules at handling lots of little files. It also has a ridiculously high "files per directory" limit.

Something like Redis might've been sweet, too, but would require you to hold all that data in ram.

<comment><USER5> This was in 2005. Should have tried XFS if we didn't. I think we might have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One issue I have with this article:

"Images, files, and binary data: Great now you can't use nginx or another lightweight web server to serve them up."

That's not true - you can create a private HTTP endpoint in your web app that your lightweight caching frontend can serve and cache from.

(I'm not saying it's not a better idea to store things in S3 or another big- blob service, but the reasoning in this article doesn't hold water)

<comment><USER8> Even so, serving them up will still be less efficient (and more complex!) than if they were files.

<comment><USER7> (note: I'm playing devil's advocate here for storing images/files in the database - this is not something I'd recommend doing without careful thought)

In terms of efficiency, you're only paying a small price on the first hit for an image before the cache comes into play. It won't be as efficient for you as directly serving from S3, but with a properly configured cache, the effect would be negligible.

In terms of complexity, you're looking at a single nginx configuration endpoint of a handful of lines to cache the images on-disk or in memcache for fast serving. In the case where you've got CloudFlare in front of your web app, it's free. Overall it can be _less_ complex, because you can re-use your existing code for talking to the database, rather than adding code to talk to another service like S3.

The _real_ argument against storing big binary data in the database should be based on the argument that databases aren't necessarily always tuned properly for storing things that aren't relational (which the article briefly addresses), and that storing your binary data alongside your relational data could have deleterious effects on the performance of your relational queries.

<comment><USER9> Incidentally, SQL Server 2008 has a FILESTREAM type which integrates with NTFS to give you streaming access to BLOBs (you can even work with them via Windows file handles). MSDN has a pretty thorough (and I thought interesting) technical article on them. [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/cc949109(v=sql.100)....](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en- us/library/cc949109\(v=sql.100\).aspx)

<comment><USER10> Interesting. Thanks for linking to this. Notably the article states a recommendation / constraint:

The recommendation for using FILESTREAM is that the individual units of BLOB data be 1 MB in size or higher.

Though, the benefits when that is the case, look mighty impressive.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> What about plain text or uniform-key, unsalted passwords? Granted, it's not a scalability or reliability concern, but I would put that at number one. It seems like every six months, some impressively large company gets in trouble for doing this.

<comment><USER12> Hahaha I should have added that! It's one of those "I would never think to do it" items so it didn't cross my mind. Will reply later to everyone else when I have a free moment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Storing images in your database is a fantastic idea. You then add in a mod_rewrite rule which checks for the existence of an image in the requested size (with some accepted size format like original_filename500x200.jpg) and if it doesn't, produces and caches that size. Best of both worlds.

The "size of database backups" point has been countered several times on this page effectively so I won't bother but in terms of scaling your app, restoring backups, managing versioned backups, moving your app around and a whole host of other management and maintenance related tasks, being able to completely blow away your cache of image files and have them rebuild on demand is tremendously useful.

Also on the point of "storing thumbnails" this assumes that your thumbnail size requirements never change over time. Using the approach of storing the source image in a database and caching the files on demand means you can change your design and all you need to do is change the size parameters in your URLs, bam, new image thumbnail sizes.

<comment><USER14> I'm not sure what databases have to do with your ideas about caching images and serving them via URLs with size parameters.

<comment><USER13> One of the key points in the article had to do with the speed advantage of serving images from the file system rather than from a database.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> >read/write to a DB is always slower than a filesystem

One shouldn't forget to mention that a filesystem is a DB, albeit one specifically engineered for the purpose of storing files. There's some overhead in doing so, because the filesystem stores a fair bit of metadata about the file. I don't think this argument always holds true.

There was a paper (a little dated now) from MS research which looked into this a little: <http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/64525/tr-2006-45.doc>. The research is not really conclusive, but it suggests files smaller than 256kb might be better stored in the DB, where anything larger the filesystem performs better. Would be nice to see some more research on the topic.

<comment><USER16> I suspect that the issue is too complicated for there to be an official threshold which everyone can rely on. It's not just a question of whether the filesystem or database can serve up the data faster. It's also the impact that those large chunks of binary data have on the database engine's cache, and what that's doing to performance globally. Presumably the specifics of that impact will depend heavily on the data access patterns of the application in question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> >Images, files, and binary data

It really depends on your situation. Point by point:

>read/write to a DB is always slower than a filesystem

Obviously this is true, but depending on the context, the difference may not be that important.

>your DB backups grow to be huge and more time consuming

This just doesn't hold up to scrutiny. You still have to back the files up, regardless of where you put them. If you keep them in the DB, then backing up the DB automatically backs up the files. If you keep them separately, you're adding complexity to the backup/restore process.

I guess there are times when you keep references to files in your DB but can live with having the files and DB get out of sync if you have to restore from a backup, but that's a design decision, not a hard and fast rule.

>access to the files now requires going through your app and DB layers

Again, there are times when this simply doesn't matter.

Let's not forget that one of the main reasons people use databases is that they simplify concepts like locking. If you start tying your database to some external structure within your file system, you not only have to implement those features yourself, but you also have to coordinate them with the DB's own implementation.

<comment><USER18> > You still have to back the files up, regardless of where you put them.

If they are actual files you can do an incremental backup. If they are in the database the backup is just one huge file that has to be backed up every time. Just dealing with the IO takes much longer, not to mention disk storage and possibly network bandwidth.

If you need to restore a single image you are going to need to create a whole database just to hold the backup before pulling out the one image - <USER3> on how much data you have this can take hours. But with a file it's trivial.

<comment><USER19> Okay, the incremental argument carries no weight. You could do a differential backups of the database.

If you are also doing transaction log backups restoring a file that was deleted is fairly trivial too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> The logging thing is really really dumb. Having logs in a real database lets you do incredible things (e.g. correlating user feedbacks to random problems you noticed). We use our db-driven logs many times a day to debug issues and find patterns.

Don't be afraid of putting logs in databases and then figuring out how to scale it. It's not that hard and it's very worth it.

<comment><USER21> Well, he advised on using tools like Splunk which can do all that for you. But I'm pretty sure they use database internally. So conflict advices I'd say.

<comment><USER12> Splunk, last I checked, used PostgreSQL for it's backend. While maybe badly worded, my point was more toward the users who have a two column log table with a timestamp and a syslog style line of text. The problem with "advice" posts like these is you can't cover every possible scenario without confusing the less experienced readers. Do I think loggly or splunk cloud should store their logs as flat files? Hell no, their app IS logging. But in the general case of application architecture I don't think it is appropriate or terribly useful for most. I know they say "never say never", but I felt it justified when I believe it's a bad idea in 99% of apps.

It's really more about using the right tool for the job, Splunk, Loggly, NoSQL solutions, etc. are a MUCH better fit than an RDBMS for this sort of work.

<comment><USER22> Splunk certainly does NOT use Postgres for it's backend(!)

It uses custom index files stored on a filesystem.

It can also connect to MySQL[1] and to HBase[2], but its own data is kept in its own index.

[1] <http://blogs.splunk.com/2011/12/20/swimming-with-dolphins/>

[2] <http://blogs.splunk.com/2011/12/05/introducing-shep/>

<comment><USER12> Makes sense, it's been a long time since I installed or had shell access to a Splunk box, I just remember it needing PG installed. Likely that's changed over the years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Premature optimization is the way to go right?

Screw referential integrity.

Screw db security.

Screw simple administration (single backup).

Raw performance of one part of the system is the only concern.

<comment><USER12> Not sure how "db security" factors in, but yes it's likely a premature optimization for many users, but these three are some of the most frequently abused RDBMS items I see on a regular basis. And often the major limiting factor in the client's performance.

While it is "raw performance of one part of the system", it's also the hardest aspect of a system to scale properly. Not doing these three things can often get a user months or years further down the line without having to worry about it at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> My time as a system administrator makes me rather fond of logging as text into files. They're simple, easy to scale, to rotate, to compress and to throw away. One variation on this theme that I read about recently is to produce log lines as JSON objects rather than more "traditional" printf-formatted text.

This gives machine readability but also makes for really simple tools for extracting whatever "traditional" log lines you like. (see: <https://github.com/trentm/json>) You can also easily add new fields without breaking existing log parsing code.

I believe I first read about logging in JSON here: [http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2011/12/26/log- for-m...](http://journal.paul.querna.org/articles/2011/12/26/log-for-machines- in-json/)

</comment><comment><USER25> "But wait, you're a unique snowflake and your problem is SO different that it's ok for you to do one of these three. No you aren't and no it really isn't. Trust me."

I feel like this article is making a large number of assumptions about the problem I am trying to solve.

</comment><comment><USER26> You can still store files (images, documents, etc...) in the database as a backup.

Let's imagine the following scenario. If your database crash and you lose everything there is good chance you can't run your application any more (if you don't have backups), but you still have your images! great! what do you do with them. If you lose your files but not the database, cool you still have the paths of all your files that have been lost in the database, so now what?!

The idea is to keep files (such as images) in the database to be able to pull them down on the file system and backup your database. Plus it's not always stored in the database, for example with MSSQL you can use file stream to store document.

</comment><comment><USER27> > Images, files, and binary data.

We did this for one project because we wanted transactional semantics when it came to image files and other related information, and this made it easy. We didn't serve images from the db - instead we created image files on the web servers from what was in the database.

</comment><comment><USER28> Article says that logging to a non-production db "isn't a HORRIBLE idea" indicating that it isn't really a good idea. I used to work with a system where we routinely made complex queries against the log database. Parsing the log line before inserting to the db, putting relevant values into indexed columns seemed to me like a pretty good idea and provided us with a really easy-to-use and a rather fast diagnostics tool that no one had to learn how to use.

EDIT: Of course you have to make sure you don't do any writes that block the main operation, e.g. by using message queues.

</comment><comment><USER29> > read/write to a DB is always slower than a filesystem

I always thought it was the other way around. Databases can cache data and keep files opened (keep the file locked or something, I don't know).

Also my own benchmarks on an old laptop (MySQL versus FAT32) turned out that MySQL was actually faster, even if you still had to connect (no persistent connection). I should try this again on a decent server and use NTFS or Ext3 (see if that makes much difference), but in general I can't really see how a database can be slower--given that you use it for what a database should be used for. Of course if you read a movie from it once a day, it's not gonna cache that and the file handle is not going to help much either. Then MySQL is only an obstruction to the data which it has to read from the disk anyway. Hmm or is that what he meant here?

</comment><comment><USER30> There's a very strong use case for binary data: bitmaps. You can implement a bloom filter or a set as a bitmap field on a relation, and then perform quick searching and joining using the bitwise comparison operators. This is my main reason for wanting binary field support in Django—at the moment Django attempts to decode every string as UTF-8.

</comment><comment><USER31> I thought the issues with blobs in databases is that when you pull a file out of a DB to serve it on a website, you get something like this:

1\. Database pulls file off disk, or out of cache, reads into memory buffer

2\. Memory buffer is copied to a new buffer in SQL client library (over a socket or whatever)

3\. Memory buffer is copied to a new buffer in your scripting language

4\. Which is then written to the web server's memory buffer, where it gets served to the client.

Which ends up being a whole lot of copying (and a whole lot of work even when the data is cached in the DB) compared to:

1\. Web server mmap's file

2\. Web server streams file out to client

Is this situation no longer true? Are there newer tools that handle "serve a file from a BLOB" more efficiently? Do they also handle things like seeking (resumes) in a non-wasteful manner? Or is memory performance so good and the blobs we're talking about so small (bytes, not kilobytes) that it doesn't matter?

<comment><USER17> I'm by no means a DB expert, but that was basically my understanding of the disadvantages as well. As other people have pointed out, you can use caching to fix a lot of those performance issues.

Of course, the author of the article also believes that every database is hooked to a web server that will be constantly pushing its data to hundreds of thousands/millions of users, that every 10 milliseconds lost means another 1% of your users abandon ship, and that if you claim to have some other circumstances, you are pleading "unique snowflake" status and should just get shut up and follow his advice anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Ugh. This is so wrong, even though some of the arguments are valid criticisms.

Why is it wrong? Transactions and referential integrity. Without being able to guarantee transactions that update data in the database along with any other data, non-DB file-based or not, then you chance issues with referential integrity. Even if you have a transactional infrastructure that you would bet your life on, something could happen like a partial restore that restores the file system but not the database.

It isn't that it is impossible to have a working transactional infrastructure without storing these things in the database, it is that it is much easier to store it in the database, and sometimes making things easy can save your ass.

</comment><comment><USER33> I have to disagree with the logfiles, I work for a really large domain hosting company so our logs are quite vast, dealing with spam issues can amount to a large amount of time being used just looking for the information you need.

we have greylog in place to help query these logs from our syslog server, it has helped us identify alot of different issues since we have put it in place, not to be rude to the poster but I dont think you have the experience with really big log files and how painful it can be (or how long it can take) when you have to grep through this information by hand, zcating an old compressed log file can take up to ten minutes before you even start seeing data let alone relevant data.

<comment><USER34> Your experience with logs doesn't invalidate the point the author was trying to make. Storing your logs in your production database is a stupid idea.

You're already doing what he was suggesting anyway - storing your logs somewhere other than your application database.

<comment><USER35> I'm trying to understand why storing your logs in the production database is such a bad idea. Is it because of potential disk contention? Lock issues? Could you be more specific about why it is a stupid idea?

<comment><USER36> Probably just disk contention - locking is unlikely to be a problem since you're just adding rows.

The disk contention issue could be a problem because writes are hard to scale, but depending on the regularity of logging and the indexing used (I'm assuming it's done by timestamp here) it's probably not actually the biggest of deals - you should end up mostly doing append-only writes. In oracle, for example, all that'll happen is that for each log transaction some stuff will get altered in memory (i.e. a block of the table will get appended to, and an append will occur on the index) and the roll forward log will get written to on disk. Every so often the table and index blocks will get written to disk, but that will be _much_ less than once per transaction in an appending case.

That said, overall I'd still recommend having the logging done on a separate system, or at least having profiling set up on your log table/user/whatever such that logging can't eat your production server if someone decides to excessively ramp up the log levels.

<comment><USER35> Why not just move the logging table into a different tablespace/file group and place this on a different disk? That would fix write performance problems.

<comment><USER36> This is absolutely a good thing to do, but it doesn't make you safe - <USER4> disks running the database's redo logs are the ones that get hammered in a logging scenario (since the writes to the table and indexes are largely appending, and don't have to be written to disk to commit a transaction). These logs are usually global to the DB instance, so you can't easily (to my knowledge) separate them out. This being the case, they can significantly affect the performance of the rest of your system if too much logging starts happening.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Database is a pretty broad term these days. Doesn't this depend on the database we're talking about?

Something like Big Table is pretty good at storing small blobs. It's also pretty good at scaling, so you should never really have to delete "usage statistics, metrics, GPS locations, session data" or anything really.

Regarding logs, I completely agree. Something like tornado + scribe + s3 works quite well. (check out <https://github.com/gregbayer/logcatcher>) But then EMR + Scribe can be used to access it like a db.

</comment><comment><USER38>
      * Credit card numbers
      * Social security numbers
      * Plain text passwords

Can't tell you how often I find them in databases. Its mindboggling.

</comment><comment><USER39> While I fully agree that storing log data in the database isn't usually a good idea, I would never recommend Logly to somebody. It may just be my experience, but the search facilities and stability left a lot to be desired - it is one of very few web apps that consistently face me the Chrome "oh snap" js crash.

IMO Papertrail is a much better service with the exact same MO.

</comment><comment><USER40> This is a load of BS from somebody who only works with one kind of relational data (tabular).

Never let this author near your GIS/spatial system.

<comment><USER41> Instead of saying "load of BS" and leave it at that you could explain which parts of the article you disagree about and why.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> There's nothing wrong with logging to _a_ database, provided you adequately buffer the insertions to keep the underlying sync() rate reasonable.

I wouldn't recommend logging to the same database instance that's used to store customer data for both security and performance reasons, but that's no reason not to use a database for logging.

<comment><USER43> True

I agree, what it should say is: never log to the _main_ database, create a DB especially for it (preferably in an entire different file system/disk/machine)

And don't forget to set it to 'append only'

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I'm ashamed to say I used to use MySQL to store serialized PHP arrays. It seemed like a good idea until I needed to run a query using a string within the array. I "solved" the problem by writing a MySQL function similar to ExtractValue().

I was young and stupid, and I needed the money.

</comment><comment><USER45> I used to do custom SharePoint development using SharePoint and MOSS 2007 from Microsoft. Fun developing experience. I was doing document management for some rather large companies. Guess where Microsoft put all of the images, word, excel,powerpoint presentations, email and whatever else! In a blob in an SQL 2005 server database. It was amazing how fast those hard drives could fill up with each document and all of it's revisions being stored there. There was talk that MS might eventually add external blob support but I quit long before that if it ever happened at all. If anyone asks me now I simply refer them to other document management servers.

</comment><comment><USER46> I have to think we've all been tempted at some point. This is a succinct and persuasive prophylactic. Bookmarked.

</comment><comment><USER47> As with any performance tuning advice, "it depends".

Bear in mind not storing files in a database does create restore issues, since database and file backups will have been created at different times, so there's always a risk of orphaned/missing files.

</comment><comment><USER48> _Strongly_ disagree on logging to database being inferior to flat files or Loggly/Splunk. The first point is good: you shouldn't put them in the same place as your production data, agreed. Then he goes on to recommend not logging into a database at all, which is just silly.

Map/reduce on log data is absolutely wonderful and opens new worlds of answers that you can only dream of. A Hive workflow is fantastic for parsing log data. You can answer any question, and even GRAPH any answer from your logs. The insight gained from capturing and processing logs can do wonders for your performance problems, ideas for new uses of your code, and so on.

I hate any approach to engineering that says "you'll never need it, so don't do it"; do it, and discover the great things that some things unlock for you. Burying your head in the sand on this point just limits your ability to unlock unique insight and gain an edge.

I particularly disagree with this because of the flourish at the end of article, where he says there are no exceptions to his advice. Flatly wrong, and if you tell me "don't do it, trust me," I lose a bit of respect for you as a communicator.

<comment><USER49> Altering the logging table scheme once it reaches several million rows? Not fun. I think flat files are much easier to scale.

<comment><USER50> You could create a new table called Logs2 and use your database's union functionality when querying it. Perhaps even a view to make things a whole lot easier.

<comment><USER51> If you're talking about Postgres most people would likely implement this using date/time-based partitioning which provides a more seamless solution to this problem.

<comment><USER35> Not just Postgres folks - SQL Server and Oracle also :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> "read/write to a DB is always slower than a filesystem"

This is patently false, reads/writes on a DB are often much faster which is why we use DB systems.

Even image data especially on write can be faster when written to a DB vs. flat file because of sequential writes. Small files are slow to write on filesystems which is why we have DBs.

In most cases with a high read / low write load it's certainly a better idea to put thumbnails on a CDN for a variety of reasons but to think that writing small chunks of data to a file system is always faster than a DB is to misunderstand what DBs do and when and why they are useful.

<comment><USER53> > reads/writes on a DB are often much faster which is why we use DB systems.

Not really. We use db's because file systems aren't ACID and we like to not lose data, and we like to be able to query data, and because we like multiple machines having access to that data. But the file system is generally much faster, especially when appending something like a log (yea, db's do that too, that's beside the point).

> but to think that writing small chunks of data to a file system is always > faster than a DB is to misunderstand what DBs do and when and why they are > useful.

I don't think so. Perhaps you can expand on that.

<comment><USER52> Write a program that creates 100,000 1k-8k byte files.

Write a program that creates 100,000 1k-8k byte files in a zip file with no compression.

Run multiple copies of these programs, see which writes files faster.

Keep running the program(s) until the drive is 90% full. (Put the files in different directories if you feel this is fair.)

Run the programs again.

You'll notice that on a decent 7200 RPM drive the ZIP code is writing about 40-50MB/sec on a good drive. You'll probably be lucky to get 4-5MB/sec from the file code (unless you're on an SSD, even then it will probably be half)

If you feel like it also create a database and do the same with a file table like "CREATE TABLE data (id int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY, data varbinary(8000))"

Inject 1000 to 2000 rows between commits.

The DB should also outperform the file code, but probably not the ZIP because it has to write the data twice.

The reason is that writing file to disk quickly produces a random IO pattern as the FS tries to allocate files all over the disk. Also, everytime you create a file you have to update a whole bunch of file descriptors, a modern file system is a B-tree and journal. Sounds awfully like a database right? Except this database is optimized for large files, at least 32-64kbytes and preferably in the hundreds of MB.

<comment><USER53> You're biassing the test towards small files and particular file systems that don't deal with them as well, and edge cases where you think the db is highly optimized; I'd imagine that's because you know outside those bounds the raw file system will kick its butt, especially given the tools that let you avoid the application entirely by streaming the file from disk.

<comment><USER36> In fairness, while his test is biased towards dbs, it's also testing the claims that he made in his top level comment, which specified smaller files.

<comment><USER53> Which again, presumes I have to use multiple files. I can append small data to a log file faster than I can insert small rows of data to a database, and with much less effort.

And my main point was, speed is not the reason we use databases, transactional semantics and query capabilities are.

<comment><USER36> Right, but he was talking about image files.

edit: It's not that your point is wrong by any means, it's just that you're arguing against a point that he wasn't really emphasising. I don't think anyone, including him, would try to tell you that constant appending to a log file would be faster through a db than just a direct write to the file.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Ouch, I do all 3!

</comment><comment><USER22> I think most of the objections people are having to this article can be overcome if you say the author is talking about traditional, SQL based Databases.

<comment><USER22> Umm.. well obviously some disagreed with that.

Here's how I see it:

Logging isn't ideal in traditional databases, because then you have to scale writes. Scaling reads is fairly easy in a traditional database, but scaling writes is much harder compared to something like HBase or Cassandra

Image storage in a traditional database will always suffer compared to other options. Filesystems are faster and easier to use, and things like S3 match requirements better in some cases.

I'm not really seeing anyone argue that ephemeral data is better in a Database than something like redis.

<comment><USER35> If its a problem with writes, then why not put the logging tables onto a different disk? Surely that would fix write contention?

<comment><USER22> Cassandra can do over a million writes per second[1] because of a combination of its horizontal scaling and eventual consistency. I expect HBase could scale similarly.

By comparison, people write about scaling MySQL to 25000 writes per second[2]

It's very hard to get a single server to scale multiple orders of magnitude higher (even with FusionIO or something). Getting around that single master server for writes is possible, but either complicated or expensive. Even then I doubt you will get to 1 million writes per second without sharding, and if you are going to shard you might as well go to a NoSQL solution built for the problem.

[1] [http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/11/benchmarking- cassandra-s...](http://techblog.netflix.com/2011/11/benchmarking-cassandra- scalability-on.html)

[2] [http://www.spoutingshite.com/2011/01/27/scaling-mysql- to-250...](http://www.spoutingshite.com/2011/01/27/scaling-mysql- to-25000-inserts-per-second/)

<comment><USER35> That is indeed extremely impressive! I hope I didn't come across as meaning that NoSQL solutions aren't appropriate - it's very hard for me to say this anything about these solutions, as I've got next to no experience with this technology.

I am very interested in the first article though. It mentions number of instances in an EC2 availability zone - what does this mean? Is this similar to a clustering/load balanced solutions in traditional RDBMSes?

 _The automated tooling that Netflix has developed lets us quickly deploy large scale Cassandra clusters, in this case a few clicks on a web page and about an hour to go from nothing to a very large Cassandra cluster consisting of 288 medium sized instances, with 96 instances in each of three EC2 availability zones in the US-East region. Using an additional 60 instances as clients running the stress program we ran a workload of 1.1 million client writes per second._

 _Edit:_ Argh! Sorry, I just didn't read far enough before I posted. They seem to be being powered by some fairly heavy duty hardware. Is there a comparitive study using Oracle RAC or something like this?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


AWS West Outage (US-WEST-2 region) - <AUTHOR> http://status.aws.amazon.com/ <comment><USER2> Seems to have hit pagerduty pretty hard... your poor on-call guy may have no idea his app is busted.

<comment><USER3> Interesting. I got a page during the incident, so at least some of it was working.

<comment><USER4> Pager as in - the electronic device that existed before the cellphone?

<comment><USER5> Paged as in alerted or summoned - this service [https://www.pagerduty.com/](https://www.pagerduty.com/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Everything is closed.

Direct connect: October 18, 2017 at 4:37:09 PM UTC-5

Internet connectivity: October 18, 2017 at 4:33:29 PM UTC-5

EC2 VPC network health: October 18, 2017 at 4:13:00 PM UTC-5

\---

Personal Health Dashboard seems like its being udpated faster.

[https://phd.aws.amazon.com/](https://phd.aws.amazon.com/)

\---

Opened at: October 18, 2017 at 4:10:19 PM UTC-5

DirectConnect operational issue

02:10 PM PDT We are investigating network connectivity issues affecting Direct Connect customers using the US-WEST-2 Region.

\---

Opened at: October 18, 2017 at 3:59:42 PM UTC-5

Network Connectivity

01:59 PM PDT We are investigating Network Connectivity issues in the US-WEST-2 Region.

\---

Opened at: October 18, 2017 at 3:59:00 PM UTC-5

EC2 VPC network health internet issue

Beginning at Wed, 18 Oct 2017 20:59:00 GMT, some instances are experiencing elevated packet loss between the us-west-2a Availability Zone and the Internet. We are now investigating this issue.

</comment><comment><USER4> Would they be publishing a post-mortem? If yes, where do I get to read it? Someone be kind enough to enlighten me. Sincerely,

<comment><USER7> Yes,if you can clear their hiring bar, post mortems for all such incidents are shared among AWS employees... Some of them are shared company wide

<comment><USER4> I am going to clear their hiring bar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I just noticed Stripe's API returning intermittent 500 errors for the first time in forever. Now I know why! =)

<comment><USER9> yeah so did we.. and then also from auth0. aws status page was next thing to check.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> These things happen to every datacentre. That's why AWS has multiple, separately managed regions that you can use to keep your app up with.

<comment><USER11> and pay double? no way

<comment><USER12> It's not paying double. Take the total number of instances serving the app and divide them across data centers and availability zones within datacenters. This might require adding a few of servers if the app is replicated across a very small number of instances, but for apps that already have a significant number of instances to handle the capacity, it's just a matter of rearranging things.

Depending on how quickly new instances of the app can be brought up to, it may be worthwhile to run a bit more capacity so that the remaining instances don't melt down should all the instances in one zone become unavailable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Title says AWS West, but it's specifically us-west-2 region (Oregon).

</comment><comment><USER14> We noticed less network connections around 1:30ish...

</comment><comment><USER15> Yeah noticed this in our production app today. Thanks AWS. Thank goodness we had multi AZ DB running and other failovers.</comment>


How does the iPhone 6 camera compare to previous iPhone cameras? - <AUTHOR> http://snapsnapsnap.photos/how-does-the-iphone-6-camera-compare-to-previous-iphone-cameras/

<comment><USER2> this is all you need to know .. [http://www.theonion.com/articles/iphone-6-plus-vs-samsung- ga...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/iphone-6-plus-vs-samsung- galaxy-s5,36969/)</comment>


Fatality Forces Tesla to Face Its Limits - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/02/business/a-fatality-forces-tesla-to-confront-its-limits.html?referer= <comment><USER2> I've read the article twice now and am still not sure I can see any reference to the fact that witnesses on the scene have reported that a portable DVD player was showing Harry Potter immediately after the accident.

[https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla- dri...](https://amp.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/01/tesla-driver- killed-autopilot-self-driving-car-harry-potter)

Every other article I read on Tesla's "self driving" feature is that this is an assistant to driving and not a replacement for driving.

How many auto fatalities happened worldwide yesterday in cars that were _NOT_ a Tesla?

How many in the past week, month?

There is something that makes Tesla accidents news while other automakers go unnoticed for the same.</comment>