Java Static Code Analysis - <AUTHOR> http://www.petermartinblog.com/2013/10/17/static-code-analysis-in-java/

<comment><USER2> At work I have set up a nightly Jenkins job to merge all verified, un- submitted patches from Gerrit and process the resulting history with Sonarqube[1].

This has revealed many bad habits and allowed us to correct them through review comments prior to changes being submitted. It's also shown me just how "legacy"[2] our code-base is, but thanks to sonarqube (which runs PMD and FindBugs as part of its analysis) we're improving.

[1] [http://www.sonarqube.org](http://www.sonarqube.org) [2] [http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0131177052](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0131177052)

<comment><AUTHOR> Static code analysis is very nice to help you identify problems with legacy code. That is how I got into it when we had to do a mass migration of old code to a different application server.</comment></comment>


How-To: Web server on a business card - <AUTHOR> http://hackaday.com/2008/09/18/web-server-on-a-business-card-part-1/ <comment><USER2> At Linuxcare, we had these business-card sized CD's with mini Linux distributions on them. They were quite cool, and very popular.

<comment><USER3> Welcome to 2001 ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Would be a nice trick but even at volume pricing that is $1-2 a pop.</comment>


FreeBSD 10.0-RC3 images available - <AUTHOR> http://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/ISO-IMAGES-amd64/10.0/

<comment><USER2> Please consider donating [1] to FreeBSD.

They still need $400k and there's only 4 days left

Even if you don't use FreeBSD, their work still benefits the open source community with ZFS, etc.

[1] [https://www.freebsdfoundation.org](https://www.freebsdfoundation.org)

<comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking about posting something like that too. FreeBSD is a great operating system and we'll all benefit from having more choice than less, therefore I've already donated to the FreeBSD Foundation, and I encourage everyone to do it as well - every little bit helps!

<comment><USER3> It's particularly important to get donations from a large number of donors, even if they don't add up to a huge dollar amount -- large donors often look at the number of donors as a sign of the strength of the community when deciding how much money to donate.

<comment><USER4> It is also a tax status necessity for non-profits.

<comment><USER3> It doesn't look like the FreeBSD Foundation is in danger of failing the IRS "public support" test any time soon; but yes, that can theoretically be an issue.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I downloaded the 10.0-RC3 ISO and spent the day spinning up multiple vm images using Vmware Fusion. My primary goal was a tour of different desktop environments, but I decided to create and build out a separate VM for each. I used the "open-vm-tools" package to improve integration with vmware, because their tools (reasonably enough) don't yet support 10.0.

I never experienced any difficulties with any of the the vm images. I used the "pkgng" packaging system for 99% of the software I installed, and built a couple of things from ports.

In my tests I was evaluating FreeBSD 10.0 as a developer's workstation. Chromium, Firefox, vim, git, VLC, ruby, gem, rake, etc - everything installed painlessly and worked as expected.

BTW, my preferred desktop environment is now XFCE (1) plus slim (2). I've been a happy KDE user for years, but I realized that I don't use 90% of what KDE gives me. Speaking for myself, XFCE does everything I need.

(1) [http://www.xfce.org](http://www.xfce.org) (2) [http://daemon- notes.com/articles/desktop/slim](http://daemon- notes.com/articles/desktop/slim)

<comment><USER6> Any thoughts on using this vs. using PC-BSD?

<comment><USER5> I've never actually tried PC-BSD. I've read good reviews about it, but I wanted to do things the "hard way" because I was as interested in the process as the result.

That's also why I spun up a separate VM for each desktop environment that I looked at, rather than just installing all of them one one VM. I wanted the "muscle memory" of starting from a bare bones installation and walking forward from there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A link to the announcement would probably be more helpful:

[http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- stable/2013-Decem...](http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd- stable/2013-December/076590.html)

</comment><comment><USER8> Some like to wait until x.1 for production use, but FreeBSD development tends to be a good deal more conservative than Linux, and is usually already pretty solid for the x.0 release. They've also been more incremental with changes between major versions since the major SMP additions in versions 5-7.

Since it's not in the announcement or linked directly from the website itself, here's what's new in 10.0: [https://wiki.freebsd.org/WhatsNew/FreeBSD10](https://wiki.freebsd.org/WhatsNew/FreeBSD10)

<comment><USER9> _Since it 's not in the announcement or linked directly from the website itself_

Bingo! Thanks for that.

The _FIRST_ thought I had when visiting the FreeBSD website was "what are the differences between these versions?". Why would I choose one or the other?

Simply calling them "Production", "Legacy", and "Upcoming" is IMO a special type of stupid. Or, stated slightly more kindly, it's the classic stereotype of Programmers and Asperger's syndrome. They know all the differences between versions, and it's inconceivable to them that there are still people in the world who don't. Fortunately, someone created a wiki to enlighten those remaining few people.

Based on the above, I predict that FreeBSD 11.0 will be the pinnacle of OS achievement. After all, it'll be when FreeBSD "goes up to eleven", which is clearly one better than ten.

<comment><USER8> They'll normally list all the new features on the main website when the new -RELEASE version is actually available, this is just a -RC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> No TLS/SSL ? In the wake of all the security news recently, it's surprising that there is no secured download option.

Plus, no official bittorrent download ? That sucks. If anyone is interested, here's the torrent for the bootonly img. I hope FreeBSD devs these by default in the future.

[http://torcache.net/torrent/5f0621060da88eb18c5765c8a2e87e93...](http://torcache.net/torrent/5f0621060da88eb18c5765c8a2e87e93ab95c6bc.torrent)

<comment><USER11> I made this account just to reply to this comment. The email about the releases come from the release engineer and are signed. The signed email has the SHA256 of each file. It's just not as apparent when looking at the archived version of email. Also, nearly every subdomain and page on the FreeBSD website cluster has HTTPS available.

<comment><USER10> I may look like a jerk for complaining, but I'm sad that the default options for downloading FreeBSD are not secure and not technically optimal. (The email are signed with the sha256 sigs, but the archives are not accessible in https _by default), yet I understand they may have other priorities.

Other than that, I applaud FreeBSD's efforts in Libre software at large.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> List of mirror sites (which are usually faster to download from): [http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mi...](http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/mirrors- ftp.html)

</comment><comment><USER13> Still has text-based install and no working mouse upon first boot without hacking config files (tried in VMware and VirtualBox). Definitely STILL not for desktop / casual consumption.

<comment><USER14> If you're looking for a user-friendly desktop-install of FreeBSD, you probably want to check out [http://www.pcbsd.org/](http://www.pcbsd.org/) instead. They have a 10.0-RC2 available for download already, and will probably have a 10.0 released a few weeks after FreeBSD.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I don't know if related to freebsd but the latest FreeNAS doesn't boot on KVM :(

<comment><USER12> There are a bunch of threads on the FreeNAS forums about running FreeNAS on virtualization:

[http://forums.freenas.org/threads/kvm- freenas.13040/](http://forums.freenas.org/threads/kvm-freenas.13040/)

[http://forums.freenas.org/threads/absolutely-must- virtualize...](http://forums.freenas.org/threads/absolutely-must-virtualize- freenas-a-guide-to-not-completely-losing-your-data.12714/)

[http://forums.freenas.org/threads/please-do-not-run- freenas-...](http://forums.freenas.org/threads/please-do-not-run-freenas-in- production-as-a-virtual-machine.12484/)

Those are just the first few I saw -- if you search the forums, I'm sure you'll be able to find threads with additional information.</comment></comment>


40 important design lessons from the past - <AUTHOR> https://designschool.canva.com/blog/famous-graphic-designers/ <comment><USER2> ghostery in FF blocks all content except the social buttons at the bottom.

Disabling ghostery displays the content.

Or clicking reader view displays the content, with ghostery on.

Or View/Style/No Style displays the content, with ghostery on.

Going up the URL, this also doesn't displahy with ghostery on: [https://designschool.canva.com/](https://designschool.canva.com/)

but this does display: [https://www.canva.com/](https://www.canva.com/)</comment>


The nightmare of installing Lisp:  a noob's perspective - daniel-cussen Somehow, installing Clisp on these three systems took somewhat different amounts of time.
Mac OS: Five weeks.  Installing macports was the worse part.  Still can't get emacs and slime together.
Linux:  two weeks, gave up when I got Clisp to run in the command line interface.
Windows: Five minutes.
I have no idea why this is, but for a noob, it takes five minutes to get Clisp on slime up and running on windows XP.
I am aware that it takes someone experienced very little time.  But this is what it takes a noob who has to find out firsthand how to deal with glitches in macports and such.
I'm also aware there's probably a download site that is much more user-friendly than the others.  But this does not take away the fact there are many user-unfriendly download sites, and it's hard to tell them apart if you're a noob.  So, just putting this out there; for some odd reason, you can install clisp on windows xp if you go to
http://www.gigamonkeys.com/book/lispbox/download.html
and you'll be done in five minutes. <comment><AUTHOR> After trying to get Pylons+PythonLDAP work on MacOS X I am slowly giving up on this OS as a platform for development. Yes it can be done and it's not THAT hard, but why? For coders _Linux just works_ \- everything takes seconds as opposed to minutes. Plus you get a nicer font rendering.

Sorry for the rant. It's just frustrating: I had high expectations for it.

<comment><USER2> Sure Linux just works... but your presentations on a shiny Mac Book Pro will be all the slicker than a boring old Ubuntu Dell. Besides, not staring at an ugly UI all day has its advantages as do the rest of the Mac productivity features.

<comment><AUTHOR> Boring old Dell? :) Please... Ubuntu runs on a best laptop ever made: black matte military brick-rugged ThinkPad T61 with a keyboard that most desktops only dream of, equipped with duplicated mouse buttons up and down and a mouse "pin" in addition to the touchpad.

This is as close to true mobile productivity as you can get, looks bad ass too.

The only unfortunate feature on it is the "Win" button, but I configured it to do "Expose" and "Ring Application Switcher" effects.

Jesus... did I just write that? I'm such a geek. :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The Lisp world is fragmented. It's not just all the different Lisps, it's all the different <Lisp,OS> pairs (or even <Lisp,OS,editor> triples). They all behave differently. There's also randomness involved: I bet there are others out there complaining that they couldn't get Clisp running with Slime on Windows XP.

I doubt this will change. The Lisp universe has always been decentralized (which has been one of the secrets of its innovativeness). Its culture tends to be individualistic, which makes things more, not less fragmentary. And there's still another point - once you do get things working, they work so well that you forget about the initial pain. So the world divides into people who remember nothing but the pain (because they never broke through the threshold) and people who remember nothing about it (because they're too busy loving the other side).

The good news is that once you do get things running you will approximately never have that problem again. The differences, at least in the Common Lisp case, are greatest at the noob stage and cause comparatively little trouble later on. I realize this is no consolation to the noob.

There are enough kind and intelligent people in the Lisp world who like to help others learn, and this problem is complained about so widely and loudly, that if a technical solution were possible I think we'd have it already. Maybe in the absence of that, we need to do a better job of telling the story of why Lisp is the way it is, and of helping people get through that initial stage... maybe a social network to pair Lisp noobs with expert buddies :)

But even this would run up against the cowboy culture. I don't mean cowboy as in "cowboy coding". I mean the old west, do-it-yourself value system. In my imagination at least, old cowboys would help noob cowboys, but they wouldn't coddle them. They'd make sure you didn't get killed, but they sure as heck wouldn't make sure you didn't get hurt... they'd think it was good for you.

<comment> daniel-cussen _There are enough kind and intelligent people in the Lisp world who like to help others learn, and this problem is complained about so widely and loudly, that if a technical solution were possible I think we'd have it already._

A technical solution would be 1) click to download, 2) unzip, and 3) drag to applications folder. On top of that, the lisp that does this should be easier to find, and lisps that are more difficult to deal with should be harder to find, lest a noob tries to install them.

<comment><USER3> You seem to have missed my point. I'm not saying a technical solution is hard to _describe_. I'm saying it's hard to _implement_ \- perhaps much harder than it seems. You'd have to do it for all Lisps on all OS's. As your own post indicates rather clearly, getting it to work with _one_ Lisp on _one_ OS isn't enough.

As for how to ensure that one thing is harder to find on the internet than another, I suppose we can leave that as an exercise to the reader.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lisp n00b here too, and it's VERY frustating. Makes me remember the days where installing apache with php meant one day of reading docs and another afternoon of compiling. It's one hell of a learning curve, and it's mostly unnecessary: it's not about programming or system architecture, just about luck and getting it right. Right now i'm having trouble connecting emacs to a remote slime for the first time. Started slime, created the tunnel, tried to slime-connect to localhost and... a strage error. I'll dive into it again on monday, but it'll probably be days before I either figure it out or go around it. And the first time I tried lispmod with clisp on linux? Had to recompile the apache module with a line commented. Bad ideea anyways, since clisp doesn't have multithreading.

Don't get me wrong, i can't wait to start making software in lisp, it's just ... it's taking months to get there.

</comment><comment><USER5> The title is a little misleading since some lisp systems are easer to install than others. I had mzscheme on my osx 10.5 powerbook working in 10 minutes when pg released Arc.

<comment> daniel-cussen I agree, some lisps are easier to install than others. But if you're a noob, how do you know which one to choose?

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> What linux were you using? On my Debian system, apt-get install clisp installs clisp, and apt-get install slime installs slime (and cl-swank).

I haven't tried slime with clisp, however, only SBCL. Any reason why you're using clisp and not SBCL?

<comment><USER7> SBCL isn't as happy as CLISP for w32

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Installing Slime with SBCL 1.0.12 took just a few moments under OS X. I'd consider myself a newbie, but I did have emacs already installed.

Ports can indeed be a little messed up at times. For emacs, I find it fairly easy to just grab the latest source from gnu.org and build/install it with their instructions.

</comment><comment><USER9> Installing Lisp? Hell, I have two Ubuntu boxes at home that I can't connect to the internet.

There's always the XP partitions for when I need to get things done, though.

<comment> daniel-cussen Tell me about it. Despite all the flack XP gets/deserves, this one time, it just worked. Apple and Linux just didn't work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I realize that in a way I am just restating what other people have said, but it seems very odd to me that this complaint would even come up in 2008. We are living in a time when Linux distributions have amazing package management that make Apple and Microsoft seem primitive in comparison. If your distribution can't do that, it's time to switch. I like Ubuntu personally. I have several different dialects of lisp installed and a slime environment in emacs. It took me a matter of literally seconds to install each one of them. Just apt-get install sbcl or if you're using a distribution that uses yum, then yum install sbcl. Or clisp, or whatever else you want to try using.

</comment><comment><USER11> I never had any trouble getting clisp running under OS X. MacPorts is nice as long as the port you're after actually works. Although, now that I think about it, I do recall the clisp port being broken at some point. I just downloaded the tarball and ./configure;./build'ed it myself, though.

PLT Scheme is much easier, though. I'd highly recommend it for any variety of noob. I've installed it with no issues on OS X, Windows, and FreeBSD.

</comment><comment><USER12> apt-get install sbcl

<comment><USER13> pacman -S clisp

I don't know what this fellow's problem was, clisp is fairly easy to install. Getting asdf to work properly might be a pain, but clisp itself was easy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I bought my first Mac in 2002, a G3 iBook. I installed GCC via the standard OS X development tools, downloaded the source code for CLisp, did configure and make, and it built and ran "out of the box" the first time.

The build itself took something on the order of 20 minutes, but it worked without any issues.

</comment><comment><USER15> You might try ReadyLisp for Mac OS at <http://www.newartisans.com/software/readylisp.html>.

It uses Aquamacs, SBCL and SLIME. Just drop the icon in the applications folder.

</comment><comment><USER16> I really don't see how it could take two weeks to get clisp installed on linux unless you were trying to compile it from source, which I have never had to try.

Now trying to install various lisp packages you need, that's another story...

</comment><comment><USER17> > Linux: two weeks, gave up when I got Clisp to run in the command line > interface.

Are we talking Lisp noob, or Linux noob?

As the other posts indicate, use an apt-based distribution (Debian, Ubuntu), and do

        sudo apt-get install clisp slime

</comment><comment><USER18> 1) There's lispbox for linux too. 2) apt-get install sbcl: 30 seconds</comment>


Facebook Photos Used to Nail Bail Violator in DUI Case - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2009/06/05/facebook-dui/ <comment><USER2> Interesting. I wonder if it would be possible to create a photo-sharing site where it was guaranteed that only your friends could see your photos. I am thinking this is possible via the TPM.

Perhaps I will investigate this this weekend.

(No, I don't think it's OK that she killed someone while driving drunk. But I also don't think it's OK for the government to use our social nature against us in court. Even murderers should be able to have friends.)

<comment><USER3> Doesn't Flickr already allow you to limit who can view photos? Come to think of it, Facebook does too.

I don't think it's too much to ask people that commit crimes to at least not litter the neighborhood with flyers.</comment></comment>


Malware Case Is Major Blow for the N.S.A - <AUTHOR> https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/nsa-malware-case-shadow-brokers.html <comment><USER2> "You play in dirt, you get dirty."</comment>


Cory Doctorow on the fight for a configurable and free internet - <AUTHOR> https://www.oreilly.com/ideas/cory-doctorow-on-the-fight-for-a-configurable-and-free-internet <comment><USER2> The internet is already free and configurable. It takes some technical knowledge to create a website just like anything in life, but that barrier is rather small. What is happening is that to get free content, you have to give something back. That is data, attention or money.

Don't want to live with the dominance of a DNS? You don't have to. Just share your website's IP address. Do you want to have looser rules around your content? Rent a server in a more liberal country.

The reality that most technologist ignore is that people want the ease of Google or the reach of Facebook. They want cheap Android devices run by an ad company, or free phone and video calls run by another ad company. Perhaps they don't want the consequences of free stuff, but they are not willing to pay for it, either.

The internet is exactly what people want from it: access to free information and connection to anyone on the planet. It has done exactly what it was suppose to. Let's not pretend that the internet is somehow broken (conceptually, obv. Technically, it could be better ;) )

</comment><comment><USER3> I am afraid that fight is already lost.

If you want a website, you need to register with a DNS provider.

If you want to get word out about your website, you need twitter and facebook.

If you want people to find your website, you need google.

If you want to make a video that people will find, you need youtube.

If you say something controversial and want to keep from DDOS'd, you need cloudflare.

Every one of those entities is a commercial entity that has the right and the ability to remove you from their service if they don't like anything about you or what you say.

<comment><USER4> To a certain degree - though practically the bar to entry is very low to get your ideas onto the 'net. You do need access to a networked computer, but beyond that... While it's true as you say that Medium / Github / Youtube etc. can take what you post down, they do so with some risk that there will be public outcry. That doesn't prevent them from handwaving that away with reference to laws requiring them to shut you up, but at least it makes it harder.

<comment><USER5> If Facebook's algorithm buries you, you might never develop an audience in the first place who would cry about things… Smart censors pick their battles. The only way to avoid censorship is to build systems that aren't able to be censored.

Note that [https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/epis...](https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/08/25/546127444/episode-790-rough- translations-in-ukraine) convinced me that maybe we actually NEED censorship though… so no easy answers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The trick here seems to be boiling these messages down to a digestable bit for non-tehnical audiences without oversimplying. In my experience very few people want to hear my thoughts on last mile infrastructure in the US but do care when they find out thier location is being sold.</comment>


The Uncomfortable Truth About Affirmative Action and Asian-Americans - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-uncomfortable-truth-about-affirmative-action-and-asian-americans <comment><USER2> This is exactly what a system that incentivizes diversity without considering base rates can be expected to produce. A naive version of "perfect equality" with 10% group X, 10% group Y.. equal is equal right?</comment>


I wrote Windows Task Manager and I just remembered something - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/techsupport/comments/gqb915/i_wrote_task_manager_and_i_just_remembered/ <comment><USER2> Posted and discussed yesterday: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304536)

</comment><comment><USER3> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304536](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23304536)

800+ points</comment>


Ask HN: Generic cross-platform package and environment manager? - <AUTHOR> First time asking here. Hi everyone!
At my employer (a visual effects house) we use CentOS, Windows and OSX, with various softwares. The internal code is mostly Python, but there's a bit of C as well.
We are looking for a generic package manager for internal use that can resolve package dependencies and assemble environments with specific versions to make our dev life a little better.
We're currently considering Rez: https://github.com/nerdvegas/rez which (if you've never heard of it) is a Python-powered, software-agnostic, platform-agnostic packager, dependency resolver and environment prep'er.
It's a cool project, but some of us are convinced that someone must have solved the problem of cross-platform packaging and environment handling already.
So far, the only similar project I've found is "conda": http://conda.pydata.org/docs/
Do you guys know any others? What do you use and/or like? I'm all ears. <comment><USER2> A while back mdz blogged about difficulties confronting Ubuntu and other Linux circulations. He raises the point that runtime libraries for Python/Ruby and so on have a novel arrangement of issues since they have a tendency to have their own bundling frameworks. From that point forward the discussion appears to have dried up.Platforms, for example, antivirus scanners, node.js, Python, Clojure et cetera care an incredible arrangement about getting their product out to their clients. They think about making it to a great degree simple to get the most recent and most prominent forms of their libraries.

Visit: [http://www.platooh.com/vendors](http://www.platooh.com/vendors)

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you have a link to the blog article you speak of? I fail to see the relevance of this "platooh" thing you linked. (In fact, I dare say it comes off as kind of spammy.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> I like conda for managing different environments and especially for having different npm environments so `npm install -g` doesn't pollute by actual global environment.

<comment><AUTHOR> Is there anything where conda falls a bit short? Any caveats you have found? I've barely touched it but on the surface it seems good.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Nix is really cool. The language can seem intimidating, but if you read the manual it's quite straightforward.

<comment><AUTHOR> It looks great but without decent Windows support, it falls short for our use case. :/</comment></comment>


Strange New Ways to Compute (2017) - <AUTHOR> https://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/computing/hardware/4-strange-new-ways-to-make-a-computer <comment><USER2> I thought about that crosstalk or more like: "how make noise between "to small" transistors useful?". My gut says we can.

We might have to deal with incorrect results that require repeating the operation 3+ times. The usefulness (speed) would have to make up for that.

</comment><comment><USER3> Are fluid or fluid-like substances as an interconnect viable? Idea being you just chuck your discrete components into some interconnect goo and magic does the rest.</comment>


Removing EU roaming charges is a big deal (2014) - <AUTHOR> http://sveme.org/removing-eu-roaming-charges-is-a-big-deal.html <comment><USER2> This article is from a year ago, and since then, the implementation of this has been delayed until at least 2018 [1]. The good news is that the latest drop (last year) of statutory roaming rates has made roaming within the EU much cheaper if you shop around a bit, but we're sadly still far from the way it is in the U.S. where you don't have to think about the fact that you're 1000 km away.

[1] [http://www.bbc.com/news/world- europe-31737635](http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31737635)

<comment><USER3> >where you don't have to think about the fact that you're 1000 km away.

We pay for that through increased rates due to covering such a huge landmass, most of which is sparsely populated. Wyoming alone is larger than England and has only 600,000 people.

I wonder if this roaming agreement is being pushed back because of the massive costs it would incur. Your cheap Parisian data plan isn't going to cheap on a Greek island. Its foolish to expect to pay the same rate. I can't see this not raising rates.

<comment><USER4> The high rates in the US have nothing to do with area size, it's due to monopolistic services, where you have 1 maybe 2 telcos to choose from in most areas.

Free roaming in Europe has many problems to face, but infrastructure isn't one of them.

<comment><USER5> That's not even remotely accurate.

Nearly the entire US population is now covered by AT&T _and_ Verizon. Most major metros have four or five carriers to choose from.

Here, take a look at Sprint's coverage map:

[https://coverage.sprint.com/](https://coverage.sprint.com/)

T-Mobile has a 4G LTE network that covers ~80% of the US population and about 300 metro areas.

The fact is, _most_ Americans have at least four major carriers to choose from, that offer competitive national plans.

The US wireless infrastructure has been far out in front of the European wireless infrastructure in terms of development.

We had 97% 4G LTE coverage across 320 million people before Europe got to even half coverage.

Further, the US system is accelerating in quality rather than slowing down, thanks to intense competition between AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint. I don't see where the EU or Europe as a whole has anything like it.

<comment><USER6> And yet you're still paying 4-5x the price for 4G, with ridiculously limited data plans and excess charges.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Top tip if you do a lot of 'roaming' (and are UK based), join the Three network: [http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home](http://www.three.co.uk/Discover/Phones/Feel_At_Home)

I've not quite figured out why more networks don't have deals like this in place, as a customer it can take like 1 holiday to wipe out price differences between network base prices.

<comment><USER8> Does the Three "Feel at home" have any small print?

Is the data capped, or throttled? Is the coverage where the free roaming is included limited?

It is tempting as it does seem to include the 3 countries I split my year between (UK, Norway & Spain), but it is £2 to £4 more per month than my current Giffgaff sim.

<comment><USER9> > If you have all-you-can-eat data you can use up to 25GB. If you have all- > you-can-eat texts you can send up to 5,000 texts. If you have 3,000 or more > minutes included in your allowance you can use up to 3,000 minutes.

It's not small print in as much as it's very clearly stated on their website.

I split my time between the UK and Italy, with some work in Hong Kong & the US - therefore it's perfect for me. I don't run over and pay approx £30 a month regardless of travel on a sim only, month by month plan. I do have one of their old sims though which has unlimited everything.

The only point of note I guess is that the internet is a little slow in Italy but then I'm also comparing that to my Italian 4G phone on Wind. Long story short, it's an excellent deal which has played a major part in keeping me retained as a customer.

<comment><USER10> Do you tether/does your contract allow tethering?

<comment><USER11> I have Three in Ireland with the same deal and yes, tethering is allowed.

<comment><USER12> Three UK have infrastructure in place to DPI traffic to detect tethering and if it's not enabled on your Three UK account plan then the tethered device doesn't get internet access.

Three Ireland currently don't do this for Three Ireland accounts, though tethering is prohibited on All You Can Eat by policy, not by network infra.

<comment><USER11> As usual, the Three page is less than helpful... I don't know if it's my plan (Classic Flex - Max), I can't get to the terms and conditions and I can't check if tethering is enabled for my account

All I can say is that I've been to the UK and used my laptop with no issues and that I'll try in Spain in a couple of months.

Anyway, you are much more informed than me in this area, so I'll shut up now :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Removing the roaming charges would be fantastic. At the moment, there are caps on the roaming charges, which is a start. It's scary to see what they want to charge without these caps. For instance, I recently traveled to Italy and then Japan.

In Italy (capped): Calls 18p/minute, data 19p/MB

In Japan (unregulated): Calls 149p/minute, data 800p/MB

Data is over 40x as expensive ! The pricing that telecoms companies charge when they can are obscene. (The capped 19p/MB is still vastly overpriced IMO as well...)

<comment> saiya-jin Living in Switzerland, which is tiny country surrounded by EU countries (CH is not part of EU, its citizens had a public vote and decided cleverly to not join), my crappy operator Lebara charges me when going to France (+- 2km from my home or work) - 42 CHF (aka 40 euro) per single MB! Calls usually stick to the range of 2-4 euro/min, incoming also charged. SMS cost 0.8 euro.

Pretty obvious I never used their data services abroad, but being offline when traveling is actually a big plus for me.

(just to explain, it's one of very few pay-as-you-go operators @ Suisse, for people like me who don't use their smartphones that much and have offline maps for navigation)

<comment><USER14> In Switzerland, you can use Yallo (yallo.ch - they use the Sunrise network) which has a flat package for 39 CHF/month allowing unlimited calls across both CH+EU.

If you happen to be roaming abroad, they have data plans for 10 days / 100MB for 15 CHF, which is not great, but way cheaper than the example you gave above.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I'm a customer of Free.fr in France and have been to Portugal and Romania recently and had no roaming charges (though it was limited to 7 days and 3GB). I don't know if this is something all operators do, but it was great.

I was able to use Google Maps and didn't have that 'roaming' feeling associated with it. It was amazing!

<comment><USER16> Another Free.fr, didn't know about that. Do you have any link?

<comment><USER17> Here is the link (in french): [https://mobile.free.fr/assistance/677.html](https://mobile.free.fr/assistance/677.html)

And the limit is 35 days, not 7. I used this in Italy and it worked perfectly well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> In some cases this rule could be bad for customers, too. In Finland uncapped 4G data with monthly price is the norm, and if the carrier cannot charge extra for data roaming in other EU countries, it can only lead to higher prices or discontinuation of uncapped data. Carriers still have to pay each other roaming fees after this rule is in place, right?

</comment><comment><USER19> Yes it would be a big deal. But it is even a bigger deal/shame that the telecom lobby was able to delay the decision.

Where do I need to sign the petition to push this through? (Or do I need to create one)

<comment><USER20> It might be more than just a delay. The new commissioner being more in bed with industry lobbyists than the previous one for example...

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I'm currently paying flat 40€ monthly fee for my practically unlimited 4G (max speed 100Mbits) subscription in Finland. 60€/month and I would get max 300Mbits. Obviously the top speeds are not available everywhere, but the in average the speeds are quite good and network coverage is not an issue. We currently have three operators. Two of them are completely local (Elisa, DNA) and third one (TeliaSonera) is active in nordic and baltic countries.

In many other European countries it is difficult (or impossible?) to find subscriptions with similar pricing. In quite many places there seems to be quite low (few gigs) transfer limits and for extra data you need to pay extra. Hard to see how the system could be setup so that the local operators could continue charging their high fees and yet I would be able to roam on their network without paying any extra.

The only way I can think of how we could complete get rid of roaming charges would be drastic consolidation on the operator market. When traveling abroad I wouldn't be roaming at all - I would be always on my home network.

Maybe the consolidation would be good on European level, but I'm a bit worried that at least for me this would mean much higher prices for mobile data. That's why my wish is that EU would just concentrate on lowering the roaming charges to more acceptable level instead of trying to get rid of them completely.

<comment><USER22> I'm a Swede living in Germany. Here in Germany, all telcos basically count your download limit in MB's and you don't get many of them. Speeds feel like 2007, and only one company have 4G (last time I checked, maybe 1/2 years ago).

Seemingly a week after I top up my prepaid, I get a text (of course impossible to get service in English or any other language by the way) about having used up almost all of my lot. And I make sure not to use services that are video or picture heavy.

I have nothing but bad experiences with German telcos - my girlfriend had to fight customer service (hah!) for half a year before they finally let her end her contract and agreed she was right. Same for me when I last left Germany.

If I could, I would throw out my German phone company this instant.

<comment><USER23> That there is only one 4G provider is certainly not true. Please check your facts: [https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Term_Evolution#LTE- Situat...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Term_Evolution#LTE- Situation_verschiedener_L.C3.A4nder)

All 4 major players offer 4G, just not in every corner of Germany.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I've been recently moving back and forth between Italy and France and there is one thing that bothers me with eurotariff: if I'm in Italy, a French friend is visiting me, and I send them a text with my non-roaming Italian phone I pay about 30 cents and this sum is not regulated anywhere. If I fish out my French SIM card then that amount is capped to 7 cents. Funnily enough once I finish my monthly allotment of SMS's, I can still message my Italian friends, from my Italian phone at 10 cents per message, which is more expensive than what I'd pay roaming and is not regulated.

So what I'm saying is that already today, without roaming charges being abolished, using a foreign phone is generally cheaper than anything without a plan in Italy, and I know that Italy is one of the cheapest countries in Europe for non-monthly deals.

<comment><USER25> > I know that Italy is one of the cheapest countries in Europe for non-monthly > deals.

Are you sure? How come your French phone is cheaper then?

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Italian phones were overpriced. A lot of things are there, IME.

<comment><USER26> Same thing in the UK - using my O2 pay as you go in Spain is cheaper than a pay as you go in Spain for voice/sms, also using my UK phone in Spain for voice/sms is cheaper than using it in the UK.

Mobile pricing is mental - completely detached from technological restriction or infrastructure cost.

Also, some provider in EU ( as in France ) are making roaming free in most Europe already. However, unlike what the article suggested, you need to live in France to get them ( and remember the terrorists - you don't want to add yourself to some government shit-list just to save a few euro on holidays )

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> How does this affect a US user going to an EU country? I am going to the UK and Germany in a month.

<comment><USER28> If you do a lot of traveling in the EU from the US, T-Mo is about the best option short of buying a sim while in the EU. Unlimited texts, data[1] and very cheap calls are awesome. I never think about my phone with traveling now and just use it like I'm in the US. The only downside is there are some countries in eastern EU not yet on the plan.

[1] The data isn't 4g, but for travel related items like TripAdvisor, maps, etc... it has always worked fine for me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> People never really seem to consider the unintended consequences of these kinds of regulations.

You know, Apple and Google both were prescient and at different times (late 90s for Apple early 2000s for Google) they both attempted to obtain licenses for unused spectrum from the FCC to create nation wide high speed wireless data networks... for free. IT was supposed to be like WIFI, unregulated and using spread spectrum, so there could be a free market in data for mobile devices. Both companies tried, both companies had different approaches, but both companies supported the other (well, apple supported google, not sure google was around when Apple tried). And both efforts totally failed.... because there is no money in giving away spectrum. For the "Common good" doesn't matter. The government makes billions from selling something it doesn't own and politicians themselves make billions more from not changing the situation once these large companies have bought their monopolies.

Taking just the consumer viewpoint "yay, free roaming!" is naive. As is just assuming that the reason for roaming charges in the first place is to cheat you.

Roaming charges are usually the consequence of higher costs for the network you're visiting.

In the early days of the market in the USA, they weren't charges-- eg additional fees-- so much as the fact that the "normal" price was a discount, because your plan had negotiated with the individual carriers in a variety of states to build up a network. (Remember the FCC's PCS auctions only allowed a maximum of three entities to have a license in a given city. Thus if metroPCS, swiftel and TexasComm got Austin licenses, then AT&T, Sprint and Verizon, in order to EVEN OFFER SERVICE in Austin Texas would have to do deals with those three companies. This greatly increased costs. Where they could play ball they built a network of fixed prices... and where they couldn't, the "roaming charges" were the additional fee that these people with their state granted tri-opoly would charge AT&T customers when they were visting Austin. In order to even have service.)

Thus these roaming charges are part of the governments exploitation of the common good for profit. (wireless spectrum with spread spectrum technology is nearly infinite. There could be a thousand carriers in Austin without interference. IT's not like the old days of Radio and TV where you needed exclusive "Channels." And spread spectrum technology was invented for WWII by the actress Hedy Lamar, so it's not like it wasn't in use in the 1990s. No, the government had a regulatory framework that was based on the pre-war era and gave it the ability to sell out the public to the tune of many billions of dollars. They also got to create major monopolies and have been reaping the benefits (in campaign contributions) ever since. While we've suffered from lack of competition.

Due to the monopolies the government has created there has been a great deal of consolidation in the industry, the TexasComms and Swiftels of the past have largely been bought by new entities like Verizon which were created-- at great cost and at great acquisition premiums-- to consolidate this already competition limited industry.

And because of the exclusive rights sold in those auctions new entrants cant come aboard.

Consequently when you have a network like this, and you ban roaming charges (Say they did the same here, I don't know what will happen in europe because I'm less familiar with their history) ... the result will be either that people's overall costs go up -- eg: The carrier just builds roaming charges into the standard rate and pockets the difference when you're not roaming... or they will start introducing technology "Differentiators" that are technically different but whose impact is negligible. EG: "3's new LTE3! Only available in the UK! sorry france, your towers haven't been upgraded."

This assumes there are higher costs for roaming in europe as there are in the USA.

To consider economic moves like this you have to consider the landscape and the consequences of making them. IT's not like there's free money.

It didn't have to be this way. The good guys-- Apple and Google both tried to fix it. Other efforts have come since then, more profit oriented, but still competition for the mobile data marketplace. They were also killed.

Mandating free roaming charges will only shift the costs... the root of the problem is this artificial monopoly and that it is essentially corruption designed to line politicians pockets.

<comment><USER30> > Taking just the consumer viewpoint "yay, free roaming!" is naive.

There is a very simple point to this legislature: It says that every operator will have to sell it's network at a fixed wholesale rate to every other operator. So none of your objections apply. Roaming _will_ be free, because it's the law.

Plus, prices won't rise, since wholesale rates are fixed, and there will be more competition. In other words, German Telekom will have to compete with Finland for price, and thus can't afford to raise it's prices for fear of losing customers to Finland.

> The good guys--Apple and Google

hardly.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you implement "user impersonation" support? - <AUTHOR> What are best practices for implementing a support system where support agents / engineers can see the app as the user sees it, including any bugs which may be occurring based on that user's data?<p>Do most companies build this themselves with role based access control, access logging, automatically blocking any sensitive customer data or PII? Or are there tools on the market that do this? <comment><USER2> It really depends on your size, and how sensitive the data is. At small size with non-sensitive data, where you've got 2 guys with admin access to the db anyway, simple impersonation is fine as they've already got access. You don't want to be spending a ton of time engineering a really complex solution. You probably should have a policy in place, and any staff you do give access to the feature explain the responsibility.

Most (small) startups I've worked at have usually had a homegrown solution with admin only access where you can login as the user.

However, these days, with more and more PII laws coming in, you do need to consider whether you _really_ need it.

As you grow you have to add more checks, logging, etc., the user has to approve an access request, etc., to the point where you get bigger you don't allow it at all.

It's actually rare in my experience to need to impersonate a user to replicate bugs if you read their support request/ask the right questions, and can be a sign of an inexperienced dev if someone constantly asks for this. You have to put yourself in the mind of the user, what were they doing, what were they clicking, what were they trying to achieve. You'll usually be able to replicate it.

But another way to fix bugs due to complicated data interactions, when you're not allowed to access the data, is to have a script to anonymize the PII in a backup DB.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is really helpful. And good guidance on thinking really hard about whether it's needed.

When do companies usually start not allowing this? I've heard of even facebook and google having this functionality?

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Two parallel builds, running of physically separate machines where the impersonation build has all writes turned off. Live build uses OAuth for authentication, impersonation build uses AD for authentication + HTTP cookie for impersonated person ID. All logged out the wazoo. This is in the financial industry.</comment>


GDrive is Here - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2007/08/09/gdrive/

<comment><USER2> do you know how much of a fucking heart attack that link just gave me??

haha. but this doesn't look like platypus (the real gdrive); just the ability to buy more storage for gmail, picasa et al.

(not saying gdrive isn't coming, but this ain't it.)

<comment><USER3> Yeah, if anything, the fact that the Gmail free quota is still stuck at 2.8GB shows that they're getting complacent and making bad product decisions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Google just made lives of about 7 startups (that I know of anyway) absolute hell. :(

Everyone knew the day was coming (remember Lighthouse in 2004?) but everyone hoped Google forgot about it ;).

<comment><USER5> I think that the "Try not to make something that Google would use internally" rule strikes again...</comment></comment>


Ask HN:  Do you set aside time just for "thinking?"   - <AUTHOR>

If so,
(1) how often and how much?
(2) how often and how much do you think would be optimum for you?
I used to be fairly disciplined about setting aside a half-hour to an hour several mornings a week.  Often I would "think" about things that weren't directly related to my work but rather to my interests- perhaps work a math puzzle, or clarify my thoughts on some topical issue.  But I have always fallen back into the mode of just getting on with my day (which involves a fair amount of thinking in its own right, to be sure).
How much do I think would be optimum?  I'm not sure- I haven't really thought about it :-)
Note that I'm not talking about meditation, unless you have a "thinking" form of meditation (and not, say, following your breath). <comment><USER2> Several times a day, for about 1/2 hour at a time. I take walks to break up the workday. I think about all sorts of things during these walks. My job. Politics. Companies I want to start. The idiotic college down the street from me that wants to spend a million dollars on road construction because the students don't look both ways before they cross the street. I like to break it up into smaller chunks so that some time can lapse and I can see things more clearly.

I got into this habit during college(10 years ago now :( ) I would just walk around campus at random thinking. I did look both ways before I crosses the street however.

</comment><comment><USER3> I take the environmental-friendly approach with ridiculously long showers.

<comment><USER4> It's funny, but this is a ridiculously common thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I usually think during my commute, and implement that thinking when I get home to save time.</comment>


Gamers Better at (Good) Fast Decision Making - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/gamer-decisions/

<comment><USER2> very interesting -- i love reading about decision-making science and how games also parrallel the process.

it's why gary kasparov published a book called "how life imitates chess: making the right moves, from the board to the boardroom." and probably why buffett and bill gates are both obsessed with contract bridge.

reading this article is also very interesting in light of the recent New Yorker article profiling Zuckerberg, in which it mentioned "Ender's Game" as being the only book listed on his facebook profile. the plot of the novel is in sync with this Wired article.</comment>


$4.1m goes missing as Chinese bitcoin trading platform GBL vanishes - <AUTHOR> http://www.coindesk.com/4-1m-goes-missing-chinese-bitcoin-trading-platform-gbl-vanishes/ <comment><USER3> Amusingly enough, this isn't even an uncommon occurrence in the Bitcoin world. Either compromises or shady actors seem to take down a large portion of their services, usually taking large sums of money with them.

It does look like a similar case to inputs.io and a few other sites too, people "invest" or store large amounts of money with a person despite the community making every attempt to warn people that it is a terrible, awful, terrible idea to do so.

<comment><USER4> From a game theoretic perspective where no parties can be held accountable, being a scammer or hacker will always yield higher pay-offs. This is why Bitcoin will tear itself apart.

<comment><USER5> What's funny is that because the bitchain (the transaction history of EVERY BITCOIN EVER) is public knowledge, one could easily blacklist stolen bitcoins (simply blacklist the wallet that received the stolen goods and all subsequent receiving wallets, and refuse to accept bitcoins from any of them).

The difficulty would be making the blacklist fast but accurate, i.e. there'd need to be high standards of proof that coins were stolen rather than traded fairly. But if blacklisting took too long the thief could already have fenced the coins for real assets before the blacklist took effect.

Ultimately it could end up looking like credit card fraud alerts - <USER2> bitcoin transactions could be put on hold (temporarily blacklisted) until confirmed by the wallet owner. But at that point you lose anonymity. I guess you can't have anonymity _and_ accountability...

<comment><USER6> How would this work though? You have 4m worth of _blacklisted_ bitcoins. What happens if you go to a legitimate store, like NameCheap, and buy a domain using those bitcoins. You're going to add NameCheap to the blacklist now, because these coins went through them?

Well, you could say NameCheap wouldn't accept those coins in the first place, but can you really expect every store and person to be using this list?

What happens if you take those 4m worth of bitcoins, send 3m to your own wallets, and distribute 1m to random wallets of strangers? How do you know which wallets to blacklist? All of them? You're just going to put tens of thousands of people in the dark, and say their bitcoins are now worthless and blacklisted, because they received a random payment?

<comment><USER5> > distribute 1m to random wallets of strangers

Hmm, I didn't realize you could send money to people without their consent. That would make blacklisting more difficult. But if receiving the bitcoins was indeed unintentional on their behalf, you could just temporarily blacklist them until they returned the stolen bitcoins to the original owner.

In theory this could lead to attacks where small amounts of stolen bitcoins are continually deposited in victims' accounts, but that could be avoided if the exchanges themselves enforced the blacklist and refused to process transactions from blacklisted accounts (except back to the theft victim).

> Well, you could say NameCheap wouldn't accept those coins in the first > place, but can you really expect every store and person to be using this > list?

It would certainly require a cultural shift in bitcoin use, yes. I just find it funny that the entire transaction history is public record, yet bitcoins can still be stolen!

<comment><USER7> > I didn't realize you could send money to people without their consent.

I think the point of blacklisting would mean that miners wouldn't include transactions from those addresses in blocks. Once the transaction is in a block then there's not much that can be done, so blacklisting will require cooperation among a majority of miners.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> So bitcoin has given us untraceable currency without the state, except that without traceability, you also have no accountability, no justice, no law. This libertarian nightmare will soon come crashing down.

<comment><USER9> Yeah, exactly. That's why no one uses cash anymore. Just think of it! If you give someone your cash, they might just disappear!

/s

Bitcoin won't die just because people that want to ride the bubble lose some of their investments. It'll slow down, of course, but storing wealth is not bitcoins selling point, and trusted central exchanges are not essential to the model.

<comment><USER10> I've never had someone on another continent take cash out of my wallet.

<comment><USER11> Clearly, because you're smart enough not to give someone on another continent your wallet, as per the analogy.

<comment><USER10> I'd love to say it's because I'm smart, but inaccessible to bad actors on other continents is the default setting for my wallet. Hell, I'm not smart enough to even figure out how to change the setting. :)

<comment><USER12> It's the default for Bitcoin wallets also, but some users choose to "change that setting".

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Seems to me like bitcoin is the perfect business opportunity for people with the security skills and know-how to do really really well. The bitcoin world needs solid reputable security professionals to operate the exchanges and wallets. I'd love to hear cperciva's or tptacek's take on bitcoin as a startup opportunity since they are prime examples of people who could startup a bitcoin business and instantly attract people since people would trust them to do what is right.

<comment><USER14> You mean, financial services? Financial Service companies build trust and relationships with people.

This has nothing to do with "security", and everything to do with "How can I be sure that the other guy isn't a jackass??". Paypal became popular as a financial service to Ebay purchases.

The startups that are running themselves as trustworthy businesses will get ahead. But a year, two years, or even three years is not enough to gain a decent relationship. Lets see if "Coinbase" can weather the storm

<comment><USER15> Which storm is Coinbase going through?

<comment><USER14> The question that needs to be answered is: can Coinbase (and other reputable BTC services) establish a trusted reputation with their customers when so many other BTC services are either disappearing or outright scamming their customers?

Or will the general public look at Coinbase and think "that newfangled unreliable Bitcoin thingy".

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's important to remember that millions of dollars are lost daily globally to CC fraud.

<comment><USER17> Yes, but victims of CC fraud have numerous laws and protections on their side that make it much easier to recover from this incident.

On the other hand, if a BC user had their wallet stolen, then they have zero recourse.

<comment><USER18> Is it not the case that one can back up their BC wallet into a locally encrypted file, in the event that their online wallet is compromised? I'm a user of coinbase, and have a local backup. I was advised to do just this: take a backup of my wallet, just in case something bad happened to the server. That way, I have legal recourse if push comes to shove.

<comment><USER19> If your online wallet is compromised and the coins are transferred to new keys, ten backups of the keys that USED to own those coins will be insufficient.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Being someone who got scammed out of ~5BTC back when they were ~$50 dollars, this happens way too frequently. We only get to hear about the large cases.

</comment><comment><USER21> I am new to BitCoin. Can someone help me understand how the money was stolen ? I thought coins are stored in user wallets ?

<comment><USER22> They are, but if you wish to exchange currency to/from real dollars, then you need to use an exchange like this, who will "trade" you BTC for currency. Unfortunately, if you had currency stored with the exchange, but did not make a transaction for real currency, it has simply disappeared.

<comment><USER23> You can also trade in person, like people have done for thousands of years with gold.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is why I always find skyrocketing conversion rates of Bitcoin so funny: it's certainly not impossible to get money out as a traditional currency, but it's damn sure fraught with peril.

</comment><comment><USER25> Also known as theft. Pesky regulations...

As more people use bitcoin, they can only react when things like this happen. Take that lesson and carry it with you.

<comment><USER26> Nothing to do with regulations, all to do with law enforcement. Theft is illegal.

<comment><USER27> It has everything to do with regulations - "theft is illegal" wasn't stopping bankers from simply running away with customers' deposits, which used to happen - only regulation did that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> The article mentions that GBL vanished "without a trace". It's a disconcerting statement.

</comment><comment><USER29> for anyone unfortunate enough to have clicked this comments link....

the tl;dr is "the GOOOOVernment mannnn money money govt sucks MUGGERS. bitcoin is stupid. bitcoin is GREAT! credit cards are like bitcoin but the BANKS are the REAAAAL thiefs post-modernism post-modernism capitalism 'Hello!' the government. THE government. wallets were stupid to begin with. Electronic currency is flawed i hate bitcoin/creditcard cash is flawed cash. Rousseau."

My 2 cents, FWIW... the people I see locally spoutin bitcoin aren't true patriots who believe in ultimate freedom, they're more like get-rich-quick- schemers lol

<comment><USER30> The only bitcoin person I've met IRL consistently made a bunch of bad decisions on a wide variety of topics.

<comment><USER31> You don't know very many techies, do you?

<comment><USER32> What makes you think Bitcoin is overwhelmingly popular among techies? I can only name 3 techie friends who have ever actually used Bitcoin at _any_ point in their lives, and I do not think any of them are still using it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> The interesting thing about all these bitcoin headlines is how they don't seem to slow bitcoin's advancement. I guess if the proposition is compelling enough it can survive a lot of hiccups.

Slightly tangental: I wish there was some way of judging how much bitcoin is being used as a medium of exchange as opposed to a value store/speculation vehicle.

</comment><comment><USER34> Does coinmkt.com or Mtgox.com solve this issue?

<comment><USER35> No, you have to keep either coins or cash on deposit with an exchange in order to trade. The smart thing to do is not store your coins on the exchange unless you are actively buying to selling them but plenty of people get lazy and just let them sit there.

<comment><USER14> And if you've got money holed up in Mt. Gox, who's exchange rate is significantly worse than every other exchange, what do you do?

Ask anyone 9 months ago whether or not trusting Mt. Gox was a good idea. They were the largest and most reliable exchange, and now it has become increasingly difficult to get your money out of it. And now the exchange rate on Mt. Gox itself has been effected by their problems...

<comment><USER35> "And if you've got money holed up in Mt. Gox, who's exchange rate is significantly worse than every other exchange, what do you do?"

I'll tell you what I did, I bought coins and transferred them out of there ASAP. The official line is that their bank will only do 10 outgoing USD wire transfers per day period. Of course limiting outgoing transfers is the same strategy you would want use if you were financially insolvent and wanted to forestall a run on the bank.

<comment><USER14> Yup, that is the correct strategy, but Mt. Gox's inflated exchange rates punishes you for adopting this strategy. But this is definitely the right way to go.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> This looks like theft of fiat money, not BTC. I.e. you deposit and then buy BTC. So they took the deposits. Hence why it's not that traceable, iconically it's easier to start looking for BTC's as the transactions are public. Cash, especially internationally, can be fuzzier.

</comment><comment><USER37> Novice question. If the transaction history of every bitcoin is public why couldn't the owners find their bitcoin?

Do you have to have the bitcoin to get the history? Does the transaction history not say where the bitcoin went?

<comment><USER38> It tells you the bitcoins have moved to address 1ekcj57h2kde45... (made up example). But you have no idea who owns this random address

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> All the Bitcoin-doom prophets in this thread should just consider that larger amounts of money disappeared when Refco and when MF Global went down; and that did not spell the end of brokerage, USD or anything else

</comment><comment><USER40> Probably not complete but interesting list of bitcoin heists:

[https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0](https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83794.0)

</comment><comment><USER41> The currency may be P2P, but the trading of it is mostly certainly not.

I wonder if it's possible to create a more P2P trading platform for digital currencies.

</comment><comment><USER42> Tulips, tulips, tulips.

Some people never learn.

<comment><USER23> What does that have to do with a theft?

Is gold or the USD a tulip too?

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> Unfortunate. Hope it doesn't scare off China's BTC community</comment>


Sourcehut's spartan approach to web design - <AUTHOR> https://drewdevault.com/2019/03/04/sourcehut-design.html <comment><USER2> The philosophy described in this article sounds like a naive guess at what makes things usable instead of reading the mountains of actual research on the topic.

For example, it seems like one tactic for "simplicity" or "minimalism" is that nearly all the text is in the same font (same size, same font face, and mostly the same color).

That tells my brain that everything is of equal importance. It's confusing and actually has the opposite effect of "bring the information you're there for to the forefront" (the goal the article describes).

Many buttons don't look clickable, many links don't look like links (because they're black or gray, like the rest of the text), and the whitespace is a disaster on my screen (line spacing is very condensed, margins are all over the place).

<comment><USER3> Author here, thank you for the feedback. I'm a little bit confused by your comments, though. Can you point out a particular page and some specific improvements you think would help? I admit that I'm not a great UX designer, I would appreciate help in refining my approach.

<comment><USER4> Some things that stand out to me:

\- In the header, it looks like you're using the same text style for the inactive navigation links as the helper text ("Logged in as").

\- Icons should be used to help clarify things, but most of the icons seem to be just arrows pointing right on links. You can probably omit them!

\- In the source tree, I had no idea I could click on the file names until I hovered over them by chance. Blue text alongside black text is a very strong signal that the blue text is a link and the black text is not. (Also note that in the file path at the top, the ancestor directories are blue and clickable while the current directory is black and not). _Here_ is where an icon would be useful: to disambiguate between directories and files.

\- Not a visual UX issue, but an accessibility one: for whatever reason, keyboard navigation doesn't work for me in Firefox.

In general, just try to have consistent styles for things, and consistently _different_ styles for _different_ things. Links should look like links, not unclickable text. It's okay if you take a bit of artistic license in specific places (like the main navigation) but things should at least be internally consistent within that place.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback!

>Icons should be used to help clarify things, but most of the icons seem to be just arrows pointing right on links. You can probably omit them!

I discussed my opinion on icons in the article, and I stand by it in this case.

> the source tree, I had no idea I could click on the file names until I > hovered over them by chance. Blue text alongside black text is a very strong > signal that the blue text is a link and the black text is not. (Also note > that in the file path at the top, the ancestor directories are blue and > clickable while the current directory is black and not). Here is where an > icon would be useful: to disambiguate between directories and files.

Good point. I don't want to add an icon, but I should make filenames underlined or something like that.

>for whatever reason, keyboard navigation doesn't work for me in Firefox.

That's bizarre, it works fine for me. Can anyone else reproduce this?

<comment><USER5> I can reproduce it.

I'm on Firefox Developer Edition, 66.0b9.

I went to [https://meta.sr.ht/](https://meta.sr.ht/) and tried to tab through the site. Here's a gif: [https://i.imgur.com/2dQL2C2.gif](https://i.imgur.com/2dQL2C2.gif).

Explanation of gif:

I clicked on the search bar, then clicked on the site, then pressed tab repeatedly.

<comment><USER3> This is totally bizarre. I think it's a Firefox bug. Can you open a ticket on Firefox's bugzilla?

<comment><USER5> Done: [https://webcompat.com/issues/27204](https://webcompat.com/issues/27204)

<comment><USER3> This... is not the Firefox bugzilla.

<comment><USER5> [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/) > New Bug > Report an issue with a website that I use

Seemed like the most appropriate place to put it.

<comment><USER3> Fair enough, I didn't realize that was a Mozilla thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> > In practice, this means that the first thing on any page to grab your > attention should be the thing that brought you there. Consider the source > file view on git.sr.ht. For reference, here are similar pages on GitHub and > Gitlab.

I don't even consider this a good example of good UI/UX. Sourcehut's page gives way less information and has less QOL tools like straight edit or dedicated git blame. I have to dive into submenus and close the file to get last commit information.

On example : making visual note of the currently selected tab, "Tree", I then click on "Log" to get this information. I then instinctively click on "Tree" again to come back, only to be greeted by the whole file tree. I have to manually press the browser's back button twice.

<comment><USER3> Author here, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Some of this is a product of the newness of the service, rather than a deliberate design choice. The latest commit used to be here, but I removed it for performance reasons and will have to swing around later with a better approach. I haven't had time to implement git blame, though I want to.

>straight edit

Editing on the web _is_ a deliberate omission, and I consider this an anti- feature. Web edited commits on GitHub are notorious for failing to compile or pass tests, disregarding the style guide, etc - and raising the barrier to entry that little bit more helps to filter out this kind of noise.

>On example : making visual note of the currently selected tab, "Tree", I then click on "Log" to get this information. I then instinctively click on "Tree" again to come back, only to be greeted by the whole file tree. I have to manually press the browser's back button twice.

Hmm, this is a good point. I filed a ticket about this:

[https://todo.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/git.sr.ht/188](https://todo.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/git.sr.ht/188)

Thanks for the feedback!

<comment><USER6> > Editing on the web _is_ a deliberate omission, and I consider this an anti- > feature.

I prefer liberty of choice rather than such opinionated decisions, but that's not up to me. There's a rationale and I respect this. It's just convenience: I've honestly just been happy to be able to update some of my project's READMEs of wiki on my phone. As for failing tests or disregarding style guide, IMHO it's more up to the project to enforce these things rather than to my code hosting platform to limit possibilities. Again, this is largely preference.

> Hmm, this is a good point. I filed a ticket about this:

Will happily follow this!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I agree with the general sentiment in the thread thus far: the goal of minimalism and focus is a nice one, but at the moment it seems like a bit _less_ sparseness in the design could actually help facilitate that goal, rather than hinder it.

Sir_Cmpwn, if you're looking to up your UX game while keeping things stripped down I would recommend taking a look at Josef Müller Brockmann's book _Grid Systems_. It's written in the context of print layouts, but many of the principles can be extrapolated to web design. It covers some excellent techniques for managing information density and prominence with base visual elements such as a well composed grid and some simple variations on fonts (size and weight).

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the suggestion! I'll pick it up.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Sourcehut's design seems inspired by terminals and line-oriented interfaces more so than early 2000's boxy HTML, so some choices are head-scratchers.

The lack of visible bounding boxes or ("old-style") underlining around the core navigation links draws inspiration both tab-oriented keyboard navigation and very modern, ~201x UI design, but lifts only their outward look without incorporating strengths from each: it neither has strong indicators of a series of menu items that can be stepped through (like a right-facing triangle to the left of the menu item's text), nor does it evoke the Metro-style UI, where UX-meaningful text is king on a sparse field. Underlining each link in the top bar would immediately communicate that many of the words are clickable but not all; as would the use of background shading and color to set the static top bar apart from the rest of the page content. Or even just a 1px bottom border.

Similarly, visual suggestion of tabs for 'summary', 'tree', etc, is not very convincing in a browser. Desaturated borders around the inactive tabs would clearly communicate that there's a tabbed interface here. Bolding of the text of the active tab would reinforce that further.

EDIT: When I think about minimalism on the web, I'm inspired by the box model and by occasionally-visible borders, which help translate the tree structure of the page into a coherent interface. Borders have gone out of fashion in mainstream design, and so has the use of text decoration for links, so it's harder now to distinguish between interactive and static elements in an interface. Sourcehut's 'spartan' take on this misses an opportunity to clarify a distinction that's been lost in other schools of design.

</comment><comment><USER9> I appreciate the mention and use of breadcrumbs. I think breadcrumbs are one of the most under-rated UI elements. Breadcrumbs make one's position in the navigation hierarchy instantly obvious. It is a shame that they have fallen out of fashion.

Also, +1 for not using icons. Instead of having a link with some undecipherable symbol that requires a tool-tip to translate it for the user, just put a damn word there!

</comment><comment><USER10> My only quibble is that this: "Therefore, it's important to bring the information you're there for to the forefront, and minimize distractions. In practice, this means that the first thing on any page to grab your attention should be the thing that brought you there." ...is just as true for any restaurant, store, or even social network webpage as well. But that appears sometimes to be a lost battle, at least for the moment, so I appreciate that there are at least a few corners of the internet still styling things in the way that helps you to use the page, rather than the way that makes it look more impressive in design meetings with executives or clients.

<comment><USER6> What I don't like with this sentence is, this makes it sound like visual design and efficiency are polar opposites. Good design can be both things.

<comment><USER11> They're not opposite - a statement like "the first thing on any page to grab your attention should be the thing that brought you there" is a visual design principle.

The problem with design as practiced on the web today isn't about methodologies as much as it's about goals. The design choices maximizing value provided for end users _are_ polar opposites of the "industry standard", the ones your average startup runs with.

Seeing the modern UX practices defended and rationalized brings to my mind the image of a 13 year old asking parents for a computer to use "for education" \- yes, a computer can be a powerful tool for learning, but you and I both know that's not what you will _really_ be doing with it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> The philosophy is good, but IMO, the lack of attention to margins and the weight of key content elements is hurting the readability of the designs.

<comment><USER3> Author here, thanks for the feedback! Can you point out a few key places where this is a problem? I'd like to improve it.

<comment><USER12> Super late reply, apologies. On this [https://man.sr.ht](https://man.sr.ht) page, giving .event items 1rem padding reduces crowding and makes the elements. Start doing that to the other elements as well, pre, etc. They should all be the same so the gutters are the same.

Setting .btn padding to .5rem .75rem balances the hight of the type vs. the edge of the button a bit, making the buttons both more 'substantial' and moving the harsh btn edge away from the type, which makes it easier to read.

Add margin-top 2.5rem to your h* elements to space your content out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Offtop: I was wondering for a long time what the heck sr.ht was supposed to mean. Sourcehut is a great move forward regarding naming ;)

</comment><comment><USER14> OT, but since the author is here: please take a look at your pep8 validation, your imports in the screenshot are all over the place. [https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#imports](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#imports) is your friend.

<comment><USER3> I don't generally agree with PEP-8. I order my imports alphabetically, though generally I put `import x` lines before `from x import y` lines - so this file isn't correct anyway.

<comment><USER14> This is quite a Chesterton's fence that you are willing to bring down... for what benefit?

<comment><USER3> I don't think that this line of questioning is on-topic. Feel free to send me an email to discuss it off-thread: firstname.lastname@example.com.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Suggestion: add a way to reset the lines anchors. When I click on a line link I can't see any way to reset it, except removing it in the browser's address bar. Maybe making the filename in the breadcrumb clickable could be a good fix (at least, that's the first point where I looked to when I wanted to reset the anchors)

<comment><USER3> [https://todo.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/git.sr.ht/189](https://todo.sr.ht/~sircmpwn/git.sr.ht/189)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> This piece reads as a rationalization for ignoring UX research. I mean, by all means, forget the fads of web design but at least consider the pitfalls of others who've tried (and failed)

It strikes such a weird and defensive tone.

</comment><comment><USER17> _minimal distractions throughout_

I find the compact design incredibly distracting. If elements like the .header-extension bar had more vertical padding I'd find it much easier to scan for important details.

<comment><USER3> More like this?

[https://sr.ht/BzTP.png](https://sr.ht/BzTP.png)

<comment><USER17> I added 15px when I was tinkering with it, but only to match the horizontal padding. That looks better to me, but I'm _definitely_ not a designer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Hey, since the author is that responsive to feedback here is mine: Minimal design is great, but my projects work a bit better since I moved away from having that as a goal. I still like to keep it simple, but there are elements not fitting to a minimal design that help to make a page more usable.

For example, it should be useful to move the top navigation bar into a big colored menu bar, like on github or on HN. That way the central content element of the page is no longer just separated by whitespace or placement from the navigation. I found that to be incredibly useful, I discovered that pattern for Pipes when as an in-joke re-using the Yahoo pure CSS framework ([https://www.pipes.digital/](https://www.pipes.digital/), I guess having a look makes it clearer) and then had to adopt that pattern for my other projects. Also a place where using a drop shadow to put the navigation visually on a different height level can work out well.

There recently was a discussion of two github redesigns proposals on HN. The first redesign removed parts of the file area (at first, in a later step completely iirc?) from the summary page. Sourcehut is missing that area as well and I think it's a mistake, as was convincingly argued in the comments there: A part of what made github great compared to other code hosting pages was to not just show a list of commits or meta information on the central project page, but to have the files tree as the central element. It helps so much to give a clear understanding to visitors about what actually is in the repo. Imho the summary tab should show the files in the repo, as Github does.

A useful rule for links is that all links should be colored as long as they are not in a navigation area, those are understood without needing that. Ofc even good designs don't always do that, the links to commits in the file area of github for example, which is good as it puts focus on the file links instead. And sometimes links are buttons and that's usually hard to put into rules as well.

But with regards to links: It's a bit strange that the top navigation has a highlight on link hover, the second one does not (summary, tree, log, ...)

Your css applies `font-size: .9rem;`, it shouldn't. That's often ignored and who am I to preach design, but I have the absolute conviction that body text should not be messed with. Trust in the browser, keep it as is, just make headings bigger and detail elements a little bit smaller, the latter only when absolutely needed. Fits to your design philosophy anyway.

"Design for Hackers" is a nice book that could be added to the book recommendation you got already, at the very least it is nice to read.

PS: It might be that even for a project as big as this a CSS framework like Skeleton could be useful to get the basics of the design in a better shape (without saying it's awful now, it evidently works already), though of course there would still be lots of custom design work to be done.

<comment><USER3> Thanks for the feedback!

>For example, it should be useful to move the top navigation bar into a big colored menu bar, like on github or on HN.

I tried this but I really dislike it:

[https://sr.ht/QhUN.png](https://sr.ht/QhUN.png)

It's just sooo distracting to me, and it plays up sourcehut as being more important to the visitor than the content they came for, imo.

>Imho the summary tab should show the files in the repo, as Github does

I disagree here as well, just as a matter of taste.

>A useful rule for links is that all links should be colored as long as they are not in a navigation area

>It's a bit strange that the top navigation has a highlight on link hover, the second one does not (summary, tree, log, ...)

Aye, I'm going to revisit this.

>Your css applies `font-size: .9rem;`, it shouldn't. That's often ignored and who am I to preach design, but I have the absolute conviction that body text should not be messed with. Trust in the browser, keep it as is, just make headings bigger and detail elements a little bit smaller, the latter only when absolutely needed. Fits to your design philosophy anyway.

>Your css applies `font-size: .9rem;`, it shouldn't. That's often ignored and who am I to preach design, but I have the absolute conviction that body text should not be messed with. Trust in the browser, keep it as is, just make headings bigger and detail elements a little bit smaller, the latter only when absolutely needed. Fits to your design philosophy anyway.

I'll think about this.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

<comment><USER18> Just in case you are not already bored thinking about the design of this ;) My header and font size remarks would result in something like this: [https://screenshots.firefox.com/UbXL8WRNN95pfYRm/git.sr.ht](https://screenshots.firefox.com/UbXL8WRNN95pfYRm/git.sr.ht) (strangely, the shadow looks better in the browser).

That's of course not completely done nor a fix-all. There might be an alignment issue with the navbar entries and the sourcehut logo? It also made me think about the file header (git.sr.ht/gitsrht/service.py -rw-r--r-- 3.0 KiB View raw), that one needs a bit of structure, and that darker grey next to the different line number grey looks strange.

body font size removed, but I kept making the code font size smaller (code normally is smaller still) and reduced the line height there to 1.2. h2 font size reduced as well, but whether that's the right size depends on the ratio chosen for the other hs.

One remark more:

 _> > Imho the summary tab should show the files in the repo, as Github does_

 _> I disagree here as well, just as a matter of taste._

This shouldn't be a matter of taste. It's a matter of what helps users gets the job done better. It's a question to observe during a user test.</comment></comment></comment>


How Does a Newly Approved Drug Remdesivir Inhibit the Novel Coronavirus? - <AUTHOR> https://chembites.org/2020/05/01/how-does-a-newly-approved-drug-inhibit-the-novel-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> "remdesivir's polymerase inhibitor mechanism can reduce viral load, experts said. However, all available data is still empirical in nature, and load reduction may not translate into clinically relevant outcomes like reducing hospital stay or decreasing mortality ([https://www.pharmaceutical- technology.com/comment/gilead-rem...](https://www.pharmaceutical- technology.com/comment/gilead-rem...))

Remdesivir is an element similar to one the cells use to create protein chains. When used instead of the real element it stops the chain. This limits the ability of the virus to create new copies. It would be like putting a cinderblock in a brick wall.

Unfortunately, SARS-Cov-2 has a "spell checker" that can remove the "mis- spelled" element (aka the cinderblock) and continue building the chain.

Remdesivir is difficult to make. About 8 liters of starting material is used to create a milli-liter of product which is about 1 injections. It appears that each patient may require multiple injections.

Remdesivir is not a vaccine. A Vaccine "trains" your immune system to combat the virus. Remdesivir is an injection and likely has to be used multiple times.

Remdesivir might reduce viral load (number of virus particles). The relationship between viral load, which is high in the beginning but less later, does not necessarily translate to sickness or death. Remdesivir might be useful within 48 hours of exposure but symptioms don't shou up for 5 days. Peak viral load has passed by the time symptoms occur.</comment>


Google Makes Most of Close Ties to White House - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/article_email/google-makes-most-of-close-ties-to-white-house-1427242076-lMyQjAxMTA1NTIzNDUyNTQyWj <comment><USER4> Doesn't it seem a bit suspicious when newspapers keep going after tech companies, who just _happen_ to be their main competitors for advertising dollars?

I'm not saying the articles are false (most of them, anyway). I'm sure Google did lobby the FTC, and there really were (very small) protests about tech buses, and Apple really did collude to hold down wages, and so on. But somehow, when a tech company does something bad, it always winds up on the national news, while the thousands of other companies doing similar things are quietly ignored.

"Remember the exercises in critical reading you did in school, where you had to look at a piece of writing and step back and ask whether the author was telling the whole truth? If you really want to be a critical reader, it turns out you have to step back one step further, and ask not just whether the author is telling the truth, but why he's writing about this subject at all." \- [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment><USER5> Probably has more to do with the fact that tech companies in general actively try to portray a progressive, benevolent do good image of themselves. Because of that, when they run amuck it's more news worthy or at least more salacious than when your typical scummy corporation does the same.

<comment><USER6> making your corporate slogan "don't be evil" invites a closer inspection

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Seems like a necessary evil for any sufficiently large company. Get big enough and everybody wants their say, including various local governments. You can't avoid them completely, so the next best thing is to have a very good relationship with the one whose jurisdiction affects you the most to keep them as uninvolved as possible.

Now, when that kind of relationship turns into getting the government to go after your competitors, overlook actions that are themselves unethical, make life more difficult for anyone not as large as you, that's highly unethical. On the other hand, trying to make sure that you don't suddenly get treated differently as a large company than an equivalent small company doesn't seem unreasonable (though having to do it in the first place does).

<comment><USER8> > Now, when that kind of relationship turns into getting the government to go > after your competitors, overlook actions that are themselves unethical, make > life more difficult for anyone not as large as you, that's highly unethical.

But that is what the competition is doing. You can't ask a CEO not to do the best to protect his employees and shareholder value. The CEO of any large American corporation has this huge and unresolvable ethical dilemma.

This is a symptom of rule by men, as opposed to rule by law.

Rule by men is what the American voters want. It is what allows them to "get away with" all kinds of social programs---both conservative and liberal ones.

Given a choice between sacrificing the public and sacrificing my company, I personally, if I were a major corporation CEO, would put my company first. In other words, I'd choose to play it Game of Thrones style.

Woe to those who don't have $potus on their team.

<comment><USER7> I'm not arguing that it doesn't make sense. I'm arguing that it's unethical. Also:

> You can't ask a CEO not to do the best to protect his employees and > shareholder value.

Yes, I can. Your requirement is not to maximize profits at all cost unless that's what you write into your corporate charter. Don't do that. You can just as easily write a charter that leaves you room to make decisions that maximize long-term value even at the expense of short-term value, or that allow you to make ethical decisions at the expense of mercenary decisions, or even a "we can do whatever we want, live with it" charter.

(And the interests of employees and shareholders are not always aligned. An ethical decision may involve favoring the former at the expense of the latter, for instance.)

<comment><USER9> Only if you're a B-corporation [1]. There are a number of court precedents that hold that a company's officers have a fiduciary duty to maximize long- term shareholder value.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation#Differences...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation#Differences_from_traditional_corporations)

(Commenting on the main point made in this thread: it is technically the government's responsibility to not be swayed by whatever corporate influence tactics are used on them. They do a piss-poor job at it - <USER3> understandably, as the money & influence provided by corporations often makes the difference between staying in office and being removed from office. But in theory, you can ask for whatever boons you want, it's just that our elected officials are supposed to consider the rights of _all_ citizens when granting them.)

<comment><USER7> > (Commenting on the main point made in this thread: it is technically the > government's responsibility to not be swayed by whatever corporate influence > tactics are used on them. They do a piss-poor job at it - <USER3> > understandably, as the money & influence provided by corporations often > makes the difference between staying in office and being removed from > office. But in theory, you can ask for whatever boons you want, it's just > that our elected officials are supposed to consider the rights of all > citizens when granting them.)

Agreed, and again, seeking _preferential_ treatment (whether directly or in the form of regulations that are easier for you to comply with than your competitors) seems blatantly unethical. However, it shouldn't take asking a "boon" to stop the inexorable "this looks big enough and has enough money in it now, time to screw with it" cycle that seems to crop up every time an industry or company gets large enough for local governments to notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can read about the lobbying operation Google conducted to avoid the FTC from pursuing their case here:

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is- transfo...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-google-is-transforming- power-and-politicsgoogle-once-disdainful-of-lobbying-now-a-master-of- washington- influence/2014/04/12/51648b92-b4d3-11e3-8cb6-284052554d74_story.html)

</comment><comment><USER11> Well, after decades of Comcast, Lockheed, .. (and hundreds of other companies I don't much like) lobbying in Washington, at least this one is slightly better (read: more likely to lobby for things I personally agree with)

<comment><USER12> Yes, they're playing the game

But I'd rather have them push for net neutrality than for budget for more military assets.

(Now what we need is to find Oil on Mars or Tritium on the Moon or something)

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Maybe Google has a database with information that the Government is interested in?</comment>