If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source - <AUTHOR> https://www.linuxjournal.com/content/if-software-funded-public-source-its-code-should-be-open-source <comment><USER3> Government scientist here.

IANAL, but my understanding is that all software written by US government civil servants is in the public domain. It cannot be copyrighted or otherwise licensed (although the government _can_ patent things). This does not necessarily mean that it is available to the public, as noted in the other comments; it may be classified, considered For Official Use Only, or restricted from release by ITAR regulations.

Barring any of those cases, you should be able to get a copy by filing a FOIA request. The problem with FOIA requests is that you have to know specifically what to request, usually by name. Obviously, it can be hard to put your finger on exactly what software you are requesting.

The bigger problem, though, is that much of the US government just isn't technically set up to release software (as opposed to documents). Setting up a git repository, in the DoD, is an utter nightmare. Every single patch has to be pushed through a public release process that can take weeks or months and involves review by as many as ten to fifteen different offices, few if any of which even know anything about software. If you're setting up your own server, getting the server itself approved and provisioned can be an exercise in bureaucratic frustration, and can take literally years to accomplish.

Those of us writing software very often want it to get out there. But the structure of the organization makes that excruciatingly difficult.

<comment><USER4> I used to work in a state government job as a student intern, and they said they wanted an internal directory for some various tasks. You can think of it like an inventory manager sort of website, purely on our intranet.

The mad lad my lead was, said we would need a database for retaining some of the basic data we needed to keep track of. Nothing all that special, just a few tables, and by nature nothing sensitive would be tracked.

This got rejected immediately, and our IT literally cited "no database installations are allowed per security team."

Needless to say 4 months later, after some back and forth, he eventually said "whatever, we'll just store everything to files then" and that's how he came up with the world's slowest inventory manager - I suspect just the way they like it.

<comment><USER5> Shh... Don't tell them that stuff like SQLite _is_ a flat-file database.

<comment><USER6> Besides, if you code your own database, at one point from a file to postgres, is it going to get rejected ?

<comment><USER7> "Is this system a database?"

"No sir! It's just a base of data."

<checks spec book> "Very well; carry on then..."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Most posts on this thread are focusing on exceptional cases where there are obvious reasons not to open the source, such as defense, but huge amounts of publicly-funded code is locked up for no reason whatsoever. Let's discuss some use cases that make more sense:

1\. healthcare.gov

2\. Stoplights/traffic control cameras.

3\. Voting machines.

4\. Electrical grid.

5\. IRS.

<comment><USER9> Man it would be pretty amazing to be able to submit a Pull Request to the IRS.

Matt Cutts if you're reading this please help!

On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things happening as a result of that

<comment><USER10> > On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic > controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things > happening as a result of that

Any more nefarious things that can be done with your Linux OS server talking to your Open Source Chromium / Firefox web browser?

Open Source doesn't necessarily mean less secure.

<comment><USER11> I'm not sure these things are equivalent, many people use a browser and Linux, not many people need to use electrical grid software.

However, I would imagine it would still be beneficial for open analysis though. I'm not sure security through obscurity is a good option when there are motivated nefarious actors involved. But that's more of a "gut feel" than based on any evidence

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> An unpopular opinion I guess, but the article is saying if you receive government funding, it should be open source.

That's more than just government employees making code. It's also any company, individual or agency that even accepts $1 of public grant money or any external contracts.

We're talking about hundreds of thousands of coders who's daily job is partially funded by the government having to push their code public.

I worked for an ad agency for a time that created websites and sent emails for tourism. The tourism website needs to be open source? The program that sends out discount coupons to public attractions and parks? Each HTML email I code needs to be submitted to repository somewhere?

I don't think people realize just how many millions of lines of code per day we're talking about here. Most of them being inconsequential things. 99.999999% of that being noise.

You've just jacked up the cost of working with the government. More time spent coding. More documentation for things that shouldn't need it. More time spent with compliance issues. Companies need to charge more. More tax dollars wasted.

<comment><USER13> Yes, you should need to make it open source. There's no reason to have a different backend for every town in the USA; less work for you to do and less money to be spent redundantly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am an open source advocate, but I don't really agree here. Should the IRS, NSA, CIA, and FBI code all be open source? Here are some cases where closed source software, with some security by obscurity could be helpful. Another example would be some software around designing nuclear systems.

But as an example maybe a software funded by the national weather service to run simulations, that aught to be open source (perhaps something like that exists and is open source, that's not my area).

But a counter argument to mine could be that some software that is security focused might be more secure if it was open source. I think this is an area with a lot of nuance, and absolute statements are hard to make.

<comment><USER15> > Should the IRS, NSA, CIA, and FBI code all be open source?

Yes. Open source, but secret/classified (as necessary, IRS software should be open-source, period). This way the software will be a useful learning/historical resource when it's declassified in the future.

<comment><USER16> Also, electronic voting. Not that electronic voting booths will ever be a good idea, but forcing them to open source their stuff will hopefully deter people from even trying (and if not it will make it even more blatantly visible that these things are terrible).

It's just like the biggest argument for open source in science: it is required for proper accountability.

<comment><USER17> Most of the code in electronic voting is owned by the vendors though so by the same standard would we have to open source any 3rd party software the govt aquires?

<comment><USER16> I don't quite follow your line of thinking here:

\- currently most electronic voting software is owned by the vendors

\- electronic voting should really not be trusted, period, but _definitely_ not be allowed to be closed source

\- therefore, we should ban any electronic voting software not made on open source software (arguably even hardware)

\- therefore, I am implying vendors _of electronic voting software_ should only be allowed to use a fully open source software stack in their final product

I do not see the jump from this reasoning to _any_ software used by the government must be open source (if I understand you correctly).

<comment><USER18> That's a lot more involved and domain-specific than the question of whether or not government-owned code should be open source.

The person you're responding to is just making the positive observation that, since electronic voting software is licensed - not produced - by the government, you can't mandate it be open sourced via e.g. a FOIA request.

You are making a normative declaration that it _should_ be open sourced because it's important and intrinsically untrusted software, and as a consequence it either will be or electronic voting won't be possible. These are separate things. You're talking about what ought to be, the other commenter is talking about what (currently) is.

<comment><USER16> Right, I see where GP and I were talking past each other now now. Thank you for clarifying!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm surprised no one has mentioned code.gov - <USER2> [https://code.gov/](https://code.gov/)

This is part of the implementation of M-16-21, which said, "Each agency shall release as OSS at least 20 percent of its new custom-developed code each year for the term of the pilot program. (3 years)".

<comment><USER20> Hey!!! Look!!! Actual Knowledge!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> At the very least publically funded code should be open between government departments. There seems to be a lot of internally developed work that is unnecessarily replicated or lost just due to having no obligation or available resources to share or collaborate. Maybe there needs to be some system in place to have some sort of internal NDA or need to know check, but this seems like a good first step.

<comment><USER22> You're assuming government code even uses proper documentation or version control..

<comment><USER21> I'm assuming they don't. I guess to clarify, I'm desiring that the government not only mandates that they do use documentation and source control, but that they commit such code to a repository accessible by other departments. A minimal readme and "init" push may do the trick, but I'd want my local counsel to at least be able to pull the code for something like the government's favorite public website implementation and reuse it at lower cost than redoing it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The thrust of the article changes from "governments should _use_ open source software" to "governments should _open-source_ their custom software" about 2/3rds of the way through. Contrary to the headline, it never goes as far as to say that any government- _funded_ software should be open-source.[1]

The latter precludes the (reasonable) arguments talking about grants and public-private partnerships, of which the intent is to stimulate economic innovation, not produce public code.

I think the proposal is reasonable, but it puts a heavy administrative onus on the government to open-source said code, including potential warranting that the code in question is indeed free of any other copyright or license requirement.

[1] Emphasis mine: "any _government_ code produced with public money..."

</comment><comment><USER24> The NHS (National Health Service) in the UK open-sourced their website frontend library[1] to allow all of the different hospitals, doctors practises and clinics to create their websites in-line with a centralised brand/accessibility standard.

[1] [https://github.com/nhsuk/nhsuk-frontend](https://github.com/nhsuk/nhsuk- frontend)

</comment><comment><USER25> This make sense for some public sources, obviously not all (such as defense).

As it happens, this is exactly what we do at [http://interneuron.org](http://interneuron.org) for Healthcare software. Most of our revenue so far has been NHS organisations. We are also a CIC - so a not for profit.

</comment><comment><USER26> I work on Medicare software for a state that is funded by CMS[1] and it is freely available to any other state that also is funded by CMS. This has happened, we handed over the code base to another state and they are implementing it.

[1][https://www.cms.gov/](https://www.cms.gov/)

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm completely okay with power grid and IRS code not being public.

I don't trust it to be built or maintained properly, which also means I'm relatively sure it'd be open season for troves of people who want to do bad things.

Open Source is great - but sometimes it makes absolutely no sense.

</comment><comment><USER28> So avionics software for our latest fighter planes should be open source? Does not sound like a very smart idea from that perspective...

</comment><comment><USER29> [https://publiccode.eu/](https://publiccode.eu/)

∆ Surprised this hasn't been shared yet

</comment><comment><USER30> An example of open source government. [https://www.boston.gov/news/bostongov- now-open-source-projec...](https://www.boston.gov/news/bostongov-now-open- source-project)

They also funded and encourage the open sourcing of the work we are doing for them [https://github.com/greenriver/hmis- warehouse](https://github.com/greenriver/hmis-warehouse)

</comment><comment><USER31> From the US Digital Services Playbook [1]:

> _PLAY 13_

> _Default to open_

> _When we collaborate in the open and publish our data publicly, we can > improve Government together. By building services more openly and publishing > open data, we simplify the public's access to government services and > information, allow the public to contribute easily, and enable reuse by > entrepreneurs, nonprofits, other agencies, and the public._

> _Checklist_

> _\- Offer users a mechanism to report bugs and issues, and be responsive to > these reports_

> [...]

> _\- Ensure that we maintain contractual rights to all custom software > developed by third parties in a manner that is publishable and reusable at > no cost_

> [...]

> _\- When appropriate, publish source code of projects or components online_

> [...]

> _Key Questions_

> [...]

> _\- If the codebase has not been released under an open source license, > explain why._

> _\- What components are made available to the public as open source?_

> [...]

[1] [https://playbook.cio.gov/#play13](https://playbook.cio.gov/#play13)

</comment><comment><USER32> It would certainly be interesting to make a pull request for something like Healthcare.gov or something. I wonder if it's measurable how much tax money we could save (if any) if we allowed the public to audit and improve our code.

<comment><USER33> Providing the source does not mean giving the public commit access.

<comment><USER34> Having government acquired code be open source licensed from the vendor to the government doesn't even mean the government publicly discloses the code.

It does mean the government _is free to do so_ , or to hire another vendor to work on it without restriction.

<comment><USER32> Wouldn't FOIA mandate that it's released if it's not confidential? I'm seriously asking; I'm not an expert in these things.

<comment><USER34> > Wouldn't FOIA mandate that it's released?

FOIA has a number of things exceptions, material subject to it's exceptions is not required to be released, including:

\---[quote]---

 _Exemption 1_ : Information that is classified to protect national security.

 _Exemption 2_ : Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.

 _Exemption 3_ : Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law.

 _Exemption 4_ : Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged.

 _Exemption 5_ : Privileged communications within or between agencies, including those protected by the:

1\. Deliberative Process Privilege (provided the records were created less than 25 years before the date on which they were requested)

2\. Attorney-Work Product Privilege

3\. Attorney-Client Privilege

 _Exemption 6_ : Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual's personal privacy.

 _Exemption 7_ : Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that:

7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings

7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication

7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy

7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source

7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law

7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual

 _Exemption 8_ : Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions.

 _Exemption 9_ : Geological information on wells.

\---[quote from: [https://www.foia.gov/faq.html](https://www.foia.gov/faq.html) ]---

The sensitive things at issue probably fall into the existing exemptions (a lot in #3), otherwise business rules could be disclosed under FOIA now, even if the code wasn't the government's to disclose.

<comment><USER35> > Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.

That one at the end seems interesting. I wonder how that got added in there as such a specific item and not as part of a broader category of sensitive information...I would think if wells were sensitive information, then so would mineral deposits and other natural resources, possibly falling under either exemption 3 or 4:

> Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another > federal law.

> Exemption 4: Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is > confidential or privileged.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> The former administration agreed and made efforts in this direction including publishing code on Drupal.org: [https://www.drupal.org/u/whitehouse](https://www.drupal.org/u/whitehouse)

On a sidenote, apparently the new administration scrapped it for a brochure Wordpress site. Funny discussion here: [https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/7kw7eu/whitehousego...](https://www.reddit.com/r/drupal/comments/7kw7eu/whitehousegov_is_now_on_wordpress/)

</comment><comment><USER37> The Government of Canada has some decent policies on that. The Directive on Management of Information Technology stipulates that government agencies must:

* Favour open source solutions * Favour non-prorietary solutions * Release source for custom-built solutions under open source licenses through Government of Canada sites

See C.2.3.8 for the relevant clauses: [https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc- eng.aspx?id=15249](https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=15249)

</comment><comment><USER38> I have been banging on about this for years - please see [http://oss4gov.org/manifesto](http://oss4gov.org/manifesto)

It's hard to make headway with the chicken and egg problem - if there was a good OSS system for a government need, the government could be persuaded to use it - but you can't write one without the initial investment which you cannot get because VC won't fund it ...

</comment><comment><USER39> As a government employee and software developer I think this is completely the wrong argument. Before we get that argument we should convince the government to not be afraid of writing software. In all but a few edge cases the government doesn't want employees writing software for a number of unfounded irrational reasons. Many areas of the government, especially the military, are still afraid of using any open source software.

</comment><comment><USER40> It should also concern scientific software. Right now many research groups close their software written using the tax-payers money. Some even try to sell it.

</comment><comment><USER41> Actually companies throw fits when the government contributes to open-source, especially when it comes to lucrative defense related stuff [0].

[0]: [https://www.wired.com/2012/07/nsa-accumulo-google- bigtable/](https://www.wired.com/2012/07/nsa-accumulo-google-bigtable/)

<comment><USER42> That case is not at all related, please read more carefully:

> the committee questions whether Accumulo runs afoul of a government policy > that prevents federal agencies from building their own software when they > have access to commercial alternatives

The law exists to prevent wasting time & money, it has nothing to do with being open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm in favor of the transparency this would confer, but it's probably not in our best national interests to be potentially giving away state of the art software for running large governments.

The code is of minimal utility to individual citizens who have no need to run large governments, but can be hugely beneficial to our competing nations.

<comment><USER44> Psst, it's not our state of the art software that's holding this ball of mud together.

<comment><USER43> It's a competition nonetheless.

<comment><USER44> Is it? What would it look like to win this competition? To lose?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> This is principle 10 in the UK Government design principles. [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design- principles#mak...](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/government-design- principles#make-things-open-it-makes-things-better)

</comment><comment><USER46> In addition, publicly funded surveillance cameras in public places should produce publicly available data.

</comment><comment><USER47> Yeah! NSA fork over those hacking tools!

<comment><USER32> In a bit of fairness to the NSA (never thought I'd say that), they _did_ give us SELinux, which I think was overall a net good.

<comment><USER48> Is it though? In most installation guides I've dealt with they recommend disabling it since it can cause random issues. i.e. The Percona XtraDB install guide.

I find that it's way too complicated of a layer that most people can't/won't learn. Compare this to the OpenBSD pledge and unveil which doesn't get in the way, and there's no way to disable them.

If you make something overly complicated, with the ability to disable it all too easily, then it won't get used.

<comment><USER49> >In most installation guides I've dealt with they recommend disabling it

That is generally bad advice then. selinux is used by Android and Fedora (and hence RHEL & CentOS). selinux can break things, but it is quite stable these days at least for the distro supported packages. The downside is that anything outside the distro packages will likely have no support or will run unconfined. OpenBSD unveil is still new and will face similar challenges in that it will cover the base system well, but for ports, it will be up to the port maintainer to implement it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> Totally makes sense. Why would tax payers fund a project, which will be used for profit of privileged few?

</comment><comment><USER51> In the UK it seems like a pain to get anything open sourced.

AIUI, by default everything is Crown Copyright.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#United_Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_copyright#United_Kingdom)

</comment><comment><USER52> Wrong; our military, CIA, and FBI are all funded by public money; should they all be open too? No. There's plenty of software that's publicly funded that should not be open source, and much of that wouldn't make sense anyway as it's proprietary.

</comment><comment><USER53> According to this line of reasoning, all the code for our nuclear weapons systems should be open source.

Beware the law of unintended consequences - it'll bite you!

(For the record, I agree with the sentiment, but it's hard to implement without causing undesirable effects.)

</comment><comment><USER20> OK. If you believe this to be true, you need to elect leaders that make this a priority.

If it's not an issue, make it one.

If no one cares to support the issue, find someone to run on it.

If you can't find someone to run on the issue, you've got to run yourself.

<comment><USER54> What a useless suggestion. The current political setup does not allow electing people based on issues as granular as this. No politicians will make promises about this because only a small population understands why it is important.

Also you know how useless attempting to run yourself is. You will never get anywhere which is good because just having one good idea doesn't make you qualified to lead.

The best thing to do is to start public debate among people who understand the issue and attempt to get those in charge to join in.

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> The positive and optimistic side of this is well-documented.

The darker side is that making all publicly-funded software public would also mean making all weapons software public. That could have disastrous consequences.

<comment><USER56> Perhaps we could just stop making weapons software? I mean, someone needs to go first.

When I look at wars throughout the world, a huge number of them are fought with US weapons, and we don't actually have a good track record of supporting peaceful people. I don't think that we'll get there until we stop dumping weapons on the world for profit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Alot of the conversation I have seen so far has been US-centric. That's fair, given that this was posted during US business hours, but for the US I don't really think this discussion applies as much.

Works created by the United States Government are not covered by copyright in the US, effectively making them public domain _in the US_. See [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105)

"But—", you say, "—the code the NSA is publishing has a license attached!" Indeed, that confused me too, until I found the answer at [https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.htm...](https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.html#_Toc505089933):

>…copyright exclusion for works of the U.S. Government is not intended to have any impact on protection of these works abroad (S. REP. NO. 473, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 56 (1976)). Therefore, the U.S. Government may obtain protection in other countries depending on the treatment of government works by the national copyright law of the particular country. Copyright is sometimes asserted by U.S. Government agencies outside the United States.

So, Public Domain within the US, and Copywritten (but OSS-licensed) outside of the US.

My understanding is that copyright in EU countries is much more complicated. For example, apparently the view of the Eiffel Tower at night is copyrighted. See [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16CGK1T9MM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16CGK1T9MM)

As for anything Classified in the US, there are laws controlling distribution. So, take something GPL-licensed: If you take, use, and modify the software, you are not required to provide the code unless you distribute the product to others.

See the question "Since U.S. Government works are not protected by copyright in the U.S., are all U.S. Government works publicly available without restriction in the U.S.?" from [https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.htm...](https://www.cendi.gov/publications/FAQ_Copyright_30jan18.html#315) (it's pretty long, and has a _lot_ of references, so I'm not reproducing it here)

Of course, you may argue that, if a hacking tool is pushed to a remote system, and that hacking tool was made using GPL-licensed code, then the source should be distributed with the hacking tool. Also, note I said GPL, _not_ AGPL. For both of those cases, I don't know if the laws governing Classified material trump those governing Copyright (I'd bet they do), and what International law has to say.

<comment><USER58> But what about software that is funded by the government, but not directly created by government agencies, such as software that is the result of government research grants (at universities or private research institutions) or contracts with private companies?

And does that law also apply to works created by state and municipal governments?

</comment></comment><comment><USER59> If software is publicly funded, it should go into the public domain.

<comment><USER60> Where do you draw the line between publicly funded and publicly licensed?

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> Shouldn't this include all the code written but publicly traded companies as well? I mean, it is mostly funded by people's pensions - why not open source that!

</comment><comment><USER62> Same for healthcare, engineering tech, pharmaceuticals, etc.

</comment><comment><USER63> The combat slogan for this is: public money, public code!

</comment><comment><USER64> Consider the Feds tried doing this with IP post WW2 and the results were disasterous. Turns out govt. employees aren't allowed to be paid enough to make 100 hour work weeks reasonble - the level of effort required to get some ideas off the ground.

Once the Bayh-dole act was passed to allow citizens to take ownership of IP related to publicly funded endeavors, only then did the public start benefiting.

<comment><USER65> I came here and searched for the Bayh-Dole Act and am surprised to find only this single mention of it. It really does seem to me to be at the root of the current policies around federally funded research artifacts.

I disagree with the causation you infer regarding public benefits as a result of this change in IP rules. After all, we saw many post WW2 benefits of federal spending long before 1980. The most visible were in aerospace developments that gave us the jet age, but of course even Silicon Valley was well on its way in the 1970s with lots of computer industry groundwork already in place.

I think a lot of the computer industry developments of the 1980-1990s were almost inevitable once that stage was set. It was mostly a coincidence that Bayh-Dole was passed and universities ramped up their strip-mining of the federal budget around the same period. An awful lot of the current Internet age was built by people like me, working on open source projects and federal funding in spite of Bayh-Dole, not because of it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> Let's look at this from a global view, one country's funded software may not be forced to be shared by other countries unless they paid their dues? As code in the public domain is for the whole earth these days.

Yes nations do compete. The whole one-government funded software should be published to internet is _false_, in a technical sense.

</comment><comment><USER67> I have always thought that all of the BBC's code should be open source.

</comment><comment><USER68> I also propose all end-of-life software should be open sourced

</comment><comment><USER69> Would it be possible to FOIA the source code and commit history?

<comment><USER34> Disclosability and licensing are _almost_ orthogonal (though a proprietary license might make code more likely to be nondisclosable.) Particularly, open source code could still fall into most of the existing FOIA exceptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> MS office to Libreoffice will be a disaster. I used excel professionally and tried libre. Omg, nothing worked. Loading large didnt work, doing pivot table didn't work. People need to start using R, libre will be really bad

</comment><comment><USER71> I am 100% with this logic.

</comment><comment><USER72> Also of concern is a tragedy of commons like issue where those who contributed no funding are able to get the software for free. For example if a piece of city focused software is FOSS and then a bunch of other cities choose to consume it but not contribute to the funding or code.

<comment><USER73> Agreed the other cities are being a jerk but not exactly a tragedy of the commons [1] as OSS is not a rival good [2]. One city using the software does not prevent others from using it.

[1] [https://market.subwiki.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons](https://market.subwiki.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) [2] [https://market.subwiki.org/wiki/Rival_good](https://market.subwiki.org/wiki/Rival_good)

<comment><USER74> I think it's closer to a fireworks show. Another set of eyes doesn't impact the purchaser's viewing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> The other point that there are millions of boring crud apps written out there in govt/contractor land. We dont need to see these as open source, its not as if there are lots of devs that love fixing crappy crud apps in their spare time.

<comment><USER44> Your argument against is that we might get bored reading the open source code?

<comment><USER76> While it is bad way to put it, but GP comments does make a little sense. All I can think of government software is CRUD apps or research projects. The source of later is released on case by case basis(tor, selinux on one hand, exploits such as stuxnet on the other) and any ruling won't help much there.

<comment><USER44> But why shouldn't CRUD apps be open sourced? Is the assertion that they stand to reap no benefit because no one will contribute to them? I don't think I agree with this position. Nor do I feel that contributions are the only forseeable benefit of open source software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER77> Would this not imply that if "my" government funded some software that "your" government would be free to take it? I'm not sure I'm keen on subsidizing "your" government all that much.

What would stop the people of/under "your" government from freeloading off the people of/under "my" government?

<comment><USER60> So, if _YOUR_ government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else? Most Linux users aren't contributing to Linux itself. And likely less than half are making any significant contribution to Open Source Software at all. It's still useful software, and I still appreciate everyone that does work on it.

<comment><USER77> You seem to be conflating my position on the use of public funds with your position on open source in general.

 _" So, if YOUR government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else?"_

I'm not sure where you are going with this. I certainly never claimed that governments should not use open source software. By all means I hope (for argument sake let's call it The US) leverages Linux where practical.

What I disagree with is the premise that The US or their contractors owe pull requests or public repos to the peoples of the world just because the US taxpayer partly or fully funded a development project. Hate on me if you must but I believe that no US funded research results be they in software or any other IP are or should be automatically owed to the peoples of the earth.

 _" Most Linux users aren't contributing to Linux itself. And likely less than half are making any significant contribution to Open Source Software at all. It's still useful software, and I still appreciate everyone that does work on it."_

Yes, I agree with your idea that most open source users are _freeloading_ in the sense that they contribute far less than they use. That is part of my point.

<comment><USER60> Users who don't contribute back, aren't removing what you have done, or a given government may have funded. Some governments _ARE_ contributing to open- source... other governments using open-source doesn't undo or degrade things.

We are not in a communist/socialist world where every community must pay at the point of a gun for things they don't choose to pay for. And if some government wants to force users of software they develop to contribute to funding, then there licensing should probably be something to reflect that. But then it wouldn't strictly be OSI/Open-Source.

<comment><USER77> I am baffled by your post.

 _" We are not in a communist/socialist world"_

This is EXACTLY my point. We are (at least I am) not. My government does not owe me or anyone else (let alone a foreign government) open source access to it's IP. To think otherwise (as you appear to do) is to be the socialist.

I hate to break it to you, but open source IP _is_ socialism. I hope that does not come as some sort of shock to you.

Again to be very clear __I am a fan of open source projects __. I use them, I contribute to them. However, I choose how and what I use and contribute. My government does not choose for me or worse mandate via some policy that I must.

If you feel that The US government should require you to open source your in- house CnC software to the people of the DPRK because The US gave you a business development grant of $10k then you sir are the communist, not I.

<comment><USER60> I was using an analogy to express a point that because one organization chooses to fund opensource, the fact that another doesn't isn't expressly taking away anything.

That aside, I do feel most of what is publicly funded via tax dollars taken by threat of force should be open. This includes data and software (other than expressly licensed, commercial off the shelf software). I'm not as hardline as some on this, but I do feel that way.

The Communist POV would be that all software, data and access be restricted and expressly owned by the government and not really the people.

Open-Source is socialism if the government is forcing people to pay for it... so long as its' a collective voluntary thing not enforced by the government it is in fact not communism/socialism but a part of marginalizing that software which is not a core business component.

The point I was making is the government shouldn't be choosing for me... however, given that the government does fund software development for its' own needs, that development should probably be open.

For the CnC example, I've stated in other threads that I don't feel commercial software should be required to be opened if it exists and is licensed via govt contract vs. developed for.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Afghan opium growers have switched to solar power - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53450688 <comment><USER2> I like solar and all, but I will say that just looking at the farming practices of these growers, this transformation will likely be shortlived (I am thinking in terms of generations, not in terms of seasons). Yes, the solar allows people to rapidly deploy solar to use as pumps, but those pumps are also depleting the aquifer. They are probably not putting anything back into the aquifer with practices such as rainwater harvesting (earthworks and improving infiltration, rather than rain barrels).

In metro Phoenix, AZ (here in the States) we have been seeing something similar as the deep water have been drying up. Arizona is at the bottom of the water rights (from the Colorado river), and people's solutions have been to install an electric pump to get at the water. With so many people draining off of the aquifer, people who have been depending on the water have been having difficulty with getting consistent water. Many of them are finding that they have to try to sell the property. What they have _not_ been doing are things like, capturing the rain that does come to the region to irrigate crops or landscape; use of greywater; use of a composting toilet (which cleans waste with the carbon cycle rather than the hydrologic cycle), and otherwise conserve _drinking_ and _cooking_ water. Tuscon, AZ and Flagstaff, AZ have residents and public policies in place that does a much better job with this than Phoenix.

With cheap solar added to the mix, what will happen is that it hastens the aquifer depletion.

So those poppy farmers are not thinking with whole systems or thinking in the long term. On the other hand, if they were thinking in the long term, they probably would not be growing poppy as a cash crop in the first place. Perhaps small batches to make high quality anesthesia for local use, as part of of a more diverse crop. You don't kill off your aquifer, and you don't make something that will kill off your customers. You'd have nothing left.

My conclusion is that that the market forces, while transformative, is also very limited and short-sighted, and there are better ways for humans to interact with each other.

<comment><USER3> Can't agree that the poppy farmers aren't thinking long term. Abusing the aquifer is the nash equilibrium. As soon as one person starts pumping everyone else has to too, because the water will be gone soon either way. This is a collaboration failure more than some sort of ignoring the long term for the short term.

<comment><USER4> Isn't that a clear example of the Tragedy of the Commons? I mean, if access to the aquifer required the replenishment of it as a barrier of entry wouldn't that in turn mitigate the issue? For example, requiring that 1:1 rainwater be recaptured, something Colorado only recently allowed, and pumped back into the aquifer? Enforceability becomes the real issue, but having lived most of my Life in CA and in CO in the US, Water wars are REAL and I only see them getting more serious unless we come up with better desalination techniques and processes in the immediate future.

My chemistry professor was saying in the mid 2000s that water had already become the new Gold.

<comment><USER5> >> For example, requiring that 1:1 rainwater be recaptured

Collection of rainwater is never an option in farming. The reason they are irrigating is because there isn't enough rain. To capture enough rain to facilitate irrigation requires devices as large or larger than the fields to be irrigated. Rain barrels aren't enough. Agriculture measures water in acre- feet.

So you turn field B into a pond to hold water for field A. How deep is that pond? If it is only a couple feet you will loose all your water to evaporation. You need deeper water. You need a dam. So you better be good at concrete retaining walls, or hope there is a convenient river valley on your plot.

<comment><USER2> Rainwater harvesting is not very efficient with a rain barrel. There are much better design patterns for harvesting rain:

1\. To scale, you are really trying to capture water in the soil itself

2\. This means taking advantage of terrain features to manage patterns of flow. The idea here is to slow down flow so that it cycles through the planting areas so that the water can infiltrate instead of running off.

3\. Mosquitos is a problem if pooling remains for more than three days. The solution here is to add organic compounds (mulching) to cover the areas being pooled. It effectively makes the water go below the surface, and have the added benefit of carrying composting nutrients deeper into the soil.

4\. Soil's ability to hold water depends upon a number of factors. Among them is how much carbon material is there, which includes the remains of root systems. Living, healthy soil will act as a sponge and release water to the plant as needed.

5\. So protecting soil erosion is a huge part of conserving water. If the rain is carrying off soil because it is running off too fast, there is never a build up of soil to act as a sponge.

6\. You may need to plant more than a monocrop. At least plant ground cover to protect the farm's soil fertility.

7\. Certain soil amendments can have lasting effect on its ability to absorb water. Biochar — charcoal that have been prepared in a way to make it suitable for plants — have the property of absorbing water and releasing it as needed. They also form habitats for microbes and fungi, which can also enhance plant growth.

8\. Heavy fertilizing may be contributing to soil loss. They don't help accumulate the kind of properties that help soil absorb water.

Here is an example paper about it: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and- biolog...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological- sciences/soil-erosion)

It is not as if this stuff is not well known

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> "...water is effectively free..." yeah, until they deplete the groundwater. But until then it's good times! They should talk to farmers or more importantly, residents in central CA about how much fun it is to run out of groundwater. Good luck.

<comment><USER7> It's discussed at the end of the article. Water level is dropping at ~3m/year. One NGO estimates the boom will only last ~10 years before causing massive problems for everyone living there (not just the farmers). Ironically solar is the opposite of sustainable here. Diesel power would at least be more self limiting.

<comment><USER8> Humanity at its finest: depleting a potentially valuable resource forever so you can make more of a drug that ruins hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of lives a year.

<comment><USER9> Indeed and looking at the graph of heroin production - kinda makes the Taliban look like good guys as they stopped it until they got removed by America and the heroin production grew. So pretty messed up.

Why no incentives or drive to curtail production and shift to more useful crops is something that seems to be ignored as an approach in that area.

If anything - 10 years times - second hand solar panels will be epicly cheap in that area and more so, all the land used for heroin production will be barren and that water shortage will impact far further than people will think. All these bore holes - only increase contamination of the water table and that may go unnoticed for decades.

This whole situation is creating a perfect storm on many levels and I welcome the sudden demise of heroin production.

However - all the money spent on customs and border patrol against drugs like heroin - if just a small percentage of that was used to incentivise produces to shift crops and stop producing heroin. That would actually work and be better overall. Though still going to have that water table issue come along and that is ticking clock of not if, but when.

<comment><USER10> Note that solar panels have limited lifespans in use. The usual industry warranty is 25 years, and they will have lost a fair amount of capacity by the end of it.

<comment><USER11> Standard warranty is 80% capacity after 25 years. At that rate you would have 50% capacity after 75 years.

Solar cells should last a long time. The panel itself will probably fail sooner - especially cheap ones made from plastic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Super cool, but not going to solve the question of renewable energy at scale.

Farmers have been doing things like this for generations. American Homesteaders - settlers of the sometimes-rather-arid Great Plains in the US - used windmills for exactly this purpose in the 1800s.

We know renewable energy is super useful under specific circumstances (remote/underdeveloped electrical grid, low power, low need for consistency). Another example in the US is emergency phones on the highway - solar panels power those too, and have for a decade or more.

The critical question is whether it can overcome those specific circumstances and be useful in developed electrical grids with strong needs for high power and consistency.

<comment><USER13> I don't think that's true, for example renewables were responsible for ~50% of the energy generated in the UK in Q1 2020[0], and Germany claims it's ~40%[1] and Sweden claims it's ~55%[2].

These aren't perfect numbers, but they clearly demonstrate renewable energy is deployable at national grid scale.

[0]: [https://www.edie.net/news/10/Renewables-accounted-for- record...](https://www.edie.net/news/10/Renewables-accounted-for-record-47-- of-UK-generation-in-first-quarter-of-2020)

[1]: [https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys- energy-c...](https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-energy- consumption-and-power-mix-charts)

[2]: [https://sweden.se/nature/energy-use-in- sweden/](https://sweden.se/nature/energy-use-in-sweden/)

<comment><USER14> The only problem I have with that, is that renewables can mostly only be treated as a bonus. Trying to rely on them for baseline power means you have to put out a LOT more capacity than you'd need with fossils.

IMO baseline being nuclear and the rest being mostly renewables (With HEAVY reliance on pumped storage power plants, as a sort of capacitor) is the way to go to minimize emissions.

<comment><USER15> We have a solar array on the house. A lot of the Dc to AC solar inverters used in residential installs use the grid to match the frequency of the AC.

The downside is with no grid power the solar system doesn't work to power the house. There are systems that can but they're more money.

<comment><USER16> can you directly use the DC as a reserve source? like, install car plugs in the house? there are lots of smaller everyday electrical gear for this standard

<comment><USER17> It's actually a much more interesting question than you might expect. Lots of modern appliances could run perfectly on DC of around the RMS voltage. For example the most modern fridges rectify the incoming mains to drive a brushless DC motor, this allows them to run at an appropriate speed rather than using bang bang control. Even an an induction hob, you might think it was most reliant on having an AC waveform but actually they need a much higher frequency so again they rectify the incoming mains.

Obviously it's not quite that easy, for example an oven uses resistive heating elements which would work fine on DC, however, the relay in the control circuitry wouldn't be able to switch a DC voltage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> > For an upfront payment of $5,000 they can buy an array of solar panels and > an electric pump. Once it is installed, there are virtually no running > costs.

I don't know much about solar panels, but I thought they broke down fairly frequently and required specialized tools and knowledge to repair? This article makes it sound like the panels are pretty reliable over time, which would be welcome news to me.

2) Drilling down 100M to groundwater -- does this require industrial equipment? I wonder how these farmers afford it, if so, or perhaps drilling 100M is much easier than I believe?

<comment><USER19> > I don't know much about solar panels, but I thought they broke down fairly > frequently and required specialized tools and knowledge to repair?

Where did you hear that? Have they perchance been trying to mislead you about renewables?

A solar cell is a huge flat diode. A panel is a chain of them in series. It sits there and makes electricity when exposed to light. There are no moving parts other than electrons. It requires no lubrication and no maintenance. Since they're sealed units under glass, the only thing you might have to worry about is leaks and damage from weather, which can be addressed with sealant if the panel is still functional. Admittedly if you crack it badly enough it will be unrepairable.

The inverter is slightly more fragile, being a big piece of power electronics, but still usually guaranteed for 10 years. The most fragile part of the system is probably the pump.

<comment><USER18> I believe I developed that impression from reading about peace corps projects involving solar panels, that, once the volunteers left, no one has the expertise to maintain, so they just went unused. I am glad to learn otherwise! I'm looking at some property in upstate NY and would love to install some panels.

<comment><USER20> Highly recommend it, though beware your yields will be truly abysmal during the winter. I live entirely off-grid in California and even here the dead of winter can be a bit tight on power. I will say setting the whole thing up is super duper easy, and if you buy second-hand solar your price/watt can be very very cheap. I paid about 30c/watt for panels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> orbital-decay While the opium growers' perspective is an interesting one, the conclusion is misleading.

 _> The story of the revolution in Afghan heroin production shows us just how transformative solar power can be. Don't imagine this is some kind of benign "green" technology. Solar is getting so cheap that it is capable of changing the way we do things in fundamental ways and with consequences that can affect the entire world._

It's not exactly solar that is transformative here, but the access to _any_ electricity at all. It's not like they can use a normal power grid for heroin production, even if they had one there.

Photovoltaic panels are more convenient for providing very small scale off- grid power than most other tech like thermal solar or diesel generators, thanks to being heavily subsidized by other people - that would be the more accurate conclusion.

<comment><USER21> Grow ops in the US are also prone to use solar power for their grow lights, so that the Feds don't hunt them down based on the power bill. This isn't an endorsement of solar more generally, either.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> It can work the other way too:

[https://kmarp.com/home](https://kmarp.com/home)

Solar powered aquifer recharge stations were close contenders for the project.

<comment><USER23> Wow, that's a really interesting site.

Aquifer recharge is an interesting topic that one doesn't hear much about.

I guess Domesday dopamine chasers hate missing their rush.

<comment><USER22> The company I once contracted for once bided for the project. When bids started to close on $100k, solar panels solidly lost to mains powered pumping stations, and the company bailed out of the tender.

This is the problem with infrastructure tenders all around the world, even immediate operations cost is rarely considered to count against lowest upfront payment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> It sounds like a mess to be honest. More production of heroin for 10 years, then 1.5 million refugees because there is no ground water anymore

<comment><USER25> You're going to get the refugees anyway due to government and public health failures [1] in the area (see: Afghanistan fertility rates, the level of female empowerment and education compared to elsewhere, and healthcare infrastructure). If you're anti heroin production, get in there and pump that water faster than the farmers to deprive them of it.

[1] [https://eurasianet.org/afghanistan-population-boom- threatens...](https://eurasianet.org/afghanistan-population-boom-threatens- stabilization-chances)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Reminds me of this Outside/In episode about (possibly) the earliest adopters of solar in the US:

[http://outsideinradio.org/shows/2018/1/4/stoner- panels](http://outsideinradio.org/shows/2018/1/4/stoner-panels)

</comment><comment><USER27> Is there a real risk of depleting groundwater reservoirs making this non- sustainable?

<comment><USER28> at the end of the article:

> So much water is now being used that ground water levels in Helmand are > estimated to be falling by 3m a year. The fear is that pretty soon the water > will simply run out. "Maybe this boom will not last longer than 10 years," > says Orzala Nemat, who runs the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, > the country's biggest think tank.

<comment><USER29> this rate factors in growth. it says nothing about the rate once market settles.

The fear, i guess, must be that a lot of the water doesn't come back to the aquifier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> *Some Afghan opium growers have switched to solar power.

This is the free market in full effect. The market is actually larger than what you can fulfill yourself, why wouldn't you produce as much as possible?

</comment><comment><USER31> Solar is presumably attractive to Afghan opium growers also because it's decentralised, not directly depending directly on another party to provide power.

</comment><comment><USER32> I heard they're being switched to meth because the cartels don't buy poppies as much anymore and pay partly in amphetamine pills.

</comment><comment><USER33> Don't all plants grown with solar power?

</comment><comment><USER34> We need cia investment and us military troops to protect the fields.

</comment><comment> DC-3 Interesting story, but the article reads like it was written to be used as an exercise for teaching English to 15 year olds.</comment>


Ask HN: Salaries in/around the Netherlands, (Windows) drivers developers? - <AUTHOR>

Hello,
I'm currently developing windows drivers(1) for a company in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. I've been there for 11 months now, 5 months as an intern (as part of my HBO studies), and for the past 5 months I've been there part time (20hr/wk, except for the current month - 40/wk average), working on the same project ever since the start of my internship. Long story short, I'm currently their primary experienced windows drivers dev (they've had minor forays in the past).
I'm at the point where I can begin the final part of my study (the graduation internship), but I'd like to stick with the company for awhile until the conclusion of the (reasonably large) project. My main problem at the moment is that my salary is basically the minimum wage in the country for my age (23), which doesn't seem normal for what I'm doing.
Given my situation(2), can I reasonably expect to negotiate a higher salary (and in what range)? Also, for future reference, how does this field (kernel/low-level development in general) tend to pay around here in general?
Other than that, I like both the project's team and what I'm working on, especially since the project involves a wide range of technologies that must work together (== HUGE potential for learning), and the fact that I'm given relatively large chunks of the project to work on - from research to spec to design to code (almost no micromanagement).
(1) WDM/KDFM both (mainly KMDF, where possible), PCI-e, DMA, custom & some port-miniport models (2) bachelor student - not sure how much weight this carries in the region. <comment><USER2> It's not _necessarily_ a bad idea to work for experience ("HUGE potential for learning"), but minimum wage seems _very_ low. Consider asking around at your HBO what other students and recent graduates earn; as an inferior alternative, intermediair.nl usually has some (very broad and vague) salary data. (IIRC, recent university graduates in computer science can expect 2200-2400 euros per month.)

If you want to continue working here, consider trying to negotiate an agreement that you'll get a significant raise once you have your BSc.

Also, do weigh the benefits of not having a more senior person around (e.g. being allowed to mess with everything yourself) with the downsides of not having a more senior person around (e.g. nobody to learn from, your mistakes won't be corrected as long as you still manage to make the project work somehow.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Regarding what others earn - I've already asked the ones that I know, and on average it's 20-30% more (mobile dev & security... advisor, you could say).

About the concern of not having a more senior person around - true. I was (and still am, as a good measure) scared of that bit, what I pretty much did was dig in everything that I could find on the subject before development of my part (and the ones that I'm linked to - not writing a software driver ;) spinned up. That pretty much meant scouring the books (windows internals, Oney's WDM, MS's WDF one, except for the UMDF part), MSDN/linked "whitepapers" (let's say that there are some holes), any sample code that I could find, and most helpfully, NTDEV discussions/linux drivers docs and guides (yes, it is very relevant :)/osdev wiki&forums... and whatever else I've stumbled upon that seemed even remotely connected. As a consequence, I had a slight burnout during my part-time period (school&work) - I'm nowhere near as exhausted now (8/day) as I was during that period (3-4/day) :)

The other defense mechanism against being alone is that documents and code reviews are common in the company, and I'm steadily documenting / teaching others (who have significant linux drivers experience) the concepts of windows drivers, so it's not entirely without scrunity. Perhaps the biggest issue there is converting people from the "windows sucks/linux rules" mindset (well, it's not so bad, but there are some cases in which I feel it approaches that set in stone mentality).

Also, a mindset of "making the thing work somehow" for kernel programming (driver or otherwise) doesn't strike me as proper ;)

<comment><USER2> That sounds like a good approach; and making complex hardware work at all is not easy, so good job!

As to "making things work somehow" \- don't we all suffer through drivers that are the consequence of that? Also, I'm definitely not commenting on some of my own company's kernel-/bare metal code here...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Look at sites with salary stats like indeed.com and payscale.com

If I were you I would ask for a rise. My company also does Windows drivers and these skills are scarce. Obviously there is more work on Node.js than developing Windows drivers but the scarcity factor gives you an advantage.</comment>


India's $35 Android 7-inch Tablet to Hit in January - <AUTHOR> http://www.tomshardware.com/news/india-android-tablet-35-indiapad,11255.html <comment><USER2> Let us please not go by deadlines. The Mobile Number Portability in India, was supposed to launch last October. 3G services were supposed to be rolled out on full scale now.</comment>


Ask HN: Version Control System w/ Centralized Diffs - <AUTHOR>

I'm looking for an (open source) version control system where the diff info for changes is kept in a centralized location (filesystem or database).
To be clearer: Is there a VCS that will keep the file/folder structure in-tact without adding anything (such as .svn folders) to the directories being watched? It can store the changes either in a database or in a folder somewhere on the system, just not in the actual folder tree itself.
Any suggestions?
Thanks! <comment><USER2> With git, you can use combination of GIT_WORK_TREE and GIT_DIR environment variables (or the equivalent params to git command) to specify where the work tree and the .git dir reside.

Downside of this is that you have to set up env separately for each project (if you have multiple projects), basically wrapping git.

Another quick'n'dirty solution could also be to just have everything in one subdirectory of git working tree (since git doesn't pollute every directory like .svn does). This would also work with bzr or hg.

</comment><comment><USER3> Eric Sink is writing an excellent series of articles on source control at <http://www.ericsink.com/scm/source_control.html>

</comment><comment><USER4> bzr can do that.

It's used by people to track /etc/ and all sorts of stuff.

Have your files in: /somewhere/.bzr /somewhere/yourfolders/

So there is only one .bzr directory at the top.

</comment><comment><USER5> iirc you can configure where git stores it .git directory</comment>


Download a Fresh Copy of The Pirate Bay, With Permission - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/download-copy-of-the-pirate-bay-with-permission-130220/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Torrentfreak+%28Torrentfreak%29 <comment><USER2> Great work! I have some questions if you don't mind.

I kind of wonder why you chose XML, and the page doesn't really elaborate on that much. Wouldn't CSV be much smaller (XML is pretty noisy format, though the 7z can probably take care of that) while at the same time more searchble? You can search CSV with just grep, with XML it gets little more difficult, and CSV is also more simple to load to a database in case someone wanted to make TPB web mirror or something.

EDIT: sorry if I seem annoying :) but I had something like this on todo-list for a while, and you did my work for me, so I kind of wonder why you made different decisions.

<comment><USER3> Well, it could be in CSV, yes, but

\- I was saving the comments, too, so right now, a torrent element has comment elements as sub-elements; in CSV would probably need to be two tables/files instead of one, which would get a little more complicated

\- I didn't want to think so much about escaping newlines (that are in the comments and infos) and the delimiters, right now I was only escaping < to < and > to >.

\- It was easier to check whether the script is working correctly or not (probably the top reason :) ).

\- I thought parsing XML would be easier than parsing some other format, since there are tools already available for that.

But well, if somebody will really want CSV version he can easily transfer that from XML...

ad edit: no problem.

<comment><USER4> "I didn't want to think so much about escaping newlines (that are in the comments and infos) and the delimiters, right now I was only escaping < to < and > to >."

Then at the very least you need & -> & too.

Alternatively, wrap the whole comment in CDATA, though don't forget to replace ]]> with ]]>]]<<!CDATA[ or something like that so you don't get spurious CDATA closures. (There may not be any in there now, but there will be once people hear about you doing this...)

<comment><USER3> Oh. Thanks for pointing that out, I think I didn't escape & -> &.

I hope it won't make trouble to someone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> my original submission

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5244196>

<comment><USER5> Thank you for doing this.

<comment><USER3> it's more for fun than anything

<comment><USER6> It's not very useful given that there are no comments on your "original submission".

<comment><USER7> Look at his profile; he's the _creator_ of the original submission.

<comment><USER6> Ooooh, I missed that. He should have linked his blog directly then, not the empty comment section. But point taken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It would be very cool (and useful) if they put that in some kind of version conrol (git, svn, etc).

<comment><USER9> I second that. This way if pirate bay got down everyone will have the last version of the site, not the 3/4/5 months ago version.

<comment><USER10> I think it will only go down if the people keeping it running stop bothering.

They have stable network access covered via the Swedish pirate party. This party (which have two of Sweden's twenty seats in the European Parliament) have by doing solid work won a lot of legitimacy in media over the past two years or so, I think.</comment></comment></comment>


Magit Kickstarter fully funded - <AUTHOR> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1681258897/its-magit-the-magical-git-client/posts/1988383 <comment><USER3> (author here)

The support I received during the last three weeks has been phenomenal! Thanks again! The only disappointment was that the campaign did not get a lot of press outside the Emacs community, which was a bit frustrating because I published a lot of the articles that are intended for potential users who are not Emacs users.

Until now that is - please have a look [1]. I found it quite challenging to explain why someone who is not familiar with Emacs would want to use Magit even though the majority of those who have given it a chance swear by it. It's a bit like explaining to someone who has only every used GUIs, why the command-line can be an empowering interface. But I think I did a fairly good job at [2].

Also, please excuse the crappy video - the Magit campaign might be the Kickstarter campaign with the least polished video to ever succeed ;-) Luckily a few users have created more informative video tutorials in the past [3].

[1] [https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/campaign- articles/](https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/campaign-articles/) [2] [https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git- interface/#st...](https://emacsair.me/2017/09/01/the-magical-git- interface/#start) [3] [https://magit.vc/screencasts/](https://magit.vc/screencasts/)

<comment><USER4> Would it be possible to do a special distribution for non emacs users? I'm thinking of one download with emacs + magit + CUA mode by default + run magit- status on startup (or whatever else would be appropriate).

So it looks like a standalone git client rather than emacs.

I'm an emacs user, so I would never use this, but it's just a thought.

<comment><USER3> I intend to make Magit usable from the command-line, so `magit diff ...` would be similar to `git diff ...` except that the output would be "actionable", i.e. you can use `s` to stage, `RET` to visit the file/blob [edit: eventually even in an editor other than Emacs] etc. And `q` to return to the command line.

Packaging that up in a fail-safe fashion is a different story, I would like to do that too, but I expect it will be a lot of work and would certainly appreciate help with that. (There are some projects like Lispbox, which might give such an effort a head start.)

At least in the beginning I think "mostly fail-safe" installation instructions will have to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Wow, I had no idea this was happening! You can still back it and apparently get Magit stickers.

Magit is so good that it's actually a reason to use Emacs in the first place.

<comment><USER6> Org mode is the other reason.

<comment><USER7> Personally, I find that Helm is the third (although I'm aware it might not be a popular opinion).

<comment><USER8> If you like Helm, check out Ivy, Counsel, and Swiper.[1] They do many of the things that Helm does, but are a lot faster, less buggy, and have a less unorthodox UI.

Also check out Hydra (by the same author).[2] That's really revolutionized my Emacs experience recently. It's customizable menu system you can add anywhere. I've put all those Emacs functions I keep forgetting exist in to it and now they're all at my fingertips.

[1] - [https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper](https://github.com/abo-abo/swiper)

[2] - [https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra](https://github.com/abo-abo/hydra)

<comment><USER9> > _I 've put all those Emacs functions I keep forgetting exist in to it and > now they're all at my fingertips._

Can you share some of that? I've been meaning to get into Hydra, and would gladly look at some configs.

<comment><USER10> spacemacs has a notion of transient states with menu systems like that that is a set of hydra menus. something like `spc w .` to get into a window transient state that shows you this menu: [https://i.imgur.com/2VADwd9.png](https://i.imgur.com/2VADwd9.png)

or `spc b .` that gives you a bunch of buffer selection functions [https://i.imgur.com/htj6xEn.png](https://i.imgur.com/htj6xEn.png)

quite useful and pretty easy to add to if you have a niche that is not being fulfilled by the standard spacemacs.

a more complex transient state might be for org-agenda

[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/layers/%2B...](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/blob/master/layers/%2Bemacs/org/packages.el#L336)

and a complete list of transient states here by searching for `define- transient-state` that you may feel compelled to copy.

[https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&...](https://github.com/syl20bnr/spacemacs/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=define- transient-state)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> If you're a magit user please keep contributing, so the author can get paid better for his year of work that benefits all of us.

</comment><comment><USER12> (A bit of an aside) This represents an interesting 1-person 'business model': make yourself useful (and known to be useful) working on an open source project. Once established, use kickstarter to gain some full/part-time funding. The amount of pre-kickstarter work involved to get there obviously wouldn't make a good business case in purely utilitarian terms, but it seems like an appealing way to have a chance at getting paid to do some good work.

<comment><USER3> During the past few months I have seen a lot of blog posts by burned out maintainers of open source software. One complaint was that companies expect to be treated as customers without actually paying anything.

My problem is that I am one step further removed from the money - I write "end-user free software", that's even harder to get companies to pay for than an open source library. The Magit users among a company's employees might be among those wasting the least time on version control and make fewer costly mistakes than others, but while that benefits the employer it is not something that is being measured.

So the money has to come from the developers themselves. I am very grateful that so many of them have decided to back my campaign. I also think that the Emacs community is being very nice with its maintainers. The vast majority of users are very respectful when they need your help and they are generally a nice bunch.

I don't know if a second campaign in one years time would succeed though - <USER2> it's unclear whether this could become a successful "1-person business model". I certainly hope it does - not just for me. It would be nice if fewer authors of unique free software projects had to throw in the towel eventually and move on writing "real world software" \- you know things that scale.

I actually did try to get some companies to pay for my work. I hoped that Github, Gitlab, or Atlassian would see this as an opportunity to gain some goodwill in the free software world, but that didn't work out unfortunately.

The Gitlab CEO actually replied within a few hours and seemed like a nice guy (after sending my message but before getting his rejection I had actually booked a flight to go see him at a meetup), but he was not interested in sponsoring my work. Atlassian send me a canned response, and Github did not respond at all.

Nor did its CEO who actually is (was?) an Emacs users who had forked Magit at one point. I can't really blame him for that, the message probably was just drowned in a lot of other email.

But I would have hoped that those companies would show some interest. Maybe now that its users have shown with their wallets that they believe in Magit, maybe now that changes. If you work for one of these companies, or a less known competitor, and have anything to say in such matters, you are certainly welcome to support me now!

<comment><USER12> Yes it's inevitably a pretty hard row to hoe. It's innate to capitalism that people without money as their ideological &/or motivational foundation are rarely going to be in positions of influence. So it will be hard to convince the denatured creatures that are positioned as real influencers to expend their precioussss where they don't need to. And they don't need to in this case.

The bright side is that our world is not (yet) entirely comprised of the morally eviscerated, so, as you say, money for many widely useful things will have to come from 'the developers themselves'. It may not form a sustainable business model, but the temporary expedient is better than nothing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Any recommendation for a good tutorial or introduction article about magit

i use sourcetree, and i like it a lot, but with all the positive talk about magit, i need to try it

i now only use emacs for org-mode and this mode is also by far the best personal todo list i used (i.e. if you dont need any social, sharing features found in web todos, org-mode is the best there is) .. so i know emacs can be very good

<comment><USER14> Magit has an extensive manual that includes a "getting started" section: [https://magit.vc/manual/magit.html#Getting- Started](https://magit.vc/manual/magit.html#Getting-Started)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Very happy for this, Magit has been my git interface for years and the best I have seen.

<comment><USER16> Indeed. And it's real power starts to shine when rebasing interactively, working with diff ranges, etc.

<comment><USER17> What's a diff range? Do you have a link to desrciption/docs so I can read up?

<comment><USER16> some_branch..other_branch

If you've ever compared branches using GitHub, same thing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I've backed the KS, used it every day at work for more than a year, never going back to another git porcelain.

</comment><comment><USER19> Magit is the only git tool worth using other than`git` itself. Only criticism is that it's too easy and fast.

<comment><USER20> I will confess it is sometimes slow over a tramp connection. Though, really, I think that is just my VPN being garbage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've backed the Kickstarter too. I use Magit a lot while making money programming (and even more for hobby projects), so it's only fair to donate. Thank you 'tarsius for all the good work!

</comment><comment><USER21> I was happy to back this and glad to see it get fully funded. I hope others will still contribute as the author will be able to work on Magit for longer.

</comment><comment><USER22> I still think the best Git plugin for Atom is [https://atom.io/packages/atomatigit- robdel12](https://atom.io/packages/atomatigit-robdel12) It keeps the general spirit of magit which... is probably the best git client out there. Fugitive is a close second.

</comment><comment><USER23> Seems pretty difficult to use, almost on the same level as trying to learn to use vim/emacs on 2017, somehow i expected a "poweful (G)UI" rather than a text-based one. Anyone has a good recommendation for a good GUI for GIT, GIT- GUI its a really confusing and jetbrains integrations felt like someone with heavy background on cvs/svn made the interface.

<comment><USER20> What is difficult about it? I don't mean that combatively. Genuinely curious. I'd think a toolbar might help some folks, but I also expect some folks need a different interface.

<comment><USER24> From the example of kickstarter, it seems completely undiscoverable -- things just keep happening and popping up and down, with no obvious indication of how, or why, those things were selected.

It's a demo which I'm sure appeals to emacs users, who are the target, but I couldn't imagine using it as a non-emacs user. I previously tried learning emacs to use OrgMode, and gave up after a couple of days when I failed to master even basic text editing skills.

<comment><USER23> This is my original point, tbh i didn't know about magit before this post, when i first opened the link and find out about it somehow i expected a GUI rather than a text-based app, m sure vim/emacs fans are excited about it but to me, this type of UIs (text-based) feel old and clunky. it's like we were still using norton/midnight commander for handling our files.

<comment> lionel- The point of this kind of UI is that they become an extension of yourself. Saying these UI are old and clunky is exactly like saying a keyboard is old and clunky.

<comment><USER23> Sometimes 2-clicks can be faster than 2x 3-key combo just to make a feature work and also keyboards are old and clunky, ask any k-12 kid today and they will type faster on touch keyboard than a mechanical cherry-mx powered one. People still using text-based only IDEs for productivity are just prolonging the inevitable.

<comment><USER20> Only when training is lacking. And I don't mean this in a derogatory message, either. People that are trained with a keyboard are pretty much guaranteed to be faster than folks that have only learned to work with a mouse. Discover, though, will be much much faster with an exploratory interface. To that end, the mouse will lead to faster discovery in most cases.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Looks interesting but I definitely prefer Tower: [https://www.git- tower.com/mac/](https://www.git-tower.com/mac/)

Best GUI for Mac and they also have a Windows client as well now, just makes life easier and repos easier to manage especially when you have merge conflicts!</comment>


Living and Dying on Airbnb - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/matter/living-and-dying-on-airbnb-6bff8d600c04 <comment><USER2> It is horrible what happened to the author's father. But it is also inevitable. Like a morbid million monkeys mashing away on keyboards, operating at scale in meatspace all but guarantees that someone will die whilst using the service.

In America we have become accustomed to guard rails everywhere, and signs announcing the smallest hazards. This is OK so far as it goes, but perhaps it makes us a bit soft. Here we read about a tree swing that fell down when a full grown man used it. At least 90% [1] of tree swings in America are built without professional engineering or even inspection.

I'm not apologizing for the host in this case, but I do think that some people are open to living in a world where not every conceivable danger has been mitigated. The hard part is finding anyone so willing once a freak accident happens to them.

[1] I'm lowballing this estimate so much that it should be obviously true to anyone who grew up in the non-urban US.

<comment><USER3> You're missing the point. Airbnb does not assume any responsibility when it comes to inspecting the "soundness" of a listed unit, including any means of evaluating very basic things like working fire alarms, interior mold, bed bugs, etc.

I agree that this was something of a freak accident, but that doesn't invalidate the central argument that Airbnb has no real way to ensure even the most basic level of safety of its guests.

<comment><USER4> > freak accident

No, it wasn't. What is more likely: that the tree became structurally unsound overnight, or that it had been like that for a long time, and an inspection had ever been carried out?

<comment><USER5> Limb dropping is not well understood and can happen at any time. There is no inspection that can predict limb drop. No tree rope swing can be assured as safe.

<comment><USER6> This is the core fact.

Assume airbnb has to go inspect a property before any use by a customer. The tire swing passes. Do they come back once a month/year to re-verify the property is safe? Do they say "Once a man was killed by a tire swing so all tire swings must be removed or using one is not covered by insurance". The 2nd scenario is far more likely.

I too feel sorry for the author but the world is not a _perfectly_ safe place. If anything I think it has become SO safe in many 1st world countries that we are incredibly offended and angered by the rare chance death that occurs from incidents like this and we are searching for someone to blame because then it makes it seem preventable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> A bit sad that this is buried off the HN front page.

There is literally a story with 0 votes submitted an hour later directly above it on the third page, and on the front page there are older stories with fewer votes.

[https://twitter.com/newsycombinator](https://twitter.com/newsycombinator) tweets about images of the French revolution with fewer votes, but not this, which seems a bit more relevant to tech, startups, sharing economy etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Beyond the raw and heartbreaking nature of the author's loss, I am amazed that this story was published on Medium with the participation of Medium staffers. At a time when there is so much criticism of the state of tech writing, it's incredible to see this pseudo-journalistic platform for techies by techies be the channel for such a damning critique of a major tech darling like Airbnb.

<comment><USER8> Uh. Are you suggesting that Medium should never publish anything critical of a tech company because they're part of the tech industry? Because that sounds very sinister to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Terrible tragedy. I can definitely see the argument that Airbnb hosts should carry insurance for freak accidents / deaths that occur on their property in cases like this.

<comment><USER3> Yeah the hosts should assume all liability and pay for cost of freak accident insurance...of course not Airbnb!

<comment><USER10> Does a newspaper bear responsibility for classifieds they post?

<comment><USER3> If you're talking about Craigslist...they have a far better warning and flagging system than Airbnb does.

I.e. If you try to buy a car they warn you about possible scams before you can look at the listings. Airbnb certainly does not do enough to proactively warn potential guests that they cannot vet the safety of any unit listed on their website.

<comment><USER10> Ok. Fair enough.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Erk... some of the comments here are brutally rational and ruthlessly logical. I would fully expect this narrative from decisioning AI units, not so quickly out of humanoids, at least not yet.

<comment><USER12> I don't know why your comment annoys me so much, but it does.

What other response could you reasonably expect (or indeed, want)? If there weren't any rational and logical responses to this article, that would be truly saddening.

<comment><USER11> I can help as to why it is annoying. I felt the same way before typing that out, but still wrote that.

I seriously tried to honestly tell myself whether I would have the same opinion and view, was I in the shoes of the author. Would I be able to rationalize it the same way? Would I be able to marginalize that event to a statistical "nonevent"? I don't think I would.

But I assumed that everyone commenting on it had already exercised that viewpoint, and still shared those views. That is what I would expect of perfect decisioning AI units. That's not a bad thing. I just didn't expect it so early.

What do I think should be the response? Um, well, sue the shit out of the host and by extension the provider, or require insurance by the hosts. The alternative would be that this guest's death is reduced to a reputation negative (statistical nonevent).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm on a trip to Taiwan soon... And I booked an Airbnb. Ouch.

<comment><USER14> As jzwink said, you don't have any guarantees with a hotel either ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531693](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10531693) ).

I've had positive experiences every time I rented through AirBnB, the same cannot be said of hotels - I actually trust AirBnB a LOT more than hotels (as long as the property has some reviews).

Maybe in the U.S. things work, but in other countries they don't... I've had the roof leaking BADLY on a hotel in Brazil (with lots of positive reviews in TripAdvisor), all guests' property stolen (also in Brazil), and I never had any recourse. People thinking about starting a lawsuit have never experienced 3rd world judiciary systems... (it can take a lot of time and money for very little returns).

I fully expect you'll have a positive experience with your AirBnB in Taiwan, let's hope so :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Thanks for posting, it was a interesting, and heartbreaking, read.

An AirBnB mission statement of sorts:

 _We also stopped trusting each other. And in doing so, we lost something essential about what it means to be a community. After all, our relationships with people_

I literally threw up in my mouth when reading that. Your company makes money by renting out rooms by skirting hotel laws and you're wrapping yourself in a flag of "we're getting back to trusting one another!" What about the trust of that you bought into a place that isn't a fly by night hotel next door?

<comment><USER16> There's a bit of both going on: AirBnB _is_ used by regular people renting out a spare room of a house or apartment they occupy, which sometimes has a vaguely couchsurfing-but-not-free feel to it. But it's also used by fly-by- night hoteliers running illegal hotels and hostels. And lately, it's also used by legal vacation-rental brokers as a competitor to VRBO/Homeaway/etc.

The marketing materials obviously prefer to emphasize the first, but the second category does a lot of volume (the percentage seems to vary heavily by city). What's most annoying as an occasional user is that it's sometimes very difficult to determine which is which: is this someone's spare room (may actually lead to friendly personal interaction, probably won't cause significant problems for the neighbors), is it one of 50 "spare rooms" that this person is operating as a black-market business (impersonal, likely to be contributing to neighborhood social problems), or is it a VRBO-type rental unit just cross-listed on multiple sites' inventory (impersonal, but at least probably legit)? You can sometimes guess by looking at their other listings, but some people split their operation across a bunch of accounts.

AirBnB could probably make life harder for people running the larger-scale operations if they wanted to, emphasizing the site's focus on lodging rented out by regular people, which could bring the site a bit more in line with the marketing copy. But I don't think that's the likely trajectory.

<comment><USER10> Don't forget the category 1a - regular people renting out a spare room even though it's against terms they themselves rent their flat on. This can sometimes also contribute to the neighbourhood social problems.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: Notifications from different forums - <AUTHOR>

Hi All,
Is there an app/web site/service for the following pain point:
Distribution for an app in a very specific niche requires following various forums and answering questions pertaining to the app. This process is tedious and one has to daily check various forums for such threads. Is there some kind of notification service that would alert you every time there was a new thread created with the keywords say "domain auction" in a varied set of domain related forums (hopefully where you can choose from a set of existing forums)
If not is this a pain point that a lot od you have? <comment><USER2> Have you tried using google alerts?</comment>


Peter Thiel to Donate $1.25M in Support of Donald Trump - <AUTHOR> http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/technology/peter-thiel-donald-j-trump.html <comment><USER2> Amazing. Trump has stated that he wants to appoint supreme court justices who can reverse the legalization of gay marriage, and that he personally opposes it...

Guess Thiel is a single-issue voter?

</comment><comment><USER3> Time for YC to take a stand and cut this guy loose.

<comment><USER4> For context, Peter Thiel is a part-time partner at Y Combinator.

Reference: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Y_Combinator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel#Y_Combinator)

Source: [http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome- peter](http://blog.ycombinator.com/welcome-peter)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> He might as well burn that money. Talk about bad investing.

<comment><USER6> People said the same thing about Brexit just days before it happened.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> What is the point? He must know that Trump won't win.

<comment><USER6> Even Nate Silver says Trump has about a 10% chance of winning. This could be as simple as Thiel expecting to get more than $12.5M worth of value out of the investment if that happens.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> That sounds like a lot, but it's still $23.75M less than he donated to Clinkle.

<comment><USER9> Whatever happened to clinkle? Is it still around?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Kudos for putting the money where the mouth is but I think he is living in a capitalistic illusion or perhaps being stuck between devil and the high sea.

</comment><comment><USER11> He's putting his Gawker money to good use.

<comment><USER12> Thiel spent money on the Gawker suit. He receives nothing. Moreover, the plaintiffs have received nada yet and will probably receive nada after losing the appeal. Thiel will then be out a chunk of change but the Gawker flagship is out of business. Meanwhile Thiel is definitely out.

Stealthily bankrolling the Gawker suit seems like a pointless waste of money on his part. The Trump thing makes him look even more foolish.

<comment><USER13> And Bollea, who was the aggrieved party, is likely to receive nothing, either.

That whole affair left a dirty taste in my mouth. Denton and Gawker were textbook tabloid trash, but so many events pointed to Thiel being a puppet master pulling the strings (and Denton, however scummy, has a right to face his 'accuser'):

\- after securing a win, withdrawing the cause that would have allowed Gawker's insurance to cover the damages (partially), thereby largely removing both Gawker and Denton's ability to pay damages, and;

\- after Denton offered Bollea a share of Gawker, to be used so Bollea would get a share of the proceeds of the sale of Gawker (in light of the above), AND Bollea accepted this, a few words from Thiel-funded lawyers, and this, too, was withdrawn.

\- Bollea settled with the person who actually leaked the tape to Gawker for FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS. And instead got THIRTY THOUSAND TIMES that as an award from Gawker. Who wants to guess if his (or Thiel's, one and the same) lawyers didn't want a settlement?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe he just needed another write off?

</comment><comment><USER15> PG doesn't get to publicly disavow Trump AND keep this guy on the YC board. Which is it going to be?

<comment><USER16> _" PG doesn't get to publicly disavow Trump AND keep this guy on the YC board."_

Why not? People who disagree can do business and even be friends.

<comment><USER17> > even be friends.

Unless you're voting for Trump. In that case get out of here you deplorable racist bigot!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I upvoted the story and then it got removed. Then I submitted it myself and it got flagged and killed despite getting many points. Then it was submitted again, made the front page, but just got removed from the front page... What's going on?

<comment><USER10> Flagged again. Oh boy!

<comment><USER9> Hackernews hates politics posts on the front page. They don't want to be seen as partisan.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Nothing like groupthink and a little dismissive condescension to make for discourse.

</comment><comment><USER20> Good to see Thiel standing against corruption. As an Indian I am scared of Clinton.</comment>


Why Do Calculators Have a Headphone Jack? - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/W_mZ7smIz3U <comment><USER2> Its usually the older and cheaper calculators that have a jack.

They're not a 'headphone' jack but a charger for rechargeable batteries or a battery-replacement source of electricity. Most of the time they are the narrower 2.5mm rather than a 3.5mm socket. I suppose that way back then, the headphone-style sockets were cheaper and more readily available than the pin- and-sleeve charging sockets we use today.

I remember having a simple four-function battery calculator back in the early 1970s that cost $40 then (probably about $350 equivalent today) which had one of those 2.5mm sockets as a 6volt electricity source.

This was before LED and liquid-crystal displays were cheaply available. So they used a gas-discharge display which was both expensive and power-hungry. A set of batteries would only last about six hours. [http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/VFD_3.jpg](http://www.vintagecalculators.com/assets/images/VFD_3.jpg)</comment>