FPGA and Xeon combined in one socket - <AUTHOR> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/18/intel_fpga_custom_chip/ <comment><USER2> The barrier to adoption of FPGAs is not so much the hardware issue as the toolchain issue. The toolchains are closed, frequently windows-only, slow, and not friendly to newbies.

(Not that shader language or CUDA is _that_ accessible, but you can play with shaders in a browser now. The time to "hello world" or equivalent isn't too bad)

<comment><USER3> I argue the barrier to FPGA adoption is the actual use-case, not the tools. People who need them can use the tools just fine. FPGA designers are not idiots. They do not walk around scratching their heads wondering, "how come nobody is using our products? If only they were easier to use!" There is a new open-source attempt at replacing imcumbent tools bi-annually begun and dropped.

The use cases for FPGAs are a much harder impediment to adoption. Many people get "FPGA boners" when they even hear the word, fancying themselves "chip designers," but practical use cases are much rarer. As evidence, notice they predominate in the military world, where budget is less of an issue than the commercial world.

The technical issue with FPGAs is that they are still one level abstracted from any CPU. They are only valuable in problems where some algorithm or task can be done with specific logic more quickly than the CPU, given 1. the performance hit of reduced real estate and 2. reduced clock speed relative to a CPU and 3. more money than a CPU.

Further diminishing their value is that any function important enough to require an FPGA can more economically get absorbed into the nearest silicon. For example, consider the serial/deserial coding of audio/video codecs. That used to be done in FGPAs, but got moved into a standard bus (SPI) and moved into codecs and CPUs.

Because of this rarity, experienced engineers know that when an FPGA is introduced to the problem in practical reality, _it 's a temporary solution_ (most often to make time-to-market). This confers a degree of honor which is why people get so emotionally-aroused about FPGAs.

You can bet though, that if whatever search function Microsoft is running on those FPGAs proves to be useful, it will be soon absorbed into a more economical form, such as an ASIC, or, more likely, additional instructions to the CPU.

Really, installs on 1,600 servers such as this article reports, is not that impressive and certainly only a prototypical rollout.

<comment><USER4> Ok, I'll take the counter argument.

FPGAs promise the designer 'arbitrary logic' and deliver 'a place others sell into.'

I disagree that FPGA experts "like" the tools they are given, they tolerate them. One of my friends worked at Xilinx for 15 years and understood this all too well. He felt the leading cause of the problem was that the tools group was a P&L center, they needed to turn a profit in order to exist. They got that profit by charging high prices for the tools and high prices for support. His argument was that 'easier' tools cut into support revenue. When I've had high level (E-level, but not C-level) discussions with Xilinx and Altera there has been a lot of acknowledgement about the 'difficulty of getting up to speed' on the tool chain and many free hours of consulting are offered. From a business engagement point of view, making hard to use tools and then "giving away" thousands of dollars of free consulting to the customer to gain their support seems to work well. The customer feels supported, and stops wondering why if the have consultants around for free those consultants wouldn't just make the tools more straight forward to use and available on a wider variety of platforms.

But the biggest thing has always been intellectual property. You buy an STM32F4 and it has an Ethernet Mac on it (using Synopsis IP as evidenced by the note in the documentation), you pay $8 for the microprocessor, work around the bugs, and get it running. If you buy an FPGA, lets say a Spartan 3E, you pay $18 for the chip, and if you want to use that Synopsis Ethernet MAC?[1] $25,000 for the HDL source to add to our project $10,000 if you are ok with just the EDIF output which can be fed into a place-and-route back end. Oh and some royalty if you ship it on a product you are selling.

The various places that have been accumulating 'open' IP such as Open Cores ([http://opencores.org/)have](http://opencores.org/\)have) been really helpful for this but it really needs a different pricing model I suspect. A lot of HDL is where OS source was back at the turn of the century (locked down and expensive).

[1] I did this particular exercise in 2005 when I was designing a network attached memory device ([https://www.google.com/patents/US20060218362](https://www.google.com/patents/US20060218362)) and was appalled at the extortionate pricing.

<comment><USER5> > _From a business engagement point of view, making hard to use tools and then > "giving away" thousands of dollars of free consulting to the customer to > gain their support seems to work well._

To me, the entire recent history of computer industry (well, all of it is recent BTW) shows that, if you want your technology to become mass-adopted, you need to make it easier for the little guy to get in the game. The high school kid tinkering with stuff in the parents' basement; the proverbial starving student. That's how x86 crushed RISC; that's how Linux became prominent; that's how Arduino became the most popular micro-con platform (despite more clever things being available).

You make the learning curve nice and gentle, and you draw into your ranks all the unwashed masses out there. In time, out of those ranks the next tech leaders will emerge.

<comment><USER4> I don't disagree, and I suggested as much to the Xilinx folks (well their EVP of marketing at the time) that if they just added $0.25 to the price per chip they could fund the entire tools effort with that 'tax' and since they would be 'giving away' the tools they could re-task all of the compliance guys who were insuring that licenses worked or didn't work into building useful features.

Their counter is of course that they have customers who sweat the $0.25 difference in price. (which I understand but $10,000 in tools and $15,000 in consulting a year is a hundred thousand chips. Which they say "oh at that volume we would wave the tooling cost." And that got me back to your point of "You already have their design win, why give them free tools? Why not give free tools who have yet to commit to your architecture?"

It is a very frustrating conversation to have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This gets even bigger if they throw their IP muscle behind it like they do with ICC. If you can get (for pay or free) fast matrix multiply, FFT, crypto, etc cores for the FPGA you will see even faster adoption.

If they're clever enough to make some of those IP cores available to say MATLAB adoption will be faster still.

Nothing sells hardware easier than "do no extra work but spend another couple of grand and see your application speed up significantly"

<comment><USER7> Can you elaborate on what you're trying to say?

MATLAB already have MATLAB->HDL, which works very well. We have a team that uses it exclusively for FPGA programming.

<comment><USER6> MATLAB will recognize if you've got FFTW or ATLAS or other highly tuned numerical libraries installed. And MATLAB will then use them whenever possible.

If Intel does a good enough job of providing a collection of compute kernels and the surrounding CPU libraries to make using them roughly as "easy" as CUDA then a lot of people will pick that up.

I don't have any hard numbers but I would suspect that there are a great many more people who use MATLAB on a CPU than those who do MATLAB->HDL. So what I'm speculating about is that Intel might support those folks who use MATLAB on a CPU for more general purpose things.

Does that make more sense?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> "Intel reveals its FrankenChip ARM killer: one FPGA and one Xeon IN ONE SOCKET

Scattered reports of maniacal cackling amid driving rain and lightning at Chipzilla's lab"

Is this just a Register thing, or do all UK rags use this kind of unprofessional hyperbole? It's _literally_ the most annoying thing in the world.

<comment><USER9> The Register is 50% satire and 50% tech news. Don't take it seriously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is their competition: [http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon- devices/soc/zynq-7000...](http://www.xilinx.com/products/silicon- devices/soc/zynq-7000/silicon-devices/index.htm)

Zynq has been out and working in industry for a couple years now.

<comment><USER11> I don't know how much competition they're giving Xilinx, but Altera is doing the same thing with the same high performance ARM core: [http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/soc- fpga/overview/pr...](http://www.altera.com/devices/processor/soc- fpga/overview/proc-soc-fpga.html) As the fine article notes, Intel is now doing some fabbing for Altera.

I've gotten the impression that putting a general purpose CPU in the corner of an FPGA was a pretty standard thing.

One of the things that should differentiate this new effort from Intel is FPGA " _direct access to the Xeon cache hierachy and system memory_ " per " _general manager of Intel 's data center group, Diane Bryant_".

<comment><USER10> Direct cache access sounds cool, but I'm sort of under the impression that Altera and Intel are playing catchup with the FPGA SoC idea. I believe Xilinx was the first mover by a large margin, though I could be wrong. That doesn't mean Xilinx's Zynq will always be the best product, but it is already for sale right now, is an established product, and works well.

<comment><USER12> FPGAs with CPU cores have been around for over a decade. The difference is that in the past, the industry has mostly focused on the PowerPC core. Now that ARM has such tremendous popularity, it makes sense to focus on it.

<comment><USER13> It made sense for Xilinx to use PowerPC in the past, the chips were being fabbed by IBM.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I have always wanted to learn Verilog. However, I find it quite different from the typical programming language such as c or java. What is the best way for someone who has programming experience to learn Verilog?

<comment><USER15> The first thing to know is that Verilog is not a programming language. It is a hardware description language. This may sound picky, but it fundamentally changes the way you need to think about using the language. With Verilog/VHDL/HDL, you describe a circuit, which requires very different thinking to programming languages where you describe a sequence of instructions.

The other thing to know is that HDL languages are mostly the domain of electrical engineers and hence have suffered a lack of any "computer science" in them. The languages and all of the tools are clunky and reminiscent of 1970/1980's style programming when CS and EE diverged. Hence, do not expect to find decent online tutorials or freeware source code available. It's all locked up and proprietary as with all other EE tools.

The best place is to start with a text book, this one ([http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Digital-Logic-Verilog- Des...](http://www.amazon.com/Fundamentals-Digital-Logic-Verilog- Design/dp/0073380547/)) is a nice introduction to digital design with examples from Verilog.

Personally I prefer VHDL, and this fantastic introduction ([http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Design-VHDL-Volnei- Pedroni/dp/...](http://www.amazon.com/Circuit-Design-VHDL-Volnei- Pedroni/dp/0262162245/))

To make either of these useful, you will need a hardware platform and some tools to play with. The DE1/2 is a reasonably priced entry board with plenty of lights, switches and peripherals to play with at a reasonable cost and is well matched with the text books above.

[http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi- bin/page/archive.pl?Language=E...](http://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi- bin/page/archive.pl?Language=English&CategoryNo=165&No=83)

<comment><USER16> 1\. I recommend that a newbie get a DE0 nano board. It's much cheaper than DE1/DE2 and has fun sensors like an accelerometer on it which can lead to pretty cool applications. I designed a quadcopter control system entirely on the DE0, using a NIOS II based Qsys system. The academic price is only $59: [https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi- bin/page/archive.pl?No=593](https://www.terasic.com.tw/cgi- bin/page/archive.pl?No=593)

2\. Fun fact: the cover of the Fundamentals of Digital Logic book has Chess on it because the author, Zvonko Vranesic, is not only an father in the FPGA/CAD industry, he is also an International Chess master. Also, he's quite good at ping pong for being 76 :(

<comment><USER17> Depends what you're doing -- DE0 Nano is nice for integrating into larger projects, but if you want to say implement a little CPU and peripherals, something like the plain 'ol DE0 is only slightly more expensive and has a bunch of buttons/switches/LEDs/7-seg-displays for just-getting-started projects as well as handy IO interfaces like VGA, PS2 mouse/keyboard, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This may be huge. People will use the FPGA as they use the GPU now, but FPGA has the potential to greatly reduce the programming complexity associated with GPUs.

In the end, the success will boil down to how easy the development is, and how well designed the libraries will be - if the framwork will be capable to automatically reconfigure the hardware to offload CPU-intensive tasks, this has high tech potential for widespread adoption, not just datacenter-wise.

<comment><USER14> Can you elaborate on how FPGA has the potential to reduce programming complexity associated with GPUs? I personally think it is harder to program with Verilog than to program using CUDA.

<comment><USER19> Well it's probably easier to program CUDA for embarassingly parallel tasks, or other tasks well-suited to CUDA, but FPGAs might make certain tasks easier because of their flexibility.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If I recall correctly, Intel tried a few years ago to sell a system-on-chip combining an Atom CPU with a FPGA from Altera. I believe it didn't work very well, especially with regards to communication and synchronization between the two cores.

<comment><USER15> It didn't work very well, but there is a good reason: Nobody wanted a slow and comparatively low performance chip paired with a small FPGA connected via a (slow) PCI-express connect. There are hundreds of big FPGA boards with PCIe connectors that can be tied to big CPUs already. It was a non-product from the get-go.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Hmm, this might have implications for digital currencies and their mining.

<comment><USER15> Unlikely. Custom built Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) (i.e. bitcoin mining chips - e.g [http://www.butterflylabs.com/](http://www.butterflylabs.com/)) will always be faster than FPGAs (which are comparatively slow) and CPUs (which are fast, but general).

<comment><USER22> Except that every other months or so sees the introduction of a new proof-of- work system that won't have ASICs for years, if ever. FPGAs can easily outperform the CPU/GPU competition on any alt-coin using such proof-of-work.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Sold! Seriously. This is what I wanted for the last two decades.

</comment><comment><USER24> A good time to know Verilog.

</comment><comment><USER25> Sounds like a bit of a gimmick.

FPGAs are typically used in ASIC development to emulate the ASIC being developed. I've seen boards with 20 FPGAs emulate an ASIC design at <~1/10th of the speed at >>x10 power. While FPGAs are programmable hardware they are far less efficient than custom hardware for various reasons. Naturally ASIC emluation is an application where FPGAs have a very large advantage over software... At volume they're also a lot more expensive and good tools are also _very_ expensive (virtually no mass produced commercial product uses FPGAs). Now obviously if the FPGA is inside the Xeon you're not really paying much more for it (except you lose whatever other function could be crammed in there).

Companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google have enough servers to make a custom block inside Intel's CPU more attractive than an FPGA in terms of price/power/performance (and they can get that from ARM vendors which is probably scaring Intel).

CPU vendors have spent the last several decades moving more and more applications that used to be in the realm of custom hardware to the realm of software. There are certainly niches of highly parallelizable operations but a lot of general purpose compute is very well served by CPUs (and a lot of it is often memory bandwidth bound, not compute bound). Some of these niches have already been semi-filled through GPUs, special instructions etc.

The FPGA on the Xeon is almost certainly not going to have access to all the same interfaces that either a GPU or the CPU has and is only going to be useful for a relatively narrow range of applications.

I think what's going on here is that as the process size goes down simply cramming more and more cores into the chip makes less and less sense, i.e. things don't scale linearly in general. So the first thing we see is cramming a GPU in there which eventually also doesn't scale (and also isn't really a server thing). Now they basically have extra space and don't really know what to put in it. Also each of the current blocks (GPU, CPU) are so complicated that trying to evolve them is very expensive.

EDIT: Just to explain a little where I'm coming from here. I worked for a startup designing an ASIC where FPGAs were used to validate the ASIC design. I also worked on commercial products that included FPGAs for custom functions where the volume was not high enough to justify an ASIC and the problem couldn't be solved by software. I worked with DSPs, CPUs, various forms of programmable logic, SoCs with lots of different HW blocks etc. over a long long time so I'm trying to share some of my observations... If you think they're absolutely wrong I'd be happy to debate them.

EDIT2: Re-reading what I wrote it may sound like I am saying I am an ASIC designer. I'm not. I'm a software developer who has dabbled in hardware design and has worked in hardware design environments (i.e. the startup I worked for was designing ASICs but I was mostly working on related software).

<comment><USER26> FPGAs are terrible at emulating ASICs, but CPUs are even worse, yet FPGAs do excel at certain problems that can be expressed as programmable logic that operates in a massively parallel manner.

What if the Intel FPGA did have access to the same resources as a GPU? This isn't inconceivable, it's in the same socket as the CPU.

This gives you the ability to implement specialized algorithms related to compression, encryption, or stream manipulation in a manner that's way more flexible than a GPU can provide, and way more parallel than a CPU can handle.

<comment><USER27> _What if the Intel FPGA did have access to the same resources as a GPU? This isn 't inconceivable, it's in the same socket as the CPU._

An FPGA that competes with a modern GPU would probably cost in the neighborhood of US $50,000 per chip.

<comment><USER26> In a general sense, yes, but not in very narrow problems where the GPU would stumble and flail because of architectural limitations that would prevent it from fully applying itself.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


America's once magical, now mundane love affair with cars - <AUTHOR> http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/style/2015/09/02/americas-fading-car-culture/?tid=sm_tw <comment><USER2> I think it's good to keep in mind that America's "love affair" was more of an arranged relationship [1]. Maybe this is exaggeration, but I can't help but wonder what the american cultural landscape would look like today without the early intense lobbying and power-plays made by those selling and manufacturing the cars... Or perhaps it was just the case that the time of automobile was ripe (compared other transit) and bound to be picked by _someone_.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_conspiracy)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article touched on smartphones, but I think missed a point - a huge part of the recent "acceptability" of public transport is that people have got something to do during their trip. In fact I kind of get the feeling people almost welcome bus/train trips now as a chance to get in some uninterrupted "phone time"! Previously, unless you brought a book, riding public transport meant a long look out the window. I think that's huge.

<comment><USER4> It still does mean this on the US public transportation crown jewel, the NYC subway, as there's no Internet in the tunnels. So, I still do bring a book or headphones. However, I think you still make a valid point: I certainly value the stretch of forced "chill out" time in the middle of a city that never seems to let up, whereas driving I much more often find to be stressful and aggravating (in cities at least).

<comment><USER5> It's kind of funny, more at the end of the day, and in my days off, I really enjoy driving.. even some heavy traffic doesn't phase me... It's when I'm trying to get somewhere by a certain time that it gets stressful...

The past couple years I've taken a 7-10 day road trip across part of the country... It's been very fun and relaxing. I'd much rather drive in a relatively comfortable car enjoying the scenery than flying, but to each their own.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think the self driving car will finally be the death of the car. What's the point of owning a car, if you don't drive it? You are put out of control, the fun is gone, so why pay for it instead of using public transport? (I write this from a european perspective, where public transport is available).

The only thing I think will make it worth while is this: I drove the car (I drove!) to my destination, get out and then I can tell the car: 'find a parking'.

Owning a car stopped being fun 20 years ago (at least). Today, in a big city, it only enhances the stress level. So as a consequence it makes sense not to own one (let alone the costs). And it also makes sense that people buy vintage cars. This can be fun, if you like to tinker and don't have to rely on this thing to bring you somewhere and in time.

<comment><USER7> Out of curiosity, when is the last time you actually had fun driving your car? I live in California where 99% of my driving is dealing with traffic and road hazards. The last time I had fun behind the wheel was when I went to New Zealand on vacation. I suspect that most people in major metropolitan areas would have more fun browsing facebook on their daily commutes than they actually do driving.

<comment><USER6> "when is the last time you actually had fun driving your car"

I usually have fun looking forward to driving a longer distance. Once I am in the car, stuck in the usual jam while trying to leave the city, the fun is gone. And it doesn't come back when the road finally gets empty late in the evening.

I used to own a convertible. It was fun using it on summer evenings and nights, in the countryside.

<comment><USER7> I'd say that matches a lot of people's experiences as well. I personally think we'll see "driving" split into two categories: your regular errands and commute you offload to your self-driving car. Your "fun" driving you plan ahead for and go to designated areas/roads where you can take the wheel and drive to your heart's content (without endangering anyone).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> First a nit: 'Now, he says, "cars have become virtual reality boxes," infantilizing the driver. BMW even pipes phony engine noises through its cars' sound systems...' Chevy and Ford do this too with their trucks at least.

Second: 16 years ago I chose a car loan instead of a student loan. I was living in a small town and it was a ticket out. It was key to getting a higher paying job as employers required the mobility. In areas with poor or nonexistent transit, this is still the case. I live in Toronto now, sold my car 2 years ago, walk to work and telecommute and use car sharing. Why? Roads are too congested (I consider commuting in rush our soul destroying), it is so easy to rent a car today compared to 20 years ago and the big one: Insurance. It is prohibitively expensive and I have a perfect driving record. I now rent out my parking stall, and have more money available to travel and I no longer have expensive surprise costs for car repairs.

These people are describing a hobby and the author seems to have missed that.

<comment><USER9> > Roads are too congested (I consider commuting in rush our soul destroying)

Drive a motorcycle and filter past all the idling losers. Best feeling in the world :D

<comment><USER10> Except in some places, this is illegal. And because other drivers know that, doing it is fraught with danger.

<comment><USER9> It's even more fun when it's illegal. Loser cagers get so mad they look like they're about to burst a vein in their heads.

<comment><USER10> I'd like a response to the last part of my statement. You do this in my state, and some other driver 'accidentally' cuts you off, they're not liable because you shouldn't have been there and they had no [legal] expectation that a two wheeled vehicle _would_ be there. They get off, you're injured and out a whole motorcycle, and your insurance is paying for the damage to their vehicle.

<comment><USER9> Never seen it happen, and even if it did it would be worth it for the overall time savings ($50/h * 50 minutes every work day = $9,000 a year in time savings).

I would also be very surprised if they're not liable. What if I had been a bicycle? It's not hard to do reasonably safely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > "People talk about the open road," she says, "but in my experience, the road > is tolls and traffic cameras."

There was a time when if I was having a bad day I'd hit up the highway, roll down the windows, open up the throttle and just drive for an hour. The sound of the engine, some wind in your face, isolation and freedom.

Now there are speed cameras everywhere and everyone's driving 25mph under the speed limit. There is no open road, only frustration.

They complain that our relationship with cars has become very utilitarian... But that's what our culture has made it. There will be no risk taking. There will be no excessive pollution. There will be no fun.

</comment><comment><USER12> Believe it or not, I don't use a car (and never have) in the city where I live. You may call me a troglodyte, but I call it "ahead of my time". I get around without the noise, the exhaust, the waste of space and the gratuitous danger.

<comment><USER13> Maybe it's a generational thing, but I know several people that have never bothered to learn to drive. When I grew up in the UK, passing your driving test was an important rite of passage.

I can understand never owning a car, but never learning to drive feels a bit like never learning to swim.

<comment><USER14> > I can understand never owning a car, but never learning to drive feels a bit > like never learning to swim.

The difference being you don't need a license to swim. I can drive a car ( and agricultural tractor ) but I'm not licensed to do so on the public highway. It simply isn't worth the cost to me.

In my part of the UK one must take lessons with 'approved' i.e expensive state-vetted instructors as well as computer-based testing. Then hire of a car for the actual practical lesson, plus its cost. All-in here it costs about £3,000 to receive a license in your hand.

And then you can't actually drive on the highway without some form of insurance, starting at around £900 liability-only for new drivers.

Learning to swim cost me around £90.

<comment><USER15> It shouldn't cost anything like £3,000. I finally got around to learning to drive 3 years ago as I was moving to the US. All in all it cost maybe £600.

Driving license: £50 Theory test: £25 Practical test: £62 20 lessons @ £20/hour: £400.

Look for an independent instructor, they're cheaper and usually have more experience than the ones in the big chain driving schools.

Even if you don't plan to own a car straight away, a few years down the line you'll find your insurance is cheaper just because you've held your license for several years.

<comment><USER16> [http://www.moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/blog/the- cost-...](http://www.moneysupermarket.com/car-insurance/blog/the-cost-of- learning-to-drive/)

> The average cost of a driving lesson is now £24, and with the DSA (Driving > Standards Agency) recommending 47 hours of tuition under the supervision of > a professional instructor, the total cost of lessons for a learner will be > £1,128.21 Mar 2013

That's not a bare knuckle minimum, but even this is less than the additional suggested 22 hours private practice (and the learner needs to be insured).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm not a car connoisseur like the guys in the article, but I appreciate beautiful cars. I'm an 'old' Millennial though... I drive a 2011 Synergy Green Camaro 2SS. I got my license as soon as I turned 16. I've always lived in smaller towns/cities though, so public transportation is not a very useful thing and having a car is still very important. I just like the freedom it provides though as well. I don't fit the 'Millennial' mold though in lots of other ways, so I'm probably just an outlier.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is from the Washington Post. If it were from the L.A. Times, maybe it'd carry some weight with me. Having grown up in south Texas and Arizona and then, post college, moved to NYC and now Baltimore, I can attest to an enormous culture divide in car culture between, at least in my experience, the two regions.

One, it's just not practical to do without a car in the southwest. In many places, Lyft style services aren't a viable, reliable option for things like driving yourself and your sisters to school every day and then a part-time job after. I've yet to come across a smartphone that has this functionality. And, I'm going to risk making a sweeping generalization here, the stereotypical Texan parent would look at you sideways if you suggested they be your full- time chauffeur.

Two, car culture in the southwest is not just about the classics. I mean, everyone loves a classic, but there is a certain love reserved for your beater, for the freedom it affords you, and the memories you end up associating with it. One of my best friends had a '68 Mustang, and it was all beat to hell. There was a hole rusted through the floor in the back that was perfect for emptying any beverage should the need suddenly arise. My other friend in our clique had a Dogde Neon. And I had a wood paneled, 1980's station wagon, clearly nicknamed "The Woody". Now, the guy in the Mustang clearly had the coolest vehicle, but the guy in the Neon was the most fun to be in the passenger seat with, and I was the only one with a car that basically had a twin bed in the back for making out in. It was high school, and we placed emphasis on the fun times, not the cars, and the cars ended up embed with those memories such that I'd never have traded "The Woody" for the Mustang.

Third, road trips. Honestly, people on the east coast seam to just not be as familiar with this concept. And, if I have to explain it, well, you won't understand it. But, some highlights... Calling parents from a pay phone to ask permission to borrow car for road trip, but, calling from California. Being tailgated through three states because we pissed off some guy when passing him in Florida, and hoping we didn't run out of gas before he did, or New Orleans. Meeting a person from the UK in San Diego, and them taking unplanned road trip to San Fran, then back to Phienix, AZ. Taking a photo of the speed gauge cause your going 110 mph, the laughing your ass off cause you somehow didn't notice the fuel needle was deep into E, and now you're hitch hiking to a gas station in the middle of nowhere on I-8. The calming emerald glow of an oil refinery in the middle of a cool South Texas night, windows down, because it's pretty much always a road trip going anywhere in Texas. Round trip from Tucson, Az to Charleston, S.C to pick up a friend just getting out of the military, making sure to stop to bar-b-q on the beach any chance we could afford. I could go on.

Phones will not replace that. Phones will not replace tailgating. Parents are not a substitute for a drivers license. Public transit could never have provided me such memories. And I'm saying all this as a fierce advocate of bike commuting and public transit. Gas cars will certainly go the way of hitchhiking, but America is too big and has too many amazing pockets of culture and adventure for the car, or whatever fills its role in the future, not to have a place in our lives that is far, far from mundane.

<comment><USER7> I'll over some rebuttals to your points:

Which parts of Texas/Arizona are we talking about? Remember, over 70% of Americans lived in Urbanized Areas (high density metro areas) in 2010, and that number is growing year over year [1]. There is definitely a cultural divide between these areas and more open/spacious areas with respect to cars, but I think it's easy to make the case that for the large majority of Americans (especially those in younger demographics), self-driving cars will be a relief.

I'm pretty sure there is a strong generational divide with respect to car love. I can't quite pin down where the split is, but I suspect that somewhere between Gen X and Gen Y, a lot of people stopped having a fondness for their cars in the way that you're expressing. That's not to say there aren't car lovers/gear heads in younger generations, but a lot of younger drivers just don't see cars as major status symbols, or see their own cars as more than commodities.

I'm with you on road trips. That's one of the great american vacations, and there are a lot of beautiful things to see from the road. I think what we'll see is services pop up that specifically cater to this market, with unlimited miles and specialized routes/options that let you stop anywhere you want along the way.

[1] [https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/ua/urban- rural-2010.htm...](https://www.census.gov/geo/reference/ua/urban- rural-2010.html)

<comment><USER19> They did stop making cars that could be considered in any way stylish or beautiful. It doesn't help that modern cars are almost impossible to work on for anything but trivial repairs, now that they are so complex and computerized. In high school, I drove an old beater of a '85 F150, which was almost completely electro-mechanical. With a little know-how, a high-lift jack, and a basic set of mechanics tools, you could take the entire thing apart to the frame and put it back together. Many modern cars, you can't even change the oil without taking it to a garage with factory certified technicians. My '07 F150, you can't even change the spark plugs without taking half the engine apart, and then you need to have the proprietary computer system to re-calibrate the electronic timing.

<comment><USER20> My 2015 wrangler seems to use the same torx screw for almost everything there is, and the best part is it came with a nice torx driver wrench with several heads in a little canvas tool kit lol.

I think you have to shop around to find cars that are easy to work on, but it's not impossible. On my chrysler 300 the spark plugs are right on top of the engine lol

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> It is weird they always mention Linus Torvald's car in American interviews. We frequently learn it is a German brand, one preferred by European taxi drivers and drug pushers and with somekind of personalized license plate. Did he have a car in Finland, or did he even have a driver's license? -- Nobody cared.

</comment><comment><USER9> > Plus, there's the sky-high cost of car insurance, an average of $1,800 a > year in the Washington area and $1,100 nationwide.

Haha that's nothing. I paid $4600 liability-only on my first car in Waterloo, ON, Canada. Could have taken taxis everywhere for half that but I was young and wanted to show off :P

</comment><comment><USER22> The article mentions a decline in teeneger licenses. A big part of this is graduated licensing programs that most (all?) states introduced. Why get a license if you can only effectively use it to get to/from school?</comment>


Other good examples of lightweight, character-based interfaces like HN's? - <AUTHOR> What are some other good, fast ascii-type interfaces out there in production? <comment><USER2> [https://www.metafilter.com/](https://www.metafilter.com/)</comment>


Show HN: HackerMint, a mobile-friendly infinite-scrolling view of Hacker News - <AUTHOR> http://hackermint.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I made this because of my personal need for consuming HN on the go. The current mobile friendly implementations of HN are very text heavy and I wanted something visual where I can scan stories and see if they are interesting.

HackerMint shows stories with >10 points and extracts relevant image or takes a screenshot, along with first 160 characters on the page. This allows for facebook feed style scrolling of HN stories on the go.

Hacker Mint is updated every 30 minutes with fresh stories.

Hope you like it. If you have any feedback, please let me know.</comment>


From pecan pralines to 'dots' as currency: how the prison economy works - <AUTHOR> https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/30/prison-economy-informal-markets-alternative-currencies <comment></comment>


GPS remains active on Airplane Mode on iOS 8.3+ - <AUTHOR> https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204234

<comment><AUTHOR> I like hiking and recording tracks using Gaia GPS, but have always been annoyed that GPS would be turned off when using airplane mode on my iPhone. Apparently Apple updated iOS to keep GPS active in 8.3 which is big news in terms of maximizing battery life while out of range of cell towers.</comment>


Moody's Cuts Sony Rating to One Notch Above Junk - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2012/11/09/technology/09reuters-sony-downgrade.html?ref=technology&_r=1& <comment><USER2> I have boycotted Sony products ever since the root kit fiasco on their music CD's. It was tough at the time but more and more their offerings have become irrelevant. They always favored proprietary storage and accessory technologies in which the charged significantly for. Personally I think the time for anti- consumer companies to reap what they have sewn is long over due and I think Sony is the first of many that once the magic stops, people are no longer willing to tolerate their lack of consumer advocacy.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's a little harsh given the reality. While consumer demand for their products is shrinking. Consumer demand for most products are shrinking. They still have one of the best selling games systems in the world. They have deep roots in audio and visual media entertainment as well as the fact that they're likely to be the big winners of the demise of HTC. Don't get me wrong, Samsung will take the majority share of the former HTC customers, but Sony will get a real shot in the arm giving them the opportunity to really move into modern day mobile devices.</comment>


Why I only work with startups - <AUTHOR> http://swizec.com/blog/why-i-only-work-with-startups/swizec/2936 <comment><USER2> I know it's an easy analogy to reach for, but I wish that writers would think twice before comparing some trivial inconvenience to being raped. You may have just ruined the morning of a survivor of sexual assault.

There are dozens of other things you could say that would have the same rhetorical effect without trivializing a severe problem, and it's beyond impolite not to. All you have to do is write "Nonstartups are just horrible to work with, like standing in front of an automatic baseball pitching machine."

<comment><USER3> This should not be the top comment. It should be somewhere near the bottom of this page in light gray. It has nothing to do with the article and is completely off-topic. We should not pussy-foot around worrying about whether someone may be reminded of something that was traumatic in their lives because you mentioned a word.

HN has determined that this is the most insightful thing you need to know about the article: That the guy used the word rape.

<comment><USER4> Clearly, since it IS the top comment, HN as a whole disagrees with you.

I believe that discussion about appropriate language and communication styles is very applicable to HN. We're trying to be a better, more insightful discussion board with higher quality than other sites. Better writing is one way to do that, so it seem like a perfect discussion point.

<comment><USER3> Nope. Some portion of HN disagrees with me, sure. There are also people who use "this." and who make pun threads. Just because there's some people doing it that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do, that it's right for HN, that it adds to the discussion, or that I'm wrong for not liking it.

Discussion about appropriate language and communication styles is indeed applicable to HN. And when an article about that gets up-voted we're all free to discuss our feelings on the topic.

<comment><USER5> HN community standards treat meta-commentary of this sort as _almost always_ on topic and appropriate.

Since the top comment was insightful and correct, and may be even more valuable than the original article, it's been upvoted.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I guess I'd need to know the definition of 'startup'. It's a word so abused these days many people consider themselves a 'startup' when it's just a guy and an idea.

Do you mean someone with $x in funding and a revenue stream looking to grow?

Do you mean someone with an idea who works on it at night?

Do you mean "facebook" (which some people will continue to consider a 'startup' until they IPO)?

The only problems I faced with doing govt work so far is the paperwork. It _seems_ convoluted, but really isn't generally that much more than a contract any mid-size company might require.

Many smaller companies (and what we'd now call 'startups') I've worked with give me the "gosh, we just spent $42k on this other company and they weren't any good and now we don't have any budget, but if you do this work for us we'll pay you back later with some more work or great referrals!". That's the situation I used to run in to more often than not. That tended not to happen with larger companies. Well, the wasting of money might have happened, but they'd find money in some budget to engage me if they wanted me.

</comment><comment><USER7> I would say the only startup worth working on is your own.

Working at someone else's startup is a recipe for getting exploited - overworked and underpaid. And the worst thing about it is that it's all couched in an atmosphere of guilt trips and taking-it-for-the-team.

Perhaps there are exceptions. I just haven't seen any. I'd rather work for The Man in my day job in a cold corporate environment where everything is explicit from the get-go, get well paid for it and crank out code for my own startup in my free time.

<comment><USER8> As a consultant/freelancer, the relationship is often very different then employer-to-employee. If you're billing hourly then long hours directly relate to large invoices. You're in the driver's seat for how much you want to work.

You can get a lot of the great benefits of startup work (cool people, small teams, fast pace) and avoid a lot of the pitfalls (low salary, worthless equity, guilt trips).

<comment><USER9> without giving out hard numbers (unless you want to), what is the average comparative rate that a startup pays compared to a larger company?

Are they on the same pay scale or do they pay less since it's a "startup" a money can be tight

<comment><AUTHOR> For me personally I have managed to get higher hourly rates from startups than larger companies. Simply because they actually value me and my work and can see it directly reflected on their bottom line.

I could probably get better rates at bigger companies, but being a small guy in a big pond of what, to them, looks like interchangable cogs I don't have a lot of bargaining power.

How do you convince someone who doesn't know about this stuff, that it's better to pay you fairly than pay peanuts to the neighboor kid? (for what they think is equal work done at equal quality since they don't care)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Whats with this trend of illustrating blog posts with Flickr photos that don't illustrate anything?

<comment><USER11> As far as I know, this particular trend was started by Phillip Greenspun back in 1994:

<http://philip.greenspun.com/sql/>

I recall many people accussed him of hypocrisy, since, in the mid 90s, he was a big advocate of graphically simple web pages, pages that could easily go over a modem and a phone line, yet he bloated his pages with images that had nothing to do with the content of the page.

<comment><USER12> Greenspun was writing articles specifically for web and photo nerds. Just as the developer-oriented sites were the first to drop support for IE6, I'm sure he felt safe offering less-than-optimal support for AOL users with dialup modems.

I always liked Greenspun's idiosyncratic photos. It was fun to try and spot thematic links between the photos and the text. Usually they were so subtle that you doubted their very existence, but sometimes they were obvious and funny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This is true. I've found that I find it vastly enjoyable working with startups. Even if it is a couple of guys with an idea, they take time to talk about the background and they are in the selling mode. I feel more energetic and worthwhile working with people who value my effort. People in big companies do not value you as most of them do not value themselves. I worked for a big company. I know how I felt then. Now I have a new found respect for people doing things on their own. Be it freelancers/entrepreneurs or craftsmen of any kind. It is easy to miss it if you are allowed only to press "a" on the keyboard and you optimize your life and efforts around that. Sometimes you get promoted and get to press "b". They may not pay you for it and term it a lateral promotion. Nevertheless, getting out into the real world and getting jobs is an experience that has made me simultaneously humbler and wiser.

Overall, I agree with the author as well. I have said no to several jobs because I did not feel that I share the client's vision. Especially, when you choose to be in an underserved segment, you can name your price and your terms.

</comment><comment><USER14> This is good though I would argue that most of this is true for small to mid- size businesses (<200 people) as well without the extreme risk of not getting paid or working 80 hr weeks that happens at startups.

<comment><AUTHOR> In my experience it's much likelier there will be complications with being paid when it comes to small to mid-size businesses than startups.

<comment><USER15> I expect it depends on the particular company, but I have noticed that there is a direct correlation between having a fully-staffed accounts department and paying your contractors on the last possible day you can get away with. (I'm sure someone will tell me that "it's just good business," but it shows a lack of empathy with small contractors who may be operating on a tight margin).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've been running a sort of startup (a zero-budget print/online magazine) for 2 years and I whole-heartedly agree with this.

I would add to this:

8\. Open-ended work

You can improvise any way you want and pull from any toolbox you want. You can take the work in unexpected directions on a whim.

9\. Platform for meeting interesting people

If you put out something of genuine value, you can use it as a kind of leverage to get in touch with interesting people. It also becomes a form of social honeypot (ie I get e-mails from interesting people from time to time because of the magazine I run).

10\. Levels you up like crazy

You have to learn a bunch of stuff. My ability to execute a project and "git r done" comes directly from Interesting Times Magazine.

11\. Gives you a sense of genuine achievement

Self-explanatory.

12\. Allows you to scratch the itch you get from reading business/selfhelp materials

When I was only reading about stuff I was always going like "arrgghgh I need to actually be _doing_ this". Scratching that itch feels GOOD.

</comment><comment><USER17> _they simply have no empathy for the poor freelancer trying to make a living client to client._

If you are depending on one check from one client to come in so that you can make rent this month, I think you should be looking at your own financial practices, not anyone else's.

<comment><AUTHOR> It becomes a much bigger problem when the money you were counting on this month, comes in five months later.

Yes, I've had that happen.

<comment><USER18> I've had this happen too. About 5 years ago I started a small consulting company and I had roughly 10 clients. I eventually had to get a job because clients realized I was small and would not pay me on time (sometimes 3 months late) or at all. I also had no money for a lawyer.

Freelancing is a terrible way to make money. It's like you traded in one boss for X where X is the number of clients you have.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> because you are too lazy to START a startup? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Haha, I've started a startup before :)

Sometimes it just makes more sense to put your own ideas on pause for a bit and help others with theirs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't agree with the "no politics" point. Sure, there might be no politics within the startup, but there can be a lot of politics involving investors and their other portfolio companies, or partners and customers who are large/few enough to drive product or technical direction, etc. I've been at startups that have been told "don't do X because it will cannibalize stablemate Y's market" by investors. I've recently become aware of a VC telling companies "use stablemate Z's product and don't criticize it in public" situation. This same pressure can be applied by customers and partners, driven by politics within those larger companies, and can be hard for a small company to resist. So don't think you won't need those political skills when your working at or with a startup.</comment>


Open-sourcing ReDex: Making Android apps smaller and faster - <AUTHOR> https://code.facebook.com/posts/998080480282805 <comment><USER2> 25-30% is a pretty solid improvement.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought it was iPhone Apps that need help. At 100+MB for a simple App where Instagram is 25MB only..</comment>


Show HN: Sublimall, SublimeText synchronized - <AUTHOR> http://sublimall.org/

<comment><USER2> There's a simple, free, realtime method (doesn't require me to "retrieve" anything, updates all computers instantly). In Linux you can just use some cloud syncing service (Dropbox in this example) and do the following:

      $ cd ~/.config
      $ mv sublime-text-3 ~/Dropbox
      $ ln -s ~/Dropbox/sublime-text-3

Then on any other computers you want synced just symlink the same directory. Voila!

<comment><USER3> Please see [https://sublime.wbond.net/docs/syncing](https://sublime.wbond.net/docs/syncing) about how you should tweak this if you are using more than one platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Please be aware, using this across platforms can lead to broken packages. Please see [https://sublime.wbond.net/docs/syncing](https://sublime.wbond.net/docs/syncing) for details.

Socketubs - you'll need to include my name in the license file since you are using code from Package Control. [https://github.com/socketubs/Sublimall/blob/master/sublimall...](https://github.com/socketubs/Sublimall/blob/master/sublimall/reloader.py).

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes of course! I'll add you very soon in License file.

And thanks for your great Package Control :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Your confirmation email was sent to my spam folder.

Here's some things you can do to make your email look less like spam:

1.) Use Sublimall in the from field (never leave the from field blank).

2.) Include a physical address for your company somewhere in the message body.

3.) Use better english and include an explanation of what this email is, what triggered it, instructions to ignore the email if the recipient didn't request it.

<comment><USER5> It's more likely improper DNS settings. Possibly sending from a server not listed in the MX record and not explicitly allowed by an SPF TXT.

<comment><USER6> Correct.

MX Settings OK, SPF not OK.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I've had success syncing my SublimeText config across machines using homesick ([https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick](https://github.com/technicalpickles/homesick)), but this looks pretty slick.

One issue with syncing configs using either method right now is that certain keyboard shortcuts don't make sense across OS types, and your font size may not work well at different monitor resolutions (especially retina vs non- retina). See [http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5135](http://www.sublimetext.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5135) for related discussion. If you could incorporate per-OS/machine config overrides into this it would be very handy.

<comment><USER8> you can define the settings in os-specific settings files in ST already

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Plugin source code is on Github.

[https://github.com/socketubs/Sublimall](https://github.com/socketubs/Sublimall)

Thank you for testing!

</comment><comment><USER9> Do you have plans to charge? If not, how can we expect this service to stick around?

<comment><USER10> Looks like we will get the server sourcecode at some point.

> Sublimall is an opensource, server and plugin.

The client source is already out:

[1] [https://github.com/socketubs/sublimall/tree/master](https://github.com/socketubs/sublimall/tree/master)

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes server source code is coming.

[http://sublimall.org/docs#how-can-trust](http://sublimall.org/docs#how-can- trust)

I want a clean and fully tested code before giving it to you. If I see many people interested in source code, I'll maybe release it quicker.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is great! As far as I can tell by reading the source code, it encrypts everything locally before uploading it, and the server does not have the encryption key. Is this right OP? If it is, I think you should make more emphasis about it in the project's home.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes!

Server side can't read your configuration because all your data are encrypted locally by 7zip. It's mean that you are the only one who know your pass phrase, nobody can't read it. This is an important thing, cause we all have api key, password, sftp connection, things like that in our SublimeText configuration, and it must be private.

<comment><USER11> Yep, that why I was asking. Also telling the users that if they loose their encryption passphrase they loose their data would be cool.

<comment><AUTHOR> Its in documentation :)

[http://sublimall.org/docs](http://sublimall.org/docs)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Looks like a cool project, OP. Good work!

Maybe put a link to your Github repository on the homepage? :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Done. Thanks! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Neat idea. I already sync using Dropbox, so what advantages does Sublimall have over that method?

<comment><AUTHOR> Sublimall doesn't require third party software. It's open source and respect privacy. It's integrated in SublimeText.

Thank you for testing!

<comment><USER13> How is Sublimall not third party software?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Can't find plugin on package index. [https://sublime.wbond.net/search/sublimall](https://sublime.wbond.net/search/sublimall)

Is anything wrong with it right now?

<comment><USER3> I'll look into this. I think it is an unfortunate side effect of how english word stemming works. The "all" suffix is trimmed off of Sublimall and it is treated like the root to the word Sublime.

I'm planning on adding some checks for exact package names and making sure an exact match is always first rather than just relying on the fulltext stemming of PostgreSQL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Wow! Clean idea. I used to do most of the configuration file sync via Dropbox.

<comment><USER16> That's what I do. what made you stop?

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For the people recommending symlinking to a Dropbox folder, see [https://github.com/lra/mackup](https://github.com/lra/mackup)

</comment><comment><USER18> What's the advantage of this over a dotfiles Git repo?

<comment><USER19> I just symlink to a dropbox folder (or whatever your preference of service)

Save's the hassle of adding/pulling

<comment><USER20> Or setting up and keeping a server running.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just put your sublime config in your dotfiles config?

</comment><comment><USER22> Will this work for syncing configuration between two computers running different OSes (Ubuntu and Windows)?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes of course! This is already working.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Registrations was close because of storage. But it's now re-open for 1k registrations.

</comment><comment><USER23> I use bittorrent sync to keep sublime text synced across my machines, works amazingly well.

</comment><comment><USER24> I have the 7za binary specified but I get a 7zip not found error (OS X, p7zip from brew)

<comment><AUTHOR> Can you run:

which 7za

In your terminal and give me return ?

<comment><USER24> which 7za returns "/usr/local/bin/7za" \- I get the same error with "7za_path" set to this or ""

<comment><USER25> Exactly the same problem for me. I'm getting:

"Sublimall need 7zip to archive and encrypt your configuration. Install it."

<comment><USER26> On Win7 I just added 7-zip path to the Win PATH. And it's working

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I was hoping this would be a GoogleDocs-y add-on for SublimeText.

<comment><USER28> You might be interested in Floobits[0], a real-time code collaboration tool, which also supports Sublime.

[0]: [https://floobits.com/](https://floobits.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Server upgraded. Registrations are now re-open!

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Registrations are now re-open!

<comment><USER29> why are registrations running out in the first place?

And they're not working now either, I guess maybe they ran out again?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mainly because of storage. I've to regulate it.

But it's now re-open!</comment></comment></comment>


Manage Your BitTorrent Downloads on Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://torrentfreak.com/manage-your-bittorrent-downloads-on-facebook-080522/ <comment><USER2> Why?</comment>


WEBSITES LISTED [HERE HAVE] BEEN BLOCKED PURSUANT TO ORDERS OF THE HIGH COURT - <AUTHOR> http://www.ukispcourtorders.co.uk/

<comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this so that HN readers can see what is returned when I try to visit eg katproxy when I'm in a UK Starbucks.

The court ordered blocks are one level of censorship faced by UK Internet users. There is a list compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation which every UK ISP (apart from Andrews and Arnold, A&A) complies with. [https://www.iwf.org.uk/](https://www.iwf.org.uk/)

And then there are the ISP provided optional filters.</comment>


Google announces Gmail add-ones for developers - <AUTHOR> http://sdtimes.com/google-announces-gmail-add-ons-developers/ <comment><USER2> Hello Mods please update link: [https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/do- more-your-inbox-...](https://www.blog.google/products/g-suite/do-more-your- inbox-gmail-add-ons/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Discussion regarding announcement (99 comments): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543117](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15543117)

</comment><comment><USER4> In the title, "add-ones" should be "add-ons".</comment>


AI for full self-driving by Andreyj Karpathy - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/hx7BXih7zx8 <comment><AUTHOR> For me operation vacation is the interesting point of the presentation apart from the regular ML stuff. That's something which we need to integrated in our regular development workflow.</comment>


Show HN: Create Interactive Prototype from Balsamiq Mockups (Early Access) - <AUTHOR> http://canvasflip.com/balsamiq-and-canvasflip-utility-tool.php <comment><USER2> Previously: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11377340](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11377340)

Curious as to what has changed in the last two months.</comment>


Is it ALT.NET or Progressive.NET and who uses it? - <AUTHOR>

I'm interested to find out the correct term for the stack based on open source tech such as nHibernate, Ravendb, Service Stack, Booksleeve, nUnit as opposed to Microsoft tech such as WCF, TFS, MSMQ
I really like C# as a language and .NET as a runtime but no-one wants to talk about using it unless they are a large corporate using Microsoft's products.
I want to belong to a community but I don't know its name or location!
What companies/startups (aside from Stack Overflow) are built on this tech and are willing to admit it? <comment><USER2> I'm interested in this as well. I love C# (.NET is fine, but could be better) but don't see a lot of demand for it outside of the MS stack.

</comment><comment><USER3> fyi ##csharp on freenode is a decent place to talk about things .net</comment>


Teens Prefer SMS, Hate calling - <AUTHOR> http://latestgeeknews.blogspot.com/2010/10/teens-prefer-sms-hate-calling.html

<comment><USER3> I was annoyed at my cousin (14) who kept texting the entire time I was visiting - non-stop. knowing him to be a smart kid otherwise, I asked wasn't this going back in technology when you could call and convey the message in a few seconds? He seemed to agree but couldn't kick the habit.

That made me thinking, that when it comes to communication, we as men (or atleast the more introverted among us - language-usage-wise) always prefer lower and lower levels of intimacy while communicating with friends - <USER2> is preferable to email is preferable to calling is preferable to meeting.. I wonder if a semaphore simulation on a cellphone would ever catch up!

</comment><comment><USER4> I do as well. I can take SMS on my own time, in my browser, and answer thoughtfully when I feel like it.

The advocates of a "quick call" are really quite selfish. It may be quick for _you_ , but it really sucks for me when I'm in a meeting, deep in conversation, in the restroom, or any other situation when my phone tends to ring.

Of course, Scott Adams went into more detail: [http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/wireless_voice_calls_are_obsol...](http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/wireless_voice_calls_are_obsolete/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Ah yes, spending 5 minutes and 15 texts to accomplish what a quick 30 second phone call would have done.

</comment><comment><USER6> I hate SMS. My fingers are too unwieldly to type long messages on a cellphone.

<comment><USER4> Android makes it pretty easy to use your voice to send an SMS. I use that to SMS while driving. It's not _perfect_ , but it works well enough.

Example: <http://twitter.com/#!/dlsspy/status/25834585904></comment></comment>


Trump Won't Kill America, Bitcoin Will - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/trump-wont-kill-america-bitcoin-will-a2be67247969 <comment><USER2> For context, the market cap of bitcoin is believed to be around 30 billion right now. Whereas that sounds like a lot, to a country it's chump change. Lithuania makes (way) more than that every year. (Yemen, that famously rich and peaceful state, makes about 27B a year.)

I think the TL;DR of this article is "people are really bad at understanding scale."

</comment><comment><USER3> BTC itself won't replace USD or kill America. A crypto-currency successor to BTC that eliminates the frictions for using BTC as a full replacement for fiat eventually could, however.

BTC is a fascinating social experiment, truly. It offers a glimpse into the future of money, as well as a modern-day manifestation of tulip mania.

<comment><USER4> What are some of the frictions for using BTC in your view?

<comment><USER5> The median time for a transaction to clear fluctuates wildly between 10 and 20 minutes. This alone kills it completely as a cash replacement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The US has far more than $3 trillion in assets when you take into account land holdings, as well as the idea that money itself is representative of continued faith in the existance of an issuing institution. There are so many layers of incentives pushing for the continued existence of the US one can't dismiss that by arbitrarily assigning a value of '3', and then declare, "See, 3-21=-18...therefore bitcoin."</comment>


The street art collective taking back Dublin's walls - <AUTHOR> https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/art-2/meet-subset-the-street-art-collective-taking-back-dublin/ <comment><USER2> "With their bold ongoing project, Grey Area, Irish collective SUBSET are protesting the criminalisation and censorship of street art."

That's all fine and good if you can paint fancy murals like that. My city is covered it street art, and it's all just kids boringly writing their tags.

<comment><USER3> St. Petersburg (FL) used to be like that, but business owners started working with artists, and then more and more businesses did the same.

[https://stpetemuraltour.com/photo-wall/](https://stpetemuraltour.com/photo- wall/)

<comment><USER4> You mean voluntary collaboration between property owners and artists, creating mutually beneficial arrangements (artists get paid to do what they love, the quality of the work improves) instead of regulation and criminalisation was the better answer? Who would have thought.

If anything the state could incentivize certain property owners to allow their alleyways or other areas to allow graffiti. Since the artists aren't going to stop... so you might as well create positive environments for them.

...Just like drugs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You have to love newspeak; define vandalism as street art, because of what? Some repressed desire of the harried urban knowledge worker to strike back at the Man who forces him to live in a rabbit hutch, riding on dirty subways to get anywhere? So very Norman Mailer.

Though formalized and approved vandalism is so very millenial as well, legitimize the protest by calling it art and make a few vandals rich by painting slogans the elite find friendly. It's not a bug, it's a feature!

</comment><comment><USER6> Can they come up to Belfast and paint over the horrible paramilitary murals? Cheers.

<comment><USER7> "ways to re-start a cold war, number #102: antagonise the working class troops to make them want to throw molotov cocktails again..."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Waterford is way ahead of the Dubs on this one - our council actually commissions street art: [http://waterfordwalls.ie/](http://waterfordwalls.ie/)

All this wonderful art greets me on the way to the office every morning - fabulous!

<comment><USER9> Visited Waterford a couple weeks ago - really liked it! Shame it took me 5 years to visit; my friends here in Dublin (including a Waterford lad) said there wasn't much reason.

TBH the greenway alone is worth a visit. Wife and I are contemplating moving there. Next time we go I'll check out more street art.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Let's hope Dublin doesn't do something ridiculous like NYC and pass laws which fine property owners millions of dollars for cleaning up graffiti off their own property... only after selling the property to be demolished for a new development:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/nyregion/5pointz- graffiti...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/12/nyregion/5pointz-graffiti- judgment.html)

I'm all for street art but this is getting a bit ridiculous when the gov starts deciding which property owners can and can't decide to have murals painted on the side of their buildings.

<comment><USER10> Could they have someone "vandalize" the painting as a work around? It seems like spray painting some "hate speech" might resolve the problem, might event get a stipend from the city to remove it if your play our cards right

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Some of the best art I've ever seen was sprayed on urban walls. The regular art market is hugely overrated.

</comment><comment><USER12> I love the work by Solus, a Dublin-based street artist. He does some work in Brooklyn/NYC from time to time too

[https://solusstreetart.com/Outdoor/](https://solusstreetart.com/Outdoor/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Looking at that Trump mural reminded me of this brilliant Trump mural painted around the corner from my place in Melbourne: [https://imgur.com/nIgsvs3](https://imgur.com/nIgsvs3)

Melbourne has an absolutely amazing street art scene. I'm not sure how they managed to cultivate it, so that it isn't just mindless tagging all over the city (like my hometown).

I used to shrug off street art as a serious art form, but having spent more time with creatives recently, including several graffiti artists, I've come to really appreciate it. If a city tries to curb legitimate street art, as opposed to tagging and vandalism, then all a city will have is tagging and vandalism.

</comment><comment><USER14> Presumably the Stormzy piece was an expression of their love for Grime music rather than an ad for the upcoming concert.

<comment><USER15> It was an ad (though the two aren't mutually exclusive I guess). It's not made very clear in the article, but SUBSET (formerly Rabbit Hole Productions) are a commercial entity - as Rabbit Hole I've seen ads by them for things like recruitment agencies and Hollywood movies.

Grey Area does appear to be a non-commercial (if self-promotional) project.

I'm also surprised the Maser Repeal mural hasn't been mentioned, as it's a similar story: this is a mural that was commissioned by a theatre in Dublin on the theatre's wall in support of the abortion referendum campaign. It was first removed due to a lack of planning permission; after they acquired proper planning permission it was later removed after a complaint by the charity regulator that it violated the theatre's stated charitable purpose and would lose them their charitable status. It finally got a third iteration on the wall of Amnesty International Ireland nearby.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> It's nice to see peaceful artistic anarchy at play.</comment>


Opening a Gun Safe with a Fork - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5YsZLJ5FjY <comment><USER2> Design fault testing at its best</comment>


Ask HN: Accepting clients payments - <AUTHOR>

As someone making the transition to self-employment, billing clients is something I have very little experience with, and is starting to worry me! Maybe I'm making a mountain out of a mole-hill, but I'd like to hear how other web developers/designers bill their clients. I'll be charging a one-off fee for initial design and development, and a recurring monthly fee for hosting/maintenance. Bearing in mind that I'm located in the UK, clients will mostly be small businesses, but may be located abroad. How do you collect payments from your clients for similar work, and what issues should I be aware of? I feel somewhat embarrassed asking such a fundamental question on HN, but if I take away even a single small piece of useful advice, I figured it's worth asking. Thanks for your help! <comment><USER2> The number one rule: Have a contract.

You can find a fairly good example of a contract here: [http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/content/dl/2010/05/11/contract...](http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/content/dl/2010/05/11/contract- killer-2nd-hit.txt)

This is how I work, it's working well though I am still fairly new at this as well.

After talking with the client I'll put together a proposal which details the full scope of the project and the estimated cost. When the client agrees with the proposal I'll send a contract which details my payment schedule which is generally in 3 stages:

1) 10% of my estimate is due on contract signing 2) 40% of my estimate is due before work can begin on the project 3) The remaining 50% is due on completion.

Once the contract is signed I send over an invoice for the 10% deposit payment.

The 50% up-front payment weeds out any clients that were never going to pay, and I don't hand over any assets until the final fee has been paid.

<comment><USER3> What happens between step 1 and 2? You already detailed the requirements and the target milestone in your proposal. What happens after the contract is signed but before the work can begin?

<comment><USER2> It's unusual that I can begin a project right away, the 10% deposit is just to secure the project in to my schedule.

I decide on a starting date with the client and detail it in the proposal, when work is due to begin I'll request the second payment. Though if it's a short amount of time the client will usually just pay the full 50%.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> BACS, cash, or Paypal. I prefer BACS or cash as no fee's. Speak to your bank they will guide you through your options. I am with Natwest in the UK and they have a small business helpline/guide that will happily discuss things like this.</comment>


Internet Performance Covid-19 Impact Edition - <AUTHOR> https://www.thousandeyes.com/resources/internet-performance-report-covid-19-impact <comment><AUTHOR> News article based on report [1]:

> Disruptions leapt 63% as lockdowns came into force after February

[1] [https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/05/covid19_internet_impa...](https://www.theregister.com/2020/08/05/covid19_internet_impact_thousandeyes/)</comment>


Diagrammr: diagrams by writing sentences - <AUTHOR> http://www.diagrammr.com/ <comment><USER2> rock paper scissors lizard spock:

<http://www.diagrammr.com/edit?key=diQvJMYgw8D>

</comment><comment><USER3> This was posted a while back:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=992293>

A very neat tool but I'm a little bummed out to see no new functionality in the 4 months since I looked at it last. I'll stick to my dot graph compiler for now :).

<comment><USER4> I know the guy who built this, he has a douchebag boss who makes him work long hours so he might not have had much time to devote recently...

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> For sequence diagrams I much prefer <http://www.websequencediagrams.com/>

Diagrammr could use some nicer looking styles. The different layouts and ability to reorder steps is quite nice though.

</comment><comment><USER6> "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" didn't produce a very good diagram. :(

</comment><comment><USER7> This is pretty cool. It would be nice to be able to edit your sentences.

</comment><comment><USER8> I've just been spending a lot of time with graphviz lately so this is quite timely.

Surely uses graphviz on the backend.

Would be nice if it could also generate RDF for the graph as well.

<comment><USER9> No way to run an external GraphViz process in an AppEngine hosted app. Right?

GraphViz does rock, however. And, you are right: it is very handy for visualizing RDF data (self plug: I had examples for this in my last Ruby book)

<comment><USER10> Well, there's always Canviz: <http://code.google.com/p/canviz/>

<comment><USER9> I second that thanks - looks very useful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> When you delete all sequences in a diagram, browser renders a broken image. But I like the idea!

</comment><comment><USER12> I wonder if this will help me make my way through a Raymond Smullyan book.</comment>


Review: 2017 Chevrolet Bolt is an affordable game-changer and fun to drive - <AUTHOR> http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-drive/reviews/new-cars/review-2017-chevrolet-bolt-is-an-affordable-game-changer-and-fun-to-drive/article33755125/ <comment><USER2> "The writer was a guest of the auto maker. Content was not subject to approval."</comment>


And then...silence - <AUTHOR> http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/06/and-thensilence.html <comment><USER3> I think a lot of the sentiment here comes from people wanting to have their cake and eat it too.

What people want:

        Everyone 'good' for the discussion.
        No one 'bad' for the discussion.
        No manual labor.
        Unlimited growth while maintaining a perfect community.

What you have to do:

        Grow slowly
        Restrict Signups
        Moderate

The internet is clearly still an incredible communication platform, but it is by no means a human utopia, or even an opportunity for one. If you want to build a good community, you have to do just that. _Build_ it. The internet is rarely going to just give it too you. And your community will without a doubt rot as time goes on if you don't pay attention.

<comment><USER4> Yes, what I find most interesting about listening to the Stack Exchange podcast is how much attention and conscious effort they put into constructing the community, and in a continuous fashion (i.e. it's never finished).

That said, it seems to me that we haven't reached the limits of the machine part of the human-machine moderation team. Voting up and down (here on HN, on Stack Exchange, Slashdot, etc.) is fine, but pretty rudimentary, for example. I'm wondering if there are any others experimenting with more heavily algorithmic moderation.

<comment><USER5> I love the attitude of "meta == death" that stack exchange has. They have just enough meta to get the job done. The absence of social networking stuff is pleasing too. Compared to, for example, Wikipedia which has gigabytes of useless meta trollery and weird social norms.

<comment><USER6> I agree. I've lurked on StackOverflow for a long time now, and I watched the rise of 'meta' style questions as they polluted the question space. This lead to the establishment of the Meta-StackExchange site, which was not an obvious choice at the time. I love how the product they've created provides a very strict structure within which a community can take place.

I wonder what approach, if any, Quora will take to the potential of meta- pollution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> This, and the empirical experiences of many, many, many other online forums dating to Usenet days, are a direct refutation of Metcalfe's law: the value of a network does _not_ scale with the number of nodes, all nodes do _not_ contribute equally to the value of a network, and many nodes are in fact a net negative in terms of contribution to the network. Interactions between negative nodes can further degrade network value (e.g.: flamewars, retaliatory attacks, etc.).

There's a modification to Metcalfe's law which suggests that the value of additional nodes degrades with time (Odlyzko &Tilly, "A Refutation of Metcalfe's Law" <http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/metcalfe.ps>)

I'd argue that Odlyzko and Tilly are optimists.

And that any comments architecture which relies on Metcalfe's Law is fundamentally flawed.

You can either arbitrarily restrict who has access to your network (Usenet and ARPANET worked well when they were limited to defense, edu, and a handful of tech companies), or find a scalable and subversion-resistant moderation system which leverages your community to enact filtering. Scaling slowly means you've got a better chance of maintaining community cohesion ("September effect" & "Eternal September").

And remember Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.

(Sturgeon was also an optimist).

</comment><comment><USER8> We marveled with wonder at the free and open channel of communication that was the Internet. What unparalleled discussion it would bring. The truly free exchange of ideas, thoughts, and opinion.

Soon some of us soon found that we didn't actually want to hear any of it.

<comment><USER9> You clearly weren't on Usenet in the late 1980s.

<comment><USER8> I was, but I was also just around 12 years old. Admittedly one of the aforementioned persons who were a "waste of flesh, bone, and dangerously limited brain function" starting flame wars about trivial topics because I had a long distance phone connection I wasn't paying for and a keyboard in front of me.

Though some might say that the more things change... but I digress.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> You can't manage comments in a site that doesn't have a sense of community. Letters of Note's blog post usually get traffic from random links and e-mails by other people - just look at the recent letter from a former American slave - which just brings together all these random people.

For a site with as much traffic as LoN, it would take hiring someone to moderate all the comments to reach a decent level of discussion.

</comment><comment><USER11> One of the people I admire as a mentor of my avocation (writing) has the following rule on her blog:

>>My website and my weblog are an extension of my living room. You are an invited guest. Have a seat, settle in, and enjoy talking to the amazing group of guests who are already here.

>>If you cease to act like an invited guest, which I define as someone who is here to enjoy the give and take of intelligent conversation, I'll mark your post as spam, delete it, and block you from posting again. I am under no obligation to leave garbage on my site. The First Amendment mandate for Freedom of Speech protects your right to say what you want without government intervention. Private speech, which is what you have here, is not a right, but a privilege, and you earn it with every coherent, intelligent, reasoned post you write.

For the full list of her rules, here is the link <http://hollylisle.com/blog- rules/>

I think that analogy of your blog to your living room is powerful. It creates a powerful visual. Not many people (even if they do so on the internet) would walk into someone's living room and say what they have no quams of leaving in comments sections of people's blogs.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think sites like hacker news and slashdot have a pretty good handle on this problem but only in their own communities. A good start to a more generalized solution would be to make these currently siloed reputation systems portable.

<comment><USER13> The problem is that reputation is relative. You may have high reputation on HackerNews, which could be linked to high reputation on ServerFault, but has absolutely no bearing your reputation on a board for writers and essayists.

To borrow a concept, it's a bit like Whuffie in Doctrow's _Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom_.

<comment><USER12> High karma on hacker news may not translate to a high reputation on a writer's blog, but it would pretty much guarantee a civil, thoughtful comment. In this way karma is pretty portable, you just have to give everyone karma somehow. Maybe start off by trusting friends of people with high karma.

<comment><USER13> That may be what you look for on HN, but that's not true of all forums (I trust that you can think of one obvious counterexample).

Even look at Reddit - trolls are usually downvoted, sure, but a lot of people with high reputation are really just novelty accounts. That's not bad for Reddit, but that's not what I would associate with high reputation on HN.

And finally, look at one of the comments below about gaming the system - that's the problem with having a (displayed) numeric value associated with one's reputation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> All I could think the whole time I read this was:

What a MIRACLE it would be if I woke up one morning, opened my Android Developer Console and saw an option to disable comments on my apps. Permanently.

<comment><USER15> Interesting idea, that. I might be less likely to download an app from the app store if the author had disabled comments/ratings, but that seems like the kind of call that the app author should be allowed to make. I recall reading about someone who uploaded a test hello world app to the Android Market and started getting lots of reviews and ratings (both good and bad) from trolls and idiots.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> In related news, this just now: <http://www.bgr.com/2012/02/01/commenting-on- bgr/>

"I'm disabling comments for a bit, though. I'm tired of reading nonsense and of interacting with people that solely troll this site just to get a rise out of other commenters and start a holy war in the comments section. I'm tired of having to delete crap and I'm tired of people complaining that a few thousand people ruin it for millions."

[edit: adding quote from the article]

</comment><comment><USER17> BoingBoing went through the same thing... they closed down comments completely, and then some time later brought them back with a community moderator, who ironically privately censored posts by "disemvoweling", as well as completely censoring posts related to Violet Blue (or anyone referencing that fiasco).

[http://sfist.com/2008/07/01/boing_boing_responds_to_violet_b...](http://sfist.com/2008/07/01/boing_boing_responds_to_violet_blue.php)

<comment><USER18> We had a more subtle approach at a forum for IT pros I used to moderate. We called it the Crazy Cafe. Known trolls wouldn't be banned -- they'd just create a new login and start trolling again, leading to a metagame amongst our community of guessing which of the old trolls the new troll really was. Instead, we'd simply flag the troll as a member of the Crazy Cafe, and their posts would be invisible except to other members of the Crazy Cafe (and to mods, if we so chose). The trolls didn't know they'd been made invisible; all they saw was that no one (save other trolls) responded to their flame bait, and thus they lost interest. It worked shockingly well.

<comment><USER19> The same thing is done here, and it's called a "hellban." The difference being that anyone can see hellbanned posts if they turn "showdead" to on - <USER2> implies that most of the time, other hellbanned people won't see each other.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Unless you're willing to carefully curate a healthy community, allowing and reading comments from any idiot with a web browser is a losing proposition. The comments section on your local newspaper or TV station's website, or on YouTube, or on any site with high readership and low moderation is just a waste of time that does little than fuel one's misanthrophy.

Does this mean there's no such thing as open discourse on the web? Nonsense. But if you're not willing to set up an account or set up your own blog to back up your discourse with some sort of identity, your discourse is worthless.

</comment><comment><USER21> The current state of forums and comments is pathetic on the internet. Most group attempting to engage in open discussion are defenseless against the combination of spam, Eternal September, flame wars, etc. There ARE technical solutions to this problem - I don't buy that people just don't want to hear open discourse.

<comment><USER22> I somewhat agree, but I don't think it's as dire as your comment makes it sound.

Going by sheer numbers, there are probably a million crappy, spammy forums for every good one.

 _But_ , I've found that most topics have at least one or two really good, (mostly) spam free forums where real discussions take place and the signal to noise ratio is really good.

Comments for articles and blog posts do seem to be more hit or miss, though.

<comment><USER21> yeah it's frustrating to me because discussion forums really are the best place on the web for detailed thoughtful conversation. avsforums is an unbelievable repository of information, for instance.

However, actually extracting that information from a 3,000 page avsforum post is nearly impossible - that's the problem with most good forums.

That and the moderation efforts are extraordinarily high even in very good forums where people generally agree on what they want to read.

I suppose I'm just saying that we nerds need to provide better tools to automate some of the moderation cost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I wonder how this would affect traffic on a heavily trolled site, since usually trolls remain anxiously refreshing the page to engage in further discussion. I was under the assumption most newspapers kept their flaming comment sections open because they know they engage banner-viewing ad-clicking eyeballs.

</comment><comment><USER24> Just a thought, you may want to look at Tynan's sett comment system coming soon, it seems to be introducing some type of comment moderation system <http://sett.com/>

<comment><USER25> Well, that is the worst designed page I have ever seen.

Color and layout wise it's beautiful. Content wise, where on earth is the "contact us" link? "About" link? copyright info? Sign up for beta? Etc... The logo is huge, but I don't care about the logo, I care about the product. And all the screenshots of the product are TINY. And I can't click on them. And why are they checker boarded all over the place, just have images on the left, text on the right. Checker boarding images is terrible practice.

It looks like such a good product and I want to know more but they're hiding everything from me. And that just stresses me out to the point where I hope their product fails. Call me a dick but I never would have guessed visiting a web page would piss me off so much. Why? Because I feel like they're teasing me, showing me something good and keeping me from getting to it. The equivalent of waving food in front of my face when I'm hungry but never giving it to me.

Design like that is just beyond unforgivable. That's the perfect example of what not to do when launching a web app. What am I suppose to do, dig around in the who-is info for their contact info?

<comment><USER26> You're definitely the right amount of upset about this.

Maybe, just _maybe_ , the lack of all the things you mentioned is an indication that this is not intended for you at this point?

Are you trying to do an ironic troll thing on a thread about trolling? If so, you got me :)

<comment><USER27> I felt the same way about the site actually. It may be it's not intended for us at this point, but the person posted that site as if it would offer some clarification. He's not trolling -- at least, I don't think he is -- it's just not a helpful website. I realize the initial comment said 'coming soon,' but linking it seemed to imply that there would be something, some shred, of useful information that would make the site relevant to the discussion.

<comment><USER24> I feel somewhat bad now about linking to it. The developer's blog (tynan.com) hasn't even linked to it yet, just mentioned the name of the site coming soon. I was bored one day and typed the supposed url in, and oh look a beta placeholder page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> My favorite approach is the approach taken by exiledonline.com. Trolls and Ron Paul fanatics get their comments "improved", often with sarcasm highlighting the stupidity of the underlying comment and poster. Guts that particular troll so other posters aren't tempted to reply and serves as a disincentive for future trolling. Even subpar comments are discouraged since the consequences of not meeting standards are a little bit greater than if they were simply not approved.

</comment><comment><USER29> I would guess that the need to "root out" the people who do not have constructive things to say will ultimately hurt the site more than it helps it. The editor shouldn't feel any need to moderate the posts through deletion but rather should focus on using comments to build the community. Stressing on the negative misses the points to the positive.

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting. The internet finally held its promise of effortless, direct communication. And suddenly, some people realize thats not what they want. And yet, when it comes to person-to-person-communication, putting some effort into it (by writing an email and waiting for a reply, etc.) seems to improve affairs for some people...

Well, just a train of thought.

</comment><comment><USER31> Derek Powazek said it best in _Design for Community_ , create barriers to entry. The harder it is to leave a comment the better the comments will be. Shutting off comments is a knee-jerk reaction.

</comment><comment><USER32> I understand that every site is not necessarily a forum. What will be lost from having to have the conversation on the site you got the link from?

</comment><comment><USER33> I think we need some sort of captcha system that keeps not only spammers, but also the kind of people he refers to out.

The one Quantum Random Bit Generator had set up comes to mind[1].

[1] <http://random.irb.hr/signup.php> . seems to be down atm, see [http://web.archive.org/web/20110304151851/http://random.irb....](http://web.archive.org/web/20110304151851/http://random.irb.hr/signup.php)

<comment><USER34> The sets of people who can do calculus and people who are trolls are far from disjoint. Until there is strong AI, I don't think that a "content value" filtering mechanism is really possible. Even people have a hard time differentiating irony from stupidity in comments.

<comment><USER35> _people who can do calculus_

Or who can plug some characters in Wolfram|Alpha and get the result.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Use Facebook-authenticated comments. Requiring people to use their real names usually alleviates this kind of problem.

<comment><USER37> This stopped 90% of the insane comments on my local newspaper (they moved from disqus to facebook).

It also cut the average comments for an article in half or more.

<comment><USER38> Interesting - are Facebook users really better-behaved than average blog commenters? Or was it just that the lazier trolls gave up when their old cookies stopped working?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> This is what moderators are for.

</comment><comment><USER40> Welcome to the internet!

I love this quote From "How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie"

<quote> "I will speak ill of no man," he said, "...and speak all the good I know of everybody." ~ (Benjamin Franklin) Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving. </quote>

I say do you part, and ignore everyone else and your world will be a better place. You can't hope to control other people, however you can control how you react to them. ~Kenrik</comment>