Employers are rethinking open-plan office design - <AUTHOR> https://www.citylab.com/life/2020/05/open-office-design-coronavirus-risk-safe-workplace-health/611299/ <comment><USER2> So one thing that bothers me about this is they talk about not going back to cubicles and creating transparent dividers. I do not like this not one bit, I enjoy the privacy and distraction blocking of a cubicle, an office would be optimal but a cubicle is preferable to the open office hellscape that was looming before Corona stopped it.

But going from open office to plexiglass dividers seems to be far worse than a cubicle in every conceivable way.

<comment><USER3> Open offices are, and have always been about, control. Not about productivity, but exclusively about control (well maybe with a touch of thrift thrown in there).

We say this all the time but act as if it's some secret, or just a cynical remark, but it's not either of these. As a general rule your boss likes that you can feel their perpetual gaze as you work, even if in practice it means you are working less.

Because of course you aren't working all the time, and of course you are not 100% being productive. Everyone knows this. It is not a secret that even the most productive engineer spends a huge amount of office time doing nothing.

No worker (as I general rule, I know there are exceptions) prefers open offices to either cubicles or real offices (I wonder how many HN have ever had these?). Nobody feels that they work their best when someone is watching them. Everyone knows that part of working in an open office is figuring out how to create the illusion that you are working.

The only reason to have an open office is because the people making the decision for how the office should be, and the people reporting to them, do in fact like to watch you work, because they like the control that they feel when they do this.

Please let's stop pretending that we don't all understand exactly what open offices are about.

<comment><USER4> I hear where you're coming from, but have you been a part of a real estate search process for office space?

Open offices are crazy cheaper, and most retail developers don't build real offices anymore (and or when they renovate a commercial property pull all these walls out).

It is about cost, for anywhere I've worked or any clients I worked for. I haven't ever known a manager that wanted an open office to control or oppress their staff.

This is (mostly) why new occupancy tech exists as well btw -- the "crotch sensors". Not usually for specific employee surveillance, but to map occupancy trends and determine what parts of a space can be hot-desked or otherwise over-assigned to further reduce space requirements.

<comment><USER5> _I haven 't ever known a manager that wanted an open office to control or oppress their staff._

The way it works is similar to attitudes toward remote work (until a few months ago): barriers help people waste time and get away with stuff.

Control is not all about what an authority can do (which is actually the least efficient form of control), it's also about what other people are prevented from doing, sometimes structurally so, as in the context of office layout and design.

<comment><USER6> There's a simple solution. Just give up on the idea that we can expect people to work many hours ~continuously, on a regular basis.

Sure, there must be times when ~everyone is available to talk. But otherwise, just let people work when they're ready to work. And let them self report their work time.

<comment><USER7> you hit the nail on the head. The main issue here is also that MOST employers/managers don't really know how to measure your productivity, especially in modern software engineering.

That's why "Busyness" and "Butts in Seat Per Hour" are seen as proxy for productivity. That's also why politics play such a big role.

Until we find a GOOD way to measure productivity, Control and "Busyness" (the illusion of productivity) is unfortunately not going to go away.

<comment><USER8> "Busyness"

I thought to myself: "what if that _was_ the etymology of the word, how ironic".

[https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+business](https://www.google.com/search?q=etymology+business)

Oh wow.

<comment><USER6> I've always kinda "known" that, in a joking way. And never bothered to actually check. So thanks :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I would take a vertical coffin of office space if it came with a door. Something to block out the audio and visual noise and supported whatever horizontal space was needed to host my monitors.

I realize some people could not handle the claustrophobia, but for those that can this seems like an easy win to minimize footprints while isolating those who are bothered by the distractions of others.

<comment><USER10> I'd even take something like those offices in Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil" [https://media3.giphy.com/media/phV9pLhPDUb3a/source.gif](https://media3.giphy.com/media/phV9pLhPDUb3a/source.gif)

Looks actually kind of roomy in that gif

edit: here's a video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr3eIAIFyo8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr3eIAIFyo8)

<comment><USER11> The Zero Theorem has a brilliant treatment of open seating toward the beginning.

It's really worth watching the film (that one scene is worth it on its own) but you can get a glimpse of the seating arrangement and the manager after "We is stressed" in the trailer:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fkHrQ30oT9o](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fkHrQ30oT9o)

I see now that there are plexiglass dividers between the desks. Terry Gilliam is a visionary.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> It is unrealistic to expect that everyone could have a private office with leather chair and fish tank behind it, however it would be great if people could have smaller spaces,lets say 2-4 people per room ,which would have a door and etc. Open plan office,the way it is now, it's just a one level up from a hen battery.

<comment><USER13> > It is unrealistic

It was absolutely the norm in the '70 and '80 and before. How comes that technology improves and worker's rights regress?

<comment><USER14> One reason is we stopped building buildings.

So now we have to squeeze into and share the space already built.

I also wonder how many people _really_ had private offices 30-40 years ago.

<comment><USER15> > I also wonder how many people really had private offices 30-40 years ago.

IBM (and presumably any other company of that ilk) certainly had one person per office up through 1990.

One thing that people forget is that you had a _land line phone_. And you spent a lot of time on it. And haranguing people was considered a negotiation tactic. So, being able to close your door to not bother others was important.

<comment><USER16> Programming teams almost certainly talked over IRC back then though?

<comment><USER15> AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Wait, why am I laughing? Oh, God, it's to keep from crying from how old I am ...

In 1990 corporations? Goodness, no. Most companies didn't even have a _corporate email system_. IBM was probably one of the few exceptions. And _external_ network access required signatures from 3 VP's (one senior), your firstborn, and probably your left ovary/testicle--it basically just _didn 't_ happen.

Programming teams were colocated or _they didn 't communicate_. CVS was an advanced idea. C and UNIX were those toys from academia--real programmers used mainframes and COBOL or FORTRAN. If you had a forward thinking team, they might circulate useful technical articles and ideas via inter-/intra-office memos. Otherwise, you bought a book or went down to the corporate library and borrowed a book. At IBM you could pull up old issues of the IBM Journal of Research and Development (which were _gold_ \--and still are).

A 128Kbps (yeah, that's 12 _kilobytes_ ) dedicated leased line was considered pretty fast and was pretty expensive. A 250MB SCSI drive was considered pretty big and local networking at 16Mbps (Token Ring) was _godly and ferociously expensive_.

I can go on and on ... but we're already well into "Back in my day, we walked uphill to school--both ways. And we counted our bits by hand." territory.

Even in universities, 1988-89-ish was _just_ at the point where using ftp to pull a .tgz from somewhere might actually be faster than sending a physical letter through the mail and having them mail you a magtape in return. And you sent a physical letter because _very_ few people in a university at the time had an email address that was generally accessible. For God's sake, in 1988 /etc/hosts could still enumerate in an actual file _every single host on the ARPAnet_.

The amount of technical change from 1990 to 1999 was _ENORMOUS_.

<comment><USER17> Thanks for the memories :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> While I would prefer a private office with a window to an open office seat, I much prefer an open office to a cubicle. Not being able to see any windows and being in a small, depressing space alone for 40 hours a week sounds terrible.

But above all, I like working from home, where I can have a nice space with windows and no distractions. Of course, I am lucky because not everyone has a space like this in their home.

<comment><USER19> My office is in a ~95 year old skyscraper, so even when we used cubicles everyone was close to a window. Instead of the current style in which office buildings have huge rectangular floor plates with elevators in the center, new office tower construction can take design cues from the old days with H shapes or central light shafts.

<comment><USER20> > nstead of the current style in which office buildings have huge rectangular > floor plates with elevators in the center

I think you hit the nail on the head, this is why cubicles were hated, it wasn't the cubicle, it was the sprawling cubicle farm that was hated. Even a private office in the middle of that farm is not pleasant, so the the private offices went around the outside and made things even worse in the inner cubicles. Hopefully this campus style building dies.

At least around me the trend has been towards much thinner but taller office buildings for a while now, partly out of necessity as city plots of land get smaller. These accommodate cubicles and/or offices with natural light really well. The often derided glass and steel architecture also helps because you get floor to ceiling natural light.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I guess I'm in the minority. Whenever this discussion pops up everyone laments the horrors of the open office, but I have no difficulty focusing in that environment and find it more lively and attractive when compared to alternatives. I don't need a black box to focus, and the feeling of being social (even when I'm not) really helps my morale.

<comment><USER22> The focus in an open floorplan feels fragile, sitting in one I have a constant low level anxiety. I hate feeling constantly watched, as someone can see everything I do. Any time I sneeze I'm bothering a couple of dozen people. My monitors are open for display. If I eat at my desk everyone needs to suffer through that. My only sense of any sort of privacy are my headphones, which people are constantly talking over, or I'm taking off because someone is talking to me. There's no office door to close and never any promise of any sort of flow.

<comment><USER21> I'm sure it varies based on place of employment and personal preference. I understand many people have some level of social anxiety that may be exacerbated by the open floor plan. I just personally enjoy it and hope to not see its demise. Glad we get to pick our employer!

<comment><USER23> Unfortunately, that doesn't help, since 100% of software employers with offices use open floor plan offices, or some variant of the same.

I always ask people in the industry what company has private offices for programmers. The only answers I've ever heard are "Fog Creek" and "maybe Microsoft?", but my friends at Microsoft say that's not so common any more.

<comment><USER24> Apple still has 2 person or completely private offices.

<comment><USER25> Not in the spaceship.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> If the tech giants are truly ready to embrace permanent wfh for a large % of their employees I think we could see a land rush of innovation around wfh collaboration tools on the horizon, including some AR/VR applications. That is what I'm most excited about.

<comment><USER27> I suspect the main thing we'll get, tech-wise, if WFH expands substantially, is more and more normalized spying.

<comment><USER28> *"productivity tracking"

<comment><USER29> *Coding APM

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> "What, exactly, is so valuable about working together in the same physical space? "

EXACTLY. The open office plan has never achieved the spontaneous productivity companies had hoped for. Instead it's led to misery, lower productivity, and mental and social health.

</comment><comment><USER31> Honestly as someone who grew up with "office space" on the TV and then went to work in an open office, I am dying for cubicles.

<comment><USER32> Same! They tried to make the Initech office look as bland and dispiriting as possible, but by 2020 standards it looks pretty good :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I like open offices. Very pleasant spaces. I also like working from home, but I like socialization too.

<comment><USER23> Liking an activity doesn't mean it needs to be an integral part of your workplace every minute of the day. I like playing the drums, but I would never do it in the same room as my coworkers while they're trying to write software.

I want to work at work. When I want to socialize (or do anything else which might distract others), I wait for a break and go outside.

<comment><USER33> Sure, sure. I like an environment where I can socialize at work. I still work fine. Fortunately, I find it easy to find companies like that.

<comment><USER34> I like socializing too. Heck, i can talk all day, every day. It's just that no work gets done, which might put some employers off

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> Can't help to remind: each such cell would need proper ventilation.

Open offices circulate air in broad strokes of huge air ducts on the ceiling. This is not going to easily map to a grid of smaller cells where horizontal streams are impossible. This of course can be addressed, but it _seriously_ more expensive than just plastic walls.

If you don't solve the ventilation, the workers will suffer from high CO₂ and overheating, lowering productivity and morale.

If you don't separate the cells enough to block the air flow between them (that is, leave them as cubicles), then the whole point of separation as an infection-resisting measure is lost.

</comment><comment><USER36> As a software engineer, I don't see offices as something necessary.

Everything you do leaves a digital footprint: issue trackers, version control, instant messaging, e-mail. Everything is timestamped, everything leaves multiple copies.

If you want to check if someone is working, it is not necessary to see if someone is at their desk. If you want to grab someone's attention, you can have a meeting that does not distract people in adjacent desks.

You can still gather and have IRL activities. That is OK. But I don't need to that every day. Most days I need to get things done, and focus.

During meetings, the most important thing I need to get from that meeting is information in order to make decisions. I need to focus my attention on what's being presented, not on how people dress, their haircut, their age, weight, stature and other superficial aspects that have no impact on the product whatsoever. Likewise, I don't want the meeting to be interrupted by someone commenting about someone's haircut.

Then, there's non-verbal communication. Some will claim you need body language to perform sentiment analysis or to cross-validate what's being said, etc. But those activities take away attention from the points being discussed.

Then, there's legal liability. If you want to go "off the record", then you will not like things being recorded. If you are a honest person acting within the law, you don't have strong reasons to go off the record. If your modus operandi is to gaslight people, you won't like meetings that are potentially recorded. Overall, visibility is accountability, and accountability is key to keep things healthy and legal.

People's appearance and other superficial aspects of a contributor should have very little importance when compared to their deliveries. A remote culture helps people to focus on what's important.

<comment><USER37> I have seen many arguments like this, as if software engineers are automata that take requirements as input and produce software code. However an important part of being in a company is developing a shared team relationship where individuals feel accountable to each other and take some interest in the welfare of their co-workers and company above their own short-term interests.

Since we are humans this necessarily involves some socialization and shared experiences. I don't believe in 100% remote work - maybe we can do remote 3 times a week, and that might work. The idea that workers will replace their social interactions on their own is naive. There is an epidemic of loneliness among many once they are no longer forced to socialize via school or church.

(In terms of productivity, I feel like remote optimizes individual throughput over system throughput, due to degraded avenues of cross-communication.)

I hope that this cheering for remote dies. Many managers read Hacker News and they might actually take it seriously. The less tightly the team is bound via social connections the more likely the job function can simply be outsourced to an external contractor.

Also, speaking purely of my own self-interest, I like where my job is located and don't want to move so I can equalize my standard of living with similarly smart and dedicated developers in eastern Europe, Asia, or even the deep south or rural midwest.

<comment><USER36> Some people treat engineers as automata even if they're in the same office. Even if they work at an adjacent desk. That does not have anything to do with offices, it has to do with personality traits like lack of empathy and excessive ego. If you are not a jerk and were not raised by jerks, you will have respect not only for the engineers, but for everyone, even people in modest occupations.

Then, working remote is not the same as working remote from a different timezone. The latter can make collaboration more difficult.

I have worked with remote engineers, and over time, I have learned to appreciate and respect their work. I know many of their names, especially the brilliant ones that I can trust 100%. I know from their deliverables that they're dedicated and reliable and I would write them a recommendation letter any day if they asked for it, have lunch with them if they're in town, and I am honestly interested in learning about their backgrounds and perspectives on life.

On the other hand, at the office, there are people working some few feet away that I have never talked to. I don't know anything about them, or their lives. Some of them even work on my team :)

So, no. Offices are not magical facilitators of friendship and cohesion. And when two people decide that they don't get along it can become quite miserable to be present in a tense environment.

I have no problems working with people living far away. If they're good, I want to work with them and assimilate what I can from their knowledge and problem solving skills. Also, secret santas with them are the best, try it.

If you are concerned with jobs going away, or wages being depressed, these are a list of things you have to worry about in addition to outsourcing: lower entry barriers to programming, coding camps, AI. In the end, the only effective way to protect your job is to acquire and polish your skills, and the best way to do it is by working with as many strong engineers as you can no matter where they are from.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Open-space offices are bullshit. Everybody should be given a separate room. Whoever is not worth a room should work from home. Nevertheless an office should have a number of places where people can meet and communicate freely in groups of whatever size they want.

<comment><USER34> Meeting rooms can actually be great for collaborative work, it' judt that they're often used for that rigid status-update manner that makes it seem unappealing

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> It would be nice if the article did the math on cost per sq. ft. of 'usable' open office space vs. cost for individual offices. When an open office can only be filled to P% capacity then private offices start to make a lot more sense.

<comment><USER40> Yeah the question should be "do you want an open office in this attractive location with easy access to public transit, or do you want your own office in this office park 10km outside the city that you have to drive to every day?"

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> The open office plan is only there so that employers can control their employees. There is literally no other reason for it, it removes psychological safety which most people need in order to think while they are working. It allows obnoxious employees to create distractions in order to slow productive employees down. It allows clever employees to waste the executive function of people they don't like by flooding them with behavioral cues, gestures and body languages that has inherent meaning (This is particularly dangerous and devastating if done in a targeted fashion). I'm sure if you talked to a psychologist they could give you a million more fun games you can play with people in open office environments. They were never good for people to begin with or for getting work done. In small startups they are perfectly fine but in medium to large sized corporations they are only abused.

(BTW, none of the above bothers me in particular but I know this happens on all the time and I've watched people in large corporations play psychological games with extremely good employees just to make them miserable in open office environments.)

<comment><USER36> As soon as wages get depressed and people start talking about unions, remote work will be the new hot thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> What's very interesting is that in an era where we've all been shown exactly how many businesses could operate remotely, we also now have a situation where the value proposition of returning to the office is rapidly dropping at the exact same time. A lot of these more pandemic friendly offices appear to have the worst of both worlds; a total lack of privacy on top of extra restrictions on movement.

My company is setting up rules for how we'll return to the office once the govt. says its okay, and it involves basically pretending that we're working remotely from the office, plus the need to Lysol down conference rooms once you're done with them. A few months ago I'd be happy to return to the office, but now I'm genuinely wondering why we should bother.

<comment><USER43> I work at a fortune 500 financial company (the boring conservative kind). They're not even considering coming back into the office this calendar year.

Speaking only about my own department, I find the little awkward home distractions lovely. The other day in the middle of a conf call someone's kid popped into the video and asked about potato chips. It was _really_ important because the other parent had informed them there were no chips, but they had to get a second opinion. These things are really humanizing. Instead of "Chuck from the integrations team" it's "Chuck whose kid loves chips." For what it's worth, our time to market for new integrations has improved by almost 30% with everyone working from home. And we're not the kind of shop where work from home means working all day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> I hate having to wear anything on my face, much less a pair of screens beaming the simulacrum directly into my eyes. To me, there is so little gained in visually looking at others in presentations I find it shocking people care so much. With people I've never met, I do one introductory video chat to show I'm a real person. Anytime after it's purely voice or screen sharing.

All the emotional cues are there in the voice and with less lag from not having video hog up all the bandwidth, I find the smaller latency aids in smoother conversations.

<comment><USER45> I am not able to fully pick up on emotional cues without video. There is a reason we use facial expressions when talking in person. For a technical discussion it doesn't matter - for a personal connection it does. Another advantage of video is you can distinguish "thinking" from "frozen". Plus, you can tell when they're confused, or have a question.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I've said for years now that I'm willing to take a $20,000 reduction in salary for an office with a door that closes.

</comment><comment><USER6> That's a hilarious title :) I can't imagine how anyone (without a death wish) would be OK now in an open-plan office. We'll know more this fall, but COVID-19 may be around indefinitely. And even if it peters out, another coronavirus or whatever could pop up at any time. Given that zoonotic events have become far more likely.

</comment><comment><USER47> My workplace has a white noise generator built in to the ceiling (we track how long it takes new hires to figure out that it's not a really loud fan). During blackouts, it shuts off and we're amazed at the difference.

Long story short, talk to your boss about investing in one of these. It helps me a lot personally.

<comment><USER48> White noise makes me tired quickly. So YMMV.

<comment><USER49> Omg I'm not the only one. I've tried and tried and tried white noise and brown noise and pink noise and yellow noise and every kind of noise people can come up with, and I can't stand them. After 10 minutes my brain is screaming for silence, it's exhausting.

I've found rain sounds and ocean sounds to work alot better but of course they're easier to puncture.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I wouldn't mind open workspaces as much if I was given more space... I feel like cubicles are much bigger

<comment><USER23> Here's what IBM was giving programmers in 1978, thanks to the work of architect Gerald McCue: [https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/IBM's-Santa- Teresa-Lab...](https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/IBM's-Santa-Teresa- Laboratory-Architectural-Design- McCue/f473363b09dad1fb5e423ec1781adfe481069218/figure/5)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> What if we could design a space such that it areas to accommodate those who prefer individual spaces and those who prefer group spaces?

We always got to this "open" vs "closed" space opinion-match.

<comment><USER52> They could try, but everybody except for one guy would pick the individual spaces and that one guy would be stuck in the group space by himself.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I wonder if we will see the return of actual offices or even cubicles.

</comment><comment><USER54> It's about time. The open office sucks.

</comment><comment><USER55> Terry's back hurt.

PrezsHub's entrance was that old 'Apple Store' style, but somehow more brutalist. Just glass, but at that angle that just reflects and doesn't let you see in. Faux-invitational, Terry called it. The front door was frosted glass. It was that special kind that would be clear when you put a voltage to it. The giant windows directly next to the door were like that too. Or so Terry heard. He'd never seen them frosted all at once. Some would be, some wouldn't. Faulty wiring, he guessed.

Terry stood in line to get into PrezsHub. There was always a line. They got rid of the badge scanners, too unsanitary. His turn. He waited as some scanner somewhere read his face. At first Terry had smiled every time he stood in front of the door. The massive door of plate glass on tiny little hinges with a tiny little motor to swing the thing. The smiling stopped soon enough though. Terry had thought his boss actually cared to see the smile, or that maybe someone did. Nope. The scanner took it's time, you never could tell how long it would take. Terry shifted his face this way and that. Finally, the door defrosted and tried to open. Slowly, inch by inch, all the way open. Terry ducked inside long before it had taken the full three minute twenty-two seconds to complete a cycle of opening, pausing, and then closing and refrosting.

After passing by the Wellness-Entrepreneur-And-Sanctuary-Expert team's front desk, the cavern opened up. PrezsHub was ultra cutting edge. The CEO was one of those unicorn people that really believed he wasn't going to die. He had escaped taxes, so why not death too? So, slowly at first, he had gotten rid of almost everything at PrezsHub.

First it was the cubes. That move was nice at first, a bit more air. Long tables sure. Then the noise, the chattering, the gossip, the microwaved fish. Ghastly. After covid21 subsided, everyone came back to the office to find, well, nothing.

The CEO had ripped up the floor, put in charging ports and wifi, and then covered the whole thing in hardwood. No desks, no chairs, nothing. Even the toilets had been replaced with Japanese ones, bidet and all. The walls slowly sloped up to the roof too, it made a great half pipe, but there was nowhere to put a back against. The whole company was now 'floor gang'. The CEO said it was great for your body, just you and the hardwood. He sat there for three hours in a yoga position that first day back. By the end of the week, he was working from home for a bit. He almost never came in anymore.

Terry's butt had gone numb before the first 15 minutes had gone by. Everyone's had. People started bringing in camping chairs and card table desks. Then one day the Wellness-Entrepreneur-And-Sanctuary-Expert-Team said no more camping chairs. The CEO was concerned about them scrumming up the hardwood floors they had paid for. People started to bring in cushions and even more low budget camping equipment. Again, the Wellness-Entrepreneur-And-Sanctuary-Expert-Team stopped people after getting past the door. Those were creating dust and some were staining the flooring. The CEO was 'wigged out' about it. As his video address echoed off the walls of the empty building, he said everyone needed to be health conscious and just sit. So for the rest of the week, thats all Terry and the rest of PrezsHub did, they just sat. The CEO was adamant that no work be done, so that the chakras could align with Mars or something. Of course, half the company got put on a PIP for failing to meet deadlines.

So Terry went to find a working outlet on the floor and sat down with his bag and personal laptop, a perk. He plugged in, saw that it wasn't working and had to go get up and hunt around the room for a working outlet. Like at the airport, but more cliquey. He found a group, the Support And Development team; they weren't too Slack-y. He could get those tickets closed, maybe. He put on his carpal tunnel splints, opened his laptop, changed his password in the system yet again, hunched over, and got to work.

Terry's back hurt.

</comment><comment><USER56> Need private offices with UV-C lamps sterilizing the air going into each office.

Less sick days will pay for the private office floor space, plus productivity increases.

<comment><USER57> Don't know why this is getting downvotes. It's uncontroversially just fact that open-plan layouts do not save money, not even in the short term and not in high density urban centers. This has been written about so exhaustively for decades that at this point it's not even worth engaging with people who say "citation needed" or "in 5 seconds of Googling I found this confirmation bias article" because it lends way too much legitimacy to the false idea that it's even a close call at all or that there is any part of it left open for serious debate.

Open plan office designs are chosen so that executives can treat their office spaces like works of art - lots of signaling and often very little practical value.

They are often built at huge costs (way beyond outfitting the same space with offices or cubicles for the same number of people), often actively paying a lot of money to destroy existing privacy features, and they not only include but are completely oriented around opulent roof decks, party spaces, kitchens, game rooms, massage areas, and on and on.

It's 100% about infantilizing the workforce and swindling them to accept greater degrees of counter-productive surveillance and total lack of privacy. It is not about cost reduction, flat out.

<comment><USER27> There's a consistent and strong tendency of companies, owners, and managers to avoid giving their professional-class-wage-earning software developers professional-class perks & (especially) signs of status. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but it does seem to be the case. Like they're all, consciously or not, just _determined_ on some fundamental level not to let that happen.

On the flip side software folks tend not to exactly embody a professional- class aesthetic or attitude, but I think that behavior'd flip around damn fast if elevated social status became more easily available to those who did. But maybe that's not worth having private offices and assistants and deference to our professional judgement, and so on.

[EDIT] relevance being, open plan offices are notable for not just avoiding giving status, but for swinging _way_ the opposite direction. Almost like passive-aggressive compensation for having to pay developers so much. "Well, at least I can seat them like minimum-wage call center employees, since for some reason that's considered fairly normal".

<comment><USER12> I've been telling this for years: an equivalent of a software developer in a different industry would be driven around in a company's car, dine on company's card and get fat bonuses every year.The problem is that developers,to most people,are well, the IT people. It doesn't matter if your code saves Netflix gazillion of money,to most people you on the same level as the guy who can connect the printer.Also sometimes almost cynical approach to anything financial or sales related doesn't help it either.

<comment><USER58> I believe the issue relies mostly on how value is _quantified_ by company managers. It seems to me that any relatively modern practice or methodology aimed to organize and value work, especially in software engineering, is not focused on the added value of the work itself, but increasing middle management visibility - another way to "infantilize" the workforce, if you ask me.

Take a finance guy, for instance. You give him a set of rules and objectives, and there is no need to define what "success" is like, based on the output. Success is his ability to make money.

A software engineer may implement features A, B, and C in the product. She may even increase the performance of the pipeline two fold. But there is no way to objectively quantify the impact of such changes _within_ the current work organization frameworks. These are tools for middle management to quantify a team's output, nothing more. Thus a good software engineer would get a nice bonus at the end of the year, and a compulsory, but meaningless, promotion.

Now, I'm not saying that promoting individualism is the way to go, nothing further from the truth. I understand that there are intrinsic differences between finance and software. Yet I believe that there are very few companies out there with the right tools to evaluate the output of software engineers, and recognize it accordingly.

<comment><USER12> My job is quite interesting in this aspect: I'm a manager,who has to set,monitor,and ultimately award results. Only one direct report is technical and it is quite challenging to quantify his outcomes. I also do development,as part of my role, and it's just so freaking hard to assign values to the work that'd been done. For instance, I did create an orders portal of sorts,which our corporate clients quite like and none of the competitors have anything like that.Our head of sales going from one company to another selling this portal as part of the offering and the execs love it. Sales get revenue, everything is nice and easy. Now what do I get for this portal? Would they have sold if it wasn't there? Did it help to close or was it just icing on the cake? The contribution is clearly there,but how much? 1%, 10%,maybe 0? And that's pretty much the same for most devs. What's the contribution of that logging feature? What's the value of some smart function?

<comment><USER27> Sometimes measuring someone's effectiveness is as easy as "I sold that, here's the check, that's my effectiveness" but I've also noticed that measurement is often _incredibly_ sloppy in business, and people rarely seem to get called on it. Making a serious effort to eliminate confounders is unusual. I think a lot of folks in non-programming jobs do, to a fairly high degree, just _make shit up_ , pretending that they can measure the effect of various initiatives much better than they can, and for whatever reason this is rarely considered a problem or questioned.

Some of them surely realize they're just slinging barely-if-at-all-justified BS, but I also think lots and lots of people are just terrible at reasoning about that kind of thing and don't _realize_ how meaningless the numbers they're generating are. They're trying, they just suck at it and no-one's bothered to tell them (or seems to care).

Possibly programmers are more sensitive to this than most, and are reluctant to put forward "bullshit" numbers that would, if they did, in fact be accepted as reality by the folks "above" them. Meanwhile someone down the hall's being promoted for numbers that are even more a work of fantasy than those, and may not even be intentionally deceiving anyone.

Note that the sales folks don't sweat over how much of their numbers can be attributed to the people making the thing they're selling. Those numbers are _theirs_ , period. "Did _I_ sell that or did Feature X put it over the top?" fretted no salesperson ever.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


America's Short, Violent Love Affair with Indoor Track Cycling - <AUTHOR> http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/americas-short-violent-love-affair-with-indoor-track-cycling <comment><USER2> Calling Japanese indoor track cycling "wildly popular" is a bit of a stretch: it's one of only four sports in Japan that allow legal gambling, and it's generally considered the second least respectable, losing out only to powerboats ( _kyoutei_ ). Not to put it too bluntly, but if you admit to being a _keirin_ buff in Japan, you're likely to be taken to be either a compulsive gambler or a yakuza (who are widely rumored to control the business).

The business is also in tough times, since the combination of Japan's aging population and tough economic times have slashed the sport's total take to 42% of what it was in 1992. (And that figure is from 2008, I have no doubt it's collapsed further since.)

</comment><comment><USER3> They missed something in this article. There is actually only 1 indoor velodrome in the US. The rest are outdoor.

What's important about that, is, given any locale's elite cycling community, there's little reason to race on the track during summer when it's nice enough outside to square off against national level competition on the road on any given weekend if you're willing to drive a few hours.

Move to the winter, and Cyclocross takes the rest of the would be indoor track racers. Track is great, and a ton of fun, but it is largely out of reach for most of us that compete because of lack of well, tracks.

Another thing - no one starts racing at the paid professional level. Without amateur/junior racing, those people can't move up, because they can't start. This is a big factor in why the sport's declined so much... No more amateurs.

<comment><USER4> By contrast, the UK now has six indoor velodromes, half of which were opened in the last five years.

Guess who cleaned up [0] at the Olympics this year?

[0] [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_at_the_2016_Summer_O...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_at_the_2016_Summer_Olympics#Medalists)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> My dad rides a lot now and has always loved cycling. We've watched the Tour de France each summer for as long as I can remember.

So, the point: Jens Voigt, an announcer for the Tour, broke the hour record, how far you can ride in an hour on an indoor track, at the age of 43(!). Here's the frame of the bike he rode for the attempt that says "I am motherfucking Jens Voigt": [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Je...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/31/Jens_Voigt_- _Hour_Record_-_bike_%28details%29.jpg/800px-Jens_Voigt_-_Hour_Record_- _bike_%28details%29.jpg). Pretty hilarious.

Also, if you've never seen them, check out the quads on German cyclist Robert Forstemann: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnhuFN8CcAAAklD.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BnhuFN8CcAAAklD.jpg). Apparently he trains for hypertrophy as an intimidation factor.

<comment><USER6> It should be noted he was the first person to break the record after they reset how the rules work for the record. So it was a fun stunt but the fact that he did at 43 is near meaningless. It was broken again like 5 times in the next year. Properly hard record to break now that Wiggins has it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Gripping the bike's front wheel was the only way for riders to brake

This is not actually true - track bicycles, then and now, do not have a freewheel/freehub mechanism and the rider cannot coast. As a consequence you can use the drivetrain as a braking mechanism by applying back pressure on the pedals.

</comment><comment><USER8> A discussion of track cycling in the US isn't complete without Major Taylor:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Taylor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Taylor)

<comment><USER9> "I cannot go on with safety, for there is a man chasing me around the ring with a knife in his hand."

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I've only ever been to Trexlertown ([https://thevelodrome.com](https://thevelodrome.com)) and the DC velodrome. Didn't realize there were so many velodromes in all over ([http://www.usacycling.org/velodromes-in-the- us.htm](http://www.usacycling.org/velodromes-in-the-us.htm)).

If you're ever bored on a Saturday and you live close to one of them, they're normally free/cheap to go watch races, or participate. And a decent track bike, in my experience, is a lot more affordable than a decent road bike.

<comment><USER11> There is a DC velodrome?

<comment><USER12> There is not. Trexlertown is actually the closest velodrome to DC. Oddly they list it on that linked page as if it were an operating venue, but the track only exists as a proposal.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 6-day race does not scale. 2-hour events can be covered by television and can be hosted in expensive stadium. Madison Square Garden has one event every day.

<comment><USER14> Marathon track cycling went out of favor before television became an issue. Other marathon events, like the Tour de France mentioned in the article, or golf, are televised in some way. Presumably, those countries where the sport is popular manage to cover it as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The multiple mentions in the article of Madison Square Garden surprised me till I looked it up. In case anyone else is as confused as I was, it turns out the Madison Square Garden that existed then is not the same as the MSG that exists now (which was constructed in the 60s). In fact, there have been four different venues named "Madison Square Garden" at different times over the years!

</comment><comment><USER16> Next to be phased out, baseball. Average age of US baseball fans: 53. (Football, 47; Basketball, 37).

<comment><USER17> Life expectancy at 53 in USA is 27 and 30.5 years for men and women, respectively. Especially given that older people are wealthier than others, MLB won't be in trouble for a long time.

<comment><USER18> And yet, the older demographic is not as desirable for ad agencies.

Besides, it's not only whether they are wealthier but whether they'll do watch/attend baseball games after a certain age.</comment></comment></comment>


Southern White Rhino Victoria Is Pregnant, Could Save Subspecies - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-17/rhino-in-san-diego-pregnant-could-help-save-subspecies <comment><USER2> _The San Diego Zoo Institute for Conservation Research has the cell lines of 12 different northern white rhinos stored in freezing temperatures at its "Frozen Zoo."_

Is that enough genetic diversity to rebuild the species?

<comment><USER3> With things like CRISPR on the horizon, fuck yes. Diversity isn't a problem when you can just solve genetic disorders.

<comment><USER4> Genetic disorders are not the problem here. Things like disease are. Genetics can make it so one individual is more susceptible. Even if we can modify the genome at will, we have no information on how to modify the genome to make it do a certain thing. There's no room for error in this regard, as most mutations are going to be deleterious.

Moreover, CRISPR won't help individuals who are already affected by a genetic disorder. At most, perhaps it can help the progeny, but if the progeny isn't able to reproduce for another reason, then this point is also moot.

<comment><USER5> Gene therapies are still in pretty early stages but they are likely to work on adults.

(it's far enough along that there's hundreds of human trials)

<comment><USER4> There is a limited subset of things for which gene therapies can work in adults. For example, thalassemia is caused by continued abnormal production of hemoglobin. If you fix the one defective gene, future hemoglobin will now be the correct variety. However, the old hemoglobin does not magically correct itself, and it will take time to clear. Meanwhile the damage it may have done to the liver and spleen will persist.

Gene therapy can also fix other conditions. For example, many complications of cystic fibrosis are caused by abnormal cilia not clearing mucus properly. You can switch the gene on to restore cilia function and clear the mucus. Sounds good so far, right?

Well, not quite. Cystic fibrosis can also cause men to be born without vas deferens -- the tubes that connect the testicles to the urethra and allow sperm to leave the penis. This happens because normal male development requires working cilia at the time the vas deferens is forming -- sometime in the first trimester of pregnancy. Once you pass this point, restoring normal cilia function will not make the organs that failed to form magically spring into being. That was a developmental event that does not happen again. There are no second chances for many stages of development. We have a long way to go before we can successfully treat genetic disease before the embryo starts to form.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Is this a good allocation of resources and attention? I also doubt all the effort that's going into Pandas while a ton of animals that are less good looking have their habitats destroyed and nobody seems to care.

<comment><USER7> One great aspect of conserving large mammal species is that these species generally require large amounts of land so by protecting them you can hopefully also provide shelter for all the smaller and less-cuddly creatures in the area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is the value of saving a sub-species?

</comment><comment><USER9> [https://outline.com/eug5BB](https://outline.com/eug5BB) for anyone hitting the paywall

<comment><USER10> The Bloomberg website shouldn't be used in this submission. I find it shameful to put a paywall on an article literally copy-pasted from what Associated Press provided. It would make sens only if the ads disappeared if you're a Bloomberg subscriber.

The exact same article word for word:

[https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Rhino-Pregnancy-at- Sa...](https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Rhino-Pregnancy-at-San-Diego- Zoo-Safari-Park-Raises-Hopes-of-Saving-Subspecies-482943591.html)

or

[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/17/pregnant- rhino-s...](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/05/17/pregnant-rhino-san- diego-zoo-could-help-save-endangered-subspecies/)

or

[https://www.wthr.com/article/rhino-in-san-diego-pregnant- cou...](https://www.wthr.com/article/rhino-in-san-diego-pregnant-could-help- save-subspecies)

EDIT: even better, the link Johnny555 linked to: [https://www.apnews.com/10c94168ec6d4efd894755ac84b17bca/Rhin...](https://www.apnews.com/10c94168ec6d4efd894755ac84b17bca/Rhino- in-San-Diego-pregnant,-could-help-save-subspecies)

Curiously it wouldn't show up in my Google search.

<comment><USER2> If you want to avoid seeing a re-post of an AP news article, then why not link to the AP itself?

[https://www.apnews.com/10c94168ec6d4efd894755ac84b17bca/Rhin...](https://www.apnews.com/10c94168ec6d4efd894755ac84b17bca/Rhino- in-San-Diego-pregnant,-could-help-save-subspecies)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How is a subspecies defined?</comment>


A Complete Detail About Credit Card Frauds - <AUTHOR> https://gasstaionfraud.quora.com/A-Complete-Detail-About-Credit-Card-Frauds?share=1 <comment><AUTHOR> Credit card fraud means stealing all the money from someone's bank account. When people swipe through credit card to pay the bill they criminals record those transactions with a special machine and take away all the money and important bank details.

[http://www.gasstationfraud.com/](http://www.gasstationfraud.com/)</comment>


Twitter SICP: A group excursion of Twitter employees into computation - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/imownbey/twitter_sicp

<comment><USER2> This was a _lot_ of fun when we did it. Pull requests welcome! (someone should do arc, and clojure!)</comment>


Scientists unveil CRISPR-based diagnostic platform - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-04-scientists-unveil-crispr-based-diagnostic-platform.html <comment><USER2> This is a big deal. Another article about this from MIT:

[http://news.mit.edu/2017/scientists-unveil-crispr-based- diag...](http://news.mit.edu/2017/scientists-unveil-crispr-based-diagnostic- platform-0413)

<comment><AUTHOR> What Zhang & Co are doing at the Broad, is truly spectacular.</comment></comment>


This girl ages into an old woman before your eyes without you noticing - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/this-girl-ages-into-an-old-woman-before-your-eyes-witho-1283215638

<comment><USER2> wow! I kept trying to guess her age at the current moment. I wonder how they did it, three or four generations merged together perhaps.

<comment><USER3> If you scroll down, the article describes the process. Indeed it was a merging of multiple family members. Very cool.</comment></comment>


Protect Your Google Account with Password Alert - <AUTHOR> http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/protect-your-google-account-with.html <comment><USER2> So either this extension downloads a hash of your google password and compares against it each time, or it sends a message to Google with whatever password you just typed and they check it there.

Does this also throw warnings for websites where you just use the same password as your google account (which you shouldn't be, I know I know)</comment>


3 Product Management Anti-Patterns - <AUTHOR> https://www.blossom.io/blog/2013/05/01/product-management-anti-patterns.html

<comment><USER2> There's one anti-pattern missing, and it's the most important one:

Believing technological silver bullets will solve product management problems.

No software (not even blossom.io ;) ) will fix a dysfunctional team that can't get stuff done. I myself have fallen prey to that a few times, where I excitedly switched from e.g. Trello to Asana believing it'd boost my productivity. It didn't. Surprise.

The only thing that helps with productivity in my experience is relentless focus on people and improving communication between them. The technology stack comes in at a far off second place.

<comment><AUTHOR> Spot on Martin. Full ack :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I'd love to learn about anti-patterns that you've encountered, happy to make a blog post series out of it if we can find some more :)</comment>


Free apps eat up your phone battery just sending ads   - <AUTHOR> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328566.400-free-apps-eat-up-your-phone-battery-just-sending-ads.html

<comment><USER2> [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigtincan....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bigtincan.android.adfree&hl=en)

Any time, bro

<comment><USER3> Thanks for linking this, just what I was looking for.

<comment><USER4> From user reviews:

"This app is awesome! It makes my phone free of ads. I get spoiled with it. I now ever have to buy an app that only offers no more ads because of this app."

"Pretty much turns free apps into their premium ad free counterparts! ..."

Please keep in mind that ...

(1) Developers in many countries are not yet able to sell Android apps on Google Play store. Ad revenue may be their only source of revenue.

(2) Android users already have a reputation (well-deserved or not) for preferring free apps, or for pirating paid ones (more so than on other platforms). This is another reason some apps on Android are ad-supported, even when the developer could choose sell them. (A well-known example is Angry Birds). If blocking ads becomes a common practice, this will make the Android platform less attractive for developers who seek to make a living from their apps.

<comment><USER2> Not my problem</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Perfect Time to Sell Skype: Today - <AUTHOR> http://blog.tippingpointlabs.com/2009/05/perfect-time-to-sell-skype-in-the-gestation-phase/ Skype is almost certainly in the Gestation phase of it's new media life cycle. The end of this phase is characterized by a 'celebrity hit,' meaning that someone figures out how to demonstrate the power of the new platform (in this case it happens to be Oprah) and just around the corner we'll see massive media attention and a tremendous explosion in growth. <comment><USER2> Skype has been going for almost 10 years... seems a bit silly to suggest that it's still at the height of its hype... in fact, I'd say it's been descending down into the "trough of disillusionment" for some time. I don't know anyone who thinks that Skype is super-cool at the moment.

If anything, I'd place it deep into the trough - assuming there is something to bring it back up, which is far from guaranteed.

<comment><USER3> I think Skype is super-cool. I can call my friends on the other side of the world for free. Or, I can make really cheap calls to their mobile phones, and the sound quality of those calls is almost always really good. Discount international calling cards usually have horrible (often unusable) quality when you get down to the Skype-out price range. AT&T will give me great sound quality too but they charge over $1.00 a minute for the places I call (the last time I checked).

I'm not quite sure what value Skype has for people who aren't doing international calling though.

<comment><USER2> I didn't say it's not a killer product - but it's nowhere near being at the height of its hype curve. That was probably around the time it got bought by eBay.

Skype is also useful for video calls within a country, and for easy conference calls. Free international calls to other skype users are, of course, the killer app, though.

<comment><USER4> when ebay bought skype it was at the "height of its hype curve" with a niche audience (geeks like us). My mother had still never heard of it. Now she has.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


China to launch own encyclopaedia to rival Wikipedia - <AUTHOR> https://phys.org/news/2017-05-china-encyclopaedia-rival-wikipedia.html <comment><USER2> An interesting idea. I wonder how they're going to change consumer behaviour though; most people just use Baidu and fact-checking isn't common practice. In university, citations are pretty sloppy and sources are rarely verified. In other words, the one of Wiki's main value-adds isn't necessarily seen as a value (yet).</comment>


Command-line file sharing - <AUTHOR> https://transfer.sh/ <comment><USER2> That's great, you can encrypt stuff then as follows (on a Mac).

      brew install gpg
      gpg --gen-key
      gpg -ac < file.unencrypted | curl http://transfer.sh/file.encrypted -T -

To decrypt, take the returned URL:

      curl https://transfer.sh/1nKXr/file.encrypted | gpg -ad

Someone can probably improve this!

<comment><USER3> Handy tip for OS X users: after creating the "transfer" alias, simply use

      transfer file.txt | pbcopy

to get the link copied to your clipboard!

<comment><USER4> For linux users, install xclip from your flavor of package managers and then:

        transfer file.txt | xclip

link is copied to your clipboard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My usual procedure goes something like this:

        rsync -P foobar.png personal.sircmpwn.com:/var/html/
        # "hey dude, go download http://personal.sircmpwn.com/foobar.png"

<comment><USER6> I do this too, but I find it annoying not knowing if the file has been received and when it's safe for me to delete it.

<comment><USER7> Next version I'll add the possibility to add a timespan in number of days or number of downloads before deletion. What about that?

<comment><USER8> I'd personally love a website that offered self-destructing url pointers or downloads. So, a url that redirects _once_ to the target, that sort of thing.

<comment><USER6> You might not want to be too strict about it. I know I'll sometimes look at an attachment on the go, but not be able to download it until later when I'm at home.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like in the little example animation, hello.txt is uploaded and a url is returned, but then a completely different url is used to get the hello.txt back.

<comment><USER7> Op here, good point. Will update the demo ;-)

<comment><USER10> How did you make the demo? I'd love to put something similar on [http://ipinfo.io](http://ipinfo.io)

<comment><USER7> Using tty2gif, I've made it work at my mac. Only need to find some time to upload the changes to the repo.

      http://z24.github.io/tty2gif/

<comment><USER11> tty2gif author here. Could you send me a pull request about your mac version? I can merge them if I have time. Thanks for your efforts!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> How do you intend to make money?

<comment><USER13> Put in some text ads under the curl progress bar.

<comment><USER14> "These pills will make your dick grow like this progress bar!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I use CloudApp for OS X for sharing files and it's pretty convenient. The best part is sharing screenshots with it. You take a screenshot, it is automatically uploaded to the cloud (no pun intended) and the link is copied to your Clipboard. You could not ask for anything simpler.

<comment><USER16> I'm still looking for an app which does just that, just with my own server via scp / sftp and not dropbox or a third party service. It's so convenient once you got used to it.

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8039708](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8039708)

<comment><USER17> I've used TinyGrab for this for quite some time: [http://tinygrab.com/](http://tinygrab.com/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> [http://curl.io/](http://curl.io/)

<comment><USER19> [https://wsend.net/](https://wsend.net/)

<comment><USER20> [http://chunk.io](http://chunk.io)

<comment><USER21> [http://purrrl.link](http://purrrl.link)

<comment><USER22> [http://configr.io](http://configr.io)

<comment><USER23> Which of all of these is the best? Which is most likely to still have my files after 5+ years?

<comment><USER22> The one I posted is (mine and) amateur, don't use it.

It will probably be around for 5 years, but is not undergoing active development, and it was a side project I worked on for funsies (I may come back to it one day, and it's kind of a leave-it-be project, especially without 100s of users).

Please refer to the other ones for a serious (or at least more well thought out) solution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I wish the URL could include a hash of the content so it could be used for verification for uploading and downloading the files. It could be handy for error checking and security checks.

<comment><USER25> Better yet, if there was a wrapper for this, it could just operate on abbreviated hash-prefix (i.e. git ref) rather than URL.

        $ transfer < ./foo
        acH39gew

        $ transfer acH39gew > ./foo

The ref would just be short for the URL, and you could still use the URL, of course.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Even shorter/easier to remember version of the command (you don't have to specify the filename twice if you don't want):

        curl -T ./filename transfer.sh

</comment><comment><USER27> This will be abused for hosting questionable things in no time, if it's not already.

<comment><USER28> These are the people behind transfer.sh: [https://github.com/dutchcoders/](https://github.com/dutchcoders/)

...Based on some words I see on that page, I think they will anticipate abuse and roll with the punches.

<comment><USER7> Right you are! We will implement a page in between depending on the referer. Direct download users won't have any issues, but to prevent abuse the page will be shown if from an other site.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Nice, finally hassle free service. No registration, proprietary clients etc...

<comment><USER30> This makes me wonder about their future. I don't see any revenue streams, but I _can_ see nontrivial expenses.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Hi...I write a wrapper tool, hopeful easy to use, and now just upload & download twice function.

[https://github.com/daineseh/py-transfer.sh](https://github.com/daineseh/py- transfer.sh)

ex1: Upload a file to [http://transfer.sh](http://transfer.sh)

      $./pt.py -u /home/something/file1

# and output a link for download:

      https://transfer.sh/19Xwp/file1

ex2: Upload multiple files to [http://transfer.sh](http://transfer.sh)

      $./pt.py -u /home/something/file1 /home/something/file2 /home/something/file3

# and output some link for downloads:

      https://transfer.sh/19Xwp/file1

      https://transfer.sh/19Xwp/file2

      https://transfer.sh/19Xwp/file3

ex3: download multiple files from [http://transfer.sh](http://transfer.sh)

      $./pt.py -d https://transfer.sh/19Xwp/file1 https://transfer.sh/1fn4k/file2

# Print downloads information:

      Download ./file1 done.

      Download ./file2 done.

ex4: download multiple files and specify path from [http://transfer.sh](http://transfer.sh)

      $./pt.py -d https://transfer.sh/19Xwp/file1  https://transfer.sh/1fn4k/file2 -w /home/user/

# Print downloads information:

      Download /home/user/file1 done.

      Download /home/user/file2 done.

</comment><comment><USER32> I didn't know about tty2gif ([http://z24.github.io/tty2gif/](http://z24.github.io/tty2gif/)) -- that looks pretty cool.

<comment><USER33> It is but it creates some amazing huge gifs :)

<comment><USER11> Author here. Thanks for your comment and I have reduced the gif size quite a lot. Please take a look.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really like [http://fh.tl/](http://fh.tl/) because you can also easily send shell output

        [/] $ ls -la / | curl -F 'paste=<-' http://fh.tl/

        Your paste has been saved!

        Share this URL:

               http://fh.tl/MO

        [/] $

helpful when trying to debug someone on a remote workers machine

<comment><USER35> I was puzzled to see a symlinked libnss3.so in your root directory and couldn't help myself but google it. Here's the reason (bug in package ca- certificates-java): [https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=688415](https://bugs.debian.org/cgi- bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=688415)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I would love to use this for my own files, without expiration etc. Do you have any plans to open source this?

<comment><USER37> Maybe I don't understand what this service actually does. When you take away the file expiration and the convenience of not having to manage your own infrastructure what is left? I've had this script in ~/bin for years.

      SERVER="example.com"
      LOCATION="public_html/uploads"
      BASE_URL="http://$SERVER/uploads"

      scp "$1" "$SERVER:$LOCATION"
      echo "$BASE_URL/$1" | xclip -i

<comment><USER38> Add a cron job to that (to manage timed deletions), and you got a very sweet setup! :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I've been wanting something like this for semi-private image shares as Imgur's URLs aren't very random; but Transfer has a similar security problem; it looks like the URLs need to be longer as a prerequisite to being un-crawlable. I hope you'll consider it.

<comment><USER40> Never expect things you upload to the internet to be private. There are so many vectors where this can go wrong. The host might list directory indexes, s3 buckets can be open, sites can be hacked, etc etc.

<comment><USER39> You did see the part where I said "semi-" private? I'm just suggesting OP might want to harden the URLs, otherwise the URLs might as well be /1 /2 /3.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> I use woof: [http://www.home.unix- ag.org/simon/woof.html](http://www.home.unix-ag.org/simon/woof.html)

</comment><comment><USER42> at least for common use cases like curl and wget you probably need a wrapper. I mean i love the idea of never leaving my cli, but... as developer and bash user im lazy... so please don't make type long curl commands. (Yeah I know I can add some aliases, but a wrapper could be handy). Anyway good job :)

</comment><comment><USER43> Are there any solutions similar to this and the others mentioned in the discussion that can be self-hosted?

</comment><comment><USER44> Responsive NavBar button is broken. Also is there any reason to alias a function like in the sample?

</comment><comment><USER45> Is there a way to upload image without "attachment" in content disposition header?

<comment><USER7> Yes, this has been done because it was abused. We will make some smarter changes, which will allow removal of the content disposition header.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Thank you for this.</comment>


Tech Trust Index shows consumers trust Google and Amazon but not Sprint and AOL - <AUTHOR> http://survata.com/blog/tech-trust-index-shows-consumers-trust-google-and-amazon-but-not-sprint-and-aol/

<comment><USER2> The takeaway here is that "perceived effectiveness" leads to "trust".

</comment><comment><USER3> Great article, really interesting.</comment>


Docker Hub Is Down - <AUTHOR> https://www.dockerheart.com <comment><USER2> Interesting, they're 404'ing. They're going through Cloudflare which pops up a "this is why this site is down" message usually. Maybe they fell victim to some faulty CD?</comment>


How Singapore Waged War on Coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.ft.com/content/ca4e0db0-6aaa-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3 <comment><USER2> No Paywall: [http://archive.is/g33Ou](http://archive.is/g33Ou)</comment>


GitHub is testing Donations feature for repos - <AUTHOR> https://twitter.com/kentcdodds/status/1103896657823821827 <comment><AUTHOR> Author has deleted the tweets - [https://twitter.com/kentcdodds/status/1103899046765223936](https://twitter.com/kentcdodds/status/1103899046765223936)</comment>


Oil Espionage: Traders Spy on Hub With Satellites, Sensors and Infrared Cameras - <AUTHOR> http://stateimpact.npr.org/oklahoma/2012/09/28/oil-espionage-traders-spy-on-oklahoma-hub-with-satellites-sensors-and-infrared-cameras/ <comment><USER2> I kept waiting to read the content. I brushed past an initial link. The real story is [http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-27/the-oil- hub-...](http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-09-27/the-oil-hub-where- traders-are-making-millions)

Edit: Article on one page: [http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/73558-the- oil-h...](http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/73558-the-oil-hub- where-traders-are-making-millions)

</comment><comment><USER3> This isn't a new thing. One thing I did at Enron was to try and figure out the construction status of power plants being built I read a lot of small local newspapers, city council minutes, looked for job listing, and called subcontractors etc. The fun side of trading involves getting a view of the market which is beyond newspaper articles and reports.

<comment><USER4> That sounds really interesting. How hard do you think it would be to automate that kind of analysis of newspapers and such? Would love to hear what you think. Email's in my profile.

<comment><USER5> A lot of newspapers have horrible websites. Aside from aesthetics, search is broken on many of these sites. Another problem is local government, city council minutes and other information is not made available in digital format.

I work at a newspaper that is a controlled by a corporate office across the country. (They know best) I also live in a small town that has been slow to adopt technology.

<comment><USER6> Given the signals intelligence of small town newspapers I always wondered why there wasn't a company that gave out really cheap 'site build/management' software for these folks with a proviso buried deep deep deep inside the terms of service that gave the hosting company a right to see all the data.

I'd imagine it looks a lot like WPEngine but with a more newsy flair.

<comment><USER5> This sounds like a great idea.

Another possible solution would be to crowd source the data gathering. Maybe a news link aggregator with strict organization.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm not sure I get the anger directed at oil traders. Traders help implement the pricing function of the market. It's a fact that we're going to run out of oil. You can debate about peak oil, etc, but that's an argument about when we're going to run out of oil, not if. We hit peak reserves in 1980--ever since then the rate of new discovery has been less than the rate of extraction. When it sinks in that we're going to run out of oil, why wouldn't prices skyrocket? Why does anyone think the market will wait until oil production actually starts declining in order to price the eventual depletion into the price of oil?

<comment><USER8> We're never going to run out of oil, just like we're never going to run out of gold or silicon or gravel or any other mineral resource. But as supply eventually declines the price may rise enough that petroleum can no longer feasibly be used as a vehicle fuel or chemical manufacturing feed stock.

<comment><USER9> > _But as supply eventually declines the price may rise enough that petroleum > can no longer feasibly be used_ [...] //

It can still feasibly be used by those who own the oil stock itself. It's not the inherent cost that is increasing only the market price. As the price rises the market should work to ensure that every last drop of oil is bled from the Earth. If the price goes to high then [in a perfect market] it will drop back to ensure maximum exploitation.

It's only a falling price below the production cost that makes it infeasible to extract surely?

<comment><USER8> Not really. As oil grows scarcer it becomes more expensive to extract, regardless of whether you own the mineral rights. At some point the price will rise high enough that it's cheaper to substitute other goods for petroleum. For example liquid hydrocarbons can be manufactured using the Fischer–Tropsch process.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reading about how much resources these companies are pouring into espionage, it makes me wonder how much Cushing realy has to gain by keeping this information proprietary.

If someone is already getting that information out by flying a helicopter over my installation, I would be tempted to either a) arbitrage the situation by selling the information myself, or b) erect some tents over the tanks if it's really worth keeping it secret.

<comment><USER11> Many companies that own tank farms, carrier pipelines, and other types of oil transportation / storage infrastructure do exactly this. Production information is extremely valuable, and since producers are not restricted from participating in commodities markets, they often just do the trading themselves.

</comment></comment><comment> at-fates-hands This little diddy jumped off the page at me:

"Goldman Sachs (GS) predicts that by 2017 the U.S. will be the world's biggest oil producer."

How accurate is this statement? Is the reason the gasoline prices here are so high ($3.89 here this weekend) is because we don't have enough refineries to convert oil into gas?

*edited for grammar.

<comment><USER12> US gasoline prices are amongst the cheapest in the world. Why do you conclude they are so high?

<comment><USER13> <http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=oil+price>

The cost of oil has gone through the roof, even compared to the 80's oil crisis where the middle east shut-off gas to the US.

[edit] Removed some comments that referenced a different comment that I thought was the parent to this comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I really cannot see this as "spying". Its just collecting data that (in a perfect market?) should be available just for asking.

</comment><comment><USER15> I believe GS also works with a firm to take satellite photos of a sample of Wal-mart parking lots across the country. Given that Wal-mart's performance is known to be a leading indicator of the economy, such information gives some valuable insight into lots of macroeconomic indicators.

</comment><comment><USER16> While this lets those who are going far above and beyond to gather information, the solution is for the storage numbers to be published market- wide, to take away the edge a few have - with enough market pressure this could possibly happen.

Arbitrage is valid, as is doing your research, inferring what's going on with a company and then trading on your assumption.

Insiders are barred from influencing the market with their knowledge, but outsiders who infer what they think is going on, whether it's a sure thing or not, are perfectly fine.

</comment><comment><USER17> This is brilliant - measuring power use via em sensors under power lines to get at oil production. I was just thinking last night what I could do with real-time accurate off grid data to simulate the various parts of the economy. Imagine if you knew everything and could simulate how it all relates together.</comment>


Coursify: A Free Open-Source Online Course Platform - <AUTHOR> http://www.trycoursify.com <comment><AUTHOR> WOW! I made it to the front page. Okay so I posted it yesterday and went to bed. Thank you all for your support an feedback.

When Udemy decided to start charging 50% of every sale, I needed another way to sell my Online Courses.

I looked at a few self-hosted Online Course platforms, but they all wanted a monthly fee + transaction fees, which I think is excessive.

So I started working on Coursify. With Coursify, you can download it, install it and use it without paying.

If you don't know rails, you can pay me a one-time installation fee and you can use it forever without any more charges from us...

I also released it under the MIT licence, so others can improve on it.

Thank you.

<comment><USER2> Is this your project as well? [https://medium.com/@sergiojota/codeweekend- review-nigerian-s...](https://medium.com/@sergiojota/codeweekend-review- nigerian-scam-or-legit-mess-eb106c58069c)

<comment><USER3> I wrote the article on Medium. I was in contact with 2-3 ex-students of that course. None of them received refunds several months after my article (I imagine I received the refund because I started the "movement").

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Felix,

I'm the founder of [http://usefedora.com](http://usefedora.com) \-- a product you are intimately familiar with.

Love the effort and open source contribution -- but definitely put off by stealing our UI/UX almost verbatim (example site built with our tool: [http://bitfountain.io/courses/iwatch- course](http://bitfountain.io/courses/iwatch-course) <\-- the same people as your case study, your tool: [http://www.onedayrails.com/](http://www.onedayrails.com/))

While it is incredibly flattering for a small startup like ours to have an open-source derivative, stealing our interface and design patterns for a project that you charge hundreds of dollars in installation fees definitely leaves a bad taste.

Do it right and we'd have probably helped you promote it. But this just doesn't seem cool.

<comment><USER5> I didn't realize you owned the exclusive use of the large leaderboard images and rounded buttons design patterns. I'm sure there are loads of people out there profiting off of your patented design that you should probably be harassing as well.

Good thing [http://getbootstrap.com/](http://getbootstrap.com/) looks nothing at all like "your" design.

<comment><USER6> The obvious similarities are throughout the design, including the entirety of the course sales pages, the lecture view, specific iconography, etc.

<comment><USER7> Both sites just look like a customized bootstrap theme to me

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats on your launch! Just wondering, how did you come up with this pricing model? I think you need to change it because majority of the buyers can wait for 1 day than paying $400. OR am I missing something here?

<comment><AUTHOR> I created that price plan because I want most people to avoid rushing me to install it for them.

I'm very busy so the peace of mind that most people won't choose that plan is why it's so expensive.

Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Question: from the video I get the impression that this platform can handle only ONE course, is this right? Still a very nice implementation, good interface work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for your feedback.

Yes that's right. Is multi-tenancy something you'll like? If it is, I can start working on this next week.

<comment><USER9> Of course multitenancy [1] is a nice feature to have for every web based software, however I just wanted to clarify if it was possible to use your product if one has more than one course to offer.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitenancy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multitenancy)

<comment><AUTHOR> It's designed for just one course at the moment. I'll add support for more multiple courses later, but at the moment no, you can't sorry.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really neat! online courses are on the rise and having such a platform just makes it easy to start one.

Just found a typo -

"That means you'll get the best developers from all over the world, working hard to make Courify an excellent platform for you to sell your online course."

I see "Courify".

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll fix it now thanks. That's what happens when you launch at 8am without sleeping HAHA.

Edit: Fixed

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> The github link on the downloads page seems to be broken: [https://github.com/felixog/coursify](https://github.com/felixog/coursify)

<comment><AUTHOR> I launched at 8AM (without sleeping all night) and I forgot to make the Git- Repo public (oops).

Its public now and the link now works thank you.

BTW, the actual download link on my website takes you to Dropbox and that link works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Is your target market individual education entrepreneurs and small teams, or do you have plans to offer this product to universities? The reason I'm asking is because many colleges would spend money on a lightweight course builder that hooked back into their existing learning management system, especially if it gives them flexibility to develop their own courseware, or hosts it for them.

</comment><comment><USER13> great job! it looks like a good replacement for people trying to juggle with the complexity of a software like moodle. I'm also interesting in knowing if it will support some type of assessment, because it looks like so far it's only a paywall for content. Do you have plans to add support for any type of assessment?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm already working on quizzes. I still need to refactor the current code base though so that feature is at least two weeks out.

The multi course feature is already working as well and once I clean the code up, I'll update the code base on GitHub.

Do you have any other type of assessment in mind?

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I was excited until I realized the Courses weren't open source. Ah well. xD

It looks nice for its purpose. Congrats on launching. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Do you mean the OneDayRails course?

<comment><USER14> I meant I thought it was a project to encourage people to build & deploy open source courses on a platform. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh that's a good idea.

Seed planted

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Hmm.. seems like server is unable to response to overwhelming & sudden interest

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems to be back up?

<comment><USER15> Yup!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Looks great, could you have a list of features you offer? :)

</comment><comment><USER17> Any plans to have a hosted version?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes I'm working on that. And it will also be free . Not sure how I'll monetise that though.

<comment><USER18> Probably a one time fee to host it on a platform like Amazon whose fees will be separately paid by the user

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> only with video learning support?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, you can add text as well. In fact for now, video is an after thought.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> .

</comment><comment><USER6> Thanks for cloning my company's product, we're flattered.

[http://usefedora.com](http://usefedora.com)

(We're the ones who power courses like [http://bitfountain.io](http://bitfountain.io))

<comment><USER21> Except yours isn't free.

Your "free" tier costs $1 + 10% per transaction, which is ridiculously expensive. Even Paypal doesn't rip me off that bad.

<comment><USER22> We actually drop the transaction fee once you're actually making money. Check it out: usefedora.com/pricing.

To your point, if there's a free tier with a transaction fee, doesn't that mean it's totally free to use? We handle all the hosting for you, so it's a little misleading to call this system free.

With Fedora, we make money when you do - which is an amazing alignment of incentives if you ask me. This really helps people who are just starting out and want to use a robust product. Right now folks using Fedora teach near 400,000 students in any language you can imagine.

Disclaimer, I Co-Founded Fedora and you have any questions, feel free to reach out firstname.lastname@example.com.</comment></comment></comment>


Tell HN: My new product, Dotpack, a .NET binary packer - <AUTHOR> http://daeken.com/dotpack-beta-1 <comment><USER2> In addition to merging user assemblies, can you include system assemblies and even the runtime itself? I've always wanted to distribute C# apps as a single executable file that didn't depend on any runtime at all. I think there are some products out there that can do this, but last I checked none of them seemed very good.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's certainly possible, although I'm not certain of the legalities there. I'll look into it once I get merging of assemblies working. Combined with the dead code analysis I'm working on, it may end up working out pretty well. Thanks for the suggestion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Won't this break XML serialzation? At least, several years ago, XML serialization used to go compile code (call csc on files) at runtime or something crazy like that. We were never able to make our dynamically loaded assemblies work well with XML serialization. I tried a commercial product a while later and it too had that issue.

Kudos on LMZA - I wish Silverlight would have used that instead of just zip. It'd make a pretty big impact on size.

<comment><AUTHOR> Nope, this works fine with reflection generally. That sort of introspection, however, will be incompatible with the obfuscation done in the future. I aim to detect where it happens, and at least say "hey, this flag is being ignored since it's going to break things".

As for LZMA, it has a huge impact for sure, but until assembly merging and dead code analysis are in place, the impact on Silverlight assemblies is going to be pretty slim.

Dotpack does wonders on standalone binaries as it stands (compresses NVidia FX Composer to just over 20% of its original size, for instance), but most Silverlight assemblies only get a 10-20% decrease right now. I'm looking forward to getting the Silverlight side stable and as high quality as the standalone side.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is the long-term goal going after SmartAssembly's market?

<comment><AUTHOR> Redgate (owner of SmartAssembly) and Remotesoft in general. Yes. Their tools don't work worth a damn and they sell way, way too many licenses. I'd love to take a large chunk out of their market.

<comment><USER4> In fairness to Redgate, their tools have always worked for me. SmartAssembly worked pretty well when I used it too. They're just ridiculously expensive. So I would love to see some good competition for them.

<comment><USER5> He's going to be charging 500USD per user per year. {sa} charges 500USD per user.

<comment><AUTHOR> My price is certainly high, but if there's one thing I've learned in business it's that it's much easier to lower your price than to raise it.

<comment><USER6> That's true, but at a $500 price point, you're also reducing your market substantially due to price elasticity. Be sure to lower the price quickly if you feel like you're not getting traction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Sorry, but I am curious what the product does. Can someone explain in lay terms what an exe packer is and why this product is special? Thanks.

<comment><AUTHOR> A binary packer such as Dotpack, UPX, or PEtite compresses an executable and adds an unpacker to the beginning of it. In this way, you have a self-standing application that is a fraction of its original size. What sets Dotpack apart from the popular packing tools is that it works on .NET binaries rather than general Windows/Linux/Mac binaries.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Could you post a protected .exe URL to this thread to play with? Just a simple crackme would work.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you'd like to take a look at a packed binary, Dotpack itself is packed. Feel free to peek around at it. For what it's worth, there's little to no protection as it stands; the unpacker stubs are obfuscated for space reasons, but the actual assembly is unchanged at this time. Obfuscation will be coming soon, although I'm unsure of how far I'm going to take it for the release version.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> How is it better than UPX?

<comment><AUTHOR> UPX and other binary packers out there don't support .NET binaries in any way. There's only one other .NET packer that I'm aware of, and it seems to be dead (the only traces of it are on shady shareware sites) and quite old.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> This "Product" is taken from open source project <http://exepack.codeplex.com/> ..

ExePack == DotPack

same functionalities .. but one is "Product" and other is opensource project ..

<comment><AUTHOR> The extent of this accusation stems from the fact that both names contain 'Pack', much like every other packer on the planet. One of his many trollish comments on my blog was this:

        "Your product" name is DotPack and open source ExePack ;
        Pack part of the name the same . coincidence ?
        To much coincidence in this case .

        NM Moscow, Russia

At least a dozen HN readers can attest to the fact that I've been working heavily on this, and two have seen the source first-hand and can confirm that it's original.

It's offensive to say the least to have such an accusation come up on your own blog, but eh, such is the internet.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Our startup launched: create visual supports for special education - <AUTHOR> http://symbly.us/

<comment><AUTHOR> I know this isn't exactly our target demographic, but I'm very excited to share this with the HN community. My wife and I have been involved in special education for many years, and I'm constantly appalled at the state of the software industry in the field. We're trying to change that, and this is our first attempt. It's a new way to create and share visual supports for use in special education, such as with children with autism.

I would, of course, appreciate any feedback that you can give about the website, and if you or anyone you know is involved in special education, have them give the app a try as well!

Thanks for all the great advice over the years. This entire community is an inspiration.

EDIT: For those technically inclined, the app itself runs on a combination of Raphael JS, SVG, Backbone JS, Share JS, and Node.

<comment><USER2> I think it looks great. I'm not your target audience either, but my cousin is a special education teacher and she's very excited about it after I passed it along to her.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great! Thanks! Be sure to let her know that we love hearing feedback, good or bad :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> When adding text on a support, I can't seem to move it after I place it (Chrome - 19.0.1036.7 dev-m).

When adding a symbol, can you remove the text that it adds with it?

I add a tag but it doesn't seem to stay

(Parent of 5 yr old on Autism Spectrum)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmmm...I will have to download that version of Chrome and see what the problem is. I'm just running release (17.0.963.46).

You can remove the text by highlighting it and tapping the Delete key on your keyboard, or by right-clicking and choose "Delete". If you click the Gear icon that's above the Search box when you are in the Image Search dialog, you can set it to put automatic labels above, below, or not at all.

Are you trying to tag image results in your personal image library? Or tagging supports doesn't work when your browsing the site outside of the editor?

Thanks for the feedback! And feel free to email firstname.lastname@example.com if you would rather do this via email :-).

<comment><USER3> I added a tag to the support itself but it doesn't seem to stay.

Right click and delete worked perfectly, but it didn't like clicking and then hitting the delete button.

Overall, I think this pretty awesome and combined with a tablet makes more sense than paying $2k+ for some of the devices available.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's our thinking as well. And it becomes even better if we can really get a community going, sharing supports and advice. Our goal is to really change special education for the better. Thanks for the support!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Osaka.rs – Rust async without the noise - <AUTHOR> http://aep.github.io/rust-async-without-the-noise/ <comment><USER2> This post is full of misinformation. Reposting my reply from Reddit:

> what the futures.rs authors decided to do: cram futures.rs into std and add > an entire language feature to hide the bloat behind a code generator.

First the post establishes a problem with `futures-rs`- combinators and their associated binary bloat. Then in this quote it assumes that the bloat will carry over to the std-based futures used for async/await, even though the express purpose of std futures and async/await is to _replace_ combinators with exactly what the author wants- generators.

> the rust equivalent would be slightly uglier, because generators can't have > continuation arguments

The next thing it assumes will carry over is the thread-local executor. (Or that's how I read it; it's a little unclear- maybe it means tokio's default executor?) But this complaint _also_ doesn't apply to async/await, which has converted to an executor argument (`Waker`) to `Future::poll`, which is again _exactly_ what the author wants- a continuation argument to the generator.

> its in no way fancy, but has two significant advantages over async/await. > Firstly, it emits a generator without a specific execution engine.

>

> Secondly, Result just works as intended. There's no need to wrap it in > FutureResult because no such type exists.

>

> Lastly, sync is just: [polling and yielding in a loop] so anything that > returns Ready/Again is sync. There is no task queue, no singleton, nothing > 'magic'.

These last criticisms of futures and async/await are the most baffling. Futures have _always_ been agnostic to the execution engine, even in the 0.1 form, to a greater degree than osaka. The std version of futures _already_ just uses `Result`. And `await` _is_ just polling and yielding in a loop. The task queue is osaka's `yield poll.again(..)`, the (actually non-)singleton is osaka's `poll` argument, and the "magic" is that `poll` is only accessible from manual `Future::poll` impls.

This all seems like _very_ surface-level stuff to me- hardly something that would prevent anyone from using async/await on embedded. The execution model is identical. I saw [this tweet]([https://twitter.com/arvidep/status/1092818400798298114](https://twitter.com/arvidep/status/1092818400798298114)) saying "you cannot create a push based executor" and [this tweet]([https://twitter.com/arvidep/status/1092823133390864385](https://twitter.com/arvidep/status/1092823133390864385)) saying "any [Future-based] alternatives need to look like tokio," but it's unclear to me exactly what is changing here, compared to existing embedded uses of async/await.

<comment><USER3> The entire section "What's up with async in rust" lists an example of futures combinators and blames tokio for it. The post is seriously confused.

<comment><USER4> This guy is so into himself, the first thing he does is ask for pull-requests to fix his typos because he can't be bothered to proofread.</comment></comment></comment>


Qwerty keyboards: Time for a rethink? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130314-qwerty-time-for-a-rethink

<comment><USER2> > We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our > international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run > commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the > profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new > BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital > activities at www.bbcworldwide.com.

WTF BBC, just treat me like anyone else for the /future/ site; show me ads if you're showing them ads.

(Not sure if they're legally allowed to do that, or if they show ads in other parts of the world.)

<comment><USER3> There's always the obvious solution:

[http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon- www.cgi/http://www.bbc.co...](http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon- www.cgi/http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130314-qwerty-time-for-a-rethink)

But it's a misleading headline. It's about a new type of piano. See [http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/roli-seaboard- instrument...](http://www.musicradar.com/news/tech/roli-seaboard-instrument- unveiled-571907)</comment></comment>