Gene Amdahl has died - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/technology/gene-amdahl-pioneer-of-mainframe-computing-dies-at-92.html <comment><USER2> When an IBM salesman saw a coffee cup with the Amdahl Logo at a customers site, he was instructed to cut one million dollar of his price offer. That was the one million dollar coffee mug.

[http://dealwhisperers.blogspot.co.il/2015/07/a-million- dolla...](http://dealwhisperers.blogspot.co.il/2015/07/a-million-dollar- coffee-cup.html)

here is a picture of it [http://www.deadprogrammer.com/fud- you](http://www.deadprogrammer.com/fud-you)

<comment><USER3> I wonder what the modern equivalents are. (Also, how to get an Amdahl mug today)

<comment><USER4> We at Cumulus have been told by our customers that having one of our rocket- turtle stickers on their laptop results in a much faster and easier negotiations about discounts with their Cisco sales rep. An Arista sticker probably works too.

It is one of the reasons we made the stickers. =)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "In 1946 he married Marian Quissell, who grew up on a farm four miles from his.

He received his bachelor's degree in 1948 from South Dakota State University, in Brookings, where his wife worked as a secretary. She had dropped out of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., after her freshman year to go to work to help pay for her husband's education."

\- What a nice story of love, sacrifice and reward given they appeared to have stayed together till the end.

<comment><USER6> Unless you personally know either of the people involved, I don't think you are in a position to make a judgement as to whether it was "love, sacrifice and reward" or "prevailing cultural pressures at the time that were always regretted later"

<comment><USER7> I thought that the prevailing cultural pressures at the time were about men working and women staying at home.

<comment><USER8> Well, the thrust of it was that the man's career is important, and the woman's isn't. So assuming they had no children at the time, it was entirely consistent with that for her to quit college and take a job with no career path in order to fund his education. (If they had children, of course, the ethic would have been that she should stay home to care for them... indeed, she would likely have had no alternative.)

I think frossie has a good point, actually. We can hope that it was as jusben1369 suggests, but we can't really know that. Maybe being married to Gene gave Marian all she wanted in life, and maybe it didn't.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Died? I'm pretty sure he's just been swapped into a context that we don't have access to and is running in parallel with us.

RIP

<comment><USER10> I have faith we'll eventually be able to restore all those important processes. It's really hard to destroy information. We just need a way to read it back.

<comment><USER11> Is that you, Nikolai? ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov))

;-)

<comment><USER10> I do not perceive myself to be Nikolai, but I do not trust my memories enough to claim I could not possibly be him, provided someone had the needed technologies to interfere with this timeline and my memories of it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> "By sheer intellectual force, plus some argument and banging on the table, he maintained architectural consistency across six engineering teams," said Frederick P. Brooks Jr.

This is one of the more impressive things to me. Keeping that many people on the same page is an amazing feat.

<comment><USER13> Brooks's interview at the Computer History Museum mentions an argument over byte size: "Gene and I each quit once that week, quit the company, and Manny Piore got us back together." ([http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/201...](http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/11/102658255-05-01-acc.pdf))

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I met Gene Amdahl once, when I took a summer course in computer architecture at UCSC. We got a tour of the Amdahl plant. They had a huge prototype CPU built out of TTL, which they built before making custom ICs. Each board in the prototype became one IC. Each row of cards in the prototype became one board. Each rack became one row of cards. That was how you debugged hardware designs in 1975.

<comment><USER15> > That was how you debugged hardware designs in 1975.

soul of a new machine, spends couple of chapters discussing debugging the data-general machine as well. pretty interesting...

<comment><USER16> If anyone new to the industry (software or hardware) hasn't read this yet -- you really really should. We had an MV-8000 at college and it performed quite well, considering the loads we threw at it (I recall it running ADA, COBOL, and Pascal compilers all at the same time)

[http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy- Kidder/dp/03164...](http://www.amazon.com/Soul-New-Machine-Tracy- Kidder/dp/0316491977)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt)

FUD was first defined with its specific current meaning by Gene Amdahl the same year, 1975, after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might be considering Amdahl products."[

</comment><comment><USER18> Gene Amdahl was remarkable person, both as an engineer and an entrepeneur.

The Computer History Museum has a very interesting interview with Gene Amdahl as part of its Oral History Collection - [http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102702492](http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102702492) \- that is, quite frankly, more interesting than anything I could come up with right now.

<comment><USER19> The oral history is quite interesting and in depth. It really helps to get to know him. Thank you for sharing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Honest question for those who got received CS/Engineering degrees in the last 10 years, did Amdahl's Law come up?

I've seen programming courses go away from assembler/c/c++ over the years to Java and then scripting languages at a couple local schools.

I wonder if the history/theory side changed as well.

<comment><USER21> CS degree. Never heard of it. I graduated about 5 years ago.

<comment><USER20> Thanks. It's always interesting to see what people with comparable degrees encounter.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> At university, we used an IBM 370 for most of our programming classes. The 370 assembler was interesting to program on after learning 6502 assembler in high school and using 6809 for an EE class. I still have my banana book.

Flandreau, S.D. is also the home of an indian boarding school. Its not exactly a big town even by local standards.

[edit] love the quote "He's always been right up there with Seymour Cray or Steve Wozniak,"

We lost Cray too early (f'n drunk driver) much like Jay Miner. I guess I should be grateful that unlike a lot of other professions, we walk the earth at the same time as our legends.

</comment><comment><USER23> The purpose of Amdahl's 1967 paper was to dissuade customers that multiprocessors were cost-effective (read: more expensive for him to produce at Amdahl Corp). In a certain sense, he was correct. Ironically, however, that same paper is now the most quoted in the parallel processing literature. Moreover, he never wrote down the "law" that is now attributed to him---a marketing coup.

<comment><USER24> _Moreover, he never wrote down the "law" that is now attributed to him---a marketing coup._

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stigler's_law_of_eponymy) strikes again.

<comment><USER25> Stigler's law - that is, the fact that eponyms often deny credit for an invention to many people who were relevant for it - is one of the reasons why I try to avoid eponymy where possible.

The other reason is that eponymy is often a symptom of laziness. Rather than finding a good, descriptive name for something, you end up with an eponym that is not at all evocative of the meaning behind it. For example, and without putting too much thought into it, Amdahl's law could have been called something like law of scaling or law of bottlenecks.

<comment><USER26> > The other reason is that eponymy is often a symptom of laziness. Rather than > finding a good, descriptive name for something, you end up with an eponym > that is not at all evocative of the meaning behind it.

The tongue-in-cheek flip side of this coin is that, when discovering something, one should give it a descriptive but complex name. That way, people are more likely to refer to it by the names of the discoverers than by the clumsy descriptive title the discoverers chose. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Most people don't grok that

(IBM).1960s+1970s = (Apple+Microsoft+Google+Dell+OpenSource).today

for many reasons, but mostly because of the 360 Series, upon which I and many my age got started.

I don't miss the COBOL ENVIRONMENT DIVISION or the punch cards much, but I do miss the technical brilliance which captured the industry.

RIP Sweet Genius

</comment><comment><USER28> For those who may not have heard of him: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amdahl%27s_law)

</comment><comment><USER29> Amdahl's law is such a powerful idea. I use it to prioritize development items every week if not every day.

Always sad to see a story like this on hacker news. I'll be talking about his ideas for the rest of my career, guaranteed.

</comment><comment><USER30> > _With funding from Fujitsu, he formed the Amdahl Corporation, setting up > offices in Sunnyvale, Calif._

I didn't realize that the tradition of "avoid SV VC and get funding for cheap from an overseas operating company" went so far back.

<comment><USER31> It also ruined the company. They spent a lot of money on a potential merger with StorageTek, only for it to go down the drain when Fujitsu claimed that it's legal right to a percentage on products sold would be applicable to the complete combined company as well (source: I work with a bunch of ex StorageTek guys).

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> We really need to rid the world of Alzheimer as soon as possible. The bittersweet thing is that today's golden era titans of innovation may not live long enough for these anti-aging treatments to be deployed.

<comment><USER33> I highly suspect those titans of innovations - in many areas - just happen to be among the first to get to relatively low hanging fruits in a new area... This pattern repeats in many fields.

Not to diminish Amdahl's achievements, of course.

<comment><USER34> Sure. I mean, I expect to read similar obituaries one day for the computer science giants of today, like Jeff Dean (hopefully not for a very long time!).

Amdahl's bio makes it sound like he was an effective engineer and good at business too, but that his career was somewhat empty of success after he left Amdahl. That should not detract from his earlier achievements. Very few people have an unbroken track record of sustained success across their whole career.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> He really invented a lot of good mainframe technology. Worked at IBM and then left to make his own company to compete with IBM making IBM Mainframe clones that ran faster and cost less than an IBM Mainframe.

I grew up in the era that used IBM 360/370 mainframes and I learned them in college for FORTRAN and COBOL and JCL with DOS/VSE. I don't think colleges teach mainframe technology anymore now that PCs have taken over.

Things moved from PCs to mobile devices so quick as well.

Edit;Typo

</comment><comment><USER36> I wonder if there will ever be some kind of statue or memorial for one of those founding parents. Ada Lovelace, Alonzo Church, Grace Hopper, John McCarthy, Haskell Curry, Seymour Cray, Gene Amdahl... I'm sure that list is too short.

<comment><USER37> There's a small memorial for Grace Hopper in Arlington: [http://parks.arlingtonva.us/locations/grace-murray-hopper- pa...](http://parks.arlingtonva.us/locations/grace-murray-hopper-park/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> > Amdahl also benefited from antitrust settlements between IBM and the Justice > Department, which required IBM to make its mainframe software available to > competitors.

Anybody here who knows more about this? Did IBM have to sell the software for the same price, did they have to give it for free?

<comment><USER39> It meant that Amdahl's (and other manufacturer's) customers could buy IBM software and run it on non-IBM hardware.

<comment><USER38> I still don't know the answer:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1969:_Antitrust...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1969:_Antitrust.2C_the_Unbundling_of_software_and_services)

"After the unbundling, IBM software was divided into two main categories: System Control Programming (SCP), which remained free to customers, and Program Products (PP), which were charged for."

So what were Amdahl's customers able to get? Didn't they get System Control Software from IBM (1)? Was it free for them?

1) I've found the Computerworld 1 Nov 1976 article mentioning IBM's MVT 21.8 running on Amdahl's 470.

<comment><USER39> SCP remained bundled with the hardware, so you only got it if you bought the hardware, but if you bought the software it belonged to you so you could run it on whatever hardware you liked. I suppose if you bought both an IBM and a non-IBM mainframe you could take the SCP from IBM and run it on a non-IBM box, but I'm not sure if that was addressed in the ruling. The point was to decouple software sales from hardware sales when it came to commercial (sold) software.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I wonder if it's worth it for someone else to try to make a mainframe clone. I remember some company selling the Hercules emulator on an HP IA64 machine- PSI I think.

It would be fun to try to make an FPGA version.

Oh yeah, PSI: [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/02/ibm_buys_psi/](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/02/ibm_buys_psi/)

</comment><comment><USER41> Fond memories. I was working for a financial services company when we went from an IBM mainframe complex to an Amdahl one. Besides being responsible for data center automation I was facilities manager, so I was in charge of the project. It only took 3 weeks to complete the entire migration. Thank you Gene.

</comment><comment><USER42> Related: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10555794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10555794).

</comment><comment><USER10> One minute of zeroes.

</comment><comment><USER43> I think he deserves a HN Back Bar tribute.

<comment><USER44> It would seem that HN agree. Black bar is now up.

<comment> vive-la-liberte The black bar looks strange on my tablet, not like I remember it from last time. The black is now about 1/7th of the bar and the remainder is orange. I seem to recall that the entire bar was black last time they did it, which I think worked much better.

<comment><USER42> Pretty sure it hasn't changed.

<comment><USER45> Some evidence it hasn't changed (as far as I can see): [https://www.flickr.com/photos/turoczy/5886505173](https://www.flickr.com/photos/turoczy/5886505173)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oraculum – Enterprise JavaScript MVC Framework - <AUTHOR> http://hackers.lookout.com/2014/08/introducing-oraculum/

<comment><USER2> Until Oraculum has AbstractSingletonProxyFactoryBeans I don't think it's prudent to migrate my Java stack.

<comment><AUTHOR> We have all of that, but no beans.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> First link on the page to

[http://todomvc.com/architecture- examples/oraculum/](http://todomvc.com/architecture-examples/oraculum/)

doesn't work, hope someone can fix this while this story is on the front page. I really need to see some code before I want to study how "the entire paradigm [has] to change".

<comment><AUTHOR> A reasonable and fair criticism. Honestly I just haven't had the time to do the TodoMVC. There is an example in the repository though. Feel free to browse [https://github.com/lookout/oraculum/tree/master/examples/gh-...](https://github.com/lookout/oraculum/tree/master/examples/gh- pages)

Edit: typo

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> There is something creepy about the name, but I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe you should call it Hitlerum or Nazium or Swasticum or anything else less creepy than Oraculum.</comment>


Barry Schwartz on our loss of wisdom - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html <comment><USER2> @ 12:24

        When incentives don't work, when CEOs ignore the
        long-term health of their companies in pusuit of
        short-term gains that will lead to massive bonuses,
        the resonse is always the same:

            get smarter incentives.

        The truth is that there are no incentives you can
        devise that are ever going to be smart enough. Any
        incentive system can be subverted by bad will.

Well worth the time to listen to the entire talk.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think part of this talk is directed at the messed-up American legal system which has trickled down to affect a lot of life in America. You can't make an exception for fear of a lawsuit. The rest of the world doesn't have a culture of lawsuits, and as a result, wise exceptions flourish.

If we remove lawsuits with large monetary penalties, leaving small penalties and, of course, criminal penalties, frivolous lawsuits will die on the vine.

Does anyone know of a movement to make this change? And if it doesn't exist yet, who's with me to start one?

<comment><USER4> "Loser pays" might produce the results you want:

[http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/12/10/marie-gryphon- on-l...](http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/12/10/marie-gryphon-on-loser- pays/)

<comment><USER3> That's a good idea but it could have the consequences that a poor person would have to front money to go to trial, just in case he or she lost.

I think getting rid of the large settlements (replaced with criminal charges) is the way other countries have it. Again, I'd be interested to see if work can be done towards this.

<comment><USER5> > That's a good idea but it could have the consequences that a poor person > would have to front money to go to trial, just in case he or she lost.

Not necessarily. Some "loser pays" systems allow the plaintiff's lawyers (or an insurance company) to take the risk of paying the defendant's costs if the lawsuit is unsuccessful. (The key is that those systems allow such folks to get paid for taking that risk.)

In the US, when a contingency lawyer loses a case, s\he is typically out his time and occasionally expenses as well. Loser-pays "just" doubles the hit from a loss.

I'm not saying that loser-pays is a good idea, I'm just saying that it doesn't necessarily exclude poor folks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I think much of what this guy talks about applies directly to programming, too, and especially speaks to the friction between management and programmers. Managers want hard rules, and programming is not amenable to this.

I've been writing an essay on this topic for a while which really reminds me of this video, and one of the main thrusts is that you can't just learn rules, and it targets the question of how do you develop the wisdom to program. It's not all that great and it's not done (mostly unposted). It's not stuff that would necessarily be news to anybody here, but it's been interesting writing it all out.

There's no substitute for trusting programmer judgment, and that _bothers_ people. Programming isn't unique that way, either, it's just the field I know.

<comment><USER7> I think a really great example of this is the "One Minute Manager" and similar management books on the market. They try to give you rules for managing the people you work with, without considering the human / personal element of the job. I have known people with managers like these, and they always fail. People catch on pretty quickly.

One of the good trends in software (IMO) is that in rejecting rule-driven ways of running projects (like waterfall, RUP, etc.), people across the industry have basically agreed that the right way to build software is to make it a human endeavor again, thus Agile, XP, etc. The bad trend I see is that some people are trying to create rule-driven systems out of Agile and XP (e.g. 99% unit test coverage required, or you must pair program every line of code in the system). This makes my head hurt, since it is so against the spirit of the Agile manifesto.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> If we are going to count on hope and virtue to get us out of this mess, then we might as well give up because it will only be an exercise in wasting time.</comment>


Logistics startup in stealth ElasticRun gets $2m seed from Kalaari, Norwest - <AUTHOR> https://www.techinasia.com/elasticrun-uber-for-logistics-stealth-startup-gets-2-million-seed-kalaari-norwest <comment><AUTHOR> Interesting to see Indian techies leaving MNCs to start up their own companies. It's going to get harder to retain good tech talent.</comment>


The Crypto World Has Been Turning into a Ponzi Scheme - <AUTHOR> https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-world-has-been-turning-into-ponzi-scheme-opinion <comment><USER2> Turning into? It wasn't always? Since the dawn of civilization, people have looked for the magical formula to turn base metals into gold--to create wealth out of nothing, for no real work or creation of value. Maybe the latest iteration of Rumplestilskin's spinning wheel will turn out to be more real than past attempts, but personally I am dubious.</comment>


Show HN: Send IRL postcards of cute animals online. - <AUTHOR>

Google's "send a free postcard" gmail promo last year inspired me to make this: http://ourbunny.com
I wanted to send more than one postcard from the convienence of my laptop and thought that other people might want to too.  The project was an excuse to learn django and something about having a physical product to sell seemed gratifying.
I found creative commmons images on flickr that I liked and had them made into postcards.  My website just accepts paypal orders and generates a PDF with the address/message.  I print the PDF's to the postcards on my laserjet printer and manually stamp them and drop them in the mail. <comment><AUTHOR> clickable link: <http://ourbunny.com></comment>


Google Fiber Cutting Jobs and Halting Rollout - gm-conspiracy http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/technology/google-curbs-expansion-of-fiber-optic-network-cutting-jobs.html?_r=0 <comment><AUTHOR> That sucks for citizens of the US. I think the Swedish (Nordic?) model for bringing internet connectivity to it's citizens is superior.

The municipalities own (most of) the networks and all the fiber cables, letting companies use them for a small(ish) fee. These companies later sell it to customers. This help people to get the best deals and ensure that the networks are continually upgraded.

For example, I have 250/100 mbit/s for free. My rent pays for this. But I could if I wanted to easily upgrade to 1gbit/s up and down. I can change ISP (even if that wouldn't be paid for by my rent) and I would know that I always could get the same internet-connectivity speeds.

Although, while this is true for many parts of Sweden, it's not available for everyone. Some places still have networks owned by one company without any access to the city network.

<comment><USER2> When you say "citizens of the US" you're talking about a continent that would take roughly five days to cross at highway speed, driving ten hours a day. You may as well say "citizens of Europe." If you haven't done that drive, by the way, you should. It will add some perspective to these comparisons. A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden (population 9.5m) and the state I live in, New Jersey (population 8.9m), which is one of the geographically smaller states in the U.S. We've enjoyed wide access to high speed broadband here for fifteen years or so now. I currently have clean 120 mbps service that is operated at utility levels of reliability. I have no complaints.

<comment><USER3> > A more reasonable comparison would be between Sweden and ... New Jersey

Except that Sweden is 20 times larger than New Jersey in area. The continental US is 18 times larger than Sweden, so it is actually a better (if terrible) comparison geographically.

Maybe in your argument you should compare Sweden with Michigan, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, or Minnesota instead of New Jersey, which each have at least half the area of Sweden with varying population density.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure you can just look at just total population and total land area. The pattern of development in Europe is very different. I just got back from Munich. You go 15 minutes outside the city and it's farmland! In the U.S., it's low-density suburbs for hours in every direction outside a major city.

Incidentally, I didn't get LTE service in the farmland between Munich and the airport. That would be quite unusual in the U.S.

<comment><USER5> 'That would be quite unusual in the U.S.'

...depending on your provider. try driving around in the sticks of Maryland just 20 minutes outside Baltimore, good luck getting EDGE on tmo!

<comment><USER6> And that is why I don't use tmo. :) I bet that your experience would be different with Verizon, AT&T, or maybe even Sprint.

<comment><USER5> but that hardly makes it an unusual proposition - tmo is the 3rd largest network.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well google announced they were exploring a fiber rollout in Chicago. Now both AT&T along with Time Warner Cable have 1G service throughout parts of the city.

Alternatively, one can look at this not as a failure, but as a success. The point of Google fiber was to force carriers to get faster internet to everyone. It appears that it has been working. This benefits google directly as their properties such as Youtube can deliver more and better content.

For Google, this is a win/win proposition.

<comment><USER8> That's nice for Chicago, and Austin, but what about LA, Houston, etc.?

I pay $75/month for 150Mbps via Comcast... and most days a speed test will say around half of that, and there's infrequent outages (averaging roughly one every month).

The only other service where I live is AT&T: 18Mbps for $50/month. And whatever you may think of Comcast, my experience with AT&T's service and customer service has been far, far worse.

This loss of competition hurts consumers

<comment><USER9> I pay $63.25 for a 2M/256K rural WISP connection, and i'm in a county with 500,000 people. In fact, i'm only 4 miles south of Madison, WI city limits.. I live in a neighborhood of 100 homes. I would kill for a 10M connection, and more than 2M up..

<comment><USER9> Should add, ATT has said on their website for the last 9 years that DSL is available at my house.. I sign up once a year, to have a guy 2 days later say its a mistake, and neighborhood is too far from the CO. I have been told 4 times to get a petition around the neighborhood, but of course, the people at the call center can't tell me what to do with that petition, or where to send it, etc. so its just to get me off the phone.

So fed up, and needing to start working from home soon, that I'm moving in a few months..

<comment><USER10> I wonder if you can get regulators involved here. I know internet is still relatively lightly regulated compared to the phone network, but AT&T has been willingly refusing to do new non-Uverse DSL installs the past couple years.

If you can document that DSL was once available at your house or that your neighbors still have it, you might be able to get somewhere.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Forgive me if I'm incorrect... The way I understand it is that they are halting planning in cities that they marked as potential locations, but that does not mean they are discontinuing the roll out and service in cities that are already in progress.

For example in Nashville, they have been trying to roll out fiber in Nashville for over a year now but have only been able to install on less than a dozen utility poles so far.

This is because of the rules that prevented anyone other than the owner of the existing lines to move anything. This meant that if Google wanted to add lines to a pole with existing AT&T and Comcast lines, it would require both companies to move their own lines independently of each other in coordination. This means roads would have to be closed 3 separate times for each vendor. Nashville recently passed the One Touch Make Ready ordinance that allows approved vendors to do all of the work at the same time.

Now both AT&T and Comcast are suing the city: [http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2016/10/comcast-sues-nash...](http://arstechnica.com/tech- policy/2016/10/comcast-sues-nashville-to-halt-rules-that-help-google-fiber/)

I hope that google stills continues to deploy to cities that are already in progress. It took community effort to get the ordinance passed and subjects them a lawsuit. It would be a real letdown.

<comment><USER12> I live in KC and they are still rolling out here. Next phase ends Nov 3. I assume they are I'll keep rolling out in the metros they are already in as the leg work is done for the most part.

<comment><USER13> I am in Atlanta and we are scheduled for it on Dec 15 2016! If there is a god, don't stop now!!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Building infrastructure is hard. Even 100 years later we still have original AT&T (Verizon and AT&T) as the dominant telecommunications company.

Google also seems to just give up on a lot of its products: Google+ Hangouts Project Ara Google Buzz Google video Orkut Talk Meebo etc.

[http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/visuel/2015/03/06/google- memori...](http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/visuel/2015/03/06/google-memorial-le- petit-musee-des-projets-google-abandonnes_4588392_4408996.html)

<comment><USER15> > Google also seems to just give up on a lot of its products

Yes remember when the mantra was "don't be evil"? They also just let products linger w/o any or many improvements. Google voice is an example. Text to speech is in many cases totally worthless, even with clear speaking speakers.

<comment><USER16> I think "Don't be evil" is way to amenable to mean "Don't do what I personally don't like".

In this concrete example, I don't think "Google cancelled a product" can be equated with "Google is evil".

<comment><USER15> Well sure but it says "I don't care if you invested time and energy thinking this product would be around. Even though we make billions when it doesn't suit our business purpose we will make a decision that isn't in your interest but ours". And it's not like companies don't do this but they generally don't do it in the way that I have seen google do it with such callousness.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> So bummed to read this. Even though I wasn't going to directly benefit from Google Fiber, it was sure nice to have a non-entrenched player tackle this market.

From the big G's standpoint, it makes good biz sense to exit this market. I sure hope the subtext in the article comes to fruition ie that Google / Alphabet has figured out a better way to get high speed internet to homes in the US sans fiber.

In an ideal world, this fast fiber internet ought to be a municipally managed utility, with my tax dollars paying for the fiber in the ground. Then, my take home dollars paying for whatever competing service(s) I choose to light up said fiber to bring me access to the net.

</comment><comment><USER18> Previous discussion (mostly about the blog post): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792928](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792928)

<comment><USER19> I read that one first then started seeing these articles like the OP all over. What incredible spin. Two completely different things happened if you read each one separately.

<comment><USER20> I was thinking this article is simply reducing the market-speak down to relevant information -- Google is putting Fiber on life-support until someone buys them out. Like many acquisitions to buy customers, Fiber may be acquired for the same reasons.

<comment><USER21> It sure would be great to see Sonic [https://www.sonic.com/](https://www.sonic.com/) buy it out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Can't say I'm surprised. I expect Google fi to have a similar fate in a few years. It's not Google business.

<comment><USER23> Project Fi doesn't involve nearly the amount of staff though--they're using someone else's network. As Google has found out, digging holes and getting permits doesn't get cheaper with better software.

<comment><USER19> I have no idea what the economics are but I imagine the carriers they're piggybacking off of could charge higher fees for MVNOing if Fi were to get to a certain scale.

<comment><USER23> Depending on the contracts they have I guess anything's possible, but MVNOs aren't a new thing and they don't typically get kicked off a network for being successful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The title of this post is pretty deceptive — it clearly implies that the Fiber project altogether is being halted.

My understanding from this article amongst others is that they are simply rethinking their approach to, rather than laying down fiber throughout all target cities, beam high speed internet from local way points to the roofs of high rises (like WebPass does in SF, which they acquired).

It is pretty reasonable to, if this seems a viable approach, halt expensive infrastructure operations to lay down hard wired fiber and cut the jobs associated with these logistics and operations.

<comment><USER25> If you think this is deceptive try reading the original announcement.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> See this title about what's happening to Google Fiber is much more direct, honest, and to the point than the corporate PR google Post and title that confused me into thinking I'm actually going to be able to sign up for Google Fiber.

Their title: "Advancing our amazing bet"

Point being that our ISPs right now need some disruption and I think a lot of people were hoping this Google Fiber would catch on. A lot of folks assumed Google would eat whatever losses to make this a hit. Apperatnly not, apperantly some short term profits trump anything else.

<comment><USER27> Google has been going in a new direction towards "fiscal responsibility" when it comes to their moon shots.

<comment><USER26> I get that but let's be honest and up front about it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> People in the technology community should start organizing the construction of local government owned municipal fiber networks in their communities. I am abroad right now, but I have decided to start speaking up in mine when I return to the United States because I finally believe that I know how such a thing can succeed.

Local communities could use municipal bonds to pay for a 10G-EPON build outs where multiple providers can provide transit, VoIP and IPTV over the same cables using PPPoE and VLANs. Then a per subscriber fee could be assessed to make pay back the bonds. This would be an ILEC/CLEC model, except with local government ownership much like they own the roads.

The situation where incumbents drop prices could be handled by having a default CLEC that offers free ITU broadband service at 256Kbps. People would switch for that and then switching to a better CLEC could just be a phone call. The incumbents could not compete with free service over a 30 year period and the municipal government owned ILEC + private CLEC model would win.

<comment><USER29> Provo Utah did something like this which failed and was bought by Google which now has also apparently failed. Fun times.

<comment><USER28> Did Provo handle the fiber to the premise while requiring people to purchase internet service from CLECs to use it with the exception of a crippled free tier to get people to bite? If not, they did not do this. Furthermore, they did not stick with it over 30 years, which is the time frame required for such an endeavor to be a success. The entire point of the idea is to divide responsibilities so that no one organization takes on too much and do so in a way that fosters competition. That includes funding via municipal bonds where pay back is expected to take ~3 decades. Had they done this, Google could have just been one CLEC among many and Provo would still be at it.

Local governments ought to focus on building roads while businesses focus on building the services that are provided through them. Having each business build its own network of private roads is infeasible. It sounds absurd when stated in this way, but that is what is happening. We need the local government to do the one thing it is good at doing, which is enabling transportation for private industry. Private industry can do the rest. That includes IP transit in such a way that tier 1 ISPs like Hurricane Electric would have a very low barrier to becoming CLECs. If each subscriber pays a fee dedicated to repaying the municipal bonds over a 30 year period, this would pay for itself.

If people operating it mess up, they can be replaced. The CLECs are interchangeable from the customer's standpoint. The contractors running the infrastructure are interchangeable from the community advisory board's standpoint. The members of the community advisory board overseeing are replaceable from the local politicians' standpoint. The local politicians are replaceable by the public. It is very different than what we have now where if people are unhappy, they cannot replace the incumbents and have little ability to voice grievances. This is the sort of system that I want in my community. I am abroad right now, but when I get back to the US, I intend to start gathering people to discuss how this could become a reality in my area.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> gm-conspiracy Anybody know what is going on here?

This seems like a page out of Verizon's FIOS rollout.

Is Google working on their own cellular network (non-MVNO)?

Is this due to the FCC reclassification of internet as a common carrier?

<comment><USER30> It's due to the fact that building a decent network for residential customers at scale is very expensive and not that profitable unless you have a long-term monopoly.

<comment><USER31> And the people with the long term monopolies want to keep it that way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> They should have known it's a long term investment and ROI happens only when certain scale is reached. Why change their mind now?

<comment><USER33> I think there are two big reasons:

The market changed. When they launched Fiber, they're announcement was reminiscent of GMail when it launched. Back then, getting a 15-30MB free web mailbox was normal and Google announced a start at 2GB. Memory may not serve me perfectly, but I believe when they launched Fiber, there wasn't a single ISP offering residential service at 1Gbps and very few at even 100Mbps. I live in a city that is neither Fiber available or even on the list of future Fiber cities, but I can get multi-gig service for the price that I think the 100Mbps service was offered when Fiber launched. Most of this happened _because_ of Google Fiber -- these companies were not terribly interested in increasing their capacity and service before, but knowing that a huge company like Google, who realistically _had_ the funds to do a roll out, was potentially going to invade their monopoly territories was enough to get the market to move. This also, unfortunately, reduced the need for them to do it. Market- wise, they'd have to fight harder for customers since their service may not be so much faster/better/cheaper to get people to endure the hassle of switching.

The reality of what the market _is_ was discovered. They had _hoped_ they'd be able to do the roll out cheaper, with the involvement of local regulatory bodies _itching_ to have their cities added to the program and paving over regulations that historically made doing a roll out like this _very_ expensive, time consuming and difficult. The incumbents, who already had networks and had to deal with and work through those same regulations cried foul, started suing and made this all more costly and difficult. Back to point #1, with other ISPs offering service at a similar speed and at a far reduced price from when Fiber launched, this took some of the motivation to pave over those regulations away from the regulatory bodies. And this is _all without_ the reality that many of those elected officials who make the laws that caused these problems have their re-election paid for by the AT&Ts, Comcasts and Verizons to a far greater extent than they do Google, so they're even _less_ motivated to help them out.

<comment><USER32> But now that GF is slowing down, incumbents will fall back into their monopolistic slumber. Without threat of competition, they won't be motivated to spread their upgrades wider. So in a sense, yes, spreading more Google Fiber makes monopolists compete, which makes spreading it harder, but that was the whole point for Google, wasn't it? So if they back down now, their goals will be compromised.

<comment><USER33> I see the point you're making and it's valid, however, there's one component that's missing. Unlike prior to Fiber, there's now Gigabit offerings from Comcast and AT&T and in many places, Comcast and AT&T are the _two_ available options for internet service. In reality, it's the fact that those two companies are providing Gigabit (and multi-gig service) that's causing the expansion of gigabit service nationwide at this point.

Google Fiber was _never_ offered in my area nor was it even hinted at being a future Fiber city, but Comcast currently offers multi-gig service. I'm not sure about AT&T because my past experience with them has had me swear them off. They could offer next-to-free service and I'd turn it down, so I don't pay attention to their offerings in my area, but I am able to get top-tier U-Verse TV/Internet in my home so I'd imagine gig will be around the corner at some point. Google Fiber wouldn't cause this expansion over here, though it may have been responsible for the initial expansion (or even the _idea_ of delivering speeds like that to consumers). The "cat is out of the bag" so to say. The (limited) competition exists and isn't going to go away with Fiber out of the picture. I think Google saw this and realized it was a somewhat safe time to shed the expense/headaches they're having getting Fiber rolled out nationwide.

And then there's the start-up factor. In the City of Detroit, I'm aware of one small company that's offering (building-to-building) gigabit service on par with Google Fiber. These micro-ISPs probably won't get a footprint the size of Fiber, but if enough of them pop up, the combined numbers might reach that point, further forcing the incumbent's hands. It's not a _terrible_ business to get into the way some of these start-ups are funding their efforts. The fact stands that _practically nobody_ who has worked with the customer service arms of their "big company" ISPs anything positive to say about them. I _pay 2.5 times the price of residential broadband_ for the _same speed_ to get better customer service out of Comcast[0], and I wouldn't _dream_ of leaving Comcast Business for AT&T Business or Comcast _or_ AT&T consumer. I work at home, I need reliable service without caps and nonsense, and I need to know I can get a service call handled quickly when problems arise. If a start-up came to my area offering faster speeds at the same or better price, _despite my relative happiness with Comcast_ , I'd switch just because I know _at some point_ they're going to discover the expense they're paying for Comcast Business's service isn't necessary because "We're a utility company. We don't have to care."

[0] The service paid for itself a while back when I took the bait for U-Verse TV service (offered at a huge discount for 6-months and no cancellation penalty -- yes, I cancelled), and the contractor from AT&T -- who's eyes were bloodshot and speech was slurred -- came to bury my U-Verse wire and managed to cleanly slice my Comcast Business Internet cable. I called at 5:00 PM and they had a guy out at 6:30 PM _same day_ who ran a completely new cable, hooked it all back up, and did so _apologising_ for the service disruption that was _their competitor 's inept contractor's fault_. He was done by 7:00 PM and despite this not being _Comcast 's_ fault, I was not charged for the service call (which I would have been fine with paying for). I have not had a single outage lasting more than 15 minutes in three years (which was _one time_ , though, luck may be a factor here), and their Business help line gets me to a proper English speaking representative who doesn't just recite "did you turn it on and then off again" from a script. It's actually a bit _distressing_ knowing that this same company, which deserves its terrible service reputation on the residential side is perfectly _capable_ of providing service bordering on _fantastic_ , but just doesn't (unless you opt into a substantially higher bill).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Wonder if Google fiber will just shut down and give a 30 day notice or something scummy like that.

<comment><USER20> They will sooner let the Fiber division be acquired than simply cancel them all outright.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> This is discouraging. I thought that Google Fiber was over-hyped for the number of users actually connected, but didn't think they'd just give up.

Perhaps Sonic, which provides gigabit Internet service to parts of San Francisco at a lower price than Google [1], will take over Google's operation there.

[1] [https://www.sonic.com/sanfrancisco](https://www.sonic.com/sanfrancisco)

<comment><USER36> There is some indication in the article that they aren't giving up on providing broadband, but halting expansion of the current Fiber offering and business model as a vehicle for that, preferring other approaches.

</comment></comment><comment><USER37> The Google Fiber rollout in my neighborhood has been a debacle from the start.

They walked around and put up door tags -- really really big ones saying, "Google Fiber is coming!" and immediately after that the 0 crime neighborhood I live in had a slew of break ins. Anyone who didn't remove this massive door tag was an easy target, the crooks knew who was home and who wasn't.

Then like a week later... they put the exact same door tag up on all the doors. And we all laughed... but we were like, "WTF, Google..." Then the next day they put the exact same door tag up again... even doubling it up on homes that already had a door tag. They door tags were just promos to sign up; they didn't tell us to mark our sprinkler systems, or who to call in case the construction crew accidentally cut our water lines...

The actual cable laying came about a month later... and it's been going on for 7 weeks at this point. Some days the guys work, most they don't. Doesn't appear to be any pattern to it. There are a bunch of expensive drilling and trenching machines parked at the end of my cul-de-sac and along the street in the spots where residents used to park. 7 weeks and counting...

<comment><USER38> Are you in KC? I am in OP.

<comment><USER37> Austin, and I get that it's the construction firm and not Google, but yeah... it not good UX. Ha.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> GF has been tearing up our neighborhood this week and last laying cable (I'm in Chapel Hill). AT&T did the same about 6 months back. I was holding out for Google, but this makes me think even when they get it up and running, the support will be nonexistent. So maybe better to go with the devil we know (we already have AT&T U-Verse, just not gigabit). At least they lasted long enough to force AT&T's hand...

<comment><USER40> I was really confused for a second why your girlfriend was laying cable... :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> They backed out of Portland after spending a ton of money and time with city officials. Sad to hear this is not happening and hope Google finds a way to get back into this because the options today are a joke. This will just embolden companies like Comcast to charge more for horrible service.

<comment><USER42> Portland spent a lot of time and resources (during a serious housing crisis), bent over backwards to give them everything they wanted... and they decide to just punk out, lay off their operations team and walk away from years of planning because they can "do fast wireless for some apartment buildings". Thanks, guys.

There's a tiny ISP (US Internet) in Minneapolis that's already wired half of the city with fiber with some loans as capital, they're not a public company and they don't have billions in CoH and they still figured it out. They've already started offering 10Gbps to home users. Yes, _ten gigabits_ , that's not a typo. And they're profitable.

Laying fiber is impossible for a megacorp with billions of CoH and access to the overflowing "talent" of Silicon Valley like Google perhaps, but not for a small business like US Internet. Let's hope Portland gets a US Internet of it's own. We're all better off if the future of the web is built by smaller decentralized companies anyways.

<comment><USER43> > There's a tiny ISP (US Internet) in Minneapolis that's already wired half of > the city with fiber with some loans as capital, they're not a public company > and they don't have billions in CoH and they still figured it out. They've > already started offering 10Gbps to home users. Yes, ten gigabits, that's not > a typo. And they're profitable.

That's not entirely correct they have about a quarter of the city wired with plans to finish in 6 or 7 years[1]. The linked image is pretty small but it's all I can find. Note the linked map only shows 40% or so of Minneapolis. Also they have been providing Business services like dark fiber for the last 20 years, so it's not like they are completely dependent on home fiber income or new to the business.

I just recently got US Internet fiber, we have the 100 Mbps plan for $39.95 a month and it's great! I noticed that when I ping 126.96.36.199 latency went down from 33ms to 22ms. Also we have more bandwidth and cheaper internet than when we had Comcast. Of course the best part of US Internet is not having to deal with Comcast anymore!

Finally US Internet forced Century Link and Comcast to launch their own fiber services[2].

[1] [https://fiber.usinternet.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/Scre...](https://fiber.usinternet.com/wp- content/uploads/2014/08/Screen-Shot-2016-09-19-at-3.02.22-PM.png)

[2] [http://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/comcast-fires-back- at-c...](http://www.fiercetelecom.com/telecom/comcast-fires-back-at- centurylink-us-internet-2-gbps-launch-minneapolis)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> This should have been the headline on yesterday's news.

</comment><comment><USER45> Fiber the way the US does it is rather lame. Consider that where Google has put in fiber the houses now have:

\- Copper telco lines

\- Coax cable lines

\- Google fiber

There's zero reason for anything other than fiber in an area being updated to it. States/municipalities should solicit bids for a company that wants to maintain the fiber infrastructure, and other companies wishing to provide phone/tv/internet over the fiber can all compete on their service over the one fiber line.

We only have one telco and one cable line because states blessed monopolies for this, they should do the same for fiber, and open access to it for competition from service/content providers. It'll never happen, but I can dream...

</comment><comment><USER46> > Because Google runs most of its business on the internet, analysts have > suggested that its entry into the costly world of fiber optic internet was > an attempt to motivate existing internet providers to accelerate the > introduction of faster web connections.

Hasn't Google said before that one of their reasons for starting Google Fiber was to push other companies to expand high-speed Internet access in the US? Has this happened or has Google Fiber just run out of steam? I know Sonic is rolling out fiber in the Bay Area. I'm sure Google Fiber has put some pressure on them to up their game.

</comment><comment><USER47> I wrote about this elsewhere and am pasting my thoughts here as I think they're relevant to this community:

1) Google Fiber is dead. Long Live Google ISP.

Google cannot afford to lay fiber in the ground because it's a long game and Google doesn't really want to play the long game (they just want to put pressure on competitors so they can move more bits along the wires, generating more searches and more streams with which to shove ads in your face). Fiber never was the most efficient way to do this, but there's something sexy about "Google Fiber" as opposed to "Google Point to Point Radio Towers". The reality is that wireless delivery of bits is way cheaper than fiber because you don't have to tear the ground up (over the last mile obviously since the arteries must be fiber links).

Clarification: "long" refers to 30-year payback periods for physical asset investment. There are a lot of things with higher returns on that timeline than fiber that google can invest in. I don't actually think it's profitable for anyone to build unsubsidized networks. This is why networks should be public and operators should be private, but that's a topic for another day!

2) Fiber is cheap, construction is expensive.

When I helped Comcast build out the fiber network in SF, what struck me was the relative cheapness of the assets we were putting in the ground compared to the cost of tearing up the street. The conduit and the glass inside the conduit cost almost nothing, but tearing up the street in SF is $300/sq ft. Crossing cable car tracks was like $50,000. Then there's the actual cost of construction: people. Getting contractors to arrive on time, finish on time, and avoid overtime is fraught with peril. It's actually really hard to move physical atoms around in a manner similar to programmatic systems, and so many models that have real world elements stumble against the harshness of actuality. I suspect Google's cost modeling for building a fiber network was optimistic.

3) Wireless is fast, but does it scale to city size?

It's not hard or particularly expensive to deliver gigabit over wireless. You basically need a tall building to rain down radio waves onto the masses. What I wonder about, given that we have no cities running on majority wireless point to points, is what happens when you hit scale? That is to say, point to points have a limited wireless footprint (because using beamforming we don't need to splay the signal everywhere, we just send it in one direction), but one can easily imagine a saturated wireless environment as generating a significant amount of noise. Wireless networks are easy when there's only a few objects on the network but get significantly harder as the physical area reaches device saturation. That is to say, WebPass might be super easy to operate when only a handful of buildings are on WebPass, but it might be much harder if a whole section of the city is online.

4) Google bought WebPass a while back.

The writing has been on the wall for a while that the fiber game was killing uncle Google. I can only hope that they don't bow out completely. I think that wireless makes Google significantly less of an existential threat to their carrier partners as well.

Overall, I remain cautiously optimistic about Google's future as an ISP.

On a final note: Google Fi is not an answer to Google fiber disappearing. The two are tangential, disjointed offerings that cannot, for a bunch of reasons, compete with one another (most notably the wireless data caps).

<comment><USER48> Do you have to literally dig up the street? If so, why?

<comment><USER47> To put the fiber in the ground.

There are pieces of conduit that we run fiber through into your building. Inside your building there's a fiber termination point that hands off to ethernet. On the other end is a repeater/node that boosts the signal from the other termination point back in the DC.

<comment><USER49> I'm not expert on this, but I think that the use of a horizontal drill is more common.

Check out this horizontal drill: [http://www.ballantineinc.com/sites/default/files/img/Copy%20...](http://www.ballantineinc.com/sites/default/files/img/Copy%20of%20hdd%20drillers%20\(8\).jpg)

See this diagram for how they're used: [http://www.ajvac.ca/images/directional%20drill%20diag2.jpg](http://www.ajvac.ca/images/directional%20drill%20diag2.jpg)

<comment><USER50> For a city like San Francisco, only a fraction of what is in the ground is mapped. The only reasonable option is many places is to dig up the ground and look at what you're working with.

Even in the area I live in, ripping up the streets is how it's done. I've only seen horizontal boring machines deployed a few times around here. Maybe they're used a lot and I don't notice them because I don't have to drive around them, but I do keep a eye open for them in the wild. I considered renting or buying one for a project and was impressed how cheap they are, but the benefit of burying things versus the price - no contest.

What I learned, though, is there are eBay-like markets for TBMs and it seems most people buy one with so many hours on it, use it for a project, and sell it +so many hours. I didn't find the thriving rental market I expected.

<comment><USER47> I can confirm that horizontal boring machines have never been used in any telco digging opportunity I've been a part of :/. I wish it were the case but it is all tear-up-the-streets territory.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> In Estonia I get 500mbps up and down with unlimited bandwidth for 35 euros, monthly. I think it has a lot to do with the ability to roll out newer, faster stuff much easier than with a big country - and we do have quite a few ISPs, each of them fighting to provide even faster speeds. Wonder why in U.S they don't really try to do anything to be better, and if they do increase speeds, the bandwidth is still stupid low.

</comment><comment><USER52> That was fast.

Give it 5 years before the infrastructure and service is sold to ATT/Time Warner/Spectrum/WTF

</comment><comment><USER53> I understand the legal and other difficulties of dealing with local governments and incumbent providers.

However, it may also be that Google is going to be more careful where it spends its money. Hoarding cash may be protection against interesting changes in the economy.

</comment><comment><USER54> Just as expected. It was just to force the network carriers to speed up wasn't it?

<comment><USER55> Force them to speed up (maybe) in a dozen cities? I don't think that's "just as expected."

<comment><USER54> If they have sped up in a couple of cities then the next cities will get soon too. You have to evaluate a new business move before scaling up. And data is one of their primary modes of income. Measurement is very valuable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> And here I was hoping the service would be extended to Canada :/

</comment><comment><USER57> In Montana we're having success installing fiber, but we aren't outsourcing construction and using cheap electronics. I do wish we could use Google's set- top ONT though.

</comment><comment><USER58> This news comes out one week after Comcast informed me they'd be enabling an arbitrary 1 TB data cap. I have to get out of Florida, I guess.

</comment><comment><USER59> I had just signed up for it in Overland Park, Kansas. Hopefully they still do the construction here where they already said they would.

</comment><comment><USER60> Oh google, at least see through on one of your bold ideas?

</comment><comment><USER61> Well this is some pretty depressing news.

</comment><comment><USER62> another one bites the dust

</comment><comment><USER63> Sensationalist headline...

My analysis: They're realizing big cities are not profitable and installation costs a ton of $. My guess is they'll try to go for smaller towns with better utility pole infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER64> I think it's hilarious how many people think it's consistent to simultaneously hold the opinion that this is a tragedy and that Google Fiber was _the_ ISP that they wish they could have, while also supporting federally-imposed "net neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs are just dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic about who does it.

All the sheep on Reddit who got behind FCC mandated "net neutrality" are directly responsible for this. Urbanites get a warped view of this country and vastly underestimate the amount of places where satellite internet is their only option. Yet they have the nerve to bitch and moan about what a tragedy it is that they can't stream 4k video without buffering. The government must fix this! To hell with the rural schoolchildren and their lack of access to wikipedia, I want to watch high-def cartoons!

There was so much innovation taking place behind the scenes to provide a decent web-browsing experience via satellite internet and WISPs. And it's all for naught.

I'm still excited for this next year. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViaSat-2](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ViaSat-2)

<comment><USER65> What is the contradiction here?

> "net neutrality" and the implicit claim behind it, which is that all ISPs > are just dumb pipes that are moving bits, and that consumers are agnostic > about who does it

This is consistent with wanting a dumb ISP that moves more bits for less money and with fewer outages. Nobody wants Goog Fibre because it comes with #"google prime video library" or whatever tie-in. They want it because it moves more bits more reliably as a big dumb pipe ought to.

<comment><USER64> That's a fair point, maybe some people don't care about the added services... but Google Fiber comes with a lot of added extras:

* 1TB of Google drive

* A Google-made 802.11AC WAP that doesn't suck.

* Cable box has built-in chromecast and is built on top of SageTV.

* Bill management through a Google website.

Maybe I'm just a pessimist but I don't believe that Google put ~$100MM into Fiber simply because they wanted to be a dumb pipe and put pressure on other telecoms to compete. How do you rationalize that to shareholders?

Maybe they have some people in the public convinced that they entered this market out of the goodness of their heart. But it's pretty clear to me from Fiber and from Project Fi and OnHub and NEST that they believed that they could succeed as an ISP because of the frameworks they would put _around_ their internet services, not simply by outperforming in performance.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What advantages do VMs have over containers? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> The ability to run entirely different operating systems from the host, for one thing.

</comment><comment><USER3> You can use dnsmasq as your host resolver.</comment>


Ask HN: Where/how to meet co-founders? - <AUTHOR> Better said, How did you meet them? <comment><USER2> Unpopular buzzkill answer: You meet good cofounders from the good school you attend, your programming friends, and the top tech companies you work at. If you don't know any of those people, you don't have any good cofounder candidates and probably never will.

There's a reason "Poor kid starts a succesful startup" is much rarer than "Upper-middle class kid starts a succesful startup"

</comment><comment><USER3> Don't be afraid to think outside the box. You likely have someone in your network who is a good fit. Especially if you're technical. Yiu don't need another technical founder, you need someone who's good at biz dev and marketing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Most people would mention school and work.

What are people's experience with having strangers as co-founders? Some say it's pretty risky?

</comment><comment><USER5> Through your network. I used to think networking was silly, now I am a cofounder.

If you live in SF, just go to meetups and coworking spaces and conferences and all that stuff.</comment>


Selecting a Cloud Provider - <AUTHOR> https://codeascraft.com/2018/01/04/selecting-a-cloud-provider <comment><AUTHOR> This is a very long read but I think the telling part is the comments. Most people seemed to think that 5 months of research for a 10% difference is too much and I think I agree. Now, part of that time had to be spent anyway as part of the due diligence for moving to the cloud. But 5 months of multiple people's time seems excessive; I would have been frustrated in 5 weeks.</comment>


Spinning into oblivion--the death of the music business - <AUTHOR> http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2007/04/spinning_into_o.html <comment><USER2> A very well written one and he is right in a way in pointng out things that big guns do and stem out enthusiastic entrepreneurs...but they cannot be stopped as they keep adapting..</comment>


US trial of Japanese flu drug for coronavirus gets green light - <AUTHOR> https://nypost.com/2020/04/07/fda-approves-first-us-trial-of-flu-drug-for-coronavirus/ <comment><AUTHOR> It would be good news if this compound worked in the clinic - unlike the multistep horror from Gilead synthesis of the Japanese compound is easily scaled up.

<comment><USER2> There are already RCT studies that show it doesn't really work.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Mastering Modular JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular-javascript <comment><USER2> Please stop pretending your book is free, people can see right through it. Most people in this community consider personal information and user marketing as a form of cost. Otherwise one can access it on Github, but it's not very convenient. I couldn't find "6.2.1. Is WeakMap Strictly Worse than Map" anywhere on your Github, other than in the screenshot.

If you want the book, you will have to pay them one Tweet and several powers, most of which are not necessary:

      1. Read Tweets from your timeline.
      2. See who you follow, and follow new people.
      3. Update your profile.
      4. Post Tweets for you.
      5. See your email address.

You're asking for more information than you actually need, which is looked down upon. Why do you need to post tweets for me, update my profile, see who I follow and follow new people for me? This does not abide by the rule of least- privilege.

<comment><AUTHOR> > Otherwise one can access it on Github, but it's not very convenient

How come?

> I couldn't find "6.2.1. Is WeakMap Strictly Worse than Map" anywhere on your > Github, other than in the screenshot.

Maybe that's because that heading belongs in an old revision of a previous book of mine, but in any case, here you go:

[https://github.com/mjavascript/practical-modern- javascript/b...](https://github.com/mjavascript/practical-modern- javascript/blob/371a52b3e4662210b006e5f08be2c750c1d970a3/ch05.asciidoc#is- weakmap-a-worse-map)

> [Twitter perms]

Twitter didn't offer any permissions granularity last time I checked, so that's just what they always request. You don't need to go through my website, just go to GitHub, purchase the book, or ignore my content.

<comment><USER2> > How come [the Github version is not convenient]?

You went through the trouble to create a "free" HTML version of it, so you already know the answer to that question. In any case, thanks for the link and thanks for posting your book to Github.

Regarding the Twitter permissions, the last time you checked was too long ago. You are asking for read and write permissions when you only need read[0] permissions.

Forcing people to market it on Twitter gives me the impression you aren't confident that people will share your book organically. Maybe you should just make the HTML version free like you said you would. You might even have more success in making people pay for the HTML version, compared to lying about it being free. I'm sure people would pay to read a beautified copy of the book, if it's any good.

[0] [https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/...](https://developer.twitter.com/en/docs/basics/authentication/overview/application- permission-model.html)

<comment><AUTHOR> > You went through the trouble to create a "free" HTML version of it, so you > already know the answer to that question. In any case, thanks for the link > and thanks for posting your book to Github.

The GitHub experience was worse back when I implemented the HTML version on my own site, because they weren't rendering AsciiDoc back then. Regardless, I implemented it because it was fun to integrate all the things (O'Reilly Atlas, GitHub, Twitter, and my site's automation processes) and as a way to centralize all if my content on my site.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Clicking the link to the HTML version of the book takes you to a page that makes you tweet (and grants some pretty far reaching twitter permissions) to read the book. If you click to the chapters folder and then on the individual .asciidoc files, GitHub will render them for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, you can read this book in a few different ways:

\- AsciiDoc via GitHub. Nav to the chapters and they'll render into HTML. Cost: Free under Creative Commons [source]

\- HTML via Pony Foo. Cost: authorize app and auto-share a single tweet (feel free to revoke right after), Creative Commons. [html]

\- The book was released on Amazon today (PDF or physical copies) [amzn]

[source]: [https://github.com/mjavascript](https://github.com/mjavascript)

[html]: [https://ponyfoo.com/books](https://ponyfoo.com/books)

[amzn]: [https://amzn.to/2OQ8vMe](https://amzn.to/2OQ8vMe)

[license]: [https://ponyfoo.com/license](https://ponyfoo.com/license)

<comment><USER4> "Do X to unlock" schemes are not popular with the HN community and you'll get a lot of flak for trying to use game theory mechanics to get people to market your book.

The "tweet to unlock but you can find an ugly version in the source code" was enough to turn me off your product and lose any interest in discovering more. Just feels like a cheap tactic, especially since I don't have a Twitter account.

<comment><USER5> Meanwhile I find it petty to complain about the small price of a single tweet. I don't understand what or how it's a "game theory mechanic."

Is it also a manipulative tactic for a store to impose the "Pay $1 to unlock a candy bar" mechanic on you? I bet you use the same dark mechanic on your employer.

<comment><USER4> I'm a prospect that explained how the journey disinterested me from the product. I provided specific examples along with my best understanding of why I felt that way. This is one of the things that HN was founded on.

<comment><USER5> I'm asserting that you were only backsplaining something you couldn't be fucked to download and read regardless. :)

<comment><USER4> Did you miss the part where I said I was prospect? That means a potential customer that was clearly interested in the book, but changed his mind. The author screwed up a chance to convert me and many other customers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is great. Thanks for releasing it as a free book.

<comment><AUTHOR> The whole series is/will be like this. First book was Practical Modern JavaScript, covering ES6 and beyond up 'til ES2018.

You can find it here on GitHub: [https://github.com/mjavascript/practical- modern-javascript](https://github.com/mjavascript/practical-modern-javascript)

Also, thanks!!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Lots of interesting ideas in this book. Thanks!

My only grip is I wish there would be more examples: when you talk about state especially.

</comment><comment><USER8> How about showing the book from the start and giving me the 'option' of tweeting about it?

Personally I don't feel very much inclined to promote a book I haven't even read yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> Start reading: [https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular- javascript/...](https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular- javascript/blob/c906a28ab1ab541622bf9b01ff37a45613b2516d/chapters/ch01.asciidoc)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Please don't double post.

<comment><AUTHOR> It was unintentional. I thought "Show HN" posts don't go to the front page anymore.

<comment><USER10> OK, we've marked the other as a duplicate.

<comment><USER11> Could you also remove the "Show HN:" this isn't a free book, see first comment by anonytrary.

<comment><AUTHOR> It is, start reading here: [https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular- javascript/...](https://github.com/mjavascript/mastering-modular- javascript/blob/c906a28ab1ab541622bf9b01ff37a45613b2516d/chapters/ch01.asciidoc)</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How would you monetize a Chrome extension with 85 000 users? - <AUTHOR> We built a Chrome extension http://sideplayer.com for $500 and  and got 85k users so far thanks to free marketing.
How would you monetize it?
Some of the ways we've thought about:
1) Donate button. 2) Paid PRO version. 3) Ads. 4) Affiliate offers. 5) Creating a new paid extension and promoting it through Sideplayer.
Any suggestions? Thanks! <comment><USER2> 1, 2 and 4 are much more consumer focused. That's honestly a better way to go in terms of user/product alignment. Ads or Affiliate offers are things customers don't want, and they make it more likely people will pick a different app.

Whatever you do, you'll have an easier time getting people to pay small amounts if you compare the amounts to something people buy everyday, like a vending machine candy bar, a 6 pack of soda, or a large pizza. People won't give you 20 bucks normally, but if they feel like they are paying for a pizza, they are much more likely to do so.

Do the Donate button now and then consider a paid PRO version. Keep track of who donated so you can give them a free key to the pro version.

If you do do donations, offer access to a special donation mailing list with voting for features, and prioritize them for bug reporting.

</comment><comment><USER3> I think #1 or #2 are probably good ways forward (but I don't exactly have experience in this area). I think putting video ads in something that's meant to play Youtube with it's own ads (or not, if you paid to remove them from Youtube) is likely to run afoul of some odd clause in how Youtube is allowed to be embedded. If they are image ads, it's garish and uses valuable screen space, so people won't like it,

The real question is whether you have interesting enough features to support a Pro version that aren't trivial enough to implement that someone will come by and offer the same thing for free. If the original app was $500 and is technically as simple as it seems, I wouldn't rely on it being hard to create a competitor to keep people from offering a free version that has all the features of your paid version. That is, unless you can secure a contract with some paid service that you can integrate with that others can't. Contracts are probably the best way to raise the bar for competitors, especially if you can secure an exclusive contract in some manner. I'm not sure what this would be, so it may not be feasible.

In the end, I personally would probably go with a Donate or Patreon link (Patreon if you want to create more cool stuff (maybe for for free) and see if people will subsidize your projects. The alternative is to either get pressured from free offerings because your solution isn't hard enough to keep them away, or from paid competitors because the market warrants it, or _maybe_ you sit right between them and it's hard enough that a free offering isn't as good or available, but it's too much pain for too little money for a competitor to compete. If you hit that sweet spot, it's probably easy money, but it might not be a _lot_ of money (otherwise the competitors would still be trying).

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, good stuff. Going for contracts is definitely an option.

I really like the Patreon idea though. I've never thought about software as a content people can sponsor you for on Patreon. That's a really interesting concept and the reason I asked this question here. Long live HN.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Assuming you have cleared things with Google / YouTube accordingly, what would a PRO version include? A donate button is nice, sure, but I seriously doubt you will see much traction through that - if any at all. Advertisement in addition to what I imagine is served through YouTube would personally make me want to avoid utilising your extension.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good points. For a PRO version, these are the most requested features so far:

Twitch support. Netflix support. Vimeo support. Youtube search & comments inside Sideplayer.

<comment><USER5> you might want to add some kind of music options.

<comment><AUTHOR> Good one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Why not try to keep it growing. are the server costs getting to high?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are growing it, but also starting to think about monetization. Luckily there are no server costs with Chrome Extensions. At the moment our only costs are the website and domain.

<comment><USER5> I thought the chrome extension rendered a website with an embedded youtube player.

<comment><USER6> The chrome extension contains all necessary assets locally, which then has the embedded video player in it. So no web host necessary, except for initial signups/explaining the product.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> kaspersky antivirus do not allow this extension to run

complains about :

\Extensions\nicokganngdkmjiejngaacdlllkdpikn\0.1.1_0\bg.js

what you have there ?</comment>


Git log – The good parts - <AUTHOR> https://zwischenzugs.com/2018/03/26/git-log-the-good-parts/ <comment><USER2> For those increasingly rare times I'm not using Magit[0], I have a "git lg" alias I found once through HN[1]:

      git config --global alias.lg "log --color --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset' --abbrev-commit"

I strongly recommend both.

\--

[0] - [https://magit.vc/](https://magit.vc/)

[1] - [https://coderwall.com/p/euwpig/a-better-git- log](https://coderwall.com/p/euwpig/a-better-git-log)

<comment><USER3> You should probably avoid `--color`, as it turns on color unconditionally, even if output is going to a file. In older versions of Git the %C color placeholders were unconditional anyway. In modern Git, they respect the normal auto-coloring settings.

You can also drop `--abbrev-commit`, since `%h` abbreviates by default (use `%H` if you want the full hash).

<comment><USER4> For the lazy:

      git config --global alias.lg "log --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset'"

<comment><USER5> You can still add color when not piping or writing to a file with `--color=auto`.

          git config --global alias.lg "log --color=auto --graph --pretty=format:'%Cred%h%Creset -%C(yellow)%d%Creset %s %Cgreen(%cr) %C(bold blue)<%an>%Creset'"

<comment><USER6> This is likely to be said, "`--color=auto` is the default setting, so it's not needed." However, it's good to include it here because some users may have changed their default configuration to disable colors. This way `git log` works as their standard workflow and `git lg` for when they need a bit of color.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I would recommend tig for anyone looking for a cli git repo browser: [https://jonas.github.io/tig/](https://jonas.github.io/tig/) Then there's no need to mess with git log and all its options.

<comment><USER8> Second that, I love tig as a history browser. However for Git tree manipulation I find it a little disappointing. A lot can be customised with shortcuts, but it feels a little cumbersome and you need to restart for some changes to be visible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In case anyone finds these useful, here are some git log aliases I use everyday.

        FORMAT="%C(auto)%h %C(magenta)%ad %C(cyan)%an%C(auto)%d %s"
        PRETTY="--pretty=format:'$FORMAT' --date=short"
        git config --global alias.lga "log --graph --all $PRETTY"
        git config --global alias.lg "log --graph $PRETTY"
        git config --global alias.la "log --all $PRETTY"
        git config --global alias.ll "log $PRETTY"
        git config --global alias.lf "log --pretty=fuller --stat"

There are two interesting things to note here:

• Since the --decorate option is now enabled by default (at least since Git 2.13), I don't have the --decorate option in my aliases. You may have to add them if you are using an older version of Git.

• Often while looking at the commit log, I need to know the commit date and the committer name which --oneline option does not show by default, so instead of using the --oneline option, I am formatting the one-liner logs myself with the `--pretty=format:` option to see these details.

The --simplify-by-decoration option is a nice one, something I can add to my list of aliases.

I have these aliases and a few other useful aliases documented in a bonus section named "Nifty Commands" in a fork and pull request workflow document I shared on Hacker News about a month ago. Here is the URL: [https://github.com/susam/gitpr](https://github.com/susam/gitpr).

<comment><USER10> Git has a built-in way of achieving what you've done with the $FORMAT and $PRETTY variables; look at @twic's comment on this story.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Commands in the article:

        git clone https://github.com/ianmiell/cookbook-openshift3-frozen
        cd cookbook-openshift3-frozen
        git log
        git log --oneline
        git log --oneline --decorate
        git log --oneline --decorate --all
        git log --oneline --decorate --all --graph
        git log --oneline --decorate --all --graph --simplify-by-decoration
        git log --oneline --decorate --all --graph --stat
        git log -G 'chef-client' --graph --oneline --stat
        git log -G 'chef-client' --graph --oneline --stat --pickaxe-all

<comment><USER12> A quick mnemonic I read on StackOverflow[1] some time ago:

       When using git log, do it like "a dog"
       git log --all --decorate --oneline --graph

I must say I had forgotten about the `--all` part, but the article mentions that it should be on by default if running interactively in the terminal, at least with recent versions of git.

[1]It might have been [https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1057564/pretty-git- branc...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1057564/pretty-git-branch- graphs) but I am not 100% sure.

<comment><USER13> I don't believe the article's claim about --all being on by default is true.

<comment><USER11> It's not, it was a typo I've corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> This reminds me a bit of my `hg wip` command:

[http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/customising- mercurial-l...](http://jordi.inversethought.com/blog/customising-mercurial- like-a-pro/)

It eventually got mainlined into Mercurial as the `hg show` command:

[https://www.mercurial- scm.org/wiki/WhatsNew#Mercurial_4.3_.2...](https://www.mercurial- scm.org/wiki/WhatsNew#Mercurial_4.3_.2F_4.3.1_.282017-08-10.29)

</comment><comment><USER15> An unappreciated flag of git is `--no-pager`. It allows, as said in the name, to execute a git command without using a pager.

Using this flag, my git log aliases to: `git --no-pager log --pretty=oneline -n30 --abbrev-commit`. It just shows the 30 last commits directly in my command line

</comment><comment><USER16> Another useful option is '\--first-parent'

One use case is : "when did branchA fork from master ?"

git log --graph --oneline --... --first-parent branchA master

<comment><USER11> That's a good one... I'll probably add that tonight after work.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> This is my preferred git log command:

      git config --global alias.lg "log --graph --abbrev-commit --decorate --date=relative --format=format:'%C(bold blue)%h%C(reset) - %C(bold green)(%ar)%C(reset) %C(white)%s%C(reset) %C(dim white)- %an%C(reset)%C(bold yellow)%d%C(reset)' --all"

Of all the git log variants that I have come across I find this one the most clean, easy to parse, and nicely formatted. I think I found it on HN somewhere. Maybe someone finds it as useful as I did

</comment><comment><USER18> You don't need fancy GUI's, nor do you need to remember long flag names, when there is tig - text mode interface to git. You only need to remember it's "git" backwards:

[https://jonas.github.io/tig/](https://jonas.github.io/tig/)

Screenshot of main view:

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonasfonseca/3316428644/in/alb...](https://www.flickr.com/photos/jonasfonseca/3316428644/in/album-72157614470764617/)

Available in most repos (ubuntu, homebrew I think, etc). Never understood why it's not more widely known than it is.

</comment><comment><USER19> I like this the idea of showing the most common use cases for a git command (or at the very least, a valuable use case), separating the sections by building out the flags and options.

The git man pages, while thorough, don't provide anything this concise. I could easily add these commands as aliases, which I appreciate.

</comment><comment><USER20> I wish git log had a native columnized one-line output, it's hard to read with variable length fields. You can (and I did) use the --pretty option to format the log output, and columnize it. But that's involved (my git 'columnized log' script is ~100 lines long) and hard to share.

</comment><comment><USER21> I like Tortoisegit. No commands to memorize and the entire product can be worked via the keyboard.

[https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xc9vb.png](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Xc9vb.png)

<comment><USER22> I like GitExtensions. I cringe when i see people manually entering hashes when they want to do stuff such as simple diffs. It's busy work. Hammering away on the keyboard but actually accomplishing so little.

<comment><USER21> Thanks! I would really like something that integrates with Finder on the Mac and I see that it is cross platform, so I will have to try that out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I just spent 15 minutes entering different Git log commands. Good times.

</comment><comment><USER24> I can't imagine developing or sorting out repo issues without a full tree-view of the last hundred commits showing branches, merges, SHAs, tags, authors, commit messages, etc.

But it's just another tab in my GUI app (sourcetree), not a complicated set of flags that needs a blog post to explain.

The use of git as a command-line-only tool is completely strange and alien to me. It works so well as a full-fledged graphical app.

<comment><USER25> I work for a small game studio with a couple of programmers and artists, and we use git for source control (which works for us, our binary assets aren't big enough to make git too much trouble). Most of our team is non-programmers, and I've become the "go-to git guy" at my company. All the others use Sourcetree, so I have lots of experience with it, and I can tell you: I would never pick Sourcetree over command line git.

Sourcetree is an okay piece of software, but command-line git is so much faster to use. Even doing simple things like adding, committing, pulling and pushing takes half the time on the command line for me compared to Sourcetree. For this particular logging issue, you don't actually type up all those flags every time, you make an alias and it takes no time at all. If you're trying to do anything marginally complicated (say, bisecting or using the reflog), Sourcetree is all but useless.

Command line git is harder to learn and harder to use in the beginning (and virtually impossible to use unless you're comfortable with the terminal), but if you're using the terminal a significant amount anyway, it's just a better solution.

I will say: the last couple of weeks, I've been trying to get into the habit of using magit, and it's the only git client I've used that can compete with the command line. Sourcetree certainly can't, not for me.

<comment><USER24> My experience is coworker developers struggling-at-best to use git from the command line in the simple case, and having almost no visibility into the tree/history of the repository for use in debugging. Or being unaware of useful git features such as line-by-line selective staging (that I consider absolutely essential for dev teams).

I don't particularly like SourceTree, and it is slow and annoying in certain ways. But I'm extremely productive with it as a poweruser, and it's much better for beginners as well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "git log" was yesterday, "git lol" is the new hip thing. Give it a shot: [https://github.com/erikbgithub/dot- files/blob/master/.gitcon...](https://github.com/erikbgithub/dot- files/blob/master/.gitconfig#L38)

</comment><comment><USER27> Sometimes I like to generate a summary for release note purposes. The shortlog command (which is what git merge uses) is good for that. [https://git- scm.com/docs/git-shortlog](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-shortlog)

</comment><comment><USER28> I can't use git without "git gl":

        [alias]
        gl = log --pretty=format:\"%x1b[33m%h%x1b[36m%d %Cgreen%ae %Cred%ad%Creset%n%s%n\" --graph --date=local

Try this in your .gitconfig. I highly recommend it.

</comment><comment><USER29> I don't see it mentioned anywhere, but

        git log -N (where N is 1, 2, 3, 4...)

will show the last N commits only. I find myself doing `git log -1` pretty often to see what was the last commit, so I imagine I'm not the only one.

<comment><USER30> 'git show' does that too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> The best part of git log is git reflog. It's like suddently having eyes to see.

<comment><USER5> My personal favorite is `git log -p --` because it actually shows you the content that changed.

Or, to show you what changed on each given single line, use `git log -p --color-words --`. Far more useful for long lines, IMO.

I'm also a fan of `git log -LN,N:filename`, where N is a line number. It gives you a log of that particular line number. It's like `git blame` but better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I discovered --simplify-by-decoration thanks to the article. Thank you :)

</comment><comment><USER33> Thanks for sharing. I've been forcing myself to be independent from a git GUI, and just learn the commands. I didn't even know that was a --graph option to git log.

</comment><comment><USER34> Quote from article:

"Remember that your version might do --all by default when output goes to the terminal instead of a file"

Which version of Git does --all by default?

<comment><USER3> I think they meant to say "might do --decorate by default" (which Git does since v2.13.0).

<comment><USER11> Indeed, have updated - the all and decorate sections got jumbled up in an edit earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> > 15-team project that doesn't rebase

Holy un-scalable code base Batman.

</comment><comment><USER36> Or use sourcetree

<comment><USER37> Sourcetree is awful and slow. There is git gui by default, which is not perfect but IMO better that cli. I actually use Git Extensions for years now and could not find anything better.

<comment><USER34> Which Git GUI present by default do you find better than CLI? gitk? Or do you have something else in mind?

<comment><USER37> This one where you just type in 'git gui' and it pops up. [https://git- scm.com/docs/git-gui](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-gui)

<comment><USER38> `git gui` is not a commit tree browser though. It's used for making commits.

<comment><USER37> Menu -> Repository -> Visualize

You can visualize current branch or all branches. It also has search, diffs and quite some options.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Flamethrowing musical sculpture destined for Burning Man - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-05/21/flamethrowing-musical-sculpture-destined-for-burning-man

<comment><USER2> Syzygryd is also on kickstarter:

<http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fire/syzygryd></comment>