The future of email is Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.virtualpants.com/post/28528584996/the-future-of-email-is-twitter

<comment><USER2> _Create a whitelist. The follow model remains, which eliminates spam. You only see updates from people you follow, and only mutual followers can correspond using direct messages_

If it wasn't 4am I'd spend time explaining why this is the most poorly considered article I've read all day. Instead I offer a quote:

> The reason that e-mail is uniquely useful is that you can exchange mail with > people you don't already know. The reason that spam exists is that you can > exchange mail with people you don't already know.

\-- John Levine ( <http://www.circleid.com/posts/replacing_smtp/> )

</comment><comment><USER3> How do people willing to make statements like "the future of email is X" not understand that the decentralized standards based federated network is the end goal for an electronic mail system?

If you think the use case of twitter type messages isn't going to eventually be similar then you either think twitter style communication is a fad or you think the tech community is going to stagnate and never move on from how to send short messages to each other.

Maybe that eventual standard will expand to replace email, but twitter? That's so silly it's in Poe's Law territory.

</comment><comment><USER4> Ok so..

1) The reason for having @ in email addresses is to prevent collisions and identify stuff like who you work for. Between firstname.lastname@example.com and email@example.com you know which one is the real Bill. Once you give everyone on the planet who uses email a twitter account the name collisions will be horrendous.

2) You're giving twitter a monopoly on the most ubiquitous communication method on the internet. What happens if they delete your account and ban you? What happens if they put something too evil for you in their TOS? You just cut yourself off from communication?

3) .. I could go on

</comment><comment><USER5> And then Twitter goes down. Or starts doing nasty things as it runs out of money.

The sort-of-federated email network we have now is a lot more resilient than a Twitter will likely ever be.

</comment><comment><USER6> Geez, is it really time for this thing to make a comeback? _clears throat_

Your post advocates a

(X) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) vigilante

approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)

( ) Spammers can easily use it to harvest email addresses

(X) Mailing lists and other legitimate email uses would be affected

( ) No one will be able to find the guy or collect the money

( ) It is defenseless against brute force attacks

(X) It will stop spam for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it

(X) Users of email will not put up with it

(X) Microsoft will not put up with it

( ) The police will not put up with it

( ) Requires too much cooperation from spammers

(X) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once

(X) Many email users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers

( ) Spammers don't care about invalid addresses in their lists

( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it

(X) Lack of centrally controlling authority for email

( ) Open relays in foreign countries

( ) Ease of searching tiny alphanumeric address space of all email addresses

( ) Asshats

(X) Jurisdictional problems

( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes

( ) Public reluctance to accept weird new forms of money

(X) Huge existing software investment in SMTP

(X) Susceptibility of protocols other than SMTP to attack

( ) Willingness of users to install OS patches received by email

( ) Armies of worm riddled broadband-connected Windows boxes

( ) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches

(X) Extreme profitability of spam

(X) Joe jobs and/or identity theft

( ) Technically illiterate politicians

( ) Extreme stupidity on the part of people who do business with spammers

( ) Dishonesty on the part of spammers themselves

( ) Bandwidth costs that are unaffected by client filtering

(X) Outlook

and the following philosophical objections may also apply:

(X) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever been shown practical

( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable

( ) SMTP headers should not be the subject of legislation

( ) Blacklists suck

(X) Whitelists suck

( ) We should be able to talk about Viagra without being censored

( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud

( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks

(X) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually

(X) Sending email should be free

(X) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?

(X) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses

( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem

( ) Temporary/one-time email addresses are cumbersome

(X) I don't want the government reading my email

( ) Killing them that way is not slow and painful enough

Furthermore, this is what I think about you:

( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.

(X) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.

( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your house down!

</comment><comment><USER7> If the problem is that you have to change email addresses when you switch providers, I think the easiest solution is to use your own domain. Then you can use whatever mail client you prefer, and switch between them freely; you really own your email.

As far as using Twitter in place of email goes, there's the issue of both parties needing a Twitter account to communicate. If you opened it up so that I could send you a message on Twitter without having one myself, you'd probably end up with something like email@example.com[1].

[1] Relevant xkcd comic: <https://xkcd.com/927/>

</comment><comment><USER8> This is the most ridiculous thing I've read this week.

</comment><comment><USER9> Here's why it doesn't work:

Remove 140 character limit: That is the essence of twitter. The limit helps me consume a lot more tweets than I can consume long winding emails or articles.

Whitelist: So make it difficult for someone to send you an email unless they are pre-approved? That looks like solving the spam problem with too big a hammer. I think the spam problem is mostly solved btw. I don't get it on either my Hotmail, yahoo or gmail addresses and an occasional spa can easily be marked and future emails get filtered

Hashtags: Google tried to do this in gmail as labels and I think failed. The automatic classification that Hotmail started (to identify important email, email from contacts, etc.) and probably is there in gmail too is the direction. Why make me do the wok when a machine can do it for me?

<comment><USER10> Gmail labels did not fail..

<comment><USER9> what makes you say that?

Labels were originally pure labels like tags but now they have added sub- labels and nested labels which is basically the same thing as folders. So they are calling them labels but have basically abandoned that concept and are back to folders.

<comment><USER10> you can label a message with multiple labels. you can only put something into 1 folder. that's the difference between labels and folders. gmail still has the former, and it works.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Even if you ignore the multitude of problems raised by funneling all email through one company this suggestion is dead on arrival. Can you imagine mailing lists via a twitter like platform, e.g. debian-devel or lkml? I do not think debian or kernel development would be what it is today if twitter was the communication medium of choice. Vulnerabilty submissions to @microsoft- security?

I am surprised that this idea made it to the front page of HN.

</comment><comment><USER12> Twitter: * single point of failure * one namespace for all users (remember how much AOL sucked? xXAllNamesAreTaken1998Xx) * the service is defined by its terse 140 character limits and the core use case would degrade if this was lifted.

Silly article.

</comment><comment><USER13> I don't know about others, but I am definitely using emails less these days, but it has nothing to do with Twitter.

Perhaps because my job is relatively mobile, I am replacing a lot of emails with WhatsApp and Line. I have even started to use voice messaging, because it allows me to convey the tone of my message without having to go into an actual "discussion" with someone.

Although after reading other's comments, I am not brave enough to say that this is the future of email...

</comment><comment><USER14> I also don't really understand the benefit here. Who actually tries to remember people's email addresses? For that matter, who even tries to remember twitter handles?

</comment><comment><USER15> But...wait. Why is this in any way better than email?

<comment><USER16> This is more broken than email.

1\. This solution eliminates the decentralized nature of email. 2\. No solution for corporate customers who would want to keep their emails private. 3\. How would new contacts form?

<comment><AUTHOR> It's a good replacement for personal email. Corporate email would probably need to stay the same.

<comment><USER11> Probably? You think there is even the slightest chance that fortune 500 companies would consider this? I noticed in your profile that you are a patent lawyer. What do you think would happen if you brought this suggestion up at the next partners meeting?

Respectfully, I think you are mistakeningly assuming that your email use case is representative of the rest of the worlds. Are you subscribed to any mailing lists? Do you ever engage in long form conversations with people in another timezone? Any non-corporate collaborative work with friends (software/volunteer activities/fiction/nonfiction writing)?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> no. just no. protocols "continue to remain to be the future". not individual "players".

<comment><AUTHOR> How is Twitter offering a shorter, simpler, socially-integrated version of email any different than Gmail or Hotmail?

<comment><USER18> The obvious answer is anyone can run email. Only twitter can run twitter.

If the join.app.net team gets some inertia - that might change, but right now - twitter is a single player (and point of failure) game.</comment></comment></comment>


Why the confirm password field must die - <AUTHOR> http://uxmovement.com/forms/why-the-confirm-password-field-must-die/ <comment><USER2> I agree that the confirm password field should be gone, but disagree on the show facility. You need to toggle the password type to text to show it.

Additionally, we should be encouraging people to use password managers. If you want to be able to see your password, look at it there. A single password field with no unmasking is best matched to the password manager use case I think.</comment>


WSL for Development in Windows 10 Is the New Kool-Aid. Still Not Using It? - <AUTHOR> https://blog.codonomics.com/2020/09/wsl-for-development-in-windows-10-is.html <comment><USER2> Wrong usage of the term

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool- Aid](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid)

>"Drinking the Kool-Aid" is an expression used to refer to a person who believes in a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high rewards. The phrase often carries a negative connotation. It can also be used ironically or humorously to refer to accepting an idea or changing a preference due to popularity, peer pressure, or persuasion. In recent years it has evolved further to mean extreme dedication to a cause or purpose, so extreme that one would "drink the Kool-Aid" and die for the cause.

<comment><USER3> > a possibly doomed or dangerous idea because of perceived potential high > rewards.

IMAO the right term. If you think Linux development is cool and awesome then doing that on a Windows machine is about the worst choice I can think of. The operating system that invades your privacy so aggressively that you become the product after you have bought a license for a couple of hundreds of dollars.. With all the awesome free Linux distro's available it keeps stunning me that people are willing to pay for an OS that is being made to invade and milk your life..

<comment><USER4> I'm looking for some honest answers.

A lot of people talk about one of the biggest downsides of Windows 10 being lack of privacy. What specific data are you concerned about and how does that manifest itself in a practical sense.

I know there are some that are against purely on principle but this question is really for those where that isn't the case. I just want to better understand.

<comment><USER5> I've also always wondered this and never got an answer

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I feel like most people here don't like Windows 10, but for those who like it or even don't care about their OS, WSL2 works pretty nicely for many applications.

While using Linux on my desktop computer, I had issues with font rendering, low fps animations and firefox/chrome stuttering while scrolling through pages.

I understand there are probably some (hidden) fixes for these issues, but after countless times trying to solve these, I just gave up.

One of the main issues people complain about Windows 10 is about mandatory updates. I know every circumstance is different, but for me, it's working well and I have no issues with it. I guess if you're someone who is having issues on your current OS but needs to work using UNIX tools, you should give Win10/WSL a chance.

<comment><USER7> I like Windows 10, but I stopped using it as my main work OS because I've always had to fight with it to do what I need to. Switching to a Linux desktop was super easy for me.

> I had issues with font rendering, low fps animations and firefox/chrome > stuttering while scrolling through pages.

I had some of these problems when I first setup my Manjaro/XFCE workstations which are 2 desktops and 1 laptop. However, they needed to be solved exactly once, by toggling some settings, and they were gone forever.

Meanwhile on Windows I have problems that I've never solved, like how I'll be playing Rocket League and all of a sudden the num-lock on my keyboard will suddenly turn off and my keyboard commands won't work until I turn it back on. In the past, when I've stopped playing to look, I saw that Windows 10 was basically doing updates smack in the middle of my "active hours" while I'm playing a game.

When I was using Windows 10 to do all of my work (mostly with Node.js, some Python, some Go, some C#), I couldn't use Docker and VirtualBox at the same time because Hyper-V is required by Docker and also by WSL. Aside from that, I had a plethora of smaller issues. Things like Node scripts containing ampersands only working in CMD.EXE and not PowerShell. Or, like some NPM packages just not working on Windows at all. Perhaps my biggest frustration for years was how long Yarn or NPM would take to install packages on Windows, even after I spent hours researching what settings to change in Windows to make it better.

I'm so happy I switched away from Windows for work because now I have none of these problems. I'm the type of guy who likes to keep things very simple. Why mix all of the problems of Windows with all of the problems from Linux when I can more easily conquer them separately? I'm also a minimalist and XFCE does a minimalist Windows-like environment way, way better and more conveniently than Windows 10 ever could. XFCE also contains features that I like from 7+ taskbar tweaker right out of the box, like being able to middle-click taskbar items to close the window.

Even doing C#/.NET Core on Linux is smoother IMO. The only thing I really miss from Windows is SSMS, but only when I'm working with SQL Server which is happening less and less these days. Azure Data Studio is catching up though and may eventually surpass SSMS.

Anyway, I also have a couple of Macs and I can complain for hours in detail about all of the operating systems that I use. Here's one now: Every Linux desktop (been trying them for 15 years before I finally switched) has confused the sort order icons. They use a down pointing arrow for sorting letters from a-Z, which is wrong for a left-to-right language. That is one issue I have not been able to fix myself because it's a very old decision that is baked into lots of different Linux software.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I tried my best to use WSL but ran into a never ending list of issues 'this is a known issue with WSL' or 'known to not work with WSL, try updating to WSL2' whenever I tried to use fairly common tools. A lot of things like React Native with Expo was still extremely flaky/impossible to use.

Setting up ConEmu with WSL2 is still painful and WSL/WSL2 still freezes randomly.

Ultimately I just installed Linux on an external SSD and it worked like a charm. Bye bye WSL

<comment><USER9> No experience with Conemu and WSL, but Windows Terminal [1] provides smooth experience.

WSL2 has a completely new approach than WSL1, so compatibility is better.

[1] [https://github.com/microsoft/terminal](https://github.com/microsoft/terminal)

<comment><USER8> Even after reading a gazillion posts about setting up and using WSL/WSL2 I had no idea something like Windows Terminal existed!

Someone seems to have made a Quake style dropdown too for it: [https://github.com/flyingpie/windows-terminal- quake](https://github.com/flyingpie/windows-terminal-quake) which I absolutely need

Probably wouldn't have wasted so much time trying to get ConEmu/Cmder to work with WSL if I had known.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I develop on a MacBook and on a Windows 10 desktop. (And, in the past, I've used Linux as my daily driver for more than a year, so I've tried all three of them).

I have to say that WSL 2 + Windows Terminal + Powershell 7 are a pretty impressive combo, I'm really enjoying it. I've noticed performance improvements in WSL 2 compared to WSL 1 and I like having a full Linux distro under the hood, you can do things like installing that same package you use in production thanks to Aptitude, as opposed to relying on Homebrew. On Windows Terminal I can have Powershell 7 and WSL tabs side by side, and I'm able to use tools that I like the starship.rs prompt.

<comment><USER11> Yup and in fact I'm genuinely finding that it's giving me less grief than developing on a Mac did.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Used it, but then a Windows 10 update made the computer randomly freeze every hour. So F that, went full-blown Linux as my desktop, and its way way better than it used to be.

Specifically, using Lutris & Wine to get all my "windows is required" needs.

<comment><USER13> I've been using linux since January. But the number of issues I've run into compared to windows is far more.

When linux works it's way better. But when it breaks it's harder to fix than windows.

I tried out pop!_os due to people on HN liking it. At first it was great. But then I realised I can't transfer files between drives. I thought maybe it was just my desktop computer, but the same issue happened when I put it on my laptops. So I went to kubuntu, no transfer issues, but trying to fix the weird ui issues compared to gnome make it frustrating.

So I tried out Ubuntu but that randomly freezes with 5700xt errors, which I fixed by upgrading the kernel, but then realised that I can't use 5.8 with virtual box so I had to downgrade to 5.7 but that resulted in random reboots.

Day to day use when it works tho. I much prefer it.

<comment><USER14> > When linux works it's way better. But when it breaks it's harder to fix than > windows.

> I tried out pop!_os due to people on HN liking it. At first it was great. > But then I realised I can't transfer files between drives. I thought maybe > it was just my desktop computer, but the same issue happened when I put it > on my laptops. So I went to kubuntu, no transfer issues, but trying to fix > the weird ui issues compared to gnome make it frustrating.

There's something to be said about how it's easier for users to jump to another distro to fix what's most likely some permissions issues in the mounted folder. Rough dumb bugs/misconfiguration_of_the_distro like that are sad.

It always seems to me that fixing things in Linux desktops and windows feel like two very different things. I might delude myself in thinking I understand what's going on in the distro but Windows registry and command line instructions in windows always seem a bit too magical to me (that's surely because I am not used to it, despite having grown up on windows).

<comment><USER13> I don't think the transfer issue is permission related. I have a 2tb Drive partitioned as 1tb exfat and 1tb as ext4.

Windows can transfer to and from exfat no issue.

Any district (except pop) seems to transfer without issue on either partition.

But pop installed on my desktop and 2 laptops, it transfers a file less than 1.4gb without issue. Anything larger and it transfers for about 1 hour then faults. I end up with corrupt file on the other side.

This sort of issue should not even exist out of the box. Basic functionality should just work.

<comment><USER14> > But pop installed on my desktop and 2 laptops, it transfers a file less than > 1.4gb without issue. Anything larger and it transfers for about 1 hour then > faults. I end up with corrupt file on the other side.

Ah, yes. I was thinking about /mnt/$USER/directory not having sufficient rights (it happens).

Slower transfer speed and failures are something else.

> This sort of issue should not even exist out of the box. Basic functionality > should just work.

Might also be a unique combination between HW and software.

<comment><USER13> > Might also be a unique combination between HW and software.

I thought so, I tried with 2 different external harddrives, but then I noticed transferring on my desktop between 2 internal drives had the same issue. Copying to the same drive / different partition appeared to be OK.

I posted on pop_os on reddit and they were gonna help me but I ended up down a rabbit hole which resulted in me on Kubuntu without any issues other than a couple of UI issues which I can live with, and eventually fix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Never managed to run VirtualBox, Docker, Android emulator and Hyper-V at the same time. So I stick to MSYS2 and a Centos virtualbox machine that also runs my docker containers.

<comment><USER16> If I got it right, once Hyper-V is enabled, your existing Windows installation boots on top of/under/alongside the hypervisor (kinda-sorta like Xen's Dom0). This setup prevents other virtualization solutions from running, but allows the use of Windows Sandbox, WSL2 as well as regular Hyper-V VMs.

<comment><USER17> It is now possible to run other hypervisors with Hyper-V enabled, but there is usually a performance penalty. See:

[https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2020/05/vmware- workstat...](https://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2020/05/vmware-workstation- now-supports-hyper-v-mode.html)

[https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualization/virtualbox/6.0/rel...](https://docs.oracle.com/en/virtualization/virtualbox/6.0/relnotes/hyperv- integ.html)

<comment><USER18> This feature, at least in VirualBox, is useless. Machines that run hyper-v core do not boot properly, have their memory corrupted at boot, etc.

I wanted to use various things that rely on Hyper-V such as the Sandbox and WSL2 (last tried it in June), but the brokenness of VirtualBox forced me to abandon those technologies.

<comment><USER16> I still haven't decided which one is better, "buying in" fully on Hyper-V or sticking with a set of separate solutions, eg. MSYS2 instead of WSL2, Docker Toolbox vs. Docker for Windows, Linux VMs in VirtualBox on an as-needed basis, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> That's not what Kool-Aid means.

<comment><AUTHOR> Used figuratively in the sense of [https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/kool- aid](https://history.nebraska.gov/publications/kool-aid).

We are today living in a world where for every proverb there is an anti :P

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Wsl looks like the new embrace-extend-extinguish.

And windows as a desktop is just awful... So much telemetry and nonsense... unbearable.

<comment><USER21> I switched to Fedora precisely because I see wsl2 as EEE and a small part of the soft lock-in MS wants their OS users to have.

I consider it one of the pillars of Satya's Schemes, along with Tile UIs/wasted space UX everywhere, telemetry all the things, and user is ^NOT in control (we pretend he is until next update, which he definitely is not in control of).

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I've got Windows running on the primary hd in a classic duel-boot (sic!) setup, but I'm afraid to boot into Windows and check out WSL2 now that I've heard Windows has a habit of nuking other OSes/partitions as part of its frequent (ie all the time) updates.

<comment><USER23> In my now over 25 years of dual-booting multiple OSes (usually Windows, Linux, and *BSD) on multiple machines, I've never had Windows nuke other partitions during updates.

Never. Ever. And I'm one of those crazy people who don't re-install Windows. My main machines have been upgraded(!!) from Windows XP all the way up to Windows 10 2004 without hick-ups and with all partitions of the other OSes intact.

I would seriously like to see some hard evidence for claims like common(!) loss of data due to lost partitions. I just can't believe I've just been lucky all those years...

<comment><USER24> You can add my experience to this. I don't have a computer that's been upgraded nearly that far, but I've dual booted windows+linux in a wide array of configurations and never had data loss. I've accidentally wiped grub when installing (not upgrading) windows, and I've had windows refuse to update unless it's on the first disk in the bios, but I've never had it randomly nuke a partition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I wonder I've done almost the same writeup (a little more detailed if you want to do machine learning) - and no one cared: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24197884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24197884)

This one here is frontpage HN :-)

Feel free to look at my post as well:

[https://9elements.com/blog/developing-a-week-on-windows- with...](https://9elements.com/blog/developing-a-week-on-windows-with-wsl2/)

<comment><USER26> Some people are better at SEO and spreading their blog posts on social media. One of the reasons I avoid social media.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Is zsh better than bash? Like I heard OSX switched because they couldn't use new versions due to licencing.

But for a linux user, what are the advantages? Also does it run bash scripts?

<comment><USER28> I kind of miss bash, after being forced to move to zsh, because bash is generally faster, and consumes less resources - but with oh-my-zsh, I kind of get the point, because darn it is _pretty_ , and I continue to blow away some of the greybeards in my group when they shoulder surf and see me type 'z something' -> goes to /some/monstrous/path/to/something .. this, for some reason, always gets oohs and aahs ...

Just, gotta remember, that feeling like you need to upgrade your laptop just because you changed SHELLS is rarely a good sign.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah its a trade-off between performance and convenience. One should know when to stop and how to slim down based on the usage. Often installing too many plugins when not using them is something that I have witnessed often with curious developers. While the real reason is installing too many plugins, the blame is on zsh ;)

<comment><USER28> Haven't done any plugins beyond what oh-my-zsh brings with it, but thanks for informing me that I should keep an eye on that .. pretty wild that we have plugins for shells, sheesh. Whats next, an App Store? ;P

<comment><AUTHOR> oh-my-zsh comes with minimal set of default plugins. The others you can add. Check out oh-my-zsh github page for themes and plugins. I guess the comment in your plugin configuration section will also warn you about adding too many plugins having performance impact.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Actually there's 2 issues I see. 1) Win10 only with SSD, if not forget WSL2. 2) WSL2 had its bugs I was unable to use it then I had to do a cleanup in the Windows cached folders of older connections never again I had issues. It's something they're evolving and fixing I like it and is stable but Microsoft need to make sure to advertise this as in beta product with the VS Code plugin.

<comment><USER30> What did you have to do to fix your connection issues? I've been getting weird WSL2 problems with the network for the longest time, maybe what you did might help me too.

<comment><USER29> I just wrote a little article here to save your day: [https://dev.to/ramonck/vscode-with-wsl2-solve-the-not- connec...](https://dev.to/ramonck/vscode-with-wsl2-solve-the-not-connecting- bug-403p)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> WSL2 is amazing. Pro tip: NFS works. VS Code has a native wsl remote which is great.

Just don't use nfs in fstab, it'll lock up the startup.

</comment><comment><USER32> No, I'm still not using it because my Thinkpad (X1 Extreme 2nd) still doesn't offer the Windows 10 2004 update for installation, so I don't have WSL2, only WSL1. Does anyone here know what's up with that?

<comment><USER33> you don't need the 2004 update, if you have 1903 or newer, you can install it.

[[https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl-2-support- is-...](https://devblogs.microsoft.com/commandline/wsl-2-support-is-coming-to- windows-10-versions-1903-and-1909)]

<comment><USER32> Ah yes, just found that too. (It's only two weeks old; apparently I missed this piece of news.) That page is particularly unhelpful though, since I'm not getting that update in Windows Update either. I am now downloading it from [https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB456...](https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4566116) , a link I found in the comments at the bottom. Update: yup, got WSL2 working.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> VirtualBox performance is awful with Hyper-V, so no, still not using it...

<comment><USER35> I'm genuinely curious, what's your use case? Most stuff should be covered by WSL itself or Docker, I imagine.

<comment><USER34> I'm not interested in debating my specific use cases, but there are so many obvious uses. For one, have you considered some people might e.g. need to test things on Windows VMs?

<comment><USER35> This entire discussion is about WSL...

<comment><USER34> And? Is it so weird to imagine WSL users who also need to be able to run Windows VMs?

<comment><USER35> I guess the concern is using VirtualBox instead of HyperV? Is there a use case VirtualBox covers that HyperV doesn't? (or VMWare)

<comment><USER34> VirtualBox supports USB 1-3, it has immutable disks built-in, it supports VMDK/VDI/HDD, it lets you drag-and-drop, it supports like a gazillion different controller formats, it allows host I/O caching, and like I already said it can be just plain faster... just a non-exhaustive list off the top of my head. Are you genuinely unaware of its features and strengths...?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Finally get ssh/scp without hassle. Recommend using it in hyper (hyper.is) so you get tabs.

</comment><comment><USER37> WSL2 + vscode remote do not play nice in my experience. That pretty much killed the idea for me

<comment><AUTHOR> I have been working for a month this way and it has been smooth so far.

<comment><USER37> Yeah it seemed to be working for the most part but got some arb file lock issues while doing docker stuff.

Admittedly didn't try hard to resolve it beyond google confirming it's a known issue

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> No. It has been far more hassle than its worth. After trying for 6 months to make WSL a part of my development environment, I've given up, wiped Windows, and put a proper Linux distro back on the machine.

The whole WSL thing is a distraction and no sane developer should fall for it. Just run Linux in a VM if you need it - glomming Linux all over Windows is embrace/extend/extinguish levels of stupidity. We should be over that by now.

</comment><comment><USER38> I only use W10 to play games. Would never consider writing code in this crappy OS.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair enough reason for you to try WSL on Windows. So you can switch between your coding and gaming in a jiffy.

This is where WSL shines and as the blog post says how you can get the best of both worlds ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> > And Docker Desktop for Windows works well with your WSL2 too. You just can > extract the best from everything.

Except it's Docker Desktop for Windows. Not Docker. Yes, there are/were(?) some pretty nasty differences.</comment>


Screenfly - mimics devices for website testing - <AUTHOR> http://quirktools.com/screenfly/

<comment><USER2> Nice, but ultimately useless as it does not reproduce iSafari selective font resizing (for h1/h2/h3) that tends to screw up a lot of websites.

(edit) On a more general note, _emulating_ behavior of a browser/OS combo is not a very good idea as it is trivial to miss quirks that need emulating. It should really be taking an actual browser screenshot on selected device, but then it would've not been different from a ton of similar services... which arguably sprung up because they _are_ doing things rifht and therefore _are_ useful.

<comment><USER3> ...which services are doing it right? Got a list?

<comment><USER4> Adobe's BrowserLab does this (<https://browserlab.adobe.com/>) for mainstream Mac/Windows browsers. You need an AdobeID (registration is free). I've found it much faster than browsershots.org (though you have fewer options). No mobile support, I'm hoping they add that soon.

Edit: 'no mobile support' = 'doesn't emulate mobile browsers'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I make mobile websites and this is the best emulator I know of to test them for an iPhone or iPad. It runs on the desktop and is pretty slick. <http://www.puresimstudios.com/ibbdemo/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm trying to debug an iPhone browser freezing issue with one of my sites, but this doesn't reproduce the issues. That would be really useful. As an aside does anyone know of a good way to debug this? I would kill for an iPhone version of Firebug right now...

I suppose this is useful for testing basic layout without mucking with your UserAgent, though.

</comment><comment><USER7> Not very useful as it doesn't seem to be modifying the user agent string sent to the server, only resizing the containing div.

<comment><USER8> Did you test this? It indeed changes the UserAgent in my test: Ipad setting sends "Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5" for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It's a cool site, but it doesn't seem to be supporting canvas yet. And yes, my browser(Chrome 12) does support it.

</comment><comment><USER10> when I tried with twitter.com on mobile device, entire page got redirected to the twitter website

</comment><comment><USER11> Fairly cool, but noticed it doesn't seem to be supporting @font-face CSS directives.

<comment><USER12> It'll support whatever the browser you're using supports.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> doesn't pull and display css

</comment><comment><USER14> Are the images turned off by default? I can't seem to load any images.</comment>


Ask HN: How to report hours as a contractor? - <AUTHOR>

I just got my first "real" job as a contractor. They are pretty flexible about working from home, but if I do that I'll have to report my hours.<p>How do you do that? Apps? Techniques? Mistakes to avoid? Obvious things that everyone knows(except me)? <comment><USER2> If you use emacs, it has org-mode which is very capable. It'll handle task organization, prioritizing, time clock, scheduling, invoicing and more.

Look here at <http://orgmode.org/> and <http://doc.norang.ca/org-mode.html> for brief and in-depth use information.

Good luck.

<comment><USER3> I've been using org-mode for the last few months to do my time tracking and it has worked out pretty well. You can use "clock tables" to get a report of all of the logged time within a certain window (e.g. february)

Works great, especially if you're using emacs for writing code too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Be diligent in describing how the time you have spent has resulted in a benefit for your client.

I found that our clients are interested in quarter of day granularity. E.g

      Thursday 2nd Feb 2012, 4 hours, Installing and configuring Operations' Team new Wiki website.
      Thursday 2nd Feb 2012, 3.5 hours, Fixed problem where the CEO's iPhone wouldn't sign in to the reporting website.

To see what works for you, send your client your best effort on a time sheet for the first two days or so, and get their feedback. Its better than waiting an entire month to find out your reporting process isn't up to scratch.

</comment><comment><USER5> I would do it accurately.

Sarcasm aside, is this the type of job where you will be working on a number of projects each with their own pot of money that has to be kept separate? Or do they just need a total figure?

Either way, pencil and paper work for me. Heck, I have to keep track of hours by project and I work on-site. Never done anything more complicated than notations on scrap paper for my own use, and the company timecard program at the end of the day.

</comment><comment><USER6> I recently started using Toggl (<https://toggl.com>) and have been enjoying it a lot so far. Type in a description of what you are doing, hit start button. The usual features like multiple clients/projects, billable vs. nonbillable, reporting, etc.

Harvest and Freshbooks also get a lot of love. If you just need a really simple timer, SlimTimer is lightweight and easy.

</comment><comment><USER7> When I work hourly, I like to use a bound weekly calendar and write in my time with a colored pencil.

I'll generally describe the task using contract language if there might be confusion.

When I invoice, I do the addition within the calendar in ink.

Then I file the calendar at the end of the year.

</comment><comment><USER8> I don't need to do time tracking, but I've always wanted to use this -- <http://letsfreckle.com/>

The author is here on HN and an all-around cool person.

</comment><comment><USER9> Harvest is great, and they have a "FREE FOREVER" plan available. <http://www.getharvest.com/pricing>

</comment><comment><USER10> yast.com is pretty nice. I've been using it for 3 months and have no complains.</comment>


"See you in the trenches": Uber's threat finally hits as Postmates surges - <AUTHOR> http://pando.com/2014/04/08/see-you-in-the-trenches-ubers-threat-to-postmates-finally-hits-as-it-surges-to-10k-deliveries-a-week/

<comment><USER2> Competition is great. It will help both of these companies refine their product and that's awesome for the users. That's the point of this article, but all I can think is:

But damn does the Uber CEO look like a cunt.

There's absolutely no reason to treat your competitors like that in order to feed your tough-guy ego.</comment>


Ask HN: Why do people leave their engines running while stopped? - <AUTHOR> There's a van outside my house right now, that's been parked there for some five minutes with its engine running. I can see the driver from my window, he's having a sandwich and filling in something on a clipboard. It's 13:00 in the UK, so he's taking his lunch break, I presume.
This sort of thing happens all the time. Taxis do it, vans do it, private vehicles do it. It's like, once or twice a week just outside my house so it must be a very, very common thing. And not on lunch breaks only- it happens any time of day.
What the hell is up with that? I mean, OK, climate change is of no concern (we can all breathe underwater, after all) but isn't there, you know, a cost associated with keeping your engine running?
Why do people do this?
(Note: I don't drive; I might be missing something.) <comment><USER2> In colder weather, we do this to keep the heat on. Aside from that, I've always been under the impression that starting and stopping the engine, unless its specifically designed to do that like in the case of cars that stop the engine at red lights - adds additional unneeded wear and tear to the engine.

turning off an engine for 3 or 5 minutes, assuming it was warm, won't make the engine loose to much heat. Turning it off for a half hour, in the case of waiting for someone to get out of an appointment or store - would make the car loose enough heat that the heater will need time to warm up again upon starting again. Not a huge deal; just an inconvenience.

I've also been told in bad snow storms, don't turn off the engine if your just waiting, for fear snow or ice might cause it not to restart but I don't think this is an issue on any modern cars (> 2000)

</comment><comment><USER3> Seems to me this happens most often when it is not the driver who is the one paying for the fuel.

</comment><comment><USER4> Usually the fuel usage is very low per hour if parked. The advantage of having the engine running are heating or airconditioning and sometimes the fancy media system that might go into low power / radio only mode when the engine is off.

</comment><comment><USER5> Something interesting on the radio, maybe? Or perhaps it's cold outside and he likes having the heater on?

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm assuming it is for heat or air-conditioning.

Makes me crazy when I see this too.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd guess that too but it's not that cold where I am (12° C) and anyway I've seen it on the mellowest summer nights where no heating or air-conditioning would be required.

Glad to see it's not just me :/</comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you build the perfect SDK? - <AUTHOR>

Hello HN, we are building 2 sdks (iOS & Android) to create an easy way for developers to connect their apps to our PaaS. (www.xensify.com)
We already have the first release up and running but we are working to create something that is truly remarkable in terms of B2D or devops experience.
Are there any must-read guides we should follow? Any tip, hint, suggestion, dos and donts some experienced Sdk/library developer could share with us?
A note: the sdk is wrapping a RESTful set of Apis
Thanks! Cheers <comment><USER2> Depending on whether and how you handle intermittant connectivity, you might want to look at the sync-based back-end architecture described in this book: [http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Android-Programming- Databas...](http://www.amazon.com/Enterprise-Android-Programming-Database- Applications/dp/1118183495/)

Disclaimer: I wrote parts of that book.

If you use Couchbase, you can implement a similar concept using Couchbase Mobile in the mobile device or in a gateway.

<comment><AUTHOR> thank you for your reply! If you don't mind I will repost this so that maybe other people will put some more insight. Feel free to answer again there if you feel you want your book to be seen more...</comment></comment>


Apple keyboards hacked and possessed - <AUTHOR> http://www.digitalsociety.org/2009/08/apple-keyboards-hacked-and-possessed/

<comment><USER2> The paper describing the attack is here: [http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- usa-09/CHEN/BHUSA09...](http://www.blackhat.com/presentations/bh- usa-09/CHEN/BHUSA09-Chen-RevAppleFirm-PAPER.pdf)

It makes one wonder how many other peripherals have user programmable firmware.</comment>


H.264 is supported in WebRTC from Chrome 50 - <AUTHOR> http://www.rtc.news/posts/pawtYYfpmsG6Zed3W/h-264-is-supported-in-webrtc-from-chrome-50-here-s-how-to <comment> VuWall-Matt Would this mean that you can encode the Chrome windows itself and send it off over the network to be decoded by, well, anything that decodes H.264, possibly another Chrome window's decoder?

<comment><USER3> Yes, with the mediaSource constraint you can do screen sharing in WebRTC, but that's not anything specific to H.264.

<comment><USER4> For a demo of screen, window, and application sharing see:

[https://mozilla.github.io/webrtc- landing/gum_test.html](https://mozilla.github.io/webrtc-landing/gum_test.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I'm surprised I have not come across OpenH264. Why is Cisco eager to pony up the license fees for users of their H264 codec?

<comment><USER6> AFAIK they don't. There is a cap on licensing for H264. Cisco is already hitting that limit with their commercial offerings, so they can essentially offer OpenH264 at zero (licensing) cost.

<comment><USER7> Supposedly offering OpenH264 ended up costing Cisco more money in licensing fees. See Monty Montgomery's blog post from 2013 about the initial announcement of OpenH264:

[http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html](http://xiphmont.livejournal.com/61927.html)

There are a couple of comments in the comments section titled "Cisco's Costs" in which Monty says that someone he knew at Cisco told him that they had been under the licensing cap and that the OpenH264 project would increase their licensing costs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> interesting that there's an encoder built in as well.

wonder if they will start offloading youtube video compression onto client machines pre-upload.

<comment><USER9> The browser makers all agreed to support both VP8 and H.264 encode and decode as part of a big compromise in the IETF standards body. It means non-browser clients can implement one or the other (depending on if they're hippies or corporate) and still be able to talk to any browser (except Safari, which I think is still quiet on what it's WebRTC approach will be.

<comment><USER10> Firefox and Chrome are also shipping VP9 for WebRTC.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> How big of a deal is this? Is there any new use-case that can be gained by this tech?

<comment> TD-Linux It means that WebRTC can interoperate with legacy equipment without transcoding.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> What kind of computer would one need to encode H.264 1080p in real time?

(I assume it's all done on the CPU, not the GPU)

<comment><USER13> Depends on bitrate. I mean, my old Lumia 920 with a underpowered dual-core ARM CPU could encode 1080p at 10Mbits/sec from the camera module - <USER2> shouldn't be an issue for any modern PC to have video-conference quality video.

<comment><USER12> You're confusing hardware encoding with software encoding. Your phone doesn't do it on its CPU (or GPU for that matter). The camera module usually has a separate chip for the encoding.

<comment><USER14> It's not part of the Camera module, but you're right that there is a dedicated h/w core for it.

Some lower end SoCs just do it in the DSP.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And HEVC licensing is still a bag of hurt.

</comment><comment><USER16> Wake me up with h.265

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm excited for this simply because it means you can have a fully client side in browser youtube downloader. With things like youtube-dl, you need ffmpeg to combine the higher bitrate streams if you're downloading anything 1080p and above. Most downloaders offload to a server to handle this, but it always bugged me when I had to do that.

<comment> TD-Linux That's not actually what it means at all. youtube-dl doesn't reencode, it just remuxes the audio and video streams back together. You could do this in JS already.</comment></comment>


Business Intelligence Rap Video - <AUTHOR> http://themetricsystem.rjmetrics.com/2009/05/26/business-intelligence-rap-video/ Two startup co-founders (full disclosure: I'm one of them) bust rhymes about why so many startups are doomed. <comment><USER2> It's not a rap video, it's a social critique. Made me sit up and lean forward.

Well done.

<comment><USER3> yes. that was surprisingly good.</comment></comment>


How Outsourcing Companies Are Gaming the H1B Visa System - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/us/outsourcing-companies-dominate-h1b-visas.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> Posted earlier within the hour with its original title. Lots of comments here: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10539100](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10539100)</comment>


What It's Really Like to Be Homeless - <AUTHOR> https://blog.growth.supply/what-it-s-really-like-to-be-homeless-aa7f13b32828 <comment><USER2> I think the author's definition of homeless is a little bit facetious and it sounds like a humble brag. It's very different to be homeless because you ran your technology startup into the ground and another to be seriously challenged by your socioeconomic standing leading you from affordable housing, to a shelter, to the street, ad infinitum.

<comment><USER3> > It's very different to be homeless because ...

Is it really? I would say homeless is homeless.

<comment><USER4> Yes, it is different. I think the author's intent is good (explaining that homelessness can happen to real people and trying to impart some of the psychological cost of being homeless). However the author clearly has more resources at his disposal than a "real" homeless person. For instance, it is unlikely that there was a danger that he would remain homeless. [Maybe I shouldn't be so quick to say that. Once you fall down hard enough it can be hard to get back up.]

That could have been played up more. Every year millions of Americans become homeless, many of them relatively short-term. Often they are not who we would necessarily think of as homeless people (children, people with jobs, etc). It has a high cost on our society yet is largely hidden from view.</comment></comment></comment>


Analytics services: should I pay?  - <AUTHOR>

Are there any analytics services I should be using other than google analytics? Which are worth paying for? <comment><USER2> If you sell stuff or if a conversion to user reliably generates revenue, you should almost certainly be using Mixpanel or Kissmetrics for funnel analysis. Squeezing the problems which you don't know exist out of your checkout funnel, signup funnel, first user experience, or viral invite funnel is worth your weight in gold. A client of mine is currently prepping a blog post about their experience. It is an epic tale of sorrow and redemption... or just making a ton of money squashing usability issues no one knew existed.

I also pay for Clicky as a backup to Big Daddy G, and am going to try out GinzaMetrics in more depth one of these days.

<comment><USER3> Can't you do the same with Google Analytics?

<comment><USER2> Google Analytics is the Excel of metrics: it _can_ be used to do all sorts of things. That doesn't mean it is always the best choice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://chartbeat.com> and <http://haveamint.com> are great for real-time analytics. I'd recommend them to anyone who:

1) experiences spikes in traffic and needs to adapt any load-bearing or server settings, etc. on-the-fly;

2) and/or is looking to figure out where random, but brief bursts of traffic are coming from, e.g. a foodie blogger who gets a bunch of traffic from a big food site news article and wants to jump in on the conversation mentioning them as it happens;

3) and/or has cat-like behavior and could just sit and watch meters all day.

EDIT: Also, for heat-mapping/usability testing: <http://clicktale.com> is good (though somewhat unreliable in my experience) and is probably the most cost- effective solution you'll find for SMB. I've never used <http://userfly.com> but it looks decent and seems to have gotten good reviews.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can recommend the open source pendant <http://piwik.org/>. You can install and operate it on your own servers easily and all data is stored on your machines.

</comment><comment><USER5> If you're looking for a paid analytics service then Webtrends service might be a solution for you: <http://www.webtrends.com/>

</comment><comment><USER6> Omniture is worth it if you are doing at least 10 million UVs a month. Great for the Comscore plugin if you are counting on high volume ad buys.

</comment><comment><USER7> SWIX focuses on social media metrics... <http://www.swixhq.com>

</comment><comment><USER8> <http://www.reinvigorate.net> is looking promising :)

</comment><comment><USER9> Whats your product?

</comment><comment><USER10> If you want mobile social analytics then try www.pinkelstar.com</comment>


Isro's new GSLV Mk III rocket places GSAT-19 communication satellite in orbit - <AUTHOR> http://m.timesofindia.com/india/isros-most-powerful-rocket-gslv-mk-iii-places-gsat-19-communication-satellite-in-orbit/articleshow/59001591.cms <comment><USER2> Some really nice photos of this on the ISRO site: [http://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk- iii-d1-gsat-19-mission/gslv-m...](http://www.isro.gov.in/gslv-mk- iii-d1-gsat-19-mission/gslv-mk-iii-d1-gsat-19-mission-gallery)

Also the launch video is amazing. The moment the engines ignite the whole thing is moving most likely because those are solid rocket boosters and there's no throttle up time: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6LVG0j1Pg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae6LVG0j1Pg)

<comment><USER3> Props to them for having old school, Apollo-style consoles in the mission control room. You loose something when you have youngsters with a bunch of Dell monitors like spaceX. I've seen twitch on the second monitor in spacex control room.

<comment><USER4> > You loose something when you have youngsters with a bunch of Dell monitors > like spaceX.

What, exactly, do you lose?

<comment><USER5> Vaguely worded nostalgia

<comment><USER6> zing

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Congratulations ISRO.. Good step in right direction.

If we compare this to current SpaceX Falcon 9 (not Falcon Heavy ) [http://www.spacex.com/falcon9](http://www.spacex.com/falcon9)

Falcon 9 can deliver 8300 Kg to GTO and 22,800kg to LEO.

GSLV MK III delivers 4000 Kg to GTO and 8000KG to LEO ( [http://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk- iii](http://www.isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk-iii) )

Mr. Musk will be delivering hell lot of stuff to space with his reusable rockets. SO, he will be very cost competitive to ISRO w.r.t launch price.

<comment><USER8> The ISRO is pegging the price at Rs 400 Cr which is almost identical to a Falcon 9 at $62M at current exchange rates. Falcon 9 appears to win on price/payload, but ISRO is in the ballpark, impressive.

<comment><USER9> Except ISRO's margin can't be as good on the materials (although it's probably better on the staff costs). Th F9 FT has a take off mass of 549 metric tons and can put just under 23 metric tons into LEO, the GSLV-III has a mass of 640 metric tons and can put 10 metric tons into LEO. The combined propellent mass for the F9FT is approx 508 metric tons, the GSLV-III is 554 metric tons. So the non propellent mass for the F9FT is 41 metric tons, and the GSLV-III is 86 metric tons. What's more I'm fairly certain that the solid booster propellent costs more per ton, they are much much simpler to manufacture than liquid fuelled engines. F9 however is reusable and is almost completely assembled if not manufactured in house.

So I strongly suspect that SpaceX's margins are much better than ISRO's and that the development costs have been viewed as sunk cost by the Indian government.

Still it is a huge (100% plus) leap for ISRO; I'm sure as they launch more as well as more often their costs and mass fractions will improve.

<comment><USER10> good analysis, but i think you're missing the fact that the upper stage has a hydrolox engine, which destroys the falcon 9 stage 2 in terms of Isp (wikipedia gives 443 s). i wouldn't be surprised if it can carry more to geo-1500 than the f9.

edit: well the same wikipedia cites 4000kg to GTO so my guess is wrong.

<comment><USER11> Isp is only one factor. The GSLV Mk. 3's upper stage is LOX/LH2 but it's also fairly small. The Falcon 9's upper stage is 4 tonnes empty 107.5 tonnes fueled, with an Isp of 348s. The GSLV Mk. 3's upper stage has an Isp of 443s (good) a dry mass of 5 tonnes (not as good) and a wet mass of 33 tonnes. The mass fraction on the F9 upper stage utterly dominates the GSLV's upper stage Isp.

Let's look at GTO payloads and upper stage delta V.

GSLV Mk. 3: 4 tonnes, which translates to a stage delta V of ln((4+33)/(4+5)) x 4.34km/s = 6.135 km/s

F9 FT: 8.3 tonnes -> ln((8+107.5)/(8+4)) x 3.41 = 7.72 km/s

So the Falcon 9's upper stage is able to push twice as heavy a payload through about 1.6 km/s more delta V despite having nearly a full km/s lower exhaust velocity, all because it has a better mass ratio.

<comment><USER10> thanks for the writeup!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> GSAT-19 satellite also has electrical propulsion system[1] along with the regular hypergolic motors. ISRO is validating their Hall effect electrical propulsion systems for north-south station keeping[2]. Going forward, electrical propulsion systems will greatly reduce the amount of fuel that need to be carried in satellite.

[1] [http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/india-to- av...](http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/india-to-avoid- foreign-rockets-to-launch-communication-satellites-isro-chief-as-kiran- kumar/articleshow/59003892.cms)

[2] [https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33770.0](https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=33770.0)

</comment><comment><USER12> This is an important milestone for ISRO. This launch successfully validated ISRO's homegrown CE-20[1] gas generator cycle cryogenic engine. With this, ISRO has mastered both staged combustion (CE-7.5[2]) and gas generator cycle cryogenic engine technologies.

Next up is SCE-200 RP-LOX engine[3]! There is a plan to swap GSLV Mk III's L110 hyperglic stage with SCE-200 stage, which should considerably boost payload capacity.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-20](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-20)

[2][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-7.5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CE-7.5)

[3][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCE-200)

</comment><comment><USER13> The title says nothing, especially given ISRO's track record. The big news is about the launch vehicle - GSLV Mk III - the most powerful rocket from ISRO.

<comment><USER14> and the one that has potential to take an Indian to the moon.

<comment><USER15> With capacity of 10 tons to LEO, 4 tons to GTO, it's somewhere between the Titan II (used for Gemini) and Titan III.

Would have to be a pretty lean moon mission.

<comment><USER11> Only for a direct ascent architecture. There are lots of Earth orbit assembly missions that would be possible and not terribly expensive to pull off (at least for a lunar flyby style mission).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> This is a big deal for ISRO when it becomes operational. In terms of launching its own heavy communication satellites, it doesn't have to rely on the Ariane. I can see a lot of customers queuing up to Antrix to launch commercial satellites. One can hope it eats into SpaceX's lunch in the near future.

<comment><USER17> The last 2 Indian satellites launched on Ariane V fit on this new rocket (~3.2 metric tons), but, that's a medium-sized satellite. Ariane V usually launches pairs of satellites, one ~ 3mt and one ~ 6mt.

As for price, surfing the Internets I see Rs 350 to Rs400 crore as a price, which ~ $56-$64 million dollars. SpaceX's price for a "flight proven" GTO launch is supposedly $62 million less 10%, or about the same.

<comment><USER16> GSLV MK3 is a crucial enabling technology for future applications for ISRO. They plan to human certify it. But most importantly, it's planned to evolve into new family of launch vehicles called Unified Launch Vehicle (ULV). A new SCE-200 semi-cryogenic engine which is under development and other upgrades could enhance the payload capacity to 6 metric tons. So the ULV will eventually replace PSLV and the GSLV MK2.

As for pricing, I definitely agree SpaceX has the edge especially with their reusable rockets. But one can still hope ISRO catches up :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky More about the launch vehicle:

[http://isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv-mk-iii](http://isro.gov.in/launchers/gslv- mk-iii)

<comment><USER17> The current title here "ISRO places communication satellite in orbit" buries the lede -- the big deal is this new launch vehicle, which has 2X the payload of India's GSLV mark II.

<comment><USER18> Thanks, we've updated the title (which was likely edited for space) to include this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> dis-sys Did I miss something here?

The rocket is nicknamed "fatboy" and it is indeed fat. I was having the impression that india finally made a rocket comparable to Falcon Heavy, Ariane 5, Delta IV Heavy and CZ-5. When I checked its specs, well, 8,000kg to LEO and 4,000kg to GTO, seriously? Not trying to discount its symbolic importance to india, but technically, why its so fat when the payload capacity is so limited?

<comment><USER19> The Falcon 9 is long and thin, this one is short and stout, and they weight about the same amount. The payload isn't nearly as good as the current Falcon 9 revision but it's about the same as the Falcon 9 v1.0 from way back in 2010 and most rockets of similar. The payload to mass isn't great compared to other rockets but most of the gross mass is in the solid boosters so you shouldn't expect the price to be very high for the mass to orbit.

<comment> dis-sys Using wikipedia data, Falcon 9 has 20% less weight when it is in the reusable mode, at the same time its LEO/GTO payload capacity is better. I don't think those two are on the same level, Falcon 9 is THE state of the art while GSLV MKIII is just a highly inefficient rocket with some pretty poor specs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here is the full launch video:

[https://youtu.be/ae6LVG0j1Pg?t=202](https://youtu.be/ae6LVG0j1Pg?t=202)

</comment><comment><USER12> Onboard camera videos: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6S8iBtIJDY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6S8iBtIJDY)

</comment><comment><USER21> Great Post on Quora by a ISRO engineer on the significance of GSLV to ISRO: [https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-GSLV-MK-III-mean-to- ISRO...](https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-GSLV-MK-III-mean-to-ISRO-and- India)</comment>


Facebook is eating the world - <AUTHOR> http://www.cjr.org/analysis/facebook_and_media.php?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits <comment><USER2> > There are huge benefits to having a new class of technically able, socially > aware, financially successful, and highly energetic people like Mark > Zuckerberg taking over functions and economic power from some of the staid, > politically entrenched, and occasionally corrupt gatekeepers we have had in > the past.

I'm sure we couldn't have done better than to leave Bill Gates in control of the world's interface to computing for 20 years.

We need a culture that resists the candy that these men feed us. Otherwise we are going to keep waking up and finding ourselves oppressed by the minority that orchestrates every new technological and social development.

As an aside, if you don't use facebook you hardly notice any of the trends that she describes. Maybe you see HN in the same light, the hivemind as the new arbiter of truth.

<comment><USER3> I wish people would be more critical of these platforms, but the immediate benefits of instant gratification and communication seem to trump the more abstract notions of digital freedom and privacy.

Look at how in some countries (e.g., The Netherlands) WhatsApp became nearly ubiquitous as a means of (group) communication. As someone critical of our digital freedom this bothers me. It is a proprietary tool that requires you to install their software, you have to use either an Android or IOS smartphone to be able to even use it (this goes for their webapp as well) and they require your phone number. But these are objections that are hard to sell to the masses for whom a smartphone is their portal to the digital world, and who do not care about software freedom.

Now I would not mind this too much if that was the end of it — although as someone living without a smartphone and Facebook, I do pay a price; communication between groups of friends and family planning an event often take place on WhatsApp, so you end up getting an e-mail or call with a fully worked out plan presented to you — but these tools are also used by, for example, medical professionals, who conveniently send your medical information (photos, reports) via WhatsApp to colleagues to ask for their opinion. Never mind that it is illegal to export personal data of this nature to foreign servers under control of a corporation that has no contractual obligation to properly handle such data, not to mention that is quite undesirable. Fortunately the regulatory body in the Netherlands has condoned this practice, but it illustrates the dismal state of affairs.

<comment><USER4> WhatsApp is one of the most widely available app, including Windows Phone 7/8/10 and for now Symbian S60, Blackberry, and Nokia feature phones.

<comment><USER3> True, it is available on all proprietary mobile operating systems, but you cannot use it on Windows, Mac OS X, or GNU/Linux without a smartphone registered with WhatsApp. This is by design as far as I can tell.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The content creators have to find a way to survive before they get swallowed up by the channels like Facebook. How long will it be before entities like Facebook and Google start acquiring or partnering with Dow Jones, Gannet, Murdoch, etc.? Like the hundreds of independent publishers who today are merely imprints of mega-media companies.

Eventually press conferences at the White House will have a few little cameras representing Facebook, Google, Apple, and whoever the other gatekeepers are, and the actual journalists (or whatever we'll call information custodians) asking the questions will be virtual, numerous, and perhaps in some cases not even human. Bots are cheaper than people.

We're in the midst of a revolution that is far from over. I'm not convinced it's a good thing. I've made a personal decision to detach from social networks for a while, and focus on the physical world such as raising my child, getting out and meeting people, catching up on books, exercising, traveling, hiking, etc. We'll see how long it lasts.

</comment><comment><USER6> The mobile app model focuses our attention to just a few apps, and this is the problem highlighted here. And I am afraid this is correct. My mom has a laptop and a smartphone, but if I remove her laptop, soon enough she will forget there is a browsable open web and instead focus on FB, YouTube, Whatsapp (FB) for all her communication and content.

In the desktop-browser world, it is super easy for anyone to access content from an HTTP URL, that makes discovering new sources convenient, which in turn means that you can run independent news sources and stay profitable.

</comment><comment><USER7> In the past you piad the printer and mailman for distribution. Now you pay the networks for a "channel."

Guns could seize a warheouse and burn books. Guns can storm a server room and delete files.

</comment><comment><USER8> > We are handing the controls of important parts of our public and private > lives to a very small number of people, who are unelected and unaccountable.

They are elected — and unlike public officials, they are elected not every 4 years, but every day, when you choose to open Facebook app. And all their actions have instant feedback on that election.

Facebook didn't become a dominant social network out of the blue. They built a better product.

</comment><comment><USER9> Maybe the 'journalists' should stop basing their revenue model on ads people don't wanna see.

The internet made information easier to get, nobody wants to look at your shitty information (ads) that's baited by your only slightly more useful information (the article).

</comment><comment><USER10> Unnecessarily alarmist cherry picking, whilst not appearing to have been aware what has been happening over the last 20 years. These changes give us new opportunities. Change is good.

</comment><comment><USER11> I disagree with the title, Facebook isn't even a content creator.

<comment><USER12> You may find that you agree with the article though.</comment></comment>


The Startup School Career - <AUTHOR> http://www.gaborcselle.com/blog/2008/04/startup-school-career.html

<comment><USER2> Great post. I got the impression from three YCombinator companies last year that they thought they would be big. I witnessed entrepreneurs excited about creating an Outlook plugin, a video sharing site, and a PDF posting site. But, it was exciting and the entrepreneurs felt they will have tons of users. Look where they (you) are one year later--Xobni, Justin.tv, and Scribd, grown from 2-4 full-time people to 10+ each. Adam Smith especially seemed very confident, and must have believed in the company to bring you and other smart people along. ;)

</comment><comment><USER3>
      Paul Graham said that 57 of the 80 startups they
      funded are still alive, for some value of alive.

PG was also including companies that have been acquired or merged as "not alive", so the number that have outright gone out of business is lower than 23.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoops, sorry, I thought he counted those that got acquired into the other size 57 bucket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> True if you have access to capital. I think one message that I didn't get when at the 2005 Startup School is that you're not learning nearly enough if you try to bootstrap, because capitalization is important at every stage of the business. I also could have used the frame of mind in The Equity Equation more than the VC horror stories, which I already knew having been laid off from a dot-com in 2000.

At the time I figured, hey, I had more money than YC would give me and although I knew that the money was not the valuable part, I didn't fully grok the implications.

So I discovered this the hard way. Now instead of an entrepreneurship career, which I would love, now it's more like the end of a brief career.

</comment><comment><USER5> good points.

you don't start a startup to get rich. you start a startup for any number of reasons but the primary one should be that it makes you happier than working for some company. if you do really well? bonus.</comment>


How to Install CURL in Windows Easily - <AUTHOR> http://w3guy.com/install-curl-windows/ <comment><USER2> Or, just build it from source.</comment>