Linux distros without systemd - <AUTHOR> https://ungleich.ch/en-us/cms/blog/2019/05/20/linux-distros-without-systemd/ <comment><USER3> I get that not everybody likes systemd, but a lot of the criticisms seem misguided and looking at sysvinit with role-colored glasses.

For example, people are complaining about logind being included, but forget that consolekit was unmaintained before that. Yes, there's parts to systemd that not everyone will use, like container support, but in that case you can pretty safely ignore that use case.

For me, systemd has provided a much more consistent way of managing services. There's a tightly defined service definition format that allows one to comfortably modify any 3rd party service as well, (unlike random, variable- quality shell scripts), relatively small amount of commands to learn that work consistently across services, mounts, timers etc. There's also much better handling of modern hardware, hotplugging & the like.

I can't say I miss sysvinit. Also, stuff like [1] from the anti-systemd camp doesn't inspire confidence.

1 - [https://lwn.net/Articles/786593](https://lwn.net/Articles/786593)

<comment><USER4> Most of the problem I have it is with the imperialistic culture that came with it and with the serious security bugs that they keep sweeping under the rug.

It is easier to configure and is convenient to have one holistic system in a lot of ways, but...

They pushed for Gnome to have a hard dependency on it so that everyone would be _forced_ to use it instead of just letting it be accepted by merits.

They have a track record of labeling serious bugs as non-issues, ignoring them, or just not filing them as CVEs. Serious issues keep coming up.

I don't think the code is high-quality, but even more than that I have a problem with the people being controlling, dismissive, and deceptive.

<comment><USER5> > Most of the problem I have it is with the imperialistic culture that came > with it and with the serious security bugs that they keep sweeping under the > rug.

The 'Imperialistic Culture' you speak of is one of those made-up things that systemd haters keep repeating, but has no basis in reality.

> They pushed for Gnome to have a hard dependency on it so that everyone would > be _forced_ to use it instead of just letting it be accepted by merits.

Again, another fairy tail.

> They have a track record of labeling serious bugs as non-issues, ignoring > them, or just not filing them as CVEs. Serious issues keep coming up.

A) This is par for the course in Linux software. See also: Linux kernel. One side you have is a bunch of security bros running around trying to fluff up their resumes and trying to turn themselves into heros. And on the other side you have devs working hard on various features and bugs and being resentful that most of their work goes unnoticed while stuff they already fixed is thrown back in their face.

B) Many of the bugs that make it onto Reddit/Hacker news are going to be ones that are largely changes in configuration defaults or behaviors that break things and are meant to be configured by the operating system designers that use it, not end users.

C) This level of scrutiny never existed before for low-level Linux features. The multitude of redundent and terrible shell scripts that made up the majority of functionality that systemd project seeks to replace was always a swampy mess of broken functionality and bad code. Having each and every major linux distribution rewriting 90% of it from scratch in a completely un- portable and estoric way didn't help matters.

Linux advocates actually went so far as to praising the fact that even though half of the scripts in their OS were completely broken and the OS still worked fine was a testament to it's robustness.

The fact that now, finally, after decades of this crap people can now track bugs related to low-level Linux userland 'plumbing' is actually a good thing.

> It is easier to configure and is convenient to have one holistic system in a > lot of ways, but...

On the sysvinit side you had thousands and thousands of lines bunch of procedural code of dubious quality that is endlessly rewritten by hundreds of different teams with vastly differing levels of competency and success using a general purpose language for configuration. It was so unportable that you couldn't even use anything but the most basic and trivial (also broken) init scripts from one distribution to another without herculean levels of effort.

On the other side you have a even driven OS configuration and management engine that allows people to describe the state they want the OS to be in via a domain specific configuration language. It has managed to standardize the low level plumbing for Linux operating systems and allows distributions to share improvements with one another in a way that was previously impossible.

If people want a alternative to gain in popularity they need learn what systemd does and understand why Linux distribution makers switched to it. Then produce something of their own that takes those positive features and improves on it further.

All the hand waiving about 'Imperialism via releasing open source software to the public' is infantile.

The upside of all of this is that it's going to be a hell of a lot easier to make systemd unit files portable then it is to make Linux init shell scripts. There isn't any reason why a more capable init system wouldn't be able to parse existing unit files and know then how to start and manage the services and applications that use them... So the effort to move away from systemd should be significantly less then the effort to move to systemd.

<comment><USER6> _> Many of the bugs that make it onto Reddit/Hacker news are going to be ones that are largely changes in configuration defaults or behaviors that break things and are meant to be configured by the operating system designers that use it, not end users._

Maybe it's not for systemd to decide what I'm meant to do. If changes to behavior that they only meant for operating system maintainers to rely on results in angry end-users, they probably made the wrong assumption.

 _> On the sysvinit side you had thousands and thousands of lines bunch of procedural code of dubious quality that is endlessly rewritten by hundreds of different teams with vastly differing levels of competency and success using a general purpose language for configuration._

Meanwhile, I have ~400 LOC of init scripts (including service scripts) on my daily driver, an init system with <1% the LOC of systemd, and plain text readable system logs. I agree that hand waving about "imperialism" isn't very constructive, but on the other hand I don't think that misrepresenting the alternatives to systemd and exaggerating their faults is particularly useful either, nor is pretending that sysvinit is the only alternative. A lot of people have thought "sysvinit sucks" and done something about it.

<comment><USER7> Are your init scripts available for viewing anywhere?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I read everything I could find on systemd to form my own opinion. I used FreeBSD for a decade and have many years of Ubuntu/upstart experience after that.

Based on my experience and all the anti-systemd posts online, I expected to dislike it.

But on it's merits I really like the consistency it brings to the "system layer" of the OS.

I find it's shame when developers skip over systemd for consideration, adding extra layers of complexity when systemd alone would have been sufficient: For example, using Docker when the basic isolation features of systemd would do, or using "forever.js" to manage Node.js processes, when systemd could could be saving 15% memory overhead per process, using software already installed in the base system.

On the other hand, I _do_ support diversity of software and am glad to see some other options still being promoted and used. The dangers and weaknesses of monoculture in the physical world apply to software systems as well.

<comment><USER9> Interesting. So what use cases is Docker good for? Why is it so popular if systemd suffices?

<comment><USER10> Docker is about deployment. The isolation model is built on the same tooling that systemd uses, but the usage model is all about how to come up with an easily isolated runtime environment that can be published and extended in a big development community.

Basically systemd has nothing like a dockerfile, that's not what it's for.

I think there's a good argument though that Docker should be retargetting its encapsulation work to a lower level OS primitive where possible (which would be systemd on linux) instead of rolling its own.

<comment><USER11> See podman[1]

[1] [https://podman.io/](https://podman.io/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> One of the better videos on this subject:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AeWu1fZ7bY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AeWu1fZ7bY)

 _BSDCan 2018—Benno Rice: The Tragedy of systemd_

 _" systemd is, to put it mildly, controversial. Depending on who you ask it's either a complete violation of the UNIX philosophy, a bloated pile of bugs, a complete violation of the elegant simplicity it replaced or, it most cases, some or all of the above. So why have so many Linux distributions taken to it? Is it as bad as people say?_

<comment><USER13> I watched this a few weeks ago as well, and it is a very good, even-handed overview of systemd. He talks about the history and other tools that came before, like Apple's `launchd` and Ubuntu's `upstart`. He also talks about the actual problems with it, rather than the FUD hysteria (and also explains why some of them are FUD).

He's from the BSD world, so his POV is as an (mostly) outsider.

<comment><USER14> You might be interested in these:

* [https://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/10/11/0/](https://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/10/11/0/)

* [https://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/09/05/0/](https://blog.darknedgy.net/technology/2015/09/05/0/)

* [http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/ProSystemdAntiSystemd/](http://uselessd.darknedgy.net/ProSystemdAntiSystemd/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Guix is missing, which uses GNU Sheperd, which is in Scheme:

[https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/](https://www.gnu.org/software/shepherd/)

That said, to me systemd has been a large improvement. Maybe it has its problems, but at least there is consistency in handling services and logs between Linux distributions, which is a big improvement over a bunch of homegrown sysvinit derivatives, Upstart, and homegrown non-sysvinit scripts.

<comment><AUTHOR> Just added as as-good-as-we-could to the website - do you have any experiences in using it?

<comment><USER16> I've used it just a bit. AFAICT Shepherd is a fairly minimal dependency graph.

It's not comprehensive - in Guix there are services that exist above and below Shepherd and you can't define ordering dependencies between these (ex: a shepherd service can't depend on a mount (above shepherd), or an inetd service (below shepherd) on a database). I'm not sure that's a huge problem in practice.

Shepherd process stdout/stderr are sent to syslog. Shepherd automatically restarts services if they fail but not forever, and the retry behavior isn't configurable ATM.

<comment><USER17> The last complaint seems feasible to address have you thought of adding an issue?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I mainly use FreeBSD, but I have a number of Linux VMs that I use where appropriate.

The big thing, for me, that systemd brings to the table is consistency. Managing services on CentOS is the same as managing them on Debian which is the same as managing them on OpenSUSE. This makes it a lot easier to deal with the various different Linuxes.

Also, it seems to make writing a service a lot easier. Instead of the service needing to daemonize, write out a PID file, or whatever, it can just be a program that does its thing without forking, sends its output to stdout/stderr and systemd takes care of the details. I tried to go through this exercise on a FreeBSD system and ended up just installing 'pm2' to do it for me. I subsequently figured out what I did wrong, but pm2 is working and I see no need to change it.

Obviously systemd isn't suited for every use-case, but it doesn't seem nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.

<comment><USER19> > Managing services on CentOS is the same as managing them on Debian which is > the same as managing them on OpenSUSE.

It's not really the same, some systemd-based distros diverge a lot and anything non-systemd much more so, including FreeBSD. Even something as basic as network configuration could be completely different on systemd distros, like Ubuntu with its netplan weirdness and Archlinux going into the opposite direction and forcing you to choose how to deal with network yourself from the start.

But still, if you want any sanity in your deployment across different distros - you simply have to avoid using systemd or other host's init and service management systems for anything and bring your own service management with you. It could be as simple as a script starting from root's cron at @reboot (this particular trick survived for decades for example).

<comment><USER20> > But still, if you want any sanity in your deployment across different > distros

This might be true for your in-house app but if you want sanity in packaging your service for inclusion in various distros you include a .service file.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I actually really like systemd's service files, and the functionality it provides. I like the ability to express dependencies clearly, the fine-grained control over server restart behavior, and a ton of other systemd features. I'm also very happy to see it replace cron.

What I _do not_ like are:

      - systemd-resolved
      - systemd-networkd
      - systemd taking over disk mounts
      - <USER2>
      - unit files spread out all over the place
      - mandatory journald
      - mandatory dbus
      - only works on Linux
      - pushing the BSDs farther towards being obsolete

I'm very glad to see sysv-init on the way out, personally. I think systemd unit files are a huge improvement, and greatly improve standardization and init quality. But that doesn't intrinsically mean that the systemd project is doing the right thing.

<comment><USER22> Is there an alternative init implementation that is compatible with systemd unit files?

<comment><USER14> There are certainly automated tools for converting systemd unit files into the service definitions used by other systems.

* [http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/worked-example.html](http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/worked-example.html)

* [http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/converting-systemd-uni...](http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/converting-systemd-units.html)

* [http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/convert-syste...](http://jdebp.uk./Softwares/nosh/guide/commands/convert-systemd-units.xml)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It's comical how people get so "jazzed" about something like not liking systemd and make a whole movement about it (with their t-shirts and everything). I get people may not love everything about systemd (or maybe they hate it), but I'm not convinced it's so bad. I've been using it since RHEL 7 and I've really gotten used to all of the benefits of systemd. It also doesn't hurt that I went to the session on pid 1 by Lennart Poettering at Red Hat Summit 2014 and he convinced me of the at least not-horribleness of systemd.

<comment><USER24> You either fall into a group that hates systemd or one that could care less about the problem systemd is solving.

<comment><USER25> I didn't care much about the problem systemd was solving, I was content to let the init process go through without touching it.

Then one day several years ago I did an apt-get dist-upgrade and my system didn't boot after that. I have personally hit _way more_ issues with unbootable systems or having to drop into single user mode to fix some BS with systemd. That was enough to make me dislike it, or convert into a hater, and switch most of my personal usage away from Linux.

I think it's gotten better since then. I still dread updating Linux boxes, because I know that some percentage of those updates will have a systemd bug introduced resulting in a non-bootable system or one where I have to manually fix it up.

<comment><USER3> Counter-anecdote, I switched to systemd all the way back in 2012 on Arch, even before it was mandatory and way before it was in a state where other distros felt comfortable switching and I remember to this day that after I did the conversion and hit reboot, an absolute panic hit me, I was 110% sure the system won't boot afterward, just because of how drastic the change was to perform on a live system, (because simpler upgres than that broke my system before). Since Arch is rolling is not like a new release came with systemd, no, you just switched your live system over.

I remember being absolutely _floored_ when after that relatively complex procedure, not only did the system boot, but it booted _faster_. I think I became a fan that day.

<comment><USER25> To be fair to your view, I did observe fewer issues in Arch's systemd packaging vs. say, Debian. Arch I think is pretty good overall.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I get no end of bemusement from open source advocates that think it makes any kind of rational sense to campaign _against_ an open source project. THIS IS ALL OPEN SOURCE. Freedom and choice is the _whole point,_ isn't it?

If you prefer an alternative or forebear to systemd, that is great. Use it. Advocate _for_ the system you prefer. Convince people that the choice you have made is better.

Meanwhile the vast majority of distributions have voluntarily chosen systemd. Perhaps if its critics reflect on the reality of that shift, they could look at ways to improve the alternative to address its perceived deficiencies—just as GCC started doing now that LLVM has taken a bite out of their dominance.

<comment><USER26> Notice that nobody complains about the _existence_ of systemd, but about the enormous and shady pressures that distros had (particulary debian) to adopt it as standard. Nowadays, the complain is mostly about the systemd monoculture.

<comment><USER27> > systemd monoculture

As someone who _really_ wanted the BSDs to get more credit ~20 years back, and spent a fair amount of time on various commercial Unixes as well, I find that phrase rather amusing. Historically poor standardization of the userland aside, GNU/Linux is the poster child for monoculture in Unix, and has left a whole lot of dead or dying software in its wake.

<comment><USER28> I've decided to migrate my Linux boxen to BSD (this is a long-haul project that will take me a year or more, I estimate). In part because systemD itself really made me aware of the issue that you're raising.

<comment><USER29> Which BSD, may I ask? I'd personally recommend OpenBSD, for code quality and "it just works", but there's a lot of really interesting BSDs that are even more obscure (Dragonfly, Debian and Gentoo using BSD kernels, etc) aside from FreeBSD and NetBSD.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Most arguments about systemd will devolve into a Motte and Bailey argument. The problems with systemd are all the stuff tacked on that are mandatory, but if you criticize them you'll get people switching to try to put words into your mouth about how the init replacement is good/bad.

The Motte is all the shovelware attached to systemd that is nearly impossible to detatch and the Bailey is the init replacement.

<comment><USER31> There's a lot of truth in what you're saying, but I think you have "Motte" and "Bailey" backwards.

<comment><USER30> You are right! Fortunately the sense can be easily obtained.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I have way too many cases of systemd startup items hanging with their timeout for no good reason.

Worse, my most complicated high-uptime machine usually does not shut down in a reasonable time. Systemd says "waiting for session user cracauer" (something like it) for whatever reason. It also hung on undoing swapspace, when that swapspace was a custom stack of block layers. I don't need swapspace to be "shut down". It went into 20 minutes something always stating another timeout when one expired. I mean, WTF?

The problem here is that I had to do an unclean shutdown on that machine (reset button) multiple times, and _that_ I really can't have.

This also illustrates a point I have been making about Linux and the BSDs from day one: When the BSDs boot or shut down the keyboard is connected to the rc scripts. You can do Control-C for SIGINT and Control-\ for SIGQUIT, The latter makes everybody in the stack leave a coredump on disk.

Now, compare these two:

1) in BSD when there is a startup or shutdown item taking too long or hanging I can abort that single item and I can later debug what was going on with the coredumps.

2) on a Linux system with systemd I cannot "cut through" startup or shutdown items I don't want to wait for, and there is no way to debug any of that if the machine doesn't actually come up completely, or if thing happen at shutdown. The only interaction I can conduct is the reset button.

To add insult to injury, systemd also hides a lot of error messages that would traditionally be dumped on the console, and instead of giving me that error message systemd captures it and print on the screen instructions how to get that error message (which usually are longer than the error message was, WTF?). Instructions that I cannot follow because somebody detached my keyboard, and because I will never be in that machine in an up state while that context is available.

This also invalidates the point that systemd could be one platform that you learn once and then use on a wide basis. The debugging abilities are nowhere close to adequate, so you have to learn by try-n-error.

<comment><USER33> I've struggled with, and am still struggling with, units hanging on shutdown. It's my biggest complaint with systemD aside from journald eating its own logs.

I've been using magic SysRq to force hanging units to quit. SysRq + e sends SIGINT to all processes, and SysRq + i sends SIGKILL.

<comment><USER32> Sending SIGINT to _all_ processes isn't what is needed here. It needs to go to the "processes" that are currently going on. With systemd's parallel execution that can still be narrowed down in a useful way, especially is some tail of some hanging command is running alone by now.

Obviously what the BSDs are doing, sending SIGQUIT to just the currently blocking-the-shutdown processes, is far superior. Now the coredumps are floating around the filesystem and they'll be there after reboot, and you can see who did what and was hanging in what backtrace.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> SystemD definitely spurred some controversies years ago but is it that bad in 2019?

All major distros adopted it and even some that are listed there as "no systemd" in reality just give you choice (e.g. Gentoo).

I'd gladly hear the opinion of distro maintainers why did they switch to SystemD if it's as bad as it looks like in people's perception.

<comment><USER35> It seems the systemd hate mostly comes from a philosophical position these days than anything grounded in real user impact. You either agree or disagree with what systemd does, or do not care because you are not aware of it (which I would argue is a good thing).

Personally I think it is great. Sysvinit scripts were terrible to write and frequently had bugs because the scripts were usually afterthoughts "Oh yea... I guess we need one of those things". The nice integrations between systemd and journald is well worth it in my mind as well.

<comment><USER36> sysvinit was at least a thousand times easier than bsd init scripts, and I occasionally see people that are opposed to both systemd and sysvinit and think rc.local was 'it'.

 _shakes head slowly_

<comment><USER14> BSD rc scripts haven't worked in the way that you think that they have, for decades.

Mewburn rc, which reduced many rc scripts to a couple of shell function calls and a handful of variable declarations, has been used by NetBSD since 2001, and FreeBSD started using it about a year later. OpenBSD, furthermore, reinvented Mewburn rc around 8 years ago. Project Trident (formerly TrueOS formerly PC-BSD) has also since then switched from Mewburn rc to OpenRC.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10357589](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10357589)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11550802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11550802)

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14736175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14736175)

/etc/rc.local was first declared obsolete in the BSD world and replaced by a system of drop-in files in a directory _back in 1995_.

* [http://jdebp.info./FGA/rc.local-is-history.html](http://jdebp.info./FGA/rc.local-is-history.html)

<comment><USER37> > /etc/rc.local was first declared obsolete in the BSD world and replaced by a > system of drop-in files in a directory back in 1995.

OpenBSD still documents it as an implicitly-recommended way to start programs (though if it's possible to start it via e.g. rc.(local.)conf, then that's obviously preferable).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> My experience with systemd has be extraordinarily positive. I like the unified syntax of unit files. I know that's like 50% of what systemd does, but it does it extraordinarily well.

Is systemd-nspawn secure enough now we can forget docker et all? I liked the idea of a "chroot" being supported by the service manager.

</comment><comment><USER26> Love this!

Notice that the text about slackware sounds a bit "pessimistic", as if it was a somewhat legacy distribution. Nothing further from the truth. We run a small farm of virtual machines with different up-to-date distributions, and slackware is typically the one that follows upstream packages more closely. For example it had gcc 9.1, bash 5, etc. a few days after they were released.

<comment><USER39> Under -current, though.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> I don't like it when my process init and logging system also tries to manage my volume mounts. If I unmount a device, I don't want systemd going behind my back and remounting it for me.

It's non standard behavior changes like this that drive systemd hate.

<comment><AUTHOR> From what I observe, the hate from systemd USERS towards non-systemd advocates is higher than the hate of non-systemd advocates to systemd.

<comment><USER41> I've never seen systemd users make t-shirts against the others, send death threats, hijack any conversation where systemd might come up to advocate their side… non-systemd advocates on the other hand…

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Alpine is great. I have nothing against systemd but Alpine stands on it's own for containers and VMs. I haven't given it a try on baremetal but I imagine it does just as well there. Not really desktop focused but if you want to run it with a GUI on a laptop it's technically possible.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've actually tried it on my new notebook a few days ago, it runs quite nice: [https://www.nico.schottelius.org/blog/alpine-linux-on-the- hp...](https://www.nico.schottelius.org/blog/alpine-linux-on-the- hp-x360-1040-g5-notebook/)

<comment><USER43> In the benefits of Alpine, you have put that the sound is great. Out of curiosity, what makes it better than other Linux distros?

<comment><AUTHOR> Simplicity mostly. It just works. It feels so clean, nothing running there that is not supposed to be there. Installing something takes only sub-seconds, because packages are small.

Alpine really is a beauty.

<comment><USER44> I believe your questioner was specifically referring to your assertion that audio on Alpine is unusually good. It is a somewhat odd observation, since ALSA is entirely a kernel API and Alpine is using the same kernel as everyone else. The only possible source of audible difference would be not running Pulseaudio, which resamples audio (some say, badly). However, you can install Pulseaudio on Alpine, and you can not-install Pulseaudio on most anything else, so it wouldn't really be fair to call that a feature of Alpine.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The biggest complaint I regularly see about systemd from those that don't like it is that it violates the UNIX philosophy by combining too many functionalities into one project.

Based upon this I found the following quote from the article in regards to Alpine Linux, a distribution based upon BusyBox which implements the functionality of over 100 usually separate executables into one, quite amusing.

> It is small and simple, realising the UNIX spirit to the core: doing one > thing and doing it well.

<comment><USER46> The difference is that with busy box, everything is optional (just replace the symlink in /bin with another implementation), and designed as a drop-in replacement for standalone utilities (instead of redesigning them poorly from scratch).

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I have been running Void Linux since Debian switched to SystemD both at work and at home (including playing Skyrim SSE on Steam using Proton, or StarCraft 2 and Diablo 3 using Lutris) .

It is a very nice distro although I would not recommend it to beginners since it is a little rough around the edges if you want to do full disk encryption during installation.

Initially I switched to FreeBSD and then OpenBSD but I missed Linux conveniences like native cloud sync clients[1], Steam, Docker, support for the hardware I already had, etc.

[1] this was before I discovered Rclone

<comment><USER48> I use void now on everything, work, home even my Raspberry PIs. Can confirm that installation is a PITA. If you want something more fancy than the standard installation like an encrypted boot disk you won't get anything running without touching chroot a few times.

But once it runs it runs! The most "stable" rolling release distro I have tried so far. Something that can not be said about Gentoo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> The most recent reason I found to hate systemd was it replaced my system DNS resolver with its own (thus requiring me to modify /etc/systemd/resolved.conf, and doing the daemon-reload-service-restart-hokey-pokey, to get a host to function on a network+VPN like it did before). The only reason systemd has its own resolver is they wanted extra DNS functionality. Did I ask for these features? Did I want a new resolver? No. But that's the whole idea behind systemd. A few devs shoving complex features down everyone's throats, just because they felt like it. Operating system fascism.

But I don't think we should be angry at systemd developers; they can develop whatever they want. I'm mostly angry at the distributions who opted in to their crap. Systemd has not made my life easier, but it has often made it harder, and the only reason that happened was because a distro allowed it.

<comment><AUTHOR> I don't think being angry at anyone will solve the problem. Using and advocating non-systemd distributions might help much more.

<comment><USER26> Being angry does not solve any problem, but it is a legitimate human experience that the OP considered worth sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've actually done sysvinit style setup before and had to migrate to systemd when it came out later. It's not that bad. It's just another way of running things. It's actually quite simple and consistent. It's a step forward.

</comment><comment><USER51> Systemd is the worst init system except for all the others that have been developed from time to time.

Some of the trade-offs it makes, and its expansionist attitudes, are really grating. But it introduced a higher level of consistency in the Linux world for userland developers, which is almost invariably a good thing from a commercial perspective.

<comment><USER52> > from a commercial perspective

Nailed it. The hobbyists are revolting. Anyone interested in making their system do something odd and clever is having problems, and the people running linux systems 9-5 are busy calling us morons for trying or even caring...

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> I maintain systems with and without. I thought I understood systemd, but I've given up trying to predict the behavior of systems running systemd.

The tragedy for me, is that I don't really like how the Init systems work, either. So there's really no one on my side. I seem to always fall into the trap of the Dreaded Centrist.

</comment><comment><USER54> One of my biggest concerns about systemd is the ownership. Sure it is open sourced, however RedHat has a lot of pull on its maintainers (Soon to be IBM). What is to stop them from dual licensing it or close sourcing it. They have lots of products like that (jboss/wildfly...spacewalk/satellite). After everything runs on systemd the ball in in their court. Sure people can say they are going to fork it, but in reality how often does that work out (I concede are some examples where it does, X11, nextcloud, etc.).

In my paranoid mind I can see Redhat commercializing it and adding features to it for only paying customers after they win through attrition the monopoly on the OS (after systemd incorporates everything, resolvers, cron, ntp, etc...). They are first and foremost a business with investors and a bottom line.

Again not an attack on system itself, just my untrusting and paranoid nature (to many years of security scans and cve's and users, can't trust users)…

<comment><USER55> The moment it stops being free Debian drops/forks it.

Furthermore, if Red Hat can monetize a system manager daemon, well ... I mean, good for them.

Oracle tried with the JVM (they had some commercial features).

Furthermore, if systemd provides a lot of basic facilities (global/user services, device management, login sessions, cron, ntp, DNS resolving) someone ought to maintain and support it, and if a for-profit company does it, I don't mind if they try to cover those expenses. (As long as it's also GPL2.)

<comment><USER54> Systemd is not GPLv2, according to wikipedia it is LGPLv2.1+.

Of course someone here at work told me i am splitting hairs and they are pretty much the same thing and compatible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> systemd is pervasive in the GNU/Linux world and I think it's futile to stay on GNU/Linux and try to avoid systemd. Just look at the list of distros in the article: a bunch of obscure forks of prominent systemd distros like Debian and Arch, a distro (Gentoo) whose main claim to fame is compile it yourself, one where they say a leading Google search is whether the distro is dead, and one where they say "oh gee, we haven't heard of it, let us know if it works."

Seems to me that if you hate systemd, it's time to try a BSD. GNU/Linux has been going down this path of complexity for years. These same arguments spawned with udev years ago, and Slackware held out then just as it is with systemd. OpenBSD on the other hand embraces simplicity and the old UNIX way. Of course it also lacks niceties like Bluetooth, but that's the price you pay. Maybe systemd is needed to manage complex systems that support ugly things like Bluetooth.

</comment><comment><USER57> To be precise: Gentoo allows one to run with or without systemd, and both ways are supported.

<comment><AUTHOR> What is the default at the moment?

<comment><USER58> To be clear, you choose at install time. There is no official installer (on purpose), so the user either decides to turn to page x for OpenRC or page y for systemd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I wish there were some way to favorite _discussions_ on HN, not merely the article that started them -- if that feature existed, then this would be one of my favorite _discussions_ on HN ever... why? Well, you have a ton of bright minds, who, for whatever reason(s), can't agree, yet each one adds some valuable piece of information to the debate.

Basically, where there's controversy (especially with bright minds) then there's always _something there_.

I hope that future system designers and historians will read and re-read these systemd controversies we are having in the present day... maybe we'll have some fundamental key piece of understanding then that we don't now, and based on it, everyone could agree... of course, then again, perhaps that would never happen...

Still, a lively, highly informative, interesting and thought-provoking discussion! A+ as far as discussions on HN go!

</comment><comment><USER60> systemd is good, but I think it came too soon. A lot of the comments here are about memory safe languages are spot on. systemd was written with two major assumptions in mind:

1\. Linux system complexity has exploded and needs a top-to-bottom rewrite

2\. It's safe to do such a rewrite in C

Since the systemd project, I'd say #1 has been largely affirmed. I like the result of systemd because it provides uniform tooling around complex Linux systems.

I'd also say the tide has shifted against #2 in a big way, there's much greater skepticism that anyone on this planet (short of djb or a few others) can write safe C, let alone safe C with concurrency and side effects.

This is really unfortunate, because it probably means the solution is to rewrite systemd in a memory safe language, and that's a huge undertaking.

<comment><USER61> > it probably means the solution is to rewrite systemd in a memory safe > language, and that's a huge undertaking.

At least with Rust, the rewrite could be done piecemeal, since Rust can easily interoperate with C (as long as you don't abuse C macros).

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> What's the recommended way for someone to _learn_ systemd _properly?_ Is there a readable manual somewhere that documents _everything?_

That's the only thing I find scary about such big systems, the lack of comprehensive docs and a "starting point for learning them" from 0 to hero. Like, with Git there's tons of nice tutorials like "learn kit bottom up by reinventing it in way X" etc. plus a good "default book".

What's the equivalent of [https://git-scm.com/book](https://git-scm.com/book) for systemd?

<comment><USER63> The Archlinux Wiki is my go-to for that kind of thing:

[https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd](https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Systemd)

Also, check the related articles on the right sidebar on the top of the article.

It doesn't document _everything_ , but it quickly gets you to learning the overview, the basics, and what's most important for general usage of systemd.

If you really want _absolutely_ _everything_ the references are the man-pages. Excluding those that document C functions, there seems to be 256 systemd man- pages in total. 36 are regular commands (section 1; like systemctl), 64 are file formats (section 5; like systemd.service), 139 are system administration commands (section 8; like daemons like systemd-networkd), and 17 are miscellaneous topics (section 7; like bootup).

I would consider the manpages of section 1 and 5 to be the important ones, and just section 1 is enough if you never intend to read or write a service or other unit file yourself.

Here's an online index of the manpages:

[https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/index.html](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/index.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> SysV init had the ability to restart, allowing upgrades without rebooting. Can systemd do that?

The mechanism was kind of interesting:

SysV init would create socketpair, then fork. The parent (with PID 1, required for correct functionality) would then exec the new SysV init binary with an option specified to make it receive state over the socket. The child would supply that state, then exit.

<comment><USER65> You're looking for `daemon-reexec`:

[https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemctl.h...](https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/systemctl.html)

> Reexecute the systemd manager. This will serialize the manager state, > reexecute the process and deserialize the state again. This command is of > little use except for debugging and package upgrades. Sometimes, it might be > helpful as a heavy-weight daemon-reload. While the daemon is being > reexecuted, all sockets systemd listening on behalf of user configuration > will stay accessible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER66> This anti-systemd meme is getting tiring. I generally find it is perpetuated by people who use Linux at a hobby level. Rarely do I speak with guys in Ops who dislike systemd. I am not trying to discredit people here, there are hobby users who are more knowledgeable about Linux related systems than many guys who are professionals. My point is that Linux and systemd are both meant for use on servers, in production, where speed and consistency rule.

I manage 3000 Linux servers and 20,000 services running on those servers. When I log into a machine and am welcomed by a RHEL6 motd I groan, because sysvinit is not enjoyable to use, it takes longer to reboot those machines, and tracking down logs is a chore.

When I log into a RHEL7 machine I am not elated, but I am glad to know that pid 1 isn't trying to make my life harder.

<comment><USER52> Being dismissed as a meme is tiring as well. I like hacking on my system at boot time, and dismissing my use case because of your own is kinda hostile.

<comment><USER66> If you are referring to my comment regarding Linux not being for desktops...

I use Linux on my desktop. The only non-Linux machines in my house are my work Windows machine and my sister in law's Windows machine. All my personal machines, my wife's laptop, and my kids' desktop are all Linux flavors. Linux is a great desktop imho. That said, Linux is not primarily a desktop machine. It gets some pro-Desktop patches but at the end of the day, Linux is designed for servers and paid for by people interested in its usage as a server.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Don't Google's servers also run a custom systemd-less Debian derivative? [https://www.usenix.org/node/177348](https://www.usenix.org/node/177348)

</comment><comment><USER68> This list is missing a linux-ey system which doesn't use Systemd that is growing in popularity!

WSL!

WSL somewhat annoyingly has a custom/proprietary init system. Partially due to it's "interesting" integration with windows, and partially because it's not even really a full linux system yet.

I'm curious if with the switch to WSL2 where they will begin shipping a full linux kernel if systemd will be included or will they stick with their current custom solution?

<comment><USER69> > _WSL_

I think you mean GNU/Windows, or as I've taken to calling it, GNU Plus Windows. (Seriously though, the WSL name is deceptive because it doesn't actually contain any Linux code. There is no Linux in _" Windows Subsystem for Linux"_)

<comment><USER70> WSL 2.0 contains a full Linux kernel.

<comment><USER69> Yeah but as far as I can tell that doesn't actually exist yet, and isn't scheduled to be available until the end of next month. (Existing inside Microsoft but not publicly is "does not exist" as far as I'm concerned, because I remember all kinds of legendary stuff Microsoft has apparently made but never released.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> I went on angry binge where I Ubuntu finally pushed me over the edge with it's latest... och. Between that and systemd, I've starting to dislike Linux, pretty much for the first time since I started using Linux back in the early 90's.

The second real, functional, genuinely working docker support shows up in *BSD and is working - I'll be running it on my desktop.

</comment><comment><USER72> I do find it funny that people crap all over systemd, but don't seem to have a huge problem with launchd, despite the fact that systemd was almost a direct port of it.

Personally, while I do think that systemd's scope might have been a bit too ambitious, I do find it easier than something like Upstart

<comment><USER14> systemd _was not_ a port of launchd, direct or otherwise. The problem with launchd being difficult to port off MacOS is one of the reasons why launchd never came about for FreeBSD.

* [http://jdebp.uk./FGA/launchd-on-bsd.html](http://jdebp.uk./FGA/launchd-on-bsd.html)

systemd was not a port of anything. And its immediate inspiration was Upstart, the system that Fedora was using at the time, and whose drawbacks provoked Lennart Poettering et al. to start working on systemd.

(Interestingly, Upstart itself was inspired by the drawbacks of porting launchd.)

<comment><USER73> > systemd was not a port of anything. And its immediate inspiration was > Upstart

Its motivation was perhaps upstart's shortcomings, but systemd was definitely inspired by the design of launchd and that was repeatedly and explicitly mentioned in Lennart's very first blog post introducing it:

> But first, let's clear a few things up: is this kind of logic new? No, it > certainly is not. The most prominent system that works like this is Apple's > launchd system ...

> For socket activation we support full compatibility with the traditional > inetd modes, as well as a very simple mode that tries to mimic launchd > socket activation and is recommended for new services.

> More importantly however, it is also our plan to experiment with systemd … > to make it the ideal session manager… The problem set of a session manager > and an init system are very similar… Using the same code for both uses hence > suggests itself. Apple recognized that and does just that with launchd. And > so should we…

> Writing Daemons:: … The list above is very similar to what Apple recommends > for daemons compatible with launchd. It should be easy to extend daemons > that already support launchd activation to support systemd activation as > well.

[http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html](http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/systemd.html)

<comment><USER14> No, that's not explicit. That's a few instances of "like launchd". Where M. Poettering actually _is_ explicit about inspiration, xe writes the words:

> _we took a lot of inspiration from Upstart 's code-base_

... which they actually did and continued to do, from observation. There were significant discussions amongst the systemd people involving the way that things worked with Upstart, including (for just three examples out of the many over the years) having to work like Upstart with respect to putting the X server on the first KVT, Upstart's handling of SIGPWR to process #1, and eliminating /dev/initctl because it was not really utilized in Upstart.

* [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772915](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12772915)

* [https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2016-Ju...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2016-July/037161.html)

* [https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2015-Se...](https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/systemd-devel/2015-September/034344.html)

In comparison, there was almost _zero_ similar consideration of launchd. The idea that launchd inspired systemd is a myth, not borne out by _what M. Poettering explicitly wrote_ was the inspiration nor borne out by the evidence of what the systemd people did down the years.

<comment><USER73> I think we're going to have to agree to disagree about what "explicit" means, and possibly also "inspire." (Based on the excerpts quoted verbatim from Lennart's blog post in my previous comment and general understanding of the English language.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> See also the search filter on Distrowatch for non-systemd distros: [https://distrowatch.com/search.php?defaultinit=Not+systemd&s...](https://distrowatch.com/search.php?defaultinit=Not+systemd&status=Active)

</comment><comment><USER75> AntiX Linux is my current favorite which happens to be systemd free and runs with lighter weight DEs. It takes up only about 500MB of RAM sitting still, so pretty great for older systems and laptops.

</comment><comment><USER76> I'm a big fan of systemd.

Comprehensive, well organized, reliable, powerful.

It makes a consistent service from what was an evolutionary hotchpotch of stuff.

Whatever it is that the haters hate, I don't get.

</comment><comment><USER77> NixOS is one of the best distros there is and it uses systemd. Do I interact much with systemd myself? No, I don't even though I don't mind.

</comment><comment><USER78> Is there a Linux distro which I can install on my Mac and where I don't have to touch the terminal ever?

</comment><comment><USER79> Don't forget one of my favorite init projects! LinuxBBQ!

</comment><comment><USER58> I'm still waiting for it to eat dbus.

</comment><comment><USER80> I think PCLinuxOS is still systemd-free.

</comment><comment><USER81> Where is ChromeOS?!

</comment><comment><USER82> We absolutely love Alpine, but it's been hard to integrate with other systems because of it using musl. For instance, our dns resolvers do not work properly & our monitoring solution is incompatible with musl.

</comment><comment><USER83> I recommend watching this to give you some perspective on the SystemD hate: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_AIw9bGogo)

I too was furious about the existence of systemd, but now I realize that was mostly because I don't want new things and consider many new things to be bad because they are new and there have been a few 'bad apples' in my personal experience

</comment><comment><USER84> If you are still arguing about systemd, you don't know enough about it, so you should learn about it and you don't understand the big picture. Users crying about Linux desktop all the time, but systemd has a huge part making the situation way better.

<comment><USER85> > Users crying about Linux desktop all the time, but systemd has a huge part > making the situation way better.

Definitely. Maybe it's not great that GNOME has a hard dependency on systemd ( I personally don't care), but most people don't appreciate how much things have improved on the desktop with systemd.

<comment><USER52> I've been using linux since kernel 2.2. Deployed hundreds if not thousands of workstations for home users and developers. Trust me, I've seen desktop ups and downs, and I disagree. Systemd works until it doesn't, and then it's an unfixable lost cause and you reload it like a naughty 9x box.

<comment><USER85> Yeah, same for me. Since about 2.2. And I remember patching init.d scripts on Debian, adding sleep 5 In the network script, because you know our service had to have eth0 up and configured. So it's not like the old init system was perfect either :)

Or when I was building VM appliance with dB inside, and I was reading the news about systemd and how it would allow cpu and ram limits per service and thinking how if I had it it would save me from weeks worth of work (yes IBM DB2 is total crap when you run it in VM). and so on.

When I look back of all the stupid things I had to take care of and in systemd are just a config away, I can't help but wonder why people dislike it so much.

<comment><USER52> You were able to do those hacks because it was open to you at run time. You COULD fix it. Now if it breaks and there's no fix, you may as well have used boxed software because your options are only to wait for a fix or find something else. Honestly, I'd have very little problem with systemd if it was not written in a compiled language. Losing that flexibility sucks.

In another comment I noted that this is obviously a divide between the hobbyists and the 9-5 linux users. I am both, so this is particularly sucky.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Facebook will share data on hate speech suspects with French courts - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/25/facebook-hate-speech-suspects-data-france/ <comment><USER2> I am frightened by the idea that the French government will spy on Gilets Jaunes posts and conversations on Facebook, which was one of their main media.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is scarily Orwellian. Not only for the obvious aspect of having a supposedly free state now policing everything I said in my life.

But also, part of the data Facebook has on me is also made by aquaintances (tagged posts, locations photos).

I do have my settings so that I have to manually accept every tag (and I almost always don't). But I am under the suspicion here, that if asked, Facebook would also provide that data.</comment>


Show HN: Peer editing made easy by a 16 y/o, Finchly - <AUTHOR> http://www.finchly.com

<comment><AUTHOR> Hello! I'm the 16 year old founder of Finchly, <http://finchly.com> , which should be live by the end of this weekend. I entered the Next Teen Tycoon Challenge, to get some seed money to upgrade the servers, advertise, etc... To vote, go to <http://finchly.com/vote> . If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me at fouad [at] finchly.com.</comment>


Show HN: Video Hub App – like YouTube for videos on your computer - <AUTHOR> https://videohubapp.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I created this software using Angular, Electron, FFmpeg, and angular2-virtual- scroll.

All proceeds go to Against Malaria Foundation (GiveWell's top-rated charity).

Currently not open source, but am trying to figure out how to set a license that encourages people to tinker with the code, but not to clone a copy and sell it.

<comment><USER2> It looks nice! I like the browser view.

One feature I need (and would like to tinker with the code to add it) is support for subtitles in multiple languages at the same time. [http://voicetube.com](http://voicetube.com) does this to help people learn English; I'm trying to learn Chinese.

<comment><USER3> Ah, voicetube idea is nice :)

<comment><USER4> I'm the maker of VoiceTube. Hope you love it!

<comment><USER2> Hi Richard! It's Peter from Pingtype; we chatted on Skype a while ago. Good to see you joining HN. I've posted a couple more videos on my YouTube since then. [https://pingtype.github.io](https://pingtype.github.io)

Unfortunately life in Taiwan has been really hard for the last few months though, so I'm preparing to leave. Busy looking for new jobs in other countries now.

<comment><USER5> Wow, pingtype is cool!

What kind of job are you looking for?

<comment><USER2> I studied electronic systems engineering, but most of my work experience has been in software.

I'm most passionate about control systems/automation, network admin, and circuit design. But I've done a wide variety of other projects (big data, web apps, device drivers, tech support and repairs for friends). I'm not good at art or marketing, so front-end design isn't for me. I'll consider pretty much anything else though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Quick related question: Is there a lightweight video player that also acts as library management tool? It seems there are either lightweight players that simply open and play files you throw at it (MPV, VLC, ...) or heavy server- client solutions like Kodi, Plex and others.

I'm looking for something inbetween. Basically VLC or MPV with a persistent library I can point to my film/tv shows folder and it will let me browse, play content, keep track of progress, etc. Is there such an app for macOS?

<comment><USER7> Tried Plex yet?

<comment><USER6> Briefly. But as a long time Kodi user (since early XBMC / XBOX days) I'm probably quite familiar with the concept and while it certainly fits into my living room setup, it's way too heavy for casual use alongside other activities on my iMac. There I'd be fine with something slightly better than the file system: List shows, build a library, add some meta data, track progress.

There are countless music library management apps (iTunes, Swinsian, MusicBee, Roon, Foobar, Vox) - something similar for video is needed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Cool! Peanut gallery suggestions:

\- The default black-on-dark-grey in the primary pane looks amateurish. Switching out the background color for something lighter (maybe a light beige?) would make a world of difference for first impressions.

\- I'd appreciate if the screenshots adapted to my platform, so I could see what the app actually looks like on Windows. But I understand that it'd consume a lot of effort to re-take everything two extra times and keep them all up to date. The Windows/Mac/Linux image at the bottom at least ought to use a platform-appropriate screenshot for each segment.

<comment><USER9> If we're giving suggestions ... I strongly recommend against a website that requires javascript to view anything.

<comment><AUTHOR> I grabbed a free online template without too much thought -- but I really should keep this in mind!

My goodness! My website is _useless_ without JS at the moment!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you _Hacker News_! Thanks to you I just had my 100th sale of the app -- and that means I was able to donate $350 to GiveWell's top-rated Against Malaria Foundation: [https://www.againstmalaria.com/MyNets.aspx?DonationID=395198](https://www.againstmalaria.com/MyNets.aspx?DonationID=395198) Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks great, can you explain how it differs from say PLEX?

<comment><AUTHOR> Primary goal: preview inside the video on hover (scrub). I may be mistaken but I don't think PLEX has it. Video Hub App also has a filmstrip view and a quick and advanced search capabilities (by folder, file name, exclude, etc). PLEX has many features that my app isn't trying to replicate -- I think the two are aimed at different use cases.

<comment><USER11> It isn't immediately clear to me, but could someone throw an nginx proxy in front of this and use it like Plex, either over the internet or local network?

<comment><AUTHOR> The app basically does 2 things:

1) extract screenshots from videos from a folder you give it (should work over network as far as I can tell -- it works with external hard drives for sure).

2) show a gallery view of your videos. When you click on any video, it launches your OS's default video player.

I'm unsure if/how it would work in the case you describe.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I also gave a short talk about some of the technology behind the app at AngularNYC Meetup: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv7IfU78vxw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv7IfU78vxw)

</comment><comment><USER12> Awesome! What inspired you to connect effective altruism with your project?

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been part of the Effective Altruism movement before it got its name ;) I made a video about it in 2011: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZKh0M9x8s4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZKh0M9x8s4) It features Nick Beckstead, current Open Philanthropy's Program Officer of Global Catastrophic Risk!

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Thoughts on using YouTube-dl as an importer of videos to the local library?

Otherwise, looks awesome! Take my money!

<comment><AUTHOR> I'd rather relegate importing online videos to another software. Video Hub App should just use whatever is already on the computer (or external hard drive) ;)

<comment><USER14> What about consuming metadata provided from things like youtube-dl, though? It can dump thumbnails and other info as JSON.

<comment><AUTHOR> Seems achievable, though would add complexity. Currently all screenshots are standardized (because they are extracted via the same process) and app requires exactly 10 per video with specific file name convention. Seems easier to just re-scan for images.

As for metadata - currently Video Hub App doesn't keep anything other than file size, time length, and resolution. One very-requested feature is to allow tags and that may be the first large addition to the app in the future.

But I'm unsure if I'd work on any automated import of metadata at this time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I know this may not be important 'yet' to your app but please change the name to "Video Hub" without the "App".

<comment><AUTHOR> :) reminds me of the movie "The Social Network" when Zuckerberg was told "Drop the 'the' from 'The Facebook'" :P

I'm afraid without the word "app" it would sound as generic as "rename files" ... also I needed an available domain name.

Coincidentally [https://videohub.app/](https://videohub.app/) was also free :)

<comment><USER16> First impression: The use of mac images and screenshots and including "App" in made me absolutely positive this was a mac only thing. Only by chance that I stayed long enough to realize it was multi-platform.

That was also the same time I realized, oh this is probably electron. Should state that somewhere as well.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the feedback! I think I'll make the multi-platform messaging more- prominent (perhaps text right on top of the first screen).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Very nice. I was recently look for something similar, but with support for markers (eg. add marker "explosion" to video XY at 2:14). Do you plan to implement such feature?

<comment><AUTHOR> I didn't expect to put in markers ... though if adding tags is to become a feature, perhaps tags that correspond to time might be easy-enough.

The trickiest part would be the UI -- making it usable and elegant.

Perhaps those markings would visually fit nicely inside the filmstrip view.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> So is this meant to be an alternative to XBMC? I've tried some pieces of software that just sucked, any comparisons between this and similar software? :)

<comment><AUTHOR> I've not found good alternatives, though of course it doesn't mean my version of what I think the software should do is the best fit for everyone ;)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> What is the performance/memory footprint? E.g. can I run this on a Raspberry Pi connected to my TV?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm unsure how a Raspberry Pi would handle it. It's an app built with Electron, so it's basically running Chrome (Chromium) under the hood. Here's an old build running as a website: [http://dev.yboris.com/vh/](http://dev.yboris.com/vh/) \-- I suspect the app will run just fine.

If you try it out -- please report back and let us know how it goes! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I like it. Nabbed a copy for $5 - feel like you should charge more than $3.50!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for paying more!

Charging more is a balance between larger sales volume (importantly -- more people using the app), and possibly higher revenue (in my case donations to my favorite charity).

I'm leaning towards having a lot more people enjoy my work (though I'm still unwilling to go "pay what you want" with no minimum at this time).

<comment><USER21> I agree that giving people the option to pay $0 will probably result in less sales. I've been thinking about it over lunch and I'm liking the $3.50 price more and more. It was certainly low enough that I didn't have to give the purchase much thought and also low enough that I felt you deserved a bit more - and was happy to pay it.

No doubt you can see the stats and know what's gonna work better than some random on HN :)

One thing: I found the contrast of the video name text and the bg a bit tough when using the light theme. IF it's possible, custom bg colour or something would be great. Anyway :) thanks for a cool app

edit: ha was logged in to my old acccount when i first posted, a downside of password managers if you're not paying attention!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for the comment on the contrast. I should have paid more attention to WCAG when picking the color scheme. I'll keep your comment in mind next time I tinker with the UI :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looks great. I suggest charging more!

<comment><AUTHOR> Great to hear you think it may still have customers at a higher price point! I made the price pay-what-you-want-with-a-minimum (I'm gonna need about tree fiddy :P).

I'm unsure how well the app will do in the international market, but in many countries even $3 is quite a bit of money.

A nice feature about the price, is that each purchase of the app equates to a purchase of an anti-mosquito bednet (since I'm donating proceeds to a charity that provides them to communities affected by malaria) :)</comment></comment>


Self-fulfilling correlations - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/2n5/selffulfilling_correlations/

<comment><USER2> Well-stated. I think there are multiple related effects like this one that conspire to make spurious correlations extremely tenacious in practice.

</comment><comment><USER3> I have been saying similar things for years. Apply this to modern psychology. We live in weird feedback times.</comment>


The Case Against Reality - <AUTHOR> https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/04/the-illusion-of-reality/479559/?utm_source=wdfb&mbid=social_fb&single_page=true <comment><USER2> utter nonsense

<comment><USER3> "Suppose in reality there's a resource, like water, and you can quantify how much of it there is in an objective order—very little water, medium amount of water, a lot of water. Now suppose your fitness function is linear, so a little water gives you a little fitness, medium water gives you medium fitness, and lots of water gives you lots of fitness—in that case, the organism that sees the truth about the water in the world can win, but only because the fitness function happens to align with the true structure in reality. Generically, in the real world, that will never be the case. Something much more natural is a bell curve—say, too little water you die of thirst, but too much water you drown, and only somewhere in between is good for survival. Now the fitness function doesn't match the structure in the real world. And that's enough to send truth to extinction. For example, an organism tuned to fitness might see small and large quantities of some resource as, say, red, to indicate low fitness, whereas they might see intermediate quantities as green, to indicate high fitness. Its perceptions will be tuned to fitness, but not to truth. It won't see any distinction between small and large—it only sees red—even though such a distinction exists in reality."</comment></comment>


SpaceX's Center Core Booster for Falcon Heavy Rocket Is Lost at Sea - <AUTHOR> https://www.space.com/spacex-loses-falcon-heavy-core-booster-at-sea.html <comment><AUTHOR> Gotta wonder if there's any automated way to deploy guylines from the top of the booster to the ship. I can't think of anything practical.

<comment><USER2> Automated guylines are not going to help if the booster crashes on the pad.

<comment><AUTHOR> Or if it explodes in the air before reaching the pad. But it could prevent it from toppling over due to high seas, like in this case.</comment></comment></comment>


BlackRock's Robot Stock-Pickers Post Record Losses - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-09/blackrock-quants-sustain-record-losses-in-setback-to-fink-plan <comment><AUTHOR> I submitted this article because I was especially intrigued by the high- profile ex-Google ML Researcher hire (and then departure.) Anyone know what exactly the BlackRock ML group was doing? Was it supposed to be a competitor to Renaissance Technologies ([https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how- renai...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-21/how-renaissance- s-medallion-fund-became-finance-s-blackest-box))? Was this an NLP-driven fund gone haywire?

I'm particularly interested as I was recruited for this group multiple times, so a bit relieved I didn't pursue it. I wonder if there are any lessons (about what to avoid) to be learned here about the way the group was structured...or if it was simple randomness gone wrong.

<comment><USER2> Who was the google ML researcher hire?

<comment><USER3> [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackrock-hire-google- idUS...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-blackrock-hire-google- idUSKBN0OO2C720150608)

<comment><USER2> Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "It instructs the team to sell when losses become sizable, regardless of what its mathematical models say, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter."

Hard to blame the robots then.

<comment><USER5> The alternative being to assume your model is immaculate while you ride it into bankruptcy?

"The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" -JMK

<comment><USER6> If I remember this correctly, research indicates that if the portfolio is being driven by a random walk process, a stop-loss always causes a reduction in returns (negative stopping premium), i.e., stop-losses are useful only if the return generating process can be shown to not be a random walk.

Also, they tend to mess with your mind (loss-aversion psychology, deep feeling of pain at losses) and make you exit and enter the trade multiple times, adding up to transaction costs, too.

All in all, a) Buy and Hold may actually be quite sensible and b) stop-losses are actually much more complicated than you'd think and seem to be a mathematical rabbit hole.

Stop-losses may make sense in, say, an intraday pair-trading strategy where an analysis of past return evolution clearly shows that winners keep winning and losers are hopeless beyond a point.

<comment><USER7> Exactly. Unless you can show that the price continues to move against your losing positions by more than their cost to liquidate, you shouldn't do it. Your screw-up was putting the bad trade on in the first place.

I'm especially surprised it's used in a model like this. Most quant funds use some type of portfolio risk management to allocate capital toward bets that with the highest expected return while controlling overall risk. That losing stock may be offsetting other risks in the portfolio.

As I mentioned in my other comment, a stop-loss is a very crude approach to risk management. It will help control the middle of your left tail, but the far left tail extreme events cannot be protected against by such a rule.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As I understand the article the "robots" would have done more or less ok. It was human intervention that caused more losses.

This is exactly what not should happen when investing longterm: Being driven by emotions rather than rational facts.

<comment><USER9> > _This is exactly what not should happen when investing longterm: Being > driven by emotions rather than rational facts._

Putting a limit on one's potential losses is pretty rational, not emotional. Models are not perfect, and you do not want to find yourself with high paper losses when they fail.

Of course, if your models don't work well together with stop-loss limits, then that's a problem.

<comment><USER10> But you do that by properly sizing your positions, not by panic selling.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> _" He also pointed to the group's longer-term track record of outperformance. [...] The firm doesn't disclose the peer groups or benchmarks it uses for comparison."_

My track record is much much better!!! Honest!!!

</comment><comment><USER12> Stock prices screw up validation with back testing. I tried using stock prices to illustrate random walks and the superiority of naive forecasts with random walk data. Only problem: they aren't random walks. They are random sequences of predictable pattern. Frequently, a regression model, or Holt-Winters, or neural net will outperform the naive forecast on backtests, because it was a better model before now. The challenge, is that now it isn't.

</comment><comment><USER13> _" BlackRock inherited the three-decade-old quant business with its purchase of Barclays Global Investors in 2009. Initially, the group was a big success under new management, delivering outsize returns. More recently, things haven't panned out quite as well."_ \-- well you know those Barclay's Boys[1]

Its an interesting question about machine learning and market returns. But there is a remarkable number of people who seem to just step over the line of legality and pick up the extra profits they need which taints the whole industry.

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/04/libor- riggi...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jul/04/libor-rigging- scandal-three-former-barclays-traders-found-guilty)

<comment><USER14> BGI was basically a subsidiary and run independently. It was originally part of Wells Fargo (hence the SF HQ) - just pointing out that although it had the Barclays name, it was separate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> One of these days I may finally understand what was the problem we were trying to solve with all these increasingly complicated financial thingamajigs. And what exactly is the benefit we derive from them.

Not betting on it, though.

P.S. Looking for something simple, e.g. "If you have derivative trading, your GDP will be 5% larger, and the gain is spread across the population in proportion to income." The kind of things you have for engine efficiency, or compiler optimization ...

<comment><USER16> I upvoted you because I don't understand the benefit of quant funds either.

With short selling, derivatives and high frequency trading, I can at least see the argument for increased liquidity and so forth... But how does society benefit when leading AI research minds spend their time building gambling models that try to predict the sentiment of other gamblers?

At the same time, I recognize that forcing any such social logic onto research is a slippery slope towards Soviet-style government-stunted research. So I guess I'll rather have machines gambling trillions of dollars.

<comment><USER17> When push comes to shove these things determine the allocation of resources in society. How many people does a company making spoons gets to hire or should we put more of them on webforum moderation ? Same for cars/glass/shoes/...

The idea is that letting algorithms decide will result in better/more productive allocation of resources, which will result in more and better everything.

Of course, is that reality ? I would point out, however, that stock markets resource allocations are far better than royalty/governments allocating resources.

<comment><USER18> > When push comes to shove these things determine the allocation of resources > in society.

John Bogle, founder of Vanguard and renowned investor, seems to disagree with you: "The stock market has nothing—n-o-t-h-i-n-g—to do with the allocation of capital. All it means is that if you're buying General Motors stock, say, someone else is selling it to you. Capital isn't allocated—the ownership just changes. I may be an investor, you may be a speculator. But no capital goes anywhere. This is basically a closed system. You have new IPOs and whatnot, but they're very small compared to this vast thing we call a market, which is now around $24 trillion. The allocation of capital? That's just nonsense."

I think you are mixing up the concept of a market economy with a specific kind of market, the "stock" market.

<comment><USER19> That sounds like an exaggeration in order to make an unrelated point.

Why would people sell equity in their company except for cash, and why would you pay cash for ownership in a company except for the stream of income it represents _and_ the secondary market for that ownership?

How come people decided it is illegal to trade ivory from an elephant killed a couple hundred years ago? Was it made illegal to possess child pornography that was already created only because it is morally toxic, or does said consumption also induce demand for additional victims?

Even though debt markets have a lot more to do with day to day financing of corporations, equity markets have a great influence on terms. Furthermore, the unavoidable importance of secondary markets for debt and their derivatives can be understood by considering the importance of secondary markets with respect to prices of homes, automobiles, or any other large consumer purchases.

<comment><USER18> I didn't mean to imply that stock markets were not important, just that "allocating resources" in the sense that parent meant, e.g. "How many people does a company making spoons gets to hire or should we put more of them on webforum moderation ?", being its primary purpose seems like a stretch (except for the occasional new IPO / stockholders' meeting). If anything, venture capital and as you mentioned, debt markets are closer to this idea of allocating resources.

My main point really was that the examples parent gave seemed much closer to examples of market economics in general and would hold true, with or without stock markets.

<comment><USER19> I can see the limitations in equating stock price directly with GM retooling a factory for a new model year, but it is a far more accurate depiction of what is going on, even if a little abstract, than to say that they have nothing to do with each other and even spelling it out letter by letter. Saying that it is basically a closed system is even more bizarre.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've always been puzzled how it could be possible for a machine to predict stock markets, even on an purely hypothetical basis. To me the idea seems to generate the same kind of paradoxes as time travel or oracles.

I mean, imagine there is a machine that is capable of predicting the markets with 100% reliability. Then soon enough, the machine will acquire a reputation and everyone will follow its advice. The machine says "the price of X will go up", everybody would buy X, so the price of X would indeed go up, but this price surge would have only been initiated by the machine statement and we'd have a self-realizing prophecy. Other situations would be more complicated I suppose, but in every case the machine would have to take into account its own prediction, which would be some kind of a mise en abyme.

In the end just like antic oracles, the machine would have to make cryptic predictions that would make sense only with hindsight.

<comment><USER21> Try out your thought experiment again with a machine that can predict markets with 55% reliability, or 50.1% reliability . This more likely reflects reality.

If someone had a machine that could predict the stock markets with 100% reliability, or even 55% reliability, do you think they would make those predictions known to the public? Or would they start a hedge fund and become one of the wealthiest individuals of all time?

<comment><USER22> As far as I can see, making the information available to the public isn't even a choice. There is no market information you can make available to the public that will make everyone richer. The only people who get richer are the ones who act before it becomes public knowledge. When they are done, asset prices reflect the now public knowledge, and there is no longer a profit to take.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Any thoughts on Blackrock's smart alpha ETF offerings like MTUM, QUAL, etc?

</comment><comment><USER24> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_(BlackRock)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aladdin_\(BlackRock\))

Was tickled by the allegory that could be made, upon reading this from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jinn):

> _The Quran says that the jinn were created from a smokeless and "scorching > fire", but are also physical in nature, being able to interact in a tactile > manner with people and objects and likewise be acted upon. The jinn, humans, > and angels make up the three known sapient creations of God. Like human > beings, the jinn can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent and hence have > free will like humans._

<comment><USER25> I see no connection of that religious book and these particular Arab beliefs based on the myths from around the 7th century with the article about the BlackRock Inc.

I guess you're attracted by the part "can be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent" but it's too little for my taste, the rest is more problematic to be related. And can't most things "be good, evil, or neutrally benevolent" anyway?

<comment> semi-extrinsic If you clicked the first link given by GP, you would have seen that BlackRocks investment platform is called Aladdin, who of course has a strong link to the jinn (genie). Thus the connection.

<comment><USER26> Maybe the connection was that the platform was going to be the one that "took the genie out of the bottle"? Any other alternative is more tenuous, I think.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


How Wall Street Tobacco Deals Left States With Billions in Toxic Debt - <AUTHOR> http://www.propublica.org/article/how-wall-street-tobacco-deals-left-states-with-billions-in-toxic-debt

<comment><USER2> I don't understand how the states are losing on those deals.

 _As designed, private investors — not the taxpayers — would take the hit if people smoked less and the tobacco money fell short._

Then why are the states supposedly settled with the debt resulting from the forecasts being too optimistic? Was the 500 million dollars worth of financial engineering botched so badly that it failed to achieve its primary goal?

Also,

 _Under the deals, the debts must be repaid with settlement money and not tax dollars._

which to me means that the states at worst lose this unusual source of revenue from the settlement. A source that is drying up faster than predicted. This should not lead a state into bankruptcy or defaulting on other obligations.

It seems that Cordray was right

 _"Five years from now, 10 years from now, smoking bans are kicking in, taxes may change, maybe court decisions. If the tobacco companies are not profitable, Ohio would be out its money. But if we cash in now, we will have our money and we will shed the risk," Cordray was quoted saying in a July 2007 report by The Associated Press._

and he thinks he was right

 _Cordray told ProPublica the state made the right decision. The decline in tobacco payments means they were riskier than believed, he said, and CABs helped the state maximize its proceeds. If payments decline further, he said, investors should pay the price, not Ohio._

 _"Obviously, they are always going to want to come back, cup in hand, saying to the state, 'Put some money in it,'" Cordray said. "But it's not necessary; it's not legally required and in fact was the whole purpose of this deal."_

Private investors are taking the hit, selling the debt at pennies on the dollar to hedge funds, while states get to keep the money they made by selling those capital appreciation bonds in the first place. Whether it was wise to turn nice steady revenue flow into a one time payment is another question but, as sbmassey notes, you can't really expect democratic politicians not to.

<comment><USER3> This looks to me like someone is trying to get a meme going that states "have to" pay these bonds. The radio version of this story on NPR was leading much stronger in that direction.

[http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> An investigative piece from ProPublica into the piecemeal securitization of the 1998 tobacco settlement revenue, and the increasing toxicity of the ensuing debt. States essentially sold out their future revenue stream, and committed to paying more back out in order to plug short-term budgetary holes. These obligations extend for decades, and have ballooned into the billions of dollars, dwarfing what the actual payouts would have been. It is unlikely that these bonds will ever be repaid to the agreed upon terms.

The securities in question are Capital Appreciation Bonds (CABs).

<comment><USER4> Here's some more info on CABs and the effect they are having now, and how much damage they are likely to do to the future of the US

[http://patimes.org/poor-decision-worse-capital- appreciation-...](http://patimes.org/poor-decision-worse-capital-appreciation- bonds-school-districts/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> That map they have in the article is pretty much worthless since it's not weighted by state population. It pretty much resembles a population map.

</comment><comment><USER6> the main problem is putting democratically elected politicians in charge of state finances - of course they are going to get as large an immediate payout as possible, and not worry about the long term consequences: that is exactly what you would expect from someone on a four year election cycle.

<comment><USER7> I don't think that's true in and of itself. The election cycles have been 4 years since the founding of the country, but this level of short-term thinking has, I think, gotten worse over time.

Personally, I think it has to do with how quickly information can be transmitted nowadays, coupled with less trust in government than there was a generation or two ago. But maybe I'm wrong and someone with a firmer grasp of history can correct me by showing that this has always been a problem.</comment></comment>


Forget Basic Income – We Need Guaranteed Employment - <AUTHOR> https://outlookzen.wordpress.com/2016/12/17/forget-basic-income-we-need-guaranteed-employment/ <comment><USER2> Is $12 per hour a livable wage?

<comment><USER3> I live in the American Southeast. I know people living with less than that. Your results in SFO/NYC may vary.

\---

Here's a rough breakdown for a single income family of four.

Starting: $2,000 month

Income tax: zero or negative ( kids + EIC credits)

Health Insurance: $50/mo Obamacare. Medicaid will take care of kids healthcare.

Housing: 1000sqft mobile home $500/mo

Utilities: $100/mo

Cell phones: $100/mo for two android smartphones

Car: $150/mo for ten year old car on the edge of reliability. Includes gas and liability insurance and maintenance.

Food: $450/mo. This requires cooking your own family's food, but still isn't eating as cheaply as possible.

So this still leaves $650/mo for hobbies, saving, and giving.</comment></comment>


Saving of public Google+ content by the Archive Team has begun - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/plexodus/comments/az285j/saving_of_public_google_content_at_the_internet/ <comment><USER3> I'm not sure how I feel about this.

Over the last couple years it has become increasingly clear that public personal social media history is a liability. People's histories have often been weaponized against them, and mass processing of social media has been used as a weapon against society as a whole (Cambridge Analytica, etc.).

I recently deleted my Facebook account, but didn't take the time to delete Google+ because I figured it was about to disappear anyway. But now it turns out some people are building a public archive of my content, and presumably they aren't going to give me a way to delete it. This makes me uncomfortable. I have now deleted my Google+ history; I hope they didn't get much of it.

To be clear, I think the Internet Archive is good people with noble intentions. But given what we've learned recently about social media possibly being a huge mistake... this effort worries me.

<comment><USER4> If you read the linked post you will find out this section:

If you don't want this to happen, you can request removal of specific items through the Internet Archive's procedure: [https://help.archive.org/hc/en- us/articles/360018138951-How-...](https://help.archive.org/hc/en- us/articles/360018138951-How-do-I-remove-an-item-page-from-the-site-)

<comment><USER5> I don't understand part of the guide that says:

> _To have your item pages removed, please email firstname.lastname@example.com from the > email address used to upload the files._

What does "...from the email address used to upload the files" mean?

If my posts in Google+ are "archived", >>I<< do not have an email address which was used to upload the Google+ contents... . What am I misunderstanding/overlooking ? Thx

<comment><USER6> Presumably there is a gmail account that is associated with the post on Google+?

<comment><USER7> In this case, the email association is with an Internet Archive account for organisations and individuals who are directly contributing to the Archive.

There is also a DMCA request process, which I've posted to this thread.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> There are a few gems on Google+ that would be a shame to lose, like:

[https://plus.google.com/101960720994009339267/posts/R58WgWwN...](https://plus.google.com/101960720994009339267/posts/R58WgWwN9jp)

Archived copy: [http://archive.is/4kpvd](http://archive.is/4kpvd)

<comment><USER7> Indeed.

Also infrastructure-like breakage, through APIs, and particularly images:

[https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/03/07/less-than-a- mon...](https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2019/03/07/less-than-a-month-to-go- before-google-breaks-hundreds-of-thousands-of-links-all-over-the-internet/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> In other news, don't bother putting your content on 3rd party websites, it'll just be deleted and you'll have wasted your time. Set up a server, and a donation button, with a countdown timer for when the server will be deleted if no one donates, if it's useful people should pay to keep it going

<comment><USER10> And eventually people will stop donating (if they ever did) or you'll lose interest and the content will be deleted anyway. So basically don't bother. Everything will get deleted someday anyway. (Unless it's saved by the Internet Archive which may or may not be around forever (as in a very long time). Which is a bit worrying itself.)

<comment><USER11> This is a great selling point of distributed systems like IPFS <ipfs.io> and BitTorrent.

With most online services, some entity X (Google in this case) says 'I will host this data.' Eventually it stops being worth it for X to host that data, and the data is lost forever (unless someone archives it like this case, which just changes the X to some other entity).

With distributed content sharing networks, the data is retained as long as _anyone_ is willing to bear the cost of storing and distributing it. After I upload a file I may eventually decide that it is no longer worth sharing, but as long as someone thinks it is a useful file to share they can have it seeding from their computer. The file is only permanently gone once nobody thinks it's worth sharing. And with a large population on these networks, that is equivalent to the file having no actual value - except for historical research perhaps.

This is actually better than what the parent (mavhc) suggested, because with the donation method there is still one entity in charge of sharing the data. Others can archive and share it (if allowed by the primary entity), but there is still a discoverability problem that is solved by IPFS/BT.

<comment><USER12> Actually BitTorrent suffers torrent-rot thanks to the DRM that are private trackers, not a single mainstream client offers you the ability to just DHT/PEX/LSD(LPD) a torrent which means if the trackers go down the torrents die. I find it a big concern, even more so in the future.

If ipfs suffers the same problem - noone knows which hash to look up - <USER2> files will be irrevocably lost.

<comment><USER13> Isn't tracker "rot" what magnet links were meant to solve or have I misunderstood that?

<comment><USER12> Magnet links can't solve it if the torrent is marked private. There's no DHT, PEX and LSD(LPD).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Cool! I have the Archive Warrior docker image running on my Synology NAS. I just checked and it seems I've archived 160 GB of Google+ already.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've made personal copies of rare bits of info for my Asus tablet/laptop but shuttered my pages down. But that was the needle in the haystack of g+ content, most everything else seem to have slacked off shortly after the novelty wore off.

</comment><comment><USER8> I wonder if Google will take note and make a specific donation. Might be a good PR move.

<comment><USER16> If Google wanted to help, they could skip all this drama by just rendering everything themselves and shipping some Transfer Appliances to the archive.

<comment><USER17> I'm not an expert, but unless there are G+ specific exceptions I've missed, I believe that the current wording of their terms-of-service would prohibit them from engaging in the efforts to archive G+ pages.

This it was it says about the rights you give Google by/if you are using their services:

"The rights you grant [to Google] in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones."

The only rubric archival could possibly fall under would be "promotion", but that feels marginal at best.

<comment><USER16> I see your point, but it's hard to believe the Internet Archive has _more_ ability to do this than Google does, since they were granted no rights whatsoever.

Seems like whatever legal theory the Internet Archive is using must apply to everyone, including Google, unless Google _waived_ whatever that is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Author and one of the folks engaged in the G+ Migration / Exodus movement here.

</comment><comment><USER18> I am logged in to so many applications and services I think I can never undo my trace on the internet. And then there is this archiving of deleted past. I feel congested.

</comment><comment><USER19> I've never understood the urge to archive all this old stuff. If you are somebody that thinks it's important to save as much of this stuff as we can, I'd love to have my opinion changed. The cost to save everything isn't trivial, but often it feels like the value is.

<comment><USER20> "Deep Learning" group.

[https://plus.google.com/communities/112866381580457264725](https://plus.google.com/communities/112866381580457264725)

Discussion as methods and questions emerged, often involving the pioneers of the field. LeCun, Bengio, Krizshevsky, Goodfellow, etc. Ranging from the days when people were starting to realize you could implement theses thing for a GPU instead of just CPU, to days when it's arguably rehabiliteted "A.I." as credible in the popular imagination and spawned a multi-billion dollar industry.

Admittedly it's the only thing I'm aware of on G+ which I'm anxious to see archived, but that's probably mostly for lack of looking. These are interesting times. It would be a shame if the records of them are lost just because we put them on a medium which will self-destruct in absence of active maintenance and then failed to put in the maintenance.

<comment><USER19> Even in that one community, the signal-to-noise ratio is pretty terrible.</comment></comment></comment>


Startups take note – we're building the same damn thing over and over - <AUTHOR> http://fourlightyears.blogspot.com/2015/04/startups-take-note-were-building-same.html

<comment><USER2> I see you have some prior interest in this space, I'm working on something that specifically addresses a lot of this stuff - early stage but hoping to have something usable next month.

Want to have an IM chat on Skype, maybe we can do something together or you can help guide my project - firstname.lastname@example.com.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'll email. Happy to give feedback.

<comment><USER2> Great!</comment></comment></comment>


How to Structure a Sales and Marketing Team - <AUTHOR> http://tomtunguz.com/sales-team-structure/ <comment><USER2> Marketing, inbound & outbound SDRs are indeed the key elements in creating a good and strong sales and marketing team.</comment>


Teen designs Hong Kong-inspired shoe only to have it dropped from Vans contest - <AUTHOR> https://www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/post/Vans-step-on-Toronto-teens-freedom-of-expression <comment><USER2> > Under British rule, Hong Kong people lived in an open democracy.

I find it hilarious that this is actually believed by many.

Of course, between them and the Chinese, the Brits are the lesser of two evils. But still, no democracy whatsoever.

<comment><USER3> Saying that Britain is the lesser of two evils is vastly under-representing the difference. Did the British kidnap people in the night, take them prisons, and torture them until they publicly admit their crimes? Did they harvest organs from prisoners?

They didn't attempt to make slaves of the Hong Kong people to the state.

<comment><USER4> I think there's an important, main point in OP's comment that you are missing.

Hong Kong has never really had much democratic process, in terms of direct elections, and universal suffrage. There are only some roles where this happens.

Hong Kong has a long history of protesting this, and of failed attempts of implementing more democratic process.

To say it was democratic under British rule is a reach.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Ho...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_development_in_Hong_Kong)

<comment><USER5> I never got why people confused democracy with open elections. Open elections are the literal opposite of democracy since it allows people with no understanding to vote.

<comment><USER4> > the literal opposite of democracy since it allows people with no > understanding to vote.

I would need to know the definition of democracy you're using to fully appreciate the meaning of this comment.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The shoe would actually look pretty cool from an artistic point of view.

Given the current situation. I'm sure this will not be the last time we'll see that design.

</comment><comment><USER7> [https://boingboing.net/2019/10/07/vans-boycotted-in-hong- kon...](https://boingboing.net/2019/10/07/vans-boycotted-in-hong-kong-af.html)

[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests- vans/sh...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hongkong-protests- vans/shoemaker-vans-treads-warily-as-china-fumes-over-hong-kong-protests- idUSKBN1WN0IZ)

#boycottVans</comment>