I created Godwin's Law in 1990 as a warning - <AUTHOR> http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/when-i-created-godwins-law-1990-it-wasnt-prediction-it-was-warning-1562126 <comment><USER2> > My view, which I've held for many decades now, is that glib and frivolous > invocations of Hitler, or Nazis, or the Holocaust, are a kind of forgetting.

So true. I have myself observed / felt this several times. My experience is that the facts of any discussion are laid out pretty quickly at the beginning. There is something that prolongs the discussion and heats up the arguments on all sides and I believe it is our collective emotional baggage, or lack of it. Some twist their words to mean anything just to stay in the conversation, some dig in their heels in the hopes of never having to be proven wrong, some stick to the bare facts but ignore others' emotional investment, etc. And some just enjoy trolling as if it is a spectator sport where they flame both sides but without any meaningful contribution of their own towards a resolution.

Sadly, I have not found an approach that works better than to quit the discussion cold turkey.

<comment><USER3> The number of people here that are describing trolling as fun, amusing, and effective is pretty high. I wonder why this is the case? Even if so many people enjoy being an ass or ruthlessly screwing over other people, it's strange that they'd openly admit it.

One possibility is that it's a byproduct of the school system. Most of us spent years at each other's throats in a Lord of the Flies type environment, so it's natural for this behavior to transfer to the internet.

<comment><USER4> They don't necessarily mean that it is fun to be an ass.

I think it's probably a fine line, but there are "trollish" comments that can be made that aren't even disingenuous, never mind nasty or negative.

The so called old school trolling wasn't about disruptive behavior, it was about getting people to consider thoughts that they aren't necessarily comfortable with. And not necessarily uncomfortable in a dark or disturbing way.

<comment><USER5> Trolling is a good way to induce the sort of cognitive dissonance that changes minds. Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest Proposal' is an exemplar of this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This essay is about the need to think and argue mindfully rather than "with glib allusion".

It's disappointing that the early comments here were all focused on issues irrelevant to the content of the essay, issues that moreover would be easily avoided with wget or curl, or even just turning off JavaScript and images in any common browser. The essay's right in the HTML with zero obfuscation applied. Yes, there's cruft there, too. Such is life.

While I've been writing this comment, the distribution of comment quality has changed, which is somewhat heartening.

<comment><USER7> It has a lot to do with the structure commonly used in comment boards. There is no way avoid derailment by setting a direction to the conversation. It's the central limit theorem of the internet, really, the sum of a large number of opinions tends to be normally distributed around "mediocre".

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The nazis have been reduced to an abstract symbol of evil. The ways that they co-opted liberal institutions to seize power is ignored. They happened in real life. They used the same levers of power everyone else agrees are legitimate. They weren't a dark cloud of evil sweeping through Germany, they were human beings acting with purpose and intent. Their means can be analyzed. The fascists today work the same way as the fascists of yesterday.

There's that apocryphal statement "fascism will come to America wrapped in a flag". Maybe, maybe not. But I know that if fascism manages to seize absolute power again, and it is getting perilously close with all these far-right governments getting elected all over the place and the ever increasing audacity with which liberal governments bring their weapons down on the human beings that stand in their way, it will do so while shrieking "free speech" all the way. Free speech is such a, such a _sacred_ institution, and it's supposed to keep us safe from tyranny. Just like democratic elections, right?

And everyone will act surprised how suddenly it seems we are in their grips.

Sticking to ideals and trying to have an ideology of "freedom" doesn't stop nazis. Fascists of all stripes need to be treated as engaged in concrete power struggle, not abstract ideological debate.

<comment><USER9> I agree with you that we should be wary and stick to sound ideals. The other day I read a column by Bloomberg View columnist Leonid Bershidsky arguing, "Right-Wing Populists Are Running Out of Time,"

[http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-26/trump- and-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-26/trump-and-his- imitators-are-running-out-of-time)

so perhaps danger of a neo-Nazi movement is lessening while we stay wary and stick to ideals.

By the way, Bershinky's very latest column directly discusses Godwin's Law, the main topic of this thread, and is titled "Comparisons to Hitler Can Be Useful. Discuss."

[http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-27/comparison...](http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-05-27/comparisons- to-hitler-can-be-useful-discuss)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > a physicist named Travis Hoppe argued only last year that his analysis of > Reddit data disproved the law.

What he disproved was the corollary, that whoever mentions Nazis has lost and ended the argument. People mistakenly refer to that corollary as "Godwin's law", but that's as far as the conflict goes. There is no disagreement about the statistics. Nazi references will happen in a supermajority of moderately large discussions.

</comment><comment><USER11> You guys might not be noticing, but we've thrown the "Hitler/Nazi" stuff around so much that it doesn't have meaning anymore. It's actually been rehabilitating fascism and anti-semitism.

<comment><USER12> On the list of reasons for the rise of the extreme right in Europe (for example), I doubt that cracks the top 1000.

<comment><USER11> Calling regular people nazis make them associate more with nazis.

<comment><USER13> I firmly believe that the media drove Trump much farther into the racist right than he originally planned to go. Originally he was just anti- immigrant/nativist, just like every other Republican and many Democrats, and then he put his foot in his mouth when he tried to differentiate the character of illegal immigrants who come over the Southern border from illegal immigrants who fly in or come in on work and student visas. There is a difference, in that immigrants from the Southern border are very average people, from very near the U.S., and frequently have U.S. ties - it's just a cheaper process, paid for more in sweat and blood than in cash. Immigrants who come in on expensive visas to work and go to school, and who pay for expensive travel to and from the U.S. are more likely drawn from the middle and upper- middle classes of their countries of origin.

To him, that meant rapists, drug dealers, and murderers, because he's a rich Manhattan/Connecticut conservative, disgusted by and suspicious of people who work with their hands. "The wall" is something that has been added to in a bipartisan way by xenophobes from both sides of the aisle for a couple of decades at this point, and it was somehow used as evidence that he's more racist than the rest of Congress in combination with that remark.

Sadly, it turned out that the image that the media smeared him with was _even more_ attractive to a majority of white American men than the "I make good deals" persona alone, he immediately became unstoppable, and leaned into it as far as he could. Not that I'm saying that he hasn't always been a bit racist (most libertarian conservatives are), but I don't think that it was a dominant part of his worldview, or that he would have ever dreamed of running for President on a primarily racist platform.

Hope I didn't say anything offensive here, I tried to be careful...

<comment><USER14> _most libertarian conservatives are_

I don't quite get this.

What do you mean by "libertarian conservative", and where do you get the idea that most are racist? Libertarians and conservatives might superficially seem to be aligned in many ways, but when you look at it, libertarians align with liberals in just as many ways... so "libertarian conservative" isn't really a meaningful term in the strict sense.

I guess you could say "conservative with some libertarian tendencies", but anyone who is actually a libertarian is pretty much not racist by definition, given that libertarianism is a pretty much a radically individualistic ideology in which skin color, ethnicity, race, religion, gender, etc. play no role at all.

<comment><USER13> Libertarians are advocates of the idea that protecting and maintaining current property assignments and their orderly transfer between consenting parties is the basis of civilization. In addition, they see this as a moral value that assures that people who are productive will have more, and people who are less productive will have less. Through this moral belief, it defines what people do who have as productive, and what people do who don't have as less productive. In this, it completely ignores primitive accumulation and the fencing off of the commons, and says that in a perfect capitalism, everything will have found its level. Therefore, if Africans are poorer than Asians, Africans are by nature less productive than Asians. If black Americans are poorer than white Americans, there is an intrinsic quality within them that is keeping them from being valued enough to be rewarded.

Libertarianism is a radically collective ideology that wishes to shrink government into a police force to protect property, and a totalitarian bureaucracy that catalogs the ownership of every object that its police force can reach. It is an ideology that insists that skin color, ethnicity, race, religion, gender or anything that ever happened in the past play no role at all in the present.

Or rather, that's how I feel about it. And in my experience, all libertarians that I've met have harbored ideas that I think of as racist (even the very nice ones, and very insightful ones), and I've observed that when you see libertarianism grow, you see overt racism grow within its protective bubble.

<comment><USER14> That's not consistent with the Libertarian ideology that I'm familiar with, or the views of most of the Libertarians I know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I thought he was going to make a more general point--that as discussions go on, more and more extreme references and analogies will be made, until inevitably comparisons to the "best" and "worst" things in history are made.

<comment><USER16> The general point would probably be: As discussions approach infinity, the probability of _any arbitrary string_ appearing in conversation approaches 1.

There's no predictive power in the statement whatsoever so it doesn't really tell us anything.

<comment><USER17> What a superlative way of completely missing the point.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> This law is terrible,or at least how it's used. It just gives an out for idiots to call as soon as the word Nazi comes out, so they can stop talking about the issue at hand and instead demonstrate their familiarity with this stupid thing.

Nazis are an example of ultimate evil, that's why they come up. The law was coined with good intentions but the way people use it drives me batty.

<comment><USER19> > It just gives an out for idiots to call as soon as the word Nazi comes out

Something even worse happens on Reddit. Whenever anyone mentions Nazis or Hitler, someone is _absolutely, certifiably guaranteed_ to fall over themselves trying to be the first (in the thread; the 876458430854th overall) to post: "Hitler killed Hitler".

Followed inevitably by: "But he also killed the man who killed Hitler".

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> My experience is that the root cause of nazism did not disappear and that some argument leads to Godwin point.

Censorship of opinion by calling trolls whoever call an argument that is an obvious slippery slope to old nazis argument will not stop people from taking the slippery slope. And also under-educated people using the nazi red flag to apply political correctness censorship.

And well, maybe nazism should be renamed for capsocism when capitalist claiming monopoly should be enforced by states and market negotiation for the workers killed.

We are going back to shit ages. Where birth and so called merit of birth or power worth more than everything.

Sorry mister Godwin, our era is preparing itself for dark ages.

</comment><comment><USER21> If anything, this thread taught me that some people actually take Godwin's law to be something other than tongue-in-cheek.

<comment><USER22> Including Godwin himself.

I'd always assumed it was a clever piece of off-the-cuff satire, and related to ill considered or reactionary responses in a debate.

It hadn't occurred to me the whole thing might a po-faced social experiment. Still, history is written by the victors* and all that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> So in short, Godwin's Law is descriptive, and intended to be subtly prescriptive in the opposite direction.

</comment><comment><USER24> Sometimes a comparison to Nazis is wholly appropriate.

<comment><USER25> Could you give an example of an appropriate comparison?

<comment><USER26> Rwanda, Bosnia, Latin America death squads, the Confederacy, Andrew Jackson's March of Tears, the list sadly goes on and on.

Your question is a bit odd. History is chock full of examples of genocide, ethnic cleansing, slavery, etc.

This is the problem I have with Godwin's Law - sometimes a comparison to Nazis is entirely appropriate.

<comment><USER27> None were turned into an industry of death the way the nazis did

<comment><USER28> This is why the picohitler is such a handy unit of measurement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If Nazis have been reduced to superficiality through glib comparisons ("crying Nazi"), then it's worth pointing out that Godwin's law has suffered the same fate through its own glib application ("crying Godwin"). We need a Godwin's Law for Godwin's Law.

<edit>This has been dubbed Diddly's Law:</edit>

"As the years roll by on the internet, the probability of someone mentioning Godwin once Hitler has been mentioned, is approaching 1."

<comment><USER29> Can we call this the R-Diddly law, please?

<comment><USER23> How about Diddly's Law. I'm fine with that, hah!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Mr. Godwin could also have mentioned Islam and Donald Trump's movement in the US. Two major movements which often get compared to Nazism even in well- established media.

I think personally think it is a sign of a combination of lack of tact, knowledge and an unwillingness to compromise.

<comment><USER31> Or it could be a sign that Trump is a fascist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> The most efficient way to forget is to not contemplate or revisit. Godwin's is just the result of copious retrospection on the dirty/dark side of human nature. Which is warranted in lesser extremes than genocide, as well, IMO.

I didn't open link, based on non-nazi references to the page's elements. I have, however, read enough literature on 'lizard brains', group dynamics and human nature to realize we, as a species, need constant reminders of the damage done by our tendencies to oppress & extinguish those who we deem "different".

<comment><USER33> > I didn't open link, based on non-nazi references to the page's elements.

I assume the "link" is to the article. If so, that's unfortunate, the article was very well written and thought provoking.

The essential message Godwin has tried to impart is the antithesis of "lizard brain" reactivity, to be aware of what we are in fact saying or writing, and appreciate the gravity of invoking the memory of Nazi behavior or holocaust tragedy.

Yes, reminders to refresh consciousness of our tendencies to regress are absolute necessity and constantly useful.

Edit: wording/grammar.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I have heard from several fellow HackerNews readers (in other forums) that Godwins Law doesn't apply anymore mainly because of their opposition to Trump, and their own or their allies behaviour in breaking this law. It seems to imply that because we live in the current year, the present day, that previous laws no longer have validity, because of the false assumption that the present day has more importance than any other time, ever. (This assumption ignores history, tellingly). That, and they consider that in Trumps case the comparisons can actually have validity.

The other reasoning given from our fellow peers that I have heard sounds like that this law was made during the era of quiet bulletin boards, made up of people with a shared mind set, with a shared sense of humour, and the Internet now has changed beyond recognition. Therefore any laws made about the internet back then have no validity.

I would like to suggest that when you consider something no longer valid it could give you pause to think about your reasonings for doing so.

<comment><USER34> 1\. Godwin's Law says that as a discussion continues, the probability of a Hitler reference approaches one. It doesn't say anything about the aptness of a Hitler reference. It certainly does not say that you should not make a Hitler reference, or the one who does loses the debate. The only way you could "break" Godwin's Law is to _refuse_ to make Hitler references.

2\. Mike Godwin himself says that comparing Trump to Hitler is justifiable. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/12/14/sure- call-trump-a-nazi-just-make-sure-you-know-what-youre-talking-about/)

3\. Usually when I see comparisons of Trump to Hitler, and discussions of whether that comparison is defensible, there's rarely any discussion of how the "present day" changes anything. Godwin does make the point that in 2015, we now have the capability to question poor arguments more effectively. But I've seen basically no arguments that the _world_ is fundamentally different from the past, just that _Trump_ is a fundamentally different demagogue from those we've seen since 1946.

<comment><USER11> WaPo, funded by Bezos, who has plenty to lose from a Trump presidency will obviously do anything he can to tout that Trump = Hitler.

<comment><USER34> OK, so you're saying that Mike Godwin's integrity has been compromised and he's been influenced by Bezos to denounce Trump? Why did we trust him in the first place -- why should we care about Godwin's Law at all if it comes from a man so easily swayed to the interests of the rich?

(Or are you claiming that Mike Godwin doesn't actually mean the things that the Washington Post published under his name?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> The anti-intellectualism runs deep with HN. Anything not posted on facebook.github.io/react, twitter or bitcoin-daily-earn-money-fast.suckers is deemed worthless. Technical measures to get this useless drivel are, however, deeply sought after and their use, even when illegal/morally gray is advocated.

As longs as it's not a car manufacturer not sharing the GPL-licensed code they did not use. Then it's top posts three days in a row. I mean, a CONFIGURATION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM, what's a book, any book, in comparison? Even Gödel, Escher Bach doesn't compile.

<comment><USER6> I think our experiences may differ. Just looking through stories I've seen on the front page recently, there's the following:

* A slave in Scotland

* They knew it was round, damn it

* Two hundred terabyte proof is largest ever (granted, the 200 TB is not what's really interesting here)

* How the ArXiv decides what's science

* Visiting Chelsea Manning in prison

* Hiroshima (1946)

This seems like a healthy mix of topics, and they don't seem to have been deemed worthless.

I have noted a certain amount of hostility to philosophical topics, but I would venture a guess that there's been hostility to philosophy in general at all periods in history.

I expect to see a certain percentage of comments in an HN thread about how the topic is presented. Everybody's got to let off some steam sometimes. I made my initial comment because I was surprised at how many comments addressed _only_ how the topic was presented rather than that and the actual content.

<comment><USER35> Yeah, that comment was over-the-top. It's indeed sometimes excellent to see articles out-of-left-field here, because the perspective is different, somewhat deep and, well, new.

If it's a non-IT topic that comes up more often, it feels like a group identity has the ability to form that's a bit agressive towards anything considered different. I notice it with non-technical approaches, people, groups, institutions, customs, or media, such as social sciences, the UN, Politics, The New Yorker (just made up, don't go searching), Religion (and I even agree on the facts), Teacher, Art (expt. DeepDream), Women (in comment-, not voting power, see early vs. late threats).

But even in these, if people didn't have a chance to form a group opinion because it's rare, the discussion is excellent, and your examples are excellent!

I'll just read the threads a day later after everything has settled and stuff like my comment's been sunk to the graveyard :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Trolling IS fun. Great way to learn multiple sides of any argument AND to discover why people care in the first place. It's a good way to learn about people.

<comment><USER37> But aren't there better ways to learn about people and why they care about an issue in the first place?

<comment><USER38> From my experience, I've found that trolling and Socratic dialogue bring out the key points forthright and also highlight the most severe points of disagreement. That usually doesn't happen so fast when arguing with hard facts (when applicable). You can also hardly say that about a Wikipedia article or a propaganda poster/website/book.

<comment><USER37> It kind of makes the philosophy student in me worry to see trolling and Socratic dialogue offered as seeming equivalents. Though, I suppose Socrates was a damn good troll in his time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Why don't you surprise me by not downvoting this after reading just the first sentence, because it is a serious question:

Is "never forget" really the best response to a trauma in the first place? I'm not sure this is a settled question. If I'm raped let's say, should I carry that rape vividly in my head every day for the rest of my life, in the hopes of avoiding it in the future? If I do that, haven't I already in fact ruined that future by thinking about the same trauma every day and making it part of my reality? Also, if you believe some people, that which you think about constantly, even for purposes of avoiding it, is exactly what you bring into being, in both subtle and, some say concretely manifest ways.

Maybe instead I should try to forget the incident (knowing I never really will, but letting go of it as much as possible) and move on with my life? Those who are haunted by traumatic memories would probably love to forget them if they had the option.

What if we utterly forgot about Hitler. Would we be worse off, really? Do we NEED to study injustice to learn justice? Do we need to study brutality to learn kindness? Or do we just get our hands dirty by acculturating ourselves to things that are not justice, not kindness? Again I'd say it's far from a settled question.

<comment><USER39> What I see as most useful is _incorporating the lessons of the experience to avoid it in future._

Recognising a problem, particularly a complex one based in _dynamics_ of a situation, is often difficult. Systemic resposes, feedback, nonlinearity, stocasticity, unknown external inputs, etc., etc., mean that life _isn 't_ deterministic. At the same time, there are signs of things Not Going Well.

To take the relationship / rape case, there are red flags and circumstances in which unwanted outcomes are more likely. Knowing these and being aware of them can make all the difference. While catastrophic events can themselves be hugely truamatic, a small action early on can often avoid them.

In complex circumstances where you've got to _convince others of the problem_ , this can be ... complicated.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2fsr0g/hierarchy_of_failures_in_problem_resolution/)

Ultimately, what you're looking for is the ability to take a traumatic experience _and build behavioral responses which avoid it in future_. The "never forget* element is part of that -- the size and brightness of the red flag. But responding to that flag appropriately is the other part.

(And if the red flags have white circles and reversed swastikas, pay all the more heed.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> He should have mentioned Chuck Norris in the discussion.

<comment><USER23> On that note, anyone feel like maybe we need a Godwin's Law for Star Wars & Star Trek? Someone will always mention the Force, Jedi, "young Paduwan," the droids you're looking for, a bad feeling about this, on the one hand, and warp speed, beam me up, fascinating, the holodeck, the Borg etc. on the other. Or maybe that's just the nerds I associate with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Now Godwin's just being a nazi.</comment>


The TRIBES Engine Networking Model (2009) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://gamedevs.org/uploads/tribes-networking-model.pdf <comment> aaron-lebo It still blows my mind that Tribes came out in 1998.

That was a game with vehicles, easy modding (Tribes Football, RPG, Shifter, Renegades, anyone?), incredible mechanics (skiing), massive maps, recordable gameplay, a very active competitive community (OGL, 5150, players like Natural), And it was very playable on a 56k with some servers supporting 64+ players. Frankly, it puts a lot of titles with massive budgets, dev teams, and 18 years of learning to shame.

Thank you Dynamix.

<comment><USER2> Skiing was a bug - friction didn't apply to players while the jump animation was playing, but gravity equations did, so players slid downhill a bit. During beta, players learned to hammer their spacebar to maintain this frictionless state, skiing incredibly fast. Eventually, a script was released to automate this, repeating the jump when spacebar was held down; other games might consider this a cheat, but the community embraced it, and so did the devs.

Xtremeski came later...

<comment><USER3> Skiing was a bug in Starsiege:Tribes - it was a feature in Tribes 2 and arguably made the whole series into what it is.

The community eagerly awaits a reboot that can even come close to challenging the technical & operational superiority of T1 & T2. What masterpieces they were.

<comment><USER4> [https://www.playmidair.com/](https://www.playmidair.com/) is leading contender. lots of devs were t1/t2 comp players

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> While the details of this paper are above my head, I can say that, having spent _years_ playing Tribes II, it was one of the smoothest online multiplayer experiences I've ever witnessed. At the time, it seemed very ahead of its time, compared to other online multiplayer games of the era.

<comment><USER6> I've actually thought about Tribes a lot recently, what with the kerfuffle over hitboxes/tickrate in Overwatch, the architectural issues with The Division (bad game), and general netcode angst these days. I remember the Tribes experience being buttery smooth and precise, even with the high speeds, long distances, and general reliance on physical projectiles rather than hitscan weapons.

<comment><USER5> And even on relatively slow internet connections, like four players in one room on a 1.5Mbps DSL connection!

<comment><USER7> That may be part of the reason why it was so good. In 1998, they had to make it playable on 56k modems, and a lot of those optimizations probably transferred over to smooth play over better connections.

Now there are fewer incentives to optimize to that degree...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> For anyone interested in game networking the Quake 3 Network model was covered by Fabien Sanglard in this great blog post:

[http://fabiensanglard.net/quake3/network.php](http://fabiensanglard.net/quake3/network.php)

<comment><USER9> Adding on to the emerging link-dump, here's some interesting stuff for the Source engine (TF2, CS:GO, etc.) which goes into their latency-compensation mechanics:

[https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_...](https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Source_Multiplayer_Networking)

[https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Latency_Compensatin...](https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Latency_Compensating_Methods_in_Client/Server_In- game_Protocol_Design_and_Optimization)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Obligatory "Shazbot!"

So was the Ghost Stream Manager meant to also help combat packet loss? Or is it more simply a form of "Game state redundancy"? I'm speaking out of wheelhouse here.

I'm always a bit fascinated by these write-ups because so much has to happen in such a small window.

<comment><USER11> The ghost stream manager was responsible for sending ghost representations of objects. They weren't full objects, but contained the properties or a subset of properties. All of the code was accessible as the Garage Games Torque engine.

</comment></comment><comment> squeaky-clean Oh man this brings me back (and I'm probably not old enough to be allowed to say that)! My first real start with game development, and well serious coding, was using the Torque Game Engine, which is the Tribes II engine. I saved up my money to buy a license for Torque 1.5 (it was $150 I believe and I was in high school), because at the time it was the only game engine which 1) Had source code access, 2) Wasn't insanely expensive for a hobbyist, 3) Was fully functional by itself.

The engine overall was pretty amazing, of course it had it's warts. I still remember the networking code pretty well. I played with the physics part of the engine quite a lot and rewrote and modded it a few times. I usually wanted networking in my experiments, so I learned a lot about that part of the engine as well. I don't play with gamedev anymore, and probably wouldn't use Torque if I did, but I really miss it and the community it had. I still check in on it once a year or so, and there was a blog post recently thanking many community members from the past, and my old username was on the list :') I'm looking through my old forum posts now, wow was I annoying for a few years!

For anyone who wants to look, the latest version of the engine is now MIT licensed [0]. It's been through 2 major versions, and seems like they've simplified the inheritance, so I'm not sure how much is still intact, but netObject looks a lot like I remember. I would recommend redding the comments in the header file for a good overview of how it works. [1]

[0] [https://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D](https://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D)

[1] [https://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D/blob/bacf0cde2af17ab...](https://github.com/GarageGames/Torque3D/blob/bacf0cde2af17ab6f25c7effe0308035f164d54e/Engine/source/sim/netObject.h#L57)

</comment><comment><USER12> Part of why Tribes was such an incredible experience was it had 64 player servers. The maps were constant chaos. Haven't quite experienced anything like that since.

<comment><USER13> PlanetSide and PlanetSide 2. While hard to get into, when platoon level operations are at their best it's something I've yet to experience in another game. I expect Eve would be the other example, but with time dilation and combat mechanics, the game is more strategic than tactical in my understanding.

<comment><USER14> PS2 still going strong? I thought they were combining server populations to help increase the size of each remaining server.

<comment><USER15> It just recently had a major update so people can build their own bases and stuff now.

<comment><USER14> Interesting, maybe I should get back into it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Tribes 1 remains my favorite FPS experience to this day.

<comment><USER17> Yes.

There's still people playing every evening.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> This game ate my life in college. My friends and I founded tribalwar.com in late 1999, and I spent the next 3 years learning how to code websites. I was never that great at the game, but the skills I learned coding websites led to my first professional job.

<comment><USER19> As a devoted member of TribalWar (thanks so much!) / avid T1 player, its awesome to see you on HN!

My handle was Duhck :)

Tribes was... magical. Tight knit player community, active modding community, amazing map design and tournament play.

Team Rabbit, Arena, and 10v10 CTF consumed the majority of my time from '98-'06

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Random but related: does anyone know of a good library (in C#, Javascript, or really anything higher-level than C preferably) that implements this? By "this" I mean a UDP-based system capable of sending both "it's stale when it's sent" data that can be dropped if it's lost and "this must be delivered" messages that will be re-sent if not delivered?

I would need it for a Unity project, so if it's Unity-ready already that would be great, but honestly at this point I'm willing to just take what's out there as a starting point and work with it.

I did find this: [https://community.unity.com/t5/Asset-Store/Open-Source- UdpKi...](https://community.unity.com/t5/Asset-Store/Open-Source-UdpKit-a- networking-library-for-NET-Mono-Unity/td-p/1553191) but it's apparently unsupported now and the author has moved on to other things.

There are some other packages on the Unity Asset Store but most of them are focused around Unity-to-Unity communication, and I'm looking for something more generic (since my architecture is actually Unity-to-NodeJS currently).

<comment><USER21> WebRTC Data Channels [http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/datachannels/](http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/webrtc/datachannels/) let you freely mix reliable and unreliable data. I donno if there's any bindings from the webrtc library to unity yet.

EDIT: [https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/47846](https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/47846)

<comment><USER22> Tangentially: does anyone know of any great server-side implementations of this? So that a regular server could be a WebRTC peer?

<comment><USER21> ... it's peer to peer ... the server acts like a peer... the same code can run for both peers ...

So you can choose any webrtc binding for any language you use server side.

<comment><USER22> Yes, sure. Incidentally, I haven't found any decent WebRTC bindings that aren't tightly wound to browsers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If interested in their networking model, check out the derivative Torque Game engines on github:

[https://github.com/garagegames](https://github.com/garagegames)

</comment><comment><USER24> Definitely played the crap out of Tribes 2. I remember at the time it came out, I was so astounded by the smoothness of the gameplay and the sheer variety of tactics and options that I almost didn't believe it was possible. To support as many players as it did and deliver that level of experience over the internet technologies of the day was incredible. Also, for me, the game basically came out of nowhere. I missed out on Starsiege: Tribes and had never heard of the developer before Tribes 2.

"Get the enemy--shazbot."

</comment><comment><USER25> Slightly off topic, but still related to Tribes...I remember purchasing Starsiege back during this time (if I remember correctly it and the original Tribes were released around the same time, along with Half-Life).

I never played the original Earthsiege I and II titles, but Starsiege was super cool for me as a kid, and it wasn't even really because I got to pass the game (it was kind of difficult for me at that age so it probably wasn't until ten years later that I actually played it again from the beginning and passed it).

The main thing I loved about the game was the big backstory book that was included with the game that really outlined the whole thing for you and gave you a pretty cool connection with the characters (looking back it was like a mix between The Matrix and the Terminator franchises in terms of story).

I'm not a movie director but occasionally I still find myself thinking about what a cool movie it would make and wish a new game for it would be released (since the last attempt got *nixed).

Tribes was cool too, don't get me wrong, and I played a fair amount of it too (though by 26.4 kbps connection kind of hurt my online play, lol), but compared to the more story driven Starsiege, I never got into it nearly as much.

</comment><comment><USER25> I thought the last section was pretty funny:

"Acknowledgments Though several of the ideas presented here are unique to TRIBES, others have been assimilated from other sources over countless years of reading and the authors, being too lazy to research their sources, would like to thank everyone in one sentence."

</comment><comment><USER26> Look for TNL (Torque Networking Library) and "Zap!", a demo game which served as an example usage of this libary.

[http://opentnl.sourceforge.net/doxydocs/](http://opentnl.sourceforge.net/doxydocs/)

[https://sourceforge.net/projects/opentnl/files/Zap/](https://sourceforge.net/projects/opentnl/files/Zap/)

</comment><comment><USER27> hmm.. a Ben Garney post and a TRIBES engine post.. is there a Dynamic/GarageGames data dump going on ? :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> I saw it in one of the video conferencing posts he had. It was too good not to highlight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> This paper come out in some form MUCH earlier than 2009. I was implementing its idea in my own engine in ... I dunno, 2003? Or earlier?

<comment><USER29> Well, Tribes was released in 1998.</comment></comment>


Ring reportedly gave employees access to customer video feeds - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2019/01/10/ring-gave-employees-access-customer-video-feeds/ <comment><USER2> This is just blogspam, source article is here (with a large discussion): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18876114](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18876114)

</comment><comment><USER3> Ok, the title got me confused for a moment. It's not _that_ Ring. GNU Ring is fine and was just recently rebranded as Jami for reasons unknown.

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


Ask HN: What to do when procrastinating from a complex task? - <AUTHOR>

Hi all,
For the last few weeks I have been working on a complex, mathematically dense task at work. I've found myself avoiding some of the most difficult parts of the task and not able to cover as much ground as I'm typically accustomed to. Any advice about how to stay focused, or some good exercises to give myself some mental recharge time when I'm feeling exhausted? <comment><USER2> Do something related but trivial to get yourself into it. Momentum is the key. You're at a stand still. Pick the easiest or most interesting part related to the project and start on that. Even if it doesn't really make sense to do that first. Anything to get the ball rolling. Once the ball is rolling I tend to tackle the scariest part first. Whatever I'm not sure how to solve yet.

Visualizing the end product can work very well too. Create a sketch or non- functional version of what you're building, just to see what the finished product will look like.

If I was creating Google I'd make a really dead simple app that let you enter a query and returned 10 crappy links. Just to make the work tangible. This lets your brain easily grab onto what success would look like (e.g. 10 highly relevant links vs 10 crappy links).

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a really good suggestion. I need to remember this when I'm in my poor- working moments.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Maybe not an advice but an idea: postponing is never making the task easier. Sometimes waiting too long can make it obsolete/useless. Waiting for mood or willingness can mean that you never do it. Force your self to do it no matter what, designate specific time for the task. Divide it into smaller steps and reward yourself after accomplishing each of it. This would not work for math, but could help with writing essays/articles- start with enumerating 10 issues, then write 10 ideas for each issue, then write a paragraph about each idea. And finally - if there is no deadline, there is no task. Time is a scarce resource, you have to deliver something before the due time, even if it's not perfect, even if it doesn't solve all the problems. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER4> This is scary, an hour ago I tweeted "I love code challenges but sometimes I find myself dithering around on twitter instead of attacking them, like a horse refusing a jump."

Is this about coding? I know that once I hit "run" and something breaks my juices will start to flow, so I figure out some way to hit "run" even if I know the code is not ready. Josh's divide and conquer idea would help with this.

</comment><comment><USER5> Try to break it into smaller pieces and take the "debt snowball" approach of killing off the smaller pieces first. Celebrate your wins.

</comment><comment><USER6> If you're having trouble staying focused, what helped me tremendously was to start maintaining what I call a 'distraction record' during the important tasks.

Now, it's not based on any scientific paper/literature. It's just a spreadsheet with the following columns:

'Time' , 'Important Task' , 'Distraction' , 'Time Since end of Last Distraction' , 'Distraction Duration'

Each time you stop doing the important task and do something else (like browsing hackernews or checking your IMs) enter a new record with the minimum distraction duration being a minute. After a while you'll really start paying attention to how much time you lose doing unimportant things just to avoid the discomfort of the important task and how it actually drags on the time you spent trying to finish what you started.

</comment><comment><USER7> Hmm, well I don't ever do any intensive mathematics, or math at all really. But I have overcome many cerebrally intensive challenges with the below method.

Work on / build things that will aid you in solving the problem. This could be organizing code, organizing notes, (reorganizing equations??), building test pages. Anything that you can think of that is intellectually simple that will aid you later when you find your motivation.

Also, after an intense push for a number of hours, go outside and sit, have a coffee or beer or wine or whiskey coke for thirty minutes. Just relax, don't work. And let the most recent effort seep into your subconscious. I often find that my subconscious is better at solving these types of problems than I am.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thanks everyone, these are really helpful comments. I work the best in the mornings, so I'm adding a suggestion to my own post: Figure out when you work the best, and use that time to your advantage. Work with colleagues during your toughest times and motivate each other. Tackle administrative tasks when you're not at your best.

Now I'm going to take my own advice and get off HN.

</comment><comment><USER8> Relax your mind for a while. Spend a couple of days doing something completely different and look at the problem again

</comment><comment><USER9> let me know if you find a working solution.</comment>


Qopy (osx)  & qopyMate (ios) - Take the Web with you. - <AUTHOR> http://848five.com/qopy

<comment><AUTHOR> Use qopy to transfer URL's to your mobile and tablet devices. Simply copy the URL, using command-c or right click then copy, and then just click on the qopy icon located in the osx menu bar. qopy will provide you with a unique QR code to scan as well as a unique qopy code. Then use any smartphone/device to scan the QR Code or enter the code using our free web app. No more typing long URL's on your mobile and tablet devices!

Check out the video and download links at [http://848five.com](http://848five.com)

</comment><comment><USER2> this is absurd. there's several apps that will just send the URL direct to your device, no scanning of a QR code required.</comment>


Interview with a Transformer - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@enkiv2/interview-with-a-transformer-7fc60890f74c <comment><USER2> Not even a mention about cybertron</comment>


Ask HN: Healthy meal delivery services for programmers - <AUTHOR> Are there any well known meal services that deliver fresh or frozen meals at reasonable prices? Between side projects, work and the gym, I find it hard to make time to cook. Today, I mainly eat a combination of Chipotle, Panda express and qdoba. <comment><USER2> You would almost definitely be better off getting a slow cooker and doing meal prep on the weekends for the whole week.

Barring that since you are in Seattle, you can buy fairly healthy frozen stuff at Eat Local. There is one in Capitol Hill and I believe one in SLU.

</comment><comment><USER3> The standard delivery apps like UberEATS have a decent selection of healthy options near where I live / work. Sometimes I'll order lunch and dinner together then reheat the dinner later to save paying a second $5 delivery fee.

Is that an option where you live?

</comment><comment><USER4> If you live in NYC check out Maple. Simple, tasty, fresh meals for about $13 (tip and delivery included!). The food leaves me full, yet not bloated and tired.

[https://maple.com/](https://maple.com/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah, that looks great. I live in Seattle unfortunately.

<comment><USER5> Munchery is in Seattle: [https://munchery.com/menus/seattle/#/0/dinner](https://munchery.com/menus/seattle/#/0/dinner)

<comment><USER3> Also, Sprig if you're in SF. SpoonRocket was some approximation of the same idea but shutdown earlier this year.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a big fan of Munchery. Delicious, fresh, great variety, and only a few minutes in the microwave.

I find that I waste more money going to the grocery, because by the time I get home from work, the last thing I want to do is cook.

</comment><comment><USER7> What makes a meal "healthy"?</comment>


The Air Force Initiative to Replace the A-10 Warthog Is Vaporware - <AUTHOR> http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-air-force-initiative-to-replace-the-a-10-warthog-is-1771018719 <comment><USER2> CAS is a job best done by relatively slow, but well armored aircraft flying low and slow. Pilots need to have time to develop awareness of both their allies and their enemies. Pilots of this type of mission are going to come under fire, which is something the air force is fundamentally unwilling to accept. Marines in planes, on the other hand, are likely to accept similar risk to marines on the ground if it reduces risk for all. Given that CAS pilots must work most closely with those on the ground, it makes little sense for them to be air force.

That being said, drones are probably the real A-10 killers. They can fly right down an enemy's throat without risking their pilot's lives. VR technology promises to give drone pilots a better field of view than any cockpit offers, and pilots could potentially switch control to a new drone when their previous drone is forced to return to base. This means one pilot could follow an engagement from start to finish, instead of multiple pilots trading off. This would greatly reduce the likelihood of pilot error and friendly fire incidents.

<comment><USER3> >CAS is a job best done by relatively slow, but well armored aircraft flying low and slow.

That _was_ true, but it's not true any more. Modern targeting pods (like the Siper XR pods on the B-1) mean you can get the same situational awareness from much farther away. Between targeting pods and laser guided weapons the A-10 is obsolete.

Low and slow is dangerous. Aircraft defenses (lasers, flares, chaff, ECM) haven't been evolving as quickly as threats at low altitudes. Not by a long shot. You're fine against a dozen guys with rusty AK-47s and RPG-7s, but once you start fighting armies equipped with something like Pantsir or NASAMS you're in big trouble.

<comment><USER4> A-10s having been flying with targeting pods (Litening and Sniper) and dropping laser and GPS-guided weapons for years. So how exactly has their presence made A-10 obsolete again?

<comment><USER5> Can't say I know very much about this, but if you can see and hit things well from a distance why go close? And if you don't need to go close, why do you need something that is built to go close over something that can carry more ordinance or fly for fewer dollars per hour or get there quicker? Surely it costs something (speed, flight range, maybe) to get the ability to go close and if you don't need that ability you can use that cost elsewhere.

<comment><USER4> Sometimes standoff is good and necessary. Stay out of threat range, not be seen or heard by the enemy as you follow them with your targeting pod, etc.

Sometimes standoff is pointless. Friendlies on the ground are in a knife feet with the enemy less than 100m away and they need air support. Now close, and slower to better maintain SA on who the friendlies are and who the enemy is -- and the ability to deliver weapons with lower Risk Estimate Distances and/or Collateral Damage Estimates is critically important. The GAU-8 does both. The F-16 gun is useless. A laser guide bomb in this scenario may present too much risk for fratricide.

A-10s can carry more ordnance, for a longer time over a target area, and need less tanker support to do so, than an F-16. And for less $/flying hour. It does cost speed. A-10s don't go anywhere quickly. But it can perform CAS in a standoff roll, or in a close-in fight equally well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> awinter-py If there's a consensus on what's wrong with pentagon procurement, the bullet points are: (1) no 'feasability feedback' mechanism to reject wishlist items that inflate complexity or delivery date, (2) focus on 'joint procurement', i.e. one product that solves army / air force / navy problems, i.e. a flying submarine with wheels, (3) lead times are too long for bespoke products (by the time it's delivered your needs have changed).

A-10 was built based on CAS lessons that had been learned the hard way in Nam, where helicopters had to take the place of fixed-wing airplanes that couldn't do the job. (meaning it was built to do one thing well). It wasn't a swiss- army knife.

If you believe that it's not practical to build a swiss-army knife aircraft, then you probably weren't surprised by the crappy fighters we turned out in the 90s and 00s. The head airplane designer on china's F-22 killer basically laughed when he was asked about the F-35, and said 'the best thing that ever happened to us was when the US decided to put VTOL in their main fighter -- and not even in all of them.' China could never afford to do that but arguably the US can't either. A post-IOC F-35C had its wings fall off (yes) and the pentagon lockheed liaison's explanation was 'the pilot was too heavy, we're looking into it'.

Even more interesting than the A-10 is the F-16; it was a backburner project at lockheed and the pentagon tried to shut it down because they didn't want it stealing any PR thunder from the bigger badder F-15. These days the F-16 is doing every job because it's cheap, easy to maintain, lots of people can fly them. Lockheed just shut down the line for these but the aftermarket is booming.

<comment><USER6> "A post IOC F-35C had its wings fall off"

Stop making things up. The C variant won't be declared operationally capable for at least another year, probably two. No C model " had its wings fall off". A test aircraft undergoing lifetime fatigue testing in a loads fixture had some wing spar cracks. I don't mean to dismiss that issue, because it _is_ serious, but that's hardly having the wings fall off.

<comment> awinter-py ok, fair point.

[http://www.janes.com/article/55987/wing-spar-cracks-found- on...](http://www.janes.com/article/55987/wing-spar-cracks-found-on- usn-f-35-variant)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> If the Air Force is so bent on getting rid of these wonderfully useful, tough machines, then perhaps they should entirely leave the ground support role to the US Marine Corps and the US Navy, both of which have a long history of providing ground attack support to troops.

The A-10 is the best damned aircraft at this role since the AD-1 Spad's were retired.

All the Air Force wants is glitter and fame, they aren't really interested in life on the ground. Give them their wish, take the A-10s and give them to someone who will use them to their fullest potential.

<comment><USER8> The thing is, the last A-10 rolled off the production line _32_ years ago. Airframes have finite lifespans.

<comment><USER9> Then Build more Airframes...

Start up the production again, I would rather them scrap the F35 program, which is vaporware at this point, than the A10

<comment><USER10> Huh? F-35s are in production

<comment><USER11> F-35s will not be able to fire their cannons until the 2020's (last I checked), because the software has not been written.

<comment><USER12> That must be one fancy-pants cannon if it takes three years to write the software to drive it. How is that even possible?

<comment><USER13> Cannons have substantially nastier failure modes than the latest Twitter clone, and as such have much longer software development and testing cycles.

A look into a similar process with NASA: [http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right- stuff](http://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff)

<comment><USER12> My incredulity is not because I think it's easy to write reliable software, but because a cannon shouldn't need more than "if button then fire." From the other reply, apparently it's way more complex than that though.

<comment><USER6> Additional complexity comes from the F-35's Stores Management System (SMS). In addition to the basic accounting tasks of keeping track of what kinds of weapons are loaded, and on which stations, the SMS keeps track of how much the stores at each station weigh and provides that information to the flight control system (FLCS). FLCS can then compensate for the weight distribution of the stores. The gun must integrate with the SMS.

[http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2010armament/TuesdayLandmarkADougHa...](http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2010armament/TuesdayLandmarkADougHayward.pdf) for some more information.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Perhaps this is an Airforce/Fighter Jock fetish with speed? The A-10 isn't a super-fast super-maneuverable sexy jet, and they'd rather have more F-22s/F-35s with all of the checkbox Nth-generation bells and whistles (stealth, super-cruise, etc)?

It's like an MVP product that serves customers vs a product loaded with features that only the developers wanted. The A-10 is boring and simplistic and old tech. Forget the fact that the F-35 is expensive, buggy, not the best in any category, and gets owned by earlier generation jets.

<comment><USER15> This is exactly it. The Air Force brass is all fighter jocks these days.

<comment><USER16> The top Air Force brass is a former A-10 pilot. I'm pretty sure he understands its strengths and weaknesses. [http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/Biographies/Display/tabid/225/Arti...](http://www.af.mil/AboutUs/Biographies/Display/tabid/225/Article/104966/general- mark-a-welsh-iii.aspx)

<comment><USER15> Flew an A10 for three months in training. AFAICT he then flew F16s for the rest of his operational career before transferring to command.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Give them to the Army Air Corps. The pilots need to work more closely with soldiers on the ground than other pilots or air control, and the army are the last people who want to see these planes go.

Then the Air Force Generals can get stars in their eyes about fast jets and stealthy bombers without the hassle of a little flying tank.

</comment><comment><USER18> FWIW, and since this is on-the-ground perceptual anecdata maybe that's not much, A-10 training flights in southern Missouri (i.e. out of Whiteman AFB, with possible attack runs over Ft. Wood) have picked up appreciably during recent months. Over the last month, if I spend a day outside, I definitely hear/see a pair of Warthogs at some point. There were _years_ for which that was not the case.

</comment><comment><USER19> My favorite aircraft ever - I loved it at air shows [1 - 1978] as a kid and later when my son and I played the A-10 Cuba [2] video game together.

[1] [https://www.oceanaairshow.com/](https://www.oceanaairshow.com/)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-10_Cuba](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-10_Cuba)!

<comment><USER20> a-10 cuba, good times

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I almost started to say I don't understand the military's obsession with fixing things that aren't broke, but then I remembered defense contractors, campaign contributions, defense spending, and egos.

<comment><USER22> Actually, the A-10 is "broke" in the sense that it can no longer perform its mission in a modern air defense environment. The current fleet is also old and wearing out.

That said, there are plenty of military commitments that involve CAS in environments with minimal to non-existent air defense. The sensible thing to do would be to replace the A-10 in kind with a fairly cheap, modern version while working on a more expensive, more survivable complement. That makes too much sense for the Five-Sided Playpen, though.

<comment><USER23> >Actually, the A-10 is "broke" in the sense that it can no longer perform its mission in a modern air defense environment.

I'm sure that the A-10 can still perform its mission in a modern air defense environment, mainly due to the fact that the bulk of today's missions involve an enemy with limited resources, limited industrial capabilities, and limited technical skills.

> The current fleet is also old and wearing out.

I'm sure the US is quite capable of putting up a military aicraft program for a mark 2 version of the A10 thunderbolt, one which is focused on tackling the maintenance/cost issues of the current version and even increase the reliability of the whole airframe. The last four decades in the aviation field were very fertile with regards to technical progresses.

<comment><USER22> > I'm sure that the A-10 can still perform its mission in a modern air defense > environment, mainly due to the fact that the bulk of today's missions > involve an enemy with limited resources, limited industrial capabilities, > and limited technical skills.

To answer both you and robotresearcher, the US has not faced an opponent with a modern air defense system since Vietnam. The closest was Serbia, and NATO specifically held off on low level missions for a while there because of the Serb AD network.

> I'm sure the US is quite capable of putting up a military aicraft program > for a mark 2 version of the A10 thunderbolt, one which is focused on > tackling the maintenance/cost issues of the current version and even > increase the reliability of the whole airframe. The last four decades in the > aviation field were very fertile with regards to technical progresses.

That's basically what I said in the next sentence. I'm not sure what your point is here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> As a foreigner.. I don't get it. Is it all about pork/creating jobs in various states rather than over-all value to the country?

<comment><USER25> yes and the US Air Force is too much in the pocket of defense contractors and out of step with forces that actually wage combat in the current conflicts. They drag their feet on effective and low-cost solutions like the A-10 and drones and want spend all trillions on vanity "air-superiority" aircraft, for winning hypothetical dog fights with next-gen China/Russia fighter jets.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> It is amazing how terribly managed our military resources are. I cannot even fathom where to begin to fix it.

<comment><USER27> Note the J in JSOC, discard the existing branches of the military and build integrated units around desired tactical capabilities.

I guess you'd still have room for a Navy doing it that way, but you get the idea.

<comment><USER28> This is easier in theory than it is in practice. While obviously each branch puts together its own integrated units for various missions, th8e real detriment to this kind of idea is what you would lose when breaking down the larger command/logistics backbone of the Army/Marines/AF/Navy.

I totally agree that the current system is not maximally efficient, but how would these new integrated units be managed logistically? Would each unit field its own logistics personnel? That might make sense, but then you end up with a lot of duplicated effort for little marginal improvement. Would we need an entire separate command structure for the sole purpose of heavy equipment movement and base management/support? If no, who might be the logical choice for this role?

<comment><USER27> I'm being a little sarcastic, but you could have units organized around providing logistics. Get this here, get that there.

Realistically, you might just end up with even more bureaucracies defending their own turf and resisting change.

The other thing that might happen is that you end up with less redundant capabilities and better integration. It's kind of stupid that the presence of a jet engine dictates that close air support be under a different command.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> These articles just get worse and worse.

Opinions about the merits and flaws of the A-10 are largely irrelevant: the inventory is rotting, and there are no factory resources for replacement parts, let alone new aircraft. Keeping the A-10's going would require what amounts to a reverse engineering and reproduction program comparable in cost to developing a new aircraft.

Even if you're the biggest fan in the world of them, it simply does not make sense to keep the A-10's going. Sentiment does not prevent the decay of the aircraft, nor does it whip into existence cad files and factory tooling that no longer exists.

The A-10 costs around 20k per hour to fly. The predator series drones, T6 Texan, and the Super Tucano all cost 1/5th to 1/10th that per hour to operate.

<comment><USER4> The inventory is rotting? Laughable. The Mission Capable Rates are in the 80-90% range. There haven't been "factory resources" for parts in decades, and yet the fleet still manages to fly at a high rate. CAD Files? Factory Tooling? You have very little understanding of how aircraft maintenance in the Air Force works. Ever heard of a sheet metal shop? Those dudes can make _anything_.

An A-10 flight hour costs <8K. Source: I managed a $54M, 7200 hour A-10 flying hour program. I have flown A-10s for 18 years.

<comment><USER29> I'm skeptical you are who you claim, but if so you know you're being hyperbolic. Airframes have a limited lifetime; fatigue adds up. Despite the overwhelmingly positive performance to date, an aging fleet that's more expensive on margin to operate than alternatives doesn't make sense.

<comment><USER30> The AF just rewinged the A-10 fleet. Ranting about airframe fatigue in relation to the A-10 is nonsensical; the money has already been spent refreshing the airframes. Their current expected lifespan is until 2040.

<comment><USER29> Yup, at a cost of around $2billion to extend around 200 aircraft to 2040. It's exactly the problem I'm talking about: those wings cost ~10mm per aircraft, twice the base price for a brand new Texan.

I don't think that was prudent spending vs alternatives, but to be fair, it was a decision made a decade ago when the future was a bit more murky.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> The Air Force attitude to the venerable A-10 has always struck me as pure budget bloating. I love that flying pig.

</comment><comment><USER32> All I'm going to say is that the A-10 fanboys win the argument at the unclassified level, but it might be a different story when the discussion moves behind closed doors.

<comment><USER33> "If you only knew what I know, you would agree with me."

"Okay, what is it?"

"I can't tell you."

This is not an argument which ever works. Don't try it.

<comment><USER6> If you know those sorts of things, it is generally best to stay away from arguments about capabilities. It isn't an argument that works, you're right.</comment></comment></comment>


Generating Files with JavaScript - <AUTHOR> http://tutorialzine.com/2011/05/generating-files-javascript-php/

<comment><USER2> ...and php.</comment>


Alan Kay on How Many Books You Can Read in a Lifetime - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mmeditations/alan-kay-on-how-many-books-you-can-read-in-a-lifetime-e0f08682b13d <comment><USER2> I respect Alan Kay as much as the next guy, but I don't really know what the take-away is here.

Alan Kay having 4-6 hours a day to read books is certainly out of the ordinary and I can't emulate that. That's not "work day" \- that seems more like "I don't have to go to work"-day. I suppose we can acknowledge that Alan Kay is making use of his time wisely.

Also, what kind of books are we talking about here? I guarantee you Alan Kay is not reading a technical book like Compilers by Aho in a day. Sure, he might be physically able to read the letters on all the pages in the book, but he's not LEARNING that much information in a day. That book is 2 semesters worth of new information, not to mention that it requires practice to solidify.

Even the author acknowledges this is a case of quantity over quality. How much actual learning is Alan Kay doing? Now that would be a useful point of reference. That would tell me if I have to up my learning game or if I'm doing just fine.

If every week I learn one new technology like RxJava, React Native, P, etc, am I beating Alan Kay at learning, even though I might be reading fewer pages?

<comment><USER3> Always worth checking with the source ...

(a) I'm quite sure I didn't tell him that I started a new book every day (note that this contradicts with a later sentence where he attributes me saying that I now read about 4 books a week). You really should realize that many people when they write, reconstruct their memories to fit what they are trying to be didactic about.

(b) and nowhere in the article does he say that I spend 4-6 hours a day reading (this is something -you- ("optymizer") constructed (quite innocently I'm sure). I probably read about 2 hours a day, maybe a little more. This is enough to finish most books. And, yes, some books require quite a bit more effort and time -- both from length and wrt depth.

I did start putting some effort into remembering "pretty nearly" what I read, starting in 3rd grade. However, my abilities never got to the legendary levels of some readers e.g. Bertrand Russell.

(c) I didn't say I've read 20,000 books. I said I'm pretty sure I haven't read more than this. And I do know a number of people who have read more than this. In fact, I don't know how many books I've read.

(d) Why bother thinking about competing? What point is there? Why not just enjoy knowledge and the fun of interrelating it?

<comment><USER2> Wow, I did not expect a reply from Alan Kay himself! Thank you for taking the time to write a thoughtful reply.

I think of friendly competition as means to improve myself. It's not required, but it can be fun.

Unrelated to the above, I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you the following question: what would you like to see all software engineers start doing?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Lately I've come to the realisation that growing up means you simply can't maintain all your hobbies.

It's just not possible to play video games, and read novels, and read comic books, and garden, and cook, and blog, and play an instrument, and code, and paint, and sketch, and do photography, and do pottery, and watch TV, and ballroom-dance, and ski, and practice archery, and go to the gym, etc.

For the majority of people, apart from whatever you do for work, I think you can only really maintain 1-3 hobbies. People like those described in the article have chosen books/reading as their big time-sink. And that's okay, but I bet they're not spending a lot of time painting, or watching TV, or downhill-skiing (unless it's their job). Because there are only so many hours in a day, and eventually you have to specialise.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, not if you have to balance all of that with a full-time job and a family. But if you can somehow manage to retire early [1], and you either don't have kids or you don't home-school them, then I think you could find time for all of those things you mentioned in your second paragraph. Of course, not all in the same day.

And you don't really _need_ to specialize, unless you have the drive to become a world-class musician or painter. I have a lot of hobbies where I just have fun and don't really want to get famous or turn them into a career.

[1] [http://reddit.com/r/financialindependence](http://reddit.com/r/financialindependence)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> There is an acquisition bias inherent in this article.

Reading 40 hours a week should not be viewed as an unadulterated good that is beneficial in all cases. I've known people who have escaped into reading with that kind of time commitment, at the cost of being able to function well in the real world. I don't judge their choice, but only note the correlation. A bell curve has two tails.

Personally, I've found that two hours a day is the max I can do without starting to get itchy that I'm wasting time by not _doing_ anything. It's fine to get smarter, but, for me, at least, I feel like I have to do something with the smarts.

<comment><USER7> The writer touches on this:

"Am I saying that everyone should read 4–8 hours a day? Of course not. Why, then, did I write this article? Well, in part because it offers a reference."

and later

"The average American may read 2–4 books a year. But who cares? If you value reading, the average is the wrong reference."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I remember once calculating that I could read 1-2 metres of books per year, or roughly 100m over my lifetime.

Then the internet happened.

</comment><comment> throwaway-1209 No, athletes don't train "30 hours a week". With proper intensity, anything over 2-3 hours a day is detrimental. This time includes stretching and warmup.

<comment><USER9> "Train" doesn't just mean "work out" as the non-professional athlete understands it. For a professional athlete, "training" encompasses reviewing performance recordings, reflecting on prior performance, technique refinement, endurance training and strength training. All of that certainly adds up to more than 30 hours a week. It's their profession, after all.</comment></comment>


A Florida woman was fined $100k for a dirty pool and overgrown grass - <AUTHOR> https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/florida-city-hits-homeowners-massive-penalties-supreme-court-excessive-fines/1691703001/ <comment><AUTHOR> First you save, sacrifice and buy your home. American dream, right? Pay property taxes that in some states exceed rental fees for the same place, home improvement and maintenance. Now add arbitrary fines by greedy cities and...you lose your home. WTF</comment>


Bruce Eckel on why he's moving back to Windows from Mac - <AUTHOR> http://www.artima.com/weblogs/viewpost.jsp?thread=350864 <comment><USER2> > Having "fn," "control," "alt," "option," "command," and whatever the last > one is, I call it "flower" but I think in the past it might have been open- > apple

How did this fellow spend _six years_ using a Mac without ever realizing that "command" is that flower-looking thing? And, of course, "alt" and "option" are the same thing.

Sounds like he never really adjusted to the Mac and remained a Windows user at heart, and is now going back to what he knows. Nothing wrong with that! And he presents it as "what I had trouble with", not "what's wrong with the Mac", which is commendable.

<comment><USER3> > And he presents it as "what I had trouble with", not "what's wrong with the > Mac", which is commendable.

I couldn't agree more. Whenever I see a title like this my immediate thought is "here we go again", but I clicked through anyway and was pleasantly surprised.

I've never used Windows 8 (or 7/Vista for more than a few minutes), but his criticisms seemed well considered. Macs can be more expensive for the same amount of CPU. I expected he was going to be talking about the Mac Pros (which are based on what, 2010 hardware?) so I was a little surprised to see he was talking about laptops.

The other thing that caught my attention was his note about trackpads. It seems like every review I read about a non-Mac laptop (which, to be fair, doesn't happen much) seems to mention how they are either terrible or just OK. Considering how important the trackpad is on a laptop, it always surprises me that this seems to continue to be an issue.

I remember years ago when Macs had 3" trackpads and PCs still had tiny 2" models. My MacBook Pro has a 5" pad, but I've seen 17" desktop replacement laptops with 3" pads.

Worse was that while Macs gained two finger scrolling (which was a great step up), may PCs gained "scroll areas", so that you'd lose a large fraction of the trackpad. The fact that part of it was horizontal scrolling (which is far less common) was even worse.

Are trackpads in the non-Mac world really that far behind, or is it just selection bias where the few laptop reviews I read only mention the trackpad _because_ it's bad and the rest don't even discuss it.

<comment><USER4> Windows laptop trackpads are indeed universally horrible. I've never come across a non-mac laptop i could use all day without an external mouse. Apple kust have some jealously guarded patents on trackpad tech.

<comment><USER5> Trackpads are universally horrible even on Apple computers. Apple's are far superior to Windows trackpads, but nothing can make using a trackpad a pleasant experience for me.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Ha...good luck. I tired switching my wife and daughters back to Windows after 8 came out. They lasted around six weeks before switching back to Ubuntu. I used it quite a bit during this time as well. The interface is so heavily designed for a tablet, it ends up feeling very forced and clunky as a desktop. Additionally, in that six week period, there were at least three times where I would reboot the machine and get the dreaded "Preparing Automatic Repair" endless loop of death, resulting in a re-install.

I really loved certain things about it...well, at least the design of certain things. For example, the process monitor you accessed via ctrl+alt+delete was beautiful and had some very nice features including cumulative resource usage per app which I found very exciting. _However_ , I quickly found that most of your running apps rarely showed in this panel. Combine this with the fact that when a process went awry and you wanted to kill it, 95% of the time the process monitor _wouldn't come up at all_ , it was next to useless. (I'll mention here that this OS is the first Windows I've had since 98 which wouldn't give you access to kill a process even with the system under heavy load, unless it was completely frozen).

Windows 8 not so bad? Maybe in your experience, but in mine, it was a stinking pile of crap. If Skyrim and certain other games would run reliably on Linux, I'd be completely done with Windows. Come to think of it, games have been the only reason I've kept Windows around for the past decade and it was the driver to give 8 another shot (so my daughter wouldn't have to reboot to get to a few of her favorite games). I suspect various games and Office will keep a lot of folks on the platform, but there are MUCH better experiences to be had. I've tried various Windows, OS X, and various *nixs, and Linux just seems to suit my family (and me personally) the best. I couldn't say this five years ago (at least for my wife and kids), but I'm happy that I can now.

<comment><USER7> Ubuntu for desktop is most likely going to disappear. Seems they are moving to tablets and android clones.

As for gaming they are now starting to release linux versions, well at least Steam and Blizzard are.

<comment><USER8> As long as you have the ability to install other DEs, like Xfce, "Ubuntu for desktop" will never disappear. That's the difference between Linux and locked down operating systems like Mac OS X.

I've never liked Unity, but that's totally irrelevant to me. I can just keep using Xfce (or any of a dozen other WMs/DEs) with Ubuntu.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> As a developer I don't think I could go back. Unless I was working on a Windows stack. Knowing you have *nix under the hood is just too comforting.

<comment><USER10> Except... it's not '*nix' as everyone knows it (or more importantly as deployed in production). Even while working on a mac I do all of my linux development on a VM, because the differences are always such a stumbling block for me. Half the utilities do not support long args, no real repos (resulting in broken or missing tools), old versions of utilities... ugh.

I still use one, but I'm seriously considering dual booting centos on the hardware.

<comment><USER11> Mac OS X is Unix. Real Unix. Not Linux.

<comment><USER12> Trademark UNIX is like an expensive country club for vendor-proprietary "extensions" of BSD & SysV sensibilities. I'm suprised Apple wasn't a member sooner!

<comment><USER11> Expensive? Not at all.

<http://www.opensource.apple.com/>

They've been (real) Unix since OS X first came out, actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> _"Ultimately I needed to use Word, the Windows version, for page layout, indexing, etc. Nothing else does the job (I've tried, and keep trying the alternatives). The waterfall model of "first finish the book with one program, then do layout with a different program" just doesn't work"_

The entire publishing industry would beg to differ. While MS Word (but preferably InCopy) is fine for copy, you won't use it to lay out a cookbook and directly send it to a printer. If you supply a Word file to a printer, they will likely convert it to an InDesign file and charge you for it.

Source: I publish books for a living and have been since 1996.

 _"an equivalent-horsepower Mac is 3 times the cost of a Windows 8 machine"_

I thought OP was trolling, until I read the following passage:

 _"I also wanted something with at least 4 cores, in order to do more concurrency programming experiments with languages like Scala and Go."_

Not exactly typical use, but if the highest clock frequency and cores is what the author wants, then sure, he can get more bang for his buck with a Windows box than Apple's offerings. Macs are made for small size, low weight, and power preservation.

Many consumers won't look at just clock frequency or the number of cores to make their purchasing decision. I bought a new notebook 3 months a go, a MacBook Air. It has a 512GB SSD, a fast CPU, and a decent GPU. I mainly use it for image and video editing, but because of Apple's choices, I get battery use of 6-8 hours, while it's not much larger than my tablet. That's what I care about. Ten years a go, to do the same work, I had to lug around a notebook that weighed twice as much and had half as much battery life. With many Windows notebooks, that's still the case.

</comment><comment><USER14> I know HN is a very pro Apple crowd, but I wanted to share that I have had a very similar experience. Windows 8 is actually incredibly solid, fast, and has a ton of great tools available.

SSH on Windows works just as well as OS X, and sleep / resume etc is a solved problem, with the added bonus that you can run any game that comes out. For a developer who wants to focus on getting things done, it isn't that Windows 8 is so much more compelling than OS X, but the price and compatibility make it worth using.

</comment><comment><USER15> Switched from Windows 8 (early builds) to OSX a few months ago and at the moment I don't see myself even going back to Windows for development. I'm realizing how much I missed the command-line from my Ubuntu days and how much you can develop in pretty much any language quite easily on a mac. It's the perfect development machine.

</comment><comment><USER16> It sounds like he never really embraced the Mac to begin with. And some of the stuff he sounds is just plain strange:

> But in hindsight I realize there are a lot of things that never felt quite > natural. [...] And more sophisticated things like any software installation > that doesn't come as a Mac installer.

Is he really saying that software that doesn't come packaged as an installer is unnatural? Because the ability to simply drag & drop one "file" to install (or delete) an application is generally considered a feature of OS X (and the old Mac OS), not a negative.

</comment><comment><USER17> Bizarre. He used a mac for 6 years and didn't know about cmd-` to switch windows within the same app?

Finder does suck compared to Windows Explorer (use Pathfinder). No snap behavior for windows (use BetterTouch). Can't think of anything else to like about windows really.

The command line is terrible on Windows. Even with cygwin, the terminal is awful. Copy/Paste is awkward. Resize the window and the text doesn't follow. No clear terminal keyboard shortcut. No searching in the console.

Locked files everywhere, makes dev difficult.

Installing apps is much more painful on windows. The apps spread throughout the system, I love on a mac how you can just drag in an app and run it. No 5 mins to install. Uninstalling is just deleting the app, no horrible uninstall process.

rm -rf type functionality must take 10x as long on windows.

No virus issues on mac.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm surprised he's not more of a command-line guy. So many things I would hate to do without: vim, grep, ssh, rsync, git, tab completion, cron, .... I suppose you could install all of those and a lot more on Windows but what a lot of bother.

</comment><comment><USER19> Interesting. I have a lot of respect for Bruce Eckel, and it's a well considered article.

I'm a pretty avid mac user, and OSX has treated me well since I switched, but I fully support using the best tool for the job - and it seems that is windows, in his case.

</comment><comment><USER20> Reminds me of the famous line from Steve Martin, "Those French, they have their own word for _everything_!"

I expect Bruce will get a lot of page views, this sort of story pulls them out, but his story is not very compelling. Basically he liked the Windows experience better before and he has gone back to it. I didn't see a lot of effort to figure out "meme" for MacOS (which is fine I didn't either until circumstances made it my only laptop) and so returning to something more familiar removes friction in his life. Good for him. But it doesn't inform on the different choices between MacOS and Windows, only his comfort level with them.

</comment><comment><USER17> Cost - yes. Windows laptops cost much less. But they suck much more. I guess if you don't value the touchpad, mag safe, retina, display, thin-ness, long lasting battery, and the aesthetics that much... I mean I use my computer a lot, it's my career. Easily worth an extra grand every 3 years to have the best.

</comment><comment><USER21> Here's a review on Amazon for a laptop with the same make and model as the one he got from Costco. It's better than the three stars on Costco. <http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008482UHG>

</comment><comment><USER22> What's weirdest is the Windows "bit rot" claim, that they finally fixed not having to reboot once every so often by Windows 7. In my experience that was fixed almost 14 years ago with Windows 2000.

</comment><comment><USER23> Artima is still alive? The owner let the site rot for a long time.

</comment><comment><USER24> I think that what the main argument is, when one gets a Windowd laptop ,one can get something really powerfull and cheap. Macs are not that powerfull and not cheap at all. I bought my Mac a few years ago, I could have bought a x2 more powerfull Windows laptop at the same price. But i must say ( dont know if it is still the case though) Apple has a better customer service than any other computer brand out there. My keyboard went out of order 4 years after I purchased my laptop ( it was my fault, i dropped it) , and Apple replaced it for free.

</comment><comment><USER25> I like both operating systems. iCloud on all my Apple devices makes life easier. On the other hand, my Windows 7 and Xbox 360 have no type of integration, but can run certain programs a lot better. They both have their perks, and I will still use both types.

</comment><comment><USER26> Agree with most of this article, had a Macbook Pro forced on me by a company a few years ago, I tried really hard to switch but ultimately put Windows on it and dual-booted.

I dont agree about Win8, its a disaster of epic proportions, staying with Win7 until Win9. I hear 8.1 is much of the same since Ballmer has his head up his ass.</comment>


Ask HN: What do you do when clients want SLAs? - <AUTHOR> I work mostly as a developer/consultant, either alongside development teams or developing web apps directly for companies. I enjoy it, and like the variety of the work.
Recently, a number of larger companies have been approaching me for work - either direct or I've been invited to take part as part of a tender process. One thing they all want is SLAs. Providing that for hosting is easy - I refer them to a 3rd party hosting company who can manage everything. Providing that for the app that I develop - that if it stops working I will respond within 2 hours and have it fixed in 4, as they specified in the last case - is not so easy.
There is only one of me, and if I am working on-site for another client, I cannot respond. If I'm on holiday with my partner, I'll be castrated if I have to get up at 11pm and go and do emergency work.
With existing clients I have a 'best efforts' agreement, and I have fixed a few issues while on holiday - but to me a SLA is in a different league.
What would you do? Is there an alternative to expanding to become a team of 3+ programmers?
Obviously the client doesn't want to pay $$$s to retain me/enough to hire a 24/7 support team - they expect it for free as it's what larger development agencies provide as part of the package (and not expensive for them to give the junior developers pagers...) <comment><USER2> SLA's are never free from anyone, and if an agency is doing it for free without an ongoing contract they are leaving a ton of money on the table. For an enterprise SLA like the one you are discussing, 2hr response, 4 hr fix, that would require a good sized retained services agreement from me and most agencies I know of. And that is how I would do it, make them pay you monthly for the RSA or quarterly etc.

As for how you manage it so you can keep your manhood in tact, which I can totally relate to... Find another freelancer that you can trust, train them on the system as well and use him/her to back you up. Pay them for the time you would be away. E.g. if you are gone for 2 weeks of time, and a monthly fee is $2k then pay them $1k for being on call and ready.

Also for the 4 hr fix, you need to make sure that it is not a guaranteed fix within 4 hrs as not all problems can be addressed in 4 hours. There is standard wording to address this in contracts and make them comfortable. What they are looking for is that for security issues and simple things that are emergent that pop up they get squashed quickly. But unless they are totally unreasonable they will understand that you can't guarantee in software that any issue they bring can be solved in 4 hours.

<comment><USER3> > SLA's are never free from anyone

This 1000x. SLAs are not free. Your time is not free. Nothing is free.

No agency is doing ongoing support for free.

Either a.) the potential customer is negotiating hard, or b.) the other companies have included this expense already in the main bid and have bounded the max hours they will provide support.

<comment><AUTHOR> davismwfl and akbar501: thanks for your responses. I worded that part of my post badly: I meant to say that it's (pretty much) free for the agency to offer, though I'm sure they charge the clients a 'high market rate'.

For the agency I was commenting on, by the time they've got 4-5 developers to carry the pager in turn, and offer them $100/week extra when on duty (and you can find alternative employment if you don't want to do it), it's very little overhead for them. Sure, not every developer knows the application code well enough to pin-point an issue quickly, but they've provided peace of mind to the client.

<comment><USER2> Just to point out, you can do the same thing those larger groups do to, just being a little more creative. Take the deal, get the monthly recurring revenue for yourself and find a freelancer, intern or other person capable of backing you up when needed. If you offer a reasonable rate to do it and there are a lot of people that will work with you.

If you are interested in taking/bidding for the gig, but want some backup/help let me know, maybe we can help back you up. Contact details are in my profile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> "Obviously the client doesn't want to pay $$$s to retain me/enough to hire a 24/7 support team"

Then they can't afford what they want. It's as simple as that.

Even if they can afford it though, define the terms as strictly as possible, and set a cap on all liability.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was in the same boat for years, and just avoided offering any kind of hosting or SLA services.

Eventually I just bit the bullet. And yes, it was exactly what you'd expect (waking up at 3am to fix problems, being available 24 hours, etc). That's the bad news. The good news is: These problems only exist for the first client who signs up for the SLA. Once you've got 2,3,4 clients retaining you, you can afford to farm the work out to others.

But also, it just forces you to rethink how the systems are designed. Write more test coverage, build better failover mechanisms etc.

Also, don't go for that "respond in 2 hours, fixed in 4 hours" crap. Most SLAs I've seen just state a guaranteed uptime % (99% or whatever) and you start prorating your retainer fee if the uptime slips below that. That way, if you really dont want to wake up (or if you're really unavailable to fix something) you don't have to, you'll just have to refund some of your retainer at the end of the month.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very interesting, thank you. I agree about rethinking how systems are designed - I can see the need to build much more error-tolerant configurations.

How did it work for you farming out the work? Getting up to speed on any codebase (such that you can fix issues under pressure) takes time, and to get people up-to-speed on 3-4 codebases sounds a big investment in them.

<comment><USER5> Yeah, I never ended up letting 3rd parties loose in the code. I saved the actual problem-fixing for myself. I just hired some guys on Odesk to standby with a set of instructions on how to get the servers back up. Their only job is to keep the sites alive, and this is pretty easy because 99% of the crashes I experience can be band-aid'ed with simple restarts and such.

So their instructions would say something like:

       Reboot the server
       If problem still exists: Do ABC
       If problem still exists Do XYZ
       ...stop when site comes back online.
       ...write up a crash report, send to me with the server logs

When I get back on the clock I look over the logs and the report and take my time addressing whatever the underlying issue is.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Why not set up like this?

Critical bugs: (Security, Data Loss) - Fix within 7 days. For free if they take less than 2 hours to fix. A day's wages otherwise.

Major bugs: (Usability, Stability) - Fix within 14 days. Fore free if they take less than 1 hour to fix. A day's wages otherwise.

Minor bugs: (Aesthetic, etc.) - Fix within 30 days. For free if they take less than 30 minutes to fix. A day's wages otherwise.</comment>