Principle of Least Astonishment - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment <comment><USER2> Earlier discussion (earlier Wiki too): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22794771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22794771)

Repeats are fine after a year or so but we need more astonishment before then ([https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)).

</comment><comment><USER3> This is an interesting principle which I understand the power of but feel is sometimes detrimental because it treats all surprises are equally bad.

Surprises can also be delightful. (It might be arguable that delight even _requires_ surprise.)

That is perhaps the most extreme counterexample, but the point here is that we should treat very differently things that are "surprising, but easily recoverable" from things that are "surprising, and disorienting", "surprising, and makes you want to flip tables", or "surprising, and life-threatening".

Taken to an extreme, this principle leads you to stagnant designs, because you're afraid of modest innovations giving users a mild surprise. Or, your product fundamentally doesn't quite work the way most users expect it to work, so in order to avoid giving users a surprise, you do cosmetic things to paper over it...

Tldr: use at your own risk and remember you're at the wheel, not your principles

<comment><USER4> "If a necessary feature has a high astonishment factor, it _MAY_ be necessary to redesign the feature" \- emphasis added.

But, they're related, as you note. This is specifically referencing surprise in the sense of "What, no, that was not what I intended to do!", not in "Ha! That was exactly what I wanted to do; I can't believe it was that easy!"

The reality is that latter is very, very rare in UI/UX (more commonly, successful actions don't even register to the user, even if it's slightly novel; it 'just works'). The former...very common, and a thing to avoid.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> How many times in a day are you unpleasantly astonished by something made out of bits? (I'm working around one with a set screw now.)

</comment><comment> seph-reed Seems pretty similar to KiSS (Keep it Simple Stupid)

<comment><USER6> I can see the similarity, though Git seems like an interesting differentiating example. Technically, it is extremely simple. A commit is a file tree with content stored in blobs along with a reference to the previous commit. A branch is the id of the blob containing the commit. Yet, it is frequently astonishing. The layers of porcelain over the plumbing are testament to the fact that the underlying model does not map to how you expect to work with a version control system, whether that's due to previous experience to due to an "impedance mismatch" with the way people actually work.

Don't get me wrong, I happily use Git since I'm willing to bend my will to the machine in this way. It does realize its promise.

A great example that's in the intersection of both is copy/cut/paste. That was the result of a user study for the Alto, I believe, watching real copyeditors doing their work. And it's technically straightforward.

In contrast, the Emacs kill ring and undo system, together, trip me up even after years of use. They are technically elegant, but together create some astonishing situations. Like Git, all are easily fixable, yet still there is some friction.

The PoLA, in its best form, seems to me to be about whether a user's will can be realized in as direct a way as possible. This might, potentially, have a very complicated implementation.

<comment><USER7> Git, when explained properly, should be intuitive. This follows the Principle.

The lack of explanation, or the complexity that arise in real life, may be problematic. If git has problems in this area, it is because of lack of proper communication.</comment></comment></comment>


A simple formula to gauge a freemium model's success  - <AUTHOR> http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10314283-16.html?tag=mncol;title <comment><USER2> Im a BIG fan of this model. But it only works if you've developed a free product that is valuable enough to your users, that they will come back to pay for additional services to enhance that product for continuous use. Build it, and they will come. And they will pay.

</comment><comment> onreact-com For those new to the freemium model here are the basics:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=788490></comment>


Ask HN: How to build a software product without a technical co-founder? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I would strongly suggest finding one. I have worked as a contractor for several startups building MVPs. A common theme I saw was 2 marketing/sales guys getting taken advantage of by unscrupulous/unqualified offshore outsourcing firms. They burned a lot of money and then hired my company to start over and do it right. A technical cofounder would either be able to build much of the product or when hiring should be able to spot these missteps early on.

</comment><comment><USER3> The problem with side projects (often even with startups) is not the product. It's finding a reachable market, one you can easily tell about your product. Once you have located a accessible market, you can hire someone with appropriate domain knowledge to identify and create the product. You could even offer them limited ownership participation if they are good enough. Again, don't worry about the product. Worry about the market.

</comment><comment><USER4> There are many options for validating product ideas without building software in the traditional sense. If you've done something like that already, there are no/low code options that might get you to an MVP. I'm working on something that would help you down the line, though my initial target market is developers...

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER5> don't.

Because if you can't convince someone about the product now you won't be able when selling it either.</comment>


How Sunrise App Is Conquering Time Management - <AUTHOR> http://mikeparsons.net/sunrise-app-conquering-time-management/ <comment><USER2> I'm sorry Mike..

"However, the bigger news is that Microsoft plans to integrate the functionality from its mobile calendaring app Sunrise into Outlook, then shutter the Sunrise application when the integration completes."

[http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/28/microsoft-to-shut-down- sunr...](http://techcrunch.com/2015/10/28/microsoft-to-shut-down-sunrise- mobile-calendar-after-integration-into-outlook-completes/#.fwn4xt:FDzx)</comment>


Sumo Logic S-1 - <AUTHOR> https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1643269/000119312520227201/d821436ds1.htm <comment><USER2> >>> For fiscal 2018, 2019, and 2020, our revenue was $67.8 million, $103.6 million, and $155.1 million

>>> We generated net losses of $32.4 million, $47.8 million, $92.1 million

The revenues are good and increasing, but the losses, omg.

edit: OMG they got the numbers wrong? check pages 3 and page 13-14. Dates don't match, 2019 and 2020 are mixed up?

<comment><USER3> I checked p. 3 and pp. 13-14 -- numbers match.

<comment><USER2> Check the headers, 2019 and 2020 aren't in place, or maybe an issue with Firefox rendering.

<comment><USER3> I haven't been able to find a PDF version of the S-1 filing myself to compare. I will note that I'm also using Firefox and headers are aligned for me.

The irony is that everybody bemoans PDF yet formatting control is exactly why it has such staying power despite being such a hated de facto publishing format.

<comment><USER4> PDF fulfills a need that nothing else satisfies: a vector format that's universally supported and guarantees that its layout will be the same everywhere, especially when printing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> So it seems that we are finally entering a market bubble of a _familiar_ type.

Dotcom 2.0

<comment><USER6> Maybe I'm old but somehow this feels like 3.

E: quick stats on IPO [https://www.statista.com/statistics/270290/number-of- ipos-in...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/270290/number-of-ipos-in-the- us-since-1999/)

<comment><USER7> Is there a way to see this? Seems like maybe logging in might let me see one stat. Any actual way to see this consistently?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yep, everyone is jumping into the crazy before it's over

</comment><comment><USER9> I think we should change the link to this: [https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1643269/000119312520...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1643269/000119312520227201/d821436ds1.htm)

<comment><USER10> Yup, someone else posted the original .gov source when it was released by the SEC:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259821](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24259821)

<comment><USER9> Oh thx!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > Our multi-tenant, cloud-native platform was architected by big data and > security experts and has been in operation continuously for nearly a decade. > Our platform is built on a modern, microservices-based application and cloud > architecture, leverages security-first principles, and incorporates > artificial intelligence and machine learning, or AI/ML, algorithms to > deliver real-time actionable insights.

Not a single technology buzzword went unused in this document.

<comment><USER12> They forgot to mention server less

<comment><USER11> I regret to inform you...

> Notifications. Our alerts can directly notify users or teams via emails or > other direct means, integrate with third party ticketing or workflow tools, > such as OpsGenie, PagerDuty, ServiceNow, Slack, or trigger APIs, scripts, or > serverless functions on AWS, Azure, or GCP.

<comment><USER13> To be fair to them, at least this para is more on what the customer demand is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> based on the S-1 I don't see how they will ever be profitable.

<comment><USER15> I am really surprised that AWS hasn't already built a competing product like Splunk, Sumo or ELK. Their CloudWatch offering is so obscure and in general not useful.

<comment><USER16> CloudWatch Insights and their security tools make me think that they're exploring the idea but planning to grow up organically rather than try a direct feature comparison against established customers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Anyone using it?

<comment><USER18> Yes. I am the devops lead at a startup and it's an absolutely essential piece of our devops stack.

It's basically the Lite version of splunk, 90% of the features at 10% of the cost (which matters when we're talking 10s of thousands of dollars per year).

<comment><USER15> Do you know how much does it cost per month per GB?

I implemented SumoLogic about 5 years ago at another company and it was great. At some point we will need it in our current company (we have ELK, but it is clunky) and it does not compare with what sumo had to offer 5 years ago. But their pricing page has some crap "credit" metric that does not let you compare it.

<comment><USER19> Their pricing page has price per gb: [https://www.sumologic.com/pricing/](https://www.sumologic.com/pricing/) Says the "essentials" is 2.50 per gb so if you're pumping 10gb a month it would be like $750 per month.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> losses losses everywhere</comment>


HTML5 Version of the Tron:Legacy Boardroom Scene - <AUTHOR> https://www.robscanlon.com/encom-boardroom/ <comment><USER2> Glad to see some people are getting a kick out of this. I built it a few years back while learning webgl, css3, node.js, redis, and modern (at the time) js tooling. Source over at [https://github.com/arscan/encom- boardroom](https://github.com/arscan/encom-boardroom)

I didn't build this with any real practical application in mind at the time. But some people have reused components in their own projects over the years, particularly the globe ([https://github.com/arscan/encom- globe](https://github.com/arscan/encom-globe)).

<comment><USER3> Oblivion next, please ;)

[http://gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX](http://gmunk.com/OBLIVION-GFX)

<comment><USER4> Thanks for pointing to this one. I haven't seen the movie but there's some good representations for dense volumes of data there. I'd like to build some network health representation around this.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Are there any efforts to make movie-type window styles for real use? The Tron:Legacy style would be a fun one to have, as well as the one used in the computers in Westworld (similar light-blue-on-black)[1] and Interstellar [2]. I'm sure it's a more difficult process than I'm imagining, but it would be really cool to be able to use the window and interface themes of the computers in your favorite show or movie, especially since some have such great designs.

[1] - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikup60uEg0c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ikup60uEg0c) [2] - [https://youtu.be/bmz9lMP6aQU?t=2m4s](https://youtu.be/bmz9lMP6aQU?t=2m4s), visible for a brief second just after 2m4s

<comment><USER6> The main problem with this kind of UI is information overload (which is the desired effect in movies, since the viewer isn't actually supposed to "use" nor understand all of the info displayed). There's no way to make this usable unless you lower the amount of info displayed, but then it will loose its "cool" factor.

<comment><USER7> I work in the control room for an electrical generation system an this isn't the case at all for us.

Each desk has 12 ~30 inch monitors, and each monitor has a similar degree of information density, from monitors of system frequency, voltages, power flows etc. around the network, also financial / market information. There's a mix of diagrams, tabular data, maps, plots.

Two of the monitors are devoted to a geographic view with weather data, locations of field staff etc. Check out the similar setup from this California control room: [https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/06/17/calif...](https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2016/06/17/california- iso-braces-for-heatwave.html#i1)

Most displays show live data, but are not setup to be interacted with normally.

I think the truth is probably due to: 1) the same with all enterprise software, the folks who end up using the displays have token-to-no input into the purchasing or design decisions. Actually now I think of it, check out the interfaces marketed to electronic music composers (generally individuals or small studios): [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOq8R55xMyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOq8R55xMyo)

2) While I bet operators would select Tronish UI given the choice, they don't _need_ it because ultimately (with enough experience) the model of the system sits in your head, and the interface simply gives cues.

<comment><USER8> I work in this industry and there are a lot of bad UI choices all around. The picture of the California board looks like a good example and uncluttered. They have the budget out there to do that.

It doesn't have to be this way. There are standards for high performance HMI design where nothing is colored in unless it is an alarm condition.

I usually have to end up designing things the "bad way" because of customer expectation/demand. Some guy designed a screen back in 1989 and that became what they expect.

<comment><USER9> CAISO's big board is reasonably uncluttered. PJM's has too much small stuff. [1] But everybody probably uses mostly the screens at their own position.

One can get carried away. Here's the control room for Moscow United's power control room. This is just for the Moscow area, not a regional grid control room like the others.[2] This is the as-built version. The original plan [3] looked like a set for a Bond movie, including a suspended oval glass conference room overlooking the big board. That was from Russia's oligarch era.

[1] [https://www.elliottlewis.com/app/css/images/pjm-control- room...](https://www.elliottlewis.com/app/css/images/pjm-control-room-.jpg) [2] [https://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/03/electricity- distribution-c...](https://www.dezeen.com/2009/08/03/electricity-distribution- control-centre-by-arch-group-and-abtb/) [3] [http://www.experience-it- all.com/2009/08/moscow%E2%80%99s-el...](http://www.experience-it- all.com/2009/08/moscow%E2%80%99s-electricity-control-room/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Reminded me of top unixporn post [https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/2sz5xo/bspwmofxoc...](https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/comments/2sz5xo/bspwmofxoc_i_love_sci_fi_movie_interfaces_so_i/)

<comment><USER11> It _looks_ really cool, but I feel that with all the extra bells and whistles taking up so much screen estate, I'd need a 50" monitor on my desk just to actually _use_ ~27".

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is beautiful. There needs to be a plugin api for this so we can make our own using charts using the built in command line and associated widgets.

<comment><USER13> I would love that, this is UI art.

<comment><USER14> i would pay for this - as a HUD for company stats

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> The term "mad skills" comes to mind. I would love to see a breakdown of some of the techniques he used to construct this.

</comment><comment><USER16> Subreddit of movie-fake-UI: [https://www.reddit.com/r/FUI/](https://www.reddit.com/r/FUI/)

</comment><comment><USER17> What, the .js file for the globe itself is 43 thousand lines of code. Was this a weekend project? How do you find the time? Very well done my friend. ([https://github.com/arscan/encom- globe/blob/master/build/enco...](https://github.com/arscan/encom- globe/blob/master/build/encom-globe.js))

<comment><USER2> I used browserify to bundle in Three.js and all the other dependencies. Yes, it's an embarrassingly large JS package. There are probably better ways of doing this, but being a weekend project I decided that it wasn't worth my time to investigate ;-)

If you look at the commits, I just tried to push a few lines of code every day (nights, weekends) over the course of a couple of months. It adds up.

<comment> unkown-unknowns I am quite stupid, I always thought that when people on HN talked about their weekend projects they meant something that they'd made in a single weekend. Only now upon reading your comment do I realize that it means something one is working on over any number of weekends. I've been on HN for about 7 years :/

All this time I've been wondering why it takes me weeks of weekends to complete what others do in a single weekend even though I regard myself as highly competent at both software engineering and programming. Then it turns out I had simply misunderstood the meaning of "weekend project".

Oh and also, very nice project, kudos.

<comment><USER18> I think it has dual meanings, I've always taken it that way. Don't feel stupid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Holy cow. Did you use a charting framework for the stream feed? How did you get such a pretty globe?

<comment><USER2> All hand built, including the globe. I split that out into it's own library over at [https://github.com/arscan/encom- globe](https://github.com/arscan/encom-globe)

* edit: I did leverage quite a few great libraries, namely three.js... just none that are charting specific

<comment><USER19> beauty

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> If only we could get a version of this to render in the terminal so we could hack our workstations to actually look like this. I use tmux pretty heavily. Id love it if panes looked like this

</comment><comment><USER21> Fun to see Event Source show up here. I feel like WebSockets are all the craze, but Event Source seems to be a really simple alternative that uses only HTTP.

<comment><USER2> Yes! I started with WebSockets, but Event Source met my needs and is much simpler.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> My admiration is unbound. I have one reservation -- I wish it would handle history correctly. I wish each click e.g. github produced a new URL I could email to a friend so they could view the same scene. And then I wish I could hit "back" to recover the landing page. None of this diminishes how beautiful this is, and I'm sure it just wasn't part of what you were trying to explore.

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the feedback! I'll definitely add that if I take the time to add more features.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> Very cool stuff... even `ls` works in the shell ;)

</comment><comment><USER9> Check out Harvard's economic globe.[1] This looks like the globe from this demo, but it's a real interactive tool.

[1] [http://globe.cid.harvard.edu/?mode=gridSphere&id=PH](http://globe.cid.harvard.edu/?mode=gridSphere&id=PH)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is super cool, I love the from aesthetics (if not the movie).

How do you make you or tapping not zoom again? Is there a HTML meta tag or something? It would improve the usability of the keyboard on mobile.

</comment><comment><USER25> So cool to see this revived. I remember stumbling upon it awhile back.

</comment><comment><USER26> You got in :)

</comment><comment><USER27> Really damn impressive!

</comment><comment><USER28> You could add a video stream from a live online news channel on the top right? (on my side the top right was pretty much empty)

<comment><USER29> GitHub top right was full of github user avatars

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Man, fantastic.

I should probably get into doing something like this in my free time instead of browsing reddit or tvtropes.

</comment><comment><USER31> I've not even seen tron since im too young... but all i can say is that i'm mighty impressed

<comment><USER32> The legacy film came out in 2010 or so.

<comment><USER33> The original TRON movie came out in 1982 [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/)

In 2010 there was a sequel movie Tron: Legacy [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104001/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1104001/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> This is fantastic, really fun to use and would make a cool portfolio website.

</comment><comment><USER35> They used Processing some I think in the movie which now has a WebGL version.

</comment><comment><USER36> Man this brings me back.. Thank you for creating this!

</comment><comment><USER37> Holy shit! This is amazing. Great job

</comment><comment><USER38> Wow, beautiful!

</comment><comment><USER39> I love this.

</comment><comment><USER40> The funny thing is that it loads faster and has higher fps than many websites that display simple blogposts and a couple of images, but pull in literally megabytes of JavaScript and other bloat.

People, learn from this. Seriously. The web doesn't have to be slow if you put effort into it.</comment>


China's Great Firewall Gets Taller - <AUTHOR> http://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-great-firewall-gets-taller-1422607143

<comment><USER2> Related news:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/world/asia/china-clamps- do...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/world/asia/china-clamps-down-still- harder-on-internet-access.html?_r=1)

[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/technology/in-china-new- cy...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/technology/in-china-new- cybersecurity-rules-perturb-western-tech-companies.html)

[http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/23/world/asia/ap- as-...](http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/23/world/asia/ap-as-china- blocked-vpns.html?_r=0)

The gist is, XJP's national security committee is using all kinds of excuses to try to separate China's intranet from the internet at large. Not only that, they are determined to plug every hole that exists in their censoring/surveillance/propaganda/thought control apparatus.

Recently their cyber-army has expanded their scope to actively disrupt Hong Kong's political activists online activities such as e-referendums, civil organization's websites and hack into activists cellphones, email accounts and computers. There is a tremendous lack of security professionals in Hong Kong and China. We need all the help we can get.

If you happen to be in China, please give us a hand in setting up a Tor Obfs relay.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a real tragedy. Now they'll start selling this to other authoritarian regimes and it will begin the end of the internet as we know it.

<comment><USER4> Well, it's not too different from all the things other governments do while killing net neutrality. DPI, adding advertisement is also a way of modifying content. Just China blocks certain services completely. The tech itself, peeking into packets, finding out what they are about to manipulate or block them is something also ISPs in many western countries, like the US do.

Coming from Europe I was fairly surprised how often both injecting data into traffic or blocking ports is. Also here they say it's for protection. I wouldn't point to China.

About what can be done. There actually many projects on decentralizing the internet, making it more resistant to single points of control and even making censorship hard or close to impossible.

Netsukuku, cjdns, B.A.T.M.A.N. and others are big steps into the right direction, but it even seems like the urge isn't big enough. They don't get lots of interest, donations, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This isn't news. VPN blocking based on deep packet inspection appears to have been in use for a long long time.

I have heard from two friends that their VPN provider (they both use the same one) has been less reliable of late. This doesn't mean there's any new technology, and this type of occurrence is common.

I have experienced no difference myself, on fixed line or mobile connections.

</comment><comment><USER6> Meh.. What else can you expect. CCP's very existence depends on keeping its citizens brainwashed.

<comment><USER7> just like in every other country in the world ...

<comment><USER6> CCP isn't a country; it's a - paranoid - political party.

I for one, believe that China doesn't need it for its prosperity.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Anyone know the company providing the technology?

<comment><USER4> I think that they are not providing it in this case, but both IBM and Siemens are known for developing such technology. Siemens often gets mentioned with Iran, while IBM is known to have sold such technology to Chinese companies (not necessarily governments).

It seems though that China realizes a lot of those things work better when nobody knows how things work. Even the Tor project every now and then calls for people to leak information to help with censorship circumvention. It's an arms race and of course companies and governments have more resources.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> This article also made me think of a fun/fascinating project: creating a industrial organization economics model of the impacts of the Great Firewall on Chinese firms.

Are the economic benefits of the Great Firewall (e.g. propping up China's tech firms by preventing American competition) greater than the economic harms of hindering many businesses with a limited internet?

China is effectively deploying an infant industry model ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_industry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_industry)) but instead of using monetary tariffs, they are slowing down or blocking foreign services. This has undoubtedly aided companies like Weibo and Baidu.

Simultaneously, the firewall acts like a tax on domestic Chinese companies. By raising the cost of accessing information or foreign services, it is raising transaction costs for virtually all Chinese businesses.

The model could be a simplified economy with different types of firms that have varying degrees of needs for information. Add a tax (or some similar way to model the transaction cost of finding that information when faced with different levels of censorship). That tax would be only levied on certain information goods (foreign internet services).

Then both businesses and consumers choose which internet services and information they will consume when faced with this tax. The internet services and information are an input to the Chinese firms' production functions and an input to the Chinese consumer's utility functions.

You could even test the model using this upgrade as a natural experiment. These censorship upgrades are an exogenous shock to access to foreign information. They are effectively an unanticipated tax increase. Data could be collected on how much this decreased business productivity in the days after the change and used as a proxy to estimate the tax.

Similarly, when people pay for VPN services (or other ways to get around censorship), these can be modeled using averting costs (generally used to model pollution costs). A traditional example of averting costs: a person buying bottled water to avoid getting diarrhea related illnesses in the developing world. The model assumes that the cost of the bottled water is less than the cost of getting the illness (thus why it is a rational averting behavior). Therefore, the amount spent on the bottled water is a proxy for the unobservable cost of polluted water (albeit a lower bound). (Note this is only true in certain cases in the developing world, as obviously people the developed world are drinking bottled water when their water is entirely safe to drink). Thus, the VPN can be used as a proxy for how much the Chinese are willing to pay to minimize the harm of the Great Firewall (and thus representative of a lower bound of the cost of the firewall).

</comment><comment><USER9> > "A recent upgrade to China's web filters, commonly referred to as the Great > Firewall, has made it more difficult to use services called virtual private > networks"

It really demonstrates a lack of knowledge when the WSJ fails to distinguish between the web and the internet. They note the key impact of this upgrade being VPNs, yet incorrectly state it is an upgrade to a web filter.

Then the article goes on to explain how this change affects different groups'/individual's productivity due to these limits. If we are going to effectively model and understand the impacts of China's censorship, then an accurate understanding of these censorship methods (and the internet itself) is required.</comment>


Show HN: Log Periodic – .bash_history, htop, and tail -f for the cloud - <AUTHOR> https://logperiodic.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> Hi HN!

When you run your programs on remote servers, especially ones you can't SSH into, there usually isn't much visibility into what's happening. Also, when your system is comprised of many separate servers, it can be hard to track what is happening across your system as a whole. Lastly, keeping a record of important tasks often means post-processing a bunch of log files in different formats.

Log Periodic is a protocol, a command-line tool, and a web interface I've been experimenting with to assist with the above problems. You're welcome to sign- up and play around, just please don't hit my servers too hard. :)

I've also made a ~10 minute YouTube screencast that shows how it works: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIXLDodABVE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIXLDodABVE)

I very much appreciate any comments you have.

Thanks!

\- Doug</comment>


University of California launches $250M fund for student startups on campus - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/12/15/university-of-california-launches-250-million-venture-fund/ <comment><AUTHOR> IMO, this is really concerning. A university, as an institution, is very different from a tech incubator. It is a place that should be somewhat removed from the commercial world where the idealists have a space to explore their interests without being subject to in-your-face money-making activity.

This also introduces a lot of complications. Say a professor starts a company, is it ethical for him to ask students to work for him? If a student starts a company, and an influential professor wants a board seat, can the 19yo student comfortably say no?

<comment><USER2> Universities are already pre-professional for the vast majority of students. I think the idea of a university being a place of exploration and self-discovery is a lofty ideal of a bygone era for all but children of the upper middle class and wealthy. College used to be more optional; today it's practically a prerequisite for a middle class lifestyle.

<comment><USER3> Except it really isn't any more. If all you want is a job, there are tons of resources online that will give you much more practical experience than universities. All that it's really missing is some accreditation for employers to use to filter out the talent from the dead weight. University idealism is alive and well I think if you look past the undergraduate programs you'd agree.

<comment><USER4> If all you want is a job then this will be easier if your diploma says UC Berkeley vs self-taught. We can split hairs all day about exceptional cases of people being great at something without a formal education but for the great majority of people a college degree is simply the new minimal education that employers are seeking.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This is good. Berkeley's startup ecosystem is lacking compared to Stanford and MIT, I can only imagine its worse at the other UCs. While more specified programs to encourage students to build and try something would be ideal, funding alone is a solid step forward.

<comment><USER6> As grad of Berkeley and MIT, I'm curious why you think Cal's is lacking to MIT?

This assertion contradicts both data and anecdotes.

<comment><USER7> Links to data would be appreciated... rather than just saying "data contradicts this."

<comment><USER6> [http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule- them-...](http://readwrite.com/2012/12/03/one-university-to-rule-them-all- stanfurd-tops-startup-list)

[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/vc...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/blog/techflash/2015/10/vc- joanne-chen-on-how-shes-helping-berkeley-catch.html)

[http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/uc- berk...](http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2015/04/uc-berkeley- stanfurd-startups.html)

A lot of these "rankings" has Stanfurd, Cal, MIT or Stanfurd, MIT, Cal.

The one data point I can't find anymore is VC money raised. It's basically Stanfurd >> Cal >> everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> How much evidence of a bubble do we need? When even universities get into the incubator business...

<comment><USER9> Universities have always been in the incubator business. The bubble actually forces universities to be more transparent about their IP licensing policies. Do read how Netscape was rewritten due to licensing issues. There is a reason why UIUC gets a bad rep. If anything this is good side effect of bubble, since it forces universities to re-examine their licensing practises and invent new IP models that distinguish between software and medical drug/device inventions.

" University of Illinois v. Andreessen (1994) - The web revolution began at the University of Illinois with the first graphics based browser, Mosaic, but few are aware of its history. The open source code which spawned both Netscape and Internet Explorer was created by graduate students using open source code. The university sued the students for trademark infringement in an attempt to capture royalties even though the source code was available for free on the web. The developers offered the university shares in the newly launched Netscape which would have netted UL over $8 million. Instead, the university chose a prolonged legal battle which was settled for $2.7 million, bankrupted Netscape, allowed Microsoft Explorer to capture the browser market and left University of Illinois out of the legacy of the innovation. "

[http://www.ipadvocate.org/forum/dispute.cfm?Type=Disputes](http://www.ipadvocate.org/forum/dispute.cfm?Type=Disputes)

[http://markvillacampa.com/2014/01/13/the-day-i-learned- about...](http://markvillacampa.com/2014/01/13/the-day-i-learned-about-mosaic- from-marc-andreessen/)

<comment><USER10> I'm still having trouble nailing down the timeline on this, but it seems like, at some point there were two companies, both with access to the mosaic source and both rebuilding it from scratch. One of those companies had licensed it, the other hadn't. Obviously there's more to it than that, but in 1994, I can see how this would look to lawyers.

That said, I think public university research should all be public domain so we avoid this entirely, but there's a whole waterfall of other problems that come with that.

Also, as a graduate of UIUC, I'm curious about this bad rep. I know their entrepreneurship initiatives are pretty dismal but I still don't understand why that's a uni's job. All the cs/engineers that graduated when I did went straight into great jobs.

<comment><USER11> Netscape didn't want to pay the fee, Spyglass did.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyglass,_Inc).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: StackX - Android application for all of Stack Exchange - <AUTHOR> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prasanna.android.stacknetwork&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDEsImNvbS5wcmFzYW5uYS5hbmRyb2lkLnN0YWNrbmV0d29yayJd

<comment><AUTHOR> An application for all of Stack Exchange websites (stack overflow, super user, server fault, etc.). * Browse any of the Stack Exchange websites with ability to write comment. (NO write for answer or question). * Login and have access to your profile, inbox, questions, answers and favorites for each of your registered site. * View syntax colored code. * Notification on replies to your question, answer or comment. * Provided the user has permission, the ability to post, edit or delete comment. * Search and advanced search. * Learn a topic by creating and saving your advanced search and choosing to add it as tab in the front page .

Request for feedback:

It will be really helpful to receive any kind of feedback. This is my first mobile application and I have zero prior experience with user experience or user interface design. So any critique or feedback will be nice.</comment>


How to Process Passwords as a Software Developer - <AUTHOR> https://dev.to/nathilia_pierce/how-to-process-passwords-as-a-software-developer-3dkh <comment><USER2> > Argon2 is a key derivation function, the winner of the password hashing > competition and should be used for new projects. In case it isn't available, > use Scrypt. Any other KDF is nonoptimal.

Probably not worth going for the marginally-better-but-new-and-fancy KDF if you don't have a reliable implementation available for your language.

Pretty much agree with everything else otherwise

</comment><comment><USER3> > Enforce multi-factor authentication instead

But in a way that your user won't lose everything if his usb-gadget fails.

Also not in a way that it gets stronger than password and can be used alone to recover a password (sms, for example)

Also not in a way that is written down in a paper and typed later.

Also not in a way that prevents your user from using your software.</comment>


Pascal's Wager and Climate Change - <AUTHOR> http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/pascals-wager-and-climate-change.html <comment><USER3> I'm going to have to disagree with this article, since it's not like Pascal's wager -- the choices to redirect our effort to combating climate change will have a negative effect on if there is no climate change. The amount of attention that alternative energy, etc consume vs real on the ground problems of starvation, poverty, and disease that are affecting the world is staggering. These are real problems and dwarf climate change; even if we can significantly reduce co2 emissions population growth and the rising standard of living will most likely dwarf the gains made. So perhaps we should instead focus our attention on reducing population growth - caused by poverty - <USER2> by corrupt political systems.</comment>


CLion 1.0 Released - <AUTHOR> https://www.jetbrains.com/clion/?1.0_is_here

<comment><USER2> Will CLion features be coming to IntelliJ Ultimate?</comment>


Berners-Lee Behind New Private Communications Network for UltraPrivacy Conscious - <AUTHOR> https://www.darkreading.com/cloud/berners-lee-behind-new-private-communications-network-for-ultra-privacy-conscious/d/d-id/1316694 <comment><USER2> _" The so-called MeWe private communications network ... doesn't own, track, or share, information its members provide or share among one another. MeWe encrypts personally identifiable information and most of its communication is SSL-encrypted, and the platform was built with Scala and LISP."_

SSL has had numerous security holes poked in it over the years. Promises from companies about what they won't do with your data are less than reassuring to the really "ultra-Privacy Conscious". It's much better for the system to be designed such that these companies aren't able to get your data in the first place.

If you are really that privacy conscious, it's probably best to completely avoid the internet for any communication you want to keep really private.

There's a wealth of information out there on pre-internet-era secure communications practices.

<comment><USER3> I haven't done a lot of research on MeWe (though I have heard of it previously), but many people misuse the term "SSL" to mean "TLS". Before making this assumption, it might be best to check and see if they _actually_ use SSL when they mean to say SSL.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As stated the article is from 2014 so I wonder how involved TBL is at this point. Second point, I signed up. I checked the open groups under news. Largest group under news? "100% True News For Patriots!" and "Breitbart News Outlet". Looks like a home for bots, trolls and the alt-right. I'll pass.

<comment><USER5> It's OK for people with different political views to use the same communications medium.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> _" How will MeWe make money? With optional services you can add such as its extra data storage option (up to 500GB) and picture printing via Walgreens, for instance. On tap is a MeWe app store, and eventually, a subscription-based enterprise version."_

Interesting. I will keep this on my radar, like Vero.

</comment><comment><USER7> This seems to be from 2014

</comment><comment><USER8> His endorsement of browser EME put paid to his ongoing usefulness, for me.

Granted, I'm nowhere near his league of fame and success and whatall. Nonetheless, I'm fearfully awaiting the "locking down" of the Web.

</comment><comment><USER9> The default settings of MeWe are a fright and couldn't by any stretch of the imagination be mentioned in the same breath with any notion of "UltraPrivacy"

<comment><USER10> Be specific, it looks pretty private. You can certainly tighten them, but a good start.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> [https://mewe.com/](https://mewe.com/)

The landing page is a bit busy, but generally gets the message across.

Good to see some alternatives popping up to challenge the defacto surveillance capitalism model.

<comment><USER12> The landing page is so busy that I don't trust this to be legit.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> why not maidsafe?

</comment><comment><USER14> If we assume it's a sound idea to ascribe trust to a project based on the involvement of individuals, is Tim with the DRM concessions in mind the right person? I feel like if we hold the Equifax and Facebook CEOs to a high standard when it comes to safety and privacy, we cannot overlook the recent DRM mistake. Am I too cautious?</comment>


An apology for the internet from the people who built it - <AUTHOR> https://nymag.com/selectall/2018/04/an-apology-for-the-internet-from-the-people-who-built-it.html <comment><USER3> It has nothing to do with the internet and everything to do with free speech and it's boundaries. Do I have the right to misinform? To I have the right to insult or bully? Am I liable if I say something that causes distress? An I liable if my speech encourages or inspires a third party to break a law?

These questions have been around since the birth of free speech and have been answered by many societies in very different ways. It's just accelerated and amplified on the Internet.

<comment><USER4> _An I liable if my speech encourages or inspires a third party to break a law?_

If that was your intent, then absolutely, legally at least you're civilly and criminally on the hook. See: inciting riot. Even it wasn't your intent, if a court finds that a reasonable person should have predicted the outcome, yes. Freedom of speech isn't freedom from consequences or responsibility.

I realize that this may be unpalatable for some who's idea or free speech differs from the legal reality, so please understand that I'm just laying out the legal landscape. You are of course, free to believe in whatever you wish should be, I'm just addressing what is.

@Jack9

The solution to abuses of the law isn't to throw out the law, but throw out the abuse. I despise idealistic arguments that ignore the reality of daily enforcement. Most people brought up on charges of assault and battery are not being framed or railroaded, they committed assault and battery. The times when those laws are abused need to be aggressively addressed, but not by attacking the law in general unless it's badly written.

For example, traffic and public order laws can be used to good effect, or to harass a group of people. The problem isn't that it's wrong to have those laws, but the underlying issues thst lead to people on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum being disproportionately targeted, and then poorly represented. It's good that everyone can't just parade through downtown every rush hour, but bad when those same regulations are used as flimsy excuses to deny people their right to assembly.

The real problems are more subtle and difficult to address than most people understand or care to admit. There is no Platonic ideal of law or ideology that can withstand human intentions and abuses. We need to focus less on perfecting an imperfect system, and more on the underlying abuses. Otherwise you get things that look good on paper, but are trivially subverted. In theory the US president can't declare war, but 17 years ago the US congress put the US effectively in a state of perpetual war so they're out of the intended loop. Even before that how long was Vietnam a "police action?" exactly?

The systems have to be enacted by poeple, which is why putting decent people with good intentions in charge is so very fucking important!

<comment><USER5> Its strange to have such a protection for the worst atrocities, (though people tend to agree with you);

Imagine if the government did something so horrible, that just talking about it would reasonably cause a riot... it would be illegal to talk about it. I wonder if this limit could be extended to media (blurred as that definition is now), so it would be illegal to report anything the government or large corporations have done that might reasonably cause people to riot?

<comment><USER4> Talking about something upsetting is not inciting a riot, because reasonable people don't just burn shit down when they're unhappy. Standing on a podium and saying, "The police shot my son in cold blood, and we need to work to change society," is different from, "The police shot my son, burn it all down!"

Marching against the Vietnam war isn't the same as teaching people to make AP explosives to drop in recruitment centers. Remember that the law isn't code, it's not executed as written, but interpreted. Going back to the GP, "do I have a right to misinform?" Yes you do, mostly. If you try to convince people to take up arms and start burning shit down with misinformation though, the game changes. "I believe the government is poisoning our children with fluoride," is protected. "The government is poisoning our children with fluoride, so let's go to the water treatment plant and kill everyone there!" is not protected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The article introduces an interesting guy:

> Antonio García Martínez, ad-tech entrepreneur. Helped create Facebook's ad > machine.

He puts in some good points in the first couple of sections about how the internet was built on hippie good intentions, and how Wall St came in and made it about money, but the really interesting thing is how in the next section, about online ads and how they turned into a mass surveillance regime, he's totally silent.

Makes me think this is a bit of a puff piece for these people, who were all totally complacent at the time, speaking up now about how they went wrong, except they have nothing to say about what they personally did.

This doesn't look much like an apology.

Edit: wow, here's another beauty from Garcia:

> The algorithm, by default, placates you by shielding you from the things you > don't want to hear about. That, to me, is the scary part. The real problem > isn't Facebook — it's humans.

<comment><USER7> The internet was actually built on cold war ideas about how to survive and communicate after a nuclear attack. Maybe you could make the case that consumer computing was based on hippie ideals (Whole Earth Catalog...), but the internet didn't get big until well after those thoughts had turned very commercial.

<comment><USER8> I think there's a key dostinction to be made here between the internet and the WWW.

<comment><USER7> There are tons of distinctions to be made. The internet is comprised of a multitude of protocols, applications and use cases. Blogs/newspapers like this are different than social media, old school forums, apps, co-op games, p2p file sharing, chat...

This is an overly broad and reactionary article that's trying to equate recent outrage around FB with the internet as a whole.

<comment><USER9> "The Internet" is a buzzword, a marketing term, and so it means whatever it's user wants it to mean, however:

Those of us who live and work on the internet, and who understand how a distributed decentralized network functions, are going to hear "Internet" and think "A decentralized computer network utilizing intelligent failover routing, TCP/IP, Ethernet and Fiber".

Applications, protocols, these things ARE NOT the Internet. Applications and protocols can function and exist with or without the internet. So you see they are separate things.

TCP/IP is not "The Internet". Ethernet is not "The Internet". The Internet is only the physical network that spans planet earth. It is the cables, the equipment, the public address space, and perhaps even the people who keep it all operational. _Nothing else is "The Internet"._

Here's the problem: _I_ know this. Other network engineers know this. 99% of the population of the planet earth doesn't know this. We need to stop tolerating crap like clickbait journalism that declares "Facebook == The Internet". Those kinds of statements need to be shot down and destroyed immediately, all of the time, so that people will learn fact from fiction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This is quite an impressive display of hubris for most of these people to claim to have "built the internet". And of the fraction of them who have built anything at all, most built things that were intentionally _designed_ to do the things they're apologizing for now that the public has become annoyed by them, so this "apology" rings hollow. This isn't a "sorry we did this" apology. It's a "sorry you're mad about it" apology.

</comment><comment><USER11> I've been arguing with a friend of mine at Facebook about this. He's unrepentant, thinks it's just advertising and it is fine. I disagree, it's an advertising machine that is constantly looking over your shoulder and it reinforces whatever bubble you happen to be in.

Here's a snippet of an email I sent him in this morning:

        Can you see how your attitude, if shared by the leaders
        at Facebook, is exactly why Facebook should get regulated?
        It's a my way or the highway, take no prisoners approach,
        and yeah, that will bring regulation.

        If your attitude was more like "yeah, I get it, it's a
        little creepy, we're trying to figure out a way to have a
        business model that works and isn't creepy" then perhaps
        you'd get to regulate yourself.

        The problem is that the lawmakers are clueless, you may
        well get some stupid draconian regulation that you really
        don't want.  If that happens, you are going to look back at
        these emails and go "welp, we blew it, this is our fault".

<comment><USER12> > No one from Silicon Valley was held accountable …

This is the crux of the problem. Until there's any sort of real accountability, the problems described in the article will persist. We can't expect anyone to act ethically or care about anything other than profits out of their own volition. It unfortunately has to be through regulations and punishment.

<comment><USER13> It feels like lately no one that has some money and power is held accountable for anything in the US.

<comment><USER14> Yep. I can't rationally explain why I feel this way, but I feel like that might be changing a little. The #MeToo things seems like a fore-shock of sorts. Some very large names, and possibly institutions, appear to be about to tumble under their corruption.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> _McNamee: They're basically trying to trigger fear and anger to get the outrage cycle going, because outrage is what makes you be more deeply engaged. You spend more time on the site and you share more stuff. Therefore, you're going to be exposed to more ads, and that makes you more valuable._

Ironically, this seems to be exactly what this article is trying to do - <USER2> outrage.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on how you read it. Contemplative readers might get upset too for a bit, but then focus on the actual problem - how to fix it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> As someone who doesnt use facebook at all, or ever... I'm getting tired of this. The internet is not facebook. Facebook doesn't control you, and the internet doesnt owe you an apology.

The internet is a fantastic invention, that has opened up opportunities all over the world; has lessened communications costs drastically, and enabled capabilities we have never had before.

If you are so outraged with facebook, stop going to it.

<comment><AUTHOR> ...and the article is not about Facebook.

<comment><USER16> yes it is. It's 100% about facebook. Ads on the internet have been around for 25 years. Google alone has been selling ads for 18 years. What do you imagine caused them to write this story 2 days after Zuckerbergs apology testimony to congress?

<comment><USER17> Ads have never been used quite the way they have in 2016 on Facebook. The network effects happen to be extremely strong for Facebook in particular but it could have been any incumbent that was the platform of greatest damage. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean we don't have a real problem here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> "Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather." — John Perry Barlow

If this is the founding computer visionary do we really have to wonder what went wrong?

</comment><comment><USER19> Every invention has a dark side.

* The wheel: war machines.

* Writing: propaganda.

* Jewelry: diamond cartels.

* Internal combustion engine: pollution.

* Nuclear energy: nuclear weaponry.

* Wind turbines: dead birds.

* Cell phones: the death of social skills.

Pick any technology and you could probably find a way that it has caused severe problems. It almost seems like a fundamental law of the universe.

The most incredible thing about the internet is that it works across vendors and across countries. The concept of the entire human race coming together and agreeing on a way to do things is excessively rare and the internet is an example of that - the only example that I can think of right now. Despite all the war, despite all the hatred, we can agree on internet protocols.

The internet is an incredible accomplishment and the creators should be proud. Those who have soured it are responsible for the state it is in today, nobody else.

<comment><USER16> It's unfortunate this is downvoted because you're exactly right. Those analogies are spot on.

This article blames the internet (a bigger, broader, very useful thing) for the negative actions of specific companies (mostly facebook).. this is exactly the same as blaming the wheel for war machines; or writing for propaganda.

Put the blame where it belongs. The internet owes no one an apology. Facebook on the other hand...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > To keep the internet free — while becoming richer, faster, than anyone in > history — the technological elite needed something to attract billions of > users to the ads they were selling. And that something, it turns out, was > outrage.

The technological elite are responsible for outrage culture? That's rich. It's _old_ media that is packed, cover to cover with sensationalistic outrage pieces (such as this one from nymag). Now, those articles may get shared rapidly on social media but it's the traditional media that is their source.

The underlying tone of a lot of the outrage pieces is simple: our business model and ability to gatekeep opinions is threatened by technology, and we will spin every article to subtly attack that.

</comment><comment><USER20> These windbags did not build the internet.

</comment><comment><USER21> Note: misleading title. This is not about the internet, or the World Wide Web, it's about Facebook and other social media networks. The very first sentences seems to conflate internet and Facebook:

"Something has gone wrong with the internet. Even Mark Zuckerberg knows it. Testifying before Congress, the Facebook CEO ticked off a list of everything his platform has screwed up"

<comment><AUTHOR> It's an interview, actually. The important part is below, where "the people who built it" talk about what went wrong. It's about the Internet since the beginning.

Instead of taking the actual title, I decided to use the title in the URL which is more accurate.

<comment><USER21> The people who built it did not build the internet, they built the social platforms and ad systems that run on top of the internet. The internet existed long before these people built what they built.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, we all know that. But how many users did the early Internet have, and how many now? And who helped it grow? People like those who contemplate in the interview.

<comment><USER16> Facebook wasn't that early to the internet. When it opened for public access in 2006, there were 1 billion internet users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The author of this article needs to stay after class and write "Mark Zuckerberg did not create the internet" 100 times on the blackboard.

<comment><USER23> That point of view is what a lot of "typical" users of the internet think. The internet is Facebook and Google and maybe Twitter. They don't separate the network from those platforms. Some don't even have a clear idea that links they follow from Facebook or Twitter lead to websites that are distinct from those platforms.

<comment><AUTHOR> ...and they want the users to keep thinking that. The online ad industry is awfully quiet, you do not hear or read anywhere how lucrative it is.

The users shall keep thinking that the Internet is for Facebook. The boards of the online companies shall keep focusing on growth at all cost. That's what the article actually says. And the interview below confirms it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Facebook is not the internet, and Mr. Zuckerberg had literally _nothing to do with building any single piece of the entire internet_.

The story is about Facebook and Zuckerberg and the headline is misleading. More importantly, why are garbage stories from "journalists" who don't know the material they're writing about ending up on HN?

<comment><USER24> >More importantly, why are garbage stories from "journalists" who don't know the material they're writing about ending up on HN?

I think the idea is that people here can deconstruct the post and point out its flaws (as you started to in your first paragraph). Then other folks on the web can link to them.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> That's absolutely stupid - the internet's been the best thing to happen to the earth in millennia, if not ever. Apologizing for it would be like apologizing for modern medicine.

> Ellen Pao, former CEO of Reddit. Filed major gender-discrimination lawsuit > against VC firm Kleiner Perkins.

> Can Duruk, programmer and tech writer. Served as project lead at Uber.

Ah. These people. Not sure what they've built, really. Certainly not the internet. Pao certainly didn't build reddit, and I'm fairly sure Duruk didn't build the first prototype of Uber.

> Richard Stallman, MIT programmer. Created legendary software GNU and Emacs.

First of all, it's not "GNU Plus Internet;" secondly, Stallman barely even _uses_ the internet and even _stopped programming_ way before it was relevant. GNU isn't software. I'm also 80% sure those quotes of him are fake.

<comment><USER7> Pao also _lost_ her discrimination suit. That fact is conveniently left out of her history. I can claim anything I want but if a jury finds my claims to be false, I don't know how that makes me some sort of expert (let alone someone who "created" the internet).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> The rise of White Supremacy makes total sense here when you consider that racism is an effective system of oppression because it subjugates whites as well as non-whites by sowing fear of downward mobility among the lighter population while vilifying the disenfranchised.

If one is white and has problems, the goal is to hate these darker people that can't really fight back. Allow the real exploiters a free hand.

<comment><USER8> If your a shitty person maybe. While I feel your frustration, it's important to stay grounded in the real world, where people are still more often good.

<comment><USER17> Not shitty, just very susceptible to being scared. Scared people are rarely "good."

<comment><USER8> If you hate because your scared you're shitty.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Generic lists for C - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/udp/list

<comment><USER2> Note also /usr/include/sys/queue.h for intrusive lists.</comment>


220 Dates for the End of the World - <AUTHOR> http://www.bible.ca/pre-date-setters.htm

<comment><USER2> With this kind of web design, I understand why they keep talking about the end of the world.

</comment><comment><USER3> Its funny how intense the activity was in the 90s until 2001. Maybe the Internet is letting the twits connect like never before.

Then its like they took a break for a couple of years after 9/11. Too much reality knocks out the fantasy for awhile.

</comment><comment><USER4> I think they should include the prediction that the Large Hadron Collidor would open a black hole.

</comment><comment><USER5> "It's the End of the World as we Know it ... Again" is another reference site for end of the world predictions: <http://alma-geddon.com/></comment>


Press love Apple, more than half think positively about their new products - <AUTHOR> http://financeai.com/stock/nasdaq/aapl

<comment><USER2> This is interesting, buy I'm not completely understanding the graph.

The 'return' is what is confusing me. It seems that may be the stock price, but then the far right axis is labelled return in percent, but that percent would need to take into account when the stock was bought or sold. Or is it a field of 'change'.

I'd like to see a simpler graph of sentiment mapped against price.</comment>


First Retire... Then Get Rich - <AUTHOR> http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/14/first-retire-then-get-rich/ <comment><USER2> Having enough money to live if you stop spending money isn't rich, rich is having enough money that you can spend and you don't have any long term concerns. $500,000 (or even a million) for the rest of your life is not rich, it's being _secure_. If you can't buy a new sports car on a whim you're not rich. The plan (save and then live off of the returns) is sound and if you're a careful spender it's great, but to say you're rich is a big stretch.

Pitching this as something that will make you _rich_ creates terrible expectations of what the plan actually is.

<comment><USER3> I heard the best definition of rich from the Cosby show:

If you work for your money you're not rich. You are rich if your money works for you.

<comment><USER4> "Some people are so poor, all they have is money."

<comment><USER5> I would love to be that poor.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _Over time, this $20,000 stream accumulates and compounds at 5% after inflation, and raises their combined net worth by an additional $1.329 million over the next 30 years._

It wasn't mentioned, but I guess the money is being reinvested in equities. 5% is a stretch goal seeing as the savings rate in the US is around 1% (or less). Inflation there is running at about 2-3%. I see no talk of capital gains taxes or broker fees in there, so I'm a bit skeptical when people throw around instant, magical compounding calculations that net a million dollars.

Oh, it's _5% after inflation_ which means the money is compounding at approx. 8% or so. That's a very lofty goal!

<comment><USER7> 5% after inflation is a rule of thumb he has for a long term investment portfolio. He talks about it more here: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/10/post-4-what-am- i-s...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/10/post-4-what-am-i-supposed- to-do-with-all-this-money/) . I'm not sure what the US saving rate has to do with anything.

<comment><USER8> From the article:

\- buying a conservative dividend-paying stock index fund – go to Vanguard.com and start an account to buy some units of the VFINX fund, or if you have a brokerage account you can buy SPY shares. \- last resort: just putting the money into a cash account that pays the highest level of interest you can find – Vanguard's Prime Money Market fund or ING Direct's Orange Savings Account.

VFINX is a -0.76% for 5 years ING Orange is currently at 0.80%

How can you assume 5% after inflation? That is no different that assuming that home prices will go up by 2-3% a year. It sounds reasonable but there is no way of knowing exactly how that will play out.

<comment><USER9> you could invest is in australia, where banks are giving 5-6% on regular savings accounts: <http://www.savingsaccounts.com.au/>

<comment><USER10> Good luck with that if you're American. Thanks to the new IRS regs, a lot of foreign banks won't do business with Americans.

[http://www.accountingtoday.com/debits_credits/Taxpayers- Stra...](http://www.accountingtoday.com/debits_credits/Taxpayers-Strained-New- FATCA-Requirements-62356-1.html)

<comment><USER11> I don't think it's ever been feasible; most countries won't let you open a bank account unless you have an address in the country, unless you're in some kind of special situation, like a "high net-worth individual" interested in private banking services.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> If the goal of retirement is beach-sitting I don't want it. Money is energy of your experiments in life and if you spend bare minimum you are missing a lot in life. I would rather work on what I love for the entire life and create more possibilities to get rich. Spending $20,000/year sounds like going on hibernation mode for the rest of your life. Its a plan for people who are chronically lazy.

<comment><USER13> Spending $20,000/year seems impossible in the US.

Unless you have a trust fund or came into money early, just saving $50,000 a year for the last 10 years was pretty tough. You'd need to go without health insurance and probably already own a home. Be in a high-pay, low schooling job. No kids, no un-employed spouse, no pets. No health problems. No job or startup failures. NO MISTAKES.

The people who have accomplished this exist but are few and far between. They are the extreme exception, definitely not even a corollary to the rule.

<comment><USER14> > Spending $20,000/year seems impossible in the US.

It's not impossible at all. Get rid of all your high reoccurring monthly expenses. Cell phone. Cable. Gym. etc. You absolutely don't need any of that junk. It's just keeping you at work. It can be inconvenient not to have a cell phone, but a lot less inconvenient than spending 38/hrs a week at work.

Also, it's important to keep reminding yourself you live in the consumption capital of the world. The entire US is geared towards spending money, and you will be encouraged to do so many times per day. Your friends, family, colleagues, dentist and the guy at the gym are all going to encourage you to spend money - it's just how the society works. You will have to develop a think skin, and remind yourself to resist spending money at every opportunity.

I'm in Canada, and I feel the pull to spend money here daily. ("Come grab a coffee with us". "checkout this new canoe you should buy". "I found a good deal on...". ""pfft. I get unlimited free texts for only $50/mo." ... etc. etc. etc.

At the end of the day, it's your choice if you want to keep spending money and going to work, or cut out the spending to limit the amount of time you need to go to work.

NOTE: I'm from Australia, lived and worked in the US for a year, now have lived and worked in Canada for 6 years and my family live and work in NYC, so I have some perspective on "consumerism"

<comment><USER11> _The entire US is geared towards spending money, and you will be encouraged to do so many times per day._

This is true to some extent, but it also varies a lot by social groups. If your social group is all people making $100k+, there's a lot more of this casual spending, and more entertainment and socializing is oriented around money-costing activities. If your social group makes less money, the amount of money-spending peer pressure gets somewhat less.

An odd aspect of it is that people who make more money generally have nicer living places, yet seem _less_ likely to use them. With people who make a lot of money, the default is always to meet up at a restaurant, a cocktail place, etc.; whereas among my friends who make less money, dinner parties, house parties, etc. are much more common, even though their housing is considerably more modest.

<comment><USER15> My experience is the opposite. Rich people throw house parties. Poor people go to the bar.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I would not call this "Financial Freedom through Badassity" (his site's tagline), it's more like "Financial Freedom through Being Frugal".

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

<comment><USER17> Agreed, and while I would love to reliably get a 5% return above the inflation rate, its not always so straight forward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This reminds of a conversation I had with a Uncle of mine some weeks back. He is sort of Semi Retired. So I asked him how can one retire at 40.

There came the answer, he asked me to define retirement. After some answers and counter questions he asked me to look at it this way. Retirement is not doing 'nothing ever after'. Retirement is basically having enough money to not fear getting fired, to not worry about bills, expenses, food, clothes, fuel, health care and kids education. Then when you are this free, go and work on what you always wanted to work on. May be that is music, may be that is apple farming or whatever. But when you go down this route, you never stop working. Except that you now work on things you enjoy.

But if your definition of retirement is doing 'nothing ever after'. Then you sure need lots and lots of cash, real estate, good insurance and kids who can take care of you in old age. That is difficult to achieve, assuming you don't win the start up lottery. After total analysis(I'm 27 currently), this is what I believe can make you rich.

        a. Never have credit card,loans or any kind of debt.
           Interest is a dangerous thing and often eats most
           of your earnings.
        b. Understand how much you need to save and invest.
           Get a good savings and investment plan *now*.
        c. Productivity is extremely important because you are
           working against time.
        d. Have side projects, that can be monetized. Do not
           work for your company for more than what they pay
           you.
        e. Use every savings and investment opportunity, even if
           it means saving and investing little.

With a little hard work, clever savings, investments and avoiding debts and interests any person go far. Also I don't get blind consumerism to keep buying stuff you just don't need at all.

With all this and monetizable side projects any person can be financially stable by 40-45ish to have money to relax and take life as it is supposed to be taken.

</comment><comment><USER18> The fictional example forgets to factor in unexpected health costs, emotional distress from no close family and living in a shack in a war torn village.

Okay, slight over exaggeration but anyone could retire early. However it takes sacrifice. It usually involves living away from your family and living in a second/third world country. It assumes you have no unplanned costs (health, weather...). Not terrible but worth considering before quitting your job.

<comment><USER7> Where do you get living in a third world country? The numbers are reasonable ballpark figures taken from real people living in America. With spouses and kids and health insurance that covers medical disasters.

<comment><USER19> Health insurance for my family of 5 is about 7 grand a year, and food is about 6 grand, and utilities are about 3 grand (Internet/water/electric/gas). That's 15 grand before transportation, rent, or any luxuries. I frankly have no idea how a family with children can live on 15-30 grand a year without being in constant stress.

<comment><USER14> You just added up to 15k for the very basics. Let's throw in another 12k for rent, 5k for transport, and 5k for "fun". So you're at 37k in expenses.

Assuming you have two adults here with an "income"* of 20k each, you've still got 3k spare. I'll bet after a few years of that you'll get better at it and can reduce your spending even more.

Keep in mind you've been conditioned into thinking you need to spend money to have a good time, i.e. Disneyland, movie theater etc. This is not true.

*NOTE: "income" could be anything you want it to be, it doesn't have to come from going to work.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I'm pretty sure nobody in this story lives in San Francisco.

<comment><USER21> Actually, MMM lives in the SF Bay Area.

See [http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per- yea...](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-year.html) as also seen in @ProCynic's post.

Edit: ok, fail.

<comment><USER7> That's Jacob Fisker. MMM lives in Colorado.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This certainly doesn't sound like very much fun. You slave away for 15 years to get your $500k stash. And then, once you've gotten there, you retire, and end up cutting back on expenses by driving a shitty car, quitting your gym, etc. Now, you just "sit back" and wait 30 years for your $1m to roll in. Then you're 65 and practically dead. (Oh and don't forget, inflation is ignored here and has probably eaten well into your real returns.)

Better to save up enough money to live on semi-comfortably for a year or two (say, $200k) and make a leap out of the ratrace. Start a business that has the potential to generate a large amount of income quickly with low startup costs and be sold as equity for a high price after some time. Fail, and repeat for the next two years. Hopefully at some point you will get cash flow positive and will not be forced back into the rat race. If you've played your cards right your incoming cash flows will largely be passive, leaving you the freedom to expand into new areas in the quest for high growth. One can imagine that after 5 years of being out of the rat race, you will end up stumbling upon a high growth business that can start bringing in serious cash.

After 5 years of effort you will hopefully have $1-5m. You almost certainly will have more than the $250k you started with. Provided you have been smart and not increased your standard of living as you earn this money plug it into safe, income generating investments like bonds, CEFs, and dividend value stocks.

Congratulations, you can now kill off any income streams you may have had that were taking up time (and were not passive) and can decide if you want to live on the interest or continue searching for more growth, to get you to that $10m point where the interest starts being "I think I will buy a new car today" levels. You're also probably in your late 30s early 40s and can actually still enjoy life.

<comment><USER14> You're missing the point of being "frugal". It's not about "giving up" the "good life" and punishing yourself to go without. It's about coming to the realization all that crap isn't making you happier anyway, so better not to go to work to earn money to buy it.

I drive a $450 car, have no TV or cell phone and have never been happier in my life.

> Now, you just "sit back" and wait 30 years for your $1m to roll in.

When you say "Sit back" what you really mean is "do whatever you want with your time". It's important to note that doesn't mean doing nothing - it means exploring your passions and dreams, which could be anything from volunteering at the homeless shelter to contributing to open source projects to building that deck on your house to actually raising your own kids instead of sending them off to expensive childcare. I sure as hell don't sit around and do nothing when I'm not at work.

> Then you're 65 and practically dead.

That's the whole reason you need to get out of work NOW! At this rate, you'll (everyone) will be sitting at a desk until they are "practically dead". At least if you get out of work now, you can enjoy the years between now and 65 doing whatever the hell you want to every day. And, of course, all the years that come after 65 too.

>"I think I will buy a new car today"

I actually have never bought a new car, and have no interest in doing so. If you actually want to buy a new car today, then you have linked happiness with money, and it will be very hard for you to live the frugal life which lets you go to work less.

<comment><USER22> The problem is in the "do whatever you want with your time" phase you actually aren't "doing whatever you want with your time." You are doing things that don't cost much money to do, like volunteer at a homeless shelter or contribute to open source projects. If that is your life's passion, good for you, and maybe this plan would work.

But also, don't forget, during this 'early retirement' you're in a very risky financial situation full of worry for a very long time. (Probably the rest of your life.) If a $50k hospital bill comes your way, you're in a bad spot. You're potentially drawing down your assets over the years if you spend a little bit more than you thought you would so the risk could go up over time. In the approach above I outlined you still go into a period of risk, but it's shorter (with higher risk) since after a point you are shielded from financial worries.

The "buy a new car today" example was just that, an example. It could also mean "travel to Italy to work on my open source project out of a coffeeshop" or "open up my own homeless shelter to help my local community."

<comment><USER14> > you actually aren't "doing whatever you want with your time."

Each person needs to sit down and think about what they would do if they didn't have to go to work every day. (the old "what if you won $100mil question) it's important. Actually think about it, and make it happen. I drove from Alaska to Argentina for 2 years. I'd call that doing whatever I want.

> If a $50k hospital bill comes your way

Because the whole "career" and "retire at 65" approaches are such rigid paths, many people seem to think an alternative lifestyle/approach to money is equally rigid and inflexible. If huge bills were to pile up, you could just go to work, full or part time as required. It's a very flexible thing to do. Also, I live in a country where medical expenses are not a concern.

You keep thinking that if I don't have some money behind me, my choices about how I spend my time will be limited. What you don't realize, is because you are going to work every day, you don't even get any choices.

Would you rather not be at work on Monday morning and get the choice between a (free) walk in the park or a drive in your $500 car, or be at work thinking about the $100k Ferrari you might have one day?

<comment><USER22> I'm not proposing that you be at work every day either. I'm proposing you spend an extra 5 years after you exit the rat race (earlier than you would here) to secure a 7 figure sum and a series of passive income streams to ensure absolute financial freedom, and defer your "do whatever you want phase" by a few, but not many, years.

So, the timeline goes from this:

\- Phase 1 (years 1-5) : Save $500k

\- Phase 2 (years 5-30): Live frugally but without working for 25 years but without true financial freedom while interest accrues

\- Phase 3 (year 30): Reach true financial security after you build wealth via the markets somehow (risky) and no longer worry about money whatsoever. You are now old and your liklihood of getting here by building wealth via the markets is probably lower than you think.

Alternate reality:

\- Phase 1 (year 1-2): Save aggressively $200k by living like a bum.

\- Phase 2: (years 3-8): With your independence, start a series of high growth ventures (some of which will fail) and work incredibly hard to build wealth. By year 5 you should be cash flow positive, by year 8 you should have $1-5m.

\- Phase 3: (years 9-15): You are completely financially secure with a passive risk free income on interest of $150k-250k/yr on your cash sum. This is time for you to decide if your dreams require more passive income than that. If so, spend this time continuing to work independently and building wealth. If not, you're retired here and can do what you please on your 6-figure risk free salary.

\- Phase 4 (optional): Get to $10m-20m in the bank. Congratulations you now have $500k-1m a year to play with and literally do whatever you want if your dreams so require it.

<comment><USER7> This is perfectly compatible with the MMM plan. Nothing says that you can't spend as much of your retirement as you like on high growth ventures. The definition if retirement here is no longer being financially dependent on the rat race. Though I will note that this will work even better if you learn to enjoy living frugally. Every dollar you don't spend is less time you HAVE to spend working.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Does Mr Mustache not know how to make paragraph breaks? His plan sounds like the austerity plan they are giving Greece.↓

<comment><USER7> Paragraph breaks was a wordpress bug. [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/14/first-retire- then-...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/05/14/first-retire-then-get- rich/#comment-34211)

<comment><USER23> Okay, great.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> Does the 4% withdraw rate account for inflation? If not, 20K will worth very little in 30 years.

<comment><USER25> 4% is a commonly used estimate for the average annualized _real_ return on the stock market - so yes, a real return adjusted for inflation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> For those of us who don't follow this site, is there a suggestion as to where the initial half million dollars comes from? That's not always an attainable goal for someone under about 40...

<comment><USER7> It comes from a 50%-90% savings rate. The focus of the site is on how to live a nice middle class life on very little money. Here's how he did it: [http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history- of...](http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/09/15/a-brief-history-of-the-stash- how-we-saved-from-zero-to-retirement-in-ten-years/) . Or if you want to get extreme: [http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per- yea...](http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-year.html)

<comment><USER27> It's also worth noting he's not actually retired, he's actually a self- employed handyman and also says in the article his wife works too and plans on working more when their boy is older.

<comment><USER4> Mr. Money Mustache defines "retired" as being able to do whatever he enjoys, including work he enjoys. From what I can tell by reading his blog for the past couple of months, he has no desire to sit around on a beach or play golf all day.

<comment><USER15> And the rest of us define retired as not having to work to pay our bills. I like my job, but if I got hurt or laid off I would have trouble.

<comment><USER4> True, most of us define retired that way. I don't think Mr. Money needs to work anymore either, but he/they do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This isn't really a millions miles away from what Tim Ferris is suggesting in 4 Hour Work Week (which everyone seems to universally hold up as the best self help book ever ... I disagree) but going about it in a different way. I think all ideas like this have merit in certain circumstances, the trick is to realise that it won't all apply to your situation and that you should take the basic principles and see if it fits for what you want in life.

</comment><comment><USER29> This is the strategy of weak people. If it is actually used, in the way prescribed, by an average middle class American it will inevitably lead to financial ruin.

The only people who can realistically live off of this strategy are investors who know what their doing and can easily make orders of magnitude more than this using their own methods.

Though if you think this is the strategy for you, then more power to you. Can I just get you to sign a waiver that bars you from whining to the government or big business when it doesn't work out for you?

<comment><USER14> > This is the strategy of weak people. If it is actually used, in the way > prescribed, by an average middle class American it will inevitably lead to > financial ruin.

It's worth pointing out you've been conditioned to think this is the strategy of weak people. Who are you to call someone else "weak" for choosing to spend less time at a job? This person is not going to have a big screen TV like you, not going to drive a fancy car like you and has a few thousand square feet less than you to live in. These are all choices we are free to make, and calling someone "weak" for that is unproductive and pointless.

You've been manipulated into thinking you _must_ work full-time until a few years before your life expectancy is up, and anything else is "weak". This is a lie.

It's also interesting you think it will lead to financial ruin. If everyone did this, it would undoubtedly lead to lower growth than we have now, and, as sad as it sounds, many corporations would not be making billion dollar profits year over year. Of course, millions and millions of people would have more time to enjoy with their families and to pursue their dreams.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Dumb.</comment>


Ask HN: Lightest Linux distribution (DE agnostic) - <AUTHOR> Okay, now I realise that this question has been asked and answered way too many times to be asked here, but I noticed that at every single place possible, the distributions are compared keeping the distribution in mind. When they say Ubuntu, they mean Unity, Debian means gnome and so on. But consider if all distros used the same DE (say XFCE)? In my opinion, this would help us choose better.<p>Thanks in advance <comment><USER2> Puppy Linux. ([http://puppylinux.org](http://puppylinux.org)) It runs from memory. That means it's super light.

On second thought, you can make Archlinux ([https://www.archlinux.org/](https://www.archlinux.org/)) really light. It doesn't run on memory but you can choose very easily whatever DE or services you want. So it's possible to make Arch super lightweight more easily than say, Ubuntu.

<comment><AUTHOR> As a matter of fact, I have been using Manjaro _right now_. Thanks for clarifying that Arch does infact beat other distros in terms of speed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> DistroWatch ([https://distrowatch.com/](https://distrowatch.com/))

[https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&o...](https://distrowatch.com/search.php?ostype=All&category=All&origin=All&basedon=All&notbasedon=None&desktop=Xfce&architecture=All&package=All&rolling=All&isosize=All&netinstall=All&language=All&status=Active#simple)

</comment><comment><USER4> I've always found that Slitaz was the lightest I've found. [http://www.slitaz.org/en/](http://www.slitaz.org/en/) Comes in at a 35 mb download.</comment>


The 25 worst passwords of 2013: 'password' gets dethroned - <AUTHOR> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2089244/the-25-worst-passwords-of-2013-password-gets-dethroned.html <comment><USER2> That's flawed logic. Most of the analysis comes from the Adobe leakage, and arguably a large share of users there didn't care about this service and used an easy and weak password. It would be much more interesting to have stats from active gmail accounts or bank accounts, for instance.

<comment><USER3> If the users intend to use some site only once but the site forces the users to make passwords, this is unsurprisingly what the passwords will be.

The users are actually quite smart in deciding how much effort is adequate for the realistically expected risk _to them._ Unless their perception is manipulated.

</comment></comment><comment> guard-of-terra Passwords are bullshit and it is our failure as an industry: we should be moving away from passwords.

<comment><USER4> and use what authenticators?

<comment> guard-of-terra We should figure it out. Some cryptography obviously, safe but recoverable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> > 4\. qwerty

> 23\. azerty

Thank you france.</comment>