Running Postgres in Kubernetes [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://static.sched.com/hosted_files/ossna2020/fc/Running%20Postgres-as-a-Service%20in%20Kubernetes.pdf <comment><USER2> Unless you have a really good shared storage, I don't see any advantage for running Postgres in Kubernetes. Everything is more complicated without any real benefit. You can't scale it up, you can't move pod. If pg fails to start for some reason, good luck jumping into container to inspect/debug stuff. I am neither going to upgrade PG every 2 weeks nor it is my fresh new microservice that needs to be restarted when it crashes or scaled up when I need more performances. And PG has high availability solution which kind of orthogonal to what k8s offers.

One could argue that for sake of consistency you could run PG in K8S, but that is just hammer & nail argument for me.

But if you have a really good shared storage, then it is worth considering. But, I still don't know if any network attached storage can beat local attached RAID of Solid state disks in terms of performance and/or latency. And there is/was fsync bug, which is terrible in combination with somewhat unreliable network storage.

For me, I see any database the same way I see etcd and other components of k8s masters: they are the backbone. And inside cluster I run my apps/microservices. This apps are subject to frequent change and upgrades and thus profit most from having automatic recovery, failover, (auto)scaling, etc.

<comment><USER3> You don't run shared/network storage. You run PVCs on local storage and you run an HA setup. You ship log files every 10s/30s/1m to object storage. You test your backups regularly which k8s is great for.

All of this means that I don't worry about most things you mention. PG upgrade? Failover and upgrade the pod. Upgrade fails? wal-g clone from object storage and rejoin cluster. Scaling up? Adjust the resource claims. If resource claims necessitate node migration, see failover scenario. It's so resilient. And this is all with raid 10 nvme direct attached storage just as fast as any other setup.

You mention etcd but people don't run etcd the way you're describing postgres. You run a redundant cluster that can achieve quorum and tolerate losses. If you follow that paradigm, you end up with postgres on k8s.

<comment><USER4> It sounds pretty simple and enticing. Any problems convincing the team of this route?

<comment><USER5> Speaking from experience..

This is fine if you have a small single node database that can have some downtime. Once you need replicas, to fit your database in ram for performance, or reliability with a hot standby for failovers it becomes a lot more complicated.

You should consider what (if anything) you miss out on by just running in a single vm that you can scale out much easier down the road should you need to. Alternatively pay extra for a hosted solution that simplifies those steps further.

<comment><USER3> > single vm that you can scale out much easier

I'm not sure how experience could lead you to this conclusion. This wouldn't work for any of our production needs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> That looks very interesting and super complex.

I wonder how many companies really need this complexity, I bet 99.99% of the companies could get away with vertical scaling the writes and horizontal scaling the read only replica which would reduce the number of moving parts a lot.

I have yet to play much with kubernetes but when I see those diagrams it just baffles me how people are OK with running so much complexity in their technical stack.

<comment><USER7> It actually is not that complex. I'm using Crunchy Postgres Operator at my current employer. You get an Ansible playbook to install an Operator inside Kubernetes, and after that you get a commandline administration tool that let's you create a cluster with a simple

pgo create cluster <cluster_name>

command.

Most administrative tasks like creating or restoring backups (which can be automatically pushed to S3) are just one or two pgo commands.

The linked pdf looks complex, because it:

a. compares 3 different operators

b. goes into implementation details that most users are shielded from.

And I'm actually not sure which one of the three operators is the author recommending :)

<comment><USER8> I agree that the k8s ecosystem isn't quite as complex as it seems at first, but specifically running stateful apps does come pretty close to earning the bad reputation.

(Disclaimer: I've tried and failed several times to get pgsql up and running in k8s with and without operators, so that either makes me unqualified to discuss this, or perfectly qualified to discuss this)

If the operator were simple enough to be installed/uninstalled via a helm chart that Just Worked, I'd feel better about the complexity. But running a complicated, non-deterministic ansible playbook scares me. The other options (installing a pgo installer, or installing an installer to your cluster) are no better.

Also, configuring the operator is more complicated than it should be. Devs and sysadmins alike are used to `brew install postgresql-server` or `apt install postgresql-server` working just fine for 99% of use cases. I'll grant that it's not apples-to-apples since HA pgsql has never been easy, but if the sales pitch is that any superpower-less k8s admin can now run postgres, I think the manual should be shorter.

<comment><USER9> I run multi terabyte, billions of rows HA postgres in kubernetes using a helm chart and Patroni (baked into the chart), which uses the native k8s API for automatic failover and pgbackrest for seamlessly provisioning new replicas. It's a single helm chart and is by far the easiest DBA I've ever done in many years.

<comment><USER10> I realise this is possibly asking you to give away secret sauce, but is this written up anywhere? Having an example to point at to be able to say "Look, this isn't scary, we can contemplate retiring that nasty lump of tin underneath that Oracle instance after all" would be quite a valuable contribution.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Please don't. It's not because it's possible that it is a good idea. The PDF itself clearly shows how it can get complex quickly. The great majority of people won't ever be able to do this properly, securely and with decent reliability. Of course I may have to swallow my words in the future in case a job requires it but unless you REALLY REALLY REALLY need PostgreSQL inside Kubernetes IMHO you should just stick with private RDS or Cloud SQL then point your Kubernetes workloads to it inside your VPCs, all peered etc. Your SRE mental health, your managers and company costs will thank you.

<comment><USER12> I've done MySQL RDS, and I've seen k8s database setups. (But not w/ PG.)

RDS is okay, but I would not dismiss the maintenance work required; RDS puts you at the mercy of AWS when things go wrong. We had a fair bit of trouble with failovers taking 10x+ longer than they should. We also set up encryption, and _that_ was also a PITA: we'd consistently get nodes with incorrect subjectAltNames. (Also, at the time, the certs were either for a short key or signed by a short key, I forget which. It was not acceptable at that time, either; this was only 1-2 years ago, and I'm guessing hasn't been fixed.) Getting AWS to actually investigate, instead of "have you tried upgrading" (and there's _always_ an upgrade, it felt like). RDS MySQL's (maybe Aurora? I don't recall fully) first implementation of spatial indexes was flat-out _broken_ , and that was another lengthy support ticket. The point is that bugs will happen, and cloud platform support channels are _terrible_ at getting an engineer in contact with an engineer who can actually do something about the problem.

<comment><USER13> I'm a DBA, so I'll do a deep dive into your comment:

\- RDS is awesome overall - there's no maintenance work required on your part. If you think encryption is a problem, don't use it until later. Since RDS is a managed service, I just tell compliance auditors, "It's a managed service."

\- Aurora had issues (um, alpha quality) for the first year or so. So don't use new databases in the first 5 years for production, as recommended.

<comment><USER12> > _there 's no maintenance work required on your part._

The post of mine you are replying to outlines maintenance work we had to do on an actual RDS instance. My point is that you shouldn't weigh managed solutions as maintenance-free: they're not (and examples of why and how they are not are in the first post). They _might_ win out, and they do have a place, but if you're evaluating them as "hassle-free", you will be disappointed.

> _If you think encryption is a problem, don 't use it until later._

We had compliance requirements that required encryption, so waiting until later was not an option.

> _Since RDS is a managed service, I just tell compliance auditors, "It's a > managed service."_

I'm not a big fan of giving compliance auditors half-truths that mislead them into thinking we're doing something we're not.

> _So don 't use new databases in the first 5 years for production, as > recommended._

You mean we should run our own? (/s… slightly.) We were exploring Aurora as the performance of normal RDS was not sufficient. Now, there was _plenty_ we could have done better in other area, particularly in the database schema department, but Aurora was thought to be the most pragmatic option.

<comment><USER13> I bet your life is tough, being as dumb as a box of rocks.

The above answers are from somebody who doesn't know what they're talking about, either about database administration or compliance.

<comment><USER14> Ok, that's enough. Given that [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23670678](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23670678) was just a couple days ago, we've banned this account.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> In my personal opinion, there are three database types.

'Small' Databases are the first, and are easy to dump into kubernetes. Anything DB with a total storage requirement 100GB or less (if I lick my finger and try to measure the wind), really, can be easily containerized, dumped into kubernetes and you will be a happy camper because it makes prod / dev testing easy, and you don't really need to think too much here.

'Large' database are too big to seriously put into a container. You will run into storage and networking limits for cloud providers. Good luck transferring all that data off bare metal! Your tables will more than likely need to be sharded to even start thinking about gaining any benefit from kubernetes. From my own rubric, my team runs a "large" Mysql database with large sets of archived data that uses more storage that managed cloud SQL solutions can provide. It would take us months to re-design to take advantage of the Mysql Clustering mechanisms, along with following the learning curve that comes with it.

'Massive' databases need to be planned and designed from "the ground up" to live in multiple regions, and leverage respective clustering technologies. Your tables are sharded, replicated and backed up, and you are running in different DCs attempting to serve edge traffic. Kubernetes wins here as well, but, as the OP suggests, not without high effort. K8S give you the scaling and operational interface to manage hundreds of database nodes.

It seems weird to me that the Vitess and OP belabour their Monitoring, Pooling, and Backup story, when I think the #1 reason you reach for an orchestrator in these problem spaces is scaling.

All that being said, my main point here is that orchestration technologies are tools, and picking the right one is hard , but can be important :) Databases can go into k8s! Make it easy on yourself and choose the right databases to put there

</comment><comment><USER16> So, a bit OT, but I'm looking for some advice on building a Postgres cluster, and I'm pretty sure k8s is going to add a lot of complexity with no benefit.

I'm a Postgres fan, and use it a lot, but I've never actually used it in a clustered setup.

What I'm looking at clustering for is not really for scalability (still at the stage where we can scale vertically), but for high availability and backup - if one node is done for update, or crashes, the other node can take over, and I'd also ideally like point-in-time restore.

There seems to be a plethora of OSS projects claiming to help with this, so it looks like there isn't "one true way" \- I'd love to hear how people are actually setting up their Postgres clusters for in practice?

<comment><USER17> Compared to many databases, postgres HA is a mess. It has builtin streaming, but no fail over of any kind, all of that has to be managed by another application.

We've had the best luck with patron, but even then you'll find the documentation confusing, have weird issues, etc. You'll need to setup etcd/Consul to use it. That's right you need a second database cluster to setup your database cluster.... Great...

I have no clue how such a community favorite database has no clear solution to basic HA.

<comment><USER3> Very true. My sentiments exactly as Spilo/Patroni users. One benefit to k8s is you can use it as the DCS for Patroni

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Google Cloud blog, gently dissuading you from running a traditional DB in K8s: [https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/to-run- or-n...](https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/databases/to-run-or-not-to- run-a-database-on-kubernetes-what-to-consider)

K8s docs explaining how to run MySQL: [https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run- application/run-replica...](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/run- application/run-replicated-stateful-application/)

You could also run it with Nomad, and skip a few layers of complexity: [https://learn.hashicorp.com/nomad/stateful-workloads/host- vo...](https://learn.hashicorp.com/nomad/stateful-workloads/host-volumes) / [https://mysqlrelease.com/2017/12/hashicorp-nomad-and-app- dep...](https://mysqlrelease.com/2017/12/hashicorp-nomad-and-app-deployment- with-mysql/)

One of the big problems of K8s is it's a monolith. It's designed for a very specific kind of org to run microservices. Anything else and you're looking at an uphill battle to try to shim something into it.

You can also skip all the automatic scheduling fancyness and just build system images with Packer, and deploy them however you like. If you're on a cloud provider, you can choose how many instances of what kind (manager, read- replica) you deploy, using the storage of your choice, networking of choice, etc. Then later you can add cluster scheduling and other features as needed. This gradual approach to DevOps allows you to get something up and running using best practices, but without immediately incurring the significant maintenance, integration, and performance/availability costs of a full-fledged K8s.

<comment><USER19> > One of the big problems of K8s is it's a monolith

while I pretty much agree with everything else you mention, I think it's kind of the opposite; since k8s is fundamentally an API, it's very modular and extensible and this is why it's being successful (I agree it wants you to do things its way and things like databases need to be shimmed at the moment, so the conclusion is similar... for now)

<comment><USER18> It _looks_ like microservices from the high level. But then you dig into each component, and realize that other than using APIs, they still require all the other components, use a shared storage layer, sometimes use non-standard protocols. The kube-controller-manager alone is literally a tiny monolith: a single binary with 5 different controllers in it. K8s operates like a monolith because you mostly can't just remove one layer and have it keep running.

Compare that to HashiCorp's tools. You can run a K8s-like system composed mostly of Hashi's tools, but you can also run each of those tools as a single complete unit of just itself. Now, each of those tools is actually multiple components in one, like mini-monoliths. But in operation, they can work together or as independent services. The practical result is truly stand-alone yet reusable and interoperable components. That's the kind of DevOps methodology I like: buy a wheelbarrow today and hitch it to an ATV next week, rather than going out and buying a combine harvester before you need it.

<comment><USER19> Yes, these are very good points, all true, thanks.

I still think that while this monolith has its drawbacks, the fact that any component can be substituted as long as it confirms to the official API is really powerful. For example k3s uses sqlite instead of etcd.

Having small components that do one thing well (Unix philosophy) is certainly one way to go (I still haven't found somebody who doesn't love Hashicorp tooling, myself included) but the k8s idea of having one (big, possibly bloated for many cases) "standard" way of doing things while being customizable/extensible is really powerful. If Hashi came up with some (extendible) glue/package tooling then a lot of people doing/looking at k8s right now will seriously look at them (myself included).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I much prefer just using RDS Aurora. Far fewer headaches. If I don't need low latency I'd use RDS Aurora no matter which cloud I'm hosted on. Otherwise I'll use hosted SQL.

The reason I mention this is that Kubernetes requires a lot of management to run so the best solution is to use GKE or things like that. If you're using managed k8s, there's little reason to not use managed SQL.

The advantages of k8s are not that valuable for a SQL server cluster. You don't even really get colocation of data because you're realistically going to use a GCE Persistent Disk or EBS volume and those are network attached anyway.

</comment><comment><USER21> For the MySQL folks, see Vitess as an example on how to run Kubernetes on MySQL: [https://vitess.io](https://vitess.io)

<comment><USER22> There are also MySQL operators from Oracle, Presslabs, and Percona. Vitess is much more than just MySQL in k8s, and not everyone will be able to switch to it easily (if at all).

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> To all the commenters in this thread.

If kubernetes cannot run a database then what good is it? (And I suppose the same issues pop up for things like a persistent queue or a full text indexer.)

The end goal of Kubernetes is to able to create and recreate environments and scale them up and down at will all based a declarative configuration. But if you take databases out of it; then you are not really achieving that goal and just left with the flipside of kubernetes: a really complex setup and a piece of technology that is very hard to master.

<comment><USER24> > he end goal of Kubernetes is to able to create and recreate environments and > scale them up and down at will all based a declarative configuration.

PG already has its own clustering solution to scale up and down, which is orthogonal to Kubernetes. So running PG in Kubernetes does not add anything. Also, you are much more likely to mess them up when trying to mix two orthogonal technologies.

And the DB is not meant to create and recreate often unless you want to purge the data. So my take is this: Kubernetes is to manage and configure microservices and DBs are not microservices.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Postgres + stolon + k8 is the easiest time I've ever had bootstrapping a DB for high availability. I'm not sure I'd use it for extremely high throughput apps, but for smallish datasets that NEED to be online, it was amazing. The biggest reason it's amazing? The dev, staging, and prod environments look exactly the same from a coder's perspective, and bringing a fresh one up is always a single command, because that's just how you work in kube-land.

</comment><comment><USER26> ooh! I've been running the Zalando operator in production on Azure for ~ a year now, nothing crazy but a couple thousand qps and a tb of data spread across a several clusters. It's been a little rough since it was designed for AWS, but pretty fun. At this point, I'm 50/50, our team is small and i'm not sure that the extra complexity added by k8s solved any problems that azures managed postgres product doesn't also solve. We weren't sure we were going to stay on azure at the time we made the decision as well -- if I was running in a hybrid cloud environment I would 100% choose postgres on k8s.

The operator let us ramp up real quickly with postgres as a POC and gave us mature clustering and point-in-time restoration, and the value is 100% there for dev/test/uat instances, but depending on our team growth it might be worth it to switch to managed for some subset of those clusters once "Logical Decoding" goes GA on the azure side. Their hyperscale option looks pretty fun as well, hopefully some day i'll have that much data to play with.

I can also say that the Zalando crew has been crazy responsive on their github, it's an extremely well managed open source project!

</comment><comment><USER27> I have been running my own postgres helm chart with read replication and pgpool2 for three years and never had major trouble. If you're interested check out [https://github.com/sspies8684/helm- repo](https://github.com/sspies8684/helm-repo)

</comment><comment><USER28> Looks interesting but difficult to get the details from just the slides.

Also, not sure why Azure Arc still gets mentioned. I would have expected something more cloud independent.

Our approach, for now, is to use Kubernetes Postgres for dev, test, and even stage, but cloud Postgres for prod. We have one db.yaml that in production just become an endpoint so that all of the services do not even have to know if it is an internal or external Postgres.

Another interesting use of Kubernetes Postgres would be for some transient but bigger than memory store that needs to be queryable for a certain amount of time. It's probably a very niche use-case, but the deployment could be dramatically more straightforward since HA is not performance bound.

</comment><comment><USER29> Why? So you pay more money to AWS? Deploying databases is a solved problem. What's the point of the overhead?

</comment><comment><USER30> What's the use-case for running databases in k8s, is this a widely accepted best practice?

<comment><USER31> I guess I look at it the opposite way - which is why _wouldn 't_ you run everything in k8s once you have the basic investment in it. Let's you spin up new environments, vertical scaling becomes trivial, disaster recovery/business continuity is automatic along with everything else in your k8s environment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> I remember running mongodb one socket had so many gotchas and stuff that it wasn't worth it.

</comment><comment><USER33> I think cockroachDB is designed for this.

<comment><USER34> They've thought about the use case. But it still ends up being a cluster inside a cluster, which sounds potentially pretty bad to me. Clusters of different types, mostly unaware of each other. Schema changes and database version upgrades would be complicated.

<comment><USER35> There certainly are pain points. I don't work on this myself, but one of our other engineers wrote this blog post [0] that discusses the experience of running CockroachDB in k8s and why we chose to use it for our hosted cloud product. Another complication mentioned in there is about how to deal with the multi-region case.

[0] [https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/managed-cockroachdb-on- ku...](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/managed-cockroachdb-on-kubernetes/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> Instead of messing around with Kubernetes, I would rather advocate for something like Amazon RDS.

</comment><comment><USER37> I would agree that the complexity is compounded, having gone through the work automate various operators in kubernetes and the requisite deploy projects for the actual app/service (database) clusters, etc.

The problem is often that the actual costs of maintaining solutions like this isn't always clear and easy to budget for, and perhaps more importantly-- explain to management--this includes the continued costs for engineering time to architect H/A solutions, maintain, research solutions, etc. Add to this the abstraction and compounding of complexity and the plethora of hand-waving blogs, etc.

IMHO, the real problems arise when you deploy a PostgreSQL (via Kubernetes Operator) into an existing multi-AZ cloud-based kubernetes cluster--without knowing and understanding all of the requisite requirements and restrictions. At the time when I was working on deploying postgres clusters with the operator (mid 2019 AIR) there was not a lot (much at all) in the strimzi kafka operator docs about handling multi-AZs in kube with the Kubernetes autoscaler and using cluster ASG's, etc. Note that persistentvolumes and persistentvolumeclaims in the cloud cannot span multiple AZ's--this is a critical concern, especially when you throw in Kubernetes and an ASG (autoscaling group). What this means if you have some app/service running in a specific AZ that has persistentvolumes and claims in that AZ, you must ensure that that app/service stays in that AZ and all of its requisite storage resources must also remain available in that AZ. The complexity that is required to manage this is not trivial for most teams. I.e. some helm charts that I installed (after `helm templating` in our IAC code), configured nodelablels on the existing kube clusters worker nodes--but note that this was not documented in the helm chart BTW. So, when we later did a routine upgrade of the Kubernetes version and the ASGs spawned new worker nodes, that left those aps/services processes effectively hard-coded to use nodes that were terminated by the ASG (as they were older versions that were replaced by the newer versions during the upgrade) and their PV's were in a specific AZ, as noted above.

To do it right, I think you'd need to define AZ-specific storage classes and then ensure that when you are deploying apps/services into kubernetes you ensure that you manage those. Again, from my past experience, when you have Kubernetes in the cloud, with the kubernetes autoscaler, and cloud-based ASG (autoscaling groups), running in an H/A (high-availability i.e. multi-AZ), and now add in stateful requirements using PV's, and now add in very resource intensive apps and services, now this starts to get a bit tricky to maintain-- again--despite what the "experts" might be blogging about. Keep in mind that the companies sponsoring the experts might have teams of 10-15 DevOps Kubernetes engineers managing a cluster. This is something we definitely don't have.

I'm sure it will get better with time, but for now, we are doing all we can to maintain stateful apps/services externally--i.e.: and per your initial post, this would be PostgreSQL with RDS. IMHO, RDS does a fantastic job and allows us to abstract all of this, and we simply deploy our clusters with IAC and forget about them to some degree. For the cost point and specifically regarding resource contention, I think it's an ideal ROI to have the cloud provider worry about failover, H/A database internals, scaling with multi-AZ storage, etc.</comment>


Ask HN: CMS vs. no CMS statistics? - <AUTHOR> Are there current statistics out there about percentages of websites using a CMS
(any CMS) to manage content vs percentages of websites that don't use a CMS at all? I've looked around and don't see much, and certainly nothing current. Thank you. <comment><USER2> Somewhat tangential but: as a general rule a company is either too big or too small to benefit from a CMS. (Not counting brochureware pages - "About", "Contact Us" etc.)

</comment><comment><USER3> [http://builtwith.com/](http://builtwith.com/)</comment>


Van Gogh's Favorite Books - the-enemy https://lithub.com/the-writers-vincent-van-gogh-loved-from-dickens-to-beecher-stowe/ <comment><AUTHOR> I think this article tells more about the author than about the artist. Out of hundreds of books in four languages, the author chose 6. Why not a statistical analysis of the whole set? Why not a distribution plot? Selecting your favorites tells us about … your favorites.

<comment><USER2> I don't think that's necessarily true. Firstly, who has the ability, will, and time to go through such a list, and draw conclusions from it?

Also, a statistical analysis or distribution plot likely needs labels assigned to those works. That, too, likely would mean making subjective choices. Even a simple fiction/non-fiction distortion could be problematic in cases where a book is partly both, or where a work was thought to be fiction in van Gogh's time, while it was later discovered to be autobiographical, or vice versa (for example, are Marco Polo's works fiction? When does "based on a true story" become fiction?)

So, you would have to trust the author to make good choices for making those plots. Why not trust her to make a good choice for these 6, too?

Also, this is (kind of) an advertorial for a book. Its goal is to sell that book, not to be the end on van Gogh's reading habits.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ah. Well, I'm glad I didn't finish it then.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Of the books listed, I think I'd probably be most interested in reading Maupassant's Bel Ami, followed closely by Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.

</comment><comment><USER4> For some reason I thought Vincent Van Gogh was further from us in time than the late 1800s. I wish he could have lived longer.

</comment><comment><USER5> Great books, i can't describe how much I love his paintings</comment>


A killer Android app - <AUTHOR> http://arcriley.blogspot.com/2010/05/killer-android-app.html <comment><USER2> He is running a hacked firmware that apparently does not have the native Android dialer, and then wants Google to remove the app that didn't run right with his hacked firmware? Sorry, but that's not Google's fault.

<comment><USER3> You don't need to hack your firmware to install other dialers. There are dozens on the android market.

Edit: Dialer One's release notes for v1.2 say that an issue was fixed regarding United States emergency numbers. Not sure if that pertains to this issue, though.

<comment><USER4> That's correct.

You do need to hack the firmware though to not be able to access the default dialer (which he had done).

I just tried on my phone: even if I install Dialer one, I can always go to all applications and run the default phone app.

Without the modified firmware, he could have realized the 3rd party dialer had a bug and immediately switched to the default in seconds.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> _Dialers available on the app store should be screened by Google to ensure they comply with US laws._

What are the applicable US laws? If they say "a cell phone must be able to make calls", then Google and the carriers will just sell a "PDA that has a 3G connection" instead. If it makes phone calls, excellent... but if not, well, it's not supposed to. (Reminds me of these stickers that came with my VoIP phone. The instructions said I was _legally required_ to attach them to "any device that could not call 911 during a power failure". That day, my alarm clock and microwave got a new sticker. They cannot, sadly, call 911 during a power failure!)

(Remember how HDTVs were required to have an HDTV OTA tuner? So the HDTV manufacturers just sold "HD monitors" instead, which weren't required to have the pricey tuner. You can't extract blood from a stone.)

Incidentally, one time, I witnessed a mugging and all I had was a coffee cup. I tried to use it to dial 911, but it didn't work and the victim died! Starbucks should ensure that their cups comply with all US regulations!

</comment><comment><USER6> That article was 100% different than I thought it was going to be.

<comment><USER7> Remember Nelson in Ep 3F17 after seeing Naked Lunch with the fake ID: "I can think of at least two things wrong with that title."

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A good reminder that hacking your phone (jailbreaking, rooting, etc) can cause serious problems outside of just the technical realm.

</comment><comment><USER9> Reminds me of an old Baseline Magazine cover story about how poor software can kill. The poster child? Software that calculated radiation doses for cancer patients which produced results off by ~1000% when the lead pads were entered counter-clockwise instead of clockwise (!). It caused dozens of deaths in Panama.

The unforgettable cover photo was a dead body under a white sheet, with a toe tag.

(Ironically, it seems this article was drastically truncated during a website migration: [http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Processes/Why- Softwa...](http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/Projects-Processes/Why-Software- Quality-Matters/))

<comment><USER10> Haven't heard of that particular case, but the Therac-25 caused six people to receive 100 times the amount of radiation intended, killing three of them.

There were a number of issues, many UI-related, but what I found most interesting was that the prior Therac machines, which ran the same software, had hardware interlocks that allowed them to operate safely, masking software bugs. When the hardware interlocks were removed in the Therac-25, the buggy software was able to make the machine misbehave dangerously.

Citation: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Therac-25>

<comment><USER11> Therac-25 is the most famous incident, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. This is still happening, and it happens _a lot_.

<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/health/24radiation.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Despite the linkbait headline I found this to be an amusing take on the whole smartphone craze.

Sure, his own fault for running custom firmware I suppose. But I wouldn't have been surprised if the story had ended with "but the battery was drowned" either...

</comment><comment><USER13> I really expected this to be about an app that impressive to the point where I had to get an android..?

<comment><USER14> Voting down someone for saying it is linkbait? I don't get that. The title is entirely misleading in this community.

<comment><AUTHOR> Sorry for the link bait - I just didn't feel it was right to create a new title after the author of the blog post had spent time to come up with one. I was wrong and should have come up with a different title when I submitted it.

I'd be happy if a moderator changed it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I have a Droid for Android development. During the time it was activated the dialer crashed frequently. I wasn't impressed and definitely wouldn't depend on it in an emergency.

</comment><comment><USER16> i guess that's slightly less bad than actually rebooting

<http://code.google.com/p/cyanogenmod/issues/detail?id=388>

(this was a problem with the official android code, not cyanogenmod)</comment>


India's big data hunt for cures to mental, ageing-related diseases - <AUTHOR> https://factordaily.com/longform/indias-big-data-huntfor-cures-mental-ageing-related-diseases/ <comment><USER2> I went to India a few years ago and met some Americans who said that a lot of drugs are manufactured there.

It would be great if India moved upmarket and developed its own pharmaceutical companies. The world would get a lot more research for a fraction of the current cost.

<comment><USER3> I believe India is great for manufacturing generics (not the Java/C# variants), although I don't believe they can export them to US, even if India was innovative in this area I think export controls, lobbying and patents would hinder any disruption to US - you'll be paying $200 a course of antibotics that would cost $0.50 elsewhere for a very long time. If I was non- critically sick in America and without insurance (or even with where you pay X%), I'd do a rough calculation to see if it was cheaper to fly business class to India and go straight to a private hospital.

<comment><USER4> business/economy class will also save you $$$</comment></comment></comment>


Why cyclists should be able to roll through stop signs, ride through red lights - <AUTHOR> http://www.vox.com/2014/5/9/5691098/why-cyclists-should-be-able-to-roll-through-stop-signs-and-ride <comment><USER2> I think this over-states the case for "otherwise law-abiding" cyclists. Anyone who's tried crossing Market Street on foot has probably been nearly hit by a cyclist completely ignoring stop signs, red lights, and anyone else's right of way. Those problems need to be addressed with direct enforcement before we can possibly consider giving bicyclists any special treatment above the behavior of cars -- specifically because they have already shown that many of them are not capable of using their own discretion with respect to a pedestrian's right of way.

I spoke to an SFPD officer on Market and 2nd the other day, and he watched as five different cyclists ran a red light stopping vehicular traffic on Market. I asked him why he wasn't giving tickets to the cyclists, and he told me that he is specifically not allowed to. He reiterated to me that the official policy of the SFPD is not to enforce traffic violations by cyclists on Market Street. He told me that this is because the SF Bike Coalition has run a campaign vilifying police officers and accusing them of harassing cyclists. This is all at the cost of pedestrian safety.

I'm not making this shit up, either. I've been hit by two bicyclists in the last year who were running red lights while I was legally crossing Market street on foot. And let's not forget all the cyclists riding on the sidewalk or against traffic.

SF is a zoo enough without people gleefully ignoring all traffic safety laws to suit their own convenience, and I don't think we should make it any easier on the people who do it.

<comment><USER3> My policy, when on foot, is such:

-Completely ignore bicyclists. This may perhaps cause them abruptly stop and not like me. I don't care, because I have the right-of-way, and they are in the wrong.

-Beat the living piss out of any biker that collides with me. (As a result of their vehicular assault, which is what recklessly hitting me with your bike in the crosswalk represents. This includes throwing their bike into traffic where it hopefully gets run over, for good measure.)

Fortunately, I haven't had to do the last step yet. I've cut off plenty of bikers as they attempt to zip past me in a crosswalk and have had them curse at me and just give them a 'fuck you' smile. :)

Listen bikers, the rules are simple and have been around forever: when you're in the roadway, conduct yourself as a vehicle. This includes obeying all traffic signs and patterns. If you ultimately have problems hitting people, YOU ARE IN THE WRONG.

<comment><USER4> As someone who both walks and bikes a lot (currently in NYC): Bikes often run lights when they shouldn't, and that's dangerous and shitty. But even more often than that, pedestrians stride out into the intersection against the light in front of a bike that's riding through with a green light. Pedestrians stop for cars, but many don't think bikes are worth stopping for no matter what. The problem is on all ends (and as I said in my other post, systemic)

Everyone, no matter their means of transit, should try to prevent collisions. You're endangering yourself and others if you don't.

<comment><USER3> So, I like to fall back to the law here, which says something along the lines of '[all vehicles should conduct themselves in a controlled manner, in which they can stop for a pedestrian at any time]'.

To that end, I still feel the biker is compelled (and actually is, legally so) to, ultimately, stop for the pedestrian striding out into the intersection on a green, if necessary. And I feel no sympathy for the biker, should he hit the pedestrian.

That said, I think it's entirely in-line for the biker to give a chewing out to the lackadaisical pedestrian who's disobeying traffic regulations.

<comment><USER5> It's funny that you fall back to the law here but ignore it when you plan to beat the living piss out of people.

They shouldn't be hitting you, but just the same, the law says you shouldn't be hitting them, except in situations where you are under some imminent threat. I doubt a cyclist that has just collided with a pedestrian has plans to continue the attack.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The energy-use argument strikes me as ... interesting. It's not that stopping and starting takes any less energy for a car (particularly avehicle without regenerative braking), but that the _rider 's effort_ is greater. In fairness, the article states this, but the distinction could be clearer.

It does highlight just how much of an efficiency loss frequent stop/start traffic is. In my experience, my most efficient travel (long distance at ~90 kph) is about 1.7x more fuel efficient than when I'm driving surface streets with frequent stops, based on liters/100km (US MGP ratings obscure this relationship).

As a cyclist, _in light traffic_ I tend to the Idaho Stop practice. There are a number of rationales:

• The injury a bicycle can inflict is generally vastly less than that of an automobile.

• Cyclists almost always have much better visibility and awareness of surrounding traffic, with the possible exception of traffic to the rear.

• Bicycles generally accelerate much more slowly from a stop than motor vehicles.

However, _in traffic_ scenarios, I tend to fairly studiously adhere to the rules of the road. Why? Predictability, and my own risk. If I'm following RoTR, drivers have a much better sense of where I'll be, and _I_ am less likely to get into an unpredictable (and likely harmful) situation.

One other item: stop signs outside the US are often substituted for with "give way" signs (you'll occasionally see "yield" in the US). Where it isn't necessary to _always_ stop, cautioning drivers (and establishing legal rights of way) is considered sufficient. Replacing intersections with roundabouts also addresses this through traffic flow.

<comment><USER7> > Predictability, and my own risk.

Bingo. I can believe this is an issue for discussion in Idaho, but in urban environments (where I assume most reside)? A bicyclist is a bag of calcium and water perched on some welded aluminum pipes swimming in a sea of tanks. When you're driving a car, predictability and muscle memory are pretty much the only thing that keeps you alive and anything out of the ordinary is a danger that you must prepare for and avoid.

As an LA bicyclist who learned to drive after moving to SF (oh the irony), I find behavior like this absurd. Physics doesn't care about your right of way and while a crumple zone can protect a driver in even some of the most gruesome accidents, few 150 pound blobs of jelly can survive getting flung across the street.

The worst part is that in some situations, there is nothing you can do to avoid hitting a biker who runs a red light through the intersection. I've been in a situation twice now where swerving to avoid a biker put other people in the intersection in danger, people who were innocent and could have lost their lives. One of my worst nightmares is hitting someone, anyone, with my car but at the end of the day, it is my responsibility to keep my car under control and everyone else on the street out of unnecessary danger. When a bicyclist flaunts the basic rules of traffic, rules meant to keep people safe in a world of multi-ton vehicles, they force drivers into situations that often end badly _only_ for the person without the airbags.

<comment><USER8> What is your point?

> few 150 pound blobs of jelly can survive getting flung across the street.

Which is why I put more effort into riding safely and defensively than I do in riding predictably. This is why (depending on traffics, shoulder, lighting, pedestrian visibility and driveways) there are many situations where I will go onto the sidewalk with my bike. (The main reason I do this is to use walk signals rather than risking following traffic laws and using the left turn lane.)

> a biker who runs a red light through the intersection.

They did not follow the idaho stop law. I think you are arguing against a strawman.

> When a bicyclist flaunts the basic rules of traffic, rules meant to keep > people safe in a world of multi-ton vehicles, they force drivers into > situations that often end badly only for the person without the airbags.

Which is why we should establish rules of the road for bicyclists that make sense, and will be easily followed by the majority of bicyclists. Then we enforce those rules against the 5% of arrogant jerks.

> When you're driving a car, predictability and muscle memory are pretty much > the only thing that keeps you alive and anything out of the ordinary is a > danger that you must prepare for and avoid.

Predictability helps, but:

Paying attention to your surroundings and not relying too heavily on predictability is how you avoid accidents and hurting people. This is true with or without bicyclists on the road.

Solely relying on muscle memory and predicability means you are a very BAD driver.

<comment><USER7> What's the strawman? Collision(Car + Bicyclist) = Dead or hurt bicyclist almost every single time. Is that in contention?

Idaho can have it's Idaho stop, but in my big congested city I believe it's better and safer for _everyone_ to keep green lights clear of _any and all_ orthogonal traffic, especially when the odds of survival are so one sided and the gains so inconsequential.

> Paying attention to your surroundings and not relying too heavily on > predictability is how you avoid accidents and hurting people. This is true > with or without bicyclists on the road.

> Solely relying on muscle memory and predicability means you are a very BAD > driver.

I can't even... what are you saying?

Paying attention to your surroundings is how you predict (which is why the _predictability of other animate actors_ is important) and muscle memory is how you get better at dealing with all situations, mundane or extreme, through practice and experience.

<comment><USER8> > What's the strawman?

I said: >They did not follow the idaho stop law.

The straw man is equating someone who runs a red without stopping or checking for traffic with someone who follows the idaho stop law.

> Paying attention to your surroundings is how you predict

Huh? Making assumptions based on past experience is how you predict.

If you are relying on your assumptions about what people are doing and not carefully watching what they are doing is a danger.

Obviously, all three (attention, prediction, and muscle memory) contribute to safe driving. However, I would rather have a driving that is watching what I am doing than a driving that thinks he can predict what I am doing. That is why I objected to this line "When you're driving a car, predictability and muscle memory are pretty much the only thing that keeps you alive".

>>> Solely relying on muscle memory and predicability means you are a very BAD driver.

This is how I see most drivers operate. This is why there are certain areas where as pedestrian I have to yield to traffic even though I have the right of way. Very few drivers pay proper attention to their surroundings.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> It may be difficult to believe, but automobiles are a much bigger threat to the safety of pedestrians than bicycles are. This is true no matter how you measure it: rate of incident, rate of injury, rate of death, etc. Motorized vehicles drive too fast in urban areas. Pedestrians should welcome anything that effectively slows them down.

</comment><comment><USER10> If bicyclists are to be allowed in vehicular traffic lanes, then they should be treated as vehicles and governed by the exact same laws as vehicles. No exceptions.

Bicycles are part of a larger system and that system runs on expectations. Adding a new class of movement patterns for bicycles which are sharing lanes with cars makes this system much more difficult to predict _for everyone_. There's no way this would be safer in dense, highly trafficked cities.

<comment><USER8> > ...governed by the exact same laws as vehicles. No exceptions.

So I should be able to ride my bike on the highway?

> Bicycles are part of a larger system and that system runs on expectations.

True, but the current disregard to those laws means that expected behavior is inconsistent with the behavior mandated by laws.

> Adding a new class of movement rules for bicycles which are sharing lanes > with cars makes this system much more difficult to predict and anticipate > for everyone.

Bikes already move and behave differently, just due to mechanics and physics. Bringing expectations in line with this and normalizing behavior INCREASES predictability.

<comment><USER11> > So I should be able to ride my bike on the highway.

You can't drive a car at 20mph on the highway either.

<comment><USER12> OK less extreme.. I should be able to ride in the middle of the road, and only overtaken where it's safe as indicated by a broken-line.

<comment><USER8> Umm... you can. You are welcome to ride in the middle of your lane and you should only be passed where legally allowed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> In a somewhat related note with bicycle laws, what is the best way to deal with bicycles filtering? Bicycles can filter at a light/stop sign to get up to the front. However, they then hold up the cars since the bicycle should be treated as taking the entire lane and the cars have to wait for the other lane or an empty turn lane, etc to pass them. This is exceptionally bad on roads with speed limits more than 20/25 mph, causing severe back ups between lights and stop signs. This is just another issue that causes people to rage about cyclists.

<comment><USER14> To add to your question: it's relatively the same for motorcyclists too.

<comment><USER11> It's not really, because a motorcycle can out-accelerate the traffic they filter past.

<comment><USER15> Also, filtering (lane splitting, white lining, etc) is often ticketed as reckless or some peer of it (on a motorcycle). While it often doesn't have its own designation -- if you are caught, you go home with a HELL of a ticket.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I find it interesting that the article compares this to right turn on red. There's a fair amount of evidence that right turn on red is pretty damaging to pedestrians and cyclists. For instance, this report [0] from the US DOT saw an increase in collisions with bikes and pedestrians of between 50 and 125%.

Not exactly the horse I'd hitch my carriage to...

[0]: [http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/25000/25600/25603/DOT- HS-806-182.pdf](http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/25000/25600/25603/DOT-HS-806-182.pdf)

<comment><USER15> Wow, that is damning for RTOR. Makes intuitive sense, but damn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> According to the article and video, under the proposed law, bikes wouldn't be allowed to "blow through a stop sign". The fine for that would be even increased.

Which makes me wonder, what's the difference between "yielding while preserving some speed" and "blowing through"? Is there a defined speed that is still allowed?

<comment><USER18> Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the difference is that "yielding" means that you should be able to come to a full and complete stop if you see oncoming traffic, whereas if you were "blowing through" at full speed, you would be unable to come to a full and complete stop in time to avoid impeding oncoming traffic. That speed changes depending on a number of factors (slope, speed, weight, distance to stop, etc).

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> For San Francisco, my biggest right of way question is: is a homeless person pushing a shopping cart filled with bags of recycling, at 1mph, occupying a lane of traffic, a pedestrian, or a vehicle?

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm from Ireland. Our level of cycling and accommodation of such in law and infrastructure is certainly far better than the US but also far worse than, say, the Netherlands or Denmark (who are exemplary in this respect (and many others)).

I come across these kinds of arguments a lot on boards.ie (Irelands main internet forum) and in general public discourse.

What I find interesting in these kinds of arguments/discussion is, basically, how bigoted people are, without realising it. In almost all cases I have seen, people who cycle are in favour of cyclists rights, poeple who drive are in favour of drivers rights, people who do both are in favour of a compromise. Very rarely do you see any impartial evidence based assertions on the matter. All of you here: Read back your comment and think about that, are you biased?

<comment><USER21> I use a mix of driving, biking, walking and public transit to get around, and don't commute via car, so I should have a fairly neutral view.

That said, I find that the cyclists come across as the most irrational and biased in these discussions.

In Seattle, I've found a cyclist approaching an intersection is at least 10-100x as likely to dangerously run through a red light or ignore a stop sign than someone in a car. When cars run red lights, it tends to be within 1 second after the light was yellow. Cyclists will blow through without slowing at any time they please. I can safely claim that cyclists are at least an order of magnitude more likely to blatantly violate traffic laws than drivers are, and the argument that "drivers are just as bad as cyclists" holds zero weight to me.

<comment><USER8> > I can safety claim that cyclists are at least an order of magnitude more > likely to blatantly violate traffic laws than drivers are, and the argument > that "drivers are just as bad as cyclists" holds zero weight to me.

Except that the most commonly, blatantly violated traffic law is the speed limit. This is one that is almost never violated by bicyclists.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> There are two concepts that come into play when complying with a stop sign. The first is to come to a complete stop. The second is to yield to any conflicting traffic prior to entering the intersection.

What many people fail to realize is that the first action is largely unnecessary when there is sufficient visibility to check for conflicting traffic prior to actually reaching the intersection. As long as one yields to conflicting traffic, coming to a full stop is immaterial to intersection safety.

</comment><comment><USER23> After bicycling to and from work for a couple years, I settled on exactly this behavior. If you're doing it as stated, there's no risk because there's no car driver close enough to be reasonably confused about what you're doing.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you're riding your bike on the road, I think you need to follow the rules of the road. Otherwise, get off the road.

I've seen way too many cases where cyclists make the roads more dangerous for everyone.

<comment><USER25> If you're driving your car on the road, I think you need to follow the rules of the road. Otherwise, get off the road.

I've seen way too many cases where drivers make the roads more dangerous for everyone.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> The Idaho Stop makes sense to me and is basically what I did as a kid when I biked a lot more, but as a driver (in Redmond no less, the "bicycle capital of the northwest") I still want more restrictions on bikers. Basically my dream is this: if there isn't a defined bike lane, bikes are pedestrians. This implies they should stay on the sidewalk (or if there is no sidewalk then the shoulder or side-dirt) and use the pedestrian crosswalks at stoplight intersections unless the Idaho Stop applies, especially if they need to go left they should wait at the crosswalk instead of crossing over a few lanes to the left-turn lane.

</comment><comment><USER9> TFA seems to exaggerate the difference between Idaho and Dead Red for stoplights. Depending on how Dead Red laws are interpreted, the stopping time is not necessarily a "set period" as stated. If the cyclist knows the induction loop isn't going to pick up the bicycle, then a momentary stop meets the requirements in many jurisdictions.

</comment><comment><USER27> Cars pay yearly taxes (registration) and face inspection and insurance requirements to drive on roads. Cyclists are not taxed yearly for owning a bike, required to get licenses, insurance, inspections, etc. Until this changes, riding bicycles on public roads is a privilege, and should be treated as such.

<comment><USER28> I have heard many reasons for and against bicycle registration. Your reasons mostly mirror the reasons of vehicle registration; use of public roads is a privilege. However, as has been noted already in this thread bikes and cars are not the same.

I believe the initial reason for registering cars was about accountability and costs. Cars are dangerous because of their weight and velocity. They need to be respected because they can easily kill people. They also need infrastructure that is built to accommodate their size and weight.

I believe most calls for bike registration are about revenue and fairness while using public infrastructure. If bikes were taxed like cars, the yearly registration fee would be in the single digits (based on original purchase price, age, curb weight) and not worth collecting. Bike infrastructure costs much less than vehicle infrastructure to build and maintain.

Pedestrians do not pay tax to use the infrastructure (sidewalks). I don't think they should pay.

In my ideal world bikes would be registered and pay taxes. They would be required to follow vehicle rules when on a road. However, cities should eliminate almost all roads in urban areas with high density and replace them with public transportation, bike highways, and pedestrian sidewalks. Density + cars is dangerous.

I'm live in Colorado and build software that helps cyclists avoid streets with heavy vehicle traffic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Yep.

Cars too.

</comment><comment><USER30> If cyclists want to ride on the roads that are predominantly used by cars they should have to follow the same traffic laws as cars so they are as predictable as cars. Pedestrians walking on the road have a strict set of rules to keep everyone safe. Alternatively, they should be barred from riding on roads and have their own rules which would make them equally predictable.

Northern Virginia has some of the worst drivers I've seen anywhere in the country but you can predict that they're going to run a red light up until 5 seconds after it's changed or that they're going to race past a line of stopped cars and try to cut into an exit at the last moment while texting.

Cyclists here are a completely different breed and are in no way predictable. I've seen them riding into on-coming traffic, ditch off a road onto a sidewalk to cross an intersection only to jump back onto the road after the intersection. I've seen more near misses with pedestrians in cross walks and cars making a right on red than I can possibly count.

Because they don't consistently follow any rules whatsoever they're dangerous and the majority of them have an holier than thou attitude because they're not ruining the environment. They're just ruining every driver and pedestrian's commute.

<comment><USER31> > Because they don't consistently follow any rules whatsoever they're > dangerous and the majority of them have an holier than thou attitude because > they're not ruining the environment. They're just ruining every driver and > pedestrian's commute.

I think a more generous reading of the situation is that there is no generic norm for how cyclists should act. They don't actually know how to best act. They are not cars. They are not pedestrians. Laws themselves are both inconsistent and unnatural between various cities (precisely because there is no generic norm for cyclists...).

It's no so much that bikes should conform to rules which make no sense, but that the larger complex of cities as a whole should adapt to the fact that bikes have become part of their character. There needs to be predictability, certainly, but you're not going to get that by forcing bikes to act like vehicles that they are not.

<comment><USER30> I'd be perfectly fine with them having a set of rules they follow assuming the vast majority followed them and the ones that didn't were ticketed just as drivers or pedestrians would be.

<comment><USER32> You know... I'd be fine with that as long as other vehicles also got regularly ticketed when they flagrantly violate the right-of-way of bicycles following road rules as defined by $JURISDICITON. The last time I saw that was.......

never.

If you are going to make an argument for the rule of law, it does have to be applied as a whole, not just to the groups you hate. If that sounds so unpalatable, perhaps the law needs to be changed. That is the case which this article is making.

<comment><USER30> Other vehicles not getting ticketed for violations has absolutely nothing to do with this. If LE isn't doing it's job, then it's not doing it's job regardless of the mode of transport. The article is about laws directed at cyclists not being logical. It rings a little hollow when the subject of the article can't follow the laws they already have.

For whatever it's worth, I don't hate cyclists. I have a bike that I ride around neighborhood streets and through local parks for recreation. I don't ride it on highly-traveled roads or as a transportation device because I think I'd be impeding motorized vehicles and I'd really rather not be killed.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Server Shield v1.1 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Brian-Holt/server-shield

<comment><USER2> Why would I choose to use this over APF + BFD? <http://www.rfxn.com/projects/advanced-policy-firewall/></comment>


John Urschel Goes Pro - <AUTHOR> https://hmmdaily.com/2018/09/28/john-urschel-goes-pro/ <comment><USER2> It blows my mind that he had the energy required to be in the NFL and a PhD student at the same time. It's not easy to do either of those part time.

<comment><USER3> It's not easy to do either of those full time (speaking as a former PhD student)!

<comment><USER2> As a current one, believe me, I know.

<comment><USER4> It really is extremely difficult, I also know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Every single comment here is absolutely glowing. Completely deserved. Whenever I see a question asked of him or he comments on something, you couldn't script a better answer.

The biggest take away I get from Urshel is that you can always go back to what you love. His dedication is infectious.

They always say the Offensive Line is the most intelligent group of guys on the field. I've heard it as the Dance of the Elephants. While the hitting is fun, there is a while lot of communication, execution, and study that goes into the position. Urshel is a fine example of all of this.

</comment><comment><USER6> John, if you are reading - you are a hero to my football-playing and future engineer son. Thank you for showing it's possible to follow more than one dream and path.

</comment><comment><USER7> In case anyone else was similarly curious, here's a link to his first paper: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10569-012-9461-8](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10569-012-9461-8)

</comment><comment><USER8> This guy should be the role model used in tv commercials. I doubt it'll happen, though.

<comment><USER9> He already is. He also gets a fair amount of media coverage. All well deserved.

<comment><USER10> Yeah, there was a cool thing where he played current FIDE Chess World Champion Challenger Fabiano Caruana.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Contrary to the article most people shouldn't try to be professional mathematicians. All the people I knew in a mid-ranked program switched into software afterwards to make money.

<comment><USER12> I guess the intellectual training, abstraction, etc prepares you well for a software career, compared to say psychology (nothing against psych but it's just math is closer to cs, we are kind of poor applied math engineers). But then you end up have to learn programming practices, engineering strategies, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> If I become financially independent, this is exactly what I would do (probably in a different field, however). Kudos to John Urschel.

<comment><USER14> I have thought about this. I'm almost financially independent, but I already have a phd in CS. What should I do? I thought about a "retirement job" where I am a cs prof in a nice place to live. I could go for another phd in math, physics, or astronomy, my interests, but why? I would really like a job where I can hang around and think and learn interesting stuff about tech and science.

<comment><USER15> > I would really like a job where I can hang around and think and learn > interesting stuff about tech and science.

If you achieve financial independence, can't you do that without a job?

<comment><USER16> Having some responsibility is good for your mental health and motivation though

You'll always get that with a job , but rarely without one

<comment><USER14> I agree, I need something to strive for.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> I'm from Baltimore and met him one day when I was out grabbing some lunch. He couldn't have been a nicer guy. Glad to see him continuing to do what makes him happy.

</comment><comment><USER18> An unfortunate aspect of our culture: he probably would have had more fame and wealth had he stuck to football.

<comment><USER19> I don't think that's true. He played offensive line which isn't a high profile position and he wasn't a star. I think he's much more famous due to the Math/NFL combo than he would be in either alone.

<comment><USER20> Starting offensive linemen are among the highest paid players in the NFL and have the longest careers on average, some spanning more than 15 years.

Dallas is paying its O-Line $41,174,860 this year, $4,574,984 per player on average (including all 9 starters and backups), which is 22.25% of the salary cap.

NFL Offensive Line Spending by Team [https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/offensive- line/](https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/positional/offensive-line/)

And the Giants just made Nate Solder the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL, "a contract worth $62 million — an average of $15.5 million per year — with a $34.9 million guaranteed."

[https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2018/03/14/nate-...](https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/patriots/2018/03/14/nate- solder-giants/Rbf7SiT6jteUqvP8MSSTYI/story.html)

<comment><USER21> The cited article above notes he earned $1.8m over three years: [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/nfl-player-who-retired-to- pu...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/27/nfl-player-who-retired-to-pursue-a-phd- at-mit-lived-on-25000-a-year.html)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Fix Netflix's User Interface with God Mode - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/19/fix-netflixs-user-interface-with-god-mode/ <comment><USER2> > Netflix has a wonderful problem. It simply has too much content, and the > streaming service is constantly testing new interfaces to address it.

That's not their problem at all. Their problem is that they keep losing lots of desirable content, and they keep tinkering with the UI to hide how thin their library is and make it _appear_ that they have a deep well of stuff you might want to watch.

I don't blame them for their licensing deals, but it's simply untrue that Netflix has "too much content".</comment>