We'll just put ads on - <AUTHOR> http://blog.codeable.io/2013/01/23/well-just-put-ads-on.html <comment><USER2> Leaving the merits of advertising itself aside for a bit, this post brings up a bigger topic that I think anyone running a startup needs to think about:

When you're getting involved in a startup, it is incredibly important that you be honest with yourselves and your partners about what the goal really is (this is to the point made the other day about self-awareness) and what you're really building.

A Feature: A piece of a piece of a puzzle. "It's like Facebook's News Feed, but instead you get audio updates instead of text updates!". Hackers can be guilty of this often - focused obsession on improving the world (or a piece of it) by tackling even the smallest problems. Not necessarily a bad thing, but not necessarily a guarantee of success.

A Product: Instagram is a product. It's full-featured, it's beloved (or was ;), it's free-standing, it works, and people use it. But do people pay for it? Would they? Would they make money by themselves or only in the context of a bigger company (like Facebook). Twitter is also a product, along these lines.

A Business: 37signals is a business. People pay them to use their products. They are free-standing, they are profitable, and they don't _need_ outside investors (need vs. want is different, btw - sometimes it makes sense to take strategic investment).

There's nothing inherently wrong with any of the above paths, btw. But you need to understand which path you're on, because you'll do a better job of it that way. If you decide to be on the feature/product path and hope to get acquired/acqui-hired, that's fine - it's a legitimate approach (that works, at least for now) and folks have made $billions doing it (see: Instagram & everyone else).

But it's a different path than starting a business. Goals are different, operations are different, and outcome is different.

The point, in the end, is that often the response - "well, I guess we'll sell ads" is what people who are starting features or products often say to convince themselves or others that they're on a worthwhile _business_ endeavor. And that's often dishonest (intentional or not).

Understand the path you're on and I'm willing to bet success will be more likely.

<comment><USER3> What would you say is the biggest difference between a product and a business though? Is a business just a company with a lot of successful products? Following your terminology, I'd say people create products and if they are successful turn into businesses. I totally get what you mean by features though and sometimes I wonder if tackling these tiny problems with full out services is a legitimate business strategy or just a fad.

<comment><USER4> The product is what you sell. The business is the rest (marketing, sales, etc.). A product itself is not a business, because products _don't sell themselves_. No matter how good they are, someone needs to market them in any given way. Problem with hackers is that they falsely believe that building a great product is enough. Nope.

Ever see the mountain of downright awful products out there? How do people buy such such garbage? Because those products are marketed well. If people sell garbage with good marketing imagine what a great product and great marketing can accomplish. One word: Apple. Billions of dollars due to great marketing and great products.

<comment><USER3> How is Instagram a product and not a business in that aspect?

<comment><USER4> Instagram the social network/app are the product. The business is all the social engineering being done to market it, the infrastructure to handle all those booty shots, the HR dept., etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> This post has a very naive understanding of online advertising. Here's a breakdown:

\- If you're thinking of advertising in terms of just slapping on some Google Adsense then you need high amounts (millions of users per month) of traffic to make reasonable money.

\- If you're thinking of specific kinds of targeted advertising, this can be very powerful depending on your niche. If you can hire a sales team to push advertising in those niches, you may be very successful, especially if you can show quality ROI to advertisers. eg. a cancer hospital advertising on a site with cancer related information.

\- If you're thinking of other kinds of advertising, business partnerships in terms of 'upsells' to a free product work really well too.

The above is a gross generalization but claiming that 'advertising' is a broken business model is laughable. There are definitely certain use cases where online advertising can be your business model and of-course others where it would absolutely not work.

The main downside of advertising supported business is that advertising can go in and out of demand, so you add an additional issue/unknown/risk in terms of product revenues.

TLDR; most high traffic sites can make reasonable money from online advertising.

<comment><USER6> I have a site that has around 4-5m visits per month, yet all attempts to monetize it have failed. I'd love to use Amazon's referral program or Google Ads, but I can't because the site's content is somewhere between reddit and 4chan - deemed too shady for anything else than porn ads.

So, the site still remains a hobby project - exactly as when I launched it 6 years ago.

<comment><USER5> If it's a forum style thing then discussion systems with a high number of pageviews per unique visitor (vbulletin/reddit/etc) will generally have very poor advertising revenue.

Maybe you need to look at a different model though ? Sort of like reddit gold, premium memberships, or some other services that may somehow add value to your site ? It's often surprising how many people are willing to pay $2-$10 per month for something!

If you really mean 4-5m million visits (and not pageviews) I'd love to take a look and see if I can help you figure out some sort of solution. Send me an email (addrress is on my profile).

<comment><USER6> There's no email address on your profile :)

The site is <http://pr0gramm.com/> (NSFW) - mostly german visitors and yes, it's 4-5m visits, not pageviews. It's kinda impossible to define what a "pageview" is on that site anyway.

<comment><USER7> Have you considered partnering with a company that would play off the kind of irreverent content IRC carries? The company TshirtHell.com came to mind as (IIRC) they've fostered controversy in the past. You do something like every xth image on your site is the image from one of their Tees with a referral link to buy as the source. You could tweak x to find the right balance between annoying and profitable.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Funny story that will probably get buried since I'm 2 hours late to this thread:

When we were first working on Kazoo we had thought our monetization would come from a service we called "promo calling". Basically we would detect the caller ID of where you were calling and place an ad for a competitor on your phone display with a coupon and a call to action of rerouting your call to the alternate vendor.

It just pissed people off.

We ultimately settled on a premium SaaS model but my point is this: try lots of stuff. A lot of it will fail, but failure is simply invalidating one incorrect hypothesis. Try lots, fail fast if you're wrong and roll to something else.

The key for us is that our core values didn't change. We still want to build amazing telecom systems, it just took us a while before people would pay for them.

Disclaimer: I am the community manager for <http://2600hz.com>

</comment><comment><USER9> Advertising is a beautiful business model that can work very well. I mean, it's _obviously_ working for a LOT of people. And very well.

The only reason I don't want to do ad-supported products is because I believe in delivering value that _users_ are willing to pay for. That's the kind of products I want to build. Simple as that.

Something something, business and user interests aligned.

</comment><comment><USER10> > If the answer involves advertising, think again, chances are it's a poor > business model. Now you might say that [insert your favourite startup here] > did it and succeeded, but let me warn you, those are the exception to the > rule.

Perhaps. But the startup that succeeds is the exception to the rule, REGARDLESS of their model for making money. And I have seen quite a few that worried first about getting customers and only later about how to make a profit off them.

It's not that making a profit is unimportant (it is incredibly important, and also very hard). It is that making something that is successful is ALSO incredibly important, and is even harder. If you can solve the harder problem (being successful), perhaps later you can solve the problem of being profitable also. If you can solve both from the start that's even better, but not everyone can do that.

<comment><USER11> I don't think you can just separate these two issues. If you do not monetize your solution it will often be more attractive and thus the traction you get will be misleading. For example, I'm sure I could make a very popular product by simply giving away terabytes of free storage and bandwidth exposed through a simple API and web interface. But that would do nothing but attract the kind of takers that would never pay for anything while it hemorrhages money.

<comment><USER12> _If you do not monetize your solution it will often be more attractive and thus the traction you get will be misleading._

Probably the wisest thing I've ever read on HN.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> What you say is both very true and very false, it depends a lot on the product. Advertising can be an amazing way to get money and sometimes, even if you could directly sell to your users, advertising can perform WAY better. The real important factor to decide wether you should put ads or not is "will I probably get a few paying customers or just a lot of users ?". Advertising is all about the volume, the bigger it is, the more money you'll make and a good relationship with your advertisers can lead to really good revenues and a real business model. When we launched our first product with my company, our only competitor was a paid app. We thought "f __* it, we'll make it free!". We now have 600k monthly active users and make way much more than our competitor. So maybe not every business should "sell". With social media &cie, it's starting to be really easy to get a lot of users and ads can be an amazing way to monetize it !

</comment><comment><USER14> This advice is reasonable for most types of startup though not particularly those in media where advertising is still a leading and viable form of monetization (principally because most media companies _start_ from and focus on the question: how do we serve advertising efficiently and profitably? It's not a side project.)

Slapping ads on a regular webapp will rarely yield much income without high amounts of traffic, but savvy media companies who can target and deliver high impact advertising aren't crazy to lean on it as their primary form of income (although diversifying into subscriptions and products ASAP is a good idea, nonetheless).

<comment><USER4> _(principally because most media companies start from and focus on the question: how do we serve advertising efficiently and profitably? It's not a side project.)_

That right there is why a lot of programmers these days fail tomake any money with advertising. They see it as an add-on, rather than the product itself. Advertising _is_ the product.

<comment><USER15> The users are the product. Advertising is how you sell them. If you think about the advertising model as selling your users/visitors then the high volume required becomes more obvious. You don't sell an ad slot for $1k. You sell a user for a tenth of a penny.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Fred Wilson covered the validity / opportunity / challenges associated with advertising as a business model in a recent post. The whole thing (and the comments) are informative but here's my high level summary;

\- Huge difference between ads that are sold (niche) vs ads that are bought (scale).

\- It takes millions of users a month to be successful at scale. It takes a great sales team to be successful in a niche.

\- The absence of scarcity in online and mobile advertising creates structural downward pressure on CPM.

[http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/12/mba-mondays-revenue- models-a...](http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/12/mba-mondays-revenue-models- advertising.html)

</comment><comment><USER17> Another issue cropping up is eyeballs moving from desktops to mobile devices. The CPM for mobile is significantly lower than desktop which puts more financial constraints on a company that is only ad powered. These are real pressures affecting $FB and $GOOG right now. Based on KPCB (1) research, CPM for desktop is $3.50 and for mobile it's $0.75.

[1] - [http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/kpcb-internet- trend...](http://www.slideshare.net/kleinerperkins/kpcb-internet-trends-2012)

</comment><comment><USER18> Why was this guy listening to an audience to begin with? People don't know what they want, and that's entirely different from what they will actually pay for. The only measure is the cash register, i.e., the reconciliation report from the credit card processor(s).

Make something awesome that clearly takes away more pain than the price incurs, more cheaply than you can produce it. If you can't make it awesome or profitable, then it's not a business.

</comment><comment><USER19> The most important thing when creating your business model is to understanding precisely who you're customer is. Often, someone creating an advertising thinks their customer is a the person viewing the page. In fact, this is just a sourcing effort.

</comment><comment><USER20> This post is right on, but it's kind of telling that a post where the TL/DR is "Your business idea is not good unless it makes money" can make it this high on Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER21> for me, the main issue with ads as a business model: they make the product crappy

facebook, twitter, yelp, blogs/content - the more you monetize, the more annoyed your users are

there's an inherent tension between the success of the product and the success of the business, which is problematic especially as you scale

the only significant exception is google

<comment><USER22> The success of advertising in your app depends on how valuable a service you provide. As value increases, so does the viability of an ad based revenue model.

<comment><USER21> agreed, but the more ads you cram into your app, the less valuable the service

this is true for every app except google - therefore, your consumer internet ad-supported business model probably has an inherent flaw

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> this is a great point made

</comment><comment><USER24> FXXK ads. Ads will give no money to you!!! Nowadays, a 3 years old child knows how to use Adblock to block ads. People do not care about how beautiful your ads are, they just want a free website without ads. If your website or application could not sell itself, just give it up. Ads really do not help.</comment>


The Pros and Cons of Pair Programming - <AUTHOR> https://hackernoon.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-pair-programming-b606625bc784 <comment><USER2> The mental exhaustion (Con #3) is why eXtreme Programming included an exhortation about 8 hour days and 40 hour weeks.</comment>


We're Not Ready for Mars - <AUTHOR> https://longreads.com/2018/09/19/were-not-ready-for-mars/ <comment><USER2> Alright, this a rather touchy article. All who dare to comment: please put the lid on any simmering indignation and let's try our utmost to take in and let out actual information.

</comment><comment><USER3> This author seems to have a couple problems.

One, they're complaining that we're going to pollute other worlds. I'm not sure that's a problem. I'm not even sure if we'll do it because of the delta-V requirement.

Two, they have a massive problem with animal experimentation, which seems to be a bit of a tangent, because that's the case across many industries -- the examples they give are from some time ago.

Three, the posit that there is life elsewhere in the solar system, which if it is the case, would be a good enough reason alone to explore the solar system.

Lastly, they comment on the thirty-meter scope fight in Hawaii, and this is where I completely diverge in opinion from the author. The author posits that Mauna Kea is a poor location for the telescope, but as far as I know, it's one of the best. I don't understand why the Hawaiians are so negative about scientific progress. I know their land is small, but the 'scope will benefit all of humanity for years to come, along with economic incentives. What's wrong with that?

<comment><USER4> > I don't understand why the Hawaiians are so negative about scientific > progress.

I find it sad (but not surprising) that outsiders would rephrase an intrusion into a sacred place in this way -- especially after they specifically clarified that "We are not here to protest astronomy". The fact that they're against it despite "economic incentives" and "scientific progress" should give a clue how important their culture is to them. Has your culture ever been threatened?

Have you ever read the first chapter of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"? Why do you think Arthur was so negative about the construction of an efficient new bypass? Do you think he would have phrased his position that way?

<comment><USER3> My culture is that of a progressive Bay Area liberal, who's the child of immigrants. It's under threat, but it's also constantly changing, and shifting based on the global socioeconomic circumstances.

Admittedly, I'd be pretty unhappy if someone wanted to take my house away without compensation.

If someone got rid of a place a visited often, I'd be unhappy, but would I stop them? No.

I think from my childhood, the only two places that are still around that I visit are the Exploratorium, and Golden Gate Park — both dramatically changed over the past few decades.

If someone said, sorry, we've gotta pave over GGP to build an observatory to further US science, and we can build it here, China, or Russia — I would be unhappy, but understanding.

I guess, I understand why these people are unhappy, in a general sense, but I can't reconcile that with the fact that they're impeding scientific progress, and putting US science behind.

<comment><USER5> Well let us put it the other way. If scientific advancement was _this_ important to you would you pay _whatever_ price they are asking you to pay? (Assuming they and they alone come up with a price tag?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> All that I worry about in space exploration is that it ends up like the internet, nuclear fusion, genetics or even mundane things like bitcoin -- they all were born in the heads of incredibly intelligent people who had pure and sound intentions. But once it gets tainted by money and greed, the pioneers start to regret it.

</comment><comment><USER7> I tend to see the popularity of tiny houses, off-grid living, and minimal lifestyles as a sort of preliminary trend that must spread through society before something like colonizing Mars is possible.

Since there is not currently any economic incentive to establish a base on Mars - it is going to be a very expensive endeavor. Thus, the employees involved must learn to start thinking conservatively to suppress these costs.

As for this article - I always welcome a devil's advocate. Colonizing Mars sounds interesting to me, but it should involve more than just my hope and dreaming. Financing these sorts of expeditions is going to come at a cost, but so will fixing outdated or broken systems that threaten our origin planet.

Demonizing humanity for its relentless expansion seems to reject survival of the fittest. But I understand where the author is coming from - parasites can rapidly expand in population, but only until they kill their host. On that same token, digestive bacteria inside of humans form more of a symbiotic relationship. The author is suggesting our assessment of current resources and for humanity to exercise some restraint.

The common denominator with these two scenarios (spend resources on Mars, or fixing Earth) is that I want my money to go into something bigger than myself. Something that strengthens a future society.

Perhaps something like a Mars colony investment has less of a risk of being mismanaged.

</comment><comment><USER8> I tend to agree. We have to be careful that the Mars dreams don't become a distraction from the problems we have on Earth. I am very much for spaceflight but we should treat other planets with care and not export stupid things we do on Earth there.

<comment><USER9> That's a very short sighted view.

We went to the moon at a period when we had many more problems on earth in fact we went to the moon nearly solely because of problems on earth.

The moonshot and the era of space exploration that of followed it enriched us beyond what most of us can comprehend and Mars won't be any different.

We can never solve all our problems and human nature isn't going to magically change over night we will have the same problems we are having here on earth else where and that is good because solutions that we might find to them on Mars or somewhere else might also be applicable here.

<comment><USER8> This makes sense. My point was that we should be careful to not repeat the same mistakes we are making on Earth. I could easily imagine that somebody may start building factories on Mars that pollute the whole planet in order to make some profit.

<comment><USER9> Building polluting factories on Mars would be perfectly fine in fact it would be encouraged it would be a critical part of any terraforming project.

<comment><USER8> I think pollution is generally viewed as something negative. It it's part of a planned terraforming project you would not call it pollution.

<comment><USER9> Pollution is pollution space is hostile and toxic to human life the pollution won't be magical and non-harmful it will also be much more impactful on the existing environment on Mars than it is on earth and that is a good thing.

On earth we don't need to stop pollution because we're killing the planet we aren't we can't kill the planet regardless of what we do we need to stop because we're killing ourselves but this notion that somehow human impact on the planet is unnatural is simply silly we are living beings who evolved on this planet anything we do is derived from the same "natural" process which started with the Big Bang.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ah, the good old "We shouldn't invest in exploration until we've fixed all our problems here." [1]

One interesting and oft-forgotten lesson from history is that -- in very broad strokes -- technological and economic advancement bring about long-term _greater_ morality.

It wasn't just sheer human will that created a stable social hierarchies; it was technology: improved agricultural methods.

It wasn't just sheer human will that formed democracies; it was technology: printed works and literacy.

It wasn't just sheer human will that nearly completely abolished the millennia-old practice of slavery; it was also technology: mechanical farming.

It wasn't just sheer human will that brought relative modern peace; it was technology: global trade, MAD.

It wasn't just sheer human will that reduced sexism and racism; it was technology: education and communication.

There are is course historical counterexamples (e.g. firearms and Native American tragedies, or electronic pornography and sexual crimes).

But measured over the breath of human experience, exploration and technological progress are have been enormous greatest drivers for the moral advancement of the human race.

[1] [https://xkcd.com/1232/](https://xkcd.com/1232/)

</comment><comment><USER11> If you REALLY believe in this sentiment fueling this article, then you shouldn't ever do anything. "We've made mistakes, and we shouldn't do anything until we're perfect." Fine, lay down and die, and the rest of us will keep trying to be better, failing often, but improving gradually.

<comment><USER12> This type of opinion seems correlated with the idea that we also shouldn't reproduce, because people do too much damage to the environment. I'm always a bit baffled by it. Not only does it seem extremely self-loathing, but it also seems like a auto-extinguishing philosophy, because the people who hold it are much less likely to have children to spread it to, and will essentially be outcompeted by those who don't share it. It seems much better to have children but educate them on having a lighter footprint, and attempt to improve things out of proportion with their own impact.

<comment><USER13> > and will essentially be outcompeted by those who don't share it.

Only if you assume that this sentiment is genetic and not learned.

<comment><USER12> Nah, I'm assuming that kids are much more likely to learn this if their parents believe this than if their parents don't.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


U.S. To Seek Social Media Details from All Visa Applicants - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-29/us-to-seek-social-media-details-from-all-visa-applicants <comment><USER2> People I've spoken to seem more comfortable acting like this is part of the current administration's agenda, rather than an encroaching trend which has been gradually getting worse year upon year. For example this specific policy was added as an "optional" (not really) question on an entry form before the 2016 presidential elections (I know, I wrote a letter protesting it during public comment period).

My point is: Both Democrats and Republics have been complicit in allowing these kind of activities to continue. And the American public would sooner blame the other "side" in this political dog and pony show, than take responsibility for this being what America's fear based society has brought.

As an aside: These questions are almost impossible for some of us to answer completely. I own entire domains of email addresses and make them up on the fly, I've also thrown away dozens of "social media" accounts in the last five years for trivial reasons.

But the incomplete answers will be very useful when they want to arbitrarily withdraw someone's visa, in the same way that medical insurance used to have intentionally complex registration forms which they could comb through to look for ways to kick people off after they got sick. So people that hold a visa better not protest, write to their representatives, or otherwise stick out or they'll just yank the visa and say bye bye.

I'll write in again during this public comment period. But frankly public comment periods just seem like a way to placate the masses, both you and they know this is coming, nothing a public comment could say will change that.

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's not Trump, it's the US. I will probably never visit that country again, and I don't much care; but, I'm kind of sad for my kids.

That said, the world is a big place. Let's hope not every other country does the same.

<comment><USER4> To get a visa for France, I had to provide my full financial details -- bank statements, information on investments, etc. I also had to provide an FBI background check. To get a visa for China, you can be denied for content of social media posts. In Thailand, you can be arrested upon arrival if you've ever written a blog post critical of the king. The UK can bar entry based on the prior speech of applicants: rapper Tyler, the Creator was banned from entry. Right wing journalists have been denied entry to the UK, even a very popular talk radio host from the US has been denied entry into the UK for nothing more than his opinions -- despite no criminal record or any other "threat." Julien Blanc, an American "dating coach" has been denied entry by Britain, Australia and Brazil because he's a YouTube star "pickup artist."

Let's not pretend the US is unique in actually screening visa applicants and choosing to decide who can enter and who can not. I'm getting tired of the self-righteous condemnation of the United States when pretty much every country in the world discriminates in visa issuance. But the immigration policies of India, Mexico, Japan, Korea or Australia are far less interesting in this click-bait media world in which we live.

<comment><USER5> "bank statements, information on investments, etc"

There is nothing personal in bank statements compared to social media profiles.

<comment><USER6> I think that letting a foreign entity know about your financial status is pretty "personal", at least for a guy like me it is. Back to the article on point, I remember criticizing the US's need to ask for fingertips from potential visa applicants 12 years ago, in a discussion with my former co- workers. Since then things have gotten worse and worse in terms of privacy (this being just the latest example).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The USA is a joke when it comes to security. They've got all this stupid and expensive beauracracy for coming in and out of the country that does nothing but irritate people.

I recently flew through the US on a connection flight from the UK and needed to give details of my employment history and my birth place amongst other things. In Tampa I got interrogated for looking nervous, which I was because we had landed late and I had very little time to catch my connection. My phone was searched, my WhatsApp messages were read, and they asked me all sorts of personal questions such as my girlfriend's birthday and the names of her cats.

After all this nonsense and their military-checkpoint style TSA procedures, I was able to continue on my journey (after the almost 20 hour delay).

So if they ask for social media profiles and phone numbers it's just a minor addition to the existing useless questions. If I wanted to hide something I could easily lie and they'd have absolutely no way of checking. Quite honestly I hope I never have to go anywhere near the US border ever again, I would rather pay an extra £200 for an alternative flight.

</comment><comment><USER8> Your wife forgets to list that yahoo mail account to which she no longer has access and everything is deleted: family gets deported.*

You forget to list that LiveJournal, Advogato or Quora accounts: family gets deported.*

Your daughter forgets to list that Pinterest account: family gets deported.*

Your son forgets to list that last.fm or SoundCloud account: family gets deported.*

Your mom forgets her Academia.edu account and Mittens forgets her vampirefreaks account: family gets deported.*

[*] or separated...

<comment><USER9> Under what conditions would any of these events actually occur? The government isn't going to waste resources to deport someone solely for forgetting an account; they would only go to such effort if there's another reason that they actually care about to deport that person.

<comment><USER10> The point isn't to go after everyone who fails to completely or accurately answer, but rather to provide a pretext for the deportation of people the government disfavor but lack a criminal case against; for example, an immigrant opposition leader, protestor, or whistleblower.

<comment><USER11> Yes exactly. Laws which de jure make everyone a criminal simply give the government an excuse to de facto imprison or expel whomever they want, and should be avoided at all costs

<comment><USER12> This is basically how all laws currently work. The prosecutor gets to pick who to charge (or sometimes gets to pick which case to put in front of a grand jury, though generally the process is so one sided that the prosecutor effectively has full control over what evidence the grand jury sees and is thus able to sway their decision either way). We would need to change the system to remove the choice of enforcing criminal charges from all, but this will be a very bad thing to do given current laws (just look at issues with teens sending photos to each other, what would happen if we really cracked down on all cases of illegal photos being shared).

The system appears designed so that once you are targeted, they can easily crush you by bringing forth laws generally ignored for the average person not targeted by the legal system. It needs to be fixed, but there is almost no political will to fix it and any fixes will be a drastic deviation from what we currently know.

<comment><USER13> Kind of, but the legal system is tilted to prevent people from being unjustly imprisoned, not to ensure that every guilty person is locked up. Prosecutorial discretion and the grand jury process is part of that, but there is always a regular jury as a check to determine if the charges should be dismissed and the "default" if no one does anything is always no charges.

Now, its fair that in practice this can be abused to protect people in power by not charging them, or to get people deported by charging with things no jury would convict on, or scare them into a plea deal. But that is where the political system is supposed to step in (most DAs are elected) and remove prosecutors who are making decisions the voting population doesn't like.

But people don't vote (or don't research or don't care) enough to be an effective check on the legal system like that, which is a whole different set of problems... but my point is that these systems are designed to balance each other, not so that each system is perfect by itself.

<comment><USER12> >but the legal system is tilted to prevent people from being unjustly imprisoned, not to ensure that every guilty person is locked up.

Not anymore. Now what happens is that once you are targeted all these laws that aren't enforced normally are pulled out, and you end up with an insane maximum potential time spent in prison. At which point a relatively light plea deal is offered. Even if you are innocent, unless you are rich enough to have money to afford a good lawyer, it isn't worth fighting. And even if you are rich, the prosecutor can just fine tune the plea deal until it is better than fighting the charge. This has strongly tilted the system now that most people (something around 90% if memory serves) do not get their day in front of a jury.

<comment><USER13> Not disagreeing. You are pointing out problems with the legal system and suggesting it be changed.

I am pointing out that the legal system is designed this way on purpose, the problem is that the other systems that are supposed to balance it are not doing so, and the focus should be on why the checks and balances are not working, not designing some perfect legal system to exist in isolation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When the United States does something like this others start doing it too, sometimes seemingly just to reciprocate or spite. The US contributes so much to the world with respect to tech, business, culture and science but it's also an exporter of increasing bureaucracy.

<comment><USER3> > _bureaucracy_

I wouldn't call it bureaucracy, but I don't know of a proper, better name. Hysteria maybe. Not sure.

<comment><USER15> Bureaucracy is often the result of hysteria. The USA is hysterical over terrorism when it should be hysterical over cancer, college cost increases, and health care. It's all a product of the government realizing that it's easy to fool the bleating masses with terrorist straw men.

<comment><USER11> It's not only the government, the media is very much a contributing factor too. One small terrorist attack yields multiple days of coverage and exposure. Terrorism is given an extremely outsized portion of coverage on the news and as a result people think it's a much bigger problem than it actually is. But it's an extremely convenient cover for taking away people's rights and spending even more money on the military.

I've posted this before in another thread, but after 2001, less Americans have been killed by terrorists per year than have been killed by _lightning_. And yet think of all the money and attention that have been devoted to something more dangerous than slipping in the bathtub, and the rights "we" willingly gave up for that. It makes 0 sense

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> One thing to know is that apparently the reason for having seemingly idiotic questions on immigration forms ("are you a terrorist?", "are you a nazi war criminal?") is not that the government is stupid but rather that they're there in order to be able to deport someone for answering the question incorrectly in the event that the government wants to deport them but lacks sufficient evidence to pursue a criminal case. There's a blanket "you answer wrong, we deport you" law somewhere on the books.

<comment><USER17> This is such a stupid explanation. Do people really think the government is going to go "You're a terrorist, but we can't deport you for that. But look here, you checked this form wrong.."

<comment><USER18> It's much easier to develop evidence for checking a box wrong than convicting a crime.

It's also easier to arrest someone on suspicion of falsifying customs forms and hold indefinitely than to do so on "terrorism" charges.

So this does indeed give law enforcement a lot of leeway than not having it is.

So, to answer your question, yes.

<comment><USER17> That still doesn't make sense. To prove they checked the form wrong, you have to prove the actual charge itself (e.g. they are a terrorist, by whatever definition). That itself is enough evidence for deportation.

<comment><USER19> You may have misunderstood - I think the parent is saying its the same principle as, say, convicting Al Capone of tax fraud. Create a large number of small, easy-to-accidentally-violate laws (think police stops and traffic laws here), and then selectively enforce them - so if its difficult to prove someone is a terrorist, kick them out of the country for incorrectly filling out their Form WhateverWhatever1300B instead.

<comment><USER20> They got Al Capone on tax evasion (not fraud) because he evaded taxes, not because of some grand scheme. The IRS is interested in collecting taxes, not policing.

<comment><USER21> On a related note, the IRS also requires that you report and pay taxes on all the money you made by robbing banks, selling drugs, and embezzling your employer's coffers.

Nobody who hasn't already been convicted will fill out those forms, of course, but that's another criminal charge if the DA wants to put you away for even longer.

<comment><USER20> The IRS and the DA are different people.

The purpose of the IRS is to collect tax on income, not to punish people for obtaining that income illegally.

<comment><USER21> Sure. But if the IRS comes across evidence of tax evasion, they'll be happy to pass it along to the DA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Pretty absurd that they're asking for all of this and:

> [...] In addition to their social media histories, visa applicants will be > asked for five years of previously used telephone numbers, email addresses, > international travel and deportation status, as well as whether any family > members have been involved in terrorist activities.

I know a number of people going through, or have been through, the US visa process and surely if this is required, applicants are going to drop.

Furthermore, if you submit that you don't have a social media account are they going to assume you're a liar? Are applicants just going to create new "real" accounts just to avoid looking suspicious?

<comment><USER23> > five years of previously used telephone numbers,

I couldn't tell even if I wanted to, I go somewhere, pick up a SIM card, trash it when I leave. These days many countries sell them from machines or newsstands at the airport, this is not unusual any more.

Japan and the UK, both from 2015: [https://cdn.techinasia.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/04/Screen...](https://cdn.techinasia.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/04/Screen-Shot-2015-04-03-at-13.48.01.png) [http://travelpal.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp- content/uploa...](http://travelpal.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/10/08095335/Simcard_Vending_Machine.jpg) and actually even the USA, this is JFK: [https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CX0y79EWQAAGlfZ.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CX0y79EWQAAGlfZ.jpg)

<comment><USER24> I have the same problem with my employer's background checks... I'm often required to list 7 years of home addresses, and while I'm not quite a digital nomad and have never been homeless, I have moved quite a few times in the past 7 years. Sometimes to places without a permanent address, sometimes spending a few months with friends. Sometimes in states I didn't technically work in, which makes questions about discrepancies really fun. Hell if I can remember all of them. Sometimes I've been known to put down addresses I never officially lived at because I couldn't remember if I ever put in a change of address form or not.

<comment><USER25> To enter the US I had to disclose my primary school address and all the following ones. I don't know what I would do if the school had disappeared before the internet was big.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm not sure I'm planning to visit the US ever again, but if I did, what would count as social media? Does HN count? Does my blog? IRC nickname? Github and Bitbucket accounts? I've never had a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Pinterest or LinkedIn account.

The only thing I guess unequivocally counts as social media is my Mastodon accounts.

<comment><USER27> GitHub is explicitly listed as "social media" on the optional question that is on the ESTA [1] form since 2016. If I remember correctly, the wording is relatively broad, so I would guess that HN and Reddit count as well.

[1] [https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html](https://www.evisaonline.com/en/usa/esta.html)

<comment><USER24> Since when did GitHub stop being a code repository and start becoming a social network? Am I using GitHub wrong?

<comment><USER28> What do you think commits are?

git commit -m -S "just having my 4th Oreo milkshake haha"

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> What if you don't have any social media accounts? Are they just going to assume anyone who says they don't is lying or trying to hide something?

Seems like a dumb policy to require details on a purely voluntary activity.

<comment><USER30> I really hope it's not perceived or implemented as mandatory "at least one" required.

<comment><USER31> Asking such questions on a voluntary basis is usually just a phase to reduce opposition once it's finally mandatory.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So "Nobody forced you to give Facebook all that data" will no longer be true. If you don't have your data on Facebook, and it doesn't match your government records, you'll be marked as Suspicious by the secret police.

<comment><USER33> Pretty sure we have that in place already now, based on the leaked XKeyscore rules we saw.

<comment><USER6> > based on the leaked XKeyscore rules we saw.

Link for the lazy: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top- secret...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/nsa-top-secret- program-online-data).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Ugh. First, fake profiles are not only _possible_ , they are _trivial_. So if you correctly state you don't have a profile on X, and they find one anyway...do you think they'll bother to tell you why you were denied? No, you'll just be silently blacklisted for what "you" do online.

Social networks are also run by _companies_ , not the government. They need to just stop expecting us to interact with a tiny number of specific companies (it's "big 3" credit reporting all over again, only somehow worse).

And finally, can we stop treating potential immigrants so poorly!?!? There are enough rules, forms, fees and delays already; how many more things do they really need?

<comment><USER35> The US is not the centre of the world. I'm a researcher and even though the immigration process is smoother for academics, others and I have long since decided not to pursue work in the US. There are many reasons, but amongst them are the populist government, draconian "America first, rest of the world second" policies (that have existed since the Bush era, not just Trump), dropping or stagnant science funding and (obviously only in some aspects) the expert-hostile society.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I'm curious of what the lobbying arms of major social media companies like Facebook and Twitter think of this. Are they using their considerable resources to try and push back against this? They can't possibly benefit from this deeper reach of the government's spying eyes.

<comment><USER37> That's where the next billion Twitter and Facebook users will come from: forced participation tied to government services and benefits. You can easily imagine a dystopia where a FB account is required to collect Social Security or Medicare benefits.

<comment><USER38> My pet dystopian vision was always basic income associated with a government- tied-in Alternative Reality game, with mandatory in-game outside-world activities to collect points that can be traded in for bonus BI or discounts for everything purchased with your BI card or BI card cashback limits, etc.

With China developing Social Credit and US government interest in social media data, the "in-game outside-world activities" might as well be bypassed. Have a 'good' Facebook history, or else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> Ugh. I'm at the tail end of doing immigration visas for my wife and daughter, and it's taken a year to get here. The process is already somewhat stressful as it is. Adding bullshit like social media to the already long list of things you have to report makes my blood boil. Glad we'll be done before this ever gets approved.

</comment><comment><USER40> To anyone who has been calling for regulation of social media, here you go. This is what the actual result will gradually look like for everyone: you can ask the government to "protect" you from social media, but it is in the interest of government to work with social media platforms to do anything _but_ protect your privacy. Don't think that _your_ country is immune from the trend. The islands of potential protection from this grow smaller by the day, as pressure mounts, both internally and externally.

Remember that major governments have been, and undoubtedly continue to spy on all of us, either openly or covertly. You can #deletefacebook all you want - you won't be able to opt out of your own government's spying efforts.

</comment><comment><USER41> The social media companies are US companies. Why are they hurting their own companies. Why would I want to have a social media account if every country wants to look at what I consider my personal life. Having accounts won't be worth it. Fuck that.

I already work at a large university that can't use anything hosted on US servers because of their shitty homeland security server laws. So many cloud services out of huge campus wide contracts.

I delete all my apps and texts when I go through borders as well.

<comment><USER42> > every country

Mostly the US and the UK, it seems. For example the EU Blue Card system is generally quite reasonable: if you have high qualifications and can find a job, you get a work visa, which eventually turns into permanent residency.

US and UK immigration tends to be overcomplicated, draconian, and paranoid.

<comment><USER43> Usually when you screw enough people you have to remain paranoid. There is a reason countries like USA, France, and Uk are always targeted whereas countries like Denmark, Canada, Norway, and so on are never in the news despite being easier to get in, same philosophy, and more wealthy.

<comment><USER9> Is it really easier to get 'in' Denmark or Norway than the US or UK? Perhaps for vacation travel, but to settle permanently in small, wealthy, homogeneous countries is usually far more difficult than to settle in the US.

<comment><USER44> Any EU/EEA citizen has the right to settle in Denmark or Norway, so if getting in directly is hard, just get citizenship in another EU/EEA country first.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I will offer the outsider's perspective. I didn't know which form it was going to take, but I expected this for quite a while. What is really happening here is a brilliant kind of targeting of the most tech savvy folks (most likely to be prolific on social media) - you know, that pesky immigrant group who not only easily make more than the median income of the natives, but the ones who are most likely to be law abiding (and against whom the usual slander such as "rapists" will not stick). This is the group which most infuriates the native underclass in all societies when the society starts facing economic turmoil.

To all immigrants who went to the US on such a visa (e.g. H1) - take this as a distant warning and make a plan B to leave the US. This story does not have a good ending and it has happened too often in history. There may be a lot of native folks wringing their hands and even offering their support (which is welcome of course) but the underclass is generally too economically ignorant to ever listen to them.

</comment><comment><USER46> How to retaliate against someone you dislike while they are applying to travel/study in the US? Launch a smear campaign against him/her on social media. Super effective.

</comment><comment><USER47> While Canada is excluded (so far) I'm just not comfortable going down to the US anymore and supporting this nonsense in any way. I wonder if it'll ever get bad enough where this information must be provided before an overflight.

<comment><USER48> Do you realize that alternate airports for many Canadian airports are US airports and that you could be forced to go through immigration if your plane ends up at an alternate?

<comment><USER49> What would happen if you refused to provide any details to US immigration at that point..?

<comment><USER48> Detention.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I've gone through the naturalization process myself, and it's already offensively invasive, this doesn't seem out of step with what they already do.

<comment><USER51> _Visa_ applications are a far broader class than people going through the naturalization process, and, while there may be an argument that the naturalization process is excessively invasive, an application for _citizenship_ does justify more depth of scrutiny than a visa application.

<comment><USER50> Really? I think the opposite. The first gate should be the hardest to he through, especially if you get a visa that is a guaranteed path to citizenship like an H1B (H1B to Green Card to Citizen).

<comment><USER51> There are no visas that are a _guaranteed_ path to citizenship (hence, the naturalization process, which can and will knock people out even if they have an immigrant visa), least of all non-immigrant visas (including dual-intent visas like the H-1B.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> US isn't high on my list of holiday destinations anyway. This just adds to that.

<comment><USER53> It isn't on my list of anything to be honest now that I have lived here for a while. I now realize that it's all made of nothing. With large salaries comes a shitty life quality; crappy food, awful health care system, undependable transit, toxic political/cultural environment.

Meanwhile, in Europe or even Canada, skilled workers are welcomed and even though salaries are less, one gets an impeccable quality of life which is the point of working to begin with.

<comment><USER52> Crappy food? Surely one can get good food in pretty much any 1st world country?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> the effort to make the US even more unappealing to immigrants marches on...

<comment><USER55> Immigration aside, I would be curious to see if this type of stance has any impact on tourism stats. I assumed once travel bans started being introduced that conference organizers would adopt stronger preferences for other countries as potential locations but I'm not sure if that's actually happened.

<comment><USER56> The data you want are in table C [https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2017-I-001/index.asp](https://travel.trade.gov/view/m-2017-I-001/index.asp)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It feels good to complain on HN, but we all will be contacting our representatives, and following the EFF's campaigning, won't we? Please?

<comment><USER58> Yeah. That would be good, except you will get a canned response which more or less implies that they don't give a fuck about your opinions... That's the current state of affairs.

<comment><USER59> You have always gotten the canned response. That's not the point. If enough of us complain, the representatives sometimes get scared and change their positions. But we all gotta do it. We all gotta vote too. It's a collective action problem. Don't be a free rider

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> This kind of behaviour is a case of why one should avoid hosting internation conferences in the US.

Sad for the US, but important to keep in mond when organizing.

<comment><USER61> FWIW, the Dota2 International[1] for 2018 will be held in Vancouver this year, all previous editions were in the US.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_(Dota_2)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_International_\(Dota_2\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> >The department estimates it would affect 710,000 immigrant visa applicants and 14 million non-immigrant visa applicants, including those who want to come to the U.S. for business or education, according to the documents.

this will hurt business. this will hurt american companies. this will hurt the country.

this will not catch any terrorists. this will not catch any serious drug traffickers. this will not be socially useful.

i can't make it any more clear.

the more this country outwardly projects "we're a police state, and people from other countries are unwelcome" the more isolated we will become and the more backward our peers will find us to be, and rightly so.

<comment><USER63> I couldn't disagree more - this focuses on giving Americans a chance to get employment before anyone else. What's wrong with that?

I'm a Brit and would love the same policy here.

<comment><USER64> Seriously? How does a visitor coming to see Grand Canyon take away a job from American ?

<comment><USER63> My bad, I thought this was for work visas.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Like if this week had not given us enough reasons to not use social medias...

</comment><comment><USER66> Deleting your social media account would probably be interpreted as you are hiding something rather than protesting privacy issues.

</comment><comment><USER67> Doesn't some other countries already do this? I was asked about my LinkedIn for a work visa in Canada.

<comment><USER68> Canada is very aggressive about searching for "hate speech" at the border. This includes mandating that you turn over your phone and searching through your texts, emails and any linked accounts for keywords. This is personal experience.

<comment><USER69> I saw this on their border security reality TV show, but neither I, nor anyone I know, has ever had their phone searched visiting Canada. I've been curious how often they do it. What were your circumstances?

If that show is to be believed, they aren't looking for hate speech. They are looking for the person who says they are just visiting, and then has all kinds of text messages about when they start their new job, or how they are looking forward to moving there.

<comment><USER68> This was driving across the border for an extended vacation. I'm not going to post every detail, but I had a vague itinerary and I completely understand why we got extra questions. However, I hadn't done anything suspicious at all. It is a question of rights, and as a non Canadian citizen, you have no rights other than to decide not to go to Canada anymore. They were looking for evidence of drug smuggling, proof that I could financially afford to take care of myself if something went wrong, and "hate speech". That is what the officer said. You may find this reasonable, but how thoroughly they search your phone is entirely up to the officer at the border, and they have every ability to just image your phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> I dread that this will become standard when applying for visas elsewhere. It's already difficult enough.

Also, could this be another route for backdoor revocation of permanent residency and/or citizenship? For instance, you piss off the wrong person in government, they learn you failed to disclose your MySpace profile, revoke your visa for lying, then deport you? It's my understanding that some of the visa questions (e.g. have you committed war crimes) are there to enable precisely this kind of thing.

(Posted previously to a dupe: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16710551](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16710551))

</comment><comment><USER64> Trump administration has been increasingly hostile to legal immigrants, so this doesn't surprise me one bit. Everyday there is a new policy change in USCIS designed to screw immigrants, whose only crime is working on high paid jobs. I am on the verge of losing my work permit after having lived here for 12 years and working in high tech jobs in leading companies.

<comment><USER71> Can I ask what your situation is? I've been here for 16 years and no green card in sight.

For those claiming cheap labor, my employer pays me $500k/yr and none of it was negotiated.

<comment><USER64> I have 14 yrs work experience in Software Dev and Product Management. USCIS is claiming that I don't have work experience for a PM job, even though I have an MBA from a top school in the US. I made 300K last year

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> Hopefully the hotels of of the person instituting this policy will go bankrupt from the large decrease in international visitors. Karma. That person should think ahead a bit and realize the full consequences.

</comment><comment><USER73> It's time to delete everything and close our social media accounts. We ought to quit this game.

By the way, do they understand people change? Immature minds are prone to idealize all kinds of bullshit (incl. marxism and eugenics), daemonize whoever and whatever does not fit in their view (usually extremely narrow to the moment) and shout about this aloud but they grow older, expand their understanding and change their views. How many people don't feel embarrassed reading the comments they have posted years ago?

</comment><comment><USER74> I literally do not know every email address I have used in the past five years. I typically make up a new one for every business that asks for one. Likewise for the occasional throwaway account on discussion forums if I'm discussing anything controversial or where my own identity might compromise someone else's position that they don't want to be publicly associated with.

</comment><comment><USER75> In that case, do you become even more suspicious if you don't have social media accounts because you deleted them?

</comment><comment><USER76> The ancient Greeks were paid to show up and vote. If you don't do this, irrational actors or those with very poor math skills will be highly over- represented and this will show in the result.

But thanks to gerrymandering, your vote will very likely be moot. So that has to be fixed first.

(This was a reply that appears to have become stranded.)

</comment><comment><USER77> what happens if you dont have a facebook account? or instagram? its a no? because they can believe you are lying

</comment><comment><USER78> If you apply for ESTA, there is already a field for your social media handles, marked "OPTIONAL".

</comment><comment><USER23> Oh good, last year we had the interview of David Thornton, the arrest of Marcus Hutchins, the enhanced pat down procedure from the TSA, we really needed more reasons to avoid the USA, really.

</comment><comment><USER79> This is meaningless. Does anyone think TSA has the resources or systems to go through the social media profiles of the applicants and catch the "bad guys"?

</comment><comment><USER80> All social media?

"Yes, I 'liked' a video starring 'Isis' on Pornhub 10 years ago but I swear it's not what you think!"

Imagine filling in those usernames, hilarious

</comment><comment><USER81> Tourists and business visitors? I think the travel industry is about to ramp up lobbying efforts. Or get killed financially.

</comment><comment><USER82> So will this be the case for ESTA visas too?

<comment><USER83> I can't confirm but according to the ESTA site[1], "an approved travel authorization is not a visa. It does not meet the legal or regulatory requirements to serve in lieu of a United States visa when a visa is required under United States law".

Therefore if the social media details become a requirement for visa applications only, then ESTA would theoretically be exempt. Having said that, social media is currently an optional field on the ESTA form so the foundation has been laid.

[1] [https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/](https://esta.cbp.dhs.gov/esta/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER84> Social media and privacy have always butted heads and I hope courts start to side with pro privacy advocates

</comment><comment><USER85> Could this policy possibly violate the ToS' you sign when you register for these accounts?

<comment><USER86> Which part would it violate?

</comment></comment><comment><USER87> What if one gave somebody else's info by mistake? Very easy to do esp with phone numbers.

</comment><comment><USER88> Hacker News is a social media site that should be declared voluntarily under these rules.

<comment><USER89> _Hacker_ News??? [ENTRY DENIED]

<comment><USER90> Legit there was a tech bootcamp called hacker school that had to change their name because the FBI kept bothering them.

<comment><USER91> I believe it's known as recurse center now.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER82> On another site I've read it includes passwords too. This is surely a joke, right?

</comment><comment><USER92> I left the field blank on my ESTA application. Should I be worried?

</comment><comment><USER93> time to make a facebook profile. because sure as hell i will sound suspicious if i tell them i dont have one.

</comment><comment><USER94> Already happening

</comment><comment><USER95> It's mind-blowing to what degree the country has been on a downward spiral for the last decade or so.

I'm really not convinced people already understand just how hard it will be to reinstall sane dynamics and politics.

</comment><comment><USER96> "Sir, we have reviewed your git commit history of the last 5 years and come to the conclusion that you would be gravely endangering the code quality of this country."

<comment><USER97> I'm OK with making spaces (instead of tabs) a visa requirement.

<comment><USER98> Got a new project today. Wasted so much time until I figured there's tabs and spaces mixed in there.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER99> #deletefacebook

<comment><USER100> This has nothing to do with Facebook. It affects all social media sites, even non-US ones. It won't help you a bit to delete Facebook unless you wait 5 years. You'd still be required to give up the account info before then. And if you ever decide to hop on an alternative to Facebook (like HackerNews, GitHub, Twitter, Reddit, etc), you'll be required to enter them as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER101> I'm OK with any country seeking private details from outsiders attempting to gain entry.

I am not OK with any country seeking private details from its own citizens or those who have already legally gained access.

</comment><comment><USER102> This won't catch sophisticated criminals.

But of course that isn't the goal; a global-scale chilling effect is what this policy creates.</comment>


Facebook.Design - <AUTHOR> http://facebook.design/ <comment><USER2> Are those hints of Google Material Design or is that just me?

<comment><USER3> Is it just me or is the web fading into a pallid morass of unreadable grey on grey?

[http://contrastrebellion.com/](http://contrastrebellion.com/)

Perhaps it's not just me?

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Facebook may possibly have the ugliest logo and font ever seen under the sun!

</comment><comment><USER5> looks good on chrome</comment>


Celebrating 3 Years of Amazon S3 with 3 Months of Transfer-In for 3 Cents/GB - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2009/03/30/celebrating-3-years-of-amazon-s3-with-3-months-of-transfer-in-for-3-centsgb/ <comment><USER2> Man, S3 is 3 years old already? I'm not sure whether to feel old or wonder where those years went. Feels like they launched just last year.

</comment><comment> patrickg-zill Since the gigabit+ links they are paying for are symmetric, that is, they can move the same amount of data in both directions, I will make the assumption that Amazon's "outbound" traffic is less than their "inbound" and thus, an increase of inbound up to a certain point costs them nothing.

Also, transfer-in means that in order to get any use out of it, you now have to transfer-out (another charge).

Not being critical, just pointing out that this is a bit of a "give the razor for free, sell the razor blades" strategy.

<comment><USER3> Not really, since the blades are still cheap.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4>
       We'll be offering "data transfer in" to Amazon S3 for only
       $0.03 per GB (vs. the standard $0.10) for 3 months, April through June.

I wonder if its $.03 for everyone, or just for those that transfer more than 150TB/mo(@.1/gb).

<comment><USER5> It applies to everyone. You're thinking of transfer out, which begins at $0.17/GB and works its way down to $0.10/GB, as you spend more. For transfer in, the standard price of $0.10/GB applies from the very beginning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> This could be a significant boost to backup companies that use S3, as they probably have way more transfer in than out.

</comment><comment><USER7> I hope this isn't an April Fool's joke!

<comment><USER7> LOL you folks crack me up, downmodding me for that!</comment></comment>


Basic Virtual Machine Implementation in C99 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/xorz57/vm <comment><USER2> It is always nice to see projects like this. Creating a simple interpreter isn't a hard job, but it's still pretty educational.

One thing that you'll benefit from is documenting the instruction-set, and usage a little more clearly. For example my own toy language was written in C here:

[https://github.com/skx/simple.vm](https://github.com/skx/simple.vm)

And I think I did a good job of showing how to use the instructions. Then for fun I rewrote it in golang [https://github.com/skx/go.vm](https://github.com/skx/go.vm) which showed some interesting differences.

Your own tastes might differ, but I'd think after the interpreter a compiler/decompiler would be good next steps. Makes it a lot easier to write code/programs in your assembly!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you so much for the feedback! I will try do my best!

<comment><USER2> The day you first write a "useful" program in your own instruction set is a good day to look forward to!

I've been dabbling in Z80 assembly recently, and wrote a program to convert lower-case input to upper-case. Not useful, but the first "real" thing I've done for 20 years in Z80.

<comment><AUTHOR> I think I am not even close to this day :/ But I agree!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


The President Is Missing - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/11/opinion/11krugman.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

<comment><USER2> As usual, Krugman is on-point and rational. President Obama has not shown the leadership needed, particularly in the face of the shameless and irresponsible behavior of the Republicans.

</comment><comment><USER3> Especially considering the author, that is a wonderfully heartwarming story.

</comment><comment><USER4> this has _NOTHING_ to do with hacker news. Go back to reddit.</comment>


Ask HN: Project based pricing or try and build a Saas app? - <AUTHOR>

Don't know which way to go on this one, client needs a work order + inventory app. I was about to simply quote a price for a bespoke app, then thought why not charge them nothing... build the app ourselves and have them subscribe to it as the first customer. I would ask that they pre-pay a year on sign up.
One possible issue arises if they decide they don't need it after I've already paid to build it.
There has been a lot of discussion on project/value based pricing vs hourly, but how about we throw subscription based pricing in as a third option?
Thoughts or suggestions? <comment><USER2> What did they offer you such that "Work for free and bear all project risk" is an attractive option?

1) Charge for bespoke development as per usual.

2) Negotiate such that you own the IP after the project is over.

3) Use the IP to build the SaaS.

4) If they want to migrate to your SaaS and take advantage of ongoing improvements for your standard monthly rates, wonderful. If not, maintenance at your prevailing contract rates or via a negotiated maintenance contract.

<comment><AUTHOR> Letting them pay for development and keeping the IP would be the best of both worlds and I should try for that. If it's not an option my thinking was I get free domain knowledge via access to their employees and business processes and a baked in customer for the saas. I have plenty of Saas ideas with neither of the two where I could possibly be completely wasting my time.

<comment><USER3> Your client just wants their business problem solved. If they are a reasonable client, unless they made it very clear to you up front, they do not want to be in the business of designing, implementing, testing, distributing, supporting, and maintaining supply chain management applications.

They want order management capabilities they don't have. They want to get those capabilities without hiring 1-3 more full-time people, each at a fully loaded cost of between $120-250k, all of them with ramp-up time and each with a 33+% chance of not working out.

Solve their business problem, collect your rate, and feel comfortable that you've generated a win-win. Get your contracts reviewed by a lawyer (you should keep a lawyer on hot standby for contract review all the time) and make sure that you retain IP. There are lots of different structures that accomplish that.

It is a _good thing_ that after completing this engagement, you will be well positioned to offer this service to a next client, and a next, and even "all" the clients at scale using a SaaS offering. It's what makes you a valuable consultant. You should not be entertaining the idea of giving your services away simply to capture the side effect of getting better at delivering supply chain products afterwards.

Incidentally: something that I am _continuously_ learning the hard way, even as I tell myself every damn time that I know this, but then proceed to make exactly the same mistake again and again: _free has a negative signaling value in consulting_. Don't do free. Free is terrible. It scares buyers, generates more uncertainty than it dispels, and it sets you up to fail.

By all means, help people out gratis, do favors, be accessible. But when your client _needs_ something done, put a price tag on it or pass the work up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> If you plan on making a SaaS product, what is the target market you plan on selling to?

Small businesses? FM companies? Large organizations?

Are they the type of market that would look for a subscription based service or will they seek a more traditional sales channel with hand-holding?

How do you plan on handling the actual process flow for work orders? Each subscriber may have a slightly different way in which they want it to work.

It could certainly be possible that you can build and sell an SaaS product but you may want to do some market research first.

(Disclaimer: Our company sells FM related software and WO and Inventory Management is one part of it.)

<comment><AUTHOR> The requested solution is to manage the warranty repair order process and related parts inventories at multiple 3rd party authorized service centers for a manufacturer.

My (possibly naive) idea is to build a re-usable solution that is something like a desk.com CRM app with an inventory module and the ability manage pre- defined services.

Target market? Could be another manufacturer like my client, or service/repair centers by themselves.

There are lots of GREAT CRM/support services: desk.com and zendesk.com just to name a couple. It doesn't seem like I can tie parts to their support cases for the inventory management aspect of the solution.

The closest I can find is this force.com app: [http://www.servicemax.com/products/inventory-and-parts- logis...](http://www.servicemax.com/products/inventory-and-parts- logistics.html)

If I can make the workflow flexible enough to cover different cases this could be even be extended to work as a field service tool by later adding a scheduling module and a maps/routing module for field technicians.</comment></comment>


Amazon starts selling stuff through Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://www.techflash.com/seattle/2010/09/amazon_sets_up_first_e-commerce_storefront_on_facebook_for_pampers.html

<comment><USER2> hmm...so its like the opposite of the concept of a mall - where some people sell and others hang out.

this would be = where some people hang out and others sell

I wonder, which of the retailers won't adapt fast enough to this, lose out, wither and die because of this?

It does look like it can be a retail/sales game changer.</comment>


Rodney Mullen: Pop an ollie and innovate - <AUTHOR> http://www.ted.com/talks/rodney_mullen_pop_an_ollie_and_innovate.html

<comment><USER2> You would think skateboarding is not relevant to HN, but watch what this guy can do after years of practice. I encourage you to Google his "I love skateboarding" video.

<comment><AUTHOR> He also draws parallels between skateboarding to open source hacking at about 12:45.</comment></comment>


Achieving Grace - <AUTHOR> http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2009/02/achieving-grace.html

<comment><USER2> A pretty far-fetched theory, resting on a lack of definition of what "grace" actually is, and a lot of very big assumptions that are not substantiated.

I think a better structure for this article would have been to make a good case for what "grace" is and why it matters, and then, once that concept is established, give examples of how "grace" is achieved by rowing... But even then, this would have been fairly hand-waving.

I may just be blasé about this, but it seems to me that the central point of this article is ultimately quite weak.

<comment><AUTHOR> I do actually define grace at the bottom: Helping others you are competing against without feeling conflicted about it.

My point was that unless you learn to do this, it's very difficult to achieve success as an athlete. So devoting yourself to sports sort of encourages a certain level of spiritual development.

<comment><USER2> I think the problem there is that this is a very novel definition of grace. You need it to be established firmly in the reader's mind before you can go on about how to achieve it. Focusing the first part of the post on establishing that definition would have worked better.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> The reason elite schools play sports is to build a stronger sense of loyalty to the school among alums, especially alums with money to donate. But I think it's better for kids to separate the school from the sports. Put the kid into a independent sports league. And it's better, I think, to be playing in an environment where the competition for positions isn't as intense - i.e. a smaller school or sports club.

In a related matter I see that Sidwell Friends does play football. I had been wondering about that. Here in Washington State, the best small private high schools don't.

</comment><comment><USER4> Caltech and MIT are elite private schools, and sports are not mandatory there! What a sad, pathetic, weak article... I wonder how this crap even got upvoted to the main page.

<comment><USER5> Considering John Taylor Gatto is a famous high school teacher, it's a logical assumption to make that he is referring to private high schools, many of which _do_ in fact make sports mandatory.

<comment><USER4> Isn't it true that when one wants to make a point (especially a polemical one), one should remove all ambiguity? If "schools" refer to "high schools" not universities, then the writer should make that explicit.

"Mandatory sports" means "mandatory team sports", I presume. Schools don't want students to be in shape, they want students to feel loyalty towards their _alma mater_.

<comment><USER5> That's a valid point to make - and somebody's argued it on this thread already.

I agree that ambiguity should be removed, but that's a conversation for another day. I don't feel this particular story warrants it.

<comment><USER4> Let's see:

\- the author does not define "grace"

\- the author does not define "sports"

\- the author does not define "schools"

Sure, the text is not ambiguous at all!

Maybe I am just being a pedantic academic, but in Math if you want to make a point using X, Y and Z, you usually start be defining X, Y, and Z. Human language is vague already, there's no need to make it even worse.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


LINUX is obsolete (1992) - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/comp.os.minix/wlhw16QWltI <comment><USER2> This is my favorite part:

"Linus Benedict Torvalds In article <1992Jan29.2...@klaava.Helsinki.FI> I wrote: >Well, with a subject like this, I'm afraid I'll have to reply.

And reply I did, with complete abandon, and no thought for good taste and netiquette. Apologies to ast, and thanks to John Nall for a friendy "that's not how it's done"-letter. I over-reacted, and am now composing a (much less acerbic) personal letter to ast. Hope nobody was turned away from linux due to it being (a) possibly obsolete (I still think that's not the case, although some of the criticisms are valid) and (b) written by a hothead :-)

Linus "my first, and hopefully last flamefest" Torvalds"

This HN comment posted from a Linux machine in 2015. :)

</comment><comment><USER3> I find it interesting that this post can be taken two ways.

1\. It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace so we can all laugh at how wrong this guy was and the curiosity of these 'microkernel' things and that portability stuff. Lols all around.

2\. We've reached a point where ideas are gaining ground about immutable infrastructure, people are talking more about things with similarities to microkernels called unikernels [1] (and where they might be used [2]). Linux isn't going anywhere but these new approaches have value and were being discussed as long ago as 1992. Of course, the author got things wrong but that's par for course. It's more interesting to see ideas that are resurfacing. Incidentally, ARM was a RISC chip and now dominates Intel on mobile devices.

I prefer the second approach. So to anyone poking fun at the author, please consider that maybe this is one aspect of living in the future [3], albeit much further than than most (market timing is always underrated and academics tend to think further ahead than most people). We can also remind ourselves that 'Better' is a tricky and subjective thing to define (cf VHS tapes vs Betamax).

[1] [http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628](http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=2566628)

[2] [http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing- nymote/](http://nymote.org/blog/2013/introducing-nymote/)

 _(disclaimer: I 'm involved with both the above projects)_

[3] [http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html)

<comment><USER4> > It's clear that Linux 'won' in the marketplace

it depends a lot on what you mean by won and which marketplace you are talking about.

as a desktop os linux is essentially non existent with an ever shrinking 1.5% of the market share or so as more and more regular joe consumers get machines with windows or os x preinstalled at a much faster rate than expert-level geeks are installing linux.

as a software developer targetting the mainstream it is rare that targetting linux is a profitable venture, because nearly no customers use it and those that do don't spend money on software in the same way as some one living in the Microsoft or Apple ecosystems. OS X also has a tiny market share (around 4% iirc) but people who are willing to pay over the odds to have a pretty workstation seem also not afraid of spending money on software.

as a server platform Linux dominates despite the best efforts of MS and Apple to try and market slightly uglier versions their consumer level desktop OS as a server product. its easier to use remotely, and can easily be configured to not rely on heavy UI features - there are even flavours that cater better to business philosophies on 'stability' (i use that term loosely) like RHEL and CentOS - also stability and open source go hand in hand, because you can fix bugs, or pay people to fix bugs allowing you to throw money at problems to fix them in a way which is impossible with the mainstream OSs

as a software developer it makes sense to target linux first for your big expensive server product. if you don't then you are cutting out your customers...

i don't think either of these situations has much to do with the underlying technology. its much more to do with the OS and what it provides than how it is built to achieve those aims.

<comment><USER5> Don't forget that Android also runs on the Linux kernel and there are more Android phones than desktop PCs running any operating system.

<comment><USER6> Given the way Google is steering Android these days i am not sure i want it on a "desktop" any time soon.

Back during early 3.x it had a spark of potential. But since then Google has done quite a bit to lock it down so that it is basically a media consumption terminal.

<comment><USER7> > _But since then Google has done quite a bit to lock it down so that it is > basically a media consumption terminal._

It remains possible to choose to install, or not to install Google play Services and Google's app suite on aftermarket Android installations, and still be running Android, and running most 3rd party Android apps.

Any app developers who wants to run on Amazon, Jolla, Blackberry, CyanogenMod, and on the embedded Android in cars and appliances, and all the Android variants in China is going to have to take care to make use of Google Play Services optional, and to correctly use Intent filtering to make of of and respond to high level IPC messages to and from other apps, no matter if they are the "official" Google apps or not.

So, while Google could be more open without risking much if any advantage, Android hasn't been locked-down. Google has little chance of doing an "embrace and extend" on Android ISVs. You still have a wide range of choices.

<comment><USER6> That is pretty much ignoring the driver issue, or maybe myopically focusing on the Android API layer.

Look at the changes to file system permissions, and the introduction of the storage access framework in 4.4.

And look from the perspective of joe user, not from hank hacker.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Tanenbaum said that Torvalds would not get a good grade on his course, epic. "I still maintain the point that designing a monolithic kernel in 1991 is a fundamental error. Be thankful you are not my student. You would not get a high grade for such a design :-)"

Perfect display of how universities are good at judging people about how well they know how to "play the game" (and usually that involves conforming to whatever frame of mind your professor thinks is right).

<comment><USER9> Well, a microkernel is harder to implement than a monolithic one and from a theoretical standpoint is a better design, IMO it deserves a higher grade in an operating system design course. Let's not mythify the 1992 Linux kernel, which probably wasn't _that_ good.

<comment><USER10> > from a theoretical standpoint is a better design

What about IPC overhead?

<comment><USER11> >> theoretical

In theory you can postulate the performance impact is worth. In practice the is much more in it. That is the difference between computer science and software engineering.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> ezequiel-garzon There seems to be a response by "the" (please rise) Ken Thompson:

"viewpoint may be largely unrelated to its usefulness. Many if not most of the software we use is probably obsolete according to the latest design criteria. Most users could probably care less if the internals of the operating system they use is obsolete. They are rightly more interested in its performance and capabilities at the user level.

"I would generally agree that microkernels are probably the wave of the future. However, it is in my opinion easier to implement a monolithic kernel. It is also easier for it to turn into a mess in a hurry as it is modified."

</comment><comment><USER12> Amoeba Operating System:

[http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/amoeba/](http://www.cs.vu.nl/pub/amoeba/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoeba_(operating_system)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoeba_\(operating_system\))

Mach kernel

[http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/mach/public/www/mach.ht...](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/project/mach/public/www/mach.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_(kernel)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach_\(kernel\))

RC4000

[http://www.prg.dtu.dk/equip/rc4000.html](http://www.prg.dtu.dk/equip/rc4000.html)

CHORUS

[http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.38.6...](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.38.6843)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChorusOS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChorusOS)

<comment><USER13> QNX [http://www.qnx.com/](http://www.qnx.com/)

L4 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L4_microkernel_family)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Before we get into - "Oh not this again!" and "Duh! but Linux Won!" and "Microkernels are still a better design"...

Remember, today's lucky 10,000...

[http://xkcd.com/1053/](http://xkcd.com/1053/)

Actually, I always enjoy reading this whenever it comes up. I was just about to start a university computing science degree course at this time and was reading Tanenbaum in preparation. This was a debate that was alive for years throughout the computing community I was part of.

In the end reality came down to what always wins in computing (and in life too).

      Running code beats design. Design is always 'better'.

<comment><USER15> There's a variation to that. Unless your company is a very successful multinational chances are that a stranger picked at random has not heard about your product. Makes you think a little longer about terms such as 'market saturation', most products don't even go near there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The problem with this whole debate is that Linus was 'more wrong' than Tanenbaum and Tanenbaum made plenty of mistakes with Minix which _also_ make it more of a macrokernel than a true microkernel.

A true microkernel does one thing and one thing only: pass messages.

Now that's an ideal and in the real world you don't get to have your ideals realized so rather than to be able to realize this spherical cow you're going to have add in a few more system calls to make it work but you'll end up with something a lot closer to plan9 or QnX and compared to those Linux is very very old hat indeed, it's basically a re-run of the 70's state of the art with a a whole pile of modern day hardware drivers and other goodies thrown in.

Tanenbaums biggest mistake was to try to monetize Minix through Prentice-Hall, if he'd just tossed it out there it would have picked up steam a lot quicker, but likely he too had bills to pay and his expenses at the time were probably a lot larger than Linuses, and so history was made.

So, Linus was obsolete, but so was Minix and the future as we could have had it is still waiting to happen. And when it does you'll finally appreciate just how obsolete Linux was back in 92, and how much more obsolete it is today.

Until then it's like democracy: not perfect but the best we've got (without shelling out lots of license fees for something better).

<comment><USER16> If cost was the only problem, why didn't Hurd take off? Did Minix not suffer from the same problems?

<comment><USER6> Hurd was a research project as much as a working kernel.

I Think the project restarted 3 times in 10 years...

Linux may have been crude etc, but it was here, it was working, and it was free (in both senses of the word).

Frankly i see the lack of Linux on the desktop less about the quality of Linux, and more about MS abusing its market position and a massive failure to regulate.

<comment><USER17> "and more about MS abusing its market position and a massive failure to regulate." thats a pretty vague statement.

IMO its simply the fact that Windows/OSX have set a high bar of out-of-the-box usability and shine that GNU/Linux simply hasn't reached. Not that this is a bad thing, it just might be worth accepting that we can't compete on desktop.

<comment><USER6> Back during the netbook froth, they put XP on life support using a highly focused license that ended up defining what a netbook was (in essence a small, underpowered, laptop).

This while the early netbooks from Asus and Acer ran Linux installs that can be likened to ChromeOS, with a UI somewhat like Windows 8 Metro.

What they did may very well be considered market position abuse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Tanenbaum admitted at EuroBSDCon last year[1] that he was wrong about BSD and he should have turned Minix into a BSD, which he now has, with Minix3 borrowing NetBSD userspace, build system and so on.

[1] [https://va.ludost.net/files/eurobsdcon/2014/Vitosha/03.Satur...](https://va.ludost.net/files/eurobsdcon/2014/Vitosha/03.Saturday/07.A%20reimplementation%20of%20NetBSD%20based%20on%20a%20microkernel%20-%20Andy%20Tanenbaum.mp4)

</comment><comment><USER19> Something to meditate on any time there is an "Appeal to Expert" \- particularly on an issue that is forward looking.

Also, I love how he was so confident with regards to

 _While I could go into a long story here about the relative merits of the two designs, suffice it to say that among the people who actually design operating systems, the debate is essentially over._

<comment><USER13> The funny thing is that I would mostly agree with him. The important detail is "Among the people who actually _design_ operating systems." Linus would agree that Linux is not designed. It evolved. Very few OSs are designed these days.

The QNX microkernel is quite successful. L4 also seems to do well. The BSD Mach microkernel is still around. Minix is still around, although its reliability approach (similar to Erlang, let processes/drivers fail and restart) does not gain mindshare. Windows is considered a hybrid since NT. Likewise XNU/Darwin is Apple's hybrid.

Maybe the current state is more like: Neither micro nor monolithic won, but we know the tradeoffs now and an OS designer can decide per feature. For most applications the difference does not matter, though. Most applications build on a higher level platform (JVM, iOS, Browser, etc).

<comment><USER15> Linux did not evolve so much as that it tried very hard to emulate Unix but outside of the *BSD world.

I think microkernels will have their day in some part of the future.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151147](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151147)

</comment><comment><USER21> How feasible is it to radically refactor an operating system? Would it be possible to gradually incorporate all the insights of operating system research into Linux/BSD/$otherProductionReadyOS or is it always necessary to start again from scratch?

<comment><USER18> Minix3 is to a fairly large extent a refactor of NetBSD to have a microkernel base; osx kind of did a similar thing with freebsd. Also there are ways of running old OSs on top eg Linux on Genode.

NetBSD is a good starting point as the drivers are portable (via rump kernel; eg Genode uses this for their filesystem drivers) so you can reuse them in another OS as a starting point, plus it is reasonably simple as OSs go, plus the BSD license is friendly.

There were a bunch of related talks at [https://operatingsystems.io/](https://operatingsystems.io/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> The following statement puts things in perspective, doesn't it.

"Speeds of 200 MIPS and more are likely in the coming years."

Now, a modern Mac Pro can do 488250 million instructions per second. Needless to say, we've had progress in these last couple of decades.

<comment><USER15> Forget about the Mac Pro (and isn't it the intel CPU that does those instructions to begin with?), take any modern graphics card.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> On the portability aspect why Minix is better than Linux? I didn't get that point.

<comment><USER16> IIRC, Linux at the time had plenty of i368 specific code, while Minix could be compiled to multiple architectures.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> It's amazing to see how a 20 year old university student was debating with well known OS researcher and he was so confident.

Btw Linus called DOS as DOG:

> You mention OS/360 and MS-DOG as examples of bad designs as they were > hardware-dependent, and I agree.

</comment><comment><USER25> I did some small contributions to GNU Hurd years ago, but still, this made me giggle:

 _Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5._

<comment><USER26> Looking back it's amazing how much traction the gnu userland tools gained and how little (zero?) their kernel gained.

I'm not going to call it a wasted effort, because I appreciate there being other "Unix"-systems around in case Linux ever goes bad, but at this point it seems to be a whole lot of work invested for nothing.

Maybe things will change 5 years down the road when people abandon systemd and DMD had matured, and the best way to run it is on Hurd, but I'm not putting any money on that bet ;)

<comment><USER18> There are the BSDs as other Unix systems around; they of course were not at the point when this was written as the lawsuits were unresolved. NetBSD started in 1993, after this. So we have plenty of backup without having to fix Hurd, as well as the L4 based microkernels that are much more mature and interesting than Hurd.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> _Linus "my first, and hopefully last flamefest" Torvalds_

<comment><USER28> _giggle_

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is it still possible to asscess comp.os.minix old archives through NNTP somewhere? Google Groups have the old emails but I can't find a way to read them in a local email client.

<comment><USER30> [http://olduse.net](http://olduse.net)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> 2015: The Year of Linux!</comment>


Ask HN: Is Go a program language I should learn - <AUTHOR>

I've been interested in Google's Go programming language for quite a while, but have been too busy to actually learn it. Has it matured enough to be readily useful if I spent the time learning it? Or if not readily useful, then at least a valuable use of my time to learn it? <comment><USER2> I'm afraid you will get a very divided response. In my opinion, learning Go was great fun and I very much look forward to the day I am paid to use it.

In someone else's opinion: "If you're paying any attention at all to Go, you're not learning anything. In fact, it's possible you're damaging your brain. It's projects like these that make Google look really bad and unattractive to programming language researchers, especially as compared to Adobe, IBM, Sun, and Microsoft." <http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/3896>

So there's a controversy, which thankfully means I can be impartial and yet tell you to make up your own mind by trying it out :) Which btw you can do in your browser, at <http://golang.org/>

</comment><comment><USER3> You're asking the wrong question. What would you like to do with it? Learn programming, Go paradigms, parallel paradigms, simply a new language? So many answers to so many different premises.

Also, take a look at this article: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891725> It sums up Go's last year.

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm actually in the same situation. I'd like to give it a try for the development of a back end server for a realtime game.

Does anyone have any experience with this in Go?

<comment><USER5> I do have some experience with Go.

But what I would recommend is you get your own experience and come to your own conclusions. It is a simple enough language that doesn't take long to learn.

That or you can listen to all the FUD from people that clearly have not used Go and refuse to do it because it somehow doesn't tick enough checkboxes in their pet features checklist.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was excited about Go until I started reading how it actually works. It seems to be retrograde in many respects and nowhere near a step forward with systems development languages. I see little to make you move from C++ to Go, and I hate C++.</comment>


Ask HN: Self-taught developers, how did you know you were job ready? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> Did a project to help out a friends friend and got recommended. As soon as I've got a job offer I took it. I don't really think you can define job ready in any meaningful way. I guess you're good at it as soon as you've tested. This is the way I did it but I might be a fraud.

If you want to know for sure. Do a project for free or for a ridiculous low price. If you succeed you have one data point towards a somewhat reliable answer. Then again if it goes south it might to be some other factor as well.</comment>