Using PostgreSQL Arrays The Right Way - <AUTHOR> http://blog.heapanalytics.com/dont-iterate-over-a-postgres-array-with-a-loop/ <comment><USER2> While this is really cool, can anyone tell me if it has become any easier to write stored procedures/functions?

Last time I tried writing stored procedures I went into a deep depression from the lack of a proper IDE/editor/debugger/tester/anything.

Is there any process out there besides time consuming trial and error? Or does everyone who writes these knows them by heart and I should just stick to programming languages?

<comment><USER3> Has anyone tried out python in postgres? ([http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/plpython.html](http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/plpython.html)). In the past, I've tried to avoid stored procs for the reasons mentioned above, but have not yet had the chance to try out python and would be interested in hearing about people's experiences with it.

<comment><USER4> Pretty good, you can even access local python libraries for direct use in your db functions. Only negative is that you have to re-compile your functions to update the library references.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> we heavily rely on postgres as well, in the past we have tried to do the entire backend on postgres as we believe it could be the best solution, but we have had a terrifically hard time of maintaining stored procs, etc. We still use them, but a lot less than we probably would and wound up building an ORM and moving most logic to PHP.

I would be really interested in how you maintain your database code if you are up for another write up or have some time to chat.

<comment><AUTHOR> For now, the following works for us:

\- For plpgsql functions that are required by app queries, we just roll them out when we write them / when they change (via ansible).

\- For plpgsql functions used in jobs, the job just reloads the relevant plpgsql functions on the relevant DBs before they start doing anything. (It's a little wasteful, but not in a way that matters for now.)

\- The UDFs we've written in C don't change too often, but we deploy them manually when they do.

What are some of the headaches you've had in managing stored procs? How often is your app code changing / requiring new ones?

<comment><USER6> One headache I had in the past was with a highly-available app with stored procs. It was rare to do parallel app server restarts, they were instead done in serial. (This did make certain migrations a pain.) Outdated app servers would continue calling pgpgsql functions in the outdated way until they received new code.

We solved it with a small wrapper around the calls to plpgsql functions — we set up a build process to generate unique names that were called by version. During deploy, we'd have two or more versions of the 'same' function running in parallel. The last deploy step dropped the now-outdated functions.

It worked relatively well.

<comment><USER7> Have you thought about using schemas and the search path for this? That is what Zalando does to deploy stored procedures without risking any downtime.

<comment><USER6> If I had to do that again, I would. It's been a while, but as I recall from that project the database adapter had shoddy support for search paths.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Why use an array instead of a separate table? Are you trying to avoid a JOIN?

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes. Our schema is fully denormalized, which is particularly important for performance on funnels. (See heapanalytics.com/features/funnels)

In particular, to compute where a user drops off in a funnel, I need to scan one array from left to right, and I don't need to do any joins. This shards very well, since all of a user's data lives on one shard, and most of the queries are aggregations, which are simple to reassemble from subqueries.

<comment><USER9> So why are you using an RDBMS?

<comment><USER10> > So why are you using an RDBMS?

Because even a shitty RDMBS is more robust, more secure and faster than any NoSQL wankery for this kind of use case.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Does anyone know offhand whether fixed length values, e.g., bigint, have this problem?

<comment><AUTHOR> No, this isn't an issue for fixed length types, although you're still better off using unnest instead of explicitly indexing into them.</comment></comment>


As the startup boom deflates, a reckoning is coming for Silicon Valley - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/As-the-Startup-Boom-Deflates-Tech-Is-Humbled-15078764.php <comment><USER2> And California is due for the big earthquake. Very easy articles to regurgitate.

Artificially growing a business is just bad business. Some get away with it through Series DEFG rounds or going public, but net profit and positive cashflow should always be the north star. Not, for how long can we offset real business metrics through outside capital. Many of these companies didn't need the bloated team size or overhead outside of chasing Unicorn status.</comment>


Rails tutorial screencasts - <AUTHOR> http://railstutorial.org/screencasts

<comment><USER2> Thanks for the submission! Unfortunately, the title of the post is rather generic; this is _the_ Ruby on Rails Tutorial screencast series, not just some generic Rails tutorial screencasts. Please upvote this story instead:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1784463></comment>


Ask HN: What is your WFH setup? - <AUTHOR> hello, I'm wondering how people have setup their workspace at home.
For example, I have a lenovo x220 with Arch Linux connecting to Win10 to the corporate network using openconnect & Remmina. For meetings/messaging: Slack & Zoom <comment><USER2> 5 year old NUC attached to one of my good monitors from work shoved onto the space I work on miniatures at. Communication using Rocket chat + Zoom for meetings.</comment>


"Medium" just doesn't work - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@mastro35/medium-just-doesnt-work-680d9d180d16 <comment><USER2> Well, it's clear why this author isn't getting paid for his medium posts: he's writing low-effort low-quality material desperately in need of editing.

Medium doesn't present itself as a substitute for a full-time job. It presents itself as a mechanism by which people can get paid a non-zero amount of money for the kind of material they would be writing for free anyway, based on metrics related to actual quality (such as read time & explicit recommendation) rather than purely based on views (as with advertising).

I use medium and run sites that have ads. I make about twenty dollars a month on medium, and nearly all of that comes from material I wrote years ago; in comparison, I have been using adsense since 2006 and have made a total of nine dollars from it (across several blogs, a once-popular discussion forum, and a youtube channel with a couple monetized videos in the millions of views). Keep in mind that google won't cut you a check or do direct deposit until your balance hits $100; at the current rate, I will get my first Google Adsense payout early in the twenty-second century.

If your content is so bad that Medium is giving you _nothing_ , you won't get anything from ads either.</comment>


Supervolcano Campi Flegrei Stirs Under Naples Italy - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/12/supervolcano-campi-flegrei-stirs-under-naples-italy/ <comment><USER2> Campi Flegrei doesn't mean "burning fields" _in Italian_ , as the author suggests.

Campi is literally "fields". We have that a lot for city/town/village names (e.g. Campi Bisenzio, close to Florence). When used for the name of a place, I would just suggest maybe 'meadows' as a better translation.

Flegreo (pl. -i), on the other hand, exists as an adjective solely to describe someone or something "from the area West of Neaples known as Campi Flegrei".

The etymology is of course related to the volcanic activity and has to do with burning. φλέγω (phlego) in Ancient Greek meant "to burn". In Latin the verb was Flagro.

In Italian we still have these words in use:

\- "deflagrazione" (it's similar to the English deflagration, but with a broader meaning of "explosion"; it's normally used as a synonym)

\- "flagrante". Literally "burning", but the common meaning is "evident" or "in the act", as in "colto in flagrante", "caught in the act", "caught red- handed".

The greek root, turned to "flog-", is still to be found in some specific terms, especially in medical literature. Flogistico, for example. You have that in English, and it's even more recognizable, thanks to the "ph": phlogistic. It means inflammatory, causing a burning sensation.

<comment><USER3> So, an English corrolary for a similarly named fictitious zone in Hawaii might be?

      Flamablish Fields

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> As Michio Kaku said, "Any advanced civilization must grow in energy consumption faster than the frequency of life-threatening catastrophes (e.g. meteor impacts, ice ages, supernovas, etc.). If they grow any slower, they are doomed to extinction." ( [http://mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics-of- extraterrestri...](http://mkaku.org/home/articles/the-physics-of- extraterrestrial-civilizations/) ).

Any guesses how far we are from being able to control volcanoes so that they would not pose a threat? Too far, I would guess.

<comment><USER5> I don't think we have actually tried anything like that, but people have thought about the problem. Possible engineering avenues include drilling relief holes to reduce pressure, siphoning heat with geothermal energy plants and inducing eruptions using explosives. It seems like making volcanoes safer is doable with concentrated research effort, but currently nobody wants to pay for it. I guess that'll change after Naples is destroyed.

<comment><USER6> It should be possible to make siphoning the heat away lucrative, instead of an expense.

I really don't know how much heat we are talking about (still, I don't think migrating all aluminum plants into above the supervolcanos would be enough), but it is not the kind of thing we should count as expense.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Do scientists still make predictions in Italy? Getting things wrong there is...dangerous.

[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/11/updated-appeals- court...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/11/updated-appeals-court- overturns-manslaughter-convictions-six-earthquake-scientists)

<comment><USER8> By the way, the scientists eventually got acquitted. Italian link [http://www.wired.it/attualita/ambiente/2015/11/23/terremoto-...](http://www.wired.it/attualita/ambiente/2015/11/23/terremoto- aquila-scienziati-assolti/)

According to the prosecutor their fault was reassuring people that nothing bad was going to happen, that is negligence in performing the risk analysis.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> _" There will be another supervolcano explosion," scientist James Quick, a geologist at Southern Methodist University in Texas, said in a statement when that volcano was found._

When this happens it is going to immediately change world climate to something very much colder than it is now. It suggests to me that some sort of preparation for surviving in very different climatic conditions than the one we currently experience would be a good investment in time and resources. That said, I'm not entirely sure how we might plan something like that.

<comment><USER10> It wouldn't be anything new: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer)

A more serious situation would be more than one eruption, or a sequence of eruptions to sustain the effects: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_weather_events_of_535%E2%80%93536)

<comment><USER11> Well, the last time this caldera really went it was twice the size of Tambora, so it'd probably be several years of impact.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I visited the vulcano few weeks ago, it doesn't look that dangerous when you are on the crater, but then if you visit Pompei and Ercolano, well it's scary. The eruption of 79 AD pretty much destroyed the city, fossilized corpses are still visible in the archeological site.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_of_Mount_Vesuvius_in_79)

Naples is the urban area with the highest density in Europe. An eruption of Vesuvio would likely kill at least 1-2 million of people and bring Italy and Europe to total economic collapse.

If we could for once think logically and stop all the culture/tradition crap, we would migrate people out of this area. The Balkans are huge and deserted, with lots of areas with similar climate. Spain comes to mind too. Or even Italy itself.

Obviously, the problem here is always the same. You have lots of people living in the worst possible places, but then if something happens is the State (hence tax payers) that have to re-build houses, pay for the emergency and so on. This is a huge moral hazard.

</comment><comment><USER13> "A smaller but still sizable eruption was observed at the supervolcano in 1538. That event lasted eight days and created the mountain Monte Nuovo. But since then, the volcano has been quiet, slumbering for more than 500 years."

I'm going to assume it's 1538 AD and that this volcano has slumbered _almost_ 500 years. And if create a "new mountain" was enough to relieve the pressure then, how do they distinguish a major eruption from a minor one when performing these forecasts?

<comment><USER14> A seven-mile caldera would surely be a 'major eruption'. Lots of distance between a small mountain (439 ft tall, isn't that a hill?) and a large volcano (Vesuvius is for instance the size of Naples).

<comment><USER11> I think what he's asking is how one would know whether the entire caldera was at risk or whether there was just a risk of a small eruption, such as in the 16th century. I'm guessing the answer is that "they don't".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Alternate title: "Supervolcano continues to exist near Naples, as it has for millennia"

<comment><USER11> Did you read the paper? The real news is the modeling and and the exponential curves they are measuring. Something is happening and there are analogs to compare it to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Yet another example of a scientific paper bent to satisfy sensationalism by the press.

First paragraph: "A long-quiet yet huge supervolcano that lies under 500,000 people in Italy may be waking up and approaching a "critical state," scientists report this week in the journal Nature Communications."

In the actual article:

"The scientists caution that it's possible nothing will happen in our lifetimes. They say it's impossible to say with any certainty when an eruption might actually take place. More monitoring and study are needed, they say."

And of course this:

"There will be another supervolcano explosion," scientist James Quick, a geologist at Southern Methodist University in Texas, said in a statement when that volcano was found.

"We don't know where, [but] Sesia Valley could help us to predict the next event."

is more like a Nostradamus prophecy, something will soon (before or later) happen somewhere ...

<comment><USER10> It's cool here to deride pop science articles as sensationalist hooey, but this is actual news. The volcano appears more active and scientists are legitimately worried.

[http://phys.org/news/2016-07-gas-ground-bay-naples- volcano.h...](http://phys.org/news/2016-07-gas-ground-bay-naples-volcano.html)

[http://phys.org/news/2016-12-naples-astride-rumbling-mega- vo...](http://phys.org/news/2016-12-naples-astride-rumbling-mega-volcano.html)

<comment><USER15> It's not about deriding the actual science article (that has all the dignity a science paper should have) it is about the sensationalism around that.

If you read the actual paper:

[http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13712](http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13712)

you will see how there is nothing "urgent" or "immediate" or even "soon to be expected", the scientist created a model that seemingly shows that eventually an eruption may happen, but without any clue if it will happen and more than that when it will happen:

"Caution is therefore prudent when forecasting the future mid- to short-term evolution of any period of unrest. Even if the magma underneath CFc is likely to be approaching the CDP, the possible future scenarios can be complicated by additional processes that have not been considered here. For example, increases in the melt liquidus due to H2O release and consequent magma crystallization could increase the melt viscosity, and therefore act against further magma migration. Additional careful scrutiny of monitoring data in the coming months and years is key to interpreting whether hydrothermal heating or magma quenching will prevail."

And as well in one of the two articles you posted:

"This is apparently better news, at least for now; activity in which magma moves upward and accumulates tends to be associated with an increased chance of an eruption. However the change from hydrothermal to magmatic activity can take place at any time, so we're not in a position to say that everything is well under the Campi Flegrei. The Campi Flegrei is still a very volatile place. What it does show is the difficulty in interpreting the data, even from one of the most-studied volcanic areas in the world. Reconciling all of the data is a major issue, despite our efforts."

The Vesuvio and the Campi Flegrei are anyway monitored: [http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/it/vesuvio/statoattualevesuvio.html](http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/it/vesuvio/statoattualevesuvio.html)

The institute publishes weekly and monthly reports:

[http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/it/campi- flegrei/monitoraggio/272-c...](http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/it/campi- flegrei/monitoraggio/272-campi-flegrei-bollettini-settimanali.html)

[http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/it/campi-flegrei/attivita- recente/2...](http://www.ov.ingv.it/ov/it/campi-flegrei/attivita- recente/275.html)

The whole area is "at risk" of course, and it is very likely that something may happen, but whether it will be an earthquake (a major one, as minor ones are daily) or an eruption and when it may happen is something noone can say.

<comment><USER6> Relvant XKCD: [https://xkcd.com/1159/](https://xkcd.com/1159/)

Turns out we got a peek at the rightmost digit previously covered by that frame, and it's another zero.

Still, there are overwhelming odds that everything is just fine.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Do you vote before or after you read an article? - <AUTHOR>

I'm curious. Because I find myself not voting perhaps as much as I should, instead just using HN as a great source of reading material. I mean to come back, but by then noprocrast has usually kicked in. <comment><USER2> I read a little, vote, and sometimes open the article in a separate tab in my browser sometime during that process. On my Firefox, I can right-click on the title URL of the submission to choose to open the submitted article in a new tab.

<comment><USER3> One of my favorite FF features: You can middle click links to open them in a new tab.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I almost never vote. If you think I should vote, please explain how that would help me. Does HN customize my front page depending on user preferences?

</comment><comment><USER5> I open a set of links on a dedicated Chrome window, read one article at a time, come back to the listing page and vote!</comment>


IBM Will Unleash Commercial "Universal" Quantum Computers This Year - <AUTHOR> https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ibm-will-unleash-commercial-universal-quantum-computers-this-year/ <comment><USER2> How much faster it is compared to normal ones?

<comment><USER3> You do not understand the concept. Issue of speed is irrelevant, because it is like the murican quiz show, where the answer is already there, you just need to ask the right question.</comment></comment>


Ubuntu 20.04 LTS' snap obsession has snapped me off of it - <AUTHOR> https://jatan.blog/2020/05/02/ubuntu-snap-obsession-has-snapped-me-off-of-it/ <comment><USER3> I am very diligent about applying updates as soon as I'm able and generally read the changelogs of the updates I'm applying in Ubuntu's Software Updater.

One thing I will not do is willingly allow somebody else a way to deploy and execute code on my computer without my say so (which snap is).

After reading the whole thread at [https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling- automatic-refresh-for...](https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/disabling-automatic- refresh-for-snap-from-store/707) and seeing Gustavo Niemeyer's arrogance (we know better than you when you should be applying updates) I will be voting with my feet and will be installing Pop!_OS instead of Ubuntu, and if snapd is present I will remove it.

The stated goal of Niemeyer, to have users use updated software, would have been fulfilled in my case if I had a way to see what updates would be applied beforehand, instead of the updates being force-installed.

Lengthy dialog with Niemeyer in the forum thread seems to have been a waste of time for all the people who participated trying to convince him to allow disabling of force-installed updates so I suggest you do the same as me and vote with your feet!

<comment><USER4> It's probably not a surprise to you, but this is a hotly debated topic inside Canonical. And I apologize for that thread, as it really doesn't represent our best attempt at external debate.

Changing a paradigm usually involves pushing the envelope and breaking some existing assumptions; systemd is everybody's favorite example of that in the Linux world. The root of this issue with snaps is the trade-off between built- in security and user control. Some points to consider:

1\. Browsers like FF and Chromium [on Windows] simply self-update, and disabling that requires configuration. So there is at least some precedent for taking the position that user applications should just update themselves. Server apps are more complex and are a strong argument counter to the existing behavior, as is the fact that many apps cannot be refreshed without user impact.

2\. Ubuntu, since 16.04 LTS, ships with unattended-upgrades enabled, which means that for debian packages the default behavior is already auto-updating (although automated reboots are not enabled by default, as that would be crazy for the general purpose case). That feels like the correct default, too, given the risk of running code exposed to exploitable, public CVEs — and how reluctant users (like my dad and my wife!) are to click on "Install now" in the update-manager dialog.

3\. Debian package updates run as root. Snap updates run in userspace, and confined. So in principle the risk exposure for snap updates is much smaller. And snaps do have an auto-rollback mechanism for failed updates [a]. Counter to that argument is the fact that snaps are meant to be under third-party control, and that there is no clear mechanism to separate security patches vs updates which you get with the debian pocket mechanism (i.e. focal-security vs focal-updates).

The lack of any official [b] means of user control over the snap auto-update mechanism feels wrong to many of us, including me. And while we may seem somewhat opaque in these debates, the feedback we get in threads like this one (and the snapcraft.io one) actually feeds into our decision making. So please do keep pushing on this topic and we'll do our part internally.

[a] See [https://kyrofa.com/posts/snap-updates-automatic- rollbacks](https://kyrofa.com/posts/snap-updates-automatic-rollbacks) for a detailed guide on this topic. Of course, if your snap refreshes and you hate the new version, downgrading isn't quite always possible.

[b] There are ways to, hmmm, control auto-updating (i.e. refresh.metered, refresh.hold) if you really want to; that thread has a few. That doesn't help the debate, but I'm sharing in case someone has a technical need for it.

<comment><USER5> Sorry, but as a fellow Canonical employee, speaking from a throwaway obviously, it's evident to me that you're simply not telling the truth here.

You know just as well as I do that if you criticize Snap within the company, you get fired. Especially if Mark overhears you. There is no room for criticism. You either drink the koolaid or you shutup. So, no, sorry, we're going to keep pumping out Snap and those who don't fall inline will just fall out of the company. This is how we've always done these things, despite it failing repeatedly, and Snap is no exception. Actually, Snap is in particular no exception, given how hard it's being pushed by top level management.

[An aside from the main point of this comment: your point 3 is nonsense, and any security guy will tell you the same. For packages that the main sudo-ing user executes, sandboxed or not, there still is effectively no difference between that and root. Snap's sandbox is alpha quality at best, and major platform hurdles remain to make it capable of doing anything remotely useful. Say no to auto-updating snap backdoors. Please. There's a reason why Linux has thrived and benefited with its vetted-by-distros traditional package managers.]

<comment><USER4> OK, I've had breakfast.

First, has anybody actually been fired for criticizing snaps? Your comment seems to imply through hyperbole that we don't debate inside Canonical, but in my experience that simply isn't true. In fact, I've seen a lot more intense IC to CEO debate in Canonical than anywhere else I've worked. It's not always super constructive debate, but I don't know how much better it is in any relatively small organization with the broad impact Canonical has.

Second, debate and reflexion is how these positions get refined. An idea starts out crazy and radical -- "let's make an OS which costs zero and which anybody on the planet can figure out how to use!", or "Launchpad will only support bzr", or yet again "upstart, not systemd" \-- but over time it evolves towards a place of greater consensus. So I don't think we're the destination for snaps; in fact, if these blog posts are only coming out now, it signals we are rather early in the journey.

Finally, I can understand creating a throwaway account to disclose something you're not comfortable with at your workplace, but it's not cool -- nor constructive, civil or all sorts of C words -- to create one to and start with "you're simply not telling the truth". C'mon, I'm your coworker.

<comment><USER6> I want to just say I appreciate your level-headed response to the anonymous poster.

Separately... "In fact, I've seen a lot more intense IC to CEO debate in Canonical than anywhere else I've worked."

As an outsider, this makes me wonder if the CEO is too involved in day-to-day operations. (And overriding the work of those with more expertise than himself.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Snap applications auto-update and that's fine if Ubuntu wants to keep > systems secure. But it can't even be turned off manually.

OMG. Is this real? This is the exact reason I use Linux instead of Windows 10 or macOS. I am not a grandma who can't stay up to date on tech news. At the least there should be a toggle for power users. But no, you can only defer it. Am I the only one who doesn't like it when your already slow internet slows down even further? It feels like hell when you are working.

I am not upgrading to this. I have been using Arch Linux as my personal OS. Maybe I should look into Debian for my VMs.

And just read this thread[1]. Is this how they treat their users? Even Reddit is better then this.

1\. [https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/is-ubuntu-software-going- to-b...](https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/is-ubuntu-software-going-to-be-remove- for-snap-snap-store/14542/58)

<comment><USER8> We work at remote sites on cell connections. Part of the reason we moved to Ubuntu from Windows was the ability to control data usage, which is expensive. Automatic updates quickly become a significant slice of the bill when random decisions like these get pushed on users. Ubuntu was supposed to help prevent us from needing to chase this.

<comment><USER9> Windows 10 has an out of the box feature to mark connections as metered which disables automatic updates.

<comment><USER8> On Ethernet which ultimately has a cellular uplink?

<comment><USER10> Yes, but this is something that needs to be set.

[https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028458/windows- met...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028458/windows-metered- connections-in-windows-10)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> So I run Kubuntu on my work laptop (X1 Carbon) and just upgraded to 20.04 last weekend. I had a vague idea there were different competing standards for "linux apps that work across distribution" but didn't know people had such a problem with snap. It just seemed like a useful tool for installing proprietary stuff that wouldn't normally be packaged by the distribution. I just checked and the snaps I have that aren't from canonical are: datagrip, slack, discord, and spotify. I haven't noticed any slow app boot times and I think it's great that it's so easy to install third party software. Is snap somehow user-hostile?

<comment><USER12> There are some downsides (footprint, forced updates, speed, etc.), though depending on what you're installing those may not be deal-breakers. I'm using plain Ubuntu 20.04 and I tend to install stuff via apt and not snap in general (but I am fine with installing non-essential things via snap). The software store has a subtle toggle in the upper right for choosing to install a package as a snap or via apt when both are available.

<comment><USER11> Yeah, is there a plan for it to long-term replace apt? I've just always used apt as my first choice and then snap for random things like spotify.

<comment><USER13> They are making a very big bet on snap, I would expect most of their desktop apps to be slowly moved there in the next few years. At that point apt would be kept around strictly for essential system packages and (hopefully) for server usage.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Maybe I'm in the minority but I like Snaps. I wish all software would auto- update silently in the background -- when's the last time you even thought about upgrading Chrome?

The author of this article claims it's too difficult to find Flatpak apps and that the Ubuntu software center prioritizes Snaps over .deb. Are platforms never allowed to migrate to a new standard? Why is it Canonical's fault that authors of individual applications have yet to migrate Snaps?

If we all agree that on the whole auto-updating software is _generally_ better and more secure than manually updated software, why not single out the applications that haven't migrated instead of blaming the whole standard?

Maybe I'm just naive and not doing advanced super user stuff these Snap haters are doing but from a distance to me this resembles the systemd vs init controversy. One which, IMHO, Linux super users seemed unusually attached to an older standard for not always clear reasons. Snaps offer real benefits: maybe instead of complaining that 'this sucks' users could offer constructive criticism about how to improve the new standard.

Just my opinion tho.

<comment><USER15> My two cents, you don't have to agree but thought I'd just add a different perspective.

I prefer my own package manager (pacman) over snaps for the following reasons:

1) I like to upgrade on my own schedule. I use my computer for work, and I cannot have things break in the middle of the day or in the morning, just as I get started with work. I usually save upgrades for when I less things to do, so that in case stuff breaks, I can spend time fixing it. This has happened twice during the last 2 years, or something like that. One time Firefox got broken (or rather, the version upgrade broke an extension I use) and second time some API in neovim changes to a couple of plugins broke. If this breakage would just happen by itself, it would break the two most common tools I use on a day-to-day basis.

I've used both Windows and OSX for my professional work and while Windows is the worst offender when it comes to automatic updates, OSX is pretty horrible as well. At least with Windows you can expect some sort of backwards compatibility, while on OSX, one day you have to upgrade your entire OS, otherwise Notes or some stupid application won't launch. On the other hand, Windows eventually forces you to upgrade no matter if you like it or not. So both of them suck equally, but in different ways.

2) snap seems to create mountpoints for the applications and never removes them. When trying snap apps I always end up with bunch of pollution in my environment. Could be that I'm using snap/snapd wrong, but left a sour taste in my mouth, as I saw snap as something that wants to solve a problem that existed for a long time. Instead, they look a bit amateurish because of this.

<comment><USER14> My position is not that certain users would prefer to update on their own schedule. Of course there are.

Or that new updates sometimes break things and that's a hassle. Of course they do and it is.

The problem is if you want to distribute an important security update, what do you do? Ask everyone nicely to upgrade? How? Again, what % of users will manually update their software? Not a lot.

For #2, that seems like a resolvable problem that can be brought to Canonical. I'd prefer to see auto-updates fine-tuned rather than have super users immediately dismiss the idea in general.

It's just my opinion but I think the greater good of the Linux community is served by auto updates, even if occasionally it means an update to an individual application has a bug here or there.

Maybe this doesn't apply to you but I wonder how much of the Linux community just doesn't like change. Sometimes Canonical stuff does crazy stuff (Mir?) but auto-updates seem like a noble principle worth attempting to adopt.

<comment><USER16> Auto-updating isn't the only issue. I'm a stickler for security updates; I'm that crazy guy who always reboots his computer immediately whenever there's an update. I like that Windows forces updates.

Even I recognize that this doesn't make sense in the Linux world, though. Ubuntu is trying to be something it's not—they're trying to appeal to a new demographic, and, in doing so, driving away their existing users.

Even with my stance on auto-updating, snaps are a problem for me because I mostly use Linux in the context of servers. Like it or not, that's where Linux has the largest market share; Android aside, Linux's consumer market share is negligible.

In that context, snaps have problems:

\- I can't have my servers updating on their own. Security updates rarely break things, but most other updates need testing.

\- I use auto-scaling. That means servers need to come up quickly when load increases. If a bunch of new servers come online and all decide to update, that's worse than no servers coming online.

\- I don't want or need a sandbox. In a cloud environment, the server _is_ the sandbox.

\- Environments and server states need to be reproducible for testing and auditing. If I'm doing a post-mortem, I need the software on the relevant image to be in the exact same state as when the problem occurred.

\- Performance is critical. I'm already paying AWS for sandboxing in the form of many small EC2 instances; I don't need the additional overhead of snaps. I'm not working with bare metal.

All of these issues could be resolved, and I wouldn't object to this experiment running in a non-LTS or desktop-only release. But it is truly an experiment: snaps aren't ready for prime time. My options are to pay Canonical for extended support for old software, wait it out and hope the issues are sorted before I stop receiving security updates, or switch to something like Alpine or Debian.

Keep in mind, this is coming from someone who loves automatic updates, generally prefers systemd, rather liked Unity, and didn't see what all the fuss was with Upstart and Mir:

\- systemd works pretty damn well and is a big improvement, although it has its hiccups

\- Unity was fine. It looked nice out-of-the-box and wasn't a resource hog.

\- Upstart usually worked well enough, though it sometimes had reliability issues.

\- Mir never really saw the light of day, so it didn't matter.

Snaps are where I draw the line. They might be the future, but they're not ready for the present. And that's not for lack of trying on my part—I had no trouble embracing Upstart and later systemd.

<comment><USER17> All valid points and as you say it yourself, all addressable. The thing is though, Canonical can control this experiment by deciding on what debs get migrated to snaps. They can easily conduct this experiment in an LTS so long as they only keep it to desktop packages like GNOME components, browsers, third party software, etc. That way they don't have to wait yet more years before providing this system for use by all users and developers. For example I love the fact that VS Code and Spotify update on their own with no interaction required. I wouldn't love if something I don't want to update in our server fleet gets updated but I don't see many snaps in that area. But if we do see that I'm sure both of us can come up with a one liner stopping snap from updating if and until that use case is supported. Besides, the server space is gravitating towards immutability anyways, so doing something like `chmod -x $(which snapd)` or `chmod -x $(which apt)` on a production machine shouldn't be a big problem in that context. In fact that's one foolproof way to make sure packages are what you want them to be after installing them. Or read-only file systems.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> We tried to make an internal IoT device using Ubuntu Core and snaps because the capabilities of it were very promising. We started a PoC and about halfway through we hit a major roadblock. Our enterprise network does certificate substitution, and Ubuntu Core absolutely does not allow you to install your own certificates globally, so our devices would never receive updates. We tried EVERY hack we could think up, short of making our own core snap. We talked to Canonical about it, and they didn't seem interested in our fixing our complaints without a massive amount of money, so our PoC died, and we dropped Ubuntu entirely because of it.

<comment><USER19> Sounds like a solid decision from Canonical tbh. Certificate substitution is terrible.

<comment><USER20> MITM should be completely illegal.

Why does this even need to be stated?

<comment><USER21> Should you not be able to MITM your own machines?

<comment><USER20> Only in dev environments. Not on machines used by employees.

<comment><USER22> are you european. because in america its perfectly legal to spy on your employees usage of company assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I really dislike the way snaps create disk partitions. When I run $ df I want to see what I defined during OS installation, not a dozen nasty snap mounts. An application misusing fundamental system features like this feels like a violation of some UNIX principle.

<comment><USER24> Very much agreed, the fact that nobody at Ubuntu noticed that the extra mount points is a best annoying is kinda impressive.

I'm not blaming Ubuntu, nor Snaps for this issue, but we had a new server come online and our monitoring noticed that two or three partition was already at 100% usage. Those where snap mount point.

<comment><USER23> I don't use Ubuntu on servers but I imagine snaps would cause monitors like Munin and Logwatch to freak out.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Snap has an issue on certain Linux distributions (including Fedora and Arch) in which many applications render tofu characters (□□□□□) instead of text.

[https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snapped-app-not-loading- fonts-o...](https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/snapped-app-not-loading-fonts-on- fedora-and-arch/12484)

Canonical needs to invest in compatibility if it wants Snap to be adopted in distributions other than Ubuntu. Flatpak doesn't have this issue, and unlike Snap, its server implementation is decentralized, free, and open source.

<comment><USER26> Isn't flatpack designed from the point of Desktop users (GNOME) where snaps are designed with a server in mind? This would mean that are very different and you can't just substitute them.

<comment><USER25> While there are Snaps for server software, Snaps are marketed as a way to publish applications "for desktop, cloud, and Internet of Things" "across Linux on any distribution or version" \- and users expect Snap applications to work properly on all Linux distributions, not just Ubuntu. Otherwise, developers could just publish a .deb package for Ubuntu like they did before.

[https://snapcraft.io](https://snapcraft.io)

Yes, Flatpak is targeted to desktop applications while Snap has a broader scope, but it's questionable whether Snap's mandatory automatic updates are desirable in a server environment.

<comment><USER27> I don't even know how's it's questionable. Every single update we do to prod gets regression tested except for "cross yer fingers" 0-days that we are exposed to.

<comment><USER25> Snap's automatic updates apply to major versions as well as minor versions. Major version upgrades in an automatic update could bring breaking changes or require manual configuration at an inconvenient time, and this is precisely what server administrators want to avoid.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> If you're looking for an alternative to Ubuntu but want to stick with a Debian-based distribution, I'll continue to recommend Debian testing.

It's a rolling release, so you don't have to stop what you're doing every 6 months - 3 years to install a huge update that changes the way everything works. It's more stable than the name would suggest, as long as you follow a few reasonable best-practices [1].

Software available on Debian testing is pretty up-to-date... If you're previously tried Debian stable but were put off by ancient packages, you won't see this in testing. Keep in mind that Debian testing (not stable) is upstream for Ubuntu's releases, so Debian testing's packages will be about as new as Ubuntu's packages on release day (but they're updated continuously, so they stay fresh).

I have personal systems running Debian testing or unstable that have been running continuously for 5-10 years without issues. They don't look or feel any different than systems I set up a few months ago.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23044878](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23044878)

<comment><USER29> I tried going this route and the desktop experience was rough. Debian doesn't seem to have reasonable defaults for fonts so I spent way too much time learning and configuring all the font systems. So literally just the font configuration was enough for me to switch back to Ubuntu and just only install the stuff I like (no snap, gnome).

<comment><USER30> I ran Debian for maybe 15-20 years before switching to Ubuntu. The first few weeks are rough. But once you get it configured up the way you like, it keeps on ticking for a decade with no announced changes or surprises. You front-load a lot of the work, but then productivity stays high.

Those 15-20 years, it was the same Debian install. Everything else in the computer changed, but Debian kept on ticking.

There was a while Debian was behind on supporting things like laptop power management and graphics cards, when I switched to Ubuntu. For a while, it was a more polished, user-friendly up-to-date Debian. That was nice.

Now that Ubuntu re-invents the wheel each new release (and quite often, replacing a spoked, pneumatic-tired wheel with a square piece of wood), and hardware support is a little more standardized, I think it's time to switch back. It feels more like a tech gizmo, designed for Ubuntu developers, than an end-user OS.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> > I hate that Chromium's snap takes more than 10 seconds to load on cold boot > on a freaking SSD, whereas .deb and Flatpak apps load in 1-2 seconds.

Can someone verify this? As someone who will eventually upgrade to 20.04, this is concerning.

<comment><USER32> Apparently, snaps are compressed to save disk space, which is why they take so long to start:

\- [https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/9scoif/snap_package...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/9scoif/snap_packages_are_very_slow_to_load_in_ubuntu/)

Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps, however, your web browser (and any other frequencely used apps), shouldn't be compressed, especially if there is ample disk space.

<comment><USER33> _Saving disk space is certainly useful for rarely used apps_

Is it really? I can't recall the last time I ran into disk space issues, must have been in the 1990s.

<comment><USER32> Really? I constantly run into disk space issues. Apple still ships their flagship 13" macbook pro 128gb storage and they charge $200 for another 128gb. While other manufacturer's laptops charge a lot less for storage these days, most still only come with 256 which is not enough these days for development IMO.

Even on my desktop, I managed to fill 750GB with various VMs and android development tools (the SDKs, etc). While I am not sure how much compression could have saved me, it could still be worth it (especially since I only use certain VMs or SDK version once a month).

<comment><USER34> Yeah, then stop burying yourself with Apple devices.

Anyways, it makes sense to maintain something like an LRU cache, and compress only the least used things.

<comment><USER35> Why would you? lz4 decompresses at ~5GB/s on a modern CPU [1] with good compression ratios, that's still more than most SSDs can push nowadays. Most applications are small fraction of that size on-disk.

The problems arise when you start using xz-compressed squashfs images. LZMA2 is optimized for compression ratio and typically decompresses several times slower than even zlib deflate (which is already ~10 slower than lz4).

[1] [https://github.com/lz4/lz4](https://github.com/lz4/lz4)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> > Auto-updating of snaps can only be deferred at best, until at some point, > like Windows, it auto-updates anyway. Even on metered connections, snaps > auto-update anyway after some time.

This attitude is obnoxious. Yes, not everybody is on a metered connection or running a mission-critical system, but some are, and it is hardly unreasonable to accommodate them.

<comment><USER37> This is a hard problem.

And Microsoft didn't have a choice. Given an option regular users will never update their computers, perhaps partly due to fear of what they don't understand, fear of change, or maybe due to past bad update experiences. I witness this in my mom with technology all the time. Every time there's a popup she mini-panics, and she has trained herself to click close every time she sees something she doesn't understand.

Google started the trend of silently updating Chrome and everyone including Microsoft followed after, except upgrading an OS is nothing like updating a browser.

For most parts, I think auto update is necessary for tech illiterates, especially now that everybody's jumping on the Agile bandwagon, including Windows. There needs to be a way to ensure new versions reach their users given everyone's just churning out barely working software these days.

Honestly I don't have a problem with that. But if they don't give power user the option to opt out, this is just disrespectful

<comment><USER38> > Honestly I don't have a problem with that. But if they don't give power user > the option to opt out, this is just disrespectful

The problem is that "power users" can't be trusted to use this power responsibly, or they operate based on assumptions that won't always be true. Either way they end up hurting other people in enough situations that this becomes an ecosystem issue.

Power users often help others set up their systems like they do, but those users can't manage them. Other times, power users will move on. When they were managing the systems, it wasn't a problem. Now that someone else is, the systems stop getting updated and someone has to clear up the mess. Yes, good power users help transition things properly, but don't kid yourself on the number of times this actually happens.

This phenomenon is prevalent in software. Just looks at the defaults which "power users" frequently choose (cf. JWT).

<comment><USER39> The arrogance in this comment astounds me. It's almost never appropriate to assume that people don't have the right to make decisions for themselves, even if you think those decisions harm them. People have different values and weigh their own decisions against their own values, not yours.

<comment><USER40> > It's almost never appropriate to assume that people don't have the right to > make decisions for themselves, even if you think those decisions harm them

But when those decisions affect others? When your computer becomes part of a botnet and is used to attack a target then it's no longer just your problem anymore. The responsibility to prevent this must lie somewhere, either with the user or with the manufacturer. And Microsoft would rather force the updates on users and occasionally be in the news for a botched one than to constantly be in the news for botnets of hundreds of thousands of "abandoned" Windows PCs, or the constant complaint that Windows is insecure because people keep their PCs stuck on the same version they came with.

To use some very current imagery, imagine if someone walked around coughing in your face saying the decision whether to wear a mask or not is theirs.

<comment><USER41> It would be appropriate if you didn't try to misuse the present crisis to lend undue emotional weight to your argument. This is manipulative.

Further your argument draws a connection but its spurious a sufficient difference in degree is a difference in kind. The way in which we comport ourselves while sick have the potential on net to kill millions of people where as the peril implied by users failing to update windows has never resulted in peril of that magnitude. Further one can reasonably suppose that one can with sufficient care design a system where updates are on by default and we don't create perverse situations which inspire many users to turn them off entirely.

For example one in which applications are updated without disturbing or interrupting the users workflow, where updates aren't effective until the user reboots, where applications are isolated from their underlying environments where users can roll back and pin a particular version if a new version is buggy or undesirable. Where major changes to entire user interfaces are rare and opt in for years.

How many are going to bother disabling updates?

<comment><USER40> > It would be appropriate [...] This is manipulative.

Please don't make unfounded accusations and personal attacks based on suppositions. It was just an easy to understand analogy of how your decisions can have consequences beyond yourself, and does the job without any hint of "emotional weight". The rest is in the eye of the beholder.

> have the potential on net to kill millions of people

Talk about manipulative and lending undue emotional weight to your argument. Nothing gives weight to your own words like not following them yourself.

> one can reasonably suppose that one can with sufficient care design a system > where updates are on by default and we don't create perverse situations > which inspire many users to turn them off entirely.

This supposition didn't fare well in reality because it's easy to suppose but hard to implement. Especially when talking about a _very_ complex system that has to be put in the hands of ~87+% of computer users out there, and work with tens of thousands of combinations of hardware, software and different configurations. And perhaps the most critical aspect is that the perverse incentives are left to the judgement of users with little to no understanding of the system or the wider implications of misusing it. They are more likely to follow terrible advice because the explanation for the good advice is too complicated. This is why the easy to understand analogy was useful.

<comment><USER41> >perhaps the most critical aspect is that the perverse incentives are left to the judgement of users with little to no understanding of the system or the wider implications of misusing it.

This is true of capitalism and democracy. The worst choice for economics or governance except for all the other choices. I want a system that respects the users judgement not yours. No matter how well meaning you can't adopt the perspective of all users nor do I desire to see the mediocre results of smart people who know better than their users trying.

It's actually not that hard. If you make updates something that silently happens periodically without interrupting the users or making many changes to the UI that the users rely on they will let you update the parts they don't directly touch all you want to secure their systems.

When you want to make major changes make them opt in and test them to ensure they are actually substantially superior. After a while deprecate the old UI. People will tolerate infrequent major changes far better than constant small breaking changes to their workflow.

Again if you don't make updates suck you don't have to coerce people into doing them. If you are figuring out how to coerce users for their own good you are solving the wrong problem.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Good to see that I am not alone at being upset about the current snap vs. deb vs. flatpak Ubuntu situation. I always considered a unified package management system as a huge plus.

<comment><USER43> I do not understand that. Why being upset? If you do not like Ubuntu just install some other distro and be done with it. There are many out there! Fedora, Arch (Manjaro) and even plain Debian are all much better then Ubuntu these days.

<comment><USER44> It's exausting to switch every time an upgrade is a betrayal

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> The last time I installed the Ubuntu, I noticed gnome calculator took over a second to start in a VM on a new >$2500 laptop.

I switched to a .deb, and it was instantaneous. Then I switched back to devuan and have been happy since.

<comment><USER46> The calculator was a snap in Ubuntu 18.04 as an experiment.

<comment><USER47> I was wondering why the calculator took so long to start on 18.04. I thought there was some problem with my system.

Doesn't bode well for 20.04. I've been with Ubuntu for a very long time, I like that it just works most of the time. May be time to try out another distro if all the applications are this sluggish.

<comment><USER48> The good news is that 18 is one of the super-LTS releases, so you don't have to upgrade until 2028.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> Ubuntu is doing more harm than good to desktop linux at this point in time.

Continuing to push Xorg over Wayland. Removing support for flatpak (cross- distro way of using sandboxed apps) Horrible PPA system that works much worse in practice than the AUR or other ports systems. No daemonless docker (podman)

Lots of people try Ubuntu since it is the "most popular" version of Linux, realize it isn't great and think desktop Linux is in bad shape. The reality is Canonical doesn't seem to have good ideas and refuses to incorporate the good ideas from other distros.

<comment><USER50> If it's so bad, then why is it the most popular?

Arch is a no-go for most people and any sane IT department. Fedora doesn't offer LTS and RH/CentOS feel quickly outdated on desktops, let alone laptops.

Ubuntu ships a distribution that works on most hardware and provides a reasonable desktop environment. While snaps aren't the most elegant solution, they do the job when your users need to install stuff like Jetbrains IDEs for instance.

<comment><USER51> > If it's so bad, then why is it the most popular?

Marketing and brand recognition.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> So theres one huge issue with Snap no one in my circles is talking about - <USER2> dont want my server changing without me controlling it! This seems like a) Someone could get an update in without my knowledge and it'll get pushed to me without my consent b) if the code changes, i want to control that, if a package changes, i also want to control that....its my server, i want to control it all! On a desktop, maybe I could handle this, but for a server, its absolutely a no go. wtf are they thinking?

</comment><comment> gjsman-1000 I filed a bug a few years back asking why Snap refused to allow any repositories outside of Canonical's and had no open-source server implementation. That blew up.

[https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/bug-report-asks-why- snap...](https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/08/bug-report-asks-why-snappy)

</comment><comment><USER53> > Browsing the Snap Store sucks

Yeah a lot of the software you see in the store is legacy software that seems to be stuck on an older version. Also many of the items are lacking a screenshot and a comprehensive description of what the software does. I find myself using the store to _discover_ software and then go to the software's official website (usually on Github) and install it the oldskool way by doing:

        ./software.deb

</comment><comment><USER54> Ubuntu 20.04 forced me to switch to Fedora Server on my home server. Pretty happy so far. I have significantly fresher package versions and most of the software tools I use offer a RPM package. I think I will wait for snap to mature, before giving it another go.

<comment><USER55> I don't understand. You stopped using Ubuntu server because of snap?

Can you clarify?

<comment><USER56> they didn't say it was ubuntu server, it might just as well be ubuntu desktop, and used as a home server (i.e. a box used mostly for server software, but no necessarily without desktop environment).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> To disallow control of the updates by the users is probably well-intended as some kind of a trade-off, but what if I don't want a new feature that is coming in the next version? What if I already know it's broken in my system configuration -- I hope for a fix for 60 days, and then what? What if the fix never comes? Does my system stop working?

What if I'm a business relying on that specific version? Do I just say "oh well" and close shop?

And what about airgapped systems?

I understand there's the "security", but then, on the other hand:

1\. If snapd gets forked because of this, the snap ecosystem becomes fragmented and Canonical loses control of part of their baby.

2\. If snapd stays as-is, and Canonical keeps preventing user control of the update cadence, then people will just run away from using snaps once the magical auto-updates create any high-profile problem. Lxd is a snap as well, so containers will be in the crosshairs.

All in all it feels like a silly decision if you ask me.

</comment><comment><USER58> For largely this reason, I've just switched to Manjaro after over two decades (ouch!) of using Debian and Ubuntu. I'm very happy with it!

Package installs are unbelievably fast. But mostly, the AUR repository of user contributed packaging scripts is awesome! Although I'm a bit worried about installing packages from random internet people, they are generally short and very easy to check for unwanted *ware. Haven't been disappointed yet!

<comment><USER59> Came here to say this. I've been on Manjaro at work and at home for 2 years now. It's the longest running Linux desktop distro I've ever maintained and it's precisely due to the excellent AUR repo system.

I've had to install very few things from source, mostly small, opinionated system tweak utilities. But even installing from source is easier than hunting down a PPA and a key and trying to keep apt from getting corrupted somehow.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> There was a thread on HN about disabling Snaps last week. I found the process pretty straight-forward.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972661](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22972661)

<comment><USER56> It's not about whether it can be disabled or not, but about the direction Canonical is heading to. Also, I wouldn't call installing Chromium from .deb in 20.04 exactly straightforward.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I know Snap maybe offered tighter sandboxing, but why didnt AppImage take off? It seems like it solves the problems of deb/rmp/etc war and is easy to create for app devs...

<comment><USER62> I much prefer AppImage, just recently I created one that packaged an old windows game and included the required dependencies (wine, libopenal, etc). Starting the AppImage is as simple as "./game.AppImage" and in theory would work on any Linux distribution. I think it has good potential for preservation of old applications and video games.

AppImage is awesome.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Not sure what was the thinking. I am, as of this moment, in the process of migrating my laptop to from Ubuntu to Debian.

<comment><USER64> It is worth noting you can basically get all of the benefit of using ubuntu(a good gnome experience, ppa's, etc) but without any of the snap stuff by installing pop os. It's a bit unfortunate that pop os is branded as something basically for scrubs and new linux users, because it is still fully featured and a great overall experience even for a more adept linux user.

<comment><USER63> I don't know Pop OS. On the other hand, I have been using Debian on my PC since 1999 and only got Ubuntu for my laptop because I had trouble getting everything to work properly and Ubuntu seemed to do the job.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> I was asked by a friend to get Netflix working on his Lubuntu 20.04 Linux laptop. He was running Chromium which comes without Widevine, and the extension wasn't available in the Chrome Web Store, but it can be enabled by simply making libwidevine.so available in Chromium's library path. But how to add a file to the sandboxed lib/ directory of a Snap? You can't without rebuilding the entire Snap as your own custom product, and then it's no longer a standard package from the repo so you lose the blessings of package updates! Maybe there's a better way, but I sure could not find one.

I had to ditch Chromium and unfortunately resort to Chrome directly provided by Google, with all of its privacy problems.

<comment><USER66> Did Firefox not ship with widevine?

<comment><USER67> Usually firefox does not ship with it, but it's a one-click install when needed. It depends on the package though, some packagers build it with it bundled some don't. Since it's not a FOSS component it can't be bundled in FOSS distros though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> I feel like snaps are trying to do too much. Applications are slow to start. Besides, I don't want the underlying system to be changing and updating all the time. For me the stability of RHEL/Centos with flatpak for desktop applications is perfect.

</comment><comment><USER69> Not the best way to disable this but it works. My /etc/hosts:

127.0.0.1 api.snapcraft.io

</comment><comment><USER70> I'm sympathetic to most of these arguments, operating systems should typically trend towards more clarity and user choice; especially ones likely to be used by professionals like Linux. But I will say that the Ubuntu software store has sucked for as long as I've ever used Ubuntu; they made it pretty years ago, and apparently never once considered performance or behavior. I would regularly search in the store for applications I knew existed, and it would either take forever or not find them. I always gave up and used apt, at least until I gave up on Ubuntu altogether.

</comment><comment><USER71> 100% agree! I hate snaps and Ubuntu is overdoing it too much now.

I've moved to Alpine for servers and Arch for desktop now.

</comment><comment><USER72> Ubuntu has followed the same path of first building their user base on trust and quality and then monetizing it hard with various shady schemes.

Even coffee shops do it. First they sell high quality coffee for little margin and "don't expect or accept tips". Then they switch to the dark side to monetize the trust: they cut hard on materials, they pay $2/hour to employees and expect the customers to subsidize their minimum wages with tips (that are now accepted and very much expected).

</comment><comment><USER73> I do not have an informed opinion on the different aspects of snaps, because I haven't had to deal with them at all.

That said, the feature "automatic updates whenever the system feels like it", is an annoyance for me, even if I can defer them. Typing "sudo apt full- upgrade" takes a few seconds.

I just use Ubuntu Server and get only what I need, which is available through the APT repositories. I have not noticed these repositories getting any smaller in favor of snaps and I am already using the 20.10 development branch. The Ubuntu Server installer does not install any snaps by default. However, snapd is there but it is trivial to remove it if one wants to. Chromium is the only "loss" I have witnessed and I also saw this mentioned in other comments. Note that there exists a really nice PPA, maintained by Pop!_OS, that contains quite a few packages, including Chromium.

I am wondering what security issues do snaps address that apparmor, whose purpose is security, does not. I also think it is unfortunate that we need snaps to deal with different applications / packages needing different library versions...

</comment><comment><USER74> I used Ubuntu for 4 or 5 years as my daily driver for development. Snaps made me swap back to Arch I haven't looked back. All it took was one `df`.

</comment><comment><USER75> I moved from Ubuntu MATE to Fedora MATE for this reason. One reason I use free software is that I get to have the final say in what my computer does. There's a big thread at snapcraft forums asking for the ability to shut off updates. Canonical wouldn't bulge. So I ve moved elsewhere and thank the Linux ecosystem for allowing diversity so that I can still use it as I d like to.

</comment><comment><USER76> So...I guess we are done with Ubuntu then.

This is terrible. We use Ubuntu on systems where bad things can happen if software becomes unstable due to an unwanted update. In other words, nobody, _nobody_ would ever even dream of installing _any_ software of updating the OS without authorization. And this authorization would require regression testing in order to verify the changes would not compromise the system.

I don't understand how anyone working on Ubuntu could think this is a good idea.

To be clear, if Linux (let's say Ubuntu) is going to become a viable OS for the masses it probably needs something like this. I get it. However, there is no reason to break the traditional stability of Linux and even risk creating danger.

Disabling this mode should be as simple as one setting. In fact, it should be offered as a choice during installation with a full explanation. This is where they could make a pitch for the functionality. Those of us who don't need it (or can't use it for other reasons) can opt out and move on. Consumers, sure, I don't care.

</comment><comment><USER77> I've been running Debian since ~1994, and never really got the excitement about Ubuntu. Some colleagues did, but it seemed to be more about the marketing.

I've always been a KDE user, which was always a first class citizen option during the Debian installation process. For Gnome / Unity users having that default promoted and baked into the distribution might have been compelling.

The refrain 'but it's so much easier to install' never really sat well with me -- I hand-install my desktop & laptop OS's infrequently, given the upgrade process (with Debian) has always been wonderfully robust. I auto-install and maintain, almost exclusively headless, every other VM, so a nicer installer wasn't relevant there.

Claims of 'stodgy' versions are rebutted by using testing or unstable branches, or even backports. For enterprise, stodgy's often a plus in any case -- look at what you get with RHEL/CentOS.

<comment><USER73> I also use KDE Plasma, but even the experimental Debian repository does not yet have 5.18. Otherwise, I would just use Sid.

<comment><USER77> Look, I'm a huge advocate of KDE, but objectively I'm struggling to see what's ground-breaking and desperately urgent in 5.18.

Ubuntu (or rather Kubuntu's) schedule [1] unsurprisingly isn't faster than the mothership's.

I guess there's been a lot going on in the world since February, so people haven't been 100% focused on getting free software packaged up into a free distribution as fast as normal.

[1] [https://community.kde.org/Get_KDE_Software_on_Your_Linux_Dis...](https://community.kde.org/Get_KDE_Software_on_Your_Linux_Distro#Kubuntu)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> Actually, I'm startled by the religious believe that nothing can go wrong with "snap"! What is so new to snap that it is so reliable, in contrast to Debian- packages? Currently I'm trying to update my 18.04 to 20.04 but get stuck, because the Python3-Version shipped lately seem to have issues. So, the upgrade process abruptly stops, leaving the system in a half-baked state. While I do not complain, Ubuntu is free, I'm terrified by the thought such an upgrade could be initiated, without me monitoring it, and having the chance to try it on a non-productive system first. Currently I can live with the snap- approach, because I don't have to use it at the time being, but if this is the way Canonical will proceed, I probably will have to vote with my feet too. Mark (not Shuttleworth :)

</comment><comment><USER79> We work on a product where we must deploy different Linux distributions for customers but it's imperative they're stable and we've tested the image at an exact point in time.

Snap is an extremely big pain when it comes to this. We have to workaround for forceful updates by telling it to use a non-existent proxy, it's very dumb.

</comment><comment><USER80> I'm a fan of Docker on the server so the idea of Snaps is great. Linux packaging is a pain, and one of the reasons distros exist.

However, the implementation stinks right now. This isn't to say they won't get it right in a year or two.

</comment><comment><USER81> this is one of those; ignorance is bliss. i havent noticed snap being slower and now I risk noticing and getting annoyed over it.

<comment><USER46> Someone told my sister about the RF radiation risks of WiFi and now she "has headaches".

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> I've been using Ubuntu Server non-stop on a wide range of differently configured (real aka bare-metal as well as virtual) servers for over 10 years.

As a server OS I've really found it useful.

(Except for that time when they shipped buggy versions of high-availability tools, warned against by the upstream maintainers, which segfaulted occasionally and showed inconsistent state across different nodes - thanks :/)

I found it an improvement over Debian. And that an improvement over Red Hat (before it was RHEL and Fedora). And that an improvement over Slackware. CentOS and RHEL got used too in parallel on some sites, and were very solid, but with their own annoyances.

But recently, on the server, LXD (aka LXC 2) switched from being a .deb package to being a Snap. They made a policy decision to stop shipping the .deb, to force server admins to start using Snap whether they wanted to or not, I guess.

So I was forced to use Snap just to run LXD, which was annoying as things like configs and paths to the container images are buried inside the Snap somewhere, and various things with container-uids and host-container shared mounts stopped working. At least, the upgrade broke a bunch of working scripts.

But it wasn't too painful, just a bit of work that felt like it was caused by an unnecessary annoyance.

Ironically given other comments, _the Snap does not seem to auto-update_ unlike all the other .debs on the system!

Now, hearing about Ubuntu 20.04 and application snaps, I'm extra cautious before assuming Ubuntu 20.04 Server will be a smooth change. I'll take a look, and if the server software is much like 18.04 (except for annoying LXD) I'll use 20.04.

But if they've moved a lot of things away from .deb to Snaps-only on the server, that's going to be some overhead to deal with, and it will at least result in evaluating whether switching distro is no more effort and a better choice.

I've not been a fan of CentOS, but that time I was burned by the high- availability tools due to Ubuntu (and Debian) shipping a dangerously buggy version in an LTS release did make me realise that RHEL/CentOS are well maintained in that department and just wouldn't do that.

</comment><comment><USER83> For someone who has been out of the loop on the whole Snap vs Flatpak situation, could anyone give (or point to) a comparison on their technical merits, and why would one be better than the other?

<comment><USER84> Google it bro

</comment></comment><comment><USER85> Not sure whats the point of using snaps in a stable OS release, but they are fairly easy to remove: [https://www.kevin-custer.com/blog/disabling-snaps-in- ubuntu-...](https://www.kevin-custer.com/blog/disabling-snaps-in- ubuntu-20-04/)

ie: I thought they were more useful for installing a random app that is not supported by your OS... Is it easier to include a snap then it is to create a regular package? or are there any other advantages?

</comment><comment><USER86> Ok, a central store is a problem, but I don't get hn's bitterness about autoupdates.

I don't mind autoupdates of apps, especially sandboxed ones like Snaps, and especially when they can be rolled back if issues arise. Snaps do, in fact, allow for easy reverting to a previously used revision:

        $ sudo snap revert vlc
        vlc reverted to 3.0.5-1

It will even remain on the reverted version without updating until another version is published.

</comment><comment><USER87> My issue is that they still have not sorted out suspend and resume. Half the time when I reopen my laptop lid my keyboard no longer works. Had the same issue on 18.04.

</comment><comment><USER88> I've been using kubuntu for a while and while I like it a lot, it seems very "chatty" to me - way too many notifications which I have to disable one at a time. I only discovered the snap situation when Chromium started prompting before it would open files, and I couldn't find a way to disable it. In the end I installed Chrome, but I am looking around for an alternative distro.

</comment><comment><USER89> Well, I'm out then. Sorry, but at the end of the day, it's a user's machine, not yours, Snappy/Canonical. I will not use a system which will not let me turn off something that installs shit on MY machine. I can't believe the arrogance of the snappy devs. Just shut up and give the people what they want.

</comment><comment><USER90> I don't use Software Center so the only thing I should be concerned about is getting the snap flavor of Chrome instead of the .deb. My main browser is Firefox anyway.

I get that the forced direction toward snaps seems premature. I wouldn't stop using it though if there's simple measures to get around it. Also use Xfce/Xubuntu.

</comment><comment><USER91> Was going to suggest he try Pop, glad to see he already is! Solves the problem while being excellent in every other way.

<comment><USER64> I think that Pop has a bit of a branding issue. It has the reputation of an os with training wheels for newbies and gamer bros, but it is actually an all around great OS for anyone. It's a great gnome experience out of the box with all of the benefits of using Ubuntu with none of the nonsense. I'm hoping to see it gain popularity with the broader linux community. Everyone who used traditional ubuntu and isn't happy with the direction it's headed should really give Pop OS a shot.

</comment></comment><comment><USER92> Can you still install debs with apt command line?

I started to ignore ubuntu's attempts at a graphical app store long ago.

<comment><USER93> yes, and the stupid thing is you get a second copy of the application, different version, different UI, seems very broken

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> Is this an issue if we upgrade to 20.04 on our GCP machines? Is all this nonsense there for server releases?

</comment><comment><USER95> This kind of unconstrained and minimally accountable automatic update is incompatible with strong security.

I already wouldn't use ubuntu due to their long established phone-home practices, but this further strengthens the case.

FWIW, I'm pretty happy with the recently released Fedora 32 so far.

</comment><comment><USER96> I only use the micro editor as a snap. The chromium snap was forced on me. I keep it around to test and separate web stuff. From that minimal use I get a daemon running and a dozen bullshit mounts. Wish they just statically compiled it.

</comment><comment><USER97> I tried snaps and I'm okay with them atleast for non-core apps. Like games and a few bigger programs I want isolated from the rest of the systems. But I wouldn't want my calculator or browser as part of snaps.

</comment><comment><USER98> So that's why two applications suddenly couldn't install anymore. Aw man, I've been so happy with Xubuntu the last couple of years, I really don't want to have to find another distro.

</comment><comment><USER99> > I installed Pop!_OS 20.04 LTS just yesterday, hoping to get a better out of > the box experience. I'll log back with thoughts about it next week.

I tried Pop!_OS 20.04 in a VM just yesterday and my experience was dreadful _especially_ with its "store" application. Things like the entire program freezing randomly for seconds while trying to fetch things, images taking ages to show up (btw, i have high speed connection), showing me ridiculous download sizes for flatpak packages (think something like Geany requiring 1.1GB or something like that), not giving _any_ indication about download processes if you navigate away, wasting screen space when showing applications in a category (it uses a list view where each entry gets a huge icon at the left side, its title, some very short and useless description next to the icon like "Goofy is a goof foogbar", an "Install" button at the right side and vast swaths of emptiness in between), etc.

Also had UI screwups everywhere, like the Preferences application cutting out the "Preferences" title in the titlebar to "Preferenc..." when a) those three dots took the same space as the rest of the word and b) that title was the _only_ thing in the entire titlebar with almost 500px of unused space at each side. Or controls moving and windows resizing a few pixels after i start typing something (e.g. trying to type some number in the calculator has the divider between the buttons and the number move down a little the first time i type something). And the entire "let's merge titlebar and toolbar" idea is as awful as it was when GNOME 3 introduced it (well, actually it was iTunes but i do not remember anyone ever saying that they liked iTunes). Trying some of the preinstalled apps, i accidentally clicked some tool buttons trying to move a window around (the UI being slow didn't help).

And it was dog slow. Terribly, irredeemably, laughably slow. Opening the icons had the entire UI chug worse than my 386 running Windows 3.1 (and actually i'm pretty sure if i wrote a program to move icons around in Windows 3.1 it would be faster).

IMO the only time i felt Linux had a high quality desktop environment was actually the first Linux distribution i used: Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 (to the point that in my youthful enthusiasm i force installed it to every relative and friend's computers i encountered :-P). That distribution was very well put together and thought out (try to find it in archive.org and test it in 86box or PCem with an emulated Pentium 200 and 32MB of RAM to see what i'm talking about). It had some issues, but _two decades later_ things should have been _much_ improved - instead everything went downhill after that and for most Linux users their desktop use is mainly a matter of how much tolerance you have for all the issues you encounter (ie. when you see someone having a problem and there is a reply like "i never had that problem" or "i've been using Linux XYZ for years and that has never been my experience", it is usually from someone who had a high enough tolerance that anything non-major does not even register anymore).

</comment><comment><USER100> Can someone explain why it's fashionable to hate Snap? I am a casual Linux user (Ubuntu VM for schoolwork and projects that WSL can't handle) and don't get the hate.

</comment><comment><USER101> Anybody have commentary on how this snap stuff impacts those who use Ubuntu on their EC2 nodes?

So far I see complaints about Chromium, which typically doesn't exist in a server environment.

<comment><USER102> Why did you choose to use Ubuntu on a server instead of Debian?

</comment></comment><comment><USER103> Nothing about everything being statically linked into a big binary blob with very little connection to sources? It's my main problem with containers in general.

</comment><comment><USER104> Snap is irritating, but for a single desktop, easy to remove and easy to live without. It's not half as annoying as owning a samsung android device.

</comment><comment><USER105> There was nothing wrong with Synaptic + Deb files that needed fixing. Same with Systemd and now they're going after our home directories (never mind that it breaks SSH). My home directory is already portable as in all my config information is in .dot files. As for snap, yet again a solution in search of a problem. you can download a nightly-build as a compressed archive and run it without installing. I too will be moving with my next installation. any recommendations for a small fast distro where the GUI doesn't get in your way?

</comment><comment><USER106> Is there any sensible documentation on this somewhere?

I've been running Debian, and then Ubuntu, for a quarter-century now, largely because things just worked. .deb is nearly perfect.

Having used Docker, it's the last thing I want on my desktop, for a whole slew of reasons.

It's odd, Windows and Linux switched spots in that time. Windows 10 is faster, more stable, and more understandable than Ubuntu. Ubuntu is increasingly layered, convoluted, and bloated. Windows runs on light systems. Ubuntu requires a ton of RAM and CPU.

I think this might be the thing which will makes me give up Ubuntu.

<comment><USER107> > It's odd, Windows and Linux switched spots in that time. Windows 10 is > faster, more stable, and more understandable than Ubuntu.

I mean, you can claim a lot of stuff about lot of things, but saying Windows is _understandable_ is pretty rich. You can't even reliably cron a single script to run once an hour without weird, unfathomable, undebuggable bugs starting to pop up.

Care to elaborate exactly what you mean?

<comment><USER106> I have three machine, one is Windows, one is Ubuntu, and one is Mac. The statement was relative. I never said Windows was _understandable_. I said _more_ understandable. Nineties-era Debian, I felt I understood every piece of, to where I could fill in details with documentation or code in a few minutes.

2020-era Ubuntu developed the same layeritis as Windows, only worse. Microsoft cleaned up a little bit from the bad, old Windows 95 days too. Windows 10 is _slightly_ simpler than Windows 95, but a heck of a lot more stable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER108> Snap is really terrible. Flatpaks and AppImages are the way to go. I wish they are supported more (especially AppImage)

</comment><comment><USER109> This is the first time in years I've tried Fedora again and it has to do with snap in part.

</comment><comment><USER110> What are other distros where snap isn't an issue/isn't installed?

<comment><USER111> As far as I know only Ubuntu uses it by default, because it is their thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER112> Can anyone recommend good rpm based distro for desktop(business env)?

<comment><USER113> CentOS or Fedora?

</comment></comment><comment><USER114> And for some reason the server installer doesn't set up any kind of swap at all. And forces snaps and lxd on you, which also brings in lovely things like cloud-init... You spend 10-15 minutes cleaning up a supposedly minimal install.

</comment><comment><USER115> Oh god. What a shame. Another distro down the drain.

</comment><comment><USER84> This old saw again?

Shit. Just don't use Ubuntu. The writing is on the wall.

</comment><comment><USER116> Why not install Alpine Linux? It follows the principle of minimalism and doesn't have a lot of package bloat, like a lot of .deb based distributions.</comment>


Show HN: Event Horizon – CQRS/ES Toolkit for Go - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/looplab/eventhorizon

<comment><USER2> For those not familiar with that particular combination of letters, this FAQ is quite demystifying: [http://cqrs.nu/Faq](http://cqrs.nu/Faq)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for adding the link, it is quite a letter combination. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> The toolkit is gaining some attention, thanks guys!

</comment><comment><USER3> Judging from the name, one can only assume that this toolkit emits events that are never able to make it to an observer.

<comment><AUTHOR> That would be disastrous. I hope the opposite happens, otherwise file an issue!</comment></comment>


How can Bitcoin stabilize if it's a Keynesian Beauty Contest? - <AUTHOR> https://www.tonysheng.com/keynesian-beauty-contest-bitcoin <comment><USER2> The meaning of the word "stabilize" isn't clear from the article, despite being used 12 times in the body and once in the title.

It would have been easy to make the article more clear. Simply explain what aspect of Bitcoin is supposed to stabilize.

Given the unending fascination with the USD/BTC exchange rate, it can be assumed that the author is referring to this metric. The inclusion of the heading "Does the price of Bitcoin have a Nash equilibrium?" also supports this idea.

However, if this is the case, why does the author include the following quote the middle of the article:

 _Why has Amazon stabilized, and will bitcoin do the same? When Amazon shares debuted back in 1997, earnings were non-existent. […]_

The USD price of AMZN has in no way stabilized:

[http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?s...](http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/quickchart/quickchart.asp?symb=amzn&insttype=&freq=2&show=&time=13)

As you can see, it's a concave-upward curve, punctuated by various declines, all the way back to 2003.

This may sound like hair-splitting, but I think there's a real possibility the author is actually talking about USD/BTC exchange rate volatility. This is an animal of a completely different stripe.

<comment><USER3> I would say that stability refers to purchasing power, and doesn't need to be a flat line. It can also be a simple math function (liner, logarithmic, exponential) which means that it is somewhat predictable. (Edit: I think a better word than "stable" may be "dependable", which is probably what the article meant).

For example, the US Dollar loses purchasing power over time, but that is OK, since it is mostly at a predictable rate. But when something has wild swings up and down, and random times, then it is less suitable to either use as a currency (the stock person with the price gun will be working overtime correcting prices on everything several times a day), and it isn't that good of a store of value if there isn't any reason for it to not lose all of its value over a given period of time.

The Amazon graph you linked to does look fairly stable, a nice exponential function that has very good reasons to remain so for a good period of time (not saying this or anything else is guaranteed, but at least there is something tangible behind that price).

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So the article concludes that Bitcoin can gain stability by being anchored to the price of gold. However isn't gold a "Keynesian Beauty Contest"? That is, gold is valuable because other people believe other people believe it is a store of value.

<comment><USER5> Gold also has intrinsic utility to industry. The same cannot be said for Bitcoin.

<comment><USER6> That value is minimal however, in comparison to the total market cap of gold.

<comment><USER7> I think there's something to be said about gold's utility _as money_. It's remarkably good at being money compared to other materials. It's easy to store, identify, divide, it's fungible, and it's scarce enough. If civilization were to collapse, I think that there's a fair chance that we'd be using gold and other precious metals as money again, whether or not it was used in the past.

<comment><USER6> I'm not sure I believe that. If civilization were to collapse, you'd want food, medicine, potentially gas. Potentially solar cells, and some other things.

I think you'd see more traditional bartering than money being introduced again in its earliest stages.

<comment><USER8> The problem with bartering is that useful but rare products are a poor store of value because peot need to use those things. Useless but rare things are better as money, as long a users are confident that there is economic growth to spend money on (decoupling consumption from production)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bitcoin doesn't need to stabilize to be successful. In the same way that the exchange rate of the hyperinflating German Mark and gold didn't need to stabilize. All bitcoin needs to do is continue to operate with it's programmed monetary policy such that its value can't be inflated away through coercion.

Money is a commodity whose goal is to transport value through space and time. We are living through -- in human-species scale -- a brief 90-year experiment in the artificial elimination of a free market of monies by violence of the state (until bitcoin was invented).

Artificially increasing and decreasing the supply of money in an economy has about just as much utility as artificially increasing and decreasing the supply of any other good -- which is none.

Bitcoin's success narrative doesn't depend on the amount of non-scarce dollars the market is willing to trade for it ceasing to change ('stabilize'). The success narrative is: an increasing set of people understanding that the hardest money always wins. Bitcoin is one halvening away from being harder than gold and is _the_ hardest money ever in existance. Those who have taken exposure to bitcoin will have more wealth preserved than those who denominate their value in inflatable dollars. As more people see bitcoin improving the quality of life of individuals they also take exposure to bitcoin. This process doesn't need a planner nor intelligent agents, it just needs bricolage.

<comment><USER10> Thank you for posting this. Not surprising to see you getting downvoted to oblivion here, but this is something that people really need to keep an open mind about.

<comment><USER8> It's downvotes because it's using false facts as a basis for opinion, and using weak logic to connect them. Fiat money is over 90years old, Bitcoin is deflationat by design, and neither of these facts matter. The open market is subject to manipulation (counterfeiting and cornering) as much as government fiat.

<comment><USER10> Can you please point out the false facts to me?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It is empirically the case that Keynesian beauty pageant assets can have stable prices: e.g. gold.

</comment><comment><USER12> Bitcoin has actually become a lot less volatile, when measured objectively over the last few years:

[https://twitter.com/lsukernik/status/864920873718951937](https://twitter.com/lsukernik/status/864920873718951937)

[https://news.bitcoin.com/volatility- decreasing/](https://news.bitcoin.com/volatility-decreasing/)

<comment><USER13> Yes these two links to two images presented without comment from a cryptocurrency VC and news.bitcoin.com scream "objective" to me.

<comment><USER12> Price data is freely available from many sources for you to examine and issue your own conclusion. Here is another chart:

[http://images.woobull.com/2016/10/volatility-btc-vs- fiat.png](http://images.woobull.com/2016/10/volatility-btc-vs-fiat.png) (from [https://woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-will-match-major- fiat...](https://woobull.com/bitcoin-volatility-will-match-major-fiat- currencies-by-2019/))

The long-term trend is that BTC is becoming less and less volatile.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> There is a belief that Bitcoin is following specific pattern [0] and will stabilize in 2030 at ~$1M per coin. So far the model was pretty accurate.

[0] [https://1nodld1ltmqu3jimmy2xsgcu-wpengine.netdna- ssl.com/wp-...](https://1nodld1ltmqu3jimmy2xsgcu-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp- content/uploads/2017/11/Bitcoin-Chart.png)

P.S. Dear downvoters, this is not a financial advice!

<comment><USER15> that chart is currently off by like 100%

<comment><USER14> This is chart is not off at all. There is, actually, an updated version [https://cryptoslate.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/10/chart.png](https://cryptoslate.com/wp- content/uploads/2018/10/chart.png). I have no idea if the trend will continue.

<comment><USER16> Your first chart stated that BTC would be over $10,000 by the beginning of 2018, and be somewhere in the ballpark of $20,000+ by now. Your second chart drastically reduces that forecast. You do know you are just overfitting a curve to data here, right?

<comment><USER17> Well to be fair it is just refitting not overfitting. If it was overfitting it would have heaps of free parameters and match the data really closely. The criticism should be what is the mechanistic explanation for why you would expect this logarithmic trend (for the log price, is that just linear or am I just confused?)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Bitcoin is stable in reference to itself, just as USD is stable in reference to itself.

<comment><USER19> USD is also stable in reference to almost everything else.

Bitcoin isn't.

<comment><USER18> Would you consider USD also subject to a Keynesian Beauty Contest?

<comment><USER20> Yes, there's a 24/5 FX market where people decide what it's worth in relation to other currencies.

<comment><USER8> FX markets are open all night but close on weekends?

<comment><USER3> To paraphrase Jimmy Buffet, It is always between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM somewhere.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Predicting Bitcoin's Future Value - <AUTHOR> http://leve.rs/blog/predicting-bitcoin-future-value/

<comment><USER2> There's been some speculation that the Bitcoin network model is closely following ones seen in power spikes in a circuit produced by a linear impulse response: [http://altoidnerd.com/2013/11/12/bitcoin-bubble-not-this- tim...](http://altoidnerd.com/2013/11/12/bitcoin-bubble-not-this-time-a- qualitative-analysis-of-bitcoins-price-cycle-and-unusual-economy-of-scale-2/)

Those impulses could very well be driven by global hash rate.</comment>


Startup Helps Conservative Sites Store User Names, Postal Addresses of Readers - <AUTHOR> https://jezebel.com/this-bumbling-new-start-up-helps-conservative-websites-1844532981 <comment><USER2> The article doesn't explain, but how is this different from Google or Facebook analytics? I'm not familiar with either, but this is certainly data that both those companies (and many others) gather, isn't it?

</comment><comment><USER3> Doxing as a service.</comment>


Medium introduces a paid model - <AUTHOR> https://blog.medium.com/upgrade-your-medium-924b74c36552#.fhgf5jork <comment><USER2> I hope it's all corralled under a different domain or subdomain so that we can ignore the pretentious thoughtfluencers trying to get a free ride on the service because it packages their words into a professional-looking offering.</comment>