Show HN: ZFS Implementation in Python - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/alcarithemad/zfsp <comment><USER2> Note: this was implemented without referencing any ZFS source code and should not be subject to the CDDL.

<comment><USER3> So we port this python to something not slow, and all the kernel-people can shut up about ZFS being terrible ;)

<comment><USER4> Dont forget, pypy is fast.

<comment><USER5> PyPy is faster than Python, yes. But Go, C and many other (compiled) languages are way faster than PyPy. Plus, if you use a language like Go or Rust then you avoid Python's GIL and you'll have much more reasonable memory usage. Best of all, deploying is a matter of copying a binary, rather than having to deal with the absolute disaster that is Python packaging.

<comment><USER6> Go? A GC'd language in kernel? (Well, yes, this has been done, from Lua to Haskell, but only experimentally.)

<comment><USER7> Python is also a GC'd language...

<comment><USER8> CPython is mostly reference-counted.

<comment><USER9> With a synchronous garbage collector for cycles. Which is like the worst of both worlds, since you get the constant overhead of refcounting, plus unpredictable interruptions of unspecified duration that can happen every time a new object that might contain references to other objects is created.

To be fair, the GC can be disabled. But it's only safe to do so when you know there are no cycles, and even when such guarantee can be had for your own code, I've never seen a library guarantee that to API clients.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pierre Menard, author of The Filesystem.

But I'm surprised this is possible without a specification - how can you test a filesystem through hexdumps? The effects of some operations are going to pretty far-reaching, surely?

<comment><USER11> One of my favorite short stories, and nobody else has ever read it. So glad to see someone else reference it.

<comment><USER12> Link?

<comment><USER13> The original title is "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote": [http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges- quixote.html](http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-quixote.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Does someone know whether it would be legal for someone to go through the ZFS code and write a specification of the features this author hasn't figured out yet? I.e. could someone write a detailed description of the missing functionality that doesn't include any details about the implementation so other people can implement it in non-CDDL code?

<comment><USER15> That's called a clean room implementation and was the standard way to make x-compatible products (like for example, the bios on an IBM PC clone). Not sure what the current legal standing of that method is.

EDIT: Ninjad because I left the reply in a tab without posting.

<comment><USER16> Reverse engineering is legal in the US, but you had better have detailed records proving no one who knew the insides of the original product ever influenced the clone. And be prepared to explain that in court.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> What?! How?! Why?!

This is the greatest thing ever. I wish I could just write code for the fun of it. Every time I wonder whether people will use it and give up before I even get started.

<comment><USER18> why not? writing code can fall into one of a few bucket. one of them is play.

<comment><USER19> Exactly! Write code that you find interesting and/or need for something and then share it. If someone uses your stuff, then great, if not, at least you've become a slightly better programmer! It's a win-win!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> No ARC/L2ARC?

Edit: of course not. This is actually just it's just a ZFS user-facing "front- end", not a _ZFS implementation_.

<comment><USER2> It's capable of doing IO against a real ZFS array without any other code. ARC is an implementation detail and not necessary for correctness. If you removed ARC from ZoL it would still work, just slower. ARC is far from the most interesting milestone for a reimplementation effort because an ARC implementation doesn't need to be anything like the Sun version internally, as long as it offers similar performance.

This project is cool not because you're going to run the Python in your kernel today, but because someone can use it as a documented reference implementation of all of the data structures and transactions that is not covered by the CDDL, so another implementation based on this can live in the Linux kernel without problem.

<comment><USER21> If the GPLv2 GRUB ZFS code[1] wasn't enough to get someone started then I doubt this will make any different in porting ZFS to GPL given there would be more work involved in turning this into a usable kernel driver.

Not taking anything away from the work that the author has done though. It's a nice project. I just think a little pragmatism is needed before we get carried away with the ZFS GPL comments.

[1] [https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/zfs-under-gplv2-already- exi...](https://blogs.oracle.com/solaris/zfs-under-gplv2-already-exists-no- kidding-v2)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> This is awesome! Do you plan on blogging anything about how you went about reverse-engineering?

</comment><comment><USER23> i love userspace implementations of filesystems.

note that the issues are entirely different from those with a kernel implementation since you aren't having to think about page cache et all.

<comment><USER24> There is an userspace implementations of filesystems ZboxFS: [https://github.com/zboxfs/zbox](https://github.com/zboxfs/zbox).

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> Hell yeah, dude. This is awesome.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hey alcari!

I know you from ICV - we used to hang out online on the forums and IRC.

Nice work on this project, I'm looking forward to diving into the codebase!

<comment><USER27> Just curious, what is / was ICV?

<comment><USER26> It was / is an community of people who formed around a book called 1337 h4x0r h4ndb00k by tapeworm.

ICV was the name of the forum for the book, now defunct (icodeviruses.com)

[https://www.amazon.com/1337-h4x0r-h4ndb00k-tapeworm/dp/06723...](https://www.amazon.com/1337-h4x0r-h4ndb00k-tapeworm/dp/0672327279)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> This is all kinds of funny. I'm awash with awe and admiration.

</comment><comment><USER29> There's also TFS a ZFS inspired FS in Rust [https://github.com/redox- os/tfs](https://github.com/redox-os/tfs)

</comment><comment><USER30> Simultaneously fucking awesome (that you pulled it off at all), and fucking useless (performance...).

Thanks for sharing though. Maybe could be useful in making a suite of zfs inspection tools?

Is the OP here? How difficult would it be creat a zfs reshaping tool, allowing for the offline expansion of a vdev?</comment>


Brownie – a canvas toolkit in coffeescript - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/mconintet/brownie <comment><AUTHOR> make this repo since i want to build a simple static image&text designer, hope it could be helpful for other people have the same requirement :p</comment>


Handmade HDMI capture card for Raspberry Pi and software - <AUTHOR> https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/comments/ie0cbi/handmade_hdmi_capture_card <comment><USER2> For those who dont want to solder, theres a module for this: [https://auvidea.eu/product/70501/](https://auvidea.eu/product/70501/)

Mouser: [https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Auvidea/70501?qs=EU6FO9...](https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Auvidea/70501?qs=EU6FO9ffTwcl%252BA7ajZcePA%3D%3D&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5uj835it6wIVtx- tBh1-UgetEAQYASABEgLF4_D_BwE)

Datasheet: [https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/864/B10x_technical_refere...](https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/864/B10x_technical_reference_1.4-1130369.pdf)

Edit: Theres also this one on Amazon: [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0899L6ZXZ/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0899L6ZXZ/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Slightly off-topic, but I've been wanting an HDMI Freeze button for a while.

I looked at the auvidea link that kayfox suggested, and could probably implement it in software on an RPi. But that has limited resolution and frame rate (25 fps).

For a feature built into most projectors, I'm surprised there's no products to do this.

<comment><USER2> The resolution and framerate issues with that solution appear to be software implementation limitations, I haven't looked into them, but I would expect they could be resolved, since they appear to be an artifact of just one developers environment being tested against.

</comment></comment><comment> java-man Hand-soldered BGA chip, wow.

<comment><USER4> I came across a video of someone soldering a WLCSP package IC, with a soldering iron tip about as big as the chip itself.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edERx4x5eY0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edERx4x5eY0)

<comment><USER5> And I thought I was good for soldering a TQFP 32 package to a DIP adapter!</comment></comment></comment>


How I Wish Computer Science Was Taught - <AUTHOR> http://andrewcbrown.com/2011/02/07/duke-exeter-and-how-i-wish-computer-science-was-taught/

<comment><USER2> Interesting post. Although I think a bit backwards. Circuits are just a manifestation of computers, much like women 70 years ago who acted as computers.

The foundation is really these two questions "what functions are computabel" and "how efficiently".

From those questions come other questions like what model are you using... this changes the answers to both questions.

You then go into how do you build physical manifestations of these models and how do they affect various aspects of computation.

Languages are just about how you express computation to the model(s).

And SW engineering grows out of how one builds non trivial functions and how requirements often change over time.

Distributed systems are just a world where different computers (anything that computes) has access to different data or functions.

So rather than go up from HW I'd spend more time in theory... move to lamda calc and turing machines... and then languages... then architecture. And then SW engineering, etc...

This probably won't make you any better of a dev from day 1 after graduating, but will make you a better computer scientist.

And if you want to be a better dev, just grab a Safari Books subscription and start (or join) a project.

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the feedback. There are definitely many people more qualified than me to actually design a curriculum. My argument is more about the approach than the actual content.

Certainly agree about not making you a better dev from day 1. I do think in the long run it will actually make you a better programmer though, particularly for more difficult and complex projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> > The Duke Computer Science Department ... taught me almost nothing about how > to program in the real world

That's because that's not what you learn in CS. You wanted to be doing a software engineering degree.

<comment><USER4> I think a good University program should do both through the BS level. After that it can get more theoretical.

<comment><USER5> I disagree. Computer science is supposed to be a "pure" field, like mathematics. It is not meant to teach any specific technology, language, library, development model, etc. You can (and should) pick that up on your own. These things change so often anyway--you shouldn't pay a school to learn such simple things.

Maybe industry and market forces want a more software engineering-type degree; the people who want that kind of job should pursue such. In any case, there is still an unquestionable need for pure CS in academia and research.

<comment><USER4> Fine point: I didn't try to define "CS".

We agree that a school shouldn't teach a breadth of languages and frameworks du jour.

But I still think a good University program will teach both theory and how to program in the real world. Is that so wrong? CS students must take spoken language and physics courses, as well, and somehow that doesn't affect the purity of their CS education.

Maybe the school doesn't call software engineering "CS" (like so many do), but there should at least be the option to learn these concepts somewhere. There must be shoulders to stand upon. I trust you'll find it impossible to argue that all the knowledge regarding software production discovered in the past 50 years is obvious to every Computer Science PhD, let alone neophyte.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm a Math/CS major and I can relate completely to this. In my upper level math courses, we're given about 4 hard problems every week to struggle through together. The problems always use the theorems from class in new and interesting ways - you have to really get the theorems to do the homework. Exams are almost always take-home proofs. It makes us feel like we're really doing math!

In my CS classes, I too often feel like I'm just memorizing things to fill in the blanks and gaining a breadth of vocabulary that I can google if I ever REALLY need.

I think this may be partly because people who become CS professors are not the people who love to make and deploy software.

</comment><comment><USER7> I highly recommend Charles Petzold's 'Code'. I originally bought it for my father, but soon ended up reading it myself cover to cover. It fills a lot of blanks in in my understanding; blanks that were also glossed over in my education as well (Waterloo CS & C&O, 2002).

The book starts from the most basic 'switch and a lightbulb' circuit, and takes a stepwise approach that ends up disassembling x86 by the final chapters. Although it can be a little pandering in points, and the rigour certainly isn't there (I can't remember for certain, but I'm pretty sure it violates my 'must have footnotes' rule regarding non-fiction), in my opinion it's a wonderful nightstand read regardless.

Indeed, there are a couple of spots the book knocks it out of the park without (I think) intending to. As an example, the book presents Turing machines (not by name, mind you) as a moving head traversing through a fixed memory, whereas all of the theory I learned in school presented them as a moving tape passing through a fixed head. It's a seemingly small detail of implementation, but it made an _enormous_ difference in my understanding of how the modern computer evolved from Turing's work. All of a sudden, an ALU + a program counter becomes a modest leap from the theory of a TM ripping through a tape.

<comment><USER2> 'Code' is also a great book to give to your non-coder spouse. Honestly, that book should be the text used for the "computer literacy" class in most colleges. Great book. Can't recommend it highly enough.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> A computer science degree should be a bit theoretical and broad in it's topics. It's your internship(s) during college and even perhaps your first job out of school that will start to solidify all of the pieces.

</comment><comment><USER3> Site not responding for me. Google cache: [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://andrewcbrown.com/2011/02/07/duke- exeter-and-how-i-wish-computer-science-was-taught/&hl=en&strip=1)

<comment><AUTHOR> I appreciate the heads up. Trying to get it up and running now.

<comment><USER3> A wordpress cache plugin will probably help. I got 25k visits in one day last week on puremango.co.uk which is hosted on a cheap-as-chips dreamhost shared server and AFAIK it didn't blink. Cache FTW.

<comment><AUTHOR> It's funny I actually set up super-cache last night. I was just too cheap for my own good. 256MB RAM on rackspace just wasn't cutting it.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Nothing Between You and Your Machine - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/business/09stream.html?_r=1&oref=slogin <comment><USER2> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=132532></comment>


Ask HN: Tinder like swiping model for rating startup ideas? - <AUTHOR> At Hackathon / 48h Startup building event type of thing...
We only have 3 hrs left, so any input is appreciated :-s
So we're building an app - and the problem it's trying to solve is getting fast and effective feedback on your startup / startup idea.
The app shows you a bunch of startups represented through a single image for 10 seconds, Tinder-style on which you can swipe left/right based on wether you think it's a good idea or not?
This would perform as a 'filtering' system for the app, the filtered out 'good startup ideas' would be further discussed in a Reddit-style type of forum (kharma / gold / etc.)
The end goal is to get effective feedback to people who need it, and to connect like minded smart people who like to discuss and share ideas in a constructive manner. <comment><USER2> What about flipping it around, and creating a Tinder style app that showed painful problems to users? Most swiped right = biggest problem to solve

<comment><AUTHOR> That's actually quite interesting. Might work</comment></comment>


A secret on the ocean floor - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/deep_sea_mining <comment><USER2> _" Bram Murton, a geologist with the UK's National Oceanography Centre, says that if all the cars on Europe's roads are electric by 2040, and if they use the same kind of batteries as the Tesla Model 3, that would require 28 times more cobalt than is produced right now."_

 _" At the moment more than 60% of all cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. For decades allegations of corruption and human rights abuses have swirled around parts of its mining industry."_

 _" And with renewable power like wind and solar being installed at a frantic pace, every turbine and every panel also requires key metals."_

I'm always wondering why more people aren't concerned about the production of these materials we need for all the clean energy, electric cars, and more iPhones. Is it just that it's not as bad as the oil production? Or do people really think we'll be mining asteroids in a few years?

<comment><USER3> I'm hardly ever an optimist, but I believe that this kind of situation is exactly what the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" applies to. I am 100% confident that Elon has an entire team of material scientists at Tesla working on alternatives to these rare materials.

<comment><USER2> I sure hope so. I'm definitely not against these new technologies. I'm just honestly not that informed on where these materials come from generally, and if there are any reasonable plans to source them better or replace them.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> In short: a almost romantic cold-war story of a mission to recover a sovier submarine triggers an interest of mining the deep ocean floor.

Not actual until the whole world is moving to an electrical future where raw materials such as copper, cobalt, zinc, etc are in shortage, or suspect of child work, thus an option of mine the ocean floor.

This has other drawbacks, such as destroying the ecology of the deep ocean floor, possibly wiping out species that we might not even know.

</comment><comment><USER5> _" We've drilled the ocean floor for oil and gas, scarred it with trenches for communications cables, poisoned it with old radioactive waste and chemical weapons, and polluted its remotest corners with a blizzard of discarded plastic. So, is mining a step too far?"_

 _" I put that question to Sir David Attenborough at the launch of his series Blue Planet II. When he sees our video of the giant machines being readied in Papua New Guinea, he is aghast. "It's heartbreaking," he says."_

This sums it up for me. Our greed is sad.

<comment><USER6> I'm not so sure. What's happened to the ocean floor is a tiny, tiny fraction of what we've done to the land. Its just invisible, which in my mind lets people's imaginations run free. A few cable trenches? We've got two or three crossing the lot _my house_ is on, not to mention 3 billion other people's lots. Mining? This ocean-floor stuff won't be a patch on what the US has done to the southwest, nor what Russia's done in the Arctic. As for landfills, every city, town and berg has one. I can't dig a shovel of dirt from my field without finding a plastic fragment.

So, not to say its all good, but its just so remote from what should be our true concerns.

<comment><USER7> _But the hydrothermal vents host thriving communities of marine life - snails, worms and shrimp that have evolved to cope with very specific conditions.

In some cases these creatures are extremely rare, which is why the prospect of deep sea mining is highly controversial._

You can't say the same for the earthworms and dandelions harmed by digging a trench in the yard in New England.

<comment><USER6> We're largely unaware of the millions of extinct insects etc that humanity extinguished in our conquest of the 7 continents. Suffice it to say, all those that evolved on land for very specific conditions are long gone. Except for those we're bulldozing today without noticing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> It's hard not to see this from all sides: the saddening loss of biodiversity, the world's desperate need for these metals, and the needs of poor countries to exploit their natural resources to rise up in the world. At first I was horrified by the mining technique being described here, and then the article got into all the United Nations protections and regulations surrounding this process.

It's encouraging to know the world will be monitoring this as it happens. Often forgotten about American history is how badly we had to destroy our own environment before we took action to make things better. Much of our country was turned into barren wasteland as all the trees were cut down for industry, and it took FDR deploying a literal army of tree-planters to bring the forests back. I think we are watching the same history repeat in China now as they deploy tree-planters along their growing deserts.

So we'll watch this new environmental front. We'll read stories about companies breaking the rules and listen to pundits decry government regulations that protect snails over jobs. Hopefully we'll strike a balance and survive long enough to make asteroid-mining profitable and maybe take all of this off-world where such environmental conflicts don't exist.

<comment><USER9> I'm much less optimistic than you. The amount of willful cognitive dissonance on display here is staggering.

> "Where we'll be operating, it's cold and dark," says one senior Nautilus > executive. "There are no tuna there, they need entirely different conditions > near the surface of the ocean."

I expect nothing less from the mining executive to dismiss concerns that the ocean's ecosystems are directly connected.

> "For Michael Lodge, secretary general of the International Seabed Authority, > a UN body set up to manage deep sea mining, there's a clear case for > pressing ahead. "Are we going to continue to develop huge mines that destroy > villages, alter rivers, pollute water courses, take thousands of years to > restore, remove whole mountains? You don't have any of that with deep seabed > mining.""

But this one is from the UN body itself that you are talking about monitoring this. This man just finished saying "pollute water" in the previous sentence then proceeded with the claim that this doesn't occur with deep seabed mining? How can people claim this with a straight face?

I don't want to come off as naive. The article is very good at explaining the consumer needs driving this development. 8 billion people with smartphones and 4 billion electric cars does not scale.

On the other hand, there are also hundreds of millions of people that rely on fish for their protein. Are we willing to risk destroying our oceans to save our land?

<comment><USER10> > On the other hand, there are also hundreds of millions of people that rely > on fish for their protein. Are we willing to risk destroying our oceans to > save our land?

Plenty of fish you can eat that live in tanks of water. Who says they need to come from the ocean?

<comment><USER8> Maybe it was the tone of your comment that got you downvoted, but there's an important point here. Fish farming is a crucial tool in preserving our oceans. We can't keep taking fish from the open seas; we need to set up dedicated farms to grow what we need.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder, if USIC (US intelligence community) has used billionaires in the 1970s to cover up their secret operations, if they do it today?

<comment><USER12> I would imagine this is _very_ common. I also wonder if there are "billionaires" who aren't even actual billionaires, just CIA operatives with legends slowly built up around them through the years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Humans do not need to mine the ocean. The proven reserves of existing mines and future projects are more than enough for decades. Anyone who says otherwise is only looking to save a dollar and will cut costs on environmental sustainability. The USA is sitting on millions of tons of copper while watching other countries mine it out of theirs. We could supply the whole world for decades on our own if we wanted to restore our mining industry.

But there's no real economic need for US minerals.

I would argue there might be a strategic need for them, but not an economic one.

There is certainly no economic imperative to mine the ocean floor in the face of the potential environmental harm it may cause.

I question it's morality on the basis of balancing mankind's needs versus our calling to manage our resources properly.

Wouldn't this money be better spent recycling e-waste where the copper and gold content is significantly higher and the environmental impact is demonstrably positive?

</comment><comment><USER14> So those vents, the ones covered in crabs, worms and all the other living things, are going to be ground up into slurry? Didn't Monty Burns try something like this?

A mile down might seem far, but that's where sperm whales and elephant seals feed. This will come back to haunt us.

<comment><USER15> Why do you say that? Mining companies have a long and honorable history of responsible environmental stewardship.

<comment><USER16> I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume you meant that sarcastically.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=rio+tinto+environmental+dama...](https://www.google.com/search?q=rio+tinto+environmental+damage)

For just one example. Resource extractors of all kinds are among the worlds biggest polluters and destroyers of habitats and entire eco systems.

<comment><USER17> I don't think there is any other interpretation possible for the GP. I don't think we should adopt the habit of postpending a "\s" everywhere, at least not on HN.

<comment><USER18> I agree wtr to the GP, but in general I disagree. You can never really be certain.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_(1960)#...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_submarine_K-129_\(1960\)#Alternative_theories_on_Project_Azorian)

<comment><USER20> > But the US had given the command and control system for nuclear weapons to > the Russians

But what does this mean? Why would they give it to the russians, and why would the russians accept it?

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> With all the concerns in the OP, the many questions, many calls for more research, the speculations of disasters, the lack of lots of solid, detailed information, etc., where the UN, etc. can be involved doing much of anything on the ocean floor will be blocked for decades.

But there is an alternative: Use the TIFO method -- try it and find out.

So, pick some spots on the ocean floor. It's a huge ocean with lots of candidate spots.

At some of these spots, take a census of what is there. Gather some worms, crabs, shrimp, nodules, parts of hydrothermal vents, etc. Admit that these are not exhaustive or comprehensive but just samples.

Then at some of these spots where took the census, do the mining. Leave the other spots as _controls_.

Then take another census. Compare the mined spots with the controls. See what the changes and upsides and downsides are.

Since some of the candidate spots for mining are in the waters of sovereign countries and, thus, largely out of the control of the US, likely some of this TIFO work will be done and not blocked by the UN, etc.

Maybe then we will begin to find out.

</comment><comment><USER22> I like how the eco footprint is compared to a graphical depiction of Prominent Hill mine in SA. I used to code telemetry on site there.

</comment><comment><USER23> Related: Radioloab episode on the Glomar explorer and how the Glomar clause ('neither confirm nor deny') was born out of it. [http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor- deny/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/confirm-nor-deny/)

</comment><comment><USER24> This is still a CIA plot. Don't be fooled by the geology</comment>


Is this the Google Nexus S? - <AUTHOR> http://pocketnow.com/android/is-this-the-google-nexus-s <comment><USER2> While I'll be waiting for a review or two before buying, I'm happy to see another vanilla Android device coming (hopefully).

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't understand the trend in colossal Android phones. I get that having a bigger screen is nice, but it seems to me that if the phone doesn't fit comfortably in your pocket, then you're doing it wrong.

<comment><USER4> I was surprised to discover that the phones with larger screens are not much larger; they have less bezel.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I will never buy another Samsung device again. This is a personal antidote but here it goes.

I had the Samsung Galaxy S from T-Mobile and it was -the- worst phone I've ever owned. Horrible interface, felt like plastic, and to top it off GPS did not work. When I say not work, it would hard lock the phone whenever you tried getting any sort of location and silent crash it. This isn't an isolated issue either, several people posted on forums describing the same issues. Just think if Apple released a product with a bad GPS...

It got so bad I contacted T-Mobile and after getting to a specialist they replaced my phone no questions asked with a G2 and I couldn't be happier.

This phone looks like it has the same horrible plastic back panel and likely the horrible product and support the Galaxy has.

<comment><USER6> Samsung's CDMA phones (at least, the Moment) have pretty bad data lockup issues too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> is it just me or does the google logo look photoshopped?</comment>


California declared drought free for first time in seven years - <AUTHOR> https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-drought-idUSKCN1QW09A <comment><USER2> John Steinbeck, "East of Eden", 1952.

"There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley."

...

"And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way."

<comment><USER3> I always think about this passage when I read about California droughts. I wonder if this is actually true and what causes it.

<comment><USER4> "California drought: Past dry periods have lasted more than 200 years, scientists say" [https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought- pa...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry- periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> The experience here in Orange County over the last few months has been nuts.

Being able to hang out down near the ocean and see the San Gabriel mountains just decked out in snow is surreal: [https://i.redd.it/kueaye5p6si21.jpg](https://i.redd.it/kueaye5p6si21.jpg)

Another photo: [https://i.redd.it/vy7dlavrh0f21.jpg](https://i.redd.it/vy7dlavrh0f21.jpg)

Anaheim hills, an area that rarely gets snowed on: [https://i.redd.it/trbf198kb6i21.jpg](https://i.redd.it/trbf198kb6i21.jpg)

Then we roll right into the poppy/wildflower superbloom which has been bonkers: [https://weather.com/travel/news/2019-03-13-super-bloom- flowe...](https://weather.com/travel/news/2019-03-13-super-bloom-flower-show- california#9)

The blackstar canyon waterfall is LIT! [https://i.redd.it/4bq8v71ff7j21.jpg](https://i.redd.it/4bq8v71ff7j21.jpg)

Last but not least we are smack dab in the middle of an epic butterfly migration, [https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2019/03/08/why-are-there- so...](https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2019/03/08/why-are-there-so-many- butterflies-in-southern-california-right-now/)

Driving down the 73 toll road yesterday I think I drove through about 300 butterflies, at least. They just kinda flop over the car, none of them hit me. It was like driving through a butterfly hail storm.

This place sucks a lot of the time with all of the congestion and traffic, heat, smog, high cost of living etc... but times like this really make you stop and appreciate how beautiful it is.

<comment><USER6> I thought California. Has the best climate in the country?

<comment><USER7> Along the coast and in some mountain areas it's perfect. Otherwise it's a f...ing desert.

<comment><USER8> I dig the desert. It's nice to escape to e.g. Joshua Tree.

Later this summer I'll be hiking Mt. Whitney, and will swing through Death Valley on the way home. 15k altitude change in a few hours.

<comment><USER9> Try the cactus to clouds hike.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> They need to completely change the way water in California is billed. Right now rates keep going up as we get better at conservation, which disincentives conservation.

At the same time, in areas with a flat rate, people use way too much water. When Sacramento had a flat rate, you'd see people turn on their hose as they left for work and let it flood their lawn all day, running into the street, to keep their lush green lawns in 105F weather. As soon as they introduced water meters, the lawns went brown and the bills went up.

I think the billing needs to be a flat rate for everyone that is high enough to cover all water delivery costs, based on size of property, and then you get a credit if your usage is below median for similar families/farms/industries and you get an equal surcharge if you're above that. Then you'd be encouraged to use less water than your neighbors, but all the costs would even out since 1/2 the people by definition would pay extra, so they wouldn't have to raise the flat rate part so quickly, only slowly as the overall cost of the water system increases. It would put the consumer in much more control of their water costs.

My family for example gets hit with a huge surcharge because we added two people to our family since they started tracking, so we aren't "conserving" anymore. We're conserving more than before, we just have double the people!

<comment><USER11> It's agriculture. Personal conservation _should_ be incentivized, but unless we make radical changes the price will have to go up as water trends towards scarcity. For people who conserve, their rates should increase more slowly.

But we have to address agriculture and stop externalizing the true cost to the environment. What agriculture has accomplished is _astonishing_ , but it's just not sustainable in any number of dimensions.

<comment><USER12> Mandatory aquifer recharging would be a good first step. One of the big problems is that California can't adequately take advantage of these wet winters because the reservoirs can only hold so much and the ground can only absorb water so fast, so a lot of water ends up getting into the rivers and escaping back into the Pacific (or sits in ephemeral lakes/ponds/wetlands until it evaporates). If we helped along the process of getting water back underground (which should be readily doable, e.g. by pumping water back _down_ into wells), that'd significantly lessen the strain we've put on our aquifer systems.

Step two is to significantly beef up our reservoir system. We should be able to capture way more of our winter rainfall than we currently do. That'll be a pretty big help to farms and cities further south (i.e. in the more arid half of California).

Step three is to stop pussyfooting around building desalination plants. If Israel can go from being constantly on the verge of drought to having a giant water surplus, then there's no reason we can't do the same with California (especially since we have way more room to build 'em :) ). California's adjacent to the single largest body of water in the world; it's ridiculous that we ain't taking advantage of that.

<comment><USER10> I think the main reason we don't have desalination plants is because they have to be on or near the ocean, which is the most expensive property in the state. No one wants to ruin their view or have a big industrial machine near their home. Basically, I think NIMBYism keeps us from having Desal.

<comment><USER13> There's plenty of empty government land on the California Coast.

The main reason there aren't more desal plants is because ejecting the leftover brine into the ocean is an environmental concern.

<comment><USER14> And it's expensive. You pump a ton of energy into a system to get water. Water is so cheap you can pour it on the ground.

<comment><USER12> Water's a lot less cheap in actual deserts (like in Nevada and Arizona). Places with massive water surpluses (like what California could have) tend to end up selling their surpluses to places with water deficits, raking in cash that can go into all sorts of things that California wants to buy (like, say, high-speed rail connections between all the major cities).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> And yet we won't be building any more water storage. As a result, we have about the same water capacity to survice the next drought as we had in the 1970s. There were half as many residents then, and climate change wasn't a concern...

<comment><USER16> Residential water use is minimal. Most water is used for irrigation.

Further, cheap water storage results in increased evaporation, it's a net loss over time.

<comment><USER17> Even lossy storage allows saving during times of excess for use during times of drought.

And what happens to that lost evaporated water?

<comment><USER18> Falls somewhere else down the wind. It's not completely gone, but it's gone for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> For those interested in seeing drought data, here's a CA map:

[https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...](https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?CA)

And here's a time series:

[https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Data/Timeseries.aspx](https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Data/Timeseries.aspx)

<comment><USER20> Time series is for the whole country or continental only.

<comment><USER19> You can narrow it down to just California

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> To first order, California's water problem is agricultural. And that's because there's no market in that water that would curtail what is a very low value use of it.

Fix that, or resort to fractional measures that just paper over the underlying dysfunction.

<comment><USER22> I always cringe when I hear markers and water in the same sentence. I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "markets" but the history of water rights in CA is a great lesson highlighting how spectacularly "markets" can fail to handle water.

<comment><USER23> As I understand it, the history of water rights in CA, and indeed in the US west generally, is a history of lack of markets; it's all been political maneuvering by various factions to make sure they aren't the ones who go short when the water gets divided up. There has never been an actual market to allocate the limited supply of water to the highest value uses. If there were, agriculture in much of CA wouldn't exist, since much of CA is a desert and it makes no sense to do agriculture in a desert when you can ship in food from elsewhere at lower cost.

<comment><USER22> How do you determine who owns water in the first place.

<comment><USER24> A real & important question, but by no means an impossible problem. E.g. suppose "the public" (e.g. gov't, as with public lands) owns all of it in the first place, sells it, and uses the proceeds to fund water projects.

A less radical option would be to keep the system of water rights we have today and simply allow the water to be bought and sold. Currently if you sell it, someone can take you to court & say "well you didn't _use_ it, so you should lose your water rights" (because California follows the doctrine of first use). Would run the risk of creating wealthy water czars overnight, but less radical.

<comment><USER22> Who sets the price and what stops the very wealthy from buying it all and selling it for a giant profit. The further we go down this train of thought the less market-like it becomes very quickly.

<comment><USER24> It's a market. The first owner sets the price at whatever point they like, balancing their interests of revenue, protecting the resource, and so forth. If people are arbitraging & selling the water for increased prices, the first owner increases their price and eliminates the arbitrage opportunity.

<comment><USER22> How do you get a first owner for water?

<comment><USER24> Are you being intentionally obtuse? I just described two ways. There's Right of first use, Riparian rights, and my pet illustrative example of treating it as a publicly held asset to be sold... There's other ways beyond those three, but the first two are how ownership is assigned in the US today.

<comment><USER22> riparian rights is what led to the CA water wars where the wealthy from LA bought land up stream of the farmers in the owen's valley. It didn't solve the problem we're talking about regarding rich people buying up the water.

I have no idea how first use could work for water, would be happy to read more if you link me to something about it. A quick googling returned nothing.

The last one requires a lot more specifics to talk about meaningfully, but I'll bet that most of the free marketers wouldn't consider it a free market.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Does this account for the massively depleted aquifers thoughout the state?

<comment><USER26> > "The reservoirs are full, lakes are full, the streams are flowing, there's > tons of snow," said Jessica Blunden, a climate scientist with the National > Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. > "All the drought is officially gone."

[https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rain- california...](https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-rain-california- drought-conditions-20190314-story.html)

EDIT: Sorry, you're referring to aquifers, not reservoirs.

<comment><USER27> This quote gets me thinking about how snow is treated in this system.

It isn't like water in a stream because it stays where it is. It isn't like a reservoir or aquifer because the water isn't trivially dispatchable.

I suppose it depends where the snow is, some could be 'permanent', some seasonal melt, some gone by next week.

So really we should be differentiating the different types of snow?

<comment><USER28> Snow is really important. It is quantified as "SWE" or snow water equivalent, the amount of water that would be released when the snow melts.

SWE is monitored by satellites, aircraft, and by in situ measurements like from snow pillows. In California, the state DWR tracks SWE to estimate reservoir influx.

More: [https://aso.jpl.nasa.gov](https://aso.jpl.nasa.gov)

<comment><USER27> Thanks, didn't realise snow pillows were a thing.

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

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Tell that to my water bill, the drought surcharge is still over 50% of the bill...

<comment><USER30> The changes in behavior those surcharges are intended to cause remain important, especially as future droughts are quite likely.

<comment><USER31> Oh the quality of life behaviors of residents that use a very small percentage of the water? Residents use 10% of the water, 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the smelt, etc.[0]

[0] [https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in- california/](https://www.ppic.org/publication/water-use-in-california/)

<comment><USER30> > 50% of the water is "environmental" and is dumped into the ocean for the > smelt

That's a funny way of saying "we didn't want to dry up the rivers", isn't it?

<comment><USER31> It is sort of a trope in CA, oh and it's the deltas, are you saying that stinking up their bathrooms with un-flushed urine and being charged a surcharge to save 10% of 10% of the available water is logical?

Isn't it really just a "feel good" thing?

<comment><USER30> Australian toilets frequently have two buttons, one for a small flush (for urine) and another for a larger flush. "No flushing" is hardly the only option.

California needs to tackle water usage. There are reasonable changes that can be made in homes and towns - swapping to drought-resistant gardens instead of lawns, rain barrels to catch run-off, absorbent parking lots that don't drain out to the sewers, etc.

Agriculture also needs to be tackled, sure. That doesn't mean saving a percent here and there is of no use.

<comment><USER32> This style of toilet is already very common in California, as is drought resistant landscaping. There could be more, but California could already be past 50% towards best case on those approaches.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Same for us in Israel, it's been a fantastic year. I'm clocking 900mm! It's been 15 years since we've last seen such wonderfully rainy year. Praise the Lord, El-Niño, and any other involved entity.

</comment><comment><USER34> Santa Barbara county still reports "stage 3 drought condition": [https://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/system...](https://www.santabarbaraca.gov/gov/depts/pw/resources/system/docs/default.asp)

<comment><USER35> [https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california](https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california) which was updated 3 days ago. No drought, simply 6.6% "D0-Abnormally dry".

<comment><USER36> This one is pretty good too. Essentially the same info: [https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonito...](https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?West)

<comment><USER35> Yeah that's basically the same thing. The National Drought Mitigation Center is at U Nebraska Lincoln :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Being a bit cynical here, but could we just call it the California rain cycle, instead of being amazed every 7-10 years when droughts come and go.

<comment><USER38> > instead of being amazed every 7-10 years when droughts come and go.

Was there a drought 10 years ago though? I don't recall.

<comment><USER39> Yes. When I first moved to the Bay Area I could not turn on NPR without hearing about the poor delta smelt suffering from the drought for what seemed like every 5 minutes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> It's been raining every couple of days in sunny San Diego for like 3 months

<comment><USER41> There really hasn't been such a significant amount of rainfall here in years, I just worry about the fire danger coming in the fall because of all of the new growth.

<comment><USER42> There can be no water without fire, it is known.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> It rained a good amount last month in Los Angeles which was great. All the rain however uncovered a ton of potholes on the roads which is dangerous particularly for motorcycles. Hope the city gets this patched.

</comment><comment><USER44> As someone who has lived in the Bay Area for over 20 years, I knew this would happen. I was never worried for a second that the drought was the "new normal". I believe the climate will continue to change and cycle. Yes, we are experiencing global warming, and yes our environment is heading for disaster, everyone was too easy to believe that this particular drought was the "new normal" with little proof.

<comment><USER45> > yes our environment is heading for disaster

now I'd like to see which model predicted the end of the drought and see when those predicts its return.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Unfortunately California still thinks that one of the wettest centuries in thousands of years is "normal rainfall."

</comment><comment><USER47> People are complaining about the rain in the Bay Area but I say bring it on!! I remember the drought and how I feel sad with mountains of dead grass year round.

Glad to see we are heading out of a drought (this year) - enjoy it!

</comment><comment><USER48> This rain season has get like the La Nina winter of 1996. Glad we have it.

</comment><comment><USER49> Well, enjoy it, this will last about 4 months

</comment><comment><USER50> Just until the next dry year and everyone will be crying about the drought and how the sky is falling.

</comment><comment><USER51> Talked to an uber driver, he said this was 'climate change'.

Drought = desert

rain = climate change?

What is California

<comment><USER52> California has cyclical droughts and this last one was not that abnormal from the natural variability: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California#Weather...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California#Weather_cycles)

My uber driver today said the extra memory in phones is making us all sick, but computer screens were safe, so why would you even mention it was your uber driver?

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Looks like we'll have plenty of fuel for another bad fire season.

</comment><comment><USER54> Give it a few months

<comment><USER55> I heard we have 12 years.

<comment><USER56> David Bowie said 5 years in 1972

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> It's all about that delicious Hetch Hetchy

</comment><comment><USER58> Stand by for record bushfires next season

</comment><comment><USER59> Can't wait for all the climate change deniers to have a field day with this.

<comment><USER60> Maybe people should stop claiming normal patterns of precipitation variability are unstoppable catastrophic results of climate change then?

<comment><USER61> Also, climate change might have catastropthic results on some parts of the world, and positive effect on other. I wouldn't mind for instance if Central Europe got warm climate similar to Mediterranean. Now, why would I fight a change that clearly benefits me? :)

<comment><USER7> In principle you have a point but if millions of people have to leave their home area and are looking for a place to live things may be less golden.

the same thing happened in Syria. The war there didn't really impact Europe directly but the refugees certainly did.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Gonna go wash my car three times :D

</comment><comment><USER63> its funny how no matter what happens climate wise "its terrible and wrong" when it's reported.

What drought.gov calls abnormally-dry is not actually abnormal. What they really mean is "its non-ideal", as if the climate was always ideal pre-2011.

Anything that is lower than D2 ("severe drought") is normal, and of course its better to thrive toward ideal and maintaining better conditions. But it doesn't mean that somehow weather was ideal all the time before 2011 and now its never good enough.

Let the downvotes flow...

[https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california](https://www.drought.gov/drought/states/california)

<comment><USER64> I actually agree with the core sentiment of your post, but find you playing a victim without yet being victimized in any way with "Let the downvotes flow..." to be really counter productive.

<comment><USER65> Could you rephrase the core sentiment of the post that you agree with? I can't understand what it's saying at all, other than expressing anger at the reporting of climate issues.

<comment><USER66> There is a trend where all climate events are said by news sources to be indicative of climate change. Abnormally warm winters => climate change. Abnormally cold winters => climate change. Drought => climate change. Hurricanes => climate change. As is typical on many topics, some news organizations are apt to over-state the certainty of scientific evidence. For example, the link between climate change and hurricanes is commonly cited in news sources (see [https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hurricane+climate+change+huff+post...](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hurricane+climate+change+huff+post+medium)). While the link has a reasonable theoretical mechanism (warm air seems to make hurricanes stronger, global warming => more warm air), it hasn't actually been observed in practice - we had an average number of hurricanes last decade and an abnormally small number the decade prior. Nevertheless, some news sources publish articles along the lines of "most damaging hurricane ever, is it because of global warming?"

Depending on where you sit, this is either evidence that global warming is a massive hoax and not happening at all OR evidence that news sources sometimes get a little carried away trying to publish the most alarmist and exotic things that they can find, but that the underlying science of global warming is valid and with uncertain impacts.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


24 people have now been sentenced in India-based phone-scam case - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/24-people-have-now-been-sentenced-in-india-based-phone-scam-case/ <comment><USER2> I have just read some reports filed at [http://www.whycall.me/929-800-4241.html](http://www.whycall.me/929-800-4241.html) about recent scams. People need to know about these scheme. I have heard about Indian scams since few years ago. Beware of them, folks. Keep informing our family and colleagues about these scammers.</comment>


Bitcoin is big. But fedcoin is bigger - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bitcoin-is-big-but-fedcoin-is-bigger/2017/12/18/53e2e79a-e1b8-11e7-89e8-edec16379010_story.html?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-b%3Ahomepage%2Fstory <comment><USER2> Governments and the mass media are so naive about crypto, it's actually cute. The game for money is up, read this:

"Fedcoin, by contrast, would be decentralized to various Federal Reserve banks. There would be central control over the money supply, just as we have today, but meanwhile, the technology would offer vast improvements in transaction efficiency."

lol, immediately the first thing they can think of is centralising it, not knowing, decentralisation is THE reason bitcoin will never be defeated.

It's the reason bunch of Vietnamese farmers won the war against a world superpower.

It's the reason termites can bring down large buildings.

It's the reason a cure for cancer has so far been illusive.</comment>


3 Things That Speed Up iOS Development - <AUTHOR> http://blog.halfmoon.ws/speeding-up-ios-development <comment><USER2> To address comment #2, I've dealt with it a bit differently: Meaning backend may not always be ahead of iOS. (Especially if it's a new app).

What I advise is to make a stub instance, to simply create the API calls and return dummy data. You can do this quickly and easily in all major frameworks and gets you most of the way there.

On another note, I never would have thought I'd hear the term "Object Oriented UI design" \- but I like it!</comment>


The Checklist (2007) - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/12/10/the-checklist <comment><USER2> The Checklist Manifesto is one of the few "pop" business books that fundamentally changed some of the ways I work. I manage a decent sized teams and it's almost become an inside joke with my team that I expect a checklist for any process anyone executes.

It often seems trivial, but the few times it has helped catch something critical that we would otherwise assume just worked has more than paid for itself. There is a bit of fluff in the book, but there's also great actionable advice in there.

<comment><USER3> I can't imagine why I haven't made the connection, but this is inherently a part of the primary thesis of the best book on starting a company I've come across, _The E-Myth_ ([https://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Most-Small-Businesses- About/dp...](https://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Most-Small-Businesses- About/dp/0887304729/) and perhaps also see it's followup, which I can't vouch for: [https://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses- Abo...](https://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses- About/dp/0887307280/)), which says you should write down your processes as if you were going to franchise your company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Not necessarily related, but having read several of Atul Gawande's books, I would highly recommend them. I think they all address about how to at least attempt to eliminate some errors from any workflow. (Though, I may be biased with some background in the Pharmaceutical field.)

I personally would recommend "Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science"[1] , mainly because I like that he briefly addresses how it's sometimes hard to quantify knowing that something will go wrong, and that you almost have to acquire experience/a gut instinct of when to go the extra mile.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Complications-Surgeons-Notes- Imperfec...](https://www.amazon.com/Complications-Surgeons-Notes-Imperfect- Science/dp/0312421702/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=SRMQW61M00XT9ZC0ESRK)

<comment><AUTHOR> I think his book "The Checklist Manifesto" is too long. It feels as if he didn't really have more stuff than this article.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Creating a checklist for my morning routine has been such a great time-saver and anxiety-reducer for me. I have everything on there, even the most obvious items such as "eat breakfast", and all I need to do once I wake up is tick things off from start to finish. I haven't forgotten to take my umbrella or laptop charger since, and it's relieving knowing that - because I've checked everything off - there's nothing left for me to do. No more worrying about having forgotten something.

</comment><comment><USER6> Does anyone here have insight into how widely Pronovost's ideas have been implemented since the article was published?</comment>


Why I quit RSS - <AUTHOR> http://thetechblock.com/why-i-quit-rss/

<comment><USER2> Alive and kicking for me. Still using Google Reader and "Reeder" app daily.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've used Twitter more these days. I could see RSS going away honestly.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Couldn't agree more, RSS died to me about a year and half ago, too time consuming</comment>


Ask HN: 10 years in software development and can't move the needle anymore - <AUTHOR> Throwaway as my other account is in good reputation on here. Have been in various professional roles in programming, including developer, tech lead, product manager etc. Into my 30s and feeling bummed. I work at a reputed software development firm, the team is good and it's good overall.
But over the past few months I cannot move the needle anymore. I feel incompetent and ineffective. I even took a break for a week to figure out what's wrong. Could not reach any conclusion. It just seems meaningless to continue working. I can't retire as I have to earn to live. Life has seemed to lost meaning and interest. There's a constant feeling of anxiety in what I do. I feel I am not doing justice to things.
Thoughts of suicide did cross mind, but it's not something I will do. I have absolutely no idea what's going on and what I should do. Hope this does not get flagged to hell. Thanks.
Any advice? <comment><USER3> Quit. Screw programming. Screw being a tech lead. Screw managing products. Screw moving the needle. Screw trying to be competent and/or being effective. Screw trying to figure out how to continue working. Screw retirement. Screw finding interest and meaning in life. Screw this anxiety. Screw trying to do justice to things. Screw figuring out what's going on. Screw figuring out what you should or shouldn't do. Screw worrying how much money you have and how long that will last you. Your anxiety tells me you don't want to worry about things, but you do. So don't. Screw it all.

Pack your things. Fly to another random place on Earth. Roll a dice if you have to. Figure it out from there. Your only mission - screw the rest of the world and enjoy yourself.

If you are anxious about permission. Here, I give it to you.

Here's a piece of advice I tell myself every time I feel like you do: "Forget all preconceptions. About myself, about the world. Just wing it. If everything falls about, let it fall apart. Screw it. I'm a man, I'll live. Fun. Remember, fun."

You don't want to kill yourself. You want to kill your idea of who you are. Let the idea of you die, but you? You live and go on living.

<comment><USER4> > Fly to another random place on Earth. Roll a dice if you have to.

If you happen to roll Syria or Eastern Ukraine, roll again.

<comment><AUTHOR> I guess Ukraine is quite fine, Syria perhaps not. I have always wanted to live in a European country for a while. I have spent a few years in the US and liked it (Not an American). I feel Denmark, Germany or Norway are places I would love to stay and work. That's actually something I would be excited about.

<comment><USER4> The reporting on the war in Eastern Ukraine is trending down in most of Western media, while the actual war is not. I'd advise against going there without at least doing solid research (the rest of Ukraine is fine).

As for living in other countries, IMO the best thing you can do is - pick a low cost of living country with people and climate that suit you, and work remotely. Even if you start with zero savings, you'll be able to retire in 5-15 years.

<comment><AUTHOR> No doubt. I am just comparing Syria with Ukraine :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> As others have suggested, you might benefit from a professional's advice.

Besides that, maybe this is a burnout? If so, there have been several threads on how to tackle it on Ask HN. Maybe some of them can help. If it is burnout, one of the best ways to tackle it is to take a hobby in a field completely unrelated to tech. It should be something in which you can see tangible results/finished item in a few hours of work. That can help you calm your nerves, give you the euphoria of having a completed project on hand and serve as a good diversion in general. Breaking the constant worry about the current career and focusing on something completely unrelated might also yield a breakthrough insight on what you actually want from your current career, which you can translate to actionables.

<comment><USER6> Do you know of a good way to find a professional who works with programmers and sysadmins in particular?

<comment><AUTHOR> Absolutely, if not here at HN, there are multiple subreddits at reddit.com that will help you find some contacts that are local to you.

Please PM me if you need help with it.

<comment><USER6> > multiple subreddits

Which ones? You're on your throwaway account, so I can't PM you. However, I actually think this is the sort of resource that should be publicly known to the HN community. Given the high frequency with which we talk about mental health in software, we should have a ready set of recommendations. I am planning on starting a thread about it, so if you'd be able to PM me (my email is in my profile), that would be of use.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I had a similar crisis recently. I was feeling really incompetent. I realized that there are other things in my life that are important to me that I've been neglecting. Side projects, music, what have you. Work is just work, and I allowed myself to invest too much self-worth into the situation. I don't know if this is helpful to you, but it was helpful for me to take a step back from my job and realize that when I die, nobody is going to remember me for the great career that I had. If anyone does remember me, it will be because I was kind to them, or because I impacted their life in a meaningful way. Changing the priorities that I'm focused on helped me to feel a lot better about work and life in general.

*edited grammar

</comment><comment><USER8> Please talk to your loved ones. Like the other said, please seek professional help. You're still young. You can still do a lot of things.

Search for meaning. Start with your Why.

<comment><AUTHOR> I have asked the WHY. I have been quite ambitious since my childhood. I have had grand plans to be a neuro-surgeon, but it failed, then I wanted to be a physicist, but couldn't, then I loved programming and made it into a career. I love everything about it, but I am not as good as I would like to be. My ambitions sometimes hurt me. I wonder at how Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Bill Gates do it, and how I can't. It's quite infuriating.

Thanks for your kind words.

<comment><USER4> > programming (...) I love everything about it, but I am not as good as I > would like to be. I wonder at how Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Bill Gates > do it, and how I can't.

For one thing, you're probably way better programmer than Richard Branson is :)

On a more serious note: not everyone is wired for a massive success - <USER2> example, not everyone is capable of consistently working 100 hours per week (like Musk). Also, even if you are (I have a friend who could probably beat Musk in an iron man-style workaholic marathon) massive success in business is still mostly down to luck, which is another factor (apart from genetics) that you can't control. In the grand scheme of things, it's far better to accept who you are and be happy about the good things than be butt-hurt about not being a billionaire.

<comment><USER9> That last part is truly a good advice. Striving to become somebody one is not meant to be is only going to make one profoundly unhappy in life. What's worse, one will probably be wasting their potential given by the universe by refusing to do things one is meant to do. Being at the wrong place in life and not accomplishing anything by the end of the road will only make a negative personal contribution to the human civilization (in the grand scheme of things).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I won't try to diagnose you over the internet from 3 paragraphs.

But please try and take care of the 3 essentials:

* eat

* sleep

* exercise

It might not solve what you're feeling, but if those are taken care of at least somewhat properly, you'll buy yourself more time to figure out what's happening.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep, that's the bare basic I am trying to do, and it's helping in a very limited way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> See a competent mental health professional.

<comment><USER12> Given your thoughts of suicide, however unlikely they may seem, I believe this is the only correct answer. You aren't just having issues at work if you are thinking yourself down that path, even in the slightest.

Also, see someone now. Things like this can snowball and it's a lot easier to become you again when you are a little depressed than when you are very depressed.

Take care.

<comment><AUTHOR> The urge to commit suicide is not strong, it's an amusing thought that crosses the mind. I am highly unlikely to do it because I would rather kill myself for a cause than committing suicide, like getting into military and killing some terrorists. Seems I might have a hero complex :) So I won't go down and out silently.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sometimes it's a down period in life. You can take a break for a month or so and travel. Just go away. Learn something else. @meric's advice, however extreme, can be applied in partial. Think hard.

</comment><comment><USER14> I have an advice for you.

1\. Go and build a telescope - [https://stellafane.org/tm/atm/](https://stellafane.org/tm/atm/)

It involves manual labor and thinking as well. Grind that mirror. Make sure you finish it and then go out and see the stars.

2\. At your job do absolute minimum and go home as soon as it's possible.

3\. Go out and do some charity work. By doing it you're not only helping others but helping yourself as well to feel better. It's kind of an egoistic thing as well but who cares.

<comment><USER7> This is good advice. I stopped trying to go above and beyond at work. Now, the rest of my time is spent doing projects I really care about. Since then, I: \- Self-published an art book \- Started a band \- Started building a few software projects I've been interested in for a while \- Spent more time with my kids goofing around, consciously trying to lighten up and have fun

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> You have to make an effort to find something that excites you or you look forward to. Preferably on a regular basis, daily would be the ultimate goal. Just think, waking up to something you look forward to every day! Jumping out of bed every morning, looking forward to the day.

What do you like to do? Do you have any previous hobbies? Start a side project (that you can finish) and look forward to working on after work. Join an online game community (Team Fortress, Overwatch, Call of Duty, etc). Don't like games, what about a book or movie club?

Do you have any recreational sports leagues you can join? I used to play ice hockey, but wouldn't mind joining a roller hockey league where I am (Austin) or maybe flag football or kickball even.

Is there something you want to do or experiment? I've always wanted to build something with Lego Mindstorms and program it myself.

When was the last time you went to a meet up or hung out with some friends?

When were happiest? What were you doing? Who were you with?

Is there anything you can do at work to make it more enjoyable? Can you ask to be moved to another department? Take on new or different challenges? Do you feel challenged at work? Can you tell someone you want to try something new?

Maybe just try and take things less serious. Don't be so defensive and perfect about life. Have some fun and relax. Do you like comics, movies, anime, books (fiction), video games? Maybe you can try one and experiment. For me, I want to go back and try and play and beat all the old NES and Genesis games I never finished as a kid because I was too impatient.

These are just random ideas. For example, I have a backlog of video games, anime, comics, and side projects. I also have just found a new friend and we already made plans to go out. I'm moving into a new apartment that's an upgrade from my current and it has Google Fiber, I'm super excited for that. My parents are bringing me a couch and TV in a month too and I look forward to sitting in something besides my bed or desk chair. Not to mention look forward to seeing them for the first time in a year. I'm joining a new gym and look forward to meeting and seeing new people there as well as partaking in a class or two for fun, it's a good way to meet other people. I try and attend meet ups when nothing else is keeping me busy or I'm bored.

Bottom line, you have to try and stay busy and you have to make the effort. It requires work if you aren't use to it. You can't dwell on the negatives like you seem to be doing. Good luck, I hope I sparked some ideas for you.

</comment><comment><USER16> Pick something up that can get your mind off things. Start hiking, plant a garden, take up wood working, learn meditation. I find it nice to take a break from coding.

If you really like programming, but are not thrilled with the tech or projects at work, pick a side project you can do outside of work that will let you grow and learn.

<comment><USER5> I doubt side project is the right thing at this point in time, unless it is something you can complete in a day. It looks like the OP needs to be away from his computer and side projects that don't work out can be more frustrating than your daily job and may cause OP to spiral further into depression.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> It is a distinct possibility that you are suffering from the lack of meaningful personal achievements in your vocation of choice, which your subconsciousness recently began to realize and which is why it started poking you to do something about it. Normally, this sort of things starts to happen exactly in one's 30s.

Here's a thing that many (if not most) people working in IT don't realize. Practical software development is actually a creative profession. It's not pure science, it's not plain engineering (even if it has the elements of both), it's mostly a design discipline where outcome directly correlates with the skills and the personality of the human(s) involved. People who enter this field are often enthusiasts, tinkerers, inventors, in a sense artists. They like to create things with their own hands, things that do something interesting, meaningful and useful, and when they succeed then they get happy all around and their life becomes full of meaning and purpose. It happens to be true for most creative professions, you cannot just practice it as a routine, as a job, it has to be giving your life a meaning and the sense of accomplishment.

However, doing software development as a job does not help you advance on that path. You may have had a formally successful career, as you say you started as a simple programmer, moved up and eventually you reached a leadership position, but apparently that did not fill your life with meaning. I have no doubt that in your time you've completed multiple projects, implemented numerous features, solved important problems of your customers and so on. But the trouble is, those were all someone else's goals and other people's objectives. Despite that in the process you probably contributed many useful ideas and had personal input which directed and influenced the work, you only did the bidding of others. You solved the problems and built the things with which you cannot personally identify. Now you look back at your career and you recognize that for a lot of effort you've put in you have no tangible achievements made by your hands that you can be proud of. You need to see something for the work of your life, your legacy if you will, something to leave for the posterity, for the world, but you see nothing of that sort. And that's the root of the problem.

Here's what you say:

>> It just seems meaningless to continue working.

>> Life has seemed to lost meaning and interest.

It feels like yours is exactly the kind of problem I'm talking about. I might of course be wrong about you, this is not the ultimate diagnosis of any kind, but from what little information you've given us, I think this might be it. It would be helpful if you gave us more context and more details about your situation, otherwise it's not easy to figure out what you're going through.

As to what might be the remedy, it all depends. If you really love software engineering and feel it's your calling in life, then you should start looking for ways to use your skills and competences to do something that in your mind would be meaningful. It might be a side project or even a small startup of your own. You have not mentioned any of those therefore I assume you have none. You might consider one now. But it must not be a dummy project to simply have a project of your own or to dive into a new technology to have a sense of novelty. Those won't help. It's not about tools or the process (both of which you've mastered), it's all about the personal achievements (which you supposedly lack). You should think of something which would contribute in some useful way to the society, to solving real problems of real people, to making their lives easier, not about adding more forms and more rules to some boring enterprise software or fixing bugs in some opensource project. You need to go higher and it must be all yours, the entire pie not just some crumbs of it.

You may also want to explore another career path. If you have an inclination towards some other line of work, perhaps design or photography, you may consider giving it a go as an experiment and seeing how it works out for you. Personally, I've discovered that writing provides a quality diversion for me and is turning into a real passion. You too may have some buried talents which might benefit from your technical background. It's possible to use your knowledge of software engineering to give a major boost to your other abilities and make a difference on that alternative path.

I hope this helps you in your search for answers. Of course I might be mistaken about your condition and there might be something else that is happening with you. You are well advised to seek counselling assistance to help you out of the woods. Good luck and hold on. Don't take any radical actions before figuring out exactly what's been going on with you, or you may acquire additional troubles to your misfortune. Wait till the sky clears and only then begin considering where to go next.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks for a detailed explanation! I really appreciate it.

You are right in saying that I have not tried my hands at startups. I do have side projects that worked for some time and then were put on GitHub as open source (they were not particularly earth shattering ideas).

My inclination has been towards Physics and computational biology. I have been a science fan since childhood, always wondering about the intricacies of human body and the humbling vastness of space.

I am keeping a low profile for now and will focus on the bare minimum necessary and will take further decisions from thereon.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Also, are there any other threads where people have asked similar questions? I have searched HN and found a few, but if you know of any, please do share.

<comment><USER17> Search for burnout. People ask these questions pretty regularly here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Find a hobby to fill the void in your days. Move countries if you can, and travel.</comment>


Ask HN: Why HN enable to change the top bar color? - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> > Why HN enable to change the top bar color?

In all sincerity, what?

<comment><AUTHOR> in the settings, you can change the color of HN topbar</comment></comment>


The Timeless Way of Building (1979) - <AUTHOR> https://archive.org/details/TheTimelessWayOfBuilding <comment><USER2> _" If I build a fireplace for myself, it is natural for me to make a place to put the wood, a corner to sit in, a mantle wide enough to put things on, an opening which lets the fire draw.

But, if I design fireplaces for other people - not for myself - then I never have to build a fire in the fireplaces I design. Gradually, my ideas become more and more influenced by style, and shape, and crazy notions - my feeling for the simple business of making fire leaves the fireplace all together."_

</comment><comment><USER3> Also on Archive.org is Alexander's _A Pattern Language_ [1]. Although that book is also about the architecture of buildings, it inspired the idea of software design patterns [2].

[1] [https://archive.org/details/APatternLanguage](https://archive.org/details/APatternLanguage)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern#Histor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_design_pattern#History)

<comment><USER4> It also influenced Steward Brand's _HOW BUILDINGS LEARN: What Happens After They're Built_. The BBC's adaptation includes some interview with Alexander [1].

[1] [https://youtu.be/ZSaWdp833YM?t=12m57s](https://youtu.be/ZSaWdp833YM?t=12m57s)

<comment><USER3> An excellent book that I'd highly recommend. I have a copy on a bookshelf not far from where I'm sat, and your mention of it has prompted me to pull it out to dip-into later. Thanks!

And Stewart Brand is one of my intellectual heroes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> His nature of order is an amazing read as well:

[http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&camp=...](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&field- keywords=nature%20of%20order&linkCode=ur2&tag=everybase-20&url=search- alias%3Daps&linkId=4ETR7YAFN3D74Z7D)

Reading this besides something like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a good exercise in seeing the world a little more clearly.

<comment><USER6> Why is it like 80$? This isn't college...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> To all the Christopher Alexander recommendations I'll add _Notes on the Synthesis of Form_. It's his best book in my not-so-humble opinion, and it's been under-rated ever since Richard Gabriel called it 'juvenalia': [https://www.dreamsongs.com/Essays.html](https://www.dreamsongs.com/Essays.html)

<comment><USER8> 'Notes..' is my all time favourite book. I have a 10 year old, well worn, note riddled copy that I take with me on every holiday :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I find this one more useful for residential building design, by the same author: [http://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/set.htm](http://www.iwritewordsgood.com/apl/set.htm)

Available in hardcover on Amazon: [http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language- Buildings-Constructio...](http://www.amazon.com/Pattern-Language-Buildings- Construction- Environmental/dp/0195019199/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1441310086&sr=8-1&keywords=a+pattern+language)

ATWoB is more philosophical, and lest about specific implementation.

APL includes nuggets along these lines: "Therefore: Make a public square much smaller than you would at first imagine; usually no more than 45 to 60 feet across, never more than 70 feet across. This applies only to its width in the short direction. In the long direction it can certainly be longer."

"When they have a choice, people will always gravitate to those rooms which have light on two sides, and leave the rooms which are lit only from one side unused and empty.[...]Therefore: Locate each room so that it has outdoor space outside it on at least two sides, and then place windows in these outdoor walls so that natural light falls into every room from more than one direction."

There are 253 patterns in the book, covering governed regions down to building wall details.

<comment><USER10> Thumbs up for APL.

Most of the patterns are based on common sense and practical experience. What's novel is that they're written down and cross-referenced.

I find myself frequently nodding my head in agreement while reading - it's immensely satisfying to see ideas in concrete form that have been floating about in my head for years.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> For those who are unclear on the significance of this, Christopher Alexander's works were foundational to the pattern movement in software architecture & design.

There are some links on Ward Cunningham's software patterns wiki:

[http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ChristopherAlexander](http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?ChristopherAlexander)

</comment><comment><USER12> This site is what made me realize that minimal unit for planning had to be at least "Neighborhood"...

[http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/](http://www.livingneighborhoods.org/)

See also [https://www.patternlanguage.com/](https://www.patternlanguage.com/)

</comment><comment><USER13> Christopher Alexander's _A City is Not a Tree_ is another great essay on systems thinking.

[http://www.bp.ntu.edu.tw/wp- content/uploads/2011/12/06-Alexa...](http://www.bp.ntu.edu.tw/wp- content/uploads/2011/12/06-Alexander-A-city-is-not-a-tree.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER14> What is this supposed to be? All I'm getting is some doorslam about Archive.org's new site design.

<comment><USER15> Click "try it out" or whatever that big link in the middle says</comment></comment>