Linus Torvalds dumps Gnome3 for XFCE (G+ discussion) - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/106327083461132854143/posts/SbnL3KaVRtM <comment><USER2> The full history:

Dec 13, 2005: "I encourage people to switch to KDE. This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease." \- [http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00...](http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html)

Jan 26, 2009: "I thought KDE 4.0 was such a disaster I switched to GNOME. I hate the fact that my right button doesn't do what I want it to do... the whole 'break everything' model is painful for users and they can choose to use something else." \- [http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/012209-open-source- ide...](http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/012209-open-source-identity- linux-founder.html?page=1)

Jul 26, 2011: "I used to be upset when gnome developers decided it was "too complicated" for the user to remap some mouse buttons. In gnome3, the developers have apparently decided that it's "too complicated" to actually do real work on your desktop, and have decided to make it really annoying to do.

I'm using Xfce. I think it's a step down from gnome2, but it's a huge step up from gnome3. Really."

Linus has always endorsed being pissed off at your interface and ditching it for something radically different. The current move, as you can read, is not one of satisfaction with XFCE. Clearly Linus just thinks all UIs are shit, and maybe that's a signal no one has figured this out yet, or maybe it's just a signal he's a curmudgeon.

(Edited for typos - I kept swapping 'Linux' and 'Linus.')

<comment><USER3> I somehow wish Linus would be so pissed off at these interfaces for linux that he goes out and writes something totally awesome like he did with git.

<comment><USER4> I dunno. Git did not leave me with the impression that Linus is really good at making user interfaces.

<comment><USER5> A javascript, DOM-based window manager would be a worthy project for someone with the skills to do so. All prefs stored in JSON or somesuch. Separate from a browser to avoid frame-busting-busting-busting. Leave (and encourage) the styling and hacka-clicka-bility the users themselves. Twill happen eventually ... I'd just like it now :(

<comment><USER6> Isn't that HP webOS?

<comment><USER5> I haven't had a device yet to try that. They're supposedly coming out with a desktop version of "webOS". Will keep an eye out for an early release. I think they'll initially have that for Windows (whatever that means). Would love to try booting into the general concept from a shell on Debian.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> My biggest problem with Gnome 3 (and the number one reason I abandoned it in favor of Xmonad, which I've come to like quite a lot), was that it _breaks the UI concept of the modifier key_.

Simply pressing and releasing the super key (with no other keypress in between) triggers a change of state (bringing up the "overview" or whatever it's called). The modifier key is _such a basic_ interface concept that I struggle to imagine why they would go out of their way to break it -- any way I look at it, it's just _monumentally_ idiotic. And best of all, I could find no way of disabling it.

Admittedly, they're not the first to do this. OpenOffice has done something similar for quite a while (pressing and releasing a modifier key brings up a menu); that was one of the many things about OO that pissed me off. Nevertheless, precedent is insufficient justification for such a thoroughly moronic change.

I've been wanting to rant about that for a while now, glad to get it off my chest. Thankfully, Xmonad is fantastic, so in a way I'm grateful to Gnome 3 for leading me to switch to it.

<comment><USER8> It's not without precedent; In Windows, tapping the Alt key moves keyboard focus to the menu-bar (at least, it did in older version of Windows that had standard menu bars).

To be fair, I've nobbled that particular behaviour of GNOME 3.0 because it prevents using the Super key for any other keyboard shortcuts. If I read bugzilla rightly, that should be fixed in 3.2, though.

<comment><USER9> You can actually make the Super-Key usable again. Goto Region and Language -> Keyboard Layout Options and tick "Hyper is mapped to Win-keys" [1]. After that, you can use the super key again for shortcuts. I moved the activity window to Super-A but actually never use it.

[1] Image: [http://www.andre-gawron.de/wp- content/uploads/2011/05/key.pn...](http://www.andre-gawron.de/wp- content/uploads/2011/05/key.png)

[2] Full blog entry: [http://www.andre-gawron.de/383/amsterdam-peek- gnome-3-a-new-...](http://www.andre-gawron.de/383/amsterdam-peek- gnome-3-a-new-hobby)

<comment><USER8> Just checking that I've got this correct: you set the 'Hyper is mapped to Win keys' option in the keyboard config, you set GNOME 3 to use 'Super' to activate the overlay, then re-configure your other shortcuts to use 'Hyper' instead of 'Super' (or 'Mod4')?

<comment><USER9> Hyper, Super ... I'm talking about mod4 (on most keyboards the win-key right to L-CTRL). The overlay is normally activated by pressing mod4. With the stated option ticked, triggering the overlay with mod4 doesn't work anymore (when I remember correctly) - but every other shortcut using mod4 + anykey works again.

To get to the overlay using a shortcut, I set it to mod4 + a.

<comment><USER8> Ah, right. That's probably a nicer way of doing it since you don't have to mess with gconf-editor.

Personally, I cleared /apps/mutter/general/overlay_key (which prevents the overlay from being triggered by any modifier, which got my mod4 bindings working again. I set /apps/metacity/global_keybindings/panel_main_menu to "<Mod4>Escape", which on GNOME 2.x activates the Applications menu, but on GNOME 3.x activates the overlay.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I came really close to the same decision. But honestly: I like gnome-shell (not all of gnome 3, the totally mucked up dconf/gconf configuration mess in F15 is unforgivable).

Along with all the favorite gadgets, it also throws out a ton of crap. It just gets out of the way for the most part. The clean vertical desktop scrolling is actually a fantastic feature once you get used to it. Putting the status icon mess into a hot corner seems weird the first time, but I find I quickly got used to it and that it's a great way to save screen space. Likewise I don't need to dedicate screen space to a desktop switcher: swapping desktops via the top left hot corner can be done very accurately (after a little practice) with two quick flicks of the mouse. Dragging a window all the way to the side locks it down to a half-screen-maximized mode which duplicates almost exactly my preferred working environment and saves me a ton of fiddling.

Really, I think it's a keeper. It's got some serious maturity (though not stability) problems in Fedora 15 right now. I think the defaults for some of the settings are just wrong. But overall I like it.

<comment><USER11> I really like Gnome shell too, and I agree that there are a lot of settings that are just wrong by default... I have to change quite a few (many of which are stupidly hidden so I have to do it via gconf or a tweak application) each time I set up a computer with Gnome 3 to make it usable. And even then there are some design issues that totally ruin some parts of the user experience that I hope are fixed soon. For example, you can't shut down the computer. At least, you can't from the GUI without googling, and finding out about the secret key you have to hold to make the option appear. So they've gone and made an function that many users every day completely hidden and undiscoverable.

And when you complain, well, of course they can't change it because "it's in The Design", as if it was a document set on a stone tablet delivered from heaven...

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is going to be unpopular, I know. I'm a linux buff too, diehard fan since 1997.

BUT. One has got to admit the Windows 7 interface is great. I bought a new notebook that came with it and I gotta say, I wish Linux had ONE great interface and standard GUI programming API.

<comment><USER13> By "ONE" do you mean at least one, as in implying there are none right now. Or by "ONE" do you mean that you wish there would be one and only one GUI/DE for linux?

If it's the first, I would agree because I would willingly pay money to use the Windows 7 or even OS X interfaces in Linux. Essentially, I feel that while Linux has software I can't live without, there is not a single WM/DE out there that I can use without being annoyed every 20 minutes or without having to spend weeks configuring it. Gnome came closest before the gnome-shell move, now KDE is the closest but it's seriously still too buggy and "WTF" inducing. I'm not sure if it would be less work to remove all the "default/assumed" features from KDE (like the wallet that irritates me even when browsing websites) or to set up XFCE to some bearable degree from scratch.

Regardless, I'd still take this selection of environments that are all either ugly, time consuming to configure, buggy, or flat out annoying over having no choice at all. Even if the "no choice" option was really excellent, I would not like the thought of being stuck with it knowing that under some rare condition it might be useless and my only way out is a complete OS switch. Example: as much as I praise the windows 7 UI, I would hate to try and deal with it if I lost my ability to use a mouse. Meanwhile, I know there are nice options in the Linux world that I could use if this was the case.

Pretty much it boils down to my opinion that no interface is going to be good at every use case. And for that reason I'd rather have a slew of mediocre ones that span a broader range over a single one that covers a small spectrum but does it well.

<comment><USER14> I was in the same situation as you. I had been using mac and then bought a desktop PC and ran Linux. I tried awesome, xmonad, gnome, kde, etc but none of them were to my liking.

So now I run Windows 7, which is more option-full than you might think and develop on a virtual arch box via ssh/vim... It's the perfect setup in my opinion!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I've been using Gnome 3 for a few months now. When I started, people told me on Twitter to stick with it and that I'd grow to like it. I didn't. And after three months, I'm very tempted to turn on compat mode (something I avoid doing in most software I use)

<comment><USER16> Compat mode is still pretty crappy.

<comment><USER17> I'll second this very strongly. Compatibility mode is a shadow of what Gnome 2 used to be, and I've spent enough time using it at this point to feel pretty comfortable saying that.

(And if you do any work in a VM, you too will become very familiar with compatibility mode.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> So the same shitstorm that hit when the new Ubuntu interface came on is now hitting Gnome 3. I wish the Linux interface designers would realize that desktops are not tablets and that they should be making a super polished desktop interface and not trying to break everything down.

The good thing about Linux though is that in Linux you always have options. There is always another GUI. So I think linux should be able to survive this wrong turn relatively unscathed.

<comment><USER19> Heh. I agree. But while you're telling that to the Linux guys, remember to tell it to both the Windows 8 and OSX Lion designers as well.

<comment><USER20> Actually, I feel that while Win7 and Lion simplified things, they didn't really take many features away. Some Linux designers seem to confuse removing complexity with removing functionality. But then, this is Linux, so someone will add the functionality and complexity back in soon enough.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Linus isn't the target audience for Gnome 3.

Enough said, let's move on.

<comment><USER22> >Linus isn't the target audience for Gnome 3.

But who is the target audience for Gnome 3?

<comment><USER23> Here's one!

I like the Shell. I really do. And that's from someone that

\- used (black|open)box for a loooong time

\- dislikes KDE's gazillion settings and the bling it offers

I cannot point you to the single one killer feature. It just hits the sweet spot between good looking (subjective, of course) and usable (ditto).

My previous workflow on any platform has been tied to something that combines searching/launching. OS X? Quicksilver. Windows? Launchy, with Windows 7 the startmenu became useable as an alternative. Linux? Gnome Do.

It just comes natural now to hit super and start typing. I do understand the point of other commenters here about breaking this as a modifier key, but frankly - I never used it as such. Except for super + space to launch Gnome Do/Launchy/you see where I'm getting to.. I don't use tools that use weird (emacs, sorry, we're just not meant to be together) key combinations and I don't use composition to access accents/umlauts/special characters. Although I'm german and my keyboard layout is the US one.

So: Sure, there are rough edges. It's new. But some parts of the discussion here seem to be a mixture of real issues and a healthy dose of 'omg it's different'.

<comment><USER24> Exactly. Gnome3 tries to reduce the time you spend searching for icons+windows and/or sorting them. That's the most time consuming task for a desktop user. It makes total sense to improve on that. I'm also faster at finding an icon when I first need to show the activities bar, instead of looking for it in an always-visible taskbar.

How is that possible? Shouldn't the taskbar be faster to access? It's selective perception: The longer you stare at something, the less interest it holds for the brain. Example: You see 20 individual looking apples in front of you. Each has it's own shape/color. You sit in front of those apples for hours, you don't exactly recognise them during work. Focusing on them again and finding a specific one is going to take longer as if they were hidden from view and just pop into view each time you want one.

<comment><USER25> I would find the exact opposite faster. Looking at something I'm used to looking at is easy, and it'll help muscle memory to be persistent. I don't have to decide I want to change, then wait while my hand triggers the popup, then parse the shapes.

That's not to say that the popup isn't a good idea, but the only benefit I see is I screen space.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Interesting that he felt the need to change to either Gnome3 or XFCE. Why not keep using Gnome2 if it works for him? If enough people would keep using Gnome2 it probably could be forked like KDE3 was forked (although I'm not sure if Trinity actually survived)

</comment><comment><USER27> With GNOME3, I really tried. I decided to give it some time to see if the workflow would sink in but after a month of using it, I reverted back to GNOME2. Using GNOME3 makes you feel like the developers have effectively decided how your desktop workflow should be. I'm quite disappointed with this trend towards a polished, "grandma-friendly" desktop.

As of now, I'm fine with GNOME2. Perhaps I will switch to something like XFCE in the future.

</comment><comment><USER28> "I have yet to meet anybody who likes the unholy mess that is gnome-3." I like Gnome 3 (quite a bit), then again I don't know Linus.

On a another note, it seems every time he speaks he gets several hundred likes and yet he doesn't say anything particularly special/insightful compare to the other people in conversation (I found this somewhat humorous). :)

<comment><USER29> This seems to be the same for other uber-celebs who are posting on G+ (the only other person in his league of popularity who I read with any regularity would probably have to be Markus Perrson (aka @Notch), and it's the exact same thing for his posts.. although I also observe this on posts from Randall Munroe, Leo Laporte, etc).

When contrasted against twitter (which has the similar "pick who you want to follow" semantics), G+ has a more succinct ego-stroking mechanism for people who want to make their sycophancy more apparent (I kid, I kid.. sorta).

OTOH, I suppose, twitter has the retweet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> I really wanted to like Gnome 3 and gave it an extended trial run. I really like the gnome shell for the most part, overview mode, left dock, dynamic desktops. It felt right on my 14" 16x9 laptop screen. However, it took a serious hit in terms of power management and other laptop usability - no auto dim on battery? No exposed lid close event? No exposed power profiles? It also didn't feel nearly as good on my dual desktop monitors. A lot of what the shell does right is conserving real estate, but when you have a lot of it the extra room isn't so critical and you start missing some of the convenience.

I did absolutely hate it until I learned a number of keyboard shortcuts and how to launch applications by typing a few letters of what you want.

I am back with KDE 4.6 for now, but I am looking forward to giving it another try after they've polished it up a bit. I heard when it launched that august was a target for a point release.

</comment><comment><USER31> Excuse me but what is Gnome3? I've been using Xubuntu and Xfce4 for a number of years now and have been really happy with it. Periodically I will try regular Ubuntu and Gnome just seems to have too many awkward issues. For example it insists on me having a desktop (preferable one full of icons and Excel spreadsheets). Even if I turn off icons on the desktop, I still must have the Desktop directory. Their file manager is also confused: it thinks I need help mounting network file systems. That's the job of things like Fuse and NFS, not of a GUI application. Things like this are the reason why I prefer not to spend too long using Gnome.

<comment><USER32> Gnome 3 doesn't force you to use the desktop as icons etc are disabled by default.

The persistent desktop directory is down to your distribution/XDG - check out ~/.config/user-dirs.dirs to remove it.

As for "it thinks I need help mounting network file systems"; Could you clarify what you mean?

<comment><USER31> It includes the functionality to mount NFS/SMB/FTP shatlres and those options are a part of the UI. Now, like I said, I haven't used Gnome in a while, but I remember finding this somewhat frustrating since I know how to use the mount command. By contras, thunar is very simple in what it does and it does it well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> xfce4 is really awesome. I can vouch for it as well. If you need a productive, traditional desktop, then try it. The only thing I miss is the gnome samba mount options.

</comment><comment><USER34> I always thought I was weird for liking XFCE more than Gnome. Sounds like I'm not and it's time to give Xubuntu a full-time shot, especially with Unity being the default in Ubuntu now.

<comment><USER35> I recently changed from Xubuntu to Mint XFCE and really like it:

<http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=1725>

Xubuntu is still an excellent choice though.

<comment><USER36> hey thanks - that was a really interesting find. However, it is a rolling distro based on Debian Testing. I hope that doesnt mean frequent instability.

<comment><USER37> Debian Testing is stable enough for the desktop. It should be fine, plus you don't get the inconvenience caused by upgrading every 6 months.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Gnome3 doesn't fail because of that - it fails because it doesn't alert the user and teach them the changes as they use Gnome3.

For example. I have Firefox running. I want another Firefox window, so I click the Firefox icon. At this point, why doesn't Gnome3 say "Hey! Just so you know, you've already got a Firefox window open, so we'll take you to that - but if you want a NEW Firefox window, click the logo again while holding down Control".

<comment><USER39> The last time someone tried that in a big way was MSOffice. Remember the paperclip? People's reaction was so violently negative everyone has been scared to try it again.

<comment><USER38> No that's not the same. The paperclip was something separate, on another part of the screen, that tried to "help" for absolutely everything, constantly, and again and again.

I'm suggesting something similar to what gmail does: when a new feature is launched you get a popup box near the new feature with an arrow pointing to the feature explaining two things:

1\. What it does and why it would be useful

2\. How to get rid of the popup box, but also how to get the info from the popup box again later if you need it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> meta-shift-enter = new terminal. Xmonad!

<comment><USER41> [Any keystroke] -> New Terminal. [Any window manager worth it's salt]!

I've had ALT-F2 bound to New Terminal window for the past 12 years now, through half-a-dozen window managers. ALT-F1 is new browser, and I've got some preferred CTRL-ALT-arrow keys for moving around virtual desktops. Everything has configurable keys and has for a long time, though sometimes you have to create a one-line shell script to pop up a terminal, find your local menu editor, add that script, then give that menu entry a shortcut.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> As a designer, this kind of attitude is one of the many reasons I don't contribute to open-source projects. You can't touch anything without people complaining about change. Computers are very different than they were 20 years ago yet we're tied down to outdated interface principles. In Linux-land, we're expected to design for the way things have always been not the way they should be. It seems geeks are just as stubborn about change as everyone else.

<comment><USER43> Actually, I would be really interested on research done in this area. What are some modern UI concepts (apart from those oh so usable interfaces offered by this big fruit company)?

Are there any fresh concepts out there at all? I would really like to see what might be possible if somebody really starts developing something radically different and well suited for the novice computer user and the ubergeek at the same time.

Hiding complexity from the user might be one option, but there should be more ways to make use of the gui concept than just oversimplyfing things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Exactly my thoughts. Once Gentoo drops gnome2 it's Xfce for me. I used it before on a low-powered laptop and it was nearly as good as gnome2, in some cases better.

</comment><comment><USER45> I find it amusing that Linus finds what I consider annoying behavior more usable. Changing things up is always painful. I really hate clicking on Terminal and having something new pop up when I might just be trying to bring that application back into focus (to me 'one window' = 'one application' is a fallacy).

EDIT: Seriously though. People are making a big deal out of someone having a different opinion. Silly.

<comment><USER46> I'm confused.

> 'one window' = 'one application' is a fallacy

> hate clicking on Terminal and having something new pop up when I might just > be trying to bring that application back into focus

Aren't those conflicting statements? The latter only occurs when the former is _not_ considered a fallacy, no?

<comment><USER47> In a document-oriented switcher, the icon is the application, while the window is an open document (for a relaxed definition of 'document' when speaking about a terminal).

So clicking on the application icon will present the user with all documents opened by this application, hence will raise all of its windows, while modifier+clicking will create a new document.

<comment><USER37> That sounds to me like an application oriented switcher. The application is focused, not the document.

This has really annoying consequences in OS X where it trips me up all the time. For example, I open a pdf from within Safari. I finish reading and close it. I expect to be back in Safari: I'm not; I'm focused instead on a completely unrelated photograph that I'd opened ages ago and forgotten about.

Linux GUIs were traditionally all about documents. As they've tried to converge with Mac and Windows, they've become more about apps. IMO that's a shame, but there it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> While we're at it, distros should upgrade KDE4 back to KDE3. I switched from KDE4 to Gnome 2 because KDE4 was so bad.

<comment><USER49> When was the last time you tried KDE4? I found that it was very unstable and buggy when I first tried it when it came out. Nowadays it seems stable (haven't had it crash anymore), and much less buggy (ie. normal level of bugginess).

<comment><USER48> > When was the last time you tried KDE4?

About a month or so ago.

> I found that it was very unstable and buggy when I first tried it when it > came out.

My problem with it isn't bugginess, it's that they'd removed the existing UI and replaced it with new stuff that worked differently. This means that I no longer know where to find stuff (e.g. for configuration).

Also some of the new interface I really don't like, e.g. they have replace the main menu with a scrolling menu that only shows a few options at a time, so I have to scroll up and down to see all the options. This "feature" on its own is one I dislike so much that I will not willingly use this interface.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> I think its time someone provided an alternative to the big two, GNOME and KDE. They have been around a long time and I guess reached their pinnacle. A nice, lightweight, intuitive environment minus all the fuss and cpu hog would be welcome by many I guess.

<comment><USER51> Xfce?

<comment><USER50> Yes, that's one of the options. With Linus now adopting it, guess more will follow !!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Linus wants a new terminal to pop up when he hits the terminal icon? That's pretty old-school behavior. OSX and Windows have long moved away from it. I don't use Gnome3, but hitting cmd+n or cmd+t when I want a new terminal doesn't seem to bother me much.

<comment><USER10> Linus is right. "Old school" or no, a new window for apps like terminal is exactly the right behavior. At least for my workflow it is: I want a shell right now, and I'll throw it away when I'm done.

I worked around this by binding Ctrl-Alt-T to spawn a gnome-terminal (likewise Ctrl-Alt-E to launch a new emacs window). Happily that key customization UI survived the transition to gnome 3.

<comment><USER53> I'm cool with the OS X behavior because I have an icon on the finder toolbar that spawns a new shell in the directory the finder window is showing.

<comment><USER54> Both terminal and iTerm require a right click to spawn a new terminal for me. I'd love it if I could left click the dock icon and get a new terminal with my hom directory as the working directory.

<comment><USER53> tensor - see my reply to redacted - no right click needed

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> I'm much happier since I abandoned both Gnome and KDE, and went with StumpWM instead.

</comment><comment><USER56> I've been using tiled window managers for 7 years now (currently on awesome, which I switched 3 years ago) and the interface has always remained pretty consistent. I wonder if Linus has tried tiled WMs?

</comment><comment><USER57> Someone just needs to desktopize Honeycomb even more and port it to x86. It shouldn't be too hard to make it work better than the mess KDE and GNOME are at this point.

That someone should be Intel and AMD I think - if they put their money we could really see some hope for Linux on Desktop via Tablets. Real threat to Microsoft if they can make it work great on both platforms.

<comment><USER23> I fail to see the point.

The people that complain the most here are those that seem to fall into the "poweruser" category. That instead move off to a inferior (my view) DE like xfce just to keep their muscle memory or leave for tiling window managers, a completely different wm strategy.

Why do you think that these people would love working with Android as OS/DE? It seems to me that Android is much _worse_ for them - and falls exactly into the 'We don't want something that seems to be made for tablets, we want a productive work environment' line of complaints?

Edit: Oh, and let me add a snarky comment regarding 'That someone should be Intel': No, if you like to have a nice integrated environment that differs from current DEs and is tablet friendly, than Intel would be happy to see you using MeeGo, on a 'real' Linux stack.

<comment><USER57> Yeah, MeeGo is going everywhere. Snark aside I wasn't saying use Android as is on Desktops if you read what I wrote. It is already somewhat desktop-ish and would need to be made more so but I don't see why that would be hard to do.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> I switched from puppy-525 default desktop to xfce - what an awsome os!

</comment><comment><USER59> Can you please refer the link where Linus says anything about XFCE? The link you provided doesn't say anything about Linus dumping Gnome3 to switch to xfce. It just says he doesn't like Gnome3 and wants Gnome2 back.

<comment><USER60> Just read the whole thing, it's in there, and then it degenerates even further into wanking over whose WM is superior.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> I try hard to stick to XFCE, but after every update, ubuntu replaces thunar with nautilus

</comment><comment><USER62> I miss my CPU/RAM/NIC monitor. :c

<comment><USER63> I missed that too. Now I have found an extension, which is not yet in yum, but it's not too hard to install following the instructions in the README.

[https://github.com/paradoxxxzero/gnome-shell-system- monitor-...](https://github.com/paradoxxxzero/gnome-shell-system-monitor- applet/blob/master/README.md)

</comment></comment><comment><USER64> I predict the next Hacker News posting on Linus will be titled something like "Linus wipes his ass". Oh wait, we've already had that one: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2372096>

Seriously though, who cares? Let's see postings from Linus about why he designed the Linux kernel the way he did or why git's command line interface is so damn unintuitive (this coming from a hardcore git fan before you downvote me). But posting submissions for every silly opinion he has reduces us to preteen groupies following every move of the latest teenage heartthrob.</comment>


Politicians considering permanent Caltrain shutdown - <AUTHOR> https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Caltrain-derailed-Advocates-predict-shutdown-15411557.php <comment><USER3> _"Sales taxes are the most regressive form of taxation," the supervisor contended, meaning they hit low-income people as hard as wealthier residents. "This is a railroad that, while it is an extremely valuable public transportation resource, serves a very affluent clientele." In an interview later, Peskin pitched an alternate idea: Why not impose a regional tax on "the wealthiest people in society who are more likely to use the railroad?"_

To claim that a rail service in car-first United States only serves "the wealthy" is a bald-faced lie. The idea that it is only the "wealthy" who use CalTrain runs totally contrary to my experience on the train system - <USER2> I've noticed is that the "wealthy" pay their fare (overpriced - $20 just to go from SF to Palo Alto and back!), while the "less affluent" clientele often hop on and off without payment. I do see people of all incomes use the train, especially when I sit in the bike section - less affluent people need the CalTrain especially because it enables them to bring their bicycle with them (not reliably so with buses that only have space for two bicycles), and a bike is a _must_ for anyone not fortunate enough to have a car in the southern part of the Peninsula.

So I think this next bit is on point:

 _Such arguments rankled Adina Levin, executive director of the grassroots advocacy group Friends of Caltrain. "This is a circular argument," Levin said. "Caltrain does not have stable funding, and so it's raised fares. And that means the riders are higher income." She pointed out that a share of the projected $100 million-a-year revenue from the sales tax was supposed to fund discounts for low-income riders._</comment>


Hacking analog tape: the doctor who theme music - <AUTHOR> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_Who_theme_music#History

<comment><AUTHOR> listen here:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF2x5IKxmAQ&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF2x5IKxmAQ&feature=related)</comment>


Ask HN: Guido van Rossum's comment about go and scratch - <AUTHOR>

I just read this cryptic comment by Guido van Rossum on Twitter: http://twitter.com/gvanrossum<p>"For all its flaws, I find Scratch (http://scratch.mit.edu/) a more interesting new language than Go (http://golang.org/)"<p>Go is presented as a systems language for experts; scratch looks like it was designed for kids to learn programming. Can they be compared? <comment><USER2> Perhaps what he's trying to say is that he's more interested in making programming more interesting and accessible for 1000 more children than he is in making an application able to scale up to 100,000 more users.

<comment><USER3> Broadening interest in programming is indeed one of the core ideas behind Scratch... and not to be picky but there are more than 90,000 people who have created and shared their Scratch project on scratch.mit.edu :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't read anything from Guido, so I don't know how he thinks, but I would interpret this as meaning that he doesn't see anything new and exciting in Go, but that he does in Scratch. That alone forms a comparison. A programming language that kids could actaully learn that would let them make web games that they could share with their friends definitely seems like it would be cool. What does Go offer that we can't already do?

<comment><USER5> "What does Go offer that we can't already do?"

Careful saying this around computer scientists, or you might get an earful about Turing machines, etc.

But in any case, isn't Go meant to be a replacement for C and C++? At first glance, Scratch does not seem to fill that niche, so Guido's comment seems a non-sequitur to me.

<comment><USER6> _Careful saying this around computer scientists, or you might get an earful about Turing machines, etc._

Scientists wouldn't say that. You're thinking of people who just learned x86 assembly yesterday, and are amazed that they can say "Hello world" in 10x the lines of any other language. "It's all the same!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't see it as cryptic. He just said "it's a toy". Also: oranges are way better than apples

<comment><USER8> And not just a "toy", but an "inferior toy". Also: no way! Bananas are better.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I don't see it as a cryptic remark; it does seem like a bit of an inkblot to some folks, though.

</comment><comment><USER10> I don't think they can be compared, he appears to be stating a preference (not dismissing go).

<comment> brown9-2 Agreed. Sounds like he is just stating which happens to hold more of his interest currently.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I imagine he thinks that Scratch has more interesting and compelling features as a language that tried to do new things than Go does. I personally found Go to be very underwhelming and think that if it wasn't riding the Google wave (pun kinda intended), nobody would give it a second look. Theres simply more interesting languages out there (and, in its own way, Scratch is more interesting to me and seemingly to Guido. Hell, you can even do concurrent programming in Scratch :-P)

<comment><USER11> I looked into Go more because of its authors than because of the "Google wave".

<comment><USER8> Theres that too. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. I expected them to come up with something amazingly awesome... Ah, we'll see how things pan out. But if it gains any traction, I still think its because of Google hype.

<comment><USER12> Which might not be too bad. Even it Go lags behind the cutting edge, it may still be an improvement on industry standards. Java was also heavily pushed by Sun --- and while I don't like it, I guess it's memory management is still an improvement over C++.

<comment><USER6> But Go is no improvement over Java. (And you have to work pretty hard to not improve on Java...)

<comment><USER8> Java isn't an improvement over C++ either though.. oops circular logic!

<comment><USER12> Citation neeed.

<comment><USER8> I'd say its about on par. Which is better depends on the problem your trying to solve. Sure, Java adds some nice features, like garbage collection and potential compile-once-run-elsewhere and a bunch of other things, but C++ has its advantages either. Heres a small few:

C++ can have much better startup time. While I no longer buy into the speed thing (the JVM has become quite fast), I still find Java mesurably slow while starting up. So much, in fact, that projects like NailGun were started to improve things.

I hear Java's floating point hurts everyone everywhere: <http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/~wkahan/JAVAhurt.pdf>

C++ supports unsigned arithmetic, Java doesn't.

Javas generics use type erasure.

Checked exceptions in Java are a bad idea.

C++ allows tight OS integration.

And so on. While I'll be the first to admit that C++ is far from perfect, I also don't buy that Java improves it. One is better sometimes, the other is better other times, both are terrible in other situations again. I prefer C++ in more cases than I prefer Java, hence my comment.

But.. maybe I missed the point of the comment I replied to, since memory management in Java might really be an improvement over C++.

<comment><USER12> Thanks for the clarification. I guarded my original past by only speaking of memory management. I have programmed in Java and C++, but not enough to say which one is better. I tend to avoid both in favor of Haskell, Python, Ocaml, Scheme and the like. D also looks promising.

<comment><USER8> You're welcome. I use both in work, though a lot more Java than C++, but I agree, when I'm given a choice (or working on my own projects) I, too, prefer to avoid them. I've used a lot of Python in the past and, for the past two months, have been using Clojure. Much much nicer to work in than Java or C++!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> b-man Scratch, Squeak and other similar environments follow the leading of Seymour Papert and his Logo language:

low threshold and no ceiling

For that they are different, and for that they are interesting.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> <http://scratch.mit.edu/>

<http://golang.org/>

<http://twitter.com/gvanrossum></comment>


Mammatus: Use DNS NS failover to create HA Web Service. - <AUTHOR> http://mammatus.thimbl.net/this-website <comment><USER2> The main issue with using DNS for failover is that the name servers of many major ISPs don't respect TTL values, particularly those under 3600 seconds.

As such, when a failover occurs a site will be unavailable for many viewers for several hours and possibly even days, making the solution anything but highly available.

<comment><USER3> _The main issue with using DNS for failover is that the name servers of many major ISPs don't respect TTL values, particularly those under 3600 seconds._

I've seen this repeated in many places but never with any concrete examples. This leads me to wonder just how widespread the practice is — can you substantiate the claim?

<comment><USER4> I don't know much about ISP DNS configurations, but the problem extends to clients as well. For example, until Java 1.6, the default TTL for DNS lookups was forever.

<comment><USER3> That's beyond the scope of my question — my concern is solely resolvers extending TTLs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is a recent blog post we wrote: [http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split- testing-blog/maximum...](http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing- blog/maximum-theoretical-downtime-for-a-website-30-minutes/)

In a nutshell, IE doesn't respect TTL and caches DNS for 30 minutes.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi paraschopra. What does it do when the request using the cached DNS fails? In conversations with security experts researching DNS re-binding attacks, I've heard that pinning is dropped after one failed request, as techniques like sending multiple A records for a domain depend on this. Also see my comments to forkqueue.

<comment><USER5> In my experience it doesn't request DNS again if request fails. Waits till TTL expires. Multiple A records are useful if you have all servers exactly synchronized (as request can go to any server) plus on the moment of server failing it will still doesn't help as IE will keep reconnecting to same IP.

Though I haven't tested multiple A records.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks, I'll look into this more. In the case of Mammatus response, the TTL would already be expired, so the only problem would be if it pinned for longer and didn't request again on failure.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> highly interesting !!</comment>


Show HN: Simple-blogger – blog generated from GitHub project READMEs - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/vksah32/simple-blogger <comment><USER2> This is... at best not favorable for a lot of static blogs.

For people who didn't understand what this is doing - it's using client-side JS to load the markdown files from GitHub, compiling it to HTML and displaying it on the browser.

Looks like the advantage of this is that it's a one-time setup - you don't need to build the files every time you commit, you can add your markdown files on GitHub and it automatically gets 'added' to your blog.

The downside of this is that this makes RSS feeds impossible, and non-JS users will suffer.

<comment><USER3> > you don't need to build the files every time you commit.

Is this a big advantage? I write an article in markdown and push to my server. The server's post-commit hook automatically runs a static site generator. It takes less than a second to run each time. It took me half an hour to set this up[1], https included.

Importantly, since it's a static site with no client side JS, it's faster and better for SEO. Anecdotal evidence - my blog is a featured snippet from google for a couple of tech related queries. This wasn't the case earlier when my blog was generated by ghost.

[1] - [https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/setting-up-this- blog/](https://blog.nindalf.com/posts/setting-up-this-blog/)

<comment><USER4> Whether you choose to use clientside JS isn't related to any platform. Lots of people conflate this. They build ostensibly a totally empty scaffold site with an SSG and say "look how fast it is" \- but the truth is if you built _that_ same site with really any platform in the world, it would be just as fast.

Ghost doesnt require any clientside JS of any kind, it's totally user choice if/when they want to have that. Yesterday I built a Ghost theme with 2.5kb page size, and average pageload of 100ms. Super easy :)

<comment><USER3> The speed comparison between my blog on Ghost and my blog on Hugo (an SSG) indicated that it is faster on Hugo. Note that I'm comparing time taken to serve the website, not time taken to generate files.

The same content with the same URLs is ranked higher by Google after the switch, suggesting that Google prefers this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I do this for automatically generating pages on my personal website for various projects via Jekyll.

So [https://captnemo.in/ideas/](https://captnemo.in/ideas/) loads the README from [https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas](https://github.com/captn3m0/ideas).

If you'd like to replicate, use this layout[0], and create a post with just a few bits of frontmatter[1]

The obvious advantage is that I can now serve READMEs for various projects within my website, without having to worry about updating it in any way. The READMEs stay in their respective projects. Its all done client side though, so not recommended if you'd like to use the page on your website as the primary. The one issue is that internal links in markdown don't work easily.

[0]: [https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/...](https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/_layouts/repo.html)

[1]: [https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/...](https://github.com/captn3m0/captn3m0.github.com/blob/master/projects/ideas.md)

</comment><comment><USER6> I have created something similar. I have a content folder with articles and auto generate content on my site at each commit. I built it as a Docker container and I run it on Nomad. It's interesting how much content (crm?) we can put together by scraping other apps we use (github, hacker news, reddit, etc)

</comment><comment><USER7> this functionality has already been available as part of github pages. Not really sure what you are adding here.

<comment><USER8> I don't think so. This uses the GitHub API via browser side Javascript to auto generate a page, listing and rendering the READMEs in your recent repos. Plus listing and rendering the .md files in a special "blog-posts" repo.

This is similar to what some big companies do to render a projects page. A copied Twitter's[1][2] a while back when it was simpler[3][4].

[1] [https://twitter.github.io/](https://twitter.github.io/)

[2] [https://github.com/twitter/twitter.github.io](https://github.com/twitter/twitter.github.io)

[3] [http://antoncohen.github.io/](http://antoncohen.github.io/)

[4] [https://github.com/antoncohen/antoncohen.github.io](https://github.com/antoncohen/antoncohen.github.io)

<comment><USER9> I'm confused about the blog-posts repo. Why wouldn't that be the only data source? Why would you want to pull in other repos?

<comment><AUTHOR> There are two use-cases: project pages (from github repo README) and blog- posts (coming from .md files in blog-posts repo). You can choose to not have blog-posts and it will still generate a blog-like site from all your github project READMEs.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Strauss-Kahn Case Seen As in Jeopardy: Major Holes in Housekeeper Credibility - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/nyregion/strauss-kahn-case-seen-as-in-jeopardy.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Did anyone else see this coming? :)</comment>


Show HN: Media Browser for iOS - My first mobile app (free) - <AUTHOR> http://mediabrowserios.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Would love to get some feedback from you guys. This is my first app and my venture in learning iOS. It took me 2 months to learn and create this app. I would love to share my experience for anyone looking to get started on iOS development. Please note that you need the Media Browser server to try this app. Would be happy to share any information about the controls used in the app and share code samples if requested.

Github link - [https://github.com/MediaBrowser/MediaBrowser.iOS](https://github.com/MediaBrowser/MediaBrowser.iOS)

Appstore link - [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/media-browser-for- ios/id7050...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/media-browser-for- ios/id705058087?ls=1&mt=8)</comment>


Dragonfly, an Open-Source P2P-Based Image and File Distribution System - <AUTHOR> https://d7y.io/en-us/ <comment><USER2> I can't take software serious that doesn't compare itself to equal contenders.

"We are a P2P-Based file distribution system" here is how we compare to wget. This looks to me like any other p2p system with extra steps (docker your own server, docker your client?, docker nginx as well!)

Yeah no thanks if I want to share stuff over p2p I will use a torrent and I don't trust software that doesn't even acknowledge other products like retroshare, gnunet or one of the other dozens of solutions [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file- sharing_app...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file- sharing_applications)

PS why use docker anyway when your application is written in go?

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree a more prominently placed comparison with other P2P applications would be helpful.

BTW There is a comparison with Bit-Torrent in the FAQ [https://github.com/dragonflyoss/Dragonfly/blob/master/FAQ.md...](https://github.com/dragonflyoss/Dragonfly/blob/master/FAQ.md#what- is-the-difference-between-dragonflys-p2p-algorithm-and-bit-torrentbt)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> "At Alibaba, every month Dragonfly is invoked two billion times and distributes 3.4PB of data. Dragonfly has become one of the most important pieces of infrastructure at Alibaba."

For those that are confused, this is a lot more descriptive:

[https://d7y.io/en-us/docs/overview/what_is_dragonfly.html](https://d7y.io/en- us/docs/overview/what_is_dragonfly.html)

<comment><USER4> Sounds similar to Uber's Kraken

[https://github.com/uber/kraken](https://github.com/uber/kraken)

<comment><USER5> One difference is governance. Dragonfly is a CNCF project with open governance.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Clearly this project isn't presented well as most comments don't seem to understand that the primary use case of this tool is to use P2P technology to make "docker pull" more efficient.

</comment><comment><USER7> Another website with light grey text on a white background. Come on people half the world can't read this low contrast crap.

</comment><comment><USER8> Unfortunate name.

There's a large open source project named this way already, and it's an operating system.

<comment><USER9> It is even worse than that. This has connections to both Google (Go, CNCF) and China (Alibaba). There is already something called Dragonfly in that intersection:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_\(search_engine\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Yes, unfortunate naming.

[https://www.dragonflybsd.org](https://www.dragonflybsd.org)

</comment><comment><USER11> I can't tell who the primary user for this may be.

Is it meant to replace traditional CDNs outright?

<comment><USER12> This is more like Facebook's use of Chihaya torrent tracker within Tupperware.

For very large web companies like this, when they push a new app update, the container needs to be distributed to hundreds of thousands of internal servers. Using P2P technology is just common sense to reduce load on the central artefact repository.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> reminds me of a modern version of twitter's murder project ([https://github.com/lg/murder](https://github.com/lg/murder)), ie Torrent large file (ala docker) distribution. Dragonfly is also a cncf incubation project recently, [https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/04/09/toc-votes-to-move- dragon...](https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/04/09/toc-votes-to-move-dragonfly- into-cncf-incubator/)

</comment><comment><USER14> similar to Uber's Kraken [https://github.com/uber/kraken](https://github.com/uber/kraken)

which to choose? Which is better?

</comment><comment><USER15> Dragonfly very good!

</comment><comment><USER16> >p2p

> alibaba group

choose one</comment>


Likelike Online: The Tiniest Mmorpg - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/molleindustria/likelike-online <comment><AUTHOR> Seems to have been hugged to death even before this post. Anyone want to host their own instance?

A blog post: [https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/likelike- online/](https://www.molleindustria.org/blog/likelike-online/)</comment>


Why did we do this? - <AUTHOR> http://www.johndcook.com/blog/2011/11/25/institutional-memory/ <comment><USER2> Which brings to mind....

 _Five monkeys are caged together and there are some bananas hanging from the top of the cage. Some scientists attach an automated device for sensing if the bananas are moved; once a monkey tries to get any, an electric shock travels through the cage so that all monkeys get shocked. In the beginning, a single monkey climbs up to the bananas, touches them and every monkey gets shocked. So he doesn't try anymore, but the other four monkeys try the same thing and the result comes to be the same. Therefore, the monkeys learn something in common: that is, do not get the bananas! You'll get a painful electric shock! The scientists then replace one of the original monkeys with a new one. This new monkey sees the bananas and wants to get them right away, but the other four monkeys beat it when they see its actions. Since these original four monkeys think the new monkey will make them get shocked, they stop the new monkey from getting the bananas. This monkey tries a few times and the others beat it every time without it ever getting the bananas. Of course, all five monkeys don't get shocked. The scientists then replace another of the original monkeys with a new one. This second new monkey sees the bananas and you bet it wants to get them immediately. But, sadly, the others beat it and the first new monkey beats the newest one even harder then the others (for the newest one is the rookie and has the lowest social status). Just like before, the newest monkey tries several times to get the bananas and is stopped by the others when they attack him. The scientists continue to replace all the original monkeys until no monkeys who actually felt the electric shock remain. Now none of the five new monkeys dare to touch the bananas yet none of them know why. They only know whomever wants to get the bananas will be beaten._

An interesting thought; has anyone else tried to implement it fully rather than piecemeal? Certainly it sounds a good idea and one to try on my next project.

<comment><USER3> If you come into FreeBSD and commit non-style(9)-compliant changes, people will yell at you. Most of the time people don't know why style(9) says what it says, but still zealously insist on it being followed.

There's one, maybe two FreeBSD developers who know the reasons behind most of style(9), and that's because they have been working on FreeBSD for 30 years -- since long before it was called FreeBSD. The rest of us have simply learned to follow it.

<comment><USER4> I'm not sure whether you are defending or criticizing this state of affairs. I wouldn't understand the former and expect action in case of the latter. Why does this state of affairs persist?

<comment><USER3> This state persists because there _are_ good reasons for everything in style(9), even if most people don't know what most of them are.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> You want to see the most perfect example of how to document process? Get hold of a copy the McDonalds franchise operations manual. It is a genuinely beautiful artefact. There is literally no aspect of running a burger restaurant that isn't in the ops manual; How the parking lot should be managed, how employees should wash their hands, how a hand-cart should be unloaded. Almost every sentence speaks of a lesson learned the hard way, ten thousand little edits because of a lawsuit or a process bottleneck or a QA problem. It's an incredible example of what happens when you take something simple and spend several decades optimising it.

<comment><USER6> Is this available somewhere as a pdf?

<comment><USER7> Not quite the same, but this fifty-page document is what they use every six months to check up on every franchise.

Fun fact: if you fail this, your franchise fee to McDonald's Inc goes up. If you keep failing, your fee keeps rising and eventually gets high enough to make your business fail. At that point home office takes over and runs it by the book or sells it on to someone who will.

[http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=mcdonalds%20f...](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=mcdonalds%20full%20operations%20review&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CDAQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdcclee.info%2Fweb_documents%2Fbw_ver.full_operations_review.section4.pdf&ei=hxbQTsKZKund4QSRqtzhDg&usg=AFQjCNE5qfXHdMcsGIEt1cas1RR- MLzCoA&cad=rja)

<comment><USER8> Nice to know. What if you pass the review with flying colours after you failed last year? Will you be able to reverse the franchise fee rise?

Fun fact: When a McDonald's is closing each day the staff has to pack up all the sauces, meats, bread, etc. When I worked there, to get home early, in the last hour I pour the tomato sauce and some of the mustard from the containers (which needs to be emptied and washed), mix them into a cup and put them on burgers with a plastic spoon.

By doing this the containers could be washed earlier.

<comment><USER7> I expect they reverse the rise if you are doing well. After all, they don't _want_ to take over your McDonald's - they want you to run it right. But I don't know this for certain.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Business answer: With everything, including this, there needs to be a balance. The ROI on documenting every single inch of progress as accurately possible is extremely low in most cases. Additionally every case (industry, business, project) is different and one size doesn't fit all.

Personal answer: Because we are lazy.

<comment><USER10> I agree that there has to be a balance to how much an organization documents. But I'm more concerned with how little organizations _read_ than how little they _write_. If they wrote a little less, they might read more.

Maybe instead of voluminous meeting minutes, organizations should have a little notebook labeled "Why we decided what we did."

<comment><USER11> A couple of observations:

1) If the record is not electronic, there is no way to share it and typically no way to discover it. Manual search of paper documentation sucks.

Before Al Gore invented the interwebs, I kept lots of notes in notebooks. I almost never shared the notes and almost never referred to them after the development phase of the project ended.

I now use a wiki and "issues" in a tracking system (e.g. Redmine) to keep my "engineering notebooks". This has proven invaluable time and again.

2) The importance of decisions is mostly discovered in retrospect. :-( I find many holes in my notes when I do something a second time, even when I _think_ I'm keeping good notes the first time. The good news is that my notes are pretty good after the second pass.

3) I don't know if it is laziness, inconvenience, or otherwise, but my experience is similar to the OP in that I tend to take fewer notes that I should and I have a hard time getting my coworkers to take half as many notes as I take. :-( Again, I find an electronic notebook open in a web browser on the desktop you are doing the work on is much more effective than paper and pen.

Cut'n'paste >> pen >> sword.

<comment><USER12> I started using Tomboy notes (and recently Gnote) to write short notes. They have a good, quick search built in to lookup old notes. They are easy to backup as well (copy .tomboy/ or .gnote/ subdirectory from home diretory).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Snack for thought: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Sabotage>

</comment><comment><USER14> Capturing this kind of knowledge - especially from ad-hoc decision making - for future reference is an explicit goal of SAP's Streamwork product. It is of course open to question whether that goal is achieved, but certainly SAP (as an organization very focused on the way businesses are run) are very aware of this problem and actively trying to provide a solution.

(Disclaimer: I was the lead architect for the initial release of Streamwork, but have since left SAP.)

</comment><comment><USER15> It's difficult to document all the factors that go into a decision because some are common context (and tedious to document _all_ such assumptions). Over time, context changes.

In addition, decisions that turned out to not work are abandoned; decisions that work are kept... showing that the reasons for making the decision may not be the reason it works.

The article assumes we know what we're doing, top-down rather than agile/lean.

</comment><comment><USER16> The problem often becomes that even if it is written, the documentation is rarely or never read. People then wonder if they should write more or less and why it is this way. I think one of the problem is we think we are finished after we write it. I would like to see a place where someone went over the documentation and rewrite it to extract the cultural references instead of the specifics of one situation. The documentation would be more about how to react than what to do exactly.

</comment><comment><USER17> How does this guy's low quality blog repeatedly make it to the front page?

<comment><USER18> Seriously, how do you determine that his blog is low quality?

Disregarding your insult, your question is an interesting one. If someone could bottle the answer, they would have all the freedom they needed.

<comment><USER17> I'm not interested in insulting the author, who's probably a nice guy. But I've been conditioned to expect very little content when I click on a link and his picture pops up, so I'm just wondering what the deal is.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: PR Reviews at Fang? - <AUTHOR> Curious if anyone from FANG is willing to share experiences with their PR reviews. Obviously not asking to reveal anything confidential, I'm just curious how intense they can be (if at all). What are commonly flagged patterns? How nitpicky can they get? How heavily is logarithmic performance weighed? Thx in advance <comment><USER2> Not FANG specifically, but public tech company with major Bay Area influence (we're located next door to a FANG).

I find people tend to be fairly pragmatic. Occasionally people can be dogmatic about minor things. Sometimes you have the time to do a really stellar job. Sometimes accepting some technical debt in a PR is worth it. And having that contextual conversation with your reviewer can be helpful.

If you have good tooling, e.g., auto code formatting and PR builds, the reviewer can focus on the substance of the changes, rather than more trivial things (like unnecessary spaces or new line characters in the code).

Personally, if I see a simpler way to express logic, I'll suggest it to the author. But I'm more apt to slightly-disagree-and-commit than throw up barriers, because I trust my talented, smart colleagues.

Performance is rarely discussed unless the PR's intent is to improve performance.</comment>


Bad habits: Your house is holding you back - <AUTHOR> https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/blog/your-house-is-holding-you-back-seriously <comment><USER2> There's a corollary to this: Sometimes your house isn't the thing holding you back. Sometimes, getting the right environment won't work, because the problem is in your expectations, not in what you're doing.

When you keep thinking "If only I had X / lived in Y, I could Z", you're really failing to think about (as the author said) the things you can do in your current situation.

But again, that intervention in your current situation isn't magic, so you have to start with your expectations. Can I do 10% better here? Possibly, indeed. Can I change everything at once? Highly unlikely. Is moving to a different place going to make you a different person? Nope. It might make some things more possible, but it's just a possibility.

</comment><comment><USER3> Same thing for a student like myself. I get easily distracted by websites such as HN, Reddit, and YT that I can't focus or do any work.

When I'm at the library, suddenly I feel no urge to waste time on those websites and am consistently productive (albeit slow).

I feel like your point can also apply to the workplace as well.

<comment><USER4> I oddly felt the opposite as a student. At the library, I couldn't concentrate because I couldn't relax. At home, I did waste a lot of time — but I was relaxed, so I could engage in different behaviours. 50 minutes of writing, 10 minutes of game, 40 minutes of writing, 20 minutes of game, 30 minutes of writing, 30 minutes of game, 20 minutes of writing, 40 minutes of game, 10 minutes of writing… oh, it's done. Well, gaming all the rest of the night!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> I think there is some good advice here, for young people. But also a caveat.

I moved around a lot when I was younger, and now live several hundred miles from my hometown. In my new place, I have friends that have never moved-- they are my age, yet they still have high-school friends, family, and acquaintances that stretch back decades. This brings a web of trust that's really strong. Having a "place" in a community is immensely advantageous.

There are pros to moving around, but there are also pros to staying put.

</comment><comment><USER6> I think this is a confusion of causation and correlation: When the time comes and you are so motivated to do something that you're willing to move, your motivation levels are probably so high that you could have changed without moving. Or perhaps moving is just like any other tool for behavior change: sometimes it works, sometimes it does not.

I know this flies in the face of everything the author said, but I'm reluctant when it comes to accepting anecdotal evidence. At least when the suggested remedy is as expensive as moving.

<comment><USER7> Your reasoning is as much an anecdote but it doesn't even come from actual personal experience.

There are evidences that moving to a different environment has an impact on behaviour, see [https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2012/01/02/1444317...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2012/01/02/144431794/what-vietnam-taught-us-about-breaking-bad-habits)

Granted that article is click-baity and devoid of helpful and actionable advice. Ít's a blog post to promote a self-help coach dude.

edit: funny, looks like he has an update [https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/blog/cheaper-ways- to-...](https://www.thebehavioralscientist.com/blog/cheaper-ways-to-change- than-moving)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Yeah, I think this has worked for me also. I have have been stuck with my place/job for sometime now. I should probably look for a change.

</comment><comment><USER9> It seems this could easily apply to, say, your office or your job, as it can to your house.

</comment><comment><USER10> If you are not motivated to train, go to the gym anyway and sit in the bubble pool or something. So that going to the gym becomes a habit. But the trick is to condition your training so that you always feel fresh and motivated.

</comment><comment><USER11> An extended trip to a new city (at least 8-10 days) does the same thing IMO, especially a place you've never visited before.

</comment><comment><USER12> Oh duh, to change my life I just need to pack up and move! Why is this a top post--what have we become here?

I'm all for behavioral tweaking, such as adding new behaviors onto things you're already doing. E.g after you brush your teeth you do 2 push ups. Those work a lot of the time and there has been a lot great posts on HN about that.

But, this as any advice is a luxury to even think makes any rational sense. Context is a benefit from being able to move at will. And while I'm not condemning view points of any one type of person, but because you're privileged to be able to move doesn't mean it's worth anything to be providing for people actually looking to change their lives; and find real 'context' in the environment they are unable to move out of.

<comment><USER13> Moving to a new place is fantastically inexpensive. He didn't say you had to switch countries, just neighborhoods.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Why am I getting 402 Payment Required on HN? - <AUTHOR>

I recently launched a Hacker News app for Windows Phone and now my API is getting 402 Payment Required from Hacker News. The API is using the exact same code as @cheeaun's http://node-hnapi.herokuapp.com. I merely cloned his API and deployed it to my own Heroku instance, to avoid using up his bandwidth.<p>Any idea why this is happening? I find it odd that Hacker News would be returning a 402 if they decided to block my app as opposed to 401/403. <comment><USER2> I killed all traffic from EC2 while dealing with a traffic spike. It's back for now, but I'd encourage you to have your client directly access the site instead of using a proxy.

</comment><comment><USER3> If it's happening, it's a bug.</comment>


Apple Confronting a Law Of Limits - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/25/business/apple-confronts-the-law-of-large-numbers-common-sense.htm

<comment><USER2> Does the law of large numbers really apply here? We aren't estimating the mean of a bunch of independent events sampled from one distribution.

Apple doing very well strengthens its brand, enables it to get the benefits of economies of scale, allows it to pay for better talent, etc. There are all kinds of correlative effects of doing well now to doing well in the future.

Of course, it very well might be saturating the markets for luxury consumer devices. But the LLN says nothing about and has nothing to do with saturation.</comment>


Startup Pack gives $10k worth of tools (Github, AWS, MongoHQ,..) to developers - <AUTHOR> http://startuppack.org/

<comment><USER2> It sounds like a pretty sweet deal, but I kept looking up and down the page trying to find the catch. Is it purely a promotional thing for the companies to which you get credit? If so, I think it could use some emphasis that you are getting this in exchange for nothing at all.

I know it says "free", but that doesn't necessarily mean they don't expect something non-monetary in return.

<comment><USER3> Think of it as an extension of the freemium model. The premise is to get startups hooked on valuable services that they will subsequently pay for as they grow.

It's no different to all the "free" services associated with the major accelerator programs.

Like a dealer handing out samples of crack to grade-schoolers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> The link <http://startuppack.org/> timeouts for me. The link <http://www.startuppack.org/> loads right up.

</comment><comment><USER5> Nice pack! The non-profit action is really great! Thanks a lot for such an initiative

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks men!

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The API call, is a cool feature to avoid non-developer applications ;-)

</comment><comment><USER7> nice one, signed up, some of the services would be useful!!

</comment><comment><USER8> Nice :)</comment>


The Village Voice, a New York Icon, Closes - <AUTHOR> https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/31/business/media/the-village-voice-closes.html <comment><USER2> Related, don't miss the Reason feature on Larkin and Lacey. They purchased the Village Voice in 2005 and had a solution for the classifieds problem, Backpage.com.

Unfortunately, they ran afoul of some young politicians/prosecutors who needed to make a mark to get into national politics (Hello, Senator Harris), and some old political families they burned, and are now languishing without money to pay for attorneys before their 2020 trial.

[https://reason.com/archives/2018/08/21/backpage-founders- lar...](https://reason.com/archives/2018/08/21/backpage-founders-larkin-and- lacey-speak)

</comment><comment><USER3> The article mentions Gothamist and DNAinfo but the NY Daily News also recently laid off half of their staff.

<comment><USER4> Uh, that's a whole 'nother story. Nuked from orbit, so to speak.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15614771](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15614771)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15614310](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15614310)

The debate intensifies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> > Some staff members will stay on to make the paper's print archive digitally > accessible...

Good for the owner that at least they were willing to spend a tiny bit more to make this part happen.

</comment><comment><USER6> Thought they closed down years ago. Used to see tons of village voice newsracks all over the city. Haven't seen any in years.

<comment><USER7> They went digital-only last year.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> They never made it online in a meaningful way. Not once have I had a must read link to their website. There are news websites that even if you hate the paper will lure you back due to content, for instance the New York Times will get stories on here, one will visit even if one hates the bloated paywall. But the Village Voice? It never made it onto most people's surfing radar.

<comment><USER9> They were Craigslist before Craigslist - classifieds were the heart their business model and the money stopped flowing hard and fast. Once that happened they had no means of funding 'must read' articles. They kept the lights on with the collapsing print display ad business until that gave out.

The irony of a former longtime Voice editor now teaching at the Craig Newmark School of Journalism is straight out of the pages of another dead paper: The Onion.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> The irony and tragedy of a former Village Voice writer Tom Robbins now at the NYU Craig Newmark journalism school. Craig Newmark, the founder of the site that killed print newspapers. I'll miss the Voice.

<comment><USER11> > Do you really truly believe that, if not for Craigslist, little kids would > be riding around your neighborhood today tossing thick newspapers onto your > lawn laden with classified ads? If so, we need to talk.

[https://medium.com/@pilhofer/no-craig-newmark-did-not- kill-l...](https://medium.com/@pilhofer/no-craig-newmark-did-not-kill-local- news-94c8365eb934)

By the way, "Posting Instagram Sponsored Content Is the New Summer Job" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17878131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17878131)

<comment><USER12> Only in the sense that if it wasn't Newmark and Craigslist, it would have been someone else with a different site. The fact is that classifieds were a major supporter of journalism and that they were killed by Craigslist. That he has given money to journalism schools is nice, but not unlike how Gordon Moore's foundation gives grants for environmental research despite Intel not being the most environmentally friendly company.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> When they removed the good cartoons and the horoscopes, the writing was on the wall. It was very clearly over. That was back around 2005.

<comment><USER14> Removing something as useless as horoscopes was a sign they were going down hill? I would think that would be a sign the content was improving.

<comment><USER13> It's indicative that they didn't even have the budget to syndicate _horoscopes_.

Does that make a little bit more sense?

<comment><USER15> "didn't even have the budget to syndicate horoscopes"

A clear sign, and only 14y later they closed.

<comment><USER16> > _A clear sign, and only 14y later they closed._

For someone who knows the industry, such a sign is not as irrelevant as it appears - nor is closing down a sudden affair. Unlike SV startups which can fold in 1-2 years, news outlets are surprisingly resilient in their dying. It's a long process of decay with several milestones along the way...

As someone that has worked in the print business, and am familiar with the history of lots of businesses (although in a different country), alot of media businesses had a decade or more of struggling before they finally give up the ghost -- and it indeed starts with signs like these (first they cut some expensive syndications, a first round of lay-offs, then they give up some subscriptions to news services like A.P. and Reuters, call off special reporters stationed abroad, a few major columns are cancelled because they can afford their top columnists, the quality of photography drops, and so on. In the end, the content is mostly sloppy rewrites from whatever wire service they still have, plus amateur "opinion pieces", then a final round of layoffs, and they die...

The cancelling one or more expensive features, like syndications, are a sure fire sign of a decay process starting...

<comment><USER17> You're getting into some really sketchy territory though.

For it to be a sign, it _has_ to be consistent. The vast majority has to follow the rule. Exceptions need to be rare.

Otherwise, it's pretty much just anti-survivor bias. Yes, all failed magazines did these things, but doing that thing doesn't mean your magazine is failing if all magazines do it. Or if enough successful magazines do it.

14 years is a long time. It would be like saying water is deadly because everyone alive who has ever drank it has died or will die in about 100 years or so. Or everybody who has ever gotten divorced was married at one point. So marriage is a sure sign of an inevitable divorce.

<comment><USER16> > _For it to be a sign, it has to be consistent. The vast majority has to > follow the rule. Exceptions need to be rare._

Exceptions are rare. Flaying outlets invariably go through those moves.

> _14 years is a long time_

"long" makes sense only relatively. For some things the time from writing on the wall to dying off is in that order, and media outlets are one of those things. I already explained how a SV startup for example can die in 1-2 years (because VC money dry off etc), but established news outlets die much more slowly, in the span of a decade or more.

It's something I've witnessed unravel from inside and from friends inside with dozens of outlets in my country, and I've seen from afar the same path followed in several others in the US and elsewhere.

> _Yes, all failed magazines did these things, but doing that thing doesn 't > mean your magazine is failing if all magazines do it._

Well, all magazines don't do it. Few do it without such reasons.

<comment><USER17> You've made those claims, yes.

The distance between cause and effect is great. 14 years is long enough for a child to be conceived and start attending high school. That's not insignificant.

My points were:

That on a long enough timeline, everything fails. Which I illustrated by showing that everyone who has drank water has died or will die in a specific time frame.

You need to see where you're wrong as well as where you're right. Which I illustrated by pointing out every divorce begins in marriage. It's technically true, but marriage holds no predictive power because plenty of marriages succeed. For something to be a sign, it needs to be common in one group and rare in another. So giving up horoscopes needs to be common in failed magazines and rare in successful ones.

And something I didn't really illustrate too well: it needs to have a strong correlation both ways. In other words not only do the vast majority of magazines that give up horoscopes need to fail, the vast majority of magazines that fail need to give up horoscopes.

And the lifespan of the average publication must be far greater than 14 years. Or even a decade using your timetable. Because if most publications fail within that time, then you could literally point to anything and call it a sign.

All of it needs to be true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I think it's really telling that even though I consume content voraciously and am a highly educated 26 year old making a decent wage, I have never heard of literally any of these writers and Pulitzer Prize winners. I only know ee cummings in passing, because my high school English textbook told me he was famous for using non-standard punctuation and capitalization.

I'm sad that an alt-news source has died. I would have loved to consume their content, but I wouldn't have paid for it. I don't really buy much stuff either, so ads don't work on me.

RIP

<comment><USER19> Serious question: What are you thinking this is "really telling" of?

<comment><USER18> I think it's telling that this paper failed to connect with my generation. I am a prime candidate to be a reader of this paper and its high quality writing. It never was put in front of me like YT or HN was. Now it's dead

<comment><USER19> I'm the same generation as you. But I'm not very educated, have never lived in New York, and am familiar with the Village Voice and most of the writers mentioned in the article.

Weird.

<comment><USER20> [edit]

<comment><USER19> You're replying to the wrong person.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>