MIT severs ties to company promoting fatal brain uploading - <AUTHOR> https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610743/mit-severs-ties-to-company-promoting-fatal-brain-uploading/ <comment><USER3> First time seeing a website checking for private mode:

> Hello,

> We noticed you're browsing in private or incognito mode.

> To continue reading this article, please exit incognito mode or log in.

> Why we made this change

> Visitors are allowed 3 free articles per month (without a subscription), and > private browsing prevents us from counting how many stories you've read.

> We hope you understand, and consider subscribing for unlimited online > access."

In case others don't want to leave private mode: [http://archive.is/DjsiK](http://archive.is/DjsiK)

<comment><USER4> How does it do that? Do browsers set a flag? That seems like a privacy hole.

<comment><USER5> There are certain browser APIs disabled in the browser in incognito mode that can be detected. How else would you implement incognito mode?

<comment><USER6> By sandboxing, e.g. localStorage fully functional but deleted at the end of the session...

<comment><USER7> Mozilla recently released containerized tabs[0], I imagine the next logic step is building containerized Private Browsing Mode

[0]: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi- account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account- containers/)

<comment> Paul-ish My understanding is that things actually went the other way. Private browsing came first, then the same approach was used to create more labels than just "private" and not "private". I think more features may be turned off in private browsing mode though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Brain uploading is a misleading description of what nectome is proposing. We don't know enough about what needs to be preserved yet to accurately save a snapshot of a brain's "state". It's not theoretically impossible, just much further than this company's marketing implies.

<comment><USER9> And given the recent discovery of what some are calling (possibly inaccurately) an entirely new organ in the body resulting from changes in the visualization technologies available ([https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/health/new-organ- intersti...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/31/health/new-organ- interstitium.html))...

I, for one, wouldn't trust that their preservation solution is sufficient for reconstruction of anything even approximating consciousness without a successful bidirectional demonstration. Far too high a risk that what they'd be able to deliver right now is a very smelly paperweight that used to be someone's brain.

<comment><USER10> I don't believe we could ever see any kind of system 'approximating consciousness' without a body. Full stop. Dualism is wrong and there is no mind/body split. The full state of the brain, simulated perfectly, would perfectly reproduce the experience of a brain in total sensory deprivation paired with total whole-body paralysis. Even just sensory deprivation alone is enough to cause consciousness to entirely evaporate in moments. Add in whole body paralysis and no, you can never hope to have anything approaching 'consciousness.'

<comment><USER11> If you have the technology to simulate a brain, it seems pretty trivial to simulate a body, environment, and associated sensory inputs as well.

<comment><USER9> I'm reminded of the 'hybrot' experiments where rat brain cells in a nutrient solution are allowed to wire up their own neural network on top of electrodes that send and receive data wirelessly from a robot body [[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401756/rat-brained- robot/](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401756/rat-brained-robot/)]

The question of doing something similar with a strata running a human brain doesn't seem impossible, just extremely technologically daunting when one considers the sheer number of connections into and out of the physical brain.

<comment><USER12> The number of connections is high, but the bandwidth is surprisingly low. Modern edge routers could do it a couple times over.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Never thought I would ask something like this, but here goes:

What's Y Combinator's stance on the death requirement? Nectome was at demo day last month and Sam Altman is (or was) on the waiting list.

 _Following the example of electric-vehicle maker Tesla, it is sizing up demand by inviting prospective customers to join a waiting list for a deposit of $10,000, fully refundable if you change your mind.

So far, 25 people have done so. One of them is Sam Altman, a 32-year-old investor who is one of the creators of the Y Combinator program._

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is- pitch...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610456/a-startup-is-pitching-a- mind-uploading-service-that-is-100-percent-fatal/)

<comment><USER14> First and foremost cryogenics has a PR problem. It is somehow more popular to say that you're glad people are dying by the billions than to align yourself with the people trying to make an earnest effort to stop it (now imagine how fast I would be banned for the same position around genocide).

I'm not sure whether this will just further the kneejerk anti-cryogenics sentiment or if it will seem to more normalise normal post-death cryogenics, but it does seem a rather dangerous play. I don't want cryogenics to find itself tangled up in crazy legal issues.

At an object level I'm not all that concerned with the ethics of people taking this bet, given the science is pretty sound. It does not make sense to allow people to take medical treatment that have a significant chance of serious harm for the chance of a few years longer health if it pans out, but then ban a bet as safe as cryogenics.

<comment><USER15> Can you imagine what this planet would be like if people didn't die? How much more crowded we'd be? How much more of a strain we'd be placing on the earth's resources?

<comment><USER16> Are you suggesting we not save lives so that we can avoid some unrealized fear of overcrowding?

Suppose humanity attains indefinite life spans in the near future. Would you then advocate murder in order to save space?

Should we outlaw antibiotics because they save lives, and those lives take up resources?

I find this argument both unimaginative (improving technology changes the nature of our challenges) and repulsive (it's advocating murder through inaction).

<comment><USER15> "Are you suggesting we not save lives so that we can avoid some unrealized fear of overcrowding?"

No, and putting words in my mouth like that is extremely uncivil. We're talking about people who have already died.

"I find this argument both unimaginative (improving technology changes the nature of our challenges) and repulsive (it's advocating murder through inaction)."

And I find your tone repulsive and uncivil, as you're making extreme assumptions about my positions.

Not to mention, you're only advocating that we save the rich. I don't see you setting up a GoFundMe to preserve homeless people.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> If hundreds of millions of people were to do this, what economic, cultural or religious incentive do people have 500 years from now to resurrect anyone? Maybe people who were famous geniuses, sure, but with my view of human nature I get the impression that unless the resurrection process is extremely low cost and easy, nobody will go to the effort to bring back the consciousness of huge numbers of random people. This could change, sure, such as if a major world religion made a profound shift to bringing back your ancestors for ideological reasons. The chance of that happening is slim.

<comment><USER18> Or you can die with a private key of a Bitcoin address containing a few bitcoins memorized. And a tattoo or something that will says you'll give half to whoever revives you. Hopefully Bitcoin will be here for a long time.

<comment><USER19> If there is technology to reinstantiate your brain with that memory intact, there is technology to pull just that memory out of your brain without bothering to reinstantiate you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> For those interested in this stuff, or the "we will preserve your body and resurrect you in some date in the future" technology, I recommend a Don Delillo novel from a couple years ago, title is Zero K.

<comment><USER21> We Are Bob, series covers it as a big feature, though there are a few larger ones in the series.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> MITs statement seems to position themselves to not be at risk if the startup goes south. They seem to think that with current technology it is unclear if the upload is feasible. Also, it would be interesting for someone to comment on how this embalming process is done?

From what I know from cryogenic freezing or preservation is that it is a good idea that it could be "scanned" back in but most likely the information is lost. I would like to understand how they solve this using embalming. MIT seems to say that we don't know that at all.

Is this company a part of Ycombinator Winter 2018? [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nectome#section- fund...](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nectome#section-funding- rounds) says it was funded in January 2018.

<comment><USER23> it isn't feasible.

here is why:

imagine that we create a perfect copy of a person who is alive.

there is now person A, and person B, who are identical. but being identical does not imply shared sensations. if you pinch person A, person B won't feel it. the reverse is true. they're two separate entities, even if they behave similarly. if person A dies, person B is very similar to person A -- but they're not person A. that person is dead.

same goes for "mind uploading". the copy could, hypothetically, exist. it is extremely unlikely that this is technologically possible. but even if it was possible technologically, the original would be dead.

<comment><USER24> I'm so glad that you have solved one of the major problems of philosophy and neuroscience in a handful of poorly-constructed sentences.

This is a matter of much debate in philosophy, neuroscience, and other fields. You accidentally touch on identity theory (bundle, substratum, etc), philosophy of mind, etc. The Ship of Theseus is an interesting problem - <USER2> if I gradually replace parts of someone's brain with artificial ones, so they are integrated with the rest?

<comment><USER25> It's not so much an interesting problem as it is an obviously irrelevant one. Our day-to-day conceptualizations were not designed to handle intricate philosophical matters, and trying to force resolution in such plain language is often a source of confusion involving 'problems' that nobody ever seems to face.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> > "Fundamentally, the company is based on a proposition that is just false. It > is something that just can't happen," says Sten Linnarsson of the Karolinska > Institute in Sweden.

That sounds a lot like the "heavier than air flight is impossible" quote from 1895.

<comment><USER27> To be fair, it's unclear whether Linnarsson was saying that brain uploading would never be possible (which is a step too far), or that this company would never people to revive people who paid today using brain-uploading techniques available within the near future (which is quite reasonable).

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> For those who are unfamiliar with the general concept, there are several organizations that will be happy to take large sums of money from you, for a scientifically sketchy claim at resurrection at some future unknown date.

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=alcor+cryonics&oq=alcor+cryon...](https://www.google.ca/search?q=alcor+cryonics&oq=alcor+cryonics&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l3.4386j0j7&sourceid=chrome- mobile&ie=UTF-8)

<comment><USER28> Given that the main alternatives (decomposing in a box or being cremated) involve a 0% chance of resuscitation at some future unknown date, cryonics seems like the rational choice to make.

Alcor has so far shown itself to be a fairly reliable cryonics provider and the sums of money are not extreme - neuropreservation being only $80,000, or a life insurance policy of ~$30-$150/month.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm signed up for cryonics, but to be fair, I agree that it would be irrational if the odds of coming back were 1,000,000,000:1 or something like that. Most people value their lives very highly, but not infinitely.

<comment><USER28> Depends on the requirements of the 1,000,000,000:1 option. If it's at very little cost to you, and if the alternative is certain, permanent death, the rational choice is still to take the incredibly slim chance of coming back. Otherwise it does indeed depend on the importance you put on your own life.

Of course, in the case of cryonics, there is no measurable probability of coming back, so the point is largely moot.

<comment><USER29> Depends how you measure I guess. If you insist that you need to wait x years and then count how many people were brought back against how many weren't, sure, there's no measure...

But you can break the question down and look for evidence about each step, it's not going to be a precise measurement but you can at least start estimating your belief certainty (as well as introducing bounds -- I don't think anyone's justified in a 90% certainty of coming back at this point, but nor do I think there's justification that it's as low as one in a billion). I've always liked [http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/break-cryonics- down.ht...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/03/break-cryonics-down.html) as one approach to turning the problem into multiple conditional steps.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I've never gotten a good answer as to how an electron microscope can image the synaptic weights. If you look at the pictures it can barely capture the synapses.

<comment><USER31> electron microscopy has the resolution to discriminate individual spines and synapses, figuring out the weight of the synapse though is not straightforward. At least for excitatory synapses however, there is ample evidence that the size of the spine correlates with the maturity and strength of the synapse. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20646057](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20646057)

<comment><USER30> I didn't know that. That's a good start. We still have, what 20 different neurotransmitters that can be weighted differently at each synapse?

<comment><USER32> You can label receptors with aptamers and other technology, and then sequence the aptamer labels (or whatever). Many in situ sequencing techniques can be applied here. Note, however, that this requires more steps than simply scanning with electron microscope multi-array.

<comment><USER30> Interesting. Maybe also doing some kind of rnaseq synapse by synapse could tell you what levels of neurotransmitters and receptors it's maintaining.

I'm not sure if that small of a scale would ever be possible.

<comment><USER32> Yeah, it would certainly help to use a method like expansion microscopy, sort of like if Nectome were to subcontract some work to a certain MIT lab that invented the techni--- oh wait..

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> > Most neuroscientists think the ability to recapture memories from brain > tissue and re-create a consciousness inside a computer is at best decades > away...

At best, decades away? That's some crazy hubris. It's not even imaginable how far away it is. I find it absurd that humans think they can achieve arguably the highest level of godliness in mere decades. This is almost as crazy as saying teleportation is less than a hundred years away. We can't make predictions about things we don't understand.

Edit: I'm getting some flak for not including the rest of the quote, but I would argue that it doesn't matter. The rest of the quote was "and probably not possible at all". Their conclusion makes no sense. How can something either be impossible _or_ potentially very possible? This statement shows how little academia actually knows about neuroscience. And no, this is not comparable to opinions about the moon landing in the 50's. By the 1950s we already had a completely sufficient theoretical framework for achieving space flight. The same _cannot_ be said about consciousness upload as of today.

<comment><AUTHOR> " To place a man in a multi-stage rocket and project him into the controlling gravitational field of the moon where the passengers can make scientific observations, perhaps land alive, and then return to earth—all that constitutes a wild dream worthy of Jules Verne. I am bold enough to say that such a man-made voyage will never occur regardless of all future advances." \- Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube, 1957

[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions)

<comment><USER33> This is not a very good comparison at all. In the 1950s, we already had a complete theoretical foundation for space travel. Newton's equations, developed hundreds of years earlier, gave us that foundation. Where is the theoretical foundation for consciousness upload? If you had pulled a quote denouncing space travel from the late 1600s, it would be a better comparison. It should be noted that it took hundreds of years before Newton's theory resulted in extraterrestrial travel.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> That feel when your brain upload data gets leaked and 50,000 instances of you are enslaved and put to work in a compute-farm generating spam emails under threat of having the sensation of pain applied directly to your simulated nervous system.

The future is bright.

</comment><comment><USER35> Optimalverse here we come.

</comment><comment><USER36> Hopefully this work will continue at Viktor Chondria University.

</comment><comment><USER37> This was published April 3, and not the 1st? It reads almost like an Onion article. 100% fatal technology?

</comment><comment><USER9> Sometimes, a headline is just so good you don't even need to read the article.

<comment><USER38> Too bad this is exactly what online ads incentivize against.

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> _It was disturbing to think of the Flatline as a construct, a hardwired ROM cassette replicating a dead man 's skills, obsessions, knee-jerk responses._ \--Neuromancer

</comment><comment><USER40> I for one am in favor of death without backups. I've met enough of you people; on the whole, you've all got to go.

<comment><USER41> Well, i'm very afraid of dying but i can't imagine any scenario where immortality would not cause catastrophic harm to humanity, at least at our current level of wisdom.</comment></comment>


Machine Learning Feynman Experience: build models from scratch on Google Colab - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/leandromineti/ml-feynman-experience <comment><USER2> What's this got to do with Richard Feynman?

<comment><USER3> From the readme: > "What I cannot create, I do not understand" \- Feynman.

So I guess you can use this axiom to learn from the provided notebooks.

<comment><USER4> "So I guess you can use this axiom to learn from the provided notebooks."

To follow the advice, we should probably create our own notebooks from scratch, without referring to these notebooks.

Treat it like an exam.</comment></comment></comment>


No, That Rolling Stone Cover is Not Brave, Stereotype-Busting Journalism - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/1b299898dc3b

<comment><USER2> I feel like this is what everyone is saying except for the media.</comment>


Paying your partner for doing the housework - <AUTHOR> https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/when-your-boss-is-also-your-boyfriend.html <comment><USER2> Sounds like a possible startup project to me</comment>


Uncle Bob Responds to DHH, Defines Professionalism - <AUTHOR> http://blog.objectmentor.com/articles/2009/05/11/why-the-sea-is-boiling-hot

<comment><USER2> "Professionalism does not mean rigid formalism. Professionalism does not mean adhering to beaurocrasy. Professionalism is honor. Professionalism is being honest with yourself and disciplined in the way you work. Professionalism is not letting fear take over."

That may be his definition but from my experience, when I hear people talking about professionalism, they're usually either using it as a way to complain about someone else or to boost their own ego. I haven't known many people to think of professionalism as defined above. Seems like more often than not, its used as leverage to argue for exactly what he says it does not mean.

<comment><USER3> Professionalism means doing the right thing even if it's personally unpleasant. A vet putting a sick kitten to sleep for example. Or a salesman who tries to sell the product the customer actually needs, not just what has the biggest margin.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Great comment from Avdi Grimm:

 _Something that DHH still doesn't seem to grok is that some of the most prominent artists and rock stars in this world are deeply professional people. The members of U2, for instance, are professional musicians in every sense of the word. That doesn't make them any less artists._

<comment><USER5> It doesn't surprise me that the members of U2 might be "deeply professional". They're a multi-billion dollar media enterprise. For the same reason, it doesn't surprise me that Neko Case once jumped off the stage and punched out a heckler. She made $340,000 of the album before her last, and plowed $300,000 of it back into the band. Of course, she's an artist, not a multi-billion dollar media enterprise.

<comment><USER4> 100% agree, as artists who make money aren't artists anymore. To be a Real™ artist, you have to be so passionate about what you do that you don't make money from your work. The more unprofessional you are, the more of an artist you become.

/sarcasm

<comment><USER5> Your point is taken. Making a billion dollars would not have made Elliot Smith less of an artist. But U2 is still a really bad example.

<comment><USER4> I hear you. Actually, if I can hijack this thread with something tangential, can you tell me why U2 gets no respect? You're not the first person I've heard to have a low opinion of them. I only know their singles, so I really have no idea why a lot of people look down on them as some sort of sell-out band.

<comment><USER5> I still listen to War, Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby.

I respect, but do not love, the artistic decisions they made with Zooropa and Pop.

Since Pop, they've reverted to a cookie-cutter mega stadium act. Their albums contribute nothing that they themselves haven't already contributed. Their theme material is superficial, rehashed, or sometimes nonexistent.

Meanwhile, they continue playing shows with $250 top ticket prices under 360 deals with Live Nation, the Gordon Gekko's of the entertainment industry.

I don't think U2 is evil. I just don't think they're anything more authentic or credible than, say, a Jerry Bruckheimer movie.

<comment><USER6> " ... than, say, a Jerry Bruckheimer movie."

Man, that's cold.

<comment><USER5> It's cold because I'm right.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The concept of "I should have run it by my wife when I equated estrogen and insipid" is pretty stunning. Shouldn't everyone know that might offend people?

<comment><USER8> Just shows that someone who needs to run his opinions by his wife for approval might sometimes need little time off to be a Macho Man(TM) on the internet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> When I am programming I need a sense of aesthetic to choose among all the possibilities. I strive for clarity and expressiveness just as any other writer. When discussing a design with other programmers, I know that ugliness is always a strong argument.

It's no surprise Richard Gabriel proposes a bachelor of fine arts in software: <http://www.dreamsongs.com/MFASoftware.html>

I don't like the word professional. When I mention I make comics, those who ask if I am professional really just want to know if I make any money. But just like I program, I make comics with great patience and attention to detail, and to get through the painful parts I need the kind of discipline and seriousness you could call professionalism.

</comment><comment><USER10> s/beaurocrasy/bureaucracy/g

I know it's nitpicky but it struck me as a really odd oversight in an otherwise very strong piece of writing.

</comment><comment><USER11> Can we just conclude that the Ruby/Rails/Whatever community is just a big loose and move on? I mean, really guys...

I have no direct connection to Ruby (thank god). But the lead/prominent people seem super immature and mostly unskilled, and half of every programming news aggregator on earth is filled with ruby/rails-drama every 3 days. Just... "ugh"...

Can we all just use python or lisp and give up on these guys already? Ruby really isn't that great, frankly (reminds me of the worst, not the best, parts of perl, smalltalk and lisp combined).

Maybe I'm being too judgemental anout the language -- but at least invent a new Ruby-derivative called "Muby" :-), and put people in charge who (a) know how to write code and (b) are not drama-seeking children.

<comment><USER12> From the little ruby i know i find it a very nice language, but i too am sick of all the drama. Thats why i mostly try to ignore it. I would love to see more articles about cool ruby hacks, but i get useless rhetoric instead.

<comment><USER3> Yeah it's like there's no RMS, no Linus, no Alan Cox, everyone in the Ruby world is ESR.</comment></comment></comment>


Video: Artificial intelligence: Noel Sharkey on the inexorable rise of robots - <AUTHOR> http://www.silicon.com/technology/hardware/2010/01/13/video-artificial-intelligence-noel-sharkey-on-the-inexorable-rise-of-robots-39745322/

<comment><AUTHOR> This is an ~10 minute interview with Sharkey, with some fascinating video clips of current robotics technology interspersed among some of his sage observations.</comment>


Ask HN: Can ghci realistically replace bash? - <AUTHOR> I live almost entirely in the command line; the only non-cli tool I use regularly is my browser. Also, I'd like to learn me a Haskell.
Learning Haskell has been a goal of mine for a while actually, and I've had false starts with some of the existing, excellent learning resources:
* Brent Yorgey's CS194 course, * Learn You a Haskell for Great Good!, and * Write Yourself a Scheme in 48 Hours.
So it occurred to me that I might actually learn if I started inserting Haskell into my current workflow. Better yet, if userspace is "just" tooling that calls into the kernel syscall API, it's concievably possible to replace everything with Haskell.
That being the goal, I have played with ghci along with a couple of the "Haskell scripting" libraries:
* shelly * turtle
These are great tools, but I'd like to learn how to do things the Haskell Way instead of just wrapping my familiar tools in thin Haskelly types. So, in the course of my (limited) explorations, here are some questions and issues I've encountered:
* Can I install and load a new package from within ghci (i.e. do the equivalent of "stack install ...")? * Is it possible to intelligently manage a git repository without calling out to the git binary? (I'm aware of the 'git' package but not familiar with it enough to judge usability.) * How would SSHing into a machine even work? * What are some ways to serialize typed data while keeping things "just text" and human readable? * How do we pretty print things like directory listings etc.? * Am I just being ridiculous?
Anyway, this isn't a comprehensive list of questions, but if any of you use Haskell as your primary method of interacting with the system, I'd like to hear what libraries and workflows you have.
Cheers! <comment><USER2> To me, you are being curious not ridiculous. The idea of using Haskell as an interactive shell seems like a great learning exercise and worth pushing as far as you are willing to go. Even if from a practical standpoint, rewriting the entire *nix stack in Haskell is probably more than a lifetime's work.

Technically, to me recreating Bash in Haskell to swim in the Turing Tarpit. [1] Some programming languages are mostly ready to serve as an operating system shell, e.g. Common Lisp (Lisp machines), Smalltalk, Erlang, or QBasic. [2] Others are not because there is a difference between the abstraction of an interpreter and the abstraction of a shell. One of them is session duration.

The interpreter abstraction tends toward: starting the interpreter from a shell, running a sequence of commands, exiting to the shell. The shell abstraction tends toward starting (perhaps recursively from another shell) and possibly running indefinitely until crashing or the heat death of the universe whichever comes first. SSH is a great example of the recursive and indefinite temporal extent of shells. Python's global interpreter lock is a reasonable example of the interpreter abstraction.

Good luck.

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

[2]: or Bash.

</comment><comment><USER3> Why is it that when people can't do something with PHP they think that "PHP is stupid" but if they can't do it with Haskell they think they are stupid?

<comment><USER4> Just a guess but it could have something to do with the perceived language. PHP is something that is perceived to be easy to pick up and easy to work with. If you can't do something with it that becomes a language issue because you are smart enough to use such a "simple language". Haskell, on the other hand, is seen as this language for "smart people". If one can't figure out how to do something in Haskell it is easier to say that they just aren't smart enough for the language.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> The Haskell subreddit would be a much better place to ask this question.</comment>


How Are These Crisscrossing Waves Even Possible? - crypto-jeronimo https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-are-these-crisscrossing-waves-even-possible-1565513653 <comment><AUTHOR> i have an intuitive hunch that spacetime may work like this only not in so few dimensions.

<comment> crypto-jeronimo Sounds interesting. If it wasn't a sarcastic comment, could you elaborate a bit, please?</comment></comment>


Dropbox Secures $600M Credit Line Ahead of Expected IPO - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-30/dropbox-secures-600-million-credit-line-ahead-of-expected-ipo <comment><USER2> One concern about Dropbox I have is its inability to establish itself beyond its File Storage / Syncing software. Salesforce.com, in comparison, has been acquiring companies left and right. Notable acquisitions of Dropbox, like Mailbox, have either shut down, or are nowhere on the impact map. As Dropbox user (albeit a free one), I don't find it useful for anything beyond synced storage (if there is any new addition in their interface, I might have missed it). After I started uploading pics on Google photos, I have little to store on Dropbox.

Synced storage might be big enough problem for it to continue to grow bigger, but I wonder if it's a meaningful moat. What if the storage + software gets commoditized to an extent that it becomes essentially free for most people?

<comment><USER3> Why do they need to expand beyond that? Am I idealistic to say a company can survive just by doing something really well. Salesforce is hardly a paragon of a well-executed clear and consistent vision.

I pay Dropbox because I can rely on their backups any place at any time, not because their storage is cheap.

<comment><USER4> I think we need a better storage backup system. I've got data on iCloud and on multiple desktops and laptops. My iCloud doesn't have all the photos because I'd run out of space and be paying dozens of dollars monthly [1]. I was helping my friend to select a disk backup solution a while ago, and not that many really came to my likings. Backblaze[2] is probably the only one I would say pretty good for a monthly backup fee at $5. Dropbox's 1TB was enough for her so I went with that solution, but for my use case I won't be able to benefit from it. Amazon [3] also has a backup offering product, but I don't see any real attractions / news since its launch. I did some work with Box.com and APIs weren't so easy to use (this was back in late 2015, early 2016) and pricing wasn't very competitive for a home user. S3 would be an ideal backup but I'd need to code up the system to manage revision and life cycle, that becomes a job which I might as well create my own Dropbox...

Sync storage is very important when you have a media center PC and a bunch of PCs you own and needs the files around. Not just in the cloud (that's for on- the-go and DR), but I would want a local copy too (using a NAS server). So if Dropbox offers local backup + cloud backup at a reasonable monthly / annual price, I would give that a try.

[1]: [https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201238](https://support.apple.com/en- us/HT201238)

[2]: [https://www.backblaze.com/cloud- backup.html](https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-backup.html)

[3]: [https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/home](https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/home)

<comment><USER5> It's $20/month for unlimited storage on Dropbox.

<comment><USER6> Does anything stop you from uploading 10s or 100s of TB? I recently crossed 1TB of storage use on S3 (which costs around $20/month) and am in the process of exploring alternatives.

I've never really understood how companies can offer "unlimited" storage at low prices.

<comment> crooked-v "Unlimited" space in any online service almost always means "there is a soft cap where we start threatening to shut down your service, but we won't tell you what it is ahead of time".

<comment><USER4> Actually quite an interesting point. Consider S3. They provide unlimited storage, but their software has to be able to keep up with the insane growth of data, albeit the hardware storage demand as well.

<comment><USER7> S3's cost to the consumer scales with the amount stored. That's different from Amazon, Dropbox, or Google, who offer enterprise-facing non-developer storage options at a flat rate for "unlimited".

They can do this because these enterprise-facing products offer fewer performance guarantees relative to their developer-facing products. But, ultimately, "unlimited" doesn't mean unlimited, in literally all of these products.

<comment><USER4> I would think enterprise offering would have a stricter SLA than developer- facing product. The only thing between Dropbox and Amazon is that there is no independent enterprise offering for S3, except Amazon pays a penalty for violating said SLA.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> [Disclaimer: I used to work at Dropbox.]

TL;DR: The only actual news here is the new line of credit. The folks involved in securing that line of credit only noted that it was secured since the previous line of credit had expired.

There's no real tie to any IPO news here, and the quotes about an IPO come from "potential advisers" and seem to be entirely unrelated to the line of credit news.

> While the company hasn't set specific timing, potential advisers believe it > will be ready to go public by the end of this year. Dropbox and its lenders > declined to comment.

<comment><USER9> Another interesting nugget that I think is material to the conversation:

"For the banks involved, taking on the risk of lending to an unprofitable private company can help them win a role underwriting an eventual IPO."

It's fascinating to watch how we're building the stack of cards this time.

The bankers on SNAP made $85,000,000 in fees on the IPO - which is very high margin activity.

The same bankers provided ~$1.2b in credit to SNAP as part of the courting process (1).

I'm not going to wave the doom and gloom flag, but credit lending on unprofitable companies to secure speculative IPO rights is probably something that will show up in HBR case studies after the next downturn.

(1) [http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/snap-ipo-what-wall-street- ban...](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/03/snap-ipo-what-wall-street-banks- made.html)

<comment><USER10> This is a really good point. Although: even if I may not agree with the revenue potential, the market does and that is basically what allowed those banks to rake in during SNAP's IPO. I mean, nobody knows for sure whether SNAP will every be profitable, but the market thinks that it will. Or maybe the market is too gullible ...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Lots of negativity in here, but I'll say I really enjoy how incredibly simple Dropbox is and has remained since it launched.

It's so easy to explain how it works to my non-techie parents ("It's just another folder on your computer, except it backs up your data automatically").

I hope Dropbox continues to thrive.

<comment><USER12> It does work. Most of the time, for most people.

But, at least on Windows, only being able to sync 1 folder is a serious limitation.

Again at least on Windows, CPU and disk utilisation goes through the roofnon start-up, rendering your machine all but useless for half an hour.

And the final nail in my Dropbox coffin - it seemed to quite often choose the wrong file when there were conflicts, and at times it mistakenly deleted a lot if files. I just couldn't trust it.

Oh, and support via their forums was rubbish. Dozens of people would report the same problems, and they'd be ignored for years.

<comment><USER13> You can use symlinks (mklink on Windows) to overcome the "one folder limitation". Not perfect, but helps in some cases.

<comment><USER14> Funnily enough, I used to use OneDrive OneDrive (SkyDrive back then) with symlinks and it had a bug in its earlier version that basically fucked up your backups if you used symlinks and upgraded OneDrive. It ended up creating file_1 file_2 etc multiple versions of all my files and was a pain to sort through.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Dropbox for Business has really changed my view of Dropbox the company. With AzureAD SSO integration, and the new Smart Sync feature, it's now possible to run a small company completely in the cloud, with terabytes of data in the cloud accessible to everyone without them synching it all to their laptop.

Smart Sync is their game changer.

<comment><USER16> I think Google Drive's new features (Team Drives & File Stream) are going to win at least some of this market, too. Drive wasn't compelling for any sort of enterprise data management before, but it's slowly evolving some appealing features. If you add something like AODocs, you can get 80% of what even most large companies need out of an EDM platform.

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/03/14/google-...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2017/03/14/google- beefs-up-google-drive-for-enterprise-customers/#4645f90f729d)

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I've stopped using Dropbox for a few years already. Their software was good when I used it but I decided to boycott them after Condoleezza Rice joined their board. I just couldn't trust them with my data after that.

Plus, the fiasco they had with their Mac app comforted me in not trusting them

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm hoping someone can help me with this. DropBox is valued at $10b. Their closest competitor, Box, has a market cap of just over $2b. Does Dropbox really offer that much more than Box?

<comment><USER19> I use Box but Box has some flaws compared to Dropbox. Sync is broken and they don't care. On Dropbox you could have the windows client installed and open a Truecrypt file, make some changes (add/rename/delete/change files within the container) and when you close the Truecrypt file it syncs the changes properly. Do the same on Box and it looks like it's working but it's silently losing your changes; no errors, warnings - nothing. I reported this and they don't care. So you can only trust them with whole files. That's fine, once you know, for a free product, I guess. The version control can be seen as a deletion with no undo too; if you accidentally increment the version number of a file (by uploading a new file of the same name, I think this is what I did) then the earlier version is there but you can't get at it with the free service. Not even by deleting the newer one and reverting. So be very careful what you do. Still, it's better than nothing as a free secondary backup.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> I love that they do one thing really, really well. Further:

"Dropbox is the fastest SaaS company to reach $1 billion in revenue run rate" \- given that, I don't care if they are profitable or not. They got to $1B faster than Salesforce, as long as they keep this up they'll be just fine.

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm failing to see their competitive advantage. Is it the file history? Linux client?

Genuinely asking, I pay 7 € / mo for OneDrive (1 TB) and I get a desktop license of Office along with that too.

<comment><USER22> Same here. I'm a paying dropbox customer, but I plan to switch in a month before my annual subscription renews. Amazon drive offers more space for only $60 USD a year.

Plus google apps offers more space than dropboxes business plan.

<comment><USER23> I tried to switch quite many times. Problems are typically: refusal to sync some files, excessive memory and CPU use (last time I tried OneDrive it used ~700MB RAM when storage was nearly empty), no LAN sync (speeds up things considerably when sharing with family/colleagues), no block-level sync (touch a small part of a 300MB file and it gets completely resynced), no Linux client.

<comment><USER22> No I feel you, I do agree their sync tech is the best. I switched back to Mac so I no longer care about the linux support.

I've really gotten into photography. Shooting in raw means I easily add 10-30 GB of data a week. Just want a cheaper option for more than 1 TB.

<comment><USER24> rclone plus Amazon Cloud Drive might be an option. They do seem to have no limit when it comes to uploading data, but you can apparently run into soft caps if you try to download it all at once. Apparently Amazon has a lot of spare downstream capacity at their datacenters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'll never understand why a company has to keep growing. Obviously I don't have a degree in economics, but why can't a company do well and then continue being so without having the need to innovate all the time? Sorry if I'm missing something big.

<comment><USER19> If you start a company and you break even then you're free to not grow. As long as you're happy with the money you're making and you can pay stuff, rent, insurance, equipment, services, surprises etc then you don't need to.

But if you can do it, someone else can do it, and if they are criminally inclined, sly, lucky, or are prepared to pay people less or provide a lower quality product, or they have money to burn or are backed by people with money to burn then they can take you on and, until they are caught/run out of money/lose business due to their business practices catching up with them, they can take your business. Companies which are set up with other people's money and/or which go public are going to have to answer to the people who "own" them about why they're not making more money this year than last year and the people notionally running the company will be out of a job if they can't explain this.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Still surprised Dropbox doesn't apply their UI/UX talent to taking S3 to the cleaners.

<comment><USER27> Doesn't Dropbox run on S3? Or is that the company that recently moved off AWS into their own datacenters? If so that was a good case study. (I'm an all 5 certified AWS guy and while I love it, I like seeing the counterexamples to keep my Kool-Aid ingestion in check).

<comment><USER28> They used to. They migrated off of it because cloud is too expensive. 2 big components to that :

1) traffic to the rest of the internet from the cloud is "wtf" expensive compared to the alternatives. If you can do your own peering (like dropbox does), this goes double.

2) Actual disk storage is too expensive as well. It doesn't compare favorably with what you can get by building a blackblaze pod [1] (just an example).

3) Cloud does not match their usecase. They are write-heavy instead of read- heavy. So as the cloud optimizes for internet serving, it actually moves further away from their optimal price point.

There's an episode of software engineering radio that has a lot of details from the horse's mouth:

[http://www.se-radio.net/2017/03/se-radio- episode-285-james-c...](http://www.se-radio.net/2017/03/se-radio- episode-285-james-cowling-on-dropboxs-distributed-storage-system/)

[1] [https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage- serv...](https://www.backblaze.com/blog/open-source-data-storage-server/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> "Dropbox it's not a product, it's a feature". Don't get me wrong, I'm a Dropbox user myself, but I don't see their actual moat. Isn't cloud storage a commodity nowadays?

IMHO they should have spent money in investing in other productivity companies in order to diversify and be able to offer a complete productivity suite.

<comment><USER30> It seems to me you're looking at this from a technically proficient developer's perspective.

It's easy (trivial) for a technically proficient person to setup any trivial cloud storage system they like on just about any provider's platform they like.

It's not so easy for anybody else (read: the vast majority of other users). Dropbox's value proposition isn't commodity storage on somebody else's servers: it's the UI/UX that backs it, and the particular implementation details.

<comment><USER31> Dropbox isn't installed by default on any platform.

Apple, Microsoft and Goole all offer 'cloud' storage services (they aren't a product, stop calling it that) and all have a user-facing platform on devices: macOS/iOS, the various Windows, Android/ChromeOS.

Dropbox _is_ effectively a feature. That isn't to say they _can 't_ remain in the market and possibly even become profitable, but just making a sync client whose biggest recent news is the skeezy install process on macOS isn't going to cut it.

<comment><USER30> If the market treats them like a product, they are a product. Also the number of people outside of techie communities that care about either Apple computers or "skeezy" installs on them is tiny. Mac has a tiny, tiny fraction of the computing market and the vast majority of MacBook users are about as tech savvy as the vast majority of windows laptop users: that is they aren't savvy at all.

<comment><USER31> > If the market treats them like a product

A product is something you buy once. A service is something that is provided to you over time to use, usually in exchange for money. My issue was people calling cloud based storage a 'product'. It isn't, it's a service.

You seem to be somehow ignoring the little glass-faced elephant in the room: iPhones/iPads. The number of people who use these devices is not _tiny_.

The people who don't care about Apple but are still potential Dropbox customers are still using an OS: either Windows, Android or ChromeOS. The manufacturers of those OS' also compete with Dropbox. So what's your point about Apple exactly?

Non-technical users are exactly my point. Why would grandma use Dropbox, when its almost certain the device has built-in cloud-syncing storage from the OS manufacturer?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Actually box.com has several nice features by which they totally outperform Dropbox. One is for example the complete mess many Dropbox folders become, because you can drag an drop them around yourself, rename them etc. Look at anyone's Dropbox folder and things get quite messy rather quickly.

The problem with box.com is that there's no business support at all (nobody answers any emails). And in that regard Dropbox has been doing a really good job and put some effort into it. The product itself is not superior to box.com, quite in contrary actually, but the support is much better. (it's also quite easy since with box.com it's non-existent).

</comment><comment><USER33> Cloud storage is a commodity business and race to the bottom: hard drive prices already got there as local backup. Failing to see what the ipo upside is here.

A bit melodramatic but the cloud is very new and untested against natural events such as a coronal mass ejection, which could wipe put huge amounts of stored data...the sort of thing that arguably should be in IPO risk lists but isn't...yet... [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection)

</comment><comment><USER34> If only it didn't use ~1GB of RAM, I used to be a huge fan of Dropbox and I'm still looking for that feature in coding. Something like an auto-github diff upload. I saw some stuff with this I think regarding the particular text editor that I use.

My computer's are garbage that's why 1GB to Dropbox is a lot to me.

Edit: I'm curious how OneDrive compares. I have Windows on a junk laptop I have but I don't use it to work on (too weak). Maybe it has better idle RAM use.

<comment><USER35> Hmm, I see 3 Dropbox processes two take less than 1MB and one takes 62MB of memory. Not saying Dropbox is super light but it is not too heavy.

Does Dropbox memory usage grow with storage? Asking because I am only using 5GB of storage.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Finally an IPO that makes sense to me.

I can understand the value of Dropbox. Stuff like Snapchat being worth billions just make me feel like I don't know how anything works anymore.

<comment><USER37> Dropbox is a utility/product/feature. It can be replaced.

Snapchat is a network and therefore is open to network effects, i.e. the sum becomes greater than the parts.

I think in ten years time Snapchat will look the more justified valuation, providing they execute.

Dropbox are going to struggle unless they can innovate ontop of the current business model.

<comment><USER36> > I think in ten years time Snapchat will look the more justified valuation, > providing they execute.

They execute what, exactly? I looked at their investors page. Doesn't make any sense. It's a sexting app!!!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I don't know about Dropbox but for example Twitter is still losing money since 2012. Twitter is way overvalue in the market and has lost around $2 billion since inception. Obviously it's not the same as 2000, these companies have revenue, but some of the are not making even a profit. If they continue to throw tech companies with revenue and losing money as IPOs prepare for the next tech bubble. It will burst.

<comment><USER39> If you read the article, Dropbox is bringing in a billion a year and is almost profitable.

<comment><USER40> It's bewildering to me how a company can have $1B in revenue and not able to make file-syncing profitable.

<comment><USER10> Why? Amazon made _billions_ in revenue for years and only recently became profitable.

<comment><USER41> > _" Why? Amazon made billions in revenue for years and only recently became > profitable._"

Do you think the complexity of Amazon and Dropbox are even in the same universe?

Disclaimer: I like both companies.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> I love dropbox but I ended up on google drive. I happen to have a business email address with them and I got 30G free then updated. Dropbox is better than Google but I was already on Google. If they offered some sort of package like Google does, they could have more people onboard.

</comment><comment><USER43> Way to go Dropbox. Just be prepared for when Operating Systems start shipping this functionality built-in. If you can prepare for that inevitable reality (by, say, providing modules or something for specifically that) then it'll all go great. Great werk so far. Started using dropbox in college and I am an extremely satisfied user. Let me just cue up some Fleetwood Mac

</comment><comment><USER44> It appears like Dropbox has ~2X the revenue of box with possibly higher costs in marketing and sales, since their investors are pushing for growth. Assuming these higher costs to be nullified by operating their own datacenters, their (fair) valuation is ~$5B. Anyone still wondering why they aren't hurrying to an IPO, what with a plum $10B private valuation and all

</comment><comment><USER45> Steve Jobs said when his acquisition proposal was refused by Dropbox founders: it was a feature, not a product.

This is the sword of Damocles for Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think it means the opposite. If a public offering is head, why do they even need line of credit?

</comment><comment><USER47> Thought they were cash profitable??

</comment><comment><USER48> Why can't regular folks seem to get in on an IPO? (Admittedly, I don't understand how all the stock stuff works. It just seems like only big investment firms are the ones that are able to do initial investments.)

<comment><USER49> IIRC Google's IPO did some sort of auction. But I don't know if it was available to regular folks or not, or how it turned out in the end.

<comment><USER50> It was bad for Google and the investment banks, good for investors. It got an astoundingly low price, in part because banks boycotted the IPO to punish Google for the auction -- share price nearly doubled in the first 2 months, tripled in the first year, and kept growing.

[http://www.msn.com/en- us/money/stockdetails/history/fi-126.1...](http://www.msn.com/en- us/money/stockdetails/history/fi-126.1.GOOGL.NAS)

[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109036846726869268](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB109036846726869268)

[https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archiv...](https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/08/23/379378/index.htm)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> What can I use for free photo gallery storage if I do not want google or dropbox?

<comment><USER52> Flickr

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Investing in Dropbox to me sounds like investing in some other dinosaur like Blockbuster Video or Office Max. Eventually I just don't see people needing Dropbox.

</comment><comment><USER54> Can't say I'm a huge fan of Dropbox

<comment><USER55> There's lots of things I can't say.</comment></comment>


How to visit foreign website? like stackOverflow.com/fackbook.com/twitter.com - <AUTHOR> As a web programmer, i want to visit some foreign websit sometime, like web in title, how should i visit ?
At now, i use Lantern freely, but it's speed is so slowly. In specially, when i need to search some questions, i can't stand.
As newer, can you give me some suggestions? <comment><USER2> Here's what I understood:

"I'm a web developer using 'Lantern' (a global satellite data radio) for internet access, but it is too slow. I would like to constantly look up things, such as in websites listed in the title, but these speeds are unbearable. Since I'm new to this, could you give me any useful suggestions that could help my ultra-slow speeds problem?"

lofayo, this list was posted recently here. Maybe it helps. Maybe it does not help. [https://github.com/mdibaiee/awesome-lite- websites/blob/maste...](https://github.com/mdibaiee/awesome-lite- websites/blob/master/README.md)

Here is a previous discussion about Lantern [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10126667](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10126667)

</comment><comment><USER3> Where do you live?

<comment><AUTHOR> Wuhan, China</comment></comment>


Microsoft Bug Is Deactivating Windows 10 Pro Licenses and Downgrading to Home - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/microsoft/microsoft-bug-is-deactivating-windows-10-pro-licenses-and-downgrading-to-home/ <comment><USER2> With the ongoing catalogue of update disasters, am I the only one questioning whether Windows can be considered an operating system suitable for production use? Could you run your business on this with all the implied risk? Most small and medium businesses will not be running Enterprise, they will be using the licence provided with the systems when they were bought, which will be Pro or even Home.

</comment><comment><USER3> Yeah, this happened to me this morning but I had to leave for work before diagnosing it further. I've had a Pro license for years so it's pretty disturbing to have this happen.

I'm actually glad it's a widespread issue; I was not looking forward to messing with my Windows or contacting support over it.

</comment><comment><USER4> It seems odd that Windows 10 even has Home and Pro SKUs. I can't imagine the headaches that must cause programmers at Microsoft, as well as the confusion it sows among potential buyers. Microsoft should consider something like raising the price of the Home SKU by 20% while including all the Pro features.

<comment><USER5> Probably one flag that signals the compilation to remove all of the Pro features for Home build.

But yea the artificial division of different Windows licenses always seemed ridiculous. Even more now in the day of "Your OS is free or should be".

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> typical I was reading this and my Windows deactivated 5 minutes later...

</comment><comment><USER7> Are they trying to crack down on 5$ Pro licenses from eBay?</comment>


I see artificial intelligence advancing website design – CEO Bookmark - <AUTHOR> https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-i-see-artificial-intelligence-advancing-website-design-kosmayer/ <comment><AUTHOR> Let me know if anyone has a comment.</comment>


Statement on school meals from Argyll and Bute Council | Argyll and Bute Council - <AUTHOR> http://www.argyll-bute.gov.uk/news/2012/jun/statement-school-meals-argyll-and-bute-council

<comment><USER2> _Argyll and Bute Council wholly refutes the unwarranted attacks on its schools catering service which culminated in national press headlines which have led catering staff to fear for their jobs. The Council has directly avoided any criticism of anyone involved in the 'never seconds' blog for obvious reasons despite a strongly held view that the information presented in it misrepresented the options and choices available to pupils however this escalation means we had to act to protect staff from the distress and harm it was causing_

Schools: jobs programs which occasionally produce educated students as an industrial biproduct.

<comment><USER3> Is the text in italics from an earlier version of the council's statement? The linked page seems to have language that is as supportive of the student's blog as is possible.

<comment><USER4> The story does have a revision date that's shortly after patio11's comment, so that seems quite likely.</comment></comment></comment>


Human longevity: 25 genetic loci associated in 389,166 UK Biobank participants - <AUTHOR> http://www.aging-us.com/article/101334/text <comment><USER2> I was surprised FOXO3 didn't show up in this study. That gene seems to get alot of press related to longevity.</comment>


Curated list of security tools for Hackers and Builders - <AUTHOR> https://tools.tldr.run/ <comment><AUTHOR> This website contains Curated list of security tools for Hackers & Builders!</comment>


Ask HN: Negotiating remote start at big N company in times of Covid-19 - <AUTHOR> I'm entering the workforce for the first time as a graduate, and am about to enter negotiations with one of the big tech companies. One of my goals for this negotiation is to agree that I will stay where I am for ~6 months and work remotely, and only relocate after it is clear that travel restrictions have disappeared for good. Specific questions:<p>* Is my goal of 6 months feasible or totally unrealistic?<p>* If you start working remotely, can the company force relocation in the future? Does this date have to be written into the contract or would there be an "advanced notice period"?<p>Context: I am located in Europe. The office is a few hours away from where I currently live, but across a country border. Starting remotely will have to happen at the moment because of travel restrictions, and this would require to have a contract of employment in my home country at the start. I do not want to relocate until travel restrictions are permanently lifted as I do not want to be cut off from my family here. <comment><USER2> (I'm assuming we are talking about a company that is typically not remote, or at least not for entry-level employees. If a company has an established remote culture, it might very well be more flexible)

> _this would require to have a contract of employment in my home country at > the start_

That could be a problem, or at least makes it more complicated. I would guess that if you intend to ultimately move to the office location, the company will prefer a contract for you there, with language allowing you to work remotely from elsewhere in the current situation.

> _If you start working remotely, can the company force relocation in the > future? Does this date have to be written into the contract or would there > be an "advanced notice period"?_

Same as above: I'd expect the contract to state that you're expected to work in the office unless granted permission otherwise, and the permission to be granted temporarily due to the current situation. The specific rule about how long this is will heavily depend on the company, but I would expect them to understand that you'd need time to organize a move etc which isn't possible currently. Presumably if they are talking to you now, they are in principle ok with onboarding someone who is remote, but it could be that they'd expect you to move within X weeks once the restrictions are cleared.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks very much for the information, I appreciate you taking the time to reply!</comment></comment>


An introduction to Scuttlebutt, the lovely decentralized social network [video] - <AUTHOR> https://vimeo.com/236358264 <comment><USER2> An 11 minute video? No transcript? No subtitles?

Really?

<comment><AUTHOR> Feel free to volunteer to write subtitles! I'm sure the filmmaker would appreciate the help.</comment></comment>


The Move from Linux to FreeBSD - <AUTHOR> http://nileshgr.com/2013/06/07/the-move-from-linux-to-freebsd <comment><USER2> It's odd, because he says that GNU can't run without Linux (it can, see Debian kFreeBSD, which has a FreeBSD kernel and GNU userland, also see the numerous GNU ports to Win32, starting with Cygwin and MinGW). He also says that Linux requires GNU which is AFAIK not true either (Android uses Linux but replaces the userland with its own Apache-licensed tools).

<comment><USER3> Not surprised people dont know that - Debian kFreeBSD is pretty obscure, and he had heard of HURD. And Android is still slightly a Linux fork, even if it is gradually converging, while the other non Gnu userspaces are not mostly entirely non GNU yet.

<comment><USER4> Also, few monthes ago kFreeBSD was discussed if it may be supported or not in the future.

[https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel- announce/2014/09/msg00...](https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel- announce/2014/09/msg00002.html)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2hvikt/kfreebsd_port_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2hvikt/kfreebsd_port_is_in_danger_of_being_dropped_from/)

<comment><USER3> I do find it a bizarre thing, cutting yourself off from the main FreeBSD community.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I suspect the high memory usage OP saw on Linux was a combination of:

\- swappiness: they said they switched swappiness to zero but my guess is that by that time their mind was made up. Also, from the mention of swapping and the mention of apps being slow to come back to life, I really think this was the main reason for their memory issues. For reference, high swappiness will make the kernel will push memory for apps into swap to the benefit of caches. Default is 40, I have not seen one single case where that is a good thing in 12 ro 15 years. Do yourself a favour, make your first CM rule to switch swappiness to zero!

\- the myriad of small apps in a lot of modern Linux distro (pieces of systemd, pieces of gnome (even on servers!), dbus, etc...). They are minimalistic distors out there which use a very small footprint

\- the way memory is reported: If you look at free, the first line shows free memory as what's not in use by apps, cache nor buffers. If anything, free memory on the first line is memory that the OS is wasting (not using). If you want to know what is available for use by apps, you have to look at the second line (-/\+ buffers/cache)

</comment><comment><USER6> He claims it saved him $3500, but I just read a story about a guy squandering a few grand in billable time screwing around swapping one POSIX OS for another.

<comment><USER7> You know, life gets pretty hollow when everything is 'billable time'. It's also fun to just hack and tinker.

Also, if maximizing billable time _is_ the goal, maybe the guy learnt a lot playing with another UNIX and increases his worth :p.

<comment><USER8> You've put it better than I ever could. It's frustrating to see someone share an experience along the lines of "I earned X this weekend by exploiting a niche I completely ignored before and learned loads!", only for a commenter to inevitably come along and say "well, thats all well and good, but if you value your time at Y per hour you've actually lost money, not to mention the wasted opportunity cost of not using that time to become a rocket scientist and earning even more!"

<comment><USER9> Well, you can't have it both ways. If you (in the general sense, not you specifically) do a project for your own reasons, great. The problem is when you try to make an ROI case that only represents one side of the equation. If you don't want people to poke holes in your ROI argument, then avoid framing your projects in a way that creates opportunities for that discussion.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> The TLDR:

The biggest difference was memory usage: "FreeBSD is just too good at managing memory. My server earlier used to consume over 1 GB of memory for running PHP, MySQL and Nginx. Now, it doesn't even touch 500 MB! It's always less than 500 MB. Everything is just same, configuration, etc. Only OS changed"

Later in the article, a recount of desktop memory shortage issues under Linux and much improvement under FreeBSD. He even reports single applications like Chromium performing better and with no swapping.

<comment><USER11> One has to be careful when looking at memory usage to judge these kinds of things, though. Linux has a tendency to use memory unused by applications for its own purposes, because it's not being used anyway and it might as well do something useful with it.

Oftentimes this ends up being something like aggressively caching file data so that it doesn't have to write to disk very often. While this does get labeled as "used" memory, it can very quickly be freed up by the operating system by evicting this cached data back to disk if that memory is needed elsewhere.

This can make Linux appear more memory-hungry, but in actuality a better description might be that Linux is more effectively using the resources at its disposal. I'm not saying that this is what's happening in this case, but it's a possibility.

<comment><USER12> You think Linux is alone in acting like that?

<comment><USER13> No, but maybe others don't report such memory as used, which seems unfortunate to me.

<comment><USER12> FreeBSD has many labels for how it uses memory. Active, Inactive, Cache etc, to specify the purpose. See this question and answer: [http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/134862/what-do- the-d...](http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/134862/what-do-the- different-memory-counters-in-freebsd-mean)

<comment><USER14> They're less labels for purpose and more labels for lifecycle - data you'd consider "cached" can appear just about anywhere. From what I remember (corrections more than welcome):

Active is fully-fledged in use memory, mapped into one or more processes

Inactive is where Active goes when it's less in-use. Cheap to reactivate, but relatively costly to free: can still be mapped into processes, and may be dirty (modified) and thus require writing to disk before being unmapped and cleared for reuse.

Cached is where lesser used Inactive cached data goes before it dies. More costly to reactivate, but cheap to free: No longer mapped directly into any process, and strictly consists of only clean (unmodified) pages that don't need writing back to disk before clearing.

Wired is pinned-down memory that can't be swapped out. ZFS's data and metadata caches are counted here, since it maintains its own (known as the ARC - Adaptive Replacement Cache, after the algorithm it's based on) instead of just relying on the traditional VM page cache.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really love FreeBSD and use it for servers, but I wouldn't use it for desktop. It lags behind Linux quite a bit (which itself lags behind proprietary OSes) in things like driver support. I've found it very hard to use with modern hardware.

</comment><comment><USER16> This guy's issues aside, if you're interested in trying FreeBSD, but would like for a more turnkey experience, there is the PC-BSD distro that has the modern conveniences like a graphical installer and preinstalled window manager.

</comment><comment><USER17> Linux memory management is actually quite good. In particular the unified fs cache. I would think this guy had weird settings/tweaks and or more things enabled since he ran gentoo but misconfigured swapiness.

The apps code is very close and linux doesnt magically needs to allocate more memory. What changes is just libc.

Freebsd is one of my favorite OSes regardless.

</comment><comment><USER18> I applaud for this move, but I do embedded linux, need checkout NetBSD which is typically the embedded BSD, the concern is about all those drivers' support.

<comment><USER3> It doesnt have as many drivers as Linux, but it is pretty easy to add them - does Linux always have the ones you want? It rather depends on platform.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> > like how to tweak fontconfig to get clean & beautiful fonts, etc.

That's quite something to drop just like that. Any links?

<comment><USER20> I just discovered the infinality patches. They are amazing and so easy on the eyes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I tried switching to BSD (PC-BSD) from Debian and then went back because I couldn't find out any better performance from BSD as compared to Debian.

</comment><comment><USER22> > The only things I miss are: Dropbox and Android SDK

I am actually using devel/android-tools-adb with the SDK under Linux emulation and it works quite well.

</comment><comment><USER23> > GNU is the userland

Although important, GNU projects are a very small percent of the 2376 packages that make up my desktop's userland right now.

</comment><comment><USER24> Many people are moving from linux to *bsd in protest of systemd.

<comment><USER25> That's weird. I haven't kept up with the latest *nix gossip, but isn't the very principle of the system is that it is open and fully configurable/modular/extensible? What does it really matter in the end what system you use if you can make whatever system your own? (serious question)

<comment><USER26> It matters because if it "invades" your distribution of choice. Imagine you've been useing a distro for years and grown to love it and now systemd is being forced upon you of you make the next major upgrade.

Right now it isn't really that bleak, because some distros still give you a choice, but people are worried that the choice will be sacrificed in favor of easier maintanability in the future.

<comment><USER7> _It matters because if it "invades" your distribution of choice. Imagine you've been useing a distro for years and grown to love it and now systemd is being forced upon you of you make the next major upgrade._

Like ELF, glibc2, egcs, devfs, hotplug (the old script-flavored version), udev, eglibc, etc.

I am mentioning these, because all of them caused a controversy with a vocal minority. It is evolution. None of these are controversial anymore. Some of them were replaced, because they were bad ideas in hindsight (devfs).

By definition any fundamental part of the system (such as init or the C library) that changes is 'forced upon' the user.

<comment><USER27> Your quotes around 'forced upon' make it seem like it is not really being forced onto users. Gnome users for example are getting shafted now that systemd is a dependency for the gnome DE.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Google for "Freebsd vs Linux 2014 performance and features" to see other considerations about the current status.

</comment><comment><USER29> Here we go again, some one telling us one os is better then the other ^_^ Never listen to anyone saying that. Simply use the OS that works best for YOU period. Few replies here where correct, linux uses more memory because it works like a cache, to not use HDD so much and if you have enought memory like 8GB+ you don't have to use swap at all.

<comment><USER7> First of all: what makes you think that FreeBSD does not do disk caching?

[https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch- handb...](https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/arch- handbook/vm.html)

 _enought memory like 8GB+ you don 't have to use swap at all._

...depending on usage. We have 64GB+ machines at work that regularly go swapping. It depends on various factors: how quick do you want the OOM killer to kick in, how slow do you want the system to get as a result of swapping, and how much budget is there available to buy machines that can take more memory.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> > FreeBSD gave my computer a new life, otherwise I was nearly going to get a > new desktop because of shitty performance. In other words, it saved me > ₹35000+

No, it didn't save you any money. Delaying a purchase is NOT saving money.

<comment><USER31> sure it is. if you buy new hardware on a regular schedule (e.g. every 3 years), extending that cycle out (e.g. to every 5 years) saves you money.

<comment><USER32> And you can do things like refresh (say) the one third of the desktop computers that need a higher spec (Cad, Video &c) every two years and then 'hand down' the older boxes to the other two thirds in stages. Worked quite well in one College I worked in a few years ago.</comment></comment></comment>


Amazon has replaced Google as the best place to work in the US - <AUTHOR> https://work.qz.com/1236944/linkedin-amazon-is-a-better-place-to-work-than-google-apple-or-tesla/ <comment><USER2> Google doesn't have employees peeing into cups to avoid getting dinged for a rest break, and somehow they end up second?

</comment><comment><USER3> To reiterate what is being said already, this is from flawed LinkedIn results. I've only seen Amazon engineers scoff at the news.

</comment><comment><USER4> tl;dr for those who didn't read the article. This data is from LinkedIn and based on their measures of: 1\. Number of job applications 2\. [LinkedIn] engagement 3\. employee retention.

The 1st factor one may be biased by Amazon's larger employee base, which according to Google is currently >500k.

The 3rd factor is a big one and may be heavily biased by Amazon's exploding stock growth and horrible vesting schedule.

The article calls out Amazon's frugality as appealing to workers. If this is true, then human beings too easily act against their own interests. As a consumer, I appreciate their frugality toward their workers. As a worker, I would tell them to GFYS (in fact, I did). Their frugality does not translate to higher comp.

<comment><USER5> It's very strange that number of applications is used in the calculation. As you suggested, it tells you more about openings, brand value, and perhaps geography than it does about how nice it is to work there.

This honestly just seems like LinkedIn trying to synthesize its data into something that will be written up in other places. A serious attempt at answering this question would use a survey. GlassDoor might be somewhere closer to knowing the answer.

<comment><USER6> Here's a recent summary of GlassDoor observations.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-work-at- amaz...](http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-work-at- amazon-2018-2)</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What creative project do you pursue when your goal isn't to make money? - <AUTHOR> Suppose Universal Basic Income were implemented and you were satisfied with your standard of living, what would you do with your time? Looking for ideas. <comment><USER2> I'd go fulltime on Concise Encoding ([https://github.com/kstenerud/concise- encoding/#concise-encod...](https://github.com/kstenerud/concise- encoding/#concise-encoding)), a twin binary and text format for ad-hoc data. Progress on the reference implementation is MUCH slower with a day job.</comment>


Show HN: A buku front end using peco - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/AndreiUlmeyda/loin <comment><AUTHOR> On my quest to unified bookmark management I, just like you, came across the excellent buku. The only thing missing for me was swift overview/filtering/opening of a list of bookmarks that exceeds a terminal screen. So, somewhat jokingly, I tried to friction-weld it onto another great thing, namely peco. It works rather well for me and, with a little luck, for someone else as well.</comment>


Show HN: Hacker Says - quotes from hackers to hackers - <AUTHOR> http://hackersays.com

<comment><USER2> cool idea. quick q: why have a redirect for each quote? if it's for facilitating sharing, there may be better ways to do that without destroying back button functionality.

<comment><AUTHOR> We thought that using pushState to allow user to press "back" button to get to previous quote would be a good feature. You're not the only one who doesn't like that, which means we're probably going to use replaceState instead and implement our own "previous quote" functionality.

Anyway, thank you for your feedback!</comment></comment>


EntityJS - HTML5 Javascript Game Engine - <AUTHOR> http://entityjs.com

<comment><USER2> I have always wondered how so many javascript game framework authors expect anyone to take them seriously when the design, performance graphics and craftsmanship of their demos are often so poor. You might have the most amazing framework ever, but you are not demonstrating that with your demo game at all with its poorly drawn graphics, strangely behaving parallax, flickering tile seams, and a loader that fails to finish half the time.

<comment><USER3> Engine developers aren't always the best game developers. Bugs are bad but you're not going to get much polish from a demo.

<comment><USER2> the demo is your advertisement for the framework. It should _ahem_ demonstrate the benefits of using the engine. Don't you think? If the demo looks bad, the framework looks bad (Often regardless of its actual quality)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Very nice, but the demo doesn't work on Firefox 10. Chrome is fine

</comment><comment><USER5> Another great Javascript game library is Akihabara - <http://www.kesiev.com/akihabara/>

</comment><comment><USER6> I'm not a huge fan of the one letter method names.

</comment><comment><USER7> The demo doesnt seem to work in Firefox

</comment><comment><USER8> Another? How many JavaScript games are there even?

<comment><USER9> More are on the way. My company is actually working on JS games exclusively, and I'm doing a talk on this very subject (I actually briefly mention EntityJS) at SXSW next month. The title of my talk is "Do Gamers Dream of HTML5 Sheep" if anyone is interested.

<comment><USER10> So how are you making money with HTML5 games? I've made a fair bit of "beer" money with Flash games, but I haven't yet found a MochiAds for HTML5 yet. In- game purchases? Selling access to a less busy server?

<comment><USER9> We aren't making games comparable to flash/arcade games, they are more similar to games you find on social networks. So, the majority of revenue comes from in-game purchases.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Category Theory by Tom LaGatta - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6L6XeNdd_k

<comment><USER2> If anyone wants more on categories for non mathematicians be sure to check out David Spivak's work and his book "Category Theory for Scientists" [1].

1\. [http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.6946](http://arxiv.org/abs/1302.6946)

</comment><comment><USER3> This is so good. I'm not sure how idiosyncratic my reaction is, but this kind of fluid, beer in one hand (and "go look up the axioms on Wikipedia") mode of presentation is such an amazing way to introduce and motivate a topic. Just loved this.

</comment><comment><USER4> I know Tom, and I can personally attest to his smarts, passion, and personal warmth. Really excited and proud to see this on the frontpage.

</comment><comment><USER5> This is excellent: very engaging, very clear. I'm learning Haskell at the minute, and this really solidified a few abstract concepts for me[1]

NB I'd say my maths knowledge doesn't extend very far beyond GCSE level, and yet this talk was very understandable, everything described made a lot of sense. Very highly recommended.

[1] and I think will _ever so slightly_ mitigate the pain/incredulity of finding _x_ library has, in lieu of documentation, only a category-theory- related paper...only ever so slightly though.

</comment><comment><USER6> Wow, so many "Well, actually"s in here. I wish it didn't bother me so much.

Great speaker, though!

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm sorry, but I feel I have to dissent from the positive comments being left here. This presentation might be good if you already understand category theory, but for someone like me who knows nearly nothing about it, the pedagogy is absolutely horrible. A much better place to start is this:

[http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/category+theory](http://ncatlab.org/nlab/show/category+theory)

where you will actually find a concise definition of what category theory _is_ , and what distinguishes it from more familiar mathematical constructs like set theory.

</comment><comment><USER8> I'd like to see more concrete results from Category Theory. This was a good lecture, but it was a little too abstract for me.

<comment><USER9> Complaining about a Category Theory lecture being too abstract does seem a little like complaining about a river being too wet :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I went up to New York (from Baltimore) for this talk. It was worth it.</comment>


What strings should the EU place on Microsoft buying Skype? - <AUTHOR>

The EU will announce approval, denial, conditions, concerns, and the path forward for Microsoft buying Skype the first week of October 2011. What conditions in the public interest would you like to see Europe impose on Microsoft? What terms would be bad policy? <comment><USER2> In the great scheme of things, one can't honestly expect Microsoft to not monetize Skype. The big question is "do they kill the goose"? The real question is they do they have the common sense?</comment>


Ask HN: W2018 invites sent. Who got in and what are you making? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> We are among invited teams. Were rejected 3 times in the past. Working on government analytics, with the initial focus on housing.

Demo: [http://sfhousing.statecraft.one](http://sfhousing.statecraft.one)

<comment><USER3> Nice start! And I like the name ;)

Denver might be another good candidate for you to tell your narrative via data. Don't know if you have ever seen the show "Weediquette" on Viceland. But there was an insightful episode on the Denver housing market last night. Developers build $6000/mo high rise condos targeting "Green Rush" cannabis entrepreneurs flush with cash. While city government bans outdoor "camping" for the thousands of locals displaced by an influx of new residents.

I'd also love to hear your team's opinions on the affordable housing crisis. As well as alternative examples of government policy that works. And is policy making your eventual goal? Or more direct initiatives?

Solving affordable housing: Creative solutions around the U.S.

[https://www.curbed.com/2017/7/25/16020648/affordable- housing...](https://www.curbed.com/2017/7/25/16020648/affordable-housing- apartment-urban-development)

<comment><USER2> It's a complex problem in need of complex solutions. Government's biggest problem is the scale of their actions. They use all the right tools, but at smaller scale/urgency than they should.

Here is the basic toolkit:

— Spend public dollars (budget+bonds) on new affordable housing, aim for 5-10% of annual city budget (now it's 1-2%).

— Create districts with pre-approved building permits (some work on it, but it takes 10+ years to master plan a district)

— Invite non-local developers and give them strong incentives (e.g. joint US- China ventures in real estate)

— Remove risks from permitting process, make it faster, reduce power of local individuals to block/delay major developments

— Raise height limits in certain areas

— Reduce parking requirements. Allow large-scale developments on former parking lots (stadiums, shopping malls)

— Create a new powerful role "Vice Mayor of Affordable Housing", centralize all functions under that person, set ambitious goals, and have the ability to fire that person if the goals are not met

<comment><USER3> Pre-approved districts and "Free Building Zones" is a great idea. Coupled with initiatives to reclaim abandoned living spaces, re-purpose abandoned factories, etc seems key to re-vitalizing neglected but once thriving communities.

But alternatively, why not just directly inject privately raised funds into shelters and temp housing services? It seems this is where the brunt of the demand is. Increase transitional accommodation supply. It can even be minimal in regards to amenities. And offer employment counselling in one go. As well as partnering with region medical hospital systems to provide a network of low-cost out-patient clinics.

A single model that works in any political environment. Not just for the largest cities, but post-industrial towns as well. It would also compress the time scales from years to months. And although in no way a long term sustainable solution for growing families. It would provide immediate relief for those in emergency situations.

And thanks for your efforts! This is crucial work you are doing, and I'll certainly be rooting for you ;)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: How do you mantain your current lifestyle in times of big income? - <AUTHOR> Hi, I've been working for several years as a Software Engineer, always getting a little more than the market income. I live with my SO and we own an apartment (no kids) so my basic expenses are low.
Last year I started earning way above what I was earning, something like five times what I need with my current lifestyle.
I was always pretty frugal with my money and I don't own too much, but I'm noticing that I'm losing "pricing sensibility" compared to family, friends and some coworkers. As a result of this I'm slowly starting to increase eating out at above average places and taking trips more frequently.
I don't want to make the common error of raising my lifestyle according to my income, because I like the flexibility that a frugal lifestyle and I'd like to have the possibility earn less than the actual income if I want to switch jobs.
Are you in a similar situation? How do you deal with this kind of "issues"? <comment><USER2> It seems you are happy with it. "I'm slowly starting to increase eating out at above average places and taking trips more frequently." That is life. That's why we live. You deserve it.

There is a significant difference in quality between eating out in a $10 place or a $100 place. Yet, the difference between a $100 place and a $1000 place is pretty small.

It applies to almost everything: entertainment, food, computer equipment, traveling, etc. The first order of magnitude is the one that will give you more bang for your buck, don't jump to the second order of magnitude.

</comment><comment><USER3> This question sounds like you are having a "lifestyle creep" problem. Which is super legit... I fight with the same problem and am interested with HN advice on the subject.

Here are the things I've done (please give me more!):

* I'm very clear with the definition of "want" versus "need", and when making any purchases especially major ones I'm clear with which of the two the purchase is.

* Once a month I run through my finances to keep myself grounded. If I see that I spent $60 on lattes, I know that I'm out of control in that area and tighten up.

* I separate my money into various accounts when it comes in. As mentioned Vanguard is a useful tool for auto deductions from the checking account.

* Lastly, I try to remind myself of the times when I didn't have much, and give myself the old "winter is coming" pep-talk. All of us/ Any of us that are working for a wage (W2 land) could be promoted to customer at the bat of a managers eye... and that is exactly the moment when you will wish you had saved. I.E. the "Ant and the grasshopper" moment.

</comment><comment><USER4> Start a weekly or monthly investment in a Vanguard index fund of most of the extra. Leave yourself a bit, you've earned it.

<comment><USER3> This is fine investment advice... but the post isn't asking for investment advice. It's asking for advice on fighting lifestyle creep. Besides, there are a variety of ways to invest one's money, why provide only one vehicle as advice for investing?

<comment><USER5> The "invest most of it" was the way to fight lifestyle creep. If you've made it "disappear" into a Vanguard fund (or whatever), then you don't have it "available" to tempt you into spending it. You set your budget/expectations/lifestyle for what you have left _after_ investing most of the surplus.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I'm 19 years old and I left the US because everything is so expensive. There's just no way to live on your own or even comfortably without a high paying degree. I now live in Eastern Europe on $400 a month. My standard of living is many times higher than if I was living in the US.

<comment><USER7> And chicks are hotter :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I apologize in advance for my stream of consciousness.

I found myself in a similar situation when I started working after graduate school. I continued to live like a poor grad student as my income became an order of magnitude higher than my expenses. Changing my expenses would have actually taken congnitive overhead, so my expenses barely increased for years. I just saved the difference in Vanguard's VTSAX.

Gradually, during busier times of my life, I did start to eat out more and more. Then I gained a lot of weight from it -- for me, eating out almost always meant eating more food than I should consume, and it's often unhealthy food. I eventually pulled myself together and cook almost all of my food at home now. I also get more joy drinking coffee at home, reading in the morning, than buying it out. Although I don't cap my grocery budget, it's significantly healthier, and spending can still only get so high if I'm not wasting food.

At this point, living life feels much like a game. Money equates to a kind of resource point that is useful to achieve goals, and it is worthwhile to manage and "cultivate" this resource, but it's not an end to itself. "Winning" isn't getting more resource points, it's to maximize joy (or other "fullfillment" however you may wish to define it). Spending resources doesn't necessarily increase joy , though it does provide opportunities. A great many things that increase joy are either free or linked to lower resource spending vs. alternatives (e.g., cooking at home is healthier and usually cheaper, and for me, often tastier, a smaller home "forces" more social interaction with family, which can often lead to a less lonely life, frugal spending while traveling can lead to you staying in hostels and meeting other friendly travelers, etc...).

Preserving and managing your resource can also let you optimize long-term choices, perhaps getting you to FIRE (Financially Independent, Retire Early). Even if you don't want to retire early, it allows choice to leave a job that isn't leaving you personally fulfilled.

Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER9> Not 100% on-topic, but thought you might appreciate the lateral thinking...

I donate that stuff. That income above life-sustainment and above lifestyle and comfort and luxury. Still I'm finding there's more and more to spend.

But I don't need it, better to pass it on to communities and creators that I enjoy. Patreon, individual monthly checks automatically sent from my bank, paypal monthly donations, etc... All for artists to create more of their work I enjoy, archives to continue to flourish.

Maybe try that?

Why suggest donation? It's an infinitely large set of buckets to put money into.

<comment><USER10> This is really poor advice, focused entirely on the short term, which is something the OP wants to avoid doing.

<comment><USER9> No, this is long term advice.

Regular donations decrease the overall wealth removing the drag of lifestyle creep.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> It sounds like you already have a "budget" that you stick to. I personally am frugal like you and have a budget that I roughly stick to.

As jppope points out, figuring out need vs want is really important and checking back on you "budget" monthly really helps.

If you don't do this already, don't keep your checking and savings mixed. Keep checking at a "zero-balance" which would be something where if a paycheck didn't come through you could pay your highest debt while a transfer from your emergency fund came through.

This keeps you feeling like you don't have money to spend and since your savings/emergency fund aren't in views eye, you don't feel the need to spend it.

</comment><comment><USER12> I think the key is to keep your necessary expenses low. For instance, don't go buy a house and a couple of cars that you can only afford because you are now making 5x more money. If you keep those things in check, then you should still have the freedom that your previous lifestyle offered.

The other thing to think about is are you happy and doing these extra things or are you doing these thing to be happy. As long as you stay in the former, you should be able to cut out the extras if you need to.

In the meantime, do you. You've earned it.

</comment><comment><USER13> I'd suggest paying yourself a salary out of your salary. So as soon as money comes in put it into an investment that is at least a little painful to remove such as a 401k/IRA.

<comment><USER14> Exactly what I'm doing. I've been paying myself a fixed salary for a couple years now, regardless of how much I actually make in a given month (the rest goes into savings). I haven't dipped into savings yet, and don't feel any cravings to do so - I just don't think that most things you can buy really add that much value. And for things that do, you can get very similar effect whether you splurge or go more frugal - i.e. a trip's value is most likely going to be determined by your companion/s and how much fun you had with each other, and not whether you went to Africa or just camped in local forest.

BTW, eating out at more upscale places, buying branded stuff are (at least in my case) just forms of treating boredom with consumerism, which I know from experience, does not bring me any happiness. It took me a year of two of spending 100% of my income until I noticed that, so maybe you need to see the effect on yourself as well.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> set up systems that take money out of your bank account and into investment vehicles (people have suggested a few in this thread) right when your paycheck arrives. Leave a pre-set amount in your bank account to pay your credit card bills, rent etc.

Usually retrieving those amounts from investment vehicles is painful, so you'll be forced to watch your spending, and perhaps budget.

</comment><comment><USER16> I'm in a similar situation. I decides to startup tracking ALL of my monthly expenses to build an average budget. With this budget in mind I'll randomly generate below and above average monthly budgets. The idea would be to never get used to spend a fixed amount of money, experiencing different things from month to month.

</comment><comment><USER17> Paying down debt and building savings. We still go clothes shopping at goodwill regularly too.

</comment><comment><USER18> Watch @goin1836 videos on tiktok. He will show you how to save money.</comment>


The Tech Stack Behind Keen IO's Analytics Backend Service - <AUTHOR> http://blog.leanstack.io/keen-io-tech-stack/

<comment><USER2> Hi everyone, Josh here. Lemme know if you have any questions you'd like to ask.

<comment><USER3> Having written some analytics services myself, I'm curious what sort of performance you're seeing on the ingest side with tornado/python. What kind of throughput per server (or systemwide) are you seeing?

<comment><USER2> When we did the migration over to Storm & Cassandra, we did a 1 time ingestion of old events. This was very fast, peaking around 50k events/sec. Additional synthetic testing showed we could easily beat that. It was actually the old system that bottlenecked, and prevented us from turning the dial way up :)</comment></comment></comment>