Bootstrap v4.4 - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/releases/tag/v4.4.0 <comment><USER3> Looks like a pretty minor update compared to previous releases. But if I recall correctly Bootstrap 4.5 or 5.0 is going to be a big one where the form elements are styled directly without needing a bunch of boilerplate classes.

<comment><USER4> Dropping jQuery is another big thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's almost 10 years old but Bootstrap is still my favorite. It is simple, familiar, stable & independent. The downside is that there haven't been much innovation in term of UI on the web since then...

</comment><comment><USER6> Is anybody on HN starting new projects with bootstrap anymore? I mostly hear about Bulma and Tailwind.

<comment><USER7> I was a big fan back in the day, but I really don't want to use jQuery anymore. I now use Bulma because it's one of the better ones not to force a JavaScript framework on you. You can make it as complex (or as simple) as you like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> After working with Tailwind, I'm very happy to not go back to any other traditional CSS framework.

The value of Bootstrap is within teams where CSS knowledge nor the uniqueness of your site is not the top prio. But if you want to build a personal (in the sense of unique) looking site with modern tooling, Tailwind is an awesome choice.

</comment><comment><USER9> What all these frameworks are trying to achieve is standardisation of UI, so that people get a familiar set of controls across applications and platforms (and for developers too!). But we have so many standards now! (Queue relevant xkcd).

I think this is where browser companies (Mozilla perhaps?) could be doing a lot more. Instead of adding endless new features to CSS and Javascript - <USER2> only give us more options to create even more standards - why not work on a standard UI library that ships with the browser? ActiveX tried this, but it was mostly limited to Windows and it died with IE. Java Applets tried this but security. Flash was great while it lasted, but security, and it's mostly gone now anyway.

I think we have learnt enough about how people use the web, and how we develop for the web, to begin a concerted effort in standardising web UI once and for all. I want a standard set of widgets that ship with the browser, that I can theme, but that behave predictably, that don't require importing of CSS and JS, and that do not require insane levels of layout logic to do what was achieved on windowed desktop environments decades ago.

<comment><USER10> The problem is that visual elements are related to fashion, and fashion gets stale with familiarity. So it won't stop changing.

<comment><USER11> Fashion is the biggest problem with usability -- the pendulum has begun to swing back a bit -- I hope it continues</comment></comment></comment>


The Siberian Blast (or the Tunguska event) Visualized in a Supercomputer - <AUTHOR> http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/08/earth-scars/blast-interactive <comment><USER2> Interesting simulation ! After skimming through the Credits I think this Physicist calculated the data needed for it.

\- Mark Boslough, Sandia Nat. Lab. \- Similar animation this time focusing on the meteriorite <http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=e4HCTcQ-IWA> \- Some papers: o <http://est.sandia.gov/publications/computational.html></comment>


Rackspace CDN Blacklisted by Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://status.rackspace.com/index/viewincidents?group=28 <comment><AUTHOR> I wake up this morning to reports from multiple customers saying that when they try to access a file stored on Rackspace's new CDN product they receive the big red screen that says "The site ahead contains harmful programs".

Rackspace's response: It's Google's fault.

Try it out: [https://reportcards.scdn3.secure.raxcdn.com/assets/uploads/f...](https://reportcards.scdn3.secure.raxcdn.com/assets/uploads/files/report_cards/thumbnail/6273cfaf06a73d875304a003ca7750f3.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER2> I see the same warning in Firefox.</comment>


AWS launches 2011 start-up challenge - <AUTHOR> http://aws.amazon.com/startupchallenge

<comment><USER2> "Nothing in these Official Rules will be construed as a representation or agreement that we or our affiliates will not develop or have developed products, concepts, systems or techniques that are similar to or compete with the products, concepts, systems or techniques contemplated by or embodied in any Submission Materials."

Let me see if I got this right. I enter with my project, they like the idea, they cut me off and build my project as their own. And I get 25$ for participating...

Is this realistic or am I just being paranoid?

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm working with MeetingBurner.com which uses nearly all the AWS products to power their cloud webinar service - from real time video encoding, to phone bridges, to playback.

From the list of finalists last year it appeared that having a VC or notable investor on your team was almost a requirement to get anywhere.

Anybody with experience making the finals or from the AWS side lurking around HN that might be willing to give some tips?

</comment><comment><USER4> am I just dense or something? I spent several minutes reading the front page but can't for the life of me figure out what the contest is?

<comment><USER5> It's a competition to be the most photogenic AWS-using startup.

You get money; Amazon gets publicity ("look at these cool AWS-using startups!") and information ("huh, I had no idea so many people were doing X... maybe we need to offer X as a service").

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> For $25 in AWS credit for everyone that enters, I'll have to enter my start- up. All it does it write "Hello World!" on the screen.

:)</comment>


Show HN: My Weekend Project: DoodleRoulette - <AUTHOR> http://www.walkersoftwarellc.com/DoodleRoulette

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been working on building a doodling application in a browser in my spare time. After I got some basic drawing working, I started wondering what I could do with this. An easy collaborative drawing tool, kind of a cross between Balsamiq and GoToMeeting was my first idea. For that to work, I'd need to be able to update the drawings in a browser fairly quickly. To try to figure out some of the technical kinks, I decided to work on a smaller project over the weekend. So I wrote a little matchmaking backend to let people pair up and exchange doodles. The weekend stretched out a few extra days now, but here it is. Please let me know what you think.</comment>


Ask HN: How to minimize internet tracking - <AUTHOR> I don't feel comfortable any more using number of services that crawl into my digital life unasked, track my behavior, put me in a bubble and suggest various mumbo jumbo that I should do or demand my atention on random basis or based on some suspicious AI algorythm which is probably using 80% of the data I don't fit in.
I already switched from Google search engine to DuckDuckGo and deleted and disabled its Web History. Now I would like to generally minimize my exposure to such services, particularly for most private stuff such as mail or storage.
I am not unhappy about specific other online services such as Reddit, Github, StackOverflow, Trello, to name a few, which I don't find intrusive, and after all, I used them to get or share knowledge in what I percieve to be acceptable manner. I also find platforms such as SoundCloud convenient although I don't like its interface or the fact that you can't export your data (probably the only such service I use).
I wonder what others have found in this regard - tips about good services or some general advices are welcome. I am not counting the ultimate control of hosting your own everything, which is fine for few services but I would like to minimize the maintenance to some sane level (for example alternative to DDG would perhaps be YaCy, Gitlab over Github, Redmine over Jira, TTRSS over Feedly etc. but you get what I aim at). <comment><USER2> Enable DTN in your browser Get Ublock origin and PrivacyBadger Dont have too many extensions as it leads to an easy fingerprint ([https://panopticlick.eff.org/tracker](https://panopticlick.eff.org/tracker)) [https://protonmail.com](https://protonmail.com) \- email Use [https://www.guerrillamail.com/](https://www.guerrillamail.com/) for anything spammy DDG, startpage - search Gitlab vs Github Use a private browser session for social media (careful of those super cookies) Dont use facebook and avoid google when you can. Use an alternative non mainstream browser that has the tracking and privacy bits stripped from source. (SRWare Iron is a good example) And never forget that your ISP can monitor everything you do, regardless of what services you use. Setup your own VPS and host your own files. Use an ssh tunneled VPN/web proxy (self hosted) for anything you dont want linked directly back to your ip You mentioned you didn't want to selfhost, but that is one of the most private ways of handling these things. (Build your own tools/services)

What other things are you looking to replace?

<comment><AUTHOR> Protonmail is awesome, thanks. Never seen it, and I totally like auto expiration. In that manner its similar to Wickr or Signal.

I plan to switch to locally hosted nextcloud over Google Drive.

I am not interested ATM in full privacy - it doesn't sound practical at all, but I want to be aware of services that can provide temporary escape when I need it and of those very intrusive services such Google Search.

I want to struck ballance between too much of the privacy which leads to every day usuability problems and the situation where I get bubbled and spammed with irrelevant stuff.

> And never forget that your ISP can monitor everything you do, regardless of > what services you use.

No, it can't monitor SSL trafic.

> Dont have too many extensions as it leads to an easy fingerprint

I am sure only few of them will fingerprint me - for example only one of them - vimium - already reduces the surface quite a lot IMO.

> Use an alternative non mainstream browser

Chrome can be setup securelly and I can still use it for syncing data that I don't think should be hidden. Too much privacy is probably suspicious by itself on the other hand...

> Get Ublock origin and PrivacyBadger

Is there any problem using them both ? I already use Ublock.

<comment><USER2> Your isp can still see the websites you visit, and using other analysis you can track what you're doing on the site. The point of the comment was to just be aware that you cant hide. (especially from govs).

Chrome has lots of background services that ping home, just another thing to be aware of when you're trying to be anonymous. Using an alt browser can reduce the tracking, but yes obviously it creates a larger fingerprint, blending in plain sight is sometimes better than being too private.

One of the best things I recommend though would be Privacy Badger from the EFF, and ublock origin. Those will block google analytics and TONS of other tracks, and it seems pretty common so it leaves a tiny fingerprint imo.

Everything might take sometime to setup, but once you're in the flow and figure it all out, privacy can be seamless.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: BitcoinDial – Make Calls with Bitcoin - <AUTHOR> http://bitcoindial.com/

<comment><AUTHOR> Here is the official blog post about it [http://blog.coinkite.com/post/119362064671](http://blog.coinkite.com/post/119362064671)

</comment><comment><USER2> Made this for a hackathon. Running on GAE, Twilio for voice calls, Coinkite BitKit API for money handling.</comment>


Open Data at whitehouse.gov is empty - <AUTHOR> https://open.whitehouse.gov/browse?imm_mid=0eda06&cmp=em-data-na-na-newsltr_20170222 <comment><AUTHOR> (from oreilly newsletter...) Max Ogden apparently got there first, downloading 40 TB of open data in the last month.

[https://gist.github.com/maxogden/d1e3f14bb9253ef9638a40826b0...](https://gist.github.com/maxogden/d1e3f14bb9253ef9638a40826b000f08?imm_mid=0eda06&cmp=em- data-na-na-newsltr_20170222)

</comment><comment><USER2> Jan 26 was the last time the wayback machine saw data there: [https://web.archive.org/web/20170126072506/https://open.whit...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170126072506/https://open.whitehouse.gov/browse)

</comment><comment><USER3> Its not empty. Start at the TOP level. The data you are looking for is probably not there. But this should be expected. Why would Trump want to showcase what Obama did. He'll have data about his administration's accomplishments there. Obama's data was typically organized and presented to make his policies look like winners. Expect any other president to do the same. Also, give him a little time. Its been a month and he has to do his job plus overcome opposition for the sake of opposition.

</comment><comment><USER4> Maybe they took it all down so they can "sanitize" them.

Stranger things have happened.

<comment><USER5> > No stranger would it be, if you and I met at the hanging tree

On a more serious note: though this might be precisely what you've suggested, it plays into fears about this administration that were raised before they came into power. Research and data that disagreed with party lines would disappear.

<comment><USER3> The Affordable Care Act wording on Whitehouse.gov that said you can keep your plan, your doctor, etc. disappeared shortly after the bill was passed. Nothing new here.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Has been down for more than a week.

Link to previous submission: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13646712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13646712)</comment>


Show HN: A module that parses markdown into html || Node.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/talonbragg/markthat <comment><USER2> Hey man, have you heard of JsTranformer's [1] they're a standard way of parsing strings in and out of different formats. Markdown-it [2] seems to do this too.

[1] [https://www.npmjs.com/package/jstransformer](https://www.npmjs.com/package/jstransformer)

[2] [https://github.com/jstransformers/jstransformer-markdown- it](https://github.com/jstransformers/jstransformer-markdown-it)

<comment><USER3> That seems overkill... to ask any js lib author who transforms a string to another string to use this API. The async version doesn't even use promises, so can't be `await`ed... why should anyone choose to do this?

Edit: Kay it returns promises, but still, overkill.

<comment><USER2> Just curious, what makes this so overkill? I'm not a lib author but it seems pretty lightweight to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yeah idk it is two functions and only one of them has a promise.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Complete, stand alone Stanford machine learning course notes - <AUTHOR> http://holehouse.org/mlclass/

<comment><USER2> Here are my notes (on github). Nowhere near as polished as this version, and probably reveals more about my process of understanding than machine learning itself, but if we're sharing: [https://github.com/mechamoth/ml- class/blob/master/ML_Notes.o...](https://github.com/mechamoth/ml- class/blob/master/ML_Notes.org)

</comment><comment><USER3> Thanks for the great resource. I wish there was a way every student could share notes with everyone.

<comment><USER4> My friend and I have been thinking about this for a while.

Q.How would people share notes? A) Could be live sharing in class (etherpad for ex: <http://piratepad.net/sj8l1FIUIK> ), then contents of pad get transferred to a wiki and people are free to edit.

Q2.Why would people put in the effort to type-in their notes? A2) Therein lies the trouble...

If you can think of a business model, or an incentives structure that would make this a open collaborative project, do pm me. Note: It would be against my values to put ads all over site to monetize.

<comment><USER5> When I was in Germany, a group of students (who wanted to do it) were given the task to take notes in latex. Then every week they compiled the pdf and was put on the website of the faculty.

To write the latex file, they worked together (sharing the same file, same idea as google docs).

And at the end, they put the effort only because they thought it was nice to have all the notes in pdf, commitment with the class, and because it was a good idea to share it with the other students. I still have all my mathematic classes pdf's.

<comment><USER3> I believe this is commonly called "scribing". A lot of professors over the world follow the same for their courses.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Just something that caught my eye: In the introduction, you have written "clarification problem", which of course should be "classification problem".

<comment><AUTHOR> Cheers - updated!

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Thanks for this, especially for annotating the lectures. It's much easier to skim/review this way. I was rewatching the computer vision pipeline lectures over the weekend when it occurred to me that they might not be available when the new class starts.

</comment><comment><USER8> Thank you good sir, wish more people shared their quality notes like you!

</comment><comment><USER9> Wow! What a great resource, thanks!

</comment><comment><USER10> What math preliminaries are necessary to understand machine learning? I'm taking a basic linear algebra and probability course in the Spring...I'm wondering if that would be enough.

<comment><USER2> In this specific course, not much. I personally had no maths education beyond year 12, and only what I'd picked up along the way while reading around the subject. All the maths you'll need to know is explained thoroughly enough in the lectures. I think if you already know linear algebra, you'll have a head start - I didn't know it, and it took a bit of work to get up to speed.

There is a lot of discussion of derivatives and partial derivatives in the course, however it's entirely possible to complete the course and feel comfortable with the material without understanding derivatives. At least, it was for me =)

As for machine learning more generally, I'm certain a greater understanding of the maths behind what's going on would make you a better practitioner. I'm sure there are plenty of people currently making their living applying ML techniques without being maths experts, but I'm also sure the leaders in the ML field are maths experts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Why not a git repo on Github? So people can contribute.

<comment><AUTHOR> Mainly because the HTML Evernote pumps out is pretty disgusting - it works in terms of making the markup look like it did in Evernote, but it's not structured and does some pretty interesting things.

I'm hoping to work on cleaning it up over the next few weeks, at which point a repo might be a good idea. My only slight concern is that if every man and his dog contributes we may end up with a really thorough, in depth overview of the topics, which in one sense would be brilliant, but on the other hand would make it far more than just a simple reflection of the course.

However, that's hardly reason not to do it, and there can always be one copy in it's current, terse format, so when I get the HTML sorted I'll do that and see what happens....</comment></comment>


One-hit wonder list - <AUTHOR> http://www.onehitwondercentral.com/top100.cfm

<comment><USER2> It seems a disproportionate number of them were hits in years ending in 0. Coincedence?</comment>


We spent over $1M pitching a videogame we never made - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/grwnHJykybM <comment><USER2> Man I would really like to read the text version of this.</comment>


How are valuations determined? - <AUTHOR>

...especially when there is no previous outside investment?<p>when a company is being acquired more for its technology than its user-base? <comment><USER2> Lots of ways. If it's just technology, things like having (blocking) patents will prove value. Does the technology work, or is it in a prototype form? How much money would it take to turn it into a product (through either more development or integration). How big is the market the technology competes in? How established is the market? How much of it can this technology theoretically grab, and how long would it take to do so?

Can it (should it) be licensed? Does it make other technologies more, or less, valuable/usable/sticky?

Basically it will probably come down to figuring out if it's faster or easier to build or buy the technology you own. Blocking patents make your tech more valuable, as does a rapidly maturing market.

It's definitely not something like every line of code is worth $1. Or if you put $xM into development then it is worth some direct multiple, or fraction, of $xM

</comment><comment><USER3> i can think of a few websites that could realistically be acquired for $1M-20M in today's environment. it's a crazy time.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> to clarify: valuation for acquisition, not for funding</comment>


JetBrains Mono: A free and open-source typeface for developers - <AUTHOR> https://www.jetbrains.com/lp/mono/ <comment><USER3> I was disappointed that despite presenting the cookie banner as if it were a terminal, the options did not accept keyboard input

        [Y]es, I agree    [N]o, thanks

Ok on topic: I'm never sure what to think of these "developer" fonts that make use of ligatures for combinations like ==, >=, ->, =>, etc. On one hand they do look really nice, but I always can't help but feel it would actually make things just a little bit harder to scan and parse quickly.

I do find it a very pleasing font to read, however.

<comment><USER4> Same. Any font that claims to be for programming but includes ligatures gets a "no thanks" from me accompanied by a bit of sadness because they often mar otherwise nicely designed typefaces.

<comment><USER5> You really don't have to use the ligatures, do you?

<comment><USER6> I don't know about other programs, but iTerm has a checkbox option to enable/disable ligatures.

<comment><USER7> So does JetBrains IDE's and VS Code. I don't know of any program that forces you to use ligatures just because the typeface supports it.

<comment><USER8> Visual Studio (the full blown IDE)

<comment><USER9> Add to settings.json:

        "editor.fontLigatures": false

(Edit: sorry, just realised you were talking about the full blown Visual Studio, not VSCode)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I always applaud efforts at new typefaces, but unfortunately I feel this is a badly designed typeface that is _worse_ for legibility, not better. Addressing their three main points in turn:

> _1\. Increased height for a better reading experience_

A high x-height is good for coding fonts, but this x-height is now _too_ high. To my eye, this is now at the point where lowercase letters are getting _harder to distinguish_ from uppercase letters at a glance, so instead of increasing legibility it's actually decreasing it now. There's a good reason most other coding fonts haven't gone _this_ high.

> _2\. The shape of ovals approaches that of rectangular symbols._

Again, this is a problem because it makes letterforms _harder_ to distinguish. It's important that the right side of a "b" look very different from an "h"... but if you make the right side of the "b" very straight, they look more similar. The whole point of letterforms is to be easy to _differentiate_ from each other, not to make them more similar.

> _3\. JetBrains Mono's typeface forms are simple and free from unnecessary > details... The easier the forms, the faster the eye perceives them and the > less effort the brain needs to process them._

Again, this is just factually false, or else all books would be printed in sans-serif body text instead of serif. The main reason serif fonts are used is that all their extra "details" make reading _easier_ , not harder -- because the eye has more clues to differentiate letters. Now because of resolutions of screens, sans-serif is still sometimes a better choice on computer screens, but this makes distinctiveness of letterforms even _more_ important, not less.

For example, they choose a single-story instead of double-story lowercase "g", which is just harder for the eye to distinguish from a "q". Getting rid of the stem on a "u" also makes it less distinguishable, and harder to read. And so on.

I'm genuinely confused as to how the philosophy for this typeface was developed, when it seems to go directly against basic established principles of legibility.

<comment><USER11> Over the last 10-15 years or so, I've tried so many of these new fonts but always just end up back to DejaVu Sans Mono Bold. Now that my eyes are getting older, it works even better.

On a Mac, Menlo looks nearly identical.

<comment><USER12> I'm the same, except I stick with Consolas, rather than DejaVu.

But it almost feels like trying out new fonts is busywork...

<comment><USER13> Consolas is (for me) one of those rare fonts that I find better in every aspect than any of its competitors.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> We should take a lesson from the FAQ about license. It is the simplest yet most useful one I have seen!

\--

May I install JetBrains Mono on my system and use it in any code editor? -> YES.

May I make and print a poster with JetBrains Mono? -> YES.

May I use JetBrains Mono in my logotype? -> YES.

May I use JetBrains Mono on my website? -> YES.

May I use JetBrains Mono in my applications? -> YES.

May I design my own font based on JetBrains Mono? -> YES. In this case, you need to indicate that it is based on JetBrains Mono.

\---

Font licensing is not what we developers are used to, but they have done a fine job pointing this out in simple terms.

<comment><USER15> IANAL - I am pretty certain you can do most of those things with all fonts regardless of license. Copyrights on fonts is almost non-existent. The only thing copyrightable is the actual "code" used in the font. (maybe delivering their files on a website is an issue?)

This is based on research I did years ago when dealing with a copyright legal case where I worked. The summation is that you can't copyright the alphabet, so fonts aren't copyrightable.

The only one I completely disagree with is the last one though. Requiring attribution for something not copyrightable is kinda silly.

<comment><USER16> That's interesting. Because most fonts are protected by a copyright-based license, that they don't seem to have any trouble enforcing.

How extensive was your research?

<comment><USER17> The actual code of a font (ttf, otf, whatever) _is_ copyrightable. The _shape_ of a font isn't, and AFAIK it isn't protectable by any form of IP. This means that while you can't redistribute or embed the TTF you got from a type foundry except as specified by the license, you _are_ free to use it to create a near- perfect knock-off that doesn't share any code. This is where the fonts on all of those "Free Fonts" websites come from.

<comment><USER16> Thanks, that's useful information

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Thanks, I hate it. My most recent update of IntelliJ turned this font on by default and I had to spend an hour trying to figure out what the font used to be.

Mono looked squished to me - the intentional favoring of length over width made the whole editor look like I had an aspect ratio problem on my monitor. I appreciate trying to push the envelope and improve ergonomics, but I wish this would have been opt-in for upgraders.

<comment><USER19> Interesting. It didn't do that for me. But, I had already specifically set my font. So, maybe it changed the previous default to this new font.

<comment><USER18> Easy to believe this is true - I hadn't set a preference before, the old default was fine.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> This is a great-looking font, very well put together and a lot of thought put in to make it great for code.

That being said, fonts are very personal.

I compared it to PT Mono (Public Type, another open-source font) and have these observations:

\- Ligatures in JB are beautiful. I'm still undecided whether I like them in my code but the aesthetic value is pleasing.

\- Weight of JB Regular is heavier than PT.

\- Italics are well designed.

\- Character spacing is too wide. Words (eg. for identifiers) loose some of their shape and look more like a stream of disjoint characters. Subtle but going back and forth between the 2 fonts, this is the first thing that jumped out. That being said, this would probably benefit code that's rich in symbol characters.

All in all, I'm glad this font exists, it is beautiful. But for my own use, I will stick with my trusty PT Mono.

<comment><USER21> > Words (eg. for identifiers) loose some of their shape

yeah this is what I noticed as well from samples and testing out on my code, same reason I'm not keen on Fira but prefer Consolas, letters are less regular and words have a different rhythm at a glance.

<comment><USER22> I have the same experience with Fira Mono and Consolas. Interestingly, I quite enjoy Fira Sans, setting it as my phone's main font and Chrome's sans-serif font (had to change HN's CSS to change its comment font).

The "sleekness" of Fira Sans feels pleasant but for monospace font, I prefer the "fullness" of Consolas. Maybe it's because I read code slower than I read Internet text.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It looks like this has the largest x-height of any typeface meant for developers (larger than even Fira Code).

While there is research suggesting a large x-height increases readability, I'm wondering whether this doesn't push the x-height just a little too far. CamelCase words no longer stand out visually very easily -- I'm not sure how I feel about that.

<comment><USER24> Interesting point. Currently trying it out, and the x-height thing matters, similar to another feedback in this thread that says words become disjointed glyphs instead of a "shape". I'll keep this for the moment. Looks much cleaner than Fira Code, but will have to see on the readability side.

Another point: not only they have increased the x-height, they also reduced the descender-height (for j,q,p,y) by a lot. I have trouble with function definitions such as post/put/patch or even keywords as response/reject.

<comment><USER24> If any of you are keeping score or reading through this now, I currently use Input as my main font [0]. Non-monospace is certainly unorthodox, but they do have monospace fonts anyway (and I have to use it with the vscode internal terminal). Input plays much better with lower dpi (90-112) screens with small font sizes (12px font size with -1 zoom on vscode). It looks good too on my Retina screen.

[0]: [https://input.fontbureau.com/info/](https://input.fontbureau.com/info/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Airbus developed a font to be used in their avionics displays called B612. I don't find the results particularly pleasing, but the intended use (cockpit instrumentation) is not part of my day-to-day life.

[https://b612-font.com/](https://b612-font.com/)

</comment><comment><USER26> I spent more time than I'd like to admit reviewing fonts for legibility and aesthetics. So if you're looking for a new favorite font, hope this helps:

1\. IBM Plex Mono

2\. Office Code Pro

3\. Fira Code

4\. Inconsolata

5\. PT Mono

6\. SF Mono

7\. Input Mono

8\. Hack

9\. DejaVu Sans Mono - <USER2>

10\. Anonymous Pro

<comment><USER14> It certainly does. Thank you.

</comment></comment><comment> ar-nelson I like it, this might finally be the font that gets me to drop Fira Code. It's missing Powerline symbols, though, which is a strange omission for a developer font in 2020.

<comment><USER27> You could grab a patched copy here: [https://www.nerdfonts.com/](https://www.nerdfonts.com/)

Aside, I wish some ligature magic for box drawing characters existed. Or at least don't skip those glyphs, which is unfortunately the case with many monospace fonts.

<comment> ar-nelson NerdFonts doesn't have it yet, but I managed to patch it myself using their tool[1]. Seems to have worked without any issues.

[1]: [https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts#option-8-patch- your-...](https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd-fonts#option-8-patch-your-own- font)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Great to see that they've attributed Nikita Prokopov, the creator of FiraCode. While not the first, he expanded the ligatures in Hack, and Hasklig fonts and Jetbrains eventually bundled Firacode in their products.

Quite a nice course of open source development over the years (I have been following the updates since ~2016).

<comment><USER28> You know that @tonsky works for them now, right?

<comment><USER27> Nope, didn't. Ah well, good for him regardless.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is there a reason why the stroke narrows where a curve joins a line (the loops of the p and g, the top of the n and the bottom of the a, etc)? The Consolas font uses a consistent stroke weight; the Fira and Source Code Pro thin the line a bit but much less. It's so narrow I feel like it might render strangely at sufficiently low resolutions; it risks breaking the connection.

Presumably there's a readability reason, but I have no idea. I don't have an opinion one way or the other; I'm just curious.

<comment><USER30> It makes the oval more pronounced at small sizes like 12px.

<comment><USER29> Makes sense. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Nice try, JetBrains, but it will take more than that to tear me away from the Atari ST 8x16 system font.

</comment><comment><USER25> I love the spacing-related ligatures. Having said that, I have mostly the same complains @crazygringo has. I'll continue to use my old 3270 font. It's clean and easy to read and, best of all, reminds me of a more civilized age.

</comment><comment><USER32> Nice font. I think it's a bit sad that the only difference between zero and the letter O is the center dot: usually other fonts make the O slightly more round. This one is squarish.

The site design is nice but I found it a bit odd that they didn't include many of the similar character like O, 0, 1, l, I. That is one of the first things I look for and one of the primary reasons I would choose a new font.

<comment><USER33> They do include both sets (0, o and 1, l, I). That said I absolutely agree that this is far from the best approach to 0 and o.

<comment><USER32> Sorry I worded my comment poorly. I meant that the code examples at the top don't seem to prioritize showing those distinctions. If you scroll down they have a separate section but I think it would be nice to showcase all the features on the first samples so that you can see right away how it looks.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Not sure if this is good. They have increased the character height for readability, although I think this will cause more confusion and decrease readability. Adobe's Source code pro has worked for me very well.

</comment><comment><USER35> Can I have _only_ the ligatures that balance whitespace and skip the symbol merging?

<comment><USER30> Sorry, right now it's not implemented. You can create a feature request in [https://youtrack.jetbrains.com](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com) or on [https://github.com/JetBrains/JetBrainsMono](https://github.com/JetBrains/JetBrainsMono)

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It is an odd decision not to include Ukrainian in the list of supported languages, despite the fact that the font has all the necessary letters.

<comment><USER37> Ukrainian and a couple of other languages were missed on the list. It's a known issue we're updating on the site right now. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Set as default code on VSCode for an hour and try to code in JetBrains Mono. I kind of found it to hard to read. Reverted back to "Monaco". Really hard to beat Monaco (I'm probably biased, my eyes and brains are very used to it).

</comment><comment><USER39> I'll stick with DejaVu Sans Mono, thanks.

<comment><USER40> "143 languages", says the homepage. That's an attempt to take us for a ride. JB Mono does not actually cover very much, see table below. We should stick with DejaVu Sans Mono so that multilingual text does not look like glyph salad.

\----

fontforge → Element → Font properties… → Unicode Ranges

Non-Unicode Glyphs 159/0

Unassigned Code Points U+0000-U+11FFFF 2/0

Basic Multilingual Plane U+0000-U+FFFF 481/61780

C0 Control Characters U+0000-U+001F 2/0

Basic Latin U+0020-U+007E 95/95

Latin-1 Supplement U+00A0-U+00FF 94/96

Latin Extended-A U+0100-U+017F 128/128

Latin Extended-B U+0180-U+024F 6/208

Spacing Modifier Letters U+02B0-U+02FF 9/80

Greek and Coptic U+0370-U+03FF 2/135

Cyrillic U+0400-U+04FF 94/256

Latin Extended Additional U+1E00-U+1EFF 6/256

General Punctuation U+2000-U+206F 16/111

Superscripts and Subscripts U+2070-U+209F 7/42

Currency Symbols U+20A0-U+20CF 1/32

Letterlike Symbols U+2100-U+214F 5/80

Mathematical Operators U+2200-U+22FF 14/256

Geometric Shapes U+25A0-U+25FF 1/96

Alphabetic Presentation Forms U+FB00-U+FB4F 2/58

Latin Ligatures U+FB00-U+FB06 2/7

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I'm quite surprised no serious "programming font" to this days didn't come with something improving camelCase readability: making ligature for each lowerUPPER combination with slightly wider center gap and narrower first character (so that sum was still in monospace grid) would FMPoW tremendously boost readability and would be remedy for camelCase haters.

I've searched for it lately and the only what resembled this was interesting POC of "mixed" (semi-proportional monospaced) font [1], but with simple kerning pairs, not ligatures, but with extra trickery for "uppercase prefixes" (`_UUUl... `→`_UU·Ul...`). I wonder if in-word camelcase boundaries would be doable as well, so that `decodeURIComponent` would be rendered as `decode·URI·Component`.

[1] [https://twitter.com/Tricertops/status/951551714078941185](https://twitter.com/Tricertops/status/951551714078941185)

<comment><USER42> > I wonder if in-word camelcase boundaries would be doable as well

Theoretically yes. But in practice most possibly no. OpenType tables just feature fixed length strings matching. It can't match to more powerful regular expressions. You would need an infinite number of OT rules. [0] If you'd have a well defined set, maybe it could work, but it would still be overwhelming fast.

[0] [http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/gposgsub.html](http://pfaedit.sourceforge.net/gposgsub.html)

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> A few weeks ago I was looking for some good font for my terminal and figured out my intellij looks good so why dont i use the font I use in java intellij in terminal so - installed intellij mono on terminal and found it to be great, interesting to see they now opensource it and the coincidence ! :) I really like it both for coding and for terminal.

</comment><comment><USER44> Ok I tried out the font. It's actually more difficult to read than Fira Code. YMMV.

To me, everything is too thick and crammed together compared to Fira. It just feels like the font wasn't designed with enough letter spacing. I think you can manually control this in IntelliJ products, but the default spacing seems too crammed.

</comment><comment><USER45> To install in VS Code, one edits Settings - Commonly Used - Editor: Font Family.

It would appear that one needs the Font Family name, which one can guess. To be sure in all cases, I made a MacOS alias:

      alias fonts="system_profiler SPFontsDataType | grep 'Family:' | perl -pe 's|^.*Family: ||' | sort -u"

However, how does one select weights, such as defaulting to

      JetBrains Mono Medium

It turns out that one can enter a raw font file name in place of the family, such as

      JetBrainsMono-Medium

However, any formatting that selects a different style, such as italics, will default to the family. So for example, italic comments are rendered for me in regular not medium weight. I'm fine with this, but it's a quirk that can only be fixed by spelunking into the individual syntax highlighting files.

</comment><comment><USER46> This opinion seems to buck the trend here but I really like this a lot. I've just now dropped it in as a replacement font to what I was using before for sharing code snippets on my personal blog (was just using monospace before) and for me it's a huge improvement in both readability and just overall looks. The only thing I've noticed is that parentheses look a little weird with this font. They are a little too squared off, particularly noticeable in cases where they are used immediately together like this ().

</comment><comment><USER47> Uppercase 'G' looks very odd to me. Lowercase 'u' looks liek a 'v' at a quick glance. The height of the crossbar in the uppercase 'A' is too high. The numeric characters look big and out of place.

Disclaimer: my _current_ font of choice is Camingo Code - [https://www.janfromm.de/typefaces/camingomono/camingocode/](https://www.janfromm.de/typefaces/camingomono/camingocode/)

</comment><comment><USER48> Serious question: Is it possible to turn ligatures on, but deactivate them for only some of the combinations?

Specifically, I want to see =, ==, and === 'as written', meaning 1, 2, or 3 separate characters. Pretty much the rest of them (like <=, or even !=) seem like they're either nice immediately or else I could get used to them.

I'd love to know if this is possible at all, possible for some editors / fonts / OS's, etc, or just a non-starter of an idea.

<comment><USER14> I don't think it's possible from IDE configuration: there is only a single toggle for ligatures. The font is open source - may be you can build you own without the ligatures you don't need?

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Regarding fonts, there is no single monospace font that fits the bill everywhere. A font may render beautifully or look completely unacceptable depending on a variety of factors. I personally prefer the following fonts:

* Linux, normal dpi: Hasklig in editors (Emacs, Atom), Iosevka in terminal

* Linux, hidpi: Input in editors and terminal

* Windows, hidpi: Input in console, Fira Code in Atom

I tried the JetBrains Mono font and it doesn't look like it's an improvement in any of my environments.

</comment><comment><USER50> I prefer to use size 10 on my coding font. Just tried it in Visual Studio and it looks really bad with uneven lines, mostly on upper case letters.

</comment><comment><USER51> nice font and oss, however I still prefer Iosevka SS04

<comment><USER52> Agreed. After Iosevka, other fonts have felt ... unwieldy.

Link for reference: [https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka](https://github.com/be5invis/Iosevka)

Re: "SS04" d1egoaz is referencing Stylistic Set 04, illustrated here: [https://raw.githubusercontent.com/be5invis/Iosevka/master/im...](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/be5invis/Iosevka/master/images/stylesets.png)

In addition to the original version of the font above, there is a patched version with powerline icons (and much more) built in: [https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd- fonts/tree/master/patched-...](https://github.com/ryanoasis/nerd- fonts/tree/master/patched-fonts/Iosevka) which is very handy for emacs/vim modelines.

<comment><USER53> For me, it's the fact that I can create a custom build of Iosevka with preferred weights that look good in the different font rendering systems: Native macOS, Electron (VS Code), Java (IntelliJ).

All need different weights to end up looking about the same on the same system.

And then being able to turn on/off ligatures, tweak some glyphs.

It's hard to give that up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Need to check it out, I think my only concern that may be missing or il-formed would be box and line drawing characters... So many fixed-width fonts get this wrong... Inconsolata, for example has taken a number of revisions to support these characters properly.

I will say, I do like a few of the changes, but not sure if I'll be switching from Inconsolata/Consolas any time soon.

<comment><USER55> Thanks! I recently rewrote the box drawing character generation (in Rust) to support variable fonts, so outputs a very wide range of widths and weights.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> The slide comparison with Consolas might not be a good idea, Consolas looks _much_ easier on the eye, and it happens to be my all-time favorite monospace font.

Some ligatures are also really weird and look like a case of "we could do it so we did it". ===, ~@, #_(, etc. are highly unreadable and unnecesary. Spacing ligatures are great though.

</comment><comment><USER57> I've installed it and will try it out for a while. My immediate reaction is that it looks nice. Very nice in VS Code, but oddly it has some funky issues in Visual Studio 2019 (particularly with lowercase 'a') at 100% zoom and font size 11 on my monitor. Not sure if it's an aliasing or TrueType issue.

<comment><USER30> Sounds interesting. Can you send me the screenshot?

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> on the comparison with Consolas section, it says consolas is wider than JBMono, and JBMono is taller. However, the lines of code in the example run longer in the JBMono version than Consolas. Why is that? is the comparison flawed?

</comment><comment><USER59> For some reason, it isn't registered as a mono-spaced font on Windows 10 when I installed it. Thus some editors as well as CMD and powershell can't even open the font. However, I can use this font from MS Word.

</comment><comment><USER60> Courier 10 Pitch - that's the best font for me. I activated this one and it seems like letters are not "aligned" correctly. I'm sure it's just a feeling but I can;t move away from Courier it seems

</comment><comment><USER61> I applied a patch for powerline! If you want this, use it! [https://github.com/ryoppippi/JetBrainsMono](https://github.com/ryoppippi/JetBrainsMono)

</comment><comment><USER62> This looks really nice. I usually use SF Mono with Fira Code's ligatures, but I'm going to try this today and see how it does.

Great job on the simple license, too. I wish more fonts had a license like this.

</comment><comment><USER63> Can I control which weight is used in JetBrains IDEs for "bold" text? It looks to be using the bold font weight, when I'd prefer to use medium.

<comment><USER64> For multi-weight font they shows up as different font in the list. Fire Code light, Fire Code medium, ...

<comment><USER63> They do in Settings > Editor > Font, but AFAICT I can't control more than the main editor font.

For example: Settings > Editor > Code Style > Style Sheets > CSS <\-- no way to control the font weight used for bold-rendered property values

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> In their 'comparison' with Consolas, they say Consolas is wider but the image clearly shows that Consolas is narrower than their font at 13pt...

</comment><comment><USER66> Hmmm I got bad eyes that makes me hate consolas, looks like a good contender to operator mono, will give this one a shot.

</comment><comment><USER67> I don't know if it is my habit or what, but the font is wider and bolder than what I had before - Victor Mono.

</comment><comment><USER68> I kinda like it! Definitely gonna try it out for a few days and see how we go. Thanks for putting this out there.

</comment><comment><USER69> As a Fira Code user, I like the look of JetBrains Mono - but I'll wait for a "light" weight.

</comment><comment><USER70> Sorry, JetBrains, but I can't stand ligatures in coding fonts.

</comment><comment><USER71> Why do developers get all giddy about a new type face for their editor. Is there something lacking in the millions that already exist? Does it make you produce less bugs, better code? I don't get it

</comment><comment><USER72> That's cool! Gotta try it. Thanks for sharing :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Looks like their site is having some issues

</comment><comment><USER74> supports 143 languages but not turkish, because adding the letter "ı" must be super hard.

</comment><comment><USER75> I still prefer mplus 2m

</comment><comment><USER76> I've never understood the obsession and bikeshedding over fonts. I can appreciate that there are people who spend a huge amount of time agonizing over the details and tradeoffs making these things, but... Arial, Times New Roman and Consolas are more than good enough for my purposes.

<comment><USER77> This could be an indication that you are not the target audience.</comment></comment>


An interactive map of vanishing employment across the US - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/id/2216238/

<comment><USER2> A word of warning for all those who would read this. Employment is understood to be a lagging indicator in economic circles, and this principle is well reflected in the graph data. We now know that the recession started in Q4 07, but you do not see red in the data until '08.

Hence, it is perhaps better to read "X jobs created/lost nationwide since YYYY" as "We were creating/losing jobs at a rate of X per year in YYYY".

Why? The data represents the number of jobs lost or gained At That Point Since The Year before. I know it _says_ it on the graph, but I find that this is easily overlooked.</comment>


Firefox Gets Better Video Gaming and Warns of Non-Secure Websites - <AUTHOR> https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2017/01/24/gets-better-video-gaming-non-secure-web-warning/ <comment><USER2> The WebGL demo "After the Flood" linked in the post is really beautiful. I don't play games but this technology is very impressive. Try it for yourself if you're on an updated Firefox (51+):

[https://playcanv.as/e/p/44MRmJRU/](https://playcanv.as/e/p/44MRmJRU/)

<comment><USER3> This keeps crashing Firefox for me when I try it on a Mac

<comment><USER4> Can you share a link to a Firefox crash report from your about:crashes page? Does the site crash when loading or after you start playing the demo?

You might be seeing the following GeForceGLDriver crash:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1333534](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1333534)

<comment><USER5> Mine crashes after all the assets have been loaded. Having trouble getting the report, sorry!

<comment><USER6> Type about:crashes into the location bar and hit enter to find your crashes.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Are there any worthwhile games that use Web gl? It seems to me we had better Web games when flash and new grounds were cool.

<comment><USER8> Those flash games were great. They would definitely go viral even back then, through AIM/MSN chats.

And it seems like more than a few people made good money porting them to iOS/Android.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> So for fun I decided to break out an old program I was working on to see if they fixed some of the major issues that plagued performance in FireFox.

Nope. 2D application and still can't get over 20FPS in Firefox (meanwhile, Chrome and Edge get a solid 60 FPS, in spite of their own quirks.)

Looks like they skipped fixing their WebGL 1 issues.

<comment><USER10> Have a public URL? Would love to add it to a test suite to help find pathological performance cases.

<comment><USER9> You can load any game written in BYOND in FireFox and have the performance issues show almost immediately.

But it's especially egregious in mine and I don't know why, as I've done almost nothing besides add a few basic extensions to the base engine to create a somewhat-usable 2D Second Life-esque platform (with far more expansion capability) and FF just dogs on it. Space Station 13 REALLY makes the problems stand out.

<comment><USER11> A URL to something that shows the problem really would be useful here. I can profile and all that, but it would be good to be profiling something that actually shows the problem.

<comment><USER9> Tell ya what, give me a few hours to unwind from my gig this morning and I'll see if I can't get my old server actually up and online and port-forwarded. If I can (this assumes I actually have spare ports on the router) I'll send you the link, as I see that No-IP just sent me a renewal notice for the game's domain name anyways.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Only wish invert y-axis was in settings... I may be old school but can't do first person views when moving up makes you look up. Gotta invert the axis for me to be able to play around without messing me up.

</comment><comment><USER12> I tried opening the link "if you have 51 installed link" on my Samsung C13 chrome book and it crashed it in a strange way. Yes I am aware it's running chrome, but was curious what would happen.

I have it running in developer mode in the beta channel. I'm going to try it again to see if it crashes it again.

<comment><USER12> Tried it again after rebooting and it ran fine (choppy in high def mode- not surprising given the hardware specs of this computer).

I must of had to much stuff open before or something. In otherwords- unable to reproduce strange crash.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Dear God, please kill me now; I can't take any more of this bullshit. How about actually improving the software instead of piling more marketing bling on top?

<comment><USER6> What they really need are multiple developers working on multiple teams working on multiple projects.

<comment><USER14> Hum, you could argue that what they actually need is a sane road map for the project that allocates the devs they have in what the Firefox browser is actually lacking: better performance, memory management and bug fixing.</comment></comment></comment>


Detailed report shows how U.S. Internet access monopolies punish rivals - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/backchannel/jammed-e474fc4925e4

<comment><AUTHOR> John Oliver calls it "cable company f*ckery" and we've all suspected it happens. Now on Steven Levy's new Backchannel publication on Medium, Susan Crawford delivers decisive proof, expertly dissecting the Comcast-Netflix network congestion controversy. Her source material is a detailed traffic measurement report released this week by Google-backed M-Lab — the first of its kind — showing severe degradation of service at interconnection points between Comcast, Verizon and other monopoly "eyeball networks" and "transit networks" such as Cogent, which was contracted by Netflix to deliver its bits. The report shows that interconnection points give monopoly ISPs all the leverage they need to discriminate against companies like Netflix, which compete with them in video services, simply by refusing to relieve network congestion caused by external traffic requested by their very own ISP customers. And the effects victimize not only companies targeted but ALL incoming traffic from the affected transit network. The report proves the problem is not technical, but rather a result of business decisions. This is not technically a Net neutrality problem, but it creates the very same headaches for consumers, and unfair business advantages for ISPs. In an accompanying article, Crawford makes a compelling case for FCC intervention.

<comment><USER2> The question people should be asking, how come in Eastern European countries internet access is so cheap and fast, yet barely regulated? It's so easy to argue for more regulation when things go wrong: trying to control businesses always sounds like a more noble idea than settings them free. And yet, in every possible example we see that where there's more freedom of enterprise, the customer always wins. And this is especially obvious with ISPs.

<comment><USER3> And the answer is simple: The local ISPs in the US are granted a monopoly by the local government, given special privileges, and given free money. These 3 issues make it hard for new competitors to enter the market.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Shame we have the data from nearly a hundred million witnesses, and yet the feds still won't put together a racketeering case and go after these mobsters.

<comment><USER5> and just how do you plan to make them accountable to you?

Until you can answer that question, you won't get a seat at the table. Sorry.

<comment><USER6> An idealist would say November 4.

<comment><USER7> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Scylla_and_Charybdis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Scylla_and_Charybdis)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Was it Enron company? that was in business with electric power and would shutdown power factories from time to time just to make shortage of power and rise the price of electricity? How bad did it end?

</comment><comment><USER9> I truly appreciate that this is being publicized complete with evidence, but has the author also written a letter to the FCC and other relevant bodies to complain about this behaviour and offer their supporting evidence?

I'm concerned that people will feel placated by writing a blog post, when I think we need to be communicating more directly with the FCC.

<comment><USER10> Did you read whole article? This wasn't the author but to answer your question, yes, people have contacted the FCC.

""You know, I contacted the FCC. I contacted the [state] utilities commission, just for help because you couldn't make any ground with Verizon, Cogent, or anyone,"..."

<comment><USER11> Can anyone with knowledge of Citrix speak to this:

> Because Boegly uses a Citrix application for payroll data, and "Citrix > doesn't like packet loss," according to Boegly, the process was failing. ... > > "Any time you have packet loss over a Citrix connection, it's going to > dump you," says Boegly. "And that's exactly what's happening in the middle > of the process. It has to then be started all over again and then begin the > transfer process to get it to connect."

If accurate, it sounds less than optimal.

<comment><USER12> Pretty sure this is straight-up TCP behavior, possibly combined with trying to send large files inside the TCP connection via the Citrix protocol. If you consistently lose some percentage of packets for a while, the TCP connection can drop. The file transfer doesn't have auto-resume built in because it operates at a very low level.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> I'm guessing that the networks with speakeasy.net/speedtest/ and speedtest.net were not slowed or special solutions were put in place to assure fast connection... because TWC's favorite answer is to point me to these.

<comment><USER14> In the UK, it's common knowledge that ISPs "special case" speed-testing websites as soon as they learn of their existence.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I really appreciate the clarity with which this article described the issue. I had read an article by someone from Netflix few months (I think) ago about this and did not get the clear understanding this article provided.

</comment><comment><USER16> youtube is being made completely useless...

</comment><comment><USER17> I thought this was going to be about Facebook, Google, Microsoft.

<comment><USER18> They aren't internet access monopolies.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I don't think it's a mystery to any regulator what's going on. I think it's hard to argue against the notion that _this is good for the economy_. If the Monopolistic ISPs can extract more wealth out of the content-to-consumer pipeline, doesn't the GDP go up? Everybody wins?

<comment><USER20> > If the Monopolistic ISPs can extract more wealth out of the content-to- > consumer pipeline, doesn't the GDP go up?

Perhaps you are being sarcasic, but I cannot tell. This is a version of the broken window fallacy[0]. The money spent on the ISPs is now unavailable for netflix (as an example) to spend hiring new people, buying rights to new movies, etc. So it is not a given that this increases the GDP, or that it would do so in a healthy or beneficial way.

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

<comment><USER19> Yes. (: Definitely being sarcastic, just playing some mild Devil's Advocate. It's how I spend karma. I think you're almost right. It's almost exactly the broken window parable. The only difference I have is that it's not [just] Netflix's money being wasted on broken glass, it's the ISP customers.

Netflix has to pay because they're too lazy to run their own ISP. In a way. Get your own 'last mile' customers, or pay the man. But _why_ are there _no other ISPs_ Netflix can choose from? Certainly a competitor could charge less, or nothing. But the customers all seem to want throttled access! They certainly pay the monthly fees. But _why_ would a rational customer do that?

When would a rational customer pay for cracked windows? Why would Netflix, the stained glass entertainer, deliver their product on cracked glass? When there's only one glassmaker in town, I'd guess.

<comment><USER21> > Netflix has to pay because they're too lazy to run their own ISP. In a way. > Get your own 'last mile' customers, or pay the man. But why are there no > other ISPs Netflix can choose from? Certainly a competitor could charge > less, or nothing. But the customers all seem to want throttled access! They > certainly pay the monthly fees. But why would a rational customer do that?

Because the end customers do not have a choice. In most areas of the US, the large ISPs have a government granted monopoly.

Take the house where I live as an example. I can choose Comcast or no internet. Great choice, right? In the region where I live, there are exactly 2 high-speed internet providers. So that lets the ISPs claim that there is competition. In reality, there's only a handful of houses in this region that can choose between the 2 options. Most houses are stuck with one choice or no connection.

At my work, the choices are even more limited. We pay crazy amounts for a T1 line at 1.5Mbs because that's the only option! Neither of the two high-speed options will provide access to our building. (They call regularly, "would you like our high-speed business package", "YES!", "oh, sorry, we can't connect to that address", "Then stop calling.")

Why have no new companies entered the market to provide better service? There's an enormous capital outlay to get started. Even worse, the local government regulations about running new cable or fiber make it cost- prohibitive or downright impossible.

Google is laying out new fiber networks right now. They have adequate capital, and they have the clout so that local governments are willing to change laws to get google fiber. The average startup does not have that kind of sway.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: If countries were public companies, in which ones would you invest? - <AUTHOR> Try to the think looking at the long term and consider that this hypothetical market operates just like a regular capital market. Ex.: USA' stocks would probably have great demand and as a consequence they would be pricy. <comment><USER2> This is essentially what forex & treasuries are. That is, this is a very common problem already _solved_ by the markets.

<comment><AUTHOR> Similar, but not the same thing. Treasuries and forex are more like debt/credit markets. I am thinking more like the way stock market operate. The risks are higher and the sky is the limit. Imagine buying stocks from the "company" Angola now.

Some people say that in 20 years they will have a very interesting economy, similar to what Brazil is today. This is the kind of answer I would like to see.

<comment><USER3> FYI you can buy stocks in "tracker funds" for lots and lots of countries in the world, which in return invest in a weighted basket of the largest companies in that country.

Investing in an S&P500 tracking ETF is about as close as you can get to "investing in the USA"...

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool. Didn't know about that. In which ones would you invest in now?

<comment><USER4> VT[0].

<troll>A fund with ALL of the countries, because stock-picking is dumb.</troll>

0 - [https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3141&...](https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/snapshot?FundId=3141&FundIntExt=INT)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Everything depends on how are countries priced right now. I believe Estonia, if it is not too expensive. Honduras, for sure, if it is as cheap as I imagine.

</comment><comment><USER6> 1\. Buy USA short term (till summer 2016, market poised to up)

OR

2\. Buy Gold (long term)

OR

3\. Buy Bitcoins (long term)

OR (if force to trade in countries longer term)

4\. Buy 2017 LEAP Puts on China and Greece.

<comment><AUTHOR> Why Greece?

<comment><USER7> From your comment it's not clear why you're surprised. Do you expect Greece to go up or down? But just to clarify terminology, for those who may not be familiar, buying a put option is a bet that the value will decrease.

<comment><AUTHOR> Your explanation was perfect. Before this, I had a wrong understanding about what was a put option. It totally makes sense. Thank you!</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: 6 weekends project: Outsource household chores/tasks to your community - <AUTHOR> http://www.peggsit.com

<comment><AUTHOR> This is a side-project that I've been working on for the past couple months. It let's you outsource small jobs like building IKEA furniture, washing your car, grocery shopping to people within your own community or neighborhood.

It's been a labor of love, and I'd appreciate any feedback you have.

<comment><USER2> I would like to see an example of a successful use case. I can't seem to find any gigs.

<comment><AUTHOR> We just launched so you're one of the first people to see it, hence no gigs yet. Hopefully my next post will be something like "How we got 10,000 users in a few weeks" after we do some marketing!</comment></comment></comment>


How old is your work laptop? - <AUTHOR> I just heard from a software startup, that has been in business for a while, that their ~30 team members are running macs made before mid-2015...<p>Does a faster computer truly equate to an increase in productivity? How old is your work laptop? <comment><USER2> The surprise and mild indignation that you seem to be expressing makes no sense to me. Unless you're doing heavy computational work on your personal workstation, any reasonably modern laptop (past 5-7 years or so) is going to be powerful enough.

I use a 6 year old Thinkpad and a 4 year old Macbook. If I need to compile something big, I ssh into a build server.

The mid-2015 and earlier Macbooks are better anyways.

</comment><comment><USER3> Personally mine is only a year old, but I don't think it matters that much.

Like everything it depends on what you are doing. If you are doing frontend work that requires you to have 3 browsers open at a time + an Electron-based editor + a dev server you are going to need a lot more than someone who is writing low-level C code in Vim.

As an aside: newer =/= better.

</comment><comment><USER4> 2015 MBP. Function keys, good set of ports, I'm happy. 16GB RAM will hold me for a couple more years. My slowest tasks are I/O bound anyway.

</comment><comment><USER5> Technically, I'm working on a hand-me-down machine manufactured in 2011. But it's got an SSD in it now, which is 95% of why new computers are faster, was extremely high end when it first came out, and it is powerful enough for what I do (I don't compile code), that I have never said "gee, I wish I had a newer computer".

</comment><comment> here-for-karma If we're talking Windows vs OSX, I would definitely say I'm more productive when programming on a Macbook.

If we're talking a two-year-old Macbook vs the latest Macbook, I don't think there's much of a noticeable difference in productivity

</comment><comment><USER6> I got a Dell XPS 13, one of the fastest models, in 2013. It doesn't feel slow.

Recently I got a brand new XPS 15 with the most RAM and fastest CPU. The storage was M.2. It felt sluggish and I returned it.

Laptops are weird and hard to shop for.

</comment><comment><USER7> W450 must be 5 years now.

It is fast, but a tank. Has that Optimus combined Intel, nVidia graphics system, pain in the ass edition. Otherwise, awesome machine.

</comment><comment><USER8> Currently running an i7 15" MacBook Pro - from 2014 and have no issues with it.</comment>


Ask HN: I can't think straight, my life is in limbo, and I want to end it now - <AUTHOR> I have absolutely no idea why I am still posting this right now.
Maybe I am just less resilient than most people. Maybe I am sick mentally. Maybe I just don't belong.
For the past 20 years, my life has been a joke. I live in B.C, Canada. A few years ago, I traveled 21 hours by plane to see what my father looked like. He didn't want me, didn't even call me his son. My 9 cousins and 3 aunts/uncles don't know I exist. My grandmother died without knowing I existed. My mother and I have moved 30 times, and I've been doing my best to help provide for our lives.
I made the first big mistake of my life and gave up a full scholarship to law school because I wouldn't be able to provide for my mother. I dropped out of college after 1 year so she (being at such an old age) could have a decent standard of living, and see her happy for once in her life.
Then the second big mistake. I took a massive mortgage and dumped all my savings into this apartment, simply because I knew it was my mother's lifelong dream to have a place of her own and move no longer.
29 days ago, I made a third big mistake. I quit my full-time web development job, because the PM (who had authority because of the messed up hierarchy of the company) decided I was not 100% committed to the job because I was not pulling 80 hours a week (like nobody else in the company) and did not bother to update my LinkedIn profile while I was there. It was impossible to reason/discuss these things with him, and so I quit. I quit with a massive mortgage and a mother to feed despite knowing full well it would be a bad idea. I quit a job without having another one lined up. I quit because my ego couldn't take being taken advantage of.
<--Post too long, whole post here: http://pastebin.com/LyabB2gB--> <comment><USER3> You need to talk to someone. I don't mean you need to talk to a psychologist, you simply need to talk to someone now. There are many here on this site who have felt despair like you.

Go here: [http://www.suicideprevention.ca/in-crisis-now/find-a- crisis-...](http://www.suicideprevention.ca/in-crisis-now/find-a-crisis- centre-now/crisis-centres/crisis-british-columbia/)

Find the number that is most appropriate for your part of BC and call it.

Your first two mistakes don't sound like errors to me, they sound like they were things done out of love for your mother. You have a heart. Your third 'mistake' only looks like a mistake now: life is long.

<comment><USER4> And you can phone the numbers at any time, 24 hours per day!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> First off, Knock it off; Your life isn't a joke, I can guarantee you that.

Second, I can offer you some advice that may or may not be helpful. My father had years of familial strife and issues with his father, brothers, and step mother. One day, after a lot of careful thought, he sat his father down, and told him that he wasn't going to be part of the strife and silly games anymore. My father gave his father a phone number and said "I'll do everything I can to keep this phone number. If you ever really want to talk this stuff out, you can call."

It took about 20 years and a terminal case of brain cancer, but the phone call came. And more importantly, in those 20 years, my father was able to focus on building a family and a career of his own, free of the pettiness, bickering, and abuse of his own family. It's hard to draw a line in the sand and set boundaries. It's hard to admit that a person you love will never give you the praise or acceptance you want so bad from them.

If you do accept it though, and you do draw a line in the sand, I bet you're going to be much better off for it.

<comment><USER6> This concept is brilliant. It creates a feeling of empowerment, because for once you have taken control of the relationship. You act like an adult where your father cannot. You are who you are. He is who he is. Your mother s who she is. You are the child and they are the parents. It seems that at some point they forgot that. You are allowed to make mistakes and have their support. Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Man, I feel your pain. Reading your post gave me strength, knowing that I'm not alone. I woke up this morning wanting to read Viktor Frankl's "Man's search for meaning" because inside I'm crying and I've broken.

I've known rejection my whole life. By my father, by family, by girls, by kids at school. When you give love and get rejection in return, it hurts. I stopped expecting anything in return when I give. I was picked on by every bully that came my way since primary school. My grandmother gave me nicknames all the time. I had no friends growing up and I thought of running away every day. I dropped out of college to support myself, took some financial risks and lost all my money. I quit my job a couple of days ago and I still have to get a new job. I'm on my last dime as I'm typing this.

But I know, somewhere on this earth, there's someone who needs me. I know it doesn't have to be someone I know today, it doesn't have to be my family, the girls that rejected me or my father (he wasn't there for the 20 years I needed him, then he passed away and we never met, having only spoken twice on the phone for no more than 2 minutes each time). Maybe it's an orphan who needs a mentor, maybe it's a woman who will think I'm "the one". Maybe it's a startup that needs another programmer, maybe it's just someone on the side of the road who just needs someone to talk to.

My good man, I just told you my story to show that there's still hope for people like us. We've known the worst, we've known failure and rejection but that's what makes us strong. We know how to give even when everything around us seems like a conspiracy to make us quit. You just gotta hold on. Speak to someone, call the suicide watch line. It will get better if you're willing to speak to someone.

All the best

<comment><USER8> _But I know, somewhere on this earth, there 's someone who needs me._

This. No matter what relationships are dropped or attachments are taken from us there is nothing more beautiful than the friendship and love that is waiting for us out there. Hope drives this. All it takes is for us to seek it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Man, I'd like to let you to know something: it's not about how fucked up you are, but how you deal with it.

Just to begin, I live in the third world and you live the life I wish I could.

So, you can get a job somewhere else. Do it. Now, let's put some focus on your life: YOU HAVE TO DO SOMETHING.

I have quit my job also but I got my shit straight by doing college and shit, even though I'm from a poor family and all my class had more money and 'happiness' than me.

You know what? Happiness comes from the inside, from the outlook you have of life. If you created this post right here, right now, that can only mean a good thing: you are striving for the best. I've been suicidal for a long time in my life and thats because I was trying, you know. It was hard as hell, but that made me hard, and this is what you become once you go over all those problems, everything will look small.

</comment><comment><USER10> I am not going to tell you what to do or not to do. That is something for you to decide. However here are some things to consider:

1\. You don't need your father to "want you" or "call you his son" to be happy.

2\. You can sell your apartment or drop the mortgage. It is not the end of your life.

3\. You can take care of someone else only if you love yourself first. You don't _have_ to take care of your mother.

4\. So you quit your job, big fucking deal. You will eventually find another job. Hell, you can find a job making fries. Remember that.

5\. Everyone makes mistakes; yes, even mistakes bigger than yours. It is not the end of the world.

Look man, life is harsh for everyone. The world knocks you hard sometimes. You gotta be there for yourself. You gotta love yourself. That is the only way to fight.

</comment><comment><USER11> Please don't die, someone somewhere needs you, she hasn't had anyone she enjoys talking to as much in 2 years. She nearly lost her mind when she saw your facebook status, couldn't sleep, couldn't eat, couldn't focus on work, ditched the dinner plan that she had. Tried to phone you every half an hour but you wouldn't pick up.You never knew it was the most fun game jam and hiking she's been to, and how much she enjoys failing at badminton with you. And how sad she is about going back to college because she won't see you as much anymore. And how she's crying her eyes out reading this. Just don't die, please, i beg you.

</comment><comment><USER12> When I was really depressed I thought it would be just another failure if I talked to anyone about it. You're very brave.

I noticed you didn't post contact info. If you decide to I'll talk to you. Maybe we could talk to someone more specialized as well if you want to.

</comment><comment><USER13> You started your post with "I can't think straight", and I think that is something you can maybe focus on. You realise you are not thinking straight, you realise your life is in limbo. Those are not reasons to end it, rather they are reasons to get your thinking straight. As many others have mentioned, there is help available to you, particularly in Vancouver.

I responded to your previous post about your PM, and I'm sorry to hear that didn't work out. Don't give him and the company the satisfaction of knowing they beat you. You're not done, you've still got work to do in this world.

There are MANY, MANY people far worse off than you at this moment, and they're pushing through, and fighting for something better. You're not alone, things will get better, as long as you stick it out, and know that you can.

Get your thinking straight, get out of limbo. You don't need a job or degree to define you. You don't need a father or family to know you exist. Your mother clearly knows you exist, and I suspect she needs you. What will happen to her without you.

Didn't Steve Jobs also not have a relationship with his father? Did that stop him?

</comment><comment><USER14> One essential skill in life is knowing how to deal with losses. Ever notice how you play hard when you are behind in any game, but if you fall from the top you feel like quitting? That's where you are right now, so it's actually a good sign. You are in a great career field and managed to buy a home. That's ahead of many people already. Recognize that you are actually ahead, and you can fight back from any loss. When you take a break from the game, you realize you can climb back up just as easily.

In your case, you just need to fix your mistakes. First, find another job. Second, decide whether you can afford your house. Losing it is not the end. If it was a mistake, cut it out and lose the stress.

DO NOT LET YOUR HOME BE AN EMOTIONAL INVESTMENT. The fact is, it was not right for you, and not right now. Your mother deserves the best but she would much rather see you happy. Losing a house is nothing compared to losing you.

Bottom line, you feel like you are losing, but you are actually very much ahead. Don't let yourself go, because you actually have much further to fall than you think. Just fix your mistakes and move on.

</comment><comment><USER15> You have options! If you need to talk to someone call the BC Crisis Line @ 1-800-784-2433 [1]. I have called it on behalf of someone before and they are extremely understanding. You can also go to a walk in medical clinic and they can give you a referral to talk to someone.

Unemployment can be a tough spot when you have obligations, trust me, I have been unemployed too, you are not alone in this fight! BC is a beautiful place to live, and there are plenty of jobs in the lower mainland. I'm not sure where you are, but in Vancouver, you can check out bctia.org Tech Jobs section [2], there are 1215 listings. If you live on Vancouver Island, check out Viatec's Job Listings [3].

I would suggest you call the crisis line and also apply for the _BC Employment and Assistance program_ [4], which will likely help you cover your house payment while you look for work. If your mother is unable to work then you would look at getting assistance for her too.

Also, keep your options open, there are lots of day labor places which you can just show up in the morning and get paid cash. It's summer, so landscaping is an option, etc. There are lots of jobs outside of IT which will help you cover your costs. Constructions is also an option. You can almost walk onto a site if you have boots and a hardhat.

[1] [http://www.crisislines.bc.ca/](http://www.crisislines.bc.ca/)

[2] [http://www.bctia.org/Resources/BC-Tech- Jobs](http://www.bctia.org/Resources/BC-Tech-Jobs)

[3] [http://www.viatec.ca/job-board/results](http://www.viatec.ca/job- board/results)

[4] [http://www.eia.gov.bc.ca/publicat/bcea/BCEA.htm](http://www.eia.gov.bc.ca/publicat/bcea/BCEA.htm)

</comment><comment><USER16> 2 weeks ago I was in a similar situation. I had suicidal thoughts, and was deeply depressed. I've had suicidal thoughts before, but I had never actually planned my own death before. It felt like there was someone else in my head and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the voice to stop beating me up. I was losing it. It felt like who I am was being stripped away from me. I was fine one day and the next I just lost it. I immediately looked for help, and rallied a support group. I went to a psychologist who then talked to my doctor and got me on anti-depressants. By the end of the first day I took my medication I felt 100x better. Turns out I might have been born with low serotonin levels. I had been diagnosed with depression at 17 but ignored it (now 28).

I know you might feel lost right now but you cant give up. Stay positive and seek help. It will get better I promise.

</comment><comment><USER17> File for unemployment. Find another job. If you are a developer, you will find a new job in a snap.

</comment><comment><USER18> I spent half my life feeling suicidal, and I'm talking daily graphic suicidal fantasies.

But something I heard once stuck. "Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem", and I made it my mantra. And you know what? Eventually life got better and now it's fucking awesome. There is always a chance of that, unless of course you kill yourself, and then you miss out on all that future joy.

</comment><comment><USER19> You would probably benefit from working all of this through with a shrink. And no, I'm not part of those who believe shrinks are for crazy people.

EDIT: We _think_ we make "mistakes". In reality, they are not mistakes - <USER2> are simply the things we logically had to do, given our initial genetic equipment combined with the environment we were born into (everything else is just a logical consequence of these 2). So there's no shame to be had or judgment to be made (judgment is something only uneducated people use).

EDIT 2: If you're feeling depressed, you may also benefit from adequate medication (but you need a shrink to evaluate this point). It can lift you onto a whole new level you may have forgotten it exists.

EDIT 3: And don't forget that every human being has an inherent value which is the same for everyone. You are worth exactly as much as Bill Gates or the slum kid. All the other judgments we make regarding ourselves are just artificial constructs.

EDIT 4: "You would probably benefit" was an error: You will _definitely_ benefit!

</comment><comment><USER20> Assuming this isn't some kind of juvenile troll, you just wrote like 9 paragraphs of English prose without any obvious spelling or grammar mistakes... that puts you in the top 1% of people that can write. That's something.

Here, listen to this: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-WHW- QNswE](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-WHW-QNswE)

There, fixed it.

</comment><comment><USER21> You are good to be rid of your shitty job. Nobody should have to work 80-hour weeks (unless there is a good reason, but generally there isn't) or put up a boss who thinks you aren't committed to your work because you haven't updated your friggin linkedin profile.

Also, home ownership isn't everything its cracked up to be. I live in BC as well, and I currently rent. I used to own a home in Alberta, but sold it when we moved. We realised that renting is generally cheaper than owning (when you add the fees and cost of having the capital tied up), and a lot less responsibility. In many places in BC (Vancouver, Victoria) owning a home is financially nonsensical.

Thirdly, it's time for you to start thinking about yourself as well as your Mother. It's good that you care about her, but sometimes you can burn yourself out by doing too much for other people and not enough for yourself. What good will it do your mother if you stress yourself out so much that you kill yourself?

</comment><comment><USER22> Im in BC too, would be happy to chat, just msg me or reply to this comment with a way to reach you, what do you have to lose? =)

</comment><comment><USER23> Been there, done that. 1st off you have a chemistry problem in your brain. Not your mind your brain. This is a chemical imbalance that can be readjusted. A good 1st move is to printout a copy of your post here and hand it to a doctor. They have the antidepressants that will reset the brain's balance. You haven't done anything wrong and there are many people that are in your situation. We over-pressure ourselves creating a continuous stress that wears the brain down. When it happened to me the world actually turned grey. Amazing. You'll come out of this and then one day you'll be making a post that will help someone else. Oh,one other thing. About quitting that job, good for you. You have courage to speak your mind, that's a rare thing nowadays. You still have your skill-set and something better is just ahead.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you received a full scholarship to law school, then you must have a good head on your shoulders.

Talk to someone, keep your chin up.

Contact that law school and explain you needed to provide for you mom and see if they will let you in now! I have no idea if something like that would exist but doesn't hurt to explore it.

</comment><comment><USER25> A lot of the comments are really condescending and unhelpful. There's a lot of posturing Silicon Valley bullshit on this forum, and it really sucks. If you can't say something genuine, shut the fuck up!

You aren't weak. Everyone can break, and everyone breaks in their own way. If you head down this road, always realize that the people telling you to suck it up are the ones who have their own problems they haven't dealt with. The vast majority of humanity are like piranhas to pain, wanting to rip apart yours in an attempt to fuel the broken soul inside of themselves. Your pain matters, trust me. You matter. You just need some help. You aren't a pussy, a fag or a loser. In fact, the people who don't offer help or make you feel bad usually have the dumbest reasons in the world for acting that way.

Sucking it up and soldiering on is exactly what has lead you into this mess. Now is the time to examine your life, possibly on your own or with someone who cares. It isn't easy and it may take years, even if you "know" what the problems are.

You are an adult man caring for your mother and she treats you badly. Something tells me you aren't the bad person here. You obviously know that somewhere if you felt the need to tell us in that way, and you just wanted it confirmed. I'm confirming it for you. Narcissistic parents suck. Please realize that your parent, despite how you feel for them emotionally, are a person like any other whom you didn't get to choose. Your dad also sounds like he needs his ignorant, posturing face knocked in...no offense.

Your problems are environmental. Maybe you have mental health issues too, but you're describing a toxic life with a forfeited opportunity, a terrible job, a useless, cruel father and a mother who needs a reality check.

If you die now, you never get to see it get better. You never get to experience reciprocated love, discovering new parts of yourself or pursuing a dream. You never get to live , which it sounds like you haven't done much of.

Don't do it.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hey man, I missed this, but I'm also in BC. I hope you are still following this.

First of all, you should really contact professionals or a suicide line.

There was a time in my life where I felt exactly the same way as you do. My life was worthless, I'm inherently broken, the same stuff you say to yourself. These thoughts and feelings take a toll on us. I got on the phone with a counselor and I could barely answer any of their questions about what day I should schedule an appointment.

You're not broken or less resilient than others. Many people have similar problems. You just can't tell from their public face.

A professional is your best bet, but in addition to that - if you just want to hang out and talk about stuff, tech, life, otherwise, contact me anytime. I'm in Vancouver. email@example.com.

</comment><comment><USER27> Your life is not a joke. You've sacrificed tremendously to help someone who doesn't even seem to appreciate it. Your desire to sacrifice repeatedly for someone else is incredibly meaningful and rare - and such actions are far from mistakes. Empathy and compassion are the essence of meaning and you have an incredible ability to provide this love even when it is not reciprocated. Someone who lives this way could never be a joke.

You deserve happiness and you deserve to have your tremendous compassion recognized and returned in kind. I hope you will be able to put yourself in an environment that is free of negative individuals, because anyone lucky enough to be exposed to your tremendous selflessness could not help themselves but to respond with love and appreciation.

</comment><comment><USER28> There are some good answers and advice in the comments here. One thing that appears to have been missed is - there is an underlying issue that you may or may not have identified yet which will have a major impact on your psyche. Being rejected by a parent is one of the most soul-crushing things that can happen to a person. Our sense of self worth and our relationships with others is largely defined by our relationship with our parents ... the one people who are supposed to love us unconditionally.

I have seen its impact on friends and family, and it remains as a major influencer all throughout life if not addressed. I recommend speaking to a specialist about this.

</comment><comment><USER29> I'm up in mackenzie brushing minimum wage, sometimes less, it is piecework; nothing like physical labour, to motivate yourself. We've got work till Aug 12. You will be stung by hornets everyday and we work from 4am till 3 PM. There is a significant cost outlay to get a brushing saw, so I don't recommend this job. 25 bucks a day camp cost. Treeplanters and brushers pretty chill. Just in case you don't have enough hours for ei.

Edit-- also fathers don't really matter that much, for happy lives.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5721653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5721653)

</comment><comment><USER30> I am so sorry you're going through this. Remember, you can always procrastinate ending it all, and do it later while you examine other options.

There is a community at DevPressed[1] of developers who struggle with depression.

I am a developer and gave a talk on my struggle with depression and the greater issue of Developers and Depression [2]. Email me if you'd like to chat - greg at baugues.com

1\. [http://www.devpressed.com](http://www.devpressed.com)

2\. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa- Mc2KSk](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFIa-Mc2KSk)

</comment><comment><USER31> Call 604.872.3311 or 1.800.SUICIDE or go to [http://youthinbc.com/about- us/contact-us/](http://youthinbc.com/about-us/contact-us/) for online chat.

</comment><comment><USER32> You sound like you have a Narcissistic parent, you sound like me no too far in time, this is a phase, don't do something stupid.

Read this, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_parent](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissistic_parent) check this subreddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/](http://www.reddit.com/r/raisedbynarcissists/) and call a help line or talk to some stranger in a park.

Please talk to someone, get help with a shrink.

</comment><comment><USER33> Given your ID, I know you probably won't see my reply. But still, here's my 2¢'s worth:

> I have entered this world unknown to all except 2 people, both of who do not > care if I existed or not.

Why exactly is that relevant? Your life can be worthwhile for _you_ , whether or not anyone else knows about it. If you got to eat the best meal ever, would it taste any worse to you if no one else knew about it?

> soon I plan to leave this apartment and just walk.

Sounds good to me. I mean... the ending of toxic relationships. Do take care of yourself.

</comment><comment><USER34> I have had some worse situations, friends leaving, people dying in the family one by one struggling to find a job, finding acceptance and so on. I just began to think in the same way. Think about your mother and about the bright future, not on your past, start afresh. Even Gold has to go through fire to prove its purity. Just wait for things to fall into place and hustle, life will be awesome soon.

</comment><comment><USER35> You do belong! but need to clear your head. you _will_ think more clearly if you do the following 4 things:

1\. get good sleep. 8-9 hrs for at least 5 days. 2\. go to the gym. run. lift weights. 3\. eat healthy. no sugar. 4\. try to reduce your stress.

also may want to consider seeing a psychiatrist. they may add 5-9, but will start you on 1-4.

</comment><comment><USER36> I didn't see this post until now... Please don't do it. I don't want to go into things about life and goals; others have already said enough of those.... But I live in great Vancouver area!! I can meet you up if you want!! And I sincerely want to meet you! Email me or add me on gtalk.

</comment><comment><USER19> One more thing:

If you do suffer from depression (and it sounds like it), you also need to know the following about it, before doing anything else:

Depression happens when your brain doesn't have enough neurotransmitters, such as serotonine, dopamine and some others (= some chemicals).

Where does that come from?

It can be a genetic predisposition and it can be your life circumstances (such as toxic people, toxic work conditions, a couple of "bad habits" or emotionally heavy events in your life) and often it's a very individual cocktail of those things.

But the take-away is this: In the end, it all comes down to A FEW MOLECULES IN YOUR BRAIN that are (temporarily) missing and that COMPLETELY WARP your vision of things. In other words: your brain is lying to you! How can you make the right decisions with that? You simply can't. And nobody can judge you for that.

You now probably see why taking one's life is not necessary, when you can correct the issue with meds _almost instantly_ (within a few hours) and then get your shrink to help you back on track for the long term.

</comment><comment><USER37> It sounds like you have a lot of upside. You're smart enough for law school and a good enough programmer to get hired by a company.

Now you're going through a down cycle in your life. That's only natural. What you need now is to identify what resources are available to you. Find your safety net: are you eligible for employment insurance? Social assistance? Where is the local food bank?

Identify what you may need and start making phone calls and visits.

Your situation isn't much different than a severe storm warning. You know a storm is imminent. You need to calmly and purposefully make preparations. Bunker down. You'll survive and be wiser for it.</comment>


Beware of Trivial Inconveniences (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://lesswrong.com/lw/f1/beware_trivial_inconveniences/

<comment><USER2> Or put another way, people prefer to take the path of least resistance.

Usabale design promotes the same idea (don't make users think). Subscriber acquisition strategies rely on a similar idea that after the first 2 months of free broadband, most users won't bother switching out. Softwares exploit this by having opt-out instead of opt-in for desirable options including bloatware.

</comment><comment><USER3> I agree with the basic point of the article but many of the stated facts are outdated by now. Since this article has been posted it has become much harder to bypass the firewall than it was back then.

<comment><USER4> Do you think that another danger of inconveniences is that it's easier to make an inconvenient mechanism more and more inconvenient than to start restricting something that hadn't been restricted before at all? Like having a tiny inconvenience at first somehow "reserves your right" to add more restrictions in the future?</comment></comment>