Cmder: portable console emulator for windows - <AUTHOR> http://bliker.github.io/cmder/ <comment><USER2> Everybody hold tight for 1.1. I managed to get the git prompt working [https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/2674600/1549691/1e3f6c02-4...](https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/2674600/1549691/1e3f6c02-4ded-11e3-870e-a76b6ae3bd77.png)

<comment><USER3> This is awesome, thanks for putting this together! Been looking for something like this for a while.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I'm all for ConEmu gaining recognition because it's a great app and Maximus totally deserves it.

But why repackage conemu and call it something else ?!!!

<comment><USER5> Because it's not purely ConEmu, perhaps. What are you talking about?

<comment><USER4> Come on.....at least look at it before commenting.

"start vendor/conemu-maximus5/ConEmu.exe /Title Cmder /LoadCfgFile ../../config/ConEmu.xml"

It's ConEmu with a modified config file !!! Also .....don't want to be negativist...but Monokai and portable mode have been part of ConEmu since.....forever.

Again....maybe it's just me....but why try to "spin up" a ConEmu config file as ...something else instead of just ...you know...show the world a customzied ConEmu ?

<comment><USER2> Then there is clink and msysgit and (not yet published) git integration, I am working on integrating some package manager. I will try to include any software that I find helpful.

No this is not coding project. This is a project to bring something usable and nice to people without having to read yet another "Check out my setup". It is like oh my zsh, or some kind of dev-kit.

<comment><USER4> clink already works with ConEmu (enable it in settings/features). Look at chocolatey for integrating a functional Windows "package" manager.

Good luck with the project.

<comment><USER6> For that matter, having cmder etc in Chocolatey would be nice

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> So far, strictly worse than Console2 in everything I've tried. In particular ncurses apps in an ssh session render terribly no matter what I set TERM to. "ansi" works the best, but still I find myself hitting C-l to get rid of garbage regularly.

<comment><USER8> Link to Console2: [http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/)

<comment><USER9> I prefer ConsoleZ: [https://github.com/cbucher/console](https://github.com/cbucher/console)

Currently maintained, works better with Windows 7, and used my old Console2 configuration.

<comment><USER10> I tried Console2 years ago. More recently I tried ConEmu. Now I use ConsoleZ, and I thinks it's great!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice idea, but I was disappointed that it actually was some software that I probably tried and could not use (ConEmu and I can't remember why...). Maybe you could explain this new attempt?

(edit: mentions Conemu on the frontpage.. my bad)

BTW, why don't we have a bash in Windowsland? What are the limitations of the underlying OS that make it hard?

OTOH: Congrats for delivering!

<comment><USER12> Since no one's actually answering your question, focusing on useless pedantics instead, I'll do it:

The reason Windows does not have a decent virtual console, like OSX and Linux do in the form if iTerm, xTerm, gnome-term etc has to do with the way the console works in Windows.

The Windows console is very tightly coupled with a win32 system library, both its functionality and the way it behaves graphically (to for example resizing) are defined in that single place.

This practically means that most attempts of making it better in some way proxy to a hidden view of the original console. I think ConEmu works like this.

To truly make a better console on Windows, the links to that system dll would have to be hijacked from the processes that are launched in your shell, and replaced with references to your better alternative. Obviously this could be a fragile thing, and for some reason I know of no project that's made any headway in this.

I have tried the latter route myself for a little while, but after uncovering how complicated it would really have to be I decided to go do something else.

<comment><USER13> Perhaps I missed something. What does the Windows console subsystem have to do with a program that interfaces bash with a VTxxx emulator? It's not hard to make a scrolling multi-line text field that also accepts and passes along keypresses to another program.

If I read it correctly, OP isn't looking to replace CMD or the Windows Console. It seems that he's wondering why bash is so useful, but it isn't bundled with Windows.

<comment><USER12> Well, if you take his comment literally then yes, but it would not be a very interesting question because it's quite easy to install bash on windows and use its nice features. And there's powershell which fits better in the Windows ecosystem.

I read it as the question that has a much more interesting answer: Why doesn't Windows have a good terminal? And the answer is, it's no use making one because the Windows console subsystem, the one that is the de facto standard, is so badly designed that it's near impossible to write a good terminal for it.

<comment><USER13> > [Windows doesn't have a good terminal because the Console Subsystem] is so > badly designed that it's near impossible to write a good terminal for it.

Errm, Windows has a couple of decent terminals. PowerShell and Cygwin bash come to mind.

The following I say with all the love in my heart, so please read it in that spirit:

Saying that there aren't any good terminals for Windows because of the suckitude of the Console Subsystem is like saying "There aren't any good houses built on the ocean because a good, solid concrete foundation just sinks to the bottom!". There are plenty of fine ocean-going houses, they're just made out of steel, exotic or mundane fibers, or wood.

<comment><USER14> Can you resize Cygwin bash to be wider than 80 characters? Last time, admittedly a while ago, that I tried using unixy things on Windows, I ended up exceptionally frustrated by the fixed width.

I suspect that's the "Console Subsystem" being referred to here.

<comment><USER13> It seems that with a modern Cygwin (installed within the last six months) you can. Moreover, if you perform (say) an ls, resize the terminal to a really small width, perform another ls, then resize the terminal to its previous width, the text from the first ls is restored to the screen. (I also remember this behaviour from when I regularly used Cygwin four or five years ago.)

It's been a while, so don't hold me to this, but I _think_ there's a batch file that you get a shortcut to on your desktop and start menu. If you don't use that, you'll get the stupid unresizeable window. (Because, yanno, all of the Cygwin stuff was designed to work alongside CMD.exe, too.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> What does this add over conemu? Is this just conemu + clinks + msys repackaged?

<comment><USER2> Nothing actually, but you do not have to do it yourself. There is quite a lot of configuration and so on. But if you already have this setup, no big reason to switch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Not bashing, I _actually_ want to know: How did a terminal emulator get blown up to 250MB?

<comment><USER2> Majority is the msysgit not terminal emulator. If you do not want linux tools use the mini version. That has more resonable 7 MB.

<comment><USER16> Ah there's what i was missing. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The 7zip difference is indeed shocking.

</comment><comment><USER18> Downloading right now.

Kudos for the idea and the presentation, nicely done. Really nice.

<comment><USER18> I just downloaded and its awesome.

There is just one, one little thing: I can't type letters with this accent '´'. Like á or é. When I type ´ it clears the current line content.

<comment><USER19> Same thing here. I can type é or è, but not à, É, Ç and more.

Seems very nice though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've just created an issue. The size difference with msysgit included seemed a tiny bit weird to me. Could it be a result of a symlink being packaged as individual files?

[https://github.com/bliker/cmder/issues/54](https://github.com/bliker/cmder/issues/54)

</comment><comment><USER21> I'm always confused when "portable" and "for $OS" appear together in a title.

<comment><USER22> I think this time it means that you can take it with you in a USB stick.

Relatedly, the English could use some proofreading. Otherwise, it looks good!

<comment><USER2> Please: [https://github.com/bliker/cmder/blob/gh- pages/index.html](https://github.com/bliker/cmder/blob/gh-pages/index.html) Afterwards please come pick up your beer.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> bravo.

as much as i struggle to think of something where i would use this by design, every time i've been forced to try and use some *nix-y tools on window it has been a nightmare of cygwins and mingws... i can see the desire for this.

on the other hand i'm yet to meet one of those problems where, with a little thought and not having my hands tied, i can't remove the needless dependency and end up with a better development environment too.

</comment><comment><USER24> Great job. Still a bit laggy compared to a real unix terminal, but that's probably because of the lack of fork(). Nothing you could have done...

</comment><comment><USER25> Anyone else having trouble pinning it to the taskbar and loading the cfg?

</comment><comment><USER26> i can't actually find the source code, it seems the only thing there is a ruby that downloads binaries? can someone enlighten me?

</comment><comment><USER27> Looks good. Finally Windows get a real terminal?</comment>


Nanix: An idea for a modern, small, Unix-like operating system - <AUTHOR> https://zebmccorkle.u.asymptote.club/blog/nanix-an-idea-for-a-modern-small-unix-like-operating-system/ <comment><USER2> "...specifically designed to (1) take advantage of modern hardware, (2) fit on a single floppy disk..."

hmmm...

<comment><USER3> Yeah, that's the biggest issue here. The kernel is not large because the kernel devs suck at their job, it's large because the default build includes a bazillion drivers for a bazillion devices. When you build the kernel for precisely the devices that you need, the image is going to be a lot smaller.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I can imagine this Nanix OS as the OS for a hypervisor. The less code on the hypervisor level, the less code that can be compromised.

Is this an accurate view, or am I missing something?

</comment><comment><USER5> There's little sense in reinventing the proverbial wheel when it already exists. NetBSD can already be paired down to fit on a floppy disk. Userland can be compiled in to a single crunchgen static binary.

tcc is a nice idea to add separately but wouldn't be ideal for making the tiniest kernel and binaries, since space optimization isn't quite as good with tcc.

<comment><USER6> back when I was a grad student, I fit linux (+ handful of ethernet drivers), X, vncviewer and rdesktop on a single floppy. Simple OS project demonstrating that one can strip out unwanted symbols from shared libraries and get better overall storage resource usage than simply statically linking all of one's binaries. Basically a thin client on a bootable floppy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> > [huger]: Is this a word?

Yes: [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/huge](https://www.merriam- webster.com/dictionary/huge)

</comment><comment><USER8> Meh. 25/30 meg ain't huge.

And who uses floppies anyhow?</comment>


Now That Tech Runs the World, Let's Retire the Hacker Ideal - <AUTHOR> https://www.wired.com/story/now-that-tech-runs-the-world-lets-retire-the-hacker-ideal/ <comment><USER2> This article seems to highlight the worst of hacking and not the best. "Hacker" to me can mean two things: 1, a person who comes up with quick and dirty solutions to problems, and the second is a desire to understand the way things work internally, and exploit them, for better understanding. The idea of "retiring the hacker ideal" is silly. Both have their place, but maybe we need to talk about the pros and cons of both instead of reveling in absolutism.</comment>


Developer's Guide to Images - <AUTHOR> http://www.jessechapo.com/posts/Developers-Guide-to-Images.html

<comment><USER2> It's an interesting read, but I'm not sure "developers" is the right word. I can't say anything here was outside the realm of what a good front end developer should know, and if you're not a front end developer then you're probably not concerned with any of this anyways.

A developer should be the one spriting images and minimizing server requests, that's not a designers job. If they don't know how to handle photoshop then they need to learn. I would never hire a dev that could decipher a psd of a fw png.

Still a good set of information for beginners out there.

</comment><comment><USER3> Contrary to what you're saying in the post, PNG-8 can do alpha transparency, just not in Photoshop.

</comment><comment><USER4> The whole seven-step "Preparing to Save" sequence can be dramatically simplified with Edit -> Copy Merged (⇧⌘C).

</comment><comment><USER5> I was developing a web-to-print web app, and I think I can get some pointers from this article. A good guide indeed!

</comment><comment><USER6> for developers those things are somehow usefull, but it is not enough... First of all, you would need to describe the file formats with its definitions, like heder file, and other things... Some things, it would be nice to show some things like programs, classes for C++, C#, Java, Visual Basic and so on..

</comment><comment><USER7> This was a very informative post. Thank you for sharing. Learned a lot!

</comment><comment><USER8> Really comprehensive guide here - Thanks for posting

</comment><comment><USER9> If a designer gives a developer like me a file in a proprietary format that I can't read without shelling out big bucks to Adobe, that's their failure as a designer.

If your image editor makes it so hard to export a PNG that you need an online tutorial to tell you how to do it, you should use a better image editor!

<comment><USER10> Is that what you took from this article?</comment></comment>


Show HN: Tablist – a chrome extension to copy and paste lists of open tabs - <AUTHOR> https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tablist/eagbohciligljbgpbdbflaloangiodhe <comment><USER2> I don't understand why a simple export of the list of current tabs open is not a basic, built-in feature of the browser.

I am not asking for management or storage or export or sharing ... or anything interesting at all. I should just be able to go to:

chrome://tabs

(or whatever) and see a text list of tab URLs. All browsers should have this functionality.

<comment><USER3> I don't understand a lot of things about browsers, including why they don't log/persist caches of the full content of all history (for full text search at the minimum), why they still send user-agent headers, why they persist all cookies for all domains by default, et c.

It's making me rather cynical, because I'd like to think that browsers are user agents, but I think these days they're just advertising company agents that happen to run on users' computers.

<comment><USER4> For full-text search over all history, History Hound ([https://www.stclairsoft.com/HistoryHound/](https://www.stclairsoft.com/HistoryHound/)) works pretty well if you're on macOS.

[No affiliation, I'm just a user]

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Really like OneTab for this same functionality. [https://www.one- tab.com](https://www.one-tab.com) \- For Firefox and Chrome.

Differences, clicking OneTab's "Share as web page" will give you a link with the date-time you merged your tabs into the OneTabs list as well as a QR Code.

Saving tabs and also saving memory, when it auto merges them into a single space.

<comment><USER6> I really wish OneTab could sync between different computers. I regularly use three different machines and hate when I can't find a Tab I saved on one of the machines I'm not currently using.

<comment><USER5> Damn, I guess I've just been used to just finding a solution myself by merging into the OneTab singlepage, then using an easy to remember url shortener, to pull it up on another machine. Will try the suggestions posted in replies to this, hopefully with make things easier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> For what it's worth, since folks are mentioning other extensions, my full- featured tab manager extension, Tabli ([https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabli/igeehkedfibb...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabli/igeehkedfibbnhbfponhjjplpkeomghi)) provides a "Copy Window Summary" action that will copy all open windows and tabs to the Clipboard as a nicely-formatted Markdown table. Tabli was a "Show HN" items about 5 years ago and is still actively maintained. Of interest to HN crowd: MIT licensed, no cloud component, rigorous privacy policy (100% in- browser), keyboard shortcuts for most functionality. I wrote a Medium piece with an overview of Tabli a couple of weeks ago: [https://medium.com/@antonycourtney/taming-tab-hell-with- tabl...](https://medium.com/@antonycourtney/taming-tab-hell-with- tabli-83f080e32d17?source=friends_link&sk=d121d5ba0114d9eea9cd29a23e202d37)

</comment><comment><USER8> Why do we open new tabs?

1\. We want to do multiple things at once (very rare, very limited, let's say we have 5 such things, Gmail, Slack, Gitlab, monitoring, etc.)

2\. We want to have websites preloaded and ready to go as soon as we get to that tab (often)

3\. We want to "bookmark" links temporarily without actually saving them into our Bookmarks (this goes hand in hand with point 2. but not always)

4\. Observation: large numbers of pre-opened tabs will stay opened for a very long time until we actually find the time to get to them, consuming memory, tab bar space, as well as our mental space as we have their tab icons visible.

So I think based on the above, an ideal tab management system would:

\- understand "sessions/groups/trees", e.g. I opened HN and alt+clicked on links and discussions that interest me as I went through the list

\- gave me an opportunity to transfer such "trees" to another browser window, session, computer

\- had an option to automatically, or on a command, archive (and later restore from) these into a tab history, which would retain the hierarchy

\- had other functionality that I cannot foresee at this moment

Additionally, the browser should probably load & pause a background tab once its opened using alt+click, and only run it once its actually opened by the user.

Edit: formatting

<comment><USER9> Reminds me of the chrome extension I made for myself that will close all tabs with the same domain as the active tab. Usually I end up with many reddit tabs open and I want to close all the tabs I opened except for the home page that I'm currently on.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/manage-tabs-by- dom...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/manage-tabs-by- domain/jgjhgpeaejjahlbcgijdibooomicdcfi)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> A simple tip for those with many tabs open: Shift + Select multiple tabs and drag them into a new window. That feature helps me clean up 100+ open tabs in Chrome.

<comment><USER11> Wow, thank you. These life-changing tips really need to be much more easily discoverable.

<comment><USER12> The browser could check your tab patterns and offer tips. For example, if you have a hundred of tabs but navigating mostly within a limited set of them, a cartoonish fox would appear in the bottom right corner, asking if you need assistance

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> If you're one of those who use Safari and finds the idea appealing: Tabs To Links[0] is a Safari native extension that does something similar.

Pretty polished, and has some goodies like trimming the site's name from the tab title. It's made by Benjamin Mayo[1]. Very useful.

[0]: [http://tabstolinks.com](http://tabstolinks.com)

[1]: [https://bzamayo.com](https://bzamayo.com)

</comment><comment><USER14> Punk-o-matic was the first time I encountered the idea of a string- serializable program state and my mind was blown. I think more applications would benefit from being able to turn things into a text state, especially ones with a lot of configuration.

Imagine hitting a button and having AWS drop everything it does into a Terraform file or CloudFormation file or something. Or maybe you go through the UI selecting options and at the end you hit "Export to TF" and you get a TF thing selecting the options you had. That would be cool!

I've heard that Azure has something like this but I haven't tried it myself.

</comment><comment><USER15> I use CopyTabTitleUrl -- I like that I can key bind it, and customize the output that gets pasted.

I press Option + C, and the output looks like this:

* CopyTabTitleUrl – Get this Extension for Firefox (en-US) || [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/copytabtitleu...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/copytabtitleurl/)

Works in Firefox and Chrome.

* CopyTabTitleUrl - Chrome Web Store || [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copytabtitleurl/lm...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copytabtitleurl/lmgbdjfoaihhgdphombpgjpaohjfeapp)

It can also grab the format for all open tabs. Here it's grabbing the title + URL, complete with my formatting.

* Netflix || [https://www.netflix.com/..](https://www.netflix.com/..).

* Hacker News || [https://news.ycombinator.com/](https://news.ycombinator.com/)

* Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more || [https://www.amazon.com/](https://www.amazon.com/)

</comment><comment><USER16> I have [https://clusterwm.com/](https://clusterwm.com/) set up to open once I hit Cmd+Shift+L.

It opens a new tab with a list of open tabs and a (focused) search field you can use to filter that list. Really useful when you have a ton of open tabs and looking for one in particular.

<comment><USER17> GoTo Tab is similar but it opens as a dialog menu not a new tab. [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/goto- tab/hjfkaobgk...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/goto- tab/hjfkaobgkmaeomgdhmhhipdbjdhhjkoi?hl=en)

<comment><USER18> Interesting. Would this also supersede the need to use extensions that attempt to put tabs to sleep to manage memory usage? When I was using Chrome it was always the memory usage by many tabs that caused me problems.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I use and can recommend the chrome extension from [https://sessionbuddy.com/](https://sessionbuddy.com/)

Even if you don't use it actively, it periodically saves the state of your windows and tabs (all locally), so you can restore sessions from months and years ago.

<comment><USER20> SessionBuddy is amazing. It is the only thing I am missing from chrome.

Although it is not open-source, it has customizable exports in a variety of text formats . Too tired to write more, but if you use chrome check it out.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Just curious - what is the amount of tabs that everyone else has open right now in their browser?

I currently have 29... Trying to figure out on which side I'm an outlier. I know (thanks to the favicon) what each tab is and when I'll use it next, but am I just wasting ram on my computer and in meatspace?

<comment><USER22> Usually probably about 1000 tabs, spread over 100 to 200 windows on 10–20 virtual desktops. (I also block Javascript by default, so Firefox still runs alright.)

<comment><USER23> How do you manage the windows? Opening other windows is how I've lost open tabs before, so now I keep a single Firefox window.

<comment><USER22> I tend to give each major thing I'm working on its own virtual desktop, which has a bunch of open browser and other windows. Each of the browser windows tends to have its own theme, too. (E.g. documentation for a particular framework, articles from a particular journal, a news topic, etc.) That makes it relatively easy for me to keep a handle on things. If I feel like I can't find things on a virtual desktop any more, that's my hint to clean things up a bit.

My biggest source of grief is session management between restarts. Firefox thankfully remembers the windows and tabs, but it doesn't reopen windows on the same virtual desktops they were on when it closed, at least under GNOME defaults. (Nor do the other programs.) That makes me do a lot of manual rearranging whenever it restarts, which is a pain. Other than that, it usually works well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The goal was to get rid of tabs, not to let them grow exponentially! :c

<comment><USER25> How about this :) [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/exploding- tab...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/exploding-tabs/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Serious question, people who have hundreds or thousands of tabs at a time, why? Personally I've never found the need to have so many tabs open.

<comment><USER27> I think my tabs mostly belong to one of two categories:

* Research about a subject (that I didn't close when I continued to the next one)

* "Oh that's interesting, I'll read it later"

I do remember that 10+ years ago I used to have a nice collection of bookmarks, each with relevant tags. Then one day I had to switch browsers due to performance issues, the new browser didn't support tags from the previous one so lost everything. Ended up just keeping tabs open after that and every now and then I just go through them until 500 or so remain.

For the "read it later" scenario I'm aware that there are a lot of services that try to solve that problem, none that I've tried just seem to fit my workflow.

<comment><USER28> I'm very similar to you... i even made a webext to help me find tabs quickly as i will tend to open a window do something and then open up a few tabs in that window and eventually minimize the window to dock. if you have a hundred tabs open across many windows you come into a situation of where did that tab go? now it's just cmd-shift-e and visually scroll through the list of open tabs and then click on the link to bring it front and center.

might be useful to you:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tabist/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tabist/)

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabist/hdjegjggiog...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabist/hdjegjggiogfkaldbfphfdkpggjemaha)

and open source too if someone feels like contributing:

[https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR/tabist](https://github.com/fiveNinePlusR/tabist)

<comment><USER29> Thank you for your extension; I'm a user and it really helps me find the tab in my Firefox "window-forest".

I'm a heavy Tree Style Tab user, though, and tree-state isn't reflected in your addon. Would you consider implementing the support (and maybe easy JSON export of the generated list)?

In any case, thanks for your efforts.

<comment><USER28> you're welcome... not sure if tree style tabs has an api i can use to get that information. i actually have a dump of tabs to json in an unreleased version i used for backup and restore but it's not live yet.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> I personally use the Copy as Markdown extension[1]. gives option to export all tabs/ selected tabs and option to export link/text/URL

[1] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copy-as- markdown/f...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/copy-as- markdown/fkeaekngjflipcockcnpobkpbbfbhmdn?hl=en)

</comment><comment><USER31> Huh, I made something almost exactly like this a few months ago. I couldn't be bothered to get a Chrome developer account and pay the fee so I had to put Chrome in developer mode every time I used it.

[https://github.com/milkey-mouse/tab-list](https://github.com/milkey- mouse/tab-list)

</comment><comment><USER32> This is pretty cool.

On a related note, Chrome makes it easy to "move" your open tabs from one device to another via history / tabs from other devices / open all, which is very helpful if you tend to open a ton of links in new tabs to read later, but need to switch devices.

<comment><USER33> I've never gotten this feature to work properly (granted I gave up trying over a year ago, and I am a tab hoarder)- if I switch devices looking for a specific tab, it's almost never there. There might be older and/or newer tabs, but rarely the one I actually need.

The only consistent way I've (sort of) gotten tabs from chrome on Android to anything else is plugging into a laptop and using the developer console list of URLs.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Thanks this is really handy for me. In the past, I had to export tabs via the "Cluster - Window Manager" Extension and then finagle the CSV into an HTML file before I stuck in my Google Drive.

Also, do you know if there is a version of this for Firefox?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tablist is now also available for Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tablist/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tablist/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I've been intending to write something like this for a while. It's perfect!

</comment><comment><USER36> No one's mentioned Workona? How does that extension get like no recognition

On that note though, how the heck is anyone supposed to sort through the infinite amount of "TabWhatever" extensions.

</comment><comment><USER37> author of tablist for firefox here!

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab- list/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-list/)

</comment><comment><USER34> This is awesome. Do you know, if there's something similar for Firefox?

<comment><AUTHOR> Tablist is now also available for Firefox: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tablist/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en- US/firefox/addon/tablist/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I use OneTab for this.</comment>


Show HN: Sketch/PSD to HTML for a flat monthly price - <AUTHOR> http://unsketch.io <comment><AUTHOR> Hey friends,

I have read success stories for unlimited design services such as ManyPixels or DesignPickle. I believe the same concept can be applied in the development field.

However, I don't think unlimited coding service will work for my case. So, instead of unlimited, I use quotas for clients to use per month. The client will be able to order limited number of HTML pages per month.

I'm looking forward to see if people are willing to user this service. Please ask me anything if you have any questions.</comment>


Ask HN: What would you pay a small amount of money for? - <AUTHOR> What would you be willing to pay a small amount of money for (digital product, service or subscription) - say $1-$5, which you cannot already find online or you can find, but for some reason, you think it's not worth it. Bonus points if it could be considered of actual "value to society" in some way. Not another organization, productivity, finance, conference, social, chat etc. The market is flooded with such generic products. I'm thinking more on the lines of a tool which might help someone in their profession. <comment><USER2> Your answer lies in your question. What would you pay a small amount of money for? Go build that.

<comment><AUTHOR> :)</comment></comment>


HaleStudio: Open Source Product for Fast, Interactive Data Transformation - <AUTHOR> https://www.wetransform.to/products/halestudio/ <comment><AUTHOR> [https://github.com/halestudio/hale](https://github.com/halestudio/hale)

[https://www.wetransform.to/category/news/](https://www.wetransform.to/category/news/)</comment>


Which AWS cost optimization service provider are the best? - <AUTHOR> Hi,
we want to optimize our AWS costs but want to focus on our core business and not managing the AWS cost "features".
We identified following cases and service provider.
Any more service provider recommendations or even experience with the those mentioned?
1. spot instanz management - Spotinst (https://spotinst.com/)
2. reserved instances management - Parquantix (https://parquantix.com/)
3.AWS improve transparency & governance
- cloudability (https://www.cloudability.com)
Thank you in advance!
Best Alex <comment><USER2> IMHO its www.parkmycloud.com

The single biggest optimization / cost saver in the cloud is to get your non- production instances onto schedules as almost universally they do not need to be running 24/7\. There is nothing which will deliver bigger savings on your non-prod infrastructure.

</comment><comment><USER3> If you are interested in automated, transparent optimization of AWS resources, you may want to check out FittedCloud ([https://www.fittedcloud.com/](https://www.fittedcloud.com/)).</comment>


Ask HN: Would you partner up with someone to learn something new? - <AUTHOR>

Hey guys, my name is Carl and I started programming a little over a month ago (I come from a Financial/ Marketing background, therefore, have never take a real CS class).
Over the past weekend/ week, I create this extremely simple site. The site helps you find someone who is willing to teach you something new, in exchange, you teach them something as well: http://www.smallbarter.com/
I'd be very interested in learning what you guys think of this concept, and which cities you recommend I add.
Thanks a lot for your time and feedback. <comment><USER2> I like the idea. I'd like San Antonio or Austin to be added to the list of cities available. Keep up the good work!

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks a lot for the feedback, will definitely add San Antonio and Austin as soon as the site gets a bit of traction.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Sorry, here is the link: <http://www.smallbarter.com/></comment>


Indiana joins Idaho in claiming DHS tried to hack their election systems - <AUTHOR> https://www.computerworld.com/article/3173032/indiana-joins-idaho-in-claiming-dhs-tried-to-hack-their-election-systems.html <comment><USER2> Is this over the public internet? If so...then wtf??!! I mean, you have all sorts of scans happening in any responsive internet facing machine. You should also be performing similar scans against your own IP addresses.

The way they describe it,it appears to be strictly recon, by all means..DHS and NSA should be scanning any IP address they want just like any security researcher or company would (e.g.:shodan,shadowsserver).

<comment><USER3> It might be more interesting if the source IP is being spoofed, and the DHS is not responsible.

But agreed, I hope our election computers aren't vulnerable to script kiddies.</comment></comment>


Which is better for you to learn? Articles or Videos? - <AUTHOR>

There are a lot of good websites publishing awesome contents in several ways: articles, tutorials, videos, podcasts.
My question is: what do you believe is the best way, articles/tutorials or videos? I know that the better way is publish a good content, but actually my question is what do you believe is the better way to publish this content? <comment><USER2> I'm a web developer and I'd go for text-based articles/tutorials every time. I hate video tutorials. They are always much slower to use and cumbersome if you are only interested in a particular part.

</comment><comment><USER3> Depends on the individual and the content. For me personally, I spend the majority of my time reading to consume content, a minority on videos, and zero on podcasts.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you all for your answers.</comment>


JQuery CDN SSL has expired and breaking dependent websites - <AUTHOR> https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.min.js <comment><USER2> If you're affected and can grab a copy of the jquery-version.min.js file you need, add it to your project and then add this line (adjusted for path and version) right after the failing call to the CDN:

<script>window.jQuery || document.write('<script src="/resources/js/jquery-3.1.1.min.js"><\/script>')</script>

</comment><comment><USER3> This is a duplicate of: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16879543](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16879543)

It also effects more than just the version you're linking to

<comment><USER4> > It also effects more than just the version you're linking to

Of course it does; it's the same domain for all versions.

<comment><USER3> And that's why I pointed it out

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Great opportunity to strip out unnecessary uses of jQuery, and move to vanilla javascript.

[http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/](http://youmightnotneedjquery.com/)

<comment><USER6> More like you "might not need a CDN" unless you're hosting video files or other bandwidth hogs. Stripping out jquery from legacy projects is a waste of time.

Why do people add dependencies like CDNs for tiny .js libraries?

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Looks like they used Let's Encrypt to save the day!

</comment><comment><USER8> its back up

<comment><USER9> This is still returning the error for me:

[https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.min.js](https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.min.js)</comment></comment>


Why the Government Should Not Regulate Content Moderation of Social Media - <AUTHOR> https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/why-government-should-not-regulate-content-moderation-social-media <comment><USER2> this is the most self evident truth if politics perhaps ever</comment>


Florida Makes Off-Grid Living (homes) Illegal - <AUTHOR> http://www.collective-evolution.com/2014/03/09/florida-makes-off-grid-living-illegal-mandates-all-homes-must-be-connected-to-an-electricity-grid/

<comment><USER2> While that's what the headline says, it appears that what the courts have said is that the city has the authority to require that someone in the city be connected to the city water system. The headline is really saying ".... Illegal If Cities Decide To Make Them Illegal."

It does not say that off-grid homes are illegal in Florida. (If it did, there are any number of off-grid homes on islands which would also be made illegal.)

This ruling is little different than when I was in Miami and the city required that once a sewer line was put in the street then all of the houses were required to hook up to it instead of using septic systems.

Or when I was in Tallahassee and a nearby town moved to city garbage pickup instead of individual trash disposal. I vividly remember the newspaper image of the woman protesting that her monthly trash fit into a tin can, and she didn't see why she had to pay for it.

<comment><USER3> Yeah, but why is that okay? I can somewhat see a rationalization in the case of sewage, and much less so in the case of garbage, as a public health issue. I don't per se agree with it, but I can see it as rational. But what compelling civil need is met by forcing residents to use the power grid and not use self generated power, other than "you're costing us profits"?

<comment><USER2> (BTW, she was using the sewer system, but not paying for water. That's why her sewer system was capped. Since water and sewer fees are coupled, I assume that's one reason why the city had a problem.)

The proximate "okay" part is that the local authorities decided it. The secondary "okay" part is that the local electorate voted for those authorities. After all, at some point that requirement wasn't there.

It's hard to point to every single thing and say "I won't pay it unless I use it." If someone doesn't own a vehicle, then why should they pay for highway taxes for roads they can't bike or walk on? If someone is afraid of flying and will never fly, why do they pay taxes that go to the FAA?

Another solution could be to raise everyone's taxes to be exactly the connection fee for the power company, and have the city pay the power company. Her bill would be $0, but the profits would be the same.

We've decided to have direct payments instead of indirect ones.

One might argue that the utility access to the house constitutes trespass, and without the need for connection there's no need for trespass. This is a sort of feudal view of the land. The flip side is to say that one bought the land with certain rights of access in place, and the landowner can't make one-sided changes. I believe in the latter.

BTW, it can't really really be that the residents decide. If I rent, and don't want to pay power, can I tell the power company to disconnect? Or the water company? Will the city then cap the sewer lines and withdraw the water and power? That sure makes it harder for the owner to find a new renter.

Nor can it be the owner alone who decides. Some of these laws are in place to prevent slumlords, who provide substandard housing. It might be simpler to have a basic law that covers everyone, rather than deal with it through contract law.</comment></comment></comment>


An open letter about the terms "F#" and "Visual F#" - <AUTHOR> http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dsyme/archive/2015/10/23/a-letter-about-quot-f-quot-and-quot-visual-f-quot.aspx <comment><USER2> Perfectly reasonable--the same thing RS would do (see: "Gnu/Linux"). Trademarks do not protect themselves. It takes a concerted effort by the trademark holder.

<comment><USER3> I got the sense that this is more about raising recognition that F# isn't tied completely to the MS ecosystem which is facing something of an uncertain future.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Good luck with that. If you look on a site like Stack Overflow at questions about even languages like C and C++, you'll see developers confusing Xcode with their language. With a name like "Visual F#" it must be 100 times worse since it includes the name of the language in the product name.

<comment><USER5> Reminds me of academics saying stuff like "LaTeX autocorrected my spelling mistakes". Argh.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> I get and appreciate the distinction, but I wish Microsoft would replace "Visual" as the brand keyword with something that doesn't evoke associations with Visual C++ for Win32 desktop applications or Visual Basic for Applications macro memories

<comment><USER7> Their IDE is called Visual Studio.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> _sigh_ Microsoft keep doing this "please don't use our trademarks" spiel. It got old at least 20 years ago.

<comment><USER9> This reads like the opposite: they're trying to make people think F# is not solely theirs.</comment></comment>


View Source for Safari on iPhone - <AUTHOR> http://fettig.net/weblog/2007/07/02/view-source-for-safari-on-iphone/ <comment><USER2> Thank you, thank you!

Here's the code if you can't/won't sync from computer:

javascript:var%20sourceWindow%20%3D%20window.open%28%27about%3Ablank%27%29%3B%20%0Avar%20newDoc%20%3D%20sourceWindow.document%3B%20%0AnewDoc.open%28%29%3B%20%0AnewDoc.write%28%27%3Chtml%3E%3Chead%3E%3Ctitle%3ESource%20of%20%27%20%2B%20document.location.href%20%2B%20%27%3C/title%3E%3C/head%3E%3Cbody%3E%3C/body%3E%3C/html%3E%27%29%3B%20%0AnewDoc.close%28%29%3B%20%0Avar%20pre%20%3D%20newDoc.body.appendChild%28newDoc.createElement%28%22pre%22%29%29%3B%20%0Apre.appendChild%28newDoc.createTextNode%28document.documentElement.innerHTML%29%29%3B

btw: anyone know how I can copy text from the source window that opens up? I can't seem to get a highlight box (iPhone OS 3.0)

<comment><USER3> Press and hold. 3.1.2</comment></comment>


No more 25¢. No more transaction fees - <AUTHOR> http://blog.dwolla.com/free-bank-transfers/ <comment><USER2> Dwolla is a fantastic idea and provides a great alternative to credit card networks for payments.

One of my sites uses Dwolla as the sole payment processor and also we piggyback off of their verification process to weed out bad actors. I figure that since Dwolla is built off of US banking networks, their user verifications are subject to regulations under the Patriot Act, so probably is good for filtering out the riff-raff from our platform.

Ben Milne seems like a good & thoughtful CEO with a long-term mindset, which is refreshing to see in the tech startup culture.

My biggest gripe is that I constantly get complaints from people outside the US because they can't use Dwolla, and I hate being accused of neglecting our international friends.

I guess my other gripe is that I have thousands of dollars worth of transaction fee credits from referrals... guess those are worthless now :)

</comment><comment><USER3> For all standard transactions, Dwolla seems to handle micro-transactions much better than BTC ever hoped to.

Even BTC has a built-in transaction cost with every transaction (only a few pennies, but that's still more than Dwolla).

</comment><comment><USER4> So, what's the catch? how are Dwolla going to make money on this?

<comment><USER5> [https://www.dwolla.com/pricing](https://www.dwolla.com/pricing)

<comment><USER6> To a developer there are few things more annoying than having to speak to someone to get concrete pricing information, n.b. how each plan is marked as "from $xx/m". You have to speak to a sales rep to find out actual costs. Tactics like these put any solution squarely at the bottom of the list for me.

<comment><USER7> I work at Dwolla. Just want to say that I personally agree with you that clarity around pricing is important for any open platform. Especially when you're comparing a product or service against competing options, concrete pricing is key.

As a developer hacking on a small project, there isn't any cost to use our network. If you're a merchant accepting payments on our network, we'd like to see you enter a package once your business starts to make several hundred transactions a month, but we don't require it. Most businesses end up wanting more advanced features once their volume goes up. The cost of those premium features will depend on your volume and needs. As we learn more about what works best for our partners, I think we'll be able to provide more pricing information up front.

We appreciate your feedback. Our product team will continue to work on providing clear pricing options.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I hope that Dwolla succeeds, because this is a great move.</comment>


Golden Footballs and the Economics of Groupon - <AUTHOR> http://www.evanmiller.org/golden-football.html

<comment><USER2> evan miller explains how the economics behind groupon are more complex than just a traditional coupon's price discrimination and/or gimmicks.

"Groupon represents a profound economic innovation."

well worth the read. plus it has slick graphs.</comment>


List of prices of medieval items (2009) - <AUTHOR> http://www.luminarium.org/medlit/medprice.htm <comment><USER2> So, from the document:

Row house in York (well built) -> 5£

Also:

Laborer wage -> 2£/year

In 1300, 2.5 years of wages bought a good property in York. Interesting.

Also, using pjc50's linked calculator:

[https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/relativ...](https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ukcompare/relativevalue.php?use\[\]=CPI&use\[\]=NOMINALEARN&year_early=1300&pound71=5&shilling71=&pence71=&amount=5&year_source=1300&year_result=2016)

5£ in 1300 are more or less equivalent to £3,534.00 in 2014's purchasing power.

I don't think I can _rent_ a house in York for a year for that kind of money.

What's going on? It looks like that 1300's little folk was better off than we are. Technology has improved, but social distances are bigger than ever. Yes, we have heating and the internet and all that, but if you look back Louis XIV didn't have any of that... does that mean he was poor?

God I despise this world so much.

<comment><USER3> With a 50k salary you can afford a 125k house at the same 1300 ratio. This seems about right for a rural area but not, of course, for an urban one. Of course neither the laborer in 1300 or today is able to spend their full salary for 2.5 years straight on a dwelling. They would have to save over a much longer period of time as that 2 pounds a year has to cover food, clothing, coal etc.

Sure both Louis and the laborer didn't have central heating and the internet but Louis could afford whatever WAS available for luxury and the laborer today can afford those 'luxuries' that even royalty didn't have access to 700 years ago.

Not saying social differences aren't huge but they are influenced by perception, social norms, media, and both absoulte and relative levels of comfort/luxury. It's hard to compare directly.

<comment><USER4> UK minimum ('laborer') wage is £13k, not 50.

<comment><USER3> My reply was very US centric and I didn't make that clear. My figures were in USD. 50k is the median household income in the US which, now that I think about it is not that useful a number for this.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Another interesting price fact: the price of bulk wheat has stayed relatively constant in British pounds for the last 800 years or so, staying at about 1 pound per bushel. We've had more inflation in the price of wheat in the last ten years than we had in the previous 800. A bushel of wheat contains about 66,000 calories. So that laborer making 2£/year wouldn't be able to afford wheat -- that's one reason the food price list has a price for oats, but not bread or wheat.

</comment><comment><USER6> Gregory Clark (economics, UC Davis) has a prive history of English agriculture from 1209 to 1914.

[http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Agprice.pd...](http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Agprice.pdf)

Adam Smith discusses prices and notes that whilst silver prices are more uniform across the decades, corn (grain) prices are across the centuries. Daily food is a pretty good constant, after factoring out annual ag variability.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Came across this via HN user raddad's comment in a thread yesterday about medieval music and thought it was interesting enough to stand on its own:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11607392#up_11608211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11607392#up_11608211)

</comment><comment><USER7> I wonder if it makes sense to use the notion of a 'price' when talking about former times? Prices as in list prices seems to be a relatively modern phenomenon. One thing you notice when being outside of modern places is that price tends to be completely based on who asks whom. In many shops you'll only find products and then get a price when asking.

<comment><USER8> Even in modern times, only suckers pay retail. That has ever been true, and ever will. Price in economic terms is _whatever is paid_. The list has for example different prices for ale, wine, and uni education. The descriptions seem to indicate both difference in quality and the affluence (or negotiation skills) of the buyer.

<comment><USER9> _"Even in modern times, only suckers pay retail"_

What does that mean? Is one a sucker for going to the store and paying list price for e.g. bread?

<comment><USER7> Having retail prices is actually the best way to avoid being the sucker, because the "old" way - I think - was that you would have to pay an arbitrary price otherwise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It would be interesting to see what those values are equivalent to in today's money. Of course, that might be pretty hard to estimate given they pre-date any central bank and presumably the notion of interest rates. Perhaps the variety of goods listed here could be used to estimate some semblance of a comparable RPI.

<comment><USER11> Various people have worked on this kind of thing, such as [https://measuringworth.com/gold/](https://measuringworth.com/gold/) "The Price of Gold, 1257 - Present", their broader purchasing power calculator [https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppoweruk/](https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppoweruk/) or this big archive: [http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.h...](http://projects.exeter.ac.uk/RDavies/arian/current/howmuch.html)

Classical studies have reasonably good models of the Roman economy, its inflation and comparative prices for goods and services.</comment></comment>


Broken: What the Hell Happened in East New York? - <AUTHOR> http://digg.com/2016/broken-what-the-hell-happened-in-east-new-york <comment><USER2> I really can't make heads or tails of the writing here. I think the author is trying to present a stream of consciousness impressionist view, but it just makes me feel like I'm having a stroke and can't understand language.

<comment><USER3> I came to the comments to see if I was the only one feeling this way. The writing feels like the ramblings of someone who is either drunk or loves the run on sentence.

<comment><USER4> This and its parent post are (honestly) mystifying to me. I found it very easy to read.

I can only conclude that bite-sized Twitter and Facebook content have left many people incapable of reading long-form prose.

<comment><USER5> I think it has to do with the fact the first four paragraphs are 348 words, but only 5 sentences. Any time you are using a single sentence for a full paragraph, multiple times in a short period, you should probably examine those sentences (at least if your intent is to inform or educate).

Long sentences make us keep more state about the current thing we are parsing in our head, as later portions of the sentence may cause reinterpretation of earlier portions.

What you may be seeing is less that people are becoming incapable of reading long-form prose, but more that prose itself has shifted to using shorter sentences and simpler structures, at least in contexts that have to do with reporting.

I don't find it surprising that people that are exposed less to longer, more complex sentence structures will have more problems parsing them correctly. In any event, it's stylistic choice, and one that some may find pleasing, but it does make the work less approachable (those used to longer sentence structures should have no problem with shorter ones, but the opposite is not necessarily true).

<comment><USER2> I think you're half there, but in the end I stand by it just being kind of poor writing. It's not so much a development of prose tending towards shorter sentences. Rather, the author is making a stylistic choice that uses longer sentences while _also_ loading the sentences with structural aberrations and external, sometimes opaque, references.

I'd argue that it's always been a good idea to use style judiciously in prose, and balance longer more complex sentence structure with fewer references or other oddities. Or load up unusual structure and abstruse language, but keep things shorter.

<comment><USER5> I won't deny that longer sentences often seem to be the result of authors trying to shoe-horn more than they should into the sentence, and that appears to be the case here. Length is a bit less subjective (IMO, which of course makes it subjective... ;) though, so I figured it might be easier to approach the argument from that direction.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Well, for those who yesterday wanted more Government-subsidized low income housing in San Francisco, this is what it looks like. East New York is only 1.9 square miles and has twelve different New York City Housing Authority projects, with 86 buildings of 6 or more floors.

<comment><USER7> Low income housing comes in many forms - I don't know of anyone seriously still in favor of the 70s model of low income housing that still haunt us to this day, particularly in major cities like Chicago and NYC.

There are a bajillion problems with the "garden of towers" model of low income housing (or really, just housing in general - middle and even upper income projects following that model have largely also failed, though obviously without such disastrous outcomes).

Stuy Town for example is an example of this model being applied to middle and upper-middle class housing, and it has similarly failed to produce the communities they were originally intended to, and are now more known for being inaccessible and cheap than desirable in any particular way.

The modern model in NYC for low income housing is to mix them in to market- priced buildings, and either subsidize the building directly or offer indirect incentives (more height limit and buildable floor area being the big one). IMO this works a lot better, and is at least closer to what Jane Jacobs IMO correctly identified as a critical element of making cities work (the geographic mixing of economic classes).

<comment><USER8> > Stuy Town [...is] more known for being inaccessible and cheap than desirable > in any particular way

The last I heard about Stuy Town a friend of mine was moving out of there because he got priced out, and he was making ~90k/year.

<comment><USER7> Inexpensive relative to housing near it. Stuy Town is decidedly cheaper than its surrounding areas, though obviously not immune to the pricing pressures of being in Manhattan ;)

There's also a pretty interesting effect of pricing _within_ Stuy Town, where apartments towards the center of the farm of towers are substantially cheaper than apartments towards the edges of the "community". That whole area is a dead zone - its intention is to be idyllic and serene, but it's actually just sterile and unappealing, and housing is priced proportionally to how easy it is to get the fuck out of there.

<comment><USER9> It's something to be aware of when people are all "build up, build up!" (And I know that building higher doesn't necessarily mean building true high rises but, in general, the more stories the smaller the footprint.) I've actually known people who moved into luxury high rises and ended up leaving because they found the experience too isolating and removed from the surroundings.

<comment><USER7> High rises come in many, many forms, and particularly how they interact with the streets below them is critically important to whether or not they work.

NYC does this better than most places, but mostly by luck. Le Corbusier's Radiant City philosophy of urban design (sleek towers surrounded by idyllic parkland) gained a lot of traction in the 60s and 70s. This is why most American downtowns are wastelands - most developed under that model. It's characterized by lack of street life, lack of ground floor usages, lack of mixed use, and mechanical features that separate buildings from the city rather than integrate it (deep staircases leading to the base of the building, large setbacks from the sidewalk, etc).

NYC has the benefit of predating that model, so besides the ubiquitous housing projects and some 70s-era highrises, has survived mostly intact.

It's frustrating that in some American urban planning circles Le Corbusier's name is still uttered in awe instead of derision. I think his ideas have been thoroughly debunked by reality, but not everyone agrees.

There's nothing inherently wrong with highrises, there's everything wrong with the prescriptive school of architecture and planning that are more concerned with fantasy scenes of tower-dwellers living idyllically in the surrounding parkland, than how people actually want to use that space.

<comment><USER9> Fully agree. Even Boston, which is a generally walkable and mixed-use city by US standards, has its monuments to 60s/70s urban planning like the Brutalist monstrosity that is City Hall and its generally vacant windswept surrounding brick footprint.

One of the problems has been that when cityscapes were planned, commercial activity has often been seen as this impure thing involving people _making money_ on public space. While you don't want to just give developers and retail/restaurants a free ride, they have to be part of the mix or you end up with these sterile spaces that no one wants to be a part of.

<comment><USER7> If you haven't read the book, Jane Jacob's _Life and Death of Great American Cities_ digs deeply into this, and really nails the prescriptivist design philosophy that contributed to this whole mess.

It's not necessarily that commercial activity was rejected - it was often accepted but _only in spaces designated by the designers_ , which in turn bore no resemblance to where people _actually_ wanted to shop, eat, entertain, etc. And so businesses failed to populate these spaces, and they became wastelands, with crime and decay following shortly after.

This philosophy extended beyond commercial spaces - these communities inevitably had spaces set aside for children to play, adults to entertain, etc, and deeply restricted the use of these spaces to these things, and these things only. There's a deep, controlling, Big Brother-esque undercurrent to that entire branch of urban planning.

And through all of this those same urban planners seemed to blame residents to failing to uphold their utopian urban vision than realize that a reasonable bit of laissez-faire is fundamental to functional cities.

<comment><USER9> I ran into that recently as I was following some links. I guess I should read it. (Funnily enough, I've mostly been largely rural--or at least exurban--but I've long had an interest in this topic.) Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> This could use a good revision/proofreading, it uses punctuation incorrectly, jumps around, and is difficult for me to read. Which is a shame because the article looks interesting. Maybe I'll give it another stab after a cup of coffee.

<comment><USER8> I agree, but I toughed it out and I felt that it was worth it.

It's very depressing and while I (who've lived in NYC for 14 years) have heard mention many times of East New York, and how it's a really shitty neighborhood, I had no idea that it really is the _worst_ neighborhood in NYC.

It's really quite depressing, though the author does mention some initiatives that perhaps are a sign of a light at the end of a tunnel that's more than a hundred years long.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> It's a well-written article, interesting to read.

But the narrative suffers from one major flaw: the residents of East New York themselves are denied any sort of agency whatsoever.

They are not treated as real human beings in this article, but rather depicted as purely inert, incapable of taking any action themselves, entirely passive, battered about by the cruel winds of fate. In this article, things are exclusively done _to_ them, not ever _by_ them.

The city did this to them, failed to do that for them. Drug dealers and gangs did this do them. Industry closed and did this to them. The NYPD did this to try to help, but also did that to make things worse. And so on.

All probably true. However, there is another piece that he missed: what is _the community itself_ doing about all this?

Nowhere in this article is any East New Yorker depicted as having any sort of agency at all. The few times he actually talks with people from the area, it's to depict them as passively asking for help from outside, or passively complaining about what the outside did to them.

That's what's lacking here. Where are the voices of _the people on the inside_ who are trying to make things better? What steps have they taken, what is working, what didn't work?

<comment><USER11> Yeah, if only the children of ENY would find their fucking bootstraps...

They are in fact denied agency.

What's lacking in ENY are _any_ meaningful community resources, from schooling, to infrastructure to policing.

It's not the people's fault they were born into that hellhole.

Let me guess, if somehow we could bring market forces to bear on Brownsville, the free market fairy would save all of these communities from themselves.

Give me a break.

<comment><USER4> First, these are strawman arguments. I said nothing about bootstraps or market forces at all.

The general tone (the emotionally charged use of the word "fucking," and so on) is also entirely uncalled for. Are we here for a rational discussion, or to berate and insult those who disagree with us?

Second, do you honestly believe that nobody at all in ENY is trying to do anything at all to try to make anything better in their own community?

Or do they sit idly by and wait for a wise, educated, ostentatiously sympathetic, upper middle class white liberal to come in and fight off the various boogeymen that they are incapable of tackling themselves?

Don't you think that's a rather condescending and patronizing attitude to take to people whom you clearly regard as your inferiors, whom you regard as incapable of doing anything for themselves?

<comment><USER11> You DID though, implying that it's the community that needs to take more concerted better action on its own, to reverse 100 years of endemic sociopolitical dysfunction.

It's basic libertarian boilerplate bullshit.

<comment><USER4> You are, again, putting words into my mouth.

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

I said nothing at all about the community needing to do anything whatsoever. I was talking about _the article_ , not the community.

I also very explicitly said that all the various outside forces that the author blames for these problems are probably true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, when did digg switch to long-form articles?

<comment><USER13> The more interesting story here is that it somehow hasn't completely died yet.

<comment><USER14> Digg has actually transformed into a decent content curator. I believe they use a combination of human and computer generated content recommendations. Even the ads are pretty high quality.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Having lived in New York for more than 3 years, I'm ashamed to say that I did not know about this neighborhood. I guess it's hard to pull yourself out of poverty when you are born into it. Being a foreigner in this country I feel I have no right to criticise it.

</comment><comment><USER16> 10 years ago, no one thought East Bushwick would be gentrified. Perhaps there is hope for ENY.

<comment><USER17> [http://renewlots.org/](http://renewlots.org/)

My +1 was gentrified out of Crown Heights about 3 years ago and moved to Brownsville. Brownsville is where a lot of the crime in East New York is concentrated.

It's a rough place, but the article was completely sensationalistic. I'm not going to sugar-coat East New York, but take his description of Jamaica Bay:

"On its southern border is polluted Jamaica Bay, and a 6,000-acre 26th Ward Waste Water Treatment Plant (broken — under emergency federal funding and undergoing a $407 million upgrade)."

This is the Jamaica Bay I know:

[http://www.nyharborparks.org/visit/jaba.html](http://www.nyharborparks.org/visit/jaba.html)

It needs substantial environmental remediation, but it serves as a tranquil wildlife refuge. I've been there a couple times and enjoyed it.

I've spent on average three days a week in the southern part of Brownsville over the last two years. My non-representative, privileged experience as a white, middle-aged, male financial programmer visiting the neighborhood has been surprisingly positive. I expected the worst, and I have had nothing happen to me. I've had people welcome me.

I have taken the train rides in the article at all hours of the day and night. I've hopped off the 3 train alone at Junius coming home from work in a suit at 12a and walked 5 blocks alone through the neighborhood multiple times without incident. At least once a month on the weekend I've been on the L between 2a and 6a. I shop regularly at the Food Bazaar, the corner bodega, and the liquor store, all of which are across the street from the projects. I've had my motorcycle parked in front of my +1's place for two years, and it's fared better than it did on the streets of Park Slope (also mentioned in the article, by contrast). I also take the bus to the neighborhood down Church to the end of the line, usually late at night. I signed up for Brownsville Recreation Center, and only stopped going because my hours at work made it impossible.

When Renewlots was open, I went there for dinner every night I was in the neighborhood. The food, art, and performances were great. There's also an ambitious community garden down the street from the L stop. I went to the massive Brownsville Old-Timers Block Party last summer.

Brownsville is the most troubled neighborhood in the city, but the city has changed a lot. The author is disingenuous to use scare stats from the early 2000s. It's not so much that Brownsville is a war zone, it's that the rest of the city stopped being one and the contrast is now striking. Unlike the author, I won't whitemansplain the reasons the neighborhood has suffered, but it's not an island in the city beyond redemption. Even the projects are likely to have less impact on the surrounding neighborhoods over time, in the same way that the Gowanus Houses (which I lived next to for two years) and the RedHook Houses no longer define their neighborhoods.

Hipster kids are now switching between the J and L at Broadway Junction in the middle of the night to get between East Bushwick party destinations. North Brownsville will probably be the next destination for street cred and cheap warehouses.

[http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/14/gentrifying-...](http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/9/14/gentrifying- brownsville-changing-brooklyn.html)

Unfortunately, the people who suffered while the neighborhood struggled, like my +1, will probably be displaced as soon as the neighborhood picks up.

Finally, whoever wrote the stuff above about Stuytown has no idea what they're talking about. If I could get into Stuy/Peter Cooper for under $3,500/month, I'd jump on it. The only legit complaint about them (other than the price) is that they're far from the train. I spent a lot of time there, and I have a friend who lives there. The common corridors are dingy, but his place is beautiful.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> "fifty prior arrests"

<comment><USER19> do you know much about the NYPD?</comment></comment>


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